Meeting Title: Eden Project Status and Planning Date: 2025-11-12 Meeting participants: Uttam Kumaran, Robert Tseng


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1 00:01:23.000 00:01:23.660 Robert Tseng: I…

2 00:01:25.280 00:01:26.110 Uttam Kumaran: Dear.

3 00:01:26.560 00:01:27.700 Uttam Kumaran: Finally!

4 00:01:28.880 00:01:30.910 Uttam Kumaran: I think we need to stop selling.

5 00:01:32.580 00:01:38.379 Uttam Kumaran: I think I… I think I’m kind of at the last… I think I’m kind of at…

6 00:01:39.020 00:01:41.460 Uttam Kumaran: It’s about breaking point right now.

7 00:01:41.460 00:01:42.290 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

8 00:01:45.000 00:01:46.509 Uttam Kumaran: Which just feels good.

9 00:01:50.810 00:01:57.099 Uttam Kumaran: But I need to do… I need to go do data work now for the next month or two.

10 00:01:57.900 00:02:00.739 Uttam Kumaran: But it’s big! CS Laser sign…

11 00:02:00.740 00:02:02.970 Robert Tseng: Looks like something will happen from…

12 00:02:03.690 00:02:04.590 Uttam Kumaran: I mean.

13 00:02:04.750 00:02:14.540 Robert Tseng: do you want, help on CS? Do we need… do you… do we have the people to serve it? Do… like, I’ve been… I was talking to this Leotix guy, but… and he’s a snowflake, he’s a snowflake.

14 00:02:14.540 00:02:22.670 Uttam Kumaran: Dude, so, you know, bro, Greg from Omni knows that guy. I should’ve… I was trying to respond to the email being like, we have mutual friends, but…

15 00:02:23.010 00:02:26.230 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, I think…

16 00:02:26.800 00:02:31.410 Uttam Kumaran: It’s gonna start off as just me… it’s gonna start off as, like, a lot of discovery.

17 00:02:31.410 00:02:31.800 Robert Tseng: Okay.

18 00:02:31.800 00:02:34.430 Uttam Kumaran: for, like, 2-3 weeks, and then…

19 00:02:34.650 00:02:39.559 Uttam Kumaran: We’re gonna basically build for them, like… we’re building them kind of like a customer’s mart.

20 00:02:40.150 00:02:41.180 Robert Tseng: Yeah. So…

21 00:02:42.020 00:02:42.880 Uttam Kumaran: I mean…

22 00:02:43.460 00:02:49.000 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t think… I just… I don’t think we need more people, and, like, there’s one guy I’m interviewing right now.

23 00:02:49.670 00:02:54.790 Uttam Kumaran: Who’s kind of, like, at a… me and Oasis level for, like, DE side, I think.

24 00:02:55.090 00:02:59.060 Uttam Kumaran: he’s good. I think I’ll probably loop in Sam on some of this stuff.

25 00:02:59.330 00:03:01.429 Uttam Kumaran: short term, I think we’re fine.

26 00:03:01.830 00:03:07.209 Uttam Kumaran: I think where… I mean, really where we need support is, like, on analysis.

27 00:03:07.700 00:03:08.740 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

28 00:03:10.820 00:03:11.920 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, like…

29 00:03:11.920 00:03:15.339 Robert Tseng: The Eden call went well. I think they liked the scope,

30 00:03:16.060 00:03:22.099 Robert Tseng: I mean, I’ll send the transcript later, but, you know, basically… I mean, I’ll just…

31 00:03:23.110 00:03:28.889 Uttam Kumaran: Sure. Josh, a couple things for you. Okay, that’s good, dude, that’s maybe one of the first times I’ve heard it went well.

32 00:03:29.540 00:03:31.119 Robert Tseng: What? What do you mean? It’s,

33 00:03:31.120 00:03:32.530 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, I know, well, I mean…

34 00:03:33.140 00:03:37.509 Uttam Kumaran: Usually, we’re, like, going into that meeting, like, on the heels of something fucking up, so…

35 00:03:37.510 00:03:40.460 Robert Tseng: And I’m just, like, trying to play defense, and…

36 00:03:40.920 00:03:48.480 Robert Tseng: But, no, no, it’s good. I think they… yeah, these… I always kind of… these are the kind of the three main things, like, kind of…

37 00:03:49.200 00:03:56.470 Robert Tseng: focus areas, I guess, very high level, and then we kind of talked about the opportunities, so…

38 00:03:56.600 00:04:02.049 Robert Tseng: I, you know, I think this one is something that Adam’s really interested in, which is, like.

39 00:04:04.040 00:04:05.620 Uttam Kumaran: Sick. Let’s go.

40 00:04:05.620 00:04:09.689 Robert Tseng: Basically, like, a rag hooked up to our…

41 00:04:10.510 00:04:17.019 Robert Tseng: BigQuery, and then, I mean, I kinda was like, oh yeah, we have, like, a record of all the…

42 00:04:17.160 00:04:18.649 Robert Tseng: the,

43 00:04:19.720 00:04:35.589 Robert Tseng: query requests that we’ve been… we’ve been getting, you know, and I mean, I… anecdotally, I feel like these are the most common requests. I don’t think we’ve actually logged them all, but, you know, it’s like, okay, this would be a way to roll it out, to show that anytime we’re doing something like this, people can just, like, self-service and ask themselves.

44 00:04:35.960 00:04:40.859 Robert Tseng: be a good win for the AI team as well. So, like, I think there’s a world where, like.

45 00:04:41.430 00:04:49.900 Robert Tseng: we don’t need 20 hours of DE work, and it’s, like, starting to tap some of the AI folks in here to start to build this stuff out, and then this turns into, like.

