Meeting Title: Brainforge Recruiting Strategy Check-in Date: 2026-02-26 Meeting participants: Kaela Gallagher, Robert Tseng
WEBVTT
1 00:04:08.420 ⇒ 00:04:10.280 Kaela Gallagher: Hey, how’s it going?
2 00:04:10.280 ⇒ 00:04:11.580 Robert Tseng: Hey, Kayla!
3 00:04:12.850 ⇒ 00:04:14.570 Kaela Gallagher: Hi!
4 00:04:14.700 ⇒ 00:04:15.729 Kaela Gallagher: How are you doing?
5 00:04:16.140 ⇒ 00:04:23.610 Robert Tseng: I’m good. Sorry for late, I was just… I just was, having… having some food.
6 00:04:23.610 ⇒ 00:04:30.500 Kaela Gallagher: No worries, no worries. I wanted to just get some time with you week one.
7 00:04:30.500 ⇒ 00:04:31.689 Robert Tseng: Yeah, of course.
8 00:04:31.910 ⇒ 00:04:43.339 Kaela Gallagher: yeah, kind of check in. I’ve been doing a lot of, like, learning this week, a lot of just meeting with the team, especially people that are, like, currently involved in interviewing, and just.
9 00:04:43.730 ⇒ 00:04:49.370 Kaela Gallagher: Like, pain points in the process, and all that good stuff, and
10 00:04:50.320 ⇒ 00:04:53.710 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, been working a lot with you, Tom, as well.
11 00:04:53.970 ⇒ 00:05:00.520 Robert Tseng: Yeah, no, I mean, Tom’s been really excited to have you on board, he’s saying very good things, so I’m happy with it, and .
12 00:05:00.520 ⇒ 00:05:00.950 Kaela Gallagher: Yay!
13 00:05:00.950 ⇒ 00:05:01.580 Robert Tseng: hybrid.
14 00:05:01.850 ⇒ 00:05:02.550 Robert Tseng: Ralph.
15 00:05:02.980 ⇒ 00:05:09.790 Kaela Gallagher: Awesome. Well, if you have any feedback for me, at all during the process, let me know. Happy to adjust, but…
16 00:05:09.790 ⇒ 00:05:23.739 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, what I’ve discussed with him so far is, like, recruiting is kind of number one focus right now. We really need more candidates in our pipeline, especially, like, on the AI and the strategy sides of the business.
17 00:05:23.750 ⇒ 00:05:32.990 Kaela Gallagher: So, that’s gonna be kind of my focus for now, and then I can weave in more, like, people things, later. Yeah.
18 00:05:34.090 ⇒ 00:05:35.960 Robert Tseng: Yeah, no, that sounds about right.
19 00:05:36.220 ⇒ 00:05:40.560 Kaela Gallagher: Okay, okay, cool. Him and I had discussed, kind of like.
20 00:05:40.910 ⇒ 00:05:49.330 Kaela Gallagher: the AI and then, like, product analytics roles being maybe the hottest ones right now, would you say that’s the case?
21 00:05:50.010 ⇒ 00:06:07.900 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I feel like the product analytics role, I want to, like, adjust the way that we’ve been pitching it. Like, I think the candidates that we’ve gotten on the… for product analytic… for product analysts, the skill set’s a little too narrow. So, like, I… I’ve been wanting to adjust that, but we can… we can talk about that sometime.
22 00:06:08.530 ⇒ 00:06:09.330 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
23 00:06:09.860 ⇒ 00:06:13.600 Kaela Gallagher: Okay. Okay. Cool.
24 00:06:15.110 ⇒ 00:06:22.399 Kaela Gallagher: I’m curious, I know you’re kind of on the sales, marketing, like, working super closely with those teams.
25 00:06:22.540 ⇒ 00:06:23.990 Robert Tseng: Yeah. Do you…
26 00:06:24.060 ⇒ 00:06:29.899 Kaela Gallagher: Foresee yourselves hiring at all in the next, like, month or two, or are you guys good where you’re at?
27 00:06:30.480 ⇒ 00:06:39.709 Robert Tseng: We may hire, like, a coordinator-level person, so, like, I guess I don’t really know how you map out, like, the roles yet, but in my mind, I would have, like.
28 00:06:40.110 ⇒ 00:06:55.849 Robert Tseng: you’re a lead, we have, like, we have our offshore, like, the Philippine… the Philippines team, I feel like they’re all coordinators. I think a couple of them are… have been with us a while, and they’re kind of leading more now, so, like, Ricoh being one who is kind of filling in on the ops lead side.
29 00:06:56.010 ⇒ 00:06:58.919 Robert Tseng: And, yeah, but I guess, like…
30 00:06:59.050 ⇒ 00:07:05.289 Robert Tseng: Ryan, Eliza, Brile, like, these are all, like, kind of coordinator-level people, I think.
31 00:07:05.470 ⇒ 00:07:11.669 Robert Tseng: I could see us bringing in one more person on the sales side if Rico gets too…
32 00:07:12.120 ⇒ 00:07:17.869 Robert Tseng: swapped, because he basically kind of helps fill in sales coordinator role.
