Meeting Title: Friday-Brainforge-Demos-&-Retro Date: 2024-08-23 Meeting participants: Nicolas Sucari, Uttam Kumaran, Abigail Zhao, Patrick Trainer
WEBVTT
1 00:00:24.000 ⇒ 00:00:24.720 Patrick Trainer: Hey!
2 00:00:34.310 ⇒ 00:00:34.980 Patrick Trainer: Oh!
3 00:00:35.680 ⇒ 00:00:36.180 Abigail Zhao: Yeah.
4 00:00:37.330 ⇒ 00:00:38.830 Abigail Zhao: Hi, how are you?
5 00:00:40.510 ⇒ 00:00:41.070 Abigail Zhao: Oh.
6 00:00:44.410 ⇒ 00:00:45.220 Abigail Zhao: okay.
7 00:00:46.540 ⇒ 00:00:47.329 Patrick Trainer: Can you hear me?
8 00:00:47.330 ⇒ 00:00:48.219 Abigail Zhao: Yeah, yeah, you’re good.
9 00:00:48.220 ⇒ 00:00:50.760 Patrick Trainer: Oh, okay, cool. Yeah. I had everything on mute.
10 00:00:51.320 ⇒ 00:00:52.300 Abigail Zhao: Yeah, no. Problem.
11 00:00:53.210 ⇒ 00:00:54.190 Patrick Trainer: How’s it going.
12 00:00:54.700 ⇒ 00:00:55.900 Abigail Zhao: I’m doing, okay.
13 00:00:57.170 ⇒ 00:00:58.040 Patrick Trainer: That’s good.
14 00:00:58.040 ⇒ 00:00:59.179 Abigail Zhao: Yeah, what about you?
15 00:00:59.620 ⇒ 00:01:00.720 Patrick Trainer: Not too bad.
16 00:01:00.720 ⇒ 00:01:01.570 Abigail Zhao: Okay.
17 00:01:01.570 ⇒ 00:01:04.910 Patrick Trainer: It’s it’s like super hot here. So.
18 00:01:04.910 ⇒ 00:01:05.340 Abigail Zhao: Oh!
19 00:01:05.340 ⇒ 00:01:06.710 Patrick Trainer: And to yeah.
20 00:01:07.430 ⇒ 00:01:10.709 Patrick Trainer: it’s hasn’t like dipped below a hundred. And
21 00:01:10.780 ⇒ 00:01:12.299 Patrick Trainer: like a while. So.
22 00:01:12.490 ⇒ 00:01:13.719 Abigail Zhao: Oh, that’s crazy!
23 00:01:14.010 ⇒ 00:01:16.450 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, it’s like, it’s like 100 here right now. And it’s.
24 00:01:16.590 ⇒ 00:01:17.879 Patrick Trainer: Yeah, that’s not.
25 00:01:18.120 ⇒ 00:01:18.470 Abigail Zhao: A.
26 00:01:18.470 ⇒ 00:01:19.559 Uttam Kumaran: It’s like 11.
27 00:01:21.720 ⇒ 00:01:24.230 Abigail Zhao: Oh, it’s like 70 degrees here.
28 00:01:24.640 ⇒ 00:01:25.190 Abigail Zhao: Yeah.
29 00:01:25.190 ⇒ 00:01:26.340 Patrick Trainer: Sounds, nice.
30 00:01:26.340 ⇒ 00:01:34.939 Abigail Zhao: Yeah, it it only gets like super hot in the like afternoon time, though, but like mornings and nights are usually pretty like cool right.
31 00:01:34.940 ⇒ 00:01:35.660 Patrick Trainer: Right.
32 00:01:36.240 ⇒ 00:01:36.930 Abigail Zhao: Yeah.
33 00:01:36.930 ⇒ 00:01:39.119 Patrick Trainer: Yeah, it’s like we’ve had nights where.
34 00:01:39.190 ⇒ 00:01:43.130 Patrick Trainer: like it was literally a hundred 5 during the night, like at midnight.
35 00:01:43.130 ⇒ 00:01:45.000 Abigail Zhao: That’s crazy. Yeah.
36 00:01:45.160 ⇒ 00:01:47.049 Patrick Trainer: And it’s humid as hell, too. So.
37 00:01:47.050 ⇒ 00:01:47.790 Abigail Zhao: Well.
38 00:01:47.790 ⇒ 00:01:49.599 Patrick Trainer: It’s like you go outside, and you’re just
39 00:01:49.730 ⇒ 00:01:56.169 Patrick Trainer: wet like your your skin condenses from the A/C inside when you go out.
40 00:01:59.020 ⇒ 00:02:04.000 Patrick Trainer: It’s yeah every year question why we live here, and then.
41 00:02:06.020 ⇒ 00:02:07.849 Uttam Kumaran: Dude. I love it in Austin. Man.
42 00:02:07.850 ⇒ 00:02:12.960 Patrick Trainer: I mean, yeah, it’s I like it, too. But like, I like complaining about it more. Really.
43 00:02:13.260 ⇒ 00:02:17.469 Uttam Kumaran: You’ve been there longer than I have in the South, for sure. But I
44 00:02:17.770 ⇒ 00:02:18.750 Patrick Trainer: Yeah.
45 00:02:19.220 ⇒ 00:02:22.599 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know. I think this is the best place to live in the country right now.
46 00:02:22.960 ⇒ 00:02:23.710 Patrick Trainer: Yeah.
47 00:02:24.000 ⇒ 00:02:26.609 Patrick Trainer: I’ve been in the South since, like 2,000
48 00:02:26.620 ⇒ 00:02:27.720 Patrick Trainer: 5
49 00:02:27.750 ⇒ 00:02:30.989 Patrick Trainer: moved from Seattle down here. So it was like a big.
50 00:02:30.990 ⇒ 00:02:32.829 Uttam Kumaran: Where were you in Seattle? By the way.
