Meeting Title: GTM Planning + Kickoff Date: 2025-10-13 Meeting participants: Robert Tseng, Ryan Brosas, Holly Condos, Uttam Kumaran, Rico Rejoso, Hannah Wang
WEBVTT
1 00:02:32.760 ⇒ 00:02:33.720 Holly Condos: Sorry.
2 00:02:33.960 ⇒ 00:02:35.319 Holly Condos: Vote to self.
3 00:02:35.570 ⇒ 00:02:38.330 Holly Condos: Swansea’s a terrible place, a little friend place to hang.
4 00:02:51.930 ⇒ 00:02:53.420 Uttam Kumaran: Hello, everyone.
5 00:02:56.220 ⇒ 00:02:57.320 Robert Tseng: Hello!
6 00:02:57.320 ⇒ 00:02:58.190 Holly Condos: Hi.
7 00:02:58.680 ⇒ 00:02:59.160 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, really?
8 00:02:59.160 ⇒ 00:02:59.620 Holly Condos: anything.
9 00:02:59.620 ⇒ 00:03:04.640 Uttam Kumaran: I really… I really need to get a coffee, so I’ll just go on mute for a sec. I’ve been putting it off, but…
10 00:03:04.760 ⇒ 00:03:08.909 Uttam Kumaran: This is the biggest back-to-back day I’ve had in, like, 6 months, so…
11 00:03:08.910 ⇒ 00:03:09.660 Holly Condos: No worries.
12 00:03:09.660 ⇒ 00:03:12.150 Robert Tseng: No worries, I got… I’ll take no longer time.
13 00:03:12.150 ⇒ 00:03:13.780 Uttam Kumaran: Cool. Alright, thank you.
14 00:03:14.300 ⇒ 00:03:22.709 Robert Tseng: Hi, Holly, I think we’ve met, before in… at VixelCon, but I don’t think I’ve spoken to you myself since, so…
15 00:03:24.910 ⇒ 00:03:30.889 Holly Condos: Yeah, it’s, it’s great to talk with you. Sorry I’m driving, so I can’t be on video right now, but.
16 00:03:30.890 ⇒ 00:03:31.860 Robert Tseng: No problem.
17 00:03:32.150 ⇒ 00:03:46.559 Holly Condos: I’m really excited to join the Brainforge team, and you know, I think you guys are doing a lot of really good things, and just have a ton of upward potential, so I’m really excited to be working with you.
18 00:03:47.350 ⇒ 00:03:50.810 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, I appreciate you, for all the
19 00:03:51.560 ⇒ 00:04:08.069 Robert Tseng: kind of advice that you’ve already been giving us, and then kind of be willing to jump into the weeds. So, yeah, I think it’s rare to find somebody with, obviously, your experience, who’s really able to impact at all levels of the organization. So, I think we’re super excited to have you here.
20 00:04:08.360 ⇒ 00:04:11.720 Holly Condos: Great. Well, it’s… like I said, feeling is mutual.
21 00:04:12.730 ⇒ 00:04:19.739 Robert Tseng: Okay, well, I’ll just kind of intro this group and this call specifically. I think you’ve worked with most of the folks here.
22 00:04:20.100 ⇒ 00:04:25.669 Robert Tseng: I know you’ve spoken with Hannah. Ryan is also… have you met Ryan?
23 00:04:25.670 ⇒ 00:04:26.530 Holly Condos: No.
24 00:04:26.530 ⇒ 00:04:34.759 Robert Tseng: Okay, so, Ryan, I don’t know if you want to just give yourself, give a brief intro of yourself to Holly, and then I’ll pass it to Rico, too.
25 00:04:35.660 ⇒ 00:04:48.270 Ryan Brosas: Hey, Holly, so, my name is Ryan. So, basically, I’m the one who is assisting Hannah on the sales initiative, more of, like, GTM, tools, like Clay.
26 00:04:48.270 ⇒ 00:04:57.970 Ryan Brosas: Getting some, like, leads and stuff. So if you have, if you have, like, if you need something, I’m allowed to help you out.
27 00:04:58.650 ⇒ 00:04:59.750 Holly Condos: Good to meet you, Ryan.
28 00:05:00.880 ⇒ 00:05:02.170 Ryan Brosas: Same.
29 00:05:05.160 ⇒ 00:05:10.119 Robert Tseng: Yeah, Rico, I don’t know if you’ve spoken to Holly before, but if not, if you want to just give yourself a quick intro?
30 00:05:10.710 ⇒ 00:05:13.739 Rico Rejoso: Definitely, yes. Hey, Holly,
31 00:05:13.740 ⇒ 00:05:14.510 Holly Condos: A.
32 00:05:14.510 ⇒ 00:05:17.569 Rico Rejoso: Before, on a meeting with Hannah and Rutham.
33 00:05:17.880 ⇒ 00:05:31.399 Rico Rejoso: Yes. So, basically, I assist with everything when it comes to coordination and operations stuff, so if there’s anything that you need, contracts, that you need assistance with, you can hit me up and let me know, and I can definitely help you out.
34 00:05:32.010 ⇒ 00:05:34.679 Holly Condos: Perfect, and you’ve been great so far. Thank you, Rico.
35 00:05:35.240 ⇒ 00:05:36.340 Rico Rejoso: No worries, welcome.
36 00:05:37.610 ⇒ 00:05:43.200 Robert Tseng: Okay, great. Well then, yeah, I guess that’s kind of, the… that’s the gang for this group, and…
37 00:05:43.470 ⇒ 00:05:52.920 Robert Tseng: Yeah, kind of all together, we’re… we’re all… we’re all involved in go-to-market. We kind of lump sales and marketing under… under this, kind of umbrella.
38 00:05:53.270 ⇒ 00:05:58.280 Robert Tseng: And then on this call, we typically just do some planning for the upcoming week, so…
39 00:05:58.980 ⇒ 00:06:03.319 Robert Tseng: We’ll review, kind of, our current pipeline, specifically both
40 00:06:03.410 ⇒ 00:06:20.419 Robert Tseng: both sales leads and also partnership leads as well. If there’s anything that’s kind of stuck in a particular stage, then we kind of measure the log, we’ll go over some of the metrics that we look at in different deal stages. We’ll kind of tie it back to how we’re tracking on our OKRs that we set at the beginning of the quarter.
41 00:06:20.750 ⇒ 00:06:32.760 Robert Tseng: And then I usually just turn it over to the team to, kind of just… they’re gonna share about the campaigns that they’re running and the different initiatives that they’re… that they’re gonna be kicking off this week, that we can… that we can, give feedback on.
42 00:06:34.660 ⇒ 00:06:35.530 Holly Condos: Sounds great.
43 00:06:35.830 ⇒ 00:06:45.100 Robert Tseng: Okay, and I know you’re driving, so don’t worry, I’m gonna share my screen, but, you can always kind of… you just pull up the transcript notes, or you can review this call when you get a chance.
44 00:06:45.320 ⇒ 00:06:46.270 Robert Tseng: So…
45 00:06:46.270 ⇒ 00:06:46.880 Holly Condos: We’ll do.
46 00:06:47.340 ⇒ 00:07:03.899 Robert Tseng: Okay, then let’s… let’s jump into it. Yeah, so I guess what I have here on the left is, HubSpot, kind of, I always pull up to this in-progress deal stages, so we still see all these deals here. Thanks, Ryan, for your daily Slack nudges. I think that’s been helpful to kind of keep the progress moving on some things.
47 00:07:03.900 ⇒ 00:07:12.570 Robert Tseng: Obviously, some of the communications fall through the cracks, like, I… you don’t know when Utem and I text someone, or if, like, an email comes in on a different thread, so…
48 00:07:12.790 ⇒ 00:07:15.469 Robert Tseng: I think we’re gonna keep kind of just…
49 00:07:15.630 ⇒ 00:07:20.869 Robert Tseng: Using… using that ritual of responding to your… your messages if anything gets stuck.
50 00:07:21.130 ⇒ 00:07:35.800 Robert Tseng: I will call out that, yeah, I know, like, Foepro and Honey Singer have kind of been, like, stuck for some time. I did text both of them personally and whatever, so, like, they’re both supposed to give us an answer early this week, but I will follow up again today.
51 00:07:36.110 ⇒ 00:07:47.139 Robert Tseng: But then we could just kind of go through the others. I know with Yeti, Orion, you’re gonna move that to… I mean, I guess you’ll reach back out to them tomorrow. I think that’s a… that’s a good call.
