Meeting Title: Q1 Review and Q2 Planning Sync Date: 2026-03-16 Meeting participants: Brylle Girang, Uttam Kumaran
WEBVTT
1 00:16:21.970 ⇒ 00:16:25.690 Uttam Kumaran: Hey dude, sorry, I didn’t know if, you were… out yet.
2 00:16:52.810 ⇒ 00:16:53.620 Brylle Girang: Hello!
3 00:16:53.720 ⇒ 00:16:54.620 Brylle Girang: Sorry.
4 00:16:54.750 ⇒ 00:16:58.300 Uttam Kumaran: Hello. Sorry, I didn’t know that you were, out of your other meeting, so…
5 00:17:00.720 ⇒ 00:17:04.869 Brylle Girang: No, it’s okay. I, I was just… Getting some coffee.
6 00:17:07.660 ⇒ 00:17:09.820 Brylle Girang: Start here. Sorry for that.
7 00:17:10.030 ⇒ 00:17:11.320 Brylle Girang: For the lack of light.
8 00:17:12.470 ⇒ 00:17:13.689 Uttam Kumaran: No, all good, all good.
9 00:17:15.140 ⇒ 00:17:20.630 Brylle Girang: How did it go? How’s Q2 and… how’s Q1? And how will be Q2?
10 00:17:21.359 ⇒ 00:17:24.229 Uttam Kumaran: Q1 was okay.
11 00:17:24.369 ⇒ 00:17:29.879 Uttam Kumaran: Feel like… Yeah, so maybe I’ll even just give you the high level. So, really, the,
12 00:17:31.290 ⇒ 00:17:37.800 Uttam Kumaran: the ask, and I feel like I know the answer, but for me, the ask for the team is, like, can… can…
13 00:17:38.240 ⇒ 00:17:42.660 Uttam Kumaran: B, step up and start to own some OKRs around delivery.
14 00:17:43.320 ⇒ 00:17:48.440 Uttam Kumaran: And so I feel like your answer’s most likely gonna be yes.
15 00:17:48.530 ⇒ 00:17:52.399 Uttam Kumaran: And so, really, my discussion is gonna be, like, where…
16 00:17:52.450 ⇒ 00:17:55.260 Uttam Kumaran: kind of in two ways. One is, like.
17 00:17:55.300 ⇒ 00:18:07.129 Uttam Kumaran: I want to start to loop you into some of our, like, leadership conversations, so that… because I think me and you are squarely handling, like, the delivery side, and so I can start to loop you in
18 00:18:07.130 ⇒ 00:18:17.689 Uttam Kumaran: To that meeting, and you’ll kind of get a sense of the whole picture in the company. But second, I think I want to make sure that we… me and you have a clear alignment on, like, what metrics
19 00:18:17.820 ⇒ 00:18:21.659 Uttam Kumaran: we want to measure. And of course, like, how did this quarter go?
20 00:18:23.530 ⇒ 00:18:32.190 Uttam Kumaran: So, if that’s good, then I can just sort of, like, I’m just gonna kind of brain dump a little bit, keep this, like, meeting, like, a little bit high level, so you kind of can…
21 00:18:32.380 ⇒ 00:18:38.310 Uttam Kumaran: See, and we have a discussion on, like, how this quarter went, and then we can talk about what to change for next quarter.
22 00:18:38.720 ⇒ 00:18:46.040 Uttam Kumaran: So to give you, like, a little bit of a sense of how this quarter went.
23 00:18:46.180 ⇒ 00:18:51.169 Uttam Kumaran: So, we put together this doc, which is a little bit of, like, an overview of, like.
24 00:18:51.490 ⇒ 00:18:56.059 Uttam Kumaran: our P&L, and how January and February went.
25 00:18:57.620 ⇒ 00:19:10.819 Uttam Kumaran: I’ll share this with you, and it’s gonna be worth reading, but I think really the biggest pieces that we want to look at is cost of goods, which is the amount of money it took for us to service the revenue.
26 00:19:11.200 ⇒ 00:19:16.749 Uttam Kumaran: And how much of that was personal, was in each different section?
27 00:19:16.980 ⇒ 00:19:31.900 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, really, it’s like, I want to talk about… I think me and you, our focus is all going to be on delivery, so delivery of service attached to revenue. So, two things we found is, one, there’s a lot of time being spent on internal meetings.
