Meeting Title: Delivery Excellence Weekly Date: 2025-09-15 Meeting participants: Awaish Kumar, Justin Breshears, Samuel Roberts, Uttam Kumaran, Shreya Chowdhury, Amber Lin, Robert Tseng, Demilade Agboola, Rico Rejoso
WEBVTT
1 00:00:46.770 ⇒ 00:00:47.420 Justin Breshears: Hey, everybody.
2 00:00:53.820 ⇒ 00:00:56.389 Justin Breshears: How are we all doing this fine Monday?
3 00:00:57.600 ⇒ 00:00:58.460 Uttam Kumaran: Good.
4 00:00:59.070 ⇒ 00:01:00.050 Samuel Roberts: Get in there.
5 00:01:06.200 ⇒ 00:01:09.740 Shreya Chowdhury: Not too bad. Did anyone do anything fun this weekend?
6 00:01:12.580 ⇒ 00:01:17.339 Uttam Kumaran: I… we decorated a little bit more, and then…
7 00:01:17.820 ⇒ 00:01:20.209 Uttam Kumaran: Did a lot of cooking, and that’s it.
8 00:01:20.950 ⇒ 00:01:21.760 Uttam Kumaran: Chill weekend.
9 00:01:24.530 ⇒ 00:01:26.569 Samuel Roberts: I had a friend in from out of town.
10 00:01:27.540 ⇒ 00:01:28.190 Uttam Kumaran: Nice.
11 00:01:28.190 ⇒ 00:01:29.310 Samuel Roberts: A little busy.
12 00:01:30.040 ⇒ 00:01:30.910 Samuel Roberts: Depending.
13 00:01:32.960 ⇒ 00:01:33.740 Uttam Kumaran: Nice.
14 00:01:35.030 ⇒ 00:01:38.870 Justin Breshears: A lot of hanging out with friends, family, and watching football for me.
15 00:01:39.760 ⇒ 00:01:41.849 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I watched a bunch of them by yesterday.
16 00:01:43.410 ⇒ 00:01:44.070 Uttam Kumaran: Thursday.
17 00:01:44.070 ⇒ 00:01:45.280 Justin Breshears: Cowboys game.
18 00:01:45.500 ⇒ 00:01:46.320 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
19 00:01:48.790 ⇒ 00:01:49.360 Justin Breshears: It’s a good one.
20 00:01:49.360 ⇒ 00:01:52.520 Uttam Kumaran: Well, these are pretty sad, though.
21 00:01:52.520 ⇒ 00:01:54.300 Justin Breshears: Yeah, it was like a turt.
22 00:01:54.410 ⇒ 00:01:57.280 Justin Breshears: It was the turdbowl, but it was entertaining, at least.
23 00:01:59.970 ⇒ 00:02:00.830 Uttam Kumaran: Bye.
24 00:02:01.480 ⇒ 00:02:02.950 Amber Lin: I…
25 00:02:03.370 ⇒ 00:02:04.270 Uttam Kumaran: Ayy.
26 00:02:04.530 ⇒ 00:02:05.400 Robert Tseng: Hello, hello!
27 00:02:05.400 ⇒ 00:02:08.520 Amber Lin: Mondays are so awful.
28 00:02:11.230 ⇒ 00:02:15.790 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t have too many meetings on the road. I feel pretty good.
29 00:02:15.790 ⇒ 00:02:26.729 Amber Lin: Great. I’m glad. I hope I can feel so. I need coffee. I’ll go for coffee after my next meeting.
30 00:02:26.850 ⇒ 00:02:30.060 Amber Lin: Alright.
31 00:02:31.310 ⇒ 00:02:32.550 Amber Lin: So…
32 00:02:32.700 ⇒ 00:02:49.469 Amber Lin: As usual, gonna start off with an overview of our projects, and want to know if there has been any changes. I think we can move Insomnia into a new contract if it’s signed, or if it’s still pending. I’ll leave it there.
33 00:02:49.890 ⇒ 00:02:54.320 Robert Tseng: No, it’s, it’s active, and we’re gonna get backfilled payment for last week.
34 00:02:54.790 ⇒ 00:02:58.780 Amber Lin: Okay, and then the start date and the end date would be…
35 00:02:59.940 ⇒ 00:03:04.300 Robert Tseng: Let’s do start date last Monday, and then 3 months after that.
36 00:03:04.890 ⇒ 00:03:05.520 Amber Lin: Okay.
37 00:03:06.280 ⇒ 00:03:11.470 Amber Lin: So… Three months.
38 00:03:11.920 ⇒ 00:03:13.260 Amber Lin: Then we’ll beat this.
39 00:03:14.790 ⇒ 00:03:22.410 Amber Lin: December 8th. Okay, and I’m going to move that… into active.
40 00:03:23.290 ⇒ 00:03:24.140 Amber Lin: Okay.
41 00:03:24.490 ⇒ 00:03:27.400 Amber Lin: And then interlude is still… we’re still talking.
42 00:03:27.400 ⇒ 00:03:29.450 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, they signed this weekend.
43 00:03:29.450 ⇒ 00:03:30.760 Amber Lin: Oh, great.
44 00:03:31.270 ⇒ 00:03:37.640 Amber Lin: Moving that… That’s awesome. And then for LE and default, we’re still…
45 00:03:38.170 ⇒ 00:03:40.910 Amber Lin: The renewal stall coming up?
46 00:03:42.310 ⇒ 00:03:43.000 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
47 00:03:43.510 ⇒ 00:03:52.469 Robert Tseng: Okay. Yeah, so Ellie, we were gonna send out, like, a deck last week. We didn’t end up getting organized around that, so I’m gonna send it out today, so…
48 00:03:52.670 ⇒ 00:03:58.360 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I’m assuming… I’m assuming no work this week on Ellie, because…
49 00:03:59.020 ⇒ 00:04:03.850 Robert Tseng: Yeah, like, we’re technically done, and we need them to renew. I don’t want us to do more work.
50 00:04:04.170 ⇒ 00:04:10.059 Amber Lin: Okay, valid. I am going to cancel the internal stand-up.
51 00:04:11.470 ⇒ 00:04:16.090 Robert Tseng: I mean, I’m still gonna keep the external meeting in case that we’ll just use that to…
52 00:04:16.209 ⇒ 00:04:19.320 Robert Tseng: do any, like, negotiations, I guess, but.
53 00:04:19.329 ⇒ 00:04:23.699 Amber Lin: Yeah, okay. For all intents and purposes, we’re not… we’re not doing new things for them this week.
54 00:04:24.060 ⇒ 00:04:29.329 Amber Lin: Okay, sounds good. And the contract end date, I’ll say, supposedly last Friday.
55 00:04:29.800 ⇒ 00:04:30.979 Amber Lin: And we’ll see.
56 00:04:31.700 ⇒ 00:04:32.500 Amber Lin: Okay.
57 00:04:32.640 ⇒ 00:04:35.319 Amber Lin: That’s a good overview, so we have…
58 00:04:35.670 ⇒ 00:04:40.420 Robert Tseng: Remo should be in, or if we’re gonna add some of the other expected new clients, Remo should be in.
59 00:04:41.720 ⇒ 00:04:45.189 Robert Tseng: We’re just adjusting the contract.
60 00:04:45.780 ⇒ 00:04:57.480 Robert Tseng: Rico will be… I know he’s on this call, so he’ll… I’m getting… like, they just want a different signer on it, so it’s gonna be a contract directly with Remo. Eden is not gonna sign, which is…
61 00:04:57.830 ⇒ 00:05:02.539 Robert Tseng: that’s the… that’s the change. But yeah, I think that… that should be done, and .
62 00:05:02.540 ⇒ 00:05:05.169 Uttam Kumaran: Should we just send it to one of those people?
63 00:05:06.000 ⇒ 00:05:07.150 Uttam Kumaran: That you tagged.
64 00:05:07.600 ⇒ 00:05:12.310 Robert Tseng: Yes, that… but I… but I do need their address, which is what I’m waiting on.
65 00:05:12.710 ⇒ 00:05:14.699 Uttam Kumaran: But we can have them fill in the address.
66 00:05:16.110 ⇒ 00:05:20.829 Robert Tseng: Oh, yeah, then in that case, yeah, you should send it to the Adam on their team.
67 00:05:21.610 ⇒ 00:05:36.290 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, Rico, can you do that, and then just leave the address part empty for them to fill out? Both the state abbreviation and the whatever address, and then, yeah, just replace all the addresses with empty fields for them to fill. And yeah, let’s ship it.
