Meeting Title: Friday Brainforge Demos & Retro Date: 2026-03-06 Meeting participants: Uttam Kumaran, Kaela Gallagher, Zoran Selinger, Luke Scorziell, Ryan Brosas, Brylle Girang, Rico Rejoso, Pranav Narahari, Amber Lin, Elizah Joy, Robert Tseng, Demilade Agboola, Casie Aviles, Hannah Wang, Clarence Stone
WEBVTT
1 00:00:07.560 ⇒ 00:00:08.670 Uttam Kumaran: Hello!
2 00:00:08.890 ⇒ 00:00:09.730 Zoran Selinger: Aye.
3 00:00:10.430 ⇒ 00:00:11.430 Luke Scorziell: Good.
4 00:00:12.720 ⇒ 00:00:13.680 Uttam Kumaran: Hey, guys.
5 00:00:14.490 ⇒ 00:00:16.129 Luke Scorziell: Is Robert still with you, Tom?
6 00:00:16.300 ⇒ 00:00:19.850 Uttam Kumaran: No, he’s, he’s in Dallas now. He left this morning.
7 00:00:20.380 ⇒ 00:00:21.660 Luke Scorziell: How’d the happy hour go?
8 00:00:22.220 ⇒ 00:00:31.070 Uttam Kumaran: Good? Yeah, it was great. I think we had, like, maybe, like, 7 or 8 people come, and, like, just, like, friends of mine, some friends of Robert’s.
9 00:00:33.240 ⇒ 00:00:34.899 Uttam Kumaran: It was good. I feel like…
10 00:00:35.250 ⇒ 00:00:40.640 Uttam Kumaran: just, like, brings more awareness. I mean, everybody’s seeing all of our LinkedIn stuff. A couple people now, I think.
11 00:00:40.750 ⇒ 00:00:43.190 Uttam Kumaran: like, I saw… we owe,
12 00:00:43.590 ⇒ 00:00:47.030 Uttam Kumaran: Michael Maloney from Next Coast, some stuff back, I think.
13 00:00:47.360 ⇒ 00:00:50.239 Luke Scorziell: So he was there, but yeah, it was good.
14 00:00:53.470 ⇒ 00:00:54.110 Luke Scorziell: Nice.
15 00:01:00.900 ⇒ 00:01:02.240 Uttam Kumaran: How was the webinar?
16 00:01:06.040 ⇒ 00:01:13.249 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, it was pretty fire. I was, like, amped after a… after doing it. This is gonna be my go-to-market update for today.
17 00:01:13.680 ⇒ 00:01:15.000 Uttam Kumaran: Cool.
18 00:01:15.620 ⇒ 00:01:16.590 Luke Scorziell: Bye-bye.
19 00:01:19.300 ⇒ 00:01:20.800 Luke Scorziell: I want Ugaron.
20 00:01:21.720 ⇒ 00:01:25.860 Luke Scorziell: Telling people how they can, clean up their marketing attribution.
21 00:01:26.170 ⇒ 00:01:27.790 Uttam Kumaran: Perfect.
22 00:01:29.460 ⇒ 00:01:30.670 Zoran Selinger: We’ll do it, we’ll do it.
23 00:01:34.950 ⇒ 00:01:35.700 Pranav Narahari: What’s up, guys?
24 00:01:36.580 ⇒ 00:01:37.300 Uttam Kumaran: Hey.
25 00:01:37.300 ⇒ 00:01:39.190 Luke Scorziell: Kayla, that’s first. We’re first.
26 00:01:42.010 ⇒ 00:01:42.980 Uttam Kumaran: Friday meeting.
27 00:01:45.940 ⇒ 00:01:48.839 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah. My first one. Exciting!
28 00:01:54.660 ⇒ 00:01:57.209 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, let’s see if other folks are gonna join.
29 00:02:04.140 ⇒ 00:02:09.639 Zoran Selinger: Such a chill Friday. We don’t have any significant requests from Eden.
30 00:02:09.639 ⇒ 00:02:12.659 Uttam Kumaran: Maybe, maybe you. What are you talking about, dude?
31 00:02:12.660 ⇒ 00:02:17.379 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, yeah, actually, yeah, on my side, at least.
32 00:02:17.380 ⇒ 00:02:17.795 Uttam Kumaran: Hahaha
33 00:02:21.110 ⇒ 00:02:22.760 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
34 00:02:25.310 ⇒ 00:02:27.580 Uttam Kumaran: I’m just gonna send a note in the channel.
35 00:02:36.340 ⇒ 00:02:40.739 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I feel like it’s been… It was really light.
36 00:02:40.900 ⇒ 00:02:47.569 Uttam Kumaran: I think early in the week for me, and then today, tomorrow, I mean, yesterday, today is, like, a bit heavier.
37 00:02:49.270 ⇒ 00:02:51.700 Uttam Kumaran: But… Yeah, it’s been good.
38 00:02:59.180 ⇒ 00:03:03.429 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, maybe, Rico, let’s go ahead and we can get started, people will trickle in.
39 00:03:04.400 ⇒ 00:03:09.350 Rico Rejoso: Yep, we have Zora, who will be leading, or hosting today’s meeting.
40 00:03:12.080 ⇒ 00:03:14.419 Zoran Selinger: Sure, so, alright.
41 00:03:15.210 ⇒ 00:03:18.979 Zoran Selinger: You can just… Do your slides on your screen, is that fine?
42 00:03:20.950 ⇒ 00:03:22.780 Zoran Selinger: Who’s normally sharing the slides?
43 00:03:23.580 ⇒ 00:03:24.720 Rico Rejoso: If you can…
44 00:03:25.090 ⇒ 00:03:30.330 Zoran Selinger: I think my slides are in there already, so yeah, everything’s in one place.
45 00:03:30.680 ⇒ 00:03:32.870 Uttam Kumaran: Eliza, do you wanna… do you wanna just share?
46 00:03:32.870 ⇒ 00:03:33.500 Zoran Selinger: Huh?
47 00:03:36.650 ⇒ 00:03:37.280 Uttam Kumaran: Perfect.
48 00:03:44.210 ⇒ 00:03:58.680 Elizah Joy: Alright, so yeah, for our agenda for today, we’ll do the icebreaker and lab share, and we’re gonna do some delivery updates, operations, and then recruitment, GDM, and then last would be our shoutouts.
49 00:04:00.180 ⇒ 00:04:01.110 Elizah Joy: All right, they’re on.
50 00:04:01.110 ⇒ 00:04:01.470 Zoran Selinger: So.
51 00:04:01.470 ⇒ 00:04:02.460 Elizah Joy: hand it off to you.
52 00:04:02.820 ⇒ 00:04:15.180 Zoran Selinger: Sure, thank you, thank you, Eliza. Yeah, so for our icebreaker today, I think it would be fun if we do something like this, where we can go around, maybe not everyone has to go.
53 00:04:15.580 ⇒ 00:04:34.599 Zoran Selinger: I can start. So, in 60 seconds, let’s share, something that we are beginners at, that we are working on at the moment, and something… and maybe give a pro tip at something that you, you are an expert, or close to an expert. Obviously, that can be work, hobby, whatever.
54 00:04:34.800 ⇒ 00:04:39.579 Uttam Kumaran: Maybe, Zora, we could… everybody can post it in the chat, and then you can pick on some people to, like…
55 00:04:41.100 ⇒ 00:04:42.340 Uttam Kumaran: To elaborate?
56 00:04:42.880 ⇒ 00:04:44.620 Zoran Selinger: I’m sure. I’m sure.
57 00:04:45.280 ⇒ 00:04:47.159 Zoran Selinger: That’s also good.
58 00:04:47.860 ⇒ 00:04:51.030 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, maybe we’ll just do that, so that way everyone can type something, and then…
59 00:04:51.170 ⇒ 00:04:54.350 Uttam Kumaran: You can pick the most interesting ones.
60 00:04:55.410 ⇒ 00:04:56.989 Zoran Selinger: Pulling me on the spot.
