Meeting Title: BF Managers Meeting: Finance Check Date: 2025-06-27 Meeting participants: Awaish Kumar, Amber Lin, Hannah Wang, Uttam Kumaran
WEBVTT
1 00:00:50.470 ⇒ 00:00:56.759 Amber Lin: Hi! There! I was just talking with him. I think he’ll be joining. I am not sure, though.
2 00:00:59.150 ⇒ 00:00:59.810 Awaish Kumar: Okay?
3 00:01:02.400 ⇒ 00:01:10.210 Awaish Kumar: Hmm, yeah, it has been raining here today. So I’m getting troubles with Internet.
4 00:01:11.853 ⇒ 00:01:17.230 Amber Lin: Well, I am on my home phone hotspot, so I’m not much better.
5 00:01:18.590 ⇒ 00:01:23.660 Amber Lin: Oh, and I wish next week I’ll bring Luke on to ABC.
6 00:01:26.410 ⇒ 00:01:34.599 Awaish Kumar: - okay, like he does. He not have capacity today to work.
7 00:01:35.328 ⇒ 00:01:42.220 Amber Lin: I think he has. Should we do that today? It’s quite late in the day already for you and for him.
8 00:01:43.730 ⇒ 00:01:46.839 Amber Lin: We could we could give him context today.
9 00:01:50.600 ⇒ 00:01:51.430 Uttam Kumaran: For? Who?
10 00:01:55.220 ⇒ 00:01:57.380 Amber Lin: Hi! Alright! Well, we should.
11 00:01:57.690 ⇒ 00:01:58.140 Awaish Kumar: Yeah.
12 00:01:58.140 ⇒ 00:01:58.700 Amber Lin: You’re here.
13 00:01:58.700 ⇒ 00:01:59.510 Uttam Kumaran: So for.
14 00:02:00.623 ⇒ 00:02:01.830 Amber Lin: Hello, Tom!
15 00:02:01.830 ⇒ 00:02:05.980 Uttam Kumaran: Hey? Sorry, no, and.
16 00:02:06.430 ⇒ 00:02:07.120 Awaish Kumar: Excellent.
17 00:02:07.270 ⇒ 00:02:12.749 Awaish Kumar: After a lot of days of very hot, scorching summer we got some rain today.
18 00:02:13.660 ⇒ 00:02:14.560 Uttam Kumaran: Nice.
19 00:02:15.900 ⇒ 00:02:17.439 Awaish Kumar: Bit of relief.
20 00:02:31.592 ⇒ 00:02:34.200 Amber Lin: What is our goal for this meeting.
21 00:02:39.530 ⇒ 00:02:46.390 Uttam Kumaran: Just catch up like I wanna hear from everybody how they thought the week went and
22 00:02:46.710 ⇒ 00:02:49.314 Uttam Kumaran: I want to talk a little bit about
23 00:02:50.030 ⇒ 00:02:54.730 Uttam Kumaran: sort of where we are on the sales side, and some plans for Q. 3.
24 00:02:55.395 ⇒ 00:02:59.499 Uttam Kumaran: But yeah, I guess. Would love to just hear from everybody like we.
25 00:03:00.520 ⇒ 00:03:05.329 Uttam Kumaran: you know, we sort of made a little couple of changes with my time last week. I think we’ve sort
26 00:03:05.810 ⇒ 00:03:12.009 Uttam Kumaran: we’ve we’ve we’re continuing to push every day, but just want to go around the Horn and see if anyone has any like risks or
27 00:03:12.690 ⇒ 00:03:17.279 Uttam Kumaran: anything, you know, before I sort of just talk and blab.
28 00:03:22.040 ⇒ 00:03:25.909 Amber Lin: Okay. You know how it went for me. I’ll let the others talk.
29 00:03:29.200 ⇒ 00:03:35.300 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, for me. It has been great
30 00:03:36.380 ⇒ 00:03:41.410 Awaish Kumar: Things went well. On.
31 00:03:43.200 ⇒ 00:03:47.969 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, like on the like. The some clients like ABC matter more. We just need more.
32 00:03:48.290 ⇒ 00:03:49.649 Awaish Kumar: I think we need to.
33 00:03:50.340 ⇒ 00:03:55.960 Awaish Kumar: We miss some ritual like grooming things which we need to do
34 00:03:56.657 ⇒ 00:04:02.400 Awaish Kumar: for the next sprint. Maybe, like we run it in a sprint. Some have some grooming sessions.
35 00:04:02.860 ⇒ 00:04:09.020 Awaish Kumar: but apart from that, like, otherwise, I
36 00:04:09.520 ⇒ 00:04:16.255 Awaish Kumar: like, we go on a ticket and ticket basis like, we don’t have full weeks plan in that way.
37 00:04:16.899 ⇒ 00:04:23.809 Awaish Kumar: but otherwise things. I I think, like things were delivered
38 00:04:24.060 ⇒ 00:04:33.319 Awaish Kumar: on time for for each of the clients. For Eden. Everybody knows like there has been some
39 00:04:34.870 ⇒ 00:04:41.340 Awaish Kumar: like, ad hoc requests and things like that which we have been doing. But yeah, that
40 00:04:41.470 ⇒ 00:04:44.259 Awaish Kumar: that were also being done quite
41 00:04:44.630 ⇒ 00:04:51.960 Awaish Kumar: well. I didn’t got some time to work on em, basically building the documentation for Emr, which?
