Meeting Title: Weekly Managers Meeting Date: 2025-06-24 Meeting participants: Hannah Wang, Amber Lin, Awaish Kumar, Robert Tseng, Uttam Kumaran
WEBVTT
1 00:01:42.500 ⇒ 00:01:43.710 Amber Lin: Hello!
2 00:01:45.760 ⇒ 00:01:46.870 Hannah Wang: Hello!
3 00:03:48.350 ⇒ 00:03:49.440 Robert Tseng: Oh, wow!
4 00:03:52.390 ⇒ 00:03:53.450 Hannah Wang: Hello!
5 00:03:56.830 ⇒ 00:03:59.440 Amber Lin: And do we know full transparency.
6 00:04:01.160 ⇒ 00:04:07.400 Robert Tseng: I’ll do. Tom’s gonna join. But I will just say my piece, and then when he comes, you know.
7 00:04:11.770 ⇒ 00:04:14.030 Robert Tseng: Oh, Hello! Can you still hear me?
8 00:04:14.730 ⇒ 00:04:17.790 Hannah Wang: Yeah, you were cut off in the beginning. But.
9 00:04:17.970 ⇒ 00:04:22.350 Robert Tseng: Oh, okay, I said, I don’t know if we Tom’s gonna join, but I will. Just
10 00:04:23.040 ⇒ 00:04:26.470 Robert Tseng: I just wonder I shared
11 00:04:27.660 ⇒ 00:04:36.009 Robert Tseng: kind of keep the sales marketing docs with you guys. So I wanted to walk through that and then I guess
12 00:04:36.400 ⇒ 00:04:38.699 Robert Tseng: that’s that’s all I have to say for today.
13 00:04:40.760 ⇒ 00:04:41.650 Amber Lin: Okay.
14 00:04:43.020 ⇒ 00:04:46.560 Robert Tseng: Okay, so I will share my screen.
15 00:04:54.410 ⇒ 00:05:12.100 Robert Tseng: okay, cool. So this will just kind of be a recap on kind of like, how we did last quarter compared to this quarter. We talk to be more specific about like on the financial side, but as far from like a sales perspective, you know, this table kind of shows targets that we had set. This is when amber
16 00:05:12.380 ⇒ 00:05:22.059 Robert Tseng: and rip akash, and and and Annie, we met like in March. So
17 00:05:22.733 ⇒ 00:05:31.936 Robert Tseng: yeah, obviously, we fell short of our target, Mr. Monthly. Invoice revenue, because it’s not that easy to double your revenue in a quarter
18 00:05:32.430 ⇒ 00:05:39.300 Robert Tseng: and yeah, we felt we fell short in a lot of different areas. I think we were just really aggressive with our targets and just didn’t get there.
19 00:05:39.800 ⇒ 00:05:46.839 Robert Tseng: 2 things that we did hit. Well, I think the content pipeline has definitely gotten to where we wanted to be.
20 00:05:47.380 ⇒ 00:05:58.089 Robert Tseng: And then, yeah, it’s just as far as like having our pipeline. We have have inbound. We do get inbound beats, and it’s definitely been, I think.
21 00:05:58.440 ⇒ 00:06:17.270 Robert Tseng: more more than 25% at this point. So I will call out that these are not bad signs, like obviously, like our Mrr has steadily increased. It’s more of like a 2020 increase rather than like a 200% increase. And then pipeline wise like we are maintaining big pipeline. It’s just
22 00:06:17.450 ⇒ 00:06:39.019 Robert Tseng: I think it could be more. We wanted 400. I mean, these are just numbers to you guys. But we wanted it to be double the size it was. And you know, we just realized that it was just really hard to maintain. So having the coordinator roles that we hired for, and obviously having Hannah help out more on that side. Hopefully, we’ll get increase our capacity. So we can manage a bigger pipeline.
23 00:06:40.860 ⇒ 00:06:46.439 Robert Tseng: Yeah, any questions on kind of that. And has everyone taken a look at this stock already?
24 00:06:48.880 ⇒ 00:06:55.339 Amber Lin: I had very little time to skim over, so I wouldn’t say I know this talk well.
25 00:06:55.670 ⇒ 00:06:56.810 Robert Tseng: Okay. No worries.
26 00:06:56.810 ⇒ 00:06:58.190 Hannah Wang: Yeah. I looked at it, too.
27 00:06:58.430 ⇒ 00:07:02.809 Hannah Wang: But honestly, the lingo is still hard for me.
28 00:07:02.920 ⇒ 00:07:06.996 Hannah Wang: so you might need to expand on the acronyms.
29 00:07:07.450 ⇒ 00:07:14.839 Robert Tseng: Oh, okay, yeah. So Mrr is monthly recurring revenue. It is.
30 00:07:16.910 ⇒ 00:07:25.120 Robert Tseng: It’s the way that we measure our business right now, because most of our contracts are paid bi-weekly or monthly.
31 00:07:26.980 ⇒ 00:07:28.030 Robert Tseng: I think
32 00:07:29.190 ⇒ 00:07:34.410 Robert Tseng: in the future this is not how we should be measuring the business, because, there’s just
33 00:07:39.950 ⇒ 00:07:47.899 Robert Tseng: yeah, like, we’re not like month to month is not super consistent in terms of deal flow. I think we understand some of the seasonality. Now.
34 00:07:48.260 ⇒ 00:07:49.390 Robert Tseng: where?
35 00:07:51.060 ⇒ 00:08:01.899 Robert Tseng: yeah, I would say, like summertime, like, right now, hard to sell, because people aren’t really buying compared to like q, 1 of like when the start of the new in the New Year.
36 00:08:02.294 ⇒ 00:08:18.699 Robert Tseng: And so I mean, we’re still learning like these different, like purchasing cycles. And there will be a deal that comes in through here and there. But I do think that more mature services businesses like than ours. They measure their their business off of quarterly revenue
37 00:08:19.048 ⇒ 00:08:40.950 Robert Tseng: and they’ve been in business long enough that they can compare. Q. 2 of this year to Q 2 of last year. And so yeah, maybe the way that we talk about kind of business revenue and and just like top line sales may change. But for now we still think that monthly recurring revenue is is the best way to talk about how we’re doing as a business.
38 00:08:42.570 ⇒ 00:08:48.629 Robert Tseng: Hey? What, Dom, I’m just kind of going through kind of just the the docs that I’d share with the team.
39 00:08:48.830 ⇒ 00:08:49.450 Uttam Kumaran: I think.
40 00:08:49.450 ⇒ 00:08:56.319 Robert Tseng: People didn’t really get a chance to review it yet. So I wanted to kind of just walk through our performance and the adjustments we’re making.
41 00:08:56.520 ⇒ 00:08:57.360 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. Cool.
42 00:08:58.270 ⇒ 00:09:09.050 Robert Tseng: Cool. So as far as adjustments here, I mean, we’ll just kind of consume it, I think. Yeah, maybe we’re gonna play it a bit more conservative on the adjustment definitely want to aim higher. And we.
43 00:09:09.510 ⇒ 00:09:15.420 Robert Tseng: you know, we all we always think that we’re around the corner of being able to close a lot more business
44 00:09:15.746 ⇒ 00:09:42.410 Robert Tseng: we do have, you know, a few new irons in the fire over the past month really, of new clients. That are either starting with us soon, or they’ve already started, and we’re trying to kind of grow those accounts and push them forward. So I think that’s been good. I don’t think we’ve lost any clients in in Q 2, either, so I think our baseline is pretty steady at that 70 K range. And we’re gonna just keep going higher in Q 3, I think.