68 00:05:36.700 ⇒ 00:05:37.090 Rico Rejoso: Okay.
69 00:05:37.090 ⇒ 00:05:43.470 Robert Tseng: I’ve been hounding them, I literally got his actual phone number and, like, texted him, so, like, I don’t know, we’ll see.
70 00:05:43.580 ⇒ 00:05:44.240 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
71 00:05:46.100 ⇒ 00:05:47.530 Amber Lin: Okay.
72 00:05:47.780 ⇒ 00:05:48.700 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
73 00:05:50.410 ⇒ 00:05:55.179 Amber Lin: And then these are still… any expected new clients down the pipeline?
74 00:05:57.190 ⇒ 00:06:07.159 Robert Tseng: I mean, these are all, like, pretty close, like, verbal agreement at this point, so we’re… but they haven’t signed, so no one else is at this stage yet. Okay.
75 00:06:07.160 ⇒ 00:06:08.010 Amber Lin: Sounds good.
76 00:06:08.600 ⇒ 00:06:14.019 Amber Lin: Then, for KRs this day, send…
77 00:06:16.880 ⇒ 00:06:23.949 Amber Lin: Starting with the OKRs, we checked this, we’ll say… How many projects…
78 00:06:25.850 ⇒ 00:06:27.989 Uttam Kumaran: Can we do this in the spreadsheet?
79 00:06:28.790 ⇒ 00:06:29.580 Uttam Kumaran: The official…
80 00:06:29.580 ⇒ 00:06:31.909 Amber Lin: Sure. Yeah, let me do that.
81 00:06:40.370 ⇒ 00:06:45.620 Amber Lin: So… No new projects.
82 00:06:46.090 ⇒ 00:06:47.830 Amber Lin: And then…
83 00:06:47.830 ⇒ 00:06:51.380 Uttam Kumaran: So I think… I guess my question on this one is, like, for the interlude…
84 00:06:51.600 ⇒ 00:06:58.870 Uttam Kumaran: For the next interlude one… I want to make sure that we have, like, everything.
85 00:06:59.350 ⇒ 00:07:02.980 Amber Lin: That is coming in… oh, that is… It’s already signed.
86 00:07:03.770 ⇒ 00:07:05.700 Amber Lin: Okay, so interlude is new.
87 00:07:05.850 ⇒ 00:07:08.349 Amber Lin: So, let me add an action item.
88 00:07:09.660 ⇒ 00:07:14.279 Uttam Kumaran: And then again, if we’re expecting FoamPro and the hip access, then…
89 00:07:14.980 ⇒ 00:07:18.469 Uttam Kumaran: Those ones, also, we should, like, kind of get organized around.
90 00:07:20.050 ⇒ 00:07:21.030 Uttam Kumaran: And ahead of time.
91 00:07:21.220 ⇒ 00:07:28.289 Uttam Kumaran: Before, like… they’re basically waiting to get signed, those two, so I think we can start all our process.
92 00:07:28.450 ⇒ 00:07:30.510 Amber Lin: Okay, FoamPro and…
93 00:07:31.390 ⇒ 00:07:34.270 Uttam Kumaran: And the HIP HYP+.
94 00:07:34.850 ⇒ 00:07:35.480 Amber Lin: Okay.
95 00:07:36.740 ⇒ 00:07:46.280 Amber Lin: I’ll fix the spelling. Interlude… And 2… Great.
96 00:07:47.090 ⇒ 00:07:52.270 Amber Lin: And then playbooks… this one’s stalled…
97 00:07:57.690 ⇒ 00:08:03.189 Amber Lin: For the updates, I’m gonna copy…
98 00:08:09.840 ⇒ 00:08:13.949 Amber Lin: Right, Rico, we sent for a default and interlude, right, last week?
99 00:08:16.680 ⇒ 00:08:17.370 Rico Rejoso: Sorry?
100 00:08:18.010 ⇒ 00:08:22.800 Amber Lin: Did we send updates for default and interlude? I know you sent them in the internal channel.
101 00:08:23.510 ⇒ 00:08:28.879 Rico Rejoso: Yeah, tom was able to confirm that during the weekend, and I haven’t sent it yet.
102 00:08:29.470 ⇒ 00:08:30.660 Amber Lin: Oh, okay.
103 00:08:32.320 ⇒ 00:08:33.970 Amber Lin: Let’s do that today.
104 00:08:33.970 ⇒ 00:08:34.710 Rico Rejoso: Yes.
105 00:08:34.900 ⇒ 00:08:35.280 Uttam Kumaran: Great.
106 00:08:35.960 ⇒ 00:08:43.649 Amber Lin: Yeah, let me write it down to… Send updates…
107 00:08:58.850 ⇒ 00:09:00.610 Amber Lin: Ellie…
108 00:09:17.730 ⇒ 00:09:20.920 Amber Lin: Alright, and then going down that list…
109 00:09:22.370 ⇒ 00:09:27.720 Amber Lin: Margins, I’ve asked, waiting on finance.
110 00:09:28.130 ⇒ 00:09:32.929 Amber Lin: For costs, I need to check… On that, and then…
111 00:09:44.520 ⇒ 00:09:45.510 Amber Lin: Cool.
112 00:09:45.510 ⇒ 00:09:51.159 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I guess my… my question for these is, can we start to put in values?
113 00:09:51.460 ⇒ 00:09:54.190 Uttam Kumaran: For each of these, like, where they are at right now.
114 00:09:54.190 ⇒ 00:09:55.630 Amber Lin: Sure.
115 00:09:56.400 ⇒ 00:10:01.689 Amber Lin: I haven’t calculated it yet, so I’ll do that, and I’ll add it in.
116 00:10:04.810 ⇒ 00:10:11.219 Uttam Kumaran: Like, can we… if we go back, even the ones, like, that are… can we at least put, like, what we think it is right now?
117 00:10:12.020 ⇒ 00:10:14.089 Amber Lin: Okay, I think right now…
118 00:10:14.720 ⇒ 00:10:15.399 Uttam Kumaran: We can just start.
119 00:10:15.780 ⇒ 00:10:21.200 Uttam Kumaran: Let’s start at the top. Let’s just start at the top for delivery OKRs.
120 00:10:23.270 ⇒ 00:10:27.790 Uttam Kumaran: So can we… yeah, so what do we say… like, what do we think this is at right now?
121 00:10:28.960 ⇒ 00:10:30.420 Amber Lin: What do you mean, value?
122 00:10:31.440 ⇒ 00:10:35.060 Uttam Kumaran: like, the goal is 100%, right? So what is…
123 00:10:35.380 ⇒ 00:10:36.560 Amber Lin: Oh…
124 00:10:36.560 ⇒ 00:10:37.620 Uttam Kumaran: value right now.
125 00:10:38.280 ⇒ 00:10:39.050 Amber Lin: Okay.
126 00:10:42.040 ⇒ 00:10:48.840 Amber Lin: We just got new projects, all the other ones are initiated, so I think currently we are within 100%.
127 00:10:49.270 ⇒ 00:10:50.290 Uttam Kumaran: But we don’t have…
128 00:10:50.290 ⇒ 00:10:50.890 Amber Lin: Thanks.
129 00:10:51.740 ⇒ 00:10:57.490 Uttam Kumaran: But see, like, we don’t have Interlude and the other two… oh, okay, within 7 days, okay.
130 00:10:57.490 ⇒ 00:10:58.120 Amber Lin: Yeah.
131 00:10:58.530 ⇒ 00:10:59.140 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
132 00:10:59.140 ⇒ 00:11:02.650 Amber Lin: So, next week, if they’re not done, then that will go down.
133 00:11:03.130 ⇒ 00:11:03.730 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
134 00:11:04.130 ⇒ 00:11:10.580 Amber Lin: Yeah, and then this one, I think for the ones within cycle.
135 00:11:11.280 ⇒ 00:11:15.359 Amber Lin: I would say we’re at, like, 80%.
136 00:11:16.260 ⇒ 00:11:17.300 Amber Lin: I need to confirm.
137 00:11:17.300 ⇒ 00:11:18.150 Uttam Kumaran: Really?
138 00:11:18.520 ⇒ 00:11:19.719 Uttam Kumaran: That seems high.
139 00:11:20.050 ⇒ 00:11:26.819 Amber Lin: For the ones in cycle, well, I know the ones for Eden and for Urban Stems have all the estimates.
