Meeting Title: Revenue roadmap Date: 2025-07-21 Meeting participants: Caio Velasco, Demilade Agboola, Uttam Kumaran
WEBVTT
1 00:00:13.520 ⇒ 00:00:14.629 Uttam Kumaran: Hey, guys.
2 00:00:15.160 ⇒ 00:00:15.860 Caio Velasco: Hello!
3 00:00:16.790 ⇒ 00:00:17.430 Uttam Kumaran: A.
4 00:00:19.273 ⇒ 00:00:20.420 Demilade Agboola: Hello, Tom!
5 00:00:20.950 ⇒ 00:00:22.230 Uttam Kumaran: Hey! How are you?
6 00:00:23.670 ⇒ 00:00:24.320 Demilade Agboola: Okay.
7 00:00:24.320 ⇒ 00:00:24.899 Caio Velasco: How are you?
8 00:00:25.690 ⇒ 00:00:26.650 Uttam Kumaran: Good.
9 00:00:27.530 ⇒ 00:00:31.630 Demilade Agboola: Lost my voice on Friday. It’s not fully back, but it’s much better.
10 00:00:33.500 ⇒ 00:00:35.130 Uttam Kumaran: You’re doing a lot of screaming.
11 00:00:35.570 ⇒ 00:00:41.203 Demilade Agboola: Unfortunately not but it just finally happened.
12 00:00:44.200 ⇒ 00:00:49.600 Demilade Agboola: I think there was like a lot of smoking where I was at, so I think that through me, through my
13 00:00:49.790 ⇒ 00:00:54.449 Demilade Agboola: like my throat, because I I that was literally the only thing that changed, or that happened.
14 00:00:55.380 ⇒ 00:00:56.230 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, okay.
15 00:01:01.020 ⇒ 00:01:02.190 Uttam Kumaran: nice.
16 00:01:11.470 ⇒ 00:01:14.359 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. How do we want to handle this meeting?
17 00:01:16.060 ⇒ 00:01:27.070 Caio Velasco: So I think. Well, I I was tasked with this revenue audit one or 2 weeks ago.
18 00:01:27.230 ⇒ 00:01:30.550 Caio Velasco: but I actually started working on this last week.
19 00:01:31.477 ⇒ 00:01:38.829 Caio Velasco: Then I kind of like 1st time learned like the complexity of urban stems and all. I mean, it’s messy
20 00:01:40.240 ⇒ 00:01:50.430 Caio Velasco: And and then I was trying to like, understand what I needed to do. I talked to them later. A few times I thought that that I had like a better idea.
21 00:01:50.710 ⇒ 00:01:56.639 Caio Velasco: But then, when I was going through the models well, at some point, I started to get a bit lost.
22 00:01:57.196 ⇒ 00:02:08.790 Caio Velasco: Because it’s just a lot of things, and I didn’t know like, what exactly am I trying to do here? Because I mean, if you don’t have like a clear goal, so it’s difficult to get out like something out of it.
23 00:02:09.120 ⇒ 00:02:16.550 Caio Velasco: So I learned a bit about the base models and and and the sources they have.
24 00:02:16.710 ⇒ 00:02:18.489 Caio Velasco: I have an idea of
25 00:02:19.050 ⇒ 00:02:27.610 Caio Velasco: how are the orders, the suborders? Why, they also have line items, tables, and split line items, tables.
26 00:02:27.800 ⇒ 00:02:35.505 Caio Velasco: transactions, refunds, subscription and discounts I still not have. I don’t have like a very good picture.
27 00:02:36.230 ⇒ 00:02:41.159 Caio Velasco: But yeah. Then then I stopped. I mean, like, literally, today, Friday.
28 00:02:41.470 ⇒ 00:02:46.629 Caio Velasco: and what I would need is like to to understand a bit better. First, st what is
29 00:02:47.010 ⇒ 00:02:54.980 Caio Velasco: the idea of auditing? How different that is from modeling? Why, we we even have to do it to be honest?
30 00:02:56.334 ⇒ 00:03:01.180 Caio Velasco: And then, yeah, like, how? How could I best approach this?
31 00:03:02.150 ⇒ 00:03:10.550 Caio Velasco: And yeah, maybe like clarifying like the end goal or breaking down into different pieces, or anything that could be helpful.
32 00:03:12.110 ⇒ 00:03:20.160 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. So that’s why I feel like, you know, we really needed some type of like design document before we kicked this off, which I don’t think
33 00:03:20.300 ⇒ 00:03:36.029 Uttam Kumaran: was super clear, but I mean really, the things that you described are the reason why we have to do this right in A, in a in like a couple of hour session. It’s incredible you could you? You’re not able to understand, like very core logic, to how revenue is being calculated.
34 00:03:36.460 ⇒ 00:03:38.540 Uttam Kumaran: Right? So that’s like the problem.
35 00:03:39.394 ⇒ 00:03:45.340 Uttam Kumaran: Second is, it’s incredibly difficult to debug anything. It’s incredibly difficult to make changes.
36 00:03:45.530 ⇒ 00:03:52.250 Uttam Kumaran: And so that’s another problem. 3, rd there’s clearly a lot of bloat like there’s duplicate logic.
37 00:03:52.370 ⇒ 00:03:55.409 Uttam Kumaran: There’s like unused logic.
38 00:03:55.550 ⇒ 00:04:00.260 Uttam Kumaran: So all of those are the core problems. I think those are pretty obvious, though, like, once you start looking at the
39 00:04:00.720 ⇒ 00:04:05.550 Uttam Kumaran: the things right? So that’s so. Those are all. Those are all the the existing problems.
40 00:04:07.050 ⇒ 00:04:12.519 Uttam Kumaran: And then for this, like it’s not. It’s not flexible. So you can’t add anything. So as the business changes, you can’t add.
