Meeting Title: Element Client Engagement Planning Sync Date: 2025-12-09 Meeting participants: Awaish Kumar, Uttam Kumaran, Robert Tseng


WEBVTT

1 00:00:15.820 00:00:16.630 Uttam Kumaran: I wish.

2 00:00:17.250 00:00:18.430 Awaish Kumar: Hello.

3 00:00:21.670 00:00:27.870 Uttam Kumaran: Do you see the, did you end up getting into GitHub? I… I put the same stuff in the other repo, by the way, so…

4 00:00:29.380 00:00:30.110 Awaish Kumar: Right.

5 00:00:30.500 00:00:36.479 Awaish Kumar: I already have access to this, laurahwholesale.md file.

6 00:00:41.440 00:00:42.950 Awaish Kumar: Like, meeting agendas.

7 00:00:44.200 00:00:45.580 Uttam Kumaran: in GitHub.

8 00:00:46.660 00:00:51.179 Awaish Kumar: In GitHub, we have the folder meeting agendas.

9 00:00:51.180 00:00:55.419 Uttam Kumaran: There’s two, there’s two orgs, like, there’s… there’s the Element org, and there’s our org.

10 00:00:55.660 00:00:57.450 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t think…

11 00:00:57.450 00:00:59.419 Awaish Kumar: I think right now, the internal one.

12 00:01:00.670 00:01:03.079 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, okay, okay. So I just cloned it.

13 00:01:03.220 00:01:08.780 Uttam Kumaran: So, once… once they give you access to the element one, I’m gonna archive our internal one.

14 00:01:09.140 00:01:09.760 Awaish Kumar: Okay.

15 00:01:34.560 00:01:39.880 Uttam Kumaran: You wanna, you wanna ping Robert? Do you know if he’s still on the other call?

16 00:01:46.410 00:01:46.970 Awaish Kumar: Nope.

17 00:02:18.050 00:02:27.999 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, basically what I want to do today, Awash, is, like, I want to start looping in Robert on the business side. The one thing for this client is they’re just, like, all ex-consultants.

18 00:02:28.160 00:02:29.219 Uttam Kumaran: A lot of them.

19 00:02:29.430 00:02:35.120 Uttam Kumaran: So, they’re very, very picky about stuff that doesn’t matter, like…

20 00:02:35.640 00:02:38.320 Uttam Kumaran: Formatting of docs and things like that.

21 00:02:38.740 00:02:41.060 Uttam Kumaran: So, I wanna… I wanna start to…

22 00:02:41.310 00:02:43.690 Uttam Kumaran: Luke Robert in on some of that.

23 00:02:43.910 00:02:46.500 Uttam Kumaran: And then today, for the wholesale meeting.

24 00:02:46.500 00:02:47.240 Robert Tseng: I’m here.

25 00:02:47.790 00:02:48.740 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

26 00:02:49.040 00:02:55.820 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, Robert, I guess first thing, I… you’re on that… you’re on that meeting invite, but maybe it didn’t end up, like, on your calendar, I don’t know.

27 00:02:56.510 00:02:59.509 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I don’t know why it didn’t end up on my account. I was, like, looking for it, I was like…

28 00:03:00.340 00:03:02.780 Robert Tseng: I don’t know why, they’re just not coming through, so…

29 00:03:02.960 00:03:07.789 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, what do you… should I… I can just clone it, or I can… you wanna just put a placeholder?

30 00:03:07.980 00:03:15.489 Robert Tseng: I’m… yeah, I don’t know, I have… I get the internal ones, but I don’t get, like… yeah, I just don’t get anything else. Yeah, so…

31 00:03:16.280 00:03:19.360 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I guess if you could clone it, that would work.

32 00:03:19.360 00:03:22.530 Uttam Kumaran: I’ll clone it and keep the same zoom, just so it gets blocked.

33 00:03:23.400 00:03:28.819 Robert Tseng: Oh, I see. It’s because she’s never sent me some… okay, no, I found it. It was, like, in my spam or something, so…

34 00:03:29.030 00:03:29.980 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, okay.

35 00:03:30.270 00:03:35.979 Robert Tseng: Yeah, because I’ve never received an email from them, and then… okay. I think I… I think I got it now. Okay.

36 00:03:35.980 00:03:36.720 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, okay.

37 00:03:37.480 00:03:42.620 Awaish Kumar: But… But that invite doesn’t have any Zoom link or anything.

38 00:03:43.610 00:03:46.059 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, she’ll end up adding it last minute, probably.

39 00:03:46.820 00:03:47.400 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

40 00:03:47.910 00:03:48.610 Robert Tseng: Okay.

41 00:03:48.910 00:03:50.310 Robert Tseng: That’s good.

42 00:03:50.930 00:03:53.640 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so other… Yeah.

43 00:03:54.010 00:04:01.860 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so otherwise, so, one of the things that I’m doing, and maybe I’ll give you guys a sneak peek, but I talked to Gabe about this, and…

44 00:04:02.100 00:04:05.830 Uttam Kumaran: I’m gonna sort of try to roll this out across a bunch of clients, is…

45 00:04:05.830 00:04:06.230 Robert Tseng: docs.

46 00:04:06.770 00:04:12.510 Uttam Kumaran: starting to use cursor really, really, yeah, really heavily as part of, like.

47 00:04:14.610 00:04:22.769 Uttam Kumaran: kind of, like, engage… basically engagement planning. And I… and I think, like, I mean, it’s actually… I don’t know how long we’re gonna…

48 00:04:22.840 00:04:36.370 Uttam Kumaran: have this advantage as a company, but, like, dude, it’s, like, it’s, like, so amazing. If you take a look at the Element repository that I sent, you may not yet have access to the external one, but feel free to take a look at the internal one.

49 00:04:36.670 00:04:44.940 Uttam Kumaran: like, it’s just really, really well organized. And what I’m starting to do is saving all of our meeting transcripts that we have with them.

