Meeting Title: Uttam <> Nicolas-HOLD Date: 2024-05-20 Meeting participants: Nicolas Sucari, Uttam Kumaran
WEBVTT
1 00:02:13.903 ⇒ 00:02:14.489 Nicolas Sucari: You, Tom!
2 00:02:17.100 ⇒ 00:02:19.710 Nicolas Sucari: I can’t hear you. Can you hear me?
3 00:02:19.710 ⇒ 00:02:20.430 Uttam Kumaran: Have a nap.
4 00:02:21.050 ⇒ 00:02:21.969 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah.
5 00:02:21.980 ⇒ 00:02:22.890 Nicolas Sucari: I did it.
6 00:02:23.360 ⇒ 00:02:25.750 Uttam Kumaran: How are you? Good good morning.
7 00:02:26.690 ⇒ 00:02:28.620 Nicolas Sucari: Thank you. Good morning to you, too.
8 00:02:29.340 ⇒ 00:02:30.650 Uttam Kumaran: How’s everything going.
9 00:02:31.950 ⇒ 00:02:35.769 Nicolas Sucari: Everything’s going. Great, really excited. Start today. Yeah.
10 00:02:36.380 ⇒ 00:02:43.429 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, awesome. No, I’m I’m I’m so excited I I know it’s been a while since we talked, but everybody on the team.
11 00:02:43.480 ⇒ 00:02:56.899 Uttam Kumaran: you know. Really, we were interviewing a a couple of other candidates, and everybody was was really really excited. I’m I know we had some scheduling issues, so I’m glad we resolved everything. And I’m I’m I’m so excited.
12 00:02:57.790 ⇒ 00:02:59.760 Uttam Kumaran: The the business has been
13 00:02:59.990 ⇒ 00:03:06.610 Uttam Kumaran: growing, and it’s getting more complicated. So I’m very excited to to have another
14 00:03:07.051 ⇒ 00:03:14.109 Uttam Kumaran: partner, another teammate. Come on and and especially someone with your skill set and your background is like
15 00:03:14.590 ⇒ 00:03:16.309 Uttam Kumaran: basically exactly what we need.
16 00:03:17.900 ⇒ 00:03:25.940 Nicolas Sucari: Great. Thank you. Yeah. I’m thrilled to to start understanding a little bit more of the business and start talking in any way I can. Yeah, of course.
17 00:03:26.200 ⇒ 00:03:28.849 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. So I mean, I I
18 00:03:28.990 ⇒ 00:03:30.380 Uttam Kumaran: again, I I
19 00:03:30.550 ⇒ 00:03:36.809 Uttam Kumaran: I it would be great to kind of give you a little bit of a overview. I know I kind of shared a little bit about
20 00:03:37.060 ⇒ 00:03:42.802 Uttam Kumaran: the company before, but I’m happy to go into specifics. And I just I just have this
21 00:03:43.630 ⇒ 00:03:47.470 Uttam Kumaran: document that I’m taking notes, and I’ll just send it to you 1 s.
22 00:03:48.470 ⇒ 00:03:49.220 Nicolas Sucari: Okay.
23 00:03:50.140 ⇒ 00:03:51.980 Nicolas Sucari: I’ve been speaking with.
24 00:03:51.980 ⇒ 00:03:52.660 Uttam Kumaran: Can we.
25 00:03:53.440 ⇒ 00:03:55.480 Nicolas Sucari: I was seeing yesterday a little bit.
26 00:03:55.850 ⇒ 00:03:56.960 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, not a good.
27 00:03:58.240 ⇒ 00:04:01.570 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. He mentioned that. You guys are maybe in similar areas.
28 00:04:02.170 ⇒ 00:04:03.090 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
29 00:04:06.160 ⇒ 00:04:08.730 Uttam Kumaran: yeah. I told them, we’ll have to come do a trip down there.
30 00:04:10.210 ⇒ 00:04:13.469 Nicolas Sucari: Obviously, yeah, you will need to come here to Argentina.
31 00:04:13.660 ⇒ 00:04:14.410 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
32 00:04:25.040 ⇒ 00:04:26.030 Uttam Kumaran: So I just sent.
33 00:04:26.030 ⇒ 00:04:26.940 Nicolas Sucari: Yeah, can see.
34 00:04:26.940 ⇒ 00:04:27.470 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, okay.
35 00:04:27.470 ⇒ 00:04:28.170 Nicolas Sucari: Yeah.
36 00:04:30.000 ⇒ 00:04:39.039 Uttam Kumaran: So I mean, one is you know, I’d love to just have this document as a surrounding document. And when we meet we can just basically have notes here.
37 00:04:40.350 ⇒ 00:04:45.039 Uttam Kumaran: I know I shared several tools and things like that, but
38 00:04:45.170 ⇒ 00:04:48.860 Uttam Kumaran: all of those should be fairly straightforward in terms of
39 00:04:48.950 ⇒ 00:04:51.359 Uttam Kumaran: zoom and all that. So I’m not worried
40 00:04:51.430 ⇒ 00:05:01.050 Uttam Kumaran: about that. If there’s, I guess, to start, if there’s any other like software or things that you typically use, or you want to use. Let me know.
41 00:05:02.800 ⇒ 00:05:16.670 Nicolas Sucari: yeah, no, I think pretty. Everything is pretty straightforward. I already access one password. But I I I haven’t seen any E or or any access there, I just seen like my profile, like my vault.
42 00:05:17.135 ⇒ 00:05:28.599 Nicolas Sucari: I don’t know if you need to give me other accesses there notion I’m seeing like, 3 pages the content strategy content overview. And yeah, the questionnaire.
43 00:05:29.529 ⇒ 00:05:46.085 Nicolas Sucari: Then slack, I yeah, I’m already in slack. So yeah, we can. That’s okay. I don’t know. Then when when you you will tell me that when we start to understand a little bit more on what are the products that you’re working on. They use kind of
44 00:05:46.955 ⇒ 00:05:50.809 Nicolas Sucari: project management project management tool or something like that. Right?
45 00:05:51.380 ⇒ 00:06:02.370 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, we’ll talk about that today, and then I’ll get all that, and I can take care of everything. So I guess, like I overall. You know, I told you a little about the business. So again, we
46 00:06:02.560 ⇒ 00:06:22.619 Uttam Kumaran: we primarily focus on data analytics, related projects for clients. So we have 3 current clients. Right now. And we’ve we’ve probably gone through about 5 clients total, including these 3, 2 of which turn because their company kind of just had the started struggle.
47 00:06:23.027 ⇒ 00:06:33.583 Uttam Kumaran: Both of all. So Stella is the newest client, pool parts and asset link our existing clients. I will put in all the links and everything to them.
48 00:06:34.180 ⇒ 00:06:37.309 Uttam Kumaran: so you can kind of go click around and learn about their business.
49 00:06:37.777 ⇒ 00:06:48.540 Uttam Kumaran: But overall like the goals of the company really, since last year last year was really just getting off the ground. But this year it’s a lot more focused on
50 00:06:48.590 ⇒ 00:06:52.378 Uttam Kumaran: one is like reliably engineering projects.
51 00:06:53.120 ⇒ 00:07:04.999 Uttam Kumaran: the second goal is to go get more projects. And then the third goal is to optimize and go after the most lucrative or the highest margin projects in that order.
52 00:07:05.645 ⇒ 00:07:17.710 Uttam Kumaran: The reason why in that order is because I I I know I have an ability to go, sell and get clients. The biggest challenge currently is, can we reliably deliver work?
53 00:07:17.790 ⇒ 00:07:20.689 Uttam Kumaran: And, as you know, delivering work is not just
54 00:07:21.453 ⇒ 00:07:23.769 Uttam Kumaran: doing the engineering work, it’s
55 00:07:23.780 ⇒ 00:07:25.460 Uttam Kumaran: wrapping everything above.
56 00:07:25.570 ⇒ 00:07:37.349 Uttam Kumaran: It’s actually probably way, more communication. It’s almost like there’s a there’s a great ratio of communication and that sort of meetings to actual engineering work.
57 00:07:37.980 ⇒ 00:07:44.080 Uttam Kumaran: and so that’s the thing that me and the team have kind of been iterating on. But it’s primarily me thinking about that.
58 00:07:44.410 ⇒ 00:07:58.889 Uttam Kumaran: The trouble with me thinking about that is that we we don’t get to do any sales and then also, of course, I’m I’m managing all the company payroll and things like that. So it’s the the biggest challenge, I would say is.
59 00:07:59.585 ⇒ 00:08:01.600 Uttam Kumaran: getting me out of the loop.
60 00:08:01.720 ⇒ 00:08:17.179 Uttam Kumaran: so that one I’m more like my kind of like super power is in like a more of a strategic level. Looking at. Okay, who are the new clients coming in? What are some new technologies. We can go try and that’s where I need a lot of time.
61 00:08:17.550 ⇒ 00:08:24.719 Uttam Kumaran: My time currently is definitely being leveraged for both. A lot of engineering work and a lot of client communication.
62 00:08:25.170 ⇒ 00:08:32.129 Uttam Kumaran: I I would say the the engineering work. That’s fine. I’m happy to do that, and I’m happy to be another engineer, because, again.
63 00:08:32.150 ⇒ 00:08:43.730 Uttam Kumaran: that saves the company money and I can still deliver work. The problem on the project management side, as you know, is there’s currently 3 clients that we’re actively communicating with on a daily basis.
64 00:08:44.245 ⇒ 00:09:04.704 Uttam Kumaran: And so that’s certainly like has led to some challenges. Most of the challenges come into. Hey? Where is this thing that we talked about last week, or you know, when we’re having? We’re having several meetings. But then notes get lost. And then we don’t end up tracking all those issues. So there’s pretty basic things like that.
65 00:09:05.090 ⇒ 00:09:11.699 Uttam Kumaran: so I would say, those are the the 3 major goals. I’m just gonna I’ll just keep writing stuff here so
66 00:09:12.530 ⇒ 00:09:14.980 Uttam Kumaran: and then if you have any questions, feel free.
67 00:09:18.400 ⇒ 00:09:21.870 Nicolas Sucari: With with all the clients. I I know you.
68 00:09:21.970 ⇒ 00:09:32.049 Nicolas Sucari: You give them. You give them the freedom to choose the communication tool. If it is email, slack, or can. But are there? They are all lack, or
69 00:09:32.510 ⇒ 00:09:35.220 Nicolas Sucari: or or how are you managing the communications.
70 00:09:35.670 ⇒ 00:09:37.894 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. So it’s primarily
71 00:09:38.570 ⇒ 00:09:39.760 Uttam Kumaran: it’s it’s tough.
72 00:09:40.130 ⇒ 00:09:40.500 Nicolas Sucari: Mate.
73 00:09:41.020 ⇒ 00:09:43.830 Uttam Kumaran: It’s primarily E, it’s primarily slack
74 00:09:44.090 ⇒ 00:09:47.221 Uttam Kumaran: or email. But then also, people are texting me.
75 00:09:47.800 ⇒ 00:09:48.540 Uttam Kumaran: So.
76 00:09:48.540 ⇒ 00:09:49.280 Nicolas Sucari: Yeah, okay.
77 00:09:49.530 ⇒ 00:09:55.362 Uttam Kumaran: What the I guess this is where, again, I would love to use your to kind of get your feedback is
78 00:09:55.670 ⇒ 00:10:00.629 Uttam Kumaran: I no longer want to be like getting text from folks. However.
79 00:10:01.110 ⇒ 00:10:11.429 Uttam Kumaran: I could see how it would be nice for them to have a direct through line to someone like me. So maybe that’s something we can work on. Is like what to do, what to do around there.
