Meeting Title: Brainforge x Lilo Weekly Sync Date: 2026-02-16 Meeting participants: Uttam Kumaran, Zoran Selinger, Clarence Stone, Pranav Narahari
WEBVTT
1 00:00:54.980 ⇒ 00:00:55.950 Zoran Selinger: Hi, Utam.
2 00:00:58.080 ⇒ 00:00:59.250 Uttam Kumaran: Hey, how are you?
3 00:01:00.090 ⇒ 00:01:05.170 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, yeah, good, good, just… Finishing off for today.
4 00:01:05.740 ⇒ 00:01:09.690 Uttam Kumaran: Cool. Yeah, dude, we were talking about you last week, we were, like, trying to see how we can…
5 00:01:10.130 ⇒ 00:01:14.119 Uttam Kumaran: enable you to ship more, you know, dbt models together, so…
6 00:01:16.000 ⇒ 00:01:16.880 Zoran Selinger: Hi, Clarence.
7 00:01:17.160 ⇒ 00:01:17.980 Clarence Stone: Hey!
8 00:01:19.720 ⇒ 00:01:22.520 Zoran Selinger: I’ve been enjoying that work.
9 00:01:22.520 ⇒ 00:01:23.020 Pranav Narahari: So good.
10 00:01:24.990 ⇒ 00:01:31.019 Zoran Selinger: And, obviously, I want to do it, I think, the models…
11 00:01:31.690 ⇒ 00:01:50.799 Zoran Selinger: are in place, and they are working, so I was able to be, you know, useful, kind of take, take a little bit of that, that work on, on myself, and kind of ship faster. So that was, that was good. Especially, it was, it was good timing as well, because Awash was…
12 00:01:50.900 ⇒ 00:02:00.569 Zoran Selinger: doing a lot of important stuff on… on both the Roberts Dash and Omni as well, so… Okay. Yeah.
13 00:02:01.160 ⇒ 00:02:03.139 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so maybe one ask is.
14 00:02:03.290 ⇒ 00:02:06.200 Uttam Kumaran: do this out loud in the CSO channel, like…
15 00:02:06.460 ⇒ 00:02:06.890 Zoran Selinger: Yep.
16 00:02:06.890 ⇒ 00:02:11.390 Uttam Kumaran: Show me, like, where you’re getting stuck, because, I will solve all of your problems.
17 00:02:11.510 ⇒ 00:02:15.549 Uttam Kumaran: But I just need to know where you’re getting stuck, or if you’re like, hey, I want to do this.
18 00:02:15.810 ⇒ 00:02:20.830 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know what the… I don’t know how to do this with AI. Where should I start? I’ll show you.
19 00:02:22.010 ⇒ 00:02:22.490 Zoran Selinger: Yeah.
20 00:02:22.490 ⇒ 00:02:30.359 Uttam Kumaran: Even if you start with the, like, even if you start… even if you… but even if it’s even beyond the fact that, like, AI will one-shot it, I want to show you how to test.
21 00:02:32.010 ⇒ 00:02:35.579 Zoran Selinger: So, for example, the model,
22 00:02:36.140 ⇒ 00:02:53.389 Zoran Selinger: the last model for TikTok. Basically, the last touch model. I did not one-shot it. I deliberately went step by step. I asked the model to give me code to run in the console, step by step, to confirm the logic.
23 00:02:53.850 ⇒ 00:02:59.109 Zoran Selinger: And basically, so it wasn’t a one-shot at all, okay.
24 00:03:00.140 ⇒ 00:03:06.289 Zoran Selinger: Now, in terms of how to, like, what’s the standard of confirming and QAing?
25 00:03:06.630 ⇒ 00:03:11.790 Zoran Selinger: that’s where… I mean, I don’t know what the standard is, and how you guys typically do it, right?
26 00:03:11.790 ⇒ 00:03:13.570 Uttam Kumaran: I’ll show you. Yeah, I’ll show you.
27 00:03:13.570 ⇒ 00:03:14.390 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, okay, cool.
28 00:03:14.390 ⇒ 00:03:22.490 Uttam Kumaran: So it’s… because part of it is, like, how do you write the PR, and then how does it… it’ll tell you, like, it’s good, and then how do you go one step further, test?
29 00:03:22.730 ⇒ 00:03:25.869 Uttam Kumaran: And then that’s all the PR that you can then send to Awash.
30 00:03:26.290 ⇒ 00:03:28.769 Uttam Kumaran: That’s, like, the perfect pull request, right?
31 00:03:29.480 ⇒ 00:03:42.809 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, yeah, so I was, obviously, I was going, confirming logic step-by-step, and at the final model, I manually took few of the records that it gave me.
32 00:03:42.810 ⇒ 00:04:01.060 Zoran Selinger: That satisfy the model, and I went and manually checked, like, all the sessions from that particular person, and if it matches to the attribution model that we wanted, and it was fine. But yeah, I just don’t know if there’s more layers to that, I guess.
33 00:04:01.060 ⇒ 00:04:01.820 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
34 00:04:01.820 ⇒ 00:04:02.839 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, yeah.
35 00:04:04.020 ⇒ 00:04:05.110 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, awesome.
36 00:04:05.960 ⇒ 00:04:13.480 Uttam Kumaran: Cool. So, I mean, yeah, dude, just tell me, I mean, I can wake up early one of these days if you want to pair on stuff, or if you…
37 00:04:13.590 ⇒ 00:04:17.990 Uttam Kumaran: If you send me, like, a… if you start a thread and send a… send a Zoom clip, I can…
38 00:04:19.060 ⇒ 00:04:20.469 Uttam Kumaran: Happy to do that, too.
39 00:04:21.040 ⇒ 00:04:27.419 Zoran Selinger: I mean, this week, the priority, the priority really is…
40 00:04:27.850 ⇒ 00:04:44.809 Zoran Selinger: more the ETL stuff, because we want to grab data from the platforms. So, if I do anything engineering this week, that would be Daxter, basically. But I’m not sure if I can…
41 00:04:45.370 ⇒ 00:04:46.240 Uttam Kumaran: Yes, you can.
42 00:04:46.610 ⇒ 00:04:48.180 Zoran Selinger: if… yeah, if I can…
43 00:04:48.500 ⇒ 00:04:48.959 Uttam Kumaran: Yes, you can.
44 00:04:48.960 ⇒ 00:04:50.040 Zoran Selinger: Do that, yeah.
45 00:04:50.040 ⇒ 00:04:50.600 Uttam Kumaran: Yes, you can.
46 00:04:50.600 ⇒ 00:04:52.110 Zoran Selinger: Again, I’d love to.
47 00:04:52.110 ⇒ 00:05:06.399 Uttam Kumaran: What did I just say? I said, if you have a question on what it is you need to do, you need to tell me, I’ll find a way. So Daxter is all as code. I can add you to our Dagster platform, and all the platform is code in GitHub. We have a separate repo for it.
48 00:05:07.460 ⇒ 00:05:13.659 Zoran Selinger: I do have the repo, I’m looking at the code itself, but I’ve never contributed to that repo.
49 00:05:13.660 ⇒ 00:05:24.209 Uttam Kumaran: Don’t worry, don’t worry more about that. Cursor will show you that, actually, DAXR is just orchestration and workflows. So you don’t have to worry about how DAX are set up, you just have to think about your workflow.
50 00:05:24.210 ⇒ 00:05:24.770 Zoran Selinger: Yeah.
51 00:05:24.770 ⇒ 00:05:25.260 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
52 00:05:25.260 ⇒ 00:05:25.870 Zoran Selinger: Okay.
53 00:05:25.870 ⇒ 00:05:30.280 Uttam Kumaran: You know, like, what it is you’re trying to land, how does it call the external API, things like that.
54 00:05:31.490 ⇒ 00:05:43.619 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, so it’s either gonna be, like, polyatomic, or Daxter, or the combination, we’ll see, because guys were working on something similar for Robert’s dash.
55 00:05:43.810 ⇒ 00:05:49.700 Zoran Selinger: So, there’s pieces that are already in place, I just need to see what exactly is missing.
56 00:05:50.370 ⇒ 00:05:54.729 Zoran Selinger: And Mitesh said this is the top priority this week.
57 00:05:54.870 ⇒ 00:06:06.230 Zoran Selinger: And I wanted to talk to you guys about, since we’re on the topic, like, we’ve been having issues and taking responsibility, basically, for…
58 00:06:06.950 ⇒ 00:06:12.499 Zoran Selinger: for a lot of issues with Basque over… in January and…
59 00:06:12.840 ⇒ 00:06:19.770 Zoran Selinger: it’s continuing. Even today, we found Basque… Introduced a new bug.
60 00:06:20.140 ⇒ 00:06:31.600 Zoran Selinger: That’s, like, fifth time since the start of the year. And we’ve been playing just whack-a-mole, and taking responsibility for instability in the system, Ryan and myself.
61 00:06:32.070 ⇒ 00:06:34.160 Zoran Selinger: And I’m just sick of it.
62 00:06:34.560 ⇒ 00:06:40.970 Zoran Selinger: It’s just constant, and we, we are, like, behind in, like, that KPR
63 00:06:40.970 ⇒ 00:06:55.779 Zoran Selinger: KPI dash setup, we are behind, and everything is because instability in Busk, and what they… the data that they give us. And there’s no updates, there’s no nothing. It’s undocumented.
64 00:06:55.830 ⇒ 00:07:00.019 Zoran Selinger: They do not respond to the messages we send them.
65 00:07:00.090 ⇒ 00:07:03.550 Zoran Selinger: Even if you look at the channel communication.
66 00:07:03.550 ⇒ 00:07:10.230 Uttam Kumaran: Well, this is where, like, what did you… what did… I guess my order of operations would be…
67 00:07:10.800 ⇒ 00:07:13.810 Uttam Kumaran: like, what is sort of the commentary from Robert?
68 00:07:14.300 ⇒ 00:07:17.979 Zoran Selinger: Oh, we haven’t had a chance to talk today, yeah.
69 00:07:17.980 ⇒ 00:07:23.440 Uttam Kumaran: So this has been something that’s been… that’s been happening basically ever since we’ve been on this client.
70 00:07:25.570 ⇒ 00:07:27.980 Uttam Kumaran: So they’re trying to move off fast right now.
71 00:07:27.980 ⇒ 00:07:41.660 Zoran Selinger: Oh, yeah, yeah, it’s… it’s still not gonna happen. I made sure on, kind of, late last week, I talked to Mitesh about, okay, we are moving off, of Basque.
72 00:07:42.120 ⇒ 00:07:45.090 Zoran Selinger: Do we need to fix all these things right now?
