Meeting Title: Uttam <> Robert Date: 2023-12-08 Meeting participants: Robert Tseng, Uttam Kumaran
WEBVTT
1 00:06:53.450 ⇒ 00:06:54.380 Uttam Kumaran: Edit.
2 00:06:54.500 ⇒ 00:06:55.590 Robert Tseng: Hey? You’re done!
3 00:06:56.290 ⇒ 00:07:00.920 Uttam Kumaran: How are you? Good? How are you. good man?
4 00:07:00.930 ⇒ 00:07:02.830 Robert Tseng: Where are you? At these days?
5 00:07:03.010 ⇒ 00:07:17.299 Uttam Kumaran: I am outside at a coffee shop. I’m in Austin stuff. Nice. I just I feel like sometimes I was on like a webinar thing with somebody, and I should probably just blurt my background. Yeah, totally.
6 00:07:18.410 ⇒ 00:07:19.799 How’s life been in
7 00:07:20.130 ⇒ 00:07:28.469 Robert Tseng: pretty good, I mean, I think, holidays I took like a week off. Yeah. Had some friends over, and we went to Yosemite.
8 00:07:28.540 ⇒ 00:07:35.620 Robert Tseng: yeah, I’m I’m temporarily at my parents place in the Bay area but going back to la next next week. So.
9 00:07:35.950 ⇒ 00:07:36.960 Uttam Kumaran: Well.
10 00:07:36.980 ⇒ 00:07:52.240 Uttam Kumaran: yeah, same. I think I took a couple of days off for Thanksgiving, but these days I don’t really feel like I don’t really want. I don’t really feel like taking days off. I just every day is like there’s a bunch of stuff going on. I feel I feel productive. I feel like fully occupied. So
11 00:07:52.840 ⇒ 00:08:12.310 Uttam Kumaran: that’s great. Yeah. I mean, it’s it was definitely hard to cut, to come back and catch up on things. It’s it’s not the same, you don’t have like a team to just like hand things off offline. Yeah, pretty much like grinding hall, if I’m not on my laptop. So
12 00:08:12.550 ⇒ 00:08:13.570 Uttam Kumaran: yeah.
13 00:08:13.580 ⇒ 00:08:39.579 Uttam Kumaran: yeah, and what any highlights are the since we last chat like, what’s what’s up with the how’s how’s the business guy? Yeah, I would. I would say, like I’m I. One of the big things for this quarter was like figuring out a better sales motion overall. So I finally like, I set up pipe drive, which is like kind of a lightweight Crm, and I have everything kind of like tracked in there. Have all my contacts stuff on there, and I’m like leaning a bit more heavily into just like
14 00:08:39.720 ⇒ 00:08:47.130 Uttam Kumaran: like everyone who like I follow up on, or I’m getting interest to kind of track in there, and that way I have, like a general sense of like
15 00:08:47.280 ⇒ 00:09:13.330 Uttam Kumaran: who I owe like follow ups with, who am I talking to and like? If I can translate into deals. So that’s a really big win. I’m working with some folks on like coming through leads and like finding places where like we can isolate demand, which is like, one thing we’re doing is like, I’m going through like a lot of self like job listings right now. So I can figure. It’s fine like, hey, this company is hiring for self like engineer. There’s some indication that they need
16 00:09:13.330 ⇒ 00:09:32.089 Uttam Kumaran: like data work, but their contractor, full time at least, like that’s always some indication. And then I also applied for, like the 5 train and snowflake, like partner programs. So hopefully as I begin like with registering deals. I have like access to support. And
17 00:09:32.630 ⇒ 00:09:45.110 Uttam Kumaran: kind of like have someone to point a contact that those companies to kind of work with and then just this week, I’m like brought on a guy like an outsource contractor to kind of take on some dashboarding and like
18 00:09:45.210 ⇒ 00:09:48.849 Uttam Kumaran: like data modeling work for me.
19 00:09:49.400 ⇒ 00:10:17.970 Uttam Kumaran: pretty sincerely. So that’ll be nice, because that’ll free up some of my time to like, do sales work stuff like it’s the. It’s like, probably the first time we’re at the like, really on board somebody and it’s like tough to like give the rains up. But it’s like kinda like the natural thing I need to do. I just realize, like running out of time every day for that. So if I can get some low hanging fruit work like I fully find the work that’s like takes a long time, but it’s like completely not worth my time.
20 00:10:18.140 ⇒ 00:10:23.189 Uttam Kumaran: If I could hand that stuff off which is like a lot of dashboarding and like basic updates.
21 00:10:23.270 ⇒ 00:10:34.920 Uttam Kumaran: And I can either work on the hardest stuff or work on sales. And so I found someone at a decent rate that can do that. So kind of like fingers crossed that like, he works out.
22 00:10:36.440 ⇒ 00:10:48.120 Uttam Kumaran: And yeah, I’m just like, have have my hands in like a bunch of pots in terms of like projects. So I’m like still pitching some people on like AI projects. And then I’m trying to do some internal data projects.
23 00:10:48.360 ⇒ 00:11:01.729 Robert Tseng: And then I’m still just working with 2 clients primarily so cool. Yeah, I mean that sounds great. It sounds like you’re you have something stable, and you’re able to kind of just build build things on top of it now. So I think that’s that’s great to hear.