52 00:07:47.470 ⇒ 00:07:52.480 Robert Tseng: And I know you’re… we’re trying to set up something that’s a bit more repeatable, so when…
53 00:07:52.520 ⇒ 00:08:06.289 Robert Tseng: when a… when a lead comes back and says, like, hey, we need some time to review, yeah, give them… give them two weeks to review. Like, I think that’s… that’s fine, unless… unless they’re specifically saying, check back with me end of week. I think we’ll default to saying, hey.
54 00:08:06.290 ⇒ 00:08:20.269 Robert Tseng: checking in, let’s… let’s reach out, let’s… can I set up a call with you towards the end of the week? That way, we always nudge them towards, like, kind of getting… getting back in touch with us in the same week. But if they ask for more time, then we can default to two weeks. So.
55 00:08:20.370 ⇒ 00:08:29.380 Robert Tseng: I don’t know where you’re writing this down, but I think you should kind of just keep that in mind, so that we’re not always having to kind of just guess at, like, when the next time to reach out to somebody would be.
56 00:08:30.650 ⇒ 00:08:40.749 Robert Tseng: And then, for stuff like Port Authority, so this is a longer RFP process, I think, I don’t expect there to be movement on a daily basis, but I do know that,
57 00:08:41.659 ⇒ 00:08:50.250 Robert Tseng: Ayanna has, like, kind of replied back, so I’ll respond to her. I think basically how this is gonna go is there’s a kind of…
58 00:08:51.120 ⇒ 00:08:58.889 Robert Tseng: there’s, like, an in-person event here in New York, where some of the same folks that are kind of responsible for this
59 00:08:59.130 ⇒ 00:09:17.360 Robert Tseng: it’s, like, co-sponsored through some alliance or whatever. So, I’m expecting that to be the next touchpoint for this lead specifically. We’ll share whatever technical docs that she wants us to share, case studies, capabilities decks, etc, because they have someone on their side who’s going to submit the proposal on our behalf.
60 00:09:17.360 ⇒ 00:09:28.219 Robert Tseng: But I will go in person to the event to actually, like, connect with their… they call it the BDO Alliance or whatever, that I’ll… I’ll figure out with them. Yeah, so this one…
61 00:09:28.220 ⇒ 00:09:34.230 Uttam Kumaran: And I think, Robert, it could be interesting, like, this one is associated with a partnership initiative.
62 00:09:34.230 ⇒ 00:09:36.090 Robert Tseng: Yep. Like, so…
63 00:09:36.090 ⇒ 00:09:38.580 Uttam Kumaran: it’s… I don’t know, I think we should talk about…
64 00:09:39.310 ⇒ 00:09:52.569 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, this one’s a little bit interesting, because we’re, like, selling the partner and whatever, but I think there’s… you’re right, there’s something about, like, the urgency, like, we don’t expect this to close, so one is we should put the expected close date, like.
65 00:09:52.780 ⇒ 00:09:58.179 Uttam Kumaran: Maybe we just put it in, like, next month or something, or whatever, so it’s not…
66 00:09:58.330 ⇒ 00:10:14.320 Uttam Kumaran: And then ideally, Ryan, over time, we should align the expected close dates with, like, how frequently we’re getting alerted. Of course, like, we only have 15 leads, and so we’ll try to push everything every day, but when we start getting to 30 and 40,
67 00:10:14.460 ⇒ 00:10:19.750 Uttam Kumaran: We will have to prioritize the ones that the expected close date is closer, and.
68 00:10:19.750 ⇒ 00:10:20.160 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
69 00:10:20.160 ⇒ 00:10:23.899 Uttam Kumaran: The, like, the probability is higher, so, yeah.
70 00:10:26.160 ⇒ 00:10:32.449 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I think Ryan seems to have default put it to the end of month. I think that’s fine for now. So yeah, I think that’s…
71 00:10:33.430 ⇒ 00:10:37.959 Robert Tseng: But yeah, we’ll use… we’ll be able to filter off closed date. Go ahead, Ryan, you were gonna say something? Sorry.
72 00:10:37.960 ⇒ 00:10:46.120 Ryan Brosas: Yeah, this is really helpful, as because I don’t really have, like, a standard operating process right now, so these all are really helpful.
73 00:10:46.970 ⇒ 00:11:02.079 Robert Tseng: Yeah, and I know, like, we don’t really give too much context to the leads in the Slack threads, we’re just kind of telling you the next steps, so on these calls, like, I try to, you know, say a little bit more so you know what’s coming. You know, obviously, this list isn’t changing that fast every week, so I think,
74 00:11:02.080 ⇒ 00:11:10.949 Robert Tseng: you know, it just gives you some context. John Boost, McAuliffe referral came through, seems like we kind of have some action items off that, so that’s, I think that’ll…
75 00:11:11.260 ⇒ 00:11:12.859 Robert Tseng: I don’t know if you want to say anything here.
76 00:11:12.860 ⇒ 00:11:20.749 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, you can… you can… yeah, this… I’m talking to their… so their CIO is who I talked to, I’m talking to the CIO and the head of…
77 00:11:20.930 ⇒ 00:11:26.350 Uttam Kumaran: data and strategy, who basically runs, like, M&A and does a bunch of stuff.
78 00:11:26.740 ⇒ 00:11:42.880 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know, I feel like we have a pretty good shot, again, I feel like this about everybody, so who knows, but, like, he was like, we’re… we’re… this was, like, a very serious enterprise one. He’s like, we are committed to outsourcing most, if not all, of the data-related stuff. Like, we’re not gonna in-house it.
79 00:11:42.970 ⇒ 00:11:47.369 Uttam Kumaran: And I feel like we caught them, like, right at a good time, where they probably need us
80 00:11:47.570 ⇒ 00:11:56.529 Uttam Kumaran: they probably will need us, like, in more of an hourly procurement sort of mode, and then we could shift into implementation, which is a great way to leverage us, so…
81 00:11:56.670 ⇒ 00:12:05.999 Uttam Kumaran: So for this one, like, and we could talk about the partnership component. For this one, one, I’m trying to use this also to drive more conversation with McGaw, because this is a McGaw-referred lead.
82 00:12:06.150 ⇒ 00:12:20.599 Uttam Kumaran: basically, I’m gonna be like, yo, you’ve sent us this business, do you want the referral cash as a way to, like, get them to keep talking to us? So I’ve been hitting them up once a week or so. So that is maybe something that, again, we should talk about, like, the partnership
83 00:12:20.640 ⇒ 00:12:29.450 Uttam Kumaran: type nudges? Like, who’s gonna own that? Is that something that I should own? Is that Holly something that you and Hannah and team can take over? Sure.
84 00:12:29.500 ⇒ 00:12:30.060 Uttam Kumaran: you know.
85 00:12:30.060 ⇒ 00:12:31.699 Holly Condos: Yeah, I think that makes sense.
86 00:12:31.700 ⇒ 00:12:32.959 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, okay, cool.
87 00:12:33.630 ⇒ 00:12:38.419 Uttam Kumaran: And it’s, again, it’s helpful to play, like, good cop backup on a lot of these. Exactly, right.
88 00:12:38.420 ⇒ 00:12:41.439 Holly Condos: Right. And then just in that.
89 00:12:41.690 ⇒ 00:12:46.820 Holly Condos: contact, so the RFP, not to go backwards, but…
90 00:12:46.970 ⇒ 00:12:47.760 Robert Tseng: Yeah, okay.
91 00:12:48.380 ⇒ 00:12:50.150 Holly Condos: Maybe some context there.
92 00:12:51.360 ⇒ 00:12:59.410 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I was gonna wait to hit that during partnerships, Robert, if you… Sure, great. We can just go… let’s just go through all the non-partner…
93 00:12:59.600 ⇒ 00:13:03.449 Uttam Kumaran: stuff first, because I think that’ll… we can spend a lot of time on.
94 00:13:03.630 ⇒ 00:13:04.859 Robert Tseng: Yeah, sure. Okay.
95 00:13:04.860 ⇒ 00:13:05.210 Holly Condos: Thanks.
96 00:13:05.210 ⇒ 00:13:05.950 Robert Tseng: Sounds good.
