Meeting Title: Uttam-Kumaran <> Nick-Anderson Date: 2024-03-29 Meeting participants: Nick Anderson, Uttam Kumaran
WEBVTT
1 00:00:44.900 ⇒ 00:00:45.693 Uttam Kumaran: Hey! Man!
2 00:00:46.090 ⇒ 00:00:47.229 Nick Anderson: Hey? What’s going on?
3 00:00:47.510 ⇒ 00:00:48.569 Nick Anderson: How you been.
4 00:00:49.150 ⇒ 00:00:50.479 Uttam Kumaran: Good! How are you?
5 00:00:50.720 ⇒ 00:00:54.100 Nick Anderson: Doing well doing well. I’m missing, Austin. I’ll say that.
6 00:00:54.435 ⇒ 00:01:09.859 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I’m in Dallas right now. I just came to visit a friend just for the last day. But yeah, I’m gonna be. I’m gonna be doing some traveling over the next like few weeks. I’m going to New York next weekend, and then.
7 00:01:09.860 ⇒ 00:01:12.920 Nick Anderson: Oh, really, wait! You’re gonna be at Nft, yc.
8 00:01:13.340 ⇒ 00:01:15.843 Uttam Kumaran: No, no, no! I’m just going to hang out.
9 00:01:16.400 ⇒ 00:01:20.679 Nick Anderson: Got it. Okay? So what cause? Actually, I’ll I think I might actually be there at the same time.
10 00:01:20.680 ⇒ 00:01:21.340 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, really.
11 00:01:21.340 ⇒ 00:01:27.040 Nick Anderson: Funny. Yeah, that’s you know, I I’m there from the fourth until
12 00:01:27.635 ⇒ 00:01:32.970 Nick Anderson: to be determined, I think. Like sometime like, maybe, like Wednesday or something. I’m leaving.
13 00:01:32.970 ⇒ 00:01:48.640 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I’m gonna be there from the I’m gonna be there. Fifth 6, a fifth night, 6 and 7, and then I’m flying to go visit some family in India pretty much from New York. But, Satur, but I’m like this is not like that much of a work trip.
14 00:01:48.720 ⇒ 00:01:52.479 Uttam Kumaran: I just go. I’m my girlfriend has never visited New York. She’s like from.
15 00:01:52.480 ⇒ 00:01:53.670 Nick Anderson: Oh, wow!
16 00:01:53.670 ⇒ 00:02:09.826 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. And so and then I, I just have, like so many friends there. So the problem is, if I go there, I’ll be like, okay, 10 meetings in a day, coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee. But I’m like, I’m like telling. I’m like, okay, no work meetings like. But I’ll have. I’m having everybody meet up in Brooklyn.
17 00:02:10.578 ⇒ 00:02:15.829 Uttam Kumaran: for like a like around one or 2 on Saturday, if you’re not doing anything, feel free to come, I could say.
18 00:02:15.830 ⇒ 00:02:16.510 Nick Anderson: Yeah, details.
19 00:02:16.510 ⇒ 00:02:21.359 Uttam Kumaran: I’m just having a bunch of my friends come, hang out again all smart, cool people, so.
20 00:02:21.360 ⇒ 00:02:22.040 Nick Anderson: Yeah.
21 00:02:22.210 ⇒ 00:02:27.819 Nick Anderson: yeah, man, I’m that’s that’s the type of crowd that Rick was able to put together for as well.
22 00:02:27.820 ⇒ 00:02:28.420 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
23 00:02:28.420 ⇒ 00:02:32.450 Nick Anderson: It’s exactly the type of people that I’m looking to be friends with, so I don’t.
24 00:02:32.450 ⇒ 00:02:32.920 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
25 00:02:32.920 ⇒ 00:02:34.670 Nick Anderson: Be down for sure.
26 00:02:34.670 ⇒ 00:02:36.340 Uttam Kumaran: How’s life fit? Dude.
27 00:02:36.590 ⇒ 00:02:38.940 Nick Anderson: Good back in Boston.
28 00:02:39.622 ⇒ 00:02:43.960 Nick Anderson: I I’m gonna be going to Naples
29 00:02:44.170 ⇒ 00:02:45.730 Nick Anderson: on Saturday
30 00:02:46.510 ⇒ 00:02:46.899 Uttam Kumaran: It was 4.
31 00:02:46.900 ⇒ 00:02:56.039 Nick Anderson: Florida and then flying into New York. Most of I’ve it’s funny. I moved back March first. To Boston, but
32 00:02:56.190 ⇒ 00:03:00.800 Nick Anderson: most of the time, mo. Like most of this month, I’ve been outside of Boston, like I’ve just.
33 00:03:00.800 ⇒ 00:03:01.130 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
34 00:03:01.130 ⇒ 00:03:04.219 Nick Anderson: Like I was in Austin was in New York for a little bit.
35 00:03:04.500 ⇒ 00:03:08.725 Nick Anderson: You want to, Florida, and I’m gonna be back in New York. So it’s
36 00:03:08.990 ⇒ 00:03:26.896 Uttam Kumaran: That’s good man. I think you just like you do as long as you get burned out. And then I was doing a big like sales stuff. When I first started this company in the last 6 months I’ve kind of been in a hole, but I really love like going to New York or any cities like. It’s really great to know that you’re in Boston, because if I go to Boston I’m like Cool. Who can I meet.
37 00:03:27.120 ⇒ 00:03:27.560 Nick Anderson: Oh, yeah.
38 00:03:27.560 ⇒ 00:03:38.970 Uttam Kumaran: You know, stuff like that. So I know some people like outside in like New Hampshire, and maybe like one or 2 people in the city, but don’t have a ton of people in Boston these days, so.
39 00:03:38.970 ⇒ 00:03:40.929 Nick Anderson: Dude, let me know, like we’ll.
40 00:03:40.930 ⇒ 00:03:41.900 Uttam Kumaran: I was at all.
41 00:03:41.900 ⇒ 00:03:43.712 Nick Anderson: We’ll show you a good time. Yeah.
42 00:03:44.230 ⇒ 00:03:47.039 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, okay, certainly. Yeah.
