Meeting Title: Uttam <> Nick Date: 2024-04-02 Meeting participants: Nick, Uttam Kumaran
WEBVTT
1 00:00:21.540 ⇒ 00:00:22.530 Uttam Kumaran: And I put off.
2 00:00:23.150 ⇒ 00:00:23.690 Uttam Kumaran: yeah.
3 00:00:23.690 ⇒ 00:00:25.040 Nick: What’s up, man? How’s it going.
4 00:00:25.040 ⇒ 00:00:26.040 Uttam Kumaran: Good! How are you?
5 00:00:26.380 ⇒ 00:00:28.460 Nick: Doing? Well, how’s the day been for you?
6 00:00:29.100 ⇒ 00:00:36.400 Uttam Kumaran: Hey? It’s been good. Week’s been good. I’m doing some traveling end of this week. I’m going to New York, and then I’m going to
7 00:00:36.875 ⇒ 00:00:45.274 Uttam Kumaran: in the end, the visits and family. So it’ll be a wild month of this work, and trying to relax a bit.
8 00:00:45.640 ⇒ 00:00:46.730 Nick: Yeah, like.
9 00:00:46.730 ⇒ 00:00:47.620 Uttam Kumaran: I’m excited.
10 00:00:47.800 ⇒ 00:00:50.959 Nick: That’s great is New York for work, or just to hang out.
11 00:00:50.960 ⇒ 00:01:00.514 Uttam Kumaran: It’s kind of hanging out. We end up doing work one way or another. I go to New York. But no, I’m just visiting some of our friends of mine, and like having some people.
12 00:01:00.760 ⇒ 00:01:01.340 Nick: Like man.
13 00:01:01.340 ⇒ 00:01:05.270 Uttam Kumaran: I just. I used to live there. So I like. Whenever I come to town I have a group like
14 00:01:05.440 ⇒ 00:01:09.120 Uttam Kumaran: 20 or 30 people meet out until they hide everybody, so.
15 00:01:09.120 ⇒ 00:01:09.709 Nick: It’s cool. Man.
16 00:01:09.710 ⇒ 00:01:10.560 Uttam Kumaran: Nice. Yeah.
17 00:01:10.560 ⇒ 00:01:11.979 Nick: That’s awesome. How long you lived there for.
18 00:01:12.140 ⇒ 00:01:13.560 Uttam Kumaran: For like 5 years.
19 00:01:14.130 ⇒ 00:01:15.210 Nick: That’s cool. Do you like it?
20 00:01:15.210 ⇒ 00:01:19.620 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, like, right right before Austin. Yeah, I thought it was. I thought it was the best
21 00:01:20.140 ⇒ 00:01:21.110 Uttam Kumaran: I thought of.
22 00:01:21.330 ⇒ 00:01:23.570 Uttam Kumaran: It’s certainly like the
23 00:01:23.770 ⇒ 00:01:27.420 Uttam Kumaran: my favorite city. I think I’ve been to and lived in, but.
24 00:01:27.740 ⇒ 00:01:30.042 Uttam Kumaran: It’s takes a lot to live there and
25 00:01:30.390 ⇒ 00:01:32.369 Uttam Kumaran: you need a lot of money for sure. So.
26 00:01:32.370 ⇒ 00:01:32.800 Nick: Yeah.
27 00:01:32.800 ⇒ 00:01:38.790 Uttam Kumaran: I just wanted to get out of like that lifestyle. But I love visiting, and like I visit there, I kind of know where everything is, and
28 00:01:38.880 ⇒ 00:01:40.710 Uttam Kumaran: it’s really easy for me. So.
29 00:01:41.390 ⇒ 00:01:43.470 Nick: Yeah, that’s sick man. That’s great to hear.
30 00:01:43.470 ⇒ 00:01:45.149 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, how’s up with you?
31 00:01:46.170 ⇒ 00:01:47.663 Nick: Good. Yeah,
32 00:01:48.430 ⇒ 00:01:54.729 Nick: it’s just just been saying like nothing. I mean, it’s suspiciously chill last couple of weeks. And so
33 00:01:55.230 ⇒ 00:01:59.849 Nick: I’m trying to fight the urge to like, go, blow everything up, and make my life difficult again.
34 00:02:00.111 ⇒ 00:02:03.770 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, what does that mean? What does that? What does that look like?
35 00:02:03.770 ⇒ 00:02:05.904 Nick: Oh, so I mean, when, like
36 00:02:06.890 ⇒ 00:02:12.144 Nick: when growth, or just new initiatives
37 00:02:13.330 ⇒ 00:02:16.789 Nick: stabilize, it’s not plateauing. It’s stabilizing
38 00:02:17.150 ⇒ 00:02:17.990 Nick: of.
39 00:02:17.990 ⇒ 00:02:18.799 Uttam Kumaran: Tell me about it.
40 00:02:18.800 ⇒ 00:02:21.139 Nick: Yeah, yeah, it feels it feels wrong.
41 00:02:22.005 ⇒ 00:02:24.929 Uttam Kumaran: Well, Dude, I mean my, I would say, like, if you talk to
42 00:02:25.070 ⇒ 00:02:33.370 Uttam Kumaran: talk to anybody close to me. They’re like they’re like, do you need like chaos around you and part of me. I was like, no, I’m like, try to simplify things.
43 00:02:33.750 ⇒ 00:02:41.646 Uttam Kumaran: They’re like dude every time you simplify things you’ve had it. You started as a company, and now all your whole life is like fucked up.
44 00:02:42.920 ⇒ 00:02:49.130 Uttam Kumaran: And then and then, yeah, like, I, I made a little bit of money doing this. And I’m like, okay, let’s take it. Let’s make it 10 times bigger.
45 00:02:49.130 ⇒ 00:02:50.340 Nick: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
46 00:02:50.340 ⇒ 00:02:54.590 Uttam Kumaran: Let me get it. I wanna I needed to talk to somebody in sales. Get you to pull design.
47 00:02:54.590 ⇒ 00:02:54.950 Nick: Hang on!
48 00:02:54.950 ⇒ 00:02:56.030 Uttam Kumaran: Copyright.
49 00:02:56.110 ⇒ 00:02:58.330 Uttam Kumaran: I’m like, let’s go for 10 x.
50 00:02:58.750 ⇒ 00:03:01.390 Uttam Kumaran: But I don’t know. I
51 00:03:01.400 ⇒ 00:03:04.179 Uttam Kumaran: I kind of need a couple of balls in the air to be juggling.
52 00:03:04.180 ⇒ 00:03:04.980 Nick: Yeah.
53 00:03:04.980 ⇒ 00:03:07.249 Uttam Kumaran: To kind of get the full optimization.
54 00:03:07.390 ⇒ 00:03:11.700 Uttam Kumaran: But there’s a balance, and there’s like, you need some. I’m I’m much more routine now than I.
55 00:03:12.140 ⇒ 00:03:15.629 Uttam Kumaran: Was in New York, and that’s good. Have some healthy habits.
56 00:03:15.630 ⇒ 00:03:23.149 Nick: That’s definitely positive. I heard I heard like a really funny. I don’t know if there’s a quote or something that was like.
57 00:03:23.340 ⇒ 00:03:26.499 Nick: It’s why I was asking about New York. It’s like people who are like
58 00:03:26.640 ⇒ 00:03:32.969 Nick: fucking insane really enjoy New York, because the outside, like the external matches, the internal
59 00:03:33.902 ⇒ 00:03:36.900 Nick: just in terms of like the the craziness and the case.
60 00:03:36.900 ⇒ 00:03:39.320 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, well, it’s just like.
61 00:03:39.340 ⇒ 00:03:44.279 Uttam Kumaran: and I don’t know. Now it’s actually it’s like I was there with that energy. And then I come here and.
62 00:03:44.770 ⇒ 00:03:52.570 Uttam Kumaran: If you have any like. If you’re like, kinda like, move really fast here, you can do a lot because things move really slow. Here.
63 00:03:52.870 ⇒ 00:03:53.400 Nick: Yeah.
64 00:03:53.400 ⇒ 00:03:55.059 Uttam Kumaran: Business and everything, so.
65 00:03:55.680 ⇒ 00:04:00.319 Uttam Kumaran: A lot of people talk to me. And I’m like, Dude. I’m doing like 90 things. They’re like we’re focusing on like one thing.
66 00:04:00.320 ⇒ 00:04:00.680 Nick: Yeah.
67 00:04:00.680 ⇒ 00:04:05.220 Uttam Kumaran: I have no other gear like he asked me. I’ll get going to 10. I’ll go to 10 coffee meetings per day.
68 00:04:05.220 ⇒ 00:04:06.033 Nick: Yeah, yeah.
69 00:04:06.440 ⇒ 00:04:16.169 Uttam Kumaran: 10 people and like start moving and stuff like I’m on calls all the time. But I think it’s nice doing that here because you could turn it off and be like outside.
70 00:04:16.430 ⇒ 00:04:17.190 Nick: Not on the track.
71 00:04:17.190 ⇒ 00:04:19.019 Uttam Kumaran: Traffic. There’s not much people.
72 00:04:19.029 ⇒ 00:04:19.479 Nick: Yeah.
73 00:04:19.930 ⇒ 00:04:21.100 Uttam Kumaran: That’s interesting.
74 00:04:21.149 ⇒ 00:04:22.669 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, that’s a.
75 00:04:22.670 ⇒ 00:04:26.979 Nick: Interesting. The pace in Denver drives me insane because it’s also really slow.
76 00:04:27.140 ⇒ 00:04:27.560 Nick: Yeah,
77 00:04:27.980 ⇒ 00:04:31.439 Uttam Kumaran: You need to just be around people like us, or like, for example.
78 00:04:31.440 ⇒ 00:04:32.140 Nick: Like, I know, and.
79 00:04:32.140 ⇒ 00:04:40.330 Uttam Kumaran: You know, Rit really well, a lot of like more like entrepreneur, more like operators here that like, if I need energy, I call them.
80 00:04:40.330 ⇒ 00:04:41.159 Nick: Yeah, I don’t talk.
81 00:04:41.160 ⇒ 00:04:42.940 Uttam Kumaran: Business with anybody else.
82 00:04:43.320 ⇒ 00:04:45.790 Uttam Kumaran: Like. I don’t casually talk about what I’m doing at all.
83 00:04:46.000 ⇒ 00:04:46.539 Nick: Yeah, yeah.
84 00:04:46.540 ⇒ 00:04:48.750 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t want like. I don’t want to be like.
85 00:04:49.500 ⇒ 00:04:54.590 Uttam Kumaran: you’re just gonna get depressed. How slow this stop is. So I wait to talk to people that are like
86 00:04:54.670 ⇒ 00:04:55.950 Uttam Kumaran: moving quickly on stuff.
87 00:04:56.719 ⇒ 00:05:02.950 Uttam Kumaran: To then get energy. It’s kind of something about like people that give off energy versus people that like, take a lot of it in.
88 00:05:03.520 ⇒ 00:05:05.350 Nick: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
89 00:05:05.490 ⇒ 00:05:11.410 Nick: Yeah. It’s the one thing I’d say is the one thing that’s missing here is there actually, aren’t that many people I think Austin has, like a lot of
90 00:05:11.460 ⇒ 00:05:13.590 Nick: you know, coastal expats.
91 00:05:14.491 ⇒ 00:05:19.003 Nick: Not not nearly as much of that here. It’s sleepy as shit
92 00:05:19.380 ⇒ 00:05:19.970 Uttam Kumaran: Win.
93 00:05:19.970 ⇒ 00:05:20.320 Nick: But I love.
94 00:05:20.700 ⇒ 00:05:24.879 Uttam Kumaran: You just gotta. You just gotta take the one once, every
95 00:05:25.260 ⇒ 00:05:29.430 Uttam Kumaran: one at one once a month, or once every 2 month. Trip to here for New York.
96 00:05:29.430 ⇒ 00:05:29.920 Nick: Yeah.
97 00:05:29.920 ⇒ 00:05:34.320 Uttam Kumaran: That’s what I look forward to most is like. It’ll restart you. But you don’t want to stay in the
98 00:05:34.410 ⇒ 00:05:38.189 Uttam Kumaran: let me hear. I would say, it’s great place. But in New York you don’t want to stay to.
99 00:05:38.190 ⇒ 00:05:39.749 Nick: Yeah, yeah.
100 00:05:40.530 ⇒ 00:05:43.729 Uttam Kumaran: Every meal out. You’re like drinking every day.
101 00:05:43.810 ⇒ 00:05:44.979 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, they’re like
102 00:05:45.150 ⇒ 00:05:58.279 Uttam Kumaran: your apartment sucks like all this stuff about how bad it is. But you do want those meetings around people like holy shit like, I gotta go get the most. I gotta go, multiply and expand. You want that feeling.
103 00:05:58.280 ⇒ 00:06:05.039 Nick: Yeah, absolutely. That’s what I’m trying to like build in. That’s I mean, since I went independent, that’s what I’ve been trying to sort of like
104 00:06:05.560 ⇒ 00:06:13.290 Nick: begin to build into my schedules. If I could do like New York in the summer months, Austin, in the winter months, or something like that.
105 00:06:13.290 ⇒ 00:06:13.720 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
106 00:06:13.860 ⇒ 00:06:18.179 Nick: New York fucking sucks in the dead of summer and dead of winter anyway. So.
107 00:06:18.180 ⇒ 00:06:21.480 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. Well, if you come to Austin, yeah, let me know. And then.
108 00:06:21.480 ⇒ 00:06:22.339 Nick: Yeah, yeah, definitely.
109 00:06:22.340 ⇒ 00:06:24.219 Uttam Kumaran: Even if you go to New York, let me know.
110 00:06:24.630 ⇒ 00:06:25.449 Nick: Yeah, yeah, it’s good.
111 00:06:25.823 ⇒ 00:06:26.570 Uttam Kumaran: People! So.
112 00:06:26.900 ⇒ 00:06:28.350 Nick: Yeah, I definitely will thank you.