140 00:11:28.360 ⇒ 00:11:35.479 Amber Lin: I think for default and interlude, Ricoh does a good job, so there’s testimates. I don’t know about internal projects.
141 00:11:35.660 ⇒ 00:11:38.100 Amber Lin: What’s your take? What do you think is the…
142 00:11:38.780 ⇒ 00:11:41.800 Amber Lin: percentage here. I think this is just gonna… this would take, like…
143 00:11:42.410 ⇒ 00:11:47.400 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know, like, one minute to just run this count in linear. So maybe, Rico, can you just, like, run this?
144 00:11:47.880 ⇒ 00:11:51.309 Uttam Kumaran: Create a view in linear, and just look for tickets.
145 00:11:51.840 ⇒ 00:11:54.530 Uttam Kumaran: Without each of these, and then you just get that count.
146 00:11:54.630 ⇒ 00:11:56.119 Uttam Kumaran: And then you can put it in Europe.
147 00:11:56.890 ⇒ 00:11:57.980 Uttam Kumaran: It’s pretty easy.
148 00:11:57.990 ⇒ 00:12:00.999 Rico Rejoso: Okay. Do that this meeting. And then what do we think about…
149 00:12:01.450 ⇒ 00:12:03.069 Uttam Kumaran: Number 4.
150 00:12:07.030 ⇒ 00:12:10.289 Uttam Kumaran: So it looks like we didn’t… we didn’t send these two.
151 00:12:10.970 ⇒ 00:12:15.040 Amber Lin: Yeah, we didn’t send default interlude, and then also Ellie.
152 00:12:15.630 ⇒ 00:12:20.230 Amber Lin: So… That would be… Oh.
153 00:12:20.710 ⇒ 00:12:21.570 Amber Lin: Wonky.
154 00:12:22.000 ⇒ 00:12:27.710 Amber Lin: 6… 8… Out of 8, we realistically sent 5.
155 00:12:28.750 ⇒ 00:12:32.120 Amber Lin: So, we’re at 62.
156 00:12:32.740 ⇒ 00:12:33.370 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
157 00:12:37.020 ⇒ 00:12:40.890 Amber Lin: And then for the epics, we’re at 1 out of 5.
158 00:12:41.240 ⇒ 00:12:45.470 Uttam Kumaran: But see, this… I guess for the 1 out of 5, there were a bunch of changes requested.
159 00:12:45.470 ⇒ 00:12:45.940 Amber Lin: Oh.
160 00:12:47.340 ⇒ 00:12:48.490 Amber Lin: Oh, I see.
161 00:12:48.600 ⇒ 00:12:50.489 Amber Lin: So I’ll say 10%.
162 00:12:50.490 ⇒ 00:12:52.730 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so the reason… the kind of the way we…
163 00:12:52.840 ⇒ 00:12:54.849 Uttam Kumaran: Well, I would say… I would say…
164 00:12:56.740 ⇒ 00:13:03.720 Uttam Kumaran: I would say zero, because we don’t have any reusable service epics, right? So the KPI here is .5.
165 00:13:04.650 ⇒ 00:13:14.140 Uttam Kumaran: So we… Shreya created one, but there’s a bunch of changes requested, so that’s the kind of the control here is, like, approved by cross-functional leads.
166 00:13:15.230 ⇒ 00:13:16.509 Uttam Kumaran: And a zero.
167 00:13:19.780 ⇒ 00:13:20.400 Amber Lin: Okay.
168 00:13:20.860 ⇒ 00:13:21.710 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
169 00:13:22.200 ⇒ 00:13:28.629 Amber Lin: And the margins, we are not there. What’s your estimate on the margins?
170 00:13:28.880 ⇒ 00:13:32.669 Uttam Kumaran: I would just put… I would just put 30, and then, yeah, but, like.
171 00:13:33.120 ⇒ 00:13:35.610 Uttam Kumaran: Again, like, they should be able to give you this.
172 00:13:37.670 ⇒ 00:13:39.710 Amber Lin: Yeah.
173 00:13:40.300 ⇒ 00:13:47.820 Amber Lin: Well, I think we’ve been reporting on it, but we don’t have the cost number, so I just still said it was lagging.
174 00:13:48.230 ⇒ 00:13:52.909 Amber Lin: But so far for the two weeks, we have done the hours report.
175 00:13:54.560 ⇒ 00:14:01.340 Uttam Kumaran: Well, I guess last week, we didn’t… see, but this is the thing, we didn’t look… we don’t know what our margin is, so how could we have done it low?
176 00:14:02.910 ⇒ 00:14:07.779 Amber Lin: Oh, I said for the two weeks we’ve been doing the hours report. We don’t have margins.
177 00:14:07.780 ⇒ 00:14:10.069 Uttam Kumaran: But this… so then I would put zero weeks.
178 00:14:10.450 ⇒ 00:14:14.070 Uttam Kumaran: The goal for this is to feel pretty painful, by the way, like…
179 00:14:14.340 ⇒ 00:14:29.479 Uttam Kumaran: we’re… the goal… the KPI here is weekly margin plus hours report presented in planning for 6 weeks. So if we’ve only done the hours, then there’s… we haven’t done this, so I would just put this as just 0 weeks right now. So the KPI here…
180 00:14:29.480 ⇒ 00:14:30.470 Amber Lin: Sounds good.
181 00:14:30.670 ⇒ 00:14:32.230 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. So…
182 00:14:32.740 ⇒ 00:14:41.340 Uttam Kumaran: this… so I guess, like, next week, ideally, would be the first week, unless we’re able to… if we… if we can do this this week, sometime before Friday, then we can still count it, but…
183 00:14:41.700 ⇒ 00:14:44.590 Amber Lin: Okay. Yeah, I’ll see if they can give that.
184 00:14:45.010 ⇒ 00:14:45.530 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, cool.
185 00:14:45.530 ⇒ 00:14:52.420 Amber Lin: And then this one, need to check, check…
186 00:15:01.480 ⇒ 00:15:04.809 Amber Lin: Yeah, 50-60% is my estimate.
187 00:15:06.230 ⇒ 00:15:12.479 Amber Lin: And then this one, we’ll do that in this meeting, Rico, let me know when you found it.
188 00:15:16.500 ⇒ 00:15:17.200 Amber Lin: Okay.
189 00:15:44.640 ⇒ 00:15:50.309 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I don’t… I mean, people can just go in and look at this, like, we don’t need to put the screen. People can just go see this.
190 00:15:50.910 ⇒ 00:15:58.420 Amber Lin: Yeah, mostly it’s just to track the progression over time, because when we update it next week, it will get covered up.
191 00:15:58.420 ⇒ 00:16:04.870 Uttam Kumaran: So, the kind of… yeah, I can… I can talk to you about how we’re organizing, but if you… if you go into that spreadsheet, there’s hidden…
192 00:16:05.070 ⇒ 00:16:08.269 Uttam Kumaran: Columns, so we’ll just make a new column every week.
193 00:16:08.430 ⇒ 00:16:09.050 Uttam Kumaran: Oh.
194 00:16:09.050 ⇒ 00:16:09.810 Amber Lin: Okay.
195 00:16:10.190 ⇒ 00:16:11.940 Amber Lin: Yeah, that works. That works.
196 00:16:11.940 ⇒ 00:16:14.139 Uttam Kumaran: This one willffee into next week, yeah.
197 00:16:14.450 ⇒ 00:16:15.250 Amber Lin: Oh, great.
198 00:16:15.570 ⇒ 00:16:16.250 Uttam Kumaran: Cool.
199 00:16:16.550 ⇒ 00:16:24.410 Amber Lin: And then, okay, let’s go over the hours report, because that’s what we have so far.
200 00:16:24.520 ⇒ 00:16:31.130 Amber Lin: Total hours logged last week was at 400 and 160…
201 00:16:31.250 ⇒ 00:16:36.640 Amber Lin: ish, or 170 was billable. So, on that, I think we’re…
202 00:16:37.390 ⇒ 00:16:42.479 Amber Lin: Marketing or content is spending a lot of… Has a lot of hours.
203 00:16:42.480 ⇒ 00:16:47.990 Uttam Kumaran: What about the difference between these two. Can you explain to everybody, like, the difference between total hours and then the billable?