73 00:07:45.410 ⇒ 00:08:02.390 Zoran Selinger: how… how fast is this gonna happen? And the answer is not yet, so we do need to deal with those issues. So we just… we’ve just been patching their issues constantly, and it’s… it’s so frustrating, and
74 00:08:02.390 ⇒ 00:08:08.599 Zoran Selinger: Ryan or… and I, we’re not the ones to just say, okay, this is not us, we’re, like, washing…
75 00:08:08.600 ⇒ 00:08:14.440 Zoran Selinger: of, we’re trying, but it’s just, it’s too much now. It’s just ridiculous.
76 00:08:14.700 ⇒ 00:08:29.239 Zoran Selinger: It’s just one thing after another, and Mitesh is trying to keep us accountable, and I just… like, today, I got to the point of, okay, I’m not taking responsibility anymore for this. This is just too much.
77 00:08:30.040 ⇒ 00:08:32.390 Zoran Selinger: So I, I don’t know, I don’t know.
78 00:08:32.669 ⇒ 00:08:45.509 Zoran Selinger: we flagged this with Basque, got the feedback today, actually, that other, other clients, were flagging this as well, so it’s not just us. But at some point today.
79 00:08:45.700 ⇒ 00:08:50.790 Zoran Selinger: I just feel like… they’re doing it on purpose. I’m so frustrated.
80 00:08:51.540 ⇒ 00:08:54.880 Uttam Kumaran: That’s what I don’t know, like, I feel like this seems like an attached problem, right?
81 00:08:55.380 ⇒ 00:08:59.410 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, it seems like, oh, I mean.
82 00:08:59.640 ⇒ 00:09:15.890 Zoran Selinger: It seems to be a sensitive conversation. I talked to Ryan today, and he really thinks this is, like, a fragile relationship that still needs to go on, right? It’s important. So, he’s really… he’s really tiptoeing around them, still.
83 00:09:17.260 ⇒ 00:09:29.230 Zoran Selinger: Just working on, like, a message to them for an hour before he sends it, don’t want to offend anyone, so they’re still very dependent on that relationship.
84 00:09:29.330 ⇒ 00:09:32.650 Zoran Selinger: I don’t know exactly how and why, but they are.
85 00:09:34.840 ⇒ 00:09:39.730 Zoran Selinger: At least that’s the impression I got from Orion’s behavior and approach to Basque.
86 00:09:42.160 ⇒ 00:09:46.380 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, that’s so hard, because we’ve dealt with this for a long time, like… Yeah.
87 00:09:48.280 ⇒ 00:09:50.949 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know. Like, what is your gut instinct?
88 00:09:54.400 ⇒ 00:10:04.179 Zoran Selinger: I mean… To me, like, it just looks like they have absolutely no pool.
89 00:10:05.320 ⇒ 00:10:05.870 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
90 00:10:05.870 ⇒ 00:10:06.700 Zoran Selinger: We’ll bask.
91 00:10:07.160 ⇒ 00:10:07.980 Zoran Selinger: And that’s…
92 00:10:07.980 ⇒ 00:10:08.440 Uttam Kumaran: I think so too.
93 00:10:08.440 ⇒ 00:10:13.860 Zoran Selinger: They are not a small… to me, that’s weird. They’re not a small client at all. How…
94 00:10:14.560 ⇒ 00:10:15.829 Zoran Selinger: How could that be?
95 00:10:16.680 ⇒ 00:10:20.870 Uttam Kumaran: No, but I think his back is mismanaged, but Eden has no option.
96 00:10:21.290 ⇒ 00:10:22.470 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, yeah.
97 00:10:22.860 ⇒ 00:10:23.900 Zoran Selinger: you just…
98 00:10:24.130 ⇒ 00:10:36.639 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, I mean, we’re locked in, and now, you know, now again, we lost almost the whole day of tracking in Catalysts, which was… which is critical for…
99 00:10:37.180 ⇒ 00:10:38.950 Zoran Selinger: For a couple of months.
100 00:10:39.480 ⇒ 00:10:47.050 Zoran Selinger: And we had to push back a lot with Mitesh today as well, because…
101 00:10:47.700 ⇒ 00:10:50.569 Zoran Selinger: You know, every… he’s just very unstable.
102 00:10:51.180 ⇒ 00:10:57.160 Zoran Selinger: And then we… We start explaining to him, okay, weekend was good.
103 00:10:57.260 ⇒ 00:11:02.699 Zoran Selinger: You know, conversion rates are good, stable, we’re not missing almost any orders, and then…
104 00:11:02.850 ⇒ 00:11:05.159 Zoran Selinger: You know, a new issue today with Basque.
105 00:11:05.170 ⇒ 00:11:08.480 Uttam Kumaran: And we have… we tracked nothing today.
106 00:11:08.770 ⇒ 00:11:09.909 Zoran Selinger: In Catalysts.
107 00:11:11.650 ⇒ 00:11:15.319 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, but it sounds like you’re doing your job, like, I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know what.
108 00:11:15.320 ⇒ 00:11:21.530 Zoran Selinger: I mean, we’re trying, we’re trying our best, we’re doing our best to do, to do that job.
109 00:11:21.670 ⇒ 00:11:31.640 Zoran Selinger: I… I urged Ryan to speak to Carolis to allow us to only Send server to server.
110 00:11:32.600 ⇒ 00:11:36.199 Zoran Selinger: Pings, and to approve from server pings only.
111 00:11:36.430 ⇒ 00:11:42.739 Zoran Selinger: So we do not depend on the data layer for Google Tag Manager at all.
112 00:11:42.880 ⇒ 00:11:59.550 Zoran Selinger: this is… that’s what I’d like to do, because we do have all the necessary information in… in… on the edge, right? And we can do proper attribution for them using that. But we do have server-to-server pings, but they’re not sufficient
113 00:11:59.900 ⇒ 00:12:01.679 Zoran Selinger: the… just the rules.
114 00:12:02.300 ⇒ 00:12:05.719 Zoran Selinger: in Catalyst platform are not sufficient for.
115 00:12:05.720 ⇒ 00:12:07.029 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I guess, like, I don’t know.
116 00:12:07.490 ⇒ 00:12:07.860 Uttam Kumaran: That’s.
117 00:12:07.860 ⇒ 00:12:08.470 Zoran Selinger: probable.
118 00:12:08.470 ⇒ 00:12:19.099 Uttam Kumaran: My ass is, like, what do you… like, I don’t know. I’m not sure what to say beyond just, like, keep trying, because this is an external vendor that is holding a client kind of hostage.
119 00:12:19.220 ⇒ 00:12:21.940 Uttam Kumaran: We’re having to deal with that, but, like.
120 00:12:22.630 ⇒ 00:12:26.269 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I’m interested in, like, what you… but it’s like, it’s obviously a lot of ideas.
121 00:12:26.270 ⇒ 00:12:31.349 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, okay, okay, I mean, if… If that’s your view, that’s…
122 00:12:31.860 ⇒ 00:12:37.729 Zoran Selinger: I mean, I don’t see any other option, we just have to endure for now, and that’s… we’ll do that.
123 00:12:41.030 ⇒ 00:12:42.789 Zoran Selinger: It’s a… it’s a tricky one.
124 00:12:46.180 ⇒ 00:12:48.650 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, so yeah, that’s it. We… I’ll have to…
125 00:12:48.650 ⇒ 00:12:51.760 Clarence Stone: So, I’m… how much… how much of a, like, a…
126 00:12:52.000 ⇒ 00:13:03.559 Clarence Stone: a weight or extra time are these concerns impacting you? That’s what really matters for my evaluation, right? I know this is a difficulty, but, you know, what are the impacts that you’re feeling related to this?
127 00:13:05.270 ⇒ 00:13:11.509 Zoran Selinger: I mean, in terms of time spent, was… that’s majority of January.
128 00:13:11.610 ⇒ 00:13:13.290 Zoran Selinger: Literally majority.
129 00:13:14.280 ⇒ 00:13:17.260 Clarence Stone: And the client is aware that it’s become a majority of their time related.
130 00:13:17.260 ⇒ 00:13:17.660 Zoran Selinger: Yes.
131 00:13:17.660 ⇒ 00:13:19.040 Clarence Stone: Okay, and they’re okay with that.
132 00:13:20.440 ⇒ 00:13:24.190 Zoran Selinger: No, they’re not prepared, no.
133 00:13:24.230 ⇒ 00:13:29.420 Clarence Stone: Mitesh is complaining that we haven’t finished the dashboard that he wanted.
134 00:13:30.060 ⇒ 00:13:30.780 Clarence Stone: Okay.
135 00:13:30.780 ⇒ 00:13:34.540 Zoran Selinger: And he reads He needs it to be finished by Friday.
136 00:13:35.130 ⇒ 00:13:40.969 Clarence Stone: Okay, and are… is… are you able to hit that timeline, or you can’t?
137 00:13:40.970 ⇒ 00:13:42.149 Zoran Selinger: I…
138 00:13:42.720 ⇒ 00:13:55.959 Zoran Selinger: I haven’t had a chance to talk to anyone about this today, because we’re, again, dealing with Basque. But it’s possible, because what Robert did, the dashboard that he’s done.
139 00:13:56.240 ⇒ 00:14:00.389 Zoran Selinger: And started sending messages to… to vendors.
140 00:14:00.390 ⇒ 00:14:01.780 Clarence Stone: He’s…
141 00:14:01.780 ⇒ 00:14:03.060 Zoran Selinger: Pretty much…
142 00:14:04.440 ⇒ 00:14:14.479 Zoran Selinger: pretty much, like, halfway there of the things that we need to do. So, yeah, I think if that’s the only focus for this week, I think it’s doable, yes.
143 00:14:15.160 ⇒ 00:14:15.730 Clarence Stone: Okay.
144 00:14:15.730 ⇒ 00:14:16.239 Zoran Selinger: But in nature.
145 00:14:16.600 ⇒ 00:14:18.610 Zoran Selinger: the only, only thing.
146 00:14:18.610 ⇒ 00:14:19.410 Clarence Stone: Yes, yes.
147 00:14:19.410 ⇒ 00:14:20.140 Zoran Selinger: Kill, like, 5 seconds.
148 00:14:20.140 ⇒ 00:14:29.920 Clarence Stone: But you have other things on your plate that are getting deprioritized because of this, right? Like, I think, you know, the sizable problem, in my mind, is defined by
149 00:14:30.080 ⇒ 00:14:34.179 Clarence Stone: How it impacts your capability to deliver excellent work, right?
150 00:14:34.180 ⇒ 00:14:34.560 Zoran Selinger: Yeah.
151 00:14:34.560 ⇒ 00:14:36.829 Clarence Stone: And, yeah, so… But I, I think…
152 00:14:36.830 ⇒ 00:14:37.789 Zoran Selinger: Favorite boot players.
153 00:14:37.790 ⇒ 00:14:46.399 Clarence Stone: that, like, you’re experiencing those limitations, right? But you still expects you to finish the dash for another weekend, and you can’t do it.
