Meeting Title: Brainforge Team Social Chat Date: 2026-03-10 Meeting participants: Amber Lin, Zoran Selinger
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1 00:01:01.150 ⇒ 00:01:02.050 Zoran Selinger: Hi, Amber.
2 00:01:07.610 ⇒ 00:01:08.530 Amber Lin: Hi.
3 00:01:09.260 ⇒ 00:01:10.210 Zoran Selinger: Hi, hi.
4 00:01:10.600 ⇒ 00:01:12.219 Amber Lin: What time is it for you?
5 00:01:13.140 ⇒ 00:01:14.120 Zoran Selinger: Sorry, second?
6 00:01:14.150 ⇒ 00:01:15.949 Amber Lin: What time is it for you?
7 00:01:16.730 ⇒ 00:01:18.170 Zoran Selinger: It’s 4PM.
8 00:01:19.590 ⇒ 00:01:20.999 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, it’s 4 p.m. now.
9 00:01:21.000 ⇒ 00:01:21.630 Amber Lin: G.
10 00:01:22.010 ⇒ 00:01:25.000 Amber Lin: Oh, so you work… you work from, like…
11 00:01:25.390 ⇒ 00:01:29.940 Amber Lin: 3 to 9? What’s your work schedule look like?
12 00:01:30.590 ⇒ 00:01:36.750 Zoran Selinger: It really depends on the day, depends on how much I do in the morning.
13 00:01:36.750 ⇒ 00:01:41.410 Amber Lin: my time. If I do a lot in the morning, then I just…
14 00:01:41.410 ⇒ 00:01:49.280 Zoran Selinger: basically attend meetings, and, I would still log in later at night, at my 9 p.m.
15 00:01:49.800 ⇒ 00:01:58.779 Zoran Selinger: 9.30pm to just reply to messages and block to anyone that is… that is blocked, because I’m in different time zone.
16 00:01:58.990 ⇒ 00:02:07.190 Zoran Selinger: But generally speaking, if I do a lot of work in my mornings, I would… I would essentially just be in the meetings.
17 00:02:07.680 ⇒ 00:02:09.820 Zoran Selinger: Afternoon, and just…
18 00:02:10.039 ⇒ 00:02:11.410 Amber Lin: Oh, wow.
19 00:02:11.410 ⇒ 00:02:16.870 Zoran Selinger: couple of hours here and there. But sometimes it’s just, you know, the day.
20 00:02:16.870 ⇒ 00:02:17.650 Amber Lin: Yeah.
21 00:02:17.650 ⇒ 00:02:20.600 Zoran Selinger: obligations in the morning, then I… I’m basically…
22 00:02:20.950 ⇒ 00:02:26.830 Zoran Selinger: I start at my noon, and then I would work all the way through the 7pm.
23 00:02:27.130 ⇒ 00:02:28.090 Amber Lin: Oh, my.
24 00:02:28.090 ⇒ 00:02:36.469 Zoran Selinger: Still… still come back for another hour later, to have later meeting, or…
25 00:02:36.470 ⇒ 00:02:37.370 Amber Lin: Wow.
26 00:02:37.370 ⇒ 00:02:38.539 Zoran Selinger: unblock people.
27 00:02:38.540 ⇒ 00:02:43.020 Amber Lin: That’s so intense. You said you… you have kids, right?
28 00:02:43.020 ⇒ 00:02:46.539 Zoran Selinger: I do, I do. Yeah, yeah, there are 7 and 6.
29 00:02:47.210 ⇒ 00:02:50.910 Zoran Selinger: Oh, you have two kids! Yeah. Are they, are they twins?
30 00:02:51.300 ⇒ 00:02:55.919 Zoran Selinger: No, no, no. They’re, like, 16, 16 months apart.
31 00:02:56.270 ⇒ 00:03:02.259 Amber Lin: Oh, wow. We’re 7 and 6, so that’s primary school, or are they.
32 00:03:02.260 ⇒ 00:03:08.130 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, so here, we typically start school at 7, so I…
33 00:03:08.130 ⇒ 00:03:08.909 Amber Lin: Oh, okay.
34 00:03:08.910 ⇒ 00:03:17.340 Zoran Selinger: My son just started the primary school, and Sara, she’s starting in the fall, in September.
35 00:03:17.340 ⇒ 00:03:30.169 Amber Lin: Oh, wow. Yeah, my brother is, like, 5, getting to 6 this year, so he’s also going to primary school. But he’s still in preschool, kind of.
36 00:03:30.170 ⇒ 00:03:30.490 Zoran Selinger: Yeah.
37 00:03:30.490 ⇒ 00:03:41.400 Amber Lin: He needs to go to primary school, so… he’s a COVID baby, so I don’t know what will happen to him, because he doesn’t… he hadn’t had all the people when he was growing up.
38 00:03:41.910 ⇒ 00:03:50.559 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, it’s, Yeah, we’ll see what happens. I think that that won’t be without repercussions.
39 00:03:50.830 ⇒ 00:03:58.619 Zoran Selinger: What happened, We were kind of lucky because there were two of them, From the get-go, and
40 00:03:59.170 ⇒ 00:04:03.949 Zoran Selinger: Also, we have a pretty big yard, we have a pretty.
41 00:04:05.040 ⇒ 00:04:15.720 Zoran Selinger: But living apartments had really, really tough time, especially, single-child homes as well. Those kids just did not socialize the way
42 00:04:16.740 ⇒ 00:04:18.220 Zoran Selinger: They should have.
