Meeting Title: Robert Tseng and Gibson Farone-Collins Date: 2025-05-08 Meeting participants: Robert Tseng, Gibson Farone-Collins
WEBVTT
1 00:01:35.260 ⇒ 00:01:36.730 Robert Tseng: Move your legs, please.
2 00:01:48.430 ⇒ 00:01:49.430 Gibson Farone-Collins: Hey, Robert.
3 00:01:50.370 ⇒ 00:01:51.400 Robert Tseng: Hey! Gibson.
4 00:01:52.210 ⇒ 00:01:52.990 Gibson Farone-Collins: How you doing.
5 00:01:53.570 ⇒ 00:01:54.579 Robert Tseng: Good! How are you?
6 00:01:54.830 ⇒ 00:01:55.590 Gibson Farone-Collins: Good!
7 00:01:56.260 ⇒ 00:01:58.300 Gibson Farone-Collins: Let me check out my robot.
8 00:01:58.620 ⇒ 00:02:06.589 Robert Tseng: Okay, has it been helpful? Yeah, I guess we we talked about it last time day AI versus, I guess. Yeah.
9 00:02:07.280 ⇒ 00:02:10.392 Gibson Farone-Collins: It’s I don’t know. It’s
10 00:02:13.430 ⇒ 00:02:22.149 Gibson Farone-Collins: like, if I’m in the meeting. The summary that it gives me is not better than being in the meeting. But if I miss a meeting, it’s nice to read through a summary versus watching a 30 min video.
11 00:02:22.150 ⇒ 00:02:22.760 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
12 00:02:23.350 ⇒ 00:02:25.040 Gibson Farone-Collins: So I don’t know. It’s fine.
13 00:02:25.420 ⇒ 00:02:27.580 Gibson Farone-Collins: It’s nice to have the recordings of like
14 00:02:28.060 ⇒ 00:02:31.609 Gibson Farone-Collins: client meetings, too. So what did they say?
15 00:02:31.770 ⇒ 00:02:38.380 Robert Tseng: Yeah, that’s what I go to. These meet these notes for most of the time. It’s less about what I said, but like trying to remember what the other person said.
16 00:02:38.710 ⇒ 00:02:39.210 Gibson Farone-Collins: Totally.
17 00:02:39.210 ⇒ 00:02:40.820 Robert Tseng: Yeah, yeah.
18 00:02:40.820 ⇒ 00:02:41.300 Gibson Farone-Collins: Bye, bye.
19 00:02:41.300 ⇒ 00:02:50.910 Robert Tseng: Well, I guess you’ve been settled in now for a few couple of I mean, when we talked last time you’d been there for a couple of months. Yeah, kind of how’s how’s the latest.
20 00:02:51.500 ⇒ 00:02:52.796 Gibson Farone-Collins: It’s good. It’s good.
21 00:02:54.050 ⇒ 00:03:13.660 Gibson Farone-Collins: yeah, I mean, I I’m I. It’s been a little bit slow for the last month or so. It’s been kind of nice I was. I was like triple staffed on projects for a little while, and now I’m down to just one and like at the current speed. I think 2 is the right number. Yeah. So I I’m
22 00:03:13.920 ⇒ 00:03:25.579 Gibson Farone-Collins: I’m trying to help out with some Bd stuff and some internal ops stuff, and and also just enjoying a little bit of a lull, because I know that there will be moments where I’m hoping for a little bit of a lull.
23 00:03:25.710 ⇒ 00:03:29.929 Gibson Farone-Collins: Yeah, but yeah, it’s been. It’s been good. We. It’s been
24 00:03:30.560 ⇒ 00:03:36.529 Gibson Farone-Collins: this, this, the client that I’ve been on the whole time. There’s like an orthopedic shoe company.
25 00:03:36.530 ⇒ 00:03:38.059 Robert Tseng: Right. I remember you mentioned that.
26 00:03:38.060 ⇒ 00:03:53.400 Gibson Farone-Collins: Yeah. And and they were really struggling in February, which I think was just kind of a macro consumer sentiment thing. But they’ve been doing really well the last couple of months. So it’s it’s always nice when the client is seeing results that makes our jobs a lot easier.
27 00:03:53.690 ⇒ 00:03:58.208 Robert Tseng: Cool. Yeah, no, I love to hear that. I know. Yeah, I I was
28 00:03:58.700 ⇒ 00:04:17.050 Robert Tseng: last month I I was. I was traveling a bit. I was in La for a couple of weeks, and then went went to Austin. And it’s cool we were at meeting. We have. We have a client. There we work with kind of one of the larger like like a home service company. So like pet control or pest control and stuff like that. So like.
29 00:04:17.260 ⇒ 00:04:39.740 Robert Tseng: I think I I thought of you, and we transition one of our contracts over to this like whole like outcome, based pricing thing, which is, I thought that was a cool concept. So yeah, now, we just kind of get paid for usage. And then the recommendations we make, it’s basically like a customer support. A agent that like helps their teams like escalate things and then be able to plug up sales. If there’s opportunity.
30 00:04:39.740 ⇒ 00:04:48.069 Robert Tseng: So yeah, like, we got credit for for those upsells now. And it’s kind of like, get kind of get paid like on a commission basis. Like as if we’re like a salesperson.
31 00:04:48.070 ⇒ 00:04:48.630 Gibson Farone-Collins: Interesting.
32 00:04:48.980 ⇒ 00:04:50.030 Robert Tseng: Yeah. So that’s.
33 00:04:50.030 ⇒ 00:04:52.330 Gibson Farone-Collins: Do you think that’ll be end up being.
34 00:04:52.520 ⇒ 00:04:56.389 Gibson Farone-Collins: you know, revenue positive for you all versus how you would have structured it otherwise.
