Meeting Title: BF Interview: Uttam <> Joseph Date: 2025-12-19 Meeting participants: Joe Lewandowski, Uttam Kumaran
WEBVTT
1 00:04:41.750 ⇒ 00:04:42.569 Uttam Kumaran: Hey, Joe.
2 00:04:43.150 ⇒ 00:04:44.000 Joe Lewandowski: Hey, Utah.
3 00:04:44.430 ⇒ 00:04:45.589 Uttam Kumaran: Hey, how are you?
4 00:04:45.590 ⇒ 00:04:46.320 Joe Lewandowski: Good.
5 00:04:46.760 ⇒ 00:04:50.509 Uttam Kumaran: Sorry, I’m just gonna be off video, I’m just eating some lunch, so it’s been a busy day.
6 00:04:50.510 ⇒ 00:04:52.339 Joe Lewandowski: Yeah, yeah, no problem.
7 00:04:52.560 ⇒ 00:04:54.250 Uttam Kumaran: How’s everything?
8 00:04:54.540 ⇒ 00:04:58.009 Joe Lewandowski: Good, good. Also, equally as busy over here, though.
9 00:04:58.010 ⇒ 00:04:58.989 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, go on.
10 00:04:59.150 ⇒ 00:05:01.099 Joe Lewandowski: Little more relaxing, I guess.
11 00:05:01.350 ⇒ 00:05:06.610 Uttam Kumaran: Nice, yeah, we’re just finishing up a lot of work for clients this week, as we get into holidays, so…
12 00:05:06.770 ⇒ 00:05:12.260 Uttam Kumaran: It’s just been… but it’s been good. Our business is growing, and so it’s been… it’s been interesting, so…
13 00:05:12.260 ⇒ 00:05:13.310 Joe Lewandowski: Exciting.
14 00:05:13.350 ⇒ 00:05:21.170 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, well, appreciate the time. Yeah, maybe reach out, we’re, we’re sort of starting to do a lot more,
15 00:05:21.390 ⇒ 00:05:30.469 Uttam Kumaran: like, deck and presentation building for both our sales teams, as well as, you know, some stuff for some of our client work. And right now we have a…
16 00:05:30.520 ⇒ 00:05:45.440 Uttam Kumaran: design team of, like, one person who’s sort of full-time, and then, one person that’s a little part-time, but… I mean, everybody’s sort of… we’re doing a lot of, like, things on our design teams for marketing, for sales, and so just reach out to… we’re kind of, like.
17 00:05:45.440 ⇒ 00:05:56.079 Uttam Kumaran: trying to look for some support, for some, like, marketing asset, like, deck creation. So we work kind of between Google Slides and Figma a lot.
18 00:05:56.080 ⇒ 00:05:56.440 Joe Lewandowski: Okay.
19 00:05:56.440 ⇒ 00:05:58.970 Uttam Kumaran: Whether it’s, like, building diagrams.
20 00:05:59.120 ⇒ 00:06:06.259 Uttam Kumaran: But also just, like, putting together decks, that our sales team can use to, kind of, for go-to-market.
21 00:06:06.690 ⇒ 00:06:19.780 Uttam Kumaran: And yeah, yeah, I guess that’s sort of, like, probably a good place to start. I’m, like, kind of hearing a bit about your background, and sort of, yeah, like, if that sort of fits something that… that you think you’d be interested in, yeah, we can kind of go from there.
22 00:06:20.170 ⇒ 00:06:25.579 Joe Lewandowski: Yeah, yeah, definitely would be interested in it. So my background is…
23 00:06:25.930 ⇒ 00:06:31.710 Joe Lewandowski: Basically for the last 8 years now, I’ve been with, Deboys in Plimpton.
24 00:06:31.820 ⇒ 00:06:37.639 Joe Lewandowski: such a law firm based in New York City, but we kind of work on a global scale.
25 00:06:38.580 ⇒ 00:06:46.030 Joe Lewandowski: I’m… pretty much the person in charge of, like, kind of PowerPoints and pitches and decks at the company.
26 00:06:46.130 ⇒ 00:06:58.879 Joe Lewandowski: It’s a three-person design team, but, like, I’m really the go-to person for decks. And we have, like, a team that we kind of outsource some of the more basic, like, trial graphics to.
