Meeting Title: Zoom Meeting Date: 2025-10-21 Meeting participants: Robert Tseng, Amber Lin
WEBVTT
1 00:01:25.850 ⇒ 00:01:26.940 Amber Lin: Hello!
2 00:01:28.160 ⇒ 00:01:29.120 Robert Tseng: Hello.
3 00:01:30.450 ⇒ 00:01:31.800 Amber Lin: How are you?
4 00:01:32.510 ⇒ 00:01:34.440 Robert Tseng: I’m…
5 00:01:35.010 ⇒ 00:01:42.160 Robert Tseng: Not doing great. I had a good friend that actually passed away, so I was out this morning as I was…
6 00:01:43.660 ⇒ 00:01:45.940 Robert Tseng: Kind of devastated by that.
7 00:01:47.150 ⇒ 00:01:53.340 Robert Tseng: I came back online, and just trying to get through the day, and… Yeah.
8 00:01:55.700 ⇒ 00:02:00.190 Amber Lin: That sounds very devastating. I was thinking about that when my parents came here.
9 00:02:00.660 ⇒ 00:02:05.539 Amber Lin: And then I was seeing that they’re not as fast as before, and it was very, very…
10 00:02:06.060 ⇒ 00:02:09.899 Amber Lin: It’s very hard to think about and fun to hear that.
11 00:02:10.580 ⇒ 00:02:17.240 Robert Tseng: Yeah. No, it’s… it’s… it’s, I… I did get to…
12 00:02:17.580 ⇒ 00:02:23.039 Robert Tseng: I had a little bit of time to grieve, but I will do more of that later.
13 00:02:24.570 ⇒ 00:02:28.000 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I think, huh.
14 00:02:28.140 ⇒ 00:02:31.480 Robert Tseng: That’s not why I called you, so it’s okay for now.
15 00:02:32.380 ⇒ 00:02:36.629 Amber Lin: But I’m glad you’re able to tell me, because those are pretty private things.
16 00:02:37.140 ⇒ 00:02:39.310 Robert Tseng: Oh, yeah. Well, I think,
17 00:02:39.420 ⇒ 00:02:42.300 Robert Tseng: There’s more to life than work, and…
18 00:02:42.790 ⇒ 00:02:47.789 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, we’re all human, we get impacted by stuff that happens outside our job, so…
19 00:02:48.040 ⇒ 00:02:50.299 Robert Tseng: This was, a very rough…
20 00:02:51.250 ⇒ 00:02:53.919 Robert Tseng: It was a very rough day for me, I’d say.
21 00:02:57.780 ⇒ 00:03:01.939 Robert Tseng: How are you doing since coming back? Do you feel caught up?
22 00:03:02.270 ⇒ 00:03:12.960 Amber Lin: I feel caught up, there’s been a lot of changes in the PM side, and I’m honestly pretty happy about it, so I’m looking forward to the analysis work.
23 00:03:13.100 ⇒ 00:03:14.050 Amber Lin: Okay.
24 00:03:14.630 ⇒ 00:03:20.250 Amber Lin: So… Yeah. I know we’re trying to add me to insomnia, right?
25 00:03:20.500 ⇒ 00:03:26.269 Robert Tseng: Okay, yeah, I guess, how much has Utam shared with you so far? I know we have, like, our one-on-one… okay, great.
26 00:03:26.980 ⇒ 00:03:33.830 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I think the plan is to bring you on to Saka. Yeah.
27 00:03:34.080 ⇒ 00:03:35.250 Robert Tseng: So…
28 00:03:36.190 ⇒ 00:03:44.670 Robert Tseng: I guess… I mean, you were kind of on that client, Justin, I know you’ve been in and out, so it’ll probably take a bit of time to catch up,
29 00:03:45.140 ⇒ 00:03:49.740 Robert Tseng: I’m hoping… Yeah, I mean, just on this call, kind of give you
30 00:03:53.090 ⇒ 00:03:57.629 Robert Tseng: like, some more context, and then obviously we have our weeklies on Thursday now, and…
31 00:03:58.130 ⇒ 00:04:01.939 Robert Tseng: I know you were kind of wondering, like, where you could stretch your skill set, I think?
32 00:04:03.210 ⇒ 00:04:16.409 Robert Tseng: I mean, frankly, out of everybody on the team that has tried analysis, I’ve liked your work the most, based on what I’ve seen at pool parts, which is why I want to bring you into Insomnia. I think it’s a similar style of work.
33 00:04:17.480 ⇒ 00:04:24.810 Robert Tseng: Where, yeah, there are some engineering needs, but it’s not engineering that they need. It’s… it is, like…
34 00:04:25.080 ⇒ 00:04:33.170 Robert Tseng: yeah, it’s kind of like the pull-part style work. We can… and I think there’s, you know, there’s a lot of range to grow on that side, so…
35 00:04:33.510 ⇒ 00:04:34.170 Robert Tseng: Hmm.
36 00:04:34.760 ⇒ 00:04:41.720 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so I think that’s kind of why I was kind of pushing Bhutan to…
37 00:04:42.260 ⇒ 00:04:52.019 Robert Tseng: let me have some of your time on client… like, on this part of delivery. I mean, we can kind of talk about, like, your reactions and stuff to that.
38 00:04:52.310 ⇒ 00:04:57.509 Robert Tseng: Later on, once you’ve kind of had some time to… to sit and, like, kind of settle into it.
39 00:04:58.410 ⇒ 00:05:04.260 Robert Tseng: But yeah, I guess, kinda, if you could just… we’ll start, like… How many hours?
40 00:05:04.660 ⇒ 00:05:10.830 Robert Tseng: I guess if you haven’t heard anything, I guess, like, a couple of hours, I feel like.