33 00:07:18.270 ⇒ 00:07:38.379 Robert Tseng: here and there, like, I mean, I haven’t really been pushing super hard there yet, so… but yeah, I imagine if his plate gets full, like, I basically won’t have a coordinator on the sales side. There’s a marketing-level coordinator, which I feel like is Ryan, and he works very closely with Luke. I don’t really interact with him that much anymore.
34 00:07:38.400 ⇒ 00:07:49.149 Robert Tseng: But anyway, yeah, that’s a long-winded way of saying, I was like, I don’t think we would do another, like, U.S.-based hire now, or… it’s possible. We have, like, a candidate, who’s kind of
35 00:07:49.150 ⇒ 00:08:04.070 Robert Tseng: we’re talking with. Her name’s Miranda, she’s actually a former WVV as well, but, like, she has an interesting background, like, kind of has more, like, a sales ops, more pure go-to-market ops kind of, background compared to Luke, who’s more, like, of a brand…
36 00:08:04.260 ⇒ 00:08:12.659 Robert Tseng: strategist, so, like, I’m open to seeing how that goes, but I… we didn’t… we didn’t budget to hire someone like her.
37 00:08:13.100 ⇒ 00:08:15.529 Kaela Gallagher: Okay, you said this is Miranda?
38 00:08:15.530 ⇒ 00:08:16.210 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
39 00:08:16.480 ⇒ 00:08:19.429 Kaela Gallagher: Oh, okay. We have her…
40 00:08:19.990 ⇒ 00:08:25.460 Kaela Gallagher: as, like, an AI candidate right now. She would not be an AI candidate, though, right?
41 00:08:25.630 ⇒ 00:08:37.459 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so she expressed that she wanted to do, like, AI product management, so, like, I guess, I mean, a lot of this might be a lot of context, but I’m just assuming that you don’t know, like, a lot of, like, the movements, so I’m just…
42 00:08:37.460 ⇒ 00:08:38.240 Kaela Gallagher: Yes, please.
43 00:08:38.240 ⇒ 00:08:38.720 Robert Tseng: I’m explaining.
44 00:08:38.720 ⇒ 00:08:40.160 Kaela Gallagher: Give me old info, yes.
45 00:08:40.169 ⇒ 00:08:49.109 Robert Tseng: Like, on the AI team, I’m assuming you’ve met with Sam and Pranav, I would consider them, like, the lead AI engineers.
46 00:08:49.109 ⇒ 00:09:01.009 Robert Tseng: Gabe was kind of, like, a fractional AI product manager for them, but he’s… I think he’s winding down, or he’s already off at this point, and so we were thinking that Miranda could be, like, half…
47 00:09:01.339 ⇒ 00:09:05.279 Robert Tseng: AI product manager, half, like, go-to-market.
48 00:09:05.279 ⇒ 00:09:23.659 Robert Tseng: ops, possibly, because that’s… that is the world that she comes from. She wants to move into product management, but her background is in, like, go-to-market ops, which is, kind of why… why I talked to her in the first place. So, it… like, I… I feel like it’s possible that she could come in and do both roles, which I think would be an interesting
49 00:09:23.729 ⇒ 00:09:25.549 Robert Tseng: Mix for us.
50 00:09:25.550 ⇒ 00:09:32.479 Kaela Gallagher: Okay, okay, got it, that’s why we have her categorized under… AI. That makes sense. Okay.
51 00:09:32.480 ⇒ 00:09:33.030 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
52 00:09:33.230 ⇒ 00:09:43.760 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, she’s meeting with Pranav on Tuesday next week, and I actually chatted with Pranav recently, and he’s like, this is gonna be my first interview, like.
53 00:09:43.760 ⇒ 00:09:50.859 Robert Tseng: What do I do? So, I gave him a little bit of a pep talk, and we’re gonna debrief after.
54 00:09:50.890 ⇒ 00:09:55.180 Kaela Gallagher: after the interview on Tuesday as well, to see how it went, so I’m excited for him.
55 00:09:55.180 ⇒ 00:09:55.880 Robert Tseng: Great.
56 00:09:55.880 ⇒ 00:09:56.680 Kaela Gallagher: Cool.
57 00:09:56.810 ⇒ 00:10:07.089 Kaela Gallagher: I wanted to ask, overall, not just for sales and marketing, but… Yeah. …foresee any, like…
58 00:10:07.500 ⇒ 00:10:11.780 Kaela Gallagher: backfills coming within the organization, or…
59 00:10:11.780 ⇒ 00:10:12.110 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
60 00:10:12.110 ⇒ 00:10:14.890 Kaela Gallagher: Any other, like, areas of focus that…
61 00:10:15.370 ⇒ 00:10:17.449 Kaela Gallagher: Recruiting might need to keep an eye on.