42 00:04:52.885 ⇒ 00:04:58.220 Awaish Kumar: But I was stuck building something else. So yeah, like, next week, that will be
43 00:04:58.430 ⇒ 00:05:07.319 Awaish Kumar: in the priority to have some like, have some work done on email migration thing,
44 00:05:08.310 ⇒ 00:05:10.699 Awaish Kumar: for the Iranian. And
45 00:05:11.100 ⇒ 00:05:15.990 Awaish Kumar: I had I met with Luke, I I set an update in the group. Also.
46 00:05:18.090 ⇒ 00:05:22.419 Awaish Kumar: I have tried my best, so anybody like feels like if he’s not still
47 00:05:22.610 ⇒ 00:05:27.900 Awaish Kumar: that active. But let me know no.
48 00:05:27.900 ⇒ 00:05:32.999 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I I think for Luke. I’m gonna involve him like, I think I’m just gonna absorb him and talk
49 00:05:33.390 ⇒ 00:05:37.369 Uttam Kumaran: to him about some Meta plane help I need during the AI team. Stand up.
50 00:05:39.040 ⇒ 00:05:41.529 Uttam Kumaran: I wanna get it hooked up for urban Sims.
51 00:05:44.180 ⇒ 00:05:47.920 Uttam Kumaran: Because they have constant. If they have constant, like
52 00:05:48.680 ⇒ 00:05:52.089 Uttam Kumaran: same problems there. And that’s like so annoying. So
53 00:05:57.170 ⇒ 00:06:05.410 Amber Lin: Yeah. And for me, for a matter more I really want that room to go. I’m sorry. I wish the clients
54 00:06:08.300 ⇒ 00:06:25.210 Amber Lin: I was ready for grooming. And then I asked the clients they’re like, actually, I don’t know if I want that to happen. So I will ask you again to help me with grooming. Once back from them, they have the tickets ready. I just don’t know if they want it to happen.
55 00:06:31.220 ⇒ 00:06:33.350 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I do think that grooming
56 00:06:34.060 ⇒ 00:06:40.123 Uttam Kumaran: grooming, I think grooming and Pm, consistently is like our like huge bottleneck.
57 00:06:42.610 ⇒ 00:06:48.250 Uttam Kumaran: it’s just like so painful because you can see, Amber, how much it’s helped your world.
58 00:06:51.200 ⇒ 00:06:55.667 Uttam Kumaran: And not no surprise. This is like why project management exists. But
59 00:06:58.150 ⇒ 00:07:08.120 Uttam Kumaran: I just think we are really strapped until we get one more person. I have one interview next week, or when I’m back, and I’m gonna try to get a couple more on the table.
60 00:07:08.764 ⇒ 00:07:15.869 Uttam Kumaran: We’re we are having a strong, a stronger sales month than I expected, like in terms of what’s
61 00:07:16.030 ⇒ 00:07:17.480 Uttam Kumaran: looking to close
62 00:07:18.123 ⇒ 00:07:25.340 Uttam Kumaran: and default. Looks like it will be our highest rate client ever like we got them to agree to 2, 50 an hour.
63 00:07:28.080 ⇒ 00:07:31.450 Uttam Kumaran: And I just got a message from them saying.
64 00:07:32.210 ⇒ 00:07:34.410 Uttam Kumaran: because we went to their office yesterday.
65 00:07:35.510 ⇒ 00:07:40.999 Uttam Kumaran: And they were like they are obsessed with you guys
66 00:07:41.490 ⇒ 00:07:51.330 Uttam Kumaran: they wanted to try to hire. They said, Mark, my friend Caitlin, who we did the webinar with is head of product. She’s like, yeah. They asked me if they could hire us
67 00:07:52.220 ⇒ 00:07:54.240 Uttam Kumaran: like full time. And then
68 00:07:55.223 ⇒ 00:08:07.956 Uttam Kumaran: and so I think that’s gonna be a really fruitful client. And again, it is. It is at a much higher rate that they really didn’t blink at. And so we’re we’re poised to do. Well,
69 00:08:09.050 ⇒ 00:08:16.179 Uttam Kumaran: it’s gonna I think this is where we will have to find a way to leverage Rico. He’s doing really well, though. So I actually.
70 00:08:16.760 ⇒ 00:08:28.149 Uttam Kumaran: I’m actually very, very happy with his progress. And we’ll let Robert think about. Tell me how Sid is going. But Rico is going really well, he’ll he’s like super active, and I can tell he’s like wants to help, so I do think that he could
71 00:08:28.760 ⇒ 00:08:32.720 Uttam Kumaran: help them with some low, level Pm. Work.
72 00:08:33.179 ⇒ 00:08:38.049 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know. Client facing, but sort of everything in between client meetings.
73 00:08:39.147 ⇒ 00:08:41.180 Uttam Kumaran: So I’m optimistic.
74 00:08:41.539 ⇒ 00:08:46.080 Uttam Kumaran: There, yeah.
75 00:08:46.660 ⇒ 00:08:49.979 Uttam Kumaran: So yeah, I guess, Hannah, how do you think stuff’s going.
