Meeting Title: Brainforge Final Interview Date: 2026-03-19 Meeting participants: Garrett Gibson, Robert Tseng, Amber Lin
WEBVTT
1 00:05:31.600 ⇒ 00:05:32.909 Robert Tseng: Hey, Garrett.
2 00:05:33.540 ⇒ 00:05:34.530 Robert Tseng: Can you hear me?
3 00:05:39.590 ⇒ 00:05:42.870 Robert Tseng: Audio is not fully working.
4 00:05:44.550 ⇒ 00:05:48.039 Robert Tseng: I don’t hear it from your side. Is it just me? Amber, can you hear him?
5 00:05:49.410 ⇒ 00:05:50.380 Amber Lin: Hello!
6 00:05:50.510 ⇒ 00:05:52.049 Amber Lin: Gary, can you try again?
7 00:06:20.410 ⇒ 00:06:21.310 Amber Lin: Hmm.
8 00:06:27.830 ⇒ 00:06:29.710 Amber Lin: I don’t hear anything.
9 00:06:31.340 ⇒ 00:06:33.380 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I don’t hear. Well, he’ll…
10 00:06:33.590 ⇒ 00:06:40.810 Robert Tseng: I’ll give him a few minutes. By the way, if you’ve already talked to Garrett, I totally brag not to come to this interview, and I thought I can’t… I mean, I can take this myself.
11 00:06:40.810 ⇒ 00:06:41.240 Amber Lin: Oh, sweet.
12 00:06:41.240 ⇒ 00:06:41.650 Robert Tseng: you know.
13 00:06:41.650 ⇒ 00:06:42.280 Amber Lin: Okay.
14 00:06:42.280 ⇒ 00:06:43.480 Garrett Gibson: Can you guys hear me?
15 00:06:43.480 ⇒ 00:06:44.430 Amber Lin: Yeah, I can hear you.
16 00:06:44.430 ⇒ 00:06:45.299 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I can hear you now.
17 00:06:45.300 ⇒ 00:06:47.040 Garrett Gibson: Oh, sorry about that, I think it was just my head.
18 00:06:47.040 ⇒ 00:06:47.400 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
19 00:06:47.400 ⇒ 00:06:48.360 Garrett Gibson: Don’t.
20 00:06:48.360 ⇒ 00:06:49.189 Robert Tseng: No worries.
21 00:06:49.550 ⇒ 00:06:52.890 Garrett Gibson: Yeah. Hey, Robert, nice to meet you, sorry about that.
22 00:06:53.050 ⇒ 00:06:56.249 Robert Tseng: Yeah, all good. But yeah, Amber, you don’t have to be on this call.
23 00:06:56.370 ⇒ 00:07:00.910 Amber Lin: Yeah, I’ll hop. Best of luck. I do want to see the presentation, so…
24 00:07:00.910 ⇒ 00:07:02.690 Robert Tseng: It’s on… it’s… Okay.
25 00:07:02.690 ⇒ 00:07:06.289 Amber Lin: Sure. No, he’ll… I know Gary will send it. Ciao. Yeah.
26 00:07:06.290 ⇒ 00:07:07.710 Garrett Gibson: Sounds good.
27 00:07:07.930 ⇒ 00:07:09.800 Garrett Gibson: Talk to you later, Amber.
28 00:07:11.090 ⇒ 00:07:16.780 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so I know that there was, kind of, like, a panel that was kind of a scheduled deal.
29 00:07:16.780 ⇒ 00:07:17.720 Garrett Gibson: Oh, yeah.
30 00:07:17.720 ⇒ 00:07:22.169 Robert Tseng: You’ve already talked to Greg and Amber, and I actually want to go in a different direction.
31 00:07:22.170 ⇒ 00:07:22.740 Garrett Gibson: For sure.
32 00:07:22.740 ⇒ 00:07:37.949 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, I saw your deck, I think it looks great. It’s one of the better ones we’ve seen, so I actually don’t really feel like I need you to spend too much time walking, like, kind of walking me through it, but, I think kind of how I would like to…
33 00:07:37.980 ⇒ 00:07:57.120 Robert Tseng: proceed is… I mean, I’d like to spend some time talking with you, like, how you put this together. I think I’m more interested in that. Absolutely. And then I have just kind of more, like, fit questions that I’d be looking to tease out. So, yeah, would that be okay? I know that’s kind of a curveball you can take.
34 00:07:57.120 ⇒ 00:07:57.500 Garrett Gibson: No.
35 00:07:57.500 ⇒ 00:07:57.990 Robert Tseng: it to…
36 00:07:57.990 ⇒ 00:07:58.390 Garrett Gibson: Yep.
37 00:07:58.390 ⇒ 00:07:59.880 Robert Tseng: I should gather yourself.
38 00:07:59.880 ⇒ 00:08:04.230 Garrett Gibson: Absolutely, I’m perfectly happy to walk through the process, like, kind of how I did it.
39 00:08:04.670 ⇒ 00:08:08.509 Robert Tseng: Yeah, yeah, so, I mean, I’d love to kind of know just, like.
40 00:08:09.240 ⇒ 00:08:12.779 Robert Tseng: Yeah, like, how you approached this exercise, like, kind of.
41 00:08:12.780 ⇒ 00:08:13.140 Garrett Gibson: Absolutely.
42 00:08:13.140 ⇒ 00:08:17.160 Robert Tseng: outlining, sequencing… I mean, I know this is, like, a really small exercise in, you know, in terms of
43 00:08:18.050 ⇒ 00:08:28.069 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so, but, like, just kind of have you break it down, like, how you… how you… how you… how you phase this out. And then, yeah, like, kind of…
44 00:08:28.280 ⇒ 00:08:40.229 Robert Tseng: how… what expectations you had, or hypotheses you had going in, versus, like, kind of how things actually paint out, what adjustments you had to make along the way. I think that would… that would give me a good sense about how you think about this project.
45 00:08:40.450 ⇒ 00:08:52.070 Garrett Gibson: Absolutely. Yeah, so, what I did is I kind of, I leveraged, AI tools, you know, like Claude, to come up with kind of an iterative, plan, you know, to build the deck.
46 00:08:52.420 ⇒ 00:09:05.009 Garrett Gibson: And how I did that is, you know, based on sample data, and also based on, kind of, the objective, you know, of the overall, of the overall, data set, right? You know, to analyze.
47 00:09:05.230 ⇒ 00:09:11.430 Garrett Gibson: The DoorDash, new verticals, you know, across Dash Mart, Grocery, etc.
48 00:09:11.550 ⇒ 00:09:28.489 Garrett Gibson: And so, you know, once I kind of framed that, you know, I had an initial version of the deck, also incorporating, right, the template that we have, you know, all of the different slides and different, available customizations, right, that could be used.
49 00:09:28.620 ⇒ 00:09:32.849 Garrett Gibson: So just kind of trying to distill it down to…
50 00:09:32.980 ⇒ 00:09:48.620 Garrett Gibson: a time-based, presentation, right? Because, you know, there’s only, like, 45 minutes, so… and it, you know, the template also had, like, 30 slides, you know, that could be, picked from, so I wanted to, just have that higher-level plan, thought.
51 00:09:48.620 ⇒ 00:09:51.670 Robert Tseng: Our template, or the template that Claude JV?
52 00:09:51.670 ⇒ 00:09:53.749 Garrett Gibson: Your template, yeah, the one that you guys provided.
