Meeting Title: Brainforge CSO Community Building Sync Date: 2026-01-05 Meeting participants: Clarence Stone, Robert Tseng, Greg Stoutenburg, Zoran Selinger, Uttam Kumaran, Demilade Agboola
WEBVTT
1 00:00:10.800 ⇒ 00:00:11.710 Greg Stoutenburg: Hello?
2 00:00:13.490 ⇒ 00:00:14.370 Clarence Stone: Hey, Greg.
3 00:00:15.450 ⇒ 00:00:16.859 Greg Stoutenburg: Hey, how’s it going?
4 00:00:25.530 ⇒ 00:00:26.090 Zoran Selinger: Hi, guys.
5 00:00:26.880 ⇒ 00:00:27.610 Robert Tseng: Hey, guys.
6 00:00:31.340 ⇒ 00:00:34.110 Uttam Kumaran: Just trying to get Pranav and Sam some cash, dude.
7 00:00:35.100 ⇒ 00:00:38.460 Uttam Kumaran: We got Lilo for another… some amount of money.
8 00:00:39.430 ⇒ 00:00:46.110 Uttam Kumaran: It’s funny, they want us to move very, very fast, and I literally called them, I said, guys, we’re moving pretty fast.
9 00:00:46.400 ⇒ 00:00:52.350 Uttam Kumaran: I would tell you if we’re sandbagging, we’re not sandbagging. This doesn’t move much faster.
10 00:00:52.650 ⇒ 00:01:06.239 Uttam Kumaran: But I’ll figure out how we can move, like, at least 2 weeks faster. And, they were like, just tell me what the bill is, like, just figure it out, go find out. I said, okay. It’s like, because I want to get Pranav on Lilo, basically, full-time.
11 00:01:07.250 ⇒ 00:01:08.010 Robert Tseng: Okay.
12 00:01:08.350 ⇒ 00:01:08.920 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
13 00:01:09.480 ⇒ 00:01:12.249 Uttam Kumaran: So, they’re at 15 grand a month now.
14 00:01:13.750 ⇒ 00:01:15.169 Uttam Kumaran: I’m gonna ask, I’m just gonna…
15 00:01:15.290 ⇒ 00:01:19.780 Uttam Kumaran: put another 10K on it and see… Do what it is.
16 00:01:20.710 ⇒ 00:01:24.600 Robert Tseng: They want to move faster? The heck? They’re already moving pretty fast. I know.
17 00:01:24.600 ⇒ 00:01:26.459 Uttam Kumaran: and that’s why I don’t like,
18 00:01:27.510 ⇒ 00:01:30.370 Uttam Kumaran: I know, truly, when things can move faster.
19 00:01:30.800 ⇒ 00:01:42.929 Uttam Kumaran: this is moving pretty fast, because we’re also building it right, like, these guys are used to… This other company, like, Vibe-coded, like, the most piece of shit, like, you could ever imagine. And so, yeah, of course, they did it, like, a month, nothing worked.
20 00:01:43.060 ⇒ 00:01:47.180 Greg Stoutenburg: And so, I’m, like, trying to explain to these guys, and it’s… they realize that I’m, like.
21 00:01:47.450 ⇒ 00:01:54.859 Uttam Kumaran: yo, you’re pushing too much, but I said, like, also, we’ll try, but for me to add, like, come on and work full-time.
22 00:01:55.000 ⇒ 00:01:59.310 Uttam Kumaran: have Sam and Casey, we still need, like, some more budget, so…
23 00:01:59.760 ⇒ 00:02:00.320 Robert Tseng: Sure.
24 00:02:01.330 ⇒ 00:02:04.329 Uttam Kumaran: It’s funny, they basically want to build, like, a Brainforged platform.
25 00:02:04.380 ⇒ 00:02:10.199 Robert Tseng: Yeah. So I’m gonna try… I’m testing some things that I want, see if it works for them.
26 00:02:10.199 ⇒ 00:02:16.739 Uttam Kumaran: Because they’re like, they like that we’re also trying to do this internally, and I’m like, yeah, I have 100 ideas, we’ll test it on your situation first.
27 00:02:17.040 ⇒ 00:02:22.330 Uttam Kumaran: But… oh, and they also gave me a great, like, insurance provider plug for…
28 00:02:23.160 ⇒ 00:02:27.560 Uttam Kumaran: So, I’m just completely derailing this, but,
29 00:02:28.180 ⇒ 00:02:34.839 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I guess, Clarence, maybe I’ll let you tee it up. This is our first, like, Leeds meeting. Clarence is actually at my house. He is…
30 00:02:35.050 ⇒ 00:02:37.539 Uttam Kumaran: Over there, in the kitchen.
31 00:02:38.580 ⇒ 00:02:43.440 Uttam Kumaran: We both… we both went to ABC Home in person today.
32 00:02:43.560 ⇒ 00:02:46.859 Uttam Kumaran: To present, like, a mid-project check-in.
33 00:02:48.590 ⇒ 00:02:55.419 Uttam Kumaran: But yeah, maybe, Clarence, I’ll let you kind of set the stage for how this is gonna go, and then, yeah, so we can go from there.
34 00:02:55.980 ⇒ 00:03:06.999 Clarence Stone: Yeah, so, number one, the whole point of this meeting is to be able to share exactly what Uten was just sharing, right? Things that are happening with your clients.
35 00:03:07.000 ⇒ 00:03:17.139 Clarence Stone: And also get everybody here, a community, to actually bounce ideas back and forth, right, and create new standards, and,
36 00:03:17.140 ⇒ 00:03:27.369 Clarence Stone: And really, just to be completely honest with you guys, being a CSO and dealing with clients and customers is gonna be difficult, and the best thing we can do is create a support group here.
37 00:03:27.370 ⇒ 00:03:37.449 Clarence Stone: For us to, one, just vent if we need to, and then help each other come towards a consensus and solution, which might actually be built out to be new standards here.
38 00:03:37.450 ⇒ 00:03:41.970 Clarence Stone: Right? So the objective of this is to create this community of CSOs.
