Meeting Title: GTM Strategy Date: 2026-03-16 Meeting participants: Hannah Wang, Luke Scorziell, Robert Tseng
WEBVTT
1 00:00:57.540 ⇒ 00:01:01.350 Luke Scorziell: a… I think Robert’s grabbing a few bites to eat.
2 00:01:03.180 ⇒ 00:01:04.480 Hannah Wang: To do the same.
3 00:01:09.990 ⇒ 00:01:12.840 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, I’m gonna do that, because I don’t wanna be hangry.
4 00:01:16.420 ⇒ 00:01:19.490 Luke Scorziell: Okay, I’ll be right back. I guess if Robert gets on.
5 00:01:19.790 ⇒ 00:01:20.500 Hannah Wang: Okay.
6 00:05:55.040 ⇒ 00:05:56.590 Luke Scorziell: Hello, good morning.
7 00:05:57.010 ⇒ 00:05:57.760 Robert Tseng: 8th.
8 00:05:58.830 ⇒ 00:06:00.709 Robert Tseng: Is Hannah there, or not?
9 00:06:01.660 ⇒ 00:06:02.200 Hannah Wang: I’m here.
10 00:06:02.640 ⇒ 00:06:03.770 Robert Tseng: Oh, okay.
11 00:06:04.170 ⇒ 00:06:05.710 Robert Tseng: kind of… nice.
12 00:06:07.270 ⇒ 00:06:09.159 Luke Scorziell: You inspired me to get food.
13 00:06:09.850 ⇒ 00:06:14.120 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I… I came back from…
14 00:06:14.500 ⇒ 00:06:17.629 Robert Tseng: I mean, I… this morning, I was telling Rachel.
15 00:06:17.950 ⇒ 00:06:22.569 Robert Tseng: I’m… I’m not gonna eat lunch anymore. Like, I… I think I…
16 00:06:22.920 ⇒ 00:06:35.020 Robert Tseng: last week, I was, like, with my buddy on the boat, and they only eat breakfast and dinner, and I was like, wow, this is a great lifestyle. And then I got hungry, so… and I ate lunch. So, I don’t think I… think I…
17 00:06:35.450 ⇒ 00:06:36.480 Robert Tseng: Bowl.
18 00:06:36.870 ⇒ 00:06:43.349 Robert Tseng: I think I’ll just… I’m not gonna go… I don’t know, I can’t just, like, cut it out right away. I don’t really know.
19 00:06:44.360 ⇒ 00:06:48.360 Luke Scorziell: What… what’s the inspiration? Just the extra hour of… of work, or what?
20 00:06:49.550 ⇒ 00:06:53.159 Robert Tseng: Well, you also just don’t… your energy doesn’t dip as much if you don’t eat lunch.
21 00:06:54.920 ⇒ 00:06:57.569 Luke Scorziell: I have friends that are on the no breakfast train for the same.
22 00:06:58.120 ⇒ 00:06:59.209 Luke Scorziell: Same reason.
23 00:06:59.600 ⇒ 00:07:07.220 Robert Tseng: Yeah, well, breakfast, like, gets me going, so I feel like I can’t give up breakfast, but… Yeah.
24 00:07:07.560 ⇒ 00:07:08.210 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.
25 00:07:08.890 ⇒ 00:07:11.299 Luke Scorziell: Dang. Well, let us know how it goes.
26 00:07:11.440 ⇒ 00:07:14.940 Luke Scorziell: I usually fast once a week, and that helps with my blood sugar, I think.
27 00:07:15.090 ⇒ 00:07:21.569 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I do that, and that’s, like, more of, like, a dinner-to-dinner thing, but .
28 00:07:21.760 ⇒ 00:07:22.210 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.
29 00:07:22.210 ⇒ 00:07:27.049 Robert Tseng: I think, like, missing lunch every day, that seems… seems hard.
30 00:07:31.330 ⇒ 00:07:34.479 Luke Scorziell: I will continue eating it, but I support you, so…
31 00:07:34.480 ⇒ 00:07:35.860 Robert Tseng: Thank you.
32 00:07:37.680 ⇒ 00:07:38.880 Robert Tseng: Okay.
33 00:07:39.200 ⇒ 00:07:44.069 Robert Tseng: Well, I’m just gonna get into it for now.
34 00:07:46.370 ⇒ 00:07:55.250 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I guess I took Rico and Ryan out of this call, because I just don’t really think they need to be here, like, I…
35 00:07:56.540 ⇒ 00:07:58.960 Robert Tseng: I think they’re really just kind of taking…
36 00:07:59.280 ⇒ 00:08:03.930 Robert Tseng: orders from… from you guys, so… and then Hannah, I know…
37 00:08:04.270 ⇒ 00:08:09.380 Robert Tseng: Or just, I… you’re just here for now until… I feel like…
38 00:08:09.670 ⇒ 00:08:13.160 Robert Tseng: I guess Luke and I have a good handle of how to use
39 00:08:13.400 ⇒ 00:08:22.329 Robert Tseng: both this doc and the Marketing Hub. So, probably at some point, you also don’t have to be on these calls.
40 00:08:22.740 ⇒ 00:08:25.660 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
41 00:08:26.560 ⇒ 00:08:37.349 Robert Tseng: So, I guess, like, we can go through the WBR for, like, for the week, but I think, you know, quarter’s ending in two weeks, and…
42 00:08:38.220 ⇒ 00:08:45.279 Robert Tseng: I think, like, the general… Focus is, like.
43 00:08:45.390 ⇒ 00:08:50.679 Robert Tseng: I just want us to focus on trying to hit the numbers for the next two weeks.
44 00:08:50.950 ⇒ 00:09:01.519 Robert Tseng: Yeah, and then I will… I already have, like, opinions on, like, how resourcing should go, but I…
45 00:09:01.620 ⇒ 00:09:09.990 Robert Tseng: I am going to be more, like, kind of just cutting out anything that has not been working, and just focusing on what
46 00:09:10.510 ⇒ 00:09:17.939 Robert Tseng: we need to do to try to, like, make a concerted push for hitting the numbers in the system, so…
47 00:09:18.120 ⇒ 00:09:21.370 Robert Tseng: Like, I feel like we made too many, like.
48 00:09:21.540 ⇒ 00:09:31.310 Robert Tseng: micro-pivots, the speed of the experiments, that… launching new campaigns was, like, that was… went pretty slow. I mean, yeah, there’s just a lot of… we can unpack.
49 00:09:31.700 ⇒ 00:09:43.150 Robert Tseng: kind of what that… how all that went later, like, I’ve already… I spent a lot of time thinking about it last week, but I think… yeah, I think that’s just the thing I want to lay it off with this week, that we’re… I’m just…
50 00:09:43.690 ⇒ 00:09:48.649 Robert Tseng: Anything that you guys ask, For, or, like, you’re wanting to do.
51 00:09:48.860 ⇒ 00:09:50.770 Robert Tseng: if I can’t…
52 00:09:51.060 ⇒ 00:10:05.739 Robert Tseng: reasonably tie it to one of these core metrics. I’m just gonna say no to it for the next two weeks until… until… yeah, I just wanna see, like, what does the… what does the best effort look like? Like, I can already know, like, what the ups and downs were, kind of when…
53 00:10:06.080 ⇒ 00:10:15.840 Robert Tseng: where I was involved, where I wasn’t involved, so, like, I have some opinions there, but, like, I just want to see us try to make, like, a push to the end of the quarter.
54 00:10:17.390 ⇒ 00:10:21.059 Robert Tseng: Yeah, with, like, the pipeline that we have currently. So…
55 00:10:21.550 ⇒ 00:10:25.560 Robert Tseng: Okay, I think with that in mind,
56 00:10:25.660 ⇒ 00:10:27.979 Robert Tseng: This is up to this week.
57 00:10:28.420 ⇒ 00:10:31.610 Robert Tseng: Yeah, let’s just kind of go through this.
58 00:10:34.980 ⇒ 00:10:45.379 Robert Tseng: Great, so… meetings booked, polytomic… I see a lot of partner meetings for UTAM, which is fine, I guess.
59 00:10:45.680 ⇒ 00:10:51.520 Robert Tseng: and… I mean, Zach’s a client, so I would take that out. That’s…
60 00:10:54.950 ⇒ 00:10:58.810 Robert Tseng: Take that out, so… But…
61 00:10:59.080 ⇒ 00:11:06.799 Robert Tseng: I mean, I was… I definitely took a couple calls on my vacation, so I think that this is…
62 00:11:08.360 ⇒ 00:11:14.419 Robert Tseng: still gonna be something about D&G, and what else did I talk to you last week?
63 00:11:14.830 ⇒ 00:11:26.740 Robert Tseng: I talked with DAY… And… I also called… Eated.
64 00:11:26.970 ⇒ 00:11:29.120 Robert Tseng: or AI system.
65 00:11:31.860 ⇒ 00:11:36.560 Robert Tseng: I forget if we said that this was gonna include partners or not, but…
66 00:11:36.780 ⇒ 00:11:39.170 Luke Scorziell: I think we did, just to get, like, total external…
67 00:11:39.610 ⇒ 00:11:41.389 Luke Scorziell: Yeah. Like, time spent on meetings?
68 00:11:42.020 ⇒ 00:11:51.009 Robert Tseng: 5, 6, 7, 8, 9… 12, 13, 14… Okay, so there’ll be 14…
69 00:11:52.420 ⇒ 00:11:54.809 Robert Tseng: I mean, that’s also a coordinator.
70 00:11:56.740 ⇒ 00:11:59.729 Robert Tseng: It’s rescheduled, I’m just gonna assume zero.
71 00:12:00.570 ⇒ 00:12:06.969 Robert Tseng: Okay, and then as far as discovery calls, I don’t really think that…
72 00:12:07.940 ⇒ 00:12:15.980 Robert Tseng: Okay, so just those two, and… MQL pipeline added.
73 00:12:17.330 ⇒ 00:12:23.240 Luke Scorziell: August. Maybe this would be 100,000, actually, I don’t think we updated that from… because we just finished updating the MQLs.
74 00:12:23.550 ⇒ 00:12:27.800 Luke Scorziell: So we had… I don’t know if you scroll… I can just look, too.
75 00:12:28.050 ⇒ 00:12:29.920 Luke Scorziell: We had 10, but we…
76 00:12:32.170 ⇒ 00:12:32.880 Robert Tseng: Okay.
77 00:12:33.980 ⇒ 00:12:35.210 Luke Scorziell: identified.
78 00:12:36.250 ⇒ 00:12:42.609 Robert Tseng: Okay, and then… so 1 out of the 10 converted to S… converted to SQL?
79 00:12:44.070 ⇒ 00:12:45.849 Robert Tseng: And… who is this?
80 00:12:49.690 ⇒ 00:12:53.999 Luke Scorziell: Hmm… I don’t actually know where Ryan got that from.
81 00:12:56.560 ⇒ 00:12:59.220 Robert Tseng: Okay, since I don’t see a note, I’m gonna put 0.
82 00:12:59.660 ⇒ 00:13:03.819 Robert Tseng: And… I also don’t see a note here, so I’m gonna put zero there.
83 00:13:04.270 ⇒ 00:13:08.020 Robert Tseng: Proposal sent, D&G, sure.
84 00:13:10.200 ⇒ 00:13:11.330 Robert Tseng: comfort.
85 00:13:12.120 ⇒ 00:13:18.590 Robert Tseng: 35A… to…
86 00:13:24.220 ⇒ 00:13:25.399 Luke Scorziell: I’m crying.
