Meeting Title: Weekly-Data-Review Date: 2024-02-02 Meeting participants: Ben Iphone, Uttam Kumaran
WEBVTT
1 00:02:41.010 ⇒ 00:02:44.820 Uttam Kumaran: Amen. What’s up? How’s it going?
2 00:02:45.000 ⇒ 00:02:49.510 ben iphone : All good? Just on the way home just was grabbing a coffee. What about you
3 00:02:49.790 ⇒ 00:02:52.150 Uttam Kumaran: doing? Well, yeah. Doing well.
4 00:02:52.430 ⇒ 00:02:54.949 Uttam Kumaran: Weather looks looks gloomy over there.
5 00:02:55.510 ⇒ 00:02:59.660 Uttam Kumaran: I can guarantee it.
6 00:02:59.780 ⇒ 00:03:03.620 ben iphone : Not nice at all. It’s exact. Well, it’s not cold.
7 00:03:04.080 ⇒ 00:03:21.429 Uttam Kumaran: but it’s not nice. It’s looks like England. Grey. Yeah, you look like you’re you’re in like an England fit, too. You’re like, you know, all black, you know they always love. I love seeing pictures of London. Everybody’s only wearing black style.
8 00:03:21.510 ⇒ 00:03:30.290 ben iphone : None, none. I’ve got a stiff neck. I think I may have overdone it the other day with trading
9 00:03:30.660 ⇒ 00:03:38.399 ben iphone : coins and stuff I just like didn’t leave the screen for like 20 h. And I mean, I’m sure you’ve had tech neck before
10 00:03:38.440 ⇒ 00:03:44.090 ben iphone : I’ve got it today. I’ve got it for 2 days now. But I thought I was like thinking wishfully
11 00:03:44.780 ⇒ 00:03:55.629 ben iphone : yesterday. I was like, you know what I’m gonna I’m like. It’s not that bad. I’m gonna get on the phone roller. I’m gonna roll out my back. And I’m gonna do like some things. And I’m gonna be good. Today
12 00:03:56.040 ⇒ 00:03:57.449 ben iphone : I’m not good today.
13 00:03:57.570 ⇒ 00:04:02.919 Yeah, I really bad, like, if you let me sit here
14 00:04:02.970 ⇒ 00:04:05.230 Uttam Kumaran: I will just like
15 00:04:05.310 ⇒ 00:04:17.309 Uttam Kumaran: I’ll sit here. I’ll sleep here. I’ll wake up, I’ll keep working. III don’t know. That’s how that’s how I always was. And so now I’m like having to do more about like get up
16 00:04:17.390 ⇒ 00:04:32.630 ben iphone : good habits. Yeah, good habits, you know. Yeah, I listen. I don’t have the choice anymore, because I have kids. So like, I can’t actually do what I did the other day like. It doesn’t really
17 00:04:32.760 ⇒ 00:04:34.490 ben iphone : fit in with family life.
18 00:04:34.570 ⇒ 00:04:43.659 Uttam Kumaran: but here and there I’ll tell my wife like, listen, I’m in the middle of something. I will not be coming upstairs today. I got it’s not gonna happen. And I don’t even give it twice.
19 00:04:43.780 ⇒ 00:04:56.669 ben iphone : And when that happens, this pretty much always happens like it’s like my hip, or like my neck, and it’s like 2 days where I’m just complaining all day, and she’s like you’re a fucking idiot. I’m like, well, I know.
20 00:04:56.930 ⇒ 00:05:09.349 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I need that sometimes, like II need long periods of focus. And I need to be like, listen to music or watching a sports podcast and just
21 00:05:09.660 ⇒ 00:05:17.400 Uttam Kumaran: like crushing work for like 4 or 5 h. But yeah, I really. And I don’t. I’m not a big snacker, either.
22 00:05:17.410 ⇒ 00:05:40.809 Uttam Kumaran: I have snacks people like come over, but I don’t really eat a lot of food, so I’ll just like won’t eat. It’s always a bad habits from New York, where I would just sit and work for like 12 HA day, and then be like, Oh, I didn’t eat, I all I drink was coffee for the last 2 days. I’m I’m still young. I still feel good, but like
23 00:05:40.990 ⇒ 00:05:43.620 ben iphone : I do think that I’m starting to notice, like
24 00:05:44.900 ⇒ 00:05:51.640 ben iphone : the casual 2 glasses of wine with my wife like a random on a random Tuesday night
25 00:05:51.770 ⇒ 00:06:01.440 ben iphone : like I’m starting to be like, maybe I shouldn’t have done that, because, like, you know, you like, wake up. It takes you like a couple of more minutes to get your shit together, and you’re like, alright. Maybe it’s not worth more.
26 00:06:01.500 ⇒ 00:06:06.960 ben iphone : And then, like body issues, still kind of fine. But like they come up, and I’m like.
27 00:06:07.800 ⇒ 00:06:23.120 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know if this would have happened when I was 19, you know, like my shoulder hurting. It’s it’s, I think, a lot of it’s work. I think it’s a lot of it’s sitting too much. But yeah, like this, yeah. it’s all good. Anyway. I got out this morning. I’ve been out today. So that’s good.
28 00:06:23.210 ⇒ 00:06:25.990 Uttam Kumaran: Alright. So I saw an invite from Kelly
29 00:06:26.040 ⇒ 00:06:28.869 ben iphone : minutes ago. So obviously.
