Meeting Title: Brainforge CSO Weekly Sync Date: 2026-01-12 Meeting participants: Uttam Kumaran, Greg Stoutenburg, Rico Rejoso, Elizah Joy, Clarence Stone, Demilade Agboola
WEBVTT
1 00:01:24.030 ⇒ 00:01:25.010 Uttam Kumaran: Hello!
2 00:01:26.050 ⇒ 00:01:28.200 Greg Stoutenburg: Hey, how’s it going? What did that thing say?
3 00:01:28.200 ⇒ 00:01:28.910 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, dude.
4 00:01:29.340 ⇒ 00:01:30.619 Uttam Kumaran: What does one say?
5 00:01:30.620 ⇒ 00:01:37.659 Greg Stoutenburg: Well, there was a… there was a… there was a thing in Zoom here, as soon as I came in, it was like, use… you can use gestures with your hands, is what it said.
6 00:01:37.660 ⇒ 00:01:38.620 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, yeah.
7 00:01:38.620 ⇒ 00:01:40.020 Greg Stoutenburg: Let’s see if this does something.
8 00:01:41.420 ⇒ 00:01:45.669 Greg Stoutenburg: I only saw this. It was trying to explain it to me, okay, yeah, alright.
9 00:01:45.670 ⇒ 00:01:50.359 Uttam Kumaran: I turned it off because sometimes it popped up at, like, very inopportune times.
10 00:01:50.360 ⇒ 00:01:50.860 Greg Stoutenburg: Oh, yeah.
11 00:01:50.860 ⇒ 00:01:55.219 Uttam Kumaran: So I turned it off… I think I may have turned it off globally for our… Yeah.
12 00:01:55.220 ⇒ 00:02:11.620 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, I’ve been in meetings before where that was on, and, you know, you’re talking to, like, a client or a prospect or something, and someone makes a gesture that doesn’t seem to correspond to anything, and then it’s like, all of a sudden, this is the disco party. I don’t know if we can take these guys soon.
13 00:02:11.620 ⇒ 00:02:15.069 Uttam Kumaran: For that reason, you’re fired, and it’s, like, laughing. Oh, right, yeah.
14 00:02:15.070 ⇒ 00:02:21.310 Greg Stoutenburg: And that was going to be a $90,000 deal, and which is less than your severance, have a good one.
15 00:02:21.310 ⇒ 00:02:22.880 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, yes.
16 00:02:25.190 ⇒ 00:02:28.440 Greg Stoutenburg: I’ll put this up, since it’s getting a little darker in here.
17 00:02:29.840 ⇒ 00:02:30.950 Greg Stoutenburg: How was your weekend?
18 00:02:31.570 ⇒ 00:02:32.370 Uttam Kumaran: Good!
19 00:02:32.370 ⇒ 00:02:33.460 Greg Stoutenburg: Good. How about you?
20 00:02:33.830 ⇒ 00:02:38.240 Greg Stoutenburg: It was good. It was good. It’s kind of rainy, unfortunately. Oof.
21 00:02:38.520 ⇒ 00:02:44.009 Greg Stoutenburg: Would have been a good weekend to go skiing had the weather been entirely different, so…
22 00:02:45.040 ⇒ 00:02:45.970 Greg Stoutenburg: There we go.
23 00:02:46.560 ⇒ 00:02:50.330 Greg Stoutenburg: Alright, skin tone matches the area, that’s good. Yeah.
24 00:02:50.330 ⇒ 00:02:54.430 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I feel like you probably got a lot of snow. I know some of my other friends, and actually.
25 00:02:54.990 ⇒ 00:03:01.230 Uttam Kumaran: My friend in Baltimore, didn’t you just guys get a bunch of snow, like, today, or this week, or it’s coming?
26 00:03:01.230 ⇒ 00:03:07.540 Greg Stoutenburg: We had some flurries yesterday, well, I actually had hail yesterday midday, which is crazy.
27 00:03:07.540 ⇒ 00:03:08.210 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
28 00:03:08.210 ⇒ 00:03:23.620 Greg Stoutenburg: It got warm this weekend, but we had some flurries a bit ago. Not that any of that matters for ski conditions out here. It’s like, mostly it’s just like, we just need to be able to make this fake sleet that we ski on, otherwise no one’s having any fun.
29 00:03:27.000 ⇒ 00:03:31.000 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, we, we’re gonna go to… we’re going to Tahoe next month.
30 00:03:31.390 ⇒ 00:03:33.240 Uttam Kumaran: Nice. For a friend’s birthday.
31 00:03:33.600 ⇒ 00:03:33.960 Greg Stoutenburg: Nice.
32 00:03:33.960 ⇒ 00:03:35.199 Uttam Kumaran: That should be really fun.
33 00:03:35.200 ⇒ 00:03:36.899 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, that’s awesome.
34 00:03:36.900 ⇒ 00:03:37.540 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
35 00:03:37.790 ⇒ 00:03:43.160 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, never been skiing out there, so if this person wants any new friends, like, in the next month, let me know.
36 00:03:43.160 ⇒ 00:03:46.219 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, I’ll ask him.
37 00:03:46.220 ⇒ 00:03:48.820 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, yeah, every time.
38 00:03:48.820 ⇒ 00:03:52.899 Uttam Kumaran: popular, but that may be a good thing. Yeah, I want to get more popular.
39 00:03:52.900 ⇒ 00:03:58.819 Greg Stoutenburg: That’s right, that’s right. One more follower, if you take me to Tahoe. I’ll follow you on every platform.
40 00:03:58.980 ⇒ 00:04:00.999 Uttam Kumaran: What’s one more, yeah, yeah.
41 00:04:04.750 ⇒ 00:04:05.930 Greg Stoutenburg: How are you, Clarence?
42 00:04:06.360 ⇒ 00:04:07.210 Clarence Stone: Good.
43 00:04:08.250 ⇒ 00:04:09.640 Greg Stoutenburg: I like the office.
44 00:04:09.640 ⇒ 00:04:10.650 Clarence Stone: Oh, thank you.
45 00:04:12.310 ⇒ 00:04:13.639 Greg Stoutenburg: Is that your real office?
46 00:04:14.400 ⇒ 00:04:18.599 Greg Stoutenburg: It’s very… okay, I was gonna say, if it’s… if it’s an image, it’s very convincing.
47 00:04:18.600 ⇒ 00:04:20.319 Clarence Stone: It looks like a green screen, right?
48 00:04:20.320 ⇒ 00:04:22.130 Greg Stoutenburg: I mean, yeah, it’s very cool.
49 00:04:28.520 ⇒ 00:04:29.820 Uttam Kumaran: Okay…
50 00:04:32.600 ⇒ 00:04:36.450 Greg Stoutenburg: I like seeing the agenda on here. I love seeing an agenda attached to a meeting item.
51 00:04:39.370 ⇒ 00:04:42.529 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I, I feel like we need to…
52 00:04:43.270 ⇒ 00:04:50.490 Uttam Kumaran: we need to… I tried to send… I sent out notes, but I didn’t know if anyone added any. I have… I always have things to talk about, but…
53 00:04:55.030 ⇒ 00:05:01.839 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, we can take a sec and work on agenda, or kind of go around the horn also.
54 00:05:02.010 ⇒ 00:05:06.110 Uttam Kumaran: Who else? Let me… What else are we waiting for?
55 00:05:09.040 ⇒ 00:05:12.610 Uttam Kumaran: Just talked to Zohan, so just maybe… this may be us today.
56 00:05:20.070 ⇒ 00:05:27.470 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, do we want to take a sec and maybe, like, write some thoughts down on this agenda, and then I’ll… we’ll be… we’re gonna send this out.
57 00:05:27.690 ⇒ 00:05:30.440 Uttam Kumaran: earlier in the day
58 00:05:30.920 ⇒ 00:05:36.000 Uttam Kumaran: But that way, we can make sure to hit all topics, or, move some topics async.
59 00:05:36.140 ⇒ 00:05:39.610 Uttam Kumaran: We need to, so I’ll put… I’m gonna start putting some thoughts down.
60 00:09:35.800 ⇒ 00:09:43.759 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, how do we feel? Just go round… go round robin. Maybe I’ll go first, like…
61 00:09:44.110 ⇒ 00:09:58.329 Uttam Kumaran: I think it’s helpful just to talk through, like, if there are any clients that are really struggling right now. I mean, on my side, we sort of have, like, a little bit of a weird situation with, CES, like, they… I mean, they just finished the conference.
62 00:09:58.370 ⇒ 00:10:04.419 Uttam Kumaran: But our stakeholder is on, like, a bereavement leave, or… why do you say that? Bereavement?
63 00:10:04.600 ⇒ 00:10:07.029 Uttam Kumaran: Leave, whatever.
64 00:10:07.540 ⇒ 00:10:12.689 Uttam Kumaran: So, like, it’s kind of a little bit slow. Ashwini and I are still making progress, but…
65 00:10:13.240 ⇒ 00:10:15.519 Uttam Kumaran: sort of tough, because, like, I’m trying to…
66 00:10:15.890 ⇒ 00:10:24.279 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, she’s, like, really, like, our main stakeholder. So, we’re just gonna keep the kind of… my ways, I’m just gonna keep sending stuff in Slack.
67 00:10:24.460 ⇒ 00:10:35.780 Uttam Kumaran: And trying to just stay top of mind, so that when we do end up… when she does end up coming back, like, we’re fine. We’re… we haven’t… we’re not… we don’t have, like, another stakeholder there, so it’s a little bit tough, but…
68 00:10:36.010 ⇒ 00:10:41.070 Uttam Kumaran: the feedback… The whole time has been pretty good, so I’m not… not, like, super worried.
69 00:10:41.260 ⇒ 00:10:45.360 Uttam Kumaran: And then, yeah, I just shot out, like.
70 00:10:45.820 ⇒ 00:10:54.070 Uttam Kumaran: just, like, the biggest email… email update ever for the ABC about, like, A bunch of,
71 00:10:55.670 ⇒ 00:11:00.769 Uttam Kumaran: a bunch of things, and their feedback is… was really positive, so I got a really good…
72 00:11:00.890 ⇒ 00:11:07.869 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I just sent it, already got a response, so feeling okay there. Element, stuff went well.
73 00:11:08.040 ⇒ 00:11:12.610 Uttam Kumaran: Like, today, last week.
74 00:11:12.770 ⇒ 00:11:16.720 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
75 00:11:17.000 ⇒ 00:11:26.370 Uttam Kumaran: So I feel kind of good. I don’t know if there’s any other clients. I feel like I heard from both of y’all about REME, and then I heard Demolati from stuff about Magic Spoon, and…
76 00:11:26.540 ⇒ 00:11:33.379 Uttam Kumaran: And default, stuff’s good, so… I don’t think there’s any, like, red flags, right, as of now.
77 00:11:36.140 ⇒ 00:11:38.190 Demilade Agboola: Yeah, not too far from mine, yeah.
