Meeting Title: Brainforge x Booz Allen Partnership Discussion Date: 2026-02-06 Meeting participants: Johnathan Reyna, Johnathan’s Notetaker (Otter.ai), Johnathan’s iPhone, Uttam Kumaran
WEBVTT
1 00:02:56.440 ⇒ 00:02:59.080 Uttam Kumaran: Hey!
2 00:02:59.530 ⇒ 00:03:02.880 Uttam Kumaran: I think you’re on mute, sorry.
3 00:03:12.430 ⇒ 00:03:13.739 Johnathan’s iPhone: Sorry, I had to…
4 00:03:15.020 ⇒ 00:03:16.249 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I can hear you now.
5 00:03:16.540 ⇒ 00:03:17.120 Johnathan’s iPhone: Okay.
6 00:03:17.540 ⇒ 00:03:18.979 Uttam Kumaran: the app, my…
7 00:03:19.300 ⇒ 00:03:21.680 Johnathan’s iPhone: Laptop decided to stop working, so…
8 00:03:21.680 ⇒ 00:03:23.070 Uttam Kumaran: No problem.
9 00:03:23.070 ⇒ 00:03:24.100 Johnathan’s iPhone: It works on…
10 00:03:24.280 ⇒ 00:03:25.330 Uttam Kumaran: Well.
11 00:03:25.330 ⇒ 00:03:25.940 Johnathan’s iPhone: and…
12 00:03:25.940 ⇒ 00:03:29.340 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, it’s taking the weekend off, that’s it, it’s done.
13 00:03:29.340 ⇒ 00:03:32.499 Johnathan’s iPhone: Right, so I already… it’s already done. It said, I’m done.
14 00:03:32.500 ⇒ 00:03:35.130 Uttam Kumaran: How’s the week going?
15 00:03:35.750 ⇒ 00:03:37.649 Johnathan’s iPhone: That’s good. And you? Busy week?
16 00:03:37.650 ⇒ 00:03:54.840 Uttam Kumaran: Busy week. Always, I feel like, busy week around here, so it’s, it’s good. I feel like January 1st seems like a year ago, and we’re growing, so I’m… I’m pumped, I’m really pumped to kind of get put in contact by Clarence, and yeah, I’m really excited to chat.
17 00:03:55.110 ⇒ 00:04:05.650 Johnathan’s iPhone: Awesome. Well, yeah, I’m… it’s nice to meet you as well. Clarence and I, we’ve been, you know, talking back and forth for some time, and he brought it to me a couple times already, so…
18 00:04:05.650 ⇒ 00:04:24.669 Uttam Kumaran: I’m looking forward to the conversation. Awesome. Well, yeah, I mean, you know, just by a brief intro, my name’s Utom, I run Brainforge, we’re a data and AI consultancy. My background is in data engineering and, built some data teams and led product at a data company before starting this company about two and a half years ago.
19 00:04:24.670 ⇒ 00:04:29.990 Uttam Kumaran: You know, right now we’re a group of about, you know, 22 or 23 people.
20 00:04:30.030 ⇒ 00:04:43.870 Uttam Kumaran: Doing a lot of great data and AI work for, you know, a variety of clients. I’m based here in Austin. Team is sort of scattered everywhere across the states and, you know, kind of like a little bit all over the world.
21 00:04:43.870 ⇒ 00:05:01.589 Uttam Kumaran: But it’s been great, it’s, you know, we’ve sort of completely bootstrapped, you know, the business, you know, slowly started getting, clients and delivering great work, and, yeah, we’re just, you know, continue to be in the market for really, really amazing people that, you know, want to deliver amazing work for clients. I think…
22 00:05:01.670 ⇒ 00:05:25.369 Uttam Kumaran: sort of something that’s unique about the business is just how much AI has helped us grow and pull us forward. You know, I really used AI quite significantly to build a business, you know, without any funding, and in doing that, and in doing that over the last few years, and sort of building out our internal AI team, we actually found so many ways to help clients, you know, do similar things, and, you know, I’m finding that
23 00:05:25.570 ⇒ 00:05:37.910 Uttam Kumaran: We’re about, like, a year ahead of, like, what our clients are asking us for, typically, or that I’m asking our team for, you know, which makes it really cool to take a lot of the things that we’re learning and bring it to people.
24 00:05:38.170 ⇒ 00:05:56.649 Uttam Kumaran: So yeah, that’s a little bit about us. I mean, I’m more than happy to answer, you know, any questions, but yeah, Clarence told me a bit about your background as well, and I’m sort of interested in, sort of, like, how you got into data stuff, and yeah, just, like, kind of, like, what you’re interested in, or what made you want to pick up the phone.