39 00:03:41.970 ⇒ 00:04:06.949 Clarence Stone: I think in early days, it’s gonna be about you, Tom, and Robert sharing their experiences with you, and then giving some pointers and advice on how to carry things forward. So I, you know, in the early days, come with problems, and say… and be able to articulate and clearly state what those frustrations are, and then we can come up with solutions, right? If you have really great win stories, success stories, things that are
40 00:04:06.950 ⇒ 00:04:26.179 Clarence Stone: going on are working really well on your client, this is also the place to share it, right? Because, you know, we want to be able to bring that whole quality of client experience to other projects as well. So, long story short, number one, first and foremost, this call is to create that community that supports each other.
41 00:04:26.220 ⇒ 00:04:44.700 Clarence Stone: But immediately, it’s to provide mentorship and feedback, and I, you know, I already saw that chat, and people are already asking a bunch of really great, more in-depth questions on what does it actually mean to reach out to the client every day, and things like that. And, this meeting is a perfect place to, you know.
42 00:04:44.700 ⇒ 00:04:58.489 Clarence Stone: bring up issues that are related to that, right? You know, we all go through mental blocks, so if you just said, like, hey, I need a whole list of inspiration to reach out to the client for, this is what they’re interested in, this is what they’re like, this group can help each other.
43 00:04:58.490 ⇒ 00:05:05.650 Clarence Stone: Right, so that’s… that’s the goal of this call. You, Tom, I don’t know if there’s anything else specific that you want to cover on these calls, but…
44 00:05:05.880 ⇒ 00:05:07.939 Clarence Stone: Community is first and foremost.
45 00:05:09.010 ⇒ 00:05:27.039 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I mean, for me, the biggest thing is, like, I want to make sure everybody feels good about hitting, like, kind of, like, what they need to do daily. The biggest milestone for me, is, like, making sure everybody can rip through client presentations later this week, if you have one slotted. But otherwise, I think…
46 00:05:27.240 ⇒ 00:05:36.600 Uttam Kumaran: sort of my month-long vision is making sure, Demi, you’re comfortable with the 3 to 4 that you own, and then Greg and Zoran making sure I can get you both, like.
47 00:05:36.940 ⇒ 00:05:42.310 Uttam Kumaran: 2 or 3, you know? And so that’s what I… why come this meeting? If there’s nothing to talk about, that’s my…
48 00:05:42.420 ⇒ 00:05:43.370 Uttam Kumaran: topics.
49 00:05:43.580 ⇒ 00:05:52.759 Uttam Kumaran: But maybe we can talk about, like, any feedback on the dock, we can talk about how today went, any questions. I’m happy to run through.
50 00:05:52.990 ⇒ 00:05:59.230 Uttam Kumaran: my, like, day in the life as a CSO and my clients, just tell me, like, how… what’s helpful.
51 00:05:59.340 ⇒ 00:06:00.760 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
52 00:06:04.900 ⇒ 00:06:07.950 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, so… Alright, I’ll go. Oh, yeah, go ahead, Greg.
53 00:06:08.320 ⇒ 00:06:13.750 Greg Stoutenburg: Yep, hi, I’m Greg. So I, I’ve done probably…
54 00:06:13.750 ⇒ 00:06:32.310 Greg Stoutenburg: 30 hours or less with Brainforge, in the last month, so sort of got going in the beginning of the month, coming down a trial period. Been working with README, I think it’s been going well, I like the direction that we’re going in, at Brainforge, so some of my experience has been limited, but, it’s been, you know, it’s been valuable so far, so…
55 00:06:32.310 ⇒ 00:06:35.060 Greg Stoutenburg: I think for me, this’ll be about
56 00:06:35.160 ⇒ 00:06:51.760 Greg Stoutenburg: figuring out the, figuring out the pace and the approach that was introduced here. Now, as I noted in another communication, this is very much in line with the conversations that I’ve been having with Robert and you, Tom, so in some ways, it’s like, here’s, you know, here’s what the finished version looks like.
57 00:06:51.760 ⇒ 00:06:52.280 Uttam Kumaran: good, right?
58 00:06:52.280 ⇒ 00:06:52.870 Greg Stoutenburg: So that’s the one.
59 00:06:52.870 ⇒ 00:06:53.520 Uttam Kumaran: Wait, that’s the way.
60 00:06:53.520 ⇒ 00:06:54.020 Greg Stoutenburg: It works.
61 00:06:54.020 ⇒ 00:06:58.630 Uttam Kumaran: Right? We should tell you one thing, and it should happen. That’s what you should… that’s a good thing.
62 00:06:58.630 ⇒ 00:07:12.230 Greg Stoutenburg: No, it is a good thing. So the exercise was mostly, like, alright, which acronym here matches to what you, Tom, or Robert said in Slack two weeks ago? Yeah. So, yeah, so that’s been good.
63 00:07:12.230 ⇒ 00:07:21.090 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, so that’ll be… that, you know, that’ll be where I’m at as I sort of continue to onboard in a way, and go further with some more projects.
64 00:07:21.950 ⇒ 00:07:29.599 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, I mean, I can say more about README now, but that’s kind of where I’m at right now. It’s like, okay, this sounds good.
65 00:07:29.600 ⇒ 00:07:40.940 Uttam Kumaran: Let’s talk about… let’s talk about README, yeah, maybe tell me… so, I think, great, I saw your message today, fire, maybe… I mean, I’m just gonna… I’ll just… I can just share my screen, and you can… everyone can just see, because…
66 00:07:41.240 ⇒ 00:07:43.859 Uttam Kumaran: So I think…
67 00:07:44.080 ⇒ 00:07:49.439 Uttam Kumaran: message today to read me. I think this is kind of in line with our,
68 00:07:49.940 ⇒ 00:07:58.510 Uttam Kumaran: our conversation, which was, like, the CSO chat, which is like, hey, nothing happens today, what kind of update can I even send? And so I spent…
69 00:07:58.640 ⇒ 00:08:10.980 Uttam Kumaran: I spent 10 minutes being like, okay, yeah, what are some updates that I just, like, I send no matter what, you know? Yeah. And these are kind of the list that I came up with, which is, like, if you don’t have
70 00:08:11.170 ⇒ 00:08:15.169 Uttam Kumaran: An idea, you can send a plan for the week, you can send accomplishments.