53 00:09:53.750 ⇒ 00:09:54.079 Robert Tseng: Sure, sure.
54 00:09:54.080 ⇒ 00:10:01.509 Garrett Gibson: So just, yeah, trying to find that fine line, and coming up with kind of, like, a master, you know, timeline, right, of the slides, if you will.
55 00:10:01.510 ⇒ 00:10:02.130 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
56 00:10:02.130 ⇒ 00:10:08.779 Garrett Gibson: So yeah, so starting there, and then, using the sample data to kind of formulate
57 00:10:09.200 ⇒ 00:10:18.809 Garrett Gibson: the thesis, right, of the, of the presentation. So, you know, we have the objective, and then we have the thesis based on
58 00:10:18.810 ⇒ 00:10:32.140 Garrett Gibson: You know, which is kind of like the higher-level takeaway, right, of the data. So I wanted to, you know, have, like, an executive summary, which I think is really important when you’re starting off the presentation, right? Something high-level.
59 00:10:32.280 ⇒ 00:10:44.090 Garrett Gibson: That, ties the thesis along with the recommendations, right, of the presentation. So that’s kind of, you know, where I wanted to take it first.
60 00:10:44.300 ⇒ 00:10:55.060 Garrett Gibson: And then… and then after that, kind of think through, you know, based on the sample data, what kind of… what kind of KPIs, you know, could be leveraged based on this data?
61 00:10:55.100 ⇒ 00:11:11.689 Garrett Gibson: So that’s kind of where, you know, the business overview comes into play. So you have, like, you know, cuts by Dashmart, you know, by the various grocery stores. You even have the delineation with the alcohol orders, right? Which is an important call-out, right?
62 00:11:12.000 ⇒ 00:11:15.770 Garrett Gibson: You know, to… to separate, the data.
63 00:11:16.020 ⇒ 00:11:22.160 Garrett Gibson: So, you know, kind of starting at that higher business level overview.
64 00:11:22.280 ⇒ 00:11:29.320 Garrett Gibson: And then going into more, specific KPIs, you know, related to consumer experience.
65 00:11:29.440 ⇒ 00:11:33.590 Garrett Gibson: Things like, you know, cancellation or late rates.
66 00:11:33.770 ⇒ 00:11:37.720 Garrett Gibson: So thinking through, you know, more of those KPIs,
67 00:11:38.050 ⇒ 00:11:42.989 Garrett Gibson: And, you know, split also, you know, having those, those cuts by…
68 00:11:43.090 ⇒ 00:11:46.970 Garrett Gibson: you know, Dash Mart versus, Grocery, because…
69 00:11:47.100 ⇒ 00:11:52.840 Garrett Gibson: You know, just by, you know, creating this presentation, it was interesting to see that
70 00:11:53.010 ⇒ 00:11:59.579 Garrett Gibson: You know, the Dash Mart performance a lot better because they have more control, right, you know, of the supply chain.
71 00:11:59.900 ⇒ 00:12:08.909 Garrett Gibson: You know, versus the groceries, sometimes the items are out of stock, right? That can delay, you know, order time, you know, things like that.
72 00:12:09.140 ⇒ 00:12:14.790 Garrett Gibson: So I think, you know, starting at the kind of higher level, KPIs, and then breaking it down
73 00:12:15.000 ⇒ 00:12:23.130 Garrett Gibson: By… by area, right? So you have, like, consumer experience, you have, Dasher operations, right? Which is more of…
74 00:12:23.320 ⇒ 00:12:29.900 Garrett Gibson: you know, how do the dashers perform, right? So one… one big KPI call-out was, you know.
75 00:12:30.090 ⇒ 00:12:41.220 Garrett Gibson: 10% of the data shows carrying 60%, right, of all orders, so that’s a very clear, you know, KPI that can be measured, you know, over time.
76 00:12:41.380 ⇒ 00:12:50.749 Garrett Gibson: So, you know, looking at more, from that perspective, and then going into, you know, inventory, and item fulfillment. So…
77 00:12:51.040 ⇒ 00:12:53.010 Garrett Gibson: That’s kind of like the…
78 00:12:53.190 ⇒ 00:12:57.019 Garrett Gibson: The meat of the presentation, in terms of, you know, what’s being measured.
79 00:12:57.190 ⇒ 00:13:07.509 Garrett Gibson: how do you, delineate from, you know, Dashmart versus grocery, etc. And then what really ties it all together, though, is, like, the recommendations. So, like, you know, once.
80 00:13:07.510 ⇒ 00:13:20.089 Robert Tseng: Yeah, let me pause you for a sec before you jump to the recommendations. I mean, I mean, I’m just gonna go through the sequence of your slides. I mean, I think this was… this is great. You put together a pretty succinct presentation, so, I just want to kind of
81 00:13:20.090 ⇒ 00:13:30.490 Robert Tseng: you know, as I’m… I’m just gonna talk, like, say one thing for each slide that I thought that stuck out to me that I appreciated. So, on the business overview, yeah, I think you… the…
82 00:13:30.490 ⇒ 00:13:33.560 Robert Tseng: the segments that you described, I think that made sense.
83 00:13:33.560 ⇒ 00:13:40.190 Robert Tseng: And intuition for kind of, like, why Dashmart would probably be, you know, more efficient, that’s great. I think it shows…
84 00:13:40.190 ⇒ 00:13:57.879 Robert Tseng: it shows you’re triangulating, like, things beyond just what the numbers will tell you. I think that’s really important. Oftentimes, we see, like, a range of values for whatever analysis we’re doing, and we have to be able to articulate, kind of, like, what our hypothesis is. So, I appreciate that you took the step to actually say that out loud.
85 00:13:57.950 ⇒ 00:14:07.010 Robert Tseng: Thank you. Because sometimes, like, engineers are… people who are too technical are too inconclusive, and, like, in the consulting world.
86 00:14:07.090 ⇒ 00:14:16.900 Robert Tseng: Like, we’re not there to be unopinionated. Like, we may be wrong sometimes, but we need to form hypotheses, so I think that was definitely key, yeah.
87 00:14:16.900 ⇒ 00:14:24.470 Garrett Gibson: Yeah, the data should formulate the hypotheses, right, and kind of drive the recommendations, right? The takeaways, I think, yeah.
88 00:14:24.990 ⇒ 00:14:43.159 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, you’d be surprised. I get, you know, in this exercise, we get, like, people typically sending us, like, 25 to 30 slides, and it’s just, like, so much stuff, and it’s… I mean, I know that AI can help speed up a lot of this stuff now, but it’s just way too much noise, and it’s really hard to distill… distill it, so…
89 00:14:43.160 ⇒ 00:14:57.810 Garrett Gibson: You also have to know how to drive AI. I think that’s what a lot of people, like, need to know, is, like, yeah, AI is great and it’s out there, but you have to know, like, what to ask it, like, to prompt it, and you can also, like, package that up and, like, reuse it, right, for…
90 00:14:57.840 ⇒ 00:15:03.709 Garrett Gibson: Like, you know, this could be… this same formula could be applied to another presentation, right, essentially down the road, right? Essentially.
91 00:15:03.710 ⇒ 00:15:15.869 Robert Tseng: Yeah. So, if I can just kind of… and then maybe a couple other things I’ll call out. I think, yeah, you… in the… I like the consumer dasher versus inventory kind of splits, that makes sense to me.
