Meeting Title: Brainforge Product Analytics Strategy Interview Date: 2026-01-14 Meeting participants: AK, Uttam Kumaran


WEBVTT

1 00:02:33.660 00:02:36.289 Uttam Kumaran: Thanks, Shawna. So sorry for the delay.

2 00:02:37.460 00:02:39.320 AK: Hi, Utum, no worries.

3 00:02:39.440 00:02:40.520 AK: How are you?

4 00:02:40.520 00:02:47.380 Uttam Kumaran: Hey, good, how are you? Sorry, I’m just, just had, like, some in-person meetings, and just got some calls from,

5 00:02:47.540 00:03:01.299 Uttam Kumaran: related to some insurance, so apologies, just, like, a little bit crazy Wednesday, but all good. Yeah, I appreciate you taking the time. Sorry, I did… I did notice that the meeting changed, and I was like, okay, cool, and then I saw… and I saw your email, so I’m glad we could get connected.

6 00:03:01.300 00:03:10.660 AK: Yes, that was my… that was a mistake on my end. I was trying to look at the links, and I accidentally clicked on the reschedule link, and I was like, what did I do?

7 00:03:10.950 00:03:23.940 Uttam Kumaran: No, it’s funny, because my team messaged me, they’re like, how did these interviews go today? I’m like, oh, I’m pretty sure Akshana’s is tomorrow, but… so I’ll let you know, and then, yeah, so no problem at all. I’m glad that, I’m glad that… sorry I’m not on video, I’m just driving from…

8 00:03:24.450 00:03:24.900 AK: Nova.

9 00:03:24.900 00:03:37.080 Uttam Kumaran: But yeah, it’s really great, it’s really great to meet you. You know, as I sort of mentioned, we’re growing, you know, a lot of our product analytics and sort of.

10 00:03:37.080 00:03:40.650 AK: product analytics strategy group, here at Brainforge, and…

11 00:03:40.650 00:03:59.410 Uttam Kumaran: You know, I love kind of, like, following stuff in Amplitude and, like, the Amplitude Slack, and so I’m always sort of on the lookout for folks that are interested in working with a team and, you know, developing, you know, product analytics solutions for… for… for growing companies, and so…

12 00:03:59.410 00:04:17.059 Uttam Kumaran: That is, like, one of the many things that we do. Again, like, I run Brainforge. We’re a data and AI consultancy. So my background is in data engineering. I worked as a data engineer for a number of years in New York, and led data teams and led product at a data startup.

13 00:04:17.100 00:04:33.070 Uttam Kumaran: And then started this business about two and a half years ago. We’ve worked with, you know, roughly 30 clients in that period of time, and we have roughly, like, 20 people on the team now, most of whom are engineers, whether it’s state engineers, analytics engineers.

14 00:04:33.070 00:04:45.579 Uttam Kumaran: We also have… we’re doing some AI work, as I mentioned, so there’s some full-stack folks, as well as we have some great strategy and analysis folks, so we do, like, you know, FP&A work, sales and marketing-related strategy work.

15 00:04:45.590 00:05:04.780 Uttam Kumaran: And so it’s a really awesome crew. It’s sort of internally operates kind of more closer to, like, a product company in that, like, it’s a lot of shared learnings, but, we… we are a service company, and so we… we typically work with, you know, businesses in the $20 million to few hundred million dollar revenue range that are

16 00:05:04.780 00:05:24.720 Uttam Kumaran: looking to grow, and they’re looking to grow with data. And so, when it comes to product analytics, this is really related to, conversion rate optimization, understanding where traffic is coming from, how people are progressing through an application, you know, set… understanding golden events, you know, helping people tell the story of,

17 00:05:24.870 00:05:28.340 Uttam Kumaran: You know, how… how to build, you know, how to… how to…

18 00:05:28.550 00:05:43.690 Uttam Kumaran: do experimentation, so sort of all the talking points of why, you know, product analytics is important. And so when we come in, you know, we’re oftentimes either implementing Amplitude or Mixpanel, or we’re coming into a situation where, it’s,

19 00:05:43.690 00:05:50.760 Uttam Kumaran: it’s sort of been set up, but it’s not really been optimized, or they have… they’re not using it really seriously, and so we kind of go from there.