41 00:05:11.930 ⇒ 00:05:21.419 Amber Lin: So far, I would say I… bare minimum… bare minimum, for sure, have 4 hours per day. So that’s certain.
42 00:05:21.470 ⇒ 00:05:25.580 Robert Tseng: I mean, that’s more than enough, yeah. I was expecting, like, cap 10 hours a week kind of thing.
43 00:05:25.580 ⇒ 00:05:39.550 Amber Lin: No. Uten took all the rituals before, it was a lot of the rituals that take time. I suspect that the more that we do that, the more grooming we will need to do to prepare on the back end, that’s why I didn’t say 6 hours per day.
44 00:05:39.550 ⇒ 00:05:40.050 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
45 00:05:40.050 ⇒ 00:05:45.540 Amber Lin: But right now, I’m working on our internal dashboard, so that also takes about 2 hours per day.
46 00:05:45.560 ⇒ 00:05:48.320 Robert Tseng: Okay. I say 4 available for clients.
47 00:05:48.620 ⇒ 00:05:50.159 Robert Tseng: Yeah,
48 00:05:51.190 ⇒ 00:06:10.199 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, I guess, you know, the rituals, I think Wujan is kind of just taking over PM, more or less, for now. I think, yeah, so, I mean, it’s new to everybody, I think, especially for me, I think the biggest burden is, like, dang, I have to do a lot more reviewing, which is, like, I don’t realize how much time it takes.
49 00:06:10.200 ⇒ 00:06:24.289 Robert Tseng: So I apologize if I’m slow to review things. But but yeah, okay. Well, in that case, yeah, no, I think this is not, like, an expectation. I don’t expect you to do two hours here. Like, I think with good analysis, I typically block off
50 00:06:24.550 ⇒ 00:06:25.769 Robert Tseng: You know, like.
51 00:06:26.400 ⇒ 00:06:37.529 Robert Tseng: up to 5 hours at a time, and then I just knock out whatever I can. Like, I’m only really attending to insomnia, like, probably 1 or 2 days a week. But if it…
52 00:06:37.640 ⇒ 00:06:44.729 Robert Tseng: But I also understand that, like, these things have a couple revisions, kind of like we did with pull parts, and so…
53 00:06:45.070 ⇒ 00:06:56.490 Robert Tseng: I… you know, there’s the constructing the analysis piece, like, the outline… outlining your analysis, then actually doing it, and then there’s, like, a presentation component to it, right? So,
54 00:06:56.580 ⇒ 00:07:10.419 Robert Tseng: I kind of… I can’t do all of that in one sitting. I usually outline, and then let it sit, review my outline, and then start my analysis, and then… so I’m usually coming back to something, like, at least 3 times before I ship it, so that’s just my…
55 00:07:10.450 ⇒ 00:07:18.899 Robert Tseng: that’s kind of how I approach it. Like, I… I do think that’s what I would advise as well, so, like, I… just kind of setting kind of some expectations there.
56 00:07:20.170 ⇒ 00:07:26.930 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so I don’t know what would be most helpful for this call. I think maybe I’ll just share, like, I guess, I mean, what do you…
57 00:07:27.220 ⇒ 00:07:32.629 Robert Tseng: what do you feel like you need? I’m assuming we’ll start bringing you into meetings internally, like…
58 00:07:32.960 ⇒ 00:07:34.810 Robert Tseng: I don’t know, as soon as you’re able to.
59 00:07:35.700 ⇒ 00:07:52.480 Amber Lin: Yeah, I’ll list that as a to-do. I think to… I want to get a high-level view of what this analysis work covers, so I know they also want to build dashboards and stuff. Does my work also include working with their current tools?
60 00:07:52.480 ⇒ 00:08:01.980 Amber Lin: Or would I have data available somewhere? So, the question is more, do I have to work on the data, or do I just work with the data?
61 00:08:02.730 ⇒ 00:08:18.959 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I think it’s a mix, I mean, this is not… we’re not building a bunch of dashboards for them. I think that’s, like, where I’m not… that’s not the expectation here. But we… I mean, I can tell you all the data constraints right now, and I’m expecting
62 00:08:19.180 ⇒ 00:08:25.040 Robert Tseng: the other teammates on this client to go and get that data. So,
63 00:08:25.970 ⇒ 00:08:30.259 Robert Tseng: Yeah, like, I think the scope is fairly limited, like,
64 00:08:30.560 ⇒ 00:08:39.679 Robert Tseng: that we’re just focused on Braze data. Like, we’re not really branching out into other things. I mean, I do want to pull in a couple other things at this point, but…
65 00:08:39.980 ⇒ 00:08:45.100 Robert Tseng: If you’ve watched any of my recent analysis, like, I’ve been running these for the past 2 weeks.
66 00:08:45.470 ⇒ 00:08:49.829 Robert Tseng: the scope is not… it’s not that wide. So, I’ve…
67 00:08:50.300 ⇒ 00:08:57.650 Robert Tseng: I literally just pull whatever I need, throw it into Google Sheets, and then I run my analysis off of it. I’m not using any of the Gradefloor’s tools, so…
68 00:08:59.210 ⇒ 00:09:03.380 Amber Lin: Yeah, that sounds good. And I see that they’re going to…
69 00:09:03.900 ⇒ 00:09:06.810 Amber Lin: Okay, they’re working on the other stuff.
70 00:09:07.290 ⇒ 00:09:09.000 Amber Lin: Okay.
71 00:09:09.870 ⇒ 00:09:28.600 Amber Lin: And then, I guess the next question is, I know you have an analysis outline that you just shared, the Google Doc for the analysis roadmap. Are we going off of there, or are we using a new, say, framework or approach that we wanna… not framework, like, topic that we wanna go for?
