Meeting Title: Brainforge Delivery Lead Role Interview Date: 2025-12-22 Meeting participants: Robert Tseng, Sean Alexander
WEBVTT
1 00:10:49.320 ⇒ 00:10:50.749 Robert Tseng: I’m about to be on a call.
2 00:10:51.730 ⇒ 00:10:52.440 Robert Tseng: Cold.
3 00:11:09.070 ⇒ 00:11:10.110 Robert Tseng: really hot.
4 00:12:17.050 ⇒ 00:12:18.370 Robert Tseng: Hey, Sean.
5 00:12:18.900 ⇒ 00:12:20.129 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I can hear you.
6 00:12:21.370 ⇒ 00:12:30.960 Sean Alexander: Awesome. So I’m currently in the closet, because, I have… my roommate also works from home, and so he’s in a big, big client meeting as well, so I have to make work, but…
7 00:12:30.960 ⇒ 00:12:35.470 Robert Tseng: No worries, yeah, I was wondering, I was like, that looks like a closet. It is a closet.
8 00:12:36.530 ⇒ 00:12:37.300 Robert Tseng: Twice.
9 00:12:37.460 ⇒ 00:12:38.250 Sean Alexander: Yeah.
10 00:12:38.620 ⇒ 00:12:46.190 Sean Alexander: Cool. Well, thanks for hopping on. I know you don’t have… I do have a hard stop, so I don’t… I’ll kind of just jump into it, but sounds good.
11 00:12:46.190 ⇒ 00:12:55.809 Robert Tseng: Tom said great things about you, so I kind of got his notes from his last call. I’ll give a bit of context on me. I run Brainforge with Utam.
12 00:12:55.870 ⇒ 00:13:02.340 Robert Tseng: I basically lead our strategy and analytics side of the business, so…
13 00:13:02.340 ⇒ 00:13:25.910 Robert Tseng: I mean, I think I’d like to kind of be more specific about sharing about our delivery practice, and, yeah, kind of basically just kind of want to see, you know, this is like a delivery lead role for us, so, yeah, I think, like, would love to really just kind of drill into that more, and then hopefully give you some time at the end to ask any questions. Does that work for you?
14 00:13:26.770 ⇒ 00:13:27.460 Sean Alexander: Sounds good.
15 00:13:27.460 ⇒ 00:13:34.970 Robert Tseng: Okay, cool. Yeah, so I think just to kind of… I’m just… I have my notes from his call with you pulled up here,
16 00:13:35.540 ⇒ 00:13:53.109 Robert Tseng: Yeah, maybe, like, a few… three areas I’ll touch on. One is, like, around delivery leadership. So just, you know, if you… if any of this is… I think it’d probably be helpful just to repeat it anyway, but the way we currently staff on projects right now, we at least have 3 people on every client.
17 00:13:53.130 ⇒ 00:14:08.699 Robert Tseng: We were in this form… this structure that was… we call it, like, a strategist, architect, engineer, and so strategists… there are only two strategists, it’s only me and Utam, where we basically, own the client relationship.
18 00:14:08.700 ⇒ 00:14:20.239 Robert Tseng: And then we… we plan the engagement, we plan the roadmap as well, and then we’re also kind of, like, running the stand-ups. And so, we’re actually shifting away from this, and, like, splitting our role more.
19 00:14:21.790 ⇒ 00:14:46.270 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so, like, taking… letting other senior folks on our team kind of, like, take on some of those responsibilities. We’re calling them, yeah, client success… client success owner, engagement lead, service leader, just trying to, like, allocate maybe 20% of people’s time into kind of running just the practice, like, the project management practice without having to carve out a full-time
20 00:14:46.270 ⇒ 00:15:11.149 Robert Tseng: role for that. We’ve tried using project managers, and it just felt like it was very heavyweight for kind of how fast we try to move. Yeah, I think that’s something unique about how we’ve set up our practice. I’m curious, like, kind of, from your perspective, you know, yeah, if you were to come in and run, like, a team like that, you know, assuming, you know, we have
21 00:15:11.150 ⇒ 00:15:17.190 Robert Tseng: 15 clients with at least 3 people staffed on each client. Like, what are some of, like, the…
22 00:15:17.460 ⇒ 00:15:26.190 Robert Tseng: you know, KPIs or metrics that you would be paying attention to, to… yeah, I guess to run this team.
