Meeting Title: Uttam <> Roy Date: 2024-09-17 Meeting participants: Uttam Kumaran
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1 00:05:30.020 ⇒ 00:05:30.530 Okay.
2 00:05:30.530 ⇒ 00:05:31.190 Roy Christian Piñon: Man.
3 00:05:31.620 ⇒ 00:05:32.770 Uttam Kumaran: Hey! How are you?
4 00:05:33.340 ⇒ 00:05:42.970 Roy Christian Piñon: Doing pretty well. I was just reading some of the cases you might want to check the case. Studies are interchanged, the Spark group and the stellar source.
5 00:05:43.500 ⇒ 00:05:44.979 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, really. Okay, good. Point.
6 00:05:44.980 ⇒ 00:05:45.630 Roy Christian Piñon: Yeah.
7 00:05:47.030 ⇒ 00:05:52.029 Roy Christian Piñon: And I think the spark group is on a different language.
8 00:05:54.080 ⇒ 00:05:57.330 Roy Christian Piñon: which is on the Stellosor. Yeah, it’s
9 00:05:58.030 ⇒ 00:05:58.870 Roy Christian Piñon: yeah.
10 00:06:00.810 ⇒ 00:06:02.519 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, great. I appreciate it.
11 00:06:05.840 ⇒ 00:06:08.019 Uttam Kumaran: Actually, I’m going to send that to the team right now.
12 00:06:11.890 ⇒ 00:06:13.409 Uttam Kumaran: How’s everything?
13 00:06:15.541 ⇒ 00:06:20.458 Roy Christian Piñon: Just had my baby sleep, so she’s at least peaceful.
14 00:06:21.980 ⇒ 00:06:24.380 Roy Christian Piñon: Somebody sent over some Carbonara.
15 00:06:25.210 ⇒ 00:06:26.400 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, nice!
16 00:06:26.400 ⇒ 00:06:26.960 Roy Christian Piñon: Yeah.
17 00:06:26.960 ⇒ 00:06:29.337 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, I’m jealous!
18 00:06:30.470 ⇒ 00:06:33.590 Roy Christian Piñon: Well, I’ve heard founders don’t eat too.
19 00:06:34.570 ⇒ 00:06:36.349 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I don’t eat until
20 00:06:36.520 ⇒ 00:06:38.089 Uttam Kumaran: like 2 o’clock.
21 00:06:38.160 ⇒ 00:06:39.300 Uttam Kumaran: Well, it’s like
22 00:06:39.590 ⇒ 00:06:42.160 Uttam Kumaran: it’s like, because I get tired. I get tired.
23 00:06:43.320 ⇒ 00:06:44.640 Uttam Kumaran: If I eat.
24 00:06:44.740 ⇒ 00:06:48.130 Uttam Kumaran: So I wake up at like 7, 7, 30,
25 00:06:48.690 ⇒ 00:06:50.400 Uttam Kumaran: and then I work.
26 00:06:50.600 ⇒ 00:06:53.300 Uttam Kumaran: I usually try to go for a walk or something, but
27 00:06:54.100 ⇒ 00:06:59.086 Uttam Kumaran: some days you just have to just get up and shower and start
28 00:06:59.570 ⇒ 00:07:04.689 Uttam Kumaran: But then I think I tried, and then I tried to like work until like one or 2,
29 00:07:04.770 ⇒ 00:07:08.909 Uttam Kumaran: and then I get hungry, and then I cook. But the nice thing is, I cook like most meals.
30 00:07:08.940 ⇒ 00:07:10.210 Uttam Kumaran: I love cooking.
31 00:07:11.600 ⇒ 00:07:13.009 Roy Christian Piñon: What’s your favorite dish?
32 00:07:14.070 ⇒ 00:07:20.049 Uttam Kumaran: I go through phases, man, I like right now, I’m doing a lot of barbecue because I just moved to this house.
33 00:07:20.484 ⇒ 00:07:24.379 Uttam Kumaran: And I’m doing a lot of like barbecue on the grill
34 00:07:24.772 ⇒ 00:07:27.350 Uttam Kumaran: and then I’m doing a lot of steak.
35 00:07:29.400 ⇒ 00:07:34.900 Uttam Kumaran: but yeah, and then I eat, and then I don’t know these days, like I try to go to the gym around then.
36 00:07:34.940 ⇒ 00:07:37.580 Uttam Kumaran: or I try to take a little nap or something.
37 00:07:37.810 ⇒ 00:07:40.020 Uttam Kumaran: and then I can start working again.
38 00:07:40.270 ⇒ 00:07:42.520 Uttam Kumaran: like maybe like 6 or 7
39 00:07:43.823 ⇒ 00:07:45.109 Uttam Kumaran: but like
40 00:07:45.300 ⇒ 00:07:59.619 Uttam Kumaran: always, you have life that, you know, finds a way to get you out of the rhythm like my girlfriend will want to go hang out, or I’ll have like meeting friends or something, so it’s not like I don’t work these days. I don’t work like every day like that.
41 00:07:59.680 ⇒ 00:08:05.940 Uttam Kumaran: but I used to when I was in my like when I was used to work in startups. And then
42 00:08:06.110 ⇒ 00:08:11.939 Uttam Kumaran: it depends like this week. It’s like a lot going on. And you know, I’m figuring out the sales stuff
43 00:08:12.664 ⇒ 00:08:14.209 Uttam Kumaran: as well. So
44 00:08:16.300 ⇒ 00:08:24.459 Uttam Kumaran: it’s just like I I just don’t have time to kind of like, decide on everything. So it’s just like trying to run with coffee and do as much as I can.
45 00:08:25.420 ⇒ 00:08:31.570 Roy Christian Piñon: It seems like you. It’s pretty efficient, and and it looks like you have 2 working days in a day.
46 00:08:31.670 ⇒ 00:08:38.169 Roy Christian Piñon: You get your 1st work done, and then you rest, and then use your second work at 6, and then you rest.
47 00:08:38.220 ⇒ 00:08:38.643 Roy Christian Piñon: It’s
48 00:08:39.700 ⇒ 00:08:41.450 Roy Christian Piñon: pretty efficient, I’d say.
49 00:08:42.400 ⇒ 00:08:43.226 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, it’s
50 00:08:44.440 ⇒ 00:08:47.959 Uttam Kumaran: I realize that I have to be really mindful of like energy.
51 00:08:49.560 ⇒ 00:08:55.370 Uttam Kumaran: and also because my job. Now again, I used to do engineering where I could work whenever.
52 00:08:55.620 ⇒ 00:09:00.210 Uttam Kumaran: and I worked with myself mostly right. But then, as soon as I started managing people.
53 00:09:00.220 ⇒ 00:09:02.810 Uttam Kumaran: and now I would say, my days are like
54 00:09:02.850 ⇒ 00:09:04.949 Uttam Kumaran: 60 70% meetings.
55 00:09:05.270 ⇒ 00:09:10.810 Uttam Kumaran: It’s all about energy, like, I ha! If I’m going to be talking, I have to be like charismatic and
56 00:09:10.880 ⇒ 00:09:13.279 Uttam Kumaran: like kind of like mentally available
57 00:09:15.130 ⇒ 00:09:20.259 Uttam Kumaran: And so if I’m tired, or something like that, or if I just had a meal, I’m going to be so like kind of laggy.
58 00:09:20.390 ⇒ 00:09:23.629 Uttam Kumaran: So that’s and of course I’m talking to clients and things like that.
59 00:09:23.870 ⇒ 00:09:31.100 Uttam Kumaran: But but then, some weeks, it’s like it requires a lot of focus work, right? So it’s also very tough. I think the toughest part about this is
60 00:09:31.390 ⇒ 00:09:36.460 Uttam Kumaran: not that one part of this job is really hard. It’s actually that there’s so much going on like.
61 00:09:37.230 ⇒ 00:09:43.469 Uttam Kumaran: you know, I have like a lawyer’s messaging me. I have a client messaging me. There’s bills there’s just like too much
62 00:09:43.790 ⇒ 00:09:44.810 Uttam Kumaran: stuff.
63 00:09:45.590 ⇒ 00:09:53.460 Uttam Kumaran: And so for due to what if I, when even when I try to do one thing, it’s like all that stuff is like lurking in the background, so.
64 00:09:53.460 ⇒ 00:09:54.230 Roy Christian Piñon: True.
65 00:09:55.090 ⇒ 00:09:55.900 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
66 00:09:56.230 ⇒ 00:09:57.400 Roy Christian Piñon: At least you.
67 00:09:57.400 ⇒ 00:09:58.220 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
68 00:09:58.220 ⇒ 00:10:02.209 Roy Christian Piñon: Do you have like an Ea? Maybe they can help you out with that.
69 00:10:02.210 ⇒ 00:10:12.290 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I’m slow. I mean, look, I’m slowly like kind of figuring out where I need to optimize for myself. I’m trying to figure out like
70 00:10:12.370 ⇒ 00:10:22.349 Uttam Kumaran: where I’m valuable versus where I want to get other people, you know. Again, I wanted to build a business primarily on engineering right? Because my business is
71 00:10:22.670 ⇒ 00:10:29.759 Uttam Kumaran: the ability to find the best talent and pair them with the hardest problems. And then the business makes a spread on that
72 00:10:30.575 ⇒ 00:10:31.380 Uttam Kumaran: because
73 00:10:31.530 ⇒ 00:10:33.770 Uttam Kumaran: there’s a shortage of great people.