80 00:10:12.160 ⇒ 00:10:13.130 Nicolas Sucari: Yeah, of course.
81 00:10:14.020 ⇒ 00:10:31.879 Nicolas Sucari: I think probably we should need to understand first, what is that? They are getting directly from you so that we can start like, probably standardizing those answers or looking for that information in other places so that they don’t need to go directly for you.
82 00:10:32.830 ⇒ 00:10:37.670 Nicolas Sucari: but yeah, totally. We need to understand what is that they are needing. And why are they are
83 00:10:37.860 ⇒ 00:10:42.320 Nicolas Sucari: going directly to through text messages to you, and then try to
84 00:10:42.400 ⇒ 00:11:00.402 Nicolas Sucari: find another way. Probably it’s like it’s a better communication to have like a quick answer and that anyone can help answering those questions right? But if they are feeling that they are not getting the response, or something like that, they will go back messages.
85 00:11:01.740 ⇒ 00:11:03.977 Uttam Kumaran: Exactly. You know you’re totally right.
86 00:11:04.660 ⇒ 00:11:12.910 Uttam Kumaran: and I’m happy, and I know again we can make totally make that happen. The the thing is you’re right is when when we do set that up, we want to make sure that it’s at the same.
87 00:11:12.910 ⇒ 00:11:13.580 Nicolas Sucari: Yeah.
88 00:11:13.980 ⇒ 00:11:18.599 Uttam Kumaran: I get that? The the other. So those are the kind of the 3 top things. I guess
89 00:11:18.620 ⇒ 00:11:21.949 Uttam Kumaran: initially, I’ll kind of just maybe we could start by
90 00:11:22.240 ⇒ 00:11:30.690 Uttam Kumaran: talking a little bit about the current team workflow. And then I can talk about each of the clients. So I’m kind of jumping around. But
91 00:11:31.180 ⇒ 00:11:44.714 Uttam Kumaran: the current team workflow is right now we have. So even the current, I’ll just talk about the team. So the current team. We have. We have Ryan, we have. Patrick.
92 00:11:45.600 ⇒ 00:11:50.740 Uttam Kumaran: we have Jacob. We’re Augustine, we have, and then we have Nick
93 00:11:53.610 ⇒ 00:11:54.950 Uttam Kumaran: so, and then
94 00:11:55.360 ⇒ 00:11:56.824 Uttam Kumaran: we have me. But
95 00:11:58.233 ⇒ 00:12:03.219 Uttam Kumaran: so so all of these 5 are all engineers.
96 00:12:04.154 ⇒ 00:12:07.009 Uttam Kumaran: Ryan is full time.
97 00:12:08.797 ⇒ 00:12:11.600 Uttam Kumaran: Everybody else is basically part time.
98 00:12:12.231 ⇒ 00:12:16.869 Uttam Kumaran: This is another challenge. That we that I’ve been kind of figuring out is
99 00:12:16.980 ⇒ 00:12:23.040 Uttam Kumaran: as new clients. Come on. I’m figuring out which person has a skill set to be able to apply cross client.
100 00:12:23.210 ⇒ 00:12:27.500 Uttam Kumaran: So the thing is to understand is one person dedicated to one client.
101 00:12:27.570 ⇒ 00:12:34.360 Uttam Kumaran: It’s one person dedicated to Max to and then also understanding where what skill set they have and what they don’t have.
102 00:12:34.520 ⇒ 00:12:37.737 Uttam Kumaran: So I would say for the most part,
103 00:12:39.140 ⇒ 00:12:46.039 Uttam Kumaran: Augustine, Jacob, Patrick, and Ryan kind of Augustine, Patrick, and Ryan kind of work across multiple clients.
104 00:12:46.100 ⇒ 00:12:50.149 Uttam Kumaran: Jacob primarily works on cool parts.
105 00:12:50.190 ⇒ 00:12:52.430 Uttam Kumaran: and Nick works on Stella.
106 00:12:53.850 ⇒ 00:12:54.190 Nicolas Sucari: Great.
107 00:12:55.160 ⇒ 00:12:56.150 Uttam Kumaran: So
108 00:12:56.260 ⇒ 00:12:59.470 Uttam Kumaran: the thing I I wanna kind of understand, is
109 00:12:59.560 ⇒ 00:13:03.180 Uttam Kumaran: what is everybody’s skill sets, which I know from the engineering side. But
110 00:13:03.220 ⇒ 00:13:08.007 Uttam Kumaran: it helps when you plan a new project, say, we need this type of person, this type of person
111 00:13:08.360 ⇒ 00:13:09.390 Uttam Kumaran: capacity for.
112 00:13:09.763 ⇒ 00:13:16.850 Nicolas Sucari: I get it? Yeah, totally. And I think, as for now, it’s only you that you are like.
113 00:13:17.251 ⇒ 00:13:27.140 Nicolas Sucari: understanding those skill sets, or is kind of help you is, is helping, you understand, and plan who is like the best fit for each of different clients.
114 00:13:27.370 ⇒ 00:13:33.069 Uttam Kumaran: Exactly. Exactly. So. One thing is, we can do like breakout roles.
115 00:13:34.370 ⇒ 00:13:34.970 Nicolas Sucari: Yeah.
116 00:13:41.160 ⇒ 00:14:05.410 Nicolas Sucari: so that then it would be it would be good if you have like sales, deck or like, I don’t know like a pitch or something that you use to sell clients, so that I can understand also, like, what are the services that you’re offering to the clients, and probably that can help me also understand, like roles or the responsibilities that we will need to to break down with each of the team.
117 00:14:05.710 ⇒ 00:14:06.970 Uttam Kumaran: Perfect. Okay.
118 00:14:08.959 ⇒ 00:14:13.850 Uttam Kumaran: so basically, the the kind of the team workflows we use github projects for
119 00:14:15.067 ⇒ 00:14:17.279 Uttam Kumaran: all of our like project management.
120 00:14:17.835 ⇒ 00:14:20.749 Uttam Kumaran: I decided to do that because
121 00:14:20.970 ⇒ 00:14:23.090 Uttam Kumaran: it’s nice to hook the issues up
122 00:14:23.180 ⇒ 00:14:24.389 Uttam Kumaran: to the tasks.
123 00:14:25.265 ⇒ 00:14:29.450 Uttam Kumaran: I I I’m totally open to switching to whatever
124 00:14:29.490 ⇒ 00:14:32.539 Uttam Kumaran: we wanna switch to. So I’ll leave that decision to you.
125 00:14:33.225 ⇒ 00:14:33.760 Uttam Kumaran: Great!
126 00:14:34.070 ⇒ 00:14:42.969 Uttam Kumaran: You can take a look at the Github projects. If you think it has all the functionality we can keep it. If you think we want to switch to linear or to something else.
127 00:14:42.970 ⇒ 00:14:43.694 Nicolas Sucari: Yeah.
128 00:14:44.630 ⇒ 00:15:08.399 Nicolas Sucari: I I’ve used. I’ve been using a lot of these project management tools in the past years. There are a lot of different ones. I’ve used linear click capture. Hello, Jira, a lot of them. So yeah, probably we can. We can see how you have. It’s working. Probably Github is is okay. We can also try notion if you want something different. But yeah, probably we will need to understand what are the
129 00:15:08.400 ⇒ 00:15:26.990 Nicolas Sucari: the things that we that that are hurting as team and then understand which is the best tool to address those requirements. But yeah, I think Github is good. And then, O, obviously, all of those are tools they have, like an integration with Github, where you can link different tasks with the with information there. So if.
130 00:15:26.990 ⇒ 00:15:27.470 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
131 00:15:27.470 ⇒ 00:15:29.039 Nicolas Sucari: Something possible to do. Yeah.
132 00:15:29.940 ⇒ 00:15:35.039 Uttam Kumaran: So one thing that’d be great here is if you can create a Github account. I.
133 00:15:35.040 ⇒ 00:15:35.579 Nicolas Sucari: Yeah, sure.
134 00:15:35.580 ⇒ 00:15:39.050 Uttam Kumaran: Or if you already have one, I can share that. If you just send me your username.
135 00:15:39.640 ⇒ 00:15:42.859 Nicolas Sucari: It. It doesn’t need to be with the brain forge email, right?
136 00:15:42.930 ⇒ 00:15:44.390 Nicolas Sucari: No, or yes or.
137 00:15:44.390 ⇒ 00:15:46.120 Uttam Kumaran: If you already have one. That’s okay.
138 00:15:47.110 ⇒ 00:15:49.350 Nicolas Sucari: Let me see? Because, yeah, I think you have one.
139 00:15:49.940 ⇒ 00:15:51.940 Nicolas Sucari: If not, I will create it. Don’t worry.
140 00:15:55.360 ⇒ 00:15:58.719 Nicolas Sucari: Yeah, I already haven’t here signing
141 00:16:00.760 ⇒ 00:16:03.069 Nicolas Sucari: authorization by email.
142 00:16:08.510 ⇒ 00:16:12.810 Nicolas Sucari: Yup how can I share my profile?
143 00:16:17.140 ⇒ 00:16:18.870 Nicolas Sucari: Me see?
144 00:16:19.600 ⇒ 00:16:22.090 Nicolas Sucari: Yeah. But my my account is, let me see.
145 00:16:22.622 ⇒ 00:16:26.719 Nicolas Sucari: Yeah, it’s nicosukari. But let me see how I can share.
146 00:16:28.870 ⇒ 00:16:30.920 Nicolas Sucari: I don’t know how to share
147 00:16:32.100 ⇒ 00:16:35.310 Nicolas Sucari: like my information. But yeah, you can try. Probably this
148 00:16:35.840 ⇒ 00:16:38.249 Nicolas Sucari: look for my name. I will send it through slack.
149 00:16:38.950 ⇒ 00:16:41.260 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. I’ll just add you right now to the.
150 00:17:10.750 ⇒ 00:17:13.629 Nicolas Sucari: Let me know if you can’t find me. I can try.
151 00:17:14.750 ⇒ 00:17:18.215 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I think I found you. I just added you. So
152 00:17:19.670 ⇒ 00:17:21.190 Uttam Kumaran: take a look. Yeah.
153 00:17:21.790 ⇒ 00:17:22.359 Nicolas Sucari: No
154 00:17:22.910 ⇒ 00:17:28.302 Nicolas Sucari: sign in. Let me see if I can. You add me to the organization or to
155 00:17:29.415 ⇒ 00:17:33.160 Uttam Kumaran: I’m just adding you to the organization.
156 00:17:35.540 ⇒ 00:17:37.010 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, take a look now.
157 00:17:49.420 ⇒ 00:17:51.010 Nicolas Sucari: organizations
158 00:17:51.620 ⇒ 00:17:54.080 Nicolas Sucari: praying for. Ji. There. Okay, excellent.
159 00:17:55.360 ⇒ 00:17:57.530 Nicolas Sucari: I will accept. Join
160 00:17:59.300 ⇒ 00:18:00.609 Nicolas Sucari: there we go. Yep.
161 00:18:00.750 ⇒ 00:18:01.390 Nicolas Sucari: I mean.
162 00:18:01.390 ⇒ 00:18:06.121 Uttam Kumaran: We should see all repositories there and then under projects you should also see
163 00:18:06.460 ⇒ 00:18:07.100 Nicolas Sucari: Yeah.
164 00:18:08.810 ⇒ 00:18:10.139 Uttam Kumaran: See to the projects.