30 00:06:29.130 ⇒ 00:06:32.229 ben iphone : I didn’t see an email yet. I haven’t checked this morning. But
31 00:06:32.540 ⇒ 00:06:36.399 ben iphone : I think she probably understands the assignment.
32 00:06:36.620 ⇒ 00:06:39.060 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I mean, I pretty much was like
33 00:06:39.700 ⇒ 00:06:49.040 Uttam Kumaran: like the although like a lot of that pricing wasn’t with her. I think they’re they can easily run us an analysis to show that it’s not gonna be at that.
34 00:06:49.330 ⇒ 00:06:59.819 Uttam Kumaran: and then trying to generally come up with like, what are some of the goals around like price per pound. So one thing I just threw out there was like how close we get to a dollar per pound.
35 00:07:00.100 ⇒ 00:07:16.169 Uttam Kumaran: and then let’s just see if that’s like a good barometer, and then that way also in some of the dashboards, I could say, like, Okay, here’s how far we are from that. And then where are we now? Roughly, we’re like around a dollar and a half in in like our best cases, like a dollar 30. In our best cases.
36 00:07:38.740 ⇒ 00:07:44.780 Uttam Kumaran: I’m like in our new contract. This shouldn’t be happening like right? And so, or what are we? Gonna
37 00:07:44.880 ⇒ 00:07:55.190 Uttam Kumaran: we should actually be expecting lower price per pound as we’re shipping more volume. No fees or anything. So that’s what I’m hoping is like
38 00:07:55.540 ⇒ 00:07:56.560 Uttam Kumaran: that.
39 00:07:56.810 ⇒ 00:07:59.320 Uttam Kumaran: The feedback yeah.
40 00:07:59.570 ⇒ 00:08:03.849 Uttam Kumaran: on the brushes again, I think on zone 5 plus
41 00:08:04.020 ⇒ 00:08:11.789 Uttam Kumaran: like you ups is competitive. So I think we’re, gonna I’ll kind of look at that data this week after Chuck moves everything.
42 00:08:11.870 ⇒ 00:08:17.980 Uttam Kumaran: The conversation with them is going to be like, look, we’re, we’re. You guys aren’t competitive with usps.
43 00:08:18.100 ⇒ 00:08:20.770 Uttam Kumaran: like, what? How can we?
44 00:08:21.030 ⇒ 00:08:28.599 Uttam Kumaran: And that’s specifically about brushes. Right? Yeah. Single brush order. So nothing where it’s like, a yeah, exactly.
45 00:08:29.140 ⇒ 00:08:33.499 ben iphone : Okay. I think that my feeling is they are
46 00:08:34.309 ⇒ 00:08:47.919 Uttam Kumaran: trying to get as much as they can. And they’re, I think all these people are frauds, and they all have a lot of room. Yeah, I’m I agree? I yeah, I totally agree. And especially after we got as much as we did
47 00:08:48.100 ⇒ 00:08:50.450 Uttam Kumaran: on the negotiation. I was like, oh.
48 00:08:50.610 ⇒ 00:08:55.890 Uttam Kumaran: there’s way more here than I like previously thought, and they can go
49 00:08:56.210 ⇒ 00:09:04.620 Uttam Kumaran: the thing. My sister in law. She ran ops at Bonobos. You know that company closing.
50 00:09:05.480 ⇒ 00:09:19.419 ben iphone : they got acquired by Walmart for jet.com whatever hundreds of millions. It was a it was a huge, it was a blockbuster. And then she had to work there for some period of time because she was a key exec.
51 00:09:19.530 ⇒ 00:09:20.320 ben iphone : and
52 00:09:20.870 ⇒ 00:09:32.589 Uttam Kumaran: she said the shipping and bonobos was doing like way more volume than we’re doing, and they’re shipping because bonobos is all ship is all shipped to order. You can’t buy in their store
53 00:09:32.960 ⇒ 00:09:35.589 ben iphone : right right right.
54 00:09:35.670 ⇒ 00:09:41.869 ben iphone : And she and she’s the architect of that whole thing. Anyway.
55 00:09:41.910 ⇒ 00:09:49.189 ben iphone : She said the day that the acquisition closed they got jet.com shipping rates.
56 00:09:49.500 ⇒ 00:09:59.679 ben iphone : and she said that, like her jaw, like detached from her mouth, like not drop on the floor. She was like, I cannot believe this is what they pay and what we’ve been paying all this time.
57 00:09:59.990 ⇒ 00:10:00.830 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
58 00:10:01.110 ⇒ 00:10:10.340 ben iphone : So I know. There, I know there’s unlimited room. Obviously we will never be to the scale of a jet or an Amazon, or you know, whatever. But
59 00:10:10.890 ⇒ 00:10:27.990 ben iphone : we know these people have room. So there’s no like, I think what you did was perfect. To tell them. A dollar is the dream that’s that’s that’s what success. That’s what perfection looks like. And now Kelly’s job. That’s why she put something on our calendar just now is because
60 00:10:28.250 ⇒ 00:10:30.690 ben iphone : she has to either
61 00:10:31.600 ⇒ 00:10:37.180 ben iphone : learn more about how risky it is that they’ll lose our business or
62 00:10:37.220 ⇒ 00:10:41.319 ben iphone : Explain to us why she cannot and she doesn’t want to, obviously.