51 00:02:34.520 ⇒ 00:02:38.689 Patrick Trainer: maybe like 20 miles north of Seattle, in a town called Muckleteo.
52 00:02:41.220 ⇒ 00:02:41.930 Uttam Kumaran: It’s like.
53 00:02:44.610 ⇒ 00:02:47.359 Uttam Kumaran: Did you ever go to the gorge while you were there? Yeah.
54 00:02:48.900 ⇒ 00:02:51.670 Patrick Trainer: Yup, and like Deception Pass, and
55 00:02:54.992 ⇒ 00:02:59.679 Patrick Trainer: they also have like. There’s a lot of fish concerts that happen at the gorge, too.
56 00:03:00.520 ⇒ 00:03:03.999 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. I went to go see Fred again, and Rufus at the gorge.
57 00:03:04.445 ⇒ 00:03:04.890 Patrick Trainer: Nice!
58 00:03:04.890 ⇒ 00:03:06.019 Uttam Kumaran: And it was wild.
59 00:03:09.010 ⇒ 00:03:15.739 Abigail Zhao: What do you guys like so much about Texas? I like never been there. So like, I really don’t know, like.
60 00:03:16.060 ⇒ 00:03:19.469 Uttam Kumaran: Well, I don’t know. I grew up well. I grew up in California, and then I
61 00:03:19.580 ⇒ 00:03:23.779 Uttam Kumaran: lived in PA, and then I lived in New York City for a while, and then.
62 00:03:24.080 ⇒ 00:03:34.380 Uttam Kumaran: yeah, I don’t know. I got. I like, I’m still pretty like professionally motivated. So like, I keep like, I can just be focused and do work here. But the people are so nice.
63 00:03:34.910 ⇒ 00:03:38.519 Uttam Kumaran: The lifestyle is so nice that there’s nobody. There’s like
64 00:03:38.670 ⇒ 00:03:44.500 Uttam Kumaran: no population issue here. Everybody here complains that there’s a lot of people. There’s not a lot of people.
65 00:03:45.040 ⇒ 00:03:45.440 Patrick Trainer: Yeah.
66 00:03:45.840 ⇒ 00:03:50.250 Uttam Kumaran: Like, there’s no lines for like 90% of things.
67 00:03:51.063 ⇒ 00:04:00.550 Uttam Kumaran: If you go to like the tourist areas, yeah, there’s gonna be a line. But why, I don’t know. You’re not going there, and so life is like very relaxed here, and I travel a lot
68 00:04:01.180 ⇒ 00:04:08.000 Uttam Kumaran: for work or for like life in general. So like once a month or once every other month, anyway. So
69 00:04:08.570 ⇒ 00:04:13.189 Uttam Kumaran: yeah. And so I I just think, like it’s really nice. And stuff is super cheap.
70 00:04:13.450 ⇒ 00:04:16.070 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, yeah, rent is really cheap.
71 00:04:16.470 ⇒ 00:04:19.880 Uttam Kumaran: Gas is 2 70 to 80.
72 00:04:21.519 ⇒ 00:04:24.144 Abigail Zhao: That’s crazy! Oh, my! Gosh!
73 00:04:24.670 ⇒ 00:04:32.010 Uttam Kumaran: Estate taxes. Yeah, it’s like the best thing. It’s like, if you can just get over the ego of not being like where everybody is.
74 00:04:32.010 ⇒ 00:04:32.370 Abigail Zhao: Yeah.
75 00:04:32.370 ⇒ 00:04:35.199 Uttam Kumaran: Which I I was like in New York City. So then I like
76 00:04:35.320 ⇒ 00:04:36.679 Uttam Kumaran: got over that.
77 00:04:36.690 ⇒ 00:04:38.100 Uttam Kumaran: I’m good.
78 00:04:38.100 ⇒ 00:04:38.760 Patrick Trainer: Right.
79 00:04:38.760 ⇒ 00:04:44.959 Uttam Kumaran: Cause. I still go to New York all the time, and, like I have a bunch of friends there and then. I have a bunch of friends at Sf.
80 00:04:45.380 ⇒ 00:04:52.869 Uttam Kumaran: and yeah, I just but honestly, most of the day I sit here at work, or I go to coffee shop at work like that’s life these days. So.
81 00:04:53.210 ⇒ 00:04:54.270 Abigail Zhao: Sounds, nice.
82 00:04:54.270 ⇒ 00:04:58.980 Patrick Trainer: I’m in New Orleans so, but like I have a sister and my sister’s in Dallas.
83 00:04:59.420 ⇒ 00:05:05.409 Patrick Trainer: And so like I mean, I think Texas is pretty cool from I mean at least what I’ve seen in Dallas and Austin.
84 00:05:05.500 ⇒ 00:05:09.009 Patrick Trainer: But New Orleans is cool, too. It’s like a
85 00:05:09.670 ⇒ 00:05:15.486 Patrick Trainer: it’s like a it’s like a big city, but it’s like small at the same time
86 00:05:16.070 ⇒ 00:05:19.890 Patrick Trainer: it. I mean, New Orleans is New Orleans. It’s just kind of fun
87 00:05:19.950 ⇒ 00:05:25.493 Patrick Trainer: that’s pretty lawless, in a sense, which, like is a double edged sword.
88 00:05:25.920 ⇒ 00:05:28.219 Uttam Kumaran: New Orleans is so historic. Man, like.
89 00:05:28.410 ⇒ 00:05:29.060 Patrick Trainer: Yeah.
90 00:05:29.300 ⇒ 00:05:35.120 Patrick Trainer: yeah, it’s been under like French, Spanish, then French again. And then, like.
91 00:05:35.370 ⇒ 00:05:37.540 Patrick Trainer: the Us took it over. And
92 00:05:38.200 ⇒ 00:05:40.109 Patrick Trainer: yeah, there’s a lot of like.