46 00:04:49.910 00:05:02.680 Robert Tseng: dog food that we can go and sell to, like, other… other clients and really show how we’re doing, you know, AI work. And then this one was more of, like, a moonshot, or I kind of… I was just kind of describing

47 00:05:02.740 00:05:08.060 Robert Tseng: This world where we basically turn, like, the…

48 00:05:08.060 00:05:13.090 Uttam Kumaran: I told this to Element, too, because she called me today, and she was talking to me about CX, and I was like, well.

49 00:05:13.990 00:05:23.210 Uttam Kumaran: I was like, one thing that we find in a lot of our e-com companies is CX is purely just, like, a support function versus the voice of the customer. I said exactly this to her.

50 00:05:23.640 00:05:40.270 Robert Tseng: Okay, right, yeah, well then, we’re… we’re smart. So, they like, they like these. Obviously, this is the biggest priority-wise, because they’re trying to integrate with this pharmacy and reason that, but, I mean, I feel like these are… these are the… these are the open… open doors that we can really go and try to build something cool.

51 00:05:41.950 00:05:42.590 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

52 00:05:42.840 00:05:43.450 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

53 00:05:43.710 00:05:50.380 Robert Tseng: I do feel like… you know, Surf jumped on, gave his, gave his spiel.

54 00:05:50.780 00:05:55.669 Robert Tseng: they hear him, they understand his point. I do think the surf comes off a little bit like…

55 00:05:55.670 00:05:56.690 Uttam Kumaran: Unprepared.

56 00:05:57.750 00:05:58.790 Robert Tseng: arrogant.

57 00:05:59.490 00:06:00.300 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

58 00:06:00.300 00:06:00.940 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

59 00:06:01.380 00:06:05.530 Robert Tseng: So, I think they didn’t…

60 00:06:05.770 00:06:07.990 Robert Tseng: Yeah, like, yeah, anyway, like, I…

61 00:06:09.080 00:06:17.829 Robert Tseng: they basically want to get him and Cameron in a room on Friday and basically have them do it out, I guess, so…

62 00:06:17.830 00:06:20.810 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, but dude, this is where, like, I don’t, like…

63 00:06:21.190 00:06:24.939 Uttam Kumaran: Do you care? Like, do you care either way the outcome?

64 00:06:24.940 00:06:27.859 Robert Tseng: No, the outcome doesn’t matter to me, so I just want to throw, yeah.

65 00:06:27.860 00:06:28.650 Uttam Kumaran: But yeah, I mean…

66 00:06:28.650 00:06:38.200 Robert Tseng: They can go and have that call, and they’ll make a decision. I think they’re leaning… I was really advocating for, surf, like, afterwards, they were like, well, what do you… what do you think?

67 00:06:38.410 00:06:49.520 Robert Tseng: So I, you know, I’ll send you the transcript. I kind of, like, explained away some of Surf’s idiosyncrancies, and then kind of gave them… Yeah, what did he do? Like, what did he do? He just was like.

68 00:06:50.850 00:07:01.969 Robert Tseng: Oh, I think he’s just, like… his analogies are kind of, like, condescending. It’s like, oh, yeah, would you rather buy, like, an empty lot or a house with just the foundation on it?

69 00:07:02.280 00:07:05.389 Robert Tseng: And it’s like, okay, we get, like, it’s a little bit, like, there’s…

70 00:07:05.390 00:07:06.979 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, it’s pedantic. Yeah, yeah.

71 00:07:06.980 00:07:24.620 Robert Tseng: Yeah, yeah, so… and it’s like, yeah, if, you know, if I come in, like, yeah, I could go and I could build the house up and figure out what the architect is, or I could just level everything and just rebuild it from scratch. So, I mean, I get… he’s got the confidence, he was kind of in his, like, he’s got high energy, he’s personable, like, but, I mean, I do think that…

72 00:07:25.010 00:07:27.000 Robert Tseng: You know.

73 00:07:27.000 00:07:33.419 Uttam Kumaran: No, I mean, all we can… oh yeah, all we can do is set people up, like, if this was up to us.

74 00:07:33.600 00:07:45.950 Uttam Kumaran: then there would be nobody else in the room, like, you would have sold it. And so, this is where, like, I think… yeah, I mean, I think you should give your fair, like, explanation to them on, like, this is kind of complex work, you need someone that’s sort of, like.

75 00:07:46.220 00:07:47.400 Uttam Kumaran: full stack.

76 00:07:47.720 00:07:52.079 Uttam Kumaran: Maybe it’s a mix of him and Cameron. I don’t know. But, again, like…

77 00:07:52.810 00:07:57.219 Uttam Kumaran: Totally up to them. Or, if they want us to help them do a larger roadshow.

78 00:07:57.500 00:08:00.679 Uttam Kumaran: we can help them do that. Like, I actually don’t…

79 00:08:01.360 00:08:07.490 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t really care either way. I care in that their output from here is blocking some of our work.

80 00:08:07.820 00:08:08.430 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

81 00:08:08.430 00:08:12.940 Uttam Kumaran: And I also care in that they’re… they’re great customers, so if we can be helpful.

82 00:08:13.140 00:08:17.050 Robert Tseng: Yeah. We could certainly go talk to other people and help them make the decision. I mean.

83 00:08:17.050 00:08:22.149 Uttam Kumaran: like, I have full-stack background and built stuff, but it’s like, I don’t… our company doesn’t do that, so I don’t want to, like.

84 00:08:22.150 00:08:37.500 Robert Tseng: No, I think Servant’s the right guy. I think he just, like, did a… there’s a little bit of, like, the sensitivity of, like… Dude, they’ve been working with Cameron for, like, months now, so for him to come in after a few weeks and just be like, this is all trash, he’s like, well, that may be true, but, like, you know, just kind of

85 00:08:37.830 00:08:46.170 Robert Tseng: down a little bit, I think. I mean, it’s okay. He just hasn’t had enough face time with them, doesn’t know the nuance, like, kind of how to interact with them, which is… which is fine.

