Meeting Title: Eden Long-Term Roadmap Planning Date: 2025-11-04 Meeting participants: Henry Zhao, Uttam Kumaran, Zoran Selinger
WEBVTT
1 00:02:33.170 ⇒ 00:02:34.150 Uttam Kumaran: Can you hear me?
2 00:02:35.940 ⇒ 00:02:37.179 Henry Zhao: Yeah, I can hear you.
3 00:02:37.180 ⇒ 00:02:37.870 Uttam Kumaran: Hey…
4 00:02:38.570 ⇒ 00:02:39.400 Zoran Selinger: Hi, guys.
5 00:02:39.840 ⇒ 00:02:40.650 Uttam Kumaran: Hey.
6 00:02:42.460 ⇒ 00:02:43.550 Uttam Kumaran: How’s everything?
7 00:02:44.380 ⇒ 00:02:47.749 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, yeah, good. I’m good, just working on…
8 00:02:48.630 ⇒ 00:02:52.459 Zoran Selinger: This search stuff, very interesting, I’m really happy with…
9 00:02:52.720 ⇒ 00:02:56.499 Zoran Selinger: The idea, and it looks like we’re gonna be able to do it.
10 00:02:56.900 ⇒ 00:02:57.560 Uttam Kumaran: Cool.
11 00:02:57.920 ⇒ 00:02:58.530 Zoran Selinger: Yeah.
12 00:02:59.060 ⇒ 00:03:07.339 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I just wanted to grab this time to maybe talk through, like, how we want to, you know, leverage the new budget for…
13 00:03:07.580 ⇒ 00:03:14.840 Uttam Kumaran: like, long-term roadmap for Eden. This can be kind of just, like, a… more of a discussion…
14 00:03:15.180 ⇒ 00:03:19.370 Uttam Kumaran: between us, and then I can kind of help take this and shape it into…
15 00:03:19.940 ⇒ 00:03:25.030 Uttam Kumaran: A roadmap, but, you know, we… we just secured another…
16 00:03:25.150 ⇒ 00:03:34.050 Uttam Kumaran: you know, 10 grand, and that kind of hopefully supports you, Zoran, you know, on this client for, you know, that roughly, like, 15 to 20 hours a week.
17 00:03:34.390 ⇒ 00:03:39.550 Uttam Kumaran: So I just want to make sure that we are not only doing what we do.
18 00:03:40.060 ⇒ 00:03:43.670 Uttam Kumaran: So far, which is just, like, fixing issues, of which they have a lot.
19 00:03:44.050 ⇒ 00:03:50.200 Uttam Kumaran: But we also need to continue to push the business forward in, like, a measurable way.
20 00:03:50.410 ⇒ 00:03:55.230 Uttam Kumaran: And so… Yeah, I just kind of, like, wanted to have a discussion on, like.
21 00:03:55.580 ⇒ 00:03:58.400 Uttam Kumaran: Kind of, like, probably different than…
22 00:03:58.730 ⇒ 00:04:02.770 Uttam Kumaran: We usually have, which is, like, thinking a little bit long-term.
23 00:04:02.900 ⇒ 00:04:06.589 Uttam Kumaran: You know, if you think in, like, quarterly increments.
24 00:04:07.210 ⇒ 00:04:12.510 Uttam Kumaran: what do we think, like, we can accomplish? What do you… what is your, like, sort of understanding of the current state?
25 00:04:13.030 ⇒ 00:04:15.430 Uttam Kumaran: And yeah, maybe we can go from there.
26 00:04:18.350 ⇒ 00:04:22.209 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, yeah, so the curr- current state,
27 00:04:22.700 ⇒ 00:04:33.950 Zoran Selinger: It’s just feel like Qatar is really trying to understand how to allocate the budgets, and this seems to be, like, the immediate problem that he has.
28 00:04:36.250 ⇒ 00:04:43.909 Zoran Selinger: And really wants to understand that, so I think that’s… that’s really the first thing we need to figure out, maybe, that gets sold with…
29 00:04:44.440 ⇒ 00:04:49.890 Zoran Selinger: Properly implementing an attribution tool, or we created our own.
30 00:04:50.560 ⇒ 00:04:52.070 Zoran Selinger: Create our own.
31 00:04:52.240 ⇒ 00:05:00.370 Zoran Selinger: So that’s kind of the immediate stuff. We did get from, from one of the last meetings, we did get,
32 00:05:01.300 ⇒ 00:05:03.720 Zoran Selinger: a roadmap of what I want to do.
33 00:05:03.720 ⇒ 00:05:04.310 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
34 00:05:04.670 ⇒ 00:05:06.269 Zoran Selinger: In the next,
35 00:05:06.540 ⇒ 00:05:14.770 Zoran Selinger: In the next while. Okay. I don’t remember where that is exactly. So, who was on that call?
36 00:05:15.740 ⇒ 00:05:16.710 Zoran Selinger: Hmm.
37 00:05:20.210 ⇒ 00:05:22.070 Zoran Selinger: But I can… I can dig that up.
38 00:05:22.400 ⇒ 00:05:28.719 Zoran Selinger: So he kind of gave us, a little bit of a roadmap, or where they would like to be.
39 00:05:29.330 ⇒ 00:05:30.050 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
40 00:05:30.050 ⇒ 00:05:35.899 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, and first thing on… on that was… was the… the attribution bit.