50 00:04:45.150 00:04:52.010 Uttam Kumaran: and I’m able to use Sonnet within Cursor to create agendas, and then additionally, after we have the meeting.

51 00:04:52.110 00:05:01.269 Uttam Kumaran: I basically have the AI help me, like, create, like, a post-meeting memo. And so I think a lot of this type of fluff stuff is gonna be really important for this client.

52 00:05:01.460 00:05:06.610 Uttam Kumaran: I’m… I think we’re gonna still try to do this type of stuff for other clients, but for them, it seems like

53 00:05:06.980 00:05:11.230 Uttam Kumaran: At least for the short term, it’s gonna be really valuable to have this level of organization.

54 00:05:11.490 00:05:25.259 Uttam Kumaran: One thing that helps you, though, is, like, Robert, since you’re coming new onto this client, I think you can use the cursor agent to actually ask questions and get up to speed faster. But of course, like.

55 00:05:25.530 00:05:31.370 Uttam Kumaran: The core documents for you to take a look at before, the meeting today is…

56 00:05:32.060 00:05:36.969 Uttam Kumaran: the e-commerce growth spreadsheet and the partnership spreadsheet.

57 00:05:36.970 00:05:37.580 Robert Tseng: -Oh.

58 00:05:37.830 00:05:42.440 Uttam Kumaran: That’ll tell you the whole story of, like, the commercial side of the business.

59 00:05:42.680 00:05:45.419 Uttam Kumaran: Which is our… which is our focus.

60 00:05:45.420 00:05:45.990 Robert Tseng: Okay.

61 00:05:46.980 00:05:49.509 Uttam Kumaran: So one thing, of course, about this client is…

62 00:05:49.730 00:05:52.030 Uttam Kumaran: again, like, and I, and I know, like…

63 00:05:52.670 00:06:05.299 Uttam Kumaran: I often find that folks like this, they just, like, say one thing and they want another, like, it’s like, oh, focus on the commercial side of the business, but as we’re going, if we learn something about marketing, keep notes. So basically, they just want us to, like.

64 00:06:05.670 00:06:15.700 Uttam Kumaran: A lot of what this is gonna be is, like, for us to show our expertise, so as much as we can reference other similar-sized clients, learn a little… talk a little bit about

65 00:06:15.860 00:06:22.189 Uttam Kumaran: their process versus others, and sort of give Shivani confidence that

66 00:06:22.290 00:06:35.150 Uttam Kumaran: there’s nothing we’ve seen here that we can’t tackle is what’s best. Yeah. I’ve gone ahead and… so, maybe I’ll just start there, just to confirm you’re in the GitHub and you kind of see what I’m…

67 00:06:36.110 00:06:37.440 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I’m in, I’m in debt.

68 00:06:37.440 00:06:38.400 Uttam Kumaran: GitHub.

69 00:06:57.110 00:06:59.370 Robert Tseng: I’m not sure if you cut out, or if you just stopped talking.

70 00:06:59.370 00:07:01.679 Uttam Kumaran: Sorry. It’s me, it’s me. Say it again?

71 00:07:01.890 00:07:04.209 Robert Tseng: Okay. No, no, I’m here. Yeah, I think you just.

72 00:07:04.210 00:07:04.730 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know.

73 00:07:04.870 00:07:05.570 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

74 00:07:05.570 00:07:11.260 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so as long as you’re in Git, do you have Cursor on your… on your laptop, like…

75 00:07:11.260 00:07:12.140 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I do.

76 00:07:13.310 00:07:17.219 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, see if you can open it, and just see if you can test out a couple of those

77 00:07:17.510 00:07:19.170 Uttam Kumaran: things that I mentioned.

78 00:07:22.670 00:07:30.740 Uttam Kumaran: like, if you have GitHub Desktop, you can just clone the repo, and then see if you can open a cursor, and then just see if you can ask it, like, one or two questions. I just want to make sure that

79 00:07:30.990 00:07:32.879 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I just kinda wanna see what you think.

80 00:07:33.390 00:07:34.020 Robert Tseng: Okay.

81 00:08:02.370 00:08:04.799 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I have to clone it and everything, so…

82 00:08:04.800 00:08:05.819 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, yeah, ours.

83 00:08:17.840 00:08:18.550 Robert Tseng: Hmm.

84 00:08:39.039 00:08:39.493 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, my.

85 00:08:55.030 00:08:56.020 Robert Tseng: What’s going on?

86 00:08:56.700 00:08:58.830 Robert Tseng: Proper device or signing in.

87 00:09:00.810 00:09:04.579 Awaish Kumar: Okay, I got access to an external one as well.

88 00:09:05.330 00:09:05.920 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

89 00:09:13.870 00:09:14.810 Robert Tseng: Hmm.

90 00:10:18.000 00:10:18.980 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t.

91 00:10:44.240 00:10:44.930 Robert Tseng: Hmm.

92 00:10:48.810 00:10:52.310 Robert Tseng: I guess, like, what’s a question I should ask?

93 00:11:02.060 00:11:09.909 Robert Tseng: Talking about the… Ecom… She’s been…

94 00:11:15.470 00:11:24.320 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so I’ve loaded in basically as many resources in there. Not 100% confident about its ability to read Excel files yet, but…

95 00:11:24.530 00:11:31.650 Uttam Kumaran: It has so much context that it will find a way to answer the question.

96 00:11:31.800 00:11:33.509 Uttam Kumaran: One way or another, so…

97 00:11:34.550 00:11:35.450 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

98 00:11:37.110 00:11:43.909 Uttam Kumaran: And ideally, my hope is that it’s also helpful to show you where, like, it found the information from, you know?

99 00:11:44.840 00:11:45.490 Robert Tseng: Okay.

100 00:12:23.320 00:12:24.239 Uttam Kumaran: What’d it say?

