Meeting Title: Brainforge Internal Operations Discussion Date: 2025-10-28 Meeting participants: Lauren Ford, Amber Lin
WEBVTT
1 00:01:13.530 ⇒ 00:01:14.650 Lauren Ford: Hey, Amber.
2 00:01:14.910 ⇒ 00:01:17.229 Amber Lin: Hi there! How are you?
3 00:01:17.480 ⇒ 00:01:19.479 Lauren Ford: I’m doing alright, how about yourself?
4 00:01:19.640 ⇒ 00:01:27.270 Amber Lin: Pretty good. Had a pretty busy morning, started early, so… Oh, boy. Gotta take a stretch. What about you?
5 00:01:27.270 ⇒ 00:01:29.180 Lauren Ford: Totally fair.
6 00:01:29.380 ⇒ 00:01:49.690 Lauren Ford: just… I’m actually in the, like, quiet before the storm. I’ve been, like, applying for jobs like crazy, and then, I accepted an offer that starts on the 10th, which I’m now having, like, I’m like, why did I accept this? But, you know, it’s good, it’s good, it’s something, and then I’m… I’m excited to see what other opportunities along the edges, possibly, Brainforge could
7 00:01:49.690 ⇒ 00:01:54.619 Lauren Ford: Could sort of, develop into something more, so it’s exciting, it’s good.
8 00:01:54.620 ⇒ 00:02:05.199 Amber Lin: Very cool. I heard a little bit from other people, I think Sam has met with you already. I think these calls are just so that we can answer any of your questions, because I…
9 00:02:05.200 ⇒ 00:02:06.130 Lauren Ford: Fantastic.
10 00:02:06.130 ⇒ 00:02:14.949 Amber Lin: Yeah, so just let me know what you’re curious about, and then where we can start. Feel free to ask anything, I’ll try to answer.
11 00:02:15.130 ⇒ 00:02:27.169 Lauren Ford: That’s great. It looks like the sort of stuff that you’ve been do… so you’ve been sort of operating as sort of chief of staff, and then half product, and, like, a lot of, like, internal, like, operations development right now?
12 00:02:27.170 ⇒ 00:02:43.849 Amber Lin: So because we’re very small, I started off as project manager, but of course there’s things that we need here and there. We need to set up project management, which is setting up how the projects are run, and also there’s internal stuff. We recently just introduced
13 00:02:43.850 ⇒ 00:02:58.760 Amber Lin: having allocations, and then budgeting, so that’s a new aspect that we added in, and then now we’re working on reporting. So, okay, how do we track how people are working? How does that compare to hours? So these are all new things that we just added.
14 00:02:58.810 ⇒ 00:03:06.660 Amber Lin: And now there’s other stuff of, I’m more on the delivery side, so I’m not…
15 00:03:07.010 ⇒ 00:03:10.029 Amber Lin: The most familiar with the internal operations.
16 00:03:10.030 ⇒ 00:03:10.580 Lauren Ford: No worries.
17 00:03:10.580 ⇒ 00:03:11.200 Amber Lin: help.
18 00:03:11.450 ⇒ 00:03:18.950 Amber Lin: Rico helps handle those, but if there’s any questions, I think generally I have a sense of what’s going on.
19 00:03:19.130 ⇒ 00:03:28.889 Lauren Ford: Awesome, okay. Where do you see the biggest challenges? Like, if I was to start working with y’all tomorrow, what… what do you think are the priorities from your perspective?
20 00:03:29.350 ⇒ 00:03:30.939 Lauren Ford: That need to be built out.
21 00:03:31.710 ⇒ 00:03:37.280 Amber Lin: Can you specify, so what areas would you be working in?
22 00:03:37.280 ⇒ 00:03:41.489 Lauren Ford: Yeah, so Utam actually told me he was… he was saying…
23 00:03:41.670 ⇒ 00:03:54.069 Lauren Ford: Specifically, internal operations and people coordination, so, like, notions, automations, ops sort of stuff. A little bit of sales coordination and go-to-market support, mostly, like, playbooks.
24 00:03:54.270 ⇒ 00:04:04.819 Lauren Ford: follow-ups, tracking, and then a little bit of financial and recruiting ops are the three buckets, so it’s a widespread, so I was just trying to figure it out.
25 00:04:06.260 ⇒ 00:04:12.680 Amber Lin: Okay, so it sounds like it’s less of the how projects get done, which was what I was working on before.