86 00:08:46.170 00:08:50.410 Uttam Kumaran: But the thing is, Surf is actually used… a lot of the clients Surf goes works for.

87 00:08:50.540 00:08:56.519 Uttam Kumaran: Is… are these clients who have bought something from, like, outsourced, or like… and it’s all a mess.

88 00:08:57.000 00:09:00.129 Robert Tseng: Right, but then that also… that’s why it feels condescending.

89 00:09:00.130 00:09:01.969 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, totally, and I’ll… yeah, yeah.

90 00:09:01.970 00:09:16.820 Robert Tseng: with a client, like, they didn’t know what they were doing, they just bought Figmas, like, you know, and it’s like, okay, like, yes, I mean, it’s… you’re kind of just saying, you’re like, he’s analogizing, kind of to the point that it makes them look like they’re the dumbasses, you know, in this situation, which is, like…

91 00:09:16.820 00:09:17.260 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

92 00:09:17.260 00:09:28.820 Robert Tseng: I just think that it could have been a little bit… Okay. Which is fine, I don’t… I don’t mind. Like, he’s not a difficult person to work with, by any means. Like, I… I consider him… yeah, I would… I would defend him. I just…

93 00:09:28.970 00:09:39.020 Robert Tseng: I’m just kind of… if you saw that… if you see that in the transcript, I’m just letting you know, I just had to… I had to say a few words to kind of affect him a bit. Yeah.

94 00:09:39.400 00:09:40.120 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

95 00:09:42.890 00:09:43.680 Robert Tseng: Okay.

96 00:09:43.940 00:09:44.690 Robert Tseng: Cool.

97 00:09:47.060 00:09:59.110 Robert Tseng: Good. So yeah, I feel good about the Eden priorities, like, we… I think we’re… things are moving, moving well there. Yeah, the trusted decision that we’re making at Wicked, the data reliability thing, like, it’s fine, smoothed over, it’s all good.

98 00:09:59.390 00:10:00.500 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

99 00:10:01.310 00:10:14.269 Robert Tseng: Cool. And when we wanted to spend some time, like, getting through README stuff? I think the contract went out, they’ll sign. They’re just gonna take it month to month for now. And really, like, the only thing we need to get done in…

100 00:10:14.910 00:10:26.889 Robert Tseng: you know, I basically was like, okay, we’ll validate what’s in Mongo this week, and then if we need to patch anything, we can do that over the next couple weeks. So, by end of month, we should give you… we should be able to give you, like, a clear

101 00:10:26.960 00:10:35.199 Robert Tseng: like, just validation on that funnel. That’s the only thing we need to do this month. Okay. Then, you know, next month we can kind of hopefully pick back up

102 00:10:35.580 00:10:40.509 Robert Tseng: Oh yeah, we don’t need to re-scope or do more discovery, like, we know what the different directions are there.

103 00:10:41.240 00:10:46.449 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, so let me… let’s just work through that stuff first, and then we can talk about…

104 00:10:46.840 00:10:48.580 Uttam Kumaran: urban stems after…

105 00:10:48.860 00:10:49.410 Robert Tseng: Cool.

106 00:11:04.610 00:11:07.200 Robert Tseng: I think we need a long-form deck, or, like.

107 00:11:07.590 00:11:11.100 Robert Tseng: Doc, as well, for maybe Element.

108 00:11:13.780 00:11:14.670 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

109 00:11:14.670 00:11:23.089 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so I mean, just kind of something like a longer-form proposal that we did. Something like what we gave to Urban Stems, or I know we’ve adapted to this format, or.

110 00:11:23.640 00:11:26.099 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, you mean for… for… for Friday?

111 00:11:26.100 00:11:27.389 Robert Tseng: For Friday, yeah.

112 00:11:27.480 00:11:46.120 Robert Tseng: I mean, especially if she’s having all these other questions. It just seems like there’s some more diligence work. I think we just need to spend more time doing the objection handling and, like, covering our bases. So, I mean, it doesn’t have to be full-blown, like, one-source RFP style. I mean, I’m curious what they actually sent for it. I think that could be an interesting artifact to look at.

113 00:11:46.120 00:11:52.709 Uttam Kumaran: Well, let me tell you, I think most of the other companies they talked to also just had an hour and sent them a proposal.

114 00:11:53.210 00:11:55.440 Uttam Kumaran: I think, like…

115 00:11:55.440 00:12:00.249 Robert Tseng: This is… it’s sort of like, she’s giving us, like, hard love, which, like.

116 00:12:00.250 00:12:02.020 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t like being talked.

117 00:12:02.150 00:12:06.789 Uttam Kumaran: like, I’m a… I’m fucking don’t sell data business all day.

118 00:12:07.090 00:12:25.620 Uttam Kumaran: But I guess I was like, okay, I understand you didn’t mention any of your buying process, and that you had these. Yeah. So, of course, she was like, she’s like, yeah, just don’t anchor an ROI too much. I was like, what the fuck are you talking about? Like, I’m doing the right thing here, like…

119 00:12:25.620 00:12:25.970 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

120 00:12:25.970 00:12:29.199 Uttam Kumaran: It said, you’re saying, oh, no, no, we don’t really care about that. I’m like.

121 00:12:29.280 00:12:48.499 Uttam Kumaran: I really said, I’m like, yeah, I just want to say that most of our clients are really concerned about the ROI piece, and we usually are pretty thorough, but, like, we anchor on that because that’s usually what we hear. And I’m not crazy here, like, I didn’t say that she was crazy, but I’m kind of like.

