Meeting Title: Client Engagement Strategy Discussion Date: 2025-11-14 Meeting participants: Uttam Kumaran, Robert Tseng
WEBVTT
1 00:04:58.920 ⇒ 00:04:59.890 Robert Tseng: Hey.
2 00:05:30.400 ⇒ 00:05:36.870 Robert Tseng: Sorry, I didn’t see your message earlier. I just kind of waited a few minutes, and then just kind of moved… switched my screen.
3 00:06:44.860 ⇒ 00:06:46.539 Uttam Kumaran: Hey, sorry about that, someone just…
4 00:06:46.730 ⇒ 00:06:49.490 Robert Tseng: Came to the house, right aside. No worries.
5 00:06:49.490 ⇒ 00:06:50.160 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
6 00:06:51.300 ⇒ 00:06:53.280 Uttam Kumaran: Cool.
7 00:06:53.690 ⇒ 00:06:56.910 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, yeah, I mean, how do you wanna…
8 00:06:57.320 ⇒ 00:07:02.950 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, I sent a couple notes yesterday, I mean, maybe… my biggest takeaway is just to, like.
9 00:07:03.190 ⇒ 00:07:08.139 Uttam Kumaran: go slow. I actually tried to think about that in even this last meeting we had.
10 00:07:08.440 ⇒ 00:07:12.400 Uttam Kumaran: Unlike… Maybe we’re just too used to, like…
11 00:07:12.930 ⇒ 00:07:16.550 Uttam Kumaran: startups and, like, kind of crazy companies, these guys are…
12 00:07:16.890 ⇒ 00:07:20.769 Uttam Kumaran: more methodical, and so I’m trying to bias a little bit more towards, like.
13 00:07:21.140 ⇒ 00:07:23.330 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, we’ll just not go as…
14 00:07:23.620 ⇒ 00:07:29.899 Uttam Kumaran: We’ll just kind of focus more on docks and, plans and things like that, and…
15 00:07:30.420 ⇒ 00:07:33.139 Uttam Kumaran: Being a thought partner, but yeah, that’s so…
16 00:07:33.350 ⇒ 00:07:39.420 Uttam Kumaran: That was sort of what I was just gonna try to remind myself through the whole thing, but yeah, I’m interested to hear what you think.
17 00:07:39.700 ⇒ 00:07:47.200 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I was, like, kind of consolidating some of my thoughts. So, I guess a few, a few points. One is, yeah, I think,
18 00:07:47.690 ⇒ 00:07:56.269 Robert Tseng: we’re selling to ex-consultants, and so I think just, like, considering that they’re used to performing a lot of diligence, like, they…
19 00:07:56.460 ⇒ 00:08:04.080 Robert Tseng: will… we can’t push our framework onto them. Like, speed is not the only consideration for them.
20 00:08:04.270 ⇒ 00:08:18.509 Robert Tseng: And it’s largely, you know, it’s a cultural thing. They’re not true data people, but, you know, they’re going to want to own the framing of the problem, and I think that’s kind of what… at least I…
21 00:08:18.730 ⇒ 00:08:24.190 Robert Tseng: I don’t think they were necessarily just reviewing some of the notes from the past couple calls that you’ve had with them, like.
22 00:08:24.260 ⇒ 00:08:29.889 Robert Tseng: the… the urgency of, like, you need to get this done fast, like, I don’t really think that’s hitting.
23 00:08:29.930 ⇒ 00:08:34.129 Robert Tseng: like, I think they understand, like, the breadth of what we could do, and…
24 00:08:34.159 ⇒ 00:08:51.550 Robert Tseng: you know, obviously she’s… she’s not really taking the time now to kind of build out, that process, but I was talking to my, aux friend yesterday, and kind of presenting the situation, and I think he gave me some… some good nuggets. Like, I think one is, like, you know, especially if they’re…
25 00:08:51.940 ⇒ 00:08:55.809 Robert Tseng: Yeah, consultants are used to pitching, like, kind of…
26 00:08:55.920 ⇒ 00:09:08.250 Robert Tseng: I mean, the way that they structure their engagements, it’s like, it’s… it’s like… it’s waterfall, right? And so, it’s like, I think there’s one slide that you have there that’s the 90-day rollout plan. That view, like, really resonates with them.
