Meeting Title: Q4 OKRs Date: 2025-09-24 Meeting participants: Robert Tseng, Amber Lin, Uttam Kumaran
WEBVTT
1 00:02:50.110 ⇒ 00:02:51.210 Amber Lin: Hi.
2 00:02:54.430 ⇒ 00:02:55.120 Robert Tseng: Hello.
3 00:02:57.760 ⇒ 00:03:07.270 Amber Lin: Let’s see… Well, Utam doesn’t have a conflict, so he should be joining.
4 00:03:07.480 ⇒ 00:03:08.550 Robert Tseng: Yeah, no worries.
5 00:03:08.820 ⇒ 00:03:09.910 Amber Lin: How you doing?
6 00:03:11.060 ⇒ 00:03:14.769 Amber Lin: Today has been really busy.
7 00:03:15.200 ⇒ 00:03:15.660 Robert Tseng: aspect.
8 00:03:15.660 ⇒ 00:03:18.280 Amber Lin: Yesterday, I had some time to do…
9 00:03:18.390 ⇒ 00:03:24.170 Amber Lin: the budget thing, which was really fun, and today it’s just been projects and meetings and projects.
10 00:03:24.870 ⇒ 00:03:25.659 Robert Tseng: Oh, yeah.
11 00:03:28.580 ⇒ 00:03:32.220 Robert Tseng: Is that normally how it is? Mondays and other days are pretty new every cruise.
12 00:03:32.550 ⇒ 00:03:37.470 Amber Lin: Wait, the last part was, like.
13 00:03:37.470 ⇒ 00:03:38.340 Robert Tseng: Oh, sorry.
14 00:03:39.300 ⇒ 00:03:44.320 Robert Tseng: Sorry, I, sometimes I don’t really know where the microphone is when I’m… Oh!
15 00:03:44.560 ⇒ 00:03:45.550 Robert Tseng: Mother’s fine.
16 00:03:45.900 ⇒ 00:03:52.630 Robert Tseng: I was saying, on Mondays or Wednesdays, usually, I’m eating heavy foods?
17 00:03:52.630 ⇒ 00:03:53.160 Amber Lin: Yeah.
18 00:03:53.440 ⇒ 00:03:55.980 Amber Lin: My Tuesdays and Thursdays are good.
19 00:03:56.180 ⇒ 00:03:56.790 Robert Tseng: Nice.
20 00:03:56.990 ⇒ 00:03:57.980 Amber Lin: Yeah.
21 00:03:58.480 ⇒ 00:04:04.559 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I’ll, I’ll be in front of my screen, too, and I’m just, like, walking back from the event. I probably need, like, 5 minutes.
22 00:04:04.980 ⇒ 00:04:05.850 Amber Lin: Okay.
23 00:04:06.890 ⇒ 00:04:07.270 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
24 00:04:07.270 ⇒ 00:04:11.630 Amber Lin: look at… our document.
25 00:04:12.020 ⇒ 00:04:14.430 Amber Lin: I think they can put some notes down.
26 00:04:14.740 ⇒ 00:04:22.760 Robert Tseng: I did do, so I do have some… my… I updated my OPRs, and I mean, I didn’t do everything in my checklist, I did most things
27 00:04:23.730 ⇒ 00:04:24.930 Robert Tseng: Yeah, it was tough.
28 00:04:25.550 ⇒ 00:04:27.649 Robert Tseng: It took a while to get him done.
29 00:04:32.070 ⇒ 00:04:36.069 Amber Lin: Okay, let me just read it, and then once Utam gets here, we’ll start.
30 00:04:36.220 ⇒ 00:04:37.089 Robert Tseng: Farewell, Dave.
31 00:04:37.260 ⇒ 00:04:37.820 Amber Lin: Okay.
32 00:08:31.280 ⇒ 00:08:32.049 Uttam Kumaran: Hey, guys.
33 00:08:35.280 ⇒ 00:08:36.220 Amber Lin: Hi!
34 00:08:36.890 ⇒ 00:08:37.659 Robert Tseng: Hey!
35 00:08:38.850 ⇒ 00:08:39.830 Uttam Kumaran: Right.
36 00:08:43.850 ⇒ 00:08:45.160 Uttam Kumaran: How’s the day going?
37 00:08:47.400 ⇒ 00:08:54.850 Robert Tseng: Good, I’m walking back, so if you guys want to go earpost first, I believe, hey, I’ll be done, I’ll be in front of the following.
38 00:08:55.430 ⇒ 00:08:56.510 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, okay, cool.
39 00:09:02.100 ⇒ 00:09:05.220 Uttam Kumaran: Great. Well, Amber, I guess we could start,
40 00:09:06.580 ⇒ 00:09:10.830 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, we could start… we could talk about the budgets first, or we could talk about…
41 00:09:11.170 ⇒ 00:09:13.929 Uttam Kumaran: Maybe we do that first, actually, I don’t know.
42 00:09:15.210 ⇒ 00:09:19.959 Amber Lin: Let me pull that up…
43 00:09:23.430 ⇒ 00:09:29.989 Amber Lin: Alright, so… Robert also added,
44 00:09:31.130 ⇒ 00:09:35.980 Amber Lin: the sales projections in the OCARE planning doc, if you want to look at that.
45 00:09:37.260 ⇒ 00:09:42.989 Robert Tseng: Yeah, it’s a different view of the projections. I think I’m going purely off of, like, these are the…
46 00:09:43.500 ⇒ 00:09:50.600 Robert Tseng: I mean, I broke it down by all the levers that we would need to pull. I think Utam put in, like, the actual by-client revenue kind of thing.
47 00:09:53.570 ⇒ 00:09:54.410 Amber Lin: Yep.
48 00:09:54.410 ⇒ 00:09:58.339 Robert Tseng: So I can… I can walk through my piece once I… once I get in front of my field.
49 00:09:59.010 ⇒ 00:10:00.089 Amber Lin: Yeah, okay.
50 00:10:00.540 ⇒ 00:10:02.909 Amber Lin: So, further…
51 00:10:18.000 ⇒ 00:10:20.299 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so, Amber, how do you want to do this right now?
52 00:10:23.330 ⇒ 00:10:32.739 Amber Lin: Well, I’m… I know what I wrote here. Let’s go through your topics for a discussion, and then we’ll see what we can add.
53 00:10:32.870 ⇒ 00:10:34.159 Amber Lin: That’s right there.
54 00:10:35.160 ⇒ 00:10:38.060 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, eventually.
55 00:10:38.060 ⇒ 00:10:39.510 Amber Lin: Open marketing.
56 00:10:39.990 ⇒ 00:10:45.289 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I basically said that, you know, beyond delivery, sales and marketing is our largest cost center.
57 00:10:45.910 ⇒ 00:10:48.239 Uttam Kumaran: So, should we start to do…
58 00:10:49.560 ⇒ 00:10:52.310 Uttam Kumaran: Should we… should we think about doing budgets?
59 00:10:52.940 ⇒ 00:10:57.190 Uttam Kumaran: within that, You know, because right now, we have sort of, like.
60 00:10:58.110 ⇒ 00:11:04.469 Uttam Kumaran: we have, I guess, what, like, 5 or 6 people, but, like, we don’t… we don’t break it down any further beyond…
61 00:11:05.020 ⇒ 00:11:07.460 Uttam Kumaran: Just sales and marketing as a total, so…
62 00:11:09.290 ⇒ 00:11:17.480 Amber Lin: Yeah, and that makes sense. Right now, we only break it down by people’s availabilities. So, an overview,
63 00:11:18.050 ⇒ 00:11:25.930 Amber Lin: Right now, marketing’s main activities are mostly supporting say…
64 00:11:26.890 ⇒ 00:11:32.019 Amber Lin: items, the assets that we send out to clients, right? Or… or elsees.
65 00:11:32.350 ⇒ 00:11:36.949 Amber Lin: And then content for LinkedIn, or other stuff. I feel like that’s the main two…
66 00:11:36.950 ⇒ 00:11:38.030 Robert Tseng: and events.
67 00:11:38.220 ⇒ 00:11:44.450 Amber Lin: Oh, okay. Events… content… Assets.
68 00:11:46.720 ⇒ 00:11:48.169 Amber Lin: And then…
69 00:11:54.440 ⇒ 00:12:00.980 Uttam Kumaran: I guess assets, I don’t really… I think assets is just sales. There’s no, like, asset or anything.
70 00:12:01.470 ⇒ 00:12:05.730 Uttam Kumaran: Sales… yeah, so… I really see it as, like, there’s…
71 00:12:06.150 ⇒ 00:12:10.630 Uttam Kumaran: Content marketing, there’s, like, event marketing, Yeah.
72 00:12:12.060 ⇒ 00:12:14.909 Robert Tseng: And then there’s all the outbound campaigns that we do, but yeah.
73 00:12:15.100 ⇒ 00:12:20.040 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, there’s… there’s… yeah, there’s outbound, and then there’s, like, sales asset creation.
74 00:12:22.310 ⇒ 00:12:28.340 Uttam Kumaran: And then there’s, like, basically, like, sales processes, which is just Sina.
75 00:12:29.180 ⇒ 00:12:31.030 Amber Lin: Sales support?
76 00:12:31.850 ⇒ 00:12:32.480 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
77 00:12:35.540 ⇒ 00:12:41.129 Uttam Kumaran: And we’re not… we’re also not tracking here, like, Robert and I’s time, so we’re both doing both.
78 00:12:41.520 ⇒ 00:12:45.990 Uttam Kumaran: We’re basically doing… Like, account executives.
79 00:12:54.460 ⇒ 00:12:55.650 Amber Lin: What else?
80 00:12:58.230 ⇒ 00:13:01.000 Amber Lin: Does any automation work?
81 00:13:01.460 ⇒ 00:13:02.570 Amber Lin: Literally…
82 00:13:02.570 ⇒ 00:13:06.160 Uttam Kumaran: That’s all under… all under the AI team.
83 00:13:06.670 ⇒ 00:13:07.810 Amber Lin: Okay.
84 00:13:07.810 ⇒ 00:13:08.380 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
85 00:13:09.860 ⇒ 00:13:16.940 Amber Lin: So, AI team has… Sales related…
86 00:13:17.520 ⇒ 00:13:22.920 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, they have a sale… it’s not going to be worth listing, but they have to audit… they automate everything, right? So…
87 00:13:23.480 ⇒ 00:13:27.879 Uttam Kumaran: the scope of what AI team is in their AI page, so I don’t think that’s worth it.