41 00:04:13.150 ⇒ 00:04:14.840 Uttam Kumaran: you know, new logic into there.
42 00:04:19.790 ⇒ 00:04:25.549 Uttam Kumaran: So I mean, these are all like problems that, like one by one by one, they need to be written down. But this is where, like
43 00:04:25.840 ⇒ 00:04:36.459 Uttam Kumaran: again, like, it’s kind of tough to hear that you didn’t know what the goal for this part of the project was, because there’s like, I mean, then it’s kind of doa. It’s kind of dead at that point, you know.
44 00:04:36.710 ⇒ 00:04:43.840 Uttam Kumaran: So I I think we need to like, take a pause and write something down
45 00:04:43.960 ⇒ 00:04:51.800 Uttam Kumaran: around like a technical design document. And maybe the this is something that we can work on in this meeting, which is just like, what is this?
46 00:04:53.350 ⇒ 00:05:08.870 Uttam Kumaran: like? What? What is the? And there’s something that we can use across team, which is like, what is the format for a technical design document? Ideally, we want to be able to have like an audit, you know, is not never ending. In fact, everything we do has to be time boxed.
47 00:05:08.990 ⇒ 00:05:12.469 Uttam Kumaran: And so it’s not like a hey? Just go
48 00:05:12.640 ⇒ 00:05:36.939 Uttam Kumaran: read everything here like a book. In fact, you may need. You may not need to read everything in case you find out quickly that like, hey, okay, I kind of get the structure. The goal is to get the plans related to architecting a new system, not necessarily understanding everything about the existing system. But all this has to culminate into a document or something that the entire team
49 00:05:37.110 ⇒ 00:05:42.929 Uttam Kumaran: can review. Not only review what we discovered, but review like, what are the
50 00:05:43.570 ⇒ 00:05:50.630 Uttam Kumaran: what are the considerations? What is the what it would? A roadmap look like? What are the priorities? And this is something, then, that gets handed off
51 00:05:50.750 ⇒ 00:05:54.360 Uttam Kumaran: to the Pm team to then go break down
52 00:05:54.740 ⇒ 00:05:57.409 Uttam Kumaran: right into tickets that anyone on the team can take
53 00:05:58.173 ⇒ 00:06:02.489 Uttam Kumaran: so I don’t know. I feel like overall. Maybe today, we can just work on like this.
54 00:06:03.070 ⇒ 00:06:06.139 Uttam Kumaran: Tdd format. If you guys are open to that.
55 00:06:06.460 ⇒ 00:06:10.140 Uttam Kumaran: And then, ideally, again, I think we
56 00:06:10.560 ⇒ 00:06:15.279 Uttam Kumaran: I would like us. I would like a part, the deliverable for the revenue thing
57 00:06:15.720 ⇒ 00:06:19.020 Uttam Kumaran: to be this document and this document.
58 00:06:19.320 ⇒ 00:06:21.490 Uttam Kumaran: right, has to get approved by
59 00:06:21.930 ⇒ 00:06:27.639 Uttam Kumaran: everyone on the team that like, okay, we kind of get what we’re going after, including the Pm.
60 00:06:27.910 ⇒ 00:06:30.170 Uttam Kumaran: including, you know, project management.
61 00:06:32.970 ⇒ 00:06:39.069 Demilade Agboola: I just want to chip in and see that I’m sorry if it’s hard to hear me. But I’m trying my best right now.
62 00:06:39.070 ⇒ 00:06:40.830 Uttam Kumaran: You’re good, you’re good. No, you’re totally fine.
63 00:06:41.504 ⇒ 00:06:46.979 Demilade Agboola: I just wanna chip in and say, like, the goal of auditing is to be able to say.
64 00:06:47.780 ⇒ 00:06:49.799 Demilade Agboola: we understand what’s happening.
65 00:06:50.110 ⇒ 00:06:52.380 Demilade Agboola: We understand how things can be better.
66 00:06:52.550 ⇒ 00:06:59.130 Demilade Agboola: And this is how we go from point A to Point B, which is our like, the our better design.
67 00:07:01.310 ⇒ 00:07:07.469 Demilade Agboola: I think, with revenue. Part of the reason why it might feel daunting, or might be feel very stressful is
68 00:07:08.102 ⇒ 00:07:20.390 Demilade Agboola: before we can do anything revenue, and I didn’t want us to get caught up in like creating, like revenue march and everything without having a clear understanding or clear data set of
69 00:07:20.820 ⇒ 00:07:40.419 Demilade Agboola: orders, transactions, subscriptions, refunds like the the core, things discounts all the core things that make up revenue. So if we have like, we have our clear data sets where we have, like a fact, order refunds, a fact, transactions, a fact, orders fact subscriptions where we’ve already built everything from the staging
70 00:07:40.540 ⇒ 00:07:49.020 Demilade Agboola: up until we have those facts models. It’s much easier to then. Okay, go into, how do we calculate revenue across urban stems?
71 00:07:49.180 ⇒ 00:07:53.310 Demilade Agboola: And we have that conversation with them. So it’s like, Oh, so revenue is defined as
72 00:07:53.860 ⇒ 00:08:08.740 Demilade Agboola: orders for subscriptions. It’s maybe as each order is realized, for instance, that’s when we count as revenue things like that like. But if you don’t have, if we don’t have like a clear definition, and it’s just like everything is just tossed into one table.
73 00:08:09.460 ⇒ 00:08:26.469 Demilade Agboola: just being able to take it apart, and being able to say, Hey, this is what this is, this is what that is, and this is what this is, and we have clear definitions for the fact orders fax refunds. Fact discounts whatever or other, you know, discounts, makes it much easier to be able to
74 00:08:26.890 ⇒ 00:08:32.400 Demilade Agboola: put everything together and say, this is our refund model and revenue model.