27 00:09:08.250 ⇒ 00:09:18.879 Robert Tseng: Even though, obviously, under the hood, like, we’re running Agile, and, like, things are actually happening in parallel, and it’s not actually, like, waterfall, but being able to show that, like, there’s a sequence to what we’re doing, and…
28 00:09:18.880 ⇒ 00:09:34.000 Robert Tseng: you know, making sure that they’re on the same page about that sequence. I guess, like, they do want us to do the two or three steps of thinking beyond just, like, the 90-day sprint. So, I don’t think we need to cover, like, the more technical details of, like, our capabilities and
29 00:09:34.000 ⇒ 00:09:47.229 Robert Tseng: and, you know, what we’re going to accomplish in that 90 days. I think all of those objections that she shared, like, I mean, I’d like to kind of draw themes out of it so that we can kind of make sure that they’re bought into, like, okay, well.
30 00:09:47.230 ⇒ 00:10:02.019 Robert Tseng: Sure. We’ve shown you, like, this is our roadmap, like, there is… do these priorities make sense? Which really are, one, obviously landing all your data in one place, focusing on, like, the cross… with the cross-channel stuff first, and then… and then to wholesale.
31 00:10:02.020 ⇒ 00:10:03.270 Uttam Kumaran: Warehousing, yeah.
32 00:10:03.270 ⇒ 00:10:13.539 Robert Tseng: Yeah, but if they’re like, you know what, actually wholesale is more important, then, like, I guess we have to have that flexibility to just, kind of, to flip that, on the call.
33 00:10:15.660 ⇒ 00:10:27.950 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I do think that it’s also worth, yeah, kind of emphasizing, you know, just based on, like, how we… losing that Trek… that Trek deal as well, like, what we’re going to do to, like, better…
34 00:10:28.340 ⇒ 00:10:42.230 Robert Tseng: like, yeah, like, just the… in the discovery portion, just kind of talking more about our discovery process, which you did mention that in the Slack thread, so I do think that that’s probably worth kind of emphasizing as well, that, like.
35 00:10:42.230 ⇒ 00:10:52.569 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I guess on that point, do you wanna, like… should we work on… like, that’s… we don’t have a lot of slides on that, which is, like, I mean, that’s my next takeaway for marketing, but…
36 00:10:52.770 ⇒ 00:11:04.879 Uttam Kumaran: like, how do you want to emphasize? Should we want to pull up a visual? I have, like, a… I have that sample Notion, for example, which is basically a clone of, like, what we did for Urban Stems, and we can talk about, like.
37 00:11:05.100 ⇒ 00:11:09.489 Uttam Kumaran: We can emphasize more that our plan is more of, like, a…
38 00:11:09.680 ⇒ 00:11:18.509 Uttam Kumaran: Like, it’s… it’s sort of like what a sample architecture could look like, and what a sample execution could look like, but it actually will take us…
39 00:11:18.740 ⇒ 00:11:27.990 Uttam Kumaran: You know, two months to… to sort of get to that point, you know, meeting everybody and things like that, but we don’t have any, like, visual, really, to support that.
40 00:11:29.340 ⇒ 00:11:32.360 Robert Tseng: Honestly, I feel like…
41 00:11:32.720 ⇒ 00:11:37.849 Robert Tseng: When I think about discovery, I feel like what we do on the AI side with the workshops is.
42 00:11:37.850 ⇒ 00:11:38.400 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
43 00:11:38.400 ⇒ 00:11:42.059 Robert Tseng: more like what Discovery looks like, yes.
44 00:11:42.820 ⇒ 00:12:00.730 Robert Tseng: So I do think, you know, if we wanna… I don’t know if it’s worth flashing that sprint, but, like, kind of just sharing, like, yeah, this is, like, how we… when we’re slowing down to go faster, like, this is… this is, like, kind of the workshop that we’d be leading. You know, it’s not… like, you’re just emphasizing that we will, like, kind of structure, like, a…
45 00:12:04.600 ⇒ 00:12:20.999 Robert Tseng: whatever you want to call it, workshops or discovery, that will get kind of more of the context from the bottom up, but we’re also going to be seeding our own ideas and, into, into this process as well, and kind of guiding on
46 00:12:21.420 ⇒ 00:12:28.259 Robert Tseng: you know, adding the guardrails into that process as well. I don’t think there’s, like, a, you know, a perfect way to do this, but.
