Meeting Title: Notion Revamp Progress Chat Date: 2026-01-28 Meeting participants: Gabriel Lam, Sheshu Chandrasekar, Elizah Joy, Rico Rejoso, Uttam Kumaran
WEBVTT
1 00:01:11.670 ⇒ 00:01:12.690 Gabriel Lam: Hello.
2 00:01:13.570 ⇒ 00:01:14.600 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Hey, everyone!
3 00:01:15.460 ⇒ 00:01:16.280 Elizah Joy: Bye.
4 00:01:19.680 ⇒ 00:01:20.490 Rico Rejoso: Hey, guys.
5 00:01:22.800 ⇒ 00:01:23.890 Sheshu Chandrasekar: How are you feeling, Gabe?
6 00:01:24.330 ⇒ 00:01:29.610 Gabriel Lam: Oh, better. Thanks for… Thanks for, checking in.
7 00:01:29.930 ⇒ 00:01:30.980 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, absolutely.
8 00:01:33.670 ⇒ 00:01:39.800 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, I’m kind of a… I’m feeling the weather now, sure, in Texas at least, yeah.
9 00:01:40.120 ⇒ 00:01:41.350 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Getting a little chilly.
10 00:01:41.480 ⇒ 00:01:42.140 Gabriel Lam: Yeah.
11 00:01:56.880 ⇒ 00:01:58.630 Sheshu Chandrasekar: I guess I can give you, like…
12 00:01:59.810 ⇒ 00:02:04.800 Sheshu Chandrasekar: kind of, like, why we’re meeting up today. So, as you… yeah, as you remember.
13 00:02:04.920 ⇒ 00:02:11.419 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Last week, we said we want to have, like, a soft launch of the new Notion, on Friday.
14 00:02:11.610 ⇒ 00:02:15.330 Sheshu Chandrasekar: I believe we’re still on track, I think
15 00:02:15.540 ⇒ 00:02:20.000 Sheshu Chandrasekar: We’re kind of in the process of building some core databases.
16 00:02:20.270 ⇒ 00:02:24.270 Sheshu Chandrasekar: And kind of building out some drill-down filters that…
17 00:02:24.410 ⇒ 00:02:36.679 Sheshu Chandrasekar: So, for example, right, we’re building a documents database, and instead of having, like, all these, like, micro document databases, like, if a client document database, we’re…
18 00:02:36.790 ⇒ 00:02:41.090 Sheshu Chandrasekar: In a way, kind of consolidating all of it into one database.
19 00:02:42.900 ⇒ 00:02:58.180 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Obviously, when a client is active, and the project teams and delivery teams are working together, you know, we’re okay with the fact that, you know, client database… client document database can live in the client folder, because we don’t want to mess up their work, but once it’s done.
20 00:02:58.320 ⇒ 00:03:05.450 Sheshu Chandrasekar: We want to kind of move that over into the documents, like the main overarching library of documents, and
21 00:03:05.620 ⇒ 00:03:12.479 Sheshu Chandrasekar: kind of create that sort of, like, all-in-one-house kind of system. And the reason why we’re doing this is because
22 00:03:12.670 ⇒ 00:03:26.079 Sheshu Chandrasekar: one, like, when we want to build Slack bots, we can just connect it to that database, and it’ll be easier. And I think even for you, I’m guessing, like, it’ll help you with, like, building more functionality within the platforms itself.
23 00:03:26.420 ⇒ 00:03:29.299 Sheshu Chandrasekar: So that’s kind of, like, the main thought process, and then…
24 00:03:29.960 ⇒ 00:03:43.919 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Also, we’re kind of going through each page in Notion. I had Cursor help me out with it, but, like, I’ve completely noticed, and Utam called out yesterday, that it wasn’t the greatest analysis, I want to say.
25 00:03:43.960 ⇒ 00:03:50.629 Sheshu Chandrasekar: So, going through it today, thoroughly, I was… I’ve been able to kind of, like, filter out what’s…
26 00:03:50.830 ⇒ 00:04:08.579 Sheshu Chandrasekar: like, doable, and what’s absolute BS. And, yeah, next week onwards, like, we’re gonna kind of, like, refine each page on a granular level. I think our main focus, and I’ll share in a couple minutes here, is to consolidate leads, marketing.
27 00:04:08.720 ⇒ 00:04:22.169 Sheshu Chandrasekar: GTM brand into one… one house, because I think they all kind of fall under the same team, and it would just make more sense that way for everyone to kind of access it, because it… it does fall under the same umbrella, so it’s…
28 00:04:22.620 ⇒ 00:04:30.220 Sheshu Chandrasekar: kind of a quick overview, and just want to explain that on a granular level on this call. So, hopefully that kind of, sets the picture a little bit. Hey, what’s on?
29 00:04:38.870 ⇒ 00:04:40.399 Gabriel Lam: I don’t know if it’s his audio.
30 00:04:40.400 ⇒ 00:04:41.440 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah.
31 00:04:41.440 ⇒ 00:04:47.960 Gabriel Lam: I think just sort of a quick gut check, or, like, quick thoughts would just be…
32 00:04:48.350 ⇒ 00:04:48.760 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah.
33 00:04:48.760 ⇒ 00:04:50.100 Gabriel Lam: Like, I don’t think there’s…
34 00:04:50.590 ⇒ 00:04:58.299 Gabriel Lam: a problem with either of that. I think it would be easier if, like, tables and document databases were
35 00:04:58.550 ⇒ 00:05:00.649 Gabriel Lam: Set up in a sort of consistent way.
36 00:05:01.720 ⇒ 00:05:05.010 Gabriel Lam: Where it’s like, you know, if you have GTM and it’s all rolled up.
37 00:05:05.500 ⇒ 00:05:13.679 Gabriel Lam: And you structure it differently to the other databases, then if you call it, you might need different ways of calling information.
38 00:05:15.130 ⇒ 00:05:17.990 Gabriel Lam: And so if, like, you set it up, if, like, each hub
39 00:05:18.990 ⇒ 00:05:23.189 Gabriel Lam: For each team, it’s sort of set up the same way, or between clients is set up the same way.
40 00:05:23.830 ⇒ 00:05:29.650 Gabriel Lam: As long as there’s some level of consistency, I don’t think there’s… Really a difference, personally.
41 00:05:30.210 ⇒ 00:05:35.579 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Okay, so you’re saying it doesn’t matter if it’s in one… one big database versus, like, micro…
42 00:05:36.410 ⇒ 00:05:39.420 Gabriel Lam: I think aside from… yeah, I think aside from…
43 00:05:40.050 ⇒ 00:05:43.109 Gabriel Lam: Like, a sort of security concern?
44 00:05:43.560 ⇒ 00:05:51.160 Gabriel Lam: I think it’s more like, if the structures are consistent between Databases for, like, accessibility.
45 00:05:51.720 ⇒ 00:05:55.790 Gabriel Lam: But it… the main reason for, like, splitting things up is either
46 00:05:56.160 ⇒ 00:06:07.190 Gabriel Lam: for, like, visual legibility, so it’s like, I can go in and I only want to see a certain amount, or for context where I’m just like, I just don’t want you to ever be able to
47 00:06:07.400 ⇒ 00:06:15.079 Gabriel Lam: touch, another database. That’s really the main concern, as opposed to, like, How granular it goes, really.
48 00:06:15.290 ⇒ 00:06:20.129 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, I mean, that’s a fair point, and I think… The reason why…
49 00:06:21.390 ⇒ 00:06:40.060 Sheshu Chandrasekar: we’re trying to consolidate certain databases, because I think it’s gotten to a point where there’s just so many, like, even yesterday when, we accidentally migrated the careers page, there was, like, two candidate databases, and I also saw very similar databases that were redundant,
50 00:06:40.620 ⇒ 00:06:44.590 Sheshu Chandrasekar: And obviously, I didn’t document it, so that’s on me, but I think…
51 00:06:45.280 ⇒ 00:06:58.180 Sheshu Chandrasekar: like, having core databases could be useful, and, you know, have a better schema, in that sense, like, better columns. And we’re… I can share that with you, too,
52 00:06:58.570 ⇒ 00:07:00.879 Sheshu Chandrasekar: And maybe you can give me some feedback on
53 00:07:01.000 ⇒ 00:07:04.720 Sheshu Chandrasekar: What do you think should be, like, included and what should not be there?
54 00:07:07.040 ⇒ 00:07:11.440 Uttam Kumaran: Hey guys, I’m… I’m with you, let’s, we can keep going. Yeah, I mean, I’ve been listening.
55 00:07:11.650 ⇒ 00:07:16.500 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Okay, sorry, yeah, I’m gonna just start from the top. So, I mean, Gabe, to kind of, like.
56 00:07:17.040 ⇒ 00:07:35.039 Sheshu Chandrasekar: paint the picture again. Yeah, scattered pages, databases, I think, for example, if we go to the people operations section of Notion, there’s just so many layers. It goes… it’s like a… it just goes deeper and deeper. So I think we’re just trying to, like, kind of reduce the amount of layers that goes into things, and then…
57 00:07:35.300 ⇒ 00:07:42.810 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Lack of portal systems, and what that means is, like, for example, leads have a table, right? And…
58 00:07:43.270 ⇒ 00:07:53.669 Sheshu Chandrasekar: They have all the leads that they logged in, but I think no one uses that anymore. It’s all in HubSpot or in Google Sheets, so that’s what I mean by portal, like, we just drop a link in there.
59 00:07:53.710 ⇒ 00:08:05.680 Sheshu Chandrasekar: And people can just click on it and easily access HubSpot, instead of bookmarking. I mean, we would like them to bookmark, but, you know, if a new member comes in and, you know, they’re on the GCAM side, they can just go ahead and
60 00:08:05.830 ⇒ 00:08:21.050 Sheshu Chandrasekar: click on that portal. There are a lot of incomplete, stale docs, meaning there’s a lot of old notes, half-completed notes, and yeah, it’s just hard to know where something lives. I think we kind of covered this last week as well, so…
61 00:08:22.970 ⇒ 00:08:27.589 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, so I guess we… that’s, like, kind of the main takeaway of why we wanted this Notion revamp, and…
62 00:08:27.830 ⇒ 00:08:38.809 Sheshu Chandrasekar: The Friday launch is, like, a soft launch, meaning, like, we just want to create the core foundational structure, which is aka the databases, and then from there,
63 00:08:39.320 ⇒ 00:08:49.720 Sheshu Chandrasekar: as we’re, like, kind of looking through each database in the existing one, we figure out, hey, this document should no longer be here, and it should be archived. And this deck will explain, like, what’s…
64 00:08:49.850 ⇒ 00:08:52.640 Sheshu Chandrasekar: To be archived, and what gets moved over to the…
65 00:08:53.010 ⇒ 00:08:56.089 Sheshu Chandrasekar: to the new database and new Notion in general.
66 00:08:56.730 ⇒ 00:08:59.400 Sheshu Chandrasekar: So I just want to stop here and see if you have any questions.
67 00:09:00.550 ⇒ 00:09:03.100 Gabriel Lam: No, I think that’s pretty accurate. Yeah,
68 00:09:05.860 ⇒ 00:09:09.179 Gabriel Lam: No, no real questions here, honestly.