75 00:08:34.860 ⇒ 00:08:36.990 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I agree. And so that’s why I think
76 00:08:37.340 ⇒ 00:08:40.059 Uttam Kumaran: this all kind of has to culminate into this like
77 00:08:40.350 ⇒ 00:08:55.099 Uttam Kumaran: in in my, in my experience. I feel like for projects like this that are quite large. We have to do a document like this. I don’t think it was very clear before, and we haven’t had, I don’t think, as a company wide where we’ve worked
78 00:08:55.360 ⇒ 00:09:03.200 Uttam Kumaran: on projects like this large yet. So I think this is just natural growth for us to, you know.
79 00:09:03.500 ⇒ 00:09:07.650 Uttam Kumaran: get alignment on something, and this is something that will. We have a couple of other projects that
80 00:09:07.880 ⇒ 00:09:10.020 Uttam Kumaran: it? I think this is needed as well.
81 00:09:10.350 ⇒ 00:09:16.470 Uttam Kumaran: So I don’t know I’m I’m game to sort of work on this. I I started on a document, but it’s
82 00:09:16.620 ⇒ 00:09:20.380 Uttam Kumaran: kind of ugly, but maybe we can work on that today.
83 00:09:22.090 ⇒ 00:09:23.980 Uttam Kumaran: or I don’t know. What do you guys think.
84 00:09:26.010 ⇒ 00:09:36.907 Caio Velasco: For me. No problem we can. We can definitely try. Don’t have like a clear picture of what the document is. So it would be be great to- to- to check that. But just
85 00:09:38.260 ⇒ 00:09:40.920 Caio Velasco: talking about what the Milani just said.
86 00:09:41.550 ⇒ 00:09:51.390 Caio Velasco: cause if for some reason, maybe it’s a lack of experience. But when when you say that we need, like a fact, refunds fact, discount fact whatever, just to have a fact
87 00:09:51.790 ⇒ 00:10:03.660 Caio Velasco: of those topics. For some reason it seems to me that those are weeks of work, or or those are exactly the things that urban stems did to have their business. In the 1st place.
88 00:10:03.660 ⇒ 00:10:05.589 Uttam Kumaran: But see the I guess I’ll I guess I’ll.
89 00:10:05.590 ⇒ 00:10:06.610 Caio Velasco: Yeah.
90 00:10:06.610 ⇒ 00:10:09.519 Uttam Kumaran: I’ll push back on that in that, like I think.
91 00:10:09.620 ⇒ 00:10:14.430 Uttam Kumaran: at least for me and I, I’m sure for them a lot of modeled sales and revenue data.
92 00:10:14.910 ⇒ 00:10:20.610 Uttam Kumaran: probably like 10 or 15 times. So I don’t think that those are weeks of work to plan out the document.
93 00:10:20.860 ⇒ 00:10:25.479 Uttam Kumaran: Like most of these businesses manage themselves pretty similarly.
94 00:10:25.630 ⇒ 00:10:26.750 Uttam Kumaran: So
95 00:10:26.960 ⇒ 00:10:34.199 Uttam Kumaran: I think it. It’s it’s not that long for us to get a 1st version to, then go back to them and say, here’s how
96 00:10:34.430 ⇒ 00:10:39.649 Uttam Kumaran: businesses like yours typically model themselves. Here’s what we found. That’s different.
97 00:10:39.920 ⇒ 00:10:43.850 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, what other models do we need? See? I I think that’s just
98 00:10:44.330 ⇒ 00:10:47.250 Uttam Kumaran: from experience and modeling sales data.
99 00:10:48.620 ⇒ 00:10:50.754 Caio Velasco: Okay? So for example, if you have
100 00:10:51.300 ⇒ 00:10:55.100 Caio Velasco: order source and a light item source.
101 00:10:55.690 ⇒ 00:10:58.320 Caio Velasco: how do you know which one is right in their business?
102 00:10:59.570 ⇒ 00:11:06.379 Uttam Kumaran: Because every orders has line items, right? So like an order can have multiple line items in it. This is this is that’s something that’s.
103 00:11:06.950 ⇒ 00:11:08.669 Caio Velasco: Most companies have.
104 00:11:09.050 ⇒ 00:11:12.050 Uttam Kumaran: That sort of, you know, modeling paradigm.
105 00:11:13.240 ⇒ 00:11:15.729 Caio Velasco: Yeah, so where is the complexity? There.
106 00:11:19.040 ⇒ 00:11:29.599 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t think there’s any complexity. I guess what I’m saying is like it’s up. It’s up to us to go find out, to go look at the model for order items and see, okay, what are the things that they have differently? You know.
107 00:11:31.050 ⇒ 00:11:31.630 Caio Velasco: Hmm.
108 00:11:31.750 ⇒ 00:11:42.449 Caio Velasco: yeah. Because when I well, when we see like that, they they tell us like, I don’t know tableau items except it’s a super important model, and there’s like a hundred behind it. It doesn’t seem simple
109 00:11:42.610 ⇒ 00:11:48.520 Caio Velasco: to even get like a refund. Maybe refund came from like a thousand interaction along the way.
110 00:11:48.890 ⇒ 00:11:50.199 Caio Velasco: That’s why I’m confused.
111 00:11:50.200 ⇒ 00:11:51.700 Uttam Kumaran: See, that’s that’s but that.
112 00:11:52.540 ⇒ 00:12:03.760 Uttam Kumaran: No, no, but you’re you’re you’re you’re you’re confusing the complexity and the number of models which, the with the complexity in the data model. They have modeled this very poorly.