165 00:18:12.100 ⇒ 00:18:15.350 Nicolas Sucari: Yeah, tracker template. And to do, yeah.
166 00:18:18.800 ⇒ 00:18:22.629 Uttam Kumaran: So, yeah, the tracker is the primary one.
167 00:18:24.860 ⇒ 00:18:27.740 Uttam Kumaran: there’s a bunch of different views. And again, all these tickets are.
168 00:18:28.200 ⇒ 00:18:29.820 Uttam Kumaran: we can kind of go through
169 00:18:30.280 ⇒ 00:18:31.630 Uttam Kumaran: another meeting, but.
170 00:18:33.810 ⇒ 00:18:34.870 Nicolas Sucari: Excellent. Yeah.
171 00:18:35.310 ⇒ 00:18:41.590 Uttam Kumaran: So we, we, we initially went through just making it individual tasks. And then now everything is an issue.
172 00:18:42.211 ⇒ 00:18:51.250 Uttam Kumaran: So every task is an issue because most of the tasks get applied to code. You can link the pull request to the issue, and then it links to the tick.
173 00:18:51.946 ⇒ 00:18:57.543 Uttam Kumaran: The things that are a struggle with projects. Right now, one is
174 00:18:58.520 ⇒ 00:19:00.470 Uttam Kumaran: understanding due dates.
175 00:19:00.670 ⇒ 00:19:02.350 Uttam Kumaran: So that’s something that
176 00:19:02.830 ⇒ 00:19:04.510 Uttam Kumaran: has been an issue
177 00:19:04.920 ⇒ 00:19:14.900 Uttam Kumaran: primarily, just because of how complex. There’s too many things going on. I haven’t really pushed the team to say it’s due here and then follow up when it goes over. So
178 00:19:14.930 ⇒ 00:19:18.019 Uttam Kumaran: that’s one thing that’s been difficult is understanding delivery dates.
179 00:19:19.231 ⇒ 00:19:23.540 Uttam Kumaran: Good thing is also understanding total capacity for each person.
180 00:19:24.411 ⇒ 00:19:30.440 Uttam Kumaran: So like again, how much work can our team take on? And that helps for 2 things. One, it understands.
181 00:19:30.600 ⇒ 00:19:31.740 Uttam Kumaran: Are we
182 00:19:32.010 ⇒ 00:19:37.200 Uttam Kumaran: over subscribed on work for our existing clients, based on like our contracts with them.
183 00:19:37.380 ⇒ 00:19:44.190 Uttam Kumaran: Second things it allows us to know if we’re going to go get new clients. Do we have enough folks for that?
184 00:19:45.440 ⇒ 00:19:46.040 Nicolas Sucari: Okay.
185 00:19:46.410 ⇒ 00:19:55.200 Uttam Kumaran: So those are the those are the the kind of like the things around both due dates and capacity. I would say. Those are the 2 things that are top of mind for me.
186 00:19:56.200 ⇒ 00:20:01.260 Nicolas Sucari: Are, are you working? Kind of a giant mythology, or something like that.
187 00:20:01.370 ⇒ 00:20:02.449 Nicolas Sucari: or or which frame
188 00:20:02.850 ⇒ 00:20:04.320 Nicolas Sucari: kind of using.
189 00:20:04.900 ⇒ 00:20:09.907 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. So we initially. So we could talk a little bit about the meeting kind of
190 00:20:11.360 ⇒ 00:20:16.370 Uttam Kumaran: So we initially were doing more like one week sprints
191 00:20:19.010 ⇒ 00:20:23.820 Uttam Kumaran: and it kind of just broke down because there’d be a lot of like things going back and forth.
192 00:20:23.920 ⇒ 00:20:33.019 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, I’ve run. I’ve run teams on one week and 2 weeks sprints. But again, you know, it’s it’s kind of totally based on, did you groom everything.
193 00:20:33.510 ⇒ 00:20:34.610 Nicolas Sucari: Yeah, yeah, thing, right?
194 00:20:34.610 ⇒ 00:20:37.989 Uttam Kumaran: Right for that to work. If every. If things are coming up new.
195 00:20:38.070 ⇒ 00:20:43.079 Uttam Kumaran: then it’s kind of difficult right? And so we are delivering work
196 00:20:43.970 ⇒ 00:20:45.890 Uttam Kumaran: kind of during the week.
197 00:20:45.960 ⇒ 00:20:51.599 Uttam Kumaran: but because we don’t really have like a hey? Friday is our like deployment for everything.
198 00:20:51.660 ⇒ 00:20:54.329 Uttam Kumaran: Things kind of go. So I would say, now.
199 00:20:54.768 ⇒ 00:21:00.869 Uttam Kumaran: it’s probably a it’s just probably really, really basic as basic as the entire team meets every day.
200 00:21:01.450 ⇒ 00:21:04.239 Uttam Kumaran: And we kind of go through every single client.
201 00:21:04.785 ⇒ 00:21:16.860 Uttam Kumaran: And here’s here’s the good parts about that one is we’re building a team, of course. So previously I had individual meetings for every client with different people. It was tough to see collaboration.
202 00:21:17.200 ⇒ 00:21:23.319 Uttam Kumaran: The problem now is that we’re going through 3 clients, not everybody has contacts on everything.
203 00:21:23.400 ⇒ 00:21:28.290 Uttam Kumaran: And it’s just a large meeting, you know. And so there’s challenges with that.
204 00:21:28.610 ⇒ 00:21:36.140 Uttam Kumaran: So one thing I want to hear from you is like how you typically ran these and like, what do you think we should do.
205 00:21:37.390 ⇒ 00:21:38.670 Nicolas Sucari: So
206 00:21:38.760 ⇒ 00:22:07.609 Nicolas Sucari: without knowing, like what is, are the real struggles of the team? Probably, if it is large meeting, I don’t know if it takes you a lot of time. But if it takes you a lot of time, probably people is feeling that they are they. They have nothing to do in the meeting at some point right because when they are hearing or when they are listening to, other people talk about their project, and they don’t have any info that probably they are feeling like what I’m doing here. I must be working at other parts. If that is happening, we should probably
207 00:22:07.780 ⇒ 00:22:14.949 Nicolas Sucari: think on splitting the meeting into 2 different meetings, according to which, specifically, which project is each of the
208 00:22:15.060 ⇒ 00:22:24.109 Nicolas Sucari: each of the team each of the people participating in, but also we can think different things in order to keep building a team.
209 00:22:24.170 ⇒ 00:22:47.309 Nicolas Sucari: For example, I have you know, in my actual company, we we are a lot. We are 80 people. We have a lot of different projects. So it’s impossible to have like one meeting with everyone. But we have like a 15 meeting check in on Mondays and Thursday, you know. Talk about anything of of you, on what about your weekend? What about? And and everyone in the in the.
210 00:22:47.400 ⇒ 00:22:58.210 Nicolas Sucari: in, in the company can access those meetings, and just like have a quick chat with everyone to to keep building that feeling of we are all part of the same team. Right?
211 00:22:58.210 ⇒ 00:23:09.449 Nicolas Sucari: That is one example. We can see if it’s something that they like. They don’t like also in between projects. What what is happening is if you have, like one people
212 00:23:09.758 ⇒ 00:23:34.159 Nicolas Sucari: of your team that only works at least the only person working one project. Probably it would be nice to like, collaborate these 2. So probably you can like join people working on different projects in the same meeting, and focus on 2 or 3 clients like a daily daily standup, right and focus and do it quickly with if it is few people. If, then, you have a a project that involve
213 00:23:34.220 ⇒ 00:23:46.850 Nicolas Sucari: kind of more people that is kind of different, and we need probably to separate them in in one specific meeting to directly address, what are the requirements of those those bigger clients? Right.
214 00:23:46.850 ⇒ 00:23:47.570 Uttam Kumaran: Sorry.
215 00:23:47.570 ⇒ 00:23:58.679 Nicolas Sucari: But yeah, we can do a lot of things right now. You’re like 6 or 7 probably we can keep working in one meeting. But we can like start thinking on how to
216 00:23:58.680 ⇒ 00:24:18.059 Nicolas Sucari: probably summarize that meeting with everyone into 2 or 3 things by person so that they can keep their updates and know what is the they need to do on that day, probably. And then, if we need to like, focus on or discuss something like a little bit further. We can create a different meeting or something like that. Yep.
217 00:24:18.300 ⇒ 00:24:35.399 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, no, that’s a great point. And so the the other thing you mentioned is like, what are they working on in a given day. So that’s also the problem is, as things get delayed and then things become the priority. So one thing is like understanding. What is everybody working on a given day. And is it the most necessary thing for the client?
218 00:24:36.377 ⇒ 00:24:52.536 Uttam Kumaran: So that’s something that we definitely like need help on? And the second thing is, you’re right, like how do I? How do we summarize first for one of the people on the team? This is what I’m tasked with. Here’s when it’s due. And here’s when there’s like accountability for when it should be delivered.
219 00:24:52.850 ⇒ 00:25:05.819 Uttam Kumaran: Right? It’s exactly right. And I again, I would prefer something where we all, we all meet, maybe on a Monday, Thursday clock cadence. But, for example, like Jacob, only works on one client on one specific part of that client.
220 00:25:06.140 ⇒ 00:25:07.050 Uttam Kumaran: So.
221 00:25:07.510 ⇒ 00:25:18.020 Uttam Kumaran: And also when in that meeting, it bounces like, I’m the only one with like every understanding. So I’m like kind of guiding it. Instead, I I always push the engineers to say like.
222 00:25:18.220 ⇒ 00:25:27.030 Uttam Kumaran: Just look at, look at the board and go. One thing is, it should be pretty simple. But again, I know that it’s been kind of complicated with how much we have right now.
223 00:25:27.677 ⇒ 00:25:36.439 Uttam Kumaran: And I want to make it easier for everyone, because I want everybody to be focused on delivering the quality work that they can deliver, and then also, when they get done, what’s next?
224 00:25:36.620 ⇒ 00:25:37.139 Uttam Kumaran: Right?
225 00:25:38.910 ⇒ 00:25:49.279 Nicolas Sucari: So they they they don’t have like data autonomy on picking their their next task like there is no play, or you help you help them with that right.
226 00:25:49.280 ⇒ 00:25:51.429 Uttam Kumaran: I help them with that? Yeah, I, I,
227 00:25:51.460 ⇒ 00:25:56.190 Uttam Kumaran: we I, I basically help assign people to those tasks based on.
228 00:25:56.190 ⇒ 00:25:56.690 Nicolas Sucari: Okay.
229 00:25:57.008 ⇒ 00:25:58.600 Uttam Kumaran: Based on either the client
230 00:25:59.122 ⇒ 00:26:01.799 Uttam Kumaran: the type of work or the priority.
231 00:26:03.204 ⇒ 00:26:11.605 Uttam Kumaran: And some people have the ability to work in multiple different technical capabilities. Some people are very rigid. So
232 00:26:12.580 ⇒ 00:26:14.739 Uttam Kumaran: it’s it’s variable. Yeah.
233 00:26:14.740 ⇒ 00:26:19.290 Nicolas Sucari: And and do do you like agree on a roadmap of
234 00:26:19.320 ⇒ 00:26:22.000 Nicolas Sucari: tasks or something with the client.
235 00:26:22.710 ⇒ 00:26:30.199 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. So with the clients. We do have like a roughly around, like 2 or 3 weeks of like work.