63 00:10:41.560 ⇒ 00:10:47.819 Uttam Kumaran: And then I was gonna ask about how Unus plays into all this, so is are they under the same
64 00:10:47.920 ⇒ 00:10:56.090 Uttam Kumaran: like, do are like, how does the pricing work on our end for them? I’m I’m still going back and forth with Michael from their side. I have to send them some stuff
65 00:10:56.210 ⇒ 00:11:11.220 ben iphone : economics on that one. The economics there are very established things. They’ve got places all over. So the idea with heat pumps, as we sell most of them, as you already know, in Florida.
66 00:11:11.310 ⇒ 00:11:12.909 ben iphone : and we spanned
67 00:11:12.930 ⇒ 00:11:18.629 ben iphone : with Lg, whatever it is. 4, 5, whatever hundreds of dollars.
68 00:11:18.730 ⇒ 00:11:25.399 ben iphone : And the idea is, we just ship them. You know we ship them containers direct from China, so we never touch it.
69 00:11:26.080 ⇒ 00:11:31.070 ben iphone : which is going to reduce like handling problems that we do have already.
70 00:11:31.850 ⇒ 00:11:35.560 ben iphone : And it’s because they’re already in Florida. This is gonna cost
71 00:11:37.160 ⇒ 00:11:40.920 ben iphone : a hundred, you know less, I don’t know how much less, but less
72 00:11:40.980 ⇒ 00:11:48.099 ben iphone : I don’t think it’s a grand slam, but I do think it’s better and it de-risks us there, there’s a few advantages.
73 00:11:48.860 ⇒ 00:11:54.729 ben iphone : The issue is is, I was never really involved with it ever it was a dan and chuck thing.
74 00:11:55.210 ⇒ 00:12:07.310 ben iphone : And now it’s now it’s sitting with you. I I’ve seen the numbers. They are better. And we got a lot of the things waived. But
75 00:12:07.710 ⇒ 00:12:15.220 ben iphone : I don’t know really how they’re I don’t know. I don’t know how electronic it’s gonna be in terms of pulling
76 00:12:15.530 ⇒ 00:12:20.489 ben iphone : real time shipping information that something you probably would know better than I would at this stage.
77 00:12:21.260 ⇒ 00:12:31.760 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I mean again, for me, the what I need on the data side is now like super crystal clear and pretty much. What I’m gonna say is like I need every shipment I need
78 00:12:31.890 ⇒ 00:12:44.830 Uttam Kumaran: the price that we paid and then I need when it went out, when the labels created and like anything about the bought like for me, it’s like, so clear what we need. And then I’m gonna kind of see? Like, what can you guys get us this
79 00:12:45.500 ⇒ 00:13:06.060 Uttam Kumaran: point blank? So I don’t know if if they are, if they are economically like better we. It’s super easy for us to not see that and then again, we want to measure them. If we’re paying them on a per shipment basis, or however, like the actual payment works, I think what’s easy to prove. And then, again, we now have so many different providers that we can
80 00:13:06.240 ⇒ 00:13:12.179 Uttam Kumaran: balance where, if everybody’s hitting close that dollar per pound on. Ltl, it’s
81 00:13:12.280 ⇒ 00:13:21.849 Uttam Kumaran: on that product is gonna is gonna be a bit harder. But I mean, we could. We could see like how. I’ll tell you my my impression
82 00:13:22.090 ⇒ 00:13:24.920 ben iphone : between us so off record.
83 00:13:26.050 ⇒ 00:13:35.549 ben iphone : I don’t think that they I don’t think Dan knew what he was doing when he was. Do I think he was pulling a china shop kind of excited and saying, like, we’re spending so much on heat pumps.
84 00:13:35.840 ⇒ 00:13:37.220 Uttam Kumaran: We’re selling so many
85 00:13:38.280 ⇒ 00:13:45.589 ben iphone : we need to find a way to ship them cheaper. I don’t know how we found this group. This is like over a year since they’ve been talking
86 00:13:45.800 ⇒ 00:13:50.099 ben iphone : they sent all sorts of things, and he made it like his mission to like integrate
87 00:13:50.400 ⇒ 00:13:56.129 ben iphone : DC. And I was not involved with it, because I just run like the regular stuff like
88 00:13:56.270 ⇒ 00:14:03.299 he has his projects. And III just focus on the day to day things. And that’s kind of how we operate. But he’s not a
89 00:14:03.340 ⇒ 00:14:07.959 ben iphone : particularly good operator. He’s he’s he’s critical
90 00:14:07.970 ⇒ 00:14:16.979 ben iphone : just on on certain things. But he misses details on others. My feeling is this is probably not. I think it’s it’s
91 00:14:17.820 ⇒ 00:14:27.069 ben iphone : considering that it’s been discussed for a year. And like there’s calls. There’s integration efforts. Chuck’s. Involved. You’re involved. Those are hidden costs.
92 00:14:27.660 ⇒ 00:14:40.009 ben iphone : I don’t. I actually. And if if we ship something to Jacksonville from our warehouse currently for 460, and we get it to 260.
93 00:14:40.920 ⇒ 00:14:43.720 ben iphone : Suppose that’s like the base, the best case.
94 00:14:44.100 ⇒ 00:14:51.810 ben iphone : I don’t know that this was actually worth it. I agree there’s an advantage to shipping a container directly from China to them.