27 00:06:58.880 ⇒ 00:06:59.310 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
28 00:06:59.310 ⇒ 00:07:05.380 Joe Lewandowski: So, definitely used to working in a variety of industries, like, you know, we have clients
29 00:07:05.950 ⇒ 00:07:11.830 Joe Lewandowski: across AI, entertainment, like, legal, like, governments, international stuff.
30 00:07:11.830 ⇒ 00:07:14.069 Uttam Kumaran: So, you know, I’ve kind of designed.
31 00:07:14.070 ⇒ 00:07:15.910 Joe Lewandowski: For every… everyone at this point?
32 00:07:15.910 ⇒ 00:07:16.430 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
33 00:07:16.930 ⇒ 00:07:20.989 Joe Lewandowski: And, you know, kind of understand the…
34 00:07:21.800 ⇒ 00:07:25.219 Joe Lewandowski: Like, the needs of, like, you know, fast-paced environment, and…
35 00:07:25.860 ⇒ 00:07:28.040 Joe Lewandowski: A lot of… a lot of rush jobs around here.
36 00:07:28.040 ⇒ 00:07:28.920 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah.
37 00:07:29.460 ⇒ 00:07:32.080 Uttam Kumaran: Well, I would say on our side, like, it’s not as…
38 00:07:32.200 ⇒ 00:07:46.559 Uttam Kumaran: It’s not usually as crazy, because the way we’ve tried to architect it is to just build a lot of reusable assets, and for the most part, we’re not… we’re not yet at the size where we’re going to pitches, every single pitch, like, with a deck.
39 00:07:46.560 ⇒ 00:08:00.279 Uttam Kumaran: I think more of what we’re interested in doing for this next phase is, like, for example, our core services are, like, AI and data, and so we have a deck for each, but now we kind of wanted to do, like, an AI for e-commerce, an AI one for…
40 00:08:00.590 ⇒ 00:08:05.519 Uttam Kumaran: Like, when we go into some company that’s in, like, B2B SaaS, and…
41 00:08:05.520 ⇒ 00:08:06.370 Joe Lewandowski: niche stuff.
42 00:08:06.370 ⇒ 00:08:19.640 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, more niche, and like, so we just kind of build, like, another version of it, right? So I’m like, okay, hey guys, we need, like, 5 more slides, we need to take these slides and just, like, make it more related to retail versus, like, so broad, and, like.
43 00:08:19.830 ⇒ 00:08:37.089 Uttam Kumaran: that’s a lot of the changes. Our team, all of our whole team works, like, in Figma, so, I think that’s something we made a decision on that really early, and… Okay. And yeah, like, right now, we have, as I mentioned, we have two designers. One of them is abroad, one’s here in the States, and so that’s why we’re sort of looking for somebody that…
44 00:08:37.240 ⇒ 00:08:46.200 Uttam Kumaran: is sort of here, and has some… a little bit of background, like, working in something… in… in something where it’s, like, somewhat technical.
45 00:08:46.380 ⇒ 00:08:54.229 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. You know, so you kind of understand that a lot of our work is, like, somewhat diagrams, like, process flow type stuff.
46 00:08:54.230 ⇒ 00:09:03.860 Joe Lewandowski: I mean, one of the things, and I think the reason why we invested this so early, is that this is just one of the ways that we come across, like, very, very professional, you know, like, having really beautiful.
47 00:09:03.860 ⇒ 00:09:14.600 Uttam Kumaran: brand and that shows even in our sales and marketing assets is really important to us. So it’s an area where we’ve invested to try to, like, do right. But of course, like.
48 00:09:14.600 ⇒ 00:09:28.859 Uttam Kumaran: where sometimes we’re trying to… it’s like a mix of me explaining… it’s like a really complex topic, and we’re like, how do we make this, like, look good on a slide? Yeah. So it’s an interesting, like, design challenge, but yeah, that’s, like, that’s the sort of, net of it. I mean, and every… all of our stuff.
49 00:09:28.860 ⇒ 00:09:35.560 Uttam Kumaran: if we can help it, it doesn’t get to Google Slides. Like, if we can keep everything in Figma and export it as, like, Figma slides, like.
50 00:09:35.560 ⇒ 00:09:35.890 Joe Lewandowski: Okay.
51 00:09:35.890 ⇒ 00:09:53.500 Uttam Kumaran: PDF, but of course, there are… that… the team is also in charge of sort of just broad deck templates, like, that are actually used to drive client engagements. Again, we do a lot of data stuff, so a lot of our data work ends up as slides and as sort of a data presentation.
