Meeting Title: Hiring Strategy and Business Growth Discussion Date: 2025-11-13 Meeting participants: Robert Tseng, Gibson Farone-Collins, Fireflies.ai Notetaker Gibson
WEBVTT
1 00:00:08.410 ⇒ 00:00:09.710 Robert Tseng: Hello!
2 00:00:09.920 ⇒ 00:00:11.130 Gibson Farone-Collins: Hey, how are you?
3 00:00:11.680 ⇒ 00:00:21.189 Robert Tseng: I’m doing well. It’s, getting kind of cold in New York. We had our first snow for, like, a minute on Tuesday. Wow.
4 00:00:21.430 ⇒ 00:00:25.930 Robert Tseng: Yeah, but and then obviously, for daylight savings, I feel like
5 00:00:26.120 ⇒ 00:00:30.629 Robert Tseng: It’s already… it’s 4, and the sun’s starting to go down, so… yeah.
6 00:00:30.940 ⇒ 00:00:37.650 Gibson Farone-Collins: I have taken two, like, quick 10-minute around-the-block walks today, because… Nice.
7 00:00:37.830 ⇒ 00:00:40.439 Gibson Farone-Collins: I was like, we don’t have to let my…
8 00:00:40.890 ⇒ 00:00:42.010 Robert Tseng: Okay, okay, okay.
9 00:00:42.010 ⇒ 00:00:46.020 Gibson Farone-Collins: You can keep it now. I was like…
10 00:00:47.240 ⇒ 00:00:50.710 Gibson Farone-Collins: I was like, I haven’t been outside in the sunlight all week, because…
11 00:00:51.040 ⇒ 00:00:56.390 Gibson Farone-Collins: I get done with Oregon, it’s totally dark out, and it’s been beautiful. It’s 73 degrees here right now. It’s gorgeous.
12 00:00:56.390 ⇒ 00:00:57.100 Robert Tseng: Ha!
13 00:00:57.440 ⇒ 00:00:58.539 Gibson Farone-Collins: So, yeah.
14 00:00:59.180 ⇒ 00:00:59.940 Robert Tseng: Okay.
15 00:01:00.300 ⇒ 00:01:05.770 Robert Tseng: Nice. Did you go to Chicago recently, or like you said, you were doing that work, or…
16 00:01:05.770 ⇒ 00:01:09.919 Gibson Farone-Collins: I was there 2 weeks ago, 3 weeks ago, something like that.
17 00:01:09.920 ⇒ 00:01:10.610 Robert Tseng: Okay.
18 00:01:10.860 ⇒ 00:01:13.289 Gibson Farone-Collins: I know they got hit with 6 inches of snow.
19 00:01:13.290 ⇒ 00:01:17.049 Robert Tseng: Yeah, yeah, I was gonna say, did you, did you… did that, in fact be?
20 00:01:17.050 ⇒ 00:01:18.080 Gibson Farone-Collins: It was, like…
21 00:01:18.760 ⇒ 00:01:27.089 Gibson Farone-Collins: Windy and coming off the lake and kind of cold, but it was before the government shut down, so there were still air traffic controllers, and…
22 00:01:27.560 ⇒ 00:01:30.289 Gibson Farone-Collins: Before any winter weather came in.
23 00:01:30.290 ⇒ 00:01:39.710 Robert Tseng: Yeah, yeah. No, that’s cool. Yeah, I guess I… I mean, I’m visiting my in-laws next week, in Hong Kong, so…
24 00:01:39.890 ⇒ 00:01:45.750 Robert Tseng: I’ll be… I’ll be out of… that’ll be… that’s my last big trip of the… of the year, I guess.
25 00:01:45.920 ⇒ 00:01:49.320 Robert Tseng: Cool. Be gone for probably, like, almost 2 weeks.
26 00:01:49.900 ⇒ 00:01:50.540 Gibson Farone-Collins: Fun.
27 00:01:50.540 ⇒ 00:01:51.550 Robert Tseng: But, yeah.
28 00:01:52.030 ⇒ 00:01:54.160 Gibson Farone-Collins: flight, or you gotta connect somewhere?
29 00:01:54.160 ⇒ 00:01:55.939 Robert Tseng: Direct flight, yeah.
30 00:01:56.110 ⇒ 00:01:57.609 Gibson Farone-Collins: That’s nice. That’s gotta be…
31 00:01:58.690 ⇒ 00:01:59.100 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
32 00:01:59.100 ⇒ 00:02:00.320 Gibson Farone-Collins: Hours or something like that?
33 00:02:00.320 ⇒ 00:02:09.169 Robert Tseng: It’s one of the longest flights. I think direct from New York to Singapore is the longest direct flight in the world, but hong Kong’s probably pretty close to that.
34 00:02:09.880 ⇒ 00:02:10.610 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
35 00:02:10.810 ⇒ 00:02:12.040 Gibson Farone-Collins: Enjoy.
36 00:02:12.040 ⇒ 00:02:14.810 Robert Tseng: Thanks. Yeah.
37 00:02:15.370 ⇒ 00:02:16.789 Robert Tseng: All right, Yahar, happy.
38 00:02:17.480 ⇒ 00:02:20.329 Gibson Farone-Collins: Things have been good…
39 00:02:21.210 ⇒ 00:02:30.709 Gibson Farone-Collins: That conference was interesting. It, like, wasn’t the right conference for us. It was our, maybe, first or second conference we’ve been to as a company.
40 00:02:30.710 ⇒ 00:02:32.150 Robert Tseng: Oh, interesting.
41 00:02:32.150 ⇒ 00:02:43.000 Gibson Farone-Collins: And we, like, sponsored a booth, but it was a… it was a deal flow conference, and so it was all these private equity people trying to meet other private equity people.
42 00:02:43.000 ⇒ 00:02:43.450 Robert Tseng: I assume.
43 00:02:43.450 ⇒ 00:02:46.990 Gibson Farone-Collins: a lot of the, like, biz dev folks at…
44 00:02:46.990 ⇒ 00:02:48.899 Robert Tseng: Yeah. These PE funds?
45 00:02:49.040 ⇒ 00:02:53.469 Gibson Farone-Collins: And so, we’re, like, sitting on the sidelines, but they’re all chatting with each other.
46 00:02:53.470 ⇒ 00:02:54.210 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
47 00:02:55.340 ⇒ 00:03:00.180 Gibson Farone-Collins: Good lesson learned, but kind of a… Not the best use of…
48 00:03:00.530 ⇒ 00:03:04.580 Gibson Farone-Collins: However many dollars we paid to get everyone there and whatnot.
49 00:03:04.840 ⇒ 00:03:07.900 Robert Tseng: Yeah, good team off-site, I guess, and people watching.