25 00:05:57.120 ⇒ 00:05:59.620 Johnathan’s iPhone: Yeah, so, I’m part of…
26 00:05:59.950 ⇒ 00:06:16.339 Johnathan’s iPhone: a group of Marines that, once they got out, decided to do something completely different. So I was in the infantry and the Marine Corps. Didn’t really do too much technical stuff, did some, organizational strategy, things like that, and then when I got out, I pursued my undergrad in management science, which is
27 00:06:16.430 ⇒ 00:06:27.529 Johnathan’s iPhone: more around supply chain logistics optimization, and then got working at USAA, did software development, and then went and got my first master’s under
28 00:06:27.570 ⇒ 00:06:37.590 Johnathan’s iPhone: In data science, and continued doing that, so I did software development, data science, and then did program project management at a enterprise,
29 00:06:37.690 ⇒ 00:06:40.239 Johnathan’s iPhone: Product-based scale, I would say.
30 00:06:40.290 ⇒ 00:06:59.050 Johnathan’s iPhone: And then, eventually that led me to, join Booz Allen. They are on the cusp of developing data capabilities local for, a variety of different clients, so I was poached to ultimately stand up, highly capable teams here locally.
31 00:06:59.140 ⇒ 00:07:17.680 Johnathan’s iPhone: So did that, and since then, I’ve been… I’ve had the opportunity to work for a variety of different clients, from the Air Force to the Navy, to some of the Marine Corps, and now I’m back with the Air Force supporting the cyber, capabilities, ultimately integrating advanced capabilities such as AI, ML.
32 00:07:17.680 ⇒ 00:07:18.120 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
33 00:07:18.120 ⇒ 00:07:30.179 Johnathan’s iPhone: And I would say advanced, data science, and really looking at integrating those types of technologies into some archaic, infrastructures and systems and such, so…
34 00:07:30.240 ⇒ 00:07:38.400 Johnathan’s iPhone: Been there for about 3 years, and part of the growth that I’m pursuing is more of,
35 00:07:40.070 ⇒ 00:07:51.220 Johnathan’s iPhone: ownership, so sometimes when you work in large organizations, which I’m sure you understand too, is there’s a lot of great people, but you have a lot of systems that establish
36 00:07:51.220 ⇒ 00:08:01.090 Johnathan’s iPhone: So everybody’s working on one little piece of the pie, and so I’m looking for more influence and more capability to impact, you know, delivery, product, and sales, so…
37 00:08:01.630 ⇒ 00:08:25.339 Uttam Kumaran: Stole the words out of my mouth. Yeah, I feel like I… I… you know, I worked for… I worked for some enterprises and sort of increasingly smaller startups in my career, and… but, like, one thing I liked about startups is that at an early stage in my career, I just got access to do a lot of things, you know, and… and because of just… we had no resources, so I got thrown into the fire a little bit.
38 00:08:25.340 ⇒ 00:08:49.929 Uttam Kumaran: And it allowed me to grow, but, you know, one thing is, like, I noticed as companies grow, and especially in consulting, just layers and layers of bureaucracy and process that almost, like, seem to have no principled approach to why they’re there, right? It’s sort of like, I was having a debate with someone today about, like, the concept of story points, and I’m like, you know, there’s just these things about the way we do business.
39 00:08:49.950 ⇒ 00:08:52.550 Uttam Kumaran: And we do engineering work that are,
40 00:08:52.670 ⇒ 00:09:04.770 Uttam Kumaran: it’s almost like someone looks left, sees the way someone else is doing it, and does it, and I have the benefit, and also maybe the curse of being very naive to how consulting actually works, and
41 00:09:04.770 ⇒ 00:09:13.069 Uttam Kumaran: got a chance to start this business and do a couple things the way I felt were… were better. Like, you know, one is that I’m an engineer, and so…
42 00:09:13.070 ⇒ 00:09:38.070 Uttam Kumaran: You know, I think really a lot about what makes us unique in the marketplace for consulting. We went through all the trials and tribulations trying to stand up a PMO and do all that, and we ended up ditching it, a lot with, kind of, some of Clarence’s help. And, we have engineers that are managing client relationships directly, without project managers. We still have oversight, and we do have, like, a minimum floor of things
43 00:09:38.070 ⇒ 00:10:00.819 Uttam Kumaran: that we do for clients, but we’ve given a lot of ownership up to the people that are actually delivering the work. And for a small company like ours, we’ve been able to now work with several clients that are in the several hundred million dollar range. And we’ve gotten opportunities to work with people that we should not be working for, at a company our size with, you know, no funding, no, like.
44 00:10:00.820 ⇒ 00:10:12.229 Uttam Kumaran: huge brand, and I… I feel like, you know, one… getting that once or twice is luck, but getting to do that a couple more times, we’re seeing that clients really love our approach, and
45 00:10:12.320 ⇒ 00:10:17.849 Uttam Kumaran: Having a team full of engineers that really care, about clients,
46 00:10:17.850 ⇒ 00:10:42.799 Uttam Kumaran: you know, we don’t have many ex-consultants at the company, and it’s sort of, one, just by my network, like, I don’t… like, we… I hire people that are smart at doing what they do, and we… I kind of show them what it’s like to do that for… for a client, right? And client work is, like, 50% communication, and we’ve never been worried about our capabilities on the engineering side. It’s actually always what we’re growing is, like, how do we plan
47 00:10:42.800 ⇒ 00:10:55.830 Uttam Kumaran: How do we communicate better? How do we build out the roadmap? But also, like, I don’t want there to be gatekeepers, and I don’t want there to be people that are playing telephone, like project managers. So everybody in our team
48 00:10:55.830 ⇒ 00:11:12.869 Uttam Kumaran: has a skill set and is delivering and communicating that skill set and what they’re delivering, and it’s been really fun. I think, like, we’ve tried to do some stuff that’s, like, a little bit new. Of course, like, it’s still client work, and there’s still some, you know, physics to just how that works.