72 00:09:30.060 ⇒ 00:09:35.809 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, I think this work is kind of fluid, so, I mean, I’m just sharing my screen, so I like…
73 00:09:36.450 ⇒ 00:09:54.009 Robert Tseng: kind of how I even put this together, right? Like, I’m just… I think there’s some video somewhere, but I’ll just kind of go through a high level. For me, this is how I structure… like, this is how I outline analysis in my head. Like, I don’t think tickets really does it for me, like, it’s just too siloed, so I need to, like, kind of outline what I’m doing.
74 00:09:54.160 ⇒ 00:10:12.019 Robert Tseng: Like, I think this was the ask. It was like, okay, why is owned channel performance dropping? And so, I kind of, like, figured out what the goal was, thinking through, okay, what are the… you know, in wanting to understand this, like, what is the client trying to do? So, like, I came up with a few different things,
75 00:10:12.160 ⇒ 00:10:21.139 Robert Tseng: Yeah, and then they’re associated to tickets, or whatever, so, like, I kind of… it’s an open-ended investigation. I need to go and, like, figure out, like, what’s… what are we really driving towards?
76 00:10:22.080 ⇒ 00:10:33.740 Robert Tseng: And then, like, how do we, like, what do I really want to know in order to, like, answer these questions? Well, it was like, okay, well, I need to be able to look at some trends, I need to be able to do some level of drill down.
77 00:10:34.340 ⇒ 00:10:38.380 Robert Tseng: And I kind of know what the constraints are now, like, we can’t really drill down into too much, so…
78 00:10:40.250 ⇒ 00:10:48.580 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I guess, like, just to kind of be more specific, like, I… everything…
79 00:10:48.900 ⇒ 00:10:54.479 Robert Tseng: that they were looking at was just in these, like, roll-ups. Like, it’s just, you know.
80 00:10:54.480 ⇒ 00:10:54.970 Amber Lin: I wouldn’t…
81 00:10:54.970 ⇒ 00:10:56.809 Robert Tseng: in the tracker, or the…
82 00:10:56.810 ⇒ 00:10:57.360 Amber Lin: Yeah.
83 00:10:57.360 ⇒ 00:11:03.600 Robert Tseng: or the… whatever, like, it’s all aggregated data. Like, I think, in analysis, you need to break down, like.
84 00:11:03.680 ⇒ 00:11:08.010 Robert Tseng: you need to break it down. So, figuring out, like, what are the different ways to break it down?
85 00:11:08.010 ⇒ 00:11:24.139 Robert Tseng: what, like, what available segments they already currently have. They have RFM, they have product, to some extent, and… but they don’t really know how to do these categories, which is why, like, I kind of was pushing the team to think about, like, okay, what are the different cuts that we need to have?
86 00:11:24.900 ⇒ 00:11:37.029 Robert Tseng: I was able to unblock myself on campaign-level segmentation. So, that’s just using Braze specifically, working with their… with their team, and,
87 00:11:37.720 ⇒ 00:11:45.649 Robert Tseng: I guess, like, I don’t know, like, the conclusion of that was, like, I… I don’t know, this is not that helpful, but, if I just open this…
88 00:11:46.770 ⇒ 00:11:47.910 Robert Tseng: I…
89 00:11:48.180 ⇒ 00:12:08.020 Robert Tseng: you know, these are the 2,000, 3,000 campaigns they’ve ran in the past two years, and I’m able to categorize it, you know, to all of the… so at least I have some segmentation at the campaign level that I can go back and use. And I had to… this is not something I just, you know, came up with. I had to, like, work with their stakeholder to figure that out.
90 00:12:08.480 ⇒ 00:12:16.979 Robert Tseng: So it’s kind of a lot of this back and forth where you have to strategize, like, well, what are… what’s a helpful way to break up the data that we have?
91 00:12:17.380 ⇒ 00:12:22.599 Robert Tseng: How many levels do we need to cut by? And then, like, what are the different
92 00:12:22.800 ⇒ 00:12:34.259 Robert Tseng: Yeah, like, what are the different questions you’re able to answer off of that? So, I mean, I’m happy to continue… like, this is what I will support. I can support on. Like, I can… I can… I can outline analysis all the time.
93 00:12:34.790 ⇒ 00:12:47.469 Robert Tseng: But then, once we get to a question, like, figuring out, like, how do we actually execute on it, like, I think that’s probably where I would plug you in first, so you don’t get stuck in strategy land and, like, just, like, not really know where to start.
94 00:12:47.570 ⇒ 00:12:52.000 Robert Tseng: We have, like, some very specific analyses that are already kind of queued up, like.
95 00:12:52.000 ⇒ 00:12:53.889 Amber Lin: For example, there’s one.
96 00:12:53.910 ⇒ 00:13:06.740 Robert Tseng: this particular week, why were there duplicate transactions in Braze versus total orders? You’re looking at Braze, you’re looking at orders, I mean, there’s some notes here, but, like, yeah, like, the goal is really just to understand, like.
97 00:13:07.070 ⇒ 00:13:09.450 Robert Tseng: What, what is, like, what’s going on here?
98 00:13:10.160 ⇒ 00:13:27.469 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so, like, I… I probably would start you with something more narrow, like… like this. This is probably just, like, some random… this is… not some random, but, like, it’s probably a ticket that I created, like, as a result of going through this exercise. Eventually, like, I want you to be able to just, like, take
99 00:13:28.240 ⇒ 00:13:34.889 Robert Tseng: Something very… more abstract, and to go through this whole analysis exercise and, like, really know how to
100 00:13:35.020 ⇒ 00:13:45.260 Robert Tseng: break it down, and what are all the different, you know, tickets that you need to… that need to come out of it, but I don’t… I don’t expect you to be able to, like, you know, structure something like this from the start.
