Meeting Title: Nico Date: 2025-01-30 Meeting participants: Robert Tseng, Nicolas Sucari, Uttam Kumaran
WEBVTT
1 00:01:45.590 ⇒ 00:01:46.640 Nicolas Sucari: Hey, guys.
2 00:01:48.560 ⇒ 00:01:49.400 Uttam Kumaran: Hey?
3 00:01:51.690 ⇒ 00:01:53.679 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, I’m hungry. Busy day.
4 00:01:55.270 ⇒ 00:01:55.890 Robert Tseng: Huh!
5 00:01:55.890 ⇒ 00:01:58.869 Uttam Kumaran: I had just enough time to go make an iced coffee. That’s it.
6 00:01:58.870 ⇒ 00:01:59.680 Robert Tseng: Okay. Man.
7 00:02:02.050 ⇒ 00:02:03.889 Uttam Kumaran: What about you? How are you? How are you guys.
8 00:02:06.660 ⇒ 00:02:07.910 Robert Tseng: Thursdays.
9 00:02:08.229 ⇒ 00:02:09.930 Robert Tseng: Oh, it was rough.
10 00:02:13.030 ⇒ 00:02:17.980 Uttam Kumaran: This has been a very I don’t know. Dude I’ve been working.
11 00:02:18.340 ⇒ 00:02:22.379 Uttam Kumaran: They’ll like one am every day on stuff.
12 00:02:23.680 ⇒ 00:02:24.290 Robert Tseng: Oh!
13 00:02:24.290 ⇒ 00:02:29.619 Uttam Kumaran: But hopefully, some of hopefully, some of which of like, what we’ll talk about today. But yeah, I think.
14 00:02:30.770 ⇒ 00:02:35.089 Uttam Kumaran: Nico, this this meeting is, you know, primarily
15 00:02:35.590 ⇒ 00:02:53.980 Uttam Kumaran: for you. I think I I really, I sent a couple of questions in the Channel. And I I’m gonna you know, be start. I’m gonna start doing this more regularly with everyone. But also, I know you’ve you’ve been working with us for a while, so I guess one, I got kind of wanted a couple of things out of this meeting, one
16 00:02:54.080 ⇒ 00:03:01.059 Uttam Kumaran: more of like a pulse check overall, I think, after running this business and running a bunch of teams. I think I
17 00:03:01.580 ⇒ 00:03:05.289 Uttam Kumaran: have a good sort of spidey sense, for like
18 00:03:05.410 ⇒ 00:03:14.779 Uttam Kumaran: when people are getting frustrated, or when people are, you know, sort of losing some energy. And I I have somewhat of a feeling that
19 00:03:16.370 ⇒ 00:03:20.989 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know that there’s a there’s a lot of issues sort of on the data service, and the and the
20 00:03:21.230 ⇒ 00:03:34.479 Uttam Kumaran: sort of function of executing for clients that a lot of has landed on you. And so 1st thing is really just asking how you’re feeling. I also want to share with you. We spent a good amount of the last 2 weeks working on objectives for
21 00:03:34.580 ⇒ 00:03:56.620 Uttam Kumaran: 2025, but also for the next quarter. The lovely part is that I think you’re gonna like some of the things that you’ll see but also, it really helps to ladder goals into every single team. Including, you know, the Pm. Team. But I guess we’ll start there. I guess I I’ve put a few questions, but I guess I wanted to give you the floor to maybe just
22 00:03:57.170 ⇒ 00:04:02.619 Uttam Kumaran: share like how you’re feeling about everything. I know a lot has changed in the last.
23 00:04:02.760 ⇒ 00:04:19.449 Uttam Kumaran: you know. 2 months, especially a lot of change, probably, since since you joined, for sure. But I kind of wanted to get your overall pulse on how things are going, and then, but less about the company. We all know how the company is going. I think more about you, and like your sort of what you’re managing.
24 00:04:20.910 ⇒ 00:04:24.182 Nicolas Sucari: Yeah, thanks. 1st of all, obviously, because
25 00:04:24.910 ⇒ 00:04:31.230 Nicolas Sucari: giving this space is really good. No, I think I’m feeling, I’m I feel. Okay. I mean, I know this couple of
26 00:04:31.720 ⇒ 00:04:39.349 Nicolas Sucari: of weeks were a little bit frustrating on the data side of things with the different projects. But I think that is.
27 00:04:39.805 ⇒ 00:04:49.524 Nicolas Sucari: what’s gonna happen at some point we needed to just grab more time between us and try to figure out how to do things in a more like,
28 00:04:50.320 ⇒ 00:05:12.960 Nicolas Sucari: yeah, I I don’t know in a more optimistic way, maybe. I think I’m feeling okay. I am not frustrated at all. My energy is not low. Maybe it’s because these past weeks I was like changing between different clients. At 1st it was maybe a little bit easier, because we were just focusing on pool parts. I think we did a great job there trying to engage with Kim
29 00:05:12.960 ⇒ 00:05:28.769 Nicolas Sucari: Chuck Ben and dan@atfirstst then, I don’t know what happened there, but maybe they we got we relaxed a bit, and they also did. There is no that fluent communication between them. They never did that.
30 00:05:28.790 ⇒ 00:05:39.740 Nicolas Sucari: But yeah, having I, I thought that having pay us, or maybe any another analyst there will help on on that, because I could kind of
31 00:05:39.810 ⇒ 00:05:45.820 Nicolas Sucari: delegate that kind of pressure on communications to the client to them. But maybe that
32 00:05:45.900 ⇒ 00:05:55.030 Nicolas Sucari: didn’t work that all as as we as we thought of. So yeah, I mean, I’m not frustrated. I think we need still need to
33 00:05:55.150 ⇒ 00:06:14.899 Nicolas Sucari: to prepare a little bit better, or I need to prepare a little bit better on doing some more planning sessions with you guys trying to understand a little bit more of the context of the different projects the message that you sent Robert yesterday about like cutting me off on the Eden Project management side of things. I think that’s something that happened, because.