95 00:14:52.060 ⇒ 00:15:05.209 ben iphone : We don’t have to unload it. There’s way less touch points. They are much more professional warehouse than ours. Also, there’s this dynamic between Dan and his father-in-law, Dan’s father-in-law owns the warehouse.
96 00:15:05.330 ⇒ 00:15:12.759 ben iphone : We don’t want to rely on him forever. So we do need to derisk a bit there. So there’s there’s other factors that you don’t see
97 00:15:13.220 ⇒ 00:15:23.749 ben iphone : strictly from the economic standpoint. I struggle to admit that this makes any sense. Now, the secondary things probably do make sense.
98 00:15:23.920 ⇒ 00:15:32.979 Uttam Kumaran: what about the the ship? The shipping duration, for example, the time it takes to get to the customer. We haven’t done anything on that so far.
99 00:15:33.040 ⇒ 00:15:39.190 ben iphone : But I also wonder if that’s we we have written into our
100 00:15:39.330 ⇒ 00:15:46.619 ben iphone : like like descriptions and stuff with with hip pumps that’s gonna take, like, you know, up to 10 days. And we get them there in like 4.
101 00:15:46.890 ⇒ 00:15:49.780 Uttam Kumaran: So we’re doing really well with those. Now.
102 00:15:50.000 ⇒ 00:15:59.520 ben iphone : this would make that probably faster and and cheaper, not to the customer, but to us, because we are absorbing that cost.
103 00:15:59.650 ⇒ 00:16:00.980 Yeah, yeah.
104 00:16:02.600 ⇒ 00:16:10.440 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, yeah, I mean, a year is quite a while. And then also to not have any of the data stuff set up even in that time. Period is tough.
105 00:16:12.410 ⇒ 00:16:16.649 ben iphone : Yeah, I’m just looking at my wife, Texas. I’m just looking at. I’m listening.
106 00:16:17.330 ⇒ 00:16:27.770 Uttam Kumaran: so yeah, I mean I again. II think I’m just gonna see whether we can get that all that data, because now that that’s moving out of ship station, we don’t have those costs like, so
107 00:16:28.070 ⇒ 00:16:34.489 Uttam Kumaran: yeah, III gotta tell you. And I told this to Chuck, and I think Chuck agreed. II said, I don’t think I thought
108 00:16:34.590 ⇒ 00:16:46.700 ben iphone : a year ago, when we were starting to talk about shipping and and doing things with data and being smarter. we went on this journey. We found Kenny Ravine. We didn’t get them where we wanted to get to.
109 00:16:46.850 ⇒ 00:16:50.550 Uttam Kumaran: I wanted to deal with with heat pumps. Last.
110 00:16:51.120 ⇒ 00:16:58.989 ben iphone : I cause I thought that I the way that we are doing it is how I want. I want how I envision doing this whole process.
111 00:16:59.260 ⇒ 00:17:04.690 ben iphone : and what Dan did was he jumped to like chapter 8 before we open the book
112 00:17:04.970 ⇒ 00:17:16.419 ben iphone : which I knew. And I, this is what. Listen, this is what he does, and part of it is. it works at times where we we we find some game that we wouldn’t have otherwise found by being kind of
113 00:17:17.260 ⇒ 00:17:21.209 ben iphone : the bash brothers are being a little bit reckless, but in this case
114 00:17:21.290 ⇒ 00:17:24.510 ben iphone : it it did not work for me, because I said, we it.
115 00:17:24.829 ⇒ 00:17:27.570 ben iphone : We don’t have any proof, and we have no way to measure anything.
116 00:17:27.680 ⇒ 00:17:31.570 Uttam Kumaran: And now, ltl, like you like, you understood already. It’s a different beast. So like
117 00:17:31.680 ⇒ 00:17:40.409 ben iphone : there aren’t a million providers and shipping from yeah Bank Long island on on the best day doesn’t even make any sense. So like.
118 00:17:40.520 ⇒ 00:17:45.539 yes, we probably need some other some other way to do this, but we could have also picked.
119 00:17:45.670 ⇒ 00:17:48.459 ben iphone : We could have done diligence around
120 00:17:48.730 ⇒ 00:17:54.499 ben iphone : much more tech, savvy, and much more like ready to integrate solutions.
121 00:17:55.660 ⇒ 00:18:07.250 Uttam Kumaran: Maybe they would have been a a bit more expensive, I don’t know, but like 10 rfps for $2 a pound for those products. Right? That’s that would have been like a
122 00:18:07.610 ⇒ 00:18:16.499 Uttam Kumaran: cause. Now we can kind of see across the entire board how much it takes, and we said, Good, cool. Our goal is to anything. We ship is 2 bucks, a pound or a dollar per pound.
123 00:18:16.540 ⇒ 00:18:29.519 Uttam Kumaran: Let’s put a let’s put a request for Rfps from the top. 10 providers and say, who can? Who can fulfill this. Here’s all the stuff we do. I think it’s really easy to get the quote that way. II mean again, yeah, II totally hear you. I
124 00:18:29.620 ⇒ 00:18:56.619 Uttam Kumaran: I’ve I’ve worked, I I’ve worked with a lot of people like Dan, and it’s actually helpful because they give you like the super far North Star. And I’m like for us to the point where we can be almost proactive and have like these alerts. We’re we’re we’re very close to that. But yeah, you’re right. It did take it took me this amount of time. And II feel like I move pretty quickly. And then, yeah, of course there’s a lot of time with Ravine and Kenny
125 00:18:56.780 ⇒ 00:19:01.049 ben iphone : But there’s there’s also, like, you know, there’s the North Star.