92 00:15:16.030 ⇒ 00:15:35.569 Robert Tseng: And yeah, I think you got to the… you were able to point out some of the discrepancies that, like, really mattered. So, I think that shows me that, you know, you know how to pull… pull things out of, like, you know, like, kind of drawing a needle out of a haystack sometimes is, like, the job that we’re asked to do. So, yeah, I think that level, attention to detail is… is important.
93 00:15:35.570 ⇒ 00:15:37.030 Robert Tseng: So, I mean…
94 00:15:37.030 ⇒ 00:15:46.900 Robert Tseng: I feel like, analytically, like, I have no… I have no issues with… I mean, you’re… I think you understand, kind of, how analysis should be structured. I’m curious, like, how long did this take you overall to build this?
95 00:15:47.770 ⇒ 00:16:01.569 Garrett Gibson: Yeah, so I mentioned I iterated on it, but I would say, maybe, like, 4 or 5 days, and then I had, like, 9 or 10 different iterations where I got to, like, the final one. I was like, alright, this looks good.
96 00:16:01.570 ⇒ 00:16:18.869 Robert Tseng: Okay, great. Yeah, no, really appreciate, kind of, the time you put into it. Thank you. Yeah, I think you’ve built something that’s, like, yeah, probably a very… probably a very well-structured, kind of, slide, and it’s, like, reusable, so it may have taken you a lot of work to do the first time, probably more than
97 00:16:18.870 ⇒ 00:16:22.500 Robert Tseng: I mean, I need to ask… I need to tell Kayla to tell candidates to… it’s okay.
98 00:16:22.500 ⇒ 00:16:25.399 Garrett Gibson: I wanted to make a good impression, obviously, right?
99 00:16:25.400 ⇒ 00:16:44.589 Robert Tseng: Yeah, you can… you can do less… you can do less work up front. But, you know, I still, I think it shows me kind of, like, the ceiling of, like, you know, what… what you… what you can produce, so I think that all kind of works in your favor. So, anyway, I don’t want to spend too much time on the… on the deck. I think it’s more… it’s clear that, you know, as far as, like, a…
100 00:16:44.830 ⇒ 00:16:50.109 Robert Tseng: you know, the box that we were looking to check from a capabilities standpoint that you have it there.
101 00:16:50.110 ⇒ 00:16:51.470 Garrett Gibson: If you want me to.
102 00:16:51.470 ⇒ 00:16:55.480 Robert Tseng: Yeah, yeah, you can share, you can stop, we can just kind of… we can just chat a bit more.
103 00:16:57.160 ⇒ 00:17:16.490 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so I’ve looked at your… I mean, I’ve looked at your resume and a couple of the transcripts, because all of them kind of were… so I kind of have, like, a light sense of, like, your background. Absolutely. Yeah, seems like you were dry… you know, correct me if I’m wrong, but if I were to give, like, a two-sentence summary of your background, for me, it’s like, okay, you have, like,
104 00:17:17.470 ⇒ 00:17:19.949 Robert Tseng: You’re a client-facing…
105 00:17:20.130 ⇒ 00:17:27.809 Robert Tseng: a senior project manager who has run, kind of, large-scale enterprise data projects. Is that kind of, like, a good summary? Yeah.
106 00:17:27.810 ⇒ 00:17:29.260 Garrett Gibson: Yeah, that’s accurate.
107 00:17:29.260 ⇒ 00:17:38.710 Robert Tseng: Okay, great. And so, maybe I’ll kind of, you know, I’ve been kind of talking a lot about you, I’ll share a little bit about me, and then a little about Brainforge, and then I’ll kind of…
108 00:17:38.870 ⇒ 00:18:00.349 Robert Tseng: try to… try to talk about, like, how I’m evaluating this role, because ultimately, I’m the decision maker here. So, yeah, I guess I… I run Brainforge with my business partner, Utang. I basically lead strategy and analytics, but I also run sales for our… for our team. So, this role is really to bring in, like, a senior delivery person.
109 00:18:00.500 ⇒ 00:18:20.190 Robert Tseng: Our names are changing a little bit. I don’t know exactly what role name was pitched to you. I mean, I think we call it client success owner, we call it, like, a senior analyst, senior associate… I mean, there’s a few different, like, title names, and those are flexible, in my opinion, but really what I’m looking for is a mix of somebody who is…
110 00:18:20.190 ⇒ 00:18:25.879 Robert Tseng: Who has, like, high project management standards, and can really, like, enforce that for our team.
111 00:18:25.880 ⇒ 00:18:29.210 Robert Tseng: While also being, like.
112 00:18:30.210 ⇒ 00:18:45.380 Robert Tseng: like, while also being flexible enough to be an account manager as well. And so I’m really trying to look for somebody who wants to sit in the intersection of both of those roles. And so I’ll kind of tell you, like, why it’s not one or the other.
113 00:18:45.380 ⇒ 00:19:03.739 Robert Tseng: when it’s just a pure project manager, like, we’ve talked to plenty of people who have all the certifications, we’ve even invested in somebody who was running, kind of like Agile for our team before. I think what happens is that it brings a lot of heavyweight process, and especially at the enterprise level, I’m a little bit hesitant, because, like.
114 00:19:04.190 ⇒ 00:19:09.209 Robert Tseng: It just, like, kind of fills everybody’s time with stuff to do, and,
115 00:19:09.490 ⇒ 00:19:26.920 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, like, I can give you… I can rattle off a few, like, numbers about, like, our business. You know, our average contract length is, like, 3 months, and, you know, our average deal size is probably, like, $30K a month, so these are not really enterprise deals, like, 100K deals, probably, but…
116 00:19:26.920 ⇒ 00:19:31.620 Robert Tseng: I mean, obviously we’re trying to punch higher, so, you know, it’s… I want to be able to…
117 00:19:32.010 ⇒ 00:19:36.180 Robert Tseng: Bring in somebody who has seen it at a larger scale and can… is not…
118 00:19:36.360 ⇒ 00:19:45.519 Robert Tseng: intimidated by increasing complexity, adding more, more work streams, so, I think that, that definitely helps.
119 00:19:45.520 ⇒ 00:19:58.259 Garrett Gibson: to kind of, helping, like, define the role, like, if it’s more of, like, a hybrid role, and, you know, there’s specific responsibilities, you know, that I should own or touch, I’d love to kind of, you know, create that plan with you, or, you know.
120 00:19:58.260 ⇒ 00:20:02.379 Robert Tseng: Yeah, and like, I mean, I think on this call, hopefully, we talk through some of, like, the…
121 00:20:02.380 ⇒ 00:20:02.990 Garrett Gibson: Enjoy.
122 00:20:03.240 ⇒ 00:20:12.289 Robert Tseng: what you expected coming into it versus, like, what I’m telling you now, and so I hope that we can clear some of that up, just to make sure you feel like it’s a good fit for you, obviously. Yeah.
123 00:20:12.290 ⇒ 00:20:12.820 Garrett Gibson: Absolutely.
124 00:20:13.220 ⇒ 00:20:32.380 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so that’s… that’s on the project management side, just kind of a little bit kind of hesitant that, like, okay, if you’re coming from an enterprise background, I don’t want it to be purely, like, all this PM process that, like, kind of just creates a lot of bloat. We use AI very aggressively in our team, you know, so similar to… I mean, I think we probably do it to
125 00:20:32.380 ⇒ 00:20:40.079 Robert Tseng: I mean, we do it to a very large extent. We have AI generating tickets for us, and all the…
126 00:20:40.080 ⇒ 00:20:40.540 Garrett Gibson: Workflow.
