Meeting Title: Recruitment: BF <> Kaela Date: 2025-10-23 Meeting participants: Rico Rejoso, Uttam Kumaran, Robert Tseng


WEBVTT

1 00:01:04.640 00:01:06.320 Uttam Kumaran: Hey, Rico, how are you?

2 00:01:06.490 00:01:08.510 Rico Rejoso: Hi, I’m good, how are you?

3 00:01:09.130 00:01:09.920 Uttam Kumaran: Good.

4 00:01:12.070 00:01:18.280 Rico Rejoso: Great. I just sent a… I mean, I pinged… Hannah regarding this meeting.

5 00:01:19.600 00:01:21.280 Rico Rejoso: She’s currently offline.

6 00:01:24.650 00:01:25.950 Uttam Kumaran: Wait, say that one more time?

7 00:01:26.210 00:01:29.559 Rico Rejoso: I messaged Hannah regarding this meeting.

8 00:01:30.040 00:01:31.939 Rico Rejoso: She is offline at the moment.

9 00:01:32.720 00:01:33.740 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, that’s fine.

10 00:01:37.560 00:01:44.169 Uttam Kumaran: Cool, I just wanted to see if, if Robert and Henry can make it, then we can do this. How’s the call?

11 00:01:44.840 00:01:47.609 Robert Tseng: Good! I think they’re gonna move forward, but I think…

12 00:01:47.610 00:01:48.210 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I guess.

13 00:01:48.210 00:01:52.240 Robert Tseng: I thought… I thought he was gonna sign off on it, so he has… he has one more… just one more…

14 00:01:52.340 00:01:58.469 Robert Tseng: It’s like you fight one boss, and then you realize there’s a… There’s, like, another boss above.

15 00:01:58.470 00:02:00.319 Uttam Kumaran: Another gremlin lurking.

16 00:02:01.040 00:02:05.940 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so, some lady named Wendy, who is gonna give the final sign-off.

17 00:02:07.160 00:02:07.890 Uttam Kumaran: Yay.

18 00:02:08.090 00:02:15.980 Robert Tseng: Yeah, it was good. I… he had a couple questions, no… no real objections, and then we just kind of clarified things, and I think he likes the dot, so… I think I…

19 00:02:15.980 00:02:18.550 Uttam Kumaran: Dude, I just called… I just talked to, Element.

20 00:02:18.550 00:02:20.960 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I just, I just saw your message. Nice.

21 00:02:20.960 00:02:21.440 Uttam Kumaran: Yay!

22 00:02:21.460 00:02:26.269 Robert Tseng: Yeah. 10K a month is our new minimum, dude. Yeah.

23 00:02:26.270 00:02:26.979 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I mean.

24 00:02:26.980 00:02:27.890 Robert Tseng: Yeah. Whoa.

25 00:02:27.890 00:02:35.449 Uttam Kumaran: One is, like, yeah, I think I think I did a good job. She’s coming in as, like, head of VizOps from Brave Health.

26 00:02:36.190 00:02:36.920 Robert Tseng: Oh!

27 00:02:36.920 00:02:39.399 Uttam Kumaran: Brave Health is, like, a telehealth company.

28 00:02:39.400 00:02:40.620 Robert Tseng: Yeah, okay.

29 00:02:40.620 00:02:45.930 Uttam Kumaran: and… Did I tell you I, like, met this,

30 00:02:47.380 00:02:55.560 Uttam Kumaran: I, like, I met… I went to this punk rock show with, like, punk rock cover band called Y’all Out Boy.

31 00:02:55.840 00:02:57.900 Uttam Kumaran: Last year, and…

32 00:02:57.900 00:02:59.640 Robert Tseng: Oh, yeah, I remember you mentioned that.

33 00:02:59.870 00:03:05.800 Uttam Kumaran: The wife of the lead singer runs a data analytics healthcare consultancy.