62 00:10:17.830 ⇒ 00:10:33.850 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so definitely backfilling Gabe is a priority, just because they don’t have, like, a product manager at that point. It would just be U-Tom, and I don’t really… I mean, I think any role that ends up falling back into me and UTAM, we need to kind of… we should probably be having some people in the pipeline for.
63 00:10:33.990 ⇒ 00:10:39.449 Robert Tseng: Other backfills… I would say,
64 00:10:39.880 ⇒ 00:10:53.359 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, the senior analyst role is still, like… I mean, Jasmine’s in, like, a trial right now, like, we’re gonna wrap that up with her in the next week or two. It was supposed to be by the end of this week, but I don’t know if Rutab and I will be able to connect about it.
65 00:10:54.650 ⇒ 00:11:09.140 Robert Tseng: But, yeah, we’re… we want to… I think we’re leaning towards bringing her, but, like, we just… we haven’t had somebody at her level, in, like, since January at this point, so, like, I consider that, like, a role I’m still urgently trying to backfill.
66 00:11:09.370 ⇒ 00:11:26.990 Robert Tseng: she’s, like, we call it senior analyst, but, like, it’s like a senior strategist, analyst, like, somebody who’s, like, on the strategy, like, a senior person on the strategy side, which we don’t have currently. So I think that’s… that’s one role that I’m looking out to fill.
67 00:11:26.990 ⇒ 00:11:28.330 Kaela Gallagher: Really quick on that.
68 00:11:28.330 ⇒ 00:11:28.990 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
69 00:11:28.990 ⇒ 00:11:36.029 Kaela Gallagher: position. Is this somebody that’s kind of filling in to, like, a CSO slot on projects?
70 00:11:36.440 ⇒ 00:11:40.909 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, I guess, yeah, so you’re learning all these different fun.
71 00:11:40.910 ⇒ 00:11:42.710 Kaela Gallagher: Yes. I’m like…
72 00:11:43.480 ⇒ 00:11:56.920 Robert Tseng: I don’t have the same point of view as Utam, so I apologize if we have, like, conflicting perspectives, but I… hopefully you can kind of form your own opinion as well. I think the CSO role,
73 00:11:58.590 ⇒ 00:12:03.280 Robert Tseng: is not, like, a standalone role. Like, I… I think we have…
74 00:12:03.810 ⇒ 00:12:10.469 Robert Tseng: we basically have, like, different engineers or technical people that, like, lean more towards being a CSO.
75 00:12:10.470 ⇒ 00:12:10.990 Kaela Gallagher: Or…
76 00:12:10.990 ⇒ 00:12:12.930 Robert Tseng: EP.
77 00:12:13.240 ⇒ 00:12:30.839 Robert Tseng: the whole, like, SL, like, service lead thing, I… I don’t really even think that’s really, like, a role that… like, in function, we don’t really have that right now. Like, I feel like it’s all just being, coordinated by… I mean, that’s just not true. Like, we have… like, Mustafa is kind of an SL, and…
78 00:12:31.010 ⇒ 00:12:34.790 Robert Tseng: Amber kind of is. Okay. Sam kind of is, yeah, like, different people.
79 00:12:34.790 ⇒ 00:12:35.140 Kaela Gallagher: Okay.
80 00:12:35.140 ⇒ 00:12:42.779 Robert Tseng: like, they’re just… yeah, they’re just more just doing the more traditional, like, writing tickets and doing basic project management stuff, but, like.
81 00:12:43.040 ⇒ 00:13:00.330 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I don’t… I’m not worried about that one. This is really, like, who… do people fall into the CSO bucket, or the EP bucket? Jasmine is… she’s expressed that she doesn’t want to be a CSO. She… if she were to come and take a bigger role, be full-time, she wants to be an EP. She likes,
82 00:13:00.390 ⇒ 00:13:15.489 Robert Tseng: doing that more, which I think is… we were not open to that at first, but seeing kind of what she’s been doing the past 2 or 3 weeks, like, I feel like she has actually been helping level the team up, and, like, is… I actually could see, like, a… oh, maybe, like, having…
83 00:13:15.490 ⇒ 00:13:22.090 Robert Tseng: Somebody at her level that’s, like, purely focused on, well, obviously doing some client work, but also just, like, making…
84 00:13:22.090 ⇒ 00:13:36.990 Robert Tseng: kind of helping, like, raise the bar for the team overall, and not being so in the weeds with the clients is actually helpful. So anyway, like, I think this is, like, a tension that I’m not, like, fully clear on, on, like, do we need more CSOs or more EPs?
85 00:13:37.100 ⇒ 00:13:41.830 Robert Tseng: frankly, like, the CSO role has not lived up to my expectations. Like, I…
86 00:13:41.860 ⇒ 00:14:05.559 Robert Tseng: I expected it to be, like, account management, obviously taking me and Utam out of meetings, but also, like, looking for expansion opportunities on clients, and I don’t think any of our current CSOs have done that. Like, we’ve been running this since January, nobody has, like, every expansion or renewal is still from me and Utam. Like, nobody is really, like, kind of finding net new opportunities within our clients. But they are, like.