236 00:26:30.330 ⇒ 00:26:33.269 Uttam Kumaran: you know. Probably at a given month. We know what the month
237 00:26:33.310 ⇒ 00:26:37.040 Uttam Kumaran: level of work is again, even that we can continue to extend
238 00:26:37.510 ⇒ 00:26:49.760 Uttam Kumaran: but then the month breakdown into tasks and then getting to. That is where we’re having a lot of difficulty, just because of the amount of people. And you know the amount of tasks. So
239 00:26:49.820 ⇒ 00:26:58.299 Uttam Kumaran: I I don’t. I even think we could get away with doing less work. It was just actually the communication and delivering again. Feedback
240 00:26:58.420 ⇒ 00:27:01.250 Uttam Kumaran: is where we get really, really like. There’s just.
241 00:27:01.800 ⇒ 00:27:04.439 Uttam Kumaran: you know, just kind of have to be on the ball there. So.
242 00:27:04.970 ⇒ 00:27:08.029 Nicolas Sucari: Okay, yeah, I’m gonna try to help you with
243 00:27:08.370 ⇒ 00:27:09.540 Uttam Kumaran: I appreciate it.
244 00:27:11.139 ⇒ 00:27:17.009 Uttam Kumaran: The other thing is, yeah, like, standardize the communication channels with the client.
245 00:27:18.262 ⇒ 00:27:24.750 Uttam Kumaran: So you know, I’ve tried multiple things where we have like a weekly meeting with every client on Friday.
246 00:27:25.732 ⇒ 00:27:36.360 Uttam Kumaran: and then in the middle of the week, we’re like emailing updates. So one thing is, I really want to get standardized on when we gather feedback when we deliver work.
247 00:27:36.640 ⇒ 00:27:42.689 Uttam Kumaran: and then when we gather feedback and we deliver work right like that iteration cycle. I want to be really clean. But I I
248 00:27:42.820 ⇒ 00:27:47.639 Uttam Kumaran: you know the problems with getting feedback and then saying like, Oh, it’ll get done tomorrow.
249 00:27:47.990 ⇒ 00:27:51.819 Uttam Kumaran: Right? So those are the things that have got us into issues.
250 00:27:52.386 ⇒ 00:27:56.370 Uttam Kumaran: Also, it’s like, for example, if we don’t get feedback for 2 weeks.
251 00:27:56.450 ⇒ 00:28:04.750 Uttam Kumaran: then when we get feedback, the world has changed. So those are like the standard process I want. Second thing is, you know how important is to get facetime with the client.
252 00:28:04.760 ⇒ 00:28:17.290 Uttam Kumaran: and really show that are on the ball. There. That’s something that I love to do, and again, I think, has been the reason why we’ve retained a lot of our work is when we do get on the phone with them. We’re really we show a lot of work.
253 00:28:17.845 ⇒ 00:28:25.150 Uttam Kumaran: I think it’s the time in between that we really are getting kind of like stuck on is
254 00:28:25.200 ⇒ 00:28:29.849 Uttam Kumaran: when we’re when work is coming or it comes out. It’s not the. It’s not like the quality.
255 00:28:29.870 ⇒ 00:28:32.230 Uttam Kumaran: How do we translate that? Those are all
256 00:28:32.300 ⇒ 00:28:33.999 Uttam Kumaran: like areas? We’re getting stuck.
257 00:28:34.850 ⇒ 00:28:35.490 Nicolas Sucari: Okay.
258 00:28:35.920 ⇒ 00:28:36.710 Nicolas Sucari: Great.
259 00:28:36.860 ⇒ 00:28:37.860 Nicolas Sucari: Excellent.
260 00:28:39.996 ⇒ 00:28:50.439 Uttam Kumaran: The other thing is, yeah, just like meeting notes and stuff. So I basically, what I found is best is, I have zoom record, like every meeting that basically I do
261 00:28:51.345 ⇒ 00:28:52.170 Uttam Kumaran: and
262 00:28:52.740 ⇒ 00:28:59.199 Uttam Kumaran: I just look through the transcript or look through this summary notes. And I can basically
263 00:28:59.839 ⇒ 00:29:05.770 Uttam Kumaran: just go from there. I don’t know if you use any tools like that, or if you have any thoughts on that.
264 00:29:05.770 ⇒ 00:29:09.081 Nicolas Sucari: Yeah, I I I’ve used some of them.
265 00:29:09.950 ⇒ 00:29:14.179 Nicolas Sucari: I don’t know. How is it called the AI on Zoom. It’s companion right.
266 00:29:14.180 ⇒ 00:29:14.890 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
267 00:29:15.219 ⇒ 00:29:25.759 Nicolas Sucari: And and do you have, like like a place where all the transcripts are being like stored so that we can review and like, use that information for something or not.
268 00:29:25.980 ⇒ 00:29:28.140 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so it’s all going into zoom.
269 00:29:28.160 ⇒ 00:29:33.820 Uttam Kumaran: And if you go to any meeting, and I I think I gave you like a license. And so you should be able to set everything up.
270 00:29:35.460 ⇒ 00:29:36.140 Uttam Kumaran: but I’ll make.
271 00:29:36.140 ⇒ 00:29:36.960 Nicolas Sucari: Ray.
272 00:29:37.200 ⇒ 00:29:41.069 Uttam Kumaran: I’ll make sure that you have admin access. So you can see every meeting that’s happening.
273 00:29:41.963 ⇒ 00:29:43.290 Uttam Kumaran: But basically
274 00:29:43.540 ⇒ 00:29:54.370 Uttam Kumaran: correct. But the the the current problem is it doesn’t. It gets saved as a transcript. And there’s highlights. One thing that I’m gonna do is actually automate sort of like getting
275 00:29:54.390 ⇒ 00:29:57.239 Uttam Kumaran: getting the action items out
276 00:29:57.280 ⇒ 00:30:01.860 Uttam Kumaran: and send it into. So we’re gonna build a process that
277 00:30:02.187 ⇒ 00:30:06.630 Uttam Kumaran: I like the Zoom One cause it’s really lightweight. You’re not adding another. And
278 00:30:06.680 ⇒ 00:30:08.819 Uttam Kumaran: it basically just records.
279 00:30:09.150 ⇒ 00:30:11.270 Uttam Kumaran: And it’s really nice. So
280 00:30:12.080 ⇒ 00:30:27.782 Nicolas Sucari: Excellent. Yeah, yeah, because I’ve used I I’ve used different ones. For example, I’ve used loom. I’ve used a goodu, that is another one that they also integrate. It’s like a bot that it joins the meeting like as a different person that takes notes.
281 00:30:28.410 ⇒ 00:30:44.739 Nicolas Sucari: Yeah, I’ve used a lot of different ones. But yeah, probably, if you already have the transcript, and you can like, identify the action items and create something to send it like that would be super useful also, what I, what I used to to to to work with was
282 00:30:45.140 ⇒ 00:30:59.719 Nicolas Sucari: leaving, like the the link to the recording in a, in in notion, like in a specific page, in notion where we can like use us documentation or meetings, or something like that.
283 00:30:59.790 ⇒ 00:31:01.890 Nicolas Sucari: Yeah, so that anyone.
284 00:31:02.280 ⇒ 00:31:25.290 Nicolas Sucari: So that if you want, like, anyone to have access to those meetings we can specific different pages by project or by a theme, or by by anything that you want, by every that you you’d like, and then we can start like creating a database meetings with all those notes and the action items with the date, with what happened, and the link to to to go and review the the meeting. If if you want.
285 00:31:26.060 ⇒ 00:31:34.000 Uttam Kumaran: So what do you think about notion? Right now? We’re doing pretty much. Everything is on slack. We do some Google docs for like fixed documents. But
286 00:31:34.220 ⇒ 00:31:42.049 Uttam Kumaran: I’m happy to switch everything to notion. But you know how much of a lift like to kind of get everything set up is. So you let me know what you think, or if we want.
287 00:31:42.050 ⇒ 00:31:43.140 Nicolas Sucari: I mean.
288 00:31:43.140 ⇒ 00:31:43.670 Uttam Kumaran: Later.
289 00:31:43.670 ⇒ 00:32:09.400 Nicolas Sucari: It, it will depend it will depend on what what is like the documentation you would like to have on different things, for example on projects or on internal things, too. But pretty good for documentation, I mean. It is kind of difficult if you want to. Use a board and try to link that with Github and the other things. That’s why I don’t. I don’t really recommend notion to
290 00:32:09.400 ⇒ 00:32:32.909 Nicolas Sucari: tracking progress on different projects, but part of documentation, like for documenting all of the information related different projects. I think it’s really useful. I can show you some example of how we have a lot of things in notion. But we are using it like, really, really, a lot. We have, like different pages with different kind of documentation. We share that with clients has to notion and can
291 00:32:32.910 ⇒ 00:32:46.709 Nicolas Sucari: access different pay with. I don’t know links or or different urls as a stage environment or actual environment. They can see documentation on how to use different tool. They can see how to use Cms or that kind of stuff. Yeah.
292 00:32:46.710 ⇒ 00:32:55.700 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. Okay, yeah. I mean again, totally open to whatever you’ve seen is work work best. I’ve used notion for years in the past. So
293 00:32:55.790 ⇒ 00:33:03.290 Uttam Kumaran: totally comfortable. Basically, my nervousness is always like, I don’t. I wanna make sure that we’re not throwing a tool at a problem
294 00:33:03.440 ⇒ 00:33:04.770 Uttam Kumaran: and basically saying.
295 00:33:04.920 ⇒ 00:33:06.800 Uttam Kumaran: this is going to just fix itself.
296 00:33:07.331 ⇒ 00:33:14.969 Uttam Kumaran: Because I know if it doesn’t work, then we’re not. Everybody’s now accessing 4 tools, getting done. So.
297 00:33:14.970 ⇒ 00:33:15.720 Nicolas Sucari: No, no, I am.
298 00:33:15.720 ⇒ 00:33:27.160 Uttam Kumaran: And like, I, yeah, basically just been waiting for like, okay, is this the right decision? And then again, if me and you go and tackle that like it’ll it shouldn’t work out great. So yeah.
299 00:33:28.090 ⇒ 00:33:38.039 Nicolas Sucari: Yeah, but we should understand. Like, what are the the struggles and how to address them. We can try different things, see what works, and then go forward. Yeah.
300 00:33:38.420 ⇒ 00:33:38.970 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
301 00:33:40.786 ⇒ 00:33:44.379 Uttam Kumaran: cool. So I guess I’m happy to kind of talk through
302 00:33:44.390 ⇒ 00:33:51.529 Uttam Kumaran: each of the clients. Or what do you think is best like I I could talk to the clients or
303 00:33:52.226 ⇒ 00:33:56.003 Uttam Kumaran: you know, we I know it’s been already a lot today. What do you think.
304 00:33:57.400 ⇒ 00:34:00.140 Nicolas Sucari: Sure. Let’s go with the clients. Yeah, yeah, I’m okay with.
305 00:34:00.380 ⇒ 00:34:07.400 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, cool. So we have 3 clients right now. So pool parts to go. They sell
306 00:34:07.980 ⇒ 00:34:10.489 Uttam Kumaran: pool parts for your house, for your pool.
307 00:34:10.932 ⇒ 00:34:21.520 Uttam Kumaran: basically for swimming pool. So they do roughly, like 20 or 30 million dollars in sales annually. We are basically their data team like an extension of their data team.
308 00:34:22.240 ⇒ 00:34:26.549 Uttam Kumaran: So we run all their analytics and all of their
309 00:34:27.310 ⇒ 00:34:29.350 Uttam Kumaran: like data related needs
310 00:34:31.350 ⇒ 00:34:39.903 Uttam Kumaran: And so this goes from sales to marketing data to supply chain data. We just basically have, like a whole backlog of things to go figure out
311 00:34:40.340 ⇒ 00:34:47.709 Uttam Kumaran: the nice parts about this. This client is their biggest client, so they are longest, lasting, and biggest client in terms of revenue.