52 00:09:54.700 ⇒ 00:10:03.459 Uttam Kumaran: And so that team is… sort of owns the different presentation templates that we have, like presentation diagrams, things like that.
53 00:10:03.870 ⇒ 00:10:04.530 Joe Lewandowski: Okay.
54 00:10:04.830 ⇒ 00:10:11.249 Joe Lewandowski: Yeah, I mean, I don’t use Figma right now for work, because we have, like, a subscription through Adobe, so that’s, like.
55 00:10:11.270 ⇒ 00:10:15.490 Uttam Kumaran: Company-wide, but I do have experience using Figma, like, on my own.
56 00:10:15.670 ⇒ 00:10:17.579 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, and I don’t think we’re doing anything, like.
57 00:10:18.010 ⇒ 00:10:23.400 Uttam Kumaran: too complicated, but that’s just… we’re sort of, like, just off the, like, Figma Google Slides stack.
58 00:10:23.670 ⇒ 00:10:26.519 Joe Lewandowski: Yeah, I found once you know one or one swipe.
59 00:10:26.520 ⇒ 00:10:26.840 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
60 00:10:26.840 ⇒ 00:10:29.530 Joe Lewandowski: Yeah, it kind of… the knowledge transfers pretty easily.
61 00:10:29.780 ⇒ 00:10:38.379 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. And so, yeah, I mean, that’s sort of, like, the net of it. I mean, in terms of, like, what I’d love to do is sort of connect you, maybe with someone on our design team, too, but…
62 00:10:38.700 ⇒ 00:10:44.619 Uttam Kumaran: What’s, like, sort of, like, your availability, and, like, how do you typically, like, charge for something like this?
63 00:10:45.560 ⇒ 00:11:02.310 Joe Lewandowski: So, my avail… like, availability-wise is pretty flexible, you know, I do work, like, technically 9 to 5.30 for… 9.30 to 5.30 for the law firm, but, you know, 3 to… 3 of those days are at home, and we kind of, like, I work a lot of…
64 00:11:03.150 ⇒ 00:11:12.150 Joe Lewandowski: it’s kind of… it can be, like, on and off with the lot of stuff, because, you know, when something gets busy, I’ll have to, you know, stay late or something, but…
65 00:11:12.150 ⇒ 00:11:12.620 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
66 00:11:12.620 ⇒ 00:11:14.580 Joe Lewandowski: But it’s really not like…
67 00:11:14.760 ⇒ 00:11:20.950 Joe Lewandowski: like, I definitely have time to take on more work right now, so it’s not… it’s not, like, impossible at all.
68 00:11:20.950 ⇒ 00:11:22.040 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
69 00:11:22.840 ⇒ 00:11:26.579 Joe Lewandowski: And then, like, rates? I mean, I don’t…
70 00:11:27.850 ⇒ 00:11:37.500 Joe Lewandowski: I don’t really have, like, a set rate or anything. I had done, like, for, like, I’m sure you saw in Upwork, like, $25 an hour, but it’s very flexible, it’s not…
71 00:11:38.100 ⇒ 00:11:52.799 Joe Lewandowski: I kind of usually have done, in the past, like, kind of one-off jobs, so I don’t… this is, like, kind of, like, slightly new ground for me, too. I mean, you know, I’ve definitely, like, had the experience, but I’ve never kind of done something like this, like, continuous work.
72 00:11:53.050 ⇒ 00:11:59.630 Uttam Kumaran: Cool, yeah, I mean, I think for us, like, we just want to make sure that you get… you get enough that you’re like, okay, these guys aren’t, like, short-changing me.
73 00:11:59.630 ⇒ 00:12:00.699 Joe Lewandowski: Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I get it.
74 00:12:00.700 ⇒ 00:12:19.329 Uttam Kumaran: And, like, and I also, like, I’ve worked with design my whole career, so I think we’ll… I’ll go back to our team and see, but of course, like, I think the 25 an hour is certainly in range, and again, it’s like, as we work more together, I feel like there’s… you’ll kind of see a little bit of our operation, and so…
75 00:12:19.330 ⇒ 00:12:23.839 Joe Lewandowski: I’m totally fine, and hours-wise, yeah, I mean, most of our stuff isn’t, like.