127 00:20:40.540 ⇒ 00:20:56.769 Robert Tseng: Workflows, we even, like, assign tickets to AI agents, so, like, typically, yeah, we have, like, cloud run… we have cloud workers literally executing on engineering tasks, you know, probably 20… I can… I could tell you 20% of the tickets we create are executed by AI currently.
128 00:20:56.770 ⇒ 00:21:14.589 Robert Tseng: And I want that number to increase, so I want somebody who’s gonna, like, be able to… who has a… who wants to be a part of a team that’s, like, kind of really at the cutting edge of taking whatever capabilities are out there and bringing that into running our delivery teams.
129 00:21:14.590 ⇒ 00:21:19.400 Robert Tseng: Yeah, and I do know that it’s a little bit antithetical to some of the PM
130 00:21:19.400 ⇒ 00:21:36.359 Robert Tseng: practices that, like… I mean, we’ve, like I said, we’ve worked with traditional PMs before, and our last person that was leading PM for us was kind of against… against that, and, like, was really pushing back, had too many quality controls, which I understand is important to have, but we do…
131 00:21:36.360 ⇒ 00:21:49.969 Robert Tseng: like, at our size and at our scale, like, we win, and we succeed in deals at the speed that we move still. So, yeah, we can’t really compromise too much on that because of just how fast we need to go.
132 00:21:49.970 ⇒ 00:21:59.689 Garrett Gibson: Yeah, I mean, even with coding, like, building SQL and stuff like that, I remember back in the day, it was, like, a lot harder to build dashboards and stuff. Now you can do it in, like, a week.
133 00:21:59.690 ⇒ 00:22:00.070 Robert Tseng: Totally.
134 00:22:00.070 ⇒ 00:22:00.870 Garrett Gibson: Yeah.
135 00:22:00.870 ⇒ 00:22:06.830 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, you’ll see, you’ll see that, like, People are…
136 00:22:07.370 ⇒ 00:22:23.719 Robert Tseng: doing… I mean, maybe… I don’t know how much Amber shared with you, but she’s doing a lot of work she’s never done before, but because of AI, like, it’s really just broadened her skill set. But that said, like, we do need somebody who comes from… who has, like, senior-level standards and can…
137 00:22:24.230 ⇒ 00:22:32.780 Robert Tseng: You know, there’s a lot of… productivity can, we’re producing… there’s a lot more output from our team now, and we’re continuing to increase that, but then…
138 00:22:33.380 ⇒ 00:22:49.250 Robert Tseng: quality gets compromised if we don’t have, like, a good set of eyes to really, like, review… just review work, but also, like, kind of set the standards of, like, what needs to be in there. Otherwise, like, the danger is that there’s just a lot of slop that’s being thrown around, and I think that’s.
139 00:22:49.250 ⇒ 00:22:52.940 Garrett Gibson: Quality control is important. Yeah, yeah.
140 00:22:52.940 ⇒ 00:23:06.089 Robert Tseng: So, yeah, yeah, so that’s… that’s kind of, like, on the PM side. On the account management side, you need somebody who is, very comfortable being, like, VP, C-level facing. And, I think, like, when… then this was a…
141 00:23:06.430 ⇒ 00:23:25.050 Robert Tseng: once we kind of got rid of the traditional PMO that we had built up pretty much last year, this quarter, we were running without PMs, we pretty much, like, took our senior, most senior engineers, and we tried to tell them, spend 20% of your time doing the PM and account management work. And we created different incentives.
142 00:23:25.050 ⇒ 00:23:31.909 Robert Tseng: there was, like, some people stepped up to the plate, some people didn’t, and then I think our conclusion now is… actually, I just think that
143 00:23:31.910 ⇒ 00:23:39.070 Robert Tseng: you know, that may be too much of a stretch for our senior engineers. So, just having somebody who
144 00:23:39.070 ⇒ 00:23:47.730 Robert Tseng: Who can talk about the projects at a high level, run, like, a bi-weekly or monthly kind of check-in with the client, kind of going through, like.
145 00:23:47.730 ⇒ 00:24:01.870 Robert Tseng: just very basic things, like wins, what’s on the roadmap, risks, mitigations, and can hold their own when they’re getting interrupted, you know, all the kind of nonsense that comes with, like, dealing with people at that level.
146 00:24:01.870 ⇒ 00:24:09.489 Garrett Gibson: to me, I was reporting to, like, a VP for a couple years, so a lot of, yeah, monthly presentations and, you know, things like that. Yeah.
147 00:24:09.490 ⇒ 00:24:19.389 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so we definitely, like, those… those rituals do matter, like, that’s kind of… that’s, like, where we get to, you know, we show our polish, like, our reputation is kind of on the line there, so, you know, having…
148 00:24:19.510 ⇒ 00:24:35.750 Robert Tseng: But yeah, what… I think, like, the… the problem… our engineers, when they go… when they step up to the plate, like, if a VP asks the questions, they just completely get derailed, and they tend to rabbit hole into the problem, they try to solve it on the spot, prove how confident they are, you know, it’s like, okay, well…
149 00:24:35.750 ⇒ 00:24:37.460 Garrett Gibson: Sticking to the story, kind of thing.
150 00:24:37.460 ⇒ 00:24:38.779 Robert Tseng: Yeah, stick to the storage.
151 00:24:38.780 ⇒ 00:24:42.220 Garrett Gibson: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
152 00:24:42.220 ⇒ 00:24:55.259 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I think that’s, yeah, that’s the… I mean, I think… I think you get it. So I think that’s kind of, that’s why we’re kind of trying to find somebody who’s, like, kind of the mix of both sides of that. So I’ll just kind of pause there, kind of see what you think about that, yeah.
153 00:24:55.260 ⇒ 00:25:07.510 Garrett Gibson: No, yeah, absolutely, I appreciate that. I think it sounds like I can kind of blend the two skill sets, like being, you know, customer-facing, right, with clients, you know, that VP kind of suite, C-suite level, but then also.
154 00:25:07.510 ⇒ 00:25:18.900 Garrett Gibson: it’s a good combination of being able to drive, you know, PM processes, or maybe it’s getting involved in, like, other projects, right, like data, data projects, or, like, AI, right, type of projects as well.
155 00:25:19.010 ⇒ 00:25:24.790 Garrett Gibson: So I feel like, it’s kind of a nice blend of being able to contribute there in the role.
156 00:25:25.650 ⇒ 00:25:34.770 Robert Tseng: Yeah, definitely. So, I mean, I’m just gonna rattle through a couple questions that, like, people on the team wanted me to also, like, kind of pick your brain on, so…
157 00:25:35.080 ⇒ 00:25:41.850 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I think, like, we’ll start with, can you give me, like, an example of, like, an…
158 00:25:42.040 ⇒ 00:25:48.349 Robert Tseng: Like, an end-to-end project example where you were responsible for sequencing the work, from…
159 00:25:49.160 ⇒ 00:25:54.420 Robert Tseng: Let’s say the scenario is, like, the…
160 00:25:55.740 ⇒ 00:26:03.140 Robert Tseng: Oh, I guess this is more of a consulting context, so, I mean, take it… take it for whatever… however you see it, but in our world, it’s like…
161 00:26:03.280 ⇒ 00:26:18.309 Robert Tseng: I close the deal, I have a general scope of work that’s given to you, and then you basically need to work with the team internally to, like, turn that into, like, a project plan, GANs, and also, like, an end-to-end roadmap, everything. So,
162 00:26:18.440 ⇒ 00:26:28.930 Robert Tseng: you may not have done that in, like, consulting, in a consulting context, but I’d just like to kind of get a sense if there’s, like, one project that you can kind of talk about, that we can just walk through as an example.