34 00:06:14.900 ⇒ 00:06:28.450 Nicolas Sucari: as I’m not in all of the meetings, and I’m not aware of all of the communications, I’m just trying to figure out what’s going on through slack and through the tasks that are there, I don’t have like enough context on participating and creating or helping you, whether
35 00:06:28.803 ⇒ 00:06:36.589 Nicolas Sucari: whatever you need. So yeah, maybe, like, just participating me more on stuff that you want me to help
36 00:06:36.610 ⇒ 00:07:00.089 Nicolas Sucari: with is gonna help me to to understand what is all of the context around each of the different clients, or just cutting me off and let me focus on other clients. I think that’s also something valid. Because if if we need to to cover a lot of things, and we are all trying to to be on those on on every place
37 00:07:00.441 ⇒ 00:07:25.748 Nicolas Sucari: things are gonna slip around obviously. When when we try to cover much, things will start slipping around. So if if you prefer to cut me up there and just let me focus on 2 other clients. I think that’s that’s perfect. Also. Yeah, I I think these past weeks I had a hard time trying to push by us on sending the deliverables and going through or going
38 00:07:26.380 ⇒ 00:07:42.520 Nicolas Sucari: going through the the due dates and trying to understand when things were gonna be ready maybe because as I talked, as I told you, Tom, before, I was hoping that like an analyst with his seniority, could kind of own.
39 00:07:43.190 ⇒ 00:07:43.810 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
40 00:07:45.290 ⇒ 00:07:48.439 Nicolas Sucari: The board. And can you hear me? Guys? Yeah, okay, yeah.
41 00:07:48.440 ⇒ 00:07:48.970 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I can.
42 00:07:48.970 ⇒ 00:08:01.649 Nicolas Sucari: Like on the board and and tell me like, Hey, I’m gonna be behind on this and not me being like asking every day on on the status of of things. So that’s what I kind of
43 00:08:01.650 ⇒ 00:08:28.940 Nicolas Sucari: had a hard time. I didn’t. I didn’t need to do that with Sahana. Sahana is really on top of everything. He she is very good of communicating, and she is working with Eden and our helper directly with you, Robert. So I didn’t get involved as much as there, but with Payas I try to like I message with him every day I try to to get things done, but as he is the one that needs to deliver. And I’m not getting like that communication, it’s it’s becoming difficult.
44 00:08:29.317 ⇒ 00:08:38.370 Nicolas Sucari: But yeah, I mean, I I’m feeling, okay. I I love being these months with you guys. I mean, I mean, yes.
45 00:08:38.549 ⇒ 00:09:04.620 Nicolas Sucari: started, I really started to to learn a lot on things that I haven’t worked with before. Obviously, I did a lot of work with project management, but not in the data world. So I started to learn a lot. So that’s something that I really appreciate. But yeah, then, on the project management side of things, maybe I think we improved a lot since I started on all of the notion stuff on organization and setting up some processes on in order, on how to manage
46 00:09:04.650 ⇒ 00:09:13.660 Nicolas Sucari: some things. But then, yeah, obviously, we’re still. There is there, there is a lot to work on. So yeah, I mean, I I feel that I
47 00:09:13.880 ⇒ 00:09:35.659 Nicolas Sucari: I’m excited now that also Robert is here with all of his knowledge, and bringing new clients and pushing to get more revenue every every month. I think that is really exciting. Obviously it will make us work a lot harder, a lot more of ours, maybe, and prepared to do more things. But
48 00:09:36.400 ⇒ 00:09:39.830 Nicolas Sucari: I think it’s part of the process. I mean, we’re trying to
49 00:09:40.020 ⇒ 00:09:47.649 Nicolas Sucari: to to grow as much as possible. Or that’s what I’m aiming for with you guys. And I think it’s it’s part of the process. Yeah.
50 00:09:48.610 ⇒ 00:09:49.260 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
51 00:09:49.400 ⇒ 00:10:04.549 Uttam Kumaran: I think that makes a lot of sense. I think a couple of things. So one, I think hopefully, you know, the Okrs, we share, everybody in the company will be tasked, either assigned or directly affected by one of the initiatives. So everybody, at least on a quarterly basis.
52 00:10:04.610 ⇒ 00:10:32.269 Uttam Kumaran: you’ll see will be. It’ll, as usual, like, I report, repeat things similarly for the Okrs. We’ll be talking about them every single week, and every individual will say, like my number, one goal is X, right? And we have some stuff like that across the Pm function. I think the other thing is, yeah, I think we had some people drop the ball on on some engineering stuff, but I do agree that we we’ve grown from a few clients now, managing several and things we’re gonna break.
53 00:10:32.350 ⇒ 00:10:41.820 Uttam Kumaran: I think for me. Also, it’s it’s just boiling down like what you’re tasked with every day right? And for me, you know, this is where
54 00:10:43.210 ⇒ 00:10:57.319 Uttam Kumaran: one, I think one suggestion I have, and maybe this is I could say this to the end, but is to just talk in the in the client channels like don’t don’t DM, any of the engineers directly do that in the channel. Otherwise they’re gonna hide
55 00:10:57.883 ⇒ 00:11:03.040 Uttam Kumaran: and that conversation gets hidden right, and you you will. You will get the blame
56 00:11:03.700 ⇒ 00:11:04.920 Uttam Kumaran: because you’re the project manager.
57 00:11:04.920 ⇒ 00:11:05.700 Nicolas Sucari: Yeah, yeah.
58 00:11:05.700 ⇒ 00:11:06.830 Uttam Kumaran: Right. And
59 00:11:06.870 ⇒ 00:11:21.779 Uttam Kumaran: and that’s that’s the way it’s gonna be so instead, you want to be as transparent as possible because they are on the hook for delivery. And if you message them directly and say, Where is this? And they’re like, I’m gonna get it to you. I’m gonna get it to you, and then we, me and Robert in a meeting we’re like, where is this?
60 00:11:21.800 ⇒ 00:11:42.400 Uttam Kumaran: I’m not tagging them like I’m gonna tag you. And so that’s the sort of one of the things that I I’m guessing is happening a little bit. So I want. I don’t. I want to create a culture where people again, it’s it’s okay to be like, I’m gonna miss this. But it’s actually not okay to over promise and under deliver. In fact, we want to do the opposite.