69 00:09:09.430 ⇒ 00:09:10.130 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Cool.
70 00:09:10.430 ⇒ 00:09:14.959 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, so I guess, like, from now… from today to…
71 00:09:15.250 ⇒ 00:09:16.350 Gabriel Lam: Friday.
72 00:09:16.350 ⇒ 00:09:21.009 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Our goal is to, after this call, is to create those six core databases.
73 00:09:21.290 ⇒ 00:09:28.230 Sheshu Chandrasekar: you know, lock the tools database. So there’s a database for tools, and it has a lot of financial information.
74 00:09:28.480 ⇒ 00:09:35.319 Sheshu Chandrasekar: We’re gonna take that under the ops’ dominion, because there’s a lot of financial information in there, and I just don’t know if it’s…
75 00:09:35.780 ⇒ 00:09:43.139 Sheshu Chandrasekar: useful for us to put it out there. And also, me and Eliza were talking, we want to eventually move that to an Omni dashboard.
76 00:09:44.470 ⇒ 00:09:53.329 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Because we want to have everything finance-related under one, like, comprehensive dashboard, so that’s kind of, like, where we’re heading towards, in regards to the tool database.
77 00:09:53.750 ⇒ 00:10:06.359 Sheshu Chandrasekar: And then archive anything that’s, like, kind of work in progress, like, based on judgment, right? Like, if there’s something from Jan 2025, and it’s no longer relevant to us, then we’re gonna probably move it to, archive. So anything…
78 00:10:06.540 ⇒ 00:10:09.160 Sheshu Chandrasekar: pre-Q4 2025, we’re…
79 00:10:09.260 ⇒ 00:10:25.180 Sheshu Chandrasekar: kind of looking into the fact that, you know, I think it’s time to move to archive, or use our best discretion to see, like, okay, if we have an active client, and there’s notes from there, or templates from there, then we may just move to the client folder and keep that. So, that’s kind of, like, the framework of thinking here.
80 00:10:25.360 ⇒ 00:10:29.850 Sheshu Chandrasekar: And then tomorrow, yeah, like, kind of import those active docs,
81 00:10:30.040 ⇒ 00:10:38.309 Sheshu Chandrasekar: I have a spreadsheet where I kind of list out, like, which documents look stale, and I’ll share that as well after this,
82 00:10:38.430 ⇒ 00:10:46.969 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Like, during this call. So we’re gonna import this ActiveDocs, and we’re gonna speak with the EPs today, and then we’re also gonna connect with Hannah and Luke tomorrow.
83 00:10:47.110 ⇒ 00:10:55.280 Sheshu Chandrasekar: to get additional, like, insight, grab other additional pain points. I think the conversation with Hannah is more like, hey, how do we get those Figma files and…
84 00:10:55.440 ⇒ 00:11:06.000 Sheshu Chandrasekar: brand guidelines and brand assets into Notion. And it’s just simple as, like, her giving us a link, and then we just put it in there to a database of some sort, or in the Notion homepage.
85 00:11:06.410 ⇒ 00:11:10.900 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Then we kind of want to map out, like, clients, projects, and docs.
86 00:11:11.180 ⇒ 00:11:16.670 Sheshu Chandrasekar: And that’s, like, kind of where the client’s database and project database will be somewhat intertwined.
87 00:11:17.080 ⇒ 00:11:26.669 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, and then find homes for all these documents based on function, departments, and type of a document. So that’s kind of the frame of thinking here, and then…
88 00:11:26.870 ⇒ 00:11:33.329 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Day 3, kind of demoed to the same team. Oh, and then we were supposed to speak with you, but I think now that you’re on the call, we see data platform.
89 00:11:33.440 ⇒ 00:11:38.119 Sheshu Chandrasekar: I have some thoughts and some questions about, like.
90 00:11:38.240 ⇒ 00:11:43.200 Sheshu Chandrasekar: what to stay on there, and how you want to use Notion to thus, like, do your work, and…
91 00:11:43.370 ⇒ 00:11:51.120 Sheshu Chandrasekar: what you want to share to, like, the broader, like, organization. So that’s kind of something we want to touch upon today, or even on Friday.
92 00:11:51.730 ⇒ 00:11:57.630 Sheshu Chandrasekar: And yeah, collect feedback, because the one thing I realized is, yeah, like, I used AI to kind of, like.
93 00:11:57.790 ⇒ 00:12:04.560 Sheshu Chandrasekar: go through the entire notion, but I realized, like, I really need to talk to more people, because I was… after, like, chatting with Luke, he gave me, like.
94 00:12:04.910 ⇒ 00:12:20.030 Sheshu Chandrasekar: such solid, like, suggestions that I realized, like, I’m kind of wrong, and it’s great, to, like, quickly do things, but, like, I think people that are using Notion is where I really want to, like, target and get additional feedback and see, like, hey, like.
95 00:12:20.210 ⇒ 00:12:34.630 Sheshu Chandrasekar: what’s working well and what’s not. So, yeah, I think well into today, and even early into next week, we’ll be, you know, just, like, contacting people and talking to people and figuring out, like, hey, like, what should go into Notion, what should not go into Notion.
96 00:12:34.910 ⇒ 00:12:44.540 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, and then end of… end of Friday, we’re gonna start developing some sort of, like, 15-minute hygiene practices for Notion. So everyone that’s, like, the POC,
97 00:12:44.790 ⇒ 00:12:57.650 Sheshu Chandrasekar: that we listed per Notion page, they should do, like, a 15-minute data hygiene, or, like, a Notion hygiene, to clean up documents so it doesn’t look messy, or if they have any questions, they can just contact the ops team.
98 00:12:57.790 ⇒ 00:13:02.879 Sheshu Chandrasekar: And yeah, scheduling one-on-one blocks with SLs and CSLs next week, and Friday.
99 00:13:03.040 ⇒ 00:13:07.749 Sheshu Chandrasekar: It’s kind of like… Where we’re heading in that requirements gathering phase.
100 00:13:09.620 ⇒ 00:13:11.429 Uttam Kumaran: So I have a… I have some…
101 00:13:11.560 ⇒ 00:13:14.920 Uttam Kumaran: feedback on this. So, one is, yeah, like, I…
102 00:13:16.330 ⇒ 00:13:21.099 Uttam Kumaran: I am almost of the point of, like, maybe don’t even archive anything, like, just…
103 00:13:21.290 ⇒ 00:13:23.990 Uttam Kumaran: create a whole new Notion area.
104 00:13:24.360 ⇒ 00:13:29.379 Uttam Kumaran: And, like, don’t archive, yeah, don’t archive anything. It just sort of completely removes any risk here.
105 00:13:29.790 ⇒ 00:13:30.290 Uttam Kumaran: Right?
106 00:13:30.290 ⇒ 00:13:35.140 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Is it okay if we just, like, have a tag that says, like… there’s, like, that’s.
107 00:13:35.140 ⇒ 00:13:38.399 Uttam Kumaran: Fine, but, like, again, you guys are doing stuff, like, mid-week?
108 00:13:38.670 ⇒ 00:13:40.959 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah. I really cannot have…
109 00:13:41.180 ⇒ 00:13:42.330 Uttam Kumaran: this effect.
110 00:13:42.440 ⇒ 00:13:43.869 Uttam Kumaran: Active processes.
111 00:13:44.120 ⇒ 00:13:45.150 Uttam Kumaran: So…
112 00:13:45.300 ⇒ 00:13:52.400 Uttam Kumaran: I’m fine, if you guys are gonna do it over the weekend, then you could kinda do whatever, as long as it’s done by, like, Sunday afternoon.
113 00:13:52.670 ⇒ 00:13:58.130 Uttam Kumaran: But… I guess my point would be, I don’t see any problem in just, like.
114 00:13:58.510 ⇒ 00:14:03.510 Uttam Kumaran: Putting every… you have this draft notion structure, just, like, shove everything new there for now.
115 00:14:03.760 ⇒ 00:14:04.339 Uttam Kumaran: Or, like.
116 00:14:04.340 ⇒ 00:14:04.670 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Okay.
117 00:14:04.670 ⇒ 00:14:08.140 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, and then just leave the rest of the stuff the way it is, like, there’s no risk.
118 00:14:10.480 ⇒ 00:14:12.400 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Okay, yeah, that works. We can definitely do that.
119 00:14:12.400 ⇒ 00:14:15.039 Uttam Kumaran: Does that impact anything? Because, yeah, I feel like…
120 00:14:15.040 ⇒ 00:14:17.839 Sheshu Chandrasekar: No, not really. I think it’s…
121 00:14:19.310 ⇒ 00:14:31.160 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, I don’t think it really impacts anything. I think, if anything, on my end, I just need to give you a reason. Like, if you want to ask me, like, hey, why is this document archived? Like, I need to be able to give you a reason, and that’s something I just need to think about, and…
122 00:14:31.500 ⇒ 00:14:34.030 Sheshu Chandrasekar: how do we classify those into those buckets? So…
123 00:14:34.290 ⇒ 00:14:42.909 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, because in terms of order of operations, it’s more beneficial for y’all to create the new structure and get feedback.
124 00:14:43.040 ⇒ 00:14:47.009 Uttam Kumaran: then… Do the archiving at the same time.
125 00:14:47.390 ⇒ 00:14:51.080 Uttam Kumaran: Like, nail the structure, and then the archiving is easy.
126 00:14:51.420 ⇒ 00:14:58.069 Uttam Kumaran: Like, new structure is hard, so, like, the mind will draw you to cleaning things up, because that’s really easy to do.
127 00:14:58.530 ⇒ 00:15:16.139 Uttam Kumaran: like, what’s hard here is, like, coming up with a new structure. So I really want to push you guys to focus all your energy on devising the new structure, like… and again, this is where my next point of feedback is not everybody… we shouldn’t ask everybody for feedback. Not everybody here has used Notion.
128 00:15:16.580 ⇒ 00:15:21.420 Uttam Kumaran: as a user, let alone, like, manage Notion at scale at a business.
129 00:15:21.520 ⇒ 00:15:24.880 Uttam Kumaran: Like, so, there may be only a couple people.
130 00:15:25.070 ⇒ 00:15:27.530 Uttam Kumaran: One of which may be me and Luke.
131 00:15:27.660 ⇒ 00:15:31.720 Uttam Kumaran: So, I’m interested to know, like, who else in the company has done this before?
132 00:15:31.930 ⇒ 00:15:41.179 Uttam Kumaran: But other than that, like, I would almost not ask for feedback on this until you got… like, your proposal is gonna be better than anything anyone else is gonna propose.
133 00:15:41.560 ⇒ 00:15:41.930 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Okay.
134 00:15:41.930 ⇒ 00:15:47.870 Uttam Kumaran: So, one is, like, if you’ve already, like, if you’ve already identified the folks that have done this before.
135 00:15:48.110 ⇒ 00:15:52.909 Uttam Kumaran: I would just talk to them. Like, I’ve used Notion for, like, almost, like, 12 years.