43 00:04:18.750 ⇒ 00:04:19.380 Amber Lin: Yeah.
44 00:04:19.380 ⇒ 00:04:21.290 Zoran Selinger: But we’ll see, we’ll see, we’ll see what happens.
45 00:04:21.290 ⇒ 00:04:23.480 Amber Lin: It was exciting.
46 00:04:24.050 ⇒ 00:04:27.310 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, they’re gonna start going to school soon, so, yeah.
47 00:04:27.310 ⇒ 00:04:29.859 Amber Lin: Wow. Let’s see.
48 00:04:30.740 ⇒ 00:04:36.679 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, so you said, you said you have a… you have a small, small brother, and anyone else?
49 00:04:36.680 ⇒ 00:04:45.499 Amber Lin: I know, just my brother. I was a single child for most of my life, and, you know, I was… I was abroad for high school in Canada.
50 00:04:45.500 ⇒ 00:05:00.479 Amber Lin: And then, like, one day, my parents was like, you have a brother? I was like, what do you mean I have a brother? Because they didn’t tell me, because I was doing my college applications, and they were like, I don’t… I don’t want to stress you out, so they just didn’t tell me.
51 00:05:01.160 ⇒ 00:05:08.600 Amber Lin: And I only called them on FaceTime, so I, like, I could only see this, so I didn’t know.
52 00:05:08.600 ⇒ 00:05:11.640 Zoran Selinger: Oh, what a surprise, that’s cool.
53 00:05:12.290 ⇒ 00:05:15.619 Zoran Selinger: They kept it secret for that long.
54 00:05:15.620 ⇒ 00:05:19.000 Amber Lin: I know, I was like, what do you want from me?
55 00:05:21.290 ⇒ 00:05:24.389 Zoran Selinger: That’s so crazy. Yeah, I don’t…
56 00:05:24.390 ⇒ 00:05:28.100 Amber Lin: It’s very impressive, because sometimes… because…
57 00:05:28.100 ⇒ 00:05:33.530 Zoran Selinger: But it’s impressive. Imagine, like… So much control is needed.
58 00:05:33.530 ⇒ 00:05:45.570 Amber Lin: I know, and I also don’t, like, I don’t call… I didn’t call them that often, because, you know, it was teenage years, puberty, everything, I don’t want to call you. And then that’s what I got for not calling them.
59 00:05:46.340 ⇒ 00:05:48.840 Zoran Selinger: Yes, exactly.
60 00:05:48.840 ⇒ 00:05:49.410 Amber Lin: Yeah.
61 00:05:49.730 ⇒ 00:05:51.180 Zoran Selinger: Very cool, very cool.
62 00:05:51.350 ⇒ 00:05:59.289 Amber Lin: Wait, what do you do outside of work? I remember… I remember your presentation on Friday. You said you did…
63 00:05:59.290 ⇒ 00:05:59.820 Zoran Selinger: Oh, yeah.
64 00:05:59.820 ⇒ 00:06:05.459 Amber Lin: Jiu-jitsu, and then you did guitar? Like, what do you do? Well, it sounds like you do a lot of things.
65 00:06:05.460 ⇒ 00:06:14.630 Zoran Selinger: No, no, no. I have very little time to do anything outside of,
66 00:06:14.760 ⇒ 00:06:18.299 Zoran Selinger: work… no, I’m just trying to learn… learning guitar, it’s…
67 00:06:18.580 ⇒ 00:06:24.510 Zoran Selinger: Behind me. If I get 20, 30 minutes a day, it’s great. It’s a good day.
68 00:06:24.510 ⇒ 00:06:25.300 Amber Lin: Wow.
69 00:06:25.300 ⇒ 00:06:41.520 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, I’m trying to learn, because I love music, I fell in love with listening to a guitar, and I always listen to very guitar-heavy music, so I would listen to a lot of metal and blues.
70 00:06:43.050 ⇒ 00:06:50.070 Zoran Selinger: Over time, more… more so, the blues, and especially guitar-heavy blues, so…
71 00:06:50.320 ⇒ 00:07:00.289 Zoran Selinger: two years ago, a little less than two years ago, I was… I traveled to… to Paris to… to see Eric Clapton live.
72 00:07:00.490 ⇒ 00:07:04.570 Amber Lin: Which was my… which was one of my biggest wishes.
73 00:07:04.790 ⇒ 00:07:07.130 Zoran Selinger: And that actually came true, so.
74 00:07:07.430 ⇒ 00:07:11.379 Amber Lin: grateful for that, because he’s my favorite musician.
75 00:07:11.900 ⇒ 00:07:12.499 Amber Lin: What’s his name?
76 00:07:13.360 ⇒ 00:07:15.149 Zoran Selinger: Eric Clapton.
77 00:07:15.460 ⇒ 00:07:21.710 Amber Lin: Oh, okay, I think I’ve seen one of his songs on Spotify here and there.
78 00:07:22.470 ⇒ 00:07:23.230 Amber Lin: Club.
79 00:07:23.480 ⇒ 00:07:24.430 Zoran Selinger: So…
80 00:07:25.360 ⇒ 00:07:39.229 Zoran Selinger: always wanted to learn, but, like, I always think I have time. When I… I like to be physically active. If I… if I have… if I have a little bit of time, I’d rather do something physical while I can.
81 00:07:39.660 ⇒ 00:07:44.259 Zoran Selinger: I’m young enough when I’m a little bit older and can’t do
82 00:07:45.130 ⇒ 00:07:49.250 Zoran Selinger: a little bit more physically intense stuff, then I’ll…
83 00:07:49.430 ⇒ 00:07:56.429 Zoran Selinger: I’ll take up a guitar, because I’ll be able to… I mean, it’s not my goal to be anything… to do anything.
