Meeting Title: Brainforge Partnership Strategy and Metrics Sync Date: 2026-01-23 Meeting participants: Sheshu Chandrasekar, Robert Tseng, Clarence Stone, Uttam Kumaran
WEBVTT
1 00:04:53.180 ⇒ 00:04:54.250 Robert Tseng: Joshu.
2 00:04:54.250 ⇒ 00:04:55.380 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Hey, Robert.
3 00:04:56.400 ⇒ 00:05:01.379 Robert Tseng: Sorry, I didn’t, catch you before we chatted with, with Holly. How, how was, how was that?
4 00:05:01.700 ⇒ 00:05:17.889 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, I… I thought it went well. I think we kind of lined on some things about, like, the HubSpot data capturing and some metrics. I think… I think one thing we kind of agree on is kind of, like, figuring out what metrics to start prioritizing that
5 00:05:18.160 ⇒ 00:05:32.690 Sheshu Chandrasekar: best shapes, like, the strategic lens, and then the tactical lens. Meaning, like, if you were to get a snapshot, you kind of get a good purview of, like, okay, this is what’s happening on the strategic side, and then tactically, this is what we’re doing. I think we’re kind of aligned on that, but I think
6 00:05:33.810 ⇒ 00:05:41.280 Sheshu Chandrasekar: My thing… the thing I’m understanding with Holly is that I think there’s a bit of misalignment on…
7 00:05:42.830 ⇒ 00:05:51.559 Sheshu Chandrasekar: how progress is being tracked. Like, she’s saying, like, okay, like, there’ll be some leads where I know nothing will come out of it, but it’s important for me to nurture, and I think…
8 00:05:51.680 ⇒ 00:05:54.239 Sheshu Chandrasekar: We need to figure out a way to say, like.
9 00:05:55.010 ⇒ 00:06:00.349 Sheshu Chandrasekar: when to stop nurturing that lead, or that partnership, if that makes sense. Yeah.
10 00:06:01.380 ⇒ 00:06:04.439 Sheshu Chandrasekar: So that’s, like, something I’m thinking through right now,
11 00:06:05.030 ⇒ 00:06:07.429 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, I’m thinking through that, but I’m just like…
12 00:06:09.710 ⇒ 00:06:23.389 Robert Tseng: Yeah, if I can say a couple things, like, yeah, I walked you through this a little bit, but I think that’s why this whole, like, 90-day window, like, if we can’t do something with them within 90 days, we should just stop. Like, I think that’s… I think… unless… unless it’s, like, a…
13 00:06:23.470 ⇒ 00:06:41.989 Robert Tseng: unless they really are, like, a Snowflake-level kind of partner account that we want to just, like… we know it’s gonna… Snowflake needs probably, like, 6 months, you know, to move, rather than… rather than a quarter. But, you know, like… like, Fresh Paint, like, we’ve been on and off with them the past few quarters, like, I wouldn’t… I’ve just cut it, like, I don’t know, yeah, so…
14 00:06:41.990 ⇒ 00:06:43.640 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah. Opinion on that?
15 00:06:44.450 ⇒ 00:06:45.780 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, and I…
16 00:06:45.860 ⇒ 00:06:55.609 Sheshu Chandrasekar: I kind of proposed, like, because she was telling me about, what’s that one company? Fresh Paint, right? And they’re, like, some medical company of some sort? Yeah.
17 00:06:55.610 ⇒ 00:07:08.889 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, I mean, in my head, I’m thinking, like, why are we even pursuing that? That’s not, like, necessarily our ICP, right? It’s not like we’re going after purely healthcare clients. Yeah. So I think we need to figure out a way to kind of, like.
18 00:07:09.230 ⇒ 00:07:18.070 Sheshu Chandrasekar: set a thesis, saying, hey, we’re a data and AI company, we need to find partners that align with our strategic vision of where we’re trying to head, right?
19 00:07:18.070 ⇒ 00:07:18.450 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
20 00:07:18.450 ⇒ 00:07:19.670 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Clients we’re serving, and…
21 00:07:20.130 ⇒ 00:07:35.220 Sheshu Chandrasekar: And let her do her thing. I think… I like the idea of, like, still putting 60-70% of her time into 3 big players, and then the 30% she can nurture are, like, other potential, like, upcoming rising stars, like, in the space that we want.
22 00:07:35.840 ⇒ 00:07:36.280 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
23 00:07:36.280 ⇒ 00:07:39.570 Sheshu Chandrasekar: B, so… That’s what I proposed,
24 00:07:39.900 ⇒ 00:07:52.619 Sheshu Chandrasekar: But, I mean, also, it’s, you know, it’s really up to her as well. So, my thing is, like, I want to make sure we’re kind of capturing everything from the quantitative perspective, and then also kind of refining on the metrics and stuff like that.
25 00:07:52.620 ⇒ 00:07:53.110 Robert Tseng: Yep.