126 00:19:01.820 ⇒ 00:19:05.710 ben iphone : and then there’s all of the steps you take to get there.
127 00:19:06.290 ⇒ 00:19:23.600 ben iphone : I am a methodical one foot in front of the other. I’m like a classic classic classic operator like I, you know, I understand the vision, I say, what are like the 5 things that are going to move the needle for us in the, in the near future, which ones are the easiest, so the lowest effort for the highest reward.
128 00:19:24.020 ⇒ 00:19:35.310 ben iphone : And I like to do those first, and then I go from there. I felt like this one was fucking insane and then like, and I didn’t even then like I wasn’t involved with it, which is fine, because it wasn’t like a near term thing
129 00:19:36.320 ⇒ 00:19:46.259 Uttam Kumaran: cause it wasn’t ready to be implemented because they had a lot of shit to get through. And then, when I like started to like hear about it. I was like, this is like, this is a mess. I was like, we we’re not here, you know, like.
130 00:19:46.320 ⇒ 00:19:48.479 ben iphone : anyway, I do think
131 00:19:48.710 ⇒ 00:19:58.189 ben iphone : it might actually be time. but the technical challenges, I mean, like, listen, it is time we’re about to get busy in in 6 weeks
132 00:19:58.200 ⇒ 00:19:59.950 Uttam Kumaran: that business changed.
133 00:19:59.960 ⇒ 00:20:15.379 ben iphone : Yeah. So I would like it. But from what I hear, Unis is not. They don’t have their shit together. So like. you know, Chuck is not stupid like he like, knew all the things that he should have been able to integrate with them. They don’t have the tech ready.
134 00:20:17.330 ⇒ 00:20:21.029 ben iphone : I just don’t want this to be more trouble than it’s worth.
135 00:20:22.090 ⇒ 00:20:31.600 Uttam Kumaran: yeah, I mean again for me. Now, it’s like this. It’s a lot of limited back and forth. I’m gonna send them a sample order of wallet data I need. And I’m gonna say.
136 00:20:31.720 ⇒ 00:20:34.500 Uttam Kumaran: can you fulfill this? And then can you fulfill this via
137 00:20:34.620 ⇒ 00:20:38.910 Uttam Kumaran: like any sort of like, can you just give this to us on an automated basis
138 00:20:39.020 ⇒ 00:20:52.829 Uttam Kumaran: like I don’t. I don’t think really to discuss on my end like and then and then we’d go from there. So I’ll get with them on that. And I need to start moving because
139 00:20:54.010 ⇒ 00:21:03.849 ben iphone : it is time. I mean, I know how this goes when the weather gets like this. it’s start it. It’s it’s people start people. Because, like, you know, like, someone like in DC,
140 00:21:04.320 ⇒ 00:21:07.169 Uttam Kumaran: their winter’s over. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
141 00:21:07.180 ⇒ 00:21:13.199 Uttam Kumaran: no. I mean, even here, I noticed the other day, it’s getting warmer. It’s like 65
142 00:21:13.300 ⇒ 00:21:22.229 Uttam Kumaran: mid slow sixties. I was like, Oh, there, it’s like winners over pretty much. And everybody like they’re like, Oh, it’s now. It’s like getting warmer. And I’m like.
143 00:21:22.310 ⇒ 00:21:31.349 Uttam Kumaran: II really thought about you guys actually cause I was looking at a lot of the acceleration into the summer for the Cps stuff. And yeah, there it is.
144 00:21:32.160 ⇒ 00:21:37.050 ben iphone : Yeah, no, it it it comes on. It comes on. you know.
145 00:21:38.330 ⇒ 00:21:42.089 ben iphone : I think, like you start getting some signals that things are changing like
146 00:21:42.580 ⇒ 00:21:47.979 ben iphone : maybe February and then March fifteenth. It’s like
147 00:21:48.230 ⇒ 00:21:53.409 ben iphone : boom. It could be a little before it could be a little bit after, but around, then
148 00:21:53.880 ⇒ 00:22:01.780 ben iphone : it’s game over. It just starts running, and then you run hard into
149 00:22:04.170 ⇒ 00:22:05.640 ben iphone : like June
150 00:22:06.180 ⇒ 00:22:11.160 ben iphone : when people start opening, and then like you’re absolutely murdering it.
151 00:22:11.210 ⇒ 00:22:18.489 Uttam Kumaran: And then, like you start to get to these days where it slows down. You’re like, how could it be like? It’s not even officially summer yet.
152 00:22:18.710 ⇒ 00:22:22.480 ben iphone : And then you get into this like terrible hangover.
153 00:22:23.530 ⇒ 00:22:32.530 ben iphone : I think it’s like. I think, before the Fourth of July people who haven’t taking care of business for their pool parties. They they have a thing, and then
154 00:22:32.730 ⇒ 00:22:51.249 ben iphone : it’s dead like, if you’re gonna go on a vacation like then like you want to go like July. And then in August people’s pools start to fall apart again, and they’re trying to like get the last lick of summer. So like heat pumps start to sell again, because heat go in the preseason and the post season. They don’t go in season. Really.