50 00:03:07.900 ⇒ 00:03:08.500 Gibson Farone-Collins: Yeah.
51 00:03:08.500 ⇒ 00:03:09.010 Robert Tseng: Exactly.
52 00:03:09.010 ⇒ 00:03:14.160 Gibson Farone-Collins: Exactly. But it was all of that, but it was also like, man, I got real project work to do, and I’m just…
53 00:03:14.160 ⇒ 00:03:14.540 Robert Tseng: It’s another.
54 00:03:14.540 ⇒ 00:03:17.629 Gibson Farone-Collins: ballroom for the next 7 hours. Yeah.
55 00:03:17.900 ⇒ 00:03:23.009 Gibson Farone-Collins: So… Yeah, other than that, it’s just been really busy.
56 00:03:23.170 ⇒ 00:03:25.190 Gibson Farone-Collins: It’s been really busy, which is…
57 00:03:25.190 ⇒ 00:03:25.560 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
58 00:03:25.560 ⇒ 00:03:30.400 Gibson Farone-Collins: Good… in some ways, but also… I don’t know.
59 00:03:30.560 ⇒ 00:03:32.220 Gibson Farone-Collins: I feel like…
60 00:03:32.390 ⇒ 00:03:41.160 Gibson Farone-Collins: This year, for us has been… things are either at, like, a 4 out of 10 busyness, and it’s like, man, we need to drum up some more busy… some more work.
61 00:03:42.260 ⇒ 00:03:51.630 Gibson Farone-Collins: Or, we’re running at a 10 out of 10, and it’s like, holy shit, the whole team’s gonna get burnt out and quit in the next month if this keeps up.
62 00:03:51.830 ⇒ 00:03:52.170 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
63 00:03:52.170 ⇒ 00:03:59.700 Gibson Farone-Collins: And it’s like, where are the… where’s the 7 or an 8 out of 10? Where everyone’s busy, and the business is growing, and… but we’re not…
64 00:03:59.930 ⇒ 00:04:01.339 Gibson Farone-Collins: Killing ourselves.
65 00:04:02.400 ⇒ 00:04:08.440 Robert Tseng: I was, I was talking, so, I mean, this… I mean, the quarter’s not over yet, but we hit, we went…
66 00:04:08.730 ⇒ 00:04:15.660 Robert Tseng: this past month has been a great, great sales month. We’ve closed, I mean, kind of just exceeded our quarterly target already, and…
67 00:04:15.910 ⇒ 00:04:17.559 Robert Tseng: Wow. Yeah, we’re kind of like…
68 00:04:17.810 ⇒ 00:04:30.419 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, I… we’re… yeah, it’s overall been bring… I mean, now we have too much business to serve at this point. We have to, like, figure out how to hire, and I’m thinking a lot about, okay, I feel like we’ve crossed a threshold.
69 00:04:30.560 ⇒ 00:04:36.539 Robert Tseng: And, like, we’re kind of needing… I think our current work structure doesn’t stand.
70 00:04:36.830 ⇒ 00:04:56.110 Robert Tseng: I don’t think it’s gonna support kind of where we’re trying to get to. You know, this may be kind of similar themes to things I’ve already been sharing to you about. I kind of saw this coming past couple months. But yeah, I think, like, I was talking to, one of our advisors and kind of describing it kind of feels like…
71 00:04:56.650 ⇒ 00:05:09.690 Robert Tseng: you know, like, water, like, doesn’t just gradually boil, like, it, like, once it… it’s, like, liquid, and then it’s… and then it’s boiling. Like, it’s just, like, this very dramatic state change, and, like, you know, it kind of feels like…
72 00:05:09.930 ⇒ 00:05:14.199 Robert Tseng: Yeah, everything happens all at once, and I guess…
73 00:05:14.760 ⇒ 00:05:26.599 Robert Tseng: I kind of got some confirmation that that’s how it is, especially, like, I don’t know, in the lifecycle of a services business. I guess it’s less variable than a product company. I think it’s…
74 00:05:26.690 ⇒ 00:05:35.390 Robert Tseng: very much, like, there are certain, like, growth, kind of, like, revenue stages, I guess, that you get to, and, I guess the structure does have to change.
75 00:05:35.530 ⇒ 00:05:50.350 Robert Tseng: And I feel like we’re kind of at, like, one of… one of those, inflection points now, where, yeah, it kind of feels like we have to blow up a lot of things all at once in order to, like, ride into the… into the next, into the next, next thing, so…
76 00:05:50.350 ⇒ 00:05:55.139 Gibson Farone-Collins: We’re totally in a similar moment. I wonder if it’s ever not that case.
77 00:05:55.140 ⇒ 00:05:55.690 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
78 00:05:56.190 ⇒ 00:06:04.159 Gibson Farone-Collins: You know, but I’m sure… I’m sure there are some businesses that just do $20 million a year of revenue, and they’ve done that for the last…
79 00:06:04.160 ⇒ 00:06:04.940 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
80 00:06:04.940 ⇒ 00:06:08.099 Gibson Farone-Collins: 10 years, they’ll do it for the next 10, and everyone’s happy.
81 00:06:08.290 ⇒ 00:06:08.840 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
82 00:06:08.840 ⇒ 00:06:09.530 Gibson Farone-Collins: Oh.
83 00:06:09.950 ⇒ 00:06:15.099 Gibson Farone-Collins: But I think when you’re… we’re trying to grow, and I think we’ll be…
84 00:06:15.980 ⇒ 00:06:20.469 Gibson Farone-Collins: around… I don’t actually know, $8 million of revenue.
85 00:06:20.590 ⇒ 00:06:23.440 Gibson Farone-Collins: 6, somewhere, like, high single digit.
86 00:06:23.440 ⇒ 00:06:24.030 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
87 00:06:24.030 ⇒ 00:06:29.050 Gibson Farone-Collins: revenue this year. Yeah. And our founder has had similar
88 00:06:29.380 ⇒ 00:06:46.200 Gibson Farone-Collins: I’ve had similar conversations to what it sounds like you’ve had, where she’s like, I’ve been talking to folks, and they’re like, man, 10 to 20, like, going from where you’re high single digits to $20 million is huge, because it can’t all just be founder-led sales, and, like.
89 00:06:46.750 ⇒ 00:06:50.270 Gibson Farone-Collins: small founding team delivery, like, you’ve got a.
90 00:06:50.270 ⇒ 00:06:50.930 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
91 00:06:51.140 ⇒ 00:06:57.430 Gibson Farone-Collins: build some processes, and get some other BD engines running, and things like that.