78 00:11:39.850 ⇒ 00:11:40.560 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
79 00:11:40.810 ⇒ 00:11:47.289 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, maybe, Greg, we can talk about yours, working multiple work streams for a client with different team structures.
80 00:11:49.230 ⇒ 00:11:53.439 Greg Stoutenburg: Yep, it looks like this is the same as your bullet point number 2. So,
81 00:11:53.540 ⇒ 00:12:11.930 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, the only reason that I put that is because I was thinking, that Debbie and I are working as CSO for distinct work streams that are both for default, and, I don’t know what that has looked like in the past, but this was more like a note that this is something that we’ll need to think through. My thought being…
82 00:12:11.930 ⇒ 00:12:20.870 Greg Stoutenburg: We don’t want to, we can’t take everything that’s, like, in the CSO playbook and then apply it, from my perspective.
83 00:12:20.920 ⇒ 00:12:21.920 Greg Stoutenburg: to default.
84 00:12:21.920 ⇒ 00:12:22.520 Uttam Kumaran: same person.
85 00:12:22.520 ⇒ 00:12:37.850 Greg Stoutenburg: you know, a whole bunch of distinct meetings, right? And then Demi does the exact same thing, so then we’re requiring twice as much from default while delivering, you know, just two work streams. Yeah. So, this is more like just, that we just have to think about how to do it. So I think,
86 00:12:37.850 ⇒ 00:12:47.339 Greg Stoutenburg: Debbie and I will just need to coordinate on that to make sure that we’re, you know, delivering everything that they want to see, but in a way that’s not overwhelming to them, since we’re serving them.
87 00:12:51.030 ⇒ 00:12:55.030 Clarence Stone: So, Greg, good news, this isn’t the first time I’ve ran into this, so…
88 00:12:56.310 ⇒ 00:13:01.279 Clarence Stone: But I think the big question is, do you and Demi have the same exact stakeholder?
89 00:13:03.150 ⇒ 00:13:06.510 Greg Stoutenburg: I’m gonna let Demi answer that question, because I don’t know. I think so.
90 00:13:07.130 ⇒ 00:13:19.100 Demilade Agboola: I would say high level, yes. Caitlin is our general touch point, but of course, there are other people across the business that also care for different things, so, like, there’s Lev, there’s Stan, there’s Laura.
91 00:13:19.210 ⇒ 00:13:37.489 Demilade Agboola: And they potentially have, like, other things to care for. In terms of, like, things like amplitude, I’m guessing, like, Greg would also need to touch base with, like, Lev and Stan in particular, because those are their, business development and, marketing leads, so those are the people who will really care for…
92 00:13:37.840 ⇒ 00:13:41.169 Demilade Agboola: like, to see the impact of what Greg’s work stream brings.
93 00:13:43.430 ⇒ 00:13:45.440 Clarence Stone: Okay, so…
94 00:13:46.820 ⇒ 00:14:06.430 Clarence Stone: like, this will be different every single time, because the relationships between CSO and the representatives at, you know, the company are going to be different, right, Greg? So, if you have a different target audience for what you’re doing, you’re gonna just run your pod like you’re running a separate project.
95 00:14:06.910 ⇒ 00:14:19.169 Clarence Stone: Right? But if you guys are talking to the same people, then there is a conversation to be had on how you want to standardize the outreach, and how you want to have those touchpoints. So that’s the big part, Demi, Greg, like.
96 00:14:19.170 ⇒ 00:14:33.860 Clarence Stone: If it ends up being that the same three executives are reviewing both of the projects that you guys are doing, then we should talk about consolidating the communications and the presentations. If it’s a different audience entirely, I would treat it separately.
97 00:14:33.860 ⇒ 00:14:37.639 Clarence Stone: tactically, Greg, the reason why I recommend that is
98 00:14:37.640 ⇒ 00:14:45.739 Clarence Stone: There should be more of a larger surface area for us to make connections and relationships with clients if we keep it separate.
99 00:14:46.090 ⇒ 00:14:46.770 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah.
100 00:14:46.770 ⇒ 00:14:59.909 Clarence Stone: So, like, Greg, you’ll make best friends with whoever, you know, your project, you know, customers, Demi, you have, you know, the same thing on your end. But if it starts to be the same person, yeah, we should definitely talk.
101 00:15:00.210 ⇒ 00:15:01.150 Clarence Stone: Right.
102 00:15:01.480 ⇒ 00:15:02.050 Greg Stoutenburg: Hmm.
103 00:15:02.150 ⇒ 00:15:08.509 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, what do you think, Demi? I mean, just knowing that, Caitlin is our primary point of contact,
104 00:15:08.830 ⇒ 00:15:15.789 Greg Stoutenburg: I don’t know, do you have any initial thoughts? I was gonna… I was gonna raise this to you tomorrow, and then have a call, but do you have any initial thoughts?
105 00:15:16.690 ⇒ 00:15:33.959 Demilade Agboola: Yeah, I think, for instance, maybe we can consolidate, like, our end-of-week updates, so we potentially don’t have to do two different end-of-week updates. It’s, like, all… this is what we accomplished in this work stream, and this is what we accomplished in this work stream. So at least that one, that, like.
106 00:15:34.560 ⇒ 00:15:36.960 Demilade Agboola: Reduces meetings in that sense.
107 00:15:37.140 ⇒ 00:15:39.030 Demilade Agboola: In terms of, like.
108 00:15:39.560 ⇒ 00:15:46.729 Demilade Agboola: potentially checking in on certain things, or getting certain contacts, I don’t think we might necessarily be able to consolidate that.
109 00:15:46.890 ⇒ 00:16:02.150 Demilade Agboola: Because things I’ll need to figure out by myself, or things you might need to figure out for your work stream by yourself, we’ll still need to reach out to her individually. Yeah. But I think in terms of, like, the broad touch points, yeah, we could always consolidate those, like, those general meetings.
110 00:16:02.500 ⇒ 00:16:03.880 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, I think so.
111 00:16:04.640 ⇒ 00:16:05.580 Demilade Agboola: Yeah.
112 00:16:06.640 ⇒ 00:16:11.730 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I guess, like, my question… my other question is kind of similar on this vein, is, like.
113 00:16:11.860 ⇒ 00:16:19.119 Uttam Kumaran: Is there, like, a primary account folder, and then there’s, like, people that manage the work streams?
114 00:16:19.540 ⇒ 00:16:26.069 Uttam Kumaran: like, ultimately, customer does not really care about how we do it, right? So…
115 00:16:26.070 ⇒ 00:16:26.610 Greg Stoutenburg: Right.
116 00:16:26.750 ⇒ 00:16:33.140 Uttam Kumaran: I just want to make sure, like, Eden has the same problem, where there’s, like, 4 work streams.
117 00:16:33.540 ⇒ 00:16:36.740 Uttam Kumaran: And then Robert is kind of the ultimate CSO.
118 00:16:37.280 ⇒ 00:16:42.130 Uttam Kumaran: Or, like, the account manager, basically, because they get big enough to, like, warrant that.
119 00:16:42.670 ⇒ 00:16:57.550 Uttam Kumaran: In this situation, it’s gonna probably be Caitlin until they hire, like, well, someone to manage the… like, she’s, like, kind of, like, one of their main product managers, and the other product managers are the CEO and the CTO. So until, like, they grow, they…
120 00:16:57.780 ⇒ 00:17:04.439 Uttam Kumaran: it’s gonna kind of be just one person, but, like, Demi’s doing a good job of, like, getting other stakeholders.
121 00:17:04.740 ⇒ 00:17:15.160 Uttam Kumaran: So, most of the update to Caitlin is, like, we met with this person, we’re delivering for them, we met with this person, we’re delivering for them. In this situation, Greg, you probably will just be delivering straight for Caitlin.
122 00:17:15.160 ⇒ 00:17:16.309 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah. Because they’re…
123 00:17:16.310 ⇒ 00:17:18.979 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know whether there’s gonna be other people
124 00:17:19.210 ⇒ 00:17:22.439 Uttam Kumaran: Or maybe it’s Caitlin and, like, their CTO.
125 00:17:22.560 ⇒ 00:17:25.899 Uttam Kumaran: Right? So maybe it’s helpful to find out Caitlin and who.
126 00:17:28.129 ⇒ 00:17:33.909 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, yeah, and I guess upon talking to them, that’s just gonna get sorted out quickly.
127 00:17:34.380 ⇒ 00:17:34.940 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
128 00:17:38.770 ⇒ 00:17:47.599 Uttam Kumaran: So yeah, I mean, I think we gotta have, Clarence, like, a playbook for, like, how to handle multiple work streams per client with multiple CSOs, because this is distinct enough.
129 00:17:47.880 ⇒ 00:18:00.550 Clarence Stone: So, I mean, the answer is, if it’s the same rep, then we have to talk about how we’re going to consolidate aspects of the project. If it’s a different point of contact, then it’s a separate project that just operates separately.
130 00:18:01.160 ⇒ 00:18:01.700 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
131 00:18:01.950 ⇒ 00:18:05.200 Clarence Stone: So, that’s… that’s the guidance.
132 00:18:05.420 ⇒ 00:18:09.660 Uttam Kumaran: But I guess, like, in Eden situation, we’re floating to their whole executive team.
133 00:18:10.610 ⇒ 00:18:14.850 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. Like, what we’re doing every two weeks, right? So who does that? Like…
134 00:18:15.070 ⇒ 00:18:18.589 Uttam Kumaran: Right now, it’s Robert’s doing that. Like, who… who should do that?
135 00:18:20.310 ⇒ 00:18:22.940 Clarence Stone: whoever Eden CSO is, let me check the table.
136 00:18:22.940 ⇒ 00:18:25.610 Uttam Kumaran: But Eden has 4… Eden has 3 CSOs.
137 00:18:28.270 ⇒ 00:18:29.150 Clarence Stone: Okay.
138 00:18:29.150 ⇒ 00:18:33.919 Uttam Kumaran: Because we’re working on strategy, we’re working on data stuff for them, and we’re working on, like, marketing tech.
139 00:18:34.180 ⇒ 00:18:35.290 Uttam Kumaran: Like, tracking.
140 00:18:36.910 ⇒ 00:18:37.660 Clarence Stone: Okay.
141 00:18:38.140 ⇒ 00:18:42.120 Clarence Stone: I mean, what… I guess, like, I don’t understand…
142 00:18:42.690 ⇒ 00:18:46.929 Clarence Stone: What the difficulty is running each one of them as separate projects.
143 00:18:46.930 ⇒ 00:18:50.169 Uttam Kumaran: But who’s gonna pitch… who’s gonna present to the executive team?
144 00:18:50.170 ⇒ 00:19:06.859 Clarence Stone: So we resolved that, like, the… every two weeks, everybody that’s part of Eden is actually going into a mega slide deck that’s going to be part of that presentation. So, like, for example, Zoran, right? Zoran has his own weekly touchpoints with, his own rep.