155 00:22:51.270 ⇒ 00:23:01.229 ben iphone : heat pump season is like, really here, it’s like, it’s, you know, in a month, it’s happening. So yeah, I mean, let’s get right to unison. If we can do it, it’d be fabulous.
156 00:23:02.830 ⇒ 00:23:11.610 ben iphone : And then, yeah, I mean, it’s, you know, September, October, November people ex extending the season in Texas and Florida. They want to buy heat pumps.
157 00:23:14.220 ⇒ 00:23:21.660 Uttam Kumaran: The only the only other thing that’s like interesting that I’m noticing a lot of what I was doing.
158 00:23:22.190 ⇒ 00:23:52.159 Uttam Kumaran: this past month was looking at a lot of same time last year, meaning looking at the Jan. First to February second this year versus last year and doing that comparison right? So it’s it’s it’s actually a lot. I would say. It’s even one degree further from us, just looking at month over month. But I’m looking at for the same exact 32 days. What were we doing? The one thing that stood out a lot more is, our discounts are up quite a bit.
159 00:23:52.490 ⇒ 00:23:55.400 Uttam Kumaran: And I messaged Cody.
160 00:23:55.580 ⇒ 00:24:03.139 Uttam Kumaran: So 2 things, one, I have the Zendesk data coming in. And I’m beginning to because I want to get
161 00:24:03.180 ⇒ 00:24:08.449 Uttam Kumaran: to the discount codes, and then also hopefully for a lot of the discounts that are like
162 00:24:08.470 ⇒ 00:24:20.029 Uttam Kumaran: warranties or whatever I want that to be like plastered on like where it’s getting attributed. But I also I asked him, for though Dan mentioned, there’s like a warranty sheet, or like a
163 00:24:20.180 ⇒ 00:24:24.449 Uttam Kumaran: like a standard of like what warranties are are active right now
164 00:24:24.580 ⇒ 00:24:36.169 Uttam Kumaran: I’m not. I looked at the raw data. There’s like. there’s a lot of stuff I have to do some clean up with, but I just wanted to put that out there to see what thoughts you had or like what your gut instinct on that is
165 00:24:37.340 ⇒ 00:24:38.910 2 twofold.
166 00:24:39.160 ⇒ 00:24:49.869 ben iphone : Some of the discounts are not true. They’re marketing tricks so like the prices raised to make it a to make room for a discount that’s not any different than before.
167 00:24:49.890 ⇒ 00:24:52.740 Uttam Kumaran: So some of those are just marketing tactics. So
168 00:24:53.680 ⇒ 00:24:59.950 ben iphone : on the surface, yes. you might go from a 10 to a 20%. Discount. But we’re actually going to take more
169 00:25:00.060 ⇒ 00:25:08.790 Uttam Kumaran: like from an accounting perspective. We’re doing better now than we were last January.
170 00:25:09.480 ⇒ 00:25:14.810 Uttam Kumaran: Look at the percentage of sales discount as a percentage.
171 00:25:14.870 ⇒ 00:25:23.630 ben iphone : Yeah, you would just need to normalize somehow. Revenue post discount. I guess something like that or profit
172 00:25:23.670 ⇒ 00:25:31.959 Uttam Kumaran: profit profit will include a bunch of other stuff I just wanna look at, I think what the percentage of sales will normalize.
173 00:25:33.020 ⇒ 00:25:39.350 ben iphone : Yeah, I mean, yeah, yeah, exactly. You trying. You want to get apples to apples there, which you can do a couple of ways. And then
174 00:25:39.700 ⇒ 00:25:45.100 ben iphone : let’s figure that out. The big thing that I know for sure is we are.
175 00:25:45.570 ⇒ 00:25:53.110 ben iphone : And this this may affect our numbers downwards, which is okay, is we are not going to spend nearly as much on Google
176 00:25:53.420 ⇒ 00:26:00.859 ben iphone : ever again. We are trying to limit that. Facebook has been delivering a much stronger return on ad spend. So
177 00:26:01.170 ⇒ 00:26:07.789 ben iphone : we’re trying to shift more there. But in general, we’re trying to reduce the amount of expenditure daily.
178 00:26:08.160 ⇒ 00:26:09.060 Uttam Kumaran: so
179 00:26:09.170 ⇒ 00:26:11.959 ben iphone : we can be profitable. Basically.
180 00:26:12.500 ⇒ 00:26:19.119 ben iphone : you know, the problem is adwords. Google, if you give them a strong daily budget, they’ll spend it.
181 00:26:19.930 ⇒ 00:26:33.360 ben iphone : But it doesn’t always mean it’s efficient. so like, you can get more sales, but at what cost. So we’re trying now to to not, you know. We wanna get the sales, but we don’t. Wanna.
182 00:26:33.410 ⇒ 00:26:34.420 ben iphone : We don’t want to
183 00:26:34.690 ⇒ 00:26:43.809 ben iphone : overdo it on how much we spend to get them. So we may shrink this year. But we want to be. Our goal is profitable profitability. So
184 00:26:44.310 ⇒ 00:26:50.010 ben iphone : we need a healthy balance between appropriate amount of ad spend and sales.
185 00:26:50.730 ⇒ 00:27:00.590 ben iphone : It’s a bit tricky because consumers like discounts, and it’s very hard to get them to make an action without them. So the marketing team
186 00:27:00.920 ⇒ 00:27:03.349 ben iphone : is doing that.