84 00:07:56.430 ⇒ 00:08:13.349 Amber Lin: Yeah! I also recently got myself a keyboard, because I used to play piano, but then I stopped playing. But then, when I… when I get off work, I just go to the gym, and I go dance at the gym, and I was like, it’s so hard to…
85 00:08:13.640 ⇒ 00:08:23.549 Amber Lin: always play music, because it, like, like you, I think being physically active is just more interesting, especially because I sit all day, and then…
86 00:08:23.550 ⇒ 00:08:24.140 Zoran Selinger: Yeah.
87 00:08:24.590 ⇒ 00:08:35.340 Amber Lin: it… it’s so much nicer to go, like, work out, and then feel… feel my body move. What do you do… what do you do to… for, physical activity?
88 00:08:35.679 ⇒ 00:08:41.579 Zoran Selinger: So I’d like… if I can, I like to go to… to MMA, Oh, great.
89 00:08:41.580 ⇒ 00:08:42.090 Amber Lin: Whoa.
90 00:08:42.090 ⇒ 00:08:46.030 Zoran Selinger: I’m mostly, these days, I’m mostly in a cult role.
91 00:08:47.080 ⇒ 00:08:47.920 Zoran Selinger: I…
92 00:08:48.180 ⇒ 00:08:59.519 Zoran Selinger: I can’t be… I can’t really go every evening, so I’m not coaching that much, but I… I would sometimes go to, to substitute, right?
93 00:08:59.620 ⇒ 00:09:06.160 Zoran Selinger: I would… if someone… if a coach can’t, I’ll go in, and I just…
94 00:09:06.160 ⇒ 00:09:07.140 Amber Lin: So cool.
95 00:09:07.140 ⇒ 00:09:10.290 Zoran Selinger: time and go in, I just can’t go regularly.
96 00:09:12.050 ⇒ 00:09:16.290 Zoran Selinger: Especially with this job and this, like, hour in the evening that.
97 00:09:16.290 ⇒ 00:09:16.900 Amber Lin: Yeah.
98 00:09:16.900 ⇒ 00:09:22.369 Zoran Selinger: Where I’m answering… replying to messages and all that, so it’s a little… little bit,
99 00:09:22.880 ⇒ 00:09:35.879 Zoran Selinger: it’s a little bit tough, but I’ll… I’ll… every now and again, I’ll go in and… and replace, substitute for… for a coach, also, for jiu-jitsu.
100 00:09:35.880 ⇒ 00:09:37.050 Amber Lin: Wow.
101 00:09:37.050 ⇒ 00:09:51.279 Zoran Selinger: No, but just coaching on competitions. If we have a lot of people that are competing, you know, not everyone can have someone. Sometimes multiple people will compete on multiple mats at the same time, so not everyone.
102 00:09:51.280 ⇒ 00:09:52.180 Amber Lin: Oh, shit.
103 00:09:52.180 ⇒ 00:10:07.340 Zoran Selinger: And, like, there’s areas of MMA where I’m… where I know the most in our club, so it just… it just fits. We also organize MMA events, like cage fighting events, and that’s happening.
104 00:10:07.340 ⇒ 00:10:08.500 Amber Lin: It’s so exciting!
105 00:10:08.500 ⇒ 00:10:11.220 Zoran Selinger: That’s happening this week as well, here.
106 00:10:11.220 ⇒ 00:10:13.569 Amber Lin: Do you still fight, or do you just mostly…
107 00:10:13.570 ⇒ 00:10:19.090 Zoran Selinger: No, I’m way too old. Way too old for that.
108 00:10:19.090 ⇒ 00:10:43.840 Amber Lin: Yeah, I… I used to… I started in kickboxing, and then I did Mai Tai for a bit, and I did fight a little bit, and then I was like… but I was too young. I think they… I was, like, less than 21, so they… so they wanted my parents’ consent, and I was like, I don’t really want to tell my mom, or get her to sign off on, you’re gonna get punched in the cage and you might bleed, because it’s on the…
109 00:10:43.840 ⇒ 00:10:46.379 Amber Lin: It’s on the lines, and like…
110 00:10:46.450 ⇒ 00:10:58.540 Amber Lin: you’re responsible for bleeding, broken bones, blah blah blah blah. I don’t think… I don’t think she’ll sign it. So I didn’t do the… the cave fights and tournaments and stuff, but…
111 00:10:58.880 ⇒ 00:11:12.230 Amber Lin: I do want to go punch a bag. Like, sometimes it’s nice. But I… I haven’t… I haven’t done jiu-jitsu. It sounds… it sounds really cool, it sounds really intimidating, because there’s just people on the mat, and they’re…
112 00:11:12.800 ⇒ 00:11:18.849 Amber Lin: And they’re intertwined, and it feels like their legs might snap off. It looks crazy.
113 00:11:19.350 ⇒ 00:11:23.770 Zoran Selinger: To me, a leg stuff is the scariest.
114 00:11:24.230 ⇒ 00:11:30.970 Zoran Selinger: Is the scariest, but listen, jiu-jitsu changes lives.
115 00:11:32.130 ⇒ 00:11:32.990 Amber Lin: Really?
116 00:11:32.990 ⇒ 00:11:42.539 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, absolutely. Especially, I mean, you might not get exactly the same effect, like, people that have never done anything like that.