41 00:05:38.330 ⇒ 00:05:51.379 Zoran Selinger: So, again, I’m kind of getting familiar with what… what we are doing, and what we are able to do as well, so it’s still hard for me to do a little bit, you know.
42 00:05:51.830 ⇒ 00:06:01.850 Zoran Selinger: a more general conversation around that, and… and maybe more long-term conversation about that, because I’m still figuring out what… what it is that we do.
43 00:06:04.090 ⇒ 00:06:04.810 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, and…
44 00:06:04.810 ⇒ 00:06:05.840 Zoran Selinger: Yeah.
45 00:06:05.840 ⇒ 00:06:23.250 Uttam Kumaran: But, you know, an even easier way to start is even just to think about, like, what are their goals, and, like, do they have measurable KPIs towards them? Like, do you think from Qatar and the folks that you’re working for, you have a sense of, like, where they’re trying to go in, like, some measurable fashion?
46 00:06:24.000 ⇒ 00:06:26.730 Zoran Selinger: They do have a sense of where they want to go.
47 00:06:27.780 ⇒ 00:06:31.790 Zoran Selinger: in a measurable fashion, I… I’m not sure. I’m not.
48 00:06:31.790 ⇒ 00:06:39.959 Uttam Kumaran: Meaning, like, the KPI itself can be measured. It doesn’t need to have been now. Like, that’s all… that’s where we come in.
49 00:06:40.220 ⇒ 00:06:49.760 Uttam Kumaran: But I guess I’m trying to understand, like, what are their… what are the goals for that team? And then we can start there, at least by establishing, like, what those are.
50 00:06:54.370 ⇒ 00:07:00.500 Uttam Kumaran: like, do they… is it… are the goals, like, revenue? Are the goals customer acquisition? Is it, like, limiting…
51 00:07:00.790 ⇒ 00:07:06.020 Uttam Kumaran: marketing spend, is it LTV? Like, do you know, kind of, like, what they’re trying to get to?
52 00:07:07.050 ⇒ 00:07:10.840 Zoran Selinger: I mean, did you have those conversations before with them?
53 00:07:11.870 ⇒ 00:07:20.469 Uttam Kumaran: We did, but this is, I guess, like, what I’m expecting from you guys. Like, you guys are the ones that are working with them every day. Like, Robert and I…
54 00:07:21.010 ⇒ 00:07:27.700 Uttam Kumaran: are, like, Robert is the one that’s owning the conversation with the leadership team, but they’re not gonna be at this depth.
55 00:07:27.890 ⇒ 00:07:32.620 Uttam Kumaran: So what I need from you guys is, for the marketing team, what are…
56 00:07:33.030 ⇒ 00:07:41.460 Uttam Kumaran: the goals, and if you don’t know, then this is a question to ask. Like, this is the… this is the P0 question to get an understanding of, because we can’t build a roadmap
57 00:07:41.960 ⇒ 00:08:00.449 Uttam Kumaran: There’s… partly we can build a roadmap to continue fixing issues, but I don’t want… if we get… if we just fix issues and come out the other side, and Eden isn’t any different, then we’re… it’s not a success for us, right? So we succeed if they succeed, and if they don’t know what success is, then we need to define that for them.
58 00:08:00.860 ⇒ 00:08:12.989 Henry Zhao: At least I know Judd’s goals. So Judd, on email marketing, his goals are purely retention. So he wants to improve the retention rates with win-back campaigns and abandoned cart campaigns.
59 00:08:13.500 ⇒ 00:08:14.160 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
60 00:08:15.130 ⇒ 00:08:16.570 Uttam Kumaran: But at least that’s one thing.
61 00:08:17.330 ⇒ 00:08:18.250 Uttam Kumaran: For me.
62 00:08:18.250 ⇒ 00:08:26.129 Henry Zhao: We just assume that Cutter and Matthias are… minimize affiliate spend while maximizing the new customers and decreasing NCAC.
63 00:08:27.490 ⇒ 00:08:34.510 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I think what I want our team to do is, we’re the… we’re the data folks on this side, and so for us.
64 00:08:34.760 ⇒ 00:08:40.530 Uttam Kumaran: If that’s their level of understanding, for me, what my next question’s gonna be, okay, what are all those metrics today?
65 00:08:40.700 ⇒ 00:08:43.109 Uttam Kumaran: And what is a reasonable expectation?
66 00:08:43.390 ⇒ 00:08:45.709 Uttam Kumaran: What is a reasonable goal for, like.
67 00:08:46.390 ⇒ 00:08:53.939 Uttam Kumaran: The end of this quarter, the end of next quarter, and then… then we start that, and then break it down into the tasks.
68 00:08:54.180 ⇒ 00:09:02.869 Uttam Kumaran: Right? For example, if you’re like, hey, we want to keep NCAC the same while increasing our customers to this rate, okay.
69 00:09:03.110 ⇒ 00:09:10.970 Uttam Kumaran: we know… we know where we are, and we know where we want to get to, and then I would like to have a conversation of, like, what are the things we’re working on?
70 00:09:11.190 ⇒ 00:09:20.909 Uttam Kumaran: Because when you go to… at this level, when we go to these guys, they’ll be fine. They know exactly, like, what they need to do, and they know exactly
71 00:09:21.050 ⇒ 00:09:26.500 Uttam Kumaran: They’re gonna be okay with whatever we decide to do, but at the leadership level.
72 00:09:26.700 ⇒ 00:09:36.310 Uttam Kumaran: they have no clue. And so if we go in and say, hey, we’re doing 100 things, but there’s no clear, like, hey, we’re starting here, we’re trying to get here, and here’s our path.