136 00:15:53.090 ⇒ 00:15:58.210 Uttam Kumaran: So… Probably me and Luke are probably gonna give you everything you need there.
137 00:15:58.540 ⇒ 00:16:01.989 Uttam Kumaran: We’re probably the most opinionated about it, too.
138 00:16:03.160 ⇒ 00:16:14.680 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, the reason why I… my frame of thinking was to ask other people, like, people that are, like, for example, asking EPs on how they use Notion was to see, like, what they find, like.
139 00:16:14.830 ⇒ 00:16:20.149 Sheshu Chandrasekar: That’s so hard to navigate and retrieve documents on, or, like, find information on, but…
140 00:16:20.290 ⇒ 00:16:31.650 Uttam Kumaran: I guess that I’m okay with, because then you’re asking them in sort of a user research manner, but I wouldn’t ask anybody about, okay, now, tell me how… what would it… what would good look like?
141 00:16:31.930 ⇒ 00:16:33.530 Uttam Kumaran: Do you kind of see what I’m saying?
142 00:16:33.530 ⇒ 00:16:34.300 Sheshu Chandrasekar: the user research.
143 00:16:34.300 ⇒ 00:16:37.579 Uttam Kumaran: Totally narrow down, like, the problems.
144 00:16:37.880 ⇒ 00:16:44.900 Uttam Kumaran: But I wouldn’t ask them what the solve is, because nobody here is going to be opinionated about, like.
145 00:16:45.250 ⇒ 00:16:48.540 Uttam Kumaran: Business document ontology, basically.
146 00:16:48.900 ⇒ 00:16:54.710 Uttam Kumaran: Except for probably me. And Luke, maybe. You know, and like, maybe probably Sam.
147 00:16:54.930 ⇒ 00:16:57.269 Uttam Kumaran: Like, they’re the folks that probably…
148 00:16:57.650 ⇒ 00:17:04.750 Uttam Kumaran: have some depth in this world that, like, can give you some guidance. Like, for example, not having more than 3 layers
149 00:17:04.990 ⇒ 00:17:11.089 Uttam Kumaran: is, like, a good rule to have, right? I don’t know if that… I don’t know if you mentioned that, or someone mentioned that.
150 00:17:11.230 ⇒ 00:17:22.769 Uttam Kumaran: So what I’m more looking for is, like, what are those principles? Like, okay, there’s not… there’s no more than 3 layers of, like, content. Okay, that’s a principle. Second thing is, like.
151 00:17:22.880 ⇒ 00:17:28.159 Uttam Kumaran: you should, like, or whatever the thing was, like, you should be able to get to any page… I think you wrote this, you should be able to get to any page.
152 00:17:28.160 ⇒ 00:17:28.520 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah.
153 00:17:28.520 ⇒ 00:17:35.449 Uttam Kumaran: clicks or less, right? That’s great, that’s sick. Like, that’s… that’s the sort of stuff that I’m looking for, like, what are our principles?
154 00:17:35.680 ⇒ 00:17:37.669 Uttam Kumaran: So, the sec- the next thing is, like.
155 00:17:38.430 ⇒ 00:17:47.399 Uttam Kumaran: I think the goals were, like, if you’re a new team member on a new client, or you’re a new team member to Brainforge, there’s some SLA by which
156 00:17:47.860 ⇒ 00:17:55.149 Uttam Kumaran: you know where to go to get things, like, and those things we may measure longer term. Some of the things, though, we’re just not gonna be able to, like.
157 00:17:55.270 ⇒ 00:18:01.910 Uttam Kumaran: really nail, like, okay, cards versus databases… I don’t know, like, you may have to just make a call.
158 00:18:02.690 ⇒ 00:18:07.199 Uttam Kumaran: It may not be super… it may not be super clear right now which way to go.
159 00:18:07.410 ⇒ 00:18:09.950 Uttam Kumaran: So if you need a tie break, like, I would ask.
160 00:18:10.150 ⇒ 00:18:15.240 Uttam Kumaran: But otherwise, I feel pretty good, like… And again, I think, like.
161 00:18:15.670 ⇒ 00:18:25.779 Uttam Kumaran: Hannah, I think… yeah, I would say, like, don’t spend the world of time asking… your assumptions on what the pain points are, are mostly accurate.
162 00:18:25.930 ⇒ 00:18:31.400 Uttam Kumaran: right now. Like, I think you’re gonna hear a lot of, like, oh, I go into Notion and I’m not exactly sure, like.
163 00:18:31.570 ⇒ 00:18:37.220 Uttam Kumaran: where the marketing team’s documents are, or I’m not sure where to put things, right? So…
164 00:18:37.750 ⇒ 00:18:40.569 Uttam Kumaran: That’s probably, like, what you’re gonna mostly hear.
165 00:18:41.250 ⇒ 00:18:41.690 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Right.
166 00:18:41.690 ⇒ 00:18:46.210 Uttam Kumaran: A lot of people aren’t using Notion for the operation team workflows today, so…
167 00:18:46.550 ⇒ 00:18:50.090 Uttam Kumaran: They’re just gonna tell you, like, they don’t go do that there, they hit in Slack.
168 00:18:50.720 ⇒ 00:19:04.119 Uttam Kumaran: So then it’s up to you to be like, okay, like, should they go through Slack, or how is it clear when someone, like, should we create an FAQ page with, like, the most commonly asked questions? For example, if everybody’s like, where do I go to submit an out-of-office request?
169 00:19:04.350 ⇒ 00:19:08.670 Uttam Kumaran: Should we just put a fat FAQ list on the first page?
170 00:19:10.470 ⇒ 00:19:13.650 Uttam Kumaran: Right? Like, that’s what we should… that’s what I’d like to discuss.
171 00:19:14.560 ⇒ 00:19:19.249 Uttam Kumaran: But the thing is, like, it’s not worth asking Hannah what we should do about it, right?
172 00:19:19.900 ⇒ 00:19:21.839 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, absolutely.
173 00:19:21.840 ⇒ 00:19:22.400 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
174 00:19:23.180 ⇒ 00:19:37.510 Sheshu Chandrasekar: No, I totally hear you. I think I’m just more curious on the user research, like, for example, like, the fact that you said the operations team doesn’t use… or, not the operations… the team that you just mentioned right now doesn’t use Notion, and they use Slack, like, that’s where I’m more interested about, like.
175 00:19:37.640 ⇒ 00:19:47.090 Sheshu Chandrasekar: on how we can get them to Notion, or if, you know, if they don’t want to use it, then, like, how can we best support them in that way? That’s what I’m more interested in, rather than, like, kind of
176 00:19:47.360 ⇒ 00:19:49.720 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, cause I wanna, like, ask you and…
177 00:19:49.930 ⇒ 00:19:53.380 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Luke about, like, how do we best structure this, and kind of, like.
178 00:19:53.720 ⇒ 00:19:58.660 Sheshu Chandrasekar: get the architect sign-off, if anything. So, yeah.
179 00:19:59.480 ⇒ 00:20:08.360 Sheshu Chandrasekar: kind of where my thoughts are right now. But I think, Rika, do you have any… I think you had a point here, and I, I want to see if you had any thoughts as well.
180 00:20:11.450 ⇒ 00:20:16.340 Rico Rejoso: Yeah, I think that’s what we also discussed, a reason why we were trying to get feedback for.
181 00:20:16.470 ⇒ 00:20:30.429 Rico Rejoso: is to also get their… I mean, their opinion on how they could better use Notion with, especially with the databases, and how we can gather those data in a more simpler form, for them to easily navigate those stuff.
182 00:20:31.560 ⇒ 00:20:32.799 Sheshu Chandrasekar: But, again…
183 00:20:33.140 ⇒ 00:20:38.710 Rico Rejoso: Yeah, we’ll try to consolidate some of the stuff that we have already on the new Notion page that we had.
184 00:20:40.780 ⇒ 00:20:41.890 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Sweet. Okay.
185 00:20:42.690 ⇒ 00:20:47.159 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so otherwise, like, I feel good. I mean, I think, like.
186 00:20:47.350 ⇒ 00:20:49.290 Uttam Kumaran: I guess, can we go back to 4?
187 00:20:50.090 ⇒ 00:20:54.500 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, I… this is where, like.
188 00:20:55.250 ⇒ 00:20:57.780 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know how, like, talking to Hannah…
189 00:20:58.130 ⇒ 00:21:02.710 Uttam Kumaran: And Luke seems like a… like, you could just throw him in a meeting, and it’s, like, 30 minutes, so…
190 00:21:02.860 ⇒ 00:21:09.640 Uttam Kumaran: trying to see, like, how much of this we can move up, like, this way. Otherwise, I feel good, like, I think you should just rip through…
191 00:21:09.830 ⇒ 00:21:11.870 Uttam Kumaran: I think you should just rip through these things.
192 00:21:12.230 ⇒ 00:21:21.420 Uttam Kumaran: My suggestion is… For this item is to not do this.
193 00:21:21.890 ⇒ 00:21:29.180 Uttam Kumaran: like… Create the databases, do not move things until we’re approved on the structure.
194 00:21:29.290 ⇒ 00:21:32.190 Uttam Kumaran: like… That’s what I’d like to do.
195 00:21:32.610 ⇒ 00:21:41.360 Uttam Kumaran: Or, and I’d prefer to do any type of movement on… Friday after 3 PM, Until Saturday midday.
196 00:21:41.560 ⇒ 00:21:46.940 Uttam Kumaran: Like, we can’t do any major migrations at the company anymore during the week, it’s just a nightmare.
197 00:21:47.200 ⇒ 00:21:50.880 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, absolutely. So, if we can create the databases.
198 00:21:51.420 ⇒ 00:21:54.630 Uttam Kumaran: we can all envision what it’s gonna look like. Importing’s gonna be easy.
199 00:21:54.820 ⇒ 00:21:57.640 Uttam Kumaran: So… Totally, like.
200 00:21:57.940 ⇒ 00:22:06.819 Uttam Kumaran: I would… yeah, I basically would suggest, like, yeah, we move this to, like, weekend, and we can just hop on and do this really quick. Friday, demo to Teams, perfect.
201 00:22:07.130 ⇒ 00:22:13.790 Uttam Kumaran: speak with Gabe on data platform docs. I guess we’ll just come back to that, collect feedback. Yeah, I mean, again, I just feel like you’re not…
202 00:22:14.240 ⇒ 00:22:18.849 Uttam Kumaran: You’re just unfortunately not gonna hear much. People are gonna be like, this is great. Like, you’re not gonna…
203 00:22:19.310 ⇒ 00:22:24.810 Uttam Kumaran: Feedback is sometimes tough to get at this company, because not everyone is opinionated about every single thing.
204 00:22:25.540 ⇒ 00:22:33.620 Uttam Kumaran: there happens to be some people that are, like, I happen to be one of them, and then there are a few people that are, depending on what you’re… what you’re doing, but…
205 00:22:33.920 ⇒ 00:22:35.040 Uttam Kumaran: again, like.
206 00:22:35.280 ⇒ 00:22:46.589 Uttam Kumaran: I’m a great resource. You just hit me, and I really want to stress that, like, and I said this again yesterday, you’re not annoying me by asking for questions. What is annoying me is not getting asked questions.
