Meeting Title: Uttam <> Shashank Date: 2023-12-11 Meeting participants: Shashank Mishra, Uttam Kumaran
WEBVTT
1 00:03:15.890 ⇒ 00:03:17.180 Uttam Kumaran: Hey?
2 00:03:19.350 ⇒ 00:03:22.340 Shashank Mishra: Hey? How’s it going with them? Right?
3 00:03:23.420 ⇒ 00:03:25.990 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. You’re saying you’re, how’s it going? How’s the day, Van?
4 00:03:26.420 ⇒ 00:03:35.979 Shashank Mishra: Good man? It’s just been busy. Got a little looped into some last minute meetings here, drive out to the domain just because it’d be
5 00:03:36.250 ⇒ 00:03:49.479 Shashank Mishra: just too much. Now you’re totally fine. I was like, II don’t get to work with a lot of people or meet a ton of people in town, so if I have an excuse to like, get out of the house and go see people.
6 00:03:49.480 ⇒ 00:04:11.659 Uttam Kumaran: That’s what I would like prefer. But we can definitely, yeah, we can. We can definitely make that happen in the evenings. My days tend to be back to back meetings, so it’s just hard to find time during the day. So I met your buddy at the 4 dealerships. So I actually bought. I bought a truck recently.
7 00:04:11.730 ⇒ 00:04:36.980 Uttam Kumaran: and I don’t know like I grew one of my best friends growing up owned a dealership, and I don’t really particularly enjoy like going to car dealerships. But I ended up becoming friends. And it was actually a lot smoother than II thought it was gonna be, which is really nice. And then he mentioned that, you know, we might be working in a lot of the same space. But yeah, it was awesome talking to him.
8 00:04:37.200 ⇒ 00:04:38.969 Shashank Mishra: Yeah, vish is a.
9 00:04:39.000 ⇒ 00:04:54.799 Shashank Mishra: it’s he makes a lot of friends very easily. But yeah, II he didn’t give me much context outside of like, Hey, you know, becomes kind of in the same space, like I just wanted to introduce you all to see if there’s an opportunity.
10 00:04:54.980 ⇒ 00:05:09.690 Shashank Mishra: yeah, I’m curious to just hear about what what you’re working on and like how things are growing and where you’re looking for help, and maybe I can chime in. I can also share with you my experience. And where I’m at. Yeah, totally. So.
11 00:05:09.780 ⇒ 00:05:15.790 Uttam Kumaran: I have been working in computer engineering and data engineering for about like 6 years. Now, I
12 00:05:15.980 ⇒ 00:05:36.769 Uttam Kumaran: I graduated and lived in New York for about 5 years before this, and I moved here to Austin about a year and a half ago. I’ve just worked for a number of different companies, both full time and like in a contract capacity, doing primarily data, analytics, data, engineering work, analytics, engineering work, and then
13 00:05:36.770 ⇒ 00:05:47.589 Uttam Kumaran: I’ve done a lot of like product development as well. And then, more recently, in April, II left the last company where I was leading product at and was like, Okay, let me see if I can go try to make money on my own
14 00:05:47.590 ⇒ 00:06:11.420 Uttam Kumaran: and go like work directly for clients. So in April I kind of started this company, Brainforge and I’ve been working directly with a few clients, implementing data, infrastructure and doing analytics, engineering and doing Vi. Right now, it’s me just me full time, and then I have a couple of other folks that are like either subcontracting or I’m kind of come in like project to project.
15 00:06:11.450 ⇒ 00:06:13.629 Uttam Kumaran: So that’s I would say one piece
16 00:06:13.780 ⇒ 00:06:33.150 Uttam Kumaran: and so that’s been going now for about like 6 months, probably took me about like 2, 2 and a half months, till I land the first client, and like, get things rolling and then the other piece is, I’m working with a lot of like other some other a couple of other startups on proposals and projects in and around like AI and language models.
17 00:06:33.180 ⇒ 00:06:38.080 Uttam Kumaran: That is more of a field that’s like brand new to me. And I really want
18 00:06:38.110 ⇒ 00:06:50.360 Uttam Kumaran: to kind of like, just get experience and like building production applications around and I just have a lot of friends in like startup game that are like, I’m able to brainstorm ideas with them and prototype things.
19 00:06:50.390 ⇒ 00:07:03.909 Uttam Kumaran: So I have some like local people in town that I’ve kind of been doing that with, and definitely like a new field for me. But where I think is like there’s a just a huge wave right now. So I have a the thing that I think.
20 00:07:04.430 ⇒ 00:07:12.959 I have like a little bit of a more of a unique advantage of is I just made a lot of friends doing data. And so I have a ton of engineering friends that have a lot of time. And and
21 00:07:13.730 ⇒ 00:07:28.839 Uttam Kumaran: that way, I’m actually able to guarantee like a really great product. For, like a lot of my clients. And so right now, I would say, the biggest challenge for me is just getting more clients. You know, I’m really confident in the work that I can do in the scope that I’m really comfortable with, and like
22 00:07:28.860 ⇒ 00:07:40.030 Uttam Kumaran: having people to do that. I think the biggest thing is like, okay, building a sales motion and acquiring more clients. And that’s kind of where I am right now is like, how do I expand just beyond the couple that I’m working with?
23 00:07:40.320 ⇒ 00:07:44.540 Uttam Kumaran: so yeah, that’s kind of like the general overview.
24 00:07:44.710 ⇒ 00:07:56.189 Shashank Mishra: Okay, awesome. That’s it. Takes a lot to kind of go off on your own. I’ve kind of considered or dabbled with the idea of doing, consulting, and that similar to you. I’ve worked like I pick up contract jobs on the side
25 00:07:56.240 ⇒ 00:08:00.029 Shashank Mishra: project base depending on my interest. So
26 00:08:00.230 ⇒ 00:08:09.920 Uttam Kumaran: you know, kudos for you to like. Take that jump and make that step. It takes a lot. Thanks, man, I appreciate it. Yeah, it’s been. It’s been an interesting puzzle.
27 00:08:10.770 ⇒ 00:08:18.310 Shashank Mishra: You gotta get started somewhere. Right? So I have massive respect for people that do kick it off, and, you know, make the initial step.