24 00:11:01.900 ⇒ 00:11:02.970 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
25 00:11:03.540 ⇒ 00:11:21.210 Robert Tseng: yeah, I mean on my end. Yeah, I think so II have 3 clients I work with mainly yeah, they probably small, smaller different stages than you are. So one my, my ideal client, the app with 3 now is just become like a fractional data analyst kind of work. Pretty much so.
26 00:11:21.490 ⇒ 00:11:48.600 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I built out their product analytics, infrastructure. And yeah, just like, set up their dashboards. And like have like weekly or and bi-weekly like syncs with them to kind of like report on any changes. And then there’s anything interesting that comes up and like I have free range to go and do like insights to do some more insights on that. So I like that. It’s it’s fine. I think I’m more of a downstream data person than you are, it seems. But but yeah, so I think
27 00:11:48.600 ⇒ 00:12:02.430 Robert Tseng: II would love like to replace the other 2 with 2 more of those guys, you know. So take like, I mean, we’ve been working together for like 3 months now, to get to that place had to do some of the infrastructure upfront in order to to have them ready for that.
28 00:12:02.510 ⇒ 00:12:26.740 Robert Tseng: So yeah, I mean, I think that’s kind of really helped me to change my like, approach my sales, my sales motion as well. So I’m yeah. I mean, right before I jump on this call. I’m like kind of going back and forth with the potential client who wants to, who seems like there’s good potential to evolve into something like that. But they do need some like infrastructure work setup at first, like,
29 00:12:26.750 ⇒ 00:12:28.360 Robert Tseng: So yeah, I think
30 00:12:28.540 ⇒ 00:12:38.940 Robert Tseng: that that’s I mean, I think that’s always been kind of the struggle for me when I like start an engagement like that, it just like starts off with like a bit of the back end work. And then that doesn’t.
31 00:12:39.200 ⇒ 00:12:44.589 So you know, I think I’m also like trying to figure out like, how do I like actually
32 00:12:44.760 ⇒ 00:12:53.289 Robert Tseng: like grow? I either. I need to find a client that’s already ready, like the client that I would like this one, or I need to have a more streamlined engagement really
33 00:12:53.290 ⇒ 00:13:16.499 Uttam Kumaran: set the expectations that yes, I’m gonna do this. But I really want this to to move into this kind of relationship to that kind of so can you even like spell it out more. It’s like they’re like, Oh, we want you to set up like segment, or something like that from scratch or like, what is that setup look like, yeah. So right now, like this, yeah, they they have segment. And they’re like, yeah, we don’t like, we have segment to power. Bi, that’s like their pipeline. And it’s like, Oh, it doesn’t really
34 00:13:16.500 ⇒ 00:13:22.280 Robert Tseng: like the. It’s it’s their head. Their head of growth is like, I don’t trust the data here. I could need somebody to come in. Invite.
35 00:13:22.280 ⇒ 00:13:33.369 Robert Tseng: you know. Check check segment again. I do some data validation. I think. And after that, just from initial calls with their team. It seems as though, like the Pro. They don’t really have someone who’s managing the
36 00:13:33.370 ⇒ 00:13:56.000 Robert Tseng: like the business logic layer. It’s just like they’re just piping events from the engineering straight into into the. And so, you know, you just see like click button click button. It doesn’t make any sense, right? So sounds like, I’m just needing to like outline that for them. So what? So, yeah, what do you do in that? In that situation like, Are are you like, Okay, cool. I’ll come in and do that analytics work.
37 00:13:56.000 ⇒ 00:14:00.119 Uttam Kumaran: or are you like this is back fine. I won’t take them. And, like, the second question is like.
38 00:14:00.230 ⇒ 00:14:23.979 Robert Tseng: are they willing to pay for that stuff? And like, what kind of how does that fall through? Yeah. So I mean, I’m I’m trying to go back to them with it with like a scope of work. And the first phase is going to be yeah, like, before I touch your your dashboard or segment analytics. Engineering work, like, when you set up dbt, like for you first, right? Hooked up to the warehouse. So yeah, I mean, III need.
39 00:14:23.980 ⇒ 00:14:35.780 Robert Tseng: II before, I used to just be like, I’ll work with what you have. But now it’s like, unless you agree to this, like, we’re not. Gonna so yeah, that’s kind of the tug of war that I’m gonna you know, I’m I’m
40 00:14:36.080 ⇒ 00:14:43.540 Robert Tseng: oh, yeah, I’m I haven’t. I’m gonna send that out to them today, like this is,
41 00:14:43.660 ⇒ 00:15:00.769 Robert Tseng: yeah, I mean with with one of the 3 clients, you know, the 2 of them ended up agreeing to go with my approach. But I think that’s the precedent. You need to send the relationship as well. If they don’t trust those decisions, then, like, you know, you’re not gonna really enjoy working with them, anyway. So I think that’s that’s kind of
42 00:15:00.950 ⇒ 00:15:02.770 Robert Tseng: why, why, I’m starting to
43 00:15:02.980 ⇒ 00:15:19.470 Uttam Kumaran: make these contingencies before I take on work that they want. I have. I have the same thing. The thing I’m battling with is like I wanna find out how to make that setup finalized in like a few days, cause I think, like going and getting Snowflake. Dbt, 5, trans. Setting it up
44 00:15:19.620 ⇒ 00:15:22.450 Uttam Kumaran: to take to get like everybody’s credentials.