117 00:11:42.790 ⇒ 00:11:56.890 Zoran Selinger: Because you… you fought before, so you know that you are capable, you know that you can get hit, that you can be in pain, you understand those things. People don’t know about that about themselves, and jujitsu…
118 00:11:56.890 ⇒ 00:11:58.010 Amber Lin: Interesting.
119 00:11:58.010 ⇒ 00:12:01.160 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, I mean, it’s simple because,
120 00:12:02.050 ⇒ 00:12:11.599 Zoran Selinger: there’s a couple of sports that have… that do not have steep learning curves at the beginning. Jiu-jitsu and boxing are
121 00:12:11.820 ⇒ 00:12:24.749 Zoran Selinger: the best ones when someone has absolutely no experience, and they want to, you know, people are being bullied or whatever, and you wanna, like, really change and transform yourself.
122 00:12:25.240 ⇒ 00:12:33.320 Zoran Selinger: It’s one of those two things. You just go and do one of those two things. You will not be the same person after a couple of months.
123 00:12:33.740 ⇒ 00:12:34.740 Zoran Selinger: It’s ridiculous.
124 00:12:34.740 ⇒ 00:12:35.600 Amber Lin: Wow.
125 00:12:35.600 ⇒ 00:12:41.590 Zoran Selinger: like, begin… beginner progress is ridiculous in those two things.
126 00:12:41.930 ⇒ 00:12:42.760 Zoran Selinger: It’s…
127 00:12:42.990 ⇒ 00:12:59.420 Zoran Selinger: Jiu-jitsu, as long as you, like, understand a little bit, you learn how to stay calm under pressure when someone’s on top of you and trying to do things to you, right? If you just learn how to relax, breathe a little bit.
128 00:12:59.750 ⇒ 00:13:04.969 Zoran Selinger: think… You just deal with claustrophobia and being uncomfortable.
129 00:13:05.230 ⇒ 00:13:13.939 Zoran Selinger: And you see that that’s doable, absolutely, you just… you just think you’re gonna… as long… as soon as you stop panicking.
130 00:13:14.170 ⇒ 00:13:18.260 Zoran Selinger: You’re just… you’re just improved tenfold. As soon as you start.
131 00:13:18.520 ⇒ 00:13:24.900 Amber Lin: Wow. It’s amazing, and people get addicted immediately to that. That’s so cool.
132 00:13:24.900 ⇒ 00:13:27.489 Zoran Selinger: And boxing’s pretty much the same.
133 00:13:27.850 ⇒ 00:13:33.370 Zoran Selinger: you wouldn’t get that effect, because you’ll be into key boxing and Muay Thai.
134 00:13:33.780 ⇒ 00:13:41.830 Zoran Selinger: So, but boxing’s… the same. As soon as you stop, Clinching to every punch.
135 00:13:43.070 ⇒ 00:13:48.110 Zoran Selinger: Start, start, you know, excavating a little bit.
136 00:13:48.280 ⇒ 00:13:50.620 Zoran Selinger: You just transformed tenfold.
137 00:13:50.620 ⇒ 00:13:54.579 Amber Lin: Wow. When did you start MMA?
138 00:13:55.260 ⇒ 00:14:08.200 Zoran Selinger: I mean, I’m a judo guy, primarily, right? I know some striking, because I’m mostly now in an MMA gym, but I’m a grappler, so I…
139 00:14:08.630 ⇒ 00:14:16.279 Zoran Selinger: I do grappling, mostly. I… I grapple, so throwing people and doing ground, like jiu-jitsu.
140 00:14:16.280 ⇒ 00:14:17.310 Amber Lin: So stop.
141 00:14:17.310 ⇒ 00:14:20.330 Zoran Selinger: So I’m not a specialist for striking at all.
142 00:14:21.260 ⇒ 00:14:27.000 Zoran Selinger: I’m… I’m just… I’m a specialist for… for, for grappling.
143 00:14:27.360 ⇒ 00:14:32.980 Amber Lin: Wow. How did you find out, like, you liked this specific ad?
144 00:14:32.980 ⇒ 00:14:38.960 Zoran Selinger: That’s… that’s… that’s so easy, man. You’re… I… your generation…
145 00:14:39.170 ⇒ 00:14:41.579 Zoran Selinger: You, you did not have what we have.
146 00:14:42.150 ⇒ 00:14:47.760 Zoran Selinger: We had… We had action heroes, we had Bruce Lee, we had
147 00:14:48.510 ⇒ 00:14:56.969 Zoran Selinger: Jake Chan, we had, we had, Chuck Norris, we had, Jean-Claude Van Damme, and when you grow up…
148 00:14:57.500 ⇒ 00:14:59.330 Zoran Selinger: Just watching that.
149 00:14:59.460 ⇒ 00:15:03.840 Zoran Selinger: We all wanted to be fighters. All. Everyone wanted to do that.
150 00:15:04.170 ⇒ 00:15:12.530 Zoran Selinger: It was… it was in songs, right? It was in mainstream media. It was literally in songs. So,
151 00:15:12.930 ⇒ 00:15:19.299 Zoran Selinger: it just… it’s just the culture. So, we… I live in a very small town, we didn’t have anything.
152 00:15:19.820 ⇒ 00:15:25.960 Zoran Selinger: But I knew as soon as anything comes, that’s what I’m doing. There…
153 00:15:25.960 ⇒ 00:15:26.870 Amber Lin: Wow.
154 00:15:26.870 ⇒ 00:15:33.040 Zoran Selinger: isn’t anything else, like, you could not keep me away. Like, I would get grounded.
