Meeting Title: Data Consulting Business Collaboration Chat Date: 2025-07-16 Meeting participants: Usman Ashraf, Uttam Kumaran
WEBVTT
1 00:01:23.690 ⇒ 00:01:24.930 Usman Ashraf: Good morning!
2 00:01:25.370 ⇒ 00:01:26.690 Uttam Kumaran: Hey! Good morning!
3 00:01:26.690 ⇒ 00:01:28.399 Usman Ashraf: What’s up? How you doing.
4 00:01:28.990 ⇒ 00:01:31.070 Uttam Kumaran: Good. How are you sorry for the delay?
5 00:01:31.450 ⇒ 00:01:38.100 Usman Ashraf: Yeah. And it’s fine, I understand. Morning time must have been busy for you.
6 00:01:38.620 ⇒ 00:01:44.089 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, we’re we’re working like, insane hours these days. So it’s just like
7 00:01:44.260 ⇒ 00:01:47.430 Uttam Kumaran: trying to get everything together. So yeah, how’s everything?
8 00:01:47.910 ⇒ 00:01:50.189 Usman Ashraf: Doing very well. Just routine stuff.
9 00:01:50.410 ⇒ 00:01:51.259 Usman Ashraf: There, are you.
10 00:01:52.630 ⇒ 00:01:55.739 Uttam Kumaran: I’m in I’m in Austin, in Austin, Texas.
11 00:01:55.980 ⇒ 00:01:56.640 Usman Ashraf: Nice.
12 00:01:56.810 ⇒ 00:01:57.510 Usman Ashraf: Okay.
13 00:01:57.510 ⇒ 00:01:58.340 Uttam Kumaran: How about you?
14 00:01:59.058 ⇒ 00:02:00.490 Usman Ashraf: I’m in Lahore, Pakistan.
15 00:02:00.490 ⇒ 00:02:01.150 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
16 00:02:01.370 ⇒ 00:02:06.180 Usman Ashraf: I think we probably have 11 h of time. Difference.
17 00:02:06.750 ⇒ 00:02:07.400 Uttam Kumaran: Nice.
18 00:02:07.400 ⇒ 00:02:10.330 Usman Ashraf: It comes texas is central.
19 00:02:10.710 ⇒ 00:02:11.960 Uttam Kumaran: Central. Yes.
20 00:02:11.960 ⇒ 00:02:18.590 Usman Ashraf: Yeah, so yeah, I think we have 11 h time difference? So yeah, what’s going on today? What’s the plan.
21 00:02:19.110 ⇒ 00:02:22.639 Uttam Kumaran: The plan today. Here, let me tell you so I have.
22 00:02:22.780 ⇒ 00:02:29.189 Uttam Kumaran: I’m chatting with you, which I’m really looking forward to. We have some like client stand ups and grooming
23 00:02:29.821 ⇒ 00:02:35.839 Uttam Kumaran: and then a couple of sales calls later. And then I’m going to an event like an AI event later tonight. So
24 00:02:36.280 ⇒ 00:02:36.810 Uttam Kumaran: this slide.
25 00:02:36.810 ⇒ 00:02:38.849 Usman Ashraf: Happening locally, that’s happening.
26 00:02:39.600 ⇒ 00:02:42.610 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, locally, locally, correct.
27 00:02:42.980 ⇒ 00:02:47.129 Usman Ashraf: Okay, nice. I think Austin has a lot of tech ecosystem.
28 00:02:47.300 ⇒ 00:02:51.814 Uttam Kumaran: It’s growing. Yeah, I’ve been here for like, 3 years. I was in New York before this.
29 00:02:52.620 ⇒ 00:03:03.699 Uttam Kumaran: and yeah, it’s starting to grow a lot which is great, because, you know, I can use it to go recruit post on Linkedin, you know, find clients things like that. So
30 00:03:03.830 ⇒ 00:03:08.219 Uttam Kumaran: it’s good, but it takes time, you know. It takes energy to go to those events, and like.
31 00:03:08.820 ⇒ 00:03:09.320 Usman Ashraf: Yes.
32 00:03:09.320 ⇒ 00:03:12.560 Uttam Kumaran: Be like all super performative, you know, so.
33 00:03:12.560 ⇒ 00:03:18.030 Usman Ashraf: Yeah, do you, miss? New York? New York is much bigger.
34 00:03:19.018 ⇒ 00:03:27.351 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I don’t know. I I feel like I don’t like compare it much. I lived there for like 5 years. I’ve built my whole career there.
35 00:03:27.780 ⇒ 00:03:45.130 Uttam Kumaran: I started the business after moving here. I miss it. It’s a good, it’s a good energy, and I think the people that who live there are incredibly motivated, like, I’ve never lived anywhere else where people want to win, whatever they’re doing, they want to win so badly, like
36 00:03:45.330 ⇒ 00:03:49.610 Uttam Kumaran: everywhere else, like in Texas. Here people don’t work at all. They don’t do anything so.
37 00:03:49.730 ⇒ 00:03:52.970 Uttam Kumaran: But I’m like kind of a workaholic. So I need.
38 00:03:53.190 ⇒ 00:03:56.500 Uttam Kumaran: I need the rest of my life to be kind of like relaxed.
39 00:03:57.050 ⇒ 00:04:02.799 Uttam Kumaran: Otherwise everything like I’ve stopped eating. I only drink coffee like it becomes too much
40 00:04:03.353 ⇒ 00:04:14.690 Uttam Kumaran: though I do like here, but our whole business is remote, so all of our clients are us. But we have people all over the Us. All over, like the world working so.
41 00:04:16.000 ⇒ 00:04:22.790 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know. I don’t think it really matters like I I we run a really great operation, and we have like a lot of ways of running.
42 00:04:23.140 ⇒ 00:04:28.140 Uttam Kumaran: you know, teams remotely, which is great versus like having to have everyone in one place.
43 00:04:30.390 ⇒ 00:04:34.800 Uttam Kumaran: But yeah, I’m curious. I just like came across your profile. I wanted to see like.
44 00:04:34.800 ⇒ 00:04:38.840 Uttam Kumaran: like, sort of like, kind of this stuff you’re working on.
45 00:04:38.840 ⇒ 00:04:39.230 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
46 00:04:39.230 ⇒ 00:04:43.990 Uttam Kumaran: And just kind of here. Cause. I feel like we’re kind of doing similar things like you’re.
47 00:04:43.990 ⇒ 00:04:44.380 Usman Ashraf: Yeah.
48 00:04:44.380 ⇒ 00:04:50.499 Uttam Kumaran: You kind of work in sort of like data, warehousing data modeling. Like, is it? Yeah, we just love to love to hear about it.
49 00:04:50.700 ⇒ 00:04:54.280 Usman Ashraf: Yeah, I think
50 00:04:54.460 ⇒ 00:05:08.198 Usman Ashraf: I work in the broader data space. So anything data, I love to work on that. And it can start from just like right at the beginning, getting the data to building insights and everything in between
51 00:05:08.770 ⇒ 00:05:18.949 Usman Ashraf: data modeling and data warehouses come under the same, you know, broader data category. So yeah, I started my career from scraping.