93 00:05:40.120 ⇒ 00:05:42.940 Patrick Trainer: I mean cultural stuff and history. And
94 00:05:42.960 ⇒ 00:05:44.800 Patrick Trainer: it’s like my house was built in
95 00:05:44.930 ⇒ 00:05:46.750 Patrick Trainer: 1875.
96 00:05:47.170 ⇒ 00:05:50.389 Patrick Trainer: And so, like this neighborhood just
97 00:05:50.700 ⇒ 00:05:52.593 Patrick Trainer: celebrated, it’s
98 00:05:53.790 ⇒ 00:05:56.149 Patrick Trainer: 300th anniversary.
99 00:05:56.830 ⇒ 00:05:57.320 Uttam Kumaran: Nice.
100 00:05:57.810 ⇒ 00:05:58.969 Patrick Trainer: Which is like
101 00:05:59.650 ⇒ 00:06:01.120 Patrick Trainer: not many places or.
102 00:06:01.416 ⇒ 00:06:02.010 Abigail Zhao: I mean.
103 00:06:02.010 ⇒ 00:06:04.100 Patrick Trainer: Even been around for 300 years.
104 00:06:04.680 ⇒ 00:06:07.089 Patrick Trainer: And so yeah, it’s it’s
105 00:06:07.520 ⇒ 00:06:09.730 Patrick Trainer: it’s cool. It’s fun.
106 00:06:11.000 ⇒ 00:06:11.730 Patrick Trainer: Yeah.
107 00:06:13.950 ⇒ 00:06:17.220 Uttam Kumaran: Are you gonna stay in La Abigail? What do you think.
108 00:06:18.595 ⇒ 00:06:19.530 Abigail Zhao: So.
109 00:06:19.530 ⇒ 00:06:21.239 Uttam Kumaran: From? Are you from the east coast.
110 00:06:21.240 ⇒ 00:06:22.810 Abigail Zhao: Yeah, I’m from New York.
111 00:06:22.810 ⇒ 00:06:23.940 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. Nice.
112 00:06:23.940 ⇒ 00:06:39.969 Abigail Zhao: Yeah. So many people like always ask me if I prefer like New York or La better. And maybe it’s just cause, like my roots will always lie in New York, so I always say New York. But also I don’t know. I I don’t really see myself staying in La after I graduate.
113 00:06:39.970 ⇒ 00:06:41.290 Uttam Kumaran: Would you stay in Tally.
114 00:06:43.020 ⇒ 00:06:44.829 Abigail Zhao: Maybe, but
115 00:06:44.920 ⇒ 00:06:51.670 Abigail Zhao: I don’t know. I I just think maybe like so Cal is not for me. But I mean obviously
116 00:06:51.970 ⇒ 00:06:58.740 Abigail Zhao: I I don’t know. Well, we will. We’ll never know until we know, you know. Yeah.
117 00:06:58.740 ⇒ 00:07:00.620 Patrick Trainer: Maybe hang out to the Olympics.
118 00:07:01.050 ⇒ 00:07:01.470 Abigail Zhao: Yeah.
119 00:07:01.470 ⇒ 00:07:06.769 Uttam Kumaran: I think, after, like remote work, there’s a lot of other places in the Us that opened up.
120 00:07:07.993 ⇒ 00:07:11.170 Uttam Kumaran: Like Miami and Austin were not like
121 00:07:11.740 ⇒ 00:07:15.140 Uttam Kumaran: like massive places before. Like I
122 00:07:15.400 ⇒ 00:07:19.139 Uttam Kumaran: I like. Didn’t know about Austin until like 5 years ago, like frankly.
123 00:07:19.560 ⇒ 00:07:23.840 Uttam Kumaran: and like a lot of people here. I really don’t like when I say that, but I’m like dude. I did not hear.
124 00:07:23.840 ⇒ 00:07:25.390 Patrick Trainer: I mean, it’s pretty true.
125 00:07:25.390 ⇒ 00:07:39.610 Uttam Kumaran: I like. Didn’t hear about your cute little town until, like Covid, I mean, I know Dallas and Houston, but like for basketball, but like I don’t know. People here think that’s like, Oh, it’s a music capital. I’m like, that’s national.
126 00:07:39.610 ⇒ 00:07:42.510 Patrick Trainer: And no, it’s not Nashville either.
127 00:07:42.510 ⇒ 00:07:45.640 Uttam Kumaran: You have to be in a certain speed, like I feel like, here you have ut.
128 00:07:46.100 ⇒ 00:07:47.120 Uttam Kumaran: But
129 00:07:47.400 ⇒ 00:07:59.030 Uttam Kumaran: and there’s still like you could still do a lot. There’s really great food, but I’m also more like I don’t. I’m not like out like in New York. I was out every day like eating or drinking, or whatever like. Here, I don’t do that. I’m like.
130 00:07:59.200 ⇒ 00:08:01.699 Uttam Kumaran: Go to gym. I work. I go to a gym, and then
131 00:08:02.160 ⇒ 00:08:08.109 Uttam Kumaran: I travel, you know. So yeah, but I’m in a different mode, like, you know. So.
132 00:08:08.110 ⇒ 00:08:08.790 Patrick Trainer: Right.
133 00:08:08.790 ⇒ 00:08:14.210 Uttam Kumaran: You can’t. A lot of people I don’t come here that they wanna like do New York shit here? It’s not possible.
134 00:08:14.590 ⇒ 00:08:19.229 Uttam Kumaran: There’s like the downtown here is like not like a really crazy downtown.
135 00:08:19.330 ⇒ 00:08:20.659 Uttam Kumaran: It’s not like
136 00:08:20.820 ⇒ 00:08:25.210 Uttam Kumaran: everything here closes like really early, for the most part, things close like 10 or 11.
137 00:08:25.876 ⇒ 00:08:26.870 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, wow!
138 00:08:27.110 ⇒ 00:08:29.741 Uttam Kumaran: And like nobody here cares about work. So
139 00:08:30.190 ⇒ 00:08:33.453 Uttam Kumaran: it’s like, totally cannot be like New York at all.