43 00:03:47.514 ⇒ 00:04:07.285 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, I do. I would love to just tell you a little bit about like what we’re doing, and I don’t know. See if there’s any way that we could do stuff together, even. Just get your thoughts on the business as a whole. I’m not sure how much I mentioned at Rich thing. But basically my background is in data engineering.
44 00:04:07.980 ⇒ 00:04:17.200 Uttam Kumaran: I mentioned, I I went to Buck now and then I graduated and then just kinda got thrown into data. I cold emailed my way into, we work. That’s my first job.
45 00:04:17.209 ⇒ 00:04:19.469 Nick Anderson: Was that during all, like the craziness.
46 00:04:19.899 ⇒ 00:04:22.753 Uttam Kumaran: It was before, is 2,018.
47 00:04:23.110 ⇒ 00:04:23.570 Nick Anderson: Okay.
48 00:04:23.570 ⇒ 00:04:27.630 Uttam Kumaran: So it was like the that was like 2 years leading up to that. Basically.
49 00:04:27.630 ⇒ 00:04:28.370 Nick Anderson: So super high.
50 00:04:28.370 ⇒ 00:04:28.839 Uttam Kumaran: I was like.
51 00:04:28.840 ⇒ 00:04:32.030 Nick Anderson: Was there a lot of hype? There was a lot of hype going on around.
52 00:04:32.030 ⇒ 00:04:37.829 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I mean it was. But it was a sick company, like we were doing a crazy stuff. Still, like the smartest people
53 00:04:37.890 ⇒ 00:04:51.719 Uttam Kumaran: I’ve worked with and like I loved it there. It was like a work, hard play, hard place. Like. The only reason I’m this, like far along in data is because of that place. So
54 00:04:51.720 ⇒ 00:05:06.670 Uttam Kumaran: like, I give it so much credit. I mean, like. So I was like 21 working there. And I was worked in data. We did all the internal reporting. So only like made 5 or 6 of us on data, 6,000 person company, and so we kind of were able to like run a lot of it.
55 00:05:06.670 ⇒ 00:05:23.769 Uttam Kumaran: The data team scaled to, like, you know, like 40 people company scales like 50,000 people. I worked on like the Ipo in terms of data. And yeah, it was insane. And then I left and I went to this company called Flow code. Low code does a secure circular QR code. I think I mentioned it. They’re based in Soho.
56 00:05:24.054 ⇒ 00:05:42.515 Uttam Kumaran: I was like the first State engineering hire there that went from like 30 people like 150 people. They raised a ton of money still, kind of cruising along. Not. We’ll see if that they end up doing anything and then kind of like, right after that, in between that, I started like doing some contracting work on the side, basically just
57 00:05:42.800 ⇒ 00:06:03.278 Uttam Kumaran: people needed data help like data modeling stuff. And I was just being able to get out. Be like, kind of a mercenary. So kind of in between jobs. I was doing that for a little bit, and then I got an offer to go work at Prequel. As like they had a had a product, basically. So the company raised like 7 million from benchmark
58 00:06:03.880 ⇒ 00:06:06.540 Uttam Kumaran: and basically, they wanted to build like a no code
59 00:06:06.917 ⇒ 00:06:35.509 Uttam Kumaran: data analytics platform where you could measure your companies and really create business definitions just through Ui, and so we kind of joined them from like 0 to one basically kind of that ran product. So hiring designers, hiring engineers managing, like, you know, like 4 or 5 project kind of simultaneously, all the project management stuff like that kind of like. Had a little bit of a falling out with the founders, and then decided to leave
60 00:06:36.186 ⇒ 00:06:37.479 Uttam Kumaran: and then
61 00:06:37.790 ⇒ 00:06:45.270 Uttam Kumaran: this was like, last year around this time. And kind of was like, Okay, I’m gonna see if I can just go. I don’t really wanna go work at another startup.
62 00:06:45.470 ⇒ 00:06:49.140 Uttam Kumaran: It’s kind of a lot of fucking work, and they typically don’t work
63 00:06:49.556 ⇒ 00:07:03.409 Uttam Kumaran: and I was like, I think, I know enough to be dangerous on my own. A lot of my philosophy on work was like trying to stack my resume. Basically in terms of skills. I had basically like, how do I get the most fucking skills out of each of these places.
64 00:07:03.410 ⇒ 00:07:19.499 Uttam Kumaran: And I, I wasn’t getting paid the most amount of money. So basically, my thing was, I’m gonna get paid and just being able to learn everything and do things outside of data. So I was involved in so many different things that were not in my job description, basically just trying to like stack. How many things I I learned
65 00:07:19.500 ⇒ 00:07:22.750 Uttam Kumaran: and I didn’t really was not interested in starting a company
66 00:07:22.840 ⇒ 00:07:35.219 Uttam Kumaran: just to start a company I was more interested in, like I wanted to do data engineering work with smart people. And this is kind of the only way I could make that happen and so kind of just was able to
67 00:07:35.260 ⇒ 00:07:43.520 Uttam Kumaran: just kind of told my network of people that like, Hey, I’m I’m kind of for hire to do like consulting and data, engineering and data analytics. And then.
68 00:07:43.530 ⇒ 00:08:07.319 Uttam Kumaran: like kind of work, just came my way. And then enough work came my way where I can bring on a couple of people. So there’s a couple of people working at the company. Some are senior, some are kind of in the middle ranks. Basically everybody’s engineering, though. And I’m just trying to kind of push all my knowledge to them. They kind of run some projects now and then I’m now trying to get out and do more sales and marketing. So we kind of have, like a full like
69 00:08:07.602 ⇒ 00:08:19.197 Uttam Kumaran: website, redesign that we’re doing a lot of new materials that I’d love to send to you. And then kind of just starting to kind of have a lot of conversations about how to grow the business getting new customers.
70 00:08:19.730 ⇒ 00:08:36.859 Uttam Kumaran: the nice thing also is like I’m able to work with the best vendors in the space. So we use a lot of tools when we do our job. And so I can go find the best picks and shovels, basically and tell my customers that that’s what we’re doing. So I’m able to have conversations with the best vendors in the space. Go to them and say, Hey, we have a bunch of clients
71 00:08:36.940 ⇒ 00:08:47.950 Uttam Kumaran: like we want to use you across a bunch of them. And that gives me meetings in the door with them. And yeah, I’m basically, again, the business we’re in the business of helping people measure their companies and get insights.