49 00:11:12.880 ⇒ 00:11:16.260 Uttam Kumaran: But it’s been really amazing trying to, like.
50 00:11:16.260 ⇒ 00:11:40.780 Uttam Kumaran: think and do things a little bit differently than most consultancies are doing so. And then very similarly, like, I think just the way we’ve grown and the way we market ourselves also, like, learned a lot from a lot of friends in software and e-commerce, and, like, the way we speak about what the solution, the outcomes we drive for clients. And… I don’t know, I think it’s been really organic, our growth.
51 00:11:40.780 ⇒ 00:11:51.640 Uttam Kumaran: I think we’re at a turning point now in the company where we need to bring on, like, leaders. Not only leaders that are gonna take on and own client relationships that matter.
52 00:11:51.640 ⇒ 00:12:01.450 Uttam Kumaran: But also think about how do we scale up different playbooks? How do we go into new service areas? How do we continue to recruit, like, the best people?
53 00:12:02.820 ⇒ 00:12:08.820 Uttam Kumaran: And, like, you know, one thing that I was just talking to someone about was, like, we take it very seriously on, like, how…
54 00:12:08.830 ⇒ 00:12:25.400 Uttam Kumaran: how can we actually make this a home for folks like yourself that are in sort of a consulting position that are either not getting the upward mobility, not getting… seeing the growth in, like, different skill sets, or maybe just, like, weighed down by, like, bureaucracy or politics, right? And, like…
55 00:12:25.660 ⇒ 00:12:36.899 Uttam Kumaran: That stuff just doesn’t… it just can’t enter the front door at our company, it just… it doesn’t exist. And we operate like a unit internally, and our product is, you know, our services for our clients, so…
56 00:12:37.120 ⇒ 00:12:40.630 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, it’s like, I feel like, kind of really aligned there.
57 00:12:41.190 ⇒ 00:12:44.289 Johnathan’s iPhone: Yeah, no, and I like what you’re saying. I think.
58 00:12:45.360 ⇒ 00:12:46.820 Johnathan’s iPhone: I’ve gotten…
59 00:12:47.160 ⇒ 00:13:02.539 Johnathan’s iPhone: I would say, well, and some of it ties back to the Marine Corps, time I spent. A lot of, decision-making is ultimately empowerment at decentralized decision-making points. So, if I can empower the, the…
60 00:13:02.650 ⇒ 00:13:20.290 Johnathan’s iPhone: the lowly Marine that’s digging out the trenches every day to execute the mission, then ultimately what I’ve created is an autonomous capability that I don’t have to do anything, but yet just ensure it’s shooting in the right direction, it’s following its directions, and it’s executing, against the strategy and such. So…
61 00:13:20.300 ⇒ 00:13:26.020 Johnathan’s iPhone: I think that’s great. You know, one of the… the things that… you know.
62 00:13:26.160 ⇒ 00:13:43.819 Johnathan’s iPhone: for me, personally, that I bring, I would say, to an organization like yours is the influence and the experience I have within the federal government. So, not just, you know, wearing the uniform and then the acquisitions and things like that, but even just the time here at Booz Allen. What I… one of the
63 00:13:44.170 ⇒ 00:13:59.999 Johnathan’s iPhone: I wear a lot of different hats, but one of the hats I do wear is business development, so creating and identifying pipelines within the government space, and what I’ll tell you, you know, what I constantly look for, even beyond,
64 00:14:00.330 ⇒ 00:14:04.730 Johnathan’s iPhone: Capabilities when we’re doing our build versus buy evaluation internally.
65 00:14:04.850 ⇒ 00:14:12.899 Johnathan’s iPhone: we’re looking for partnerships and opportunities to grow with, you know, I would say organizations that have
66 00:14:13.820 ⇒ 00:14:32.340 Johnathan’s iPhone: less overhead, right? So small businesses specifically, a lot of the administration that’s pushing for small business integration into… Oh, interesting. As well as even clients want small businesses because it gives them the opportunity of having a diversified portfolio of.
67 00:14:32.340 ⇒ 00:14:38.300 Uttam Kumaran: It’s also usually cheaper, you know? We don’t have as much leverage as y’all do.
68 00:14:38.560 ⇒ 00:14:52.089 Johnathan’s iPhone: But, I mean, even that in its own respect, right? Yes. You know, the partnerships and then, you know, the teaming capabilities, you don’t have to be a prime on an opportunity, but what I will tell you is, is one of the biggest gaps
69 00:14:52.090 ⇒ 00:14:59.510 Johnathan’s iPhone: That exists in the market today is there’s not enough smalls to prime opportunities that we want to go after, but.