76 00:08:56.040 ⇒ 00:08:58.449 Hannah Wang: Yeah, I mean, I definitely.
77 00:08:58.990 ⇒ 00:09:15.820 Hannah Wang: I’m working a little bit more. I mean, cause I’m taking on a little bit of more stuff and helping here and there. So at the beginning of the week, I felt like I was not gonna be able to keep up with stuff. But I think that’s just the nature of like onboarding to another existing like
78 00:09:17.140 ⇒ 00:09:23.990 Hannah Wang: sector or niche within the company. So that’s like sales and partnership stuff.
79 00:09:24.780 ⇒ 00:09:38.040 Hannah Wang: Yeah, it’s a lot of like mental like, just making sure to keep track of things which I feel like I’m still working on and still trying to like. Understand what each client or partner is or even like leads and stuff.
80 00:09:38.190 ⇒ 00:09:49.843 Hannah Wang: So I think this week is just like stretching and getting used to that load. So maybe that’s why I feel a little bit like, Oh, I’m afraid I’m gonna like drop something in terms of like
81 00:09:50.440 ⇒ 00:10:02.470 Hannah Wang: the existing stuff I have with design and like branding and helping Arushi. But what we talked about was helpful, like basically stopping Arushi’s work or like
82 00:10:02.910 ⇒ 00:10:08.239 Hannah Wang: pausing that for now so that we can get like the designs for branding stuff down.
83 00:10:08.684 ⇒ 00:10:13.850 Hannah Wang: Which I’m starting to work on with Anne. And then also you helping prioritize like
84 00:10:13.980 ⇒ 00:10:17.159 Hannah Wang: what’s important. So like AI demo stuff
85 00:10:17.320 ⇒ 00:10:19.929 Hannah Wang: is like lower now. So that helps me like.
86 00:10:20.260 ⇒ 00:10:27.920 Hannah Wang: yeah, just not worry about getting out that design, because there’s a lot of features on that that we have to like, think about
87 00:10:28.870 ⇒ 00:10:30.180 Hannah Wang: So yeah, I think
88 00:10:30.580 ⇒ 00:10:39.989 Hannah Wang: it’ll be okay the next coming weeks. I was just worried in the beginning, because everything was new. But I think it’s like starting to feel okay now.
89 00:10:42.610 ⇒ 00:10:50.200 Hannah Wang: Even like hopping on a call with you for talisma that was helpful.
90 00:10:51.460 ⇒ 00:10:58.869 Hannah Wang: But yeah, I think I’m still like trying to pick up on what you do and then like, see how I can help. And just like.
91 00:10:58.990 ⇒ 00:11:08.679 Hannah Wang: I guess. Pm, in that sense of like making sure to keep track of all the partners and leads and clients. So sorry if I like. Drop the ball somewhere, but
92 00:11:09.040 ⇒ 00:11:15.839 Hannah Wang: I’ll try my best to keep track of everything. I yeah, I don’t know how you did it before without external.
93 00:11:16.280 ⇒ 00:11:18.000 Hannah Wang: Oh, that’s crazy!
94 00:11:19.120 ⇒ 00:11:30.610 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, again, one is like the game we’re in is a game of strategically dropping balls.
95 00:11:31.318 ⇒ 00:11:40.150 Uttam Kumaran: I think, like my game is basically like I’m at any moment I’m dropping 50% of the stuff that I need to do.
96 00:11:42.120 ⇒ 00:11:44.508 Uttam Kumaran: So I my, I’m sort of more
97 00:11:45.650 ⇒ 00:11:51.300 Uttam Kumaran: I can go to bed. Even with that lingering these days it wasn’t used. Didn’t used to be like that.
98 00:11:51.832 ⇒ 00:11:58.550 Uttam Kumaran: Just because we have constraints. And so for everybody here. We’re all in this room for a reason that we’re all like, really
99 00:11:59.048 ⇒ 00:12:10.890 Uttam Kumaran: motivated and like, want to do great work in that. Being a leader in a business like this. You’re going to have to either respond slowly to certain things or basically say no.
100 00:12:11.280 ⇒ 00:12:12.750 Uttam Kumaran: And so
101 00:12:13.130 ⇒ 00:12:27.669 Uttam Kumaran: I will find I will. I’m very alert when people are saying yes to too many things, and so I can. I will do my best to find and tell you the priorities, but even for yourself. Understand that not everything you get assigned is, gonna get done. That’s not the goal
102 00:12:27.880 ⇒ 00:12:34.569 Uttam Kumaran: right? Are like we want to strive for perfection. But what we will achieve it can be 80% of that will still work.
103 00:12:34.570 ⇒ 00:12:34.920 Hannah Wang: And.
104 00:12:34.920 ⇒ 00:12:38.599 Uttam Kumaran: And so it’s up to you guys to have some balance there with like.
105 00:12:38.760 ⇒ 00:12:42.350 Uttam Kumaran: there’s a perfectionism. But there’s also like a prioritization.
106 00:12:42.490 ⇒ 00:12:58.559 Uttam Kumaran: There are things that are not important or not, the most important right? It’s helpful to say that out loud it may feel like derogatory or like mean, but, like. There are things that are not as important. Those things may be the number one thing for someone else.