155 00:15:34.180 ⇒ 00:15:35.650 Zoran Selinger: and I would flee.
156 00:15:36.380 ⇒ 00:15:38.189 Amber Lin: Just sneak out your box?
157 00:15:39.570 ⇒ 00:15:40.600 Zoran Selinger: To a practice.
158 00:15:40.600 ⇒ 00:15:41.800 Amber Lin: Wow!
159 00:15:41.830 ⇒ 00:15:50.959 Zoran Selinger: couldn’t keep me from it. That was a much more, much harder punishment is for me to miss a training session than anything that
160 00:15:51.210 ⇒ 00:15:54.449 Zoran Selinger: my parents would do to me, or whatever.
161 00:15:54.450 ⇒ 00:15:57.960 Amber Lin: Because you get beat enough anyways, where you’re like, I’m okay.
162 00:15:58.640 ⇒ 00:16:01.030 Zoran Selinger: It’s just… Whatever.
163 00:16:01.380 ⇒ 00:16:02.270 Amber Lin: Whoa!
164 00:16:02.270 ⇒ 00:16:05.650 Zoran Selinger: special. We see that very rarely in kids today.
165 00:16:05.910 ⇒ 00:16:24.520 Amber Lin: It’s… because it’s… there’s so many things to make people feel happy, or feel that same dopamine. It’s… I only started getting back to dancing once I deleted my social media, because, like, I didn’t have time before. I was like.
166 00:16:24.520 ⇒ 00:16:24.890 Zoran Selinger: So…
167 00:16:24.890 ⇒ 00:16:36.649 Amber Lin: busy. But then I deleted my… my apps, and it’s like, I don’t have anything to do. The… the amount of time I have, it’s unbearable. So then…
168 00:16:36.650 ⇒ 00:16:38.340 Zoran Selinger: Unbelievable, yeah.
169 00:16:38.340 ⇒ 00:16:45.359 Amber Lin: Because you don’t have anything to do, and I just want to scroll. It’s an addiction. To me, it was an addiction. So it was very.
170 00:16:45.360 ⇒ 00:16:46.430 Zoran Selinger: Nice.
171 00:16:46.840 ⇒ 00:16:50.449 Zoran Selinger: struggled with that, too, even though, like, I did not
172 00:16:50.850 ⇒ 00:17:07.630 Zoran Selinger: grow up with the same problem. I grew up climbing trees, but still, it’s up with you, even in… when, like, 30 plus, you start going to a… you start using your phone, it’s a problem. It’s a problem for any… any age.
173 00:17:07.710 ⇒ 00:17:26.669 Amber Lin: Yeah, it’s just our… how our brain works, because we do get happy when we see the first few things, and then it becomes like nicotine, because you’ll feel pain if you don’t have it, so then you’re hooked. But wait, what was the town you grew up in? It’s… it sounds very cool. Where is…
174 00:17:26.670 ⇒ 00:17:27.820 Zoran Selinger: It’s cool, it’s not cool.
175 00:17:28.810 ⇒ 00:17:29.680 Zoran Selinger: Cool.
176 00:17:29.680 ⇒ 00:17:31.270 Amber Lin: Still in our little town.
177 00:17:31.270 ⇒ 00:17:33.350 Zoran Selinger: When I was younger, it was cool.
178 00:17:33.790 ⇒ 00:17:47.239 Zoran Selinger: Because we… the town was big on sports, so we would… we were, for a few years in a row, we would be the most successful town in the whole of Croatia for…
179 00:17:47.240 ⇒ 00:17:48.370 Amber Lin: Wow.
180 00:17:48.520 ⇒ 00:17:52.339 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, for medals and all of those things.
181 00:17:52.340 ⇒ 00:17:53.359 Amber Lin: Or, like, Olympics.
182 00:17:53.360 ⇒ 00:17:55.629 Zoran Selinger: Per capita, because you’re very.
183 00:17:55.630 ⇒ 00:17:57.050 Amber Lin: Oh, I see.
184 00:17:57.050 ⇒ 00:18:00.280 Zoran Selinger: Capita, we would, we would,
185 00:18:00.870 ⇒ 00:18:04.269 Zoran Selinger: We would get a lot. We would win a lot.
186 00:18:05.030 ⇒ 00:18:05.800 Amber Lin: Aww.
187 00:18:06.430 ⇒ 00:18:13.370 Amber Lin: Well, I mean, the images on Google looks really cool of Croatia.
188 00:18:14.170 ⇒ 00:18:18.290 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, we’re not in… you’re probably looking at the coast.
189 00:18:19.080 ⇒ 00:18:24.429 Zoran Selinger: But, still, I… I love it a lot.
190 00:18:24.560 ⇒ 00:18:28.609 Zoran Selinger: I’m used to, used to this.
191 00:18:28.810 ⇒ 00:18:32.370 Zoran Selinger: I like… I’m at a very flat.
192 00:18:33.090 ⇒ 00:18:37.639 Zoran Selinger: part of Croatia, inland. It’s very, very flat.
193 00:18:40.090 ⇒ 00:18:46.690 Zoran Selinger: It’s very flat. I mean, interestingly enough, a long, long time ago, there was a C here.
194 00:18:46.690 ⇒ 00:18:47.580 Amber Lin: What?
195 00:18:47.780 ⇒ 00:18:52.380 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, do you see shells sometimes? Yes, we have.
