Meeting Title: Data Team Retro Date: 2025-01-24 Meeting participants: Luke Daque, Nicolas Sucari, Uttam Kumaran, Robert Tseng, Sahana Asokan
WEBVTT
1 00:05:08.800 ⇒ 00:05:10.310 Uttam Kumaran: Not bad.
2 00:05:13.930 ⇒ 00:05:16.819 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. Yo good. Good.
3 00:05:16.820 ⇒ 00:05:17.900 Robert Tseng: That was good.
4 00:05:17.900 ⇒ 00:05:22.570 Uttam Kumaran: Adam still tried, but frankly we got some defense.
5 00:05:22.950 ⇒ 00:05:23.290 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
6 00:05:23.290 ⇒ 00:05:29.939 Uttam Kumaran: Some people. And it’s actually good because they do need like 2 things. They need basically both. So that’s good.
7 00:05:29.940 ⇒ 00:05:31.630 Robert Tseng: Yeah, yeah.
8 00:05:33.640 ⇒ 00:05:35.380 Luke Daque: Oh, what what happened?
9 00:05:37.920 ⇒ 00:05:48.110 Robert Tseng: We just presented like the data model that you had started working on Luke. And then, yeah, I mean, we just got some feedback on it. So but yeah.
10 00:05:48.110 ⇒ 00:05:55.129 Uttam Kumaran: Just like Rip, just rip sequel for like an hour like, just have like 5, 10 windows open.
11 00:05:55.770 ⇒ 00:06:02.400 Uttam Kumaran: Understood? Like how they’re all doing marketing. But yeah, I think it’s actually, I learned a lot in that meeting, too.
12 00:06:04.310 ⇒ 00:06:19.990 Uttam Kumaran: and it’s great like, it’s starting to poke holes in that. They have. They have product level stuff, and they have marketing needs. And they’re never gonna align. And they want to look at breakouts. But they don’t spend. They don’t spend on bundles, and so like it’s right. Great conversation.
13 00:06:20.690 ⇒ 00:06:21.250 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
14 00:06:22.000 ⇒ 00:06:22.940 Luke Daque: I see.
15 00:06:24.280 ⇒ 00:06:26.799 Uttam Kumaran: And I have the. I have the granola for the whole combo.
16 00:06:27.200 ⇒ 00:06:29.200 Robert Tseng: Oh, you did. I was like shit. I didn’t turn it on.
17 00:06:29.200 ⇒ 00:06:31.540 Uttam Kumaran: Clutch, but.
18 00:06:31.804 ⇒ 00:06:32.860 Robert Tseng: Very good. Very good.
19 00:06:34.200 ⇒ 00:06:34.640 Robert Tseng: Okay.
20 00:06:35.480 ⇒ 00:06:37.950 Nicolas Sucari: Hi, guys, how are you?
21 00:06:38.080 ⇒ 00:06:40.340 Nicolas Sucari: What was that meeting? Good meeting.
22 00:06:41.100 ⇒ 00:06:47.979 Robert Tseng: Yes, best one all week I can. I can rest well, this weekend. Thank thank you. Guys. Yes.
23 00:06:48.900 ⇒ 00:06:49.550 Luke Daque: Nice.
24 00:06:49.550 ⇒ 00:06:54.890 Uttam Kumaran: I stopped. I stopped hooking my emotional, my personal emotions to the business.
25 00:06:55.040 ⇒ 00:07:03.459 Uttam Kumaran: I just try to stay happy. Just be like it’s on fire. You’re just chilling. If it’s good, I’m still chilling like.
26 00:07:03.460 ⇒ 00:07:04.840 Robert Tseng: That’s a good one. This.
27 00:07:05.030 ⇒ 00:07:11.120 Uttam Kumaran: This is a this this time has a lot of stuff going on. And I’m actually happy to hear, like.
28 00:07:11.972 ⇒ 00:07:20.169 Uttam Kumaran: how many people there have a need for the work, and are clearly like, Oh, yeah, I want to do this. I want to do this like, that’s
29 00:07:20.570 ⇒ 00:07:42.859 Uttam Kumaran: buyer like that’s really, really good. And honestly, the stuff I did today was not that complicated? I just had to do it kind of fast with like a bunch of stuff I like. No, I don’t know anything about the business really like as much as I. If I was staring at a few more hours, so like the work. Actually, isn’t that complicated for for what we need, which is actually a really good thing.
30 00:07:44.120 ⇒ 00:07:47.749 Robert Tseng: Yeah. Well, I think we purposely didn’t show the cracks in the demo. It’s all about the storytelling.
31 00:07:48.590 ⇒ 00:07:52.260 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. But I mean, like, it’s not running in. Dvt, we didn’t. Yeah. But like, right.
32 00:07:52.260 ⇒ 00:07:56.559 Uttam Kumaran: we’re a few hours away from. We’re not like days and days away, so.
33 00:07:56.560 ⇒ 00:07:58.900 Robert Tseng: Yeah, okay.
34 00:08:00.640 ⇒ 00:08:02.700 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, Nico, so maybe I’ll let you run this.
35 00:08:03.780 ⇒ 00:08:25.659 Nicolas Sucari: Good to hear about that. Yeah. Okay, yeah. I just yeah, have a big jump prepared with the template so that we can work there. We can talk about how this work went, how this week went. Let me just send the link. Here are we? Are we waiting for someone else. I think Sahana was in the invite right, but I don’t know if she’s gonna join.
36 00:08:27.170 ⇒ 00:08:31.760 Robert Tseng: I don’t think she’s gonna join. I told I talked to her this morning, and she I told her she didn’t have to be here.
37 00:08:32.240 ⇒ 00:08:32.890 Nicolas Sucari: Okay.
38 00:08:33.130 ⇒ 00:08:37.169 Uttam Kumaran: Your pies like my hair. I’m like your level here, dude. I gotta get a haircut right now.
39 00:08:37.179 ⇒ 00:08:39.129 Payas Parab (TikTok): Oh, dude! Grow it out! Let’s get the flow.
40 00:08:40.440 ⇒ 00:08:41.980 Nicolas Sucari: I need to shave too.
41 00:08:42.419 ⇒ 00:08:48.170 Uttam Kumaran: And your hair is pie. Your hair pies, your hair grows like from the side, like like almost like.
42 00:08:48.300 ⇒ 00:08:49.190 Payas Parab (TikTok): Yeah, it’s a 2.
43 00:08:49.190 ⇒ 00:08:51.679 Payas Parab (TikTok): It’s a 2 pay, or like kind of.
44 00:08:51.680 ⇒ 00:08:55.550 Uttam Kumaran: Donald. Trump hair like should be looking like, you know, if it was very real.
45 00:08:55.550 ⇒ 00:08:56.125 Payas Parab (TikTok): Yeah.
46 00:09:00.590 ⇒ 00:09:01.140 Nicolas Sucari: Cool.
47 00:09:01.140 ⇒ 00:09:01.850 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. Okay.
48 00:09:02.800 ⇒ 00:09:03.520 Uttam Kumaran: My son.
49 00:09:04.310 ⇒ 00:09:08.859 Nicolas Sucari: Yeah, let me let me know if you can. If everyone can open, we can work there.
50 00:09:19.010 ⇒ 00:09:19.620 Payas Parab (TikTok): No.
51 00:09:22.750 ⇒ 00:09:24.369 Robert Tseng: Yeah. You send it on slack.
52 00:09:26.380 ⇒ 00:09:27.200 Payas Parab (TikTok): There’s it in here.
53 00:09:27.710 ⇒ 00:09:29.970 Nicolas Sucari: Yeah, yeah, hang on a second.
54 00:09:32.980 ⇒ 00:09:34.980 Nicolas Sucari: I’ll send it in the data channel.
55 00:09:55.870 ⇒ 00:09:56.300 Uttam Kumaran: Hi.
56 00:09:56.300 ⇒ 00:09:57.590 Nicolas Sucari: So ideally, these.
57 00:09:58.180 ⇒ 00:09:59.129 Uttam Kumaran: Sorry. Go ahead. Got it? Go.
58 00:09:59.130 ⇒ 00:10:01.489 Nicolas Sucari: No no sorry. Sorry. Go ahead. Go ahead.
59 00:10:01.490 ⇒ 00:10:07.889 Uttam Kumaran: No, no, I was just. I’m just catching up on slack after like an hour. So let’s just do this. I’ll message on stuff later.
60 00:10:10.220 ⇒ 00:10:19.580 Nicolas Sucari: Okay? Yeah. So ideally, we we need like to spend 5 min, for example, adding just sticky notes into both
61 00:10:19.720 ⇒ 00:10:28.220 Nicolas Sucari: the 1st and the second column. What went? Well, what problems did we face? Let’s think about all of the work that we’ve been working during this week.