207 00:22:46.780 ⇒ 00:23:00.290 Uttam Kumaran: So you’re gonna hear me say this again and again. I don’t mind saying it again and again, I’m just… that’s just… this is just what I want to make clear. Like, I’m not busy enough to not talk about Notion. I just may not be able to hop on a call, like, before 5.
208 00:23:01.740 ⇒ 00:23:06.990 Uttam Kumaran: Otherwise, yeah, and I think weekly clean cadence… weekly, maybe, like, OD.
209 00:23:07.150 ⇒ 00:23:08.500 Uttam Kumaran: Maybe it’s a start?
210 00:23:09.500 ⇒ 00:23:10.949 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Maybe, like, monthly, maybe?
211 00:23:10.950 ⇒ 00:23:13.480 Uttam Kumaran: I’m almost thinking you do monthly or bi-weekly.
212 00:23:13.480 ⇒ 00:23:14.300 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Okay.
213 00:23:15.990 ⇒ 00:23:21.639 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, that’s just, like, my… I would, like, just not set yourself up for, like, having to sit and do Notion shit every week.
214 00:23:21.840 ⇒ 00:23:23.230 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah.
215 00:23:24.380 ⇒ 00:23:32.020 Uttam Kumaran: schedule one-on-one blocks with SLCSOs, I would probably change this to just, like, you could just come to our weekly.
216 00:23:32.340 ⇒ 00:23:32.660 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah.
217 00:23:32.660 ⇒ 00:23:37.790 Uttam Kumaran: come to the weekly SL, CSO, and EP meeting, and just… we’ll give you 10 minutes to present.
218 00:23:38.730 ⇒ 00:23:40.379 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Perfect, yeah, I think that’s exactly what.
219 00:23:40.380 ⇒ 00:23:44.810 Uttam Kumaran: Because I’m telling you, people are… people are like, this isn’t gonna be, like, all the rage.
220 00:23:44.810 ⇒ 00:23:45.390 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah.
221 00:23:45.390 ⇒ 00:23:47.150 Uttam Kumaran: So, I just don’t want you to, like…
222 00:23:48.040 ⇒ 00:23:54.560 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t want you to sit… go one-on-one to people, or send a loom and nobody says anything. So I’ll give you a captive audience in those meetings for you to just present.
223 00:23:55.180 ⇒ 00:23:56.860 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Okay, that’d be perfect.
224 00:23:57.410 ⇒ 00:23:57.970 Rico Rejoso: Great.
225 00:23:58.120 ⇒ 00:24:05.349 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Sweet. Yeah, design principles, archive instead of delete, fewer databases, integrate. I don’t…
226 00:24:05.610 ⇒ 00:24:10.049 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Only thing we want to re, like, build is, you know, the databases.
227 00:24:10.280 ⇒ 00:24:13.449 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Notion acts as a primary router.
228 00:24:13.770 ⇒ 00:24:17.429 Sheshu Chandrasekar: An ops team will identify POCs for each department.
229 00:24:17.560 ⇒ 00:24:22.889 Sheshu Chandrasekar: But I think this is a bit OD, now I think about it, so I’m gonna cross this out.
230 00:24:23.930 ⇒ 00:24:30.380 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, for now, like, we do have POCs for each department, so actually, like, let me just assign some people for you.
231 00:24:30.560 ⇒ 00:24:31.759 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Okay. So…
232 00:24:31.930 ⇒ 00:24:36.200 Uttam Kumaran: I would say, Luke is everything sales.
233 00:24:37.370 ⇒ 00:24:40.179 Uttam Kumaran: I’ll just define it right now. Luke is everything sales.
234 00:24:40.500 ⇒ 00:24:47.460 Uttam Kumaran: I think, Gabe, can me and you just be engineering?
235 00:24:48.620 ⇒ 00:24:49.270 Gabriel Lam: Yeah.
236 00:24:49.690 ⇒ 00:24:53.969 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, me and Gabe are engineering, or anything delivery, basically.
237 00:24:55.060 ⇒ 00:24:59.220 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, I think also… Shakeshu, like, you’ll… this is also, like.
238 00:24:59.360 ⇒ 00:25:02.890 Uttam Kumaran: I’m hopeful that you’re also, like, I’m basically gonna be like, you decide on half of these.
239 00:25:03.260 ⇒ 00:25:03.800 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah.
240 00:25:03.800 ⇒ 00:25:06.730 Uttam Kumaran: I’m thinking it’s me, you, and Gabe on engineering delivery.
241 00:25:08.000 ⇒ 00:25:15.649 Uttam Kumaran: Fine, like, ops, recruiting, whatever, is all y’all.
242 00:25:16.040 ⇒ 00:25:19.490 Uttam Kumaran: So you guys can do whatever suits you, no problem.
243 00:25:20.720 ⇒ 00:25:24.549 Uttam Kumaran: What else do we have?
244 00:25:25.180 ⇒ 00:25:26.010 Uttam Kumaran: That’s kinda it, right?
245 00:25:26.010 ⇒ 00:25:28.819 Sheshu Chandrasekar: I guess leads and stuff like that, I’m curious.
246 00:25:28.820 ⇒ 00:25:30.509 Uttam Kumaran: That’s all, that’s all Luke.
247 00:25:30.860 ⇒ 00:25:36.419 Uttam Kumaran: So, like, but again, like, Luke, we’re not doing leads in Notion anymore, so it’s all happening in HubSpot.
248 00:25:36.420 ⇒ 00:25:38.190 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Sorry, I meant marketing.
249 00:25:38.190 ⇒ 00:25:39.349 Rico Rejoso: sales and marketing.
250 00:25:39.350 ⇒ 00:25:41.600 Uttam Kumaran: Marketing is all Luke, too.
251 00:25:42.670 ⇒ 00:25:43.190 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Cool.
252 00:25:44.340 ⇒ 00:25:44.880 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
253 00:25:45.240 ⇒ 00:25:51.429 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, to give you guys a sense, this used to all be equals me, so we… this is better. So, I know it may seem like…
254 00:25:51.430 ⇒ 00:25:52.290 Rico Rejoso: Yeah.
255 00:25:52.290 ⇒ 00:26:07.330 Uttam Kumaran: oh, Luke has so much! It’s… I’m telling you, this is, like, not that bad. It’s all Luke. And then Luke can dish out to whoever needs to do this, but I think this is good. If you ping me and Gabe, I think both of us can give you opinion on, like, what to do.
256 00:26:08.520 ⇒ 00:26:10.209 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, okay, cool.
257 00:26:10.210 ⇒ 00:26:20.860 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, and then ownership rules, again, Austin, take care of this team. I guess we’re gonna move this to monthly now. And then no new databases created with that, like.
258 00:26:20.990 ⇒ 00:26:37.920 Sheshu Chandrasekar: kind of, like, asking us, because we just want to track everything, and, like, sometimes I feel like there’s just so many databases that just get created. Like, I remember seeing in marketing, there’s two databases that was created, and it was halfway incomplete. I even saw it in one of the project management pages.
259 00:26:38.040 ⇒ 00:26:42.860 Sheshu Chandrasekar: And I didn’t understand why we needed that, when it could have just been created in documents, so…
260 00:26:43.040 ⇒ 00:26:54.030 Sheshu Chandrasekar: I just want to, like… we just want to be holding the keys. We think the DBs are kind of like the keys, and we just want to be the warden, in a way, to just, you know, make sure that we’re able to account for everything.
261 00:26:54.720 ⇒ 00:26:57.150 Sheshu Chandrasekar: So that’s kind of, like, the mindset here.
262 00:26:59.380 ⇒ 00:26:59.990 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
263 00:27:00.680 ⇒ 00:27:01.200 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Cool.
264 00:27:01.500 ⇒ 00:27:09.130 Sheshu Chandrasekar: So yeah, for tomorrow, I mean, by tomorrow, we want to create these 6 databases. I think these are, like, foundational, in a way, so…
265 00:27:09.130 ⇒ 00:27:18.889 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I think maybe one thing on the last… sorry, I’m just… this is just, like, my MO, I’m just gonna keep interrupting. On the ownership rules, can we put in the three… your rule? The three layers?
266 00:27:21.640 ⇒ 00:27:34.970 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, 3 clicks to what… 3 clicks to what you need. I think that’s a great goal. Like, I really feel like that. The other thing is, yes, like, tell… tell me, like, how I can lock down Notion so that people aren’t creating shit.
267 00:27:35.080 ⇒ 00:27:38.850 Uttam Kumaran: But ideally, It would be great if, like.
268 00:27:39.030 ⇒ 00:27:41.570 Sheshu Chandrasekar: In Cursor, you write a plan on, like.
269 00:27:42.390 ⇒ 00:27:52.039 Uttam Kumaran: if you’re creating something in Notion, like, how to navigate Notion. I actually don’t know whether creating a doc in Notion is the best for that. I feel like creating something in playbooks
270 00:27:52.170 ⇒ 00:27:54.789 Uttam Kumaran: which is, like, how to navigate Notion.
271 00:27:55.190 ⇒ 00:27:59.369 Uttam Kumaran: is… Good, because then if someone says, hey, where do I find this? I’m gonna say.
272 00:27:59.480 ⇒ 00:28:06.339 Uttam Kumaran: write… ask Cursor where to find it, or ask Cursor how to do that. And that way, you guys have already written something in there that Cursor will reference.
273 00:28:06.750 ⇒ 00:28:13.369 Uttam Kumaran: So, can we put that as, like, some type of deliverable, which is just, like, update playbooks with a…
274 00:28:13.610 ⇒ 00:28:16.740 Uttam Kumaran: how to… use Notion.
275 00:28:17.300 ⇒ 00:28:23.710 Uttam Kumaran: Like… and it’ll just be, like, a… long, going, Doc.
276 00:28:24.930 ⇒ 00:28:25.600 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Okay.
277 00:28:26.470 ⇒ 00:28:29.390 Gabriel Lam: Yeah, and you can always talk to me. Just, like, ping me if…
278 00:28:29.890 ⇒ 00:28:30.610 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Sweet.
279 00:28:30.610 ⇒ 00:28:32.610 Gabriel Lam: I can, like, review, or I can work on it with you.
280 00:28:35.000 ⇒ 00:28:37.750 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, I think I’ll definitely add some time, some point.
281 00:28:37.960 ⇒ 00:28:40.810 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Next week, early next week, to kind of get that going.
282 00:28:42.140 ⇒ 00:28:44.209 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Cool. I think…
283 00:28:45.780 ⇒ 00:28:50.420 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, I think this is good. If there’s any other questions, we can just kind of move on to the next one.
284 00:28:50.820 ⇒ 00:28:51.530 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
285 00:28:51.700 ⇒ 00:28:58.459 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, so these are the six core databases that we want to just build from scratch. Not… well…
286 00:28:58.750 ⇒ 00:29:13.699 Sheshu Chandrasekar: bring you the old one, but, you know, kind of modifies some columns. And I’m more than happy after this call, kind of share you the schema that I’ve put together, and get some more feedback on, what’s going right here, and what’s going… what’s not right. So…
287 00:29:13.850 ⇒ 00:29:20.909 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, so we got 6 databases, client, projects, documents, partnerships, people, and tools.