312 00:34:47.800 ⇒ 00:34:51.209 Uttam Kumaran: The tough part is, they’re very kind of hands off.
313 00:34:51.350 ⇒ 00:34:53.940 Uttam Kumaran: meaning we need to.
314 00:34:54.792 ⇒ 00:34:57.400 Uttam Kumaran: Really prawn for feedback
315 00:34:58.048 ⇒ 00:35:07.990 Uttam Kumaran: otherwise, they’re like, we trust you guys, which is good in that. I know. I know what we need to do at the same time, we need feedback from them to understand. Can you guys implement these changes? Or
316 00:35:08.080 ⇒ 00:35:10.480 Uttam Kumaran: is this what you look love to see? So
317 00:35:10.670 ⇒ 00:35:16.761 Uttam Kumaran: that’s the you know, that’s that’s one client. We have 2 work streams with them.
318 00:35:17.710 ⇒ 00:35:19.300 Uttam Kumaran: We have a.
319 00:35:19.990 ⇒ 00:35:25.419 Uttam Kumaran: we have a just a normal data like engineering workstream. And we have a data visualization workstream.
320 00:35:25.880 ⇒ 00:35:29.590 Uttam Kumaran: So the data engineering work is all like data modeling.
321 00:35:30.488 ⇒ 00:35:37.129 Uttam Kumaran: This is data modeling data reliability, new Apis.
322 00:35:37.620 ⇒ 00:35:39.010 Uttam Kumaran: new vendors.
323 00:35:41.036 ⇒ 00:35:44.303 Uttam Kumaran: this. And then this is kind of like ad hoc, request.
324 00:35:45.050 ⇒ 00:35:50.250 Uttam Kumaran: Data is more on like dashboards, analyses.
325 00:35:52.700 ⇒ 00:35:57.149 Uttam Kumaran: and things that like you, wanna you wanna actually display data for the executives.
326 00:35:58.320 ⇒ 00:36:02.440 Nicolas Sucari: Okay? And what? What tool are you using for that
327 00:36:02.560 ⇒ 00:36:04.260 Nicolas Sucari: for? For both work streams.
328 00:36:04.980 ⇒ 00:36:09.899 Uttam Kumaran: So let me even just put like another thing down here. So
329 00:36:14.430 ⇒ 00:36:18.040 Uttam Kumaran: so for data. So let’s just do this
330 00:36:18.560 ⇒ 00:36:20.100 Uttam Kumaran: to the warehouse.
331 00:36:20.550 ⇒ 00:36:21.760 Uttam Kumaran: Pause.
332 00:36:22.840 ⇒ 00:36:23.240 Uttam Kumaran: I.
333 00:36:23.240 ⇒ 00:36:27.249 Nicolas Sucari: I think I already know the answer. But is Snowflake wild? And
334 00:36:27.320 ⇒ 00:36:29.840 Nicolas Sucari: yeah, the ones that are in the yeah.
335 00:36:31.306 ⇒ 00:36:37.509 Uttam Kumaran: Snow. So this is dbt, this is 5 tran or custom.
336 00:36:38.340 ⇒ 00:36:39.350 Uttam Kumaran: It’s in
337 00:36:39.810 ⇒ 00:36:40.960 Uttam Kumaran: snowflake.
338 00:36:43.000 ⇒ 00:36:45.896 Uttam Kumaran: Either we use 5 train or we build our own. Basically
339 00:36:46.830 ⇒ 00:36:49.350 Uttam Kumaran: we also have like data. Biz.
340 00:36:49.930 ⇒ 00:36:51.509 Uttam Kumaran: So this is
341 00:36:52.040 ⇒ 00:36:53.179 Uttam Kumaran: light dash
342 00:36:54.840 ⇒ 00:36:59.276 Uttam Kumaran: for dashboards. There’s also real for dashboards.
343 00:37:00.330 ⇒ 00:37:05.475 Uttam Kumaran: And there evidence for mountain seats.
344 00:37:06.770 ⇒ 00:37:08.690 Uttam Kumaran: The last thing is data
345 00:37:09.070 ⇒ 00:37:10.250 Uttam Kumaran: observability.
346 00:37:12.805 ⇒ 00:37:15.964 Uttam Kumaran: So data movement. So I’m gonna put this one here.
347 00:37:28.350 ⇒ 00:37:30.530 Uttam Kumaran: This really is how much?
348 00:37:33.884 ⇒ 00:37:40.959 Uttam Kumaran: These are basically like all the tools again. It’s kind of a stack from getting data somewhere, modeling it
349 00:37:42.730 ⇒ 00:37:49.169 Uttam Kumaran: and then putting some sort of visualization on top, and then observing that everything is reliable and working.
350 00:37:49.850 ⇒ 00:37:50.740 Uttam Kumaran: So
351 00:37:51.970 ⇒ 00:37:57.300 Uttam Kumaran: so I would say, we have a relationship with nearly all of these vendors.
352 00:37:57.834 ⇒ 00:38:11.350 Uttam Kumaran: We have relation with Snowflake. We have a relation with 5 tran with light dash, with real and a relationship means 2 things. There’s both like a fine. There could be a financial relationship where, if we sell them, we get some kickback.
353 00:38:11.480 ⇒ 00:38:15.920 Uttam Kumaran: The second thing is, we have a, we have a through line to their support, basically.
354 00:38:16.090 ⇒ 00:38:16.930 Uttam Kumaran: And so
355 00:38:17.620 ⇒ 00:38:22.659 Uttam Kumaran: I would. And so all of these are, try to establish that, because I want to give our clients the best support.
356 00:38:22.900 ⇒ 00:38:26.880 Uttam Kumaran: And second is, these are the best in class tools that we find.
357 00:38:27.050 ⇒ 00:38:32.200 Uttam Kumaran: So if we’re gonna keep implementing 10 of them, we’re gonna I wanna go get us pay for that.
358 00:38:32.670 ⇒ 00:38:35.649 Uttam Kumaran: So we’re kind of working on deals like that.
359 00:38:36.370 ⇒ 00:38:37.230 Nicolas Sucari: Excellent.
360 00:38:37.460 ⇒ 00:38:38.050 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
361 00:38:41.790 ⇒ 00:38:44.659 Uttam Kumaran: great. So that’s on pool part. So again, we have.
362 00:38:44.720 ⇒ 00:38:47.590 Uttam Kumaran: we have like a data engineering workflow. That’s what we started with.
363 00:38:47.610 ⇒ 00:38:59.490 Uttam Kumaran: I. We brought on Patrick primarily to work on the data visualization workflow which is working directly with their executive team, on what? What dashboards and visualizations they need to see.
364 00:39:01.620 ⇒ 00:39:08.089 Uttam Kumaran: This is where we’ve honestly had a lot of struggles, because working with executives requires a lot of feedback gathering
365 00:39:08.857 ⇒ 00:39:10.999 Uttam Kumaran: and that’s the thing that team.
366 00:39:11.300 ⇒ 00:39:23.679 Uttam Kumaran: I would say I am good at it, but I’ve worked in a client facing, and I’ve kind of led these teams. I think the team itself is kind of struggles to know that as soon as they get done with work just like send a note over.
367 00:39:24.160 ⇒ 00:39:32.180 Uttam Kumaran: And so one thing is understanding. Is that something that we want, that we want the engineers to do? Or is that something that we wanted to come through you? Or how do we.
368 00:39:32.180 ⇒ 00:39:32.860 Nicolas Sucari: Yeah.
369 00:39:32.860 ⇒ 00:39:35.319 Uttam Kumaran: That. So? That’s one question I have is.
370 00:39:35.910 ⇒ 00:39:42.710 Uttam Kumaran: how did you handle kind of engineers communicating? Do they do any communication? Or did that go all through you.
371 00:39:43.050 ⇒ 00:39:52.870 Nicolas Sucari: I mean it. It always depends on on the person right? Because I I’ve worked with engineers or developers that were like
372 00:39:52.900 ⇒ 00:40:12.910 Nicolas Sucari: eager to present to stakeholders or to executives and stuff. But there are other ones that they don’t like to do it. So yeah, I always try to be like in the middle try to understand if the people feels comfortable presenting, and if don’t, if they don’t, I can take the responsibility. And always also present myself.
373 00:40:13.237 ⇒ 00:40:29.590 Nicolas Sucari: Share deliverables that we have ask for feedback and the stuff. I I always work with clients and facing clients. So yeah, I don’t have any problem with that. But probably if if the engineer doesn’t want or doesn’t feel comfortable, to do, that probably is best for
374 00:40:29.590 ⇒ 00:40:49.939 Nicolas Sucari: you or me to to do those deliveries, to send the information. Keep like the relationship with the executive. And then, just ask the engineering to do like the the actual work right? And then, yeah, we we can find, like the best work flow for them so that they can feel comfortable on what they are doing.
375 00:40:50.863 ⇒ 00:41:06.719 Nicolas Sucari: But yeah, we we can. Yeah, we can discuss it. We can just understand each of the different persons on the deep, how they are feeling, presenting and that stuff, and if not, obviously I can. I can be the one to share the information with you and to ask for feedback. Yeah.
376 00:41:06.950 ⇒ 00:41:14.419 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, okay, great, yeah. So I would say again, like a lot of our struggles are not that we can’t deliver the work. It’s just in the community.
377 00:41:14.420 ⇒ 00:41:15.090 Nicolas Sucari: Yeah.
378 00:41:15.090 ⇒ 00:41:17.596 Uttam Kumaran: Which is, which is like so painful.
379 00:41:18.327 ⇒ 00:41:22.500 Uttam Kumaran: Because that’s all. That’s always hard, at least for me. But
380 00:41:22.550 ⇒ 00:41:26.500 Uttam Kumaran: you know that’s what’s necessary. So you’ll kind of see that kind of
381 00:41:26.810 ⇒ 00:41:35.879 Uttam Kumaran: that trend. And again, and also, like I you’ll be joining. We can talk, talk a little bit about this week in just a sec. But you’ll be seeing meetings and seeing how we run things.
382 00:41:35.930 ⇒ 00:41:37.400 Uttam Kumaran: I would say, feedback.
383 00:41:37.630 ⇒ 00:41:51.220 Uttam Kumaran: What number one. My my only request is going to be to be super honest with feedback for me, because I I could really change the way I we I communicate and the way we handle things. And I want to really be conscious of
384 00:41:51.490 ⇒ 00:42:06.999 Uttam Kumaran: my role, both as like running the company, but also being such an integral part in the day to day, and how that can cause issues. So one is like totally feedback for me. Second thing is also, you know, general feedback on the team, and you know.
385 00:42:07.000 ⇒ 00:42:21.809 Uttam Kumaran: That’ll also, you know, you’ll meet everybody and things like that. But I wanted to be a real culture of giving constructive feedback and improving everybody that is on the team now is is really empathetic, is really really kind, and takes feedback. Well.
386 00:42:22.075 ⇒ 00:42:35.350 Uttam Kumaran: and I want to have everybody improve right? And so for me. I don’t mind. Even if you tell me you know, whatever you want to tell me does not matter. Yeah, we’ll iterate it for the team. I think as you meet people, you’ll kind of understand how to work with them. So
387 00:42:36.200 ⇒ 00:42:36.920 Uttam Kumaran: yeah.
388 00:42:37.200 ⇒ 00:42:37.830 Nicolas Sucari: Quick.
