Meeting Title: Brainforge Delivery Team Structure Update Date: 2026-01-05 Meeting participants: Greg Stoutenburg, Luke Scorziell, Demilade Agboola, Luke’s Notetaker, Uttam Kumaran, Samuel Roberts, Awaish Kumar, Ashwini Sharma, Casie Aviles, Amber Lin, Pranav, Mustafa Raja, Zoran Selinger, Robert Tseng, Clarence Stone
WEBVTT
1 00:00:09.180 ⇒ 00:00:10.710 Uttam Kumaran: Hey guys, good morning.
2 00:00:11.160 ⇒ 00:00:13.100 Uttam Kumaran: Or good evening, wherever you are.
3 00:00:13.880 ⇒ 00:00:15.030 Awaish Kumar: Hmm, hello.
4 00:00:15.750 ⇒ 00:00:16.750 Uttam Kumaran: Hello?
5 00:00:17.740 ⇒ 00:00:18.290 Greg Stoutenburg: Hello, good morning.
6 00:00:18.290 ⇒ 00:00:19.900 Ashwini Sharma: Good morning, good evening.
7 00:00:26.050 ⇒ 00:00:28.260 Uttam Kumaran: Cool, let’s see who else we’re waiting for.
8 00:01:20.820 ⇒ 00:01:22.790 Uttam Kumaran: Cool, let me get Robert in here.
9 00:01:26.390 ⇒ 00:01:30.840 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, guys, I think we have most… Of the folks…
10 00:01:31.180 ⇒ 00:01:49.840 Uttam Kumaran: Here, so if you’re on this meeting, we are kind of planning a little bit of a new structure of doing delivery, which is, out of the three parts of the company, which is delivery, sales, and, like, ops, delivery is what makes the world go round for us.
11 00:01:49.850 ⇒ 00:02:00.169 Uttam Kumaran: And so this is not only the biggest team, but also, the most important part of what we do, which is, you know, delivering for clients. And so, if you’re in this group.
12 00:02:00.310 ⇒ 00:02:07.440 Uttam Kumaran: You are part of this new model that we’re going to be, deploying,
13 00:02:07.470 ⇒ 00:02:22.340 Uttam Kumaran: Which actually isn’t too much different from what already happens today. And so I’m gonna caveat every time I say new and, like, brand new and a big change, it’s actually not that big of a change. What is actually going on here is, one, like, a really…
14 00:02:22.340 ⇒ 00:02:33.909 Uttam Kumaran: you know, codification of a lot of thoughts that we’ve had about the way that we do work here at Brainforge. Additionally, it’s the codification of roles and responsibilities on a project.
15 00:02:33.910 ⇒ 00:02:46.530 Uttam Kumaran: But ultimately, everybody here, maybe except for… except for Luke, is an engineer, and one of the core tenets of what this doc is doing is continuing to give more responsibilities to engineers.
16 00:02:46.530 ⇒ 00:02:48.010 Uttam Kumaran: and removing
17 00:02:48.010 ⇒ 00:03:01.560 Uttam Kumaran: what’s typical in the consulting lifecycle, which is, like, information brokers, like, project managers, and removing, you know, people that, are just there to, like, translate stuff to the client, and instead.
18 00:03:01.560 ⇒ 00:03:12.899 Uttam Kumaran: doing what we do best, which is have a great group of talented engineers that can also communicate to a client, they can also deliver work, and it’s actually the reason why we’ve been able to move, you know, this fast. So,
19 00:03:13.130 ⇒ 00:03:31.979 Uttam Kumaran: If you’re in this meeting, like, we have seen you as someone that, you know, has a lot of leverage and has a lot of growth potential, and as we’re starting to think about 2026 and, you know, hopefully our business doubling and tripling over the next few quarters, we needed to think about a model that scales up.
20 00:03:31.980 ⇒ 00:03:44.300 Uttam Kumaran: But additionally, continues to give back more and more to the people that are, you know, taking on this responsibility. Being an engineer and also communicating is not easy.
21 00:03:44.300 ⇒ 00:04:00.349 Uttam Kumaran: And it is something that a lot of places take for granted, and a lot of places don’t promote. And this is some… this is a company where we really want to, take advantage of that, but also pay appropriately, and also only recruit people that can fit into this model. And so…
22 00:04:00.710 ⇒ 00:04:13.139 Uttam Kumaran: part of this document is, you know, an ability for us to share how we feel about the company, but also share where all of y’all will be fitting in.
23 00:04:13.450 ⇒ 00:04:20.039 Uttam Kumaran: into this new model. I hope you guys had a chance to take a look at the document,
24 00:04:20.459 ⇒ 00:04:23.219 Uttam Kumaran: I think it, Greg, it should be in the engineering channel.
25 00:04:23.490 ⇒ 00:04:27.729 Uttam Kumaran: Maybe I can make sure you’re…
26 00:04:28.080 ⇒ 00:04:35.930 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, I just added you. You’re there. So take a look. You’re a quick reader. And…
27 00:04:36.970 ⇒ 00:04:46.490 Uttam Kumaran: Mostly, there’s a couple things that I want to just really bang over the head to… to sort of start this, conversation.
28 00:04:46.660 ⇒ 00:04:48.450 Uttam Kumaran: Is… one is, like.
29 00:04:48.550 ⇒ 00:05:05.619 Uttam Kumaran: everybody, if you’re on this call, you’re… you’re basically… we’re gonna do a couple things, basically immediately. One, everybody who’s on this call is, like, a… is a core tenet of… of Brainforge, and a core reason that, especially last quarter, we were able to grow so much, and so everybody here is gonna get an immediate
30 00:05:05.670 ⇒ 00:05:10.489 Uttam Kumaran: Basically, 5% bonus on top of whatever your annual scaled-up
31 00:05:10.640 ⇒ 00:05:17.650 Uttam Kumaran: you know, comp is. So that’s the first thing we’re gonna do for everybody here that’s on this call.
32 00:05:17.820 ⇒ 00:05:28.759 Uttam Kumaran: Which is a lot of money. Second, we’re also going to roll out, a pretty generous bonus structure, for this group.
33 00:05:29.130 ⇒ 00:05:46.079 Uttam Kumaran: across multiple different avenues. So as you saw in this document, there are three roles, and everybody’s assigned to one of the three, whether it’s the customer success, engagement planner, or the service leader. There are KPIs associated with each of those roles.
34 00:05:46.080 ⇒ 00:05:55.770 Uttam Kumaran: And we’ve gone ahead and determined, bonuses associated with hitting those… those KPIs. If you’re able to hit those KPIs within
35 00:05:55.900 ⇒ 00:06:02.039 Uttam Kumaran: the next two quarters, there’s actually an additional 5% per quarter available.
36 00:06:02.160 ⇒ 00:06:08.560 Uttam Kumaran: To give you a sense of how this usually… usually works in consulting, and even broadly.
37 00:06:08.590 ⇒ 00:06:27.519 Uttam Kumaran: And to tell you the truth, I never worked at a company that actually ever did bonuses. I worked in, like, kind of, like, not broke startups, but startups that didn’t really care about their people for the most part. Bonuses are typically done based on a total pie amount that the company has won. It’s rarely done
38 00:06:27.520 ⇒ 00:06:35.639 Uttam Kumaran: At an individual level. It’s also rarely done at, like, a 5% amount, especially not a 5% amount at a sick… at a…
39 00:06:35.640 ⇒ 00:06:51.350 Uttam Kumaran: on a quarterly basis. And so, after this next two quarters, we’re gonna move to half-year bonus cycles, which are also kind of typically faster than usual. But for this crew, since you guys are gonna be the kind of the founding members of this model.
40 00:06:51.390 ⇒ 00:07:09.430 Uttam Kumaran: We wanted to kind of be a lot more generous, you know, because we’re going to probably deal with some hiccups in making this possible. So there is a lot of money on the table, to be made over the next 6 months here. Additionally, for the company, I think there’s a huge opportunity in front of us, to kind of go after new business.