23 00:15:27.390 ⇒ 00:15:39.250 Sean Alexander: Yeah, no, I think, something I think, like, you would create pretty consistent across the board is how they’re, you know, timeline, delivery, those key milestones, but I would also emphasis on
24 00:15:39.250 ⇒ 00:16:04.239 Sean Alexander: creating some very customized KPIs towards the clients themselves. So, for example, is each of these teams making sure that they are working in cadence of what the client is looking for? Are they building those satisfaction levels? Because you can’t really give a survey to a client, like, are you happy? So, understanding what does that look like? And so, you know, figuring out what that could look like for each client differently, and then also, I would build in also, a team
25 00:16:04.240 ⇒ 00:16:12.669 Sean Alexander: metric. I know this is kind of stealing a little bit from Deloitte, but I think, seeing how teams function, so even, like, you know.
26 00:16:12.710 ⇒ 00:16:26.389 Sean Alexander: up and managing across, up and down, and figuring out how people are reporting on each other’s, in terms of how they’re managing those relationships. Not only just to, like, provide critical feedback, but also understanding when you move to the next client, should we switch people up?
27 00:16:26.390 ⇒ 00:16:41.200 Sean Alexander: understanding, are people wanting to be more industry-aligned? You know, do they consistently, like, consumer products? Do you consistently, like, doing more data cleaning? And understanding where they want to move on those accesses? So kind of looking at those kind of KPIs outside of your core, like, are you delivering on milestones?
28 00:16:41.350 ⇒ 00:17:02.949 Robert Tseng: Sure. Yeah, no, I love what you brought up, so I’ll just kind of double-click into a couple of those things. So, one thing to notice is, like, yeah, we don’t have… everyone is staffed on at least 2 clients. We found that the range is probably 3 at most, so no one’s really working across more than 3 clients, other than me and Utam. And yeah, so I think…
29 00:17:03.020 ⇒ 00:17:08.130 Robert Tseng: we’ve… we’ve had… yeah, I don’t think we’ve been very principled about, like.
30 00:17:08.800 ⇒ 00:17:18.009 Robert Tseng: the… what you’re calling teaming, like, where do people actually, like, fit best? I think we kind of… as the need arises, we just, like, kind of… you know, it’s kind of a vibe check.
31 00:17:18.010 ⇒ 00:17:18.760 Robert Tseng: Boy out, yeah.
32 00:17:18.760 ⇒ 00:17:43.700 Robert Tseng: whoever we trust the most, we move them to bigger clients or something like that. So, I definitely feel like that’s an area of our… for us to kind of grow in, and yeah, we don’t even really know how to get started with that. Yeah, so I think that’s an interesting thing that you pointed out. And then also, you mentioned, yeah, there’s client-specific kind of KPIs, right? Like, every client
33 00:17:43.700 ⇒ 00:18:00.000 Robert Tseng: is different, and with a business as dynamic as ours, you know, like, our, I mean, our project sizes are much smaller than Deloitte, but, you know, on the small end, like, we were doing, like, audits of, like, that are… and we’re moving more towards, like.
34 00:18:00.140 ⇒ 00:18:09.310 Robert Tseng: I guess, kind of… I just… I want to kind of paint the picture that it is kind of, like, quite a wide range. We have certain clients… we have clients on the low end, they pay us $5K a month.
35 00:18:09.310 ⇒ 00:18:12.619 Robert Tseng: clients on the high end that pay us $100K a month, and so…
36 00:18:12.620 ⇒ 00:18:34.719 Robert Tseng: It’s kind of like, well, yeah, I mean, how do we service people in that wide of a range? I think we’re seeing that it’s not really possible. Like, we almost, like, never want to give attention to the 5K a month anymore, and so that part of the business will drop off eventually. But we do need some sort of feedback mechanism to be like, what’s, like, our minimum, like, cost to serve? Like, what are we willing to do for people at different, different tiers?