101 00:12:28.200 00:12:34.530 Robert Tseng: I mean, when I ask about partnership spend, it’s just kind of showing me from Blake’s partnership dashboard the…

102 00:12:35.170 00:12:40.619 Robert Tseng: tracked metrics, it kind of says some details about…

103 00:12:40.820 00:12:46.789 Robert Tseng: What these different metrics mean, like time to onboard, revenue velocity, Yeah, I mean…

104 00:12:47.120 00:12:47.980 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, cool.

105 00:12:48.250 00:12:51.800 Robert Tseng: Yeah. Yeah, I feel like the most context… so we’ve spoken to…

106 00:12:51.900 00:12:54.460 Uttam Kumaran: Carlos, who runs Ecom reporting.

107 00:12:54.670 00:12:55.840 Robert Tseng: Okay.

108 00:12:56.030 00:13:00.040 Uttam Kumaran: And we’ve spoken to Jason, who runs IT,

109 00:13:00.180 00:13:15.489 Uttam Kumaran: And of course, like, we’ve had a couple conversations with Shivani. I think at this point, like, it’s not clear that Shivani knows much more than we do, certainly when it comes to data. Jason is really the gatekeeper on, like.

110 00:13:15.710 00:13:25.819 Uttam Kumaran: On IT, him and his team, but they also, as a crew, don’t know much about data, so it seems like they’ll be easy to play with. Carlos…

111 00:13:26.090 00:13:32.030 Uttam Kumaran: Shivani is, like, in both camps where he’s, like, learned from Carlos, but we don’t know yet whether…

112 00:13:32.160 00:13:38.040 Uttam Kumaran: what he’s been doing is correct or not. I’m pretty… I was looking at it, like, I think he… they have the most…

113 00:13:38.170 00:13:42.790 Uttam Kumaran: they have the best reporting so far that I’ve seen outside of, like, a warehouse for…

114 00:13:43.530 00:13:48.540 Uttam Kumaran: for e-comm, so… it looked pretty good. That’s in the Google Drive.

115 00:13:48.830 00:13:52.600 Uttam Kumaran: The partnership reporting is also… is a little bit all over the place, like.

116 00:13:52.790 00:13:56.730 Uttam Kumaran: I wasn’t as, like… I think that’s… there’s a clear opportunity to move a lot of that.

117 00:13:56.900 00:14:01.160 Uttam Kumaran: What we’ll be talking about today with Laura is sort of about the wholesale side of the business.

118 00:14:01.330 00:14:13.119 Uttam Kumaran: There’s a meeting agenda in… in the repo, that’s the same one I said in Drive, basically about questions about the wholesale side of the business.

119 00:14:13.410 00:14:22.709 Uttam Kumaran: So, right now, they sell across a bunch of retail channels, they sell e-commerce, and there’s… wholesale’s a growing category for them.

120 00:14:22.900 00:14:24.350 Uttam Kumaran: So that’s…

121 00:14:25.230 00:14:33.059 Uttam Kumaran: maybe if we… if we want to go through there, I think that’s… that’s gonna be really the… the bulk. I haven’t worked in… in sort of, like, the wholesale…

122 00:14:33.360 00:14:38.369 Uttam Kumaran: like, I mean, I kind of know wholesale from just, like, I know that kind of a business model, but…

123 00:14:38.570 00:14:44.479 Uttam Kumaran: I’m curious if you’ve… or if we have other clients we’ve worked with that have done wholesale, if there’s any other questions there.

124 00:14:44.710 00:14:49.569 Uttam Kumaran: Typically, I just lead with, like, we have a bunch of questions, and then, of course, we kind of see how the conversation goes, but…

125 00:14:49.810 00:14:51.810 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, just wondering if you have any thoughts.

126 00:14:52.580 00:14:53.200 Robert Tseng: Okay.

127 00:14:53.930 00:14:56.310 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I’ll come with some questions.

128 00:14:56.310 00:14:56.890 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

129 00:14:56.890 00:15:00.179 Robert Tseng: Did Laura already ask… have questions she wanted to answer?

130 00:15:00.680 00:15:05.570 Uttam Kumaran: No, I sent this today. I mean, for the most part, like.

131 00:15:05.830 00:15:08.479 Robert Tseng: Everybody’s been super, super nice, so nobody’s…

132 00:15:08.750 00:15:21.869 Uttam Kumaran: actually, like, come to the meeting and been like, this is a waste of time or anything. So, for us, it’s a little bit just to, like, meet them, and then we just ask questions. It’s a bit of, like, learning them, learning what’s been done so far.

133 00:15:22.010 00:15:23.810 Uttam Kumaran: Learning their interests in data.

134 00:15:24.550 00:15:29.710 Uttam Kumaran: like… I’m kind of interested just to hear about the history of, like, the wholesale business, you know?

135 00:15:31.900 00:15:35.039 Uttam Kumaran: And, like, goals, and, like, how existing reporting works.

136 00:15:36.420 00:15:37.090 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

137 00:15:37.220 00:15:44.519 Robert Tseng: Did the… did the Google Sheet, like, structured discovery kind of, like, template help? Like, are you using that or not?

138 00:15:45.720 00:15:50.789 Uttam Kumaran: I have not done it yet. Okay. Like, I have not built one yet.

139 00:15:51.030 00:15:51.520 Robert Tseng: Okay.

140 00:15:51.520 00:15:54.910 Uttam Kumaran: I… I think, like,

141 00:15:56.050 00:16:02.510 Uttam Kumaran: Well, like, I guess I, I, like, I need to. I want to build one for a couple of our, like, kind of common playbooks.