97 00:13:06.070 ⇒ 00:13:11.379 Robert Tseng: Yeah, other one, iCustomer, I think we’re done, so we’re gonna, right, we’re pretty much just gonna circle back.
98 00:13:11.380 ⇒ 00:13:12.720 Uttam Kumaran: You just put ghosted.
99 00:13:12.940 ⇒ 00:13:14.390 Robert Tseng: Yeah, okay, boom.
100 00:13:14.550 ⇒ 00:13:21.010 Robert Tseng: And then PhonePro, yeah, I mean, we’re still waiting for them to review, so, I mean, next nudge will be tomorrow, that’s fine.
101 00:13:21.260 ⇒ 00:13:27.900 Robert Tseng: Yeah, CES Proposals and Review, we’ll also nudge them this week. Shinesty.
102 00:13:31.230 ⇒ 00:13:33.050 Uttam Kumaran: I sent a follow-up today.
103 00:13:33.400 ⇒ 00:13:33.800 Robert Tseng: Okay.
104 00:13:33.800 ⇒ 00:13:37.700 Uttam Kumaran: to follow up today to Shinesty, to Marvin, and to CTA.
105 00:13:37.840 ⇒ 00:13:41.380 Robert Tseng: Okay, great. The HelloFresh, we’ll just consider this loss.
106 00:13:41.460 ⇒ 00:13:42.339 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, just put.
107 00:13:42.340 ⇒ 00:13:45.110 Robert Tseng: lost, I’ll still try to figure it out later, but… Yeah.
108 00:13:45.870 ⇒ 00:13:47.719 Robert Tseng: We don’t have a…
109 00:13:47.920 ⇒ 00:13:48.960 Uttam Kumaran: Lost.
110 00:13:49.720 ⇒ 00:13:51.240 Uttam Kumaran: Or point of contact.
111 00:13:51.670 ⇒ 00:13:52.580 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
112 00:13:52.850 ⇒ 00:13:53.869 Uttam Kumaran: I think… Has that happened?
113 00:13:53.870 ⇒ 00:13:54.789 Robert Tseng: Not my time.
114 00:13:55.340 ⇒ 00:13:57.290 Robert Tseng: It has happened before.
115 00:13:57.850 ⇒ 00:14:04.239 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I mean, we’ve lost… I mean, I’ve lost deals like this where our main sponsor, like, kind of changes roles, and then we get…
116 00:14:04.250 ⇒ 00:14:09.909 Robert Tseng: You know, move to someone else so they don’t end up working with… continuing to work with us after, like, our contract ends.
117 00:14:10.090 ⇒ 00:14:11.120 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. So…
118 00:14:11.460 ⇒ 00:14:16.779 Robert Tseng: Yeah, Honey Singer, they’re on proposal review, but yeah, I spoke to them already.
119 00:14:17.510 ⇒ 00:14:21.699 Robert Tseng: I mean, I actually pitched them at 10 grand, so I should update that.
120 00:14:31.030 ⇒ 00:14:33.240 Robert Tseng: Yeah, Televero…
121 00:14:35.450 ⇒ 00:14:46.489 Uttam Kumaran: Yes, I mean, I… I would just… I would just toss them… toss them in to-do, like, they’re just, like, they’re so stingy, and I haven’t gotten around to it. We just have other leads that are higher probability, so…
122 00:14:46.900 ⇒ 00:14:50.350 Robert Tseng: And then, UI Canada, you said UConnos talked to them as well.
123 00:14:50.590 ⇒ 00:14:52.990 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, that one I’ll keep… I’ll keep pushing forward.
124 00:14:52.990 ⇒ 00:15:10.979 Robert Tseng: Okay, yeah, there’s a… so, I mean, let’s just kind of run through these really quick. So, on the inbound side, yeah, this past week, we got a bunch of inbound. So, from partners, two from partners, Contra came in, Upwork, Contra and Upwork, we both got hits on, and then also, I think we had people come circle back, so…
125 00:15:11.400 ⇒ 00:15:15.339 Robert Tseng: I don’t know, some AVID health or something that kind of came back to you?
126 00:15:15.340 ⇒ 00:15:16.289 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
127 00:15:16.290 ⇒ 00:15:26.340 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so, great. I mean, I think this is kind of, like, we don’t really impact, kind of, the flow, the deal flow there, but yeah, I mean, this past week, we had 5 new and bad leads, so, like, it’s just, like.
128 00:15:26.570 ⇒ 00:15:30.440 Robert Tseng: Seems like it ebbs and flows. Sometimes we get none, sometimes we get a bunch, so…
129 00:15:30.750 ⇒ 00:15:40.329 Robert Tseng: But, you know, as much as we can, impact that through events, referrals, like, as we build up this network, we give ourselves more opportunities for people to come back to us.
130 00:15:41.800 ⇒ 00:16:01.179 Robert Tseng: Yeah, and then I’m sure we’ll talk about events later on, so we’ll talk about that. As far as pipeline-wise, I think we’re in new pipeline. I would not say we actually hit the 60K new pipeline. I think maybe this is more… most of these have been here already, so I know that we’ve been lagging on this this past week. I think,
131 00:16:01.540 ⇒ 00:16:08.949 Robert Tseng: Utam, and I think especially me, have just been bogged down by delivery last week, so I haven’t really pushed, this team very hard.
132 00:16:09.820 ⇒ 00:16:18.359 Robert Tseng: yeah, I think I honestly need another week to get out of the weeds in order to be able to, you know, give half my time back to doing this stuff, but
133 00:16:18.600 ⇒ 00:16:25.609 Robert Tseng: yeah, I think the campaigns that you guys are running are all that’s really gonna be putting new leads into the pipeline, so…
134 00:16:25.930 ⇒ 00:16:34.100 Robert Tseng: That’s that. Yeah, I mean, this is something for us to just measure. I don’t really have a readout on this right now, but we can probably check in on this next week.
135 00:16:34.650 ⇒ 00:16:36.779 Robert Tseng: And then, as far as,
136 00:16:36.900 ⇒ 00:16:54.220 Robert Tseng: content, we’ve more or less paused for now, so I think I’m just gonna say we are not really tracking on this, which is fine. And, yeah, as far as, like, lead messaging, you know, Hannah and I went through, like, a middle-of-funnel, kind of, like, build-out last week.
137 00:16:54.450 ⇒ 00:17:01.829 Robert Tseng: I have briefly looked at, like, emails and LinkedIn DMs, like, I don’t really feel like many messages were sent without
138 00:17:02.130 ⇒ 00:17:08.210 Robert Tseng: without me pushing last week, so I think I just want to call that out as, like, I think something that’s flagging where
139 00:17:08.260 ⇒ 00:17:24.709 Robert Tseng: Even after we went through that exercise, or even with some of the new leads that have come in from the campaigns that you guys have been running, most of those people haven’t received a message from us. So, I think that’s, you know, from an enablement perspective, that’s the only thing I feel like I can… I still have capacity to really
140 00:17:24.960 ⇒ 00:17:37.479 Robert Tseng: help you guys with this week. I know Hannah’s coming to town tomorrow, so hopefully we’ll spend some more time there. But yeah, I think I just want to keep those conversations going with the leads that we do have.
141 00:17:41.440 ⇒ 00:17:58.029 Robert Tseng: Okay. And then partner source lead, that’s that. Yeah, I mean, we’re not really going to talk too much about this. Yeah, I think the playbooks that we worked on, Hannah, last week should get everybody 3 touches, so we kind of structured some
142 00:17:59.750 ⇒ 00:18:07.230 Robert Tseng: Can’t… yeah, we basically… I… we mapped out how every person’s gonna get 3 Brainforge
143 00:18:07.530 ⇒ 00:18:09.630 Robert Tseng: Artifacts, like, whether it’s…
144 00:18:09.840 ⇒ 00:18:19.309 Robert Tseng: Starting with the website, and then, like, some… some drop of, like, our… of our deck, some link to some of our content, or whatever, like, that’s all…
145 00:18:19.310 ⇒ 00:18:31.359 Robert Tseng: like, I want to make sure… I think I’ll be following up on this more next week, because that would have given us two weeks since we’ve implemented that to really see how that’s panning out for our sales efforts.
146 00:18:31.710 ⇒ 00:18:36.909 Robert Tseng: So that’s kind of something I want to… that I’ll be paying closer attention to this week.