92 00:06:57.740 ⇒ 00:06:58.360 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
93 00:06:58.780 ⇒ 00:07:17.739 Robert Tseng: Yeah, no, I think that’s… that’s… I mean, it’s interesting. I mean, we’re a couple steps behind you, like, we’re probably gonna do, like, 2 million this year, and maybe a little north of that, and I feel like we’re… like, now this idea of the founding team is, like, it’s not just me and my business partner hiring a bunch of contractors anymore. We actually have.
94 00:07:17.740 ⇒ 00:07:18.130 Gibson Farone-Collins: God.
95 00:07:18.130 ⇒ 00:07:24.469 Robert Tseng: this, like, team in order to get us to the 10 million mark. And so, yeah, I’m like…
96 00:07:24.670 ⇒ 00:07:41.420 Robert Tseng: you know, I mean, obviously you lead delivery at, you know, at your firm, and I think as we’ve been, like, trying to zero in on, like, okay, what does this founding ops team look like? What are the key roles? Like, I mean, the highest… the highest leverage thing is obviously to get someone to come in and lead delivery. So I’ve actually wanted to pick your brain on, like.
97 00:07:41.470 ⇒ 00:07:49.860 Robert Tseng: what convinced you to come and go there, and like, how do we, like, better find, like, yeah, I mean, just as we’re talking to more people.
98 00:07:50.240 ⇒ 00:07:51.070 Gibson Farone-Collins: Yeah.
99 00:07:51.070 ⇒ 00:08:00.470 Robert Tseng: I mean, obviously, the scale of the engagements and everything is different, but I do feel like some… yeah, basically, we need, like, a head of client services at this point, I think.
100 00:08:00.580 ⇒ 00:08:02.150 Gibson Farone-Collins: Yeah.
101 00:08:02.830 ⇒ 00:08:08.159 Gibson Farone-Collins: What, what skill set are you looking for in that person?
102 00:08:08.600 ⇒ 00:08:11.350 Gibson Farone-Collins: Like, what experience do you want from them?
103 00:08:11.600 ⇒ 00:08:25.970 Robert Tseng: Okay, I think, like, lightly, like, a one-sentence version that we kind of came up with was, like, okay, I think we… they actually need to be an ex-consultant, and then with, like, some early ops experience at a startup.
104 00:08:26.140 ⇒ 00:08:31.189 Robert Tseng: I guess… Like, as far as, like, the…
105 00:08:32.330 ⇒ 00:08:37.420 Robert Tseng: What they want… what we want them to come in and own is… is really,
106 00:08:37.929 ⇒ 00:08:40.659 Robert Tseng: I guess twofold. One is, like,
107 00:08:40.760 ⇒ 00:08:59.589 Robert Tseng: growing accounts, like, kind of understanding the different stages of maturity in our client life cycle, and being able to grow them to, like, what we… to our current most mature stage, or maybe even beyond that, so being able to really kind of, like, own what that roadmap looks like for what client, like, delivery, like, life cycle looks like.
108 00:08:59.590 ⇒ 00:09:05.019 Robert Tseng: And then two, kind of being, like, the… the P, like, pro- like.
109 00:09:05.430 ⇒ 00:09:16.650 Robert Tseng: kind of PM, almost, to our internal AI engineering team, who’s basically building tools to… to kind of give us an advantage, because that’s the only way that we get,
110 00:09:16.820 ⇒ 00:09:24.479 Robert Tseng: more margin, is if we use, like, kind of the internal tooling that we’ve been building for that team. So, like, kind of…
111 00:09:24.600 ⇒ 00:09:46.169 Robert Tseng: not… they don’t have to come up with the ideas, but really be able to integrate what, like, our engineering… the engineering side of our house is building to, like, kind of bring that into the… into the, services work. So, I don’t think anybody other than me and my business partner have a… have a mind and care to basically be like, we don’t just want to do
112 00:09:46.170 ⇒ 00:09:49.110 Robert Tseng: good work that we’re used to doing in other companies, but, like, we want.
113 00:09:49.110 ⇒ 00:09:49.480 Gibson Farone-Collins: Yeah.
114 00:09:49.480 ⇒ 00:09:57.990 Robert Tseng: in a new way, and to really just be very AI-forward about what we’re doing. So, I think those are kind of the two main things that we’re looking for.
115 00:09:58.870 ⇒ 00:10:00.520 Gibson Farone-Collins: Interesting. That’s a tough…
116 00:10:00.690 ⇒ 00:10:04.999 Gibson Farone-Collins: That’s a tough brief. I mean, it’s a big country, it’s a big world, but that’s.
117 00:10:05.000 ⇒ 00:10:06.710 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
118 00:10:07.060 ⇒ 00:10:08.849 Gibson Farone-Collins: That’s a specific person.
119 00:10:09.050 ⇒ 00:10:09.790 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
120 00:10:10.100 ⇒ 00:10:14.949 Gibson Farone-Collins: I feel like we are… We are battling this somewhat.
121 00:10:15.590 ⇒ 00:10:21.859 Gibson Farone-Collins: Right now, too, and trying to hire folks, where it’s like… And, you know.
122 00:10:22.460 ⇒ 00:10:36.050 Gibson Farone-Collins: I think the brief that we want for either an engagement manager or, like, a partner-level person kind of rhymes with what you just said, which is someone with real consulting experience, but also someone who has been a marketing operator.
123 00:10:37.630 ⇒ 00:10:41.420 Gibson Farone-Collins: And now they want to get back into an advisory role.
124 00:10:41.740 ⇒ 00:10:42.660 Gibson Farone-Collins: And it’s…
125 00:10:43.340 ⇒ 00:10:50.050 Gibson Farone-Collins: The… the thing that is tricky, in my view, is, like, why do you… why does someone want to go back into an advisory?
126 00:10:50.050 ⇒ 00:10:52.730 Robert Tseng: Role. Yeah. Because…
127 00:10:52.730 ⇒ 00:10:59.409 Gibson Farone-Collins: you know, if they were at McKinsey for 3 years, they did that. Like, why aren’t they still at McKinsey?
128 00:10:59.720 ⇒ 00:11:00.350 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
129 00:11:00.850 ⇒ 00:11:05.570 Gibson Farone-Collins: And then why do they want to do it again, but at a… at a much smaller place?
130 00:11:05.830 ⇒ 00:11:06.240 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
131 00:11:06.240 ⇒ 00:11:10.620 Gibson Farone-Collins: But I… and, you know, there’s more ownership and domain specificity and…
132 00:11:10.770 ⇒ 00:11:12.900 Gibson Farone-Collins: Building something is fun, like, there’s…
133 00:11:13.460 ⇒ 00:11:16.909 Gibson Farone-Collins: There are a lot of positives you can pitch at someone.