71 00:08:15.310 ⇒ 00:08:28.029 Uttam Kumaran: if anything gets done, you can say, we got this done. There’s updates to the Gantt chart. After every client meeting, you can say, here’s what we talked about, here’s the next steps. You can send agendas, questions, new scopes.
72 00:08:28.260 ⇒ 00:08:44.910 Uttam Kumaran: So you kind of, like, part of this is actually just finding something to say. It’s actually less about what… it is a lot about what it is, and so nail that, like, don’t mess up what you say, because that… you’ll get a question about it, but part of it is just saying something, and we have to fight to stay top of mind.
73 00:08:44.970 ⇒ 00:09:02.070 Uttam Kumaran: Because this is a lot of stuff that people internally don’t do, they don’t manage up, and so for us, it’s managing up. This is what managing up looks like. Really being on the forefront, showing up, like, over their internal teams and how we communicate great. We’re always on top of the ball, we’re always talking.
74 00:09:02.070 ⇒ 00:09:19.880 Uttam Kumaran: our work doesn’t change at all. Like, you know, that’s what I’m saying, is like, this is just being diligent at this, and the minimum, if we’re able to do this, I’m telling you, like, we’ll be totally in the forefront of their minds, so that was great today. Like, I don’t know what the… I think… I’m not sure where we ended up contract-wise for these guys, but I thought the message was great, so…
75 00:09:22.160 ⇒ 00:09:26.869 Uttam Kumaran: Robert, did we… did we end up signing? Did you guys know if we end up signing again, or what’s the deal here?
76 00:09:28.090 ⇒ 00:09:40.020 Robert Tseng: No, we’re just, greg is working on a proposal, we’ll send it to them. We have a call booked with them Thursday, so we’ll try to push it over the line. I think they expect to… I expect to re-sign, but I’m just trying to push the numbers up.
77 00:09:40.240 ⇒ 00:09:41.040 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, okay, cool.
78 00:09:43.690 ⇒ 00:09:44.250 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah.
79 00:09:44.480 ⇒ 00:09:57.289 Greg Stoutenburg: And, again, you know, recognizing I’m, you know, very much a new person here, something that I perceived that I thought was valuable… so, you know, if the README relationship tanks in two days, I retract this comment.
80 00:09:58.720 ⇒ 00:10:11.499 Greg Stoutenburg: But, something that I felt like I perceived, in… in even the first call with ReadMe On It was, like, someone who felt nervous, like, wanted things to work, but felt nervous about
81 00:10:11.500 ⇒ 00:10:21.730 Greg Stoutenburg: what she could really do to change things. And, I thought, like, alright, well, let’s, let’s pull up some old sales training here. And I just asked her what…
82 00:10:21.730 ⇒ 00:10:36.739 Greg Stoutenburg: like, what’s the basic concern? Like, what are you worried about? And she just, like, gave back what I thought was absolute gold, which was, I have to go into a leadership meeting every week and say how things are going, and I don’t feel confident in my answers. So I…
83 00:10:36.740 ⇒ 00:10:56.660 Greg Stoutenburg: Great, alright. So, every week, deliver confidence-inspiring nuggets. I mean, obviously, they have to also be, like, true and, you know, move the needle, but, like, that’s the thing, like, she needs the level of preparation or, you know, deliverables that make her feel confident in how things are going. Whether or not we touch how things are going, just, you know, informing her how things are going.
84 00:10:56.660 ⇒ 00:11:05.319 Uttam Kumaran: So, can you explain to Zoran and Demolade? Like, because I’m aware of what you ended up changing, but how did you change, like, what you actually delivered to the client?
85 00:11:05.680 ⇒ 00:11:18.669 Greg Stoutenburg: I basically provided more story around it. So this is the way that I like to think about it, and… and sometimes I lean into this, like, my background is in academic philosophy, which doesn’t obviously have anything to do with anything we do here, but, I like to…
86 00:11:18.670 ⇒ 00:11:19.739 Uttam Kumaran: You’d be surprised, you’d be surprised.
87 00:11:19.740 ⇒ 00:11:44.089 Greg Stoutenburg: I like to think in terms of, like, just having a conversation with a person who’s trying to learn something, and and when you have a conversation with someone, like… like, say you’re trying to explain something to someone, and you have a lot of time, and everyone feels patient, and no one has a big ego, or they’re gonna get nervous if they don’t understand something. They’ll ask you questions, and you need to have answers to those questions, right? So…
88 00:11:44.090 ⇒ 00:11:57.090 Greg Stoutenburg: If you’re talking to someone who’s curious, and they, you know, you say, oh, I saw that, you know, you ran this experiment, it was supposed to result in more events of
89 00:11:57.090 ⇒ 00:12:06.479 Greg Stoutenburg: of X. In the A group, you know, during time period A, you had this many X. In the time period after the change, you have this many X.
90 00:12:06.630 ⇒ 00:12:11.599 Greg Stoutenburg: nothing really changed, right? And then they go, well,
91 00:12:11.780 ⇒ 00:12:27.259 Greg Stoutenburg: Are you sure that nothing changed at all? Right? Could there be something else we missed, right? Like, try to anticipate some things like that. What’s more of the story of why it looks like nothing changed at all? Do you have an explanation for why we should think nothing changed?
92 00:12:27.260 ⇒ 00:12:43.979 Greg Stoutenburg: Just trying to even simulate being in that kind of conversation, or, you know, I mean, README said it themselves, being in that leadership meeting, how would I feel? Like, what would… what would the CEO say to me? What would they ask as follow-ups? Trying to just anticipate some of those things and build them in,
93 00:12:45.300 ⇒ 00:12:46.150 Greg Stoutenburg: Helped.
94 00:12:46.300 ⇒ 00:12:52.869 Greg Stoutenburg: And then in the subsequent meeting, when we talked through more… more of the material, she did seem, like, pretty happy with, the deliverables.
95 00:12:52.870 ⇒ 00:12:58.410 Uttam Kumaran: Part of that… part of that might just be the fact that you asked her, and then you did something. It might not be, like, anything really changed.
96 00:12:58.410 ⇒ 00:12:58.780 Greg Stoutenburg: Right.
97 00:12:58.780 ⇒ 00:13:14.839 Uttam Kumaran: like, the fact that you asked it, and she’s like, I feel heard, and then now I’m doing this. My challenge for you is, like, get in that CEO. I want you in that CEO meeting. Like, she should feel like, oh my god, not only are they crushing it, this is just, like.