145 00:19:06.940 ⇒ 00:19:13.960 Clarence Stone: And then every other week, he’s gonna contribute his slide deck to Robert for the, like, the executive meeting.
146 00:19:14.330 ⇒ 00:19:19.310 Clarence Stone: Right? And he sits in that presentation, too, to present his set of slides.
147 00:19:21.900 ⇒ 00:19:25.660 Uttam Kumaran: So then, in this situation, we’re just…
148 00:19:26.260 ⇒ 00:19:29.840 Uttam Kumaran: basically split it, because we’re gonna… they’re gonna meet with Caitlin every week.
149 00:19:30.430 ⇒ 00:19:43.839 Clarence Stone: So, okay, that’s the best thing to ask, right? Because, like, the way I see it, we should be customer service forward, right? So, if Caitlin thinks it’s easier to have a conversation with both Greg and Demi in one meeting.
150 00:19:44.170 ⇒ 00:19:58.719 Clarence Stone: We should do it that way. If Caitlin says, hey, it’s actually better if we just timebox conversations that we have around amplitude with Greg, because it’s going to have a different audience entirely, right, then we’re going to run two separate meetings, one for Debbie, one for Greg.
151 00:19:59.470 ⇒ 00:20:13.200 Clarence Stone: But, like, there isn’t going to be a way for us to enforce how our client wants to work, right? So, like, we need to be able to respond to what, like, Caitlin wants to do.
152 00:20:15.310 ⇒ 00:20:24.300 Clarence Stone: Like, I don’t want to just pitch that we do one meeting, because I don’t want either one of these projects get shortchanged in a conversation.
153 00:20:24.840 ⇒ 00:20:25.390 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
154 00:20:26.210 ⇒ 00:20:39.780 Clarence Stone: So, like, you know, let’s say, you know, Greg is gonna get started with all the amplitude work soon. If that consumes an entire hour, and Debbie doesn’t get to share what he did, like, I don’t like that we consolidated that meeting in that… in that instance.
155 00:20:40.950 ⇒ 00:20:41.610 Uttam Kumaran: I agree.
156 00:20:42.980 ⇒ 00:20:52.919 Clarence Stone: Right? So, like, unless, like, I would just ask Caitlin, like, on the fly, like, hey, you know, what works best for you? Should we have a separate meeting, you know, for this, or not? Right?
157 00:20:57.120 ⇒ 00:21:01.260 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, that’s fair. And we can… we can address that when I talk to her later this week.
158 00:21:01.510 ⇒ 00:21:20.009 Clarence Stone: Yeah, and Utam, I think, like, in the future, it’s gonna work exactly like how it works for Eden. There will be, like, these executive-level things where every single project has to contribute. For Eden, it’s every week. And then, like, for each of the individual four work streams, they’re all running their own project lanes.
159 00:21:21.410 ⇒ 00:21:22.899 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, okay, okay, great.
160 00:21:25.080 ⇒ 00:21:25.820 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
161 00:21:26.650 ⇒ 00:21:27.719 Uttam Kumaran: Makes sense.
162 00:21:28.080 ⇒ 00:21:34.419 Uttam Kumaran: Demon, you want to do yours? How much do we chase engagement from non-responsive clients?
163 00:21:40.310 ⇒ 00:21:41.209 Uttam Kumaran: You’re on mute.
164 00:21:42.060 ⇒ 00:21:44.039 Demilade Agboola: Yeah, so, like…
165 00:21:44.280 ⇒ 00:21:51.710 Demilade Agboola: Not every… sometimes with the, like, daily updates, not… they’re not actually, like, responses in some cases.
166 00:21:51.930 ⇒ 00:21:55.950 Demilade Agboola: And, like, especially, like, on, like, default.
167 00:21:56.910 ⇒ 00:22:02.709 Demilade Agboola: I noticed that Lev only started responding, like, he’ll send, like, a fire emoji or whatever.
168 00:22:02.920 ⇒ 00:22:07.909 Demilade Agboola: After I met with him, and I just, like, in certain cases where
169 00:22:08.540 ⇒ 00:22:15.900 Demilade Agboola: And Caitlin doesn’t also respond to those messages. I’m just curious as to how do you judge the temperature of the…
170 00:22:16.610 ⇒ 00:22:29.000 Demilade Agboola: clients if they aren’t necessarily responding on the daily… yes, I know we have the, like, weekly touchpoints, but I do know that part of the update on the, daily stand-up is…
171 00:22:29.520 ⇒ 00:22:36.929 Demilade Agboola: the context of how good the client is with the project, right? And so if we don’t necessarily get any
172 00:22:37.560 ⇒ 00:22:47.879 Demilade Agboola: Feedback on that until potentially… You know, a one-on-one call, or a… The end of week call.
173 00:22:48.930 ⇒ 00:22:54.949 Demilade Agboola: There’s… there aren’t… like, there are not… there’s not a lot of indicators on how the client feels, sort of my overall, like, point.
174 00:22:59.660 ⇒ 00:23:01.689 Clarence Stone: What time you want to take that, or you want me to take it?
175 00:23:02.230 ⇒ 00:23:06.529 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, you too, I wanna hear what you… I wanna hear what you… you think.
176 00:23:06.820 ⇒ 00:23:16.819 Clarence Stone: Yeah, so, so Demi, are you saying that you’re sending, like, a ping saying, hey, we did this, this today, and what you’re getting in response was, like, a thumbs up?
177 00:23:17.840 ⇒ 00:23:24.659 Demilade Agboola: A thumbs up in some cases will be nice. Sometimes they don’t even respond, like, at all, so…
178 00:23:24.950 ⇒ 00:23:36.090 Demilade Agboola: it’s like, you might go, like, 3 days, and you send, like, daily updates, and then there isn’t even, like, an emoji response, there’s nothing, okay. So how do you… like, in terms of context of, like.
179 00:23:36.470 ⇒ 00:23:42.260 Demilade Agboola: I know that… you know, when I’ve had a one-on-one with potentially, like, Caitlin or…
180 00:23:42.400 ⇒ 00:23:49.839 Demilade Agboola: or maybe even magic spoons, like, they tend to be like, oh yeah, we’re happy with this, and I explicitly ask them.
181 00:23:51.070 ⇒ 00:23:58.509 Demilade Agboola: Can I get feedback on, like, literally the first… every call I’ve done with a one-on-one stakeholder, the first, like, 2 minutes is me asking them, hey.
182 00:23:58.620 ⇒ 00:24:04.900 Demilade Agboola: And give us feedback on what it’s been like working with us, if there are any areas you’d like us to improve, that kind of stuff.
183 00:24:05.170 ⇒ 00:24:10.599 Demilade Agboola: So I do intentionally go out my way to get that when I talk to them, but in terms of, like.
184 00:24:10.830 ⇒ 00:24:15.150 Demilade Agboola: the messaging and getting that sort of response, it’s not necessarily the same.
185 00:24:15.620 ⇒ 00:24:33.319 Clarence Stone: Yeah, I mean, so, one, it’s so good that you’ve built a habit of asking, hey, like, how am I doing, right? And that makes this next part pretty easy to do. Demi, next time you talk to them, just change the narrative. Instead of saying, like, hey, what do you think about how we’re doing?
186 00:24:33.320 ⇒ 00:24:47.799 Clarence Stone: say something like, hey, I like, you know, keeping you on the pulse of everything that we’re doing every day. Are those pings annoying to you? Are they helpful? Let me know. If, you know, there should be something else in the context, we can adjust those daily outreaches.
187 00:24:48.700 ⇒ 00:25:03.420 Clarence Stone: Right? It’s pretty much you asking, hey, how are we doing? But rather, like, what do you want to see every day? And, like, are you just giving, like, not answering because everything’s good, right? Or is it because you’re not getting a daily, you know, update that means something? You want to see something else?
188 00:25:06.610 ⇒ 00:25:08.639 Demilade Agboola: Okay, that’s fair enough.
189 00:25:08.640 ⇒ 00:25:33.529 Clarence Stone: Yeah, I mean, it’s so good that you’ve already opened up the communication lane, so, like, we’ll find out for sure, right? Right? They’ll say, like, hey, Demi, like, you know, the reason why we don’t answer is because you always tell us what you’re doing every day, and it looks good. Like, what is there to say, right? Or maybe, Demi, they’ll say, hey, we want to see, you know, we’d like to get an update on X, Y, or Z instead, or we’d like to see updates in this way instead.
190 00:25:33.530 ⇒ 00:25:37.520 Clarence Stone: Right? And it’s a good way to just figure out, you know, where you stand overall.
191 00:25:38.680 ⇒ 00:25:39.919 Demilade Agboola: Okay, that’s fair enough.
192 00:25:39.920 ⇒ 00:25:46.529 Clarence Stone: Yeah. But what I can tell you is, like, from a, like, Day-to-day perspective, like.
193 00:25:46.790 ⇒ 00:25:51.799 Clarence Stone: If you’re not getting any response, it probably means you’re doing really good.
194 00:25:52.020 ⇒ 00:25:57.610 Clarence Stone: Because, like, why follow up, unless there’s something, you know, like.
195 00:25:58.180 ⇒ 00:26:06.040 Clarence Stone: really, you know, drastic and important to discuss, right? It’s like, Demi sends me an update every day, I look at the update, looks good, cool.
196 00:26:06.330 ⇒ 00:26:08.469 Clarence Stone: Right, I know I’m gonna talk to him this week.
197 00:26:08.700 ⇒ 00:26:15.270 Clarence Stone: Right, so in some ways, it may look like your messages are going into the ether, but it’s actually building a lot of comfort.
198 00:26:16.740 ⇒ 00:26:17.930 Demilade Agboola: Okay, fair enough.
199 00:26:20.150 ⇒ 00:26:25.510 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I feel like, I mean, there’s… this is where, like, yeah, it’s tough, because…
200 00:26:26.010 ⇒ 00:26:28.320 Uttam Kumaran: I am sort of,
201 00:26:31.120 ⇒ 00:26:47.579 Uttam Kumaran: like, if things are going well, then yeah, you sort of may not be able… you may not get the same feedback as when things aren’t going well. This is a… this is an interesting one, because I tend to message Caitlin here and there, just to make sure things are going well, and…
202 00:26:47.810 ⇒ 00:26:50.599 Uttam Kumaran: like, things… we’re crushing it.
203 00:26:50.950 ⇒ 00:26:55.230 Uttam Kumaran: I, I would say if… if… There is sometimes this disconnect.
204 00:26:55.340 ⇒ 00:26:58.559 Uttam Kumaran: Honestly, we should pro- like, my instinct is to say, like.
205 00:26:59.000 ⇒ 00:27:07.230 Uttam Kumaran: pocket it, and, like, be good… like, be happy that nothing’s going wrong, and, like… Just, like, keep trudging.