88 00:13:28.130 ⇒ 00:13:28.940 Amber Lin: Okay.
89 00:13:29.170 ⇒ 00:13:30.190 Amber Lin: Bowered.
90 00:13:30.790 ⇒ 00:13:39.339 Amber Lin: Within… Say, these current 6 categories, How would we distribute?
91 00:13:40.430 ⇒ 00:13:45.120 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, for me, like, I think the best way is to look at ROI.
92 00:13:45.260 ⇒ 00:13:49.079 Uttam Kumaran: Like, for every dollar that goes in, how many dollars do we expect to come out?
93 00:13:49.620 ⇒ 00:13:53.929 Uttam Kumaran: Sales is an extreme… should be extremely, like, ROI-driven.
94 00:13:54.250 ⇒ 00:14:00.279 Uttam Kumaran: Where it’s like, if we put money towards one of these, we expect X dollars out, you know, within what time frame?
95 00:14:01.590 ⇒ 00:14:02.350 Uttam Kumaran: You know?
96 00:14:09.890 ⇒ 00:14:14.970 Uttam Kumaran: So this is something where there are benchmarks, and so we should… we should start to understand, like.
97 00:14:15.250 ⇒ 00:14:21.159 Uttam Kumaran: for every activity, like, what is the benchmark, and what is our ROI? You know, like…
98 00:14:21.520 ⇒ 00:14:28.300 Uttam Kumaran: there is a… there is, like, you can Google to look at, sort of, like, what is… what should we expect for ROI on events?
99 00:14:28.850 ⇒ 00:14:32.109 Uttam Kumaran: And then we should understand, like, are we hitting that, basically?
100 00:14:50.050 ⇒ 00:14:55.460 Amber Lin: Alright, let me scroll down here…
101 00:15:11.860 ⇒ 00:15:13.580 Amber Lin: What’s next on the list?
102 00:15:14.310 ⇒ 00:15:19.220 Amber Lin: So how do we incentivize the AI team to approach cost and revenue?
103 00:15:19.980 ⇒ 00:15:21.270 Amber Lin: Employee.
104 00:15:22.910 ⇒ 00:15:31.490 Uttam Kumaran: So I talked to Sam today, and I basically said, like, you need to go one step further in finding out how the AI team actually affects
105 00:15:31.970 ⇒ 00:15:36.129 Uttam Kumaran: Like, either margin expansion or revenue expansion, basically.
106 00:15:36.210 ⇒ 00:15:37.180 Amber Lin: So…
107 00:15:37.830 ⇒ 00:15:41.740 Uttam Kumaran: For me, I think the biggest area for them to affect
108 00:15:42.100 ⇒ 00:15:45.900 Uttam Kumaran: is delivery, and I think if we’re able to get
109 00:15:46.330 ⇒ 00:15:59.090 Uttam Kumaran: an extra 5 to 10 points in margin on delivery, like, I think it lands a lot more money into our pocket. Additionally, like, we won’t have… where that’s gonna happen short term is that
110 00:15:59.430 ⇒ 00:16:04.390 Uttam Kumaran: PMs can effectively take on more… clients.
111 00:16:05.440 ⇒ 00:16:12.160 Uttam Kumaran: and hit the minimum threshold of expectation. So right now, I would say we’re not hitting the minimum
112 00:16:12.400 ⇒ 00:16:22.530 Uttam Kumaran: expectation, because there hasn’t been one on, like, what is, like, effective project management. So once that’s set, you know, by Justin and the team.
113 00:16:22.650 ⇒ 00:16:28.140 Uttam Kumaran: The goal I told Sam today is, like, start to think about how… width.
114 00:16:28.420 ⇒ 00:16:32.250 Uttam Kumaran: We can hit that on more clients with the same amount of people, basically.
115 00:16:32.540 ⇒ 00:16:42.249 Uttam Kumaran: So I said, given that he has that minimum expectation from Justin, you could break that into activities, and then you could start to break that down into, like, work and AI effect.
116 00:16:44.660 ⇒ 00:16:53.439 Uttam Kumaran: I think, kind of, like, my opinion here kind of goes all in that, like, I think the AI team should be focused on project management sort of this next quarter.
117 00:16:53.880 ⇒ 00:16:57.459 Uttam Kumaran: just given, like, that I don’t think we have much more bandwidth for them to, like.
118 00:16:57.880 ⇒ 00:17:04.879 Uttam Kumaran: work very broadly, you know, so… either sales or… it’s either sales or delivery, from my side.
119 00:17:07.079 ⇒ 00:17:22.980 Amber Lin: Okay, I just had the PM team meet on all the items the A team has did for project management so far. We’re going through… each of us is going through and giving some feedback, and we’re gonna meet…
120 00:17:22.990 ⇒ 00:17:37.540 Amber Lin: again, on that with the AI team on what we can do. So, I think if we’re certain that that’s gonna be the focus, then we can… can change that. I just don’t know how directly or soon that will impact our,
121 00:17:37.770 ⇒ 00:17:41.499 Amber Lin: COGS, or overhead immediately.
122 00:17:44.190 ⇒ 00:17:48.970 Uttam Kumaran: I guess, like, what would be your suggestion, then, on, like, what they work on? Like, what’s the alternative?
123 00:17:51.490 ⇒ 00:18:00.109 Amber Lin: I remember you mentioned that we’re spending some money on finance. That’s something we can do immediately.
124 00:18:00.520 ⇒ 00:18:07.370 Amber Lin: and then… Let’s see…
125 00:18:10.040 ⇒ 00:18:16.350 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I don’t know, but my message I sent to you was, like, we had to ramp them up to 4K, but…
126 00:18:17.140 ⇒ 00:18:19.340 Uttam Kumaran: like, why… I don’t want to spend…
127 00:18:19.740 ⇒ 00:18:24.190 Uttam Kumaran: 5K on AI to get us another grand.
128 00:18:24.430 ⇒ 00:18:25.509 Amber Lin: That’s fair.
129 00:18:25.510 ⇒ 00:18:27.149 Uttam Kumaran: Oh my god, you know?
130 00:18:29.870 ⇒ 00:18:33.830 Amber Lin: How much should we spend on internal AI teamwork?
131 00:18:33.830 ⇒ 00:18:35.320 Uttam Kumaran: There has to be an ROI.
132 00:18:35.450 ⇒ 00:18:36.260 Uttam Kumaran: Right?
133 00:18:37.100 ⇒ 00:18:43.469 Uttam Kumaran: So, if we can get 10 points in COGS margin, That’s way more than…
134 00:18:44.810 ⇒ 00:18:46.310 Uttam Kumaran: The amount of money we would spend.
135 00:18:48.310 ⇒ 00:18:49.360 Uttam Kumaran: So…
136 00:18:50.260 ⇒ 00:19:00.019 Uttam Kumaran: there… additionally, there is… there has to be budget for this team. So that’s the… that’s what I… I mean, like, this is where, like, I don’t know whether you guys on delivery have a path yet, but…
137 00:19:00.380 ⇒ 00:19:02.799 Uttam Kumaran: I think for the last few weeks, I’ve asked
138 00:19:03.390 ⇒ 00:19:09.089 Uttam Kumaran: at what point will I get an understanding of, like, how much time should go into each of these internal teams?
139 00:19:09.370 ⇒ 00:19:14.330 Uttam Kumaran: like, what is our budget for AI, for sales, for marketing?
140 00:19:14.960 ⇒ 00:19:20.050 Uttam Kumaran: You know, and that’s the amount of time they have available.
141 00:19:20.400 ⇒ 00:19:25.060 Uttam Kumaran: And with that amount of time, they need to work on things that are positive ROI.
142 00:19:26.440 ⇒ 00:19:31.490 Uttam Kumaran: Which, there’s only two options, just like, for me, from my angle, it’s only sales and marketing are the options.
143 00:19:34.290 ⇒ 00:19:39.749 Amber Lin: For the limits on hours, are these not good enough? How would you like to see them?
144 00:19:41.550 ⇒ 00:19:43.129 Uttam Kumaran: Well, I guess, like, I would…
145 00:19:44.810 ⇒ 00:19:50.469 Uttam Kumaran: Well, I would like to know what it is now. Like, what are we spending on them? What are they spending now?
146 00:19:50.470 ⇒ 00:19:51.870 Amber Lin: I see.
147 00:19:57.570 ⇒ 00:20:01.620 Uttam Kumaran: like, I guess just very cleanly, it would be helpful to understand, like.
148 00:20:02.240 ⇒ 00:20:06.589 Uttam Kumaran: For us to hit 40% margin, And hit the…
149 00:20:07.220 ⇒ 00:20:10.039 Uttam Kumaran: Whatever, we… we’re aiming for, like, 5% net.
150 00:20:11.180 ⇒ 00:20:14.689 Uttam Kumaran: Net profit, like, what would they need to be at?
151 00:20:15.930 ⇒ 00:20:16.920 Amber Lin: Let’s see…
152 00:20:25.110 ⇒ 00:20:29.279 Uttam Kumaran: Is that… is that in your… in the… in the existing doc right now?
153 00:20:30.670 ⇒ 00:20:33.300 Amber Lin: You mean their current time spent?
154 00:20:33.300 ⇒ 00:20:33.980 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
155 00:20:34.510 ⇒ 00:20:38.140 Amber Lin: I have… I have it for last week.
156 00:20:39.390 ⇒ 00:20:41.209 Amber Lin: So, last week…
157 00:20:41.570 ⇒ 00:20:49.559 Uttam Kumaran: But I guess, like, I don’t care much about last week, I just, like, how much… how much money have we been spending on AI, like, the last, like, 2 months, roughly, you know?
158 00:20:49.560 ⇒ 00:20:52.579 Amber Lin: I don’t have that for you yet. Go get that.
159 00:20:52.920 ⇒ 00:20:57.030 Uttam Kumaran: So, I guess, like, I want to know how much we should budget for that, basically.
160 00:20:57.590 ⇒ 00:21:00.930 Uttam Kumaran: So, the first decision is, like, how much they get.
161 00:21:01.180 ⇒ 00:21:06.390 Uttam Kumaran: The second decision is what they do with it. I don’t want to, like… commingle those.
162 00:21:06.570 ⇒ 00:21:09.920 Uttam Kumaran: Right, so there’s an assumption here that we will give them budget.
