Meeting Title: Product Analytics Role Discussion Date: 2025-08-19 Meeting participants: Shreya Chowdhury, Uttam Kumaran
WEBVTT
1 00:00:18.790 ⇒ 00:00:20.339 Uttam Kumaran: Hey, how’s it going?
2 00:00:20.340 ⇒ 00:00:22.090 Shreya Chowdhury: Hey, good, how are you?
3 00:00:22.290 ⇒ 00:00:24.810 Uttam Kumaran: Good. How’s the week been?
4 00:00:25.220 ⇒ 00:00:28.579 Shreya Chowdhury: It’s been, I feel like it’s been long, but fun. ….
5 00:00:28.580 ⇒ 00:00:29.300 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
6 00:00:29.300 ⇒ 00:00:30.110 Shreya Chowdhury: Yeah.
7 00:00:30.220 ⇒ 00:00:34.229 Shreya Chowdhury: I came back from traveling a little while ago.
8 00:00:34.580 ⇒ 00:00:35.489 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, nice!
9 00:00:35.490 ⇒ 00:00:38.520 Shreya Chowdhury: It was just relaxing, ….
10 00:00:39.260 ⇒ 00:00:40.819 Uttam Kumaran: Where were you in the world?
11 00:00:40.820 ⇒ 00:00:43.000 Shreya Chowdhury: I was in Hawaii, ….
12 00:00:43.000 ⇒ 00:00:43.960 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, nice!
13 00:00:43.960 ⇒ 00:00:44.640 Shreya Chowdhury: Yeah.
14 00:00:44.640 ⇒ 00:00:45.939 Uttam Kumaran: So, let’s go.
15 00:00:45.940 ⇒ 00:00:50.680 Shreya Chowdhury: Yeah, my friend found, like, one of those Costco deals, and she was like, oh, this is
16 00:00:51.610 ⇒ 00:00:55.290 Shreya Chowdhury: And I’m like, you know what, sure, why not? And so he went.
17 00:00:55.290 ⇒ 00:01:00.690 Uttam Kumaran: Just did cliche tourist stuff. That’s fine. Hawaii cliche tourism, though, is like…
18 00:01:00.820 ⇒ 00:01:08.179 Uttam Kumaran: still, like, beats most places, you know? Like, the average thing there is so nice, or the nature is great.
19 00:01:08.180 ⇒ 00:01:11.859 Shreya Chowdhury: Yeah. I’m… we were in, … I forgot, we were in….
20 00:01:11.860 ⇒ 00:01:31.219 Uttam Kumaran: we were on the Big Island, and then I forgot where else we were. Oh, we were on Kona, and we, like, went to a… this was maybe 2 years ago, we went to a coffee roastery there, because Kona Coffee is, like, very, very famous. And we, like, went to a farm, and the guy was, like, he was… he worked as a, …
21 00:01:31.400 ⇒ 00:01:41.539 Uttam Kumaran: like a physics PhD at, like, Columbia, I think, and then quit, and him and his wife just went and started this coffee farm there, and he gave us a whole tour of their farm, and….
22 00:01:41.540 ⇒ 00:01:42.850 Shreya Chowdhury: Oh, that’s… Oh.
23 00:01:42.850 ⇒ 00:01:53.640 Uttam Kumaran: I had, like, a big coffee obsession days, like, 2 years ago, where I was, like, learning all about, like, the supply chain, and I was like, this is the best part of this trip.
24 00:01:54.680 ⇒ 00:01:55.440 Shreya Chowdhury: …
25 00:01:56.060 ⇒ 00:02:06.619 Shreya Chowdhury: Yeah, but we’ve… we’ve done, like, the Big Island before. I think next time we want to do Maui, but it’s just, like, it’s getting cheaper to go there now, like, before it used to be, like.
26 00:02:06.620 ⇒ 00:02:07.400 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, okay.
27 00:02:07.400 ⇒ 00:02:13.020 Shreya Chowdhury: never find plane tickets, like, less than, like, 600, but now….
28 00:02:13.020 ⇒ 00:02:17.479 Uttam Kumaran: I find, like, 6 months in advance, I feel like, because my dad used to always scout.
29 00:02:17.690 ⇒ 00:02:36.910 Shreya Chowdhury: Yeah, these days, I feel like it’s getting better, like, I’ll scour, and randomly, it’ll just be, like, round trip, like, 300, so then we’re like, hey, let’s, like, why don’t we just go? Because we both, like, worked remote for a long time, and yeah, so it was, like, easy for us to just find tickets and, like, go.
30 00:02:36.910 ⇒ 00:02:44.849 Uttam Kumaran: The time zone is brutal, and the flight is not great, but… Also, I think Hawaii and Alaska are merging, right? I don’t know, I was just on an Alaska flight.
31 00:02:44.850 ⇒ 00:02:45.590 Shreya Chowdhury: A few days.
32 00:02:45.590 ⇒ 00:02:50.820 Uttam Kumaran: ago, and it said, like, they were merging, so I feel like it’s probably gonna get better.
33 00:02:51.150 ⇒ 00:02:52.569 Uttam Kumaran: If I had to guess.
34 00:02:52.850 ⇒ 00:03:06.070 Shreya Chowdhury: Yeah, the time zone is kind of brutal, but it’s, like, because, like, we’re used to waking up later, you kind of naturally wake up earlier, and then work will be done by, like, 2, if not earlier, and so you kind of just.
35 00:03:06.070 ⇒ 00:03:08.250 Uttam Kumaran: Somehow it works out.
36 00:03:08.250 ⇒ 00:03:09.720 Shreya Chowdhury: That’s how it works out.
37 00:03:09.720 ⇒ 00:03:19.390 Uttam Kumaran: It’s actually better that it’s not the opposite way, like, if I visit family in India, or if I’m in Asia, it’s horrible, because I have to start… you start at, like, kind of, like, 11 PM.
38 00:03:19.390 ⇒ 00:03:28.779 Shreya Chowdhury: Oh my god, yeah, my mom went, like, a few months ago, and she was working, like, I think a couple of the weeks when she was there, and it was basically just, like, fully knocked out.
39 00:03:29.210 ⇒ 00:03:29.819 Shreya Chowdhury: I was like.
40 00:03:29.820 ⇒ 00:03:36.409 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, like, I was working until 3, 4, and then you sort of, like, wake up when you can, and then you definitely…
41 00:03:36.470 ⇒ 00:03:50.379 Uttam Kumaran: pass out in the middle of the day at some point. So how did it go? I heard great things from both Robert and Amber, like, what were your reflections or any feedback? Curious about your thoughts.
42 00:03:50.380 ⇒ 00:03:58.220 Shreya Chowdhury: Yeah, I’m so glad to hear that, actually. Yeah, that makes me really happy. I thought they went pretty well.
43 00:03:58.560 ⇒ 00:04:08.990 Shreya Chowdhury: I feel like a lot of the things that they were talking about are very closely aligned with, one, the type of thing that I’m looking for, and, like.
44 00:04:09.320 ⇒ 00:04:13.640 Shreya Chowdhury: my experience, too. And, like.
45 00:04:13.780 ⇒ 00:04:22.579 Shreya Chowdhury: just my general, like, style preferences. Like, I think Amber was asking, like, oh, what kind of, like, teams do you work best in? What kind of working style do you prefer?
46 00:04:23.280 ⇒ 00:04:24.230 Shreya Chowdhury: …
47 00:04:24.480 ⇒ 00:04:40.710 Shreya Chowdhury: And I was just kind of telling her, like, in the past, I’ve done this, and this is what I like, and then she would talk about, like, how you guys kind of run things, and I was like, yeah, like, she was like, would you prefer it be a little more like this, or whatever? I’m like, no, that’s perfect, like, ….
48 00:04:41.170 ⇒ 00:04:45.190 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, some of it’s by design, some of it is by constraint, but…
49 00:04:45.580 ⇒ 00:04:56.310 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know, like, we’re a… we’re a young company, so for… for the most part… but it’s gotten a lot better. I mean, we… before, we were just, like, pretty scattered, now we have a lot of…
50 00:04:56.430 ⇒ 00:05:05.430 Uttam Kumaran: great process that supports people, but it is a lot of, like, manage your own sort of to-do list type of environment.