134 00:11:16.910 ⇒ 00:11:17.530 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
135 00:11:17.860 ⇒ 00:11:21.910 Gibson Farone-Collins: But I think a lot of people leave consulting and they’re like, never again.
136 00:11:22.630 ⇒ 00:11:23.280 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
137 00:11:23.820 ⇒ 00:11:28.119 Gibson Farone-Collins: Or they’re like, I’ll hang my own shingle, but, you know, I’m not gonna be the…
138 00:11:28.300 ⇒ 00:11:32.290 Gibson Farone-Collins: Third banana to you and your… found her.
139 00:11:32.290 ⇒ 00:11:32.900 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
140 00:11:33.710 ⇒ 00:11:38.849 Gibson Farone-Collins: So, I don’t know, I don’t know if that’s helpful, but it’s something we’ve thought about, too.
141 00:11:38.850 ⇒ 00:11:51.560 Robert Tseng: Yeah. No, this is… this is very interesting, because we’re talking to, a guy tomorrow who’s, like, he was at EY for, like, 5 to 7 years, I forget exactly, and then he basically left, and he tried to do this on his own, and…
142 00:11:51.700 ⇒ 00:11:52.629 Robert Tseng: I mean…
143 00:11:52.780 ⇒ 00:12:07.650 Robert Tseng: I guess, he kind of… it was like a nice… nice thing for him for 6 months. I think it’s… you can… you can… people with that background who have an entrepreneurial mind can strike down on their own, grab a couple clients, you know, make a few hundred thousand dollars, and then…
144 00:12:07.650 ⇒ 00:12:25.359 Robert Tseng: you know, they… but they may not have… but they may not actually want to build out, like, a full operation. So he basically shut down his, like, solo consultancy thing, and he’s, like, kind of evaluating his next steps. On paper, he looks like a good fit, but I guess to the point, it’s like, okay, well, he left, like, EY, and he was, like, you know.
145 00:12:25.360 ⇒ 00:12:39.000 Robert Tseng: decently high up there, like, why would he want to come and, you know, do it with us? Like, I… I don’t really know what the pitch is to him at this point, but it’s… we are talking to someone with… kind of in that exact same kind of, profile that you described, so…
146 00:12:39.000 ⇒ 00:12:45.839 Gibson Farone-Collins: I like the idea of finding someone who’s a reformed solopreneur.
147 00:12:45.840 ⇒ 00:12:46.520 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
148 00:12:46.710 ⇒ 00:12:49.210 Gibson Farone-Collins: Though, that makes sense to me, where it’s like.
149 00:12:49.740 ⇒ 00:12:51.359 Robert Tseng: Maybe they ate…
150 00:12:51.360 ⇒ 00:12:56.669 Gibson Farone-Collins: like doing the delivery, but they’re not interested in the BD aspect of it, or something like that.
151 00:12:56.670 ⇒ 00:12:57.060 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
152 00:12:57.060 ⇒ 00:13:00.480 Gibson Farone-Collins: And so you guys offer some… some infrastructure.
153 00:13:00.480 ⇒ 00:13:01.050 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
154 00:13:01.050 ⇒ 00:13:05.300 Gibson Farone-Collins: like I said, it’s a big country, it’s a big world out there, like, there are…
155 00:13:05.640 ⇒ 00:13:09.589 Gibson Farone-Collins: The streets are littered with ex-consultants.
156 00:13:09.590 ⇒ 00:13:10.000 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
157 00:13:10.000 ⇒ 00:13:12.260 Gibson Farone-Collins: It’s just a matter of finding them.
158 00:13:12.460 ⇒ 00:13:13.130 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
159 00:13:13.670 ⇒ 00:13:15.870 Robert Tseng: Okay, that’s interesting. And then…
160 00:13:15.870 ⇒ 00:13:17.620 Gibson Farone-Collins: Did you get in touch with this guy?
161 00:13:18.050 ⇒ 00:13:20.010 Robert Tseng: Well, I guess, like.
162 00:13:21.060 ⇒ 00:13:25.939 Robert Tseng: you know, being… we’ve met a lot of people over these… I mean, doing this for, like.
163 00:13:26.090 ⇒ 00:13:37.920 Robert Tseng: almost two and a half years at this point, I guess, and we’ve, yeah, it’s just, like, maybe somebody early on was kind of… felt like it was in a similar boat. So, like, I’ve met… I know a bunch of other, like.
164 00:13:38.060 ⇒ 00:13:57.040 Robert Tseng: solopreneur consultants in different niches that, like, you know, maybe just… they pretty much just capped out around the $500K mark and, like, didn’t… have either shut it down, or kind of are just running as a lifestyle business. I’m… I kind of think, like, well, those who, like, are kind of ready to call it quits, and…
165 00:13:57.140 ⇒ 00:14:08.720 Robert Tseng: maybe you still just want to, yeah, like, have the infrastructure of, like, well, we did kind of push it to another level after that, so maybe you can come in and just own one part of it. Like, that feels like it’s a…
166 00:14:08.720 ⇒ 00:14:17.279 Robert Tseng: it’s enticing. Nobody’s really taken us up on it yet. I have various objections, either… yeah, it’s like, I think a lot of it is ego, and, like, wanting their name to be…
167 00:14:17.280 ⇒ 00:14:22.150 Robert Tseng: I mean, whatever, it is… it is what it is, and that, and also…
168 00:14:22.410 ⇒ 00:14:28.139 Robert Tseng: yeah, I guess, like, the expert… like, we did have someone come in, but then…
169 00:14:28.270 ⇒ 00:14:40.750 Robert Tseng: I don’t know, some other bigger consultancy, like, offered him, like, a… like, a package double of, like, what we were willing to put… give him at the time. So, yeah, it was just, like, different things.
170 00:14:40.910 ⇒ 00:15:00.610 Robert Tseng: I mean, at that point in your career, you have too many options, like, you could be very opportunistic about it, and it’s like, I don’t know if people really want to, like, they don’t necessarily know the exit, like, how long it’s gonna take, and so they might just, like… I mean, if something comes along that just gives them, like, faster cash up front, like, I think they just prefer that.
171 00:15:01.300 ⇒ 00:15:02.180 Gibson Farone-Collins: Yeah!
172 00:15:02.340 ⇒ 00:15:08.960 Gibson Farone-Collins: Yeah, and I mean, I don’t know how you all play with your equity or whatever, but… Yeah. Aux is…
173 00:15:09.420 ⇒ 00:15:11.550 Gibson Farone-Collins: Not… is very tightly held.
