Meeting Title: Fan Stake Project Data Cleanup Date: 2025-06-27 Meeting participants: Ben Steinberg, Uttam Kumaran


WEBVTT

1 00:01:36.980 00:01:38.060 Ben Steinberg: Yeah.

2 00:01:38.060 00:01:38.910 Uttam Kumaran: Yo.

3 00:01:42.260 00:01:44.260 Ben Steinberg: Swears that you just joined.

4 00:01:46.910 00:01:47.819 Ben Steinberg: It’s my volume.

5 00:01:51.025 00:01:51.760 Ben Steinberg: thanks.

6 00:01:53.450 00:01:54.760 Uttam Kumaran: How’d it go yesterday.

7 00:01:55.660 00:01:56.559 Ben Steinberg: What’s up? Dude.

8 00:01:56.760 00:01:58.330 Uttam Kumaran: How’d it go yesterday.

9 00:01:58.330 00:01:59.310 Ben Steinberg: With what.

10 00:01:59.570 00:02:00.709 Uttam Kumaran: What the day.

11 00:02:02.740 00:02:06.388 Ben Steinberg: It didn’t. It was supposed to have a date yesterday. Shit?

12 00:02:08.169 00:02:11.306 Ben Steinberg: No dude I’ve been. I’ve been all over the place.

13 00:02:13.510 00:02:16.558 Ben Steinberg: no, I didn’t. I didn’t do shit yesterday.

14 00:02:17.415 00:02:17.890 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

15 00:02:18.210 00:02:25.952 Ben Steinberg: For like the 1st time, and every time I go to the gym it’s like the 1st time in 7 days, and I’m like I’m just restarting the process.

16 00:02:26.780 00:02:35.979 Ben Steinberg: But honestly, this, the Sauna is just like a life changer for me, especially when, like the heat went away like it was a hundred degrees. I wasn’t hitting the Sauna, but

17 00:02:38.020 00:02:40.600 Ben Steinberg: well, no, it got down to like 70 last night.

18 00:02:40.890 00:02:47.159 Uttam Kumaran: I agree the Sauna is really amazing. We went to lifetime the other day on Wednesday, here in the city, and it was great.

19 00:02:47.620 00:02:48.400 Ben Steinberg: Nice!

20 00:02:49.480 00:02:51.629 Ben Steinberg: How how was the event? Was there any value.

21 00:02:53.720 00:02:55.600 Uttam Kumaran: The event. Yesterday.

22 00:02:55.600 00:02:56.155 Ben Steinberg: Yeah.

23 00:02:57.098 00:03:02.590 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know. Like our market isn’t really like happy.

24 00:03:03.190 00:03:04.040 Uttam Kumaran: Wait

25 00:03:05.430 00:03:13.080 Uttam Kumaran: like we don’t sell engineers directly. So going to some of these like heavy AI events. It’s a lot of like

26 00:03:13.670 00:03:20.399 Uttam Kumaran: people that want to talk about engineering stuff, which is fine like it is my pastime. But

27 00:03:20.870 00:03:25.019 Uttam Kumaran: it was more like I I think I wanted to sort of see what some of those companies were doing, and then

28 00:03:25.460 00:03:34.903 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know. Dude. I’m kind of like out of the like. New York is just really like people work too hard here. It’s like kind of they like do way too much.

29 00:03:35.770 00:03:45.790 Ben Steinberg: Yeah, I feel like, I, I actually find like, maybe this is where I live, which is like in bed style, which is like a very like kind of like lived out area in Brooklyn.

30 00:03:46.110 00:03:46.750 Ben Steinberg: But I feel like

31 00:03:46.750 00:03:58.449 Ben Steinberg: people would provide me. Do not work hard like I’ll I’ll go to the park and be like. Thank God, I could take a 10 min walk in the park. What a busy day! Let me take a nice 20 min break like leisurely. And I’m like dude people are just

32 00:03:58.650 00:04:04.315 Ben Steinberg: like napping in the middle of the park all the time. They’re not like home

33 00:04:04.670 00:04:09.299 Uttam Kumaran: Well, once they turn on the AI like, what is there really to do for some folks, you know.

34 00:04:09.810 00:04:12.410 Uttam Kumaran: once they start ripping AI emails.

35 00:04:13.166 00:04:14.100 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah.

36 00:04:14.100 00:04:33.729 Ben Steinberg: That’s that’s true. I mean, the Facebook thing is insane. It’s funny, because, like me and a bunch of my buddies like from Amush are like, we used to kind of talk about this like, Oh, we’re all, gonna you know. So it was such a far fetched thing. And then Facebook announces like, Yeah, it’s all going to be AI by 2026. And when you see the the video capabilities and like the image capabilities, like.

37 00:04:34.530 00:04:40.230 Ben Steinberg: sure it should be AI. I would I would prefer AI to my own like decision, making like what

38 00:04:42.320 00:04:43.030 Uttam Kumaran: I actually.

39 00:04:43.030 00:04:51.999 Ben Steinberg: Anyone who, like is good at growth and like creative testing, would totally be like alright as long as if I have like a hankering to test one of my own ideas. Sure. But you guys handle it, you know.

40 00:04:52.000 00:04:53.760 Uttam Kumaran: Well, the other company right now.

41 00:04:54.360 00:04:55.320 Ben Steinberg: What’s it called.

42 00:04:55.320 00:04:56.070 Uttam Kumaran: Icon.

43 00:04:56.500 00:04:58.190 Ben Steinberg: Icon no.

44 00:04:58.900 00:05:05.210 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, they’re basically like A, they help you. They help AI develop a ton of different creative variations.

45 00:05:06.220 00:05:07.160 Ben Steinberg: Oh, cool.

46 00:05:07.580 00:05:13.530 Ben Steinberg: I get a I get a lot of like that’s probably the most things I like. The thing I get most DM’d about from like people.

47 00:05:13.730 00:05:18.400 Ben Steinberg: from people cold selling on on Linkedin and Twitter, but mostly like a lot on Linkedin.

48 00:05:20.640 00:05:27.340 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. A friend of mine actually runs a company that does that for like sports, like for betting and for gaming.

49 00:05:28.550 00:05:31.879 Uttam Kumaran: it’s called black box.

50 00:05:32.490 00:05:35.342 Ben Steinberg: Alright, I’ll check. I’ll check that out. Your your mic did just

51 00:05:36.060 00:05:36.880 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, sorry!

52 00:05:37.170 00:06:05.480 Ben Steinberg: Oh, no, you’re good. You’re there, you are! Cool dude you want. You want to dive into it. I think like I just wanna make sure that you have everything that like you need and cause like, just, I saw your message. And I was like, okay, that stuff that I wasn’t thinking about at all. Obviously. So let’s let’s like, you know, I want to walk through any of that stuff just to to be as helpful as I can, and then there may be some like, follow up questions for for Alex depending on how technical it gets, and then, if we have time. I could show you some of the like.

53 00:06:06.010 00:06:21.540 Ben Steinberg: just like cleanup that I was doing. It’s it’s stuff that I like, you know, to kick this project off, I probably should have already had done I just haven’t had any buy in until we brought you guys on, which happened quick on like anything with with cleaning up budget, but started to just make changes there. But yeah.

54 00:06:21.540 00:06:26.290 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. So like, maybe it would be helpful to. I just wanna see where you’re pulling

55 00:06:26.500 00:06:29.519 Uttam Kumaran: like sort of the raw data for all your stuff is

56 00:06:29.840 00:06:32.800 Uttam Kumaran: because we’re sort of working on this architecture diagram.

57 00:06:33.120 00:06:35.370 Uttam Kumaran: I just will need that info

58 00:06:35.856 00:06:38.789 Uttam Kumaran: we walked through it a little bit, but again, maybe just.

59 00:06:39.020 00:06:40.229 Ben Steinberg: You want me to share my screen.

60 00:06:40.230 00:06:44.789 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, you just show me like what you’re exporting or.

61 00:06:46.370 00:06:57.000 Ben Steinberg: Dude. That’s like that kind of thing is okay. So that’s like, just go to

62 00:06:57.250 00:07:04.140 Ben Steinberg: our documents. So I mean, the main thing right now is just this kpi and calc calculation, Doc.

63 00:07:04.500 00:07:12.883 Ben Steinberg: cause this is what Greg was using, and this is what I used to help him with some of this stuff at like for just like the entire high level business, not even at the Channel level.

64 00:07:13.960 00:07:33.130 Ben Steinberg: we have nothing. We have nothing that’s like from like a raw data source or like that, I’m pulling. That would be like at a channel level, that’s all. All in. Just you know, the budget sheet. And the you know, that’s really all. All where that stuff is is just that budget sheet. So this is really where I’m pulling everything from is.