61 00:11:42.846 ⇒ 00:12:09.079 Uttam Kumaran: So that’s 1 thing. I think the second thing also is, I think, still. And this is where I think I want to have a like a candid conversations for the clients that you’re covering. I still think we had to push really hard to go from overall client. The key projects to the individual tasks in those projects. Right? I know we’ve been talking about that more and more since December, but that’s something that I think still, we are lacking on.
62 00:12:09.160 ⇒ 00:12:16.540 Uttam Kumaran: and I guess I wanted to get your perspective on like, why, you think we’re we’re not there, I mean, of course, like, look, I’m not.
63 00:12:16.950 ⇒ 00:12:30.169 Uttam Kumaran: We’re we’re we’re we’re in all the meetings, the client. So I don’t want to talk about nitty, gritty tickets are blocked, and blah blah like, I want to get a sense from you on, like, what do you think is the actual reason we can’t get closer to that like sort of
64 00:12:30.590 ⇒ 00:12:41.320 Uttam Kumaran: we have Joby they have for the quarter. They have these 3 things that they want to do. And here’s the rough timeline on when they want to get them. Here are our tasks associated with it, like.
65 00:12:42.120 ⇒ 00:12:50.220 Uttam Kumaran: you know, I guess like that’s maybe an open, ended question. But I would love to kick it to you to to kind of talk through like, how far do you think we are
66 00:12:50.330 ⇒ 00:12:53.299 Uttam Kumaran: on that? And like, what do you think has been the challenge to get there?
67 00:12:54.400 ⇒ 00:12:58.609 Nicolas Sucari: I think we’re not that far from from getting.
68 00:12:58.750 ⇒ 00:13:13.989 Nicolas Sucari: And that I think, one example is what we started doing with bias and pull parts like trying to discuss on what are like the next 8 weeks of works, or what are the next 8 weeks of works are gonna be. I think that’s perfect, I think.
69 00:13:13.990 ⇒ 00:13:38.220 Nicolas Sucari: for people who are lacking on understanding what is their goal or what we need to achieve for them. But that’s something that we can propose. And that’s how we are kind of aiming this this work. For them. For Javi, what is happening is that? I think we’ve never kind of finally started to work with them. So we’ve been doing all of the integration at 1st with Fivetron. Once we have all the the
70 00:13:38.220 ⇒ 00:13:47.209 Nicolas Sucari: date, the data. There we started doing some reporting, but then the contract ended. And right now we’re kind of starting again, doing everything again for portable.
71 00:13:47.520 ⇒ 00:14:00.260 Nicolas Sucari: We have those kind of projects like big projects that we want to work for them. We just need to get some time and try to scope down that work. Maybe it’s kind of doing that planning sessions that we
72 00:14:00.260 ⇒ 00:14:28.550 Nicolas Sucari: that we did for pool parts replicating that for every client and try to focus on going like a bit slowly on what are the different tasks and phases that we need to do to achieve all of those ones? I created that fiction board for the skew analysis, and nobody looked looked at that. I asked like a couple of times. I know it’s also it’s my fault not to push everyone a little bit more on looking and telling me like, Hey, this is
73 00:14:29.800 ⇒ 00:14:46.469 Nicolas Sucari: correct. We need to do more stuff. But that was kind of the work that I was trying to think ahead on planning. All of those, all of those weeks of work. Ideally, we can do that for every project, and we can have there the breakdown of things that we need in order to share, like
74 00:14:46.470 ⇒ 00:15:00.779 Nicolas Sucari: more detailed tasks for the client. Right? But yeah. And and with Javi, what is happening is that I think we are rushing, and we’re kind of pushing deadlines every time, and we’re always trying to catch up on what we didn’t.
75 00:15:01.116 ⇒ 00:15:14.250 Nicolas Sucari: But we didn’t delivered yet. So we we are kind of running behind the project. And we just need to. Yeah, get some things done, get some things out to to them and start to plan ahead.
76 00:15:14.250 ⇒ 00:15:31.310 Nicolas Sucari: The next the next couple of weeks. I was hoping to do that before next week, because I’m going to be out, you know, but I mean, if we can do that for pool parts, urban stems, and any other client. And we just get Javi going. I think that’s gonna be fine. That’s why I’m also
77 00:15:31.860 ⇒ 00:15:53.840 Nicolas Sucari: so pushing you to to talk about urban stems, because I don’t want to start the project without anything there on the board. I just want to create something. And we and and everyone knows, like, what are they gonna be? The 1st task there? Basically, Javi is an ongoing project now. So we need to stop the ball at some point and do that again, I think. But yeah, I mean we. I don’t think we are so far from from having that for the clients.
78 00:15:54.550 ⇒ 00:15:58.720 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I think so I think it kind of starts from one thing. So like I
79 00:15:59.120 ⇒ 00:16:03.759 Uttam Kumaran: for me, it was especially frustrating, I think like last week or the week before, where
80 00:16:04.030 ⇒ 00:16:14.240 Uttam Kumaran: I had to come in and basically be like every day I was like, get this thing out, get this thing. I get this thing out, and and that’s the that’s the thing that my time that would have gone to
81 00:16:14.720 ⇒ 00:16:23.009 Uttam Kumaran: either delivering work or planning broadly now has to go to doing. Pm, work right? And that’s the thing is like, I can’t
82 00:16:23.320 ⇒ 00:16:46.379 Uttam Kumaran: ultimately like, if if we’re in a situation where I’m not confident that those tickets are gonna go. Then I have to step in. And so until we’re we have confidence there, I can’t step out right. And and that’s I think the big challenge is, I have to attend every data meeting I have to attend. I have to read every Pr. I almost have to. I’m I’m have to read almost everything. Just so I can see. Like.
83 00:16:46.880 ⇒ 00:16:55.479 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, is it valid like, why aren’t we getting this thing done? Why or or like. For example, I go into notion today there’s 10 things that are overdue.
84 00:16:55.600 ⇒ 00:16:59.740 Uttam Kumaran: And then and then I’m like what’s going on. And then pies drops the ball. And it’s like.
85 00:17:00.040 ⇒ 00:17:15.700 Uttam Kumaran: I’m not saying I I get that. It may seem like an anomaly. But this is gonna happen every single week that we’re in business. And it’s always happened right? There’s always something new. It’s not, it’s actually we are gonna face these issues consistently. But I need to have belief that, like.
