Meeting Title: PM Regroup Date: 2025-03-10 Meeting participants: Aakash Tandel, Steven Kootz, Uttam Kumaran, Amber Lin
WEBVTT
1 00:00:29.730 ⇒ 00:00:30.890 Uttam Kumaran: Hey! Gosh!
2 00:00:33.360 ⇒ 00:00:34.209 Aakash Tandel: Hey? How’s it going.
3 00:00:34.660 ⇒ 00:00:35.569 Uttam Kumaran: Hey? Good!
4 00:00:37.210 ⇒ 00:00:38.620 Uttam Kumaran: How’s the day going.
5 00:00:39.630 ⇒ 00:00:42.593 Aakash Tandel: Pretty good, a little busy, but that’s not too abnormal.
6 00:00:44.230 ⇒ 00:00:53.730 Uttam Kumaran: Same. Actually, I feel like pretty good. I mean, I thought this morning was good. And yeah, like, been getting some good questions from from the team about stuff.
7 00:00:54.317 ⇒ 00:01:03.420 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. Just like, got got a couple of things out that I definitely without having the new folks here. I wouldn’t have been able to do so.
8 00:01:03.850 ⇒ 00:01:04.720 Uttam Kumaran: Like we have.
9 00:01:04.720 ⇒ 00:01:05.250 Aakash Tandel: Yes.
10 00:01:05.250 ⇒ 00:01:14.660 Uttam Kumaran: Both the the renewal for stack flits, and then, as well as you know, we’re trying to get out the proposal for Urban Sims.
11 00:01:15.113 ⇒ 00:01:19.319 Uttam Kumaran: and we have put up renewal for for the next phase for ABC.
12 00:01:19.670 ⇒ 00:01:26.230 Uttam Kumaran: So it’s just like sitting on those things to happen to bring in the money next month, so I’m glad I got to work on those things today. So.
13 00:01:27.650 ⇒ 00:01:32.060 Aakash Tandel: That’s awesome. Yeah, it’s good that it sounds like you’re getting freed up to do a little bit of some of that work.
14 00:01:32.060 ⇒ 00:01:33.759 Uttam Kumaran: Correct, correct.
15 00:01:34.640 ⇒ 00:01:37.139 Aakash Tandel: Nice Steven. Where in Puerto Rico are you.
16 00:01:37.740 ⇒ 00:01:52.014 Steven Kootz: Hello! I am in right now. Earlier from Thursday to yesterday I was in old San Juan for a wedding, so my sister in Law’s brother was getting married. We’re all really close. So
17 00:01:52.540 ⇒ 00:01:53.219 Steven Kootz: yeah, we all.
18 00:01:53.220 ⇒ 00:02:06.829 Steven Kootz: No, it is. Yeah. It’s been a good time. So it’s really enjoyable. Yeah, I’ve I’ve been enjoying it. And it’s nice that like we kinda like popped into like resort for the last few days. So we’ll be there. And yeah, just kind of relaxed and taking it easy. So no complaints nice.
19 00:02:06.830 ⇒ 00:02:07.450 Aakash Tandel: Nice.
20 00:02:07.860 ⇒ 00:02:15.709 Aakash Tandel: That’s awesome. Yeah. I was in Puerto Rico 2 years ago and spent like 2 weeks in kind of like San Juan. Old San Juan areas. Just so much fun.
21 00:02:16.250 ⇒ 00:02:17.940 Steven Kootz: Yeah, I I kind of like
22 00:02:18.310 ⇒ 00:02:27.202 Steven Kootz: was surprised, like, I didn’t like look anything up, really. I kind of just like came here and like, once I got in here, I started like looking up like recommendations and stuff. But like,
23 00:02:27.740 ⇒ 00:02:36.590 Steven Kootz: yeah, it’s like, very like, it’s like New Orleans meets Florida meets you’re up in a in yeah.
24 00:02:36.590 ⇒ 00:02:38.249 Steven Kootz: really. Wow, that’s awesome.
25 00:02:38.622 ⇒ 00:02:46.067 Steven Kootz: Yeah, it’s it’s it’s cool. It’s it’s been. It’s it’s cleaner than New Orleans. Funny enough, though. But
26 00:02:47.340 ⇒ 00:02:50.059 Steven Kootz: yeah, it’s it’s it’s fun, though. I really like them. The food has been
27 00:02:50.060 ⇒ 00:02:53.100 Steven Kootz: doesn’t get doesn’t get much cleaner than New Orleans. Yeah.
28 00:02:53.100 ⇒ 00:02:53.730 Steven Kootz: Yeah.
29 00:02:54.710 ⇒ 00:02:56.220 Aakash Tandel: Because food down there is awesome.
30 00:02:56.220 ⇒ 00:02:58.900 Steven Kootz: The food days is, yeah. It is incredible.
31 00:02:58.900 ⇒ 00:02:59.550 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
32 00:03:02.110 ⇒ 00:03:10.390 Aakash Tandel: Yeah, the mufungo is just so solid. I’m I’m a big fan of that. I hadn’t had that before, but when I was down there. I got it like multiple times. It was good.
33 00:03:10.390 ⇒ 00:03:11.275 Uttam Kumaran: What is that?
34 00:03:11.570 ⇒ 00:03:12.060 Steven Kootz: There!
35 00:03:12.060 ⇒ 00:03:13.320 Aakash Tandel: Mufango.
36 00:03:14.160 ⇒ 00:03:14.690 Uttam Kumaran: What is that?
37 00:03:15.956 ⇒ 00:03:34.653 Aakash Tandel: Let me let me see how it’s spelled, Mo Mofungo. It’s like it’s like a dish that has plantains in it, and there’s usually seafood, so it’s like there’s like a little bit of pork chicken, shrimp, beef, and octopus. It’s like kind of all mixed together.
38 00:03:35.020 ⇒ 00:03:35.460 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, nice!
39 00:03:35.460 ⇒ 00:03:36.850 Uttam Kumaran: That image!
40 00:03:36.850 ⇒ 00:03:37.960 Steven Kootz: Oh, I did have the.
41 00:03:37.960 ⇒ 00:03:39.699 Aakash Tandel: Yeah, it’s like, it’s super solid.
42 00:03:39.700 ⇒ 00:03:41.769 Steven Kootz: Yeah, yeah, that was really good.
43 00:03:41.770 ⇒ 00:03:44.230 Aakash Tandel: I think it’s like a yeah.
44 00:03:45.770 ⇒ 00:03:49.130 Aakash Tandel: yeah, if you have time to find a place that sells that definitely.
45 00:03:49.130 ⇒ 00:03:51.450 Uttam Kumaran: I love the sweet plantains.
46 00:03:51.630 ⇒ 00:03:53.310 Uttam Kumaran: That’s my favorite thing.
47 00:03:55.840 ⇒ 00:03:59.630 Steven Kootz: Yeah, plantains are incredible. And then panada is really good, too.
48 00:04:00.670 ⇒ 00:04:02.740 Steven Kootz: I’ve been eating well here, so I
49 00:04:03.430 ⇒ 00:04:05.180 Steven Kootz: I can’t be. I can’t be eating as well.
50 00:04:06.030 ⇒ 00:04:17.499 Steven Kootz: I’m in Puerto Rico. Yeah, I was here for a wedding. So just in here. So I know I was just saying I’ve been eating very well, and I cannot eat as well when I get back. So.
51 00:04:18.732 ⇒ 00:04:24.512 Uttam Kumaran: Nothing stopping you side, I mean my cholesterol.
52 00:04:25.930 ⇒ 00:04:28.799 Steven Kootz: Think it will eventually will stop me, so.
53 00:04:30.940 ⇒ 00:04:32.050 Uttam Kumaran: That’s funny.
54 00:04:37.580 ⇒ 00:04:42.949 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, cool. Well, I think this is our 1st sort of meeting with, like the Pm.
55 00:04:43.490 ⇒ 00:05:05.289 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know. I I wanted to keep it. Pm. People said to call it scrum master. I don’t, really. I think that’s like a dated word. So I think Pm. Is probably in work there. But I yeah, I I guess I wanted to kick this off by saying, I’m so so excited to have this group together. Everyone here, except for me, is new which is also really exciting for me, because.
56 00:05:05.576 ⇒ 00:05:17.330 Uttam Kumaran: it’s like, I’m really really hopeful that each of you could put your stamp on the company, but also start to make it your own. I would say. I have been the Pm. On every client that we have.
57 00:05:17.410 ⇒ 00:05:21.069 Uttam Kumaran: so I am the reason why everything’s all messed up.
58 00:05:21.190 ⇒ 00:05:29.070 Uttam Kumaran: I’m happy to take credit for that. But also I have a background as a product manager. And have.
59 00:05:29.190 ⇒ 00:05:48.859 Uttam Kumaran: you know, read the gamut of books and stuff on product management. So I’m definitely, I definitely know where it should be. So we’re not just we’re bad because of choice, if that helps, you know at all. But I do think with that we have a really really amazing opportunity to build a great pm, function.
60 00:05:49.170 ⇒ 00:05:59.710 Uttam Kumaran: But also not only take care of our engineers and make sure that they wake up and can be most effective. But that our clients feel that we are. You know, the best.
61 00:05:59.970 ⇒ 00:06:05.530 Uttam Kumaran: not only external folks that they’ve ever worked with, but probably ideally better than the folks that they have internally
62 00:06:05.990 ⇒ 00:06:32.419 Uttam Kumaran: and then the last piece I’ll mention, and I think this will become more apparent hopefully later. This year is the use of automation. And AI. So we will. This team in particular, is a big information broker team, meaning we are always triaging, translating, summarizing, deploying what the next updates are. And I think there’s a huge opportunity for us to free up our time to spend with clients versus pencil pushing on stuff which I know can be a lot of the job.
63 00:06:32.835 ⇒ 00:07:00.220 Uttam Kumaran: So that’ll come, I think in the future I just, you know, and maybe I’ll pass it to Kash. After this. I just think one thing, that this group could. We could really all do a better job of spending time with clients. I think clients are often impressed by how much we know, not only about their business, but the industry as a whole. And I think we somehow we sometimes undervalue our ability to share those with each client. We know we focus on getting the output. But I do think that
64 00:07:00.370 ⇒ 00:07:11.320 Uttam Kumaran: we can learn a lot from just spending time with folks, whether we find a way to go do that in person, really find ways to just have recurring syncs with clients, learn more about them, and and how we can help their business.
65 00:07:11.640 ⇒ 00:07:39.539 Uttam Kumaran: You know the one thing is like when you have a when you have a a great landscaper, you ask them like, what else can you do, you know, can you cut the tree right, or like you people want to get support from people that are helpful? So I don’t want to box us in on just hey? We just do the data here like I. You got to talk to corporate. You know. We want to be helpful in. However, we can be helpful, and that’s 1 us a lot with clients, because clients will sometimes call and say, Hey, can you join this meeting I have with, like a lawyer
66 00:07:39.540 ⇒ 00:08:07.200 Uttam Kumaran: like, you know the data. Well, I know it may be out of your purview. And I’m like, yeah one. I would love to do nothing more than that it’s great, and that that’s what makes us different than a lot of classic consultancies that would put the kibosh on something like that’s like non billable, or whatever like. It’s so small things that I think make us unique over time. I think it. We will have more process and process will always compete with the bespoke right. But there is an art to this business, and there’s art to the people that we deal with. And so
67 00:08:07.240 ⇒ 00:08:15.260 Uttam Kumaran: I think it’ll be up to this crew to really be the stewards of what we’re working on. How long does it take? And when people can expect output. So
68 00:08:15.960 ⇒ 00:08:28.700 Uttam Kumaran: so yeah, I guess with that, maybe Akash, I’ll let you sort of maybe take it from here on, like how we want to run this meeting. And and we did talk about some specific goals for this crew for this week. But yeah, we can go go from there.