73 00:09:36.470 ⇒ 00:09:44.310 Uttam Kumaran: that’s what we’re tasked to deliver with them. So, my real question for this crew is to understand what is our current
74 00:09:44.720 ⇒ 00:09:45.790 Uttam Kumaran: metrics?
75 00:09:45.910 ⇒ 00:09:52.230 Uttam Kumaran: Like, what is our current state of the core metrics that the team you’re supporting cares about?
76 00:09:52.640 ⇒ 00:10:11.789 Uttam Kumaran: what are their goals, right? And it… it doesn’t necessarily have to be… it could be increased, decrease, or stay the same, right? There’s only… there’s only 3 options. And so to think really just in that very, very basic level, just start there. And also think about, like, what the slide we’re gonna put in front of the leadership team is, right? When we go to the CEO,
77 00:10:11.850 ⇒ 00:10:15.919 Uttam Kumaran: We’re gonna say, hey, Given you gave us this budget.
78 00:10:16.310 ⇒ 00:10:21.569 Uttam Kumaran: We did… we discovered… we found that the main team’s goals are to move from here to here.
79 00:10:21.990 ⇒ 00:10:29.010 Uttam Kumaran: And that’s, like, the first thing that we start with, and get agreement on. Then we say, here’s how we are going to accomplish that.
80 00:10:29.120 ⇒ 00:10:30.730 Uttam Kumaran: Given, like, the budget?
81 00:10:30.860 ⇒ 00:10:34.960 Uttam Kumaran: And… And then we… we say, are we… do we get a green light?
82 00:10:35.680 ⇒ 00:10:40.389 Uttam Kumaran: Right, so that’s what I want to deliver to Robert to go make the pitch.
83 00:10:41.940 ⇒ 00:10:43.709 Uttam Kumaran: And so that’s what… that’s what…
84 00:10:43.920 ⇒ 00:10:50.499 Uttam Kumaran: the three of us need to work on. Because otherwise, we’re gonna be stuck in this, like, fixing mode. We’re never gonna…
85 00:10:50.790 ⇒ 00:11:01.679 Uttam Kumaran: and I want them to be able to make a decision on, hey, we have things that need to get patched, but we also need to accomplish these goals. What do you want us to do? The problem is, if we never surface that.
86 00:11:01.890 ⇒ 00:11:03.210 Uttam Kumaran: We get jammed.
87 00:11:03.500 ⇒ 00:11:09.360 Uttam Kumaran: And so we can’t… we can’t afford to get jammed. And so for us, we need to always have
88 00:11:09.460 ⇒ 00:11:14.530 Uttam Kumaran: Both tech debt backlog in mine, and we need to have
89 00:11:14.850 ⇒ 00:11:24.449 Uttam Kumaran: progressive, opportunistic things that we’re going after. New technologies, new ways of doing things, and so that’s what I want us to consider here.
90 00:11:24.650 ⇒ 00:11:29.949 Uttam Kumaran: So… Yeah, I guess I’ll pause there for any…
91 00:11:30.150 ⇒ 00:11:36.440 Uttam Kumaran: Thoughts, or do we… do we feel confident in, like, accomplishing that in a certain timeframe?
92 00:11:37.050 ⇒ 00:11:44.630 Uttam Kumaran: You know, like, what is the… what is the… what do you guys think is the path towards getting to even something around, like, hey, where do we want to head?
93 00:11:47.540 ⇒ 00:11:57.359 Zoran Selinger: I mean, we have to talk to the key people, I’m still… and I’ll ask you to let me know. Sure. I’m still not sure…
94 00:11:58.110 ⇒ 00:12:01.500 Zoran Selinger: Who, who, like, that, their,
95 00:12:01.720 ⇒ 00:12:05.360 Zoran Selinger: organization structure. I don’t know exactly who to talk to.
96 00:12:05.360 ⇒ 00:12:12.040 Henry Zhao: I can add you to our weekly calls, Aran, and just make sure Mitesh attends tomorrow, but it’s Mitesh and Cutter that’s usually in our weekly call.
97 00:12:13.240 ⇒ 00:12:19.430 Zoran Selinger: Okay, I understand Carter, what’s his, function?
98 00:12:21.420 ⇒ 00:12:22.430 Zoran Selinger: Do we know?
99 00:12:24.860 ⇒ 00:12:25.990 Zoran Selinger: Exactly.
100 00:12:26.620 ⇒ 00:12:29.220 Henry Zhao: I thought it was just, email mark… like a marketer.
101 00:12:29.590 ⇒ 00:12:36.679 Uttam Kumaran: These are… yeah, these are all… these are all good questions we should just note down, we can ask in the channel, and then… or find out, but for sure.
102 00:12:36.680 ⇒ 00:12:44.100 Henry Zhao: Yeah, and then there’s also ELT, which I’ve never spoken to, so ELT is, like, Adam, Danny, and Josh, but I usually don’t talk to them, usually Robert deals with them.
103 00:12:50.410 ⇒ 00:12:57.050 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, so we have to… basically, we have to have those conversations and basically force them to either…
104 00:12:57.130 ⇒ 00:13:13.150 Zoran Selinger: define and calculate the KPIs that are current, currently in there, or, like you said, we have to… we have to define them and calculate them. See if they have an idea of what it is.
105 00:13:13.980 ⇒ 00:13:22.430 Zoran Selinger: yeah, I mean, that’s… yeah, so first step, figure out who we talk to.