72 00:08:48.240 ⇒ 00:09:15.520 Uttam Kumaran: So that’s either increasing revenue or reducing costs or reducing headache. So we are direct through line to that. The nice thing is, everybody wants data, and everybody’s familiar with logging into a stripe dashboard or a salesforce dashboard and really comfortable with data. Now to a point where they know what they want. And so people like us can come in and say, you want to do things that you can’t get in this single dashboard. Do you want to combine data across products? Or you want to do more heavier statistical analysis?
73 00:09:15.961 ⇒ 00:09:19.610 Uttam Kumaran: That maybe your marketing guy just isn’t qualified to do or
74 00:09:19.897 ⇒ 00:09:23.379 Uttam Kumaran: but what happens is typically you have to hire a data person and
75 00:09:23.760 ⇒ 00:09:35.719 Uttam Kumaran: data. People are expensive, like a starting salary for a data engineer. If you Google will be like 1 50 in the city, maybe like 170, a senior person is probably like 2 50. And that’s just salary.
76 00:09:35.780 ⇒ 00:09:47.372 Uttam Kumaran: So you can think, maybe like, total Comp is like, plus a hundred on top of that. So it’s quite expensive. And that person May is may have only worked for like one or 2 or 3 companies.
77 00:09:48.010 ⇒ 00:09:58.949 Uttam Kumaran: may also, you have when you make a hire you have to decide like they take up one or 2 months to ramp up, and then, of course, unfortunately, if you have to fire them. It’s a fucking nightmare, and so.
78 00:09:59.210 ⇒ 00:10:00.639 Nick Anderson: Hiring someone to hire.
79 00:10:00.640 ⇒ 00:10:12.609 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. Healthcare. Think about, think about all the interview process like, it’s absolute nightmare. And like, I hire people, I hate it. So okay, it’s so much work. It’s so much work. And basically, I told people like, Look.
80 00:10:12.820 ⇒ 00:10:37.350 Uttam Kumaran: we offer like a 10 times better product. You have people like me, who have worked at a number of different companies. My team, who even compounds that the time to value for us is way better than if you were to hire someone, we could show you results in like 2 weeks to the few months, and that’s just getting faster and faster. We work with the best vendors. I can negotiate the best discounts of them, negotiating data products for years.
81 00:10:37.615 ⇒ 00:11:03.640 Uttam Kumaran: And you could fire us on Friday. You could hire us on Monday fires on Friday, it doesn’t doesn’t matter, and in addition to being 10 times better, we are not 10 times more expensive. So that’s basically, my pitch to people is like, I’m like, try a stop before you for hiring, because I think you’ll be surprised at why you want something that’s more variable that you can ramp up and down versus having a full time hire. But additionally, some people, they have a team where they want support to help their team.
82 00:11:03.640 ⇒ 00:11:07.930 Uttam Kumaran: And so we’re also there to kind of augment that. So that’s kind of where we started.
83 00:11:08.060 ⇒ 00:11:17.330 Uttam Kumaran: The fun part of the business. That’s more fun than that is, we’re also starting to do stuff in AI. So again, like we’re an engineering company is how I see us. First, I mean, we solve engineering problems.
84 00:11:17.624 ⇒ 00:11:28.039 Uttam Kumaran: And we have talked about people that are capable of doing AI work. And we’re starting to do AI work for people. And so this is like building agents and things like that work that I think is really fun.
85 00:11:28.395 ⇒ 00:11:33.119 Uttam Kumaran: Kind of like, not yet as solidified as the data work like, I don’t really know.
86 00:11:33.310 ⇒ 00:11:40.510 Uttam Kumaran: like it’s tough to do. I don’t know what market rates are, I don’t really know, like there’s some. There’s some answers that we need in that arena, that
87 00:11:40.560 ⇒ 00:12:02.829 Uttam Kumaran: I’m not as confident as I am in data. But again, I I tell people that we just wanna be solving problems, whatever they are for our customers. Do you need a marketing person cool? I have like the best marketing guy you should go talk to. Oh, do you need like design services. Cool, my friend, rather design agency. If I make a referral, she’ll give you 10% up like I just wanna be in the business of connecting people and getting shit done
88 00:12:03.270 ⇒ 00:12:10.499 Uttam Kumaran: my wedge into that is data. But, like I have so much to offer, and my team is so much more to offer than just that. So
89 00:12:10.780 ⇒ 00:12:20.120 Uttam Kumaran: that’s kind of like where my head at is with the business. It’s been kind of like. It’s been really funky hard for, like for like a year it’s probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
90 00:12:20.460 ⇒ 00:12:29.660 Uttam Kumaran: But there’s there’s starting to be some light for like this next phase, where I have some people that are taking on a lot of the work and kind of figure out how to grow the business from here. So.
91 00:12:31.110 ⇒ 00:12:41.079 Nick Anderson: Yeah, that’s awesome. I’m so pumped for you like, that’s such a exciting, exciting venture. And it sounds like you’re solving some real issues. Which is, you know, I think that’s like
92 00:12:41.570 ⇒ 00:12:49.239 Nick Anderson: the number. One thing that I look for when talking to anybody that’s starting anything is is, are you actually solving a real world issue that you face.
93 00:12:49.525 ⇒ 00:12:49.810 Uttam Kumaran: And.
94 00:12:49.810 ⇒ 00:12:54.689 Nick Anderson: And that is a real problem. Hiring people and being able to have data
95 00:12:54.840 ⇒ 00:13:10.400 Nick Anderson: be knowing right? Like, for example, actually funny enough. And this is why I’m really excited that we’re diving into this. Because when I was at Vayner, I when I was leading, I was led the web. 3. Content on 1 1 37 pm.