163 00:21:10.880 ⇒ 00:21:16.680 Uttam Kumaran: So that… I… we… I need an understanding of, like, how much that That is…
164 00:21:17.120 ⇒ 00:21:19.919 Uttam Kumaran: And then, that team, Sam.
165 00:21:20.440 ⇒ 00:21:31.619 Uttam Kumaran: needs to provide us with what are they going to work on, and how will… how will the $1 spent by us turn into X dollar out, you know? And either…
166 00:21:32.380 ⇒ 00:21:36.220 Uttam Kumaran: Basically, ideally, future savings or future revenue.
167 00:21:45.620 ⇒ 00:21:51.580 Uttam Kumaran: So everything… everything we spend money on internally has an ROI. Some things are just less than others, like…
168 00:21:53.030 ⇒ 00:21:59.800 Uttam Kumaran: Sales, for example, has the highest ROI, because you were literally getting money in the door for the work video on sales.
169 00:22:01.310 ⇒ 00:22:02.230 Amber Lin: Right.
170 00:22:03.610 ⇒ 00:22:05.160 Uttam Kumaran: for delivery.
171 00:22:05.420 ⇒ 00:22:11.309 Uttam Kumaran: the return on investment is… is just the margin we make. Like, we do one-hour delivery, we get…
172 00:22:11.740 ⇒ 00:22:13.650 Uttam Kumaran: The one hour back in revenue.
173 00:22:14.270 ⇒ 00:22:18.580 Uttam Kumaran: Right? So, it’s not… it’s not gonna… it’s gonna be…
174 00:22:19.270 ⇒ 00:22:26.929 Uttam Kumaran: 40% is gonna be, like, our margin there, right? So, sales ROI should be the highest out of everything.
175 00:22:29.990 ⇒ 00:22:36.699 Uttam Kumaran: So what you see if you research is sales ROI, that people should… we should be putting a dollar in and getting, like, 5 to 10 out.
176 00:22:37.050 ⇒ 00:22:42.549 Uttam Kumaran: in AI, it will be… again, like, I think it’ll start smaller.
177 00:22:42.740 ⇒ 00:22:48.309 Uttam Kumaran: But what we should be seeing is that there’s only so… the sales ROI can’t get any higher.
178 00:22:48.710 ⇒ 00:22:49.610 Uttam Kumaran: So…
179 00:22:49.750 ⇒ 00:22:55.090 Uttam Kumaran: the way that sales ROI can get higher, and the PM ROI can get higher, is that they use AI.
180 00:22:55.230 ⇒ 00:23:00.110 Uttam Kumaran: So if your PM ROI is 40%, right, because that’s our margin.
181 00:23:00.350 ⇒ 00:23:02.909 Uttam Kumaran: I’m asking, how can it get to 50%?
182 00:23:03.550 ⇒ 00:23:05.730 Uttam Kumaran: And what… how can AI make that happen?
183 00:23:08.500 ⇒ 00:23:16.250 Uttam Kumaran: You could ask the same question on sales, right? Like, how can we expand that, too? Like, that’s what I want to… that’s what I want them to figure out.
184 00:23:40.710 ⇒ 00:23:43.909 Amber Lin: Okay, and the next one is…
185 00:23:44.020 ⇒ 00:23:47.550 Amber Lin: How to get to 50% COGS margin.
186 00:23:50.470 ⇒ 00:23:59.760 Amber Lin: From… right now, let’s see, I think… July and August were…
187 00:24:06.640 ⇒ 00:24:07.410 Amber Lin: Hmm.
188 00:24:08.110 ⇒ 00:24:13.660 Amber Lin: Yeah, I mean, I don’t think this has the data, like, very clearly. Like, I don’t think the stock has, but this is what…
189 00:24:13.660 ⇒ 00:24:21.190 Uttam Kumaran: And again, we don’t, like… I guess this is my question, is, like, my… I want to know… I’m gonna keep asking, like, are we at 40… what are we at?
190 00:24:21.320 ⇒ 00:24:25.730 Uttam Kumaran: Basically, right now, you know? Like, what is our weekly margin?
191 00:24:25.870 ⇒ 00:24:33.210 Uttam Kumaran: I still think, and I give this feedback to Justin, on a Monday meeting, in that delivery meeting, it’s still not clear, like.
192 00:24:33.530 ⇒ 00:24:47.489 Uttam Kumaran: we’re still… we’re… I think, you know, I gave him some feedback on, like, what that meeting needs to change a bit, but that’s not a meeting where we should be going one by one through every plan. I’m not interested in that. I want to know, did we hit 40% margin, yes or no?
193 00:24:47.830 ⇒ 00:24:56.160 Uttam Kumaran: If yes, like, how do we do it? If no, what caused it… what caused us to miss, and then how do we make sure we don’t miss in the upcoming week?
194 00:24:56.290 ⇒ 00:25:00.950 Uttam Kumaran: That’s it. I still think we’ve done 3 weeks of those meetings, it’s still not clear, like, what the margin is.
195 00:25:02.290 ⇒ 00:25:05.149 Uttam Kumaran: So, this is something that the delivery team has to own.
196 00:25:06.390 ⇒ 00:25:10.170 Uttam Kumaran: So the ways to own is, like, you have to make sure all the hours are coming in.
197 00:25:11.020 ⇒ 00:25:14.980 Uttam Kumaran: They’re understanding how much revenue was billed In that week.
198 00:25:15.200 ⇒ 00:25:16.829 Uttam Kumaran: And there you go, you know.
199 00:25:25.070 ⇒ 00:25:28.749 Amber Lin: We do have it for last week, we don’t have it for the weeks before.
200 00:25:28.970 ⇒ 00:25:30.210 Amber Lin: Mmm.
201 00:25:30.210 ⇒ 00:25:31.860 Uttam Kumaran: So, what was it last week?
202 00:25:31.860 ⇒ 00:25:36.209 Amber Lin: Lastly, we have 40… more than 40%, except for Eden.
203 00:25:36.730 ⇒ 00:25:40.480 Uttam Kumaran: But then it’s… but I think I want to look at the average across the board.
204 00:25:40.480 ⇒ 00:25:42.139 Amber Lin: The average is 61.
205 00:25:44.240 ⇒ 00:25:46.130 Uttam Kumaran: So this doesn’t include…
206 00:25:47.990 ⇒ 00:25:49.700 Uttam Kumaran: This doesn’t include pool parts.
207 00:25:51.460 ⇒ 00:25:53.769 Uttam Kumaran: It looks like we’re missing clients here.
208 00:25:53.770 ⇒ 00:25:58.140 Amber Lin: No, but… On pool parts, are there any costs?
209 00:25:59.140 ⇒ 00:26:01.479 Amber Lin: Have we done any work last week?
210 00:26:01.770 ⇒ 00:26:05.480 Uttam Kumaran: No, but we have minimum… we have a minimum retainer, so it’s 100% revenue.
211 00:26:05.480 ⇒ 00:26:07.209 Amber Lin: Okay, I see.
212 00:26:10.060 ⇒ 00:26:14.130 Uttam Kumaran: So… Yeah.
213 00:26:26.200 ⇒ 00:26:35.280 Uttam Kumaran: So, I think this is something that, on Monday, or whenever, I just want to understand, like, where we are historically on margins on a weekly and a monthly basis.
214 00:26:35.590 ⇒ 00:26:39.190 Uttam Kumaran: And then my next question is, how do we raise that, you know?
215 00:26:39.470 ⇒ 00:26:44.999 Uttam Kumaran: So… Like, I think that’s… that’s gonna be my feedback, is like…
216 00:26:46.780 ⇒ 00:27:04.069 Uttam Kumaran: we’re only gonna have a couple levers in this company. Like, I want us to avoid thinking about optimizing things that may seem, like, easy to optimize. Like, the mind will take you to optimize things like finance, legal operations, but there’s no revenue there, and there’s already so little cost.
217 00:27:04.070 ⇒ 00:27:09.230 Uttam Kumaran: I’m not spending anything there. So, like, moving something from 2 grand to one grand is not worth it.
218 00:27:09.450 ⇒ 00:27:13.169 Uttam Kumaran: If they were really high, I would consider it, but…
219 00:27:13.290 ⇒ 00:27:20.249 Uttam Kumaran: moving our… like, if you go back to that… that table you had, Amber, if we move margin up.
220 00:27:20.380 ⇒ 00:27:22.450 Uttam Kumaran: an extra 10%.
221 00:27:22.680 ⇒ 00:27:24.730 Uttam Kumaran: That is an extra 2 grand.
222 00:27:26.380 ⇒ 00:27:27.330 Uttam Kumaran: per week.
223 00:27:29.620 ⇒ 00:27:30.750 Uttam Kumaran: See what I mean?
224 00:27:31.860 ⇒ 00:27:35.570 Uttam Kumaran: Like, it’s… that’s an extra 10% of that 19 floor.
225 00:27:35.880 ⇒ 00:27:38.800 Uttam Kumaran: So it’s an extra 1.94 per week.
226 00:27:40.480 ⇒ 00:27:42.159 Uttam Kumaran: That’s an extra 8 a month.
227 00:27:43.460 ⇒ 00:27:45.249 Uttam Kumaran: Just hand it to us.
228 00:27:45.710 ⇒ 00:27:47.740 Uttam Kumaran: So that’s, like…
229 00:27:47.940 ⇒ 00:28:00.019 Uttam Kumaran: 8 a month handed to us is great. So what I’m suggesting is, like, is there a way for us to use AI to do one or two things? To lower our sales expense?
230 00:28:00.410 ⇒ 00:28:01.660 Uttam Kumaran: Right? So, like…
231 00:28:02.310 ⇒ 00:28:08.329 Uttam Kumaran: right now, I think if you go back to my points, I don’t think there’s clear sales expense to cut.
232 00:28:09.970 ⇒ 00:28:13.830 Uttam Kumaran: So if you go… if you go back to, like, one of my points there was…
233 00:28:13.930 ⇒ 00:28:22.640 Uttam Kumaran: I think I said… On, somewhere I wrote, like.
234 00:28:22.880 ⇒ 00:28:25.340 Uttam Kumaran: It’s not clear that… yeah, yeah, yeah.
235 00:28:25.490 ⇒ 00:28:31.500 Uttam Kumaran: it’s not clear that there’s any… based on 4, I said there’s not clear there’s any opportunities to optimize on the sales side.