62 00:10:28.817 ⇒ 00:10:37.039 Nicolas Sucari: All of the projects. Ideally, it’s kind of one idea or one topic per sticky note. So that then we can discuss
63 00:10:37.542 ⇒ 00:10:49.529 Nicolas Sucari: we can then, yeah, just vote on what we wanna talk like a little bit deeper on and yeah, and then just work on learning section items or what to change for the
64 00:10:49.750 ⇒ 00:10:55.949 Nicolas Sucari: next week or next. Yeah. Period of time until we do the next retro. Okay.
65 00:10:59.481 ⇒ 00:11:10.060 Uttam Kumaran: So are we gonna are, we gonna do like, we’re gonna do 5 min like total. And then basically we’re gonna like vote, or how, what, how do you want to? Or you want to just talk about everything.
66 00:11:10.500 ⇒ 00:11:21.850 Nicolas Sucari: So ideally, we we talk about, or everyone needs to kind of explain a little bit what he, what they are adding, what what we are adding there in this sticky notes. But I don’t know if we’re gonna have a lot of time.
67 00:11:22.570 ⇒ 00:11:27.849 Nicolas Sucari: Know, you guys, I know you guys been in a lot of meetings today. And yeah, it’s late.
68 00:11:27.850 ⇒ 00:11:30.072 Uttam Kumaran: I think probably what’s best is like.
69 00:11:32.270 ⇒ 00:11:39.910 Uttam Kumaran: As soon as we all put stuff here like, just put a timer for 5 min. As soon as we put stuff here, you just basically start to organize things
70 00:11:39.910 ⇒ 00:11:40.430 Uttam Kumaran: right as
71 00:11:40.430 ⇒ 00:11:45.390 Uttam Kumaran: big ideas. And then we can just see if there’s like a few. We could just talk about it, and then we can.
72 00:11:45.610 ⇒ 00:11:48.340 Uttam Kumaran: We could talk about steps to take. So let’s do that.
73 00:11:49.060 ⇒ 00:11:51.009 Nicolas Sucari: Yeah, okay, perfect.
74 00:11:52.450 ⇒ 00:11:54.139 Nicolas Sucari: I started timer.
75 00:11:54.650 ⇒ 00:11:55.320 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. Cool.
76 00:11:55.590 ⇒ 00:11:58.879 Luke Daque: Yeah. Can you give me edit access? I can’t edit.
77 00:11:58.880 ⇒ 00:12:03.800 Nicolas Sucari: Yeah, yeah, sure. Let me see, I am.
78 00:12:03.970 ⇒ 00:12:04.650 Nicolas Sucari: Hmm.
79 00:12:07.220 ⇒ 00:12:09.409 Nicolas Sucari: Oh, because you do. Let me see.
80 00:12:09.410 ⇒ 00:12:12.299 Uttam Kumaran: I’ll I’ll go! I’ll go, Adam, I’ll go, Adam, just.
81 00:12:12.300 ⇒ 00:12:15.570 Nicolas Sucari: No, because we need, but we need to like upgrade his account.
82 00:12:15.570 ⇒ 00:12:17.440 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I’ll go. I’ll go do that.
83 00:12:17.440 ⇒ 00:12:17.800 Payas Parab (TikTok): Okay.
84 00:12:23.750 ⇒ 00:12:24.565 Nicolas Sucari: Entire.
85 00:12:26.910 ⇒ 00:12:30.019 Uttam Kumaran: Dude. You know how every fucking day it’s like
86 00:12:30.120 ⇒ 00:12:33.851 Uttam Kumaran: I need more access. I need. I need this account I need. And it’s like
87 00:12:34.430 ⇒ 00:12:38.140 Uttam Kumaran: I hate paying these companies for stuff like this. But whatever.
88 00:12:38.840 ⇒ 00:12:41.839 Payas Parab (TikTok): We’re just like dude. It’s even just like logging in.
89 00:12:41.840 ⇒ 00:12:46.389 Uttam Kumaran: Dude, we run a pretty simple company we have. We have, like, over 50 Saas tools.
90 00:12:46.390 ⇒ 00:12:47.740 Payas Parab (TikTok): So, yeah.
91 00:12:47.740 ⇒ 00:12:51.090 Uttam Kumaran: And I feel lucky that I even kept track like I I
92 00:12:51.560 ⇒ 00:12:57.349 Uttam Kumaran: that wasn’t really like I I’m like what? And then you go to the list you’re like, we kind of need all this stuff like.
93 00:12:57.960 ⇒ 00:12:59.480 Payas Parab (TikTok): Yeah.
94 00:12:59.480 ⇒ 00:13:00.429 Uttam Kumaran: It’s tough.
95 00:13:07.430 ⇒ 00:13:09.209 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, Ryan, you should have access.
96 00:13:10.340 ⇒ 00:13:11.030 Payas Parab (TikTok): I don’t know.
97 00:13:13.890 ⇒ 00:13:14.800 Luke Daque: Thanks.
98 00:13:27.140 ⇒ 00:13:35.029 Nicolas Sucari: If you need to. Yeah, just you can copy paste and edit, or if you click S on your keyboard, you can then add a stick note everywhere.
99 00:13:54.530 ⇒ 00:13:55.370 Payas Parab (TikTok): Now
100 00:14:13.070 ⇒ 00:14:14.429 Payas Parab (TikTok): set up for.
101 00:14:23.366 ⇒ 00:14:24.180 Payas Parab (TikTok): So yeah.
102 00:14:29.630 ⇒ 00:14:31.500 Payas Parab (TikTok): you just have a remote monitoring.
103 00:14:42.390 ⇒ 00:14:46.280 Nicolas Sucari: I don’t know which group is. Gonna be that one, Robert, but that’s.
104 00:14:52.180 ⇒ 00:14:52.960 Payas Parab (TikTok): Madam.
105 00:14:53.645 ⇒ 00:15:01.909 Payas Parab (TikTok): very frustrated with like, I’m like, switch. Something’s like, off on my thing. I’m just like, man. Let’s just do this pen and Paper Baby. The good old Days.
106 00:15:02.311 ⇒ 00:15:09.530 Uttam Kumaran: Dude you’re when were you’re born like 20? When were you born? Don’t be like good old days.
107 00:15:09.530 ⇒ 00:15:16.880 Payas Parab (TikTok): I’m 27, but I’ll literally be like I relate, so hard to the 50 year old. It’s like man I liked when you just like, flew in out of meetings.
108 00:15:16.880 ⇒ 00:15:20.470 Uttam Kumaran: I have my quill pen. Oh, I left my ink at home.
109 00:15:25.900 ⇒ 00:15:29.880 Uttam Kumaran: my typewriter. It’s got a broken piece. I need to go get it fixed.
110 00:15:39.220 ⇒ 00:15:40.080 Payas Parab (TikTok): Oh, yeah.
111 00:16:20.610 ⇒ 00:16:25.610 Nicolas Sucari: Hey, Zahana! I know you’re in here. But let me know if you need access to the figma
112 00:16:26.270 ⇒ 00:16:28.119 Nicolas Sucari: board we’re working on.
113 00:16:31.640 ⇒ 00:16:36.019 Sahana Asokan: Yeah, actually, could you resend it to me? I think I joined a couple of minutes late.
114 00:16:37.890 ⇒ 00:16:38.490 Nicolas Sucari: Yeah.
115 00:16:39.220 ⇒ 00:16:40.140 Sahana Asokan: Thank you.
116 00:16:48.660 ⇒ 00:16:49.340 Payas Parab (TikTok): Awesome.
117 00:17:07.790 ⇒ 00:17:08.970 Payas Parab (TikTok): It’s all.
118 00:17:37.840 ⇒ 00:17:39.999 Nicolas Sucari: Do you need a couple more minutes? Guys.
119 00:17:40.340 ⇒ 00:17:41.999 Uttam Kumaran: I’m good. I’m good.
120 00:18:06.410 ⇒ 00:18:07.120 Robert Tseng: Yep.
121 00:18:09.230 ⇒ 00:18:16.190 Robert Tseng: let’s let’s let’s keep it going, because I know that not everyone can stay past 4. I know we we push pushed it back a bit.
122 00:18:16.540 ⇒ 00:18:21.986 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I’m like mental acuity. I’m like barely holding on like I so let’s
123 00:18:23.280 ⇒ 00:18:23.810 Luke Daque: I understand.
124 00:18:24.040 ⇒ 00:18:25.020 Nicolas Sucari: It’s hard.