87 00:14:05.720 ⇒ 00:14:22.669 Robert Tseng: they are taking us out of meetings, they’re playing defense, and like, when they need someone, the clients need someone to jump on a call, like, they’re doing a good job of taking that, but I just… I don’t feel like it really, like, met my expectation of what the CSO was supposed to be, which is not just, like, kind of…
88 00:14:23.050 ⇒ 00:14:25.489 Robert Tseng: Not, yeah, not just doing, like, the…
89 00:14:25.780 ⇒ 00:14:40.240 Robert Tseng: not just playing defense, but also, like, looking for new opportunities, too. So, I don’t feel like we’ve found, like, we have… I mean, and that kind of put in the ideal form of, like, what we imagine the CSO to be, I don’t think we have anybody at that… in that role yet. So,
90 00:14:40.330 ⇒ 00:14:51.120 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, that’s a really long… like, there’s probably… we could talk more… a lot more about that later, but but yeah, that’s… that’s my perspective on the CSO and EP, kind of.
91 00:14:51.270 ⇒ 00:14:53.329 Robert Tseng: Situation right now.
92 00:14:53.460 ⇒ 00:15:06.300 Kaela Gallagher: Okay, okay. And Jasmine’s, like, trial coming to an end, is she somebody that you think is going to be, kind of, long-term with Brainforge?
93 00:15:06.620 ⇒ 00:15:22.919 Robert Tseng: Yeah, well, I… I mean, I actually… I mean, I think my vote is to bring her on full-time, so, I mean, I don’t know what Utoms will be, and I’m also giving the other people that she’s… I mean, like, the other, like, Greg, I would say Greg, Amber, and…
94 00:15:23.640 ⇒ 00:15:33.419 Robert Tseng: Yeah, mainly just Greg and Amber have a say in the decision as well, too. But, like, I think I’ve liked what I’ve seen so far, and I would like to bring her in long-term.
95 00:15:33.710 ⇒ 00:15:34.520 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
96 00:15:34.520 ⇒ 00:15:49.959 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, the reason why I ask is because Utam showed me this chart a couple days ago that was kind of, like, project planning for the next couple months, and, like, who’s going to be the CSO, EP, SL, like, for each kind of client and project.
97 00:15:50.150 ⇒ 00:15:50.630 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
98 00:15:50.630 ⇒ 00:16:03.170 Kaela Gallagher: he had highlighted everywhere that your name or his name was, and was like, we need to hire so that Robert and I’s names are not in here as often, and then.
99 00:16:03.170 ⇒ 00:16:03.540 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
100 00:16:03.540 ⇒ 00:16:08.549 Kaela Gallagher: like Jasmine could be kind of an asset to solving that problem, but obviously we.
101 00:16:08.550 ⇒ 00:16:08.880 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
102 00:16:08.880 ⇒ 00:16:10.749 Kaela Gallagher: to do, so… okay.
103 00:16:11.140 ⇒ 00:16:27.339 Robert Tseng: Yeah, yeah, definitely, like, even if Jasmine doesn’t end up working out, like, having… I mean, that’s… we need at least one, like, ASAP for, like, to fill her role, but then, like, I imagine we would probably want to add at least, like, one or two more people after that for… at her level.
104 00:16:27.340 ⇒ 00:16:39.370 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, we have 5 positions posted right now. We have an AI engineer, data engineer, analytics engineer, and then, like, the product analyst and the senior
105 00:16:39.500 ⇒ 00:16:40.420 Kaela Gallagher: Products.
106 00:16:40.710 ⇒ 00:17:00.179 Kaela Gallagher: manager, I think they are. Yeah. And I was talking to Utam about them, and he was like… because I was like, what if we… what if we fill the data engineer, for example, because we have a lot of data people in the pipeline right now. Yeah. Like, are we just turning down everybody else that’s in the pipeline? And he’s like, no, we’ll continue to interview good
107 00:17:00.180 ⇒ 00:17:01.630 Kaela Gallagher: people.
108 00:17:01.630 ⇒ 00:17:02.200 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
109 00:17:02.200 ⇒ 00:17:06.180 Kaela Gallagher: So it’s good to hear we have that, like, philosophy moving forward.
110 00:17:07.230 ⇒ 00:17:08.150 Robert Tseng: Yeah, yeah.
111 00:17:09.710 ⇒ 00:17:13.420 Kaela Gallagher: I wanted to also ask you…
112 00:17:14.579 ⇒ 00:17:22.520 Kaela Gallagher: Like, what is the biggest… so, the interview process that you’re involved right now would be anything like sales, marketing, and strategy, right?
113 00:17:22.770 ⇒ 00:17:23.319 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
114 00:17:23.329 ⇒ 00:17:29.669 Kaela Gallagher: Okay, what’s the biggest reason that you are turning people down? Because you’re seeing people in the final round, right?
115 00:17:30.290 ⇒ 00:17:30.910 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
116 00:17:31.220 ⇒ 00:17:33.329 Kaela Gallagher: What’s the biggest reason you’re saying no?