28 00:19:32.050 ⇒ 00:19:50.439 Uttam Kumaran: stand-ups, one-on-ones, things like that. So, you’re gonna see this suggestion permeate throughout this document, which is just, like, people are wasting time in meetings. You know, we’re finding that there’s probably, like, 20% or so of time is booked to internal meetings.
29 00:19:51.230 ⇒ 00:19:53.950 Uttam Kumaran: And then we sort of talked through a little bit of, like.
30 00:19:54.060 ⇒ 00:19:58.570 Uttam Kumaran: you know, what’s, like, the cash situation, but I think the biggest piece
31 00:19:59.350 ⇒ 00:20:05.090 Uttam Kumaran: For us to look at, is this.
32 00:20:05.280 ⇒ 00:20:08.499 Uttam Kumaran: So this is the section that I want you to really focus on.
33 00:20:08.650 ⇒ 00:20:10.890 Uttam Kumaran: And I’ll tag you here.
34 00:20:22.240 ⇒ 00:20:24.600 Uttam Kumaran: So basically, we show that, like.
35 00:20:24.720 ⇒ 00:20:27.629 Uttam Kumaran: We want to try to aim for 10%.
36 00:20:27.830 ⇒ 00:20:28.830 Uttam Kumaran: meetings.
37 00:20:29.480 ⇒ 00:20:33.660 Uttam Kumaran: Meaning 10% non-billable meetings.
38 00:20:33.960 ⇒ 00:20:36.179 Uttam Kumaran: So that’s one piece.
39 00:20:36.550 ⇒ 00:20:43.779 Uttam Kumaran: The second piece is we’ll also be looking at, like, what are our margins, right? So what are a… what are… what is our…
40 00:20:44.060 ⇒ 00:20:46.099 Uttam Kumaran: As a percentage of revenue.
41 00:20:46.330 ⇒ 00:20:57.480 Uttam Kumaran: what is our expense targets? So, like, look, technology, roughly 4%, professional services fees, G&A, travel, interest expense.
42 00:20:57.700 ⇒ 00:20:59.910 Uttam Kumaran: Independent contractors, personnel.
43 00:21:00.090 ⇒ 00:21:03.080 Uttam Kumaran: So I think it’s gonna be helpful for you to read through this.
44 00:21:03.090 ⇒ 00:21:20.550 Uttam Kumaran: And then there’s a little bit more information here about, like, just… just everything. But I think roughly what I want to do also here is… is for all of us to get a sense of, like, how we are… how the company is doing at any moment, and then what are our goals on the delivery side.
45 00:21:20.610 ⇒ 00:21:26.990 Uttam Kumaran: So, in the leadership crew, you have, like, myself, Robert, you have Rico, Kayla, and Luke.
46 00:21:27.120 ⇒ 00:21:34.509 Uttam Kumaran: And so Kayla leads recruiting people, Luke is on sales go-to-market, Rico’s operations, you’ll be delivery.
47 00:21:34.720 ⇒ 00:21:40.920 Uttam Kumaran: And then I’m, like, on delivery platform, Robert is, like, on sales, then both of us are kind of, like, on executive side.
48 00:21:41.210 ⇒ 00:21:48.169 Uttam Kumaran: So really what I spent a little bit of time today talking and thinking about is, like, what could our,
49 00:21:49.150 ⇒ 00:21:59.499 Uttam Kumaran: If we were to think about, like, what is our one-pager for the delivery team for two, like, this is sort of, like, what I want us to think about. Can we draft
50 00:22:00.880 ⇒ 00:22:05.169 Uttam Kumaran: of, like… Hey, this is what our plan is for this next quarter.
51 00:22:05.300 ⇒ 00:22:07.280 Uttam Kumaran: And so I wrote some stuff down.
52 00:22:07.430 ⇒ 00:22:17.710 Uttam Kumaran: Which is clear understanding of revenue and COGS, delivery source opportunities, clarity on delivery structure, providing team with a clear focus on resourcing needs.
53 00:22:17.920 ⇒ 00:22:27.109 Uttam Kumaran: I put some examples of some things that are good that you can take a look at as, like, good things for us to measure. And then I also thought about some metrics.
54 00:22:27.450 ⇒ 00:22:31.339 Uttam Kumaran: So this is what I want to spend some time working with you on this week.
55 00:22:32.720 ⇒ 00:22:41.030 Uttam Kumaran: So that we are, like, cool, we have a clear goal. So it’s not only the fact that we can measure these, but what should they be? Like, what is our goal? What is it today, and what is our goal?
