2025-12-18_gtm_lead_weekly_sync_38c80732

Meeting Title: GTM Lead Weekly Sync Date: 2025-12-18 Meeting participants: Luke Scorziell, Luke’s Notetaker, Uttam Kumaran

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WEBVTT

1 00:06:37.960 ⇒ 00:06:38.870 Uttam Kumaran: Hey!

2 00:06:39.830 ⇒ 00:06:40.910 Luke Scorziell: Hey, Tom, how’s it going?

3 00:06:40.910 ⇒ 00:06:42.489 Uttam Kumaran: Hey, good, how are you?

4 00:06:42.710 ⇒ 00:06:47.949 Uttam Kumaran: Alright, let me get you guys, I’m not coming into my AirPods. I’m at a coffee shop. You’re good.

5 00:06:55.230 ⇒ 00:07:00.950 Luke Scorziell: Like, the handovers are… Convenient, until they just suddenly lose…

6 00:07:03.400 ⇒ 00:07:04.060 Uttam Kumaran: No problem.

7 00:07:04.090 ⇒ 00:07:05.799 Luke Scorziell: Gotcha and switch.

8 00:07:07.140 ⇒ 00:07:09.050 Luke Scorziell: How are you doing?

9 00:07:09.520 ⇒ 00:07:10.599 Uttam Kumaran: Good, how are you?

10 00:07:10.600 ⇒ 00:07:11.670 Luke Scorziell: There we go, I got it.

11 00:07:11.920 ⇒ 00:07:14.550 Luke Scorziell: Good, yeah, it’s been fun. Been, like,

12 00:07:15.650 ⇒ 00:07:18.770 Luke Scorziell: a whirlwind of a journey so far.

13 00:07:18.770 ⇒ 00:07:36.140 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, dude, dude, I’m so sorry for missing our meeting last… or, like, last week or the week before. It’s like, as you can tell, this is crazy. Like, I don’t know if you’re paying attention… if you’re watching in Slack, but I don’t know if it’s just, like, because I’m in a lot, but stuff is moving very, very fast, and so…

14 00:07:36.430 ⇒ 00:07:45.230 Uttam Kumaran: that day was, like, one of… I just, like, I literally had, like, such an anxiety breakdown day. I was judging a demo day at UT.

15 00:07:45.440 ⇒ 00:07:46.180 Luke Scorziell: Right?

16 00:07:46.410 ⇒ 00:07:54.060 Uttam Kumaran: But then I forgot, and they’d asked me about coming and being a judge two days before, and so it was a complete mess. But I’m so sorry, I did not mean to.

17 00:07:54.060 ⇒ 00:07:57.689 Luke Scorziell: No, you’re totally good. I figured,

18 00:07:57.930 ⇒ 00:08:05.829 Luke Scorziell: just because of that message, too, I was like, oh, it’s… it was just funny when you reached out, or not, it was just like, okay, it seems like things are, like, going down in a different way.

19 00:08:05.830 ⇒ 00:08:12.600 Uttam Kumaran: No, I mean, we def… definitely, but then I missed, like, I was like, let’s chat, and I completely whiffed it.

20 00:08:12.600 ⇒ 00:08:12.980 Luke Scorziell: No.

21 00:08:12.980 ⇒ 00:08:13.380 Uttam Kumaran: So…

22 00:08:13.380 ⇒ 00:08:20.200 Luke Scorziell: well, glad we can catch up now, and I’ve been, yeah, obviously getting, like, a lot of Robert’s perspective, and then,

23 00:08:20.480 ⇒ 00:08:26.889 Luke Scorziell: Just, it’s, like, an interesting balance of, like, there’s a lot going on on, like, day-to-day execution level right now.

24 00:08:27.110 ⇒ 00:08:28.490 Luke Scorziell: on the

25 00:08:28.750 ⇒ 00:08:34.699 Luke Scorziell: like, go-to-market team, so it’s, like, helping with that, but then I’ve been thinking, like, okay, bigger picture, like.

26 00:08:34.870 ⇒ 00:08:41.350 Luke Scorziell: what are the things that, you know, we want to be leveraging more or less, and so…

27 00:08:41.480 ⇒ 00:08:46.789 Luke Scorziell: But, yeah, I don’t know, so I’m happy to… I can give updates or whatever’s helpful, or…

28 00:08:46.790 ⇒ 00:08:57.969 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I’m just curious, like, from… now that, like, you were on the outside and now on the inside, like, what do you… like, yeah, if someone were to say… someone were to ask you, like, what do you think?

29 00:08:58.780 ⇒ 00:09:00.790 Uttam Kumaran: That’s what I’ll ask you, like, what do you think?

30 00:09:00.790 ⇒ 00:09:07.510 Luke Scorziell: Yeah. No, I think, I mean, one, like…

31 00:09:08.430 ⇒ 00:09:12.899 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, genuinely, I feel pretty excited. I think, like, the call,

32 00:09:14.740 ⇒ 00:09:18.700 Luke Scorziell: Between, yeah, you and John Booz, for me, it was like…

33 00:09:19.450 ⇒ 00:09:20.180 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.

34 00:09:20.180 ⇒ 00:09:26.469 Uttam Kumaran: When they press… they pressed me, they were like, they were like, we’re not looking for, like.

35 00:09:26.640 ⇒ 00:09:31.990 Uttam Kumaran: just, like, someone to come in and, like, do things quickly. We’re looking for, like, apartments.

36 00:09:31.990 ⇒ 00:09:32.600 Luke Scorziell: long-term.

37 00:09:32.600 ⇒ 00:09:47.510 Uttam Kumaran: That moment, like, it’s hard for me to rewatch videos, although I told someone today, I’m like, we should do game tape reviews, because I also want everybody in the company to watch. Someone literally told us exactly what they’re looking for.

38 00:09:47.510 ⇒ 00:09:58.480 Uttam Kumaran: Right? And those guys are… it’s a big-ass fucking company, and they’re, like, we’re not… they said out loud, we want to outsource this, like… Yeah. They’re, like, kind of handing it out, right?

39 00:09:58.480 ⇒ 00:09:59.840 Luke Scorziell: 100%.

40 00:10:00.180 ⇒ 00:10:02.779 Luke Scorziell: I think for, so…

41 00:10:03.060 ⇒ 00:10:20.489 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, I mean, on a personal, like, oh, it’s exciting for me to work with you guys level, I was like, oh, it’s kind of a very similar philosophy that I carry in a lot of my work, is like, because it’s just, like, marketing, professionals, agencies, whatever, everyone’s just… there’s, like, a billion ads, oh, we’ll make this many videos for you, or do this, or do that. Yeah, and it’s like…

42 00:10:21.340 ⇒ 00:10:25.339 Luke Scorziell: You don’t… the client might not even know what the real problem is.

43 00:10:25.570 ⇒ 00:10:35.840 Luke Scorziell: Until you actually get in there and start working with them, and then you discover, like, oh, wow, this is a big, like, issue, why don’t we solve this together? And if you’re approaching it from a transactional lens of, like.

44 00:10:35.970 ⇒ 00:10:38.369 Luke Scorziell: Oh, well, actually, I just agreed to do, like.

45 00:10:38.650 ⇒ 00:10:41.190 Uttam Kumaran: you know, your ads, then, like…

46 00:10:41.250 ⇒ 00:10:46.040 Luke Scorziell: you know, you need to hire someone. It’s like, okay, well… so I appreciated that about…

47 00:10:46.560 ⇒ 00:10:54.250 Uttam Kumaran: But when you believe it, you can see, like, I believe it, and I know that’s how we act, and so I don’t have fear over talking about, like.

48 00:10:54.520 ⇒ 00:10:59.620 Uttam Kumaran: who are not. Like, we’re not a dev shop, we’re not, like, staff augmentation.

49 00:10:59.620 ⇒ 00:11:22.260 Uttam Kumaran: We don’t do, like, projects where we come in, do something quick, and leave. Like, we’re looking for long-term partnerships, and I’m… I will help in any way I can, whether that’s us doing the work, whether that’s bringing in a partner agency, but I’m sure I’m one or two phone calls away from, like, figuring out what you should do, or at least getting you in touch with somebody who sh…

50 00:11:22.260 ⇒ 00:11:33.819 Uttam Kumaran: who will tell you what… how they did this. I’m… and everything is theirs, right? We are… we are at the behest of the clients, and I really feel that, because when I… when I brought in consultants, we’ve used consultants in this business.

51 00:11:33.910 ⇒ 00:11:49.400 Uttam Kumaran: sometimes, like, I feel… it’s just, like, tough, like, I really feel like every day we should talk about, if we were running that business, what would we do? And our job is to surface that, you know? And a lot of consultants, I feel like they’re… they’re sort of weight

52 00:11:49.570 ⇒ 00:11:57.120 Uttam Kumaran: to, like, be told what to do, and we actually come in because those people got jammed, and they got let go, and then they bring us in, and then they’re.

53 00:11:57.120 ⇒ 00:11:57.930 Luke Scorziell: And, like…

54 00:11:57.930 ⇒ 00:12:02.820 Uttam Kumaran: You guys are the first people to actually feel like a partner, you know?

55 00:12:02.820 ⇒ 00:12:04.090 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, so it’s interesting.

56 00:12:04.090 ⇒ 00:12:05.270 Uttam Kumaran: Interesting, yeah.

57 00:12:05.270 ⇒ 00:12:10.289 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, I mean, it’s the whole… it’s like, if you outsource something as a business, it’s because you don’t want to do it yourself, right?

58 00:12:10.290 ⇒ 00:12:11.900 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, or it’s hard, or you don’t.

59 00:12:11.900 ⇒ 00:12:12.530 Luke Scorziell: Oh, yeah.

60 00:12:12.530 ⇒ 00:12:16.270 Uttam Kumaran: or you just don’t know, and you’re like, either I can…

61 00:12:16.600 ⇒ 00:12:20.610 Uttam Kumaran: Hire some people to come figure it out, and maybe get lucky on a couple people.

62 00:12:20.770 ⇒ 00:12:27.050 Uttam Kumaran: Or, like, I call a couple friends, they’re like, who do you use for data? And one of them mentions us. They hop on the phone with me.

63 00:12:27.230 ⇒ 00:12:32.889 Uttam Kumaran: I’ve done every job in data, and so you’re not talking, like, a salesperson. We don’t.

64 00:12:32.890 ⇒ 00:12:33.240 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.

65 00:12:33.240 ⇒ 00:12:47.859 Uttam Kumaran: decks. I will… I’m starting… the decks that we produce, we typically produce for other salespeople, like, when I’m doing partner decks, but we’re not leading with decks. Usually, that’s just like a, here’s a deck in case you want to remind yourself of what we talked about.

66 00:12:48.130 ⇒ 00:12:48.530 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.

67 00:12:48.530 ⇒ 00:13:03.160 Uttam Kumaran: It’s always like this, where I’m like, what’s up? Like, tell me how I can help. I will tell you whether I can or not. Like, there’s stuff, like, people are like, can you build this app, this iOS app? I’m like, no, it’s not what we do. I have a guy, I have a friend that does that.

68 00:13:03.400 ⇒ 00:13:05.050 Uttam Kumaran: You can go call him.

69 00:13:05.220 ⇒ 00:13:15.000 Uttam Kumaran: here’s his number, he’s great, or I’m like, I don’t know anyone, that’s great. I know a lot of bad people that do that, so… you know, so that’s how we, like, work with these guys, you know?

70 00:13:15.290 ⇒ 00:13:21.220 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, yeah, no, for sure, and I think, I think that’s really, like, resonates with me a lot.

71 00:13:21.370 ⇒ 00:13:24.309 Luke Scorziell: But then, yeah, I think, like, thought-wise.

72 00:13:24.930 ⇒ 00:13:33.490 Luke Scorziell: like, seeing the strength of, like, the core, like, values position of the brand, I’m still learning, like, like today I was talking to Sam about, like.

73 00:13:33.910 ⇒ 00:13:40.140 Luke Scorziell: like, okay, everyone’s talking about, like, how there’s a difference between the data side and the AI side, and I’m like, I don’t know what that means.

74 00:13:40.140 ⇒ 00:13:48.439 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, and there shouldn’t be, right? That’s why a lot of our messaging, and Robert, he may have sent, like, we’ve both come at this

75 00:13:49.240 ⇒ 00:13:54.829 Uttam Kumaran: a lot of different ways, and I don’t know, I’ll look through Notion and see if I’ve… if I…

76 00:13:55.250 ⇒ 00:13:59.960 Uttam Kumaran: maybe I’ll just make sure you have this notion, because I wrote this maybe, like, 6 months ago, which is just, like.

77 00:14:00.210 ⇒ 00:14:05.879 Uttam Kumaran: what is our company, like, really doing for people? And, like…

78 00:14:06.450 ⇒ 00:14:14.349 Uttam Kumaran: like, what is sort of, like, this decision intelligence and things like that? Like, I did some big, right, let me just try to find it.

79 00:14:15.280 ⇒ 00:14:20.509 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, no, it’ll be super… Helpful, because it’s been a… maybe the biggest…

80 00:14:21.230 ⇒ 00:14:23.940 Luke Scorziell: Challenge, which maybe isn’t, like, a huge challenge.

81 00:14:23.940 ⇒ 00:14:30.169 Uttam Kumaran: It’s not, it’s not, it’s not, like, very, like, this is, like, it’s technical work, so it’s, like, sometimes, like, yeah, it’s…

82 00:14:30.370 ⇒ 00:14:40.950 Uttam Kumaran: if you’re working in marketing analysts are okay, there’s a funnel. This is, like, some of this stuff is really, really difficult, like, it’s actual, like, engineering work, but we… we both, we’ve both written about,

83 00:14:41.730 ⇒ 00:14:43.870 Uttam Kumaran: sort of, like.

84 00:14:44.070 ⇒ 00:14:49.050 Uttam Kumaran: how we help a client, like, what is our ultimate thing we’re going for? And let me just try to find…

85 00:14:49.500 ⇒ 00:14:52.530 Luke Scorziell: I wrote it somewhere here.

86 00:14:52.910 ⇒ 00:14:54.780 Uttam Kumaran: Let me try to find Ebleman.

87 00:14:58.190 ⇒ 00:14:58.940 Luke Scorziell: Hmm…

88 00:15:31.100 ⇒ 00:15:35.699 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, okay, so this is a good example of, I’ll send it to you on Slack.

89 00:15:36.210 ⇒ 00:15:37.190 Luke Scorziell: Sweet.

90 00:15:38.180 ⇒ 00:15:45.690 Uttam Kumaran: This is something that I, like, used. I was, like, on a flight, and I was just, like, playing around with deep research, and I was just, like, telling it a lot of stuff about, like.

91 00:15:45.840 ⇒ 00:15:50.330 Uttam Kumaran: Exactly how we’re, like, having trouble, like, bridging these two pieces, and, like.

92 00:15:50.670 ⇒ 00:15:55.049 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know, there may be some stuff in here that helps you sort of think through

93 00:15:56.540 ⇒ 00:16:01.939 Uttam Kumaran: Where the business may be going, but ultimately, like, one… at some point, someone told me…

94 00:16:02.190 ⇒ 00:16:11.540 Uttam Kumaran: they’re like, the way Brainforge you want to work is that you are able to… Actually be able to…

95 00:16:11.750 ⇒ 00:16:23.369 Uttam Kumaran: say that we… our decisions led to X percent of revenue growth. And so a lot of, like, what… what we’re… and there’s a lot of companies that actually all they do is, like, revenue…

96 00:16:23.680 ⇒ 00:16:29.100 Uttam Kumaran: They do, like, what’s called, like, revenue optimization, or, like, revenue intelligence, which is just, like.

97 00:16:29.440 ⇒ 00:16:35.860 Uttam Kumaran: Customer segmentation, 80-20, and, like, finding out where you should invest more to do money, to get more money.

98 00:16:35.960 ⇒ 00:16:37.370 Uttam Kumaran: And a lot of, like.

99 00:16:37.370 ⇒ 00:16:41.180 Luke Scorziell: What I was working with AI and thinking through this was, like, how do we…

100 00:16:41.580 ⇒ 00:17:00.580 Uttam Kumaran: try to get our business model more outcome aligned, and that helps in two ways. It’s… I think, one, it’s very hard. Like, most people, they bill hourly because it’s the laziest way to bill. Like, you know, what… what the fuck does my hour have to do with the money being made by the company? Like, you know?

101 00:17:00.580 ⇒ 00:17:01.160 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.

102 00:17:01.160 ⇒ 00:17:08.679 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so it’s a kind of, like, it’s because consultants came up with it, and there was no attributable way to, like, say, like, my…

103 00:17:08.790 ⇒ 00:17:17.059 Uttam Kumaran: hour is worth this much. They basically just took salaries and, like, divided it by hours and sort of put a premium on top.

104 00:17:17.400 ⇒ 00:17:28.469 Uttam Kumaran: And so, typically, the… in consulting, you… basically, the guidance is typically you take whatever your… your salary is in terms of hourly, and you multiply it by 3, and, like, that’s what your goal should be.