26 00:04:12.680 ⇒ 00:04:13.190 Lauren Ford: Oh, gotcha.
27 00:04:13.190 ⇒ 00:04:21.790 Amber Lin: I think… I would say that… Let’s see… Hmm…
28 00:04:22.470 ⇒ 00:04:25.150 Lauren Ford: It’s also fine if you don’t know it all, I’m just curious.
29 00:04:25.150 ⇒ 00:04:38.049 Amber Lin: pinpoint the one most, top thing that I have on my mind, because I’ve just been working in delivery, but it is true that we don’t really have
30 00:04:38.050 ⇒ 00:04:50.029 Amber Lin: finance operations. We have some fractional people that we’ve hired, and they’re helping us do the month reporting. But overall, I think…
31 00:04:50.310 ⇒ 00:05:00.690 Amber Lin: it’s not very robust, and we don’t really have any forecasting. We’re trying to have budgets, and we’re trying to adhere to that more, but…
32 00:05:01.020 ⇒ 00:05:04.099 Amber Lin: It’s still quite new and quite limited.
33 00:05:04.100 ⇒ 00:05:05.129 Lauren Ford: Got it. And…
34 00:05:05.350 ⇒ 00:05:16.539 Amber Lin: In terms of internal operations, can you inspire me on what the areas would be, so I can… if you say something, it might be like, oh, that was… that might be a problem.
35 00:05:16.850 ⇒ 00:05:36.139 Lauren Ford: Sure, totally. So, I have a really wide, range of background. I’ve done everything from, like, running a tasting room and doing operations and events and, like, op… like, logistics, but most recently I’ve been working in HR, so, like, my last two jobs were, like, employee engagement.
36 00:05:36.140 ⇒ 00:05:40.890 Lauren Ford: Onboarding, sort of streamlining,
37 00:05:40.960 ⇒ 00:05:51.909 Lauren Ford: stuff around the whole employee life cycle, so I’m guessing that’s where he’s gonna bring me in, but I’m not 100% sure. I’d assume that anything I touch would be more people operations.
38 00:05:53.650 ⇒ 00:06:08.840 Amber Lin: I see. Okay, that is a big need that we have, because we’re so small, and then in the past few months, we have seen people come in and then leave. So, one is setting up the recruiting platform, how we recruit, where we recruit.
39 00:06:08.840 ⇒ 00:06:14.070 Amber Lin: Standardizing our interviews, because I’ve tr- we’ve tried to do that a bit.
40 00:06:14.070 ⇒ 00:06:31.499 Amber Lin: But overall, I don’t think our interviews are that efficient, or how the process goes through, and when people come on board, as much as we try to say, oh, let’s give them a 90, 30, 60, 90-day plan, it’s still dependent on
41 00:06:31.640 ⇒ 00:06:37.029 Amber Lin: Either dependent on UTAM or dependent on the individual that’s working with them, and it’s not…
42 00:06:37.780 ⇒ 00:06:51.169 Amber Lin: enforced very strictly, and I think that does have an impact on how the individual ramps up. There’s always gaps that we see later on. And also, I would say throughout,
43 00:06:51.920 ⇒ 00:07:07.690 Amber Lin: so the development of… the professional development of people, I think, mostly because we’re a consulting firm, most of the development is through project assignments, and that’s mostly UTM’s decision, but outside of that, I think that’s…
44 00:07:07.920 ⇒ 00:07:15.229 Amber Lin: We don’t really have a professional development track, and then as people…
45 00:07:15.400 ⇒ 00:07:31.630 Amber Lin: as people leave, we’re… I don’t think we have signal sensing if people want to leave. It’s mostly a subjective interpretation. In terms of one-on-ones, I think it depends on the person, and…
46 00:07:31.790 ⇒ 00:07:38.999 Amber Lin: I don’t think there’s a set schedule of reviews. We try to implement a monthly review, but it’s… I don’t…
47 00:07:39.000 ⇒ 00:07:39.660 Lauren Ford: We’re early.
48 00:07:39.660 ⇒ 00:07:46.849 Amber Lin: perfectly enforced. Yeah. And then when people leave, we do have an offboarding process.