61 00:04:57.800 ⇒ 00:04:59.620 Uttam Kumaran: Dude, you’re putting everybody else on the spot.
62 00:04:59.620 ⇒ 00:05:00.380 Zoran Selinger: I mean?
63 00:05:02.270 ⇒ 00:05:04.330 Zoran Selinger: Isn’t that how these things go?
64 00:05:05.990 ⇒ 00:05:09.730 Uttam Kumaran: You think about it, I used to do this, I used to run this meeting every week.
65 00:05:09.730 ⇒ 00:05:10.770 Zoran Selinger: For, like…
66 00:05:10.770 ⇒ 00:05:14.990 Uttam Kumaran: It would be, like, me and two people, so it’s not your turn.
67 00:05:16.900 ⇒ 00:05:18.690 Luke Scorziell: What am I still a beginner at?
68 00:05:37.470 ⇒ 00:05:42.510 Kaela Gallagher: Zoran, I nominate you to go first and tell us about being an expert in judo.
69 00:05:42.510 ⇒ 00:05:43.250 Demilade Agboola: Judo.
70 00:05:43.250 ⇒ 00:05:46.669 Zoran Selinger: It’s just one… it’s just one pro tip, not everything.
71 00:05:48.640 ⇒ 00:05:50.199 Kaela Gallagher: What’s your pro tip?
72 00:05:51.520 ⇒ 00:06:07.599 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, so pro tip would be to focus a little bit more on ground fighting. People ignore that, and you can pick up so many easy wins, even on the highest level, because people just tend to focus on throwing instead of
73 00:06:07.650 ⇒ 00:06:23.340 Zoran Selinger: You know, a little bit on the… on the ground. So it’s a… I picked up so, so many easy wins in that way. So that’s my pro tip, just people, don’t ignore Nevaza. Oh, Garthy.
74 00:06:23.650 ⇒ 00:06:26.630 Brylle Girang: I wish that we don’t use your pro tip, Zoran.
75 00:06:30.460 ⇒ 00:06:31.430 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah.
76 00:06:33.910 ⇒ 00:06:37.689 Uttam Kumaran: You can’t judo throw me through the computer, so I’m safe.
77 00:06:38.440 ⇒ 00:06:47.819 Zoran Selinger: No, I’m, no, I wouldn’t want to, don’t worry, I’m… I’m not confrontational at all.
78 00:06:48.000 ⇒ 00:06:49.460 Zoran Selinger: It’s about sport.
79 00:06:50.100 ⇒ 00:06:55.520 Zoran Selinger: We can do anything… we can do anything on the mat, of course, but nothing outside of the mat.
80 00:06:57.210 ⇒ 00:07:05.800 Zoran Selinger: Okay, Kayla, so, your expert… Can you…
81 00:07:06.020 ⇒ 00:07:08.150 Zoran Selinger: Let us know what that is, I don’t know what that is.
82 00:07:08.150 ⇒ 00:07:09.820 Kaela Gallagher: Oh, yes, okay.
83 00:07:09.920 ⇒ 00:07:22.520 Kaela Gallagher: Cache e pepe is, like, a kind of pasta. It’s, like, a very traditional, dish in Italy, especially in, like, the southern part of Italy. And it’s literally just pasta, cheese, and pepper.
84 00:07:22.520 ⇒ 00:07:32.329 Kaela Gallagher: But it’s really difficult to make because the cheese, like, solidifies a lot, so my pro tip is that you need to prepare the sauce on the side first.
85 00:07:32.330 ⇒ 00:07:37.109 Kaela Gallagher: And then, kind of mix it in with the pasta that you’ve prepared, it’s delicious.
86 00:07:37.540 ⇒ 00:07:38.400 Zoran Selinger: Sure.
87 00:07:38.640 ⇒ 00:07:45.579 Zoran Selinger: Sure. There’s a lot of cooking in here, I see. A lot of experts in cooking.
88 00:07:45.580 ⇒ 00:07:50.810 Kaela Gallagher: Yes! I used to live in Italy, so I was fortunate to learn a couple of dishes.
89 00:07:52.110 ⇒ 00:07:52.640 Uttam Kumaran: Wow.
90 00:07:52.640 ⇒ 00:07:55.890 Zoran Selinger: That’s amazing.
91 00:07:56.590 ⇒ 00:08:04.379 Zoran Selinger: That’s a good one. Are you sure you’re just a beginner at multitasking while in calls, though?
92 00:08:06.740 ⇒ 00:08:13.439 Robert Tseng: Yeah, if I’m not in front of my screen, the meetings that I’m in go disastrously. I think all of you know that from me.
93 00:08:13.700 ⇒ 00:08:18.199 Zoran Selinger: Sure. So Luke!
94 00:08:18.490 ⇒ 00:08:21.539 Zoran Selinger: I’m looking at… so what…
95 00:08:22.870 ⇒ 00:08:25.799 Zoran Selinger: I’m not sure what you mean by city driver, what does that mean?
96 00:08:28.470 ⇒ 00:08:29.270 Luke Scorziell: Oh, man.
97 00:08:29.830 ⇒ 00:08:31.200 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, yeah.
98 00:08:33.539 ⇒ 00:08:37.249 Luke Scorziell: I just… Alright, can you guys hear me fine?
99 00:08:37.830 ⇒ 00:08:38.270 Luke Scorziell: Yeah?
100 00:08:38.270 ⇒ 00:08:39.690 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
101 00:08:40.070 ⇒ 00:08:44.680 Luke Scorziell: Well, I grew up in the mountains, so I had, like, one stoplight growing up.
102 00:08:44.860 ⇒ 00:08:50.650 Luke Scorziell: And, just was very chill, very nice. And then, since getting back
103 00:08:53.410 ⇒ 00:08:55.760 Luke Scorziell: Here I’m… I’ve, like, learned how to…
104 00:08:57.880 ⇒ 00:09:02.690 Luke Scorziell: you know, cut people off. I guess my pro tip for LA driving…
105 00:09:02.690 ⇒ 00:09:06.870 Zoran Selinger: Be a little bit more aggressive, yeah. You have to fight for it in the city, right?
106 00:09:09.480 ⇒ 00:09:10.250 Uttam Kumaran: That’s funny.
107 00:09:10.460 ⇒ 00:09:11.659 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, yeah.
108 00:09:12.090 ⇒ 00:09:13.890 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, it was, like, yesterday.
109 00:09:14.300 ⇒ 00:09:16.630 Luke Scorziell: Assertive, assertive, yeah, good point.
110 00:09:16.630 ⇒ 00:09:17.770 Zoran Selinger: Heh, yeah.
111 00:09:19.070 ⇒ 00:09:27.959 Luke Scorziell: But, yeah, so that’s… that’s my, like, someone cut me off, and then I just throw… yeah, I don’t know. I surprise myself sometimes with how I’ve…
112 00:09:28.120 ⇒ 00:09:29.660 Luke Scorziell: How I’ve changed as a driver.
113 00:09:30.930 ⇒ 00:09:43.300 Zoran Selinger: That’s… that’s a good one, that’s a good one. I also… I live in a very small town, so I have absolutely none of those problems, and when I go to the capital, it’s just… I don’t want to deal with those at all.
114 00:09:43.330 ⇒ 00:09:53.060 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, sometimes I have to. Pranal, have you tried anything else apart from a vibrating move band?
115 00:09:53.780 ⇒ 00:10:02.069 Pranav Narahari: I’ve tried my, just the regular alarm on the iPhone. Now I just hear music in my dreams, so it doesn’t work.
116 00:10:02.070 ⇒ 00:10:03.670 Zoran Selinger: Nice.
117 00:10:03.770 ⇒ 00:10:04.869 Zoran Selinger: life.
118 00:10:06.130 ⇒ 00:10:06.970 Pranav Narahari: Hell yeah.
119 00:10:07.350 ⇒ 00:10:11.340 Zoran Selinger: Does anyone else wanna give us any… Pro tips.