69 00:08:29.360 ⇒ 00:08:37.499 Aakash Tandel: Sure and can you remind me which clients were passing off this week? I know Amber’s getting one, and Steven’s getting one as well.
70 00:08:37.870 ⇒ 00:08:39.853 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. So we talked about
71 00:08:40.802 ⇒ 00:08:44.430 Uttam Kumaran: we talked about Javi, we and we talked about Eden.
72 00:08:44.910 ⇒ 00:08:49.810 Uttam Kumaran: Let me pull up, actually, which ones we discussed because I have them here.
73 00:09:06.110 ⇒ 00:09:14.077 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, yeah, we had the concept of like, active versus passive. Right? So yeah, I I would love if we could hand off
74 00:09:16.570 ⇒ 00:09:30.979 Uttam Kumaran: I spoke with amber a bit about pool parts, and then, I think, on on the other side, I think it would also be great to begin to hand off Javi by the end of the week. So for those 2 would be, I think, the 2 initial goals.
75 00:09:31.510 ⇒ 00:09:32.500 Aakash Tandel: Okay. Cool.
76 00:09:32.860 ⇒ 00:09:37.290 Uttam Kumaran: And then that’s in addition to the Ab to ABC. Which already is on Amber’s plate.
77 00:09:37.870 ⇒ 00:09:38.540 Aakash Tandel: Okay. Sweet.
78 00:09:38.540 ⇒ 00:09:38.909 Amber Lin: Or it
79 00:09:39.680 ⇒ 00:09:48.240 Amber Lin: live today to learn more about the client and where they’re at. And then we’re meeting on Wednesday. So the onboarding has already started.
80 00:09:49.910 ⇒ 00:09:51.730 Aakash Tandel: Nice. And that’s with ABC.
81 00:09:53.126 ⇒ 00:09:55.259 Amber Lin: That’s with pool parts. ABC.
82 00:09:55.260 ⇒ 00:09:55.890 Aakash Tandel: 2, parts, okay.
83 00:09:55.890 ⇒ 00:09:57.120 Amber Lin: He’s already on track.
84 00:09:57.880 ⇒ 00:10:09.450 Aakash Tandel: Okay, sweet. That sounds good. Okay. So I shared with everyone a document that I drafted called Pm handoff. And I basically just
85 00:10:09.730 ⇒ 00:10:21.409 Aakash Tandel: kind of come through what I think of as the things that we need to account for when we are doing a handoff. Honestly, in my opinion, it’s usually harder to take a project that’s like in flight than it is to
86 00:10:21.410 ⇒ 00:10:21.970 Aakash Tandel: take it.
87 00:10:21.970 ⇒ 00:10:46.600 Aakash Tandel: Brand new project. Yeah, just because there’s just so many things that have already been discussed have already been talked about. Usually the client doesn’t want to like rehash everything. So that’s why I kind of put together this list so that we can basically get you all a solid list of information that you can work off of. And then you will come to the client with a better footing and kind of an understanding of the the project as it stands, as opposed to starting off fresh.
88 00:10:47.226 ⇒ 00:10:57.129 Aakash Tandel: So I think if both of you want to create a copy of this for specifically for Javi and what was the other one we’re doing.
89 00:10:57.570 ⇒ 00:10:57.920 Uttam Kumaran: Correct.
90 00:10:57.920 ⇒ 00:10:58.260 Aakash Tandel: And eat it.
91 00:10:58.715 ⇒ 00:11:00.990 Uttam Kumaran: For for Javi. And first, st
92 00:11:01.270 ⇒ 00:11:03.790 Uttam Kumaran: well, we did pool parts. Yeah. Pool parts.
93 00:11:04.260 ⇒ 00:11:05.279 Aakash Tandel: Go ahead. Cool parts alright, so.
94 00:11:05.280 ⇒ 00:11:07.510 Amber Lin: Is it in our slack.
95 00:11:07.720 ⇒ 00:11:08.540 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
96 00:11:08.540 ⇒ 00:11:11.749 Aakash Tandel: Shared it here to email. But let me. I can send you a link here, too.
97 00:11:11.750 ⇒ 00:11:12.500 Aakash Tandel: Hmm, okay.
98 00:11:12.500 ⇒ 00:11:13.369 Uttam Kumaran: Just sent it in.
99 00:11:13.370 ⇒ 00:11:14.830 Amber Lin: Like 8.
100 00:11:18.200 ⇒ 00:11:24.150 Uttam Kumaran: And could we do this in notion? By the way, if that’s easy.
101 00:11:25.060 ⇒ 00:11:38.530 Amber Lin: Yeah, I think we can just copy and make a new document under the Pm, I can. I can do that while you guys while Akash can talk so he doesn’t have to. You don’t have to be worried about this. I’ll go into notion.
102 00:11:39.320 ⇒ 00:11:44.390 Aakash Tandel: Okay. Steven, do you want to pop your one into notion, too? And we can just kind of.
103 00:11:44.760 ⇒ 00:11:47.909 Steven Kootz: Yeah, yeah, I got it copied and everything. So I’ll just
104 00:11:48.590 ⇒ 00:11:51.270 Steven Kootz: split it all, copy it all, put it in notion.
105 00:11:52.390 ⇒ 00:11:52.940 Aakash Tandel: Sweet
106 00:11:54.470 ⇒ 00:12:00.000 Aakash Tandel: and then I guess we can just start with one and just go to the other after that, and just start going down this list to talk through the client.
107 00:12:00.000 ⇒ 00:12:00.380 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
108 00:12:00.709 ⇒ 00:12:04.329 Aakash Tandel: It’s a lot to go through. So if if there’s like.
109 00:12:04.460 ⇒ 00:12:17.731 Aakash Tandel: you know, if it’s taking too long, we can kind of speed through some things. But yeah, I I guess let’s just get started and then see where we get. And then also Steven and Amber. If there’s other things you think of like other questions, just blurt them out, and then we kind of go from there.
110 00:12:18.790 ⇒ 00:12:20.510 Aakash Tandel: and then I’ll also.
111 00:12:20.980 ⇒ 00:12:27.220 Aakash Tandel: I’ll also take some side notes. But if you want to take the main notes that are gonna associate with the doc in notion, that’ll probably be good.
112 00:12:27.380 ⇒ 00:12:32.089 Steven Kootz: Okay? Sounds good. Another question. Do we want to put this in like Joby coffee notion.
113 00:12:32.090 ⇒ 00:12:32.740 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I.
114 00:12:32.740 ⇒ 00:12:33.640 Steven Kootz: My own.
115 00:12:33.640 ⇒ 00:12:38.179 Uttam Kumaran: I think I think, Amber. I see where you’re creating it. Yeah, go ahead.
116 00:12:38.490 ⇒ 00:12:52.220 Amber Lin: I’m just gonna put this template in the main one. And then, after our meeting, if we want to do separate ones specifically for our team. We can do that in the client side. This will make it a lot easier because I wanna to have a template in notion as well.
117 00:12:52.220 ⇒ 00:12:53.490 Steven Kootz: Okay, perfect.
118 00:12:53.950 ⇒ 00:12:55.839 Steven Kootz: Let me just do this. Then I’ll.
119 00:12:56.150 ⇒ 00:12:59.639 Aakash Tandel: And which one would you like to start with.
120 00:13:01.510 ⇒ 00:13:07.060 Uttam Kumaran: Let’s do pool parts. And then, yeah, we can time box it, and then
121 00:13:08.700 ⇒ 00:13:11.679 Uttam Kumaran: and then we could do. We can do Javi as well.
122 00:13:13.730 ⇒ 00:13:16.079 Aakash Tandel: Sweet alright
123 00:13:16.870 ⇒ 00:13:21.839 Aakash Tandel: amber. Let me know. Once you have like a a copy for the pool parts area, we can kind of get started.
124 00:13:21.840 ⇒ 00:13:27.430 Amber Lin: Sounds good. Let me go to me. Navigate to that client.
125 00:13:39.150 ⇒ 00:13:41.380 Amber Lin: Hmm! Where will we put it?
126 00:13:43.850 ⇒ 00:13:50.179 Uttam Kumaran: There is just an overall like documentation database, but you can just put it here in project management, and we can move it later.
127 00:13:50.370 ⇒ 00:13:53.269 Amber Lin: Okay, I’ll move it later. That’s that’s a lot easier.
128 00:13:53.270 ⇒ 00:13:57.629 Uttam Kumaran: Okay? Because I would say we weren’t using this like team board. Much. So.
129 00:13:57.630 ⇒ 00:13:58.250 Amber Lin: Yeah.
130 00:13:58.250 ⇒ 00:13:59.660 Uttam Kumaran: Re-architect it later.
131 00:13:59.960 ⇒ 00:14:03.720 Amber Lin: Yeah, I thought, so. It’s empty.
132 00:14:03.920 ⇒ 00:14:04.755 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
133 00:14:05.700 ⇒ 00:14:11.180 Amber Lin: Okay, let me create, create a copy.
134 00:14:13.570 ⇒ 00:14:16.000 Amber Lin: Okay, sounds good. I’m ready.
135 00:14:16.820 ⇒ 00:14:19.470 Aakash Tandel: Okay, cool. Alright. So we’re just gonna start going on this.
136 00:14:19.470 ⇒ 00:14:21.789 Amber Lin: Sure, yeah, that works.
137 00:14:27.780 ⇒ 00:14:28.480 Amber Lin: Okay.
138 00:14:31.480 ⇒ 00:14:32.786 Aakash Tandel: Yeah, so
139 00:14:34.170 ⇒ 00:14:38.019 Aakash Tandel: I guess. Let’s just start with, how do we win the client? And then we can kind of keep going through there.
140 00:14:38.680 ⇒ 00:14:42.380 Uttam Kumaran: Cool. So we I got
141 00:14:42.880 ⇒ 00:14:47.304 Uttam Kumaran: when I 1st started the business. This is before we were incorporated. I got
142 00:14:48.110 ⇒ 00:14:53.480 Uttam Kumaran: introduced to the 2 engineers that were, that we’re actively working on
143 00:14:53.580 ⇒ 00:14:59.080 Uttam Kumaran: them on pool parts as a as 2 contractors, and
144 00:14:59.330 ⇒ 00:15:07.150 Uttam Kumaran: they were friends of a friend of mine, I called them. They were trying to hand off the client because they were very difficult in their words.
145 00:15:07.430 ⇒ 00:15:10.989 Uttam Kumaran: and they were like, Do you wanna take this on? And I.
146 00:15:11.670 ⇒ 00:15:18.949 Uttam Kumaran: I was like, for sure. So they were actually our 1st client, the the original contract.
147 00:15:19.190 ⇒ 00:15:29.849 Uttam Kumaran: I have the original. But really they were just like we they wanted like an executive dashboard about their business. They wanted to see common things like revenue
148 00:15:30.060 ⇒ 00:15:33.299 Uttam Kumaran: cost of goods sold shipping costs
149 00:15:33.844 ⇒ 00:15:43.199 Uttam Kumaran: but they did have a couple of very specific asks. Initially, they wanted to lower shipping costs. They wanted to have a good understanding of their marketing, spend
150 00:15:45.130 ⇒ 00:15:51.120 Uttam Kumaran: and then they had a bunch of pie in the sky. Ideas about like, How does weather affect our business? Where are our most
151 00:15:51.470 ⇒ 00:15:55.449 Uttam Kumaran: valuable customers like things like that
152 00:15:56.320 ⇒ 00:16:02.100 Uttam Kumaran: the sales process was probably like 4 weeks.