140 00:08:33.789 ⇒ 00:08:34.809 Patrick Trainer: Right?
141 00:08:36.470 ⇒ 00:08:37.100 Patrick Trainer: Right?
142 00:08:37.270 ⇒ 00:08:40.400 Patrick Trainer: Yeah. Here’s like a like, there’s always something
143 00:08:40.580 ⇒ 00:08:42.319 Patrick Trainer: going on, be it like
144 00:08:42.650 ⇒ 00:08:46.269 Patrick Trainer: a parade. Or I mean, it’s just kind of wild.
145 00:08:46.510 ⇒ 00:08:47.410 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
146 00:08:47.410 ⇒ 00:08:48.140 Patrick Trainer: The time.
147 00:08:48.140 ⇒ 00:08:48.800 Uttam Kumaran: Before.
148 00:08:48.800 ⇒ 00:08:51.699 Patrick Trainer: And it’s like the like. If you want to like.
149 00:08:51.780 ⇒ 00:08:55.840 Patrick Trainer: go have a night out. It’s like places are open, like, you know.
150 00:08:56.211 ⇒ 00:08:58.440 Uttam Kumaran: Covers her till, like 4 Am.
151 00:08:59.259 ⇒ 00:09:05.009 Patrick Trainer: Like, yeah, there’s so many like 24 h, like bars or restaurants
152 00:09:05.070 ⇒ 00:09:10.700 Patrick Trainer: and stuff like that. But it’s like people just find themselves in. And then there’s all these like
153 00:09:11.090 ⇒ 00:09:15.059 Patrick Trainer: kind of like literal hole in the wall, places that like were
154 00:09:15.580 ⇒ 00:09:19.990 Patrick Trainer: literal, like between buildings like corridors that are now like
155 00:09:20.230 ⇒ 00:09:22.309 Patrick Trainer: like bars, or
156 00:09:22.530 ⇒ 00:09:24.420 Patrick Trainer: just like spaces.
157 00:09:24.790 ⇒ 00:09:26.510 Patrick Trainer: And it’s like there’s
158 00:09:27.290 ⇒ 00:09:30.800 Patrick Trainer: like, there’s no way that you can go to all of them like it’s it’s
159 00:09:30.960 ⇒ 00:09:33.830 Patrick Trainer: there’s there’s something for everyone. Really.
160 00:09:36.170 ⇒ 00:09:37.319 Patrick Trainer: food’s good, too.
161 00:09:42.540 ⇒ 00:09:44.717 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I guess otherwise this week.
162 00:09:45.110 ⇒ 00:09:57.876 Uttam Kumaran: it’s been pretty good. I think the 3 of us have been spending a lot of time on sales and sales automation. I think we’ll have a bigger chat next week. But that went super. Well, I feel really, really motivated.
163 00:09:59.370 ⇒ 00:10:12.229 Uttam Kumaran: we have like a. We have a couple of leads that are in the pipeline. So that’s also good. And then we’ve done a really good job this week, and me and Nico are spending some time after this actually like cleaning up notion.
164 00:10:13.680 ⇒ 00:10:17.190 Uttam Kumaran: So I’ll just kind of share that, because I think now it’s a little bit more usable.
165 00:10:17.712 ⇒ 00:10:27.930 Uttam Kumaran: But if you go into notion now, you’ll see if you click on Brainforge, Hq, actually see like a brainforge wicky, which basically has, like all the core
166 00:10:28.878 ⇒ 00:10:53.641 Uttam Kumaran: like pages that like kind of like, run the company. You know, I took Inspo from like another company’s post about kind of how they organize their notion, but it’s, you know, pretty standard where, just like onboarding all the major kind of like pages, you know. Unfortunately, like some of this is, are all like really as far as on the engineering side. But you know, I think we’ll we’ll we’ll end up getting that. And and a lot of it will be backlink right? Like,
167 00:10:54.250 ⇒ 00:10:57.559 Uttam Kumaran: You know, we have like tools and documentation. And
168 00:10:57.770 ⇒ 00:10:59.960 Uttam Kumaran: it’s all just relations. It’s it’s really a
169 00:11:00.090 ⇒ 00:11:05.160 Uttam Kumaran: ideally. It’s not like more than just like repurposing the same content.
170 00:11:06.132 ⇒ 00:11:12.690 Uttam Kumaran: But it’s nice, because, you know, we have. All of our docs are here kind of organized by like type, and
171 00:11:12.840 ⇒ 00:11:17.289 Uttam Kumaran: they have a ton of different properties based on based on that. And again, like.
172 00:11:17.590 ⇒ 00:11:21.750 Uttam Kumaran: my goal is for us to really be a very documentation. Heavy company.
173 00:11:22.214 ⇒ 00:11:27.230 Uttam Kumaran: Because we are remote. We are Async. We have to rely on process more than
174 00:11:27.660 ⇒ 00:11:34.809 Uttam Kumaran: other companies would. And so documentation is going to save us in that in that right. And so we do have a lot of documentation.
175 00:11:34.850 ⇒ 00:11:36.339 Uttam Kumaran: We will start to.
176 00:11:36.590 ⇒ 00:11:40.810 Uttam Kumaran: you know, leverage AI to keep some of the stuff clean and keep some consistent formatting, and.
177 00:11:40.870 ⇒ 00:11:43.090 Uttam Kumaran: you know, Past recommended some good
178 00:11:43.480 ⇒ 00:11:49.020 Uttam Kumaran: ways of doing documentation that will continue to enforce over time. But
179 00:11:49.520 ⇒ 00:11:53.750 Uttam Kumaran: for now, really, like, everything’s gonna get stacked in here, which is great, because, again.
180 00:11:54.340 ⇒ 00:12:03.100 Uttam Kumaran: if this saves us the time between waiting to ask somebody, and then having delay, or like not knowing how to do things. This is kind of going to be our our handbook for everything.