28 00:08:18.520 ⇒ 00:08:23.969 Shashank Mishra: I’ll kind of. Tell you my my experience, my background, and I mean happy to provide my
29 00:08:24.260 ⇒ 00:08:41.700 Shashank Mishra: input, on maybe view right? and like, if you think like, hey, this is by no means of any help to me at all. Let me know. I’ve mostly operated in the revenue space in my career. Sales and revenue. So a lot of work done around
30 00:08:42.030 ⇒ 00:08:53.820 Shashank Mishra: sales strategy how to go to market research in the market kind of defining the the key people you’re going after and stuff. I interact a lot with data
31 00:08:54.300 ⇒ 00:09:01.400 Shashank Mishra: on a day to day basis. So I am a big like, that’s a key
32 00:09:01.870 ⇒ 00:09:07.210 Shashank Mishra: piece in. Like all the work I do is having good data
33 00:09:07.220 ⇒ 00:09:12.889 Shashank Mishra: and a good supporting team to help me there. So I understand the need
34 00:09:13.250 ⇒ 00:09:18.609 Shashank Mishra: for a strong data infrastructure, and I can speak to it so like that. That value prop is not
35 00:09:19.530 ⇒ 00:09:26.360 Shashank Mishra: it lands on me. It’s not beyond me. that being said. I,
36 00:09:27.480 ⇒ 00:09:34.969 Shashank Mishra: I guess I’m very aligned to just like strategic work. So kind of looking at the entirety of
37 00:09:35.410 ⇒ 00:09:43.390 Shashank Mishra: you know your revenue data, if you may like all the way from top of funnel to when you’re closing the customers and like
38 00:09:43.710 ⇒ 00:09:45.310 Shashank Mishra: trying to identify
39 00:09:45.340 ⇒ 00:09:55.440 Shashank Mishra: both from a strategic perspective where changes can be made right where we can drive a better strategy and also like trying to identify areas where we can improve
40 00:09:55.470 ⇒ 00:10:01.400 Shashank Mishra: where we can drive like incremental efficiency, which kind of amounts to bigger gains
41 00:10:01.600 ⇒ 00:10:06.729 Shashank Mishra: over time in a nutshell. That’s what I focus on. Now, this encompasses
42 00:10:06.760 ⇒ 00:10:16.200 Shashank Mishra: a whole myriad different things all from like headcount planning and sales demand planning to.
43 00:10:16.210 ⇒ 00:10:27.149 Shashank Mishra: you know, post close revenue kind of reporting like that and making sense of those numbers. like. I told you, I just pick up project work
44 00:10:27.290 ⇒ 00:10:35.780 Shashank Mishra: on the side depending on. If it’s something interesting. I like being involved in like strategic work. And things like that.
45 00:10:35.910 ⇒ 00:10:44.830 Shashank Mishra: I am looking for potential like startups to kind of work with, but no initial expectation.
46 00:10:44.880 ⇒ 00:10:49.190 Shashank Mishra: I guess. Just to kind of see how things will go if it interests me.
47 00:10:49.240 ⇒ 00:11:04.380 Shashank Mishra: and then, if there’s an opportunity for partnership in the future, or depending on how things go. I would like to dedicate more of my time into something. I’m more vested in right, both from time and equity, and all like different perspectives, if that makes sense.
48 00:11:04.730 ⇒ 00:11:10.300 Uttam Kumaran: And so right now, are you Prim? Are you? Are you primary? You have a full time, and then you’re kind of picking up stuff.
49 00:11:10.360 ⇒ 00:11:23.530 Shashank Mishra: I do know full time right now. Yes, and I pick up things on the side. It depends. I probably wouldn’t pick up a project right now, just because I’m head down with like annual planning and stuff at the company. That’s usually a heavy time for me.
50 00:11:23.590 ⇒ 00:11:24.909 Shashank Mishra: but it’s
51 00:11:25.130 ⇒ 00:11:34.950 Shashank Mishra: It’s like mid between the quarter for about 4 4 to 5 weeks. Things tend to slow down, and that’s even though I’ll pick up a project or so, depending on how long it’s gonna take.
52 00:11:35.000 ⇒ 00:11:38.450 Shashank Mishra: Most of them usually run about a month or 2 if I do pick them up.
53 00:11:38.510 ⇒ 00:11:49.630 Uttam Kumaran: Okay? And then, in terms of like you mentioned like work that’s more strategic. Like to even boil that down further. Is it like. Hey, like, I have access to a bi tool, or all the data is like clean. And
54 00:11:49.660 ⇒ 00:11:58.839 Uttam Kumaran: we’re thinking about a new strategy or a new go to market. And like, let me prove that out with data, and you work directly with like an executive team, or like a
55 00:11:58.920 ⇒ 00:12:06.699 Uttam Kumaran: Vp of revenue, or something like that, or what like, give me a sense of what the engagement has have have been like where that you’ve like enjoyed the most.
56 00:12:07.320 ⇒ 00:12:19.869 Shashank Mishra: Yeah, it it. I guess it depends on the project you’re working on. I would say for me on the strategy piece. Yes, it is making sense of that data, right? Being closer to it.
57 00:12:20.010 ⇒ 00:12:25.350 Shashank Mishra: Having been in the weeds. There’s a lot of contextual knowledge that comes with that
58 00:12:25.360 ⇒ 00:12:29.030 Shashank Mishra: that sometimes the execs or sales leaders
59 00:12:29.200 ⇒ 00:12:42.930 Shashank Mishra: are not exposed to. So I enjoy spending the time to craft a story. I can work with the data myself, and kind of like put things together. But the piece of it that
60 00:12:43.060 ⇒ 00:12:46.179 Shashank Mishra: to me drives the most benefit to anyone.
61 00:12:46.300 ⇒ 00:12:59.089 Shashank Mishra: It’s like, hey, what? What can this do for me? Right? What does this data mean for me? What insights can take out of this to drive improvements. or just something to track on ongoing basis. You know
62 00:12:59.380 ⇒ 00:13:06.590 Shashank Mishra: something to keep eyes on. So you know how you’re tracking towards your the goals that you’re setting and such.