106 00:13:22.650 ⇒ 00:13:31.919 Zoran Selinger: Second step, try to define the KPIs, see if they have an idea of what they are. If not.
107 00:13:32.090 ⇒ 00:13:38.530 Zoran Selinger: We can… we can go ahead and… and have some… Recommendations for them.
108 00:13:38.560 ⇒ 00:13:59.570 Zoran Selinger: And then the third… I mean, there’s a fourth step. Third step is calculate the current ones, or figure out where that number lies, and then we can, we’ll probably have the, kind of, the most difficult part of that at the moment, would be to figure out what’s a realistic improvement to expect over the next
109 00:13:59.580 ⇒ 00:14:01.319 Zoran Selinger: Quarter or so.
110 00:14:01.770 ⇒ 00:14:12.050 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, so yeah, I have, like, who are the core stakeholders, who are the core… what are the core KPIs, what are the current state of the KPIs, what… and then for me, most importantly is, like.
111 00:14:12.240 ⇒ 00:14:17.880 Uttam Kumaran: you can think about me as, like, the accountability engine here. So…
112 00:14:18.410 ⇒ 00:14:21.130 Uttam Kumaran: What I want to know is…
113 00:14:21.700 ⇒ 00:14:29.959 Uttam Kumaran: How… what are, like, the big and small rocks as part of these projects? And then when can we expect things to move forward?
114 00:14:30.150 ⇒ 00:14:38.799 Uttam Kumaran: The number one thing about consulting and about projects is forward planning. It doesn’t… We need to, like.
115 00:14:38.920 ⇒ 00:14:45.200 Uttam Kumaran: Nail it. But if we… if we don’t provide a plan, then we’re both lost.
116 00:14:45.710 ⇒ 00:14:47.869 Uttam Kumaran: Like, both us and the client are lost.
117 00:14:47.980 ⇒ 00:14:53.030 Uttam Kumaran: And so, for me, I’m always gonna try to get us back to, okay, what is the next immediate step?
118 00:14:53.330 ⇒ 00:14:56.980 Uttam Kumaran: Right? So, like, what is happening? And again, I think about it in…
119 00:14:57.190 ⇒ 00:15:05.809 Uttam Kumaran: week increments, right? So if I was to say, okay, given those questions, what do we think we can accomplish this week?
120 00:15:05.970 ⇒ 00:15:10.399 Uttam Kumaran: I feel like answering those 3 questions is pretty fair.
121 00:15:10.530 ⇒ 00:15:11.280 Uttam Kumaran: Right.
122 00:15:11.530 ⇒ 00:15:15.659 Uttam Kumaran: to give you a sense, Zoran, this team is the one that measures the whole company.
123 00:15:15.790 ⇒ 00:15:19.760 Uttam Kumaran: So, all the questions about what the core KPIs between
124 00:15:19.940 ⇒ 00:15:29.339 Uttam Kumaran: Henry, Amber, Demolade, and Robert, I feel like you’re gonna get the answer, at least a starting point, for then you to go back to the folks and then say, like.
125 00:15:29.940 ⇒ 00:15:46.789 Uttam Kumaran: you feel, like, to go to them and be like, this is what I know, is this team generally right? Second, currency of the KPI is also this team, right? So we can, for all those KPIs, we should be able to already have measurements on what those are that are generally accepted within the organization.
126 00:15:47.020 ⇒ 00:15:52.999 Uttam Kumaran: The core stakeholders, this is also more of this team, and they can provide you. Robert probably has the most
127 00:15:53.200 ⇒ 00:16:06.229 Uttam Kumaran: nuance, because he’s on the true, like, senior leadership account management side. Like, we don’t… for example, we don’t want to go work for someone that has no pull in the organization, because it also is not important to leadership.
128 00:16:06.510 ⇒ 00:16:15.649 Uttam Kumaran: Because if we go and say, hey, we talked to this person, they gave us their whole roadmap, we built this whole thing, they’re like, oh, that person’s, like, gonna get fired. We’re screwed, right? And so…
129 00:16:15.650 ⇒ 00:16:15.970 Zoran Selinger: Nope.
130 00:16:15.970 ⇒ 00:16:28.850 Uttam Kumaran: that’s the thing to make sure is there’s still a lot of people involved here. So, I think it’s also helpful, all helpful questions, so you’re just jumping into this, but I guess what I’m saying is I think you’ll be able to get the answers for these this week. I think…
131 00:16:29.500 ⇒ 00:16:32.460 Uttam Kumaran: What I’m then interested in is given those.
132 00:16:33.080 ⇒ 00:16:36.450 Uttam Kumaran: Let’s say we were to get back and talk again on Monday.
133 00:16:36.640 ⇒ 00:16:44.489 Uttam Kumaran: Do we feel like we could start talking about Okay, given these goals.
134 00:16:44.610 ⇒ 00:16:55.880 Uttam Kumaran: And, like, let’s say I was to have me, you, Robert, Awash, Henry in there. Do we think we could begin to talk about, okay, which one of these metrics needs to get moved?
135 00:16:56.020 ⇒ 00:17:02.040 Uttam Kumaran: And… have a discussion about, like, What potential options there are.
136 00:17:02.200 ⇒ 00:17:03.330 Henry Zhao: Yeah, definitely.
137 00:17:03.510 ⇒ 00:17:04.410 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
138 00:17:04.410 ⇒ 00:17:20.349 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, of course. If we can get… if we can get all of that this week, yeah, of course. Maybe we already identify, you said, big and small rocks. Yeah. That’s some concrete steps that we can already start discussing next week, yeah.