52 00:05:19.150 ⇒ 00:05:23.809 Usman Ashraf: Yeah, I think it’s great for your problem solving.
53 00:05:24.030 ⇒ 00:05:24.410 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
54 00:05:24.410 ⇒ 00:05:27.380 Usman Ashraf: Hard. Yeah, it’s I put it.
55 00:05:27.380 ⇒ 00:05:28.130 Uttam Kumaran: Endless.
56 00:05:28.130 ⇒ 00:05:57.679 Usman Ashraf: Yeah, yeah, I put it at a higher intellectual tier than web development. No offense to web developers. But I think there is an adversary involved, and you have to always be one step ahead of it, and it can be really hard. So I started my career there, and I built a lot of scrapers, and I think that improved a lot of my problem, solving in general.
57 00:05:58.300 ⇒ 00:06:18.900 Usman Ashraf: and then but you know, it can be stressful as well. At the same time you do your best, and it’s still not working. And people just care about. Or you know, non technical leaders just want to know if it is there or not, they, they may not be able to understand all the difficulties.
58 00:06:18.900 ⇒ 00:06:32.410 Usman Ashraf: technical issues that may arise in the process. So it can be stressful because of that reason. But you know, I’ve been doing it for a long while. So you know, I’ve done a lot of data scraping
59 00:06:32.732 ⇒ 00:06:36.599 Usman Ashraf: but I feel like bigger companies have more of their own data.
60 00:06:36.670 ⇒ 00:06:37.640 Usman Ashraf: And yeah.
61 00:06:37.640 ⇒ 00:06:38.280 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah.
62 00:06:38.280 ⇒ 00:06:42.334 Usman Ashraf: Yeah, it’s already enough. Their own data is already enough.
63 00:06:42.740 ⇒ 00:06:43.270 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
64 00:06:43.270 ⇒ 00:06:45.589 Usman Ashraf: To keep them, you know. Busy.
65 00:06:45.590 ⇒ 00:06:46.990 Uttam Kumaran: Busy. Yeah, yeah.
66 00:06:46.990 ⇒ 00:07:07.850 Usman Ashraf: And all of its details. So it’s like, people have a lot of messy data. Companies, enterprise clients they have. And and it can come from. You know, their internal files or some data reports. They have databases, text files, people store data in all weird ways. So I’ve you know.
67 00:07:08.760 ⇒ 00:07:20.005 Usman Ashraf: starting with the data ingestion. You know, I’ve worked with a lot of different ways to get and ingest data. And then after data ingestion, you probably need to
68 00:07:21.300 ⇒ 00:07:42.820 Usman Ashraf: store that data somewhere, you know. Maybe put it in a data lake or data where set up a data warehouse. So I do a lot of work around data, warehousing building data models. So that the analytics is being made easier so that it’s intuitive through snowflake
69 00:07:43.319 ⇒ 00:07:51.510 Usman Ashraf: modeling and snowflake schema. I’ve done a number of projects, you know, building those kinds of things. And then.
70 00:07:51.640 ⇒ 00:07:59.897 Usman Ashraf: oh, a lot of work around data movement data, migration from snowflake opensearch
71 00:08:00.490 ⇒ 00:08:00.830 Uttam Kumaran: Sure.
72 00:08:00.830 ⇒ 00:08:21.630 Usman Ashraf: Go into like post aws. Rds, whatever. So all of that stuff. And then I think the last mile really is the analytics that runs on any of these data warehouses or data systems. So I think it’s the complete data pipeline. And
73 00:08:22.040 ⇒ 00:08:27.250 Usman Ashraf: I think at this point, also, I’m trying to upscale my
74 00:08:27.470 ⇒ 00:08:34.500 Usman Ashraf: expertise in AI, because I just feel like I’ve to some extent left behind
75 00:08:34.720 ⇒ 00:08:45.060 Usman Ashraf: the you know AI curve in terms of you know building, not not necessarily building with AI, but building AI Apps.
76 00:08:45.310 ⇒ 00:08:45.890 Usman Ashraf: because
77 00:08:46.520 ⇒ 00:09:00.740 Usman Ashraf: really a app developer. In the 1st place. So I I did do a number of AI projects. But my work was chiefly limited to work that directly engages with the AI
78 00:09:00.860 ⇒ 00:09:09.060 Usman Ashraf: setting up prompts and getting responses. And you know that kind of stuff stuff, but not necessarily the web, which I think is
79 00:09:10.150 ⇒ 00:09:15.270 Usman Ashraf: a necessity. You know, everything comes to us through the web, so it’s.
80 00:09:15.270 ⇒ 00:09:15.710 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
81 00:09:15.710 ⇒ 00:09:17.270 Usman Ashraf: Important skill set
82 00:09:17.812 ⇒ 00:09:24.500 Usman Ashraf: that probably makes me more complete. I I don’t know if I don’t know. It’s like I ever
83 00:09:24.940 ⇒ 00:09:29.752 Usman Ashraf: changing or ever evolving journey. So yeah,
84 00:09:30.800 ⇒ 00:09:35.529 Uttam Kumaran: How have you been getting sort of clients now, like, where’s the where’s the business now? Like, is it? It’s.
85 00:09:35.530 ⇒ 00:09:36.100 Usman Ashraf: Yeah.
86 00:09:36.100 ⇒ 00:09:37.790 Uttam Kumaran: Like to just give me a little bit of sense of that.
87 00:09:37.790 ⇒ 00:09:39.230 Usman Ashraf: Yeah. So
88 00:09:39.700 ⇒ 00:09:45.729 Usman Ashraf: before we get to that, I will just provide you a bit more context. So I live in Pakistan
89 00:09:46.130 ⇒ 00:09:47.410 Usman Ashraf: and Lahore.
90 00:09:47.720 ⇒ 00:09:51.050 Usman Ashraf: And I have to work as a you know.
91 00:09:51.910 ⇒ 00:10:03.910 Usman Ashraf: independent contractor for many of my work for much of my work so, and and it’s hard to get clients for me directly.
92 00:10:04.551 ⇒ 00:10:13.690 Usman Ashraf: I think there’s a lot of work that I need to do, and but I’ve done a lot of work as well. So at this point
93 00:10:13.960 ⇒ 00:10:19.620 Usman Ashraf: most of my work comes through freelancing platforms.
94 00:10:19.850 ⇒ 00:10:28.550 Usman Ashraf: and that includes chiefly upwork. But it’s a different market compared to what
95 00:10:29.267 ⇒ 00:10:34.140 Usman Ashraf: someone living and working in the Us. Will target. So
96 00:10:35.010 ⇒ 00:10:40.810 Usman Ashraf: the if you, if you would try to understand, I think the hourly rates are significantly lower.