76 00:12:23.880 ⇒ 00:12:38.140 Uttam Kumaran: rush job, or, like, doesn’t require. I think for us, it’s just having someone that is in our time zone that we can meet with and be like, this is what we’re working on, and even if you’re… and then we operate a lot on Slack, too, so…
77 00:12:38.470 ⇒ 00:12:38.860 Joe Lewandowski: Okay.
78 00:12:38.860 ⇒ 00:12:49.739 Uttam Kumaran: that’s sort of where our team lives, and, like, we’re very async, so it’s not like there’s, like, meetings, or there’s, like, a lot of meetings. Maybe just, like, once a week, or ad hoc, like…
79 00:12:49.820 ⇒ 00:12:57.580 Uttam Kumaran: you guys can all decide, like, what the sort of structure is. So we’re pretty organized on our side in terms of… Yeah.
80 00:12:57.630 ⇒ 00:13:13.339 Uttam Kumaran: like, kind of like, okay, this is the work coming up, like, ticket it out, who can take what. So there’s… we’ve really tried to build, you know, there’s not much surprises. There are situations where I’m like, okay, there’s, like, some presentation coming up, guys, we, like, need to build.
81 00:13:13.400 ⇒ 00:13:25.019 Uttam Kumaran: this for that, but it’s… rarely is it, like, sort of same-day. The only same-day work is, like, hey, I built this deck in Google Slides, it looks ugly, can someone help me, like, just make it look way better?
82 00:13:25.020 ⇒ 00:13:25.340 Joe Lewandowski: Yeah, yeah.
83 00:13:25.340 ⇒ 00:13:35.060 Uttam Kumaran: And that’s something that… we’re mostly engineers, and so we’re having engineers do a lot of, like, slides and stuff like that. It doesn’t necessarily… I mean, you may be used to that from.
84 00:13:35.060 ⇒ 00:13:40.279 Joe Lewandowski: For law, but… Some of the slides the lawyers send are… Pretty incredible in how that.
85 00:13:40.280 ⇒ 00:13:40.950 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
86 00:13:40.950 ⇒ 00:13:41.420 Joe Lewandowski: that.
87 00:13:41.560 ⇒ 00:13:53.569 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so I feel like… but also, again, I push our team to use the templates, and then it’s usually, like, I’m like, hey, this is so much text, we need to either… we need a new slide format, or, like…
88 00:13:53.770 ⇒ 00:13:55.240 Uttam Kumaran: something, you know?
89 00:13:55.240 ⇒ 00:13:55.790 Joe Lewandowski: Yeah.
90 00:13:55.900 ⇒ 00:14:00.599 Uttam Kumaran: That’s a lot of, like… that’s a lot of, like, what I, what I asked for.
91 00:14:01.090 ⇒ 00:14:02.779 Joe Lewandowski: Yeah, I mean, I kind of…
92 00:14:02.950 ⇒ 00:14:05.250 Joe Lewandowski: when… as when I designed just kind of my…
93 00:14:05.370 ⇒ 00:14:10.440 Joe Lewandowski: what I’m thinking is I try to pride myself on, like, wedgeability and readability.
94 00:14:10.440 ⇒ 00:14:30.410 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, and for us, again, like, we’re a… so we’re a small consultancy, and, like, we’re just, like, two and a half years old, so for me, I tell our team, like, we compete, like, on just, like, how nice things look, because we don’t have, like, a huge brand. So the nicer and the way, like, we… and in engineering, in IT consulting, stuff never looks…
95 00:14:30.540 ⇒ 00:14:46.579 Uttam Kumaran: this good. And so, it’s been a point of pride and something that’s, like, caused us to stand out, you know, that we actually invested in having, like, even just our operational decks and our… and our decks that we use for client presentations, like, well designed, so…
96 00:14:46.810 ⇒ 00:14:58.870 Uttam Kumaran: That’s… that’s sort of the net of it, and then… and I don’t know, I think I’ll introduce you to Hannah, who… who’s been… who’s a designer on her team, and, next, and you can chat with her, she’ll kind of walk you through some of the process, and then…
97 00:14:59.020 ⇒ 00:15:07.469 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I mean, we have a backlog of, like, sort of, like, deck work that we need help with, so I think she’ll… I’ll have her walk you through what some of that looks like, and…
98 00:15:07.470 ⇒ 00:15:08.510 Joe Lewandowski: Okay.
99 00:15:08.630 ⇒ 00:15:11.110 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, maybe that’s probably best next step.