142 00:16:02.900 00:16:03.270 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

143 00:16:03.450 00:16:14.110 Uttam Kumaran: I think it’ll… I think the way it’s actually gonna end up is we probably won’t end up doing it in Google Sheets soon. I think we’ll end up having it part of, like, this, like, kind of, like, repo structure, where…

144 00:16:14.110 00:16:14.490 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

145 00:16:14.490 00:16:29.419 Uttam Kumaran: will sort of bring in different, like, to-do lists or, like, task lists for common things. So part of what I’m gonna do is, like, as many of our clients, we can start to leverage this way. I’m gonna use AI to actually help us write the first versions of that.

146 00:16:29.550 00:16:40.569 Uttam Kumaran: basically what I’m gonna do is, after, like, the next few weeks of Element, I’m gonna have AI go back and say, given… like, given we were able to redo this client, what are the…

147 00:16:40.920 00:16:49.440 Uttam Kumaran: like, build me the, like, the playbooks that we would have run through, you know? Yeah. So, yeah, that’s probably how I’m gonna do it.

148 00:16:50.180 00:16:50.800 Robert Tseng: Okay.

149 00:16:54.700 00:16:56.349 Uttam Kumaran: This is, like, closer to that drive.

150 00:16:56.350 00:17:00.550 Robert Tseng: Are you doing, like, a one-month paid discovery, like, 10K discovery with them right now, or what’s the contract with them?

151 00:17:00.550 00:17:04.539 Uttam Kumaran: No, no, no, it’s… contract is, 3 months, 15K a month.

152 00:17:04.869 00:17:06.959 Robert Tseng: Oh, okay, they already signed a 3-month one, okay.

153 00:17:06.960 00:17:09.030 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so the 3-month 15K,

154 00:17:09.690 00:17:16.280 Uttam Kumaran: They, like, so it’s up to us to kind of, like… this month is really focused on discovery.

155 00:17:16.400 00:17:18.379 Uttam Kumaran: We need to arrive at, like.

156 00:17:18.920 00:17:28.549 Uttam Kumaran: a couple of artifacts that I pitched them on is, like, we want to create, like, a… basically a memo for each of the different, like, vendor decisions we’re gonna make.

157 00:17:29.230 00:17:32.279 Uttam Kumaran: The second piece is to,

158 00:17:32.410 00:17:45.049 Uttam Kumaran: of course, make decisions on ETL and warehouse, and then we want to start on, like, basically a metrics or KPI dictionary. So this is a company that they’re at an interesting point where they just don’t have, like, organization around, like.

159 00:17:45.050 00:17:57.889 Uttam Kumaran: KPIs or metric standardization, and I actually think they want to move slowly and focus on, like, discovery and, like, landing on the business definitions before building.

160 00:17:57.940 00:17:58.660 Uttam Kumaran: So I think.

161 00:17:58.660 00:17:59.200 Robert Tseng: Sure.

162 00:17:59.380 00:18:12.819 Uttam Kumaran: we’re kind of… I mean, I’m sort of shifting how I’m working because, of course, a lot of our other clients are much more biased towards action. I don’t feel like these guys could care less whether we even accomplished anything.

163 00:18:13.080 00:18:13.610 Uttam Kumaran: like.

164 00:18:13.610 00:18:14.120 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

165 00:18:14.120 00:18:15.680 Uttam Kumaran: execution-wise.

166 00:18:16.040 00:18:23.720 Uttam Kumaran: as long as we come across, like, we’re really knowledgeable on the technical side, and we can enable Shivani

167 00:18:28.870 00:18:30.510 Uttam Kumaran: I think that’s bad.

168 00:18:31.520 00:18:32.399 Robert Tseng: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

169 00:18:32.400 00:18:33.350 Awaish Kumar: So… Yep.

170 00:18:33.350 00:18:34.030 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

171 00:18:34.490 00:18:47.379 Awaish Kumar: One of the, like, in the tech team meeting, where you were not available, like, she discussed with the team that she chose BrainForge because of… because we showed that we can start implementing

172 00:18:47.670 00:18:53.510 Awaish Kumar: Quickly, because the other competitors were basically showcasing 3-month discovery.

173 00:18:53.820 00:18:58.750 Awaish Kumar: And only coming up with documentation, and that’s not what she wanted.

174 00:19:00.600 00:19:06.869 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I just… I have a feeling that her feedback is gonna be, like, hot and cold, hot and cold.

175 00:19:06.980 00:19:07.800 Uttam Kumaran: like…

176 00:19:07.900 00:19:19.550 Uttam Kumaran: I just think she doesn’t know exactly, like, what goes into doing this, and so she’s basically taking all of our stuff, throwing it into ChatGPT, and being like, what questions should I ask? Like, so…

177 00:19:20.230 00:19:31.670 Uttam Kumaran: part of this is, like, we’re just gonna have to do both. My only feeling is, like, I don’t… I don’t worry about us on the technical side. I feel like we all don’t do this much writing, or, like…

178 00:19:31.940 00:19:36.380 Uttam Kumaran: Documentation, or like, you know, things like that, so we should lean more there.

179 00:19:36.840 00:19:42.139 Uttam Kumaran: we could always whip together stuff on the technical side, and I’m not worried about waiting over IT and stuff like that, but…

180 00:19:42.570 00:19:52.950 Uttam Kumaran: It’s clear that she wants to be able to surface things we’re finding on a weekly basis, and we need to have, like, pretty polished project management and, like.

181 00:19:53.310 00:19:57.750 Uttam Kumaran: These, like, sort of, like, standardized documents that come out of this first part.

182 00:20:02.430 00:20:03.080 Awaish Kumar: Agree.

183 00:20:05.730 00:20:08.930 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know if we’ve had another client that’s, like, this… at this level.

184 00:20:08.930 00:20:09.750 Robert Tseng: Yeah, we haven’t.

185 00:20:09.950 00:20:12.079 Robert Tseng: Like, I don’t really think there’s a playbook for this.

186 00:20:14.380 00:20:24.950 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, for me, this is how it’s, like, working with finance people, like, or, like, when I was at WeWork working with finance people, they don’t care at all about the technical stuff. They actually just want to…

187 00:20:25.210 00:20:28.899 Uttam Kumaran: Have it organized, and, like, have documents around everything, and, like.