117 00:17:33.960 ⇒ 00:17:52.849 Robert Tseng: I mean, at that point, it’s honestly more of, like, just, like, a culture fit. Like, I kind of just give… I come to these conversations, like, kind of… for the role that they’re hiring for, try to tell… like, just kind of tell… like, presenting, like, a scenario that they would probably deal with or hear, and I just, like, chat about how they would react to
118 00:17:53.810 ⇒ 00:18:04.779 Robert Tseng: it’s usually a difficult situation that I kind of… I tee up to them, and yeah, it’s really kind of more like, well, if I don’t really think they got it, or, like, they didn’t have the nuance, or, like.
119 00:18:05.040 ⇒ 00:18:16.559 Robert Tseng: they were… yeah, I mean, it’s usually off of something like that, where I’m not really… I don’t… didn’t really like their… didn’t really like their answer. I’m disqual… I’m disqualifying them.
120 00:18:16.560 ⇒ 00:18:35.229 Kaela Gallagher: Okay, yeah, like, not confident they would actually, respond well to that scenario in a real situation. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Fair enough. And what would you say is the biggest reason… I know right now most people are on, like, trial periods, or that’s at least the way most people are kind of entering Brainforge.
121 00:18:35.230 ⇒ 00:18:37.870 Robert Tseng: Yeah. What would you say is the biggest reason people are not…
122 00:18:38.580 ⇒ 00:18:41.299 Kaela Gallagher: Converting to full-time after the trial period.
123 00:18:41.710 ⇒ 00:18:44.919 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I think, I think it’s,
124 00:18:45.790 ⇒ 00:18:52.909 Robert Tseng: I mean, we’re… it’s also a cultural thing, but we’re a remote… we’re a remote company, just, like, a high bar for, like,
125 00:18:53.080 ⇒ 00:19:07.360 Robert Tseng: like, high bar, like, for… I don’t know how to describe, like, agency or proactiveness, like, the people that don’t work out, I guess, are people who come in, and they’re just kind of, like, waiting to be told what to do, and, like.
126 00:19:07.730 ⇒ 00:19:14.030 Robert Tseng: I just… we… we need, like, people that are kind of able to, like, jump in and… just…
127 00:19:14.330 ⇒ 00:19:18.810 Robert Tseng: Be very proactive, I mean, sharing, sharing up, like, kind of…
128 00:19:19.040 ⇒ 00:19:38.849 Robert Tseng: Yeah, sharing updates in public channels, not being afraid to ask questions, like, trying to, like, onboard themselves quickly. Like, obviously there’s our part to play where we need to do better, which I think we’re building more process to, like, kind of pair people with people in the company and, like, help them onboard. I mean, I don’t know how your experience is, but hopefully we’re giving you something like that.
129 00:19:38.850 ⇒ 00:19:41.510 Robert Tseng: But, yeah, I think, like, if…
130 00:19:41.860 ⇒ 00:19:45.049 Robert Tseng: If it’s, like… if we’re not within a couple weeks.
131 00:19:45.420 ⇒ 00:19:49.840 Robert Tseng: Responding with a… like a, heck yes, like.
132 00:19:49.980 ⇒ 00:20:07.910 Robert Tseng: then it’s usually, like, then we usually just say… say no. Like, it has to really… we have to really feel, like, the presence of them being here. I don’t know if it’s helpful to illustrate with a couple examples. Like, Bryle, for example, we have somebody else in his role, that was, like, kind of biz… I mean.
133 00:20:07.950 ⇒ 00:20:15.130 Robert Tseng: I mean, we had somebody else that was, like, kind of BizOps kind of lead, I guess, and helping out with, like, delivery ops as well.
134 00:20:15.130 ⇒ 00:20:16.580 Kaela Gallagher: I think I met him.
135 00:20:16.740 ⇒ 00:20:20.699 Robert Tseng: Yeah, he did. Well, he’s not here anymore, but,
136 00:20:20.810 ⇒ 00:20:36.149 Robert Tseng: But yeah, I mean, Braille came in, and then on day one, he, like, did… he just, like, I needed, I needed a case study on, like, an existing client, or a client that we had, like, more than 6 months ago. I had asked…
137 00:20:36.370 ⇒ 00:20:38.140 Robert Tseng: The previous person to, like.
138 00:20:39.060 ⇒ 00:20:47.309 Robert Tseng: I mean, all the… I think we… what people don’t realize is we have so much of our, like, company, like, knowledge just, like, in…
139 00:20:47.890 ⇒ 00:21:01.830 Robert Tseng: like, code bases already, like, you can use the AI tools to go and access it, and I think, yeah, like, I don’t know how much you’ve been able to do that, you know, in your onboarding, but, like, you know, I was presented with kind of, like, a
140 00:21:01.830 ⇒ 00:21:11.120 Robert Tseng: oh, I need to go clean up Notion, I need to go do XYZ things, like, full-on, like, really bloated project things, like, you can give me 2 weeks, and I’ll be able to give you this case study.