125 00:18:25.960 ⇒ 00:18:36.839 Nicolas Sucari: Yeah, I know. Let’s start with what one world I’ll start reading and trying to organize it together in different groups. Okay, so clients are very engaged with whatever we are doing.
126 00:18:37.396 ⇒ 00:18:48.060 Nicolas Sucari: We hustle last minute and came together. Analytics. Turnaround has been solid on a very thorough in identifying dependencies and putting out iterations on time.
127 00:18:48.510 ⇒ 00:19:00.209 Nicolas Sucari: Organization in notion is improving, and we are being more diligent about getting things in notion as it’s more releasing timelines, internally working on backlog, and detailing all of the tasks for projects.
128 00:19:00.380 ⇒ 00:19:02.440 Nicolas Sucari: is something that went good.
129 00:19:02.440 ⇒ 00:19:02.830 Payas Parab (TikTok): Okay.
130 00:19:02.830 ⇒ 00:19:08.830 Nicolas Sucari: Bottom is moving. One, yeah, analytics team crashing loom videos are effective at communicating context.
131 00:19:09.410 ⇒ 00:19:15.159 Nicolas Sucari: And maybe we can add it here, appreciate appreciative of management engagement. Push
132 00:19:15.320 ⇒ 00:19:21.349 Nicolas Sucari: us for better client coms by us with the scope upsell. Okay, so those are all.
133 00:19:21.350 ⇒ 00:19:21.850 Uttam Kumaran: Above, sale.
134 00:19:22.580 ⇒ 00:19:29.839 Robert Tseng: Well on the joby stuff, you know, like, just I like that other people on the team are pushing like, hey, we should do this for them, and it’s like.
135 00:19:29.840 ⇒ 00:19:31.609 Uttam Kumaran: Yes, I agree.
136 00:19:31.940 ⇒ 00:19:50.620 Payas Parab (TikTok): It’s also nice to see, like Justin’s actually engaged dude like it’s like we got his attention like he even like left the thread later came back and was like, Hey, engineering. Like, I think, he added, some random guys from his engineering team is like, Make sure you get whatever price needs. And it’s like, Wow, that’s great and substantially better than anything Jay money has ever contributed.
137 00:19:50.890 ⇒ 00:19:51.630 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
138 00:19:52.670 ⇒ 00:20:02.240 Uttam Kumaran: It’s what happens. Like, look we, the work we are doing is actually really great. The, I think we have a problem with Comms more than anything like, I don’t think we’ve ever had a data problem.
139 00:20:03.650 ⇒ 00:20:04.930 Uttam Kumaran: In fact, like.
140 00:20:05.160 ⇒ 00:20:17.570 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t think anything we’re doing for anybody is quite complicated, like, if I’m being frank, I think the complication is from the amount of context switching. And it’s just some it’s just dealing with. Like various
141 00:20:17.780 ⇒ 00:20:23.620 Uttam Kumaran: Briggs, Myers, Briggs type people, you know, it’s all types of conversations and things. So that’s the challenge
142 00:20:23.730 ⇒ 00:20:26.130 Uttam Kumaran: for me, at least from my perspective.
143 00:20:28.160 ⇒ 00:20:34.410 Nicolas Sucari: Okay, cool anyone else. Wanna say something about what went well during the week.
144 00:20:34.720 ⇒ 00:20:41.410 Uttam Kumaran: I do also really like loom a lot. And I’m trying to think of more ways that we can all
145 00:20:41.620 ⇒ 00:20:44.369 Uttam Kumaran: leverage tools like loom. I think
146 00:20:44.610 ⇒ 00:20:55.190 Uttam Kumaran: me and Robert, I think I use a lot of like AI like speech to text stuff. So I’m happy to hook anyone up. If anyone has wants to use those that helps us get
147 00:20:55.580 ⇒ 00:21:00.560 Uttam Kumaran: what we would need to be on a Zoom Meeting for done in slack. And I’m really pro that as much as possible.
148 00:21:01.634 ⇒ 00:21:07.010 Payas Parab (TikTok): I also sorry on that note, like I I think, like there’s there’s something about maybe if there’s a con, but like
149 00:21:07.330 ⇒ 00:21:12.290 Payas Parab (TikTok): the different styles, and like getting familiar with those tools like having access to them
150 00:21:12.490 ⇒ 00:21:28.079 Payas Parab (TikTok): is nice. But I like it’s hard for me to switch like that’s just on that tools. Note like, it’s like, I clearly write the way that like emails are written. Like, you know, I don’t know if you guys notice. But like, I think that like, yeah, those tools are helpful. If people are finding them really helpful, and they find
151 00:21:28.380 ⇒ 00:21:36.389 Payas Parab (TikTok): they are helpful for others like instead of like, my, here’s the bullet points email format, written like a 50 year old, like, what’s the if.
152 00:21:36.390 ⇒ 00:21:44.629 Uttam Kumaran: I prefer writing like, I think, ultimately, like the challenge we’re all trying to get away from is writing a really high quality
153 00:21:45.200 ⇒ 00:22:03.059 Uttam Kumaran: stuff which is hard. It’s hard to sit and write, very high quality distinct. That’s ultimately what needs should be done. Loom and everything, and and meetings, especially meetings, is like the basically like, okay, I can’t write this all out because I can’t take the time to do that. Let’s meet. Then there’s there’s this layers in between of like fidelity.
154 00:22:04.650 ⇒ 00:22:05.310 Uttam Kumaran: So.
155 00:22:08.970 ⇒ 00:22:09.660 Nicolas Sucari: Okay.
156 00:22:10.090 ⇒ 00:22:15.819 Nicolas Sucari: Anything else there, we can jump into.
157 00:22:16.600 ⇒ 00:22:35.839 Robert Tseng: I want to say one more thing. So yeah, I mean, I I do feel like overall communication from the team is is definitely we’re being pushed to communicate at a higher level than we did before. And I know it’s hard. Everyone has different communication styles the preferences of tools, and we’ll keep running to those challenges. I think it’s also just a matter of like, kind of
158 00:22:36.020 ⇒ 00:22:37.420 Robert Tseng: yeah, like over
159 00:22:37.500 ⇒ 00:22:47.609 Robert Tseng: it, you know, I just hope that people don’t take things personally. If there are, and there are issues and how we can communicate better. And I don’t think anybody’s like explicitly like, you know.
160 00:22:47.680 ⇒ 00:22:56.959 Robert Tseng: being like offensive or anything. But just like, Yeah, I know we try to communicate very directly over slack messages and stuff, and like for me, like, I batch my communications like.
161 00:22:56.960 ⇒ 00:23:20.419 Robert Tseng: I’m like, either popping in and out of meetings and just going through a bunch of messages and sending short clips. But yeah, I just think that, you know, maybe we should all do like a personal inventory of like what? How would you prefer to be communicated to like some people like the long written format. Some people want the the videos like, we don’t have to do everything for everyone, you know, just like find the way. That’s most community that’s the best for each other. So
162 00:23:20.420 ⇒ 00:23:30.949 Robert Tseng: I might even put that as an exercise for us in the future for us to like, think through like, how would you prefer to be communicated to you? And I think we should kind of consider that like as well.
163 00:23:31.100 ⇒ 00:23:37.619 Robert Tseng: we obviously can’t. Can’t cater to everyone all the time, but like, I think as if I know that like pies prefer like
164 00:23:38.086 ⇒ 00:23:57.870 Robert Tseng: like the email format or whatever. Then I’m just gonna give him more writing. But if you know, Nico prefers the loom videos and he’s more of a visual person, I’m just gonna keep giving him loom videos. You know, we’re not that big that like, I feel like I have the ability to adapt myself to each of you. And I think that’s it’s valuable to do that. So that’s just what I want to say.
165 00:24:00.520 ⇒ 00:24:01.800 Nicolas Sucari: That’s great. Yeah.
166 00:24:01.800 ⇒ 00:24:02.340 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
167 00:24:02.600 ⇒ 00:24:03.290 Nicolas Sucari: Thank you.
168 00:24:04.665 ⇒ 00:24:18.149 Nicolas Sucari: Okay, let’s dive into what problems did we face during the week? So analytics de workflow broke down. The work didn’t start, and even until Wednesday work was due Thursday, and this blocked the upsell.
169 00:24:18.260 ⇒ 00:24:22.550 Nicolas Sucari: There is one on Da and de also scoping with
170 00:24:22.740 ⇒ 00:24:31.739 Nicolas Sucari: timing and deadline is not right, not tribal and long process to thought thoughtfully, to provide visibility one week. Cadence is maybe too short. Okay.