105 00:17:29.820 ⇒ 00:17:42.359 Uttam Kumaran: Because that covers all of your, like, sales, operating expenses, typically. And so… but, like, that’s so lazy, and so for us, we’re trying to think more about a business that’s aligned towards outcomes, you know, where…

106 00:17:42.360 ⇒ 00:17:55.190 Uttam Kumaran: Maybe… maybe… and where we’ve arrived now is, like, sort of, like, we manage several work streams, and we sort of price, but what is price? Like, why should… why shouldn’t I charge you just what it costs

107 00:17:55.310 ⇒ 00:17:59.069 Uttam Kumaran: Like, a lever on top of what it cost me to deploy.

108 00:17:59.240 ⇒ 00:18:02.649 Uttam Kumaran: if I’m driving you $5 million in outcome.

109 00:18:02.770 ⇒ 00:18:05.599 Luke Scorziell: Like, why is this not performance-based?

110 00:18:06.160 ⇒ 00:18:15.799 Uttam Kumaran: It’s because of… it is very… it is very… most people in consulting, they… it’s… one, it’s risky to think that way, because most people suck in consulting, and they don’t drive outcomes, so…

111 00:18:16.220 ⇒ 00:18:16.540 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.

112 00:18:16.540 ⇒ 00:18:23.520 Uttam Kumaran: you’re just gonna… if you can’t… but for us, I don’t have any fear. I would love to call our shot and get a piece of the pie, especially if.

113 00:18:23.520 ⇒ 00:18:23.950 Luke Scorziell: It’s a…

114 00:18:23.950 ⇒ 00:18:27.820 Uttam Kumaran: owing pie, if I’m finding you millions of dollars.

115 00:18:28.120 ⇒ 00:18:39.150 Uttam Kumaran: why not give me a couple percent of that, you know? And, like, why… why am I relegated to, like, oh, it’s data, like, it’s a cost center? Or, like, oh, the average engineer is 150 grand.

116 00:18:39.620 ⇒ 00:18:44.329 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t care how you price your people, I’m finding you money.

117 00:18:44.370 ⇒ 00:19:02.429 Uttam Kumaran: Right? And any CEO is gonna look at any CEO, and I’m telling you from first-hand experience, if you tell me I’ll find you half a million dollars, I just want 10% of that, I don’t give a fuck. Find it. Go find it. Bring it back, and let’s do it, right? But that’s not how…

118 00:19:02.760 ⇒ 00:19:18.630 Uttam Kumaran: that’s not how I get things bubbled up to me. It’s always like, I need to do this thing, here’s how much it costs, but what is it driving for the business, right? And so, when we go to people, and when we start to talk to C-level VPs, these types of people.

119 00:19:18.720 ⇒ 00:19:26.790 Uttam Kumaran: I often am trying to align our work towards an outcome so I can quantify that, and I can justify a higher price.

120 00:19:27.040 ⇒ 00:19:28.789 Uttam Kumaran: Because if I just priced

121 00:19:28.960 ⇒ 00:19:38.430 Uttam Kumaran: based on, like, how much it costs my engineers, that’s never gonna change. And I think with AI in particular, we’re trying to find a… it’s… it…

122 00:19:38.550 ⇒ 00:19:40.020 Luke Scorziell: with AI.

123 00:19:40.020 ⇒ 00:19:45.959 Uttam Kumaran: like, if I was to charge hourly for our work, I would lose money, like, we are so fast.

124 00:19:46.100 ⇒ 00:20:02.299 Uttam Kumaran: So why would I take the losing end of that? Meaning, like, if I just start using AI in my company, and we develop things faster, there’s no money for me to make. So this is why you’re seeing Accenture, Deloitte, these guys struggle, because all of their stuff is hooked onto the hour.

125 00:20:02.450 ⇒ 00:20:13.039 Uttam Kumaran: And they have no way to back out of that. For us, we’re now switching to, like, project-based, because if I sign a $15,000 a month client with agreement to hit

126 00:20:13.190 ⇒ 00:20:14.889 Uttam Kumaran: 3 or 4 deliverables.

127 00:20:15.100 ⇒ 00:20:21.489 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, perfect. I’m gonna work with my team to deliver that 50% faster than before, and we get all the margin.

128 00:20:21.670 ⇒ 00:20:27.040 Uttam Kumaran: even better is if we can start to get a piece of our impact, I think that’s, like.

129 00:20:27.260 ⇒ 00:20:42.539 Uttam Kumaran: the next stage, you know? And so, the way, like, the AI and data piece sort of come together is, ultimately, my hope is that we get to, with all of our data work, is we’re actually able to help them, or leave behind, or use AI to assist

130 00:20:42.600 ⇒ 00:20:55.789 Uttam Kumaran: to actually give them the insights, and measure the fact that they took the insight, made a decision, led to X dollar, and then we kind of get a piece of that. Like, I feel like that is sort of an interesting, like, North Star

131 00:20:55.960 ⇒ 00:20:59.890 Uttam Kumaran: For us to think about, and ultimately how the data and AI piece work.

132 00:21:01.450 ⇒ 00:21:10.890 Uttam Kumaran: You know, it’s a driving decision-making, driving decision intelligence, and hopefully being able to take part in the revenue unlock that comes from that.

133 00:21:11.490 ⇒ 00:21:16.709 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, and what… I mean, so when you say insight, what does that mean? Because I know, obviously, I know it’s, like, the.

134 00:21:16.710 ⇒ 00:21:22.519 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so let’s say, let’s, let’s take, let’s take, Brainforge, right? We have 15 clients,

135 00:21:23.290 ⇒ 00:21:29.280 Uttam Kumaran: I want to know where the majority of my revenue’s coming from, and I want to know what,

136 00:21:29.870 ⇒ 00:21:35.989 Uttam Kumaran: what are my lowest margin clients, so I can cut them, right? And so, so I can cut them is the decision.

137 00:21:36.060 ⇒ 00:21:49.590 Uttam Kumaran: the insight is what, like, what are those, right? That’s a very simple example of, like, what the insight is, what the decision is. What is the outcome? Well, I cut those, and so my employee happiness is probably higher, because if they’re running at lower margin.

138 00:21:49.590 ⇒ 00:22:00.749 Uttam Kumaran: probably means that they didn’t have enough, like, support to actually deploy that. Second is, like, I can now take those people and my time, focus on the bigger clients, which…

139 00:22:00.760 ⇒ 00:22:16.700 Uttam Kumaran: for the most part, what we found is the larger clients are a lot less price… are a lot more price elastic, meaning, like, they’re open to spending more with us. Like, a client that’s, like, paying $30,000 to move from 30 to 40 is so much easier than moving a 5 to a 10.

140 00:22:16.790 ⇒ 00:22:17.280 Uttam Kumaran: Right?

141 00:22:17.280 ⇒ 00:22:18.000 Luke Scorziell: Huh.

142 00:22:18.000 ⇒ 00:22:29.840 Uttam Kumaran: So, what we’re gonna find is moving a 50… we’re gonna start to get clients that are in the 50-60 range. It’s gonna be easy for them to tack on another 30 grand. But 30 grand is 6 5K clients!

143 00:22:30.560 ⇒ 00:22:31.570 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, yeah.

144 00:22:31.570 ⇒ 00:22:35.479 Uttam Kumaran: You know? And so… but, like, these are, like, some examples of, like.

145 00:22:35.910 ⇒ 00:22:55.320 Uttam Kumaran: why the data matters to either validate a hunch, or to prove that we should, you know, make a decision, which is, like, cut our low-margin clients. Like, for example, right now, Insomnia, Honey Stinger, and README are all, like, 5K to 10K clients, and we’re not making a lot of money on those. Like.

146 00:22:55.490 ⇒ 00:23:13.379 Uttam Kumaran: And you may ask, like, okay, why are you working with them? They’re not making… because we took them, and we hoped that they would grow in revenue over time, because we found more opportunities, and so, ultimately, we’d get them to, like, 15 to 20K a month, and I can fulfill that for around $5Kto$10K.

147 00:23:13.630 ⇒ 00:23:21.009 Uttam Kumaran: insomnia, it’s… I’m not sure whether they’re gonna end up going, and it’s not our fault, it’s their internal, there’s a lot of turmoil. Read me

148 00:23:21.660 ⇒ 00:23:24.290 Uttam Kumaran: at 5K, I could only afford, like.

149 00:23:24.410 ⇒ 00:23:32.250 Uttam Kumaran: 20 hours of work. Right now, we’re spending, like, more like 30 to 40. I’m not making money. So I… well, I go to Robert, and I tell him.

150 00:23:32.390 ⇒ 00:23:44.239 Uttam Kumaran: I need to know, like, you need to cut these guys, or we need to grow them, and I need… I gotta know that, because I’m not able to… I’m… either… either… for me to be able to run that at the margin we need.

151 00:23:44.430 ⇒ 00:23:54.250 Uttam Kumaran: I can only give you 15 hours. What are you gonna do with that? You’re not gonna do anything. So… so what are we gonna do here? So you tell me, can you get them to 10? Or we’re cutting them.

152 00:23:54.390 ⇒ 00:24:01.269 Uttam Kumaran: Right? But… but some might say, like, oh, and that’s… that’s the whole concept of, like, not all revenue is good revenue.

153 00:24:01.580 ⇒ 00:24:01.990 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.

154 00:24:01.990 ⇒ 00:24:08.859 Uttam Kumaran: And so this is a… this is an example of a decision where I need the data to be able to make that decision, right?

155 00:24:09.640 ⇒ 00:24:17.730 Uttam Kumaran: Better yet, if you think about an AI future where we’ve… someone in my company has already modeled… we have margins on every client.

156 00:24:17.900 ⇒ 00:24:21.990 Uttam Kumaran: Right? I know the amount of runes coming in. I also have the contract details.

157 00:24:22.140 ⇒ 00:24:30.470 Uttam Kumaran: Why doesn’t an AI flag to me on a weekly basis, hey, you should probably consider cutting these guys, here’s why?

158 00:24:31.080 ⇒ 00:24:32.109 Luke Scorziell: Why not?

159 00:24:32.210 ⇒ 00:24:35.830 Uttam Kumaran: Tell me, like, what, what, what part, what, like,

160 00:24:36.280 ⇒ 00:24:39.670 Uttam Kumaran: What law of physics is preventing us from that happening today? Nothing.

161 00:24:40.000 ⇒ 00:24:52.200 Uttam Kumaran: But guess what? That may have… cutting those people and directing them to other clients where we can boost, like, another 30%, that may be a $250,000 change, like, net positive.

162 00:24:52.360 ⇒ 00:24:52.860 Uttam Kumaran: That would.

163 00:24:52.860 ⇒ 00:24:53.280 Luke Scorziell: It’s driven.

164 00:24:53.280 ⇒ 00:25:01.510 Uttam Kumaran: by AI, right? In fact, in this whole system, I am the limiting factor. Like, my creativity to think that I need that data

165 00:25:01.510 ⇒ 00:25:17.760 Uttam Kumaran: to make this decision is the limiting factor. AI can easily look at that, know that we’re a consulting company, know that I’m the CEO, and I’m trying to make more money, and it’ll probably tell me the same thing. You should cut these low-margin clients unless you can expand them and focus on those. It’s gonna say that.

166 00:25:18.050 ⇒ 00:25:18.600 Luke Scorziell: Huh.

167 00:25:18.600 ⇒ 00:25:23.029 Uttam Kumaran: The fact that… the fact that we are waiting for me to decide that…

168 00:25:23.330 ⇒ 00:25:25.759 Uttam Kumaran: Is what’s holding our business behind.

169 00:25:26.540 ⇒ 00:25:27.440 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, interesting.

170 00:25:27.440 ⇒ 00:25:28.509 Uttam Kumaran: Does that make sense?

171 00:25:28.780 ⇒ 00:25:30.599 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, yeah, so, I mean, it’s…

172 00:25:30.600 ⇒ 00:25:34.740 Uttam Kumaran: It’s a very… it’s a very narrow, like, not-so-complicated example, but…

173 00:25:35.110 ⇒ 00:25:38.000 Uttam Kumaran: But this is, like, kind of the future that we want to start to…

174 00:25:38.220 ⇒ 00:25:41.060 Uttam Kumaran: See whether that’s, like, where this goes, where…

175 00:25:41.320 ⇒ 00:25:45.530 Uttam Kumaran: We’re using a mix of model data, Plus, like, some AI.

176 00:25:45.650 ⇒ 00:25:53.559 Uttam Kumaran: To help people make decisions faster, surface things that they may not have thought of, or maybe ruminating somewhere.

177 00:25:53.900 ⇒ 00:25:54.380 Luke Scorziell: That’s mixed.

178 00:25:54.380 ⇒ 00:25:56.850 Uttam Kumaran: the decision. And in a business.

179 00:25:57.240 ⇒ 00:26:07.930 Uttam Kumaran: Decision is really, like, decisions are the fuel. The more decisions I can make, and the more accurate they are, are what is going to hold us back.

180 00:26:08.070 ⇒ 00:26:08.820 Uttam Kumaran: Right?

181 00:26:09.290 ⇒ 00:26:17.230 Uttam Kumaran: That’s why you see me spazzing all over Slack, telling people to do things, is because if people are blocked for 3 days on something.

182 00:26:17.460 ⇒ 00:26:24.520 Uttam Kumaran: there’s only 52 weeks in the year. If people are blocked by a week, we’ve lost, like, one entire week.

183 00:26:25.040 ⇒ 00:26:25.490 Luke Scorziell: company.

184 00:26:25.490 ⇒ 00:26:44.270 Uttam Kumaran: our size, we are living and dying by the fact that, like, we’re making, like, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of decisions a day, and people aren’t waiting for the data to come in, they’re not waiting to get a meeting with me, and because now it’s great, we have Slack, so I can come in there and do everything async, and instead of making

185 00:26:44.480 ⇒ 00:26:49.450 Uttam Kumaran: 30 decisions, because everything’s a meeting. Now we make 300, because everybody’s in Slack.

186 00:26:50.220 ⇒ 00:26:56.679 Uttam Kumaran: Ultimately, like, that is the fuel, you know? And you’re not… not all decisions are gonna get a… get… be right.

187 00:26:56.810 ⇒ 00:27:01.380 Uttam Kumaran: But, on average, if we are right.

188 00:27:01.940 ⇒ 00:27:04.170 Uttam Kumaran: then we’re fine. We’re totally fine.

189 00:27:04.620 ⇒ 00:27:13.359 Uttam Kumaran: Most companies are dying because they only… like a lot of companies, for example, they only do quarterly reviews.

190 00:27:13.830 ⇒ 00:27:19.790 Uttam Kumaran: There’s only 4 times a year that they’re like, what happened here? And what can we do differently?

191 00:27:21.280 ⇒ 00:27:30.699 Uttam Kumaran: what? Like, our business, we… we’re almost doing, like, every week or three days on, like, what happened here, how can we change? Think about the iteration cycles.

192 00:27:30.700 ⇒ 00:27:41.830 Uttam Kumaran: Right? And so that’s, like, I think what I learned a lot from my background in product, is, like, the iteration cycles and the speed at which you can try something, learn, see the data, pivot, or do it again.

193 00:27:41.840 ⇒ 00:27:44.769 Uttam Kumaran: That’s, like, that’s the growth, right?

194 00:27:44.770 ⇒ 00:27:45.090 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.

195 00:27:45.090 ⇒ 00:27:53.439 Uttam Kumaran: We’ve done that a lot internally at Brainforge, and that’s a lot of, like, what informs how we… when we go into a client, we’re trying to drive them to do that, too.

196 00:27:53.490 ⇒ 00:28:06.050 Uttam Kumaran: Go from shitty spreadsheets to real dashboards, spend most of your time analyzing the dashboard and going to your next meeting, be like, we need to double our spend on Facebook, because the CAC is… is, like, half.

197 00:28:06.560 ⇒ 00:28:12.050 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, like, maybe that took you 3 months to figure out before. Now, in, like, 2 days, you can…

198 00:28:12.150 ⇒ 00:28:13.589 Uttam Kumaran: You got there, right?

199 00:28:13.710 ⇒ 00:28:16.970 Uttam Kumaran: So that’s the thing, that’s the thing, because there’s not infinite time.

200 00:28:17.170 ⇒ 00:28:21.880 Uttam Kumaran: Right? But… and if your decisions are not accurate, because you don’t have the data.

201 00:28:22.410 ⇒ 00:28:27.029 Uttam Kumaran: And because you don’t have the data, people aren’t confident making them, so they’re making less.

202 00:28:28.120 ⇒ 00:28:32.470 Uttam Kumaran: Like, personally, I feel like that’s what’s… that’s holding a lot of business back.

203 00:28:33.210 ⇒ 00:28:35.919 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, no, that’s really interesting.

204 00:28:37.480 ⇒ 00:28:41.910 Luke Scorziell: Which is something that, I mean, maybe is coming through… is coming through in the branding, but I think, like.

