Meeting Title: Julie <> Robert Date: 2025-10-17 Meeting participants: Julie, Robert Tseng
WEBVTT
1 00:01:29.520 ⇒ 00:01:30.620 Robert Tseng: Hi, Joey!
2 00:01:31.030 ⇒ 00:01:31.810 Julie: Sorry.
3 00:01:32.390 ⇒ 00:01:34.009 Robert Tseng: I’m doing well, how are you?
4 00:01:34.280 ⇒ 00:01:35.729 Julie: I’m good, thank you.
5 00:01:36.440 ⇒ 00:01:42.580 Robert Tseng: Yeah, thanks for, kind of responding so quickly and being able to get this scheduled.
6 00:01:42.880 ⇒ 00:01:57.860 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I guess I told you that I had just found you Upwork, LinkedIn, saw that maybe you know something about MuleSoft, but I’d love to kind of get an intro from you and better understand kind of what you’re up to, and maybe just to kind of
7 00:01:58.050 ⇒ 00:02:01.290 Robert Tseng: orient myself and the questions that I’ll be able to ask.
8 00:02:02.250 ⇒ 00:02:15.819 Julie: Perfect, yeah, sure. To give you some background about me, so I am a software architect by trade. Obviously, I are also the owner of Smart Code, and I have been…
9 00:02:15.820 ⇒ 00:02:29.670 Julie: In the, I’ve been doing software development for 25 years, but I’ve been specializing in integration for the majority of it. I started with MuleSoft back in 2011, so I am one of the veterans of MuleSoft.
10 00:02:29.670 ⇒ 00:02:30.850 Robert Tseng: Oh, great! Okay.
11 00:02:30.850 ⇒ 00:02:48.779 Julie: Yeah, like, when nobody else was barely doing it in its early infancy, I was working for MuleSoft, I, or on MuleSoft. I then, my company partnered with MuleSoft, so I’ve worked for MuleSoft Professional Services for 6 years.
12 00:02:49.090 ⇒ 00:02:49.470 Robert Tseng: Okay.
13 00:02:49.470 ⇒ 00:03:04.089 Julie: that time, but being basically working on, MuleSoft projects for, you know, a very, very long time. I’ve done some MuleSoft projects from IBM as well, so back.
14 00:03:04.090 ⇒ 00:03:04.500 Robert Tseng: Okay.
15 00:03:04.500 ⇒ 00:03:29.370 Julie: early days of IBM Watson, before anyone was talking about AI, I was doing work for IBM, doing MuleSoft integration to Watson, so do have some background there. And then, where we then pretty much, like, stayed course, because we started to, work on our own product. I’m pretty sure if you’ve done your research, you saw that we have a
16 00:03:29.370 ⇒ 00:03:30.999 Julie: Smart Code platform.
17 00:03:31.200 ⇒ 00:03:31.890 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
18 00:03:32.760 ⇒ 00:03:36.760 Julie: So, I write code that writes code, basically. Yeah.
19 00:03:36.930 ⇒ 00:03:44.770 Julie: So, we have a code generator for MuleSoft and Spring Boot Java, so I am also a Spring Boot Java expert.
20 00:03:45.020 ⇒ 00:03:46.430 Robert Tseng: Okay.
21 00:03:46.920 ⇒ 00:03:51.050 Julie: We are now, elevating our platform.
22 00:03:51.050 ⇒ 00:04:12.919 Julie: Through the whole software development lifecycle, so we’re steering, away from being, like, a dev tool, and more very specifically towards regulated industries, and so that’s what I’ve been working on, but in the meantime, I still do consulting. I’m, consulting for a, bank right now.
23 00:04:12.990 ⇒ 00:04:16.520 Julie: But I do have capacity, if that’s what you’re wondering.
24 00:04:16.529 ⇒ 00:04:16.979 Robert Tseng: Okay.
25 00:04:16.990 ⇒ 00:04:24.080 Julie: So, yeah, I have a very long history in integration, if that gives you a better picture.