107 00:12:58.910 ⇒ 00:13:06.440 Uttam Kumaran: Right? But we, as a management crew, have priorities right? And so when I tell Hannah, hey, the internal platform work can slide
108 00:13:06.650 ⇒ 00:13:18.370 Uttam Kumaran: right? Or certain other things we need to cut down like we should be doing those things. So it’s up to you guys to look at your plate and make those calls or loop us in to help make those decisions.
109 00:13:18.955 ⇒ 00:13:33.420 Uttam Kumaran: You shouldn’t saying yes, everything is not the expectation. This is something that again, I worked at many companies where they didn’t say this out loud, so everybody gets burned out and it gets pissed, and then like doesn’t get to take vacation like all that stuff. So
110 00:13:34.010 ⇒ 00:13:43.679 Uttam Kumaran: you just have to, selectively. You either have to build a framework in your mind to understand what is important and ideally, that’s paired with what our goals for the quarters are.
111 00:13:43.780 ⇒ 00:13:46.060 Uttam Kumaran: Our goal is to improve sales.
112 00:13:46.390 ⇒ 00:13:49.349 Uttam Kumaran: And if our goal is to improve client delivery.
113 00:13:49.580 ⇒ 00:13:57.189 Uttam Kumaran: then anything else that doesn’t directly impact that doesn’t like directly impact that can slide, and then it’s a sliding scale of importance from there.
114 00:13:59.070 ⇒ 00:14:04.160 Uttam Kumaran: Right? Sales is very different than any work, because it’s pure momentum.
115 00:14:04.550 ⇒ 00:14:07.499 Uttam Kumaran: and it’s a and it is this sort of like dance.
116 00:14:07.981 ⇒ 00:14:17.040 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t think like I I do think that if we really did, we could build a system that gets all those into tickets and things like that. But as you guys know that these happen
117 00:14:17.270 ⇒ 00:14:20.610 Uttam Kumaran: unexpectedly, someone comes back with something, and so
118 00:14:20.750 ⇒ 00:14:24.150 Uttam Kumaran: we will build process around that. But part of the
119 00:14:24.510 ⇒ 00:14:28.699 Uttam Kumaran: issue is is that’s how that that game is
120 00:14:30.900 ⇒ 00:14:39.540 Uttam Kumaran: But like, for as rapid as we move on the sales cycle, it quickly should boil down into like real. Pm, so I’ll be speaking with Alex
121 00:14:39.920 ⇒ 00:14:46.279 Uttam Kumaran: Amber later today about sort of what the handoff process is from the sales team to the Pm. Team.
122 00:14:46.470 ⇒ 00:14:50.770 Uttam Kumaran: And I think there’s gonna be a lot of opportunity to use AI in that whole process.
123 00:14:51.450 ⇒ 00:14:56.650 Uttam Kumaran: But like we, we have an advantage of how fast our sales teams move here
124 00:14:56.770 ⇒ 00:14:59.869 Uttam Kumaran: and that like we’re able to follow up with stuff really quickly.
125 00:15:00.856 ⇒ 00:15:07.116 Uttam Kumaran: But that is like it’s sort of like we’re sprinting like we’re we’re on the treadmill. So
126 00:15:09.420 ⇒ 00:15:19.520 Uttam Kumaran: yeah, that’s that’s sort of what it is. But for everybody I think you do have. It’s not like all or nothing like we have. You have. If you’re not saying no to certain things that means you’re probably not taking enough on
127 00:15:20.050 ⇒ 00:15:29.010 Uttam Kumaran: right. That’s the sort of mentality and you will have to sort of get over the perfectionist mode until we have enough
128 00:15:29.410 ⇒ 00:15:37.290 Uttam Kumaran: sort of staff to fill in those gaps. But even then, look, there’s gonna be things where you just say, no, we’re not doing that.
129 00:15:37.510 ⇒ 00:15:45.440 Uttam Kumaran: or like, we can’t do that right now we’ll do later. And like, that’s a discussion. You may find the person on the other end asking you is like, Oh, yeah, it’s fine.
130 00:15:45.790 ⇒ 00:15:49.159 Uttam Kumaran: like there’s no shit. No, there was no purpose, you know.
131 00:15:49.260 ⇒ 00:15:59.949 Uttam Kumaran: so not everything has that? Has not people. The requests come in with no importance and no urgency requirements, then you have to sort of identify that.
132 00:16:04.660 ⇒ 00:16:06.070 Amber Lin: Taking notes.
133 00:16:07.400 ⇒ 00:16:08.209 Hannah Wang: Yeah, that’s just
134 00:16:08.990 ⇒ 00:16:23.549 Hannah Wang: personally, it’s just harder for me, because in my head everything is important and urgent. So I need to learn how to like gauge things like that’s just in my personal life, too, just like everything I need to get done. But clearly, that’s not.
135 00:16:23.760 ⇒ 00:16:28.360 Hannah Wang: That’s not the case. Yeah. So.
136 00:16:29.400 ⇒ 00:16:35.140 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I think, it’s tough. I mean, look, we like when we want to strive for
137 00:16:35.800 ⇒ 00:16:43.339 Uttam Kumaran: what we’re trying to do. Typical companies in our position. Go hire like a hundred people and give everyone like small small jobs. And
138 00:16:43.560 ⇒ 00:16:46.020 Uttam Kumaran: it’s not. It’s not the position we’re in.