163 00:26:28.930 ⇒ 00:26:47.770 Garrett Gibson: Totally, absolutely. Actually, the one that I just worked at, at Disney is probably a really good example. So there, I worked on, like, a data lake initiative type project. So it included, setting up a data warehouse in Databricks, and connecting to, various, upstream and downstream systems and snowfall.
164 00:26:47.770 ⇒ 00:26:51.870 Robert Tseng: Were you involved with the procurement process, or were the tools already selected for you at that point?
165 00:26:51.870 ⇒ 00:27:07.070 Garrett Gibson: They were already selected at that point, so there was already kind of, like, a current, yeah, think system design, system architecture, things like that, and then we were kind of coming in, myself and another system architect, and later on, a couple data engineers to create, like, a future state.
166 00:27:07.070 ⇒ 00:27:12.450 Garrett Gibson: of the data architecture, you know, with the new data warehouse implemented. Okay.
167 00:27:12.450 ⇒ 00:27:17.670 Robert Tseng: Tell me about your role with the systems architect, and maybe you’ll get there, but, like, I’m curious, like, how do you pair with someone like that?
168 00:27:17.670 ⇒ 00:27:29.289 Garrett Gibson: Absolutely. Yeah, it was a really good partnership. So, essentially, what we started with was kind of the requirements documentation for the project. So, we just kind of had a template, you know, based on what Disney provided, and then
169 00:27:29.330 ⇒ 00:27:38.620 Garrett Gibson: You know, based on the current state, started documenting out, you know, assumptions, and then working with, internal team members cross-functionally.
170 00:27:38.620 ⇒ 00:27:50.460 Garrett Gibson: Just to ensure that we had, you know, all the kind of requirements laid out. We also went through iterations of that as well, just to kind of get to the final version before, like, getting that review kind of sign-off.
171 00:27:50.460 ⇒ 00:27:51.710 Garrett Gibson: Approval?
172 00:27:51.910 ⇒ 00:28:01.699 Garrett Gibson: But in combination with that, we also, together built, like, a new system, design that would aid, the requirements documentation to see, you know, how to…
173 00:28:01.700 ⇒ 00:28:12.200 Garrett Gibson: the Databricks environment would connect to the other systems as well. So yeah, it was great, working together in that regard. And then on my side, I created a, it was like a…
174 00:28:12.280 ⇒ 00:28:17.079 Garrett Gibson: a PowerPoint-based React app within… within… using Cloud.
175 00:28:17.250 ⇒ 00:28:33.849 Garrett Gibson: It’s like a roadmap that shows all the different work streams within the projects with dates, you know, milestones, stuff like that. And so the executive team just wanted me to share that with them on a weekly basis. And I also included it, like, bullet points, just, like, updates on milestones and things like that.
176 00:28:33.970 ⇒ 00:28:46.870 Garrett Gibson: And what I also did based on that roadmap is, we worked together, so I used, AI to break down the requirements documentation into GitHub, tasks for the data engineers once they were onboarded.
177 00:28:46.870 ⇒ 00:29:08.450 Garrett Gibson: So there was very specific stories and tasks linked to, for instance, like, the data warehouse setup work for Databricks. So that way we could have, like, you know, daily stand-ups and track, you know, completion of tickets and things like that. But also, besides GitHub, there was also Jira-based tracking for internal teams within Disney that we had dependencies on for the project.
178 00:29:08.900 ⇒ 00:29:27.590 Garrett Gibson: So what we had is we had epics and stories, in another chair instance that we were also tracking, you know, where sprints were assigned, and resources, and things like that. So I kind of had to feed that information into the higher-level roadmap to show, like, any delays of, you know, milestone progress or anything like that.
179 00:29:27.590 ⇒ 00:29:30.609 Robert Tseng: Yeah, let’s talk a little bit about that pipeline. So,
180 00:29:30.730 ⇒ 00:29:36.150 Robert Tseng: We do everything through Linear, as far as our product management system. We do a lot, like.
181 00:29:36.410 ⇒ 00:29:40.840 Robert Tseng: It’s, pretty much transcripts, mike.
182 00:29:41.080 ⇒ 00:29:55.350 Robert Tseng: all documentation into linear. So linear is, like, our ticketing system, and then from there, like, if it’s AI-assigned, it’ll split up into GitHub Actions, and we have either Codex or Claude or cursor just kind of executing on the ones that are very clearly defined.
183 00:29:55.350 ⇒ 00:30:07.690 Robert Tseng: But then sometimes, like, tickets are not… there’s not enough context. So, like, how do you deal with a situation like that, where, yeah, like, the… I mean, did you… how involved were you in maintaining the…
184 00:30:07.690 ⇒ 00:30:15.219 Robert Tseng: the ticket generating system, or, like, kind of helping fill in those gaps? Like, where’s your intervention in, kind of, like, that… that part of the pipeline?
185 00:30:15.220 ⇒ 00:30:22.009 Garrett Gibson: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, there wasn’t really any kind of… any connection, like, or any, like, AI workflows within their Jira, so it was very much, like…
186 00:30:22.040 ⇒ 00:30:35.729 Garrett Gibson: Kind of coordinating, like, with the management of those internal teams, and ensuring, like, you know, there was correct resource availability, you know, they were going to be assigned, you know, to the proper sprints, right, to stay in line with the kind of overall timeline.
187 00:30:35.860 ⇒ 00:30:52.359 Garrett Gibson: So I was just ensuring that, you know, I had, like, the latest status, you know, of those tickets, and then always reflected on, kind of, like, the weekly, reporting, right, that I sent out to executives, just to show, like, if there was any delays, or we needed, you know, support from leadership from those teams.
188 00:30:52.360 ⇒ 00:30:59.370 Robert Tseng: Yeah, and in those weekly reports, what type of feedback do you get from executives? Like, how, like, what do you think goes into a good weekly report?
189 00:30:59.550 ⇒ 00:31:15.699 Garrett Gibson: Absolutely. It was essentially just two slides. One is the roadmap with, like, some color coding that shows, like, you know, is this on track? Is it, at risk of being delayed? You know, some kind of, like, red, yellow, green. And then just another slide with just, like, some high-level bullet points of…
190 00:31:15.810 ⇒ 00:31:20.740 Garrett Gibson: You know, what happened that week, like, upcoming important milestones.
191 00:31:20.910 ⇒ 00:31:28.340 Garrett Gibson: you know, maybe something that was, like, recently completed, something like that. Yeah. So just keeping it, like, really high-level kind of summary.
192 00:31:28.720 ⇒ 00:31:40.880 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so let’s just take that. So in that example, yeah, I mean, we do something similar, I think that the standards make sense, but in this case, a client would call… would call you, you know, like, if something is off, or like…
193 00:31:40.880 ⇒ 00:31:41.450 Garrett Gibson: Boy.