74 00:10:33.860 ⇒ 00:10:35.250 Uttam Kumaran: And there’s a shortage of
75 00:10:35.260 ⇒ 00:10:39.670 Uttam Kumaran: great people that can solve those hard problems that are available for hire.
76 00:10:39.820 ⇒ 00:10:56.619 Uttam Kumaran: And so for me, I’ve my focus so far is getting the best people having the best process. A lot of that takes a lot of like molding and making mistakes. So I’ve I’ve tried to make as many mistakes as fast as possible as cheaply as possible, and then now I have a good sense of the day to day. So we have a project manager.
77 00:10:56.760 ⇒ 00:10:58.900 Uttam Kumaran: We have people taking care of different parts.
78 00:10:59.090 ⇒ 00:11:02.999 Uttam Kumaran: and then I’ll end up, end up getting an Ea or some sort of operations. Person
79 00:11:03.070 ⇒ 00:11:08.219 Uttam Kumaran: that’s mainly like, you know, responding to emails or like taking care of notion.
80 00:11:08.480 ⇒ 00:11:22.130 Uttam Kumaran: writing up documents, writing up processes, stuff like that. But again that money has to come from somewhere, right? So that’s kind of why we’re talking today. But that like to afford all those things. And you know, of course, like
81 00:11:22.200 ⇒ 00:11:27.289 Uttam Kumaran: you want to get good people to do that. And so everything takes a lot of money. So yeah.
82 00:11:28.540 ⇒ 00:11:30.050 Roy Christian Piñon: Yeah, no. I mean.
83 00:11:30.310 ⇒ 00:11:33.830 Roy Christian Piñon: you gotta pay people and no way. Yeah, it’s.
84 00:11:33.830 ⇒ 00:11:37.130 Uttam Kumaran: No, and I look, I’m I’m also like, I don’t.
85 00:11:38.960 ⇒ 00:11:58.039 Uttam Kumaran: I think in business there are things you want to. You want to invest money in, and in particular, on the people side, in order to get the best people. You know, there’s a lot of people that run businesses like unethically where they want to find the cheapest people they want to shortcut things like, that’s not how I want to do things like we’re trying to build a sustainable business.
86 00:11:58.150 ⇒ 00:12:03.709 Uttam Kumaran: Ideally, I hire people, and they could stay with us as long as they can right? And my goal isn’t to like.
87 00:12:03.780 ⇒ 00:12:06.969 Uttam Kumaran: have hundreds of people come through this, it’s very taxing.
88 00:12:07.010 ⇒ 00:12:10.060 Uttam Kumaran: And so for that reason, like I,
89 00:12:10.090 ⇒ 00:12:20.814 Uttam Kumaran: I really am interested in getting people that are very personal, that care about what we do, but also can work with have some agency right? And that’s something that I’ve been reading a lot about recently is like,
90 00:12:21.490 ⇒ 00:12:24.460 Uttam Kumaran: you know, people with high agency mindset, like people that
91 00:12:24.720 ⇒ 00:12:29.550 Uttam Kumaran: even if the tools don’t work, they find a way through the door right? Or
92 00:12:29.720 ⇒ 00:12:40.240 Uttam Kumaran: you know, I don’t know. I. I’m someone who like I Google, my way through everything. If I don’t find an answer, I I have 10 people I can call like you just find a way through problems.
93 00:12:40.640 ⇒ 00:12:44.700 Uttam Kumaran: So there’s there’s always going to be a mix of those people. But as many of those people I can get.
94 00:12:44.720 ⇒ 00:12:49.069 Uttam Kumaran: they find a way that even if I’m not available solution isn’t obvious. They find a way.
95 00:12:49.270 ⇒ 00:12:51.903 Uttam Kumaran: you know, to get through that. So
96 00:12:53.840 ⇒ 00:12:55.270 Uttam Kumaran: yeah. So
97 00:12:55.300 ⇒ 00:13:07.118 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, I wanted to kind of spend some time talking to you today. I mean, thank you again for spending the time yesterday to answer my questions. You know I kind of wanted to get a sense from you about like what you thought about the opportunity.
98 00:13:07.600 ⇒ 00:13:09.820 Uttam Kumaran: you know I’m happy to share on this call
99 00:13:10.220 ⇒ 00:13:18.610 Uttam Kumaran: sort of what we’ve done, and I shared a little bit of like our lead method and kind of our thoughts. But we’re really early in our journey. Especially on the sales side.
100 00:13:18.630 ⇒ 00:13:22.759 Uttam Kumaran: And as I mentioned, of the 3 pillars of this business, right? And
101 00:13:23.120 ⇒ 00:13:30.680 Uttam Kumaran: there’s like engineering, which is this, that’s what we do for clients. There’s operations which is like
102 00:13:30.720 ⇒ 00:13:35.229 Uttam Kumaran: how we all work together. I also loop in finance, legal
103 00:13:35.930 ⇒ 00:13:40.439 Uttam Kumaran: everything there and then there’s sales which is like marketing sales.
104 00:13:40.450 ⇒ 00:13:42.190 Uttam Kumaran: building relationships.
105 00:13:42.552 ⇒ 00:13:47.539 Uttam Kumaran: Expansion, you know. And we have. You know that that whole game, and that’s where
106 00:13:47.870 ⇒ 00:13:56.800 Uttam Kumaran: we need to be spending the most time. But that’s where we’re struggling the most, you know. Frankly. So yeah, interested to to hear what you thought. And yeah.
107 00:13:57.410 ⇒ 00:13:59.280 Roy Christian Piñon: I mean, it wouldn’t be
108 00:13:59.930 ⇒ 00:14:10.369 Roy Christian Piñon: like it wouldn’t be a rare case. Usually it’s pretty good that you actually came from kind of the production side engineer. And then you’re trying to
109 00:14:10.660 ⇒ 00:14:16.409 Roy Christian Piñon: to really deliver. And I was really excited because I think there’s
110 00:14:16.670 ⇒ 00:14:22.599 Roy Christian Piñon: pretty unique case. I’ve seen a lot of Sas doing AI digital
111 00:14:22.870 ⇒ 00:14:26.939 Roy Christian Piñon: digital stuff more into date management. But
112 00:14:27.300 ⇒ 00:14:30.869 Roy Christian Piñon: yours is unique because you, you’re actually excited about it.
113 00:14:31.030 ⇒ 00:14:39.630 Roy Christian Piñon: So I think that really puts because it’s still your brand. It’s kind of just your baby. Just your child. So anything you are
114 00:14:39.710 ⇒ 00:14:42.319 Roy Christian Piñon: is passed down to that child, and
115 00:14:42.570 ⇒ 00:14:45.680 Roy Christian Piñon: it’s pretty easy. It’s like, because it’s natural for you.
116 00:14:46.080 ⇒ 00:14:47.520 Roy Christian Piñon: I think there’s
117 00:14:47.530 ⇒ 00:14:52.080 Roy Christian Piñon: really a great opportunity for for us to work together in terms of.
118 00:14:52.240 ⇒ 00:15:04.159 Roy Christian Piñon: because I’m just really a phone heavy guy, because I try to create as much conversation as much as possible. Try to stretch it, but not not the Belfort type of stretch.
119 00:15:04.250 ⇒ 00:15:07.649 Roy Christian Piñon: No, you’re not prepared you’re I’m not prepared with
120 00:15:07.720 ⇒ 00:15:18.519 Roy Christian Piñon: I I’m prepared with empathy, but I’m I’m not prepared with scripts in that sense, like if I’m not interested, you know. No, no, I really understand. I
121 00:15:18.570 ⇒ 00:15:20.209 Roy Christian Piñon: I I tried
122 00:15:20.230 ⇒ 00:15:29.990 Roy Christian Piñon: to implement those I really sucked at those. I’m say I because I was. I was amazed. They were like those people who did those prepared.
123 00:15:30.180 ⇒ 00:15:51.250 Roy Christian Piñon: They’re doing like 6 figures, but those very conversational, very chill. They’re doing 8 figure deals. So I’m like, no, that’s the actual stuff that I have to learn. But I do have like a bit of sales community there very open to helping me out. These people they’ve built email structures warming
124 00:15:51.340 ⇒ 00:15:55.070 Roy Christian Piñon: all of those. But I really got interested and
125 00:15:55.680 ⇒ 00:15:59.919 Roy Christian Piñon: kind of was natural to me. As far as conversations are.
126 00:16:00.080 ⇒ 00:16:04.150 Roy Christian Piñon: It’s more of once I’m mentally prepared for that conversation.
127 00:16:04.450 ⇒ 00:16:13.099 Roy Christian Piñon: Cause I I guess you had. You had some cases that the actual problems were so I picked up something. Where was that
128 00:16:13.770 ⇒ 00:16:15.860 Roy Christian Piñon: all the logistics stuff?