45 00:15:22.470 ⇒ 00:15:40.699 Uttam Kumaran: load the data, build the data models for stuff I’ve done before, like it could take like 2 weeks to a month, right? And so one thing I’m trying to do, and I’m kind of like thinking about trying to do as soon as I maybe like next month or month after, is like trying to set up everything. This product called terraform, which, like
46 00:15:40.720 ⇒ 00:15:52.830 Uttam Kumaran: terraform, is a way where you can. Just it’s like infrastructure as code, where pretty much I could say, like, Hey, set up snowflake with like these roles. Set up 5 train with like these roles set up this and like, add everybody, and like do bunch of shit.
47 00:15:52.900 ⇒ 00:16:10.939 Uttam Kumaran: And that way. We can go from like taking, spinning all that up in like weeks to maybe getting everything spin up and like, actually, for example, like you happen to need Facebook marketing spend? Well, we have Facebook marketing spend code already written for 5 trans spec. So like, we’ll just do that right. And that way.
48 00:16:11.080 ⇒ 00:16:25.009 Uttam Kumaran: I could get a lot closer to like actually showing stuff with data instead of waiting like a month just for info. So I think a lot of deals like II wanna it’s like, it’s tough on the data side, because it takes all that time to set that stuff up. I can reliably.
49 00:16:25.050 ⇒ 00:16:30.340 Uttam Kumaran: I can answer me answer like one question. But the second you answer a second question like, it’s gonna get tougher. So
50 00:16:30.450 ⇒ 00:16:44.650 Uttam Kumaran: I’m trying to think about ways to do that, and like, get past that pro phase a lot faster. Cause. I agree the customers are willing to do that, but then they I don’t know. I find it tough to be like you need. Dbt, you need this. You need this.
51 00:16:44.920 ⇒ 00:16:55.820 Uttam Kumaran: and like tap that every time it seems like another roadblock another road. I even feel bad to even ask for like another vendor, like, I’m still working on infra stuff. And like, you know.
52 00:16:56.110 ⇒ 00:17:10.269 Robert Tseng: no, I mean that. Yeah, I think you’re thinking of yourself ahead of me. Honestly, I yeah, that’s that’s cool that you’re starting to think about and make that like initial setup like faster. I I’ve had clients where we were setting it up, and then things changed, and it’s like
53 00:17:10.450 ⇒ 00:17:17.700 Robert Tseng: like they just like either stop it or like, they don’t want to keep going. And just like, Okay, well, I’m sending it up. Yeah.
54 00:17:17.990 ⇒ 00:17:20.779 Uttam Kumaran: And what do you think happens? What do you think happened in that situation.
55 00:17:20.990 ⇒ 00:17:28.910 Robert Tseng: So yeah. So this was like, last month. This is right before I went off on the holiday. So I think maybe I took a week off because I was kind of frustrated. So.
56 00:17:28.980 ⇒ 00:17:48.400 Robert Tseng: But yeah, I mean, II got them sold. I’m not really as much into Snowflake. I just, I’m trained in Gcp, so I try to get them up into bigquery looker, and like, I think I agreed to set up some basic looker dashboards first and then like, do the big query migration in the background. And once I did the looker and started like
57 00:17:48.400 ⇒ 00:18:07.880 Robert Tseng: putting it, pulling some data and and into big query, they just like, stop giving me a like, they’re like, Okay, we’ll give you salesforce and house bond. That’s it. And like it’s like, why, like I, it’s not what we originally scoped out. So it was just kind of frustrating. I went through like the poker, and then big, queer, and big, queer. Just got like I just just got halted there.
58 00:18:08.100 ⇒ 00:18:18.100 Robert Tseng: They couldn’t really do much more with that. So yeah, I kinda pretty much ended that engagement. And II thought that was a lost opportunity cause like, it looked like I had much. Yeah.
59 00:18:18.980 ⇒ 00:18:25.100 Uttam Kumaran: yeah, that’s weird. I wonder if that was because of like time. Or maybe once they started paying, they were like.
60 00:18:26.020 ⇒ 00:18:47.570 Robert Tseng: I think, what it was is they got value from Looker already, and like this is like an E-comp is. They’re not really that. They don’t really need anything. Bats. No, no, like real sophisticated Etl, right? So like, yeah. They needed, like some consolidation on their Crm side. But then, once, you can just do some basic reporting on that, he was like fine, and he didn’t want to continue
61 00:18:47.750 ⇒ 00:18:49.010 Robert Tseng: So
62 00:18:49.170 ⇒ 00:19:02.450 Robert Tseng: yeah, I don’t know. I think there’s something to be said about like not giving them what they want immediately. So you can also do some of the work you need. So you can like go above and beyond, because I couldn’t really go above and beyond what he asked for, to like, like, incentivize him to to keep going.
63 00:19:02.740 ⇒ 00:19:08.680 I just like gave him what he asked for first, while also trying to do my own thing, which was like, I don’t think that was the best approach.
64 00:19:09.620 ⇒ 00:19:20.790 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, makes sense. Yeah, yeah, I’m even having it. Cause I pitch a lot of clients who like they. I have to even fish them like what Snowflake is and like what a data warehouse is. And it’s like.