45 00:09:43.123 ⇒ 00:09:44.449 Robert Tseng: Pretty shortly,
46 00:09:45.990 ⇒ 00:09:56.949 Robert Tseng: And then as far as like, so yeah, I think that’s that’s kind of the target here. Yeah. And then I wouldn’t necessarily say, I need to talk about all these different adjustments. These are just kind of
47 00:09:57.090 ⇒ 00:10:06.700 Robert Tseng: you can look at in your own time. I want to spend more time talking about the Okr specifically, and how they’ve shifted and kind of where each person kind of
48 00:10:06.850 ⇒ 00:10:07.700 Robert Tseng: telephone.
49 00:10:08.200 ⇒ 00:10:10.699 Robert Tseng: Yeah, just take more ownership of
50 00:10:12.380 ⇒ 00:10:38.700 Robert Tseng: And I suppose maybe take ownership is not the right word. We’re assigning more ownership here, and I have talked a lot about like, you know, how do we empower people to really like own things more? And you know, when we talk about this crew or the managers, or whatever. We just really see this group as like the highest agency people in the company that have been willing to stretch beyond kind of like what they’re initially assigned.
51 00:10:39.243 ⇒ 00:10:47.450 Robert Tseng: I know it’s uncomfortable at various times, but, we’re kind of just the needs of the business are there, and we.
52 00:10:47.570 ⇒ 00:10:51.669 Robert Tseng: you know, assign kind of what the needs are to you first.st So
53 00:10:52.132 ⇒ 00:11:21.350 Robert Tseng: obviously, you have. I mean, I would prefer that you push back verbally rather than you just like kind of not take. Take these things on. I guess that we can adjust. But you know this is our kind of best kind of assumptions on like, where where we can kind of involve people. So yeah, really, quickly, the the audit and strategy kind of the strategy audit sessions kind of that scope still gonna be owned primarily by me. And we talk so
54 00:11:22.590 ⇒ 00:11:31.950 Robert Tseng: yeah, we’re kind of running leading the charge on like new clients bringing them in. So I’m thinking about. Read me spark plug with default. Starting also, fan stake starting.
55 00:11:32.311 ⇒ 00:11:56.020 Robert Tseng: Yeah, we’re gonna have to be the ones that are kind of spearheading that. But we’re trying to loop people in earlier. I think. It might just set some of the the set a better tone, for like, Hey, even when you start working with Brainforge, even though it’s just, you know, we’re leading an engagement. You’re working with our team immediately, and so hoping the handoff won’t be as as rough right? Because.
56 00:11:56.479 ⇒ 00:12:04.309 Robert Tseng: there are certain clients that we have that are a lot more anchored to individuals than the team overall, which is not the precedent we want to set
57 00:12:05.679 ⇒ 00:12:22.820 Robert Tseng: as far as like the the activities that get there. We’re still leveraging upwork, the Catalan I haven’t been as consistent with. I still think it’s worth doing. We didn’t land any deals off of Catalans, but by pitching to PE firms and like kind of mid market size companies.
58 00:12:22.920 ⇒ 00:12:36.700 Robert Tseng: It kind of informed some of my contributions to how we adjusted some of the sales assets and actually got, you know, a good connection out of that. That I was able to leverage at a different sales call so. I think it’s still kind of like.
59 00:12:36.700 ⇒ 00:12:58.570 Robert Tseng: you know, if upwork is like your Smb marketplace, which it’s not. There are some bigger companies, too. Cataly is like your, you know, PE private equity mid market enterprise shop kind of marketplace. So I think just being active on these big platforms helps us to stay dialed in on like what the needs are. From a data. AI perspective.
60 00:12:59.670 ⇒ 00:13:02.639 Uttam Kumaran: Ask the question there, like, I do think that one of the big
61 00:13:02.820 ⇒ 00:13:05.990 Uttam Kumaran: improvements, you know. And this came with
62 00:13:06.200 ⇒ 00:13:10.490 Uttam Kumaran: time. But also it was. It was pretty turnkey. Wasn’t the gig radar work.
63 00:13:11.010 ⇒ 00:13:11.350 Robert Tseng: Oh, yeah.
64 00:13:11.350 ⇒ 00:13:24.500 Uttam Kumaran: How can we try to replicate a similar sort of outcome where we have? And you know that that to give everyone a sense like we’re using sort of this AI platform to help us pitch on upwork like, I wonder if there’s something similar we should
65 00:13:24.610 ⇒ 00:13:28.929 Uttam Kumaran: try to build ourselves like related to Catalan.
66 00:13:30.750 ⇒ 00:13:33.209 Uttam Kumaran: And like, maybe that’s like a that’s a good
67 00:13:33.420 ⇒ 00:13:37.639 Uttam Kumaran: like priority to try to do, because that directly affects the amount of leads that we’re
68 00:13:37.890 ⇒ 00:13:39.599 Uttam Kumaran: able to get in front of.
69 00:13:40.190 ⇒ 00:13:51.879 Robert Tseng: Totally. Yeah. I mean, I even was like we could totally replace gig radar rather than paying them, whatever like, I don’t really know. But if I were ballpark it, we’d probably pay them between like 500,000 a month.
70 00:13:52.595 ⇒ 00:14:04.959 Robert Tseng: So yeah, I think we can, we can pick a couple opportunities. Whether it’s Catalan or other platforms that we can, we can talk about. We can talk about that. So I’m I’m happy to kind of tee that up.
71 00:14:05.160 ⇒ 00:14:05.770 Robert Tseng: cause I.
72 00:14:05.770 ⇒ 00:14:12.680 Uttam Kumaran: But I sort of bulk, gig, radar, and sort of a reach, and Catalan like all into the same, which is just like
73 00:14:13.190 ⇒ 00:14:15.509 Uttam Kumaran: increasing our top of funnel.
74 00:14:15.830 ⇒ 00:14:16.530 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, like.
75 00:14:16.530 ⇒ 00:14:17.930 Robert Tseng: Automated outbound. Yeah.
76 00:14:17.930 ⇒ 00:14:19.320 Uttam Kumaran: Automated outbound. Yeah.
77 00:14:19.320 ⇒ 00:14:25.879 Robert Tseng: Yeah. Yeah. Okay, yeah. I mean, that’s let’s let’s just make a note of that. So
78 00:14:26.600 ⇒ 00:14:34.950 Robert Tseng: how do we enable more outbound across platforms with AI using.
79 00:14:36.060 ⇒ 00:14:37.130 Robert Tseng: I’m sorry.
80 00:14:37.130 ⇒ 00:14:44.180 Uttam Kumaran: Because at least that you know, on for upwork and calm there is a stated and like kind of organized demand.
81 00:14:45.900 ⇒ 00:14:48.780 Uttam Kumaran: which is nicer than the hay reach
82 00:14:49.050 ⇒ 00:14:52.270 Uttam Kumaran: stuff, because the hey re stuff, you sort of never.
83 00:14:52.370 ⇒ 00:14:55.459 Uttam Kumaran: They’ll 100% know that like they need it right now.
84 00:14:55.956 ⇒ 00:15:04.950 Uttam Kumaran: So as a like a efficiency thing. It it helps. If they have a state of demand, they see our stuff. They want to hop on a call like they’re ready to buy, most likely.
85 00:15:05.390 ⇒ 00:15:06.020 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
86 00:15:06.800 ⇒ 00:15:20.859 Robert Tseng: on that note with, Hey reach, we’ve been do slowly increasing like our network. We’ve still update those new campaigns. I also launched retargeting campaigns for existing connections. I know we thought you were kind of like. Oh, like, don’t.