204 00:16:48.450 ⇒ 00:16:52.280 Amber Lin: So billable hours… is…
205 00:16:52.500 ⇒ 00:17:09.430 Amber Lin: hours related to client projects, whether it’s monthly or hourly. All the other ones are currently counted as non-billable, so that includes anything logged on internal, on branding, design, on copywriting, ops, internal data, internal AI,
206 00:17:09.430 ⇒ 00:17:15.169 Amber Lin: Project management, etc. And so, right now, I know some people log…
207 00:17:15.170 ⇒ 00:17:26.910 Amber Lin: example, for example, on AI, we log it to internal, but I don’t think that prevents us from seeing that, how many hours we’re spending on clients versus on internal stuff.
208 00:17:28.760 ⇒ 00:17:29.460 Amber Lin: Yeah.
209 00:17:29.840 ⇒ 00:17:31.919 Amber Lin: So that’s an overview there.
210 00:17:32.490 ⇒ 00:17:37.929 Amber Lin: And then last week, I ranked quickly the…
211 00:17:38.180 ⇒ 00:17:44.920 Amber Lin: Most profitable clients. I think Interlude is high because we don’t have… we were wrapping up work.
212 00:17:45.180 ⇒ 00:17:57.559 Amber Lin: This is all just based on last week’s hours, and I think Urban Stems and Eden are high, because Demolade was out on Thursday and Friday, so we have less hours on these two clients.
213 00:17:58.520 ⇒ 00:18:04.719 Amber Lin: if you see, we’re still hovering around 60 or 65 each week.
214 00:18:04.890 ⇒ 00:18:06.900 Amber Lin: Which I think given…
215 00:18:07.160 ⇒ 00:18:14.000 Amber Lin: Our cost… our margins should still be okay, but our billable rate is not very high.
216 00:18:15.080 ⇒ 00:18:15.590 Amber Lin: And…
217 00:18:15.590 ⇒ 00:18:29.029 Uttam Kumaran: So for… yeah, let’s just… yeah, I don’t want this meeting to be a, everybody just look at numbers and then we leave. This is, like, I want to kind of talk through what we’re seeing here. So for Interlude and for Urban Stems.
218 00:18:29.050 ⇒ 00:18:46.999 Uttam Kumaran: I think a couple things that I want to talk about for Urban Stems is, yeah, like, I guess I don’t have a good sense of, like, how much time we should be spending here. To give everybody context, the change we made is we previously had Kayo on this account, and now it’s Demolade and I, primarily.
219 00:18:47.090 ⇒ 00:18:51.519 Uttam Kumaran: So I kind of want to know… again, like, I’m handling…
220 00:18:51.840 ⇒ 00:19:00.360 Uttam Kumaran: 10 hours or so of development, so what is our goal, like, amount of spend… of our spend here? Like, what should we be aiming for?
221 00:19:04.630 ⇒ 00:19:05.580 Uttam Kumaran: Like, I think you have…
222 00:19:05.580 ⇒ 00:19:06.380 Amber Lin: So…
223 00:19:06.380 ⇒ 00:19:08.630 Uttam Kumaran: 2359.
224 00:19:10.300 ⇒ 00:19:11.420 Uttam Kumaran: Or…
225 00:19:11.420 ⇒ 00:19:12.409 Amber Lin: Wait, what?
226 00:19:12.520 ⇒ 00:19:13.520 Amber Lin: Where?
227 00:19:14.180 ⇒ 00:19:14.920 Uttam Kumaran: this.
228 00:19:16.500 ⇒ 00:19:36.820 Amber Lin: Yeah, 23 is what we spent last week. Based on the allocations, the Demolade of 20 hours and you 10 hours, we’re probably at about 30 hours per week, but if we want to get to the billable rate of 250, then per month we should be spending $54, but I don’t think we’re getting anywhere near that.
229 00:19:37.330 ⇒ 00:19:38.710 Uttam Kumaran: So what is that per week.
230 00:19:39.320 ⇒ 00:19:43.330 Amber Lin: Per week, that’s gonna be, like, 12?
231 00:19:43.330 ⇒ 00:19:52.349 Uttam Kumaran: So I guess that’s… I guess since we’re now moving towards, like, weekly sprints, I think it’s helpful to know the monthly amount, but it’s actually more helpful to see, like.
232 00:19:52.660 ⇒ 00:19:54.010 Uttam Kumaran: hours per week.
233 00:19:54.310 ⇒ 00:19:56.609 Amber Lin: And so, what is it? Yeah.
234 00:19:57.220 ⇒ 00:20:00.489 Uttam Kumaran: So, 12.5. So then at 1… what is it at 1.50?
235 00:20:01.550 ⇒ 00:20:09.139 Uttam Kumaran: And to give everyone a sense, like, we want to at least be hitting a minimum of, like, $150 an hour billable.
236 00:20:09.510 ⇒ 00:20:12.530 Uttam Kumaran: for every account, so roughly… That’s it.
237 00:20:12.530 ⇒ 00:20:13.180 Amber Lin: Alright.
238 00:20:13.740 ⇒ 00:20:14.350 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
239 00:20:14.850 ⇒ 00:20:21.800 Amber Lin: So then, what I would say is the goal here should be 20 hours total on this account for a week, at least.
240 00:20:22.020 ⇒ 00:20:24.989 Uttam Kumaran: And then, so that means 20 points, right?
241 00:20:26.110 ⇒ 00:20:30.949 Uttam Kumaran: So, my co- my question would be…
242 00:20:31.670 ⇒ 00:20:36.419 Uttam Kumaran: Are we, like, are we there? You know, like, looking at the current planned week.
243 00:20:37.310 ⇒ 00:20:39.479 Uttam Kumaran: Do we only have 20 points there?
244 00:20:39.860 ⇒ 00:20:44.359 Uttam Kumaran: Which I know is… I know… I know the answer is no, but I was just as having it.
245 00:20:44.720 ⇒ 00:20:49.460 Uttam Kumaran: But that’s, like, I want to get everyone to hear, like, how we’re going to start doing the math here.
246 00:20:54.620 ⇒ 00:20:55.140 Amber Lin: Yep.
247 00:20:55.510 ⇒ 00:21:00.000 Amber Lin: And… going to…
248 00:21:00.000 ⇒ 00:21:11.170 Uttam Kumaran: So let’s… let’s just… let’s… I want to just close out Urban Stems, right? So again, like, I don’t want to move on until we reach some decisions on each of these. So for Urban Stems, like, what is the… what is, like, the proposed
249 00:21:11.440 ⇒ 00:21:21.450 Uttam Kumaran: decision here. I guess I would kind of kick it to, like, you, Rico, Justin. What do you… what do we… what… what… what do we think we can try this… this week?
250 00:21:21.580 ⇒ 00:21:23.210 Uttam Kumaran: In order to sort of, like.
251 00:21:23.850 ⇒ 00:21:25.549 Uttam Kumaran: Get this to a better spot.
252 00:21:29.690 ⇒ 00:21:33.499 Justin Breshears: Have we moved this one down to one-week sprints? Is this one that we moved?
253 00:21:34.160 ⇒ 00:21:38.780 Amber Lin: No, we moved Eden. I think we wanna hold off maybe…
254 00:21:39.710 ⇒ 00:21:49.049 Amber Lin: transition slowly. We can move it to one-week sprints, we just did the planning today. So, this is the upcoming sprint.
255 00:21:49.860 ⇒ 00:21:57.690 Amber Lin: And we have about 40, so if nothing carries over from this sprint, we are going to be at 20 per week.
256 00:22:02.460 ⇒ 00:22:04.940 Justin Breshears: And the goal is to be at less, right? Because we’re on a.
257 00:22:04.940 ⇒ 00:22:06.620 Amber Lin: The goal is to be at…
258 00:22:06.990 ⇒ 00:22:12.759 Amber Lin: to… right now, our goal is… yes, we’re on monthly. Right now, we just set our goal at 20 hours per.
259 00:22:12.760 ⇒ 00:22:18.140 Justin Breshears: Yeah, so we want to increase the efficiency on this one so that we have a better margin, right? That’s the goal?
260 00:22:20.300 ⇒ 00:22:20.960 Justin Breshears: Cut.
261 00:22:22.340 ⇒ 00:22:23.639 Justin Breshears: then yeah, I mean, I…
262 00:22:24.120 ⇒ 00:22:30.099 Justin Breshears: Would love to sit down and look at the work that we have planned and see where maybe we can…
263 00:22:30.210 ⇒ 00:22:31.949 Justin Breshears: Get more efficient there.
264 00:22:32.070 ⇒ 00:22:37.159 Justin Breshears: I think that’s… That’s the way we gotta look at all these fixed monthly contracts, it’s…
265 00:22:37.770 ⇒ 00:22:41.060 Justin Breshears: If we’re at 20 points per week right now.