97 00:10:41.220 ⇒ 00:10:45.100 Uttam Kumaran: And you have to give them a piece. Yeah, I mean, we source some business from upwork as well.
98 00:10:45.100 ⇒ 00:10:45.850 Usman Ashraf: Yeah, but.
99 00:10:46.373 ⇒ 00:10:47.420 Uttam Kumaran: I think.
100 00:10:47.620 ⇒ 00:10:59.080 Usman Ashraf: Yeah, probably. No. I’ve got a lot of experience from upwork, and I can surely share insights as well. But I think if you are placed in the Us.
101 00:11:02.640 ⇒ 00:11:05.420 Usman Ashraf: The clients that live on upwork
102 00:11:05.710 ⇒ 00:11:19.760 Usman Ashraf: are probably not most suited to you. I’m sure there are clients, but I think for someone who is placed in the Us. They probably have some other channels from which majority of their revenue should come.
103 00:11:20.020 ⇒ 00:11:21.070 Usman Ashraf: So yeah, but for.
104 00:11:21.070 ⇒ 00:11:28.890 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know, I would say like I thought, that’s what I used to think. But we’re actually sourcing quite a bit of business from upwork. Just because I think
105 00:11:28.990 ⇒ 00:11:38.630 Uttam Kumaran: there’s a we have a lot of clients who have no idea how to build a data team, and so, therefore, when they when they need something in data. Their 1st thing is they put something on upwork
106 00:11:39.460 ⇒ 00:11:48.040 Uttam Kumaran: and then we get them there. And then we we find that that we were able to actually move them off the platform and sell them a much larger engagement. You know.
107 00:11:48.040 ⇒ 00:11:48.730 Usman Ashraf: Yeah,
108 00:11:50.070 ⇒ 00:11:59.650 Usman Ashraf: it’s something new, slightly newer to me. But I think definitely, it’s also true. When you are operating from the Us. You’re going to have obviously much higher
109 00:11:59.890 ⇒ 00:12:01.360 Usman Ashraf: early rates.
110 00:12:01.460 ⇒ 00:12:10.589 Usman Ashraf: And I don’t know. How do you work, or, you know, get along with the bidding, wars and upwork, and so on so but I.
111 00:12:10.590 ⇒ 00:12:17.739 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I mean, we. We don’t compromise like we can’t, really. We don’t sort of compete with like
112 00:12:17.990 ⇒ 00:12:25.640 Uttam Kumaran: the lowest rates, like, we are an expensive company, and we want to go for companies that want to invest in data. So I don’t
113 00:12:25.870 ⇒ 00:12:26.740 Uttam Kumaran: like.
114 00:12:27.170 ⇒ 00:12:56.529 Uttam Kumaran: like, for example, like we we don’t. We don’t. We don’t just like bid, no matter what we have limits, and we don’t offer sort of like discounts or anything like we’re we’re running like a true consultancy. So we have limits on the things that we can do. So I don’t. I don’t, but I don’t care, because there’s enough business out there. And so I don’t. I don’t no longer need to bid load in order to get those we’re we’re actually have quite a bit of leads coming in now that we can start to service, you know.
115 00:12:56.790 ⇒ 00:12:59.249 Usman Ashraf: Nice. I think it’s great to know. So yeah.
116 00:12:59.250 ⇒ 00:13:00.090 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
117 00:13:00.090 ⇒ 00:13:02.140 Usman Ashraf: For for me, upwork is one
118 00:13:02.550 ⇒ 00:13:08.620 Usman Ashraf: major channel, but there are others out there as well, and I think historically.
119 00:13:10.620 ⇒ 00:13:14.120 Usman Ashraf: percentage of the revenue has come from connections.
120 00:13:16.440 ⇒ 00:13:24.279 Usman Ashraf: Friends living abroad who may have some people got in touch with some people who needed
121 00:13:24.880 ⇒ 00:13:36.880 Usman Ashraf: some app or some data related to work. And what else is out there? So but on top of that, I’m really trying to move
122 00:13:37.870 ⇒ 00:13:47.520 Usman Ashraf: the revenue makes towards more of an independent source, like website or Linkedin, because
123 00:13:48.570 ⇒ 00:13:53.090 Usman Ashraf: to me it’s like too many eggs in one basket. At this point.
124 00:13:53.370 ⇒ 00:13:55.909 Uttam Kumaran: So I I’m just trying to.
125 00:13:57.300 ⇒ 00:14:03.506 Usman Ashraf: You know, manage the mix here not necessarily decrease the revenue from upwork, but
126 00:14:04.190 ⇒ 00:14:10.900 Usman Ashraf: strengthen other sources and channels, so that there is some coming from there and built on top of that, because I
127 00:14:11.030 ⇒ 00:14:22.800 Usman Ashraf: feel I’ve got a strong feeling that what you get from direct connections, networking events or referrals.
128 00:14:23.050 ⇒ 00:14:28.520 Usman Ashraf: or, you know, maybe something on Linkedin, maybe maybe significantly higher
129 00:14:28.780 ⇒ 00:14:31.920 Usman Ashraf: than what you can get from upwork. Because.
130 00:14:32.567 ⇒ 00:14:40.669 Usman Ashraf: I I just feel like the upwork client is price sensitive, or the people that I have came across on upwork are price sensitive.
131 00:14:40.920 ⇒ 00:14:43.780 Usman Ashraf: or they look at me as a budget. Option.
132 00:14:44.410 ⇒ 00:14:45.950 Uttam Kumaran: Right, yeah, yeah, yeah.
133 00:14:46.448 ⇒ 00:14:54.420 Usman Ashraf: That’s my analysis. But I’m just trying to switch to a more balanced revenue split
134 00:14:54.806 ⇒ 00:14:55.630 Usman Ashraf: but I think it’s.
135 00:14:55.630 ⇒ 00:14:58.710 Uttam Kumaran: But is it just? Is it just you? Is it just you right now?
136 00:14:58.920 ⇒ 00:15:00.430 Usman Ashraf: Are you?
137 00:15:00.778 ⇒ 00:15:12.280 Usman Ashraf: I do have a small team most of the stuff is handled by me. But I do have a couple of people that help me here and there. So, yeah.
138 00:15:14.160 ⇒ 00:15:14.800 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. Okay.
139 00:15:14.890 ⇒ 00:15:18.709 Usman Ashraf: Yeah, yeah, and I think
140 00:15:19.770 ⇒ 00:15:35.159 Usman Ashraf: it’s important to scale as well. It’s hard for me, because service companies do need a lot of hours a lot of work, and I only have 24 HA day. So there’s the bandwidth limit.
141 00:15:35.330 ⇒ 00:15:45.929 Usman Ashraf: So for that reason I do take help from a couple of people, but still very lean. I do intend that. No.