51 00:05:05.740 ⇒ 00:05:16.159 Uttam Kumaran: And, you know, one of the things that I told Amber, and I told the whole team, and it’s really from my sort of learnings in tech and in hiring, is like, our job is to bring on people that are
52 00:05:16.160 ⇒ 00:05:27.220 Uttam Kumaran: smarter and more organized than all of us. And so, kind of, it’s really tough, though, because when we hire, we tend to be like, what is the most immediate need, and who can we get to fulfill that?
53 00:05:27.240 ⇒ 00:05:43.979 Uttam Kumaran: But for us, you know, the reason why I think you have a great background is you’d be, like, a complete level up for us into product analytics. I think you would definitely have to pull us up in certain ways, and in certain ways, I think we would pull on you, just given that we’d be supporting multiple clients.
54 00:05:43.980 ⇒ 00:05:45.610 Shreya Chowdhury: But I think it’s, ….
55 00:05:45.770 ⇒ 00:05:58.929 Uttam Kumaran: like, I think there’s a lot to do, you know, and also, one of the things that’s important to me is, like, we only now have redundancy in a couple of different domain areas, like, certainly in data engineering and data modeling, we have a couple people.
56 00:05:58.930 ⇒ 00:06:15.600 Uttam Kumaran: Also in AI, we have a couple people, but in product analytics, it’s really just Robert and, like, one other person that’s spending most of their time. We have another part-time sort of solutions guy, but he’s kind of just, like, on one client. So, once you get 3 people, you can actually start having conversations about, like.
57 00:06:15.720 ⇒ 00:06:29.009 Uttam Kumaran: product analytics excellence, and the great thing is, like, everything we do for one client, we can bring to the next. So, there’s a lot of opportunity to, like, build procedures and structures,
58 00:06:29.420 ⇒ 00:06:43.290 Uttam Kumaran: You know, I think that’s something that I realized versus being in a company where, you know, you write documentation and things, but maybe it never gets used. Here, we have to use it, because the next client basically usually wants exactly the same thing. Like, it’s actually very…
59 00:06:43.290 ⇒ 00:06:50.700 Uttam Kumaran: funny, they just want exactly the same problem, and they have the same urgency, and for us, it’s like, we totally gotta build playbooks around
60 00:06:50.940 ⇒ 00:06:58.370 Uttam Kumaran: how do we set up Amplitude? How do we build, like, a product analytics worksheet that we can get stakeholder approval? Like, everything, you know, so….
61 00:06:58.940 ⇒ 00:07:08.420 Shreya Chowdhury: Yeah, I mean, yeah, I think that that’s, like, really cool, and I think it’s also great that, like, you know, I would get to be a part of, like, building that boilerplate
62 00:07:08.500 ⇒ 00:07:24.989 Shreya Chowdhury: like, product analytics solution guide. I mean, I don’t know, I think, like, I was talking to Robert about this in the interview, too. It’s like, I feel like, yeah, you want to obviously strike the right balance between, like, giving client what they want versus what they need.
63 00:07:24.990 ⇒ 00:07:35.000 Shreya Chowdhury: So I don’t… do you ever find that sometimes, like, you do have to, like, at least offer a solution that’s different than exactly what they’re looking for, just out of due diligence?
64 00:07:35.380 ⇒ 00:07:40.509 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, totally. I mean, one of the big problems, and, you know, again, it’s, …
65 00:07:40.540 ⇒ 00:07:58.690 Uttam Kumaran: it’s a luxury that you have when you’re in a company, is we have to attack both long-term and short-term, kind of in parallel. So we’ll go to a company, and they want their problem solved. They don’t care that we, like, have DBT. They don’t even… a lot of… some of our clients don’t even know what that is. Like, they care about the fact that
66 00:07:58.900 ⇒ 00:08:12.709 Uttam Kumaran: data is available for their analysts, or stuff shows up in a dashboard. And so, we have to get that done while also making the best vendor decisions, and then setting things up. But a lot of that, I think a lot of that people may think is, like.
67 00:08:12.790 ⇒ 00:08:29.950 Uttam Kumaran: we could come in there, sort of just, like, do things willy-nilly, have no structure. It’s gonna bite us at some point, and it’s just not good engineering. So, we tend to try to have, you know, I think we… there’s still a lot of room, just like any team, to improve on documentation and things, but for the most part, I think
68 00:08:30.030 ⇒ 00:08:43.540 Uttam Kumaran: We… the way… the… probably the… one of the big points of contention sometimes with clients is, hey, we have to make… we have to choose the right vendors, and where you’re gonna find that is the cost savings are gonna be on our time.
69 00:08:43.669 ⇒ 00:08:48.720 Uttam Kumaran: Right, if we just go with the right vendor for a couple things, they may not know
70 00:08:48.910 ⇒ 00:09:07.929 Uttam Kumaran: like, who those are, but they trust us to make those decisions. And then also, yeah, it’s like, look, sometimes we have to spend 10-20% of our time on, like, tech debt. It’s just like any other team. I just think sometimes it’s hard, because in consulting, it can be easy to sort of just, like, spin your wheels or take on the next most important thing, but…
71 00:09:07.960 ⇒ 00:09:19.630 Uttam Kumaran: I think a lot of us come from, sort of, product team and internal team backgrounds, so we do think a lot about how do we build scalable engineering, and, like, how do we do engineering best practice. I feel like that’s… that’s what…
72 00:09:19.720 ⇒ 00:09:24.319 Uttam Kumaran: It’s kind of rare about us, compared to a lot of other consultancies our size.
73 00:09:24.480 ⇒ 00:09:32.810 Uttam Kumaran: Is that, like, there’s no engineering excellence until, like, you can afford to do that. For us, we haven’t compromised on that. I built…
74 00:09:33.070 ⇒ 00:09:36.600 Uttam Kumaran: stuff for clients here, just like I did at the last companies.
75 00:09:36.670 ⇒ 00:09:54.009 Uttam Kumaran: With the same sort of rigor, and yeah, maybe we… we have less time to do it, and maybe it’s… it’s not exactly evident because the clients sometimes aren’t as technical, but we still try to… try to do those things, and so I think that’s probably the… one of the key areas of… that sometimes there’s some contention.
76 00:09:54.380 ⇒ 00:10:05.930 Uttam Kumaran: But usually, it’s just, like, every time, it’s the same… it’s like deja vu of data problems, like, even today, okay, we have to, like, manage some, like, really messed up, like, regex
77 00:10:05.930 ⇒ 00:10:16.009 Uttam Kumaran: case when. And one of our clients, for example, like, you’re literally gonna hear this and be like, there’s no way. One of our clients, they… we’re using this regex to map campaign names
78 00:10:16.010 ⇒ 00:10:20.319 Uttam Kumaran: to, like, product categories, right? And we built this regex, it’s like this…
79 00:10:20.430 ⇒ 00:10:36.830 Uttam Kumaran: It’s in a dbt macro, it’s, like, isolated, but every week, they add more products, and they change the categories, and we’re not involved in that process. So randomly during the week, the uncategorized bucket, the value goes up, or things don’t report and someone pings us.
80 00:10:36.950 ⇒ 00:10:56.300 Uttam Kumaran: But, like, that’s such a classic problem, like, okay, so how do we solve it? Like, literally this morning. Okay, I proposed, one, we need to set an alert so that the Slack channel gets a ping when uncategorized bucket exceeds, like, some amount. So at least we can catch it.
81 00:10:56.350 ⇒ 00:10:58.379 Uttam Kumaran: very early. Second is.
82 00:10:58.550 ⇒ 00:11:10.430 Uttam Kumaran: we need to escalate to leadership and say, hey, we’re spending around 1-2 hours a week, like, triaging and fixing these, like, regex issues, because we’re not being informed ahead of time. So either.
83 00:11:10.430 ⇒ 00:11:25.319 Uttam Kumaran: we can continue to do that, and we’ll just have a recurring ticket on somebody, or we could start to be included in a meeting, or you can help us, sort of, force someone else’s hand to start looping us in. And then there’s also two other solutions. One, I said.
84 00:11:25.630 ⇒ 00:11:29.660 Uttam Kumaran: I sent to the privacy…
85 00:11:31.230 ⇒ 00:11:41.059 Uttam Kumaran: I said to Amber, and running a cross-functional meeting. We may be the only people that really can see this problem end-to-end, and maybe our job is to bring in the right people to do that.