174 00:15:11.740 ⇒ 00:15:17.349 Gibson Farone-Collins: And I think we’ll continue to be that way, which is fine, but, you know, you’re joining something with a lot of
175 00:15:17.860 ⇒ 00:15:21.729 Gibson Farone-Collins: With the small, and there’s uncertainty built into the smallness of it.
176 00:15:21.730 ⇒ 00:15:22.430 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
177 00:15:22.430 ⇒ 00:15:30.389 Gibson Farone-Collins: But then it’s… The upside isn’t the same as if you were joining XYZ AI company, or if.
178 00:15:30.390 ⇒ 00:15:31.170 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
179 00:15:31.170 ⇒ 00:15:44.819 Gibson Farone-Collins: yourself, I don’t know. Talk yourself into it, talk yourself out of it. There’s gotta be someone… sounds like this person that you’re talking to might be the right fit. And if you know this, like, solopreneur community, there’s got to be folks who are
180 00:15:45.090 ⇒ 00:15:49.739 Gibson Farone-Collins: burnout on the biz dev, or, you know, their biggest client just dumped them in their…
181 00:15:49.970 ⇒ 00:15:53.600 Gibson Farone-Collins: Worried about making their mortgage payment 6 months from now, whatever.
182 00:15:53.600 ⇒ 00:15:54.240 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
183 00:15:54.600 ⇒ 00:15:58.659 Robert Tseng: Yeah. Oh, yeah, maybe it’s just, you know, talk to more of these folks, and .
184 00:15:58.660 ⇒ 00:15:58.990 Gibson Farone-Collins: Yeah.
185 00:15:58.990 ⇒ 00:16:02.689 Robert Tseng: Somebody, somebody will bite, but… Oh, interesting. Okay.
186 00:16:02.970 ⇒ 00:16:10.090 Robert Tseng: But, like, you… I guess, why did… maybe we’ve… I’ve asked you before, but why did you… why did you join Ox?
187 00:16:10.350 ⇒ 00:16:12.870 Gibson Farone-Collins: I dodged that question 5 minutes ago.
188 00:16:14.710 ⇒ 00:16:19.640 Gibson Farone-Collins: Not intentionally. I joined because I felt like I wanted to…
189 00:16:20.180 ⇒ 00:16:23.810 Gibson Farone-Collins: Pivot into a digital marketing and marketing.
190 00:16:23.810 ⇒ 00:16:26.349 Robert Tseng: I remember you said that before. Yeah.
191 00:16:26.370 ⇒ 00:16:33.749 Gibson Farone-Collins: And… I… I was doing my job hunt post-Ruggable, whatever, a year and a half ago.
192 00:16:34.110 ⇒ 00:16:39.630 Gibson Farone-Collins: And all the roles that got me excited, I was like, I’m not qualified for this.
193 00:16:39.750 ⇒ 00:16:41.960 Gibson Farone-Collins: VP of Growth role.
194 00:16:42.230 ⇒ 00:16:42.810 Robert Tseng: Hmm.
195 00:16:43.660 ⇒ 00:16:46.739 Gibson Farone-Collins: And so, Ox felt like the right thing to…
196 00:16:47.290 ⇒ 00:16:50.539 Gibson Farone-Collins: Really get my marketing feet under me.
197 00:16:50.590 ⇒ 00:16:54.089 Robert Tseng: Yeah. But that I was qualified for the role because of my…
198 00:16:54.090 ⇒ 00:16:56.260 Gibson Farone-Collins: BCG experience, and they… they just.
199 00:16:56.260 ⇒ 00:16:56.870 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
200 00:16:57.100 ⇒ 00:16:59.949 Gibson Farone-Collins: Looked fondly on ex-consultants.
201 00:17:00.300 ⇒ 00:17:03.810 Gibson Farone-Collins: And so it felt like it split the difference there for me.
202 00:17:04.050 ⇒ 00:17:04.390 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
203 00:17:04.390 ⇒ 00:17:07.940 Gibson Farone-Collins: I also didn’t get out of consulting the first time
204 00:17:09.010 ⇒ 00:17:12.800 Gibson Farone-Collins: because I hate consulting and advisory.
205 00:17:12.900 ⇒ 00:17:26.020 Gibson Farone-Collins: Like, I didn’t like where my BCG path was headed necessarily, and I was excited about Ruggable, which is sort of silly in retrospect, but I was excited.
206 00:17:27.290 ⇒ 00:17:37.449 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, that’s not silly. I think it’s cool seeing that whole contingent of exploroggable people, like, go and build out grooons, like, that’s… on the sideline, that’s been sort of crazy to see that.
207 00:17:37.450 ⇒ 00:17:41.129 Gibson Farone-Collins: No, they’re killing it over there. It’s awesome to see.
208 00:17:41.130 ⇒ 00:17:45.700 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I remember I talked to Katie, like, as she was considering, like, leaving Ruggle Bowl, and then…
209 00:17:45.850 ⇒ 00:17:52.140 Robert Tseng: She’s like, oh, I don’t know, like, she didn’t know what she was gonna do, and then, well, and then I guess she figured out…
210 00:17:52.140 ⇒ 00:17:54.289 Gibson Farone-Collins: A rocket ship, yeah.
211 00:17:55.140 ⇒ 00:17:57.980 Gibson Farone-Collins: And there’s a bunch, like, Paul McCauley is there…
212 00:17:57.980 ⇒ 00:17:58.980 Robert Tseng: Yeah. Yeah.
213 00:17:59.150 ⇒ 00:18:01.790 Gibson Farone-Collins: Are Zach and Ethan both now?
214 00:18:01.790 ⇒ 00:18:07.290 Robert Tseng: Ethan, we’re both there. I think Ethan just left, he went to Disney, and yeah.
215 00:18:08.090 ⇒ 00:18:16.200 Robert Tseng: Yeah, but, like, that… that whole, like, core strategy and, like, data, like, team is, like, all, like, rutiful people.
216 00:18:16.760 ⇒ 00:18:19.749 Robert Tseng: That’s cool. Or, well, at least started that way, so…
217 00:18:19.750 ⇒ 00:18:21.380 Gibson Farone-Collins: Yeah, yeah, that’s funny.
218 00:18:21.610 ⇒ 00:18:25.920 Robert Tseng: Yeah. So yeah, I feel like you definitely… we definitely learned something about growth and…
219 00:18:25.920 ⇒ 00:18:26.409 Gibson Farone-Collins: Oh, yo!
220 00:18:26.410 ⇒ 00:18:30.439 Robert Tseng: of all that, like, it’s just crazy, it’s just… I mean, I think it’s…
221 00:18:30.740 ⇒ 00:18:39.059 Robert Tseng: it kind of continues to yield returns as I’m kind of walking into situations, and I’m like, what? You guys don’t do this? And I just, like, always pull from this…
222 00:18:39.070 ⇒ 00:18:41.650 Gibson Farone-Collins: This reserve of, like, ruggable, like…
223 00:18:42.060 ⇒ 00:18:45.429 Robert Tseng: Like, knowledge that’s somewhere in buried in the back of my head.