35 00:04:56.660 ⇒ 00:05:15.985 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, otherwise, it’s like, you know, you have the upfront development cost. I think the way while we’re learning from that was like, okay, there’s like an upfront dev cost to like, get the thing running moving it from the Poc to to like something that’s functional but then like to charge it on a like a monthly sas, kind of like bill billing like didn’t really make sense.
36 00:05:16.770 ⇒ 00:05:37.720 Robert Tseng: yeah, I mean, there’s more upside this way, but also like, if you know, we have to continue to scale usage across the company, which is totally fine, like, I think that’s what we want as well. So I think it incentivizes us to like, be, be kind of having our main like sponsor kind of push the product around and and get more and more teams and other service departments. So you’d be using it.
37 00:05:38.191 ⇒ 00:05:49.059 Robert Tseng: Yeah. So I I think it’s been interesting. I mean, it changes the incentives where I think our teams a lot more engaged with it as well, not just like a setup, and just leave it there kind of situation.
38 00:05:49.060 ⇒ 00:05:51.899 Gibson Farone-Collins: Yeah, exactly. Totally.
39 00:05:52.210 ⇒ 00:06:06.143 Gibson Farone-Collins: I feel like if you’re just set up and leave it. You check in at the end of the month and see how the business is doing. But if you’re getting paid every time they make a sale, you’re like we did 3 sales today, or whatever. I don’t know what the order magnitude is. But yeah, that’s awesome.
40 00:06:06.380 ⇒ 00:06:07.810 Robert Tseng: Yeah. Yeah.
41 00:06:08.110 ⇒ 00:06:08.900 Robert Tseng: So
42 00:06:09.280 ⇒ 00:06:24.860 Robert Tseng: yeah, no. So that that’s not the AI side and then on the data side, it’s still. I mean, it’s still pretty kind of like. I don’t. I don’t really think that it’s still just get paid by hour pretty much so. I don’t really know of a way to kind of move the pricing on that side of the business.
43 00:06:25.030 ⇒ 00:06:26.809 Gibson Farone-Collins: Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
44 00:06:26.980 ⇒ 00:06:38.510 Robert Tseng: Yeah. But I’m curious like to hear more about like, okay, well, I mean for performance marketing. It’s clearly you can drive top line revenue, or I mean, I don’t know. The attribution is kind of hairy with marketing like every different.
45 00:06:39.130 ⇒ 00:06:42.969 Robert Tseng: I’ll want to take credit. I’m curious, like kind of how your, how your team thinks about that.
46 00:06:43.110 ⇒ 00:07:00.530 Gibson Farone-Collins: We? We’re just talking about that this week of like, what? What are the best practices we wanna cause this. The project that I’m on is the 1st one that ox has done that is, on an incentive based model. And so we’ve been kind of trying to codify what we wanna do for that going forward.
47 00:07:01.300 ⇒ 00:07:04.220 Gibson Farone-Collins: One thing that I like that we’ve done in this
48 00:07:04.680 ⇒ 00:07:11.710 Gibson Farone-Collins: project was, it’s just based on top line revenue, or I guess it’s it’s revenue minus marketing spend.
49 00:07:11.900 ⇒ 00:07:16.129 Gibson Farone-Collins: But that is very simple and easy to understand. And we’re not.
50 00:07:16.130 ⇒ 00:07:16.700 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
51 00:07:16.940 ⇒ 00:07:31.588 Gibson Farone-Collins: You know you’re not saying well, the metal row, as is 4.5, but the Ga. Row, as is 2.2, and so like how many dollars it? None of that fight has to happen. It’s just like, how much money does the business make?
52 00:07:32.130 ⇒ 00:07:39.299 Gibson Farone-Collins: And I like the simplicity of that. There’s a little bit of you’re setting yourself up for more
53 00:07:39.770 ⇒ 00:07:49.029 Gibson Farone-Collins: macro stuff or more. You know, we’re subject to their product, pipeline and their product launches, and if they launch some awesome new product
54 00:07:49.470 ⇒ 00:07:57.130 Gibson Farone-Collins: that looks really good for us, so I don’t know. There’s a little bit of gray area in that. But it’s not fighting over what the numbers actually are.
55 00:07:57.610 ⇒ 00:07:58.240 Robert Tseng: Okay.
56 00:07:58.610 ⇒ 00:08:03.569 Gibson Farone-Collins: And our scope is pretty broad on this project. I wonder if there was something where we were doing just
57 00:08:03.720 ⇒ 00:08:09.270 Gibson Farone-Collins: a single channel, or something like that, if we might define it that way.
58 00:08:09.860 ⇒ 00:08:10.180 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
59 00:08:10.500 ⇒ 00:08:14.620 Gibson Farone-Collins: But then you just gotta agree on the attribution upfront, you know.
60 00:08:14.930 ⇒ 00:08:15.520 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
61 00:08:16.230 ⇒ 00:08:17.090 Gibson Farone-Collins: Oh.
62 00:08:17.400 ⇒ 00:08:28.889 Gibson Farone-Collins: what has been challenging about this one? And I’m curious how you how you thought about this, although if it was that new, but is our our baseline has been hard to.
63 00:08:29.260 ⇒ 00:08:31.250 Gibson Farone-Collins: We’ve kind of had disagreements on the
64 00:08:31.410 ⇒ 00:08:33.259 Gibson Farone-Collins: the with the client on like.
65 00:08:34.100 ⇒ 00:08:39.119 Gibson Farone-Collins: you know, we’re we’re talking about incremental marketing contribution is what we’re calling it.
66 00:08:39.783 ⇒ 00:08:44.249 Gibson Farone-Collins: It’s like incremental to what has been. We’ve gone back and forth, and
67 00:08:44.760 ⇒ 00:08:49.189 Gibson Farone-Collins: they they want it to be versus their 2025 business plan.