20 00:05:50.980 00:06:07.650 Uttam Kumaran: See, that’s, like, a little bit about us. I’m based here in Austin. Our kind of team is a little bit scattered. We have folks sort of all over the states, and some folks sort of a little bit all over the world, but all really talented, you know, data and AI folks. But yeah, would love to kind of hear a little bit about your background and…

21 00:06:07.790 00:06:20.599 Uttam Kumaran: Sort of, like, what kind of made you interested when you… when you saw my message? And then, yeah, just… just down to kind of have a chat to hear about, what sort of opportunities you’re looking for, and to maybe see if there’s a… there’s a way to work together.

22 00:06:21.830 00:06:33.169 AK: Great, well, thanks so much for the intro, Utam, I appreciate it, and thanks for giving me a, you know, straight domino of what’s going on in the company and, you know, how the team is comprised.

23 00:06:33.280 00:06:34.840 AK: So, what about me, I’m…

24 00:06:34.840 00:06:35.300 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, of course.

25 00:06:35.300 00:06:40.769 AK: particularly a growth and digital marketing professional. I’ve been in this space for…

26 00:06:40.920 00:06:54.200 AK: Hmm, I’ve been in this space for, I think, more than 11 years now, and my career has spanned across various geographies and various industries. I’ve worked in fintech, ed tech.

27 00:06:54.410 00:06:58.749 AK: Even in AI startups, when AI wasn’t even a thing.

28 00:06:58.840 00:07:13.040 AK: And the last few years, I moved to Canada in 2022, and the last few years I’ve been working both in full-time and consultant roles in the growth and digital marketing space.

29 00:07:13.120 00:07:32.299 AK: So that’s like a, like, I would say an all-inclusive kind of role, where you wear multiple hats. Usually, when I work with companies as a consultant or, like, in a fractional role, they don’t really have a marketing department or a digital marketing department, so it’s a one-person team that’s doing everything, so…

30 00:07:32.300 00:07:44.169 AK: I’m kind of setting up things from scratch, I’m looking at their analytics, I’m looking at their data and figuring out, okay, what’s going on with the user base, what are the goals the company’s trying to achieve?

31 00:07:44.250 00:07:54.309 AK: Are we optimizing for any particular metrics, or are we just building things from scratch, and we are in that A-B testing, experimentation kind of phase?

32 00:07:54.330 00:08:08.180 AK: Yeah, so that’s, like, just in a small nutshell about me. I’ve worked in both performance marketing, space, where I’ve handled budgets of more than a million dollars plus.

33 00:08:08.250 00:08:24.850 AK: Where I’m just running campaigns end-to-end, managing, okay, which particular channel to optimize for, whether to even spend money on certain campaigns or not, or should we get into a bit of SEO or, like, app store optimization, where we’re kind of focused on organic growth.

34 00:08:24.930 00:08:27.229 AK: And I’ve also worked with

35 00:08:27.990 00:08:41.030 AK: no budgets, where I’m just looking at the user funnel and just taking care of CRM and lifecycle marketing, where I’m kind of automating the user journey from end to end, and making sure that the main

36 00:08:41.030 00:08:51.109 AK: goal or main KPI is being hit. So, we don’t really have any marketing happening per se, on the surface, but there’s a lot of internal

37 00:08:51.160 00:08:58.000 AK: revenue optimization and internal campaign management happening. So that’s… that’s been my journey and my role.

38 00:08:58.010 00:09:12.089 AK: In the last few years, and yeah, now I’m back. I was working full-time for a company called Shobi, which is in the EdTech space, again, and they have a department which is purely focused on B2C marketing.

39 00:09:12.090 00:09:14.660 Uttam Kumaran: And I was basically taking care of…

40 00:09:14.660 00:09:28.949 AK: marketing end-to-end for that particular division. But they kind of shut down that division recently, so my contract ended, and now I’m looking for new opportunities, which is why I… I was part of the cohort amplitude community for a while.