188 00:20:29.110 00:20:33.310 Uttam Kumaran: Have, like, checkpoint meetings, and, like, sign-offs, and, like.

189 00:20:34.390 00:20:36.940 Uttam Kumaran: that sort of stuff, like, I just remember when I was…

190 00:20:37.060 00:20:39.420 Uttam Kumaran: working with WeWork Finance versus, like.

191 00:20:40.110 00:20:43.839 Uttam Kumaran: We have other clients that are, like, like, Hedra, for example.

192 00:20:44.280 00:20:55.890 Uttam Kumaran: like, we ripped the whole thing, like, off, like, one Notion document. Like, they could care less. And I don’t, like… so I… I disagree, it’s like a new… it’s like a new type of stakeholder. A new Pokemon.

193 00:20:59.660 00:21:00.320 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

194 00:21:14.630 00:21:18.680 Uttam Kumaran: I guess, Robert, how are you feeling on, like, your… on, like.

195 00:21:18.850 00:21:21.330 Uttam Kumaran: You, time-wise, being able to, like.

196 00:21:21.720 00:21:29.790 Uttam Kumaran: pop in, and sort of spend some time with Chervani and stuff, like, next few weeks, as we, like, kind of figure out who else we want to staff.

197 00:21:30.330 00:21:37.999 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, I think next week will be better for me. I mean, I’ve… like, I just, you know, I’ll have… I’ll have, like, more time to spend on this stuff.

198 00:21:38.000 00:21:38.550 Uttam Kumaran: app.

199 00:21:38.550 00:21:40.320 Robert Tseng: I think, kind of.

200 00:21:40.670 00:21:49.310 Robert Tseng: onboarding, like, Luke and Jed this week, on top of, like, kind of pushing all the other clients, and then, obviously, like, I have my…

201 00:21:49.430 00:21:51.280 Robert Tseng: I have my couple exams, so…

202 00:21:51.280 00:21:51.820 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

203 00:21:51.850 00:21:55.329 Robert Tseng: I feel like this week, I’m just joining the calls and, like.

204 00:21:55.330 00:22:00.110 Uttam Kumaran: That’s fine. I’ll come with some questions, like, I’m reading through some of this stuff now, but, like, I…

205 00:22:00.110 00:22:03.519 Robert Tseng: I don’t think I can really drive… drive anything this week.

206 00:22:04.030 00:22:11.619 Uttam Kumaran: That’s fine. I think… I think if me and you can just play, like, senior point, I think she’s gonna… she’s gonna really appreciate that.

207 00:22:11.620 00:22:13.919 Robert Tseng: So, like, next week, even if you’re, like.

208 00:22:14.240 00:22:20.730 Uttam Kumaran: if you have a free moment, you’re like, hey, can we hop on? I want to discuss these questions. I think it would go a long way for her.

209 00:22:20.940 00:22:21.290 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

210 00:22:21.290 00:22:27.070 Uttam Kumaran: You know, And then… basically.

211 00:22:27.180 00:22:34.490 Uttam Kumaran: like, I think a Jasmine or someone who’s just, like, has an extremely, sort of, like, senior polish.

212 00:22:34.830 00:22:38.439 Uttam Kumaran: It’s gonna be the person we need to kind of, like, come underneath us.

213 00:22:38.910 00:22:43.089 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I think this is… this is… this is, like, something Jasmine can do, yeah.

214 00:22:44.100 00:22:50.070 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, like, so that’s kind of, like, what I would be hoping for. Like, I think Amber and stuff, like.

215 00:22:50.600 00:22:59.960 Uttam Kumaran: So, it’s… this… this client is actually gonna be a lot less about the actual work, they’re gonna be really just, like… I can tell she’s just gonna be anal about, like, these types of small things, so…

216 00:22:59.960 00:23:00.500 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

217 00:23:00.680 00:23:04.880 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, so that… I feel good about that. I think…

218 00:23:05.530 00:23:10.649 Uttam Kumaran: I wish we’ll keep driving, like, just keep trying to become good friends with IT folks.

219 00:23:10.770 00:23:17.500 Uttam Kumaran: I think I’ll continue to help you on how do we level up, like, our writing and documentation on the technical side.

220 00:23:17.670 00:23:26.909 Uttam Kumaran: And then, yeah, if we could just… if we can just nail the conversation today, and then we have another one with partnerships next week. I do want to arrive on a deck this week.

221 00:23:27.060 00:23:30.080 Uttam Kumaran: So, I’m going to probably get somebody

222 00:23:30.770 00:23:33.480 Uttam Kumaran: I’m probably gonna get Amber to help me put something together.

223 00:23:34.170 00:23:36.420 Uttam Kumaran: Today or tomorrow?

224 00:23:36.660 00:23:39.700 Uttam Kumaran: So that’s…

225 00:23:40.230 00:23:49.939 Uttam Kumaran: that’s probably the plan here so far. I think the other thing, Robert, for us to think about here is, like, they… they’re not as price sensitive, so… I do want us to…

226 00:23:50.260 00:23:52.520 Uttam Kumaran: I pitched them on the 15K, I think…

227 00:23:52.980 00:23:56.969 Uttam Kumaran: probably all of their partners were pitching them around 15 to 25K.

228 00:23:57.240 00:23:59.709 Uttam Kumaran: I think it’s up to us to…

229 00:23:59.830 00:24:01.589 Uttam Kumaran: As part of the next scope.

230 00:24:02.090 00:24:04.669 Uttam Kumaran: To think about, like, what is our resourcing?

231 00:24:04.820 00:24:06.599 Uttam Kumaran: And to price accordingly.

232 00:24:06.780 00:24:13.159 Uttam Kumaran: Cause this is a gonna be… because of the… the level of, like, professionalism they want.