153 00:16:03.260 ⇒ 00:16:07.359 Uttam Kumaran: It’s probably longer, but like probably 4 weeks is is a good barometer.
154 00:16:08.140 ⇒ 00:16:10.939 Uttam Kumaran: Did we build Demos? No.
155 00:16:11.180 ⇒ 00:16:16.190 Uttam Kumaran: When did the client 1st sign? July 2023.
156 00:16:17.220 ⇒ 00:16:17.880 Aakash Tandel: Wait.
157 00:16:18.910 ⇒ 00:16:23.459 Aakash Tandel: Yeah. Anything else there in the kind of the sales history that Steven Amber, you want to know.
158 00:16:26.330 ⇒ 00:16:27.449 Aakash Tandel: Sounds good to me.
159 00:16:27.910 ⇒ 00:16:29.390 Amber Lin: I think that’s good for me.
160 00:16:31.020 ⇒ 00:16:31.570 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
161 00:16:31.570 ⇒ 00:16:32.140 Aakash Tandel: Cool.
162 00:16:33.224 ⇒ 00:16:33.669 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
163 00:16:33.670 ⇒ 00:16:38.019 Aakash Tandel: Yeah, let’s go into the actual client like revenue drivers like that.
164 00:16:39.460 ⇒ 00:16:42.693 Uttam Kumaran: So the primary revenue drivers
165 00:16:43.600 ⇒ 00:16:56.380 Uttam Kumaran: they sell pool supplies to to homes. So these are pool pumps. Cover pumps, heat pumps, pool accessories like ladders
166 00:16:56.490 ⇒ 00:16:58.339 Uttam Kumaran: and brushes.
167 00:16:59.199 ⇒ 00:17:11.750 Uttam Kumaran: They are a medium sized player in their vertical they are a national player.
168 00:17:12.160 ⇒ 00:17:16.789 Uttam Kumaran: Their main competitors are let’s see
169 00:17:27.579 ⇒ 00:17:33.629 Uttam Kumaran: they have a couple of big competitors like pool parts unlimited.
170 00:17:35.540 ⇒ 00:17:41.080 Uttam Kumaran: Les. And Leslie’s like, Leslie’s is probably like the biggest competitor.
171 00:17:43.950 ⇒ 00:17:47.969 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so what are the biggest. Okay, that’s great. Yeah, that’ll probably be
172 00:17:48.610 ⇒ 00:17:55.070 Uttam Kumaran: enough. What are the biggest challenges that the business faces? I mean.
173 00:17:55.220 ⇒ 00:17:59.490 Uttam Kumaran: the biggest thing was a huge part of their margin goes to shipping costs.
174 00:18:00.887 ⇒ 00:18:04.572 Uttam Kumaran: They also are a very
175 00:18:05.620 ⇒ 00:18:09.050 Uttam Kumaran: seasonal business most. Their sales are done in
176 00:18:09.450 ⇒ 00:18:12.989 Uttam Kumaran: like right about now and in
177 00:18:13.548 ⇒ 00:18:17.610 Uttam Kumaran: the fall, right as people open up their pools or close their.
178 00:18:17.610 ⇒ 00:18:18.290 Amber Lin: Tools.
179 00:18:19.182 ⇒ 00:18:25.619 Uttam Kumaran: They’re also very geographically concentrated. It’s like, Oh, they sell where pools are which is like
180 00:18:26.350 ⇒ 00:18:31.269 Uttam Kumaran: New York, Arizona, Florida, California, Texas.
181 00:18:31.590 ⇒ 00:18:33.899 Uttam Kumaran: It’s like most of their sales.
182 00:18:34.947 ⇒ 00:18:37.882 Uttam Kumaran: And this is all available in the data.
183 00:18:39.560 ⇒ 00:18:40.100 Amber Lin: Hmm.
184 00:18:41.920 ⇒ 00:18:46.130 Uttam Kumaran: Who are the customers.
185 00:18:51.000 ⇒ 00:18:56.119 Uttam Kumaran: Customers are pool owners. Either. Their pool.
186 00:18:56.290 ⇒ 00:18:58.979 Uttam Kumaran: Basically, their pool has an issue
187 00:18:59.478 ⇒ 00:19:04.250 Uttam Kumaran: and they want to basically try and solve that themselves versus calling their pool guy.
188 00:19:04.400 ⇒ 00:19:07.620 Uttam Kumaran: So we’re probably directing directly
189 00:19:07.730 ⇒ 00:19:13.710 Uttam Kumaran: competing with a lot of like pool guys. Right? This is direct to consumer.
190 00:19:13.900 ⇒ 00:19:14.960 Uttam Kumaran: So
191 00:19:16.550 ⇒ 00:19:24.999 Uttam Kumaran: people purchase these and they get it for a really great price. Their pool guy will typically market up 30 to 50%. So this kind of cuts a lot of that.
192 00:19:25.960 ⇒ 00:19:33.429 Aakash Tandel: So there’s no so so it’s unlikely that the pool guy, or other companies that are servicing pools would use pool parts. Is that true?
193 00:19:33.650 ⇒ 00:19:46.039 Uttam Kumaran: No, they will. But like, typically these guys want to sell to to the pool guys, or they’ll sell to people who are capable of implementing this sort of stuff themselves.
194 00:19:47.520 ⇒ 00:19:52.190 Uttam Kumaran: They have both kind of customers. Some people buy individually. Some people buy
195 00:19:52.310 ⇒ 00:19:56.380 Uttam Kumaran: because they’re they’re a pool person, and they buy for their on behalf of their customers, and
196 00:19:56.590 ⇒ 00:19:59.869 Uttam Kumaran: either mark it up or or otherwise. But
197 00:20:00.370 ⇒ 00:20:03.140 Uttam Kumaran: traditionally they’re selling directly to to consumer.
198 00:20:03.750 ⇒ 00:20:11.199 Aakash Tandel: Okay, cool. Do they have a preference on who they want to sell to like? Do they? Are they cool with that? Or do they want to move more into like selling to like local pool.
199 00:20:14.280 ⇒ 00:20:36.909 Uttam Kumaran: yeah, from what I’ve spoken to them with over time is they want to. They basically just want to sell to. Both. These guys have a product advantage like their products are are pretty good and their products are pretty price competitive. So for individuals, it makes a lot of sense, and for pool people, it makes sense to purchase from them and then mark it up. However, they want
200 00:20:37.437 ⇒ 00:20:45.130 Uttam Kumaran: they have the own, their main competitive advantages. They have the only licensed black and Decker pool
201 00:20:45.330 ⇒ 00:20:46.370 Uttam Kumaran: product.
202 00:20:46.570 ⇒ 00:21:09.029 Uttam Kumaran: meaning they have an exclusive license of the black and Decker name in pool to apply to pool products. Pool parts, manufactures their own products. But they basically sign the licensing deal with black and decker. So they have a lot of like people that are familiar with that name and purchase their product because it has a stamp, you know, there. So.
203 00:21:09.030 ⇒ 00:21:09.360 Aakash Tandel: Nice.
204 00:21:09.360 ⇒ 00:21:10.359 Uttam Kumaran: That’s 1 piece.
205 00:21:10.980 ⇒ 00:21:15.059 Aakash Tandel: Stanley Black and Decker was actually one of my biggest clients in my last agency job. That’s kind of funny.
206 00:21:15.200 ⇒ 00:21:16.210 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, nice!
207 00:21:16.210 ⇒ 00:21:16.905 Aakash Tandel: Yeah.
208 00:21:18.420 ⇒ 00:21:24.920 Aakash Tandel: cool. So like in the United States, they like. If you want to buy a pool part from Black and Decker, you have to go through pool parts.
209 00:21:25.140 ⇒ 00:21:25.890 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
210 00:21:26.230 ⇒ 00:21:27.179 Aakash Tandel: That’s pretty sweet.
211 00:21:27.760 ⇒ 00:21:34.779 Uttam Kumaran: And it’s 1 of it’s like one of the few, or maybe the only exclusive license that Black and Decker has ever done, and it and pools.
212 00:21:35.278 ⇒ 00:21:41.211 Uttam Kumaran: And again, I only know this because I I just been working with them pools and pool
213 00:21:41.740 ⇒ 00:21:49.479 Uttam Kumaran: products. There is a big conglomerate called United Aqua Group.
214 00:21:49.750 ⇒ 00:21:56.700 Uttam Kumaran: United Aqua Group is a buyer group for pool parts. I will send that here.
215 00:21:59.240 ⇒ 00:22:04.720 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. Basically, they they represent pool part buyers.
216 00:22:05.383 ⇒ 00:22:09.410 Uttam Kumaran: and own vendor relationships. They’re kind of like
217 00:22:09.740 ⇒ 00:22:19.279 Uttam Kumaran: there’s in in business. There’s always these consolidations of like, hey? We should just buy it. We should pool our buying power together to get better deals. They’re one of the largest buyer groups
218 00:22:19.680 ⇒ 00:22:33.340 Uttam Kumaran: cool parts works closely with them. But it’s also potentially going through M. And A. With Uag right now. I don’t know all the details, but I’m pretty sure they’re like close to the finish line of getting bought
219 00:22:33.875 ⇒ 00:22:37.329 Uttam Kumaran: which is like what we’ve been supporting them with recently.
220 00:22:37.804 ⇒ 00:22:43.159 Uttam Kumaran: and on on. Sort of the reason why I’m excited to have amber you involved is
221 00:22:43.320 ⇒ 00:22:48.450 Uttam Kumaran: they’re basically positioning us as like one of their core tech advantages is that we, they have data.
222 00:22:48.450 ⇒ 00:23:04.320 Amber Lin: Yeah, I talked to Pious, and I was talking to him about. We’re trying to figure out this Dan as a client, and where his preferences is, and where his interest really lies, and was telling Paius that we need to help him position himself
223 00:23:04.610 ⇒ 00:23:17.369 Amber Lin: as the CEO that will lead this company and yeah manage. And that’s where we come in, because we are going to give you that advantage. He’s gonna he is going to rely on us for the
224 00:23:17.630 ⇒ 00:23:28.040 Amber Lin: advantages that’ll put him in the place that all the Ceos and this the funds are. Gonna trust him with the processes. So I really think that’s what we’re gonna focus on. That’s really exciting.
225 00:23:28.040 ⇒ 00:23:28.600 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
226 00:23:29.680 ⇒ 00:23:38.795 Uttam Kumaran: so there’s some. There’s some larger company sort of stuff with them. But yeah, they, there’s the problem they’re solving is that people have issues with their pools. And
227 00:23:39.520 ⇒ 00:23:50.129 Uttam Kumaran: yeah, I would say the other, the last piece about customers. These aren’t like multi time customers. They usually purchase this once like you’re not purchasing pool heats, pumps every year.
228 00:23:50.290 ⇒ 00:23:54.659 Uttam Kumaran: So that’s 1 problem is that there’s not a lot of recurring business.
229 00:23:55.970 ⇒ 00:24:05.629 Uttam Kumaran: but they do have kind of 2 parts of their business. They have like power buyers, people who like pool pool groups or pool guys that are buying a lot. And they have individuals.
230 00:24:05.790 ⇒ 00:24:15.010 Uttam Kumaran: One of the things that I we tried to push them to is to start to market to those folks differently, but they really haven’t like done that yet, but that was one of the
231 00:24:15.790 ⇒ 00:24:21.419 Uttam Kumaran: the things we talking about. The next piece here is there as this M. And A. Happens.
232 00:24:21.750 ⇒ 00:24:37.059 Uttam Kumaran: the business is changing, meaning they may. I don’t in some way like the way they operate. They have this e-commerce thing. They also do wholesale. I’m not sure how the business is gonna change. So actually amber, there is a good opportunity to probably set up a new roadmap
233 00:24:37.350 ⇒ 00:24:38.170 Uttam Kumaran: totally.