86 00:11:41.060 ⇒ 00:11:51.780 Uttam Kumaran: The other thing is, like, there’s some new AI features in BigQuery where maybe we can build some more dynamic queries. Like, I would say, if then is, like, the least dynamic, then…
87 00:11:51.870 ⇒ 00:11:59.599 Uttam Kumaran: we have regex, which is a little bit more, and maybe there’s some LLM we can introduce in the process to, like, help categorize something. But I said, like, that is a…
88 00:11:59.860 ⇒ 00:12:07.319 Uttam Kumaran: that’s, like, a bonus, if we can do that. I don’t know whether that’s gonna work, but that’s… this is, like, an example of something that happened this morning. We spent an hour talking about this.
89 00:12:07.700 ⇒ 00:12:08.070 Shreya Chowdhury: Wow.
90 00:12:08.070 ⇒ 00:12:15.869 Uttam Kumaran: this is, like, classic, just, data team issues, right? But we see this on every client, it’s things like this.
91 00:12:16.070 ⇒ 00:12:24.340 Uttam Kumaran: It’s because we’re taking these data teams from typically 0 to 1, or, like, 1 to 5. Like, we either come in, there’s nothing, or we come in and there’s, like, a bunch of crap.
92 00:12:24.460 ⇒ 00:12:29.099 Uttam Kumaran: Like, rarely are they calling us because there’s, like, things are, like, pristine.
93 00:12:29.280 ⇒ 00:12:33.610 Uttam Kumaran: And so we bring all that knowledge with us, and we try to, like, help them, you know?
94 00:12:35.220 ⇒ 00:12:35.950 Shreya Chowdhury: Yeah.
95 00:12:36.190 ⇒ 00:12:46.880 Shreya Chowdhury: I mean, that sounds cool. I feel like you guys are, like, solving a lot of cool problems, working on a lot of cool stuff with, … It’s just not, like, luxury problems sometimes.
96 00:12:46.880 ⇒ 00:13:06.680 Uttam Kumaran: You know, it’s sometimes… I think we… there is still a lot of room. Just because we have the ability to see so many clients, I think our opportunity for innovation is in the speed at which we can deploy common playbooks, and using AI to help us accelerate, like, our development.
97 00:13:06.690 ⇒ 00:13:12.050 Uttam Kumaran: like, in a Shopify or in a big tech company, the innova… like, the innovation may happen in
98 00:13:12.140 ⇒ 00:13:25.039 Uttam Kumaran: like, you basically build, like, your own airflow or things… there may be innovation there, but for us, those aren’t opportunities to innovate, because I think more of the opportunities, the next time we see a client with this problem, like, what’s our playbook?
99 00:13:25.070 ⇒ 00:13:35.000 Uttam Kumaran: Or, okay, how can we start using Cursor, like, in every single type of, like, data use case that hits the product analytics team or the data modeling team?
100 00:13:35.060 ⇒ 00:13:38.220 Uttam Kumaran: And that way, we’re kind of, like, we both…
101 00:13:38.400 ⇒ 00:13:42.539 Uttam Kumaran: like, I think we’re still pretty cost-advantaged for a lot of our clients, but also.
102 00:13:42.640 ⇒ 00:13:49.629 Uttam Kumaran: like, how can we be the fastest consultants, right? How can we deploy the fastest? And that’s, like, I think where we’re gonna find a lot of innovation.
103 00:13:50.250 ⇒ 00:13:58.379 Shreya Chowdhury: Yeah. No, and I think there’s a lot of potential there, one, for, like, innovation for us, like, how to make us, like, how we can….
104 00:13:58.380 ⇒ 00:13:58.780 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
105 00:13:58.780 ⇒ 00:14:15.649 Shreya Chowdhury: to make us better, and then also, like, how, like, our clients can leverage AI so they can do what they have to do. And obviously, there’s gonna be, like, a little bit of discernment there, because we would need it, like, to be more, like, technically helpful and rigorous, but, like, for the clients, we may just need, like, a lot of automated stuff.
106 00:14:15.650 ⇒ 00:14:19.739 Shreya Chowdhury: I know sometimes, like, it’s like, you want to build tools that are, like.
107 00:14:19.740 ⇒ 00:14:23.969 Shreya Chowdhury: make things easier for, like, PMs to use versus, like, the data scientists, or the data….
108 00:14:23.970 ⇒ 00:14:24.450 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
109 00:14:24.450 ⇒ 00:14:26.719 Shreya Chowdhury: or whatever. But yeah.
110 00:14:26.720 ⇒ 00:14:43.739 Uttam Kumaran: So that’s actually been our journey, you know, like, we’ve… we use a lot of AI internally for sales, and then we’re starting to use it a lot for operations, and then we hit PM. Engineering, like, we’ve gone a little bit in that, like, everybody uses cursor, but there’s… I think that’s gonna be probably the more nuanced
111 00:14:43.900 ⇒ 00:14:50.430 Uttam Kumaran: thing that we try to sort of augment with AI, but also we need more people. Like, I have a lot of ideas, but I can’t…
112 00:14:50.620 ⇒ 00:15:01.430 Uttam Kumaran: I can’t start… I can’t be everywhere to train everybody, and so I think one thing is, like, we need sort of core groups, which is, like, okay, the product analytics group. Let’s look at all the common processes, like.
113 00:15:01.480 ⇒ 00:15:20.359 Uttam Kumaran: everything that isn’t, like, crazy ad hoc, let’s take a look at, and let’s see if… can we build some common SOPs, and then finally, okay, because we have an AI team internally. What their problem is, they don’t know much about, like, core data fundamentals. Like, they can build, they can write SQL and stuff, but they don’t know about product analytics, so…
114 00:15:20.360 ⇒ 00:15:26.849 Uttam Kumaran: if we come to the table with them with, like, hey, here’s, like, 5 SOPs, can we collaborate and find out, like.
115 00:15:26.970 ⇒ 00:15:38.499 Uttam Kumaran: either maybe we can build, like, a really quick UI for some of these, we can automate one piece of this, you could show me how we can do this in Cursor, we can build in MCP, like, that is the collaboration.
116 00:15:38.650 ⇒ 00:15:51.090 Uttam Kumaran: right now, the only reason we haven’t done that is just we haven’t had enough people that are subject matter experts in an area to sort of work with them. Because you have to know it enough to then be able to automate it, right? Like, otherwise…
117 00:15:51.370 ⇒ 00:15:52.980 Uttam Kumaran: It’s… it’s really difficult.
118 00:15:53.510 ⇒ 00:15:54.160 Shreya Chowdhury: Yeah.
119 00:15:56.060 ⇒ 00:16:04.640 Uttam Kumaran: I agree with you that that’s probably where we see… we’re gonna see a lot of the areas, and ideally, look, our clients benefit, and I think our people benefit because
120 00:16:04.780 ⇒ 00:16:09.400 Uttam Kumaran: we start to not waste time on, like, boring stuff, you know? That’s…
121 00:16:09.620 ⇒ 00:16:14.970 Uttam Kumaran: that’s, like, a priority for me. Like, if a ticket is very clear, and, like, for example, if it’s, like.
122 00:16:15.050 ⇒ 00:16:32.850 Uttam Kumaran: change this column from an end to something, like, that is going straight… I’m copying and pasting the ticket into cursor, I’m hitting play, and then I’m shipping the PR, right? And so that’s… that’s… that’s, like, what needs to happen, and I think that’s a very clear example of, like, something in dbt land, but, like, what is that in…
123 00:16:32.950 ⇒ 00:16:36.260 Uttam Kumaran: In other parts of the stack for us, you know?
124 00:16:36.500 ⇒ 00:16:49.369 Shreya Chowdhury: Yeah, and I also think, like, you know, like, time saving is an incredibly valuable thing, especially, like, if we’re trying to, like, ship things fast, because one of the trade-offs that’s, like.
125 00:16:49.770 ⇒ 00:16:58.399 Shreya Chowdhury: especially pre-AI and pre-GPT was, like, you can have something fast, or you can have something good, but, like, you can rarely, rarely have both, and I.
126 00:16:58.400 ⇒ 00:16:59.160 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
127 00:16:59.690 ⇒ 00:17:06.310 Uttam Kumaran: It’s still sort of the case, like, I do believe in, like, you know… It’s getting closer, but you’re right. I hear you, yeah.
128 00:17:06.319 ⇒ 00:17:16.429 Shreya Chowdhury: app is bridging a little bit, and it’s like, look, I don’t fully expect or believe that, like, you can or even should be able to bridge it fully. Like, I do believe in, like, you know, like.