98 00:13:15.160 ⇒ 00:13:17.679 Uttam Kumaran: It’s so complicated, like, I should just loop Greg in.
99 00:13:17.900 ⇒ 00:13:41.269 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, I mean, I did, so I think after the first meetings, I thought, like, alright, the question about fear that got something, and then I think it was after that that I said, you know, we could… something we could do is, you could show me the deck that you want to prepare, that you’ve drafted each week for your leadership meetings, and we could go through that, you know, in a half-hour week. She didn’t bite on that initially, but…
100 00:13:41.270 ⇒ 00:13:57.009 Greg Stoutenburg: there was… there was some more conversation in the following client meeting that was, you know, productive and along these lines, so… Yeah. I guess that’s just to say, like, the relationship-building component matters, and, trying to identify the person’s fear was helpful in this case.
101 00:13:57.260 ⇒ 00:14:00.279 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, there’s a couple things that’s gonna happen with README, like…
102 00:14:00.380 ⇒ 00:14:04.039 Uttam Kumaran: They may continue to let people go. They may…
103 00:14:04.290 ⇒ 00:14:12.490 Uttam Kumaran: continue to… they may be, like, this is… they still may have, like, a moving target, but either way, I think this is, like, it’s, like, a huge win, because guess what? Even if…
104 00:14:12.500 ⇒ 00:14:30.079 Uttam Kumaran: God forbid, Phoebe gets let go, she’s gonna go somewhere, she’s gonna think about us on a data team, right? Like, this is kind of, like, what’s happening on Insomnia. Yes, may take 9 months, like, but, like, this is… no matter what, like, we win in this situation. And, like, I think we turned this around, like, I…
105 00:14:30.560 ⇒ 00:14:39.690 Uttam Kumaran: Not that I think, like, Robert, you were… I mean, we did bungle this a couple times, it wasn’t… it’s not your fault, but I think it’s all… it’s… we just were figuring out resourcing.
106 00:14:39.860 ⇒ 00:14:49.040 Uttam Kumaran: But, like, it’s… I think this is as good as it’s ever been, and I think we kind of turned a lot of this around, and so I also expect them to kind of come back. I mean…
107 00:14:49.620 ⇒ 00:15:01.449 Uttam Kumaran: we’ll see. I mean, nothing that we’ve done has been anything that any other company wouldn’t have done in terms of consultancy, and I think, actually, we worked within their, like, MongoDB sort of issues.
108 00:15:02.190 ⇒ 00:15:05.010 Uttam Kumaran: We’re spending time trying different things.
109 00:15:05.450 ⇒ 00:15:11.170 Uttam Kumaran: Like, I think a lot of companies probably would have fired these guys as a client a long time ago, so… yeah, this is great.
110 00:15:12.460 ⇒ 00:15:18.730 Uttam Kumaran: I think my, kind of my probably next question is thinking about, like,
111 00:15:19.500 ⇒ 00:15:25.840 Uttam Kumaran: sort of other things for… for Q1 is, like, we have this default Like,
112 00:15:26.130 ⇒ 00:15:30.129 Uttam Kumaran: sort of product analytics SOW that I can work with you on, Greg.
113 00:15:31.180 ⇒ 00:15:34.090 Uttam Kumaran: So we can talk about that.
114 00:15:34.330 ⇒ 00:15:38.390 Uttam Kumaran: And then, I also think that there’s probably a good chance I can hand off
115 00:15:38.720 ⇒ 00:15:45.210 Uttam Kumaran: this client, which is another sort of B2B AI software company, I think,
116 00:15:45.500 ⇒ 00:15:51.030 Uttam Kumaran: Like, compared to, like, e-com, it’s in your world, it’s, like, kind of pro- it’s like…
117 00:15:52.370 ⇒ 00:16:11.790 Uttam Kumaran: it’s a… it’s… it’s a… it’s B2C software, but, like, it’s… they have probably… they have a lot of product analytics needs, and also you learn about just general reporting on, like, the users and the product usage, and we’re doing financial reporting, but I actually don’t think this is hard at all. Awash is basically running this
118 00:16:12.200 ⇒ 00:16:12.900 Uttam Kumaran: Like…
119 00:16:13.190 ⇒ 00:16:21.110 Uttam Kumaran: Dolo, like, with a couple hours of his time, and he could totally use the support, you know?
120 00:16:21.610 ⇒ 00:16:40.029 Uttam Kumaran: So, I feel like this would be a great, probably, way for you to, you know, honestly kind of take this. I’m not do… I’m going to start playing CSO, but frankly, Awashi’s doing that now. He just is… he’s actually producing the SOWs for…
121 00:16:40.310 ⇒ 00:16:44.599 Uttam Kumaran: Hydra for the next Hydra sort of thing right now, and…
122 00:16:44.750 ⇒ 00:16:49.120 Uttam Kumaran: I think he did send it somewhere in sales, maybe I’ll tag you here.
123 00:16:50.540 ⇒ 00:16:51.220 Greg Stoutenburg: at home.
124 00:16:52.010 ⇒ 00:16:55.400 Uttam Kumaran: So… Yeah.
125 00:16:56.410 ⇒ 00:17:05.119 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so he sent this, which is, like, they’re interested in retention and lifecycle analytics, product analytics and experimentation, AI and LLM-based initiatives.
126 00:17:05.280 ⇒ 00:17:13.530 Uttam Kumaran: We just put together the scope today for this one, which is this message. So Sam and I gave some feedback on that.
127 00:17:13.790 ⇒ 00:17:18.490 Uttam Kumaran: these two things, sound like you, and so I’ll just tag you here.
128 00:17:18.490 ⇒ 00:17:19.880 Greg Stoutenburg: That’s great.
129 00:17:19.880 ⇒ 00:17:29.820 Uttam Kumaran: Or, yeah, I’ll send it in the CSO channel, and you can take a look, and then if you have… if you have questions on, like, how to do the scope, or, like, how to do it, but I would love to…
130 00:17:29.930 ⇒ 00:17:33.090 Uttam Kumaran: I would love for us to put the scope together on both of these.