87 00:15:21.340 ⇒ 00:15:25.660 Uttam Kumaran: Like texting it, and said, congrats on your job.
88 00:15:25.660 ⇒ 00:15:31.530 Robert Tseng: I also like had that situation, too. But I was just like whatever like, it’s just.
89 00:15:31.530 ⇒ 00:15:37.109 Uttam Kumaran: I got over it quickly. I was like, actually, it was fine, like they just bought bought me to the top of their brain.
90 00:15:37.250 ⇒ 00:15:44.634 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. Some people. It’s like people from college I haven’t talked to in a long time, like, I hope they don’t follow up with anything.
91 00:15:44.930 ⇒ 00:15:46.769 Robert Tseng: Why not? But like I mean sure.
92 00:15:46.770 ⇒ 00:15:53.339 Uttam Kumaran: No, it’s just like it’s just like old. It’s like old friends. I’m like, not really friends with anymore. And I’m like, dude.
93 00:15:53.340 ⇒ 00:15:58.240 Robert Tseng: If you look at my Linkedin inbox, it’s like people from high school. I haven’t talked to you since high school.
94 00:15:58.730 ⇒ 00:16:01.260 Uttam Kumaran: That’s a anything for us for a deal.
95 00:16:01.260 ⇒ 00:16:20.489 Robert Tseng: Yeah. So like, I mean, we’ll see, I think. There’s a couple like relevant catch up calls that I’m having in the next week as a result of it. But I think we could be a bit more strategic about like, how do we structure campaigns, that target existing connections? But
96 00:16:20.710 ⇒ 00:16:27.090 Robert Tseng: you know, off of good timing to try to like find a route to like a an opportunity.
97 00:16:27.505 ⇒ 00:16:48.874 Robert Tseng: What? Which I was referencing is, I literally just like set up a campaign that was off of our existing connections that went through job changes. And we’re just sending like a hey, like congrats on your new role kind of like message, and just to bring us like back to the top of their mind and see if there are any organic conversations that come out of that. So
98 00:16:49.340 ⇒ 00:16:56.040 Robert Tseng: yeah, I just kind of styled that last week, just to see how that would go. The sponsor is pretty high for my account.
99 00:16:56.540 ⇒ 00:17:03.670 Robert Tseng: but yeah, some of it is awkward. But I don’t know. I think I kind of what we yeah.
100 00:17:04.285 ⇒ 00:17:13.459 Robert Tseng: so as far as case studies. I think we’re doing good job with that. Still, I think the content motion, both Utam and I, with Ryan’s hounding, have been like
101 00:17:13.630 ⇒ 00:17:14.180 Robert Tseng: 48
102 00:17:14.569 ⇒ 00:17:23.859 Robert Tseng: stuff out. So great, I think. Yeah, the optics look good. Have had people reaching out to us both after engaging with our content.
103 00:17:25.049 ⇒ 00:17:44.406 Robert Tseng: I think we could do a better job of setting a motion to like, actually see how we can run with those opportunities towards a deal. But that’s maybe that’s like the next. The next stage here. So what I would like to do is to also enable, like the rest of the team. And so I’ve kind of tagged with Hannah and Amber here.
104 00:17:44.889 ⇒ 00:17:49.759 Robert Tseng: yeah. So kind of what I meant by this was like, Okay, well.
105 00:17:49.919 ⇒ 00:17:58.699 Robert Tseng: you know something that Utop and I talked about that isn’t really featured here. I think it’s more of a conversation I had with him in private was like.
106 00:17:58.799 ⇒ 00:18:19.689 Robert Tseng: Okay, I think our go to market motions for data. And AI still feel kind of disjointed. And so you know this, some, this something I did this time, and I think we time did it to today when we’re talking to leads. Now, whether it’s data or AI like I am making an active effort to talk about both. And I really, you know, I think that’s
107 00:18:19.689 ⇒ 00:18:37.389 Robert Tseng: we we’ve we’ve kind of. We’ve been better like kind of. We haven’t necessarily written it down or documentation. But in the conversations that we’re having really emphasizing kind of the AI enablement piece to to our our work. And that’s really like a differentiating factor for us. And so
108 00:18:37.781 ⇒ 00:18:47.689 Robert Tseng: I think the more kind of like stories that we can share across the team of like how we’re using AI in our work.
109 00:18:48.571 ⇒ 00:18:57.009 Robert Tseng: I’m I kind of just thought this would be a good kind of showcase. So I mean, I I guess you know, on a you know, a weekly basis. We
110 00:18:57.159 ⇒ 00:19:24.159 Robert Tseng: our team to kind of do a feature. But I’m thinking that you know a wish over engineering Hannah marketing and amber kind of across other clients. And you know, just maybe just project. And she puts a lot of docs and does a lot of ops in general I’ll have good optics across the entire business of like, how we’re touching or how we’re using AI in our in our tools. So I think it would be great if you know, we can
111 00:19:24.279 ⇒ 00:19:33.249 Robert Tseng: be recording loom videos of like what we’re doing, either. Maybe it’s manually first, st but then, like the AI team helps enable it.
112 00:19:33.369 ⇒ 00:19:43.169 Robert Tseng: I I think this could be a bit more crystallized on, like what the expectation is. But I I’m I was imagining something like, you know, if
113 00:19:43.659 ⇒ 00:19:50.439 Robert Tseng: before every kind of like company wide meeting, you know, on before Friday.
114 00:19:50.579 ⇒ 00:20:18.659 Robert Tseng: everyone here has to share kind of like a video of like what they did like. We’re just one thing that they did and talking through what they did, using kind of AI tools that we built internally things that we’re using from other like just that we don’t just anything that we’re already using to to help with our work. And that’s just gonna be more content for Ryan to be able to go and and share the like. How we actually how the sausage is actually made. Kind of content.
115 00:20:18.909 ⇒ 00:20:19.949 Robert Tseng: Yeah, amber.
116 00:20:21.372 ⇒ 00:20:29.010 Amber Lin: A concern I have is a lot of times. What I’m working on with AI is client work, and I don’t know if I can share that.
117 00:20:31.800 ⇒ 00:20:36.540 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I think my thought process there is, you should find a way to anonymize it.
118 00:20:37.199 ⇒ 00:20:49.890 Uttam Kumaran: And like, basically dissect the actual like, what is the task you’re accomplishing with AI. So if it’s like cool, we helped ABC move something from one street spreadsheet to another and did some transformation. It breaks it down into like.
119 00:20:50.110 ⇒ 00:20:53.560 Uttam Kumaran: We use AI to enable this type of workflow.
120 00:20:53.760 ⇒ 00:20:57.479 Uttam Kumaran: So there has to be. So I think everything’s up for
121 00:20:57.670 ⇒ 00:21:04.149 Uttam Kumaran: being able to be posted, and then, if it’s client stuff, then I would just try to help Ryan anonymize it as much as
122 00:21:04.350 ⇒ 00:21:10.350 Uttam Kumaran: as much as you can, so it’s more about the workflow and the capability
123 00:21:10.470 ⇒ 00:21:12.919 Uttam Kumaran: less about like who who it was for. Yeah.
124 00:21:12.920 ⇒ 00:21:14.440 Amber Lin: I see sounds good.
125 00:21:14.440 ⇒ 00:21:25.300 Uttam Kumaran: Like you could write about evals like, how you collect evals like, why, that matters and like in terms of getting screenshots and stuff like you can ask him to to help produce that or produce like a fake. Eval doc, like
126 00:21:25.570 ⇒ 00:21:27.030 Uttam Kumaran: there’s ways around it.