129 00:17:16.589 ⇒ 00:17:19.859 Shreya Chowdhury: Putting a ribbon on the work that you’ve done, and, like, that takes time.
130 00:17:19.859 ⇒ 00:17:30.749 Uttam Kumaran: There’s also diminishing returns on, like, automating something 100%, right? Like, for example, I had a conversation with a client where they want us to scope out a proof of concept for…
131 00:17:31.039 ⇒ 00:17:32.329 Uttam Kumaran: for a project.
132 00:17:32.469 ⇒ 00:17:51.059 Uttam Kumaran: instead of me, like, remembering what I talked to them about, or, like, having to write it down in the meeting, I now know that I had that conversation, I asked them all the questions, there’s a meeting transcript sitting there that I’m gonna plug into our project plan generator prompt, and I’m gonna get the first
133 00:17:51.519 ⇒ 00:17:57.969 Uttam Kumaran: And that would have been a couple-hour exercise for me to do, and now we could do it a lot.
134 00:18:00.079 ⇒ 00:18:07.229 Uttam Kumaran: like, new request comes in, scope, approval, and then review by them in, like, a week, versus…
135 00:18:07.319 ⇒ 00:18:22.889 Uttam Kumaran: like, I don’t know, for consultants, that would take quite a while, because you have to do a lot of writing, I have to go find out who knows this, you know, and so that’s where, also, even just in the pro… I think a lot of project management is actually why engineering tends to be slow.
136 00:18:23.219 ⇒ 00:18:28.959 Uttam Kumaran: Management first, because the quality environment, I think, is very, like….
137 00:18:38.670 ⇒ 00:18:39.270 Shreya Chowdhury: Hello?
138 00:19:29.630 ⇒ 00:19:30.450 Shreya Chowdhury: Hello?
139 00:19:44.460 ⇒ 00:19:45.860 Uttam Kumaran: Hey, can you hear me? Sorry.
140 00:19:46.270 ⇒ 00:19:55.409 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, so I’m just driving to another meeting, so I’m just parking right now. Yeah, basically, I was saying, like, look, we just have to nail the project management tickets first, otherwise there’s no…
141 00:19:55.630 ⇒ 00:20:01.800 Uttam Kumaran: that’s, like, the first thing to nail, which is, I think, typically a huge crux for quality engineering work, so….
142 00:20:02.320 ⇒ 00:20:02.930 Shreya Chowdhury: Yeah.
143 00:20:05.370 ⇒ 00:20:23.649 Uttam Kumaran: Cool, so yeah, we’d love to chat about, like, what, like, your timeline is, and also, like, what you would be looking at, sort of money-wise. I mean, let me give you a little bit of sense of, like, where we are as a company. So, right now, everybody in the company are all contractors, meaning we’re paying just…
144 00:20:23.650 ⇒ 00:20:29.769 Uttam Kumaran: per hourly, or for some folks, we are paying, a fixed rate monthly.
145 00:20:29.920 ⇒ 00:20:49.360 Uttam Kumaran: we’re in the position… we’re planning on transitioning to, like, an official C-Corp towards the end of the year, and we will be able to move some, you know, the folks that are committed to us will move… will be able to move to W-2, and we also are planning on offering healthcare at that point. So right now, we don’t have
146 00:20:49.360 ⇒ 00:20:57.770 Uttam Kumaran: options for healthcare, but one thing that we are working on with some of our U.S. folks is, like, okay, if people want to go seek that, how can we
147 00:20:57.840 ⇒ 00:21:09.570 Uttam Kumaran: potentially compensate for that, you know, as well. But that’s kind of, like, where we are now. I mean, you know, we’ve heard really, really great feedback. I think most immediate, like, we have
148 00:21:09.570 ⇒ 00:21:25.379 Uttam Kumaran: We literally have, like, 3 clients right now. I spoke with Robert yesterday that I think you could be really excellent on, and come and lead. So we’d love to hear, like, kind of, like, where your head is at, and, like, what would be, you know, worth it for you to make a switch.
149 00:21:25.690 ⇒ 00:21:27.810 Shreya Chowdhury: Yeah, so…
150 00:21:27.950 ⇒ 00:21:37.010 Shreya Chowdhury: for right now, at least for the next, I wanna say, like, 6-ish months, I won’t need healthcare, so, like, that.
151 00:21:37.010 ⇒ 00:21:37.540 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
152 00:21:38.260 ⇒ 00:21:43.340 Shreya Chowdhury: I do have healthcare until then, and then once the time comes, like, yeah, I guess we can…
153 00:21:43.450 ⇒ 00:21:50.370 Shreya Chowdhury: figure it out as needed. And I know you guys have your timeline for working on that, so I’m not worried about that. …
154 00:21:50.770 ⇒ 00:22:08.029 Shreya Chowdhury: I guess, the one thing that I wanted to ask was if you’re looking for… I know when you first reached out, you said part-time or full-time, and then yesterday, I think Amber said you guys were only looking for part-time? So I just want to get a clarification on that.
155 00:22:08.030 ⇒ 00:22:26.180 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I talked to her about that. We are looking for full-time. I think probably my clarification was more, more of what I said is, for all of our engineers, we typically are open to doing part-time to full-time. Okay. But for a lot of those, like, typically we do that for most folks, because I’m not…
156 00:22:26.230 ⇒ 00:22:38.049 Uttam Kumaran: I would say, like, I’ve interviewed a lot of people, technically, but I sometimes… we don’t know what we don’t know, and it’s a good sense for DOE for folks to also get a chance to work with us. So for a lot of our engineers.
157 00:22:38.050 ⇒ 00:22:47.829 Uttam Kumaran: we tend to start part-time and then move to full-time. However, like, in talking with you and in having you meet with everybody, I’m pretty confident, so I’m happy to consider
158 00:22:47.910 ⇒ 00:22:51.910 Uttam Kumaran: full-time, if you’re interested in that. But also, if you’re like, hey, I want to sus…
159 00:22:52.020 ⇒ 00:22:53.309 Uttam Kumaran: These folks out a little bit.
160 00:22:53.440 ⇒ 00:22:59.329 Uttam Kumaran: more, and maybe want to work part-time, like, I’m also open to that, and then we move to something larger.
161 00:22:59.440 ⇒ 00:23:07.940 Uttam Kumaran: I guess that just goes to say, like, we’re flexible. For most… for most of our folks, just because we tend to try to move quickly in the interview process, and we may not
162 00:23:08.070 ⇒ 00:23:24.749 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t typically believe in, like, the engine… I never passed… I never did great in engineering interviews. I don’t think it’s a great barometer for skill sets, so typically we’re like, just come on and work on something with us, and then we’ll go from there. But I feel really good about your skill set, so it doesn’t have to be the case here.
163 00:23:24.750 ⇒ 00:23:44.280 Shreya Chowdhury: Yeah, same. I was going to say, like, I think, that, like, it wouldn’t have changed my decision on whether or not I want to come on and work, but I guess, like, yeah, if it was part-time, I would probably still be, like, looking at a couple of other opportunities, … Okay. Yeah, like, I’m open to joining full-time as far as timeline. I’m…
164 00:23:44.280 ⇒ 00:23:50.439 Shreya Chowdhury: I’m pretty much ready to hit the ground running, like, whenever you guys want. I can start as early as, like.
165 00:23:50.930 ⇒ 00:23:54.950 Shreya Chowdhury: Maybe, like, later next week, if that works? Like, I’m….
166 00:23:54.950 ⇒ 00:23:55.440 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
167 00:23:55.440 ⇒ 00:24:10.420 Shreya Chowdhury: ready, like, whenever works best for you guys. In terms of comp, ideally, I was hoping for something aligned with the market for senior data scientists, but I don’t, like, …
168 00:24:11.080 ⇒ 00:24:22.489 Shreya Chowdhury: I just wanna, yeah, get an understanding of the scope and expectations and what your capacity is before I anchor too firmly, because I do really, like, I am really excited about this opportunity, so I don’t wanna….