86 00:17:15.970 ⇒ 00:17:28.389 Uttam Kumaran: okay, if I spend a day and like, I’m going and doing like larger project planning and things like that, then these things will move right. And that’s, I think the confidence that we want to get from you is that
87 00:17:28.690 ⇒ 00:17:30.600 Uttam Kumaran: like we can hand that off?
88 00:17:31.138 ⇒ 00:17:34.310 Uttam Kumaran: You know, confidently. And so that’s I think more of like
89 00:17:34.500 ⇒ 00:17:41.130 Uttam Kumaran: this is where I think I want you to think a little bit and put yourself in our shoes about what we would need to see
90 00:17:41.567 ⇒ 00:17:58.799 Uttam Kumaran: you know, in order to make sure that we’re confident that we can continue to go sell, because to give you a sense of our time as a as a whole overall is gonna start to reduce in terms of being active on clients. Which means we’re gonna continue to hand more and more off.
91 00:17:58.910 ⇒ 00:18:11.040 Uttam Kumaran: And I think there’s only a couple of leaders in the company, including you, Miguel, that we can trust to do that right now. And so one of the things is for you to put yourself in our shoes and think about.
92 00:18:11.140 ⇒ 00:18:16.410 Uttam Kumaran: If you are, if you are where we are, what would we need to see to gain that confidence? Right?
93 00:18:16.560 ⇒ 00:18:20.019 Uttam Kumaran: I can go in and look at every ticket I can go in and look at every Pr.
94 00:18:20.350 ⇒ 00:18:25.300 Uttam Kumaran: But I’m just gonna find issues instead, we still haven’t gotten anything where, like.
95 00:18:25.580 ⇒ 00:18:44.110 Uttam Kumaran: here’s the client. Here’s the objectives. Everything is on track. We’re good to go. If I got that like every day I’d be like good. We’re great instead. What? I wake up I don’t hear anything, or I see some small things, and then I realize we haven’t talked to the client in 2 days. And then I kind of like, have a panic attack, right?
96 00:18:44.270 ⇒ 00:18:46.390 Uttam Kumaran: So those are the sort of things that
97 00:18:46.750 ⇒ 00:19:09.500 Uttam Kumaran: unfortunately it is. It’s everything. It’s like the small things about messaging the client, knowing that there’s meetings booked, knowing that tasks are moving, communicating that back and then overall, being like this is going well, right? I think the problem is, I see, chatter in our channel, but I never see that, like the chatter leads to stuff getting checked off the board
98 00:19:09.600 ⇒ 00:19:20.904 Uttam Kumaran: right? And that’s why, even today, where it’s like, okay, we talked to Ian. My question, wasn’t it? Was it a good meeting? My question is, when is the task getting done? That’s the like mindset, right?
99 00:19:21.340 ⇒ 00:19:26.260 Uttam Kumaran: And so that’s what I don’t know. That’s really my, I think, key Blocker.
100 00:19:26.720 ⇒ 00:19:33.199 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know, Robert, if that sort of aligns with you. But like, that’s really my mental block right now, before being able to be like
101 00:19:33.410 ⇒ 00:19:44.910 Uttam Kumaran: cool parts, and Javi are on rails. I can maybe assist in focusing, or Robert can assist on like upselling them to the next package or taking on more of their effort.
102 00:19:45.500 ⇒ 00:19:49.329 Uttam Kumaran: But the problem is is like, even every week. I still, I’m intervening right.
103 00:19:49.710 ⇒ 00:19:54.630 Uttam Kumaran: I can understand if there’s if there’s some of the interventions you’re like you shouldn’t have intervened. I’ll take that
104 00:19:54.760 ⇒ 00:19:55.630 Uttam Kumaran: feedback.
105 00:19:55.970 ⇒ 00:20:01.789 Uttam Kumaran: but I don’t know whether how many there are like. I do think some of those interventions it was necessary.
106 00:20:02.484 ⇒ 00:20:06.019 Uttam Kumaran: And so I kind of a metric to think about is like
107 00:20:06.420 ⇒ 00:20:12.850 Uttam Kumaran: reducing manual interventions from us on the Pm. Side to 0. Until then I can’t.
108 00:20:13.320 ⇒ 00:20:24.300 Uttam Kumaran: I can’t right, because ultimately we live or die by these guys getting the work delivered, and so I don’t care if pious is sick, I don’t care. It does not matter. We will. We have to deliver
109 00:20:25.050 ⇒ 00:20:36.959 Uttam Kumaran: but like it’s like, if every week it’s like that. Then it’s it’s really tough for us, you know. So it’s tough for us to start to think bigger and get these guys t020-30-4050 K. And sign another 5 clients
110 00:20:37.426 ⇒ 00:20:48.219 Uttam Kumaran: even for me and Robert to wake up and be like we can go handle that when we can handle. We can’t handle these 2 small ones that there’s 2 people right now. You see where I’m coming from.
111 00:20:48.710 ⇒ 00:20:54.340 Uttam Kumaran: It. It impacts when we’re having it. We have to go. Be confident in a sales call. I have to go make a serious hire
112 00:20:54.680 ⇒ 00:21:02.659 Uttam Kumaran: if I’m like, Hey, Javi may cut us off next month because we missed 2 deadlines in a row. I can’t do those things confidently.
113 00:21:03.259 ⇒ 00:21:14.289 Uttam Kumaran: And that’s that’s this is like, candidly, ultimately, like what it really comes down to right. And so that’s from our that’s I think I’m speaking for myself. But I don’t know, Robert. If that sort of aligns with you, then.
114 00:21:15.430 ⇒ 00:21:17.564 Robert Tseng: Yeah, totally. I mean, I think
115 00:21:18.500 ⇒ 00:21:22.274 Robert Tseng: Udam already kind of called out all the nitty, gritty stuff. But like, yeah, I think
116 00:21:23.240 ⇒ 00:21:27.209 Robert Tseng: I can just just generally like
117 00:21:28.270 ⇒ 00:21:34.270 Robert Tseng: I I feel like I’m my hands are tied on the account management side, because, like.