127 00:21:28.280 ⇒ 00:21:51.169 Uttam Kumaran: I think the limiting factor here really is sort of the bridge that probably Robert and I crossed, which is just our confidence in getting these stories out. And like, I think people are reading all this stuff we’re putting out. And so I think what’s been helpful about us as a business is how transparent we have been, and just being able to put that stuff out there, I think.
128 00:21:51.380 ⇒ 00:21:57.929 Uttam Kumaran: was really building up our brand as like a firm that helps people implement AI and data, and also does a lot of that
129 00:21:58.450 ⇒ 00:22:00.030 Uttam Kumaran: inside, you know.
130 00:22:03.840 ⇒ 00:22:04.750 Amber Lin: I agree.
131 00:22:09.440 ⇒ 00:22:10.170 Robert Tseng: Okay,
132 00:22:11.800 ⇒ 00:22:20.232 Robert Tseng: So I’ll just kind of keep going through this. Yeah. And then from like partner source, before we had something here that was like
133 00:22:20.790 ⇒ 00:22:24.909 Robert Tseng: kind of plug and play like vendor thing, like a corral or an omni.
134 00:22:25.030 ⇒ 00:22:30.690 Robert Tseng: I think we’ve pretty much dropped those as go to market initiatives, and we’ve been leaning more into just kind of
135 00:22:31.160 ⇒ 00:22:48.590 Robert Tseng: nurturing partnerships and getting leads from them. So you know, Real has passes a bunch of leads, you know, there’s opportunities with some of our other vendor or agency partners. And we’ve already talked about this with Hannah, so I won’t kind of elaborate too much, but just want to give the rest of the team some visibility there.
136 00:22:49.117 ⇒ 00:23:03.859 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I think the idea is to really just drive more leads through our partnerships, and I think with having Hannah kind of help with the the nurture like the nurturing side. I mean, I just listed out some activities that could help.
137 00:23:04.254 ⇒ 00:23:20.780 Robert Tseng: We already have a bunch of active, slack channels with partners. We’ve done co-marketing with them. We’ve hosted events with partners. And so we’ve we’ve done quite a bit in terms of like how we’ve grown with part or like how we’ve grown relationships with partners. I think.
138 00:23:20.890 ⇒ 00:23:28.490 Robert Tseng: yeah, just wanting to wanting more of the effort to go into like going after
139 00:23:28.530 ⇒ 00:23:55.219 Robert Tseng: are like, yeah, just doing what we can to work with partners like, you know. I think about amplitude. Amplitude wants to run something with us in Denver, you know. They’ve they’ve talked about this whole mid market segment that they don’t really serve very well wanting a partner to go and like kind of be like the digital transformation expert for those for those types of for that market. And they’re willing to give us the chance to go and do that. So I know I think there’s a whole like
140 00:23:55.250 ⇒ 00:24:01.389 Robert Tseng: there’s a lot of steps that we need to take before we can go and and host that kind of event with them. But that would be huge.
141 00:24:01.927 ⇒ 00:24:11.110 Robert Tseng: And so, whether it’s between that with some of our vendors, or you know, we have like, I think we’re also talking to
142 00:24:11.788 ⇒ 00:24:23.051 Robert Tseng: blueprint, which is like a Vc fund. There’s an opportunity to host a workshop for them in in San Diego in front of 20 of their portfolio companies.
143 00:24:23.510 ⇒ 00:24:41.143 Robert Tseng: and we’re yeah. I think that’s just an opportunity for us to go and and have like. Yet we we end up having to do work. We get getting to to work with each of those companies individually. And that’s that’s like, that’s a bunch of leads just just from that. So,
144 00:24:41.550 ⇒ 00:24:56.369 Robert Tseng: yeah, I think. Just be more clear about that motion and emphasizing that like, I think, partner, driven growth is going to be a big emphasis for us in this quarter. That’s really what this initiative is. And I think Anna is gonna play a key role in that.
145 00:25:01.030 ⇒ 00:25:05.769 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I think maybe one piece there is also just making sure that we get something out of it.
146 00:25:06.352 ⇒ 00:25:17.980 Uttam Kumaran: And I think at minimum that could be co-marketing. And then a maximum. That’s sort of like actually doing business together. But there are a lot of partners who will not be able to punch
147 00:25:18.520 ⇒ 00:25:24.389 Uttam Kumaran: at their weight class, and so we should quickly move away or will be distractions.
148 00:25:24.789 ⇒ 00:25:32.889 Uttam Kumaran: So that’s I think, something that, like Hannah, if we’re working on that together. We can have a discussion because we’re not gonna be able to run
149 00:25:33.220 ⇒ 00:25:37.490 Uttam Kumaran: like we’re not gonna be able to maintain. I think 30 or 40 partners.
150 00:25:37.630 ⇒ 00:25:42.799 Uttam Kumaran: So we wanna just double down where it matters and then tell the rest of the folks.
151 00:25:43.010 ⇒ 00:25:51.349 Uttam Kumaran: hey, like we were happy to work, but like we just don’t see a clear path towards revenue, and we’re strapped for resources. So unless that’s super clear.
152 00:25:51.450 ⇒ 00:26:00.320 Uttam Kumaran: there’s no need for us, and as we get bigger and do more stuff, the rate of distractions and the odds of having a distraction is gonna increase. So
153 00:26:00.700 ⇒ 00:26:05.760 Uttam Kumaran: that’s why, like our goal is to somewhere really on the sales side, is to qualify and disqualify
154 00:26:06.100 ⇒ 00:26:10.550 Uttam Kumaran: these sorts of things faster. Like to give you an example.
155 00:26:10.950 ⇒ 00:26:17.120 Uttam Kumaran: this talisma thing. And this is. This will be our 3rd call with them
156 00:26:18.560 ⇒ 00:26:26.130 Uttam Kumaran: And at this point, like they seem like a fucking dinosaur, like they seem like so slow.
157 00:26:26.310 ⇒ 00:26:30.769 Uttam Kumaran: I presented all of our stuff they presented some stuff
158 00:26:31.250 ⇒ 00:26:45.479 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know. Seems like kind of like big it consulting type stuff, I could tell, I can tell. And I’m trying to understand why Aaron wants to work with us because we are very quick.
159 00:26:45.630 ⇒ 00:26:51.859 Uttam Kumaran: We know all of like what’s actually happening on the ground. And we’re here in the Us.
160 00:26:51.980 ⇒ 00:27:05.600 Uttam Kumaran: But I will quickly find out, like at these meetings, hey? Like what is actually going on here like? Do we need to share like, are we gonna plan on doing marketing? Are we gonna share client lists and attack stuff? Are you gonna bring us into stuff.
161 00:27:05.950 ⇒ 00:27:10.279 Uttam Kumaran: And or are we gonna bring in you you into stuff? And if so, when.
162 00:27:10.600 ⇒ 00:27:14.039 Uttam Kumaran: like, those are the questions I’m gonna ask today, because otherwise it’s like.
163 00:27:14.150 ⇒ 00:27:20.999 Uttam Kumaran: I’m not here to sort of talk to other people and give them a tell them what we’re doing, because there’s no they’re just gonna steal what we’re doing so
164 00:27:21.400 ⇒ 00:27:32.260 Uttam Kumaran: you’ll I think you’ll see as I, as I go to more of these partner things that we need to make sure we’re all we’re always on top of the sort of arrangements we’re getting just as much, if not more, out of it, you know.
165 00:27:33.410 ⇒ 00:27:40.820 Hannah Wang: Okay, yeah, it’ll be helpful for me to kind of see how you bring that up in the call later today.