87 00:13:28.630 ⇒ 00:13:31.450 Robert Tseng: stems… great. Good.
88 00:13:32.330 ⇒ 00:13:37.800 Robert Tseng: I see. Okay, well then, that’s… I’m gonna call that…
89 00:13:38.360 ⇒ 00:13:44.969 Robert Tseng: I’m gonna call that 30K, because Urban Stems, we wouldn’t do anything less than 3 months with them at 10K a month, so…
90 00:13:45.210 ⇒ 00:13:45.970 Robert Tseng: Dad.
91 00:13:46.200 ⇒ 00:13:47.570 Robert Tseng: It makes sense.
92 00:13:50.320 ⇒ 00:13:58.859 Robert Tseng: That’s… but, like… a bot, guys. It’s been, like, 10 weeks, and we’re still not updating this correctly.
93 00:13:59.470 ⇒ 00:14:02.429 Robert Tseng: I feel like I have to do this every single time.
94 00:14:04.380 ⇒ 00:14:05.570 Robert Tseng: Frustrating.
95 00:14:07.010 ⇒ 00:14:08.920 Robert Tseng: Okay, and then…
96 00:14:10.500 ⇒ 00:14:18.599 Robert Tseng: Sure, I mean, obviously, no… I mean, I don’t know if it’s obvious, but it looks like no deals really moved when I wasn’t here. And then…
97 00:14:20.290 ⇒ 00:14:26.480 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I guess the split haven’t changed, ICP conversations, I guess I didn’t fill this in, so…
98 00:14:27.160 ⇒ 00:14:32.480 Robert Tseng: To be, but… I didn’t really talk to anybody, so I’m just gonna assume zero.
99 00:14:38.700 ⇒ 00:14:45.009 Robert Tseng: active SQL pipeline… Yeah, that feels right.
100 00:14:45.890 ⇒ 00:14:50.549 Robert Tseng: That is just… wrong.
101 00:14:50.830 ⇒ 00:14:55.020 Robert Tseng: So… That’s… not a partner.
102 00:14:55.400 ⇒ 00:14:59.920 Robert Tseng: It’s zero.
103 00:15:02.370 ⇒ 00:15:16.860 Robert Tseng: Oh, we got a bunch of responses from people, from the… kind of… LinkedIn blunder,
104 00:15:17.130 ⇒ 00:15:22.600 Robert Tseng: I haven’t really followed through on that, but okay, we can… we can count them. I… I… yeah, well, we’ll see.
105 00:15:23.240 ⇒ 00:15:27.020 Robert Tseng: We have about 4 going through.
106 00:15:27.920 ⇒ 00:15:30.540 Robert Tseng: Engagement looks about the same.
107 00:15:32.030 ⇒ 00:15:34.769 Robert Tseng: Huh, interesting.
108 00:15:36.700 ⇒ 00:15:43.080 Robert Tseng: Who are Michael and Madeline?
109 00:15:46.960 ⇒ 00:15:50.850 Hannah Wang: Madeline’s an AE, part of the…
110 00:15:51.380 ⇒ 00:15:53.140 Robert Tseng: Are we not already talking to her?
111 00:15:55.930 ⇒ 00:16:03.080 Hannah Wang: I think we are. I don’t know who the rep is currently. Maybe she’s, like, another rep that we’re not talking to.
112 00:16:03.210 ⇒ 00:16:06.000 Hannah Wang: I’m not entirely sure.
113 00:16:06.230 ⇒ 00:16:15.840 Hannah Wang: And then… Michael… I just looked at his profile, he is…
114 00:16:16.710 ⇒ 00:16:21.820 Hannah Wang: an AE at a software dev company called Mattea.
115 00:16:22.280 ⇒ 00:16:27.210 Hannah Wang: I think he already knew Michael.
116 00:16:27.420 ⇒ 00:16:29.770 Hannah Wang: beforehand.
117 00:16:31.160 ⇒ 00:16:32.970 Hannah Wang: He’s just looking…
118 00:16:34.830 ⇒ 00:16:45.949 Hannah Wang: He said, I wanted to see if I could convince you to take a look at Mattia and see what you think. Our Omni integration is in GA now, blah blah blah. And then Tom was like, I’m busy, can you loop in someone?
119 00:16:46.080 ⇒ 00:16:48.350 Hannah Wang: Or he didn’t say I’m busy. He said…
120 00:16:48.350 ⇒ 00:16:48.690 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
121 00:16:48.690 ⇒ 00:16:54.629 Hannah Wang: loop in with our service lead on the data side. I’m sure he’d be curious.
122 00:16:55.800 ⇒ 00:16:56.330 Hannah Wang: Yeah.
123 00:16:56.330 ⇒ 00:17:00.150 Robert Tseng: Yeah, okay, that’s interesting. I…
124 00:17:00.520 ⇒ 00:17:06.789 Robert Tseng: yeah, this whole, like, partnerships kind of thing is, I’ll table that, but,
125 00:17:07.710 ⇒ 00:17:11.009 Robert Tseng: I believe Madeline was somebody that…
126 00:17:11.200 ⇒ 00:17:13.569 Robert Tseng: LouTop has already talked to you, so…
127 00:17:15.099 ⇒ 00:17:18.370 Robert Tseng: That is not a new… it’s not a new stuff like AE.
128 00:17:19.339 ⇒ 00:17:24.680 Robert Tseng: This is completely flat. We have the exactly equal number of engagement.
129 00:17:27.230 ⇒ 00:17:30.949 Luke Scorziell: Hmm… I also noticed that.
130 00:17:35.870 ⇒ 00:17:40.130 Robert Tseng: Why don’t we always multiply by 1.5? It’s not just, like, Wrong.
131 00:17:42.150 ⇒ 00:17:43.640 Robert Tseng: Why is it not a sub?
132 00:17:47.460 ⇒ 00:17:48.960 Robert Tseng: Okay.
133 00:17:50.600 ⇒ 00:17:51.460 Luke Scorziell: Excellent.
134 00:17:52.840 ⇒ 00:17:53.430 Robert Tseng: Ugh.
135 00:17:53.560 ⇒ 00:17:54.410 Robert Tseng: I’m…
136 00:17:59.780 ⇒ 00:18:01.939 Luke Scorziell: Ryan says yes, they are exactly the same.
137 00:18:03.160 ⇒ 00:18:03.880 Robert Tseng: Okay.
138 00:18:04.490 ⇒ 00:18:05.120 Luke Scorziell: -Oh.
139 00:18:07.250 ⇒ 00:18:13.889 Robert Tseng: Okay, well, the DMs are from just, like, us, like, spamming a bunch of people with messages. I mean, I don’t really know how…
140 00:18:14.490 ⇒ 00:18:19.600 Robert Tseng: We’ll see, we’ll see, maybe in the next week, if any of those messages actually converts into anything.
141 00:18:19.860 ⇒ 00:18:22.759 Robert Tseng: But it’s interesting.
142 00:18:23.970 ⇒ 00:18:27.220 Robert Tseng: Newsletter, sign-ups, 5-day sequences.
143 00:18:27.470 ⇒ 00:18:42.300 Robert Tseng: Okay, and then… delivery source leads… actually, probably one from… Let’s say it’s… Gamble.
144 00:18:42.610 ⇒ 00:18:43.430 Robert Tseng: work.
145 00:18:43.540 ⇒ 00:18:44.260 Robert Tseng: Cute.
146 00:18:45.310 ⇒ 00:18:50.220 Robert Tseng: as I’m… Let’s go leak this out, pitching it by next week.
147 00:18:54.190 ⇒ 00:19:00.350 Robert Tseng: Okay, so that’s more or less kind of where we… where we landed now.
148 00:19:00.860 ⇒ 00:19:07.270 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I guess I didn’t really review this before this call. This time, it was just kinda…
149 00:19:07.850 ⇒ 00:19:09.800 Luke Scorziell: Yeah. I can give, like, the…
150 00:19:10.200 ⇒ 00:19:13.199 Luke Scorziell: I guess, story that I… I listened to data.
151 00:19:14.000 ⇒ 00:19:17.230 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, I mean, the…
152 00:19:18.160 ⇒ 00:19:27.830 Luke Scorziell: Week of the 9th was right after we did the first agency office hours, so we had a significantly higher number of MQLs that came in.
153 00:19:28.220 ⇒ 00:19:33.539 Luke Scorziell: And then… so that… not necessarily was… that’s… I mean, I’ll get to that, but I guess…
154 00:19:33.730 ⇒ 00:19:37.339 Luke Scorziell: And then we had the link, the profile view.
155 00:19:37.450 ⇒ 00:19:41.960 Luke Scorziell: I don’t know, I guess it was a blunder, we’ll see. No one seemed, like, uber pissed off that we…
156 00:19:42.460 ⇒ 00:19:45.400 Luke Scorziell: Did that? Maybe they didn’t tell us if they were pissed off.
157 00:19:45.700 ⇒ 00:19:52.749 Luke Scorziell: I guess, you know, so that… so that… then looking at MQLs from…
158 00:19:53.550 ⇒ 00:19:55.970 Luke Scorziell: This past week with no office hours.
159 00:19:56.280 ⇒ 00:20:00.620 Luke Scorziell: Like, kind of signaled to me that the profile viewers, if we can get that right, is actually a good…
160 00:20:02.300 ⇒ 00:20:06.209 Luke Scorziell: avenue to do to get MQLs, and then,
161 00:20:06.760 ⇒ 00:20:15.430 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, I would expect probably also this week. I just decided to move the agency office hours and focus more on the Mother Deck office hours.
162 00:20:15.840 ⇒ 00:20:19.529 Luke Scorziell: So that we could do it well, instead of trying to do both, kind of mediocre.
163 00:20:19.830 ⇒ 00:20:24.480 Luke Scorziell: And, and I think… so I would expect probably another lag.
164 00:20:24.710 ⇒ 00:20:29.890 Luke Scorziell: If we stick with that strategy, which… which I think is… would be smart,
165 00:20:31.050 ⇒ 00:20:43.969 Luke Scorziell: But then I am kind of expecting to see, as we kind of get in the rhythm of doing those events, a greater number of MQLs coming in, and then also then we can book people who come to office hours for
166 00:20:44.530 ⇒ 00:20:49.319 Luke Scorziell: Sales meetings, which would then… Be a more intentional way of converting.
167 00:20:49.450 ⇒ 00:20:54.870 Luke Scorziell: the MQLs into SQLs, because right now, I think it’s just a little, like… haphazard.
168 00:20:55.020 ⇒ 00:20:55.810 Luke Scorziell: Bye.
169 00:20:55.940 ⇒ 00:20:57.339 Luke Scorziell: Is what I’m noticing.
170 00:20:58.350 ⇒ 00:21:05.600 Robert Tseng: Yeah… I… I can’t see it, like…
171 00:21:05.720 ⇒ 00:21:11.260 Robert Tseng: MQL to SQL is zero. Like, no MQLs are becoming SQLs.
172 00:21:14.720 ⇒ 00:21:19.300 Robert Tseng: I mean, these are no… there are no formulas here, like, there’s only a formula here, and then…
173 00:21:20.380 ⇒ 00:21:25.560 Robert Tseng: I guess, like… Is that zero? How is that zero?
174 00:21:26.730 ⇒ 00:21:28.560 Robert Tseng: D45.
175 00:21:29.960 ⇒ 00:21:33.959 Robert Tseng: So… It was 15 minutes for me.
176 00:21:40.170 ⇒ 00:21:44.940 Robert Tseng: Okay, well, I mean, whatever this… whatever this row is doesn’t really make any sense, so…
177 00:21:45.890 ⇒ 00:21:50.989 Robert Tseng: Pardon me, or it makes sense, and this is just telling me that no MQLs have become SQLs.