113 00:12:03.760 ⇒ 00:12:04.160 Demilade Agboola: Yes.
114 00:12:04.160 ⇒ 00:12:10.300 Uttam Kumaran: So you’ve added a lot of unnecessary complexity because you have 100 models to model refunds.
115 00:12:10.800 ⇒ 00:12:19.169 Uttam Kumaran: You can do model. You can model refunds in 3 models or less, no matter how complicated it is, I guarantee you.
116 00:12:19.350 ⇒ 00:12:26.549 Uttam Kumaran: And so that’s the point. I guess the overall is that they’ve added so much garbage because they’ve
117 00:12:26.680 ⇒ 00:12:33.889 Uttam Kumaran: they’ve reused stuff they haven’t documented anything they haven’t like used. They haven’t like.
118 00:12:34.010 ⇒ 00:12:36.180 Uttam Kumaran: There was no thought put in. In fact.
119 00:12:36.290 ⇒ 00:12:40.139 Uttam Kumaran: there was no thought put into like the overall architecture to keep kept adding stuff
120 00:12:40.320 ⇒ 00:12:50.949 Uttam Kumaran: right. And so one day someone adds refunds, and then that person leaves, and the next day. There’s someone’s like this is just the way refunds work. Let’s add on top of that until the numbers right, and then you do that for 10 years and
121 00:12:51.160 ⇒ 00:12:53.040 Uttam Kumaran: kind of get to where we are now.
122 00:12:53.250 ⇒ 00:13:00.179 Uttam Kumaran: Right? So I guess what I what I would challenge is that they’re actually not that unique of a business.
123 00:13:00.730 ⇒ 00:13:10.859 Uttam Kumaran: It’s just that they’ve over complicated a lot of stuff. And we’re seeing that in the inventory world, right? We’ve we’ve now taken what was extremely complicated
124 00:13:11.080 ⇒ 00:13:14.739 Uttam Kumaran: into just like, you know, 5 or 10 models that models everything.
125 00:13:15.020 ⇒ 00:13:15.820 Uttam Kumaran: Right?
126 00:13:16.220 ⇒ 00:13:24.670 Uttam Kumaran: Very similarly, we’ll do that on revenue, and the inventory stuff is actually probably the most unique part of their business right? Because they have this sort of perishable goods. Buffer problem
127 00:13:24.910 ⇒ 00:13:30.730 Uttam Kumaran: money in money out on orders, orders tied to customers, then tied to shipments.
128 00:13:30.870 ⇒ 00:13:33.699 Uttam Kumaran: Something we’ve done, you know, plenty of times.
129 00:13:34.220 ⇒ 00:13:36.359 Uttam Kumaran: so I guess that’s where I would challenge the
130 00:13:37.050 ⇒ 00:13:44.999 Uttam Kumaran: the taking looking at what their current system is an indication of complexity. I would look at the business model and the business model is
131 00:13:45.500 ⇒ 00:13:46.880 Uttam Kumaran: not that complex.
132 00:13:49.010 ⇒ 00:13:50.719 Caio Velasco: Okay, okay, okay, got it.
133 00:13:50.990 ⇒ 00:13:51.960 Uttam Kumaran: Does that make sense.
134 00:13:51.960 ⇒ 00:13:54.609 Caio Velasco: Yeah, no, it does. It does. It does.
135 00:13:54.610 ⇒ 00:13:59.600 Uttam Kumaran: It may. It’s I think, the like knowing. I think, knowing your process.
136 00:14:00.010 ⇒ 00:14:02.980 Uttam Kumaran: that’s what’s gonna limit you ultimately is that
137 00:14:03.770 ⇒ 00:14:11.640 Uttam Kumaran: can’t. You can’t like. For example, if I was to tell you how I would tackle this, I’m not gonna I’m not gonna read a single sequel query
138 00:14:11.770 ⇒ 00:14:30.589 Uttam Kumaran: like, I’m gonna start with, what are the source tables? And I’m gonna end with, where? What are the the metrics we’re trying to get to? And then what is the core, logic in between. Like I, there’s no need like I just don’t see a need to go read every single one of those, read the last one and read the 1st one and then kind of like start
139 00:14:31.030 ⇒ 00:14:35.329 Uttam Kumaran: right? Because ultimately we’re we’re trying to.
140 00:14:35.960 ⇒ 00:14:40.699 Uttam Kumaran: Ultimately revenue comes from the sum of the the value of the orders.
141 00:14:40.930 ⇒ 00:14:44.060 Uttam Kumaran: Start there and then. Sort of see? Okay, what’s in between that
142 00:14:44.190 ⇒ 00:15:00.740 Uttam Kumaran: like, what are the complexities in between that versus like? If you go spend time reading and documenting every other thing. One, nobody’s gonna like. Nobody’s gonna look back at that, because that’s that’s all stuff we’re gonna throw out. And second, I don’t know. I just don’t think it’s like a it’s like an incredibly.
143 00:15:01.180 ⇒ 00:15:02.970 Uttam Kumaran: I think, like in the 1st
144 00:15:03.540 ⇒ 00:15:07.529 Uttam Kumaran: 20% of the time you spend there. You’re gonna get all you’re gonna know everything you need to know.
145 00:15:07.640 ⇒ 00:15:08.300 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
146 00:15:08.610 ⇒ 00:15:12.386 Caio Velasco: Hmm, okay. Good. No, no. I get it.
147 00:15:13.020 ⇒ 00:15:15.740 Caio Velasco: yeah. Well, I’m still theoretically learning.
148 00:15:16.131 ⇒ 00:15:24.489 Caio Velasco: And yeah, well, those 5 days that I spent 6, 5, 6 days at the end of the day, just like 2 full time, 2 or 3 full time days of work.