41 00:07:09.430 ⇒ 00:07:15.470 Uttam Kumaran: In addition to just hitting your KPIs, we’re also gonna make available to this delivery squad,
42 00:07:15.470 ⇒ 00:07:30.339 Uttam Kumaran: you know, referral percentages on both net new logos, so if you’re gonna bring in business into the company, you’re gonna get 10% of the first 6 months of, like, net revenue, which is just if we end up doing discounts.
43 00:07:30.480 ⇒ 00:07:42.689 Uttam Kumaran: Which is huge. That’s actually what we offer to our external referral partners as well. To give you a sense of what that looks like, if you bring in, like, a client that ends up working with us for 6 months for $10K a month.
44 00:07:43.910 ⇒ 00:07:50.490 Uttam Kumaran: That is 6,000 in your pocket, paid out once that gets collected, which is…
45 00:07:50.760 ⇒ 00:08:02.600 Uttam Kumaran: a lot of money. Similarly, when you’re in a deal, and if you source, for example, Awash, you’re looking at bringing in this Hedra deal, right? We’re gonna offer,
46 00:08:02.740 ⇒ 00:08:07.030 Uttam Kumaran: You know, 5% of the first 6 months of revenue that comes from that net new deal.
47 00:08:08.670 ⇒ 00:08:27.060 Uttam Kumaran: And then the last piece is we’re also going to offer, certificate-related bonuses. So if you’re getting certificates for dbt, Snowflake, Amplitude, whatever, we’re also going to start to compensate for those, and I’ll work with the service leaders on how we kind of organize that.
48 00:08:27.060 ⇒ 00:08:40.079 Uttam Kumaran: But regardless, as a whole, we’re gonna… what we’re doing here is by preventing the… the need for, like, project managers and account managers and client success people, and centralizing those responsibilities to this crew.
49 00:08:40.080 ⇒ 00:08:47.809 Uttam Kumaran: The company is actually saving a lot of money in tax, in having more people, and we want to kind of share that with this… with this group.
50 00:08:48.020 ⇒ 00:08:50.249 Uttam Kumaran: So that’s, like…
51 00:08:50.590 ⇒ 00:09:02.960 Uttam Kumaran: the money part of this, which I think is also very, very important, and I know it’s just one driver of, like, success here, but, one of the key things that when we started the company, we always thought of was how to give back.
52 00:09:03.040 ⇒ 00:09:13.409 Uttam Kumaran: And how do we have a smaller group of people that does more, that are all, like, what you call, like, 5 or 10x engineers, who can do a lot more? How do we pay them appropriately? And so this is our, sort of.
53 00:09:13.590 ⇒ 00:09:16.749 Uttam Kumaran: big effort into making that a reality.
54 00:09:16.980 ⇒ 00:09:19.789 Uttam Kumaran: Any questions there before I move on to, like.
55 00:09:20.780 ⇒ 00:09:23.149 Uttam Kumaran: Sort of talking about each role.
56 00:09:28.460 ⇒ 00:09:29.210 Uttam Kumaran: Cool.
57 00:09:30.720 ⇒ 00:09:38.050 Uttam Kumaran: So if you’re in the document, you would have read, sort of here at the bottom, like, your kind of Q1 assignments. This is sort of…
58 00:09:38.350 ⇒ 00:09:54.319 Uttam Kumaran: it should actually be aligned a lot with what you’re already doing. Like, this shouldn’t be too different from the clients you’re already dealing with. Most of what this is actually doing is starting to move some people into the CSO and the engagement planning role.
59 00:09:54.320 ⇒ 00:10:02.560 Uttam Kumaran: When… in the past, we actually just didn’t have an engagement planning role, and for the most part, Robert and I were CSOs. So…
60 00:10:02.840 ⇒ 00:10:06.390 Uttam Kumaran: One, overall, we want to be moving
61 00:10:06.420 ⇒ 00:10:25.530 Uttam Kumaran: my time and Robert’s time out of client success management for specific clients, instead moving us to basically broad, like, portfolio management. In addition, we actually want to take the important roles, which is, like, managing linear, managing Gantt charts, and assign that out to existing people.
62 00:10:25.840 ⇒ 00:10:30.079 Uttam Kumaran: One thing I want to highlight is this is not, like a second job.
63 00:10:30.150 ⇒ 00:10:40.179 Uttam Kumaran: This should take anywhere from, like, 10 to 30% of your time, and we are compensating that appropriately. But this is… you should not look at this like, oh, I’m now doing…
64 00:10:40.180 ⇒ 00:10:51.860 Uttam Kumaran: project management and this. What we’ve built internally is a set of tools, frameworks, support structure for you to do all the responsibilities of these roles within the timeframe that you’re expected.
65 00:10:51.860 ⇒ 00:10:56.329 Uttam Kumaran: In fact, Most of us are already doing a lot of this,
66 00:10:56.330 ⇒ 00:11:13.640 Uttam Kumaran: I’m already doing many of this for, like, almost, like, 6 or 7 clients, so it’s… it’s totally possible. So if you feel overwhelmed, if you feel like, hey, there’s a lot of lists of things that I have to do, and I’m not sure I can be able to do it in time, we’ll be meeting this week and in the next coming weeks to kind of show how to quickly do things like
67 00:11:13.640 ⇒ 00:11:18.790 Uttam Kumaran: Set up linear tickets, set up decks, things like that. So we’re gonna get everyone up to speed on this.
68 00:11:18.890 ⇒ 00:11:26.539 Uttam Kumaran: One other thing is, as everybody in this company, this is gonna be their growth trajectory.
69 00:11:26.670 ⇒ 00:11:31.550 Uttam Kumaran: And I don’t know, Clarence, if in this doc we end up… we have, like, the,
70 00:11:32.350 ⇒ 00:11:33.930 Uttam Kumaran: the org structure?
71 00:11:35.020 ⇒ 00:11:37.970 Clarence Stone: Yeah, for the, for the future roles, right?
72 00:11:37.970 ⇒ 00:11:38.610 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
73 00:11:38.610 ⇒ 00:11:54.090 Clarence Stone: Yeah, so in the doc, I think section 6 or 7 highlights, you know, that growth is unbounded, and there’s opportunities both vertical and horizontal, for every single leadership position today. And just an example of what that could look like in the future.
74 00:11:56.180 ⇒ 00:11:57.110 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, here.
75 00:11:58.290 ⇒ 00:12:14.790 Clarence Stone: And what I’ll say to this team is that y’all are developing so quickly and moving forward so quickly that the iterations and promotions in this environment are so much faster, so there’s nothing wrong with starting to look at where you want to be next, too. But, you know.
76 00:12:14.790 ⇒ 00:12:18.550 Clarence Stone: That’s with the expectation that you’re really gonna outperform this current role as well.
77 00:12:20.480 ⇒ 00:12:31.450 Uttam Kumaran: So we spent some time not only thinking about, okay, this crew of leaders is gonna move into these… into these lead roles, CSO, engagement planner, or service lead, but also what’s next?
78 00:12:31.520 ⇒ 00:12:50.479 Uttam Kumaran: Right? And if you think about what’s next, you can think about Robert or myself typically playing all these roles right now. So all we’re doing is sort of shedding weight and having us move into the next highest leverage role. And so on the CSO front, you know, we’re definitely… I’m currently acting as, like, basically, like, head of delivery, head of all the CSOs.
79 00:12:50.480 ⇒ 00:13:01.040 Uttam Kumaran: And so that’s totally up for grabs. There’s also a sort of flavor of CSO that’s more focused on selling, creating reusable assets, deal-making, and so there’s both
80 00:13:01.050 ⇒ 00:13:16.089 Uttam Kumaran: ability to go vertical and, like, manage, and there’s also the ability to go more specialized. Similarly, on the engagement planning side, we thought that there was an opportunity for this person to get more involved on the automations. How do you scale the actual engagement planning of an account?
81 00:13:16.090 ⇒ 00:13:22.089 Uttam Kumaran: Additionally, there’s, like, Head of Engagement Planning, which, again, I’m playing for now. And then similarly, on the…
82 00:13:22.090 ⇒ 00:13:28.009 Uttam Kumaran: on the SL side, which I guess Robert, is, Sam and, Awash right now.