196 00:18:52.380 ⇒ 00:18:53.170 Amber Lin: Oh…
197 00:18:54.800 ⇒ 00:19:00.510 Zoran Selinger: It was called Pannonian Sea. Most of Hungary, part of Serbia, was in…
198 00:19:00.950 ⇒ 00:19:01.830 Amber Lin: What’s a seat?
199 00:19:01.830 ⇒ 00:19:04.139 Zoran Selinger: C, a long, long time ago.
200 00:19:04.630 ⇒ 00:19:08.130 Zoran Selinger: Very, very flat, here, where we are.
201 00:19:08.270 ⇒ 00:19:09.580 Zoran Selinger: Obviously.
202 00:19:09.700 ⇒ 00:19:19.800 Zoran Selinger: If you look a little bit closer, if you’re traveling here, and you… you look a little bit closer, obviously you’re gonna find really nice places everywhere.
203 00:19:19.900 ⇒ 00:19:25.740 Zoran Selinger: It’s just most people know the coast, also for a good reason. Our coast is amazing.
204 00:19:26.030 ⇒ 00:19:26.920 Amber Lin: Wow.
205 00:19:27.430 ⇒ 00:19:33.059 Zoran Selinger: Our coast is absolutely amazing, but people do miss the continental part a lot.
206 00:19:34.340 ⇒ 00:19:35.510 Amber Lin: Why is that?
207 00:19:36.390 ⇒ 00:19:55.379 Zoran Selinger: I mean, why would you come here when you have the coast? People, when you travel, you always want to go to the sea, and we have a really beautiful sea, with thousands of islands and little coves and stuff like that, so obviously it’s very, very, very interesting. A few national parks,
208 00:19:55.470 ⇒ 00:19:59.839 Zoran Selinger: But people don’t usually, usually go
209 00:19:59.960 ⇒ 00:20:14.870 Zoran Selinger: come here. There’ll be some… there are… there is some, like, fishing, tourism, stuff like that, but it’s mostly, it’s mostly, people go to the coast. We also go to the coast. I see.
210 00:20:14.870 ⇒ 00:20:21.320 Amber Lin: Honestly, that is so cool, because I lived in Italy for, like, a year.
211 00:20:21.320 ⇒ 00:20:22.140 Zoran Selinger: Oh, yeah.
212 00:20:22.140 ⇒ 00:20:36.049 Amber Lin: For a year, so… I was actually very close, but I don’t think I went to Croatia? I don’t know, I… when I was there, it was, like, the… it was the second year of the Ukraine… Ukraine war and stuff.
213 00:20:36.050 ⇒ 00:20:36.840 Zoran Selinger: Very worthy.
214 00:20:36.860 ⇒ 00:20:38.689 Amber Lin: I was in Milan.
215 00:20:39.100 ⇒ 00:20:40.669 Zoran Selinger: Okay, okay.
216 00:20:40.670 ⇒ 00:20:49.189 Amber Lin: So, it was… I was mostly just flying out. Yeah, I wasn’t too far, so I was surprised. I was like, never been, but this looks so cool.
217 00:20:49.190 ⇒ 00:21:03.739 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, I mean, compared to, like, Italian coast is super boring compared to Croatia, like, just look at the difference. Super flat in Italy, and look at our coast. It’s just a mess.
218 00:21:04.270 ⇒ 00:21:08.880 Zoran Selinger: islands and everything. So, yeah, it’s exciting. It looks so cool.
219 00:21:09.060 ⇒ 00:21:11.969 Zoran Selinger: But yeah, it’s a calm, warm sea, you know?
220 00:21:12.410 ⇒ 00:21:13.180 Amber Lin: No.
221 00:21:13.900 ⇒ 00:21:15.490 Amber Lin: Cool.
222 00:21:16.050 ⇒ 00:21:18.170 Zoran Selinger: Wait, I…
223 00:21:20.590 ⇒ 00:21:35.650 Amber Lin: Like, I had a… I had a question on, like, on your work. I didn’t want to talk about work, because this is not, like, a work call, but I was so interested in, like, the stuff that you were doing, because I… like, I never really seen anyone do that, and it’s, I think, for…
224 00:21:35.830 ⇒ 00:21:41.639 Amber Lin: for us, even, it’s a new service line that we’re doing. Like, what exactly do you do?
225 00:21:42.950 ⇒ 00:21:43.500 Zoran Selinger: What is that?
226 00:21:43.500 ⇒ 00:21:46.469 Amber Lin: Do you set up the tracking for them?
227 00:21:46.470 ⇒ 00:21:56.200 Zoran Selinger: My specialty is tracking. I mean, listen, I don’t like to talk about this part of my career, which was very long. I just…
228 00:21:56.660 ⇒ 00:22:02.799 Zoran Selinger: don’t like to do it anymore. I’ve managed campaigns, paid search, for 9 years.
229 00:22:03.370 ⇒ 00:22:05.849 Amber Lin: Oh, wait, so you did… you did.
230 00:22:05.910 ⇒ 00:22:10.320 Zoran Selinger: I’m an award-winning campaign manager.
231 00:22:10.320 ⇒ 00:22:16.999 Amber Lin: What? That’s crazy! I think of you as, like, this is the data guy, this guy does the.
232 00:22:17.000 ⇒ 00:22:17.360 Zoran Selinger: technical…
233 00:22:17.360 ⇒ 00:22:20.040 Amber Lin: cool stuff, and you’re like, I’m in marketing!
234 00:22:20.080 ⇒ 00:22:22.600 Zoran Selinger: No, I managed paid search for 9 years.