37 00:18:34.720 ⇒ 00:18:35.690 Sean Alexander: Exactly, yeah.
38 00:18:35.690 ⇒ 00:18:41.599 Robert Tseng: That’ll inform our pricing strategy, but, like, obviously, we keep trying to push higher, so, you know…
39 00:18:41.600 ⇒ 00:18:44.100 Sean Alexander: I’ll try to subcontract out the smaller businesses.
40 00:18:44.270 ⇒ 00:18:58.779 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so that’s, that’s an interesting point. Yes, I think we are. So, there… we do have, like, some partners that are willing to take on, some of the smaller biz… business for us. Yeah, they’re, like.
41 00:18:59.440 ⇒ 00:19:02.789 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I guess it’s… we don’t have that many, but, like.
42 00:19:03.070 ⇒ 00:19:04.450 Sean Alexander: Yeah. It’s something that.
43 00:19:04.450 ⇒ 00:19:14.770 Robert Tseng: we are trying to do. We’re not trying to just, like, let it go completely. We try to pass off that business and still take a cut off of it with partners. So that’s, you know, that’s something that we are
44 00:19:15.300 ⇒ 00:19:25.329 Robert Tseng: actively doing. Yeah, but then on… for, like, the… for everyone that’s in the middle, like, I think there’s opportunity to kind of grow those accounts, too.
45 00:19:26.010 ⇒ 00:19:45.790 Robert Tseng: So, I think, like, recognizing, like, when those opportunities to upsell, or kind of the grow of the account are, I think that’s also, like, we don’t really have, like, a very clear structure for that right now. It’s kind of just me and Utam kind of pushing for it at the end of our contract, so…
46 00:19:45.790 ⇒ 00:19:46.280 Robert Tseng: you know, our.
47 00:19:46.280 ⇒ 00:19:46.640 Sean Alexander: Perfect.
48 00:19:46.640 ⇒ 00:19:48.639 Robert Tseng: Typically, 3 to 6 months long, yeah.
49 00:19:48.880 ⇒ 00:20:09.760 Sean Alexander: Yeah, when you guys get complicated clients, like, you know, I imagine some implementations across different departments and all that, it seems like there’s a two-man show really leading a lot of the strategy, or who’s the one sitting there to, like, listen to the clients complain about each other and, you know, decipher what is truly needed versus what departments are saying and echoing each other, and sometimes, you know.
50 00:20:09.760 ⇒ 00:20:14.760 Sean Alexander: cross-wiring, like, how do you guys… is it just the two of y’all still doing that, or do you guys still rely on the strategy?
51 00:20:14.760 ⇒ 00:20:16.720 Sean Alexander: Strategy person to also…
52 00:20:16.720 ⇒ 00:20:40.030 Robert Tseng: Yeah, well, so I think, like, even with our structure, we haven’t hired anyone that’s really been at the strategist level, so I think that’s kind of… yeah, it does fall on… fall on us. Yeah, I think, like, any sort of… like, clients, they do interact. Our team is client-facing, but at the… when something happens, or when a decision needs to be made, they’re still texting us, like, directly. So, like, I feel like there’s, like, some gap, right?
53 00:20:40.030 ⇒ 00:20:59.190 Robert Tseng: And it’s not like we haven’t put opportunities in front of our… of our engineers to kind of be in front of them, but most of them don’t come from a world like you do. So, I think just, like, the soft skills and, like, being able to have the executive presence, they’re just… they’re just not there. But they are very smart, technical people. Yeah, I’m sure, you know, if you talk to some more.
54 00:20:59.190 ⇒ 00:21:00.160 Sean Alexander: We’ll see.