65 00:07:33.850 00:07:37.620 Ben Steinberg: I just put a I put the source here.

66 00:07:39.330 00:07:48.380 Ben Steinberg: and then all this stuff I’m literally like. It’s not like an export that was like kind of. I asked Alex about this, and we had a plan, and then we ended up, you know.

67 00:07:48.820 00:07:53.949 Ben Steinberg: bringing you on. I was just like, okay. They didn’t have time for it, but I’m literally just copying and pasting

68 00:07:55.470 00:07:58.630 Ben Steinberg: from quick sites directly.

69 00:07:58.630 00:07:59.150 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

70 00:07:59.150 00:08:05.029 Ben Steinberg: And I don’t know if my quick sites, like user access or whatever is, is like, I mean, I’m sure we.

71 00:08:05.460 00:08:09.219 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, so you’re just copying like. But are you exporting like from here?

72 00:08:09.220 00:08:12.160 Ben Steinberg: No, literally. I’m hovering.

73 00:08:13.100 00:08:14.799 Uttam Kumaran: And then what is what does that mean?

74 00:08:15.380 00:08:17.089 Uttam Kumaran: You’re writing down the number.

75 00:08:17.650 00:08:18.380 Ben Steinberg: Yes.

76 00:08:18.590 00:08:20.900 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, dude!

77 00:08:21.500 00:08:24.250 Ben Steinberg: I mean it just it’s we’re not really like doing it. You know what I mean. Like.

78 00:08:24.250 00:08:25.249 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

79 00:08:25.250 00:08:30.470 Ben Steinberg: Like the amount of times that I’ve done that is, once.

80 00:08:31.150 00:08:31.690 Uttam Kumaran: No, I know.

81 00:08:31.690 00:08:34.020 Ben Steinberg: It was the one day I put this together.

82 00:08:34.370 00:08:36.040 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.

83 00:08:37.120 00:09:00.889 Ben Steinberg: Yeah, so so super simple there. But like, when I did that honestly and like, I know, it’s definitely like, 1st grade, like, I’m I’m with you, man. I know what the bar should be, but that’s where it was like. Oh, well, Greg, your numbers are fucking different than my numbers, so something’s up, you know. And then I looked at this and was like, this makes no sense like this whole format for me didn’t make sense. So then I

84 00:09:01.040 00:09:06.711 Ben Steinberg: just kind of updated it myself. But this is kind of how Greg like to look at it.

85 00:09:07.540 00:09:14.954 Ben Steinberg: yeah, literally just hovering and entering, and I just had it up on 2 screens and just jotted down the numbers on a post it. And then you know

86 00:09:15.740 00:09:17.839 Ben Steinberg: what? What about? By way?

87 00:09:21.960 00:09:27.080 Uttam Kumaran: And then how about the stuff from like marketing, marketing, spend.

88 00:09:28.060 00:09:33.390 Ben Steinberg: So marketing spend. I had been I just made this be 2 yesterday, but I had been.

89 00:09:33.450 00:09:41.118 Ben Steinberg: I had been using this as a planning document, and then also a source of truth.

90 00:09:41.570 00:10:03.470 Ben Steinberg: ideally, it was gonna look something like this over time where I could just do more high level planning at, like the Channel level, which the names Tbd, I think. But I was using this as like to literally a source of truth to log all of our spend. And then also, like, there are some things that don’t have any spend here, because they never got live. I was just like logging some opportunities at certain points like

91 00:10:03.570 00:10:09.369 Ben Steinberg: Iowa everywhere, podcast whatever. That’s a bad example, we should get rid of this one.

92 00:10:09.540 00:10:19.211 Ben Steinberg: We ended up never paying them. Yeah, just really logging it in here and then looking at the monthly totals, and then just like double checking that like all this spend went out the door.

93 00:10:21.340 00:10:23.629 Uttam Kumaran: So for this like are these like.

94 00:10:24.498 00:10:26.791 Uttam Kumaran: is this hooked up to

95 00:10:27.370 00:10:32.810 Uttam Kumaran: like ramp for expenses, or or do you have, like the actual invoices that get sent. How does it work.

96 00:10:32.810 00:10:33.440 Ben Steinberg: I.

97 00:10:33.440 00:10:40.399 Uttam Kumaran: These are. These numbers are low enough that, like I can, we should probably just like make sure, because if you miss like a

98 00:10:40.610 00:10:44.909 Uttam Kumaran: 2 k. Or 3 K. Thing. It’ll swing quite a bit.

99 00:10:45.060 00:10:52.699 Ben Steinberg: Total. And that’s where I was like. So what expenses do we just need to track as a business what is like, you know, a cac expense, and like

100 00:10:53.430 00:11:04.043 Ben Steinberg: different ways, we could kind of toy and toggle that. But we do have like a I do have like a finance person. I don’t know what his system is. I can try and run that down.

101 00:11:05.040 00:11:10.370 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, maybe if you can ask him, or if you haven’t that channel, I can ask him. I mean, I’m gonna basically say.

102 00:11:10.370 00:11:17.560 Ben Steinberg: Like a contractor. I don’t think he’s ever even been in our slack, but he does like basically someone sends me an invoice. I forward it to.

103 00:11:17.810 00:11:22.054 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, asking if we can just get an export of all the sort of invoices that

104 00:11:22.690 00:11:28.890 Uttam Kumaran: like you deal with, and if it’s in quickbooks. It’ll just be like, literally a easy export.

105 00:11:29.800 00:11:34.479 Ben Steinberg: Okay? Yeah, that will also include some other expenses which

106 00:11:34.580 00:11:47.400 Ben Steinberg: I think actually like, maybe isn’t a hundred percent necessary for this project? I feel like this project is like well, but but would be really good for the roadmap of like, Hey, you spent 5 K. On this engineer

107 00:11:47.630 00:11:52.080 Ben Steinberg: like, I don’t know if we were ever gonna need like. I don’t think that engineering cost would be on like my marketing, but.

108 00:11:52.080 00:11:52.720 Uttam Kumaran: Sure, sure, sure.

109 00:11:52.720 00:11:59.925 Ben Steinberg: And my influencer contractor is right because we’re staffing the initiative or whatever. So

110 00:12:01.170 00:12:16.379 Ben Steinberg: that. Yeah, I don’t really know what like the best practices on that stuff like but but yeah, this was this was the sheet that I’ll use it. I’ll definitely I’ll run that one down on the quickbooks, stuff, or or whatever system that we’re using just to make sure, like nothing sort of missed. And I’d be happy to go through it and like, add it.

111 00:12:16.380 00:12:16.780 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

112 00:12:16.780 00:12:21.136 Ben Steinberg: Text. Yeah. Then, like the yellow stuff I was using as

113 00:12:24.560 00:12:46.519 Ben Steinberg: This, this is what I had been using. Let me let me kind of. And this is what I wanted to show you. And I actually think for the purposes of this project, this will be a lot more helpful for you, you tell me. But I basically just took this. This doc was like this formatting sucks. This is like, not like a raw data set. And just put it into like this.

114 00:12:47.870 00:12:49.650 Ben Steinberg: or, you know, just the line item.

115 00:12:49.960 00:12:50.580 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah.

116 00:12:50.580 00:13:15.531 Ben Steinberg: Date. I just put like the 1st of the month, because I didn’t really know I didn’t want to just put like the month name figure we should, because we eventually wanted to have daily, you know, would probably look more like that. So yeah, I just kind of like, put it into this format. I thought it’d be helpful. That’s kind of how I was like thinking about it from like maybe we needed a category. I kind of changed some of like. So I would use this as a source of truth rather than the line item details, because I did make some updates

117 00:13:16.590 00:13:18.479 Ben Steinberg: just gonna add this as like old.

118 00:13:25.560 00:13:30.840 Ben Steinberg: yeah, I think I think this format makes more sense, for I don’t know just any like

119 00:13:30.950 00:13:38.430 Ben Steinberg: ingestion, I would imagine. But that’s kind of where I want to kind of touch base with you. And then one thing I had I haven’t done yet. On this is.

120 00:13:38.580 00:13:40.905 Ben Steinberg: there’s actually an another sheet

121 00:13:43.800 00:14:04.179 Ben Steinberg: similar to like the that didn’t make it to to this initial budget, Doc. Because it was like just very small line items one was like that influencer, doc, that we went through which I’m gonna try and like, literally do the line items at the campaign level, and, you know, have a fuck ton more rows, and just, you know.

122 00:14:05.440 00:14:11.963 Ben Steinberg: break down the sub channel to like, you know. I’ll give them like a label, and then I’ll have each individual here.

123 00:14:12.550 00:14:22.159 Ben Steinberg: That was one thing I wanted to do, and then I might similarly do that for open doors. Open doors is like a similar, like an influencer platform, but for athletes.