235 00:22:22.600 ⇒ 00:22:23.950 Amber Lin: Wow.
236 00:22:23.950 ⇒ 00:22:27.709 Zoran Selinger: it well. I just don’t… don’t like to do it anymore, it just…
237 00:22:27.710 ⇒ 00:22:31.280 Amber Lin: Why don’t you like to do it anymore? Because you know what to do.
238 00:22:31.340 ⇒ 00:22:32.690 Zoran Selinger: It’s… it’s…
239 00:22:34.470 ⇒ 00:22:43.029 Zoran Selinger: It’s boring, I don’t like reporting on it, I don’t know, I don’t know. It just, I wanted to be an engineer in an engineering role.
240 00:22:43.290 ⇒ 00:22:50.060 Zoran Selinger: When COVID came, that gave me an opportunity, because up until COVID, I…
241 00:22:50.650 ⇒ 00:22:55.309 Zoran Selinger: I worked… most of my work was still managing campaigns.
242 00:22:55.850 ⇒ 00:23:11.579 Zoran Selinger: couldn’t be replaced in the agencies I’ve worked. There’s a lack of talent. If I just go, they are… they’re in a bind, because I’m managing 15 accounts, managing millions and millions in spend, and
243 00:23:12.060 ⇒ 00:23:17.240 Zoran Selinger: I’m gonna, like… leave them in trouble, right? But then COVID came.
244 00:23:18.090 ⇒ 00:23:28.869 Zoran Selinger: March 2020 came, and essentially, Advertising budgets were cut by 50% overnight.
245 00:23:29.460 ⇒ 00:23:30.230 Amber Lin: Oh, wow.
246 00:23:30.230 ⇒ 00:23:37.480 Zoran Selinger: immediately. Which doesn’t mean just my workload is 50% less, but everyone in the team
247 00:23:38.270 ⇒ 00:23:41.099 Zoran Selinger: Their workload just dropped by 50%.
248 00:23:41.330 ⇒ 00:23:41.930 Amber Lin: I said…
249 00:23:41.930 ⇒ 00:23:43.920 Zoran Selinger: Guys, you can cower me now.
250 00:23:44.400 ⇒ 00:23:47.329 Zoran Selinger: You… you can absolutely cover me now.
251 00:23:47.540 ⇒ 00:23:48.630 Amber Lin: Hmm.
252 00:23:50.000 ⇒ 00:23:54.549 Zoran Selinger: all of your work time got cut by 50%. So.
253 00:23:54.770 ⇒ 00:23:57.739 Zoran Selinger: There you go, I’m gonna be an engineer now.
254 00:23:58.490 ⇒ 00:23:59.350 Zoran Selinger: I was lucky.
255 00:23:59.460 ⇒ 00:24:02.790 Amber Lin: You learned engineering on your own?
256 00:24:03.690 ⇒ 00:24:09.700 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, I mean, I… very soon, the company that I started working for after that.
257 00:24:10.110 ⇒ 00:24:15.790 Zoran Selinger: Which was the one that I’ve been working for up until I started working for Brainforge.
258 00:24:17.830 ⇒ 00:24:25.189 Zoran Selinger: I already started Working on tracking for them, and they just desperately wanted to keep me.
259 00:24:25.300 ⇒ 00:24:33.700 Zoran Selinger: And they see that I’m thinking about things, and the CEO got me to tell him
260 00:24:35.000 ⇒ 00:24:39.939 Zoran Selinger: what’s bothering me? And I said, I want to be… I want to be a developer.
261 00:24:41.720 ⇒ 00:24:43.809 Zoran Selinger: Tomorrow, I was a developer.
262 00:24:44.120 ⇒ 00:24:49.620 Zoran Selinger: Working under their… Head of backend… And…
263 00:24:50.090 ⇒ 00:25:00.609 Zoran Selinger: Couple of months after that, I was managing the backend. The head of back-end left, and left everything to me, and that was my next 5, almost 6 years.
264 00:25:00.830 ⇒ 00:25:06.210 Amber Lin: Wait, you… back-end, you mean, like, developing websites and apps and all that?
265 00:25:06.750 ⇒ 00:25:10.950 Zoran Selinger: Most… mostly, like, data pipelines, reverse.
266 00:25:10.950 ⇒ 00:25:12.829 Amber Lin: Oh, oh, okay.
267 00:25:13.280 ⇒ 00:25:17.959 Amber Lin: Just for an advertising agency. Like, full-service agency.
268 00:25:18.160 ⇒ 00:25:22.210 Zoran Selinger: So… but he was… it was a little bit weird, because
269 00:25:23.370 ⇒ 00:25:32.399 Zoran Selinger: it was not a typical, like, monolith backend. It was… everything was built on, like, cloud functions.
270 00:25:32.780 ⇒ 00:25:33.310 Amber Lin: Mmm.
271 00:25:33.620 ⇒ 00:25:38.480 Zoran Selinger: Things like that, so it was, pretty specific.
272 00:25:38.890 ⇒ 00:25:42.060 Zoran Selinger: Set up, and yeah.
273 00:25:42.060 ⇒ 00:25:42.640 Amber Lin: I see it.
274 00:25:42.820 ⇒ 00:25:59.720 Zoran Selinger: And now, yeah, I came here, like, as a tracking specialist, like, I’ll still, like, do things like Google Analytics and all of those things, but, like, this edge just came from our need, because we couldn’t.
275 00:26:00.230 ⇒ 00:26:04.060 Zoran Selinger: put our tracking on the thank you page of Eden.