142 00:15:47.430 ⇒ 00:15:50.893 Usman Ashraf: as soon as I start getting bigger projects, I think
143 00:15:51.600 ⇒ 00:15:58.229 Usman Ashraf: the team will get bigger, and it will, you know, be better. So yeah, that’s how it looks like.
144 00:15:58.740 ⇒ 00:15:59.989 Uttam Kumaran: Hmm, okay. Okay.
145 00:16:00.380 ⇒ 00:16:00.980 Usman Ashraf: Yep.
146 00:16:01.570 ⇒ 00:16:10.990 Usman Ashraf: what does business look like for you? From within the us, because I always assumed it may be incorrect that it’s much easier.
147 00:16:11.180 ⇒ 00:16:13.169 Usman Ashraf: And this is just.
148 00:16:13.170 ⇒ 00:16:16.629 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, no, no, it’s not easy at all. Dude, to do business.
149 00:16:16.630 ⇒ 00:16:17.070 Uttam Kumaran: Horrible!
150 00:16:17.070 ⇒ 00:16:17.589 Usman Ashraf: In the Us.
151 00:16:17.590 ⇒ 00:16:17.920 Uttam Kumaran: This is
152 00:16:18.640 ⇒ 00:16:30.160 Uttam Kumaran: not. It’s not easy at all. It’s way more expensive. And I mean as a freelance. I used to be doing freelance work, too, like you’re sort of managing your own stuff. We have 15 people.
153 00:16:30.290 ⇒ 00:16:41.790 Uttam Kumaran: and we have like 15 clients now, like where it’s like a. It’s like a much larger organization. So yeah, it’s brutal. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I don’t think it’s
154 00:16:41.900 ⇒ 00:16:43.430 Uttam Kumaran: yeah. It’s a.
155 00:16:43.620 ⇒ 00:16:44.120 Usman Ashraf: Like the.
156 00:16:44.120 ⇒ 00:16:45.020 Uttam Kumaran: Not easy at all.
157 00:16:45.600 ⇒ 00:16:47.860 Usman Ashraf: The business development side of it.
158 00:16:48.930 ⇒ 00:16:49.500 Usman Ashraf: So there’s.
159 00:16:49.500 ⇒ 00:16:50.270 Uttam Kumaran: The hardest part.
160 00:16:50.890 ⇒ 00:16:51.420 Usman Ashraf: Okay, so.
161 00:16:51.420 ⇒ 00:16:52.350 Uttam Kumaran: Hardest part.
162 00:16:52.470 ⇒ 00:16:55.480 Uttam Kumaran: So engineering has always been the easiest part. I’ve
163 00:16:55.810 ⇒ 00:17:02.600 Uttam Kumaran: my. My career has been in data engineering. So I worked as a data engineer, I led data teams. I built data products.
164 00:17:03.070 ⇒ 00:17:20.523 Uttam Kumaran: The engineering has never been hard for me, and finding great engineers has never been hard. The sales is the number one hardest part. That’s this is why companies don’t succeed, because you can never figure out how to get the money and get clients right? So that’s like where we’re we’re actually starting. I mean, it took us 2 years.
165 00:17:20.950 ⇒ 00:17:26.120 Uttam Kumaran: that’s we’ve been in business for about 2 years, and it’s we’re now finally getting to the point where we have
166 00:17:26.359 ⇒ 00:17:32.229 Uttam Kumaran: like repeatable business coming in which is starting to
167 00:17:32.830 ⇒ 00:17:34.629 Uttam Kumaran: help us out a lot more.
168 00:17:35.080 ⇒ 00:17:41.049 Usman Ashraf: So what does your business, or like revenue streams look like, or the split.
169 00:17:42.625 ⇒ 00:17:49.119 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, we source business from upwork. We do a lot of referrals. We do a lot of cold outreach and outbound
170 00:17:49.608 ⇒ 00:17:58.482 Uttam Kumaran: we get a lot of client referrals now. So and we do events. So we have like, sort of like, 5 or 6 different primary channels. Now,
171 00:17:59.410 ⇒ 00:17:59.940 Uttam Kumaran: yeah.
172 00:17:59.940 ⇒ 00:18:06.479 Usman Ashraf: Has cold emailing helps you, or like, do you do cold calls or like, what does that look like?
173 00:18:07.367 ⇒ 00:18:12.769 Uttam Kumaran: Not really. It’s a lot of like I would say. The anything cold is the worst
174 00:18:13.490 ⇒ 00:18:17.940 Uttam Kumaran: conversion rate. So everything that we do is like through events
175 00:18:18.050 ⇒ 00:18:22.769 Uttam Kumaran: or through partnerships or referrals, where we still get like a lot of our business.
176 00:18:24.800 ⇒ 00:18:30.579 Usman Ashraf: Partnerships with these companies, directly or with data, tools or.
177 00:18:30.930 ⇒ 00:18:34.627 Uttam Kumaran: With with data tools, but with other agencies.
178 00:18:35.330 ⇒ 00:18:37.320 Uttam Kumaran: yeah. So we sort of just like
179 00:18:37.550 ⇒ 00:18:43.830 Uttam Kumaran: we have now have, like a several channels through which we get business. And then all the people we’ve talked to in the past.
180 00:18:44.020 ⇒ 00:18:49.069 Uttam Kumaran: We’ve talked to now hundreds and hundreds of companies, and tried to pitch them right? So a lot of them come back
181 00:18:49.180 ⇒ 00:18:54.180 Uttam Kumaran: eventually. Once they get the budget or things like that to come back to work with us. You know.
182 00:18:54.180 ⇒ 00:18:54.870 Usman Ashraf: Hmm.
183 00:18:55.900 ⇒ 00:18:57.460 Usman Ashraf: Nice. Yeah.
184 00:18:57.700 ⇒ 00:19:04.269 Usman Ashraf: How do you identify? A lead, a potential customer for you?
185 00:19:05.350 ⇒ 00:19:18.030 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I mean, most of our customers are between like 20 to a hundred 1 million in revenue. Like, we identified that. They have budget that they want, that they want this to be solved.
186 00:19:19.370 ⇒ 00:19:25.210 Uttam Kumaran: and that they do have a data problem right? And so those are the things that we, we usually 2 or 2 meetings or so we’ve
187 00:19:25.330 ⇒ 00:19:28.819 Uttam Kumaran: we figure it out like that, they that they, they need us.
188 00:19:30.400 ⇒ 00:19:34.590 Usman Ashraf: But how would you identify if there is a data problem or like.
189 00:19:34.740 ⇒ 00:19:39.510 Usman Ashraf: where do you start? So of course, there’s like many, many people on Linkedin out there.
190 00:19:40.960 ⇒ 00:19:53.050 Usman Ashraf: What does it look like for you in your mind to identify? Okay, this is a potential person that I should maybe reach out, or if reached out, they may have a data problem at their place.