26 00:04:24.790 ⇒ 00:04:28.590 Robert Tseng: Great, yeah, no, thank you for the overview. Yeah, I think…
27 00:04:28.910 ⇒ 00:04:38.530 Robert Tseng: your… being a veteran in fuelsoft is… I think this is exactly kind of the expertise that we’re looking for. It gives you some more context on my background on myself, and kind of, like, this…
28 00:04:38.530 ⇒ 00:04:57.259 Robert Tseng: RFP that we’re working on. So, I run Brandforge, and we’re basically a data and AI consultancy, started two and a half years ago. My co-founder and I, like, our core competency is more on the data engineering side, and so, like, he was, like, an early Snowflake partner, early data engineer at WeWork, and so
29 00:04:57.700 ⇒ 00:05:03.549 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I think every… anything like landing data into a data lake, and then being able to
30 00:05:03.550 ⇒ 00:05:28.030 Robert Tseng: you know, we use dbt as our main kind of orchestration platform to kind of transform data into a place that it’s ready to be fed into different BI tools. And so, once data is ready, moving it into the different BI tools, that’s kind of where my expertise is. I’ve used, kind of customer data platforms, Segment being the earlier one that I was using at first. So I’ve been kind of doing that for 8, 10 years now.
31 00:05:28.450 ⇒ 00:05:44.609 Robert Tseng: helping route data from, like, a warehouse into different tools, usually marketing tools, usually product analytics tools, and be able to build reporting on top of that. And so, that’s really kind of, like, the crux of, like, what we do.
32 00:05:45.160 ⇒ 00:06:10.070 Robert Tseng: I would say, like, this project, and why MuleSoft is part of the picture, we’re starting to bid more on, kind of, like, longer-term government enterprise contracts, and so some of these, like, core legacy, like, systems are kind of being brought into play. So, we’ve developed, some ERP expertise over the past year, so we have a couple people in-house now that, definitely help us do, like, Salesforce, Oracle migration, stuff
33 00:06:10.070 ⇒ 00:06:15.029 Robert Tseng: like that. But MuleSoft seems like, you know, a recurring kind of,
34 00:06:15.170 ⇒ 00:06:19.460 Robert Tseng: you know, requests on a lot of the RFPs that we’re seeing, and so we’re pretty…
35 00:06:19.790 ⇒ 00:06:23.210 Robert Tseng: For far along on a particular proposal right now.
36 00:06:23.490 ⇒ 00:06:39.449 Robert Tseng: And there is, like, a specific request that, like, they needed to… they want MuleSoft to be part of the proposal we’re putting together. So, I guess this call, I’m hoping, you know, I’m sure we could talk about a lot of different things, but I’m just trying to better understand, like, overall, kind of, like.
37 00:06:40.090 ⇒ 00:07:02.019 Robert Tseng: the implementation kind of stages for MuleSoft, especially kind of, like, the different types of products. I’m sure, like, API Manager is a part of it, and Integration Studio, but beyond that, like, how we’re going to fold that into the rest of the work that we’re pitching to them as well. So, yeah, that’s kind of what I’m hoping to get, a sense of from this conversation.
38 00:07:02.020 ⇒ 00:07:09.740 Robert Tseng: And I have a list of questions, I’m happy to kind of go through them, or just kind of let you kind of help frame kind of the… the context for… for me.
39 00:07:09.740 ⇒ 00:07:10.460 Julie: Yep.
40 00:07:10.460 ⇒ 00:07:11.150 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
41 00:07:11.190 ⇒ 00:07:26.319 Julie: And, and, I don’t know if you noticed, but I run, like, API groups, and I also write, a lot on these subjects, so I have… I actually write for, on MuleSoft for, Salesforce band, and I write for Medium as well, so…
42 00:07:26.320 ⇒ 00:07:28.439 Robert Tseng: Oh, really? Okay, I didn’t see you writing. Sorry.
43 00:07:28.440 ⇒ 00:07:34.959 Julie: I can do the… I can do the, 20-foot thousand view, so let me give you a…
44 00:07:34.960 ⇒ 00:07:41.930 Julie: very, easy-to-understand breakdown. So, MuleSoft is what they call Integration Platform as a Service.
45 00:07:41.930 ⇒ 00:07:56.439 Julie: So, in the MuleSoft ecosphere, they have everything that you could possibly want in there. So, obviously, API management, they have a… they have an entire, like, management playing, right? So you can…
46 00:07:56.440 ⇒ 00:07:56.840 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
47 00:07:56.840 ⇒ 00:08:18.649 Julie: manage all your access to SAML, and for your identity processes, and for your policies, and for a lot of different things in the platform. I can… I have an instance of it myself, because we’re still a Salesforce partner, so I can definitely walk you through it if you had some questions.