166 00:27:41.020 ⇒ 00:27:41.650 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
167 00:27:45.900 ⇒ 00:28:02.590 Robert Tseng: Cool. I’ll just keep going through this. So yeah, pipeline potential. I mean, this is mostly unchanged. So if anything, we just have the degrade our piece that we’ve already talked about before, so I won’t kind of double click into that I think what we were doing was great. We just gotta do it more. So that’s really this takeaway there.
168 00:28:03.423 ⇒ 00:28:07.046 Robert Tseng: And then this. Okr, this is really what
169 00:28:08.160 ⇒ 00:28:37.709 Robert Tseng: I share this with Sid, who started today. So she’s our sales coordinator. I think. Couple things to know. I think she’s working on the Hubspot thing to this week. So making sure that all leads. Hubspot is set up. All leads are migrated. That’s kind of the objective that I have for her by the end of the week, because through that she’s gonna study our life cycle stages. She can ask me any questions about things. And I guess you can go and look at her onboarding plan with the checklist of everything that she’s doing.
170 00:28:39.480 ⇒ 00:28:51.789 Robert Tseng: I think we’re gonna give her 2 weeks to see if this trial goes well. She is going on a 1 week vacation end of next Friday. So I think that’s I think by that point we should. We should know pretty clearly, if this is going to be a good fit.
171 00:28:53.760 ⇒ 00:29:03.190 Robert Tseng: But yeah, I think this is just she’s gonna enable us to do follow ups more, quicker. And then, when we’re
172 00:29:03.400 ⇒ 00:29:12.039 Robert Tseng: hopefully to scale up the number of campaigns that we’re running as well. Because right now, just the setup takes me a while I pretty much set them up on weekends. So
173 00:29:13.440 ⇒ 00:29:20.567 Robert Tseng: yeah, other than that. Not so focused on.
174 00:29:22.060 ⇒ 00:29:25.670 Robert Tseng: yeah, I think that’s it. Those are. Those are the main. Those are the main things from this
175 00:29:26.440 ⇒ 00:29:27.840 Robert Tseng: any other questions.
176 00:29:33.390 ⇒ 00:29:38.890 Robert Tseng: Okay? If not, then on the so on the marketing side, there’s like a few things I wanted to update.
177 00:29:43.710 ⇒ 00:29:46.759 Robert Tseng: Yeah, okay, thanks for commenting on some stuff. We don’t. But
178 00:29:47.380 ⇒ 00:30:05.470 Robert Tseng: I only really updated the first.st Okr, I think the rest of the stuff was kind of stuff, we said at the beginning of the year and I think we already like we surpassed this. So I think we gotta like do do one better and kind of think about. I’ve been thinking about how to unify like sales and marketing under the same objectives more clearly
179 00:30:05.470 ⇒ 00:30:22.499 Robert Tseng: so for this one, like filling pipeline with more filling the pipeline. I think this is the same Okr that is shared on sales side. I think the initiatives are slightly different. So want to just call that out. So. One is like, you know, through our contents.
180 00:30:22.560 ⇒ 00:30:32.229 Robert Tseng: Right? We have. I think what would be great that we don’t have right now is.
181 00:30:32.360 ⇒ 00:30:48.480 Robert Tseng: I think this is kind of the a similar idea, not just going back into our network and asking them like, Hey like, Do you have opportunities for us to like do business together? But if not like also asking them for referrals like, are there? Is there anybody.
182 00:30:48.850 ⇒ 00:30:55.659 Robert Tseng: you know, for clients that we like working with the lookalike clients like anybody else in those industries? I I just think that we’re sitting on like
183 00:30:55.780 ⇒ 00:31:10.808 Robert Tseng: a good network right now that, we could be leveraging more rather than just like, only focused on getting getting elite. So but yeah, I guess that’s I think there’s there’s kind of a mar marketing has a role in that
184 00:31:11.460 ⇒ 00:31:20.380 Robert Tseng: and I think marketing and sales probably need to come together more frequently to better assess kind of like the quality of the people that are engaging with our content.
185 00:31:20.773 ⇒ 00:31:34.110 Robert Tseng: You know, we get a lot of engagement on our posts. We get dms at this point. We also get some website visitors. So yeah, I think more of that needs to be come to come to the surface, and marketing and sales need to be.
186 00:31:34.310 ⇒ 00:31:47.159 Robert Tseng: Or I guess really, marketing needs to be knowing who those personas are. They can’t just be people that are like texting me every time. And nobody else knows about them. So that’s kind of the the initiative there.
187 00:31:51.450 ⇒ 00:32:02.820 Robert Tseng: Okay? And then the next piece is on. Founder led contents. So I think it’s great that we have enough content to be putting out on a weekly cadence, and we’re following Ryan’s kind of schedule there.
188 00:32:03.253 ⇒ 00:32:08.829 Robert Tseng: I think it would just need to be more. The next step is just to make them more targeted at our icps.
189 00:32:09.277 ⇒ 00:32:20.740 Robert Tseng: Icps are kind of our ideal customer profile. So something that’s an ongoing conversation we’re always talking about. Who’s the person who wants to buy what we have, what we have to offer?
190 00:32:21.184 ⇒ 00:32:46.759 Robert Tseng: There are different ways to cut this up by industry by role. But I think like the more that we can describe this person which we have different resources and the sales docs that we’ve tried to talk about. I think Hannah has looked at it before, and she’s looked at like, how do you talk about Brainforge? To a non technical person, to a you know, to a technical founder or whatever. And we have, you know, a resource like that already.
191 00:32:48.190 ⇒ 00:32:54.219 Robert Tseng: But yeah, I think like for our there’s there to be more consistency, and
192 00:32:54.460 ⇒ 00:33:07.999 Robert Tseng: doesn’t mean every post that we share is gonna be speaking to that person. But I I want to have more of of an experiment where we know we’re trying to target someone in our Icp when we put out a piece of content or run a campaign.
193 00:33:08.210 ⇒ 00:33:15.649 Robert Tseng: are we actually reaching them? And how are they engaging with our with our content, you know, and and I think that will help us to be more
194 00:33:16.092 ⇒ 00:33:43.949 Robert Tseng: like reproducible, and like making sure that what we’re producing is is relevant to the person we actually want to see our content. So I don’t really think we’ve kind of gotten there from a marketing perspective yet. Which is fine. I think we’ve just been focused on building the right routines and and and having posting consistency. But yeah, I think we want to narrow our kind of be more focused on on targeted content.
195 00:33:46.420 ⇒ 00:34:12.010 Robert Tseng: And that I think, if that involves turning like our highest performing social posts, kind of kind of dissecting that, and then being able to to push it out to different forms of content, especially like long form things that we feel comfortable going back to people we’ve talked to and be like, Hey was thinking about you. We wrote this, we wrote this piece based off of this conversation we had before. Hope it’s helpful, like wanting, wanting, to have more of those
196 00:34:12.010 ⇒ 00:34:16.810 Robert Tseng: types of conversations with with with people that we’re talking to?
197 00:34:19.832 ⇒ 00:34:24.700 Robert Tseng: And the last one here. Yeah, this is really just
198 00:34:24.989 ⇒ 00:34:32.659 Robert Tseng: okay. How do we increase usage of the sales assets that we put together. Obviously we have a lot of stuff in the bank now.