96 00:13:10.450 ⇒ 00:13:17.820 Nick Anderson: And then I let operations there. One of the biggest issues that we face was we had a team of creators who didn’t necessarily have a great way to structure
97 00:13:18.231 ⇒ 00:13:41.300 Nick Anderson: what performance looked like into in terms of raw output of content and performance. So I built it this gigant. And I’m not a technical person, not a day. And I have no data background. But like I just threw myself into the issue. I made this giant spreadsheet. And just across all of the like, all of our video creators, video editors, our graph designers, main channels, sub brand channels, all of it.
98 00:13:41.490 ⇒ 00:13:43.109 Nick Anderson: I went all the way down
99 00:13:43.230 ⇒ 00:13:54.040 Nick Anderson: and across. I said, Okay, what’s the minimum expected? Raw output of content. And then all of the quantum qual data points that we care about.
100 00:13:54.660 ⇒ 00:14:06.379 Nick Anderson: Right? So, and I defined exactly what those things were, and I benchmarked and built a forecasting infrastructure through which we saw exactly how much
101 00:14:06.510 ⇒ 00:14:10.719 Nick Anderson: our contactors should be performing across like a month, order, etc.
102 00:14:11.035 ⇒ 00:14:11.350 Uttam Kumaran: It.
103 00:14:11.350 ⇒ 00:14:16.449 Nick Anderson: And I built that into a project management infrastructure that automated the tracking of all these different metrics. And so.
104 00:14:16.770 ⇒ 00:14:18.100 Uttam Kumaran: That’s that’s second.
105 00:14:18.100 ⇒ 00:14:21.249 Nick Anderson: Like right and like honestly like
106 00:14:21.500 ⇒ 00:14:26.740 Nick Anderson: I don’t know like you said you like to. You want to do cool shit right. I want to do cool shit.
107 00:14:26.950 ⇒ 00:14:29.499 Nick Anderson: I know this solves a real problem at Vayner.
108 00:14:29.500 ⇒ 00:14:29.990 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
109 00:14:30.330 ⇒ 00:14:32.710 Nick Anderson: And and I realize, too, that like
110 00:14:32.880 ⇒ 00:14:40.670 Nick Anderson: this is A, and I have experience implementing a system in a creative team because one of the biggest issues that that was implementing. Something like this is like.
111 00:14:40.740 ⇒ 00:14:41.950 Nick Anderson: how do you create
112 00:14:41.990 ⇒ 00:14:45.339 Nick Anderson: a system that allows people to have
113 00:14:45.540 ⇒ 00:14:53.539 Nick Anderson: accountability for their performance, but also not piss off the creators and feel like make them feel like they’re being watched, you know, cause that’s.
114 00:14:53.540 ⇒ 00:14:54.600 Uttam Kumaran: Like a huge that was like.
115 00:14:54.600 ⇒ 00:14:55.260 Nick Anderson: Biggest thing.
116 00:14:55.260 ⇒ 00:14:57.570 Uttam Kumaran: Also, they’re not technical, right? So you can’t.
117 00:14:57.570 ⇒ 00:14:58.210 Nick Anderson: Yeah.
118 00:14:58.620 ⇒ 00:15:08.950 Uttam Kumaran: You don’t want them in the system that’s like hard to use. But you also want really clean, structured data. You kind of want that on a timely basis. You don’t want them like screenshotting
119 00:15:09.120 ⇒ 00:15:21.639 Uttam Kumaran: analytics, dashboards, or like copy pasting like, there’s all these problems. The other thing is like, you want live data. Right? So what we do for a lot of people is we pull directly from Tiktok, Bing, ads, snap ads.
120 00:15:21.670 ⇒ 00:15:30.259 Uttam Kumaran: Facebook app all this. All the data. So we, there’s a couple of Etl providers. We use 5 tran, which basically like pulls that all automatically.
121 00:15:30.260 ⇒ 00:15:30.920 Nick Anderson: She’s super metal.
122 00:15:30.920 ⇒ 00:15:32.079 Uttam Kumaran: Some of that custom.
123 00:15:32.270 ⇒ 00:15:43.649 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, yeah. Super metrics. There’s a couple of them that that basically do that for marketing. The nice thing about 5 tran is, we use them for marketing, then we use them for sales. Then we use them for shipping and inventory like
124 00:15:43.660 ⇒ 00:15:57.269 Uttam Kumaran: we come in, and we do the whole business right? So marketing is just the one thing where they’re like, we just wanna measure organic and paid performance. Okay, cool. We go down the list of all the different paid sources, get all the things from
125 00:15:57.270 ⇒ 00:16:16.640 Uttam Kumaran: impressions all the way down to conversions. And then also we look at from the ad to the ad set to the campaign level. If they have multiple accounts, and then basically, again, a lot of them, they may be the marketing team may have no understanding of this. They’re just going to dashboards, but they never have a combined blend view of like. Where are we spending money across all of our paid and non paid
126 00:16:16.750 ⇒ 00:16:19.060 Uttam Kumaran: things like direct mail out of home.
127 00:16:19.110 ⇒ 00:16:33.349 Uttam Kumaran: Whatever they’re doing right, you have to measure these initiatives. What is your roaz across all those sources. What is your throughput through all those sources? And then basically understanding, how is that impacting your business? And that’s the things that the marketing teams.
128 00:16:33.400 ⇒ 00:16:36.439 Uttam Kumaran: they will be able to say like this, ad performed, well.
129 00:16:36.660 ⇒ 00:16:43.820 Uttam Kumaran: great! But do you know how that like, you know, if your ad actually caused us issues on the customer service side
130 00:16:43.870 ⇒ 00:16:51.269 Uttam Kumaran: because we advertise something that caused them to buy. But then they were misled. That’s the thing that people don’t don’t have. The marketing team
131 00:16:51.270 ⇒ 00:17:13.943 Uttam Kumaran: doesn’t have that link. So that’s where you really need this sort of data combination to track the customer from the channel. The Ad. They came through the purchase event. Then the long tail of like did they come back? Did they submit a ticket? Did they have a warranty issue? And then being able to tie that back. That’s where it’s like really requires some stitching. And that’s kinda like an example of like some of the stuff we do.
132 00:17:14.220 ⇒ 00:17:18.629 Nick Anderson: Oh, totally. Yeah, it actually yeah. For fun. I I may actually share a little bit of that spreadsheet with.
133 00:17:18.630 ⇒ 00:17:19.810 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, yeah, much.