233 00:24:13.610 00:24:16.000 Uttam Kumaran: It’s gonna… it’s gonna be more expensive.

234 00:24:17.330 00:24:19.509 Robert Tseng: Yeah, well, that’s, like, 3 months away, right? So…

235 00:24:19.660 00:24:23.349 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I just, like, I’m just, like, brain dumping.

236 00:24:23.350 00:24:24.630 Robert Tseng: Okay, okay.

237 00:24:24.630 00:24:27.610 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I’m just brain-dumping everything I’ve been thinking about.

238 00:24:27.860 00:24:28.550 Robert Tseng: Okay.

239 00:24:31.380 00:24:31.940 Awaish Kumar: Hmm.

240 00:24:35.400 00:24:36.509 Uttam Kumaran: Anything else?

241 00:24:38.210 00:24:39.310 Awaish Kumar: Mmm, nope.

242 00:24:41.530 00:24:47.070 Uttam Kumaran: So the other thing, Awash, is like, let’s just go with the most, like, well-known tools as much as possible.

243 00:24:47.230 00:24:52.189 Uttam Kumaran: like… You know, so I think we should try… I think we should establish Fivetran.

244 00:24:52.520 00:24:55.170 Uttam Kumaran: I think we could use Polyatomic for the other stuff.

245 00:24:55.700 00:24:57.009 Awaish Kumar: See how much is…

246 00:24:57.240 00:25:01.009 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, that’s basically what you wrote, so I’m not worried about that.

247 00:25:01.260 00:25:05.540 Uttam Kumaran: So basically, let’s see if we can arrive at, like.

248 00:25:05.980 00:25:09.650 Uttam Kumaran: When we work on slides, let’s just create, like, one or two slides on that.

249 00:25:09.800 00:25:14.720 Uttam Kumaran: I’ll update some of the narrative, and then let’s move on to,

250 00:25:15.510 00:25:19.040 Uttam Kumaran: Sort of a data warehouse decision as well.

251 00:25:19.240 00:25:24.849 Uttam Kumaran: Again, they’re very biased towards, like, month-to-month stuff, so I feel like…

252 00:25:25.620 00:25:33.970 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, Snowflake is probably the no-brainer option. They just probably want to see that we did, like, we have… we documented the other options and things like that, so…

253 00:25:35.710 00:25:37.630 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, I’m working on that.

254 00:25:38.530 00:25:39.660 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, okay, perfect.

255 00:25:43.590 00:25:49.399 Uttam Kumaran: I think also, do you mind doing, like, a memo on, like, what we found in Emerson?

256 00:25:50.570 00:25:56.570 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, that’s what I shared, that, like, on the Walmart piece, I did a memo.

257 00:25:56.700 00:26:01.360 Awaish Kumar: But I don’t… yeah, now seeing the requirements for the documentation.

258 00:26:01.740 00:26:05.379 Awaish Kumar: What I created is mainly all these numbers.

259 00:26:05.630 00:26:11.570 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, like, I think… I think do… do that part, and then let’s… me and you can collab on the narrative.

260 00:26:11.960 00:26:20.970 Uttam Kumaran: But don’t send it to, like, just… let’s… let’s arrive… let’s send it to me internally first, like, get into the repo, we’ll finalize it, and then…

261 00:26:21.230 00:26:23.980 Uttam Kumaran: I’ll try to get… we can try to get that out by Friday, too.

262 00:26:24.250 00:26:25.409 Uttam Kumaran: Or Thursday.

263 00:26:25.950 00:26:26.500 Awaish Kumar: Okay.

264 00:26:26.500 00:26:31.240 Uttam Kumaran: So, like, we have a memo on ETL, Warehouse, and Emerson.

265 00:26:31.660 00:26:32.720 Uttam Kumaran: we have…

266 00:26:33.460 00:26:38.229 Uttam Kumaran: we have, like, this wholesale meeting, some of the agendas, and then I’ll put together… put a deck together.

267 00:26:38.530 00:26:41.069 Uttam Kumaran: We should be… Pretty on track.

268 00:26:43.050 00:26:44.170 Awaish Kumar: Hmm, okay.

269 00:26:45.370 00:26:55.789 Uttam Kumaran: I guess, like, maybe my question there, Robert, is, like, is… so should we consider Jasmine to trial in the background on Element, or do you want to think about another client?

270 00:26:57.040 00:26:58.109 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I think Element.

271 00:26:58.950 00:26:59.510 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

272 00:27:00.140 00:27:05.749 Robert Tseng: The pace is, like, I feel like, slow enough that she can do it. She doesn’t have to, like, jump on and calls and stuff yet.

273 00:27:06.290 00:27:07.210 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, okay.

274 00:27:07.520 00:27:08.760 Robert Tseng: And then.

275 00:27:10.460 00:27:12.800 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. And then my last… yeah, go ahead.

276 00:27:13.310 00:27:17.160 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, I shared the link. This is what I already did for Emerson, where I can just…

277 00:27:17.940 00:27:20.049 Awaish Kumar: Like, spend some more time on it?

278 00:27:20.330 00:27:21.520 Awaish Kumar: And… Yeah, dude.

279 00:27:21.520 00:27:27.609 Uttam Kumaran: Do your best, don’t spin your wheels, I think we’ll both… we’ll both… I mean, I’ll show… I’ll kind of show you what I… this is just, like.

280 00:27:27.920 00:27:39.099 Uttam Kumaran: you just have to… we just have to, like, over, over, over explain, and it’s all gonna be, like, kind of for optics. So I’ll show you a couple versions, and then we’ll end up having AI assist with, like, a lot of this.

281 00:27:39.390 00:27:43.270 Uttam Kumaran: So yeah, just send it to me in Slack.

282 00:27:43.870 00:27:44.300 Awaish Kumar: Okay.