266 00:22:41.360 ⇒ 00:22:48.719 Justin Breshears: But I wouldn’t be able to give recommendations right now until I was able to sit down and kind of look at it.
267 00:22:55.700 ⇒ 00:22:56.850 Amber Lin: Anything else?
268 00:22:58.270 ⇒ 00:22:59.140 Uttam Kumaran: bias.
269 00:22:59.390 ⇒ 00:23:00.190 Uttam Kumaran: door.
270 00:23:01.790 ⇒ 00:23:04.799 Uttam Kumaran: So what was the… what was the decision made here?
271 00:23:05.330 ⇒ 00:23:11.889 Amber Lin: Well, we’re currently at… the current allocation is at 20 hours per week, so I think we’re good for now.
272 00:23:12.060 ⇒ 00:23:12.750 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
273 00:23:12.750 ⇒ 00:23:20.150 Amber Lin: And if we need to cut it down, I think you guys will need to decide, or if the client’s comfortable with a slower pace.
274 00:23:20.430 ⇒ 00:23:21.050 Amber Lin: Because the.
275 00:23:21.050 ⇒ 00:23:24.330 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t think that’s… I don’t think that’s…
276 00:23:24.840 ⇒ 00:23:26.550 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t think that’s the solution.
277 00:23:26.870 ⇒ 00:23:32.649 Uttam Kumaran: Right, so I want to be clear… I want to be clear. Maybe, Justin, do you want to… I hear… see you, Shane, do you want to give your opinion?
278 00:23:32.650 ⇒ 00:23:47.770 Justin Breshears: Yeah, I was just talking while you were off. I think the goal is to maintain the quality or the level that we’re delivering, but just become more efficient, so that we’re delivering the same stuff, but in less effort on our end, right? So…
279 00:23:47.770 ⇒ 00:23:53.629 Justin Breshears: I think that’s the exercise that we need to go through on these fixed monthly contracts, is sit down and look at, okay.
280 00:23:53.680 ⇒ 00:23:57.220 Justin Breshears: How do we… how do we still deliver, like, what the client expects?
281 00:23:57.490 ⇒ 00:24:07.859 Justin Breshears: But how do we do it more efficiently than we are right now? Whether it’s an AI solution, or some kind of process, or, you know, just better organization around
282 00:24:08.220 ⇒ 00:24:27.549 Justin Breshears: the work. So that, I think, and I was saying while you were out every time, I can’t give a recommendation right now, but I would be happy to, like, sit down and look at the work with the team and see, like, how we can do that. But I think that’s the key difference in these different billing types. If we’re billing on a fixed monthly, then we need to think in the most efficient way possible, how can we deliver
283 00:24:27.720 ⇒ 00:24:37.350 Justin Breshears: quality work. If we’re on a expected, you know, hourly, like, okay, then the idea is how do we hit the number of hours that we’re expected each week?
284 00:24:37.760 ⇒ 00:24:38.260 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
285 00:24:38.260 ⇒ 00:24:50.949 Justin Breshears: But yeah, on these, I would love to sit down and try to plan out with the team how we can get to the margin that we need to get to, and still… like, I don’t think the idea is to scale back on, like, what we’re delivering. It’s more just how can we get more efficient?
286 00:24:51.800 ⇒ 00:24:52.620 Uttam Kumaran: I agree.
287 00:24:54.740 ⇒ 00:24:55.430 Amber Lin: Okay.
288 00:24:59.610 ⇒ 00:25:00.530 Amber Lin: Right.
289 00:25:03.200 ⇒ 00:25:12.009 Amber Lin: And then the next project, so looking at here, I’m missing… I’m missing some hours, so…
290 00:25:12.300 ⇒ 00:25:15.009 Amber Lin: I know, Utem, you said approximately…
291 00:25:15.130 ⇒ 00:25:21.340 Amber Lin: 10 hours on Urban Stems. Demelia, what’s your estimate on your hours last week on Urban Stems?
292 00:25:24.130 ⇒ 00:25:26.550 Demilade Agboola: I would say about 10 as well.
293 00:25:26.770 ⇒ 00:25:27.460 Amber Lin: Okay.
294 00:25:28.750 ⇒ 00:25:33.340 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I feel like I did update, but maybe I didn’t, so I could have that all closed today.
295 00:25:33.730 ⇒ 00:25:34.790 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
296 00:25:35.150 ⇒ 00:25:43.060 Amber Lin: And then, on Eden, I am missing hours. So, how many hours on Eden do you guys estimate?
297 00:25:44.650 ⇒ 00:25:50.990 Demilade Agboola: So from my end, I’m seeing about 10 and… are you seeing 10 and 12? Like, 11?
298 00:25:55.320 ⇒ 00:25:58.109 Amber Lin: And then… for a wish, how many…
299 00:25:58.110 ⇒ 00:26:00.280 Awaish Kumar: I’ll give it 10 as well.
300 00:26:00.510 ⇒ 00:26:05.560 Amber Lin: Okay, so I submitted correctly, and I think Zora did some work over the weekend, so I think.
301 00:26:05.560 ⇒ 00:26:07.330 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, I’m saying it’s 10 as well.
302 00:26:08.140 ⇒ 00:26:10.240 Amber Lin: Turn on his side.
303 00:26:10.890 ⇒ 00:26:18.980 Robert Tseng: Zora did 10 over the weekend, but, I mean, anyway, he… he, he worked super fast, it was insane.
304 00:26:20.430 ⇒ 00:26:23.599 Amber Lin: Yeah, I don’t know if it’s 10 hours or not, this is estimated.
305 00:26:23.600 ⇒ 00:26:25.479 Robert Tseng: I think… I think it’s more like 5, so…
306 00:26:25.480 ⇒ 00:26:26.210 Amber Lin: Okay.
307 00:26:26.630 ⇒ 00:26:30.520 Robert Tseng: I mean, I saw 5 points on his ticket, so… and then mine’s, like, around 5, so…
308 00:26:30.670 ⇒ 00:26:31.290 Amber Lin: Okay.
309 00:26:31.410 ⇒ 00:26:32.100 Amber Lin: Okay.
310 00:26:32.890 ⇒ 00:26:33.720 Amber Lin: Alright.
311 00:26:34.120 ⇒ 00:26:38.180 Amber Lin: So… On Eden… let’s see…
312 00:26:42.440 ⇒ 00:26:46.070 Amber Lin: So, if we want… $2.50.
313 00:26:46.070 ⇒ 00:26:50.719 Uttam Kumaran: I think let’s just do 150 today for everything, because we need to get through…
314 00:26:50.720 ⇒ 00:26:54.500 Amber Lin: So, we’re gonna be on… 46 hours.
315 00:26:55.320 ⇒ 00:26:56.660 Amber Lin: So we’re gonna say…
316 00:26:56.660 ⇒ 00:26:59.410 Justin Breshears: to $2.50 is to start charging more, right?
317 00:27:00.620 ⇒ 00:27:14.479 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, oh, believe me, I’m happy to keep doing that. We are do… and we are doing that. But that’s… I’m happy to get… I’m happy to get the sales critique, but, like, then we have to fulfill it, right? And so that’s the thing, but yeah.
318 00:27:14.480 ⇒ 00:27:15.440 Justin Breshears: Yeah, we were just playing.
319 00:27:15.440 ⇒ 00:27:16.040 Uttam Kumaran: Right.
320 00:27:16.040 ⇒ 00:27:17.620 Justin Breshears: It’s all hand-in-hand, right?
321 00:27:17.620 ⇒ 00:27:18.000 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
322 00:27:18.000 ⇒ 00:27:30.339 Justin Breshears: I gotta deliver enough, like, quality work where the client is happy to, like, pay, you know, higher rates on it. But in the meantime, we have to be efficient so that we’re getting the margin. It’s all… it’s all of the above.
323 00:27:30.720 ⇒ 00:27:31.450 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
324 00:27:34.040 ⇒ 00:27:41.620 Amber Lin: Well, last week we are… let’s see… About 8 hours off.
325 00:27:42.080 ⇒ 00:27:46.610 Amber Lin: Then, right now, we have estimated
326 00:27:47.090 ⇒ 00:27:52.910 Amber Lin: 70-something points this cycle, we’re gonna have to push some stuff out.
327 00:27:59.580 ⇒ 00:28:00.070 Amber Lin: Nuh.
328 00:28:00.070 ⇒ 00:28:03.380 Uttam Kumaran: No, I’m saying, like, 60, like… Yeah.