122 00:12:48.590 00:12:53.710 Uttam Kumaran: Here’s, like, kind of, like, why, so you get it that, like, not everybody is maybe…

123 00:12:54.310 00:12:59.700 Uttam Kumaran: money bags McGee and, like, wants to sort of talk to 100 people. Like, some people really are…

124 00:13:00.180 00:13:05.800 Uttam Kumaran: So I was like, you just gotta… I didn’t know that. So I was like, how are you gonna tell me not to focus? Also, I was like.

125 00:13:06.430 00:13:13.539 Uttam Kumaran: you’re like, yeah, we just wanted to see that, like, we’ve showed him your data platform, Google Sheets, and he was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s fine. I’m like.

126 00:13:13.930 00:13:20.610 Uttam Kumaran: did anyone else that you’re talking to show you anything like that? Like, or give you this much time, like…

127 00:13:21.070 00:13:27.319 Uttam Kumaran: I… yeah, so I don’t know. I guess we’ll see, I kind of, like… her vibe’s okay, she’s, like, kind of, like.

128 00:13:27.770 00:13:31.920 Uttam Kumaran: semi, like, bipolar, like, kind of really happy, and then really just, like…

129 00:13:31.920 00:13:36.419 Robert Tseng: new, she wants to, like, you know, her reputation’s on the line, she’s

130 00:13:36.830 00:13:41.810 Robert Tseng: us in as, like, one of her first big vendor, like, partners. So, whatever, that’s… that’s her state of mind.

131 00:13:41.810 00:13:46.710 Uttam Kumaran: When you mentioned Bain, I was like, oh, maybe, like, this is how they talked to people there.

132 00:13:46.710 00:13:47.890 Robert Tseng: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

133 00:13:48.100 00:13:51.489 Robert Tseng: I was like, dude, the Brugo Bowl was all Bain. Yeah.

134 00:13:51.490 00:13:52.280 Uttam Kumaran: Really?

135 00:13:52.280 00:13:58.320 Robert Tseng: Yeah, all Bain found… all Bain people, like, the Bain externs were in there, too, like, so…

136 00:13:58.320 00:13:59.889 Uttam Kumaran: He just was, like, sort of like…

137 00:14:00.660 00:14:07.030 Uttam Kumaran: saying the same thing again and again, she’s like, I know, but, like, I just want to tell you, when you come to that meeting, do this. I was like.

138 00:14:08.470 00:14:23.199 Uttam Kumaran: which one of us is running a fucking company right now? Like, don’t talk to… I kind of don’t like being talked to that way anymore. Especially, like… like, what are you… why are you trying to big dog us? Like, we’re… you’re the only people we work… we’re gonna work for, like, I don’t know.

139 00:14:23.520 00:14:35.440 Robert Tseng: I could probably dig up, like, an old doc or two, but, like, the stuff that we did to evaluate certain partners, like, yeah, everything had, like, a giant doc, people would leave a bunch of comments on it, like, it was always… it was always like that.

140 00:14:35.440 00:14:41.739 Uttam Kumaran: No, I don’t… and I told her, I said, I don’t mind going into a meeting and you just punch us in the face. I don’t care, I don’t have any fear about that.

141 00:14:41.740 00:14:46.570 Robert Tseng: She was like, oh, my boss wants to come on, and, like, he’s gonna have a bunch of questions, and I’m not supposed to tell you what they are. I was like.

142 00:14:46.710 00:15:05.610 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t give a fuck. Like, that’s perfect. Have them call me right now. I don’t have… I don’t have any fear over that. I said, like, I actually need that. That’s why I don’t want to do that. Like, ask me any question under the sun about what you’re concerned about. Instead, don’t ask for the deck and then be like, I didn’t cover everything you said, because…

143 00:15:05.820 00:15:21.240 Uttam Kumaran: I can only… I actually guarantee I did, because we used AI from all of our stuff, so I’m telling you, this is actually… we went above and beyond on Discovery, and yeah, this is where, like, it’s sort of when we meet customers who don’t exactly

144 00:15:21.480 00:15:23.310 Uttam Kumaran: Know how to buy this?

145 00:15:23.770 00:15:25.210 Uttam Kumaran: And they, like…

146 00:15:26.510 00:15:36.689 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know, they’re just not, like, principled in the manner where they procure. They sort of, like, do this, like, runaround thing, I feel like. Like, they like us, and I feel like we’re gonna win it, but…

147 00:15:38.020 00:15:40.399 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know, I feel like maybe this is… I don’t know whether, like…

148 00:15:40.400 00:15:52.319 Robert Tseng: you, it’s not urgent, though, so I’m like, dude, they’re just gonna have us talk to this person and just leave us… I mean, yeah, I mean, I… I do think that they very much, you know, now, if they were paying people.

149 00:15:52.410 00:16:00.830 Robert Tseng: They have… they have 4 or 5 people they’re talking to, they’ve… they have us ranked, everything is kind of like… like, they’re gonna take…

150 00:16:00.830 00:16:03.319 Uttam Kumaran: Is that company, like, Bain People? Do you know?

151 00:16:03.320 00:16:13.539 Robert Tseng: element… yeah, I looked at it. I think there’s a couple other Bain people, too, so it’s… I mean, they’re all, like, Wharton MBAs, kind of poaching each other, whatever, so… it’s just, like, that’s kind of how it is.

152 00:16:14.730 00:16:18.999 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, all that says to me is that price wasn’t a problem, so we could’ve… we should go higher.