224 00:18:45.630 ⇒ 00:18:52.950 Gibson Farone-Collins: It’s so true. I remember talking to Michael Ting about what he was doing at Jackson when he first got there, and it was.
225 00:18:52.950 ⇒ 00:18:53.320 Robert Tseng: Huh.
226 00:18:53.320 ⇒ 00:18:58.849 Gibson Farone-Collins: like, I’m running a bunch of roguable, you know, pricing playbook, and…
227 00:18:59.000 ⇒ 00:19:06.440 Gibson Farone-Collins: Yeah. I remember what the 10 other things were, but he’s like, all this shit works, I know it works, I’m just gonna come in here and do it for the next year.
228 00:19:06.440 ⇒ 00:19:07.640 Robert Tseng: Yeah. Do that.
229 00:19:08.770 ⇒ 00:19:09.549 Gibson Farone-Collins: Not bad.
230 00:19:09.550 ⇒ 00:19:15.259 Robert Tseng: Nice. Yeah, yeah. No, I think that’s a good role for him. He can… growth roles are, like.
231 00:19:15.530 ⇒ 00:19:17.849 Robert Tseng: You’re just, like, trying…
232 00:19:18.070 ⇒ 00:19:25.720 Robert Tseng: you’re throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks, and I always… I felt like Michael was somebody, at least on our team, like.
233 00:19:26.090 ⇒ 00:19:34.099 Robert Tseng: he could juggle, like, double the number of work streams that any one person could, so… I feel like that’s… that’s, like, a perfect role for him.
234 00:19:34.210 ⇒ 00:19:39.140 Gibson Farone-Collins: Yeah, yeah, I never knew how he… he was, like, the earliest…
235 00:19:39.370 ⇒ 00:19:46.229 Gibson Farone-Collins: person I knew to just be all in on ChatGPT and having it do as much work as possible for him.
236 00:19:46.230 ⇒ 00:19:47.380 Robert Tseng: Yeah? Okay.
237 00:19:47.380 ⇒ 00:19:48.040 Gibson Farone-Collins: Yeah.
238 00:19:48.650 ⇒ 00:19:48.980 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
239 00:19:48.980 ⇒ 00:19:52.090 Gibson Farone-Collins: just… I mean, it was… every…
240 00:19:52.500 ⇒ 00:20:03.099 Gibson Farone-Collins: And, you know, there’s quality trade-offs for that, for sure. Sure. But if you’re in a spaghetti-against-the-wall situation, it can generate a lot of spaghetti.
241 00:20:03.100 ⇒ 00:20:03.730 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
242 00:20:06.390 ⇒ 00:20:08.709 Robert Tseng: Yeah, and eventually something will stick, right? So…
243 00:20:08.710 ⇒ 00:20:11.989 Gibson Farone-Collins: Yeah, exactly, exactly. Yeah. Bound to be some winners.
244 00:20:12.240 ⇒ 00:20:12.880 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
245 00:20:13.480 ⇒ 00:20:21.520 Robert Tseng: One more thing I wanted to ask you about was… is also… so we’re… I mean, the PE stuff kind of stalled. I feel like deals… I mean, I don’t know, at least…
246 00:20:21.880 ⇒ 00:20:33.520 Robert Tseng: we were talking to some PEs investing, like, kind of doing, like, CPG roll-ups and consolidations. They’ve all kind of told… the two I were talking to were just like, alright, come back to us next year, so…
247 00:20:33.520 ⇒ 00:20:33.870 Gibson Farone-Collins: Yeah.
248 00:20:33.870 ⇒ 00:20:49.979 Robert Tseng: I don’t know, maybe I feel like the window kind of closed, but we are, like, kind of direct selling to, like, a couple, brands north of $100 million. And I found what’s interesting is, like, our whole, like, outcome-based price, like, kind of, like, offer and pitch, like, thing is not…
249 00:20:50.330 ⇒ 00:20:54.240 Robert Tseng: it’s not really sticking with them. Like, I… if anything.
250 00:20:54.330 ⇒ 00:21:09.000 Robert Tseng: you know, I kind of looked in, I was, like, looking at the background, I don’t know if there’s something, like, just something soft skill-wise that I’m missing here, but… so there’s, like, one brand, they’re, like, ex-bain people. It felt, like, demographically very… feels very similar to Ruggable.
251 00:21:09.010 ⇒ 00:21:20.819 Robert Tseng: And yeah, I mean, I guess they’re kind of just like, you know, the speed of your solution is not that appealing to us. It’s not… it’s also not really about you thinking that you could move the needle on this outcome.
252 00:21:20.820 ⇒ 00:21:30.670 Robert Tseng: Like, we just… we just, like, want to make sure that you… you’ve done your due diligence, that, like, this stack that you’re recommending to us is, like, the way to go. And I thought that was kind of strange, like.
253 00:21:30.930 ⇒ 00:21:38.080 Robert Tseng: I don’t know if this is kind of the nature of that type of brand, or if this is just kind of a one-off case.
254 00:21:38.190 ⇒ 00:21:51.970 Robert Tseng: I wonder if you’ve run into a situation where, kind of, the speed is not the main… doesn’t seem to be the main thing, and also, like, the… the outcome that you think that you can manage, like, they’re not as concerned about,
255 00:21:51.970 ⇒ 00:21:59.480 Robert Tseng: Because they just… they’re… yeah, like, I don’t know, something just feels off about it, and I’m not really sure how to approach it.
256 00:21:59.780 ⇒ 00:22:12.519 Gibson Farone-Collins: Yeah, that has not been my experience of the PE and PE-backed buyers, or buyers at that scale that we’ve been working with. Like, they, by and large, want to move fast, and they want results.
257 00:22:12.930 ⇒ 00:22:13.550 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
258 00:22:13.810 ⇒ 00:22:20.920 Gibson Farone-Collins: So, I don’t know if that’s idiosyncratic to this specific company, but that has not been my…
259 00:22:21.250 ⇒ 00:22:23.090 Gibson Farone-Collins: They’re not about my experience, like, they won’t.
260 00:22:23.090 ⇒ 00:22:29.909 Robert Tseng: I guess, like, to, I mean, I guess the P… disconnecting the PE part to it, but, like, to me, this team is, like.
261 00:22:29.910 ⇒ 00:22:42.770 Robert Tseng: they don’t really have any true, like, data people, I think. They’re all ex-consultants or bankers, probably wizards that like Excel or whatever, but, like, you know, they’re just triangulating insights from a lot of, like, scattered things, and so there is, like, a need to, like.