113 00:06:29.130 ⇒ 00:06:45.229 Nick: Awesome then. So great. So what I have set up for today is a conversation around brand voice to begin working on that documented that guide. The primary difference here is. It’s the previous call. We’re talking about
114 00:06:45.691 ⇒ 00:07:02.159 Nick: target audience. And we’re talking about who these people are, where they’re where they reside and your relationship with them. And now we’re gonna be focusing mostly on you and your business and kind of how you’d like to position yourself.
115 00:07:03.570 ⇒ 00:07:20.970 Nick: how you’d really like to present yourself in the face of this target audience. And this is primarily in the con, in the context of like any sort of content from production, be it. You know, articles of blogs. Any sort of like feature, social media sales, materials, things like that.
116 00:07:21.580 ⇒ 00:07:21.980 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
117 00:07:23.930 ⇒ 00:07:25.319 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, it’s almost start.
118 00:07:25.500 ⇒ 00:07:29.262 Nick: I was. Yeah. So basically,
119 00:07:30.750 ⇒ 00:07:38.390 Nick: before we begin, is there anything that you’re really interested in focusing in on anything that
120 00:07:38.749 ⇒ 00:07:44.830 Nick: is very important to you that you want to make sure is included as a part of this brand voice discussion.
121 00:07:47.570 ⇒ 00:08:00.009 Uttam Kumaran: yeah stuff, because there’s things that like I care about and the way we do things and the care we take with the work. But there’s also kind of pairing. That’s like what actually matters. That’s the thing that would be great to kind of get an understanding of is like.
122 00:08:00.010 ⇒ 00:08:00.990 Nick: Sure. Okay.
123 00:08:00.990 ⇒ 00:08:02.480 Uttam Kumaran: There’s things there’s things that like.
124 00:08:02.610 ⇒ 00:08:06.129 Uttam Kumaran: for example, there’s stuff like the pace at which we work.
125 00:08:06.260 ⇒ 00:08:08.199 Uttam Kumaran: like our ability to kind of
126 00:08:08.250 ⇒ 00:08:09.530 Uttam Kumaran: use the best
127 00:08:09.550 ⇒ 00:08:12.389 Uttam Kumaran: products in the space and
128 00:08:12.652 ⇒ 00:08:19.960 Uttam Kumaran: our ability to just have, like the most senior people like I would. I just wanna make sure that those things that I’ve done to set up the business.
129 00:08:19.960 ⇒ 00:08:20.450 Nick: Yeah.
130 00:08:20.450 ⇒ 00:08:34.093 Uttam Kumaran: If they’re important to the, to the person that look that’s interested in us for our clients, which one of those are the most important. Basically more, are there things that we aren’t saying about us that exist that like would be a more of a match.
131 00:08:35.030 ⇒ 00:08:59.119 Uttam Kumaran: an example like someone gave me, like I’ve been sending out some of our materials for for like feedback to some of my friends and one person, there’s a section on our thing where basically, we had said, like brain forward versus, like hiring in house. One of the things like a friend of mine suggested is like, look you, you also are gonna go after clients who have data teams, and you’re gonna be working with them so broaden that to be instead of like replacing your data team to be like
132 00:08:59.270 ⇒ 00:09:14.509 Uttam Kumaran: how we’re we’re just like a second pair of eyes, or how we are coming into like augment or things like that. And so that kind of opened my eyes a little bit in the last few days to kind of think about, not just fully like replacing, but also
133 00:09:14.550 ⇒ 00:09:19.100 Uttam Kumaran: just being like a good partner to bring in, to understand, like.
134 00:09:19.100 ⇒ 00:09:19.760 Nick: Yeah.
135 00:09:19.760 ⇒ 00:09:23.540 Uttam Kumaran: On, and like translate things for the CEO or for the CTO
136 00:09:25.190 ⇒ 00:09:26.245 Nick: Yeah,
137 00:09:27.370 ⇒ 00:09:31.654 Nick: and that’s why I think there’s going to be
138 00:09:33.170 ⇒ 00:09:41.349 Nick: a really great, I I think the positioning and we can play around with the terminology. But the positioning of like a special teams
139 00:09:41.420 ⇒ 00:09:44.186 Nick: is is a really great
140 00:09:44.890 ⇒ 00:09:59.310 Nick: really great way to position yourself, because then it makes you oriented towards the problem and not towards a specific like narrow client type. So if you’re positioning yourself as like the special teams or the skunk work.
141 00:09:59.310 ⇒ 00:09:59.810 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
142 00:09:59.810 ⇒ 00:10:01.039 Nick: So to speak.
143 00:10:01.880 ⇒ 00:10:08.079 Nick: you are hired to solve specific problems, either as
144 00:10:10.130 ⇒ 00:10:23.970 Nick: either as a special team for someone that doesn’t already have a data team or as a supp like supplemental expertise to an existing data team. That’s a great way to it’s great that that was kind of a call out
145 00:10:24.130 ⇒ 00:10:27.150 Nick: in in some of your documentation as well. I think it’s a great way to think about it.
146 00:10:27.430 ⇒ 00:10:34.939 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. And you know some a question I always get. And almost every day. And I was like, What do you guys specialize in or like, what’s your focus?
147 00:10:34.940 ⇒ 00:10:35.420 Nick: Yeah.
148 00:10:35.900 ⇒ 00:10:44.850 Uttam Kumaran: I get. It’s such a hard question for me, because I understand, like the need for specialization to be able to talk, but at the same time, like the work I do.
149 00:10:45.360 ⇒ 00:10:51.359 Uttam Kumaran: Like I’ve we’ve worked in all these industries, and there’s not a challenge that we came into a new industry and not
150 00:10:51.670 ⇒ 00:10:53.940 Uttam Kumaran: overcome. So it’s almost like
151 00:10:53.960 ⇒ 00:10:58.270 Uttam Kumaran: it’s kind of like, not relevant for me. But it is a question that I think people
152 00:10:58.860 ⇒ 00:11:00.490 Uttam Kumaran: want to know. Hey.
153 00:11:00.490 ⇒ 00:11:00.820 Nick: Aye.
154 00:11:00.820 ⇒ 00:11:05.059 Uttam Kumaran: They think they have a unique business, and they’re like, wanna make sure that we can handle that.
155 00:11:05.290 ⇒ 00:11:05.700 Nick: And.
156 00:11:05.700 ⇒ 00:11:10.540 Uttam Kumaran: For me. I’m like, you don’t have a unique business like it’s gonna be just the same.
157 00:11:10.630 ⇒ 00:11:15.639 Uttam Kumaran: If you have user data you have cost. You have like marketing data. It’s like the same stuff. So
158 00:11:15.900 ⇒ 00:11:21.769 Uttam Kumaran: that’s something that I always get asked from. Everybody is like, what’s your niche or like what industries you focus on. I’m like
159 00:11:22.010 ⇒ 00:11:24.300 Uttam Kumaran: we’ve we’ve worked across like every.
160 00:11:24.300 ⇒ 00:11:24.819 Nick: History, we.
161 00:11:24.820 ⇒ 00:11:26.559 Uttam Kumaran: Because every company
162 00:11:26.570 ⇒ 00:11:31.279 Uttam Kumaran: they work in marketing sales finance. Hr, right? So
163 00:11:31.760 ⇒ 00:11:35.359 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know. Like, unless yeah, I don’t. I just don’t see.
164 00:11:36.070 ⇒ 00:11:37.279 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. So I don’t know.
165 00:11:37.280 ⇒ 00:11:38.280 Nick: Yeah.
166 00:11:38.280 ⇒ 00:11:38.730 Uttam Kumaran: Random Thought.
167 00:11:38.730 ⇒ 00:11:49.560 Nick: Yeah, that’s actually and it’ll be kind of interesting. Figure out how to position this intern in the context of, like the standardized document that I’m writing here.
168 00:11:50.710 ⇒ 00:11:57.395 Nick: just because, like the the answer to those questions is is relatively straightforward.
169 00:11:58.100 ⇒ 00:11:59.010 Nick: it’s.
170 00:11:59.660 ⇒ 00:12:07.970 Nick: you know, we like the explanation that you provide is actually, you know, we work across a number of different businesses and different industries. And what most executives
171 00:12:08.120 ⇒ 00:12:09.690 Nick: don’t understand
172 00:12:11.970 ⇒ 00:12:16.807 Nick: what’s important to understand is that there are a wide array of businesses,
173 00:12:17.230 ⇒ 00:12:20.009 Nick: and business models that we can work with.
174 00:12:20.430 ⇒ 00:12:26.130 Nick: And it’s because every time the most important thing is we that you have the right expertise and the right tools.
175 00:12:26.140 ⇒ 00:12:34.589 Nick: And basically we, as a result of, you know, the combined experience of everyone on this team, we’ve had exposure to all these different tools. So basically.
176 00:12:34.700 ⇒ 00:12:35.680 Nick: you know,
177 00:12:36.930 ⇒ 00:12:54.639 Nick: businesses in in their entirety are very complex operations. But the the data side of it is actually very consistent. And so the most important things that we have are the people in the tools. With that we are sort of position to solve
178 00:12:55.110 ⇒ 00:13:04.639 Nick: any number of very specific problems that is literally our expertise. Our specialty is weird problems, specific problems, regardless of the industry.
179 00:13:04.880 ⇒ 00:13:05.430 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
180 00:13:05.430 ⇒ 00:13:12.933 Nick: So. And that’s that’s a way to sort of flatter the business owner. While also communicating this at the same time, which is
181 00:13:13.370 ⇒ 00:13:14.280 Nick: you.
182 00:13:14.410 ⇒ 00:13:17.399 Nick: you think your business is unique. And it is.
183 00:13:17.560 ⇒ 00:13:22.039 Nick: And we’re positioned through people and proper tooling
184 00:13:22.140 ⇒ 00:13:27.060 Nick: to solve the very weird specific data problems that you have
185 00:13:28.970 ⇒ 00:13:32.925 Nick: because the business is unique. But the data is not the data side.
186 00:13:33.430 ⇒ 00:13:35.980 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. And I think that there’s also a way of like.
187 00:13:36.110 ⇒ 00:13:38.610 Uttam Kumaran: Again, someone works in.
188 00:13:38.840 ⇒ 00:13:42.780 Uttam Kumaran: Let’s say they’re they work in like e-commerce, for example.
189 00:13:42.780 ⇒ 00:13:43.260 Nick: Yeah.
190 00:13:43.260 ⇒ 00:13:45.900 Uttam Kumaran: And they’re like, Look, you guys do all these things. But
191 00:13:46.170 ⇒ 00:13:51.410 Uttam Kumaran: how do you? How do you guys work with Ecom? That would be a great way of like, how do we channel that person to.
192 00:13:51.980 ⇒ 00:13:54.639 Uttam Kumaran: Landing page about like how we’ve done Ecom stuff or.
193 00:13:54.640 ⇒ 00:13:55.030 Nick: Yeah.
194 00:13:55.420 ⇒ 00:13:58.750 Uttam Kumaran: And get this messaging across that we can kind of handle anything, but at the same time
195 00:13:58.960 ⇒ 00:14:04.920 Uttam Kumaran: show them that we have that like narrow expertise or examples where we’ve done that. So yeah, I think you kind of get that. There is this like
196 00:14:04.980 ⇒ 00:14:07.700 Uttam Kumaran: delic. There’s this kind of delicate balance.
197 00:14:08.010 ⇒ 00:14:08.505 Nick: Yeah.
198 00:14:09.000 ⇒ 00:14:12.319 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t. Yeah. Everybody thinks their thing is so unique.
199 00:14:12.880 ⇒ 00:14:17.599 Uttam Kumaran: But they wanna again, I’ve worked with some like, our track record just shows that it’s like we didn’t really need
200 00:14:17.700 ⇒ 00:14:25.899 Uttam Kumaran: ton of domain expertise to go in and understand like you have a table with a 200 customers in it, like every every company, has the same thing.
201 00:14:25.900 ⇒ 00:14:26.430 Nick: Yeah.
202 00:14:26.430 ⇒ 00:14:34.890 Uttam Kumaran: Or or you’re deciding on what Vi tool to use. Every company goes through the same process. Or you’re deciding like how to how to get data from
203 00:14:34.920 ⇒ 00:14:44.430 Uttam Kumaran: a new partner that you’re dealing with. Everybody goes to the same process. And and if anything I’ve learned is like, it’s quick. I’ve done this so many times. It gets quicker and quicker
204 00:14:44.630 ⇒ 00:14:50.669 Uttam Kumaran: as I go into these conversations, knowing, like what the best tooling is and what the trade offs are
205 00:14:52.020 ⇒ 00:14:53.030 Uttam Kumaran: instead of like.
206 00:14:53.030 ⇒ 00:14:53.480 Nick: Yeah.
207 00:14:53.480 ⇒ 00:14:55.650 Uttam Kumaran: I mean learn that you know every time.
208 00:14:56.410 ⇒ 00:14:57.010 Nick: Yeah.
209 00:15:00.080 ⇒ 00:15:02.446 Nick: so tell me more, then.
210 00:15:03.570 ⇒ 00:15:09.460 Nick: what are some other common questions that you get related to your business and your value? Prop.
211 00:15:10.208 ⇒ 00:15:24.660 Nick: and and I’ll specify this by saying, what are some of the common sort of clarifying questions? What’s the question you hear over and over again about what it is that you actually do, who you are, the tools you employ, things like that.
212 00:15:24.960 ⇒ 00:15:31.313 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. So people always ask this like, How are you? How are you different or better than just like my Facebook ads, dashboard?
213 00:15:31.610 ⇒ 00:15:33.570 Uttam Kumaran: Right? That’s one question we get
214 00:15:33.650 ⇒ 00:15:36.530 Uttam Kumaran: the second thing people ask.