65 00:19:20.910 ⇒ 00:19:26.150 Uttam Kumaran: so I’m trying to find out like, How do I go to like, how do I go this like a business owner and be like.
66 00:19:26.240 ⇒ 00:19:44.029 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, this is like what we do in a box. Yeah, I’ve been doing what you were saying as well, like going through job descriptions and like talking to hiring managers and trying to use that way to network to a decision maker based on like, yeah, you know, job descriptions filter by the tooling. But I think that this person would be working with, yeah.
67 00:19:44.080 ⇒ 00:19:59.210 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean that that’s gone. Me. I’m in a couple of conversations that possible possible contracts coming out of it. But I can’t say that I post a deal through that. But I something I’ve tried. I’ve been trying as well. So I think we we’re thinking similarly on that.
68 00:20:00.000 ⇒ 00:20:19.680 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. The only the next thing I’m going to try is this like job description? I probably have like one more like, Pass that I’m gonna give it. And if nothing really pans out. Then I’m gonna I’m gonna have to just pivot to try this one. Other stuff is, I have some like Vc connections here in Austin that I may be like. Here’s a deck of like what we do
69 00:20:19.780 ⇒ 00:20:33.450 Uttam Kumaran: if any of your portfolio companies need it. Here’s like what we can stand up. I am nervous to work with startups because they typically don’t have the budget. And they’re like, it’s like psychotic environments typically
70 00:20:33.610 ⇒ 00:21:02.589 Uttam Kumaran: company or whatever
71 00:21:02.670 ⇒ 00:21:10.719 Robert Tseng: what I didn’t like about that was that I ended up feeling like my work was like the sideshow. And like the growth market agency was like the main main thing.
72 00:21:11.070 ⇒ 00:21:20.449 Uttam Kumaran: And yeah, I just didn’t like being bundled or like, kind of Consolidated with it with another, yeah, yeah, yeah. So okay, so that’s maybe something I look out for would be like.
73 00:21:20.720 ⇒ 00:21:38.129 Uttam Kumaran: this is in like a yeah, this would be like a partnership. It would be not like a it’s more like, Do you have portfolio companies that suck at giving you investor updates and probably suck it, just doing internal data. You should refer me to them. So you get your return on investment.
74 00:21:38.560 ⇒ 00:21:43.889 Uttam Kumaran: That’s it. Cause it’s like, it’s not like a Yeah, I’m not trying to like, make the Vc. Any money.
75 00:21:44.070 ⇒ 00:21:49.649 Uttam Kumaran: I’m trying to say I will help your companies grow. We get a return on your account.
76 00:21:50.100 ⇒ 00:22:01.589 Uttam Kumaran: There’s that’s how I would try to pitch it, and then, just like. try to give them a package to where like. and then maybe maybe make a tailor be like, here’s like a deck of like, here’s a slide, and
77 00:22:01.630 ⇒ 00:22:18.010 Uttam Kumaran: what like a better investor. Here’s like kind of things that you you should expect from your portfolio companies after we come in and here’s why they’ll need us. These sort of infrastructure. Once they go series B series C, and they hire product, analyst product, manager stuff like that.
78 00:22:18.190 ⇒ 00:22:24.249 Uttam Kumaran: They will need someone like us, anyways. And here’s why, like getting on, it really matters. Here’s like a price, you know.
79 00:22:24.470 ⇒ 00:22:26.620 Robert Tseng: Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
80 00:22:28.080 ⇒ 00:22:42.159 Uttam Kumaran: So you’re doing. You’re doing more stuff. Are you focused more on like, com or like, do you have a general focus on the product analytics side that you’re like tried to go for I’m even just trying to think of maybe people since we last talked that I’ve talked to that maybe
81 00:22:42.350 ⇒ 00:22:47.830 Uttam Kumaran: further up the funnel, then have needs that further up the funnel than me.
82 00:22:47.960 ⇒ 00:22:59.740 Robert Tseng: Yeah. Yeah. So I think, my, my, like, I think platform Saas companies are seem to be what I’m trying to focus on. I’m gonna redo my messaging soon. But yeah.
83 00:23:00.170 ⇒ 00:23:12.570 Robert Tseng: yeah, I’m most. It’s mostly Econ for the small projects, but like the 3 longer ones that yeah, their their platform sas like, I think that that’s that’s kind of what seems seems to be what is shaping up to be the better client for me.
84 00:23:13.260 ⇒ 00:23:18.490 Uttam Kumaran: And do you think most of the work has been kind of how you describe where it’s either, hey? Like
85 00:23:18.630 ⇒ 00:23:26.059 Uttam Kumaran: how many customers we have, you got a question that’s like, how many of this do we have? Or it’s more of you being like, here’s data like.
86 00:23:26.320 ⇒ 00:23:41.440 Robert Tseng: Tell me some shit I didn’t know. Is it like, is it like one or the other? Yeah. So I’ve already adjusted my messaging to focus more on like engagement and retention. So I’m trying to reach yeah, all my, all, my outbound messaging is going towards like
87 00:23:41.480 ⇒ 00:23:58.669 Robert Tseng: growth leaders like brand brand brand managers like partnership managers stuff like that. So yeah, I think before I was more trying to work with marketers, but I felt like I was always getting lumped in with like cro work, which is.
88 00:23:58.930 ⇒ 00:24:00.999 Robert Tseng: I don’t know. It’s just like, very like
89 00:24:01.370 ⇒ 00:24:04.459 Uttam Kumaran: much of my lower like, what is, what is that like?