181 00:12:04.450 ⇒ 00:12:05.800 Uttam Kumaran: so we have dots.
182 00:12:06.297 ⇒ 00:12:08.450 Uttam Kumaran: We have meetings. So at the moment.
183 00:12:09.730 ⇒ 00:12:17.919 Uttam Kumaran: at the moment, this is getting populated from AI, actually, so like what happens is we 3 of us had this meeting the other day.
184 00:12:18.030 ⇒ 00:12:21.509 Uttam Kumaran: The Zoom Meeting got recorded, transcribed, and then actually
185 00:12:21.820 ⇒ 00:12:26.164 Uttam Kumaran: got sent to relevance relevance, summarized it and put stuff here.
186 00:12:26.630 ⇒ 00:12:28.320 Uttam Kumaran: which is great, because
187 00:12:28.520 ⇒ 00:12:33.809 Uttam Kumaran: what happens usually in a meeting, you go to the meeting, you chat, and then you just be like you kind of no idea what happened.
188 00:12:33.910 ⇒ 00:12:35.220 Uttam Kumaran: And so
189 00:12:35.230 ⇒ 00:12:43.460 Uttam Kumaran: that’s like something that in my career has always been a problem. And I’ve been good. I’ve been pretty good like when I can manage stuff about like coming to the meeting with notes
190 00:12:43.870 ⇒ 00:13:09.340 Uttam Kumaran: having an agenda and then leaving with like action items, which is, that’s every meeting, basically however, that’s like I would say, only happens probably like 10 or 20% of the time. Frankly, if you’ve ever been in meetings, and usually, what happens is there’s a ton of redundancy like you have to go ask again, or things like that. So again, we’re using AI to basically solve that where, if you’ve been part of a meeting, you can get all your notes here.
191 00:13:09.410 ⇒ 00:13:11.620 Uttam Kumaran: and then eventually what will happen is.
192 00:13:11.680 ⇒ 00:13:13.909 Uttam Kumaran: not only will these get a bit more clear.
193 00:13:14.180 ⇒ 00:13:19.220 Uttam Kumaran: There’ll be stuff like auto tagging. And like, kind of creating issues from these meetings.
194 00:13:19.250 ⇒ 00:13:40.209 Uttam Kumaran: So basically, like, well, you consider like a lot of stuff happens every time we meet, which is great, because I’m in meetings all day across a ton of categories, and I’m no longer prepared for like anything. So this is like a really like a godsend for me. And it’s it’s it’s really great. I’m I’m excited to continue to leverage this
195 00:13:41.410 ⇒ 00:13:56.119 Uttam Kumaran: going further down the line. We have like tasks. You know, I use this a lot. We’re using this for some of our updates on the website side. I don’t know, Nico, you end up using this. I guess I was gonna ask you later today. But I
196 00:13:56.180 ⇒ 00:13:59.090 Uttam Kumaran: I’m starting to leverage this more and more because
197 00:13:59.630 ⇒ 00:14:02.560 Uttam Kumaran: asks across clients, across sales. And
198 00:14:02.620 ⇒ 00:14:04.569 Uttam Kumaran: for me, like I
199 00:14:04.700 ⇒ 00:14:22.949 Uttam Kumaran: like, I’m I have to do lists like everywhere in my house, like I have like a whiteboard like behind me, with like stuff I need to do. I have like in my notes. I have stuff I need to do. And then, of course, like in slack, I have stuff. So I’m I’m especially for work. I’m trying to get a little bit more organized about
200 00:14:23.380 ⇒ 00:14:24.569 Uttam Kumaran: man. And again.
201 00:14:24.770 ⇒ 00:14:36.689 Uttam Kumaran: the the thing about this is tasks can come in in a variety of different mediums. It may be a slack, maybe a phone call, maybe a text. It may be an email, all that needs to get centralized with some properties, you know. And so
202 00:14:36.780 ⇒ 00:14:40.910 Uttam Kumaran: what’s what’s the project related to when to do things like that. So for me.
203 00:14:41.040 ⇒ 00:14:44.449 Uttam Kumaran: I’m using this to kind of manage all of that.
204 00:14:45.270 ⇒ 00:14:56.319 Uttam Kumaran: that way. I’m not like missing things, and you know, especially things related to sales versus engineering. I kind of keep everything tracked here. I mean, I I think, on the engineering side, for the most part.
205 00:14:56.500 ⇒ 00:15:02.984 Uttam Kumaran: we but we’re using issues. But I highly encourage everybody to leverage this. If you want
206 00:15:03.420 ⇒ 00:15:11.139 Uttam Kumaran: we we have a we have a ton of flexibility. So again, on the sales side. What we will do is as we have more and more tasks.
207 00:15:11.480 ⇒ 00:15:17.829 Uttam Kumaran: especially on workflows, and they’re associated with documents. They’ll all get tossed in here just for visibility, basically
208 00:15:18.358 ⇒ 00:15:21.169 Uttam Kumaran: again, like we’re gonna be as
209 00:15:21.420 ⇒ 00:15:27.289 Uttam Kumaran: strong as our documentation and and our organization. Frankly. So.
210 00:15:27.310 ⇒ 00:15:38.005 Uttam Kumaran: this, I think, saves everybody a lot of like cool. We have a great meeting. And then, like couple of days, go by or like, what would, what do we do? These are all like redundancy, basically on top of that. So
211 00:15:39.190 ⇒ 00:15:40.980 Uttam Kumaran: that’s that. And then
212 00:15:41.280 ⇒ 00:15:42.850 Uttam Kumaran: otherwise.
213 00:15:43.940 ⇒ 00:15:49.719 Uttam Kumaran: I’ve started a tools database, basically with, like all the tools that we’re using.
214 00:15:49.830 ⇒ 00:15:57.689 Uttam Kumaran: I’ll add nice icons to each of these. So they look really nice. And then basically tools, we get associated with clients or projects.