124 00:14:22.920 00:14:23.275 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

125 00:14:23.840 00:14:30.089 Ben Steinberg: And like I similarly, I I would just put like the players name. And

126 00:14:30.880 00:14:45.632 Ben Steinberg: you know, whatever we agreed to spend with them, which I think is this offer number but I could just kind of copy paste. It’s only like 40 athletes, but I think the idea would be like each campaign. Each individual initiative is its own line. Item,

127 00:14:48.210 00:14:52.659 Ben Steinberg: so yeah, those those are some of the updates. I don’t really think it’s worth right now getting into like

128 00:14:52.770 00:14:58.939 Ben Steinberg: some of the edge cases like, there’s just some weird shit because we do some weird deals. And like, I kinda wanna like.

129 00:14:59.360 00:15:09.036 Ben Steinberg: I think I think it’s like, once we put it together, then we maybe ask those questions. I I could give an example not necessarily dive into now, but an example would be

130 00:15:10.080 00:15:34.887 Ben Steinberg: We have an initiative that we’re about to kick off probably next week where we’re gonna not only DM, a lot of athletes and give them a coupon code. That would be super easy to track if we if we didn’t, you know. Give them any flat fees we’re just like, Hey, here’s this coupon code. And we know it’s whatever 10 bucks for every new user. And maybe we have some approximation of of how much of that turns into spend right with this like column. G, here,

131 00:15:38.040 00:15:45.919 Ben Steinberg: but if we were to stake that user, that’s that’s like a new test that we’re gonna do is like I’m gonna put 2 K on a player just to get their attention, and maybe.

132 00:15:45.920 00:15:47.280 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, I see! I see!

133 00:15:47.280 00:16:07.040 Ben Steinberg: So like that is a stake is that’s dollars that’s gonna be charged to my company credit card. But if they never answer their Dms, it gets returned. I think we just consider that dollars out the door. But yeah, just like there’s there’s gonna be like weird, different wrinkles, even like made a meant this is actually one that I I meant to give you context on.

134 00:16:07.170 00:16:19.610 Ben Steinberg: Remember, remember how Alex mentioned that certain codes in like our, and forgive me if I’m using the wrong words I I believe he was like in. There’s metadata tied to the codes like tags tied to codes

135 00:16:19.930 00:16:20.260 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.

136 00:16:20.260 00:16:24.869 Ben Steinberg: In in the system that he uses to build them. Some of those codes are

137 00:16:25.210 00:16:30.420 Ben Steinberg: technically tied to nate amend because they were spun up for

138 00:16:30.800 00:16:51.720 Ben Steinberg: his, you know, campaign right? But I I had paid some fan page 80 bucks to share that code out. So whatever like the native men stuff can get a little weird because we have to pay him 50 K. But some of that funds comes comes from the Fan stake deal that we closed with him that was like 13 grand. So whatever I think, like

139 00:16:51.890 00:16:57.169 Ben Steinberg: once we have things together, it’ll be worth going through some of those like nuances to answer certain like

140 00:16:57.510 00:16:59.765 Ben Steinberg: line item questions potentially

141 00:17:01.360 00:17:04.409 Ben Steinberg: like, I have some comments here, like, I kind of need to get some context from Greg.

142 00:17:04.410 00:17:12.310 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I just want to see, like all the spend, because then you’ll be able to easily see the stuff that doesn’t fit in naturally to like one of your typical channels.

143 00:17:13.329 00:17:19.019 Ben Steinberg: Yeah, I think I think, like these 2 athlete deals will be things that

144 00:17:19.829 00:17:33.181 Ben Steinberg: getting like like, I’ll I have time with Greg today. So I’ll just make sure that, like these numbers and dates are how he wants it reflected in in the books. Because, like we, I don’t think we technically paid Nate yet, but we did the campaign.

145 00:17:36.140 00:17:36.740 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

146 00:17:37.020 00:17:44.510 Ben Steinberg: Yeah, so there, there’ll be some weird stuff there. I also like. And this was a weird one. But, I added, like these guys all had codes me like

147 00:17:44.823 00:18:11.939 Ben Steinberg: Bridger, this guy, Bridger Jones. I don’t think I need his last name, whatever he’s a he was an ambassador at Byu, and the way that I set up the contract was like, no one gets like you’re if you’re an ambassador, you get nothing unless you get a hundred signups like that was like the minimum to get an invoice, and he got like 6, so I never paid him. But there’s 60 signups that are tied to this, you know. Initiative that would, you know, way down this blended. So I just included them as line items.

148 00:18:12.030 00:18:23.089 Ben Steinberg: I I think I guess. And and this is like to just take a pause, I guess, and like, figure out like, what is the next step from here? Should I try and go into like the

149 00:18:23.810 00:18:30.179 Ben Steinberg: coupon sheet that we have over here, and, like you can see, here’s like the example of Bridger.

150 00:18:30.400 00:18:36.219 Ben Steinberg: whatever like Bridger Jones like. It’s not the colloquial name. It’s not the same, you know, like the type like

151 00:18:36.810 00:18:43.649 Ben Steinberg: there’s not like a ton. So I I was thinking of maybe like going through this and just trying to tag like

152 00:18:43.920 00:18:54.910 Ben Steinberg: all the different codes to each line. Item. Perhaps I just, you know, like you could already see with Nate there was like 3 codes that were tied to Nate. So I was just trying to think of the best way to do that.

153 00:18:55.810 00:18:56.460 Ben Steinberg: It wasn’t.

154 00:18:56.460 00:18:58.250 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, basically, like.

155 00:18:59.360 00:19:06.180 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, yeah, my goal is to make sure that anything in that field has a coupon code tied, and that we can verify that they’re

156 00:19:06.420 00:19:09.260 Uttam Kumaran: like web. And then basically that

157 00:19:10.180 00:19:14.909 Uttam Kumaran: there is a join to the the actual like coupon redemption.

158 00:19:15.500 00:19:16.579 Uttam Kumaran: This type of.

159 00:19:16.980 00:19:31.899 Ben Steinberg: So should I try and like, I guess I’m seeing kind of 2 potential paths, for, like what I need to do to clean this up. I’m curious which one would you think would be better? I guess one path would be, I add, the code.

160 00:19:32.100 00:19:43.429 Ben Steinberg: The the limit of this is some line items potentially had multiple codes really, just one or 2 with, like the native men stuff. So I could either add code here or I could

161 00:19:44.450 00:19:50.049 Ben Steinberg: make sure that their colloquial, their colloquial name, should have picked the easier word for that.

162 00:19:50.050 00:19:50.840 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I.

163 00:19:50.840 00:19:55.360 Ben Steinberg: I could just make sure that this matches like I could basically just do this.

164 00:19:55.360 00:19:56.149 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

165 00:19:56.150 00:20:02.289 Ben Steinberg: I just do like what the like channel, or like the campaign, or whatever like, and just kind of put it.

166 00:20:02.290 00:20:03.960 Uttam Kumaran: Can you go back to the other one.

167 00:20:04.870 00:20:05.640 Ben Steinberg: Yeah.

168 00:20:13.390 00:20:15.040 Ben Steinberg: I guess you could probably join on.

169 00:20:15.040 00:20:19.910 Uttam Kumaran: So ideally the campaign the campaign name has to match.

170 00:20:19.910 00:20:20.790 Ben Steinberg: Okay.

171 00:20:20.790 00:20:21.540 Uttam Kumaran: Right.

172 00:20:23.490 00:20:26.160 Ben Steinberg: The colloquial name. Yeah, yeah.

173 00:20:27.144 00:20:36.930 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. So I I don’t. It doesn’t matter, for now, if they have 2 coupon codes, because that’s your that’s not like what is supposed to happen right like it’s always supposed to be one to one.

174 00:20:37.070 00:20:53.169 Ben Steinberg: The only stuff that’s gonna be kind of weird is the native men stuff. Actually, if you look at this column, I where it says Player, we we ended up shift. I ended up shifting Alex to like make codes that aren’t tied really, to anyone like open doors player. And then I just gave it to

175 00:20:53.230 00:21:07.949 Ben Steinberg: Madison Dur, but there’s no like metadata behind that. I just assigned it because it was like getting too cumbersome with to do it with him, but earlier on we had some codes that are like in the metadata, you know, tied to Nate. This is a good example, Jordan.

176 00:21:08.140 00:21:19.949 Ben Steinberg: It’s it’s tied to Nate in the in the metadata. But I paid this guy like I don’t know, fucking 5 K. And gave him this code, and I don’t want this to be like

177 00:21:20.370 00:21:30.340 Ben Steinberg: attributed to the Nate campaign. So that’s why I just wanted to call it out, because it is like a very specific context thing like this data, or like the metadata like, it really doesn’t

178 00:21:31.040 00:21:35.150 Ben Steinberg: matter for for a lot of these initiatives.