49 00:07:49.140 ⇒ 00:07:58.039 Amber Lin: But I don’t know too much about it. I think it’s just… it just exists. Also, internally, in terms of
50 00:07:58.460 ⇒ 00:08:03.490 Amber Lin: I guess when we talk about employee and people ops, there’s all also
51 00:08:03.640 ⇒ 00:08:20.400 Amber Lin: knowledge sharing? I don’t know if you would be working with that, because we’re a knowledge and skills firm, so it is our assets, and we do want individuals to share their knowledge. And while we try to do it on projects, it always doesn’t take priority.
52 00:08:21.180 ⇒ 00:08:28.170 Amber Lin: So it ends up… if someone leaves, then we… we will have a big gap in what they were doing before.
53 00:08:28.450 ⇒ 00:08:38.009 Lauren Ford: Got it. Okay, that makes sense. How are the projects… so the projects are assigned by UTAM in a platform, or is it just sort of… how is it all organized? How do you know.
54 00:08:38.010 ⇒ 00:08:44.639 Amber Lin: Yeah, I think that will… that will touch on the sales ops and how that connects with delivery.
55 00:08:44.640 ⇒ 00:08:56.040 Amber Lin: we’ve been trying to set up a more robust project intake process. So right now, we try to have the sales team fill out the form of, okay, these are the things that we need.
56 00:08:56.040 ⇒ 00:09:10.450 Amber Lin: And then, I think monthly, we do allocations, and if there’s new projects coming in, then we try to anticipate to see, okay, who’s free, and if this project, helps, but I think right now, we were…
57 00:09:10.880 ⇒ 00:09:27.239 Amber Lin: mostly Utam and Robert makes those decisions, because they’re the only ones that has that, overarching view. Of course. But we’re mostly still making the decision based on utilization, and we’re not really taking in factors such as, okay,
58 00:09:27.580 ⇒ 00:09:42.080 Amber Lin: like, does this work assignment help with professional development? Does this, factor into what type of professionals we want to develop on our team? I don’t think we’re… we have the capacity to think about that yet.
59 00:09:42.080 ⇒ 00:09:42.990 Lauren Ford: Yeah, yeah.
60 00:09:42.990 ⇒ 00:09:43.879 Amber Lin: Of course.
61 00:09:44.900 ⇒ 00:09:49.449 Amber Lin: So, I think connecting the project intake
62 00:09:49.610 ⇒ 00:09:57.009 Amber Lin: To the work assignments process is something we also want to work on, and then that sort of leads into…
63 00:09:57.360 ⇒ 00:10:02.789 Amber Lin: I would say sales and recruiting of who we want to recruit.
64 00:10:02.910 ⇒ 00:10:09.100 Amber Lin: Do we want to develop our internal people more? Do we want to hire people?
65 00:10:09.100 ⇒ 00:10:09.530 Lauren Ford: Hmm.
66 00:10:10.550 ⇒ 00:10:16.719 Amber Lin: And then how… how much people should we keep in the pipeline? How do we keep them warm? How do we check in? And…
67 00:10:16.940 ⇒ 00:10:19.179 Amber Lin: I think that.
68 00:10:19.920 ⇒ 00:10:30.510 Amber Lin: On the sales side, I would say that they have campaigns running pretty well. We have a sales and marketing department. I think right now marketing’s relatively.
69 00:10:30.510 ⇒ 00:10:37.340 Lauren Ford: slower, because we don’t have much resources, and we want to focus it on something else. So, it’s mostly…
70 00:10:37.780 ⇒ 00:10:46.210 Amber Lin: Sales coordination, and then… I’m not the most familiar with…
71 00:10:46.340 ⇒ 00:10:50.110 Amber Lin: stuff there. Do you have more ideas?
72 00:10:50.640 ⇒ 00:10:55.310 Amber Lin: on… on marketing? I’m just curious… On sales, and then go-to-market.
73 00:10:55.310 ⇒ 00:10:56.230 Lauren Ford: Yeah.
74 00:10:56.230 ⇒ 00:10:57.010 Amber Lin: focus on.
75 00:10:57.010 ⇒ 00:11:01.339 Lauren Ford: He said, keeping playbooks, CRM, and follow-ups moving.
76 00:11:02.620 ⇒ 00:11:20.369 Lauren Ford: So that… and this is probably the area I have the least experience in, so I wasn’t sure if y’all are, like, in a stage where, like, are customers finding you because they’re… is it, like, search engine? They’re… they’re finding your product because they’re seeking out a specific solution, or are you guys doing outbound, or do you know how that’s spelled?