234 00:24:38.170 ⇒ 00:24:42.530 Amber Lin: That’s what I was just thinking. And now that’s really exciting.
235 00:24:42.860 ⇒ 00:24:43.680 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
236 00:24:45.190 ⇒ 00:24:53.779 Aakash Tandel: Yeah. So it sounds like they’re like it. Teams and stuff like that are gonna be shifting. Definitely will be good to kind of monitor that to see if there’s an
237 00:24:54.130 ⇒ 00:24:56.485 Aakash Tandel: for our other other
238 00:24:58.014 ⇒ 00:25:03.229 Aakash Tandel: you know, offerings we were primarily doing like data engineering work for them. Right? Is that most of them.
239 00:25:03.230 ⇒ 00:25:07.229 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, we’ve really done data engine modeling. And we’re doing analysis.
240 00:25:07.659 ⇒ 00:25:13.459 Uttam Kumaran: But like they have a huge like, I could talk a little bit about their yeah, their it infrastructure. So.
241 00:25:13.730 ⇒ 00:25:21.390 Uttam Kumaran: yeah, I mean, they are primarily a shopify and Amazon business. They do most of their sales through those channels.
242 00:25:22.940 ⇒ 00:25:32.790 Uttam Kumaran: They use ship station to do shipping to print shipping labels. They they ship via Fedex and ups
243 00:25:33.388 ⇒ 00:25:41.040 Uttam Kumaran: heat pumps are like really large pumps, so they have to use what’s called freight means it comes on a flatbed to your house.
244 00:25:41.270 ⇒ 00:25:45.359 Uttam Kumaran: So there’s a couple of nuances with the shipping that you know. I
245 00:25:45.820 ⇒ 00:26:00.219 Uttam Kumaran: I would say there is actually quite a bit of nuances for how to calculate shipping costs. This is really where I learned a lot about the problems in shipping, and a really good opportunity to do this with other clients who have similar shipping issues.
246 00:26:00.716 ⇒ 00:26:06.770 Uttam Kumaran: But other than that, they have a couple of very comp like they’re using Zendesk for customer service.
247 00:26:07.050 ⇒ 00:26:11.529 Uttam Kumaran: We have implemented Snowflake, Dbt. Github and Rel.
248 00:26:11.640 ⇒ 00:26:14.119 Uttam Kumaran: There on the actual like analytics side
249 00:26:16.140 ⇒ 00:26:19.069 Aakash Tandel: So I feel like using any marketing platforms.
250 00:26:19.550 ⇒ 00:26:34.810 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, they’re using Google analytics. And they’re using all the common ad platforms. So like Facebook, Google, yeah, they spend quite a bit on ads, and the because the business is so non recurring, they they spend a lot to acquire customers.
251 00:26:34.940 ⇒ 00:26:35.786 Aakash Tandel: Makes sense
252 00:26:36.570 ⇒ 00:26:55.632 Uttam Kumaran: But we’ve we’ve been modeling like we haven’t done any net new modeling in quite a while like it’s pretty mature. However, I was the one that’s I’ve done most of it. So it’s definitely not like as clean as it should be. There’s there’s definitely gonna be some tech debt that we have to go back and do
253 00:26:56.430 ⇒ 00:27:02.839 Uttam Kumaran: The other thing is in terms of like what we’ve. We’ve mainly focused on the sales, marketing and shipping. Part of the business.
254 00:27:03.120 ⇒ 00:27:06.419 Uttam Kumaran: We haven’t done a lot of work on the cost of goods sold
255 00:27:06.550 ⇒ 00:27:11.199 Uttam Kumaran: and the like support discounts and returns
256 00:27:13.090 ⇒ 00:27:17.119 Uttam Kumaran: which is definitely like 2 areas to go through
257 00:27:17.250 ⇒ 00:27:25.399 Uttam Kumaran: just like any Ecom business. They are very, very much interested in looking at the profit calculation, and how
258 00:27:25.600 ⇒ 00:27:44.120 Uttam Kumaran: the profit calculation is getting degraded through the different phases of it. Right like, how is profit like once revenue comes in, how does profit get degraded to cost of goods sold to shipping to refunds discounts. So understanding that equation, you guys will see, is a very common
259 00:27:44.580 ⇒ 00:27:48.679 Uttam Kumaran: problem in any e-com business.
260 00:27:49.161 ⇒ 00:27:51.549 Uttam Kumaran: And it’s something we’re doing for Javi.
261 00:27:51.720 ⇒ 00:27:55.185 Uttam Kumaran: We’re doing for pool parts we’re doing for Eden.
262 00:27:55.880 ⇒ 00:27:59.210 Uttam Kumaran: like for software businesses. There’s cost of goods
263 00:27:59.520 ⇒ 00:28:04.249 Uttam Kumaran: like software businesses. They don’t care much about margin. They’re caring a lot about growth
264 00:28:04.360 ⇒ 00:28:26.399 Uttam Kumaran: for these guys. They care a lot about margin because you can only extract like 2030% margin out of this business. Every dollar really matters. So profit was huge for them. We’re able to measure it. But we only went and optimized sales and optimized shipping. We haven’t moved beyond that, and we’re doing cogs now, Amber, I’m sure as you talk to bias a little bit about the current stuff they’re doing.
265 00:28:27.263 ⇒ 00:28:36.740 Amber Lin: Yeah, we’re doing the skus and the cost. And now Dan wants forecasting.
266 00:28:37.410 ⇒ 00:28:40.790 Amber Lin: And so that’s kind of more related to profits.
267 00:28:46.279 ⇒ 00:28:49.519 Aakash Tandel: Yeah, for sake of time, let’s move on to the org chart stuff.
268 00:28:50.128 ⇒ 00:28:53.349 Aakash Tandel: Sounds like our main point of contact is Dan.
269 00:28:54.170 ⇒ 00:29:02.530 Uttam Kumaran: Yes, you can just put yeah. It’s Dan S. He’s a CEO. Another point of contact is, Ben.
270 00:29:03.240 ⇒ 00:29:11.460 Uttam Kumaran: Ben is like the coo. I don’t know what his title is, basically coo. And the the next person is Chuck. Chuck is like head of warehouse.
271 00:29:13.030 ⇒ 00:29:16.360 Uttam Kumaran: and Kim Kim is like head of marketing.
272 00:29:18.669 ⇒ 00:29:21.389 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, those are. That’s most of the people.
273 00:29:23.530 ⇒ 00:29:31.490 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. In terms of final decision makers. It’s like Dan and Ben signing contracts is
274 00:29:33.980 ⇒ 00:29:38.200 Uttam Kumaran: Final decision makers is Dan and Ben signing contracts is ben
275 00:29:38.360 ⇒ 00:29:40.740 Uttam Kumaran: charge of budget and timeline. Is
276 00:29:41.460 ⇒ 00:29:44.410 Uttam Kumaran: it shifts depending on the project? So both of them.
277 00:29:44.830 ⇒ 00:29:48.340 Uttam Kumaran: But but Ben is the one that signs but pays the bills.
278 00:29:48.600 ⇒ 00:29:54.870 Uttam Kumaran: Do they have any engineers it marketing or data? Yeah, I think that’s covered. There’s no there’s no one else. There’s no like.
279 00:29:55.410 ⇒ 00:29:59.662 Uttam Kumaran: There’s no like it. People like we’re we’re like the only analytics people there.
280 00:30:01.170 ⇒ 00:30:12.559 Uttam Kumaran: who are the evangelists. I think Ben used to be because their previous people kind of sucked that they had on this. So we spent a lot of the 1st like 6 months, basically being like.
281 00:30:12.750 ⇒ 00:30:13.960 Uttam Kumaran: we’re legit.
282 00:30:14.320 ⇒ 00:30:20.939 Uttam Kumaran: Now, we’re okay. I think everybody likes us, which is great. But
283 00:30:21.500 ⇒ 00:30:23.819 Uttam Kumaran: yeah, we’ve been working with them for a while. So
284 00:30:26.840 ⇒ 00:30:32.959 Uttam Kumaran: But these, I would say, like, these guys aren’t don’t need to be like baby, meaning
285 00:30:33.770 ⇒ 00:30:39.680 Uttam Kumaran: if if we go slow. And you’re like start asking questions that are very obvious. They will be like.
286 00:30:40.210 ⇒ 00:30:47.550 Uttam Kumaran: this is so obvious, like, why are we talking about this? But not in a mean way, like we have some other clients will do it in a little bit of mean way. These they’re kind of like.
287 00:30:48.370 ⇒ 00:30:51.559 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, let’s get to the end of the finish line like, how do we get to the thing? So.
288 00:30:51.560 ⇒ 00:30:52.060 Amber Lin: Yeah.
289 00:30:52.060 ⇒ 00:30:52.740 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
290 00:30:53.100 ⇒ 00:31:10.809 Amber Lin: Yeah, 1st told me about a lot about how to communicate with this guy and and not to send group emails. I think he still prefers you as a point of contact, and to probably just text him or call him he was ultra boomer, core.
291 00:31:11.370 ⇒ 00:31:11.760 Amber Lin: and.
292 00:31:12.700 ⇒ 00:31:15.570 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, there are. They are. Yeah, they are more
293 00:31:15.780 ⇒ 00:31:23.120 Uttam Kumaran: down, for it’s just like, don’t over complicate stuff, right? Like the previous mistakes we made is like, there’s 10 people on an email.
294 00:31:23.560 ⇒ 00:31:36.209 Uttam Kumaran: There shouldn’t be 10 people like, I feel like, that’s pretty standard across any communication you send an email that’s like this big CEO. The company is not gonna he’s gonna be like, he’s gonna text me and be like, that’s do the emails like way too long like, what
295 00:31:36.440 ⇒ 00:31:38.010 Uttam Kumaran: what do you need me to do?
296 00:31:38.210 ⇒ 00:31:43.809 Uttam Kumaran: And so it’s just like for these guys, I think just being a little bit more concise.
297 00:31:44.340 ⇒ 00:31:44.880 Amber Lin: Yeah.
298 00:31:44.880 ⇒ 00:31:48.740 Uttam Kumaran: Particularly like this is what we need. Here’s how to do it. Here’s what you should do.
299 00:31:49.020 ⇒ 00:31:53.040 Uttam Kumaran: That’s it. They’re very much biased towards action type. People.
300 00:31:56.280 ⇒ 00:31:58.880 Uttam Kumaran: But they’re great. And they love data. And they want to use data.
301 00:31:59.470 ⇒ 00:32:00.990 Uttam Kumaran: You know a lot. So
302 00:32:08.140 ⇒ 00:32:15.229 Aakash Tandel: How much do you think we should go into the past projects? Is that something you feel like is super relevant? Or should amber just kind of look at documentation
303 00:32:15.610 ⇒ 00:32:16.300 Aakash Tandel: for this.
304 00:32:16.300 ⇒ 00:32:20.140 Amber Lin: I can ask this with piazz. I think it’s a good time we could just.
305 00:32:20.720 ⇒ 00:32:25.389 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, Pius is not gonna know. Pius has only been on the project for like 2 months.
306 00:32:25.400 ⇒ 00:32:26.250 Amber Lin: I see.
307 00:32:26.250 ⇒ 00:32:33.910 Uttam Kumaran: It’s gonna be me it’s gonna be me or Luke on stuff before, like September. Probably.
308 00:32:34.080 ⇒ 00:32:35.400 Amber Lin: I can go ask Luke.