236 00:28:31.750 ⇒ 00:28:35.629 Uttam Kumaran: like, this is where, Robert, I don’t know what you think, like, is… do you think there’s, like.
237 00:28:36.010 ⇒ 00:28:44.279 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know what we’re… we’re… we run pretty lean, and everything we’ve done has been really helpful. Like, I don’t think there’s any waste
238 00:28:46.130 ⇒ 00:28:50.880 Uttam Kumaran: what are they saying in the administration? Waste, fraud, and abuse? I don’t think there’s any right now.
239 00:28:52.980 ⇒ 00:28:59.130 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, if anything, I think sales expenses need to go higher at some point, but yeah, I…
240 00:28:59.680 ⇒ 00:29:01.120 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I…
241 00:29:03.080 ⇒ 00:29:10.619 Robert Tseng: things like being able to draft messages better, I think that’s… that to me is the biggest cost center. I think,
242 00:29:11.140 ⇒ 00:29:14.000 Robert Tseng: There’s just… it takes me and…
243 00:29:14.680 ⇒ 00:29:23.410 Robert Tseng: I mean, I’ll just say it takes me too long to draft follow-up messages and sequences and stuff, and then the team’s, like, not getting it right, and it just, to me, it’s just kind of…
244 00:29:23.870 ⇒ 00:29:27.469 Robert Tseng: Well, anyway, like, that… that would… that would be the only AI
245 00:29:27.600 ⇒ 00:29:30.680 Robert Tseng: project that I think would be relevant on the sales side right now.
246 00:29:32.470 ⇒ 00:29:50.840 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. But again, that’s… that’s AI, like, even, let’s say, without AI, I don’t know what I can, like, cut there. I think the biggest thing I want to see is that we have some caps and budgets, and then basically some type of process by which… because that team is working on things that are not high priority.
247 00:29:50.960 ⇒ 00:29:58.410 Uttam Kumaran: Like, sometimes I’ll be like, hey, it would be fun to do this, and then people do the thing. That’s not… that’s not how it should go.
248 00:29:58.880 ⇒ 00:29:59.540 Robert Tseng: Yeah, yeah.
249 00:29:59.540 ⇒ 00:30:09.359 Uttam Kumaran: Similarly on AI team, today, I was like, this thing isn’t working, they’re like, we’ll fix it now. I messaged Rico, like, yo, you have to get in the middle of this. Like, you can’t…
250 00:30:09.510 ⇒ 00:30:22.590 Uttam Kumaran: you have to qualify and plan, and you have to defend the budget, right? And so, this is where, I think, Amber, on Mondays, or whenever we want to do it, this is where we’re going to start looking at
251 00:30:23.010 ⇒ 00:30:29.359 Uttam Kumaran: Basically, like, how much did we spend on these groups, and… Was… was it positive ROI?
252 00:30:30.260 ⇒ 00:30:45.819 Uttam Kumaran: The real, like, bigger cut we could do is basically, like, look, we’re only gonna invest in things that have the highest ROI, and, like, cut a lot of stuff, but we would be cutting things that would be pretty painful. Like, we would have to cut content, we’d have to cut this SME stuff.
253 00:30:45.960 ⇒ 00:30:53.929 Uttam Kumaran: like, it’s really hard, I don’t know, I don’t feel comfortable enough doing that, because I think those are all essential, and they’re helping us stand out.
254 00:30:54.090 ⇒ 00:30:59.489 Uttam Kumaran: So, the objective here is, I think, is to…
255 00:30:59.620 ⇒ 00:31:03.869 Uttam Kumaran: We’re seeing the ROI in sales, so I think there’s two things. One is.
256 00:31:03.980 ⇒ 00:31:07.339 Uttam Kumaran: We just have to be careful not to add more expense.
257 00:31:07.510 ⇒ 00:31:16.159 Uttam Kumaran: So, like, Justina ramping up, is probably, like, the only expense that I would hope we start to see.
258 00:31:16.350 ⇒ 00:31:24.880 Uttam Kumaran: You know, for a little bit. Like, I really want to be careful. The second piece is we have to find a way to maintain
259 00:31:25.700 ⇒ 00:31:32.119 Uttam Kumaran: 40-50% margin on delivery. Like, that cannot dip. Otherwise, there’s just no slack.
260 00:31:36.780 ⇒ 00:31:37.370 Amber Lin: Yep.
261 00:31:37.780 ⇒ 00:31:38.390 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
262 00:31:39.730 ⇒ 00:31:45.800 Uttam Kumaran: Like, yeah, I mean, and again, we’re… I don’t think we’re appropriately staffed on the PM side either, but…
263 00:31:46.060 ⇒ 00:31:51.619 Uttam Kumaran: We’ve… we’ve done without it, and it’s working, and so, like… I think with…
264 00:31:52.220 ⇒ 00:31:54.649 Uttam Kumaran: I think the biggest thing for us is the…
265 00:31:55.040 ⇒ 00:32:08.070 Uttam Kumaran: see how we land Justin, and then we have to make sure that, like, we can deliver very effectively. We’ve also lost, and this is kind of a point I made to Robert, is we’ve lost money on churn. Like, we’ve had clients churn
266 00:32:08.070 ⇒ 00:32:19.569 Uttam Kumaran: because we messed up delivery. And so, my point in bringing on someone at his seniority is that we could have prevented that churn as well.
267 00:32:19.660 ⇒ 00:32:24.770 Uttam Kumaran: So… and what happens when we lose a customer? We have to go acquire a brand new one.
268 00:32:24.920 ⇒ 00:32:27.350 Uttam Kumaran: You know, and, and, and…
269 00:32:27.510 ⇒ 00:32:30.089 Uttam Kumaran: That’s… that’s the biggest thing we want to prevent.
270 00:32:30.610 ⇒ 00:32:37.469 Uttam Kumaran: Like, sales is doing me a good… like, both of us are doing a good job in getting us more expensive, like, getting more expensive clients.
271 00:32:37.690 ⇒ 00:32:41.830 Uttam Kumaran: But delivery has to own making sure that the job gets done.
272 00:32:43.970 ⇒ 00:32:53.929 Uttam Kumaran: And so, like, I don’t know, I still feel like maybe… and delivery is the biggest group, right? So you have U3, and then also, I’m just gonna lump Sam and,
273 00:32:54.300 ⇒ 00:32:57.420 Uttam Kumaran: I’m gonna lump Sam and Awash into there.
274 00:32:57.640 ⇒ 00:33:03.270 Uttam Kumaran: So it’s the largest crew, probably the most equipped crew.
275 00:33:03.390 ⇒ 00:33:10.470 Uttam Kumaran: So, I think if you can use AI to find more margin, like… That, that’s gonna be it.
276 00:33:15.440 ⇒ 00:33:16.100 Amber Lin: Yep.
277 00:33:16.100 ⇒ 00:33:20.790 Robert Tseng: One thing I want to say, and then I think we should move on, because I don’t want to spend all the time on this, but,
278 00:33:21.670 ⇒ 00:33:36.209 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I think my hesitation with, like, this… I mean, it’s… we need to do these, like, weekly delivery check-ins, but, like, if we only think that the only levers are to reduce hours, or, like.
279 00:33:37.110 ⇒ 00:33:46.680 Robert Tseng: I don’t know, like, what else we’ve… but I don’t think I’ve… my point is, I don’t… I haven’t heard anything from the delivery side, that’s, like.
280 00:33:46.860 ⇒ 00:33:48.030 Robert Tseng: either…
281 00:33:48.250 ⇒ 00:33:59.110 Robert Tseng: brought in more revenue. Like, I don’t think the delivery team has been involved in upsells. Yeah, I think upsells are purely driven from me and Utam. And, I think, like.
282 00:33:59.720 ⇒ 00:34:06.159 Robert Tseng: So, like, the only lever you have… the delivery team has to drive margin is to reduce hours, which I just, like.
283 00:34:06.310 ⇒ 00:34:10.730 Robert Tseng: I don’t think that that’s the best way to approach, this…
284 00:34:10.739 ⇒ 00:34:11.399 Uttam Kumaran: Definitely.
285 00:34:11.400 ⇒ 00:34:26.529 Robert Tseng: this problem. Like, we’re just gonna end up underperforming at some point, and I can already see some things kind of dropping off in terms of quality, but I’m just… it’s not urgent enough for me to really, like, be harping on it on a weekly basis.
286 00:34:27.620 ⇒ 00:34:40.109 Uttam Kumaran: No, I mean, I agree, like, I don’t think… I mean, and again, like, I just think, like, now, with Justin, Amber, like, you guys really have to brainstorm what levers. Making sure people are working less hours is, like.
287 00:34:40.420 ⇒ 00:34:58.079 Uttam Kumaran: maybe there’s somewhat of a… of something you can do there, but you’re gonna eat it on the quality. Like, people are just gonna stop working, and so you can’t… there’s no… there’s a floor there. So what you’re gonna… one, as I mentioned, we are losing a lot of speed and quality in the fact that… in our communication.
288 00:34:58.140 ⇒ 00:35:12.589 Uttam Kumaran: like, we are not communicating effectively, and that is purely PM delivery, right? I second, our teams are working on things that aren’t a priority, or they finish things and they’re not getting out. That is also a complete delivery thing.
289 00:35:12.620 ⇒ 00:35:27.729 Uttam Kumaran: So, both of those are non, like, hour reduction ways for us to keep clients happy. So this is where, like, I mean, I’m gonna meet… I’m gonna speak with Justin later today, he’s coming to Austin, and I’m gonna mention that, like, we have to find more levers.
290 00:35:27.840 ⇒ 00:35:29.490 Uttam Kumaran: like.
291 00:35:29.740 ⇒ 00:35:44.379 Uttam Kumaran: and again, like, again, it’s also… we’re gonna start to… you’re starting to feel what most consultancies will do in our position, which is the easiest thing, which is reduce your hours. But that’s the last resort, you know?
292 00:35:45.310 ⇒ 00:35:50.060 Uttam Kumaran: We should really try to prioritize, hey, maybe we’re doing the right work.
293 00:35:50.230 ⇒ 00:35:57.480 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t think we’re communicating it effectively, and I don’t think we’re building the backlog to get trust, like, we’re kind of fighting fires.
294 00:35:57.570 ⇒ 00:36:10.980 Uttam Kumaran: So those are things that I want to expect. And then, certainly, I think on that meeting, yeah, we need to just completely… we just need to think about, like, I think, Amber, you and Justin need to think about what that… what that meeting was going to look like effectively on Monday for us to make some decisions.