288 00:29:21.300 ⇒ 00:29:27.089 Sheshu Chandrasekar: And tools is basically done at this point. We’re just moving it to Ops.
289 00:29:27.890 ⇒ 00:29:31.870 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Again, we just want to be able to track the financial stuff in tools.
290 00:29:32.160 ⇒ 00:29:34.649 Sheshu Chandrasekar: For people, I think we’re…
291 00:29:35.200 ⇒ 00:29:44.909 Sheshu Chandrasekar: we’re doing this… we’re using the same existing schema, except the difference now is that we’re gonna add roles, so if someone’s an EPSL, like, that’s a column change we’re having.
292 00:29:46.600 ⇒ 00:29:57.409 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, and also, like, figure out what client they’re part of. Eventually we want to have, like, capacity, like, how many hours are available, in there as well. And I think
293 00:29:58.370 ⇒ 00:30:08.350 Sheshu Chandrasekar: we would like to have everyone go in there and update their Notion homepage, saying, like, hey, I have X amount of hours with this client. That’d be ideal.
294 00:30:08.760 ⇒ 00:30:13.759 Sheshu Chandrasekar: But, that’s something I want to talk with you at some point to figure out, because
295 00:30:14.210 ⇒ 00:30:19.159 Sheshu Chandrasekar: I was talking to Clarence last week, and he, I think we’re still having some level of problems with
296 00:30:19.320 ⇒ 00:30:22.170 Sheshu Chandrasekar: operate… operator, and .
297 00:30:22.240 ⇒ 00:30:23.230 Uttam Kumaran: Operating.
298 00:30:23.230 ⇒ 00:30:26.399 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Operating, yeah, and we wanted to be able to, you know.
299 00:30:26.630 ⇒ 00:30:33.070 Sheshu Chandrasekar: how that’s streamlined, and I haven’t had a chance to look at that. Clarence sent me documents, I need to take a look at it at some point.
300 00:30:33.070 ⇒ 00:30:34.900 Uttam Kumaran: Which line item is that for?
301 00:30:35.410 ⇒ 00:30:36.530 Sheshu Chandrasekar: People?
302 00:30:36.760 ⇒ 00:30:37.940 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, okay, okay.
303 00:30:38.170 ⇒ 00:30:39.670 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so…
304 00:30:40.350 ⇒ 00:30:47.080 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know, for some reason, we’re not able to figure out operating. We’re gonna do all this in operating, we can do all of this there. Like.
305 00:30:47.080 ⇒ 00:30:47.739 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Okay, so.
306 00:30:47.740 ⇒ 00:30:49.419 Uttam Kumaran: Clarence just has beef with it.
307 00:30:49.590 ⇒ 00:30:54.180 Uttam Kumaran: what’s whatever. Like, we don’t have another tool, and I do not want to do this in Notion.
308 00:30:54.470 ⇒ 00:30:55.610 Uttam Kumaran: So…
309 00:30:55.610 ⇒ 00:30:55.930 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Okay.
310 00:30:55.930 ⇒ 00:30:58.780 Uttam Kumaran: If you put 30 minutes on with me, some point.
311 00:30:59.220 ⇒ 00:31:03.580 Uttam Kumaran: Whenever you want, I’ll walk you through how to do operating, and you’ll… you’ll be an expert.
312 00:31:04.250 ⇒ 00:31:05.809 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Okay, let’s do that then.
313 00:31:05.810 ⇒ 00:31:09.490 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so it’s gonna be much easier than you going in there, is what I’m saying.
314 00:31:09.890 ⇒ 00:31:12.039 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Okay, yeah, that makes a lot of sense then.
315 00:31:12.040 ⇒ 00:31:17.389 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, there’s a whole science to resource allocation and consulting, and, like, I will…
316 00:31:17.910 ⇒ 00:31:20.040 Uttam Kumaran: Impart all of that wisdom to you.
317 00:31:20.550 ⇒ 00:31:28.079 Uttam Kumaran: And all of this is possible here, and we have a direct line to the operating team, and I’m friends with the CEO, so, like, they’re gonna help us, whatever we need.
318 00:31:28.640 ⇒ 00:31:30.619 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Awesome. I’ll set up some time.
319 00:31:30.620 ⇒ 00:31:35.689 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. Tomorrow to do that. On partnerships, again, like, this is all HubSpot, though.
320 00:31:38.350 ⇒ 00:31:42.069 Uttam Kumaran: why are… I don’t… I don’t see why we were doing any…
321 00:31:43.570 ⇒ 00:31:47.190 Uttam Kumaran: like, sales pipeline contribution outside of HubSpot.
322 00:31:48.210 ⇒ 00:31:49.010 Uttam Kumaran: Right?
323 00:31:50.760 ⇒ 00:31:52.970 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, it’s a good point. We can, like, I mean.
324 00:31:52.970 ⇒ 00:31:55.100 Uttam Kumaran: And I’m just gonna tell you, Robert’s gonna tell you that.
325 00:31:55.400 ⇒ 00:31:57.460 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, we can just delete this then.
326 00:31:57.720 ⇒ 00:32:08.109 Uttam Kumaran: Well, it’s just like, yeah, I just think you should… basically, I… what we want to happen is Luke is gonna run Sales Notion, but that’s gonna be sort of, like.
327 00:32:08.310 ⇒ 00:32:14.059 Uttam Kumaran: service, that’s gonna be all our playbooks and stuff. Any sort of sales tracking has to move to HubSpot.
328 00:32:15.880 ⇒ 00:32:18.070 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Okay, so maybe…
329 00:32:18.070 ⇒ 00:32:22.110 Uttam Kumaran: Like, why wasn’t that… is that just, like, did nobody… was this just not clear, or, like, what…
330 00:32:22.590 ⇒ 00:32:26.449 Sheshu Chandrasekar: No, I think I kind of figured it out very late into this week, or…
331 00:32:26.450 ⇒ 00:32:27.000 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, okay.
332 00:32:27.000 ⇒ 00:32:31.629 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, because I just got access to HubSpot yesterday, or 2 days ago, and… Okay.
333 00:32:31.850 ⇒ 00:32:33.649 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, I’ve been just looking into it more.
334 00:32:33.650 ⇒ 00:32:41.029 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so all of our partner tracking, and sales lead tracking, and Partner Pipeline.
335 00:32:41.480 ⇒ 00:32:47.310 Uttam Kumaran: is gonna either… right now, actually, it’s not even… it’s not even HubSpot, it’s, like, that sheet, that Google Sheet.
336 00:32:48.180 ⇒ 00:32:53.370 Uttam Kumaran: So, HubSpot is, like, longer term than, like, The primary goal is
337 00:32:53.790 ⇒ 00:33:02.859 Uttam Kumaran: to go to that Friday retro call and not get yelled at by Robert about the sheet not being updated. Literally the only objective right now.
338 00:33:03.090 ⇒ 00:33:07.980 Uttam Kumaran: So, don’t overthink it. That’s the… that’s the goal.
339 00:33:08.830 ⇒ 00:33:12.200 Sheshu Chandrasekar: No, absolutely. Yeah, I don’t wanna… I don’t wanna sit through that awkward meeting.
340 00:33:12.200 ⇒ 00:33:14.150 Uttam Kumaran: Yes, me neither, me neither.
341 00:33:14.150 ⇒ 00:33:20.089 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, cool. Yeah, I think clients, projects, documents, it’s pretty standard.
342 00:33:20.840 ⇒ 00:33:25.589 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, documents is, like, our biggest thing right now, because there’s just too much scattered…
343 00:33:25.880 ⇒ 00:33:35.829 Sheshu Chandrasekar: many documents and databases, and it’s just annoying, to just go through. So we just want to consolidate everything in one little big database, and…
344 00:33:36.370 ⇒ 00:33:40.620 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Use that over and over to kind of be our foundational piece to build a page.
345 00:33:41.130 ⇒ 00:33:47.910 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, projects… I’m a little…
346 00:33:49.030 ⇒ 00:33:56.809 Sheshu Chandrasekar: So this is where I’m kind of, like, confused about projects, because we want to handle everything, like, internal, like, universal, like, all documents that are
347 00:33:57.080 ⇒ 00:33:58.290 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Applicable for all?
348 00:33:58.290 ⇒ 00:34:01.009 Uttam Kumaran: Also, again, like, we’re using linear for this.
349 00:34:01.360 ⇒ 00:34:05.350 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, and that’s the second thing, but I also know, I was talking to Pranav, and…
350 00:34:05.480 ⇒ 00:34:12.109 Sheshu Chandrasekar: He was telling me, like, he uses Notion, his team uses Notion to organize, like, meeting notes, and…
351 00:34:12.739 ⇒ 00:34:19.509 Uttam Kumaran: So that’s, yeah, that’s fine. Like, we shouldn’t do… we shouldn’t do memos and writing in linear.
352 00:34:20.499 ⇒ 00:34:30.959 Uttam Kumaran: But we also shouldn’t use… Notion will try to get you to use tasks and build Kanban boards in there. Like, we don’t want to do that. So I… I think, again, this is where, like.
353 00:34:31.469 ⇒ 00:34:35.749 Uttam Kumaran: Gabe and I can answer anything related to delivery, right?
354 00:34:35.989 ⇒ 00:34:41.589 Uttam Kumaran: So… my feedback, and then Gabe, you can let me know. And I do have to drop, like.
355 00:34:42.349 ⇒ 00:34:49.879 Uttam Kumaran: really, like, right now. So maybe if I can leave comments on the rest, like, async, but for delivery teams,
356 00:34:50.920 ⇒ 00:34:55.679 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, we should use linear for all task and project management.
357 00:34:56.120 ⇒ 00:35:00.440 Uttam Kumaran: Operating is gonna be used for resource allocation. Notion…
358 00:35:01.120 ⇒ 00:35:08.190 Uttam Kumaran: is gonna be used for writing. Basically, like, memos, Like, strategy documentation.
359 00:35:08.560 ⇒ 00:35:11.089 Uttam Kumaran: And then we have Google Drive for SOWs.
360 00:35:14.710 ⇒ 00:35:15.360 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Okay.
361 00:35:15.510 ⇒ 00:35:16.120 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
362 00:35:18.570 ⇒ 00:35:24.630 Uttam Kumaran: And then the last piece, also, is, like, some people may be using GitHub for… like, memos…
363 00:35:24.630 ⇒ 00:35:25.130 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah.
364 00:35:25.790 ⇒ 00:35:30.980 Sheshu Chandrasekar: So I think this is less rel… this is actually probably less relevant for ops team to, like.
365 00:35:31.060 ⇒ 00:35:34.540 Uttam Kumaran: manage these. I’m more interested in making sure that
366 00:35:34.870 ⇒ 00:35:37.480 Uttam Kumaran: This stuff does not make it into Notion.
367 00:35:37.700 ⇒ 00:35:45.119 Uttam Kumaran: So you’re almost, like, preventing certain things from getting to the notion. Like, I’m not expecting you guys, at this point, to, like, be managing linear and all that stuff.