178 00:21:51.910 ⇒ 00:21:55.850 Luke Scorziell: I don’t… I don’t buy that, personally.
179 00:22:06.730 ⇒ 00:22:08.560 Luke Scorziell: I mean, like, Joshua Dent.
180 00:22:08.820 ⇒ 00:22:10.250 Luke Scorziell: was an MQL.
181 00:22:11.000 ⇒ 00:22:12.489 Luke Scorziell: February 23rd.
182 00:22:12.790 ⇒ 00:22:14.890 Luke Scorziell: Not as an SQL.
183 00:22:18.020 ⇒ 00:22:20.479 Robert Tseng: By the way, we don’t have to, like, kind of root cause it right now.
184 00:22:20.480 ⇒ 00:22:21.040 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.
185 00:22:21.040 ⇒ 00:22:25.790 Robert Tseng: Zero, or it’s, like, less than a couple, like, I think that the…
186 00:22:26.050 ⇒ 00:22:31.459 Robert Tseng: I think the story is that almost no MQLs are becoming SQLs, and I want to know why.
187 00:22:31.950 ⇒ 00:22:34.910 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, I mean, I think… yeah, and that’s the…
188 00:22:35.590 ⇒ 00:22:43.540 Luke Scorziell: Like, I think we just, like, are having… everyone’s kind of doing their own thing right now, for the past quarter, as, like, Ryan’s been doing.
189 00:22:43.680 ⇒ 00:22:50.569 Luke Scorziell: random content, we’ve kind of had, like, disparate lead magnets. We’ve done, like, an event here or there, but we haven’t had, like, a process on following up, and then we’ve had
190 00:22:51.100 ⇒ 00:23:02.650 Luke Scorziell: sales campaigns that are, like, kind of going out, but not going out, but they’re not super related. So I think what I was thinking with that message that I sent last night is if we can instead
191 00:23:02.870 ⇒ 00:23:05.020 Luke Scorziell: Focus on how do we…
192 00:23:05.350 ⇒ 00:23:10.180 Luke Scorziell: We have… all of our partners are interested in office hours. Like, it was kind of crazy that last week, about…
193 00:23:10.300 ⇒ 00:23:14.819 Luke Scorziell: 5 or 6 were, expressed interest, and then…
194 00:23:14.920 ⇒ 00:23:19.060 Luke Scorziell: We’re able to schedule some, so then that gives us, like, a week… a bi-weekly…
195 00:23:19.990 ⇒ 00:23:26.789 Luke Scorziell: Schedule where we can… Push content related to the office hours and the partner to…
196 00:23:27.050 ⇒ 00:23:38.420 Luke Scorziell: get, like, the profile visits and awareness, and then leverage their network. Then we can run a campaign that targets first connections, then second or third for cold
197 00:23:38.680 ⇒ 00:23:42.740 Luke Scorziell: To invite people to the office hours, so then that would be…
198 00:23:43.040 ⇒ 00:23:45.880 Luke Scorziell: We’re actually getting more campaigns running that are related.
199 00:23:46.250 ⇒ 00:23:50.169 Luke Scorziell: And then I would want Ryan to keep track of who’s coming to the office hours, and then have
200 00:23:50.520 ⇒ 00:23:53.869 Luke Scorziell: A workflow where we book meetings with the people that come.
201 00:23:54.320 ⇒ 00:23:58.149 Luke Scorziell: to the office hours. So, so in my mind, that seems like a more linear
202 00:23:58.870 ⇒ 00:24:02.870 Luke Scorziell: Or, like, a cohesive, unified flow, where we’re all working on the same…
203 00:24:03.510 ⇒ 00:24:06.019 Luke Scorziell: I guess, thing, each week.
204 00:24:06.170 ⇒ 00:24:09.549 Luke Scorziell: And so… and then in the weeks between…
205 00:24:09.950 ⇒ 00:24:13.160 Luke Scorziell: office hours, Hannah and I had talked about being the week that we…
206 00:24:13.320 ⇒ 00:24:21.829 Luke Scorziell: really push to try to schedule people who come to the office hours. So under that logic, like, the people coming to office hours and who expressed interest would be MQLs.
207 00:24:22.180 ⇒ 00:24:27.779 Luke Scorziell: And then people that we book meetings with the following week would be SQLs, and I would expect that to…
208 00:24:28.060 ⇒ 00:24:32.559 Luke Scorziell: Get us to the 30%, target that we’re aiming for.
209 00:24:33.750 ⇒ 00:24:41.670 Robert Tseng: Okay, yeah, I mean, I… you know, I’m fine with you taking that bet, that, like, office hours
210 00:24:42.050 ⇒ 00:24:48.360 Robert Tseng: is a steady stream of MQLs that you can convert into SQLs.
211 00:24:49.020 ⇒ 00:24:54.559 Robert Tseng: And by conversion is, like, the wrong phrase. It’s really just, like.
212 00:24:55.330 ⇒ 00:25:01.670 Robert Tseng: you know, in figuring out which of the MQLs is, like, a real sales opportunity, right? So…
213 00:25:03.150 ⇒ 00:25:11.250 Robert Tseng: I, you know, we’ve only run one of them, so… we’ll see, like, I would want to follow this cohort of 26, and, like.
214 00:25:11.610 ⇒ 00:25:15.210 Robert Tseng: what have we done to follow up with them? How are we vetting them? Like.
215 00:25:15.940 ⇒ 00:25:19.590 Robert Tseng: I mean, it doesn’t have to happen the week afterwards immediately, but, like.
216 00:25:19.690 ⇒ 00:25:24.350 Robert Tseng: have we learned anything about, like, following up with these MQLs? Like, how…
217 00:25:24.500 ⇒ 00:25:38.340 Robert Tseng: But yeah, like, I guess I… that would be my next question. Like, rather than just automatically scheduling office hours every week for… indefinitely, like, what are we doing to kind of follow this group of 26?
218 00:25:40.150 ⇒ 00:25:42.689 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, no, that’s a great question. I think the,
219 00:25:44.160 ⇒ 00:25:47.900 Luke Scorziell: So if we… if you click back in there, I can just give you a quick, like.
220 00:25:48.470 ⇒ 00:25:56.220 Luke Scorziell: So I had time with… Kayla, Keeley… Mmm…
221 00:25:57.040 ⇒ 00:26:01.070 Luke Scorziell: And then, if you scroll up more…
222 00:26:04.570 ⇒ 00:26:06.770 Luke Scorziell: Leo, I just talked with yesterday.
223 00:26:07.180 ⇒ 00:26:14.020 Luke Scorziell: He’s more of a friend, though. But I think his company, honestly, could be someone that we could work with. So, and then I talked with George.
224 00:26:14.840 ⇒ 00:26:19.269 Luke Scorziell: So this… and then you chill, and then, Dr. Stamp, so…
225 00:26:20.010 ⇒ 00:26:23.760 Luke Scorziell: George was in insurance, really.
226 00:26:25.240 ⇒ 00:26:33.859 Luke Scorziell: I don’t know, didn’t really seem to understand the demo. I think, like, I wasn’t really uber confident in sending the demo that Gabe had done to him, because I don’t really think it, like.
227 00:26:34.340 ⇒ 00:26:37.499 Luke Scorziell: Was instructive of, like, how he could use that for his…
228 00:26:37.830 ⇒ 00:26:40.409 Luke Scorziell: Own practice, so that was a learning there.
229 00:26:40.740 ⇒ 00:26:46.900 Luke Scorziell: Stanley, I need to follow up with, because he hasn’t texted me back. And…
230 00:26:47.150 ⇒ 00:26:48.920 Luke Scorziell: Same with Lisa and Richard.
231 00:26:49.280 ⇒ 00:26:51.760 Luke Scorziell: Utah.
232 00:26:52.260 ⇒ 00:26:53.110 Luke Scorziell: like…
233 00:26:53.480 ⇒ 00:26:58.590 Luke Scorziell: They seem… his company seems, like, probably too far behind for us to really be of too much help.
234 00:26:59.260 ⇒ 00:27:04.600 Luke Scorziell: So I did get to talk to a good amount of them. I think with the agency office hours.
235 00:27:04.770 ⇒ 00:27:07.020 Luke Scorziell: That was what I noticed of…
236 00:27:08.070 ⇒ 00:27:14.369 Luke Scorziell: Scheduling them back-to-back wasn’t really helpful, because then we were so focused on doing the next one that we didn’t follow up with the leads from the last one.
237 00:27:14.740 ⇒ 00:27:17.480 Luke Scorziell: And so that’s…
238 00:27:17.660 ⇒ 00:27:22.009 Luke Scorziell: That’s kind of the… was the thought, I guess, on my end of how do we…
239 00:27:22.580 ⇒ 00:27:29.319 Luke Scorziell: create a better follow-up system with people who come. So I sent an email, but I’d rather, like, just reach out personally, because it’s not like there were, like.
240 00:27:29.830 ⇒ 00:27:35.769 Luke Scorziell: a million people, there, so I’d like to, like, schedule time with Alice,
241 00:27:36.080 ⇒ 00:27:42.209 Luke Scorziell: And then, I think Leo could be an interesting person to talk to about the edged activation service, because…
242 00:27:44.060 ⇒ 00:27:46.310 Luke Scorziell: He’s basically running a Facebook ads.
243 00:27:46.660 ⇒ 00:27:51.460 Luke Scorziell: Or he’s, like, a director of paid ad… paid media at, his company.
244 00:27:54.430 ⇒ 00:27:55.160 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
245 00:27:55.530 ⇒ 00:27:56.590 Robert Tseng: Okay.
246 00:27:58.380 ⇒ 00:28:02.439 Robert Tseng: Anything else, like, that we learned from these guys?
247 00:28:02.870 ⇒ 00:28:06.920 Robert Tseng: About our… what we’ve been… yeah, about our efforts.
248 00:28:07.880 ⇒ 00:28:14.660 Luke Scorziell: If you scroll down… Our, is there a little… Little app.
249 00:28:15.610 ⇒ 00:28:17.650 Luke Scorziell: Just to the agency people.
250 00:28:18.820 ⇒ 00:28:25.200 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, so… Also, Troy would be a great person for me to follow up with.
251 00:28:25.310 ⇒ 00:28:26.350 Luke Scorziell: Alice?
252 00:28:26.620 ⇒ 00:28:32.539 Luke Scorziell: It was pretty junior, but it was really interesting, because she… Basically just gave us, like.
253 00:28:33.400 ⇒ 00:28:39.439 Luke Scorziell: the problem of that they’re searching for… like, they have to monitor Google terms every day, and…
254 00:28:39.890 ⇒ 00:28:49.329 Luke Scorziell: takes, like, an hour of their time, maybe 30 to 60 minutes. And so… and that’s just, like, going through Google, coming for articles, looking for updates.
255 00:28:49.450 ⇒ 00:28:54.239 Luke Scorziell: So I thought that would be a pretty interesting demo to then try to go into her agency and see…
256 00:28:54.470 ⇒ 00:28:56.649 Luke Scorziell: If we can speak to someone higher up.
257 00:28:58.020 ⇒ 00:28:59.300 Robert Tseng: How big is their agency?
258 00:28:59.890 ⇒ 00:29:05.310 Luke Scorziell: I believe it’s 125 to 200, maybe?
259 00:29:07.000 ⇒ 00:29:08.670 Luke Scorziell: And that’s part of,
260 00:29:20.430 ⇒ 00:29:27.850 Luke Scorziell: Part of… Omicron? Oh, sorry, 1… 1 to 5,000 employees, so it’s more enterprise level.