329 00:28:03.730 ⇒ 00:28:04.810 Uttam Kumaran: Looks like…
330 00:28:05.290 ⇒ 00:28:10.530 Uttam Kumaran: For the current… for the past week, we’re about, like, 60 hours, right? Like, 61 with this total.
331 00:28:11.380 ⇒ 00:28:14.609 Amber Lin: Yes, about that.
332 00:28:16.430 ⇒ 00:28:19.819 Amber Lin: Oh, are we at 61? I didn’t do the calculations.
333 00:28:19.820 ⇒ 00:28:21.270 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
334 00:28:22.050 ⇒ 00:28:28.630 Amber Lin: Okay, so we’re at… 14 hours surplus.
335 00:28:30.350 ⇒ 00:28:37.990 Amber Lin: Okay… Yeah, I’ll need to redo the Eden plans.
336 00:28:39.480 ⇒ 00:28:42.889 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I guess, like, I’m curious, like, even for… for these, like.
337 00:28:43.160 ⇒ 00:28:46.000 Uttam Kumaran: Again, we can start to… now that we start to map
338 00:28:46.170 ⇒ 00:28:58.650 Uttam Kumaran: binds to, like, status, and then we… we need to start thinking about, like, what are the plays to start getting this aligned, right? So, I think that’s where I’d like to see you, Justin, and Rico work together, which is, like.
339 00:28:58.870 ⇒ 00:29:05.090 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, one play is go see what… what stuff is on the team’s plate that can get moved.
340 00:29:05.210 ⇒ 00:29:06.900 Uttam Kumaran: Right?
341 00:29:07.510 ⇒ 00:29:21.429 Uttam Kumaran: if we start to see, like, the… if we start to see week after week that our scope is very high, that’s when we need to go back to the client and be like, look, we need a change order, right, for it to expand scope. But until then, I don’t want to…
342 00:29:21.610 ⇒ 00:29:27.850 Uttam Kumaran: I just want to assume that, like, the scope is actually fine. We probably… you know?
343 00:29:31.670 ⇒ 00:29:32.420 Amber Lin: Yeah.
344 00:29:32.550 ⇒ 00:29:33.710 Amber Lin: Okay.
345 00:29:34.120 ⇒ 00:29:35.159 Amber Lin: We’ll take a look.
346 00:29:35.160 ⇒ 00:29:38.630 Justin Breshears: Can I just call out what I put in the chat real quick before we move on, too?
347 00:29:38.980 ⇒ 00:29:44.859 Justin Breshears: If we are gonna have, like, OKRs around margin and be looking at it on this call, I think it’s in…
348 00:29:45.320 ⇒ 00:29:50.169 Justin Breshears: pretty crucial to have the timesheets in by the time we get to this call, so I think…
349 00:29:50.430 ⇒ 00:30:02.259 Justin Breshears: our time on this call. This is an expensive call for the company, right? All of our time is very valuable, so I think sitting here and, like, putting in the timesheet estimates and things like that on this call, like.
350 00:30:02.770 ⇒ 00:30:14.220 Justin Breshears: frankly, it’s kind of a waste of our time, right? I think we need to have, like, make it a full, but everybody have their time entries in, so that we have these numbers, then when we get on the call, we can talk about, like, the impact of those numbers.
351 00:30:16.320 ⇒ 00:30:19.919 Amber Lin: We’ve been trying to push on that. I also asked on Friday.
352 00:30:20.250 ⇒ 00:30:24.959 Amber Lin: For the hours, because I wanted to prepare the report beforehand, but we don’t have it.
353 00:30:24.960 ⇒ 00:30:33.309 Justin Breshears: Sure. That’s why I’m calling it out today with everybody here. I think we should all just, like, collectively agree to get our timesheets entered by this meeting.
354 00:30:34.330 ⇒ 00:30:42.869 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, and again, I think it’s, like, for every meeting where we have, like, I think we experienced this with sales today, too, where there were… there were sort of parts that were…
355 00:30:43.000 ⇒ 00:30:51.440 Uttam Kumaran: like, we just could have proved a little better. It’s up to the team to sort of make that happen, right? So, if we need to…
356 00:30:51.750 ⇒ 00:30:55.100 Uttam Kumaran: play this, or do something else, we can do so, you know.
357 00:30:57.720 ⇒ 00:31:04.620 Justin Breshears: Yeah, I mean, I think… How we track our time spent on these, especially the fixed price contracts.
358 00:31:04.860 ⇒ 00:31:15.780 Justin Breshears: it’s… it’s huge. It’s very crucial to how we grow as a business, so I think it’s something we should prioritize, getting in regularly and have, like, an expectation around.
359 00:31:26.480 ⇒ 00:31:27.650 Amber Lin: Yeah.
360 00:31:27.650 ⇒ 00:31:35.510 Justin Breshears: Can I get, can I get PM in your project? Yeah, if I’m PM in your project, you’re gonna, you’re gonna hear from me about that.
361 00:31:35.930 ⇒ 00:31:38.659 Justin Breshears: On Fridays, or Mondays, if you have it.
362 00:31:39.000 ⇒ 00:31:48.549 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, like, that’s… that’s sort of the… that’s sort of the cycle, right? Like, this… because this meeting has to happen, it’s gonna be awkward, and this meeting if ours aren’t there, and so it’s gonna force that. Like, that’s…
363 00:31:48.910 ⇒ 00:31:55.429 Uttam Kumaran: that’s kind of the cycle, so… okay, great. I think we’ll start… we’ll keep improving the more of these that happen, but…
364 00:31:56.050 ⇒ 00:31:58.519 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, let’s… let’s talk about ABC.
365 00:31:58.860 ⇒ 00:32:06.500 Amber Lin: Yeah, Sam, I don’t think I have your correct hours. I think you spent more than 30 minutes on ABC last week. What’s the actual hours here?
366 00:32:13.460 ⇒ 00:32:16.800 Uttam Kumaran: Sam, you’re muted.
367 00:32:20.750 ⇒ 00:32:23.340 Samuel Roberts: Sorry, I was saying, let me check, spot.
368 00:32:24.140 ⇒ 00:32:24.970 Samuel Roberts: Speed.
369 00:32:26.140 ⇒ 00:32:28.000 Samuel Roberts: So equals, like, 12.
370 00:32:30.580 ⇒ 00:32:32.630 Samuel Roberts: Okay, so…
371 00:32:33.380 ⇒ 00:32:42.460 Amber Lin: That leaves us at… Okay, we’re at 35 OG.
372 00:32:43.560 ⇒ 00:32:47.890 Amber Lin: 36, actually.
373 00:32:49.000 ⇒ 00:32:58.729 Amber Lin: That’s not good. If we want 150 on ABC, we’re gonna aim for 10 hours. I just don’t know how reasonable is 10 hours per week.
374 00:33:02.170 ⇒ 00:33:07.600 Amber Lin: Should we aim for 10 hours, or should we aim for, like, 75 per hour?
375 00:33:07.600 ⇒ 00:33:15.110 Uttam Kumaran: Again, we have to start from a principled spot on, like, how many hours is it going to take for us to deliver what we promised for the client?
376 00:33:15.330 ⇒ 00:33:26.929 Uttam Kumaran: Like, I… we’re not, like, reduce 5 hours here, 10 hours here, like, let’s… we can’t talk about this problem like that. It has to be, like, what have we promised the client, and what is the minimum amount of time it will take us to deliver that?
377 00:33:27.300 ⇒ 00:33:34.550 Uttam Kumaran: Right, and that’s what… I guess I will ask you and Sam to collaborate and come back to this crew with, like, what that amount is.
378 00:33:35.530 ⇒ 00:33:39.549 Uttam Kumaran: Just to just give a brief… Understanding where we are now.
379 00:33:39.780 ⇒ 00:33:49.110 Uttam Kumaran: I think on many of our clients, we are saying yes to scope without understanding the impact on our margin.
380 00:33:49.110 ⇒ 00:34:01.589 Uttam Kumaran: And so, we’ve done this to date because there was no, like, backstop, right? There was no, like, oh, we’re just gonna spend more time because client wants it. Now that we have the goal of 150 and the 40%,
381 00:34:02.220 ⇒ 00:34:07.130 Uttam Kumaran: as a PM, you should understand the risk of taking on that, and
382 00:34:07.130 ⇒ 00:34:29.300 Uttam Kumaran: there will be times if you’re like, we need to make the client happy because we messed up something last… like, there is margin there to adjust, but that is the creativity. So, for me, I want to know what is the minimum time that can go into this. Second, this client has a scaling factor, right? So, the contract we sign to them is dynamic in that as usage goes up, we get more budget.