41 00:09:29.120 00:09:33.630 AK: And that’s when I was like, you know what, let me just post it out there and see.

42 00:09:33.630 00:09:33.980 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

43 00:09:33.980 00:09:42.439 AK: any opportunities that come my way, and yeah, that’s how I got to know, and when you texted me, I was like, okay, this is interesting, I want to know what.

44 00:09:42.440 00:09:43.099 Uttam Kumaran: Fair enough.

45 00:09:43.850 00:09:47.060 AK: work they’re doing. I didn’t want to assume anything, because I understood.

46 00:09:47.060 00:09:47.829 Uttam Kumaran: No, no, no.

47 00:09:47.830 00:09:56.949 AK: On the website, I was like, oh, you know, this is… this seems like a very data-driven, very, like, analytical, and very, like, tech-driven, kind of.

48 00:09:57.160 00:10:10.239 AK: company, and the road might be that, which, like, I’m not a very technical person, I don’t have that kind of tech background, but I thought, you know what, let me just get into it, and let me find out what it is, and then we can, you know, go from there.

49 00:10:10.540 00:10:20.869 Uttam Kumaran: No, I appreciate it. Yeah, you know, I think we… we do a lot of things, and we’re trying to just do the… continue to do the things that we feel great at. You know, I think one thing that’s unique about us is

50 00:10:20.870 00:10:37.909 Uttam Kumaran: we’re kind of almost, like, full-stack data, like, we do data warehousing, data modeling, BI, but also strategy, analytics, like, some stuff on the recommendation side, you know, and that’s where I think, like, you have a very interesting background, that you’ve worked in many of these different fields, but kind of more importantly in

51 00:10:37.910 00:10:54.179 Uttam Kumaran: in, sort of, client service is, like, communication. You know, and it’s really nice to hear, like, you’ve been able to articulate, sort of, like, what you’ve done really well. And so, really, what we’re looking for is, one, we kind of do have work kind of spanning a lot of what you mentioned in particular.

52 00:10:54.180 00:11:08.839 Uttam Kumaran: both product analytics, but also on, like, on the growth and, like, strategy side. So when we come into a company, typically, again, we’re working with, like, e-commerce, or CPG, or in B2B SaaS, we’re coming in, we’re sort of understanding the situation, implementing a set of

53 00:11:08.840 00:11:24.759 Uttam Kumaran: implementing data, creating data warehouses, and then basically driving towards recommendations, right? And so, a lot of what we’re doing is working directly with the CMO or the head of growth to sort of create a data-driven framework to do things, and then ultimately, they’re using our team probably

54 00:11:24.760 00:11:29.659 Uttam Kumaran: To set a lot of that up, and then kind of throwing us into the biggest fire, you know, whatever the biggest fire is.

55 00:11:29.660 00:11:47.969 Uttam Kumaran: Which is great, because that’s really what I… I think it’s their best use of money, and it’s… that’s sort of what we’re… we hope to be kind of used. And so that’s why a lot of our folks are fairly senior. We have a really awesome team. I guess my… I’m kind of curious, you’ve done sort of all these various things in your career, like, what are you…

56 00:11:47.990 00:12:05.260 Uttam Kumaran: like, what gives you, like, what gives you the most energy, and like, kind of, like, what’s, like, what’s next? Like, what is some area that you want to go deeper on, or maybe you haven’t gone deep on? Like, do you kind of have, like, a… a sort of, like, yeah, like, what direction do you kind of want to head, given all the…

57 00:12:05.260 00:12:07.430 AK: Various, you know, experiences you’ve had.

58 00:12:08.400 00:12:25.510 AK: Right, I mean, I’ll be honest with them, I’ve been in this space for a while now, and I think now with AI and with automation and so many things coming in, I feel like there is… there are not a lot of SMEs in this space who understand what exactly works and when.