194 00:31:41.450 ⇒ 00:32:00.590 Robert Tseng: if either we have a presentation, like, if it’s… maybe we get to be proactive, and we get to actually do it in our biweek… it’s typically a bi-weekly or monthly cadence where we’re reading things out, but we always send these weekly reports as well, but if there’s something that’s off track, you’re gonna get a call from a VP or a C, so I guess, like.
195 00:32:00.590 ⇒ 00:32:10.670 Robert Tseng: Can you walk me… have you run into a situation like that? When, like, how do you… how do you deal with a… with a VP or a C-level person who’s unhappy with, kind of, the progress that we’re… that they’re seeing on something?
196 00:32:10.840 ⇒ 00:32:20.299 Garrett Gibson: Absolutely. Yeah, so I always kind of ensure that I have the reasoning, right, why there might be a delay, but then I always ensure that there’s a kind of a mitigation plan. So, like, how do we bring
197 00:32:20.610 ⇒ 00:32:24.530 Garrett Gibson: Like a delayed, milestone, right? Back on track.
198 00:32:24.730 ⇒ 00:32:42.569 Garrett Gibson: So I think that’s really important as to, explain, you know, why there is a delay, but then how do we bring it quickly back on track, right? Because I think, you know, executives, they want to know, like, what’s going on, but then if there’s no plan to correct it, then a conversation probably won’t go very well.
199 00:32:42.760 ⇒ 00:32:59.370 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, let’s say, like, you don’t know the mitigation plan on the spot, but you need to negotiate with them, because they’re not willing to take, like, tell me later as an answer. Let’s say, like, you know, you have… I guess I’m not going to put numbers onto it, so, like, you know, something…
200 00:32:59.850 ⇒ 00:33:19.780 Robert Tseng: a critical work stream is delayed, you know, you know, it’s definitely, like, kind of our fault, our team’s just kind of behind on things. You don’t want to over-promise on, like, you know, you’re going to get it done, so, but, like, you know, how do you… how do you advocate that? There’s no… there is no mitigation plan that you have on the spot, like, how do you… how do you kind of de-escalate a situation like that?
201 00:33:19.780 ⇒ 00:33:27.510 Garrett Gibson: Right, I think you kind of try to smooth it over and try to make it sound like it’s, like a one-time, you know, occurrence. I don’t… I think you…
202 00:33:27.640 ⇒ 00:33:43.899 Garrett Gibson: And also, I think that you can say, like, there might not be a mitigation plan now, but I think to say that there’s not one, like, a week from now is, like, kind of a stretch, because, like, if you’re properly planning a project, you know, things go wrong, could kind of, like, potentially go wrong every day, and so…
203 00:33:44.160 ⇒ 00:33:53.990 Garrett Gibson: you know, going too long without a plan, I feel like, is kind of a dicey situation dealing with an executive. But I think you can, you can keep them…
204 00:33:54.150 ⇒ 00:33:57.299 Garrett Gibson: busy, so to speak, right? In the meantime. Yeah.
205 00:33:58.570 ⇒ 00:34:10.110 Robert Tseng: Okay, great. Yeah, so I mean, I’ll kind of pause from there. So on the PM side, I think that all makes sense. Let’s say on the account management side, it’s like, the goals of account management is a little bit different. It’s not just about keeping projects on track, but it’s like.
206 00:34:10.530 ⇒ 00:34:22.700 Robert Tseng: increasing… increasing scope, looking for new opportunities, like, you’re trying to, like, increase the share of the pie. So, I know it’s a little bit, kind of, like, you have to split your brain, because on the PM side, you’re trying to, like.
207 00:34:22.710 ⇒ 00:34:38.829 Robert Tseng: push unnecessary work out, keep timelines on track, but on the account management side, you want the new opportunities. Have you really… have you been in both positions? Like, I mean, I’ve heard you talk a lot about the PM side. Can you speak to anything on… that you’ve done on… that’s more, kind of, account management?
208 00:34:38.830 ⇒ 00:34:54.759 Robert Tseng: I mean, sounds like you’ve been a contractor on multiple… I want to help you out, like, in thinking through things in terms of you’ve contracted for multiple places, you’ve had to go and, like, get your own projects, like, is there a scenario like that where you can kind of maybe share more about the account management side that you bring as well?
209 00:34:54.760 ⇒ 00:35:06.430 Garrett Gibson: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, a lot of the ways that I’ve kind of built up my network over there is just using LinkedIn. That’s how I found a lot of my, like, contract jobs and…
210 00:35:06.560 ⇒ 00:35:10.150 Garrett Gibson: You know, partnering with different agencies, reaching out.
211 00:35:10.460 ⇒ 00:35:14.529 Garrett Gibson: Like, doing… that’s kind of a lot of, sales work, in a way.
212 00:35:14.530 ⇒ 00:35:15.020 Robert Tseng: Sure.
213 00:35:15.020 ⇒ 00:35:21.459 Garrett Gibson: But yeah, I think that, you know, building up the network, I think there’s always an opportunity to…
214 00:35:21.740 ⇒ 00:35:30.490 Garrett Gibson: Instead of me looking personally for contract work to, yeah, offer, you know, services on behalf of, you know, Brainforge and…
215 00:35:30.670 ⇒ 00:35:32.839 Garrett Gibson: Tried to enlist, you know, new clients.
216 00:35:32.960 ⇒ 00:35:34.250 Garrett Gibson: And things like that.
217 00:35:36.100 ⇒ 00:35:42.259 Garrett Gibson: I don’t have that much experience, I guess, doing that in my past roles, but I don’t think there’s…
218 00:35:42.530 ⇒ 00:35:50.229 Garrett Gibson: I said… I think if I set aside the time to do it, you know, in combination with the PM work, I think I could, you know, make an impact.
219 00:35:50.700 ⇒ 00:35:55.240 Garrett Gibson: being that I’ve grown the network, you know, over the years, you know, being in the industry and things like that.
220 00:35:55.720 ⇒ 00:36:02.370 Robert Tseng: Sure, yeah, I mean, that to me is more kind of like business development, so I think I was more kind of looking, like, within
221 00:36:02.730 ⇒ 00:36:19.010 Robert Tseng: within, like, a certain project that you’re on, like, helping the team, like, get more visibility, get more scope. So, like, if we go back to that Disney example of the warehouse migration, you’re working with that systems architect. I mean, they may be planning out, like, all the different work streams that need to happen.
222 00:36:19.010 ⇒ 00:36:25.329 Robert Tseng: How long everything’s gonna take, assign tickets, but are you able to kind of come in on a technical project like that and be like, hey.
223 00:36:25.330 ⇒ 00:36:36.439 Robert Tseng: you’re missing, like, a governance workstream, or, like, you’re able to identify, like, a missing piece to what they’re seeing, and that ends up being part of, like, this… you’re contributing to building the scope, too, you know what I mean?
224 00:36:36.670 ⇒ 00:36:56.579 Garrett Gibson: Yeah, totally. Yeah, I think, yeah, I think in the past, I’ve been more focused on execution. Like, I’m very good at, like, taking that SOW, you know, that scope of work, and breaking it down, making sure it’s implemented, but yeah, I could definitely see myself, you know, adding to the scope, you know, over time, and identifying, you know, new opportunities, with particular clients, you know, things like that.
225 00:36:57.420 ⇒ 00:37:09.489 Robert Tseng: Okay. Yeah, I mean, I think to me, I’m, like, hung up on this, because, like, you know, if you come here, like, you know, we have, like, 10 plus clients at this point, and I want to double our book of business, and I don’t want to hire that many more.