55 00:21:00.160 ⇒ 00:21:25.039 Robert Tseng: But they just… they just don’t know how to talk to C-suite, so I think that’s why they don’t get the respect that they necessarily, that I feel like they should, they should be getting, in terms of, like, being able to influence them, maybe the same way that, like, Utah and I do. And I obviously recognize that, like, being a smaller consultancy, I mean, yeah, people want to talk to the founders all the time, and we’re trying to graduate from that, because, like, we can’t, like, we’re basically holding back
56 00:21:25.040 ⇒ 00:21:39.330 Robert Tseng: own growth at this point. So yeah, that’s why we are trying to bring in somebody, like, in this role that’s able to kind of get us out of being the only ones that are doing… doing this type of, like, kind of client-level management.
57 00:21:40.270 ⇒ 00:21:41.080 Sean Alexander: Makes sense.
58 00:21:41.400 ⇒ 00:21:48.640 Robert Tseng: Okay, cool. So I think that was a great, kind of discussion on that part. I want to kind of move to another part, which is just more like…
59 00:21:48.640 ⇒ 00:22:11.690 Robert Tseng: process or operational excellence, I guess. So I think something that our team struggles to do also is, like, change management. I think we… we build good products in terms of… on our… on the AI engineering side of the business. Yeah, we’ve built, like, some really cool products. I think, Utam’s probably talked to you about some of the creative ways we’ve been doing, like.
60 00:22:11.690 ⇒ 00:22:35.110 Robert Tseng: value-based pricing, and like, you know, it’s not just… yeah, we’re not just doing billable hour. Like, most of our contracts are pretty much, like, fixed contracts with, like, some performance milestones and stuff as well. So, and I do think that’s kind of the future of, like, how we will continue to bill, and frankly, why I feel like we’re kind of able to kind of win… win… win deals at this point, because it’s not just about.
61 00:22:35.110 ⇒ 00:22:41.040 Sean Alexander: slapping a $500 an hour, like, price tag on something, and then just trying to go for the deal. But we are, like.
62 00:22:41.040 ⇒ 00:23:05.649 Robert Tseng: a lot of… there’s a lot more emphasis on, like, kind of the discovery work that we do, and then, like, making sure that the client buys into, like, we price per sprint, and, like, the milestones that we’ve laid out for them. So, that said, like, I think there’s, like, a disconnect between what we do in the pre-sale side and the post-sale side. Like, I think really hitting those milestones and driving the level of adoption that we
63 00:23:05.650 ⇒ 00:23:13.789 Robert Tseng: want. I think that’s something that our engineering team also struggles with. So, I’m curious, like, kind of how you think about that, especially if… especially if you could speak to.
64 00:23:13.790 ⇒ 00:23:14.640 Sean Alexander: Yeah.
65 00:23:14.640 ⇒ 00:23:16.150 Robert Tseng: Experience around that, yeah.
66 00:23:16.460 ⇒ 00:23:26.489 Sean Alexander: No, no, no, yeah, so I actually, interesting enough, I was doing some… I was late from another meeting, because we’re doing a lot of adoption work within our consumers of an application on the federal level. Yeah.
67 00:23:26.490 ⇒ 00:23:51.219 Sean Alexander: I think it’s very critical in identifying those stakeholders on the front end. You guys already do this probably pre-sell, but then maybe even doing… mapping that out directly into what it looks like, being very keen in on, like… like I mentioned, like, I assume if you’re doing cross-department implementation, there’s gonna be personalities who start tracking those, and understanding where those motivations come from, that sometimes, like, they’re only willing to tell you if you’re doing a one-on-one with them, which I imagine it’s hard for you guys to do with every stakeholder sometimes, depending on how
68 00:23:51.220 ⇒ 00:23:53.869 Sean Alexander: small and big that contract is.
69 00:23:53.890 ⇒ 00:24:13.860 Sean Alexander: doing adoption is really critical, and first mapping out the landscape of that, and then creating a semi-custom plan, right? You still need everyone on the same page, moving things forward, and understanding, like, some people are just more visual learners, some people just need you to repeat it to them three times before they adopt something. So there is some hand-holding at the high level of executives sometimes. I think that’s probably what you’re kind of hinting at.
70 00:24:13.860 ⇒ 00:24:23.739 Sean Alexander: from an adoption standpoint, especially when they don’t speak engineering language. You know, a lot of these people come from finance, MBA backgrounds, probably don’t understand half the stuff we’re articulating to them.
