Meeting Title: HR - Partnerships - Ops Sync Date: 2026-01-22 Meeting participants: Sheshu Chandrasekar, Robert Tseng, Kaela Gallagher
WEBVTT
1 00:01:19.690 ⇒ 00:01:20.829 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Hey, Robert!
2 00:01:35.470 ⇒ 00:01:37.710 Robert Tseng: Hey, Shaysu, can you hear me.
3 00:01:37.710 ⇒ 00:01:39.659 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Hey, Robert. Yep, I can hear you.
4 00:01:41.000 ⇒ 00:01:46.610 Robert Tseng: Great. And I have Kayla here with me.
5 00:01:46.610 ⇒ 00:01:47.190 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Hey, Cale.
6 00:01:47.190 ⇒ 00:01:48.450 Robert Tseng: Can you hear me as well?
7 00:01:48.900 ⇒ 00:01:50.690 Robert Tseng: I can hear you. Perfect.
8 00:01:51.300 ⇒ 00:01:56.200 Robert Tseng: Okay. Nice to meet you. Great, yeah, we’re just sitting across from each other, trying to use the same mic.
9 00:01:56.890 ⇒ 00:01:57.780 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Got it.
10 00:01:58.040 ⇒ 00:01:58.950 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
11 00:01:59.460 ⇒ 00:02:03.069 Robert Tseng: Okay, great. And
12 00:02:03.230 ⇒ 00:02:12.329 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I guess it’s kind of first time everyone meeting here, so let me just kind of give a brief kind of intro for, like, how I think
13 00:02:12.330 ⇒ 00:02:24.100 Robert Tseng: what direction this call can go in. So, I know I said a bunch of, like, random messages to both of you in different ways over the past few days as we’ve been trying to get organized around this. But yeah, I think, like.
14 00:02:24.100 ⇒ 00:02:31.730 Robert Tseng: you know, at a high level, Wachisu just started with us, like, last week, or two weeks ago, forget. Yeah.
15 00:02:33.200 ⇒ 00:02:39.470 Robert Tseng: And, yeah, he’s been really helping on the ops side, and like, you know, I’ve shared some of the
16 00:02:39.470 ⇒ 00:02:56.060 Robert Tseng: kind of ops projects that you’ve been working on, with Kayla, and, like, you know, we’ve talked about some of the priorities with both of you, but I think it’s, like, time… like, what I’m hoping to get out of this call is to have some more direction on, like, how it will fit into, like, a…
17 00:02:56.060 ⇒ 00:03:05.719 Robert Tseng: Eric, like, we… we have this thing here, which I will… Flash this up, so…
18 00:03:05.980 ⇒ 00:03:10.510 Robert Tseng: we have this thing called, like, a… have you seen this before, Shishu, or our ARR chart?
19 00:03:10.510 ⇒ 00:03:11.390 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, I…
20 00:03:11.390 ⇒ 00:03:12.000 Robert Tseng: chart.
21 00:03:12.420 ⇒ 00:03:16.949 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, I have. I think I’ve seen the Q1 of 2026 version of it.
22 00:03:18.180 ⇒ 00:03:20.950 Robert Tseng: Oh, right. Okay. You’ve seen the go-to-market.
23 00:03:20.950 ⇒ 00:03:22.960 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yes, I’ve seen that one, yep, yeah.
24 00:03:22.960 ⇒ 00:03:39.479 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so… oh, you… okay, sorry, you’ve seen this version of it, right. Yeah, so obviously this is continuing to evolve, and, you know, these are all the, you know, Utam and I kind of go through this on a quarterly basis and try to think about what are all the different,
25 00:03:39.570 ⇒ 00:03:45.479 Robert Tseng: things that are going on in the company that we need to find people to own, pretty much. So…
26 00:03:45.480 ⇒ 00:03:46.000 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah.
27 00:03:46.000 ⇒ 00:03:56.970 Robert Tseng: you know, everything that doesn’t have a name means that there’s no name, and, like, you know, we’re trying to make sure that everybody has, like, there’s a name assigned to everything. And, you know, it was just…
28 00:03:57.490 ⇒ 00:04:12.690 Robert Tseng: Great timing that we came across, kind of, both of you around the same time, and each time I were chatting on my, like, while on my flight here, because I was like, how do I really, like, kind of frame, like, what we’re trying to put together here with the two of you?
29 00:04:12.690 ⇒ 00:04:21.620 Robert Tseng: And I think from my understanding, and this may… this may change, but, like, I view Shayshu’s work current… like, his perspective of being, like, very…
30 00:04:21.620 ⇒ 00:04:37.250 Robert Tseng: AI forward, systems, systems builder, kind of, like, coming in, and, like, yeah, you’ve been shadowing a lot of people, like, across all of our different work streams on the delivery side, on the sales side, and even, obviously, you’re… you’re basically kind of,
31 00:04:37.370 ⇒ 00:04:41.819 Robert Tseng: managing, Eliza and Rico now on the ops side.
32 00:04:42.000 ⇒ 00:04:49.859 Robert Tseng: But I kind of view that as, like, your, like, an… that’s… that’s kind of where you… you go. You’re, I guess, at a…
33 00:04:49.860 ⇒ 00:05:02.829 Robert Tseng: put… said in a dumb… dumbed-down way, like, I think your work helps people do their job better. Whereas, like, I think Kayla comes in with, like, a specific specialty in, like.
34 00:05:02.830 ⇒ 00:05:21.760 Robert Tseng: recruiting and, and I guess has… is opinionated on the HR side as well, in terms of, like, how do we build, the best offerings to… so that we can bring in better people when we need them. So, in other words…
35 00:05:22.020 ⇒ 00:05:46.270 Robert Tseng: you know, hopefully Kayla, with Kayla and what she can bring to the table, she’ll continue to help us to raise the floor on the new people that are coming in the door, whereas, like, Shaysu is, like, focused on enabling the people that are already in, and, like, giving them an additional boost. So, that’s kind of why I made the case to Utam that, like, I think we can have both of you, kind of at this, you know.
36 00:05:46.270 ⇒ 00:05:52.560 Robert Tseng: working on this together, even though there is some overlap. I think both of you can take on different ops pieces, but I think…
37 00:05:52.560 ⇒ 00:05:58.420 Robert Tseng: I think with, kayla would be able to focus more on the recruiting.
38 00:05:58.540 ⇒ 00:06:15.710 Robert Tseng: pipeline, because that’s definitely one of our biggest priorities. And then, like, I guess, you have your roadmap that you’re building out, already. So, that’s kind of, like, why I got these people in the room together today.
39 00:06:15.840 ⇒ 00:06:19.249 Robert Tseng: And so, I have some things that I want to share about, like.
40 00:06:19.740 ⇒ 00:06:39.259 Robert Tseng: what we’ve thought through, and, you know, we can just… this is really just gonna be more of a discussion… this discussion today, but maybe I’ll just pause there, kind of see, like, does that kind of make sense? Any questions just off of that? Like, you know, I know that we’re… I didn’t really give too much, like, preparation for both of you coming into this call.
41 00:06:39.810 ⇒ 00:06:53.169 Sheshu Chandrasekar: No, that makes total sense, and I did read the Slack message that you posted, really briefly in the morning. I need to read it right now, but yeah, no, that makes total sense, just because…
42 00:06:53.540 ⇒ 00:07:12.820 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, I mean, from a recruiting standpoint and stuff like that, like, I’m… I understand the… the high-level overview, but the nitty-gritty stuff I’m still trying to understand, right? Like, the… like, what goes into it, and like, how do we make sure that each step along the recruitment process, you know, really works out well for us and stuff like that, so…
43 00:07:14.530 ⇒ 00:07:18.889 Robert Tseng: Yeah, yeah, definitely. You know, I think the split, sorry, I’m, like, looking…
44 00:07:18.890 ⇒ 00:07:19.709 Sheshu Chandrasekar: It looks so good.
45 00:07:19.820 ⇒ 00:07:21.290 Robert Tseng: Nobody…
46 00:07:21.570 ⇒ 00:07:34.870 Robert Tseng: Well, it makes a lot of sense, and yeah, that’s… that’s what I’ve been doing for a while, is kind of this, like, people ops and recruiting side of things. I’m, like, really passionate about creating a great experience for people, especially in the onboarding stage, so…
47 00:07:34.900 ⇒ 00:07:45.940 Robert Tseng: Yeah, really excited about that, and apologies for my questions in advance, because I haven’t had access to any of these things, so this is the first time I’m seeing them, so yeah, excited.