147 00:18:37.670 ⇒ 00:18:39.100 Robert Tseng: And then…
148 00:18:39.880 ⇒ 00:18:55.089 Robert Tseng: Yeah, regarding booked meetings, yeah, I think our meeting… booking… our book meeting volume has… has dipped, like, we’re just not getting meetings, like, it just, yeah, seems like, have a couple scheduled, but it’s nowhere near the 10 per week that our goal was.
149 00:18:55.190 ⇒ 00:19:01.070 Robert Tseng: So we definitely slowed down on this front. So I’m gonna kind of set this back to lagging.
150 00:19:01.710 ⇒ 00:19:11.050 Robert Tseng: I would say proposal speed has increased for, I mean, lower volume, but I think implementing UTAM’s process has definitely helped us… helped me at least.
151 00:19:11.220 ⇒ 00:19:17.970 Robert Tseng: put proposals out faster, and then I think with Ryan kind of being on top of HubSpot, everything’s getting moved, so…
152 00:19:18.320 ⇒ 00:19:27.399 Robert Tseng: I think that’s kind of how we’re tracking, so in kind of broad strokes, like, generally speaking, I think, we’re actioning,
153 00:19:27.670 ⇒ 00:19:34.629 Robert Tseng: like, deal stages… lead stages faster, but yeah, I think top of funnel has slowed down, and then…
154 00:19:34.740 ⇒ 00:19:49.709 Robert Tseng: yeah, we’re… I think, like, kind of messaging and driving… driving folks to… to meetings, I think, has slowed down. So this is all top-of-funnel, kind of work from my perspective, that has… that has, that has taken a hit from the past… past week or two weeks.
155 00:19:49.900 ⇒ 00:20:05.309 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, can I even share one piece of, like, this sort of middle… this sort of, like, proposal automation piece? If I can just, like, share my screen, I want to just share, like, a really easy way of, like, how I actually did this today. So I’m in… I’m in chats with this guy on Upwork.
156 00:20:05.310 ⇒ 00:20:14.109 Uttam Kumaran: basically, it’s clear I have him on the hook. Like, he messaged me this morning, I messaged him back, I was in, basically, meetings, so I couldn’t get back to him.
157 00:20:14.170 ⇒ 00:20:20.220 Uttam Kumaran: I, like, glance at some of these links. I generally get he wants to build a browser automation to pull something from.
158 00:20:20.220 ⇒ 00:20:20.540 Robert Tseng: Yep.
159 00:20:20.540 ⇒ 00:20:23.300 Uttam Kumaran: Petco’s website for some remittance details.
160 00:20:23.670 ⇒ 00:20:37.839 Uttam Kumaran: they’re… it’s… he’s a CPA, so I guess they’re probably working on behalf of Petco, or something’s happening, whatever. Again, you don’t… I’m not trying to, like, really figure it out right now, we’re just trying to get back a proposal. So what I did is I basically was like, cool, I just was like.
161 00:20:38.340 ⇒ 00:20:58.309 Uttam Kumaran: here’s generally what we do, great, here… what’s the timeline? He sent me a bunch of documents. All I did was I took all of that, we have our solutions architect and sales engineer prompt, I put that into here, with the Excel sheet I just downloaded from Google Sheets, and I put the entire thread, and I was like.
162 00:20:59.080 ⇒ 00:21:12.870 Uttam Kumaran: The solutions architect prompt will ask you questions if it doesn’t know things. So it’s like, hey, is this a short prototype? Is this a full rollout? Are we owning delivery? Blah, blah. So I use speech-to-text, I answer them, like, 10 seconds.
163 00:21:12.870 ⇒ 00:21:24.719 Uttam Kumaran: it then was like, cool, I can build you these things, and, like, the messaging said, build it all. I’m not… this is, like, just in case, so depending on the client, sometimes the client’s like, I want a larger thing, sometimes this guy’s clearly just chatting with me, and it’s, like, probably.
164 00:21:24.720 ⇒ 00:21:25.059 Robert Tseng: Something like that.
165 00:21:25.060 ⇒ 00:21:45.010 Uttam Kumaran: to sign something right now, so… but I have two things, like, this is… this is used… using our project plan, our sales project plan. Sales project plan is something that’s in Notion, so if you go to sales, project management plan template, all I do in ChatGPT is I come in here, I say work with the Notion tab. It now has context of, like.
166 00:21:45.080 ⇒ 00:21:50.499 Uttam Kumaran: what does our sales project plan look like? What is this? This is just a lighter version of our…
167 00:21:50.620 ⇒ 00:22:03.260 Uttam Kumaran: PM project plan, which is, like, usually way bigger, and then I just have it write it, and that way I have one version in case. Second, it basically was like, cool, here’s, like, what you should send him. I take this, I edit two things, I ship it, and so…
168 00:22:03.260 ⇒ 00:22:11.869 Uttam Kumaran: now, instead of having this, like, last, like, 4 days, I can get an answer on, like, is this guy gonna work with us today or not, right? This is something that, like.
169 00:22:12.030 ⇒ 00:22:28.030 Uttam Kumaran: basically anyone on this team should be able to do, and if someone on the team was able to say, great, I created a sample project plan and a suggested reply, immediately I can probably make a couple edits and be like, ship it, ship it, ship it, right? And so this is how we’re gonna scale from
170 00:22:28.030 ⇒ 00:22:40.039 Uttam Kumaran: 10, 15 leads to 30, 40 active leads without, like, any additional headcount, right? This is the… these are the process things that have to happen, so if you’re not already trying some of these.
171 00:22:40.120 ⇒ 00:22:43.209 Uttam Kumaran: This is a great example of how I used one today, you know?
172 00:22:43.810 ⇒ 00:22:44.910 Holly Condos: Yeah, that’s great.
173 00:22:46.150 ⇒ 00:22:56.490 Uttam Kumaran: And it nailed it. I didn’t… I didn’t do anything. Like, I’m not… I have… I’ve done light edits to this, and I’m sort of just finding out, like, what his deal is, if he actually wants to buy from us or not, so…
174 00:23:01.210 ⇒ 00:23:06.829 Robert Tseng: Nice! Okay, well then, I think the next time a proposal comes around, I’m just gonna have the team… have the team run that.
175 00:23:07.030 ⇒ 00:23:08.540 Robert Tseng: And I can, I can hit it.
176 00:23:10.280 ⇒ 00:23:11.810 Robert Tseng: Cool.
177 00:23:12.080 ⇒ 00:23:19.840 Robert Tseng: So, I think that’s that. Let me just turn it over to, I guess Ryan and Hannah, whoever wants to kind of go first on…
178 00:23:20.230 ⇒ 00:23:21.660 Robert Tseng: What’s coming this week?
179 00:23:27.190 ⇒ 00:23:31.879 Hannah Wang: I can go… bear with me, I’m not feeling super well, so my brain is a bit…
180 00:23:32.060 ⇒ 00:23:35.759 Hannah Wang: Not there. But, let me share my screen.
181 00:23:38.800 ⇒ 00:23:40.970 Hannah Wang: Whoa.
182 00:23:41.410 ⇒ 00:23:42.180 Hannah Wang: Okay.
183 00:23:42.700 ⇒ 00:23:48.339 Hannah Wang: So, yeah, noted on the… what’s it called? The…
184 00:23:48.450 ⇒ 00:23:57.560 Hannah Wang: top of funnel messaging, I just did not have a ton… I didn’t have the chance to do it last week, but I know that
185 00:23:57.770 ⇒ 00:24:05.829 Hannah Wang: there’s some folks from the Circle, the CX Circle, campaign that I want to follow up with again, so I will…
186 00:24:06.140 ⇒ 00:24:19.219 Hannah Wang: go through the workflow that we worked on last week and send them a second follow-up message. And so even though this is completed, I’ll try to nurture those leads. And then for…
187 00:24:19.450 ⇒ 00:24:36.670 Hannah Wang: the legal conference, I don’t really know how to hit these people up. Like, we’ve got a ton of inbound from them, and they’ve, like, accepted a ton of our connections, but I’m not, like, entirely sure how to hit them up, so if you want me to prioritize this, let me know.
188 00:24:36.890 ⇒ 00:24:55.050 Robert Tseng: I think the nurturing of the CX stuff is important. The legal conference, it’s… it’s like, I mean, it’s a smaller percentage of people that are going to be in the ICP. Like, I would, you know, I would just guess, like, 10% of the people that we’ve connected with. I know there were, like, 30 people that accepted, but a lot of them are not really people that are budget, kind of.