118 00:21:34.910 ⇒ 00:21:48.850 Robert Tseng: I don’t feel good about asking for new scope if we’re not like if they’re still Co. If clients are still calling us out that we’re dropping, that we’re dropping things. And you know they’re asking, did you even do anything this week like? Did you know stuff like that?
119 00:21:48.850 ⇒ 00:21:50.390 Uttam Kumaran: Crazy. It’s just tough. It’s a tough.
120 00:21:50.390 ⇒ 00:21:56.432 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I I don’t feel like I have any ground to like, make any requests. So,
121 00:21:58.020 ⇒ 00:22:14.849 Robert Tseng: yeah, I mean, I. And I think for me, like, yeah, we have like sales and all this stuff going on. But to me the delivery is like the core of the business. If we do it. Well, we have a chance to grow with these clients. We know how much money they’re making. These are both 100 million plus companies like they can afford to pay us more.
122 00:22:14.920 ⇒ 00:22:28.039 Robert Tseng: and if we just can continuously demonstrate that we did good value, which I think, like the 1st couple of months of Joby. We did a great, great job like that, you know. It earned us the renewal like we had that trust with them on.
123 00:22:28.090 ⇒ 00:22:51.770 Robert Tseng: Yeah, like he wasn’t the best advocate for us for the rest of the team. We, you know, we had tensions with Jared and stuff like that. But now that we’re back on board. This is an oddular opportunity for us to like. Go and crush it, and I think 1st impressions like matter so much like we have to start off strong. So and it’s just, you know, a lot of stuff kicked off. You know, this this this year early on. But
124 00:22:52.193 ⇒ 00:23:00.610 Robert Tseng: yeah, I think we should just. It’s always easier to kind of like push hard in the beginning and like, set the standard, and then like
125 00:23:01.300 ⇒ 00:23:18.239 Robert Tseng: that, then to like play catch up, you know. So otherwise, like, yeah, we’re doing. I guess few time calls the manual interventions. But yeah, for me, it’s just so disorienting. Because, like, I’m thinking about the future, and then having to go back and look at stuff that didn’t get done past week
126 00:23:18.240 ⇒ 00:23:31.499 Robert Tseng: like my head is scrambled like every day. And like I, I feel like I’m less effective and being able to support the team that way. So yeah, I mean, Nico, it’s in my mind, like you own, like the present, you should have the best
127 00:23:31.760 ⇒ 00:23:47.880 Robert Tseng: present view of the business, like, you know, everything that’s like whatever is stuck, or whatever like is like and and like, what’s what’s going well in in the present moment, and like, I think that’s you know, I I want to see you as that person to like
128 00:23:48.080 ⇒ 00:24:04.180 Robert Tseng: really like, you know, every day like, if we need to know, like what what are like the top like, what are the things that Uta and I need to go focus on? We trust your judgment to just go and and jump into those things rather than having to like individually.
129 00:24:04.820 ⇒ 00:24:15.160 Robert Tseng: go and figure that out ourselves. And then I talk to together. We’re basically 2 other Pm’s just talking about pm, work doing this every day. And it’s like.
130 00:24:15.310 ⇒ 00:24:40.780 Robert Tseng: it’s that’s not what it’s not the best. Well, yeah, it’s just it’s not ideal. So we’re we’re just trying to figure out what it would take to be able to empower you like or if we need to bring on other people, because you feel like it’s too much for yourself. Then you know, we that’s that’s what that’s what I want to figure out. Because that’s that’s I think that’s that’s like a big bottleneck for for my perspective right now.
131 00:24:41.210 ⇒ 00:24:46.480 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. So I think maybe 2 things, Nico. And then I’ll let you respond. So couple of key actions one.
132 00:24:46.620 ⇒ 00:24:50.620 Uttam Kumaran: If engineers are the problem. I want that to be in the open. And I want.
133 00:24:50.970 ⇒ 00:25:06.580 Uttam Kumaran: I said, we are blameless. So blame blame engineering because that’s on us, right? And I take the responsibility of not giving you the right people in order to execute. But I need to know that that’s the problem. I don’t want the problem to be masked in like
134 00:25:07.530 ⇒ 00:25:22.899 Uttam Kumaran: Xyz Xyz like I cannot guess what I know I already know, so I just want it set out loud so that I can go take action there right if we don’t have the right engineers. That is our fault, and like you should be like, it’s your fault right?
135 00:25:23.020 ⇒ 00:25:36.760 Uttam Kumaran: But knowing that’s not always gonna be the case. Right? So then there’s 2 other things. One is, I think it’s really clear for you to know, for all the things we just asked. Can you be confident to deliver that for one client?
136 00:25:36.920 ⇒ 00:25:56.959 Uttam Kumaran: 2 clients, 3 clients right? Once you have that in mind, and and don’t think about it as like I can do this. It’s like, what can I deliver? 100 on right? Start there if we need to scope down? That’s fine. Because then that opens up to say, cool from your perspective, do we need to bring on one more person or to cover the basis
137 00:25:57.090 ⇒ 00:26:13.809 Uttam Kumaran: given? What we’re gonna have 5 clients. And given Eden, we’re gonna be basically running their entire analytics. It’s pretty clear from my lens that we need one more person right? And this is where in? I think we’ve had a culture of like everybody. Try to do as much as possible. Now, it’s more of like
138 00:26:13.880 ⇒ 00:26:34.799 Uttam Kumaran: really nail what you’re doing. 100 and just call out, if it’s otherwise, it’s not like you not be able to cover 5 is not a ding on you. You can’t do that right. I can’t do that like nobody can do that. And so that’s what I want to hear from people. That’s why I was frustrated today with pious because I’m not looking for people to stretch
139 00:26:34.930 ⇒ 00:26:37.400 Uttam Kumaran: because they’re like they have, like a
140 00:26:37.670 ⇒ 00:27:02.420 Uttam Kumaran: they have like a secure. They like they’re like, I need to be this way or like I need to. I need to support or like. No, I actually need to hear. That’s no, because then I can go make a decision on that and it’s like nobody gets less money. Nothing happens. It’s like we just need to. We need to really nail these things, and ultimately again, me or Robert will do the work. But, like that comes at the risk of the entire company.