56 00:22:42.320 ⇒ 00:22:43.660 Brylle Girang: Gotcha, okay.
57 00:22:57.130 ⇒ 00:23:01.760 Brylle Girang: Okay, I think… for me, if I’m going to, like.
58 00:23:02.010 ⇒ 00:23:04.349 Brylle Girang: tackle this personally, I would like…
59 00:23:06.520 ⇒ 00:23:15.469 Brylle Girang: instead of focusing on the metrics, I would like to focus on, like, the questions that we want to answer, and then build hypotheses based on that.
60 00:23:15.760 ⇒ 00:23:19.910 Brylle Girang: Like, why are we measuring time in meetings? Do we want to know, like.
61 00:23:20.200 ⇒ 00:23:25.570 Brylle Girang: How much time are our people actually spending doing client work?
62 00:23:25.870 ⇒ 00:23:34.760 Brylle Girang: The hypothesis is that If there’s less client… if there’s less internal meetings, more client work, more profit, etc.
63 00:23:34.960 ⇒ 00:23:35.840 Brylle Girang: So that’s how.
64 00:23:35.840 ⇒ 00:23:36.180 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
65 00:23:36.180 ⇒ 00:23:37.520 Brylle Girang: Want to approach this.
66 00:23:37.520 ⇒ 00:23:49.609 Uttam Kumaran: Great, great, great, yes, yes, I agree, I agree. I’m jumping… I’m jumping to the end of the movie, but you’re right. So, a good way we could do this is, like, what is our hypothesis?
67 00:23:51.510 ⇒ 00:23:53.750 Uttam Kumaran: Like, what is the action?
68 00:23:54.590 ⇒ 00:23:56.050 Uttam Kumaran: How will we measure?
69 00:23:56.450 ⇒ 00:23:57.710 Brylle Girang: Yeah, exactly.
70 00:24:01.890 ⇒ 00:24:04.670 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. I mean, I would love to…
71 00:24:05.020 ⇒ 00:24:10.350 Uttam Kumaran: I… the thing is, like, I… I don’t want my hypotheses to…
72 00:24:10.840 ⇒ 00:24:15.559 Uttam Kumaran: taint yours, so I’m interested in you writing yours first.
73 00:24:17.050 ⇒ 00:24:23.960 Uttam Kumaran: you can write the hypotheses. If you don’t know the action or the measurement, I wouldn’t… I would… we could… we could work on that together, but maybe give it a shot.
74 00:24:24.120 ⇒ 00:24:29.190 Uttam Kumaran: But again, I want to aim for, like, 3 to 5. Like, I don’t want there to be too much.
75 00:24:30.380 ⇒ 00:24:34.980 Uttam Kumaran: Meaning, like, too many different hypotheses or too many metrics, but I feel like…
76 00:24:35.580 ⇒ 00:24:38.530 Uttam Kumaran: this is, like, kind of what I want to try to nail down this week.
77 00:24:40.280 ⇒ 00:24:45.619 Brylle Girang: That makes sense. And then, from this hypothesis, then we can build, like, our goals for Q2.
78 00:24:46.030 ⇒ 00:24:48.129 Brylle Girang: Yeah. Does that make sense? Okay.
79 00:25:17.460 ⇒ 00:25:21.689 Uttam Kumaran: So, I mean, that’s the main thing, dude, is, like, I think… I feel like…
80 00:25:21.810 ⇒ 00:25:32.479 Uttam Kumaran: my goal for this quarter was to kind of see whether you’d be ready to… to do that. I think one also thing, I think, for us to figure out, and I need to… I need to… maybe you can tell me also…
81 00:25:32.580 ⇒ 00:25:45.290 Uttam Kumaran: is we’re trying to set up incentives for the folks on leadership, but I know our contract is through Growth Assistant, so I kind of want to… I don’t know if you know, but I kind of was gonna read about, like.
82 00:25:45.680 ⇒ 00:25:48.160 Uttam Kumaran: Should… can we take that over?
83 00:25:48.310 ⇒ 00:25:50.249 Uttam Kumaran: Or, like, how does it work?
84 00:25:50.430 ⇒ 00:25:53.479 Uttam Kumaran: Maybe it’s gonna… maybe it’s something for us to, like, talk about.
85 00:25:54.180 ⇒ 00:25:55.970 Uttam Kumaran: You know?