154 00:14:46.480 ⇒ 00:15:05.960 Clarence Stone: well, we should probably have further discussions. We could still make time rounds, I think that’s okay. Is there all my other things that are just as pressing, or is it cool? Yeah, so it’s… yeah, I think it’s gonna be okay. We’ll hang in there, but I… maybe, you know, bring that up on the note that, you know, this one took specifically long.
155 00:15:06.480 ⇒ 00:15:25.470 Zoran Selinger: Yeah. I think, for this week, we might be okay with just doing the KPI, because we activated Meta last week. We are activating TikTok this week, which is… the tracking is in place already. They just… they can just start running campaigns. So that… we are good, that’s high priority, but that’s already in place.
156 00:15:26.990 ⇒ 00:15:38.320 Zoran Selinger: So, really, the only thing we really need to do this week is the KPI dash. I’ve done, another thing for this week was, kind of, NordBeam review.
157 00:15:38.710 ⇒ 00:15:47.560 Zoran Selinger: how much coverage we have, and we’re only losing 1.1% of the transaction visibility in NordBeam, which is excellent.
158 00:15:47.560 ⇒ 00:15:48.010 Clarence Stone: Oh.
159 00:15:48.010 ⇒ 00:15:57.210 Zoran Selinger: So we can continue using that tool, that’s awesome. We don’t have to… we don’t have to do anything else, there. We can continue using it.
160 00:15:57.210 ⇒ 00:15:57.620 Clarence Stone: Okay.
161 00:15:57.620 ⇒ 00:16:17.400 Zoran Selinger: helps, right? So I’ve done that today. Tomorrow, we have a conversation with them, so I’m gonna confirm that. They’re also gonna do analysis on their side, we’ll get some results from them, but the conclusion is going to be that NordBeam is good enough, and we can continue using it. We don’t have to switch to anything else.
162 00:16:18.330 ⇒ 00:16:19.010 Clarence Stone: Okay, cool.
163 00:16:19.010 ⇒ 00:16:20.270 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, KPI.
164 00:16:20.270 ⇒ 00:16:22.100 Clarence Stone: Yeah, so hang in there, Zoran.
165 00:16:22.100 ⇒ 00:16:25.190 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, we’ll do, we’ll do, no worries, no worries.
166 00:16:25.190 ⇒ 00:16:26.020 Clarence Stone: up to date.
167 00:16:26.220 ⇒ 00:16:27.560 Zoran Selinger: Yes,
168 00:16:27.910 ⇒ 00:16:34.369 Zoran Selinger: The only… the only difficulty this week is that this is a short week for me. I’m off Friday, so I do have…
169 00:16:34.640 ⇒ 00:16:42.810 Zoran Selinger: I’ll, I’m guessing Amber is… is probably gonna, at some point, help me with the dash.
170 00:16:42.960 ⇒ 00:16:44.040 Zoran Selinger: With the dashboard.
171 00:16:44.330 ⇒ 00:16:48.579 Zoran Selinger: She’s already working on the things for Roberts.
172 00:16:48.870 ⇒ 00:17:01.609 Zoran Selinger: It’s gonna be very similar work, right? But I’m gonna do as much as I can myself as well. And obviously, Ron is also working on the same thing, so he’s gonna do a lot on his side as well.
173 00:17:01.960 ⇒ 00:17:03.309 Zoran Selinger: We’ll coordinate that.
174 00:17:04.140 ⇒ 00:17:05.530 Clarence Stone: Got it. Okay.
175 00:17:05.970 ⇒ 00:17:09.959 Clarence Stone: Yeah, sounds good, I guess. It’s for now. We’ll come with it.
176 00:17:10.780 ⇒ 00:17:12.529 Clarence Stone: Double strategies survival.
177 00:17:12.949 ⇒ 00:17:14.859 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, I’ll also,
178 00:17:15.259 ⇒ 00:17:26.559 Zoran Selinger: I mean, I’ll have to put some time on the side for the new client work. I haven’t had a chance to talk to Robert today, but last week he told me he wants to start.
179 00:17:26.679 ⇒ 00:17:34.259 Zoran Selinger: This week, on… The edge work for… edge layer work for… new clients, so I think…
180 00:17:35.679 ⇒ 00:17:40.479 Zoran Selinger: At least some of that work should be done this week.
181 00:17:41.209 ⇒ 00:17:45.969 Zoran Selinger: And… can’t wait, I’m really excited about that. I really wanna… I wanna work.
182 00:17:45.970 ⇒ 00:17:53.620 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, and this is where I think if, like, if you’re gonna… the new client stuff is gonna be impacted by your thing at Eden, then you have to escalate to Robert.
183 00:17:53.970 ⇒ 00:17:54.930 Uttam Kumaran: Ultimately.
184 00:17:58.660 ⇒ 00:18:02.679 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, yeah, okay. Yeah, we’ll see. I’ll have to talk to him,
185 00:18:03.550 ⇒ 00:18:09.730 Zoran Selinger: Maybe that’s getting postponed to next week, I’m not sure, haven’t heard anything today about that.
186 00:18:09.840 ⇒ 00:18:16.249 Zoran Selinger: I did ask for some feedback on it, earlier, so we’ll see, we’ll see.
187 00:18:17.400 ⇒ 00:18:19.810 Clarence Stone: Okay. Who’s the ET on that, Amber?
188 00:18:20.520 ⇒ 00:18:21.450 Clarence Stone: We’re eating?
189 00:18:22.420 ⇒ 00:18:26.230 Uttam Kumaran: For the edge layer, there’s no EP, this is waiting Casey off.
190 00:18:26.650 ⇒ 00:18:27.290 Clarence Stone: Gotcha.
191 00:18:27.640 ⇒ 00:18:28.180 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
192 00:18:30.420 ⇒ 00:18:36.879 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, and then maybe, Pranav, let’s talk about the stuff for Lilo, if you want to just, like, maybe you can set the stage for everybody, and we can just…
193 00:18:37.550 ⇒ 00:18:50.150 Pranav Narahari: Yeah, perfect. So, last week, Utam, you messaged Bobby and Zach, because we were kind of on the front foot, just to kind of get their, like, feedback, hopefully get, like, some… just good news, good words from them.
194 00:18:50.150 ⇒ 00:19:01.249 Pranav Narahari: And then they brought up the… an idea to just, like, have a meeting with Utam, like, for a 15-minute meeting, just to discuss, like, the next 30 days, like, what the priorities are, and then specifically.
195 00:19:01.250 ⇒ 00:19:10.499 Pranav Narahari: they doubled, basically, their spend with us, and they just are… not… I wouldn’t say concerned, but they just want to be on top of, like, what we’re delivering to them.
196 00:19:10.620 ⇒ 00:19:20.819 Pranav Narahari: And so, what we did in… so then Utam set up that call with them, added me as well to that, and then we just prepped, basically,
197 00:19:21.300 ⇒ 00:19:28.539 Pranav Narahari: Basically, how many hours we spent, what we delivered, how that turned into, like, if we were making an average rate of…
198 00:19:28.600 ⇒ 00:19:42.339 Pranav Narahari: what that costed them, and then I think they were pretty happy with, like, the outcome. I think they were already happy, just that additional clarity made them even more happy. One thing that they realized that they felt was a shortcoming on them, not on us, was that they just had…
199 00:19:42.750 ⇒ 00:19:46.709 Pranav Narahari: Things pop up that they, like, prioritized, and…
200 00:19:46.870 ⇒ 00:19:53.040 Pranav Narahari: didn’t feel like necessarily what we had in our Gantt chart was exactly actually what they wanted anymore.
201 00:19:53.340 ⇒ 00:20:08.129 Pranav Narahari: And so, they said, give us the weekend, let’s… let us get our thoughts together, and then we’ll come back to you today, which they did. And they sent Utam and I a priorities list of what they want done,
202 00:20:08.130 ⇒ 00:20:21.499 Pranav Narahari: like, what they want to make top priority now, and so what that looks like to me is that we should just recreate the Gantt chart, basically. I should get in a talk with Sam and Casey, and then re-estimate things so we can give them a timeline, and
203 00:20:22.110 ⇒ 00:20:24.110 Pranav Narahari: Yeah, I think that’s…
204 00:20:24.320 ⇒ 00:20:32.909 Pranav Narahari: I think that’s, like, the update on that. I still need to get back to them on… on that. I think that’s probably what they’re waiting on next.
205 00:20:33.500 ⇒ 00:20:43.890 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so can we go through, like, what they sent? I mean, the other thing that was, like, still, I think, I just want to get your perspective on it, they’re still talking about this polyatomic air bite thing, so, like, how do we just, like…
206 00:20:44.220 ⇒ 00:20:49.259 Uttam Kumaran: crush that conversation, like, what… I don’t know what they’re like, yeah.
207 00:20:49.260 ⇒ 00:21:05.929 Pranav Narahari: So, an update on that, right, is, that was the thing that I was pushing on them last week that they just weren’t, like, giving us updates on. And I think that what the surprising thing was, like, what they were probably thinking on their end didn’t really relate to me, was that they don’t want to continue with Polytomic for whatever reason. They were just like.
208 00:21:05.930 ⇒ 00:21:06.470 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
209 00:21:06.470 ⇒ 00:21:26.199 Pranav Narahari: they kind of just said, like, we want to use AirByte regardless of the price. Okay. We were trying to make the best decision for them, but if they want to continue with AirByte, then we’ll just go full force on AirByte, make sure that all the work we already did in Polyatomic, we can just redo an AirByte with, you know, no loss of, like, functionality or whatever.
210 00:21:26.470 ⇒ 00:21:34.349 Pranav Narahari: And so, yeah, it makes the decision easier for us, I guess, in some ways. We’re not, like, they made the decision. They don’t want us to,
211 00:21:34.470 ⇒ 00:21:36.580 Pranav Narahari: I guess, even, you know…
212 00:21:36.800 ⇒ 00:21:49.109 Pranav Narahari: I mean, there’s… the one thing that they would… they obviously need is they need to make sure that these connections with Shopify, with Meta Ads, with Google can still be done in AirByte, and there’s no issue there.
213 00:21:49.630 ⇒ 00:21:53.890 Pranav Narahari: And so, once we can confirm that, it sounds like, you know, they have other…
214 00:21:54.000 ⇒ 00:21:59.930 Pranav Narahari: maybe similar clients in their… or similar companies in their space that are using AirByte, so they just feel more comfortable with it, and so we can.
215 00:21:59.930 ⇒ 00:22:13.239 Uttam Kumaran: They’re wrong, but whatever. I don’t… I don’t really care, that’s… that’s their problem. So, okay. So, as long as you can eat that, that’s okay. I mean, what else was in their message, basically? They’re like.
216 00:22:13.430 ⇒ 00:22:18.159 Uttam Kumaran: They wanted to… each Monday, we’d like to review the priority sheet, either in Slack or Huddle.