215 00:15:36.700 ⇒ 00:15:51.919 Uttam Kumaran: People always ask like for they’ll just ask for like recommendations, right on the sponsors like, what bioterror using? Or what are your clients using for reporting, basically just trying to get a sense of like what tools we recommend? I I guess I don’t really know, because it’s again.
216 00:15:51.930 ⇒ 00:15:57.620 Uttam Kumaran: These are all things that require. I could just say what someone else is using. But it’s kind of really dependent on their
217 00:15:57.960 ⇒ 00:16:08.199 Uttam Kumaran: team and like their needs. So but I do get that question like, what are you guys using for reporting? Are you using mode or using looker stuff like that.
218 00:16:08.870 ⇒ 00:16:32.490 Uttam Kumaran: I think people who again, some people with a narrow focus like, Oh, I don’t get like I can get all this data from like my Facebook ads, dashboard. That’s like a very common thing. And then I explained to people, can you get can you merge your Facebook data with your shopify data. With your Zendesk data into your Facebook ad, you’re like, no, I’m like, so how are you gonna be able to see that everybody that came through
219 00:16:32.540 ⇒ 00:16:34.300 Uttam Kumaran: one of your specific
220 00:16:34.690 ⇒ 00:16:38.120 Uttam Kumaran: campaigns is now refunding their product.
221 00:16:38.190 ⇒ 00:16:43.287 Uttam Kumaran: How are you gonna be able to see that? Okay, you need a data warehouse. You need ability to merge all that data together.
222 00:16:43.510 ⇒ 00:16:52.129 Uttam Kumaran: And you need a tool that helps you to enable that decision where you can say, Hey, we ran a campaign about a specific product. Although we got a lot of sales, all those products got refunded.
223 00:16:52.615 ⇒ 00:17:03.219 Uttam Kumaran: So that’s something that in order to bridge that through line you need a data warehouse, and you need to do that. That’s a clear example. I always did where people oh, okay, I kinda get it.
224 00:17:04.885 ⇒ 00:17:05.550 Nick: Okay.
225 00:17:10.629 ⇒ 00:17:12.869 Uttam Kumaran: I’m trying to think if there’s any other.
226 00:17:16.690 ⇒ 00:17:26.400 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I think I think commonly people who aren’t too technical, though they mainly just ask, like, what tool are using. Are you guys using Snowflake, or they don’t go beyond. They don’t really know.
227 00:17:26.560 ⇒ 00:17:27.030 Nick: Yes.
228 00:17:27.030 ⇒ 00:17:28.440 Uttam Kumaran: Side. So they basically just like.
229 00:17:28.520 ⇒ 00:17:32.680 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know if they’re looking for some validation, or what what exactly is. But.
230 00:17:33.470 ⇒ 00:17:40.281 Nick: So this is this is actually interesting. Because it’s related to another question. I have teed up
231 00:17:42.720 ⇒ 00:17:50.930 Nick: So you’re getting this question from non-technical stakeholders, which I would imagine are oftentimes the executives. If you’re not speaking to an existing data team directly correct. Yeah.
232 00:17:51.210 ⇒ 00:17:51.780 Uttam Kumaran: Correct.
233 00:17:51.780 ⇒ 00:17:53.429 Nick: Yeah, perfect. So
234 00:17:54.260 ⇒ 00:17:55.670 Nick: their
235 00:17:56.070 ⇒ 00:18:08.540 Nick: any like half competent executive dealing in an industry where they’re using, producing or consuming a lot of data is, gonna understand the high level of it. If they’re like a non technical founder.
236 00:18:08.540 ⇒ 00:18:09.180 Uttam Kumaran: He’s.
237 00:18:09.180 ⇒ 00:18:16.890 Nick: And so, you know, they can speak some of the language and some of the buzz words just to understand the wrapper.
238 00:18:17.060 ⇒ 00:18:17.610 Nick: Yes,
239 00:18:18.160 ⇒ 00:18:18.610 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
240 00:18:18.610 ⇒ 00:18:32.969 Nick: And it’s it’s enough like, it’s about as much understanding that a CEO might actually need just to be able to make a competent decision. And so that’s like the only way that they know to speak your language, to get a better understanding of what it is you actually do
241 00:18:33.570 ⇒ 00:18:41.969 Nick: and so you know, as an aside, one of the things that you could actually do is lean into that specifically, because in our last call you told me that
242 00:18:43.880 ⇒ 00:18:51.160 Nick: it would be most efficient for you to sell in a way where you are interacting directly with the executive
243 00:18:51.550 ⇒ 00:18:58.889 Nick: rather than trying to sell the data team first and get buy in from leadership. After that, right?
244 00:18:58.890 ⇒ 00:18:59.970 Uttam Kumaran: Correct, correct.
245 00:19:00.310 ⇒ 00:19:05.470 Nick: So one of the things that you can do one of the things you can offer a call to action
246 00:19:05.900 ⇒ 00:19:07.453 Nick: could be.
247 00:19:09.250 ⇒ 00:19:11.299 Nick: let us recommend a tech stack for you
248 00:19:11.960 ⇒ 00:19:17.709 Nick: if it’s an if it’s a non technical executive, even if they do have a data team, he’s not gonna do shit with that.
249 00:19:17.710 ⇒ 00:19:18.440 Uttam Kumaran: Especially like.
250 00:19:18.440 ⇒ 00:19:22.769 Nick: And here’s here are 2 scenarios. If he has a data team, if he doesn’t have a data team.
251 00:19:24.360 ⇒ 00:19:30.280 Nick: he’s not gonna do anything with it. He he might go shop around and say, like he might go to other agencies and say.
252 00:19:30.480 ⇒ 00:19:35.560 Nick: I’m looking at employing tech stack a tech stack with tools. Abcd and E.
253 00:19:35.610 ⇒ 00:19:42.930 Nick: Here’s the outcome that I’m looking to drive, you know. Do that’s shopping. That is a lot of fucking work when you don’t speak the language.
254 00:19:43.735 ⇒ 00:19:57.930 Nick: And so you know, you’re basically what you’re offering is this is the tech stack I recommend and like, here’s here’s how we can solve that problem on a sort of intro call. If he does have an internal team, then this this CEO,
255 00:19:58.200 ⇒ 00:20:04.540 Nick: we’ll basically take your recommendation. He’ll go back to his head of data or his head of engineering and say.
256 00:20:04.912 ⇒ 00:20:22.730 Nick: the special teams. Guy recommended this. What would it cost in terms of money and labor to leverage this like one. What do you think of this? Recommended stack? 2. Do you know all the tools in this stack? Because they might not? And then 3. What is it gonna cost for us to implement it internally using this stack
257 00:20:23.444 ⇒ 00:20:25.699 Nick: and he’s probably not gonna like the answer.
258 00:20:25.780 ⇒ 00:20:31.667 Nick: And so that. I mean, that’s a really important insight. Right? There, that
259 00:20:32.970 ⇒ 00:20:34.740 Nick: that basically.
260 00:20:34.990 ⇒ 00:20:38.473 Nick: it’s a common question you get from non technical stakeholders.
261 00:20:39.620 ⇒ 00:20:42.480 Nick: and it’s something that you. It’s
262 00:20:43.090 ⇒ 00:20:53.239 Nick: it’s it’s something that you can recommend relatively easily, because you’re so familiar with with how to solve these problems. And it’s something it’s an easy.
263 00:20:53.880 ⇒ 00:20:58.050 Nick: It’s an easy value. Prop for an initial call.
264 00:20:58.100 ⇒ 00:21:03.046 Nick: Do you wanna know how to solve your weirdly specific problems? Your company.
265 00:21:03.400 ⇒ 00:21:07.370 Uttam Kumaran: Again in 30 min. I don’t mind giving that whole thing, you know. Yeah.
266 00:21:07.370 ⇒ 00:21:14.130 Nick: It’s cheap and easy, and there’s very few ways for them to take it and run in a way that somehow, like you’re not losing
267 00:21:15.240 ⇒ 00:21:17.640 Nick: you know, the value prop is
268 00:21:18.015 ⇒ 00:21:29.420 Nick: we hire really specific. We, we solve really specific problems. Related data. All business models are very unique. Your company and your product is unique. But the data site actually isn’t.
269 00:21:29.590 ⇒ 00:21:40.929 Nick: So if you have a one of these specific problems, give us a call. I’ll give you the tech stack. We’ll give you the text, stack and like recommended approach to solving this
270 00:21:41.730 ⇒ 00:21:52.500 Nick: free of charge. If if that’s all you need in terms in terms of advice. You can run with it fantastic if you need more. We’ve got an entire team on the back end ready to solve that problem for you.
271 00:21:53.140 ⇒ 00:22:09.810 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, actually. And I was just thinking about this morning, too, is like, I think that’s a great, even an offer of something free. Another thing is like I, you know, I speak to the vendors all day, and I meet with like other agencies and the amount of times where I’m like I get on a call with like an initial salesperson. That person
272 00:22:09.870 ⇒ 00:22:33.629 Uttam Kumaran: just like reads what I put into the lead form, and then basically regurgitates and is like, is this what you said? And I’m like, yeah, this is what I fucking said, like what I put all questions in there. You’re non technical like, get well, let’s connect you to our sales, engineer just like Thursday to work. I’m like, what was the point of this? Right? So another thing that could be interesting, or whatever is like. You’re talking directly to me or an engineer.
273 00:22:34.110 ⇒ 00:22:36.230 Uttam Kumaran: Basically because we don’t have any other other people, but also cause.
274 00:22:36.230 ⇒ 00:22:36.710 Nick: Hmm.
275 00:22:36.710 ⇒ 00:22:57.869 Uttam Kumaran: Like that’s it like I don’t. We don’t. I don’t need that filter to go through another person. And so exactly, it’s something like about that or about like, yeah, I’ll I’m happy to call and just give people 30 min of like. Tell me what your stack is and what the problems are, and I’ll give you a couple of recommendations. You can take back your team, and that’s it. Right. And then again, I can leave
276 00:22:57.960 ⇒ 00:23:17.980 Uttam Kumaran: in that. In that thing. I think it’s a great way to wedge in, and then I can send them other materials and get them in a list. And I kinda get things going. But you’re right. And that’s what I do. For example, like going back to Rip. He’s he joined this new company, and he’s like, Oh, yeah, we’re on Sigma. He’s like, what do you guys recommend for? Bi, I’m like, Oh, like, there’s all these shows like, Oh, we’re on Sigma. What do you think? And I’m like?
277 00:23:18.350 ⇒ 00:23:20.450 Uttam Kumaran: It’s a great tool like I don’t. I don’t.
278 00:23:20.450 ⇒ 00:23:21.100 Nick: Yeah, yeah.
279 00:23:21.100 ⇒ 00:23:28.230 Uttam Kumaran: I’m like, what are your problems with it? He’s like, well, this is our current stage. Here’s what we’re doing. The CEO kind of runs all of it. And so that’s that started our conversation.
280 00:23:28.610 ⇒ 00:23:31.120 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, maybe in like a few months, when things are bigger, I’ll give you.
281 00:23:31.570 ⇒ 00:23:31.980 Nick: Yeah.
282 00:23:31.980 ⇒ 00:23:45.110 Uttam Kumaran: So. But but again, Britt didn’t know anything about. Like, I was like, Okay, where is the data coming from? Is all internal. Is this like vendor like. Say, I don’t have no idea like if someone else handles that that’s the bridge is like there is a gap. There’s totally like.
283 00:23:45.110 ⇒ 00:23:45.580 Nick: Yeah, but.
284 00:23:45.580 ⇒ 00:23:48.240 Uttam Kumaran: Like he’s the consumer of it.
285 00:23:48.270 ⇒ 00:23:50.069 Uttam Kumaran: but it’s not the builder.
286 00:23:50.300 ⇒ 00:23:51.269 Nick: Yeah, but yeah.
287 00:23:51.270 ⇒ 00:23:56.960 Uttam Kumaran: If rate, if Ray is like, break these guys in. That’s a huge stamp of approval, and the conversion rate goes through the roof.
288 00:23:57.240 ⇒ 00:23:57.960 Nick: Yeah.
289 00:24:01.270 ⇒ 00:24:02.830 Nick: just write a few decent stuff.
290 00:24:06.760 ⇒ 00:24:10.920 Nick: Yeah. I mean, that’s that. That sounds great. And that’s
291 00:24:11.080 ⇒ 00:24:24.244 Nick: that’s how I mean me. Personally, I that’s how I often conduct calls. Because, you know, I that’s all conduct calls especially related to like social media. Content is, you know, every single business is different, and
292 00:24:25.220 ⇒ 00:24:46.379 Nick: every audience is is different. Every target customer is different. When you’re talking about like a social strategy or a content strategy. But, broadly speaking, you know, there’s a the the same list of dozen or more tools, and you’re just piecing together different tools and different strategies for different solutions. And so that’s how many of my calls will go as well if
293 00:24:46.430 ⇒ 00:24:55.839 Nick: someone reaches out to me, which is, you know. Tell me what your problem is, or what you’re trying to accomplish. I’ll tell you everything about how to do it, and then you can decide whether I’m the person to do it for you.
294 00:24:55.840 ⇒ 00:24:56.160 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
295 00:24:56.160 ⇒ 00:24:58.520 Nick: Because, you know, for anything.
296 00:24:58.530 ⇒ 00:25:02.409 Nick: it’s not really productized, or anything sort of like a special project.
297 00:25:02.460 ⇒ 00:25:04.179 Nick: It’s it’s kind of hard to shop.
298 00:25:04.826 ⇒ 00:25:07.883 Nick: and especially if you know your shit.
299 00:25:09.370 ⇒ 00:25:14.359 Nick: There, you know each agency is not going to take the exact same approach.
300 00:25:14.360 ⇒ 00:25:14.800 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
301 00:25:14.800 ⇒ 00:25:25.320 Nick: And so that calls an opportunity to really just demonstrate competence as well as provide a recommendation like you, you can lay out the plan specifically be just because it’s like it’s hard to execute on
302 00:25:25.490 ⇒ 00:25:26.000 Nick: it.