153 00:16:19.000 00:16:29.610 Robert Tseng: No, we should go high, yeah, we should have gone higher, I could just… I mean… but… look, this is… I mean, the 15K is just for the… just for the initial bit, like, for stuff that’s, like, peanuts, like, we’re not…

154 00:16:29.610 00:16:38.280 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, she was like, she was like, why did you anchor on two dashboards? She’s like, what if we, like, want… I don’t… I don’t care about the dashboard, I care that the foundations are all getting built and stuff, and I’m like.

155 00:16:39.020 00:16:44.160 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, but you get that, like, not everybody is, like… actually, most of our people

156 00:16:44.850 00:16:54.559 Uttam Kumaran: they, like, want… they’re looking for the dashboard, and, like, everything goes… she’s like, for some reason, I think because there’s a lot of unknown in Snowflake.

157 00:16:54.710 00:16:57.169 Uttam Kumaran: They’re actually… they care about that more.

158 00:16:57.170 00:17:00.509 Robert Tseng: Because nobody there knows about Snowflake, but they care more about, like.

159 00:17:00.510 00:17:09.380 Uttam Kumaran: Well, but then I’m like, maybe it’s, like, an ego thing that they’re, like, not comfortable saying they don’t know about something. Like, nobody in their organization writes SQL.

160 00:17:11.270 00:17:11.869 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

161 00:17:12.849 00:17:19.820 Robert Tseng: They sell people, yeah, they just like to explore. I mean, I’m sure they can… But then instead of just being, like, great, like, you guys are the ones to come do that, I think.

162 00:17:20.329 00:17:25.659 Uttam Kumaran: Maybe the psychology is, like, that’s, like, they’re insecure about, like, not doing that, and that, like.

163 00:17:26.170 00:17:35.169 Uttam Kumaran: They were… they’re… because they were more… she was asking me, like, yeah, how do we know that if it doesn’t work out with you, we’re gonna have all the documentation needed to, like, go with another partner?

164 00:17:35.560 00:17:36.260 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

165 00:17:36.260 00:17:39.019 Uttam Kumaran: I was like, why are you thinking about it? Like, I was like.

166 00:17:39.520 00:17:46.490 Uttam Kumaran: I was like, I promise you, we do great documentation, and none of your other people that are pitching you are gonna.

167 00:17:46.490 00:17:47.769 Robert Tseng: Dude, what the heck?

168 00:17:48.040 00:17:55.309 Uttam Kumaran: This is where I was like, maybe this is sort of like the immigrant parent, where no matter what, like, there’s gonna be something wrong kind of deal, and we just go through it.

169 00:17:55.550 00:17:56.699 Uttam Kumaran: So, I don’t know.

170 00:17:57.490 00:17:59.390 Uttam Kumaran: This is funny, and I… but then I was like…

171 00:17:59.390 00:18:06.120 Robert Tseng: with you, but we want to make… we want you to make it very easy for us to opt out and go for… I mean, just like, what the hell? Like, just…

172 00:18:06.490 00:18:15.390 Uttam Kumaran: No, but it is this, like, nagging thing, and again, maybe you’re telling me it’s, like, Bain people, then it’s like, yeah, these guys are just kind of, like, assholes. They kind of, like, this is what they do, but…

173 00:18:15.390 00:18:19.280 Robert Tseng: Yeah, this is, this is, yeah, this is how they buy things, yeah, from what I saw, yeah.

174 00:18:20.060 00:18:20.720 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

175 00:18:21.440 00:18:21.940 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

176 00:18:22.700 00:18:23.350 Robert Tseng: Okay.

177 00:18:35.650 00:18:44.289 Robert Tseng: If I can just say one more, so we worked… we did, like, a market… we worked with, like, a market research partner when I first… when I first arrived there.

178 00:18:44.540 00:18:50.529 Robert Tseng: And we had them… Write the first 50 questions before we bought.

179 00:18:51.310 00:19:00.190 Robert Tseng: And it was, like, then we co-authored and wrote, like, the other 40 questions to the survey or whatever. But it was just, like, it was, like, a month-long process of going back and forth.

180 00:19:00.190 00:19:04.530 Uttam Kumaran: Questions about what? Like, what questions did you have them Right.

181 00:19:04.530 00:19:12.840 Robert Tseng: Because we wanted them to do, like, a… we had them do, like, a market research, study for, like, rug buyers, like, how many rugs

182 00:19:13.560 00:19:28.160 Robert Tseng: do people buy in their home? What spaces are they putting it in? Like, what shapes and sizes and whatever? But the point was, like, we, like, basically just went back and forth with them so long and made them do a lot of the work up front before anything was paid.

183 00:19:28.280 00:19:33.400 Robert Tseng: And it was just, like, I remember that being just, like, really… Weird. Yeah, but…

184 00:19:33.400 00:19:39.419 Uttam Kumaran: But you know… you know what that is? Like, they… people do that… there’s a big thread on Twitter, like, this week, where…

185 00:19:39.640 00:19:40.570 Uttam Kumaran: they…

186 00:19:40.750 00:19:55.309 Uttam Kumaran: basically, some guy was doing an interview, and they got… he got a reply back that, hey, we love your interview, and we love… they gave him, like, a take-home, and they were like, your take-home successfully merged to prod, but we’re like.

187 00:19:55.540 00:19:59.009 Uttam Kumaran: Not going to… Move forward with you.

188 00:19:59.010 00:20:00.700 Robert Tseng: Oh, they just, like, steal the… yeah, yeah.

189 00:20:00.700 00:20:05.720 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, but it’s a complete, like… there’s, like, some IP reg… yeah, but this is, like, I don’t… dude, that’s just ex…

190 00:20:06.090 00:20:09.660 Uttam Kumaran: It’s just stupid, like, it’s just… these are just stupid games, like…

191 00:20:09.660 00:20:19.569 Robert Tseng: Yeah, we basically made them do half the work up front before, like, we signed anything, and it was like, okay, then we think we can kind of get them to the finish line, and then it’s just…

192 00:20:19.750 00:20:25.400 Robert Tseng: Like, I feel like that’s… that’s just… that, to me is, like, how… how the bait people work with.