217 00:22:18.440 ⇒ 00:22:21.460 Uttam Kumaran: We’ve put together a priority tracker here.
218 00:22:21.570 ⇒ 00:22:24.870 Uttam Kumaran: Do you want to pull that up, and then I kind of just want, like.
219 00:22:25.150 ⇒ 00:22:29.819 Uttam Kumaran: I think, Clarence, I want to get worthy, but this is a client who’s, like, they want, basically.
220 00:22:30.460 ⇒ 00:22:39.349 Uttam Kumaran: Basically, they want more project management, they want, like, more guidance on a week-to-week basis on, like, what the plan is for the week, because they themselves are, like, constantly interrupting us.
221 00:22:39.500 ⇒ 00:22:49.079 Uttam Kumaran: And they’re like, we want to create some structure. So maybe, Pranav, you can share this, and then we can just go through it as a group, and just help you with whatever decisions.
222 00:22:49.450 ⇒ 00:22:51.660 Pranav Narahari: My take is that you should…
223 00:22:51.830 ⇒ 00:22:59.979 Uttam Kumaran: you should do this in the spreadsheet for them, call them, just put a 15-minute standing to call them on Mondays, and then this should end up in linear.
224 00:23:01.120 ⇒ 00:23:01.720 Pranav Narahari: Roger.
225 00:23:02.590 ⇒ 00:23:04.470 Pranav Narahari: Yeah, let me share my screen real quick.
226 00:23:16.420 ⇒ 00:23:21.790 Pranav Narahari: Yup. So… Ton of stuff here.
227 00:23:21.890 ⇒ 00:23:29.510 Pranav Narahari: A lot of the stuff they’ve said is not a priority as of right now, and so the priorities are actually in the Slack channel.
228 00:23:29.710 ⇒ 00:23:32.979 Pranav Narahari: That, oh, sorry, not the Slack channel, the Slack message that they sent.
229 00:23:33.300 ⇒ 00:23:35.190 Uttam Kumaran: So… Yes. Yep.
230 00:23:36.630 ⇒ 00:23:39.210 Pranav Narahari: Yeah, so basically this.
231 00:23:39.500 ⇒ 00:23:51.269 Pranav Narahari: And the 3 different ones that were not part of our Gantt chart before are these. Cron jobs for prompts to Slack, better prompt library management,
232 00:23:52.230 ⇒ 00:24:06.070 Pranav Narahari: and then knowledge bases for all brands. So, that’s not something… that’s something they just… they mentioned over the course of, like, the last couple weeks, that, like, oh, this would be, like, nice to have. But I was pushing back a little bit, like, okay, you know.
233 00:24:06.220 ⇒ 00:24:09.179 Pranav Narahari: We have all this other stuff that we’re working on,
234 00:24:09.590 ⇒ 00:24:21.150 Pranav Narahari: But now it’s like… based on that call that we had with Tom, it sounds like they don’t really care about what we have in the Gantt chart right now, they just want us to use this as, like, okay, this is what we want you guys to prioritize.
235 00:24:24.620 ⇒ 00:24:25.200 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
236 00:24:25.730 ⇒ 00:24:26.370 Pranav Narahari: Yeah.
237 00:24:26.970 ⇒ 00:24:33.490 Clarence Stone: So, I guess, Pranav, like, how often is this reprioritization happening?
238 00:24:34.460 ⇒ 00:24:40.420 Pranav Narahari: So… This seems like the first time that they’re telling us
239 00:24:40.680 ⇒ 00:24:46.249 Pranav Narahari: In, like, a structural way, with, like, not in, like, a meeting, and not just, like.
240 00:24:46.950 ⇒ 00:24:51.840 Pranav Narahari: in, like, random conversation, they’re reprioritizing this. So I feel like…
241 00:24:52.190 ⇒ 00:25:01.289 Pranav Narahari: more confident that they’ve put a lot of thought into this. They thought about, like, okay, what is actually, like, the number one thing that we want done right now? And so…
242 00:25:02.030 ⇒ 00:25:10.599 Pranav Narahari: Yeah, like, in the past, like, we’d have our client weekly meeting, and they’d be talking about, like, oh, you did this? Like, we would love to have this too. Okay. But…
243 00:25:10.890 ⇒ 00:25:30.839 Pranav Narahari: now… so, that would happen from… there’s two points of contact at Lilo, it’s Bobby and Zach. Bobby was kind of the one, like, he has, like, all these different ideas, and he wants to, like, see them, like, immediately. And Zach kind of understands, like, okay, well, if we keep on doing that, we’re never gonna, like…
244 00:25:30.890 ⇒ 00:25:32.670 Pranav Narahari: Really reached the end of…
245 00:25:32.860 ⇒ 00:25:42.359 Pranav Narahari: it’s gonna be hard to, like, see things being delivered on a timely manner. And he just understands, like, it’s gonna be better for them and for us if we have, like, a…
246 00:25:42.730 ⇒ 00:25:46.759 Pranav Narahari: somewhat rigid, like, timeline for things.
247 00:25:48.120 ⇒ 00:25:58.830 Pranav Narahari: Yeah, so, yeah, to answer your question, like, something like this has never happened before, like, that they, like, write down their thoughts very, like, succinctly, give us, like, a list of priorities,
248 00:25:58.980 ⇒ 00:26:16.819 Pranav Narahari: that hasn’t happened before, so I’m not too concerned, like, okay, this is gonna keep on happening, we’re gonna have to keep on shifting focus. I think they realized what the issue was in the past few weeks, and luckily, like, they’ve… they’ve done this for us, so, like, we can kind of just, like, put our heads down, work on this, and then just, like, have more…
249 00:26:17.200 ⇒ 00:26:23.019 Pranav Narahari: Just, like, regular, like, anticipated work for the next few weeks, or over the course of this phase.
250 00:26:23.920 ⇒ 00:26:36.570 Clarence Stone: Yep, got it. So, I think it’s important, so the way it seems like this client likes to work is to always be reminded of its prioritization. So, I would pick a day where you say, hey, this is the prioritizations for the week.
251 00:26:36.570 ⇒ 00:26:51.399 Clarence Stone: Right? And just remind them of that in your communications with them. That will help them understand that, hey, Pranav is repeating back to us what we told him, right? And if those things change, we need to tell him, instead of, you know, like, shifting it.
252 00:26:51.400 ⇒ 00:26:52.619 Pranav Narahari: Yeah. Because,
253 00:26:52.680 ⇒ 00:27:08.789 Clarence Stone: In my prior experience, clients like this are trying to find their strategic footing. They, may make some pivots like this a couple times until they, you know, have really their priorities settled. So, in that moment, I don’t want you to have your team kind of, well.
254 00:27:08.790 ⇒ 00:27:27.289 Clarence Stone: you know, moving out in all directions, kind of doing work that wasn’t, you know, priority to them, right? So, I think, you know, maybe for every week’s meeting, it should be, hey, this is what we built, here’s a demo, and then, you know, this is what we’re prioritizing next. And then just pause specifically on that slide and say.
255 00:27:27.440 ⇒ 00:27:30.179 Clarence Stone: Do you guys have any reprioritizations for us?
256 00:27:31.190 ⇒ 00:27:31.620 Pranav Narahari: Okay.
257 00:27:31.620 ⇒ 00:27:37.829 Clarence Stone: Right? Like, make that call out very specifically so that they can’t say, hey, the team’s not listening to our priorities.
258 00:27:38.580 ⇒ 00:27:45.120 Pranav Narahari: Yeah. And probably even phrasing it in a way where it’s like… Please don’t reprioritize things.
259 00:27:45.490 ⇒ 00:27:46.990 Pranav Narahari: Right.
260 00:27:46.990 ⇒ 00:27:54.920 Clarence Stone: Well, you could say, like, if you have things in flight, like, these are things that we are still working on, right? This is the next order of priority for everything else.
261 00:27:55.590 ⇒ 00:27:59.950 Clarence Stone: Just, like, take the most awkward, complete 10-second silence.
262 00:27:59.950 ⇒ 00:28:00.580 Pranav Narahari: Yeah.
263 00:28:00.820 ⇒ 00:28:08.540 Clarence Stone: Right? Say, you know, happy to change these priorities if you’d like. Well, this is stuff that we have in flight. We’re, like, we…
264 00:28:08.560 ⇒ 00:28:27.660 Clarence Stone: would probably not like to reprioritize that, right? But, you know, this is what we’re doing. And make it super awkward, because, like, the more you kind of put your foot down on that, the more they’re gonna realize, okay, we can’t just intercept him on, you know, midweek on a Wednesday and say, put down everything you’re doing and pivot to this, right?
265 00:28:27.660 ⇒ 00:28:43.149 Clarence Stone: Yeah. So, and because this event just happened with their selection of, you know, keeping their current vendor versus Parasomic, like, I think we should create a slide for this upcoming, whenever you’re gonna touch base with them next, it’s like, here are the changes that we’re tracking.
266 00:28:43.490 ⇒ 00:28:50.759 Clarence Stone: Yeah. Right? Are there other changes that, we should be aware of, so that we can make sure that we’re keeping our priorities correct?
267 00:28:50.880 ⇒ 00:28:54.210 Clarence Stone: Right. Same thing, 10-second pause to make it awkward.
268 00:28:54.640 ⇒ 00:28:55.280 Pranav Narahari: Yeah.
269 00:28:55.560 ⇒ 00:29:04.449 Clarence Stone: And those things may seem, like, excessive and feel weird when you’re doing it, but this is the real view, and, you know, the progress that your team has had.
270 00:29:05.290 ⇒ 00:29:06.720 Pranav Narahari: Yeah, that makes sense.
271 00:29:07.200 ⇒ 00:29:11.620 Pranav Narahari: One, thing kind of on that note, is…
272 00:29:12.450 ⇒ 00:29:18.789 Pranav Narahari: I’m always, like, I make sure that they know, like, okay, you can expect to have this done by this day.
273 00:29:19.790 ⇒ 00:29:24.010 Pranav Narahari: Now that they’ve kind of given us a different list of priorities.
274 00:29:24.160 ⇒ 00:29:32.740 Pranav Narahari: does it make sense for me to kind of recreate, like, that Gantt, and, like, be like, okay, now these are the new milestones that you can expect?
275 00:29:33.770 ⇒ 00:29:37.849 Pranav Narahari: I’m wondering just how they’re going to receive that, too, to be honest, like…
276 00:29:38.780 ⇒ 00:29:43.270 Clarence Stone: So, wait, you didn’t want to… you don’t want to update the Gantt with the new priorities, or, like…
277 00:29:43.270 ⇒ 00:29:43.740 Pranav Narahari: Oh, I agree.
278 00:29:43.740 ⇒ 00:29:44.540 Clarence Stone: Target.