131 00:17:33.250 ⇒ 00:17:37.599 Uttam Kumaran: You can learn more about it, or get the transcript from Awash, and then I can introduce you to them.
132 00:17:37.750 ⇒ 00:17:38.840 Uttam Kumaran: Whenever ready.
133 00:17:39.090 ⇒ 00:17:41.549 Greg Stoutenburg: Sounds good. Yeah. Great, thanks.
134 00:17:41.830 ⇒ 00:17:42.400 Uttam Kumaran: Cool.
135 00:17:44.260 ⇒ 00:17:46.580 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, what else, guys?
136 00:17:46.580 ⇒ 00:17:59.159 Clarence Stone: But real quick, I just… I just want to break down the story that Greg shared with us, because there’s some amazing characteristics of, you know, CSOs that you can pick up on here.
137 00:17:59.340 ⇒ 00:18:16.469 Clarence Stone: he went from that prospecting phase to the mining phase pretty quickly, right? And that’s because he struck something interesting when he was prospecting and prompting these really great probing questions. So, Greg, one of the takeaways I’m seeing here is, you know.
138 00:18:16.640 ⇒ 00:18:33.619 Clarence Stone: part of building this community up could be to create something in Notion to say, these are really great prompting questions. Get clients to start talking, right? Share that with this group. And I’d be happy to drop in some of my ideas on that, too, but
139 00:18:33.700 ⇒ 00:18:46.970 Clarence Stone: what happened here was, Greg, you asked a really great question, and you’re like, hey, I sniff oil here. There’s probably something worth mining, right? And then you followed up with appropriate things to be able to,
140 00:18:47.160 ⇒ 00:18:56.769 Clarence Stone: kind of lock into that. But fundamentally, what’s happening here? Well, we exist to solve problems that… that these leaders are facing.
141 00:18:56.770 ⇒ 00:19:19.619 Clarence Stone: Right, and they’re facing these problems because of, one, their own individual insecurities, two, their lack of understanding or domain knowledge, three, just lack of company support and resources to actually do what they want. I think those three are the biggest major drivers to why somebody would be reaching out for help like this, right? So, Greg was able to identify which one of those three was it, and
142 00:19:19.620 ⇒ 00:19:25.650 Clarence Stone: this seemed very emotional, as in, like, I’m not comfortable with what I’m presenting, and I want to be, right?
143 00:19:25.800 ⇒ 00:19:37.079 Clarence Stone: and then dug deep onto how do I help them resolve that, right? And these questions are amazing. I hope you guys all decide to create this catalog, because,
144 00:19:37.140 ⇒ 00:19:46.230 Clarence Stone: these types of questions are what’s going to lead to new service wins, right? And all it took was us asking a simple question.
145 00:19:46.230 ⇒ 00:19:57.849 Clarence Stone: Right? So those daily touchpoints where, at some point, it looks excessive and annoying to do, can sometimes lead to a situation like, you know, the story that Greg just told here.
146 00:19:58.120 ⇒ 00:20:01.080 Clarence Stone: So, that’s my take on it, you know.
147 00:20:01.370 ⇒ 00:20:04.070 Clarence Stone: Part of building this community is creating, you know, your own
148 00:20:04.070 ⇒ 00:20:21.570 Clarence Stone: vault or set of, you know, tactics, that… that works, you know, for your space and your industry. So, highly recommend you do that. And I would also take all of you, Tom’s bullets on what to reach out to a client for. Throw it in a notion. Like, I don’t know how far you’re gonna have to scroll for that later on.
149 00:20:28.380 ⇒ 00:20:30.130 Uttam Kumaran: Lauren, I know you had something.
150 00:20:32.630 ⇒ 00:20:34.920 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, so I just wanted to…
151 00:20:35.200 ⇒ 00:20:50.670 Zoran Selinger: to see how we… so, CSO is not gonna be my only lane here, and this might be specific to me. I don’t think it is. I think Demi is also delivering, kind of really specific work as well.
152 00:20:50.830 ⇒ 00:20:55.610 Zoran Selinger: So, when we… when I have really specific tasks, even, like.
153 00:20:55.910 ⇒ 00:21:13.430 Zoran Selinger: I have some coding tasks that I do, and then I have… I might have this, Martech lane offering, as well. Yes. Then I’m gonna have the CSO lane. So if I have to prioritize, how do you see… how do you see that specifically?
154 00:21:14.240 ⇒ 00:21:16.490 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so, part of this is, like.
155 00:21:16.850 ⇒ 00:21:26.299 Uttam Kumaran: Over time, the amount of time that goes into being a CSO or an EP or an SL on a project should go down.
156 00:21:26.660 ⇒ 00:21:35.229 Uttam Kumaran: And so we’re gonna do that by, like, getting… you guys are gonna just learn how to do this, and then things will get faster, so that’s just, like, human intuition.
157 00:21:35.230 ⇒ 00:21:50.309 Uttam Kumaran: We’re gonna be building playbooks and, using cursor for things, using AI for things, so on average, your time should go down. But everybody who’s on a project, including the leads, are all doing work. Nobody’s a full-time
158 00:21:50.350 ⇒ 00:21:52.170 Uttam Kumaran: CSO, nobody’s full-time.
159 00:21:52.350 ⇒ 00:22:05.189 Uttam Kumaran: everybody is… does… is delivering work, and so this is purely, like, not in addition, but a portion of your time. You have to find time to scale, either through other people.
160 00:22:05.200 ⇒ 00:22:17.509 Uttam Kumaran: Right? So then, you as a CSO have to come to me, or even if you’re like, hey, this is my service, I need people… I need under me to start to take on some of this work, so I can continue to execute CSO, because
161 00:22:17.630 ⇒ 00:22:28.999 Uttam Kumaran: I… I… I can’t find more people… it’s harder for me to find people to do what I need you to do as a CSO than it is to find people to do MarTech work, right? So I’m happy if you’re like, hey.
162 00:22:29.430 ⇒ 00:22:36.990 Uttam Kumaran: the MarTech work is taking quite a long time. I need to buy 20 more hours. Here’s what that’s gonna… here’s how I can…
163 00:22:37.190 ⇒ 00:22:53.710 Uttam Kumaran: here’s how I’m gonna pay for that. Basically, like, here’s the amount of clients we can go do it for. Okay, cool, I’ll find you somebody. I’ll get you the resources. So this is where, like, between you and then the engagement planner, which basically what’s happened is, if you look at,
164 00:22:53.830 ⇒ 00:22:57.079 Uttam Kumaran: like, the Q1, we’ve almost, like, paired people up.