70 00:14:59.510 ⇒ 00:15:00.020 Uttam Kumaran: It’s…
71 00:15:00.020 ⇒ 00:15:04.250 Johnathan’s iPhone: Literally, you know, the government’s saying that this has to be a small business that’s.
72 00:15:04.250 ⇒ 00:15:05.500 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, interesting.
73 00:15:05.500 ⇒ 00:15:12.119 Johnathan’s iPhone: Then you have opportunities that are untapped, because we can’t find a small to say, hey, you know.
74 00:15:12.120 ⇒ 00:15:13.870 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah.
75 00:15:13.870 ⇒ 00:15:17.779 Johnathan’s iPhone: We’ll bring you with you, right? We’ll bring you the backbone of the…
76 00:15:17.920 ⇒ 00:15:25.770 Johnathan’s iPhone: of the large-scale enterprise to meet you wherever you need, but we just… you gotta prime this. Like, you gotta be the head honcho on this.
77 00:15:25.800 ⇒ 00:15:38.580 Johnathan’s iPhone: And then we hash out workshire. So, I think that’s an opportunity. I don’t know what your growth strategy and your approach is in the federal space, but, now it’s a prime picking because a lot of smalls are going to get squeezed out.
78 00:15:38.590 ⇒ 00:15:57.300 Johnathan’s iPhone: A lot of them have gotten so used to the traditional consultancy that primarily, I would say, their workforces are comprised of a lot of bottlenecks and oversight and overseeing, and so they don’t have as much execution capability embedded in their
79 00:15:58.140 ⇒ 00:16:05.369 Johnathan’s iPhone: their current FTE headcount, so they… they’re going to shrink. They’re gonna shrink, and their footprints are gonna shrink.
80 00:16:05.420 ⇒ 00:16:20.140 Johnathan’s iPhone: the removal of 8A, which is a classification of small businesses in the federal government. That moving out actually opens the door for a lot more small businesses to, step into the federal space with less,
81 00:16:21.350 ⇒ 00:16:28.179 Johnathan’s iPhone: entry to barrier, I would say, or barrier to entry for, you know, having your organization open for so long, and so
82 00:16:28.770 ⇒ 00:16:31.560 Johnathan’s iPhone: Yadda yadda, so… sorry, that was kind of a rant, but…
83 00:16:31.560 ⇒ 00:16:33.500 Uttam Kumaran: No, no, no, I mean, look, I think…
84 00:16:33.570 ⇒ 00:16:43.850 Uttam Kumaran: I think the beauty of our organization is that we are looking for people who want to come in, not only do what we’re doing well and keep the lights on, but find out what’s next.
85 00:16:43.880 ⇒ 00:16:54.340 Uttam Kumaran: You know, we… you know, our… for me and my business, our backgrounds are all in the commercial space, right? So, in particular, we’ve… we’ve now done a lot of great work in data, we’re doing AI,
86 00:16:54.340 ⇒ 00:17:17.420 Uttam Kumaran: We have a lot of clients in e-commerce and CPG and SaaS, but I know that there’s a whole wealth of understanding in several different sectors that we’re trying to get into, right? So if you classify government as one of those, we’re… we just have a… we have a big home services client here in Texas that now has opened us the door to, like, these legacy home services businesses that are, you know, have a lot of need for data and AI transformation.
87 00:17:17.420 ⇒ 00:17:35.880 Uttam Kumaran: we’re just about to run a campaign for insurance. And so there is a lot of opening to actually take Brainforge and use what we’ve built, the platform, the brand, but all of the internals that we’ve built, sort of this internal machine to be able to go from, like, hey, I have an idea, like.
88 00:17:35.980 ⇒ 00:17:59.579 Uttam Kumaran: I heard about this client that needs this, well, like, okay, we can not only put together the services that we could offer them, the pricing around that, the go-to-market campaign, find the subject matter expert, and go to do that. And so, your original point about empowering the smallest person, my only job as the leader here is to build the machine. Like, I… I really am not interested, like…
89 00:17:59.620 ⇒ 00:18:11.100 Uttam Kumaran: I love data work, that’s all I have done, but my joy comes from empowerment, and my joy comes from building a vehicle for folks like you to come in and say, like, well, actually, I think I can…
90 00:18:11.100 ⇒ 00:18:35.680 Uttam Kumaran: take everything that Brainforge has built, this two-sided marketplace of, like, we have pipeline of great talent, we have go-to-market, and I can actually get part of that upside, right? And so, one of the things that I’m thinking a lot about is, like, how do we give much more incentive to both… to people on the delivery teams? And so, internally, this month, this… this… going into this quarter and this year, we started to set really aggressive incentives for people that were in
91 00:18:35.680 ⇒ 00:18:38.329 Uttam Kumaran: We’re able to expand existing business.