199 00:34:34.090 ⇒ 00:34:55.080 Robert Tseng: and for the most part we are sharing it with every lead. But I think, even with the copy that I’m testing for outbound campaigns, you know, I’m dropping case studies or links, or or kind of stuff and then, and I don’t really know if people are opening them like, I think we have it in our domain. But I don’t know if people are open opening these these things, and
200 00:34:55.750 ⇒ 00:35:07.749 Robert Tseng: I don’t really know we haven’t been getting feedback on it, either from from from people. I think only our partners really comment on it, but we want more of our prospects to comment on what we’re sharing with them.
201 00:35:08.070 ⇒ 00:35:13.499 Robert Tseng: So yeah, I think both Hannah and Sid the sales Coordinator.
202 00:35:13.620 ⇒ 00:35:17.360 Robert Tseng: as you’re kind of helping. You know Utam and I with our messaging.
203 00:35:17.590 ⇒ 00:35:23.490 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I want to get to a place where we are making sure that we’re sharing something with every person.
204 00:35:23.881 ⇒ 00:35:40.200 Robert Tseng: If they don’t like what we’re sharing like, why and like what we can do better like if we’re missing anything that did that stopped us from sharing something that needs to get on our roadmap, too. So I think that’s that’s kind of how I think we’re gonna activate sales assets that we have more.
205 00:35:43.040 ⇒ 00:35:49.369 Robert Tseng: Okay? So that’s it for the mark, the load marketing objective for now, maybe there’s other stuff, or I’m totally.
206 00:35:49.370 ⇒ 00:36:07.359 Uttam Kumaran: One more. Yeah, one more thing. On. That is, I also think that we we now have taken like one or 2 iterations at a lot of our documents, and I think it could be time also, Hannah, to start to get Ryan to maybe post like either from our account, just like sharing those more widely.
207 00:36:07.390 ⇒ 00:36:23.620 Uttam Kumaran: The case studies. The the tool sort of diagrams and a lot of that stuff. I think those are just really great opportunities for another post. So whether it’s tearing from any of our accounts and the company account, we can just start to put those out there on a regular basis.
208 00:36:24.730 ⇒ 00:36:28.710 Hannah Wang: Okay, yeah, just I mean, I kinda asked this earlier, but
209 00:36:28.990 ⇒ 00:36:33.702 Hannah Wang: if there’s any of them that should be more gated, which I think you already told me
210 00:36:33.980 ⇒ 00:36:40.430 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I still think probably the deck and stuff probably not so necessary, but like any of the one pagers and the
211 00:36:40.750 ⇒ 00:36:42.090 Uttam Kumaran: sort of
212 00:36:42.754 ⇒ 00:37:00.889 Uttam Kumaran: like other sort of like single things are, are really really great. And then the case studies. I think the case studies the probably the only thing I would just double confirm is like, for example, if we post the ABC case study, I would just I will. I’ll just run it by Steven one more time. That way. We just don’t get into any
213 00:37:01.350 ⇒ 00:37:03.019 Uttam Kumaran: issues with people seeing it.
214 00:37:03.420 ⇒ 00:37:04.340 Hannah Wang: Yeah.
215 00:37:04.340 ⇒ 00:37:17.459 Hannah Wang: I mean, we don’t have. I think we have more anonymized case studies than non anonymized. But yeah, I think we have like stack Blitz and ABC and something else. But everything else is fair game. So yeah.
216 00:37:17.460 ⇒ 00:37:18.030 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
217 00:37:22.100 ⇒ 00:37:22.850 Robert Tseng: Okay.
218 00:37:24.600 ⇒ 00:37:37.549 Robert Tseng: cool. So yeah. I mean, I may like add one more objective. I think I would rather it be closely coupled with sales. So I don’t. I I think if we can have both.
219 00:37:38.360 ⇒ 00:37:45.150 Robert Tseng: I mean, it’s not that many people on our team, but if we have everyone kind of aligned under the same objectives. I think that’ll naturally lead us to.
220 00:37:45.860 ⇒ 00:37:56.500 Robert Tseng: I’ll be running on on the same, on the same path again. So I I’m still kind of deliberating whether or not I even want to add anything else like I I do think that this kind of comprises most of what
221 00:37:56.710 ⇒ 00:38:06.680 Robert Tseng: we’re we’re doing. But I do know that we are doing other marketing things. And so I want to make sure that that’s well represented. In in the okrs as well for this board.
222 00:38:08.700 ⇒ 00:38:09.390 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
223 00:38:12.530 ⇒ 00:38:17.029 Robert Tseng: okay, cool. So that’s pretty much it. That’s all I had to share.
224 00:38:20.070 ⇒ 00:38:23.809 Amber Lin: Thank you, Robert. I was wondering how I would
225 00:38:24.299 ⇒ 00:38:38.140 Amber Lin: play a part in all of this, or is this more of a this is what’s happening, how we can help. I know the helping with the case studies of how we use an AI internally. I can help with anything else.
226 00:38:38.840 ⇒ 00:38:43.070 Amber Lin: Or am I helping with a different side of objectives that we have.
227 00:38:43.890 ⇒ 00:38:46.090 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I guess.
228 00:38:50.570 ⇒ 00:38:52.250 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I
229 00:38:53.420 ⇒ 00:39:00.539 Robert Tseng: I mean, personally, I just thought that like, maybe we’re, you know, Amber’s a lot more focused on kind of like the delivery side.
230 00:39:00.540 ⇒ 00:39:00.929 Uttam Kumaran: Got correct.
231 00:39:00.930 ⇒ 00:39:03.069 Robert Tseng: Right? Now, yeah, so.
232 00:39:03.070 ⇒ 00:39:09.059 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. So I I do think that our probably a lot of our delivery, that they are actually last quarter are really the
233 00:39:09.210 ⇒ 00:39:27.910 Uttam Kumaran: still think that our work towards the Junior Pm, we’re actually a lot closer on. And I just think that probably as part of the we should probably align with what you’re working with Alex on on like, okay, what should our company okrs be around delivery excellence, basically
234 00:39:28.313 ⇒ 00:39:52.906 Uttam Kumaran: operational efficiency. I think that’s probably the last one. I mean, some of the things are like we want to set goals. So like waking up in the morning is not like an Okr right? Because we’re gonna wake up every morning. But so like executing for clients doesn’t necessarily have to be written down. But if there is a clear objective into like, hey? We want to achieve X performance or Y, amount of renewals.
235 00:39:53.600 ⇒ 00:40:03.920 Uttam Kumaran: and we want to sort of like, strive for that. I think that’s something we can do. We can reflect on what our what we wrote down for last quarter, and basically leverage that as well.
236 00:40:05.550 ⇒ 00:40:26.951 Amber Lin: Sure, I think those could. I know the Q 3. Planning is coming up a few things on my mind is overall looking at our hours and our margins on different projects, and then for each of the projects, how close are we to having each clients extremely satisfied?
237 00:40:27.850 ⇒ 00:40:33.839 Amber Lin: And, for instance, for ABC and Madam More, if there’s potential to expand
238 00:40:34.540 ⇒ 00:40:44.880 Amber Lin: so items like that, and how we leverage our time on these projects would probably be more of things that I’m thinking about.
239 00:40:46.400 ⇒ 00:40:51.380 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I do think that probably one thing we didn’t set before is like margin targets, and maybe that.
240 00:40:51.380 ⇒ 00:40:51.820 Amber Lin: That’s fine!
241 00:40:51.820 ⇒ 00:40:54.680 Uttam Kumaran: Knew that we should set on like a
242 00:40:55.260 ⇒ 00:41:00.170 Uttam Kumaran: per project, and like on the entirety goals.
243 00:41:01.100 ⇒ 00:41:06.310 Uttam Kumaran: goals related to that. And then, yeah, and sort of renewal and expansion again.