165 00:22:57.240 ⇒ 00:23:00.039 Uttam Kumaran: Pretty often. I don’t know if we put that.
166 00:23:00.040 ⇒ 00:23:01.270 Greg Stoutenburg: John at the bottom left.
167 00:23:04.150 ⇒ 00:23:21.409 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, yeah, yeah, exactly. So we kind of, like, there’s… we almost, like, paired people together in an effort to try to hopefully create a nice dynamic between you as the CSO and someone on the engagement planning side. So you guys as a team could say, look, we can roughly take on
168 00:23:21.750 ⇒ 00:23:26.240 Uttam Kumaran: We could probably take on 4 clients, but we need someone else to come in and fill and take up
169 00:23:26.460 ⇒ 00:23:29.580 Uttam Kumaran: some of the low-hanging fruit work, okay, I can go facilitate that.
170 00:23:29.880 ⇒ 00:23:32.199 Uttam Kumaran: So that’s how I would think about
171 00:23:32.540 ⇒ 00:23:41.209 Uttam Kumaran: scaling up your time. But you’re gonna be best leveraged as a CSO, like, continuing to deliver work, working directly with the client, and, like, executing.
172 00:23:41.620 ⇒ 00:23:47.249 Uttam Kumaran: You know, someone will come in, and if it is a distinct service line, someone will come in and take that on, you know, that’s fine.
173 00:23:49.910 ⇒ 00:23:56.599 Uttam Kumaran: So you’ll have to define, like, okay, how much of my time is going to this? For example, let’s say you’re taking on Eden Martech.
174 00:23:56.730 ⇒ 00:23:59.750 Uttam Kumaran: And it’s taking 35 hours of your time.
175 00:24:00.140 ⇒ 00:24:03.300 Uttam Kumaran: Is there 15 hours you can hand to somebody?
176 00:24:04.410 ⇒ 00:24:18.259 Uttam Kumaran: And, like, that way you can now… now, for example, if I was to come to you just like I came to Greg, which I will come to you next… in the next two weeks with this opportunity, are you able to handle both of these as, like, the MarTech CSO?
177 00:24:18.790 ⇒ 00:24:22.140 Uttam Kumaran: Right? So that’ll be my question, is like, what would you need
178 00:24:22.800 ⇒ 00:24:28.190 Uttam Kumaran: Like, do you need someone who always… do you need Casey to always be paired with you, basically, to take this? Do you need additional people?
179 00:24:28.320 ⇒ 00:24:31.310 Uttam Kumaran: So that’s… that’s… that’s what we have to kind of figure out.
180 00:24:34.590 ⇒ 00:24:36.889 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, okay, thank you, I’ll think about it.
181 00:24:37.240 ⇒ 00:24:37.750 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
182 00:24:38.780 ⇒ 00:24:44.580 Clarence Stone: Yeah, I think that’s really important to highlight. That’s such a good point. You’re not doing this alone.
183 00:24:44.700 ⇒ 00:25:00.490 Clarence Stone: Right? At any time, Zaron, like, if things are getting too busy, you know, always phone a friend, you know, always bring that up on this meeting. I wouldn’t even hold back, just, like, ping Robert and you, Tom, and say, like, hey, this is where the time constraints are, right? And we will…
184 00:25:00.490 ⇒ 00:25:06.890 Clarence Stone: We will figure something out together. And if you want to explore options, like, if you come to the table with options, that’s even better.
185 00:25:06.890 ⇒ 00:25:18.990 Clarence Stone: Right? Say, hey, engagement planner and I talked about this, this is a couple things that we can do. But my immediate advice to you is, like, the most secret thing, is going to be your focus time.
186 00:25:19.060 ⇒ 00:25:25.150 Clarence Stone: Right. So, protect your calendar, block off what your focus time is gonna be.
187 00:25:25.400 ⇒ 00:25:40.680 Clarence Stone: And… and… and preserve that, because, like, all the meetings are gonna start layering around it, right? So, if there’s nothing holding it, it’s gonna be taken up, possibly, by other efforts. So block that, protect it, and then…
188 00:25:40.960 ⇒ 00:25:44.069 Clarence Stone: You know, if you’re ever overloaded, let’s talk about it.
189 00:25:45.380 ⇒ 00:26:03.250 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, sure. I mean, the focus work is not really a problem for me, since the time difference, so I do have plenty of time to work before all the meetings start in a day, so I’m lucky in that regard, I have to say.
190 00:26:05.780 ⇒ 00:26:08.829 Clarence Stone: Nice, yeah, so I, like, personally for me, I’m a night owl.
191 00:26:08.830 ⇒ 00:26:30.630 Clarence Stone: So, my cadence was to just, like, as soon as it got to, like, 4.30, 5 o’clock-ish, you know, Eastern, and people stopped taking calls, I just… I really start turning through all my work, right? And then I… I block off, like, an hour or two in the morning, just in case, you know, I can hit my midday, delivery cycles. So, like, that’s what I found worked for me, and yeah, like.
192 00:26:30.630 ⇒ 00:26:45.530 Clarence Stone: not knowing everyone’s geographical location and how they like to work, it’s hard to say, like, how do you segment your time? But I think, you know, my best recommendation is protect your thinking time, and then see what comes around it, right? And if it’s starting to overload you, we’ll take a look.
193 00:26:48.370 ⇒ 00:26:57.430 Clarence Stone: Demi, I know you’re really good at time trunking. We talked about this when I had a one-on-one with you, like, about how you like to do your focus time in the afternoon. Any tips or tricks as they’re on here?
194 00:26:59.080 ⇒ 00:27:10.669 Demilade Agboola: Well, I mean, personally, I just, again, the time before the US team wakes up is quite helpful, and sometimes also just being able to go dark is also very helpful.
195 00:27:10.670 ⇒ 00:27:25.349 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I would mute channels and leave channels that you don’t care about. I kick people out of channels that I feel like are noisy and… but that are not interesting. Some channels are interesting, though, so I don’t know, like, it’s helpful to see sales and stuff, it’s motivating.