48 00:08:19.070 ⇒ 00:08:32.610 Julie: Basically, that will pair with MuleSoft, the runtime, and that can live in one of three places. It can live on-premises, in a, in a, say, bare-metal, server environment.
49 00:08:32.830 ⇒ 00:08:33.340 Robert Tseng: Yep.
50 00:08:33.340 ⇒ 00:08:34.659 Julie: That one is…
51 00:08:35.240 ⇒ 00:08:48.499 Julie: are still around, but not very prevalent. Like, they don’t really sell, like, that anymore. People opt towards the other two options, which is containerized. So there’s one called CloudHub, which is what they host on AWS.
52 00:08:48.500 ⇒ 00:08:55.120 Julie: And that will have all of their containerized versions, or they can run it on their own cloud instance, or on-premises.
53 00:08:55.120 ⇒ 00:09:17.680 Julie: through their runtime fabric, which is their Kubernetes version of on-premises these days. So, that is, like, a rundown of what MuleSoft gives you. The… they talk about MuleSoft flows. Like, MuleSoft is built on top of Java and Spring, so a flow in a MuleSoft looks like the old version of the Spring
54 00:09:17.680 ⇒ 00:09:31.200 Julie: the spring, configuration files before they turn to annotations, so it very much looks like that. The original… so if you were to go for something different, like,
55 00:09:31.200 ⇒ 00:09:40.529 Julie: say, Java, Spring Boot.NET, you know, you’re basically talking about more of a decentralized
56 00:09:40.620 ⇒ 00:09:49.660 Julie: platform where you have your APIs, and then you have to hook in all the other different components, so MuleSoft is really just
57 00:09:49.660 ⇒ 00:10:02.130 Julie: you know, one big, platform that offers everything that you need to do with MuleSoft. Obviously, the price tag is pretty hefty that comes with it too, just so you know.
58 00:10:02.130 ⇒ 00:10:19.599 Robert Tseng: Got it. Yeah, no, I think that’s a great overview. Okay, I understand, yeah, integration, platform as a service, they have on-prem and cloud options, seems like it’s really just those two kind of directions that you would take now, either with the fabric or, or I guess, their version of a Kubernetes.
59 00:10:19.600 ⇒ 00:10:22.410 Robert Tseng: Yeah, Kubernetes poster that’s hosted on-prem.
60 00:10:22.450 ⇒ 00:10:36.939 Robert Tseng: That makes sense. And then, kind of, like, what’s the typical integration landscape do you see? Like, what kind of, like, you know, do they… I mean, I don’t really know the ecosystem too well with YuleSoft, so, like, for their ERP, I’m assuming, yeah, like, I just, like.
61 00:10:37.540 ⇒ 00:10:55.690 Robert Tseng: I’m assuming it’s usually paired with some sort of… yeah, some VRP, some CRM, like, I guess, like, is it typically… I mean, it’s a platform on AWS, so it seems like it could be agnostic to any other of the data cloud providers. I don’t know if you could speak to that part a bit more.
62 00:10:55.690 ⇒ 00:11:14.429 Julie: integrate to absolutely everything and anything, so what MuleSoft did, and what they’re famous for, is building what they call connectors. And these connectors are, like, pre-made, you know, flow elements that… that are basically Java underneath that connect to different systems. So they have
63 00:11:14.430 ⇒ 00:11:32.930 Julie: they’re very mature products, so they have connectors for just about everything that exists, and if they don’t, then you can find other ways to connect to it through SOAP or REST. But if you talk about connecting to ERP, you talk about, like, SAP, D365, or whatever you have.
64 00:11:32.930 ⇒ 00:11:36.670 Julie: There is more than likely a very easy and quick way to
65 00:11:36.750 ⇒ 00:11:54.200 Julie: connect to it. So, what they do is they have, this drag-and-drop low-code interface that they provide on their platform, and you can drag these connectors on and just put a few configurations in, and it’s pretty simple to connect to the system.