134 00:17:20.217 ⇒ 00:17:22.599 Nick Anderson: Let’s see 1 s. Let me
135 00:17:23.443 ⇒ 00:17:24.369 Nick Anderson: and this
136 00:17:25.459 ⇒ 00:17:27.029 Nick Anderson: here I’ll just
137 00:17:28.249 ⇒ 00:17:29.699 Nick Anderson: I do.
138 00:17:31.919 ⇒ 00:17:36.689 Nick Anderson: Why is it not showing any free views of what I’m looking at.
139 00:17:43.699 ⇒ 00:17:47.358 Nick Anderson: I’m used to. I’m used to Google meet where it’s just showing you.
140 00:17:47.779 ⇒ 00:17:48.699 Nick Anderson: Let’s say.
141 00:17:53.429 ⇒ 00:17:57.172 Nick Anderson: okay, here we go. Sorry I didn’t have the permissions on for zoom.
142 00:18:00.139 ⇒ 00:18:04.893 Nick Anderson: Oh, it says, I have to quit and reopen. Well, here, yeah, hold on.
143 00:18:05.210 ⇒ 00:18:07.089 Uttam Kumaran: Reopen couldn’t reopen. I’m here. Yeah.
144 00:18:07.090 ⇒ 00:18:07.770 Nick Anderson: Hold on!
145 00:18:52.060 ⇒ 00:18:53.090 Nick Anderson: Alright!
146 00:18:54.830 ⇒ 00:18:55.869 Nick Anderson: There we go.
147 00:18:58.520 ⇒ 00:18:59.530 Nick Anderson: Pounds
148 00:19:00.470 ⇒ 00:19:01.620 Nick Anderson: merge ish.
149 00:19:06.340 ⇒ 00:19:07.390 Nick Anderson: Oh, yeah.
150 00:19:16.700 ⇒ 00:19:17.580 Uttam Kumaran: Alright!
151 00:19:17.580 ⇒ 00:19:19.300 Nick Anderson: Alright. Here we go.
152 00:19:20.410 ⇒ 00:19:21.790 Nick Anderson: Yep. Okay.
153 00:19:22.190 ⇒ 00:19:23.290 Nick Anderson: So
154 00:19:24.090 ⇒ 00:19:27.809 Nick Anderson: you can see here literally exactly as it.
155 00:19:28.030 ⇒ 00:19:31.040 Nick Anderson: I described it. All of our creators.
156 00:19:31.550 ⇒ 00:19:32.760 Nick Anderson: channels.
157 00:19:33.570 ⇒ 00:19:35.509 Uttam Kumaran: What is Ig? Oh, Twitter, okay.
158 00:19:35.510 ⇒ 00:19:37.910 Nick Anderson: Yeah, these are the platforms. So like, across these platforms.
159 00:19:37.910 ⇒ 00:19:39.399 Uttam Kumaran: But where it’s ticked off. And yeah.
160 00:19:39.400 ⇒ 00:19:41.160 Nick Anderson: Yup totals.
161 00:19:41.760 ⇒ 00:19:45.239 Nick Anderson: Comments for Instagram Twitter, tiktok
162 00:19:45.696 ⇒ 00:19:51.589 Nick Anderson: Youtube shorts. And then it goes across like the vertical or the topic area of the content.
163 00:19:51.590 ⇒ 00:19:52.260 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
164 00:19:52.260 ⇒ 00:19:55.739 Nick Anderson: Type. The category.
165 00:19:55.740 ⇒ 00:19:58.580 Uttam Kumaran: Cool. Yeah, I mean, it’s makes a lot of sense. Yeah.
166 00:19:58.730 ⇒ 00:20:03.569 Nick Anderson: And then even to like. And all these things or inputs in our project management structure.
167 00:20:03.670 ⇒ 00:20:11.600 Nick Anderson: so like what we did was we essentially like all those inputs. I just would export our
168 00:20:11.710 ⇒ 00:20:13.230 Nick Anderson: monday.com
169 00:20:14.428 ⇒ 00:20:18.119 Nick Anderson: sheets and then tie it all based on the URL.
170 00:20:18.120 ⇒ 00:20:18.550 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah.
171 00:20:18.550 ⇒ 00:20:19.280 Nick Anderson: Use, tracer.
172 00:20:19.280 ⇒ 00:20:23.020 Uttam Kumaran: But see, the thing is you should you? Should you? Should one
173 00:20:23.040 ⇒ 00:20:25.230 Uttam Kumaran: take the Monday data and do it.
174 00:20:25.390 ⇒ 00:20:28.879 Uttam Kumaran: don’t like you could just pull the data directly from the Monday Api.
175 00:20:29.172 ⇒ 00:20:38.547 Nick Anderson: Yeah, was, yeah, that was more so. Trust, I mean, well, yes. But also yes, yeah, yes, that’s the right answer. Also, as a non technical guy. I was like,
176 00:20:38.840 ⇒ 00:20:40.180 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, I mean.
177 00:20:40.310 ⇒ 00:20:46.879 Nick Anderson: Poke this together and like but yeah, dude. Yeah. And like.
178 00:20:46.880 ⇒ 00:20:49.139 Uttam Kumaran: But where do you see this? Where do you see this going.
179 00:20:49.487 ⇒ 00:21:17.319 Nick Anderson: I potentially like I’ve just played around with the idea more so I haven’t like, pursued it super seriously. But like I see this being targeted to marketing agencies or large social media pages with 10 or more creators. That need to be like you need to have, like a team of creators that you’re tracking with specific content series that you’re they’re responsible for, etc. I see the most ideal clients being like again.
180 00:21:17.330 ⇒ 00:21:23.529 Nick Anderson: agent marketing agencies with 10 or more creators making content. A barstool sports
181 00:21:23.928 ⇒ 00:21:31.401 Nick Anderson: where they have a ton of creators, and like they need to be able to track like, how much like each of them are performing.
182 00:21:31.860 ⇒ 00:21:34.650 Nick Anderson: like a world star, a complex
183 00:21:35.173 ⇒ 00:21:41.639 Nick Anderson: those types of things. And it basically any company makes their moar most of their revenue from content, creation.