206 00:27:07.380 ⇒ 00:27:16.320 Uttam Kumaran: Versus, you know, changing anything. Like, even if we don’t get anything, like, the feedback is really, really positive, so…
207 00:27:16.520 ⇒ 00:27:18.040 Uttam Kumaran: Just kinda keep going.
208 00:27:21.040 ⇒ 00:27:27.350 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, ultimately, like, yeah, I think this is, like, an example of, like, a good client that’s doing well, and so…
209 00:27:27.620 ⇒ 00:27:29.840 Uttam Kumaran: Maybe this is just sort of how it is.
210 00:27:31.660 ⇒ 00:27:32.979 Demilade Agboola: Okay, that’s fair enough.
211 00:27:33.470 ⇒ 00:27:34.130 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
212 00:27:36.260 ⇒ 00:27:57.030 Clarence Stone: Yeah, I’m always willing to bet that, Demi, if you stop sending your daily messages, they would probably be like, hey, what’s up, is everything okay? I know it looks like it’s not going anywhere, but, like, you know, it shows, like, on a daily basis that you’re on top of things, so that’s probably why you’re not hearing directly anything.
213 00:27:58.450 ⇒ 00:28:03.299 Uttam Kumaran: like, that’s… that’s also how I feel, like, there’s no, oper… there’s no gap
214 00:28:03.620 ⇒ 00:28:10.549 Uttam Kumaran: And there will be, and so it’ll, like… I would just say, if things are in a groove, just, like, pocket it, like…
215 00:28:10.680 ⇒ 00:28:15.149 Uttam Kumaran: Should I keep going, because they may not always be that way.
216 00:28:16.660 ⇒ 00:28:17.400 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, that’s…
217 00:28:18.470 ⇒ 00:28:35.070 Clarence Stone: Yeah, but, like, you’re also… you’ve built a habit of asking, hey, how are things going? So, I don’t think it’s gonna be weird if you ask next week, like, hey, how do you feel about the daily updates I’ve been giving? You know, if there’s a different, you know, data set or perspective you’d like, we can make adjustments to that, right?
218 00:28:36.280 ⇒ 00:28:44.689 Demilade Agboola: Yeah, that’s fair. I do see how that can be very useful. So, yeah, we’ll see. I’ll get feedback from them on, like, what works, what doesn’t work.
219 00:28:45.020 ⇒ 00:28:48.519 Demilade Agboola: And if there’s a certain format that they care for.
220 00:28:49.050 ⇒ 00:28:58.619 Clarence Stone: Yeah, and what a great habit. Keep doing that. That’s really good, like, just, you know, asking the client, hey, how are things going, right? That’s… that makes it a lot easier.
221 00:28:59.850 ⇒ 00:29:10.650 Demilade Agboola: Oh, yeah, yeah, so that’s why, for, like, default, I can say that they’re happy, because, like, literally, like, Lev and Stan and Laura were like, yeah, like, we, like, we’ve seen data that we haven’t seen.
222 00:29:10.850 ⇒ 00:29:19.929 Demilade Agboola: And we’re just, like, really happy, and we look forward to, like, the next phase. So that’s how I know they’re happy, because, like, I explicitly asked them prior to starting whatever, like, discovery calls with them.
223 00:29:20.190 ⇒ 00:29:23.979 Demilade Agboola: Like, what they feel about the engagement so far, so…
224 00:29:24.450 ⇒ 00:29:31.870 Demilade Agboola: Yeah, like, it’s just, it would just be asking more specifically if they care to see anything in particular.
225 00:29:32.450 ⇒ 00:29:33.110 Clarence Stone: Yep.
226 00:29:36.120 ⇒ 00:29:40.980 Demilade Agboola: Okay, so that’s the first one. The second thing was, like, feedback mechanism, so…
227 00:29:41.120 ⇒ 00:29:51.879 Demilade Agboola: It was just basically, do we have a template of markers that we want to be sure we’re hitting with clients? Like, what does that always consistently look like? Because
228 00:29:52.830 ⇒ 00:29:59.250 Demilade Agboola: Do we… is it… do… I don’t know how to explain. Because…
229 00:29:59.800 ⇒ 00:30:03.409 Demilade Agboola: I’m… I guess I’m just more used to working in the…
230 00:30:03.680 ⇒ 00:30:11.249 Demilade Agboola: technical role, if that makes any sense. I’m used to my markers being, like, this is the phase of a project, we’ve hit it.
231 00:30:11.520 ⇒ 00:30:15.369 Demilade Agboola: Or this is how far along we are on this.
232 00:30:15.500 ⇒ 00:30:21.430 Demilade Agboola: This deadline might have to move back by a week, or, you know, just that sort of, that sort of,
233 00:30:21.720 ⇒ 00:30:22.680 Demilade Agboola: Feedback.
234 00:30:23.170 ⇒ 00:30:36.730 Demilade Agboola: But in this case, it’s kind of different, because it’s about how they feel confident in, like, our engagement. So, do we have, like, certain markers for that? Do we have certain things we care for to hear?
235 00:30:37.700 ⇒ 00:30:43.289 Demilade Agboola: Yeah, I’d just like Marcus to know that, like, beyond the game, like, it’s fine.
236 00:30:43.690 ⇒ 00:30:49.340 Demilade Agboola: How do we go beyond just saying, hey, it’s okay, it’s fine, to, like, actual pain points, or actual…
237 00:30:49.580 ⇒ 00:30:53.759 Demilade Agboola: Things that we would want to hear so that we can be ahead of any potential crash out.
238 00:30:58.350 ⇒ 00:31:03.989 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I’m interested, Clarence, this is where, like, I… I don’t know how client success
239 00:31:04.160 ⇒ 00:31:12.530 Uttam Kumaran: like, was sort of measured at many places, so… I mean, I think we… this sort of weekly pulse check is good, but, like.
240 00:31:12.800 ⇒ 00:31:19.520 Uttam Kumaran: I’m also interested in, like, yeah, if there’s any more structured ways of getting Feedback, yeah.
241 00:31:19.550 ⇒ 00:31:23.850 Clarence Stone: So deep, deep down on my to-do list, which, like…
242 00:31:23.990 ⇒ 00:31:34.610 Clarence Stone: starting to look really long, is, whenever we get maybe head of CSO or an ops lead, we should create a quarterly,
243 00:31:35.160 ⇒ 00:31:37.350 Clarence Stone: NPS survey.
244 00:31:37.770 ⇒ 00:31:48.599 Clarence Stone: Right, and just send it out to all our clients to say, like, here’s our quarterly survey, would love to hear what your thoughts are. And, Utam, you’ve seen those, like, surveys, right, for NPS?
245 00:31:48.990 ⇒ 00:31:55.390 Uttam Kumaran: Yes. Like, I would recommend BrainForge, or, you know, our BrainForge team was attentive to those things.
246 00:31:55.390 ⇒ 00:31:55.880 Clarence Stone: Demi?
247 00:31:55.880 ⇒ 00:32:09.829 Uttam Kumaran: Basically, it’s like the fact that, like, for example, sales is gonna go to Demi and say, can we ask them for a formal, or maybe even a video testimonial for them to say yes? Like, I think one of the sales things is to collect X amount of testimonials, you know?
248 00:32:11.430 ⇒ 00:32:17.339 Clarence Stone: Yeah, so, debbie, to answer your question, how do you, like.
249 00:32:17.700 ⇒ 00:32:35.740 Clarence Stone: what would the feedback mechanism be? In the near future, like, I’d like to send out quarterly surveys to get that insight from the client. But also, the best and clearest, you know, signal of success is getting follow-on work.
250 00:32:35.820 ⇒ 00:32:47.920 Clarence Stone: Right, because that shows that the client has interest in continuing to work with us. I promise you, if a client loves you, they will purposely even try to find work to keep you, like.
251 00:32:48.070 ⇒ 00:32:52.140 Clarence Stone: and your team around. So…
252 00:32:52.410 ⇒ 00:32:59.609 Clarence Stone: If that’s what you’re seeing over and over again from your clients, that’s perfect. If you’re not,
253 00:32:59.940 ⇒ 00:33:09.450 Clarence Stone: we need to take a look at each of the signals and see, but in the future, the way you’re going to get a direct feedback mechanism is through an NPS survey.
254 00:33:12.030 ⇒ 00:33:16.970 Demilade Agboola: Okay, alright, sounds good. So is that something we’re looking for next quarter, or…
255 00:33:17.520 ⇒ 00:33:20.390 Clarence Stone: Yeah, it’s probably gonna be an exporter thing.
256 00:33:20.520 ⇒ 00:33:27.509 Clarence Stone: I want to do it at the top of the quarter, so, like, I don’t know if you tell March is a good time to send one out.
257 00:33:28.030 ⇒ 00:33:28.570 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
258 00:33:29.460 ⇒ 00:33:30.950 Demilade Agboola: Okay, sounds good.
259 00:33:32.670 ⇒ 00:33:36.309 Uttam Kumaran: And then, yeah, okay, maybe mine is, like.
260 00:33:36.500 ⇒ 00:33:40.430 Uttam Kumaran: I’m trying to understand, sort of, like, what breaks after…
261 00:33:40.670 ⇒ 00:33:43.409 Uttam Kumaran: CSOs are on, like, 3 or 4 clients.
262 00:33:43.720 ⇒ 00:33:51.539 Uttam Kumaran: So I don’t know, like, I… I mean, I know where I kind of break, but I’m sort of interested, Demi, you’re on…
263 00:33:51.640 ⇒ 00:33:56.729 Uttam Kumaran: 3 right now… Or 4 right now, I forgot.
264 00:33:56.960 ⇒ 00:33:57.700 Demilade Agboola: Nice.
265 00:33:58.070 ⇒ 00:34:00.420 Demilade Agboola: I think technically I’ll see two and a half.
266 00:34:00.790 ⇒ 00:34:04.739 Demilade Agboola: I think urban standards are classified as half right now.
267 00:34:04.740 ⇒ 00:34:07.420 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so then I’m just interested in sort of, like.
268 00:34:07.840 ⇒ 00:34:10.810 Uttam Kumaran: What breaks, and how do we solve that?
269 00:34:12.440 ⇒ 00:34:27.740 Uttam Kumaran: Because I would like to just throw… I would have to… I would… of course, I would just like to have less folks, and everybody’s sort of managing clients. So I’m trying to understand, like, what… what is the model we have to build to have people support 4 active clients?
270 00:34:27.889 ⇒ 00:34:31.000 Uttam Kumaran: And, like, assume they’re just… assume, like, the hardest…
271 00:34:31.239 ⇒ 00:34:35.229 Uttam Kumaran: The hardest mode is, like, 4 distinct clients, right?
272 00:34:35.409 ⇒ 00:34:38.479 Uttam Kumaran: Like, I’m just interested to hear about, like, what happens.
273 00:34:38.750 ⇒ 00:34:42.069 Uttam Kumaran: And how we solved that.