47 00:12:28.360 ⇒ 00:12:29.410 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
48 00:12:29.470 ⇒ 00:12:33.290 Robert Tseng: like… Yeah, I think… what…
49 00:12:34.470 ⇒ 00:12:50.400 Robert Tseng: Yeah, the idea that we’re not just going to… it’s not just going to be, like, this whiteboard exercise for them to just, like, write a bunch of stickies, and then we’re, like, kind of grouping things. But as we’re getting those ideas from them, like, we will have an exercise like that, but we’re also kind of putting in
50 00:12:50.400 ⇒ 00:12:56.030 Robert Tseng: We’ll put in the things that we think are important as well, and want people to kind of, like.
51 00:12:56.450 ⇒ 00:13:07.629 Robert Tseng: Yeah, we need them to buy into, like, to those pieces as well. So, I guess it would be great to call out, like, anything that we typically see that
52 00:13:08.360 ⇒ 00:13:13.990 Robert Tseng: clients that we work with are not spotting on their own. It’s kind of like…
53 00:13:14.470 ⇒ 00:13:24.350 Robert Tseng: you know, they can name the pain, they can’t name the problem, right? And so, I kind of want to be able to, to speak to that in some way where
54 00:13:24.350 ⇒ 00:13:43.560 Robert Tseng: yeah, from, like, an issue spotting perspective, when we’ve done this kind of discovery with clients, like, here are the pain points that they’re usually talking about, and I’m sure your team will have its own, but the problems that we… the actual problems that we see, like, mapping those pain points to the problems is, like, a big part of, like, kind of getting.
55 00:13:43.560 ⇒ 00:13:43.880 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
56 00:13:43.880 ⇒ 00:13:52.859 Robert Tseng: on the same page to get the buy-in on the roadmap. So, I think that’s, like… like, really, that’s kind of what I think the point of that discovery piece is.
57 00:13:54.560 ⇒ 00:14:04.629 Robert Tseng: yeah, they need to accept the way that we’re framing the problem, before, like, they really let us kind of just run with it, I think is kind of where they may be hung up on, so…
58 00:14:04.630 ⇒ 00:14:12.589 Uttam Kumaran: You’re right, it’s like… it’s like, I think we just haven’t had a client like this to date, and so we’re a little bit mired by, like, how we’ve been pitching.
59 00:14:13.040 ⇒ 00:14:13.660 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
60 00:14:13.860 ⇒ 00:14:20.460 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, it’s like, okay, I mean, bummer that we learned the hard way, but like, okay, at least we have a shot now, so…
61 00:14:20.630 ⇒ 00:14:39.879 Uttam Kumaran: I think, yeah, I feel like, for me, I mean, I think what I’ll… where I’ll play point is just, like, I think I’ve expressed… I’ve shown, and I think she’s confident in our technical depth and our industry knowledge. I think if you can focus a lot on explaining our process with, like, anecdotes and, like.
62 00:14:40.320 ⇒ 00:14:40.940 Uttam Kumaran: Definitely tough.
63 00:14:40.940 ⇒ 00:14:41.410 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
64 00:14:41.410 ⇒ 00:14:42.840 Uttam Kumaran: Talk big numbers.
65 00:14:43.080 ⇒ 00:14:59.609 Uttam Kumaran: That would be great. I think, additionally, the work you just did for Urban Stems, like, sizing the forecasting opportunity, is, like, basically exactly, like, what they want to use a partner like us for, like, next year. And so, I feel like those exercises are great. I mean, I think you…
66 00:15:00.000 ⇒ 00:15:05.350 Uttam Kumaran: out of both of us, I think you have the most context onto, like, how these types of consultants think, so…
67 00:15:05.620 ⇒ 00:15:18.350 Uttam Kumaran: like, I’ll set the stage, and I’ll chime in on anything where it’s, like, check the box on technical, and then, yeah, let’s hit it. I think, if anything, if you feel like I’m moving too fast, just, like, ping me or let me know.