262 00:22:42.770 ⇒ 00:22:54.039 Robert Tseng: kind of land all the data in one place. Maybe they’re just afraid that, like, everybody’s, like, work is going to get exposed because it’s actually going to be… there’s this consolidation and source of truth needs to be stood up.
263 00:22:54.040 ⇒ 00:23:07.869 Robert Tseng: I know that’s, like… I mean, you’re probably work… used to working in situations where you don’t really have that source of truth to work off of, and you’re kind of, you know, trusting but verifying everything yourself anyway, like, as your team kind of goes in and kind of does their…
264 00:23:07.910 ⇒ 00:23:15.030 Robert Tseng: you know, SWAT team thing. Yeah, I wonder if there’s, like, a different, like, you know.
265 00:23:15.400 ⇒ 00:23:29.869 Robert Tseng: someone else’s perspective to please that we’re kind of missing. And anyway, like, this is timely because, like, I’m going on site with them tomorrow, because they want to, like, kind of take our… I don’t know, we’ve already… we’ve already done a lot of pre-discovery work for them. I’m kind of like, I don’t really want to…
266 00:23:29.930 ⇒ 00:23:42.799 Robert Tseng: add any more to it, you guys have already taken two weeks of my time. But, yeah, like, I, you know, if we’re just gonna go there and I’m gonna get grilled with questions, like, I think I’d like to know who else is in the room that I haven’t talked to, you know.
267 00:23:44.070 ⇒ 00:23:46.439 Gibson Farone-Collins: Who, who is, who are your stakeholders?
268 00:23:47.400 ⇒ 00:24:07.300 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so there’s a… there’s, like, a… I don’t know if he’s CFO, but some VP of Finance, like, a head of BizOps is, like, the main champion for us. Yeah, no technical people. They’re… I mean, they’re a CPG brand, they’re in the nutrition… nutritional drink space, or whatever, and
269 00:24:07.690 ⇒ 00:24:14.720 Robert Tseng: Yeah, and then there’s probably… marketing is not making the decision, it’s purely finance and bizOps, like, just these two people, yeah.
270 00:24:15.710 ⇒ 00:24:20.339 Gibson Farone-Collins: Interesting. Yeah. And they’re… what are they saying they do care about?
271 00:24:21.620 ⇒ 00:24:28.359 Robert Tseng: Well, if I can find some of those messaging…
272 00:24:36.740 ⇒ 00:24:37.840 Robert Tseng: Beautiful.
273 00:24:42.620 ⇒ 00:24:50.630 Robert Tseng: So, they don’t feel like they have an aggressive timeline. I guess we were very much, like, they felt like we were,
274 00:24:52.610 ⇒ 00:25:09.010 Robert Tseng: I guess they didn’t… yeah, they didn’t really, like, share exactly what they want. They’re just, like, having all these questions. Maybe they’re just pressure testing, like, our assumptions here. But it’s like, yeah, it’s like, the aggressive timeline that we put out is not that important to them. You know, we’re very much very… we’re very much about, like.
275 00:25:09.160 ⇒ 00:25:20.609 Robert Tseng: We don’t need to spend, like, 3 months in the background, like, doing all this, like, data work, but we would like to pick, like, one or two kind of core reports or dashboards that we kind of drive towards and we take end-to-end.
276 00:25:20.610 ⇒ 00:25:30.149 Robert Tseng: So it just kind of feels like maybe we’re pigeonholing them into, like, two things. It’s like, what if we get… what if we want to take a different detour, and it’s like, they felt like it was…
277 00:25:30.200 ⇒ 00:25:32.849 Robert Tseng: Too early for us to establish.
278 00:25:32.910 ⇒ 00:25:52.310 Robert Tseng: That those were the priorities, like, so I kind of… that’s why I said I got the feeling that they felt like there wasn’t enough diligence done in, like, making the recommendations, but I’m very much like, well, we have to pick a starting point. These are typically the things that people care about. So, it just kind of felt weird that they were kind of giving me that kind of pushback.
279 00:25:53.770 ⇒ 00:25:54.640 Gibson Farone-Collins: Yeah.
280 00:25:56.140 ⇒ 00:26:00.830 Gibson Farone-Collins: Yeah, I mean, I… I, I…
281 00:26:01.360 ⇒ 00:26:03.340 Gibson Farone-Collins: From what you’re saying, it sounds like…
282 00:26:03.570 ⇒ 00:26:09.299 Gibson Farone-Collins: they maybe are more quality-focused and less speed-focused? I don’t know.
283 00:26:09.640 ⇒ 00:26:10.290 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
284 00:26:11.360 ⇒ 00:26:23.220 Robert Tseng: I guess it kind of just gave me, like… when I remember when… when I first got to Ruggle Bowl, we were doing, like, this… that market… this big market research thing that ended up, you know, taking, like, 4… 4 months or whatever with Dynata, and, like…
285 00:26:23.550 ⇒ 00:26:24.670 Gibson Farone-Collins: Was that provable?
286 00:26:24.670 ⇒ 00:26:32.030 Robert Tseng: Oh, no, no, this… Coverbull is probably the next… that was, like, on the design side, but I’m talking about Dynata, like, we did, like, a 10,000 customer.
287 00:26:32.030 ⇒ 00:26:32.520 Gibson Farone-Collins: And all that kind of stuff.
288 00:26:32.520 ⇒ 00:26:33.060 Robert Tseng: Survey.
289 00:26:33.060 ⇒ 00:26:34.339 Gibson Farone-Collins: segmentation thing.
290 00:26:34.340 ⇒ 00:26:35.849 Robert Tseng: Yes, there’s the whole segmentation thing.
291 00:26:36.850 ⇒ 00:26:51.690 Robert Tseng: And, I mean, in retrospect, being on the service provider side, I’m like, dang, Ruggable really made them do so much work up front before anything was signed. Like, they had to, like, pre-draft, like, 30 questions and, like, all this stuff. It was, like, kind of ridiculous.
292 00:26:51.740 ⇒ 00:27:03.470 Robert Tseng: So I kind of feel like, oh, is this just, like, the world of people? Like, I don’t know, consultants are just really good at, like, getting you to do a lot of work up front, because they just, you know, stream you along until they really feel like, yeah.
293 00:27:03.470 ⇒ 00:27:04.830 Gibson Farone-Collins: They don’t, yeah.
294 00:27:04.920 ⇒ 00:27:17.230 Robert Tseng: Like, they know they’re gonna work with you, but they just want to get more out of you up front. Like, maybe it is just as silly as that, but anyway, like, that’s… that’s, that’s been another kind of situation that’s been top of mind for me, because… Yeah. Yeah.