274 00:34:43.050 ⇒ 00:34:46.570 Demilade Agboola: Yeah, I mean, also… I also will say that I think…
275 00:34:46.699 ⇒ 00:34:50.960 Demilade Agboola: The boss will probably be with the actual work as well.
276 00:34:51.440 ⇒ 00:34:53.040 Demilade Agboola: Because…
277 00:34:53.280 ⇒ 00:35:07.260 Demilade Agboola: Like, CSO and four individual clients, yes, that’s work, but you could probably, if you have, like, a one, two-hour block at the top of your day, you could knock off that. I tend to do my CSO work towards the end of the day, as I’m logging off, so I just give updates.
278 00:35:07.450 ⇒ 00:35:10.200 Demilade Agboola: And just go through her stuff.
279 00:35:10.640 ⇒ 00:35:13.899 Demilade Agboola: But, yeah, I think it’s, yes, so I mean…
280 00:35:14.030 ⇒ 00:35:19.839 Demilade Agboola: while also, like, delivering, that can be the tricky part, because obviously…
281 00:35:20.020 ⇒ 00:35:29.290 Demilade Agboola: You also will need to, like, block off time for the different people, and if you’re a CSON, your odds are you’re also working on the project in some technical capacity as well.
282 00:35:31.670 ⇒ 00:35:32.520 Uttam Kumaran: Hmm…
283 00:35:34.080 ⇒ 00:35:36.809 Demilade Agboola: So I guess that would be… that would be the tricky part.
284 00:35:38.630 ⇒ 00:35:49.960 Greg Stoutenburg: Actually, I have a follow-on question here. So, one of the things that I noted in the Forging the Future document that was describing a CSO’s, like, workload overall is it said, you know, like, an 80-20 rule.
285 00:35:50.540 ⇒ 00:36:08.710 Greg Stoutenburg: And, I guess I was thinking about which side is the 80 and which side is the 20. So if someone, like, I suppose as the number of clients scales, there may be, beyond a certain point, just less time in the day that’s devoted to whatever technical efforts, are involved in the project, and more on the side of
286 00:36:08.710 ⇒ 00:36:13.240 Greg Stoutenburg: of, like, distinctly CSO… work.
287 00:36:13.340 ⇒ 00:36:15.439 Greg Stoutenburg: I mean, does that sound right? Like, is that…
288 00:36:15.440 ⇒ 00:36:19.129 Clarence Stone: In line with the model? In a static model, Greg, because.
289 00:36:19.130 ⇒ 00:36:19.490 Greg Stoutenburg: too bad.
290 00:36:19.610 ⇒ 00:36:36.130 Clarence Stone: what Demi was saying is, I think, totally how I feel about things, where, like, it very much depends on how much your actual workload is on top of, like, managing the client and where the client is in the sales cycle, right?
291 00:36:36.190 ⇒ 00:36:49.040 Clarence Stone: if you’re just starting a new project, you as a CSO has… you have to put in extra work to make sure everything is aligned, all the documentation is good, your team is aligned on the approach, and you’re actually, you know, starting the work.
292 00:36:49.110 ⇒ 00:36:58.940 Clarence Stone: So, if you were to tell me, you know, you had 4 projects that are all starting at the same time, yeah, you’re probably, like, more at 50-50, right?
293 00:36:59.220 ⇒ 00:37:00.020 Clarence Stone: Yeah.
294 00:37:00.020 ⇒ 00:37:19.300 Clarence Stone: But ideally, we should stagger it all so you’re not starting all the projects at the same time, right? And if it all evens out, it should be that hour or two at the top of the morning or in the evening that becomes your CSO, you know, time. So, it shouldn’t be any more than 20% in the broader scheme of things, if it’s all.
295 00:37:19.300 ⇒ 00:37:19.630 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah.
296 00:37:19.630 ⇒ 00:37:32.369 Clarence Stone: correctly. So that’s… that’s why utilization becomes a really tricky thing to do, Greg. Yeah. Because we have to take everyone’s word at whether or not, you know, they’re at capacity, because it’s hard to evaluate
297 00:37:32.540 ⇒ 00:37:34.970 Clarence Stone: Where you are in the project lifecycle.
298 00:37:35.230 ⇒ 00:37:35.710 Greg Stoutenburg: Yep.
299 00:37:35.710 ⇒ 00:37:40.170 Clarence Stone: How difficult your contribution, technical contribution, is to the project itself.
300 00:37:40.300 ⇒ 00:37:51.519 Clarence Stone: Right? How many touchpoints you have to do for your other clients, whether or not you’re working on a pursuit for the other clients, too, and trying to expand your business that way. So, there’s a lot of factors.
301 00:37:51.520 ⇒ 00:37:52.930 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
302 00:37:52.930 ⇒ 00:38:01.020 Clarence Stone: like, a good stabilization is to say, yeah, I’ll spend an hour or two, in the morning or afternoons to knock out all the updates and stuff.
303 00:38:01.590 ⇒ 00:38:02.530 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, okay.
304 00:38:03.030 ⇒ 00:38:03.790 Greg Stoutenburg: Thanks.
305 00:38:04.940 ⇒ 00:38:06.989 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, it’s tough, I don’t know, it’s,
306 00:38:08.690 ⇒ 00:38:13.450 Uttam Kumaran: I’m not sure, I think there’s gonna be flavors, like, I think some CSOs…
307 00:38:13.780 ⇒ 00:38:18.130 Uttam Kumaran: Are going to want to make majority of their time account management.
308 00:38:18.570 ⇒ 00:38:22.929 Uttam Kumaran: Sales, and kind of, like, almost manage, like, a team of engineers.
309 00:38:23.260 ⇒ 00:38:27.900 Uttam Kumaran: Some folks, I think, are still gonna wanna be… working a lot.
310 00:38:28.250 ⇒ 00:38:34.160 Uttam Kumaran: And, like, doing a lot of the work, whether it’s more technical or it’s just more zero-to-one.
311 00:38:34.950 ⇒ 00:38:40.299 Uttam Kumaran: So I don’t… I don’t know. I think, like, the… Sort of business.
312 00:38:40.720 ⇒ 00:38:47.720 Uttam Kumaran: person in my head is, like, yeah, every CSO should just transition to, like, eventually just doing mostly account management and upselling.
313 00:38:48.040 ⇒ 00:38:50.020 Uttam Kumaran: Kinda feel like that’s kind of like…
314 00:38:51.440 ⇒ 00:39:00.360 Uttam Kumaran: like, I don’t know, I still… I really like our model in that, like, we’re still all able to do work on clients, because we’re really good at what we do.
315 00:39:00.630 ⇒ 00:39:03.940 Uttam Kumaran: So, we’ll think about it. I think there’s gonna be a natural limit
316 00:39:04.360 ⇒ 00:39:13.160 Uttam Kumaran: I do think also, like, a good model is, like, that I’m gonna be trying, is, like, I think we’re gonna try assigning me, like, almost like a project coordinator, like, a VA.
317 00:39:13.580 ⇒ 00:39:18.340 Uttam Kumaran: For me to be able to take on all the activities on my clients.
318 00:39:18.750 ⇒ 00:39:20.530 Uttam Kumaran: And, like, do everything else.
319 00:39:20.790 ⇒ 00:39:24.030 Uttam Kumaran: And I wonder if maybe… That’s what…
320 00:39:24.420 ⇒ 00:39:29.790 Uttam Kumaran: a CSO, like, as you grow to, like, 4, maybe if you do… if you train only 4 clients, you get a VA.
321 00:39:29.950 ⇒ 00:39:32.069 Uttam Kumaran: Who can kind of take on some of that?
322 00:39:32.560 ⇒ 00:39:34.230 Uttam Kumaran: like, coordination.
323 00:39:34.370 ⇒ 00:39:38.089 Uttam Kumaran: Right? So maybe that buys another 5 hours, or 10 hours, or just, like.
324 00:39:38.570 ⇒ 00:39:42.050 Uttam Kumaran: You reduce his anxiety, like, you get kind of an assistant.
325 00:39:42.290 ⇒ 00:39:58.749 Uttam Kumaran: And for me, like, it’d be like, cool, we have CSOs that are handling, like, 4 clients or 4 work streams. It seems totally fair for every… for y’all, because you’re basically managing, like, a book for you to have an assistant that’s sort of, like, helping coordinate stuff. I don’t see any problem wrong with that, so that’s what I’m like.
326 00:39:58.910 ⇒ 00:40:04.299 Uttam Kumaran: Is that… maybe that’s, like… A good way to keep being able to handle that many.
327 00:40:06.710 ⇒ 00:40:11.250 Uttam Kumaran: I think after 4, it’s just, like, a… it’s just a lot to, like, kind of keep mentally, like…
328 00:40:11.740 ⇒ 00:40:15.870 Uttam Kumaran: to deal with 4 distinct people and, like, situations. I don’t know if that’s…
329 00:40:16.580 ⇒ 00:40:23.640 Uttam Kumaran: Like, I don’t… I don’t know if it’s healthy for us to promote more than that, just natural, like, human limits, you know?
330 00:40:26.680 ⇒ 00:40:30.159 Clarence Stone: Yeah, I mean, if you wanted to see an example of a really, like.
331 00:40:30.680 ⇒ 00:40:46.060 Clarence Stone: I think healthy, like, partnership, like, momentum is… just look at Utam and Robert. They will have seasons where each of them are, like, heads down focused on selling, and then, like, the other flips the delivery and back and forth.
332 00:40:46.600 ⇒ 00:40:59.069 Clarence Stone: So, it’s okay if you’re… you as a CSO go, oh, you know, I’ve got 3 projects that are ending soon, I need to really focus on driving the market, right? And you spend the next, you know, month
333 00:40:59.070 ⇒ 00:41:00.410 Clarence Stone: Winning new work.
334 00:41:00.410 ⇒ 00:41:25.300 Clarence Stone: Right? There also could be times where you go, I have 4 concurrent projects, right? And I’m not handling any new, you know, intake, and I’m gonna pass off any new opportunities I see to somebody else within the organization. So, like, we’re not dropping the ball with a client at any point, but, you know, prospecting isn’t going to be your focus or goal in those moments, right? You’re going to just focus on delivering, making sure you
335 00:41:25.300 ⇒ 00:41:29.220 Clarence Stone: maintain that client relationship. So…
336 00:41:29.440 ⇒ 00:41:34.399 Clarence Stone: It depends on, you know, your workload,
337 00:41:34.410 ⇒ 00:41:49.740 Clarence Stone: And, like, just keep in mind that the goal is to always keep your pipeline full, right? Winning work allows us to keep everybody staffed. Keeping everyone staffed means there’s increased revenue and more opportunities for work. So, as a CSO, you’re kind of always just
338 00:41:49.800 ⇒ 00:41:58.029 Clarence Stone: Managing that, very un… unpredictable kind of demand curve that you see often.