101 00:13:45.630 ⇒ 00:13:47.220 Amber Lin: Yeah, I…
102 00:13:47.540 ⇒ 00:14:00.010 Amber Lin: I think to start with, let me start with the very specific one that you outlined, and two, can you give me a similar high-level question so I can practice based on what you have right here?
103 00:14:00.380 ⇒ 00:14:00.890 Amber Lin: And then…
104 00:14:00.890 ⇒ 00:14:01.460 Robert Tseng: Oh, yeah.
105 00:14:01.460 ⇒ 00:14:07.580 Amber Lin: We’re not doing it right as the client wants it, but sort of we have some buffer as I just practice, and you can review.
106 00:14:07.990 ⇒ 00:14:16.059 Robert Tseng: Sure, yeah, I think that would be helpful. So, like, another one that they gave, I’ll just give a couple more examples. They ran, like, a Taylor Swift campaign. They’re like.
107 00:14:16.420 ⇒ 00:14:34.890 Robert Tseng: it was, like, a lot of hype, you know, the team loved, like, they thought it did really well, but I… the question was, like, well, did Taylor Swift… was the Taylor Swift campaign actually good? And it’s like, okay, well, they’re comparing it to another celebrity that they, like, did a big campaign around last year in Agatha, I don’t even know who that is. But.
108 00:14:35.070 ⇒ 00:14:36.619 Amber Lin: I was a dislike, too.
109 00:14:37.060 ⇒ 00:14:49.040 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so it’s kind of like, well, the goal is, like, how do we tell whether or not the campaign revolving around Taylor Swift actually outperformed Agatha, right? And so there’s, like, different… yeah, like, kind of…
110 00:14:49.120 ⇒ 00:15:01.280 Robert Tseng: well, what’s all the data that you need in order to go and figure that out? So I’m, like, kind of trying to, like, reason through that, trying to understand, well, like, how do we actually define, like, performance? Like, like, what are all, like, yeah, and then…
111 00:15:01.280 ⇒ 00:15:12.999 Robert Tseng: Is there a way to, like, make this a reusable analysis so that whenever we’re running these, like, bigger campaigns, for the next celebrity or the next whatever, we can… we can compare it to Taylor Swift or Agatha or whatever?
112 00:15:14.000 ⇒ 00:15:27.200 Robert Tseng: So, this is not, like, in full flight, like, ready to, like, execute on, but this is, like, how I, like, think about backlog, like, building out, kind of, backlog, and I’ll pass these ideas to the team, and, like.
113 00:15:27.220 ⇒ 00:15:39.540 Robert Tseng: see if what they’re interested in. Like, I… I was able to pick up on a couple, like, metrics and stuff here, but yeah, I think this is just, like, an example of how I just, like, in conversations with a client.
114 00:15:39.820 ⇒ 00:15:57.149 Robert Tseng: they’re asking open-ended questions, they don’t really know how to answer it, and then I’m just, like, kind of picking it up, and yeah, I’m just kind of outlining on my own time as well, just trying to… trying to, like, reason through, like, how would I actually go about answering this? Is this even helpful? And if it is, then I’ll actually pitch it as an idea to the client.
115 00:15:58.250 ⇒ 00:15:58.840 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
116 00:15:59.190 ⇒ 00:16:02.120 Robert Tseng: And then there was another one I was working on that’s, like.
117 00:16:02.440 ⇒ 00:16:08.749 Robert Tseng: macro trend analysis on email conversion. Like, this ended up becoming the deck. Like, this is what I shot out last week.
118 00:16:09.230 ⇒ 00:16:26.260 Robert Tseng: I think it’s somewhat related to the softness kind of question, but I think there was a more specific directive where it was, like, figure out, like, why is email conversion down year over year? So it’s not just, like, all owned channels, it’s a specific channel, and they want to understand, like, kind of…
119 00:16:26.470 ⇒ 00:16:28.729 Robert Tseng: Like, what’s… what are the drivers, what’s going on?
120 00:16:28.850 ⇒ 00:16:40.919 Robert Tseng: So I kind of did that to the extent that I could. We’re missing some data, so I can’t, like, drill down into, like, more stuff. I think this is… this is a recurring analysis, we could extend this more.
121 00:16:41.180 ⇒ 00:16:47.560 Robert Tseng: But yeah, so that’s… like, this is really, like, how I, like, have been…
122 00:16:47.830 ⇒ 00:16:56.320 Robert Tseng: Going from, like, literally nothing, just, like, random ideas to, like, kind of analysis that we’re sharing with them, every week or so.
123 00:16:56.320 ⇒ 00:17:04.369 Amber Lin: Yeah. I see. That was what I wanted to ask today at the office hours, too, is like, how do these things even come up?
124 00:17:04.930 ⇒ 00:17:17.350 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so I do a more in-depth one of this one in my last office hour, so you can go and watch that video if you wanted to know, like, I know I just breezed through that, but, like, I spent, like, a whole, like, 45 minutes on this, like, last week. Yeah.
125 00:17:17.740 ⇒ 00:17:27.630 Amber Lin: Yeah, I have the recording. Do we get approval from the clients to do these, or do we do it and then ask the clients, hey, this is something you want? Like, how do.
126 00:17:27.630 ⇒ 00:17:37.389 Robert Tseng: No, yeah, I think, she… yeah, like, the main stakeholders, the VP of Marketing, like, she’ll tell me what her priorities are, and I’ll pick them up in the weekly business review.
127 00:17:37.410 ⇒ 00:17:39.420 Amber Lin: A lot of the time, it’s like.
128 00:17:39.430 ⇒ 00:17:40.879 Robert Tseng: Well, yeah, I think…
129 00:17:41.160 ⇒ 00:17:42.590 Amber Lin: I…
130 00:17:43.300 ⇒ 00:17:58.329 Robert Tseng: when… when it, like, it happened to match, like, a question she was asking. So, I think this exercise is helpful to be doing regularly from your conversations with… with the client, because you’re developing an intuition for, like, what she will care about.