63 00:13:07.150 ⇒ 00:13:17.960 Shashank Mishra: And you sound simple, sound, simple. You’d come across a lot of executives and companies where this stuff is not like at my company. I’ll be transparent. This is not
64 00:13:18.300 ⇒ 00:13:24.339 Shashank Mishra: pocket science, or just some some very complicated process. They don’t have it figured out. So.
65 00:13:24.840 ⇒ 00:13:37.769 Uttam Kumaran: yeah, I totally agree, you know, in in all the situations I’ve been in. I’ve been in your spot, and many times, and and again I work for starters where I’m not only doing that I’m like also doing all the infrast stuff. And then like hiring. And
66 00:13:37.860 ⇒ 00:13:43.610 Uttam Kumaran: it’s an absolute nightmare. I think the the one thing I realized, though, is similar to you is that I don’t think
67 00:13:43.760 ⇒ 00:13:52.180 Uttam Kumaran: the one thing I try to communicate to people that I may work for is like my goal is to help you make more decisions and then make them make more accurate decisions.
68 00:13:52.220 ⇒ 00:14:07.489 Uttam Kumaran: And like, that’s, I think, a blanket thing that I tell stakeholders, because, you know, I work with people who may need stuff on like the OP. Side, the marketing side, like the revenue side. But for me, it’s like whoever is making decisions. They need to make more of them. And they need to be
69 00:14:07.520 ⇒ 00:14:28.590 Uttam Kumaran: made with data in mind. And then how can I kind of enable that right? So that’s exactly like what I communicate to clients. I think the nice thing about you know, you and I’ve met a lot of people kind of like along the way is that now that I’m kind of like running my own business, I’m like, quite particular with clients. Which is like.
70 00:14:28.770 ⇒ 00:14:31.369 Uttam Kumaran: is there actually a problem here that we can solve.
71 00:14:31.500 ⇒ 00:14:54.390 Uttam Kumaran: There are some people that just don’t want to use data to make decisions. And you can’t solve that problem like we. We can’t solve that problem. Instead, it’s like finding people that they’re at a point of their like data maturity. That doesn’t mean like they have a ton of money that may mean they have a ton of money. It’s more of like, have they solved all their problems like 60 70% of it through their gut. And they’re like.
72 00:14:54.390 ⇒ 00:15:15.439 Uttam Kumaran: we’re, we’re. We’re. We just need to leverage a lot of this data to make decisions. There’s a lot of executives I work for where they’re like they don’t care about that stuff. And so now I’m really really mindful about client selection. But the nice thing is, and you probably have seen this is that like off the I’ve worked with Snowflake for like, almost like 6 years now, I’ve done like looker tableau. Dbt.
73 00:15:15.880 ⇒ 00:15:19.689 Uttam Kumaran: it’s just like all that is now becoming a lot more common.
74 00:15:19.810 ⇒ 00:15:33.860 Uttam Kumaran: The problem is, there’s still not a lot of talented people that have done this, not only once or twice, but like a couple of times and then also it’s the third thing I’ll say is, you need people who can communicate to stakeholders who are technical. That’s like
75 00:15:34.160 ⇒ 00:15:46.150 Uttam Kumaran: you’re the people that you’re asking too much right? But II found I’ve not only for me, that’s who I am. I found some really amazing people that have the ability to kind of bridge the gap.
76 00:15:46.230 ⇒ 00:16:07.620 Uttam Kumaran: And I think once I found that I found a real market for that. And I found it to be the really lucrative like, there’s a really good. There’s a really good arena for companies like mine who just offer really specific, like development agency work to come in. I don’t get involved with any like company, politics, or anything like that. I come in as like a point person to say, like.
77 00:16:07.750 ⇒ 00:16:21.789 Uttam Kumaran: I’ve worked with marketing sales all this data multiple times over for a number of different enterprises. I can tell you the best practices, standardized metrics, and then get you to dashboards and things. You can leverage in like a third time.
78 00:16:22.020 ⇒ 00:16:28.790 Uttam Kumaran: Right? And then the nice thing about that is, then it’s you can kind of like the price to get someone like that.
79 00:16:28.880 ⇒ 00:16:57.219 Uttam Kumaran: and then to have them on for like a year or 2, and then to like, have them on board. It makes sense to pay someone like me to come in. And then it’s like, Okay, cool. What? What? Where did? Where I think a lot about where do like consultants and agencies typically fail is like you have like a salesperson. And you have, like a project manager. You have all these characters that don’t actually do the work. Yeah. And there’s like an economics to the consulting business that like, I don’t wanna play like, I’m not trying to scale this business.
80 00:16:57.220 ⇒ 00:17:08.310 Uttam Kumaran: for, like a hundred people and like outsources to India and do all that kind of garbage for me. The product that my company’s selling is the people that I have, and so I can only expand
81 00:17:08.630 ⇒ 00:17:24.959 Uttam Kumaran: until I can hit like until everybody I know who’s like an amazing engineer is like Max, that like that’s the product. I won’t. I can’t sacrifice that. And so for me, what I have to leverage on is like I have the brand, and I have a ton of connections that I’m now just like kind of selling through
82 00:17:25.300 ⇒ 00:17:34.910 Uttam Kumaran: and so that’s kind of like my whole philosophy on. And like I, you know, I can expand on that. But I’ve I’ve worked with a lot of agencies. And and I’ve worked with a ton of data people and
83 00:17:34.990 ⇒ 00:17:44.389 Uttam Kumaran: for me, I wanna really guarantee the quality of work we deliver in the pace. But I understand there’s like a lot of incentives in the consulting business that can drive
84 00:17:44.760 ⇒ 00:17:50.060 Uttam Kumaran: like people to cut corners. And this isn’t a business that I’m really trying to like scale like
85 00:17:51.440 ⇒ 00:18:01.349 Uttam Kumaran: it’s not a Vc back business, so I can always. I can only scale to the amount of clients that I can make sure that I deliver work for. And then there’s a ton of other ideas. I want to take that money and go work on
86 00:18:01.760 ⇒ 00:18:12.869 Shashank Mishra: for sure. And yeah, it’s much easier to do like a quality control when you know things are close to you versus having to like outsource it. I was gonna ask you what your long term goals are with this
87 00:18:12.990 ⇒ 00:18:17.999 Shashank Mishra: so I’m just going to play it back through. What I’m hearing is like, you need
88 00:18:18.430 ⇒ 00:18:20.919 Shashank Mishra: help kind of building out a
89 00:18:21.450 ⇒ 00:18:34.299 Shashank Mishra: funnel where you can start getting more leads for clients that you can work right.