90 00:24:04.640 ⇒ 00:24:22.599 Robert Tseng: It. It’s just like, yeah. Yeah. So see our conversion rate optimization mostly paid mar working with paid marketing like, yeah, they’re just trying to figure out how to lower their costs, increase their marketing spend? Yeah, I mean, there are a lot of companies that do that that in a non quantitative way that works. Well, you know. Like.
91 00:24:22.870 ⇒ 00:24:30.129 Uttam Kumaran: yeah. So, and I just feel like I’m not really. That’s not really the space for me. So I’ve I’ve already pivoted couple of months from that.
92 00:24:30.940 ⇒ 00:24:34.979 Uttam Kumaran: So, but but in the situations that you had success, there’s already been
93 00:24:35.650 ⇒ 00:24:43.299 Uttam Kumaran: like a fair bit of analytics engineering that’s already occurred. And then you’re like, Okay, I can work with this like, and like.
94 00:24:43.390 ⇒ 00:24:56.809 Robert Tseng: yeah, well, so it’s either, I do basic bi for them that doesn’t really require analytics engineering. And then I’m like, yeah, a couple of clients I’ve built out. Dbt for I’ve also partnering with like, there’s like a
95 00:24:57.200 ⇒ 00:25:14.600 Robert Tseng: I. I’ve been like trialing partnerships with other like analytics as a service kind of companies that are willing to like, you know. Just do a lot of connections for free and and like. Give give out board replay dashboarding so. I wouldn’t say I have a preferred partner on that yet. It’s still kind of trial and error for me.
96 00:25:14.740 ⇒ 00:25:24.259 Robert Tseng: But yeah, at least, at least that initial engagement is is pretty like smooth where I’m I feel like once I find a client in that sweet spot. I can keep doing that.
97 00:25:25.360 ⇒ 00:25:30.889 Uttam Kumaran: Okay? And then has a lot. Has a lot of it been like. Have you done a ton of words just like
98 00:25:31.530 ⇒ 00:25:37.880 Uttam Kumaran: they? They’re they’re just like, here’s a bunch of data like, kind of like, let’s figure out opportunities. And they kind of give you just like
99 00:25:38.050 ⇒ 00:26:06.220 Uttam Kumaran: a ton of like they give you a ton of freedom to just like find cool insights and build dashboards with like low requirements. I wouldn’t say that’s the norm, but II just fit. I just wrapped up like one of the that kind of project with like a is the Econ brand and then in the skin in the skin care segment. They just like, okay, they just gave me a dump of data that they that they pulled and they they didn’t really have, and they just had me like, Look for look for interesting trends. So
100 00:26:06.620 ⇒ 00:26:13.140 I don’t know if that will pan out to be something that we’re going to keep doing long term. But it was an interesting exercise. Yeah.
101 00:26:13.210 ⇒ 00:26:25.790 Uttam Kumaran: yeah. I mean, even one of my clients. They have the same thing they just have. They’re sitting on a shit kind of data. And I I’ve just been spending a couple of months just doing modeling frankly. And then II kind of surface up to that level
102 00:26:25.890 ⇒ 00:26:29.299 Uttam Kumaran: as I can. But there’s just they’re going from like
103 00:26:29.750 ⇒ 00:26:37.519 Uttam Kumaran: great raw data to like something. So I’m building out a lot of that across marketing Ecom sales and like, there’s just so many layers.
104 00:26:37.690 ⇒ 00:26:43.179 Uttam Kumaran: But one thing I’m not spending enough time on is that like really top of funnel work, because
105 00:26:43.440 ⇒ 00:26:53.349 Uttam Kumaran: it’s the last step. But it actually is the only customer facing step, which is where I’m having a like. A lot of it’s like a really tough for me, because.
106 00:26:53.390 ⇒ 00:27:00.810 Uttam Kumaran: like I’m I will buy a story like the feeling, the modeling to be really right. But then I don’t spend a ton of time, I guess. Also spend a ton of additional time
107 00:27:00.930 ⇒ 00:27:06.409 Uttam Kumaran: on the analytics. Maybe I can even think about for one of my clients like whether it makes sense.
108 00:27:06.430 ⇒ 00:27:10.430 Uttam Kumaran: you know, there’s like. if I have extra hours, they’ll like, Give that to you.
109 00:27:10.730 ⇒ 00:27:25.870 Uttam Kumaran: and I can even like keep you in mind if the client seems more like, Hey, there may be partial. like analytics, engineering work. But then there’s actually a lot of analytics work that doesn’t need to be got in me. Some people just look at me and like, you’re just data.
110 00:27:25.980 ⇒ 00:27:30.310 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I’m like, yeah, there’s actually like quietness, like a difference between what I do. And
111 00:27:30.460 ⇒ 00:27:38.239 Uttam Kumaran: and I’m also what I’m I can do some analytics work and I do. I’m able to take like. definitely understand business concepts. Gonna go after that stuff. But
112 00:27:38.840 ⇒ 00:27:59.089 Robert Tseng: like, it’s not where I spend a ton of my time. It’s probably not where I’m most valuable, you know. So yeah, no, I mean, that seems interesting. Yeah, if you think that’d be, that’d be great. I mean, I’m I’m sure it would be great to have somebody who’s already like cleaning the data. And I don’t have to. I can just do the insights piece. I think that’s more or less what I’m trained more for. So.