48 00:07:48.100 ⇒ 00:07:57.350 Robert Tseng: Yeah, sorry, like, I… yeah, I know you’ve been having issues as well. I don’t even know how to give people access to everything, I just… I just kind of open.
49 00:07:57.350 ⇒ 00:07:57.880 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, I know.
50 00:07:57.880 ⇒ 00:07:59.560 Robert Tseng: I assume.
51 00:08:00.940 ⇒ 00:08:05.820 Sheshu Chandrasekar: I just got the access to Zoom, like, creating meetings and stuff, so I get it.
52 00:08:05.820 ⇒ 00:08:11.129 Robert Tseng: Oh, man. Okay, well, hopefully you’re gonna help us.
53 00:08:11.630 ⇒ 00:08:12.290 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah.
54 00:08:12.290 ⇒ 00:08:12.810 Robert Tseng: of those.
55 00:08:12.810 ⇒ 00:08:13.800 Sheshu Chandrasekar: That’s, like, part of…
56 00:08:13.800 ⇒ 00:08:17.240 Robert Tseng: Anyway, yeah.
57 00:08:17.290 ⇒ 00:08:18.750 Sheshu Chandrasekar: No, absolutely.
58 00:08:18.750 ⇒ 00:08:19.270 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
59 00:08:19.570 ⇒ 00:08:20.830 Robert Tseng: Okay, cool.
60 00:08:21.610 ⇒ 00:08:38.299 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so, I mean, just, you know, I kind of called it partnerships, HR, ops. To me, like, ops isn’t really its own separate thing, and so, I mean, I guess in the AOR document right now, it kind of is, but, maybe it should stay this way. I’m not proposing that we need to change
61 00:08:38.299 ⇒ 00:08:46.929 Robert Tseng: at the department level, but in terms of, like, our highest priorities, like, we kind of sat down and went through them, so I’ll just kind of list them out. Like, the top three.
62 00:08:46.930 ⇒ 00:09:02.460 Robert Tseng: sales. I think, you know, you’ve seen this, and I’m happy to share, kind of, our targets. Like, in order for us to hit our Q1 goal, we need to be filling active pipeline. And so, like, you know, this is not something I’ve obviously shown,
63 00:09:02.460 ⇒ 00:09:25.859 Robert Tseng: Caleb before, but, like, this is kind of where our business is at, and, like, what we’re aiming… what we’re aiming at. And so, in order to, like, get to a good place, like, I feel like our, you know, our pipeline is a little bit dry right now. We pretty much need to double, at least double our pipeline to hit our goal of doing 160K a month. That’s really our goal for the quarter. So, that’s where a lot of my attention is going, and so…
64 00:09:25.860 ⇒ 00:09:49.789 Robert Tseng: with Luke being here, he’s been kind of turning on our content engine again, our outbound sales is up again, but 50% of our pipeline needs to come from partnerships, which is kind of why I put together and sent you a bunch of late messages yesterday on, like, the partnership side. I’ll talk about that a little bit more, because I want to brief you, Shaysu, as you… I know you’re meeting with Holly tomorrow, so I want to just make sure, like, we’re kind of aligned on
65 00:09:49.790 ⇒ 00:09:54.200 Robert Tseng: kind of where the system is at now, and where I think you can kind of take it from here.
66 00:09:54.200 ⇒ 00:10:18.580 Robert Tseng: So, 50% of it from partnerships, 30% from marketing, 20% from targeted direct outbound. So, yeah, like, I think this is, you know, we just met with our go-to-market advisor, over, like, earlier this week. We kind of walked him through, like, kind of actuals, forecasts, and everything, so he’s kind of on board with, like, this is the direction we’re headed in. And, yeah, we just kind of got his sign-off on that, on, like, how we’re gonna get there.
67 00:10:18.970 ⇒ 00:10:21.720 Robert Tseng: The second priority is on the recruiting side.
68 00:10:23.320 ⇒ 00:10:40.859 Robert Tseng: So, yeah, we need to continue to hire specifically, like, senior-level analysts. I guess we’ve been calling them analysts, but they’re really more like, yeah, just consultants, I guess, data technical consultants, I guess.
69 00:10:40.930 ⇒ 00:10:48.739 Robert Tseng: Yeah, we’re a little bit thin on that side, and with a couple new strategy clients kind of coming in the door, like.
70 00:10:48.740 ⇒ 00:11:12.040 Robert Tseng: you know, I was just meeting with Amber, because she’s here with me as well, but, she’s the only other person who has capacity right now. There’s no way she can handle another two clients. So, yeah, I think really defining, you know, what does… we already have, like, a job description floating out there on, like, a senior associate or whatever, but, like.
71 00:11:12.040 ⇒ 00:11:29.999 Robert Tseng: yeah, making sure that we actually can bring in a couple people, at least one or two people, by the end of the quarter at that level. So, fortunately, there is one candidate in LA that is also kind of meeting, joining us for a happy hour in two hours, so, like, she’s pretty much at the end of the recruiting cycle, and I also want to just…
72 00:11:30.130 ⇒ 00:11:41.650 Robert Tseng: you know, hopefully it’s a good opportunity for Kayla, you know, I’m not gonna expect you to evaluate her, but, you know, also just as… I would be curious how you would, as you guys know her, like, you know, what…
73 00:11:41.930 ⇒ 00:11:49.489 Robert Tseng: I know you also don’t know our leveling structure or anything, but I just want to get your thoughts when you meet her on, on what…
74 00:11:49.490 ⇒ 00:12:08.140 Robert Tseng: what she could bring to the table. So I might spend a little bit of time kind of expanding on, like, who we’re looking for specifically on that. But yeah, I would say that that’s one of our bigger bottlenecks. And then, obviously, recruiting engineers. Utam spends, like, probably 4 hours… 4 to 5 hours a week
75 00:12:08.140 ⇒ 00:12:21.289 Robert Tseng: doing, like, interviews, which I think is too much for what he’s… for his time. So, as much as we can better qualify candidates, before they get on the phone with him, right now his, like.
76 00:12:21.860 ⇒ 00:12:41.640 Robert Tseng: his assumption is that, like, it’s faster for him to jump on a call and qualify a candidate than it is to let, like, Rico book the first call, and then pass it to Amber, and then, like, to Demilade, and basically have 3 other people on our team meeting with this person before they finally come to me.
77 00:12:41.690 ⇒ 00:13:00.659 Robert Tseng: me or U-Tam, and we’re, like, I don’t think this person was a good fit at all. So, like, I think there’s a little bit of just, like, a paradigm shift that needs to happen. We need to build a better… better process where, like, he’s not taking the first interview for most of this technical talent, because it’s just taking up too much of his time.
78 00:13:01.320 ⇒ 00:13:23.969 Robert Tseng: Yeah. The interviews that Utah’s doing with the engineers… Yeah. Are they, like, technical interviews, or… They’re mostly screening, yeah. Mostly just saying no due to, like, a culture fit, basically. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. We do have a… we do have a couple technicals that we send out, like, after the first call, but yeah, he’s doing well the first call, Brandon, yeah. Okay. Yeah.
79 00:13:23.990 ⇒ 00:13:37.320 Robert Tseng: Got it. Yeah. So, and I think it’s maybe, like, we don’t really have people who not interview at the first stage, or… I don’t know, we… yeah, you know, we… it’s… it’s just not really something that a lot of our team is used to doing, so,
80 00:13:37.360 ⇒ 00:13:38.210 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
81 00:13:40.550 ⇒ 00:13:41.890 Robert Tseng: Cool.
82 00:13:42.690 ⇒ 00:13:57.209 Robert Tseng: Then the third one is partnerships, and so I’ll kind of transition over to kind of sharing more on the partnership side, and why I was curious to involve both of you. I don’t expect this to be, like, your, oops, day-to-day, necessarily, but, like,
83 00:13:57.350 ⇒ 00:13:59.510 Robert Tseng: Yeah, as much as we can, like.
84 00:14:00.080 ⇒ 00:14:08.510 Robert Tseng: you spend a little bit of time, I think just breaking this down helps you to understand, kind of, like, you know, one of the biggest channels in our business anyway, so, like,
85 00:14:08.690 ⇒ 00:14:15.479 Robert Tseng: Yeah, like, I won’t… so this… this is a… oh, someone cloned that. Okay, this is the one I was working on.
86 00:14:16.610 ⇒ 00:14:35.139 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so if I were to just walk through this, I know I didn’t send a loom with it, Chase Yu, and maybe you’ve read it already, but, like, I’ll just kind of go through it again. Yeah, like, the goal is, you know, last quarter, we had probably, like, 30 partners that we were going after, way too many, and, like, we were not making much progress on any of them.