261 00:29:35.380 ⇒ 00:29:41.979 Luke Scorziell: And then they’re a part of one of the larger parent groups. I think it’s Omnicron, but I’m not 100% sure.
262 00:29:45.230 ⇒ 00:29:47.610 Luke Scorziell: Troy has founded…
263 00:29:48.240 ⇒ 00:29:54.369 Luke Scorziell: or help, like, implement operation systems for multiple agencies, so I think he’d be really interesting to talk to.
264 00:29:54.570 ⇒ 00:29:58.560 Luke Scorziell: Brandon was just one of Utam’s friends, I believe. Kyle didn’t show up.
265 00:29:58.920 ⇒ 00:30:04.360 Luke Scorziell: I don’t think. Donovan is, runs, like, a small…
266 00:30:04.760 ⇒ 00:30:12.620 Luke Scorziell: film agency. He might… or Tom talked with him last week, and I think he could be, like, a potential production partner for us if we do.
267 00:30:12.990 ⇒ 00:30:13.940 Luke Scorziell: Video.
268 00:30:15.200 ⇒ 00:30:20.050 Robert Tseng: Okay, alright, I think that’s… that’s fine. So, I guess, like…
269 00:30:26.210 ⇒ 00:30:36.749 Robert Tseng: I think we have some tough decisions to make. I think, like, this quarter has, like, not gone that great on the sales side, and that’s why I’m trying to eliminate
270 00:30:37.000 ⇒ 00:30:41.079 Robert Tseng: Like, things that are not kind of yielding return immediately.
271 00:30:41.270 ⇒ 00:30:49.489 Robert Tseng: And, yeah, from a resourcing perspective, we have to downsize the team, so that’s what kind of I mentioned that to you, Luke.
272 00:30:49.740 ⇒ 00:30:50.280 Luke Scorziell: Damn.
273 00:30:50.280 ⇒ 00:30:55.279 Robert Tseng: I… I think you need to make a decision on Ryan and Ann this week.
274 00:30:55.590 ⇒ 00:31:07.519 Robert Tseng: I mean, I would prefer you to kind of either defend, like, keeping them around, or, you know, if you leave it up to me and Utah side, I think we’re gonna… they’re both gonna be out.
275 00:31:08.020 ⇒ 00:31:10.509 Robert Tseng: And then…
276 00:31:12.370 ⇒ 00:31:26.689 Robert Tseng: Yeah, and so that just means that your time can’t be spent in as many meetings. I think you spend a lot of time in meetings currently. I think the most… I think you should be funneling bookings towards me and Utah, and…
277 00:31:27.180 ⇒ 00:31:34.200 Robert Tseng: I mean, I think the qualifi… doing the office hours, once… once it’s an SQL, an SQL should just come to me and UTM.
278 00:31:34.950 ⇒ 00:31:43.279 Robert Tseng: I think that’s how we should do the handoff for now, until we decide if we’re going to fill… like, kind of bring somebody else back in.
279 00:31:43.810 ⇒ 00:31:46.790 Robert Tseng: But, like, Ugh.
280 00:31:48.360 ⇒ 00:31:54.490 Robert Tseng: So yeah, I think, like, just to kind of put the different, like, lanes together.
281 00:31:54.530 ⇒ 00:32:03.309 Robert Tseng: there’s the… yeah, like, the office hours with the partner stuff. Like, I think, like, your… like, you know, I think about, like, slow and fast marketing.
282 00:32:03.340 ⇒ 00:32:17.440 Robert Tseng: I think that you’re better at the slow marketing, and so doing that with the part… doing that with partners, I think is… is great. That’s why I kind of had Mo engagement with you. And you know, to me, it’s like, two weeks ago, they were ready to move forward with us.
283 00:32:17.440 ⇒ 00:32:33.360 Robert Tseng: they wanted to write a post, we could have put a post out within, you know, a week or two weeks, you know, that post could have been out two weeks ago. They are 10x bigger than Mother Duck, and, you know, as soon as that blog post goes live, I’m sure that we will get a lot of hits on that. So, I think there’s still, like, kind of questions around, like.
284 00:32:33.580 ⇒ 00:32:43.030 Robert Tseng: how do I better help you, like, prioritize, like, what partners to focus on, and, like, how do you identify where your leverage is? Like, I… I think, like.
285 00:32:43.240 ⇒ 00:32:58.759 Robert Tseng: over the past 4 to 6 weeks, it’s really, like, I’ll go really hard on top of funnel one week, get some leads, I’ll pick a couple, and then I’m just kind of trying to work through the rest of the funnel, like, and then I’m not really, like, kind of hovering over this team and driving top of funnel.
286 00:33:00.360 ⇒ 00:33:03.520 Robert Tseng: Sorry, there’s this guy just moving me on my doorbell.
287 00:33:16.290 ⇒ 00:33:34.839 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so that’s, like, kind of on the… on the partner side, where we can keep having… I think that… that effort is… is well… is well spent. I think you’ve shown that you’ve been able to drive MQLs, like, with… with the events, so I think that’s… that’s fine. I think, like you said, trying to…
288 00:33:35.260 ⇒ 00:33:53.990 Robert Tseng: have more of a focus on what the follow-up process is like, like, how do you actually filter through the MQLs, see who’s a good fit for an SQL, and kind of convert them. I don’t think you need to go and meet with everybody. I think that’s where a lot of the pre-qualification work happens, rely on the processes that we have already in place, or, like, have the…
289 00:33:54.640 ⇒ 00:34:03.540 Robert Tseng: Basically, any go-to-market engineering, lead list building, qualification, whatever, just throw UTAM’s way, and have the AI team build that out instead of Riot moving forward.
290 00:34:04.100 ⇒ 00:34:11.230 Robert Tseng: And I think, you know, if that happens, let’s say we have, like, 20 MQLs, like, I think
291 00:34:11.630 ⇒ 00:34:18.249 Robert Tseng: You know, for that… for that one example you gave of that person who’s part of an agency, 1,000 to 5,000 people.
292 00:34:18.570 ⇒ 00:34:25.509 Robert Tseng: like, we should be able to find you, like, who the right person is. Like, I don’t… I don’t think we really…
293 00:34:25.900 ⇒ 00:34:32.870 Robert Tseng: Like, without you having to talk to that person, whoever… where is… where’s that person?
294 00:34:33.440 ⇒ 00:34:35.130 Robert Tseng: Let me be specific.
295 00:34:35.330 ⇒ 00:34:39.619 Robert Tseng: Yeah, you’re talking about this Alice person. You’re saying she’s junior.
296 00:34:39.760 ⇒ 00:34:42.960 Robert Tseng: But she’s part of an agency that’s 1,000 to 5,000 people.
297 00:34:43.739 ⇒ 00:34:47.230 Robert Tseng: What should have happened with go-to-market engineering is that
298 00:34:47.590 ⇒ 00:35:02.810 Robert Tseng: they would pre-qualify all of these MQLs, they would tell you, this is the right person, this is not the right person, get pulled in the right decision makers, and then you’re, like, you’re running sequences against these people, or not even sequences, let’s just say, keep it simple, it’s not, like, high volume.
299 00:35:02.810 ⇒ 00:35:16.030 Robert Tseng: you’re sending emails, you’re doing the LinkedIn connection, you’re connecting with Alice’s boss’s boss, or whoever the real decision maker is, and you don’t jump on a call until you’re, like, one degree away from the decision maker. Like, I think that’s a better use of your time.
300 00:35:16.080 ⇒ 00:35:39.070 Robert Tseng: I don’t really think there’s much value anymore in talking to people who are doing, like, the work. Like, I… unless you’re doing a technical discovery, which I don’t think you are, I don’t think we’re really learning anything new from talking to, like, low-level operators and their teams. So, like, by the time you… a call comes to you, or, like, me or Utah, it should be, like, a director-level person.
301 00:35:39.070 ⇒ 00:35:40.260 Robert Tseng: Right?
302 00:35:40.450 ⇒ 00:35:43.380 Robert Tseng: you know, we learned from the D&G situation, like.
303 00:35:43.400 ⇒ 00:36:03.299 Robert Tseng: I think it was the right entry point. I think it just took too many meetings to, like, figure out that this is actually not the decision maker, and that this is not the right time. So, like, that should have been… that should have been kind of figured out within the first call. So, I mean, there’s some, like, you know, those are things that we will continue to refine, but that’s why I’m saying, like, I want to be on all of those calls moving forward, and, like.
304 00:36:03.540 ⇒ 00:36:09.540 Robert Tseng: Yeah, even if it’s a little bit… like, I think this volume is misleading, it’s like, I think…
305 00:36:09.790 ⇒ 00:36:23.400 Robert Tseng: you know, if you’re taking a lot of calls with people who are not really going to be, like… I mean, this is just, you know, I would rather take fewer discovery calls, and that you’re learning from, like, from me and every call that I’m taking with a…
306 00:36:23.400 ⇒ 00:36:30.339 Robert Tseng: with a leader, sometimes they’ll drive, sometimes I’ll drive, but, like, I think we should just pair on all, like, discovery calls, for now.
307 00:36:30.580 ⇒ 00:36:37.530 Robert Tseng: I just… we’re not really doing… like, I believe we have enough capacity to actually… to do that. So,
308 00:36:37.640 ⇒ 00:36:43.300 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I think that’s probably… those are… those are a couple things that, on the…
309 00:36:43.740 ⇒ 00:36:46.090 Robert Tseng: I don’t know, I guess…
310 00:36:47.110 ⇒ 00:36:50.259 Robert Tseng: Sorry, I didn’t… I didn’t really group them that well, so…
311 00:36:50.520 ⇒ 00:37:08.079 Robert Tseng: Yeah, on the partnership side, keep going on the events, like, kind of focus on the MQL to SQL conversion. For discovery calls, when you’re after anything that’s, like, qualifying leads, like, throw Utam’s way, like, put… put it on him, and I’ll give him all the requirements to go in. Like, the fact that we can’t…
312 00:37:08.590 ⇒ 00:37:11.630 Robert Tseng: We can’t identify these people using…
313 00:37:11.660 ⇒ 00:37:31.870 Robert Tseng: clay and, whatever tools is just kind of nonsense. Like, I… we should have… we should be able to do this at a very high… with very high quality, with very limited time. So, I think, like, this time spent on… on qual… like, our qualification is just not… it’s just not been good, so… and I think it should… it should be way better. Yeah.
314 00:37:32.430 ⇒ 00:37:40.540 Luke Scorziell: So with… with, like, the office hours in, so I… I mean, Alice was just someone that I… I just went through my network and… and was looking for people
315 00:37:41.040 ⇒ 00:37:47.379 Luke Scorziell: who worked at agencies, like, I think I just filtered, and then I just invited a lot of people. So, with the,
316 00:37:49.060 ⇒ 00:37:53.870 Robert Tseng: I mean, you should still do that. I think you should still go and try to manually curate, like.
317 00:37:53.980 ⇒ 00:38:05.650 Robert Tseng: I mean, I think the golden number is 10. Like, I don’t think you need more than 10 to run any experiment. Like, if you’re trying to just get some directional confirmation that, like, what you’re… what you’re putting out there is interesting. Because, like.
318 00:38:05.650 ⇒ 00:38:21.779 Robert Tseng: your intuition, and just kind of… you know, we trust… we trust in the intuition that you’re building. That’s why we want, you know, you kind of driving this forward. And I think you will be able to, like, figure that out manually, finding 10 people more than, like.