131 00:17:58.610 ⇒ 00:18:10.169 Robert Tseng: So by the time, you know, she asked me about, like, she came up with this idea, I would… I was already thinking about it, like, this was something I was thinking about, and then, like, I kind of… like, it’s not…
132 00:18:10.280 ⇒ 00:18:13.410 Robert Tseng: like, the… you know, my point is, like, I…
133 00:18:14.100 ⇒ 00:18:24.010 Robert Tseng: I’m not surprised when a client asks me a question, because at that point, I’ve already kind of thought through something that’s adjacent, and then I’m ready to just, like, take… pull it in and build an analysis out of that.
134 00:18:25.530 ⇒ 00:18:26.130 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
135 00:18:26.670 ⇒ 00:18:44.879 Robert Tseng: So, I do think, like, this is not, like, a 10 hours of you just, like, you know, running a bunch of queries and, like, doing… like, a lot of your time is spent, like, doing… like, this is the strategy work. You’re looking at data, trying to, like, figure out… figuring… figuring things out, asking questions, and being able to, like.
136 00:18:45.200 ⇒ 00:19:03.839 Robert Tseng: you know, base… come up… come up… I mean, I don’t really want you coming up with that many ideas, like, I do think we have limited time, and we… you know, the priorities are pretty clear… clear to me, and there’s enough on the roadmap, but, like, eventually, if I were to step out of this client, like, I need somebody to be able to do that. So, maybe that’s kind of, like, the…
137 00:19:03.960 ⇒ 00:19:07.890 Robert Tseng: The future state, if you’re able to kind of handle this well.
138 00:19:08.520 ⇒ 00:19:10.540 Amber Lin: Gotcha. Yeah.
139 00:19:15.220 ⇒ 00:19:16.220 Amber Lin: Okay.
140 00:19:16.690 ⇒ 00:19:19.380 Amber Lin: Would you be able to share this document with me?
141 00:19:19.730 ⇒ 00:19:30.389 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so everything is in the client notion. I’ve been updating this. Yeah, so you can come here, you can look through all the documents. It probably looks a bit different from the last time you touched it.
142 00:19:31.120 ⇒ 00:19:37.460 Robert Tseng: But yeah, so all of these links should be here in some way, shape, or form. And then…
143 00:19:38.200 ⇒ 00:19:46.650 Robert Tseng: yeah, I think, like, this was… this kind of came up from my first pass at, like… I mean, I guess… I think you wrote this down. So, like, I…
144 00:19:46.820 ⇒ 00:19:53.700 Robert Tseng: But, you know, I spent, like, a few hours, and I just looked through every report that it had, and I kind of…
145 00:19:53.990 ⇒ 00:19:58.300 Robert Tseng: Kind of… Develop, like, an…
146 00:19:58.370 ⇒ 00:20:12.419 Robert Tseng: my own point of view on, like, where things are at. But I guess this is, like, less… this is more, kind of like, if you had no context and no idea what was going on, like, I think you should probably do something like this, so you know how much they sell every week, like…
147 00:20:12.450 ⇒ 00:20:27.619 Robert Tseng: how much the revenue is, like, split across… I mean, I can answer all those questions now, but, like, I just needed to prime myself on, like, what… what their business actually was doing. So I… I literally just clicked on every report, I looked at every data table, and I just figured out, like, what was going on in the business.
148 00:20:29.870 ⇒ 00:20:35.040 Amber Lin: Gotcha. And, great.
149 00:20:35.920 ⇒ 00:20:46.179 Amber Lin: So, I can do that. Mostly, I’m gonna look at Brace, but there’s also other channels. Would you recommend anything after Brace?
150 00:20:46.810 ⇒ 00:21:05.140 Robert Tseng: No, I think you should just, like, develop a strong, kind of, like… like, just understand the lifecycle data very well. I think that’s… that’s kind of, like, where we need to… if… if there… if there is a need to expand, like, it’ll… it’ll come up in the ticket, or, like, it’ll… I’ll, like, I’ll tell you, but, like.
151 00:21:05.970 ⇒ 00:21:09.279 Robert Tseng: Yeah, like, my worry is that, like.
152 00:21:09.530 ⇒ 00:21:12.210 Robert Tseng: You’ll look at everything, and then…
153 00:21:12.720 ⇒ 00:21:25.500 Robert Tseng: like, it’ll just not really be very deep anywhere, which is kind of… that was the problem with Shreya’s, like, approach. Like, she just looked at everything and ended up reporting on
154 00:21:25.700 ⇒ 00:21:37.749 Robert Tseng: the average across all the business, which is, like, not helpful. Like, everybody knows that already. Like, it just makes us… like, we need to have a specialty somewhere. And, you know, her telling
155 00:21:38.260 ⇒ 00:21:44.320 Robert Tseng: like, the VP of Marketing, Oh, like… I don’t know, like…
156 00:21:44.620 ⇒ 00:22:01.309 Robert Tseng: 20% of your revenue comes from owned channels is not an insight. That’s, like, everybody should know that already. So I’d rather us, you know, we should be past that, we should just know, own the channel better than anyone else, and then, like, along the way, you’ll get exposure to the other stuff.
157 00:22:06.350 ⇒ 00:22:07.320 Robert Tseng: Thank you.
158 00:22:07.480 ⇒ 00:22:15.009 Robert Tseng: But yeah, if you want to know, like, what’s the other stuff that we could look into, like, I have this roadmap doc. I feel like.