71 00:24:23.740 ⇒ 00:24:27.099 Robert Tseng: Yeah. That’s kind of where I’m imagining the friction is coming from.
72 00:24:27.450 ⇒ 00:24:47.160 Robert Tseng: Yeah, no, I think that’s… that’s, that’s… that hits the nail on the head. I think that’s… that is what we’re facing. And especially as we move upmarket now, I think, actually, when we were working with smaller companies, the buyer and the operator are the same person, and, like, they just have all the contacts all wrapped up, and they’re actually… it was an easier stakeholder to work with. But now that we’re…
73 00:24:47.160 ⇒ 00:24:58.489 Robert Tseng: you know, procurement is separate from, like, you know, the person that we’re actually talking to, and even our main stakeholder may not actually be the one who’s using it. So there’s just, like, the… kind of the stakeholder, like…
74 00:24:58.490 ⇒ 00:24:59.210 Sean Alexander: Yeah.
75 00:24:59.210 ⇒ 00:25:06.640 Robert Tseng: It’s become more complicated, and, like, yeah, I think just, like, keeping track of all the heads that… to make sure that something is really being…
76 00:25:06.850 ⇒ 00:25:25.080 Robert Tseng: not just used, but also that it’s communicated widely across the organization. That’s all just, like, comms work that, like, our team is just not great at. So, yeah, I definitely feel like that’s a big area on the operational excellence side that I feel like we need to grow in. Yeah.
77 00:25:25.360 ⇒ 00:25:40.830 Robert Tseng: if I can just jump to one more part, I think, just in terms of, like, yeah, I just wanted to understand, you know, this is… this is our, you know, you come in and lead… you would lead delivery, you know, if I were to, you know, we would basically, you know.
78 00:25:40.990 ⇒ 00:26:04.389 Robert Tseng: kind of want to get… understand your appetite around that, like, there… you know, there’s not really going to be other people to, like, lean on in terms of, like, other than Utam and I, like, we’ll be working with us directly. And then, you know, we’d kind of be counting on you to kind of figure out, like, who else you need to assemble, and, like, you know, basically be treating you like a senior leader in our org, so…
79 00:26:04.390 ⇒ 00:26:08.549 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I’m just curious, like, you know, your experience with, kind of.
80 00:26:08.550 ⇒ 00:26:15.109 Robert Tseng: running an engagement, or not just running the team, or… I know you’re a bit earlier in your career, but, like, you know.
81 00:26:15.110 ⇒ 00:26:20.229 Robert Tseng: Yeah. I just want to hear, like, what, what, what’s, like, why… why do you feel like this would be a good time for you to do that? Yeah.
82 00:26:20.390 ⇒ 00:26:36.410 Sean Alexander: Yeah, no, I actually love this question. So, I would honestly, in my mind, make it analogous to a chief of staff for y’all when it comes to client delivery. And I think I’ve always thrived in being able to manage, special projects and initiatives across multiple work streams and different groups.
83 00:26:36.410 ⇒ 00:26:43.550 Sean Alexander: So I think, for example, like, on my previous project, I was doing the cloud infrastructure. Our cloud spend was half a mil a year, a month.
84 00:26:43.640 ⇒ 00:26:55.740 Sean Alexander: Yeah. And so, we… I worked with directly about 25 different engineers, and then 40 if you include a lot of our application developers. And so, even as an analyst level, I had to,
85 00:26:55.740 ⇒ 00:27:08.740 Sean Alexander: And an interesting part was they actually kicked out everyone on top of me, so there was projects where I was directly leading with partners, and I was the only project manager moving things forward for some of our special initiatives. And so I got a very…
86 00:27:09.620 ⇒ 00:27:27.109 Sean Alexander: appetite or thirst to be in that kind of thrill of it all. I don’t… I’m not a technical person, I’m technical enough to understand things and be able to bridge that gap. But I honestly love seeing, like, in my mind, it’s like a game of chess, like, moving things around, how do we get to the end game? Sometimes that means.