141 00:27:02.940 ⇒ 00:27:12.739 Uttam Kumaran: like, if we have to go do the work we are not selling. We’re not keeping people on retainer. We’re not going to get more money. We’re not talking to clients. It’s the worst.
142 00:27:12.900 ⇒ 00:27:23.519 Uttam Kumaran: Our time is spent on doing client engineering work is the worst time spent right now. Ultimately we can pick it up. But that’s why I want to hear that challenge right? Like.
143 00:27:23.710 ⇒ 00:27:30.280 Uttam Kumaran: So I don’t know. Like, what do you think about those sort of 3 areas? And like, I don’t know, interested in your feedback.
144 00:27:32.870 ⇒ 00:27:40.700 Nicolas Sucari: No, I think, yeah, I can do that for both uparts and Javi. I mean, I can be on top of that 100.
145 00:27:40.890 ⇒ 00:27:51.169 Nicolas Sucari: I get what you what you what you guys are saying. I I think I will feel the same if I was in your shoes trying to understand and trying to know
146 00:27:51.190 ⇒ 00:28:11.120 Nicolas Sucari: everything that’s going on for each of the projects, trying to step in on everything. If I see if I see that there’s no like progress on stuff so totally understand that. Sometimes I feel that. I I think I told you them that maybe Luke also has like a lot in his place and in his plate. And maybe
147 00:28:12.060 ⇒ 00:28:41.315 Nicolas Sucari: yeah, like, there’s not possible to to have some progress on some stuff because we don’t have enough time to work on stuff like past week on Eden. I think it was a lot, and that blocked us on Javi stuff. You need to step in. I don’t like you stepping on, on doing and doing all of that work, because I know that you are spending that time doing that and not doing something else. But yeah, I mean, I think I can. I can do that for both Javi and pull parts. I’m gonna be a little bit more
148 00:28:41.930 ⇒ 00:28:45.269 Nicolas Sucari: into sending messages in the slack channels.
149 00:28:45.710 ⇒ 00:28:48.268 Uttam Kumaran: Everyone please do it in the Channel, because.
150 00:28:48.560 ⇒ 00:28:50.560 Nicolas Sucari: I was already in the channel.
151 00:28:50.560 ⇒ 00:28:53.089 Uttam Kumaran: This is just what happens with slack like I I.
152 00:28:53.430 ⇒ 00:28:53.930 Nicolas Sucari: I know.
153 00:28:53.930 ⇒ 00:28:59.510 Uttam Kumaran: Can’t. I can’t stop Dms like there’s not a feature for me to do that. But I would. I totally would have.
154 00:28:59.650 ⇒ 00:29:04.419 Nicolas Sucari: I know. I know it’s something that happened before I like. I know.
155 00:29:04.420 ⇒ 00:29:16.369 Uttam Kumaran: We were in this room together you would turn around and be like, Where is this? And then I would hear I’d be like, yeah, where is that? That’s like the type of thing right? Instead, if it’s in a DM again, you’re always gonna be on the hook for it. And that’s
156 00:29:16.810 ⇒ 00:29:18.429 Uttam Kumaran: that’s the problem, right? And so.
157 00:29:18.873 ⇒ 00:29:19.760 Nicolas Sucari: Don’t mind.
158 00:29:19.760 ⇒ 00:29:26.389 Uttam Kumaran: People. I don’t mind. This is the thing. I don’t mind people being like, there’s a problem with engineering where they’re not effective.
159 00:29:26.540 ⇒ 00:29:46.579 Uttam Kumaran: That’s not, doesn’t hurt my feelings doesn’t hurt anything. I already know. I already know all the problems. It’s more of like there’s all these problems which is the most urgent thing. So we will continue to use it. We have until we can, and then we go here because we’re in fires. We’re not. We’re just sitting in each of the fires. I know we don’t have the best people I like, I already know, so.
160 00:29:46.580 ⇒ 00:29:47.420 Nicolas Sucari: No, no, that’s fine.
161 00:29:47.420 ⇒ 00:29:50.289 Uttam Kumaran: But like, that’s the sort of thing I want to hear, which is like.
162 00:29:50.810 ⇒ 00:30:04.580 Uttam Kumaran: point me to the issue. But I know that getting due dates on tickets and understanding. That’s not a problem for us. So that’s the biggest thing that I think me and Robert were like, Okay, why can we get that right right? And I,
163 00:30:04.580 ⇒ 00:30:21.156 Uttam Kumaran: that’s the thing. I wanna make sure that we can really get Ray. And I think part of what I wanna maybe share with you, and sorry I know I I just cut you off. But maybe I’ll just put this up and you can take a look and we we started working on okrs that we will share out tomorrow.
164 00:30:21.610 ⇒ 00:30:24.509 Uttam Kumaran: let me just share this public one.
165 00:30:28.140 ⇒ 00:30:31.099 Robert Tseng: I feel like we should share it out before the meeting and have people review.
166 00:30:31.100 ⇒ 00:30:31.600 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
167 00:30:31.600 ⇒ 00:30:32.329 Robert Tseng: It comes they can.
168 00:30:32.330 ⇒ 00:30:36.874 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I I’m just finishing a couple of things. And I’m gonna send it today.
169 00:30:38.495 ⇒ 00:30:44.795 Uttam Kumaran: I’m also meeting with some with, I’m gonna talk about the AI folks in the AI meeting mentioned to Miguel.
170 00:30:45.760 ⇒ 00:30:54.786 Uttam Kumaran: so yeah. So let me is this clear? Okay, cool. So we have
171 00:30:56.159 ⇒ 00:31:01.559 Uttam Kumaran: Nico. These are. We’re and we’ll talk a little bit about vixel tomorrow. But we’re in this
172 00:31:02.330 ⇒ 00:31:13.099 Uttam Kumaran: tech services. Accelerator. I think we mentioned to you. And they’re really helping us do stuff like this, which is amazing. And we set some pretty lofty goals.
173 00:31:14.470 ⇒ 00:31:17.909 Uttam Kumaran: Not only for the 1st for the next year, but also
174 00:31:18.140 ⇒ 00:31:20.510 Uttam Kumaran: breaking down, particularly the next 30 days.