389 00:42:38.330 ⇒ 00:42:45.699 Nicolas Sucari: I will try to be the honest person as I as I can. Yeah. And I will try to help everyone. Yeah.
390 00:42:45.920 ⇒ 00:42:46.570 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
391 00:42:46.850 ⇒ 00:42:59.310 Uttam Kumaran: on the so the second client is and I’ll I’ll kind of you know, as we meet with everybody. I’ll kind of go through. Tell you who the key stakeholders are. Things like that. But the second client is asset link.
392 00:42:59.450 ⇒ 00:43:00.987 Uttam Kumaran: So asset link.
393 00:43:02.120 ⇒ 00:43:05.600 Uttam Kumaran: If you go to asset link.ai
394 00:43:05.690 ⇒ 00:43:10.049 Uttam Kumaran: they’re. They’re a platform that connects wealth managers and financial advisors together.
395 00:43:10.420 ⇒ 00:43:14.670 Uttam Kumaran: And we are basically running their data team for them.
396 00:43:14.740 ⇒ 00:43:19.479 Uttam Kumaran: So this is their so data engineering, this includes
397 00:43:20.430 ⇒ 00:43:25.839 Uttam Kumaran: their product data. This includes their web traffic measurement.
398 00:43:27.260 ⇒ 00:43:30.969 Uttam Kumaran: And we’re also starting to do some AI data work for them.
399 00:43:33.420 ⇒ 00:43:41.130 Uttam Kumaran: this is our second biggest client. Primarily on. This is myself, Ryan and Augustine.
400 00:43:44.760 ⇒ 00:43:45.659 Uttam Kumaran: and then primary.
401 00:43:45.660 ⇒ 00:43:50.049 Nicolas Sucari: Ryan Ryan is on Philippines right.
402 00:43:50.050 ⇒ 00:43:50.670 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
403 00:43:51.450 ⇒ 00:43:54.459 Uttam Kumaran: but he works. He’s working basically
404 00:43:55.080 ⇒ 00:43:57.090 Uttam Kumaran: us time, nearly.
405 00:43:57.390 ⇒ 00:44:01.640 Uttam Kumaran: But I that’s totally up. And I said you could work other time. But he’s like
406 00:44:01.850 ⇒ 00:44:05.630 Uttam Kumaran: he’s like, no, I’m I’m down to work. I’m like, Okay, great. That’s fine. Whatever you wanna do.
407 00:44:06.726 ⇒ 00:44:07.613 Nicolas Sucari: Okay.
408 00:44:08.500 ⇒ 00:44:09.573 Uttam Kumaran: Crazy. But
409 00:44:11.360 ⇒ 00:44:16.050 Uttam Kumaran: I’m just gonna put everybody that’s working on on these things here. So data injuries
410 00:44:17.040 ⇒ 00:44:18.820 Uttam Kumaran: 6, 12.
411 00:44:19.620 ⇒ 00:44:22.161 Nicolas Sucari: In terms of the clients.
412 00:44:23.130 ⇒ 00:44:51.899 Nicolas Sucari: like. How how the client, the client knows which one of the team is working on with them, like, I know, because probably they have a relation. They they are part of the emails or or that kind of stuff. But they don’t have like a place where they have like. Okay, this is all the delivers that they will give me. Like, I have to access through this tool so that I can see the information. This is the team working with me. They they have that information like, is in one place or not.
413 00:44:52.110 ⇒ 00:44:53.110 Uttam Kumaran: Hmm! No.
414 00:44:53.610 ⇒ 00:44:54.220 Nicolas Sucari: Okay.
415 00:44:55.466 ⇒ 00:44:56.680 Uttam Kumaran: Yep, nothing.
416 00:44:56.680 ⇒ 00:45:01.760 Nicolas Sucari: Probably that is something that I can. I can. We can really create really quick.
417 00:45:01.760 ⇒ 00:45:02.930 Uttam Kumaran: Client, home, base.
418 00:45:03.750 ⇒ 00:45:05.030 Nicolas Sucari: Yeah, yeah.
419 00:45:06.420 ⇒ 00:45:12.359 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. And the the reason is, both asset link and pool parts came out of me just primarily working.
420 00:45:13.277 ⇒ 00:45:19.350 Uttam Kumaran: So as money came in and I was able to bring people on. That’s where you know the
421 00:45:19.390 ⇒ 00:45:24.589 Uttam Kumaran: like. It started to evolve. They’ve all worked with these folks, but there’s not been any formal like
422 00:45:25.130 ⇒ 00:45:29.539 Uttam Kumaran: these guys are assigned. Cause I also didn’t really know initially, but you’re totally.
423 00:45:29.540 ⇒ 00:45:30.849 Nicolas Sucari: But oh, yeah, yeah.
424 00:45:31.600 ⇒ 00:45:58.010 Nicolas Sucari: And I understand your fear of saying I’m not involved anymore on these clients. And now it’s like, I understand that, but probably doesn’t need to be that way it’d be just like to understand which are point of contacts on each of the clients. Understand? Which is the team working from us so that they can have like a more visibility on how we start working. And when? Yeah, who do you want. They have to like, ask some questions, or that stuff.
425 00:45:58.320 ⇒ 00:46:04.639 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, no. 100. Yeah, exactly. No. And and I I don’t have. I have a fear of.
426 00:46:04.910 ⇒ 00:46:09.610 Uttam Kumaran: I have a fear of the work not being highest quality.
427 00:46:09.750 ⇒ 00:46:13.450 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t have a fear that any of these guys are me getting out of the way.
428 00:46:13.600 ⇒ 00:46:21.030 Uttam Kumaran: And so, but I also know that the work being high quality, isn’t that I need to be involved. But you need some level of measuring
429 00:46:21.050 ⇒ 00:46:34.549 Uttam Kumaran: like not getting done. And so that’s the thing that we’ll work on is like, how do we know on any given day? If it’s like a green, yellow, or red for like any client right? That’s the thing that for me, it’s like more of a feeling
430 00:46:34.980 ⇒ 00:46:43.749 Uttam Kumaran: like I have like, kind of a feeling touch of like, oh, I can know someone’s gonna start getting mad. And and so then I can kind of make changes. But that’s all needs to be
431 00:46:43.770 ⇒ 00:46:48.339 Uttam Kumaran: common knowledge. And it needs to be more just a process, you know. Sort of thing.
432 00:46:49.228 ⇒ 00:46:51.570 Uttam Kumaran: You can’t rely on that anymore. So
433 00:46:53.230 ⇒ 00:46:56.789 Uttam Kumaran: so for asset link, we just have data engineering as one work stream.
434 00:46:58.300 ⇒ 00:46:59.370 Uttam Kumaran: and then
435 00:46:59.570 ⇒ 00:47:02.870 Uttam Kumaran: so the other thing I’m gonna also do is I’m just gonna put kind of like
436 00:47:03.230 ⇒ 00:47:06.929 Uttam Kumaran: we basically for for both of these we have.
437 00:47:08.660 ⇒ 00:47:10.439 Uttam Kumaran: we have a
438 00:47:11.020 ⇒ 00:47:14.930 Uttam Kumaran: I think we have roughly 20 HA week.
439 00:47:15.330 ⇒ 00:47:19.839 Uttam Kumaran: I’m gonna put this up here that way. You have a sense of like what we’re signed up for.
440 00:47:20.280 ⇒ 00:47:21.780 Nicolas Sucari: Yeah. Okay, excellent.
441 00:47:22.820 ⇒ 00:47:24.409 Uttam Kumaran: Hours per week.
442 00:47:24.710 ⇒ 00:47:26.390 Uttam Kumaran: students, 10.
443 00:47:29.860 ⇒ 00:47:38.010 Nicolas Sucari: So this is like, a fixed contract per hours, or is kind of variable. What are things that they request.
444 00:47:38.010 ⇒ 00:47:41.360 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so these are all fixed dollars per hour.
445 00:47:41.520 ⇒ 00:47:43.770 Uttam Kumaran: And basically, you have a Max.
446 00:47:45.030 ⇒ 00:47:45.850 Nicolas Sucari: Okay.
447 00:47:46.340 ⇒ 00:47:47.620 Uttam Kumaran: The
448 00:47:47.740 ⇒ 00:47:56.069 Uttam Kumaran: 2 things there. One it was. This work is a little bit hard to predict until you’re a few months in.
449 00:47:56.530 ⇒ 00:48:03.079 Uttam Kumaran: So now for the pool parts account. We I generally have a sense of like what? How much hours is getting put
450 00:48:03.540 ⇒ 00:48:10.379 Uttam Kumaran: for asset link. It’s still a little bit variable, and for the last client is the newest client. It’s kind of a little bit all over the place.
451 00:48:10.560 ⇒ 00:48:12.150 Uttam Kumaran: So for that reason.
452 00:48:12.380 ⇒ 00:48:25.709 Uttam Kumaran: even you know, it’d be helpful. Once once you get a sense of the We capacity and things we can understand, we want to make any contract changes totally open to that either getting people on like a fixed budget per month
453 00:48:26.110 ⇒ 00:48:26.790 Uttam Kumaran: or.
454 00:48:26.790 ⇒ 00:48:27.410 Nicolas Sucari: Yay!
455 00:48:27.620 ⇒ 00:48:34.170 Uttam Kumaran: Or something else. I would say. On average, we’re probably working more hours.
456 00:48:35.120 ⇒ 00:48:35.700 Nicolas Sucari: Okay.
457 00:48:36.100 ⇒ 00:48:36.510 Uttam Kumaran: That being.
458 00:48:36.510 ⇒ 00:48:37.610 Nicolas Sucari: Yeah, that was
459 00:48:37.820 ⇒ 00:48:40.759 Nicolas Sucari: my next question. Like a sense of that.
460 00:48:41.370 ⇒ 00:48:46.179 Nicolas Sucari: We’re actually working more hours than they are that we are building right? Kind of like that.
461 00:48:46.350 ⇒ 00:48:47.285 Uttam Kumaran: For sure.
462 00:48:48.250 ⇒ 00:48:50.659 Uttam Kumaran: And again that came that comes out of just
463 00:48:51.120 ⇒ 00:48:54.999 Uttam Kumaran: we some points we couldn’t. We can’t afford to lose those clients
464 00:48:55.270 ⇒ 00:48:55.910 Uttam Kumaran: now.
465 00:48:55.910 ⇒ 00:48:56.520 Nicolas Sucari: Yeah, yeah.
466 00:48:56.520 ⇒ 00:49:07.609 Uttam Kumaran: Then that all kind of cascades? Right? So I think that’s pro. But that’s probably the the thing I’m like least worried about, because the margin we’re making is pretty good. However.
467 00:49:07.730 ⇒ 00:49:12.390 Uttam Kumaran: it’s still super important for us to know what our capacity is
468 00:49:12.630 ⇒ 00:49:13.790 Uttam Kumaran: for new work.
469 00:49:13.790 ⇒ 00:49:14.300 Nicolas Sucari: Yeah.
470 00:49:14.300 ⇒ 00:49:26.339 Uttam Kumaran: I also want. I want to build people accurately, and I want to give them a sense of what we’re worth. But in order to do that. I want to have all the data on our side and and basically be like, Hey, we wanna and they’re like
471 00:49:26.440 ⇒ 00:49:28.919 Uttam Kumaran: they, they’re like so happy to give that to us, you know.