87 00:27:27.110 ⇒ 00:27:38.280 Sean Alexander: you know, falling in line, sometimes that means working on someone, whether they know that they’re moving forward or not. And so I’ve had to work with engineers like that, where they believe that they’re owning their workstream because they said, I want to be functional, and then I’m still
88 00:27:38.320 ⇒ 00:27:43.400 Sean Alexander: managing up to them, so that they think they’re functional, but they’re not really functional. Yeah. And so…
89 00:27:43.450 ⇒ 00:27:51.319 Sean Alexander: dragging, moving people around to a common success is something that I’m very familiar with, especially when I’m working with a 25 to 40 person engineering team.
90 00:27:51.320 ⇒ 00:28:04.890 Robert Tseng: Granted, I didn’t do the technical scrum every day, but when we had outlying tickets, outlying, you know, client asks, I’m the one that’s setting up those meetings, moving people forward, bringing in senior management when needed, and so I think I even had, like.
91 00:28:04.890 ⇒ 00:28:12.910 Sean Alexander: a harder position in being middle management, of having to listen from top to bottom, making both of them happy, because I can’t do what the job engineers do.
92 00:28:13.350 ⇒ 00:28:13.780 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
93 00:28:13.780 ⇒ 00:28:21.299 Sean Alexander: So I’ve had that kind of enlightening experience for myself, I think, on my previous project that is kind of making this very, like, a perfect next stepping stone.
94 00:28:21.580 ⇒ 00:28:26.660 Robert Tseng: Okay, got it. Yeah, I mean, that was a great example. I mean, I’d like to kind of maybe…
95 00:28:26.770 ⇒ 00:28:51.330 Robert Tseng: take that and show, like, how Brainforge is a bit different, and, you know, maybe hopefully in a good way. Like, I think we build up a lot of the scaffolding around that, so, you know, we build our own internal tooling. I mean, we have, like, a stand-up tool that we build for ourselves, like, tickets will automatically get generated, so at least, like, kind of, you’re not having to do all that kind of, coordination on your own. And we also would be able to kind of put people under you to do that, so…
96 00:28:51.340 ⇒ 00:29:15.570 Robert Tseng: Definitely, like, would want to see your time be, like, used in the most, like, high-leveraged way, and I, you know, like I said, it’s, you know, really around the account management piece, and then also, like, kind of raising the bar for, like, us operationally, to make sure that, you know, as we’re, you know, we’re moving into, like, enterprise-level, like, Fortune 2000 type of contracts, like, we want to, like, be able to have
97 00:29:15.870 ⇒ 00:29:31.520 Robert Tseng: you know, we won’t… you know, we have to look the part as well, not just be a bunch of, like, scrappy engineers that just go and, like, get the job done. So, yeah, I think there’s… there’s, like, definitely, you know, it’s attractive, your background, like, a level of polish that, like, the team that we have doesn’t necessarily have yet.
98 00:29:31.520 ⇒ 00:29:41.299 Robert Tseng: And, like, kind of trying to see, like, how we can, you know, learn from some of your experiences, but then hopefully also show you that, like, you know, we don’t have
99 00:29:41.300 ⇒ 00:30:04.579 Robert Tseng: the same kind of red tape that maybe your organization has, so that, like, you… we iterate very fast, like, we’re… we just… we’re rolling out changes, like, kind of very… very quickly. That… that feedback loop, I think, is really kind of what you… I think why people choose to… to work here, because, the opportunity to experiment, and the learning, and what you can learn.
100 00:30:04.600 ⇒ 00:30:18.149 Robert Tseng: is kind of unprecedented, for, like, a services organization in this space. So, yeah, I think that’s, that’s kind of, you know, that’s… hopefully that gives you a kind of more of a peek
101 00:30:18.150 ⇒ 00:30:30.500 Robert Tseng: into the delivery org that we have here. I know, I mean, I’m happy to stay on for a few more minutes, like, let you ask any questions that you have. Yeah, and then, yeah, I guess I’ll hop off after a few minutes.