319 00:38:21.780 ⇒ 00:38:33.439 Robert Tseng: coming up with a list of requirements, passing it off to somebody like Ryan, and then wasting, like, so much back and forth, and, like, the quality of the list he produces is just, like, nowhere near where it needs to be.
320 00:38:34.090 ⇒ 00:38:37.269 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, yeah, okay, because I think…
321 00:38:37.460 ⇒ 00:38:48.259 Luke Scorziell: like, if it’s in the case where we can just kind of throw a wide net for the office hours, get people on, and then the thing that I did find helpful about having some of the lower-level people on the office hours is that
322 00:38:48.620 ⇒ 00:38:51.390 Luke Scorziell: In some of the DNG calls, they were concerned about
323 00:38:51.830 ⇒ 00:38:57.580 Luke Scorziell: Or, like, just from the get-go, like, their primary concern has been adoption, and so I would imagine even if we got to.
324 00:38:57.580 ⇒ 00:38:57.979 Robert Tseng: Most people.
325 00:38:57.980 ⇒ 00:39:02.090 Luke Scorziell: Like, a higher-up at, like…
326 00:39:02.390 ⇒ 00:39:04.919 Luke Scorziell: Alice’s agency, for instance, I mean, I don’.
327 00:39:04.920 ⇒ 00:39:05.290 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
328 00:39:05.290 ⇒ 00:39:22.100 Luke Scorziell: tell me if this would be interesting, but it’s like, I think it’d be interesting to then say, well, if you want to go, like, you know, we actually already built out a demo, and tried it out on some of the people that are working there, and they’re really excited about it, you know. So just having, like, that perspective to be able to speak to them about
329 00:39:22.400 ⇒ 00:39:26.099 Luke Scorziell: Hey, we actually are already in touch with people who are using the…
330 00:39:26.440 ⇒ 00:39:35.080 Luke Scorziell: The solutions that we build on a day-to-day, and we’ve found ways to make adoption really easy, and that’s part of why we run, like, office hours, to help train
331 00:39:35.240 ⇒ 00:39:39.170 Luke Scorziell: Or, you know, just, like, stuff like that, so then it’s… it’s like.
332 00:39:39.170 ⇒ 00:39:53.299 Robert Tseng: I think the office hours can be broad to, like, invite people in. I think it makes it more difficult to, like, focus the questions, because people are coming from different places, but I’m saying that, like, your follow-up should not be with, like, an Alice or whatever.
333 00:39:53.300 ⇒ 00:39:53.800 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.
334 00:39:53.800 ⇒ 00:40:01.709 Robert Tseng: It’s… it’s not because it’s… I just think it’s gonna take too long, like, the… as… as we’ve seen. Like, I… like, we’re… there are a lot of…
335 00:40:01.870 ⇒ 00:40:13.509 Robert Tseng: like, I think there’s a way to interact with Alice asynchronously until she gets you, like, somebody who is higher… high enough to be worth
336 00:40:13.640 ⇒ 00:40:26.189 Robert Tseng: talking to, because she’s not gonna make the decision. And I’m not saying we’re always hit the decision maker, like, I think if we just get within 1 to 2 degrees of the decision maker, then I think that’s great.
337 00:40:26.190 ⇒ 00:40:34.739 Robert Tseng: And why we, you know, I just want to kind of hit this intuition a little bit more. Let’s just look at the proposals that were sent last year.
338 00:40:34.800 ⇒ 00:40:43.320 Robert Tseng: Okay, Lilo, I guess, you know, this was… this is a partner referral, right? Right, warm intro, we get access to the decision maker right away. It was a C-suite.
339 00:40:43.440 ⇒ 00:40:50.619 Robert Tseng: Kidra, also warm intro from partner, and Intellios, I mean, I don’t remember, this was, like, Utam’s contact or something.
340 00:40:51.910 ⇒ 00:40:59.780 Robert Tseng: Yeah, Plan Medicare, also, you know, this is a legacy lead, so I’m not gonna talk about that. And then default CTA, these are existing clients, so…
341 00:40:59.990 ⇒ 00:41:05.180 Robert Tseng: You can sell… you can see, for the first 3 weeks, we didn’t send any proposals except for through… through referrals.
342 00:41:05.620 ⇒ 00:41:15.920 Robert Tseng: read me, already existing client, you version, I just sought them out on LinkedIn. I was like, I would like to work with the Bible app, and I hit the chief of staff.
343 00:41:16.040 ⇒ 00:41:18.339 Robert Tseng: or the Chief Strategy Officer directly.
344 00:41:18.350 ⇒ 00:41:38.020 Robert Tseng: And I, you know, messaged, like, maybe 2 or 3 other people. One of them was kind enough to respond, we got proposals in front of them. Timing’s not working out, they want to kind of revisit in Q3. Great. I cleared that out within 2 weeks. Ilmore, this is just me going on Upwork. I literally just… I asked Ryan to do this, like, you know, just go on Upwork, send 3 to 5 proposals a week.
345 00:41:38.020 ⇒ 00:41:46.159 Robert Tseng: I literally just went, clicked around Upwork with some basic filters, found a posting that was like, okay, this is somewhat within our range.
346 00:41:46.290 ⇒ 00:42:05.809 Robert Tseng: And then I, like, looked through the comments enough to find the guy on LinkedIn, and we’re still pitching Illmore right now. I’m gonna send another follow-up today. So, like, I just kind of illustrate that, for a whole month, the proposals that we sent out, none of it was through, like, this, like, long-term relationship building of, like.
347 00:42:05.840 ⇒ 00:42:25.350 Robert Tseng: the… the feedback loop is just too small. Like, I… I think if we just hustled and just did a few more Upworks, or you just, like, thought about who you wanted to go after, and you sent a few more messages on LinkedIn, these numbers would have been, like, more than double or triple. Like, this is just me, like, kind of, you know, just…
348 00:42:25.400 ⇒ 00:42:28.209 Robert Tseng: Toss in a couple here and there, just to try to, like.
349 00:42:28.950 ⇒ 00:42:32.490 Robert Tseng: Kind of provide some support to the team.
350 00:42:32.740 ⇒ 00:42:38.580 Robert Tseng: The other ones… Proper… Proper was also in an Upwork.
351 00:42:38.670 ⇒ 00:42:50.589 Robert Tseng: And Upwork. This was… they directly hit me, and then… or, sorry, Global Vet was proper… I forgot what… where it came from. I think it was maybe through a partner or something. And then Grayling is a partner.
352 00:42:50.590 ⇒ 00:42:59.030 Robert Tseng: So, and then Ellie, also my previous client, Next Coast Ventures, our UTAM’s partner.
353 00:42:59.580 ⇒ 00:43:02.920 Robert Tseng: SGV and Sunstone Therapies, both up work.
354 00:43:03.210 ⇒ 00:43:20.469 Robert Tseng: These two, I forget why I didn’t put the labels on these. And then D&G is you on LinkedIn, and Eden is an existing client. So, out of, like, 10 weeks, only one is from, like, direct LinkedIn, or, like.
355 00:43:20.600 ⇒ 00:43:33.560 Robert Tseng: I don’t know exactly if this was… like, well, whether it’s only one read, I’ll say it the other way. Over the past 10 weeks, all of the proposals that we sent, like, it just feels like 80% of them were from partners. Makes sense.
356 00:43:33.650 ⇒ 00:43:38.030 Robert Tseng: And then, maybe, like, 20%, 15% of them were from Upwork.
357 00:43:38.040 ⇒ 00:43:47.359 Robert Tseng: And, it’s not because Upwork is a magical platform, I think it’s just because the people who are making requests on Upwork are the decision maker.
358 00:43:47.360 ⇒ 00:44:03.629 Robert Tseng: And there’s a clear spoken need. So, even if I’m not engaging them on Upwork, I didn’t sign any of these deals on Upwork, or, like, make these proposals. I went off the platform, found them on LinkedIn, or found their email, and just went to them directly. But these, like, it just looks to me that these were all, like,
359 00:44:03.630 ⇒ 00:44:19.789 Robert Tseng: like, none of this came from the team, you know what I’m trying to say? Like, these are all partners, and, like, just me doing random things. So, it just felt like we just… I mean, it was… we did a lot of things to build pipeline, and it’s not like it was…
360 00:44:19.790 ⇒ 00:44:26.299 Robert Tseng: the return may be later, and I’m not, like, counting that as, like, wasted now, but in terms of, like.
361 00:44:26.400 ⇒ 00:44:44.209 Robert Tseng: what’s gonna close the deals now? Like, we just need to send more proposals. We need to find people who are ready now. So, I think there’s a lot of interesting stuff you can learn from prospects, but, like, you know, I think an MQL, for it to be an SQL, it’s not gonna be that you’re gonna convince them that they’re ready.
362 00:44:44.290 ⇒ 00:44:46.750 Robert Tseng: Like you said, if there’s a guy who’s just, like.
363 00:44:46.760 ⇒ 00:45:04.459 Robert Tseng: I have no idea what AI is, like, I don’t even use ChatGPT, we’re not gonna make a sale to them anytime soon. It’s just not gonna be the right person. So, like, we’re just having to… you have to take enough shots in order to, like, really get to that point. And, like, you know, I think we just need to be doing stuff that’s really gonna…
364 00:45:04.460 ⇒ 00:45:12.990 Robert Tseng: send proposals, like, you know, book… book… book meetings with the right people, and then send… and then try to find a way to send a proposal, like.
365 00:45:13.480 ⇒ 00:45:18.800 Robert Tseng: find a way to send the proposal. All the other stuff, to me, is just noise. And, like, even when we…
366 00:45:18.960 ⇒ 00:45:22.040 Robert Tseng: turned off content in Q4, like.
367 00:45:22.310 ⇒ 00:45:33.749 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, I feel like the velocity of, like, how many proposals we sent was about the same. Like, I think it… so, to me, I look at the Q1 experiment, and I think we turned on content, we turned on all these things again.
368 00:45:33.750 ⇒ 00:45:46.160 Robert Tseng: It’s, like, good, we get some engagement, it helps on the recruiting side, helps on branding, like, but from, like, a pure sales perspective, none of them ended up in proposals that we sent. So, it’s hard for me to justify that, like, I want to keep that on.
369 00:45:46.260 ⇒ 00:46:02.160 Robert Tseng: So, like, anyway, I think that’s… I… there’s a lot of ways that you could tell the story of these, like, numbers, but, like, I… I think that’s… that’s, like, that’s kind of one… that’s one big narrative that it’s… that’s, like, popping out to me when I read this.
370 00:46:03.250 ⇒ 00:46:09.750 Luke Scorziell: Well, yeah, which, thanks, yeah, thanks for sharing that. I feel like that’s helpful to hear how you’re thinking about it as well.
371 00:46:14.260 ⇒ 00:46:20.970 Luke Scorziell: I guess I could see a gap maybe just being the follow-up that we have with the people that we’re reaching out to, and what you just said of, like, we’re not…
372 00:46:22.090 ⇒ 00:46:30.850 Luke Scorziell: like, qualifying or using, I guess, like, Go-to-market engineering techniques to… Or whatever automations to,
373 00:46:32.170 ⇒ 00:46:35.890 Luke Scorziell: qualify and then reach out to the right people. So, and, like, from maybe my perspective.
374 00:46:35.890 ⇒ 00:46:59.970 Robert Tseng: But I’m also saying, I don’t… I mean, Utam will always push for the automation, he can provide the tooling for it, he will build the tooling for it, but my perspective is, like, we’re not even at a place yet where we need the automations. Like, I think you’re developing your intuition, and that’s why I even have these strategy and planning meetings, because I want the people on this team that are actually, like, thinking through, like, what are we learning from the things that we’re doing? Not just, like, frantically trying to, like, fill these, like, numbers and then not really
375 00:46:59.970 ⇒ 00:47:00.570 Robert Tseng: really.