87 00:14:35.140 ⇒ 00:14:56.780 Robert Tseng: Heading into this corner, we’ve already narrowed down the list to 10, but our advisor is saying cut it down to 5 or less. So, I can already, like, kind of cherry-pick which ones I would, like, kick off the list or whatever, but, like, the idea of building out this schema is to, like, kind of go through different stages that, like, you know, I think would be helpful to track, and so I think, Shishu, maybe you can kind of help
88 00:14:56.780 ⇒ 00:15:11.709 Robert Tseng: probably think about how to track these things. I’m not expecting either of you to necessarily, like, key them in on any… it’s like, as you build… it’s not… this is not, like, something to update on a daily basis, but I think, like, getting this, like, level of
89 00:15:12.340 ⇒ 00:15:26.189 Robert Tseng: granularity on the entire partner journey, I think, is important for us. So, first, identifying who the partner types are. So, there’s all these different types of partners. I would say, like, okay, we can kind of just go through, like,
90 00:15:27.020 ⇒ 00:15:46.710 Robert Tseng: you know, Snowflake, I would say, is like a platform partner, because, like, they’re an ecosystem of different products. They’re not just a single tech vendor, and, you know, I think they’re, I guess from an archetype perspective, we have a few different archetypes. We call it demand creator, Accelerator.
91 00:15:47.070 ⇒ 00:16:11.180 Robert Tseng: you know, I would say they’re, like, a multiplier, because, like, we know other agencies… our advisor pretty much built an agency like ours that was doing $20 million in revenue off of an AWS partnership alone. So, like, I think if we are able to secure a good spot in Snowflake, that, like, fundamentally changes, like, our business at this point, at the deal size that they could work with us on.
92 00:16:11.350 ⇒ 00:16:28.629 Robert Tseng: Obviously, there’s a lot that goes into it, given that they’re already a pretty big, big organization, and so that’s where the other resource that I had in the Slack thread, which I’m not gonna show now, kind of starts to illustrate, like, how do we actually go after an account this big?
93 00:16:28.850 ⇒ 00:16:30.010 Robert Tseng: And so.
94 00:16:30.060 ⇒ 00:16:45.359 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I think that’s… that’s kind of one… so we know that, like, Snowflake is, like, essential to our work. Like, I would say this is, like, the bet that we’re making. Like, we need to make some real headway into Snowflake this year. Yeah, I just feel like UTAM’s expertise is…
95 00:16:45.360 ⇒ 00:16:50.679 Robert Tseng: is really deep in Snowflake, it’s too good of an opportunity for us not to be getting, like.
96 00:16:50.750 ⇒ 00:16:53.979 Robert Tseng: getting… getting deals with them. So,
97 00:16:54.110 ⇒ 00:17:02.080 Robert Tseng: Yeah, other than that, you know, there’s some… some, like, kind of just general notes on, like, you know, how… how are we doing in terms of
98 00:17:02.080 ⇒ 00:17:23.310 Robert Tseng: things that, you know, we’re trying to get… we’re trying to get a speaking engagement at their conference later this summer. You know, we’ve… we are… I’m actually doing an on-site… we’re organizing an on-site with them, at Insomnia Cookies, which is one of our clients, so that’s an account they want to get into, and they’re trying to co-sell with us on. But, you know, we’re kind of… it was supposed to be this month, but…
99 00:17:23.310 ⇒ 00:17:41.270 Robert Tseng: things kind of got crazy on that client, so we might end up pushing it out a bit. So, like, there are definitely things in motion, I just felt like I didn’t have a good way to, like, kind of see, like, what was actually going on all in one place. So I had asked Holly to, like, take some notes, and she kind of left a few things here and there, just somewhat helpful.
100 00:17:41.680 ⇒ 00:17:55.839 Robert Tseng: Here’s another section on, like, how do we, like, qualify partners? I feel like this is, like, a mechan… this is a mechanism that didn’t exist before. I think Holly was just kind of saying yes to everything, and
101 00:17:55.840 ⇒ 00:18:07.660 Robert Tseng: I mean, it was just great, like, but, like, just kind of… that’s how we ended up with a list of, like, 20 to 30. So, I think we just need to be a little bit more rigorous about, like, are they actually going after the same customers that we’re going after?
102 00:18:07.740 ⇒ 00:18:21.200 Robert Tseng: have they named any accounts for us already? Because I think different partners, depending on who you’re talking to… I mean, the goal is really just to be able to share, like, lead lists with each other. So, some are more hesitant than others to share, but…
103 00:18:21.200 ⇒ 00:18:40.939 Robert Tseng: you know, for an account this size, if Snowflake is not giving us… if that rep is not giving us the right… giving us their lead list, we need to go find the next person, and next person, because they have, like, a whole, like, sales force, and somebody there will be willing to kind of make this arrangement work. And so, I’m happy to, like, kind of continue to have
104 00:18:40.960 ⇒ 00:18:59.119 Robert Tseng: like, Holly going to those calls, or, you know, eventually, like, you know, I think it would be beneficial for you both to also kind of be talking to some of these partners to kind of understand, like, how do things work on… on their side. But yeah, I think that’s really something that I feel like we were not measuring before.
105 00:18:59.120 ⇒ 00:19:02.249 Robert Tseng: I feel like it was just a lot of conversations about, like.
106 00:19:02.250 ⇒ 00:19:10.849 Robert Tseng: we’re doing all this busy work, but, like, have they actually brought any leads to us? And, like, I think we need to be more strict about that in our qualification process.
107 00:19:11.600 ⇒ 00:19:20.070 Robert Tseng: Intros, just really kind of like, what are the different ways that we can get intro to a lead? Are there sales reps selling on our behalf?
108 00:19:20.530 ⇒ 00:19:36.839 Robert Tseng: Are they giving us referrals if they’re, like, if they don’t have a sales… if they don’t have a sales team and, you know, some companies don’t? Are we doing co-marketing through events, conferences, whatever it is? Like, I’ll give an example, like, Omni, for example, has basically told us
109 00:19:36.840 ⇒ 00:19:48.149 Robert Tseng: like, they want to start funding, like, our content with them. So they want to pay to give… to have our marketing team, like, to give… to let Luke basically build out, like.
110 00:19:48.150 ⇒ 00:20:00.349 Robert Tseng: content series where we’re demoing Omni, we’re doing Omni success stories, whatever, and, like, they’re willing to, like, do that with us. They don’t have, like, a full-on partner sales force, like…
111 00:20:00.490 ⇒ 00:20:10.890 Robert Tseng: Snowflake does, because they’re not that big, but, like, you know, that’s… that’s a different intro mechanism that they have. And then the economics of it are just really… how is the deal? Is, like…
112 00:20:10.940 ⇒ 00:20:12.089 Robert Tseng: I think different…
113 00:20:12.090 ⇒ 00:20:35.709 Robert Tseng: there was a… there was a partner that was on here before, that was… I felt like being really stingy about, like, kind of the… the economics of it. It was, like, they didn’t… didn’t… like, they want us… they wanted to give us, like, 5% of, like, the… I mean, over… over 6… over a 6-month contract or something, which, I don’t know, just… it just felt really small and, like, stingy, it just, like, didn’t really make any sense, so…
114 00:20:35.790 ⇒ 00:20:56.670 Robert Tseng: For us to, like, do all the work of selling for them, and then it’s only, like, 5% of a 30K contract over… or, you know, whatever. So, like, yeah, so, like, I think, you know, that probably looks different for every client. But I just feel like we should have a good sense of this for every partner. Obviously, this is blank, because, like, I just added this yesterday, but we haven’t actually
115 00:20:56.670 ⇒ 00:21:04.470 Robert Tseng: we could probably answer all of these different, criteria, and I built an agent that we can kind of run… run this on, but, like, that’s…
116 00:21:04.640 ⇒ 00:21:09.310 Robert Tseng: you know, that’s basically what’s in the Git repo that I had shared with you.
117 00:21:10.040 ⇒ 00:21:10.960 Robert Tseng: Cheershu.
118 00:21:11.790 ⇒ 00:21:12.600 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah.
119 00:21:12.600 ⇒ 00:21:13.180 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
120 00:21:13.180 ⇒ 00:21:19.769 Sheshu Chandrasekar: I do have one question, so, I mean, it sounds like we’re kind of in that phase where we’re trying to trim down on partners, so, like.