68 00:08:49.660 ⇒ 00:08:56.109 Gibson Farone-Collins: But we think that that plan they just kind of made up. And we’re like, it’d be nice to grow 11% this year
69 00:08:56.721 ⇒ 00:09:03.890 Gibson Farone-Collins: we’re like, Well, why isn’t this against 2024 actuals? Because that’s a real number that you did last year. And
70 00:09:04.150 ⇒ 00:09:15.450 Gibson Farone-Collins: anyway, so that there there has been some, some friction around that. And it makes a big difference because their plan is to grow 11%. So yeah, we if they’re growing 12%.
71 00:09:15.870 ⇒ 00:09:25.199 Gibson Farone-Collins: And we’re pacing versus last year, we’re getting our full incentive fee like feeling great about it. And if they’re going 12%, and it’s against their plan.
72 00:09:25.570 ⇒ 00:09:25.930 Robert Tseng: Right.
73 00:09:25.930 ⇒ 00:09:29.950 Gibson Farone-Collins: Not even cracking the bottom tier of the incentive fee.
74 00:09:31.240 ⇒ 00:09:48.585 Robert Tseng: That’s interesting. Yeah, for clients that have been working with us for more than a year, like, yeah, we’re definitely not. I mean, I guess at this point we kind of I mean, there’s probably smaller. So we kind of help them do the forecasting as well. But yeah, it’s definitely compared against the actual. So it’s just interesting. Yeah.
75 00:09:49.690 ⇒ 00:09:56.179 Gibson Farone-Collins: But yeah, how how have you? How did you establish a baseline and attribution for where you’re I mean.
76 00:09:56.280 ⇒ 00:09:57.770 Gibson Farone-Collins: yeah, how how are you doing that?
77 00:09:58.050 ⇒ 00:10:06.299 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, we do a little bit of like, I mean, we obviously do. Analytics support the marketing side as well. Yeah. I mean for any, if anything like
78 00:10:06.770 ⇒ 00:10:14.947 Robert Tseng: what when we enter, maybe they’re just using like a 1st touch or last touch, like attribution model. Maybe they’re not like that, like divested in different
79 00:10:15.330 ⇒ 00:10:34.869 Robert Tseng: like in in new channels. And so upon working with us, maybe they’ve like activated a couple of new channels. And like we kind of help set that up so like. What if one of our clients that was only doing like, you know, your classic paid channels? They’ve they’ve kind of since working with us wanted to like. Measure all this offline stuff. And we’ve like changed the way they thought about like
80 00:10:34.870 ⇒ 00:10:45.519 Robert Tseng: and like the full marketing budget and all that. So now, it’s kind of like, well, I guess in in this, on the data side, we don’t actually have, like an incentive tied to
81 00:10:45.850 ⇒ 00:10:48.849 Robert Tseng: tied to like the performance of their offline channels.
82 00:10:48.850 ⇒ 00:10:49.400 Gibson Farone-Collins: Sure.
83 00:10:49.400 ⇒ 00:11:15.530 Robert Tseng: But it turns out that, like, you know, Ctv is doing great for them, and that they’re like leaning a lot more into programmatic. They’re dialing back data and stuff. So, and that was a recommendation that we made for them. And I mean, I’m thinking, like dang like we should have, I don’t know like I wish we had some like some incentive tied to that. But I didn’t at the time. So no, I think it’s it’s it’s it’s I mean, if I were to do another kind of similar engagement, I’d probably try to
84 00:11:15.770 ⇒ 00:11:17.389 Robert Tseng: include that up front.
85 00:11:18.230 ⇒ 00:11:20.209 Gibson Farone-Collins: Yeah, that that makes a ton of sense.
86 00:11:20.540 ⇒ 00:11:21.000 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
87 00:11:22.370 ⇒ 00:11:28.539 Gibson Farone-Collins: It’s so funny how the I I’m I get so jazzed about the marketing stuff because it’s like
88 00:11:29.550 ⇒ 00:11:42.519 Gibson Farone-Collins: on some level. It’s like day trading, and like portfolio management, or something like that. But then there’s also this like very creative, what resonates with the customer aspect of it. And I just love, the the combination of those 2 things.
89 00:11:42.520 ⇒ 00:11:53.509 Robert Tseng: Yeah, tell me more. Are you involved the creative side, or like, I guess you said your scope is pretty wide, or whatever. But I mean, obviously, you’re not just doing like the the optimizations of the spends, or whatever. So.
90 00:11:53.510 ⇒ 00:11:59.780 Gibson Farone-Collins: Yeah, yeah, we’re doing some for for this client. It’s I’m not, like.
91 00:12:00.060 ⇒ 00:12:10.650 Gibson Farone-Collins: you know, taking photographs or or writing email, copy or anything like that, but we’re helping review them. I mean, we we brought in a Meta agency for them, and we’ve been
92 00:12:11.180 ⇒ 00:12:14.680 Gibson Farone-Collins: working a lot to define what their
93 00:12:16.758 ⇒ 00:12:23.169 Gibson Farone-Collins: what the brand identity should be, and like what good creative looks like for for this company. And so I mean, I was.
94 00:12:23.170 ⇒ 00:12:23.840 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
95 00:12:23.840 ⇒ 00:12:26.060 Gibson Farone-Collins: 2 h ago I was like clicking around ads.
96 00:12:26.360 ⇒ 00:12:31.950 Gibson Farone-Collins: approving them and asking for changes and whatever so I I don’t know. That’s like.
97 00:12:32.130 ⇒ 00:12:38.029 Gibson Farone-Collins: not as far in the weeds as you could go, but it it’s a little bit in the weeds in terms of creative type stuff.