368 00:35:45.570 ⇒ 00:35:51.040 Uttam Kumaran: But I want to make sure that delivery teams are not using Notion for things that there are other tools for.
369 00:35:51.730 ⇒ 00:35:52.420 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
370 00:35:52.420 ⇒ 00:36:08.569 Sheshu Chandrasekar: That makes sense, and I think we’re on the same page. I think for delivery teams, we want to hand over, like, kind of documents hosting and stuff like that to them, but, like, when it comes to project management, stuff like that, like, yeah, we’ll enforce the linear, and other tools that make more sense.
371 00:36:09.960 ⇒ 00:36:10.480 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
372 00:36:11.020 ⇒ 00:36:12.380 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Okay.
373 00:36:13.350 ⇒ 00:36:19.629 Uttam Kumaran: I have to drop, can… maybe… maybe, Gabe, you can stay on, and then just… I can review the end of this, recording, by the way, too.
374 00:36:19.840 ⇒ 00:36:27.960 Gabriel Lam: Yeah, I think just one last thing on slide 6 would be… I think I sort of imagined for delivery, because
375 00:36:30.720 ⇒ 00:36:35.570 Gabriel Lam: so much of… Documentation is…
376 00:36:36.820 ⇒ 00:36:45.019 Gabriel Lam: like, the playbook has a ton of stuff for platform, GitHub, I think more and more people are starting to use GitHub as, like, a sort of interim stage.
377 00:36:45.630 ⇒ 00:36:55.570 Gabriel Lam: I think the sort of final end-stage location for, like, actual documentation that’s externalized is really Notion or Google Drive, like, that’s where…
378 00:36:55.690 ⇒ 00:37:00.869 Gabriel Lam: Like, slide decks go, where we present to other people, present to clients, or present to external partners.
379 00:37:01.880 ⇒ 00:37:03.850 Gabriel Lam: I think…
380 00:37:04.000 ⇒ 00:37:13.819 Gabriel Lam: seldom, GitHub is more used for internal things, and so… I think, generally, I sort of view delivery as, like, where would we point people to go to?
381 00:37:14.760 ⇒ 00:37:15.700 Gabriel Lam: And…
382 00:37:15.910 ⇒ 00:37:25.299 Gabriel Lam: where are, like, relevant… where is relevant documentation supposed to live? That’s sort of, like, all I really see as a signpost, as opposed to doing anything more than it has to.
383 00:37:25.970 ⇒ 00:37:29.830 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, and… On Monday… oh wait, sorry, go ahead.
384 00:37:30.040 ⇒ 00:37:30.919 Uttam Kumaran: No, no, you go ahead.
385 00:37:31.160 ⇒ 00:37:41.279 Sheshu Chandrasekar: No, so on Monday, when we were talking with the SLs, it seemed like a lot of the documents that you guys have under Brainforged vault is not being conveyed. Like.
386 00:37:41.920 ⇒ 00:37:46.960 Sheshu Chandrasekar: There’s some things that we’re just not… This is not being read.
387 00:37:47.160 ⇒ 00:37:52.820 Sheshu Chandrasekar: And I think… Some people are reading it, I’m guessing, but a lot of people aren’t, so…
388 00:37:53.110 ⇒ 00:37:55.390 Sheshu Chandrasekar: I don’t know if it’d be useful for us to
389 00:37:55.750 ⇒ 00:37:59.719 Sheshu Chandrasekar: take that information from GitHub and move it into NotionDocs.
390 00:37:59.720 ⇒ 00:38:03.670 Gabriel Lam: And have it at two different places, or if we just wanted to kind of link it.
391 00:38:03.710 ⇒ 00:38:10.080 Sheshu Chandrasekar: But… I mean, that’s like… I feel like a lot of people…
392 00:38:10.730 ⇒ 00:38:17.959 Sheshu Chandrasekar: don’t know about Brain Forge Vault, like, I only heard of it only this week, and I didn’t know what that was, so… Yeah. Yeah.
393 00:38:17.960 ⇒ 00:38:21.549 Gabriel Lam: I mean, I think I’ll take responsibility for that one, because…
394 00:38:22.390 ⇒ 00:38:27.019 Gabriel Lam: I think it’s on me to get people to know what it’s for and what it’s used for.
395 00:38:27.400 ⇒ 00:38:33.069 Gabriel Lam: Originally, it was sort of envisioned as, like, a… this is a place where you can store
396 00:38:33.640 ⇒ 00:38:40.119 Gabriel Lam: documentation, mostly for Cursor, because Cursor’s really good at looking through GitHub and not
397 00:38:40.490 ⇒ 00:38:42.679 Gabriel Lam: very efficient at looking through Notion.
398 00:38:42.890 ⇒ 00:38:43.570 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah.
399 00:38:43.570 ⇒ 00:38:50.650 Gabriel Lam: But we also came to realize that GitHub is a great place if you’re technical, and an awful place if you’re not.
400 00:38:51.270 ⇒ 00:38:51.940 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah.
401 00:38:52.830 ⇒ 00:38:54.760 Gabriel Lam: So, you know, we talked with, like.
402 00:38:55.840 ⇒ 00:39:06.539 Gabriel Lam: people who are more involved with, like, SOWs, like Greg or other CSOs, and they’re like, okay, well, I could use Notion… sorry, I could use GitHub, but at the end of the day.
403 00:39:06.740 ⇒ 00:39:13.470 Gabriel Lam: like, what gets sent out is not on GitHub, it’s either, like, a Notion link, or it’s, like, a Google Drive that turns into a PDF.
404 00:39:13.740 ⇒ 00:39:16.000 Gabriel Lam: And that’s what we send over to other people.
405 00:39:16.310 ⇒ 00:39:16.800 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Okay.
406 00:39:17.420 ⇒ 00:39:22.079 Gabriel Lam: So I think there is that gap that I am trying to address, where…
407 00:39:23.540 ⇒ 00:39:33.370 Gabriel Lam: I think people see GitHub as, like, a, oh, I’m done with my task, like, I’ll just leave it there, and then someone else will read it. Whereas the people reading it, like, they’re not…
408 00:39:33.670 ⇒ 00:39:35.300 Gabriel Lam: Either not being told.
409 00:39:35.590 ⇒ 00:39:41.109 Gabriel Lam: That it’s on the vault, and they should go there to find it, or the people who are submitting these documents are…
410 00:39:41.570 ⇒ 00:39:46.589 Gabriel Lam: not then bringing it into Notion, where people are being… are reading these things. And so that’s, like, the…
411 00:39:47.380 ⇒ 00:39:49.760 Gabriel Lam: The, like, sender and recipient gap, right?
412 00:39:50.100 ⇒ 00:39:53.460 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, that makes sense. And I’m happy we can just, like.
413 00:39:54.250 ⇒ 00:40:02.740 Sheshu Chandrasekar: whatever’s in the BrainForge vault, like the GitHub, like, we can leave it as it is, but maybe we can just, you know, like you said, export as a PDF and host it in Notion as well.
414 00:40:03.260 ⇒ 00:40:12.269 Sheshu Chandrasekar: It would be a little annoying doing version history and stuff, like, if things change, like, you’re not doing both places, but I don’t… that’s something.
415 00:40:12.270 ⇒ 00:40:16.429 Gabriel Lam: Yeah, I think… I think that’s a good point,
416 00:40:16.780 ⇒ 00:40:20.240 Gabriel Lam: I think it might be, like, an SOP, honestly, of, like.
417 00:40:21.550 ⇒ 00:40:30.170 Gabriel Lam: for everyone writing stuff into the vault, like, it’s not considered finished unless you bring it into Drive or GitHub or Notion. Like, that could be a sort of simple standard that we have.
418 00:40:30.750 ⇒ 00:40:33.959 Gabriel Lam: And that sort of makes it clear to people writing to be like, okay.
419 00:40:34.340 ⇒ 00:40:38.030 Gabriel Lam: Until I bring it out to one of these things, I’m not considered done with this task.
420 00:40:38.460 ⇒ 00:40:41.009 Gabriel Lam: Or, for the other side, if we’re like, ho.
421 00:40:42.470 ⇒ 00:40:58.390 Gabriel Lam: all I, like, for, you know, Utam or Luke or someone reviewing it, it’s like, all I need to do is review Notion, or Drive. Like, I don’t need to worry about what’s in GitHub. I think an SOP about that is probably more low-hanging, like, low… lower of a lift.
422 00:40:59.440 ⇒ 00:41:06.619 Gabriel Lam: than doing what… like, doing the whole, sort of, versioning and copy-pasting, because I do think data gets lost.
423 00:41:06.930 ⇒ 00:41:09.620 Gabriel Lam: Yeah. And… Yeah, I mean…
424 00:41:10.920 ⇒ 00:41:18.439 Gabriel Lam: maybe that’s something we can bring up as well. It’s just like, hey, this thing exists, and people are using it, and there’s good things that people are using it for, but not good enough.
425 00:41:19.100 ⇒ 00:41:25.130 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, and I… it makes sense, because, like, technical people, like, the SLs live in GitHub, in a way, right?
426 00:41:25.130 ⇒ 00:41:25.450 Gabriel Lam: Ma’am.
427 00:41:25.450 ⇒ 00:41:27.700 Sheshu Chandrasekar: So, yeah, it makes sense, but…
428 00:41:29.130 ⇒ 00:41:32.780 Sheshu Chandrasekar: it was just a little concerning, because on Monday, it seemed like…
429 00:41:33.300 ⇒ 00:41:43.900 Sheshu Chandrasekar: they didn’t know where it was, but… or maybe the EPs didn’t know where it was, so it made it very hard to communicate with the SLs, because there was a gap between the EPs and how the SLs communicate, and…
430 00:41:44.050 ⇒ 00:41:49.520 Sheshu Chandrasekar: a lot of things that they were addressing, like the SLs were addressing, was already in the vault. So…
431 00:41:49.520 ⇒ 00:41:50.200 Gabriel Lam: Okay.
432 00:41:50.200 ⇒ 00:41:53.040 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, that’s something I just wanted to flag, but I think…
433 00:41:54.860 ⇒ 00:41:56.310 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, we can just create a SAP.
434 00:41:56.310 ⇒ 00:41:58.580 Gabriel Lam: Curiosity. Sorry, sorry, I don’t mean to interrupt.
435 00:41:58.730 ⇒ 00:42:05.800 Gabriel Lam: out of curiosity, like, were there certain people that bought… I just want to be able to be like, hey, I want to reach out and also see.
436 00:42:06.230 ⇒ 00:42:06.840 Sheshu Chandrasekar: No, it’s…
437 00:42:06.840 ⇒ 00:42:07.530 Gabriel Lam: issues.
438 00:42:07.730 ⇒ 00:42:16.410 Sheshu Chandrasekar: It was actually really funny, because, Awash and Sam, they were talking about their concerns about, linear tickets not being
439 00:42:16.660 ⇒ 00:42:20.909 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Thoroughly, kind of, written, like, acceptance criteria and stuff like that.