139 00:17:20.790 ⇒ 00:17:32.059 Uttam Kumaran: And then I guess, like, that’s also what I’d like. You know, I’m sure that you guys came in… you have a little bit of a backlog in mind. I’m happy to write it down. I guess what I don’t want to do is, like.
140 00:17:33.260 ⇒ 00:17:40.649 Uttam Kumaran: I want us to kind of question everything. Like, we have a few moments in a project lifecycle to sort of be like.
141 00:17:40.900 ⇒ 00:17:56.900 Uttam Kumaran: take a deep breath, let’s look at everything again, and make a decision. We can’t do this every week, right? So, this may be one of the only opportunities we get to truly do, like, a refresh of, like, what is the current state of everything. But I know that there’s some burning
142 00:17:57.110 ⇒ 00:18:09.700 Uttam Kumaran: things that may or may not still need to happen, regardless of our conclusion. So do you… I’m happy to write some of those down now, if you want me to, on, like, what are some of these big or little things that
143 00:18:09.820 ⇒ 00:18:11.540 Uttam Kumaran: We should just consider
144 00:18:11.740 ⇒ 00:18:21.770 Uttam Kumaran: that are… you could say that’s in the backlog, or maybe, like, based on your… what you know already we should do, I can write those down, and then that’s the kind of running list.
145 00:18:22.040 ⇒ 00:18:27.389 Uttam Kumaran: That is the running list that we will use to say, does this item affect
146 00:18:27.540 ⇒ 00:18:32.540 Uttam Kumaran: this KPI change we want to make, yes or no, and that’s how we stack rank, right? So…
147 00:18:32.680 ⇒ 00:18:36.460 Uttam Kumaran: If you have any of those in mind, I can write some… I can write some down.
148 00:18:39.560 ⇒ 00:18:41.240 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, I’ll have to think about those.
149 00:18:41.240 ⇒ 00:18:41.850 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
150 00:18:43.230 ⇒ 00:18:49.530 Henry Zhao: I think mine are pretty clear, it’s… one is Mixpanel, so have that fully implemented and easy to use.
151 00:18:50.740 ⇒ 00:18:55.349 Henry Zhao: That comes from Adam, so that’s clearly gonna be a company goal that they want to do.
152 00:18:55.350 ⇒ 00:18:57.579 Uttam Kumaran: Are they also using Amplitude?
153 00:18:57.730 ⇒ 00:18:59.339 Henry Zhao: No, just mixed panel.
154 00:19:00.320 ⇒ 00:19:18.789 Henry Zhao: Number two is, pharmacy SLA. So whatever it is now, we probably want to increase that to whatever X percentage is, right? So it’s having the dashboards ready for that, analyzing it for them. I’m doing the quote-unquote pharmacy visit, but it’s virtual now to kind of look for efficiencies there. We can definitely set a goal there.
155 00:19:18.930 ⇒ 00:19:35.129 Henry Zhao: Although I don’t know how I… because I don’t have that much knowledge about how the SLA works, so I don’t know… like, it would kind of just be, like, a random number that I pick, and maybe talk to, Rebecca about, like, what SLA target makes sense, but I think that’s a very, very obvious one.
156 00:19:35.320 ⇒ 00:19:40.640 Henry Zhao: And then, like I said, Judd has retention goals, so we just want to figure out what those goals are and help them reach that.
157 00:19:41.690 ⇒ 00:19:44.210 Henry Zhao: Those, for now, were my main three priorities for the roadmap.
158 00:19:44.380 ⇒ 00:19:46.339 Henry Zhao: And I think they’re very clear and very…
159 00:19:46.940 ⇒ 00:19:49.739 Henry Zhao: clearly aligns to what ELT’s goals would be.
160 00:19:50.320 ⇒ 00:19:55.209 Uttam Kumaran: Well, what are the yields? But see, this is the thing, like, I don’t want to qualify yet. Like, I want to know…
161 00:19:55.800 ⇒ 00:19:58.750 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t want to say we’re already doing these. Some of these may…
162 00:19:58.750 ⇒ 00:20:00.729 Henry Zhao: They’re on the roadmap. They’re… Yeah.
163 00:20:00.730 ⇒ 00:20:03.529 Uttam Kumaran: Like, some, like, some of these may happen.
164 00:20:03.630 ⇒ 00:20:06.280 Uttam Kumaran: But I want us to, like, this is where…
165 00:20:06.450 ⇒ 00:20:13.200 Uttam Kumaran: we need to challenge the client to have a clear perspective. Because ultimately, we live or die by having this plan.
166 00:20:13.460 ⇒ 00:20:16.880 Uttam Kumaran: Just be- if they fail, they’re gonna blame us.
167 00:20:17.020 ⇒ 00:20:34.659 Uttam Kumaran: So we can’t… like, meaning we have to have the confidence that at every moment we’ve documented, okay, what we… what our goals were, based on the goals, here’s what we decided to do, and did we accomplish that, and did that affect the goals? And that is the loop, right? And however fast we can do that loop, the better we get.
168 00:20:35.000 ⇒ 00:20:43.779 Uttam Kumaran: For many companies, they never… they only do the, what do we want to do? They never do the where do… what are we… where are we, and where do we want to start?