90 00:18:34.460 ⇒ 00:18:40.310 Uttam Kumaran: I need to have more leads come in so I can qualify more of them, and then those can move down the pipe.
91 00:18:40.400 ⇒ 00:18:53.490 Uttam Kumaran: I think now, after about a few months of doing this and making sure I can execute. And again, it’s like only me. So you’re talking ahead of sales and like head of engineering and head of Hr. But like I have to.
92 00:18:53.640 ⇒ 00:19:08.520 Uttam Kumaran: I’m now freeing myself up a little bit to spend a lot of time on sales, and I’m generally getting the motion down of how do I get more top of funnel? How do I qualify those people faster, or disqualify them faster? And then how do I get those people into a meeting with me where I can?
93 00:19:08.730 ⇒ 00:19:15.070 Uttam Kumaran: I can just sell the shit out of it. And so that’s exactly like what I’m
94 00:19:15.420 ⇒ 00:19:41.219 Uttam Kumaran: that’s probably one of the difficulties. The second thing is, of course, I’m always looking for just like, are there talented people on my network? They can do amazing work. And then, if I know that you’re there, then if whenever I talk to like, I’ll be talking for like 5 to 7 different people. If someone says they need like a Rev. Analysis, or like really specific sales analysis or planning stuff. I’m like, cool like you’re there. And so that’s also that’s also like, I think, a really amazing
95 00:19:41.390 ⇒ 00:19:44.150 Uttam Kumaran: place for sort of that. I don’t. I just don’t know when
96 00:19:44.190 ⇒ 00:19:49.439 Uttam Kumaran: it’s gonna I think those those are the. Those are the primary 2 things that are
97 00:19:49.480 ⇒ 00:19:50.759 Uttam Kumaran: yeah on my mind.
98 00:19:50.820 ⇒ 00:19:52.300 Shashank Mishra: Cool
99 00:19:52.460 ⇒ 00:20:01.049 Shashank Mishra: so on the second one. If you do have cool projects that you want to send my way, we can always discuss that. I’d be more than happy to always
100 00:20:01.360 ⇒ 00:20:08.280 Shashank Mishra: like good people in my network. Just in general. you’re just trying to do good work
101 00:20:08.490 ⇒ 00:20:13.040 Shashank Mishra: around your company and keeping its brand name together. It resonates with me so
102 00:20:13.440 ⇒ 00:20:28.260 Shashank Mishra: I can relate to that. On building out your sales funnel. I I’m happy to kind of help you with that. And just, you know again, kind of excites me to just see if there’s things that can be done.
103 00:20:28.330 ⇒ 00:20:32.730 Shashank Mishra: I’m curious if you have defined kind of like your ideal
104 00:20:33.000 ⇒ 00:20:38.399 Shashank Mishra: customer profile, if you may, that you’re going after. And if you have just some early
105 00:20:38.730 ⇒ 00:20:48.160 Shashank Mishra: data on, like where you know, you’re getting most of your clients through. I imagine it’s word O mouth. The beauty is your data, like infrastructure person.
106 00:20:48.250 ⇒ 00:20:55.590 Shashank Mishra: And with a I and everything like all the different tools coming out right now, which I don’t know how exposed you are to on the sales side.
107 00:20:56.200 ⇒ 00:21:01.280 You don’t need an entire sales team anymore to do the job of the sales team.
108 00:21:01.580 ⇒ 00:21:04.900 Shashank Mishra: You can use a lot of these AI tools
109 00:21:05.190 ⇒ 00:21:10.739 Shashank Mishra: kind of marry them together into this like tech stack, where talking to each other.
110 00:21:10.770 ⇒ 00:21:19.400 Shashank Mishra: and you could yourself alone kind of manage at a very, at a smaller scale. The entire process. Yeah, I mean, you’re spot on is like
111 00:21:19.600 ⇒ 00:21:21.299 Uttam Kumaran: again, like I,
112 00:21:21.310 ⇒ 00:21:27.909 Uttam Kumaran: I’ve just been a part of a lot of organizations where there’s like the part. Hardest part of my organization is people.
113 00:21:28.140 ⇒ 00:21:49.299 Uttam Kumaran: and the more people are involved the more operational complexity is involved, and the lower the margins are. So I’m completely on your side where it’s like, I don’t need like a full time. Sdr, I don’t need all that like. I think I can do exactly what you mentioned is like, stitch things together and actually hit the goals like, I want to hit
114 00:21:49.350 ⇒ 00:21:56.710 Uttam Kumaran: And I actually, one of the things II wrote down is like part of company principles is like trying to automate like 50% of the company. Pretty much
115 00:21:56.770 ⇒ 00:22:01.679 Uttam Kumaran: because I think we can totally run this type of business, mostly Async.
116 00:22:01.820 ⇒ 00:22:11.040 Uttam Kumaran: As long as we have like really killer people. Most of the operations can really be pretty much managed that way again. I want. I told everybody.
117 00:22:11.400 ⇒ 00:22:23.299 Uttam Kumaran: Either I’m selling or we’re executing everything in the middle is a distraction, and like is commonly held as like the problem. But those that’s not the problem I’m solving. This business is like how to do like
118 00:22:23.880 ⇒ 00:22:39.389 Uttam Kumaran: budgeting. It’s like, no, I don’t wanna du like, you know. So I totally feel you. I think the biggest thing right now is like, Okay, how do I build a strong repeatable list of leads coming in? You’re right. A lot of it has been word of mouth, which is nice, but it’s not predictable.
119 00:22:39.570 ⇒ 00:22:58.409 Uttam Kumaran: But and so to to kind of combat that I’ve now like have everything in like a Crm kind of tracking like meetings and leads and kind of moving things along. And so, you know, really comfortable. With that, I think the biggest thing is like, I would say the biggest kpi is like, how do you get me in as many sales meetings as possible?