303 00:25:26.000 ⇒ 00:25:36.860 Uttam Kumaran: No, it’s really, really. So I don’t. I don’t mind if they shop that plan and the density of information you’re gonna get from me in like 30 min. You’re not gonna get from any other agency because you’re not gonna talk to anybody
304 00:25:36.870 ⇒ 00:25:38.269 Uttam Kumaran: who’s gonna give you that
305 00:25:38.557 ⇒ 00:25:44.720 Uttam Kumaran: and go shop it, I don’t mind. Put me on with your CTO. I don’t care. Put me on with whoever you want
306 00:25:44.750 ⇒ 00:25:51.580 Uttam Kumaran: doesn’t matter, and that’s what people do. They’ll be like, Oh, can I include my CTO on this? I can kind of tell. They’re like, I don’t know. I gotta include.
307 00:25:51.580 ⇒ 00:25:51.855 Nick: Yeah.
308 00:25:52.130 ⇒ 00:25:52.489 Uttam Kumaran: So like.
309 00:25:53.060 ⇒ 00:25:53.630 Nick: Babysitter.
310 00:25:53.630 ⇒ 00:26:01.290 Uttam Kumaran: Let’s let’s do it. I don’t mind talking to anybody, you know, so you’re totally right. I think this is like a huge kind of insight to think about things that way.
311 00:26:01.340 ⇒ 00:26:08.420 Uttam Kumaran: And that’s the that’s the thing that’s been difficult for me is because, like I have an angle which is like, I see the whole thing.
312 00:26:08.530 ⇒ 00:26:11.910 Uttam Kumaran: but it’s different than what the audience needs to see to convert.
313 00:26:13.220 ⇒ 00:26:21.180 Uttam Kumaran: And I’ve never been in that position myself, but I know a lot of the people that are. So. That’s who I’m getting feedback from. But a lot of their feedback has been like
314 00:26:21.680 ⇒ 00:26:23.229 Uttam Kumaran: dude. You need to put like the
315 00:26:23.540 ⇒ 00:26:26.009 Uttam Kumaran: value add or the value prop, or like
316 00:26:26.210 ⇒ 00:26:28.130 Uttam Kumaran: things like that. But that’s exactly why
317 00:26:28.280 ⇒ 00:26:31.880 Uttam Kumaran: it’s been nice talking to you about it, because I’m trying to just piece together.
318 00:26:32.130 ⇒ 00:26:37.289 Uttam Kumaran: What are we? What should we say? Save that for the for the call or talk with the technical people.
319 00:26:37.670 ⇒ 00:26:41.279 Uttam Kumaran: Save that for other landing pages, and then what is needs to be super upfront.
320 00:26:41.540 ⇒ 00:26:42.170 Nick: Yeah.
321 00:26:42.340 ⇒ 00:26:43.560 Nick: absolutely.
322 00:26:43.964 ⇒ 00:26:52.340 Nick: So so to continue with the voice angle specifically, my first question for you is, how would you describe your writing style?
323 00:26:55.430 ⇒ 00:26:58.179 Uttam Kumaran: My writing style is probably
324 00:26:59.386 ⇒ 00:27:02.949 Uttam Kumaran: more like it’s probably way, more engineering, specific and.
325 00:27:02.950 ⇒ 00:27:03.340 Nick: Thank you.
326 00:27:03.340 ⇒ 00:27:04.706 Uttam Kumaran: Or direct.
327 00:27:05.750 ⇒ 00:27:08.360 Uttam Kumaran: I would say I write pretty direct
328 00:27:08.380 ⇒ 00:27:09.950 Uttam Kumaran: and like succinct.
329 00:27:10.050 ⇒ 00:27:16.219 Uttam Kumaran: But it’s it reads. It’s gonna read like a technical paper, because that’s all that’s most of my writing in my career.
330 00:27:16.230 ⇒ 00:27:17.740 Uttam Kumaran: I haven’t done.
331 00:27:18.130 ⇒ 00:27:22.870 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, I read a lot, and I read. I’ve read a lot about writing, but I don’t do any like.
332 00:27:23.390 ⇒ 00:27:27.249 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t write any sort of thing that’s more narrative.
333 00:27:28.160 ⇒ 00:27:29.440 Uttam Kumaran: Narrative base or
334 00:27:29.670 ⇒ 00:27:34.090 Uttam Kumaran: like that, it’s it’s all. It’s all the writing I’ve done primarily is for projects.
335 00:27:34.420 ⇒ 00:27:35.300 Nick: Okay, cool.
336 00:27:38.220 ⇒ 00:27:39.670 Nick: And
337 00:27:40.410 ⇒ 00:27:43.090 Nick: is there any writing that you do
338 00:27:43.990 ⇒ 00:27:45.310 Nick: on
339 00:27:45.380 ⇒ 00:27:51.830 Nick: on this side, whether it’s like writing? Have you ever written any blogs or articles, any personal writing
340 00:27:52.305 ⇒ 00:27:58.680 Nick: social media stuff anything that you can point to as an example of your voice, or
341 00:27:58.710 ⇒ 00:28:03.430 Nick: any sort of counter example of a time where you have written in the narrative format.
342 00:28:05.190 ⇒ 00:28:06.889 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I’ve written stuff.
343 00:28:06.990 ⇒ 00:28:10.680 Uttam Kumaran: I have some stuff written privately, and then I also
344 00:28:11.590 ⇒ 00:28:14.979 Uttam Kumaran: I I mean again, I have ideas for
345 00:28:15.230 ⇒ 00:28:20.669 Uttam Kumaran: well, the thing is in my world. A lot of what I think a lot about is like a really technical work. So it’s tough.
346 00:28:20.670 ⇒ 00:28:21.900 Nick: Sure. Yeah.
347 00:28:21.900 ⇒ 00:28:28.700 Uttam Kumaran: It’s there are some stuff I want to write about that’s about the business and about like some of the stuff we do. But I don’t have a lot.
348 00:28:28.710 ⇒ 00:28:38.590 Uttam Kumaran: If you go on my twitter, a lot of it is just like me writing about updates or blog post or product updates. And really quick stuff like that. I don’t have much example of stuff that I’ve written. That’s
349 00:28:39.050 ⇒ 00:28:40.360 Uttam Kumaran: super early.
350 00:28:40.490 ⇒ 00:28:42.200 Uttam Kumaran: long form.
351 00:28:42.200 ⇒ 00:28:42.630 Nick: Yes.
352 00:28:42.630 ⇒ 00:28:44.370 Uttam Kumaran: It would be. It would be
353 00:28:44.690 ⇒ 00:28:49.489 Uttam Kumaran: I something that I wanted to do for a while. So I had. I have a lot like
354 00:28:49.720 ⇒ 00:28:56.870 Uttam Kumaran: I I there’s probably like a hundred different things I could write about. So I’m not worried about like having things to write about. It’s more.
355 00:28:56.870 ⇒ 00:28:57.980 Nick: Part of.
356 00:28:57.980 ⇒ 00:29:00.349 Uttam Kumaran: Exactly. It’s like, what, how do you architect
357 00:29:01.230 ⇒ 00:29:02.500 Uttam Kumaran: that point?
358 00:29:02.860 ⇒ 00:29:04.960 Uttam Kumaran: Get someone drawn in to read, and then.
359 00:29:05.340 ⇒ 00:29:06.710 Uttam Kumaran: What’s the end end? Right? So, yeah.
360 00:29:07.060 ⇒ 00:29:07.759 Nick: Yeah, absolutely
361 00:29:08.780 ⇒ 00:29:09.730 Nick: okay.
362 00:29:13.420 ⇒ 00:29:14.170 Nick: And.
363 00:29:14.170 ⇒ 00:29:15.359 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t. Yeah.
364 00:29:15.360 ⇒ 00:29:16.370 Nick: Go. Ahead. Yeah. Yeah.
365 00:29:16.370 ⇒ 00:29:17.929 Uttam Kumaran: No, no, I don’t know if that’s helpful or not.
366 00:29:17.930 ⇒ 00:29:18.650 Nick: Yeah, it is
367 00:29:20.350 ⇒ 00:29:25.960 Nick: because basically, what it does is just helps establish a baseline, because the next question is.
368 00:29:26.020 ⇒ 00:29:29.659 Nick: how would you describe your brand voice, or
369 00:29:30.700 ⇒ 00:29:33.210 Nick: what? What do you want? The brand voice to sound like.
370 00:29:35.370 ⇒ 00:29:42.989 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, that’s a good question. I think it’s like, also, I think a lot about like what you don’t. I think I think it more of like what I don’t want it to sound like.
371 00:29:42.990 ⇒ 00:29:43.365 Nick: Okay.
372 00:29:44.100 ⇒ 00:29:47.650 Uttam Kumaran: Maybe it’s because it’s like, I don’t have a strong enough opinion.
373 00:29:47.760 ⇒ 00:29:51.609 Uttam Kumaran: or even like this exercise has been helping into like what it should be versus like
374 00:29:51.680 ⇒ 00:30:00.320 Uttam Kumaran: what I. It’s basically what I’m probably competing a lot with is like what it should be versus what I want it to be. And then and then where that ends up in that spectrum.
375 00:30:00.320 ⇒ 00:30:06.890 Nick: So let’s start with let’s start with what you don’t want, and then let’s talk about. Should versus want.
376 00:30:07.690 ⇒ 00:30:13.219 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. What I don’t want is something that’s super jargon heavy
377 00:30:13.826 ⇒ 00:30:17.199 Uttam Kumaran: use. It is like using a lot of like corpo. Speak.
378 00:30:18.730 ⇒ 00:30:20.529 Nick: Like that consulting speak. We talked about right.
379 00:30:20.530 ⇒ 00:30:24.530 Uttam Kumaran: Yes, I I did. I cannot get, but I just like I couldn’t.
380 00:30:24.800 ⇒ 00:30:27.719 Uttam Kumaran: I just wouldn’t feel proud about having any of that.
381 00:30:27.720 ⇒ 00:30:28.110 Nick: Yes.
382 00:30:28.110 ⇒ 00:30:29.400 Uttam Kumaran: With the brand
383 00:30:31.740 ⇒ 00:30:44.449 Uttam Kumaran: and then also like having kind of like. I don’t. Everything I kind of do is all I wanna write in more like optimistic style, which is like things. Problems are accomplishable with the right people and the right partners.
384 00:30:45.290 ⇒ 00:30:50.970 Uttam Kumaran: and that, like whatever your your kind of goal is for data is super possible.
385 00:30:51.573 ⇒ 00:30:55.200 Uttam Kumaran: And no matter what you’ve heard in the past, or what teams you’ve been on before
386 00:30:55.350 ⇒ 00:31:01.620 Uttam Kumaran: like these, all these problems are accomplishable. So I wanna kind of have an error of like we can do whatever you need
387 00:31:02.193 ⇒ 00:31:03.220 Uttam Kumaran: and also.
388 00:31:03.510 ⇒ 00:31:03.715 Nick: Yeah.
389 00:31:03.920 ⇒ 00:31:11.669 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know how excited we are for the things we do. A lot of the time I spent I love doing internally is like excitement for what’s new and upcoming in the industry.
390 00:31:11.820 ⇒ 00:31:15.720 Uttam Kumaran: and what products are new, what features are new, how I can bring those to customers!
391 00:31:15.760 ⇒ 00:31:20.210 Uttam Kumaran: I think a lot about. How do I bring AI stuff to some of my clients? How do I bring
392 00:31:20.649 ⇒ 00:31:23.839 Uttam Kumaran: the newest features from our snowflake and other database provider?
393 00:31:23.840 ⇒ 00:31:24.270 Nick: Yeah.
394 00:31:24.270 ⇒ 00:31:27.250 Uttam Kumaran: Did lower cost to improve their analyses.
395 00:31:27.290 ⇒ 00:31:34.670 Uttam Kumaran: And so I want that to come across, and that like we’re always looking for ways to bring the newest stuff to clients.
396 00:31:36.310 ⇒ 00:31:38.980 Uttam Kumaran: and that we get a lot of joy like out of doing that, you know.
397 00:31:38.980 ⇒ 00:31:39.820 Nick: Yeah.
398 00:31:43.960 ⇒ 00:31:44.989 Nick: Okay. Great.
399 00:31:46.690 ⇒ 00:31:55.475 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, it’s tough. Cause I I don’t know. I’m trying to. I think about I I try to think about other agencies. Or would that have a really strong brand voice, but
400 00:31:55.990 ⇒ 00:31:59.899 Uttam Kumaran: in my industry I don’t know. It’s all kind of it’s all kind of boring.
401 00:31:59.900 ⇒ 00:32:00.500 Nick: That’s good.
402 00:32:00.500 ⇒ 00:32:01.630 Uttam Kumaran: Like I don’t even know
403 00:32:02.190 ⇒ 00:32:02.600 Uttam Kumaran: good.
404 00:32:02.600 ⇒ 00:32:14.539 Nick: There’s nothing that stands out. That means there’s really nothing there. Because if you are this deep, and if you’re the kind of person that’s, you know, looking at white papers in your spare time.
405 00:32:14.540 ⇒ 00:32:16.380 Uttam Kumaran: No dude. I’ve read every single thing about it.
406 00:32:16.380 ⇒ 00:32:23.300 Nick: Yeah, exactly. So. So if you’ve gone that far and nothing stands out to you, that means it doesn’t exist.
407 00:32:24.900 ⇒ 00:32:27.049 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I don’t think
408 00:32:27.420 ⇒ 00:32:31.619 Uttam Kumaran: I think there are a couple of people, the people that I sent to you
409 00:32:31.760 ⇒ 00:32:35.649 Uttam Kumaran: that right in a way that compels
410 00:32:35.940 ⇒ 00:32:37.649 Uttam Kumaran: other data people.
411 00:32:37.760 ⇒ 00:32:41.210 Uttam Kumaran: but certainly is not compelling for C. For Ceos.