295 00:27:18.220 ⇒ 00:27:24.019 Gibson Farone-Collins: That, I… yeah, that sounds like ex-consultants, working with consultants.
296 00:27:24.020 ⇒ 00:27:25.630 Robert Tseng: Yeah, perhaps.
297 00:27:26.160 ⇒ 00:27:37.169 Gibson Farone-Collins: The thing you said at the beginning about PE being slow is definitely something we felt, and it was something… I went to a panel at this conference, and people were talking about how 2025 has just been…
298 00:27:37.330 ⇒ 00:27:42.610 Gibson Farone-Collins: A mess from the interest rates and tariffs basically being the.
299 00:27:42.610 ⇒ 00:27:43.040 Robert Tseng: Excuse me.
300 00:27:43.040 ⇒ 00:27:44.190 Gibson Farone-Collins: Right.
301 00:27:44.370 ⇒ 00:27:56.120 Gibson Farone-Collins: And so, they’re saying that, like, their diligence processes have extended a bunch, and as a result, a lot of deals are not going through, because they just sort of stall out in diligence.
302 00:27:56.120 ⇒ 00:27:56.580 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
303 00:27:56.580 ⇒ 00:28:01.090 Gibson Farone-Collins: They were all like, 26 is gonna be that year, but… who knows?
304 00:28:01.090 ⇒ 00:28:02.360 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
305 00:28:03.620 ⇒ 00:28:08.459 Robert Tseng: I see. Okay, so that’s also just, like, a macro trend out there that you’re ever seeing.
306 00:28:08.460 ⇒ 00:28:13.180 Gibson Farone-Collins: Something we’ve been… and we’ve been, like, we’ve been cutting pricing to try to…
307 00:28:13.700 ⇒ 00:28:18.110 Gibson Farone-Collins: get around that, and changing our offerings. It’s…
308 00:28:18.670 ⇒ 00:28:33.410 Gibson Farone-Collins: you know, ideally, we’re signing six-month, 3 quarter of a million dollar engagements or something, like, really big stuff like that. And it’s been a lot of, like, in 2 weeks, we can do an LTV to CAC model for you all for 50 grand.
309 00:28:33.410 ⇒ 00:28:33.790 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
310 00:28:33.790 ⇒ 00:28:46.399 Gibson Farone-Collins: just getting really specific about stuff. Yeah, and how’s that… how’s the specific offering thing going? We’re also doing, like, a holiday promotion, or, like, kind of, we’ll get you something done by the end of the holidays. Totally, no, totally.
311 00:28:47.540 ⇒ 00:28:52.010 Gibson Farone-Collins: What we have right now is, like, we’re running BFCM campaigns for a company.
312 00:28:52.010 ⇒ 00:28:52.690 Robert Tseng: Oh, okay.
313 00:28:52.690 ⇒ 00:28:53.730 Gibson Farone-Collins: marketing team.
314 00:28:53.890 ⇒ 00:28:55.910 Gibson Farone-Collins: It’s…
315 00:28:57.300 ⇒ 00:29:03.579 Gibson Farone-Collins: it’s fine. It’s bridging this moment and this gap, and I think it’s good for us to, like, flex up and down.
316 00:29:03.950 ⇒ 00:29:08.049 Gibson Farone-Collins: what… What our capabilities are.
317 00:29:08.050 ⇒ 00:29:08.660 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
318 00:29:09.340 ⇒ 00:29:17.440 Gibson Farone-Collins: from a delivery standpoint, it’s just… a two-week engagement is not fun, because you don’t have any time to build any relationships. Yeah. And then you’re… you’re out.
319 00:29:17.630 ⇒ 00:29:22.460 Gibson Farone-Collins: And… You know, if we want to do $10 million a year in revenue, that’s…
320 00:29:23.220 ⇒ 00:29:29.699 Gibson Farone-Collins: Whatever the number is, 14 $750,000 projects, so we gotta sell, or…
321 00:29:30.800 ⇒ 00:29:34.599 Gibson Farone-Collins: I have not slept enough to do arithmetic.
322 00:29:36.170 ⇒ 00:29:37.670 Gibson Farone-Collins: $250,000.
323 00:29:37.670 ⇒ 00:29:38.040 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
324 00:29:38.040 ⇒ 00:29:41.020 Gibson Farone-Collins: Or engagements, or something stupid like that.
325 00:29:41.020 ⇒ 00:29:41.700 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
326 00:29:43.070 ⇒ 00:29:53.240 Gibson Farone-Collins: And so it’s like… it feels like we’re selling a lot, but then we’re still trailing our revenue numbers, because we just need a couple huge things to hit, but no one… that’s not happening right now. So…
327 00:29:53.240 ⇒ 00:29:53.840 Robert Tseng: I see.
328 00:29:53.840 ⇒ 00:29:58.629 Gibson Farone-Collins: It’s fine, but I don’t think it’s, like, the model that we want to go forward with.
329 00:29:58.930 ⇒ 00:30:00.890 Robert Tseng: Yeah, yeah, that’s fair.
330 00:30:01.300 ⇒ 00:30:02.780 Gibson Farone-Collins: You gotta keep the lights on.
331 00:30:03.090 ⇒ 00:30:03.740 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
332 00:30:04.580 ⇒ 00:30:09.409 Robert Tseng: Cool. Well, I’ll let you get back to it. Thanks for the… thanks for the catch-up.
333 00:30:09.410 ⇒ 00:30:12.519 Gibson Farone-Collins: Yeah, good to chat. Enjoy Hong Kong. Are you guys…
334 00:30:12.770 ⇒ 00:30:18.160 Gibson Farone-Collins: Are you taking time off? Are you doing fun stuff? Are you just working from there and seeing your in-laws? Like, what’s the plan?
335 00:30:18.310 ⇒ 00:30:33.570 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, I’ll take… I’ll take Thanksgiving by Friday off, and I mean, I’ll take… yeah, I mean, not really… it won’t really, really be switched off after that, or before that. Yeah, I’ll probably be working, just taking less meetings during US hours, or whatever, yeah.
336 00:30:34.170 ⇒ 00:30:34.890 Gibson Farone-Collins: Cool.
337 00:30:34.890 ⇒ 00:30:35.490 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
338 00:30:35.490 ⇒ 00:30:36.920 Gibson Farone-Collins: Well, enjoy.
339 00:30:36.920 ⇒ 00:30:40.009 Robert Tseng: Thanks. Alright, well, talk to you later. Thanks, Gibson.
340 00:30:40.010 ⇒ 00:30:40.790 Gibson Farone-Collins: Better. Bye.