205 00:28:41.910 ⇒ 00:28:43.759 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t think it is, I don’t… I don’t know.

206 00:28:43.760 ⇒ 00:28:46.520 Luke Scorziell: Well, I mean, the action.

207 00:28:46.520 ⇒ 00:28:47.700 Uttam Kumaran: We did actionable insights.

208 00:28:47.700 ⇒ 00:28:48.689 Luke Scorziell: Well, insights or whatever.

209 00:28:48.690 ⇒ 00:28:53.060 Uttam Kumaran: I swear, like, I… what you’ll find is that

210 00:28:54.660 ⇒ 00:28:59.219 Uttam Kumaran: like, me and Hannah worked on all of the branding.

211 00:28:59.540 ⇒ 00:29:03.039 Luke Scorziell: Hannah is the… Hannah is really, like, all the styling.

212 00:29:03.220 ⇒ 00:29:06.880 Uttam Kumaran: Right? For me, I got us to a certain point on, like.

213 00:29:07.940 ⇒ 00:29:13.359 Uttam Kumaran: from what I know about marketing to get us to, like, the shape of which

214 00:29:13.540 ⇒ 00:29:16.070 Uttam Kumaran: Like, we’re trying to get these, like.

215 00:29:16.240 ⇒ 00:29:19.070 Luke Scorziell: Actionable insights, or whatever, but it’s not there.

216 00:29:19.540 ⇒ 00:29:24.870 Uttam Kumaran: But what is there is that we’ve… when someone comes to our website, they’ve never seen…

217 00:29:25.040 ⇒ 00:29:31.650 Uttam Kumaran: like, a data consultancy would look this good. And so we’ve won them on that, like, on it looking good, and so that builds some confidence.

218 00:29:32.120 ⇒ 00:29:45.530 Uttam Kumaran: the messaging is not there. And that’s a never… it would never be there with me. Like, I… I got in us to a point where we have the capability to try, like, we have the web, we have LinkedIn, we have customers, we have all these transcripts.

219 00:29:45.850 ⇒ 00:29:48.649 Uttam Kumaran: But I need someone like you, or someone…

220 00:29:49.090 ⇒ 00:29:54.359 Uttam Kumaran: to iterate and be able to test these, because I can’t do that. That’s not who I am. Like, I’m not a…

221 00:29:54.360 ⇒ 00:30:12.080 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think it’s really interesting, because even just what you just described to me, I mean, that’s what gets me, like, jazzed about what I get to do, because it’s like, you come in, you talk to someone who’s passionate about their business and what they’re doing, and then they kind of have, like, a spiel like that, of like, I want to help people make decisions faster, and it’s like, okay, well, like, why don’t we just…

222 00:30:12.170 ⇒ 00:30:14.950 Luke Scorziell: Say that. Build around that idea, yeah.

223 00:30:14.950 ⇒ 00:30:30.269 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, yeah, go for it. I feel like if you look through the transcripts, I would have said this, like, hundreds of times, but that’s the difference between your superpower is that. Like, I can… I can go on a diatribe about why I think this is important. I can’t…

224 00:30:30.570 ⇒ 00:30:31.060 Luke Scorziell: Whoa.

225 00:30:31.060 ⇒ 00:30:34.659 Uttam Kumaran: I can’t do copy. I can’t… I’ve never done… I’m not good at copy.

226 00:30:35.120 ⇒ 00:30:51.720 Luke Scorziell: Well, and I think… I think you… it’s… it’s just a difference between, like… like, when I’m working on my… my own agency and my own brand and stuff, it’s like, I can go back and forth a million times on something that, like, quite honestly, like, just doesn’t matter. It’s like, should I use this word or this word, or should I say I do this or this? And it’s like, at the end of the day…

227 00:30:51.720 ⇒ 00:30:54.950 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know what matters or not, like, for me, again, like.

228 00:30:54.950 ⇒ 00:30:55.600 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.

229 00:30:55.620 ⇒ 00:31:05.640 Uttam Kumaran: because I’m good at… I’m good at engineering and team… like, there… I don’t need to be good at everything. It’s like, you don’t want me in the… like, a lot of people, a lot of leaders, I feel like.

230 00:31:06.150 ⇒ 00:31:20.659 Uttam Kumaran: like, for example, if I was to come in and, like, muck around with all the messaging and be like, I didn’t like that, I didn’t like this, we wouldn’t go anywhere, right? It’s actually, for me, I know that this is not what I’m, like, great at. For me, what I’ve built here is, like, we have great designers.

231 00:31:20.660 ⇒ 00:31:29.739 Uttam Kumaran: we have an openness to test a lot of messaging and a lot of channels to test it with. I’ve given a great environment on a plate for someone to come in and, like.

232 00:31:30.000 ⇒ 00:31:31.699 Uttam Kumaran: Figure it out from there.

233 00:31:32.380 ⇒ 00:31:33.529 Uttam Kumaran: Don’t have to worry about, like…

234 00:31:33.530 ⇒ 00:31:33.960 Luke Scorziell: That’s true.

235 00:31:33.960 ⇒ 00:31:49.900 Uttam Kumaran: We can build landing pages, we can do video, we can… you can throw me into… you can throw me into stuff to do whatever, like, it’s all sort of, like, arrived in a way for I knew someone would come along and, like, be able to get it to the right point. What I… what I… what I do know well is, like.

236 00:31:50.140 ⇒ 00:31:56.669 Uttam Kumaran: I know what great design is. I can’t… I’m not a designer, but worked with a lot of designers. I invested in design very early.

237 00:31:57.010 ⇒ 00:31:57.350 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.

238 00:31:57.350 ⇒ 00:32:04.180 Uttam Kumaran: all of our stuff looks cohesive visually. Whether the words are good or not, most of it’s AI.

239 00:32:04.180 ⇒ 00:32:17.760 Uttam Kumaran: Most of it’s, like, a prompt me and Hannah worked on, so that everything sort of… but we… we went through the story brain exercise as a company, by the way. Like, I had… Oh, really? I had… we had 15 people, we all read the book together, over, like… Oh. Yeah, like, literally, we did a book club.

240 00:32:17.840 ⇒ 00:32:22.729 Uttam Kumaran: Like, I… yeah, I have the book right in front of me. This was, like, 6 months ago.

241 00:32:23.530 ⇒ 00:32:24.020 Luke Scorziell: Oh, really?

242 00:32:24.020 ⇒ 00:32:30.070 Uttam Kumaran: everybody who wanted to read… I bought everybody building a story brand. All of those.

243 00:32:30.070 ⇒ 00:32:30.480 Luke Scorziell: Very blessed.

244 00:32:30.480 ⇒ 00:32:37.740 Uttam Kumaran: All of those videos are recorded, by the way. We all read, like, 4 or 5 chapters at a time, came on Friday.

245 00:32:38.010 ⇒ 00:32:50.499 Uttam Kumaran: put… put… there’s still sticky notes in Figma of, like, all the… we basically just did the exercises together. And then what I did is I took all of that and the transcripts and used AI to,

246 00:32:50.730 ⇒ 00:32:53.600 Uttam Kumaran: Basically, like, codify the learnings.

247 00:32:53.980 ⇒ 00:33:04.450 Uttam Kumaran: And then ultimately build, like, a story brand GPT, so that… now that’s what design uses. So anytime they’re, like, thinking about copy, they just use that, and it helps them, like.

248 00:33:04.690 ⇒ 00:33:09.940 Uttam Kumaran: write the copy, basically, like, Hannah has all of that. If you haven’t talked to her, she has, like, all that.

249 00:33:09.940 ⇒ 00:33:14.960 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, I have not heard about that. I mean, that’s like sitting on a gold mine for me. Yes. Because I’m like, that’s like…

250 00:33:16.730 ⇒ 00:33:25.770 Luke Scorziell: That’s the type of stuff that I was… because I’ve already been thinking, like, I wonder if I need to run, like, a brand, like, strategy, like…

251 00:33:25.770 ⇒ 00:33:26.260 Uttam Kumaran: Look at that.

252 00:33:26.260 ⇒ 00:33:26.629 Luke Scorziell: We could do that.

253 00:33:26.630 ⇒ 00:33:30.589 Uttam Kumaran: again, but look through that, and I think it’ll get you, like.

254 00:33:31.090 ⇒ 00:33:41.619 Uttam Kumaran: and I involved a lot of people, like, engineers, I was there, and It was, like, this was 6 months ago, so, like, a little bit of smaller crew, but…

255 00:33:41.940 ⇒ 00:33:46.419 Uttam Kumaran: There’s a lot in there, and maybe there’s pieces that you can take, but…

256 00:33:46.540 ⇒ 00:33:51.529 Uttam Kumaran: I… I read the book, and I was like, holy shit, like, we just have to do this, but I…

257 00:33:51.730 ⇒ 00:33:55.330 Uttam Kumaran: I need to do this with the crew, like, I need everybody who works on.

258 00:33:55.330 ⇒ 00:33:57.590 Luke Scorziell: Internally, externally, to, like.

259 00:33:57.590 ⇒ 00:33:58.780 Uttam Kumaran: feedback, yeah.

260 00:33:58.780 ⇒ 00:34:01.169 Luke Scorziell: And all those meetings that were recorded, too.

261 00:34:01.170 ⇒ 00:34:05.449 Uttam Kumaran: So Rico and Hannah organized a lot of it, so…

262 00:34:05.770 ⇒ 00:34:10.529 Luke Scorziell: Okay. No, that’s great.

263 00:34:11.560 ⇒ 00:34:14.150 Luke Scorziell: Because I think, yeah, where I’m, like, finding…

264 00:34:15.190 ⇒ 00:34:19.110 Luke Scorziell: myself, and I kind of, like, alluded to this at the end of the call, is there’s, like.

265 00:34:20.560 ⇒ 00:34:25.229 Luke Scorziell: There’s a lot of, like, busyness happening on the ground right now, it’s like… you know.

266 00:34:25.460 ⇒ 00:34:37.060 Luke Scorziell: trying to figure out certain campaigns, doing this, doing that, doing the other, and, like, I think partially it’s, like, valuable probably to spend, like, a little bit of time managing that, but it seems like maybe there’s bigger, like, vision happening on the…

267 00:34:37.330 ⇒ 00:34:48.579 Luke Scorziell: like, just general direction, like, where do we want to go as a company, and what is the messaging, how do we get that, like, decision-making is, like, the top value that Brainforge has, out there, and, like.

268 00:34:48.679 ⇒ 00:34:59.960 Luke Scorziell: I’m… I’m much more of a thinker, strategic than I am really, like, executioner, so it’s nice to me to have people that are, like, down to execute, because, if I, you know, just, hey, do this,

269 00:34:59.960 ⇒ 00:35:01.000 Uttam Kumaran: No, we have no problem.

270 00:35:01.530 ⇒ 00:35:06.430 Uttam Kumaran: anything. Like, we punch, we punch up a lot of ways, like, we’ve gotten ourselves

271 00:35:06.840 ⇒ 00:35:09.710 Uttam Kumaran: Into ways out of sheer determination.

272 00:35:09.860 ⇒ 00:35:10.540 Uttam Kumaran: But…

273 00:35:10.540 ⇒ 00:35:11.350 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.

274 00:35:11.350 ⇒ 00:35:15.869 Uttam Kumaran: But, like, again, it’s inefficient. Like, I think if we just, like.

275 00:35:16.190 ⇒ 00:35:20.799 Uttam Kumaran: Positioned a little bit better. The messaging was, like, a little bit more crisp.

276 00:35:20.900 ⇒ 00:35:37.399 Uttam Kumaran: it would help us price better, it would speed up sales conversations, it would disqualify people faster, it would give recruiting people who are coming into the company a better idea of what we are, it would help us stand out. Like, a lot of what I think about, is, like.

277 00:35:37.540 ⇒ 00:35:43.940 Uttam Kumaran: why is Brainforge different? I don’t… I don’t want people to think about us like consulting.

278 00:35:44.070 ⇒ 00:35:48.999 Uttam Kumaran: Like, and I think Clarence thinks about this, is thinking about this a lot, too, about, like.

279 00:35:49.110 ⇒ 00:36:07.769 Uttam Kumaran: why are we not that, you know? And one of the things that… I listened to a good podcasts just about, like, enterprise sales, and this woman was like, if you’re getting compared to other people, you’ve already sort of lost. Your job should be to explain why you’re something else. Like, you’re not comparable, like, we are something different. And so.

280 00:36:07.910 ⇒ 00:36:09.800 Uttam Kumaran: I think leaning into that.

281 00:36:10.590 ⇒ 00:36:11.180 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.

282 00:36:11.180 ⇒ 00:36:14.479 Uttam Kumaran: And I do think we’re different in so many ways, I just, again, I don’t think we…

283 00:36:14.730 ⇒ 00:36:22.749 Uttam Kumaran: do a good job at, like, codifying that internally, and certainly externally, like, we have a ways to go. But…

284 00:36:22.910 ⇒ 00:36:39.160 Uttam Kumaran: It’s… you see that it’s working, and our… we’ve only been around for a few years, our client, like, testimonials are great, we’re able to ramp up pricing fast, we’re working with several hundred million dollar brands, some north of $200 million, like.

285 00:36:39.300 ⇒ 00:36:41.420 Uttam Kumaran: This is not normal for, like.

286 00:36:41.650 ⇒ 00:36:49.240 Uttam Kumaran: And we’re not funded by anybody, like, it’s sort of… it’s all mostly engineers. So there’s, like, something that’s working.

287 00:36:49.420 ⇒ 00:36:52.089 Uttam Kumaran: That we just have to, like, wrap and above.

288 00:36:52.090 ⇒ 00:36:53.440 Luke Scorziell: identify what that is? Yeah.

289 00:36:53.440 ⇒ 00:36:54.220 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

290 00:36:54.910 ⇒ 00:37:00.799 Luke Scorziell: No, and that’s what… I mean, that’s what, brand is all about, is, like, you find the insight.

291 00:37:01.170 ⇒ 00:37:12.080 Luke Scorziell: if it’s, like, leading, you know, it’s being expressed internally, that then you can start to express externally, and to build that trust, because I think what’s happening, as it sounds like… and even talking to Sam, like, Sam was…

292 00:37:12.350 ⇒ 00:37:27.199 Luke Scorziell: I was like, this guy’s, like, legit, like, he’s just down to talk, he… I could see him being, like, really good client-facing, like, all this stuff. Yes. And just kind of embodied, like, what I was… the vibe I was already getting. And it’s really about, like, how do you take that

293 00:37:27.510 ⇒ 00:37:31.260 Luke Scorziell: kind of… like… behavior slash

294 00:37:31.370 ⇒ 00:37:38.269 Luke Scorziell: messaging that’s happening internally, just automatically with the company, and start to portray that externally, and that could be through…

295 00:37:38.480 ⇒ 00:37:57.910 Luke Scorziell: like, a client testimonial video, I don’t know, like, where, you know, you fly a video crew out to somewhere, and you… you walk through, like, the system or something with them, and then we run that as, like, a LinkedIn ad, or… or a YouTube ad, or something like that, of just, like… or just, like, one asset like that, because I was kind of… kind of breaking it out before…

296 00:37:58.410 ⇒ 00:38:03.190 Luke Scorziell: And there’s, like, the organic content and thought leadership, which I think we’re doing, like, fine at.

297 00:38:03.340 ⇒ 00:38:06.270 Luke Scorziell: I think, obviously, there’s always room for improvement, but it’s like.

298 00:38:06.510 ⇒ 00:38:12.559 Luke Scorziell: I think that at some point, the organic LinkedIn is, you know, probably gonna hit, like, a peak, like.

299 00:38:12.930 ⇒ 00:38:19.910 Luke Scorziell: you know, quality of client that you can get, through doing that, and then… .

300 00:38:19.910 ⇒ 00:38:24.639 Uttam Kumaran: But I think for us, the biggest thing is not volume, right? And this is one thing I often tell…

301 00:38:24.860 ⇒ 00:38:32.850 Uttam Kumaran: because we work with a lot of marketing teams, like, as, like, data teams, and I have a lot of friends in marketing who I talk to about our business.

302 00:38:33.010 ⇒ 00:38:34.230 Uttam Kumaran: And…

303 00:38:34.540 ⇒ 00:38:51.420 Uttam Kumaran: the unique thing about us is there’s… we don’t… I don’t care about impressions, I don’t care about, volume, I only care about conversion, and I only care about the right message to the right person. Like, advice we got from… in consulting is, like.

304 00:38:52.470 ⇒ 00:39:01.109 Uttam Kumaran: Ultimately, if you’re a great consulting company and you’re focused on the right customer, there should only be 50 clients that can… that are your ICP.