169 00:24:23.170 ⇒ 00:24:23.720 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
170 00:24:24.560 ⇒ 00:24:34.119 Uttam Kumaran: No, I appreciate that. I think, like, let me kind of tell you where our head is at, even for this role. So, one, I think, we’re hopeful that this person really goes to effect
171 00:24:34.330 ⇒ 00:24:52.039 Uttam Kumaran: like, probably the direct KPI for me is, like, Robert’s time on clients. Robert is currently our most senior product analyst, and that sucks, because he’s also head of sales, and just does a lot of other things. So, we’re both bringing in the clients, but also have to service them ourselves. So, for me, the first KPI is
172 00:24:52.130 ⇒ 00:25:06.099 Uttam Kumaran: are… can you come in and actually help augment his time on those clients? We have 3 clients right now, Insomnia Cookies, this company called SparkBlug, and this company called Eden. We have a couple of other product analysts engagements. We just have a lot of
173 00:25:06.520 ⇒ 00:25:20.079 Uttam Kumaran: product analytics work that’s… that’s coming down the pipeline that we just need some senior support with. So that’s one thing is… is coming on and taking those. The second thing for me that’s really important, and I don’t know if anyone else in the company
174 00:25:20.120 ⇒ 00:25:31.410 Uttam Kumaran: opinion about this. For me, I’m looking for folks that are interested in sort of building this, like, excellence function. Like, it’s not necessarily, like, managing other people, it’s not necessarily, like.
175 00:25:32.200 ⇒ 00:25:42.219 Uttam Kumaran: more work, but it’s sort of just, like, building camaraderie with the product analytics folks, or the folks working on product analytics, and leveling up our, like.
176 00:25:42.310 ⇒ 00:25:52.789 Uttam Kumaran: our service there. I think that’s where I’m really hopeful for whoever takes on this role, because we have a lot of people that come in and just want to take on work,
177 00:25:52.880 ⇒ 00:26:04.860 Uttam Kumaran: And they’re like, yeah, I’ll do whatever, but then they sort of don’t, like, help us build an excellent service arm in product analytics. And so one thing we’re kind of hopeful for is that this person can come on and sort of
178 00:26:04.860 ⇒ 00:26:22.030 Uttam Kumaran: level us up. We have some great people that are… like, we have analysts and kind of junior product analytics folks that I was mentioning to them. I’m very excited because I’m hopeful that they can learn a lot from you as well. But I don’t want to put it on you as, like, you have to manage these people. Like, that’s not the case. It’s more of just, like.
179 00:26:22.220 ⇒ 00:26:23.190 Uttam Kumaran: Building up.
180 00:26:23.450 ⇒ 00:26:26.939 Uttam Kumaran: Sort of, like, our excellence function for this service.
181 00:26:27.160 ⇒ 00:26:43.840 Shreya Chowdhury: Yeah, and I think all of that sounds, like, really great, and things that I haven’t, like… those look sound exactly like opportunities I’ve been searching for, and I think, like, there’s a lot for me to learn, too, like, through… not so much management, but maybe mentorship is the right word there. …
182 00:26:43.840 ⇒ 00:26:51.329 Shreya Chowdhury: I think there’s a lot of opportunity for growth for me there, too, and also, like, I’d be really excited about working on things where, like.
183 00:26:51.360 ⇒ 00:26:58.780 Shreya Chowdhury: we help build the foundation for the projects that we work on in the future. It’s very, like, founding members work, and I’ve been.
184 00:26:58.780 ⇒ 00:26:59.280 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
185 00:26:59.280 ⇒ 00:27:06.600 Shreya Chowdhury: the big tech thing, and, like, now I’m kind of looking for, like, hey, where can I, like, you know, have a little bit more impact? ….
186 00:27:08.330 ⇒ 00:27:19.830 Uttam Kumaran: And then in terms… yeah, in terms of, like, sort of where… what we’re kind of fixing on, I mean, for the most part, I think this role is somewhere where we want to invest in. I think we’re kind of in between…
187 00:27:19.950 ⇒ 00:27:29.640 Uttam Kumaran: like, right now, like, 100 to 150, ideally. However, that’s sort of, like, where we’re starting. I think one… one thing that we’re also…
188 00:27:29.650 ⇒ 00:27:45.200 Uttam Kumaran: like, I’m very fixated on trying to incentivize, alignment between company revenue growth and people’s, you know, cash growth. So I think there’s certainly a lot of opportunities. I mean, we do have, like, a normal procedure for, like, 6-month
189 00:27:45.280 ⇒ 00:27:49.690 Uttam Kumaran: review, and we do bonuses, and we have one year review, but I also…
190 00:27:49.850 ⇒ 00:27:59.860 Uttam Kumaran: for me, like, to kind of hear about your story and your growth, I think, like, you can come in, and if you’re able to take on more, and we’re able to bring in more revenue, like.
191 00:27:59.910 ⇒ 00:28:10.500 Uttam Kumaran: there’s only a couple people here in the company that I really look to who are the highest leverage folks. Like, Amber is one of them. There’s a couple other folks that are… that kind of are the core leaders in the company.
192 00:28:10.500 ⇒ 00:28:21.330 Uttam Kumaran: And for me, like, all of the value is gonna start to accrue to those people. So, I think, like, that’s kind of, like, the range we’re sort of fixed on. For title and things like that, I’m…
193 00:28:21.330 ⇒ 00:28:40.650 Uttam Kumaran: I’m… I’m personally not so opinionated, but I think, you know, product analysts, like, could work, or basically senior product analysts, or some sort of product analytics lead is ideally probably, I think, what is… would be best, but I don’t know, let me know what you think about that. I know senior data scientists.
194 00:28:40.730 ⇒ 00:28:48.449 Uttam Kumaran: it sounds very expensive to me, but, like, I also know that, like, that role, and every role in data is…
195 00:28:48.620 ⇒ 00:28:51.509 Uttam Kumaran: Can be all over the place in terms of, like, what, like.
196 00:28:51.680 ⇒ 00:28:52.060 Shreya Chowdhury: Yeah.
197 00:28:52.060 ⇒ 00:29:06.140 Uttam Kumaran: actually do, so I understand, like, hinging on that role when you go talk to recruiters. I’m just not one of them, so I’m open to sort of hearing, like, what your thoughts are, you know, as well.
198 00:29:07.100 ⇒ 00:29:18.929 Shreya Chowdhury: No, truthfully, like, yeah, so when I was sort of, like, looking at stuff in the job market, like, that… that was the role that I was, like, fixated on and looking at, so senior data scientist, and then….
199 00:29:18.930 ⇒ 00:29:26.809 Uttam Kumaran: I get it, because that’s, like, that’s the most money, and also, like, it’s… it’s usually, like, can I get into that role, and then can I become that? Like, you know, I, so, yeah.
200 00:29:26.810 ⇒ 00:29:33.580 Shreya Chowdhury: So, yeah, for comp, I was looking at, like, I think a blog post that you made earlier, about, like, what
201 00:29:33.890 ⇒ 00:29:43.529 Shreya Chowdhury: you know, we ex… like, I think it was, like, the how no-code AI is transforming the role of data scientists. But look, honestly, like, I think, like.
202 00:29:43.790 ⇒ 00:29:49.040 Shreya Chowdhury: what… the range that you’re talking about is, like, I’m happy to start there if there’s….
203 00:29:49.040 ⇒ 00:29:49.410 Uttam Kumaran: Bye.
204 00:29:49.410 ⇒ 00:30:02.149 Shreya Chowdhury: Do you feel like there’s room for, like, growth in the future? Like, it seems like your company has, like, a really great trajectory, and, like, I don’t know, opportunities like this don’t come along, like, every day, so I’m pretty.
205 00:30:02.150 ⇒ 00:30:21.970 Uttam Kumaran: I really appreciate that. That’s, … I, … it’s hard for me to say that, and I’m, of course, like, I am the most biased person in the company, but I feel like that. But also, like, I’m not afraid of these conversations, so can you tell… do you have, like, a number where if you’re like, hey, if you can get me here.
206 00:30:22.210 ⇒ 00:30:27.789 Uttam Kumaran: in the next 6 months or so, that would help me at least… I can work on a plan and, like.
207 00:30:27.990 ⇒ 00:30:28.670 Shreya Chowdhury: Hoping for.
208 00:30:28.670 ⇒ 00:30:29.180 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
209 00:30:29.180 ⇒ 00:30:34.529 Shreya Chowdhury: like, Ideally closer to, like, 190, 200. Okay.