171 00:24:32.541 ⇒ 00:24:39.599 Nicolas Sucari: lack of accountability in that. Team meetings needs clear deadlines communicate what the dependencies are faster to identify blockers.
172 00:24:39.750 ⇒ 00:24:50.351 Nicolas Sucari: Visibility is limited into long term planning with clients, slight disconnect between rain Mercury’s rainmakers, dealmakers and executors. Okay?
173 00:24:51.256 ⇒ 00:24:52.989 Uttam Kumaran: I like that. That’s good.
174 00:24:53.792 ⇒ 00:25:00.490 Nicolas Sucari: Project needs big rocks or milestones, milestones need dates, and everything needs to be super clear. In English.
175 00:25:01.310 ⇒ 00:25:03.110 Nicolas Sucari: There are inevitable challenges.
176 00:25:03.110 ⇒ 00:25:14.860 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t mean English. I don’t mean English like not Spanish or whatever I mean, like, just like, you know, it needs to be like a if you were to hand it to like your your little cousin. They’re like, Okay, yeah, there’s like 3 things here. And then there’s like 4 things that are.
177 00:25:14.960 ⇒ 00:25:15.999 Nicolas Sucari: Kind of thing.
178 00:25:16.000 ⇒ 00:25:18.239 Robert Tseng: Yeah, just not over complicating things. Yeah.
179 00:25:18.900 ⇒ 00:25:22.530 Nicolas Sucari: I’d like to have a Spanish speaker client, and.
180 00:25:24.470 ⇒ 00:25:25.056 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, let’s
181 00:25:29.790 ⇒ 00:25:30.620 Nicolas Sucari: Pretty good, yes.
182 00:25:30.620 ⇒ 00:25:40.689 Uttam Kumaran: You. And yeah, you and pies. You and pies could be in Spanish. I can understand Spanish. Actually, I mean, we should do meetings in Spanish client. Then I’ll learn. It’ll be good.
183 00:25:40.950 ⇒ 00:25:43.269 Payas Parab (TikTok): Robert, woman, woman should win.
184 00:25:43.690 ⇒ 00:25:44.410 Robert Tseng: Oh, wow!
185 00:25:45.270 ⇒ 00:25:45.800 Robert Tseng: You’ve been taking.
186 00:25:46.000 ⇒ 00:25:46.490 Robert Tseng: Go!
187 00:25:46.490 ⇒ 00:25:47.240 Robert Tseng: These classes.
188 00:25:47.590 ⇒ 00:25:48.180 Payas Parab (TikTok): Yeah.
189 00:25:49.160 ⇒ 00:25:50.650 Uttam Kumaran: Let’s go.
190 00:25:50.930 ⇒ 00:25:51.500 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
191 00:25:53.673 ⇒ 00:25:58.029 Nicolas Sucari: Nice. Okay, coming back from the language exploration here.
192 00:25:58.729 ⇒ 00:26:08.570 Nicolas Sucari: Okay. There are inevitable challenges to timing being a part of time contractor that don’t align to daily client comes or project updates that result in stress for Nico.
193 00:26:09.021 ⇒ 00:26:19.629 Nicolas Sucari: Maybe that happened. Maybe this is the stressful that Robert is feeling here he was. Robert thought about quitting from the stress, but the wife said that he need to keep working.
194 00:26:19.810 ⇒ 00:26:22.080 Nicolas Sucari: That’s a good wife back there.
195 00:26:24.040 ⇒ 00:26:35.630 Nicolas Sucari: Ticket task prior prioritization and timing issue. Even high prior task had be done had to be done when my brain was almost already dead. Yeah, this is maybe something we need to discuss.
196 00:26:37.930 ⇒ 00:26:43.770 Nicolas Sucari: Pumps need to be daily from at least one person on the team. You mean to clients right?
197 00:26:43.770 ⇒ 00:26:45.070 Robert Tseng: Declines, yeah, yeah.
198 00:26:45.230 ⇒ 00:26:45.580 Uttam Kumaran: Like.
199 00:26:45.580 ⇒ 00:26:45.900 Payas Parab (TikTok): 10.
200 00:26:45.900 ⇒ 00:26:46.280 Nicolas Sucari: Cool.
201 00:26:46.280 ⇒ 00:26:55.339 Payas Parab (TikTok): And that that I like that I have like, I think, is not necessarily real estate. I’m trying my best here, but it’s like I’m like during the day. I don’t know if Sahana.
202 00:26:55.340 ⇒ 00:26:56.329 Uttam Kumaran: No, no, it’s not.
203 00:26:56.330 ⇒ 00:26:57.400 Payas Parab (TikTok): It’s really hard.
204 00:26:57.590 ⇒ 00:27:01.890 Uttam Kumaran: No, totally. And this isn’t. It’s not on one person, it’s just on like.
205 00:27:02.190 ⇒ 00:27:05.520 Uttam Kumaran: for example, think about it. This, this is a good way of putting it.
206 00:27:05.910 ⇒ 00:27:19.489 Uttam Kumaran: Put, put yourself in this position. You worked really hard to start a great business. We come in and we’re like cool. We’re gonna help handle your data. We want to charge you thousands, tens of thousands of dollars, and then we don’t say anything for 3 days.
207 00:27:20.330 ⇒ 00:27:20.730 Payas Parab (TikTok): Sure.
208 00:27:20.730 ⇒ 00:27:26.320 Uttam Kumaran: If I’ll tell you if it’s in Brainforge, if we’re paying a contractor, and I don’t say anything for 3 days.
209 00:27:27.720 ⇒ 00:27:32.260 Payas Parab (TikTok): Like, actually they, there’s no way it would happen because I would be calling them every day anyway. So like, it’s like.
210 00:27:32.260 ⇒ 00:27:32.590 Payas Parab (TikTok): Thank you.
211 00:27:32.590 ⇒ 00:27:40.880 Uttam Kumaran: Think about that right? So that’s who we are. Right. So if we don’t have that expectation for contractors or consultants, we shouldn’t.
212 00:27:41.100 ⇒ 00:27:44.699 Uttam Kumaran: We shouldn’t act that way. And so this isn’t just on one person. Just that, like.
213 00:27:44.810 ⇒ 00:27:58.989 Uttam Kumaran: there may be a time in the day where you’re like thinking about a client or doing something for them. That’s what I’m saying. It’s like, just say, I’m doing this thing even today. I haven’t done anything on stack plates. The moment I woke up this morning I was like, Oh, cool stripe sync, great stripe sync. I’m going to do this later.
214 00:27:58.990 ⇒ 00:27:59.540 Payas Parab (TikTok): Sure, sure.
215 00:27:59.540 ⇒ 00:27:59.989 Uttam Kumaran: Done, anything.
216 00:27:59.990 ⇒ 00:28:00.550 Payas Parab (TikTok): Yeah.
217 00:28:00.550 ⇒ 00:28:04.740 Uttam Kumaran: I haven’t done anything but dude, otherwise we would have talked to them today.
218 00:28:05.040 ⇒ 00:28:05.480 Payas Parab (TikTok): Actually like.
219 00:28:05.480 ⇒ 00:28:29.290 Uttam Kumaran: Very, very paramount. It’s like in a inside of when you’re internal in a company. Maybe your boss knows you’re at work. You see them in stand up. We’re always gonna get. We’re always gonna be thought of as like the best people may think of us as good. But for the most part, they’re gonna be like, they’re consultants. They’re stealing. They’re proposing bullshit like. That’s what consultants are. Think about. So we we want to really be like undeniable
220 00:28:29.550 ⇒ 00:28:31.950 Uttam Kumaran: in that in that way. For me. That’s how I think about it.
221 00:28:31.950 ⇒ 00:28:35.359 Payas Parab (TikTok): Well, I I the reason the reason I just bring that point up is because.
222 00:28:35.590 ⇒ 00:28:59.240 Payas Parab (TikTok): like sometimes, I need like a block of time to like meaningfully work on something. So yesterday I was traveling. Nico’s like, Hey, this deadline sign I’m like, it’s looking close. But I’ll tell you I’m gonna crank what I can in the next hour get something out. Then I’m gonna do something in the morning which I just got out right before we joined this call the client like, while we do that internal iteration just given, like Nico’s working with a part time contractor who has other things.
223 00:28:59.480 ⇒ 00:29:06.330 Payas Parab (TikTok): It it just may not be feasible all the time, like there’s there’s sort of like a like a middle middle ground we might need to find. And
224 00:29:06.720 ⇒ 00:29:09.889 Payas Parab (TikTok): my, my thing is like, like I said, like, if it’s like, Hey.