309 00:32:35.710 ⇒ 00:32:37.190 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I would ask Luke
310 00:32:37.820 ⇒ 00:32:44.130 Uttam Kumaran: this. It’s it’s like a year. It’s like a lot of projects. So it’s probably not helpful to go through now. But we should document this
311 00:32:46.050 ⇒ 00:32:51.559 Uttam Kumaran: if there’s a process that we can go document, then, yeah, we can. We can definitely document past projects here.
312 00:32:51.990 ⇒ 00:32:52.520 Uttam Kumaran: But.
313 00:32:52.520 ⇒ 00:32:53.120 Amber Lin: Well.
314 00:32:53.340 ⇒ 00:33:04.839 Uttam Kumaran: Just know we’ve gone through most of the business and had data modeled in one form or another. These guys aren’t using dashboards that much, though. So this is a client where they’re more passive. Gosh! As we talked about
315 00:33:05.850 ⇒ 00:33:06.220 Aakash Tandel: Yep.
316 00:33:06.220 ⇒ 00:33:09.350 Uttam Kumaran: We they don’t have like a distinct product owner.
317 00:33:10.240 ⇒ 00:33:14.530 Uttam Kumaran: So our approach to this client has to be more forward.
318 00:33:16.470 ⇒ 00:33:17.330 Uttam Kumaran: Definitely.
319 00:33:17.330 ⇒ 00:33:22.799 Aakash Tandel: Yeah. And for for Steven Amber, the thing that we were talking about is the more passive clients they kind of.
320 00:33:22.800 ⇒ 00:33:47.740 Aakash Tandel: They need us to be the data driver in that situation. So we had to proactively come up with ideas and ways to either push the project forward or expand to solve their business needs. So if there’s a way that another team or another like part of our product offerings within brain forge can be slotted in, it’s definitely something we want to expand obviously want the upsell. But also we want to be a trusted partner, and, like that
321 00:33:47.740 ⇒ 00:33:51.220 Aakash Tandel: highest level consultant with the client as opposed to some of our other clients.
322 00:33:51.810 ⇒ 00:33:52.600 Amber Lin: Oh!
323 00:33:52.600 ⇒ 00:33:59.380 Steven Kootz: Okay, is that kind of like talked about in like the signature of work when we like, begin working with them where it’s like they want us to
324 00:33:59.520 ⇒ 00:34:06.420 Steven Kootz: kind of figure stuff out for them, or that’s just kind of like something like we do for them as we move along with the project.
325 00:34:08.179 ⇒ 00:34:13.809 Aakash Tandel: Yeah, I think, yeah, from my perspective, it’s something we have to suss out in the sales process.
326 00:34:13.810 ⇒ 00:34:14.400 Uttam Kumaran: Totally, agree.
327 00:34:14.400 ⇒ 00:34:39.669 Aakash Tandel: Like Robert would be able to kind of notice. Okay, hey? They have a very clear idea of what they need. So we’re more tactical. And then once we do those things, then we can kind of be consultative. Say, Hey, we did this dashboard for you, or we build these models for you. This is how we think you should use them. We also think these things would be good versus if it’s a higher level problem, and it’s like a business owner like the pool parts. Guys like they probably know pool parts in and out all the details of their vertical. But they
328 00:34:39.880 ⇒ 00:34:45.779 Aakash Tandel: don’t understand data as well. And that’s where we had to come in more as the proactive leader in the data side.
329 00:34:45.780 ⇒ 00:34:47.510 Steven Kootz: Okay, gotcha, that makes sense.
330 00:34:48.300 ⇒ 00:34:57.314 Uttam Kumaran: So I think partly it’ll the whether they’re active or passive will dictate some of the work. Sometimes. But for these guys
331 00:34:57.840 ⇒ 00:35:09.920 Uttam Kumaran: in on a project basis. They have been more active, like anything that was with Chuck like anything that was shipment side. Chuck was the product owner, meaning he would hop on. We would talk to him every day, but
332 00:35:10.110 ⇒ 00:35:16.240 Uttam Kumaran: and then for anything marketing, Kim is a product owner, for sure, and she’ll hop on whenever, but for anything that’s like
333 00:35:16.710 ⇒ 00:35:20.210 Uttam Kumaran: sales, or like cost of goods, or like
334 00:35:20.580 ⇒ 00:35:25.309 Uttam Kumaran: larger questions, there’s it’s like, sort of Dan and Ben.
335 00:35:26.000 ⇒ 00:35:28.040 Uttam Kumaran: and they’re definitely more of like.
336 00:35:29.510 ⇒ 00:35:33.140 Uttam Kumaran: give me like, do the analysis, and then, like, tell me what we should do.
337 00:35:35.100 ⇒ 00:35:38.939 Uttam Kumaran: They’re probably less of like work will work with us on that process.
338 00:35:39.910 ⇒ 00:35:43.679 Uttam Kumaran: But for shipping and for marketing we have pretty good support from those, too.
339 00:35:49.760 ⇒ 00:35:56.239 Aakash Tandel: That makes sense. Do. We want to try to quickly go through the current project stuff so that we can.
340 00:35:57.090 ⇒ 00:35:57.960 Aakash Tandel: I want to give time.
341 00:35:57.960 ⇒ 00:36:07.417 Uttam Kumaran: Yes, like, yeah, let’s let’s talk about. I think that. What were the next questions coming up like about the timeline? Yeah. So let’s talk about this. So we are month to month with them
342 00:36:07.730 ⇒ 00:36:08.360 Uttam Kumaran: because
343 00:36:08.360 ⇒ 00:36:21.790 Uttam Kumaran: we we they actually just haven’t been grandfathered into our new process, which was like project based pricing. So we are month to month we are on an hour. We charge on an hourly basis. So there’s no
344 00:36:22.170 ⇒ 00:36:30.239 Uttam Kumaran: like, and they don’t, I would say, like we could like we could sign if we, the key unlock here could be to just
345 00:36:30.900 ⇒ 00:36:32.240 Uttam Kumaran: basically
346 00:36:32.740 ⇒ 00:36:43.360 Uttam Kumaran: one, build up the roadmap and then do a proposal of like, hey? Can we sign a 6 month agreement? I as a business as the as a business owner and brave forge? I would love us to have like a 6 month
347 00:36:43.590 ⇒ 00:36:49.550 Uttam Kumaran: contract with these guys. I will. It basically is like they’re not like, there’s no signs of them like
348 00:36:50.050 ⇒ 00:37:01.736 Uttam Kumaran: moving off of us. But right now we’re we’re we’re we’ve charged anywhere from like 6 K. To like 12 K. Some months. It really varies. So I would love for that to stabilize.
349 00:37:02.510 ⇒ 00:37:04.860 Uttam Kumaran: So I don’t know. I feel like on the other
350 00:37:05.440 ⇒ 00:37:09.220 Uttam Kumaran: stuff. Yeah, it’s all monthly monthly.
351 00:37:09.540 ⇒ 00:37:12.019 Uttam Kumaran: and we charge based on the on the hour.
352 00:37:13.010 ⇒ 00:37:29.560 Aakash Tandel: Cool. Yeah, yeah, I think hopefully. You know, amber. As you start to think and grasp your hand around the project, you can start thinking of ways that we can have a 6 month runway. That’d be that’d be great. But obviously that might not happen immediately after you have a better grasp of the projects. But
353 00:37:34.200 ⇒ 00:37:45.010 Aakash Tandel: yeah. So I guess. So we currently are a month to month says hourly work. So the sow and the scope of work. Type of thing is not gonna be super relevant here. Neither will contract renewal.
354 00:37:47.750 ⇒ 00:37:49.340 Aakash Tandel: I guess. Like delivery.
355 00:37:49.340 ⇒ 00:38:00.469 Uttam Kumaran: There is a core work stream in flight right now that Pius is leading amber, so that I think you have the details from him on but I’ve also asked the team
356 00:38:00.970 ⇒ 00:38:05.909 Uttam Kumaran: to work on pro like for us to propose a couple of few future projects.
357 00:38:06.020 ⇒ 00:38:07.469 Uttam Kumaran: So that’s the
358 00:38:08.080 ⇒ 00:38:14.550 Uttam Kumaran: ideally I would love to have like at least 2 work streams here going. It seems like right now where it’s more like one.
359 00:38:14.820 ⇒ 00:38:15.500 Amber Lin: Yeah.
360 00:38:16.066 ⇒ 00:38:25.690 Amber Lin: we have that. They wanted to sort of have that done by Wednesday. And then we’re gonna brainstorm new ideas, and maybe look at a forecasting tool.
361 00:38:26.150 ⇒ 00:38:29.579 Amber Lin: So that’s 2 things that we’re thinking about right now.
362 00:38:36.190 ⇒ 00:38:36.790 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
363 00:38:40.140 ⇒ 00:38:42.420 Aakash Tandel: Okay, so that kind of covers
364 00:38:42.720 ⇒ 00:38:44.969 Aakash Tandel: that next chunk of stuff.
365 00:38:46.590 ⇒ 00:39:01.239 Aakash Tandel: the one thing I’ll highlight on the deliverables is review measurement plan or make sure we’re driving business outcomes. This is something that I think is more relevant for us than the rest of the team. I think the the thing I want to. Highlight here is just we want to be solving business problems, not
366 00:39:01.620 ⇒ 00:39:20.519 Aakash Tandel: tech or data problems, because ultimately it’s our job as the project managers to, you know, solve the problem that’s like leading to revenue changes for the client. So you know, whatever that whatever those projects look like, we’ve got always be able to tie it back to like, especially for these guys. It’s gonna be sell more stuff or reduce costs. I mean, that’s gonna be the 2.
367 00:39:20.520 ⇒ 00:39:20.880 Amber Lin: Totally.
368 00:39:20.880 ⇒ 00:39:21.970 Aakash Tandel: 2 drivers for them.
369 00:39:27.380 ⇒ 00:39:28.150 Aakash Tandel: Cool.
370 00:39:28.920 ⇒ 00:39:37.819 Amber Lin: To that right now, it’s for essentially for Dan, for their M and A. So that’s also that’s the core business problem that we’re focusing on right now.
371 00:39:39.290 ⇒ 00:39:42.142 Aakash Tandel: Cool that makes sense.
372 00:39:43.430 ⇒ 00:39:56.881 Aakash Tandel: cool. So tactical or technical. I think you’re getting the lay of land with, like the the project team themselves. That sounds fine. Communication styles anything. I we kind of got some of that with the way you’re talking about.
373 00:39:57.210 ⇒ 00:39:58.439 Uttam Kumaran: Just email.
374 00:39:58.620 ⇒ 00:39:59.220 Aakash Tandel: Yeah.
375 00:39:59.740 ⇒ 00:40:02.159 Uttam Kumaran: I, yeah, I mean, this is where it’s like.
376 00:40:03.730 ⇒ 00:40:13.949 Uttam Kumaran: you guys, I mean, I’m if you guys want to. I just, I’m sort of nervous of like, do you want to get into a text thread with these guys? It may, it may interfere in your personal life, so I would avoid it.
377 00:40:14.070 ⇒ 00:40:18.230 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t do anything, though, over text that I’m not immediately sending to the Channel like
378 00:40:18.470 ⇒ 00:40:20.579 Uttam Kumaran: I either. I say, I don’t know.
379 00:40:20.990 ⇒ 00:40:38.229 Uttam Kumaran: or I don’t respond. I send a screenshot, I’m like, tell me how to respond. So I’m not like texting anything that isn’t like already coordinated. But like these guys will be in a meeting with a lawyer and call me and be like, hey, can you explain how we did? Xyz? I have to pick up that call and answer.
380 00:40:38.580 ⇒ 00:40:39.649 Uttam Kumaran: But like
381 00:40:40.640 ⇒ 00:40:48.459 Uttam Kumaran: this is the only client we have like this. And I think over time, 90% of requests will not come through that way.