412 00:32:41.300 ⇒ 00:32:45.289 Uttam Kumaran: Like people I sent you. They’re not getting read by Ceos.
413 00:32:45.920 ⇒ 00:32:47.800 Uttam Kumaran: They’re getting read by their data. People.
414 00:32:47.990 ⇒ 00:32:48.660 Nick: Yeah.
415 00:32:48.660 ⇒ 00:32:50.230 Uttam Kumaran: So. But but I think they get
416 00:32:50.400 ⇒ 00:32:52.009 Uttam Kumaran: business from that bottom up
417 00:32:52.410 ⇒ 00:32:54.899 Uttam Kumaran: approach right like. But
418 00:32:54.940 ⇒ 00:32:58.519 Uttam Kumaran: I think it’s like, I wanna be more something that like
419 00:33:01.290 ⇒ 00:33:07.739 Uttam Kumaran: it’s, I just don’t think there’s anything being written on this subject from the other side and within the industry, I think.
420 00:33:07.790 ⇒ 00:33:13.596 Uttam Kumaran: But again, is that like, okay, you need to go as far as writing stuff like style, like Mckinsey, and things like that. I don’t know.
421 00:33:13.820 ⇒ 00:33:16.399 Nick: Not executives. Don’t read that shit either.
422 00:33:16.690 ⇒ 00:33:17.450 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, that’s fine.
423 00:33:17.450 ⇒ 00:33:18.150 Nick: Read it.
424 00:33:18.880 ⇒ 00:33:21.439 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, exactly. So. I wonder it’s like, what
425 00:33:22.090 ⇒ 00:33:23.750 Uttam Kumaran: what is this stuff that
426 00:33:24.650 ⇒ 00:33:27.490 Uttam Kumaran: they’re reading that really pops, or that they
427 00:33:27.760 ⇒ 00:33:36.629 Uttam Kumaran: it could be I even out of this industry. But again, the thing is like we, we do technical work. So it’s tough. Because if you’re doing marketing or current grade, or something like the human to understand and kind of like having.
428 00:33:36.630 ⇒ 00:33:36.970 Nick: Right.
429 00:33:36.970 ⇒ 00:33:39.780 Uttam Kumaran: For. But all of our work is behind the scenes. So
430 00:33:40.030 ⇒ 00:33:41.849 Uttam Kumaran: that’s like the show, and tell.
431 00:33:41.850 ⇒ 00:33:42.230 Nick: M-
432 00:33:42.230 ⇒ 00:33:44.780 Uttam Kumaran: It’s all we’ve gotta be like explaining outcomes. Basically.
433 00:33:44.780 ⇒ 00:33:45.930 Nick: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
434 00:33:45.930 ⇒ 00:33:46.560 Uttam Kumaran: Grace.
435 00:33:46.850 ⇒ 00:33:51.790 Nick: And that’s a a little bit of what we talked about previously about how you can tell.
436 00:33:52.770 ⇒ 00:33:57.459 Nick: not not present a case study, but tell the story of of problem
437 00:33:59.040 ⇒ 00:34:01.040 Nick: problem, tools, solution.
438 00:34:01.571 ⇒ 00:34:14.389 Nick: and it doesn’t have to be focused entirely on outcomes like, look how many new customers these these people found how many look, what kind of interesting information they acquired. But like, look at the creative approach we took to solving this problem.
439 00:34:15.248 ⇒ 00:34:18.640 Nick: And that’s far more story and narrative than it is.
440 00:34:18.989 ⇒ 00:34:19.579 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
441 00:34:20.150 ⇒ 00:34:23.890 Nick: Than it is like just bland case, study or corporate. Speak.
442 00:34:24.239 ⇒ 00:34:25.369 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. Okay.
443 00:34:25.973 ⇒ 00:34:28.380 Nick: So let’s talk about should versus what?
444 00:34:29.440 ⇒ 00:34:32.159 Nick: What does that mean to you? And how do you see this.
445 00:34:34.820 ⇒ 00:34:38.972 Uttam Kumaran: Should versus want in just general? Or what do you mean?
446 00:34:39.350 ⇒ 00:34:43.920 Nick: So you mentioned that there’s a way that you think you should write in terms of brand voice.
447 00:34:44.532 ⇒ 00:34:46.469 Nick: Way that you think you want to write.
448 00:34:47.460 ⇒ 00:34:48.700 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I mean.
449 00:34:49.989 ⇒ 00:34:56.210 Uttam Kumaran: if you ask me, like, I just wanna write where I’m like, here’s the like, basically like.
450 00:34:56.480 ⇒ 00:35:01.090 Uttam Kumaran: here’s the client. Here’s kind of what they care about. Here’s a problem to deal with. Here’s a solution.
451 00:35:01.300 ⇒ 00:35:06.140 Uttam Kumaran: I just put that out there because that’s also a lot of what I what I call engineers or other
452 00:35:06.604 ⇒ 00:35:12.790 Uttam Kumaran: operators. And they’re like, I’m talking about things we’re dealing with their clients. I’m like, Oh, I have this one client.
453 00:35:13.060 ⇒ 00:35:21.299 Uttam Kumaran: This is interesting way we did it. I’ll send you like 2 links. Go talk to these vendors, or like I’ll send you a couple of things, and I I’m much more direct.
454 00:35:21.310 ⇒ 00:35:23.490 Uttam Kumaran: and I skip a lot of the.
455 00:35:24.330 ⇒ 00:35:27.359 Uttam Kumaran: Plus of like the sales process. Basically, I’m pretty much like.
456 00:35:28.090 ⇒ 00:35:33.580 Uttam Kumaran: just tell me exactly what’s going on and like what you need to see and like, what’s a budget? I think
457 00:35:33.890 ⇒ 00:35:36.039 Uttam Kumaran: should is more of like.
458 00:35:36.080 ⇒ 00:35:39.190 Uttam Kumaran: I’ve just read a lot about how these agencies sell.
459 00:35:41.140 ⇒ 00:35:45.059 Uttam Kumaran: And again there’s like a lengthy sales process.
460 00:35:45.340 ⇒ 00:35:47.431 Uttam Kumaran: It’s a lot of money.
461 00:35:48.390 ⇒ 00:35:48.930 Nick: Hoop!
462 00:35:48.930 ⇒ 00:35:59.010 Uttam Kumaran: And you never talk to an engineer you’re talking to like a project manager like I don’t do any of that like you’re kind of talking to me, and we kind of rush run things.
463 00:35:59.770 ⇒ 00:36:01.009 Uttam Kumaran: As fast as possible.
464 00:36:01.621 ⇒ 00:36:04.630 Uttam Kumaran: So that’s kind of like what I I wanted to feel more like.
465 00:36:06.080 ⇒ 00:36:14.510 Uttam Kumaran: like, I just wanted to feel that it’s more like we’ve taken this industry that’s like heavy with jargon, heavy with like seems really technical. But it’s actually not.
466 00:36:15.120 ⇒ 00:36:16.040 Uttam Kumaran: And
467 00:36:16.340 ⇒ 00:36:19.160 Uttam Kumaran: but the same time we have the capabilities of doing things super technical.
468 00:36:19.160 ⇒ 00:36:20.080 Nick: Yeah.
469 00:36:20.260 ⇒ 00:36:22.990 Uttam Kumaran: But I don’t want to sit on the surface of that.
470 00:36:23.060 ⇒ 00:36:26.080 Uttam Kumaran: just because, like, that’s what consulting places do.
471 00:36:27.540 ⇒ 00:36:28.430 Nick: Yeah.
472 00:36:31.100 ⇒ 00:36:38.180 Uttam Kumaran: Like. I would rather lose customers, because I would rather lose customers, because, like, we’re too direct than like the other way around.
473 00:36:38.320 ⇒ 00:36:38.880 Nick: Okay.
474 00:36:38.880 ⇒ 00:36:40.749 Uttam Kumaran: Cause. Then it’s just compromising like
475 00:36:41.670 ⇒ 00:36:44.869 Uttam Kumaran: cause. Again, you’re gonna meet me. And you’re gonna realize that’s how we do things.
476 00:36:49.290 ⇒ 00:36:52.940 Nick: so possible of approach is using
477 00:36:53.520 ⇒ 00:36:54.589 Nick: mean the most.
478 00:36:56.310 ⇒ 00:36:59.820 Nick: the the approach that straddles these 2 things
479 00:36:59.920 ⇒ 00:37:01.150 Nick: is
480 00:37:01.968 ⇒ 00:37:08.959 Nick: essentially leaning, a little bit more on story and narrative. And let’s say, copywriting on basically everything public facing
481 00:37:09.636 ⇒ 00:37:10.770 Nick: and then.
482 00:37:11.810 ⇒ 00:37:13.670 Nick: just because
483 00:37:13.880 ⇒ 00:37:16.522 Nick: just because you tell a good story,
484 00:37:17.500 ⇒ 00:37:46.929 Nick: to attract the interest of a potential client doesn’t necessarily need mean that your like sales process needs to look like that either. So like the sales process can be far more direct. You can take the same information and present it in 2 different ways. So you take the story from a case study and present it in this narrative format, and and something really interesting, like an article. And it’s then converted to like a social media post that attracts the attention of a CEO. But then you can take that same story in those same numbers, and reformat it into a case study.
485 00:37:46.930 ⇒ 00:38:08.420 Nick: and that case study is far more direct. It gets to the point. You know you want. You do like there’s no reason to make a sales process longer on purpose. If if that’s how the stakeholders and the decision makers sort of operate in the middle of the sales process rather than just what gets attention online. Then then you can be to the point. You can say like, Here’s you know,
486 00:38:10.520 ⇒ 00:38:13.980 Nick: a good one would actually be like, have you ever seen those screenshot essays.
487 00:38:15.460 ⇒ 00:38:16.720 Uttam Kumaran: No! What is that?
488 00:38:16.720 ⇒ 00:38:25.630 Nick: So it’s it’s kind of a content format that people play with on social sometimes. But basically it’s like they’re writing.
489 00:38:25.780 ⇒ 00:38:37.880 Nick: They’re writing in their notes app, or they’re writing on their phone, or you know, something small. But it’s basically an essay that communicates a complex idea that is short enough to fit in a single screenshot of the phone.
490 00:38:37.880 ⇒ 00:38:38.650 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, I can get it.
491 00:38:38.650 ⇒ 00:38:41.613 Nick: Very much to the point. It’s just like it’s it’s
492 00:38:42.020 ⇒ 00:38:48.399 Nick: the term kind of a stand-in for the format. But it’s basically like we will like your sales. Materials can get straight to the point. It’s.
493 00:38:48.400 ⇒ 00:38:48.740 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
494 00:38:49.480 ⇒ 00:38:57.346 Nick: And you know, this, this goes really deep into like building out like email templates. And you know,
495 00:38:58.080 ⇒ 00:38:59.520 Uttam Kumaran: Serious like that. Yeah, yeah.
496 00:38:59.520 ⇒ 00:39:04.480 Nick: Exactly like those series, and basically saying, You know, great call.
497 00:39:04.640 ⇒ 00:39:09.530 Nick: just want to follow up with a few different case studies like this is what we did, and you know you can make them
498 00:39:09.550 ⇒ 00:39:11.230 Nick: 2 min to read each or something. Really.
499 00:39:11.230 ⇒ 00:39:12.070 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
500 00:39:12.070 ⇒ 00:39:16.139 Nick: I mean, you can be really direct, like you can do both is is all that is to say.
501 00:39:16.330 ⇒ 00:39:21.530 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I think there’s a lack of people that are really direct about the stuff they’ve done.
502 00:39:21.870 ⇒ 00:39:24.680 Uttam Kumaran: And I don’t really know why, because, like.
503 00:39:24.890 ⇒ 00:39:37.939 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know why you wouldn’t show off that you do all these different things. Instead, they? They do a lot of stuff that’s like surface level, like we work with manufacturing client B, and their processes were like
504 00:39:38.090 ⇒ 00:39:41.159 Uttam Kumaran: there that we need to streamline, their operational flows and.
505 00:39:41.560 ⇒ 00:39:43.440 Uttam Kumaran: Because of implementing snowflake.
506 00:39:43.880 ⇒ 00:39:47.409 Uttam Kumaran: We saw 30% increase, like, I don’t talk about anything that we did.
507 00:39:47.790 ⇒ 00:39:51.030 Uttam Kumaran: Or like who was involved, or what some of the issues were and weren’t.
508 00:39:51.030 ⇒ 00:39:51.500 Nick: Raised.
509 00:39:51.500 ⇒ 00:39:53.639 Uttam Kumaran: But like, whereas, like what? What
510 00:39:53.860 ⇒ 00:39:55.909 Uttam Kumaran: you just, you just said that we we
511 00:39:55.990 ⇒ 00:40:00.159 Uttam Kumaran: put Snowflake in. Now we saw the things like show me a little meat. I was like what.
512 00:40:00.160 ⇒ 00:40:01.250 Nick: Yeah, yeah.
513 00:40:01.777 ⇒ 00:40:06.220 Uttam Kumaran: And like again, if you quote to call me today, I’ll give you all of that
514 00:40:06.420 ⇒ 00:40:09.170 Uttam Kumaran: and like over the phone. So I don’t.
515 00:40:09.170 ⇒ 00:40:09.660 Nick: Yeah.
516 00:40:09.660 ⇒ 00:40:19.169 Uttam Kumaran: Having that be. I don’t. I don’t mind cause, and I think a lot of you are hiding because these are the copywriters don’t have the technical expertise to write about it on their behalf.
517 00:40:19.360 ⇒ 00:40:21.150 Uttam Kumaran: or the work they’re doing.
518 00:40:21.390 ⇒ 00:40:23.070 Uttam Kumaran: Is not that great?
519 00:40:23.759 ⇒ 00:40:28.880 Uttam Kumaran: Either way, I think the people running these other consultancies, just like aren’t aren’t on the ground, and.
520 00:40:28.880 ⇒ 00:40:29.250 Nick: Mmm.