225 00:29:10.150 ⇒ 00:29:13.569 Payas Parab (TikTok): daily updates or something along those lines, I just think like
226 00:29:14.230 ⇒ 00:29:28.549 Payas Parab (TikTok): there’s a world in which we can like set clear like checkpoint expectations with clients that like we can find a happy medium as well, because I’m I’m sure there’s a point to where they don’t want to always hear from us, either. Does that make sense like it’s like, in theory. We could add
227 00:29:28.650 ⇒ 00:29:40.159 Payas Parab (TikTok): everyone to a chat where we just go back and forth on every little thing we’re doing, but we avoid doing that. But then that’s when Aman and Justin don’t know like how much shit goes into like, you know what I’m saying like, it’s the same.
228 00:29:40.160 ⇒ 00:29:45.980 Uttam Kumaran: No, totally. But I think, like, I think you’re underestimating that if we say we need another day, they’re gonna be like, okay.
229 00:29:46.870 ⇒ 00:29:53.470 Uttam Kumaran: we over. We’re gonna we’re gonna always overthink it and be like we need to get it done like they’re thinking about us. They’re not really thinking about us until they.
230 00:29:53.470 ⇒ 00:29:54.270 Payas Parab (TikTok): Then I think it’s.
231 00:29:54.270 ⇒ 00:30:08.699 Uttam Kumaran: And we don’t really want them to be thinking too much about us. They’re on track. They’re doing it, we heard from. Oh, yeah, when’s the last time you heard? Oh, I just heard from them today. And it’s actually that, even if even if Nico is like, Hey, it’s gonna take us another day. What are they gonna be? They’re gonna be like, you’re fired. No, they’re like.
232 00:30:08.700 ⇒ 00:30:09.530 Payas Parab (TikTok): Right, right, yeah.
233 00:30:09.530 ⇒ 00:30:14.530 Uttam Kumaran: But if they don’t hear from us from 3 in 3 days, and then we’re like we need another day.
234 00:30:15.220 ⇒ 00:30:16.790 Uttam Kumaran: You know. I’m telling you.
235 00:30:16.790 ⇒ 00:30:17.159 Payas Parab (TikTok): I see.
236 00:30:17.160 ⇒ 00:30:21.650 Uttam Kumaran: If again, put your put yourself in their shoes. You’re spending thousands of dollars.
237 00:30:21.650 ⇒ 00:30:23.820 Payas Parab (TikTok): Me. I text my lawyer every day being like.
238 00:30:23.820 ⇒ 00:30:27.920 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, see, I’m sure when people work for us, you’re kind of like, where is this shit? And so.
239 00:30:27.920 ⇒ 00:30:28.400 Payas Parab (TikTok): Yacht.
240 00:30:29.180 ⇒ 00:30:32.989 Uttam Kumaran: You know. And it’s also just Comms. It’s just like. And that’s the thing. I think I think
241 00:30:33.110 ⇒ 00:30:42.960 Uttam Kumaran: for the most part, I think it’s gonna land on the people managing the project. And you know, I know I always ping Nico like, get something out there. Just send something. But
242 00:30:43.200 ⇒ 00:31:02.257 Uttam Kumaran: this is it like, you know? And again, the nice thing is, we’re all friendly faces. We all really know what we’re talking about, for a lot of consultants have don’t have that at all. They’re not friendly faces, and they don’t know they’re talking about. So they they don’t communicate because they don’t have anything to talk about. So we do have a lot of stuff. So it’s
243 00:31:03.160 ⇒ 00:31:04.349 Uttam Kumaran: take advantage of that.
244 00:31:04.670 ⇒ 00:31:30.980 Payas Parab (TikTok): My only thing is like like, for example, with this whole like, Hey, this gross margin, like Nico’s pushing me, put a deadline in there, that’s a great process. Right then, I’m like, look, you know what like I actually need like 5 h where I’m looking at nothing other than this. And what is the only time I have that is Saturday morning. So we’ve set like that Sunday deadline. We told Justin. We’ve told Aman they’re clear on when that is, that didn’t mean I have to send them an update every day on, hey? I thought about gross margin for 10 min.
245 00:31:30.980 ⇒ 00:31:32.789 Uttam Kumaran: But we’re we’re doing other stuff for them.
246 00:31:32.790 ⇒ 00:31:33.760 Payas Parab (TikTok): Sure, sure.
247 00:31:34.320 ⇒ 00:31:36.190 Uttam Kumaran: That’s the thing we’re doing. Other stuff like.
248 00:31:36.190 ⇒ 00:31:36.790 Payas Parab (TikTok): Yeah.
249 00:31:36.790 ⇒ 00:31:43.179 Uttam Kumaran: There’s there’s 2 up here. There’s 2 other things. One, we’re syncing a bunch of data to portable. Is that done? Where is that second.
250 00:31:43.380 ⇒ 00:31:49.080 Uttam Kumaran: it’s like, Oh, cool. Let’s say there’s work in flight. Someone needs to go. Think about what’s the next 2 months of work
251 00:31:49.820 ⇒ 00:31:50.310 Uttam Kumaran: right.
252 00:31:50.310 ⇒ 00:31:50.740 Payas Parab (TikTok): Okay.
253 00:31:50.740 ⇒ 00:32:08.489 Uttam Kumaran: There’s always something we could be doing and saying, and things like that. It’s like, sure, it’s not always on every it’s not. It’s really like. That’s what I’m saying. The work is like, really, just one piece of it. You know. And and by not communicating it’ll, it’ll basically eviscerate all that. So
254 00:32:08.680 ⇒ 00:32:10.390 Uttam Kumaran: yeah, you get what I’m saying.
255 00:32:10.890 ⇒ 00:32:20.400 Robert Tseng: Yeah. So I mean, the takeaway is that everyone has to communicate everything every time, like we, we just have to have a more coordinated effort like, that’s the expectation that from our team we’re going to be pushing regular comms every day
256 00:32:20.400 ⇒ 00:32:45.369 Robert Tseng: like whether your project is like you. There’s a clear deadline. You don’t need to give the update. Then maybe it’s just like, yeah, I mean, Nico, Nico’s giving kind of just a check in on some some things. But yeah, if it’s also like on on. And I like, we kind of know which clients need more love like I know. I know, Javi, I want to give them some attention next week, like I I wanna I wanna like just ping them with some stuff. So I want to jump in there. So in an ideal world like I’m able to like kind of just pop in and say a message
257 00:32:45.370 ⇒ 00:32:47.340 Robert Tseng: to clients like at least like
258 00:32:47.340 ⇒ 00:33:01.160 Robert Tseng: at least I have to say something to every client at least twice a week like that’s what I would love to do. I didn’t. I didn’t do that with joby this week. And and but you know, I think that’s we’ll get there. So this isn’t like to put the entire like onus on anybody individually.
259 00:33:01.600 ⇒ 00:33:01.850 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
260 00:33:01.850 ⇒ 00:33:02.679 Uttam Kumaran: It’s also just a small.
261 00:33:03.050 ⇒ 00:33:07.839 Uttam Kumaran: It’s like it’s like picking up the trash off the floor like you have. You see, an opportunity
262 00:33:08.040 ⇒ 00:33:13.669 Uttam Kumaran: to send a little thing. Just send it. It’s like it’s never gonna be too much like. No.
263 00:33:14.140 ⇒ 00:33:14.690 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
264 00:33:15.180 ⇒ 00:33:30.759 Nicolas Sucari: Yeah. And I, I don’t wanna be so I I don’t wanna bother everyone all the time trying to look for updates. I don’t wanna be so pushy. That’s why I send that slack. But like a reminder that it just all message everyone like just right now on all of the clients
265 00:33:30.760 ⇒ 00:33:54.309 Nicolas Sucari: channels. If you can. Guys like, leave me a short update on what you’re doing if you’re doing the same as the day before. Just tell me like, I’m doing the same as the day before. And that’s gonna be okay. But that’s how I can be aware of what we are doing, what status we are also with the Notion board, and I can like send the messages to the clients if you can do it, because you don’t have any progress on something. I can just mention that we are still working on stuff.
266 00:33:54.480 ⇒ 00:33:57.400 Nicolas Sucari: and we can get that communication still going.
267 00:33:58.170 ⇒ 00:34:07.600 Robert Tseng: Yeah, yeah, give give Nico the pulse check every day, like it doesn’t have to always be like so clean and buttoned up like it’s not. It’s just giving him a sense of like what he can say. Yeah, okay.
268 00:34:08.040 ⇒ 00:34:14.480 Payas Parab (TikTok): And like Nico, would it be helpful if I just set like a daily reminder? That’s like, Hey, just message, Nico. Something, even if it’s like I’m totally.