382 00:40:48.690 ⇒ 00:40:51.309 Uttam Kumaran: Most I filter through the team for sure.
383 00:40:52.950 ⇒ 00:40:56.877 Aakash Tandel: That. Yeah, that makes sense. Typically, they don’t just text us randomly.
384 00:40:57.180 ⇒ 00:40:57.590 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
385 00:40:57.590 ⇒ 00:40:58.800 Aakash Tandel: Yeah. Okay.
386 00:40:59.190 ⇒ 00:41:11.329 Aakash Tandel: yeah. And then that that questionnaire determine of the clients looking for more of a partner or direct consultant. That’s kind of that passive active we were talking about and it sounds like we. We understand that they’re a little bit more passive and need us to lead that
387 00:41:15.010 ⇒ 00:41:21.170 Aakash Tandel: cool, and the so the next chunk is like tactical stuff that I can amber. I think you can take the take a
388 00:41:21.310 ⇒ 00:41:33.549 Aakash Tandel: take a stab at, like, you know, getting to the internal channels, sending off the email. I think it might be worth drafting that email and then sending it to maybe everyone on this call we can.
389 00:41:33.550 ⇒ 00:41:35.129 Uttam Kumaran: Pm. Channel is probably fine.
390 00:41:35.130 ⇒ 00:41:36.578 Aakash Tandel: Yeah, that’s a good idea. Yeah.
391 00:41:36.820 ⇒ 00:41:51.190 Amber Lin: I think you were talking about that. We’re gonna delay this introduction a little bit, because this client had seen so many Pm’s come on and off, and I I heard from Price there was a little bit of friction before with the previous Pm. So I think we could.
392 00:41:51.540 ⇒ 00:41:53.970 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I said. Delayed until Friday, though not like next month.
393 00:41:53.970 ⇒ 00:41:54.960 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
394 00:41:54.960 ⇒ 00:41:55.340 Aakash Tandel: Okay.
395 00:41:57.970 ⇒ 00:42:05.219 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, yeah, if I say delay, it’s gonna be in days there’s gonna be no month delay that is even in my mind.
396 00:42:05.220 ⇒ 00:42:05.580 Amber Lin: Nice.
397 00:42:05.580 ⇒ 00:42:12.720 Uttam Kumaran: So one delay. It’s like, I don’t even know what I’m I don’t even know what I’m doing like next week, you know. So.
398 00:42:12.720 ⇒ 00:42:15.869 Amber Lin: I’ll drop that after our team meeting. Then I’ll drop that.
399 00:42:15.870 ⇒ 00:42:24.423 Uttam Kumaran: Cool. Yeah. And then I and again, I would love to do this. Friday. I’m I’m I’m more confident, though the only the risk here is that
400 00:42:24.900 ⇒ 00:42:46.189 Uttam Kumaran: And this is maybe Akash, like I don’t know in future product, future project team meetings. I do want to carve out time to talk about the teams that are working and how we should judge the engineering teams. I think a lot about it as that it’s a 3 legged stool, right. So if the product owner doesn’t do well, how do we? How do we identify that? And how does that get fixed?
401 00:42:46.310 ⇒ 00:42:52.070 Uttam Kumaran: If the engineering team is not delivering for you guys, how do we identify that? And that and get, does that get fixed
402 00:42:52.280 ⇒ 00:43:11.330 Uttam Kumaran: for? I think we are. You’re totally right. And there were 2 phase one. This is somewhat of like we’re onboarding new people on existing clients. Of course this will be some. This will be a little bit different than if we have a brand new client coming in. But I still want to know how I can make sure to set you guys up as like the engineering leader with the best people to tackle the job.
403 00:43:11.450 ⇒ 00:43:13.960 Uttam Kumaran: So for this client in particular.
404 00:43:14.210 ⇒ 00:43:16.360 Uttam Kumaran: Bo and Pius are on there.
405 00:43:16.540 ⇒ 00:43:35.000 Uttam Kumaran: I have concerns about both of them taking on this work for this client. For different reasons. But, like I, I have sort of subjective thoughts like, I want to make sure those are measured, and and that those concerns come up. If they don’t come up, then I’m totally fine.
406 00:43:35.403 ⇒ 00:43:41.569 Uttam Kumaran: But I just have like for me. I I have like the smell test on everything. So I kind of know.
407 00:43:42.070 ⇒ 00:43:45.809 Uttam Kumaran: like, I just have a couple of feelings. But that’s that’s like
408 00:43:46.600 ⇒ 00:43:49.210 Uttam Kumaran: I think we can keep talking about that like later. But.
409 00:43:49.920 ⇒ 00:44:01.010 Aakash Tandel: Yeah, at some point, we’ll have to put like, a probably a weekly sync with the basically, this team again to talk about like allocation, and like staffing on certain things, to see if we need to move people around that. So that makes sense to me.
410 00:44:03.610 ⇒ 00:44:04.610 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. Awesome.
411 00:44:04.610 ⇒ 00:44:06.819 Amber Lin: Weekly meeting at this time works for me.
412 00:44:08.010 ⇒ 00:44:08.430 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
413 00:44:08.950 ⇒ 00:44:15.309 Uttam Kumaran: I’m fine. I’m fine with this time, and we could do this weekly. I mean, we could talk more often. This team is really, really crucial. So.
414 00:44:17.120 ⇒ 00:44:18.842 Aakash Tandel: Yeah, we can figure that out.
415 00:44:19.600 ⇒ 00:44:26.990 Aakash Tandel: offline. I do. Wanna give time to Steve. Let’s doable.
416 00:44:26.990 ⇒ 00:44:29.300 Amber Lin: Anything here.
417 00:44:30.460 ⇒ 00:44:32.189 Aakash Tandel: No, I think those.
418 00:44:33.070 ⇒ 00:44:41.200 Aakash Tandel: Yeah, yeah, we can just read through those. Async, but basically, the idea is, you know, you’re the main point of contact for the for the client kind of straightforward stuff.
419 00:44:41.610 ⇒ 00:44:42.250 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
420 00:44:42.820 ⇒ 00:44:46.599 Uttam Kumaran: Alright, Steven. If we wanna work on the Javis one, we can.
421 00:44:46.870 ⇒ 00:44:47.480 Steven Kootz: Perfect.
422 00:44:47.480 ⇒ 00:44:48.580 Steven Kootz: Yeah, let me pull it up.
423 00:44:49.080 ⇒ 00:44:51.120 Steven Kootz: I have it here.
424 00:44:51.120 ⇒ 00:44:54.670 Uttam Kumaran: And hopefully, I think you maybe got a couple of answers from this.
425 00:44:54.670 ⇒ 00:44:56.000 Steven Kootz: Yeah, yeah, it’s okay.
426 00:44:57.610 ⇒ 00:44:58.340 Uttam Kumaran: Cool.
427 00:44:58.610 ⇒ 00:45:04.389 Steven Kootz: Oh, yeah, the meeting earlier, too. We’ll kind of answered some. So let me see. So here’s this
428 00:45:05.000 ⇒ 00:45:09.649 Steven Kootz: sharing it, does it look wonky? Because I’m doing like 50 50 split, or does it look pretty.
429 00:45:09.650 ⇒ 00:45:10.370 Uttam Kumaran: That’s fine!
430 00:45:10.370 ⇒ 00:45:11.450 Steven Kootz: Decent. Okay, fine
431 00:45:11.670 ⇒ 00:45:24.360 Steven Kootz: sounds good. I know I’m just on my laptop and no external screen. So yeah. And so then I also put it in. I didn’t see like a Pm. Notion tab, so I just put in like joggy coffee. Is that good? Or
432 00:45:24.860 ⇒ 00:45:27.750 Steven Kootz: sure that we’ll maybe move it afterwards. So.
433 00:45:27.750 ⇒ 00:45:29.090 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, this is fine.
434 00:45:29.090 ⇒ 00:45:30.899 Steven Kootz: Cool. So, yeah, alright.
435 00:45:31.480 ⇒ 00:45:36.319 Uttam Kumaran: So I don’t know these answers, because this was a client that came through Robert.
436 00:45:36.490 ⇒ 00:45:36.870 Aakash Tandel: Okay.
437 00:45:36.870 ⇒ 00:45:40.740 Uttam Kumaran: And before we join. So I would ask him.
438 00:45:40.970 ⇒ 00:45:47.980 Uttam Kumaran: I believe, like the original sow. Actually, I do know this. We were just doing amplitude work for them
439 00:45:48.921 ⇒ 00:45:56.598 Uttam Kumaran: meaning. We were just like fixing a couple of things in amplitude, helping streamline the cost there.
440 00:45:57.190 ⇒ 00:46:06.350 Uttam Kumaran: and then we. This is one of the 1st times we worked on together before. We were like all combined because they needed some of more help on the data modeling side.
441 00:46:07.860 ⇒ 00:46:13.110 Uttam Kumaran: So, yeah, then, then, we work together on the data, modeling and data warehousing.
442 00:46:18.790 ⇒ 00:46:23.993 Aakash Tandel: That makes sense. Yeah. So maybe we can get the rest from Robert Steven.
443 00:46:25.220 ⇒ 00:46:27.269 Aakash Tandel: did that include currently history and stuff.
444 00:46:28.600 ⇒ 00:46:38.980 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, like he’ll know. Oh, no, I can do talk through that. I can talk to you a little bit of that. But this is honestly where like, it’s probably worth us figuring some of these out, because I I know
445 00:46:39.190 ⇒ 00:47:00.429 Uttam Kumaran: a little bit. So private new revenue drivers. Yeah, they sell coffee, concentrate. So they have a few and again, this is probably easy to see in the dashboard. But they have a few product categories that work really well. So they have a couple of core concentrates and the core flavors that really sell out a lot. They also do holiday flavors like pumpkin spice Mocha.
446 00:47:01.010 ⇒ 00:47:14.520 Uttam Kumaran: you know, it’s like whatever sells at Starbucks during the holidays. They they have clones of those, but their coffee concentrate, which is basically just adding stuff to your coffee is like their number one seller. They’re kind of like mio for coffee.
447 00:47:14.670 ⇒ 00:47:15.879 Uttam Kumaran: That makes sense.
448 00:47:16.300 ⇒ 00:47:16.900 Uttam Kumaran: It seems like the.
449 00:47:16.900 ⇒ 00:47:18.720 Steven Kootz: The protein. 1, 2.
450 00:47:18.720 ⇒ 00:47:20.179 Uttam Kumaran: The protein. One. Yeah.
451 00:47:20.820 ⇒ 00:47:21.600 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
452 00:47:25.145 ⇒ 00:47:27.590 Uttam Kumaran: They are a
453 00:47:28.060 ⇒ 00:47:39.899 Uttam Kumaran: medium sized player. This is a large, just a big, vertical right? You can think of everything, from like your local coffee shop to coma tier, and to Javi all the way up to like Keurig
454 00:47:40.320 ⇒ 00:47:44.490 Uttam Kumaran: in terms of this is this is called like this is like packaged coffee goods, basically.
455 00:47:46.620 ⇒ 00:47:48.590 Uttam Kumaran: You know, like, yeah.
456 00:47:49.820 ⇒ 00:47:57.870 Uttam Kumaran: So you also have Nespresso like, that’s, this is the category. They they’re all competing in instant coffee things like that. So they’re a national player.
457 00:47:59.020 ⇒ 00:48:04.259 Uttam Kumaran: their main competitors, I don’t know. I mean, they compete with it. We compete with like
458 00:48:04.900 ⇒ 00:48:09.800 Uttam Kumaran: I feel like they can be with, like Keurig nespresso like.
459 00:48:09.800 ⇒ 00:48:11.600 Aakash Tandel: Yeah, big big players, yeah.