66 00:11:54.800 ⇒ 00:12:18.020 Robert Tseng: Okay, so is it more… so, I mean, I’m just curious, like, from, like, a full-stack kind of implementation phase, so I’m assuming… I think we’re kind of redoing the whole vendor selection for the ERP as well. So, like, maybe it’s the ERP selection first, kind of figuring out what all those other systems are, and then MuleSoft gets introduced, we can set up those connectors there to be able to start to, I guess you’re basically starting to create a
67 00:12:18.020 ⇒ 00:12:19.760 Robert Tseng: APIs,
68 00:12:19.760 ⇒ 00:12:25.929 Robert Tseng: and that they’re gonna be hosted in… yeah, they’re gonna… they’re gonna be deployed through… through MuleSoft. Is that kind of…
69 00:12:26.130 ⇒ 00:12:28.759 Robert Tseng: Like, is that the right sequence? Yeah.
70 00:12:28.760 ⇒ 00:12:32.129 Julie: the API connectivity between the systems, right? So you know.
71 00:12:32.130 ⇒ 00:12:32.450 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
72 00:12:32.450 ⇒ 00:12:39.780 Julie: look at the bigger picture. If they haven’t selected their ERP yet, I highly recommend you don’t do SAP, because it’s pain.
73 00:12:39.780 ⇒ 00:12:56.029 Julie: It’s kind of legacy. But if you are, go ahead, Millsoft can handle it. But, there’s other… I think there’s other options that are trying to knock SAP off the… off the top rung. That are, you know, sort of,
74 00:12:56.030 ⇒ 00:13:20.969 Julie: But, you know, they do a lot from the other side of it, but yeah, basically, you can pick all the different pieces, and then MuleSoft will help you to, connect the data between the two, right? So it’ll help you to move data from one platform to another, efficiently in whichever way, whether it’s real-time or batch or whatever you need to do. MuleSoft has very advanced batch capabilities.
75 00:13:20.970 ⇒ 00:13:31.859 Julie: well, so, maybe if you explain to me, like, obviously, if they have MuleSoft, what systems do they have, and what systems are you looking at connecting together?
76 00:13:32.390 ⇒ 00:13:39.880 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so we don’t have too much information. I’d like to make a proposal here, so… some of the things that have been outlined…
77 00:13:44.010 ⇒ 00:13:48.740 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I might have to get back to you on, kind of, like, what other systems they’ve shared with us so far.
78 00:13:48.740 ⇒ 00:13:49.360 Julie: Hmm…
79 00:13:49.470 ⇒ 00:13:53.709 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, for context, this is, like, with,
80 00:13:54.780 ⇒ 00:14:00.970 Robert Tseng: this is, like, a government, kind of, based ERP, so, like, I… so there’s, like, there’s a lot of…
81 00:14:00.970 ⇒ 00:14:03.669 Julie: They will… they will most likely have SCP.
82 00:14:03.670 ⇒ 00:14:06.559 Robert Tseng: Yeah, it’s like a 30-page, like, proposal.
83 00:14:06.560 ⇒ 00:14:11.780 Julie: It doesn’t, matter, because even if you had green screens.
84 00:14:11.780 ⇒ 00:14:20.829 Robert Tseng: MuleSoft can handle that, too. So there is nothing that you can put, like, what you probably need to do is work out what stack.
85 00:14:20.890 ⇒ 00:14:32.050 Julie: You’re dealing with, what it is that they have versus what it is that you’re proposing that they add to their stack, and then work out how those things communicate to each other.
86 00:14:32.110 ⇒ 00:14:43.179 Julie: What sort of data do you need to pass from, like, one, one system to another? If this company has a government institution has Milsoft.
87 00:14:43.180 ⇒ 00:15:03.880 Julie: then most likely they’re actually a pretty mature tech… technologically, because, like I said, MuleSoft has a multi-million dollar line item for it. It’s very expensive, so you wouldn’t go buy something that expensive if you weren’t fairly mature in your IT practices everywhere else.
88 00:15:03.880 ⇒ 00:15:08.380 Julie: So, if… when it comes to, like.