129 00:16:16.040 ⇒ 00:16:21.660 Roy Christian Piñon: So there, yeah, you had a number like, I think it was 20% improvement in delivery.
130 00:16:22.397 ⇒ 00:16:24.749 Roy Christian Piñon: Timing or scheduling. So
131 00:16:24.850 ⇒ 00:16:30.810 Roy Christian Piñon: those aren’t Bs stuff. So I guess those those numbers are actually pretty easy to deliver.
132 00:16:31.160 ⇒ 00:16:31.840 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
133 00:16:32.290 ⇒ 00:16:34.950 Roy Christian Piñon: So with those kind of messaging.
134 00:16:35.420 ⇒ 00:16:44.249 Roy Christian Piñon: It’s just me. I I guess it’s more of just volume trying to hit those numbers, and I do have. As far as data. I do have some.
135 00:16:44.750 ⇒ 00:16:52.970 Roy Christian Piñon: some reliable. I’ll have to confirm what specific cause with data. It’s somehow specific. Some are very good in specific industries.
136 00:16:53.180 ⇒ 00:16:55.310 Roy Christian Piñon: So I’ll just check in
137 00:16:55.610 ⇒ 00:16:59.610 Roy Christian Piñon: check in with my community, which might be
138 00:16:59.840 ⇒ 00:17:04.400 Roy Christian Piñon: applicable to, you know, either manufacturing logistics
139 00:17:04.510 ⇒ 00:17:09.300 Roy Christian Piñon: or the e-commerce. So I’ll try to look for that.
140 00:17:09.310 ⇒ 00:17:15.359 Roy Christian Piñon: And then, as far as implementation, I guess there’s just a Crm.
141 00:17:15.579 ⇒ 00:17:21.730 Roy Christian Piñon: So I’ve found a few like AI Crms. But I haven’t really used them. But I do have like a manual
142 00:17:21.890 ⇒ 00:17:24.150 Roy Christian Piñon: manual, you know, just sheets.
143 00:17:24.862 ⇒ 00:17:26.550 Roy Christian Piñon: Kind of interactivity.
144 00:17:26.740 ⇒ 00:17:29.449 Roy Christian Piñon: So basically, it’s more of
145 00:17:29.660 ⇒ 00:17:33.060 Roy Christian Piñon: you have a sheet. I have like 200 accounts I’m trying to target.
146 00:17:33.240 ⇒ 00:17:41.489 Roy Christian Piñon: And the 1st question I would typically ask on a call is who is in charge, I think for this case, it might be like, who’s in charge of data management.
147 00:17:41.690 ⇒ 00:17:43.740 Roy Christian Piñon: or who’s in charge of
148 00:17:44.640 ⇒ 00:17:49.700 Roy Christian Piñon: yeah, you you might. You might have a term for me. But basically, you know.
149 00:17:49.870 ⇒ 00:17:50.380 Roy Christian Piñon: for example.
150 00:17:50.380 ⇒ 00:17:51.489 Uttam Kumaran: Who’s a decision maker.
151 00:17:51.490 ⇒ 00:17:51.860 Roy Christian Piñon: Yeah.
152 00:17:51.860 ⇒ 00:17:53.100 Uttam Kumaran: A stakeholder like.
153 00:17:53.100 ⇒ 00:17:53.810 Roy Christian Piñon: Yeah.
154 00:17:53.810 ⇒ 00:17:55.930 Uttam Kumaran: In our situation we may work with.
155 00:17:56.090 ⇒ 00:18:00.259 Uttam Kumaran: So I should give you the whole situation. So when we started the business.
156 00:18:00.990 ⇒ 00:18:07.830 Uttam Kumaran: there’s 2 ways we can go either target like the bottom, which is the engineers, right? Like the people we may be working aside
157 00:18:07.950 ⇒ 00:18:32.959 Uttam Kumaran: or we target the Ceos right. And so my perspective was, we want to target the Ceos, because ultimately, if you, we have their buy in, although they may not have the technical capability to understand exactly what we’re going to do. Their push is gonna get us through whatever turmoil we’re going to have in the organization, right? We start from the bottom. Then it’s always like, Okay, who else do we need to talk to? If you start at the top.
158 00:18:33.100 ⇒ 00:18:37.899 Uttam Kumaran: then it’s like a we get forwarded on email saying, Hey, these guys are good. I talked to them.
159 00:18:38.280 ⇒ 00:18:48.639 Uttam Kumaran: You should. Can you please talk to them? Let’s get something going. That’s what I want. Right? And so the other thing I realize in my business, and I’m happy to send you like we have a huge spreadsheet of competitors.
160 00:18:48.650 ⇒ 00:18:50.480 Uttam Kumaran: If you look at a lot of their
161 00:18:50.640 ⇒ 00:18:53.859 Uttam Kumaran: for a lot of their writing and things like that. It’s it’s really
162 00:18:54.110 ⇒ 00:18:56.685 Uttam Kumaran: it’s filled with technical jargon.
163 00:18:57.780 ⇒ 00:19:13.850 Uttam Kumaran: but also like not a feel it doesn’t have any feeling of like what it is. When we succeed. It’s like, Oh, we can implement AI and Snowflake, and then your data is Consolidated. But it’s not like, Hey, you can make more decisions and more accurate decisions and then make more money.
164 00:19:13.920 ⇒ 00:19:25.790 Uttam Kumaran: Right? And that’s actually what I tell people, I said, they’re like, What do you do? Well, I help businesses make more decisions. So higher volume of decisions. And I help you make more accurate decisions.
165 00:19:25.980 ⇒ 00:19:31.729 Uttam Kumaran: And those are my key results, and, like the objective, is for you to either save money.
166 00:19:32.230 ⇒ 00:19:36.959 Uttam Kumaran: right or make more money. That’s your that’s a business, or save you time.
167 00:19:36.990 ⇒ 00:19:45.009 Uttam Kumaran: Right? Those are the 3 things, and so all of our stuff that we do is to that. We’re not generating dashboards for fun.
168 00:19:45.070 ⇒ 00:19:49.329 Uttam Kumaran: We’re not generating dashboards just because you’re like, I’m in a business. I need a dashboard.
169 00:19:49.590 ⇒ 00:19:52.599 Uttam Kumaran: And this is what. And this is a problem with data people
170 00:19:52.630 ⇒ 00:19:58.699 Uttam Kumaran: is that when you’re just in data, you’re like, Oh, yeah, I just want, you know, this happens in sales where you’re like.
171 00:19:58.840 ⇒ 00:20:16.159 Uttam Kumaran: I just care about selling. But it’s like, No, what? You’re actually selling something. And you’re and then you’re actually we. You need to trust that your organization going to execute on that promise same thing in data. You’re not just moving data in an area, right? And I tell my guys and engineers have us sometimes a hard time. Realizing this is, I tell them.
172 00:20:16.170 ⇒ 00:20:21.049 Uttam Kumaran: hey, guys, we were doing all this technical work. But the objective is to save them money. So don’t forget
173 00:20:21.100 ⇒ 00:20:22.210 Uttam Kumaran: that like.
174 00:20:22.390 ⇒ 00:20:41.649 Uttam Kumaran: that’s what we’re going for. So, although we have to do all these things, maybe think about that when it’s like, if we’re deciding on trade off versus solutions like our goal is saving the money. It should always come back to saving the money, making them more money or saving them time. Every single thing we do needs to line up with that business objective.
175 00:20:41.700 ⇒ 00:21:01.770 Uttam Kumaran: because that’s the language layer that we’re going to be able to transit to the business. Otherwise we’re going to be speaking Spanish like they’re not going to understand right? And so for me, I felt like I’ve worked with executives my whole career in like very high pressure situations from a technical standpoint. And so I know the way they work.
176 00:21:01.790 ⇒ 00:21:05.640 Uttam Kumaran: but also our messaging. I want to be very clear to the executives that
177 00:21:06.000 ⇒ 00:21:19.749 Uttam Kumaran: we know what we’re doing. But then, also to the technical folks that may come in the way and be like, Yeah, I know, you guys seem like you’re you know what you’re doing. But like, what technologies do you use, or what’s your process? And we also have that covered? Right? So that’s kind of the approach
178 00:21:19.910 ⇒ 00:21:26.260 Uttam Kumaran: that we have. And so we’ve been. That’s the kind of work that we’ve been trying to establish is, how do we?
179 00:21:26.720 ⇒ 00:21:46.739 Uttam Kumaran: How do we come across in a way that Ceos and sea level executives and vps they may be the ultimate signers, but our stakeholders may be, you know, the operations manager, the logistics manager. Right? So we need to make both people happy. The CEO needs to be like, are they doing a good job? Great?
180 00:21:46.750 ⇒ 00:21:50.830 Uttam Kumaran: The operations person needs to be like. Am I getting what I need to save me? Time?
181 00:21:50.910 ⇒ 00:21:55.770 Uttam Kumaran: Right? And you have both those pools of influences that you need to satisfy.