139 00:16:46.608 ⇒ 00:16:48.521 Uttam Kumaran: I do think that
140 00:16:49.580 ⇒ 00:17:01.959 Uttam Kumaran: part of being in sort of this sort of leadership position is, you guys all have a lot of leverage over the organization. But with leverage when comes responsibility and when you have responsibility for some of your accountability, then
141 00:17:02.170 ⇒ 00:17:05.270 Uttam Kumaran: you get asked to do the thing, and so
142 00:17:05.609 ⇒ 00:17:08.750 Uttam Kumaran: that. And that isn’t like a ask me for like.
143 00:17:08.970 ⇒ 00:17:19.109 Uttam Kumaran: should I be doing this to this? If build, you’ll build your own sort of framework for what’s important in the business, and this management crew will agree on priorities
144 00:17:19.329 ⇒ 00:17:26.490 Uttam Kumaran: like there may there, and there will be times where I ask for something or something where it’s like, why are we going that direction? Is that a distraction?
145 00:17:26.730 ⇒ 00:17:41.490 Uttam Kumaran: Right? And yes, like, there are stuff I had to do this week. That was a complete distraction. I should not have done like I should not. There’s a couple of people I should not have spent time with should not have gone down like a couple of rabbit holes of people that like are wasting our time.
146 00:17:41.790 ⇒ 00:17:52.230 Uttam Kumaran: and but for me, my own, my reflection on that is just sort of looking back on my time, when, in fact, as a management crew, we can rely on ourselves for hey? Should we go this direction.
147 00:17:52.460 ⇒ 00:17:56.939 Uttam Kumaran: of course, like I exist to be the tiebreak, or to be like.
148 00:17:57.290 ⇒ 00:18:00.760 Uttam Kumaran: set a vision or have a gut on like, okay, it’s gonna be this or this. But
149 00:18:01.040 ⇒ 00:18:13.150 Uttam Kumaran: we need some decision making framework that allows us to say No, or to push push things back. And we and it may be like saying a cool look. We’re trying to do a lot of marketing this month this coming month.
150 00:18:13.520 ⇒ 00:18:21.780 Uttam Kumaran: I think we did a good 1st pass the data platform stuff. We can’t work on it for another month. But let’s push it perfect. No problem, right?
151 00:18:22.030 ⇒ 00:18:34.479 Uttam Kumaran: Because guess what like, even if that doesn’t, that’s a none of that works. We still have to wake up and sell and work with our clients. Those are the number one and 2 priorities far, none. Right? So
152 00:18:34.650 ⇒ 00:18:46.809 Uttam Kumaran: if that helps like, I think that’s that’s that’s why, like the kite side, conversation is important. But but also look, the interns are not that important to me like, and this is where it’s like. It may feel shocking to say that. But
153 00:18:47.040 ⇒ 00:18:51.370 Uttam Kumaran: if you, if if I were to give you the option to sell more, or to have interns.
154 00:18:52.170 ⇒ 00:18:58.070 Uttam Kumaran: it should be very clear to everybody like, what is more important, it doesn’t mean they’re not important.
155 00:18:58.170 ⇒ 00:19:03.710 Uttam Kumaran: It just means there’s something more important, right? It is. It is all relative.
156 00:19:04.272 ⇒ 00:19:16.260 Uttam Kumaran: There is no intern program without the money coming in and without work to do right. And so I don’t think people are used to having constraints and to make decisions within those constraints.
157 00:19:16.380 ⇒ 00:19:17.830 Uttam Kumaran: Because
158 00:19:18.000 ⇒ 00:19:29.359 Uttam Kumaran: if you were an employee, those decisions are made for you, or nobody’s making those decisions right, both of which I think, if for us and this crew who have agency over our work
159 00:19:30.045 ⇒ 00:19:37.159 Uttam Kumaran: it’s not a good position to be in, but as you get to more ownership. You will have to make those decisions for yourself in your day to day.
160 00:19:37.320 ⇒ 00:19:40.159 Uttam Kumaran: and then bring those to the surface. We’re like, Hey, I worked on this.
161 00:19:40.530 ⇒ 00:19:45.470 Uttam Kumaran: I kind of don’t think it’s going anywhere. I kind of don’t think it’s getting used like, what should we do, you know?
162 00:19:45.640 ⇒ 00:19:47.200 Uttam Kumaran: And then we have a conversation.
163 00:19:47.770 ⇒ 00:19:53.850 Uttam Kumaran: but you have to be sort of your own boss over your time and your priorities. We only have 8 h in the day. We only like.
164 00:19:54.100 ⇒ 00:19:56.099 Uttam Kumaran: we only have a week, and it’s only us.
165 00:20:03.920 ⇒ 00:20:08.040 Uttam Kumaran: And you and you guys, and you need to be able to go to bed without the baggage.