59 00:12:25.590 00:12:41.809 AK: So there’s, like, people are building things from scratch, and they’re building their, you know, unique ecosystems, but there’s no proper direction. So, which is why I feel like I would want to be in the growth and digital space for a while, where I’m focusing on…

60 00:12:41.930 00:13:01.339 AK: not just going beyond certain metrics, like just acquire… acquisition, where you’re just focusing on acquiring users or acquiring customers, but also, like, looking at engagement, looking at monetization, and looking at how the user and customer funnels are working. So, funnel optimization and revenue optimization is the space, I feel like.

61 00:13:01.620 00:13:05.200 AK: I would want to be in for the next… few years.

62 00:13:05.330 00:13:13.900 AK: Basically, what I mean is going a bit deeper, and going beyond the surface level, you know, campaign optimization, or just…

63 00:13:13.900 00:13:14.330 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

64 00:13:14.330 00:13:31.979 AK: you know, surface-level stuff that, you know, I could Google and I could get those recommendations, but, like, it takes some experience and some time to actually understand, for that particular product or service, what kind of recommendations would work, how to look at the data, and how to make sense of

65 00:13:31.980 00:13:35.539 AK: all the data that’s getting thrown at you. Most of the times.

66 00:13:35.580 00:13:42.940 AK: I feel like marketers, especially younger marketers, get confused, or they’ll give random recommendations, and they won’t work.

67 00:13:43.100 00:13:44.750 AK: So, it’s the answer.

68 00:13:44.750 00:13:59.749 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, a lot of them aren’t built in any data, they’re sort of, like, from their anecdotal understanding of, like, what’s in the market, or they’re looking at other inspiration, you know? Yes. So totally with you. And you’d be surprised, even the biggest companies, a lot of… that’s how their marketing department works.

69 00:14:00.600 00:14:17.239 Uttam Kumaran: It’s a lot of the smaller… smaller e-com agencies are probably, like, really the ones that are most optimized, but as you go big for one reason or another, they don’t have the talent, or they don’t have the conviction in their data, or, like, they just, like, don’t know how to kind of put it all together.

70 00:14:17.240 00:14:24.670 AK: Their goals are different, like, I have a friend who’s… who works in an agency, and they have one of the big banks in Canada as their client.

71 00:14:24.880 00:14:42.649 AK: And the more I speak with him, the more I understand that they don’t really know what’s… what they’re doing. It’s just a bunch of people just scrambling to get things done and delivering certain, you know, deliverables, quote-unquote, at a certain time frame, but there’s no…

72 00:14:42.750 00:14:52.069 AK: like, there’s no analytical approach to it. It’s just, okay, we have this budget, and we have to spend it, and we have to get this coverage, and there are no…

73 00:14:52.250 00:14:54.020 AK: the KPIs are a bit…

74 00:14:54.170 00:15:10.390 AK: vague. So there’s a lot of, like, things up in the air, which I understand, which happens when there’s, like, a multi-billion dollar bank on board. I understand, but then I’m like, okay, what are you learning out of this? Like, you’ve been in this space.

75 00:15:10.390 00:15:10.850 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.

76 00:15:10.850 00:15:20.659 AK: years, and I don’t think there’s any learning coming out of it. And I think that’s where the gap is, and I feel like my approach to marketing has changed a lot when

77 00:15:20.760 00:15:24.670 AK: with experience, and I would also want to have a very…

78 00:15:24.790 00:15:44.620 AK: like, analytical and very meticulous approach to anything I’m doing, even if it’s, like, setting up a small experiment, or it’s something bigger, where I’m working with, say, the senior PM and giving my recommendations that, okay, for the growth funnel to improve, these are the product-level changes that I believe would work, and I believe.

79 00:15:44.620 00:15:45.050 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.

80 00:15:45.050 00:15:58.250 AK: would have, like, a significant incremental impact in the next 3 months. So, to have that approach is, I think, important for me, because I won’t want to just randomly do anything.

81 00:15:58.250 00:16:00.100 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, and you’ll find that…

82 00:16:00.100 00:16:00.860 AK: content marketing.

83 00:16:00.860 00:16:09.709 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, and you’ll find that, like, you know, our engagements, so we don’t do anything that’s, like, DevShop or, like, staff augmentation. All of our engagements are, like, we’re owning.