120 00:10:17.400 ⇒ 00:10:19.139 Zoran Selinger: Utam, what are you gardening?
121 00:10:19.600 ⇒ 00:10:29.079 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, I’m… I’m looking at it right now, it’s, like, right in front of me in my… there’s, like, a window here. I’m making… I’ve… I have a couple types of mint.
122 00:10:29.210 ⇒ 00:10:31.470 Uttam Kumaran: I have basil, I have parsley.
123 00:10:31.830 ⇒ 00:10:36.209 Uttam Kumaran: I have tomatoes, I have green onions, I have chives.
124 00:10:36.580 ⇒ 00:10:38.910 Uttam Kumaran: And then we have, like, 2 pepper plants.
125 00:10:39.720 ⇒ 00:10:44.870 Uttam Kumaran: I killed… there was, like, a big freeze here, so… Some of the plants died.
126 00:10:45.170 ⇒ 00:10:51.479 Uttam Kumaran: And then inside the house, I have, like… there’s a lot of indoor plants. Oh, you guys can’t even see this, but…
127 00:10:51.750 ⇒ 00:10:54.910 Uttam Kumaran: Let me just try to see if I can show you guys.
128 00:10:55.220 ⇒ 00:11:00.039 Uttam Kumaran: Like, in the living room, there’s, like, a lot of indoor plants that I try to…
129 00:11:00.220 ⇒ 00:11:06.159 Uttam Kumaran: Keep alive, and then, if you look right here, there’s some plants here.
130 00:11:06.710 ⇒ 00:11:09.929 Uttam Kumaran: They’re, like, I’ve been… I’ve had for, like, a few years.
131 00:11:10.290 ⇒ 00:11:21.820 Uttam Kumaran: it just takes a lot of patience, and I like it because, like, I feel like at work, you know, you can sort of be like, this needs to get done, and you just, like, put all your effort and, like, do it.
132 00:11:21.970 ⇒ 00:11:26.569 Uttam Kumaran: This is, like, you can’t do anything. Like, you can’t water it too much.
133 00:11:26.690 ⇒ 00:11:36.510 Uttam Kumaran: you can’t, like, have it grow fast, you have to wait, and so it’s… it’s, like, it’s really, really interesting. It’s… there’s sort of very little you can do to optimize, like, you can do pesticides, and…
134 00:11:36.780 ⇒ 00:11:38.250 Uttam Kumaran: Feeder or whatever, but…
135 00:11:38.600 ⇒ 00:11:44.160 Uttam Kumaran: sort of just like, you just have to wait, and I think it’s really a lot different than my job, so it’s nice.
136 00:11:44.160 ⇒ 00:11:45.290 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, yeah.
137 00:11:46.030 ⇒ 00:11:50.690 Uttam Kumaran: I’m not used to waiting at my job for much.
138 00:11:50.990 ⇒ 00:11:55.470 Zoran Selinger: I, I see you, you, you cook brats?
139 00:11:55.610 ⇒ 00:11:58.940 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, so I think my hobbies are, like, all…
140 00:11:58.940 ⇒ 00:12:03.209 Uttam Kumaran: things that are, like, very… not related to work, because… meaning…
141 00:12:03.470 ⇒ 00:12:07.400 Uttam Kumaran: It’s like, for cooking, and you also have to kind of be patient, and you have, like.
142 00:12:07.720 ⇒ 00:12:18.250 Uttam Kumaran: just a limited amount of time and preparation, and so… yeah, I’ve been cooking a lot more this past year, it’s been great. I almost made pecco pepe for Robert when he came.
143 00:12:18.250 ⇒ 00:12:18.709 Kaela Gallagher: Oh, very good.
144 00:12:18.710 ⇒ 00:12:23.400 Uttam Kumaran: here on Wednesday, but then I made this gochujang butter noodles instead.
145 00:12:23.400 ⇒ 00:12:23.920 Kaela Gallagher: Hmm.
146 00:12:24.550 ⇒ 00:12:25.190 Uttam Kumaran: Kind of similar.
147 00:12:25.190 ⇒ 00:12:25.700 Kaela Gallagher: They’re good.
148 00:12:25.700 ⇒ 00:12:30.989 Uttam Kumaran: Similar ingredients… almost similar ingredients, except the gochujang, but it’s, like, garlic, cheese.
149 00:12:32.530 ⇒ 00:12:33.370 Kaela Gallagher: Yum.
150 00:12:33.370 ⇒ 00:12:34.980 Robert Tseng: It was very good.
151 00:12:39.050 ⇒ 00:12:40.890 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, okay,
152 00:12:41.520 ⇒ 00:12:47.440 Zoran Selinger: Let’s move on to the… to the next bit, then. Very good, very good, a lot of… a lot of cooks, a lot of cooks.
153 00:12:47.810 ⇒ 00:12:54.179 Zoran Selinger: Okay, so… as I’m… as you might have seen, I’m…
154 00:12:54.470 ⇒ 00:12:58.609 Zoran Selinger: Started learning guitar again after two decades.
155 00:13:00.260 ⇒ 00:13:11.239 Zoran Selinger: So, I’m using this, I think, if anyone knows or tried learning recently, you’ve probably heard about Justin Guitars, he’s the most popular
156 00:13:11.340 ⇒ 00:13:15.050 Zoran Selinger: And basically, even professionals,
157 00:13:15.100 ⇒ 00:13:25.369 Zoran Selinger: recommend them. So, I started very recently, and we are on the, kind of, at the… at the point of just learning chords.
158 00:13:25.380 ⇒ 00:13:41.500 Zoran Selinger: So the learning really, is split into 3 different parts, and, so first is, when you’re trying to just play slow, and the chords have to sound really, really, really good. So.
159 00:13:41.500 ⇒ 00:13:56.050 Zoran Selinger: We strum slowly, we make every, every note ring very clear. It’s very slow, it’s very, very boring. So that’s… basically, every practice will contain a few of those exercises.
160 00:13:56.050 ⇒ 00:14:03.740 Zoran Selinger: The second one is speed, so he… basically, the foundation of his approach is, is…
161 00:14:04.410 ⇒ 00:14:07.349 Zoran Selinger: You would change between two chords.
162 00:14:07.890 ⇒ 00:14:14.579 Zoran Selinger: As fast as you can in a minute. As much changes you can make in a minute.
163 00:14:14.740 ⇒ 00:14:29.570 Zoran Selinger: Being perfect here is not necessarily important, it’s just the number of changes. Obviously, you should try to get it as perfectly as possible, but the speed is a little bit more important.
164 00:14:30.240 ⇒ 00:14:45.249 Zoran Selinger: especially for a beginner, this can be very, very tiring and painful, especially… I mean, someone probably tried to play guitar, maybe someone plays. Your fingers hurt a lot at the beginning.
165 00:14:46.800 ⇒ 00:14:48.209 Zoran Selinger: So eats out.
166 00:14:49.080 ⇒ 00:14:50.030 Zoran Selinger: there’s…
167 00:14:50.570 ⇒ 00:15:05.779 Zoran Selinger: there’s a lot of pain as well in here. Also, if you’re playing… playing a lot of those changes, your forearms can also hurt a little bit, but it’s super, super important.
168 00:15:05.800 ⇒ 00:15:13.280 Zoran Selinger: Because you need both, you need precision, and you need, you need speed. And then, obviously,
169 00:15:14.070 ⇒ 00:15:17.309 Zoran Selinger: Obviously, if we’re not having fun.
170 00:15:17.690 ⇒ 00:15:27.869 Zoran Selinger: if there’s no results, if you’re not playing music, you just won’t stick with it. It’s just what… exactly what happens. My first attempt at guitar
171 00:15:28.540 ⇒ 00:15:31.239 Zoran Selinger: 20 years ago, almost, was…
172 00:15:31.470 ⇒ 00:15:40.430 Zoran Selinger: I was… I was doing a lot of precision and speed work, not playing enough, and it just, you know, just… it wasn’t… wasn’t consistent.