83 00:13:28.030 ⇒ 00:13:38.779 Uttam Kumaran: We also thought there’s probably an opportunity for SL, which is R&D, which is, like, new service development, and then also, like, a head of service leaders. All of this sort of ladders up into both a head of platform.
84 00:13:38.780 ⇒ 00:13:51.900 Uttam Kumaran: Which sort of manages all of our reasonable playbooks, all of our AI, and, like, the platform of Brainforge, right? Like, all the tools we use, how people get their job done. Also, head of delivery, someone that’s actually managing the portfolio.
85 00:13:51.900 ⇒ 00:13:52.710 Uttam Kumaran: So…
86 00:13:52.970 ⇒ 00:14:03.319 Uttam Kumaran: Our job here is to show you that the only path up at Brainforge is through this. So when we hire folks, we are gonna start mapping them to one of these roles.
87 00:14:03.320 ⇒ 00:14:18.199 Uttam Kumaran: But for the most part, everyone at minimum is gonna stri… is gonna at least start as an engagement planner. And once you… and for the folks who are assigned as engagement planner, you now have the ability to decide, do I want to move up here, or do I want to start to go, left to right?
88 00:14:18.210 ⇒ 00:14:19.470 Uttam Kumaran: As…
89 00:14:19.550 ⇒ 00:14:29.080 Uttam Kumaran: For each of these roles, as… if they… if one role becomes more important to another, we will budget and compensate, you know, appropriately to attract people for that role.
90 00:14:29.110 ⇒ 00:14:42.860 Uttam Kumaran: Right now, based on just who we have, we did assignments, but it may not all shake out. Like, you may find out that you don’t want to be in engagement planning, you may not work out a CSO, and you’ll move around, but one thing I want to share is that
91 00:14:43.160 ⇒ 00:14:48.570 Uttam Kumaran: this is just gonna be the path upward, on the delivery organization.
92 00:14:48.820 ⇒ 00:14:52.049 Uttam Kumaran: And so I definitely want everybody here to internalize this.
93 00:14:52.270 ⇒ 00:15:05.890 Uttam Kumaran: And really understand that this is gonna be how, as you start to execute well within one of these functions, we’re gonna do our best to sort of make the next thing available, and with that will come more money, more responsibility.
94 00:15:06.000 ⇒ 00:15:11.229 Uttam Kumaran: The other thing I wanted to sort of talk through is just, like.
95 00:15:11.630 ⇒ 00:15:25.709 Uttam Kumaran: in each of these documents, you’ll sort of read, like, what is the day in the life of a CSO, of an engagement planner, of a service leader. Maybe I’ll start with a service leader, because I think Sam, you, and Awash are already actually doing most of this, but
96 00:15:25.710 ⇒ 00:15:34.989 Uttam Kumaran: really, the way we’ve designed this is each of these has dependencies on each other, right? So the service leader really runs the technical service. You can think of this as, like, the…
97 00:15:34.990 ⇒ 00:15:41.759 Uttam Kumaran: like, a corollary would be an architect or, like, a CTO role. And basically, you’re running stand-ups.
98 00:15:41.760 ⇒ 00:15:58.040 Uttam Kumaran: But running stand-ups doesn’t mean you’re also creating tickets, it doesn’t mean you’re creating Gantt charts, it doesn’t mean you’re running the, like, client presentations. What this means is that you’re on the hook for making sure that bugs don’t enter the system, that the quality of our work
99 00:15:58.080 ⇒ 00:16:11.320 Uttam Kumaran: is high, and the pace of our work is high. So, naturally, you have a dependency on the engagement planner, right? The engagement planner’s job is to make sure Linear’s up to date, the Gantt chart’s up to date, decks are available.
100 00:16:11.330 ⇒ 00:16:20.550 Uttam Kumaran: They’re able to assist the service leader to understand timelines, they’re also able to assist the CSO to communicate the stuff to the client.
101 00:16:21.200 ⇒ 00:16:35.209 Uttam Kumaran: And so that’s the clear dependency there. And then the CSO is really, I would say, a lot of the role that y’all have seen me or Robert play, which is really being the first person in line to engage with the client.
102 00:16:35.210 ⇒ 00:16:41.840 Uttam Kumaran: So this is sending a message to every client daily, presenting weekly, this is ensure… this is…
103 00:16:41.900 ⇒ 00:16:46.229 Uttam Kumaran: Basically, holding the engagement planner accountable for making sure that all of those
104 00:16:46.470 ⇒ 00:16:53.890 Uttam Kumaran: you know, engagement planning assets are there. This is also making sure that the engagement planner has, like, Notion set up, but…
105 00:16:54.110 ⇒ 00:17:02.060 Uttam Kumaran: this person owns client communications, right? And so one thing we’ve seen, and you guys have seen in the last, like, 6 weeks that I’ve been trying, is getting more people involved and running…
106 00:17:02.120 ⇒ 00:17:09.989 Uttam Kumaran: you know, project update meetings and messaging clients. What we’ve actually done is just now made it really firm on who owns what.
107 00:17:09.990 ⇒ 00:17:22.410 Uttam Kumaran: Right? So previously, like, in many situations, I was owning CSO and EP, and I actually think it’s difficult to do both. It’s very difficult to prep and get emotionally ready to run a client meeting, in addition to
108 00:17:22.410 ⇒ 00:17:30.930 Uttam Kumaran: owning linear, owning Gantt charts, and just doing work on a client, right? So we wanted to split that up, given how heavy the CSO role is.
109 00:17:30.930 ⇒ 00:17:48.589 Uttam Kumaran: But the CSO is only successful if the engagement planner does his or her job, which is, you know, set up Gantt charts, make sure all the planning is well, and the service leader can only do his or her job in the stand-ups if the engagement planner does well. So there’s these cross-dependencies that you’ll notice.
110 00:17:48.590 ⇒ 00:17:52.239 Uttam Kumaran: We’ve, we’ve gone through and highlighted You know, what…
111 00:17:52.240 ⇒ 00:18:00.479 Uttam Kumaran: every role, sort of, the day in the life, can look like, and so I… I encourage you to take a look at this. This is not going to be 100%
112 00:18:00.650 ⇒ 00:18:06.769 Uttam Kumaran: Nailed, like, we are gonna miss some things, but we’re gonna work together over the next few weeks to… to sort of…
113 00:18:06.870 ⇒ 00:18:25.320 Uttam Kumaran: show you… to show everybody, like, what each of these roles’ success looks like. In addition, Robert and I are still playing CSOs on some clients, and so I’m just gonna play that role. Like, I’m… now I’m just gonna be that, and so you’ll kind of see, like, how we do things. Similarly, I know Awaish and Robert and Sam have all been doing
114 00:18:25.320 ⇒ 00:18:30.840 Uttam Kumaran: service leadership, and I know Amber has sort of done a lot of stuff on the engagement planning side in the past, so…
115 00:18:30.840 ⇒ 00:18:33.650 Uttam Kumaran: You’ll see what good looks like.
116 00:18:33.870 ⇒ 00:18:43.449 Uttam Kumaran: We are also going to host meetings on Monday, which is directly with me, with the CSOs, the engagement planners, and the service leads. So, as a crew, we will discuss
117 00:18:43.450 ⇒ 00:18:56.410 Uttam Kumaran: what does great customer success look like on Monday, and build sort of camaraderie and teamwork across this, like, horizontal role. So if you’re… if you’re not comfortable speaking in front of a client, putting together decks.
118 00:18:56.410 ⇒ 00:19:03.590 Uttam Kumaran: dealing with objections, sourcing deals, that’s all that that time is gonna be. Working on, is me
119 00:19:04.020 ⇒ 00:19:23.339 Uttam Kumaran: like, just mentoring and getting everybody up to speed on how to do this every day. Similarly for engagement planners, if you’re… if you’re not comfortable on how to build Gantt charts, work with linear, you know, any of that, that’s what we’ll talk about. And then the last piece, and this is really where I think we’re gonna start
120 00:19:23.470 ⇒ 00:19:28.299 Uttam Kumaran: more shallow is on the KPI side, and so…
121 00:19:28.770 ⇒ 00:19:48.620 Uttam Kumaran: these are the KPIs that we are going to run with for this quarter. If you look at the KPI discussion draft, you’re gonna see several KPIs per role. Operationally, this is very complex to do right now, so my push was, let’s just pick one metric.