283 00:27:44.300 00:27:44.970 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

284 00:27:45.570 00:27:56.699 Robert Tseng: And then, I mean, we’re on vacation, so Amber is, like, 10 hours a week on Honey Stinger, about 10 to 15 on Insomnia, and then the rest of her time will go to ABC.

285 00:27:57.190 00:28:15.399 Robert Tseng: In parallel, like, I’m trying to ramp Sezim up on insomnia, but it’s just kinda… it’s a little bit of a risk, because it’s like, well, actually, the call of the Chief of Staff went well. She’s basically like, great, me and the CEO are gonna be your stakeholders now, so we’re basically, in the next two weeks, gonna try to just…

286 00:28:15.400 00:28:27.150 Robert Tseng: I mean, I’m gonna go to the CEO directly now, which is kind of… the stakes are higher, so I don’t really want to move Amber off immediately, because I don’t think Seism would have enough context to be able to start

287 00:28:27.150 00:28:39.639 Robert Tseng: sending messages to the CEO. So, like, yeah, anyway, so I think, that’s… that’s how I’m hoping to parallel that thing. And then, I mean, hopefully we’ll get an answer in the next week or two.

288 00:28:39.800 00:28:47.269 Robert Tseng: I mean, I’m gonna push for next week on whether or not they’ll extend us, but I mean, I think… I think we should be able to.

289 00:28:48.560 00:28:50.750 Uttam Kumaran: Do you think they have any budget movement?

290 00:28:51.660 00:29:04.490 Robert Tseng: Well, I mean, I… I think the budget owners are just… I mean, I think the CEO is just a different… I mean, he’ll… whatever he says will go. I think… I think they can… I think they can move. Yeah, I…

291 00:29:04.490 00:29:10.010 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, yes, if you can get more money, that would… because we’re… I think we’re spending, like, more time than we’re billing.

292 00:29:11.680 00:29:14.220 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, for, like, one… I actually know that, it’s for a fact.

293 00:29:14.610 00:29:15.510 Robert Tseng: Really?

294 00:29:16.120 00:29:23.700 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, dude, because, dude, you’re talking about it, Amber’s talking about it, Sezum’s talking about it, Casey’s working… like…

295 00:29:24.150 00:29:29.219 Uttam Kumaran: we just… I feel like we’re… we typically under-bill, on average, by the way.

296 00:29:29.340 00:29:32.460 Uttam Kumaran: Because, like, we don’t account for, like, a lot of my… or your time, and…

297 00:29:32.460 00:29:34.929 Robert Tseng: Alright, mine and your time aren’t accounted for.

298 00:29:35.080 00:29:47.419 Robert Tseng: But, like, I mean, I feel like we basically did very little the past two… it’s just been Amber’s analysis that’s been keeping it going. And then Casey spends, what, 5 hours a week doing his thing. So, I feel like we’re at most doing 20 hours.

299 00:29:48.600 00:29:50.599 Robert Tseng: 15 to 20 hours, probably, yeah.

300 00:29:50.600 00:29:54.719 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, but there have been… it’s like… but 2 months ago, we were working on, like, 3 different work streams.

301 00:29:54.720 00:29:57.869 Robert Tseng: Yeah, yeah, but two months ago, we were doing more because we were.

302 00:29:57.870 00:29:59.159 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, fair, fair, fair.

303 00:29:59.540 00:30:01.919 Robert Tseng: Yeah, but I feel like, yeah, so…

304 00:30:03.330 00:30:06.759 Uttam Kumaran: I guess one thing I would like to do is, as part of the contract.

305 00:30:06.940 00:30:10.519 Uttam Kumaran: We should try and get, like, overage.

306 00:30:10.660 00:30:11.530 Uttam Kumaran: In there.

307 00:30:13.550 00:30:14.310 Robert Tseng: Yeah, yeah.

308 00:30:14.310 00:30:17.999 Uttam Kumaran: Basically, you should say 10… you should say 10K, and then we can get… if we get above…

309 00:30:18.200 00:30:19.870 Uttam Kumaran: That we bill at a certain rate.

310 00:30:20.130 00:30:24.720 Robert Tseng: I don’t think he’s gonna have a problem with that, if this guy’s a legit dude, so… Yeah.

311 00:30:25.910 00:30:33.179 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, I mean… Yeah, we’re kind of in the jam there. I don’t mind. I think, if anything.

312 00:30:33.410 00:30:37.529 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I mean, I just have to tell Amber to just kind of, like, ball up for a couple weeks.

313 00:30:38.160 00:30:38.960 Robert Tseng: Okay.

314 00:30:39.760 00:30:47.209 Robert Tseng: Yeah, well, for me, I’d like to try to make that work, because that’s an easier client to keep than it is to run some of these other ones, you know, so…

315 00:30:48.680 00:30:55.409 Uttam Kumaran: No, totally, I think it just… I think you’re right in that, like, you shouldn’t throw SEZM on it, because it will be a risk.

316 00:30:55.710 00:31:04.339 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, I’m gonna try to get Jasmine going on this, and then we’re gonna also get, Vank the.

317 00:31:04.340 00:31:06.479 Robert Tseng: Oh, he’s, he’s down. He’s talking to him.

318 00:31:06.480 00:31:11.320 Uttam Kumaran: No, he’s talking to… he’s talking to Amber today, and then I’m gonna get him the, the take-home?

319 00:31:12.170 00:31:18.359 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. Like, barring he doesn’t have any other issues, he said he can basically start next week.

320 00:31:18.610 00:31:19.290 Uttam Kumaran: So…

321 00:31:19.290 00:31:20.449 Robert Tseng: Great. Alright.

322 00:31:20.450 00:31:23.439 Uttam Kumaran: I would like him… I would like him to basically come in and shadow…

323 00:31:23.720 00:31:26.530 Uttam Kumaran: shadow either on Honey Stinger or on…

324 00:31:27.150 00:31:33.909 Uttam Kumaran: another thing, and so then you… then, again, like, at least coming into Jan, we should be, like, in a good spot.