98 00:12:38.380 ⇒ 00:12:39.040 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
99 00:12:39.420 ⇒ 00:12:55.140 Robert Tseng: no, I think like, I mean, I don’t know how much like industry benchmarking. You guys do like I’m sure you probably like, have some, I mean well, so I mean we have some. We have some. I have a I have a client that’s like that. They’re in like the commercial pool parts like industry, you know. And so, like
100 00:12:55.390 ⇒ 00:13:24.530 Robert Tseng: one thing we’ve been trying to recommend them to do is like, Okay, well, like their seasonality to like the backyard pool business, like, you know, it’s really just this, this period right now is Peak, I guess. So if you want some more consistent revenue like, maybe just try to repurpose some of your your skews, and just like it’s like a marketing plate to sell it to like spas like other more like year round businesses. And you know, at the end of the day it’s just a pump that moves water around. So I think that’s that’s like kind of the thing that we’re we’re trying to. I’m trying to get going for them. And
101 00:13:24.720 ⇒ 00:13:34.110 Robert Tseng: I mean, that reminds me a bit of some of the work I did back at Ruggable, like, I remember, there was like an initiative I was working on. That was like, Yeah, how do you size the opportunity of like these, like
102 00:13:34.440 ⇒ 00:13:37.639 Robert Tseng: trends like that are going around and like,
103 00:13:38.150 ⇒ 00:13:46.649 Robert Tseng: yeah. So I I don’t know. Like, if you guys have done like an exercise like that, or I’m I’m curious what your thoughts are. I heard something like that.
104 00:13:46.850 ⇒ 00:13:49.199 Gibson Farone-Collins: We haven’t really done anything with.
105 00:13:51.330 ⇒ 00:14:00.239 Gibson Farone-Collins: we haven’t really done anything like that. I feel like that is a little closer to product offering and like product mix than we than we typically get.
106 00:14:00.680 ⇒ 00:14:01.190 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
107 00:14:01.190 ⇒ 00:14:06.760 Gibson Farone-Collins: But the pool parts have. Does that bit. That alternate business line doesn’t exist for this company.
108 00:14:07.280 ⇒ 00:14:11.430 Robert Tseng: No, yeah. They own they launched only doing direct to consumer backyard pools. Yeah.
109 00:14:11.860 ⇒ 00:14:12.640 Gibson Farone-Collins: Huh?
110 00:14:13.260 ⇒ 00:14:20.270 Gibson Farone-Collins: I mean, that seems like an obvious expansion, would. I’m I’m sure. There, I mean you. You said it. That’s like
111 00:14:20.450 ⇒ 00:14:24.520 Gibson Farone-Collins: April. June is probably half their sales for the year, or something like that.
112 00:14:24.520 ⇒ 00:14:29.219 Robert Tseng: Yeah, his, his most of their sales is just happening over like 3 to 4 months. So.
113 00:14:29.220 ⇒ 00:14:30.230 Gibson Farone-Collins: Yeah.
114 00:14:30.410 ⇒ 00:14:38.100 Gibson Farone-Collins: yeah, I don’t know. That’s a good. I I last fall I did some work for a private equity company that bought a
115 00:14:39.520 ⇒ 00:14:45.380 Gibson Farone-Collins: like a Christmas lighting decoration business.
116 00:14:46.380 ⇒ 00:14:47.199 Robert Tseng: Huh? Okay.
117 00:14:47.200 ⇒ 00:14:52.310 Gibson Farone-Collins: And it’s a franchise business. And they they basically charge people to
118 00:14:52.830 ⇒ 00:14:57.810 Gibson Farone-Collins: set up holiday lights Christmas lights on their house seasonally. So it.
119 00:14:57.810 ⇒ 00:14:58.160 Robert Tseng: Oh!
120 00:14:58.160 ⇒ 00:15:02.269 Gibson Farone-Collins: From, you know, whatever Halloween till
121 00:15:02.670 ⇒ 00:15:05.449 Gibson Farone-Collins: the December 15, th or something like that.
122 00:15:05.640 ⇒ 00:15:12.830 Gibson Farone-Collins: and most it’s it’s a franchise. So they were in this. They were buying the franchisor. So they were. That
123 00:15:13.840 ⇒ 00:15:24.990 Gibson Farone-Collins: corporation is not actually installing lights. But the franchisees are mostly like landscaping companies who we’re trying to solve the same seasonality thing where it’s like.
124 00:15:24.990 ⇒ 00:15:25.839 Robert Tseng: I see.
125 00:15:25.840 ⇒ 00:15:31.440 Gibson Farone-Collins: Once we do sprinkler shut off for most of the country. There’s nothing to do until March.
126 00:15:31.490 ⇒ 00:15:48.640 Gibson Farone-Collins: and this is a nice way to get some revenue, but the guy told me there were a few franchisees they had who don’t, who just do the Christmas lights as their business, and I don’t think it’s not like they’re making, you know, 2 million dollars over the over the holiday season. But I think it’s like, yeah, these.
127 00:15:48.670 ⇒ 00:16:03.853 Gibson Farone-Collins: It’s these 2 guys and their brothers in Arkansas, and they make, you know, a hundred 20 k. Between the 2 of them in 2 and a half months, and they split it, and like that’s, and then they just hang out the rest of the year.
128 00:16:05.260 ⇒ 00:16:06.330 Gibson Farone-Collins: Not the worst.
129 00:16:06.970 ⇒ 00:16:14.129 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, I mean, honestly, even before the past 50 years, about like most people’s jobs, were probably seasonal, you know, like.
130 00:16:14.130 ⇒ 00:16:14.970 Gibson Farone-Collins: Totally.
131 00:16:14.970 ⇒ 00:16:19.125 Gibson Farone-Collins: Yeah. So it’s interesting. Yeah, where it’s like, yeah.
132 00:16:19.540 ⇒ 00:16:21.500 Gibson Farone-Collins: got a lot of time just hanging out.
133 00:16:21.880 ⇒ 00:16:22.440 Robert Tseng: Oh.
134 00:16:23.180 ⇒ 00:16:28.629 Robert Tseng: yeah, I mean, I is there a seasonality to your business like, I don’t know. Have you noticed that like? Well.
135 00:16:28.630 ⇒ 00:16:30.140 Gibson Farone-Collins: The consulting business.