121 00:21:20.720 ⇒ 00:21:32.279 Sheshu Chandrasekar: I mean, obviously, I think I would have to go through each partner and figure out, like, how it aligns with each of the services that Brainforge offers, right? But, like, what’s, like, kind of, like, the…
122 00:21:33.000 ⇒ 00:21:49.560 Sheshu Chandrasekar: I guess, like, the question is, like, what’s kind of, like, the… the motivation behind going after these partnerships? Because, like, why Mixpanel versus not another partner, right? And obviously, you kind of filled out some of the details here, because some of them are personal connections, professional connections, but…
123 00:21:49.560 ⇒ 00:21:53.670 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Why not, like, look at other things that expand our services?
124 00:21:53.740 ⇒ 00:21:58.169 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Right? And what’s kind of, like, the criteria is, like, kind of my question here.
125 00:22:01.200 ⇒ 00:22:06.400 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so, like, how, like, basically, how did they even get on this list? Like, I think it’s.
126 00:22:06.400 ⇒ 00:22:07.670 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, how did he get on this list?
127 00:22:07.670 ⇒ 00:22:16.049 Robert Tseng: So, yeah, right now, it’s all… it’s all just through either Utam likes the tool, I like the tool, we have a relationship in them, like, frankly, that’s just all it is.
128 00:22:16.110 ⇒ 00:22:28.349 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, I could speak at length about, yeah, Mixpanel, there’s plenty of other product analytics tools. I prefer Amplitude the most. Amplitude is also on this list. I’ve hosted events in LA with Amplitude, I think I shared that with you before.
129 00:22:28.350 ⇒ 00:22:28.810 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Oh, yeah.
130 00:22:28.810 ⇒ 00:22:31.110 Robert Tseng: and, like, with Nick’s panel.
131 00:22:31.210 ⇒ 00:22:41.849 Robert Tseng: I mean, there… like, I guess one way to think about, and since Kayla doesn’t know too much about, like, all our services yet, but, like, product analytics is, like, only one
132 00:22:41.960 ⇒ 00:22:50.090 Robert Tseng: like, I don’t consider that to be a… it’s easy to sell, but it’s not, like, the core of our business.
133 00:22:50.090 ⇒ 00:22:50.770 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah.
134 00:22:51.070 ⇒ 00:22:52.849 Robert Tseng: It doesn’t move the needle, right?
135 00:22:53.240 ⇒ 00:23:10.159 Robert Tseng: It moves the needle, and it gets our foot in the door. At the end of the day, like, once we get in on product analytics, I want the… what’s… is the data engineering piece, because, if we have control over their data stack on, like, getting
136 00:23:10.620 ⇒ 00:23:24.830 Robert Tseng: helping clients to, yeah, like, to get all their data in one place, we do the modeling, and then we can stack on… then we can stack on a lot of services. But the easier thing to enter, rather than going to
137 00:23:24.890 ⇒ 00:23:30.020 Robert Tseng: Sometimes, like, clients are very resistant to, like, we don’t really want you to come in and bring all these tools to us.
138 00:23:30.020 ⇒ 00:23:46.829 Robert Tseng: Product analytics is the easier thing to use, because it’s, like, very, it’s very accessible for organizations at any stage, and, like, most of them don’t do it right. So, I think that’s why it’s easy. Mixpanel and Amplitude don’t sell themselves, like, they don’t have professional services.
139 00:23:46.830 ⇒ 00:24:03.089 Robert Tseng: They, they, yeah, they, they, they let go of all their solutions engineers, so, like, they don’t really, like, have internal people that are helping clients onboard them for the product anymore, so it lends itself to being a very good, like, services-led, like, partnership.
140 00:24:03.210 ⇒ 00:24:16.459 Robert Tseng: So, like, this is… yeah, Mixed Chanel is how I started my consultancy. Like, I was just doing mixed panel consulting for, like, the first 3 months. I probably got, like, 6 clients off of that, and then from there.
141 00:24:16.460 ⇒ 00:24:29.359 Robert Tseng: I… one of the clients ended up going down, like, they wanted the whole data engineering build-out, and that’s how I looped Utam in, because he was a Snowflake guy. So he came in and brought Snowflake. And so, I think, like.
142 00:24:30.140 ⇒ 00:24:48.229 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I don’t think that’s always going to be the case in that sequence, especially as we go to bigger organizations. They will already have a lot of these legacy systems in place, and sometimes it’s just, like, replatforming from, like, one tool to another. But yeah, I think that’s really kind of, like, how we ended up with some of these early partners to start with.
143 00:24:48.390 ⇒ 00:24:53.070 Robert Tseng: But yeah, I mean, I don’t really… I mean…
144 00:24:54.250 ⇒ 00:25:18.909 Robert Tseng: So, I’ll take one more example here. So, like, Moengage, for example, you guys, I don’t know if you know anything about, like, CDP products, but, like, a CDP is, like, a segment, or, like, a Klaviyo. It’s kind of like a data warehouse, but it’s, like, a warehouse-less system that is specifically for non-technical people.
145 00:25:18.910 ⇒ 00:25:22.540 Robert Tseng: to be able to move data around. So, like, it’s…
146 00:25:22.540 ⇒ 00:25:40.329 Robert Tseng: you know, in the marketing world, there’s all these, like, jargon about, like, AI decisioning, personalization, whatever, it’s all orchestrated. The biggest players are still Salesforce and, Adobe Analytics, but there are a few other players, like Segments, like Klaviyo, like Hightouch.
147 00:25:40.330 ⇒ 00:25:59.839 Robert Tseng: That are kind of… that are in the mix as well. We work with these tools on most of our partners, but, like, I… you know, MoEngage is, like, another one that I felt like was a good partner to introduce, and we’re starting to, like, try to nurture that relationship. How I decided on them was really just through, like, a market sizing exercise.
148 00:25:59.910 ⇒ 00:26:17.070 Robert Tseng: I think Salesforce and Adobe are losing market share. Moengage has, 30% market share outside of the, you know, outside of North America. They just entered the North American market last year, and they’re looking for an early services partner. So, they were willing to basically co-author blogs with us.
149 00:26:17.070 ⇒ 00:26:23.770 Robert Tseng: Yeah, and, yeah, once again, they want to throw marketing dollars at working with us as well. So, like.
150 00:26:23.940 ⇒ 00:26:40.839 Robert Tseng: you know, it was crazy to see, because, like, I never heard of this tool before, I’ve never worked with it, but, like, they’re… they have a bigger… they’re a bigger market cap than Segment. They just raised $150 million, and, like, yeah, I think it’s, like, a good challenger for these incumbents.
151 00:26:40.840 ⇒ 00:26:48.209 Robert Tseng: But, like, I would just want to ride the wave. Like, I don’t know if they’ll actually win, but, like, if they’re willing to, grow with us, like.
152 00:26:48.420 ⇒ 00:26:54.589 Robert Tseng: in… as they’re trying to enter the North American market, kind of like, why not? So, like, I think that was, like, kind of a…
153 00:26:54.810 ⇒ 00:27:02.189 Robert Tseng: That’s, like, one example of, like, of a partner that I just added, like, a few weeks ago that didn’t make it onto this list yet.
154 00:27:02.860 ⇒ 00:27:05.600 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, the rationale behind that bet makes a lot of sense.
155 00:27:06.630 ⇒ 00:27:22.299 Robert Tseng: Yeah. I also have an aunt who’s, like, the head of global GTM for Snowflake, so… Oh, no way! So she might be able to give us some advice. Great! Yes. Yeah. We love… We love Friends and Snowflake, I think that would be great.
156 00:27:22.370 ⇒ 00:27:39.089 Robert Tseng: Yeah. So, to give you guys more context, like, Snowflake, there’s… there’s a deal we’re working on. We’re basically trying to subcontract work out of EY right now. There’s a… they’re… they don’t have the… they don’t have the tech… you know, most of these consultancies don’t actually do their own technical work. What’s…
157 00:27:39.290 ⇒ 00:27:42.610 Robert Tseng: What’s different about us is, like, we’re an engineering firm, and so, like.
158 00:27:42.610 ⇒ 00:28:01.159 Robert Tseng: we can… we… we can… we can actually… we actually have the staff to… to… to do… do the work that we do. And that makes… that’s making us more attractive to, like, the… kind of the bigger… bigger consultancies, to be like, hey, we want to work with a brain force that when we get a contract, that they’re going to be the… the staff that we work on.
159 00:28:01.160 ⇒ 00:28:09.209 Robert Tseng: And that’s great, you know, that’s a… it’s a million dollar deal that we’re trying to close with them. And, so I think we’re trying to, like, knock on the door of these bigger deals.