376 00:47:00.570 ⇒ 00:47:21.669 Robert Tseng: Knowing the story. So, like, I… but, like, yeah, if you… you know, I give you a lot of credit for the D&G situation. Like, I think you found that lead, you ran it, you actually took it through different phases. Sure, we have all this, like, feedback about, like, how it could have been sped up or whatever, but that’s great. Like, I think you… I think you’re seeing it. Like, I think I want you to take more shots like that, you know?
377 00:47:21.670 ⇒ 00:47:22.010 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.
378 00:47:22.140 ⇒ 00:47:39.139 Robert Tseng: Yeah, like, I… you know, the MQL to the SQL journey is a long journey, which is kind of why I started you on more on the go-to-market, just pure, like, direct outbound side. But, you know, we discussed, you preferred to run the content, you wanted to do more marketing.
379 00:47:39.140 ⇒ 00:47:58.359 Robert Tseng: Which is fine, so we kind of let you kind of go to the marketing side instead, and try to generate pipeline that way. So, you know, at the end of the day, we need both, and I’m still fine, at least with the current team as is, where I’m pushing on the direct sales, direct outbound side. Like, I will just keep doing what I’m doing, like…
380 00:47:58.370 ⇒ 00:48:15.190 Robert Tseng: this week, I’ll have a little more time, I’ll fill up some more top of funnel, I’ll draft some camp… I’ll put some campaign briefs up, I’ll have Rico run some things, or whatever. But, like, yeah, I guess for you, your lane is, like, everything around, like, on the marketing side. Like, you… you learned content.
381 00:48:15.390 ⇒ 00:48:16.770 Robert Tseng: You know
382 00:48:17.180 ⇒ 00:48:30.180 Robert Tseng: hopefully you kind of understand what quality of the engagement you get through the content. Like, now you’re doing the partner thing, or partner… now you’re on partnerships, you’re, like, hosting events, and it’s good. You’re thinking, like.
383 00:48:30.180 ⇒ 00:48:40.109 Robert Tseng: If we’re gonna host office hours, the content, we gotta… we can have a… we can have a series of content to kind of promote that and get people in to… to the, to the event.
384 00:48:40.110 ⇒ 00:48:46.560 Robert Tseng: That, to me, is great. You’re, like, you’re combining two levers together. The content, which is just very broad, kind of, like.
385 00:48:47.040 ⇒ 00:48:50.189 Robert Tseng: You know, come, everybody, come see what we’re doing.
386 00:48:50.190 ⇒ 00:49:11.929 Robert Tseng: And then on the event side, like, you’re… there’s a little bit of qualification to get people… get… try to get people who are more interested in the topic you want to discuss there. But then after that, there’s, like, another qualification step in order to actually book the discovery call, and, like, you know, those are the… those are the pieces that you have to try to triangulate together if you’re gonna build this… if you’re gonna build this one. So,
387 00:49:12.410 ⇒ 00:49:30.029 Robert Tseng: Yeah. So, I mean, I think these are all hard, like, want lessons, like, I think it’s fine, but I, you know, I think, you know, this is very much the type of, team and role where we have to be doing enough experiments and learning from them and making adjustments. Like, I think that’s what, this is what we have to do.
388 00:49:30.340 ⇒ 00:49:33.390 Luke Scorziell: Yeah. No, yeah, I think that…
389 00:49:36.950 ⇒ 00:49:45.709 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, yeah, I mean, I agree. I think also every… with every, week, I’m getting more…
390 00:49:46.490 ⇒ 00:49:56.190 Luke Scorziell: I guess, intuition or learning, and, like, this… up to date, this kind of, like, aligning Rico, Ryan, Hannah, and myself
391 00:49:56.440 ⇒ 00:50:03.249 Luke Scorziell: all on… One, like, motion, doing, like, an office hours funnel has felt to me, like, the most…
392 00:50:03.400 ⇒ 00:50:05.100 Luke Scorziell: cohesive bet that I’ve…
393 00:50:06.020 ⇒ 00:50:11.950 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, I’ve been able to make, because I think that, like, in the decision… I know you asked also, yeah, the decision on, like, Ryan and Ann.
394 00:50:12.280 ⇒ 00:50:18.470 Luke Scorziell: I think Anne… Hannah probably can speak too more. I… I don’t think we should get rid of her.
395 00:50:18.760 ⇒ 00:50:23.110 Luke Scorziell: I would… if we’re gonna cut budget somewhere, I think,
396 00:50:24.150 ⇒ 00:50:28.740 Luke Scorziell: I don’t know why I’m spacing on… on the guy’s name that we hired to do DEX.
397 00:50:29.090 ⇒ 00:50:29.870 Hannah Wang: Joe?
398 00:50:30.050 ⇒ 00:50:32.800 Luke Scorziell: Joe. Yeah, I would… I don’t know that Joe’s…
399 00:50:33.010 ⇒ 00:50:35.220 Luke Scorziell: Done anything, not necessarily because he’s…
400 00:50:35.790 ⇒ 00:50:39.619 Robert Tseng: Yeah, we already, we already, we already cut them. I think he said to cut them, so we cut them.
401 00:50:40.260 ⇒ 00:50:45.180 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I think I saw his resume… we sent something to him last week, so I think he.
402 00:50:45.180 ⇒ 00:50:49.150 Luke Scorziell: Okay, yeah, because I didn’t… I thought Rico said that Rico knew Tom…
403 00:50:50.860 ⇒ 00:50:59.279 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, maybe clarify that then. With Anne, she… I just, I think, holds the whole, like, design system to…
404 00:50:59.750 ⇒ 00:51:03.309 Luke Scorziell: brain Forge. So I, like…
405 00:51:03.710 ⇒ 00:51:08.069 Luke Scorziell: I asked Hannah about if we could get, like, brand guidelines designed, because that would at least help.
406 00:51:08.520 ⇒ 00:51:12.460 Luke Scorziell: with that, I guess the P&L was helpful for me to see this morning, of, like.
407 00:51:12.680 ⇒ 00:51:18.449 Luke Scorziell: here’s how much we’re actually dealing with, and then I can know the costs. I think Ryan, like.
408 00:51:18.610 ⇒ 00:51:23.729 Luke Scorziell: I just… He’s, like, kind of a chicken with his head cut off at the moment, like…
409 00:51:23.870 ⇒ 00:51:28.400 Luke Scorziell: just running around, like, if Tom gives him something, if he has an idea, if he does this, and like…
410 00:51:28.520 ⇒ 00:51:32.260 Luke Scorziell: I guess my thought with this is, like, I’d rather experiment
411 00:51:32.730 ⇒ 00:51:35.929 Luke Scorziell: maybe, I mean, I guess it could be, like, a week or two, but just with, like.
412 00:51:36.430 ⇒ 00:51:40.990 Luke Scorziell: If we can just tell him to, like, only do…
413 00:51:41.260 ⇒ 00:51:52.899 Luke Scorziell: content surrounding events, and work with Ray to create videos, or I can direct Ray, too, if we don’t need Ryan, then I think, like, that would give me a clearer picture. But right now, it’s like.
414 00:51:53.470 ⇒ 00:51:56.770 Luke Scorziell: I… Ryan, could be anything from, like.
415 00:51:57.480 ⇒ 00:52:08.320 Luke Scorziell: the salesperson who’s, like, coordinating the whole CRM to, like, kind of Utam’s potential, like, helper on the AI team. So I’m just, like, I don’t really know.
416 00:52:08.610 ⇒ 00:52:18.440 Luke Scorziell: Like, I think it’s been a little unclear. So that, like, the clo… I don’t know that I’m ready to make a decision on, like, unless we need to, in which case, like, we can just turn off content and say.
417 00:52:19.190 ⇒ 00:52:23.359 Luke Scorziell: And, I think we would have to figure out how it would affect
418 00:52:23.800 ⇒ 00:52:26.190 Luke Scorziell: what he knows about HubSpot,
419 00:52:26.950 ⇒ 00:52:32.700 Luke Scorziell: But… yeah, I think up until this point, it’s just… it’s felt like I’m kind of, like, corralling him
420 00:52:33.040 ⇒ 00:52:38.089 Luke Scorziell: Rico, and I guess, the rest between, like, disparate efforts, where…
421 00:52:38.630 ⇒ 00:52:43.199 Luke Scorziell: like, I guess my hope, and so hopefully if it’s too late, then we can make a different decision.
422 00:52:43.770 ⇒ 00:52:47.649 Luke Scorziell: Is it, like, unifying the team along…
423 00:52:48.670 ⇒ 00:52:51.070 Luke Scorziell: What are our specific goals each week?
424 00:52:51.180 ⇒ 00:52:53.879 Luke Scorziell: for… Getting people to events.
425 00:52:54.210 ⇒ 00:52:56.980 Luke Scorziell: And then following up with them.
426 00:52:57.120 ⇒ 00:53:00.000 Luke Scorziell: So that’s… I guess that’s my perspective.
427 00:53:01.520 ⇒ 00:53:04.610 Luke Scorziell: Vaughn, Ryan, and Ann, I think.
428 00:53:05.240 ⇒ 00:53:06.690 Luke Scorziell: Do we pay, Anne?
429 00:53:07.040 ⇒ 00:53:11.640 Luke Scorziell: Like, regardless of how much she works? Or is she more of, like, if she works, then she gets paid?
430 00:53:12.370 ⇒ 00:53:19.560 Robert Tseng: Yeah, no, it’s in the P&L. Like, I think, yeah, like… Definitely. I mean, I’m not…
431 00:53:19.770 ⇒ 00:53:29.439 Robert Tseng: Hannah’s not in the P&L, so I’m not going to say, like, how much we pay her, but it’s… it’s there, and yeah, she just… I mean, yeah, you can see.
432 00:53:29.440 ⇒ 00:53:30.660 Luke Scorziell: Sure, yeah, we don’t have to.
433 00:53:30.660 ⇒ 00:53:31.440 Robert Tseng: That’s fair.
434 00:53:31.550 ⇒ 00:53:40.720 Robert Tseng: So, yeah, I, I… I think that… yeah, I mean, that’s… the…
435 00:53:41.310 ⇒ 00:53:46.310 Robert Tseng: I understand, kind of, your perspective on Ryan. I… I…
436 00:53:48.070 ⇒ 00:53:56.739 Robert Tseng: Utam… Ryan was… Ryan was Utam’s first hire, or one of his first ones, and so he has a hard time, like, not…
437 00:53:57.050 ⇒ 00:54:03.879 Robert Tseng: asking him to do things, and it’s just, like, it’s a bad habit that needs to be broken. You know, and it’s like…
438 00:54:06.950 ⇒ 00:54:21.560 Robert Tseng: I think Ryan’s still just used to just taking whatever orders from UTAM, and just kind of, yeah, not able to prioritize that, even though whatever UTAM’s asking for is usually not urgent, and it should just go through the traditional process anyway, so…
439 00:54:22.120 ⇒ 00:54:28.810 Luke Scorziell: So it also seems like he’s not always… he’s not happy with what Ryan does when he asks for things. Alright.
440 00:54:28.810 ⇒ 00:54:35.240 Robert Tseng: Y-yeah, yeah, which, I, I mean, that… Well, anyway, like, my…
441 00:54:36.150 ⇒ 00:54:39.010 Robert Tseng: to make the hard decisions here, because I.