182 00:21:55.960 ⇒ 00:22:04.630 Uttam Kumaran: And these are, you know, these are. These are like 3 to 6 month contracts. These are like anywhere right now, from like
183 00:22:05.050 ⇒ 00:22:08.860 Uttam Kumaran: 6 or 7 to like 20 KA month. Deals
184 00:22:09.788 ⇒ 00:22:13.951 Uttam Kumaran: so high acv are. I have a bunch of sales goals
185 00:22:14.390 ⇒ 00:22:24.419 Uttam Kumaran: but for the most part we’re trying to extend our like contract lengths, you know, to 6 to 9 months instead of 3 to 6 months. We’re trying to increase our acv right?
186 00:22:24.785 ⇒ 00:22:38.869 Uttam Kumaran: So increase. You know what we’re billing so that way, we I have a predictable stream of revenue for me to go make a reinvestment on the technology side to get better people to streamline our operations right right now, we
187 00:22:38.970 ⇒ 00:22:42.279 Uttam Kumaran: in some cases we’re month to month. In some cases we’re 3 months
188 00:22:42.440 ⇒ 00:22:53.359 Uttam Kumaran: right. In some cases we’ve taken deals that are like between 5 and 6 K. Those are fine, but our margin is not big enough for for that to be any meaningful.
189 00:22:53.500 ⇒ 00:23:04.189 Uttam Kumaran: and the amount of time we’re going to spend on the sales side on the execution side. We don’t end up making a ton of money on those right? So our bread and butter is longer. Term deals.
190 00:23:04.370 ⇒ 00:23:11.590 Uttam Kumaran: and like higher acv. And the nice thing about data, I will say is that once we’re in a business.
191 00:23:11.800 ⇒ 00:23:19.899 Uttam Kumaran: It’s literally you’re swimming through a sea of data. Problems like there are unlimited problems that we can solve.
192 00:23:20.150 ⇒ 00:23:44.280 Uttam Kumaran: The biggest trouble in this business is getting in and showing that we can demonstrate value. But in every part of the business there are data prompts right in customer service. You want to know how many tickets am I closing? What’s my customer satisfaction rate? Who are my highest performing customer service agents in shipping? You want to know what’s your average distance between your shipping facility and your customer. What’s your average shipping delay?
193 00:23:44.670 ⇒ 00:23:56.740 Uttam Kumaran: You want to know your price per pound on the sales side. You want to know? How many calls? I’m booked? How many, how many outbound emails are going out? How many calls am I booking? How many leads are getting closed
194 00:23:56.820 ⇒ 00:24:08.620 Uttam Kumaran: on the marketing side. You want to know your Cpm, your Cac. Which channels are performing well which creatives are performing. See, every single domain has data challenges. And so once we’re in a company.
195 00:24:08.900 ⇒ 00:24:23.300 Uttam Kumaran: the only churn that we’ve seen is when a company actually like is failing. Right? We’ve had 2 clients who their overall business model was just not good. So that’s like nothing we really can control. We’ve never been
196 00:24:23.700 ⇒ 00:24:28.750 Uttam Kumaran: cut from a client because we made a mistake, or we’ve like
197 00:24:28.810 ⇒ 00:24:31.644 Uttam Kumaran: run out of things to do. Actually,
198 00:24:32.400 ⇒ 00:24:41.679 Uttam Kumaran: So although I’m mentioning that, like, you know, these are 6 month contracts, we’ve had clients for over like a year. You’re right, you know, and we’re only a company is only a year old.
199 00:24:43.320 ⇒ 00:24:44.330 Uttam Kumaran: so
200 00:24:44.600 ⇒ 00:24:54.287 Uttam Kumaran: that’s the really the the optimism I have is that if we can really get into some key clients, opportunities for expansion are really, really great.
201 00:24:55.420 ⇒ 00:24:58.829 Uttam Kumaran: so yeah, that’s just a little bit of like kind of the sales side.
202 00:25:00.540 ⇒ 00:25:05.120 Roy Christian Piñon: Well, yeah, it’s kind of relevant messaging to to the right person as of
203 00:25:05.420 ⇒ 00:25:07.409 Roy Christian Piñon: whoever took from that.
204 00:25:07.630 ⇒ 00:25:08.460 Roy Christian Piñon: So
205 00:25:09.080 ⇒ 00:25:11.260 Roy Christian Piñon: guess there’s really
206 00:25:12.020 ⇒ 00:25:14.070 Roy Christian Piñon: maybe the ideal.
207 00:25:14.570 ⇒ 00:25:25.579 Roy Christian Piñon: Maybe we can work on that. But because I I kind of agree with what you mentioned earlier, the top down approach. But the the better one is actually top down, middle out and then bottom up.
208 00:25:25.640 ⇒ 00:25:47.429 Roy Christian Piñon: So you kind of it’s omni channel omni omni levels. And there, there’s that side of politics like who, even if they’re in a low position, they might actually have a lot of influence. So it’s getting to know that type of structure within, I guess. Do you have like a hundred ideal accounts you want to get into like these are
209 00:25:47.450 ⇒ 00:25:52.320 Roy Christian Piñon: really the accounts we wanna work with, or kind of brands.
210 00:25:52.920 ⇒ 00:25:56.089 Roy Christian Piñon: Have you settled on on those, or.
211 00:25:56.480 ⇒ 00:25:56.810 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
212 00:25:56.810 ⇒ 00:25:59.830 Roy Christian Piñon: Because it’s kind of that target, you know. Forward.
213 00:26:01.280 ⇒ 00:26:09.912 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, to give you a sense of like, where kind of like, how we have things organized. I’ll just show kind of like how things are organized in our
214 00:26:11.130 ⇒ 00:26:15.570 Uttam Kumaran: in our notion. And that way you can kind of get a sense of like
215 00:26:15.780 ⇒ 00:26:20.550 Uttam Kumaran: how we’ve been thinking it. I think you know, these are all questions that
216 00:26:20.630 ⇒ 00:26:23.740 Uttam Kumaran: we’re gonna have to continue to evolve on. But
217 00:26:23.770 ⇒ 00:26:27.000 Uttam Kumaran: from a vision standpoint I feel like we’re good
218 00:26:27.020 ⇒ 00:26:33.480 Uttam Kumaran: from an execution standpoint. I think that’s where we’re struggling. And that’s kind of like the support
219 00:26:33.590 ⇒ 00:26:37.549 Uttam Kumaran: that like I’m really looking for. And I’ll just show you
220 00:26:38.760 ⇒ 00:26:41.449 Uttam Kumaran: like how we have things organized.
221 00:26:41.570 ⇒ 00:26:45.289 Uttam Kumaran: So on the sales side, we have like target industries. Right?
222 00:26:46.840 ⇒ 00:26:47.700 Uttam Kumaran: So
223 00:26:47.990 ⇒ 00:26:52.730 Uttam Kumaran: really, it’s kind of what I explained over text yesterday is that there are industries where
224 00:26:53.800 ⇒ 00:26:56.160 Uttam Kumaran: there is low competition.
225 00:26:56.270 ⇒ 00:26:58.710 Uttam Kumaran: but hide a barrier to entry.
226 00:26:58.800 ⇒ 00:27:14.970 Uttam Kumaran: but also high budgets. Right? So those are the things I’m trying to balance. As I mentioned. If we go after b 2 b Sas, those guys are get hit with every single agency that ever exists. They’re very. The second thing is, a lot of them are startups, and they’re very chaotic
227 00:27:15.621 ⇒ 00:27:17.749 Uttam Kumaran: and like pretty bad
228 00:27:17.830 ⇒ 00:27:20.259 Uttam Kumaran: stakeholders, for like a consulting company.
229 00:27:20.635 ⇒ 00:27:25.060 Uttam Kumaran: and so there’s there’s some nuances about each of these industries. The second thing is.
230 00:27:25.520 ⇒ 00:27:30.860 Uttam Kumaran: it’s hard to get into some of these industries. But we already have case studies showing that we’ve succeeded in that
231 00:27:30.960 ⇒ 00:27:42.789 Uttam Kumaran: right? So that’s our wedge in that gives us a unique aspect to say, like, we’ve done great work in shipping logistics. We’ve done great work in manufacturing. The 3rd thing, I’ll say, is, we have great partners.
232 00:27:42.830 ⇒ 00:28:06.749 Uttam Kumaran: and so we have a whole list of like partnerships of vendors of other consulting companies that do adjacent technology work that we can lean on for referrals for like advice for contacts. So that’s the one thing that, like I’ll bring to the table is like we have a great relationship with a ton of different
233 00:28:06.800 ⇒ 00:28:15.029 Uttam Kumaran: influencers, contractors, consulting companies in multiple different industries for medical manufacturing all sorts of stuff.
234 00:28:15.576 ⇒ 00:28:22.509 Uttam Kumaran: And so if we go to like industries in each of these industries, we basically started to kind of like, put together docs, which is like.
235 00:28:22.550 ⇒ 00:28:26.140 Uttam Kumaran: who are the titles right? Who are the buyers in this industry?
236 00:28:26.150 ⇒ 00:28:29.660 Uttam Kumaran: Kind of like looking at like who the purchaser is?
237 00:28:29.910 ⇒ 00:28:39.110 Uttam Kumaran: What are some of the key rep filters for accounts that we want to go after. Is there any geographical concentration right like, what is their tech stack?