89 00:15:08.540 ⇒ 00:15:33.520 Julie: how… what systems you’ve got, and then you have to work out how they need to communicate to each other. MuleSoft will do the communication between them, because obviously, going point-to-point is not, you know, not going to give you the right architecture for what you need. It’s an anti-pattern these days, so that’s what you’re using the middleware for, is to orchestrate those. Also, MuleSoft operates on the
90 00:15:33.520 ⇒ 00:15:34.870 Julie: things called Legos.
91 00:15:34.870 ⇒ 00:15:43.800 Julie: So it’s not like you’re just putting one API between them. You’re, you have these three layers, they call them experience, process, and system.
92 00:15:43.800 ⇒ 00:15:50.930 Julie: And what it really is, is, like, the experience means I’m going to show the source what it needs.
93 00:15:51.200 ⇒ 00:15:59.140 Julie: understand about me. The system on the other side is, like, I’m going to talk to the back end, whatever it is, database.
94 00:15:59.140 ⇒ 00:16:09.740 Julie: you know, ERP, whatever you’re talking to, and the process in the middle says, I’m going to take care of all the orchestration. So that’s their typical microservices layering.
95 00:16:09.740 ⇒ 00:16:19.490 Julie: They are very, like, if you talk to MuleSoft people, even if you have the basic three-layer understanding, that will get you a lot further in your sales.
96 00:16:19.740 ⇒ 00:16:26.839 Julie: Okay. Because MuleSoft people, they think in those 3 layers. Everything is down to those 3 layers.
97 00:16:27.390 ⇒ 00:16:42.439 Robert Tseng: Okay, yeah, I… let’s kind of double-click into that. So, I mean, as I’m kind of, you know, the big, massive proposal, kind of, there’s a section here that just has, like, one section about, like, I mean, I’m just, like, reading it verbatim. It’s basically,
98 00:16:44.840 ⇒ 00:16:53.840 Robert Tseng: Yeah, one of the main objectives outlined is to identify gaps in Mule’s current MuleSoft capabilities, and…
99 00:16:53.840 ⇒ 00:17:09.089 Robert Tseng: re-architect in preparation for AI and automation needs. Like, that’s… that’s the… that’s the title of this section. And so, I guess we can make a couple assumptions here, everyone, without looking at this tech stack. So, I’m assuming they must have something in place, obviously, if they already have MuleSoft.
100 00:17:09.089 ⇒ 00:17:19.289 Robert Tseng: And so if you were to go in and basically audit this situation, you would evaluate those 3 layers to see, kind of, like, you know, whether, like, whether or not, like, the…
101 00:17:21.170 ⇒ 00:17:24.230 Robert Tseng: At all three levels, the…
102 00:17:24.250 ⇒ 00:17:37.120 Robert Tseng: the connectivity, the data that’s being passed back and forth is comprehensive, and it has… it’s like… I don’t know, and then they also be able to articulate
103 00:17:37.120 ⇒ 00:18:01.820 Robert Tseng: like, what further development we could make on top of that? I’m assuming I’m just kind of trying to break it down in plain language. Is that kind of, like, a good starting point to kind of be like, okay, well, if I were to pass you a section of this to maybe help, like, kind of expand on… on, like, what that phase would look like? I don’t know if it would call it discovery phase or whatever. Is that… would that be a fair, like, kind of.
104 00:18:01.820 ⇒ 00:18:05.270 Robert Tseng: like, kind of overview of, like, what you’re describing here.
105 00:18:05.270 ⇒ 00:18:08.780 Julie: Can you read that first sentence again for me?
106 00:18:09.090 ⇒ 00:18:19.779 Robert Tseng: Yeah, it’s like, one of the main objectives is, identifying gaps in current MuleSloft capabilities in preparation… Preparation?
107 00:18:19.780 ⇒ 00:18:20.310 Julie: Yep.
108 00:18:22.050 ⇒ 00:18:24.570 Julie: Okay, so…
109 00:18:24.760 ⇒ 00:18:42.479 Julie: What they’re actually saying is we want to… we want to connect to AI and automation. We want to know what MuleSoft can do, and if there’s any gaps that MuleSoft can’t do it. So, that’s… sorry, I had to think…
110 00:18:42.650 ⇒ 00:18:49.589 Julie: I had to hear it again to think about what they were actually saying in that point. So what they’re saying is…
111 00:18:49.830 ⇒ 00:18:59.669 Julie: Can MuleSoft do all the connectivity to these, different, AI automation capabilities?