169 00:20:43.940 ⇒ 00:20:49.939 Uttam Kumaran: Which, those are more important, because you know us, we can do anything on planet Earth. I’m not… I’m not worried about…
170 00:20:50.050 ⇒ 00:20:51.900 Uttam Kumaran: Any of these tasks.
171 00:20:52.070 ⇒ 00:20:56.689 Uttam Kumaran: What I’m worried about is that they’re the right or wrong things, and that they actually work.
172 00:20:56.900 ⇒ 00:21:00.709 Uttam Kumaran: You know? And I’m worried about taking on too much.
173 00:21:00.790 ⇒ 00:21:18.859 Uttam Kumaran: And so, for me, that’s… it’s helpful for me to see, okay, for our… for the marketing workstream, what are the things? Additionally here, there may be further analysis that needs to happen, right? And that’s where I… we can loop in Amber or other folks to say, hey, we… the company itself doesn’t know enough about this area.
174 00:21:19.220 ⇒ 00:21:29.779 Uttam Kumaran: And so we need to go do an analysis that can deliver to you, Zoron, and then you can say, based on analysis, I recommend these actions, right? Like, those are the things that are possible here.
175 00:21:31.350 ⇒ 00:21:32.719 Uttam Kumaran: But I wanna take…
176 00:21:33.040 ⇒ 00:21:52.249 Uttam Kumaran: like, this, like, week or two moment to just, like, all come around in a circle and be like, look at a piece of paper, and it’s like, okay, we feel good about that. If we were to do this, based on our all collective expertise, we will move this metric from here to here, and we have the confidence to share that with Robert, to go put in front of
177 00:21:52.620 ⇒ 00:22:01.060 Uttam Kumaran: the CEO. And to give you the sense, also, questions I have for Robert is, okay, they’re trying to turn, like, a 100 million business.
178 00:22:01.240 ⇒ 00:22:06.350 Uttam Kumaran: So I want us to even think about that level, like, where the CEO is coming from, right? So…
179 00:22:06.710 ⇒ 00:22:19.240 Uttam Kumaran: he wants to say… there’s a host of factors that have to make that happen, and we control data, we’re involved in conversions, we’re involved in measurement. But that’s the overarching
180 00:22:20.000 ⇒ 00:22:31.259 Uttam Kumaran: thing that we want to ladder into. And no matter what, no matter if any other party in the company thinks this way, we have to, right? And I doubt any other group in the company is going to be as detailed.
181 00:22:31.500 ⇒ 00:22:43.289 Uttam Kumaran: But we don’t look, like… I don’t look left to right at what other people are doing. Like, we know that this is the… this is the way you measure companies, you decide on what effects, and you… and you get them there, right? So…
182 00:22:43.910 ⇒ 00:22:53.130 Uttam Kumaran: So I have some of those big rocks down. If… I’m gonna send… I have a… I wrote some of these in just a Notion document that we can send.
183 00:22:53.390 ⇒ 00:22:57.340 Uttam Kumaran: I think if we can aim by, let’s just say, like, end of next week.
184 00:22:57.730 ⇒ 00:23:05.239 Uttam Kumaran: We have, just within us, A one-pager on, like, here are the things that we’re going after.
185 00:23:05.540 ⇒ 00:23:10.789 Uttam Kumaran: Right? And we can have items, too, that are, like, really thin. We can have bigger rocks.
186 00:23:11.030 ⇒ 00:23:16.209 Uttam Kumaran: at least if we can say that, then I can help estimate, and then we can build a roadmap.
187 00:23:19.220 ⇒ 00:23:24.080 Henry Zhao: Yeah, those are my big rocks, I would say. And I think a lot of thin stuff even ties up into those, right?
188 00:23:24.690 ⇒ 00:23:25.230 Henry Zhao: So…
189 00:23:25.230 ⇒ 00:23:25.840 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
190 00:23:26.270 ⇒ 00:23:29.730 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, yeah. I mean, obviously, MMM, so…
191 00:23:29.890 ⇒ 00:23:39.240 Zoran Selinger: So, the attribution tool is important for them here. If the general goal is to, you know, double the… double the business in the next
192 00:23:39.470 ⇒ 00:23:56.640 Zoran Selinger: a few years, of course, they have to be confident in scaling… in scaling channels, for example. And if they’re not confident in the attribution that they’re looking at, and the reports, they’re not going to be confident in scaling those channels.
193 00:23:56.950 ⇒ 00:24:02.049 Zoran Selinger: So it is something that we… that… that is a big piece that we need to figure out.
194 00:24:02.630 ⇒ 00:24:10.279 Zoran Selinger: And that might be one of the tools, maybe it’s even the one that we’re already using, just with a few… few fixes.
195 00:24:10.760 ⇒ 00:24:14.540 Zoran Selinger: But they need to be confident in the numbers that they’re looking at.
196 00:24:14.540 ⇒ 00:24:15.170 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
197 00:24:15.700 ⇒ 00:24:35.550 Henry Zhao: Yeah, and I’m worried… I’m also worried that their focus is not correct right now, so, like, we spent so much time on this affiliate stuff, but, like, that’s not gonna be the big rock that gets us to that $100 million business, right? So, like, we spend so much time on, like, figuring out how much are we paying them, are we paying them the correct amount, but if we pay them the correct amount, we’re gonna go down in, like, the search rankings.
198 00:24:35.550 ⇒ 00:24:42.520 Henry Zhao: So, ultimately, it’s kind of like a wash, you know what I’m saying? Like, we’re saving $100,000, but we’re also not increasing revenue by that much.