238 00:28:39.506 ⇒ 00:28:51.139 Uttam Kumaran: What? What are their data challenges that maybe we can poke at in the conversations or the emails. What are their pain points? What are the opportunities for data? And then kind of working through like, what’s the talk track? What’s the
239 00:28:51.160 ⇒ 00:29:00.329 Uttam Kumaran: reach out methods? So this is like, I would say, for manufacturing. This is like where we’re the most sophisticated. But we’re working on these same sorts of docs for other industries.
240 00:29:01.860 ⇒ 00:29:19.500 Uttam Kumaran: the second thing that I’ll share is we’re using Apollo. So in Apollo. We have, I have. We have one intern that’s working to kind of create these account lists. But you’d be working directly with her and have access to Apollo to basically help create these. I don’t have a concise
241 00:29:19.560 ⇒ 00:29:26.329 Uttam Kumaran: like 200 of like the people we’re going after. We have. Probably like
242 00:29:26.500 ⇒ 00:29:34.957 Uttam Kumaran: we’ll probably need. We’ll probably have to build that. But we do have all the filters necessary to basically make that work and all the tools to kind of get there?
243 00:29:35.370 ⇒ 00:29:47.709 Uttam Kumaran: so that would be kind of the process that I would look from you to help me kind of decide on like, what are the how do we get to that? 200? And then once we get to that 200, what is all the processes that need to kick off? Right?
244 00:29:47.720 ⇒ 00:30:05.190 Uttam Kumaran: For example, like, Okay, cool, we want to take an Omni Channel approach. We want to send an email first, st then maybe once they get the 1st email, then you can give them a call, or we have a Linkedin strategy. Right? Like the one thing I did is I. I called all my friends that work in b 2 b sales.
245 00:30:05.210 ⇒ 00:30:08.200 Uttam Kumaran: And I just said like, Tell me how you
246 00:30:08.210 ⇒ 00:30:09.359 Uttam Kumaran: do things.
247 00:30:09.470 ⇒ 00:30:18.769 Uttam Kumaran: And almost all the good ones were like, you have to send the email, do, Linkedin. And then he’s like the daggers. Then to call right. And that’s why I really
248 00:30:19.120 ⇒ 00:30:23.119 Uttam Kumaran: enjoyed what you mentioned, which is, you’re like a I’m a call 1st Guy. And I was like.
249 00:30:23.420 ⇒ 00:30:29.269 Uttam Kumaran: that’s something that I lack the ability to do. And not only do I lack the ability.
250 00:30:29.320 ⇒ 00:30:43.100 Uttam Kumaran: lack the time, like I can’t like, I just can’t. Yeah, I can’t do it. But I’m telling you that that’s the multi prong strategy is kind of like what I would love to try. And so kind of. That’s that’s what I’m thinking is that.
251 00:30:44.030 ⇒ 00:31:02.070 Uttam Kumaran: And internally, I wanted to get someone who owns this. But I. Also, I’m planning on partnering with the firm that’s going to help set up all of our like inboxes. Write the copy for the outbound emails. So you’ll be working directly with that team to basically structure all that right? So cause I’m also mindful of like.
252 00:31:02.100 ⇒ 00:31:16.649 Uttam Kumaran: if I were to throw everything at you, for example, if I was to be like, Hey, you’re not only joining to make phone calls to accounts. I need you to write the email copy. I need you to schedule Linkedin. I need you to A B test
253 00:31:16.660 ⇒ 00:31:30.469 Uttam Kumaran: like calls to actions. I need you to. It’s it’s like a nightmare situation. The other thing is, those are all things that have nothing to do with our business, right? What is unique to our business? What’s the business? Start copy
254 00:31:30.750 ⇒ 00:31:34.149 Uttam Kumaran: right? And it’s like, it’s our case studies
255 00:31:34.420 ⇒ 00:31:40.909 Uttam Kumaran: email, warm ups a B testing copy, sending dude clay automations enrichment.
256 00:31:41.220 ⇒ 00:31:42.890 Uttam Kumaran: We’re going to get all that.
257 00:31:43.090 ⇒ 00:31:58.500 Uttam Kumaran: But I need someone to be able to guide those guys to be able to say like, this is how our process is gonna work because they’re going to be like cool. We’ve done this for like 10 marketing firms. We’re not a marketing firm, right? We’re not like a $10 sas, right? We we are. There’s a unique pricing model to our business.
258 00:31:58.620 ⇒ 00:32:00.230 Uttam Kumaran: So that’s the kind of like
259 00:32:00.750 ⇒ 00:32:03.490 Uttam Kumaran: person that I’m hoping can kind of fill this
260 00:32:03.580 ⇒ 00:32:04.890 Uttam Kumaran: this situation.
261 00:32:05.430 ⇒ 00:32:10.490 Roy Christian Piñon: Okay, kind of the whole operation. I do have like a a person in mind.
262 00:32:11.090 ⇒ 00:32:14.610 Roy Christian Piñon: She. She just released a book. I might
263 00:32:14.670 ⇒ 00:32:15.720 Roy Christian Piñon: might need
264 00:32:15.870 ⇒ 00:32:18.870 Roy Christian Piñon: to purchase that. It’s kind of 20 bucks
265 00:32:19.430 ⇒ 00:32:21.136 Roy Christian Piñon: her names
266 00:32:22.510 ⇒ 00:32:23.630 Roy Christian Piñon: where’s her name?
267 00:32:23.920 ⇒ 00:32:28.370 Roy Christian Piñon: And there there are some AI that can help definitely with a copy.
268 00:32:28.530 ⇒ 00:32:29.470 Roy Christian Piñon: Believe it’s.
269 00:32:29.470 ⇒ 00:32:30.419 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so I.
270 00:32:30.420 ⇒ 00:32:31.980 Roy Christian Piñon: Copy that AI.
271 00:32:32.590 ⇒ 00:32:37.050 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. So I was, actually, I just talked to these guys the other day. And we have all this
272 00:32:37.110 ⇒ 00:32:41.570 Uttam Kumaran: stuff set up like we have instantly set up. We have Apollo, we have Hubspot
273 00:32:41.740 ⇒ 00:32:45.499 Uttam Kumaran: like we’ve used all these different enrichment platforms. It’s mainly like
274 00:32:45.900 ⇒ 00:32:49.449 Uttam Kumaran: setting up and running everything. And I talked to these guys.
275 00:32:49.560 ⇒ 00:32:52.189 Uttam Kumaran: This is, these guys are like an agency that do
276 00:32:52.290 ⇒ 00:32:55.959 Uttam Kumaran: sort of a clay powered enrichment. And these sort of workflows.
277 00:32:56.160 ⇒ 00:33:01.760 Uttam Kumaran: It was pretty competitive the price they gave me per month to kind of manage everything. So I may go with them.
278 00:33:02.421 ⇒ 00:33:06.640 Uttam Kumaran: And then basically see if if there’s parts of it. We can bring in house
279 00:33:06.810 ⇒ 00:33:07.940 Uttam Kumaran: down the line.
280 00:33:08.600 ⇒ 00:33:10.670 Uttam Kumaran: But also again, like I’m also
281 00:33:11.340 ⇒ 00:33:19.089 Uttam Kumaran: I. If you know, I want to know if you have people that you’ve worked with before that that could be interesting to tag in or.
282 00:33:19.090 ⇒ 00:33:24.309 Roy Christian Piñon: I’m I’m more on the I’m more on the phone side. Kind of, you know, dialers data.
283 00:33:24.800 ⇒ 00:33:26.289 Roy Christian Piñon: not really with a
284 00:33:26.460 ⇒ 00:33:30.060 Roy Christian Piñon: cause. I somehow I I didn’t really like
285 00:33:30.150 ⇒ 00:33:34.699 Roy Christian Piñon: just sending tons of cop tons of cop tons of email. So that’s why.
286 00:33:34.700 ⇒ 00:33:35.340 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
287 00:33:35.810 ⇒ 00:33:38.250 Roy Christian Piñon: It’s it’s fun when you talk with somebody. So.
288 00:33:38.250 ⇒ 00:33:39.360 Uttam Kumaran: No 100%. I.
289 00:33:39.360 ⇒ 00:33:41.160 Roy Christian Piñon: I really leaned into that.
290 00:33:41.540 ⇒ 00:33:46.879 Uttam Kumaran: No, I think that’s like a great mode, and I think that’s actually like how you separate yourself.
291 00:33:47.170 ⇒ 00:33:50.120 Uttam Kumaran: I think the biggest thing is like for me. I want to
292 00:33:50.200 ⇒ 00:33:52.800 Uttam Kumaran: find out what the different balances are like
293 00:33:53.190 ⇒ 00:34:05.450 Uttam Kumaran: between Linkedin outbound email, outbound warm referrals and phone like, where do we see our business landing. And how does that change for industry? Right? Some industries may
294 00:34:05.860 ⇒ 00:34:11.540 Uttam Kumaran: may only respond to email. Maybe they don’t even pick up the phone right? I cause I can tell you I don’t even pick up my phone
295 00:34:11.690 ⇒ 00:34:17.209 Uttam Kumaran: because I get calls from all sorts of people that scrape my number and call me.