34 00:03:06.180 00:03:06.870 Robert Tseng: Ow.

35 00:03:06.870 00:03:12.690 Uttam Kumaran: And, she’s… she referred us to CES, And…

36 00:03:12.900 00:03:20.809 Uttam Kumaran: she’s in some group, and she talked to this person, and she’s like, well, we don’t do health work, we should talk to Brainforge. And so she’s the one that sent this person to me.

37 00:03:21.090 00:03:23.220 Uttam Kumaran: It’s like a…

38 00:03:23.840 00:03:37.369 Uttam Kumaran: It’s just the same sort of situation. They have a bunch of fucking data, they’re getting… they’re moving from QuickBooks to NetSuite, they are going into retail, and gonna do distribution by themselves, and they just need, like, the works.

39 00:03:37.710 00:03:42.750 Uttam Kumaran: And I was like, we kinda… we kinda typically… she was like, she’s really, really, really nice, like.

40 00:03:42.910 00:04:01.919 Uttam Kumaran: she was even interested in, like, how we do things, and I was… you know me, I’m, like, very honest on, like, how we price things, and I’m also like, go shop this, you’re gonna find that it’s pretty convenient. And I was like, look, we do 10K for the first month for, like, pretty heavy discovery. We also will try to get you something that month, too, in addition to all of our, like, materials.

41 00:04:02.290 00:04:08.650 Uttam Kumaran: And she was like, okay, but if you… let’s say we like each other at that point, like, what do you think, given all these things? I’m like, it’s probably, like, 6 months of work.

42 00:04:08.810 00:04:22.549 Uttam Kumaran: like, we could do it faster if you pay us more. That’s kind of, like, it, but also there’s, like, a minimum. Like, I don’t think you can do what you need in more than 3 months. She’s like, yeah, I went to someone, and he quoted me $200K for 4 months, and I’m like.

43 00:04:22.650 00:04:24.050 Robert Tseng: Yeah, but like…

44 00:04:24.290 00:04:30.129 Uttam Kumaran: I think that’s a lot to do in 4 months, and yeah, he’s charging you $50K a month. And I was like.

45 00:04:30.410 00:04:33.760 Uttam Kumaran: duh, we could fucking… and she was like, we had a laugh, and I’m like.

46 00:04:34.040 00:04:40.230 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, like, of course, but, like, I also said there’s some minimum threshold, like, some of this takes time.

47 00:04:40.540 00:04:41.920 Uttam Kumaran: And,

48 00:04:42.190 00:04:47.390 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, it was a good meeting, so I think a couple things, really… I have a… it’s a great meeting I want to send to…

49 00:04:47.510 00:04:50.349 Uttam Kumaran: The marketing team to review, because it was,

50 00:04:50.670 00:04:58.200 Uttam Kumaran: It showed, like, how I started using our diagrams. I think we can put a really tight CPG deck together that’s even tighter.

51 00:04:58.580 00:05:07.699 Uttam Kumaran: That we can just have up, and then, yeah, I think the way I explained the pricing really hit with her. And then, so the next call with them, they want to,

52 00:05:08.270 00:05:15.379 Uttam Kumaran: They wanna… they want their, like, head of technology and their head of, like, supply chain planning and finance to come on.

53 00:05:15.500 00:05:17.619 Uttam Kumaran: And so me and you can just go hit that.

54 00:05:18.020 00:05:18.660 Robert Tseng: Sure.

55 00:05:19.150 00:05:24.809 Uttam Kumaran: And then… Yeah, so I feel like I at least want on the culture of it.

56 00:05:25.370 00:05:28.739 Uttam Kumaran: I feel like… she’s shopping, she’s talking to a bunch of people, and I was like.

57 00:05:29.340 00:05:31.379 Uttam Kumaran: I was like, you’re gonna find out what…

58 00:05:31.500 00:05:44.979 Uttam Kumaran: that people are gonna really… and I said there’s a couple models. I said, you’re gonna find these solo people who are gonna say, I have 100 people somewhere, I can do it for nothing. You have those people. You’re gonna call big shops. They’re gonna say… they’re gonna have 5 people on this call.