460 00:48:11.600 ⇒ 00:48:14.989 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, just like coffee, like any other coffee alternatives.
461 00:48:18.210 ⇒ 00:48:25.760 Uttam Kumaran: the biggest challenges. Yeah. So one of the biggest challenges is being able to quickly test and scale new product lines.
462 00:48:26.360 ⇒ 00:48:39.479 Uttam Kumaran: They, they added protein, coffee and a few things. They want to be able to quickly put money towards those understand. If they click and then ramp them up. The second biggest challenge is they sell on Tiktok shop, shopify
463 00:48:39.690 ⇒ 00:48:45.129 Uttam Kumaran: and Amazon, and it’s somehow sometimes difficult to get a
464 00:48:47.210 ⇒ 00:48:50.240 Uttam Kumaran: to get a cohesive sense of
465 00:48:50.755 ⇒ 00:48:58.749 Uttam Kumaran: who their customers are and what they’re buying from each of those 3. This is one of the core things that we really tried to work with them on.
466 00:49:06.420 ⇒ 00:49:09.638 Steven Kootz: Yeah. And that’d be they kind of went over that during the call, too, of like.
467 00:49:10.100 ⇒ 00:49:25.269 Steven Kootz: you know, idea ideating like between different clients and everything, and seeing like Amazon, like oh, like with Amazon like, it’s naturally like this like this, percentage for cancellations are always just generally high compared to like everything else like it is in that case so.
468 00:49:28.020 ⇒ 00:49:31.139 Uttam Kumaran: Cool. Who are the customers? Just like
469 00:49:32.070 ⇒ 00:49:36.660 Uttam Kumaran: people like us? I guess I don’t know. Yeah, normal people, normal folks.
470 00:49:36.660 ⇒ 00:49:44.270 Aakash Tandel: They have any bigger like business clients like, do they partner with like Walmart, or something like that, to get.
471 00:49:44.270 ⇒ 00:49:44.670 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t.
472 00:49:45.030 ⇒ 00:49:50.340 Uttam Kumaran: I think I think they do. Some. They do, some wholesale. But majority of their business is is is
473 00:49:50.950 ⇒ 00:49:53.529 Uttam Kumaran: from D to C, online.
474 00:49:54.490 ⇒ 00:50:05.249 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, it tech. It’s like the usual suspects for Ecom.
475 00:50:05.913 ⇒ 00:50:08.010 Uttam Kumaran: I guess, is how I like to say it.
476 00:50:09.170 ⇒ 00:50:13.400 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, how mature is their data infrastructure.
477 00:50:14.750 ⇒ 00:50:18.590 Uttam Kumaran: Is this like on a scale like one to 5? Or what do you? How do we think about this?
478 00:50:19.830 ⇒ 00:50:23.619 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, we we basically did it. So it’s like, okay.
479 00:50:23.900 ⇒ 00:50:25.284 Aakash Tandel: That’s the answer. Yup!
480 00:50:25.840 ⇒ 00:50:30.919 Uttam Kumaran: It’s it’s like it’s getting there. I mean, we’ve been at it for like probably 4 months. So
481 00:50:31.240 ⇒ 00:50:33.520 Uttam Kumaran: there’s enough like I would say
482 00:50:34.060 ⇒ 00:50:39.569 Uttam Kumaran: at our current pace. It probably takes like 9 months for infrastructure to get to get to mature level.
483 00:50:41.210 ⇒ 00:50:43.340 Uttam Kumaran: It’s quite takes quite a while, because
484 00:50:43.700 ⇒ 00:50:46.270 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know things. Just these things take time.
485 00:50:49.560 ⇒ 00:50:52.889 Uttam Kumaran: So I and I think, Steven, you probably know these items.
486 00:50:53.320 ⇒ 00:50:55.059 Steven Kootz: Yeah, I believe it’s like a mon.
487 00:50:55.220 ⇒ 00:50:56.140 Steven Kootz: He’s like the main.
488 00:50:56.140 ⇒ 00:50:59.990 Uttam Kumaran: On. Yeah. And then her main. Jared, yeah.
489 00:51:02.240 ⇒ 00:51:03.979 Steven Kootz: And then I think this is
490 00:51:04.180 ⇒ 00:51:07.409 Steven Kootz: Jared, because he’s kind of like in the data with them. Right?
491 00:51:07.780 ⇒ 00:51:14.340 Steven Kootz: Maybe also, I’m on. And then come on, really, I’m on
492 00:51:16.140 ⇒ 00:51:20.440 Steven Kootz: and then this is this other guy, Justin, I think Justin and Jared.
493 00:51:23.280 ⇒ 00:51:23.970 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
494 00:51:31.790 ⇒ 00:51:35.850 Aakash Tandel: Also. This is my my son Rishi. He’s gonna be on the call with us.
495 00:51:38.600 ⇒ 00:51:40.890 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, he’s so cute! Oh, he’s so cute.
496 00:51:40.890 ⇒ 00:51:44.386 Aakash Tandel: He’s only 6 months old, so he’s not. He doesn’t know what’s happening.
497 00:51:45.890 ⇒ 00:51:48.229 Steven Kootz: You’re training him young dude.
498 00:51:48.230 ⇒ 00:51:49.530 Steven Kootz: Yeah, so cute.
499 00:51:50.630 ⇒ 00:51:53.880 Steven Kootz: Oh, that’s awesome.
500 00:51:54.830 ⇒ 00:51:56.729 Uttam Kumaran: Brainforge, evangelist.
501 00:51:56.930 ⇒ 00:52:01.879 Uttam Kumaran: I think you probably saw that Jared is probably the detractor. You get that sense.
502 00:52:02.370 ⇒ 00:52:06.859 Steven Kootz: Yeah, I think I got that anything here yet, because I don’t know if they have.
503 00:52:06.860 ⇒ 00:52:07.420 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. Okay.
504 00:52:07.420 ⇒ 00:52:09.115 Steven Kootz: Joby notion so.
505 00:52:10.440 ⇒ 00:52:14.420 Steven Kootz: But I’ll I’ll keep when I transferred over to the project manager page. Yeah.
506 00:52:16.659 ⇒ 00:52:32.609 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, these are all things that I think we can get pretty easily from the team. And then let me talk. Maybe let me give you a little bit of sense of like where the where the contract is now. So we’re on a 3 month contract ending
507 00:52:32.780 ⇒ 00:52:37.640 Uttam Kumaran: in April. So mid a April 10, th I’m actually
508 00:52:43.900 ⇒ 00:52:47.770 Uttam Kumaran: So we are, yeah, like 60
509 00:52:47.890 ⇒ 00:52:50.109 Uttam Kumaran: 70% of the way through.
510 00:52:51.362 ⇒ 00:52:58.930 Uttam Kumaran: The contract renewal is like, I mean again. Our goal is to try to get a month ahead.
511 00:52:59.170 ⇒ 00:53:03.140 Uttam Kumaran: I think we want to try to close that out, probably by the end of March.
512 00:53:06.180 ⇒ 00:53:07.790 Uttam Kumaran: We are now on track.
513 00:53:08.740 ⇒ 00:53:09.220 Aakash Tandel: Nope.
514 00:53:09.220 ⇒ 00:53:10.850 Uttam Kumaran: After like busting ass.
515 00:53:12.010 ⇒ 00:53:19.560 Aakash Tandel: Nice. Do we have an idea of what the future contract is? Gonna look like? Is it continued work that we’re doing? Or is it different stuff.
516 00:53:20.210 ⇒ 00:53:26.050 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. So this is, I think, Steven, probably what I’m gonna bank on you and and Robert for
517 00:53:26.554 ⇒ 00:53:29.470 Uttam Kumaran: what’s what’s the next part of the contract.
518 00:53:30.031 ⇒ 00:53:33.410 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know if you got any sense of that from the call, or
519 00:53:33.910 ⇒ 00:53:36.089 Uttam Kumaran: it. It was sort of more short term.
520 00:53:36.390 ⇒ 00:54:02.929 Steven Kootz: Kind of seem like it. More short term. I think, Robert, like a few different things. They seem to like the idea that, like email and SMS like analytics and stuff. They definitely were like, we’re interested. It’s not a priority right now. So I think, like, there’s definitely some like fixes that like they want to make, and like some dashboards and then like depending on that, I think it could be then built out to like. See like, what new identifications and everything we can make. So.
521 00:54:03.570 ⇒ 00:54:11.229 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, fix. So this is a monthly fixed price.
522 00:54:11.590 ⇒ 00:54:14.390 Uttam Kumaran: We’re charging them 10 KA month right now.
523 00:54:16.450 ⇒ 00:54:21.799 Uttam Kumaran: Robert thinks we can get to 15. So that’s like what we want to set him up with the layup. There
524 00:54:22.030 ⇒ 00:54:26.419 Uttam Kumaran: are we at budget we are over
525 00:54:26.640 ⇒ 00:54:30.530 Uttam Kumaran: what is so like? What is it when we’re we have too many hours allocated.
526 00:54:30.990 ⇒ 00:54:33.980 Aakash Tandel: Is that like over committed or like, yeah.
527 00:54:33.980 ⇒ 00:54:39.280 Uttam Kumaran: We’re over. We’re over. Yeah, we’re overrun. That sounds like kind of rough. But yeah, we’re overrun.
528 00:54:42.330 ⇒ 00:54:45.507 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. So we we had to. We were.
529 00:54:46.060 ⇒ 00:54:52.540 Uttam Kumaran: We were on track like we were on track budget wise. But then work wasn’t getting out.
530 00:54:52.750 ⇒ 00:54:56.409 Uttam Kumaran: So we we went over budget. Now work is back on track.
531 00:54:56.640 ⇒ 00:54:58.700 Uttam Kumaran: Now, ideally.
532 00:54:58.990 ⇒ 00:55:13.730 Uttam Kumaran: I think we’re gonna have a concept. I think I want to share that. I know we don’t have metrics for an allocation and stuff like that. But this is what I would love to see, because it’s a 10 K contract. We have other contracts that are 15 K that takes half the work as as this as these guys.
533 00:55:14.050 ⇒ 00:55:17.490 Uttam Kumaran: But this is something that like, it’s hard for Robert
534 00:55:17.670 ⇒ 00:55:29.480 Uttam Kumaran: like this is where we just have need to have multiple stakeholders like I’m happy to take on the Cfo of like this needs to run on budget sales will always take the make sure to do it so we can get the renewal.
535 00:55:29.690 ⇒ 00:55:40.489 Uttam Kumaran: And then you guys will have a 3rd school. So this is triforce triforce. Right? So this is where, like, I know we are gonna spend too much. We’re not gonna make money on this.
536 00:55:40.830 ⇒ 00:55:42.760 Uttam Kumaran: There’s other contracts where I’m like
537 00:55:43.350 ⇒ 00:55:46.679 Uttam Kumaran: that could double, and we would do no any more work.
538 00:55:47.080 ⇒ 00:55:52.240 Uttam Kumaran: But, like, you know, we sort of aren’t running towards just whoever’s not doing well today. So
539 00:55:53.263 ⇒ 00:55:58.200 Uttam Kumaran: yeah, I think the next piece is totally fine.
540 00:56:00.590 ⇒ 00:56:11.370 Uttam Kumaran: these guys are like good communicators I’m on is I’m on is actually, I think, overall what I want to see us, who I want to bring in as a product owner. I think he has more than enough time, and
541 00:56:11.500 ⇒ 00:56:17.790 Uttam Kumaran: he’s actually very, very curious, and could become our internal champion and ideally.
542 00:56:18.330 ⇒ 00:56:31.339 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t think he would be great at setting the full roadmap, unless, like maybe we would. We would have to assist him in learning how to do that. But like, I think, could take on a lot of that that sort of backlog building work.