191 00:19:53.390 ⇒ 00:20:01.959 Uttam Kumaran: But see, that’s like way too narrow, right like that’s implying. Like I I’m no longer we. We’re now like I, probably
192 00:20:02.090 ⇒ 00:20:05.959 Uttam Kumaran: a few steps ahead of that where we’re not isolating one person
193 00:20:06.429 ⇒ 00:20:22.900 Uttam Kumaran: going after them where we have like a ton of automated systems that are running cause cause I can’t. I don’t have time to go. Sit, look at one person, write the email. We’ll never build a business right, because only one out of 100 people will end up doing business with us.
194 00:20:22.930 ⇒ 00:20:37.310 Uttam Kumaran: So now we have several different processes that are always running like we have sale. We have salespeople, we have marketing people that are like going out and and putting things onto Linkedin, sending emails out scheduling events, things like that. So
195 00:20:37.480 ⇒ 00:20:50.759 Uttam Kumaran: where I in the past, I used to do, sort of one by one by one. But now it’s a lot bigger, like, I think we sort of. We have parameters on the types of clients that we look for, and then we automatically send them outbound and get in front of them.
196 00:20:51.210 ⇒ 00:20:53.309 Usman Ashraf: Nice. I think that’s a great insight
197 00:20:55.530 ⇒ 00:21:00.270 Usman Ashraf: for my scale, which I think is smaller. It’s more like
198 00:21:00.840 ⇒ 00:21:24.360 Usman Ashraf: reaching out to people connecting, networking and, you know, trying to understand their problems at work with their data and just hearing the problems out. And then, maybe if come if something comes up. Data related, advise them on some projects or some things that they can implement within their workplace
199 00:21:24.902 ⇒ 00:21:33.117 Usman Ashraf: to help them move forward to increase their revenue, decrease their cost, and so on. So I think
200 00:21:33.830 ⇒ 00:21:37.500 Usman Ashraf: that’s what it looks like for me at this stage, but I think
201 00:21:37.910 ⇒ 00:21:47.440 Usman Ashraf: it’s about time that I also start looking into these possibly automated systems that can produce much.
202 00:21:48.070 ⇒ 00:21:51.730 Usman Ashraf: you know, bigger scale or much. Many more leads.
203 00:21:51.870 ⇒ 00:21:53.890 Usman Ashraf: Yeah, I think that’s a great insight.
204 00:21:54.150 ⇒ 00:22:06.900 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I mean, and it also depends on sort of like where I think you want to see your business. I mean, one of the kind of part of the reason I’m sort of one thing I’m trying to do is just meet more sort of agency builders and people that are running these data firms
205 00:22:07.020 ⇒ 00:22:22.029 Uttam Kumaran: because we’re starting to get sort of quite a bit of business in. And so I’m trying to think about, hey, what types of clients? Do we want to develop versus? Do we go, partner, with someone like you? And a few others who can come manage the projects?
206 00:22:22.560 ⇒ 00:22:33.320 Uttam Kumaran: You know. And maybe it’s like, Hey, we do. A revenue split on something or things like that, because the one thing that’s hard for me is a guy where I don’t want to hire very fast.
207 00:22:33.800 ⇒ 00:22:39.579 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I want to hire extremely, extremely slow. And I want to get really amazing people. And so
208 00:22:39.960 ⇒ 00:22:48.409 Uttam Kumaran: we’re getting a little bit of like a wave of business. And so I’m like considering. Okay, if I was to bring in, if I was to bring in someone like you and I would say, Hey.
209 00:22:48.560 ⇒ 00:23:05.389 Uttam Kumaran: here’s like 70% of the budget. You could execute this, however, you want to, and like, or we sort of split things, or you could come work with us like, that’s the sort of stuff I’m trying to do more because I know that, like looking at the stuff you’ve worked on like you have experience doing.
210 00:23:05.590 ⇒ 00:23:07.510 Uttam Kumaran: you know, a lot of different things.
211 00:23:08.115 ⇒ 00:23:18.260 Uttam Kumaran: In data. And so it’s it’s easy for me to rely on someone like you or another agency versus like having to recruit on board.
212 00:23:18.450 ⇒ 00:23:21.629 Uttam Kumaran: you know. Do that stuff, you know. So that’s sort of what I’m thinking.
213 00:23:21.850 ⇒ 00:23:34.280 Usman Ashraf: I think that’s a great thought. And in fact, I was also wondering what would your costs look like. So you were saying, you have marketing sales teams, and you know, 15 people working.
214 00:23:34.600 ⇒ 00:23:54.750 Usman Ashraf: I was just and and I think this is one of the difficult parts now of running business in the Us. Is that you have to pay a lot in salaries so like, what does that look like? How difficult is it to, you know, maintain all of the payrolls.
215 00:23:55.930 ⇒ 00:24:12.400 Uttam Kumaran: No, that’s the hard part dude like I have to get. That’s why we have to go sell right like cause. I have to pay all these people now. I have to pay our whole team right and so. But I want to build a big company like, I want to build a company that competes with like accenture and competes with a big company. So
216 00:24:12.750 ⇒ 00:24:16.220 Uttam Kumaran: that’s the cost of doing business like you have to. You have to.
217 00:24:16.760 ⇒ 00:24:20.689 Uttam Kumaran: You have to do those things right. You have to have a great great team, and you have to pay them well.
218 00:24:21.150 ⇒ 00:24:23.275 Usman Ashraf: I think it’s a great vision.
219 00:24:23.630 ⇒ 00:24:24.140 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
220 00:24:24.140 ⇒ 00:24:24.490 Usman Ashraf: Really.
221 00:24:24.490 ⇒ 00:24:27.789 Uttam Kumaran: But I always felt like that, you know, like I always felt like
222 00:24:28.406 ⇒ 00:24:32.559 Uttam Kumaran: you know, I could go balance couple of contracts myself and chill.
223 00:24:32.690 ⇒ 00:24:37.150 Uttam Kumaran: but I always wanted to reinvest. I reinvested every dollar into this company, you know.
224 00:24:37.340 ⇒ 00:24:37.720 Usman Ashraf: Yeah.
225 00:24:37.932 ⇒ 00:24:39.209 Uttam Kumaran: To kind of build it up.
226 00:24:39.480 ⇒ 00:24:46.360 Usman Ashraf: Yeah, I think when I think about, you know, consulting companies, I think there is probably a space
227 00:24:46.460 ⇒ 00:24:51.279 Usman Ashraf: for data consulting companies. I also feel that
228 00:24:51.700 ⇒ 00:24:59.140 Usman Ashraf: there aren’t that many big like. If you think about management consulting. You know, the Big 4
229 00:25:00.084 ⇒ 00:25:07.040 Usman Ashraf: isn’t many like really big data consulting companies, which I think should be there as well.
230 00:25:07.730 ⇒ 00:25:13.819 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I mean, there are some. But again, I think we do the same work that they do. And I think we’re a lot cheaper than they are, you know.
231 00:25:13.820 ⇒ 00:25:16.030 Usman Ashraf: But but our scale is smaller.