187 00:27:03.400 ⇒ 00:27:11.330 ben iphone : you know, if we had more aggressive ads. you see, like you’re you’re you’re trading things away, you know, like, okay, fine
188 00:27:11.530 ⇒ 00:27:24.780 ben iphone : less ad spend, we need to create more urgency. So we need to make it appear that there’s bigger discounts. How would we do it? Full price in the off season? You know, we wouldn’t sell anything. So it’s it’s very tricky.
189 00:27:27.100 ⇒ 00:27:35.449 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I mean, it’s helpful to know. Okay? So then then, it’s just like what what the main thing I I’m gonna look at is is the daily profit number.
190 00:27:35.560 ⇒ 00:27:40.699 Uttam Kumaran: Is that is that positive every day, you know. And how many, how many days is that?
191 00:27:40.990 ⇒ 00:27:57.769 Uttam Kumaran: Are we under the bar? And then where? Where is that getting stripped away right? I think shipping now is like it. We’re it’s starting to go a lot lower. If I look at the data, we are spending almost 40% less on shipping than the same time last year.
192 00:27:58.120 ⇒ 00:28:03.969 Uttam Kumaran: Yup, the question is this, okay? So shipping we know.
193 00:28:04.210 ⇒ 00:28:08.789 ben iphone : ad spend, how much less are we than last year?
194 00:28:08.800 ⇒ 00:28:10.120 Uttam Kumaran: 25%
195 00:28:10.510 ⇒ 00:28:14.389 ben iphone : okay and sales, how much less are within last year for January.
196 00:28:14.420 ⇒ 00:28:15.730 Uttam Kumaran: 14%.
197 00:28:16.570 ⇒ 00:28:18.979 ben iphone : That is a 10% improvement.
198 00:28:20.800 ⇒ 00:28:29.609 ben iphone : No, it’s more than that. It’s like a 15% improvement. Because what you know exactly the numbers, but 40% production and shipping
199 00:28:30.030 ⇒ 00:28:33.580 ben iphone : 10% reduction in. add, spend.
200 00:28:33.770 ⇒ 00:28:45.680 Uttam Kumaran: That’s a lot better. I like that math. Yeah, so so. But the biggest thing is. And I just so. But again, our our net profit number is less. However, I need to look at.
201 00:28:45.760 ⇒ 00:28:48.800 Uttam Kumaran: I almost need to look at just like
202 00:28:50.260 ⇒ 00:28:54.329 Uttam Kumaran: positive profit. Or, yeah, as just going up, meaning
203 00:28:54.360 ⇒ 00:29:11.210 Uttam Kumaran: we maybe we may be less profitable. The revenues down compared to last year, but we want more positive days. The thing that is high, though, and I just looked at is discounts. As a percentage of sales is higher than it was last year. We’re we’re sitting at about like 15%
204 00:29:11.320 ⇒ 00:29:13.999 Uttam Kumaran: where at the same time last year
205 00:29:14.120 ⇒ 00:29:19.060 Uttam Kumaran: we’re sitting closer to 5 to 7.
206 00:29:19.650 ⇒ 00:29:25.440 Uttam Kumaran: so that’s the thing is like, I just noticed that I think discounts is what’s eating
207 00:29:25.750 ⇒ 00:29:36.930 Uttam Kumaran: into a lot of it. That’s why I wanna spend the next week pretty much figuring out. where. Where is that like? Where is that money going? We we’re about 13% higher refund.
208 00:29:36.940 ⇒ 00:29:39.889 ben iphone : Which do you use?
209 00:29:39.930 ⇒ 00:29:41.080 ben iphone : Which are
210 00:29:42.000 ⇒ 00:29:44.310 Uttam Kumaran: for skews?
211 00:29:44.580 ⇒ 00:29:50.929 ben iphone : that one’s tough, that one’s tough, because that’s that’s becoming an issue with scale. So like
212 00:29:51.970 ⇒ 00:29:54.619 ben iphone : the issue there on the refunds is
213 00:29:55.460 ⇒ 00:30:00.870 ben iphone : we accelerated the company year over year over year. So much. And
214 00:30:02.070 ⇒ 00:30:10.830 ben iphone : it it it’s it’s it’s just like the problems that are gonna happen to machines after a couple of years, or have happening to us finally.
215 00:30:11.200 ⇒ 00:30:15.550 ben iphone : And it’s just it’s just bad timing.
216 00:30:16.410 ⇒ 00:30:30.149 Uttam Kumaran: II wanted to do. Look at how it’s affected by skew right now. I just have like I’m just looking at discount codes. But again, there’s so many codes, and I need some way to segment. So I’m hoping that, like I can get some better way, because
217 00:30:30.210 ⇒ 00:30:37.609 ben iphone : I can see that we’re Cody Cody. Cody. I think you should get with Cody and slack
218 00:30:37.810 ⇒ 00:30:53.539 ben iphone : and just be you. He has the the problem with him on calls is he’ll talk and talk and talk if you and and it’s great cause he does know a lot of things. If you just tell him like in a slack message, I need this, this, this, what is this, this, this, this this give him even like a spreadsheet to fill out.
219 00:30:53.970 ⇒ 00:30:59.229 Uttam Kumaran: And just you can get that clean up quicker. I think that could be a good play.