440 00:42:21.240 ⇒ 00:42:26.100 Sheshu Chandrasekar: And, clarence is digging, digging,
441 00:42:26.430 ⇒ 00:42:35.129 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Oasis Sam, and he was like, all the concerns you guys are talking about is in the Brainforge vault. And he brought the article up.
442 00:42:35.530 ⇒ 00:42:39.130 Sheshu Chandrasekar: And then they’re like, oh… then they’re like, okay.
443 00:42:39.340 ⇒ 00:42:40.510 Sheshu Chandrasekar: I’mma read through it.
444 00:42:40.740 ⇒ 00:42:41.610 Sheshu Chandrasekar: And then…
445 00:42:41.770 ⇒ 00:42:48.830 Sheshu Chandrasekar: But I think it would be way more useful for the EPs, because they’re the ones that are doing the planning and kind of the…
446 00:42:48.920 ⇒ 00:42:51.429 Gabriel Lam: The resource allocation and stuff like that, so…
447 00:42:51.540 ⇒ 00:42:59.570 Sheshu Chandrasekar: they need to be reading through those documents so they can better communicate with the SLs on, like, what’s needed from them, so…
448 00:42:59.570 ⇒ 00:43:00.140 Gabriel Lam: Yep.
449 00:43:01.580 ⇒ 00:43:04.580 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, I mean, that was, like, the only thing.
450 00:43:06.860 ⇒ 00:43:12.409 Gabriel Lam: Yeah, I think if there’s, like, if there’s, like, a… I don’t know, like.
451 00:43:12.590 ⇒ 00:43:23.580 Gabriel Lam: some kind of link on GitHub to just be like, hey, here’s the thing. Like, I really want to minimize, like, any duplication, which I think has been the problem we’ve been facing for a while.
452 00:43:24.220 ⇒ 00:43:29.380 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, no, that makes sense. Maybe I’ll look into just adding an SOP, or even…
453 00:43:30.030 ⇒ 00:43:33.360 Sheshu Chandrasekar: drop a link in the database or something like that. We can figure it out.
454 00:43:33.360 ⇒ 00:43:36.690 Gabriel Lam: Okay. That’s something I’ll have to look into a little bit more. Sounds good.
455 00:43:37.260 ⇒ 00:43:52.399 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Cool. Yeah, I mean, along the way. So, our biggest task for this week is building out that documentation database, and this is kind of how the process will be for us. So, how do we determine what’s active and what’s not?
456 00:43:52.630 ⇒ 00:43:58.980 Sheshu Chandrasekar: So, I mean, one is, like, you know, if things are not done, if it says work in progress, not started.
457 00:43:59.230 ⇒ 00:44:10.699 Sheshu Chandrasekar: We’ll go through it, we’ll flag it and say, hey, we need to actually finish this, and we’ll kind of keep it in, like, the old existing database. But anything that’s, you know, active and, you know.
458 00:44:11.070 ⇒ 00:44:15.270 Sheshu Chandrasekar: completed, we’re gonna move into the new one, and…
459 00:44:15.660 ⇒ 00:44:20.450 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Archives, work in progress, will stay in the existing database, as we discussed right now.
460 00:44:20.750 ⇒ 00:44:29.400 Sheshu Chandrasekar: And then we’re going to tag it by department role, and then the type of document it is. So if it’s SOP template policy. So those are the three criterias that we’re going to be using.
461 00:44:29.780 ⇒ 00:44:34.150 Sheshu Chandrasekar: And then, obviously, it’s not gonna happen all in one day, so…
462 00:44:34.890 ⇒ 00:44:40.959 Sheshu Chandrasekar: For us to have something going in the new documents database, we’re only going to move the active ones.
463 00:44:41.790 ⇒ 00:44:57.520 Sheshu Chandrasekar: that are, like, completed, and it’s being frequently, you know, visited. So that’s kind of, like, the mindset here. And then, whatever is not completed, whatever is still important, and we need extra time on, we’ll keep in the existing database.
464 00:44:57.750 ⇒ 00:45:00.350 Sheshu Chandrasekar: And then try to get through that rapidly as we can, and…
465 00:45:00.520 ⇒ 00:45:04.049 Sheshu Chandrasekar: as soon as we get, approval from you, Tom, and…
466 00:45:04.560 ⇒ 00:45:09.940 Sheshu Chandrasekar: you and, or Robert, like, we can just move it into the new database as well.
467 00:45:11.090 ⇒ 00:45:15.370 Gabriel Lam: Yeah, I don’t… I mean, this, this is great.
468 00:45:15.920 ⇒ 00:45:18.839 Gabriel Lam: I think I understand where Utam’s coming from.
469 00:45:18.970 ⇒ 00:45:21.850 Gabriel Lam: With active documentation, and, like.
470 00:45:22.160 ⇒ 00:45:29.180 Gabriel Lam: I do see his point of, like, setting up the structure and then moving him later is probably a better…
471 00:45:29.830 ⇒ 00:45:33.600 Gabriel Lam: More effective, like, pipeline.
472 00:45:33.820 ⇒ 00:45:35.270 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah.
473 00:45:36.560 ⇒ 00:45:41.620 Gabriel Lam: Honestly, I don’t think you need too much of my approval. I think my only concern.
474 00:45:41.620 ⇒ 00:45:42.000 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Okay.
475 00:45:42.000 ⇒ 00:45:48.900 Gabriel Lam: like… Is a sort of how the database is structured, but
476 00:45:49.130 ⇒ 00:45:52.979 Gabriel Lam: there are… I think there’s always ways to, like, add determinism.
477 00:45:53.790 ⇒ 00:45:59.370 Gabriel Lam: So… as long as… Each.
478 00:46:02.710 ⇒ 00:46:07.250 Gabriel Lam: Yeah, as long as, like, there’s clear… literature, or…
479 00:46:09.150 ⇒ 00:46:12.329 Gabriel Lam: Like, a clear way to understand what the structure of each is.
480 00:46:12.650 ⇒ 00:46:16.019 Gabriel Lam: Even if they are different, as long as you’re like, okay, for…
481 00:46:17.030 ⇒ 00:46:24.350 Gabriel Lam: a client database, like, we’re gonna structure it this way for this reason. For internal databases, we’re gonna structure it this way for this reason.
482 00:46:24.680 ⇒ 00:46:29.200 Gabriel Lam: I think whatever way works for you is probably going to be a better…
483 00:46:30.240 ⇒ 00:46:30.630 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Okay.
484 00:46:30.630 ⇒ 00:46:32.809 Gabriel Lam: Standard that we can adjust towards?
485 00:46:33.940 ⇒ 00:46:38.929 Gabriel Lam: With what we have, as opposed to, like, I’ll come in and, like, determine how it has to look.
486 00:46:39.200 ⇒ 00:46:42.150 Gabriel Lam: I think the comments I made before of…
487 00:46:43.040 ⇒ 00:46:51.850 Gabriel Lam: Like, wanting some level of, like, centralized, collection.
488 00:46:52.040 ⇒ 00:46:59.090 Gabriel Lam: I think they come from a standpoint of, like, how do we make retrieval easier.
489 00:46:59.250 ⇒ 00:47:05.220 Gabriel Lam: But I think over the last couple days, we’ve also come to see, like, okay, we could also sort of put guardrails a little bit.
490 00:47:05.440 ⇒ 00:47:06.440 Gabriel Lam: Yeah.
491 00:47:07.290 ⇒ 00:47:07.910 Gabriel Lam: Can you…
492 00:47:07.910 ⇒ 00:47:11.499 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Can you walk me through what are, like, guardrails that you’re exploring, or…
493 00:47:11.500 ⇒ 00:47:15.059 Gabriel Lam: So, one example is, we were looking at how…
494 00:47:16.120 ⇒ 00:47:19.849 Gabriel Lam: We were sort of testing how, like, you can look through
495 00:47:20.400 ⇒ 00:47:26.850 Gabriel Lam: cursor… or use cursor to, like, list a set of documents on… Notion?
496 00:47:27.720 ⇒ 00:47:31.539 Gabriel Lam: And one example would be, like, I wanted to look at all the…
497 00:47:31.680 ⇒ 00:47:44.649 Gabriel Lam: documents that had, like, a title with this name in it, right? And I think the more we realize is, like, we could go very… at a very granular level, we could be like, I want you to look at all the references. Then from all the references, I want you to look at all of them who
498 00:47:45.130 ⇒ 00:47:46.950 Gabriel Lam: Maybe share this common tag.
499 00:47:47.130 ⇒ 00:47:49.659 Gabriel Lam: And so the thing was less about
500 00:47:50.540 ⇒ 00:48:05.950 Gabriel Lam: you could make a very general, sort of, call and query and say, like, hey, just send me all the documents that look like this, feel like this, or are used for this thing. On the other hand, you could make it very granular and just put a document for the agent to look at and be like.
501 00:48:06.180 ⇒ 00:48:09.599 Gabriel Lam: If I’m looking for this thing, then you follow these set of instructions.
502 00:48:10.090 ⇒ 00:48:11.990 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Gotcha. So there’s two ways to go about it.
503 00:48:13.430 ⇒ 00:48:15.240 Gabriel Lam: And we’ve come to learn, we’re like, okay.
504 00:48:15.710 ⇒ 00:48:19.010 Gabriel Lam: If it means the ops team has a better…
505 00:48:19.140 ⇒ 00:48:22.430 Gabriel Lam: Like, structure to do it, then we can just adjust our instructions, right?
506 00:48:22.430 ⇒ 00:48:36.479 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Oh, perfect. And the reason why we want to have this structure is because we just want to give as much context, because eventually we want to build a Slack bot. So if you want to say, like, hey, what does the OOO, or, like, out-of-office procedure look like?
507 00:48:36.740 ⇒ 00:48:42.840 Sheshu Chandrasekar: it’ll, like, the Slack bot can give you information and even link you to the right source to read more about it. That’s kind of like…
508 00:48:43.570 ⇒ 00:48:45.769 Sheshu Chandrasekar: why we’re trying to revamp this a little bit, so…
509 00:48:45.770 ⇒ 00:48:46.420 Gabriel Lam: For sure.
510 00:48:46.850 ⇒ 00:48:58.899 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, I mean, we’ll set the standard, and then if there’s, like, some things that we missed, like, some guardrails that we missed, then, you know, I would love your feedback, and we can kind of incorporate that as well.
511 00:48:59.080 ⇒ 00:48:59.740 Gabriel Lam: Yep.
512 00:49:00.060 ⇒ 00:49:05.389 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Cool. I mean, after this call, I do have the schema, I can share it to you,
513 00:49:05.500 ⇒ 00:49:08.579 Sheshu Chandrasekar: via, like, a Google Sheet, but, you know… Okay.
514 00:49:08.580 ⇒ 00:49:09.340 Gabriel Lam: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
515 00:49:09.340 ⇒ 00:49:10.919 Sheshu Chandrasekar: That should work, right? So…
516 00:49:10.920 ⇒ 00:49:11.530 Gabriel Lam: Yes.
517 00:49:12.110 ⇒ 00:49:12.740 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Cool.