149 00:15:24.760 ⇒ 00:15:28.170 Caio Velasco: So I’m kind of like, I feel okay by having done it.
150 00:15:28.280 ⇒ 00:15:44.670 Caio Velasco: because I mean, if we have a meeting on Monday morning, someone presents you a task. And now by Wednesday you have an idea. I I think that’s theoretically it’s usually worse than that. But still, I feel like this hasn’t been progress. Maybe there was progress, but I can’t see it yet.
151 00:15:45.250 ⇒ 00:15:54.179 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. So that’s where I would say, like we should escalate like I don’t. My point in that thread was like, if you’re spending 5 days on something. It’s too long.
152 00:15:54.970 ⇒ 00:16:02.979 Uttam Kumaran: And I I think at some point like you have to say, Hey, maybe I just don’t know enough about this topic I need to escalate
153 00:16:03.110 ⇒ 00:16:05.929 Uttam Kumaran: right? And that’s it. And for me.
154 00:16:06.310 ⇒ 00:16:10.320 Uttam Kumaran: for me, I can’t. I can’t come in and assist without a document like this.
155 00:16:10.500 ⇒ 00:16:29.349 Uttam Kumaran: because then I’m gonna do the same thing you did or start on something like that. Right? So my, my sort of point of feedback is like, Okay, this isn’t. This is a new process in our company. So I’m it’s fine, like, I think we just need a technical design document. I also, I understand that if it’s like, Hey, even with this new document
156 00:16:29.680 ⇒ 00:16:43.650 Uttam Kumaran: I’m not. I’m not going to be equipped to write this for this one. And so either me or Demo Lotto can write it, and then anyone should be able anyone. The team should be able to execute the tickets coming off of it right because everyone on the team will sign off on
157 00:16:44.240 ⇒ 00:16:45.110 Uttam Kumaran: like
158 00:16:45.180 ⇒ 00:16:56.760 Uttam Kumaran: sign, off on what is actually the goal, and like understanding what the goal of the document is. So I I think it’s fine, but we’re the 3 crew on this
159 00:16:56.810 ⇒ 00:17:15.366 Uttam Kumaran: clients sort of with the, with the ability to to affect the data modeling. So all of us have to be on the same page. But I do think this is a little bit more of like a higher level task that I’m happy to, you know. Take the lead on, or take the lead on with them a lot in, and you can kind of see how it is to do one of these, and then on the next one like you can totally take it.
160 00:17:17.180 ⇒ 00:17:22.619 Caio Velasco: No, no problem definitely can learn from from you guys. Maybe some. Sometimes I also think that
161 00:17:22.750 ⇒ 00:17:44.370 Caio Velasco: depending on how things get to me it can. It can have completely different outcomes. For example, when I had my 1st client in the football team, no one gave me anything they just gave me. We need historical tables. Okay? So I bought everything from scratch, and I built it. I didn’t care what they had. I did alone, and I never had that even Dbt. Before.
162 00:17:44.420 ⇒ 00:17:55.989 Caio Velasco: But now that I was given something that already exists that has complexity, that has a client that has a working session, that I for me doesn’t really. Honestly, I don’t need those and.
163 00:17:56.710 ⇒ 00:18:01.599 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah. But you’re working in a solo. You’re working in a solo environment. And also
164 00:18:01.890 ⇒ 00:18:05.499 Uttam Kumaran: that I would say if you that I would say that engagement
165 00:18:06.030 ⇒ 00:18:13.020 Uttam Kumaran: this is like this is starting to get to like big leagues like this is start starting to where like this is like really complicated.
166 00:18:13.270 ⇒ 00:18:25.579 Uttam Kumaran: So it’s fine. It makes sense like we need these sort of the reason for a deck technical design document is because you have tons of stakeholders, tons of other developers, right like. And this is the type of work
167 00:18:25.930 ⇒ 00:18:37.470 Uttam Kumaran: that we want to do, because it’s it truly has complexity beyond, just like what is a line of sequel. It’s like there’s like orchestration. Complexity like it requires some advanced planning.
168 00:18:37.870 ⇒ 00:18:53.739 Uttam Kumaran: But this is this, is it. This is like, like, you know at the best data teams that you know I was on or leading like this is the this is the sort of expectation is like for bigger projects we need to have. So this is just great engineering, right? We need plans. We need architecture. I think my, I think my job
169 00:18:54.150 ⇒ 00:19:01.679 Uttam Kumaran: was to get us a client that would give us the time to do something like this, you know, where we could have the time to sit and plan, and I think.
170 00:19:01.890 ⇒ 00:19:07.819 Uttam Kumaran: like, I would rather you take the 5 days and work on this document than take the 5 days. And then
171 00:19:08.300 ⇒ 00:19:13.829 Uttam Kumaran: they’re like, okay, you know. And so that’s that’s, I think, where it is. And I think this is something that
172 00:19:14.060 ⇒ 00:19:18.430 Uttam Kumaran: we all kind of identify all the different backgrounds that we’re from
173 00:19:18.760 ⇒ 00:19:24.910 Uttam Kumaran: and like, okay? And then, now we can understand. Okay, hey? Maybe I’ve never worked on a Tdd. Before. Perfect like. That’s fine.
174 00:19:25.050 ⇒ 00:19:28.490 Uttam Kumaran: We’ll we’ll work on one or we’ll work on 2, and then you’ll start to get the hang of it.
175 00:19:28.650 ⇒ 00:19:31.099 Uttam Kumaran: and you’ll start to see why it’s important, because.
176 00:19:31.507 ⇒ 00:19:34.889 Uttam Kumaran: we want. We want to make some of the decisions upfront.