196 00:27:25.630 ⇒ 00:27:26.560 Uttam Kumaran: For me.
197 00:27:26.670 ⇒ 00:27:28.650 Uttam Kumaran: But, yeah.
198 00:27:30.110 ⇒ 00:27:45.280 Demilade Agboola: Also, I did want to say something, though, or ask a question. In terms of, like, being able to put everything together, like, in a message, so, like, now I’m putting together the message for Magic Spoons, I’m about to send it.
199 00:27:45.390 ⇒ 00:27:51.870 Demilade Agboola: If the tickets are not necessarily in a good spot.
200 00:27:53.370 ⇒ 00:28:00.169 Demilade Agboola: it does… it does make it hard to get context on what to send as the update. So, like,
201 00:28:01.480 ⇒ 00:28:11.600 Demilade Agboola: I saw the ticket, the ticket was blocked, I had no context on why it was blocked, so I had to reach out to Ashwini, Ashwini gave me context, so now I know how to word it and then send it to…
202 00:28:11.850 ⇒ 00:28:27.679 Demilade Agboola: on the Magic Spoon team about, like, okay, so this is the plan this week, and this is the context of that. But, obviously, Magic Spoon is relatively small, they’re just, like, two work streams or two workflows, one of which I manage, so it’s kind of easy to, like, put the context there for them.
203 00:28:27.760 ⇒ 00:28:39.120 Demilade Agboola: in the context of something like Eden, where there’s a lot of stuff going on, what would be the source of information about, like, the entire workflow, I guess?
204 00:28:40.130 ⇒ 00:28:48.859 Demilade Agboola: Or something, like, not… like, different projects, what would be the source of just all that information about how to update different things without, like.
205 00:28:49.370 ⇒ 00:28:52.309 Demilade Agboola: having to message everyone, I guess, would be the…
206 00:28:53.740 ⇒ 00:28:56.649 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I mean, for me, this answer is, like.
207 00:28:56.650 ⇒ 00:28:58.250 Demilade Agboola: At any point, like.
208 00:28:58.250 ⇒ 00:29:01.459 Uttam Kumaran: The engagement planner has to be, like, your pair.
209 00:29:01.660 ⇒ 00:29:06.589 Uttam Kumaran: To make sure that Every… all the details of a project are clearly outlined.
210 00:29:06.740 ⇒ 00:29:10.219 Uttam Kumaran: The other thing you’re gonna find is, on Magic Spoon.
211 00:29:10.360 ⇒ 00:29:24.369 Uttam Kumaran: And on default, I was sort of holding a lot of that in my head, so there… it will take a few days for you to sort of get the spidey sense on each of these clients. Especially Magic Spoon, we did, like, barely anything, because they didn’t give us any access.
212 00:29:24.570 ⇒ 00:29:43.599 Uttam Kumaran: But it’s your job to hold the engagement planner. At any moment, again, the criteria is, how is this project going? Should… that’s gonna be our question. It should live in either the Gantt or linear, right? So if anyone was to go into those, they can easily look at all the tickets and kind of get a sense of how it’s going.
213 00:29:43.700 ⇒ 00:29:47.849 Uttam Kumaran: So I would push that, like, you should pair with Ashwini to have
214 00:29:47.990 ⇒ 00:29:52.050 Uttam Kumaran: You know, kind of, like, all the tickets sort of in a good place, and that’s…
215 00:29:52.200 ⇒ 00:29:54.210 Uttam Kumaran: That’s the accountability you have for him.
216 00:29:55.240 ⇒ 00:29:57.250 Uttam Kumaran: You know, would be what I said, yeah.
217 00:30:04.060 ⇒ 00:30:12.330 Demilade Agboola: Okay, alright, sounds good. I just wanted to, because again, this Magic Spoon is, like, a really small project right now.
218 00:30:13.670 ⇒ 00:30:25.300 Demilade Agboola: But obviously, as things scale, just being able to have the process in place, so that it’s not so hard to get, like, the full context of everything, as we’re sharing it with the clients.
219 00:30:25.300 ⇒ 00:30:37.740 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, the other thing is, like, look, if everything ends up in linear, it’s very, very easy to use a tool like Cursor to just get the status of everything, right? If all the tickets are up to date, and all the tickets have a little bit of context.
220 00:30:38.160 ⇒ 00:30:48.719 Uttam Kumaran: like, I can show you guys how you can just talk to Cursor and get all that update. So that’s the thing, it really hinges on, like, someone, which is the EP, owning the fact that
221 00:30:49.080 ⇒ 00:30:50.429 Uttam Kumaran: Tickets are up to date.
222 00:30:50.570 ⇒ 00:30:54.730 Uttam Kumaran: So I’m gonna go to the… I’m gonna go to that, the engagement.
223 00:30:55.100 ⇒ 00:31:14.040 Uttam Kumaran: plan our meeting next, and I can… I want to kind of ask them basic similar questions about how they’re able to handle this day-to-day, and what they need to do to feel… what they need from y’all to feel successful, what they need to do to make y’all and the service leads successful. So, yeah, it’s a good question. I think… let’s see how it goes this week.
224 00:31:14.290 ⇒ 00:31:20.620 Uttam Kumaran: Keep telling me if you feel like it’s not working out, or if, like, you’re not getting that support, and we’ll work through it, but…
225 00:31:20.760 ⇒ 00:31:23.330 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, ideally that person should own this.
226 00:31:24.680 ⇒ 00:31:25.480 Demilade Agboola: Sounds good.
227 00:31:25.480 ⇒ 00:31:30.800 Uttam Kumaran: They should own making the updates available, I mean, you own… Like, baking the cake.
228 00:31:30.910 ⇒ 00:31:31.650 Uttam Kumaran: You know.
229 00:31:32.520 ⇒ 00:31:33.700 Demilade Agboola: Yeah, fair enough, fair enough.
230 00:31:33.700 ⇒ 00:31:37.120 Uttam Kumaran: Because otherwise, doing both is, is, like, is really challenging.
231 00:31:40.250 ⇒ 00:31:42.690 Greg Stoutenburg: You tell me just quickly, sort of, like.