77 00:11:20.370 ⇒ 00:11:28.689 Amber Lin: I think our inbound is getting better and better, because we… our website is performing better, and then our LinkedIn is also bringing in some folks, but mostly…
78 00:11:28.840 ⇒ 00:11:40.660 Amber Lin: is also outbound, and that’s where I think the go-to-market plays in, of, we have campaigns, if we’re reaching out, then we do events, and then from there, we get the leads, and we have them come in. I think…
79 00:11:40.660 ⇒ 00:11:51.279 Amber Lin: What they talk about, the go-to-market engine is, okay, how do we consistently send out these campaigns, make sure they’re followed up on, make sure that the leads were tracked, and then.
80 00:11:51.810 ⇒ 00:11:57.840 Amber Lin: We move them along the pipeline, because a lot of times what slows it down is not that we,
81 00:11:57.940 ⇒ 00:12:13.869 Amber Lin: it’s not that it’s difficult, it’s just that, oh, it’s hard to send these materials and make sure they’re done on time. We do have people doing sales coordination work, so I don’t think you would be doing the work itself, but also just overseeing that
82 00:12:13.870 ⇒ 00:12:25.230 Amber Lin: things get done, and overseeing, is this the most efficient way? Is there anything we can improve? And then sales is very metric-focused, so I think that would be pretty clear.
83 00:12:25.530 ⇒ 00:12:41.379 Lauren Ford: Got it. Okay, cool. No, that’s helpful. So, do you… with your… I know Sam was saying he has two folks that he works with closely and meets with, like, once a day for stand-up. Is that sort of similar for you, or do you… or how does your team work?
84 00:12:41.660 ⇒ 00:13:05.580 Amber Lin: So, Sam is more of a, he is sort of like the engineering manager of the AI department and automations, and the two people he work with is AI and automation engineers, so… Got it. They’re more junior, and they work under him. I… I am a project manager, so I don’t manage people, I mostly just work on projects. I’m in parallel with the engineers.
85 00:13:05.650 ⇒ 00:13:14.109 Amber Lin: Cool. So, my focus is not people-focused, so I don’t manage their performance, I don’t manage their reviews, I mostly manage tasks.
86 00:13:14.110 ⇒ 00:13:14.440 Lauren Ford: Got it.
87 00:13:14.580 ⇒ 00:13:33.070 Amber Lin: And if I… if tasks are not getting done, I can escalate to their managers, or I can escalate to Utam to say, hey, we might need more resources. So that’s how my role is. Done. And right now, I think Utam’s also involved in project management.
88 00:13:33.130 ⇒ 00:13:40.359 Amber Lin: And he does work with a lot of the engineers very closely, and he’s sort of their engineering manager.
89 00:13:40.470 ⇒ 00:13:41.719 Lauren Ford: That’s well.
90 00:13:42.080 ⇒ 00:13:49.270 Lauren Ford: Okay, cool. And then, how many of the projects… so, I know… I understand there’s, like, 15 people…
91 00:13:50.000 ⇒ 00:14:02.970 Lauren Ford: plus or minus subcontractors right now. How many of them are… like, when you’re working with them, are they all different time zones, or, like, are you doing everything async? How does that work with everybody being so spread out across the globe?
92 00:14:02.970 ⇒ 00:14:20.439 Amber Lin: So we don’t have any offices, everything is done async online, and I think in the US, it’s just, me, Utam, Robert, the two CEOs, and then Hannah, who’s on the marketing and then sales team.
93 00:14:20.440 ⇒ 00:14:20.780 Lauren Ford: Okay.
94 00:14:20.780 ⇒ 00:14:25.290 Amber Lin: as the only people in the US, everybody else is in Asia, in…
95 00:14:25.290 ⇒ 00:14:25.740 Lauren Ford: Yeah.
96 00:14:25.740 ⇒ 00:14:37.000 Amber Lin: Europe and different places, so the time zones all differ, but we try to have overlaps at least in the EST time zone, so that shouldn’t be a problem.
97 00:14:37.000 ⇒ 00:14:42.179 Lauren Ford: Okay, cool. And, are there… I know… with, like.
98 00:14:42.330 ⇒ 00:14:50.879 Lauren Ford: how heavy is meeting culture for your side of things? Like, are you doing most things by email, or is it mostly sort of async email? I mean.