232 00:25:17.230 ⇒ 00:25:25.060 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, yeah, our scale is smaller for now, like, but we still work with big companies, you know. And we’re growing pretty fast.
233 00:25:25.210 ⇒ 00:25:34.509 Uttam Kumaran: So yeah, I mean, we’re no longer. We’re not like a 1 person operation. You know. We’re we’re a huge company now. So I I think we’re gonna continue to grow
234 00:25:34.810 ⇒ 00:25:35.460 Usman Ashraf: Yep.
235 00:25:35.690 ⇒ 00:25:36.360 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
236 00:25:36.980 ⇒ 00:25:37.930 Usman Ashraf: Yes.
237 00:25:38.100 ⇒ 00:25:42.869 Usman Ashraf: But do you know any like what comes to your mind? If it’s a big
238 00:25:43.260 ⇒ 00:25:47.400 Usman Ashraf: I’m thinking of, like big data consulting companies.
239 00:25:47.900 ⇒ 00:25:51.080 Uttam Kumaran: Like Brooklyn data. Ph, data analytics. 8.
240 00:25:51.901 ⇒ 00:25:54.430 Uttam Kumaran: You know, there’s a lot of
241 00:25:54.850 ⇒ 00:25:57.939 Uttam Kumaran: big consulting. If you search data consulting companies, you’ll find them.
242 00:25:58.100 ⇒ 00:26:06.610 Usman Ashraf: Yeah. But I I just feel like, yeah, I’ve heard those names, but it’s still smaller than
243 00:26:07.160 ⇒ 00:26:15.290 Usman Ashraf: you know. Let’s say, if we speak about management consulting Mackenzie Bain. And you know, companies of those.
244 00:26:15.290 ⇒ 00:26:16.969 Uttam Kumaran: But I guess it’s also like.
245 00:26:17.160 ⇒ 00:26:21.569 Uttam Kumaran: Look, do I want to build a big 1 billion dollar company? Yes, but
246 00:26:21.930 ⇒ 00:26:27.269 Uttam Kumaran: it’s like, what can you do right? So I’m proud of the company we built like. It’s not small
247 00:26:27.470 ⇒ 00:26:32.569 Uttam Kumaran: to 15 people is not small, you know, like, when it was just me it was just me.
248 00:26:32.830 ⇒ 00:26:36.720 Uttam Kumaran: So we’re a lot different. We’re a lot different than where we were, you know.
249 00:26:37.100 ⇒ 00:26:39.039 Uttam Kumaran: just even like 6 months ago.
250 00:26:39.230 ⇒ 00:26:43.400 Usman Ashraf: Absolutely. I agree. I was just, you know, trying to think about what does the.
251 00:26:43.400 ⇒ 00:26:49.769 Uttam Kumaran: This. The scale is big. But those guys do data work right? But they do a hundred things. They do everything on on planet Earth right?
252 00:26:50.010 ⇒ 00:26:52.149 Usman Ashraf: Yeah, yeah, that’s true. As well.
253 00:26:52.850 ⇒ 00:26:58.329 Uttam Kumaran: Once you start getting to that scale, you need to do everything. There’s no way to reach that scale. Just as a data company.
254 00:26:58.810 ⇒ 00:26:59.649 Usman Ashraf: Maybe yeah, that.
255 00:26:59.650 ⇒ 00:27:00.860 Uttam Kumaran: Like, I, yeah.
256 00:27:00.860 ⇒ 00:27:12.012 Uttam Kumaran: yeah, I don’t think I don’t think there’s world where a 1 data company can be that big and consulting like cognizant. All these guys do a hundred things. They just absorb companies, though, like, and they just become bigger.
257 00:27:12.570 ⇒ 00:27:13.130 Usman Ashraf: As well.
258 00:27:13.130 ⇒ 00:27:15.570 Uttam Kumaran: That’s the way they kind of accomplish that scale.
259 00:27:16.435 ⇒ 00:27:18.459 Usman Ashraf: But do you think it’s.
260 00:27:18.860 ⇒ 00:27:22.559 Usman Ashraf: you know, running a service business with a large company?
261 00:27:25.510 ⇒ 00:27:35.590 Usman Ashraf: of course it can be, you know, managed, and everything looks good, and you do not have to, you know, work crazy. I’ll probably work lesser than what you already are, but
262 00:27:35.810 ⇒ 00:27:40.370 Usman Ashraf: I just also feel that it’s easier to have a product business
263 00:27:40.520 ⇒ 00:27:43.210 Usman Ashraf: than a service business. What’s your take on that.
264 00:27:43.910 ⇒ 00:27:49.589 Uttam Kumaran: I used to. I mean, I used to work in product businesses. I don’t think it’s easier. I don’t think business is easy.
265 00:27:49.800 ⇒ 00:27:51.980 Usman Ashraf: Like. I don’t think there’s a cheat code.
266 00:27:52.350 ⇒ 00:28:00.309 Uttam Kumaran: So if you’re coming in and looking for it to be easy, I don’t think you should be in business like I don’t think anything is easy like. I think if you’re
267 00:28:00.470 ⇒ 00:28:15.899 Uttam Kumaran: the money I make is someone else’s hard earned money like our clients, hard earned money, and so we need to have a great product in order to get that, I worked in product businesses. It’s super hard. You have to invest upfront for engineering, for capital, for R&D.
268 00:28:15.900 ⇒ 00:28:16.290 Usman Ashraf: Yeah.
269 00:28:16.290 ⇒ 00:28:17.909 Uttam Kumaran: Before you even get a customer.
270 00:28:18.030 ⇒ 00:28:22.303 Uttam Kumaran: you know. So I think that’s just the same amount of hard.
271 00:28:22.660 ⇒ 00:28:25.520 Usman Ashraf: And the fail fail rate is higher as well.
272 00:28:25.520 ⇒ 00:28:41.259 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I think it’s super hard. And I think a lot of products never even get one customer. And they die. And they suck like a lot of you see that with data products, AI products like, there’s all these random companies saying, we have a new product. And guess what? In 6 months. You’ll never see them again.
273 00:28:41.851 ⇒ 00:28:51.189 Uttam Kumaran: you know. So I but I don’t think about them like I’m trying to build a business. I don’t. That’s not who I compete with right. I compete with myself.
274 00:28:51.480 ⇒ 00:28:54.750 Uttam Kumaran: And I I want to compete with Accenture and those guys. So
275 00:28:54.900 ⇒ 00:28:57.469 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t look like side to left to right
276 00:28:57.820 ⇒ 00:29:09.190 Uttam Kumaran: cause I don’t think about. I only think about my clients and my team. That’s it. I don’t spend much time thinking about the industry, because there’s no reason to like. I don’t feel like there’s a lot of work to be done for everybody.
277 00:29:09.400 ⇒ 00:29:10.210 Uttam Kumaran: you know.
278 00:29:11.300 ⇒ 00:29:13.360 Usman Ashraf: Yeah, that’s true.