232 00:31:42.690 ⇒ 00:31:43.050 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
233 00:31:43.050 ⇒ 00:31:47.590 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, sorry, I was thinking, like, oh, they must need to go, and then I interrupt with a button.
234 00:31:47.590 ⇒ 00:31:48.600 Uttam Kumaran: No, that’s fine, please.
235 00:31:48.850 ⇒ 00:31:58.260 Greg Stoutenburg: Would you say it’s accurate that you’re looking for something resembling, like, an entrepreneurial level of ownership for the role and the teams
236 00:31:58.630 ⇒ 00:32:01.289 Greg Stoutenburg: in client engagements. Is that approximately right?
237 00:32:01.290 ⇒ 00:32:03.749 Uttam Kumaran: just the CSO role, or for each of these?
238 00:32:04.750 ⇒ 00:32:08.889 Greg Stoutenburg: I mean, I mean CSO, but also, like, each.
239 00:32:08.890 ⇒ 00:32:10.770 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, like, I talked… I talked to Claire… Oh, yeah.
240 00:32:11.160 ⇒ 00:32:13.080 Greg Stoutenburg: Operating on any client.
241 00:32:13.290 ⇒ 00:32:18.410 Uttam Kumaran: I, I think… I think CSO’s the hardest.
242 00:32:18.950 ⇒ 00:32:20.070 Uttam Kumaran: of these.
243 00:32:20.230 ⇒ 00:32:32.090 Uttam Kumaran: I think as cl… as… especially as we grow our clients to larger and larger, this is gonna get… this is gonna get harder. So I don’t think…
244 00:32:32.660 ⇒ 00:32:48.100 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know how these will scale, necessarily. Like, I think there’s some scaling as the work streams get more complicated, but this is our… this is the reason we are alive, is, like, our relationships with clients. A lot of people can do data work.
245 00:32:48.260 ⇒ 00:33:00.409 Uttam Kumaran: Increasingly, more people will do it faster. But not a lot of people can talk and walk at, like, at the same time, and so this is the reason… this is the reason we win. So…
246 00:33:00.930 ⇒ 00:33:07.780 Uttam Kumaran: I think that, like, entrepreneurial level of responsibility, I’m not sure what that means. I guess, like…
247 00:33:08.410 ⇒ 00:33:11.350 Greg Stoutenburg: I was reacting to the things that you didn’t have answers to, actually.
248 00:33:11.350 ⇒ 00:33:11.980 Uttam Kumaran: Wow.
249 00:33:11.980 ⇒ 00:33:16.669 Greg Stoutenburg: Like, when, like, yeah, you know, you and the EP and the SL will work it out.
250 00:33:16.670 ⇒ 00:33:21.440 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, I mean, ultimately, like, you are the front line, like…
251 00:33:21.440 ⇒ 00:33:21.970 Greg Stoutenburg: No.
252 00:33:21.970 ⇒ 00:33:35.989 Uttam Kumaran: If you go to a client meeting, and you present a slide that your EP made that you didn’t approve, and it says something wrong, who’s getting jammed? You are, right? So, like, yes. But at the same time.
253 00:33:36.210 ⇒ 00:33:42.340 Uttam Kumaran: in order for you to succeed, you have to go make sure that these people do their job. So it’s… it’s…
254 00:33:42.420 ⇒ 00:33:49.159 Uttam Kumaran: there are things you will learn that you can control, and there are things that you will learn that you have to delegate, and I think that is probably…
255 00:33:49.180 ⇒ 00:34:03.149 Uttam Kumaran: the entrepreneurial side of this is, like, control what is, like, really relevant, and for different clients, it may be different, but also push these people to do their end… to have their end of the bargain. Like, make all the… make sure all the linear tickets are set up.
256 00:34:03.310 ⇒ 00:34:20.690 Uttam Kumaran: make sure that, like, the code that’s getting pushed by the team is working and is actually getting faster and faster, so that you can come in and rock that… those… you can come in and rock the slides, you can rock the daily message, and, like, that’s what I would urge you to think about.
257 00:34:20.780 ⇒ 00:34:28.699 Uttam Kumaran: But you guys are the pretty face, like, that’s what I’m… that’s… that’s really, really important here. Like, compared… you guys will… you guys know what it’s like to be internal at a company.
258 00:34:28.719 ⇒ 00:34:44.720 Uttam Kumaran: communication and stuff doesn’t matter, like, you can’t… it’s, like, so poor, right? Yes, the best people that move up, they learn to manage up, they learn to communicate best, but it’s not a requirement. For us, it is like 50% of the battle. And it’s what I mentioned this morning, it’s like.
259 00:34:44.719 ⇒ 00:34:49.759 Uttam Kumaran: Most of our struggle with clients is communication. It’s not the engineering part.
260 00:34:49.850 ⇒ 00:34:53.259 Uttam Kumaran: Which is, like, so tough, because… but the…
261 00:34:53.530 ⇒ 00:35:00.400 Uttam Kumaran: It is true, like, you know, you may have delivered the same thing for Phoebe without a loom, with a loom, and then one worked, and…
262 00:35:01.210 ⇒ 00:35:02.120 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
263 00:35:02.120 ⇒ 00:35:04.799 Greg Stoutenburg: That’s… that’s it, you know? So, yeah.
264 00:35:05.170 ⇒ 00:35:05.979 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, thanks.
265 00:35:07.540 ⇒ 00:35:20.550 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, guys, I’m gonna jump to the next one. Yeah, if we want more time, I’m gonna keep… I’ll just keep kind of having enough time for these so we can all talk. But Slack me, and I’m on the rest of the day, so if you Slack me or send me a lube, like, I’ll keep… I’ll keep chatting, so yeah.
266 00:35:23.330 ⇒ 00:35:24.160 Greg Stoutenburg: Cool.
267 00:35:24.990 ⇒ 00:35:25.620 Uttam Kumaran: Thanks so much.
268 00:35:25.620 ⇒ 00:35:26.979 Zoran Selinger: Thank you. Thanks, team. Thanks.
269 00:35:26.980 ⇒ 00:35:27.740 Uttam Kumaran: Talk to you soon.
270 00:35:27.740 ⇒ 00:35:28.750 Greg Stoutenburg: Yep. Bye.
271 00:35:28.750 ⇒ 00:35:29.360 Zoran Selinger: Bye.