276 00:26:05.150 ⇒ 00:26:07.369 Zoran Selinger: And that was a big problem for us.
277 00:26:07.490 ⇒ 00:26:21.829 Zoran Selinger: And then I figured I realized that we do have things that we can run on the thank you page, and that’s on the edge, and that’s how it slowly… we came to a realization
278 00:26:22.320 ⇒ 00:26:25.390 Zoran Selinger: Oh, shit, we have something here.
279 00:26:25.390 ⇒ 00:26:26.539 Amber Lin: That’s so cool!
280 00:26:26.540 ⇒ 00:26:28.740 Zoran Selinger: Some more on the edge, right?
281 00:26:29.740 ⇒ 00:26:33.960 Amber Lin: Is this, like, the engineering work you wanted to do, though?
282 00:26:34.850 ⇒ 00:26:43.240 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, I like, I like tracking, tracking work. I… It’s…
283 00:26:45.460 ⇒ 00:26:49.140 Zoran Selinger: I’ve done so many things in digital marketing.
284 00:26:49.480 ⇒ 00:26:53.129 Zoran Selinger: I’m generally very curious and interested.
285 00:26:53.500 ⇒ 00:26:56.339 Zoran Selinger: and… I’m not very picky.
286 00:26:56.670 ⇒ 00:27:00.649 Zoran Selinger: As long as it’s fun, as long as I’m solving problems.
287 00:27:00.650 ⇒ 00:27:01.089 Amber Lin: I see.
288 00:27:01.090 ⇒ 00:27:03.230 Zoran Selinger: Puzzles, it’s… it’s fine.
289 00:27:03.230 ⇒ 00:27:06.419 Amber Lin: And this edge case stuff is all new, so… pretty exciting.
290 00:27:06.420 ⇒ 00:27:09.590 Zoran Selinger: Colonial, we literally invented that.
291 00:27:11.300 ⇒ 00:27:20.380 Zoran Selinger: So… Awesome! Yeah, we’ll, we’ll, yeah, and we’re gonna improve, I just, or the playbook on Edge.
292 00:27:20.520 ⇒ 00:27:21.650 Zoran Selinger: today.
293 00:27:21.890 ⇒ 00:27:23.060 Amber Lin: Whoa.
294 00:27:23.280 ⇒ 00:27:34.279 Zoran Selinger: the first version. I just wanted to have the second project under my belt before I start writing. People thought that I’m not gonna do it, but I just…
295 00:27:34.280 ⇒ 00:27:34.720 Amber Lin: Wait.
296 00:27:34.720 ⇒ 00:27:41.110 Zoran Selinger: that, to have the… because I wasn’t exactly sure what’s very hidden specific.
297 00:27:41.330 ⇒ 00:27:53.679 Zoran Selinger: Since we have EMBLE as well, now I understand what’s… what was specific to Eden, what was… what was not specific to Eden, what was, like, client agnostic.
298 00:27:53.930 ⇒ 00:27:54.760 Amber Lin: Okay.
299 00:27:54.760 ⇒ 00:27:58.169 Zoran Selinger: Now I have that understanding, so I’m able to write a playbook and all that.
300 00:27:58.170 ⇒ 00:28:17.680 Amber Lin: I see, I see. Very cool, I look forward to reading that. I think we have 2 minutes. I have one last question. This is for my analysis, so I’m trying to look at, like, page conversions. Where is the best place I can look at the data for? Is it just the post hoc that you shared, or do you think…
301 00:28:17.900 ⇒ 00:28:38.029 Zoran Selinger: If, yeah, if you’re looking at a page, at pages, yes, it’s there. If you want to… I mean, I don’t have to talk to you about, like, Basque tables and all of that, you understand all of that already from… from Eden. But yeah, if you’re looking at, like, web analytics data, yeah, that’s posthog.
302 00:28:38.860 ⇒ 00:28:39.880 Amber Lin: I see.
303 00:28:39.880 ⇒ 00:28:46.369 Zoran Selinger: super intuitive to me, honestly, the interface. That’s new to me. PostHog is new to me as well.
304 00:28:47.110 ⇒ 00:28:52.999 Amber Lin: Do you think they used it? Because there’s some, like, conversion that they made in post hoc.
305 00:28:53.110 ⇒ 00:29:02.039 Amber Lin: Is that always accurate, or do you know, like, for example, Eden or, say, Amble, do they trust the post hoc data?
306 00:29:02.550 ⇒ 00:29:05.480 Zoran Selinger: So, from what I could gather from Zach.
307 00:29:06.990 ⇒ 00:29:17.179 Zoran Selinger: he seems to be in POSOG a lot, so yes, I think they are actively using that data and using those reports. So they do consider them,
308 00:29:17.440 ⇒ 00:29:18.890 Zoran Selinger: Accurate enough.
309 00:29:19.330 ⇒ 00:29:24.609 Amber Lin: Okay, okay, sounds good. Okay, that helps me for my next analysis. Okay.
310 00:29:24.740 ⇒ 00:29:30.030 Zoran Selinger: We’re at time. Thank you so much, it was really interesting. Thank you. Thanks, thanks.
311 00:29:30.030 ⇒ 00:29:30.500 Amber Lin: Alrighty.
312 00:29:30.500 ⇒ 00:29:31.780 Zoran Selinger: We’ll talk soon.
313 00:29:31.900 ⇒ 00:29:32.240 Amber Lin: Okay.
314 00:29:32.240 ⇒ 00:29:33.310 Zoran Selinger: Cheers. Bye-bye.