339 00:42:02.270 ⇒ 00:42:02.800 Clarence Stone: And…
340 00:42:02.800 ⇒ 00:42:06.800 Uttam Kumaran: And I also, like, I don’t know, Clarence, one thing is, like, I… even, like.
341 00:42:07.530 ⇒ 00:42:10.090 Uttam Kumaran: as we go enterprise, like, I feel like…
342 00:42:10.200 ⇒ 00:42:13.589 Uttam Kumaran: We want to be handling one client that’s worth, like.
343 00:42:13.730 ⇒ 00:42:16.160 Uttam Kumaran: Basically, 10 of the ones that we have now.
344 00:42:16.450 ⇒ 00:42:33.530 Uttam Kumaran: So I’m almost, like, I think it may get easier as you’re, like, just managing one client with, like, 4 or 5 work streams versus 4 distinct clients. That’s, like, it’s much harder, and we’re heading that direction, right? We’re heading a direction where we’re going to, like, that enterprise
345 00:42:33.810 ⇒ 00:42:36.189 Uttam Kumaran: Sort of state of things, so…
346 00:42:37.320 ⇒ 00:42:39.410 Clarence Stone: Yeah, I mean, I foresee…
347 00:42:39.610 ⇒ 00:42:58.449 Clarence Stone: the, like, the touchpoints and project structure for ABC is gonna be a lot like, Eden soon, right? You’re going to have multiple separate project work streams, but there’s gonna be, you know, bi-weekly or monthly touchpoints where everybody joins and does a consolidated presentation, right?
348 00:42:58.640 ⇒ 00:43:03.119 Clarence Stone: And that’s much easier to manage, for sure. So,
349 00:43:04.500 ⇒ 00:43:09.380 Clarence Stone: Yeah, you’re right. As we get larger deals.
350 00:43:09.850 ⇒ 00:43:15.460 Clarence Stone: there’s less of a need for CSOs to be on, you know, multiple clients.
351 00:43:16.200 ⇒ 00:43:31.829 Clarence Stone: So, I guess CSOs, it’s an incentive for you to grow your current client base and win more work, so you don’t have to keep pivoting around, if that is something that you don’t like doing. Some people love doing it, it’s just, like, it’s a different…
352 00:43:32.000 ⇒ 00:43:33.540 Clarence Stone: Kind of mentality or habit.
353 00:43:33.540 ⇒ 00:43:38.249 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I mean, I heard the explanation is, like, someone, they explained it to me, like.
354 00:43:38.860 ⇒ 00:43:40.839 Clarence Stone: You have, like, 4…
355 00:43:41.290 ⇒ 00:43:48.070 Uttam Kumaran: You have, like, 100% of work, and you could split it, like, 4 25s, or 150 and 2 25s.
356 00:43:48.330 ⇒ 00:43:55.359 Uttam Kumaran: Right? And, like, that’s how they kind of, like, do this sort of resource allocation, and then people who are new to the company, maybe they just start on, like.
357 00:43:55.700 ⇒ 00:44:06.200 Uttam Kumaran: they have a couple of 25s, and then you can kind of get bigger. Ideally, you have, like, some… one client that takes up all your time, and that’s, like, those, like, an enterprise-style client.
358 00:44:06.480 ⇒ 00:44:10.500 Uttam Kumaran: I think we’ll think about, like, the complexity.
359 00:44:10.960 ⇒ 00:44:20.209 Uttam Kumaran: of a client and sort of bucket them into one of these, so that you have a full plate. Some are… and maybe it’s based on the revenue, maybe it’s based on potential revenue.
360 00:44:20.780 ⇒ 00:44:21.920 Uttam Kumaran: Not sure.
361 00:44:24.820 ⇒ 00:44:34.560 Clarence Stone: It’s also difficult because it depends on how much demand your competency, your skill set, is for all the other projects that are happening, right? Like.
362 00:44:40.710 ⇒ 00:44:50.030 Clarence Stone: if there’s, like, a short-term massive demand for analysts, right, you know, that… that’s something that takes precedence over, you know.
363 00:44:52.230 ⇒ 00:45:01.300 Clarence Stone: managing a broader net of clients, so it depends. It’s… I think we have to handle each one of these situations one by one.
364 00:45:02.930 ⇒ 00:45:17.679 Clarence Stone: Also, like, I don’t want CSOs to just be stuck with that one client. I do want to inspire them to continue to, like, win more work, so… because that reduces their risk of being single client dependent.
365 00:45:21.130 ⇒ 00:45:27.849 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, I think, yeah, I mean, the big… I think the big path here is that, like, if you go from, like, I manage 4 clients.
366 00:45:27.990 ⇒ 00:45:34.480 Uttam Kumaran: So then I’m managing all clients in a service, like, I’m managing a bunch of CSOs. It’s a clear logical path.
367 00:45:34.660 ⇒ 00:45:35.630 Uttam Kumaran: Yep.
368 00:45:35.630 ⇒ 00:45:49.339 Clarence Stone: Or you can flip that around and say, I’m a CSO on these two massive accounts. Yeah, yeah, correct, correct. That’s good by me too, right? And there’s different models and different skill sets and talents that kind of work better for one direction or the other.
369 00:45:54.110 ⇒ 00:45:55.960 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
370 00:45:55.960 ⇒ 00:46:07.389 Clarence Stone: I’ll say I’ll never discount that, like, I still, like, one of my favorite partners at EY, he literally sells Snickers bars. We call it TJ, like, PJ Snickers bars, because it’s literally, like.
371 00:46:08.200 ⇒ 00:46:21.970 Clarence Stone: 15,000 work, which is very small for Eli, and he deploys, you know, all of these things with, like, a team of two, right? And he has, like, dozens of this work that just keeps coming into the pipeline.
372 00:46:22.020 ⇒ 00:46:34.369 Clarence Stone: that still works! Still a valid strategy, you know? And those little pieces end up sometimes being really big, you know, opportunities that get sent over to a different partner.
373 00:46:35.710 ⇒ 00:46:36.320 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
374 00:46:38.350 ⇒ 00:46:39.130 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
375 00:46:43.130 ⇒ 00:46:50.610 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, my… another last… maybe one question I had is, like, do we need any… like, what other rituals do we want to have as, like, a group?
376 00:46:50.700 ⇒ 00:47:08.799 Uttam Kumaran: I think some more people, by the way, are gonna graduate to CSO soon, so, like, this crew will get a little bit bigger. And naturally, I think EPs will basically have a choice to make at some point. But, like, do we want, like, what else is… is helpful? Like, I think we’ll have our, like, Wednesday calls.
377 00:47:08.860 ⇒ 00:47:18.500 Uttam Kumaran: I… I… I think still, like, being able to share SOWs and things with everybody is great, but, like, did we want to do other, like, workshops, or, like…
378 00:47:19.930 ⇒ 00:47:21.260 Uttam Kumaran: Anything else?
379 00:47:21.740 ⇒ 00:47:24.000 Uttam Kumaran: You know, or… Yeah.
380 00:47:27.050 ⇒ 00:47:42.769 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, I mean, to weigh in on that, I like the meetings that have been set up for this role that I’ve seen in the calendar so far. I think it might just take a little bit more time to have more people show up and say, here’s, you know, here’s an obstacle I ran into, or here’s a success, so that we can all share and learn from it.
381 00:47:42.840 ⇒ 00:47:53.269 Greg Stoutenburg: I wouldn’t hate seeing more posts from CSOs in the CSO channel, just like, you know, here’s what I’m working on, you know, that kind of thing, like, just…
382 00:47:53.460 ⇒ 00:47:59.380 Greg Stoutenburg: like, just to see a little more activity, because I know it would benefit me to see what other people are working on, and
383 00:47:59.640 ⇒ 00:48:08.750 Greg Stoutenburg: So, yeah, those are my thoughts. I don’t know… in other words, I don’t know that we need another meeting, but, like, to continue to… to do the things that we already have in place, I think would be, great.
384 00:48:09.950 ⇒ 00:48:10.500 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
385 00:48:13.190 ⇒ 00:48:36.409 Clarence Stone: Yeah, I think this call can continue. Like, I want to be able to look at more interpersonal situations, like Greg is saying, like the one Demi shared with us today, right? Like, how many outreaches until it’s a little weird? Like, how do I know when? What should I say? Right? These are things that we can all get stronger and better at, if we…
386 00:48:36.650 ⇒ 00:48:41.659 Clarence Stone: bring it to the table and talk about it. So, more of those things, I think, would be cool.
387 00:48:43.760 ⇒ 00:48:53.570 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I’m gonna continue just to, like, forward things into those channels. I haven’t had, like… as I’m doing stuff also, like, I’ll just try to share…
388 00:48:53.730 ⇒ 00:48:56.290 Uttam Kumaran: I think, like, I,
389 00:48:56.820 ⇒ 00:49:04.229 Uttam Kumaran: we’ve just been, like, sort of lonely doing client management for, like, 3 years, so I haven’t shared a lot of it, because it’s just, like.
390 00:49:04.230 ⇒ 00:49:21.820 Uttam Kumaran: I’m, like, I’d be talking to a mirror, but I need to get out of that. So, I’m happy to, like, I’m literally, like, I can give you access to my email, I can do whatever we need. You can see everything I’ve done. I have no… I have no, shame or fear, I just need to get in the… I just need to start thinking about
391 00:49:21.890 ⇒ 00:49:25.989 Uttam Kumaran: what are parts of client management that I’m doing that maybe are worth sharing?
392 00:49:26.080 ⇒ 00:49:32.160 Uttam Kumaran: So, yeah, maybe I just need to get reminded to do that, too.
393 00:49:32.370 ⇒ 00:49:38.349 Uttam Kumaran: Because for a while, it was, like, me and Robert, just like… I’m not gonna… I’m not…
394 00:49:38.350 ⇒ 00:49:44.920 Greg Stoutenburg: I mean, I can tell him how to do decks, but I don’t know if he’ll take the feedback, so…
395 00:49:44.920 ⇒ 00:49:53.619 Uttam Kumaran: It’s just, like, I didn’t… it’s actually helpful now that there’s more people, and, like, it’s been nice talking to them a lot, and hearing about interacting with default, and…
396 00:49:53.780 ⇒ 00:50:01.079 Uttam Kumaran: interacted with Magic Spoon, and, like, Magic Spoon, I think, is really the first client where I feel really, really removed in a good way.
397 00:50:01.310 ⇒ 00:50:05.630 Uttam Kumaran: And things… the feedback’s going well, so, like, more of that is helping me.
398 00:50:06.040 ⇒ 00:50:12.900 Uttam Kumaran: You know, but we also, for example, we have a client like Element, who her tolerance for… like…
399 00:50:13.010 ⇒ 00:50:18.089 Uttam Kumaran: Sort of, like, disorganization is very small.
400 00:50:18.440 ⇒ 00:50:22.280 Uttam Kumaran: But she actually doesn’t know much about, like, what it is we actually do.