122 00:19:48.690 ⇒ 00:19:50.489 Uttam Kumaran: Let’s just pick something that…
123 00:19:50.570 ⇒ 00:20:01.960 Uttam Kumaran: I know it is actually encompassing of the behavior that we’re trying to drive, but it’s also something that our ops team can actually measure. And we know that if at least you do this.
124 00:20:02.200 ⇒ 00:20:21.369 Uttam Kumaran: like, we’re on the right path. And so, for the CSO role, this is, this is just the daily touchpoint. So this is the ability that you’re able to actually have that daily touchpoint. You complete the weekly client review every week that that meeting happens. And at any moment, if I were to just say, tell me about this client.
125 00:20:21.490 ⇒ 00:20:23.450 Uttam Kumaran: You can answer that.
126 00:20:23.700 ⇒ 00:20:24.670 Uttam Kumaran: So that’s…
127 00:20:24.790 ⇒ 00:20:38.260 Uttam Kumaran: roughly how we’re gonna do this. We have several ways of measuring slack. I certainly know that the weekly calls are going on, but ultimately, if you’re a CSO, and you want that 5% this quarter, this is what you need to hit.
128 00:20:38.340 ⇒ 00:20:55.220 Uttam Kumaran: For the engagement planner, this is gonna be kind of a little bit at random, which is mainly going to be checking the audit readiness of Notion, Slack, and Linear, and any sort of project assets. So, multiple times a quarter, we’re gonna say, cool, we’re gonna do a check across all projects.
129 00:20:55.230 ⇒ 00:20:59.579 Uttam Kumaran: That they’re not… they haven’t started, like, basically, like, that week.
130 00:20:59.610 ⇒ 00:21:04.020 Uttam Kumaran: And we’re just gonna look to see if everything has been set up.
131 00:21:04.200 ⇒ 00:21:24.129 Uttam Kumaran: This is a… I felt like this is a great way of understanding at any moment if the workspace around a client is in a good, healthy, you know, environment, and that this person is not… this… this role is actually helping enable these two roles to get their… to get their, you know, job done. The last piece is on… for the service leaders, so…
132 00:21:24.500 ⇒ 00:21:35.250 Uttam Kumaran: for Sam, Robert, and Awash. Really, what this is looking at is the quality of the output. So, how many bugs are entering the system, how many errors are coming up.
133 00:21:35.360 ⇒ 00:21:37.669 Uttam Kumaran: And so, again, this is the…
134 00:21:38.110 ⇒ 00:21:48.490 Uttam Kumaran: this is the highest leverage thing for the service leader crew to nail, which is errors, right? And so, even if a bug does come up, we’re understanding that
135 00:21:48.930 ⇒ 00:22:03.620 Uttam Kumaran: there are… that the rate of completed tickets to do bug reports is… is low, right? Yeah, like, the ratio is… is low. It’s very… meaning, you’re starting to see, for every single new ticket added, less and less bugs enter the system.
136 00:22:03.780 ⇒ 00:22:05.290 Uttam Kumaran: This is a…
137 00:22:05.400 ⇒ 00:22:14.029 Uttam Kumaran: when bugs enter the system, it’s a huge, detriment to the trust we build with clients, and so it’s the first kind of KPI that we want to… we wanna attack.
138 00:22:14.260 ⇒ 00:22:27.489 Uttam Kumaran: We also, of course, are gonna start thinking about other ways for people to earn more and to sort of continue to build, you know, comp here, but these are the first three, you know, KPIs that we’re gonna start with.
139 00:22:30.460 ⇒ 00:22:32.250 Uttam Kumaran: Any questions so far?
140 00:22:33.320 ⇒ 00:22:36.729 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, for SL, I would like to ask, like.
141 00:22:36.730 ⇒ 00:22:37.300 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
142 00:22:37.820 ⇒ 00:22:46.439 Awaish Kumar: Data box means, like, if we put up, for example, a new model which is not working as expected, or is it more like data quality issues which
143 00:22:46.640 ⇒ 00:22:47.460 Awaish Kumar: Come up.
144 00:22:47.590 ⇒ 00:22:48.659 Awaish Kumar: From time to time.
145 00:22:49.370 ⇒ 00:22:54.259 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I mean, I think for me on the data side, it’s more about data quality issues.
146 00:22:54.670 ⇒ 00:22:56.290 Uttam Kumaran: And time to resolve.
147 00:22:57.730 ⇒ 00:23:04.279 Uttam Kumaran: But ideally, look, if you’re building a great CICD, if you’re building great PR reviews, bugs should not enter the system. And we’ve seen that.
148 00:23:04.470 ⇒ 00:23:12.340 Uttam Kumaran: And so, this is less about the fact that a bug enters, this is more about we actually go longer without bugs entering.
149 00:23:12.370 ⇒ 00:23:24.570 Uttam Kumaran: Right? So we didn’t want to say, like, 100% no bugs. That’s not a world where that happens. What we want to say here is that over time, the rate at which those bugs enter the system goes down as the proportion of total tickets.
150 00:23:26.020 ⇒ 00:23:26.920 Awaish Kumar: Okay.
151 00:23:26.920 ⇒ 00:23:37.130 Uttam Kumaran: Right? So on the strategy side, this could be mistakes in dashboards, right, and what is a fix? Okay, more reviews. These are the ways that we kind of want to think about quality.
152 00:23:37.810 ⇒ 00:24:02.759 Clarence Stone: Yeah, Tom, that’s such a great point. This is not to say that you shouldn’t ever post any bugs, right? Like, the whole point of the service leader is to be able to clearly explain what’s happening day-to-day in the ticket throughput. So, it’s not that, you know, whether you have bugs or issues or not, it’s that you’re able to sit with us and explain, like, hey, this is the balance of tickets we completed, this is the bugs we ran into this
153 00:24:02.760 ⇒ 00:24:03.470 Clarence Stone: order.
154 00:24:03.470 ⇒ 00:24:14.400 Clarence Stone: And this is why, right? The fundamental understanding of why is what’s going to drive your success in fixing these incidents in the future, and we want to incentivize that.
155 00:24:16.430 ⇒ 00:24:17.570 Awaish Kumar: Okay.
156 00:24:20.740 ⇒ 00:24:21.660 Uttam Kumaran: I think someone else had a question.
157 00:24:21.660 ⇒ 00:24:29.420 Pranav: Yeah, I have, like, a maybe comment question. How can we think about, like, who owns, like.
158 00:24:30.550 ⇒ 00:24:37.390 Pranav: approving, like, PRs. I’m guessing that should be something, like, the SL takes, ownership of?
159 00:24:40.010 ⇒ 00:24:48.009 Pranav: is that kind of… is that just kind of like an unwritten thing? Like, we’ll do it that way, or is that not the case? Like, we shouldn’t… we shouldn’t think of PRs in that way?
160 00:24:48.490 ⇒ 00:24:53.050 Uttam Kumaran: No, I mean, I would push on Sam, you, and Awash,
161 00:24:53.270 ⇒ 00:25:03.890 Uttam Kumaran: for you guys to just decide how… how PR reviews happen, whether that is through you, or whether that is, through the team, or through some other specific code owner’s process, like, I’m not gonna…
162 00:25:04.310 ⇒ 00:25:06.059 Uttam Kumaran: I’m not gonna decide that.
163 00:25:06.260 ⇒ 00:25:12.949 Uttam Kumaran: I will say, in any… in any world, your KPI is still clear, regardless, right? So…
164 00:25:13.170 ⇒ 00:25:16.700 Uttam Kumaran: If… if you have… if you… there’s no review process.
165 00:25:16.810 ⇒ 00:25:25.100 Uttam Kumaran: If there is a heavy review process, then maybe things that go out of time, and then guess who the engagement planner is gonna be on the hook for, like, hey, this…
166 00:25:25.290 ⇒ 00:25:36.599 Uttam Kumaran: review process is stalling us, right? The CSO is then gonna say, hey, we’re super delayed. And then, this is what… so we’re… what we’re doing is introducing, sort of, expected tension.