177 00:19:35.688 ⇒ 00:19:49.639 Uttam Kumaran: And we want to start making some of these decisions in public so that everybody can work on the outcomes of this technical design. But like, when we embark these, this is like a 3 month, 2 month, like remodeling.
178 00:19:49.970 ⇒ 00:19:54.449 Uttam Kumaran: Like, we need this right at minimum, we need something that there’s, I think, where
179 00:19:54.690 ⇒ 00:20:07.700 Uttam Kumaran: the I think you know, this is just something, I think, as we graduate to a bigger company like we need this, and it’s something I didn’t sort of bring up earlier. Because we we really never worked on something this complicated, which is great, you know. So
180 00:20:09.860 ⇒ 00:20:13.820 Caio Velasco: Yeah, no, that’s great, that’s great. And how do you think we we can start with that document?
181 00:20:14.550 ⇒ 00:20:18.499 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. So I started working on some stuff. Here, let me just share this.
182 00:20:19.245 ⇒ 00:20:24.930 Uttam Kumaran: I would like this to be something that we create like a just generic technical design document.
183 00:20:25.070 ⇒ 00:20:31.929 Uttam Kumaran: And then we can have it for any sort of large project in the company.
184 00:20:33.280 ⇒ 00:20:37.339 Uttam Kumaran: I started it. I sort of probably need some help to
185 00:20:38.860 ⇒ 00:20:40.690 Uttam Kumaran: just like finish it up. But
186 00:20:42.050 ⇒ 00:20:52.190 Uttam Kumaran: again, maybe because you haven’t seen one of these. I think it’s probably best. Maybe I could just sort of finish it up. And then I can get I can basically send it in engineering for
187 00:20:52.600 ⇒ 00:21:17.580 Uttam Kumaran: hey? Like, let me know if this covers everything. But ideally. If you look at the overall structure of this document, you have basically some information about the document. You have an overview. What are the problem statements that we’re solving. Right? You have like research, which is like, Hey, I run and research this. Or here’s external links or internal meetings that we had. And then it’s really like architecture and design which is like
188 00:21:18.030 ⇒ 00:21:20.630 Uttam Kumaran: in this. In this context, it could be.
189 00:21:20.770 ⇒ 00:21:27.799 Uttam Kumaran: and an Erd diagram which, like, Okay, cool. When we end up with our final model, it should have these 10 models. And here’s the links
190 00:21:28.060 ⇒ 00:21:31.859 Uttam Kumaran: should have. Maybe for us. It would be like, what does each model solve
191 00:21:31.970 ⇒ 00:21:47.339 Uttam Kumaran: like what our core logic that we’re consolidating any new sources? So basically, all of that. And then we sort of have. And then this is a living document. Right? So we have like a decision log. So every time we meet to review this, Doc, there are like meetings. What’s a decision?
192 00:21:48.131 ⇒ 00:21:50.600 Uttam Kumaran: And then finally it goes to.
193 00:21:50.730 ⇒ 00:21:57.130 Uttam Kumaran: It’ll go to Pm. Team to sort of break out the implementation. And then, in case there’s anything around
194 00:21:57.430 ⇒ 00:22:00.949 Uttam Kumaran: testing or otherwise, we can add it here.
195 00:22:01.562 ⇒ 00:22:07.310 Uttam Kumaran: So you can consider. This is like, I would. I would say, we need one of these per model.
196 00:22:09.290 ⇒ 00:22:13.439 Uttam Kumaran: per, like, mark, basically, yeah, per, mark. Yeah.
197 00:22:15.870 ⇒ 00:22:16.700 Caio Velasco: Okay.
198 00:22:19.130 ⇒ 00:22:26.010 Uttam Kumaran: So I think ideally, for this 1st one like I could probably try to take a crack at like what we would need for revenue.
199 00:22:27.440 ⇒ 00:22:37.509 Uttam Kumaran: And then we can start to interrogate the document. I mean, I’m I’m gonna just start with, like, Okay, what are the core out? I’m gonna start with the core kpis.
200 00:22:38.070 ⇒ 00:22:46.809 Uttam Kumaran: right? And the way I’m gonna start with that is, I’m gonna look at tableau items. Xf, and then take all the revenue related things and say, our goal is to support these metrics.
201 00:22:47.410 ⇒ 00:22:51.110 Uttam Kumaran: And then we’re sort of work, kind of work, work a little bit backwards.
202 00:22:52.066 ⇒ 00:22:57.950 Uttam Kumaran: So I’m happy to take a crack at the 1st version of this. I don’t mind. Actually.
203 00:22:58.310 ⇒ 00:23:06.459 Uttam Kumaran: that’s totally fine. And then I think, Kyle, in this process, I think you’ll get a sense of like, okay, what is, what is it like to work on
204 00:23:06.730 ⇒ 00:23:08.395 Uttam Kumaran: this type of
205 00:23:09.620 ⇒ 00:23:22.189 Uttam Kumaran: you know, this type of document that will end up in end up, resulting in a series of meetings where we like. Everybody comes in comments and is like, Why are we doing this? And then ultimately it gets stamped, and then we can move to execution.
206 00:23:23.350 ⇒ 00:23:28.900 Caio Velasco: Cool. No, it works for me. Sounds really interesting. Actually, the the number 5, for sure. Then
207 00:23:29.170 ⇒ 00:23:29.909 Caio Velasco: the one that I’m.
208 00:23:29.910 ⇒ 00:23:34.957 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, the 5 5 is the meat of it. 5, 4, and 5 is the meat of the whole thing.
209 00:23:36.270 ⇒ 00:23:44.390 Uttam Kumaran: and for 5 I will kind of show you how like I I’ll kind of show you like my process for how I break this down.