279 00:29:14.220 ⇒ 00:29:18.400 Uttam Kumaran: Do you do a lot of like Dbt work and like Bi, work also.
280 00:29:18.830 ⇒ 00:29:24.119 Usman Ashraf: Yeah, I’ve done a number of projects in Dbt, I built
281 00:29:24.943 ⇒ 00:29:32.920 Usman Ashraf: a Dbt project for a sales team. So they were essentially a company that was reliant on sales
282 00:29:33.742 ⇒ 00:29:48.299 Usman Ashraf: and they sold home warranties and the key data sources. There were, the calling data from talk desk, which was their calling software, their Crm Moxie and
283 00:29:48.460 ⇒ 00:29:52.960 Usman Ashraf: their payment processor pay link. And the data was really bad.
284 00:29:53.360 ⇒ 00:29:59.160 Usman Ashraf: And I built out a fact and dimension.
285 00:29:59.742 ⇒ 00:30:09.699 Usman Ashraf: You know. Tables for them to do analysis on. Well, who is the best sales person who is the best
286 00:30:09.810 ⇒ 00:30:14.140 Usman Ashraf: customer service person for them? What does the
287 00:30:14.290 ⇒ 00:30:16.959 Usman Ashraf: spread on the calls look like?
288 00:30:18.630 ⇒ 00:30:29.549 Usman Ashraf: And and and the performance of their leads, the sources of their leads that they got so they were buying leads from different channels. Zillow aspire north
289 00:30:29.680 ⇒ 00:30:37.960 Usman Ashraf: equifax so like, how are they doing? What’s their revenue per lead
290 00:30:38.280 ⇒ 00:30:43.469 Usman Ashraf: like? How good are those agents performing are them doing the right calls, and so on. So that was one problem.
291 00:30:43.470 ⇒ 00:30:43.860 Uttam Kumaran: I didn’t.
292 00:30:43.860 ⇒ 00:30:51.329 Usman Ashraf: A big Dbt. Project. I also built a Dbt. Project for University of Massachusetts. Umass.
293 00:30:51.330 ⇒ 00:30:51.960 Uttam Kumaran: Hmm.
294 00:30:52.370 ⇒ 00:30:58.689 Usman Ashraf: That that was working with the like. They have a
295 00:31:00.480 ⇒ 00:31:13.099 Usman Ashraf: team in umass that looks after the transportation data. So they had a lot of data for citations, like tickets and accidents and
296 00:31:15.860 ⇒ 00:31:18.239 Usman Ashraf: yeah, citations, violations.
297 00:31:18.805 ⇒ 00:31:47.494 Usman Ashraf: citations. And and probably another couple of data sets at the state level, and some at the northeast region level, and some at the Us level. So I built the database for them. They had their data spread out in all of different Sftp servers, postgres. Instances needed to get a lot of processing done. Automate those put it in Snowflake that did not really use dbt, but
298 00:31:48.270 ⇒ 00:31:53.159 Usman Ashraf: they they do have plans to bring it in in the next phases.
299 00:31:53.550 ⇒ 00:31:54.510 Usman Ashraf: So yeah.
300 00:31:54.510 ⇒ 00:31:55.030 Uttam Kumaran: Hmm.
301 00:31:55.030 ⇒ 00:31:58.179 Usman Ashraf: These are the 2 major projects. Probably there is.
302 00:31:58.540 ⇒ 00:32:05.219 Uttam Kumaran: And then for that one like, Were you like? Give me a sense of like, were you just like on the team? Were you leading that, or like, how did that sort of come up.
303 00:32:05.850 ⇒ 00:32:07.080 Usman Ashraf: Yeah, so.
304 00:32:07.870 ⇒ 00:32:11.329 Uttam Kumaran: That for those I was leading the team.
305 00:32:11.490 ⇒ 00:32:19.250 Usman Ashraf: And although the team wasn’t really big we had
306 00:32:19.822 ⇒ 00:32:30.439 Usman Ashraf: couple of interns, and me and a bi person who looked after tableau, and I was really in charge of all the data and the data warehouse setup but I.
307 00:32:30.440 ⇒ 00:32:31.020 Uttam Kumaran: Who have you?
308 00:32:31.020 ⇒ 00:32:35.299 Usman Ashraf: Lot of expertise in Bi as well. So that’s how it looked like.
309 00:32:36.050 ⇒ 00:32:36.680 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
310 00:32:37.410 ⇒ 00:32:38.220 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
311 00:32:39.020 ⇒ 00:32:39.350 Usman Ashraf: Yeah.
312 00:32:39.350 ⇒ 00:32:46.770 Uttam Kumaran: And like, Yeah, I I guess like, would for that project. Were you more? Were you still doing a lot of development work? Were you mostly like leading
313 00:32:47.080 ⇒ 00:32:49.470 Uttam Kumaran: sprints, like, I’m just trying to get a sense of like what? The
314 00:32:49.820 ⇒ 00:32:52.180 Uttam Kumaran: how was the project? Sort of like oriented.
315 00:32:52.310 ⇒ 00:33:18.690 Usman Ashraf: Yeah, a lot of stuff. So I was doing development as well as leading in terms of, you know, figuring out what the infrastructure is going to look like, how are we going to? You know, get the data in place interacting with the clients. So a lot of responsibility was on me in terms of you know, the planning, the architecture development. So it was heavy on me. They do have.
316 00:33:18.690 ⇒ 00:33:19.280 Uttam Kumaran: Emily.
317 00:33:19.280 ⇒ 00:33:22.080 Usman Ashraf: Was working on the Bi side, though.
318 00:33:24.210 ⇒ 00:33:31.169 Uttam Kumaran: Okay? And then, was that like, were you? Were you just like on? How did you charge them? Were you like fixed budget, or were you like hourly for them.
319 00:33:31.170 ⇒ 00:33:32.480 Usman Ashraf: Yeah, hourly.
320 00:33:32.800 ⇒ 00:33:33.550 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
321 00:33:33.550 ⇒ 00:33:41.989 Usman Ashraf: Because it was a long project with the broader vision of bringing along the
322 00:33:42.140 ⇒ 00:33:49.429 Usman Ashraf: data into their system. And you know, making it. Making some important data related decisions for them.
323 00:33:50.121 ⇒ 00:33:54.450 Usman Ashraf: So yeah, it was an ongoing effort.
324 00:33:56.010 ⇒ 00:33:59.700 Uttam Kumaran: Hmm, okay, okay, okay, nice.
325 00:34:00.520 ⇒ 00:34:01.180 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. I don’t.
326 00:34:01.180 ⇒ 00:34:02.520 Uttam Kumaran: No, I guess like I have to.
327 00:34:02.520 ⇒ 00:34:03.130 Usman Ashraf: Check.
328 00:34:03.450 ⇒ 00:34:05.000 Usman Ashraf: What’s what’s the text?
329 00:34:05.000 ⇒ 00:34:11.849 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, we typically do like we typically do snowflake. Dbt, some bi tool, some etl tool.