26 00:07:53.110 ⇒ 00:07:54.050 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, so…
27 00:07:54.050 ⇒ 00:08:01.719 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so I’m hoping you would… you would just kind of own this sheet, or whatever it… whatever format it lives in in the future, right? So…
28 00:08:01.720 ⇒ 00:08:08.860 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, and I think… I think, yeah, like, maybe we can kind of, like, have a whiteboarding session, figuring out, like, what kind of…
29 00:08:08.970 ⇒ 00:08:22.150 Sheshu Chandrasekar: future partners do we want, right, in the future? And, like, kind of set a thesis, and then, like, find people, or find companies that kind of fit that narrative, and then let her go after it. Because I think her biggest concern is that
30 00:08:22.320 ⇒ 00:08:24.820 Sheshu Chandrasekar: There’ll be some partnerships where
31 00:08:25.120 ⇒ 00:08:36.160 Sheshu Chandrasekar: like, she said, for example, Omni, there was nothing going on on that end, but then only, like, later last year, and early this year, that there’s been some movement. Yeah.
32 00:08:37.070 ⇒ 00:08:46.860 Sheshu Chandrasekar: So, I think… I understand it, but I also do understand your point. It’s like, we… well, we still need to figure out, like, how do… how do we track that? Like, what’s the next action item, right? So…
33 00:08:47.670 ⇒ 00:08:54.260 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, it’s a weird, it’s a weird problem to have right now, but.
34 00:08:54.260 ⇒ 00:08:54.630 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
35 00:08:54.630 ⇒ 00:08:55.480 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah.
36 00:08:55.480 ⇒ 00:09:08.049 Robert Tseng: Partners is… a lot of it is… is not in our control. They could… they could check all the right boxes, but if they’re just, like, not responding to us, then we don’t know. Like, Omni only started taking off because Ujam’s friend moved to Omni. That’s… that’s it.
37 00:09:08.050 ⇒ 00:09:20.180 Robert Tseng: Yeah. Like, they were ignoring us all this time, whatever, then Utam’s friend goes there, he’s a good internal champion, and he’s, like, passing us deals now. Like, that’s… that’s that. But, like, if you go on Omni’s website, like, we’re still not, like, featured
38 00:09:20.230 ⇒ 00:09:24.929 Robert Tseng: like, I don’t see us, like, on their official partners, like, they have solution partners and stuff, like…
39 00:09:25.050 ⇒ 00:09:28.130 Robert Tseng: If you go here, Partner Program…
40 00:09:28.360 ⇒ 00:09:41.310 Robert Tseng: yeah, they’re, like, highlighting all these people, technology partners, or… yeah, implementation partners, like, we should be here. Like, we’re not. So, like, I think there’s definitely room to, kind of.
41 00:09:41.930 ⇒ 00:09:46.430 Robert Tseng: push a bit more, be like, why, like, yeah, why is Brittany Forge not on this? Yeah, so…
42 00:09:46.430 ⇒ 00:09:47.850 Sheshu Chandrasekar: No, that makes sense, and I think…
43 00:09:48.290 ⇒ 00:09:53.789 Sheshu Chandrasekar: another thing I was thinking about after this call was, like, we… I think we gotta take it in a very sales-like approach, right?
44 00:09:53.790 ⇒ 00:09:54.869 Robert Tseng: Totally, yeah.
45 00:09:55.100 ⇒ 00:10:01.930 Sheshu Chandrasekar: And I feel like maybe that’s something I’m not aligned on, I don’t really know what the process goes into that, from purview, but…
46 00:10:02.610 ⇒ 00:10:15.810 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, maybe, like, we do it on a sales way, right? Like, we as Brainforge, these are our partners that we serve right now, clients we work with, work that we have done, and then we kind of give that UVP to them, that value proposition.
47 00:10:15.810 ⇒ 00:10:16.280 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
48 00:10:16.280 ⇒ 00:10:23.839 Sheshu Chandrasekar: to these partnerships, and kind of treat it as a sales call, because maybe that’ll be the best way of our time, and Holly’s time at least, so…
49 00:10:24.350 ⇒ 00:10:25.299 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I agree.
50 00:10:25.520 ⇒ 00:10:30.790 Robert Tseng: So, like, in Brain Forge, while I was thinking a lot on the partnership side, let me see…
51 00:10:31.470 ⇒ 00:10:36.589 Robert Tseng: Market… partnerships… That’s a lot.
52 00:10:38.130 ⇒ 00:10:48.099 Robert Tseng: Yeah, this just kind of articulates the target. Yeah, there’s, like, ideal partner profile, partner evaluation framework, different playbooks, like, I’ve been, like, putting… stitching together all this stuff together.
53 00:10:48.260 ⇒ 00:10:54.690 Robert Tseng: trying to talk about, yeah, like, what these partner archetypes are, and that’s, like, on the partner profile side, but, like.
54 00:10:55.470 ⇒ 00:11:00.570 Robert Tseng: I mean, this is all really kind of consulting jargon, I guess. I don’t want to spend too much time on it, but…
55 00:11:00.570 ⇒ 00:11:00.970 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah.
56 00:11:00.970 ⇒ 00:11:04.480 Robert Tseng: Yeah, this is like a qualification framework to really, like, see, like.
57 00:11:05.760 ⇒ 00:11:17.919 Robert Tseng: Yeah, when… if Holly were to prospect a new partner, which she should spend some of her time doing that, like, I walked you through the Moengage example, we’re jumping on a call with the head of North American Partnerships on Tuesday, next week.