472 00:49:29.830 ⇒ 00:49:32.470 Nicolas Sucari: And how are you measuring like
473 00:49:33.240 ⇒ 00:49:37.660 Nicolas Sucari: like each task that we are working on? How are you measuring the time that it takes to
474 00:49:37.740 ⇒ 00:49:42.689 Nicolas Sucari: to finish them, so that we know, like what we can achieve in that 20 h per week. For example.
475 00:49:42.940 ⇒ 00:49:45.468 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. So that’s another thing we need to do.
476 00:49:46.585 ⇒ 00:49:47.030 Nicolas Sucari: Okay.
477 00:49:47.448 ⇒ 00:49:51.630 Uttam Kumaran: So I’m gonna put it under here under total capacity.
478 00:49:51.660 ⇒ 00:49:52.720 Uttam Kumaran: So
479 00:49:53.030 ⇒ 00:49:54.010 Uttam Kumaran: roughly,
480 00:49:56.530 ⇒ 00:49:58.840 Uttam Kumaran: that’s also basically
481 00:49:59.230 ⇒ 00:50:02.869 Uttam Kumaran: that. So the thing is for the folks that are full time like for Ryan.
482 00:50:03.080 ⇒ 00:50:06.660 Uttam Kumaran: It’s basically as much as he can do right. So
483 00:50:06.820 ⇒ 00:50:10.730 Uttam Kumaran: full-time folks take as much as they can
484 00:50:11.390 ⇒ 00:50:16.619 Uttam Kumaran: the part time folks. I meet with them on a weekly basis, and I kind of ask, like.
485 00:50:16.890 ⇒ 00:50:18.650 Uttam Kumaran: what are we looking at for this week?
486 00:50:19.000 ⇒ 00:50:19.810 Uttam Kumaran: Ideal.
487 00:50:19.996 ⇒ 00:50:20.369 Nicolas Sucari: If you.
488 00:50:20.370 ⇒ 00:50:23.970 Uttam Kumaran: Of it shouldn’t be about the person. It should be about the task
489 00:50:24.390 ⇒ 00:50:25.020 Uttam Kumaran: and the tab.
490 00:50:25.020 ⇒ 00:50:25.580 Nicolas Sucari: Yeah, Steve.
491 00:50:25.580 ⇒ 00:50:27.940 Uttam Kumaran: Like extra small small whatever.
492 00:50:27.990 ⇒ 00:50:29.729 Uttam Kumaran: And we can say these are.
493 00:50:29.840 ⇒ 00:50:32.240 Uttam Kumaran: This is what 10 h should be.
494 00:50:32.540 ⇒ 00:50:37.479 Uttam Kumaran: If you go over, you go like. I don’t know. However, we want to handle that with with the engineers.
495 00:50:39.110 ⇒ 00:50:48.210 Uttam Kumaran: you know. So we need help on that. We basically do grooming on those tickets which probably like me, and you can do before getting into signing. You know.
496 00:50:48.970 ⇒ 00:51:13.629 Nicolas Sucari: Oh, yeah, I think I think, first of all, I need to understand. Like, how are you doing the grooming? How are you assigning desks to the people, and when, like a a couple of weeks later, we can understand, how are they delivery? So that we can have a measure. But then we can start like working on estimations and with the engineers like. If we assign a time to you, for example, let me know. What do you think
497 00:51:13.630 ⇒ 00:51:21.470 Nicolas Sucari: of how much time it will take you to achieve this task? And then we can. We can start measuring. And that information probably.
498 00:51:21.470 ⇒ 00:51:31.144 Nicolas Sucari: First. It. It would be easier to do it like not not with ours, but like with a 4 month or something like that, you know.
499 00:51:31.520 ⇒ 00:51:34.869 Nicolas Sucari: we can like have more of a
500 00:51:35.238 ⇒ 00:51:47.370 Nicolas Sucari: I think on on what is the amount of tasks or the amount of points they will achieve like in a week, and then we can start understanding how to estimate her tasks, and like measuring the amount of work per week.
501 00:51:47.680 ⇒ 00:51:50.030 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, okay, perfect. Yeah, we’d love.
502 00:51:50.030 ⇒ 00:51:53.370 Nicolas Sucari: We can try different things. But yeah, first of all, I think the the
503 00:51:53.470 ⇒ 00:52:07.230 Nicolas Sucari: they need is to understand like, how you’re doing the groomings, and how you’re assigning, and how are they like delivering? And once we have that, we can start trying like this estimation stuff and try to measure like a bit more
504 00:52:07.580 ⇒ 00:52:10.559 Nicolas Sucari: on the details of the tasks. Yeah.
505 00:52:10.690 ⇒ 00:52:16.269 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. And that’s also the thing is like, you know, for me, I I can. I can basically
506 00:52:16.360 ⇒ 00:52:20.290 Uttam Kumaran: like, do the tickets in terms of the requirements and everything. Very well.
507 00:52:20.300 ⇒ 00:52:26.059 Uttam Kumaran: It’s actually doing that and doing the assigning and the measurement. That’s been difficult, right? And so that’s where
508 00:52:26.070 ⇒ 00:52:29.404 Uttam Kumaran: you’ll see some of the tickets we have are really good. Some of the tickets are just like blank
509 00:52:30.266 ⇒ 00:52:36.590 Uttam Kumaran: and I would rather spend my time doing the product like it. I don’t know if ideally it becomes like
510 00:52:36.910 ⇒ 00:52:39.770 Uttam Kumaran: I’m more of like the product manager.
511 00:52:39.830 ⇒ 00:52:42.799 Uttam Kumaran: And and you’re more project manager. And then we kind of like
512 00:52:42.920 ⇒ 00:53:00.440 Uttam Kumaran: you kind of, and as you understand the tasks and can gather it, then it kind of comes down because I know is really technical. But I would love to figure that I know. That’s what you mentioned. You wanted to get more on the ownership side. So I don’t want to, you know. I just want to have a good balance. And
513 00:53:00.940 ⇒ 00:53:01.790 Uttam Kumaran: you know. Yeah.
514 00:53:01.790 ⇒ 00:53:31.114 Nicolas Sucari: No, yeah, yeah. I mean, that’s that. I think that’s great. Obviously, I think you have, like all the knowledge from the technical point of view, and how to set up these stats, but as I get a little bit more in in each project, probably I can start understanding a little bit more of the product, and probably help you with that creation of tickets. Technical part. But, le, let’s let’s see what is like our sweet spot on how we can manage things. And yeah.
515 00:53:31.440 ⇒ 00:53:36.239 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. And you know a lot of the things now that we’ve done for multiple clients become standardized.
516 00:53:37.211 ⇒ 00:53:46.139 Uttam Kumaran: So basically, the type of work the way it’s done the tools we use to do it. And that way also, when we bring on new people, they basically have run books. So
517 00:53:46.930 ⇒ 00:53:50.263 Uttam Kumaran: all cascades very nicely.
518 00:53:52.230 ⇒ 00:53:57.289 Uttam Kumaran: So now that I’m saying all that, yeah, maybe we should bring on notion. But I’ll let you decide.
519 00:53:58.180 ⇒ 00:54:02.360 Uttam Kumaran: The last. The last client is Stella. So Stella is a
520 00:54:02.830 ⇒ 00:54:05.929 Uttam Kumaran: is a materials quoting company.
521 00:54:06.160 ⇒ 00:54:13.970 Uttam Kumaran: So, Stella, they allow people to go in and get quotes, for like steel manufacturing. So you go put in. I want this much. They gotta in quote back.
522 00:54:14.603 ⇒ 00:54:22.169 Uttam Kumaran: this is our newest client. They’re our smallest client, but a lot of opportunity to expand once we hit this initial scope.
523 00:54:22.240 ⇒ 00:54:29.801 Uttam Kumaran: So the so this is actually an it’s situation where we’re working through a subcontract. So Robert, who runs
524 00:54:32.740 ⇒ 00:54:35.349 Uttam Kumaran: is our stakeholder.
525 00:54:36.290 ⇒ 00:54:40.449 Uttam Kumaran: He is an analytics agency.
526 00:54:40.973 ⇒ 00:54:45.649 Uttam Kumaran: So he subcontracted the data engineering work to us. We primarily work through him.
527 00:54:45.760 ⇒ 00:54:55.890 Uttam Kumaran: There’s channels and everything for everybody, so I’ll introduce you to everyone. Of course. This one is a little bit tough, because we only signed up for like between 10 and 20 h per week.
528 00:54:56.440 ⇒ 00:54:59.229 Uttam Kumaran: But it’s definitely taken more than that.
529 00:55:00.301 ⇒ 00:55:02.790 Uttam Kumaran: Even today. I just told Patrick, like, Hey.
530 00:55:03.010 ⇒ 00:55:11.069 Uttam Kumaran: Nick’s working like already. If there’s any other work. Just give it to me, cause I’ll take it I can’t. I can’t pay you additionally for this.
531 00:55:11.693 ⇒ 00:55:18.030 Uttam Kumaran: But this one has a great opportunity not only to expand this client, but to expand to similar clients.
532 00:55:18.480 ⇒ 00:55:19.250 Nicolas Sucari: Yay!
533 00:55:19.530 ⇒ 00:55:22.249 Uttam Kumaran: So I’m really excited to kind of knock this out of the park.
534 00:55:22.903 ⇒ 00:55:29.230 Uttam Kumaran: And the work here is actually, this is the first. This is actually out of all the clients first time. I’m not been involved in anything.
535 00:55:29.620 ⇒ 00:55:37.149 Uttam Kumaran: Basically, I may have to get involved now. But I’ve purposely took this, I said. I’m not gonna touch anything.
536 00:55:37.210 ⇒ 00:55:39.100 Uttam Kumaran: I wanna see it kind of run.
537 00:55:39.300 ⇒ 00:55:45.859 Uttam Kumaran: Of course, there’s times where, if it’s like things are really trouble, I have to get in there. But this one I’ve tried to be I’ve tried to use as the case study for like
538 00:55:46.110 ⇒ 00:55:49.280 Uttam Kumaran: I’m just gonna give it to the people and see how it runs.
539 00:55:49.440 ⇒ 00:55:52.620 Uttam Kumaran: I’ve still acted as kind of a project manager.
540 00:55:53.053 ⇒ 00:55:56.829 Uttam Kumaran: But I’ve also had each of the team create issues themselves.
541 00:55:57.458 ⇒ 00:56:04.430 Uttam Kumaran: And they’re clearly more than capable of doing that. I think it’s just carving out time for them to do that. Things like that. So.
542 00:56:04.850 ⇒ 00:56:05.680 Nicolas Sucari: Okay.
543 00:56:07.730 ⇒ 00:56:11.289 Uttam Kumaran: yeah. So that’s kind of an overview on the on the client. So
544 00:56:11.870 ⇒ 00:56:16.120 Uttam Kumaran: again, not a there’s, there’s only 3
545 00:56:16.230 ⇒ 00:56:18.360 Uttam Kumaran: each are more
546 00:56:18.570 ⇒ 00:56:22.930 Uttam Kumaran: work than the last, so I would say, like pool parts is probably the the toughest.
547 00:56:22.940 ⇒ 00:56:24.960 Uttam Kumaran: but they have a lot of different threads.
548 00:56:25.090 ⇒ 00:56:27.469 Uttam Kumaran: Asset link is probably the easiest
549 00:56:28.294 ⇒ 00:56:33.590 Uttam Kumaran: and Stella is kind of the new one. It’s somewhere in the middle. As we’re getting started.
550 00:56:34.050 ⇒ 00:56:34.510 Nicolas Sucari: A.
551 00:56:34.736 ⇒ 00:56:36.323 Uttam Kumaran: I know we just have a few.