330 00:34:13.130 ⇒ 00:34:13.880 Usman Ashraf: Pretty successful.
331 00:34:13.880 ⇒ 00:34:14.409 Uttam Kumaran: Cold.
332 00:34:14.679 ⇒ 00:34:20.779 Usman Ashraf: That’s that’s actually the heart stack at this point.
333 00:34:20.780 ⇒ 00:34:25.186 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, we may switch to mother, Doc. It’s a little bit cheaper than Snowflake.
334 00:34:25.489 ⇒ 00:34:26.429 Usman Ashraf: Okay. Yeah.
335 00:34:28.179 ⇒ 00:34:31.769 Usman Ashraf: Snowflake can get clunky. It’s like.
336 00:34:32.440 ⇒ 00:34:39.930 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, for some clients. They don’t have a lot of data, but also some clients are like doing stuff in ample like, we are an amplitude partner. We’re a mixed panel partner.
337 00:34:40.517 ⇒ 00:34:42.740 Uttam Kumaran: We’ve done a lot of work with segment.
338 00:34:43.504 ⇒ 00:34:46.079 Uttam Kumaran: So we do a lot of product analytics work as well.
339 00:34:46.560 ⇒ 00:34:49.573 Usman Ashraf: So what does that mean? Like
340 00:34:50.120 ⇒ 00:34:53.559 Usman Ashraf: being a partner with amplitude or mixed panel.
341 00:34:53.560 ⇒ 00:35:02.709 Uttam Kumaran: So we we, I mean, we implement their services. We do marketing with them. They send us leads as well. Yeah. Cause we’ve just implemented a lot of their software.
342 00:35:03.300 ⇒ 00:35:04.420 Usman Ashraf: Okay. Okay.
343 00:35:04.420 ⇒ 00:35:05.110 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
344 00:35:05.110 ⇒ 00:35:08.640 Usman Ashraf: Yeah, I was also considering, maybe doing
345 00:35:09.110 ⇒ 00:35:25.580 Usman Ashraf: starting some of these partnerships with tools, or I, I have moved, I guess probably a few people to Snowflake already like more than a few people to Snowflake. I’m not sure. How does the partnership look like for Snowflake?
346 00:35:26.110 ⇒ 00:35:31.050 Uttam Kumaran: I mean Snowflake is so big. The only thing they care about is like, if you bring them deals.
347 00:35:31.290 ⇒ 00:35:32.359 Uttam Kumaran: you know they’re excited.
348 00:35:32.360 ⇒ 00:35:33.500 Usman Ashraf: Yeah, I’ve got.
349 00:35:33.500 ⇒ 00:35:34.949 Uttam Kumaran: Which? Like, yeah.
350 00:35:34.950 ⇒ 00:35:36.359 Usman Ashraf: For Snowflake.
351 00:35:37.280 ⇒ 00:35:38.959 Uttam Kumaran: But has to be annual deals.
352 00:35:39.740 ⇒ 00:35:43.890 Usman Ashraf: Okay. So you know, I don’t know.
353 00:35:43.890 ⇒ 00:35:47.340 Uttam Kumaran: Which is like minimum, like they started like 12 KA year. Yeah.
354 00:35:47.340 ⇒ 00:35:49.050 Usman Ashraf: Yeah, I don’t know clients.
355 00:35:50.000 ⇒ 00:36:08.580 Usman Ashraf: There’s a number of clients that have migrated to Snowflake, and they are paying customers, and they’re paying well, I don’t know how that will help. But definitely I something to look into. Maybe there are other companies like, as you said, mixed panel, or like smaller companies.
356 00:36:09.220 ⇒ 00:36:09.910 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
357 00:36:09.910 ⇒ 00:36:13.310 Usman Ashraf: There are more accepting.
358 00:36:13.630 ⇒ 00:36:16.310 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, definitely, something to look into.
359 00:36:16.730 ⇒ 00:36:22.832 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. Well, I have to run to another client meeting. But dude is great. Great chatting like we should keep talking I
360 00:36:23.110 ⇒ 00:36:23.690 Usman Ashraf: You know.
361 00:36:23.690 ⇒ 00:36:46.450 Uttam Kumaran: Maybe we can work on something together. I mean, I’m still interested to sort of like what your vision is. But like we’re starting to get more business in and like, I would rather work with some people that I know. Whether it’s like you. You’re you’re sort of more of like tech lead. Or if you wanna come like, actually execute, we have project management. So I just sort of want some people that I know that are.
362 00:36:46.600 ⇒ 00:36:52.150 Usman Ashraf: Can be client facing, you know, and like, actually, like, yeah, so that’s really what we’re looking for.
363 00:36:53.083 ⇒ 00:37:01.896 Usman Ashraf: I’m here. I love building data related work, and I think it can be a great partnership. Anything that you come across like
364 00:37:02.835 ⇒ 00:37:08.190 Uttam Kumaran: Want to have any discussions around data. Or if you are trying to solve some data problem.
365 00:37:08.540 ⇒ 00:37:09.020 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
366 00:37:09.020 ⇒ 00:37:16.950 Usman Ashraf: You could discuss with. Maybe, you know, we can just have a casual chat discussing idea or issues. And you know, yeah.
367 00:37:16.950 ⇒ 00:37:17.540 Uttam Kumaran: Totally.
368 00:37:17.540 ⇒ 00:37:18.580 Usman Ashraf: He is. Yeah.
369 00:37:18.820 ⇒ 00:37:29.740 Uttam Kumaran: Let me sorry this just this week is so busy. But let me try to catch up with you again next week. Sometime I’ll hit you on Linkedin, and we can chat again. I hope this I know this is kind of really late. Your time so appreciate you saying.
370 00:37:29.740 ⇒ 00:37:31.080 Usman Ashraf: Time all the chat happens.
371 00:37:31.653 ⇒ 00:37:32.239 Uttam Kumaran: Hold on!
372 00:37:32.240 ⇒ 00:37:33.809 Usman Ashraf: And this comes from us.
373 00:37:34.000 ⇒ 00:37:43.720 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah. So I know I. But I but look I for me, it’s really fun. Because I get to meet a lot of new friends through this business, and meet people trying to hustle and like.
374 00:37:44.320 ⇒ 00:37:48.289 Usman Ashraf: we should try to help each other, and, like, you know, grow, you know. So I I think it’s great.
375 00:37:48.290 ⇒ 00:37:49.550 Usman Ashraf: absolutely absolutely.
376 00:37:49.550 ⇒ 00:37:50.090 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
377 00:37:50.090 ⇒ 00:37:51.590 Usman Ashraf: Happy to help in any way.
378 00:37:52.030 ⇒ 00:37:54.460 Usman Ashraf: Okay, alright, man, thank you so much.
379 00:37:54.460 ⇒ 00:37:56.980 Uttam Kumaran: Sure great chatting. Yeah, talk to you soon. Bye.