136 00:16:30.140 ⇒ 00:16:30.810 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
137 00:16:31.030 ⇒ 00:16:32.270 Gibson Farone-Collins: Yeah, it’s
138 00:16:33.300 ⇒ 00:16:39.979 Gibson Farone-Collins: I think. I mean, I think we’re still trying to figure it out. But I think summer everyone expects to slow down, and like
139 00:16:40.240 ⇒ 00:16:45.899 Gibson Farone-Collins: August especially, I think it. It seems like everyone, all the like
140 00:16:46.160 ⇒ 00:16:52.860 Gibson Farone-Collins: private equity people I don’t know go to their chalets in Paris for August, or whatever.
141 00:16:52.860 ⇒ 00:16:53.630 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
142 00:16:53.630 ⇒ 00:16:54.720 Gibson Farone-Collins: So like
143 00:16:54.910 ⇒ 00:17:02.560 Gibson Farone-Collins: the deal flow really slows down, and a lot of our work is generated on the back of transactions.
144 00:17:03.240 ⇒ 00:17:03.820 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
145 00:17:04.079 ⇒ 00:17:08.799 Gibson Farone-Collins: So I I mean, I think we’re still doing pretty well. But
146 00:17:09.449 ⇒ 00:17:11.999 Gibson Farone-Collins: last summer people say it was really slow.
147 00:17:12.640 ⇒ 00:17:13.390 Robert Tseng: I say.
148 00:17:13.390 ⇒ 00:17:14.690 Gibson Farone-Collins: Yeah, what about yours?
149 00:17:15.520 ⇒ 00:17:28.190 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, I would say, and Q, 4 is the slowest time, like, q, 1 is usually pretty. I mean, yeah, that’s where most of the deals are signed. I feel like this quarter is looking kind of slow. To be honest, I was, I don’t know, just based on.
150 00:17:28.560 ⇒ 00:17:34.970 Robert Tseng: I I thought that things would move faster this quarter. I think it’s interesting, though, because in the data space
151 00:17:35.450 ⇒ 00:17:43.559 Robert Tseng: I think just your priorities have shifted. I think there’s a lot of consolidation going on across like tools. So a lot of tools are just getting acquired. You know, the
152 00:17:43.670 ⇒ 00:18:08.800 Robert Tseng: M. And a market is kind of crazy right now. And then. Yeah, I think like, the directive right now is a lot in like cost optimization. And it’s like, yeah. So I think we’re we’re being told to do like us like an intro project with a lot with more clients. We’re doing a lot more like procurement decisions, and less like jumping in and fixing like broken reports, or whatever. So I think that’s been a shift that like I’ve been trying to like, make sense of with my team.
153 00:18:08.870 ⇒ 00:18:20.099 Robert Tseng: I’m like this is like feels like a lot more kind of just like right sizing the business and like wanting to people just wanting to see how how we can cut costs immediately when when we work with them. Yeah.
154 00:18:20.100 ⇒ 00:18:24.929 Gibson Farone-Collins: Interesting. And do you think that’s tariff related, or seasonal, or.
155 00:18:25.410 ⇒ 00:18:54.140 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean the CPU companies that we work with, like they’re all pretty much aligned that like they think the tariffs are. It’s just this is just like, gonna last for a little bit. The volatility is gonna stop. They’re gonna he’s gonna rescind these tariffs. And you know, it’ll be okay. But we just have to bother the storm for now for a few months. That’s kind of their the perspective. So I don’t think. But then it’s kind of like coming out of the tariffs. With all these pricing adjustments, everybody will be pricing higher. And so, yeah, I think there’s a lot of like
156 00:18:54.330 ⇒ 00:18:58.070 Robert Tseng: pricing exercises going on that we’re having to do for our clients.
157 00:18:58.410 ⇒ 00:19:02.309 Gibson Farone-Collins: Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Our our clients are looking at.
158 00:19:02.800 ⇒ 00:19:07.650 Gibson Farone-Collins: I mean, that’s exactly what you said. They’re like, we don’t know where this shake out, but if we can
159 00:19:08.070 ⇒ 00:19:12.080 Gibson Farone-Collins: add $5 to the sneaker prices in the meantime, and customers.
160 00:19:12.080 ⇒ 00:19:15.870 Robert Tseng: Yeah, blame it on the tariffs and then just leave it there. Once it’s around. Yeah.
161 00:19:16.020 ⇒ 00:19:18.960 Gibson Farone-Collins: Exactly, and take the margin while you can.
162 00:19:19.240 ⇒ 00:19:19.930 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
163 00:19:20.060 ⇒ 00:19:28.953 Robert Tseng: which I mean, I’ve asked the consumer I’ve noticed, like I’m a big fan of the vibrant. So I don’t know if you’ve seen those 5 finger shoes, or whatever
164 00:19:29.250 ⇒ 00:19:30.910 Gibson Farone-Collins: Oh, I have. Yeah, yeah.
165 00:19:30.910 ⇒ 00:19:37.650 Robert Tseng: Yeah, yeah, but they’re not really in style anymore. But I I like them a lot. It’s crazy like they’ve like double the price since the start of this service
166 00:19:37.650 ⇒ 00:19:38.180 Robert Tseng: earlier.
167 00:19:38.180 ⇒ 00:19:39.070 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
168 00:19:39.470 ⇒ 00:19:45.480 Gibson Farone-Collins: Yeah. So I’m like, have they like messaged around it being tariff stuff or.
169 00:19:45.690 ⇒ 00:19:52.330 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, they say it’s like all this, like, you know, all this rubber is kind of like processed in China or whatever. But like.
170 00:19:52.750 ⇒ 00:20:00.750 Robert Tseng: yeah, I mean, it’s the material used on. It is less than an actual shoe. And now it’s like, you know, you can’t find a pair under a hundred dollars anymore. So.