189 00:24:55.170 ⇒ 00:25:03.419 Robert Tseng: owners for the projects that they’re working on. So, like, yeah, we can go through that when you’re here. I’m not worried about that.
190 00:25:03.620 ⇒ 00:25:06.949 Robert Tseng: Okay. Yeah. Even for, like, the circle…
191 00:25:06.950 ⇒ 00:25:09.990 Hannah Wang: the CX Circle one, like, not all of them are…
192 00:25:10.220 ⇒ 00:25:14.889 Hannah Wang: an ICP fit, so I did, like, track the ones that I thought were,
193 00:25:14.890 ⇒ 00:25:24.070 Robert Tseng: Yeah, but people like Jeanette, I think the… where is it, Jeanette? Is she Mercedes-Benz? I thought, okay, well, whoever the SoundCloud lady was, I still think that’s something that…
194 00:25:24.130 ⇒ 00:25:37.560 Robert Tseng: we should send her a few more things. Like, she’s only received one asset from us, kind of getting at least running its course. Like, everybody should get 3 things from Brain Forge, and then if it doesn’t amount to a meeting or whatever, we can move on to them.
195 00:25:38.680 ⇒ 00:25:46.549 Hannah Wang: Okay, I know I, like, tried to start a combo with her, and it kinda, like… I just didn’t know how to continue it, but I’ll…
196 00:25:46.550 ⇒ 00:25:52.339 Robert Tseng: Yeah, it’s okay, I mean, at that point, I know some of these things need to be handed back to me, I just, you know, we just have to…
197 00:25:52.730 ⇒ 00:26:02.759 Robert Tseng: yeah, we just have to do the handoff. Like, tell me, hey, I actually don’t know how to continue the conversation, just… and then kind of just at me to go and talk to those people.
198 00:26:02.910 ⇒ 00:26:18.820 Hannah Wang: Okay. So yeah, I’ll do that for CX Circle and Adweek. I know that the conference ended last week, so I’m gonna hit up everyone on the list, including speakers and attendees, and I’ll run that.
199 00:26:18.900 ⇒ 00:26:35.379 Hannah Wang: playbook. So I still want to count this as active, because there’s a lot of people from here that I’m gonna need to follow up with. So, I think the three that we can focus on this week is the health conference. I know, Ryan, you and I started that last week.
200 00:26:35.380 ⇒ 00:26:48.639 Hannah Wang: So we can start the pay reach sequence for this one, and then I’ll also start working on the design for the white paper, because I know we want to use that. And then… so for the last one, it’s either
201 00:26:48.760 ⇒ 00:27:01.539 Hannah Wang: I think it should be either AMCHAM or Corral data. For Corral, I know we moved the webinar to November, and then Lauren said that she’d get back to us about
202 00:27:02.020 ⇒ 00:27:11.049 Hannah Wang: the feedback for the rough draft that we sent her. So I feel like maybe we can focus on AmCham,
203 00:27:11.480 ⇒ 00:27:18.050 Hannah Wang: I don’t know… I know, Utam, we said somewhere in that channel that we’d, like, talk about it here, so…
204 00:27:18.280 ⇒ 00:27:28.469 Hannah Wang: I know David, like, kind of reworked the workshop to make it more collaborative. I don’t know if we want to, like, talk about that right now, and
205 00:27:28.610 ⇒ 00:27:31.780 Hannah Wang: See if we want to focus on this this week.
206 00:27:32.180 ⇒ 00:27:39.829 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. Yeah, I’m down to… I didn’t know that he sent tobacco version, I may have just missed it, but…
207 00:27:39.830 ⇒ 00:27:40.380 Hannah Wang: Oh, okay.
208 00:27:40.380 ⇒ 00:27:42.790 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I can take a look at that.
209 00:27:43.010 ⇒ 00:27:44.819 Uttam Kumaran: And then we can get that back to them.
210 00:27:45.570 ⇒ 00:27:47.410 Hannah Wang: Yeah. Yeah, that works.
211 00:27:47.610 ⇒ 00:27:50.270 Hannah Wang: And then…
212 00:27:50.830 ⇒ 00:27:58.380 Hannah Wang: So I guess this naturally… so is that good? The three that we’re gonna focus on is those three?
213 00:27:58.380 ⇒ 00:28:10.979 Hannah Wang: And I think that lends itself to the partners, so I don’t know if we wanted to go back to HubSpot and talk about the two partner-referred ones, like John Booze and the other one that I forgot.
214 00:28:11.050 ⇒ 00:28:12.039 Hannah Wang: Yeah, I feel like.
215 00:28:12.040 ⇒ 00:28:17.580 Uttam Kumaran: it’s probably… it’s probably helpful to talk about those since there’s active deals involved, and I want to probably spend…
216 00:28:17.940 ⇒ 00:28:22.739 Uttam Kumaran: most of the time talking about the Baltimore one.
217 00:28:22.920 ⇒ 00:28:24.849 Uttam Kumaran: But for the…
218 00:28:25.120 ⇒ 00:28:41.220 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, for the… for the John, booze one… so, yeah, I think the biggest thing there is it came referred from McGaw, who is someone that we wanted to partner with, because they likely have a lot of clients or leads just like this one that they could just send to us.
219 00:28:41.250 ⇒ 00:28:45.329 Uttam Kumaran: And so what’s important for me is that we
220 00:28:45.750 ⇒ 00:28:52.320 Uttam Kumaran: start to get on… on Magaw’s radar, and we can book something at least monthly with them.
221 00:28:53.310 ⇒ 00:29:02.110 Uttam Kumaran: So I think, like, one thing that I’ve been trying to do, in that channel, which I will share,
222 00:29:02.500 ⇒ 00:29:04.520 Uttam Kumaran: is I basically have just been, like.
223 00:29:05.100 ⇒ 00:29:07.429 Uttam Kumaran: Hitting them up, like, weekly, like…
224 00:29:07.790 ⇒ 00:29:14.090 Uttam Kumaran: Thanks for the intro, would love to use this to get our referral agreement over. I bumped it last week.
225 00:29:14.190 ⇒ 00:29:16.730 Uttam Kumaran: Dan’s been out of office, thanks.
226 00:29:16.960 ⇒ 00:29:21.050 Uttam Kumaran: So, like, Sort of just… this probably just needs to keep happening.
227 00:29:21.160 ⇒ 00:29:35.249 Uttam Kumaran: Especially if John Boo’s closed, they’re gonna… I mean, he’s just saying no to free money, so… wanna get some way. So this is something where, Holly, like, I could intro you in here at some point this week, and then you can kind of keep.
228 00:29:35.250 ⇒ 00:29:35.660 Holly Condos: Perfect.
229 00:29:35.660 ⇒ 00:29:36.970 Uttam Kumaran: handling nudges.
230 00:29:37.840 ⇒ 00:29:39.000 Holly Condos: Yeah, that’s great.
231 00:29:39.160 ⇒ 00:29:40.130 Uttam Kumaran: Cool. Perfect.
232 00:29:40.680 ⇒ 00:29:51.270 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, great. And we were talking here, there’s an existing thread on, like, what we were thinking about for referrals, like, we didn’t arrive anywhere, but naturally, this will get into that conversation.
233 00:29:51.470 ⇒ 00:29:52.660 Uttam Kumaran: And then…
234 00:29:52.660 ⇒ 00:29:52.980 Holly Condos: Okay.
235 00:29:52.980 ⇒ 00:29:57.140 Uttam Kumaran: Robert, do you want to set the stage for the RFP?
236 00:29:57.780 ⇒ 00:30:02.720 Uttam Kumaran: Deal… And, like, kind of, like.
237 00:30:02.900 ⇒ 00:30:04.979 Uttam Kumaran: What we were thinking about there?
238 00:30:05.310 ⇒ 00:30:07.500 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, I think,
239 00:30:08.000 ⇒ 00:30:14.040 Robert Tseng: I guess we’re… we’re kind of going in there as, just, like.
240 00:30:14.150 ⇒ 00:30:17.950 Robert Tseng: as, like, other camp… other things that I,
241 00:30:18.480 ⇒ 00:30:29.280 Robert Tseng: Okay, well, there’s two… there’s two… there’s two ways I would answer that question. One is, like, kind of broadly, like, what this opportunity represents. One source is a partner that we’re… that we’re working with now.