141 00:21:11.150 ⇒ 00:21:27.860 Robert Tseng: And I was like, I don’t want to wait 2 weeks for that. Whereas, like, Bryo came in, day one, he plugs in, uses his cursor, and then he asks, and he gives me a case study, like, within his first 3 hours of being here. And, like, to me, that’s like… I mean, I didn’t give him any more direction, like, he just kind of…
142 00:21:27.900 ⇒ 00:21:31.900 Robert Tseng: Was open to adopting things, and just, like, tried to put something out.
143 00:21:31.900 ⇒ 00:21:32.290 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah.
144 00:21:32.450 ⇒ 00:21:50.629 Robert Tseng: I think that’s… that’s kind of the energy that he brings. Yeah, he may not be as polished or whatever, like, but I think he’s very open to taking feedback well as well. And, yeah, he’s just, like, really, like, kind of a go-getter, trying to… trying to, like, learn… learn quickly. Like, he, he real, he doesn’t see, like.
145 00:21:51.150 ⇒ 00:22:01.539 Robert Tseng: he doesn’t try to, like, de-risk his, like, work by, like, trying to drag it out by a lot and, like, I don’t know, hiding behind all this jargon. So, like, I… I don’t know, like, that, to me…
146 00:22:01.540 ⇒ 00:22:19.119 Robert Tseng: as soon as he came and he did that, I was like, oh, we should reconsider, like, you know, do we really need, like, the other person? Like, I think Bryle can… Bryl can do it. So, yeah, like, I think Brile made his presence known within his first week of being here, and I think it was just, like, really, really clear that he was… he wanted it, yeah.
147 00:22:19.160 ⇒ 00:22:31.180 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah. I met, Bea for the first time yesterday, and he did, like, a cursor kind of training with me, and I was just, like, so impressed. Like, his…
148 00:22:31.200 ⇒ 00:22:41.370 Kaela Gallagher: Variety of knowledge, but also his ability to, like, explain something that’s really daunting to a non-technical person and, like, make it feel easy, like…
149 00:22:41.370 ⇒ 00:22:52.810 Robert Tseng: Yeah. He… He had never used it before in his company. Like, he just learned it, like, two weeks ago. Like, he… yeah, so, like, he… he’s, like, yeah. Yeah, he… he learns very, very quickly, yeah.
150 00:22:52.810 ⇒ 00:23:00.419 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, he’s great. He was like, we can type in, like, oh, you’re doing one-on-one… like, he made it very practical for me, like, oh, you’re doing.
151 00:23:00.420 ⇒ 00:23:00.850 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
152 00:23:00.850 ⇒ 00:23:05.360 Kaela Gallagher: Okay, you’re about to meet with Uesh, who does interviews for the company.
153 00:23:05.360 ⇒ 00:23:05.710 Robert Tseng: That’s time.
154 00:23:05.710 ⇒ 00:23:13.780 Kaela Gallagher: into cursor, who is a Wish? And then I got, like, a whole summary, like, okay, I’m ready to go into this meeting. Like, he just made it so…
155 00:23:13.950 ⇒ 00:23:16.909 Kaela Gallagher: relevant for me, yeah, he’s amazing, so… Great.
156 00:23:16.910 ⇒ 00:23:18.010 Robert Tseng: Hey, great to hear.
157 00:23:18.010 ⇒ 00:23:19.170 Kaela Gallagher: Right,
158 00:23:19.980 ⇒ 00:23:32.480 Kaela Gallagher: Great, great hire. Everybody that I’ve met so far, honestly, has been amazing. Like, I met, Dami and Sam and Pranav, and wow, like.
159 00:23:32.600 ⇒ 00:23:40.880 Kaela Gallagher: Solid team. So, excited to keep… keep meeting everybody. My goal is to meet everybody in the company in the next couple weeks, so… excited.
160 00:23:40.880 ⇒ 00:23:44.459 Robert Tseng: That’s great. Yeah, I’m sure you’ll… I’m sure you’ll get to do that, yeah.
161 00:23:44.620 ⇒ 00:24:01.470 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, okay, this is really helpful feedback, like, as I’m kind of sourcing and, like, looking for candidates as well, just understanding what has worked and what hasn’t is super helpful. I wanted to also ask you, like, do you…
162 00:24:01.730 ⇒ 00:24:09.320 Kaela Gallagher: Have any goals for me in the next couple weeks, or, like, anything that you’d want to see me accomplish?
163 00:24:09.920 ⇒ 00:24:29.629 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I know we had kind of gone back and forth on this Notion page. I haven’t clicked on it in a while, so let me go back to that and try to give you, like, a 10, 30, kind of, like, 10, 30, 90 day kind of, at least some… some targets to set. I guess we haven’t gone through, the… which, maybe, I’ll try to give you a few.