226 00:37:09.490 ⇒ 00:37:20.560 Robert Tseng: project managers, or if we do, you know, I mean, I… we have, like, a… we have, like, a couple very junior PMs who I think have just been able to go
227 00:37:20.720 ⇒ 00:37:34.299 Robert Tseng: yeah, two junior PMs that are offshore people that just run all of our clients currently. I think they do it… they do a good enough job in terms of using the tooling that we’ve built to go and, like, at least
228 00:37:34.300 ⇒ 00:37:42.039 Robert Tseng: build out all of these artifacts, and, like, kind of keep the process going, but I don’t think their standard is high enough. And so I view you more as, like, on the PM side.
229 00:37:42.040 ⇒ 00:37:47.100 Robert Tseng: I don’t really need you to actually go and execute those things, you need to be… operate more as, like, a coach.
230 00:37:47.100 ⇒ 00:37:47.750 Garrett Gibson: Right. And, like.
231 00:37:47.750 ⇒ 00:38:03.509 Robert Tseng: kind of helping them to do that, and setting up the standards, finding holes in our process to kind of do that. You’re, like, kind of a PM systems builder, but then where you will actually spend your individual time is definitely more on the account management side, and, like, looking at projects that are
232 00:38:03.510 ⇒ 00:38:17.369 Robert Tseng: on track, and that you’re like, okay, how do we expand that account? Or if they’re at risk, how do we, like, make sure that we’re… how do we go in and have an intervention plan to get them back on track? Like, that’s… that’s where I would want someone like you to operate from.
233 00:38:17.370 ⇒ 00:38:18.169 Garrett Gibson: Okay. Does that make sense?
234 00:38:18.170 ⇒ 00:38:18.680 Robert Tseng: Just, yeah.
235 00:38:18.680 ⇒ 00:38:22.299 Garrett Gibson: makes a lot of sense, so kind of that, like, a 50-50 kind of split there, sounds like.
236 00:38:22.810 ⇒ 00:38:42.010 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so I’m definitely not just, like, you know, asking you to come up with new ideas to just go and sell, like, that’s probably where you would be working closely with me, because I’m basically, like, the… yeah, I’m looking for new business, both externally and also within our accounts. But yeah, at least, like, that’s… that’s, like.
237 00:38:42.150 ⇒ 00:38:47.799 Robert Tseng: that’s what you could do as being kind of the… as the PM to make sure that,
238 00:38:47.950 ⇒ 00:39:06.289 Robert Tseng: by getting… having the good intervention plans for projects that are at risk, and then for ones that are going well, like, trying to push the team to, like, go and expand. Like, that… that’s probably the, you know, how we would evaluate, kind of, your performance of you being on this account, right? Or, sorry, in this role.
239 00:39:06.290 ⇒ 00:39:12.810 Robert Tseng: Does that feel fair to you, in terms of, like, a way to evaluate, kind of your impact on the org? Okay.
240 00:39:12.810 ⇒ 00:39:26.679 Garrett Gibson: Absolutely. Yeah, no, and I think I appreciate having that kind of, like, those expectations outlined, because it helps me to kind of focus on, you know, where should I spend my time, you know, how can I contribute value, right, to the company, things like that, so…
241 00:39:27.450 ⇒ 00:39:27.990 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
242 00:39:28.480 ⇒ 00:39:36.480 Robert Tseng: I’ll do a couple more abstract questions, and then we can kind of leave any other questions for… I’ll leave some Q&A for you. Yeah, so, like.
243 00:39:36.700 ⇒ 00:39:50.019 Robert Tseng: you know, based on what you know about us, like, I know you’re kind of just taking a guess, you haven’t seen it yet, but, like, what do you feel like you would focus on first in terms of, like, standardizing?
244 00:39:51.030 ⇒ 00:39:52.800 Garrett Gibson: Yes, I think,
245 00:39:52.950 ⇒ 00:40:01.599 Garrett Gibson: one of the things I could see myself, I mean, just working on this project is something like the analytics, maybe, you know, presentations, like, kind of…
246 00:40:01.900 ⇒ 00:40:16.980 Garrett Gibson: like, formalizing and, and having standards, right, kind of guidelines around that. And also just, you know, having, or helping with, the PM processes, right, and ensuring that
247 00:40:17.200 ⇒ 00:40:20.359 Garrett Gibson: You know, they’re kind of clearly defined, and…
248 00:40:20.530 ⇒ 00:40:31.479 Garrett Gibson: As you… as you mentioned also, like, not adding a lot of weight, right, to engineers, and, you know, ensuring they’re… there’s… we’re staying lean, right? Kind of, like, with the organization, I think is an important one.
249 00:40:32.490 ⇒ 00:40:49.420 Robert Tseng: Okay, cool, yeah, I like that answer, and I’ll kind of give… I’ll kind of ask a follow-up to that. Sure. So, yeah, I mean, the way that our… I think services business, the economics are very simple, and I hope that, you know, I’ll kind of articulate, like, you know, from…
250 00:40:49.650 ⇒ 00:40:55.510 Robert Tseng: And one of the biggest gaps that we’re experiencing right now is… so…
251 00:40:57.590 ⇒ 00:41:10.119 Robert Tseng: if you think about, like, a P&L, like a profit and loss, if the cost of goods sold for services is really just, like, the hours that are spent, right? So, like, there’s, like, a gap between the hours we charge versus how much we actually pay out.
252 00:41:10.120 ⇒ 00:41:24.490 Robert Tseng: our gross margins are healthy. They look healthy. It’s, like, around 65%, and I think, yeah. But then, our operating margins are quite, like, they’re quite bad. So I think, like, they should be under… they should be under 15%, in my opinion, but they’re not, so…
253 00:41:24.490 ⇒ 00:41:24.850 Garrett Gibson: Okay.
254 00:41:24.850 ⇒ 00:41:34.570 Robert Tseng: And I think a lot of that is because people are spending time in meetings. What I’ve noticed, and that doesn’t… that gets hidden from the gross margin, I don’t actually feel it’s our true gross margin.
255 00:41:34.570 ⇒ 00:41:53.190 Robert Tseng: Because the same people that are working those clients, when they are… we have everybody track their time and everything, so, when they’re spending their time in internal stand-ups or internal meetings that aren’t with the clients, that gets billed to us as part of our operating margin instead. And it’s, like, 25% of that,
256 00:41:53.360 ⇒ 00:42:00.540 Robert Tseng: of that, of our operating margin is just from our delivery team spending time in internal meetings.
257 00:42:00.750 ⇒ 00:42:08.559 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I’m curious, and we’re a remote company, like, kind of hearing that, like, how would you, how would you approach that problem?
258 00:42:09.170 ⇒ 00:42:17.469 Garrett Gibson: Yeah, I think just ensuring, like, why is, like, first asking the question, like, why is so much time, you know, spent on meetings? Is it that…
259 00:42:17.650 ⇒ 00:42:21.140 Garrett Gibson: Like, we need to look at opportunities to…
260 00:42:21.470 ⇒ 00:42:27.309 Garrett Gibson: invest on taking on new scope of work, kind of how you mentioned before, right? So how do we…
261 00:42:27.670 ⇒ 00:42:31.090 Garrett Gibson: look at opportunities to expand on current.