543 00:56:32.193 ⇒ 00:56:36.450 Uttam Kumaran: But that’s that’s basically it, I mean, otherwise, it’s just slack
544 00:56:37.010 ⇒ 00:56:41.740 Uttam Kumaran: for for communications. There’s no really, there’s not much nuance. These guys. They’re pretty normal.
545 00:56:45.830 ⇒ 00:56:46.380 Aakash Tandel: Cool.
546 00:56:48.110 ⇒ 00:56:51.310 Aakash Tandel: Sweet Steve, do you have any other questions while you’re kinda
547 00:56:51.430 ⇒ 00:56:53.670 Aakash Tandel: you already had a couple of meetings. Anything else that.
548 00:56:54.820 ⇒ 00:56:59.640 Steven Kootz: I think nothing. Yeah, nothing off the top. But I mean, just like in terms of like
549 00:57:00.100 ⇒ 00:57:03.880 Steven Kootz: when and if we renew with them right like getting
550 00:57:04.250 ⇒ 00:57:10.019 Steven Kootz: that new signature work like up and running. And then, like, you know, from my end, like building something out with that. So I think
551 00:57:10.300 ⇒ 00:57:14.920 Steven Kootz: that’d be interesting for me, I think, to like, take a look at and like churn out. So.
552 00:57:16.490 ⇒ 00:57:27.730 Aakash Tandel: Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I think it would be cool for all of us, plus Robert. Probably, I’m thinking, to look at that contract renewal and see if there’s like ways we can
553 00:57:28.201 ⇒ 00:57:40.029 Aakash Tandel: structure things a certain way. Or we definitely want to make sure that everything is like resourced right? So that we don’t. We don’t want. We want to make it actually feasible. So that makes sense, too. I don’t know what that meeting would be. But yeah.
554 00:57:40.980 ⇒ 00:57:54.739 Uttam Kumaran: No, I think that’ll be great, Steven, if we can try to run one of something like that this week or next week, where we just talk about the renewal and like cause that’ll be like, I don’t think we tip. It’s usually just me and Robert talking. I would love to have that as this group.
555 00:57:54.880 ⇒ 00:58:02.510 Uttam Kumaran: and then talk about the assignments and things like that, because, of course, for the for the assignments right now, I sort of just like did it as I felt like it, so
556 00:58:02.790 ⇒ 00:58:07.760 Uttam Kumaran: that I don’t want that to do that again. You want that to go through some process so.
557 00:58:08.300 ⇒ 00:58:21.199 Aakash Tandel: Yeah, might also be worth bringing in any anyone who worked on or is going to work on the job project like some of the engineers like they might have good. I don’t know if that’s too many people to invite to that meeting, but we can always split that out into 2 groups if we need to
558 00:58:21.330 ⇒ 00:58:24.930 Aakash Tandel: like one small group first, st and then with the engineers later.
559 00:58:27.400 ⇒ 00:58:27.960 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
560 00:58:30.240 ⇒ 00:58:32.255 Steven Kootz: Yeah, I think that I think that works
561 00:58:32.960 ⇒ 00:58:42.589 Steven Kootz: And then, yeah, I I know I talked to. We thought about it, too. But just like seeing like ways that like when we do bring on like new clients like building out like I think,
562 00:58:43.090 ⇒ 00:59:11.530 Steven Kootz: it’s I don’t know if you guys familiar linear it was almost showing it to me. But like building that out and like using that as something like when we do have something signed and ready to go. It’s been passed off to like a project manager, and then from there, I mean, if everything’s just like implemented so I think that’s like one of the important things to like. Look at, to like as we move along. You know, with like and build out like, you know, current. Choose project as well, and and everything like moving forward. I think it’s good to do so.
563 00:59:12.740 ⇒ 00:59:16.569 Aakash Tandel: Yeah, I don’t know if that’s something we’ve discussed about yet, or.
564 00:59:16.700 ⇒ 00:59:21.810 Steven Kootz: Or whatnot, but I I think it could be something to even like to talk about like in a new meeting, or anything so.
565 00:59:24.080 ⇒ 00:59:26.939 Aakash Tandel: Yeah, yeah, I think it would be helpful for us to like
566 00:59:27.070 ⇒ 00:59:33.659 Aakash Tandel: this little group, plus maybe Robert, sometimes. Yeah, bounce those things off each other like just to be like, Hey, this is what I’m thinking.
567 00:59:33.850 ⇒ 00:59:39.064 Aakash Tandel: Does this roadmap look right? Does this like contract renewal? Make sense that type of thing
568 00:59:39.550 ⇒ 00:59:41.259 Aakash Tandel: before we finalize things. It’s probably helpful.
569 00:59:41.260 ⇒ 01:00:06.839 Uttam Kumaran: We have a couple of renewal like calls right now. Maybe I should. Just. I’ll just put something on for Wednesday, because I want to batch these like we’re talking about stack Blitz renewal, Javi renewal pool parts to get on a contract. ABC, I just sent out a couple of things so there’s like 4 of these that are happening. And they’re all like ABC’s outcome based pricing Javi and stack lists are gonna be fixed monthly
570 01:00:07.120 ⇒ 01:00:11.170 Uttam Kumaran: full parts. We’re gonna see if we can get that over to that. So maybe let’s just
571 01:00:11.320 ⇒ 01:00:14.310 Uttam Kumaran: I’ll just do something. I’ll just put something on for Wednesday.
572 01:00:14.690 ⇒ 01:00:19.490 Uttam Kumaran: and maybe we just do another. We just talk about like ideally. I want to get through.
573 01:00:19.860 ⇒ 01:00:25.660 Uttam Kumaran: I want to get through pool parts. I want to get through Javi and stack with in terms of like what’s next?
574 01:00:27.010 ⇒ 01:00:34.820 Uttam Kumaran: ABC, and pull parts, ABC. One I already sent out and pool parts like it’s going. And so it’s I’m not worried. It won’t be churning. So
575 01:00:35.596 ⇒ 01:00:37.880 Uttam Kumaran: maybe let’s just do that on Wednesday.
576 01:00:38.710 ⇒ 01:00:48.330 Aakash Tandel: Yeah, I know we’re at time. So if anyone has a bounce feel free to. But the last thing I was gonna think of or before. Do have we done retros for any of these?
577 01:00:48.937 ⇒ 01:00:54.360 Aakash Tandel: Lately that could help inform the contract renewal stuff?
578 01:00:55.463 ⇒ 01:01:01.983 Aakash Tandel: We are just have our data team like retro as a whole have not been running clients. Specific retros.
579 01:01:04.470 ⇒ 01:01:07.298 Uttam Kumaran: So I think really the the
580 01:01:08.250 ⇒ 01:01:12.759 Uttam Kumaran: The renewals for Javi are gonna be really dependent on
581 01:01:13.290 ⇒ 01:01:21.650 Uttam Kumaran: Robert is sort of the acting product owner right now. So what he sees is the next backlog to come out for Stack Blitz.
582 01:01:21.840 ⇒ 01:01:24.167 Uttam Kumaran: That’s sort of me.
583 01:01:24.920 ⇒ 01:01:39.480 Uttam Kumaran: So I’ve also I’ve already started to see up some stuff. But ideally, we can talk about both of those roadmaps on Wednesday. I think it’s gonna be rocky for these new for these existing clients that we’re moving over. But I’m glad we were catching some of them during renewal.
584 01:01:39.910 ⇒ 01:01:44.740 Uttam Kumaran: That I think that’ll make it nice for you guys to buy in and sort of get on boarded there, too.
585 01:01:45.020 ⇒ 01:01:52.780 Uttam Kumaran: Is there any other like action items between now and like Friday? I mean again. I think the only thing is we want to get Steven you up on Javi and
586 01:01:53.070 ⇒ 01:01:55.789 Uttam Kumaran: Amber. I think you teed up on pool parts.
587 01:01:56.020 ⇒ 01:01:58.749 Uttam Kumaran: That’s that. Seems like it. That’s it.
588 01:01:59.570 ⇒ 01:02:04.369 Uttam Kumaran: I think we’re gonna try to get stuff in linear and keep working on these documents. But is there anything else.
589 01:02:04.800 ⇒ 01:02:07.230 Amber Lin: Yeah, I was thinking that we could
590 01:02:07.420 ⇒ 01:02:17.149 Amber Lin: get started on documenting the process. I don’t know if this is delegated to the operations team or how involved the Pm team is gonna be because
591 01:02:17.674 ⇒ 01:02:42.509 Amber Lin: since me and Akash essentially has to meet with everyone new and essentially all of us meet with every team member or a lot of team members to get to know them and get to know their processes. I think it’s a good point to start documenting the process. And I just want to plant the seed so that we have that in mind of looking at the process that we do things as we get onboarded.
592 01:02:43.210 ⇒ 01:02:47.409 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I think this document is actually really, really great to maintain.
593 01:02:47.520 ⇒ 01:02:50.040 Uttam Kumaran: like as a whole across every client.
594 01:02:50.462 ⇒ 01:02:55.777 Uttam Kumaran: So I can continue to fill these out. I mean, I’m gonna give this a shot for
595 01:02:56.760 ⇒ 01:03:09.281 Uttam Kumaran: for stack puts as well as some other ones. But these 2 are crucial that we. We move this onto your guys’s plate. So I’m I’m hoping that this week is sort of focused on that. And then next week is
596 01:03:09.690 ⇒ 01:03:12.740 Uttam Kumaran: we can try to work on the next 2, basically as as we go.
597 01:03:12.900 ⇒ 01:03:21.999 Steven Kootz: Yeah, I think that’s I think, even too, did. Didn’t you end up kind of sending me something like that, Forbi? Would you want me to share that with Amber. It’s I know.
598 01:03:22.000 ⇒ 01:03:22.590 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
599 01:03:22.590 ⇒ 01:03:26.696 Steven Kootz: Cool parts, but it is for Joby and and I I did work with
600 01:03:27.648 ⇒ 01:03:35.439 Steven Kootz: Demi Lane on Wednesday before I was out to just like some ideas, so I can send you over what we have there, and if if anything.
601 01:03:35.440 ⇒ 01:03:36.700 Steven Kootz: sure transferable too.
602 01:03:36.700 ⇒ 01:03:41.729 Amber Lin: Yes, please. Can you send it to me on slack cause I have to hop off to another?
603 01:03:43.770 ⇒ 01:03:47.010 Amber Lin: Thank you guys so much for doing this, Akash for creating this outline.
604 01:03:47.010 ⇒ 01:03:47.749 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. Thanks. Again.
605 01:03:47.750 ⇒ 01:03:49.329 Steven Kootz: Yeah, thank you. That’s great.
606 01:03:49.330 ⇒ 01:03:57.779 Amber Lin: Mind, I’m like, Oh, that’s what is important. And that really helps me think about the whole process a lot better. So I really appreciate it.
607 01:03:58.390 ⇒ 01:04:04.599 Aakash Tandel: Sweet. Yeah, yeah. And if there, you guys have questions or want eyes on something, just let me know. Happy to help out.
608 01:04:05.450 ⇒ 01:04:08.609 Amber Lin: Okay, sounds good, and we’ll talk to me next week.
609 01:04:08.910 ⇒ 01:04:09.340 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah.
610 01:04:09.340 ⇒ 01:04:09.850 Steven Kootz: Sounds good.
611 01:04:10.690 ⇒ 01:04:11.210 Aakash Tandel: I.
612 01:04:11.210 ⇒ 01:04:11.630 Uttam Kumaran: Excess.
613 01:04:11.630 ⇒ 01:04:12.240 Amber Lin: Bye, bye.