59 00:05:45.350 00:05:48.120 Uttam Kumaran: You’re gonna do DEX, Whatever.

60 00:05:48.250 00:05:58.320 Uttam Kumaran: we’re somewhere in the middle, but kind of, like, off to the side, and, like, we don’t… yeah, we’re kind of somewhere there. And so I was like, yeah, so now you have a couple points to kind of…

61 00:05:58.800 00:06:02.219 Uttam Kumaran: Check out, and… So, yeah, but I think our material…

62 00:06:02.220 00:06:02.580 Robert Tseng: fish?

63 00:06:02.580 00:06:03.360 Uttam Kumaran: solid.

64 00:06:03.790 00:06:07.770 Uttam Kumaran: I actually… Didn’t get to that.

65 00:06:07.900 00:06:10.719 Uttam Kumaran: I asked her, but we kinda got distracted with something else.

66 00:06:10.720 00:06:12.089 Robert Tseng: Let me ask her…

67 00:06:12.260 00:06:14.620 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, she went to… she was at Brave Health.

68 00:06:15.100 00:06:16.749 Uttam Kumaran: In… oh, she’s in New York.

69 00:06:17.740 00:06:19.760 Uttam Kumaran: Oh. Yeah, she’s in Brooklyn.

70 00:06:20.330 00:06:25.869 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, she was… she was head of… she was head of biz… or she’s chief business operations at Brave.

71 00:06:26.410 00:06:30.750 Uttam Kumaran: And then… Yeah, I should actually see…

72 00:06:30.950 00:06:32.020 Robert Tseng: What’s her name?

73 00:06:32.560 00:06:42.240 Uttam Kumaran: Her name is, Shivani, shivani Ammar.

74 00:06:48.250 00:06:58.910 Uttam Kumaran: And she was like, yeah, I was at Brave, and we had a great head of data, and then he set up, like, kind of modern data stack, and then he then started to do a little bit of that. I said, look… I also told her, I’m like, she’s like, thinking about this, we’re just hiring, and I said, look, you’re…

75 00:06:59.370 00:07:14.480 Uttam Kumaran: One, if you can get that guy, you should go get that guy, and you should find a way to get him here. Second, if you go out to the market to find this person, they’re very expensive, it’s gonna take you time to get that person, the odds that you get it right are low, and that person’s not going to want to do work.

76 00:07:14.890 00:07:19.170 Uttam Kumaran: So, you should keep all that in mind here.

77 00:07:19.900 00:07:20.870 Uttam Kumaran: So… Yeah.

78 00:07:24.180 00:07:28.529 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, well, I tend to get excited after the first one of these anyway, so let’s see.

79 00:07:29.380 00:07:32.140 Uttam Kumaran: If he’s ever, ever… if he’s ever come true, so…

80 00:07:32.490 00:07:34.599 Uttam Kumaran: But I’m glad the Honey Singer thing at least…

81 00:07:36.870 00:07:47.460 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I think… I think, I think, well, they’re gonna send over NDA and stuff, for this day of tomorrow, and I think we… as… or as early as next week, we could… we could, get started with that.

82 00:07:48.460 00:07:56.220 Robert Tseng: But yeah, I think pricing seemed fine. I think 10K… 10K a month to start, they’re cool with, so it’s… we’ll just… we’ll do that.

83 00:07:57.910 00:08:01.069 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, I mean, I…

84 00:08:01.430 00:08:06.320 Uttam Kumaran: We kind of need… both Henry… Henry’s off, and then Hannah says she can’t make this call.

85 00:08:06.650 00:08:12.049 Uttam Kumaran: So, I guess, like, maybe I can just spend, like, a couple minutes. So, one thing I want to get on this call.