279 00:29:45.010 ⇒ 00:29:50.670 Pranav Narahari: So, yeah, basically I would update the Gantt to track different priorities, and then…
280 00:29:51.500 ⇒ 00:29:55.150 Pranav Narahari: That’s going to just, like, update the overall timeline, too.
281 00:29:55.150 ⇒ 00:30:08.209 Clarence Stone: Right? Like… Yeah, yeah, so that’s also what you need to communicate, right? Hey, there is a drastic reprioritization, this is what we heard from you, this is a validation of what changed, therefore our timeline has changed, here’s the new timeline.
282 00:30:08.360 ⇒ 00:30:09.020 Pranav Narahari: Okay.
283 00:30:09.180 ⇒ 00:30:17.660 Clarence Stone: Right. Yep. That’s okay. That’s okay if things are getting pushed out, but they… I mean, they need to understand that as soon as they did that, they were the ones that taught this.
284 00:30:17.890 ⇒ 00:30:18.490 Pranav Narahari: Yeah.
285 00:30:18.930 ⇒ 00:30:36.979 Clarence Stone: Right? So this is… and then you should maybe have a couple bullets on, like, what really impacted their timeline. Like, this was originally at this date, but now it’s at this date, because you’re putting this feature in between, maybe prioritization, right? Like, and then just, like, bullet one at the top is, like, our velocity is not changing.
286 00:30:37.100 ⇒ 00:30:38.730 Clarence Stone: Our priorities are, though.
287 00:30:39.070 ⇒ 00:30:39.700 Pranav Narahari: Yep.
288 00:30:39.700 ⇒ 00:30:40.290 Clarence Stone: Right.
289 00:30:40.390 ⇒ 00:30:50.219 Clarence Stone: Yeah. So, so they understand that we’re not giving them less work, like, just the things that they ask us to do and reprioritize, you know, that gets front-loaded now, right? So they’re dancing. Yeah.
290 00:30:50.220 ⇒ 00:30:50.920 Pranav Narahari: 100%.
291 00:30:51.730 ⇒ 00:30:56.219 Clarence Stone: And then maybe they can triple down on their spending, so they can get it up the timeline that they want.
292 00:30:56.890 ⇒ 00:31:08.609 Clarence Stone: Right? And you can just say, like, hey, you know, we always have, additional teams that we can pull in. They’re busy with work right now, but would like to allocate their skill set to, you know, your velocity is a problem.
293 00:31:09.780 ⇒ 00:31:12.960 Pranav Narahari: Gotcha, yeah, so… okay, that’s… that’s interesting.
294 00:31:13.230 ⇒ 00:31:17.230 Pranav Narahari: I can definitely have that conversation. You see my little funny wording there?
295 00:31:18.160 ⇒ 00:31:26.690 Uttam Kumaran: Well, this is where also, Pranav, like, if you, you should be working with Sam on the hours and months to complete.
296 00:31:27.470 ⇒ 00:31:27.850 Pranav Narahari: Yeah.
297 00:31:27.850 ⇒ 00:31:31.540 Uttam Kumaran: And then, like, I think just maintaining this, like.
298 00:31:31.800 ⇒ 00:31:34.809 Uttam Kumaran: on our side, we want to do linear, right? But, like.
299 00:31:35.070 ⇒ 00:31:43.680 Uttam Kumaran: if they want to do this, and, like, this is what they propose, like, maybe do this. I don’t think this is enough for organization, to be honest, but, like.
300 00:31:43.840 ⇒ 00:31:48.769 Uttam Kumaran: Ultimately, like, if this is what they propose, and they want us to fit into this, then that’s what it is.
301 00:31:48.880 ⇒ 00:31:53.519 Uttam Kumaran: And then, yes, I think you should… I think in addition to this sheet, you should see a changelog sheet.
302 00:31:53.760 ⇒ 00:31:58.440 Uttam Kumaran: That is like, hey, on this day, we deprioritize this one, we reprioritize this with this.
303 00:31:59.340 ⇒ 00:32:03.690 Uttam Kumaran: There’s a simple, like, one-liner that when there is changes and priorities, you can just keep in mind.
304 00:32:04.410 ⇒ 00:32:05.140 Pranav Narahari: Yeah.
305 00:32:06.310 ⇒ 00:32:07.060 Pranav Narahari: Okay.
306 00:32:08.890 ⇒ 00:32:21.450 Pranav Narahari: That sounds good to me. So then, yeah, basically, tomorrow, Sam, Casey, and I have a meeting to kind of go through this whole thing, create these hour estimates, create that Gantt chart, updates, and then…
307 00:32:21.690 ⇒ 00:32:31.169 Pranav Narahari: Yeah, right after this call, basically, I’ll just give, like, Bobby and Zach, like, just an update that, like, yeah, we’re working on this internally, we’re talking about it, by tomorrow, we’ll have, like, a…
308 00:32:31.170 ⇒ 00:32:34.569 Uttam Kumaran: These descriptions, these descriptions are, like, super weak.
309 00:32:34.570 ⇒ 00:32:35.040 Pranav Narahari: Yeah.
310 00:32:35.040 ⇒ 00:32:41.359 Uttam Kumaran: So, you either need to tell them to give you better descriptions, or you need to propose the description.
311 00:32:41.590 ⇒ 00:32:49.390 Uttam Kumaran: Because otherwise, what they’re gonna… what they’re gonna… what these guys are gonna do is they’re gonna look at the description as short, and they’re gonna think it’s gonna take not so long.
312 00:32:49.920 ⇒ 00:32:50.550 Pranav Narahari: Yeah.
313 00:32:50.550 ⇒ 00:32:53.540 Uttam Kumaran: So, ideally, what you should do is you should be like, hey.
314 00:32:53.660 ⇒ 00:33:06.390 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, this is frankly where, like, I’m… I’m trying to see whether we can get a project manager to come on to our AI projects, because this is all, like, product management work, right? Like, going in and scoping these features.
315 00:33:06.390 ⇒ 00:33:07.550 Pranav Narahari: Good.
316 00:33:08.220 ⇒ 00:33:15.429 Uttam Kumaran: Ultimately, you’re, like, you will have to just tell them, hey, like, in order to move fast, we need to move slow, we need to make sure that
317 00:33:15.930 ⇒ 00:33:24.070 Uttam Kumaran: You could basically tell them, in order for us to give accurate estimates, we need to put in, like, the appropriate level of effort on the definitions of done here.
318 00:33:24.260 ⇒ 00:33:24.580 Pranav Narahari: Yeah.
319 00:33:24.580 ⇒ 00:33:26.479 Uttam Kumaran: And spend time doing that, like…
320 00:33:26.870 ⇒ 00:33:37.029 Uttam Kumaran: that is part of your time on this client. So don’t… don’t let that be, like, a blocker. Like, you should tell them, in order for us to hit your expectations and organization, we have to spend time doing that.
321 00:33:38.240 ⇒ 00:33:40.310 Uttam Kumaran: That’s just it. So… Yeah.
322 00:33:41.630 ⇒ 00:33:46.229 Uttam Kumaran: I would… yeah, so I would send them a note today, basically saying, like, what their next steps are.
323 00:33:47.070 ⇒ 00:34:00.450 Uttam Kumaran: I would… I mean, you could answer their question about polyatomic, like, it’s completely on them. I was like… I was gonna answer it, I’m like, dude, what? We… you’re talking about, like, so much, like, you guys are… you guys have no clue what you’re talking about, but whatever, like, it’s up to them to choose shitty info.
324 00:34:00.600 ⇒ 00:34:04.690 Uttam Kumaran: And… and then, yeah, I’ll just… you can… Amen.
325 00:34:05.360 ⇒ 00:34:08.959 Uttam Kumaran: you can own this. I feel… I feel pretty fond, like, I picked your question.
326 00:34:10.060 ⇒ 00:34:11.510 Pranav Narahari: Cool. Yeah, I think.
327 00:34:12.199 ⇒ 00:34:20.170 Uttam Kumaran: These guys are just stressed, like, this is what happens with e-com agencies, like, they’re just stress, so, like, I think you’re, you’re really, like, handling it fine.
328 00:34:20.420 ⇒ 00:34:20.920 Pranav Narahari: Okay.
329 00:34:20.929 ⇒ 00:34:26.229 Uttam Kumaran: I think, like, their stress ends up being my stress, because I don’t like getting pinged with, like, stupid messages like that.
330 00:34:26.319 ⇒ 00:34:27.209 Pranav Narahari: Bye.
331 00:34:27.289 ⇒ 00:34:38.479 Uttam Kumaran: And I also don’t like having calls like that on last week, where they’re, like, questioning why we’re charging them when we just… and then in the same breath, they’re like, we never would have been able to do this ourselves, like, it’s so…
332 00:34:38.879 ⇒ 00:34:41.939 Uttam Kumaran: It’s so odd to me that you could do that, but, like, whatever.
333 00:34:42.209 ⇒ 00:34:55.709 Uttam Kumaran: But yeah, I think you’ve handled this. I think more… I’m interested in talking about ABC and, like, how you feel, the game plan of you taking on stuff there. I briefly chatted with Amber last week, so I got him interested in how I can
334 00:34:56.509 ⇒ 00:34:58.839 Uttam Kumaran: Wouldn’t that be helpful, if that answers.
335 00:34:59.550 ⇒ 00:35:09.620 Pranav Narahari: Yeah, we kind of high-level talked about it last week, too, I think, like, just, like, in Slack, but what Amber and I have kind of decided is, like, on…
336 00:35:09.840 ⇒ 00:35:11.190 Pranav Narahari: like,
337 00:35:11.670 ⇒ 00:35:28.070 Pranav Narahari: there’s two weekly calls that happen for ABC, and so I’ll just basically, like, shadow her a little bit, on those for this week, and then I’m actually out on Monday of next week, so I won’t be able to shadow her for that. I think there’s a call on Monday of next week.
338 00:35:28.070 ⇒ 00:35:29.699 Uttam Kumaran: just have her move it to Tuesdays.
339 00:35:31.490 ⇒ 00:35:50.890 Pranav Narahari: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think I’ll ask her to do that. Yeah, I’ll see if she can do that. And then, yeah, the idea is, like, starting next week, or maybe the Thursday meeting of next week, I’ll be just… I’ll be running it while she kind of just, like, has my back, and then we do that for… probably we just need to do that for, like, a week.
340 00:35:52.340 ⇒ 00:35:56.659 Pranav Narahari: And then I’m probably just going to go there, so, like, she doesn’t need to even join those meetings.
341 00:35:57.060 ⇒ 00:35:57.900 Pranav Narahari: Yeah.
342 00:35:58.450 ⇒ 00:36:01.609 Pranav Narahari: I basically, after that first meeting, I felt like this…
343 00:36:01.720 ⇒ 00:36:07.310 Pranav Narahari: is a lot of a… it’s a much different vibe than, Lilo. It’s a lot more chill.
344 00:36:07.560 ⇒ 00:36:11.089 Pranav Narahari: Like, so, I think I could, like.