184 00:21:42.300 ⇒ 00:21:44.250 Uttam Kumaran: My assumption is that people
185 00:21:44.320 ⇒ 00:21:47.769 Uttam Kumaran: don’t care about the spreadsheet thing. They care about the output.
186 00:21:47.770 ⇒ 00:21:51.140 Nick Anderson: Oh, yeah, no, that’s like, look I just that was more so. Me.
187 00:21:51.400 ⇒ 00:21:52.220 Uttam Kumaran: No, no, no, no, no.
188 00:21:52.220 ⇒ 00:21:53.070 Nick Anderson: But it’s yeah.
189 00:21:53.070 ⇒ 00:22:00.810 Uttam Kumaran: That’s the no, no, no meaning meaning like I think a good pitch is like, what are you showing on the back end of that like, what do you get out of that spreadsheet?
190 00:22:01.090 ⇒ 00:22:01.650 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, like.
191 00:22:01.650 ⇒ 00:22:02.010 Nick Anderson: Totally.
192 00:22:02.010 ⇒ 00:22:13.853 Uttam Kumaran: Are you showing graphs and stuff? Are you showing like you mentioned? The forecast thing like that’s what I’m thinking is cause I I being part of all all these companies. Everybody has some sort of crazy spreadsheet setup like.
193 00:22:14.150 ⇒ 00:22:15.469 Nick Anderson: Yeah, like, yes, sometimes.
194 00:22:15.470 ⇒ 00:22:24.420 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t think your I don’t think your goal is actually like, oh, come and use my spreadsheet set up, cause they’re gonna be. We already have a spreadsheet set up. I think your goal is almost like you could show.
195 00:22:24.480 ⇒ 00:22:27.299 Uttam Kumaran: and my spreadsheet set up has these outputs
196 00:22:27.310 ⇒ 00:22:47.270 Uttam Kumaran: right? And I think that’s like a really key way of focusing to give you context in my business. A lot of times I work with Ceos. They don’t care that I’m using a certain vendor to move data, and that’s super reliable. They don’t care about my data models, and like how marketing things is a dashboard loading. Does that the most up to date data? And then how fast is it to add stuff? That’s all they care about.
197 00:22:47.570 ⇒ 00:22:53.859 Uttam Kumaran: But it’s a last mile problem like. I can’t get to that point where that’s great until I have all these great pieces. But
198 00:22:54.280 ⇒ 00:23:07.850 Uttam Kumaran: fortunately, unfortunately, they they only care about the last mile, so I think a lot about that presentation. I’m starting to think a lot more about making that look super top notch that sells me the ability of time to go do the rest of like the behind the scenes.
199 00:23:08.110 ⇒ 00:23:13.360 Uttam Kumaran: And so I think you can even think about better ways of showing like what the output of if you.
200 00:23:13.360 ⇒ 00:23:13.700 Nick Anderson: Sorry. Yeah.
201 00:23:13.700 ⇒ 00:23:21.550 Uttam Kumaran: Structure. You could see these crazy graphs, or, like, you can be able to forecast months in advance, or being able to understand, like
202 00:23:21.580 ⇒ 00:23:37.420 Uttam Kumaran: what we expect? Who are the bottom? 20 top? 80. Where to push money? Who to cut? Who’s like you should go? Who should you be concerned with setting goals, taking those input and putting those goals and understanding like, you know, percent accomplishment and things like that.
203 00:23:37.790 ⇒ 00:23:38.530 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
204 00:23:38.710 ⇒ 00:23:40.170 Uttam Kumaran: yeah, yeah.
205 00:23:40.440 ⇒ 00:23:41.300 Uttam Kumaran: So.
206 00:23:41.300 ⇒ 00:23:49.160 Nick Anderson: It’s something that I’ve thought about, something that played around with the idea with but you know, I think it’s honestly like it’s it’s more like
207 00:23:49.740 ⇒ 00:23:53.859 Nick Anderson: I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t feel as convicted behind
208 00:23:54.220 ⇒ 00:24:00.550 Nick Anderson: like just pursuing that until I had someone like ya like, or something where
209 00:24:00.800 ⇒ 00:24:01.320 Nick Anderson: I mean.
210 00:24:01.320 ⇒ 00:24:01.910 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
211 00:24:01.910 ⇒ 00:24:10.155 Nick Anderson: Like it. I it was all like tight, and it was legit, you know. This was very scrappy way of me just throwing this together, but.
212 00:24:10.450 ⇒ 00:24:14.710 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s how it starts. Man, like, it’s that’s that’s the meat of it. Anyways.
213 00:24:14.860 ⇒ 00:24:16.230 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. Yup.
214 00:24:16.260 ⇒ 00:24:21.319 Uttam Kumaran: So so what’s like, what are you working on now, and like, what are your thoughts like for the future?
215 00:24:21.320 ⇒ 00:24:26.929 Nick Anderson: Well, I left Vayner recently, like, I I think we talked about that. Yeah, man,
216 00:24:27.290 ⇒ 00:24:44.354 Nick Anderson: kinda just figuring out what’s next. I mean, I have a few different things on table, few different interests and conversations, but predominantly. My where my heads at is in experiential and events, I think the power of being able to get a group of
217 00:24:44.820 ⇒ 00:24:50.889 Nick Anderson: interesting individuals kind of like what Rhett did into a room like that.
218 00:24:51.360 ⇒ 00:24:57.079 Nick Anderson: It the amount of deals and serendipity and value that people get that trickles out.
219 00:24:57.080 ⇒ 00:24:57.510 Uttam Kumaran: Totally.
220 00:24:57.510 ⇒ 00:25:01.890 Nick Anderson: Is it? Just? It’s it’s it’s unlimited leverage. As you
221 00:25:02.290 ⇒ 00:25:03.760 Nick Anderson: continue on with that.
222 00:25:03.760 ⇒ 00:25:04.140 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
223 00:25:05.130 ⇒ 00:25:13.540 Nick Anderson: So I think that that’s something that’s been fascinating me a lot, especially my events experience. Prior I’ve been open to doing
224 00:25:13.640 ⇒ 00:25:20.990 Nick Anderson: like marketing, or like just general marketing stuff. Sales roles. I have some experience with sales
225 00:25:22.870 ⇒ 00:25:23.960 Nick Anderson: operations.