173 00:15:41.870 ⇒ 00:15:47.710 Zoran Selinger: Oh, there’s a lot of musicians here, that’s good, that’s good. Hopefully I’ll join you soon.
174 00:15:51.830 ⇒ 00:15:57.049 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, so I was, so we can go to the next slide. So I was thinking about
175 00:15:57.600 ⇒ 00:15:59.150 Zoran Selinger: about parallels.
176 00:15:59.470 ⇒ 00:16:02.760 Zoran Selinger: With that approach and what we do.
177 00:16:04.400 ⇒ 00:16:09.280 Zoran Selinger: How each of our roles fall into these three categories.
178 00:16:09.660 ⇒ 00:16:14.629 Zoran Selinger: And it kind of made sense to me that we are working,
179 00:16:14.950 ⇒ 00:16:17.010 Zoran Selinger: We do have a lot of…
180 00:16:17.890 ⇒ 00:16:26.240 Zoran Selinger: things that we should do slow and precise in each of our roles. So, analysts would need to do, like.
181 00:16:26.520 ⇒ 00:16:42.319 Zoran Selinger: really, like, especially when they are, getting familiar with new roles, you would do, you would do a lot of validation, checking of the types, and all of that stuff. Engineering, a lot of documentation, and you see, you can see, like.
182 00:16:42.320 ⇒ 00:16:55.920 Zoran Selinger: look, go to market, researching, polishing the decks, any CSOs, obviously, this happens. This is, like, it takes a lot of effort.
183 00:16:55.930 ⇒ 00:17:01.129 Zoran Selinger: a slow, deliberate effort to understand what clients need. Then.
184 00:17:01.390 ⇒ 00:17:04.710 Zoran Selinger: And this is very, very clear in…
185 00:17:05.560 ⇒ 00:17:12.130 Zoran Selinger: any kind of agency-type work. We do have a lot of speed, speed work as well.
186 00:17:12.240 ⇒ 00:17:23.050 Zoran Selinger: For some of us, it’s most of our days. It’s the speed work, trying to, to spin up, anything, like, ad hoc,
187 00:17:24.800 ⇒ 00:17:42.990 Zoran Selinger: dealing with outages, then if you’re CSO, they just really, at least in my experience for so far, it’s been just a flurry of requests that we have to, be able to handle. Some we reject, some we don’t.
188 00:17:43.050 ⇒ 00:17:58.360 Zoran Selinger: And there’s a lot of that. And then, obviously, if we do, if we do our work well, we will get those satisfying moments, where we are, you know, closing a major deal, or, or,
189 00:17:58.640 ⇒ 00:18:05.210 Zoran Selinger: Finally, Yeah, yeah, yeah, Utam. That’s it, that’s it.
190 00:18:05.300 ⇒ 00:18:20.640 Zoran Selinger: I think this is very typical for agency-type work, is that middle part is very typical. And actually, my… one of my professors at college, he did ask us about what do we think? Is it…
191 00:18:20.640 ⇒ 00:18:29.020 Zoran Selinger: Is it important… is it more important in agency life to be super precise or fast? And he… his…
192 00:18:29.690 ⇒ 00:18:49.400 Zoran Selinger: his, take was that it’s a little bit more important to be… to be fast. We don’t have to always be super precise. But we do have to be fast. And, I mean, everyone here, that’s… I mean, that’s my experience. Everywhere I’ve worked, this has been really, really important.
193 00:18:49.780 ⇒ 00:18:53.229 Zoran Selinger: So yeah, we can go to the next slide.
194 00:18:55.250 ⇒ 00:19:09.319 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, so the idea is that, we need all… we need all three, otherwise we absolutely burn out. So we need, in order to… for us to scale, we need to be really good at precision work.
195 00:19:09.450 ⇒ 00:19:24.170 Zoran Selinger: That’s mostly happening at the beginning of our engagements. It’s a really, really… if we are not… if you’re not doing those things slowly and precisely, it can be messy, really, really fast.
196 00:19:25.090 ⇒ 00:19:32.139 Zoran Selinger: then obviously, and we… you do get better, with work, at speed.
197 00:19:33.140 ⇒ 00:19:39.759 Zoran Selinger: And delivering that middle column that Utam, that Utam shared.
198 00:19:40.020 ⇒ 00:19:53.240 Zoran Selinger: And we are actually… we are very good at that as well. But at the end, you know, the most satisfying thing is that song, the mission that we provide,
199 00:19:53.490 ⇒ 00:19:57.020 Zoran Selinger: And yeah, that kind of makes it all worth it.
200 00:19:57.410 ⇒ 00:19:59.899 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, so that’s…
201 00:20:04.630 ⇒ 00:20:09.959 Uttam Kumaran: Nice. I like different analogies for, like, work, like, I feel like I do a lot of, like, cooking analogies.
202 00:20:10.110 ⇒ 00:20:14.399 Uttam Kumaran: like, half-baked or fully baked, but I think music is also a good one.
203 00:20:14.870 ⇒ 00:20:16.090 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, that’s great.
204 00:20:20.070 ⇒ 00:20:22.840 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, I like the last part, too, of,
205 00:20:23.240 ⇒ 00:20:29.309 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, when you finally get the reward, then you’re like, oh, yes, this is… this is great. Otherwise, yeah, so…
206 00:20:29.420 ⇒ 00:20:30.819 Luke Scorziell: I feel like I felt that this week.
207 00:20:31.770 ⇒ 00:20:34.910 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, and we’re practicing for the sake of practicing.
208 00:20:39.790 ⇒ 00:20:40.620 Luke Scorziell: Cool.
209 00:20:40.620 ⇒ 00:20:43.490 Uttam Kumaran: I’m gonna keep… I’ll keep my section brief, because I actually think…
210 00:20:43.680 ⇒ 00:20:53.679 Uttam Kumaran: B is gonna cover a lot of, like, what I’ve been thinking about the last two weeks. But really, we’re coming up on the last month of Q1, which is crazy.
211 00:20:53.940 ⇒ 00:21:09.009 Uttam Kumaran: I feel like we have changed. If I think back to where we started Q4, we’ve… we’re dramatically different. I think the theme of this year, if I was to look back at, like, sort of what we said, is really, like, trying to…
212 00:21:09.580 ⇒ 00:21:23.709 Uttam Kumaran: trying to build, like, stable growth. Like, I think Q4, we moved from, like, okay, we have a few clients, we’re building up a team, to, like, okay, now we have some stable clients that are signing for a year long, let’s nail them, and then continue to sell.
213 00:21:23.760 ⇒ 00:21:31.880 Uttam Kumaran: I think hopefully what everybody has seen, you know, in the past 2 months is that, we’ve brought on some more amazing people.
214 00:21:32.240 ⇒ 00:21:47.640 Uttam Kumaran: both folks that are executing daily, and then also folks that are leading entire work streams. So you can see, I think, you know, everybody has had a chance to interact, with Luke on his work on the go-to-market side. I’m sure, Kayla, you’ve now met
215 00:21:47.640 ⇒ 00:22:05.889 Uttam Kumaran: most, if not everyone on the team, and it’s leading recruiting side. As you guys know, we’ve started to spend a lot more time thinking about operations, and not just as a thing that Rico and I do on the side, but as, like, a true team, and how it affects everything. And so, I think as a…
216 00:22:05.940 ⇒ 00:22:15.650 Uttam Kumaran: sort of leadership group. We’ve now identified the core areas, which is, you know, sales, recruiting, operations, and then,
217 00:22:15.820 ⇒ 00:22:16.930 Uttam Kumaran: delivery.
218 00:22:17.500 ⇒ 00:22:19.430 Uttam Kumaran: And so…
219 00:22:19.520 ⇒ 00:22:35.839 Uttam Kumaran: we’re aligning as much of our weeks in how are each of those teams setting their goals and achieving those in a data-driven fashion. And so, the last few quarters, we have done OKRs, and this is the first quarter where, on a weekly basis, we’re measuring and attacking those.