296 00:34:17.360 ⇒ 00:34:28.940 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t. Nobody could call. Nobody can get in touch with me anymore, not even family. I don’t have any. No, you can’t, because but then there’s other industries where manufacturing old business, where all they do is on the phone, like
297 00:34:29.060 ⇒ 00:34:30.999 Uttam Kumaran: they barely know how to use outlook
298 00:34:31.020 ⇒ 00:34:32.300 Uttam Kumaran: right? And so
299 00:34:32.389 ⇒ 00:34:40.270 Uttam Kumaran: so I want to have this multi prong strategy. And then once we nail the strategies when we could scale up. Okay, do we need more people? Things like that? Right?
300 00:34:40.989 ⇒ 00:34:48.219 Roy Christian Piñon: Okay. So it’s really the just operations. And actually, somebody who can hit the ground running, doing the calls.
301 00:34:48.510 ⇒ 00:34:53.991 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, for me. It’s like, you know, the one thing that I will say that I enjoy in speaking with you is that
302 00:34:55.340 ⇒ 00:34:57.799 Uttam Kumaran: I’m not looking for somebody who is like
303 00:34:57.860 ⇒ 00:34:59.260 Uttam Kumaran: cool. Tell me
304 00:34:59.680 ⇒ 00:35:07.270 Uttam Kumaran: like, just like, Tell me what to do every day, and I’ll do it, and I’ll clock, and I’ll clock out like I really need, like a partner on the sales side who’s like
305 00:35:07.650 ⇒ 00:35:13.760 Uttam Kumaran: this is our strategy, and this is how we’re going to execute it, and then I’m happy to take a part of it. But like.
306 00:35:13.860 ⇒ 00:35:22.299 Uttam Kumaran: because right now, this is all in my mind, and we I have people on the engineering side that are like that that are helping me in the operation side. But on the sales side
307 00:35:22.970 ⇒ 00:35:26.820 Uttam Kumaran: I have some people that are like, yeah, I’m happy to dial phones. I’m happy to send emails.
308 00:35:27.090 ⇒ 00:35:34.939 Uttam Kumaran: I think there’s a lot of people I know that I can get to do that. What I’m really looking for is like someone who’s like, I’m not only interested in doing that, but I’m also interested in like.
309 00:35:35.070 ⇒ 00:35:38.899 Uttam Kumaran: okay, how can we actually build a sustainable sales, pipeline.
310 00:35:38.970 ⇒ 00:35:42.990 Uttam Kumaran: and a sustainable process to bring in leads into the business.
311 00:35:43.150 ⇒ 00:35:47.450 Uttam Kumaran: and that may be working with marketing to improve our case. Studies that may be
312 00:35:48.630 ⇒ 00:35:55.900 Uttam Kumaran: you know, assisting and doing copy here and there, but like, that’s the kind of sort of feeling that that I’m trying to go for
313 00:35:56.350 ⇒ 00:36:01.609 Uttam Kumaran: you know, and it and it isn’t like a oh, take all this stuff off my plate. It’s more of like
314 00:36:01.840 ⇒ 00:36:07.800 Uttam Kumaran: someone to bounce ideas off of, and to be like cool. Let’s go. Tell this person to go. Do this. Tell this person go to this.
315 00:36:08.130 ⇒ 00:36:12.590 Uttam Kumaran: let’s go execute this strategy. I’ll go meet with this person right? Like that level of like
316 00:36:12.780 ⇒ 00:36:15.110 Uttam Kumaran: sort of agency around this problem.
317 00:36:15.540 ⇒ 00:36:18.670 Roy Christian Piñon: So really ownership and
318 00:36:18.780 ⇒ 00:36:23.370 Roy Christian Piñon: that excitement of building? I I do. It’s kind of one of my.
319 00:36:23.510 ⇒ 00:36:24.290 Roy Christian Piñon: So
320 00:36:24.460 ⇒ 00:36:31.410 Roy Christian Piñon: for our intention, I actually want to man, master sales. And part of it is actually the process. So
321 00:36:32.320 ⇒ 00:36:34.099 Roy Christian Piñon: I think there’s a
322 00:36:34.250 ⇒ 00:36:36.890 Roy Christian Piñon: yeah. I might be the guy.
323 00:36:37.330 ⇒ 00:36:40.960 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so tell me. I know we’re just coming up on time. I do have to
324 00:36:41.060 ⇒ 00:36:43.180 Uttam Kumaran: run. But tell me, like.
325 00:36:43.260 ⇒ 00:36:47.829 Uttam Kumaran: like, what’s your process like, how do you typically do these sorts of engagements? Like.
326 00:36:48.319 ⇒ 00:36:51.649 Uttam Kumaran: yeah, just and then, yeah, we. I’m happy to
327 00:36:51.690 ⇒ 00:36:56.270 Uttam Kumaran: chat again later today. Or you know, even tomorrow, or whatever. But yeah, let me know.
328 00:36:56.930 ⇒ 00:36:59.130 Roy Christian Piñon: As far. Where do you want to start?
329 00:36:59.920 ⇒ 00:37:01.120 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I guess, like.
330 00:37:01.130 ⇒ 00:37:07.240 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, look, I’ve worked with salespeople. I think there’s a bunch of different models. I think you kind of know the state of our business
331 00:37:07.340 ⇒ 00:37:08.200 Uttam Kumaran: like them.
332 00:37:08.490 ⇒ 00:37:12.990 Uttam Kumaran: What do you think an engagement between us like would look like, you know, in terms of
333 00:37:13.530 ⇒ 00:37:18.490 Uttam Kumaran: you know, compensation, or like time, commitment, and stuff like that.
334 00:37:22.140 ⇒ 00:37:22.760 Roy Christian Piñon: Hi!
335 00:37:23.110 ⇒ 00:37:29.140 Roy Christian Piñon: Not that I’m not prepared. But what what budget did you have? Because I was surprised you were looking
336 00:37:29.380 ⇒ 00:37:30.730 Roy Christian Piñon: through a LJ.
337 00:37:31.020 ⇒ 00:37:35.170 Roy Christian Piñon: And your market’s a bit. It’s a bit different, because Olj. And you know
338 00:37:35.430 ⇒ 00:37:37.999 Roy Christian Piñon: it’s people can do stuff there.
339 00:37:38.370 ⇒ 00:37:39.160 Roy Christian Piñon: But you.
340 00:37:39.160 ⇒ 00:37:39.590 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
341 00:37:39.590 ⇒ 00:37:40.950 Roy Christian Piñon: Really really really really unique.
342 00:37:40.950 ⇒ 00:37:41.759 Uttam Kumaran: So let me.
343 00:37:41.760 ⇒ 00:37:43.160 Roy Christian Piñon: Specific people.
344 00:37:43.620 ⇒ 00:37:48.219 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, let me just let me just send a quick message to the team. I’ll just be there in like 5 min. But
345 00:37:51.155 ⇒ 00:37:55.105 Uttam Kumaran: yeah, I’ll tell you why I was looking on Olj.
346 00:37:57.840 ⇒ 00:38:00.859 Uttam Kumaran: but I’ll I’ll you’ll kind of get like where I’m at. I think.
347 00:38:03.430 ⇒ 00:38:04.630 Uttam Kumaran: so
348 00:38:04.920 ⇒ 00:38:07.170 Uttam Kumaran: the problem, you know. For me it’s like
349 00:38:07.880 ⇒ 00:38:11.220 Uttam Kumaran: I know where in business now I can cut corners and where I can’t
350 00:38:11.310 ⇒ 00:38:13.207 Uttam Kumaran: right. And so,
351 00:38:13.850 ⇒ 00:38:17.490 Uttam Kumaran: On the engineering side, I knew. I have to get really, really talented people
352 00:38:17.720 ⇒ 00:38:28.760 Uttam Kumaran: on the operation side. I know I can get like vas you can get people depending on when you need same in the marketing. You can plug play people in on the sales side, though it’s really hard to get fractional people.
353 00:38:29.357 ⇒ 00:38:32.839 Uttam Kumaran: You know, I have a lot of people here in the States that do sales, but
354 00:38:32.920 ⇒ 00:38:35.729 Uttam Kumaran: nobody works on like a mercenary basis.
355 00:38:35.930 ⇒ 00:38:38.910 Uttam Kumaran: Right? Like, nobody is like, I’m good at sales.
356 00:38:38.940 ⇒ 00:38:40.280 Uttam Kumaran: I can sell anything.
357 00:38:41.970 ⇒ 00:38:48.060 Uttam Kumaran: So I kind of like, have to decide. Okay, what am I going to do here? I can’t afford right now to bring in a full time salesperson.
358 00:38:48.430 ⇒ 00:38:51.099 Uttam Kumaran: but if we hit our goals I can.
359 00:38:52.100 ⇒ 00:38:55.320 Uttam Kumaran: There’s probably some way for me to
360 00:38:55.350 ⇒ 00:39:02.409 Uttam Kumaran: get people to do some of the operation side. But then I’m like, okay, cool, I can probably offload everything pre meeting.
361 00:39:03.750 ⇒ 00:39:05.909 Uttam Kumaran: but then I still have to take all the meetings.