199 00:24:42.800 ⇒ 00:24:47.769 Henry Zhao: Yeah. So, we’re focusing on… we’re focusing a lot of time on what will become a small rock.
200 00:24:48.020 ⇒ 00:24:49.200 Henry Zhao: That’s what I’m trying to say.
201 00:24:49.690 ⇒ 00:24:50.210 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
202 00:24:50.210 ⇒ 00:24:56.270 Henry Zhao: So part of it is also, I think, us… Challenging them and saying, like, We’re doing what you guys.
203 00:24:56.270 ⇒ 00:24:56.920 Uttam Kumaran: Exactly.
204 00:24:56.920 ⇒ 00:24:59.759 Henry Zhao: But we don’t agree that this is what’s gonna get you to your goals.
205 00:24:59.760 ⇒ 00:25:05.569 Uttam Kumaran: This is important. That’s exactly right. And then this is where, like, if we come to the table with
206 00:25:05.770 ⇒ 00:25:11.139 Uttam Kumaran: Hey, this is the plan, and your thing doesn’t fit the plan, so who’s wrong?
207 00:25:11.300 ⇒ 00:25:17.249 Uttam Kumaran: Most likely, And this is what always happens, the other party does not have a plan.
208 00:25:17.580 ⇒ 00:25:27.930 Uttam Kumaran: And we win. This is what happens in a company. This is why you plan, because it helps your case. We become the people that have only… the only people that have thought this
209 00:25:28.530 ⇒ 00:25:38.659 Uttam Kumaran: regimentally about this problem, right? And that’s our goal. And so, yes, I actually want those conversations we expect to happen, where, hey, something comes up.
210 00:25:38.840 ⇒ 00:25:47.660 Uttam Kumaran: coming ad hoc, or something that doesn’t seem like a priority. Without the plan, we have no principled approach to say, we can’t do that, that’s not important.
211 00:25:47.920 ⇒ 00:25:57.919 Uttam Kumaran: Right? We… and that… and we can’t, because we have to go to… we may need approval to say no, and without the plan, and without approval from ELT, because they agreed on the plan.
212 00:25:58.060 ⇒ 00:26:16.930 Uttam Kumaran: we can’t say no. And so this… it all starts here. The trap of a company like Eden, is the trap of any fast-growing company with a lot of smart people in it, is that everybody just tries to eat and tries to move. But that’s not what… that’s not how, like, companies work.
213 00:26:17.050 ⇒ 00:26:22.490 Uttam Kumaran: There’s gonna be 20-40% of the initiatives that really work.
214 00:26:22.620 ⇒ 00:26:25.069 Uttam Kumaran: Our job is to identify those.
215 00:26:25.330 ⇒ 00:26:28.470 Uttam Kumaran: Measure that they’re working, and double down.
216 00:26:28.590 ⇒ 00:26:35.650 Uttam Kumaran: Right? It’s very similar to our company. I’m only… I’m saying this from a lot of core experience. In our company, this is the case.
217 00:26:35.790 ⇒ 00:26:43.089 Uttam Kumaran: On the sales side, in the way we work, there are a couple of things that lead to the highest benefit.
218 00:26:43.200 ⇒ 00:26:56.519 Uttam Kumaran: either a couple of types of meetings, a couple of partners, a couple of sales initiatives that lead to the highest outcomes, whether it’s revenue, whether it’s margin. Our job is to be able to identify when that happens.
219 00:26:57.150 ⇒ 00:27:02.780 Uttam Kumaran: Understand what it was that we did, and then be like, we need to do that 10 more times.
220 00:27:02.880 ⇒ 00:27:10.390 Uttam Kumaran: Right? And so that is… that’s our job. I don’t know… I don’t think… I think what you guys are seeing is actually they have a very sticky product.
221 00:27:10.490 ⇒ 00:27:25.090 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, they’re selling GLP-1 during, basically, the peak of GLP-1. I think they’ve been in this business for quite a while, so they have a competitive moat, and they have a ton of resources and money to throw at the problem, so they don’t have…
222 00:27:25.210 ⇒ 00:27:30.480 Uttam Kumaran: they don’t have the scaling problem of, like, 0 to 1. They have, like… they’re trying to go from, like.
223 00:27:31.060 ⇒ 00:27:32.540 Uttam Kumaran: 50 to 100.
224 00:27:33.110 ⇒ 00:27:34.830 Uttam Kumaran: So it’s a different challenge.
225 00:27:35.010 ⇒ 00:27:47.629 Uttam Kumaran: So it’s more of a re… it’s a resource allocation challenge. We may not even have to get it perfect, but we just have to make… we just have to make sure that every dollar they’re spending in marketing, we’re pushing it towards the channels that get
226 00:27:47.850 ⇒ 00:27:53.620 Uttam Kumaran: the best out immediately, and the most LTV, right? And we need to have a really good understanding of that.
227 00:27:53.670 ⇒ 00:28:11.980 Uttam Kumaran: So, if it’s a question of, hey, even for us, like, we need better dashboards, we should prioritize that. If it’s a question of, okay, truly, we identified that these channels are the best, then we need to have a conversation about why are we doing other channels. And so those are the things that I’d like, you know, to see us do, is move…
228 00:28:12.090 ⇒ 00:28:14.149 Uttam Kumaran: Move into more of, like, a partner…
229 00:28:14.850 ⇒ 00:28:17.450 Uttam Kumaran: You know, role with these guys.