345 00:36:11.090 ⇒ 00:36:14.740 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, dude, it’s like, that’s like, that’s like a we-could-never-do-any-wrong type of client.
346 00:36:14.890 ⇒ 00:36:27.499 Uttam Kumaran: Like, anything we do for them, they’re so pumped about. But this is where, like, I want you to see the diversity. Yeah. And ultimately, we were… we are gonna be looking for more ABCs, Las Limos.
347 00:36:27.500 ⇒ 00:36:28.880 Pranav Narahari: Yeah. We just aren’t…
348 00:36:29.350 ⇒ 00:36:34.019 Uttam Kumaran: We get… we… we… We get what we get right now, but, like.
349 00:36:34.930 ⇒ 00:36:49.579 Uttam Kumaran: the size of an ABC and the amount of coordination, and the amount of impact that our things are happening, like, this is kind of the type of clients that we want to look for. Because ultimately, the clients sort of craziness ends up seeping into our work.
350 00:36:49.690 ⇒ 00:36:50.979 Pranav Narahari: Yeah. And so…
351 00:36:51.290 ⇒ 00:36:55.439 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, but I’m glad you’re getting involved there, and they’re awesome.
352 00:36:56.040 ⇒ 00:37:07.380 Pranav Narahari: Cool. Yeah, I feel like it should be a pretty easy transition. I know there’s, like, a lot of history with that client, right? And so, just, like, Amber has, like, probably just, like, so much just, like…
353 00:37:07.500 ⇒ 00:37:22.659 Pranav Narahari: intuitive knowledge, just, like, when they ask a question, like, she can think back to, like, maybe 3 months ago, where, like, they were talking about it. So there will be, like, just small things there, but I feel like if I go to, like, 4 meetings, like, shadowing her, and then she just, like, kind of, like.
354 00:37:22.660 ⇒ 00:37:29.869 Pranav Narahari: is, like, a fly on the wall for two more meetings, you know, I’m gonna know 90% of the stuff that’s relevant for right now.
355 00:37:30.530 ⇒ 00:37:31.309 Uttam Kumaran: Fantastic, no problem.
356 00:37:36.230 ⇒ 00:37:37.450 Pranav Narahari: Yeah.
357 00:37:38.260 ⇒ 00:37:44.520 Clarence Stone: Great. Great work, guys. We still have 7 minutes. Is there anything else you guys wanna talk about?
358 00:37:44.970 ⇒ 00:37:48.040 Clarence Stone: How are the client interactions going? Is there any…
359 00:37:48.880 ⇒ 00:37:51.340 Clarence Stone: Any insights you might want from us?
360 00:37:51.900 ⇒ 00:38:08.020 Pranav Narahari: One thing that I was thinking about with, like, and I realized, and I don’t even know if this is, like, a CSO thing, like, Utam, when I was doing, like, the research for, like, just, like, the amount of hours we’ve been using versus, like, you know, what our contract is too, like…
361 00:38:08.860 ⇒ 00:38:10.999 Pranav Narahari: At what point do I say, like…
362 00:38:11.610 ⇒ 00:38:18.029 Pranav Narahari: we’re spending too many hours on this project, because I felt like, honestly, we, like, over-deliver for Lilo.
363 00:38:19.170 ⇒ 00:38:20.250 Pranav Narahari: Oh, you’re on mute.
364 00:38:21.710 ⇒ 00:38:28.000 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I guess I… maybe I’m just gonna constantly kick it to you, Clarence, because, like, I want to see what the actual answer is before…
365 00:38:28.460 ⇒ 00:38:34.019 Uttam Kumaran: I’ve probably built some bad habits. This is a client that we’re doing, like, a monthly subscription for, like.
366 00:38:34.520 ⇒ 00:38:36.290 Uttam Kumaran: And for our team, but, like.
367 00:38:36.480 ⇒ 00:38:43.420 Uttam Kumaran: we haven’t backed into the guidance on, like, how many hours a knob is allowed. I basically was, like, just…
368 00:38:43.560 ⇒ 00:38:55.809 Uttam Kumaran: keep building, and we’ll sort of figure it out. We’re clearly over on our hours, so I’m wondering, like, how… I think my learning here in this mainly cryptography one is, like, how do we have that conversation with the client?
369 00:38:56.060 ⇒ 00:39:02.730 Uttam Kumaran: like, we, for example, we’re charging 20K. That, basically, we tried to buy us for, like, a $200 an hour
370 00:39:02.850 ⇒ 00:39:07.139 Uttam Kumaran: net, right? So that’s… we’ve got roughly, like, 100 hours,
371 00:39:08.130 ⇒ 00:39:11.030 Uttam Kumaran: You know, yeah, like, 100 hours or so.
372 00:39:11.200 ⇒ 00:39:15.450 Uttam Kumaran: A month. We currently are around, like, 150 hours.
373 00:39:15.620 ⇒ 00:39:28.490 Uttam Kumaran: So, like, how does Pranav manage towards that? I didn’t… I would take responsibility. I didn’t give you a good job, Pranov, on, like, making that easy. We also don’t have operating setup where you can start to see that. Like, we’re fixing that right now.
374 00:39:28.830 ⇒ 00:39:32.920 Uttam Kumaran: But… I would agree that we are spending too much time here.
375 00:39:33.340 ⇒ 00:39:35.770 Uttam Kumaran: And we should find a way to mitigate it.
376 00:39:36.000 ⇒ 00:39:38.429 Uttam Kumaran: While still achieving our objectives.
377 00:39:38.480 ⇒ 00:39:39.460 Pranav Narahari: Yeah. So…
378 00:39:42.390 ⇒ 00:39:45.049 Clarence Stone: Wait, remind me which point… is this Lilo again?
379 00:39:45.050 ⇒ 00:39:45.610 Pranav Narahari: Yep.
380 00:39:46.260 ⇒ 00:39:48.229 Clarence Stone: These guys, are you serious?
381 00:39:48.380 ⇒ 00:39:50.100 Clarence Stone: Okay, so I, I think…
382 00:39:54.410 ⇒ 00:39:56.269 Pranav Narahari: I have some thoughts on this, but…
383 00:39:56.270 ⇒ 00:40:11.290 Clarence Stone: Yeah, like, what you need to do on that slide deck when you show the new Gantt is also show that, like, part of the allocations for the work extensions was that there would be 100 hours, and right now we’re contributing 150.
384 00:40:11.290 ⇒ 00:40:19.070 Clarence Stone: Like, we are working more than we already promised, so, like, you know, Excuse me.
385 00:40:19.390 ⇒ 00:40:35.279 Clarence Stone: there’s… I guess, like, from the UTAM level, there’s one of two decisions, is to really come up with two dance, really, to say, like, this is the velocity that you paid for, this is the velocity that, you know, you want, this is the price.
386 00:40:35.810 ⇒ 00:40:39.299 Clarence Stone: Right? Because a change order is actually the best time to do it.
387 00:40:39.780 ⇒ 00:40:59.270 Clarence Stone: It’s the best way to, like, retarget. But I think from your angle, I think you learned a lot, right? You learned a lot about using the Gantt charts and planning, right? And we want to, kind of take a look at how we’ve been estimating our work so that it goes back to that hundred.
388 00:40:59.740 ⇒ 00:41:06.630 Clarence Stone: Right, so my question to you is, are there any optimizations available so that we can fit those fine,
389 00:41:06.850 ⇒ 00:41:17.739 Clarence Stone: like, those, you know, economy metrics, right, of getting to 100 hours, is there automations we can build? Is there assistance you need? Is there anything that we can do to get to there?
390 00:41:17.800 ⇒ 00:41:25.770 Clarence Stone: Because we could also share that with the clients. Like, hey, you paid for 100 hours, we worked for 150, we…
391 00:41:25.770 ⇒ 00:41:42.450 Clarence Stone: you know, want to continue supporting you, so we created automations that got us at 120, and we’re happy to actually sit here, but if you, like, at, like, 120-ish or 130-ish, right? But if you ask for additional work, like, or additional velocity, we’re gonna have to renegotiate the terms.
392 00:41:44.560 ⇒ 00:41:45.040 Pranav Narahari: Yeah.
393 00:41:45.040 ⇒ 00:41:57.139 Clarence Stone: And for not from your side, what you can say is, like, these limitations, these are the hours that I am allowed to do this. And hopefully, they’ll reach out to you time and say, okay, like, we want more, or, you know, be okay with your proposal.
394 00:41:59.170 ⇒ 00:42:05.170 Clarence Stone: Yeah, I mean, like, see, the thing is, I hope you’re at that meeting, Tom, because I think they’re gonna wanna discuss that.
395 00:42:05.540 ⇒ 00:42:06.240 Clarence Stone: Go.
396 00:42:07.630 ⇒ 00:42:08.989 Pranav Narahari: Wait, wait, Tom, you’re muted again.
397 00:42:09.980 ⇒ 00:42:23.590 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I guess what I’m saying is, like, they messaged me and Pranav, but I think one thing that, Pranav, for you to do is be like, hey, I roughly have 100 to 125 hours for this, here’s how I’m gonna basically divvy it up.
398 00:42:23.910 ⇒ 00:42:28.339 Uttam Kumaran: when they go above hours, now you have… now you have an understanding of when to be like.
399 00:42:28.490 ⇒ 00:42:35.689 Uttam Kumaran: we don’t have additional bandwidth for this. So this feature has to get slotted for something that we’re already working on, or it needs to get slotted in the back.
400 00:42:36.120 ⇒ 00:42:38.040 Uttam Kumaran: Part of this is that, like.
401 00:42:38.760 ⇒ 00:42:46.590 Uttam Kumaran: I’m expecting that these guys will work for us, work with us for a while, so I’m okay with taking the short-term hit in order to start to get these, but…
402 00:42:46.780 ⇒ 00:42:57.189 Uttam Kumaran: if they… this is where I’m saying, if they move down to… they move to 10K, then we’re gonna be back to, like, 50 hours, right? So, one thing is, like.
403 00:42:57.540 ⇒ 00:43:02.759 Uttam Kumaran: there’s only what path is up for them. Like, they can’t… there’s nowhere… there’s nowhere they can cut time.
404 00:43:03.080 ⇒ 00:43:06.569 Uttam Kumaran: Because this is… this is currently below our, like, typical billing amount.
405 00:43:06.780 ⇒ 00:43:07.810 Uttam Kumaran: Hours.
406 00:43:07.960 ⇒ 00:43:14.829 Uttam Kumaran: This is a disconnect, though, between, like, what I should have prepared as a delivery lead and, like, what you kind of have to go off of.
407 00:43:15.050 ⇒ 00:43:15.780 Uttam Kumaran: But…
408 00:43:15.980 ⇒ 00:43:29.009 Uttam Kumaran: Yes, ideally, like, I want you to try to guide towards 100 to 125, because eventually, like, later this year, efficiency will sort of become more of a KPI, like, what is your average billable hour?