160 00:28:09.260 ⇒ 00:28:32.929 Robert Tseng: like, the one thing that’s not… that’s closing is that, like, we’re not at the higher… at a high enough tier on the Snowflake partner list, and that’s, like, what’s kind of giving them cold feet, which I think is just kind of silly, but I understand. At the enterprise level, sometimes it’s just these optical things that, like, matter. Like, we need to be, like, a silver tier, gold tier kind of partner, and that’s why we’re trying to get in, like, a…
161 00:28:32.930 ⇒ 00:28:42.559 Robert Tseng: like, a speaker slot on the Snowflake conference, so we could at least, like, point to some industry signals that, like, we’re experts in this tool already.
162 00:28:42.570 ⇒ 00:28:52.249 Robert Tseng: yeah, like, I think it’s just unfortunate that our… our optics haven’t really, like, caught up to, like, our capabilities yet, even though I’m confident that we could deliver on that.
163 00:28:53.300 ⇒ 00:28:54.470 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, makes sense.
164 00:28:56.210 ⇒ 00:28:56.890 Robert Tseng: So…
165 00:28:56.890 ⇒ 00:29:02.479 Sheshu Chandrasekar: So, like, right now, are you… are we, like, a select? Oh, I’m sorry, you were saying something.
166 00:29:03.950 ⇒ 00:29:09.700 Robert Tseng: Yeah, yeah, we’re at, like, whatever the lowest tier is, to be honest. Like, I don’t really know what they call it.
167 00:29:09.700 ⇒ 00:29:15.690 Sheshu Chandrasekar: It’s called Select, Elite, and then… I think it’s Platinum? It’s the top one? I have no idea. Okay, yeah. Yeah.
168 00:29:15.900 ⇒ 00:29:16.460 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
169 00:29:18.160 ⇒ 00:29:29.429 Robert Tseng: Yeah. So, I mean, obviously, like, Snowflake will have, like, different tiers for their partners. Other… other partners, they won’t, like, you know, Mixpanel, partnerships, I think…
170 00:29:30.560 ⇒ 00:29:35.440 Robert Tseng: If you go into the expert directory… Solutions.
171 00:29:44.000 ⇒ 00:29:46.449 Robert Tseng: Brave Forge is still there, so,
172 00:29:46.500 ⇒ 00:30:04.340 Robert Tseng: Okay, we used to be top 5, but it’s been dropping, because we haven’t really been doing enough here. But, like, yeah, like, you know, we were on for… when we were in the top 5, I was probably getting, like, 2 or 3 leads a week, or a month from them, and so, like, yeah, I think just being featured, like, Omni, we should be featured, but we’re not, like…
173 00:30:09.330 ⇒ 00:30:16.870 Robert Tseng: I think… I mean, we asked to be, I don’t know if I haven’t checked this… equipment program…
174 00:30:24.800 ⇒ 00:30:30.529 Robert Tseng: Okay, yeah, anyway, like, they have a few implementation partners, yeah, we’re not… we’re not featured on this yet, which is… not great, but…
175 00:30:32.710 ⇒ 00:30:41.930 Robert Tseng: Anyway, so, yeah, this is just, like, a channel that we want to really, like, focus on, and I think that’s where I’m going to be directing,
176 00:30:42.870 ⇒ 00:30:44.069 Robert Tseng: more of…
177 00:30:46.230 ⇒ 00:30:58.339 Robert Tseng: Well, I… yeah, I just… there are just so many touchpoints and, like, kind of strategizing to go after this. I kind of view it like it’s like a sales… it’s like a… it’s a whole different go-to-market motion. And,
178 00:30:58.500 ⇒ 00:31:06.360 Robert Tseng: yeah, just kind of trying to pick… pick apart, like, where, you know, both of you could contribute to this in some way, I think would help.
179 00:31:06.360 ⇒ 00:31:28.179 Robert Tseng: Like, I know it’s a little bit of a… it’s more of a stretch from, like, what we originally kind of scoped out with you, but because I think this is a very tangible way to kind of be involved with the go-to-market strategy, or just the go-to-market piece, like, I just think that it’s something that I wanted to at least share, that, like, this is something we’re actively pushing. So, and it’s probably the least mature channel that we’re on right now.
180 00:31:29.900 ⇒ 00:31:44.110 Robert Tseng: Like, are you the one that’s kind of running this effort right now? Like, spearheading it? Yeah, I think, like, strategize… so strategy-wise, yeah. We have Holly, who’s our partnership’s lead, she actually… and then…
181 00:31:44.380 ⇒ 00:31:51.679 Robert Tseng: she… she and Rutan mostly jump on a lot of these calls with these partners, because, yeah, and then… but as far as, like.
182 00:31:52.460 ⇒ 00:31:57.110 Robert Tseng: yeah, I guess, making the decision on who we’re going after, like.
183 00:31:58.080 ⇒ 00:32:06.010 Robert Tseng: what… like, what’s… what’s, like, the… what’s the plan of attack? Like, I think that’s really kind of something that I’m… I’m… I’m driving more.
184 00:32:07.300 ⇒ 00:32:08.090 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
185 00:32:09.130 ⇒ 00:32:10.300 Robert Tseng: But it’s…
186 00:32:10.300 ⇒ 00:32:34.560 Robert Tseng: Yeah, anyway, so I just think that there’s room for operational support here, because, yeah, especially on the qualification side, I feel like this is a piece that we can… like, I don’t want Holly doing qualification. Like, I want to give her a list and be like, these are the partners, these are the people, just go and jump on calls with them. You can do… she can do the dance once she’s on the calls and figure out, great, the conversation went in one way, so I decided to push an event.
187 00:32:34.640 ⇒ 00:32:47.939 Robert Tseng: Or, like, she knows those levers when she’s on the call, but I feel like, yeah, like, all this, this is more kind of just, like, the planning strategy ops side of it, that I feel like we… this is a way we could support her and Utam, just by, kind of.
188 00:32:48.000 ⇒ 00:32:56.719 Robert Tseng: taking pieces of this off, and, like, I… I feel like it’s… it’s a similar type of work already to kind of maybe how we think about
189 00:32:56.830 ⇒ 00:33:15.820 Robert Tseng: qualifying candidates, qualifying customers, things like that. So, I just kind of felt like it was adjacent enough that maybe it’d be something that I could kind of put in front of both of you and see, like, where you feel like you can really contribute. I won’t spend too much more… I won’t spend any more time on this… on this call, just, like, kind of food for thought, as, like.
190 00:33:15.820 ⇒ 00:33:21.389 Robert Tseng: you know, when I’m writing job descriptions with you and, you know, you’re at your 30-day check-in.
191 00:33:21.390 ⇒ 00:33:36.729 Robert Tseng: Shishu, or, like, if Kayla were to come on, like, where could I kind of, like, fit you in, into this, into this system? But I do think this, like, single sheet, at least for now, kind of shows, like, everything that we’re thinking about on the partnership side.
192 00:33:37.710 ⇒ 00:33:40.159 Robert Tseng: Yeah. Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense.
193 00:33:41.240 ⇒ 00:33:57.469 Robert Tseng: Okay, cool. So yeah, let’s kind of move on to other pieces. So, yeah, I guess, like, Chisha, I’d love to hear from you, kind of like… I know you spoke with Utam and Clarence yesterday, and you guys spent some time together on site, so,
194 00:33:58.100 ⇒ 00:34:05.410 Robert Tseng: Yeah, like, you know, two weeks, 2 weeks in, you know, maybe you kind of walk Kayla through
195 00:34:06.120 ⇒ 00:34:15.799 Robert Tseng: kind of what you thought you were going to do, kind of coming in, what you’re doing now, and kind of maybe, like, what does… what does ops look like from your vantage point? Obviously.
196 00:34:15.800 ⇒ 00:34:16.150 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah.
197 00:34:16.150 ⇒ 00:34:24.480 Robert Tseng: kind of building, like, that… that, like, perspective together, but, like, yeah, I don’t… I don’t… I don’t only want to be sharing my… my perspective, yeah.
198 00:34:24.489 ⇒ 00:34:34.199 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, no, absolutely. So, it’s crazy, because I think I… my first… my official day was last Friday, like, my first day. So, it’s been…
199 00:34:34.199 ⇒ 00:34:34.709 Robert Tseng: Fair enough.
200 00:34:34.710 ⇒ 00:34:46.470 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, it’s been crazy, but it’s been great, because, like, I just get to learn so much different things about Brainforge. Like, yesterday I was on client site, and that went really well, like.