159 00:22:15.010 ⇒ 00:22:15.410 Amber Lin: every…
160 00:22:15.410 ⇒ 00:22:21.959 Robert Tseng: request that comes in will roll up to one of these four objectives. So this is kind of like
161 00:22:22.090 ⇒ 00:22:26.989 Robert Tseng: If I were writing my own job description for the client, I gotta do this,
162 00:22:27.340 ⇒ 00:22:31.029 Robert Tseng: I’ve done this for Eden, I’ve done this for other clients for Javi, like, whatever, like.
163 00:22:31.130 ⇒ 00:22:34.600 Robert Tseng: I just try to categorize, like, what are the different types of
164 00:22:34.850 ⇒ 00:22:40.660 Robert Tseng: projects, which is kind of reflected here, and, some sample analysis and slides, like, I think
165 00:22:40.940 ⇒ 00:22:43.889 Robert Tseng: I guess this was kind of copied from my doc, but…
166 00:22:44.510 ⇒ 00:22:47.650 Robert Tseng: yeah, this was, like, another exercise that I did to…
167 00:22:50.780 ⇒ 00:22:56.040 Robert Tseng: beyond the analysis to roll them up into categories. So, like, when I’m…
168 00:22:56.400 ⇒ 00:23:08.690 Robert Tseng: when I’m talking to anybody on the team, like, if they’re… if they’re talking to me about something, I’ll be like, oh, okay, that’s probably an on-channel kind of, like, type of analysis. Oh, they’re… they’re thinking about, like.
169 00:23:08.840 ⇒ 00:23:25.709 Robert Tseng: LTVAC kind of… or, like, oh, they’re talking about forecasting. Like, I just… I need to be able to know, like, what the full scope is, so that’s why I do this exercise. I don’t necessarily think it’s that helpful for you necessarily, but I… if you want to know, like.
170 00:23:26.030 ⇒ 00:23:32.120 Robert Tseng: what are all the possible things that we could be asked about? Like, I tried to create this to capture everything there.
171 00:23:32.270 ⇒ 00:23:33.670 Robert Tseng: In categories.
172 00:23:35.750 ⇒ 00:23:37.539 Amber Lin: Gotcha, yeah.
173 00:23:40.140 ⇒ 00:23:52.189 Amber Lin: I think the best way for me to get familiar is I’ll start on a task, and then I will get discovery after I do the basic dive today. Where is the ticket that you said I can start on?
174 00:23:55.660 ⇒ 00:23:57.280 Amber Lin: Trying to find it.
175 00:23:57.280 ⇒ 00:23:59.099 Robert Tseng: I just… I just assigned it to you.
176 00:23:59.100 ⇒ 00:24:02.569 Amber Lin: I actually, I actually saw it in Eden, it’s so funny. Is it the…
177 00:24:02.570 ⇒ 00:24:07.169 Robert Tseng: Yeah, it was an eat-in, I just… I kind of put it in the wrong place.
178 00:24:07.170 ⇒ 00:24:07.870 Amber Lin: Okay, I’ll move.
179 00:24:07.870 ⇒ 00:24:17.329 Robert Tseng: But yes, I would say this is the most urgent ticket, but, like, I mean, you take your time to, like, get wrapped. Like, I just… I would want an answer for them this week.
180 00:24:18.750 ⇒ 00:24:19.320 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
181 00:24:20.230 ⇒ 00:24:20.900 Amber Lin: Okay.
182 00:24:21.420 ⇒ 00:24:21.985 Amber Lin: Mmm…
183 00:24:24.370 ⇒ 00:24:31.760 Robert Tseng: And we could talk about it once you kind of, like, have formed your own understanding. Like, I kind of know how I would approach this already, I just haven’t gotten around to doing it.
184 00:24:32.140 ⇒ 00:24:33.360 Amber Lin: Yeah, okay.
185 00:24:33.690 ⇒ 00:24:45.979 Amber Lin: When I write my approach, what is the best way I can structure it so I can also structure my thinking? Should I follow the way that you do it on the doc?
186 00:24:45.980 ⇒ 00:24:53.880 Robert Tseng: I guess, like, Uzam’s been trying to, like, replicate this by, like, having the team… Might go through some…
187 00:24:55.910 ⇒ 00:25:01.140 Robert Tseng: like, I don’t know, some analysis outline? I don’t exactly know where it is.
188 00:25:02.080 ⇒ 00:25:09.550 Robert Tseng: Notion templates… Yeah, like, Ricoh built this out.
189 00:25:09.750 ⇒ 00:25:15.610 Robert Tseng: I mean, sure. I mean, I just think it’s kind of… it’s kind of a lot, like, I…
190 00:25:16.120 ⇒ 00:25:21.070 Robert Tseng: I mean, honestly, up to you, like, I still prefer my approach, because it’s just, like.
191 00:25:22.160 ⇒ 00:25:38.460 Robert Tseng: a couple sections… it’s like five sections that are… but I mean, if this is more helpful for you, you can use this. I think it captures the core elements of what I’m doing here already, but, like, I… I just… I don’t know, I mean, maybe I’m just old school, I just prefer to do it this way.
192 00:25:39.250 ⇒ 00:25:40.699 Amber Lin: Yeah.
193 00:25:40.820 ⇒ 00:25:53.020 Amber Lin: Yeah, I think, that’s as much context you can give me right now. I need to go investigate so I can actually know what you’re talking about, so I’ll probably come back to you later today or earlier tomorrow.
194 00:25:53.140 ⇒ 00:25:58.759 Amber Lin: With what I plan to approach, and then you can verify that I can proceed.