242 00:30:29.490 ⇒ 00:30:42.280 Robert Tseng: They are basically, like, they were… they started off as an accounting consultancy, been in business for over 25 years, so they’ve kind of expanded to a lot of different areas, but they don’t have the technical depth to go and
243 00:30:42.640 ⇒ 00:31:00.519 Robert Tseng: kind of serve a lot of their clients, but they are very well connected, and so, you know, they get these government RFPs, or these, like, legacy, or these big enterprise, kind of leads coming across their desk, and they want to kind of pitch
244 00:31:00.620 ⇒ 00:31:10.149 Robert Tseng: At them, but they need to work with firms like ours in order to actually deliver the service there. So, I think,
245 00:31:10.380 ⇒ 00:31:27.180 Robert Tseng: it’s… they have an RFP writer, they have, like, a full-on RFP writer, but, like, I think it’s more just kind of defining, like, you know, getting some momentum on this particular deal going, so that we can actually get them everything they need to do the submission. Like, we’ve never really pitched on an RFP,
246 00:31:27.480 ⇒ 00:31:29.039 Robert Tseng: Okay. This size before.
247 00:31:29.370 ⇒ 00:31:39.160 Robert Tseng: And then kind of, yeah, like, kind of trying to see if there are other, deals that they can bring us onto. So that, that’s, that’s the gist of…
248 00:31:39.270 ⇒ 00:31:42.680 Robert Tseng: kind of where we’re at with this. I think they’re looking to…
249 00:31:42.980 ⇒ 00:31:59.070 Robert Tseng: you know, I think submissions typically open up a month before, kind of, they’re due, so I feel like when these deals get passed our way, we probably have, like, about a month to kind of get it over the line. So that’s just from, like, a timeline perspective, I think, what to expect.
250 00:31:59.850 ⇒ 00:32:13.489 Robert Tseng: And then I imagine it’s pretty structured, in terms of, like, they have very specific requirements that they need from us, like, we can’t just, like, shoot over what we have and ask them to use it. They may have us, like, have to, like.
251 00:32:14.080 ⇒ 00:32:17.190 Robert Tseng: Edit things in order to get into the format that they need.
252 00:32:17.770 ⇒ 00:32:22.370 Robert Tseng: So… Yeah, and this is actually… I can help here, I’ve done.
253 00:32:22.790 ⇒ 00:32:25.550 Holly Condos: Government work, federal government work for…
254 00:32:25.780 ⇒ 00:32:45.290 Holly Condos: I don’t know, 15 years, I guess. And then in the last 5 years, I’ve done a lot of SLED, or state and local. Okay. So, I’m very familiar with, you know, the requirements, the GSA schedules, small business component requirements and compliance, right? So…
255 00:32:45.570 ⇒ 00:32:46.380 Robert Tseng: Great, amazing.
256 00:32:46.380 ⇒ 00:32:48.030 Holly Condos: Easy, easy stuff.
257 00:32:48.810 ⇒ 00:33:01.980 Robert Tseng: Okay, cool. Then I think we should loop Holly into, kind of, the email, just kind of… we should… I’ll… we have one thread with Ayanna, we’ll kind of keep that going on the workshop, that’s separate, but then for the… for then with,
258 00:33:02.260 ⇒ 00:33:04.210 Robert Tseng: I forgot her… the other lady’s name.
259 00:33:04.210 ⇒ 00:33:05.200 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, it was fun.
260 00:33:05.200 ⇒ 00:33:07.139 Robert Tseng: to, but connect Holly with her.
261 00:33:07.570 ⇒ 00:33:10.350 Holly Condos: That sounds good. Yeah, that’s perfect. Thank you.
262 00:33:10.350 ⇒ 00:33:10.920 Robert Tseng: Okay.
263 00:33:11.820 ⇒ 00:33:29.710 Robert Tseng: Yeah, and then I was saying, kind of more broadly, beyond this lead, I think when deals kind of slow down, like November, December, could be a good campaign for us to run and basically go and look for other partners that are like this, been in business for 10, 15 plus years.
264 00:33:30.410 ⇒ 00:33:35.890 Robert Tseng: Maybe they’re kind of boutique firms specializing first in, like.
265 00:33:36.030 ⇒ 00:33:39.769 Robert Tseng: You know, accounting or… or whatnot, but then they probably are…
266 00:33:40.000 ⇒ 00:33:44.970 Robert Tseng: Needing a tech services partner as well, and, like, try to get more of these folks.
267 00:33:44.970 ⇒ 00:33:48.630 Holly Condos: Yeah, and I think there’s… I think there’s a fairly large niche market.
268 00:33:48.630 ⇒ 00:33:49.870 Robert Tseng: Yeah. For that, that…
269 00:33:49.870 ⇒ 00:33:55.200 Holly Condos: is a good fit for Brainforge, so… okay, great. Yeah, I’m aligned with that idea.
270 00:33:55.460 ⇒ 00:33:56.770 Robert Tseng: Cool. Yeah.
271 00:33:57.320 ⇒ 00:33:57.900 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
272 00:33:58.320 ⇒ 00:33:59.040 Uttam Kumaran: Great.
273 00:34:00.190 ⇒ 00:34:06.540 Uttam Kumaran: And then let me just pull up, the marketing…
274 00:34:10.170 ⇒ 00:34:13.360 Uttam Kumaran: The GoToMarket Weekly Metrics Hannah Sheets.
275 00:34:13.670 ⇒ 00:34:16.210 Uttam Kumaran: And then, let me talk through…
276 00:34:16.219 ⇒ 00:34:18.389 Hannah Wang: We should rename that.
277 00:34:18.389 ⇒ 00:34:22.239 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, we’ll move this soon. We’ll move this soon.
278 00:34:22.449 ⇒ 00:34:27.469 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, great. So, we have… we’re talking about one source,
279 00:34:27.939 ⇒ 00:34:31.679 Uttam Kumaran: I still owe a review of the partnerships,
280 00:34:31.959 ⇒ 00:34:40.019 Uttam Kumaran: sort of, playbook, which I can get done. I know we’re moving, like, fresh paint forward, so that’s just, like, waiting on
281 00:34:40.579 ⇒ 00:34:46.879 Uttam Kumaran: just waiting on them and for stuff to sign. Otherwise, like, I…
282 00:34:47.119 ⇒ 00:34:55.739 Uttam Kumaran: I… I think once we… once we kind of think… think about… once I can take a look at the partnerships playbook, and Robert, that is in Notion…
283 00:34:56.129 ⇒ 00:34:59.549 Uttam Kumaran: No, I don’t forgot where that is.
284 00:34:59.550 ⇒ 00:35:01.900 Holly Condos: It’s sales partnerships.
285 00:35:02.760 ⇒ 00:35:03.850 Uttam Kumaran: Okay…
286 00:35:03.850 ⇒ 00:35:05.589 Holly Condos: Rico set it up.
287 00:35:06.760 ⇒ 00:35:08.970 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so right here, yes.
288 00:35:12.640 ⇒ 00:35:25.650 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. So, for context, Robert, Holly worked on, you know, several different, like, basically frameworks for partnerships that we can think about. Cool. Additionally, what I was… what I was very interested in is, like.
289 00:35:25.840 ⇒ 00:35:34.819 Uttam Kumaran: what is our objective, and, like, what is the program to put every partner into, right? So, like, kind of two things were important, like.
290 00:35:35.140 ⇒ 00:35:51.919 Uttam Kumaran: I won, I said we have a lot, but we probably didn’t qualify them enough on the outset, which is why we probably have a lot. Second is, once they’re in, like, how do we, like, run, like, a 8, 12, whatever, like, the… the motion is, you know, to drive towards that first.
291 00:35:51.920 ⇒ 00:35:53.749 Robert Tseng: drive towards our OKR, which is…
292 00:35:53.750 ⇒ 00:35:58.159 Uttam Kumaran: the close opportunity. So, I think we have a couple that, like, we’re…
293 00:35:58.290 ⇒ 00:36:13.229 Uttam Kumaran: we’ve… we’re, like, doing some business with. We have a couple that are, like, probably ripe for this, like, Mega is someone that I… one I’d like to get into that cadence with. And then we have some that are, like, again, if one source we decide to move forward with, we should apply the playbook.