179 00:21:42.660 00:21:43.870 Ben Steinberg: Does that make sense.

180 00:21:44.800 00:21:47.329 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I guess what I’m trying to get is that

181 00:21:50.050 00:21:52.739 Uttam Kumaran: this is actually where it should be.

182 00:21:53.390 00:21:55.640 Uttam Kumaran: not not the other sheet. I believe

183 00:21:56.780 00:22:00.200 Uttam Kumaran: it’s just that you need to have some way to join those 2 together.

184 00:22:05.680 00:22:07.970 Ben Steinberg: Well, I think I think if, I added.

185 00:22:08.410 00:22:12.690 Uttam Kumaran: I think I think if I add, like cause, this is all like the line item.

186 00:22:12.690 00:22:15.569 Uttam Kumaran: basically, the primary key here is the coupon code.

187 00:22:16.450 00:22:17.470 Ben Steinberg: Okay.

188 00:22:17.470 00:22:23.009 Uttam Kumaran: Like meaning, like the coupon code. Here in this sheet, should be unique, right for every line.

189 00:22:25.530 00:22:25.970 Ben Steinberg: Yes.

190 00:22:25.970 00:22:27.479 Uttam Kumaran: Like a I? Yes, right.

191 00:22:27.620 00:22:28.379 Ben Steinberg: Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

192 00:22:28.380 00:22:28.910 Uttam Kumaran: And

193 00:22:29.020 00:22:34.760 Uttam Kumaran: so here’s where. Yes, you want to understand whether, like you, basically, we need to. And then if you go to the other sheet

194 00:22:37.140 00:22:38.160 Uttam Kumaran: one.

195 00:22:38.700 00:22:43.407 Uttam Kumaran: It’d be great to just come like, put all these in one spreadsheet.

196 00:22:44.130 00:22:56.049 Uttam Kumaran: And second, yeah, ideally, here I would. I’m gonna join on CDE, and bring in the code

197 00:22:57.340 00:22:58.520 Uttam Kumaran: in the other sheet.

198 00:22:59.370 00:23:02.329 Uttam Kumaran: So there’s no need to put the code here as long as it as long as.

199 00:23:02.330 00:23:03.449 Ben Steinberg: So the assignment is.

200 00:23:03.450 00:23:05.660 Uttam Kumaran: Stage 3 need to match. Yeah.

201 00:23:05.910 00:23:13.290 Ben Steinberg: The the assignment is to make sure that everything the campaign matches the

202 00:23:14.960 00:23:17.250 Ben Steinberg: sorry. I just wanna make sure that like.

203 00:23:17.600 00:23:25.590 Uttam Kumaran: Yes, so the assignment is to make sure that the campaign name here magic.

204 00:23:25.590 00:23:26.340 Ben Steinberg: Same name here.

205 00:23:26.340 00:23:27.440 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah.

206 00:23:27.910 00:23:29.490 Ben Steinberg: Okay. And there will probably be some like.

207 00:23:29.490 00:23:29.990 Uttam Kumaran: And to give.

208 00:23:30.730 00:23:35.179 Ben Steinberg: Into give you a sense of why? Because, yeah, cause you’re curious.

209 00:23:35.180 00:23:38.050 Ben Steinberg: Have a code. You know what I mean. Steve just calls me money.

210 00:23:38.870 00:23:46.170 Uttam Kumaran: That’s fine. But again, like that that we will like we’ll have a we’ll have a indication that for staffing

211 00:23:46.420 00:23:50.459 Uttam Kumaran: they there’s no code requirement. So there’s no coupon.

212 00:23:50.740 00:23:52.479 Ben Steinberg: Okay, this this, there’s no yeah.

213 00:23:52.480 00:23:55.060 Ben Steinberg: It might. It might be a little like, I mean, it’s definitely like a little bit of road.

214 00:23:55.060 00:24:01.360 Uttam Kumaran: That’s fine. I just will. And then again, we we want to separate the marketing spend from the

215 00:24:01.570 00:24:07.190 Uttam Kumaran: contractor staffing expenses like we will separate those.

216 00:24:07.190 00:24:24.410 Ben Steinberg: Yeah, I think my first, st I think, like there, there’ll be some decisions to make like even here, influencer. But it was my contractor who I hired for influencer, and I was like, should that be staffing? Should that be influencer? Then there are staff, you know. It’s like I we don’t need to get into that just yet. I think, like I think.

217 00:24:24.410 00:24:27.890 Uttam Kumaran: I would say, staffing, staffing, you’re not measuring impact.

218 00:24:28.240 00:24:32.749 Uttam Kumaran: right? If they are in a category in which you’re looking at the Cac.

219 00:24:33.530 00:24:36.659 Uttam Kumaran: then you need to attribute performance to them right?

220 00:24:36.940 00:24:37.879 Uttam Kumaran: So so that

221 00:24:37.880 00:24:43.770 Uttam Kumaran: for Lauren, if you can’t look at how much stuff she drove she drove, then they have to go in staffing.

222 00:24:44.320 00:24:51.230 Ben Steinberg: No, no, Lauren would be perfect for influencer then, but like maybe an organic hire that’s doing like content, that’s tougher, right.

223 00:24:51.630 00:24:57.869 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, like anything you’re not able to track. You’re gonna spread that out evenly over all performance.

224 00:24:58.340 00:25:00.819 Ben Steinberg: Yes. Yes. Okay.

225 00:25:00.820 00:25:11.989 Uttam Kumaran: In an ideal world. Yeah, you want to know, like, what is Ben Steinberg bring to the business in terms of performance. But like they don’t do that. It’s not that some of these people are doing operational tasks, and like

226 00:25:12.560 00:25:16.300 Uttam Kumaran: it’s not, they can’t attribute directly to performance. So

227 00:25:16.440 00:25:19.690 Uttam Kumaran: you consider that as like overhead.

228 00:25:20.290 00:25:20.690 Ben Steinberg: Yeah, Mike.

229 00:25:20.930 00:25:29.739 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, when you look at the direct marketing performance, you look at everything where you can attribute. Then there’s another line item, and then you can look at like your total marketing

230 00:25:30.210 00:25:33.880 Uttam Kumaran: budget and like basically what’s being driven

231 00:25:34.240 00:25:43.040 Uttam Kumaran: right? So that’s that’s the distinction. So you you only want the anything where you can say like, well, we paid someone, and they drove this much

232 00:25:43.200 00:25:48.450 Uttam Kumaran: to show up into True, by Cac.

233 00:25:48.960 00:25:54.090 Ben Steinberg: That. Yep, that that makes sense. Okay, cool. I feel like I feel like I have a.

234 00:25:54.090 00:25:57.719 Uttam Kumaran: And we can make that that we can make sure that ends up in that the rule side.

235 00:25:58.260 00:26:12.298 Ben Steinberg: Yep, I feel. Yes, yeah, exactly, dude. And then it’s a source of truth. And we have our Bible. So I have a kind of like a 2 parter. Not question like tasks for myself, I think, are to get the line items for

236 00:26:12.770 00:26:23.414 Ben Steinberg: like. Add the add all the Creator line items for the campaigns. Add the athletes for the campaigns, and then make sure that this matches

237 00:26:24.590 00:26:26.740 Ben Steinberg: this coupon source of truth.

238 00:26:30.900 00:26:45.399 Ben Steinberg: So so I’ll 1st add everything here, and then I’ll basically just pop this screen open and just, you know, make sure I’m have the same exact campaign names, and you know, probably just do some format stuff. But alright, dude! I knew this was coming. This was like the from like.

239 00:26:45.400 00:26:45.780 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

240 00:26:45.780 00:26:58.010 Ben Steinberg: Get to kick off the project like, Hey, I know, I’m gonna have to do some stuff. There’s context. And there’s a billion Google sheets, and I’m happy to do it, because it’s kind of like we are in, like the dog days of summer, when it comes to like the seasonality of this business. We don’t.

241 00:26:58.650 00:27:01.910 Ben Steinberg: I’m kind of sand trying to sandbag and save my budget for like

242 00:27:02.330 00:27:06.812 Ben Steinberg: having a product that we wanted that product market fit for

243 00:27:07.640 00:27:09.470 Ben Steinberg: So this is a good time for this cleanup stuff.

244 00:27:09.470 00:27:15.703 Uttam Kumaran: So so right now you’re not you’re not pulling anything directly from S. 3 or from

245 00:27:16.170 00:27:20.846 Uttam Kumaran: Forgive me. I’m forgetting his name. From Alex.

246 00:27:21.430 00:27:22.630 Ben Steinberg: I don’t. I mean I’m pulling stuff from.