305 00:39:02.240 ⇒ 00:39:15.439 Uttam Kumaran: Right? Think about it, like, that’s so crazy to think about, because we… not everybody is a good client of ours, and we’re not trying to scale the number of clients, meaning

306 00:39:15.600 ⇒ 00:39:27.369 Uttam Kumaran: yeah, maybe we get to, like, 30 or 50 clients, but more of what I’m interested in is getting higher ACV clients. Like, I’m… I’m interested in going after half a… half a billion

307 00:39:27.370 ⇒ 00:39:45.350 Uttam Kumaran: billion dollar clients, because when we come in there, the lifetime value is much crazier, and the revenue that they’re… that we can assist them in getting them is much crazier. Like, we stopped working with startups. Man, that’s my whole career, is in startups.

308 00:39:45.390 ⇒ 00:39:53.060 Uttam Kumaran: Because they just don’t… they’re, like, super price-sensitive, they’re incredibly, like, fucked up internally, and…

309 00:39:53.130 ⇒ 00:40:04.799 Uttam Kumaran: they’re, they have a lot of demands, you know, and they often fail. So I decided to stop working for startups. So these days, the only startups we work with are if they’ve raised a ton of money.

310 00:40:05.050 ⇒ 00:40:06.910 Uttam Kumaran: And I have a friend there.

311 00:40:07.490 ⇒ 00:40:12.780 Uttam Kumaran: Otherwise, they don’t work… we don’t work with them, you know? And that’s, like, mostly the case, unless they really are, like.

312 00:40:13.030 ⇒ 00:40:19.069 Uttam Kumaran: some startups are like, they’re like, no, we raised, like, $100 million, this is not gonna fail, and I’m like, okay, we’ll work with you, but…

313 00:40:19.070 ⇒ 00:40:19.530 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.

314 00:40:19.530 ⇒ 00:40:27.010 Uttam Kumaran: stop. And so instead, I’m work… I’m interested in working with McDonald’s, Pepsi, like, these boring places, you know?

315 00:40:27.030 ⇒ 00:40:40.869 Uttam Kumaran: So that’s what I think the interesting thing for marketing here is, like, we’re not going for scale. I’m going for the message that, like, pierces the person that knows this problem well, you know?

316 00:40:40.870 ⇒ 00:40:41.220 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.

317 00:40:41.220 ⇒ 00:40:52.700 Uttam Kumaran: Like, it pierces them in the heart, they’re like, oh my god, these are the guys we need. Most people should go past our stuff and be like, I have no idea what that means, right? I’m not… even for you to come in and say, like.

318 00:40:52.700 ⇒ 00:41:11.050 Uttam Kumaran: it’s still unclear what you guys do. I’m perfectly okay with that. You know, you’re not my ICP at all, you know, and so I’m not… I’m worried about you understanding what we do, because you’re helping us, like, with marketing stuff, but if you walk by our ad, I don’t care about you, no. It’s not… you’re not… it’s not relevant to me that

319 00:41:11.070 ⇒ 00:41:16.499 Uttam Kumaran: I’m not trying to spend money on you knowing who we are, because I’m… what I’m looking for is that

320 00:41:16.820 ⇒ 00:41:22.569 Uttam Kumaran: like, 35 to 55-year-old, head of growth, VP of marketing.

321 00:41:22.660 ⇒ 00:41:41.680 Uttam Kumaran: that, like, probably spends time on LinkedIn and Facebook, that runs, like, a couple hundred person organization, that has board meetings and decks, whose company is kind of slow, and they’re starting to start to slow down, they have no… they can’t attract young people in the company, like, they don’t know where change is gonna happen.

322 00:41:41.870 ⇒ 00:41:44.100 Uttam Kumaran: Those are a perfect place for us.

323 00:41:44.240 ⇒ 00:42:00.410 Uttam Kumaran: You know, because we come in and we’re like a breath of fresh air for these guys. We move the needle, we move super, super fast, and we, like, work well internally. You’re seeing this with our work with, with CES, the company CTA that I mentioned.

324 00:42:00.730 ⇒ 00:42:11.190 Uttam Kumaran: They’re a large company, historic company. They brought in some new people on the digital side. The internals of the company are super legacy. We come in, we’re helping them establish data.

325 00:42:11.300 ⇒ 00:42:25.579 Uttam Kumaran: We’re very, very poised in the way we do it, and they love us. They want to expand scope with us. Those are the ones that we need. Like, I think… and again, this is not, like, gonna happen overnight, but…

326 00:42:25.960 ⇒ 00:42:30.529 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know, this is my… and also my perspective, like, I feel like that’s where…

327 00:42:30.950 ⇒ 00:42:32.500 Luke Scorziell: We want to…

328 00:42:32.500 ⇒ 00:42:39.679 Uttam Kumaran: take the companies, but because we could build an entire company on 5 of those types of deals that just balloon to, like.

329 00:42:40.460 ⇒ 00:42:47.330 Uttam Kumaran: Those would be, like, million dollar deals each, if we get to, like, Fortune 1000, Fortune 2000, versus…

330 00:42:48.090 ⇒ 00:42:52.559 Uttam Kumaran: prying at the 20 to 30K a month things is not where we’re gonna build

331 00:42:52.820 ⇒ 00:43:09.180 Uttam Kumaran: a super, super successful business. It is a really a growth marketer, like, it’s a tough problem, you know? You can’t do the usual tactics, like, you can’t just scale ads, it’s just not how people buy our product, like, they have to meet me, or they have to feel like…

332 00:43:09.350 ⇒ 00:43:12.999 Uttam Kumaran: It’s a sales process. You’re not clicked to buy on a $50,000 a month.

333 00:43:13.170 ⇒ 00:43:21.289 Uttam Kumaran: like, a thing, you know what I mean? And we’re only $50,000 a month, as long as… until we get to the next rung, so…

334 00:43:21.630 ⇒ 00:43:26.669 Uttam Kumaran: these are relationship things, you know, and… and I don’t know, I think maybe it…

335 00:43:26.990 ⇒ 00:43:35.390 Uttam Kumaran: But I also don’t know whether you could look to Accenture or Deloitte or these companies, because a lot of them are doing it through, like, they’ve been in business a long time.

336 00:43:35.520 ⇒ 00:43:41.929 Uttam Kumaran: You can’t get fired by hiring them. A lot of the people leave, go to other companies, and just bring these guys with them.

337 00:43:42.480 ⇒ 00:43:48.749 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t think they’re particularly great at marketing, maybe they are, maybe I’m just, again, not in their ICP, so I don’t really see it, but…

338 00:43:49.830 ⇒ 00:43:52.220 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I don’t know, that’s how I think it’s an interesting challenge.

339 00:43:52.220 ⇒ 00:43:54.559 Luke Scorziell: Well, they… I mean, they have the whole pipeline of, like.

340 00:43:54.730 ⇒ 00:44:00.619 Luke Scorziell: you get someone out of Ivy League or, like, top education school, you hire them for a little bit.

341 00:44:00.740 ⇒ 00:44:13.580 Luke Scorziell: they go to business school, they go to a PE firm, or vice versa, and then eventually end up working at the companies, and then probably they go and hire back the consulting firms that they used to work for. So, like, their whole brand process building is, like, a bit…

342 00:44:13.850 ⇒ 00:44:18.930 Luke Scorziell: is interesting, because it’s not like you’re seeing, like, Accenture, McKinsey, Bain, BCG, or whatever ads, like.

343 00:44:19.130 ⇒ 00:44:24.889 Luke Scorziell: run, I mean, maybe once in a while, but, like, it’s like, you want to work there because it’s, like, Stanford or Harvard or something.

344 00:44:24.890 ⇒ 00:44:25.230 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

345 00:44:25.410 ⇒ 00:44:27.110 Luke Scorziell: Because it fills your ego.

346 00:44:27.280 ⇒ 00:44:27.979 Luke Scorziell: No, it’s boring.

347 00:44:27.980 ⇒ 00:44:33.159 Uttam Kumaran: But I can tell you also, like, we’re recruiting from people from there, and…

348 00:44:33.470 ⇒ 00:44:40.259 Uttam Kumaran: our messaging, and Ryan, helped me put together the messaging for this, but we hammer on the fact that, like.

349 00:44:40.540 ⇒ 00:44:58.779 Uttam Kumaran: hey, do you want to be at a company where there is upward mobility, you have ownership, you’re working with smart people? Like, I really dog… one of the ways that I talk about our business is in talking about how bad those guys are, like, how much they suck. And part… someone explained to me, it’s like, yeah, you’re pulling from, like, their…

350 00:44:58.890 ⇒ 00:45:03.509 Uttam Kumaran: you’re pulling from their brand, but doing it in a way that, like, helps us, where, like, I could…

351 00:45:03.770 ⇒ 00:45:14.199 Uttam Kumaran: no one has… everybody, if I say Accenture sucks, and they’re big, and they’re all boomers, they don’t do anything, they charge $100,000 for a deck, everybody’s like, yeah, F those guys. You know, nobody’s, like, coming to their defense.

352 00:45:14.440 ⇒ 00:45:26.060 Uttam Kumaran: And so it’s easy for me to pick on them and be like… and so we do that a lot. I tend to talk about them in an extremely negative light, because a lot of people know them. They don’t know us, but they also know

353 00:45:26.190 ⇒ 00:45:34.519 Uttam Kumaran: I can say we are the opposite of them, and here’s what they are, and they’re like, okay, I understand who you are now. Versus, if I was to explain us.

354 00:45:34.820 ⇒ 00:45:44.069 Uttam Kumaran: it’s a little bit, like, tougher, and… and I have no, there’s no business retribution, I don’t work for those… I don’t care about those people, so there’s nothing wrong with me bashing, it’s like…

355 00:45:44.240 ⇒ 00:45:46.020 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, it’s like, it’s just…

356 00:45:46.970 ⇒ 00:45:52.689 Uttam Kumaran: Those… I also believe that. I don’t… I think there are good people that work there. I don’t think I’m really broadly generalizing, but…

357 00:45:52.900 ⇒ 00:46:03.920 Uttam Kumaran: I think those places kind of stink, and they don’t care about their customers, and we do, and… and yeah, I mean, we… I think we are probably who they were when they first started.

358 00:46:03.920 ⇒ 00:46:04.530 Luke Scorziell: Huh.

359 00:46:04.670 ⇒ 00:46:14.020 Uttam Kumaran: And if you ask anyone who works at those companies, ask them about bureaucracy, ask them about how when they come in, their sole job is to maximize margin and revenue,

360 00:46:14.350 ⇒ 00:46:21.989 Uttam Kumaran: their job, they don’t wake up thinking about whether their client is doing well or not. You know, like, how could… that’s nothing like us, you know?

361 00:46:23.670 ⇒ 00:46:31.770 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, it’s funny, one of my questions that I typically ask people is what pisses you off about your competition, because it’s like, it gets the easiest, or it’s the easiest.

362 00:46:31.770 ⇒ 00:46:32.210 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

363 00:46:32.210 ⇒ 00:46:34.610 Luke Scorziell: You get in touch with the passion that you feel for your company?

364 00:46:34.930 ⇒ 00:46:35.540 Uttam Kumaran: Those guys suck.

365 00:46:35.540 ⇒ 00:46:39.629 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, they’re… Yeah, I think they suck. I think they’re, like.

366 00:46:39.630 ⇒ 00:46:44.129 Uttam Kumaran: Again, I think they were good. I think, unfortunately, they hogged the airwaves.

367 00:46:45.970 ⇒ 00:46:51.080 Uttam Kumaran: But, like, yeah, I don’t know, I think there’s plenty of room. And if you… if I were to tell you about how much

368 00:46:51.500 ⇒ 00:47:05.260 Uttam Kumaran: they’re charging for some of the stuff we’re doing, you would, like, throw up, like, you know, and it’s, like, it’s crazy, but what is the difference? There’s no difference between our skill set and their skill set. It is brand. It’s only brand is the way out, I think.

369 00:47:05.260 ⇒ 00:47:07.000 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, yeah.

370 00:47:07.000 ⇒ 00:47:10.500 Uttam Kumaran: We are doing better work, and we are doing it faster, you know?

371 00:47:10.990 ⇒ 00:47:14.169 Uttam Kumaran: So it’s either gotta be sales process, or it’s gotta be brand.

372 00:47:14.910 ⇒ 00:47:17.540 Luke Scorziell: Well, what on the brand side would you think

373 00:47:17.990 ⇒ 00:47:32.289 Luke Scorziell: I mean, obviously, I can have my ideas and stuff, but are there, like, pain points or areas where you’re like, if we had this, it would, like, massively help us? I mean, obviously, we talked about the messaging and getting a little bit more clear for those, but, like, are there assets, or just, like, you know, even just asking for myself, like, nobody…

374 00:47:32.290 ⇒ 00:47:38.420 Uttam Kumaran: We have to… yeah, I feel like, for me, the biggest question is finding out

375 00:47:39.940 ⇒ 00:47:45.029 Uttam Kumaran: like, if I… like, let’s say tomorrow, I was like, hey, I want to go pitch McDonald’s.

376 00:47:45.560 ⇒ 00:47:46.270 Luke Scorziell: Huh.

377 00:47:46.270 ⇒ 00:47:52.070 Uttam Kumaran: what does that even look like? Are we even set up from a sales and a brand perspective to, like, talk

378 00:47:52.330 ⇒ 00:48:02.280 Uttam Kumaran: to a person like that, if the McDonald’s head… for example, if the McDonald’s head of, like, Fry Analytics North America goes on Brainforge AI,

379 00:48:02.840 ⇒ 00:48:06.060 Uttam Kumaran: Does he see… is he like, oh, these guys are small beans?

380 00:48:06.300 ⇒ 00:48:12.639 Uttam Kumaran: You know? Or, like, you know, or not, and…

381 00:48:12.920 ⇒ 00:48:22.779 Uttam Kumaran: It’s funny, because I think when you go to our site, I took a lot from just, like, modern landing page design and stuff, but maybe we do have to get more boring to hit that person.

382 00:48:22.950 ⇒ 00:48:28.409 Uttam Kumaran: Right? Like, maybe that person is used to going to, like, A really big enterprise.

383 00:48:28.690 ⇒ 00:48:43.730 Uttam Kumaran: Accenture-style stuff that says all this stupid jargon. Maybe that’s right, you know? And so, like, this is just, like, what we have to test, but for me, I’m thinking about that guy, the, like, 50-year-old head of Fry Analytics, North America, who’s, like.

384 00:48:43.840 ⇒ 00:48:51.619 Uttam Kumaran: My data team needs to grow, I need to hire, like, 40 people, and we’re not moving fast enough, need to compress timelines, or I’m gonna get fired.

385 00:48:51.770 ⇒ 00:48:55.109 Uttam Kumaran: I have $5 million to do this over 5 years.

386 00:48:55.270 ⇒ 00:48:56.579 Uttam Kumaran: I need a partner.

387 00:48:57.180 ⇒ 00:49:00.889 Uttam Kumaran: You know? So I think about, like, why would Brainforge

388 00:49:01.400 ⇒ 00:49:05.630 Uttam Kumaran: stand out in his… in… why would… how would Brainforge come out, like.

389 00:49:06.130 ⇒ 00:49:12.460 Uttam Kumaran: one, we’re not emailing, we’re not talking to those folks, but, like, should we… should we brand a little differently towards enterprise versus…

390 00:49:12.570 ⇒ 00:49:15.160 Uttam Kumaran: I think we are branding closer to, like.

391 00:49:15.320 ⇒ 00:49:20.630 Uttam Kumaran: mid-market companies now? Like, I don’t know, these are the things that I’m, like, not sure. I don’t know.

392 00:49:21.990 ⇒ 00:49:22.580 Luke Scorziell: Well, yeah.

393 00:49:22.580 ⇒ 00:49:30.970 Uttam Kumaran: If you told me that, hey, you should turn your site HTML and just have, like, garbage jargon, and it would get you that deal, let’s do it tomorrow.

394 00:49:31.300 ⇒ 00:49:32.360 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t care.

395 00:49:32.530 ⇒ 00:49:38.010 Uttam Kumaran: Because I only care about the business growing, right? I don’t care… I don’t need this to be…

396 00:49:38.520 ⇒ 00:49:42.179 Uttam Kumaran: this is where, like, I think it takes some creativity to find out, like.

397 00:49:42.340 ⇒ 00:49:47.180 Uttam Kumaran: Should we… is there… was there… is there a reason behind the way they advertise or not?

398 00:49:47.640 ⇒ 00:49:51.169 Uttam Kumaran: And maybe, like, is there a playbook that they’re running or not?

399 00:49:51.810 ⇒ 00:50:04.990 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know, because I only know how to… how we’ve got a got to here, and both my world and Robert’s world, in terms of marketing and brand, is really shaped by the companies we worked at and the companies we currently work with, which are all, like.

400 00:50:05.660 ⇒ 00:50:10.989 Uttam Kumaran: e-commerce, CPG, a lot of consumer, some B2B SaaS.

401 00:50:11.690 ⇒ 00:50:18.809 Uttam Kumaran: But, like, we don’t work for any, like, large professional services, you know, company, so we don’t… I don’t think we… both of us have, like.