195 00:25:58.970 ⇒ 00:26:16.279 Robert Tseng: Okay. Yeah, I know you’re helping with the project review decks for every client. For Insomnia, it’s gonna be looking a little different for Eden. I think the Eden one, you already know the fixes, but otherwise, I think it looks fine. For Insomnia, maybe I’m doing too much of it, but like, yeah, I think this is less urgent. I think I just want to get them…
196 00:26:16.790 ⇒ 00:26:27.750 Robert Tseng: like, key wins and asks is good enough, like, but otherwise, like, I think there’s a bit more to this that is not really… like, it’s not urgent, we can build it out over time.
197 00:26:27.930 ⇒ 00:26:30.940 Robert Tseng: But, like… I…
198 00:26:31.960 ⇒ 00:26:43.659 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so I… I’m… I’m gonna… I’m helping to cut… structure this a bit more. I, yeah, so I… I think that’s… I’m just calling that out. Yeah, okay. Yeah. Probably closer to the.
199 00:26:44.100 ⇒ 00:26:48.599 Amber Lin: to the end of this week, then. I can hope we’ll get it maybe Thursday.
200 00:26:49.080 ⇒ 00:26:51.109 Robert Tseng: Yeah,
201 00:26:53.000 ⇒ 00:27:04.860 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I think the cadence for insomnia is Monday, we get all the requirements, and then Wednesday, I kind of want to send… be ready to send something
202 00:27:04.930 ⇒ 00:27:15.959 Robert Tseng: like, internal review by Wednesday, and then Thursday, we should send, an analysis. That way, like, that’s… that’s what I’m expecting, kind of, like, weekly around Thursday is, like, when we…
203 00:27:16.360 ⇒ 00:27:17.160 Robert Tseng: Should.
204 00:27:17.310 ⇒ 00:27:19.400 Robert Tseng: Ship something to them.
205 00:27:19.620 ⇒ 00:27:38.959 Robert Tseng: That gives us a day to get feedback, kind of prepare for the Monday call. The Monday call is a weekly business review with their C-suite, so it’s… it’s… I mean, I’m not pulling anyone else into it until I feel like, you know, someone on the team is ready to handle those conversations, but yeah, I think that’s… that’s the cadence for them.
206 00:27:39.440 ⇒ 00:27:40.080 Amber Lin: Okay.
207 00:27:40.080 ⇒ 00:27:40.650 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
208 00:27:41.160 ⇒ 00:27:42.220 Amber Lin: Sounds good.
209 00:27:47.000 ⇒ 00:27:59.060 Amber Lin: Yeah, I also saw, I was scrolling in the Eden channel, and I saw the message you sent to the ELT. I was like, oh, you also keep track of, like, all of the stuff they have there, like, do you keep
210 00:27:59.420 ⇒ 00:28:04.570 Amber Lin: Track in, like, a written document, or how do you keep track mentally of…
211 00:28:04.690 ⇒ 00:28:08.240 Amber Lin: Like, all the things that happen, because a lot of times it’s…
212 00:28:08.360 ⇒ 00:28:14.990 Amber Lin: A lot of small tasks, and for me, it was very hard to roll it up into the summary like you had.
213 00:28:14.990 ⇒ 00:28:15.460 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
214 00:28:15.460 ⇒ 00:28:20.880 Amber Lin: What I’m referring to is, like, you said, oh, the catalyst, the offer, everything inherited was not great.
215 00:28:21.080 ⇒ 00:28:21.710 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
216 00:28:22.040 ⇒ 00:28:28.490 Robert Tseng: I think I… Well, yeah, I think that’s kind of,
217 00:28:30.900 ⇒ 00:28:36.520 Robert Tseng: it’s because I underst… I think I understand, like, what the… how the projects…
218 00:28:37.830 ⇒ 00:28:40.679 Robert Tseng: should have gone, I guess, and…
219 00:28:41.420 ⇒ 00:28:52.000 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I don’t know, when you look at tickets, I don’t know if you can see the bigger picture. Like, I feel like when I see the tickets, I can kind of… I can see the project that, and how it should have gone.
220 00:28:52.000 ⇒ 00:28:53.399 Amber Lin: I’ve just, like.
221 00:28:54.110 ⇒ 00:29:06.829 Robert Tseng: And we can work on… we can work… we can work on that. I think it’s an important, part of, like, a part of, like, your, ability to… to manage projects as well. So, I…
222 00:29:07.110 ⇒ 00:29:08.250 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean…
223 00:29:09.300 ⇒ 00:29:20.329 Robert Tseng: the re… like, it took some digging to figure it out. I mean, I wrote these, like, pretty long docs to kind of, like, capture each of them, so you can kind of see how I structured my thinking there, but,
224 00:29:20.650 ⇒ 00:29:37.100 Robert Tseng: Yeah, it’s a… it’s a… it’s a different… it’s like the opposite exercise of… of what I’m asking you to do. Like, what I’m ask… what we’re doing right now is we’re taking open-ended questions and we’re breaking them down into small things, and then this is the other way around. It’s like, how do you take a bunch of small things and roll them up into, like, a single narrative?
225 00:29:38.320 ⇒ 00:29:43.580 Robert Tseng: So, yeah, I mean, we can… I mean, I would like to also…
226 00:29:44.220 ⇒ 00:29:47.749 Robert Tseng: I’m happy to kind of share how to do that as well.
227 00:29:47.930 ⇒ 00:29:54.159 Amber Lin: Wow. You’re our top analyst. That’s a lot of different brains to use.
228 00:29:55.570 ⇒ 00:29:57.730 Robert Tseng: Oh, this has what he says.
229 00:29:57.730 ⇒ 00:29:59.690 Amber Lin: Yes, that’s how he says.
230 00:29:59.690 ⇒ 00:30:00.460 Robert Tseng: Wow.
231 00:30:01.300 ⇒ 00:30:09.100 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I… I guess, like, analysis is, I mean…
232 00:30:09.780 ⇒ 00:30:18.450 Robert Tseng: it’s hard to learn. So… but, I mean, I believe your background is probably more suited for it than probably most of the people on the team.