325 00:31:34.380 00:31:35.020 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

326 00:31:35.660 00:31:44.090 Uttam Kumaran: Because also, some of these guys can work those… the weeks off, like, you know, they don’t… they don’t necessarily have to take off to the new folks if they want to, so…

327 00:31:44.610 00:31:45.150 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

328 00:31:46.470 00:31:48.159 Uttam Kumaran: And then, how’s it going with Greg?

329 00:31:49.830 00:31:52.140 Uttam Kumaran: Sorry, I know we just talked about, like, a Monday. Okay.

330 00:31:52.140 00:32:01.119 Robert Tseng: Yeah, yeah, I think we’ll see on Thursday. I think he’s gonna give the… give… give his appeal. We’re gonna check in tomorrow. I mean, he’s… I mean, yeah, I think…

331 00:32:01.610 00:32:02.390 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, okay.

332 00:32:02.730 00:32:08.930 Robert Tseng: Yeah, it’s kind of hard for me to say. Like, he kinda has to… I mean, from a reporting side, yeah, he can take over, but like…

333 00:32:10.000 00:32:10.510 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

334 00:32:10.510 00:32:12.920 Robert Tseng: To kind of drive the engagement, so we’ll see.

335 00:32:13.910 00:32:16.210 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, ask him to send a loom, dude, or something.

336 00:32:17.750 00:32:18.310 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

337 00:32:19.030 00:32:19.630 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

338 00:32:20.430 00:32:22.740 Awaish Kumar: Where is the breezy starting?

339 00:32:23.370 00:32:34.609 Uttam Kumaran: I’m… I’m talking… yeah, so maybe some better… some decent news on that. One is, like, I… I talked to Clint this morning. He said… so, Breezy is Clint’s referral.

340 00:32:35.550 00:32:39.399 Uttam Kumaran: He basically said, like, Segala messaged him, was like, yo, these guys are great, they, like…

341 00:32:39.800 00:32:48.579 Uttam Kumaran: they, like, move super, super fast, and we haven’t even started with them. So, on the sales side, I think our… the feedback about us is always really, really good. Like, I think…

342 00:32:49.000 00:33:01.030 Uttam Kumaran: we’re showing that we’re really legit. I’m talking to their data people tomorrow morning. Maybe I wish you wanna… can you… actually, maybe I should ask you to join me? Or, I don’t know, I could bring someone else with me.

343 00:33:02.150 00:33:09.260 Uttam Kumaran: Maybe, yeah, I don’t know. But I’ll be talking to some people there. This one is gonna be more data engineering heavy.

344 00:33:09.560 00:33:10.549 Uttam Kumaran: to start.

345 00:33:11.800 00:33:19.129 Uttam Kumaran: And then also some product analytics. So I would like to have Greg come with me, you know, if he works out, so…

346 00:33:19.300 00:33:23.920 Uttam Kumaran: this is a big week for Greg, basically. Like, I would like him to come onto default, because default…

347 00:33:24.030 00:33:40.830 Uttam Kumaran: they’re gonna be rolling out the next version of their product in February, and they want to establish product analytics. Breezy is a complete iOS product analytics thing, so he wants the works, and the head of product is, like, knows product analytics well, so, like.

348 00:33:41.700 00:33:47.910 Uttam Kumaran: I can’t help there much. And then they have some other data projects. I mean, I feel like I’m gonna…

349 00:33:48.870 00:33:58.149 Uttam Kumaran: If they say yes, Robert, my question’s gonna be how to price it, so I think you have to think about a number, and think about a big number, and I’ll tell it to them, we’ll see what they say.

350 00:33:58.380 00:33:58.760 Robert Tseng: Seems.

351 00:33:58.760 00:34:00.309 Uttam Kumaran: They have funding, you know?

352 00:34:03.620 00:34:07.250 Robert Tseng: Dude, we should push him off. I don’t think we can take him on, but yeah.

353 00:34:08.620 00:34:12.600 Uttam Kumaran: Well, no, I mean, how about we do… yeah, I mean, I also agree.

354 00:34:12.710 00:34:13.550 Uttam Kumaran: I…

355 00:34:14.219 00:34:30.560 Uttam Kumaran: the other thing I’m… I also pitched them on today is, like, hey, can we just move into, like, paid discovery? So, they’re having conversations like Customer I.O. and, like, other vendor things. I kind of want them to just loop us in, but, like, just loop… loop us in and pay me $2.50 an hour, and then…

356 00:34:30.840 00:34:36.719 Uttam Kumaran: let’s work towards a larger engagement starting January. It’s kind of, like, what I’m hoping for.

357 00:34:37.050 00:34:37.659 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

358 00:34:38.310 00:34:44.019 Uttam Kumaran: If… if not, if they’re like, no, then I’m… we should just… we should just rip the price up.

359 00:34:44.580 00:34:45.139 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

360 00:34:49.480 00:34:56.080 Uttam Kumaran: Because at least if I’m not gonna sleep… if I’m gonna get even less sleep, then we might as well make more money.

361 00:35:00.650 00:35:03.050 Uttam Kumaran: And then, I mean, yeah, so…

362 00:35:04.090 00:35:09.670 Uttam Kumaran: Magic Spoon is seemingly a little bit slower, so they may end up pushing towards Jan.

363 00:35:10.190 00:35:10.750 Uttam Kumaran: So…

364 00:35:10.750 00:35:11.470 Robert Tseng: Great.

365 00:35:14.320 00:35:14.980 Awaish Kumar: Okay.

366 00:35:19.100 00:35:20.200 Uttam Kumaran: Alright, guys.

367 00:35:21.020 00:35:22.309 Robert Tseng: Alright, see y’all.

368 00:35:22.590 00:35:24.010 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, thank you. Bye.