120 00:22:58.840 ⇒ 00:23:11.669 Uttam Kumaran: And how do we move it from? Leads to that as fast as possible. Right? So, for example, like one way, I’m like getting leads is we’re scraping. We’re pretty much getting a list of every open snowflake job rack.
121 00:23:12.020 ⇒ 00:23:19.830 Uttam Kumaran: and I’m able to go through and apply or reach out. So those are good indications of demand like, there’s some demand in this company for that role.
122 00:23:19.960 ⇒ 00:23:25.219 Uttam Kumaran: Then it’s like, Okay, cool. How do we take those? And I can reliably get those. Now, how do I take them?
123 00:23:25.630 ⇒ 00:23:40.609 Uttam Kumaran: Start a thread with somebody, the hiring manager, the recruiter. So that’s I think the current challenge now is like finding ways of doing that. I do have a couple of other sales channels that I’m trying to hit at. One is I have connections to some other
124 00:23:40.650 ⇒ 00:23:41.990 Uttam Kumaran: like
125 00:23:42.040 ⇒ 00:23:48.159 Uttam Kumaran: it. Staffing agencies that I’ve done contract work through who don’t have data practices
126 00:23:48.500 ⇒ 00:23:59.960 Uttam Kumaran: yet are in front of a ton of it. Decision makers who that 1 million have data work. And so I have reached out to the owners of those. And I’m like, Hey.
127 00:24:00.100 ⇒ 00:24:09.099 Uttam Kumaran: we can be the firm that handles your data work. And you guys can now start selling snowflake, and pretty much all the capabilities we have.
128 00:24:09.110 ⇒ 00:24:12.340 Uttam Kumaran: And we can partner that way. So that’s another channel.
129 00:24:12.410 ⇒ 00:24:23.210 Uttam Kumaran: the third one that I’m a little nervous about. Just because again, I worked in startups and the budgets, and like the complexity is really high, is like, I have a lot of people here in Austin that I’m meeting, who are like Vcs.
130 00:24:23.470 ⇒ 00:24:35.039 Uttam Kumaran: And I’m trying to get them like a little bit of package to say, Hey, this is what we do. If any of your companies are struggling with reporting or like investor updates and things like that. Here’s like what we can do. Here’s the pricing.
131 00:24:35.710 ⇒ 00:24:36.740 Uttam Kumaran: right?
132 00:24:37.300 ⇒ 00:24:42.020 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. So those are, I think, the the 3 outside of just like
133 00:24:42.090 ⇒ 00:24:46.970 Uttam Kumaran: meeting people every day. Those are like the 3 I’m hitting at right now.
134 00:24:47.260 ⇒ 00:24:53.100 Uttam Kumaran: II want to start doing content, and some stuff that’ll try more organic leads that
135 00:24:53.320 ⇒ 00:25:05.690 Uttam Kumaran: again. It’s like I need to sleep every day. So, finding like, I’m finding some time to do that. But again, I can’t have that is not gonna be the primary driver anytime soon. So that’s just, you know.
136 00:25:07.390 ⇒ 00:25:17.999 Shashank Mishra: Okay, a a couple of comments for you, just feedback. I like the fact that you’re working with Vc programs. I think that’s a good
137 00:25:18.080 ⇒ 00:25:28.539 Shashank Mishra: a place to just kind of slowly invest in which might start to bear fruit. Most of the start ups really small ones I’ve worked with had some sort of partnership with Vcs.
138 00:25:28.680 ⇒ 00:25:37.139 Shashank Mishra: And that became a good lead source. It wouldn’t be a lot coming through. But like, you know, every once a month, or something like that, right?
139 00:25:37.310 ⇒ 00:25:40.399 Shashank Mishra: I think you should have
140 00:25:40.860 ⇒ 00:25:42.259 Shashank Mishra: a couple of like
141 00:25:43.230 ⇒ 00:26:06.250 Shashank Mishra: either one or 2 like really solid documentation around like what services you provide. That can be shared, and it becomes also a landing page is the just digital presence is a huge thing right now, right? And that’s the first thing people look at before they even engage with you is like they’ll look at your website and kind of the work you’ve done.
142 00:26:06.750 ⇒ 00:26:17.490 Shashank Mishra: The other thing. I would just highlight if you worked with a certain client, and you can get them to either. Agree with them to like kind of do. a shared testimony, not a testimony like
143 00:26:17.640 ⇒ 00:26:21.020 Shashank Mishra: case study and thing. Okay, so exactly. That’s what I was looking for.
144 00:26:21.120 ⇒ 00:26:25.380 Shashank Mishra: And put it up on your website again. It just becomes
145 00:26:26.000 ⇒ 00:26:43.550 Shashank Mishra: maybe pick the best client you’ve had that represents kind of clients you want to go after right and outline. That just becomes a point of reference. In case you are working on getting lease digitally, and then another one is slack groups
146 00:26:43.840 ⇒ 00:26:51.849 Shashank Mishra: that are focused on these various. So like, I’m in Rev. Ops, we have revolves, specific slack groups.
147 00:26:52.330 ⇒ 00:27:02.659 Shashank Mishra: and in in those groups there’s everyone. Rev. Ops works with data. The same way you said everyone, the it works with data. All these teams are touching data at some point.
148 00:27:02.850 ⇒ 00:27:07.769 Shashank Mishra: so I think, embedding yourself in these groups and kind of identifying where you can
149 00:27:08.030 ⇒ 00:27:19.839 Shashank Mishra: get leads from there. That also becomes another lead source. Seems like you do have some like good lead channels to find. I would just hone in on those, and probably
150 00:27:20.040 ⇒ 00:27:23.959 Shashank Mishra: formalize the tracking of it a little bit, so you can on your end
151 00:27:24.320 ⇒ 00:27:30.159 Shashank Mishra: track. You know where you’re investing the most time, and how the time is paying off in terms of dollars.
152 00:27:30.700 ⇒ 00:27:46.020 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, that makes total sense, I think, even on a Co. On a lot of those. I think I’ve made some inroads on, like we have on the website right now. There are 2 case studies for 2 former clients that we’ve done some work on for the clients I’m working with. Now, II need to, as it to do, just
153 00:27:46.100 ⇒ 00:27:58.379 Uttam Kumaran: create one. I’m I’m just now finishing like a service offering deck that I’m gonna put behind. There’s a software called Brieflink. It’s like you could put Powerpoint decks behind them. And then people access them. They put their email in
154 00:27:58.390 ⇒ 00:28:04.029 Uttam Kumaran: tracking. Some of my startup friends use that for their pitch tech. So I’m gonna put
155 00:28:04.150 ⇒ 00:28:10.890 Uttam Kumaran: that behind there. And that way there’s at least some data. People go and see like our service offering deck or something.