167 00:25:36.600 ⇒ 00:25:47.810 Uttam Kumaran: And then you have to come to a compromise, right? And so one thing you’ll see throughout the document is, like, each of these roles, the incentives sort of, kind of fight with each other, because ultimately, like, we’re…
168 00:25:50.480 ⇒ 00:26:03.189 Uttam Kumaran: the CSO, the EP, and the SL to say, given the circumstance we have for the client, should we not do code reviews? Because now they’re biasing for speed. We’ve told them that, hey, issues are going to enter
169 00:26:03.620 ⇒ 00:26:05.840 Uttam Kumaran: Oh.
170 00:26:17.420 ⇒ 00:26:19.430 Demilade Agboola: Is it just me, or all times when I talk is bad?
171 00:26:20.040 ⇒ 00:26:23.660 Robert Tseng: I think he just, yeah, he’ll…
172 00:26:31.520 ⇒ 00:26:34.870 Robert Tseng: I’m sorry, I would finish the sentence, but I don’t know what he was trying to say.
173 00:26:40.570 ⇒ 00:26:42.359 Demilade Agboola: No CEO telepathy?
174 00:26:46.180 ⇒ 00:26:48.860 Robert Tseng: Not on… not on this one.
175 00:26:55.410 ⇒ 00:27:00.180 Robert Tseng: Okay, maybe we just kind of take a step back. So the question was, like…
176 00:27:01.610 ⇒ 00:27:08.339 Robert Tseng: Well, like, what’s… whoever asked that, I forgot, I wasn’t paying attention to who was asking that question. Okay, great.
177 00:27:09.780 ⇒ 00:27:15.980 Robert Tseng: Yeah, maybe we’ll just have Utam, like, kind of take that offline, and, like, kind of clarify for you later.
178 00:27:15.980 ⇒ 00:27:23.909 Pranav: Yeah, I think, I was kind of understanding what you were saying, like, the KPI is still all the same, so it’s kind of to the discretion of the…
179 00:27:24.150 ⇒ 00:27:29.930 Pranav: the SL to decide, like, how intricate do we want to make this PR process, so that makes sense to me.
180 00:27:30.190 ⇒ 00:27:47.069 Awaish Kumar: So, like, I… I think as an SL on a few projects, I would, like, leave it between the team. So, like, review can happen between the team members, but, like, like, SL is responsible for, like, what… what a great review is, basically, and how…
181 00:27:47.070 ⇒ 00:27:47.610 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
182 00:27:47.880 ⇒ 00:27:51.899 Awaish Kumar: Could not affect, the, like, that should…
183 00:27:52.920 ⇒ 00:28:02.729 Awaish Kumar: like, so that we don’t have bugs entering into the system. So we should just have a quality review, and how can we do that?
184 00:28:03.630 ⇒ 00:28:04.260 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
185 00:28:09.630 ⇒ 00:28:10.569 Robert Tseng: Hooptum, are you back?
186 00:28:10.570 ⇒ 00:28:11.670 Uttam Kumaran: I’m back, I’m back.
187 00:28:12.000 ⇒ 00:28:12.680 Robert Tseng: Alright.
188 00:28:12.990 ⇒ 00:28:15.180 Uttam Kumaran: What else?
189 00:28:21.130 ⇒ 00:28:26.990 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, maybe if nothing else for now, the main thing I want to share is, like, what assignments are gonna look like.
190 00:28:27.110 ⇒ 00:28:32.769 Uttam Kumaran: And so the biggest pieces that I want to highlight here, and I’m actually just going to pull up another document.
191 00:28:33.000 ⇒ 00:28:41.160 Uttam Kumaran: The biggest pieces I wanted to highlight that we’re going through,
192 00:28:42.230 ⇒ 00:28:49.939 Uttam Kumaran: is we’re starting to plan on not only, like, current CSOs, but future, future EPs and, like, future, sort of, service leads.
193 00:28:50.150 ⇒ 00:28:55.030 Uttam Kumaran: I think this is sort of, like, our current… stack of…
194 00:28:55.590 ⇒ 00:29:03.710 Uttam Kumaran: deals, and a client can have more than one deal. And so, for example, you’ll see that there are 3 deals for Eden right now.
195 00:29:05.060 ⇒ 00:29:14.360 Uttam Kumaran: which is Remo, Martech, and strategy. And so, for example, Zoran, you’re gonna be kind of nominated as, like, the CSO for Eden Martech.
196 00:29:14.590 ⇒ 00:29:17.969 Uttam Kumaran: In addition, you can also see that we’ve started to…
197 00:29:18.330 ⇒ 00:29:23.240 Uttam Kumaran: Move people into the engagement planning roles for as many clients as possible as well.
198 00:29:23.470 ⇒ 00:29:28.660 Uttam Kumaran: Which is, like, Amber, Ashwini, Mustafa, Pranav.
199 00:29:28.780 ⇒ 00:29:41.290 Uttam Kumaran: For you guys, your job is to, you know, make sure all the different assets for a client and linear tickets are prepared, and then also this quarter is to think about, like, where you want, how do you want to move up.
200 00:29:42.930 ⇒ 00:29:56.869 Uttam Kumaran: if you want to stay in engagement planning, or if you want to… some people may want to move either side. What I will say is our… right now, we have a glut in CSOs. And so, for the most part, what I will be looking for is for people to…
201 00:29:56.920 ⇒ 00:30:08.019 Uttam Kumaran: raise their hand and want to move from engagement planning to CSOs. And additionally, when I’m going to go higher, I’m going to be going and looking mainly to bring on
202 00:30:08.020 ⇒ 00:30:25.919 Uttam Kumaran: more CSOs. However, I will point out for Greg, for, Zoran, and for, you know, Ashwini, Pranav, for everybody here that’s on EPs, anywhere where my name is or Robert’s name is, is up for grabs.
203 00:30:26.090 ⇒ 00:30:39.999 Uttam Kumaran: Right? And so, this is where you guys need to… one thing I want to fix here as we look at this every week is that any opportunity here that you guys think you can come in and cover is totally open. We…
204 00:30:40.040 ⇒ 00:31:02.779 Uttam Kumaran: the only… I said, as you can… I think the reason why we haven’t assigned you guys there is maybe out of, hey, can… like, Greg, can you cover on this type of project? Do you have the familiarity? Or, like, Zoran, do you feel comfortable coming into this new area? And so this is what we’ll be working on this quarter, is, like, seeing where else you guys can expand into. However, for folks like Demolade, for folks like Awash.
205 00:31:04.380 ⇒ 00:31:24.159 Uttam Kumaran: for folks like Sam, it’s pretty defined. I think we’ve been running pretty well, and so you guys are gonna kind of stick where you are. I think the biggest thing, for me when I look at this, Demolade, you’re tasked on a couple of projects, and so I want to make sure that you feel comfortable running those and running all the CSO rituals.
206 00:31:24.180 ⇒ 00:31:30.279 Uttam Kumaran: I think Zora and Greg, you guys are up next as how many other projects you guys can also come in and take on.
207 00:31:30.530 ⇒ 00:31:35.239 Uttam Kumaran: So that’s something I want to work directly with you two guys on where you feel
208 00:31:35.470 ⇒ 00:31:41.239 Uttam Kumaran: really low comfortability, and where you feel like, okay, if I… if I could pair with you, I could probably figure it out in a couple weeks.
209 00:31:41.360 ⇒ 00:31:50.370 Uttam Kumaran: Those ones is, like, immediately up for grabs, so you can see anywhere where I’m assigned, or my name or Robert’s name is, is totally available. I don’t know whether…
210 00:31:50.560 ⇒ 00:32:01.519 Uttam Kumaran: we’re gonna max out at 3 or 4 assignments per person yet. But what I do know is you… we will most likely not have people that are playing two different roles.
211 00:32:01.520 ⇒ 00:32:12.019 Uttam Kumaran: Across two different clients. For the most part, you will stick in one category. You may see my name. Anywhere where there’s a gap, it’s gonna be me or Robert for now.