215 00:15:57.740 ⇒ 00:16:04.650 Uttam Kumaran: Again, the tools have owners like. Who do I go to to add accounts and stuff like that? And then also, of course, we’ll have documentation
216 00:16:04.700 ⇒ 00:16:10.599 Uttam Kumaran: so like how to install real how to do certain things. So again, we basically have like this web of
217 00:16:10.780 ⇒ 00:16:13.630 Uttam Kumaran: basically how our company operates.
218 00:16:16.010 ⇒ 00:16:31.230 Uttam Kumaran: otherwise, on the sales side, there’s a bunch of stuff about leads and materials and things like that. I don’t need to really go into that much. You can click around clients and then engineering and then the last thing I’ll share is like, I’m starting to create a laundry list of basically AI automations that we want.
219 00:16:32.960 ⇒ 00:16:39.065 Uttam Kumaran: you know. And I think this has been really helpful because we’re gonna have someone dedicated towards kind of like building some of these. But
220 00:16:40.060 ⇒ 00:16:44.110 Uttam Kumaran: I’m starting to use zapier and relevance more heavily like even this morning.
221 00:16:44.508 ⇒ 00:16:47.189 Uttam Kumaran: I got an email from a client about doing something.
222 00:16:47.310 ⇒ 00:17:01.589 Uttam Kumaran: Typically, I would just leave that email in my inbox until I got to it, which is like totally stupid, because I would just never get to it. So what I did is, I wrote like a simple thing that, like I could forward email to Zapier, it didn’t adds a task
223 00:17:01.700 ⇒ 00:17:02.740 Uttam Kumaran: to
224 00:17:03.040 ⇒ 00:17:07.430 Uttam Kumaran: a task database. And like uses AI to basically summarize it. That’s actually the task.
225 00:17:07.540 ⇒ 00:17:08.150 Uttam Kumaran: That’s
226 00:17:09.520 ⇒ 00:17:10.990 Uttam Kumaran: that’s at the bottom here.
227 00:17:12.970 ⇒ 00:17:19.392 Uttam Kumaran: so again, finding different ways to stay organized. So that’s like the big push on notion side.
228 00:17:21.310 ⇒ 00:17:26.070 Uttam Kumaran: yeah, apart from that, I think this week has been really positive. We had, like both the clients are pretty happy.
229 00:17:26.594 ⇒ 00:17:42.179 Uttam Kumaran: Again, I think, for the most part like this meeting will continue to be like folks that are like full time brain forge. And then we do have folks that are like part, time on client work. But again, for the most part, they’re just handling their own stuff. And like, Nico is really like the in between
230 00:17:45.890 ⇒ 00:17:49.980 Uttam Kumaran: and yeah, I guess anything else we wanna chat about
231 00:17:55.200 ⇒ 00:17:56.230 Uttam Kumaran: The only.
232 00:17:56.230 ⇒ 00:17:57.480 Patrick Trainer: Pretty good. Summary. Yeah.
233 00:17:57.730 ⇒ 00:18:05.309 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, the only other, the only other thing. That I was just thinking about today. That we’ll probably do in a few weeks is on Linkedin.
234 00:18:05.890 ⇒ 00:18:07.760 Uttam Kumaran: we’re starting to spruce up
235 00:18:07.790 ⇒ 00:18:12.680 Uttam Kumaran: like our company page, and then I may have everybody, you know.
236 00:18:14.120 ⇒ 00:18:27.840 Uttam Kumaran: I think some folks have already done it like, add Brainforge, their Linkedin, but also attach that to a post. So we can start driving some traffic. So like Abigail, you’ll be able to put like, yeah, you’re you’re an intern at Brainforge, same with a Darb and and everybody
237 00:18:28.230 ⇒ 00:18:32.829 Uttam Kumaran: and Ryan and other folks that are kind of doing stuff for us if they want to.
238 00:18:33.530 ⇒ 00:18:37.660 Uttam Kumaran: and that’ll kind of go nicely as we start to post content. So that’ll be in the next few weeks.
239 00:18:42.300 ⇒ 00:18:46.210 Uttam Kumaran: yeah, that’s it. Honestly. Don’t have much else for Friday.
240 00:18:50.400 ⇒ 00:18:52.320 Uttam Kumaran: Anything else to chat about.
241 00:18:53.030 ⇒ 00:18:57.579 Abigail Zhao: Wait. Can I ask a question about the thing I was in charge of doing like the spreadsheet?
242 00:18:57.956 ⇒ 00:19:06.370 Abigail Zhao: I’m just not totally sure where, like some of the sources of the data, would be, for, like some of the things in the categories.
243 00:19:07.060 ⇒ 00:19:09.190 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. What? What was that? Again? Sorry. I totally.
244 00:19:09.427 ⇒ 00:19:10.139 Abigail Zhao: No, you’re good.
245 00:19:10.140 ⇒ 00:19:10.510 Uttam Kumaran: Been on.
246 00:19:10.510 ⇒ 00:19:29.460 Abigail Zhao: It was just like essentially, just like taking the entire like point system that Patrick made, and like putting it in like a spreadsheet format. But then I think one of the sections you also wanted was, saying where, like the sources of the data would come from, and I am just not totally sure where, like majority of those things would be found.
247 00:19:30.430 ⇒ 00:19:35.789 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. So I think it’s probably gonna be either from Apollo or
248 00:19:35.850 ⇒ 00:19:47.700 Uttam Kumaran: it’s, I think, for the most part it’s going to be from Apollo. Right? Pat, like I don’t know what other, mainly, I want to know, like how we get that information, whether it’s like. And also I want to know whether it’s there today or not. Like.
249 00:19:47.780 ⇒ 00:19:51.599 Uttam Kumaran: for example, you should log into Apollo and see like, can we see
250 00:19:51.740 ⇒ 00:20:10.310 Uttam Kumaran: employee count there? Can we see these things. If if it’s already there, then yeah, we’ll get it from Apollo, but not then we need to find another way to basically get that. And for example, email opens right? I actually don’t know, like, I guess we’ll have to get that from Beehive, which is our Newsletter service, which will tell us like
251 00:20:10.390 ⇒ 00:20:15.490 Uttam Kumaran: it just opened this many times. But yeah, it’ll be one of the tools that are in the tools. Database.