552 00:56:36.550 ⇒ 00:56:37.120 Nicolas Sucari: Sing.
553 00:56:37.310 ⇒ 00:56:38.340 Uttam Kumaran: Minutes.
554 00:56:38.919 ⇒ 00:56:48.149 Uttam Kumaran: I just wanna maybe talk about this week while we have some time. And you know we have a I have a couple of meetings next, if you’re if you want to join, or I don’t know what your timing is like.
555 00:56:49.322 ⇒ 00:57:11.590 Nicolas Sucari: I I can join today. And the daily meeting is like, yeah, half an hour away from now. Right? Kind of I can. I can join if you want and then I don’t know what our meetings do you have around it? But yeah, I can. Today I’m kind of busy with our meetings, but I can probably join tomorrow. More meetings or Wednesday. Yeah.
556 00:57:11.990 ⇒ 00:57:15.540 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, let’s actually leave today. Then, if you just want to join the daily meeting.
557 00:57:16.080 ⇒ 00:57:16.670 Nicolas Sucari: Yeah.
558 00:57:16.840 ⇒ 00:57:26.469 Uttam Kumaran: That’s fine. Every meeting again is gonna get. I’m gonna record it. So you watch it on 2 x and kind of get the gist hopefully. So
559 00:57:27.330 ⇒ 00:57:28.130 Nicolas Sucari: Excellent.
560 00:57:28.130 ⇒ 00:57:35.600 Uttam Kumaran: I guess, for yeah, for this week mainly, I’ll just try to include you on the key things. Just let me know if there’s conflict. I’m happy to move
561 00:57:35.970 ⇒ 00:57:38.229 Uttam Kumaran: happy to move anything as necessary.
562 00:57:39.280 ⇒ 00:57:39.910 Nicolas Sucari: Okay.
563 00:57:40.670 ⇒ 00:57:44.989 Uttam Kumaran: And then I guess we could plan on client calls. So we have
564 00:57:45.090 ⇒ 00:57:48.839 Uttam Kumaran: one. We’ll have one client call with pool parts on Friday.
565 00:57:48.940 ⇒ 00:57:51.579 Uttam Kumaran: We have one client call with Stella tomorrow.
566 00:57:51.590 ⇒ 00:57:55.380 Uttam Kumaran: and then we need to book book one client call with asset, link.
567 00:57:55.988 ⇒ 00:58:08.379 Uttam Kumaran: I would love to include you on all those I’m not gonna throw you in and say like, Run it, but I’ll just introduce you and then also even working with you. I would love to think about how to formally introduce you, and like how
568 00:58:08.670 ⇒ 00:58:12.170 Uttam Kumaran: you know you want to handle the communication on how things will change for the client.
569 00:58:12.663 ⇒ 00:58:19.209 Uttam Kumaran: My thinking was mainly being like nothing. Basically, nothing changes. And actually, in fact, you’re servicing it better.
570 00:58:19.835 ⇒ 00:58:24.069 Uttam Kumaran: At no additional cost. Basically is like what I wanna share with folks.
571 00:58:24.413 ⇒ 00:58:25.930 Uttam Kumaran: And then kind of also
572 00:58:26.040 ⇒ 00:58:31.300 Uttam Kumaran: begin to slowly think about, how do we want to get them to have standardized communication channels
573 00:58:31.360 ⇒ 00:58:33.400 Uttam Kumaran: go to one place for information.
574 00:58:34.680 ⇒ 00:58:35.199 Uttam Kumaran: you know how.
575 00:58:35.200 ⇒ 00:58:35.890 Nicolas Sucari: Yeah.
576 00:58:35.890 ⇒ 00:58:43.391 Uttam Kumaran: Cycles, but you’ll get a sense for all the characters and the all the plots. And then you could tell me how you want to join the movie. So.
577 00:58:45.140 ⇒ 00:58:47.919 Nicolas Sucari: Okay, yeah, yeah. I think that’s fine. Totally.
578 00:58:48.510 ⇒ 00:58:49.389 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, great.
579 00:58:50.395 ⇒ 00:58:57.214 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, I I appreciate this. There’s a lot of information. I’m I’m glad to go. Yeah, I could talk about all this stuff all day, but thank you for
580 00:58:57.670 ⇒ 00:59:02.559 Uttam Kumaran: thank you for the patience, and so I will take a look at some of these to do.
581 00:59:02.996 ⇒ 00:59:12.143 Uttam Kumaran: Main thing is, Github, I think you should be all set, so I’ll just confirm, and then I’ll also kind of share our sales process as well as
582 00:59:12.550 ⇒ 00:59:14.840 Uttam Kumaran: You know what a typical project looks like.
583 00:59:15.681 ⇒ 00:59:23.539 Uttam Kumaran: I use stigma for some like visualization. So fig jam. So I may. I have some stuff already in there, so I’ll kind of share that with you.
584 00:59:24.470 ⇒ 00:59:48.230 Nicolas Sucari: Yeah, that’s great. And also, if you have a kind of a different access to what you are delivering to clients that you can show me like the data visualization or something like that obviously anything, and that you have for as information on anything, please share, I can start looking around and understanding a little bit more it would be really, really helpful.
585 00:59:48.690 ⇒ 00:59:51.919 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, great and then I don’t know. Maybe we can
586 00:59:52.150 ⇒ 00:59:58.040 Uttam Kumaran: plan on just chatting whenever I mean, I would love to try to maybe grab time like I’m happy to meet
587 00:59:58.420 ⇒ 01:00:02.749 Uttam Kumaran: every day or every other day. What would you prefer.
588 01:00:03.210 ⇒ 01:00:07.910 Nicolas Sucari: Yeah, I think if we like can have a meeting every day, just continue
589 01:00:07.930 ⇒ 01:00:14.290 Nicolas Sucari: talking about different things. It would be great. I I don’t know if I can.
590 01:00:14.340 ⇒ 01:00:33.640 Nicolas Sucari: hey? Well, probably you can let me know the agenda that you have. But yeah, obviously we can. We can set up some time each each day of this week, so that I can continue talking about everything. I don’t know if what are your what is your agenda. Probably I can look it in Google or not. I can see your.
591 01:00:33.640 ⇒ 01:00:35.080 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, be able to see into it.
592 01:00:35.080 ⇒ 01:00:35.800 Nicolas Sucari: Amid a one.
593 01:00:36.040 ⇒ 01:00:37.690 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. Great.
594 01:00:38.450 ⇒ 01:00:39.670 Nicolas Sucari: I’m gonna try
595 01:00:40.366 ⇒ 01:00:46.520 Nicolas Sucari: and book according to my time this week. If you want, I can like set up like an hour meeting each day. If you want.
596 01:00:47.390 ⇒ 01:00:55.995 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. Probably probably in the mornings would be preferred. But you’ll see I have. You’ll see. Kind of like where I have stuff blocked.
597 01:00:57.050 ⇒ 01:01:03.279 Nicolas Sucari: Okay. And what time are you like starting your day? Because, I’m 2 h ahead of you.
598 01:01:03.790 ⇒ 01:01:06.609 Uttam Kumaran: I usually start at 9,
599 01:01:06.700 ⇒ 01:01:10.639 Uttam Kumaran: but if you give me a heads up I can. I’ll be up whenever so.
600 01:01:11.610 ⇒ 01:01:13.760 Nicolas Sucari: So tomorrow, you are starting earlier. Okay?
601 01:01:15.630 ⇒ 01:01:16.380 Nicolas Sucari: Right?
602 01:01:16.730 ⇒ 01:01:17.879 Uttam Kumaran: So starting, when.
603 01:01:18.800 ⇒ 01:01:22.429 Nicolas Sucari: Tomorrow. You’re starting earlier, I think, because of what I’m seeing.
604 01:01:22.820 ⇒ 01:01:27.019 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, tomorrow. I’m starting. Yeah. So there’s there’s this Dfd Demo meeting.
605 01:01:28.720 ⇒ 01:01:35.734 Uttam Kumaran: But I I honestly, that’s so. I usually book a separate. That’s like a client meeting that they have with their with their
606 01:01:36.130 ⇒ 01:01:37.609 Uttam Kumaran: engineering team.
607 01:01:38.133 ⇒ 01:01:41.956 Uttam Kumaran: I usually try to book a separate meeting so you can book over that
608 01:01:42.510 ⇒ 01:01:43.449 Uttam Kumaran: again. I’m happy to.
609 01:01:43.450 ⇒ 01:01:44.429 Nicolas Sucari: Oh, yeah, but it’s.
610 01:01:44.790 ⇒ 01:01:45.550 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
611 01:01:45.550 ⇒ 01:02:00.169 Nicolas Sucari: Okay, I I I will try to understand which is like the best, because I can do every day. But at 8 am. Of your time. So I think it’s like, pretty early for you. I’m gonna try and look for different
612 01:02:00.440 ⇒ 01:02:05.150 Nicolas Sucari: time, probably this same time for the rest of the week. I think I’m.
613 01:02:05.150 ⇒ 01:02:05.520 Uttam Kumaran: Like.
614 01:02:05.520 ⇒ 01:02:06.190 Nicolas Sucari: 48, budget.
615 01:02:06.190 ⇒ 01:02:13.490 Uttam Kumaran: Like. I would even like 9 works, or, if you want to do 10 looks like the next 2 days. I have meetings at 10, but
616 01:02:16.130 ⇒ 01:02:17.979 Uttam Kumaran: tomorrow I can do 9.
617 01:02:18.130 ⇒ 01:02:24.089 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, I’m happy to do 8. I I just don’t want to lose opportunity to chat, so we can just do 8 like, let’s just do that.
618 01:02:25.130 ⇒ 01:02:30.679 Nicolas Sucari: Okay, let let me see if I can do 9 or something like that.
619 01:02:30.860 ⇒ 01:02:40.860 Nicolas Sucari: Probably I need to join my other calendar, but I will. I will send couple of meetings. Okay? And you let me know if that is, that’s that’s our okay. And if not, we can change.
620 01:02:41.830 ⇒ 01:02:42.520 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
621 01:02:43.500 ⇒ 01:02:44.340 Nicolas Sucari: Excellent.
622 01:02:44.340 ⇒ 01:02:50.186 Uttam Kumaran: And then last question, do you go by, Nico, or you go by, Nicholas? Or what do you wanna like? What do you wanna
623 01:02:50.560 ⇒ 01:02:51.240 Uttam Kumaran: settle.
624 01:02:51.240 ⇒ 01:02:54.429 Nicolas Sucari: As you wish. Nico is okay. Nico is okay. Yeah.
625 01:02:54.940 ⇒ 01:02:58.389 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. If it’s not okay, then I’m gonna I don’t wanna do that cause I don’t want people.
626 01:02:58.390 ⇒ 01:02:59.339 Nicolas Sucari: No, no, it’s.
627 01:02:59.340 ⇒ 01:03:00.080 Uttam Kumaran: Nicknames.
628 01:03:00.820 ⇒ 01:03:03.840 Nicolas Sucari: Totally okay. Totally okay. Increased. Socially. Okay.
629 01:03:04.300 ⇒ 01:03:04.880 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. Okay.
630 01:03:04.880 ⇒ 01:03:05.710 Nicolas Sucari: Excellent.
631 01:03:06.450 ⇒ 01:03:08.369 Nicolas Sucari: Okay, great. You.
632 01:03:08.370 ⇒ 01:03:09.339 Uttam Kumaran: I’ll talk to you soon.
633 01:03:10.330 ⇒ 01:03:12.720 Nicolas Sucari: Talk to you soon. Bye, bye, you, Tom. Thank you very much.