220 00:22:35.840 ⇒ 00:22:49.640 Uttam Kumaran: But I think everything still stays the same. I know a lot of people are very busy, so if you’re involved in recruiting, you know how much we’re pushing there. You also can see the caliber of talent that’s coming down the pipe, which everybody should be super, super excited about.
221 00:22:49.640 ⇒ 00:23:03.679 Uttam Kumaran: And then we’re just continuing to sell, so continuing to try to refine our offering, and sell more deals. And then the last piece, is it all comes back to, like, how we’re delivering work for clients. So this is something I think,
222 00:23:03.700 ⇒ 00:23:21.960 Uttam Kumaran: Bea, in particular, and I have worked closely on over the past few weeks that he’ll be presenting on today, is like, you know, our biggest team is our delivery team, and so how are we delivering for clients? How is AI impacting that, and how does the delivery team, you know, arm everybody on the delivery side with tools?
223 00:23:21.960 ⇒ 00:23:34.550 Uttam Kumaran: how are we thinking about the structure? Like, this month, I’m doing a lot more reflection on our forging the Future structure with CSO, EPs, and SLs. What went well, what didn’t go well, and, like, how we can improve.
224 00:23:34.580 ⇒ 00:23:49.309 Uttam Kumaran: And as you can see, like, I’m… I’ve always been less about, like, some person didn’t do well, like, if things aren’t going well, it’s a we problem, and then it’s ultimately, like, a me problem. And so, it’s always a system that needs to work for us, and so we are refining that.
225 00:23:49.330 ⇒ 00:24:05.929 Uttam Kumaran: And just trying to make this, like, an easier place to get stuff done, for clients. So, yeah, maybe, Bea, I can pass it to you, and you can kind of go through, and I also think you’ve probably talked to everybody by now, but, would love you to share what you’ve worked on, and, sort of what our path forward is.
226 00:24:06.640 ⇒ 00:24:20.239 Brylle Girang: Yeah, sure. Thanks, Otem. Hi, everyone. I’m really happy that from the last 3 weeks, I was able to, like, speak to most, if not all, of the people here, and I’m really excited and stoked to kick this off.
227 00:24:22.940 ⇒ 00:24:31.849 Brylle Girang: just looking at this, I think that the flow of the bullets were not structured properly, so I wanted to start with cursor usage and commands.
228 00:24:31.950 ⇒ 00:24:43.550 Brylle Girang: One of our main goals here is to help the business and ultimately help the people drive ourselves to AI nativity in the next months or weeks or so.
229 00:24:43.760 ⇒ 00:24:53.270 Brylle Girang: We want to be in a place where AI and its usage, its implementation, is no longer going to be an afterthought. Rather,
230 00:24:53.340 ⇒ 00:25:11.260 Brylle Girang: something that we’re going… a go-to partner, a go-to tool for us. We don’t want you to just use AI if you’re blocked, we don’t want you to just use AI when you don’t know what to do with anything. We want you to use AI in the hopes that it will make things a lot faster, more efficient for you.
231 00:25:11.870 ⇒ 00:25:21.849 Brylle Girang: So we’re kicking this off by actually monitoring how we use and adopt the cursor. We can solve problems if we don’t analyze what the root causes are.
232 00:25:22.120 ⇒ 00:25:41.800 Brylle Girang: And I hope that you have seen my first report, where we have seen that 25% of our people here are using Cursor. And by use, I mean they’re actually utilizing cursor in a daily manner. Not just a one-time, big-time sonnet use in three weeks, but someone who’s actually
233 00:25:41.880 ⇒ 00:25:53.310 Brylle Girang: using Cursor as their go-to tool. I have talked with a lot of you, and some are still using ChatGPT, some are using Cloud Code. I chatted a while, those are still
234 00:25:53.580 ⇒ 00:25:55.210 Brylle Girang: useful tools.
235 00:25:55.540 ⇒ 00:25:57.399 Brylle Girang: I believe, and we believe that
236 00:25:57.740 ⇒ 00:26:04.639 Brylle Girang: cursor, with its connection to our repo, with our vault, with our second brain, is going to be the best path moving forward.
237 00:26:04.840 ⇒ 00:26:23.240 Brylle Girang: So, please expect that over the next few weeks, we’ll still continue to monitor the adoption rate. We’re hoping that this will… not hoping, we’re going to make sure that our adoption rate improves, and I’m going to make sure that I speak with everyone who has challenges with adapting cursor, who has challenges with… when it comes to
238 00:26:23.350 ⇒ 00:26:38.099 Brylle Girang: actually setting up cursor, etc, and one of the main things that I’m going to ask from you guys is to make sure that your challenges are known. If you think of any skills, any workflow that you want to automate.
239 00:26:38.100 ⇒ 00:26:51.400 Brylle Girang: friction points, paper cuts that you’re experiencing, those are the main things that we want to solve for you. Don’t think about the solution, think about the problem, and then we’ll be the ones to brainstorm how we can
240 00:26:51.710 ⇒ 00:26:52.909 Brylle Girang: get across.
241 00:26:54.110 ⇒ 00:27:06.209 Brylle Girang: Yeah, so we have released a few cursor workflows. Most of them are dedicated to our EPs. That includes the EP audits, and then the weekly kickoff updates, as well as the deck.
242 00:27:06.250 ⇒ 00:27:19.010 Brylle Girang: reps that we have shared to our EPs, and we will be sharing to the entire company in case you need it. And part of that, and part of the adoption that we’re pushing through, are the weekly digests that we’re planning.
243 00:27:19.120 ⇒ 00:27:31.119 Brylle Girang: So we have seen that we have been shipping amazing things, amazing stuff over to our repo, but we don’t really have a good way to… to present those or share that to you.
244 00:27:31.320 ⇒ 00:27:41.310 Brylle Girang: And the solution that we’re thinking of is just sending out a weekly digest every Monday, which we’re going to share the amazing stuff that the people have been building.
245 00:27:41.340 ⇒ 00:27:58.540 Brylle Girang: And if possible, with recorded walkthrough and sample use cases. Greg made an amazing point that it’s going to be nice if people actually see how it works, what it does, and not just reading the README file attached to it. So we promise and we’re committing that
246 00:27:58.720 ⇒ 00:28:07.630 Brylle Girang: Amazing stuff, the amazing stuff that we’re building, you actually get to see it, and maybe you can get some ideas on other things that we can build for you.
247 00:28:08.960 ⇒ 00:28:19.569 Brylle Girang: Okay, so going back to the first point, Monday service stand-ups to be converted to client-targeted stand-ups. We have seen over the past few weeks that
248 00:28:19.670 ⇒ 00:28:28.910 Brylle Girang: We need more time actually focusing on individual clients, checking the Gantt charts, checking our timelines, actually
249 00:28:29.200 ⇒ 00:28:34.219 Brylle Girang: Having a high-level view of what’s going on for individual clients, and we’re not
250 00:28:34.440 ⇒ 00:28:47.469 Brylle Girang: doing this effectively, using the Monday stand-ups, because there’s nothing really much going on between Fridays and Mondays, and the Monday stanzas are mostly just, you know, how are you doing? How was the weekend?
251 00:28:47.600 ⇒ 00:28:56.049 Brylle Girang: here’s our tickets, etc. We want to move from that mindset to actually planning for the month, or for the remaining weeks.
252 00:28:56.510 ⇒ 00:29:08.629 Brylle Girang: We’re still finalizing the schedule for this, but please expect that Mondays will now be dedicated to actually planning, checking, and documenting our progress for each client.
253 00:29:09.660 ⇒ 00:29:23.949 Brylle Girang: And then the last one, part of the things that we’re trying to study and part of the things that we’re trying to research are determining which tools are really effective for us, and which tools can we actually merge or replace to other tools.
254 00:29:24.070 ⇒ 00:29:30.259 Brylle Girang: We have been having challenges when it comes to tracking our Gantt charts, and
255 00:29:30.590 ⇒ 00:29:37.170 Brylle Girang: we want to make sure that we reduce the friction points for our CSOs, our EPs, and our SLs.