252 00:20:15.490 ⇒ 00:20:15.880 Abigail Zhao: Okay.
253 00:20:15.880 ⇒ 00:20:19.859 Uttam Kumaran: But but also again, there’s something that we could probably chat about if if
254 00:20:20.070 ⇒ 00:20:24.259 Uttam Kumaran: do as do as much as you can, and then, if you have open questions, just put the comments in there and then.
255 00:20:24.530 ⇒ 00:20:26.410 Abigail Zhao: Okay, that was a big problem. Yeah.
256 00:20:26.410 ⇒ 00:20:30.829 Patrick Trainer: Yeah, I was. I was, gonna say, that’s probably something, or at least partially that, like.
257 00:20:30.880 ⇒ 00:20:32.289 Patrick Trainer: we can all just like.
258 00:20:32.639 ⇒ 00:20:32.989 Abigail Zhao: Thanks.
259 00:20:32.990 ⇒ 00:20:39.320 Patrick Trainer: Bang out like in a in a meeting and yes, I wouldn’t stress like too.
260 00:20:39.320 ⇒ 00:20:40.170 Abigail Zhao: That’s about.
261 00:20:40.170 ⇒ 00:20:43.270 Patrick Trainer: Like that. That part, I’d say, like the
262 00:20:44.900 ⇒ 00:20:46.200 Patrick Trainer: big thing is like
263 00:20:46.880 ⇒ 00:20:49.019 Patrick Trainer: the the points, and having that many.
264 00:20:49.020 ⇒ 00:20:51.529 Abigail Zhao: Yeah, okay. Yeah, sounds, good.
265 00:20:52.970 ⇒ 00:20:57.638 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, cool. And then, yeah, send whatever progress you have or any questions like, don’t
266 00:20:58.020 ⇒ 00:21:00.280 Uttam Kumaran: yeah. Just like spam and slack, cause
267 00:21:01.000 ⇒ 00:21:03.100 Uttam Kumaran: that’s totally that’s totally normal.
268 00:21:03.100 ⇒ 00:21:03.450 Abigail Zhao: Hmm.
269 00:21:04.300 ⇒ 00:21:06.320 Patrick Trainer: Public channels are the best, too, because.
270 00:21:06.320 ⇒ 00:21:17.329 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, like I would say, if you if you’re in a moment of doubt, say in slack, I I’m very much proponent of like not waiting until meetings, because again, like
271 00:21:18.130 ⇒ 00:21:24.490 Uttam Kumaran: like again, everything’s like a manufacturing cycle. So if we wait 4 days and it could have been like a 2 message slack.
272 00:21:24.950 ⇒ 00:21:38.030 Uttam Kumaran: It’s easy. Or again, if it’s the longer thing, then we’ll just kick it to a meeting, anyway. So yeah. And then today, I’m actually going to send out a I’m gonna kind of set up a beehive, which is our newsletter service.
273 00:21:38.556 ⇒ 00:21:46.460 Uttam Kumaran: I want you to share with you guys because I feel like we have a couple more minutes. Beehive is
274 00:21:48.303 ⇒ 00:21:51.826 Uttam Kumaran: you guys have probably heard of substack
275 00:21:52.540 ⇒ 00:22:03.340 Uttam Kumaran: substack is kind of like a twitter. Now for newsletters and like publications kind of like open publication. The thing with substack is it’s very centralized.
276 00:22:03.770 ⇒ 00:22:17.629 Uttam Kumaran: Like you. You don’t have the ability to like embed it into your site. It’s almost like an aggregator which has certain benefits. I’ve talked to a bunch of people friends like in agency and marketing. They recommended that I do.
277 00:22:18.389 ⇒ 00:22:35.839 Uttam Kumaran: We do this on beehive for our newsletter, mainly because one it’s completely kind of lives on its own and there’s not like, there’s there is some discoverability. But for the most part you could have multiple publications within our newsletter and our email list
278 00:22:36.193 ⇒ 00:22:55.566 Uttam Kumaran: and then, basically, we’re going to have a couple of different newsletters that we try to run but also, the nice thing is we can embed this directly on our domain. So it’ll be like Newsletter dot Brainforge, AI to go see all this, and then each of us can publish and like have author creds. And there’s a there’s a lot. It’s really nice.
279 00:22:56.120 ⇒ 00:22:59.612 Uttam Kumaran: So we’re going. So, for example, if I give you like
280 00:23:01.401 ⇒ 00:23:03.690 Uttam Kumaran: let’s look at one for food.
281 00:23:04.320 ⇒ 00:23:05.060 Uttam Kumaran: Tom.
282 00:23:06.600 ⇒ 00:23:07.540 Uttam Kumaran: nice.
283 00:23:07.670 ⇒ 00:23:12.573 Uttam Kumaran: great example, guys, this guy actually lives in Austin. I saw him the other day.
284 00:23:15.460 ⇒ 00:23:19.799 Uttam Kumaran: interesting. Okay. So here’s an example. This is also shitty.
285 00:23:20.810 ⇒ 00:23:22.350 Patrick Trainer: These are all pretty terrible.
286 00:23:23.500 ⇒ 00:23:26.050 Uttam Kumaran: Wow, these, their examples suck.
287 00:23:30.310 ⇒ 00:23:34.730 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, the food ones are not good. Let’s do
288 00:23:34.810 ⇒ 00:23:37.830 Uttam Kumaran: content creators. Because, I’m sure, these guys really
289 00:23:39.410 ⇒ 00:23:40.370 Uttam Kumaran: here
290 00:23:44.380 ⇒ 00:23:46.310 Uttam Kumaran: seems like a podcast
291 00:23:58.470 ⇒ 00:24:01.319 Uttam Kumaran: okay. So here’s an example. So this kind of looks like substack.