102 00:30:31.270 ⇒ 00:30:38.469 Sean Alexander: Yeah, I think that what’s sticking out to me is, you know, the two of you guys are the main people in that kind of client-facing experience.
103 00:30:38.470 ⇒ 00:30:38.790 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
104 00:30:38.790 ⇒ 00:30:54.449 Sean Alexander: And trying to bring someone on. What does that timeline look like, slash, you know, how are you guys forecasting in terms of how many people like this role would exist in, like, one to two years’ time? Are you guys expecting to grow, you know, that size of an account future, like, you know, in the future, or…
105 00:30:54.830 ⇒ 00:30:57.339 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so…
106 00:30:57.340 ⇒ 00:31:21.670 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, frankly, I think Q4 of this year kind of blew our expectations, like, we, like, doubled, like, our, you know, our most aggressive estimate for how we were gonna grow, and so we kind of got into a bind where we just needed to hire people quickly. The way I see it in, like, this next phase, we’re trying to build up, like, a core, like, ops team, kind of. I, you know, I think when I try to describe, like, what
107 00:31:21.670 ⇒ 00:31:43.789 Robert Tseng: Brainforge is like to others. I think internally, we operate like a product company. That’s really, like, my business, like, Utam and Maya’s background. We’ve both been in, like, early-stage startups from Series A to… I mean, he was at WeWork, they almost IPO point, and then, like, for me, just kind of going through a few rounds of growth as well.
108 00:31:43.790 ⇒ 00:31:50.049 Robert Tseng: But then, like, to our clients, like, we operate as, like, a services company. So, it is kind of like…
109 00:31:50.050 ⇒ 00:32:03.459 Robert Tseng: it’s kind of hard to… I mean, I haven’t seen another org like ours, but yeah, just, you know, realizing that we need people who want to work in the business and, like, kind of…
110 00:32:03.490 ⇒ 00:32:14.559 Robert Tseng: build structure that is, scalable, but also, like, appropriate for our stage. So, like, I think that’s, like, a level of scrappiness, but also, like, kind of ambition that I feel like we need.
111 00:32:15.390 ⇒ 00:32:32.539 Robert Tseng: Yeah, we’re not, like, we don’t… not everyone, I don’t know, like, a more traditional consultancy, maybe, like, a senior person that we’d be hiring at, like, kind of at your level for this role would operate more like a partner, where you’re just, like, coming in, you manage, like, your own book of business, you go out here in the vertical or something.
112 00:32:32.540 ⇒ 00:32:36.730 Robert Tseng: I don’t think that’s what we’re looking for right now. I think that’s…
113 00:32:37.130 ⇒ 00:32:54.790 Robert Tseng: like, that’s… that could be, like, the next phase, like, but, like, I think this person, we’re okay with being a little less senior, but, like, you know, it’s just able to, like, raise the bar for everyone overall, and I think that’s… that’s, like, more important to us than, like, having
114 00:32:54.790 ⇒ 00:33:19.399 Robert Tseng: you know, somebody who comes from, like, a very specific domain that can just go and win, like, legal, for example, is, like, an industry that I’ve been eyeing that I want to go into. But, like, maybe I’ll have to hire somebody who’s, like, been selling to legal from PwC that uses Harvey or something, like, I don’t know, like, I’m just giving that as an example. But that’s not, like, the urgent hire that we have right now. So, aside from you, there’s, like, 3 other people that we’re trying
115 00:33:19.400 ⇒ 00:33:29.520 Robert Tseng: to bring in. Like, to me, this is, like, a head of delivery or delivery ops. There’s, like, a product ops, go-to-market ops, and then just, like, internal biz ops. So those are the four roles.
116 00:33:30.030 ⇒ 00:33:42.290 Robert Tseng: That we are trying to hire, like, ASAP. We’ve already extended a couple offers with the others. So yeah, we’re just really hoping that this next group of, like, four core people, will really kind of be, like, our…
117 00:33:42.290 ⇒ 00:33:54.429 Robert Tseng: early or founding ops team for us to kind of, you know, stick it out with us as we chase, chase the… chase the exit in a few years. So, that’s kind of, that’s the… that’s kind of where I see things.