171 00:20:00.750 ⇒ 00:20:05.020 Gibson Farone-Collins: Yeah, I’m looking 180 bucks for a pair of.
172 00:20:05.020 ⇒ 00:20:06.299 Robert Tseng: It’s crazy.
173 00:20:07.230 ⇒ 00:20:08.170 Gibson Farone-Collins: It’s like.
174 00:20:08.170 ⇒ 00:20:10.340 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so.
175 00:20:10.700 ⇒ 00:20:11.420 Gibson Farone-Collins: Huh!
176 00:20:12.050 ⇒ 00:20:30.109 Robert Tseng: Yeah. But you say you’re on the you’re more involved in the Bd side, I guess, like I mean, I’m sure the P. Sales cycles much longer. I mean, we did since we last talked. We’re in conversations. The Austin Conference was good. Got visibility there. So we’re we’re like in talks with like a couple of PE firms and Vcs there.
177 00:20:30.600 ⇒ 00:20:33.479 Robert Tseng: Yeah. So I mean, like the way that our.
178 00:20:33.970 ⇒ 00:20:38.719 Gibson Farone-Collins: We’re we’re just doing workshops for for their for them just to like.
179 00:20:39.080 ⇒ 00:20:44.819 Robert Tseng: Yeah, try to win. I actually saw a post from Jesse. That kind of said something similar that you guys do something similar where you
180 00:20:44.820 ⇒ 00:20:45.390 Robert Tseng: workshops
181 00:20:45.670 ⇒ 00:20:52.240 Robert Tseng: kind of basically eliminate doubt within the firm. And then they start recommending you. We haven’t gone to that point yet, but it just feels like we’re just
182 00:20:52.850 ⇒ 00:20:53.370 Robert Tseng: serious.
183 00:20:53.370 ⇒ 00:20:53.840 Gibson Farone-Collins: Yeah.
184 00:20:53.840 ⇒ 00:20:55.059 Robert Tseng: Stuff like that for them.
185 00:20:55.060 ⇒ 00:20:57.200 Gibson Farone-Collins: I know I don’t
186 00:20:57.930 ⇒ 00:21:05.739 Gibson Farone-Collins: haven’t seen anything in the few months since I’ve joined, but I know I’ve heard people talk about a few things last year where
187 00:21:06.710 ⇒ 00:21:15.149 Gibson Farone-Collins: you know, we went and pitched, and some some PE firms like we want you to do this project at 8 of our portfolio companies, and it’s like.
188 00:21:15.150 ⇒ 00:21:15.839 Robert Tseng: And it’s.
189 00:21:15.840 ⇒ 00:21:22.396 Robert Tseng: you know. Boom! That’s a million dollars of business or something like that out of a out of something like that. It’s like, Wow!
190 00:21:22.840 ⇒ 00:21:26.850 Gibson Farone-Collins: So I I imagine the hit I mean, I imagine you know you get.
191 00:21:27.810 ⇒ 00:21:34.320 Gibson Farone-Collins: I don’t know what the hit rate is on that, but if it if it works really well, and then you’d start getting those people to refer you and recommend you and
192 00:21:34.470 ⇒ 00:21:35.780 Gibson Farone-Collins: and whatnot.
193 00:21:35.980 ⇒ 00:21:36.840 Robert Tseng: Oh!
194 00:21:37.200 ⇒ 00:21:39.839 Gibson Farone-Collins: Yeah, that I think that’s a really good way to
195 00:21:40.490 ⇒ 00:21:46.219 Gibson Farone-Collins: to prove out. If you I mean it. It sounds like you. You all have like a product that
196 00:21:46.540 ⇒ 00:21:55.520 Gibson Farone-Collins: works for folks. And so that’s like a good way to. I think I think people can see through if you’re bullshitting them in in a context like that.
197 00:21:56.170 ⇒ 00:21:57.389 Robert Tseng: Yeah. Yeah.
198 00:21:58.320 ⇒ 00:22:11.289 Robert Tseng: yeah. I mean, definitely, it’s like, we’re we’re leaning into the longer cycle. Now, I think before, like, we were just with the deal size we’re working with. It was like, we’re expecting to close within one or 2 calls. But now it’s like, okay, we need to have this like
199 00:22:11.500 ⇒ 00:22:17.919 Robert Tseng: educational offering, or just like, Go and do a Poc for them, especially if it’s on the AI Development side.
200 00:22:18.630 ⇒ 00:22:28.830 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I think it’s it’s been. Yeah, I mean, I feel like, in a sense, the selling has changed the past quarter, at least at least for because we’re maybe trying to move up mid to up to mid market a bit.
201 00:22:29.630 ⇒ 00:22:48.079 Robert Tseng: only working with like early stage startups. But yeah, so it’s like, kind of installed flight. Like, feel like we’re still talking to the same folks that we talked to last quarter. Maybe we’ve like done a couple of small things for them. But yeah, like trying to trying to close them within this quarter. Or hopefully, it doesn’t carry over. But
202 00:22:48.240 ⇒ 00:22:50.950 Robert Tseng: yeah, I think just like knowing how to pace
203 00:22:51.720 ⇒ 00:22:55.660 Robert Tseng: myself like through that cycle like I’m I’m I’m learning that right now.
204 00:22:55.960 ⇒ 00:22:58.730 Gibson Farone-Collins: Yeah, for sure. That’s that’s super interesting.
205 00:22:58.730 ⇒ 00:22:59.210 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
206 00:22:59.210 ⇒ 00:23:05.660 Gibson Farone-Collins: What are you seeing in the AI space like what’s what’s been the company reaction to that stuff recently.
207 00:23:06.170 ⇒ 00:23:29.340 Robert Tseng: Yeah. Well, I mean, I think there’s definitely like a shift in oh, I mean, like the the hype of like, oh, the AI proof of concept thing has kind of like died down. I think a lot of the low hanging fruit use cases like voice agents, for example, a lot. There’s a consolidation. A lot of those startups are being acquired by. And so I I think there’s less less of no like there aren’t.