269 00:34:14.989 ⇒ 00:34:16.599 Payas Parab (TikTok): and I’m like I can’t even.
270 00:34:16.600 ⇒ 00:34:17.570 Uttam Kumaran: That’s fine like this.
271 00:34:17.570 ⇒ 00:34:18.139 Payas Parab (TikTok): Cool.
272 00:34:18.409 ⇒ 00:34:34.029 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, this. And this isn’t like Corp, like a typical corporate where you’re like fuck. I gotta go to stand up. I didn’t do anything. I’m still working like engineering work doesn’t happen where this progress every day. But it’s like we’re a team. So just say something. It’s we’re not look. It’s not the micromanagement. Typically people do this.
273 00:34:34.030 ⇒ 00:34:37.690 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, it’s like micromanage. It’s not bad. It’s actually just like, you know, we need to.
274 00:34:37.699 ⇒ 00:34:38.199 Payas Parab (TikTok): Exactly.
275 00:34:38.199 ⇒ 00:34:39.099 Uttam Kumaran: Today, let’s just say something.
276 00:34:39.100 ⇒ 00:34:55.169 Payas Parab (TikTok): Yeah, I I also never felt that like from Nico or you, Tom. It’s like micromanagement. It’s like there is right, which is like in the benefit of everyone to make money right? Like, it’s not like you, just like, I think pious doesn’t do, Jack. Shit. It’s like, yeah, I just need to know what pies is doing.
277 00:34:55.179 ⇒ 00:34:57.859 Uttam Kumaran: I would tell you I would tell you it directly. I promise.
278 00:35:00.500 ⇒ 00:35:01.210 Robert Tseng: Alright.
279 00:35:01.720 ⇒ 00:35:12.630 Robert Tseng: Let’s move on to the another point. I think I wanna, I wanna talk about the analytics, the workflow. And like that breaking down like, yeah, especially for eating, because that that made my.
280 00:35:13.220 ⇒ 00:35:16.510 Robert Tseng: that, that was rough. Okay, so we we have.
281 00:35:16.510 ⇒ 00:35:19.359 Payas Parab (TikTok): I also, I also have to jump because it’s not pushed. So I have to meet.
282 00:35:19.360 ⇒ 00:35:20.249 Robert Tseng: Yeah. Yeah. No worries.
283 00:35:20.250 ⇒ 00:35:21.230 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, go ahead.
284 00:35:21.230 ⇒ 00:35:22.609 Robert Tseng: I think you’re good. Yeah.
285 00:35:23.353 ⇒ 00:35:24.500 Payas Parab (TikTok): See it.
286 00:35:24.500 ⇒ 00:35:25.139 Robert Tseng: See ya.
287 00:35:25.470 ⇒ 00:35:26.020 Nicolas Sucari: Alright!
288 00:35:29.090 ⇒ 00:35:44.660 Robert Tseng: Yeah. So I mean, I think, just like, just to kind of mention my point secure like, well, I understand that people are working on their tickets at like different cadences. But I think the the handoff from engineering to analytics. I feel like we’re still
289 00:35:45.640 ⇒ 00:35:54.049 Robert Tseng: that that’s still quite clunky, you know, like I I think I I mentioned it here. It’s like, Okay, well, this model that uta kind of like bring to the finish line, like.
290 00:35:55.200 ⇒ 00:36:21.069 Robert Tseng: I don’t know. I I can’t. I can’t be. We can’t be starting on it on Wednesday, if we’re expecting something to be done on by Thursday. So yeah, I I know we were looking at different solutions like, do we need to bring on somebody else to kind of just work with with Eden? Specifically and and whatnot. But I think when we’re meeting in these like data team meetings and we’re and we’re kind of revisiting the tickets that are in flight that have deadlines
291 00:36:21.190 ⇒ 00:36:25.279 Robert Tseng: I want us to like really call out where the dependencies are, so that we can
292 00:36:25.510 ⇒ 00:36:31.600 Robert Tseng: go be faster to identify the blockers. Like. There’s no like being polite about it, or whatever. And so it’s like.
293 00:36:31.600 ⇒ 00:36:31.950 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
294 00:36:31.950 ⇒ 00:37:00.569 Robert Tseng: If you’re being blocked in what you what you want, then like, like, call it out and yeah, I think I I didn’t do that early enough, like, honestly, I feel like I I was like kind of worrying starting Monday, and then I kind of didn’t say anything until Wednesday, and by that point I was like already, kind of not in a great state of mind. So like, I’m gonna be definitely calling things out earlier. But yeah, I I don’t. We have to. Really, we have to really deal, do something about that.
295 00:37:04.020 ⇒ 00:37:05.252 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I think on
296 00:37:06.350 ⇒ 00:37:10.470 Uttam Kumaran: On my side, I think we’re we’re sort of aligning on like what capacity looks like.
297 00:37:10.730 ⇒ 00:37:19.839 Uttam Kumaran: Like. I think I probably have a pretty high propensity for like context switching at this point. But I don’t think that’s realistic for everybody. And so one of the things I think.
298 00:37:20.090 ⇒ 00:37:47.349 Uttam Kumaran: Luke, you put it on there, too, about like a lot. There’s as soon as we get unblocked. There’s a lot of Russia stuff, and there’s, I think the biggest thing is also to be very honest with, like what’s possible. I think definitely, as you guys know, I’m gonna push to be like, tell me when it can be done. You’re not gonna have all the details. And you should align basically the deadline with your understanding of what needs to happen if you don’t understand and extend the deadline. Putting deadlines is not. It’s not in order to like
299 00:37:47.440 ⇒ 00:37:50.339 Uttam Kumaran: advance the timeline. It’s actually just to get any timeline
300 00:37:50.689 ⇒ 00:37:58.119 Uttam Kumaran: we’ll work on figuring out like how long the normal things are supposed to take. And then actually, I have a pretty good sense of like. I’ll tell you whether that’s
301 00:37:58.190 ⇒ 00:38:23.770 Uttam Kumaran: beyond or not. I think definitely. For this week we had stuff for stack with that start on Monday. We had full part stuff. There was Prs. We had to eat and stuff and I think there’s just a lot that came on. And I think, for between me and Luke. We just were juggling between 10 different things. On Wednesday I was I I thought that you guys were gonna handle that. And then I think I
302 00:38:24.140 ⇒ 00:38:34.980 Uttam Kumaran: the the only thing I was like, Okay, if it doesn’t get done, just send it to me. I’ll finish it up. I didn’t hear anything, and I was like cool. It’s done. And then I think there was still some gap, I think probably
303 00:38:35.390 ⇒ 00:38:52.370 Uttam Kumaran: I guess you probably would have taken them in the morning or whatever, but it was like we just needed it. We just needed it then. And so. But again, kind of that, I think, is more of a. We just took on a lot this week. I think for me, I kind of want to get a clear answer that like, okay, 2 clients, Max.
304 00:38:52.690 ⇒ 00:38:53.690 Uttam Kumaran: is it?
305 00:38:54.090 ⇒ 00:38:56.469 Uttam Kumaran: Because I’m not gonna be like
306 00:38:56.830 ⇒ 00:39:15.660 Uttam Kumaran: I’m not a good case study for like what’s Max or not? Because I will just do well, I’ll do whatever it takes. I need just need to know from everybody in the team like what’s comfortable or what are you comfortable being like? I set a deadline, and I can get it done by then. Not what do I need to do for brain force at this moment like? That’s not the answer we’re looking for, you know, so
307 00:39:18.030 ⇒ 00:39:22.230 Uttam Kumaran: like, what do you think like, Luke Nico Sahan, about that.
308 00:39:27.500 ⇒ 00:39:38.550 Sahana Asokan: They make sense, I think, like just like on the topic of communication. I think like, like, even if something is not possible like that’s totally fine. I think the gap that happened this week was
309 00:39:38.850 ⇒ 00:39:46.319 Sahana Asokan: we were like, I don’t think like analytics, was communicating with engineering, and vice versa, like we had
310 00:39:46.820 ⇒ 00:40:16.220 Sahana Asokan: certain deliverables that we needed to get done, and then a dependency for us was on you guys. I don’t think that communication was very clear. So like I take accountability for that, too. But I think moving forward like, if we do have dependencies on engineering for certain deliverables for our for, like our clients. I think we need to put that out there like in the beginning of the week, right? Just so that kind of on the same page, and that’s kind of what didn’t happen this week. I just think it’ll one make
311 00:40:16.330 ⇒ 00:40:42.100 Sahana Asokan: the process a lot more efficient. And to it, you know, it’s just less hours to bill for that for that specific client. And like, I’ll give you an example. Why, like, I think, like, let’s just thinking about like that plan type for this week. I assumed that we would have it before I started building out the dashboards. We didn’t, which is fine. I built them out. But now I have to go back, and, you know, reformat. Everything include that in which just includes, like
312 00:40:42.500 ⇒ 00:40:51.120 Sahana Asokan: extra hours necessarily need to be done. To begin with, right? So that’s just I’m just thinking like, how can we avoid that in the future? So.