112 00:18:59.810 ⇒ 00:19:03.840 Julie: And if they can’t do everything, what can’t it do?
113 00:19:04.220 ⇒ 00:19:04.620 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
114 00:19:04.620 ⇒ 00:19:24.549 Julie: Where does it fall short? So that would be an analysis piece, understanding what… what the AI and automation capabilities are, how they need to be communicated to, and then understanding what MuleSoft can do, and can MuleSoft communicate it to the way that it needs to be communicated to.
115 00:19:24.850 ⇒ 00:19:33.329 Robert Tseng: Yeah, got it. Okay. And I kind of just went back to the doc, and I pulled up… so they don’t describe the tools themselves, they just… they just kind of…
116 00:19:33.490 ⇒ 00:19:57.769 Robert Tseng: talk about the systems that are currently there, so that they have to integrate with external vendors, I’m assuming. So there are, you know, it’s like a whole list of things. Insurance providers, like, kind of payment providers, and then a variety of other internal systems that are kind of using all types of different technologies. It’s not all APIs, some of it is, like, just database links, which I’m
117 00:19:57.770 ⇒ 00:19:58.880 Robert Tseng: familiar with.
118 00:19:58.880 ⇒ 00:20:02.130 Robert Tseng: Then there’s a whole suite of other tech that I have never heard of, like…
119 00:20:02.260 ⇒ 00:20:09.480 Robert Tseng: SFTP… or, man, no SFTPAs, but, like, you know, all these other types of, you know, functions that are more, like, for.
120 00:20:09.480 ⇒ 00:20:09.880 Julie: government.
121 00:20:09.880 ⇒ 00:20:14.940 Robert Tseng: So, yeah. Yeah, stuff like that. So, file transfers, like.
122 00:20:14.940 ⇒ 00:20:15.440 Julie: So, yeah.
123 00:20:15.440 ⇒ 00:20:23.169 Robert Tseng: scheduling maintenance, etc, right? So that’s maybe kind of a little glimpse into the scope of, like, what they’re trying to integrate into this, I guess.
124 00:20:23.510 ⇒ 00:20:31.150 Julie: So, what you need to care about when it comes to reading that proposal is.
125 00:20:31.150 ⇒ 00:20:31.760 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
126 00:20:31.760 ⇒ 00:20:34.970 Julie: What is the interface?
127 00:20:35.220 ⇒ 00:20:51.339 Julie: how do you connect to these systems? So, are they an API specification? Are they SFTP? Are they, some sort of batch capacity? How do you connect and talk to these different systems?
128 00:20:51.380 ⇒ 00:20:54.929 Robert Tseng: Yeah. And what systems are talking to what systems.
129 00:20:54.930 ⇒ 00:21:13.069 Julie: So, these… in the integration part, that’s what you need to zone in on and focus on, is how do we talk to these different systems? Do they, if they have an exhaustive list, you could probably go to each one of those and
130 00:21:13.070 ⇒ 00:21:17.310 Julie: type in the name with the word API on the end, and look API.
131 00:21:17.310 ⇒ 00:21:17.930 Robert Tseng: I prefer it.
132 00:21:17.930 ⇒ 00:21:24.050 Julie: And look for the spec and see what it communicates to, but some of them might not be that simple.
133 00:21:24.410 ⇒ 00:21:44.400 Robert Tseng: Sure. Okay, that’s totally fair. All right, yeah, I appreciate kind of digging into the details here. Let me kind of zoom back out a bit. So, yeah, I mean, clearly, I mean, you’re… the way you’re articulated, you know what you’re doing. So, like, I… I want to be able to see, like, how do I actually work with you, you know? Yeah, so obviously we’re gonna…
134 00:21:44.470 ⇒ 00:21:55.390 Robert Tseng: The draft of this proposal is gonna go out today, I’m gonna compile some notes, you know, maybe I’ll get your look over it, but if you don’t have time to review, it’s fine, like, we still have a bit of time before end of month is kind of when this is due.
135 00:21:55.390 ⇒ 00:22:05.210 Robert Tseng: But assuming we bid, we pitch, we win the deal, then yeah, we’re gonna obviously need kind of, like, an architect to basically lead this part of the project.