256 00:29:37.500 ⇒ 00:29:46.539 Brylle Girang: We know that instant and linear is disconnected, and there have been challenges when it comes to making sure that both are reflecting
257 00:29:46.610 ⇒ 00:30:06.079 Brylle Girang: the same side of the coin, right? So, we’re checking if we can replace Instagant within your projects, like, consolidate the Gantt charts and the tasks into one tool, and hopefully reduce the friction points so that we can actually focus on the foundational challenges that we’re having when it comes to project management.
258 00:30:07.470 ⇒ 00:30:18.289 Brylle Girang: That’s all for delivery for now, but we’re going to be pushing more skills over the next few weeks, pushing more workflows that helps us be more efficient.
259 00:30:18.500 ⇒ 00:30:31.139 Brylle Girang: some… some ideas are when it comes to operating resource allocation, actually checking how our resource looks for the month, etc. And we’re really excited to build things to make things easier for you guys.
260 00:30:31.480 ⇒ 00:30:35.080 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so I think on Mondays, we’re gonna just do a plan for the week.
261 00:30:35.420 ⇒ 00:30:40.879 Uttam Kumaran: And I think we previously did this, but we kind of batched it all. I think now…
262 00:30:40.990 ⇒ 00:30:48.710 Uttam Kumaran: like, just being able to start Monday, run some of these cursor skills that we’ll show in those meetings, to just get linear set up.
263 00:30:48.770 ⇒ 00:31:02.110 Uttam Kumaran: get the plan for the week, and be able to, like, hit your clients with, here’s our plan, I think is, like, a great thing to just rip through on Monday. I know it’s often not easy, because, like, messages start coming in on Monday, so I want to just make sure that
264 00:31:02.250 ⇒ 00:31:17.129 Uttam Kumaran: like, B and I help every CSO sort of make that happen. I know it has been difficult also just to keep Ganttards up to date, keep… so we’re trying to find ways to, like, help automate a lot of that, but it still is really important that, like.
265 00:31:17.260 ⇒ 00:31:24.830 Uttam Kumaran: when… if… if things are… aren’t going well, a client is gonna ask, like, where are we according to plan? And we always have to be ready for that, or…
266 00:31:24.970 ⇒ 00:31:36.639 Uttam Kumaran: within an hour, be able to be ready for that, right? So, let’s see how Monday goes, and I… again, I want to emphasize, like, we’ve built a lot in Cursor for everybody that’s doing client work,
267 00:31:36.920 ⇒ 00:31:51.749 Uttam Kumaran: And so, it’s like, it’s all sitting there for everyone to use, so, we’ll be a… you’ll see us be a little bit more forward with, like, hey, if you’re not using it, why not? How can we help, you know, show you how, or build things particular for you and your team, so…
268 00:31:52.690 ⇒ 00:31:53.440 Uttam Kumaran: Cool.
269 00:31:59.000 ⇒ 00:32:05.410 Rico Rejoso: Yep, for the operations, quick updates, and, we updated some form and added a few.
270 00:32:05.740 ⇒ 00:32:11.750 Rico Rejoso: Right, so first is the out-of-office form for those that haven’t tried it yet, or is wondering where to submit.
271 00:32:12.060 ⇒ 00:32:27.320 Rico Rejoso: You can just go to Slack and type in forward slash ask, then enter, fill out the form, then submit. Just ensure that you submitted two weeks prior to the out-of-office date, and ensure that all tasks and responsibility are covered or handed off.
272 00:32:27.420 ⇒ 00:32:43.710 Rico Rejoso: Right. So, yeah, mainly, for operations or a base are just these forms that we wanted to, highlight for the team and make sure that everyone’s utilizing it or using it, instead of, going directly to the operations team. Another one would be the SICK form that we just, created.
273 00:32:45.080 ⇒ 00:32:51.320 Rico Rejoso: Same with the out-of-office process, you just, type in in Slack, forward slash, then ask.
274 00:32:51.490 ⇒ 00:32:55.020 Rico Rejoso: And select the SICK form instead, and fill it out.
275 00:32:55.250 ⇒ 00:33:02.979 Rico Rejoso: Now, for this one, you can also change your Slack status for awareness, and inform the team about your absence, and ensure tasks are handed off.
276 00:33:02.990 ⇒ 00:33:19.110 Rico Rejoso: Now, for the out-of-office, there’s no limit to the PTO, currently, and none are being denied, but let’s make sure to follow the policy and guidelines when requesting for it. Again, non-compliant of the policy may result to escalation. Now, for the
277 00:33:19.180 ⇒ 00:33:25.269 Rico Rejoso: SickForm, I mean, since we are a remote company, communication is key, and we…
278 00:33:25.410 ⇒ 00:33:29.359 Rico Rejoso: have to inform our team if we are out, although we know that
279 00:33:29.660 ⇒ 00:33:36.509 Rico Rejoso: This might be difficult since, again, you’re sick. However, we still need to consider the work left and the team member that will be covering your task for that day.
280 00:33:36.680 ⇒ 00:33:37.390 Rico Rejoso: Okay.
281 00:33:37.580 ⇒ 00:33:52.539 Rico Rejoso: So, all of those can be done, in Slack. Another would be the expense request. Where to find it can be done through Slack, again, by typing in forward slash request, request, sorry, dash expense, or go to the Notion form, which is found in the current homepage.
282 00:33:53.220 ⇒ 00:34:11.919 Rico Rejoso: Now, for those that are wondering what is an expense request, this is a request form for equipments, new software, and other expenses. The approval process for it will be reviewed within 48 hours after submitting it, and please take note that all requests are also being reviewed internally on a weekly basis.
283 00:34:12.130 ⇒ 00:34:30.970 Rico Rejoso: Now, for info about payments and reimbursement, it is all in the Notion form or team policy that we created, and we will also be sending out a message in our team channel for all the forms and SOP documentation that we have created in regards to the policy that we had.
284 00:34:31.070 ⇒ 00:34:35.590 Rico Rejoso: Lastly, we have the tool access requests.
285 00:34:35.699 ⇒ 00:34:43.530 Rico Rejoso: which can also be accessed in Slack by typing in forward slash request dash access, fill out the form and submit.
286 00:34:43.580 ⇒ 00:35:00.379 Rico Rejoso: Now, we prefer this than… or rather than sending a direct message, to operations team, mainly because we can track and ensure that we can provide, the access in less than 48 hours. So for all, of this, which involves all team members,
287 00:35:00.510 ⇒ 00:35:09.790 Rico Rejoso: Operation… the operations team are committed to provide respond, or provide you with the access and everything within the next… within the next 48 hours after submitting.
288 00:35:10.140 ⇒ 00:35:15.319 Rico Rejoso: That’s it for our updates. Any questions so far in regards to the policy that we have?
289 00:35:19.660 ⇒ 00:35:33.150 Rico Rejoso: Alright, if none, again, operations will send out a message in the Brainforge team channel with all the policy that we mentioned, and its documentation. Feel free to leave a question or comment on that thread. Thank you, team.
290 00:35:38.570 ⇒ 00:35:40.790 Rico Rejoso: Alright, next for recruitment, Kayla.
291 00:35:41.240 ⇒ 00:35:59.120 Kaela Gallagher: Okay, yeah, just hopping into a couple recruitment updates. Just wanted to say, first off, thank you, everybody, for such a warm welcome. It’s been great getting to know each of you, the past couple weeks, and also just a huge shout out to everybody who’s been involved in our interview processes. You guys have
292 00:35:59.120 ⇒ 00:36:10.489 Kaela Gallagher: you know, provided really quick feedback and just created a great candidate experience. I’ve already received messages from candidates saying they’re even more exciting after chatting with, our interviewers, so…
293 00:36:10.490 ⇒ 00:36:13.029 Kaela Gallagher: Thank you all for the support there.
294 00:36:13.030 ⇒ 00:36:21.320 Kaela Gallagher: Just a quick update on our, our, pipeline, which is basically all of our candidates that we have in consideration.