58 00:11:18.040 ⇒ 00:11:32.059 Robert Tseng: like, yeah, I mean, they’re… they’re… I think it’s… it’s… it’s good timing, they’re large enough, they have some good names under their belt. Like, yeah, I would like to… I would like to explore… explore that partnership. I think that’s worth giving, like, a 90-day trial to, or whatever.
59 00:11:32.060 ⇒ 00:11:32.640 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Right.
60 00:11:33.010 ⇒ 00:11:50.070 Robert Tseng: So we always have to have room that we… we’re discovering and, like, figuring out what are new… what are new partners to prospect, while, like, a lot of it is just kind of waiting around on the Snowflake stuff, whatever. She’s not going to have activity to drive every day. Right. You know, I also don’t want her to spend, like, she’s not even spending that much time with us, so…
61 00:11:50.070 ⇒ 00:11:56.030 Robert Tseng: Yeah, like, I’d rather, with the time that she spends with us, we just send her most of her time just to the…
62 00:11:56.040 ⇒ 00:12:00.799 Robert Tseng: like, the bigger enterprise accounts that she has a relationship with, and I can have…
63 00:12:00.910 ⇒ 00:12:06.280 Robert Tseng: someone else. Like, you know, whether it’s you, or, like…
64 00:12:06.280 ⇒ 00:12:21.169 Robert Tseng: you know, if we need to bring another coordinator on, whatever, like, we can treat it like an outbound motion, but for partners, like, where we’re constantly either going after new accounts or new reps in existing accounts, to try to, like, build, like, our Rolodex within each place.
65 00:12:21.170 ⇒ 00:12:35.309 Robert Tseng: Because that’s really what we need in order to unlock these partners. All this other stuff, like, we can build, like, the agents and the systems to go and, like, do all of this documentation and qualification stuff, so I feel like we have a lot of this in place already.
66 00:12:35.630 ⇒ 00:12:37.579 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah. No, that makes sense, and I think…
67 00:12:38.300 ⇒ 00:12:50.759 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, and it has to be a little bit, like, kind of like, thinking like an investor, in a way. Like, you gotta be like, okay, these players may help us out, and they’re already tackling a big pain problem that we’re seeing with our clients, in a way. Yeah.
68 00:12:51.540 ⇒ 00:13:07.880 Sheshu Chandrasekar: But yeah, I think my biggest thing next week with Holly would be kind of, like, figuring out that HubSpot issue, figuring out the data, getting the data right. I think that’s been the biggest tug-of-war with filling out this spreadsheet right here. Yeah. But once we kind of get that out of the way, then we’ll go through each metric and figure out, hey, like.
69 00:13:07.970 ⇒ 00:13:20.630 Sheshu Chandrasekar: this is what Robert’s looking for, this is what, strategically, that he needs right now, then we can kind of work from there, and then maybe even talk about how she can help you out strategically. I think that’s how I’m thinking about this.
70 00:13:21.050 ⇒ 00:13:21.530 Robert Tseng: Okay.
71 00:13:21.530 ⇒ 00:13:25.900 Sheshu Chandrasekar: I don’t know if that’s a good idea, like, I’m happy to hear any thoughts, too.
72 00:13:25.900 ⇒ 00:13:35.939 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I think that’s helpful, and if you want to keep trimming this as you’re going through, really breaking down each of these sections, like… Yeah. Yeah, like, you feel free to do that. I think…
73 00:13:37.080 ⇒ 00:13:44.789 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I don’t really need to work this list anymore. If anything, I’m just gonna say… I’m gonna cut a few things, like fresh paint, superposition, cut, cut those.
74 00:13:44.920 ⇒ 00:13:49.339 Robert Tseng: Like, yeah, we just… we don’t really… some of the stuff we don’t really need,
75 00:13:49.800 ⇒ 00:13:53.230 Robert Tseng: Yeah, but anyway, so I think that’s… I think that’s… that’s totally fair.
76 00:13:53.450 ⇒ 00:13:54.040 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah.
77 00:13:54.040 ⇒ 00:13:54.660 Robert Tseng: Bye.
78 00:13:54.870 ⇒ 00:13:58.759 Sheshu Chandrasekar: But that’s pretty much it right now. That’s all I got from Holly.
79 00:13:58.900 ⇒ 00:14:08.519 Sheshu Chandrasekar: I don’t know if you heard about the Notion revamp that we’re working on right now, so that’s coming to a good spot. We connected with Gabe earlier today.
80 00:14:08.520 ⇒ 00:14:09.270 Robert Tseng: Nice.
81 00:14:09.270 ⇒ 00:14:14.989 Sheshu Chandrasekar: figuring out how we can integrate the new homepage into the platform, and then build Slackbots on top of it, so…
82 00:14:14.990 ⇒ 00:14:15.330 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
83 00:14:15.330 ⇒ 00:14:26.109 Sheshu Chandrasekar: A lot of great progress happening. We’re… we’re hoping to get a… kind of like a soft launch, like, for the broader organization to kind of go check it out and see, like, what they like about it. But,
84 00:14:26.320 ⇒ 00:14:35.119 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Between, like, you, me, Utam, Gabe, we’ll check it out on Wednesday, kind of get some feedback, and see what’s working, and what you guys want out of it, too.