518 00:49:12.740 ⇒ 00:49:15.480 Gabriel Lam: I, yeah, I, I, like, I don’t expect…
519 00:49:15.680 ⇒ 00:49:18.779 Gabriel Lam: like, a super detailed thing, I just, like, honestly…
520 00:49:18.780 ⇒ 00:49:19.310 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Okay.
521 00:49:19.310 ⇒ 00:49:22.470 Gabriel Lam: Perfect number, like, I’ll give a quick look, but…
522 00:49:24.210 ⇒ 00:49:25.319 Sheshu Chandrasekar: It’s such a…
523 00:49:25.320 ⇒ 00:49:31.689 Gabriel Lam: you as well, so it’s not… you don’t have to feel like, oh, I can’t do anything until, like, Abe gives me the okay.
524 00:49:32.000 ⇒ 00:49:35.870 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, and you’re gonna have to apologize. For me, it’s such a… a different frame of thinking.
525 00:49:36.220 ⇒ 00:49:37.540 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Oh, no, I’m the same.
526 00:49:37.540 ⇒ 00:49:38.439 Gabriel Lam: They’re exactly the same.
527 00:49:38.670 ⇒ 00:49:50.149 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, like, I’m, like, thinking, oh, like, I have to adhere to the standards that’s set by, like, you know, people above me, so it’s, like, a completely different mindset. So, really appreciate the fact that, you know, you can work with me on.
528 00:49:50.150 ⇒ 00:49:51.170 Gabriel Lam: Even if it’s, like, messy.
529 00:49:51.230 ⇒ 00:49:53.879 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Happy, happy to help you there.
530 00:49:54.080 ⇒ 00:49:54.740 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Awesome.
531 00:49:55.080 ⇒ 00:50:07.140 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Cool, yeah, and then the last thing, because just to set the expectations, yesterday we had a blunder, and partly it’s because of me, because I didn’t have a proper migration plan set,
532 00:50:07.250 ⇒ 00:50:18.089 Sheshu Chandrasekar: So, yeah, like, we had a reality check of what we can do by Friday. So, by Friday, what we can say is, like, you know, we’re gonna have these 5 databases live now, and then…
533 00:50:18.360 ⇒ 00:50:30.580 Sheshu Chandrasekar: homepage with links to all the systems in there. And by homepage, we just mean, like, the new homepage will have the links to the databases, but nothing in there at the moment.
534 00:50:30.700 ⇒ 00:50:36.269 Sheshu Chandrasekar: And then, we’re not going to have all active documents migrated, because we just talked about…
535 00:50:36.400 ⇒ 00:50:39.090 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Not doing that right now, so we’re gonna delete it.
536 00:50:39.530 ⇒ 00:50:43.100 Sheshu Chandrasekar: But we will be identifying which documents will become
537 00:50:43.930 ⇒ 00:50:49.750 Sheshu Chandrasekar: archived and active and will be… continue to be worked on, so that’s something that we will…
538 00:50:49.920 ⇒ 00:50:53.440 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Note that here, and then…
539 00:50:54.430 ⇒ 00:51:04.470 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, the tools database that we mentioned in the existing Notion will be moved into the operations tile, so, that’s no longer gonna be a standalone database anymore.
540 00:51:04.790 ⇒ 00:51:22.239 Sheshu Chandrasekar: what’s not included is, like, yeah, there’s no such thing as perfection. That’s something I’m learning brutally as well. So, yeah, no perfect taxonomy, not, like, a crazy purge of documents and destroying structures, existing structures. That’s not gonna happen by Friday.
541 00:51:22.460 ⇒ 00:51:32.130 Sheshu Chandrasekar: We’re not going to be able to classify every document, we’re going to classify things that are very important right now, and that starts with… for us, that starts with people operations, because that’s where a lot of the
542 00:51:32.240 ⇒ 00:51:34.279 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Documents is very dense, and…
543 00:51:34.430 ⇒ 00:51:40.489 Sheshu Chandrasekar: seems to be living… a lot of the documents live in there. So, yeah, that’s… just wanted to set the expectation.
544 00:51:40.490 ⇒ 00:51:43.410 Gabriel Lam: No, I think that’s… I think that’s great.
545 00:51:44.320 ⇒ 00:51:48.359 Gabriel Lam: Yeah, I’m curious, just, like, as a quick question, I do have to hop off.
546 00:51:48.360 ⇒ 00:51:48.690 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah.
547 00:51:49.050 ⇒ 00:51:56.749 Gabriel Lam: Like, when you take… talk about homepages, you’re talking about each of the verticals.
548 00:51:57.120 ⇒ 00:52:01.420 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, like the little tiles, right? Like the… when it says people operations, recruiting, all this stuff.
549 00:52:01.420 ⇒ 00:52:03.330 Gabriel Lam: Oh yeah, okay, then, yeah.
550 00:52:03.850 ⇒ 00:52:11.590 Gabriel Lam: Yeah, I think as… Like, my… my gut check is just, like, as long as… people…
551 00:52:12.310 ⇒ 00:52:13.890 Gabriel Lam: Know what to expect.
552 00:52:14.040 ⇒ 00:52:23.909 Gabriel Lam: then they can, like, wrap their head around, like, oh, I know I have these active documents, they’ll probably be moved somewhere, this is probably where they’ll end up in some area.
553 00:52:24.220 ⇒ 00:52:26.820 Gabriel Lam: And then tell them that it’s coming, and I think people will have…
554 00:52:27.780 ⇒ 00:52:31.309 Gabriel Lam: At least, like, the planted seed in their heads that it’s coming.
555 00:52:31.800 ⇒ 00:52:36.770 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, so that brings me to my next point. I think we’re gonna present, like, kind of, like.
556 00:52:37.600 ⇒ 00:52:46.510 Sheshu Chandrasekar: a 90% complete new notion next… next Friday, Up 6, because that’s when our next retro is, and I think that’d be great content, just to kind of…
557 00:52:46.790 ⇒ 00:52:52.319 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Like, that’d be an awesome rollout, right? Like, on a call where everyone discusses a quick demo of the new Notion.
558 00:52:54.940 ⇒ 00:53:07.580 Sheshu Chandrasekar: So for Friday, it’s more like we’re kind of building, like, we’re kind of breaking the ground a little bit. We’re putting the wood pipes and the pipes and the wood and stuff like that, and then next week, we’re kind of, like, showing the house is almost complete, so…
559 00:53:08.460 ⇒ 00:53:10.020 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Kind of how I’m thinking it.
560 00:53:10.390 ⇒ 00:53:12.940 Gabriel Lam: That… I… I’m with you there. Sweet.
561 00:53:13.100 ⇒ 00:53:22.919 Gabriel Lam: I like a slower rollout, just so the first one is, like, a sort of soft launch. Be like, hey, this is coming, this is what you can expect, and then once the real thing happens.
562 00:53:23.450 ⇒ 00:53:26.089 Gabriel Lam: I’m like, okay, so now I know where to find these things, and then…
563 00:53:26.090 ⇒ 00:53:26.800 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah.
564 00:53:27.270 ⇒ 00:53:32.309 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Absolutely, it’ll be public, and it’s, you know, it’ll be great. Yeah, I’m just so used to, like, a fast-paced, like.
565 00:53:32.760 ⇒ 00:53:39.210 Sheshu Chandrasekar: like, not fast-paced, but, like, just, like, push, push, push, but I do appreciate the slower rollout now, like, I think…
566 00:53:39.440 ⇒ 00:53:41.719 Sheshu Chandrasekar: We can be a little bit more detailed there.
567 00:53:42.430 ⇒ 00:53:47.370 Gabriel Lam: I think I see it as, like, a sort of V0, that there’s, like, a really strong push for a V0, which…
568 00:53:48.330 ⇒ 00:53:51.340 Gabriel Lam: Is the general mentality that I’ve experienced here.
569 00:53:52.610 ⇒ 00:53:53.190 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah.
570 00:53:53.190 ⇒ 00:53:54.559 Gabriel Lam: Feel free to break stuff.
571 00:53:55.190 ⇒ 00:54:04.180 Gabriel Lam: for a V0, and, like, add a bunch of stuff, and then the second you have to really integrate, that’s when I think you can then push back and be like, okay.
572 00:54:04.410 ⇒ 00:54:22.029 Gabriel Lam: we need to go slowly for these reasons. And I think Utan, sort of… his point about, like, oh, don’t touch active documentation is, like, a point about slowing down, right? I don’t see it as, like, a… it’s a wrong assumption, it’s just like a, hey, like, sometimes it’s not great to break things quickly.
573 00:54:22.030 ⇒ 00:54:27.990 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah. No, we learned that yesterday, so…
574 00:54:28.110 ⇒ 00:54:37.350 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, no, I absolutely understand it now. So, yeah, we live and learn, and yeah, definitely we’ll adopt that… that mentality moving forward.
575 00:54:37.960 ⇒ 00:54:42.860 Gabriel Lam: Alright, cool. Yeah, just, I guess I’ll end with, like.
576 00:54:43.080 ⇒ 00:54:49.300 Gabriel Lam: I don’t know if there’s specifically things you want to talk about for Friday. I think this is pretty clear.
577 00:54:49.530 ⇒ 00:54:50.300 Gabriel Lam: If you, like.
578 00:54:50.300 ⇒ 00:54:50.700 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah.
579 00:54:50.700 ⇒ 00:54:53.330 Gabriel Lam: Time, like, feel free to cancel it, honestly.
580 00:54:54.080 ⇒ 00:55:10.299 Sheshu Chandrasekar: I may just follow up with you async, if that’s okay, because I do have… I have this entire, like, list right here that I’m looking at, and there’s just some things I want to talk to you about, but I can just send you over this entire line, and you can just, like, address it.
581 00:55:10.300 ⇒ 00:55:13.149 Gabriel Lam: Yeah, that might just be faster.
582 00:55:13.150 ⇒ 00:55:14.360 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, let’s just do that then.
583 00:55:14.360 ⇒ 00:55:14.960 Gabriel Lam: Okay.
584 00:55:15.170 ⇒ 00:55:16.240 Gabriel Lam: Awesome. Cool.
585 00:55:16.480 ⇒ 00:55:17.290 Sheshu Chandrasekar: And I’m gonna send you the…
586 00:55:17.290 ⇒ 00:55:18.919 Gabriel Lam: I’ll be back with an hour.
587 00:55:18.920 ⇒ 00:55:26.579 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, sounds good, and I’ll give you the documentation schema, or the database schema. If you can just review through it, that’d be great.
588 00:55:26.580 ⇒ 00:55:27.960 Gabriel Lam: Okay, no problem.
589 00:55:28.130 ⇒ 00:55:28.790 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Awesome.
590 00:55:28.830 ⇒ 00:55:30.670 Gabriel Lam: Awesome, appreciate it, Shashu.
591 00:55:30.670 ⇒ 00:55:32.310 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, talk to you soon. Yep.
592 00:55:32.310 ⇒ 00:55:33.720 Gabriel Lam: Alright, talk soon. Bye.
593 00:55:33.820 ⇒ 00:55:34.580 Gabriel Lam: Bye.