156 00:28:10.910 ⇒ 00:28:18.389 Shashank Mishra: The other interesting thing that I did is I went to Snowflake and 5 train, which are 2 vendors in the space, and I assigned partnerships with them.
157 00:28:18.510 ⇒ 00:28:29.110 Uttam Kumaran: pretty much saying, like, with 5 train, especially like I’m gonna bring them 2 clients. I’ve already brought them one. I’ve probably implemented 5 train like 10 times. I’m like.
158 00:28:29.140 ⇒ 00:28:39.440 Uttam Kumaran: I Mark, I mean, I told I just pretty much was like guys at any client go to. I’m implementing your software. So I just want a direct line to someone on support and then like for resources and things like that. So
159 00:28:39.730 ⇒ 00:28:49.569 Uttam Kumaran: I think that’s been really positive, too. And then again, every step of the way, when I do the qualification process, I’m trying to find a way where I can
160 00:28:49.630 ⇒ 00:28:53.069 Uttam Kumaran: then push that to whoever is gaining the leads to just be like
161 00:28:53.290 ⇒ 00:29:03.630 Uttam Kumaran: and get the leads, and then look at these things and pre-qualify a lot of them. So I’m trying to kinda like OP, understand? Like, what I take is like, Okay, this is someone worth like trying to get a meeting with.
162 00:29:03.650 ⇒ 00:29:07.679 Uttam Kumaran: and then just giving that to whoever is doing the other work that way again, like
163 00:29:08.220 ⇒ 00:29:12.630 Uttam Kumaran: I can just stack as many meetings as possible. So I’m kind of slowly iterating
164 00:29:12.780 ⇒ 00:29:29.980 Shashank Mishra: towards that. And it’s getting a bit better. Yeah, it’s gonna take time to build. Yeah, I’m happy to kind of poke holes or review the process with you. This is where this is my realm, like market space and strategizing around that. So I can speak to that. And
165 00:29:30.010 ⇒ 00:29:32.899 Shashank Mishra: I can bounce ideas with you. I’m not
166 00:29:33.120 ⇒ 00:29:42.749 Shashank Mishra: very familiar with the back end and the data info infrastructure and things like that. I can speak. It’s not. It’s not like anything crazy. It’s it’s more of like
167 00:29:42.970 ⇒ 00:29:53.169 Uttam Kumaran: I think one thing I can maybe share with you is I did put together a little bit of like a Goto market for the business, like maybe a few months ago, like a figma just like a visual. Maybe I can just shoot that to you, and then
168 00:29:53.810 ⇒ 00:29:56.219 Uttam Kumaran: like, see what you think.
169 00:29:56.250 ⇒ 00:30:02.129 Uttam Kumaran: you have any. I mean, I also the nice thing about running my own thing is like there’s no roles.
170 00:30:02.180 ⇒ 00:30:11.650 Uttam Kumaran: so I don’t have to like, ask a boss like whether I can go do stuff. I just go do things. So the also the nice thing is like I can just creatively come up with like
171 00:30:11.780 ⇒ 00:30:22.390 Uttam Kumaran: really guerrilla tactics of trying to go get people. And so I’m trying all sorts of stuff. So that’s really fun. So if you’ve if you’ve worked with people that are doing interesting things.
172 00:30:22.450 ⇒ 00:30:30.609 Uttam Kumaran: or acquiring customers, interesting ways, I know it’s not a consumer business. So it’s not really sas, either. So it’s like a. It’s a agency business. But
173 00:30:30.890 ⇒ 00:30:32.490 Uttam Kumaran: I’m trying to find a ton of
174 00:30:32.600 ⇒ 00:30:45.610 Uttam Kumaran: like I could just do whatever. So I’m trying to come up with creative creative like low cost ways of like going. After that, I think a lot of companies with a huge salesforce that’s just like trained on the normal channels
175 00:30:45.770 ⇒ 00:30:47.070 Uttam Kumaran: they’re going to miss.
176 00:30:47.190 ⇒ 00:30:49.280 Shashank Mishra: Yeah. agreed.
177 00:30:49.340 ⇒ 00:30:53.830 Shashank Mishra: there’s a whole bunch of resources out there.
178 00:30:54.210 ⇒ 00:31:01.319 Shashank Mishra: Yeah, if you want to share kind of like your go to market strategy with me, I’d be curious to take a look at it.
179 00:31:01.350 ⇒ 00:31:08.850 Shashank Mishra: What you mentioned earlier about partnering with companies as part of their implementation.
180 00:31:08.950 ⇒ 00:31:14.159 Shashank Mishra: That’s also an interesting space, I know. Mix panel does it as well for a data company.
181 00:31:14.210 ⇒ 00:31:21.870 Shashank Mishra: So like there’s a massive use case as like you grow and mature, and your company grows. There’s a potential
182 00:31:21.950 ⇒ 00:31:26.739 Shashank Mishra: for us to pitch that to mix panel to be good partner there as well. Now happy
183 00:31:26.820 ⇒ 00:31:28.320 Shashank Mishra: to kind of
184 00:31:28.500 ⇒ 00:31:31.459 Shashank Mishra: help with that, or assist with that. But
185 00:31:31.660 ⇒ 00:31:38.110 Shashank Mishra: all that sounds good to me again. Let me know how it seems like you’re still relatively early
186 00:31:38.430 ⇒ 00:31:40.740 Shashank Mishra: stages. So
187 00:31:41.070 ⇒ 00:31:53.229 Shashank Mishra: I’m happy to kind of brainstorm with you, you know, as time is available. If you have any projects that come up where you need help specific to revenue Ops, we can discuss those more formally.