521 00:40:29.250 ⇒ 00:40:45.749 Uttam Kumaran: They don’t take advantage of like that clear writing style. And for me, it’s like, I just want to really be succinct with like, hey? We met with this e-commerce company. This is the current state. We went and grab these tools. Put this together. Here are some of the issues. We kind of work through. And then here’s kind of where they’re at.
522 00:40:45.900 ⇒ 00:40:54.449 Uttam Kumaran: And here’s kind of how that’s here’s our next steps with them, and like there’s there’s there’s so many example. And that’s just like we can even focus that on
523 00:40:54.510 ⇒ 00:40:58.560 Uttam Kumaran: the marketing side of their business versus like this shipping side of their business. And
524 00:40:58.840 ⇒ 00:41:05.599 Uttam Kumaran: again, we have all these. There’s so many stories to write about that are, I think, can easily be written in a paid or less.
525 00:41:05.900 ⇒ 00:41:06.600 Nick: Yeah.
526 00:41:07.580 ⇒ 00:41:08.400 Nick: yeah.
527 00:41:09.769 ⇒ 00:41:13.539 Nick: you’re right. It it is a combination of either.
528 00:41:13.600 ⇒ 00:41:15.509 Nick: They’re really bad at.
529 00:41:16.690 ⇒ 00:41:19.848 Nick: They’re they’re not as good about writing
530 00:41:20.490 ⇒ 00:41:23.740 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t think there’s a care. I think there’s just not a care for quality.
531 00:41:23.740 ⇒ 00:41:30.380 Nick: Yeah, yeah, there’s that. And then sometimes like, especially the it depends on the company size. But the the places that use
532 00:41:31.720 ⇒ 00:41:36.870 Nick: like your standard sort of jargon for describing a case. Study.
533 00:41:37.930 ⇒ 00:42:02.079 Nick: there’s there’s a really formulaic way to write case studies. You’ll find a lot of other agencies do. Part of that reason is just because it’s the only way. Writing, like selling, writing as a services is hard and it’s low, low margin. And so basically, what they try to do is like templatize the approach and then hire a bunch of writers to follow that template. And you know it’s easy to crank out like a couple of week.
534 00:42:02.302 ⇒ 00:42:11.629 Nick: Which is fine, but it just doesn’t communicate the message in the same way. And then you’re right. That means, I’d say, the majority of the others who don’t actually just cut straight to the results don’t actually have any.
535 00:42:12.770 ⇒ 00:42:15.679 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, this actually doesn’t. It won’t take me that long to actually
536 00:42:16.000 ⇒ 00:42:24.260 Uttam Kumaran: like right, a lot of these, I think the editing process is what would be helpful to have some format of like what you described, which is like
537 00:42:24.330 ⇒ 00:42:26.050 Uttam Kumaran: the problem to me, or whatever.
538 00:42:26.050 ⇒ 00:42:26.476 Nick: Yeah, yeah.
539 00:42:26.690 ⇒ 00:42:31.440 Uttam Kumaran: Value. That’s what’s actually super important. Because I could, I could literally
540 00:42:31.540 ⇒ 00:42:34.050 Uttam Kumaran: voice this to like Chaja, Bt.
541 00:42:34.420 ⇒ 00:42:40.730 Uttam Kumaran: And then have it transcribe. And then basically think, well, how do I like get into that format? The thing is, I think, a lot of the people who
542 00:42:41.030 ⇒ 00:42:47.030 Uttam Kumaran: on those companies, or do the copywriting and stuff. They don’t even have the stories. The engineer, the engineer.
543 00:42:47.190 ⇒ 00:42:56.609 Uttam Kumaran: you know, like you can saw how hard it is for me to do this stuff like. Imagine you’re working like a nerdy engineer. There’s no, never in the they don’t like, you know. What do you mean? What’s a narrative.
544 00:42:56.870 ⇒ 00:42:57.280 Nick: Yes.
545 00:42:57.280 ⇒ 00:43:01.079 Uttam Kumaran: So it’s really hard. And that’s the mismatches like the people with.
546 00:43:01.810 ⇒ 00:43:05.170 Uttam Kumaran: The doing? Are not the people who are like selling.
547 00:43:05.680 ⇒ 00:43:18.130 Nick: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. It’s a it’s a tough bridge to gap. There was one time. I had a class in college. Kind of it was like related to business building an entrepreneurship. And you basically had to like team up
548 00:43:18.270 ⇒ 00:43:19.900 Nick: with a couple people and
549 00:43:20.020 ⇒ 00:43:22.089 Nick: produce revenue by the end of the semester
550 00:43:22.310 ⇒ 00:43:26.072 Nick: and you know, for business students. It was
551 00:43:26.640 ⇒ 00:43:30.609 Nick: it was like a compelling class. And it was basically the Eca for the engineer.
552 00:43:30.610 ⇒ 00:43:32.680 Uttam Kumaran: Like make a T-shirt class, or whatever.
553 00:43:32.870 ⇒ 00:43:42.989 Nick: Kind of it was basically like you could be as creative as you wanted with it. And like they would have you like set up an Llc. And everything. It was like. The serial entrepreneur came in as like a guest, professor, and just randomly.
554 00:43:43.495 ⇒ 00:43:44.000 Uttam Kumaran: Nice.
555 00:43:44.220 ⇒ 00:43:50.179 Nick: And so it was like an easy a for a lot of the engineers. But I remember I was working with this. Kitty was a electrical engineer.
556 00:43:50.280 ⇒ 00:43:51.480 Nick: and
557 00:43:51.570 ⇒ 00:43:58.229 Nick: I was trying to explain. The concept of like marketing is very basic was like, you’re promoting the product. You’re telling a story about it.
558 00:43:58.510 ⇒ 00:44:04.269 Nick: And you’re you know you’re you’re hyping it up. You’re highlighting all the positive attributes, and he looks me in the eye, and he’s like.
559 00:44:04.400 ⇒ 00:44:06.060 Nick: oh, so you’re lying
560 00:44:06.550 ⇒ 00:44:09.350 Nick: like? No, no, no, it’s I mean
561 00:44:09.750 ⇒ 00:44:12.674 Nick: not no, but kind of, but not really.
562 00:44:13.040 ⇒ 00:44:15.429 Uttam Kumaran: No, they. It’s just like, yeah, it’s
563 00:44:15.890 ⇒ 00:44:16.760 Uttam Kumaran: yeah.
564 00:44:17.030 ⇒ 00:44:17.570 Nick: It is.
565 00:44:17.809 ⇒ 00:44:23.559 Uttam Kumaran: Speaks to like what this industry is. It’s a funny crowd, but the thing is they don’t realize they get marketed to a lot.
566 00:44:24.090 ⇒ 00:44:25.690 Uttam Kumaran: Everything’s marketing.
567 00:44:25.690 ⇒ 00:44:26.250 Nick: Oh, yeah.
568 00:44:26.250 ⇒ 00:44:34.239 Uttam Kumaran: Like they don’t kind of see the whole picture, and it’s also like dude. Those are just like like, don’t don’t be so grandstandy about like marketing like.
569 00:44:34.790 ⇒ 00:44:35.829 Nick: But I get it. I also.
570 00:44:35.830 ⇒ 00:44:36.375 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
571 00:44:37.428 ⇒ 00:44:39.969 Nick: Okay, so tell me about
572 00:44:40.710 ⇒ 00:44:53.689 Nick: we can. This is, this is good. We’ll start again with what not to do, which styles ideas and topics should be avoided when speaking, to say executives that fit within this target profile.
573 00:44:58.420 ⇒ 00:45:02.820 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, you wanna avoid anything that’s not succinct and like short.
574 00:45:02.820 ⇒ 00:45:03.360 Nick: Okay.
575 00:45:04.400 ⇒ 00:45:08.380 Uttam Kumaran: as someone who’s running a company. Now it’s opened my eyes up to like
576 00:45:09.140 ⇒ 00:45:10.070 Uttam Kumaran: ow.
577 00:45:10.710 ⇒ 00:45:13.350 Uttam Kumaran: like I can process information fast.
578 00:45:13.750 ⇒ 00:45:20.419 Uttam Kumaran: But, like I have. I like, I’m doing that for a lot of different domains. So one thing is like, if
579 00:45:20.460 ⇒ 00:45:21.840 Uttam Kumaran: value prop
580 00:45:22.040 ⇒ 00:45:25.840 Uttam Kumaran: and like what we do needs to be super super clear
581 00:45:26.574 ⇒ 00:45:30.610 Uttam Kumaran: because they don’t have much time like they may just click on and click off stuff
582 00:45:31.040 ⇒ 00:45:34.439 Uttam Kumaran: and maybe doing 2 other things. So that’s one thing, and the second is like.
583 00:45:34.660 ⇒ 00:45:36.789 Uttam Kumaran: how does this progress like
584 00:45:37.020 ⇒ 00:45:46.410 Uttam Kumaran: like what? What is a typical flow of working with this like, I don’t know. I think, like, one thing I just realized is that people are really short on time. So just need to really get to the point on some of this stuff.
585 00:45:46.440 ⇒ 00:45:49.169 Uttam Kumaran: The second is like establishing authority.
586 00:45:49.470 ⇒ 00:45:54.330 Uttam Kumaran: I think all the Ceos they they always wanted to work with the best people.
587 00:45:54.860 ⇒ 00:45:59.680 Uttam Kumaran: even if the work isn’t the best, and I’ve seen that like, I think, establishing some logic.
588 00:45:59.680 ⇒ 00:46:00.370 Nick: See it super.
589 00:46:00.390 ⇒ 00:46:01.170 Uttam Kumaran: Porn.
590 00:46:01.300 ⇒ 00:46:02.050 Uttam Kumaran: like
591 00:46:02.270 ⇒ 00:46:08.530 Uttam Kumaran: the people like people wanted to know that you’ve worked with other great people and that you you
592 00:46:09.250 ⇒ 00:46:16.640 Uttam Kumaran: like. I don’t know you have that legitimacy, and I think that’s what attracts a lot of Ceos is like, you don’t want to go to Joe Schmo. You want to go with somebody.
593 00:46:16.640 ⇒ 00:46:17.020 Nick: Yeah.
594 00:46:17.020 ⇒ 00:46:18.527 Uttam Kumaran: With the best
595 00:46:22.610 ⇒ 00:46:27.019 Uttam Kumaran: And you kind of just doers like you really don’t want people who are gonna
596 00:46:27.150 ⇒ 00:46:40.010 Uttam Kumaran: sit and ask a hundred questions or wait for project management, or, like you want people who are gonna like, push the ball forward and always be thinking ahead and put themselves into your shoes
597 00:46:40.230 ⇒ 00:46:42.900 Uttam Kumaran: the stuff. And again, I’ve learned a lot about this and
598 00:46:42.930 ⇒ 00:46:47.350 Uttam Kumaran: doing what I’m doing. And the success I’ve had before is like
599 00:46:47.360 ⇒ 00:46:49.269 Uttam Kumaran: you just want to be someone who
600 00:46:50.210 ⇒ 00:46:52.079 Uttam Kumaran: you want to hire people who are like
601 00:46:52.130 ⇒ 00:46:54.950 Uttam Kumaran: gonna take a lot of agency and just run with the ball.
602 00:46:54.950 ⇒ 00:46:55.590 Nick: Yeah.
603 00:46:55.590 ⇒ 00:47:00.399 Uttam Kumaran: You don’t want it to be like every 5 steps they turn around, or something
604 00:47:00.590 ⇒ 00:47:09.902 Uttam Kumaran: I’m like, go get it! Go! Get the test. Here we go like, Get up I gotta move on other stuff. So those are probably a couple of things that I really wanted on
605 00:47:13.500 ⇒ 00:47:23.869 Uttam Kumaran: There’s also things in my industry that steals find like really, really like sexy and new anything with AI, or how to use AI, anything with like
606 00:47:26.278 ⇒ 00:47:30.020 Uttam Kumaran: customer analysis, customer segmentation, and
607 00:47:30.170 ⇒ 00:47:31.250 Uttam Kumaran: like
608 00:47:34.730 ⇒ 00:47:39.369 Uttam Kumaran: like having sophisticated reporting and alerts and anomaly detection like.
609 00:47:39.730 ⇒ 00:47:43.849 Uttam Kumaran: Those are. Those are things that all Ceos find really, really attractive.
610 00:47:46.820 ⇒ 00:47:50.549 Uttam Kumaran: things like, you know, understanding real time data
611 00:47:50.570 ⇒ 00:47:55.619 Uttam Kumaran: like understanding, like which products are doing the best at any given time.
612 00:47:56.063 ⇒ 00:47:59.700 Uttam Kumaran: Understand? Like which new sales channel you should go to.
613 00:48:00.216 ⇒ 00:48:04.790 Uttam Kumaran: The impact of marketing. Like all these things that people just want to know.
614 00:48:05.080 ⇒ 00:48:13.609 Uttam Kumaran: There. But the thing is, there’s a difference between them knowing then it getting operationalized. But the CEO is never going to be the one that operationalizes. It’s gonna be the people under that.
615 00:48:13.810 ⇒ 00:48:21.310 Uttam Kumaran: So it’s one thing it’s kind of like making sure the CEO knows that over on the latest and greatest data tools. But then the operator is kind of like
616 00:48:21.440 ⇒ 00:48:23.789 Uttam Kumaran: we work with them to develop the dashboard
617 00:48:24.260 ⇒ 00:48:25.410 Uttam Kumaran: or to like.
618 00:48:25.800 ⇒ 00:48:33.539 Uttam Kumaran: how’s here’s how you take our data, and you can go to make adjustments on your ads. Or here’s how you optimize like, how you do, how we do
619 00:48:34.232 ⇒ 00:48:38.410 Uttam Kumaran: is that desk tickets because of what we found the Ceos, not Zendesk.
620 00:48:38.410 ⇒ 00:48:39.140 Nick: Yeah.
621 00:48:39.680 ⇒ 00:48:40.610 Uttam Kumaran: So.