85 00:14:35.650 ⇒ 00:14:36.350 Robert Tseng: Okay.
86 00:14:36.350 ⇒ 00:14:36.760 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah.
87 00:14:36.760 ⇒ 00:14:43.490 Robert Tseng: I’m curious, while I have you, like, what you thought of, yeah, any additional thoughts on Kayla? .
88 00:14:44.230 ⇒ 00:14:51.259 Sheshu Chandrasekar: You know, I didn’t have too much interaction, I mean, apart from, like, kind of understanding your background a little bit, and having that call, but, I mean…
89 00:14:51.370 ⇒ 00:15:01.670 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, I mean, she seems like someone who’s willing to, like, learn, so she’s not, like, someone that’s saying, oh, like, you know, I don’t know how to help, but I think she’s willing to learn, and…
90 00:15:01.760 ⇒ 00:15:13.580 Sheshu Chandrasekar: I don’t know too much about her experience, so that’s why I can’t speak too much to it, like, I don’t know exactly what she’s done in the past as much, but I think she could definitely be a user in the partnership side, once the recruiting side gets nailed.
91 00:15:14.000 ⇒ 00:15:14.600 Robert Tseng: Okay.
92 00:15:14.670 ⇒ 00:15:28.700 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, like, I know you’re doing some stuff on, I want her to be taking recruiting calls, right? I want to take that 4-5 hours a week back from Utah and me on the recruiting side. And when she thinks about onboarding, hopefully it’s just, like.
93 00:15:28.720 ⇒ 00:15:43.130 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, I kind of, you know, I already kind of shared, like, how I saw both of you working together, possibly. Like, she comes in, maybe she’s a bit more opinionated on, like, how recruiting should work, how onboarding, how HR practices should work, because she’s, like, that’s basically what she’s been doing for the past 3 or 4 years.
94 00:15:43.130 ⇒ 00:15:51.839 Robert Tseng: And then, like, if she needs any support in building the systems, then she can talk about it with you, and, like, you’re able to kind of build… build those things for her.
95 00:15:51.840 ⇒ 00:15:52.680 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, absolutely.
96 00:15:52.940 ⇒ 00:15:53.430 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
97 00:15:53.430 ⇒ 00:15:59.439 Sheshu Chandrasekar: I feel like… I feel like she’s, very easy to work with. That’s, like, kind of the, I guess, feeling I’m getting right now, so…
98 00:15:59.440 ⇒ 00:15:59.990 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
99 00:15:59.990 ⇒ 00:16:08.730 Sheshu Chandrasekar: definitely, like, I feel like… but I’m… from an experience standpoint, like, I want to figure out how we can streamline that recruiting process, like, and kind of… kind of…
100 00:16:08.890 ⇒ 00:16:12.680 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Get to the, like, the baseline level, or, like, the first principles level, to kind of…
101 00:16:13.080 ⇒ 00:16:23.319 Sheshu Chandrasekar: build systems that are… that is worthwhile. So, that’s kind of what my thinking is. But, yeah, I think she’d be also great on the partnership side, because I feel like she’s understanding, and maybe… I don’t know if…
102 00:16:23.730 ⇒ 00:16:29.450 Sheshu Chandrasekar: That’s something of interest to her, so maybe that’s something we would need to talk to her about.
103 00:16:30.520 ⇒ 00:16:31.849 Robert Tseng: Yeah, okay.
104 00:16:33.030 ⇒ 00:16:35.059 Robert Tseng: It’s just, like, jump in and out.
105 00:16:35.060 ⇒ 00:16:42.450 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Is she officially joining the team? Like, I would like to schedule one-on-one to kind of understand, like, her background a little bit better and figure out where I can…
106 00:16:42.800 ⇒ 00:16:45.490 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Connect with her and, you know, kind of use her expertise.
107 00:16:46.300 ⇒ 00:16:59.339 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so she’s not officially in yet, like, I think we’re… yeah, I think… I was… I’m in LA, I’m trying to make a decision on her, someone and I would need to make a decision. Yeah, I think the biggest risk is, like, well.
108 00:16:59.360 ⇒ 00:17:09.570 Robert Tseng: if we bring her on, you on, then, like, you know, that’s another 20, 30K a month in OpEx, so, like, you know, do we want to take that on right now? Or is it, like, whose role is more urgent? Like.
109 00:17:09.569 ⇒ 00:17:20.750 Robert Tseng: Is there really a case for both of you to do it? So, I mean, I basically need to map out… finish mapping out the areas of responsibility. I know we just pretty much talked about it yesterday, but I didn’t actually map it out, because I didn’t have enough time.
110 00:17:20.750 ⇒ 00:17:21.569 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah.
111 00:17:21.680 ⇒ 00:17:27.920 Robert Tseng: My gut is that I think there is a… there is a place to start… to basically have both of you, and I… yeah, I think, like.