226 00:25:23.960 ⇒ 00:25:24.680 Uttam Kumaran: Off.
227 00:25:25.280 ⇒ 00:25:27.079 Nick Anderson: Working in social.
228 00:25:27.310 ⇒ 00:25:28.139 Nick Anderson: you know.
229 00:25:28.730 ⇒ 00:25:29.580 Nick Anderson: Maybe do. My own.
230 00:25:29.580 ⇒ 00:25:30.330 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
231 00:25:30.820 ⇒ 00:25:53.180 Uttam Kumaran: yeah, I don’t know. I think I mean, yeah, I think. Decide whether you want to go full time somewhere or not. But I think you have a ton of skills to do stuff like agency work, I think definitely agree, like a lot of stuff in the in person. Experiential, I think is like really on the rise, I mean, I look at a lot of things like Hampton, which they’re doing like high net worth kind of like Hampton. They pretty much they have like these cohorts of people who are like
232 00:25:53.180 ⇒ 00:26:16.550 Uttam Kumaran: you make more than like a million dollars or whatever. And you can join this thing where they pair people together. And it’s kind of like a social. It’s like a hybrid in person and video, like social club kind of thing. There’s some stuff like that, like. Again I look at it. The most bare bones is like a group chat with friends, and I’m like, hey? Get a bunch of smart people like one thing I kind of try to do when I throw parties or something is, I’m like.
233 00:26:16.670 ⇒ 00:26:18.599 Uttam Kumaran: invite one person
234 00:26:18.750 ⇒ 00:26:42.009 Uttam Kumaran: that you think would would like invite one person that you think would do well in this sort of environment, and I give people a little bit more agency of like don’t invite like your. There’s a random friend. Think about someone who you actually would want to introduce to bunch of people. Or, I also say, think about, like your one cool friend and invite them to stuff. So I think there is something to do with like scaling those sort of interactions, whether you can get value out of it I don’t know, or like.
235 00:26:42.010 ⇒ 00:26:42.570 Nick Anderson: Well, I think.
236 00:26:42.570 ⇒ 00:26:43.809 Uttam Kumaran: Pricing. I don’t know.
237 00:26:43.810 ⇒ 00:27:00.590 Nick Anderson: I think what it is, too, is like and I’m been kinda learning this as of late, and with meeting people in Vc. World, and like advisor world and whatnot is like, how can you get as many like miscellaneous, like pieces of pies of different companies.
238 00:27:00.590 ⇒ 00:27:00.930 Uttam Kumaran: His name.
239 00:27:00.930 ⇒ 00:27:10.900 Nick Anderson: So that, like it is lucrative for you to. You have a rolodex of different offers or things that you can say like, Hey, yeah, like, Oh, you’re in wine. Oh, well, I know, like this person.
240 00:27:10.900 ⇒ 00:27:11.460 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, like, and.
241 00:27:11.743 ⇒ 00:27:14.859 Nick Anderson: Startup! It will plug, you know. That’s like that’s where I.
242 00:27:14.860 ⇒ 00:27:15.380 Uttam Kumaran: That’s it.
243 00:27:15.380 ⇒ 00:27:25.580 Nick Anderson: To craft that vision, and I realize that, like my, my power is like getting in front of people and throwing events, and like, if I can network it with as many fucking people as I can.
244 00:27:25.580 ⇒ 00:27:26.610 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, yeah. As I’ll put you.
245 00:27:26.610 ⇒ 00:27:32.309 Nick Anderson: And zones to be advisors, to do these different things and get pieces of it, and plug people into different things.
246 00:27:32.320 ⇒ 00:27:35.810 Nick Anderson: There, there’s just unlimited fucking upside there.
247 00:27:36.300 ⇒ 00:27:40.499 Uttam Kumaran: I agree. I think that’s kind of the arena I I’m in now where?
248 00:27:40.650 ⇒ 00:27:55.429 Uttam Kumaran: Because especially cause I have the business now, like I could get any meeting, and then it’s even better, because then I I find some way of helping people. Even if nothing comes back, I’m like, how can I just be helpful, cause you actually will find it just come back
249 00:27:55.520 ⇒ 00:28:23.930 Uttam Kumaran: isn’t like, and maybe a month, and maybe 6 months, maybe a year. Someone will be like this person. Help me, let me get let me go like oh, something came up, and for me the biggest thing is, I’m like, if something smells like data. Try to give me a call. That’s the simple vision that I have is like, it’s if if someone in your network is dealing with a data thing, let me know, but it could expand to just like anything. Right? So. But again, it’s just like for me, the biggest thing that’s been fun is connecting people together and being like you guys should totally talk, or
250 00:28:24.240 ⇒ 00:28:28.760 Uttam Kumaran: but I do think that the one parameter I have is people with some skin in the game.
251 00:28:29.660 ⇒ 00:28:33.770 Uttam Kumaran: If you’re just an employee at a company, it’s hard for me to
252 00:28:34.320 ⇒ 00:28:55.949 Uttam Kumaran: like. I don’t. I can’t recommend people to go. What are we gonna like, maybe maybe just to be friends. But like the thing is, I like working with people who are. They’re doing their own business. So they’re like, I’m trying something. Cause then I’m like, you’re trying something. This person needs people with your work ethic, and you have a flexibility to go do stuff. If I make interest to people who are working in a corporate environment, they’re not gonna do anything with those fucking interests.
253 00:28:56.110 ⇒ 00:28:56.730 Nick Anderson: Ding.
254 00:28:56.730 ⇒ 00:29:06.740 Uttam Kumaran: You know, and I want people. I I like people who take a risk, you know, and like are like betting on themselves and doing that. So there’s something to be like a little bit of free agent, or have some
255 00:29:06.780 ⇒ 00:29:11.850 Uttam Kumaran: capacity of like. Hey, I am a free agent in this arena, because I think it makes you.
256 00:29:11.910 ⇒ 00:29:20.289 Uttam Kumaran: I think, like that’s a it’s a good pitch, and people would want to make interest for you, especially people like rit and like those kind of guys who have like done companies again and again.