622 00:48:40.610 ⇒ 00:48:41.290 Nick: Yeah.
623 00:48:42.560 ⇒ 00:48:43.250 Nick: and that’s.
624 00:48:43.250 ⇒ 00:48:47.680 Uttam Kumaran: A big thing is like being data driven like all these guys want to be, we’re data driven like
625 00:48:48.010 ⇒ 00:48:50.309 Uttam Kumaran: we have a huge, we’re we have like
626 00:48:50.750 ⇒ 00:48:55.253 Uttam Kumaran: tons of data. Our customers like that’s the customer session. They say, basically.
627 00:48:56.520 ⇒ 00:49:03.969 Nick: So if I were to sum all of that into a single term, I I might use the term data porn to basically just.
628 00:49:03.970 ⇒ 00:49:04.390 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, but.
629 00:49:04.390 ⇒ 00:49:05.490 Nick: Catches their eye.
630 00:49:05.770 ⇒ 00:49:07.220 Uttam Kumaran: Yes, yes.
631 00:49:07.220 ⇒ 00:49:08.120 Nick: Okay. Cool.
632 00:49:08.490 ⇒ 00:49:13.120 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, which you can tell for me is like so hard to like. I don’t.
633 00:49:13.300 ⇒ 00:49:14.800 Uttam Kumaran: That stuff is like
634 00:49:15.390 ⇒ 00:49:18.959 Uttam Kumaran: it’s tough, because that’s not like any of that’s
635 00:49:20.040 ⇒ 00:49:24.760 Uttam Kumaran: yeah. I don’t know. It’s a weird line, cause that’s what gets us in the door a lot of times. But
636 00:49:24.920 ⇒ 00:49:32.510 Uttam Kumaran: it’s not at all really like what we do or like. We do so much stuff beyond that. But people want to be able to say, like, we’re so data driven, we’re using analytics.
637 00:49:32.510 ⇒ 00:49:32.980 Nick: Yeah.
638 00:49:32.980 ⇒ 00:49:34.470 Uttam Kumaran: Like our business smarter.
639 00:49:35.010 ⇒ 00:49:38.899 Uttam Kumaran: and we’re not just like running the company on like random spreadsheets, and like
640 00:49:39.642 ⇒ 00:49:44.857 Uttam Kumaran: everybody here, is like an a analyst right? Everybody’s empowered to do data analysis.
641 00:49:47.050 ⇒ 00:49:48.000 Nick: So
642 00:49:49.010 ⇒ 00:49:53.899 Nick: to me this sounds a little bit like a a difference in
643 00:49:55.867 ⇒ 00:50:01.119 Nick: difference of interpretation like we’re talking about 2 very different
644 00:50:01.300 ⇒ 00:50:02.430 Nick: formats.
645 00:50:02.680 ⇒ 00:50:03.410 Nick: Maybe
646 00:50:03.580 ⇒ 00:50:07.029 Nick: maybe format is the right word. The difference between
647 00:50:07.440 ⇒ 00:50:12.899 Nick: the pretty dashboard that you see and everything it takes to get to that point right?
648 00:50:13.410 ⇒ 00:50:14.850 Nick: Yeah, is that correct?
649 00:50:15.090 ⇒ 00:50:15.830 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
650 00:50:16.760 ⇒ 00:50:17.290 Nick: I know.
651 00:50:17.290 ⇒ 00:50:19.440 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah.
652 00:50:21.540 ⇒ 00:50:23.040 Nick: So the
653 00:50:25.690 ⇒ 00:50:27.260 Nick: the CEO,
654 00:50:27.310 ⇒ 00:50:30.170 Nick: as I understand it, gets very excited about
655 00:50:30.190 ⇒ 00:50:35.110 Nick: the visualization, and then the visual side of it, because that’s what they understand.
656 00:50:35.240 ⇒ 00:50:42.289 Nick: and then what they can do with the out that the takeaway from that visualization.
657 00:50:42.670 ⇒ 00:50:45.250 Nick: But what you’re selling is
658 00:50:45.500 ⇒ 00:50:48.300 Nick: everything you do to get to that point right.
659 00:50:48.610 ⇒ 00:50:49.460 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
660 00:50:49.460 ⇒ 00:50:52.930 Nick: So the way that you can think about connecting these 2 things is that
661 00:50:55.060 ⇒ 00:50:57.549 Nick: you you can like you can sell the outcome
662 00:50:57.700 ⇒ 00:51:12.860 Nick: if that’s what gets their attention and gets them into the front you can sell them the outcome. And then if they bring in their sort of technical backup. You can then explain the process. But if the outcome is the thing that sells, then the process doesn’t matter.
663 00:51:13.210 ⇒ 00:51:13.760 Nick: All right.
664 00:51:14.150 ⇒ 00:51:15.319 Uttam Kumaran: I see. Okay.
665 00:51:15.320 ⇒ 00:51:20.930 Nick: It’s not as it’s not as important to the person who’s making the buying decision. Because
666 00:51:20.950 ⇒ 00:51:25.870 Nick: and this is I, I would say, like an engineering thing. This is kind of an artist thing. Anyone who
667 00:51:25.930 ⇒ 00:51:29.020 Nick: has some sort of ability to create
668 00:51:29.312 ⇒ 00:51:34.967 Nick: it’s really easy to get caught up in the in the beauty of what you’re doing in the in the
669 00:51:35.250 ⇒ 00:51:35.680 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
670 00:51:36.056 ⇒ 00:51:36.809 Nick: The craft.
671 00:51:37.610 ⇒ 00:51:38.660 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, you’re not.
672 00:51:38.660 ⇒ 00:51:46.360 Nick: You’re not selling the craft, you’re selling the outcome, which is a very different value prop, and it it feels it can feel dirty to
673 00:51:46.460 ⇒ 00:51:54.530 Nick: just oversimplify and just focus on the outcome, especially when you are trying to simplify for the decision maker rather than
674 00:51:55.060 ⇒ 00:52:11.368 Nick: what I might refer to is like the the starving artists of the engineering world, the people that you sent me that live for the validation of others in the community for the sake of the craft in hopes that they can then,
675 00:52:12.440 ⇒ 00:52:17.970 Nick: curry favor where they can basically get buy in from the real decision maker.
676 00:52:18.430 ⇒ 00:52:20.879 Nick: The really really difficult thing to do.
677 00:52:21.110 ⇒ 00:52:25.549 Nick: And I say this as someone who’s really bad at this is
678 00:52:26.500 ⇒ 00:52:30.900 Nick: basically focusing on like you’re, you’re running a business.
679 00:52:31.140 ⇒ 00:52:36.480 Nick: And if the business outcomes are driven by focusing by selling the outcome.
680 00:52:36.580 ⇒ 00:52:38.260 Nick: When you know it.
681 00:52:38.690 ⇒ 00:52:45.139 Nick: you’re selling outcome. But you also know that the way you get there is producing something legitimate. This is not smoke and mirrors.
682 00:52:45.820 ⇒ 00:52:49.869 Nick: If the outcome is what drives the sale, then that’s the point of focus.
683 00:52:49.870 ⇒ 00:52:50.450 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
684 00:52:51.085 ⇒ 00:53:01.705 Nick: And it can be. I mean, the cool thing is that, like the data, important stuff is pretty easy to like, create content out of. So you can talk about or show dashboards like
685 00:53:02.070 ⇒ 00:53:06.619 Nick: visual graphics and assets are gonna be really powerful as a meeting.
686 00:53:06.620 ⇒ 00:53:07.300 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
687 00:53:07.300 ⇒ 00:53:16.629 Nick: In communicating what it is you actually accomplish on behalf of your clients. Not necessarily the process, because the process is different, very difficult to visualize
688 00:53:19.218 ⇒ 00:53:24.960 Nick: but and and this would be as a part of a sort of experiment if you were to.
689 00:53:25.868 ⇒ 00:53:33.759 Nick: In in whatever content format this takes. There’s an experiment to be sort of run where you are.
690 00:53:33.850 ⇒ 00:53:36.857 Nick: One, maybe one piece of sales
691 00:53:37.960 ⇒ 00:53:43.789 Nick: sales material focuses on visuals and outcome. And then another focuses on
692 00:53:44.120 ⇒ 00:53:45.690 Nick: tools and processes.
693 00:53:45.730 ⇒ 00:53:52.530 Nick: and I think you can create both. I mean, there, there is a place for both depending on who you’re selling to
694 00:53:53.200 ⇒ 00:53:56.909 Nick: but that’s also very important insight that
695 00:53:57.280 ⇒ 00:54:01.519 Nick: you know, the the executives that you talk to are getting caught up on the outcomes. That’s that’s meaningful.
696 00:54:02.030 ⇒ 00:54:03.370 Nick: Yeah, yeah.
697 00:54:03.370 ⇒ 00:54:03.990 Uttam Kumaran: I agree.
698 00:54:04.930 ⇒ 00:54:05.870 Nick: Awesome.
699 00:54:07.500 ⇒ 00:54:10.169 Nick: So if you had to sort of
700 00:54:10.440 ⇒ 00:54:12.649 Nick: if you had to
701 00:54:13.000 ⇒ 00:54:17.169 Nick: describe a mission statement for what you’re doing, what would that be?
702 00:54:20.965 ⇒ 00:54:24.210 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, I think we’re basically helping people measure their businesses.
703 00:54:24.805 ⇒ 00:54:26.200 Uttam Kumaran: That’s pretty basic.
704 00:54:26.430 ⇒ 00:54:28.659 Uttam Kumaran: That’s pretty much encapsulates
705 00:54:29.500 ⇒ 00:54:38.989 Uttam Kumaran: everything. I mean, I I would go further to to outcomes like, I would say, whatever the whatever their goal is, as we’re helping them measure and accomplish that. But
706 00:54:39.430 ⇒ 00:54:42.609 Uttam Kumaran: measure is the one thing that I continue to tell people is like.
707 00:54:42.800 ⇒ 00:54:45.370 Uttam Kumaran: roughly, we just help people measure their business a lot.
708 00:54:48.650 ⇒ 00:54:49.340 Nick: Okay.
709 00:54:55.350 ⇒ 00:54:59.579 Nick: Awesome. I actually what I’d like to do.
710 00:55:02.810 ⇒ 00:55:05.610 Nick: I’m just gonna jump over to a different page.
711 00:55:07.250 ⇒ 00:55:10.520 Nick: How would you say that this?
712 00:55:12.970 ⇒ 00:55:15.240 Nick: that this mission statement of
713 00:55:15.380 ⇒ 00:55:19.600 Nick: measuring businesses and enabling businesses to
714 00:55:20.588 ⇒ 00:55:22.920 Nick: achieve a goal using that measurement?
715 00:55:23.370 ⇒ 00:55:32.120 Nick: How would you say that is similar or different from the current tag on your homepage, or or the the one line descriptor you use for your business.
716 00:55:33.090 ⇒ 00:55:37.479 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, what we on the homepage right now is, we have like translating
717 00:55:38.090 ⇒ 00:55:44.430 Uttam Kumaran: analytics today insights or something like that, or translating raw data, transformering raw data into like insights.
718 00:55:44.430 ⇒ 00:55:44.980 Nick: Yeah.
719 00:55:45.360 ⇒ 00:55:50.309 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, I think that’s good again, like the point of that was to to show that there is like
720 00:55:50.840 ⇒ 00:55:53.460 Uttam Kumaran: not to get too technical. But to also say, like
721 00:55:54.330 ⇒ 00:55:56.000 Uttam Kumaran: insights is the
722 00:55:56.060 ⇒ 00:55:57.220 Uttam Kumaran: how come.
723 00:55:57.740 ⇒ 00:55:57.944 Nick: Yeah.
724 00:55:58.150 ⇒ 00:56:02.209 Uttam Kumaran: Raw data is the input. And like, that’s probably like all people.
725 00:56:02.660 ⇒ 00:56:03.410 Nick: Yeah.
726 00:56:03.720 ⇒ 00:56:04.920 Uttam Kumaran: Me to now.
727 00:56:05.290 ⇒ 00:56:06.319 Nick: Absolutely okay. Great.
728 00:56:06.685 ⇒ 00:56:07.050 Uttam Kumaran: And.
729 00:56:07.050 ⇒ 00:56:07.700 Nick: That’s not a.
730 00:56:07.700 ⇒ 00:56:08.379 Uttam Kumaran: Kind of like what we have.
731 00:56:08.685 ⇒ 00:56:08.990 Nick: Just.
732 00:56:09.440 ⇒ 00:56:10.060 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
733 00:56:11.760 ⇒ 00:56:16.940 Nick: Perfect. Okay, not a challenge. It’s just wanted to see. Basically, if
734 00:56:17.580 ⇒ 00:56:18.345 Nick: if
735 00:56:20.380 ⇒ 00:56:26.550 Nick: if the mission statement was was kind of in alignment, or if you, if you felt that that was that was being communicated fully.
736 00:56:27.080 ⇒ 00:56:32.940 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I think we’ve. I think we’ve done well, like again. I’ve I’ve all through the process like I try. I’m trying to
737 00:56:33.240 ⇒ 00:56:34.770 Uttam Kumaran: simplify and.
738 00:56:35.390 ⇒ 00:56:36.080 Nick: Totally. Yeah.
739 00:56:36.080 ⇒ 00:56:40.969 Uttam Kumaran: Kind of like make it seem. But I think this comes help to even be like even go further.
740 00:56:41.730 ⇒ 00:56:45.429 Uttam Kumaran: And like making sure that it all goes towards that like, CEO type.
741 00:56:45.440 ⇒ 00:56:47.370 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, that like that level.
742 00:56:48.330 ⇒ 00:56:50.930 Nick: Absolutely okay. Fantastic. So
743 00:56:51.630 ⇒ 00:56:53.160 Nick: is there?
744 00:56:54.400 ⇒ 00:57:01.929 Nick: We’ve we’ve spoken quite a bit about buyer persona specific to the decision maker. Is there anything
745 00:57:02.480 ⇒ 00:57:11.760 Nick: else about that persona that you think is important to know. If you were, for example, describing the brand voice to someone new.