409 00:43:29.030 ⇒ 00:43:31.929 Pranav Narahari: Because getting renewal is great, but then if you just…
410 00:43:31.930 ⇒ 00:43:34.909 Uttam Kumaran: If we don’t make any additional margin on that, then…
411 00:43:35.100 ⇒ 00:43:37.730 Uttam Kumaran: That’s a different sting, so… Yeah.
412 00:43:38.680 ⇒ 00:43:44.640 Uttam Kumaran: One is, like, I think you should basically say, I have 100 hours to play with. How do we accomplish their objective?
413 00:43:44.960 ⇒ 00:43:48.499 Uttam Kumaran: If you’re not able to… if there’s, like, still gaps.
414 00:43:48.620 ⇒ 00:43:59.239 Uttam Kumaran: then we should… yeah, I think the first place to go to is for automations. The second place to go to is to say, hey guys, like, you want us to work on 4 or 5 things at a time? Because ultimately.
415 00:43:59.400 ⇒ 00:44:02.089 Uttam Kumaran: you can just say, we can’t do it. What are they gonna say?
416 00:44:03.370 ⇒ 00:44:03.820 Pranav Narahari: Yeah.
417 00:44:03.820 ⇒ 00:44:09.539 Uttam Kumaran: Like, there… but the thing is, until you… until you know what your backstop is, you’re right, you can’t say no.
418 00:44:10.110 ⇒ 00:44:21.249 Uttam Kumaran: But basically, now you know what your backstop is, is, like, 125 hours a month, and so you’re able to say, like, we can’t do that unless we expand. What are they gonna do?
419 00:44:22.560 ⇒ 00:44:28.740 Pranav Narahari: So, yeah, I’m trying to do the math, so, like, let’s say it’s 125 hours, that’s essentially…
420 00:44:29.560 ⇒ 00:44:32.209 Pranav Narahari: What, 45… 40 hours?
421 00:44:32.790 ⇒ 00:44:38.490 Pranav Narahari: 125 hours. How does that get split amongst me, Sam, and Casey? Like, that sounds like…
422 00:44:38.490 ⇒ 00:44:39.280 Uttam Kumaran: She is.
423 00:44:39.760 ⇒ 00:44:40.190 Pranav Narahari: Yeah.
424 00:44:40.190 ⇒ 00:44:40.730 Uttam Kumaran: in.
425 00:44:41.730 ⇒ 00:44:45.490 Uttam Kumaran: Because also consider Sam is working on, like, ABCs, working on internal, so…
426 00:44:45.910 ⇒ 00:44:48.750 Uttam Kumaran: like, this is where Sam, and maybe this is something
427 00:44:49.070 ⇒ 00:44:53.070 Uttam Kumaran: Clarence, we need to guide Sam on is, like, Sam’s time shouldn’t be…
428 00:44:53.280 ⇒ 00:44:58.610 Uttam Kumaran: like, his time is gonna be billed towards anybody that buys AI service from us, you know, so…
429 00:44:59.740 ⇒ 00:45:01.220 Uttam Kumaran: you know, I feel like it’s…
430 00:45:01.590 ⇒ 00:45:02.290 Pranav Narahari: Okay.
431 00:45:03.490 ⇒ 00:45:06.260 Uttam Kumaran: And I shouldn’t be mandatory.
432 00:45:06.260 ⇒ 00:45:06.900 Pranav Narahari: Yeah.
433 00:45:07.120 ⇒ 00:45:22.770 Uttam Kumaran: Net-net, the time should be going to you and Casey, but again, like, ultimately, think about it. You’re gonna have… you have now ABC, you need to go do similar math, and you’d be like, I have a team. I have, like, you, Casey, Mustafa, and Sam, and, like, who’s doing what on that client is gonna be how this stuff really works.
434 00:45:23.500 ⇒ 00:45:25.200 Pranav Narahari: Gotcha. Okay.
435 00:45:25.620 ⇒ 00:45:27.110 Pranav Narahari: Yeah, that makes sense to me.
436 00:45:27.280 ⇒ 00:45:32.930 Pranav Narahari: Yeah, I think having that number, like… so I should go with 125?
437 00:45:33.800 ⇒ 00:45:36.879 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I would just start there, and then achieve that, and then you can keep your king.
438 00:45:37.490 ⇒ 00:45:42.400 Pranav Narahari: Okay, sounds good. So, like, when I’m creating the hours estimates for all these things, like.
439 00:45:42.880 ⇒ 00:45:49.190 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, and again, part of this is, like, they don’t know how long things take. Yeah. Because they can’t… they don’t… they’re just not technical, so…
440 00:45:49.190 ⇒ 00:45:49.780 Pranav Narahari: Yeah.
441 00:45:49.780 ⇒ 00:46:00.379 Uttam Kumaran: This is where, like, you just kind of have to start to slow down a little bit so you can hit your goals. Because we’ve done the first part, which is make sure they trust us and they want to work with us long-term. Now it’s so that we have an efficient vagrance.
442 00:46:00.960 ⇒ 00:46:01.830 Pranav Narahari: Right.
443 00:46:04.250 ⇒ 00:46:10.349 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, ultimately, maybe they say, actually, F it, let’s bump to 30. Well, you’re there to do that, but…
444 00:46:10.670 ⇒ 00:46:11.210 Uttam Kumaran: We’ll see.
445 00:46:11.670 ⇒ 00:46:17.289 Pranav Narahari: Yeah, they did say something like that during our call, like, do we need to pay more, do we need to… are we good at this amount? So…
446 00:46:17.550 ⇒ 00:46:24.969 Uttam Kumaran: But, like, this is what will happen with a client like this, that is moving super fast, is that they will… they will push to extract as much value out of us.
447 00:46:25.380 ⇒ 00:46:29.200 Uttam Kumaran: So if we don’t manage it ourselves, they will… they will take us for a ride.
448 00:46:29.610 ⇒ 00:46:30.649 Pranav Narahari: Yeah, I think that’s kind of…
449 00:46:30.650 ⇒ 00:46:34.490 Uttam Kumaran: ABC, it’s like… it’s sort of, like, actually…
450 00:46:34.860 ⇒ 00:46:38.100 Uttam Kumaran: We need to make sure to put enough hours to keep it going.
451 00:46:38.620 ⇒ 00:46:43.620 Uttam Kumaran: And then consistently hit our metrics, right? We don’t need to put more than that, right?
452 00:46:43.620 ⇒ 00:46:45.419 Pranav Narahari: Yeah, makes sense.
453 00:46:46.510 ⇒ 00:46:49.720 Pranav Narahari: Okay, cool. So… Yeah, basically.
454 00:46:49.720 ⇒ 00:46:55.880 Uttam Kumaran: This is a little… this is a little bit of the risk. Like, I signed this 10K deal with them because it was clean, it was flat.
455 00:46:56.700 ⇒ 00:47:03.979 Uttam Kumaran: it’s clear that maybe we should have signed hourly, and that would have got them to care more. I don’t know. Like, it’s up to us to kind of debate that.
456 00:47:04.380 ⇒ 00:47:15.140 Pranav Narahari: Yeah, so, the fact that they signed monthly, and now we’re telling them that there’s a number of hours that we can allocate towards this per… per month? Like, are they not gonna have pushback to that?
457 00:47:16.010 ⇒ 00:47:19.189 Pranav Narahari: Or is that… thought of. Like, is it… like, when they signed.
458 00:47:19.190 ⇒ 00:47:19.930 Uttam Kumaran: I guess.
459 00:47:19.930 ⇒ 00:47:22.270 Pranav Narahari: They’re just thinking, like, okay, we’re gonna get.
460 00:47:22.270 ⇒ 00:47:28.870 Uttam Kumaran: Well, I guess, Clarence, here’s what I tell people when we sign months. I give them two options. You can go look at our first proposal. I gave them two options. I said, either you sign…
461 00:47:28.980 ⇒ 00:47:35.760 Uttam Kumaran: for X amount, and it’s under 200, $150, or you sign an hourly, and we basically guide towards
462 00:47:36.150 ⇒ 00:47:39.439 Uttam Kumaran: Like, 150 to 200 net.
463 00:47:40.380 ⇒ 00:47:47.779 Uttam Kumaran: But, like, I don’t… we don’t tell them, like, you’re paying 20K, and you’re getting X amount of hours. I just say you’re paying 20K for the outcomes that we’re promising.
464 00:47:50.100 ⇒ 00:47:51.440 Uttam Kumaran: Here, you’re on mute.
465 00:47:56.070 ⇒ 00:48:05.460 Clarence Stone: So I think you need to show that new Gantt and say that this is, like, the velocity that we can provide, given, you know, the structure of SOW.
466 00:48:05.980 ⇒ 00:48:10.029 Pranav Narahari: Gotcha. So I don’t even really need to mention hours. I just keep… think of the hours internally.
467 00:48:10.030 ⇒ 00:48:16.199 Clarence Stone: Yeah, I didn’t know this was a subscription. So, if this is a subscription, like, this is… like, you ran out of quad tokens, bro.
468 00:48:16.620 ⇒ 00:48:17.250 Pranav Narahari: Yeah.
469 00:48:17.250 ⇒ 00:48:18.619 Clarence Stone: Wait till next month.
470 00:48:20.180 ⇒ 00:48:21.229 Clarence Stone: Right? Or pay more.
471 00:48:21.610 ⇒ 00:48:22.220 Pranav Narahari: Yep.
472 00:48:22.350 ⇒ 00:48:35.150 Clarence Stone: Right? So, like, hey, got it, we’re more than happy to use that to work, happy to do the work, this is our plan, right? This is the limitations of, you know, what we plan for based on our SOW.
473 00:48:35.780 ⇒ 00:48:36.260 Pranav Narahari: Yeah.
474 00:48:36.260 ⇒ 00:48:36.850 Clarence Stone: I’ll take it.
475 00:48:37.210 ⇒ 00:48:38.790 Pranav Narahari: That makes sense, that’s easy, yeah.
476 00:48:39.170 ⇒ 00:48:51.950 Clarence Stone: Yeah, and you know, you can say that there is available velocity, but it, you know, we need to be able to, if you want the outcomes faster, we’ll need to bring on more team members, so it would be…
477 00:48:52.170 ⇒ 00:48:53.860 Clarence Stone: another conversation.
478 00:48:54.220 ⇒ 00:48:55.000 Pranav Narahari: Yeah.
479 00:48:56.360 ⇒ 00:48:57.190 Pranav Narahari: Sounds good.
480 00:48:57.470 ⇒ 00:48:59.930 Pranav Narahari: Okay, I feel like I know, like, the next steps.