112 00:17:27.920 ⇒ 00:17:41.920 Robert Tseng: the way that you’re supporting Holly, I see now, and, like, also with her, like, I think it just… I think it makes sense. Like, I’d rather them not be… we don’t… not everybody has to be a systems person and, like, building things or whatever, so, like, just you being… you… you would be a good…
113 00:17:41.920 ⇒ 00:17:49.699 Robert Tseng: I mean, you’re just… good, good, good thought, thought partner for all of the different internal, like, leads, right? Because, like.
114 00:17:49.740 ⇒ 00:17:56.039 Robert Tseng: whether it’s Gabe, or her, or Holly, or, you know, even me and Luke, and I think you’re able to kind of
115 00:17:56.800 ⇒ 00:18:19.290 Robert Tseng: Yeah, well, I guess you need more time to get down to the first principles level, but at least now you’ve wrapped your head around Notion, and, like, all these other… slowly tacking on these other systems, how they should fit together, so you’ll always be able to kind of respond to us from the perspective of, like, what… from, like, our overall brainforce system, like, can we do to support… support these different… these different, requests that people will have of you?
116 00:18:19.570 ⇒ 00:18:21.030 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, no, absolutely, and I think…
117 00:18:21.480 ⇒ 00:18:24.860 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, the one thing I will say that I’m not too great as, like, kind of…
118 00:18:25.400 ⇒ 00:18:36.769 Sheshu Chandrasekar: I’m happy to interview, but I cannot, like, figure out, like, oh, like, are we moving this person to the next? I feel like maybe Caleb can slot in there and help me out there. And also onboarding, right? That’s something I realize.
119 00:18:36.970 ⇒ 00:18:39.460 Sheshu Chandrasekar: I know we’re gonna need a lot of help on at some point, but…
120 00:18:39.460 ⇒ 00:18:40.929 Robert Tseng: At the moment, I think we’re…
121 00:18:41.390 ⇒ 00:18:46.109 Sheshu Chandrasekar: I think we got it handled. It’s my best, yeah, my gut feeling at the moment.
122 00:18:46.110 ⇒ 00:18:46.740 Robert Tseng: Okay.
123 00:18:46.740 ⇒ 00:18:47.260 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah.
124 00:18:50.260 ⇒ 00:18:52.800 Robert Tseng: Two times out of WeWork, I think he’ll kind of cut back on.
125 00:18:52.800 ⇒ 00:18:57.500 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, honestly, we work with them right now. We’re both here. Oh, yeah? Okay.
126 00:18:58.900 ⇒ 00:19:00.959 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, we spent the day, yeah.
127 00:19:03.400 ⇒ 00:19:16.330 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I mean, I kind of just heard the tail end, but, yeah, I kind of feel the same. I mean, I think, like, again, I think we have a huge need for everything on the recruiting side, as well as ramping people up, and I kind of told
128 00:19:16.450 ⇒ 00:19:23.649 Uttam Kumaran: Sashu, that, like, as different parts of what Ops currently owns get more fleshed out, they sort of roll out, you know?
129 00:19:24.030 ⇒ 00:19:24.670 Uttam Kumaran: But…
130 00:19:24.670 ⇒ 00:19:26.460 Robert Tseng: Dude, you know, it’s… it’s Shaishu.
131 00:19:27.290 ⇒ 00:19:28.319 Uttam Kumaran: Shays you.
132 00:19:28.400 ⇒ 00:19:30.560 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Sorry. No, it’s okay.
133 00:19:30.940 ⇒ 00:19:34.040 Robert Tseng: Everyone’s been calling him Sheshu, but it’s actually Sheshu.
134 00:19:34.250 ⇒ 00:19:38.850 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, I’ll… sorry, I feel like I’ve been mixing and matching, or maybe not.
135 00:19:39.410 ⇒ 00:19:40.219 Sheshu Chandrasekar: It’s sort of like…
136 00:19:40.220 ⇒ 00:19:40.900 Uttam Kumaran: forget.
137 00:19:41.040 ⇒ 00:19:43.170 Sheshu Chandrasekar: It’s okay, it’s okay, no worries.
138 00:19:43.170 ⇒ 00:19:47.719 Uttam Kumaran: I, I get called in various different versions, I’m all, I’m all.
139 00:19:49.300 ⇒ 00:19:54.140 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. Yeah, but I feel the same way, so… yeah.
140 00:19:56.530 ⇒ 00:19:58.810 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, I’ll let… I mean, I…
141 00:19:59.400 ⇒ 00:20:02.919 Robert Tseng: We’re gonna have to… I mean, I… I… my gut is, like, I think…
142 00:20:03.200 ⇒ 00:20:12.609 Robert Tseng: Kayla would be… was super excited. I mean, Luke had a good, like… probably spent a good amount of time talking to her yesterday out of that happy hour, too, so…
143 00:20:12.610 ⇒ 00:20:28.160 Robert Tseng: I think, yeah, having her come meet the team, and yeah, I mean, culture-wise, she fits, and then I think… yeah, I just… I just think the… based on the call that we had all together, Shishu, me, me and her, like, I think… I think there’s a place for both of them, but we just have to figure out what that… how we actually budget for that, I guess, so…
144 00:20:28.420 ⇒ 00:20:31.960 Uttam Kumaran: feeling like… Okay.