175 00:31:20.790 ⇒ 00:31:26.619 Uttam Kumaran: So I think these are probably good to know in the back of your head. But really the stuff that we’ll be talking about
176 00:31:26.840 ⇒ 00:31:34.690 Uttam Kumaran: every week at least, if not every day, is these these goals right? And so there’s 3 things. One is around
177 00:31:34.840 ⇒ 00:31:38.299 Uttam Kumaran: accelerate revenue. Second is around service,
178 00:31:40.570 ⇒ 00:31:43.040 Uttam Kumaran: second, around service, and 3rd is around
179 00:31:43.260 ⇒ 00:31:50.010 Uttam Kumaran: revenue from marketing. And really this goes to cover every single part of the company right? And so
180 00:31:50.120 ⇒ 00:31:55.569 Uttam Kumaran: on the sales side, we have goals. In order to try to to get to our
181 00:31:55.700 ⇒ 00:32:11.019 Uttam Kumaran: projected 1 million booking for the year, which is about 80 to 90 k. Per month, and we have some goals on how we should get there. Feel free to go click in there. And this is under okrs in the homepage. The second thing, and and really more on
182 00:32:11.350 ⇒ 00:32:15.549 Uttam Kumaran: your side. And the AI team side is really on delightful service.
183 00:32:16.081 ⇒ 00:32:21.069 Uttam Kumaran: And so some of the things that we’re talking about here is building consistent touch points.
184 00:32:21.908 ⇒ 00:32:28.910 Uttam Kumaran: Measuring the quality and messages that we’re speaking with clients, understanding how people are, are.
185 00:32:29.210 ⇒ 00:32:35.189 Uttam Kumaran: you know, engaged with client messaging. A lot of this is really on just making sure we’re getting our communication right?
186 00:32:35.670 ⇒ 00:32:43.980 Uttam Kumaran: And then setting real accountability expectations across every person on the pod. Right? For Pm’s for engineers, for analysts.
187 00:32:45.510 ⇒ 00:32:46.550 Uttam Kumaran: And so
188 00:32:46.760 ⇒ 00:33:01.449 Uttam Kumaran: I would say, this is one really clear thing. Are all around communicating with clients, which I really think is one of the key issues that we have right now, that requires not much more engineering work. Honestly, second thing is.
189 00:33:01.480 ⇒ 00:33:16.859 Uttam Kumaran: and the key result is really me and Robert’s time, and I think we may adjust 25% to something else. But I think it’s a good goal. And really understanding where our time is going to. Now, a lot of which is to engineering work and to doing project management work.
190 00:33:17.401 ⇒ 00:33:26.810 Uttam Kumaran: Right? We have some stuff around onboarding and hiring which will go to the operations team to mitigate. And we have work around the Pm. Function.
191 00:33:27.570 ⇒ 00:33:35.250 Uttam Kumaran: you know, which is one. Meetings like this and setting goals with you on how we can measure success for the Pm function.
192 00:33:35.637 ⇒ 00:33:55.030 Uttam Kumaran: And this is something that I’m gonna pass to you to think through. What are measurable ways for us to do this right for the for the messaging, you know. Key result, you know, we’re gonna start to just look at our people from our side messaging in the slack channels. It’s a really easy way just to know that. But I would love for you to think about
193 00:33:55.220 ⇒ 00:33:59.080 Uttam Kumaran: how what are the key metrics.
194 00:33:59.700 ⇒ 00:34:05.959 Uttam Kumaran: or like ways for us to measure that this has. This has happened, and this is a success by the end of the quarter.
195 00:34:07.660 ⇒ 00:34:16.380 Uttam Kumaran: you know, and I think it’s a lot of what we talked about here. But I want to. I don’t want it like these processes, typically in companies, are like, here is the result. Go do it.
196 00:34:16.510 ⇒ 00:34:34.440 Uttam Kumaran: I actually don’t know a hundred percent of like what the right way is. But this is where I actually want to push it to you to to come back to us with. Here are the things that I want to work to guarantee each week, and if we guarantee those, then we know that we can step away and be like these projects are on rails.
197 00:34:34.580 ⇒ 00:34:57.590 Uttam Kumaran: Right? So I want you to think about what that is, whether it’s like something related to tickets, something related to calm, something related to project summaries, things like that. On our side. Like again, I think it’s really clear for me. I have a lot of requirements around making sure that stuff has due dates. Stuff is assigned. We’re getting the project updates out and interim communication is handled.
198 00:34:58.030 ⇒ 00:35:02.933 Uttam Kumaran: Those are really the pillars. But I’ll maybe I’ll pass this to you to think through
199 00:35:03.370 ⇒ 00:35:05.820 Uttam Kumaran: how we can actually measure and achieve this.
200 00:35:05.950 ⇒ 00:35:10.080 Uttam Kumaran: and then what we’ll do is we will have meetings with each team where we basically look
201 00:35:10.230 ⇒ 00:35:13.200 Uttam Kumaran: to see, are we actually achieving these goals?
202 00:35:13.889 ⇒ 00:35:24.950 Uttam Kumaran: The second thing. And I think this is related more to the AI team is actually starting to assist all of our project management activities with AI.
203 00:35:25.070 ⇒ 00:35:27.390 Uttam Kumaran: And I think this is a great 1st
204 00:35:27.610 ⇒ 00:35:34.989 Uttam Kumaran: goal for the AI team is basically via one or one or many agents. You should be able to accomplish all of the tasks
205 00:35:35.170 ⇒ 00:36:02.510 Uttam Kumaran: of that. You we do in project management, creating tickets, updating tickets, understanding clients, scope understanding what we can do. Any question about notion. We want to achieve. And this gives the AI team a really good North Star. But all these things are things that I want you to be spending time with clients one number one. So hopefully, these things also help you achieve your goals. But also allows everyone to sort of take on some Pm work.
206 00:36:03.080 ⇒ 00:36:06.200 Uttam Kumaran: and so this is really like the Okrs that we’ll be sharing
207 00:36:06.583 ⇒ 00:36:14.230 Uttam Kumaran: tomorrow. We also have some stuff around marketing that you can take a look at. But I guess, like, what’s your gut instinct taking a look at these? And
208 00:36:14.460 ⇒ 00:36:23.240 Uttam Kumaran: yeah, if you have any ideas right now on, like sort of what things we can measure, or we can have another. You know, conversation tomorrow, when you’re when you’re back.