92 00:18:38.330 ⇒ 00:18:59.380 Uttam Kumaran: and go help us to bring in new business. Like, engineers are now helping me hop on the client calls and close deals, and I’m giving them a piece of it, right? Because I… the last thing I want to do is hire more salespeople that’s completely OpEx, right? They don’t deliver… they don’t deliver work. And we’re finding that that’s worked. Like, we’ve had 3 or 4 SLWs come directly from
93 00:18:59.380 ⇒ 00:19:15.950 Uttam Kumaran: delivery staff, right? And it’s not like a favor. It’s like, I want to pay them more, and one thing that we’re thinking a lot about is, like, how do we build a business where there’s actually tons of upside for fewer people, and people that are actually able to talk and deliver the work?
94 00:19:15.950 ⇒ 00:19:22.380 Uttam Kumaran: As you know, consulting is like a headcount business, and so it is very… the,
95 00:19:22.470 ⇒ 00:19:30.749 Uttam Kumaran: what I would say, the inertia of a consulting business pulls you into trying to hire, more and more and more.
96 00:19:30.820 ⇒ 00:19:55.479 Uttam Kumaran: And it’s hard to, you know, combat that, but you have to combat that through better process, and through, you know, using a lot of AI, but also empowering people. Like, we have some people that can clearly achieve 3, 4, 5x their, like, their nearest neighbor, and I want to give those people a home here. And I think what you said about empowering that, like, small list person who digs the trenches.
97 00:19:55.660 ⇒ 00:20:14.770 Uttam Kumaran: is sort of, like, how we’re thinking about building, you know, the machine, and we’ve gotten it to here through just raw effort, and I still work on clients, I’m still working a ton, but my only joy and my job at the company is to build, like, the machine for people to come take the reins on, you know? And so…
98 00:20:14.770 ⇒ 00:20:30.530 Uttam Kumaran: your example of, like, going into federal and finding these opportunities and expanding is something we’re totally interested in, and that’s where, like, I want to… we’re really open to people wanting to come in and kind of, like, carve that out and do things like that, and kind of call their shot and win alongside of us, you know?
99 00:20:31.210 ⇒ 00:20:51.080 Johnathan’s iPhone: Sure. Yeah, so, I mean, part of what Clarence had also mentioned, is, as far as the growth that you guys are looking at, and the opportunities that you have, that there is already a pipeline of clients that you have, I would say, in San Antonio, or is it just… are you primarily.
100 00:20:51.080 ⇒ 00:20:58.720 Uttam Kumaran: So we’re… so the home services company, I don’t know if you’re familiar with ABC Home, like, pest control, so they’re one of our clients here,
101 00:20:58.770 ⇒ 00:21:14.569 Uttam Kumaran: And we are trying to grow more here in Texas, so I’m here in Austin, and we just have… I’m actually here at a WeWork, because we have two other people that I have hired here in Austin as well, and, like, I would love nothing more than to do more business here in Texas.
102 00:21:14.570 ⇒ 00:21:22.270 Uttam Kumaran: I think we are… there’s not many companies like us, that are moving this fast, that are… that have a local presence.
103 00:21:22.270 ⇒ 00:21:35.310 Uttam Kumaran: So I’m also very, very interested in, you know, expanding locally. I think we have an advantage. We’re gonna do events, we’re bringing vendors here, and so, yeah, that’s totally an interest of mine as well.
104 00:21:35.310 ⇒ 00:21:35.870 Johnathan’s iPhone: True.
105 00:21:36.180 ⇒ 00:21:53.559 Johnathan’s iPhone: And what’s your… I mean, obviously you’ve… I… I’ve talked to Clarence a little bit about what you’re doing from your organizational standpoint, how you’re structuring and hiring, things like that, so… I do a lot of hiring for Booz Allen. I’m literally staffing up on a contract right now, which is about 116 FTE.
106 00:21:53.560 ⇒ 00:21:54.490 Uttam Kumaran: Wow.
107 00:21:54.490 ⇒ 00:21:56.539 Johnathan’s iPhone: And so, you know, I’ve been doing internet.
108 00:21:56.540 ⇒ 00:22:09.769 Uttam Kumaran: You know, 25 people at my company is a lot. You know, I was… I used to sit here on a laptop for 9 months alone, every day. So to… and then I had… then I was able to hire one person parked, like, to even have 20 people is, like…
109 00:22:09.860 ⇒ 00:22:19.660 Uttam Kumaran: out of this planet for me, but we’re growing, but that’s impressive. 100… finding 116 half-decent people is very, very hard.
110 00:22:19.660 ⇒ 00:22:31.699 Johnathan’s iPhone: Well, and I think, I guess the reason I bring that up is I’m curious on what your approach is, right? So you obviously did mention sometimes when you scale up too fast, you do carry risk, right? So you want to have… make sure that we have.
111 00:22:32.030 ⇒ 00:22:32.590 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
112 00:22:32.590 ⇒ 00:22:37.370 Johnathan’s iPhone: standpoint, you got billable work for them, right? So you don’t want them, stagnating, and you don’t want.