145 00:20:32.310 ⇒ 00:20:32.840 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
146 00:20:36.230 ⇒ 00:20:41.629 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I guess, like, other things from the week, like…
147 00:20:42.130 ⇒ 00:20:46.559 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, I can just wrap up the go-to-market thing I was saying,
148 00:20:47.210 ⇒ 00:20:50.029 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I feel like the team got, like.
149 00:20:50.260 ⇒ 00:21:00.299 Robert Tseng: just side… yeah, it’s just the… missing the… the last mile, like, not really following through on the campaigns. So, I… I get it, like, there’s some…
150 00:21:00.660 ⇒ 00:21:08.280 Robert Tseng: actually, I don’t really know, like, I just… I was just like, dude, you guys just need to… you just gotta… just push it out. So, yeah, I mean, that’s…
151 00:21:08.280 ⇒ 00:21:11.630 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I mean, I’m also telling that to everybody, like, I think…
152 00:21:11.750 ⇒ 00:21:15.540 Uttam Kumaran: Ice, I mean, Shaysho, I told this to you, like, when we met, it’s like…
153 00:21:16.130 ⇒ 00:21:29.779 Uttam Kumaran: you’re… people are overthinking it, but, like, we have, like, nothing in many areas, so, like, just doing something is better than, like, even spending more than a few hours on anything. And there’s… there’s such a… such a low-risk environment.
154 00:21:29.910 ⇒ 00:21:33.119 Uttam Kumaran: That people just tend to overthink.
155 00:21:33.460 ⇒ 00:21:37.539 Uttam Kumaran: Because there’s a lot that can… there’s a lot going on everywhere, but…
156 00:21:37.770 ⇒ 00:21:40.240 Uttam Kumaran: Best thing you can do is just push it out.
157 00:21:40.520 ⇒ 00:21:51.809 Uttam Kumaran: And get feedback, but then also, like, demand feedback, like, get in people’s faces and be like, I need to push this out. That’s what’s gonna make this really positive,
158 00:21:53.000 ⇒ 00:21:58.649 Uttam Kumaran: Like, we’ve done all the strategy work needed, like, we gave you, kind of, what is the biggest problem right now.
159 00:21:58.790 ⇒ 00:22:03.080 Uttam Kumaran: So… It’s just sort of, like, next, next, next, next, you know?
160 00:22:03.360 ⇒ 00:22:03.930 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah.
161 00:22:04.480 ⇒ 00:22:20.260 Robert Tseng: Yeah. So, the next only thing I’m gonna be, like, next week was just, like, fill pipeline. Like, I don’t care, like, don’t do anything else, like, just get the content out, do the pipe… yeah, like, do… send the direct messages, whatever it is, like, just… we need to get… we need to double our pipeline. Like, that’s… that’s what we need to do, so…
162 00:22:20.430 ⇒ 00:22:21.110 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yep.
163 00:22:22.300 ⇒ 00:22:23.000 Robert Tseng: Yes.
164 00:22:36.510 ⇒ 00:22:39.279 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, I skipped the…
165 00:22:41.840 ⇒ 00:22:47.120 Robert Tseng: the all-hands, whatever, because I… just some client stuff. Yeah, I think…
166 00:22:49.470 ⇒ 00:22:56.200 Robert Tseng: I don’t know, I think it’s just… it’s just cyclical, like, all of our client teams are always going to drift a little bit.
167 00:22:56.950 ⇒ 00:22:58.240 Robert Tseng: probably… I mean, it…
168 00:22:58.270 ⇒ 00:23:17.319 Robert Tseng: yeah, I mean, Eden, I feel like, was over… was due for a blow-up. It’s been, like, a month, so maybe it’s, like, once a month the client will just blow up, something will happen, and I just have to jump in and try to, like, sort through it. So, yeah, I could, like, retro with the team on, like, what to avoid or whatever, but just the fact that we don’t really have
169 00:23:17.350 ⇒ 00:23:20.569 Robert Tseng: But I’m not there day-to-day to kind of, like.
170 00:23:20.850 ⇒ 00:23:28.449 Robert Tseng: Always, like, be involved in every decision, like, just means that sometimes our team just makes dumb decisions, and that’s just…
171 00:23:28.560 ⇒ 00:23:37.439 Robert Tseng: It’s kind of our fault, not really our fault, but at the end of the day, like, we’re always going to get the blame, and whatever. We’re able to address it for now, so…
172 00:23:37.790 ⇒ 00:23:40.620 Robert Tseng: we’ll see. I think I bought us some time, we can be able to…
173 00:23:40.830 ⇒ 00:23:44.740 Robert Tseng: We can… we de-escalated it for now, we can… we can keep working on it next week.
174 00:23:45.770 ⇒ 00:23:46.390 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
175 00:23:46.390 ⇒ 00:23:51.459 Robert Tseng: Yeah. I mean, dude, like, but I would say for, like, CES and for Magic Spoon, like.
176 00:23:51.600 ⇒ 00:23:54.230 Uttam Kumaran: The shit is moving slow, and they’re hyped.