294 00:36:13.230 ⇒ 00:36:13.620 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
295 00:36:13.620 ⇒ 00:36:20.060 Uttam Kumaran: You know, and that’s something that Holly can drive, and so that’s… that’s what we’re… that’s what we’re working on.
296 00:36:20.170 ⇒ 00:36:29.569 Holly Condos: Robert, the… Yeah. Sorry, Utom. Go ahead. Just to piggyback on your comments, but Robert, for your context, so…
297 00:36:29.600 ⇒ 00:36:47.889 Holly Condos: the gist or the scope, if you will, of these documents that are in Notion are at a very high level, you know, 30,000 foot level, so by no means is it meant to be, oh, this is what Brainforge should do. It’s more of an optional roadmap, if you will.
298 00:36:47.890 ⇒ 00:36:48.990 Robert Tseng: Sure, yeah.
299 00:36:48.990 ⇒ 00:36:51.609 Holly Condos: So just, just for that context.
300 00:36:51.610 ⇒ 00:36:58.199 Robert Tseng: Okay, no, I think this is… this is great. I think it helps us to qualify, our partners better, and then…
301 00:36:58.200 ⇒ 00:37:02.070 Holly Condos: At least have an outline for, like, how we’re going to actually.
302 00:37:02.220 ⇒ 00:37:06.229 Robert Tseng: put them through some sort of process. Like, I know we still have a ways to go to build that out.
303 00:37:06.970 ⇒ 00:37:08.400 Holly Condos: Perfect. Okay, good.
304 00:37:09.230 ⇒ 00:37:20.309 Uttam Kumaran: And then what we can do is, as soon as we arrive on, like, what the program is, I’ll propose that we run this with one of our vendor partners as well that we just did the playbook with.
305 00:37:20.400 ⇒ 00:37:30.269 Uttam Kumaran: So that’s the natural next step, is for me to use the playbook to then say, hey, we want to run you guys through our… we think we’re a great fit, here’s our typical partner program.
306 00:37:30.270 ⇒ 00:37:32.650 Holly Condos: You guys, can we run that with you, so…
307 00:37:32.650 ⇒ 00:37:37.910 Uttam Kumaran: That’ll either be Omni or… or, one of the other vendors that we…
308 00:37:38.050 ⇒ 00:37:45.020 Uttam Kumaran: we have some, you know, good momentum with. It looks like… it looks like Omni, also, I’m gonna get them a deal.
309 00:37:45.340 ⇒ 00:37:48.050 Holly Condos: This week, at least one, if not two, this week.
310 00:37:48.050 ⇒ 00:37:52.949 Uttam Kumaran: So, we will have actual, like, co-selling stuff that we’ve… that we’ve done, and…
311 00:37:53.320 ⇒ 00:37:53.860 Holly Condos: That’s great.
312 00:37:55.300 ⇒ 00:38:04.430 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so, I mean, the idea of what I basically mentioned is, like, I want to see this whittled down into a couple, and then we double down on the ones that we’re actually driving business from.
313 00:38:04.600 ⇒ 00:38:13.680 Uttam Kumaran: I think it’ll be painful, because we see value in a lot of these, but some of them either won’t fit our criteria, or won’t be able to do our program, and will be natural, like.
314 00:38:14.080 ⇒ 00:38:16.120 Uttam Kumaran: They’ll fall out because of that.
315 00:38:16.120 ⇒ 00:38:17.349 Holly Condos: Yes.
316 00:38:17.350 ⇒ 00:38:31.410 Uttam Kumaran: And I think it’s… it’s right, because I notice also, like, unless we have these cadences set up with them, and they’re serious about driving business, like, these will all just sort of be, like, random… these can remain as, like, random friendships.
317 00:38:31.410 ⇒ 00:38:32.740 Holly Condos: You know, they’d put, like…
318 00:38:32.740 ⇒ 00:38:36.239 Uttam Kumaran: I want to focus on the ones that are actually going to deliver for us.
319 00:38:36.430 ⇒ 00:38:41.739 Holly Condos: Right, and I think we talked about that, and I agree with the approach, because otherwise.
320 00:38:41.870 ⇒ 00:38:46.570 Holly Condos: You know, you’re thinking, oh, well, this company could materialize into something, but
321 00:38:46.730 ⇒ 00:38:59.670 Holly Condos: There’s no momentum, and they, you know, they’re just kind of in the lagging category, whereas you can focus your attention on the ones that actually, to your point, right, have something to drive towards.
322 00:39:00.700 ⇒ 00:39:07.580 Uttam Kumaran: So I think it’s a natural… yeah, it’s a natural next step also for us to talk through our game plan for the Telezma meeting on Thursday.
323 00:39:07.580 ⇒ 00:39:09.420 Holly Condos: Well, I was gonna ask about that, yeah.
324 00:39:09.730 ⇒ 00:39:14.320 Uttam Kumaran: Perfect. So, I would say, like, and again, just using this document.
325 00:39:14.320 ⇒ 00:39:15.230 Holly Condos: I’m like…
326 00:39:15.350 ⇒ 00:39:19.159 Uttam Kumaran: this is… I would say it’s partly… there is a…
327 00:39:19.300 ⇒ 00:39:24.669 Uttam Kumaran: There’s… partly it’s… it’s a referral, partly there’s, like.
328 00:39:24.930 ⇒ 00:39:29.829 Uttam Kumaran: some type of larger, like, marketing efforts that we could probably do. I think…
329 00:39:30.050 ⇒ 00:39:49.620 Uttam Kumaran: one thing that… and again, this is… I’ll tell you, like, how I’ve typically walked into these, and I think we should talk about, like, a more structured way, is, like, one, like, just sharing, like, our customer list and our lead list, and seeing, like, where those overlap. TLISMA is really focused on education and ed tech, so I will look through our Rolodex, I’ll probably shoot Robert a message.
330 00:39:49.640 ⇒ 00:39:59.260 Uttam Kumaran: sometime this week on, like, hey, did we do anything with education folks before? I’ll think about my Rolodex and who we’ve sold… And I will too, yeah.
331 00:39:59.460 ⇒ 00:40:04.600 Uttam Kumaran: And then kind of come to the table with, like, okay, here’s our, like, perspective on EdTech.
332 00:40:04.600 ⇒ 00:40:06.990 Holly Condos: Perfect. Similarly, I would hope that.
333 00:40:07.030 ⇒ 00:40:08.360 Uttam Kumaran: they have…
334 00:40:08.460 ⇒ 00:40:24.819 Uttam Kumaran: where in their portfolio, folks, that maybe they’ve struggled to implement projects or active leads that they’re working on. Again, the reason they’re bringing us in is because we’re very nimble, and we can do this type of modern technology fast. They’re much more interested in, like.
335 00:40:24.820 ⇒ 00:40:35.770 Uttam Kumaran: long-term, like, large IT, like, projects where they’re implementing applications at, like, the entire district level or within a college system. Those scopes are, like…
336 00:40:35.820 ⇒ 00:40:41.809 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so the reason that they’re interested in us is because we can come in and sort of break into an account and.
337 00:40:42.220 ⇒ 00:40:46.889 Uttam Kumaran: pitch prototypes and… and work, but then they… when they come in is they do, like.
338 00:40:47.130 ⇒ 00:40:55.859 Uttam Kumaran: college-wide rollouts of, like, applications and things like that. Stuff that’s, like, quite a bit, building full-stack applications, quite a bit beyond our scope.
339 00:40:56.030 ⇒ 00:41:11.189 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. So I want to see, like, whether there’s any of them that they have that are like that right now that we can collaborate on. And of course, that’s the whole goal. And then the other piece is, like, co-marketing. Okay, like, what can we do from the immediate, like, within the next
340 00:41:11.470 ⇒ 00:41:13.719 Uttam Kumaran: One month or two months, can we put out, like.
341 00:41:13.900 ⇒ 00:41:19.640 Uttam Kumaran: an announcement? Can we put out a joint case study? Like, whatever can we do there? So that’s, like, kind of what I’m interested in.
342 00:41:19.640 ⇒ 00:41:21.739 Holly Condos: Okay, yeah, that sounds like a good agenda.
343 00:41:22.530 ⇒ 00:41:36.180 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, cool. So that’s kind of, like, what I’ll… I’ll have… now that… now that, Holly, you’re there, I’ll… we could prepare something together. Maybe it’s just a Notion document, and then some type of spreadsheet, and then we can come into that meeting. Yeah, prepare, so… Perfect.