401 00:50:22.430 ⇒ 00:50:26.420 Uttam Kumaran: that it’s… that’s challenging. Meaning, like, I think…
402 00:50:27.080 ⇒ 00:50:33.029 Uttam Kumaran: She’s kind of insecure about the fact she doesn’t know much about data, but she’s tasked to, like, lead this initiative.
403 00:50:33.620 ⇒ 00:50:37.430 Uttam Kumaran: And so she instead is, like, a much more stickler for, like.
404 00:50:38.420 ⇒ 00:50:40.550 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, there’s, like, a mistake on the deck.
405 00:50:41.070 ⇒ 00:50:43.820 Uttam Kumaran: Like, something was written wrong, or like…
406 00:50:45.370 ⇒ 00:50:49.760 Uttam Kumaran: Do we have an agenda for the meeting versus, like, the actual work.
407 00:50:50.100 ⇒ 00:50:52.310 Uttam Kumaran: And that’s a little bit challenging, like…
408 00:50:52.670 ⇒ 00:51:02.200 Uttam Kumaran: I’ve worked with people like that, especially in finance before, so I’m, like, used to that. That’s… but that’s where even, Greg, like, even on your docs, I’m like, the font. It’s just things like.
409 00:51:02.200 ⇒ 00:51:02.560 Greg Stoutenburg: Oh, no.
410 00:51:02.560 ⇒ 00:51:03.150 Uttam Kumaran: Whoa.
411 00:51:03.150 ⇒ 00:51:07.899 Greg Stoutenburg: I was like, I was like, no, when I saw your comment, I was like, no way, I wouldn’t miss that.
412 00:51:07.900 ⇒ 00:51:08.439 Uttam Kumaran: Clicked on the.
413 00:51:08.440 ⇒ 00:51:12.230 Greg Stoutenburg: separately, to see. I was like, Aw, damn.
414 00:51:12.230 ⇒ 00:51:12.930 Uttam Kumaran: No, but it’s just…
415 00:51:12.930 ⇒ 00:51:13.779 Greg Stoutenburg: This one’s Calibri.
416 00:51:13.780 ⇒ 00:51:24.940 Uttam Kumaran: where there’s always room. I don’t want to be stickler, but after working… Oh, it’s important. Yeah, it’s just, like, it’s… it’s also just, like, the small things that I feel like all add up.
417 00:51:25.060 ⇒ 00:51:28.989 Uttam Kumaran: But that’s a level of, like, Like, that’s like a…
418 00:51:29.340 ⇒ 00:51:40.929 Uttam Kumaran: calling that out means that you’re from, like, sort of a big… I don’t know, Clarence, maybe kind of some of your people, or, like… these people are, like, Bane people, and so they’re like, the font is off, like, this is off. I’m like, dude…
419 00:51:41.630 ⇒ 00:51:49.829 Uttam Kumaran: I’m like… I’m like, what other IT tech firm are you working with who’s gonna do… like, you’re not working with, like, management consultants, like.
420 00:51:50.940 ⇒ 00:51:51.770 Uttam Kumaran: I guess.
421 00:51:51.770 ⇒ 00:51:55.409 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, I’m with the… I’m with the client on this. I mean, I actually think, I don’t know, I think there’s.
422 00:51:55.410 ⇒ 00:52:01.440 Uttam Kumaran: No, I am. I feel like I am too, but it is, we just haven’t,
423 00:52:01.920 ⇒ 00:52:07.049 Uttam Kumaran: that’s the first time I’m seeing it in a client to, like, this degree, where they’re very sticklers.
424 00:52:07.160 ⇒ 00:52:18.159 Uttam Kumaran: And I don’t… it’s just tough, like, we’re… we get flamed, like, and me and Awash, like, we’ll get flamed, and I’m like, Awash, you totally copy-pasted something you had no idea about, and like…
425 00:52:18.370 ⇒ 00:52:21.809 Uttam Kumaran: And, like, and it’s not… it’s not that I blame him, it’s just that, like.
426 00:52:22.570 ⇒ 00:52:27.810 Uttam Kumaran: you can’t wing it. We can’t wing it on this one. Like, you gotta really be super, super tight.
427 00:52:27.930 ⇒ 00:52:28.790 Uttam Kumaran: You know?
428 00:52:29.230 ⇒ 00:52:33.540 Uttam Kumaran: But… Yeah.
429 00:52:33.540 ⇒ 00:52:46.499 Clarence Stone: I mean, that’s what I mean about, like, client preferences, Tom, right? Like, this person cares so much about agendas and spelling things right, like… I mean, that’s just part for the course for this client and this project.
430 00:52:46.500 ⇒ 00:52:48.500 Uttam Kumaran: She’s so annoying, she’s so annoying.
431 00:52:49.160 ⇒ 00:52:52.429 Clarence Stone: Just like, you know, some people may…
432 00:52:53.020 ⇒ 00:52:59.039 Clarence Stone: You know, want their meetings held a certain way, we just make accommodations that are gonna be, you know, for each client.
433 00:52:59.260 ⇒ 00:53:00.050 Clarence Stone: So…
434 00:53:00.050 ⇒ 00:53:02.719 Uttam Kumaran: It’s just hard to find data people…
435 00:53:03.440 ⇒ 00:53:07.519 Uttam Kumaran: Who can do this type of… Who can deal with that?
436 00:53:08.480 ⇒ 00:53:13.689 Uttam Kumaran: Like, it’s hard, like, engineering… like, I just happened to learn that from working with finance.
437 00:53:15.030 ⇒ 00:53:17.829 Uttam Kumaran: But, like, it’s not… it’s, like, not easy.
438 00:53:19.110 ⇒ 00:53:25.609 Uttam Kumaran: That’s more of, like, my pain. It’s like, I’m like, damn, I don’t know who can take this over. It’s kind of tough.
439 00:53:28.050 ⇒ 00:53:29.960 Uttam Kumaran: But…
440 00:53:30.300 ⇒ 00:53:46.910 Clarence Stone: I mean, it’s a great call to talk about those things. If Demi, you, or Greg have one of those clients and you want to discuss, I don’t know how to say this another way, but, like, the weird behavior that I got moving from, like, a
441 00:53:47.830 ⇒ 00:53:54.000 Clarence Stone: full-time product manager, product owner role to, like, consulting, was that
442 00:53:54.310 ⇒ 00:54:00.450 Clarence Stone: We spent an extraordinary amount of time talking about communication.
443 00:54:00.810 ⇒ 00:54:01.600 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
444 00:54:01.980 ⇒ 00:54:18.310 Clarence Stone: After a meeting, like, my coworker will either say, hey, you did great, this is what I noticed, or I, like, one of them would ask, how do you think the client thought about it? Or, client said this, it really stuck with me, what does that even mean? Right? There’s a lot of, like, back, you know, game time.
445 00:54:18.310 ⇒ 00:54:19.010 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, yeah, yeah.
446 00:54:19.010 ⇒ 00:54:22.300 Clarence Stone: happens, and I want this group to have that behavior.
447 00:54:22.730 ⇒ 00:54:23.360 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
448 00:54:26.550 ⇒ 00:54:34.839 Clarence Stone: You guys ever watch Silicon Valley? You ever watch, there’s an episode about, the bear is sticky with honey.
449 00:54:35.130 ⇒ 00:54:40.140 Clarence Stone: You guys… okay, none of you guys probably knew about it. I would be upset…
450 00:54:40.140 ⇒ 00:54:41.099 Greg Stoutenburg: I appreciate it, sorry.
451 00:54:41.100 ⇒ 00:54:58.160 Clarence Stone: I would watch that skit, because essentially, like, the CEO says one line, and the rest of the executives are trying to figure out, what does that mean, how do we react, and what are we supposed to do? And I think it’s, like, emblematic of the challenge of being a CSO, right? Client said this.
452 00:54:58.610 ⇒ 00:55:02.300 Clarence Stone: What does that even mean? What do I do? Right?
453 00:55:02.300 ⇒ 00:55:02.990 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
454 00:55:02.990 ⇒ 00:55:08.450 Clarence Stone: And that’s what this, you know, community is here for. It’s to help each other figure those things out.
455 00:55:12.040 ⇒ 00:55:18.870 Greg Stoutenburg: I like it, yeah, I like it, and I saw, you, Tom, this may have been a comment that you shared in Slack earlier today, but that,
456 00:55:19.450 ⇒ 00:55:29.689 Greg Stoutenburg: so many… it’s hard to find things that are repeatable for Brainforge, because so many of our client engagements are different, either by a little or by a lot.
457 00:55:30.890 ⇒ 00:55:37.130 Uttam Kumaran: I think it’s… I think we just, like… I think this is the trap, though. It’s like, me… me thinking that is what…
458 00:55:37.560 ⇒ 00:55:45.030 Uttam Kumaran: keeps our business stagnant. Like, we have to find the repeatability in order to focus on the things that are unique.
459 00:55:45.330 ⇒ 00:55:45.660 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah.
460 00:55:45.660 ⇒ 00:55:56.190 Uttam Kumaran: because I want to get rid of the things that are repeatable we need to, like, repeat and sort of hand off or automate, so that we can go do the things that don’t scale.
461 00:55:56.190 ⇒ 00:56:04.159 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, yeah, I mean, yeah. I know for my part, like, I’m, I’ve got my eye on the fact that I’m doing two
462 00:56:04.190 ⇒ 00:56:18.209 Greg Stoutenburg: amplitude implementations in the near future here. And, just thinking, like, alright, it’s gonna be time to pay really close attention to what are the necessary pieces of this, and if we could come up with…
463 00:56:18.440 ⇒ 00:56:31.430 Greg Stoutenburg: if we could come up with for… even just this, right? Like, if I can come up with whatever number of things are the necessary steps, and then some small handful of minimal nice-to-haves, then, like, that kind of thing can… that sort of strong.
464 00:56:31.430 ⇒ 00:56:42.749 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, but also you can then start bringing in… you can start bringing in people, like, more junior people to take it on. You, yourself, can probably do it faster with less errors, you know?
465 00:56:42.750 ⇒ 00:56:43.280 Greg Stoutenburg: Exactly.
466 00:56:43.280 ⇒ 00:56:48.319 Uttam Kumaran: Both of those are clearly attacking margin and speed.
467 00:56:48.320 ⇒ 00:56:53.290 Greg Stoutenburg: And so that way, you can say, okay, now we can maybe do 6 of these at a time.
468 00:56:53.290 ⇒ 00:56:53.980 Uttam Kumaran: And, like.
469 00:56:54.210 ⇒ 00:57:00.000 Uttam Kumaran: I think we can… or we can do… oh, now that we nailed the first 3 months, I can start putting either 6-month scopes.
470 00:57:00.150 ⇒ 00:57:12.880 Uttam Kumaran: You know, like, so that’s kind of how… so for me, it’s more of, like, thinking about, okay, how does every single person doing a service start to think about what they just did as, like, something that we may want to reproduce?