442 00:54:39.010 ⇒ 00:54:39.370 Luke Scorziell: Thank you.
443 00:54:40.140 ⇒ 00:54:46.349 Robert Tseng: You know, I… I mean, my goal as…
444 00:54:47.200 ⇒ 00:55:02.160 Robert Tseng: is to get us to sustainable margin. Like, Uteva and I run businesses pretty differently, so he’s… he’s very much just, like, kind of, throw everything you can at it, and I… I’m more like, we use… we need to have cart rails, so…
445 00:55:04.410 ⇒ 00:55:17.090 Robert Tseng: like, if you hear something different from him, I… I’m sorry, but, like, I… I think this is… this is basically the… it’s not really his decision to make at this… at this point. So, yeah, I think, like.
446 00:55:17.560 ⇒ 00:55:35.240 Robert Tseng: I mean, my gut feeling is that you spend a lot of time corralling Ryan. He doesn’t really execute the way that you want him to. He sees himself as somebody who can do many different things, which is fine, but it’s just not the… it’s not really dialed in on, like, what we need to do, and there have just been…
447 00:55:36.310 ⇒ 00:55:49.800 Robert Tseng: we just have to raise… we have to raise the bar. Like, the fact… I mean, I don’t want to nitpick all these things, but, like, I think it’s just over and over again that I… I feel like it’s creating more confusion and work than it is actually adding… adding value.
448 00:55:50.170 ⇒ 00:55:50.740 Luke Scorziell: bottom.
449 00:55:51.250 ⇒ 00:56:09.560 Robert Tseng: And it’s not gonna… we’re not gonna turn off content. Like, I think, like, you would absorb the scope. So, I think that you could do what he does in 5 hours a week of your time, in terms of, like, just, like, queuing up 4 posts a week, and just putting them… putting them there. Like, it’s just… I don’t really think it takes that long. All the systems are there.
450 00:56:09.560 ⇒ 00:56:12.789 Robert Tseng: We don’t need him for HubSpot, we have HubSpot MCP set up, like.
451 00:56:13.110 ⇒ 00:56:23.000 Robert Tseng: I don’t really… I ask him to change some things, add… add leads to HubSpot here and there, but, like, we can all add it ourselves. Like, I add most of the leads, myself at this point.
452 00:56:23.940 ⇒ 00:56:32.350 Robert Tseng: And so, that’s the stuff, like, that’s the go-to-market engineering stuff that will continue to be automated. And, it may be, like, a bit…
453 00:56:32.900 ⇒ 00:56:33.740 Robert Tseng: kind of…
454 00:56:33.970 ⇒ 00:56:40.219 Robert Tseng: wonky when it… when those… when that dependency, like, kind of comes off, but, like, I think that’s…
455 00:56:40.340 ⇒ 00:56:49.529 Robert Tseng: you know, that’s something that we’ll just have to press the… we’ll have to test our tooling to see if we can actually kind of do it. And I believe it’s there at this point.
456 00:56:49.830 ⇒ 00:57:05.769 Robert Tseng: Yeah. So, I guess my point is, like, I’m not really convinced, based on what you told me, that he should stay. And for Ann, like, the brand guidelines thing, like, we’re moving to a place where we’re creating landing pages out of Slack, you know? And, like, we don’t really need so much, like, kind of…
457 00:57:05.920 ⇒ 00:57:22.280 Robert Tseng: custom stuff from… from the design. Like, there’s nothing that’s that urgent that will need to be, like, handled 24-7. Like, I think with just Hannah, like, I think… I think we should be fine. So, I don’t really see a need for… for two… for two dis… two designers at this point. Yeah, like, I…
458 00:57:22.280 ⇒ 00:57:31.870 Robert Tseng: You’re telling me that she’s… she knows the system, she maintains it, but if she’s not building anything that new, and she’s not, like, building into our platform.
459 00:57:31.870 ⇒ 00:57:36.650 Robert Tseng: just not, like, improving our processes, like, I don’t really… I’m not really hearing anything that’s, like.
460 00:57:36.990 ⇒ 00:57:41.630 Robert Tseng: If it’s just maintenance, like, we don’t really need… yeah, we can do without.
461 00:57:44.450 ⇒ 00:57:47.119 Luke Scorziell: Yeah. In that case… Sorry. Yeah, sorry, Hannah.
462 00:57:47.120 ⇒ 00:57:49.030 Hannah Wang: Chime in a little bit, if…
463 00:57:49.180 ⇒ 00:57:55.540 Hannah Wang: If it’s the case that, like, Let’s say that you absorb content.
464 00:57:55.770 ⇒ 00:58:05.919 Hannah Wang: I think what Ann has been useful for is, because everything is kind of ad hoc still, like our content schedule for the next week, I… I just don’t…
465 00:58:06.290 ⇒ 00:58:16.220 Hannah Wang: like, by the time the content is done, like, it’s time… like, I’m not working anymore, so that’s why I just hand it off to Anne. So in that sense, like, it’s been helpful for her to be…
466 00:58:16.570 ⇒ 00:58:20.659 Hannah Wang: be there, and it also… it’s, like, less work for me, like, I don’t…
467 00:58:21.200 ⇒ 00:58:28.670 Robert Tseng: Yeah, you guys will have to coordinate a bit more in terms of, like, actually getting content scheduled. We say it’s scheduled, but it’s actually ad hoc, like, I understand that.
468 00:58:28.790 ⇒ 00:58:37.859 Robert Tseng: And that’s why, like, Luke needs to be out of more… yeah, he can’t be in so many meetings. He’s just gonna… you’re gonna have more… more stuff that you need to… you need to maintain for now, so…
469 00:58:37.860 ⇒ 00:58:57.730 Hannah Wang: That’s why I’m saying, like, if Luke absorbs it, and if you, like, actually scope it out for the next week and hand it off to me at a reasonable time, like, I can do it. It’s just, because it’s been so ad hoc, like, it’s easier for me to just give it to Ann so that it’s ready for the next day, but if there’s, like, a system in place, and I feel like you and I work together well anyway.
470 00:58:57.730 ⇒ 00:59:04.179 Hannah Wang: And you hand it off to me, like, I… I can do it. Like, I… I can also maintain the design system, maybe I won’t…
471 00:59:04.180 ⇒ 00:59:07.299 Hannah Wang: add, like, new flashy designs, I don’t have…
472 00:59:07.300 ⇒ 00:59:11.100 Hannah Wang: maybe the capacity to think about that, but I can… if…
473 00:59:11.260 ⇒ 00:59:19.070 Hannah Wang: what we’re putting out right now is fine, like, I can… I think I can maintain that. So if that’s helpful in your decision, like…
474 00:59:19.290 ⇒ 00:59:23.210 Hannah Wang: Yeah, there’s that.
475 00:59:24.310 ⇒ 00:59:24.910 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
476 00:59:25.240 ⇒ 00:59:41.399 Robert Tseng: So we’ll adjust some of these quarterly targets. I still need to kind of finish this by next week. But yeah, for now, let’s just do what we can to just kind of keep to what we have, but, I think, yeah, we’re not… we don’t really need to publish 10… this number will probably be cut in half. Like, we’ll, like, we’ll, like, adjust some things based on, like, kind of how the
477 00:59:41.470 ⇒ 00:59:55.690 Robert Tseng: performance goes, and I know it’s, like, weird. We’re, like, both making adjustments for, like, literally just 2 weeks, plus also planning for the next 3 months. It’s just, like, a weird timing thing. But, like, yeah, I guess, like.
478 00:59:56.810 ⇒ 01:00:14.820 Robert Tseng: fewer… fewer people to manage, less… fewer cooks in the kitchen. To me, in terms of what I spend my time on, like, I don’t really think it has, frankly, changed that much from, like, everything that we’ve added in. Like, I still try to book the meetings, I do the manual things, like, I try to set the proposals, so, like, I will do what I can to push on it.
479 01:00:14.820 ⇒ 01:00:19.159 Robert Tseng: It’s not like the business is failing, we just didn’t grow as much as we thought we would, and…
480 01:00:19.620 ⇒ 01:00:32.910 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, I think just… to me, I, you know, we invested a lot in… in kind of trying to get this team going this quarter, and I think we just need to run… we have to run later. So…
481 01:00:33.160 ⇒ 01:00:39.059 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, I don’t kinda have time, so…
482 01:00:47.800 ⇒ 01:00:54.080 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, I, I… the… My reflection, I guess, on this last quarter.
483 01:00:54.610 ⇒ 01:01:04.030 Luke Scorziell: for me, is, yeah, I was, like, coming in, there’s a lot of different, like you said, cooks in the kitchen, a lot of different things going on, learning, like.
484 01:01:04.800 ⇒ 01:01:07.199 Luke Scorziell: I mean, I guess, yeah, at the very start, we had…
485 01:01:07.500 ⇒ 01:01:16.919 Luke Scorziell: like, even JED, and then it’s, like, figuring out what are the levers to pull, and then kind of getting more involved in partnerships, so… I think it has been, yeah, it’s definitely been a lot of…
486 01:01:17.810 ⇒ 01:01:22.550 Luke Scorziell: My mind kind of being in different places of, like, Sending out.
487 01:01:22.870 ⇒ 01:01:31.209 Luke Scorziell: Like, okay, we’re not… we’re not building pipelines, so let me just send a cold email campaign to see if we can get some agencies landed. And just, like, random stuff, and then, like.
488 01:01:31.330 ⇒ 01:01:35.830 Luke Scorziell: Ryan, like, let’s just get content going, and we just have some content going out.
489 01:01:36.110 ⇒ 01:01:40.840 Luke Scorziell: So I think, like, Yeah, I feel more steady.
490 01:01:41.130 ⇒ 01:01:44.400 Luke Scorziell: Probably the last 2 weeks, 3 weeks,
491 01:01:45.110 ⇒ 01:01:50.690 Luke Scorziell: of maybe, like, a strategy in my mind. I do think, like, an issue that I do have with Ryan
492 01:01:51.030 ⇒ 01:01:52.870 Luke Scorziell: It’s just, like, communication.
493 01:01:53.280 ⇒ 01:01:55.949 Luke Scorziell: Generally, like, I… I’ve… it’s hard to…
494 01:01:56.180 ⇒ 01:01:59.469 Luke Scorziell: communicate, also with him, and so…
495 01:01:59.620 ⇒ 01:02:06.790 Luke Scorziell: I don’t know, like, I think, like, probably, yeah, and also just me probably needing to acknowledge myself that it’s hard to think of letting someone go.
496 01:02:06.980 ⇒ 01:02:11.390 Luke Scorziell: But obviously, those are decisions that have to be made, so… .
497 01:02:12.860 ⇒ 01:02:13.570 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
498 01:02:14.080 ⇒ 01:02:24.959 Robert Tseng: So, I know it’s, like, you guys work with these people, like, day to day, so I know it’s an emotional decision, and, you know, take the time that you need. I mean, you can ask me if you have any questions, but, like, also…
499 01:02:24.960 ⇒ 01:02:37.890 Robert Tseng: you know, we… you know, we want to keep both of you, you know, this… you guys are U.S.-based people, and, you know, there are bigger conversations happening, that’s why I asked you for… you know, in the LA office channel, you guys haven’t get a chance, like, kind of…
500 01:02:37.930 ⇒ 01:02:56.300 Robert Tseng: Feel free, please, please respond to that. Yeah, I think there’s a lot of things on the table. Like, I think, you know, we’re trying to be prayerful. I mean, Rachel and I are trying to be prayerful about it as well. Like, I’m thinking, like, do I… do we need to move back to LA and kind of really invest in an in-person team?