402 00:50:19.650 ⇒ 00:50:22.249 Uttam Kumaran: The, you know, the mine for that, so…

403 00:50:23.060 ⇒ 00:50:29.889 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, yeah, so it’s really, I guess, to echo that back is, like, finding out What are the drivers?

404 00:50:30.680 ⇒ 00:50:35.899 Luke Scorziell: for why, like, a large, I don’t know, global enterprise would work with Brainforge.

405 00:50:36.730 ⇒ 00:50:39.510 Luke Scorziell: How… why would they see them as a reputable brand?

406 00:50:39.820 ⇒ 00:50:40.150 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.

407 00:50:40.320 ⇒ 00:50:44.789 Luke Scorziell: And then, even in my mind, it’s like, if you shoot for McDonald’s and you end up with, like.

408 00:50:45.110 ⇒ 00:50:47.930 Luke Scorziell: you know, someone a lot further down the list, it’s…

409 00:50:47.930 ⇒ 00:51:00.080 Uttam Kumaran: There’s a lot of companies, yeah, there’s a lot of companies. The reason I don’t… I would say X company you never heard of. Like, John Booze, I know Booze blocks, and I called them, and I was like, oh, I love the blocks, and they’re like, oh yeah, that’s like…

410 00:51:00.340 ⇒ 00:51:03.670 Uttam Kumaran: That’s, like, such a side project for us. We’re a steel company.

411 00:51:03.810 ⇒ 00:51:04.650 Uttam Kumaran: I was like, what?

412 00:51:04.650 ⇒ 00:51:05.330 Luke Scorziell: Huh.

413 00:51:05.330 ⇒ 00:51:09.020 Uttam Kumaran: They’re like, yeah, we’re like a… we’re, like, one of the largest steel mani… steel…

414 00:51:09.260 ⇒ 00:51:12.970 Uttam Kumaran: We put together, like, most of the kitchens in America.

415 00:51:13.100 ⇒ 00:51:17.819 Uttam Kumaran: And Booze Blocks is just, like, a little side thing we do, because we wanted to do woodworking.

416 00:51:17.990 ⇒ 00:51:18.859 Uttam Kumaran: I was like.

417 00:51:19.400 ⇒ 00:51:22.870 Luke Scorziell: I don’t even… like, what? You know, so… Yeah.

418 00:51:23.080 ⇒ 00:51:27.410 Uttam Kumaran: There’s a lot of companies like that that are just sitting there, so…

419 00:51:27.590 ⇒ 00:51:33.129 Luke Scorziell: The reason I say Fortune 2000 is for exactly the way you put it. It’s like, you shoot for them, you end up a little…

420 00:51:33.250 ⇒ 00:51:37.410 Uttam Kumaran: you end up lower, because those guys want to work with Accenture and these guys.

421 00:51:37.560 ⇒ 00:51:39.850 Uttam Kumaran: But their price point is crazy.

422 00:51:40.460 ⇒ 00:51:40.780 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.

423 00:51:40.780 ⇒ 00:51:53.410 Uttam Kumaran: If you call… if you call Bain and these guys, they’re… they, like, they have crazy minimums, so what is a John Boost to do, is to, like, go lower. But also, they can’t work for, like, freelancers, you know?

424 00:51:53.670 ⇒ 00:51:54.360 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, yeah.

425 00:51:54.360 ⇒ 00:52:03.490 Uttam Kumaran: Find someone like us that’s kind of in the middle, they meet a guy like me, who’s… they’re like, okay, these guys are like… this guy’s… I like this dude, seems like his operation is small.

426 00:52:03.590 ⇒ 00:52:18.400 Uttam Kumaran: But, like, maybe we give them a shot, maybe I… maybe I press them on the price, so, like, worst case, it’s like, even if they suck, we can get rid of them fast. Best case, they’re good, and we get a fat deal. I’m sure that’s how they’re thinking about me, you know?

427 00:52:18.400 ⇒ 00:52:24.689 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, yeah, huh. Yeah, and they’re funny, too, because it’s like…

428 00:52:26.390 ⇒ 00:52:33.179 Luke Scorziell: They’re just making so much money that it doesn’t make sense, or they haven’t… it hasn’t had been an issue for them to know which product.

429 00:52:33.180 ⇒ 00:52:36.899 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, when you heard that on that call, it was crazy. I was like.

430 00:52:36.900 ⇒ 00:52:37.440 Luke Scorziell: What do you mean?

431 00:52:37.440 ⇒ 00:52:50.540 Uttam Kumaran: That’s what I’m saying, it’s a totally different… it’s a totally different market that I don’t think many people, as just a general average American, have no idea about the problems that these types of people are facing at that level.

432 00:52:50.860 ⇒ 00:52:56.829 Uttam Kumaran: But also, for… it’s like, at that level, there’s not many people that can solve it, you know?

433 00:52:57.100 ⇒ 00:52:57.710 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, and I think.

434 00:52:57.710 ⇒ 00:52:59.259 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so it’s the same thing.

435 00:52:59.260 ⇒ 00:53:03.680 Luke Scorziell: We’ve undergone this shift in the last, like, 20, 30 years, where there’s

436 00:53:04.420 ⇒ 00:53:12.039 Luke Scorziell: I mean, just in the last year or two, it’s been… AI has been a massive shift, but then before that, it’s like, there was just getting on, like, software away from.

437 00:53:12.040 ⇒ 00:53:12.800 Uttam Kumaran: exploiting the cloud.

438 00:53:12.800 ⇒ 00:53:14.770 Luke Scorziell: On-prem… yeah, on-prem.

439 00:53:14.770 ⇒ 00:53:15.210 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.

440 00:53:15.210 ⇒ 00:53:17.870 Luke Scorziell: of… So, whatever.

441 00:53:17.870 ⇒ 00:53:24.379 Uttam Kumaran: And the AI thing is still, like, not here. Like, we’re all using ChatGPT personally, but at the enterprise level.

442 00:53:24.540 ⇒ 00:53:40.889 Uttam Kumaran: like, you’re not seeing it at all. I think our company, Brainforge, is one of the few companies that we, like, push it so much, but across all our clients, nobody is using it to the level we are. And the larger they are, the longer it’s gonna take, you know?

443 00:53:41.190 ⇒ 00:53:45.909 Luke Scorziell: Yeah. Well, so, I mean, it’s interesting, because talking to you is, like, a different set of problems

444 00:53:46.200 ⇒ 00:53:47.980 Luke Scorziell: Which are probably more important.

445 00:53:47.980 ⇒ 00:53:48.610 Uttam Kumaran: What do you mean?

446 00:53:48.630 ⇒ 00:53:52.659 Luke Scorziell: than what I… or just not… Just… I think…

447 00:53:52.870 ⇒ 00:54:09.240 Luke Scorziell: and talking with, like, the everyone on the ground, and maybe even Robert has a little bit more of, like, you know, this is what’s going on with the go-to-market team, and here are a lot of the problems probably he’s feeling and stuff, but then maybe you having a little bit more distance, it’s like, seeing the vision of, like, okay, this is actually where we want to go.

448 00:54:09.340 ⇒ 00:54:09.910 Luke Scorziell: As a.

449 00:54:09.910 ⇒ 00:54:20.640 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I don’t want to tell you about, like, yeah, I know that we need to run better sequences, and we need to have plays that are always on. Like, I know that’s, like, that’s… that’s what’s… I’m not helpful to reiterate that.

450 00:54:20.890 ⇒ 00:54:25.330 Uttam Kumaran: And I never had fear over the work that we do, and, like, our quality.

451 00:54:25.760 ⇒ 00:54:27.719 Uttam Kumaran: For me, it’s like…

452 00:54:29.510 ⇒ 00:54:34.590 Uttam Kumaran: How are we gonna take this from, like, a $2milliontoa$10 million business?

453 00:54:34.590 ⇒ 00:54:36.789 Luke Scorziell: And then how are we gonna go from 10 to 50?

454 00:54:37.070 ⇒ 00:54:41.379 Uttam Kumaran: And so that’s, like, what I wanna… I wanna give you that perspective, which is, like.

455 00:54:42.370 ⇒ 00:54:46.329 Uttam Kumaran: all of those little execution pieces have to happen, but I’m actually not…

456 00:54:46.880 ⇒ 00:54:52.300 Uttam Kumaran: we will make more money, and I can always pay for those things. What I can’t pay for is, like.

457 00:54:52.620 ⇒ 00:54:57.129 Uttam Kumaran: I want… I don’t want to do that over 20 years, like, I want to do that over 5.

458 00:54:57.450 ⇒ 00:55:04.959 Uttam Kumaran: And I also want to learn from everybody’s wins and mistakes in the industry, and try things.

459 00:55:05.070 ⇒ 00:55:12.120 Uttam Kumaran: And, like, that’s my perspective, is, like, our… the way we get there faster is, like, by trying, and…

460 00:55:13.330 ⇒ 00:55:24.559 Uttam Kumaran: like, the risk… our risk tolerance is… like, we… we… we can try things, and we don’t have, like, a board, we don’t have, like… and we don’t have, like, a whole thing going on. This is us, you know? And so…

461 00:55:24.560 ⇒ 00:55:25.360 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, I am.

462 00:55:25.650 ⇒ 00:55:27.840 Uttam Kumaran: And I do think.

463 00:55:27.840 ⇒ 00:55:28.180 Luke Scorziell: I think that.

464 00:55:28.180 ⇒ 00:55:32.449 Uttam Kumaran: can compete with those guys who, they do have a board, they have all this bureaucracy. It’s like.

465 00:55:32.600 ⇒ 00:55:35.499 Uttam Kumaran: You know, and I don’t know, I feel like…

466 00:55:35.830 ⇒ 00:55:42.170 Uttam Kumaran: we have a shot at, like, a huge ticket, and it’s the AI thing is just, like.

467 00:55:42.330 ⇒ 00:55:52.109 Uttam Kumaran: insane. Like, we’re so early on the business side with AI, also on the consumer side, but for me, the business side is where the money is.

468 00:55:52.640 ⇒ 00:55:53.480 Luke Scorziell: And, like…

469 00:55:53.650 ⇒ 00:55:59.970 Uttam Kumaran: If we can get ahead of that, and we can brand ourselves on that, and we can take advantage of all the marketing.

470 00:56:00.120 ⇒ 00:56:07.130 Uttam Kumaran: and spend that’s gonna come into driving AI adoption, and we can hook into even just, like, a small piece of that.

471 00:56:07.300 ⇒ 00:56:13.109 Uttam Kumaran: you’re gonna see this business, like, go crazy. But see, this is also the thing is, like, dude, I spend…

472 00:56:13.680 ⇒ 00:56:21.230 Uttam Kumaran: like, I spend probably 30 minutes every, like, 3 or 4 days thinking of, like, at this level. I can’t, I just have to, like.

473 00:56:21.400 ⇒ 00:56:24.439 Uttam Kumaran: I wake up, and I’m… I’m in, like.

474 00:56:24.670 ⇒ 00:56:37.019 Uttam Kumaran: 3 or 4… like, while I’m on every meeting, I’m doing 2 or 3 other meetings that I’m missing, so I can’t… I don’t have much time now to spend on this. We are buying back a lot of that, like, we’re gonna bring in

475 00:56:37.020 ⇒ 00:56:47.840 Uttam Kumaran: some leadership, you heard a little bit about what Clarence is doing, so we’re gonna build a little bit more, and then all my time is gonna go more to this, more to partnerships, and then to more enterprise selling.

476 00:56:48.990 ⇒ 00:56:54.489 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. But this is where we just don’t have a lot of people… we just don’t have a lot of brainpower going to this.

477 00:56:54.710 ⇒ 00:57:01.830 Uttam Kumaran: a lot of the… we’ve gone here because me and Robert are sort of attached, like, our brains are a little bit similar in that we know

478 00:57:02.030 ⇒ 00:57:03.630 Uttam Kumaran: Where we’re going, but…

479 00:57:03.980 ⇒ 00:57:08.840 Uttam Kumaran: For us to get to that level, like, you can’t sort of, like, stumble your way there.

480 00:57:08.840 ⇒ 00:57:09.499 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, it’s not…

481 00:57:09.500 ⇒ 00:57:15.570 Uttam Kumaran: intentional. Yeah, like, we can’t have a $5,000clientanda$100,000 client.

482 00:57:15.690 ⇒ 00:57:20.890 Uttam Kumaran: You know, so we almost have to, like, think about what that company is like.

483 00:57:21.700 ⇒ 00:57:28.150 Uttam Kumaran: And be… are we okay with doing those things? Can we get there? What needs to change, you know?

484 00:57:28.780 ⇒ 00:57:30.890 Luke Scorziell: Yeah. Yeah.

485 00:57:32.080 ⇒ 00:57:37.400 Luke Scorziell: I mean, that’s like music to my ears, because I love thinking about this stuff, and then just even as you’re talking, I’m like.

486 00:57:38.020 ⇒ 00:57:45.490 Luke Scorziell: You know, maybe the best use case of my time also would just be, like, even, like, looking and searching out people to, like, interview and learn about, like.

487 00:57:46.030 ⇒ 00:57:48.079 Luke Scorziell: How did they get to…

488 00:57:48.290 ⇒ 00:57:55.299 Luke Scorziell: even just speaking to people who are maybe in the position of, like, the head of analytics in the fry department or whatever at McDonald’s, like, who’s in that profile?

489 00:57:55.300 ⇒ 00:57:55.750 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

490 00:57:55.750 ⇒ 00:58:00.470 Luke Scorziell: Who’s been in that profile in the past? Who have they worked with? Who have those people worked with?

491 00:58:00.470 ⇒ 00:58:01.250 Uttam Kumaran: How do they choose?

492 00:58:01.250 ⇒ 00:58:05.150 Luke Scorziell: The networking component, yeah, like, what does an RFP process look like for them?

493 00:58:06.070 ⇒ 00:58:06.860 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

494 00:58:06.860 ⇒ 00:58:13.169 Luke Scorziell: And… when would… when, if ever, would they go as someone who’s not one of the, like, big consultancies?

495 00:58:13.170 ⇒ 00:58:13.660 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

496 00:58:13.660 ⇒ 00:58:17.159 Luke Scorziell: Because I think, like, like, my background’s in, in,

497 00:58:18.300 ⇒ 00:58:21.139 Luke Scorziell: like, debate, and I used to do, like.

498 00:58:21.650 ⇒ 00:58:30.370 Luke Scorziell: still research for the debate team, and I was the third speaker, so I would close, and, like, it was, like, modified form for the parliamentary.

499 00:58:30.440 ⇒ 00:58:42.140 Luke Scorziell: And, like, that for me is just, like, doing the research, digging it all up, interviewing people. I’ve run, like, two podcasts. I have a podcast right now that I’m doing where I just interview people because I’m curious about it. So, like, that’s the stuff that, like.

500 00:58:42.630 ⇒ 00:58:45.130 Luke Scorziell: If we needed, like, more insights just on, like.

501 00:58:45.130 ⇒ 00:58:51.200 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, and dude, you can leverage my entire network and my entire image and likeness to go after these people.

502 00:58:51.690 ⇒ 00:59:02.619 Uttam Kumaran: like, we are… we are… the longer we’re in business, we are now one or two degrees from a lot of people. Like, if you were like, hey, I want to go talk to someone who’s senior in marketing at Bain.

503 00:59:03.080 ⇒ 00:59:15.640 Uttam Kumaran: I’m sure if you just got me a bunch of those people, I’m like, could probably get us an intro to go be like, hey, we’re running a small company marketing firm, what can we learn from you guys? I’m sure I can get you that call.

504 00:59:15.780 ⇒ 00:59:21.329 Uttam Kumaran: This is what I tell my team a lot, is like, you should find the people, and I’ll tell you how we get there.

505 00:59:21.580 ⇒ 00:59:25.029 Luke Scorziell: It’s sort of like what I sent you yesterday, right? We were talking, and I’m like.

506 00:59:25.030 ⇒ 00:59:27.369 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, my friend’s connected to this guy, let me just, like…

507 00:59:27.370 ⇒ 00:59:27.950 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.

508 00:59:27.950 ⇒ 00:59:33.039 Uttam Kumaran: Send him, he’s like, dude, that’s my, like, close homie in SF or something. Okay, cool, like…

509 00:59:33.300 ⇒ 00:59:35.599 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, perfect, done.

510 00:59:35.600 ⇒ 00:59:41.340 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, okay, sweet. Well, I can… I can work on that, and I guess, yeah, I know we’re kind of butting up against time, too,

511 00:59:41.570 ⇒ 00:59:44.310 Luke Scorziell: I have… so randomly…

512 00:59:44.980 ⇒ 00:59:53.520 Luke Scorziell: I was like, this is such a, like, crazy coincidence or whatever. I was like, oh, I’d like to meet with you to Robert and you, Tom, about

513 00:59:53.680 ⇒ 00:59:59.669 Luke Scorziell: Just generally, like, the go-to-market team structure, the lead stuff, all that stuff, and then he’s like, oh, well, this weekend we’re meeting, and.