201 00:34:46.520 ⇒ 00:35:02.280 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Amber was killing it, Zoran absolutely nailed it. Like, I kind of understand, like, the technical depth and aptitude that we have at Brainforge, so that was very interesting to see. Talking to Clarence and Utam, seeing them in person was also great, so,
202 00:35:02.450 ⇒ 00:35:06.100 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Right now, like, I really love, like, the culture of the team, the energy that’s…
203 00:35:06.360 ⇒ 00:35:08.610 Sheshu Chandrasekar: That we’re kind of steering here.
204 00:35:08.660 ⇒ 00:35:18.740 Sheshu Chandrasekar: As for ops, like, my day-to-day, like, I’m trying to understand, like, the day-to-day, kind of understand how to, like, work with Eliza and Rico, and so one of my main…
205 00:35:18.740 ⇒ 00:35:30.760 Sheshu Chandrasekar: tasks for this week and next week is, like, kind of revamping the homepage and building automation tools that allow, Rico’s and Eliza’s job to be easier. And if, for example, like.
206 00:35:31.020 ⇒ 00:35:39.320 Sheshu Chandrasekar: you know, Robert was asking, like, hey, what’s, like, how do I request a software tool? How do I get an equipment, right? So we’re kind of building that automation where
207 00:35:39.540 ⇒ 00:35:58.969 Sheshu Chandrasekar: We’re lessening Rico’s and Eliza’s plate, where, you know, if you need a software or you have a question, it automatically… you can automatically do that in Slack. Or you can go to the Notion homepage, and in 3 clicks, you can find the answer to it without, you know, tagging us in the DM and being like, hey, where is this?
208 00:35:58.970 ⇒ 00:36:07.759 Sheshu Chandrasekar: So that’s kind of, like, my main focus right now, but even on the GTM side, I’m getting a little bit more perspective, like, even yesterday when we were in the call, like.
209 00:36:07.850 ⇒ 00:36:21.950 Sheshu Chandrasekar: I was thinking about, like, Amber and Zoran recommended that we do a lot of SEO and backlink for the client, right? And that’s where, kind of, like, where my gears are kind of turning a little bit. It’s like, okay, maybe we can get into the space of AEO, right? And AEO is nothing but, like.
210 00:36:22.110 ⇒ 00:36:40.969 Sheshu Chandrasekar: artificial intelligence, like SEO, right? And it’s, like, the same thing as what you do in Google, but for, like, you do it on Perplexity and ChatGPT and stuff like that. So, talking to Utom a little bit about it, I’m like, maybe we should find, like, a partner who, is, like, a market leader in AEO, and we can get into that side of the business a little bit.
211 00:36:40.970 ⇒ 00:36:45.610 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Because ultimately it all falls into the same thing of data engineering a little bit,
212 00:36:45.660 ⇒ 00:36:57.869 Sheshu Chandrasekar: And we already have that infrastructure, I think we have a great technical team, so we can kind of, like, move forward. So, like, there’s so many different ideas that it’s so easy to share, and it’s great to just be able to voice that out, so…
213 00:36:57.940 ⇒ 00:37:16.340 Sheshu Chandrasekar: I know I gave a lot right now, so… but, yeah, from an ops side, yeah, I’m still getting… I’m getting used to a lot of the things right now. I’m trying to deliver as much as I can, and that’s, like, the crazy shit for me, because I come from a consulting background. I used to work at Deloitte, and everything’s, like, very much, like.
214 00:37:16.450 ⇒ 00:37:34.309 Sheshu Chandrasekar: build decks, you know, strategize, like, why are we doing this? But it’s never, like, let’s execute, then figure out why this doesn’t… why this doesn’t work. So it’s kind of like, as my role as an ops, I kind of have, like, an engineering mindset, along with that business mindset. It’s like, let’s build it out, execute, and then figure out, okay.
215 00:37:34.310 ⇒ 00:37:43.079 Sheshu Chandrasekar: this is what’s working, this is not what’s working, and then we go back to the drawing board and kind of strategize and, you know, see what’s working and how to rebuild that. So…
216 00:37:43.190 ⇒ 00:37:58.610 Sheshu Chandrasekar: It’s a… it’s interesting, and I kind of love that mindset, because, you know, coming from consulting, you’re just, like, you just talk to clients, all you do is manage relationships, but you’re not really delivering value, and so here, it’s a little bit opposite. And yeah, I’m getting used to it, but…
217 00:37:58.850 ⇒ 00:38:00.050 Sheshu Chandrasekar: I can…
218 00:38:00.400 ⇒ 00:38:08.510 Sheshu Chandrasekar: I can say that I do appreciate that approach a lot more, because I feel like I’m actually doing something, so… so, yeah,
219 00:38:09.020 ⇒ 00:38:17.340 Sheshu Chandrasekar: again, threw a lot at you, so I’m gonna… I’m gonna stop… stop here, and… and Robert, let me know if I… if I answered any of your questions, or if I didn’t, as well.
220 00:38:18.050 ⇒ 00:38:24.630 Robert Tseng: No, no, no, thanks. I mean, it’s really just kind of your perspective on… I can’t believe you’ve only been here for, like, a week, or less than a week.
221 00:38:24.630 ⇒ 00:38:27.460 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, it’s been a long time, yeah.
222 00:38:27.460 ⇒ 00:38:31.720 Robert Tseng: That’s great. I mean, I’ll let you if you have any questions for him, yeah.
223 00:38:31.720 ⇒ 00:38:55.120 Robert Tseng: that all learnings, even in, I think you’ve had, 4 business days now, is impressive, so, yeah, thanks for sharing that. I like that you mentioned working with, like, the internal team a lot, and kind of the capabilities that you guys have. I know that’s something, like, Robert and I have discussed a lot, you know, it seems like it’s really collaborative, and, everyone’s helping each other build tools to make things better, so…
224 00:38:55.120 ⇒ 00:39:07.010 Robert Tseng: I like to hear that, and it seems like some of what you’re already kind of touching is, like, onboarding processes and, like, making that all easier, too, which, I like to hear. So, awesome.
225 00:39:07.960 ⇒ 00:39:15.070 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, and I think we can work… we can work a little closely with that, because I’m… I am trying to put together, like, a day one onboarding,
226 00:39:15.480 ⇒ 00:39:30.750 Sheshu Chandrasekar: And… because now I’m onboarding myself, right? And I’m realizing, like, where can I find… like, today I couldn’t find Zoom. I couldn’t schedule a Zoom meeting, and I’m like, how do I do this? So… so those type of things are something we can work closely with, and
227 00:39:31.000 ⇒ 00:39:34.500 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, make that better, that onboarding experience better for new people.
228 00:39:34.500 ⇒ 00:39:38.089 Robert Tseng: Yeah, take notes of all of your pain points, and we can get.
229 00:39:38.090 ⇒ 00:39:39.479 Sheshu Chandrasekar: No, absolutely.
230 00:39:40.600 ⇒ 00:39:51.329 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, I’ve been, I’ve been going around scheduling one-on-ones to, like, hear more about everyone’s onboarding experience, see, like, what worked really well and what’s not working, and I’m getting a better, like.
231 00:39:51.460 ⇒ 00:39:58.619 Sheshu Chandrasekar: I’m shaping out to, like, feel like, okay, this is what’s going really well, and this is where we need a lot of improvement on. So, yeah.
232 00:39:58.620 ⇒ 00:40:04.530 Robert Tseng: Yeah, cool. I guess now, like, sorry to totally take this over, but… Yeah, oh, please.
233 00:40:04.530 ⇒ 00:40:04.970 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
234 00:40:04.970 ⇒ 00:40:11.149 Robert Tseng: Now that you’re a week in, I guess, is there anything that’s, like, super different from what you expected before you started?
235 00:40:12.250 ⇒ 00:40:31.740 Sheshu Chandrasekar: No, honestly, like I said, it’s like that… that shift in the… the mindset. It’s like… because… so on Monday, I had, like, a deck, right? And it was like… I was kind of presenting to Utam, and I think someone else, like, this is what we’re gonna do with the Notion revamp, right? Like, it’s like phase one, phase two, phase three, and I’m like… then yesterday, I was thinking about it, I’m like.