220 00:30:59.360 ⇒ 00:31:09.590 ben iphone : I think let’s isolate. I mean, he. He sent us an email about refunds on heat pumps, and he had like a pie chart, and he showed us
221 00:31:09.870 ⇒ 00:31:15.060 ben iphone : he categorized everything. It was actually pretty detailed. He he’s been, I mean. We put him on this, but
222 00:31:15.350 ⇒ 00:31:36.830 ben iphone : no categories.
223 00:31:37.300 ⇒ 00:31:42.629 Uttam Kumaran: So that’s what I’m like, kind of trying to figure out the reasons.
224 00:31:43.070 ⇒ 00:31:50.369 Because those those look pretty consistently the top 2 categories. But again, if we look at like the past 2 months, it’s almost like
225 00:31:50.740 ⇒ 00:32:00.560 Uttam Kumaran: 30 grand. 50 grand a month in refunds for just those 2 categories. Everything else is actually so small
226 00:32:00.600 ⇒ 00:32:05.340 Uttam Kumaran: that it’s makes it really apparent. And I again, I’m trying to look at region and things like that.
227 00:32:05.620 ⇒ 00:32:13.479 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know, I I’m not sure how to. I’m gonna think about ways to normalize that. But I don’t think that’s the problem. I think it’s probably product.
228 00:32:13.550 ⇒ 00:32:16.439 ben iphone : It is, you don’t need to look at that.
229 00:32:16.660 ⇒ 00:32:18.670 The the problem is.
230 00:32:19.230 ⇒ 00:32:28.159 ben iphone : there’s a lot of shipping damage. So we have to make a claim with Fedex, and oftentimes they will refund us. But what happens is is
231 00:32:29.270 ⇒ 00:32:34.819 ben iphone : whatever Fedex puts a forklift through the fucking thing, and they still bring it to somebody’s house.
232 00:32:35.250 ⇒ 00:32:41.059 ben iphone : The person would says I’m not gonna install this. And obviously from
233 00:32:41.520 ⇒ 00:32:44.179 ben iphone : ecom customer perspective.
234 00:32:44.490 ⇒ 00:32:47.019 ben iphone : you get rid of that unit.
235 00:32:47.560 ⇒ 00:33:03.209 ben iphone : You send out a new one for free, which is a refund. So that’s like a $4,000. It’s exactly what happens. And then the speed of the refund is, it’s not quick, and it doesn’t get reflected there like they send us like a pay per check.
236 00:33:03.230 ⇒ 00:33:08.399 ben iphone : So you don’t see all this stuff. And then and then there’s issues with certain.
237 00:33:08.490 ⇒ 00:33:17.879 ben iphone : and that’s these are smaller pieces of the puzzle. But where we could eventually go and get a credit from the the factory for having a malfunction.
238 00:33:19.390 ⇒ 00:33:23.289 ben iphone : I I’ll forward you the email from Cody, cause it will help
239 00:33:23.800 ⇒ 00:33:31.280 Uttam Kumaran: It will help me find it right now. Yeah, let me just see that way. I won’t. I don’t have to ask those questions again.
240 00:33:32.320 ⇒ 00:33:40.510 Uttam Kumaran: but I mainly want to get all the reasons in here, and then I want to get the send desk in here, too, and then see what if there’s stuff we can affect?
241 00:33:40.690 ⇒ 00:33:45.440 Uttam Kumaran: What are those right? If it’s I want to see if it’s shipping speed, if it’s a certain product.
242 00:33:45.800 ⇒ 00:34:00.900 ben iphone : But the we, I think we would be in a really good place. But the discount is is quite a bit higher than it was last. Well, I’ll I’ll I’ll I’ll tell you one thing. I did all the numbers I had a hunch a year ago, I said, I think we should maybe consider getting out of the heat pump business.
243 00:34:01.100 ⇒ 00:34:10.360 ben iphone : It was part of this, this, this Eunice thing, and I was like. I don’t know if this is worth the trouble, I said. We make so such healthy money on the variable speed in ground pumps.
244 00:34:10.659 ⇒ 00:34:18.759 ben iphone : I said. I may be, would rather have a company that does 6 or 7 million a year in sales, but half a million in profit. And it’s just
245 00:34:19.060 ⇒ 00:34:21.269 ben iphone : a lean, mean machine.
246 00:34:21.440 ⇒ 00:34:27.949 ben iphone : And Dan was like, we should probably actually just optimize every corner of the business before we make a decision like that.
247 00:34:28.610 ⇒ 00:34:35.280 Uttam Kumaran: Reality is, I think we may end up where I my hunch was, but we but I do think
248 00:34:35.360 ⇒ 00:34:50.959 ben iphone : it would also be nice if we could. If there’s a shot at solving these issues. we have a really big thing, and and also like the thing with heat pumps is we’re actually priced relatively low compared to competition. So if we can improve these issues.
249 00:34:51.639 ⇒ 00:35:03.619 ben iphone : and get better and better and better, we can raise the prices to like 6, $7,000 for the big ones, and then we have a fuckload of profit in there. So like it might actually, it might be worth the investment of figuring it all out.
250 00:35:04.660 ⇒ 00:35:09.559 ben iphone : I have to go. I’m I have a 1030. I just forwarded you the email from Cody.
251 00:35:09.640 ⇒ 00:35:19.050 ben iphone : anyway, just message me late. Just message me. And you know. In a little while I’ll talk to you. Bye.