233 00:30:19.050 ⇒ 00:30:23.059 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I… I do think…
234 00:30:23.180 ⇒ 00:30:30.960 Robert Tseng: that it is probably one of the most valuable skill sets I’ve learned in my career, though.
235 00:30:32.400 ⇒ 00:30:39.800 Robert Tseng: Yeah, it’s just, like, structured thinking, right? And you already have some of that training from… from consulting. So, I think it’s just, like.
236 00:30:40.980 ⇒ 00:30:45.280 Robert Tseng: the difference is we have to, like, I think…
237 00:30:45.460 ⇒ 00:30:57.370 Robert Tseng: We work under more constraints than maybe you would be used to in a bigger company, and so you have to jump through more, like, mental hoops to get to, like, to push things along.
238 00:30:57.630 ⇒ 00:31:01.029 Robert Tseng: But I think that could be trained, and
239 00:31:01.360 ⇒ 00:31:12.689 Robert Tseng: Yeah, like, I… I don’t… I don’t think it’ll take you that long to… to learn. Like, I… like, I did… it took me, like, a year to learn, probably. So, I think you… you should… you’ll probably learn it faster than me.
240 00:31:14.100 ⇒ 00:31:14.850 Amber Lin: Well, I…
241 00:31:14.850 ⇒ 00:31:15.510 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
242 00:31:15.510 ⇒ 00:31:23.380 Amber Lin: it’s hard to figure out on your own. It’s easier when there’s already something… a framework existing, and someone’s teaching you, so…
243 00:31:23.380 ⇒ 00:31:41.060 Robert Tseng: Yeah, totally. And so I think this is one practical way that I can… I can help you, you know, as you’re trying to, like, explore other things in your career. So, yeah, like, I… I’m happy to… to share anything that I can… that I know about… about this.
244 00:31:43.900 ⇒ 00:31:50.480 Amber Lin: That’s really awesome. That’s really nice of you. That was all my questions I have for today. I…
245 00:31:50.680 ⇒ 00:31:55.679 Amber Lin: And I want to thank you for taking the time, even. You had a very awful day.
246 00:31:55.930 ⇒ 00:32:00.640 Amber Lin: Very tragic day. Would you have time to rest, or do you still have to go to school?
247 00:32:00.640 ⇒ 00:32:03.500 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I’m gonna go to school today.
248 00:32:04.550 ⇒ 00:32:10.219 Robert Tseng: Yeah, that’s… It’s okay. Like, I think,
249 00:32:13.520 ⇒ 00:32:20.669 Robert Tseng: like I said, I already took some time. Like, I… it was crazy. I logged into my… I logged into my computer, and then…
250 00:32:20.930 ⇒ 00:32:24.120 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I just had a thought on my head, so I should go and…
251 00:32:26.710 ⇒ 00:32:30.770 Robert Tseng: I just… his… my… his… he came up in my mind, and .
252 00:32:30.770 ⇒ 00:32:31.180 Amber Lin: Mmm.
253 00:32:31.180 ⇒ 00:32:38.489 Robert Tseng: I just, like, look, I don’t have a… I don’t have social media, I’m not, like, on any feeds, so I, like, I literally went on Facebook and typed in his name.
254 00:32:38.670 ⇒ 00:32:42.949 Robert Tseng: And Ian just passed away, like, yesterday. So,
255 00:32:43.370 ⇒ 00:32:49.420 Robert Tseng: yeah, it was… it was very sad, like, and I mean, I’m still very sad about it, but I… I guess…
256 00:32:49.560 ⇒ 00:32:56.469 Robert Tseng: I had my few hours to kind of grieve over it and talk to a couple people, and I think…
257 00:32:56.670 ⇒ 00:33:02.680 Robert Tseng: I may… I may end up going to his funeral, I’m not sure, we’ll see. We’ll just take it… take it day by day.
258 00:33:03.900 ⇒ 00:33:04.490 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
259 00:33:06.640 ⇒ 00:33:11.069 Amber Lin: I see. Thanks for sharing. I’ll get back to you on the analysis stuff.
260 00:33:11.420 ⇒ 00:33:17.690 Robert Tseng: Yeah, okay, no worries, like, feel free, I know you, ask, ask me any questions, I know it’s kind of a lot of,
261 00:33:18.340 ⇒ 00:33:20.970 Robert Tseng: transitions here and there, I…
262 00:33:21.260 ⇒ 00:33:31.010 Robert Tseng: I think this… I mean, I’m praying no more… no more big changes. Hopefully, this is the structure that we’re gonna run with for at least through the end of the year.
263 00:33:31.380 ⇒ 00:33:34.400 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so…
264 00:33:35.400 ⇒ 00:33:46.839 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I think… I mean, we’re in a good… we’re in a good spot. We’re not, like, strapped for cash or anything. I think it’s just, like, trying to run the delivery smoother, make sure that people are able to have the opportunities that they want.
265 00:33:47.550 ⇒ 00:33:52.480 Robert Tseng: yeah, so I think that’s… that’s kind of how I see what’s going on right now.
266 00:33:53.170 ⇒ 00:33:53.940 Amber Lin: Yeah.
267 00:33:53.940 ⇒ 00:33:54.560 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
268 00:33:54.560 ⇒ 00:33:55.400 Amber Lin: Sounds good.
269 00:33:55.900 ⇒ 00:33:58.260 Robert Tseng: Okay, alright. Well, thanks. Thanks, Amber.
270 00:33:58.400 ⇒ 00:33:59.280 Amber Lin: Yeah, thank you.
271 00:33:59.280 ⇒ 00:34:00.999 Robert Tseng: Okay, talk to you soon. Bye.