212 00:32:12.250 ⇒ 00:32:18.270 Uttam Kumaran: And so those are the immediate targets that we’re either gonna go out to the market to bring in people for, or try to find internally.
213 00:32:18.600 ⇒ 00:32:29.430 Uttam Kumaran: And the additional piece at the bottom here, you’re seeing this is where we’re planning for new clients. So we… we’re gonna have a potentially new workstream for default, new client in Breezy.
214 00:32:29.430 ⇒ 00:32:39.290 Uttam Kumaran: We have a potential new, you know, workstream with Element. We may have additional future workstream with ABC. All of these, we’re gonna start to do assignments and assign… sign these out.
215 00:32:42.590 ⇒ 00:32:55.849 Uttam Kumaran: And then the last piece is, like, look, if you’re assisting, like, Greg, for the default strategy workstream, I’m gonna call you to put the scope together. If you help me put that scope together, and you sell it, then that 5% is yours, or whatever we talked about, right? So…
216 00:32:55.920 ⇒ 00:33:08.549 Uttam Kumaran: this is how… those are things that I, in the past, would have to do myself, and I actually, like, we need to give that away. And I want you guys to… part of the… what makes us a really strong company for our clients is that
217 00:33:08.550 ⇒ 00:33:24.420 Uttam Kumaran: our engineers come all the way from the sales process, all the way into delivery, all the way into renewal. We’re not… don’t have, like, a salesperson, and then that person hands it to an account manager. The account manager brings in a bunch of people, right? That’s, like, a horrible, disjointed process that we don’t do here.
218 00:33:24.420 ⇒ 00:33:34.900 Uttam Kumaran: But, you know, in an effort to make sure that you guys can do that, and I know this is actually, like, in addition to engineering work, we’re gonna compensate pretty generously.
219 00:33:40.060 ⇒ 00:33:40.930 Uttam Kumaran: Cool.
220 00:33:41.490 ⇒ 00:33:42.420 Uttam Kumaran: Thoughts?
221 00:33:47.910 ⇒ 00:33:50.000 Greg Stoutenburg: Sounds good. I’ll spend time reading it all.
222 00:33:50.000 ⇒ 00:33:51.080 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
223 00:33:53.860 ⇒ 00:33:54.460 Uttam Kumaran: Cool.
224 00:33:54.700 ⇒ 00:34:00.010 Uttam Kumaran: The last thing maybe I’ll mention, is…
225 00:34:01.020 ⇒ 00:34:07.060 Uttam Kumaran: one, this is probably, like, I wrote this as, like, okay, if I was in this meeting, like, what are my big takeaways?
226 00:34:07.370 ⇒ 00:34:26.839 Uttam Kumaran: there is a lot of money on the table, primarily because, and I think, Robert, you may end up sharing this later, is, like, our sales goals and our revenue target is also very, very high. Like, we have a pretty clear path to, you know, adding another $100,000 in, in monthly revenue by the end of the quarter.
227 00:34:26.840 ⇒ 00:34:32.239 Uttam Kumaran: Meaning, moving from around, like, 250, and so as…
228 00:34:32.290 ⇒ 00:34:51.650 Uttam Kumaran: as a delivery leader, my job is to understand how do we deliver on that amount of revenue, and how do I do that with less people, so that I could pay more and have… retain you guys? And so that’s all that I’m thinking about. So there’s a huge opportunity right now, in this next two quarters, to make a lot of money. This is not going to be available long-term.
229 00:34:51.650 ⇒ 00:35:00.869 Uttam Kumaran: Meaning people that join ahead of y’all are not gonna get this type of deal. Additionally, as we start to grow, we are not gonna be able to grow
230 00:35:01.060 ⇒ 00:35:17.890 Uttam Kumaran: we’re not gonna be able to grow 100% every quarter for very… for much longer. I mean, maybe, I don’t know, we’ll see. If it is, then we’ll keep evolving this way, but I don’t think it’s gonna happen. There’s gonna be a plateau, and so there’s a great opportunity over the next 6 months for y’all to get a big piece of that.
231 00:35:17.890 ⇒ 00:35:22.139 Uttam Kumaran: And I’m super, super excited, like, this makes me super, super happy.
232 00:35:22.140 ⇒ 00:35:34.650 Uttam Kumaran: The last piece we had here is even more specifically, like, what are some of the non-negotiables, right? I think we do have these KPIs that unlock these bonuses, but for us, when we… I also want to think about
233 00:35:34.740 ⇒ 00:35:45.780 Uttam Kumaran: what indications am I going to look for that someone is struggling at this role? And these are the initial list of what the core responsibilities are for each of these roles.
234 00:35:45.790 ⇒ 00:35:59.469 Uttam Kumaran: when we talk about… when we meet with each person throughout these next 4 weeks and talk about how it’s going, and when I meet with each crew to talk about how it’s going, I’m gonna be literally looking at a checkbox of each of these, whether these are happening.
235 00:35:59.620 ⇒ 00:36:19.509 Uttam Kumaran: ultimately, I know that if… and this is where, when I was talking to Clarence about, okay, we set sort of the ceiling about, like, okay, how do you grow? But also, like, what is the floor? What are the minimums here? I know that if we were to accomplish this, our clients will be happy. And so our minimum is not client is okay, client is, like, chugging along, it’s like, client is happy.
236 00:36:19.580 ⇒ 00:36:24.689 Uttam Kumaran: But for a client to be ecstatic, for a client to be calling, like, we had 2 clients call me last week.
237 00:36:24.740 ⇒ 00:36:40.570 Uttam Kumaran: trying to get more work out of us, right? Like, before New Year’s. So for that to happen, we have to do more. But I know that at minimum, if we were to do this, we are still better than the competition, by a long shot. And so these are… and this is what I found in… in…
238 00:36:40.570 ⇒ 00:36:57.239 Uttam Kumaran: me going through every role in this company, these are the minimums that if we were to do this, we’re going to be totally fine. If we’re not hitting this, that’s when we’re going to start having conversation to understand whether you want to be in another role, or whether, like, being in a lead role even makes sense. And so with
239 00:36:57.450 ⇒ 00:37:10.559 Uttam Kumaran: if I was to take one thing and tape it to my monitor, it would be these. And so, the clients that I’m gonna play CSO on, I’m gonna be doing this as well, and so everybody’s gonna be, you know, kind of being able to watch and learn.
240 00:37:11.270 ⇒ 00:37:19.069 Uttam Kumaran: The last piece, we… we’ve… we’ve sent out some new… some new meetings, and I may just flash some of those up
241 00:37:19.200 ⇒ 00:37:22.930 Uttam Kumaran: Right now, I don’t think everybody’s invited to…
242 00:37:23.020 ⇒ 00:37:27.450 Uttam Kumaran: everything, but, if I was to just share, like, my calendar.
243 00:37:27.530 ⇒ 00:37:35.479 Uttam Kumaran: We’re gonna start, today with, like, a meeting with each of the leads, and so I’ll send these
244 00:37:35.480 ⇒ 00:37:55.080 Uttam Kumaran: these out. These are just gonna be with me and everybody that’s in this role. Additionally, on Wednesdays, we’re gonna do, like, a client presentation dry run, so all the CSOs on projects who will be presenting, typically on Thursday and Friday, can at least present the skeleton of what they’re gonna do. Of course, it’s middle of the week, so not all the work may be done.
245 00:37:55.080 ⇒ 00:38:14.669 Uttam Kumaran: But as someone who’s been doing client presentations, like, for the last, you know, 2-3 months, as we started to, you know, make it really permanent, having this done by Wednesday is an extremely good indicator of the fact whether this is going to go well or not. And so, it’s something that I want to just meet with all the CSOs on Wednesday, be like, are you ready to present something?
246 00:38:14.790 ⇒ 00:38:28.029 Uttam Kumaran: And this is where we can catch a lot of the things that are going on, and also learn from each other and what we’re presenting. And ideally, again, in the short term, hopefully, Greg, for you and Zora, you guys see some of the things we’re presenting to clients, like, oh, I can totally take that, or I can pick that up.