166 00:20:08.530 ⇒ 00:20:11.899 Uttam Kumaran: right? Like, you need to be able to close your laptop
167 00:20:12.200 ⇒ 00:20:15.600 Uttam Kumaran: and be okay with having 10 slacks
168 00:20:17.380 ⇒ 00:20:21.090 Uttam Kumaran: right? And I can tell you ways to minimize. That is like
169 00:20:21.310 ⇒ 00:20:34.949 Uttam Kumaran: leave channels that you’re not doing anything in, because someone will add you if you need to be. There’s no, don’t worry about Fomo. There’s nothing going on. There’s nothing going on that’s like that. Interesting, the company that we don’t know about, like
170 00:20:35.280 ⇒ 00:20:48.060 Uttam Kumaran: try to lead with. Why are we working on this? You may think that some people will think you’re kind of an asshole like. But don’t worry like you have the support of this crew. So you should ask like, Hey, is this important to work on just urgent and important.
171 00:20:48.670 ⇒ 00:20:52.580 Uttam Kumaran: But also it should. You have some understanding that slack
172 00:20:53.030 ⇒ 00:20:56.489 Uttam Kumaran: is not a good mechanism for understanding priority?
173 00:20:57.920 ⇒ 00:21:08.450 Uttam Kumaran: and it’s it’s really a plague on my brain right now, and I think we will. I’ll try to solve that through something with AI where it it introduces some sort of prioritization. But
174 00:21:08.970 ⇒ 00:21:19.420 Uttam Kumaran: like, if if that is the mech, if you’re heavily affected by slack, and having that, I would suggest leaving and muting as much as you can, and when you get tagged you’ll get notified.
175 00:21:21.300 ⇒ 00:21:22.000 Uttam Kumaran: But
176 00:21:23.110 ⇒ 00:21:28.129 Uttam Kumaran: like, that’s that is just the tool we’re using right now, and it can lead to a lot of this feeling.
177 00:21:37.130 ⇒ 00:21:50.380 Amber Lin: Great. I think I’m feeling that more and more as I like. Currently, my focus is just on these 3 projects, and more and more, for even within each project it’s like, Okay, this this thing
178 00:21:50.853 ⇒ 00:21:57.739 Amber Lin: we’ll probably have to drop for a while like for the train I bought, Mustafa was just telling me like there’s still
179 00:21:58.175 ⇒ 00:22:03.540 Amber Lin: he thinks there’s still a lot to do, and I just I was. I think I need to tell him
180 00:22:03.830 ⇒ 00:22:11.109 Amber Lin: I need this to pause for a bit. I need to get the other things done because we only have so many hours available each week for this project.
181 00:22:11.910 ⇒ 00:22:12.710 Amber Lin: Oh.
182 00:22:12.830 ⇒ 00:22:37.950 Amber Lin: but so having those restraints is also nice. Also, like I feel like for the past few months is learning to like, I’m gonna make that decision like I like, I, I can come back to you for some other more important decisions where for a few of them like I know what guidelines are we making decisions on and based on that? Like, I can make the call.
183 00:22:38.380 ⇒ 00:22:46.170 Amber Lin: So, hey? I guess management is is like owning decisions.
184 00:22:46.710 ⇒ 00:22:50.259 Amber Lin: because decision making takes up a lot of energy.
185 00:22:51.210 ⇒ 00:22:56.500 Uttam Kumaran: No, we’re, we’re, we’re. We’re only a amalgamation of decisions, you know.
186 00:22:59.160 ⇒ 00:22:59.930 Uttam Kumaran: Like.
187 00:23:00.050 ⇒ 00:23:05.390 Uttam Kumaran: And really, it’s sort of it’s it’s what we tell our companies right? Like the reason why I talk a lot about
188 00:23:05.940 ⇒ 00:23:11.639 Uttam Kumaran: the more accurate the decisions are, and the more than we can make the better we will be right.
189 00:23:11.770 ⇒ 00:23:20.279 Uttam Kumaran: So like when you’re in a when you’re deciding on whether to work on one thing or the other. If you have a framework for doing that, or if you know what our company priorities are, it helps you make that decision.
190 00:23:21.080 ⇒ 00:23:28.080 Uttam Kumaran: But like we need to make, we need to be making more of them right? And you can see I’m the bottleneck for a lot of those decisions.
191 00:23:28.800 ⇒ 00:23:34.009 Uttam Kumaran: But now some are getting some. Everybody in this crew is starting to get a sense of like, okay, like.
192 00:23:34.500 ⇒ 00:23:43.640 Uttam Kumaran: what was, how does brave brainforge leadership think about this this thing decision? And you’re like, Okay, if I if you could. If you could just get 80% of the way there, we’re good right?
193 00:23:44.555 ⇒ 00:23:50.910 Uttam Kumaran: The the I I don’t care. I care less about making the wrong decision than I care about making the decision.
194 00:23:51.060 ⇒ 00:23:51.969 Uttam Kumaran: Does that make sense.
195 00:23:53.660 ⇒ 00:23:54.530 Amber Lin: Yeah.
196 00:23:54.970 ⇒ 00:23:59.689 Uttam Kumaran: You’ll never get faulted for going in a direction you’ll get, it’ll you’ll be faulted for not
197 00:24:01.370 ⇒ 00:24:02.540 Uttam Kumaran: not at all.
198 00:24:03.110 ⇒ 00:24:03.980 Amber Lin: Oh!