86 00:08:12.460 00:08:17.149 Uttam Kumaran: when we could reschedule, it’s just, like, I want to get both of our perspectives on Kayla. I want to ask them.

87 00:08:17.150 00:08:17.480 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

88 00:08:17.480 00:08:19.879 Uttam Kumaran: Like, should we… like, well, I guess, what should we ask?

89 00:08:21.170 00:08:22.389 Uttam Kumaran: Like, her competency.

90 00:08:22.390 00:08:22.710 Robert Tseng: Canada.

91 00:08:22.710 00:08:25.330 Uttam Kumaran: Or, yeah, and, and Henry.

92 00:08:26.350 00:08:32.780 Robert Tseng: Well, I already got, kind of, Hannah’s perspective, I think, because she talked to her while she was still in New York.

93 00:08:32.970 00:08:35.389 Robert Tseng: I pretty much asked her to kind of just…

94 00:08:37.049 00:08:47.339 Robert Tseng: The kind of the grip check, and, like, figuring… figuring out, like, kind of how she… how she handles, like, new problems that she hasn’t encountered before.

95 00:08:47.840 00:08:54.500 Robert Tseng: And then, kind of, like, preference. I mean, basically, we had somebody… she talked to Henry on delivery, she talked to Hannah on go-to-market.

96 00:08:54.710 00:09:00.070 Robert Tseng: And yeah, I think she… I think she’d probably be better, like, doing the…

97 00:09:00.220 00:09:11.569 Robert Tseng: doing strategy and not delivery, because she doesn’t have, like, the technical background that we want. But I do think that, you know, her doing project management and going to market is solely feasible.

98 00:09:13.260 00:09:14.550 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, okay.

99 00:09:15.990 00:09:22.740 Uttam Kumaran: So let’s see. I mean, I think, a couple… I think we want to have probably a heavier allocation conversation on Monday.

100 00:09:23.220 00:09:24.020 Uttam Kumaran: like…

101 00:09:24.400 00:09:32.479 Uttam Kumaran: I’m gonna start to put some opinions together on, like, how… if, like, Honey Stinger was to close, and for us to do a good job and everything else, now that I have a good idea of the…

102 00:09:33.130 00:09:37.149 Uttam Kumaran: of the, how every client is basically working.

103 00:09:37.350 00:09:40.650 Uttam Kumaran: And then we can see, like, what budget is.

104 00:09:41.720 00:09:42.480 Uttam Kumaran: like.

105 00:09:42.480 00:09:48.470 Robert Tseng: Yeah, the way the Honey Stinger will go, like, yeah, I mean… You guys are just beat.

106 00:09:48.570 00:09:49.210 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, it’s like…

107 00:09:49.210 00:09:53.960 Robert Tseng: another insomnia kind of situation. It’s very similar to insomnia.

108 00:09:54.120 00:09:54.930 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

109 00:09:57.030 00:09:59.620 Robert Tseng: In terms of, like, we have to go in and just…

110 00:10:00.200 00:10:06.790 Robert Tseng: Get access to things, and… and kind of… Play… do the dance of…

111 00:10:07.320 00:10:11.970 Robert Tseng: Answering the most urgent question, but then also, like, trying to build out.

112 00:10:11.970 00:10:18.460 Uttam Kumaran: Well, that’s why on that one, I would rather you just, like… that would be a good one where I would just say, like, you and Zoran should hit it first.

113 00:10:18.750 00:10:19.570 Robert Tseng: Sure.

114 00:10:20.330 00:10:25.370 Uttam Kumaran: And then… and then, like… So that’s… that’s kind of the…

115 00:10:25.790 00:10:33.440 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so we’ll have to think about that. The other thing I’m thinking is, like, dude, I don’t know, if we can’t… we can’t find people yet, we should just offer…

116 00:10:33.720 00:10:34.810 Uttam Kumaran: OT.