210 00:30:34.530 ⇒ 00:30:50.479 Shreya Chowdhury: But, like, I know that is, like, given the size of the company and, like, where you’re at right now, I know that may not necessarily be super feasible, but, like, if you think that there’s room for, like, just an upward trajectory and, like, getting me there in some way, shape, or form, if…
211 00:30:50.480 ⇒ 00:30:55.420 Shreya Chowdhury: like, you guys are able to get more revenue, like, that’s all kind of neat to hear as, like, a good face.
212 00:30:55.420 ⇒ 00:30:56.040 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
213 00:30:56.330 ⇒ 00:31:13.399 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. Okay, so one thing I’m gonna do, and I really appreciate you being open, I know it’s… like, I was an employee very recently, and every sort of cash or money-type conversation was literally the worst conversation ever, so I appreciate you just, like, sharing that with me. For me, what I’m gonna…
214 00:31:13.400 ⇒ 00:31:17.929 Uttam Kumaran: do, and what I’ll owe you is I’m gonna create a little bit of a Notion doc with a plan of, like.
215 00:31:17.950 ⇒ 00:31:33.040 Uttam Kumaran: I want to share with you what our goals are for the company, which is, like, what our OKRs for this quarter, what are our revenue goals for this year and next year, and then I want… me, you, and Robert can work through how do we get you to that, and, like, what is the timeline for that.
216 00:31:33.040 ⇒ 00:31:44.349 Uttam Kumaran: I think it’ll hinge a little bit on things in your control, and also things out of your control, but I want it to be as closely aligned to your ability to come in and directly affect work.
217 00:31:44.430 ⇒ 00:31:46.200 Shreya Chowdhury: I will also… I’m happy that.
218 00:31:46.270 ⇒ 00:31:54.930 Uttam Kumaran: of course, share anything about, like, our sales pipeline and all of that. We are, like, we’ve never been… like, this… it’s been really, really insane recently. I…
219 00:31:55.230 ⇒ 00:32:04.730 Uttam Kumaran: Last year, this time, we were struggling to get, like, one meeting every, like, few weeks. Nowadays, we’re sending almost, like, two proposals out a week.
220 00:32:04.810 ⇒ 00:32:23.499 Uttam Kumaran: And it’s… it’s getting… it’s growing. However, in a services business, cash collection takes time, and we’re… we’re investing in many other areas. So one thing I want to owe you, is just, like, what is this comp plan, and how we can tailor it to measurable objectives.
221 00:32:23.530 ⇒ 00:32:26.660 Uttam Kumaran: It’s not gonna be anything that will take, like.
222 00:32:26.840 ⇒ 00:32:30.949 Uttam Kumaran: like, another month to devise. I’ll just put some thought into it today.
223 00:32:30.950 ⇒ 00:32:32.760 Shreya Chowdhury: and get, sort of, Roberts.
224 00:32:32.760 ⇒ 00:32:39.579 Uttam Kumaran: feedback there, and maybe we can send it over and collaborate on that. And then, if you feel okay, I mean, we’re open to it.
225 00:32:39.860 ⇒ 00:32:46.350 Shreya Chowdhury: Yeah, yeah, I think that’s great, as long as there’s a plan that, like, you know, as the company grows, I’m able to grow too.
226 00:32:46.350 ⇒ 00:32:46.930 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
227 00:32:46.930 ⇒ 00:32:53.999 Shreya Chowdhury: My thing with that is, like, I’m fine to make a lot of other concessions, like, as long as, like, it meets my minimum threshold, ….
228 00:32:54.000 ⇒ 00:32:54.410 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
229 00:32:54.410 ⇒ 00:33:02.240 Shreya Chowdhury: And, like, ultimately, this is stuff that I really want to be working on, so, like, you can’t really put, like, a price on that, but the other thing is, like.
230 00:33:02.240 ⇒ 00:33:08.210 Uttam Kumaran: No, I think you should. I mean, look, I… we… I know the place, like, we have a lot of people that I can’t afford, like.
231 00:33:08.400 ⇒ 00:33:13.310 Uttam Kumaran: folks like Jamie and other people in my life, like, I can’t go and…
232 00:33:13.610 ⇒ 00:33:19.469 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know, I know where we stand as a business, and unfortunately, like, it’s something that
233 00:33:19.490 ⇒ 00:33:31.600 Uttam Kumaran: It’s just where we are. I feel so lucky to be in a position… like, last year and the year before, we were not in a position to talk to folks with your skill set, and so I feel lucky just to have that opportunity, but
234 00:33:31.600 ⇒ 00:33:43.129 Uttam Kumaran: again, I think it’s… it is important for you to put pressure on us for us to hit those, and it’s also important to me, like, I’ve never worked in a company where this was very clear, and there was clarity on, like.
235 00:33:43.330 ⇒ 00:33:43.660 Shreya Chowdhury: Yeah.
236 00:33:43.660 ⇒ 00:33:48.070 Uttam Kumaran: salary increases, and it was a line. In fact, most of the money just accrued to the
237 00:33:48.520 ⇒ 00:33:51.809 Uttam Kumaran: People up top, and they just got richer, and, like, it’s not that that…
238 00:33:51.910 ⇒ 00:34:01.510 Uttam Kumaran: isn’t… like, we are taking on a lot of risk, but there can be something more fair and more transparent, and that’s what I want to drive towards in every person we bring on, you know, so….
239 00:34:01.510 ⇒ 00:34:07.969 Shreya Chowdhury: I mean, as long as I feel like, you know, I’m being valued and there’s, like, effort being made on one end, like, to start with, like, that’s, like.
240 00:34:08.239 ⇒ 00:34:18.939 Shreya Chowdhury: that would be great for me. Like, at Shopify, it took me, like, what, like, two, two and a half years to get, like, my first bonus, and then, like, the promotion talk just, like, dragged on.
241 00:34:18.940 ⇒ 00:34:38.380 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, we weren’t even in… we didn’t exist, like, that long ago, and… yeah, and I don’t know, stuff is growing pretty fast here, so I’m confident, but I want you to take a look at this thing that we put together, and really just, like, leave your thoughts there, and let’s arrive at something that hopefully works for both of us.
242 00:34:38.389 ⇒ 00:34:45.899 Shreya Chowdhury: Yeah, that sounds good. Yeah, I can, like, send you, like, the thing that I was looking at, and then… Okay.
243 00:34:46.779 ⇒ 00:34:54.889 Shreya Chowdhury: Also, I was gonna ask, like, is equity a thing for you guys? Or is that not something you guys are doing right now, or plan to?
244 00:34:55.389 ⇒ 00:35:02.359 Uttam Kumaran: It’s a good question. It’s not something that we are, like, offering as part of,
245 00:35:02.769 ⇒ 00:35:06.219 Uttam Kumaran: like, immediate offers. You know, the way I think about
246 00:35:06.409 ⇒ 00:35:18.769 Uttam Kumaran: the company, and I’ve worked in a lot of startups in the past, none of the equity I ever got was ever worth anything. I mean, I feel like you have a different story, because Shopify is pretty big, and it’s grown a lot, but…
247 00:35:18.939 ⇒ 00:35:26.969 Uttam Kumaran: like, for me, I’m actually, and this is, again, my bias, is I actually am much more on the fence of, like, how do we get people more cash?
248 00:35:27.219 ⇒ 00:35:32.229 Uttam Kumaran: Where we’re thinking about equity is, for the folks that are definitely gonna stay with us.
249 00:35:32.359 ⇒ 00:35:38.349 Uttam Kumaran: For the long term, and ideally, either we grow to be really large, or we exit.
250 00:35:38.499 ⇒ 00:35:52.379 Uttam Kumaran: like, and there’s a path toward… and we have a path towards that. I think we will definitely offer equity to the folks that are with us. That is a very, like, non-committal way of me saying, like, maybe? ….
251 00:35:52.379 ⇒ 00:35:54.919 Shreya Chowdhury: I would say my bias, though, is that, like.
252 00:35:55.029 ⇒ 00:36:11.369 Uttam Kumaran: I could offer you a million Chuck E. Cheese tokens, and then get you to take less money, and, like, I don’t like that. I actually tell all of our folks that, like, hey, buy us towards more cash, because that’s something immediate that you can spend, but there are folks in the company that I can tell
253 00:36:11.459 ⇒ 00:36:16.039 Uttam Kumaran: We want to invest in, we want them to be with us in the long term, and we are considering, like.