244 00:41:06.540 ⇒ 00:41:09.680 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know. It’s tough, because I feel like
245 00:41:11.061 ⇒ 00:41:17.570 Uttam Kumaran: that that I don’t know. It’s like we we put that under sales. Or we sort of put that under just typical account management.
246 00:41:20.950 ⇒ 00:41:22.350 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, it’s a good point.
247 00:41:26.190 ⇒ 00:41:34.970 Amber Lin: well, I don’t think we can. It’s good that we brought it up I don’t think we can come to a conclusion this meeting. But when I get some time I could
248 00:41:35.170 ⇒ 00:41:42.160 Amber Lin: write a little bit about that. And then you guys can put any comments, and then we can find another time to talk about it as well.
249 00:41:42.960 ⇒ 00:41:45.320 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I think there’s something around delivery excellence.
250 00:41:45.340 ⇒ 00:41:45.930 Amber Lin: And then.
251 00:41:45.930 ⇒ 00:41:49.249 Uttam Kumaran: Also that there’s also a lead into renewals.
252 00:41:49.480 ⇒ 00:41:51.010 Uttam Kumaran: So I mean.
253 00:41:51.010 ⇒ 00:41:53.939 Amber Lin: Delivery and account management essentially.
254 00:41:53.940 ⇒ 00:41:54.670 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
255 00:41:55.660 ⇒ 00:41:56.410 Amber Lin: Okay.
256 00:41:56.410 ⇒ 00:41:59.780 Uttam Kumaran: And ideally, the focus is on the margins.
257 00:42:00.050 ⇒ 00:42:03.760 Uttam Kumaran: at least, having some measure of like client satisfaction.
258 00:42:04.110 ⇒ 00:42:10.170 Uttam Kumaran: And then ideally like, I don’t know necessarily, if we want to take on
259 00:42:10.320 ⇒ 00:42:17.359 Uttam Kumaran: additionally, like renewal targets, because every client we try to renew. So I don’t know how necessary it is to sort of set
260 00:42:18.330 ⇒ 00:42:25.229 Uttam Kumaran: set that necessarily as an objective by doing the 1st 2 make a lot of sense like achieving those margins.
261 00:42:30.370 ⇒ 00:42:31.210 Amber Lin: great.
262 00:42:35.060 ⇒ 00:42:37.249 Amber Lin: Okay, that’s all of my comments.
263 00:42:41.415 ⇒ 00:42:45.830 Uttam Kumaran: I think probably the only other thing I had cause. Yeah, I’m just like
264 00:42:46.130 ⇒ 00:42:48.330 Uttam Kumaran: I’m of course, curious on how
265 00:42:48.560 ⇒ 00:42:58.070 Uttam Kumaran: Sid is gonna do this week. I think she’s gonna be a really big. I also think that. And your help on partnerships it would be another sort of source of top of funnel.
266 00:42:58.622 ⇒ 00:43:00.670 Uttam Kumaran: That will be really helpful. And then,
267 00:43:02.120 ⇒ 00:43:12.569 Uttam Kumaran: yeah, I I do think like this, the internship I sent a note. Maybe I can get everyone’s thoughts on that, like one of the interns just asked for, like a little bit of a stipend.
268 00:43:13.392 ⇒ 00:43:18.539 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know. I’m sort of like wishy-washy on what to do.
269 00:43:18.820 ⇒ 00:43:29.600 Uttam Kumaran: On one hand, like I got really good, like I got a good vibe from him, and I think he could be really strong. Another hand, like sort of didn’t budget it in in my mind.
270 00:43:30.090 ⇒ 00:43:34.680 Uttam Kumaran: so I don’t know. I may ask away shift like what you think or
271 00:43:35.130 ⇒ 00:43:37.879 Uttam Kumaran: yeah, I don’t know like what what we should try to do.
272 00:43:39.590 ⇒ 00:43:50.769 Amber Lin: A wish A wish told me that he is the the intern is based in the Us. And do we plan to hire a engineer, Us. Based engineer. Later.
273 00:43:52.260 ⇒ 00:43:55.780 Uttam Kumaran: It. It just sort of all depends like
274 00:43:56.010 ⇒ 00:44:01.800 Uttam Kumaran: if he’s if his skill set is like really, really great and have a we have a spot.
275 00:44:02.702 ⇒ 00:44:09.320 Uttam Kumaran: Then. Yeah, I would say. It’s just more about like his cost.
276 00:44:09.520 ⇒ 00:44:12.089 Uttam Kumaran: and like what his capabilities are.
277 00:44:16.960 ⇒ 00:44:21.820 Amber Lin: I mean, if it’s us, if he is us based, would he?
278 00:44:21.940 ⇒ 00:44:26.550 Amber Lin: Should we hire someone that’s us based if we can’t offer them a
279 00:44:26.680 ⇒ 00:44:34.759 Amber Lin: like a competitive salary long term. If we keep it competitive he might stay for the short term, but
280 00:44:34.940 ⇒ 00:44:38.180 Amber Lin: we might have to find someone else later, anyways.
281 00:44:41.210 ⇒ 00:44:49.250 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I mean, I I don’t. I don’t think like we’re necessarily gonna run like a completely offshore company, like we are always gonna have people in both places.
282 00:44:49.440 ⇒ 00:45:00.080 Uttam Kumaran: So this is where it’s like, it sort of depends on the person and depends on like what the opportunity is like. If he’s particularly good at a skill set we don’t have, and we know that we need that for clients. Then
283 00:45:00.210 ⇒ 00:45:02.310 Uttam Kumaran: I’m sort of more inclined, but like
284 00:45:02.730 ⇒ 00:45:07.739 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t. Wanna? I don’t have to make a judgment call on like, what if? What if? What if
285 00:45:08.440 ⇒ 00:45:11.539 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t? I just want to make a decision on?
286 00:45:11.670 ⇒ 00:45:13.719 Uttam Kumaran: If we should pay him for this internship
287 00:45:14.372 ⇒ 00:45:17.920 Uttam Kumaran: and if so like, how much? Or if we should say.
288 00:45:18.110 ⇒ 00:45:20.810 Uttam Kumaran: Hey, well, we’d be happy to cut it down to part time. Like.
289 00:45:21.180 ⇒ 00:45:25.029 Uttam Kumaran: yeah, I I can’t make sort of 3 or 4 decisions after that. Right now.
290 00:45:25.830 ⇒ 00:45:27.419 Uttam Kumaran: It’s gonna depend on the person.
291 00:45:32.880 ⇒ 00:45:35.269 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, like I met him he
292 00:45:36.280 ⇒ 00:45:41.089 Awaish Kumar: kind of worked worked in a as an analytics engineer
293 00:45:41.360 ⇒ 00:45:47.489 Awaish Kumar: he mentioned. He worked on a lot of a lot of projects seems technically like good to me.
294 00:45:48.260 ⇒ 00:45:52.220 Awaish Kumar: I love it had worked in item escrow.
295 00:45:57.050 ⇒ 00:46:04.929 Awaish Kumar: So yeah, but like, we haven’t haven’t conducted any rigorous technical tests. But yeah.
296 00:46:07.210 ⇒ 00:46:13.990 Awaish Kumar: with whatever I asked, you know, on the technical side, he sound strong on that.
297 00:46:15.170 ⇒ 00:46:15.790 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
298 00:46:16.950 ⇒ 00:46:24.050 Uttam Kumaran: okay, then let me think about it a little bit more. Maybe I split the difference with him and say, like, Hey, we can lower your hours, but, like
299 00:46:26.970 ⇒ 00:46:28.590 Amber Lin: Maybe a trial period.