295 00:36:10.980 ⇒ 00:36:14.680 Amber Lin: Yeah, we’re meeting on Friday about that.
296 00:36:15.130 ⇒ 00:36:15.840 Uttam Kumaran: Cool.
297 00:36:17.420 ⇒ 00:36:30.070 Amber Lin: Yeah, let’s start… I know we have two other points, all no different next discussion, but let’s go through the… let’s go through this one, and then if we have more time, we’ll talk about that.
298 00:36:31.090 ⇒ 00:36:34.269 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I can, I can kind of just share my screen, I’ll take over from this one.
299 00:36:36.620 ⇒ 00:36:41.070 Robert Tseng: This’ll be, like, probably 10 minutes. So…
300 00:36:41.470 ⇒ 00:36:49.910 Robert Tseng: I… let’s see… okay, great. Yeah, so, I mean, this is pretty, kind of… I did this pretty late last night, but…
301 00:36:50.270 ⇒ 00:36:55.839 Robert Tseng: I’ve just kind of basically went here and did this model where, I mean, this is…
302 00:36:56.320 ⇒ 00:37:15.980 Robert Tseng: I updated it, maybe you’ve seen a version of this last time, maybe last quarter. I kind of simplified it, a bit, so maybe you… there are a couple variables that may have changed. But the idea is, okay, knowing that we did about 86 for end of quarter, like, how did we actually get there? And so, I kind of just, like.
303 00:37:17.110 ⇒ 00:37:19.760 Robert Tseng: Tried to dial in on, like, what was…
304 00:37:20.610 ⇒ 00:37:25.340 Robert Tseng: I’ve, you know, roughly, like, what I think happened to… to get there.
305 00:37:25.700 ⇒ 00:37:28.450 Uttam Kumaran: We started Q3 at, like, $60K.
306 00:37:28.560 ⇒ 00:37:41.089 Robert Tseng: Our monthly churn was 15%. I kind of looked at… and this was, like, kind of looking at our RGM, kind of seeing clients that we’ve lost, and, like, the revenue that lost or resolved that, like, kind of what that was. And then…
307 00:37:41.280 ⇒ 00:37:52.420 Robert Tseng: yeah, I kinda… our pipeline target, a new pipeline target, I think what I messed up on in Q3 was I just said 200,000 active pipeline, but I think,
308 00:37:52.490 ⇒ 00:38:05.290 Robert Tseng: we didn’t… that was misinformed because it didn’t really account that… for leads that were just sitting in the pipeline for a while, and we weren’t really marking them as inactive or whatever. So I feel like a better,
309 00:38:05.620 ⇒ 00:38:08.800 Robert Tseng: Metric to follow is new pipeline added per week.
310 00:38:09.010 ⇒ 00:38:24.189 Robert Tseng: And so when I kind of took that, and I re… we kind of went back into HubSpot and looked at it, I think we were maybe adding about, like, 30K a week, which is, to me, 6 clients, right? It’s not… not a lot of volume, but kind of spread over the month. Maybe we’re adding 6 leads a week.
311 00:38:24.420 ⇒ 00:38:30.010 Robert Tseng: From there, I kind of assumed a 10% close rate, and then, you know, that ended up…
312 00:38:30.140 ⇒ 00:38:37.430 Robert Tseng: I mean, I don’t know if this 10% was actually the right number, but it… once I put that in, it got us to that… to that 86, so I’m assuming…
313 00:38:37.430 ⇒ 00:38:44.350 Uttam Kumaran: I can ask you one thing, maybe get your feedback? Like, I feel like we may be underestimating our average deal value, because…
314 00:38:45.500 ⇒ 00:38:52.329 Uttam Kumaran: like, some of these are, like, we do a month, and then we do… we’re renewing for, like, 2 months, right? So… Yeah.
315 00:38:52.500 ⇒ 00:38:58.809 Uttam Kumaran: So the renewal… Yeah. Yeah, the new project, I kind of estimated we were at maybe 4K. Okay.
316 00:38:58.810 ⇒ 00:39:06.900 Robert Tseng: I see, I see, I see, okay. And then 20% of them turn into retainer clients, in which case they get bumped up to 10K.
317 00:39:06.940 ⇒ 00:39:20.620 Robert Tseng: So that’s kind of where this new project MRR, which is just, like, straight-up new projects starting at 4K kind of thing. And then there’s new retainer MRR, which is, just, like, from…
318 00:39:20.930 ⇒ 00:39:23.110 Robert Tseng: Is that right? Yep.
319 00:39:23.430 ⇒ 00:39:29.510 Robert Tseng: And… Like, if we just, like, went back and… I’ll do these.
320 00:39:31.150 ⇒ 00:39:43.020 Robert Tseng: Yeah, if we close 3 clients… 3.2 clients at 4K, you know, that’s… that’s 12K in your project revenue. Retainer gets bumped up, like, yeah, they renew and they extend, for another whatever.
321 00:39:43.020 ⇒ 00:39:51.919 Robert Tseng: So I think, maybe this… maybe these numbers are actually a bit flipped. I actually think our new project per month is a bit lower. Maybe our retainer size was a bit higher.
322 00:39:51.920 ⇒ 00:40:05.449 Robert Tseng: So, I mean, we could kind of just… we could say that this was actually closer to 15, and that maybe this was a bit… it was a bit different, but I think that, you know, I don’t think it’s a… the directionally, it still looks something like this.
323 00:40:06.250 ⇒ 00:40:09.220 Robert Tseng: So, kind of keeping that in mind.
324 00:40:09.560 ⇒ 00:40:24.909 Robert Tseng: I’m assuming… okay, look, if we didn’t change anything about our velocity at all, and we just repeated what we did this quarter, we could get to 100, 100 by end of quarter. Obviously that’s not what we want. We added additional costs, we hired a bunch of people.
325 00:40:25.000 ⇒ 00:40:39.200 Robert Tseng: And then at worst, I would say, I think, if our… if our close rate drops by 50%, so we start close less, pipeline does not increase, and then churn increases, by 5%,
326 00:40:39.320 ⇒ 00:40:45.999 Robert Tseng: then, you know, our business strengths. So, you can see that, like, the biggest drivers of our, of our,
327 00:40:46.320 ⇒ 00:40:50.400 Robert Tseng: That are… of us…
328 00:40:50.850 ⇒ 00:41:07.349 Robert Tseng: of our revenue, churn… churn has a huge impact. So I think that’s something, kind of going back to what we were saying on delivery, delivery has an impact on churn. I think if delivery is run well, our 15% churn can drop to 10% churn, or whatever, you know, or at least it’ll stay stable at 15%.
329 00:41:07.530 ⇒ 00:41:16.910 Robert Tseng: And then, like, I think, obviously, the close rate is more on me and Utah. I don’t personally think we would actually drop to 5%, but it’s possible. I think Q4,
330 00:41:16.910 ⇒ 00:41:28.689 Robert Tseng: It’s typically been a slower month for… a slower quarter, at least in the couple years that I’ve been doing this. So, I do expect things to be a bit slower in Q4, so…
331 00:41:28.800 ⇒ 00:41:30.720 Robert Tseng: That’s… that’s kind of…
332 00:41:30.720 ⇒ 00:41:34.760 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I would say, like, until… we have until, like, November…
333 00:41:34.970 ⇒ 00:41:37.800 Uttam Kumaran: mid, to, like, get everything in the door.
334 00:41:38.150 ⇒ 00:41:38.630 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
335 00:41:38.630 ⇒ 00:41:39.480 Uttam Kumaran: like, if…
336 00:41:39.770 ⇒ 00:41:45.709 Robert Tseng: I don’t think deals are gonna be signed in December, which is fine, but, like, we just basically have to… October, November are our big push.
337 00:41:46.780 ⇒ 00:41:56.099 Robert Tseng: So, if we can hold on and the churn doesn’t grow down, doesn’t go… it doesn’t go up, and our close rates kind of stay constant for the next 2 months, I think we can… we can do it.
338 00:41:56.810 ⇒ 00:42:03.510 Uttam Kumaran: What is our new pipe… what is our new, like, logos in for the leads? Like, what is the number right now?
339 00:42:04.410 ⇒ 00:42:09.219 Robert Tseng: Well, I assumed it was 3, 3 a month.
340 00:42:09.420 ⇒ 00:42:13.430 Uttam Kumaran: I guess not for… but for, for, like, sales leads in the door.
341 00:42:14.150 ⇒ 00:42:19.359 Robert Tseng: Oh, yeah, I mean, I didn’t really… I guess you could… this is basically sick.
342 00:42:19.360 ⇒ 00:42:20.680 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, dude, yes.
343 00:42:20.680 ⇒ 00:42:21.270 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
344 00:42:22.590 ⇒ 00:42:27.739 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so we were, like, I was assuming we were doing 6-6 a week. But actually.
345 00:42:27.850 ⇒ 00:42:32.579 Robert Tseng: you know, so I’m gonna keep going through these scenarios. So growth is kind of, like, where I think
346 00:42:32.900 ⇒ 00:42:50.309 Robert Tseng: realistically, we could… we could do with our current personnel. I think our active pipeline should increase. With Justina in there, we’re… our active pipeline should go from 6 leads a week to 10 leads a week. I think that, to me, is… if we just do that.
347 00:42:50.640 ⇒ 00:42:57.849 Robert Tseng: just… and nothing else changes, that would make us go… that would make us go faster, you know? That’s another two projects a month, and so…
348 00:42:57.870 ⇒ 00:43:15.919 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I think that’s why kind of really ramping her up and, like, making sure that… I think this is what I’m trying to rally the marketing team around, or the go-to-market team, just making sure that we are adding 10 logos to our… to our pipeline a week. I think that will… that will give us more velocity just from that.
349 00:43:16.300 ⇒ 00:43:17.829 Robert Tseng: But more holistically.
350 00:43:17.830 ⇒ 00:43:19.810 Uttam Kumaran: Mine… excuse me? Mine 4.
351 00:43:20.340 ⇒ 00:43:21.190 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
352 00:43:21.190 ⇒ 00:43:22.939 Robert Tseng: Find an additional 4. Yeah.
353 00:43:23.400 ⇒ 00:43:25.429 Robert Tseng: And that’s coming in from all angles, yeah.
354 00:43:25.660 ⇒ 00:43:27.540 Robert Tseng: It’s definitely possible, yeah.