230 00:28:17.670 ⇒ 00:28:33.349 Henry Zhao: Yeah, and I think… I think these three rocks are good because they kind of analyze and improve all parts of the marketing funnel, right? So you’ve got the mix panel stuff, which is intake and conversion, so you want to make sure that the people that you do bring in are converting and becoming customers.
231 00:28:33.350 ⇒ 00:28:47.509 Henry Zhao: Then you’ve got the email piece, which is the retention, right? So now that you’ve kept in the customer, you want to keep them. You want them to renew, you want them to continue. So I think the good thing about these rocks is that we’re addressing all parts of the funnel, and I think that’s how we should be looking at it.
232 00:28:47.510 ⇒ 00:28:50.239 Henry Zhao: We need to make sure that all three parts of the funnel are healthy.
233 00:28:50.470 ⇒ 00:29:06.760 Henry Zhao: Yes. So, generating awareness with the lowest cost possible, like, with bringing in the best people with the lowest CPM possible, then getting people to convert when they get to the intake, so not abandoning, they recently made a change with the ID stuff, so that should help a lot, and then retaining customers.
234 00:29:06.870 ⇒ 00:29:11.140 Henry Zhao: So that’s why I think these three rocks make sense, and it will be easy to con…
235 00:29:11.340 ⇒ 00:29:15.090 Henry Zhao: communicate to ELT that that’s what we want to do, and why we think that’ll be successful.
236 00:29:15.370 ⇒ 00:29:15.920 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
237 00:29:18.390 ⇒ 00:29:24.349 Henry Zhao: If you think about it, marketing is that, right? It’s getting the word out, make sure people then convert, and then keeping them.
238 00:29:24.710 ⇒ 00:29:25.260 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
239 00:29:25.860 ⇒ 00:29:35.549 Henry Zhao: And then eventually we can do smaller things like NPS, like, are people satisfied? Yeah. Is customer service working? Like, those are, I think, further down the road, but eventually important as well.
240 00:29:36.980 ⇒ 00:29:37.939 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, I agree.
241 00:29:39.000 ⇒ 00:29:40.140 Henry Zhao: What do you think, Zoran?
242 00:29:41.750 ⇒ 00:29:42.370 Henry Zhao: Yeah.
243 00:29:42.370 ⇒ 00:29:56.730 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, I think that’s… that’s… that is good, yeah. If we… if we have a healthy upper, middle, and lower funnel, we… we are doing good, and if we have levers that we can pull in… in all of three… all of those three places.
244 00:29:57.100 ⇒ 00:30:01.639 Zoran Selinger: then we can… we can make some really good stuff going.
245 00:30:02.250 ⇒ 00:30:12.439 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, I think that’s good. Let’s, yeah, let’s discover a lot this, this week, this couple of weeks, and yeah, we can, we can make that, a little more concrete.
246 00:30:12.440 ⇒ 00:30:13.900 Henry Zhao: Okay.
247 00:30:13.900 ⇒ 00:30:18.000 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I’ll make sure to at least get another time on Monday.
248 00:30:18.210 ⇒ 00:30:23.510 Uttam Kumaran: if I can do something on Friday, and the three… the four of us, or whatever, can come and just have a…
249 00:30:24.000 ⇒ 00:30:28.130 Uttam Kumaran: a quick chat, like, that’d be good, but let’s continue this over Slack.
250 00:30:28.400 ⇒ 00:30:38.899 Uttam Kumaran: And you guys see… and I actually think it’s helpful, because my perspective, I’m always going to bridge the gap between where we are as a team, and where ELT is, and where Robert is, right?
251 00:30:39.150 ⇒ 00:30:44.239 Uttam Kumaran: And so, for us to do what we need to do, we have to tell the story.
252 00:30:44.410 ⇒ 00:30:50.319 Uttam Kumaran: And so, I appreciate you guys, like, thinking at this level. I know it’s not… it’s not very easy.
253 00:30:50.450 ⇒ 00:30:51.200 Uttam Kumaran: But…
254 00:30:51.530 ⇒ 00:31:01.639 Uttam Kumaran: like, this is what I want us to start to do for every client, is, like, if you were to… think about if you were to hire us, and your consultant is thinking in this way about your business.
255 00:31:01.760 ⇒ 00:31:07.840 Uttam Kumaran: how great is that, right? Like, this is what you want your consultants to do. You don’t want your consultants to be, like.
256 00:31:07.940 ⇒ 00:31:20.180 Uttam Kumaran: just, like, coming in, I did one ticket, I’m gone, right? So, we know that if we are to plan and do at this level, I’m telling you, we’ll stick around, and they’ll give us more budget.
257 00:31:20.720 ⇒ 00:31:29.009 Henry Zhao: Okay. Let me put in my thoughts in the Notion doc, and then Zoran, maybe let’s have a one-on-one on Thursday to just kind of go over each one’s thoughts, so we can prepare for Friday.
258 00:31:29.540 ⇒ 00:31:30.210 Zoran Selinger: True.
259 00:31:30.210 ⇒ 00:31:31.000 Henry Zhao: Okay.
260 00:31:31.220 ⇒ 00:31:31.820 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
261 00:31:32.080 ⇒ 00:31:34.270 Uttam Kumaran: Alright, thank you guys, I’ll talk to you in a bit.
262 00:31:34.270 ⇒ 00:31:35.369 Henry Zhao: Yeah, thank you.
263 00:31:35.590 ⇒ 00:31:36.140 Zoran Selinger: Bye.