247 00:27:22.630 00:27:24.449 Uttam Kumaran: Everything you’re getting is from quicksight.

248 00:27:24.450 00:27:27.069 Ben Steinberg: Yeah, I don’t know where. I don’t know where, like stuff. I don’t know where.

249 00:27:27.070 00:27:30.869 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, great. All right. Okay, cool. All right.

250 00:27:31.440 00:27:38.159 Uttam Kumaran: So you’ll no longer have to do that. Also, dude like you should be getting from your product, you should be getting daily

251 00:27:38.700 00:27:41.300 Uttam Kumaran: data like.

252 00:27:42.480 00:27:51.090 Uttam Kumaran: do it like you should be be able to look out like my objective is to try to enable you to do this on at least a weekly basis. Look at redemptions.

253 00:27:51.470 00:27:55.440 Uttam Kumaran: But like the product data is gonna have dude. The product data is gonna have

254 00:27:55.740 00:27:59.480 Uttam Kumaran: by the minute right? Like the product data is not constrained by.

255 00:27:59.480 00:28:01.120 Ben Steinberg: Oh, I see what you’re saying. Yep.

256 00:28:01.120 00:28:05.646 Uttam Kumaran: So. But ideally, yeah, I wanna aim to give you one more rung of

257 00:28:07.200 00:28:13.679 Uttam Kumaran: It’s sort of like you have. It’s like the least granular problem like, you’re only as good as your least granular data source.

258 00:28:14.020 00:28:17.229 Uttam Kumaran: So if your least granular data source is like

259 00:28:17.970 00:28:25.191 Uttam Kumaran: your product data, and I move that to a week. Then we go isolate. What? What’s the next thing that we can’t have at a week level that we should get, you know.

260 00:28:25.410 00:28:34.525 Ben Steinberg: Yeah, like, I’ll I’m gonna add this, not even as like a prioritized just yet, but just to keep keep stock of it, of like what you just described is like,

261 00:28:35.350 00:28:46.170 Ben Steinberg: essentially, it’s like how many people like it’s like of of stakes eligible to be closed.

262 00:28:46.730 00:28:49.299 Ben Steinberg: How many people close them.

263 00:28:49.930 00:29:00.989 Ben Steinberg: How many restake like that’s just trying to start to, you know. Look at like our funnel over time like, without even slicing and dicing by any of the campaign or channel, or whatever like we have all these people.

264 00:29:01.640 00:29:14.459 Ben Steinberg: It’s just a way to showcase like our our Ltv. Being being low. We have so many people, and it’s like, Hey, you can take your money back and return it to yourself or put it on the new player. And people just aren’t doing anything. It feels like a number to us.

265 00:29:14.950 00:29:17.776 Ben Steinberg: Try and move in the right direction.

266 00:29:18.660 00:29:22.255 Ben Steinberg: cool. I feel like I definitely have my work cut out for me on this stuff.

267 00:29:22.480 00:29:40.970 Uttam Kumaran: So I’m gonna be working on this stuff like, I’m on a train tomorrow. So I’ll be online like mid afternoon working on some of this. So I’ll probably be poking in and answering, just putting in comments. I have enough to work on like the architecture diagram and then I’m gonna sort of be like in spreadsheet world for a sec

268 00:29:41.090 00:29:48.730 Uttam Kumaran: to make sure like those these joints happen like, ha! Do you care if I like start to consolidate some of these spreadsheets, because.

269 00:29:48.730 00:29:49.550 Ben Steinberg: Not at all.

270 00:29:49.550 00:29:52.849 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, like, I don’t worry about. I’m more of a like.

271 00:29:53.330 00:29:59.209 Uttam Kumaran: have 10 tabs in one spreadsheet versus like. Otherwise we’ll have to do imports and stuff, and it’s like a little bit messy.

272 00:29:59.210 00:30:02.109 Ben Steinberg: No, the only thing that I would just ask is, if you.

273 00:30:02.110 00:30:06.759 Uttam Kumaran: I will make a call. I’ll I’ll make a copy of everything, and I won’t like I’m not gonna touch anything, live.

274 00:30:06.760 00:30:14.059 Ben Steinberg: Yeah, or or just like, Yeah, if you when you make the copy, give me a heads up, or whatever so like, I don’t do too much too far, and like something we can always copy and paste it over.

275 00:30:14.060 00:30:14.710 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. Okay.

276 00:30:14.710 00:30:19.871 Ben Steinberg: I I get the the main thing that that I want to just just. I would just, if you can,

277 00:30:20.360 00:30:31.627 Ben Steinberg: just ping the channel. If you are to like change this because I just wasn’t sure if we were like this. I brought this up with Alex, and I think he kind of said my concern was was not a big deal, but

278 00:30:32.970 00:30:33.400 Uttam Kumaran: Which.

279 00:30:34.222 00:30:42.080 Ben Steinberg: basically, I remember that like, I like added a column into this sheet one time, or like I added some. I added something, and it broke something, so I just don’t know if we’re.

280 00:30:42.495 00:30:42.909 Uttam Kumaran: One.

281 00:30:42.910 00:30:50.390 Ben Steinberg: This coupon. Oh, I thought, my sorry. My screen’s not sharing anymore the coupon tracking sheet. So just wanna make sure that like he knows where this sheet is.

282 00:30:50.390 00:30:57.009 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, okay, well, you know. What I’ll do is I’ll also. I’ll also add validation, so it will prevent you, or it’ll

283 00:30:57.140 00:31:13.560 Uttam Kumaran: send you a warning if you make a change. So what like we do a lot of spreadsheet organization work, basically, we’ll color code and also like highlight, like, basically give you walking instructions on like how to use the spreadsheet, because it ultimately like you’ll again at some point. You’ll be passing this off to somebody

284 00:31:13.740 00:31:17.330 Uttam Kumaran: way dumber than you. And so you want to.

285 00:31:17.330 00:31:18.760 Ben Steinberg: No, no totally dude.

286 00:31:18.760 00:31:19.520 Ben Steinberg: This is like this is

287 00:31:19.520 00:31:40.699 Ben Steinberg: such inside baseball right now, the way that I’m looking at it and like it’s gonna be like even like this test that I have to do now is like, I’m looking now. There’s 1 code where it’s like I gave it to a fan page, but then he never used it, so I gave it to someone like, so I’ll mental map. I don’t have anything for the next hour. So while it’s all it’s fresh, I’m just gonna try and bang some of this out.

288 00:31:40.700 00:31:41.280 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

289 00:31:42.873 00:31:47.396 Ben Steinberg: Sweet, though. Yeah, definitely. Just keep me posted as you consolidate things totally warranted.

290 00:31:48.940 00:32:01.029 Ben Steinberg: yeah, I’m honestly dude. And this is kind of like the because we’re friends, and I could like tell you stuff. Between you and me there was like a time where I was like really out on fan steak. Because we like weren’t doing stuff. And now I’m kind of back in because we raised a lot of money and like

291 00:32:01.170 00:32:05.310 Ben Steinberg: things are, I feel like it’s reinvigorating that way. But this is.

292 00:32:05.310 00:32:05.650 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

293 00:32:05.650 00:32:06.460 Ben Steinberg: Opportunities. It’s like.

294 00:32:06.460 00:32:11.109 Uttam Kumaran: No, but I know you. I mean, like, I’m not surprised, like I know you have to kind of be like.

295 00:32:11.550 00:32:14.290 Uttam Kumaran: things have to be actually working.

296 00:32:15.660 00:32:16.130 Ben Steinberg: It’s tough.

297 00:32:16.130 00:32:19.490 Uttam Kumaran: But also, I can tell you, like like this sort of 0 to one

298 00:32:19.790 00:32:23.279 Uttam Kumaran: world. Actually, I don’t know. I feel like you’re sort of bop around like,

299 00:32:26.320 00:32:31.480 Uttam Kumaran: yeah, I know, I kind of could tell. But then I was also like, Okay, we’ll see. And then when you raise money.

300 00:32:31.740 00:32:33.989 Uttam Kumaran: that’s a lot of validation, you know, and at least

301 00:32:34.540 00:32:39.169 Uttam Kumaran: they’ll spend the money before like crapping out, you know. So at least you got a shot.

302 00:32:39.170 00:32:41.750 Ben Steinberg: Dude like. I don’t know, man, you know. You know how I’ve jumped around so much.

303 00:32:41.750 00:32:42.090 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

304 00:32:42.090 00:32:47.250 Ben Steinberg: Flow code like specifically after flow code that, like, I’m like, all right sports. I like the team enough.

305 00:32:47.250 00:32:47.840 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah.

306 00:32:47.840 00:32:50.158 Ben Steinberg: And I’m like, all right, let’s just.

307 00:32:50.490 00:32:50.950 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, you’re with.