113 00:22:37.370 ⇒ 00:22:44.880 Uttam Kumaran: Totally, totally. So, yeah, at our business, we are actively turning down work, because we don’t have enough people.
114 00:22:44.940 ⇒ 00:22:57.460 Uttam Kumaran: So we have the demand side. Our model has always been crawl, walk, run with people. We’ve tried our best to bring in people in, like, a part-time manner, see what it’s like to work with us.
115 00:22:57.460 ⇒ 00:23:07.419 Uttam Kumaran: try and do some work, and then grow. I know that’s also not possible for everyone, especially as we try to get more and more senior people, but that’s sort of been our MO, is like.
116 00:23:07.420 ⇒ 00:23:10.090 Uttam Kumaran: Trying to spend time with people, and…
117 00:23:10.270 ⇒ 00:23:21.679 Uttam Kumaran: we don’t want to hire people that are like, oh, this is a stepping stone to the next thing. I want this… I want us to give you the internal stepping stones, and I want people to want to stay with Brainforge for a long time.
118 00:23:21.680 ⇒ 00:23:36.750 Uttam Kumaran: I had to spend my whole career thinking about the next job, next job, and… it sucked, like, it was just… it’s really intense. And I think we’ve done a good job at giving every opportunity we can, first, to the people inside the company, before looking out.
119 00:23:36.750 ⇒ 00:23:44.960 Uttam Kumaran: And, you know, we have to keep a very, very high bar. Like, the one thing I never want to worry about is if we’re capable of doing the work.
120 00:23:45.120 ⇒ 00:23:54.919 Uttam Kumaran: I can worry about if we’re communicating it properly, or things like that, so we try really hard to meet people like this. Like, I recruit like this. I,
121 00:23:54.950 ⇒ 00:24:02.789 Uttam Kumaran: Only recently did we start doing, sort of, more formal interview processes, like you get through an application, because we just can’t…
122 00:24:02.790 ⇒ 00:24:21.990 Uttam Kumaran: just don’t have the time to do, like, we have, like, 30, 40 people in process. I can’t do one-on-one meetings with everybody, but I still, for the people that I know that, you know, have something that could bring a ton of value to us, I would still try to find time to meet them. You know, even I… like, my original plan was, like, let me see if I can come to San Antonio today, but…
123 00:24:21.990 ⇒ 00:24:33.090 Uttam Kumaran: I was like, I’ll just give you a call, and I’ll see if I can find a way to come say hi, but it’s just through this, like, this is how we grow, and I have a relationship with every single person in the company.
124 00:24:33.090 ⇒ 00:24:43.899 Uttam Kumaran: like, we are not just, like, we don’t do any staff aug work, we don’t do any dev shop work, so I’m not just, like, finding people, like, wherever they are, camera off, like…
125 00:24:43.900 ⇒ 00:24:48.980 Uttam Kumaran: it’s all Brainforge team members, it’s all BrainForge-owned relationships, so…
126 00:24:49.750 ⇒ 00:25:00.730 Johnathan’s iPhone: You… so, kind of just run me through, right, so you’re obviously talking about engineers developing as individual contributors, and then managing that relationship with clients. So.
127 00:25:00.730 ⇒ 00:25:18.000 Johnathan’s iPhone: Is that… is… so you’re expecting, as far as you hire people, you had mentioned, obviously, the expense and things like that. Just kind of run me through what the expectation looks like as you’re evaluating individuals as far as their effectiveness in joining your organization.
128 00:25:18.000 ⇒ 00:25:25.629 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so we have a, you know, and really this was, like, you know, with a lot of help from Clarence, is we developed a new sort of delivery model that
129 00:25:25.630 ⇒ 00:25:50.550 Uttam Kumaran: kind of put together, like, 3 legs of a stool, and most of our client pods, at minimum, are 3 people. We have what we call, like, a client success owner, an engagement planner, and a service lead. We currently have 3 main service lines here at Brainforge. We have data, we have our strategy and analytics, and then we have AI. Each of those has someone that is a service leader for that, and then each client has at least an engagement planner and a client success owner. So the client success person is the one leading me
130 00:25:50.550 ⇒ 00:26:02.840 Uttam Kumaran: meetings, gathering new requirements, and sort of making sure to be the customer-facing minimum person on the client. The engagement plan is the person that’s doing tickets, that’s also doing,
131 00:26:02.840 ⇒ 00:26:16.669 Uttam Kumaran: you know, sort of Gantt charts, project planning, but all 3 of those people are also engineering on the client. They’re also delivering work. So this is, like, a leadership role on top of their existing, on top of their existing role as an engineer on a project.
132 00:26:16.740 ⇒ 00:26:40.139 Uttam Kumaran: you may ask, okay, all those things are, like, you know, full-time gigs for some people, but we’ve built an internal platform and a set of tooling to enable people to do that, in the time that they have, you know, with clients. And as our clients grow… as our clients grow, like, people will be dedicated, but we have people working on two to three clients at a time, typically. And it’s been a blast, and by having smaller pods.