84 00:16:09.710 00:16:21.399 Uttam Kumaran: we typically work with the C-suite or, like, VPs, and we’re sort of working with the business, meaning we don’t come in underneath, like, the CTO. A lot of our stuff is coming in really, truly as, like, strategy and recommendations.

85 00:16:21.430 00:16:40.979 Uttam Kumaran: And so we have a lot of that ability to actually drive them to make the right decision. And of course, like, they’re calling us because they have… they’re in a jam, right? Either they don’t know how to grow, or they’re growing too slowly, and nobody there can sort of put together a plan. So, this is where also a lot of our job, you know, yes, it’s fairly technical, but

86 00:16:40.980 00:16:58.809 Uttam Kumaran: It’s a lot of communicating and showing the path and showing, like, hey, you guys can have an experimentation culture where we can run… we need to… but we need infrastructure to be able to run experiments, to be able to have enough time to capture the results, codify them in, like, a deck, and present, you know, and then make a decision.

87 00:16:58.810 00:17:08.749 Uttam Kumaran: And, like, a lot of places don’t have that mentality, or they’ve never done it, or they’ve never seen it done well. And so that’s what kind of, like, what we try to bring to the table. So I think, like, yeah, I mean.

88 00:17:08.790 00:17:13.860 Uttam Kumaran: we’re… we’re… we’re… I feel like we’re… we’re pretty aligned, and I… I also think our business is…

89 00:17:13.859 00:17:29.810 Uttam Kumaran: is heading more in the direction where we’re doing a lot of, you know, digital product analytics, but just digital analysis in general of, like, for example, we have some clients that we’re doing a lot of GA work, but we also do a lot of post-hog amplitude, and mixed panel work.

90 00:17:30.060 00:17:41.749 Uttam Kumaran: Where, yes, there’s a lot of conversion rate optimization. It’s also allowing… it’s, like, also implementing a platform where we can teach people how to create their own dashboards and run their own tests, right, and things like that.

91 00:17:42.250 00:17:45.660 AK: Sweet. Sounds interesting. Sounds really cool.

92 00:17:46.150 00:17:55.439 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I mean, maybe as, like, a… kind of, like, to kind of tell you a little bit of, like, how we work. I mean, one is, like, I would love to connect you with some more people on my team who are on the strategy side of the business.

93 00:17:55.440 00:17:57.640 AK: Who can tell you a lot about, like.

94 00:17:57.640 00:18:05.170 Uttam Kumaran: what a typical client engagement is, and sort of more about the team. You’re happy to, you know, I would love for you to just chat with them, and sort of

95 00:18:05.350 00:18:24.100 Uttam Kumaran: hear more about, like, what it’s like working here, and, like, what it’s like working with me, and you can ask them anything, and, you know, definitely ask them what it’s like as we’ve been growing. And then, yeah, would love for you to just maybe chat with them and sort of get a better understanding of sort of some of the work that we’re doing, and kind of the way that we typically work.

96 00:18:24.340 00:18:32.050 Uttam Kumaran: You know, if we kind of move forward with an opportunity, like, we usually start everybody, like, kind of part-time, where you’re able to just understand a little bit about

97 00:18:32.170 00:18:47.009 Uttam Kumaran: the type of work we’re doing, you’re able to come onto, like, maybe one client engagement, understanding how we operate, and then sort of, like, if you… if, like, we sort of like what we’re both seeing, then we can kind of ramp up from there, and that’s sort of how we’ve always kind of grown the company.

98 00:18:47.150 00:18:53.289 Uttam Kumaran: And it’s, it’s, it’s worked out. We have some, you know, awesome people. I think you’ll be really impressed.

99 00:18:53.490 00:18:56.769 Uttam Kumaran: And yeah, I think if that’s a good next step, look, I’m happy to facilitate that.

100 00:18:57.330 00:19:12.609 AK: Yes, for sure, that sounds good, and I do understand that you’re based in the US, and I’m based in Canada, so I’m guessing this has come to be a completely remote engagement, or would there be, like, an in-office hybrid kind of setup?