236 00:40:31.920 ⇒ 00:40:43.080 Sheshu Chandrasekar: none of that makes sense. Like, I just gotta go build it, and then see if it fits, and just deploy and see what happens, and then from there, I can get feedback, saying, like, what’s working, and…
237 00:40:43.300 ⇒ 00:40:47.360 Sheshu Chandrasekar: I think that’s the thing. I think at the end of the day, like, one thing I’m realizing about
238 00:40:47.630 ⇒ 00:40:55.059 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Like, here is that you don’t need to strategize, you just need to go build, and if it… the more bets you take, the more…
239 00:40:55.140 ⇒ 00:41:11.860 Sheshu Chandrasekar: likely you’ll understand what’s working, what’s not. Because if you take… like, Utam kind of phrased it in a really good way. He’s like, if you take a few little bets, then they’re all gonna be home runs. But if you take more bets and try to build it out and test it out, then at some point, it’s gonna… it’s gonna click. And I think that mindset
240 00:41:12.040 ⇒ 00:41:30.349 Sheshu Chandrasekar: that mindset really made a lot of sense, and that’s why, like, today I’ve just been trying to figure out Notion MCP, and I was working with our AI engineer, Pranav, who also is in Austin right now, so… just been working with him. I’m about to go after… after this meeting, I’m about to head over to this place, and we’re about to just crank out this MCP and see what happens, so… yeah.
241 00:41:30.990 ⇒ 00:41:36.920 Robert Tseng: I’m glad you guys have a squad in Austin. It seems like LA and Austin are the spots.
242 00:41:36.920 ⇒ 00:41:37.890 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah.
243 00:41:39.060 ⇒ 00:41:39.750 Robert Tseng: Cool.
244 00:41:41.040 ⇒ 00:41:53.970 Sheshu Chandrasekar: But I’m happy to help, like, answer any questions, like, from the ops standpoint. Like, again, I’m still trying to get used to things, but I feel like these 4 days, it feels like 2 weeks have passed by. Like, I’m just, like, reading all these, like, messages, and…
245 00:41:53.970 ⇒ 00:42:02.060 Sheshu Chandrasekar: it’s not bad, like, and I like that, because it’s, like, I like fast-paced environments, and so, like, everyone’s super open to, like, answering questions, like…
246 00:42:02.570 ⇒ 00:42:15.269 Sheshu Chandrasekar: that’s the one thing I’m learning, is like, don’t hesitate to ask, you can just ask, and they’ll answer. Like, even Utan was like, hey, I can hop on a call and help you out with this MCP stuff, and I’m like, okay, let me… let me work with Pranav first, and then see if I can…
247 00:42:15.430 ⇒ 00:42:19.270 Sheshu Chandrasekar: contact you later if I’m still stuck. So, everyone’s super helpful here.
248 00:42:20.460 ⇒ 00:42:32.770 Robert Tseng: Yeah. Well, I know that you’ve already made a good impression, because I think I was… it was, like, 2 days ago that I was talking to Robert, and he’s like, oh yeah, Shishu’s already up and running, like, he can totally help with anything, you’re probably, like, 2 days ago.
249 00:42:34.100 ⇒ 00:42:43.820 Sheshu Chandrasekar: No, I mean, yeah, no, I’m super glad, but yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s, again, everyone here is super helpful, so that’s why I feel pretty confident that I can help out as much as I can.
250 00:42:44.320 ⇒ 00:42:47.310 Robert Tseng: Awesome. Great to be here.
251 00:42:48.030 ⇒ 00:42:57.609 Robert Tseng: Okay, well, yeah, let me kind of just kind of point us back to the future a little bit more. So, like, yeah, I think coming out of this call, I’m basically gonna rework the AOR doc. I’m gonna try to push…
252 00:42:57.820 ⇒ 00:43:15.700 Robert Tseng: I mean, I’m gonna do my first draft of, like, what the assignments should be, but also, like, kind of both of you kind of hearing the context that I’ve given now, if anything kind of resonated with you that’s, like, something that was maybe beyond the scope of what we initially discussed that, like, you want to go in and take on, yeah, I think this is really much a place where, like.
253 00:43:17.470 ⇒ 00:43:35.250 Robert Tseng: if you raise your hand, that’s what you… you get it. And, like, to Shayshu’s point, we definitely have more of a bias towards… towards action, and yeah, like, we don’t really let decisions kind of mull around too long, just because it’s just… I think it’s not just because, of impatience, like, I think…
254 00:43:35.360 ⇒ 00:43:40.440 Robert Tseng: I think it’s definitely an advantage for us. Like, I think if I can point out,
255 00:43:40.730 ⇒ 00:43:44.019 Robert Tseng: One is, being a services company, like.
256 00:43:44.270 ⇒ 00:43:47.819 Robert Tseng: We don’t have to be as,
257 00:43:51.070 ⇒ 00:44:06.409 Robert Tseng: like, we don’t have to have a perfect demo, and something that’s working to put in front of a client in order to test… a customer in order to test it. Like, we’re selling a service, it’s really a pitch, it’s a message, it’s a promise, it’s an agreement that you’re making… that we’re gonna do something, and we’re just… we’re, like, agreeing…
258 00:44:06.410 ⇒ 00:44:12.539 Robert Tseng: with the client to give us some time to figure out how to do it. Like, and so, like, the stakes are lower, I think.
259 00:44:12.700 ⇒ 00:44:19.470 Robert Tseng: And so we can test messaging a lot faster, and even on, like, you know, as you’re working on internal stuff, supporting the team.
260 00:44:19.470 ⇒ 00:44:44.110 Robert Tseng: people are always adopting new processes, because that’s just the culture that we’ve ingrained. Like, everybody is AI first, like, we don’t let anybody code without using Cursor. Like, you have to use Cursor here. And even for, like… like, I spent, like, about 30 minutes with Luke earlier today. I… he’s… he’s a… he’s a comms major, like, he’s from Brand Strategy. I’m having him write docs in Cursor, too. So, like, everybody is going to be using
261 00:44:44.140 ⇒ 00:44:50.889 Robert Tseng: like, engineering tools to basically speed up their process, and, you know, I think that’s really something
262 00:44:51.100 ⇒ 00:45:11.410 Robert Tseng: that, you know, I guess the ops team, Shishi, I guess you’re really gonna have to champion this, you know, in the longer term, too. Like, how do we continue to make sure that the best practices for people that are in their individual work are being adopted, like, across the organization? And I think that’s why that’s so important. Obviously, it’s great to start with, kind of.
263 00:45:11.410 ⇒ 00:45:21.200 Robert Tseng: in shaving off time for Eliza and Rico, but kind of, like, once that’s in a good place, or like, you know, good enough, then I, you know, I think the higher leverage is to go in, like.
264 00:45:21.200 ⇒ 00:45:26.309 Robert Tseng: make Amber more effective, and, like, some of our other billable people more effective as well, right?
265 00:45:26.750 ⇒ 00:45:38.770 Robert Tseng: Or to… or on the sales side, to, like, kind of help… help drive that forward. So, I think there’s always going to be things like that. And then the other thing, Shaysu, for you that, like, I think I could see you kind of moving towards is,
266 00:45:38.770 ⇒ 00:46:00.559 Robert Tseng: ironically, the same rigor that we have in, like, helping our clients build their financial forecasts, like, understand the unit economics, everything, we don’t have that same level of granularity for our business. So, all I get is the monthly report from our accounting team, and I, like, go and I try to triangulate, like, okay, well, what’s the budget I should assign for the team for the next month or next quarter?
267 00:46:00.560 ⇒ 00:46:13.240 Robert Tseng: So, like, I think being able to get your eyes, especially coming from a financial, like, kind of consulting background, and, like, helping UTAM build out some of our, like, unit economics level, kind of, like.
268 00:46:13.420 ⇒ 00:46:27.640 Robert Tseng: making sure we have a good grasp of our margins, forecasting out what that looks like, what the levers are there. So, I think that’s probably, like, you know, analysis work that you could do for us, as well, that I, you know, I see you kind of expanding into.
269 00:46:27.820 ⇒ 00:46:33.640 Robert Tseng: Yeah, and so… yeah, hopefully, like, you know, this…
270 00:46:33.690 ⇒ 00:46:50.949 Robert Tseng: like you said, like, there’s… there’s just gonna… I don’t think we can really… we’re in a place that we can really build you, like, a clear, like, 60-90-day plan, like, right off the bat. Like, I think we don’t really have the luxury of making… we can’t really keep someone around for 90 days and not really know what they’re doing. So, just being honest, like.
271 00:46:51.360 ⇒ 00:47:02.989 Robert Tseng: need, like, that’s why we do a lot of this upfront stuff, doing the trials, letting people build their job description. We want to basically get to, like, a level of confidence where we feel like, can we really see, kind of, like,
272 00:47:03.090 ⇒ 00:47:27.760 Robert Tseng: like, a good… a good thing going within the first 30 days of, like, somebody being on board. And I know that’s a hard ask, like, other candidates that have not really worked out before have been like, oh, I wasn’t required to, like, own anything until 6 months into my time at Facebook. And it’s like, well, you know, we’re not Facebook. We are, we’re a bootstrap company. Every dollar that we make, we either reinvest back into the company.