177 00:23:54.540 ⇒ 00:24:00.529 Uttam Kumaran: So, I don’t even know. It’s like, I almost am like, is Aiden just kind of, like…
178 00:24:01.910 ⇒ 00:24:05.589 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, I don’t know, at some point we’ll have to discuss that client, but like…
179 00:24:05.590 ⇒ 00:24:06.210 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
180 00:24:06.210 ⇒ 00:24:10.889 Uttam Kumaran: Some of these guys, they’re just even happy that we’re, like, we’re just, like, yeah, they’re so happy.
181 00:24:11.100 ⇒ 00:24:14.679 Uttam Kumaran: It’s weird, because I’m like, yo, we were moving so slow, but then…
182 00:24:14.840 ⇒ 00:24:18.729 Uttam Kumaran: I’m also like, the feedback’s great, so I’m like, I’m just gonna kinda shut my mouth.
183 00:24:20.250 ⇒ 00:24:22.759 Robert Tseng: Yeah. Try to, like, take the whim a little bit.
184 00:24:25.160 ⇒ 00:24:26.200 Uttam Kumaran: So…
185 00:24:26.620 ⇒ 00:24:30.969 Robert Tseng: No, it was good. I mean, I don’t think we have to go full throttle on every, on every client.
186 00:24:31.570 ⇒ 00:24:32.380 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
187 00:24:32.650 ⇒ 00:24:42.270 Robert Tseng: I do think they… yeah, the standards are different in different organizations, obviously, and obviously, yeah, there’s a lot of… there’s a lot of different variables. I mean, I don’t…
188 00:24:42.710 ⇒ 00:24:50.640 Robert Tseng: I think our… I can’t… I can’t, like, confirm this with numbers, but I feel like our… our margins on… on Eden are great, like, right now, like, it’s…
189 00:24:50.640 ⇒ 00:24:51.470 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
190 00:24:51.470 ⇒ 00:24:52.370 Robert Tseng: So I guess…
191 00:24:52.740 ⇒ 00:25:10.789 Robert Tseng: As far as just time spent, it’s fine, but, like, the urgency, the, like, quick things that, like, need turnaround or whatever, like, that stuff just comes up because we’re working with, like, a difficult part of the org, which is marketing. So, I think we’re just not doing marketing for CES, and we’re not doing marketing for Magic Spoon, so we’re just.
192 00:25:10.790 ⇒ 00:25:11.120 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
193 00:25:11.140 ⇒ 00:25:13.669 Robert Tseng: We’re not gonna be caught up in that pace. Yeah.
194 00:25:19.090 ⇒ 00:25:19.640 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
195 00:25:20.110 ⇒ 00:25:25.240 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Wait, who’s CES? Is that… Consumer Electronics Show?
196 00:25:25.240 ⇒ 00:25:25.830 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
197 00:25:26.330 ⇒ 00:25:28.399 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Oh, wow. Those are one of our clients?
198 00:25:29.100 ⇒ 00:25:29.929 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, dude.
199 00:25:30.180 ⇒ 00:25:30.970 Sheshu Chandrasekar: That’s awesome.
200 00:25:31.280 ⇒ 00:25:32.070 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
201 00:25:32.780 ⇒ 00:25:34.960 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Wait, so I’m a little lost, so what happened with Eden?
202 00:25:37.190 ⇒ 00:25:38.750 Robert Tseng: What happened with Eden, you said?
203 00:25:38.750 ⇒ 00:25:39.280 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah.
204 00:25:39.280 ⇒ 00:25:42.360 Robert Tseng: Oh, I guess…
205 00:25:47.790 ⇒ 00:25:49.940 Robert Tseng: We,
206 00:25:54.240 ⇒ 00:26:03.209 Robert Tseng: We do all of their tagging and tracking, for, like, customer and visitor identification.
207 00:26:03.300 ⇒ 00:26:07.470 Robert Tseng: We also help with their attribution, so when they are
208 00:26:07.490 ⇒ 00:26:24.579 Robert Tseng: spending in new channels, how do they give credit to… I mean, the easy ones are, like, the Facebooks and Googles of the world, but, like, affiliate partnerships is a really complicated and, like, really annoying channel. That’s where a lot of the problems are, because they’re always testing new publishers, so, like.
209 00:26:24.640 ⇒ 00:26:35.719 Robert Tseng: Forbes is, like, a big promoter that… I think they’re, like, ranked 1 on Forbes right now, in their product category, and that feeds them, like, a good amount of business. But Forbes is also really, like.
210 00:26:37.250 ⇒ 00:26:44.979 Robert Tseng: just a stickler for, like, they feel like we don’t give them enough credit for things, and whatever, so… but I think that’s just the natural…
211 00:26:45.150 ⇒ 00:26:49.189 Robert Tseng: Nature… that’s just the nature of that type of relationship, where…
212 00:26:49.640 ⇒ 00:26:57.229 Robert Tseng: Affiliates will always distrust you, because they want more of your money. They always want you to give them more credit than
213 00:26:57.460 ⇒ 00:27:07.060 Robert Tseng: they deserve, but they can’t necessarily back it up, and we have given Eden such good data that, like, people just don’t really understand, like.