313 00:40:53.620 ⇒ 00:41:02.189 Luke Daque: Yeah, I agree. Like, it’s, it still boils down generally to like communication. Basically, just like the blockers that I had. For example, like.
314 00:41:02.660 ⇒ 00:41:14.829 Luke Daque: yeah, I also take accountability and like, not telling everyone like what I’ve done so far with like, the product sales summary, for example, data model. And yeah, like, yeah, we just.
315 00:41:15.260 ⇒ 00:41:22.030 Luke Daque: we just need better communication, especially on like, the the what needs to be done. What are the blockers? And like.
316 00:41:22.270 ⇒ 00:41:32.429 Luke Daque: yeah, like pushing the blockers as well. That’s also like, I guess, what I lacked for this week, like there were blockers, but I didn’t really push that much
317 00:41:32.670 ⇒ 00:41:39.969 Luke Daque: to to have those like unblocked as soon as possible. So basically, I had like there, there were lots of waiting time.
318 00:41:40.150 ⇒ 00:41:45.909 Luke Daque: And like, as soon as the like I mentioned in the in the in the sticky note here, like
319 00:41:46.650 ⇒ 00:41:53.119 Luke Daque: like most of the blockers, got unblocked, unblocked at relatively the same time, so.
320 00:41:53.120 ⇒ 00:41:53.450 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
321 00:41:53.450 ⇒ 00:41:56.499 Luke Daque: Already a surge of tasks to to do so. Yeah.
322 00:41:57.360 ⇒ 00:42:14.899 Robert Tseng: I I think on that note like I mean I I think that’s a totally valid point, Luke, and I think for me like I think this is a really hard problem to solve. Because, like with Eden, specifically like, they’re, you know, there’s shifting requirements all the time. I feel like I kinda have kind of broken it down to.
323 00:42:15.424 ⇒ 00:42:40.650 Robert Tseng: It’s possible for the priority, and like the details of stuff to like change like twice a week like on Monday. I end up like getting new contacts, whatever. And then it’s possible that when I do like a midweek check in like things change again and I mean, I’m doing my best to not like, yeah, I feel like I’m setting expectations. The things that are due during like the week of will always be announced on Monday, and I try not to do like same day turnarounds, or anything
324 00:42:40.650 ⇒ 00:42:46.649 Robert Tseng: so like I’m trying to like manage that. But I do feel like every client kind of has like that.
325 00:42:46.680 ⇒ 00:42:52.180 Robert Tseng: like adjustment window, like during the week, where it’s possible that things will shift like.
326 00:42:52.340 ⇒ 00:43:00.309 Robert Tseng: And so I think it’s for the client facing people. It’s it’s your responsibility, like, mostly like me and Tom. And I guess anyone’s client facing right now to
327 00:43:00.560 ⇒ 00:43:07.800 Robert Tseng: like figure out what those adjustments are at the beginning of the week, and then trying to just like lock them in like I try to like.
328 00:43:07.920 ⇒ 00:43:33.320 Robert Tseng: Maybe I think a reasonable expectation from my side, like a learning will be like, okay, everyone can expect that like Mondays and Wednesdays, it’s like possible that things should like can can shift around and yeah, I mean, I’m trying my best not to like, ask anybody for save day turnarounds like I’m that’s how I’ve been like trying to manage the chaos of like juggling multiple clients. But yeah.
329 00:43:33.910 ⇒ 00:43:44.310 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, it. It makes sense. And I think 2 things. One. I didn’t get a view. And I I finally got this on Wednesday. I didn’t get a view of all tickets by person
330 00:43:44.740 ⇒ 00:43:46.860 Uttam Kumaran: by client until Wednesday.
331 00:43:46.940 ⇒ 00:43:52.859 Uttam Kumaran: So once you look at that, it’s really clear that Luke was slammed. Robert, you have a lot.
332 00:43:52.910 ⇒ 00:44:10.549 Uttam Kumaran: and then it kind of goes from there. So like for me, looking at like engineering capacity on Monday, I could have been like, you know, something’s gonna happen here because Lucas, on 3 3 different clients with like a bunch of stuff that was like probably gonna hit on Wednesday because of syncs and stuff like that. So that’s 1 thing. Second thing, I think there’s
333 00:44:10.550 ⇒ 00:44:23.960 Uttam Kumaran: there’s gotta be like healthy pushback like, I actually think it’s okay to come back to the team, be like Ken. Is this possible? And then you sort of pick like I’ll be like, look, we have all these things. We need to make some trade offs. If
334 00:44:24.010 ⇒ 00:44:32.909 Uttam Kumaran: I think I think at minimum, we can know that. Like I, I really feel confident. 48 h probably pull anything we need together. But it’s like, pull the ripcord like
335 00:44:33.160 ⇒ 00:44:45.359 Uttam Kumaran: less often, and that, I think, happens by just getting ahead on some tickets and things like that I think we’ll get a sense for total engineering capacity, and then, of course, we’ll get a sense of like what types of tickets are complicated.
336 00:44:45.580 ⇒ 00:45:12.094 Uttam Kumaran: I I feel pretty comfortable like that. We’ll we’ll get there again. I think we had it this week on Monday. I’ll show you guys the views we’ll see by what does every single person have on their plate? And then you, before that view, you may not. You may have been like, Yeah, I have a couple of things a couple of things there. We’re good. When you see that you’ll be like, actually like, maybe we should stagger the due dates a little bit or like I can’t take that. Can you take that on right? And I think we’ll we’ll we’ll do those things
337 00:45:12.970 ⇒ 00:45:18.280 Uttam Kumaran: definitely. And then I think the last piece is, you know, and and this is really like a
338 00:45:18.530 ⇒ 00:45:23.869 Uttam Kumaran: big company engineering thing to say. But I’ll say it anyways like the Re tickets.
339 00:45:23.990 ⇒ 00:45:38.010 Uttam Kumaran: The goal is so that anybody on the team can pick it up. So all the context is in there so that anybody can pick it up. I think we have a ways to go there. But that’s really the goal is that like it’s in in engineering, they call it bus factor.
340 00:45:38.311 ⇒ 00:45:57.150 Uttam Kumaran: Like, if if one person gets hit on hit by a bus like, can someone else pick it up? Right? So you typically want to have a bus factor of multiple meaning. Like, if one person gets hit up by a bus, the project doesn’t die. So you want like 2 or 3 meaning like, you have higher bus factor. Someone can pick it up, I think.
341 00:45:57.340 ⇒ 00:46:09.280 Uttam Kumaran: mainly because, like, I’m probably the only one on the de side we have. We have analysts like, we don’t have that many people. So there’s still got some risk. But that’s where, like having good tickets, those loom videos that Robert sent like those are great.
342 00:46:09.460 ⇒ 00:46:12.579 Uttam Kumaran: and then like, if I had that a little bit earlier, I could have probably figured so like
343 00:46:13.060 ⇒ 00:46:19.929 Uttam Kumaran: a lot goes into continuing to make those tickets better, and a lot of cascading failures can be solved there.
344 00:46:20.230 ⇒ 00:46:25.550 Uttam Kumaran: This is a pretty classic thing in engineering, where it’s just like making sure that
345 00:46:25.790 ⇒ 00:46:33.049 Uttam Kumaran: anybody can pick up any ticket right? And we all have basically like Van Dyke of skill sets, we can help and assist so.
346 00:46:33.450 ⇒ 00:46:49.839 Uttam Kumaran: And again, at some point, I’ll need to take a vacation. So what’s I don’t know what’s gonna happen then like Robert will need to. Robert will need to take a vacation, everybody will. So we wanna start building these habits in because, yeah, if I don’t want to be, if I’m going vacation like.
347 00:46:50.210 ⇒ 00:46:55.970 Uttam Kumaran: I would be nice to like not be on my phone. So that’s the sort of thing we’re working towards.
348 00:46:57.480 ⇒ 00:46:58.260 Uttam Kumaran: Cool.
349 00:46:59.257 ⇒ 00:47:02.249 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I don’t know anything else like
350 00:47:05.890 ⇒ 00:47:21.139 Uttam Kumaran: I think the big thing for next week I would love to see is one. On Monday we we really get the chance to look at the week, and the second, I really think you know, and I already said this this week for pool parts and Javi, we start to build a roadmap for the rest of the quarter.