273 00:47:27.760 ⇒ 00:47:44.359 Robert Tseng: like, it ends up kind of making, like, just a short-term bet that we have maybe up to three months max, like, to, like, really pull the trigger on, or, like, to just cut. So, I think that’s kind of, you know, that’s just the stage that we’re in, and, you know, hopefully that creates some
274 00:47:44.360 ⇒ 00:47:50.860 Robert Tseng: Urgency, some pri- some level of prioritization, so that you are picking, like, projects
275 00:47:51.080 ⇒ 00:48:08.529 Robert Tseng: obviously, the business is always going to tell you there’s more to do and things that demand your attention, but you kind of have to be opinionated about, like, what do you think is going to create the most leverage for the organization from your perspective? And, you know, we’re not… both of you are not junior-level people, we’re not, like.
276 00:48:08.790 ⇒ 00:48:21.180 Robert Tseng: You know, we’re not expecting you to just kind of take orders from us, like, we want you to kind of carve out, like, your, your, your, how you’re leading in the team, and,
277 00:48:21.180 ⇒ 00:48:33.650 Robert Tseng: yeah, like, just to see how we can enable that, I think is… is really what we’re hoping for with this, like, group of, like, lead-level people. Luke being one of them on the go-to-market side.
278 00:48:33.720 ⇒ 00:48:58.490 Robert Tseng: And then, like, obviously, Clarence is kind of… he’s still part-time right now, but he’s kind of been that for us, too. And then, like, you two are kind of, like, in that same kind of, like, cohort, I would say. So, we haven’t hired anybody at, you know, with… and given them this kind of autonomy before. It was really just me and Ruta making all the decisions, and then we have a bunch of people, like, doing the delivery, but, like, we want… we know that in order for us to…
279 00:48:58.490 ⇒ 00:49:00.009 Robert Tseng: Kind of reach…
280 00:49:00.010 ⇒ 00:49:05.740 Robert Tseng: Our, our, the goals of, like, our revenue goals for the year. Like, we, we need to, kind of.
281 00:49:05.920 ⇒ 00:49:07.920 Robert Tseng: We need to…
282 00:49:08.180 ⇒ 00:49:19.250 Robert Tseng: like, and, like, let people make… make those decisions and run… run in their lanes. So, like, this is definitely the… something that we’re… we’re… we’re actively trying… trying to do this quarter.
283 00:49:20.460 ⇒ 00:49:21.120 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
284 00:49:21.120 ⇒ 00:49:30.439 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense, and, you know, I kind of like the… the fact that, you know, there’s not a structure, in a way. Sometimes I’m like, I kind of miss it, but now I’m just like.
285 00:49:30.920 ⇒ 00:49:34.670 Sheshu Chandrasekar: it changes my day a little bit. You know, I can just jump on any other thing.
286 00:49:34.670 ⇒ 00:49:35.280 Robert Tseng: Understood.
287 00:49:35.280 ⇒ 00:49:38.080 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Just helping, so I can appreciate that.
288 00:49:39.810 ⇒ 00:49:46.639 Robert Tseng: Yeah. Yeah, no, I think it’s… I was telling this to Amber earlier, but I think, like.
289 00:49:46.950 ⇒ 00:49:56.949 Robert Tseng: the winds compound in a kind of chaotic environment. Like, yeah, I think things can be chaotic here. Like, we’re still at a place where we can’t, like.
290 00:49:57.020 ⇒ 00:50:07.270 Robert Tseng: we have to react to different things. We’re getting better at kind of seeing some things coming, but we don’t really have line of sight beyond, like, 2 or 3 months down.
291 00:50:08.350 ⇒ 00:50:29.639 Robert Tseng: Like, I could tell you right now, based on our sales pipeline and everything, I kind of track the sales cycle very rigorously, I think we’re on track to kind of, like, pretty much stay the same, and we’re not… it’s not looking like we’re going to grow as much as we did in Q4, but, you know, if we have a big push towards the end of the month, which I’m trying to drive the team towards.
292 00:50:29.640 ⇒ 00:50:34.149 Robert Tseng: And we fill our pipeline, then we have a good shot of, like, closing more business and hitting our quarterly goal.
293 00:50:34.150 ⇒ 00:50:59.049 Robert Tseng: I would like that same level of visibility on the recruiting side, knowing, like, if we get X number of candidates into the pipeline now, it’s very likely that we can end up with two, you know, that fit this role, you know, two months… six weeks, eight weeks from now. And, like, that would help a lot in terms of, like, planning on when we sign contracts. We can delay them to the next quarter, because we know it’s going to take us a little bit of time
294 00:50:59.050 ⇒ 00:51:09.040 Robert Tseng: to get the right person in the door. Or maybe, like, on the ops side, it’s like, okay, Shay, should you see, like, where utilization, we’re getting jammed, like.
295 00:51:10.510 ⇒ 00:51:33.080 Robert Tseng: yeah, whoever is on… like, whether it’s the delivery side or people on working on the business, like, if we’re running into, like, a jam, like, how do we get ahead of that? And, like, you know, what are the mitigations? Like, that’s the way we need to be running the business, kind of moving forward, if we’re going to really be able to smooth out, kind of, like, the growth that we experience, rather than kind of, like.
296 00:51:33.080 ⇒ 00:51:35.509 Robert Tseng: Good quarter, bad quarter, good quarter, bad quarter, kind of…
297 00:51:35.510 ⇒ 00:51:35.880 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah.
298 00:51:37.270 ⇒ 00:51:37.930 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
299 00:51:37.930 ⇒ 00:51:39.210 Sheshu Chandrasekar: No, that makes a lot of sense.
300 00:51:40.410 ⇒ 00:51:56.780 Robert Tseng: Cool. Well, I feel like both of you have a good understanding, you know, good enough of, like, kind of where we’re at. Really just gotta jump into the deep end to kind of experience it, like, like you already are a issue. But yeah, that’s generally what I wanted to cover on this call, so…
301 00:51:57.930 ⇒ 00:52:12.230 Robert Tseng: Yeah, appreciate the time, and I’m happy to just kind of leave it open for any other questions or things we want to kind of chat through. I know that both of you kind of seem to have other kind of meetings to get to after this too, so happy to end it early if we need to.
302 00:52:12.710 ⇒ 00:52:14.200 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah.
303 00:52:14.200 ⇒ 00:52:16.090 Robert Tseng: Yes.
304 00:52:16.330 ⇒ 00:52:17.130 Robert Tseng: Oh.
305 00:52:17.340 ⇒ 00:52:18.490 Sheshu Chandrasekar: No, no, no, please go ahead.
306 00:52:18.490 ⇒ 00:52:18.960 Robert Tseng: I think.
307 00:52:18.960 ⇒ 00:52:19.750 Sheshu Chandrasekar: No.
308 00:52:20.550 ⇒ 00:52:35.850 Robert Tseng: I was just gonna say, like, I appreciate the insight, and, like, very happy to help out wherever my skills might be utilized. So, yeah, excited to potentially partner on, these kind of initiatives in the future, for sure. Okay. Yeah.
309 00:52:36.260 ⇒ 00:52:39.010 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Absolutely. And, Robert, I mean.
310 00:52:39.140 ⇒ 00:52:44.439 Sheshu Chandrasekar: I think tomorrow, before I hop on a call with Holly tomorrow,
311 00:52:44.580 ⇒ 00:52:57.499 Sheshu Chandrasekar: I would like to kind of, like, run by, like, kind of, like, the game plan I want to ask her on the partnership side, just to kind of understand her process a little bit. So, if it’s okay, I’ll… I can call you tomorrow, or, you know, schedule one-on-one of some sort on Zoom, and we can… Yeah.
312 00:52:57.500 ⇒ 00:53:04.610 Robert Tseng: Yeah, just, if you can see some time on my calendar, just, just grab, just grab it, yeah, I’ll… Okay. I’ll… yeah.
313 00:53:05.070 ⇒ 00:53:05.720 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Perfect.
314 00:53:06.320 ⇒ 00:53:12.139 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Well, sweet, this was great, and Kayla, it’s good to meet you virtually, and yeah, looking forward to working with you soon.
315 00:53:12.960 ⇒ 00:53:15.409 Robert Tseng: Yeah, great to meet you as well.
316 00:53:15.410 ⇒ 00:53:15.730 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Awesome.
317 00:53:15.730 ⇒ 00:53:18.050 Robert Tseng: Okay, all right.
318 00:53:18.050 ⇒ 00:53:20.980 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Absolutely. See ya. Thanks, Robert. Talk to you soon. Bye. Bye.