481 00:48:59.960 ⇒ 00:49:15.479 Pranav Narahari: First thing is, like, I’m gonna talk with Casey and Sam just to kind of… with the descriptions we have right now for their six priorities, like, do we have enough to estimate it? If not, talking to Bobby and Zach to get additional clarity, getting those final estimates.
482 00:49:15.480 ⇒ 00:49:26.030 Pranav Narahari: creating the Gantt charts, and then, yeah, one-on-one, I’ll have a talk with, like, Bobby and Zach to just be like, hey, this is what we can do, like, these are your priorities.
483 00:49:26.040 ⇒ 00:49:33.380 Pranav Narahari: I… I think there is a lot of priorities there to actually complete In one month.
484 00:49:34.420 ⇒ 00:49:43.259 Clarence Stone: Don’t squeeze yourself, though, right? Like, don’t, don’t pressure your team to over-deliver. Like, plan it out as it should be.
485 00:49:43.430 ⇒ 00:49:59.430 Clarence Stone: Right? You can even say that your new priorities are much more difficult, or, you know, talent-specific, or, you know, some… something to say, like, these are more complex, so this is what the timeline looks like for your six priorities.
486 00:49:59.430 ⇒ 00:50:03.769 Pranav Narahari: Yeah. Right? Makes sense. You know, this is frontier work, this is AI work.
487 00:50:03.780 ⇒ 00:50:19.960 Clarence Stone: go and try to find people who can do it. Like, they’ll understand what you’re saying. It’s like, hey, we have a contributing of AI talent, too, right? So unless they want to go back out there and find AI talent, they’re gonna just have to say yes to this timeline, or they need something more.
488 00:50:20.310 ⇒ 00:50:20.920 Pranav Narahari: Yep.
489 00:50:22.400 ⇒ 00:50:23.139 Pranav Narahari: That makes sense.
490 00:50:23.140 ⇒ 00:50:31.720 Clarence Stone: So, yeah, if you hear a single whiff of, like, you know, like, velocity, then, you know, propose that, we bring on more team members for the team.
491 00:50:32.330 ⇒ 00:50:33.030 Pranav Narahari: Yeah.
492 00:50:33.150 ⇒ 00:50:38.740 Pranav Narahari: And then at that point, I’ll just be like, how about we hop into another call with, like, Utam to, like, discuss, like…
493 00:50:38.830 ⇒ 00:50:40.600 Clarence Stone: additional resourcing. Cool.
494 00:50:40.670 ⇒ 00:50:41.400 Pranav Narahari: Yeah.
495 00:50:42.420 ⇒ 00:50:43.180 Pranav Narahari: Done.
496 00:50:43.180 ⇒ 00:50:45.329 Clarence Stone: Is that alright? So the outcome you want? You want to negotiate it?
497 00:50:45.330 ⇒ 00:50:48.289 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I mean, I’m… I… I think that,
498 00:50:48.610 ⇒ 00:50:57.860 Uttam Kumaran: I have a feeling that if you… the problem that we have at Brainport is that we work extremely fast, and we set expectations, like, too high for ourselves often.
499 00:50:58.220 ⇒ 00:51:02.639 Uttam Kumaran: And, like, these guys came in, they wanted a lot, we did it, and now they, like, they kind of, like.
500 00:51:02.770 ⇒ 00:51:05.470 Uttam Kumaran: Want us to keep getting more efficient with our time.
501 00:51:05.470 ⇒ 00:51:06.070 Pranav Narahari: Yeah.
502 00:51:06.070 ⇒ 00:51:10.349 Uttam Kumaran: So, in fact, actually, we need to get, like, we need to spend less time here.
503 00:51:11.550 ⇒ 00:51:24.769 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. So that, and you need to run it more on Rails, and they need to stop interrupting our work, and you should basically say, like, anytime there’s an interruption, there’s typically, like, we lose 5% or 10% of our, like, monthly efficiency of having to switch.
504 00:51:25.050 ⇒ 00:51:30.280 Uttam Kumaran: Right? Like, you can show the cost of that. Like, how much time has been wasted because we’ve, like, switched priorities?
505 00:51:30.950 ⇒ 00:51:32.120 Pranav Narahari: Yeah, and…
506 00:51:32.520 ⇒ 00:51:40.449 Pranav Narahari: Now, I was gonna mention this before, I just remembered again, that they still want to have this repetitive task of them vibecoding a feature, and then us
507 00:51:40.460 ⇒ 00:51:53.900 Pranav Narahari: you know, wiring up the backend and then deploying it into their app, right? And so that is going to be a variable thing that we can’t really estimate super well right now. And, you know, the complexity could be very low, very high on a week-to-week basis, so…
508 00:51:54.000 ⇒ 00:51:59.059 Pranav Narahari: I’m basically just going to be very conservative with that estimate. I’ll be like, hey, it could take…
509 00:51:59.420 ⇒ 00:52:00.850 Pranav Narahari: Yeah. You’re on mute again.
510 00:52:01.380 ⇒ 00:52:02.179 Uttam Kumaran: Heal me.
511 00:52:02.970 ⇒ 00:52:07.549 Clarence Stone: I’m so sorry, guys. Like, I’m just looking right at each time across the table, though. I keep forgetting.
512 00:52:07.550 ⇒ 00:52:08.660 Pranav Narahari: Oh, okay.
513 00:52:08.660 ⇒ 00:52:18.690 Clarence Stone: So, so create a slide that gives them, like, different t-shirt sizes, right? Like, if it’s a fairly simple one, this is what a simple skill looks like in its functionality, we can do that in a week.
514 00:52:18.690 ⇒ 00:52:30.469 Clarence Stone: If it’s more complex, this is what a more complex one looks like. If it’s super advanced, this is what it looks like, and it takes us 3 weeks, right? And say that the process is that we’re gonna have a conversation to VIN it in each bin.
515 00:52:30.630 ⇒ 00:52:32.019 Clarence Stone: And then deliver the work.
516 00:52:33.200 ⇒ 00:52:37.500 Clarence Stone: Right? So at least they know that there’s a framework in which we’re… we’re delivering the work.
517 00:52:37.500 ⇒ 00:53:00.610 Clarence Stone: Instead of saying, like, oh, we’re just gonna look at it, and based on vibes, oh, you’re like, how many weeks it is, right? So, yeah, I mean, there’s probably some, good conversations you can have with an AI agent to say, like, how do I module the complexity of a new skill, right? Totally. Like, I wanna… I wanna slide that t-shirt sizes it, and, you know, just tell them that. Like, this is how I, you know, we’ve structured a way for us to
518 00:53:00.610 ⇒ 00:53:03.419 Clarence Stone: Work together and continue to build more skills, this is how it works.
519 00:53:03.880 ⇒ 00:53:06.620 Pranav Narahari: 100%. Yeah, that’s a really good idea. I’ll,
520 00:53:06.840 ⇒ 00:53:12.640 Pranav Narahari: I have some ideas on that, I’ll draft it up, I’ll have Sam look at it, and then I think, we’ll be good to go there.
521 00:53:18.410 ⇒ 00:53:19.020 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
522 00:53:19.330 ⇒ 00:53:20.040 Uttam Kumaran: Cool.
523 00:53:20.470 ⇒ 00:53:21.100 Pranav Narahari: Cool.
524 00:53:21.110 ⇒ 00:53:21.850 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, I…
525 00:53:22.100 ⇒ 00:53:32.170 Zoran Selinger: I have a smaller subject, just I want to give some feedback to Utam’s recommendation that he made probably 3 weeks ago now.
526 00:53:32.310 ⇒ 00:53:48.640 Zoran Selinger: About, kind of low responses from, Mitesh on daily updates. You recommended, me to, to record looms instead of just text updates, and we do, we do get better.
527 00:53:48.750 ⇒ 00:53:50.860 Zoran Selinger: Better responses,
528 00:53:50.860 ⇒ 00:53:51.410 Uttam Kumaran: Nice, dude.
529 00:53:51.410 ⇒ 00:53:56.339 Zoran Selinger: from him, yeah. So that’s, that’s good. Just,
530 00:53:56.980 ⇒ 00:53:59.810 Zoran Selinger: Since we switched to Zoom clips.
531 00:54:00.180 ⇒ 00:54:05.889 Zoran Selinger: Once I paste the link, it doesn’t really embed the video in the message.
532 00:54:06.350 ⇒ 00:54:12.959 Zoran Selinger: and that… when it’s embedded, it looks great, and you can play it right… right there, right? I don’t know if there’s a… there’s a plug.
533 00:54:12.960 ⇒ 00:54:15.099 Uttam Kumaran: The reason we switched is… yeah…
534 00:54:15.380 ⇒ 00:54:20.770 Uttam Kumaran: Maybe, I think you can embed it somehow, but, like, we switched because…
535 00:54:21.610 ⇒ 00:54:23.319 Uttam Kumaran: It’s, like, so expensive. It was, like.
536 00:54:23.320 ⇒ 00:54:23.740 Zoran Selinger: Yeah.
537 00:54:23.740 ⇒ 00:54:24.340 Uttam Kumaran: Shampoo.
538 00:54:24.340 ⇒ 00:54:28.769 Zoran Selinger: That’s fine, I mean, they work well. I’m just… I’m only talking about
539 00:54:29.050 ⇒ 00:54:46.560 Zoran Selinger: In a Slack message, yeah, that’s… that’s it. Because it doesn’t expand, like, it doesn’t embed it. I don’t know, there’s prob… I’m guessing there is something that we can install, in Slack, that will actually embed the video in… in the message.
540 00:54:47.230 ⇒ 00:54:48.290 Uttam Kumaran: Hmm, okay.
541 00:54:48.940 ⇒ 00:54:49.480 Zoran Selinger: Yep.
542 00:54:51.100 ⇒ 00:54:56.800 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, so that’s… that was a really good recommendation. I’m used to it now, so…
543 00:54:56.800 ⇒ 00:54:58.810 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, maybe I should send something to Zoom.
544 00:55:00.130 ⇒ 00:55:03.440 Uttam Kumaran: Because they have to create, like, this unfrolic frame of…
545 00:55:03.450 ⇒ 00:55:06.040 Zoran Selinger: Okay, okay, okay.
546 00:55:06.150 ⇒ 00:55:16.570 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, but the recording itself, it works basically exactly the same, it has all the features that we need, I like it, absolutely no problem with it.
547 00:55:18.130 ⇒ 00:55:19.490 Zoran Selinger: Okay, cool.
548 00:55:23.160 ⇒ 00:55:24.369 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, cool, guys.
549 00:55:25.720 ⇒ 00:55:27.730 Uttam Kumaran: Alright, stop me if you need anything.
550 00:55:28.300 ⇒ 00:55:29.759 Zoran Selinger: Una. Thank you. Bye.
551 00:55:29.990 ⇒ 00:55:30.820 Uttam Kumaran: Bye-bye.
552 00:55:31.340 ⇒ 00:55:31.710 Pranav Narahari: Thanks, guys.