133 00:26:40.140 ⇒ 00:27:02.399 Uttam Kumaran: by having, like, tighter teams, they’ve been able to effectively, you know, manage that. And so, I don’t bring on people that can’t go build a relationship with clients, that aren’t comfortable with being client-facing. They just don’t have a… there’s not a spot here. And growth in our company is… is either you go into one of those paths, you either want to manage a set of clients, or you want to manage a service line.
134 00:27:02.400 ⇒ 00:27:13.579 Uttam Kumaran: And from there, you can also go help on go-to-market side, you can help on internal, like, sort of, let’s develop more playbooks and more scalable structure. But everybody who comes on is on the delivery team.
135 00:27:13.580 ⇒ 00:27:32.479 Uttam Kumaran: we are pushing to be able to actually own parts of the client engagement. It’s hard, like, we have… we go through a lot of interviews and try to find the right people. For some people, like, you know, they think of consulting as, like, oh, it’s actually just, like, a place to go hide, and, like, that’s not our company, like, we’re…
136 00:27:32.480 ⇒ 00:27:50.230 Uttam Kumaran: we are easy to bring on, and also just as easy to fire, right? So, I think we hold ourselves to a much higher expectation than the clients hold themselves to, and we want to prove that, like, every dollar people spend with Brainforge is, like, is $5 out for them.
137 00:27:50.230 ⇒ 00:27:59.170 Uttam Kumaran: And, yeah, I think, like, that nature and that expectation has just, like, caused us to build, like, a really, really solid internal team of people.
138 00:27:59.230 ⇒ 00:28:15.260 Uttam Kumaran: And taking people that I brought on originally just to, like, do engineering work, and now they’re leading engagements, they’re doing client presentations, doing demos, driving things forward, selling SOWs, and it’s sort of proven the model that, like, you know, you can build a delivery team like that.
139 00:28:15.260 ⇒ 00:28:21.630 Uttam Kumaran: And, you know, if you ask me, like, I would rather… if I can’t… we can’t find more people like that, then we’re just gonna stay small.
140 00:28:21.630 ⇒ 00:28:29.729 Uttam Kumaran: Like, I’m not here to sac… I’m not gonna sacrifice the quality of our work, because we have no way to continue to price higher and attract better talent without
141 00:28:29.730 ⇒ 00:28:44.189 Uttam Kumaran: having great people on the team, you know? And so, ultimately, Brainforge is, like, a… is a two-sided marketplace, right? Like, we go get really amazing clients and amazing problems, and we find amazing people, and we sort of…
142 00:28:44.190 ⇒ 00:28:51.929 Uttam Kumaran: pair them together, you know, with some sauce in the middle, and that’s what we do. And so, that’s sort of, like, how I’m thinking about it a lot.
143 00:28:52.690 ⇒ 00:28:53.240 Johnathan’s iPhone: Okay.
144 00:28:54.420 ⇒ 00:28:57.989 Johnathan’s iPhone: I know we only have 30 minutes, so I don’t want to keep you too long, but
145 00:28:58.380 ⇒ 00:29:05.210 Johnathan’s iPhone: Yeah, those were the bulk of my questions, too, of trying to understand a little bit more about your organization, things like that, so…
146 00:29:05.210 ⇒ 00:29:19.550 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I mean, tell me, like, so you kind of mentioned a little bit, like, what you’re looking for next, like, how seriously are you looking? Like, how can I be helpful to continue to just give you more insight into what it is we’re doing and where they may be, you know, an opportunity?
147 00:29:19.550 ⇒ 00:29:21.650 Johnathan’s iPhone: Yeah, I mean,
148 00:29:22.560 ⇒ 00:29:28.650 Johnathan’s iPhone: So, I am actively interviewing, so, for instance, a lot of the other positions are…
149 00:29:28.790 ⇒ 00:29:44.900 Johnathan’s iPhone: More in the middle to upper level management side, so, you know, some director of technical operations, middle-sized, organizations, and some smalls as well. So I’m actively looking. Okay. And…
150 00:29:44.920 ⇒ 00:29:58.049 Johnathan’s iPhone: you know, I would say what my perfect environment that I’m trying to get to is an environment, I spend most of… I’d probably say it’s a 90-10. I spend 10% of my time, in…
151 00:29:58.120 ⇒ 00:30:16.509 Johnathan’s iPhone: what I call engineering now. It’s building out, you know, straw mans or proof of concepts, not engineering a, a go-to-market in solution or anything like that, but just helping paint the picture so that way someone else is going to build it out based upon, just the foundation laid.
152 00:30:16.520 ⇒ 00:30:26.009 Johnathan’s iPhone: So, 90% of the time that I work, I work on, you know, administrative, oversight, as well as, relationship management with clients, so…
153 00:30:26.050 ⇒ 00:30:39.069 Johnathan’s iPhone: I’m one of the people that, in the room, when we’re talking to large-scale organizations, with multi-year delivery, you know, that asks really good questions,
154 00:30:39.160 ⇒ 00:30:49.960 Johnathan’s iPhone: And so, you know, I keep getting invited back. Also, you know, one of the challenges I think every person faces is the meaningfulness of their execution or their work, right?