247 00:38:30.780 ⇒ 00:38:38.289 Uttam Kumaran: And then, in terms of stand-ups, so, the SLs are gonna be running stand-ups, so Awash, I’ve just…
248 00:38:38.420 ⇒ 00:38:52.710 Uttam Kumaran: I just renamed the one that I think you’re running, and I can transfer this to you. But Robert, you and Sam will be running, you know, versions of the next one. There is a… there is a doc that Clarence wrote on how to run a great…
249 00:38:52.720 ⇒ 00:39:10.440 Uttam Kumaran: stand-up, and I think it’s important for y’all to… to read this, and for everybody here to understand what your role in the stand-up is gonna look like. Each person is gonna have something to share, and this should not be a,
250 00:39:10.790 ⇒ 00:39:26.050 Uttam Kumaran: solve everything in the immediate, you know, stand-up, but this is gonna be, like, what each person, their job is to do on every client in the stand-up. And so, if we do this right every day, the… you know, the dirty laundry should surface itself, and we should go crush that.
251 00:39:26.080 ⇒ 00:39:40.049 Uttam Kumaran: what… the meeting I’m not booking here is I’m not meeting… I’m not booking meetings between… within the crew. Like, for the clients that I’m a CSO on, like, take Lilo, for example. Me, Sam, and Pranav are there, right? I’m the CSO, Pranav’s EP.
252 00:39:40.240 ⇒ 00:39:49.130 Uttam Kumaran: We have to… we have to send them some scopes today. I’m gonna book a meeting between the three of us before that meeting happens to get aligned.
253 00:39:49.130 ⇒ 00:39:54.910 Uttam Kumaran: But I’m the CSO, so I’m gonna go do that. What I’m not gonna do, though, is I’m… Demi, I’m not gonna go do that on default.
254 00:39:54.910 ⇒ 00:40:12.319 Uttam Kumaran: I’m not gonna go do that on, Urban STEM, not gonna go do that on your clients. And so, you, as a CSO, you… and as every role, if you’re not getting what you need to do your job, you have to try to fight for that. Book the meeting, come to the next stand-up and flag that, hey, I haven’t been able to get
255 00:40:12.320 ⇒ 00:40:22.909 Uttam Kumaran: the technical, requirements in order to build a Gantt chart. Right? But your job is to book those meetings and solve that. Because in the event that there is a check on, like, hey, how is all the…
256 00:40:22.930 ⇒ 00:40:29.669 Uttam Kumaran: you know, project assets going for a client, you need to have that ready. So this is a great doc.
257 00:40:30.880 ⇒ 00:40:36.240 Uttam Kumaran: Sorry, I keep saying last thing, but I keep… like, we’ve just been thinking about this for so long that I have so much to share.
258 00:40:36.650 ⇒ 00:40:38.679 Uttam Kumaran: If I go to a…
259 00:40:39.160 ⇒ 00:40:56.950 Uttam Kumaran: One thing that I think will be helpful, that I’ll show everybody later today, is Gabe worked on creating this repo with a ton of helpful information on how to run and execute tons of different project-related activities. This is called the Brainforge Playbook.
260 00:40:57.080 ⇒ 00:41:09.569 Uttam Kumaran: I highly encourage you to use Cursor in addition to this repo to do your job, and this is something that I’m going to show everybody later today. On every single part of those deliverables, I’m using Cursor in one way or another.
261 00:41:09.570 ⇒ 00:41:25.269 Uttam Kumaran: you may ask me how I was previously CSOing and EPing 7 projects in a row. It’s pretty much only through using AI for absolutely everything, and it’s nailing it, it’s crushing it. And so, when I talk about how each of you in each of your role is gonna end up doing 3 or 4 of these.
262 00:41:25.270 ⇒ 00:41:29.740 Uttam Kumaran: It is going to be by using AI tools, it’s gonna be by leaning on people
263 00:41:29.740 ⇒ 00:41:36.430 Uttam Kumaran: you cannot just do this raw. And so we’re expecting you to be able to take advantage of these tools, and the AI team
264 00:41:36.430 ⇒ 00:41:50.830 Uttam Kumaran: is actually going to be tasked with building tools and prompts and playbooks for each of the roles to help you do your job faster. And so over time, actually, I think the project lead should actually become less and less of your time, you know, as we go.
265 00:41:50.870 ⇒ 00:42:08.560 Uttam Kumaran: take a look at this repo, it has tons and tons of helpful stuff on how to write SOWs, how to write PRDs, you know, like, tons of great, like, prompts on doing several different things, like writing tickets. I’ll be going through, like, how do you set up cursor and stuff later today with everybody, but this is a good thing to take a look at.
266 00:42:09.510 ⇒ 00:42:28.440 Uttam Kumaran: So I’ve done a lot of talking. I’m still really interested in getting feedback from everybody, so we are gonna book one-on-ones with everybody on this call, and at least, Clarence, or Robert will be there, and I’ll certainly be there to make sure that you feel comfortable. Any questions you have on what this looks like.
267 00:42:28.460 ⇒ 00:42:42.149 Uttam Kumaran: Just bear with us the next two days as, like, operations team is, like, booking everything and kind of taking care of. I know a lot of people are in between contracts and things like that, but I’m gonna make sure to talk to everybody over the next two weeks about your role, how it’s going in your role.
268 00:42:42.530 ⇒ 00:42:49.779 Uttam Kumaran: Next Friday, we’re gonna have a little bit of an internal, like, how is this going meeting.
269 00:42:49.950 ⇒ 00:43:06.479 Uttam Kumaran: So we’re gonna be able to check and see, like, is everybody picking everything up? Do we need to layer on more meetings? Are people crushing it? Should we move people to different spots? So, we’re gonna have check-ins, but I’m really, really expecting feedback, you know, from as many people as possible here.
270 00:43:07.800 ⇒ 00:43:12.940 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, and then again, I think the biggest thing is if you’re on a project, and you want more.
271 00:43:13.520 ⇒ 00:43:28.359 Uttam Kumaran: the assignments that everybody’s doing on a project is wide open. If you see a gap, or you see my name or Robert’s name, that is up for grabs. So, like, that’s all I would encourage, you know, you to think about.
272 00:43:29.320 ⇒ 00:43:36.480 Uttam Kumaran: And yeah, the faster that we could move Robert and I out, the faster I can go get the extra 100 grand, you know? So that’s…
273 00:43:37.130 ⇒ 00:43:48.890 Uttam Kumaran: That’s literally… that’s literally the challenge here. We are sitting on so much additional revenue from existing deals that I’m so happy for you guys to go sell and make money on.
274 00:43:48.890 ⇒ 00:43:57.519 Uttam Kumaran: There’s also so many clients that we’ve talked to in the last month that we have to go circle back with, and we haven’t circled back with anybody we’ve talked to in the last year and a half yet.
275 00:43:57.920 ⇒ 00:44:12.730 Uttam Kumaran: So the 100 grand is sitting there, like, it’s not… it’s, like, there. So it’s actually less about the fact that, does it exist? It’s the fact that, like, can we get it responsibly and still deliver for clients? Because that’s the one thing I can’t sacrifice, is letting the clients down.
276 00:44:12.870 ⇒ 00:44:29.709 Uttam Kumaran: So the faster we adopt this and we feel good about this, the faster we’ll grow. And I’m expecting this crew, over the next 6 months to a year to start moving up and taking on those vertical roles, taking on more clients, more complicated clients, and we’re gonna incentivize and comp appropriately, so…
277 00:44:32.670 ⇒ 00:44:33.520 Uttam Kumaran: Cool.
278 00:44:36.870 ⇒ 00:44:40.879 Samuel Roberts: Alright, no questions then. Yeah, I guess I’ll talk about… I’ve got one.
279 00:44:40.880 ⇒ 00:44:41.510 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, please.
280 00:44:41.510 ⇒ 00:44:53.969 Samuel Roberts: I just want to clarify. So, back to the stand-ups, are those expected to be the only 3 people on a… like, a stand-up per client? Like, if you’re… I guess I don’t really know how big some of the other teams are per client.