295 00:36:21.320 ⇒ 00:36:38.700 Kaela Gallagher: In the past week and a half, we received 90 applications, and, we currently have two final rounds happening next week for engineering roles, and a couple more that we’ll be scheduling soon. So, really exciting, exciting. I know Utal mentioned, but we, we have
296 00:36:38.700 ⇒ 00:36:53.619 Kaela Gallagher: Really amazing candidates in the interview process right now, so very excited about that. And I’m sure you guys will be meeting some of them soon. One thing that I did want to highlight is our referral bonus, which we’re rolling out.
297 00:36:53.810 ⇒ 00:37:09.750 Kaela Gallagher: So we have a document, which I can send to the team after this. It’s a Notion that outlines our entire referral policy, but I did want to highlight here, like, the minimum amount that you would receive for referring somebody is $1,500.
298 00:37:09.750 ⇒ 00:37:21.079 Kaela Gallagher: There are multipliers, as you can see, if they’re, you know, mid or senior level, or if we label them as a critical hire, that… that amount can more than double.
299 00:37:21.080 ⇒ 00:37:32.940 Kaela Gallagher: So very excited about this. If you have anybody that you’d like to refer to Brainforge, I would be happy to personally meet them. I’ll send my calendar after this as well. But…
300 00:37:33.050 ⇒ 00:37:45.820 Kaela Gallagher: what I’ve found from hiring people for years is referrals are always the best way to hire. They always produce the most exciting candidates, so I’m really happy to chat with anybody that you guys might have.
301 00:37:48.160 ⇒ 00:37:49.330 Kaela Gallagher: That’s it for me.
302 00:37:56.630 ⇒ 00:38:00.050 Luke Scorziell: Alright, my microphone is on.
303 00:38:00.410 ⇒ 00:38:06.699 Luke Scorziell: Weekly… weekly meme has arrived, for all of y’all engineers, documenting
304 00:38:07.280 ⇒ 00:38:14.339 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, so… so I’ll just… I’ll just kind of go through a quick story of, and then I’ll get into my slide, but…
305 00:38:14.560 ⇒ 00:38:20.560 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, one day, I was on our normal sales meeting, and and then Pranav showed up.
306 00:38:21.310 ⇒ 00:38:25.940 Luke Scorziell: And, I was like, oh, what’s Pranav doing here? He’s not on sales.
307 00:38:26.060 ⇒ 00:38:32.800 Luke Scorziell: And then Robert said Pranav was more interested… interested in getting more into sales, and so…
308 00:38:33.630 ⇒ 00:38:44.439 Luke Scorziell: I was very happy to take Pranav up on that, and then Pranav also happened to work on Lilo, which was an agency, or it is slash…
309 00:38:44.980 ⇒ 00:38:50.430 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, unclear where Alilo’s maybe currently at. But,
310 00:38:51.420 ⇒ 00:38:55.389 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, so essentially, we launched a whole service line together.
311 00:39:02.580 ⇒ 00:39:04.300 Uttam Kumaran: Cutting out Luke.
312 00:39:04.720 ⇒ 00:39:08.600 Luke Scorziell: to, what… so I want to invite… dang, am I freezing up?
313 00:39:09.690 ⇒ 00:39:11.490 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, maybe turn off video.
314 00:39:11.910 ⇒ 00:39:16.619 Luke Scorziell: Okay, this is… I need, yeah, give me one sec.
315 00:39:27.130 ⇒ 00:39:29.099 Luke Scorziell: How… how is that?
316 00:39:29.600 ⇒ 00:39:30.160 Uttam Kumaran: Good.
317 00:39:32.980 ⇒ 00:39:36.310 Uttam Kumaran: You may have to turn your sound off on one of them.
318 00:39:36.660 ⇒ 00:39:40.300 Luke Scorziell: Okay, I’ll just… okay, I will do this from my phone.
319 00:39:40.410 ⇒ 00:39:43.619 Luke Scorziell: Waiting on my Starlink.
320 00:39:44.180 ⇒ 00:39:45.190 Uttam Kumaran: Wi-Fi.
321 00:39:45.390 ⇒ 00:39:46.850 Luke Scorziell: Anyways…
322 00:39:47.420 ⇒ 00:39:58.839 Luke Scorziell: So, yeah, Pranav, wanted to hop into sales, and he did, and so we got on a couple demo calls, or, like, discovery calls with clients, and then kind of learned
323 00:39:59.120 ⇒ 00:40:03.370 Luke Scorziell: like, what agencies are looking for with AI that allowed us to kind of build out
324 00:40:03.710 ⇒ 00:40:07.149 Luke Scorziell: Some pain points, that they’re experiencing.
325 00:40:07.300 ⇒ 00:40:21.139 Luke Scorziell: And then, kind of off of that, we just decided to run an office hours, which we just completed yesterday, and invited around 50 people. That led to 20 different conversations, with people either
326 00:40:21.320 ⇒ 00:40:31.269 Luke Scorziell: signing up, said 12 people RSVP’d, or, we had around 8… around 8 conversations with people who were not able to come, but were really interested in the event.
327 00:40:31.530 ⇒ 00:40:36.830 Luke Scorziell: And so, yeah, this has been, like, the highest leverage,
328 00:40:37.010 ⇒ 00:40:44.220 Luke Scorziell: way, at least this far, that we’ve found to get more marketing-qualified leads. And so…
329 00:40:44.440 ⇒ 00:40:57.019 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, and so, I don’t know, I mean, Pranav can chime in if he wants, but it’s been really fun to get to work together, where he’s been able to answer more technical questions on some of the calls that we’ve been on, and
330 00:40:57.240 ⇒ 00:41:03.850 Luke Scorziell: I’ll push them along, and then, join in the sales process. And what I didn’t put on this slide is that we also have
331 00:41:04.020 ⇒ 00:41:17.429 Luke Scorziell: there’s a nice bonus for anyone who brings in new deals, too. So, it’s not just getting to spend fun time with me, although that is a nice benefit, I guess.
332 00:41:17.750 ⇒ 00:41:26.360 Luke Scorziell: So, yeah, Pranav, I didn’t really prep you for sharing anything, but I don’t know if you’d want to share, like, how your experience was with
333 00:41:26.600 ⇒ 00:41:33.410 Luke Scorziell: Kind of doing this, and yeah, even just your reflections on the demo yesterday, and what you’re thinking about going forward.
334 00:41:34.040 ⇒ 00:41:35.519 Pranav Narahari: Yeah, so…
335 00:41:35.650 ⇒ 00:41:42.059 Pranav Narahari: Couple of things that I’d mention, too, is, like, it helps a lot from the delivery side, too, to, like.
336 00:41:42.130 ⇒ 00:41:43.540 Pranav Narahari: Be in these calls.
337 00:41:43.570 ⇒ 00:41:57.700 Pranav Narahari: First off, if it turns into a client, you, like, you’re with the client from, like, beginning to end, which is, you know, great. But also, just, like, even if it doesn’t turn into a client, you’re always thinking of just, like.
338 00:41:57.700 ⇒ 00:42:14.010 Pranav Narahari: unique solutions. The… because they’ll come to you with problems in these, like, discovery calls, and then you’ll be talking about, like, okay, different type of designs that you think could work for them, and then just, like, being able to just exercise that part of your brain more has been… it’s just…
339 00:42:14.040 ⇒ 00:42:18.169 Pranav Narahari: useful for all other aspects of, like, what I’m doing here in Brainforge.
340 00:42:18.220 ⇒ 00:42:27.730 Pranav Narahari: And then that’s just only compounded yesterday from office hours, right? You’re getting a bunch of different, like, problems from different individuals in different spaces, and…
341 00:42:27.920 ⇒ 00:42:30.900 Pranav Narahari: you’re just exercising that muscle.
342 00:42:31.460 ⇒ 00:42:46.149 Pranav Narahari: And so, yeah, specifically as, like, a CSO, too, so I’m, like, client-facing, that is obviously a really… you’re exercising a different muscle there, but it’s always with the same client. Here, it’s… you’re exercising in a different way.