254 00:36:16.069 ⇒ 00:36:34.979 Uttam Kumaran: okay, in, you know, in 5 or 10 years, should we exit the company? I want that outcome to be important for everybody that’s with us. And so, like, that’s what I know today. Our transition to, like, a C corp, is, like, a big step in that direction, because we will be bringing on some advisors.
255 00:36:35.179 ⇒ 00:36:40.689 Uttam Kumaran: And, you know, I think it’s a conversation that will continue to evolve, like, I don’t think Robert and I have spent
256 00:36:40.839 ⇒ 00:36:42.829 Uttam Kumaran: Much time thinking about, like.
257 00:36:42.949 ⇒ 00:36:51.619 Uttam Kumaran: the advice I got from a lot of folks is, like, look, if we’re gonna hit an exit event for the folks that have been in the business, we offer some equity at that point.
258 00:36:51.769 ⇒ 00:37:10.449 Uttam Kumaran: I do think that in tech, and especially in roles that you’re looking for, there’s gonna be a lot of cash on the table otherwise. So for me, especially hearing… one of the things I told Robert and Amber is that when you mentioned, like, hey, I’m not someone that jumps jobs, and I want to stay committed, for me, that’s, like, what I want to value more, and I want to give
259 00:37:10.809 ⇒ 00:37:14.159 Uttam Kumaran: equity to those folks. I just don’t think we have, like, a very clear
260 00:37:14.289 ⇒ 00:37:23.399 Uttam Kumaran: plan that right now. And that’s totally fair and fine. I was asking more out of curiosity, but I’m not, like, partial to equity. Okay.
261 00:37:23.400 ⇒ 00:37:29.450 Shreya Chowdhury: Something like that, like, I also am more pro-cash than equity, but I was just… Yeah.
262 00:37:29.640 ⇒ 00:37:31.230 Shreya Chowdhury: That’s a thing. ….
263 00:37:31.230 ⇒ 00:37:37.130 Uttam Kumaran: I think we’re gonna do it eventually, whether that’s, like, Before an event, or, like.
264 00:37:37.390 ⇒ 00:37:46.699 Uttam Kumaran: we do something… it’s just extremely complicated for a business our size to deal with that, and we’re not, like, a venture-backed business, so…
265 00:37:46.970 ⇒ 00:37:52.150 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know, I think… I think there is gonna be something for the folks, like, 100%,
266 00:37:52.320 ⇒ 00:38:03.069 Uttam Kumaran: if the company makes it, the folks that have been with us are gonna make it in some way, shape, or form. Like, that’s… that’s all I think about, so that’s where I’m at with that right now.
267 00:38:03.660 ⇒ 00:38:14.800 Shreya Chowdhury: And then I wanted to ask, … I think I had just, like, a couple more questions. Sure. Is there any travel involved at all throughout the year? …
268 00:38:14.960 ⇒ 00:38:21.310 Shreya Chowdhury: for this job, and I was wondering, if there are any other
269 00:38:21.530 ⇒ 00:38:24.360 Shreya Chowdhury: Like, perks, benefits, or anything like that.
270 00:38:24.510 ⇒ 00:38:25.809 Shreya Chowdhury: And this is….
271 00:38:25.810 ⇒ 00:38:26.710 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so.
272 00:38:26.710 ⇒ 00:38:27.390 Shreya Chowdhury: curiosity.
273 00:38:27.390 ⇒ 00:38:28.130 Uttam Kumaran: Go ahead.
274 00:38:28.590 ⇒ 00:38:40.570 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, no, it’s a good question. So, in terms of travel, it’s sort of, … I think we’re gonna… what we’re hoping for is we can do at least a quarterly off-site, like we’ve done in the last two quarters.
275 00:38:40.720 ⇒ 00:38:49.440 Uttam Kumaran: We went to… I went to… we went to New York, and then we went to LA, and just whoever was here in the States, met up with us.
276 00:38:49.520 ⇒ 00:39:08.759 Uttam Kumaran: we certainly are gonna budget and want to plan for something that’s, like, quarterly, for as many people as can… as can make it, and we can afford to kind of have places, so that’s probably, like, one opportunity. The second opportunity is, like, Robert and I do a lot of traveling for conferences, and for speaking engagements, for meetups.
277 00:39:08.900 ⇒ 00:39:20.760 Uttam Kumaran: I am begging folks on our team to come with us to stuff like that. Of course, it’s, like, engineers sometimes, that’s when people aren’t interested, but if you’re interested in, like, going to a conference, like, we’re going to Shop Talk.
278 00:39:20.940 ⇒ 00:39:37.929 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. In Chicago. I think Robert’s going… I think we’re both gonna go, I haven’t think I’m gonna figure that out, actually. But we… we’re both going. I’m going to this, like, Reuters conference here next month. So, like, that’s something we’re totally… and we would pay for the tickets and everything.
279 00:39:37.930 ⇒ 00:39:38.530 Shreya Chowdhury: Great, I love….
280 00:39:38.530 ⇒ 00:39:39.200 Uttam Kumaran: Probably….
281 00:39:39.200 ⇒ 00:39:49.990 Shreya Chowdhury: Yeah, like, way, way back when I first joined Shopify, I used to, like, sponsor, like, one or two conferences every year. They stopped doing that shortly after, but yeah, that sounds, like, really fun.
282 00:39:49.990 ⇒ 00:40:02.050 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, like, if you’re at all interested in, like, one of the things that I also try to tell everybody on the team is, like, self-promotion is very important, I think, these days. So if you’re interested in publishing stuff on LinkedIn, on our blog.
283 00:40:02.050 ⇒ 00:40:11.229 Uttam Kumaran: and talking at conferences, like, we could not be more supportive of that. I actually tell our team that, like, more than just, like, your resume, you’re able to do that, like.
284 00:40:11.230 ⇒ 00:40:25.329 Uttam Kumaran: God forbid you leave us one day, you’re gonna be set up, like, really well. And so I want to help all of our teammates, like, if you look through a lot of our AI engineers and folks, like, painstakingly, we help them sort of get stuff out on their LinkedIn and publish blogs.
285 00:40:25.330 ⇒ 00:40:35.970 Uttam Kumaran: It’s really, really important to us. It’s a complete win-win for the company. Right now, Robert and I are the biggest producers of stuff like that, but I want our stories and our clients’ stories to be told.
286 00:40:35.990 ⇒ 00:40:39.490 Uttam Kumaran: And I want our team, ideally, to try to tell more of that.
287 00:40:39.520 ⇒ 00:40:56.339 Uttam Kumaran: And so, like, that’s something that’s also really important to us, but also, yeah, for conferences and things, we’re gonna… we’re starting to go to one at least once a month. Luckily, he’s in New York, I’m here in Austin, so there’s several. But ShopTalk we’re gonna go to, we’re gonna try probably for something later in Q4.
288 00:40:56.420 ⇒ 00:41:02.560 Uttam Kumaran: So if you’re open to that, and coming with us, or pairing with one of us, and going to that, like, that would be huge.
289 00:41:02.950 ⇒ 00:41:07.719 Shreya Chowdhury: Yeah, that all sounds really great, yeah, I think I’d be really excited to do that.
290 00:41:08.200 ⇒ 00:41:22.580 Uttam Kumaran: And in terms of, like, other perks, I think we’re… we’re sort of thinking about, like, an equipment program. I literally just sent a note about that last week, like, ideally, I kind of want to get everyone, like, make sure everyone has, like, mics, webcams, and then, like, my… my hope is that people get, like.
291 00:41:22.700 ⇒ 00:41:31.710 Uttam Kumaran: can I at least have, like, Mac Minis? It’s probably the best option, but, like, at least, because this just sob involves a lot of talking, so I want to make sure that people have that set up.
292 00:41:31.930 ⇒ 00:41:47.949 Uttam Kumaran: And then, yeah, I mean, I don’t know, we’re… this is sort of, again, like, part of being in a growing company. It’s like, I’m sort of hopeful that, like, people are opinionated about, like, what would make this a more attractive place to work, and we can work on that. And we’re pretty transparent with what we can do and can’t do, and…
293 00:41:48.170 ⇒ 00:42:04.160 Uttam Kumaran: for me, like, I’m not the great barometer. I… this is, like, I wake up, I do this, and I go to bed, and I make… I make the least money out of everyone, so… I’m also… I always ask feedback from our team on, like, what would make this more interesting? Like, of course we want to get equipment and stuff, it’s….