117 00:10:35.040 00:10:43.480 Uttam Kumaran: a little bit, to some of their best people. And I’ll be like, can you dedicate another 10 hours a week, and we can get some more capacity. I mean, I think some people are already, like.

118 00:10:44.560 00:10:48.870 Uttam Kumaran: If they’re… if they’re interested in doing that, I’d like to offer them. That’ll bridge us a little bit more.

119 00:10:50.650 00:10:51.660 Robert Tseng: Okay.

120 00:10:51.680 00:10:56.969 Uttam Kumaran: And then, because I… we just need to get another two clients without raising costs.

121 00:10:58.130 00:10:59.530 Uttam Kumaran: Pretty significantly.

122 00:11:01.260 00:11:07.180 Uttam Kumaran: Or… or what we… or what… or… again, I try to find a way to just reallocate people and see, but…

123 00:11:10.520 00:11:14.999 Uttam Kumaran: Like, if we… if we turn some people down, then that opens it up, right? So…

124 00:11:17.720 00:11:24.930 Uttam Kumaran: The three variable people right now are Saron, Henry… And, Sam.

125 00:11:25.690 00:11:26.340 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

126 00:11:28.270 00:11:30.510 Uttam Kumaran: They’re all around the same range.

127 00:11:38.470 00:11:44.150 Robert Tseng: So, yeah, I mean, if we get… we would just ask them to do more, is pretty much what you’re saying.

128 00:11:44.150 00:11:47.719 Uttam Kumaran: Well, I would rather us ask… I’d rather us ask…

129 00:11:48.880 00:11:53.509 Uttam Kumaran: we would be… those additional hours, I would rather ask the fixed people.

130 00:11:53.670 00:11:58.400 Uttam Kumaran: Like, I’d rather ask a Wish and Demolade and Amber…

131 00:11:58.510 00:12:00.139 Uttam Kumaran: To do a little bit more.

132 00:12:00.260 00:12:05.549 Uttam Kumaran: Because the cost of that additional hour for us, I can ask for less.

133 00:12:06.580 00:12:07.840 Robert Tseng: Yeah. Versus…

134 00:12:08.670 00:12:12.509 Uttam Kumaran: Especially if we know that their work quality is, like, what we expect.

135 00:12:13.490 00:12:13.850 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

136 00:12:13.850 00:12:15.530 Uttam Kumaran: And they will go for the cash.

137 00:12:18.600 00:12:25.850 Robert Tseng: I just think the early… early stage client needs the solution… needs at least the solutions architect, you know?

138 00:12:25.990 00:12:32.090 Robert Tseng: So… That’s… I mean, if you’re saying Awash can do that from our side, and then…

139 00:12:33.190 00:12:35.699 Robert Tseng: Like, yeah, maybe it’s, like, having him…

140 00:12:36.620 00:12:41.569 Robert Tseng: But anyways, he’s gonna… I mean, he’s gonna go in and figure out all of the… I mean, it’s… it’s…

141 00:12:43.540 00:12:57.860 Robert Tseng: We’ll be looking at a lot of Amazon and Shopify data to start, so it’ll kind of feel like Jobby, but, like, the… the, our main stakeholder is probably more similar to, like, what we were expecting from Insomnia, so…

142 00:12:59.250 00:13:05.010 Robert Tseng: like, yeah, like, to me, this is kind of headed in the direction of, like, where Javi should have gone.

143 00:13:05.230 00:13:11.359 Robert Tseng: Where we actually found the right stakeholder, not working with, like, some random tech guy on their.

144 00:13:11.360 00:13:12.110 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

145 00:13:12.370 00:13:13.000 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

146 00:13:13.210 00:13:18.509 Robert Tseng: So… Like, I’m… I think Awash could probably do it, it’s just whether or not he has…

147 00:13:18.830 00:13:20.610 Robert Tseng: Has the, has the capacity.