351 00:47:22.910 ⇒ 00:47:24.070 Uttam Kumaran: Stack Blitz very.
352 00:47:24.070 ⇒ 00:47:24.890 Nicolas Sucari: Something.
353 00:47:24.890 ⇒ 00:47:26.209 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead.
354 00:47:26.300 ⇒ 00:47:37.468 Nicolas Sucari: There is a there is a meeting between you, me, and pay us or Tuesday with them to go through like future projects or things that we have for part for Javi, I think.
355 00:47:38.030 ⇒ 00:47:52.189 Nicolas Sucari: we need maybe, Robert, to to understand what is coming next. I have the deck with this stuff that we have there, but it will be good to like. Have a little bit of a breakdown or explanation on each of those, so that we can start planning ahead with those ones.
356 00:47:52.730 ⇒ 00:47:58.309 Robert Tseng: Yeah, you could just put that meeting on my calendar. I’ll I’ll be ready to speak on it by by that time. Yeah.
357 00:47:58.790 ⇒ 00:48:01.080 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. And I I think that will be
358 00:48:01.330 ⇒ 00:48:06.930 Uttam Kumaran: really, really stack Blitz very thankfully. It’s like pure setup right now.
359 00:48:07.110 ⇒ 00:48:13.999 Uttam Kumaran: But like in 2 weeks. It’ll be a little bit more tense because Mitchell really knows
360 00:48:14.190 ⇒ 00:48:25.359 Uttam Kumaran: he knows, like all world really well, which means he’s gonna he knows the pace he knows like, especially like my pace. So it’s gonna start getting a little bit stressed in like 2 weeks. So I want to really get ahead of that
361 00:48:26.940 ⇒ 00:48:29.240 Uttam Kumaran: Also make sure that stuff’s on track.
362 00:48:29.940 ⇒ 00:48:36.100 Nicolas Sucari: Also we have urban urban stems that’s gonna be starting with them. So it will be good to have like
363 00:48:36.260 ⇒ 00:48:37.020 Nicolas Sucari: that kind.
364 00:48:37.020 ⇒ 00:48:40.710 Uttam Kumaran: We’re gonna bring. Yeah, we’re gonna try to bring one more person on, basically.
365 00:48:40.870 ⇒ 00:48:44.789 Uttam Kumaran: And then, yeah, I’ll probably shift to start working more on urban stems.
366 00:48:45.320 ⇒ 00:48:50.969 Nicolas Sucari: No, no, but just like planning ahead like we. We don’t need to wait until the project starts in order to start the plan.
367 00:48:50.970 ⇒ 00:48:51.420 Uttam Kumaran: Totally correct.
368 00:48:51.420 ⇒ 00:48:55.620 Nicolas Sucari: If we can start it before that, it will be great. Yeah.
369 00:48:55.970 ⇒ 00:48:56.990 Uttam Kumaran: Totally correct.
370 00:48:58.470 ⇒ 00:48:59.020 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
371 00:48:59.020 ⇒ 00:49:01.350 Nicolas Sucari: Your dog is still sleeping. Yeah. Sleeps all day.
372 00:49:02.440 ⇒ 00:49:07.350 Uttam Kumaran: No, he just arrived, and then he, yeah, this is just arrived right now.
373 00:49:07.350 ⇒ 00:49:11.949 Robert Tseng: He kind of looks like half a dog like I don’t know just the way he’s looking. He’s sitting. It just looks like only.
374 00:49:11.950 ⇒ 00:49:18.310 Uttam Kumaran: He’s yeah, he. He’s definitely. He’s very long and he’s very heavy. He’s like 125 pounds. Wow.
375 00:49:18.930 ⇒ 00:49:26.870 Uttam Kumaran: but yeah, and he’s very like lopsided. You can’t really pick him up, because it’s like the way it feels like, yeah, it’s like picking up like a large Ikea bag.
376 00:49:26.870 ⇒ 00:49:28.890 Robert Tseng: Dude 125, like.
377 00:49:28.890 ⇒ 00:49:29.510 Luke Daque: That’s always.
378 00:49:29.510 ⇒ 00:49:32.160 Robert Tseng: See? You, yeah, yeah.
379 00:49:33.360 ⇒ 00:49:34.659 Uttam Kumaran: Very dense, very dense.
380 00:49:36.760 ⇒ 00:49:37.710 Luke Daque: Does he eat?
381 00:49:38.250 ⇒ 00:49:46.660 Uttam Kumaran: Dude, not. He doesn’t eat very much, and I I feel like we don’t feed him like too much bad food. He’s just just built different like genetics.
382 00:49:47.260 ⇒ 00:49:50.350 Luke Daque: A great deal on, so he looks so.
383 00:49:50.350 ⇒ 00:49:58.690 Uttam Kumaran: Very nice, though very calm, very nice, very tame, cool.
384 00:49:59.030 ⇒ 00:49:59.900 Robert Tseng: All right.
385 00:50:00.710 ⇒ 00:50:05.789 Luke Daque: Yeah, I think this was a pretty a pretty pretty great retro meeting, like we we did learn a lot.
386 00:50:06.230 ⇒ 00:50:06.590 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
387 00:50:06.590 ⇒ 00:50:08.119 Luke Daque: That’s pretty pretty nice.
388 00:50:08.660 ⇒ 00:50:10.553 Robert Tseng: Maybe we should do this every 2 weeks.
389 00:50:10.790 ⇒ 00:50:16.499 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I think I think that’s what we’ll end up doing is something like cadence. I think it’s really good to reflect then.
390 00:50:17.260 ⇒ 00:50:18.059 Uttam Kumaran: yeah, and keep it.
391 00:50:18.520 ⇒ 00:50:20.379 Robert Tseng: Basically like a sprint. Retro, yeah.
392 00:50:20.380 ⇒ 00:50:24.159 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. And I think of all I think of all this stuff as just cycles like
393 00:50:24.586 ⇒ 00:50:29.459 Uttam Kumaran: go through a big phase. We cycle. We improve like the cycle will just get better and better, and
394 00:50:29.800 ⇒ 00:50:34.300 Uttam Kumaran: you know we’ll start to see everything at least once, and we’ll know how to pattern match so.
395 00:50:34.650 ⇒ 00:50:35.250 Robert Tseng: Yep.
396 00:50:35.740 ⇒ 00:50:40.129 Luke Daque: Exactly like, yeah, that’s that’s how we improve like continuously. Right?
397 00:50:40.250 ⇒ 00:50:41.910 Robert Tseng: And keep on improving.
398 00:50:42.720 ⇒ 00:50:46.670 Luke Daque: Yeah, this was also a great week, like, very busy. But yeah.
399 00:50:46.950 ⇒ 00:50:48.070 Robert Tseng: Yeah, these are good problems.
400 00:50:48.795 ⇒ 00:50:50.970 Luke Daque: Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
401 00:50:51.390 ⇒ 00:50:51.940 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
402 00:50:52.710 ⇒ 00:50:54.733 Robert Tseng: Well, rest. Well, everybody.
403 00:50:55.240 ⇒ 00:50:55.870 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
404 00:50:56.190 ⇒ 00:50:57.539 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean.
405 00:50:58.900 ⇒ 00:51:00.600 Uttam Kumaran: Are you skiing this weekend, Robert?
406 00:51:00.780 ⇒ 00:51:08.772 Robert Tseng: I’m I am. I’m not going skiing. I’m like going upstate. I’m like, I mean, I don’t think we’ll end up skiing, probably snow tubing so.
407 00:51:09.080 ⇒ 00:51:09.860 Uttam Kumaran: Nice.
408 00:51:09.860 ⇒ 00:51:10.520 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
409 00:51:11.180 ⇒ 00:51:11.910 Uttam Kumaran: Nice.
410 00:51:12.980 ⇒ 00:51:17.095 Robert Tseng: But yeah, so you won’t hear from me tomorrow. But I’ll be online Sunday again.
411 00:51:17.370 ⇒ 00:51:18.550 Robert Tseng: Okay, yeah.
412 00:51:18.870 ⇒ 00:51:19.520 Uttam Kumaran: Alright!
413 00:51:19.520 ⇒ 00:51:22.719 Nicolas Sucari: Okay, thanks. Everyone. Cool guys. Thank you.
414 00:51:22.720 ⇒ 00:51:23.800 Robert Tseng: Alright, take everyone.
415 00:51:24.230 ⇒ 00:51:25.530 Uttam Kumaran: See you bye.