294 00:42:04.160 ⇒ 00:42:06.390 Shreya Chowdhury: It’s very helpful for folks, but ….
295 00:42:06.480 ⇒ 00:42:10.869 Uttam Kumaran: I’m always curious on, like, what a company like ours can do to make this more….
296 00:42:11.160 ⇒ 00:42:13.119 Shreya Chowdhury: Attractive place to work.
297 00:42:13.350 ⇒ 00:42:16.580 Shreya Chowdhury: For me, personally, like, I… I feel like I…
298 00:42:16.860 ⇒ 00:42:28.709 Shreya Chowdhury: like, anything… if there’s something I really need, like, I’m… I’ll ask you for it. Otherwise, like, as far as, like, equipment and any other stuff, like, I don’t… I’m not really looking for frills, like, if you can offer it to.
299 00:42:28.710 ⇒ 00:42:29.230 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
300 00:42:29.230 ⇒ 00:42:30.950 Shreya Chowdhury: It’s great, but, like, that’s never, like.
301 00:42:30.950 ⇒ 00:42:31.620 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
302 00:42:31.620 ⇒ 00:42:33.430 Shreya Chowdhury: It’s like a bonus, not a deciding factor for me.
303 00:42:33.430 ⇒ 00:42:36.680 Uttam Kumaran: I would love for everybody to get, like, everybody gets AirPods, everybody, like.
304 00:42:36.680 ⇒ 00:42:38.609 Shreya Chowdhury: Oh, yeah, that’s great, yeah.
305 00:42:38.610 ⇒ 00:42:42.739 Uttam Kumaran: That’d be great. I would love to do that. I don’t think we… I don’t… my finance folks would….
306 00:42:43.210 ⇒ 00:42:43.540 Shreya Chowdhury: Yeah.
307 00:42:43.540 ⇒ 00:42:46.120 Uttam Kumaran: quit if I started to do that right now.
308 00:42:46.120 ⇒ 00:42:54.230 Shreya Chowdhury: But, like, I do want to be super mindful of, like, you know, where you guys are as a company, and, like, see how that can, like, match up with, like, exactly what it….
309 00:42:54.230 ⇒ 00:43:09.269 Uttam Kumaran: But I know that non-cash, like, we sort of consider this, like, a total rewards program, right? There’s not only rewards in the cash amount, but it’s, like, the stuff I talked about, like, self-promotion, like, getting a consulting background. There’s also, like.
310 00:43:09.490 ⇒ 00:43:21.709 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t think we’re that crazy of a company with a lot of weirdos in it. There’s some monetary value to that. And I don’t know, so I think we’re sort of thinking… when I think about things, I think about, like, a total rewards option, right? Like…
311 00:43:21.910 ⇒ 00:43:38.400 Uttam Kumaran: And I think a lot about what was I offered, maybe in addition, because I’ve gone places where they’ve offered a lot of money, but it was a complete shitshow. And, like, I would have taken less money for it to just be, like, a little bit normal. And I don’t know, I try to think about those things. We don’t… I think this… there is probably some math to be done.
312 00:43:38.420 ⇒ 00:43:49.070 Uttam Kumaran: here, but, like, that’s sort of what we’re thinking about. So, even… there’s… but there’s also things like, I wish I could offer a gym stipend for everybody. That’s a complete win-win for the company. Like, if people…
313 00:43:49.440 ⇒ 00:43:51.370 Uttam Kumaran: Go to the gym and, like.
314 00:43:51.520 ⇒ 00:44:00.189 Uttam Kumaran: come to work at her shop. Like, those are the things that I like, I would like to do. It’s definitely in the back of my mind somewhere to do those things.
315 00:44:00.190 ⇒ 00:44:15.109 Uttam Kumaran: I’m good… but for me, I always push on our finance folks, I’m like, how can we make this a more attractive place to work? Because I don’t know if we’re ever going to be able to compete with, like, the insane offers at, like, the biggest tech companies. But also, we have a lot of other things to offer.
316 00:44:15.200 ⇒ 00:44:29.119 Uttam Kumaran: And I do think we’ll get there. I don’t think that’s, like, not impossible. I do think that we’re gonna get there, and I think we’re gonna use… I think a lot of where I’m thinking about using AI is ideally having less people, more highly paid people.
317 00:44:29.120 ⇒ 00:44:30.879 Shreya Chowdhury: plus AI agents.
318 00:44:30.880 ⇒ 00:44:32.460 Uttam Kumaran: That’s, like, kind of my, like.
319 00:44:32.870 ⇒ 00:44:39.189 Uttam Kumaran: rough philosophical thesis on, like, what I think hopeless companies view is we have less people, we pay them.
320 00:44:39.430 ⇒ 00:44:56.350 Uttam Kumaran: as much above market rate as we can, and then it’s, like, augmented with AI. Like, that’s a… that’s a lot better than… because typically in consulting, you have a lot of junior people, their efficiency is very low, and they can’t bill as high, and you have a lot of senior people, but they’re low on time. Like, that’s the optimization that’s happening.
321 00:44:56.520 ⇒ 00:45:01.769 Uttam Kumaran: And, like, the AI piece kind of can come in and really… Fix that, so….
322 00:45:03.150 ⇒ 00:45:16.589 Shreya Chowdhury: Yeah. Yeah, I think that all sounds great, given everything. I did want to ask, so the number that you gave at the beginning, you were saying, like, you think around the 150 range? Yeah.
323 00:45:16.730 ⇒ 00:45:26.970 Shreya Chowdhury: I know that, you know, budgets can be tight, but I was gonna ask, is there any room for a little movement there? Like, do you think 160, 165 is at all possible?
324 00:45:27.540 ⇒ 00:45:31.609 Uttam Kumaran: Let me… get this into a doc… I can’t make any…
325 00:45:32.140 ⇒ 00:45:37.539 Uttam Kumaran: I would like to say yes, I have to call Robert, and I have to call our team and get approval.
326 00:45:37.640 ⇒ 00:45:56.109 Uttam Kumaran: But it’s not, like, out of the realm for us. For me, like, let me put together this doc. I hear you on 160, 165, as what Banker is, and then let me put together a doc that sees how we can get you from 165 to closer to 200. And then let me try to send that over to you.
327 00:45:56.320 ⇒ 00:45:57.170 Uttam Kumaran: …
328 00:45:57.780 ⇒ 00:46:02.640 Uttam Kumaran: And yeah, I don’t think I’m, like… it’s not like a hell no, I just need to call them and talk to them.
329 00:46:02.640 ⇒ 00:46:10.940 Shreya Chowdhury: Yeah, cool, sounds good. And then also let me know, like, what timeline you’re looking at. I’m, like, whenever you need me, I’m ready to start, pretty much.
330 00:46:10.940 ⇒ 00:46:13.010 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, okay, perfect. Alright, will do.
331 00:46:13.420 ⇒ 00:46:18.959 Shreya Chowdhury: Alright, I don’t want to take up any more time, so I don’t know if you have anything left to ask me, but otherwise, like….
332 00:46:18.960 ⇒ 00:46:24.130 Uttam Kumaran: No, I just want to say I really, really appreciate you, you know, working with us, and …
333 00:46:24.350 ⇒ 00:46:28.229 Uttam Kumaran: spending time speaking with all of our folks and taking it seriously, I think.
334 00:46:28.340 ⇒ 00:46:29.219 Shreya Chowdhury: Mmm. Like….
335 00:46:29.240 ⇒ 00:46:37.230 Uttam Kumaran: it is… it is a company that I built, like, you know, from scratch, and I’ve hired every single person, and it means a lot when someone
336 00:46:37.390 ⇒ 00:46:50.759 Uttam Kumaran: it speaks about us highly and sees our potential like… like I do. A lot of people just come in and they punch in, punch out, and that’s fine, I, you know, can’t do anything about that, but it’s just been… it’s been really nice, so I appreciate it.
337 00:46:50.760 ⇒ 00:46:51.090 Shreya Chowdhury: Yeah.
338 00:46:51.090 ⇒ 00:46:54.340 Uttam Kumaran: And, I’ll get back to you, hopefully today with a bunch more info.
339 00:46:54.340 ⇒ 00:46:56.789 Shreya Chowdhury: Sounds good, I’ll keep an eye out. Thanks for taking the time.
340 00:46:57.100 ⇒ 00:46:58.630 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, thank you so much.