308 00:32:50.950 00:33:10.469 Ben Steinberg: I’m gonna stay and like not do something more entrepreneurial. After this I needed to have a job where I stayed for at least a year and a half or so, or like a year like just dude. I feel like I’ve been here forever. It’s like 9 months, and I’m like, I just took a consulting call with this AI company that does dude. They make erotic stories. It’s like mad libs, for like

309 00:33:10.780 00:33:11.525 Ben Steinberg: freaks.

310 00:33:12.270 00:33:13.349 Uttam Kumaran: They’re like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

311 00:33:13.350 00:33:23.480 Ben Steinberg: But they have, like, you know, 15 like they’re bootstrapped and have whatever like whatever number couple of 1,000 daily active users. But it was just one of those calls. We’re like

312 00:33:24.340 00:33:27.520 Ben Steinberg: kind of like. Why, when we were, you were like, Oh, hey! There might be someone where you.

313 00:33:27.520 00:33:29.540 Uttam Kumaran: Well dude like so for that. So talk to me.

314 00:33:29.540 00:33:30.769 Ben Steinberg: It’s nice to flex on people.

315 00:33:30.770 00:33:31.100 Uttam Kumaran: We’ll tell.

316 00:33:31.100 00:33:31.540 Ben Steinberg: Have another.

317 00:33:31.540 00:33:34.799 Uttam Kumaran: Wow! How did that come up? And then like, What did you get paid for that.

318 00:33:35.323 00:33:39.756 Ben Steinberg: They just she just added me on Linkedin. I saw she was like building something, and then I took

319 00:33:40.500 00:33:53.979 Ben Steinberg: maybe 20 min call with her just like on like a Friday afternoon. And now we’re working on just like a small scope, like 5 HA week contract. I can join a meeting and help direct your resources, you know, and like. Manage your team a bit.

320 00:33:53.980 00:33:54.750 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

321 00:33:55.220 00:33:57.459 Ben Steinberg: It was very opportunistic.

322 00:33:57.670 00:34:07.615 Ben Steinberg: I I don’t know. Yeah, we’re she, she email, I’m kinda like, Hey, you just seemed like a smart person that like it was a Friday afternoon. I probably didn’t talk to anyone all day.

323 00:34:07.900 00:34:10.710 Uttam Kumaran: Well, Dude, that’s exactly the stuff I think you should cause.

324 00:34:10.850 00:34:13.080 Uttam Kumaran: The benefit for you. Is that like

325 00:34:13.260 00:34:20.510 Uttam Kumaran: it would be so smooth to like, get that person and get you like. Get all the logistics of handling. That done.

326 00:34:20.670 00:34:30.860 Uttam Kumaran: I think what we should, we could probably collaborate on. And that’s why I wanted to. I wanted to come. Say, Hi! But I wanted to just chat with you about like, what? What would be the couple of like

327 00:34:31.420 00:34:37.150 Uttam Kumaran: it’d be, basically, what is a solutions architect for marketing like? What would your couple of like capabilities be like.

328 00:34:37.310 00:34:45.800 Uttam Kumaran: you know, and just describing that maybe I can get it, get you on the phone. And I can walk through that because then our marketing team can basically produce those. And then we can start like hitting people for that.

329 00:34:47.080 00:34:48.260 Ben Steinberg: Yeah.

330 00:34:49.400 00:35:02.950 Ben Steinberg: I mean, I my mind goes to like, if it’s on a specific channel that like they like, it’s so big for them. They’re like, Hey, we just want, like a channel partner to, or something to really think about this. I mean, whether it’s a channel or like a whole growth program. My mind goes to

331 00:35:03.100 00:35:12.010 Ben Steinberg: certain, you know, different charts that like we need to see and like pivot tables, whether it’s raw data or like actual chart. But it’s like, okay, let me understand the the historic.

332 00:35:12.010 00:35:13.100 Uttam Kumaran: So what is like on it?

333 00:35:13.100 00:35:16.190 Uttam Kumaran: So what is the problem they’re coming to you with

334 00:35:16.960 00:35:20.190 Uttam Kumaran: like, we don’t have visibility. Oh, we need to get our cat done. That’s.

335 00:35:20.190 00:35:45.949 Ben Steinberg: We need to get our tax down or like this company like this. AI company was like, we’re so young we don’t know what to do. Here are the 5 tests we’ve done so far. And it was like we found some traction posting on Reddit. We, you know, tried Facebook a little bit. It didn’t work, but maybe it will. They’re just like, Hey, you’re like the 3 things we’ve tried in the last year with like a founder and like a co-founder. And

336 00:35:46.370 00:36:02.174 Ben Steinberg: basically like, What would you? You know, how how do we grow this? And I’m like, here’s a channel you haven’t even thought about. Here’s how we’re gonna stand it up. And here’s how ideally we’re gonna like, you know, set it up to be to to measure, because it might start ugly. And we’re gonna optimize over time. You feel like kind of pitch that way.

337 00:36:03.440 00:36:29.860 Ben Steinberg: that’s like that’s kind of what happened with with this company where they were just like, yeah, you know, we did 5 things, and we have nothing really going on right now, I’m like, all right. Well, here’s what I think you could do on Facebook. But here’s probably what it would cost. We could also do like affiliate, I would, you know. But here’s what basically like, I can’t do this for you like that. That’s what happened with these guys. I was like, affiliate, I think would crush for you guys. And you guys should do like micro influencers and like, do that at scale. I can’t do that for you.

338 00:36:30.160 00:36:34.539 Uttam Kumaran: Who who would? Who would end up doing that? You’re like you’re like you should.

339 00:36:34.540 00:36:36.810 Ben Steinberg: I could recommend someone for them to bring in.

340 00:36:37.150 00:36:38.120 Uttam Kumaran: Hmm, okay.

341 00:36:38.120 00:36:44.530 Ben Steinberg: And that’s where I would probably recommend. Like honestly, my mind goes to who I would hire for that type of thing, and probably like a growth assistant.

342 00:36:44.530 00:36:48.070 Uttam Kumaran: And then. But then that person would base spend an hour with you. You give them a direction. And then.

343 00:36:48.070 00:36:51.120 Uttam Kumaran: yeah, yeah, like, I can help right like get, you know.

344 00:36:51.120 00:36:52.249 Ben Steinberg: Like an sop.

345 00:36:52.250 00:36:54.930 Uttam Kumaran: I can get you 2 of these a week actively.

346 00:36:55.550 00:36:56.720 Ben Steinberg: Wow. Okay.

347 00:36:56.720 00:36:57.570 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I think I can.

348 00:36:57.570 00:37:00.949 Ben Steinberg: Figure out how to structure the deliverables, which, like, isn’t rocket science. I just want to make.

349 00:37:00.950 00:37:05.420 Uttam Kumaran: No, no dude when you’re at. When you’re at your level, they basically just want you to like.

350 00:37:05.580 00:37:15.639 Uttam Kumaran: get on a phone and then dude. You know what we do. We use AI where, like, you can get on a phone talk. And then, as soon as the meeting’s over, we structure the AI structures, the entire, like

351 00:37:15.810 00:37:19.819 Uttam Kumaran: the tickets that need to get done. All this stuff. So.

352 00:37:19.820 00:37:20.680 Ben Steinberg: Let’s save.

353 00:37:20.820 00:37:38.740 Uttam Kumaran: Like right after. And as long as you record the meeting, we structure that. So I think I could even get you just like 3 or 4 h doing that, probably. And then, if you need to bring on someone to manage, you can just stay there and do that, or if they turn into a larger agreement, we have project managers and shit so like.

354 00:37:39.710 00:37:40.556 Uttam Kumaran: let me

355 00:37:41.180 00:37:46.389 Ben Steinberg: Yeah, cause some just some of these, you know. Obviously, it’s still context, dependent, like, they might be like, Hey, we’re crushing, affiliate. And Mike.

356 00:37:46.390 00:38:03.230 Uttam Kumaran: I know. But dude one like anytime you spend with them. You want to get paid right. So if you’re like cool, I’m gonna hop on with 3 h, like, okay, I need to get paid for that. But second, you know what challenges like. Soon as you start running 2 or 3 of these. You need to invoice them need to track hours to sign contracts. You need to like

357 00:38:03.610 00:38:06.249 Uttam Kumaran: sort of handle being in a fucking slack.

358 00:38:06.600 00:38:11.070 Uttam Kumaran: and then you need to continue selling more. It’s like dude. This is the it’s.

359 00:38:11.070 00:38:13.250 Ben Steinberg: Dude. That’s why I didn’t do consulting.

360 00:38:13.250 00:38:14.690 Uttam Kumaran: It’s a horrible problem.

361 00:38:14.690 00:38:15.409 Ben Steinberg: Dude. I did.