501 01:02:56.340 ⇒ 01:03:03.830 Robert Tseng: And, yeah, like, that was also kind of something that I thought through last week. So…
502 01:03:03.900 ⇒ 01:03:13.230 Robert Tseng: Yeah, you know, and if not, like, do we need to ask people to move to Austin or New York? Like, or just, like, just kind of…
503 01:03:13.270 ⇒ 01:03:37.860 Robert Tseng: I think there are certain roles that do well in remote. I don’t think sales is a good one for that. Like, I’m, like, more and more convinced that, like, there’s just this communication lag, a barrier and lag, and it’s… it’s… so much of it is taste. Engineering is a lot easier to do remote, because it’s just, like, requirements in the ticket, code is English anywhere in the world, all the engineers will execute the ticket exactly to the requirements.
504 01:03:37.860 ⇒ 01:03:39.799 Robert Tseng: Like, it’s not that hard to, like.
505 01:03:39.800 ⇒ 01:03:53.830 Robert Tseng: have people build SQL models, like, remotely. But with the sales stuff, there’s a lot of, kind of, situations where, yeah, I wish, you know, Luke and Hannah, you guys were just, kind of, shadowing me on calls when, like, but I can’t just, like, keep throwing you into Zoom links and Zoom links, and…
506 01:03:53.830 ⇒ 01:04:07.099 Robert Tseng: and stuff like that. And, you know, there were times when, like, I’m just curious what you’re working on. Join the conversation. Like, I think it would really speed things up. So, I think we’re in a place where we can actually commit to building an office in, or, like, getting an office in LA.
507 01:04:08.660 ⇒ 01:04:20.249 Robert Tseng: But, like, I guess, like, you know, Utam’s request is that if we were to do that, then I would have to be there. So, you know, those are some of the bigger conversations that we’re having. Yeah. So…
508 01:04:20.250 ⇒ 01:04:31.349 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I know that a lot of this stuff is in the air, but, I mean, if it was any reassurance, like, we don’t want to let either of you guys go, and so, you know, it’s really trying to, like, build it, like, kind of build it sustainably so that we can
509 01:04:31.350 ⇒ 01:04:36.280 Robert Tseng: Resource you appropriately with people, like, with a team, and you guys have to realize that
510 01:04:36.280 ⇒ 01:04:44.030 Robert Tseng: You know, we have different… beyond just your existing team right now, yes, we’re asking you to do the most of what you can with what you have.
511 01:04:44.030 ⇒ 01:04:58.619 Robert Tseng: But we are also trying to see, like, what can we bring in? Like, does the in-person culture kind of help with this? Does hiring another U.S.-based person who we’re talking to and asking her to move to LA, does that help? And like, kind of… those are the…
512 01:04:58.620 ⇒ 01:05:04.749 Robert Tseng: things that we’re not talking about with you, kind of, like, every week, but, like, I… I’m… I’m always… I’m, like, I’m thinking about, kind of.
513 01:05:04.750 ⇒ 01:05:07.139 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think, like…
514 01:05:07.820 ⇒ 01:05:10.009 Luke Scorziell: Hannah and I had the co-working session
515 01:05:10.180 ⇒ 01:05:22.500 Luke Scorziell: I mean, Hannah, you can chime in on this too, but, like, I don’t think Hannah had really gone out too much since then, and then Hannah asked… or you asked if we could do it again this week, so… so I’m like, you know, and I think that was honestly, like.
516 01:05:23.610 ⇒ 01:05:25.759 Luke Scorziell: For me, loads more valuable.
517 01:05:26.530 ⇒ 01:05:31.469 Luke Scorziell: Then… any… any amount of Zoom meetings.
518 01:05:31.470 ⇒ 01:05:31.980 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
519 01:05:31.980 ⇒ 01:05:36.259 Luke Scorziell: As much as it’s convenient to be at home and not have to do anything.
520 01:05:36.260 ⇒ 01:05:44.989 Hannah Wang: Don’t… don’t get used to it. I… I have a hard time answering the questions in the channel, because the baby’s coming, so that’s also, like, what I’m…
521 01:05:45.180 ⇒ 01:05:45.740 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.
522 01:05:45.740 ⇒ 01:05:49.870 Hannah Wang: To think about, so you won’t see me for a while after that, but…
523 01:05:51.640 ⇒ 01:05:51.990 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.
524 01:05:52.140 ⇒ 01:06:00.079 Hannah Wang: Yeah, I agree, like, working in person is a lot easier, like, there’s less barriers, and I think it’s just more productive.
525 01:06:00.270 ⇒ 01:06:08.960 Hannah Wang: So overall, like, regardless of the baby or not, like, yeah, co-working is always nice.
526 01:06:09.520 ⇒ 01:06:15.920 Hannah Wang: But then, yeah, if you’re asking for my personal situation, I would give a different answer. Yeah. Yeah.
527 01:06:16.410 ⇒ 01:06:22.070 Robert Tseng: Yeah, well, obviously, Hannah, like, we understand that you would… you would… but even just being, like, your neighbor, or whatever.
528 01:06:22.070 ⇒ 01:06:22.580 Hannah Wang: Yeah. Bye.
529 01:06:22.820 ⇒ 01:06:23.719 Robert Tseng: Yeah, good, good.
530 01:06:23.720 ⇒ 01:06:29.599 Hannah Wang: co-work at my house, you can come here, you can come to my house, that’d be a lot easier than me going out, so…
531 01:06:29.600 ⇒ 01:06:37.320 Luke Scorziell: Last week, one of my roommates was hanging out with Nat and Kat, and then, Hannah was there, and then I had gone on a Zoom meeting, and I was like.
532 01:06:38.480 ⇒ 01:06:42.240 Luke Scorziell: I was just so confused, because I was like, you’re not…
533 01:06:42.540 ⇒ 01:06:58.530 Luke Scorziell: in the Philippines, or… wait, I was just, like, how is my real world coinciding with Brainforge? Because it’s so segmented. But, yeah, I think… I understand that, and I think it’s, like, if that’s the overall vision, then…
534 01:06:58.800 ⇒ 01:07:02.009 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, it’s only a matter of time, in my mind, before…
535 01:07:02.120 ⇒ 01:07:04.020 Luke Scorziell: We have to kind of move away from…
536 01:07:04.220 ⇒ 01:07:06.639 Luke Scorziell: Like, I think having one person
537 01:07:06.890 ⇒ 01:07:14.059 Luke Scorziell: I mean, I think Hannah and I can do a lot, probably just together, but then I think having one person that’s US-based, that’s able to
538 01:07:14.230 ⇒ 01:07:17.500 Luke Scorziell: translate the vision that I give them for running campaigns.
539 01:07:17.620 ⇒ 01:07:19.689 Luke Scorziell: into, like…
540 01:07:19.980 ⇒ 01:07:28.190 Luke Scorziell: an actual campaign, and reaching out, and sitting beside me, asking, like… Yeah. Because it’s just, like, I give Ryan and Rico
541 01:07:28.460 ⇒ 01:07:34.709 Luke Scorziell: like, a document, and I… I have, like, the idea of this is where it should go, but… but if it’s… if I’m gonna build the whole thing.
542 01:07:35.230 ⇒ 01:07:38.510 Luke Scorziell: then I might as well also send the message while I’m, like.
543 01:07:38.510 ⇒ 01:07:39.410 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
544 01:07:39.410 ⇒ 01:07:44.769 Luke Scorziell: Like, I’m not gonna copy-paste someone’s profile link into a doc that then I have to send to them to then
545 01:07:45.070 ⇒ 01:07:54.170 Luke Scorziell: go visit each person’s profile, so they can send a message. It’s like, to me, that just doesn’t make any sense, so I… I want someone that is able to discern
546 01:07:54.800 ⇒ 01:08:08.999 Luke Scorziell: like, oh, Luke said that, like, right now, partner… agencies are important. Tech ops people at agencies seem to be the ones making decisions. I don’t need Luke to give me a list of tech ops people at agencies to go reach out to. I can kind of…
547 01:08:09.090 ⇒ 01:08:20.059 Luke Scorziell: generally see, we’re going for companies in this age or size, so I’m not gonna look for people under that, and I’m just gonna start reaching out and setting up meetings. So that would be more helpful to me than, like.
548 01:08:20.180 ⇒ 01:08:21.660 Luke Scorziell: I have to sit down.
549 01:08:22.380 ⇒ 01:08:28.720 Luke Scorziell: and look through LinkedIn with Ryan and Rico, or have Ryan do some kind of, like, hours-long
550 01:08:29.130 ⇒ 01:08:34.340 Luke Scorziell: AI, I don’t even know what he’s doing, to send me a list of people that it’s, like.
551 01:08:35.220 ⇒ 01:08:46.580 Luke Scorziell: still not good. So that’s… that’s… I think that’s the frustration maybe I’m having, because it’s like, I… I… if I… I can do, like, one full lane of vision to execution, but I can’t do, like.
552 01:08:47.540 ⇒ 01:08:52.469 Luke Scorziell: you know, vision on a couple lanes, and then execution on a couple lanes, too.
553 01:08:52.479 ⇒ 01:08:52.929 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
554 01:08:52.930 ⇒ 01:08:53.470 Luke Scorziell: So it’s like.
555 01:08:53.479 ⇒ 01:08:57.879 Robert Tseng: Oh, well, welcome to our… my world. Yeah.
556 01:08:57.959 ⇒ 01:09:08.649 Robert Tseng: Yeah, okay. Well, yeah, I mean, I do gotta jump to my next call, but, yeah, well, this is an ongoing conversation, nothing’s set in stone yet. Things would have happened so quickly, like.
557 01:09:08.649 ⇒ 01:09:25.429 Robert Tseng: I mean, Rachel has not agreed that she wants to move back to LA. If anything, she is like, you’re crazy, so… I mean, I would be quitting… I’d be quitting school and everything, so, like, this is a really big decision for us, but I think, it is… I feel like it’s possible, and…
558 01:09:25.609 ⇒ 01:09:31.519 Robert Tseng: Even if I don’t end up… I mean, I don’t want to do too many what-ifs, but, like, I… I think this is all kind of…
559 01:09:31.699 ⇒ 01:09:42.129 Robert Tseng: good input, so let’s just make the most of what we can for now. But no, like, yeah, there’s gonna be some changes that we have to make, and I’m gonna… I’d rather you guys just try to work… yeah, just…
560 01:09:42.519 ⇒ 01:09:56.639 Robert Tseng: do what… yeah, do what you can. I’ll try… I’ll do my best to try to help manage your time, especially Luke. I’m not really talking to Hannah that often right now, so I think it’s really just… this is just mostly for Luke. So, try to get yourself out of more meetings. I know you’re gonna be, like, kind of…
561 01:09:56.639 ⇒ 01:10:02.779 Robert Tseng: managing more stuff if we have… if you have fewer people. So, yeah, we’re… we can… we can dial in on that.
562 01:10:03.070 ⇒ 01:10:11.159 Luke Scorziell: Okay, yeah, that’s great. Also, yeah, I know you have top… I probably will be in New York, in potentially 10 days, so…
563 01:10:11.160 ⇒ 01:10:13.060 Robert Tseng: Oh, really? Cool. Okay.
564 01:10:13.060 ⇒ 01:10:13.540 Luke Scorziell: Oh, shit.
565 01:10:13.660 ⇒ 01:10:17.360 Robert Tseng: Yeah, well, keep me posted on that. Okay. Alright, see you guys.
566 01:10:17.590 ⇒ 01:10:18.130 Luke Scorziell: Cheers.