188 00:31:53.230 ⇒ 00:32:14.529 Uttam Kumaran: But yeah, let’s let’s keep in touch. If you want to throw like another meeting on my calendar 2 weeks from now, or something like that. Yeah, let’s do that. And then let’s definitely do that. I’ll definitely love to be in person. I can. We can chat a little bit longer. And then, yeah, I mean, I think you you asked a question about like longer term goals. I think ideally, I you know I want. I don’t want
189 00:32:14.640 ⇒ 00:32:25.580 Uttam Kumaran: the problem with agency businesses, and like I’ve read, the economics is like, as soon as you start to scale, you need to have, like junior people and senior people, and you kind of have different pricing. And then you have partners like
190 00:32:25.630 ⇒ 00:32:29.089 Uttam Kumaran: all that is like. So it’s like too much
191 00:32:29.320 ⇒ 00:32:34.700 Uttam Kumaran: for me. I really, I’m willing to give up margin in an effort to just have like
192 00:32:34.990 ⇒ 00:33:03.939 Uttam Kumaran: are really like, just like having trusted people and not having to go hire a ton of people. And then the nice thing about agency business also is like a cash flowing business like you don’t. There’s not a product which, of course, like multiples, and like the value of the business is different, but, like you immediately start work making money, and it’s quite lucrative. And so ideally, what I’m trying to do is as I have a lot of engineering talent. I wanna start leveraging that for products. And like, as we start to automate parts of the business.
193 00:33:03.990 ⇒ 00:33:17.650 Uttam Kumaran: there’s a ton of products ideas that I have that I definitely, we can leverage the same people to work on. That’s what I ultimately want to do and build like, you know, definitely hire multiple products on the side or build internal automations that maybe like
194 00:33:17.660 ⇒ 00:33:23.450 Uttam Kumaran: we’re like holy shit. This solves like 20% of. And again, now, the hey? I shared, too. I’m like
195 00:33:23.490 ⇒ 00:33:28.269 Uttam Kumaran: just dog fooding for for pretty much everything I do. I’m leveraging AI, and
196 00:33:28.550 ⇒ 00:33:38.230 Uttam Kumaran: I think the nice advantage that I have is that again, there’s no rules, and I’m really able to manage it. And just like poke holes in the way these types of businesses are run
197 00:33:38.250 ⇒ 00:33:43.579 and do it with as low operational complexity as possible. And I think I’m gonna really find some ways to like.
198 00:33:44.150 ⇒ 00:33:50.890 Uttam Kumaran: write a lot of code, push a lot of progress just through using these language models. So that’s some of like the longer term
199 00:33:50.990 ⇒ 00:34:01.159 Uttam Kumaran: stuff I like to do. It’s just taken up. It’s gonna take a while to get to get there. But yeah, yeah.
200 00:34:01.490 ⇒ 00:34:12.349 Shashank Mishra: fill in the gaps with the data. So that’s there’s a lot that can be done, you know, long term space. I was just curious what your vision is.
201 00:34:12.360 ⇒ 00:34:20.959 Shashank Mishra: for short term, I think if you have some sort of I don’t know if you’re using outreach or some sort of tool. I would just like to scale, automate a lot of your stuff so like
202 00:34:20.989 ⇒ 00:34:22.250 Shashank Mishra: your messaging
203 00:34:22.489 ⇒ 00:34:32.529 Shashank Mishra: and then using a tool like outreach connecting that to whatever your Crm. Is, whether that’s Hubspot or Zoho. I don’t know if you’re using salesforce.
204 00:34:32.659 ⇒ 00:34:44.659 Shashank Mishra: Okay, that’s a new one. I don’t know how that syncs across like a couple of other tools. But there might be, whatever the tool that syncs with it, you know, from a yeah. So you mentioned outreach, I guess, like, what other tools do you think are worth
205 00:34:44.850 ⇒ 00:34:49.250 Uttam Kumaran: like? You shouldn’t just do you? Should you need to have these tools.
206 00:34:49.659 ⇒ 00:34:55.670 Uttam Kumaran: cause I’m willing to pay, and I don’t mind getting any tools. It’s more of like, I’m also really conscious of, like
207 00:34:56.020 ⇒ 00:35:05.199 Uttam Kumaran: just having like 10 different tools. And the tax of that. So if there’s anything you’re like, yeah, you have to be using this. It’s like a no brainer that would be really helpful.
208 00:35:05.260 ⇒ 00:35:27.879 Uttam Kumaran: I would define categories of tools versus a specific tool. So like you know, a zoom, a call recording transcription and software now is good. The AI feature on on this, which is great, cause it tells you that’s exactly why I’m using it now, because it’s not. It’s built in. And yeah, it’s really nice.
209 00:35:28.080 ⇒ 00:35:50.950 Shashank Mishra: So you have your scheduling links through that which is taken care of. You need some sort of messaging app that can message at scale. Right outreach is a enterprise grade that’s used. But you can look in. There’s a lot of different options there. Basically, you need something that syncs to your Crm to pipe, drive it, can pick up everything and kind of make it very easy plug and play
210 00:35:51.010 ⇒ 00:35:55.279 Shashank Mishra: for you to be able to send out mass emails and track against that.
211 00:35:55.420 ⇒ 00:36:07.869 Shashank Mishra: you have your Crm figured out. I’m sure you have your reporting and analytics piece figured out. Yeah, yeah, that that I’m not too already.
212 00:36:08.570 ⇒ 00:36:19.479 Shashank Mishra: Yeah, I guess. just that would be. The other big thing is like you, you being able to track what your Roi is on the time that you are spent, because your biggest
213 00:36:19.530 ⇒ 00:36:29.720 Shashank Mishra: resource right now or your yeah, it’s time, you know, you’re not spending much money or headcount it’s your own personal time. So I would. I’d be very
214 00:36:30.480 ⇒ 00:36:39.280 Shashank Mishra: you know, detailed about where that’s going and how much that’s returning in terms of whatever you’re tracking against allers or efficiency, whatever it might be.
215 00:36:41.490 ⇒ 00:36:48.689 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, if there’s anything else interesting that comes to mind, let me know the tough part about, you know, sales work and stuff is you can’t really get like a fractional
216 00:36:49.000 ⇒ 00:36:57.189 Uttam Kumaran: Sdr, you can’t really get people to come on for, like. you know, a little bit. So I’m I’ve had some friends. Help me out and give me some pointers.