344 00:41:36.180 ⇒ 00:41:37.400 Holly Condos: Okay, great.
345 00:41:40.760 ⇒ 00:41:53.509 Uttam Kumaran: And then, yeah, I think on the one source piece, so next steps there is I’m gonna re-review what we talked about in that meeting with them, and then try to get another meeting booked, Robert, with the CEO, like, in the next
346 00:41:53.650 ⇒ 00:42:12.850 Uttam Kumaran: week or two. What I’m gonna basically do is, I’ll just send a summary of what we talked about, I’ll loop in Holly, and I’ll propose some natural next steps for a next meeting. We already have an NDA in place, so I’ll also do some exploration. I have some connections in Maryland, so I’ll see, like, what this… that stuff is.
347 00:42:12.980 ⇒ 00:42:17.209 Uttam Kumaran: And then, like, what… should we… we’ll just continue working on the…
348 00:42:17.430 ⇒ 00:42:21.080 Uttam Kumaran: Port Authority, you want to loop in Holly on that thread as well?
349 00:42:21.190 ⇒ 00:42:23.520 Uttam Kumaran: For the RFP stuff? Okay.
350 00:42:23.880 ⇒ 00:42:24.460 Robert Tseng: Yep.
351 00:42:25.060 ⇒ 00:42:27.250 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, cool. So then we can hit both of those.
352 00:42:27.380 ⇒ 00:42:29.359 Uttam Kumaran: In parallel.
353 00:42:29.610 ⇒ 00:42:30.260 Holly Condos: Sure.
354 00:42:30.470 ⇒ 00:42:32.010 Holly Condos: Yeah, okay.
355 00:42:33.380 ⇒ 00:42:40.399 Robert Tseng: Yeah, it’ll be good. I have a bi-weekly with them on Thursday, so I’ll be able to, you know, whatever message we send, I can follow up on that, too.
356 00:42:41.170 ⇒ 00:42:42.069 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, perfect.
357 00:42:42.070 ⇒ 00:42:42.730 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
358 00:42:44.500 ⇒ 00:42:58.259 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, great, and then I think stretch goal for this week, for, like, Hannah and Ryan, if… if we can get this into HubSpot, this would be great. I don’t know how… if we’re solid on, like, because we know we moved… I feel like the leads and stuff were in a good place.
359 00:42:58.440 ⇒ 00:43:05.300 Uttam Kumaran: this is the next thing to try to get into HubSpot. So, Ryan, I think you let me know, like, what the lift is, and if you can work with Rico on…
360 00:43:05.570 ⇒ 00:43:09.830 Uttam Kumaran: taking it out. It’d be great for next Monday if we start to…
361 00:43:10.280 ⇒ 00:43:13.469 Uttam Kumaran: do this out of, out of HubSpot.
362 00:43:14.160 ⇒ 00:43:26.499 Ryan Brosas: Yeah, absolutely. I can start that, this week to move all partnership and, well, also the leads that, for events also.
363 00:43:26.660 ⇒ 00:43:28.109 Ryan Brosas: I can also move that.
364 00:43:29.540 ⇒ 00:43:31.390 Hannah Wang: Great, great, yeah, yeah.
365 00:43:31.690 ⇒ 00:43:44.099 Hannah Wang: For that, Sid, I know Sid moved some of them already to HubSpot, like, at least the ones that were in Notion, but I… I feel like they need to be restructured, so…
366 00:43:44.270 ⇒ 00:43:47.879 Hannah Wang: Yeah, just FYI, I think some of them are already in there.
367 00:43:48.850 ⇒ 00:43:52.569 Ryan Brosas: Yeah, I think it’s more of, like, the circle back.
368 00:43:52.950 ⇒ 00:43:55.510 Ryan Brosas: Yeah, the circle back.
369 00:43:56.420 ⇒ 00:44:00.250 Hannah Wang: No, I asked her to move partners before, and I think she did.
370 00:44:00.250 ⇒ 00:44:00.590 Ryan Brosas: Oh, okay.
371 00:44:00.930 ⇒ 00:44:03.950 Hannah Wang: Yeah, so it should be in there somewhere, I think.
372 00:44:05.580 ⇒ 00:44:14.700 Ryan Brosas: Yeah, that’s, that’s noted. So, also like, Autumn, that you said that you want to add to the agenda the, the services?
373 00:44:17.240 ⇒ 00:44:28.420 Uttam Kumaran: Yes, yeah, so services I need to do… I would have had it done last week had we not had this entire project management fiasco, by the way. I just want to say I really had the time carved out.
374 00:44:29.500 ⇒ 00:44:40.889 Uttam Kumaran: I will try to… I’ll have to do that this week, so… I feel better about the project management stuff. I still need to… I can’t work on them probably until Wednesday.
375 00:44:41.210 ⇒ 00:44:45.809 Uttam Kumaran: But that will be my goal, is to try to spend time, knock that out, and stay.
376 00:44:46.340 ⇒ 00:44:55.379 Uttam Kumaran: So, yeah. I was this close, guys, to finishing that.
377 00:44:55.650 ⇒ 00:44:56.840 Holly Condos: But, okay.
378 00:44:56.970 ⇒ 00:44:57.740 Uttam Kumaran: Cool.
379 00:44:59.450 ⇒ 00:45:15.289 Uttam Kumaran: And then I… I may put a placeholder to… to meet as a partnerships crew on Wednesday. If anything, we can… if we don’t need to talk, we can do that async, but that way, it gives us a nice, like, something to…
380 00:45:15.540 ⇒ 00:45:18.549 Uttam Kumaran: to make sure that we, like, I don’t know when the…
381 00:45:19.200 ⇒ 00:45:26.159 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know when that… yeah, basically to make sure we have Teleisma prepped, and then as a reminder for me to loop
382 00:45:26.280 ⇒ 00:45:29.100 Uttam Kumaran: To follow up on any partnership stuff by then.
383 00:45:29.270 ⇒ 00:45:34.170 Uttam Kumaran: So, let’s do that. I think this meeting plus that meeting once a week is… seems perfect.
384 00:45:34.620 ⇒ 00:45:36.170 Holly Condos: That’s good. Thanks.
385 00:45:36.490 ⇒ 00:45:37.150 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
386 00:45:39.410 ⇒ 00:45:43.260 Uttam Kumaran: Cool, yeah, what else, Robert?
387 00:45:44.400 ⇒ 00:45:46.939 Robert Tseng: I think that’s it for now.
388 00:45:49.720 ⇒ 00:45:52.780 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, cool. I know we still haven’t made a dent into getting, like.
389 00:45:52.900 ⇒ 00:46:07.120 Uttam Kumaran: HubSpot reporting setup, again, just something that I couldn’t get to last week, but I think if we start to move at least the core pieces there, then it’ll be easier to report on, and… and I know Ryan is attending, like, some of the HubSpot webinars.
390 00:46:07.270 ⇒ 00:46:10.930 Uttam Kumaran: But I’m really happy to see the Contra stuff
391 00:46:11.200 ⇒ 00:46:14.350 Uttam Kumaran: Seemingly working, and dude, there’s some good deals on there, by the way.
392 00:46:14.580 ⇒ 00:46:18.560 Uttam Kumaran: So, I don’t know, my bet on…
393 00:46:18.740 ⇒ 00:46:26.630 Uttam Kumaran: I took a bet, being like, this is a brand new platform, and it seems like people are publishing stuff on there, and our profile is probably one of the most polished ones on there, because
394 00:46:27.160 ⇒ 00:46:32.590 Uttam Kumaran: We just, like, have… We just, like, have all this stuff, like, testimonials, blah blah blah, and so…
395 00:46:33.100 ⇒ 00:46:36.199 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I don’t know, seeing good stuff on there.
396 00:46:37.120 ⇒ 00:46:37.820 Robert Tseng: Nice.
397 00:46:41.510 ⇒ 00:46:43.820 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, cool.
398 00:46:45.170 ⇒ 00:46:48.499 Uttam Kumaran: Alright, well, if nothing else, appreciate everyone for the time today.
399 00:46:49.010 ⇒ 00:46:49.900 Robert Tseng: Alright, thanks, honey.
400 00:46:49.900 ⇒ 00:46:51.130 Holly Condos: Thanks, everybody.
401 00:46:51.220 ⇒ 00:46:52.000 Uttam Kumaran: Thank you.