99 00:14:50.880 ⇒ 00:15:07.840 Amber Lin: Is it meetings versus async sort of check-ins, or Slack? We do… we try to do Slack… we try to do Slack very frequently, and then we try to meet every day, and right now, because we have different projects and nail health stand-ups, right now we badge meet.
100 00:15:07.840 ⇒ 00:15:24.300 Amber Lin: in the morning, so that in the morning, everybody meets and huddles together, and then throughout the day, there’s different meetings, for different projects, having the reviews, meeting with clients. Okay. Uten Robert has their sales calls, meeting with different partners.
101 00:15:24.300 ⇒ 00:15:36.359 Amber Lin: So, we try to do async, but then we also try to give people… we try to meet, and then try to give people their focus times, especially for engineers, so they can actually get their work done.
102 00:15:36.570 ⇒ 00:15:38.979 Lauren Ford: Yeah, that makes sense. Interesting. Okay.
103 00:15:39.170 ⇒ 00:15:48.030 Lauren Ford: Cool, let’s see, I’m trying to think…
104 00:15:50.780 ⇒ 00:16:04.180 Lauren Ford: Do you think it’ll be at all challenging? Like, because I… because I have this role that I’ve already signed on to that, you know, I would happily go work for Brainforge instead, but it sounds like it’s not a full-time role, it’s very much part-time right now.
105 00:16:04.180 ⇒ 00:16:14.909 Lauren Ford: So, do you… do you think it will be a challenge if I’m, like, working evenings and weekends as opposed to during the workday? Because that would… that would violate the terms of my current contract with…
106 00:16:14.930 ⇒ 00:16:16.279 Lauren Ford: With my new company.
107 00:16:16.280 ⇒ 00:16:16.960 Amber Lin: Huh.
108 00:16:17.230 ⇒ 00:16:18.509 Amber Lin: Let me think…
109 00:16:19.030 ⇒ 00:16:32.939 Amber Lin: I think if the work you’re doing is setting up the systems of, playbooks and how things should be done, that should be okay. However, if you’re overseeing people’s work and seeing.
110 00:16:32.940 ⇒ 00:16:33.300 Lauren Ford: Yeah.
111 00:16:33.660 ⇒ 00:16:42.949 Amber Lin: okay, is this person getting the work done? How is their overall progress? Then I think it’ll be difficult, because if you’re,
112 00:16:43.160 ⇒ 00:16:51.160 Amber Lin: It’s easier to work non-working hours if you’re an advisor, but if you’re involved in work itself, then it will be hard.
113 00:16:51.160 ⇒ 00:17:11.010 Lauren Ford: Yeah, I’m thinking you would have to be an advisor role. And then, how do y’all, or, I don’t know… I don’t know if you would have insight into this, but, like, how do you check… I know everyone’s billing hourly. How do you check that they’re actually doing the hours that they’re billing you for, all of that sort of thing? Do you have any insight on that, or is that totally unusual?
114 00:17:11.470 ⇒ 00:17:20.930 Lauren Ford: So, we have some people on salary and some people on hourly. Technically, we’re all contractors, but some people have fixed rates, so if they’re…
115 00:17:20.930 ⇒ 00:17:30.849 Amber Lin: if they’re fixed, the main problem is getting them to lock their hours, and there’s no conflict of interest. It’s just however they worked. But on hourly clients.
116 00:17:30.900 ⇒ 00:17:42.079 Amber Lin: We’ve had that problem before, occasionally, where they lock too many hours, but because, UTAM and we have senior engineers that have done the work before, they know approximately.
117 00:17:42.080 ⇒ 00:17:42.909 Lauren Ford: How long it should be.
118 00:17:42.910 ⇒ 00:18:00.579 Amber Lin: this level of work, it should only take this long for this level of person that we’re paying them for. So we have, like, say, industry standard judgment on that, but you’re right in that it’s how they log their hours, and we can only do the check afterwards.
119 00:18:00.580 ⇒ 00:18:05.370 Lauren Ford: Right, and on the sales front, are those folks also hourly, or are they… or are some of them…
120 00:18:05.380 ⇒ 00:18:18.739 Amber Lin: On the sales front, we have a few folks on, fixed. No, actually, most of them are on hourly, but we’re trying to give caps, especially on the internal work, so we reduce overhead.