209 00:36:25.190 ⇒ 00:36:45.290 Nicolas Sucari: I, yeah, I think I need to think a little bit more on that one. But yeah, I like this. I think it’s really good to how or to know, like these key results and start to measure some of these, to understand? Like, how are we yeah, going forward and how we’re progressing on stuff. Something to measure. Maybe that I did.
210 00:36:45.751 ⇒ 00:37:11.699 Nicolas Sucari: In the past, job is measuring all of the daily updates or, yeah, the messages that that we send. You know that I said that reminder messages and see who is like answering to those ones. And what is the quantity during the month that people answers those those ones that will let you know if people, if engaged, and how often do they communicate in each of the channels? I don’t know if it’s something that we should do or not. But it’s something that worked
211 00:37:12.160 ⇒ 00:37:30.619 Nicolas Sucari: in a yeah in another place before. But yeah, I think I like this. I think it’s really really good to have these key results. I’ll I’ll work on. I’ll take a look on the other ones to just understand ahead of the meeting or tomorrow. And yeah, I think, as I said before, I think I can be
212 00:37:30.930 ⇒ 00:37:34.689 Nicolas Sucari: on top of Coopers and Javi, I’ll start working
213 00:37:35.640 ⇒ 00:37:56.989 Nicolas Sucari: with more closely, maybe with by us, and look trying to ask a little bit more about stuff that they are working on, so that I know, and I am more aware of the status of everything, and I can be, as Robert said, like, know the present right focus on stepping up on the present, and then, after that, trying to move forward on to planning the next steps. Okay.
214 00:37:58.080 ⇒ 00:38:01.519 Uttam Kumaran: And and again I’ll say, don’t cover for people.
215 00:38:02.260 ⇒ 00:38:02.889 Nicolas Sucari: No, no.
216 00:38:02.890 ⇒ 00:38:09.950 Uttam Kumaran: Obvious, because I want to find where the the linchpin is. So then I can go work on work on that. So that’s
217 00:38:10.140 ⇒ 00:38:20.439 Uttam Kumaran: that’s a big thing. And then for each of these, I think we’ll think about what the weekly sort of deliverables need to be. You know, whether we measured that updates went out on Fridays.
218 00:38:20.580 ⇒ 00:38:46.899 Uttam Kumaran: Whether it’s something around, hey? Can we get a status update once a week on clients? We’ll think about those deliverables. Ideally, those are like data driven right? How many tickets do we have? How many are overdue? Things like that is are the high level things that I look at, and we’ll scale from 5 to 10 clients, 10 to 20 clients like it’s it’s gonna be, it’s gonna get a lot more challenging and so we want to build these processes in from the beginning.
219 00:38:47.320 ⇒ 00:39:10.250 Uttam Kumaran: And again, if engineering is a problem, that’s that’s a different thing. I want to know how much of this is caused by that. But I do think that some of these, even if stuff is overdue, we could still get a clear picture on. So I wanna make sure that you’re as Robert said, you’re spending 8 h of the day focused on nailing the present and really making sure that every day everybody on the team
220 00:39:10.380 ⇒ 00:39:23.730 Uttam Kumaran: on a client pod like comes in and knows what they’re doing knows what to pick up, and the client is like the client has a feeling that we are. You know we’re their best communicative employee, you know. That’s how that’s the feeling we want to get across.
221 00:39:25.500 ⇒ 00:39:28.009 Nicolas Sucari: Perfect. Okay, yeah, I agree.
222 00:39:29.150 ⇒ 00:39:29.810 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
223 00:39:29.990 ⇒ 00:39:48.049 Uttam Kumaran: cool. So how about I know you’re you’re gonna be out next week. I wanna maybe if you if you have time between now and tomorrow. And you wanna think about some of these, and how we could measure or key things we wanna do would love to sort of start on those as soon as you’re back, because I know we just have these as a goal for.
224 00:39:48.050 ⇒ 00:39:48.380 Nicolas Sucari: Yeah.
225 00:39:48.707 ⇒ 00:40:03.460 Uttam Kumaran: But I can go ahead and put another little block on, for when you’re back to to discuss this I’ll actually be there. So when we can discuss this in person, and so like, maybe we can go ahead and do that. And then.
226 00:40:04.340 ⇒ 00:40:04.710 Nicolas Sucari: Yeah.
227 00:40:04.710 ⇒ 00:40:06.410 Uttam Kumaran: I wanna start rambling on this
228 00:40:07.670 ⇒ 00:40:14.969 Uttam Kumaran: you know, I think we’re gonna keep. We’re gonna keep moving forward with trying to bring on one more pm, to basically take on the other clients.
229 00:40:16.410 ⇒ 00:40:25.990 Uttam Kumaran: I think that’ll but ideally, we’re actually, we’ll hope that you sort of can help bring that person up to speed. I’m not sure yet on the timeline or anything but
230 00:40:27.030 ⇒ 00:40:37.260 Uttam Kumaran: We’ll we’ll see what what happens there. And sort of building out our expectations for the Pm function. That way that person comes in. And it’s like very clear with what they need to do. And
231 00:40:37.500 ⇒ 00:40:41.830 Uttam Kumaran: that way they focus on exactly that. And this, the structure helps them succeed. So.
232 00:40:44.240 ⇒ 00:40:45.680 Nicolas Sucari: Perfect. Okay, yeah.
233 00:40:46.620 ⇒ 00:40:51.580 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, cool. Thank you for the time and for the honesty. Today.
234 00:40:51.580 ⇒ 00:40:53.490 Nicolas Sucari: No, thank you. Guys, obviously.
235 00:40:53.490 ⇒ 00:40:55.240 Uttam Kumaran: And then, yeah, let me know if
236 00:40:55.890 ⇒ 00:41:01.090 Uttam Kumaran: if I can help with anything else today, I’ll be on for a bit longer working on stuff. So yeah.
237 00:41:03.800 ⇒ 00:41:06.233 Nicolas Sucari: Cool. Yeah, thank you. Guys.
238 00:41:06.930 ⇒ 00:41:07.700 Uttam Kumaran: Thanks guys.