383 00:34:29.300 ⇒ 00:34:33.809 Uttam Kumaran: But what I don’t want to see when we get more money in is that our hours go up.
384 00:34:33.810 ⇒ 00:34:51.359 Uttam Kumaran: In fact, the goal of that type of contract was that our money comes in and hours don’t change. That’s why we signed that contract. And so, for me, I kind of want to get a sense of, like, what is the minimum time that we can fulfill this work for, and how many of these hours are the fact that they asked us for something and we just didn’t say.
385 00:34:51.429 ⇒ 00:34:56.769 Uttam Kumaran: cool, we triage and it’ll happen at some point, right? Like, that’s what I have a feeling is happening here.
386 00:34:58.650 ⇒ 00:34:59.210 Uttam Kumaran: You know?
387 00:34:59.210 ⇒ 00:35:02.009 Samuel Roberts: I will say it’s at 12 this week.
388 00:35:02.010 ⇒ 00:35:13.469 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, probably the last point I was gonna say is a lot of Sam’s time is… Sam’s time recently went to this new proposal that we’re putting in front of them for this expansion opportunity that we’re talking about.
389 00:35:13.590 ⇒ 00:35:16.409 Uttam Kumaran: So… I, I, like…
390 00:35:16.680 ⇒ 00:35:24.919 Uttam Kumaran: I would say that’s probably more on, like, we can’t bifurcate it now, but I would probably direct that more as, like, sales costs, but, like, all things…
391 00:35:25.170 ⇒ 00:35:26.960 Uttam Kumaran: Chad, like, that’s kind of where we are.
392 00:35:27.770 ⇒ 00:35:28.300 Samuel Roberts: Yeah.
393 00:35:28.490 ⇒ 00:35:36.249 Samuel Roberts: I don’t know what I was gonna say, it was the, yeah, transcripts, which we had to fix a little bit, because it wasn’t done right the first time, so there was a bit of that, and then the proposal stuff.
394 00:35:36.920 ⇒ 00:35:39.020 Samuel Roberts: Little, little… Throne aisle.
395 00:35:40.010 ⇒ 00:35:40.330 Amber Lin: Okay.
396 00:35:40.330 ⇒ 00:35:52.099 Justin Breshears: This is… this is where I think going down to, like, one-week sprints, getting better at our, like, story point estimates, and then, like, committing to planned work at the beginning of sprints, like, all that stuff that I talked about last week, like.
397 00:35:52.100 ⇒ 00:36:07.750 Justin Breshears: I think this is where it’s really gonna benefit us, because then we’re gonna really be able to see where that emergent work that was not planned comes in and starts derailing us, or, like, whatever, because we’re shrinking it down to, like, a more bite-sized… like, it’s a lot easier for me to manage what work I can do in a week than two.
398 00:36:07.750 ⇒ 00:36:17.070 Justin Breshears: And then, you know, see where I went off the rails on that, too. So, that’s kind of where the benefit of that will come into play, and then if we get, you know.
399 00:36:17.070 ⇒ 00:36:29.989 Justin Breshears: really good at this cadence of, like, okay, committing to work for the week, knocking it out, reviewing, okay, how did it go? And then, you know, really recording our hours accurately. I think we’ll be able to really dial in these metrics.
400 00:36:31.270 ⇒ 00:36:37.810 Amber Lin: Yeah, it feels a lot easier on one expense, for, say, Eden and… ABC.
401 00:36:38.510 ⇒ 00:36:42.559 Amber Lin: Okay, for Interlude…
402 00:36:42.730 ⇒ 00:36:54.250 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I know we’re running low on time, Amber. Maybe, is there… what other… I just… let’s just talk about the next biggest client. So what is it? We have Eden? Can we talk about, like, what are the other…
403 00:36:56.430 ⇒ 00:36:59.869 Amber Lin: As long as we’re going on a new,
404 00:37:00.310 ⇒ 00:37:11.500 Amber Lin: new contract, so there’s new scope of work on Insomnia, and Justin’s managing Insomnia now, and then also Eden is the biggest client, so I would talk about those two, and maybe the new…
405 00:37:11.740 ⇒ 00:37:13.420 Amber Lin: interlude contract.
406 00:37:13.960 ⇒ 00:37:21.129 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, Interlude, I think we’ll be fine at. I’m able to kind of hack that load. Let’s talk about… maybe we can talk about insomnia?
407 00:37:21.370 ⇒ 00:37:31.389 Uttam Kumaran: And it would be great just to hear about, like, how that’s been going, and how many hours we spend, and, like, what our goal is. Especially now that we’re signing a new contract, so we can try to get ahead.
408 00:37:31.780 ⇒ 00:37:37.960 Amber Lin: Yeah, the new contract is going to be 10K per month, so this is gonna become…
409 00:37:38.120 ⇒ 00:37:40.120 Amber Lin: Become the monthly client.
410 00:37:40.470 ⇒ 00:37:51.759 Amber Lin: So before, our goal was to hit our cap, like, we spend about 17, 18 hours per week, and now one Justin is managing, so just, I’ll let you…
411 00:37:51.890 ⇒ 00:37:52.620 Amber Lin: Take over.
412 00:37:52.620 ⇒ 00:38:02.399 Justin Breshears: Yeah, but in looking at the SAL, is it just a fixed rate of 10K a month, or is that the cap? I think it’s still a variable per hour, is that right, Robert?
413 00:38:04.120 ⇒ 00:38:12.040 Robert Tseng: I would say that it is a fixed 10K, but we have room to grow bigger, so…
414 00:38:12.460 ⇒ 00:38:16.709 Robert Tseng: Yeah, like, I was trying to sign them at 20, but they…
415 00:38:16.840 ⇒ 00:38:19.020 Robert Tseng: I don’t… yeah, I mean, they only approved…
416 00:38:19.140 ⇒ 00:38:24.300 Robert Tseng: like, half of that, so I think there is probably room for more budget, but we just have to…
417 00:38:24.850 ⇒ 00:38:28.849 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I think it’s… that’s our starting point, yeah.
418 00:38:29.390 ⇒ 00:38:32.849 Justin Breshears: Okay, yeah, that’s good to know, because I don’t… I didn’t know if this was a…
419 00:38:33.040 ⇒ 00:38:38.719 Justin Breshears: variable, like, per hour contract or a fix, because it kind of has a.
420 00:38:38.720 ⇒ 00:38:40.619 Robert Tseng: No, yeah, it’s fixed now, yeah.
421 00:38:40.990 ⇒ 00:38:42.490 Justin Breshears: Okay, it’s fixed now. Okay.
422 00:38:42.710 ⇒ 00:38:43.220 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
423 00:38:44.180 ⇒ 00:38:55.300 Justin Breshears: But this is one where we need to focus on quality of delivery to try and double that future. Yeah. They’re starting to grow, instead of trying to let it go down there, so…
424 00:38:57.040 ⇒ 00:39:15.079 Justin Breshears: Yeah, so I’m taking over this week on it, been getting up to speed on that one. The main thing is to continue, kind of, the daily updates that Casey’s been doing on their metrics and everything, continue trying to automate those, but also adding in work that now Shreya’s doing on analyzing their past
425 00:39:15.170 ⇒ 00:39:19.140 Justin Breshears: Promotions, or historical campaign data that they have.
426 00:39:19.360 ⇒ 00:39:23.780 Justin Breshears: Analyzing those, giving recommendations based on what…
427 00:39:23.890 ⇒ 00:39:42.659 Justin Breshears: is what’s worked in the past, basically, and trying to help them, I think, understand how to measure what works or not. It’s not just, like, a sales per campaign kind of a deal. So that’s the work that we’re starting with this new contract, from my understanding. Anything I’m missing there, Dean?
428 00:39:43.160 ⇒ 00:40:00.409 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so I’m trying to pull a new scope, too, so tomorrow morning’s call, which I don’t know if you guys will make it, it’s pretty early for at least Shreya, so I don’t expect her to be there, but, there’s, like, attribution work as well, so I think that’s… that’s a good one, where it’s meaty enough, where I think that could itself sit
429 00:40:00.500 ⇒ 00:40:10.160 Robert Tseng: goes well, we can get an expansion off of that, and we have the talent now to do it between Zora and Andrew, so, yeah, I’m scoping that out.