155 00:30:50.400 ⇒ 00:31:05.540 Johnathan’s iPhone: I enjoy the mission of Booz Allen. It’s a great firm, and they’ve given me a lot of opportunity to experience a lot of things. There’s a term in the military and in the firm, it’s called bidirection, right? So.
156 00:31:05.560 ⇒ 00:31:19.409 Johnathan’s iPhone: if you’re the commander and I’m your XO, you give me the authority to go forth and make decisions, but I have to get your permission, so to speak, and it’s only by direction. So, I’m looking for more opportunities to not.
157 00:31:19.520 ⇒ 00:31:23.729 Uttam Kumaran: be bi-direction, but get bidirection. Yeah.
158 00:31:23.910 ⇒ 00:31:32.200 Johnathan’s iPhone: And, so that’s really where, you know, this catalyst… and I mean, it now is a chaotic time for the industry.
159 00:31:32.200 ⇒ 00:31:32.860 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
160 00:31:32.860 ⇒ 00:31:48.620 Johnathan’s iPhone: as well as technologies just making even more so, that now’s the time to get out there and strike it, you know, I would say the gold rush is on. Not for some earth-shattering technology, but it’s more of…
161 00:31:48.620 ⇒ 00:31:57.479 Johnathan’s iPhone: You know, once the gap is bridged from AI catches up to, the smalls, the mediums, and then, of course, the larges that have
162 00:31:57.740 ⇒ 00:32:02.430 Johnathan’s iPhone: Effectiveness and delivery, then you’re gonna see,
163 00:32:03.170 ⇒ 00:32:06.890 Johnathan’s iPhone: You’re gonna start to see a lot more layoffs, you’re gonna see a lot more…
164 00:32:06.890 ⇒ 00:32:07.320 Uttam Kumaran: S.
165 00:32:07.320 ⇒ 00:32:16.540 Johnathan’s iPhone: efficiencies come out, and then the, I would say the service models, as well as those typical, and,
166 00:32:16.910 ⇒ 00:32:20.059 Johnathan’s iPhone: Roles that can be automated will already be automated.
167 00:32:20.060 ⇒ 00:32:24.440 Uttam Kumaran: Yes, yes, and so that’s where, like, I feel like we are lucky
168 00:32:24.440 ⇒ 00:32:41.960 Uttam Kumaran: In that I… if I started the business maybe 2 years earlier, maybe we would have had a lot of those people, and we just caught the… the wave of it being… and we are automating… everybody in our company uses AI, not only in delivery, but sales, finance, operations…
169 00:32:41.960 ⇒ 00:32:49.299 Uttam Kumaran: And, it’s amazing, and we’re able to punch up, you know, way above our pay grade, you know, and it’s great.
170 00:32:49.910 ⇒ 00:33:01.419 Johnathan’s iPhone: Yeah, no, and… so I would say, you know, that kind of paints the picture of where, why, and you know, my timeline, like I said, I’m actively looking and interviewing right now,
171 00:33:01.690 ⇒ 00:33:02.600 Johnathan’s iPhone: So, yeah.
172 00:33:02.830 ⇒ 00:33:21.959 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, perfect. Well, let me, like, let me think a little bit about it this weekend, see if there’s anyone else in the company that I can connect you with. I mean, I think with your background and expertise and, like, what you’re trying to do, we definitely have a ton of opportunity. It will be a difference from working at, like, a booze-style company. Like, very, very different, like, but…
173 00:33:21.960 ⇒ 00:33:29.600 Uttam Kumaran: again, that is also the opportunity. If we get to the point that we’re as big as booze, we would have won 100 times over, right? So…
174 00:33:29.600 ⇒ 00:33:33.110 Uttam Kumaran: The opportunity is because we’re not there yet,
175 00:33:33.110 ⇒ 00:33:53.090 Uttam Kumaran: And if anything has been clear the last, like, 2 years of doing this, like, we’re on the right track, like, we have demand for what we’re doing, and we’re moving really, really fast, and all we’re trying to do internally is empower people to take the baton, you know? And so, no, this is really, really appreciate the insight and the conversation, this is super helpful.
176 00:33:53.090 ⇒ 00:33:54.570 Johnathan’s iPhone: Absolutely, as well. Thank you.
177 00:33:54.570 ⇒ 00:34:11.680 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, and if you’re ever in Austin in the next few weeks, let me know. I’ll let you know if I’m in San Antonio. I usually… Clarence was actually here on Wednesday, because we were at a client thing, and he’s awesome. I’m really, really pumped that, you know, he’s a good friend of mine now, and that he recommended speaking to you, so, no, I appreciate the time.
178 00:34:11.900 ⇒ 00:34:14.249 Johnathan’s iPhone: Absolutely, and I look forward to talking more, so…
179 00:34:14.250 ⇒ 00:34:17.239 Uttam Kumaran: Perfect. Alright. Let me know. Thanks, Ronan.