514 00:59:59.670 ⇒ 01:00:03.449 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, we are here. San Francisco. Okay, yeah, yeah, he told me, yeah, he slacked me, yeah.

515 01:00:03.710 ⇒ 01:00:05.609 Luke Scorziell: Oh, did you slack you about…

516 01:00:05.610 ⇒ 01:00:10.420 Uttam Kumaran: he said… well, I saw, I just totally forgot, yeah, he mentioned that… I think he mentioned that you’re…

517 01:00:10.530 ⇒ 01:00:15.770 Uttam Kumaran: I’ll be there tomorrow. I would randomly…

518 01:00:16.610 ⇒ 01:00:27.010 Luke Scorziell: like, kind of last minute, which caused a bunch of family drama, but it’s okay. I decided to go to spend our Christmas with my girlfriend’s family, and they’re up in Berkeley. And.

519 01:00:27.010 ⇒ 01:00:27.830 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, awesome.

520 01:00:27.830 ⇒ 01:00:30.849 Luke Scorziell: I just… I bought flights from LAX to SFO.

521 01:00:31.000 ⇒ 01:00:31.600 Luke Scorziell: or not.

522 01:00:31.600 ⇒ 01:00:32.030 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, nice!

523 01:00:32.030 ⇒ 01:00:39.180 Luke Scorziell: Which is different. And so, literally, he was like, oh, we’re gonna be in SF on, saturday.

524 01:00:39.480 ⇒ 01:00:43.090 Luke Scorziell: If you wanted to buy flights, and I was like, oh, lol, I’m already gonna be in.

525 01:00:43.460 ⇒ 01:00:50.910 Luke Scorziell: I just probably need to move up to an earlier flight. So if you wanted to, like, if it makes sense to meet up with you guys.

526 01:00:50.910 ⇒ 01:00:53.979 Uttam Kumaran: We’re… so we’re gonna… so we’re all gonna meet up Saturday.

527 01:00:54.110 ⇒ 01:00:56.349 Uttam Kumaran: in, like, San Ramon, in the East Bay.

528 01:00:56.930 ⇒ 01:00:57.760 Luke Scorziell: Oh, okay.

529 01:00:58.720 ⇒ 01:01:00.600 Uttam Kumaran: You’re in Berkeley now?

530 01:01:00.600 ⇒ 01:01:02.159 Luke Scorziell: Right now, I’m in LA.

531 01:01:02.540 ⇒ 01:01:05.360 Luke Scorziell: Oh, you’re going tomorrow. Literally, yeah.

532 01:01:05.360 ⇒ 01:01:06.280 Uttam Kumaran: on Saturday.

533 01:01:07.250 ⇒ 01:01:13.040 Luke Scorziell: Currently, it’s, like, a later-in-the-day flight, like, I’m supposed to land at 4.20, but there’s a couple earlier flights if.

534 01:01:13.040 ⇒ 01:01:20.119 Uttam Kumaran: If you can go early, and you want to link up with us in San Ramon, yeah, we’ll be spending most of the day together.

535 01:01:20.230 ⇒ 01:01:38.549 Uttam Kumaran: Because his… originally, like, my girlfriend and his… and his wife, the four of us, were just gonna go hang out. I mean, I haven’t seen him in a… I haven’t seen him in, like, maybe a few months. They were just gonna be there, because he’s from there, and I was like, okay, it’s much easier, because my… my parents aren’t in town, but I grew up in San Ramon, in the East Bay.

536 01:01:38.550 ⇒ 01:01:39.250 Luke Scorziell: Oh, cool.

537 01:01:39.250 ⇒ 01:01:45.230 Uttam Kumaran: So we’re gonna go stay at, like, my family’s house there, and that was, like, the four of us, and then Gabe’s also gonna be there.

538 01:01:45.230 ⇒ 01:01:46.590 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.

539 01:01:46.590 ⇒ 01:01:56.709 Uttam Kumaran: I’m actually buying… I’m buying Gabe’s flight right now, so… Gabe’s gonna… Gabe should be there, too. We should all, yeah, just hang out Saturday, too. Totally.

540 01:01:56.710 ⇒ 01:02:03.950 Luke Scorziell: Okay, yeah, that’s funny, because I was like, oh, what are the odds that you happen to be meeting up in San Francisco? I happen to be flying up there.

541 01:02:04.770 ⇒ 01:02:10.549 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, if you’re open to it, and even if you want to just come for, like, an hour or two, I think we’re gonna meet up sometime in the morning, and then…

542 01:02:10.800 ⇒ 01:02:14.080 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, kind of just probably spend the morning and the afternoon.

543 01:02:14.350 ⇒ 01:02:16.680 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so…

544 01:02:16.680 ⇒ 01:02:22.640 Luke Scorziell: Yeah. Okay, sweet. Yeah, I mean, I…

545 01:02:22.840 ⇒ 01:02:28.140 Luke Scorziell: feels exciting to me, so I’m like… or obviously this, but also everything that we’re talking about of, like.

546 01:02:28.400 ⇒ 01:02:30.080 Luke Scorziell: I kind of feel like I’ve been, like.

547 01:02:30.460 ⇒ 01:02:43.459 Luke Scorziell: moving through the ranks of the different marketing things, and started with brand and brand strategy, and then kind of did all the, like, paid media and stuff, which has given me more of the ability to, like, help lead other teams, and

548 01:02:44.430 ⇒ 01:02:47.879 Luke Scorziell: And then… but also, now that I have the context on a lot of the, like.

549 01:02:48.240 ⇒ 01:02:54.480 Luke Scorziell: marketing motions that you need to do, it’s helping you with the brand side even more, I think, to understand why it’s important.

550 01:02:54.740 ⇒ 01:02:58.410 Luke Scorziell: So yeah, I’m hyped, I’m excited to see…

551 01:02:59.140 ⇒ 01:03:04.139 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I think this is, like, sort of how we operate. Again, I try to tell people that this is not, like.

552 01:03:04.570 ⇒ 01:03:08.130 Uttam Kumaran: it’s just not, like, a normal company. It’s run by two, like, sort of, like.

553 01:03:08.450 ⇒ 01:03:25.179 Uttam Kumaran: I just don’t care for the way that things are always done, and I think a lot of the ways that, like, recruiting and hiring are done is because of some recruiter that just decided a policy. Like, we don’t do that. I’m like, you come check it out, do some work, see what you like.

554 01:03:25.400 ⇒ 01:03:32.380 Uttam Kumaran: if you want to carve out, you think there’s… there’s ways to help, I’ll tell you if we can afford it or not, and…

555 01:03:32.740 ⇒ 01:03:41.959 Uttam Kumaran: that’s it, like, we go. And you can tell all the people who are in the company are all, like, kind of non-traditional backgrounds, too. Like.

556 01:03:42.360 ⇒ 01:03:46.920 Uttam Kumaran: like, you know Sam used to run, like, a hair care company? .

557 01:03:47.100 ⇒ 01:03:48.489 Luke Scorziell: I think he mentioned that, and I was like.

558 01:03:48.490 ⇒ 01:04:04.649 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, like, a lot of the company I’ve hired off Slack or Discord, like, it’s just, like, a weird mix of people from all over, like, who are all sort of product people that worked in product engineering or product companies. No consultants, really, like…

559 01:04:04.960 ⇒ 01:04:21.709 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t think there’s a… I think Clarence is the only consultant, but we actually need him, because he’s helping us think about, like, how do you run a consulting company? But… Yeah, it’s a cool crew of people, like, I think we’ve gotten very, very lucky. I mean, our whole product is our people, like, there’s no…

560 01:04:21.800 ⇒ 01:04:35.429 Uttam Kumaran: we don’t sell products, right? So we build for people, and so without good people, like, our clients, there’s nothing to… I can’t do anything, you know? And so, for us, like, our people are really, really matter, and we’ve…

561 01:04:35.600 ⇒ 01:04:45.209 Uttam Kumaran: I think for us, it’s like, we’ve gotten a lot of great experiences, and we’re sort of now figuring out, like, what is a Brainforge team member? What is a great Brainforge engineer?

562 01:04:45.760 ⇒ 01:04:50.370 Uttam Kumaran: And… how does that result in amazing client outcomes? You know, so…

563 01:04:51.200 ⇒ 01:04:55.560 Uttam Kumaran: I think cons… this is… in consulting, I think both, and that… in marketing, I think.

564 01:04:56.060 ⇒ 01:05:06.500 Uttam Kumaran: it’s not really clear what to do, but also, there’s not much great… like, other people are not doing anything. Like, it’s such a boring industry. Nobody is trying interesting stuff.

565 01:05:06.620 ⇒ 01:05:24.440 Uttam Kumaran: most of the time, we… people look at us, they’re like, oh my god, you guys are, like, IT consultants, and you’re doing events, social, all this stuff. So, for as opaque as it can seem, that’s also the opportunity, is that nobody is, like, doing anything. In e-commerce, everything is being done. There’s no room.

566 01:05:24.440 ⇒ 01:05:34.039 Uttam Kumaran: In consulting, there’s so much room, like, nobody’s doing anything. All of the consultancies suck at marketing, brand building.

567 01:05:34.440 ⇒ 01:05:36.959 Uttam Kumaran: things like that. Most of them have just built it up

568 01:05:37.140 ⇒ 01:05:38.830 Uttam Kumaran: Over time, and they’re sort of…

569 01:05:38.970 ⇒ 01:05:58.620 Uttam Kumaran: that’s just it, they’re just there, you know? And then you have a couple, but also, I look to, like, Ogilvy. Like, there are these really cool brands that were built, like, I read David Ogilvy’s book a couple times, and I feel like them, like, a company like Pentagram, like, some of these design agencies are actually really cool in the way they brand.

570 01:05:58.620 ⇒ 01:06:03.289 Luke Scorziell: Of course, they are brand companies, so they spend a lot of time thinking about that, but… Yeah.

571 01:06:03.290 ⇒ 01:06:06.590 Uttam Kumaran: I feel like we’re maybe closer to that than we are, like.

572 01:06:07.070 ⇒ 01:06:11.200 Uttam Kumaran: an Accenture. Like, I want… I would like us to be closer to that, where it’s like.

573 01:06:11.610 ⇒ 01:06:17.119 Uttam Kumaran: okay, you’re working with, like, Ogilvy, it’s like, you know, it’s really, really, like, tremendous, you know, so…

574 01:06:17.120 ⇒ 01:06:23.820 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, yeah, and, it’s funny, too, because with Beacon Brand, which is, my company, like.

575 01:06:24.060 ⇒ 01:06:26.840 Luke Scorziell: If you’re familiar with, like, Future Brand or Inner Brand.

576 01:06:27.410 ⇒ 01:06:28.479 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I think so.

577 01:06:28.480 ⇒ 01:06:38.040 Luke Scorziell: Siegel and Gale is another brand consultancy, but they all have, like, super clean… like… or Lippincott, Landor…

578 01:06:38.280 ⇒ 01:06:41.830 Luke Scorziell: Like, those are kind of the places that I took inspiration from.

579 01:06:43.490 ⇒ 01:06:46.659 Uttam Kumaran: I would love to… I’ve never heard of some of these, but this is great.

580 01:06:47.010 ⇒ 01:06:49.420 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, they’re all… I mean, it’s kind of funny, because they’re all…

581 01:06:49.630 ⇒ 01:06:54.330 Luke Scorziell: They’re solving probably similar problem sets, but from a… Oh, like browsing?

582 01:06:54.330 ⇒ 01:06:59.199 Uttam Kumaran: perspective. Yeah, yeah. And, and so each of those, like.

583 01:07:00.180 ⇒ 01:07:06.590 Luke Scorziell: so that’s, like, my vision for Beacon Brand, too, has just always been, like.

584 01:07:06.930 ⇒ 01:07:25.479 Luke Scorziell: I don’t really want to be a marketing agency, like, there’s a ton of different, like, marketing agencies that you can work with, and, like, right now it’s been paying the bills to do, like, Facebook ads and stuff for people, but I’m, like, the real passion that I have is to help companies basically build what you just described of, like, how do we communicate who gets to work here, or who we want to work here, who we want to work with.

585 01:07:25.640 ⇒ 01:07:26.449 Luke Scorziell: And, like, what kind of.

586 01:07:26.450 ⇒ 01:07:27.000 Uttam Kumaran: It’s a marketplace.

587 01:07:27.000 ⇒ 01:07:27.739 Luke Scorziell: for us, right?

588 01:07:27.740 ⇒ 01:07:31.640 Uttam Kumaran: like, we… for me, I’m like, I’m getting all these super smart people.

589 01:07:31.760 ⇒ 01:07:44.689 Uttam Kumaran: And then I have these very hard problems, and then I take a little vig in the middle, you know? But, like, ultimately, that is it, right? Like, we bring in a bunch of people, we sort of craft them and give them the tools and the platform.

590 01:07:44.730 ⇒ 01:08:00.169 Uttam Kumaran: to deliver on extremely hard problems, really fast, for, like, big companies, and my job is… I have to balance both those things. So, like, I think at the sort of plateau, I think that’s what a consultancy is. Like, we… we do sell when we recruit.

591 01:08:00.210 ⇒ 01:08:11.619 Uttam Kumaran: I do talk about us, like, in this exact same way. I am selling. Everybody who’s at Braveforged has to want to come and work here, and we have to be able to hire the next person, and then similarly, like.

592 01:08:11.630 ⇒ 01:08:20.380 Uttam Kumaran: when I go to a company, I’m not selling me at all. I may be involved in the process, but it’s always us, we, team.

593 01:08:20.630 ⇒ 01:08:22.139 Uttam Kumaran: You know, so…

594 01:08:22.149 ⇒ 01:08:22.569 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.

595 01:08:22.569 ⇒ 01:08:29.059 Uttam Kumaran: That’s who I’m, like, basically, like, meshing together, and then we sort of step back, and then we, like, next, next, next, next.

596 01:08:29.399 ⇒ 01:08:29.889 Luke Scorziell: Huh.

597 01:08:29.890 ⇒ 01:08:32.649 Uttam Kumaran: like, I talk to Clarence a lot about, like, Apple, where, like.

598 01:08:32.710 ⇒ 01:08:45.580 Uttam Kumaran: you know, I feel, like, more closer to them in that they won’t… if the thing doesn’t come out perfect, like, they’re not gonna release it, you know? And they have, like, a design philosophy. There’s a way of getting an Apple product, like, there’s something to be an Apple designer.

599 01:08:45.580 ⇒ 01:08:52.870 Uttam Kumaran: And so, I feel like there’s a lot of inspiration from these, like, non-consult… like, from those types of worlds, where they have a philosophy on

600 01:08:52.870 ⇒ 01:09:05.890 Uttam Kumaran: Who they… who works there, the way they work, what their process is, guaranteeing success for the client, and still charging, like, a high price. Like, not competing for, like, the bottom of the barrel stuff, you know?

601 01:09:06.410 ⇒ 01:09:07.340 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, yeah.

602 01:09:08.439 ⇒ 01:09:09.140 Luke Scorziell: Bang.

603 01:09:09.560 ⇒ 01:09:10.810 Luke Scorziell: Oh, that’s awesome.

604 01:09:10.810 ⇒ 01:09:11.710 Uttam Kumaran: And…

605 01:09:11.779 ⇒ 01:09:20.369 Luke Scorziell: I think it shows, because it’s… I… the only reason I think of you guys as close to consulting is because you… only… I think because you’ve mentioned consulting.

606 01:09:20.370 ⇒ 01:09:21.200 Uttam Kumaran: I know, yeah.

607 01:09:21.910 ⇒ 01:09:24.460 Uttam Kumaran: Get rid of that word from my vocabulary.

608 01:09:24.649 ⇒ 01:09:30.219 Luke Scorziell: So, figuring out maybe a way to, like, position That, too, because it’s…

609 01:09:31.779 ⇒ 01:09:35.339 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, I think there’s a lot of opportunity, and it’s also interesting, like.

610 01:09:36.529 ⇒ 01:09:42.649 Luke Scorziell: Just having the resources and the motivation and the desire to do, like, some of the brand stuff is, like, more important than.

611 01:09:42.649 ⇒ 01:09:43.009 Uttam Kumaran: We don’t have.

612 01:09:43.010 ⇒ 01:09:44.639 Luke Scorziell: There’s a lot of the old… Yeah.

613 01:09:44.649 ⇒ 01:09:47.119 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, they don’t, because it’s not, like…

614 01:09:47.329 ⇒ 01:09:50.459 Uttam Kumaran: I had… Designer was on my sec… was our second hire.

615 01:09:51.239 ⇒ 01:09:52.099 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, and I think.

616 01:09:52.100 ⇒ 01:09:52.539 Uttam Kumaran: Because I…

617 01:09:52.540 ⇒ 01:09:53.450 Luke Scorziell: It’s automatic.

618 01:09:53.450 ⇒ 01:09:54.860 Uttam Kumaran: We had to iterate.