121 00:18:18.740 ⇒ 00:18:21.690 Lauren Ford: Because… and I think because we…
122 00:18:22.050 ⇒ 00:18:40.260 Amber Lin: use project management on all of them, we have points for each task, so they’re ticketed out and say, okay, this should only take about, 2-3 hours, then we try our best to keep… keep them to that limit. It’s not the best yet, though.
123 00:18:40.490 ⇒ 00:18:49.329 Lauren Ford: Yeah, yeah. I mean, it’s so… it’s challenging. It’s, like, such a small… when you’re that small, like, trying to figure out how you do it. Okay, cool.
124 00:18:50.670 ⇒ 00:18:51.829 Lauren Ford: Let me think…
125 00:18:55.310 ⇒ 00:18:57.039 Lauren Ford: how,
126 00:18:57.160 ⇒ 00:19:04.430 Lauren Ford: What’s the culture like around failure? When people fail, does there… how do you all address it? How do y’all move forward with it?
127 00:19:05.550 ⇒ 00:19:15.620 Amber Lin: I think… I think using myself as an example, especially… so I guess there’s… Two types of…
128 00:19:16.060 ⇒ 00:19:27.049 Amber Lin: Never mind. So, there’s always a lot of failure, things do happen, and, don’t go as well. I think Utam and Robert are pretty open with it.
129 00:19:28.300 ⇒ 00:19:30.989 Amber Lin: At least to have that discussion of…
130 00:19:31.110 ⇒ 00:19:34.479 Amber Lin: how things should go, and I think
131 00:19:34.620 ⇒ 00:19:38.329 Amber Lin: Because we check in decently often, it doesn’t…
132 00:19:38.820 ⇒ 00:19:47.659 Amber Lin: end up failing too far, because we have check-ins early enough. But when they do happen.
133 00:19:48.090 ⇒ 00:19:56.270 Amber Lin: I think, for example, on my project management side, there was a few times, especially when I first started, of, okay, this is not…
134 00:19:56.410 ⇒ 00:20:02.719 Amber Lin: the projects that are not performing as well, the… there’s areas that I should be washing that I…
135 00:20:02.830 ⇒ 00:20:18.099 Amber Lin: didn’t watch for God, or didn’t know what the priorities are, and then, it’s more of a conversation, they would have a reminder, and then… I think we’re… I think overall culture is pretty open and pretty…
136 00:20:20.890 ⇒ 00:20:31.510 Amber Lin: we do surface things, and I think they’re, pretty honest people on… on the firm, so I think the culture around failure is not… is pretty good.
137 00:20:32.360 ⇒ 00:20:33.080 Lauren Ford: Cool.
138 00:20:33.240 ⇒ 00:20:38.490 Lauren Ford: Let me see… Trying to think what else I should ask you.
139 00:20:39.380 ⇒ 00:20:50.830 Lauren Ford: How’s the product-market fit going right now? Is that, like, the… what… like, which part of… which part of the business are you finding to be the biggest challenge right now? Is it, like, finding customers? Is it…
140 00:20:51.010 ⇒ 00:20:58.449 Lauren Ford: you know, going… scaling up with a small team? Is it product-market fit? Is it any of those things, or something else?
141 00:20:58.450 ⇒ 00:21:06.270 Amber Lin: I think we have a consistent flow of customers coming in. We… we probably would benefit if we have
142 00:21:06.500 ⇒ 00:21:10.770 Amber Lin: slightly more specialization, but not… I’m not the person to speak to that yet.
143 00:21:10.770 ⇒ 00:21:11.700 Lauren Ford: Got it.
144 00:21:11.700 ⇒ 00:21:20.230 Amber Lin: I think… the part I see the most is, or that we’re working on right now is
145 00:21:20.620 ⇒ 00:21:24.789 Amber Lin: We’re delivering quality work, but we’re…
146 00:21:24.930 ⇒ 00:21:38.750 Amber Lin: probably not… we’re working on improving the margins of the financial side of, while we deliver that, can we make good margins for the firm and make sure that that’s going well?
147 00:21:38.900 ⇒ 00:21:43.010 Amber Lin: So, that’s the area that we’re currently working on.
148 00:21:43.420 ⇒ 00:21:50.480 Lauren Ford: Cool. Okay, great. So just, like, how can you monetize smarter or work smarter and make the money?
149 00:21:50.650 ⇒ 00:21:51.719 Lauren Ford: Go further, okay.
150 00:21:52.730 ⇒ 00:21:59.419 Lauren Ford: Let’s see, how built out is Notion at the moment?