199 00:24:07.080 ⇒ 00:24:15.170 Uttam Kumaran: Because, like failure failure here. This like there’s no like failures of the company, shuts down. There’s no personal failure, is not like a.
200 00:24:15.720 ⇒ 00:24:22.830 Uttam Kumaran: It’s not a outside of like negligence or malice. There’s no risk.
201 00:24:23.130 ⇒ 00:24:27.300 Uttam Kumaran: In fact, the risk is in not making the decision and trying.
202 00:24:29.730 ⇒ 00:24:30.660 Uttam Kumaran: We’re waiting.
203 00:24:32.460 ⇒ 00:24:33.680 Amber Lin: Yeah, I agree.
204 00:24:35.500 ⇒ 00:24:36.470 Amber Lin: Oh.
205 00:24:37.224 ⇒ 00:24:55.660 Amber Lin: one other thing. Oh, yeah. I was talking to Alex yesterday. I forgot to update you on that. So we went through all of the items that might be missing for each of the clients, and I think there’s still quite a few to get done. But I think, even since we
206 00:24:56.179 ⇒ 00:25:17.240 Amber Lin: since there’s so so much left to get done. So it tells me that even with this little things that we have implemented, we’ve already seen a lot of benefits. So it’s only going to get better as we implement more of those guidelines in place. And the next thing I’m going to do is to
207 00:25:17.500 ⇒ 00:25:42.450 Amber Lin: have clear project management plans and sprint schedules for each of my projects, and that will prevent the issue of groomings taking forever, because they’re taking forever. Because every time I do grooming I kind of have to go back and think about what I need to get done. This sprint. I need to pull those tickets. I need to make those tickets from scratch, and that’s why things are taking so long.
208 00:25:43.800 ⇒ 00:25:45.040 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, great. Okay.
209 00:25:45.710 ⇒ 00:25:47.920 Amber Lin: Yeah, so that’s the update.
210 00:26:08.610 ⇒ 00:26:10.330 Amber Lin: Do we have anything else.
211 00:26:11.310 ⇒ 00:26:18.990 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I think I’m tomorrow. I’m on a train or Sunday. I’m on a train for a bit, so I’ll be, and I have some time tomorrow, so I’ll be working on sort of a June recap.
212 00:26:21.430 ⇒ 00:26:25.318 Uttam Kumaran: I think really, my goal is to finish up
213 00:26:26.700 ⇒ 00:26:29.380 Uttam Kumaran: all the stuff for design on the copy.
214 00:26:29.570 ⇒ 00:26:34.659 Uttam Kumaran: And then I really want to nail down like what a partnerships roadmap.
215 00:26:34.850 ⇒ 00:26:39.079 Uttam Kumaran: and like objectives are for the 4 4 or 5 that we agreed on.
216 00:26:42.010 ⇒ 00:26:44.210 Uttam Kumaran: I think it’s still up in the air.
217 00:26:45.435 ⇒ 00:26:49.314 Uttam Kumaran: And I think, passing on the sort of
218 00:26:50.830 ⇒ 00:26:57.320 Uttam Kumaran: the email, follow up work on the sales side. I hope that’s something we can pass this in the partnerships. Work is a lot slower, a lot more methodical.
219 00:26:59.590 ⇒ 00:27:01.680 Uttam Kumaran: So, but also, like
220 00:27:01.930 ⇒ 00:27:09.320 Uttam Kumaran: I, there’s some people that are really knocking on our door wanting to do stuff with us. So I wanna make sure we we maximize that
221 00:27:10.670 ⇒ 00:27:18.339 Uttam Kumaran: I’m continuing to meet here and there with like for recruiting, like I have interviews with more aes and more
222 00:27:21.080 ⇒ 00:27:22.850 Uttam Kumaran: more aes more.
223 00:27:23.730 ⇒ 00:27:33.740 Uttam Kumaran: pm’s I know. Wish you recommend a few people a few months ago, so I want to contact them. I sort of didn’t haven’t talked to many data people in like a month or 2. So I’ll sort of like.
224 00:27:34.230 ⇒ 00:27:36.340 Uttam Kumaran: just start calling people again.
225 00:27:36.500 ⇒ 00:27:40.449 Uttam Kumaran: We’ll see. I I’m in negotiation on this kite side thing.
226 00:27:40.690 ⇒ 00:27:42.320 Uttam Kumaran: We’ll see like
227 00:27:43.340 ⇒ 00:27:49.679 Uttam Kumaran: I do want to really have like, have a limited scope for them to try something. I get a little bit nervous.
228 00:27:50.447 ⇒ 00:27:54.740 Uttam Kumaran: When I hear people say, like we can do anything and like.
229 00:27:55.000 ⇒ 00:28:06.369 Uttam Kumaran: Don’t worry. It’ll be okay or like, Yeah, we can assign whoever like, I don’t like hearing that kind of screams like staff augmentation. They’re gonna take work and never get it done. And then bill us for 100 h. So
230 00:28:06.710 ⇒ 00:28:09.670 Uttam Kumaran: I have a little bit of nervousness there, just to be frank
231 00:28:09.830 ⇒ 00:28:12.030 Uttam Kumaran: for owash and amber. But like
232 00:28:12.170 ⇒ 00:28:18.209 Uttam Kumaran: I’m gonna do my best to see if this is a path for us. The reason why I want to go with them is
233 00:28:18.340 ⇒ 00:28:21.090 Uttam Kumaran: they are flex resources when we need them.