86 00:25:57.430 ⇒ 00:26:00.570 Brylle Girang: I can’t say anything about that, I’m really sorry.
87 00:26:00.570 ⇒ 00:26:01.230 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, really?
88 00:26:01.230 ⇒ 00:26:01.495 Brylle Girang: Haha.
89 00:26:01.760 ⇒ 00:26:02.150 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
90 00:26:02.150 ⇒ 00:26:12.679 Brylle Girang: Yeah. So, is it okay if I, if I, like, ask my internal, like, I don’t know, internal manager and let him talk to you? Would that work?
91 00:26:13.440 ⇒ 00:26:19.849 Uttam Kumaran: That’s fine, yeah. I… I don’t want to get you in trouble, too, so if you want me, I can go… I can… I can,
92 00:26:20.230 ⇒ 00:26:24.520 Uttam Kumaran: I can say that first. I don’t want it to… yeah, well, I mean, whatever you think.
93 00:26:25.710 ⇒ 00:26:32.919 Brylle Girang: Yeah, I think that that would be better, yeah. I just want… I just don’t want to see, or I just want to… to make it look like I’m fishing for that.
94 00:26:32.920 ⇒ 00:26:36.109 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so let me, let me do it, and then I, yeah, let me do that.
95 00:26:36.210 ⇒ 00:26:41.350 Uttam Kumaran: Because we’re… we want to give incentives to everybody on leadership to hit these targets.
96 00:26:41.450 ⇒ 00:26:44.320 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t want to exclude you from that,
97 00:26:44.480 ⇒ 00:26:48.020 Uttam Kumaran: But, yeah, I need to see, like, sort of what it is with them, so…
98 00:26:48.870 ⇒ 00:26:49.909 Brylle Girang: Yeah. Okay.
99 00:26:50.320 ⇒ 00:26:51.170 Brylle Girang: Amazing.
100 00:26:51.170 ⇒ 00:26:51.930 Uttam Kumaran: I’ll go ahead.
101 00:26:52.120 ⇒ 00:26:56.999 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, that’s the main thing here, so I’m gonna add you to some of our, like, leadership calls this week.
102 00:26:57.390 ⇒ 00:27:04.089 Uttam Kumaran: And then… like, let’s try to… I want to knock out, like, a short one-pager on, like, what are…
103 00:27:04.550 ⇒ 00:27:08.210 Uttam Kumaran: what it is. I’m also gonna write the one for the platform team.
104 00:27:27.430 ⇒ 00:27:28.489 Brylle Girang: Can you hear me?
105 00:27:30.020 ⇒ 00:27:30.580 Uttam Kumaran: Hi.
106 00:28:13.490 ⇒ 00:28:14.300 Brylle Girang: Hello?
107 00:28:19.200 ⇒ 00:28:20.340 Uttam Kumaran: Hey, can you hear me?
108 00:28:20.740 ⇒ 00:28:21.749 Brylle Girang: Yeah, I can hear you now.
109 00:28:21.960 ⇒ 00:28:24.640 Uttam Kumaran: Sorry, my Wi-Fi’s going in and out, but
110 00:28:25.060 ⇒ 00:28:29.979 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, main thing was just, I want to just have you focus as much on delivery as possible.
111 00:28:30.440 ⇒ 00:28:31.060 Brylle Girang: Okay.
112 00:28:32.170 ⇒ 00:28:32.710 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
113 00:28:33.410 ⇒ 00:28:42.979 Brylle Girang: That makes sense. Yeah, I’m excited. I’m going to draft my version of the one-pager, and starting with the hypothesis, and then let’s just talk about it.
114 00:28:43.860 ⇒ 00:28:45.020 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, okay, okay.
115 00:28:47.240 ⇒ 00:28:56.850 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, alright. Thank you, dude. Appreciate it. Yeah, I’m pumped. Like, sorry, I’m just, like, kind of in folk… I’m just, like, in the grind right now, but dude, I’m excited. I think we’re gonna knock it out.
116 00:28:56.850 ⇒ 00:29:00.640 Brylle Girang: I am too, I am too, really excited.
117 00:29:01.420 ⇒ 00:29:02.569 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, okay, awesome.
118 00:29:02.570 ⇒ 00:29:03.059 Brylle Girang: Thank you, see you.
119 00:29:03.060 ⇒ 00:29:04.920 Uttam Kumaran: Alright. Bye-bye. Text me when you end. Alright, bye.