193 00:20:26.250 00:20:31.509 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, look, yeah, it’s just all games, like, it’s… and some… it’s just, what are you willing to play?

194 00:20:31.670 00:20:32.230 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

195 00:20:32.470 00:20:38.189 Uttam Kumaran: I… I don’t, like… and this is the thing with her, like, I can tell she really… we had a great conversation.

196 00:20:39.000 00:20:42.320 Uttam Kumaran: But then I could tell she has this other… there’s this, like, business…

197 00:20:42.630 00:20:49.349 Uttam Kumaran: thing, emotion thing, and I’m like, what is this? I was like, what is this psychology? Because usually we don’t… we don’t usually interact with people

198 00:20:49.490 00:20:54.430 Uttam Kumaran: Usually, our buys are just more of, like, they’re busy, and they have no fucking clue what this is, and they’re just like.

199 00:20:54.430 00:20:54.960 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

200 00:20:55.430 00:20:58.380 Uttam Kumaran: Figure it out, versus they’re almost like…

201 00:20:59.150 00:21:06.850 Uttam Kumaran: asking me about Snowflake. She’s like, oh yeah, and I heard Snowflake, I heard DBT and Fivetran merged, and so, like, I’m wondering, like, what that means. I was like.

202 00:21:07.310 00:21:09.440 Uttam Kumaran: Why the fuck are you spending any time.

203 00:21:09.440 00:21:10.780 Robert Tseng: Why do you care, yeah?

204 00:21:10.780 00:21:11.739 Uttam Kumaran: Doesn’t mean anything.

205 00:21:12.840 00:21:15.490 Uttam Kumaran: for anybody, but she… I guess she’s, like, hinged on, like.

206 00:21:15.620 00:21:26.010 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I don’t know, she was, like, hinged on, like, industry news, and, like, for example, she called me today. It’s funny, because she told me all this, she’s like, oh yeah, also, like, random question, and so this is, again, maybe where she’s using us.

207 00:21:26.100 00:21:33.829 Robert Tseng: She was like, yeah, our customer service team is thinking about moving off of, like, Gordis. And I was like, I don’t know what Gordis is, and I was like… Gorgeous, yeah. I was like…

208 00:21:33.830 00:21:52.689 Uttam Kumaran: No, but then after a while, I was like, yeah, I don’t know what that is, but we see a lot of teams on Zendesk, Intercom, gorgeous. She’s like, oh yeah, that’s gorgeous, is what I… that’s what I said. I was like, oh, well, you didn’t say that. But second, I was like, okay, yeah, I mean, there’s a lot of people that do Zendesk, Freshdesk, Intercom. I was like, they’re mostly the same stuff.

209 00:21:52.790 00:21:57.579 Uttam Kumaran: I’m curious, like, why she’s switching off, but, like, she’s like, yeah, so what would you recommend? I was like.

210 00:21:58.020 00:22:01.790 Uttam Kumaran: They’re honestly all the same, and then she asked me about this same, like, value add, like.

211 00:22:02.030 00:22:05.500 Uttam Kumaran: If you were to do an analysis that wasn’t, you know, basic.

212 00:22:06.430 00:22:12.819 Uttam Kumaran: But that’s why I was kind of like, it sounds like you’re already, like, down to work with us. Like, you like… you’re asking me…

213 00:22:13.150 00:22:26.080 Uttam Kumaran: genuine questions, and these aren’t… she wasn’t, like, interviewing me, she was actually, like, oh, I’m gonna send exactly what you said to, like, this person. So it’s clear, like, you’re in it because you… you want the clout, or for whatever, but then I’m like, why are you doing this other…

214 00:22:28.390 00:22:31.160 Uttam Kumaran: That’s so weird.

215 00:22:32.380 00:22:36.570 Uttam Kumaran: The CES woman is so nice, like…

216 00:22:36.900 00:22:43.619 Uttam Kumaran: we’re just gonna have a ball. She’s so nice, she’s exactly, like, kind of similar to my background, like, very technical.

217 00:22:44.060 00:22:47.670 Uttam Kumaran: like, we basically won that because I just talked to her about, like.

218 00:22:49.100 00:22:55.030 Uttam Kumaran: CRM, analytics, and stuff like that, like, we were the only vendors to really be pretty technical, so,

219 00:22:57.460 00:23:02.509 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, I have access to Mongo, so I’m gonna start to… Alright, let’s do it, yeah.

220 00:23:45.290 00:23:51.460 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, also, dude, I don’t, I don’t know where that, Identity stitching.

221 00:23:52.000 00:23:54.190 Uttam Kumaran: script is. It may be on my laptop.

222 00:23:54.870 00:23:56.440 Uttam Kumaran: But I don’t know if you, like…

223 00:23:59.810 00:24:03.720 Uttam Kumaran: may have any ideas of where it is. Otherwise, I’m gonna… I’ll go look on my laptop.

224 00:24:04.190 00:24:06.429 Robert Tseng: Oh, this is for the, Honey Stinger thing.

225 00:24:07.160 00:24:12.580 Uttam Kumaran: Or I’ll call… I’ll just call Pius and be like, how’d you do it? And I’ll just do it again with AI.

226 00:24:12.970 00:24:13.720 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

227 00:24:17.430 00:24:20.040 Robert Tseng: I’ll… I’ll try to look for it.

228 00:25:27.420 00:25:29.559 Robert Tseng: Dude, Notion search sucks.