164 00:24:29.810 ⇒ 00:24:31.589 Robert Tseng: snapshot, so…
165 00:24:31.770 ⇒ 00:24:46.889 Robert Tseng: This is, like, our whole, like, company performance, like, I run the sales team off of this, but I also have, like, OKRs here, so these are… your name is assigned to some of these things, so maybe we should kind of revisit this, now that you’re in here.
166 00:24:47.180 ⇒ 00:24:51.939 Robert Tseng: But yeah, like, I guess these are phrased more, like, quarterly, kind of?
167 00:24:52.120 ⇒ 00:25:01.670 Robert Tseng: goals, and obviously, you know, we know you came in at the end of February, so, like, a lot of this has to be kind of recalibrated based off, like, you know, what’s realistically possible.
168 00:25:01.670 ⇒ 00:25:23.780 Robert Tseng: But yeah, you know, if I… you asked me that, I’d probably go here, I’d kind of revisit these, and then I would go back to the doc that we had before, and I would put together the 1030-90 plan. So, I mean, you could take a crack at it first, but obviously your first focus is on recruiting, so maybe the people ops stuff is, like, less… is, like, more deprioritized, and I could kick that to Q2 or something.
169 00:25:24.130 ⇒ 00:25:35.339 Robert Tseng: And I know there’s a lot of stuff with your name on it, so… but these are all the things that we had in mind that we wanted you to kind of, like, get a handle of. You’ve probably seen also the areas of responsibility,
170 00:25:35.480 ⇒ 00:25:37.900 Robert Tseng: what do we call it? Management ops?
171 00:25:38.240 ⇒ 00:25:46.300 Robert Tseng: So, like, Utam kind of probably mapped it out to you, and I don’t know if he showed you this doc, but this is, like… this, to me is more of, like, a…
172 00:25:46.830 ⇒ 00:26:11.340 Robert Tseng: this… this stock doesn’t change very much. These are, like, all the different responsibilities in each of the different functions. But these are not, like, tied to goals. So, I think, like, we haven’t updated this probably in a few weeks, so we need to do it now that we’re at the end of the month. We do it… we do a monthly review, Lutam and I, on this. But yeah, like, we kind of… I kind of take the ideas from here, and, like, pieces of that from operations, and then I broke it down into, like.
173 00:26:11.340 ⇒ 00:26:21.420 Robert Tseng: OKRs, where these are more measurable. They could see, like, these are actual, like, these are more quantifiable, things where there’s, like, direction, and then we’re also measuring velocity.
174 00:26:21.420 ⇒ 00:26:46.029 Robert Tseng: you know, when we talk about, like, variable performance, like, for the… for people, like, it’s based off of, like, how many weeks consecutively you’re hitting these goals. This is a lot more, like, in flight for the go-to-market team, because I’ve been running them on this since the start of January, whereas, like, obviously on the rest of the ops side, like, we’ve had some personnel changes and stuff, so, like, I think we’re… we’re just getting this going again.
175 00:26:46.780 ⇒ 00:26:47.350 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah.
176 00:26:47.350 ⇒ 00:26:56.139 Robert Tseng: But… but yeah, you can… you can… you can take a look at this if you want to just kind of get… familiarize yourself with some of, like, what we thought the expectations
177 00:26:56.140 ⇒ 00:27:10.799 Robert Tseng: should be, and then we could have another conversation of how this, like, actually… what adjustments we need to make, for you. But my goal is that you would be kind of just checking this once it’s into place. Every… every week, we’d kind of get, like, a leads meeting going again.
178 00:27:10.820 ⇒ 00:27:24.919 Robert Tseng: And, yeah, we’re just kind of, you know, on track, off track, kind of talking through, like, what’s working, what’s not working, and, like, being able to do those weekly calibrations with you, and probably, like, Luke and Rico together.
179 00:27:25.400 ⇒ 00:27:26.330 Kaela Gallagher: Okay, okay.
180 00:27:26.330 ⇒ 00:27:26.680 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
181 00:27:26.680 ⇒ 00:27:29.099 Kaela Gallagher: It might be helpful to do…
182 00:27:29.460 ⇒ 00:27:44.779 Kaela Gallagher: my first calibration, just one-on-one, because right now I have… I have this document, which I do have access to, so I’m able to review these, but then I have, like, the Notion page that we had created that…
183 00:27:44.780 ⇒ 00:27:45.390 Robert Tseng: Right.
184 00:27:45.390 ⇒ 00:27:49.459 Kaela Gallagher: Has a 10, 30, 60, 90…
185 00:27:49.460 ⇒ 00:27:51.960 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I remember I had put something together before, yeah.
186 00:27:51.960 ⇒ 00:28:11.219 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, so I have… I have that to go off as well, and then, the AOR document I don’t have access to, but Utom did kind of show that to me the other day and said we would be reviewing it in a meeting tomorrow, so I’m assuming we’ll find out… I’ll find out a little bit more about that document tomorrow. Yeah. Which…
187 00:28:11.220 ⇒ 00:28:18.879 Kaela Gallagher: Side note, if you are able to send me the calendar invite for that meeting, that would be really helpful, I don’t have it yet. Okay.