113 00:27:59.140 ⇒ 00:28:08.450 Uttam Kumaran: yeah, and it’s also interesting. Because, for example, like the company I work for, they’re like the E-commerce Pool Parts Company. And one of the initial things they wanted me to work on when I first gone was like.
114 00:28:08.450 ⇒ 00:28:31.960 Uttam Kumaran: can you? They sell pool parts, which is a super seasonal business, and both concentrated seasonally and geography wise. So most of their stuff goes like 5 States like Texas, New York, Florida, Arizona, and like California. And they they wanted to look at like weather correlations and specifically weather events as it relates to sales, so that they can say like, Oh, there’s a huge storm or something
115 00:28:31.960 ⇒ 00:28:54.370 Uttam Kumaran: we should do messaging towards pool covers right before the storm happens, or like stuff like that, like like, can we can? Can we like target marketing early because, like the sun’s gonna be out earlier this year. So that was stuff like, I just like haven’t gone to. But like I have all the sales data and like I have all the weather data, it would just take me, probably like 5 times a time to do that than you
116 00:28:54.510 ⇒ 00:29:05.179 Uttam Kumaran: right. And that could be interesting to be like. Oh, actually, if you want to, just like, here’s all the sales data by pretty much. We have everything by Zip. all like geography wise, and then
117 00:29:05.230 ⇒ 00:29:12.590 Uttam Kumaran: like and stuff like. There’s like a really good weather related package by the same Zip code. I would say we could do the join on cool.
118 00:29:13.040 ⇒ 00:29:36.039 Robert Tseng: Take a week, and like, run that and see what you think like. That could be interesting way to collaborate on like a project by project basis. And even try a small thing. Yeah, yeah, I think that that sounds like that’s the perfect project right up my alley on the inside side. So, yeah, keep me updated. And then nice thing about these guys. The nice thing about these guys is like, if I say, like, Hey, I want to go work on that. Can we allocate more budget?
119 00:29:36.090 ⇒ 00:29:43.349 Uttam Kumaran: and I’ll just say purely because I’m working on some other stuff. They’ll be like totally fine. like one of the big things I just did for them is
120 00:29:43.790 ⇒ 00:30:13.000 Uttam Kumaran: is, I negotiated. They they they spend a ton of money on shipping, maybe like a third of their revenue goes straight to shipping because they’re shipping on the heavy items. And I went through and looked at all of they looked at all their ups spend and looked at a ups contract and renegotiated their ups contract to get like almost 50 to 70% discount on all packages they spend like they spend like they spend like more than like a million dollars on shipping every year.
121 00:30:13.020 ⇒ 00:30:18.340 Uttam Kumaran: So I like, and I what I did. It’s like I. But then again, it was like a really manual, because
122 00:30:18.580 ⇒ 00:30:37.000 Uttam Kumaran: ups will send you like rate charts by zone. And then, by way zone, and like, I’m like ingesting all that doing forecast also saying, Hey, if we were to move all this spent for Fedex, looking at like a 20% increase next year on sales, years like what? And then I would go to ups and handle that negotiation. That was a really great.
123 00:30:37.120 ⇒ 00:31:06.929 Uttam Kumaran: I think. Full spectrum, like project where I have to get. I have all the ship station data. I’ve all the sales data. I have a ton of dimensionality data, so I can understand like ups, will say, this is the if this is the weight and the rate, this is the weight and zone rate. But then, if your package gets this like different dimension analysis, different dimension potion, then, with uses different rate structure. So all that has to get calculated in like the analytics layer within me to say, like, Hey, actually, we’re gonna forecast that like.
124 00:31:07.040 ⇒ 00:31:22.090 Uttam Kumaran: if I look at actuals for this year, here’s our current rate. Here’s the projected rate. And then I would go them. And so they would say, Okay, we can actually offer you this discount. I would then add that to. And I would say, here’s actually like where we’re on the negotiation. And then finally, we got the point where, like, I was able to say like.
125 00:31:22.390 ⇒ 00:31:26.890 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, if you just give us this. Then we’ll we’ll hit like a pretty good savings now, and
126 00:31:26.990 ⇒ 00:31:37.610 Uttam Kumaran: just like deal with them. And and that was a really cool one where it’s like we. We put the whole distance from like detailing in. I’m a ton of ship station, related data that’s modeled.
127 00:31:37.980 ⇒ 00:31:49.369 Uttam Kumaran: All this is in light dash, which is like a cheaper looker club, and then like it worked right. And so I really think there’s opportunity to do. I’m I’m doing that a little bit on the
128 00:31:49.550 ⇒ 00:31:55.619 Uttam Kumaran: I’m working right now on doing some of that stuff on the marketing side.
129 00:31:55.680 ⇒ 00:31:59.789 Uttam Kumaran: But I’m also putting together forecast for them next year. So maybe I’ll just
130 00:31:59.810 ⇒ 00:32:14.060 Uttam Kumaran: we can look at a couple of projects with them, and I can even just show you like what their like dashes looks like. And again like, if if anything screams out, they’re like, Oh, I could do this in like 2 weeks. I think we should just try to do that, and I would totally. I would totally just give you the cash.