619 01:09:54.860 ⇒ 01:09:55.680 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.

620 01:09:55.680 ⇒ 01:10:06.519 Uttam Kumaran: I knew it was gonna take 2 years to get, like, to get closer to something that looked good, so I know it’s like, it’s gonna look ugly for, like, a year. We’re just gonna keep going, but all of that money, I either should have pocketed.

621 01:10:06.830 ⇒ 01:10:20.809 Uttam Kumaran: Or I should have hired more engineers. So we, like, we don’t need to be spending, like, there’s nothing in the playbook that we were given or told where we should be spending on brand marketing to the degree, like, to the percent of revenue that we have been.

622 01:10:20.900 ⇒ 01:10:39.420 Uttam Kumaran: But also, it is the pure reason why we are… we seem so different. And a lot of other people are like, how did you do this? Like, what… a lot of people come to us, like, what firm… what agency did you use? I’m like, these are, like, in-house folks. These are, like, our folks. They’re like, you have, like, designers full-time? I said, yes. Like, well, you think this thing, like, just happens? Like, you think you just say, like.

623 01:10:39.420 ⇒ 01:10:39.789 Luke Scorziell: Is that right?

624 01:10:39.790 ⇒ 01:10:47.780 Uttam Kumaran: No, like, I ran that team, like, until now, they’re kind of, like, solely self-operating. Once I get out of this stuff, I’ll go back there, because

625 01:10:48.190 ⇒ 01:11:00.560 Uttam Kumaran: me being there is, like, supercharges them to really, like, get closer, versus, like, dude, marketing and design, they’re sort of like, yo, go market and go design. Like, that sucks. Like, what are you gonna do? You know?

626 01:11:01.590 ⇒ 01:11:11.589 Uttam Kumaran: I feel like that’s what most places are, like, it’s a secondary thought, yet it’s the first thing that people interact with. And for our company, brand is not just what it looks like on the outside, it’s, like.

627 01:11:12.080 ⇒ 01:11:23.889 Uttam Kumaran: it’s everything from, like, the… the way we set up Slack channels, the way we speak about our stuff, the diagrams that we make, the way our decks look, right? Like,

628 01:11:24.260 ⇒ 01:11:37.739 Uttam Kumaran: all of these things are brand. It’s like the whole user experience through BrainForge is all an opportunity to brand things, you know? The website, the decks, our diagrams… I have our design team helping to do

629 01:11:37.740 ⇒ 01:11:49.690 Uttam Kumaran: to help our engineers do… I sent them out today the Figma diagrams, you know? And, like, everything needs to look really good, because otherwise, how can I charge a million dollars if it doesn’t look like it’s a million dollar product, you know?

630 01:11:49.720 ⇒ 01:11:50.620 Luke Scorziell: Yeah. So that’s, like.

631 01:11:50.620 ⇒ 01:11:53.680 Uttam Kumaran: kind of, like, what I’m hoping for is that these small tweaks

632 01:11:53.960 ⇒ 01:12:01.930 Uttam Kumaran: and we think about the customer journey through Brainforged, it’s all, like, concierge, it’s all, like.

633 01:12:02.040 ⇒ 01:12:10.799 Uttam Kumaran: first class, it’s all Michelin star, because otherwise, I don’t have… I don’t have the cachet to charge that price.

634 01:12:11.040 ⇒ 01:12:17.369 Uttam Kumaran: But if you experience this, and it feels like that price, then I can start to get there.

635 01:12:17.710 ⇒ 01:12:27.399 Uttam Kumaran: But if we’re a ragtag group of freelancers without a website, and I’m like, yeah, we have people in… we have… like, I got 100 people somewhere, and like, they’re all video off, and they don’t build…

636 01:12:27.420 ⇒ 01:12:39.180 Uttam Kumaran: they don’t build camaraderie, and they don’t joke around, they don’t have families, you don’t know about… there’s… I don’t know, that’s not, like… it’s not a good experience for the client, you know? It’s not a million dollar experience, I feel like.

637 01:12:40.180 ⇒ 01:12:44.070 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, I feel like any business, at the end of the day, is about relationship, it’s not about…

638 01:12:44.300 ⇒ 01:12:46.970 Luke Scorziell: That’s right, I mean, it’s like, people want to work with people eventually.

639 01:12:46.970 ⇒ 01:13:00.070 Uttam Kumaran: It’s just not, like, immediately ROI generating, the relationship building, you know? That’s why I was very proud, like, we sent gifts to people this year, and I don’t know, I was so happy, because it’s something I’ve always wanted to do.

640 01:13:00.080 ⇒ 01:13:11.790 Uttam Kumaran: And Hannah led a lot of that, and we sent stuff from our clients. We sent flowers from Urban Stems, or Honey Stinger or Element packets to people with, like, a card, and…

641 01:13:11.930 ⇒ 01:13:26.919 Uttam Kumaran: That is, like… and that was a… I mean, what? I’m not like, oh, that’s gonna buy… that’s, like, that marketing activation’s gonna lead to, like, you know, 10X row… no. I’m like, send a fucking box of chocolates, and whatever happens, happens, like, you know, and that’s like a…

642 01:13:27.060 ⇒ 01:13:32.299 Uttam Kumaran: that’s what I want to do more of, is, like, to be able to afford to do stuff like that, that are, like.

643 01:13:32.300 ⇒ 01:13:32.740 Luke Scorziell: Thank you for.

644 01:13:32.740 ⇒ 01:13:42.630 Uttam Kumaran: more thoughtful, and more serious, less… less of the, like, bottom-of-the-barrel marketing stuff, I feel like, is what’s gonna set us apart.

645 01:13:42.810 ⇒ 01:13:51.420 Uttam Kumaran: You know? Like, imagine any of our customers and any person on the customer team that we work with at the end of the year gets, like, an awesome custom present.

646 01:13:51.640 ⇒ 01:14:07.659 Uttam Kumaran: And what’s that gonna… it’s not gonna cost us anything. They’re paying us hundreds of thousands of dollars. What am I… I’m so… if I’m so… I’m, like, not gonna send them, what, like, some flowers? Like, who am I, you know? But… I’ve never been asked by a consultant, like, can I send you some flowers? Or can I send you, like.

647 01:14:08.040 ⇒ 01:14:10.619 Uttam Kumaran: Element packets, a goodie bag.

648 01:14:10.890 ⇒ 01:14:15.500 Uttam Kumaran: I’ve… no one’s ever done that for us, for me, or for our company, you know?

649 01:14:16.030 ⇒ 01:14:20.540 Luke Scorziell: Well, what if… have you ever, like, in terms of video and more, like.

650 01:14:21.710 ⇒ 01:14:26.450 Luke Scorziell: cement it, because I know we have case studies that are, like, just printed.

651 01:14:26.670 ⇒ 01:14:28.390 Luke Scorziell: Or, you know, design, static, whatever.

652 01:14:28.390 ⇒ 01:14:36.460 Uttam Kumaran: You should check out the… we put some stuff on YouTube, but again, you’ll tell that it was a lot of… it’s, like, me, and execution, and then…

653 01:14:36.900 ⇒ 01:14:56.790 Uttam Kumaran: the strategy is where, like, I don’t think we nailed it. You know, like, I can drive by being like, I’m open to go on video, I can get someone else to be on video, I can do that, and then we have people that can design, that can edit, stuff like that. It’s the middle part that I think we’re lacking. Like, we did a video testimonial, but, like, again, we could do so much more, I just think we haven’t…

654 01:14:57.130 ⇒ 01:15:02.560 Uttam Kumaran: Not from a… we just haven’t done it not from a interest… not interest in doing it, just, like.

655 01:15:02.800 ⇒ 01:15:06.189 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t want to push out garbage. Like, I don’t want to just do…

656 01:15:06.390 ⇒ 01:15:13.780 Uttam Kumaran: Like, the easiest thing for me to do is, like, let’s do a newsletter, where we just do a bunch… write a bunch of bullshit and spam people every…

657 01:15:14.570 ⇒ 01:15:18.830 Uttam Kumaran: I want… it needs to be at… everything needs to be at our quality, right? Like, I don’t…

658 01:15:18.830 ⇒ 01:15:23.890 Luke Scorziell: It’ll be interesting, because what you’re saying about, just a… like a…

659 01:15:24.040 ⇒ 01:15:26.419 Luke Scorziell: why I thought of that, too, is you’re…

660 01:15:26.570 ⇒ 01:15:29.889 Luke Scorziell: Like, your goal is to make the customers that you’re already working with feel special?

661 01:15:30.160 ⇒ 01:15:32.569 Luke Scorziell: And, like, kind of a double whammy with that is, like.

662 01:15:32.710 ⇒ 01:15:36.030 Luke Scorziell: I mean, I don’t know how this would fit in fully to…

663 01:15:37.210 ⇒ 01:15:43.000 Luke Scorziell: But if you, like, went and… I know… who’s the bigger, biggest client? Is it Eden? Or.

664 01:15:43.300 ⇒ 01:15:45.740 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, in terms of our revenue, yeah, it’s Eden.

665 01:15:45.740 ⇒ 01:15:52.750 Luke Scorziell: Eden or, like, ABC, or we find a client that is, like, the ones… more similar to the ones that we want to scale up to.

666 01:15:52.870 ⇒ 01:15:57.799 Luke Scorziell: And then do, like, some kind of video that’s, like, Going, featuring them, like.

667 01:15:57.800 ⇒ 01:15:58.900 Uttam Kumaran: We should totally do it.

668 01:15:58.900 ⇒ 01:16:00.769 Luke Scorziell: doing, like, all that stuff.

669 01:16:00.770 ⇒ 01:16:05.850 Uttam Kumaran: And ABC is right up the road from my house, they’re right here. So I go to the office all the time.

670 01:16:05.980 ⇒ 01:16:10.110 Uttam Kumaran: And I know them, and I bring food, and I know all those guys, yeah.

671 01:16:10.500 ⇒ 01:16:15.280 Uttam Kumaran: So we got very lucky, because they’re right here, but we should totally do that, and…

672 01:16:15.590 ⇒ 01:16:22.200 Uttam Kumaran: if it’s… and I’m down to pay for the whole… I mean, whatever, and I have, like, video friends here that would totally kind of do it

673 01:16:22.660 ⇒ 01:16:28.099 Uttam Kumaran: Somewhat cheaply, if we were able to hook them up with more clients, or, you know

674 01:16:28.260 ⇒ 01:16:31.559 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, a lot of them are struggling, so they would take anything.

675 01:16:32.170 ⇒ 01:16:32.850 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, yeah.

676 01:16:32.850 ⇒ 01:16:34.449 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, it’s… we should do it.

677 01:16:34.450 ⇒ 01:16:36.300 Luke Scorziell: Send you.

678 01:16:36.720 ⇒ 01:16:43.420 Uttam Kumaran: And we could even do it partners, too. Like, a lot of our partners would totally be open to it. I mean, what they lack is the execution ability, you know?

679 01:16:46.410 ⇒ 01:16:58.560 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, I had, and no, like, needing to, do this…

680 01:16:58.670 ⇒ 01:17:03.170 Luke Scorziell: with this particular agency, but this is an agency that I’ve worked with a lot,

681 01:17:03.770 ⇒ 01:17:10.660 Luke Scorziell: And they did this really… I mean, it was like a heart… kind of wrenching… or not wrenching, like, heartwarming video on,

682 01:17:12.500 ⇒ 01:17:18.610 Luke Scorziell: like… Let me see, how do I get this mail? There we go.

683 01:17:18.930 ⇒ 01:17:23.060 Luke Scorziell: on, I’m just sending them… oh, I guess I can send them in the Slack, too.

684 01:17:23.440 ⇒ 01:17:31.669 Luke Scorziell: But just, like, really results. Like, he’s… when they showed this first video that I sent you.

685 01:17:33.350 ⇒ 01:17:39.399 Luke Scorziell: Like, he told me that, like, everyone in the room was, like, crying because of how, like, well it reflected their company.

686 01:17:39.850 ⇒ 01:17:40.530 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, yeah.

687 01:17:40.530 ⇒ 01:17:43.530 Luke Scorziell: I almost just wonder if there’s a way to do that as, like.

688 01:17:43.530 ⇒ 01:17:44.310 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

689 01:17:44.310 ⇒ 01:17:47.020 Luke Scorziell: a testimonial, like, transformation type of video.

690 01:17:47.020 ⇒ 01:17:50.619 Uttam Kumaran: I’m gonna cry, yeah, it’s a great video.

691 01:17:50.850 ⇒ 01:17:58.150 Uttam Kumaran: And, but also, like, I want… I also think that, I think about, like, how do you scale this conversation that we had?

692 01:17:58.420 ⇒ 01:18:03.130 Uttam Kumaran: You know, how do you scale this and actually get this messaging to the client? Like…

693 01:18:03.130 ⇒ 01:18:08.590 Luke Scorziell: Well, I think it’s… it’s… it’s all storytelling, and I think the thing that, most…

694 01:18:08.790 ⇒ 01:18:13.579 Luke Scorziell: like, dude, everyone in that e-commerce thing is just exactly the problem, like, I mean.

695 01:18:13.580 ⇒ 01:18:20.290 Uttam Kumaran: No, I know, all we work with is e-commerce. All my friends are e-com marketers, by the way, and a lot of our clients are e-com.

696 01:18:20.650 ⇒ 01:18:23.920 Uttam Kumaran: It’s all bottom of the barrel, it’s all conversant, it’s all conversion.

697 01:18:23.920 ⇒ 01:18:25.919 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, it’s all running out.

698 01:18:26.300 ⇒ 01:18:29.850 Uttam Kumaran: And that’s why these guys are so surprised. I’m just gonna let my dog out.

699 01:18:30.180 ⇒ 01:18:38.530 Uttam Kumaran: when I’m like, yo, I’m not going for scale. Like, I don’t… I don’t care at all about, like.

700 01:18:38.990 ⇒ 01:18:42.559 Uttam Kumaran: the scale at which we hit, you know? I cared purely about

701 01:18:42.720 ⇒ 01:18:49.330 Uttam Kumaran: the right person is… we can’t work with more than a… how can I work with more than 100 clients? So, ultimately, like, it’s like…

702 01:18:50.160 ⇒ 01:18:56.099 Uttam Kumaran: I would be down to work for less clients, higher ACV, 100%. I only care about us winning.

703 01:18:56.180 ⇒ 01:19:11.329 Uttam Kumaran: Right? And this is where most consultancies, they never breach enterprise, so they’re stuck here. And because of that, the operational complexity to manage 100, 200, 300 clients is so high. It’s very, very hard.

704 01:19:12.160 ⇒ 01:19:21.569 Uttam Kumaran: Instead, I would rather take 20, 30 that are, like, massive. Long-term, couple-year engagements, big money.

705 01:19:21.760 ⇒ 01:19:26.029 Uttam Kumaran: We go all out on the… on the gifts and the… and all that, like…

706 01:19:26.210 ⇒ 01:19:28.170 Uttam Kumaran: That’s a much better business model.

707 01:19:29.720 ⇒ 01:19:34.779 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, well, let me, I mean, I…

708 01:19:35.090 ⇒ 01:19:39.590 Luke Scorziell: Another thing maybe it’d be helpful to know about me, I have a lot of… I’m very strong in ideation.

709 01:19:39.900 ⇒ 01:19:50.609 Luke Scorziell: I don’t have ideas, like, it’s… I took an aptitude test, and they were like, you’re… you were, like, the 98th percentile on ideation, which is saying a lot, because of the people that take this test, it’s like.

710 01:19:50.860 ⇒ 01:20:00.459 Luke Scorziell: you know, not a lot… so it’s, like, probably the general population even further. So that can be, like, a strength and a weakness for me, where it’s, like, I’m good at coming up with ideas, but not… not always as good as, like.

711 01:20:00.670 ⇒ 01:20:01.280 Luke Scorziell: So…

712 01:20:01.280 ⇒ 01:20:17.310 Uttam Kumaran: We have good execution people, I’m telling you. Like, we have, like, Ray on our team is good at video editing. I have a lot of connections into videography world, like, two… one of my friends, a director here in Texas. Like, we can do… we can do the ex… I’m not worried about the execution.

713 01:20:17.430 ⇒ 01:20:22.690 Uttam Kumaran: I’m worried about… the… Vision and the strategy and the idea.

714 01:20:24.440 ⇒ 01:20:27.290 Uttam Kumaran: Because without… I can’t… you can’t go to those people and say, edit.

715 01:20:28.060 ⇒ 01:20:31.660 Uttam Kumaran: it’s not gonna come out the way… so, for me, I’m like.

716 01:20:31.820 ⇒ 01:20:37.720 Uttam Kumaran: I need what the story is, I need to know, like, the plan towards a finished product.

717 01:20:37.830 ⇒ 01:20:42.410 Uttam Kumaran: And I’ll get you… we’ll get whatever resources are needed to execute the thing, you know?