118 00:33:54.430 ⇒ 00:33:55.130 Robert Tseng: There.
119 00:33:55.130 ⇒ 00:33:57.450 Sean Alexander: Awesome, can I ask what does exit look like right now?
120 00:33:57.620 ⇒ 00:34:16.449 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, I think we… we want to sell within, like, 3 to 4 years, so, yeah. That makes sense. Yeah, I think, we’ve gone through an accelerator with a services, services accelerator, they’re called VIXL, based in Austin, and, we have a couple advisors in our, on our camp now that
121 00:34:16.449 ⇒ 00:34:28.690 Robert Tseng: have kind of grown and sold businesses like ours. Maybe not, obviously, with AI, but, like, in other industries. So, I think, like, the life cycle of a services business is pretty…
122 00:34:29.100 ⇒ 00:34:44.499 Robert Tseng: it’s more predictable than it is, like, a product company. I think, you know, we’re either gonna get acquired by, like, like, a big enterprise client that wants to just bring us in and just replace, kind of, a part of their team, or…
123 00:34:44.500 ⇒ 00:34:51.489 Robert Tseng: we’re going to get acquired by, like, another consultancy or some, like, some agency that doesn’t have, like, our capability. So…
124 00:34:51.489 ⇒ 00:35:15.839 Robert Tseng: We’ve already been in early conversations with certain firms that are, like, interested in our trajectory, because the margins that we have are above industry average, and, like, yeah, we’ve been profitable since day one. We’ve never taken outside funding. So, I think there’s something about, like, the way that we operate that people are really interested in. Yeah, like, I think that’s… that’s… so I do, you know, feel like, you know, we’re really… we’re going… we’re going for it now.
125 00:35:15.840 ⇒ 00:35:16.500 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
126 00:35:16.930 ⇒ 00:35:17.420 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
127 00:35:17.420 ⇒ 00:35:18.989 Sean Alexander: That’s awesome, we’re glad to hear that.
128 00:35:18.990 ⇒ 00:35:19.650 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
129 00:35:20.520 ⇒ 00:35:23.840 Sean Alexander: Ed, do you have any questions for me, or… I’m gonna have to run soon?
130 00:35:23.840 ⇒ 00:35:31.550 Robert Tseng: Yeah, no, I think this is… this was good. Yeah, I feel like next steps-wise… have you talked to Clarence yet?
131 00:35:32.050 ⇒ 00:35:32.660 Sean Alexander: Nope, not yet.
132 00:35:32.660 ⇒ 00:35:36.560 Robert Tseng: No, okay. But you still, you only talk to Usam and, me, right?
133 00:35:36.960 ⇒ 00:35:37.410 Sean Alexander: Yes.
134 00:35:37.410 ⇒ 00:35:48.499 Robert Tseng: Okay, yeah, that’s… so that’s probably the last one. I… Clarence is an advisor of ours. He was, like, an engagement manager at EY for, like, 7 years, so, like, we kinda…
135 00:35:48.500 ⇒ 00:36:12.209 Robert Tseng: you know, obviously you coming in, like, I think he would be somebody that you would… you would… we would work with, and, yeah, he’s kind of been leading the charge on, like, kind of designing, like, the org for the next phase for us. Yeah, I would really just want his, kind of, like, him to talk with you, and yeah, I think after that, like, you know, we’re… we’re the decision makers here, so that’s, I think that we should be able to.
136 00:36:12.230 ⇒ 00:36:16.090 Robert Tseng: you know, be very clear about how… what we can offer you. Yeah.
137 00:36:16.090 ⇒ 00:36:18.270 Sean Alexander: Sounds great. Cool. I look forward to it.
138 00:36:18.270 ⇒ 00:36:20.190 Robert Tseng: Alright, thanks, Sean. Appreciate your time.
139 00:36:20.190 ⇒ 00:36:22.549 Sean Alexander: Thanks. Yep. Thank you. Likewise, have a great day.
140 00:36:22.550 ⇒ 00:36:23.130 Robert Tseng: Bye.