208 00:23:29.590 ⇒ 00:23:43.190 Robert Tseng: So yeah, I think, like these kind of like Gpt Wrapper, like companies like they’re. I think there’s they’re gonna they’re a lot of them are getting eaten up. There’s more of a desire and more of an appetite, for like full
209 00:23:43.646 ⇒ 00:24:04.440 Robert Tseng: I guess full stack kind of like agents that are able to deploy multiple workflows, and truly like replace like certain functions. So I think, like, I see the marketing messaging, changing to it’s like this, is your AI Sdr, or like this is your AI lawyer, not just like this is your outbound scheduling tool, or whatever thing. So
210 00:24:05.033 ⇒ 00:24:07.350 Robert Tseng: yeah, I think like, that’s.
211 00:24:07.450 ⇒ 00:24:31.030 Robert Tseng: I mean, even with like, we, we actually kind of do work in the in the legal space as well. So we work with like a personal injury firm. Yeah, I mean, we’re we’re just like trying to like, go wide and and cover a lot of different use cases for them and try to take that to go and pitch other other law firms. But yeah, I think like, that’s that’s kind of what it is right now. Like.
212 00:24:31.580 ⇒ 00:24:43.920 Robert Tseng: yeah, like, it’s you kind of need to have, like an operator’s background. Now, to not just be testing for like one super like narrow use like use case, but be able to understand like, what is that? Full
213 00:24:44.140 ⇒ 00:24:48.430 Robert Tseng: persons like work that you’re like? Kind of replacing.
214 00:24:48.570 ⇒ 00:24:55.910 Gibson Farone-Collins: Yeah, yeah, it’s amazing how fast it was. Just like better Google, like.
215 00:24:56.600 ⇒ 00:24:59.109 Gibson Farone-Collins: you know, 2 years ago, or whatever.
216 00:24:59.110 ⇒ 00:25:07.538 Robert Tseng: Yeah, yeah. I mean, on the other way, you know, obviously, Google and Apple, like stock prices dropped a lot search volumes of tanks.
217 00:25:07.890 ⇒ 00:25:08.380 Gibson Farone-Collins: Yeah.
218 00:25:08.380 ⇒ 00:25:09.770 Robert Tseng: Yeah, it’s crazy.
219 00:25:11.590 ⇒ 00:25:14.590 Gibson Farone-Collins: That’s cool that’s cool to be in the in the trenches on it.
220 00:25:15.560 ⇒ 00:25:33.799 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I think I I like being in the services side right now, because I don’t think there’s a clear, winning horse like there were tools that we engaged with like a year and a half ago, like we use, we used to use a tool for like model testing. They were like one of the 1st movers into that space. And then
221 00:25:33.960 ⇒ 00:25:40.260 Robert Tseng: I mean, now, there’s just like a bunch of clones of them, and some of them are free. So we just like and better. So we’ve moved off of them. So
222 00:25:40.540 ⇒ 00:25:58.770 Robert Tseng: I mean, they raise a hundred 1 billion or whatever. But I don’t think that they’re they’re doing well, like, I, yeah, there’s no way like there’s other teams that are eating into their chair. And now, so it’s like, I don’t think yeah, like none of those. Very, very few of those early players are going to be the same ones that we’ll see like a year or 2 from now.
223 00:25:58.770 ⇒ 00:26:10.600 Gibson Farone-Collins: Yeah, we we’ve been looking a little bit at like AI content creation, for you know. Make make me ads, whatever, and
224 00:26:11.840 ⇒ 00:26:16.950 Gibson Farone-Collins: I don’t know. They’ve they’ve all been kind of bad that I’ve looked at. It’s like 5.
225 00:26:17.430 ⇒ 00:26:23.249 Gibson Farone-Collins: But I feel like 3 months from now someone’s gonna figure it out. And it’s gonna be really good.
226 00:26:23.580 ⇒ 00:26:23.980 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
227 00:26:23.980 ⇒ 00:26:29.459 Gibson Farone-Collins: And then everyone’s gonna have it 9 months from now, or something like that. How fast it’s moving.
228 00:26:29.640 ⇒ 00:26:34.339 Robert Tseng: Like icon and air and stuff like that, like on the creatives? Or are you talking about content, like writing.
229 00:26:34.340 ⇒ 00:26:36.059 Gibson Farone-Collins: I think it was. It was Icon that.
230 00:26:36.060 ⇒ 00:26:37.020 Robert Tseng: Icon, okay.
231 00:26:37.020 ⇒ 00:26:42.440 Gibson Farone-Collins: That when I looked at it wasn’t horrible, but it was like was fine.
232 00:26:42.940 ⇒ 00:26:50.269 Robert Tseng: Yeah, no, I mean, it still spits out stuff with like 6 fingers. And whatever like one of my clients, yeah, it’s funny.
233 00:26:50.380 ⇒ 00:26:50.890 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
234 00:26:50.890 ⇒ 00:26:52.310 Gibson Farone-Collins: Our our client.
235 00:26:53.103 ⇒ 00:27:02.580 Gibson Farone-Collins: The reason I’ve been looking at these more specifically the last few weeks is he came to us really excited about it, you know. He like saw the sales pitch and the sales pitch looks awesome.
236 00:27:02.580 ⇒ 00:27:03.939 Gibson Farone-Collins: Yeah, it was awesome.
237 00:27:04.280 ⇒ 00:27:16.239 Gibson Farone-Collins: They’ve got all the brands, you know, all the Logos on there of all these hot companies. And then you kind of go under the hood. And it’s like, Yeah, I don’t know if you wanna like. Don’t fire your graphic design team. Yeah.
238 00:27:16.240 ⇒ 00:27:23.640 Robert Tseng: Yeah, are you using AI tools in your in in your own team’s workflows? Like, I’m curious what.