746 00:57:29.170 ⇒ 00:57:43.389 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. The only thing that kind of pops up is that, like Ceos and these sorts of types, they’re consuming, reporting a number of different ways. They may be getting slack messages from people being like or sales, or up X percent. They may be getting dashboards from people.
747 00:57:43.400 ⇒ 00:57:45.479 Uttam Kumaran: They need to be logging into stripe
748 00:57:45.540 ⇒ 00:57:47.200 Uttam Kumaran: or shopify their own.
749 00:57:47.440 ⇒ 00:57:52.619 Uttam Kumaran: They may be in investor meetings where someone’s like, what’s your quarter over quarter
750 00:57:52.720 ⇒ 00:57:53.960 Uttam Kumaran: user growth.
751 00:57:55.050 ⇒ 00:57:55.500 Uttam Kumaran: or.
752 00:57:56.120 ⇒ 00:58:01.930 Uttam Kumaran: for example, like, if you have a certain client, do you have a certain platform with, like a specific type of user.
753 00:58:01.930 ⇒ 00:58:02.440 Nick: I mean.
754 00:58:02.440 ⇒ 00:58:16.899 Uttam Kumaran: What users are there with like this sort of thing? Okay, what happens? You have to go ask your analyst that has come back. I don’t know if this stated, accurate blah, blah, blah, you have like all these chains. So those are the kind of ways where people these guys use data like they get a report. Or they’re like, asked by investor.
755 00:58:17.160 ⇒ 00:58:21.130 Uttam Kumaran: They’re going to raise capital, or they’re putting a deck together, or they’re trying to quote the customer.
756 00:58:21.610 ⇒ 00:58:26.209 Uttam Kumaran: And they need these data points. That process is painful if you’re if yours.
757 00:58:26.410 ⇒ 00:58:28.669 Uttam Kumaran: your so stuff is not bad.
758 00:58:29.080 ⇒ 00:58:30.050 Uttam Kumaran: you know.
759 00:58:30.050 ⇒ 00:58:31.540 Nick: Yeah. Okay.
760 00:58:37.510 ⇒ 00:58:38.580 Nick: So
761 00:58:39.050 ⇒ 00:58:46.059 Nick: 2 things that stand out to me, they’re either receiving a report or that includes data, or they’re retrieving data.
762 00:58:46.580 ⇒ 00:58:50.859 Nick: because someone has asked for a specific
763 00:58:51.480 ⇒ 00:58:52.390 Nick: metric.
764 00:58:52.730 ⇒ 00:58:53.320 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
765 00:58:53.760 ⇒ 00:58:54.320 Nick: Cool.
766 00:58:54.650 ⇒ 00:58:55.470 Uttam Kumaran: Exactly.
767 00:58:56.570 ⇒ 00:59:02.039 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I would say, it’s it’s either like, yeah. There, for example, one of our clients. He’s like, he’s raising money right now. So he’s like.
768 00:59:02.080 ⇒ 00:59:06.319 Uttam Kumaran: so and so, investor, just ask, like, what’s our quarter recorder, like user logins and.
769 00:59:06.810 ⇒ 00:59:08.530 Uttam Kumaran: Bunch of random questions.
770 00:59:09.230 ⇒ 00:59:10.720 Uttam Kumaran: Other people. They’re like.
771 00:59:11.103 ⇒ 00:59:15.129 Uttam Kumaran: hey? I logged in. I just want to see, like how many people are on the platform, or
772 00:59:15.860 ⇒ 00:59:20.220 Uttam Kumaran: it’s like, either like a poking mindset or they’re getting. They’re either poking around.
773 00:59:20.630 ⇒ 00:59:25.479 Uttam Kumaran: They’re getting updates from their team, or they’re getting a direct ask from like
774 00:59:25.550 ⇒ 00:59:29.390 Uttam Kumaran: a fundraise or an external data like those are the 3 things.
775 00:59:42.200 ⇒ 00:59:44.420 Nick: Is there any
776 00:59:45.050 ⇒ 00:59:47.800 Nick: anything that you’ve put out?
777 00:59:48.360 ⇒ 00:59:51.300 Nick: In the past? Anything that you’ve written?
778 00:59:51.743 ⇒ 01:00:00.210 Nick: Maybe even we can expand it. Say conversations that you’ve had? Is there any content or topic that’s performed well.
779 01:00:00.360 ⇒ 01:00:04.330 Nick: or that has resonated with this specific decision maker.
780 01:00:06.220 ⇒ 01:00:12.010 Nick: And if there’s if you don’t have anything. That’s okay. I’m just basically trying to get at
781 01:00:14.030 ⇒ 01:00:19.020 Nick: something, something quantifiable, something tangible, that can be observed as an example.
782 01:00:21.490 ⇒ 01:00:25.130 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I mean, I I mean, I’ve like, I think, the the key.
783 01:00:25.370 ⇒ 01:00:37.370 Uttam Kumaran: Nothing like public facing. But the best thing that things that we’ve done is like when we send updates to clients. And they’re like holy shit. This is like the best update ever. There’s like examples of that that I could share where it’s like
784 01:00:37.980 ⇒ 01:00:41.749 Uttam Kumaran: we just like in the so social, succinct language we said, like.
785 01:00:41.930 ⇒ 01:00:50.439 Uttam Kumaran: Hey, on the marketing side we did Xyz things. This is kicked off on the this side. We did Xyz things on the scraping side of this thing. Oh, and we also
786 01:00:50.680 ⇒ 01:00:53.960 Uttam Kumaran: like are exploring these 2 new tools that just got started.
787 01:00:54.200 ⇒ 01:00:57.040 Uttam Kumaran: And then basically, the Ceos like this is an awesome update.
788 01:00:58.270 ⇒ 01:01:01.220 Uttam Kumaran: And I think there’s been situations like that.
789 01:01:01.540 ⇒ 01:01:06.680 Uttam Kumaran: Also, like I get, people have added me to calls with external people or external vendors where they’re like.
790 01:01:07.120 ⇒ 01:01:14.280 Uttam Kumaran: Hey, I have, Nick, no idea what this team is asking for. Can you guys just like come in and handle this. And then, yeah, admit, or whatever. And I talk to the external team. And
791 01:01:14.820 ⇒ 01:01:26.040 Uttam Kumaran: basically, whatever technical thing they need, it’s just like we bust right through that. And that’s been also really great for the CEO, because if they were to add someone on their team, that person needs contacts, they never worked with that.
792 01:01:26.040 ⇒ 01:01:26.540 Nick: Yeah.
793 01:01:26.540 ⇒ 01:01:32.660 Uttam Kumaran: And maybe our battle like communicating, or they’re like, I don’t know. Like
794 01:01:32.820 ⇒ 01:01:40.110 Uttam Kumaran: for me, I’m like, Okay, here, we need this. This. This will fall up with you on this. And I could speak really technically, in that same sort of pace.
795 01:01:40.480 ⇒ 01:01:41.530 Uttam Kumaran: We get through it, and I.
796 01:01:41.530 ⇒ 01:01:42.180 Nick: Yeah.
797 01:01:42.550 ⇒ 01:01:45.920 Uttam Kumaran: Commonly a CEO, CEO, or someone would be like, can you just hop on a call.
798 01:01:46.300 ⇒ 01:01:50.130 Uttam Kumaran: And like, that’s, I think, a great area where we come in to been really good.
799 01:02:02.990 ⇒ 01:02:04.539 Nick: So this one is a
800 01:02:05.790 ⇒ 01:02:14.930 Nick: it’s like an icebreaker. But you know, it’s either really interesting answer. There’s not something that important that comes from it. If your brand was a person, how would you describe them?
801 01:02:26.400 ⇒ 01:02:27.689 Nick: And this is in relation.
802 01:02:27.690 ⇒ 01:02:31.630 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know. I mean dude, the brand, the brand at the moment is just basically me, cause that’s.
803 01:02:31.940 ⇒ 01:02:36.910 Nick: Exactly, and and so so I would. I would then challenge you to kind of think
804 01:02:36.940 ⇒ 01:02:43.860 Nick: like, continue with that. So this question is done is asked in the context of brand voice.
805 01:02:44.553 ⇒ 01:02:45.760 Nick: and so
806 01:02:46.470 ⇒ 01:02:48.999 Nick: the brand at the moment is just you.
807 01:02:50.510 ⇒ 01:02:54.290 Nick: However, as you grow, it might grow beyond that
808 01:02:54.826 ⇒ 01:02:59.629 Nick: so as you think about the brand growing beyond your face?
809 01:03:01.620 ⇒ 01:03:07.389 Nick: maybe you can take a little bit of what you described about how you want to communicate
810 01:03:07.460 ⇒ 01:03:12.682 Nick: with with the stakeholders and and apply it here. How would you, if you had maybe, like
811 01:03:13.500 ⇒ 01:03:17.130 Nick: spokes, Spokesperson, chief of Staff salesperson.
812 01:03:17.130 ⇒ 01:03:18.430 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I mean.
813 01:03:18.430 ⇒ 01:03:21.090 Nick: That personality, and how do you want them to communicate.
814 01:03:22.280 ⇒ 01:03:25.070 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I mean, I think I want to come across like, where.
815 01:03:25.500 ⇒ 01:03:32.210 Uttam Kumaran: like again, the cutting you had described, which is basically throw us at any problem related to data. And we like come out with.
816 01:03:32.910 ⇒ 01:03:35.019 Uttam Kumaran: With like decisions made on your behalf
817 01:03:35.160 ⇒ 01:03:36.860 Uttam Kumaran: like we don’t just kind of wait around.
818 01:03:37.893 ⇒ 01:03:40.160 Uttam Kumaran: We’re using the best tool, and we’re
819 01:03:40.880 ⇒ 01:03:45.309 Uttam Kumaran: like breaking whatever rules necessary in order for you to kind of get there.
820 01:03:46.440 ⇒ 01:03:49.410 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t see us as people like waiting for instruction.
821 01:03:49.500 ⇒ 01:03:50.910 Uttam Kumaran: We’re kind of like, just
822 01:03:51.350 ⇒ 01:03:52.950 Uttam Kumaran: what do you need done
823 01:03:53.250 ⇒ 01:03:57.090 Uttam Kumaran: and find the things that we can get started as we’re kind of waiting.
824 01:03:57.220 ⇒ 01:04:00.659 Uttam Kumaran: right? That’s kind of like how I am. And even for clients, there’s people who
825 01:04:00.950 ⇒ 01:04:04.319 Uttam Kumaran: again, we we’re doing more work that they paid us for, and obviously.
826 01:04:04.320 ⇒ 01:04:04.750 Nick: Yeah.
827 01:04:04.750 ⇒ 01:04:08.460 Uttam Kumaran: I just need to do it because I I wanna make sure that they get them a good out of it
828 01:04:08.934 ⇒ 01:04:13.119 Uttam Kumaran: where it’s like there’s clients where we’re still in the process of like work of like getting them on board. And I’m kinda like.
829 01:04:13.120 ⇒ 01:04:13.790 Nick: And.
830 01:04:13.790 ⇒ 01:04:17.449 Uttam Kumaran: Let’s just send them something. Let’s just spend like 5 h working on it. Let’s get them.
831 01:04:17.450 ⇒ 01:04:17.830 Nick: Totally.
832 01:04:17.830 ⇒ 01:04:21.059 Uttam Kumaran: Suppose the deal. So I don’t worry about small things like that.
833 01:04:21.400 ⇒ 01:04:24.029 Uttam Kumaran: I’m kind of like, just like, how do we make it feel like we’re
834 01:04:24.350 ⇒ 01:04:26.400 Uttam Kumaran: we come in and we take care of whatever you need.
835 01:04:27.170 ⇒ 01:04:32.120 Uttam Kumaran: whether it’s data or not, you know. And I think there’s things like adding us to random calls
836 01:04:32.220 ⇒ 01:04:34.680 Uttam Kumaran: and having us thrown into like the deep end.
837 01:04:34.945 ⇒ 01:04:37.649 Uttam Kumaran: Those are the things that other agencies aren’t gonna really do. So.
838 01:04:37.650 ⇒ 01:04:38.300 Nick: Yeah.
839 01:04:38.420 ⇒ 01:04:39.470 Nick: absolutely.
840 01:04:41.100 ⇒ 01:04:42.230 Nick: And.
841 01:04:42.230 ⇒ 01:04:44.059 Uttam Kumaran: I have to jump to a thing.
842 01:04:44.060 ⇒ 01:04:45.499 Nick: Oh, yeah. Yeah. No worries man.
843 01:04:45.777 ⇒ 01:04:50.220 Uttam Kumaran: You wanna you wanna continue later today, if you have time, or what do you think.
844 01:04:50.220 ⇒ 01:04:55.981 Nick: I I only had one additional question. I can send it to you, and you can think about it. Async.
845 01:04:56.270 ⇒ 01:04:57.259 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, let’s do that.
846 01:04:57.760 ⇒ 01:05:00.179 Nick: And then we’re pretty much good from there. I can keep working on this.
847 01:05:00.510 ⇒ 01:05:06.429 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. Sec. This is really good. Today, I think the CEO thing that really helps. I’ll be thinking about that
848 01:05:06.730 ⇒ 01:05:08.329 Uttam Kumaran: the rest of the day. So.
849 01:05:08.330 ⇒ 01:05:09.340 Nick: Awesome man love to hear it.
850 01:05:09.340 ⇒ 01:05:10.040 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
851 01:05:10.450 ⇒ 01:05:10.810 Nick: I c-.
852 01:05:10.810 ⇒ 01:05:12.949 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, email, me, whatever you name. Okay?
853 01:05:12.950 ⇒ 01:05:14.039 Nick: Alright. Sounds good man. Later.
854 01:05:14.040 ⇒ 01:05:14.880 Uttam Kumaran: Let’s see.