188 00:28:19.460 ⇒ 00:28:24.579 Kaela Gallagher: But… Yeah, like, looking at the 10, 30, 60, 90 right now, like.
189 00:28:25.520 ⇒ 00:28:35.999 Kaela Gallagher: I have done almost everything in the first 10 days. I’ve started the 30-day, tasks, so…
190 00:28:36.250 ⇒ 00:28:42.610 Kaela Gallagher: kind of working through that a little bit. The one issue that I foresee is, like, on this,
191 00:28:42.770 ⇒ 00:28:54.709 Kaela Gallagher: Google Sheet that you have pulled up, the talent pipeline right now, in terms of, like, oh, more than 90% updated weekly, and response within 72 hours.
192 00:28:55.100 ⇒ 00:29:09.569 Kaela Gallagher: as far as I’m aware, we don’t have a way to track that right now. So, I’ve gone through and I’ve cleaned up the pipeline, and I mean, we had emails in the recruiting email inbox from, like, over a month ago that were never addressed, so I went through.
193 00:29:09.570 ⇒ 00:29:10.040 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
194 00:29:10.120 ⇒ 00:29:14.050 Kaela Gallagher: And, and really cleaned things up, but,
195 00:29:14.260 ⇒ 00:29:17.330 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, building out a… out a way to kind of…
196 00:29:17.640 ⇒ 00:29:21.879 Kaela Gallagher: Track things a little bit better. Might be something for the future.
197 00:29:22.380 ⇒ 00:29:38.780 Robert Tseng: Okay. Yeah, I mean, I think for our next conversation then, well, yeah, I’m gonna take that doc, I’m gonna try to triangulate with this, and just see, like, what is actually… like, your notion doc, that should be, like, kind of your ramp-up kind of doc there. These are more, kind of, targets we set. I’m like…
198 00:29:39.360 ⇒ 00:29:40.320 Robert Tseng: I mean…
199 00:29:41.560 ⇒ 00:29:50.540 Robert Tseng: if anything, like, I’m not gonna delete these, I’m just gonna, like, archive them or whatever. Like, I kind of broke this out into business as usual OKRs, so these are the ones that, like, are actually tied to…
200 00:29:50.540 ⇒ 00:30:13.880 Robert Tseng: My kind of performance bonuses for people in the quarter. Yeah. Whereas the aspirational ones, these are, like, nice to have, but, like, we know that either it’s limited tracking, or it’s just, like, not something we actually believe is gonna happen. It gets kind of just moved down here, and they either… we’re thinking, you know, they either make their way into the next set of OKRs for the next quarter, or, like…
201 00:30:14.150 ⇒ 00:30:20.180 Robert Tseng: yeah, I think that these, these just kind of stay, stay elsewhere. So…
202 00:30:20.180 ⇒ 00:30:43.419 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I think, yeah, these do need to be kind of, like, trimmed down. Like, obviously, like, on the go-to-market side, we dialed it down a lot more. So, like, this was just, like, the full list of ideas, and then, like, there needs to be some calibration before everyone’s bought in, and, like, we’re kind of on… we’re, like, actually going after it. So, you can, like, look at the other tabs, too, if you want to just get a sense of, like, how we’ve been, like, how we’ve been measuring that with the team.
203 00:30:43.710 ⇒ 00:30:59.380 Kaela Gallagher: Okay, okay, perfect. I know you probably have to hop, but do you want me to continue sending just kind of, like, a daily update to you and Utam on Slack of, like, did this today, planning on this tomorrow, let me know if you want me to pivot sort of thing?
204 00:30:59.380 ⇒ 00:31:12.610 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I think for now, that’s helpful, just as we’re kind of getting used to, like, communication style with you. I think after a certain point, like, that’s probably unnecessary, like, but… but yeah, I think, definitely while you’re… while you’re just getting in.
205 00:31:13.690 ⇒ 00:31:18.600 Robert Tseng: Yeah, we’re also, like, not used to, like, hearing from you, obviously. So, like, now…
206 00:31:18.600 ⇒ 00:31:35.930 Robert Tseng: getting us familiar, like, we should… knowing… thinking… knowing that Kayla’s here, that we should always be thinking about her, how we can help her out, like, I think you just kind of giving us a… at least a daily message, like, helps us to help you stay top of mind for us, so, like, we’re like, oh, we definitely need to keep things moving along for Kayla as well.
207 00:31:35.930 ⇒ 00:31:36.550 Kaela Gallagher: Okay.
208 00:31:36.790 ⇒ 00:31:37.410 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
209 00:31:37.410 ⇒ 00:31:40.049 Kaela Gallagher: Awesome! Thanks for taking the time for me.
210 00:31:40.310 ⇒ 00:31:42.880 Robert Tseng: Cool, yeah, we’ll talk more soon. Okay.
211 00:31:43.210 ⇒ 00:31:43.540 Robert Tseng: do it.
212 00:31:43.540 ⇒ 00:31:44.260 Kaela Gallagher: Talk to you later. Bye.