229 00:25:30.130 00:25:32.289 Uttam Kumaran: Dude, Notion is the fucking worst.

230 00:25:32.870 00:25:36.920 Uttam Kumaran: I’m actually, like, I knew that we would get it to this jam.

231 00:25:38.800 00:25:40.149 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t we use Notion AI?

232 00:25:40.400 00:25:41.010 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

233 00:25:41.520 00:25:42.170 Uttam Kumaran: It’s like.

234 00:25:42.170 00:25:47.030 Robert Tseng: I mean, it’s basically granola, right? Like, I think I accidentally ran it one time, and I was like, oh, what? It’s just granola.

235 00:25:47.030 00:25:50.710 Uttam Kumaran: It is, I mean, it’s just another, like, 20 or 30 bucks a user.

236 00:25:51.080 00:25:53.050 Robert Tseng: Oh, so granola’s cheaper, we’re fine.

237 00:25:53.670 00:25:59.549 Robert Tseng: I mean, I’m not unhappy with granola. I’m just annoyed that every time I open a meeting, like, Notion flashes their thing, and then…

238 00:25:59.780 00:26:02.070 Robert Tseng: I accidentally click it here or there.

239 00:26:03.080 00:26:10.270 Uttam Kumaran: Now, Notion actually sucks balls because they don’t, like, have a backend that’s, like, you’re able to access stuff. Obsidian…

240 00:26:10.420 00:26:14.349 Uttam Kumaran: is, like… The ideal situation, but it’s, like.

241 00:26:14.740 00:26:16.030 Robert Tseng: Nobody fucking…

242 00:26:16.030 00:26:18.620 Uttam Kumaran: uses Obsidian, like, for actual work stuff, so…

243 00:26:18.620 00:26:20.449 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I just need it for personal stuff.

244 00:26:20.680 00:26:27.760 Uttam Kumaran: at some point, they will release an API, or there’s some people… like, I sent to the AI team, there’s some, like, unofficial endpoints to, like, access and write, like.

245 00:26:29.180 00:26:30.590 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t like it.

246 00:26:30.940 00:26:32.240 Uttam Kumaran: But I don’t know.

247 00:26:32.680 00:26:35.739 Uttam Kumaran: So, I don’t know what the… what to do.

248 00:27:34.600 00:27:37.469 Uttam Kumaran: It’s funny, I talked to the AI team this morning, and I was like.

249 00:27:38.060 00:27:43.179 Uttam Kumaran: Looks like you guys are doing stuff pretty fast. So next week, let’s… we’re gonna do two a week.

250 00:27:46.300 00:27:51.209 Uttam Kumaran: Because Gabe’s been, like, everyone’s like, yeah, it’s so surprising how fast. I said, not surprising.

251 00:27:52.070 00:27:56.090 Uttam Kumaran: Like, next week, we’re doing two… we’re doing two products a week.

252 00:27:56.340 00:28:06.390 Uttam Kumaran: I’m sick… I finally have gotten you people to the point where you get where I was coming from, when it was like, we’re moving too fucking slow right here.

253 00:28:07.450 00:28:09.279 Robert Tseng: Dude, Gabe’s having a good time, so…

254 00:28:09.280 00:28:21.420 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I like it. I hope, like, I don’t… like, all the… I don’t know anything about Visa stuff, so whenever people talk to me about Visa stuff, it’s just, like, in one ear, out the other, but yeah, I would love for him to work with us, if we can…

255 00:28:22.100 00:28:24.040 Uttam Kumaran: To figure that out.

256 00:28:24.320 00:28:29.170 Robert Tseng: Yeah, basically by Thanksgiving, he’ll know whether or not he has to leave the US. He’s in Boston right now.

257 00:28:30.200 00:28:33.589 Uttam Kumaran: So I should be rooting for him to leave.

258 00:28:33.590 00:28:34.160 Robert Tseng: Yeah, if he…

259 00:28:34.160 00:28:34.570 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, well…

260 00:28:34.570 00:28:37.310 Robert Tseng: actually, if he doesn’t leave the U.S, if he, if he gets.

261 00:28:37.310 00:28:41.789 Uttam Kumaran: Wait, but Gabe wasn’t… Gabe wasn’t the guy who came to your house when I was there, right?

262 00:28:42.590 00:28:44.180 Uttam Kumaran: No, no, no, that wasn’t Gabe.

263 00:28:45.180 00:28:46.259 Uttam Kumaran: Was that Gabe?

264 00:28:49.540 00:28:50.150 Uttam Kumaran: No.

265 00:28:50.500 00:28:57.880 Uttam Kumaran: That was another guy in New York who… who recently… was leaving.

266 00:28:59.610 00:29:01.540 Robert Tseng: I don’t remember. No.

267 00:29:01.540 00:29:02.360 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

268 00:29:03.430 00:29:04.020 Robert Tseng: Ed!

269 00:29:04.380 00:29:05.609 Robert Tseng: Might have been.

270 00:29:05.610 00:29:08.670 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, but what are the odds all three of us don’t remember me?

271 00:29:08.670 00:29:11.669 Robert Tseng: Yeah, yeah, okay, I don’t think so. It can’t be.

272 00:30:14.300 00:30:18.100 Robert Tseng: Do our… did our Javi-like stuff get deleted and linear?

273 00:30:19.740 00:30:22.890 Uttam Kumaran: No, I moved it to archive.

274 00:30:23.410 00:30:24.399 Robert Tseng: I see.

275 00:30:26.380 00:30:27.290 Uttam Kumaran: Should be there.

276 00:30:29.100 00:30:29.650 Robert Tseng: Okay.

277 00:33:12.420 00:33:13.199 Uttam Kumaran: Found it?