239 00:27:23.980 ⇒ 00:27:27.850 Gibson Farone-Collins: I’m mostly just a chat. Gpt Guy.
240 00:27:28.220 ⇒ 00:27:28.990 Robert Tseng: Okay.
241 00:27:28.990 ⇒ 00:27:36.229 Gibson Farone-Collins: I I think I’m pretty unsophisticated, as far as it goes. With that, I really wish there was a good slide making
242 00:27:36.610 ⇒ 00:27:42.229 Gibson Farone-Collins: tool. Is that so much of my my like output is slides.
243 00:27:42.440 ⇒ 00:27:43.310 Gibson Farone-Collins: But
244 00:27:43.410 ⇒ 00:27:50.239 Gibson Farone-Collins: everything that I’ve tried just kind of gives me crap back, and it’s like more time than it’s worth to clean it up.
245 00:27:50.720 ⇒ 00:27:51.430 Robert Tseng: I say.
246 00:27:51.960 ⇒ 00:27:57.330 Gibson Farone-Collins: But yeah, what about? I’m sure you’re much more integrated into that or.
247 00:27:57.560 ⇒ 00:28:00.097 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, we’ve built stuff like,
248 00:28:00.530 ⇒ 00:28:29.219 Robert Tseng: we have like AI agents, and every like slack channel with we have with the clients. So. And it’s like plugged into their code base that we’ve set up for them so like they can just like ask questions of it. So for even for the non debt like a developer, would probably be using cursor and plugging that into the code base and be able to co develop with it. But if somebody just has questions about how a metric is calculated, or you know things like that, they’ll we just have the client just ask the agent first, st and like, it’s it’s pretty good at spinning spinning stuff out like that.
249 00:28:29.739 ⇒ 00:28:34.129 Robert Tseng: Yeah, we do our own like slack and zoom summarization. And
250 00:28:34.506 ⇒ 00:28:39.050 Robert Tseng: you know, I kind of like a lot of it is more on the go to market side like trying to.
251 00:28:39.460 ⇒ 00:28:52.999 Robert Tseng: I, I basically have like 3 engineers just like trying to crank out stuff on the Bd side to help me like Lead list building, like doing some of the initial follow up like helping with the outbound and inbound triaging.
252 00:28:53.684 ⇒ 00:28:55.499 Robert Tseng: But yeah, like, that’s
253 00:28:56.070 ⇒ 00:29:01.520 Robert Tseng: yeah. That’s I think that’s that’s the edge that we’re gonna have to have. Like, we have to be able to
254 00:29:01.630 ⇒ 00:29:08.239 Robert Tseng: like. I don’t want to hire a salesperson that’s kind of like one of the things that I’m like. I’m a bet that I’m making like I feel like
255 00:29:08.690 ⇒ 00:29:16.139 Robert Tseng: between my business partner and I like we can. You know, I feel like we can automate like all the others, like lead research and follow up stuff.
256 00:29:18.070 ⇒ 00:29:18.770 Robert Tseng: But
257 00:29:18.900 ⇒ 00:29:27.949 Robert Tseng: yeah, that pro that. And the project manager. I think those are like the 2 like roles that we’re trying to not hire more of, and just try to build tooling around it.
258 00:29:28.510 ⇒ 00:29:30.989 Gibson Farone-Collins: Oh, that’s cool! I mean it it
259 00:29:31.640 ⇒ 00:29:34.840 Gibson Farone-Collins: I don’t know it. It sounds like it’s working at this point.
260 00:29:35.830 ⇒ 00:29:39.563 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, so far, it’s I mean, I think it’s also just like,
261 00:29:40.710 ⇒ 00:29:50.339 Robert Tseng: oh, yeah, maybe we’d be say, saving ourselves some some headache. We just tried to if we just brought someone in. But it’s kind of like keeping ourselves
262 00:29:50.450 ⇒ 00:29:54.679 Robert Tseng: desperate. So it forces the team to go and actually figure out how to build it. I guess.
263 00:29:55.080 ⇒ 00:29:57.070 Gibson Farone-Collins: Fair enough, fair enough! I love it.
264 00:29:58.540 ⇒ 00:29:59.200 Robert Tseng: At
265 00:29:59.910 ⇒ 00:30:07.275 Robert Tseng: cool. Well, I mean, this is good. They’re catching up. I’m I’m always curious kind of like on your journey, and kind of how things are going at ox.
266 00:30:07.530 ⇒ 00:30:08.280 Gibson Farone-Collins: Yeah, same.
267 00:30:09.360 ⇒ 00:30:15.850 Robert Tseng: I’d love to just kind of pick your pick your brain, ask you questions here, there, like, yeah, I mean, I.
268 00:30:15.850 ⇒ 00:30:25.180 Gibson Farone-Collins: Yeah, we should keep this. We should keep this going. I feel like we’re we’re on a similar kind of path right now. So it’s it’s good to connect and hear what’s going on.
269 00:30:25.470 ⇒ 00:30:30.580 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I’d love to like chat to reach out and just chat with you like monthly or something, if you, if you’d be down for that.
270 00:30:30.980 ⇒ 00:30:31.660 Gibson Farone-Collins: Yeah, definitely.
271 00:30:32.410 ⇒ 00:30:38.199 Robert Tseng: Cool. Yeah, I mean, maybe I’ll just throw a placeholder on the calendar or something, and then we can kind of figure out how to schedule it in.
272 00:30:38.730 ⇒ 00:30:39.910 Gibson Farone-Collins: Perfect. I love it.
273 00:30:40.120 ⇒ 00:30:42.029 Robert Tseng: Cool Alright, thanks. Simpson.
274 00:30:42.240 ⇒ 00:30:43.829 Gibson Farone-Collins: Awesome. We’ll talk to you soon, then.
275 00:30:44.010 ⇒ 00:30:44.829 Robert Tseng: Talk to you later.