718 01:20:42.410 ⇒ 01:20:59.190 Luke Scorziell: Because I think, like, in my mind, and it’s funny, because the only real, like, client I’ve gotten to do this for so far, which… I did a couple of them, but, like, the most in-depth one was, like, a plumber. But I did, like, a whole brand strategy process, and, like, talked to his customers, and just put together insights, and…

719 01:20:59.280 ⇒ 01:21:14.390 Luke Scorziell: I know it’s funny, because I’m like, oh, dang, I made this, like, kind of world-class brand for this guy down in San Diego. But, like, he just doesn’t have the time, money, or resources to fully implement it. But I think, for me, it’s like… and that’s where I find a lot of value, too, is…

720 01:21:14.810 ⇒ 01:21:19.959 Luke Scorziell: Because I’ve shifted away from doing some of that, just because the small business clients aren’t really always, like.

721 01:21:20.890 ⇒ 01:21:24.930 Luke Scorziell: They just want a return as quickly as possible.

722 01:21:25.530 ⇒ 01:21:33.850 Luke Scorziell: But then, like, becoming the kind of strategy brain and the brain of the brand in a way, and then being able to orchestrate and coordinate between

723 01:21:34.040 ⇒ 01:21:42.060 Luke Scorziell: everyone who’s doing the deliverables and execution and, like, saying, oh, actually, like, I don’t know, I don’t think we should shoot it like that, or I don’t think we should do that kind of messaging.

724 01:21:42.060 ⇒ 01:21:43.269 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t have the…

725 01:21:43.270 ⇒ 01:21:44.060 Luke Scorziell: That’s, like, super…

726 01:21:44.060 ⇒ 01:21:44.610 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

727 01:21:44.610 ⇒ 01:21:46.470 Luke Scorziell: Like, fine, that’s where it…

728 01:21:46.470 ⇒ 01:21:49.140 Uttam Kumaran: That’s where I don’t have the… I don’t have the opinion…

729 01:21:49.350 ⇒ 01:21:51.749 Uttam Kumaran: And I don’t have, like…

730 01:21:52.170 ⇒ 01:21:54.229 Uttam Kumaran: I just don’t have… like, I just can’t…

731 01:21:54.510 ⇒ 01:21:56.499 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t have the opinion nor the time.

732 01:21:56.810 ⇒ 01:22:06.780 Uttam Kumaran: One is, like, because I can’t tell them, like… I can be like, it doesn’t look good, and that’s all, like, that’s the extent of which you’ll get out of it. I don’t have, like, the words. But what I do have is, like.

733 01:22:06.810 ⇒ 01:22:18.480 Uttam Kumaran: I’m a warm body, so whatever you need, like, the CEO of this company to go do, I can go do. We have the connections to get with our clients, our partners, and I have the editors, the video people.

734 01:22:18.480 ⇒ 01:22:29.399 Uttam Kumaran: those… I have all these folks that want to do stuff for us, but what they’re always frustrated in is I’m like, I’m trying to tell them to do this, which I’m like, before we do anything, I need to know

735 01:22:29.400 ⇒ 01:22:46.869 Uttam Kumaran: what this is gonna look like, and that it’s gonna be at this level. If… I know if you put a camera in front of me, you just talk, and you edit something, it’s like… it’s not enough. And, like, that’s where some of those folks never get to this level, which I… again, I know that you sort of can tell, because it’s easy to just go out and film a video. It’s hard to, like.

736 01:22:47.080 ⇒ 01:23:00.820 Uttam Kumaran: really direct, and, like, think about what the messaging is, and nail it, you know? Yeah, 100%. And I can’t… we can’t do stuff that looks bad. It just can’t. I won’t do it. It’s just, like, so, it can’t be half-assed, it has to be well thought.

737 01:23:01.000 ⇒ 01:23:12.320 Uttam Kumaran: And I… and so, like, that’s what we’re lacking, you know? It’s because I just… yes, maybe if I was able to spend most of my time thinking about it, I could do it, but there’s never gonna be a time anymore where… where…

738 01:23:12.470 ⇒ 01:23:18.609 Luke Scorziell: No, yeah, I mean, you shouldn’t, like, you have the vision, and you’re plugging along, and, like, I think you being in your strength spots is…

739 01:23:18.740 ⇒ 01:23:24.590 Luke Scorziell: like, obviously the best for the company, too. So, this is awesome, and dude, I would just love to, because I’m, like.

740 01:23:25.390 ⇒ 01:23:27.729 Luke Scorziell: Just, I love taking full ownership.

741 01:23:27.730 ⇒ 01:23:44.820 Uttam Kumaran: I much more… I think… I feel like I’ve thought a lot more about the brand than Robert… Robert has, for sure, but his… but also, like, his… the thing that he’s… he still needs to make sure that leads are coming in through the door across, like, all the channels. And I also think that,

742 01:23:45.480 ⇒ 01:23:57.799 Uttam Kumaran: brand, I feel like, helps grease the wheels on any new lead, right? Like, people come… people… and also, a lot of people don’t open their website until the first call with me, and that reason… the website looks like

743 01:23:58.360 ⇒ 01:24:13.389 Uttam Kumaran: I’m about to charge them 20 grand, right? It doesn’t look like they can… this is, like, some crappy freelancer. And so that’s good. That’s… that’s… that’s brand in action, I feel like, you know? For me, at least. Like, that investment was totally worth it, but if you were to ask me to, like.

744 01:24:13.460 ⇒ 01:24:30.209 Uttam Kumaran: when I built the website, and we went through the time of doing that, and hired all these Webflow people for me to be like, how is this gonna help? I’m like, anytime a partner, someone we’re recruiting, a customer, a friend, someone I met years ago that’s like, I talked to some data person.

745 01:24:30.300 ⇒ 01:24:35.730 Uttam Kumaran: they go to our website, they see my LinkedIn profile, and they’re like, this guy’s leg is super legit.

746 01:24:36.110 ⇒ 01:24:38.370 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, that’s brand, you know, that’s all.

747 01:24:39.250 ⇒ 01:24:40.009 Uttam Kumaran: This, you know…

748 01:24:40.010 ⇒ 01:24:44.560 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, no, I got a Matt business card, and the reason I like.

749 01:24:44.560 ⇒ 01:24:45.370 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

750 01:24:45.370 ⇒ 01:24:49.949 Luke Scorziell: every time someone touches it, they’re like, oh, wow, and then… and then through our conversation, I’ll be like.

751 01:24:50.070 ⇒ 01:25:00.550 Luke Scorziell: just touching it and playing with it, and I’m like, oh, yeah, they’re gonna remember just that one little detail. And same thing. I’m not a web designer or anything, but I spent a bit on my website.

752 01:25:00.880 ⇒ 01:25:07.279 Luke Scorziell: Nice. And it looks gr… like, pretty good. I’m, like, I know it could be better.

753 01:25:07.590 ⇒ 01:25:10.560 Luke Scorziell: But people are always like, dang, your website’s, like, so nice, like…

754 01:25:10.740 ⇒ 01:25:13.089 Luke Scorziell: You know, how did you do that? And I’m like.

755 01:25:13.370 ⇒ 01:25:16.860 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I don’t know, so it does add, for sure. Very good money, I think.

756 01:25:16.860 ⇒ 01:25:22.250 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, so… okay, sick. Well, I guess, I don’t know, this is helpful. I don’t know if you have any, like, final, like.

757 01:25:22.590 ⇒ 01:25:23.840 Luke Scorziell: what you’d want.

758 01:25:24.000 ⇒ 01:25:27.879 Luke Scorziell: Are just… No, I think just, just thinking…

759 01:25:27.880 ⇒ 01:25:37.899 Uttam Kumaran: about a lot of that. I feel like what we’re hoping… what I… at least, again, like, for me, what I feel like we’re lacking is the gap between what I went through today.

760 01:25:37.980 ⇒ 01:25:39.979 Luke Scorziell: And the people to execute it.

761 01:25:39.980 ⇒ 01:25:46.109 Uttam Kumaran: Right? Like… That’s… I… and this is across a lot of the business, by the way. It’s like.

762 01:25:46.230 ⇒ 01:25:49.940 Uttam Kumaran: The middle pieces, the… You know, in, like, the…

763 01:25:50.050 ⇒ 01:26:01.460 Uttam Kumaran: in the, like, in some of these company-building frameworks, it’s, like, someone between the vision and, like, the integrator, the strategist, and then, like, the people on the ground building it. And so I’m not worried about

764 01:26:01.860 ⇒ 01:26:06.270 Uttam Kumaran: building the thing. It’s really, like, the strategy and the plan.

765 01:26:06.510 ⇒ 01:26:13.189 Uttam Kumaran: And to take all the doors that I can open, the budget I can make available, the resources.

766 01:26:13.350 ⇒ 01:26:17.879 Uttam Kumaran: and then being like, okay, I think here’s a couple things we should try.

767 01:26:18.070 ⇒ 01:26:22.970 Uttam Kumaran: And… All with the mind of, like, growing the business, you know?

768 01:26:23.220 ⇒ 01:26:31.520 Uttam Kumaran: But we are in an interesting industry, like, not a lot of comps and not a lot of inspo to go out, so it’s like, truly, you have to think about

769 01:26:32.320 ⇒ 01:26:33.500 Uttam Kumaran: what we’re doing.

770 01:26:34.230 ⇒ 01:26:37.280 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, well, I think even you mentioning some of the.

771 01:26:37.640 ⇒ 01:26:40.349 Uttam Kumaran: Companies that are not quite in the same…

772 01:26:40.920 ⇒ 01:26:42.120 Luke Scorziell: Lane, like, I think…

773 01:26:42.120 ⇒ 01:26:55.390 Uttam Kumaran: Because I have to look… I have to look… yeah, I think about… I think about Ogilvy a lot. I think a lot about fine dining in terms of the experience of Brainforge. I like Ogilvy because it’s very uncompromising.

774 01:26:55.550 ⇒ 01:27:02.340 Uttam Kumaran: And I… I just loved his book. It was really, really, important, and… Yeah.

775 01:27:04.250 ⇒ 01:27:13.370 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, but again, like, this company is growing, and it’s no longer just mine, it’s, like, everybody’s, but also, without clients, there’s no business, and so…

776 01:27:13.660 ⇒ 01:27:26.539 Uttam Kumaran: it’s really everything. When we call a client, I spend very little time talking about other people, or other businesses. I talk about them in a way to say, like, we’ve done this before, but then it’s all about that person we’re in front of, you know?

777 01:27:26.670 ⇒ 01:27:32.629 Uttam Kumaran: And I think that’s also what people like about us, is like, we don’t talk about ourselves unless people are like.

778 01:27:33.370 ⇒ 01:27:36.270 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, from your experience, like, what do you think about this?

779 01:27:36.700 ⇒ 01:27:37.450 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.

780 01:27:37.450 ⇒ 01:27:41.840 Uttam Kumaran: For the most part, they’re like, those guys are great, they do… they crush it, you know, and…

781 01:27:42.180 ⇒ 01:27:48.239 Uttam Kumaran: that’s it. Like, we don’t spend time… our brand is the fact that we’re really, really helpful, you know?

782 01:27:49.000 ⇒ 01:27:50.119 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, yeah.

783 01:27:50.390 ⇒ 01:27:52.980 Luke Scorziell: Hmm.

784 01:27:54.480 ⇒ 01:27:56.760 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, I mean, I feel like the sky is the…

785 01:27:57.970 ⇒ 01:28:03.850 Luke Scorziell: There’s the limit there, because just even what’s been being… Don is, as,

786 01:28:05.090 ⇒ 01:28:11.430 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, it’s a lot more tactical on the ground, not as much, so, yeah, so I think…

787 01:28:11.800 ⇒ 01:28:14.449 Luke Scorziell: I don’t know, I would love to just even dive into…

788 01:28:15.090 ⇒ 01:28:17.510 Luke Scorziell: Learning more about, like, the enterprise…

789 01:28:18.250 ⇒ 01:28:18.700 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

790 01:28:18.700 ⇒ 01:28:22.509 Luke Scorziell: Fortune 2000 customers and see, like, what… What are, like, the.

791 01:28:22.510 ⇒ 01:28:23.360 Uttam Kumaran: And I can connect you

792 01:28:23.900 ⇒ 01:28:38.230 Uttam Kumaran: People that are advisors of ours, and, like, friends that are those buyers, or interact with those buyers. Like, if you’re like, look, I excel if I was able to talk to some people adjacent to that profile, or in that profile, I can… we can think about a couple people on.

793 01:28:38.370 ⇒ 01:28:46.840 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, 100%. I think every conversation I have is super helpful, just in terms of understanding BrainForge more, but also understanding, like.

794 01:28:47.040 ⇒ 01:28:52.020 Luke Scorziell: Like, this really helps me to know… Just priorities-wise, you know.

795 01:28:53.010 ⇒ 01:28:55.600 Luke Scorziell: That’s what we’re working on right now is important, but maybe…

796 01:28:56.190 ⇒ 01:28:56.570 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

797 01:28:56.570 ⇒ 01:28:57.770 Luke Scorziell: Fish to fry.

798 01:28:58.160 ⇒ 01:28:58.560 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.

799 01:28:58.560 ⇒ 01:29:04.139 Luke Scorziell: If we land another… if we land a startup from, like, the January Ventures campaign, like, it might honestly be worse for us.

800 01:29:04.140 ⇒ 01:29:05.900 Uttam Kumaran: We have to keep the lights on.

801 01:29:06.140 ⇒ 01:29:06.510 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.

802 01:29:06.510 ⇒ 01:29:17.040 Uttam Kumaran: And we had to still grow, so I’ll… I’m still, like… every deal is still, like, the Super Bowl. Like, I… I don’t compromise, like, I’m… I’m very, very serious, but…

803 01:29:17.290 ⇒ 01:29:26.800 Uttam Kumaran: I do know that, like, we’re trying to get… we’re trying to be in the big leagues on our pricing, on the sophistication of our solution, on the way we work, like.

804 01:29:26.970 ⇒ 01:29:28.569 Uttam Kumaran: To always think…

805 01:29:28.880 ⇒ 01:29:40.240 Uttam Kumaran: you know, that way, I feel like, you know. But, like, look, we’re still working with… I can’t tell… can’t go to these guys and be like, you’re… you’re, like, not in our ICP, like, no, I’m gonna help… we’re gonna help everybody, we’re gonna do our best.

806 01:29:40.240 ⇒ 01:29:41.420 Luke Scorziell: But, again.

807 01:29:41.420 ⇒ 01:29:46.599 Uttam Kumaran: We… we’re increasing our prices, and we’re trying to move up as fast as.

808 01:29:46.600 ⇒ 01:29:47.230 Luke Scorziell: Okay.

809 01:29:47.790 ⇒ 01:29:53.980 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, yeah, now that makes sense. So, sweet. Well, thanks for making so much time, dude. I appreciate it.

810 01:29:53.980 ⇒ 01:29:58.180 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, dude, of course, of course. Yeah, I hope this was really helpful. So, yeah, and then, yeah.

811 01:29:58.180 ⇒ 01:29:58.810 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, it is.

812 01:29:58.810 ⇒ 01:30:09.600 Uttam Kumaran: If you can come in… if you can come in Saturday morning, or if… also, if you… if you find that it’s, like, super expensive, let me know, I can try to help out. I would love to… would love to hang out then.

813 01:30:10.100 ⇒ 01:30:15.519 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, it’s, like, perfect. Robert just texted me, he could pick me up from the airport, so…

814 01:30:15.760 ⇒ 01:30:20.160 Luke Scorziell: Cool. I’ll see, I’ll see if I can… It’s like a…

815 01:30:20.730 ⇒ 01:30:26.520 Luke Scorziell: a 7AM, or 5 a.m. flight, or a, which is brutal, but

816 01:30:27.130 ⇒ 01:30:31.420 Luke Scorziell: Or, like, I think there’s a 9 or 11, but it lands at, like.

817 01:30:32.160 ⇒ 01:30:35.030 Luke Scorziell: On the mid-afternoon, so maybe the earlier one… earlier one would be better.

818 01:30:35.090 ⇒ 01:30:36.100 Uttam Kumaran: Damn.

819 01:30:36.300 ⇒ 01:30:40.899 Luke Scorziell: But… Okay, sweet. Yeah, I’ll look around and see, and then I’ll let you know. It’s like…

820 01:30:41.120 ⇒ 01:30:42.840 Luke Scorziell: Crazy expensive or anything.

821 01:30:42.840 ⇒ 01:30:44.290 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, okay, perfect.

822 01:30:44.750 ⇒ 01:30:45.139 Luke Scorziell: So, yeah.

823 01:30:45.140 ⇒ 01:30:45.710 Uttam Kumaran: Alright, dude.

824 01:30:46.020 ⇒ 01:30:48.419 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, looking forward to it. Alright, see you, Tom.

825 01:30:48.420 ⇒ 01:30:49.210 Uttam Kumaran: Talk soon. Bye.

826 01:30:49.210 ⇒ 01:30:50.390 Luke Scorziell: Yep, bye.