355 00:43:29.950 ⇒ 00:43:47.989 Robert Tseng: But yeah, we can’t be relying on these events to, like, go and just, like… I mean, yeah, maybe ShopTalk, we added, like, 10 from that. Today, I went to the event, we got another 3, then maybe tomorrow you’ll get some, but, like, that’s… that’s just kind of artificially relying on me and Utang to go and spend, like, half a day at these things, so…
356 00:43:47.990 ⇒ 00:44:00.329 Robert Tseng: Like, you know, that’s… I mean, we will do our… we’ll do what we need to do in order to hit that, but, yeah, I think just… just by increasing pipeline, we… we should… we… we could… we could hit, like, 130 by the end of the year.
357 00:44:02.190 ⇒ 00:44:20.119 Robert Tseng: And then Bull is kind of like, well, yeah, let’s just say we… we’re obviously going to do more than one thing. It’s kind of… we’re not just going to increase pipeline, but let’s say we double pipeline. Pricing kind of goes… continues to go up, so average project size increases by 20%, retainer increases by 20%.
358 00:44:21.410 ⇒ 00:44:30.690 Robert Tseng: then, yeah, we’re… and we’re double… we literally doubled our business in a quarter, just by doing… just by doing that. Just by doubling our pipeline. Yep.
359 00:44:30.690 ⇒ 00:44:35.570 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, sorry, I just, like, think this… these are… this is great. Like, I’m even thinking about, like.
360 00:44:36.120 ⇒ 00:44:38.010 Uttam Kumaran: What this…
361 00:44:38.840 ⇒ 00:44:45.800 Uttam Kumaran: what do you… what is the assuming… what is the assumption here on, like, renewal? Do we assume that there is an increase at renewal?
362 00:44:47.040 ⇒ 00:44:51.740 Robert Tseng: I guess it’s baked into…
363 00:44:53.580 ⇒ 00:45:05.199 Robert Tseng: Well, yeah, so you’re assuming, like, 20% of new projects renew, and then they’re basically tripling the size, pretty much, but then there isn’t, like, a second renewal after that. Because then you… yeah, so no, there isn’t, like… yeah, well, anyway.
364 00:45:05.200 ⇒ 00:45:21.540 Uttam Kumaran: I guess, like, what I’m saying is that, like, we’re starting to pitch, like, one is all of our… we’re moving up in rates. Second, we have some, like, whales, and I think the more of them are coming, like, we have a HelloFresh, we have, like, a CPS, and, like.
365 00:45:21.990 ⇒ 00:45:26.969 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know, I think another lever is just a pull to also move our…
366 00:45:27.780 ⇒ 00:45:33.929 Uttam Kumaran: our contract values, right? But I get what you mean, like, there’s a couple of ways of doing that, but,
367 00:45:34.260 ⇒ 00:45:36.340 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, that’s also… that’s like… that’s like…
368 00:45:36.640 ⇒ 00:45:40.660 Uttam Kumaran: we’re already trying to push that, so I guess there’s no, like… Action there.
369 00:45:41.930 ⇒ 00:45:50.179 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, to me, that’s… that’s less, like, systematic. I mean, we will take shots on it, but, like, yeah, I think.
370 00:45:50.180 ⇒ 00:45:55.110 Uttam Kumaran: I think that kind of gets factored into the retainer size, too, because this isn’t just meaning that.
371 00:45:55.140 ⇒ 00:46:11.259 Robert Tseng: everybody’s gonna be signed at a higher rate. This is including expecting some people to still renew at 10, like we did with Insomnia, because maybe 5 to 10 makes sense, but then there’s gonna be people that are gonna be pulling that number up, because they’re gonna hit 30, 40K a month as well. So, like, that’s…
372 00:46:11.290 ⇒ 00:46:24.790 Robert Tseng: No, we’re just assuming that overall, we… collectively, we do enough that our retainer revenue increases 20%. So, existing logos, somehow, that group, 20% increase in revenue.
373 00:46:25.750 ⇒ 00:46:29.310 Robert Tseng: Yeah, that’s… I guess that… that to me is how I would interpret that metric.
374 00:46:30.750 ⇒ 00:46:46.760 Robert Tseng: Which can come from, yes, upselling from the new… from new projects and just heading them at a higher retainer, but that also comes from account expansions from existing retainers as well. When we do the renewals, that scope… there’s a scope expansion that increases. So, I think
375 00:46:46.760 ⇒ 00:46:53.340 Robert Tseng: both retainer size and new project size. Well, new project size is more purely on sales. It’s just us pitching
376 00:46:53.340 ⇒ 00:46:58.179 Robert Tseng: offering. I don’t think delivery really impacts that. But delivery impacts average retainer size.
377 00:46:58.270 ⇒ 00:47:02.810 Robert Tseng: And then insuring. So those are really, like, the two variables that they impact the most here.
378 00:47:02.810 ⇒ 00:47:10.250 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I guess it’s like… Yeah, I mean… Yeah, so…
379 00:47:10.570 ⇒ 00:47:14.600 Uttam Kumaran: I’m trying to think of a, like, a… yeah, yeah, it is the retainer size and charm.
380 00:47:15.360 ⇒ 00:47:15.970 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
381 00:47:16.100 ⇒ 00:47:22.939 Robert Tseng: But anyway, I just thought this was a helpful way to frame it, because, like, yeah, I think sometimes we’re thinking about, oh, how are we going to double our business? Like.
382 00:47:23.100 ⇒ 00:47:39.349 Robert Tseng: you know, on paper, it doesn’t look that crazy, right? We’re just, like, we… yeah, if our price… our starting price goes up by 20%, and then our… all of our existing clients, like, as a… as a whole, existing logos, somehow we’re able to move them up another 20%,
383 00:47:39.400 ⇒ 00:47:52.639 Robert Tseng: like, that has huge impact on us over the next quarter. And so, I would consider some of the efforts that we’ve done, stuff like Remo, adding Remo, and then if we do an ex… if we do… if Sam’s able to really
384 00:47:52.640 ⇒ 00:48:04.240 Robert Tseng: bringing that AI work into Eden, I think there’s another, like, 5K to 10K to unlock there. So we could… I think there’s easily another, you know, 15-20% expansion on that client.
385 00:48:04.240 ⇒ 00:48:04.950 Robert Tseng: And…
386 00:48:04.950 ⇒ 00:48:19.620 Robert Tseng: I think the delivery leadership, so this is why I’m expecting Justin and, you know, and I think Amber should have a play in this, too, is, like, looking at our existing business and, like, figuring out how do we, you know, basically get them to pay us more.
387 00:48:22.140 ⇒ 00:48:28.940 Uttam Kumaran: This is all… these are all monthly figures, so, you know, I guess, like, I guess, like, I like to… and if I bifurcate it in my mind.
388 00:48:29.240 ⇒ 00:48:29.820 Robert Tseng: Yep.
389 00:48:29.820 ⇒ 00:48:36.169 Uttam Kumaran: the three areas we have. One is, like, we have to keep costs down, right? So, like.
390 00:48:36.380 ⇒ 00:48:49.010 Uttam Kumaran: there’s… I think there’s… we… there’s three pieces, right? There’s, like, continue to improve the pipeline on the sales side, do what we’re usually doing about increasing prices and stuff and capabilities, but increase that. Second piece is
391 00:48:49.390 ⇒ 00:49:01.920 Uttam Kumaran: minimize churn, which is, like, one part of delivery. Second piece of delivery is keeping costs down. So I think what we need to do between sales
392 00:49:02.750 ⇒ 00:49:06.439 Uttam Kumaran: Delivery, and basically, delivery is, like.
393 00:49:07.290 ⇒ 00:49:11.969 Uttam Kumaran: keep some focus. Like, I actually feel pretty… I think…
394 00:49:12.290 ⇒ 00:49:23.040 Uttam Kumaran: me helping on keeping costs very narrow is a good way to utilize me. You’re already being utilized on the sales side, and then delivery’s job is to just
395 00:49:23.250 ⇒ 00:49:24.770 Uttam Kumaran: destroy churn.
396 00:49:24.960 ⇒ 00:49:41.470 Uttam Kumaran: like, at minimum, destroy churn. At maximum, go sell and get us more business internally, right? Like, and not just renewals, but also delivery source to ops. I think that the challenge with them is, like, can they do that and focus on
397 00:49:42.150 ⇒ 00:49:45.330 Uttam Kumaran: Keeping costs low,
398 00:49:46.700 ⇒ 00:49:55.460 Uttam Kumaran: that’s gonna be tough. Like, and this is where I think we should… it’ll be, like, me and the AI team just making sure we don’t add more expense.
399 00:49:56.170 ⇒ 00:50:00.910 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I think that’s a good way to think about it. Like, I don’t mind adding more…
400 00:50:01.070 ⇒ 00:50:12.310 Uttam Kumaran: delivery expense to service the revenue, right? Like, that… that I don’t think we’re gonna be able to, like, beef with. Like, if we sign 5 more clients, I have to go get engineers. Yeah, exactly.
401 00:50:12.480 ⇒ 00:50:25.070 Uttam Kumaran: I want to beef with increasing sales expense, but naturally, again, like, sales is a good case if we’re able to sell more for expense. Where we don’t have a good case on is…
402 00:50:25.240 ⇒ 00:50:40.999 Uttam Kumaran: like, kind of anything else, like, we have to… so, yeah, I guess long story short, and then… and then I guess on my thinking through where to get those extra 4 leads a week, or whatever, or whatever, or 4 weeks leads, or whatever, one…
403 00:50:41.730 ⇒ 00:50:44.660 Uttam Kumaran: One should at least come per week from content.
404 00:50:45.100 ⇒ 00:51:03.379 Uttam Kumaran: Like, I think… I think you should… I think that is a great thing. We just had one come today, we had another one come, like, a week ago. I think it would be helpful, and I don’t know what we put in the OPRs, but, like, I’m just… it’s something that just clicked with me is, like, okay, we just need to get four, so… or whatever, like…
405 00:51:03.560 ⇒ 00:51:15.090 Uttam Kumaran: they sh… they should… there should be one per week from socials. Another… and then I think you… I think the circlebacks… circlebacks are another one. Like, so you… all your playbooks are actually appropriate for us to hit that.
406 00:51:15.350 ⇒ 00:51:16.200 Uttam Kumaran: You know?