68 00:15:18.580 ⇒ 00:15:20.910 Uttam Kumaran: I’m just gonna remind myself to…
69 00:15:21.100 ⇒ 00:15:27.470 Uttam Kumaran: Sort of, again, focus more on, like, yeah, start slow to move fast, and, like, think about
70 00:15:27.810 ⇒ 00:15:33.659 Uttam Kumaran: You know, meeting everybody, understanding, framing the problem, documenting heavily,
71 00:15:33.800 ⇒ 00:15:38.859 Uttam Kumaran: again, those are the things that I think she continued. And then also, one big piece is, I’m just…
72 00:15:39.080 ⇒ 00:15:51.480 Uttam Kumaran: I’m just trying to remember just not to hinge on a particular vendor. And so, I think a big thing that we can talk about, and I think maybe, again, this is something that we could talk about from our experience at Eden, it’s just, like.
73 00:15:51.550 ⇒ 00:16:03.039 Uttam Kumaran: having to make the vendor recommendations, but highlighting that we’re very agnostic, and that we sort of work with the problems, not really, like, what platforms exist, and so…
74 00:16:03.150 ⇒ 00:16:06.790 Uttam Kumaran: That’s all things that I’ll try to just, like, express.
75 00:16:07.340 ⇒ 00:16:12.249 Uttam Kumaran: You know, pretty clearly, and then, yeah, we’ll… we’ll kind of see… see where it goes.
76 00:16:13.220 ⇒ 00:16:31.430 Robert Tseng: Okay, yeah, I think that sounds good. Yeah, no pressure to, like, kind of go through everything in the deck, just assume they’ve already read it, kind of let them kind of pick the starting point, and then… Sure. Yeah, anything around, like, diligence, discovery, like, I’ll try to take… answer that, and then any, like.
77 00:16:31.910 ⇒ 00:16:40.009 Robert Tseng: they have things that they want to talk about, technical capabilities, can you do this or that? Like, I think I’ll let you kind of, jump in there, yeah.
78 00:16:40.790 ⇒ 00:16:41.680 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
79 00:16:41.680 ⇒ 00:16:42.300 Robert Tseng: Okay.
80 00:16:42.300 ⇒ 00:16:42.620 Uttam Kumaran: Yep.
81 00:16:42.620 ⇒ 00:16:46.049 Robert Tseng: No, I feel good about it. Okay. Yeah.
82 00:16:46.800 ⇒ 00:16:54.280 Robert Tseng: Yeah, we just have to keep in mind that these guys are used to, like, before they came to this, they were, like, they were pitching things this way as well, so, like.
83 00:16:54.280 ⇒ 00:17:00.019 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I just, like, it just didn’t, like, I just don’t have that, like… I just didn’t think about it that way, and so it’s, like.
84 00:17:00.020 ⇒ 00:17:00.650 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
85 00:17:00.650 ⇒ 00:17:07.510 Uttam Kumaran: That’s really nice. I think that this is, like, the… I mean, it’s clear that she wants us to win the deal, so I feel like she could have nixed it
86 00:17:07.910 ⇒ 00:17:15.069 Uttam Kumaran: a while back, which, like, okay, fine, like, I think I just, like, did what I usually do there, but now…
87 00:17:15.210 ⇒ 00:17:30.529 Uttam Kumaran: she has to sell it internally, and to do that, she needs, like, this level, you know, so… Yeah. Fair. Okay, so we’re… we’re… we’re one for three on the day. We have two more to go. Yeah. Let’s see if we can do this one.
88 00:17:30.860 ⇒ 00:17:31.180 Robert Tseng: Okay.
89 00:17:31.470 ⇒ 00:17:35.099 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, alright, I’ll join the call in just, like, a minute or two.
90 00:17:35.100 ⇒ 00:17:37.200 Robert Tseng: Yeah, sounds good. Okay. Alright, let’s do it.
91 00:17:37.200 ⇒ 00:17:39.199 Uttam Kumaran: Always get it. Yep. Thanks, bye.