281 00:44:54.090 ⇒ 00:44:54.899 Samuel Roberts: Like, is it just…
282 00:44:55.100 ⇒ 00:45:06.820 Clarence Stone: Sam, that’s a great question. If you have ICs on your projects, they’re more than welcome to join the stand-up, and I think it’s… I would recommend it. That’s what I was…
283 00:45:06.820 ⇒ 00:45:07.740 Samuel Roberts: Alright, cool.
284 00:45:07.740 ⇒ 00:45:22.509 Clarence Stone: I mean, the point, though, is, like, I definitely want these three leaders to speak to every client they’re on, right? So, if you do have additional people, yeah, I mean, they’re free to participate, but this is a… I guess, like, we’re setting the floor for what should.
285 00:45:22.510 ⇒ 00:45:35.059 Samuel Roberts: That’s what I was making sure. I didn’t know if it was just, like, these three little powwow and talking about everything, or if everyone who might be on that client in some way was… Most of the people on clients are on this call, as you guys know, right? Well, that’s kind of why I wasn’t… but I figured as things, you know.
286 00:45:35.060 ⇒ 00:45:51.839 Uttam Kumaran: But it will change, right? So as we go and recruit and staff more people, it’s these 3 people, you know, in order… like, these three people are going to be the ones that hold the success of the project, and so at minimum, you guys have to meet. Everything else is up to you.
287 00:45:51.900 ⇒ 00:45:52.800 Samuel Roberts: Okay. You know.
288 00:45:52.800 ⇒ 00:46:06.829 Demilade Agboola: As a sequel to that question, will the service leader have to meet with the ICs on the project to get updates on the tickets? Will that be its own thing? So will there be, like, a pre-stand-up call of some sort?
289 00:46:07.540 ⇒ 00:46:15.069 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so I would… I would say, I could let Clarence also answer, I would say the service leaders are going to be much more horizontal across a service.
290 00:46:15.120 ⇒ 00:46:29.309 Uttam Kumaran: So my… my thought, like, if I’m thinking about my clients, I’m gonna probably either do a pre-standup or meet once or twice a week with everybody on my team before going to that service stand-up.
291 00:46:29.410 ⇒ 00:46:31.380 Uttam Kumaran: And I’m gonna try to save them
292 00:46:31.860 ⇒ 00:46:35.770 Uttam Kumaran: If I have any ICs on my team, I’m gonna try to save them a meeting by not having them go to that.
293 00:46:37.180 ⇒ 00:46:40.700 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, I think even Slack check-ins, like, end of the day kind of things are probably going to be.
294 00:46:40.700 ⇒ 00:46:48.239 Uttam Kumaran: Like, I’m gonna own the relationship in my pod, and then I’m gonna bring that to the larger service stand-up.
295 00:46:50.190 ⇒ 00:46:57.209 Clarence Stone: Yeah, so agreed on all parts here, and also just want to highlight that, you know, these three leaders, have
296 00:46:57.210 ⇒ 00:47:21.080 Clarence Stone: equal voices in what’s happening. So, if the SL, you know, created a pattern where, you know, it’s causing hardship for planning or understanding what the client wants, bring that up and have a conversation with each other, right? What I can say right now is having large amounts of ICs on an individual project isn’t a model that exists right now in any of our projects, so we’re still trying to figure out what the right way to handle it is.
297 00:47:21.080 ⇒ 00:47:32.560 Clarence Stone: So, at the very least today, you know, invite any IC to join your stand-ups, and, kind of use that guideline as the minimum for all the leaders.
298 00:47:43.640 ⇒ 00:47:44.200 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
299 00:47:44.310 ⇒ 00:47:50.050 Pranav: Question, actually. Yeah. For the KPI performance,
300 00:47:50.320 ⇒ 00:48:06.729 Pranav: say you’re just on one client versus multiple clients, is… say, like, you’re on multiple clients, I guess. Is your KPI performance, like, averaged, and then that’s what, like, I guess, is used to, like, assess whether you get that 5% bonus, or is it, like, per client?
301 00:48:07.260 ⇒ 00:48:09.190 Pranav: Like, you get 5% per client.
302 00:48:10.170 ⇒ 00:48:14.400 Uttam Kumaran: It’s gonna be basically across all the clients of where she holds the responsibility, yeah.
303 00:48:14.850 ⇒ 00:48:15.550 Pranav: Gotcha.
304 00:48:15.740 ⇒ 00:48:16.310 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
305 00:48:16.750 ⇒ 00:48:31.650 Uttam Kumaran: like, to give you my angle is, like, I can… I really want to give as much as I can, but it has to be operationally possible. Like, I just don’t have… we don’t have a lot of the operational capacity to do complex KPI and incentives right now. We may have that…
306 00:48:31.970 ⇒ 00:48:36.649 Uttam Kumaran: Like, later. Like, probably by mid-year, at least.
307 00:48:36.700 ⇒ 00:48:49.540 Uttam Kumaran: So for me, it’s just important that, like, I want to make money available, I want you guys to go and get it, I don’t want to overcomplicate that much, and we’re gonna help you get these. Like, I want you guys to hit these. Like, it’s not… so it’s like…
308 00:48:49.540 ⇒ 00:49:05.889 Uttam Kumaran: for me, I want to set the minimum things that I know if we were to hit, it moves us from, like, doing the baseline to, like, really good, and then I’ll start to layer on more, and then I’ll start to remove myself naturally, and so these will be things that the head of SL or these will determine, you know? But it just sets the framework for that.
309 00:49:05.940 ⇒ 00:49:20.320 Uttam Kumaran: But I’m here to help you achieve all those. Like, I’m gonna… I’m down to give as much as I can away, you know? So I want… I want you guys to be able to make that, and we’re gonna meet every week, we can meet every day, whatever you need to accomplish that, it’s there.
310 00:49:28.830 ⇒ 00:49:35.310 Uttam Kumaran: Cool. I guess, like, Ashwini, Amber, Casey, Mustafa… Questions?
311 00:49:38.110 ⇒ 00:49:42.130 Amber Lin: Not really. I’ve asked mine, when we met earlier.
312 00:49:42.130 ⇒ 00:49:42.710 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
313 00:49:43.060 ⇒ 00:49:43.660 Uttam Kumaran: Cool.
314 00:49:43.660 ⇒ 00:49:46.029 Ashwini Sharma: No, no questions from my side.
315 00:49:50.870 ⇒ 00:49:51.690 Casie Aviles: Questions for me?
316 00:49:51.870 ⇒ 00:49:54.890 Casie Aviles: I’m just taking everything in right now.
317 00:49:54.890 ⇒ 00:49:55.470 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
318 00:49:59.550 ⇒ 00:50:00.310 Uttam Kumaran: Cool.
319 00:50:01.210 ⇒ 00:50:20.870 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, guys, well, I’ll let you go. I think we have a big, you know, week this week, so I’m gonna add people to meetings. If you have any questions, I’m also gonna create channels for each of the roles, so you’ll be in there. Again, I’ll make sure to at least one-on-one talk to everybody here in the next two weeks, but, like, I’m around, and I’ll be working, so just hit me if anything’s urgent.
320 00:50:21.050 ⇒ 00:50:24.040 Uttam Kumaran: But yeah, super, super excited.
321 00:50:24.350 ⇒ 00:50:32.899 Uttam Kumaran: this was, like, a lot of work over the last 6 weeks, a lot of work that Clarence actually owns, so I’m very, very thankful, that he kind of proposed it, but…
322 00:50:33.090 ⇒ 00:50:48.479 Uttam Kumaran: It took a while for us to find a path that, like, makes… that I’m not, like, nervous about accomplishing, and I think finally we’re, like, at a good point where seeing all your faces on a screen and… and sort of seeing everything in one place, like, made me really happy today, so I appreciate you guys being open to this.
323 00:50:52.630 ⇒ 00:50:55.659 Uttam Kumaran: Cool. Okay. Thank you guys. I’ll talk to you soon.
324 00:50:56.310 ⇒ 00:50:57.180 Samuel Roberts: Thanks, thank you.
325 00:50:57.700 ⇒ 00:50:58.709 Uttam Kumaran: Thank you, bye.