407 00:51:16.650 ⇒ 00:51:17.300 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
408 00:51:18.550 ⇒ 00:51:19.100 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
409 00:51:21.240 ⇒ 00:51:28.229 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so, and I guess we’re kind of coming up, so I just want to kind of shout out some of these things, so maybe I’ll dial these numbers in, but yeah, I tried to, like.
410 00:51:28.650 ⇒ 00:51:42.399 Robert Tseng: taking what I understood about this model now, trying to kind of come back into the OKRs, I changed it so that we’re adding net new 60K pipeline. This is aggressive, this is a bit higher than what I said earlier, but to me, this is 10 leads. This is really…
411 00:51:43.610 ⇒ 00:51:47.279 Robert Tseng: like, somewhere between 5 to 10 leads a week. It’s, like…
412 00:51:47.870 ⇒ 00:51:51.240 Robert Tseng: Because you’re assuming every lead starts at 5K.
413 00:51:52.210 ⇒ 00:51:55.630 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so that’s… that’s that. I think it should, you know.
414 00:51:55.980 ⇒ 00:52:01.360 Robert Tseng: whether or not they’re captured, I mean, maybe 10 is… I can adjust these numbers, but yeah, I think from
415 00:52:01.520 ⇒ 00:52:08.620 Robert Tseng: I think two were still saying partner-generated leads, from events,
416 00:52:09.070 ⇒ 00:52:18.899 Robert Tseng: This one is. 10 new engaged leads captured weekly. Maybe 10 is a little bit too high, I can dial that down, because that would risk, so it would be 5. So, maybe I’ll just say…
417 00:52:20.080 ⇒ 00:52:25.589 Robert Tseng: I mean, I think 2’s too… too easy, so I’m just gonna say, like, 4 or something.
418 00:52:25.850 ⇒ 00:52:33.180 Robert Tseng: And… So yeah, if we get 4 from here…
419 00:52:33.300 ⇒ 00:52:47.089 Robert Tseng: and then 6 from, like, regular outbound efforts, you know, that easily hits us at 60. So, to me, this is inclusive of content, this is inclusive of Jake’s work with SMEs, and then also inclusive of
420 00:52:47.090 ⇒ 00:52:54.309 Robert Tseng: Kind of like us with getting referrals, and then also should also be considered through the events as well.
421 00:52:54.320 ⇒ 00:53:00.540 Robert Tseng: So, this is all, like, the other… this is all inbound, inbound leads. So, new… Inbound.
422 00:53:02.040 ⇒ 00:53:07.699 Robert Tseng: Right now, we’re at one a week without us doing anything, but I just, you know, I’m hoping that we could… we could do better than that.
423 00:53:08.030 ⇒ 00:53:10.820 Robert Tseng: And then…
424 00:53:10.940 ⇒ 00:53:26.409 Robert Tseng: Yeah, as far as, like, lead attribution goes, I think I might rework this a little bit now that I’m reading through it. I think this is a bit kind of abstract for me, so I could use some feedback on this one when you guys get a chance to look at this. I think where I was trying to go with this was,
425 00:53:26.690 ⇒ 00:53:43.910 Robert Tseng: Yeah, right now, when leads come in, like, like, why are they coming to us? Like, I think having, like, a portfolio mix approach to, like, what our ideal kind of, like, lead attribution should look like, that’s kind of what I’m trying to capture in this… in this one, but I don’t really think I…
426 00:53:44.090 ⇒ 00:53:45.010 Robert Tseng: I landed on it.
427 00:53:45.010 ⇒ 00:53:47.240 Uttam Kumaran: I think you did it fine, if that makes sense.
428 00:53:47.520 ⇒ 00:53:48.170 Robert Tseng: Okay.
429 00:53:48.750 ⇒ 00:53:56.500 Robert Tseng: Yeah, and then for this one, I don’t… I didn’t really think number of campaigns running is, like, the right metric, or right KPI to be looking at.
430 00:53:56.700 ⇒ 00:54:06.640 Robert Tseng: I mean, right now, we’re probably due, like, 10, but, like, what does that even really mean? So, I think I was unsure, like, you know, how we should frame this one.
431 00:54:06.640 ⇒ 00:54:10.680 Uttam Kumaran: I would… I would… I would… I would rather you do it
432 00:54:11.050 ⇒ 00:54:16.800 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, like, here’s kind of two ways to think about it. One, you just do it purely on, like, leads.
433 00:54:16.940 ⇒ 00:54:20.240 Uttam Kumaran: Or, like, unqualified leads, or whatever, like…
434 00:54:20.410 ⇒ 00:54:24.639 Uttam Kumaran: But… because I don’t care whether it’s 10 campaigns or 5 campaigns.
435 00:54:24.860 ⇒ 00:54:32.219 Uttam Kumaran: Or one. Positioning to work. So that way, you’re not optimizing for scale, you’re optimizing for, like, testing velocity.
436 00:54:32.560 ⇒ 00:54:34.020 Uttam Kumaran: Basically, you know?
437 00:54:34.020 ⇒ 00:54:34.690 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
438 00:54:35.220 ⇒ 00:54:41.660 Uttam Kumaran: Like, could we… could we ramp up a campaign in two weeks and then nix it if it doesn’t work? So… and they can take on as many as they want.
439 00:54:41.800 ⇒ 00:54:48.310 Uttam Kumaran: So, I… yeah, you can decide on what the number is, but I would rather say that they have
440 00:54:48.670 ⇒ 00:54:51.589 Uttam Kumaran: Some of them, they… they strive towards, like.
441 00:54:51.720 ⇒ 00:54:55.549 Uttam Kumaran: Some amount of unqualified leads, or… or we… or maybe it’s, like.
442 00:54:57.200 ⇒ 00:55:02.700 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, or… or you can bias towards, like, the amount… the volume of people that we hit.
443 00:55:03.490 ⇒ 00:55:09.840 Uttam Kumaran: volume of ICP that we hit, and then we… we assume some… if we hit enough of them, there’s some conversion rate, so…
444 00:55:11.740 ⇒ 00:55:17.889 Robert Tseng: Yeah, okay, I’ll rework that one. Yeah, that makes sense. So some… something… there’s an inbound target here, there’s an outbound target here. Sure.
445 00:55:19.760 ⇒ 00:55:27.159 Robert Tseng: Yeah, and then this one is just, you know, getting us out of the first message and follow-up. So, I really only want to be in there for the meeting, and then…
446 00:55:27.580 ⇒ 00:55:28.350 Robert Tseng: parts.
447 00:55:28.550 ⇒ 00:55:36.720 Robert Tseng: And then, as far as, like, growing monthly revenue, yeah, I think this is all kind of pretty straightforward.
448 00:55:37.270 ⇒ 00:55:38.590 Robert Tseng: And then…
449 00:55:38.940 ⇒ 00:55:48.720 Robert Tseng: Pipeline velocity here. Yeah, this is just, like, how do we speed up what we’re doing? So, going from the qualified lead to book meeting within a week, pretty much.
450 00:55:48.850 ⇒ 00:55:51.010 Robert Tseng: Sometimes we’re just like.
451 00:55:51.350 ⇒ 00:56:03.730 Robert Tseng: we’re… I feel like we’re not… we’re not rushing people to the meeting fast enough, and sometimes that just, like, kills the momentum. So, I think this is really more for Justina to kind of, ex… to… to own.
452 00:56:04.790 ⇒ 00:56:08.950 Robert Tseng: Yeah, she’ll show… yeah, so that’s… that’s kind of… that’s… that’s that.
453 00:56:09.310 ⇒ 00:56:16.860 Uttam Kumaran: What do you think about the first one? So, partner source? This is gonna be one I squarely hand to, like, Holly and Hannah, basically, to, like… Yeah.
454 00:56:17.580 ⇒ 00:56:19.759 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, I’m there, but, like, what… I guess…
455 00:56:20.480 ⇒ 00:56:24.299 Uttam Kumaran: Just to take the other side, like, should we instead be, like, partner sourceable?
456 00:56:24.940 ⇒ 00:56:27.840 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, partner source deals closed, yeah, I guess.
457 00:56:28.440 ⇒ 00:56:38.290 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I was just staying close. So this one is, like, events. You know, we’re still gonna do, I think, one a month is kind of typically what we’ve been doing. And then from those events, being able to get
458 00:56:38.400 ⇒ 00:56:44.260 Robert Tseng: you know, at least 6 leads out of it is kind of the goal. So I think we did…
459 00:56:46.190 ⇒ 00:56:55.270 Robert Tseng: we did that, I don’t know what the follow-up sequence has been for the Shop Talk kind of spa thing, but, like, between that and then a couple of the events that you’ve done, webinars, like.
460 00:56:55.570 ⇒ 00:57:01.730 Robert Tseng: Whether it’s… yeah, once again, it’s… it’s more about just making sure that we’re generating pipeline out of those events.
461 00:57:03.390 ⇒ 00:57:04.440 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, okay.
462 00:57:04.830 ⇒ 00:57:05.370 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
463 00:57:07.260 ⇒ 00:57:08.090 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
464 00:57:08.960 ⇒ 00:57:10.520 Robert Tseng: But yeah, I kind of just…
465 00:57:10.630 ⇒ 00:57:21.839 Robert Tseng: you know, before we had 3… we had 3 OKRs for each… for each one, and, like, it was just a lot. And then, yeah, going from OKRs to KPIs, even, I think, was a different…
466 00:57:22.070 ⇒ 00:57:23.090 Robert Tseng: approach.
467 00:57:23.480 ⇒ 00:57:26.599 Robert Tseng: I… I think the difference to me is…
468 00:57:27.100 ⇒ 00:57:34.010 Robert Tseng: key results, we were just focused on the results and then expecting people to own the results and figure out how to get there.
469 00:57:34.140 ⇒ 00:57:39.710 Robert Tseng: But instead, we’ve shifted to KPIs, which are just like, you… this is what we’re gonna monitor.
470 00:57:39.710 ⇒ 00:57:42.089 Uttam Kumaran: on a weekly basis? Yeah, yeah.
471 00:57:42.090 ⇒ 00:57:46.580 Robert Tseng: Yeah, and, like, by hitting these KPIs, it will… it will get to the objective.
472 00:57:46.580 ⇒ 00:57:47.510 Uttam Kumaran: What do you think?
473 00:57:47.780 ⇒ 00:57:48.280 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
474 00:57:48.280 ⇒ 00:58:01.270 Robert Tseng: philosophically, it’s different. I do think it’s a little bit more prescriptive of, like, okay, the onus was on us to basically tell people this is what it’s gonna take to hit our objective, rather than before, we were expecting people to just be like.