210 00:23:44.850 ⇒ 00:23:48.879 Uttam Kumaran: But typically, you know, in like a if when you’re building like A,
211 00:23:49.000 ⇒ 00:23:50.679 Uttam Kumaran: let’s say we’re building a product.
212 00:23:51.262 ⇒ 00:24:00.620 Uttam Kumaran: You know, when I was running product teams like, yeah, you have like a Tdd, you also have, like a design document. You could have a you have what’s called a Prd, which is the product requirements.
213 00:24:00.770 ⇒ 00:24:03.540 Uttam Kumaran: right? So as we get to bigger
214 00:24:03.900 ⇒ 00:24:10.670 Uttam Kumaran: projects, we will actually probably have a Prd first, st which is like, what are the product
215 00:24:11.140 ⇒ 00:24:16.039 Uttam Kumaran: requirements here? Right? So that’s like the business. That’s more business facing
216 00:24:16.790 ⇒ 00:24:26.429 Uttam Kumaran: which is like, what is the goal? Who’s involved? Like and it it’s it. Can. It can link out to the to the Tdd, but it starts off as like.
217 00:24:26.720 ⇒ 00:24:30.589 Uttam Kumaran: okay. And that’s something that the product the project team owns.
218 00:24:30.870 ⇒ 00:24:35.360 Uttam Kumaran: It’s kind of like already. What they have in this they have like sort of a project management document.
219 00:24:35.776 ⇒ 00:24:40.809 Uttam Kumaran: And then this is really for the technical team to interrogate. Right? So for all of us.
220 00:24:40.950 ⇒ 00:24:55.760 Uttam Kumaran: and like, for example, a wish, or we can get input from other people on the team can come in here and comment and say, like, Hey, did you consider this or like, okay, this looks great like I, I in my last experience, I did this. So you get everyone’s feedback.
221 00:24:56.120 ⇒ 00:25:01.860 Uttam Kumaran: This gets stamped. And then in grooming, we basically start to split this up into pieces.
222 00:25:03.220 ⇒ 00:25:12.449 Caio Velasco: Okay, cool and what do you think we should? I mean, now that emulate is also here. What? What do you think we should do regarding like the
223 00:25:12.770 ⇒ 00:25:19.160 Caio Velasco: well this week of work in terms of like the auditing. At least I saw most of the things.
224 00:25:19.410 ⇒ 00:25:22.609 Caio Velasco: so I have like a an idea where things come from.
225 00:25:23.620 ⇒ 00:25:28.530 Caio Velasco: But like, what should I tell Amber? Basically in terms of like.
226 00:25:28.530 ⇒ 00:25:29.469 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I mean.
227 00:25:30.340 ⇒ 00:25:40.010 Uttam Kumaran: yeah, I mean, my goal is to get this document done this week. So like, I, ideally, what I can try what I will try to aim for today.
228 00:25:40.466 ⇒ 00:25:51.800 Uttam Kumaran: I’m sort of in a couple of meetings until the afternoon. What I’ll what I’ll sort of try to aim for today or tomorrow is to kind of start the overall architecture of this of this doc.
229 00:25:52.110 ⇒ 00:26:03.040 Uttam Kumaran: and then start to like, lay out. Okay, how? Where are we gonna talk about metrics? And then I think we can collaborate because I feel like your your what you research will all go into 5
230 00:26:04.590 ⇒ 00:26:08.480 Uttam Kumaran: and I can help with the rest of the of the document.
231 00:26:08.880 ⇒ 00:26:15.490 Uttam Kumaran: And then I mean I I know she just. I think there’s a meeting on Revenue Roadmap Review for Thursday.
232 00:26:15.940 ⇒ 00:26:20.871 Uttam Kumaran: that our goal is to present this document in in whatever form it is on Thursday.
233 00:26:21.470 ⇒ 00:26:34.479 Uttam Kumaran: so I think I think probably my my goal would be that you spend time on this document. And then, if there’s any sort of low prior tickets that you can take on as well like that would be probably ideal.
234 00:26:36.500 ⇒ 00:26:41.209 Uttam Kumaran: But I would like us to to finish this up first.st
235 00:26:42.350 ⇒ 00:26:51.719 Caio Velasco: No perfect. It works for me, and the only request I would have for you regarding this document is is just like a month where I have like. If you can be the most simple.
236 00:26:51.980 ⇒ 00:26:56.949 Caio Velasco: like a most simple version you can imagine. For this, at least, I can start from like slow.
237 00:26:56.950 ⇒ 00:26:57.770 Uttam Kumaran: Totally.
238 00:26:57.770 ⇒ 00:26:58.085 Caio Velasco: Yeah.
239 00:26:58.400 ⇒ 00:27:22.889 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, no, no. And this is where, again, like, ask for help. First, st because knowing that this is the 1st time you’re sort of working on something this high level like we’ll work together, and I’ll fill out. I’ll fill out as much else as we can, and you’ll sort of see. And as across the company, I think across more projects, I’m gonna start to propose us to do this like on the AI team. I want us to do this first, st we just didn’t have the bandwidth to ever like
240 00:27:23.270 ⇒ 00:27:31.990 Uttam Kumaran: plan. But like, ultimately, this is what great engineering teams work on like in the at Google, at Facebook. And all these companies
241 00:27:32.550 ⇒ 00:27:34.750 Uttam Kumaran: before they do any work.
242 00:27:35.160 ⇒ 00:27:42.400 Uttam Kumaran: This has to get approved. And it’s actually these will be like 50 pages long. It’s like, literally like the plans on how they’re gonna build the whole thing.
243 00:27:42.580 ⇒ 00:27:48.320 Uttam Kumaran: So for us, like, I’m glad that we’re starting to take projects that that necessitate this, so you’ll start to get the hang of it.