257 00:29:20.330 ⇒ 00:29:38.189 Uttam Kumaran: they don’t. They don’t give a fuck about if you’re like I Google. And you’re like a software engineer like, I don’t care about anything like that. If you’re like, I started my own agency. I’m doing this. We have a couple of clients and like, Oh, perfect! I have some you should talk to. That’s great, if you’re like, if you’re at Google and like, there’s no reason you. What do you have to offer your full time employee? You’re like a sound.
258 00:29:38.190 ⇒ 00:29:39.589 Nick Anderson: Yeah, right? So, right.
259 00:29:40.475 ⇒ 00:29:43.129 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so, yeah.
260 00:29:45.550 ⇒ 00:29:47.166 Nick Anderson: Fun, game, we play.
261 00:29:47.570 ⇒ 00:29:50.039 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, dude, I think it’s a weird game
262 00:29:50.450 ⇒ 00:30:15.710 Uttam Kumaran: again. I I think it’s been nice to try to do it honestly, and to actually have a product that’s helping people and helping the companies, and to constantly. I tell my team. And I think about, how do I do more for clients? How does how does it feel like people are getting a steal from paying me like, you know? I that’s the feeling I want to give is whether, like holy shit. I can’t believe these guys are just that much money.
263 00:30:16.950 ⇒ 00:30:34.350 Uttam Kumaran: and I think that takes some like over commitment in the beginning. And you build systems to scale that that sort of feeling? And then again, I think about like, how do I come across as like a Mckinsey? How do I come across as an Ogilvie like, I want it to feel like you’re getting the best
264 00:30:34.500 ⇒ 00:30:40.180 Uttam Kumaran: data and AI, and we’re the best people to work with, because then we’re going to be able to charge
265 00:30:40.190 ⇒ 00:30:44.639 Uttam Kumaran: fucking anything we want to cause. I know the product is great, you know. So
266 00:30:45.154 ⇒ 00:30:47.800 Uttam Kumaran: that’s a lot of like what I think about. So
267 00:30:48.490 ⇒ 00:30:49.490 Uttam Kumaran: it’s a
268 00:30:50.040 ⇒ 00:30:59.650 Uttam Kumaran: yeah. It’s been fun. We’ll see. I I just think it’s been. It’s been. Really. It’s like a tiring process, so we’ll see if there’s ever like an end. But it does feel nice, and I have a boss, and like kind of Wake up and
269 00:30:59.670 ⇒ 00:31:09.663 Uttam Kumaran: and just work with cool people and and be genuine and like, you know, I don’t represent a bigger brand. I don’t care about like what I say. What I say is how I feel in the moment, and
270 00:31:10.060 ⇒ 00:31:15.150 Uttam Kumaran: I think a lot of people they do have to hide behind like they represent somebody, so you can’t say certain things, or.
271 00:31:15.150 ⇒ 00:31:15.700 Nick Anderson: You can.
272 00:31:15.700 ⇒ 00:31:19.910 Uttam Kumaran: Can be truthful about like, oh, we have this relationship, or like.
273 00:31:20.070 ⇒ 00:31:23.409 Uttam Kumaran: there’s some drama it’s like, I don’t have any of that shit. I don’t know. There’s no drama.
274 00:31:23.630 ⇒ 00:31:26.599 Uttam Kumaran: It’s just like straight work, you know, so.
275 00:31:27.370 ⇒ 00:31:28.810 Nick Anderson: That’s a beautiful place to be.
276 00:31:29.440 ⇒ 00:31:30.270 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
277 00:31:30.580 ⇒ 00:31:38.990 Uttam Kumaran: So let me know how I can, how I can help, or what I can, what I can help with, or even the we could even catch up again sometime, or maybe in person, or if I see you in New York, then.
278 00:31:38.990 ⇒ 00:31:40.360 Nick Anderson: Yeah. Dude. Saturday.
279 00:31:40.360 ⇒ 00:31:42.270 Uttam Kumaran: Introduce you to some people there. Yeah.
280 00:31:42.270 ⇒ 00:31:49.639 Nick Anderson: Yeah, yeah, man, I’m always looking for like people that are smart and do cool. Shit. So
281 00:31:49.730 ⇒ 00:31:59.579 Nick Anderson: yeah. And then also, like, I’ll know. I’ll know. I’ll I’ll let you know about if there’s any like data things and whatnot like, are people looking for that like 100? Be first person.
282 00:31:59.580 ⇒ 00:32:00.319 Uttam Kumaran: But yeah.
283 00:32:00.780 ⇒ 00:32:12.719 Uttam Kumaran: yeah, and let me let you know about Saturday. And then again, if you need any help for any of your projects. Or again, there’s you could get a lot of technical work done for very, very cheap these days. So I think you’d be surprised that like
284 00:32:12.900 ⇒ 00:32:19.519 Uttam Kumaran: to take your even spreadsheet, and turn it to something that like looks tangible. Not will cost you that much.
285 00:32:19.690 ⇒ 00:32:27.490 Uttam Kumaran: or even just to get to me. That looks design again, whatever you need. I could try to tell you the cheapest way of getting it done in the technical world.
286 00:32:27.770 ⇒ 00:32:28.100 Nick Anderson: Yes.
287 00:32:28.100 ⇒ 00:32:29.410 Uttam Kumaran: So let me know.
288 00:32:29.410 ⇒ 00:32:30.860 Nick Anderson: I’d appreciate that. Yeah.
289 00:32:31.060 ⇒ 00:32:40.706 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Alright. Dude. Well, I’ll text you about Saturday. I hope to see you there. We’ll just be meetings like at a bar somewhere in Brooklyn. Such should be pretty casual.
290 00:32:40.990 ⇒ 00:32:44.420 Nick Anderson: Perfect. Yeah, perfect. Sounds good, brother.
291 00:32:44.860 ⇒ 00:32:45.800 Nick Anderson: I’ll I’ll talk to you.
292 00:32:45.800 ⇒ 00:32:48.249 Uttam Kumaran: I see you good chatting. Bye.
293 00:32:48.480 ⇒ 00:32:48.830 Nick Anderson: Likewise.