292 00:24:02.130 ⇒ 00:24:05.760 Uttam Kumaran: And yeah, I mean again, like, I don’t these like.
293 00:24:06.040 ⇒ 00:24:08.804 Uttam Kumaran: I really wish they had better thumbnails. But
294 00:24:09.440 ⇒ 00:24:13.310 Uttam Kumaran: yeah, basically, they would log in. It would be our branding. And then.
295 00:24:13.480 ⇒ 00:24:14.320 Uttam Kumaran: like
296 00:24:15.700 ⇒ 00:24:20.549 Uttam Kumaran: simple newsletter format. The nice thing for us is like, we don’t have to build any of this all kind of white labeled.
297 00:24:21.091 ⇒ 00:24:28.399 Uttam Kumaran: and yeah, so I’m going to publish something today. Kind of the combo things that we’re thinking about playing one. I just want to get some stuff out.
298 00:24:28.430 ⇒ 00:24:40.640 Uttam Kumaran: And one of the things that I’m gonna try to do every week is just publish some stuff that I’ve been reading that’s been interesting, and I’ll just. I’ll probably just send it to everybody at the company first, st and then we’ll start to add more people. And then I think we’ll do something on a monthly basis.
299 00:24:41.506 ⇒ 00:24:49.203 Uttam Kumaran: That’s around data. Also, our blog posts will kind of get published through this. And then the last thing is,
300 00:24:50.210 ⇒ 00:24:57.360 Uttam Kumaran: we’re also doing some joint blog posts with some partners, so that’ll also, you know, get published through this mechanism. So
301 00:24:57.790 ⇒ 00:25:01.662 Uttam Kumaran: the nice thing is this will get hooked up to
302 00:25:04.740 ⇒ 00:25:10.809 Uttam Kumaran: This will get hooked up to the site right here. So if you put in your email, you’re automatically get signed up
303 00:25:11.160 ⇒ 00:25:13.063 Uttam Kumaran: for that. And then,
304 00:25:15.990 ⇒ 00:25:24.980 Uttam Kumaran: yeah, that’s that’s the main stuff about the newsletter so ideally like. Whenever we post content, it’ll also get filtered to the newsletter.
305 00:25:25.180 ⇒ 00:25:28.800 Uttam Kumaran: and then that’ll start to just like start to run on its own. So.
306 00:25:32.820 ⇒ 00:25:36.760 Patrick Trainer: Just as long as they don’t look like any of those example sites like I’m.
307 00:25:36.760 ⇒ 00:25:39.169 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, yeah, these are fucking! Horrible!
308 00:25:40.240 ⇒ 00:25:41.780 Patrick Trainer: They’re awful.
309 00:25:43.050 ⇒ 00:25:45.569 Uttam Kumaran: Can I get someone that actually cares about like?
310 00:25:48.930 ⇒ 00:25:52.499 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, this, I mean, this looks really nice. Oh, this is for Spike.
311 00:25:57.300 ⇒ 00:25:58.720 Uttam Kumaran: Let’s look at this.
312 00:26:01.220 ⇒ 00:26:02.220 Patrick Trainer: Oh, man!
313 00:26:03.340 ⇒ 00:26:05.199 Uttam Kumaran: I mean dude. These are all like.
314 00:26:08.550 ⇒ 00:26:11.239 Patrick Trainer: I think the problem started when they
315 00:26:11.440 ⇒ 00:26:14.140 Patrick Trainer: use 2 eyes in their name.
316 00:26:14.940 ⇒ 00:26:15.750 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
317 00:26:18.250 ⇒ 00:26:19.690 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, see?
318 00:26:27.080 ⇒ 00:26:27.820 Patrick Trainer: Okay.
319 00:26:29.330 ⇒ 00:26:32.969 Uttam Kumaran: Looks better. But also again, I think I think the difference is.
320 00:26:33.230 ⇒ 00:26:37.329 Uttam Kumaran: yeah, this is a tabloid. I mean, I I think the difference is
321 00:26:38.390 ⇒ 00:26:45.950 Uttam Kumaran: this. Sometimes people are using behind just for the back end, and sometimes they use it for the whole thing. So I guess we’ll decide kind of like what we use it for.
322 00:26:52.200 ⇒ 00:26:58.045 Uttam Kumaran: yeah, we’ll see. And then, if it doesn’t work, we go to substack the nice thing. This thing I didn’t like about sub stack. Was that
323 00:26:58.580 ⇒ 00:27:02.690 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know. It seemed more like about like personal content.
324 00:27:02.850 ⇒ 00:27:03.520 Patrick Trainer: Yeah.
325 00:27:03.730 ⇒ 00:27:04.320 Uttam Kumaran: And
326 00:27:07.350 ⇒ 00:27:12.349 Uttam Kumaran: I was thinking about doing a substack and having to brain forge one. But I just think putting it all under one, and then
327 00:27:13.330 ⇒ 00:27:19.039 Uttam Kumaran: kind of having one joint list. And like, I want other people to contribute like, this will be easier. So
328 00:27:20.190 ⇒ 00:27:21.320 Uttam Kumaran: yeah.
329 00:27:22.150 ⇒ 00:27:24.049 Uttam Kumaran: okay, I think that’s it, though.
330 00:27:25.550 ⇒ 00:27:26.260 Patrick Trainer: Sweet.
331 00:27:28.780 ⇒ 00:27:33.249 Uttam Kumaran: Cool. Okay, we’ll chat on Monday. Then. Enjoy the weekend. Everybody.
332 00:27:33.480 ⇒ 00:27:35.000 Patrick Trainer: Yeah, yeah, you’re too.
333 00:27:36.230 ⇒ 00:27:37.380 Nicolas Sucari: So enjoy the weekend. Guys.
334 00:27:37.380 ⇒ 00:27:37.770 Abigail Zhao: Bye.