136 00:22:05.210 ⇒ 00:22:22.750 Robert Tseng: Wondering, like, how would we be able to work with you? Like, I guess, like, I can share some of the ways that we typically do it. We could do a… I don’t know, it seems like you have your own entity, we could do corp-to-corp, if you’re just going to be individual, and then you want us to kind of basically give you a budget to go and resource and
137 00:22:22.750 ⇒ 00:22:34.349 Robert Tseng: pull-in team, we could have you kind of white label under, like, kind of our team, so we’re presenting United Front. There’s different ways that we’ve done this before, so just want to see, like, what… kind of what you think.
138 00:22:34.930 ⇒ 00:22:48.800 Julie: So, we can provide you an MSA, that we can sign, and then we can go through, like, formalized statement of works, right? Yeah. We are…
139 00:22:48.800 ⇒ 00:23:02.820 Julie: We are a, you know, sort of a product company that does consulting as well, so we have consulting partners that, if we need to build a team, and we know what we’re building, we can pull the right people in, because
140 00:23:02.820 ⇒ 00:23:12.320 Julie: I’ve been doing MuleSoft for so long, I know the right people to partner with. And that’s how we typically work, is through our technology partners.
141 00:23:12.320 ⇒ 00:23:12.840 Robert Tseng: Okay.
142 00:23:12.840 ⇒ 00:23:30.410 Julie: And I can provide all the oversight and architecture on that. Obviously, it depends on when it would kick off, right? Yeah. But I would definitely be able to, like, we would definitely be able to, like, figure something out so that it works for both of us.
143 00:23:30.410 ⇒ 00:23:31.070 Robert Tseng: Okay.
144 00:23:31.070 ⇒ 00:23:50.929 Julie: I have, like, a, you know, as you saw, I have an Upwork profile that, you know, puts a discount rate on the front of it, just so that people can, like, come and look at that, and maybe, like, engage with me, but but basically, yeah, we can work out something reasonable that works for both parties, and…
145 00:23:50.930 ⇒ 00:24:01.220 Julie: As for your proposal itself, are you going to need help with that, or are you pushing that through today, you said?
146 00:24:01.220 ⇒ 00:24:14.779 Robert Tseng: Yeah, well, I guess, like, this first draft, like, I’ll probably just… just because I need to turn it around, like, by the end of the day, I don’t… I wasn’t expecting you to, kind of, put any, like, fingers to keys today. But yeah, I think, like,
147 00:24:15.570 ⇒ 00:24:27.169 Robert Tseng: the actual, like, the procurement, like, timeline for this is… I think the actual proposal is due at the end of the month. This draft, like, I just want to get out to the rest of the group. Yeah, it’s just an internal deadline, so…
148 00:24:27.170 ⇒ 00:24:28.600 Julie: Not for them, right, gotcha.
149 00:24:28.600 ⇒ 00:24:46.929 Robert Tseng: Yeah, yeah, so not… not huge, not a huge rush. But yeah, I mean, I guess the end of the month is coming up, so hopefully in the next week or two weeks, like, you know, after we’ve kind of gotten that first draft, if I could get your… if we could, like, kind of work with you directly, you know, something short-term, hourly, whatever, if you want to just kind of
150 00:24:46.940 ⇒ 00:24:51.400 Robert Tseng: help on this proposal, I think that could be, like, an easy way to start.
151 00:24:51.400 ⇒ 00:25:07.299 Robert Tseng: And then we’re expecting to hear back, like, we get a reply from this stuff usually within 30 days, so, I would say at latest, like, end of November, we’ll have, like, a line of sight on what this looks like. And, you know, these… these projects, they go 1-2 years, so, like, they’re… it’ll be a long time, yeah.
152 00:25:10.480 ⇒ 00:25:20.069 Julie: Right, so I’m working on a banking project right now that just… I’m just giving you my timeline. Yeah. It finished… it’s… we have a hard,
153 00:25:20.270 ⇒ 00:25:35.160 Julie: stop date of November 15, and I’m in the process of, signing a, working with a company in, healthcare, which is gonna start after that.