362 00:38:15.410 00:38:38.559 Uttam Kumaran: Dude. I haven’t really done much like I feel like my life is like in limbo for 2 years right now, but like but like also, it’s working. And so that’s where I think you’re at a such a senior level like it’d be easy, because dude. When I described you, I said. There’s only one person I know who’s managed like I mean, I don’t know. You may manage like more than 100 million in marketing, spend.

363 00:38:39.120 00:38:41.700 Ben Steinberg: Dude. That’s thanks. Thanks to Tim Armstrong, dude.

364 00:38:41.700 00:38:45.550 Uttam Kumaran: Well, that’s why I was like yo. There’s only one person I worked with who was really spending like

365 00:38:45.860 00:38:49.400 Uttam Kumaran: tens of millions a month, or like something like that. And so.

366 00:38:49.400 00:38:53.250 Ben Steinberg: We were spending, probably like a mill a month, but for that size of a startup that’s nuts.

367 00:38:53.250 00:39:06.339 Uttam Kumaran: So then, if I was like, if you need to talk to someone on how to get volume out the door, and also like, make sure it’s all measured and do that fast, like there’s only one person. And so the companies we look for trying to do that because these are like really growing companies.

368 00:39:07.060 00:39:17.719 Uttam Kumaran: But I said, I’m saying no to marketing work, because I don’t want to do that like it’s it’s not a data problem. They almost just need someone that’s like, it’s crappy. And they need like an architect.

369 00:39:18.380 00:39:25.070 Ben Steinberg: Yeah, that that’s like, I’m just taking notes. But that that is like.

370 00:39:25.070 00:39:27.659 Uttam Kumaran: Like you don’t. You don’t want to execute these, but you need.

371 00:39:27.660 00:39:28.219 Ben Steinberg: No, I don’t.

372 00:39:28.220 00:39:28.639 Uttam Kumaran: Have the chance.

373 00:39:28.640 00:39:34.070 Ben Steinberg: Like when I was consulting there was like the smallest paying people needed, like the most crappy stuff.

374 00:39:34.070 00:39:35.579 Uttam Kumaran: I know, but that’s the thing. But they’re also.

375 00:39:35.580 00:39:51.389 Ben Steinberg: I was gonna be 13 K. From a big agency, and I was making like 20 memes a week. And it was like, Oh, like the. And then all of a sudden, I was like, Okay, well, that’s just gonna be the only one I focus on, because it’s easy and it’s fun. And it was paying me the 12 K. 13 K, and

376 00:39:52.070 00:40:17.774 Ben Steinberg: then I was like, Okay, like, I’m just kind of simulating almost a full time job. And then I went back towards the full time work. But but yeah, I I it is right. But I think I think what I need to figure out, and what I’ll put some thought into, and would love your thoughts as well as like what is like a kind of like a this is what happened when I was consulting at a search account and then at a Facebook, and then this and that, and it was like, Can I just pick one of these things, and just do that really easily, you know, with little time.

377 00:40:18.580 00:40:23.519 Uttam Kumaran: But it depends like, do you want to come in and advise? Or do you want to come in and execute? Or do you want to be like I can.

378 00:40:23.520 00:40:26.340 Ben Steinberg: I don’t want to execute. If I can advise, I think I.

379 00:40:26.340 00:40:31.530 Uttam Kumaran: Then that’s it. Then start with that like, don’t go beyond that like, don’t we? Don’t offer that right, that’s it.

380 00:40:31.530 00:40:33.749 Ben Steinberg: It was like such a weird thing to charge for dude.

381 00:40:33.750 00:40:58.600 Uttam Kumaran: No, yeah, I know. But, like, guess what dude you have a lot of alpha in your head like you’ve done this to so many people you’ve managed a lot of money like it is a weird thing to charge. But it’s weird, because in consulting the the reason why people bring in consultants is because you have a problem that you need solved fast, and that you may or may not have the network to do it and do hiring a full time person to do that job like

382 00:40:58.850 00:41:00.949 Uttam Kumaran: you know how much you cost full time

383 00:41:01.120 00:41:07.550 Uttam Kumaran: like it’s expensive. So they want to bring in someone just like yo. Can you just like give us the like the light?

384 00:41:07.770 00:41:10.179 Uttam Kumaran: But for a couple hours a week that’s it.

385 00:41:10.580 00:41:16.259 Uttam Kumaran: It’s a very fair trade, because if they’re going to make 1 million dollar decisions. What’s like a fucking couple $1,000.

386 00:41:18.140 00:41:19.970 Ben Steinberg: Yeah, and.

387 00:41:19.970 00:41:20.750 Uttam Kumaran: Right? So that’s what.

388 00:41:20.750 00:41:27.369 Ben Steinberg: Totally. That’s like. That’s why I remember when I went to like I’ve I like when I when I’ve moved numbers I’m like, Hey, I just saved you.

389 00:41:28.210 00:41:28.850 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

390 00:41:28.850 00:41:30.310 Ben Steinberg: Like? Can I.

391 00:41:30.310 00:41:31.499 Uttam Kumaran: This is what I’m saying.

392 00:41:31.500 00:41:31.900 Ben Steinberg: Yeah.

393 00:41:31.900 00:41:38.470 Uttam Kumaran: They’re serious. This is where one we don’t. We don’t do a lot of work with startups, because they tend to kind of like chip you on this like.

394 00:41:38.760 00:41:46.840 Uttam Kumaran: you know, they’re kinda like, Oh, I don’t know like we’re looking at someone in the Philippines for like 10 bucks an hour. And I’m like dude. What you

395 00:41:47.450 00:42:05.910 Uttam Kumaran: I’m like, not that person, you know. So, second, we don’t work with a we try not to work with a lot like, I would say, the only startups we work for, where, if it’s with, like my friend, like your company, a couple of other companies, it’s just like a homies there. So I took the work. But it’s tough. They’re they’re tough businesses that to work with. So we are all mid market large. They.

396 00:42:05.910 00:42:06.440 Ben Steinberg: Hmm.

397 00:42:06.440 00:42:21.220 Uttam Kumaran: They like are actually have budget or doing stuff. And they just don’t have like a leader or a partner. And it fits really, naturally into all of our other work, because dude, we immediately go in and do all their marketing, related attribution and measurement. So.

398 00:42:21.508 00:42:22.950 Ben Steinberg: Yes- yes, so it’s like.

399 00:42:22.950 00:42:28.709 Uttam Kumaran: We can add up. Basically, the add on service for us is like, Hey, it seems like, you guys need a growth marketing expert.

400 00:42:29.010 00:42:34.690 Uttam Kumaran: especially for like paid like I don’t know paid, or I don’t know how I would describe it. Like what it will come up with like.

401 00:42:34.690 00:42:36.139 Ben Steinberg: Go to market.

402 00:42:36.140 00:42:41.800 Uttam Kumaran: We’ll come with what the crisp thing is like. You need a you need to go to market, or like a

403 00:42:42.750 00:42:43.979 Ben Steinberg: User acquisition.

404 00:42:43.980 00:42:52.369 Uttam Kumaran: User acquisition expert like, we have someone on our team that does that. He’s managed like anything from like

405 00:42:52.500 00:42:59.199 Uttam Kumaran: 1020 KA month to 1 million dollar month budgets at like all these brands that you know of.

406 00:42:59.560 00:43:01.579 Ben Steinberg: Oh, yeah, that stuff because of ambush.

407 00:43:01.580 00:43:09.190 Uttam Kumaran: And so, and I’m like, why don’t you take a 30 min? Call with him. I think you’ll be impressed, and then, if you want, like I can start looping him into stuff.

408 00:43:09.380 00:43:12.689 Uttam Kumaran: And that’s it. That’s like that is my pitch, because we already work with you.

409 00:43:12.690 00:43:18.819 Ben Steinberg: That sounds great dude, I mean the bit some of the best work I’ve done has been when they have an analyst and a designer.

410 00:43:18.820 00:43:19.240 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.

411 00:43:19.240 00:43:40.040 Ben Steinberg: They take the director and like are like, Hey, we need her to manage 10 more clients. So she’s just gonna have you advise this team on how to optimize the Facebook account, because this analyst is 4 months in and doesn’t know shit and like just needs a sounding board. And then I just sit there. And she’s like, here’s what I’m planning to do, based on this data. And I’m like, well, maybe do it that way.

412 00:43:40.040 00:43:45.080 Uttam Kumaran: The nice part is like dude, you know, like consulting is hard, because everything around that meeting

413 00:43:45.330 00:43:49.190 Uttam Kumaran: right like everything that got me into this meeting with you is what’s hard like

414 00:43:49.300 00:44:10.280 Uttam Kumaran: slacks, contracts, balancing the other stuff. You’re doing. So for me. It’s like, I wanna like, I’ve offered this other people where I’m like, if you’re an expert in the field, we now are getting to the point where, like people, I don’t. I’m I’m now losing a lot of my time, so I can’t be the expert in every meeting. And so I need to find other people that I’m like, can I tap you for like 3, 4 HA week.