362 00:39:05.980 ⇒ 00:39:16.675 Uttam Kumaran: But then you saw this problem, or like, who’s gonna if who’s gonna take phones? If there’s follow up conversations, there’s all these downstream problems that I knew I was gonna just get screwed on, basically
363 00:39:17.440 ⇒ 00:39:27.670 Uttam Kumaran: And then I was so the other thing I was kind of thing. I was like, cool, cool. What? What’s like the main drive like if I was on a sales side, what would attract me to this one is that you have a partner like me.
364 00:39:27.690 ⇒ 00:39:30.240 Uttam Kumaran: who who has a sustainable business.
365 00:39:30.260 ⇒ 00:39:34.026 Uttam Kumaran: who has a product that’s worth selling. That’s not like a scam
366 00:39:34.360 ⇒ 00:39:39.860 Uttam Kumaran: but also some a promise of like. If this works, there’s like a long term.
367 00:39:41.480 ⇒ 00:39:42.890 Uttam Kumaran: there’s like a long term
368 00:39:42.940 ⇒ 00:40:06.080 Uttam Kumaran: ability to kind of join and and run a big piece of it. The second thing is like it. Maybe it initially needs to start more performance based. And then there ends up being like more of like a base component or something like that. But also again. I I’ve hired off of Oj. Some are really amazing people. I’ve hired some people all over the world. Off different platforms, and so I am not really.
369 00:40:07.100 ⇒ 00:40:12.439 Uttam Kumaran: I just sometimes hiring the Us, I will say, is like struggle, because people here are very lazy
370 00:40:12.470 ⇒ 00:40:13.305 Uttam Kumaran: and
371 00:40:14.270 ⇒ 00:40:17.000 Uttam Kumaran: I do have interest in like hiring people locally, but
372 00:40:18.170 ⇒ 00:40:22.890 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know. I just like I want to find the best people wherever they are in the world.
373 00:40:23.210 ⇒ 00:40:29.000 Uttam Kumaran: and people that are interested in really being like. Well, I own this part, and like I’m given all the tools to like.
374 00:40:29.070 ⇒ 00:40:36.959 Uttam Kumaran: be successful personally and professionally like. So that’s a little bit of what? Why, I was like looking there, but I was looking in all sorts of places so.
375 00:40:37.130 ⇒ 00:40:46.959 Roy Christian Piñon: Hmm. So it kinda just I kinda had just popped out of nowhere. So, okay, I’m okay with actually doing the fractional stuff. Because
376 00:40:48.050 ⇒ 00:40:51.410 Roy Christian Piñon: I’m I am actually doing a bit of fractional
377 00:40:53.220 ⇒ 00:40:57.999 Roy Christian Piñon: so Comp, definitely, we could go.
378 00:40:59.740 ⇒ 00:41:05.789 Uttam Kumaran: I’m happy for you to take time to think about it as well. I know I’m just kind of dumping a lot on you, so.
379 00:41:06.488 ⇒ 00:41:09.070 Uttam Kumaran: But what I would appreciate is like.
380 00:41:09.150 ⇒ 00:41:14.780 Uttam Kumaran: you know, options or thoughts around like, Hey, maybe we start more perform performance based.
381 00:41:14.860 ⇒ 00:41:18.370 Uttam Kumaran: And then we get something more base, or I don’t know. Or
382 00:41:18.790 ⇒ 00:41:22.639 Uttam Kumaran: again, I think you kind of know where I’m getting at. So.
383 00:41:23.490 ⇒ 00:41:31.969 Roy Christian Piñon: If you’d be okay, like what? What kind of base is comfortable for you that it’s cause I do. I still have to.
384 00:41:32.930 ⇒ 00:41:39.659 Roy Christian Piñon: Can I at at least alleviate some of the stress in terms of at least I know something’s coming in, and I can study.
385 00:41:39.750 ⇒ 00:41:41.799 Roy Christian Piñon: No, you gotta look into
386 00:41:42.318 ⇒ 00:41:46.860 Roy Christian Piñon: people kind of read some books. And how can I implement that?
387 00:41:46.880 ⇒ 00:41:51.729 Roy Christian Piñon: So I, you know, performance based. That’s pretty. Okay. If there is kind of a
388 00:41:52.090 ⇒ 00:41:57.479 Roy Christian Piñon: a position, and I wouldn’t actually be in a good spot, because we’re actually taking care of.
389 00:41:57.510 ⇒ 00:42:02.840 Roy Christian Piñon: Be patient. So it’s kind of an an unexpected expense. Not that I wanna
390 00:42:03.350 ⇒ 00:42:04.600 Roy Christian Piñon: put that on you.
391 00:42:04.680 ⇒ 00:42:08.840 Roy Christian Piñon: But at least I know you know, something might be be able to come in.
392 00:42:09.040 ⇒ 00:42:17.550 Roy Christian Piñon: I’d be comfortable with 10 if you’re okay with a base like that, and depending on how many hours you’d be.
393 00:42:18.547 ⇒ 00:42:20.610 Roy Christian Piñon: How many hours do you think you might
394 00:42:20.770 ⇒ 00:42:21.770 Roy Christian Piñon: need.
395 00:42:23.040 ⇒ 00:42:25.429 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, I think, to do any damage.
396 00:42:25.440 ⇒ 00:42:28.310 Uttam Kumaran: It would have to be at least like 20 HA week.
397 00:42:29.192 ⇒ 00:42:31.660 Uttam Kumaran: Like. What do you think I mean?
398 00:42:32.080 ⇒ 00:42:38.000 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t. I don’t. I just like I think that’s probably it. But again, as we see results, we can change so
399 00:42:38.140 ⇒ 00:42:41.329 Uttam Kumaran: we could start for a month to try something, and then
400 00:42:41.590 ⇒ 00:42:44.829 Uttam Kumaran: you know, basically revisit it and update it.
401 00:42:48.030 ⇒ 00:42:56.520 Roy Christian Piñon: Okay, I I have something a bit unique. Would you be okay when doing a retainer? And in that sense
402 00:42:56.660 ⇒ 00:42:59.100 Roy Christian Piñon: the 20 h would actually dissolve.
403 00:42:59.390 ⇒ 00:43:01.739 Roy Christian Piñon: So with me there is that whole comfort.
404 00:43:02.050 ⇒ 00:43:03.220 Roy Christian Piñon: and
405 00:43:03.850 ⇒ 00:43:07.689 Roy Christian Piñon: it’s it’s up to me how to actually speed up speed that up.
406 00:43:08.020 ⇒ 00:43:17.489 Roy Christian Piñon: And it’s kind of you know it’s not gonna be an extra cost, or you don’t have to really check in. But you know I I’ll I’ll show you what what’s kind of going on.
407 00:43:17.490 ⇒ 00:43:19.861 Uttam Kumaran: I would totally be open to that.
408 00:43:20.360 ⇒ 00:43:26.320 Uttam Kumaran: yeah, I’m like, I don’t want to handicap this process by budget, but at the same time.
409 00:43:26.680 ⇒ 00:43:28.980 Uttam Kumaran: like, I can only reinvest
410 00:43:29.670 ⇒ 00:43:53.550 Uttam Kumaran: as we start to get clients in and make money. And I’m and I’m basically this reinvestment process I’m doing like across the whole company. So I appreciate you like working with me on this I will. What I can promise is that if we nail this, I think you have a great opportunity to work with a company that’s going from 0 to one on the sales side. And as we begin to scale
411 00:43:53.550 ⇒ 00:44:03.750 Uttam Kumaran: sales, and we begin to scale a sales team and a full sales operation. You mentioned that one of your things is like trying to master sales. I think this is a great place
412 00:44:03.780 ⇒ 00:44:08.539 Uttam Kumaran: for someone like you to do that where you have an interest in the real mechanics and the science behind it.
413 00:44:10.290 ⇒ 00:44:17.269 Uttam Kumaran: Like, that’s who we are, and everything we do is going to be like science based. And we’re using all the most modern tools. And
414 00:44:18.780 ⇒ 00:44:23.349 Uttam Kumaran: I, again, I do believe we have a product that’s worth selling that really moves the needle for folks.
415 00:44:23.560 ⇒ 00:44:25.680 Uttam Kumaran: So yeah, maybe if you
416 00:44:25.760 ⇒ 00:44:39.959 Uttam Kumaran: if you don’t mind, maybe just shooting me an email with, like your, with the details and like what you think. And then let’s what we’ll let’s plan for doing something for. At least I know it’s mid September, at least for this month
417 00:44:40.470 ⇒ 00:44:44.400 Uttam Kumaran: or until the end of next month, and then we can set a plan to revisit that
418 00:44:44.510 ⇒ 00:44:46.949 Uttam Kumaran: once we once you get aligned on like
419 00:44:47.390 ⇒ 00:44:51.259 Uttam Kumaran: how much time it’s actually taking. And I’m happy to do the retainer model.
420 00:44:51.577 ⇒ 00:45:02.290 Uttam Kumaran: That way, you know that, like I’m happy to revisit it. You’re not like locked in. But at the same time I want you to have enough freedom to figure out like, actually, how much time this is, gonna take
421 00:45:02.566 ⇒ 00:45:08.459 Uttam Kumaran: but of course, like my goal is like, if it works out, would love to have you full time, and would love to be able to
422 00:45:08.470 ⇒ 00:45:13.299 Uttam Kumaran: pay you an amount that that you know, gets you to that point as well. So.