471 00:57:12.880 ⇒ 00:57:15.409 Greg Stoutenburg: It’s very rare that we do something.
472 00:57:15.410 ⇒ 00:57:18.969 Uttam Kumaran: one time. Like, we typically don’t take work like that.
473 00:57:19.190 ⇒ 00:57:29.309 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. Unless it’s, like, really, really high paid, that’s, like, only get… we’re… a lot of the work we took, because I know we can do a bunch of them, you know?
474 00:57:29.350 ⇒ 00:57:33.780 Greg Stoutenburg: Yup. Yeah. So, yeah, I’m…
475 00:57:33.840 ⇒ 00:57:35.670 Uttam Kumaran: And, again, so…
476 00:57:36.010 ⇒ 00:57:44.580 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I’m also interested, and that’s, again, like, for me, like, today, in our data call, we’re doing an audit for Magic Spoon, and…
477 00:57:44.710 ⇒ 00:57:51.839 Uttam Kumaran: we just did one for Urban Stems earlier last year, and I was like, cool, that’s two, okay, we gotta wrap… we gotta, like, wrap this in a bow.
478 00:57:51.880 ⇒ 00:57:54.909 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah. And price… we had to wrap this in a boat, price it out.
479 00:57:54.910 ⇒ 00:57:55.870 Uttam Kumaran: And then…
480 00:57:56.260 ⇒ 00:58:04.220 Uttam Kumaran: I gotta get, sort of, like, what the timeline would be to do one of these from Demi, and then we gotta go… we gotta go sell a couple more of these.
481 00:58:04.340 ⇒ 00:58:06.360 Uttam Kumaran: You know.
482 00:58:07.250 ⇒ 00:58:14.120 Uttam Kumaran: So that would be good, even Demulade, like, once we complete the audit, we can get a good testimonial from them, and from Emily, probably, too.
483 00:58:14.450 ⇒ 00:58:15.510 Uttam Kumaran: And then, like.
484 00:58:16.100 ⇒ 00:58:21.580 Uttam Kumaran: I’ll just go… we just can just… we should just hit a bunch of dbt customers with that, like, the largest dbt customers.
485 00:58:22.070 ⇒ 00:58:29.930 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, I mean, one thought I had, like, I don’t want to get too far in the weeds because this is just speculative, but, like, AI can read linear boards if you’re connected, and if we had linear.
486 00:58:29.930 ⇒ 00:58:30.260 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
487 00:58:30.260 ⇒ 00:58:32.719 Greg Stoutenburg: That were a little bit more polished, like.
488 00:58:32.720 ⇒ 00:58:35.320 Uttam Kumaran: So this is what we call, like, reusable epics, basically.
489 00:58:35.320 ⇒ 00:58:36.809 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
490 00:58:36.810 ⇒ 00:58:40.280 Uttam Kumaran: We literally just, like, literally had the tickets, which, like, cool, drag this epic.
491 00:58:40.280 ⇒ 00:58:43.170 Greg Stoutenburg: Exactly. Or even to start with, like.
492 00:58:43.530 ⇒ 00:58:43.920 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
493 00:58:43.920 ⇒ 00:58:49.500 Greg Stoutenburg: project, we just flush the tickets out a little bit more, and then we, you know, we ask, you know, Cursor, Claude, whatever, like, we’ve got the integration…
494 00:58:49.500 ⇒ 00:58:51.009 Uttam Kumaran: Hit them a little bit, yeah.
495 00:58:51.010 ⇒ 00:58:55.619 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, give me a road… like, make this into a roadmap that could apply for…
496 00:58:55.620 ⇒ 00:58:56.100 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
497 00:58:56.100 ⇒ 00:58:59.309 Greg Stoutenburg: The next 10 engagements, that might be a starting point.
498 00:58:59.310 ⇒ 00:59:11.170 Uttam Kumaran: Well, you know, actually, I think, like, you could probably go from your Hedra SOW, and in cursor, just have it make the tickets. I feel like it would do a half-decent job.
499 00:59:11.170 ⇒ 00:59:11.500 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah.
500 00:59:11.500 ⇒ 00:59:16.419 Uttam Kumaran: And then, I think in our vault, or in our playbooks, we do have ticket templates.
501 00:59:16.420 ⇒ 00:59:17.120 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah.
502 00:59:17.450 ⇒ 00:59:18.029 Greg Stoutenburg: So it…
503 00:59:18.620 ⇒ 00:59:31.019 Greg Stoutenburg: I’ll take a look. I got, Claude Code burned me pretty badly, one time in GitHub. It just, it just created… it made it the world’s largest epic, and I was like, okay.
504 00:59:31.020 ⇒ 00:59:40.469 Greg Stoutenburg: You know, I had an engineer go through, he was like, this isn’t a thing, this isn’t, this is impossible. I was like, okay, all right, I better slow down a little.
505 00:59:41.250 ⇒ 00:59:45.529 Greg Stoutenburg: I wanna… I actually wanna show you guys… Right, and we’ll get there, yeah.
506 00:59:45.530 ⇒ 00:59:49.320 Uttam Kumaran: I want to show you guys this thing, because this is, like,
507 00:59:49.540 ⇒ 00:59:57.830 Uttam Kumaran: Our… like, one of our… like, this accelerator that we’re in, they shared me… they showed me their runbook that they used.
508 00:59:58.120 ⇒ 01:00:01.769 Uttam Kumaran: When… this was maybe in, like, yeah, 2019 or something.
509 01:00:01.890 ⇒ 01:00:10.170 Uttam Kumaran: This is really great, like, Alright, this is, like, this is, like, super OD, but they literally wrote down…
510 01:00:10.170 ⇒ 01:00:12.010 Greg Stoutenburg: Runbook? I’m sorry, what is Runbook?
511 01:00:12.010 ⇒ 01:00:15.590 Uttam Kumaran: Runbook is just, like, how do they run Agile at Flux7?
512 01:00:15.760 ⇒ 01:00:16.229 Greg Stoutenburg: Okay.
513 01:00:16.230 ⇒ 01:00:21.049 Uttam Kumaran: It’s basically, like, a runbook is, like, given this, do this, given this, do this, like, literally instructions.
514 01:00:21.050 ⇒ 01:00:21.550 Greg Stoutenburg: Okay.
515 01:00:21.810 ⇒ 01:00:30.659 Uttam Kumaran: For, like, just, like, a handbook. And so this is, like, sort of, like, Clarence, the bookkeep kind of gave me. And they literally have, for example, like, how do you do SOW, like, estimation?
516 01:00:30.880 ⇒ 01:00:31.340 Greg Stoutenburg: Nice.
517 01:00:31.340 ⇒ 01:00:37.949 Uttam Kumaran: You know, and like, here’s the estimation sheet, which goes to, like, a sheet they had. Here’s capacity planning runbook.
518 01:00:38.180 ⇒ 01:00:49.329 Uttam Kumaran: Here’s, like… and they have… they have all these things about, like, how they run stand-ups, how they do burn-ups, like, everything about how they run.
519 01:00:49.330 ⇒ 01:00:49.790 Greg Stoutenburg: That’s amazing.
520 01:00:49.790 ⇒ 01:00:51.689 Uttam Kumaran: Like, a project, except for the…
521 01:00:51.840 ⇒ 01:00:58.829 Uttam Kumaran: Except for the SOW itself, it’s in here, it’s extremely detailed. I got this from the guy that ran Flex7’s, like.
522 01:00:58.940 ⇒ 01:01:00.130 Uttam Kumaran: Agile.
523 01:01:00.370 ⇒ 01:01:05.159 Uttam Kumaran: And… Yeah, it was, like, really helpful just to read, like.
524 01:01:05.430 ⇒ 01:01:11.859 Uttam Kumaran: how they do all of this, right? Like, what are the meetings we do? What’s backlog refinement? What’s sprint planning? Stand-up, sprint?
525 01:01:12.300 ⇒ 01:01:18.300 Uttam Kumaran: So, I don’t know, I liked this. This is, like, really, like… I’ll send this into the channel.
526 01:01:18.590 ⇒ 01:01:19.520 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, that’s cool.
527 01:01:19.910 ⇒ 01:01:20.760 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
528 01:01:20.870 ⇒ 01:01:25.640 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, the more we can standardize, the easier it would be. Like, I love the idea of, like,
529 01:01:25.840 ⇒ 01:01:34.380 Greg Stoutenburg: you know, fantasyland is always self-service, right? Someone goes to Brainforgeai.com, or whatever our URL is, you know, they’re like.
530 01:01:34.870 ⇒ 01:01:44.690 Greg Stoutenburg: Again, just to say, like, my context, right? Product analytics implementation, click the button, right? Like, okay, and now, like, now from our side, we’ve got this whole…
531 01:01:44.690 ⇒ 01:01:57.400 Greg Stoutenburg: work stream that’s just, like, ready to go. They’re gonna fill in some details, everything’s gonna populate, because there is a way to do this. And then separately, you know, a human… the human intervention is doing the work.
532 01:01:57.400 ⇒ 01:02:01.260 Greg Stoutenburg: And is scoping out those pieces that seem to be distinct from
533 01:02:01.260 ⇒ 01:02:06.909 Greg Stoutenburg: Whatever the, you know, the main approach is, because they have some, special request.
534 01:02:07.630 ⇒ 01:02:08.929 Uttam Kumaran: Yes, yes.
535 01:02:12.790 ⇒ 01:02:13.580 Uttam Kumaran: Cool.
536 01:02:13.910 ⇒ 01:02:15.590 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, I’ll send this in the chat.
537 01:02:16.090 ⇒ 01:02:16.750 Greg Stoutenburg: Cool.
538 01:02:17.980 ⇒ 01:02:30.330 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, guys, this was great. Yeah, so let’s… we’ll chat again on Wednesday as a crew. I’ll just try to keep remembering to send stuff in the channel, but yeah, today was great. I think last week was good.
539 01:02:30.440 ⇒ 01:02:34.989 Uttam Kumaran: I feel like… yeah, I feel really good going into this week, so… yeah, let me know how I can be helping.
540 01:02:34.990 ⇒ 01:02:35.809 Greg Stoutenburg: So, I’m…
541 01:02:36.690 ⇒ 01:02:43.119 Greg Stoutenburg: Sorry, I pressed the play button on Clarence’s video, that’s what that sounded like. I was like, oh, he sent the link.
542 01:02:43.120 ⇒ 01:02:44.150 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, you’re good, you’re good.
543 01:02:44.150 ⇒ 01:02:45.550 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah. Okay.
544 01:02:45.550 ⇒ 01:02:47.130 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. Alright.
545 01:02:47.570 ⇒ 01:02:48.260 Demilade Agboola: Firefly.
546 01:02:48.510 ⇒ 01:02:48.860 Greg Stoutenburg: Still.
547 01:02:48.860 ⇒ 01:02:49.270 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
548 01:02:49.270 ⇒ 01:02:49.659 Greg Stoutenburg: Have a good one.