217 00:36:57.300 ⇒ 00:37:06.079 Uttam Kumaran: Sales is probably the only thing in like tech that I haven’t really done, but I’ve worked on a ton of sales offs, and I’ve done a ton of like opportunity measurements and growth offs data.
218 00:37:06.230 ⇒ 00:37:10.439 Uttam Kumaran: So all the data. So I know how the game works. It’s all game.
219 00:37:10.560 ⇒ 00:37:11.420 Uttam Kumaran: But
220 00:37:11.580 ⇒ 00:37:17.349 Uttam Kumaran: when you’re also making the calls, it’s like a little bit taxing. So yeah.
221 00:37:17.580 ⇒ 00:37:27.070 Shashank Mishra: I mean, there, there is always resourcing available in like India, or something like that. Right? I know you don’t want to go that way, but like from a cost perspective.
222 00:37:27.330 ⇒ 00:37:30.590 Shashank Mishra: that’s one, or you could pay for leads
223 00:37:30.990 ⇒ 00:37:49.609 Shashank Mishra: which I don’t know how that works specific to agency work in like companies have been within the past. We’ve like paid per lead like it’s a paper lead model where you work with another agency, and what they’ll do is still charge you like a dollar for every meeting they book or something.
224 00:37:49.700 ⇒ 00:38:00.040 Shashank Mishra: and then you can kind of track that for the first 3 months. If there’s good leads coming out of that, you know. You keep it around. If there isn’t, then you can drop it. But they let you usually run the pilot.
225 00:38:00.740 ⇒ 00:38:04.720 Shashank Mishra: Really. Good idea, too. I wonder if I can find.
226 00:38:05.490 ⇒ 00:38:06.980 Uttam Kumaran: or maybe just say like a
227 00:38:07.080 ⇒ 00:38:12.230 Uttam Kumaran: to just hit a couple of them, have a run in parallel and see what works cause. I don’t mind
228 00:38:12.460 ⇒ 00:38:15.909 Uttam Kumaran: just being in call sales calls all day. It’s more like.
229 00:38:16.960 ⇒ 00:38:18.539 Uttam Kumaran: are those going to convert.
230 00:38:19.470 ⇒ 00:38:25.810 Uttam Kumaran: But again, II really feel really confident you could put me in front of business owner that needs or as having struggling with data.
231 00:38:26.210 ⇒ 00:38:28.520 Uttam Kumaran: we’re gonna that’s gonna move forward.
232 00:38:28.730 ⇒ 00:38:46.309 Shashank Mishra: It’s, you know. So that’s the biggest thing I would also do the work in defining like who your perfect profile is that you have to go after right? Is it? Is it like a data infrastructure person is this? Is it the head of it? Management, is it? You know? Revenue?
233 00:38:46.480 ⇒ 00:38:49.799 Shashank Mishra: It might be multiple roles, that click
234 00:38:50.200 ⇒ 00:39:00.169 Uttam Kumaran: which I see multiple rules being able to use this. But then, so in terms of like defining that once you have the defined, is the lever just like different messaging.
235 00:39:00.300 ⇒ 00:39:06.850 Uttam Kumaran: or like W. What like cause cause? The hard part for me is like, people are like, what’s your ideal customer like in what industry
236 00:39:07.410 ⇒ 00:39:19.560 Uttam Kumaran: I’m like this? Do you use data, then that’s the industry. So I have a lot of experience in Ecom and B twob sas, that being said like, that’s, I don’t know whether it may be worth just like limiting to those. Just
237 00:39:19.830 ⇒ 00:39:23.999 Uttam Kumaran: initially, it’s more about like data maturity. And
238 00:39:24.580 ⇒ 00:39:29.010 Uttam Kumaran: like the challenges they’re having on that side. But that’s hard to see.
239 00:39:29.170 ⇒ 00:39:37.800 Shashank Mishra: Well, can you? Can you co-relate that with something else? Can you correlate that with company size? I think you’re doing that with the hiring thing that you’re looking at fees and stuff.
240 00:39:37.860 ⇒ 00:39:40.580 Shashank Mishra: So I’d find the closest thing that correlates
241 00:39:40.650 ⇒ 00:39:50.370 Shashank Mishra: to what you know is a selling point for your company, which seems to be what state their data is in.
242 00:39:50.530 ⇒ 00:40:04.129 Shashank Mishra: Anything that would. I mean, employee size is one giveaway. Maybe maybe like looking if they have a data team. Yes, how big is their data size? And they don’t have a data team. Then maybe that’s like
243 00:40:04.740 ⇒ 00:40:07.149 Shashank Mishra: another pointer, right?
244 00:40:07.450 ⇒ 00:40:15.789 Shashank Mishra: if you can get their signals like if they’re using a certain tech stack already. So figure that out, you know, if they’re using snowflake
245 00:40:15.940 ⇒ 00:40:25.330 Shashank Mishra: live train already, and you can get those signals. That’s a good indication that you can pitch a certain way to them, or you can tweak the messaging
246 00:40:29.940 ⇒ 00:40:39.310 Uttam Kumaran: cool. I need to jump at the 45 mark. Yeah, I’ll I’ll put some time on for in a few weeks. But again, I really appreciate
247 00:40:39.410 ⇒ 00:40:43.900 Uttam Kumaran: the advice and the help. And then, yeah, I have a good feeling this. It’s just moving.
248 00:40:44.000 ⇒ 00:40:53.510 Uttam Kumaran: It’s moving some days fast, some days slow. But again. I’m really glad that you know. Vish put us in touch, and I’m sure we’ll be able to work on something in the future. So
249 00:40:53.590 ⇒ 00:41:20.700 Shashank Mishra: yeah, likewise, I’m excited, man, so to help you. Where do? Where are you located? Are you up? I’m in Austin downtown, Austin, but I’m on like near Franklin’s on 11 and 35. Cool. Yeah, we can. I should be free. Starting the week of twenty-second. I’m completely off work for 2 weeks, so that’d be a good time to meet. I can then, you know, accommodate meeting at any time, but I’m usually free in the evenings over the next few weeks. So I mean, what works for you.
250 00:41:20.700 ⇒ 00:41:25.439 Shashank Mishra: Nice to meet you. Man, yeah, cheers.