100 00:15:11.510 ⇒ 00:15:22.300 Joe Lewandowski: Yeah, I mean, that sounds great to me. Like I said, I have the availability, and usually, you know, within a, like, 1 to 3 days, I think I said, like, I can get anything back. It’s not…
101 00:15:22.590 ⇒ 00:15:25.620 Joe Lewandowski: You know? Cool, yeah, I don’t think there’ll be any…
102 00:15:25.620 ⇒ 00:15:30.240 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I don’t think there’ll be any, like… yeah, I don’t think there’ll be any problem on that stuff.
103 00:15:31.520 ⇒ 00:15:39.249 Joe Lewandowski: pretty… Pretty experienced with, like, turning kind of high-level concepts into… Cool. More readable things.
104 00:15:39.250 ⇒ 00:15:45.680 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, great, yeah, because that’s probably the hardest thing, is, like, we’re doing stuff in data and AI, and I sometimes have never seen
105 00:15:45.940 ⇒ 00:15:59.270 Uttam Kumaran: good, like, visual representations of things. Usually, if we do, then I would… I’ll send a bunch of info in. So, like, that’s one thing that I work with the team on, is I’m like, hey, here’s, like, 5 or 6 versions of, like, this concept that I’ve seen done well, like…
106 00:16:00.050 ⇒ 00:16:02.500 Uttam Kumaran: You know, and then… and that’s sort of how we work.
107 00:16:02.500 ⇒ 00:16:03.070 Joe Lewandowski: there.
108 00:16:03.070 ⇒ 00:16:05.149 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, kinda go from there, and then…
109 00:16:05.330 ⇒ 00:16:11.419 Uttam Kumaran: But again, like, for the most part, I think we’re just… there’s some concept we’re just trying to allow our clients
110 00:16:11.590 ⇒ 00:16:15.159 Uttam Kumaran: Understanding about, like, how we’re building things, or architecture.
111 00:16:15.160 ⇒ 00:16:15.590 Joe Lewandowski: and things like that.
112 00:16:15.590 ⇒ 00:16:19.300 Uttam Kumaran: that, so… And are you, are you based out of New York, too?
113 00:16:19.300 ⇒ 00:16:21.869 Joe Lewandowski: I am, I live, I live in, Queens, in the city.
114 00:16:21.870 ⇒ 00:16:26.480 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, okay, cool. Alright, I was, I’m here in Austin, but I used to live in the city, so…
115 00:16:26.480 ⇒ 00:16:31.499 Joe Lewandowski: Oh, nice. Yeah, yeah, they kind of require us… I had to go in the office 2 days a week, so…
116 00:16:31.500 ⇒ 00:16:32.540 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, nice, okay.
117 00:16:33.280 ⇒ 00:16:34.430 Uttam Kumaran: Sorry.
118 00:16:34.430 ⇒ 00:16:38.869 Joe Lewandowski: No, it’s okay, we got… it’s cause we got a… they got a brand new office in, like, Hudson Yards area.
119 00:16:38.870 ⇒ 00:16:39.940 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, okay, alright.
120 00:16:39.940 ⇒ 00:16:43.969 Joe Lewandowski: You know, they want us to come in, so at least it’s, like, pretty easy to get to.
121 00:16:43.970 ⇒ 00:16:48.569 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah. Okay, perfect. Alright, cool, so let me, let me,
122 00:16:48.690 ⇒ 00:16:55.179 Uttam Kumaran: shoot an email over, just connecting you and Hannah. I know it’s sort of a holiday, so I’ll let you guys just find a time that works.
123 00:16:55.180 ⇒ 00:17:00.380 Joe Lewandowski: Okay, yeah, yeah, kind of whatever, I’m not really going anywhere for the next couple weeks, so whatever works for her.
124 00:17:00.570 ⇒ 00:17:01.940 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, okay, perfect.
125 00:17:02.230 ⇒ 00:17:07.540 Uttam Kumaran: Alright, yeah, any other questions, let me know. And yeah, hope you have a great weekend.
126 00:17:07.540 ⇒ 00:17:09.110 Joe Lewandowski: Yeah, you too. Thanks so much.
127 00:17:09.449 ⇒ 00:17:10.799 Uttam Kumaran: Thank you. Talk to you soon.
128 00:17:10.800 ⇒ 00:17:11.430 Joe Lewandowski: Yep.