151 00:22:00.190 ⇒ 00:22:03.139 Amber Lin: How do you define built out and not built out?
152 00:22:03.140 ⇒ 00:22:05.889 Lauren Ford: Yeah, like, do you feel like you…
153 00:22:06.050 ⇒ 00:22:19.449 Lauren Ford: you can go to Notion for most questions, or is it just bare… is it just, like, very, very bare bones, or is it a lot of stuff that’s outdated? Like, when you think about the… sort of the company wiki, is it, like.
154 00:22:19.990 ⇒ 00:22:26.789 Lauren Ford: You feel like there’s a ton to be done, or there’s a lot that just needs to be updated, or is it pretty healthy?
155 00:22:26.790 ⇒ 00:22:29.340 Amber Lin: I think we…
156 00:22:30.060 ⇒ 00:22:45.389 Amber Lin: have some updating and organization to do. There has been quite a bit of information that has been created throughout the past, say, 2 years, but some of them needs to be consolidated, needs to be updated.
157 00:22:45.390 ⇒ 00:22:50.190 Amber Lin: And while we try to keep document… documentation and everything.
158 00:22:51.770 ⇒ 00:22:57.309 Amber Lin: they’re… I would… I would say they’re not used as much, so even if it’s there.
159 00:22:57.720 ⇒ 00:23:02.810 Amber Lin: The uses problem is probably bigger than having the actual documentation.
160 00:23:03.370 ⇒ 00:23:06.860 Lauren Ford: Okay, so there… it might be there, but it’s sort of out of date in some cases.
161 00:23:06.860 ⇒ 00:23:10.269 Amber Lin: Yeah, out of data, and people don’t know, people don’t use it…
162 00:23:10.270 ⇒ 00:23:10.620 Lauren Ford: Okay.
163 00:23:10.620 ⇒ 00:23:11.720 Amber Lin: Yeah.
164 00:23:12.170 ⇒ 00:23:19.239 Lauren Ford: And then, what are the main tools that you’re in every day, that everybody’s in? Everybody… like, the most global tools for everyone right now?
165 00:23:19.240 ⇒ 00:23:36.150 Amber Lin: So, we use Slack and Zoom, we use Notion. We use Google Docs less, but Google Docs is easier to share with clients, so we do slides and some document documents there. They also keep the contracts and assets in Google Drive.
166 00:23:36.260 ⇒ 00:23:38.639 Amber Lin: Let’s see…
167 00:23:39.390 ⇒ 00:23:50.790 Amber Lin: I think we used Linear as our project management tool. It’s very similar to Jira. And then, in terms of development, I think other people will be
168 00:23:50.920 ⇒ 00:23:58.330 Amber Lin: a better answer to that, and then we also use… we use Clockify as time tracking.
169 00:23:58.720 ⇒ 00:24:07.579 Amber Lin: Let’s see… We use Gmail, so we’re in the Google system.
170 00:24:07.880 ⇒ 00:24:09.670 Amber Lin: And then…
171 00:24:10.440 ⇒ 00:24:15.910 Amber Lin: Yeah, I think that’s the main tools that everybody’s in every day, and we also use ChatGPT a lot.
172 00:24:16.170 ⇒ 00:24:25.579 Lauren Ford: Okay, cool. That’s helpful. I feel like I’ve sort of touched on everything that was sort of a high-level question.
173 00:24:25.890 ⇒ 00:24:36.980 Lauren Ford: for me, I feel like anything outside of this is more like I should go back to Utam and ask him. But, is there anything else you’d like to know from me, or that you think would be helpful context for me to know?
174 00:24:40.160 ⇒ 00:24:57.309 Amber Lin: Nothing comes to mind right now, mostly because it’s not the area that I’ve been working in, so I don’t have any thoughts that have accumulated over… over time. But you have my… you have my email, so feel free to shoot me anything that comes up, and then I can help answer those.
175 00:24:57.310 ⇒ 00:25:00.500 Lauren Ford: Okay, thank you so much, it was really nice to meet you.
176 00:25:00.500 ⇒ 00:25:02.580 Amber Lin: Of course! Thank you, Lauren. Have a good one.
177 00:25:02.580 ⇒ 00:25:03.480 Lauren Ford: You too.
178 00:25:03.480 ⇒ 00:25:04.610 Amber Lin: Alright, bye!