101 00:19:12.880 00:19:14.269 Uttam Kumaran: No, we’re completely remote.

102 00:19:14.270 00:19:15.580 AK: Okay, cool.

103 00:19:15.580 00:19:22.800 Uttam Kumaran: We’re completely remote. I mean, we have team in… that’s close… you know, I don’t know where in Canada you are, but we’re a team that’s in New York and in Ohio, and… but…

104 00:19:22.970 00:19:35.510 Uttam Kumaran: you know, we try to get the U.S. folks to meet, like, once a quarter, like, at least folks in North America, but, you know, we have folks, kind of like, some folks all throughout Asia, and a lot of folks here, so… but we’re a completely remote organization.

105 00:19:35.510 00:19:43.240 Uttam Kumaran: So that’s, like, you know, hopefully for a lot of folks, it’s one of the perks, that you don’t have to sit in the car every day and… or, like, relocate.

106 00:19:43.240 00:19:57.329 AK: Yeah, so that’s cool, that works for me. I’m based in Toronto, and but currently I’m, like, traveling a little bit here and there. Cool. So, which is why I was, like, I wanted to ask that if there’s an in-person kind of setup, I can figure something out.

107 00:19:57.780 00:20:13.229 Uttam Kumaran: No, there’s not… there’s not at all, but again, if you’re ever in any of the major metros in the States, like, we have… we have people you should definitely go say hi to. So, that’s… that’s the really, like, the only ask. Go get lunch with somebody. But yeah, otherwise, no, not really.

108 00:20:13.960 00:20:20.639 AK: Sure, Utam, that sounds great. I’d love to meet the team and get started on the next steps.

109 00:20:21.080 00:20:39.310 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, perfect, so let me, let me get my, Rico on my operations team will sort of reach out and send an email just getting you scheduled with a few folks. It’s probably, like, maybe Friday, if not, like, Monday, Tuesday, that, that they’ll be scheduled, just because, like, we’re preparing for, like, client presentations and stuff.

110 00:20:39.310 00:20:40.170 AK: No rush.

111 00:20:40.170 00:20:43.339 Uttam Kumaran: It’s the end of the week, but… Again, we tend to move…

112 00:20:43.460 00:20:59.399 Uttam Kumaran: as… we tend to move quickly in that, like, if folks, like, really enjoy speaking with you, and you sort of like the scope, then we would kind of, like, you know, look to sort of move as fast as we can. So we’re not… this isn’t, like, a 3-month, 100-interview process.

113 00:20:59.400 00:21:00.379 AK: I appreciate that.

114 00:21:00.380 00:21:13.780 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, you’ll understand that, like, we’ve all done technical interviews, and have all worked as engineers, and, like, I… we built… the way we kind of try to do recruiting is more like this, where you kind of get to know us, and… and you understand

115 00:21:13.780 00:21:29.569 Uttam Kumaran: sort of how we deliver for clients, and you get to kind of see the team, and then we sort of kind of, like, baby steps, in terms of, like, hey, let’s just try to do, like, a project or a work stream for a client together. And also, it’s really important for you to, you know, see how we work, and also want to

116 00:21:29.660 00:21:37.050 Uttam Kumaran: you know, join us, so that’s… that’s… that’s… that’s sort of the reason. But yeah, let me get… let me get in touch with Rico and start to, you know, move this forward.

117 00:21:37.750 00:21:39.959 AK: Awesome, sounds great, Utam. I appreciate it.

118 00:21:39.960 00:21:45.149 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. Yeah, I really appreciate you. Thank you so much for taking the time, and yeah, we’ll be in touch over email.

119 00:21:45.450 00:21:48.430 AK: Awesome. Thanks for giving me the time, and yeah.

120 00:21:48.430 00:21:49.250 Uttam Kumaran: Of course.

121 00:21:49.250 00:21:50.600 AK: Connecting with you again?

122 00:21:51.050 00:21:53.310 Uttam Kumaran: No problem. Thank you so much. I’ll talk to you soon.

123 00:21:53.510 00:21:54.710 AK: Take care, bye bye now.

124 00:21:54.710 00:21:55.170 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, bye.