148 00:13:20.610 00:13:25.390 Uttam Kumaran: That’s the thing, so I’m gonna answer, like, what is the true capacity at what price?

149 00:13:25.880 00:13:32.260 Uttam Kumaran: I’m not sold on… either of those three that I mentioned that are hourly.

150 00:13:32.490 00:13:35.769 Uttam Kumaran: doing as well as Awash right now, or Amber?

151 00:13:35.960 00:13:41.890 Uttam Kumaran: Or Casey or Mustafa. Like, I really just, like, executing work, either at an engineer or that level. Like…

152 00:13:42.730 00:13:46.150 Uttam Kumaran: So that’s what I’m gonna use the meeting to basically set and figure out.

153 00:13:48.770 00:13:49.140 Robert Tseng: Okay.

154 00:13:49.140 00:13:49.680 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

155 00:13:56.850 00:13:58.929 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, alright,

156 00:13:59.180 00:14:03.390 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I have one more sales call later, and then I’m gonna go to this ABC call, and then…

157 00:14:04.500 00:14:08.130 Uttam Kumaran: Just need to go do this one source shit at some point today.

158 00:14:08.510 00:14:08.920 Robert Tseng: Okay.

159 00:14:08.920 00:14:09.860 Uttam Kumaran: To go do that.

160 00:14:10.220 00:14:16.040 Uttam Kumaran: I owe you a… I owe you an answer on…

161 00:14:16.680 00:14:19.069 Uttam Kumaran: Where we need that, person, so…

162 00:14:19.480 00:14:22.269 Robert Tseng: Okay, I mean, I’m just… yeah, I don’t know…

163 00:14:22.370 00:14:27.200 Robert Tseng: I don’t want us to get jammed on the RFP process. I mean, I feel like we haven’t… No, no, no, we’re…

164 00:14:27.550 00:14:28.629 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I think we’re.

165 00:14:28.630 00:14:32.509 Robert Tseng: I’m assuming Holly’s talking to them, I’m not really sure, like, yeah. I haven’t heard anything.

166 00:14:32.510 00:14:33.369 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, and like.

167 00:14:33.370 00:14:33.720 Robert Tseng: a bit.

168 00:14:34.010 00:14:40.659 Uttam Kumaran: they’re just using… they’re just using… they’re just ripping ChatGPT for everything, and just shoving it into that thing, so we’re not, like…

169 00:14:41.030 00:14:42.780 Uttam Kumaran: It’s, it’s like…

170 00:14:43.370 00:14:50.500 Uttam Kumaran: they’re… like, I don’t know, I just… if this works, this is crazy. Like, if this… they win this…

171 00:14:50.690 00:14:52.469 Uttam Kumaran: This is crazy, because.

172 00:14:52.470 00:14:52.910 Robert Tseng: Two of those.

173 00:14:52.910 00:14:53.580 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know that.

174 00:14:53.580 00:14:59.440 Robert Tseng: are just full-time bidding on RFPs. You know, it’s pretty much just like us hiring people.

175 00:14:59.440 00:14:59.790 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

176 00:14:59.790 00:15:04.320 Robert Tseng: be pitching on Upwork and, Contra and Catalan, which I’m like.

177 00:15:04.550 00:15:07.140 Robert Tseng: Well, maybe we should be doing that, because, like, those are…

178 00:15:07.140 00:15:09.390 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, maybe we should be doing that, I think, yeah.

179 00:15:09.710 00:15:14.370 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

180 00:15:14.520 00:15:15.310 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

181 00:15:16.240 00:15:18.930 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, alright, I’m gonna keep trying to cruise today.

182 00:15:19.410 00:15:20.000 Robert Tseng: Okay.

183 00:15:20.960 00:15:21.950 Uttam Kumaran: Alright, dude.

184 00:15:22.270 00:15:23.420 Robert Tseng: Okay, later. Bye.

185 00:15:23.420 00:15:24.030 Uttam Kumaran: See ya.