475 00:58:01.270 ⇒ 00:58:16.639 Robert Tseng: okay, this is the result I need to own, I’m gonna figure out whatever I need to do to get there. So, in some ways, it’s a bit more restrictive, because it’s like, these are the… these are what you should care about. But I think, you know, just given what we’ve seen from the team, perhaps they run better with KPI than they do with OKRs.
476 00:58:16.640 ⇒ 00:58:26.209 Uttam Kumaran: I guess, like, in that, in that sense, like, you’re more concerned with the fact that, like, we prescribe the KPIs, but I could, like, I could see next quarter us being, like.
477 00:58:26.320 ⇒ 00:58:33.279 Uttam Kumaran: you go figure out the KPIs, and then we approve. Like, I don’t think we’re… I think we’re one quarter away. Like, I think…
478 00:58:33.520 ⇒ 00:58:52.329 Uttam Kumaran: what… I think I’m… I mean, we were… we were late, but I do think that last quarter, just having this helped, because this would at least collaborate with everybody on it, and the next quarter, like, work with your team to decide, now that you’ve done… we’ve done two rounds on this, and then we more… we are more, like, we scrutinize at that point.
479 00:58:52.830 ⇒ 00:58:53.440 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
480 00:58:53.440 ⇒ 00:58:56.170 Uttam Kumaran: Like, I’m already doing that, sort of, with Sam. I’ve…
481 00:58:56.460 ⇒ 00:59:00.250 Uttam Kumaran: I… I’m doing that with the delivery team, and…
482 00:59:01.130 ⇒ 00:59:19.239 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, and again, we’re now actually able to measure all these effectively, or, like, we’re a few days from that on across the board. I just think the one thing I’m telling people, and I can tell when they see these, is they… they resort back to, like, when they’ve seen OKRs in their last companies, where they were, like, completely meaningless.
483 00:59:19.400 ⇒ 00:59:33.489 Uttam Kumaran: I said, like, your job is not to just put something here, your job is to achieve this. Like, do less if you don’t think you’re gonna achieve it, but then you better have a reason, alright? Because… so, even for AI and for engineering, I was like.
484 00:59:33.670 ⇒ 00:59:49.189 Uttam Kumaran: like, some of these, I’m like, I’ve came up with, but what you need to do is understanding how this is going to affect the business. So I think for sales and marketing, it’s the most pure play, like, how it goes to business. Delivery is next. I think the AI team has to just attack
485 00:59:50.120 ⇒ 00:59:57.629 Uttam Kumaran: costs, or, like, basically future savings. I think that’s a good way to kind of think about the three themes going into next quarter, which is…
486 00:59:57.910 ⇒ 00:59:59.930 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, would you say it’s basically, like.
487 01:00:01.260 ⇒ 01:00:05.430 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, it’s the revenue growth, It is the…
488 01:00:06.600 ⇒ 01:00:09.469 Uttam Kumaran: I guess we could… we could put churn…
489 01:00:09.630 ⇒ 01:00:12.200 Uttam Kumaran: Up there, instead of, like, hitting margins.
490 01:00:12.610 ⇒ 01:00:15.780 Uttam Kumaran: Or we put both. We put the churn.
491 01:00:15.960 ⇒ 01:00:18.640 Uttam Kumaran: And then the margin is the expense side, basically.
492 01:00:19.120 ⇒ 01:00:19.730 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
493 01:00:19.950 ⇒ 01:00:20.990 Uttam Kumaran: to those three.
494 01:00:21.980 ⇒ 01:00:22.820 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
495 01:00:23.450 ⇒ 01:00:23.990 Robert Tseng: Yep.
496 01:00:25.110 ⇒ 01:00:30.970 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, that’s kind of, like, what I was like… I mean, I know we have two, which is the revenue growth and that, so that’s helpful, so…
497 01:00:31.160 ⇒ 01:00:32.090 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
498 01:00:37.550 ⇒ 01:00:39.070 Uttam Kumaran: Alright, that’s helpful.
499 01:00:39.960 ⇒ 01:00:44.699 Uttam Kumaran: I think, I guess, Amber, again, delivery is sort of the biggest…
500 01:00:46.260 ⇒ 01:00:52.330 Uttam Kumaran: aspect, so I want to kind of get a sense from… and I’ll talk to Justin today, I want to get a sense from you guys on, like.
501 01:00:53.050 ⇒ 01:00:58.360 Uttam Kumaran: confirming those OKRs, confirming, like, how we’re gonna run those delivery meetings.
502 01:00:59.000 ⇒ 01:01:02.659 Uttam Kumaran: Kind of getting a sense of, like, if, like, if we feel…
503 01:01:02.870 ⇒ 01:01:10.010 Uttam Kumaran: Good across all of our existing clients. And we’re selling, so new clients are gonna come quickly.
504 01:01:10.120 ⇒ 01:01:16.050 Uttam Kumaran: And so one thing that that team needs to really get good at is, like, indicating…
505 01:01:16.250 ⇒ 01:01:18.110 Uttam Kumaran: When we’re hitting ceilings.
506 01:01:18.930 ⇒ 01:01:25.259 Uttam Kumaran: Or, like, how many clients away are we from, like, hitting our ceiling? And then what are the options to make?
507 01:01:25.620 ⇒ 01:01:29.950 Uttam Kumaran: I think I’m gonna do my best to help have AI help you guys.
508 01:01:30.240 ⇒ 01:01:34.049 Uttam Kumaran: But it is completely a new world, so it’s…
509 01:01:34.700 ⇒ 01:01:40.239 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t have a strict guarantee. I think they’re committed to doing it, and I think they will accomplish it, but…
510 01:01:40.450 ⇒ 01:01:46.530 Uttam Kumaran: If we sell 5 new deals, like, we have to… we’ll probably have to bring someone on or do something, I’m not sure.
511 01:01:48.370 ⇒ 01:01:53.240 Amber Lin: Okay, would you mind recording your meeting with Justin, and then I’m…
512 01:01:53.450 ⇒ 01:02:01.860 Amber Lin: the PM team’s also meeting on Friday, so, if we want the OKRs to be semi-finalized by then, we can talk about that there.
513 01:02:02.480 ⇒ 01:02:06.520 Amber Lin: Yeah, no, he’s actually coming to my house, like, right now. Yeah, yeah, that’s hence why I asked him.
514 01:02:06.520 ⇒ 01:02:09.959 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I will, I’ll record something.
515 01:02:11.220 ⇒ 01:02:17.379 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, and then we talked about it yesterday, so I’ll… I’ll write that up, but then, yeah, so that’s the biggest thing, so…
516 01:02:17.730 ⇒ 01:02:18.580 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
517 01:02:19.760 ⇒ 01:02:20.719 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, cool.
518 01:02:24.870 ⇒ 01:02:31.700 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, and then… and then, I think for Monday, we’re meeting with finance. We put in, like, an hour and a half meeting on.
519 01:02:32.180 ⇒ 01:02:37.289 Uttam Kumaran: I think try your best to get your questions answered
520 01:02:37.410 ⇒ 01:02:40.479 Uttam Kumaran: Like, have them work on it in parallel, if you need.
521 01:02:41.330 ⇒ 01:02:54.259 Uttam Kumaran: Or, like, so that basically we can arrive at, like, what… the core thing I want to arrive at, like, I… I know where we’re at, like, sales budget’s fine, I feel okay about that. It’s also we can’t do much.
522 01:02:54.470 ⇒ 01:03:01.960 Uttam Kumaran: same marketing budget, like… but the biggest things I want to know is for sales, marketing, and AI, what are the caps?
523 01:03:02.710 ⇒ 01:03:09.760 Uttam Kumaran: like, I just want to know what are our budgets, and then I want Rico to basically translate that into confirming
524 01:03:10.060 ⇒ 01:03:13.060 Uttam Kumaran: How many tasks they’re taking on, like the tickets.
525 01:03:13.700 ⇒ 01:03:25.479 Uttam Kumaran: Otherwise, we’re gonna have no idea how… that’s… if… naturally, as we get more clients, it’s gonna go up. So, we need to have a weekly cadence in which we watch that, and then some tough decisions are made.
526 01:03:25.760 ⇒ 01:03:28.370 Uttam Kumaran: like, by me and Robert on what to work on.
527 01:03:28.950 ⇒ 01:03:36.469 Uttam Kumaran: What’s gonna happen if we don’t cap it is we’re gonna get a couple more clients, or we’re gonna keep… things are gonna get busier, and those teams will just spend more.
528 01:03:36.980 ⇒ 01:03:39.319 Uttam Kumaran: So that’s my real…
529 01:03:39.730 ⇒ 01:03:45.420 Uttam Kumaran: that’s my real ask, is just, like, if we can confirm that, and we have Rico really, like, keep… keep that low.
530 01:03:51.090 ⇒ 01:03:54.450 Amber Lin: Okay, I’ll prepare some questions for…
531 01:03:54.550 ⇒ 01:04:01.800 Amber Lin: For Monday, I think same thing, we’ll have a better idea, once I meet with Justin as well.
532 01:04:02.570 ⇒ 01:04:03.210 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
533 01:04:06.400 ⇒ 01:04:07.950 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, brave.
534 01:04:12.490 ⇒ 01:04:24.229 Uttam Kumaran: All right, cool, so then I’ll… I’m gonna send a… I’m gonna send a… let’s send… I’m gonna send a note this week, just having… trying to get everybody to confirm their OKRs, and then Monday, we can really try to just make sure it’s all finished up.
535 01:04:24.490 ⇒ 01:04:26.220 Uttam Kumaran: And then we’ll hit the quarter.
536 01:04:30.240 ⇒ 01:04:30.790 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
537 01:04:30.790 ⇒ 01:04:32.380 Robert Tseng: Nice. Alright.
538 01:04:33.800 ⇒ 01:04:34.689 Robert Tseng: Thank you.
539 01:04:35.040 ⇒ 01:04:36.300 Uttam Kumaran: Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.
540 01:04:36.300 ⇒ 01:04:36.930 Robert Tseng: tight.
541 01:04:36.930 ⇒ 01:04:37.690 Uttam Kumaran: Organizing.
542 01:04:38.580 ⇒ 01:04:39.480 Amber Lin: Bye.
543 01:04:39.480 ⇒ 01:04:40.110 Uttam Kumaran: Bye.