430 00:40:10.250 ⇒ 00:40:14.109 Robert Tseng: Yeah, and then I think it’s really just gonna be…
431 00:40:14.130 ⇒ 00:40:25.590 Robert Tseng: we’ll get more things as… coming our way as we kind of meet more… meet more people in their org. So, there’s gonna be random ad hoc meetings to kind of do kickoffs with different stakeholders.
432 00:40:25.610 ⇒ 00:40:34.389 Robert Tseng: We may not actually engage with all of them, I’m just trying to put ourselves in front of as many people that are relevant as possible, and then we’ll see where we can go with this.
433 00:40:35.220 ⇒ 00:40:35.840 Amber Lin: Yeah.
434 00:40:36.930 ⇒ 00:40:42.390 Amber Lin: And then, I guess once scope is settled, we can also estimate what the hours are needed.
435 00:40:42.630 ⇒ 00:40:47.239 Amber Lin: On this client, because if we want a 10K, if we want 150, it’s…
436 00:40:47.240 ⇒ 00:40:51.489 Uttam Kumaran: 66, right? So, 10K is, like, 66, so, like, 15 and a half.
437 00:40:51.770 ⇒ 00:40:58.089 Uttam Kumaran: I think my biggest feedback is Casey at 15 hours a week is kind of insane.
438 00:40:58.280 ⇒ 00:41:02.440 Amber Lin: That will decline, yeah. He is probably mostly done there.
439 00:41:03.840 ⇒ 00:41:05.419 Uttam Kumaran: But we’re… I mean, like.
440 00:41:06.220 ⇒ 00:41:17.169 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t agree with that. I don’t know how that’s gonna happen, because we’re already 4 weeks… 4 or 5 weeks into this, and why did he spend 15 hours last week?
441 00:41:18.010 ⇒ 00:41:19.910 Uttam Kumaran: Like, how do you know that’s gonna decline?
442 00:41:22.340 ⇒ 00:41:36.029 Amber Lin: Part of it was his automation work is probably going to wrap up in a few weeks, and then his manual fill work is gonna stay, because he has to fill it in every day, and that probably takes him at least 30 minutes to an hour.
443 00:41:36.670 ⇒ 00:41:39.309 Uttam Kumaran: The automation work is gonna wrap up in a few weeks.
444 00:41:39.690 ⇒ 00:41:46.329 Uttam Kumaran: then we’re… then we’ve lost all of our time to Casey. There’s no time… like, there’s no time here for any other work.
445 00:41:49.820 ⇒ 00:41:53.400 Uttam Kumaran: Right? So, my point is that…
446 00:41:53.700 ⇒ 00:42:08.190 Uttam Kumaran: from the technical side, right, and so this is where I would point to Sam and Awash, you guys need to find a way to get rid of this work. This is a lot of manual, like, really easy DE work. Like, Casey should not be going in, like.
447 00:42:08.730 ⇒ 00:42:22.110 Uttam Kumaran: copying and pasting values from a screen onto another screen for, like, hours a day. So, one is, like, the tech leads on this need to find a way to mitigate that time, because all of that time needs to go to Shreya.
448 00:42:22.280 ⇒ 00:42:28.610 Uttam Kumaran: and Justin, for client comms, and for the execution of analysis.
449 00:42:30.140 ⇒ 00:42:37.060 Uttam Kumaran: this… the work that Casey’s doing, it’s powering that, but I think there’s probably ways for you to get that down to 2 hours a week.
450 00:42:40.610 ⇒ 00:42:52.840 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, for context, like, that scope that Casey has basically taken over, it was taking insomnia 2 hours a day, so they were spending, I guess 10 hours a week, so…
451 00:42:53.520 ⇒ 00:43:00.429 Robert Tseng: If that’s… if we’re spending more than that now on our own by taking it over, that’s kind of questionable to me.
452 00:43:03.550 ⇒ 00:43:08.649 Samuel Roberts: I know some of that was working on the automations that we’re still getting up to, so I don’t think it was just the billing type.
453 00:43:09.700 ⇒ 00:43:10.350 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, but I know it’s.
454 00:43:10.350 ⇒ 00:43:12.060 Robert Tseng: Right, okay, sure.
455 00:43:12.630 ⇒ 00:43:13.620 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, no.
456 00:43:13.620 ⇒ 00:43:14.170 Amber Lin: Yeah.
457 00:43:14.700 ⇒ 00:43:27.540 Amber Lin: Alright, I put in some action items here, probably can put in a meeting to look over the Insomnia stuff. We’re a bit over time, anything else you guys want to cover? Yeah, so I guess, like.
458 00:43:27.540 ⇒ 00:43:38.340 Uttam Kumaran: I guess my ask would be, like, I would still love to go through every client, like we just did. So, can we do another meeting, like, tomorrow or later this week?
459 00:43:38.810 ⇒ 00:43:43.210 Uttam Kumaran: to continue, like, going through everything. Not everyone has to be there, but…
460 00:43:44.170 ⇒ 00:43:45.479 Amber Lin: Sure, who has to be there?
461 00:43:45.480 ⇒ 00:43:53.180 Uttam Kumaran: I think this meeting’s gonna kind of be painful until… we don’t have to book it now, like, but I just want to figure out how we can continue this.
462 00:43:53.520 ⇒ 00:43:54.160 Amber Lin: Okay.
463 00:43:54.760 ⇒ 00:43:58.779 Uttam Kumaran: So, maybe we can discuss async, but I would like to continue to go through every client.
464 00:43:58.970 ⇒ 00:44:02.979 Uttam Kumaran: Even if this meeting has to be 2 hours, like, this is a crucial meeting.
465 00:44:03.110 ⇒ 00:44:13.340 Uttam Kumaran: For… for us to go through and make sure we can achieve these margins. So, yeah, we don’t have to play calendar tag right now, we can just figure it out in Slack, but…
466 00:44:13.470 ⇒ 00:44:28.279 Uttam Kumaran: I just want to go through each of these, and I think there’s other stuff part of this meeting that we also need to do. So, again, like, going through the OKRs, making sure we’re hitting our margin targets for everything, and then more importantly, reviewing the last week.
467 00:44:28.540 ⇒ 00:44:39.949 Uttam Kumaran: I would like to review the month-to-date, and then look at what changes are we going to make. Because when we come talk next week, we’re going to be looking at the decision log, right? So that’s what I want to look at, so… Yeah.
468 00:44:39.950 ⇒ 00:44:49.580 Amber Lin: I think moving forward, this needs to be at least an hour meeting. I think next week, I’ll book it at an hour… hour and a half, and then… we’ll see what…
469 00:44:49.710 ⇒ 00:44:52.070 Amber Lin: If we can reduce it in the future.
470 00:44:52.290 ⇒ 00:44:53.499 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, okay, okay.
471 00:44:54.080 ⇒ 00:45:00.210 Justin Breshears: Can I suggest that we do this follow-up meeting later in the week, and in the meantime, like, everybody
472 00:45:00.450 ⇒ 00:45:15.849 Justin Breshears: like, review your projects and try to come to that meeting with suggestions on how we can increase efficiency or, like, some of this stuff, instead of just getting together and talking about it again. Like, let’s have some actions, like, ready, so maybe do it Thursday or Friday.
473 00:45:16.440 ⇒ 00:45:17.090 Uttam Kumaran: Sure.
474 00:45:19.080 ⇒ 00:45:20.469 Uttam Kumaran: I’m good for Thursday.
475 00:45:22.230 ⇒ 00:45:23.330 Amber Lin: Yeah, okay.
476 00:45:24.700 ⇒ 00:45:30.400 Justin Breshears: I’ll… I’ll talk to Sam and Awesha, I’ll talk with y’all on Insomnia and see… see what we can do to help Casey.
477 00:45:33.460 ⇒ 00:45:34.030 Amber Lin: Yeah.
478 00:45:34.320 ⇒ 00:45:35.180 Amber Lin: Awesome.
479 00:45:36.120 ⇒ 00:45:39.820 Amber Lin: Okay, I’ll try to grab a time on Thursday for us.
480 00:45:42.820 ⇒ 00:45:44.299 Uttam Kumaran: Alright, perfect. Thank you, guys.
481 00:45:44.300 ⇒ 00:45:45.669 Amber Lin: Alright, thanks a lot.
482 00:45:46.300 ⇒ 00:45:46.940 Uttam Kumaran: Bye.
483 00:45:46.940 ⇒ 00:45:47.680 Amber Lin: Bye.