300 00:46:30.480 ⇒ 00:46:33.480 Uttam Kumaran: Wow, yeah, it’s tough. I don’t know.
301 00:46:33.960 ⇒ 00:46:35.289 Uttam Kumaran: Maybe it’s like.
302 00:46:36.410 ⇒ 00:46:42.720 Uttam Kumaran: maybe I just do half of it and say, like, we’re not play. We weren’t planning on providing, and
303 00:46:43.260 ⇒ 00:46:45.929 Uttam Kumaran: a stipend, but we can do. We can go half
304 00:46:48.290 ⇒ 00:46:50.190 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know. That’s the thing I’m not like.
305 00:46:50.840 ⇒ 00:46:53.579 Uttam Kumaran: or maybe I just say no entirely, because I’m not like.
306 00:46:54.274 ⇒ 00:46:58.820 Uttam Kumaran: well, this wasn’t some. We didn’t sort of budget for interns at all, and
307 00:46:59.190 ⇒ 00:47:05.440 Uttam Kumaran: sort of wasn’t really planning. I mean. Really, I think we’re giving both of them a way bigger opportunity.
308 00:47:05.640 ⇒ 00:47:09.779 Uttam Kumaran: And then they’re giving us like, that’s just how interns work.
309 00:47:10.260 ⇒ 00:47:16.090 Uttam Kumaran: So in that sense, like I’m a lot less inclined.
310 00:47:16.770 ⇒ 00:47:18.830 Uttam Kumaran: So I don’t know.
311 00:47:18.830 ⇒ 00:47:23.889 Amber Lin: We can survive with half the time, like, he said, he will need to look for other work, but
312 00:47:24.180 ⇒ 00:47:28.670 Amber Lin: like if we do half of it, and say, we can’t pay for this half.
313 00:47:29.040 ⇒ 00:47:34.149 Amber Lin: We can still accomplish the things we wanted to get done with this internship.
314 00:47:35.530 ⇒ 00:47:38.679 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I may do that. I mean, it’s sort of against my
315 00:47:38.950 ⇒ 00:47:56.009 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know. I feel really bad. So that’s why why I’m going back and forth, otherwise that would be pretty clear. But I are like what comes first.st My mind is just making sure that the company has money, and so the 5 K. Is worth it right now for us to keep.
316 00:47:56.280 ⇒ 00:47:58.559 Uttam Kumaran: So I probably will just share that
317 00:47:58.920 ⇒ 00:48:06.209 Uttam Kumaran: I can share that look if things change over the next 2 months, and I I can find a way to offer something. I will do that.
318 00:48:06.330 ⇒ 00:48:10.760 Uttam Kumaran: But in the meantime, like we’re not, we weren’t planning on it.
319 00:48:11.150 ⇒ 00:48:19.789 Uttam Kumaran: Also do think that like he’s gonna get 5 grand worth of like real production experience
320 00:48:19.960 ⇒ 00:48:23.980 Uttam Kumaran: from what we’re gonna provide him tasked to do so
321 00:48:25.080 ⇒ 00:48:29.499 Uttam Kumaran: like in terms of exchange of value, like, I do think that
322 00:48:29.860 ⇒ 00:48:34.599 Uttam Kumaran: the resume boost from working with us is going to be a lot bigger than 5 K. For him
323 00:48:35.000 ⇒ 00:48:36.649 Uttam Kumaran: in any in any rate.
324 00:48:37.090 ⇒ 00:48:39.469 Uttam Kumaran: So let me let me get back to him and share that.
325 00:48:39.880 ⇒ 00:48:40.570 Amber Lin: Okay.
326 00:48:43.260 ⇒ 00:48:47.749 Uttam Kumaran: Right. Sorry. I just like walked outside to walk the dog, and it started raining everywhere.
327 00:48:48.620 ⇒ 00:48:49.760 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, okay.
328 00:48:57.570 ⇒ 00:48:59.507 Uttam Kumaran: that’s all I had. I think.
329 00:49:00.610 ⇒ 00:49:04.360 Amber Lin: Yeah, I think Megan’s coming back. And then I’m, working with rico on operations, stuff.
330 00:49:04.670 ⇒ 00:49:05.440 Uttam Kumaran: So.
331 00:49:05.790 ⇒ 00:49:06.279 Amber Lin: Oh, okay.
332 00:49:06.280 ⇒ 00:49:13.839 Uttam Kumaran: And going slowly. Yeah, I’m hopeful that hopefully you can take on some Pm. Coordinator work as well.
333 00:49:13.970 ⇒ 00:49:15.119 Uttam Kumaran: In the meantime.
334 00:49:15.700 ⇒ 00:49:23.960 Amber Lin: Let me know if you want me to get involved. But I know there’s smaller. I can still handle all 3 projects you might want to hand off your small projects to them first.st
335 00:49:24.500 ⇒ 00:49:29.299 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I’m I’m gonna be kind of like out the next couple of days, like in and out. So I may.
336 00:49:29.300 ⇒ 00:49:30.040 Amber Lin: Terrible.
337 00:49:30.040 ⇒ 00:49:33.700 Uttam Kumaran: I may ask him to just pair with you, and see if you can hand off anything to him.
338 00:49:33.700 ⇒ 00:49:34.529 Amber Lin: Oh, sure!
339 00:49:34.530 ⇒ 00:49:36.409 Uttam Kumaran: He seems pretty diligent.
340 00:49:37.190 ⇒ 00:49:45.479 Uttam Kumaran: so maybe that’s a good compromise for the next few days. I’m giving him work to do, though. But I’ll probably handle all that a lot of that off today.
341 00:49:45.590 ⇒ 00:49:49.170 Uttam Kumaran: and then just kind of be on slack with him. So maybe it is helpful for
342 00:49:49.810 ⇒ 00:49:52.080 Uttam Kumaran: you to see like, okay, what part of your
343 00:49:52.210 ⇒ 00:49:53.960 Uttam Kumaran: day to day can you hand off.
344 00:49:55.170 ⇒ 00:49:57.660 Amber Lin: I’m not okay.
345 00:50:06.760 ⇒ 00:50:08.430 Amber Lin: Are we meeting Friday?
346 00:50:11.350 ⇒ 00:50:11.870 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
347 00:50:12.840 ⇒ 00:50:18.780 Amber Lin: Are we having sorry? Are we having a longer meeting for Q. 3. Planning? Or how does that look like.
348 00:50:20.301 ⇒ 00:50:28.929 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I wanted to try to get the monthly like, sort of operational deck done. Started a little bit on it, but have not
349 00:50:30.010 ⇒ 00:50:31.170 Uttam Kumaran: finish it up.
350 00:50:34.080 ⇒ 00:50:40.349 Uttam Kumaran: yeah, I think probably me and Robert will meet tomorrow when I’m in person and sort of decide what we want to do with Friday’s meeting.
351 00:50:46.440 ⇒ 00:50:47.930 Amber Lin: okay, let us know.
352 00:50:52.470 ⇒ 00:50:53.270 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
353 00:50:53.600 ⇒ 00:50:54.620 Amber Lin: Sounds good.
354 00:50:56.350 ⇒ 00:50:57.530 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. Thanks. Everyone.
355 00:50:57.890 ⇒ 00:50:58.250 Amber Lin: Later.
356 00:50:58.630 ⇒ 00:51:00.500 Amber Lin: Okay, alrighty, bye-bye.
357 00:51:00.500 ⇒ 00:51:01.590 Hannah Wang: Thank you.