234 00:28:21.560 ⇒ 00:28:28.459 Uttam Kumaran: So in between time for us to find the next best brain forge engineer. We can leverage them.
235 00:28:29.190 ⇒ 00:28:30.659 Uttam Kumaran: So that’s sort of my hope.
236 00:28:31.229 ⇒ 00:28:34.009 Uttam Kumaran: So we’ll see. We’ll continue to move that along.
237 00:28:36.720 ⇒ 00:28:37.500 Uttam Kumaran: Cool.
238 00:28:42.520 ⇒ 00:28:43.710 Uttam Kumaran: Great. Okay.
239 00:28:45.200 ⇒ 00:28:53.001 Hannah Wang: I don’t know if we have anything else on the agenda, but I just really wanted quickly wanted to go over the brand script one more time.
240 00:28:53.740 ⇒ 00:28:57.669 Hannah Wang: I we can do that on another call. We don’t have to do it here, I guess, but
241 00:28:57.900 ⇒ 00:28:58.830 Hannah Wang: I think
242 00:28:59.360 ⇒ 00:29:06.599 Hannah Wang: as I was like looking through what Ann was like screen sharing the one liners and like the short paragraphs and stuff
243 00:29:07.950 ⇒ 00:29:14.929 Hannah Wang: like, I don’t know if it’s still very clear that we’re trying to like merge data. And AI, it still feels more like AI focused.
244 00:29:15.390 ⇒ 00:29:16.410 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
245 00:29:17.180 ⇒ 00:29:19.190 Hannah Wang: So I don’t know. Like if we should
246 00:29:19.320 ⇒ 00:29:21.059 Hannah Wang: think about that a little more.
247 00:29:21.060 ⇒ 00:29:27.560 Uttam Kumaran: I think. Can we plan on that for the Tuesday managers meeting? Cause I’m gonna be working on that this weekend a bunch.
248 00:29:27.730 ⇒ 00:29:28.385 Hannah Wang: Okay.
249 00:29:30.950 ⇒ 00:29:36.060 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I’m gonna be working on that a bunch this weekend. So I probably will have a V point 3 by the end of it.
250 00:29:36.060 ⇒ 00:29:36.440 Hannah Wang: Okay.
251 00:29:36.983 ⇒ 00:29:41.870 Uttam Kumaran: I just got sent a couple of notes that like really were important to hear feedback on. So
252 00:29:42.364 ⇒ 00:29:44.560 Uttam Kumaran: and then we can present to this group.
253 00:29:45.130 ⇒ 00:29:53.189 Hannah Wang: Okay? And then, based on the point 3, we probably need to kind of do one more pass on the copy. Then, because I feel like.
254 00:29:53.790 ⇒ 00:29:54.500 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
255 00:29:54.950 ⇒ 00:30:03.210 Hannah Wang: For the homepage and stuff like that. But and then I did start mocking up like the layout of everything, because I feel like each section
256 00:30:03.700 ⇒ 00:30:13.279 Hannah Wang: should still be there. It’s just whether or not the copy is set in stone, but at least the sections we like have lined up so.
257 00:30:13.490 ⇒ 00:30:13.960 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
258 00:30:13.960 ⇒ 00:30:18.659 Hannah Wang: That’s also there in Figma. If you want to take a look at that, if that’s helpful for you. But.
259 00:30:18.660 ⇒ 00:30:19.160 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
260 00:30:19.462 ⇒ 00:30:24.299 Hannah Wang: Yeah, I think, yeah, it’s like, still bothering me like, it still doesn’t feel like fully.
261 00:30:24.300 ⇒ 00:30:25.999 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, it’s closer.
262 00:30:26.490 ⇒ 00:30:26.900 Hannah Wang: Yeah.
263 00:30:26.900 ⇒ 00:30:30.399 Uttam Kumaran: I got some things yesterday from some friends that like
264 00:30:31.230 ⇒ 00:30:33.699 Uttam Kumaran: we’ll get us a little bit closer, so.
265 00:30:34.060 ⇒ 00:30:34.450 Hannah Wang: Okay.
266 00:30:34.450 ⇒ 00:30:35.130 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
267 00:30:36.230 ⇒ 00:30:37.810 Hannah Wang: Okay, that sounds good.
268 00:30:37.920 ⇒ 00:30:38.720 Hannah Wang: Yeah.
269 00:30:41.300 ⇒ 00:30:48.890 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, perfect. Alright, thanks. Everyone. Appreciate the time. And then, yeah, if I don’t say, Hi, have a great weekend, relax
270 00:30:49.830 ⇒ 00:30:50.350 Uttam Kumaran: chill.
271 00:30:50.350 ⇒ 00:30:51.070 Hannah Wang: Thank you.
272 00:30:52.360 ⇒ 00:30:53.290 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
273 00:30:53.290 ⇒ 00:30:54.140 Hannah Wang: Bye-bye.
274 00:30:54.660 ⇒ 00:30:55.910 Uttam Kumaran: Alright, bye.