154 00:25:35.160 ⇒ 00:25:52.770 Julie: Having said that, I’m… I don’t… I don’t care about… I’m not one of those people that says, I only work 9 to 5. I’m a business owner, right? So, if you want help with it, I’m happy to work with it after hours. If you need to pull me into meetings during the day, during business hours, that’s fine too, we can work that out.
155 00:25:53.010 ⇒ 00:25:56.729 Julie: So I can definitely help you get the proposal over the line.
156 00:25:56.750 ⇒ 00:26:11.429 Julie: Okay. When it comes to, the actual MuleSoft implementation, I can help you put… I can put a team in for you, and I will have some oversight into it. I won’t be… I probably, if it’s clashing with the projects that I’ve just…
157 00:26:11.430 ⇒ 00:26:24.869 Julie: committed to. I might not be able to do it myself full-time, but I can definitely, get you the team and then manage the team oversight to push it through to fruition. So, I could definitely do that.
158 00:26:25.420 ⇒ 00:26:39.170 Robert Tseng: Okay, great. Yeah, no, I think we’re aligned. I think that works for us. So cool. Yeah, so as long as, you know, hopefully timing works out and everything, like, yeah, seems like there’s flexible ways to be able to work with you through this, and I’m assuming, you know, it’ll just be…
159 00:26:39.360 ⇒ 00:26:50.910 Robert Tseng: I mean, we’re just, you know, we’re proposal writing at this point, and I don’t expect anything like team and implementation to happen, really, until the new year. So, like, I think this… that’s kind of… that’s kind of what I’m expecting.
160 00:26:51.710 ⇒ 00:26:52.920 Julie: But if I am…
161 00:26:53.390 ⇒ 00:27:04.949 Julie: like, you know, then I will definitely, like, you know, architect it, otherwise I’ll find just as strong an architect to put on it and… and manage it through. But, basically,
162 00:27:05.390 ⇒ 00:27:14.189 Julie: you know, I… like I said, I’m happy to work after hours, I’m happy to work weekends, or whatever you need to, like, really think it through. It sounds like it’s something that…
163 00:27:14.350 ⇒ 00:27:16.779 Julie: We’ll need a lot of thinking to get there.
164 00:27:16.990 ⇒ 00:27:17.430 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
165 00:27:17.430 ⇒ 00:27:28.280 Julie: And quite a bit of research, on those, different systems. And, and so that, that part of it doesn’t, doesn’t bother me at all.
166 00:27:29.150 ⇒ 00:27:39.119 Robert Tseng: Okay, that sounds good. Alright, yeah, I think this was good enough for me to kind of just be able to put my, my draft together, and…
167 00:27:39.390 ⇒ 00:27:45.599 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, I guess that’s the best way to reach you, just email, like, is it okay if I send you some questions, the follow-up questions if we…
168 00:27:45.600 ⇒ 00:27:57.610 Julie: You can email me, I can, I can shoot you my, cell, so you can, like, contact me that way as well. I will send you through the… the…
169 00:27:57.980 ⇒ 00:27:58.960 Julie: Say?
170 00:27:58.990 ⇒ 00:28:09.890 Julie: And for your legal team to review, and you can go over it, and then I’ll send you the word copy so that you can look at it, and then we can get that signed off. And then,
171 00:28:09.890 ⇒ 00:28:24.220 Julie: And then, yeah, absolutely, you know, ask any questions, like, in the meantime, just, you know, I know MuleSoft like the back of my hand, but just don’t forget that MuleSoft operates in those three layers.
172 00:28:24.220 ⇒ 00:28:33.919 Julie: So, everything that you’re going to talk to them, they will… it doesn’t matter if they’re technical or they’re business analysts. Every single person in the MuleSoft world speaks that language. Three languages.
173 00:28:33.920 ⇒ 00:28:34.550 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
174 00:28:34.870 ⇒ 00:28:39.850 Robert Tseng: Okay, got it. All right. Well, I’ll… yeah, I mean…
175 00:28:40.020 ⇒ 00:28:44.859 Robert Tseng: we’ll work with what we have for today, and yeah, we’ll keep the conversation going. Appreciate your time, Julie.
176 00:28:45.210 ⇒ 00:28:46.000 Julie: You’re welcome.
177 00:28:46.000 ⇒ 00:28:48.960 Robert Tseng: Yeah, okay, talk soon. Alright, bye.