343 00:42:46.400 ⇒ 00:42:55.829 Pranav Narahari: Yeah, Zoran, that was one thing I was gonna mention to you, too, like, I love the music analogy, and I was thinking the entire time, like, exercise as the analogy as well.
344 00:42:56.470 ⇒ 00:43:08.199 Pranav Narahari: Yeah, I would say, yeah, Luke, overall, like, it’s been great to kind of, like, have your perspective on things on these, but then for me to be able to chime in and add value, like, it’s fun, but it’s also, I feel like it’s, it’s working out well.
345 00:43:09.100 ⇒ 00:43:15.570 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, sweet, yeah, thanks for sharing. And so, I guess, Pranav has gotten to be…
346 00:43:15.730 ⇒ 00:43:25.669 Luke Scorziell: very exquisite Winnie the Pooh, where he… he’s running office hours for people. I don’t know, the rest of you can evaluate whether you’re…
347 00:43:25.740 ⇒ 00:43:38.769 Luke Scorziell: basic Winnie the Pooh, still just writing code, and I mean, maybe you don’t… you’re not even writing code anymore, you’re using Cursor to do what you do. Or if you’ve joined in a sales demo, but yeah, I want to level you guys all up.
348 00:43:39.040 ⇒ 00:43:48.540 Luke Scorziell: To that top one. And then the last thing I’ll share here, too, is that this has a pretty compounding effect across just marketing and sales, because
349 00:43:48.700 ⇒ 00:43:54.110 Luke Scorziell: As we do each of the… just yesterday, like, we were on the phone, as Pranav said, with
350 00:43:54.580 ⇒ 00:44:10.560 Luke Scorziell: people who are at entry level and people who are more senior, and they’re all asking different questions, and so now, as we go into future sales calls, we have a lot of ammunition for, like, what we can share about pain points that people have talked about. But then Ryan now has a transcript of
351 00:44:11.040 ⇒ 00:44:18.679 Luke Scorziell: All the questions that people asked, during the call, that then we can just turn into content for the next month, or the next few weeks.
352 00:44:18.760 ⇒ 00:44:38.389 Luke Scorziell: And then, now we have video that we can start posting. So, and that allows Robert or Tom, myself, anyone who’s doing selling, or even, yeah, I guess on the recruiting side, too, to be able to show more of, like, what are we doing in the business, and what are the questions that we’re helping solve.
353 00:44:38.530 ⇒ 00:44:42.989 Luke Scorziell: So, yeah, I will continue to push for more engineers to come.
354 00:44:43.220 ⇒ 00:44:48.549 Luke Scorziell: my direction, and I wanna… I wanna work with you all to have service lines.
355 00:44:52.620 ⇒ 00:44:53.350 Uttam Kumaran: Nice.
356 00:45:04.290 ⇒ 00:45:06.120 Uttam Kumaran: Cool, any shoutouts this week?
357 00:45:14.530 ⇒ 00:45:21.059 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, I mean, we got a really great message about Amber’s work on Eden.
358 00:45:21.880 ⇒ 00:45:31.049 Zoran Selinger: So I’d like to shout that out. I mean, we, we got a few, there’s a few messages in the, in the, in the group, group channel.
359 00:45:31.580 ⇒ 00:45:37.750 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, so we were… I think… Amble is really similar.
360 00:45:37.930 ⇒ 00:45:41.299 Zoran Selinger: Similar, client, and…
361 00:45:41.550 ⇒ 00:45:48.409 Zoran Selinger: data structure is very similar, since they use Bask, and I think Ambro is also gonna do great work there.
362 00:45:48.740 ⇒ 00:45:50.589 Zoran Selinger: So I’m, yeah, excited.
363 00:45:50.880 ⇒ 00:45:52.949 Zoran Selinger: To see how we do there.
364 00:45:55.790 ⇒ 00:45:56.570 Uttam Kumaran: Amazing.
365 00:45:58.180 ⇒ 00:46:03.230 Pranav Narahari: Yeah, I have a quick shout-out for Amber and Casey for helping me out on getting…
366 00:46:03.370 ⇒ 00:46:14.160 Pranav Narahari: acclimated to ABC. Most of that onboarding’s been happening this week, so that’s been great. And then also to, like, Luke and Robert for just involving me more into the sales stuff.
367 00:46:14.320 ⇒ 00:46:17.250 Pranav Narahari: That’s been… that’s been a lot of fun, too.
368 00:46:23.550 ⇒ 00:46:41.960 Kaela Gallagher: I’ll give shoutouts to both Amber and Demi. You guys both hit one year with Brainforge this week, so congrats for that. I know I, sent messages in the Slack chat, but if you guys have, like, a funny story that you ever want to share when I send one of those messages, or,
369 00:46:41.960 ⇒ 00:46:47.859 Kaela Gallagher: just, like, kudos for the person, like, would love to have that in the Slack thread as well, but shout out to both of you.
370 00:46:53.770 ⇒ 00:46:58.210 Luke Scorziell: I’ll shout out, Hannah, and…
371 00:46:58.540 ⇒ 00:47:05.540 Luke Scorziell: First, and then I can shout out Ryan, but yeah, Hannah really helped drive a lot of the office hours, planning and logistics,
372 00:47:05.780 ⇒ 00:47:10.409 Luke Scorziell: And yeah, just putting together the backend infrastructure, and I think that, yeah, there are a lot of things that…
373 00:47:10.570 ⇒ 00:47:15.480 Luke Scorziell: I… I’m able to just say, let’s do this, and then she actually has to.
374 00:47:15.950 ⇒ 00:47:24.199 Luke Scorziell: follow through, and sometimes there are more complications than I know about, so yeah, shout out to you for… for dealing with that, and especially with the,
375 00:47:24.830 ⇒ 00:47:32.609 Luke Scorziell: like, the mixed panel event chaos, that’s ensued after we weren’t able to get our refund, I was like, I don’t even know that was still happening.
376 00:47:32.750 ⇒ 00:47:38.669 Luke Scorziell: So, yeah, I appreciate you on that. And then, yeah, Ryan, I think yesterday,
377 00:47:39.280 ⇒ 00:47:43.559 Luke Scorziell: one of our meetings, I don’t know what happened, but he just, like, unleashed just…
378 00:47:43.790 ⇒ 00:47:52.569 Luke Scorziell: a series of really incredible ideas, and I was like, yeah, I would love to help you drive these, so I think,
379 00:47:52.920 ⇒ 00:48:00.760 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, that… that was… that was really great. So we already outlined a plan this morning. It’s, like, starting to add more agency connections, on my account.
380 00:48:01.110 ⇒ 00:48:04.560 Luke Scorziell: And then we’re thinking of the same thing, like, how we can run the same playbook on…
381 00:48:04.860 ⇒ 00:48:12.869 Luke Scorziell: Robert and New Tom’s account, so that we’re daily sending out LinkedIn messages. So, yeah, appreciate your ideas there, Ryan.
382 00:48:19.220 ⇒ 00:48:20.490 Uttam Kumaran: Nice, amazing.
383 00:48:24.000 ⇒ 00:48:24.770 Uttam Kumaran: Cool.
384 00:48:28.140 ⇒ 00:48:29.770 Uttam Kumaran: Anything else?
385 00:48:34.740 ⇒ 00:48:48.840 Uttam Kumaran: Great, so hopefully by the time we meet as a group next, we’ll have some, you know, sight into, next quarter’s, like, OKRs, and that’s what, kind of, we’ll be working on this month. But yeah, like, super, super productive week, so…
386 00:48:49.000 ⇒ 00:48:51.059 Uttam Kumaran: Appreciate the effort, everybody.
387 00:48:54.240 ⇒ 00:48:54.650 Rico Rejoso: Thank you, guys.
388 00:48:55.330 ⇒ 00:48:57.820 Brylle Girang: Thank you. Thanks, everyone! Happy Friday. Bye-bye.
389 00:48:57.990 ⇒ 00:48:58.889 Luke Scorziell: Good Friday.