244 00:27:48.550 ⇒ 00:27:48.940 Caio Velasco: Okay.
245 00:27:48.940 ⇒ 00:27:52.969 Uttam Kumaran: A lot of it is narrative, right? But it’s for anyone who looks at like, why do we do this.
246 00:27:53.210 ⇒ 00:27:57.670 Uttam Kumaran: you know. And why is it important? They’ll see this. And this is just again, another function of like.
247 00:27:57.980 ⇒ 00:28:05.599 Uttam Kumaran: how we want to come in, not as just like consultants, but like, okay, we’re an engineering team, right? This is how we develop great engineering products.
248 00:28:05.920 ⇒ 00:28:13.750 Uttam Kumaran: So I’ll fill out the rest. And I think I’ll I’ll I’m gonna work on a format at least. 1st for you to start to plug in stuff in the architecture and design.
249 00:28:14.226 ⇒ 00:28:21.410 Uttam Kumaran: That way. I’m not blocking you, so I’ll try to get this done today, where I just show I just create like the template for 5.
250 00:28:22.120 ⇒ 00:28:24.400 Caio Velasco: Okay. Okay. Sounds good for me.
251 00:28:24.990 ⇒ 00:28:28.437 Demilade Agboola: Yeah, that that sounds good. I think ultimately right?
252 00:28:30.000 ⇒ 00:28:39.380 Demilade Agboola: I mean, in my like, from my experience, I know I haven’t necessarily always used like a technical design document. But, like ultimately
253 00:28:39.780 ⇒ 00:28:55.920 Demilade Agboola: the document would allow the allow us to be able to consistently build things out in a way that anybody else, like everybody else, can do it. But ultimately the the idea is, it would formalize the process in your head and make it easy to understand how we go from
254 00:28:56.270 ⇒ 00:29:04.169 Demilade Agboola: a scattered warehouse and a scattered Dbt. Into having more structure, and what what that entails in like a document.
255 00:29:06.560 ⇒ 00:29:09.999 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. And and and again, this is something I think, like
256 00:29:10.140 ⇒ 00:29:12.830 Uttam Kumaran: for everybody. This will be a level up.
257 00:29:13.438 ⇒ 00:29:24.670 Uttam Kumaran: On how we do some of these, and for as we take on more complicated work, this will be like something that many of the companies we go into. The reason they’re in the jam is because they never
258 00:29:24.810 ⇒ 00:29:27.639 Uttam Kumaran: sort of stepped back and did did things like this.
259 00:29:27.760 ⇒ 00:29:34.699 Uttam Kumaran: And again, this doesn’t mean we become like Ibm where we’re like sitting and looking at documents all day, and no one’s doing work but
260 00:29:36.280 ⇒ 00:29:48.779 Uttam Kumaran: as we all level up like we need, the the thing we scrutinize is gonna be the plan. And the plan is what like we can always refer back to when when we’re executing the task.
261 00:29:49.180 ⇒ 00:29:55.669 Uttam Kumaran: So yeah, I mean, I think at some point we can go back and sort of probably do a retroactive one for inventory model.
262 00:29:56.170 ⇒ 00:30:02.910 Uttam Kumaran: but this also becomes the artifact that brain forger leaves them. It’s like, okay, what is the technical design document for how we did this?
263 00:30:03.130 ⇒ 00:30:24.290 Uttam Kumaran: Additionally, as we start to avoid startups and go work for bigger companies like the engineering people on the team are gonna be very impressed by this work because not many data teams tend to do design documents like this, just because always a hair on fire sort of mindset.
264 00:30:25.640 ⇒ 00:30:43.609 Uttam Kumaran: And so I’m actually very happy. It’s something that I I didn’t. I I should have brought. I frankly, should have brought up earlier that, like it’s in our process. I don’t think anybody in the company really thought thought of. Hey? Like, how do we solve this? And so it’s an indication that we’re starting to work on things that require months of work, and that we need
265 00:30:43.920 ⇒ 00:30:50.950 Uttam Kumaran: this sort of technical process. But the project management team again, they’re working on all the sort of orchestration of the work
266 00:30:51.140 ⇒ 00:30:54.330 Uttam Kumaran: it’s up to us on the engineering team to sort of think through.
267 00:30:54.490 ⇒ 00:30:59.910 Uttam Kumaran: like how we actually execute a great system, regardless of timeline.
268 00:31:00.367 ⇒ 00:31:05.820 Uttam Kumaran: You know. And so I think once we do a couple of these we’ll have a great template to use on any client, so.
269 00:31:07.860 ⇒ 00:31:11.540 Caio Velasco: Okay, perfect. So on my end, it’s all good. I’ll I’ll wait for
270 00:31:12.270 ⇒ 00:31:16.880 Caio Velasco: for for your document. Just let me have a 1st version, and I’ll take a look.
271 00:31:17.480 ⇒ 00:31:23.659 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, feel free if you want to send a quick note to in the Channel. On what we discussed.
272 00:31:25.780 ⇒ 00:31:28.690 Uttam Kumaran: And then what the plan is for Thursday. Yeah, that’d be great.
273 00:31:29.040 ⇒ 00:31:30.880 Caio Velasco: Cool, perfect, will do.
274 00:31:31.670 ⇒ 00:31:32.370 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
275 00:31:32.560 ⇒ 00:31:36.310 Uttam Kumaran: Alright, thank you. Guys appreciate it. Thanks to them. A lot for setting this up.
276 00:31:36.520 ⇒ 00:31:37.479 Caio Velasco: Thinking about it.
277 00:31:38.030 ⇒ 00:31:39.620 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. Alright, I guess.
278 00:31:39.620 ⇒ 00:31:40.790 Demilade Agboola: Alright, bye.