131 00:32:14.350 ⇒ 00:32:25.969 Robert Tseng: Yeah, for sure. I mean, that sounds cool. I mean, II work for I mean, I worked in logistics space. So I have to yeah, build Bill building out a tool like that dude.
132 00:32:25.970 ⇒ 00:32:46.719 Robert Tseng: I mean, that’s awesome. That sounds like you built them like a like a internal, like a like a shipmate quoting tool. Pretty much they could use cross carrier and take that and and go do other like their that would love to be able to use that to renegotiate their rates as well.
133 00:32:46.720 ⇒ 00:32:54.499 Uttam Kumaran: I have, like a ups ae, that I spend like hours with on the phone being like. And there’s like dimensional, there’s like dimensional rate. And there’s like.
134 00:32:54.530 ⇒ 00:33:17.910 Uttam Kumaran: I’m learn learning about sure post versus like freight stuff. And like. And again, like, I’m a data person. But I’m like they will. They’ll say what to sit on like. Give me the fucking rate chart like I’m not gonna sit here and discuss. I’m gonna plug it in, and then I can at least tell you. So that’s where it’s like I was, I think really valuable for them. But you’re totally right. It’s like that’s something that maybe we can. If we could package that up into like a Dbt
135 00:33:18.230 ⇒ 00:33:33.340 Uttam Kumaran: like model, and then be like, alright cool. This is what we this is like an asset right now, you know, and we can go anywhere and say, Oh, you need. You need to do like like shipment cost renegotiation on ship station. And we have that.
136 00:33:33.420 ⇒ 00:34:01.660 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. So yeah, that’d be really cool. Maybe I’ll maybe I’ll I’m gonna talk to these guys today. Cause I think the webinar thing in particular, something that I can. I don’t know whether it’s gonna be vanity or not. But like they want something on that, I think. So maybe like, I’ll I’m gonna I’m gonna email them like an end of week thing today. Maybe we could like hop on on like Monday or something, and even talk about like I don’t know what your bandwidth is like. But again. Those will be like, I’ll literally just
137 00:34:01.850 ⇒ 00:34:03.960 Uttam Kumaran: give you the data and stuff like a
138 00:34:04.160 ⇒ 00:34:09.310 Uttam Kumaran: yeah, I know. Let’s let’s all check in on Monday. Yeah, let’s let’s do that.
139 00:34:09.650 ⇒ 00:34:17.799 Uttam Kumaran: Are you on slack? By the way, I am? Yeah. maybe I could just add you. do you have your like? Can I just add you as like a.
140 00:34:17.889 ⇒ 00:34:29.539 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I have like accounts. I think I can be added in. I can add people to my stuff. Yeah, I could add the partner account that way. It like shows up in yours.
141 00:34:29.580 ⇒ 00:34:30.659 Uttam Kumaran: Okay? Awesome.
142 00:34:31.699 ⇒ 00:34:39.529 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, pretty much easier. Let’s just try that. I’ll just share with your email. And then that’s great that we can work on that together because
143 00:34:40.270 ⇒ 00:34:45.219 Uttam Kumaran: they’re gonna love that. But you know, they’re gonna really love that man.
144 00:34:45.940 ⇒ 00:35:13.300 Uttam Kumaran: I’ll think I’ll kind of brains from a couple of the things again, like I’ve just been sitting on a couple of those analyses that I frankly have not just gone time to do pretty much because I’m just doing so much DVD modeling. But it’s like really low hanging, free stuff that again, the problem with them is that they’re they’re at the top. They’re like they have no understanding of, like the infra side, except that it’s like fucking complicated. But I really wanna like, give them some really cool insights they’re sitting on like
145 00:35:13.330 ⇒ 00:35:15.059 Uttam Kumaran: tons of transaction data.
146 00:35:15.460 ⇒ 00:35:18.070 Uttam Kumaran: I think, even if you take a look at that, you can.
147 00:35:18.610 ⇒ 00:35:44.740 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I don’t. I don’t
148 00:35:44.940 ⇒ 00:35:47.519 Uttam Kumaran: like XYZ, ABC, clients
149 00:35:48.070 ⇒ 00:36:10.780 Uttam Kumaran: like the tools I’m gonna recommend. I’ve implemented at all those and name your favorite brand. They’re likely scaling with these tools. So one that’s on the vendor selection side. I would say, second, if you are planning to bring on another analyst or have a long term use of data. It really makes sense for you to have a data warehouse and a tool that brings in that data on a reliable recurring basis.
150 00:36:10.870 ⇒ 00:36:25.159 Uttam Kumaran: And I. That’s why I suggest stuff like at 5, 10, because I’ve used those full over and over again. And they’re not gonna just go out of business. And then I then and I said, like, Hey, I can. I even show them code. And I’ll say, here’s like how we get from Amazon
151 00:36:25.160 ⇒ 00:36:43.000 Uttam Kumaran: to 5 train to then us snowflake to then, me running a model on top of it. So then your light dash and I walk them through that. And I said, I have to, instead of your logic, living in your head on like, how do we measure a customer? How do we in? How do we calculate profit on our own, and instead of relying on shopify stuff
152 00:36:43.000 ⇒ 00:36:59.359 Uttam Kumaran: all that has to happen within the warehouse Yup. And so I generally explain to that, and then again part rid of it is like having them know the tools, and some of the lingo part of it is just like, try to share with them that I am authority, and I have availability
153 00:36:59.560 ⇒ 00:37:12.029 Uttam Kumaran: so like enable that, and then I try to isolate one project to go to, so that I can go to distance where it’s like, detail it in. Bring into the warehouse show a visualization. I don’t sit for 6 months. I just do it.