214 00:27:08.800 ⇒ 00:27:21.640 Robert Tseng: Yeah, it just… it’s just… yeah, we just have to help them navigate those conversations with the… with their… with their publishers, because, yeah, if Forbes… Forbes calls, Forbes calls, like, the C… like.
215 00:27:21.640 ⇒ 00:27:38.569 Robert Tseng: calls Eden leadership, and is like, we’re gonna pull you off the list. We don’t feel like you’re giving… our conversion rates are too low, you’re not giving us enough credit, even though we’ve given you a very privileged spot. And then he freaks out, because it’s like, well, this is driving, like, 30% of his sales. Like, he doesn’t want to lose that as, like, as a channel, so…
216 00:27:38.600 ⇒ 00:27:40.130 Robert Tseng: And then if, like.
217 00:27:40.240 ⇒ 00:27:46.219 Robert Tseng: None of… all the different engineers and people on his team, they all understand little bits and pieces of, like, how
218 00:27:46.370 ⇒ 00:28:05.929 Robert Tseng: like, their work factors into it, but nobody’s able to tell the full story. So, like, I mean, neither… I don’t necessarily know either, I just… I needed to spend, like, an hour and a half talking to literally everybody, and, like, I kind of know how these relationships are structured, so I was able to piece together the story, and at least isolate where I think the problem was.
219 00:28:06.950 ⇒ 00:28:26.330 Robert Tseng: And the problem is root caused by a decision that our team made two weeks ago. So, like, so it is kind of our fault in making a decision that way, but we were told to make that decision as well. The client asked to, like, track something a certain way, and, like, our team just said yes and did it. And, like,
220 00:28:26.480 ⇒ 00:28:44.499 Robert Tseng: I guess, like, when I’m running stand-ups, I’m not always asking people to triage and tell me, like, why they’re taking on certain work from the client. I just kind of expect them to have reason through it, and I guess… I guess they didn’t at that point. So, they didn’t foresee that this problem could have existed… could have sprung up two weeks later. Yeah.
221 00:28:44.500 ⇒ 00:28:45.260 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Gotcha.
222 00:28:45.260 ⇒ 00:28:45.930 Robert Tseng: They have books.
223 00:28:45.930 ⇒ 00:28:47.880 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, that is a little annoying, for sure.
224 00:28:47.880 ⇒ 00:29:03.429 Robert Tseng: Yeah. Which is… it’s not a blame on our team. I think it’s just, like, a lack of experience kind of situation, and… yeah, I mean, it’s kind of a… I mean, who can predict the future? But it’s just, like, it’s easy for me to go and say, like, oh yeah, I would have… I would have seen that coming, and I would have vetoed that decision.
225 00:29:03.490 ⇒ 00:29:16.139 Robert Tseng: Which I think I would have, but, yeah, you know, how do I, like… how do we get our team to, like, learn how to see these things better when they’ve never seen it before, you know? It’s kind of hard to say.
226 00:29:16.400 ⇒ 00:29:17.220 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
227 00:29:17.220 ⇒ 00:29:18.219 Sheshu Chandrasekar: That makes sense.
228 00:29:18.220 ⇒ 00:29:18.650 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
229 00:29:18.650 ⇒ 00:29:20.040 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Now we… now we know.
230 00:29:20.040 ⇒ 00:29:21.439 Robert Tseng: Yeah, now we know, yeah.
231 00:29:23.570 ⇒ 00:29:24.280 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
232 00:29:24.850 ⇒ 00:29:25.570 Robert Tseng: Good evening.
233 00:29:26.290 ⇒ 00:29:27.080 Robert Tseng: Quite a minute.
234 00:29:27.430 ⇒ 00:29:35.229 Robert Tseng: Okay, well, I don’t know if Clarence is gonna come back. I have a… I have a guy who’s calling me, so I might just take… take a phone call.
235 00:29:35.230 ⇒ 00:29:37.990 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. I’ll call, I’m gonna call on my way home.
236 00:29:38.410 ⇒ 00:29:39.750 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, you know what he says.
237 00:29:40.170 ⇒ 00:29:40.949 Robert Tseng: Okay, cool.
238 00:29:40.950 ⇒ 00:29:59.609 Uttam Kumaran: I called… I called, I called Cutter, too, and so he wants to help with this… with the thing. I think he can rock it. I… I think next week we’ll talk about how we want to price it. They’re gonna… ABC’s gonna shrink this year if we don’t do anything, so I think we do have a path towards some type of tranche-based pricing about growth.
239 00:29:59.780 ⇒ 00:30:00.740 Robert Tseng: Maybe?
240 00:30:00.760 ⇒ 00:30:08.019 Uttam Kumaran: As well as project-based and retainer-based, so… I think it’ll just be… Figuring it out.
241 00:30:08.580 ⇒ 00:30:09.190 Robert Tseng: Okay.
242 00:30:11.840 ⇒ 00:30:12.400 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
243 00:30:12.790 ⇒ 00:30:13.900 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, guys.
244 00:30:14.430 ⇒ 00:30:15.949 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Alright, well, have a good one. Bye.
245 00:30:16.340 ⇒ 00:30:17.120 Uttam Kumaran: Thank you.
246 00:30:17.330 ⇒ 00:30:18.380 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Are you soon. Bye.