423 00:45:14.520 ⇒ 00:45:16.260 Roy Christian Piñon: Okay. So
424 00:45:16.330 ⇒ 00:45:21.940 Roy Christian Piñon: just to clarify you, you’re we’re gonna do the hours first, st just for the September to
425 00:45:22.040 ⇒ 00:45:23.320 Roy Christian Piñon: end of October.
426 00:45:24.020 ⇒ 00:45:24.380 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
427 00:45:24.380 ⇒ 00:45:26.889 Roy Christian Piñon: And then we do the retainer model after.
428 00:45:27.480 ⇒ 00:45:29.092 Uttam Kumaran: Up to you.
429 00:45:31.270 ⇒ 00:45:32.190 Uttam Kumaran: or you’re comfortable.
430 00:45:32.190 ⇒ 00:45:33.720 Roy Christian Piñon: Well, we’re doing the retainer first.st
431 00:45:33.720 ⇒ 00:45:37.140 Uttam Kumaran: I’m comfortable doing the retainer model first, st and then
432 00:45:37.200 ⇒ 00:45:44.951 Uttam Kumaran: you kind of giving me a sense of like if that’s enough, or like what you what you think again, we’ll have meetings and process internally.
433 00:45:45.510 ⇒ 00:45:50.139 Uttam Kumaran: but I want to make sure that again that you’re comfortable, but also that you understand that we’re
434 00:45:50.450 ⇒ 00:45:52.150 Uttam Kumaran: I need to see them.
435 00:45:52.360 ⇒ 00:45:55.110 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, working to continue to add more.
436 00:45:55.390 ⇒ 00:45:57.239 Roy Christian Piñon: Time and and money there, so that.
437 00:45:57.240 ⇒ 00:45:59.330 Uttam Kumaran: Stuff, and but again, like
438 00:45:59.490 ⇒ 00:46:02.339 Uttam Kumaran: I am I’m not here to be like
439 00:46:02.460 ⇒ 00:46:02.970 Uttam Kumaran: I’m gonna.
440 00:46:02.970 ⇒ 00:46:03.560 Roy Christian Piñon: Says I mean.
441 00:46:03.560 ⇒ 00:46:04.159 Uttam Kumaran: I mean they get you.
442 00:46:04.160 ⇒ 00:46:04.510 Roy Christian Piñon: Just.
443 00:46:04.510 ⇒ 00:46:14.060 Uttam Kumaran: You just no, but you just met me. But I’m also like that’s not how I do business like. I look to work with people and build long term partnerships. And like.
444 00:46:14.620 ⇒ 00:46:23.569 Uttam Kumaran: unfortunately, like all, I put a lot of my own money into this. And so it’s like, I always have this like battle between, like, I can go spend everything, but also like.
445 00:46:23.750 ⇒ 00:46:26.265 Uttam Kumaran: then I’m gonna lose all the money. So
446 00:46:27.050 ⇒ 00:46:33.930 Uttam Kumaran: I will say, like, I’m a very iterative person. And I make a lot of decisions and do a lot of reflection. So as soon as things.
447 00:46:34.500 ⇒ 00:46:42.879 Uttam Kumaran: this whole process will be us figuring out what we did right, what we’re doing wrong. But I want to make sure that you know that we have a cadence of making changes and updates.
448 00:46:43.725 ⇒ 00:46:44.520 Uttam Kumaran: So.
449 00:46:45.530 ⇒ 00:46:49.650 Roy Christian Piñon: It’s okay. I’ll yeah, totally understand. If we we want to do the
450 00:46:49.670 ⇒ 00:46:55.370 Roy Christian Piñon: one month first, st and then I’ll try to think of a figure, probably
451 00:46:55.770 ⇒ 00:46:58.310 Roy Christian Piñon: maybe a bit of outline, how we might.
452 00:46:58.310 ⇒ 00:46:58.760 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
453 00:46:58.760 ⇒ 00:47:02.729 Roy Christian Piñon: And start cause. But I do wanna have, for at least
454 00:47:02.750 ⇒ 00:47:05.359 Roy Christian Piñon: maybe you can connect me with the Apollo guy.
455 00:47:05.660 ⇒ 00:47:06.310 Roy Christian Piñon: So in that.
456 00:47:06.310 ⇒ 00:47:06.870 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
457 00:47:07.200 ⇒ 00:47:09.979 Roy Christian Piñon: Or you want to implement lead assassins first.st
458 00:47:10.810 ⇒ 00:47:15.269 Uttam Kumaran: So this is where I kind of want your advice, because I don’t want to make a decision
459 00:47:16.090 ⇒ 00:47:22.090 Uttam Kumaran: because it’s gonna really impact your workflows so ideally. What I would like to do is
460 00:47:23.290 ⇒ 00:47:35.310 Uttam Kumaran: like if we if we get everything squared away, I’ll add you to slack the Apollo, and everything is internal to us. So you you’ll be able to log in and see everything there. The lead assassin. I owe him a response this week.
461 00:47:35.520 ⇒ 00:47:43.940 Uttam Kumaran: I kind of want you to get a foothold and then to kind of look at what they’re offering, and then we can make a decision. I do think their offer for at least a month is pretty solid.
462 00:47:45.131 ⇒ 00:47:51.460 Uttam Kumaran: To at least get some outbound going, but also we can wait to do that in in October.
463 00:47:53.320 ⇒ 00:47:55.890 Uttam Kumaran: So they seemed open to any sort of timeline.
464 00:47:56.310 ⇒ 00:47:57.060 Roy Christian Piñon: Okay?
465 00:47:57.690 ⇒ 00:48:03.360 Roy Christian Piñon: Or I may have extended a bit. Seems like you, you have a meeting at 12.
466 00:48:03.920 ⇒ 00:48:05.759 Roy Christian Piñon: Right? Yeah, yeah. Rather go.
467 00:48:07.110 ⇒ 00:48:08.110 Roy Christian Piñon: Sorry. Sorry.
468 00:48:08.110 ⇒ 00:48:21.908 Uttam Kumaran: No, no, no! I again like this is a. This is really important, and it’s important to me. So I wanted to spend the time to to learn more about you and yeah, if you don’t mind just sending me. You know those details over email. And then,
469 00:48:23.260 ⇒ 00:48:26.210 Uttam Kumaran: yeah, I know you have my Whatsapp, and we can keep talking on there.
470 00:48:26.960 ⇒ 00:48:31.590 Roy Christian Piñon: So yeah, I was really nice meeting you. I was checking some of the
471 00:48:31.600 ⇒ 00:48:33.554 Roy Christian Piñon: the videos with you did with,
472 00:48:34.230 ⇒ 00:48:36.619 Roy Christian Piñon: guess there were some podcasts, you were in.
473 00:48:37.420 ⇒ 00:48:44.579 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, yeah, I’m sure there’s a couple. Yeah, I again, although I need to start doing more of those, because I feel like that was always good for business, but.
474 00:48:45.150 ⇒ 00:48:53.259 Roy Christian Piñon: Who is there’s actually a particular CEO that’s a bit aggressive. His name’s Gabe lulo.
475 00:48:53.690 ⇒ 00:48:55.159 Roy Christian Piñon: He does alley-oop.
476 00:48:57.110 ⇒ 00:48:59.369 Roy Christian Piñon: but he kind of focused on
477 00:48:59.660 ⇒ 00:49:05.719 Roy Christian Piñon: podcasts. Not sure. But that’s mostly stuff out there on Linkedin.
478 00:49:05.720 ⇒ 00:49:14.159 Uttam Kumaran: I have a lot of people that I could go do podcast with. But again, I want to make sure that our sales stuff is good cause. I’m not going to podcast just to talk. I don’t have any.
479 00:49:15.420 ⇒ 00:49:19.368 Uttam Kumaran: No, I don’t care about that. I’m only going if it helps the sales.
480 00:49:19.650 ⇒ 00:49:20.430 Roy Christian Piñon: Definitely
481 00:49:20.740 ⇒ 00:49:21.740 Roy Christian Piñon: alright. Yeah.
482 00:49:22.130 ⇒ 00:49:29.530 Roy Christian Piñon: So just kind of a bit of what I I think our structure might be, and then kind of the for the Comp.
483 00:49:31.200 ⇒ 00:49:31.840 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
484 00:49:31.840 ⇒ 00:49:32.550 Roy Christian Piñon: Okay.
485 00:49:35.070 ⇒ 00:49:37.030 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. Well, thanks, Roy. I appreciate it.
486 00:49:37.030 ⇒ 00:49:37.770 Roy Christian Piñon: Thanks. I know it’s like.
487 00:49:37.770 ⇒ 00:49:38.939 Uttam Kumaran: So I appreciate the time.
488 00:49:39.470 ⇒ 00:49:41.220 Roy Christian Piñon: No worries. Have a good one. Okay?
489 00:49:41.220 ⇒ 00:49:41.960 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. Thanks.
490 00:49:41.960 ⇒ 00:49:43.040 Roy Christian Piñon: Bye, bye.