154 00:37:12.330 ⇒ 00:37:30.180 Uttam Kumaran: Do the analytics engineering. I thought it’d be like, cool. You guys want Facebook, let’s just rip Facebook away in like a month. I’ll rip all the info. I’ll do all the infrastructure along the way all the Dvt. And get you to the point where you see that. And that’s just one string. Of course, that’ll buy me some time to then layer in the other stuff, you know.
155 00:37:30.750 ⇒ 00:37:44.079 Robert Tseng: Oh, I really like that. But I mean, I think that’s really smart to be able to like. Narrow the stream down and go all the way. I mean, that’s that’s cause I can’t afford. I’m I can’t afford, and I think I would get fired if I just worked on this piece, even though it is value
156 00:37:44.140 ⇒ 00:37:49.070 Uttam Kumaran: and I’m not discounting that it’s more like I put myself on their shoes.
157 00:37:49.570 ⇒ 00:38:04.929 Uttam Kumaran: and I’m like I need to see something, you know. So II try to find a really isolated slice to where I can just like do the whole thing. And I’m capable of doing that. So it’s like, it’s all like, Oh, you need to find someone else to do that. It’s more of just like
158 00:38:05.130 ⇒ 00:38:19.360 Uttam Kumaran: I can. I really then try to over invest in the analytics engineering side, just because I want to set them up for success in the future. But again, if they don’t have engineering talent and they may not see a lot of that work happening. So for sure.
159 00:38:19.790 ⇒ 00:38:27.359 Robert Tseng: okay, cool. Yeah, super interesting. Yeah. I mean, I guess I’m I’m free like.
160 00:38:27.600 ⇒ 00:38:32.739 Robert Tseng: afternoon next, like on Monday would be preferred. If that’s if that works with you.
161 00:38:33.370 ⇒ 00:38:34.910 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I
162 00:38:35.070 ⇒ 00:38:38.359 Uttam Kumaran: have an in person call
163 00:38:38.710 ⇒ 00:38:46.890 Uttam Kumaran: at like 3 Eastern. So for you, that’d be like one noon. I could do.
164 00:38:48.420 ⇒ 00:38:52.480 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, we could try to aim for one or
165 00:38:54.050 ⇒ 00:38:59.469 Uttam Kumaran: 2 pm, you mean, you mean you mean afternoon your time? Yeah. Sorry. Yeah.
166 00:39:00.550 ⇒ 00:39:04.659 Uttam Kumaran: So yeah, maybe let’s say so that call should just be between like
167 00:39:05.470 ⇒ 00:39:09.150 Uttam Kumaran: noon and one. So maybe let’s aim for
168 00:39:13.280 ⇒ 00:39:15.809 Uttam Kumaran: if we can aim for 2, 30,
169 00:39:17.210 ⇒ 00:39:21.330 Uttam Kumaran: or what is that. So I’m trying to do the math. And 1, 30,
170 00:39:21.620 ⇒ 00:39:29.409 Robert Tseng: yeah, 1 30 works. Yeah. Afternoon, my time Monday, like, I don’t. I don’t have. I don’t have meetings usually. So I think that works for me.
171 00:39:29.450 ⇒ 00:39:35.859 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I’ll send you something for 1 30. And that way there’s a little bit of gap I could just make sure I’m all set up. And then, yeah. spent on that.
172 00:39:38.380 ⇒ 00:39:47.609 Uttam Kumaran: Okay dope. I’m glad hopefully find some. I’m glad we found some way to work together on some data stuff. I think hopefully, I can kind of see. See?
173 00:39:47.810 ⇒ 00:39:54.030 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I can kinda see your stuff in action, and that’ll kinda open my brain a little bit. So like. where else we can work together. So
174 00:39:54.320 ⇒ 00:39:55.060 Robert Tseng: yeah.
175 00:39:55.360 ⇒ 00:40:04.100 Robert Tseng: cool. Sounds good. Well, happy. Friday, you, Tom. Hope you get a weekend. And yeah, let’s get going on Monday. I’m gonna be. I’m gonna be back in the day
176 00:40:05.130 ⇒ 00:40:08.320 Uttam Kumaran: look week of Christmas. Oh, really, it’s gonna be helpful
177 00:40:08.360 ⇒ 00:40:32.780 Robert Tseng: I’ll be in. La, actually, I’m I’m getting married the week of Christmas. So it’s a lot of stress dude this past month to plan that out and do the business. Yeah, yeah. On retrospect, probably wasn’t the wisest thing to do those in parallel. But you know, here, here we are. So
178 00:40:32.990 ⇒ 00:40:39.890 Robert Tseng: yeah, wow! Dude definitely. Take some time that we deserve it. Congrats. Thanks. Yeah. So.
179 00:40:40.040 ⇒ 00:40:45.540 Robert Tseng: But alright, we’ll we’ll chat. We’ll chat Monday. So alright, have a good weekend.
180 00:40:45.750 ⇒ 00:40:47.020 Uttam Kumaran: Thank you. Bye, bye.