415 00:44:10.520 00:44:18.100 Uttam Kumaran: you’ll have the context to show up to the meeting and advise. Do what you like to do, and then just get out of that like.

416 00:44:18.100 00:44:18.990 Ben Steinberg: Yes. Yeah.

417 00:44:18.990 00:44:48.849 Uttam Kumaran: Our team execute or like work with their team execute. Yeah. But see, that’s what. Now I have this dude I have. We have like a fucking machine here, like we literally have an organization around this. So for me, it’s like cool. I’ll work with my marketing. I want to get like your brain and like, what are the ways we can highlight this I’ll put. We’ll put out like a case study. We’ll put out like a couple of blog posts about this sort of like offering. And then we have probably 3 clients where I’ll go to and say, Look, you guys are struggling like we have someone on our team that’s an expert in this

418 00:44:49.387 00:44:57.150 Uttam Kumaran: here’s all the brands he’s worked for. Why don’t you just give him? Why don’t you just talk to him for 30 min. If you guys vibe, then

419 00:44:57.350 00:44:59.029 Uttam Kumaran: like we could add them. And you can start.

420 00:44:59.030 00:45:03.320 Ben Steinberg: I mean dude. That’s awesome. I love it. And then I think like that.

421 00:45:03.320 00:45:06.359 Uttam Kumaran: I also want to get you. My, I want to get you more money.

422 00:45:06.360 00:45:06.910 Ben Steinberg: Well, then.

423 00:45:06.910 00:45:07.430 Uttam Kumaran: I want to make.

424 00:45:07.430 00:45:12.679 Ben Steinberg: Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally dude. I appreciate it. And I think, like, that’s a great.

425 00:45:12.680 00:45:15.909 Uttam Kumaran: And it’s also it’s like really easy money for me, because

426 00:45:16.190 00:45:26.939 Uttam Kumaran: I’m sitting on those connections, and I don’t want to go hire a version of you like. I wouldn’t do that. I wouldn’t off like this is not an offering I plan, unless you existed in my life.

427 00:45:26.940 00:45:29.920 Ben Steinberg: Well, well, Dude, hear hear me out, because I think like

428 00:45:30.110 00:45:45.909 Ben Steinberg: we have good marketing tactics, and you’re able to measure it and like, come up with a new dashboard based on a new initiative that, like is springboarded like that’s all like, is so like connected, and and give you such a value. Add to a business of like we’re like, we’re not going to just like, give you this

429 00:45:46.080 00:45:49.800 Ben Steinberg: direction. We’re gonna have a really sick way to measure that you weren’t gonna do.

430 00:45:49.800 00:45:50.250 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.

431 00:45:50.487 00:46:05.929 Ben Steinberg: But here’s here’s where I think. Then there could all like, I don’t want to get too far ahead, but I think that’s the perfect starting point. But then we just say, like, Hey, like, imagine, the recommendation to them is just like, Hey, everything’s like, really good, like in terms like, I wouldn’t do anything crazy with the channels. But your guys creative sucks.

432 00:46:06.240 00:46:12.039 Ben Steinberg: we’re just gonna whip up some a batch of ads for you and take a percent. Or you know, that’s where you get into like.

433 00:46:12.040 00:46:12.920 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

434 00:46:12.920 00:46:14.920 Ben Steinberg: That that is a

435 00:46:15.200 00:46:26.679 Ben Steinberg: if you, if you already have the infrastructure that you have building, the infrastructure is the bitch. But if you have the infrastructure that you have of of have some business that could be potential clients in your instant. Add, on the actual like service of.

436 00:46:27.845 00:46:42.670 Uttam Kumaran: I will send you. I’ll send you like I can show you. If we hop on next week I’ll show you every client that we’re we’re in with, and we’ve talked to. I’m sure you’ll spot a couple of them and just circle back and be like yo. We’re coming out with this new service case. It’s helpful.

437 00:46:42.900 00:46:43.750 Uttam Kumaran: like.

438 00:46:44.300 00:46:48.510 Ben Steinberg: Know I can make better ads for Joby. I already did coffee.

439 00:46:48.510 00:46:49.340 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

440 00:46:50.000 00:47:00.879 Ben Steinberg: I got crushed coffee for. So so that, like, yeah, there could always be like, you know, cool stuff there. But yeah, dude. Let’s let’s let’s maybe find like one person just to kind of like sample it out, you know.

441 00:47:01.170 00:47:02.050 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.

442 00:47:02.050 00:47:02.710 Ben Steinberg: Awesome.

443 00:47:03.710 00:47:07.820 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, alright. I gotta run. But yeah, let me. I’ll call you next week. I wanna get through.

444 00:47:07.820 00:47:08.140 Ben Steinberg: That’s good.

445 00:47:08.140 00:47:14.100 Uttam Kumaran: Stuff for for Fan stake. And then, yeah, I want to start thinking about it. Yeah.

446 00:47:15.000 00:47:27.460 Uttam Kumaran: And you know, again, we have, like other folks that will help push this through and like, I’ll start just bringing up in meetings, and it’ll I’m pretty confident we can get something going. Dude. I. We also work with some weird companies like weird Home service companies where.

447 00:47:27.890 00:47:32.220 Uttam Kumaran: like, I don’t know. I’ll just go ask them like, Yo, how are you guys doing marketing like

448 00:47:32.780 00:47:34.550 Uttam Kumaran: it’ll be interesting to see what they say.

449 00:47:34.810 00:47:43.330 Ben Steinberg: Dude the bar. So I mean, have you kept an eye on at all of one of the companies that Jesse built? Since my time with him. It’s called Ox Insights.

450 00:47:43.330 00:47:44.390 Uttam Kumaran: How do you spell it?

451 00:47:44.390 00:47:45.410 Ben Steinberg: A, UX.

452 00:47:45.410 00:47:47.519 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, we’re talking to them. Bro.

453 00:47:47.820 00:47:49.030 Ben Steinberg: Yeah dude.

454 00:47:49.520 00:47:53.663 Ben Steinberg: They wanted to partner with us. We’re this guy, Gibson.

455 00:47:54.230 00:47:58.899 Uttam Kumaran: Is a senior associate there, and

456 00:47:59.050 00:48:01.949 Uttam Kumaran: we call them, and they want to.

457 00:48:09.270 00:48:11.849 Uttam Kumaran: They wanted some of our help, maybe for AI stuff.

458 00:48:12.810 00:48:13.670 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

459 00:48:15.210 00:48:15.560 Ben Steinberg: Cool.

460 00:48:15.560 00:48:15.880 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

461 00:48:16.222 00:48:19.989 Ben Steinberg: I never met this guy. He worked at Ruggables. That’s interesting.

462 00:48:19.990 00:48:23.529 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, my my, my friend Robert was head of data at Rockables.

463 00:48:23.820 00:48:45.490 Ben Steinberg: Warden, Bcg, dude. That’s exactly who Jesse would hire a lot of my people, I mean. Obviously, I don’t like a lot of people I know work there. But dude like it just sounds similar of like they’ll work with a business that needs one thing, and then it’s like, Wait, you need these 7 other things. And like, we’re not going to be a full scale agency because they’re just a consultancy that, but specifically that partners with the PE firms who buy up these like

464 00:48:45.670 00:48:49.719 Ben Steinberg: shit run companies that happen to have crazy profit margins.

465 00:48:50.110 00:48:50.890 Uttam Kumaran: Hmm.

466 00:48:50.890 00:49:07.350 Ben Steinberg: Like I worked with something that was called Stinger off road, and it was like they just sold like jeep inserts for like getting like a bigger screen in your jeep. And it’s like a thousand dollar product. And like they were ripping. But they didn’t have the worst Facebook account I’ve ever seen, you know.

467 00:49:08.910 00:49:14.572 Uttam Kumaran: But yeah, it just seems he feels like, yeah, some some synergy with what they’re doing, what you’re what you’re doing

468 00:49:14.830 00:49:15.550 Uttam Kumaran: that one.

469 00:49:15.550 00:49:20.930 Ben Steinberg: Yeah dude jump keep me posted on this stuff and I’ll just send. I’ll I’ll work on these fucking spreadsheets.

470 00:49:20.930 00:49:21.970 Ben Steinberg: Okay, okay, alright.

471 00:49:22.010 00:49:22.840 Ben Steinberg: Let it do thank you.

472 00:49:23.180 00:49:24.000 Uttam Kumaran: Bye.