278 00:33:13.480 00:33:22.149 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, this is the ticket where we handed it off to Aman, but, like, I can’t open it, because I don’t know how to access it in the archive.

279 00:33:34.010 00:33:35.889 Uttam Kumaran: Oh shit, then maybe it’s gone.

280 00:33:47.950 00:33:52.379 Uttam Kumaran: There’s a… I mean, if it got… oh, it’s just… I need a laptop.

281 00:34:20.060 00:34:21.609 Uttam Kumaran: Oh yeah, I have it, okay.

282 00:34:23.290 00:34:24.699 Uttam Kumaran: Cool, let me.

283 00:34:28.590 00:34:31.039 Robert Tseng: I just put it in the data channel, whatever, so…

284 00:35:03.300 00:35:03.900 Uttam Kumaran: Cooler.

285 00:47:32.030 00:47:35.479 Robert Tseng: Can I look at anything for the, Urban STEM stuff right now?

286 00:47:37.460 00:47:41.070 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.

287 00:47:42.950 00:47:44.570 Robert Tseng: I gotta go… I gotta go see.

288 00:47:44.840 00:47:46.490 Uttam Kumaran: Okay,

289 00:47:55.360 00:47:56.749 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, let me just show.

290 00:48:17.940 00:48:23.439 Robert Tseng: I’m gonna tell, read me, maybe push to Friday, because I don’t think we’ll have anything by tomorrow.

291 00:48:24.490 00:48:25.390 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, yeah, I’m…

292 00:48:25.390 00:48:26.190 Robert Tseng: Okay.

293 00:48:26.190 00:48:32.949 Uttam Kumaran: I’m just getting through Mongo, so once I download it, I’m gonna… I’ll just have it… have a CSV somewhere to be able to run.

294 00:48:34.340 00:48:36.160 Uttam Kumaran: queries on, basically.

295 00:48:43.640 00:48:49.640 Uttam Kumaran: So, you should be able to log in to Looker.

296 00:48:50.500 00:48:57.200 Uttam Kumaran: And I can give you these… Credentials…

297 00:48:57.760 00:49:07.740 Uttam Kumaran: But basically, yeah, there’s a woman, Jess Campbell, who… leads… sort of… FedEx shipments for them.

298 00:49:08.090 00:49:14.679 Uttam Kumaran: And so, there’s one work stream just around, like, identifying, like, what’s been done so far.

299 00:49:14.900 00:49:19.290 Uttam Kumaran: So I think what’s helpful is, like, if you just can take a look at

300 00:49:19.410 00:49:25.399 Uttam Kumaran: sort of anything in this folder around shipping costs, and then I can arrange a…

301 00:49:25.790 00:49:32.600 Uttam Kumaran: a call with us to sort of get the download. We didn’t end up talking to her in our original discovery, I believe.

302 00:49:32.790 00:49:36.680 Uttam Kumaran: But that would be…

303 00:49:39.740 00:49:41.610 Uttam Kumaran: That would be one thing, and then…

304 00:49:41.770 00:49:45.689 Uttam Kumaran: I’ll also share with you all the forecast work, and so that’ll be the other piece.

305 00:49:48.750 00:49:49.530 Robert Tseng: Okay.

306 00:49:53.220 00:49:54.120 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

307 00:49:54.690 00:49:59.380 Uttam Kumaran: So I sent one folder, and then, like, my login, and then…

308 00:50:18.990 00:50:24.799 Uttam Kumaran: And then, in this folder, there’s a bunch of dashboards around forecasting and planning.

309 00:50:35.670 00:50:36.880 Robert Tseng: Okay, thanks.

310 00:51:36.380 00:51:40.350 Robert Tseng: Okay, she wants to keep 1230. I think we’ll make it, we’ll be fine.

311 00:51:52.490 00:51:57.149 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, we’ll be fine. I’m gonna be working the rest of the day, so I’ll just… I’ll pull a bunch of stuff together.

312 00:52:33.020 00:52:35.220 Robert Tseng: Oh, okay…

313 00:53:11.530 00:53:15.819 Robert Tseng: Okay, so look at these two folders, and then basically figure out what you can do here. Alright.

314 00:53:16.320 00:53:17.050 Uttam Kumaran: Correct.

315 00:53:19.520 00:53:23.140 Robert Tseng: Alright, I’m gonna… do this.

316 00:53:24.510 00:53:29.190 Uttam Kumaran: So, yeah, basically, it’s like, would love for you to just poke around at what you see.

317 00:53:29.320 00:53:36.180 Uttam Kumaran: and then I can arrange a call with the primary stakeholder for…

318 00:53:36.750 00:53:44.920 Uttam Kumaran: shipping, and then I can also arrange a call on the primary person, the data person on forecasting, to round out any questions.

319 00:53:45.290 00:53:49.719 Uttam Kumaran: And then, basically, I would like to arrive on, like, one slide for…

320 00:53:51.730 00:53:55.980 Uttam Kumaran: For… for each, kind of like what we discovered. So, whatever you find, yeah.

321 00:53:57.470 00:53:58.020 Robert Tseng: Bye.

322 00:53:58.020 00:54:03.869 Uttam Kumaran: I have more… I have background on the shipping stuff, like, I think the forecasting is where, like, that’s, like, all you, basically.

323 00:54:04.060 00:54:04.610 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

324 00:54:09.300 00:54:10.140 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

325 00:54:10.380 00:54:12.220 Uttam Kumaran: Alright, let me know what you see.

326 00:54:13.610 00:54:14.180 Robert Tseng: Right.

327 00:54:14.450 00:54:15.630 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, thanks, dude.

328 00:54:16.100 00:54:16.680 Robert Tseng: Yeah.