262 00:42:31.300 ⇒ 00:42:44.090 Garrett Gibson: projects, right, that we’re working on, like expanding the scope there, or, you know, going back to that… that business development, right, of seeking out new opportunities, right, for projects, right, and things like that. So I think…
263 00:42:44.210 ⇒ 00:42:56.290 Garrett Gibson: That way, it gives, an opportunity to focus more on… on… on other type of work besides, you know, just, like, meeting time, right? Because I think meetings, it’s not really, like…
264 00:42:56.450 ⇒ 00:43:16.149 Garrett Gibson: You know, sometimes I even had, like, 5 meetings a week, you know, at some of my previous jobs, and I appreciated that because, you know, you can spend a lot more time focusing on things like actually updating the status reporting, right, for leadership, as opposed to, you know, talking and meeting about updating it, right? Or something like that, you know?
265 00:43:16.900 ⇒ 00:43:34.420 Robert Tseng: Yeah, yeah. I think that’s… Okay, so I mean, I guess what you’re suggesting of, like, okay, people spend… should spend their time, either going to sell new business or trying to, like, look for expansion opportunities within the accounts that they’re working on, instead of kind of being in meetings. Yeah, okay, sure, I think that’s… that’s fair.
266 00:43:34.600 ⇒ 00:43:37.590 Robert Tseng: I would say that, like, Yeah, it’s…
267 00:43:38.010 ⇒ 00:43:51.500 Robert Tseng: like, the goal for Q2 there would be to, like, cut meeting time from, like… for… for people who are staffed on clients, that 25% needs to go to 15%. Like, that’s… that’s… like, that’s one of the… that’s one of the OKRs there.
268 00:43:51.500 ⇒ 00:44:05.630 Garrett Gibson: And so, like, what tasks do you do to, like, I mean, essentially replace that? Like, I feel like people almost need to own something else, like, so that way it’s, like, a higher priority than, you know, some meaning that maybe isn’t a higher priority, right?
269 00:44:06.060 ⇒ 00:44:07.060 Robert Tseng: Yeah?
270 00:44:07.190 ⇒ 00:44:20.929 Robert Tseng: Interesting. So you’re suggesting that, like, if you help people to prioritize something above the meetings, then, like, the meeting time will go down. Yeah, I mean, that’s an interesting way to put it. I never really thought about that.
271 00:44:20.930 ⇒ 00:44:24.740 Garrett Gibson: Ownership of, of more, essentially.
272 00:44:24.930 ⇒ 00:44:25.620 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
273 00:44:25.800 ⇒ 00:44:26.210 Garrett Gibson: Yeah.
274 00:44:26.210 ⇒ 00:44:28.360 Robert Tseng: I guess I would kind of…
275 00:44:28.610 ⇒ 00:44:31.010 Robert Tseng: Push back a little bit and say that, like.
276 00:44:31.180 ⇒ 00:44:36.129 Robert Tseng: I mean, from my experience so far, I feel like…
277 00:44:36.750 ⇒ 00:44:55.540 Robert Tseng: not everybody… like, most people don’t want to be owners, is what I’ve seen. Like, I think they’re… most people actually just want to take tickets and execute their tickets and be told what to do, and there’s, like, a small… much smaller percentage of people that actually want to… that are… that are really outcome… outcome-driven.
278 00:44:56.310 ⇒ 00:45:01.439 Garrett Gibson: And I guess if it’s more transactional like that, then it would just be, like, getting new work, right? Or…
279 00:45:01.820 ⇒ 00:45:04.369 Garrett Gibson: Putting the onus on them to, like, develop…
280 00:45:04.660 ⇒ 00:45:11.210 Garrett Gibson: To develop new business, right? Or expand the current scope of the projects that they’re working on.
281 00:45:11.890 ⇒ 00:45:24.959 Robert Tseng: Yeah, well, I mean, so, if you… if you believe that people could do that more, I mean, that’s more optimistic than I am. I’m curious, like, how would you suggest, kind of, getting people to… to do that? Or, like, kind of what… what… like, how… I mean, yeah, how would you…
282 00:45:24.960 ⇒ 00:45:30.619 Garrett Gibson: That’s on the project, right, that they’re working on. I think that, I mean, they can make recommendations, right, on…
283 00:45:30.800 ⇒ 00:45:36.539 Garrett Gibson: Like, if it’s building new dashboards, like, if it’s an analytics project, or…
284 00:45:36.720 ⇒ 00:45:44.330 Garrett Gibson: you know, coming up with new KPIs that might bring new insight, right, to the business that hadn’t been thought about before. So I think just…
285 00:45:44.580 ⇒ 00:45:49.869 Garrett Gibson: Yeah, just peeling the onion back a little bit more on whatever the current initiative is.
286 00:45:50.860 ⇒ 00:45:54.480 Garrett Gibson: I think that… Could be.
287 00:45:55.390 ⇒ 00:45:56.580 Garrett Gibson: Opportunity.
288 00:45:57.390 ⇒ 00:45:59.619 Robert Tseng: I see. Okay.
289 00:46:00.260 ⇒ 00:46:04.690 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I will kind of take… I’ll stop the kind of girl question there, I’ll let you
290 00:46:05.170 ⇒ 00:46:08.650 Robert Tseng: Ask me a couple questions, I appreciate you, kind of, Following…
291 00:46:08.650 ⇒ 00:46:13.439 Garrett Gibson: I mean, even with AI today, like, there’s a lot of things that, like, we don’t even think about, and it’s like…
292 00:46:13.600 ⇒ 00:46:28.680 Garrett Gibson: having that iterative, agile mindset in today’s day and age is really important because, like, if you work with AI once, it might give you an answer. If you work with AI after the 10th time, it’ll probably give you a finished product, and that’s kind of what I gave you today, right, in terms of the presentation.
293 00:46:28.860 ⇒ 00:46:36.769 Garrett Gibson: And so, like, with any project that you’re working on, whatever the statement of work is on, I think you could always find new ideas, right, today to…
294 00:46:37.320 ⇒ 00:46:40.390 Garrett Gibson: You know, find new work, essentially.
295 00:46:40.900 ⇒ 00:46:45.639 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I think to your… I mean, to that point, I guess…
296 00:46:45.640 ⇒ 00:46:59.869 Robert Tseng: kind of the value that I’m… value that you’re communicating to me is you really… you bet on iterate… on, like, on this iterative process. I think it shows in the quality of your work, and I’m… I’m intrigued by it. Like, I’m… I’m a little bit, like…
297 00:46:59.870 ⇒ 00:47:10.890 Robert Tseng: how long does it take to get someone to do that? Are people really that persistent to be able to get it to a product like the way that Garrett is? But if Garrett comes in and he’s able to help our team do it, maybe that’s helpful, because I think what happens.
298 00:47:10.890 ⇒ 00:47:12.199 Garrett Gibson: Yeah, I think there’s…
299 00:47:12.200 ⇒ 00:47:12.900 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
300 00:47:12.900 ⇒ 00:47:19.730 Garrett Gibson: Yeah, there’s training that comes along with that. I think that, like, I mean, if it only took me, like, 4 days or less to produce this.
301 00:47:19.900 ⇒ 00:47:27.779 Garrett Gibson: If you just handed this to someone else, they might not be able to do that, so there’s definitely kind of a knowledge sharing… knowledge transfer, kind of…
302 00:47:28.080 ⇒ 00:47:29.889 Garrett Gibson: Well… Oh, that’s true.
303 00:47:29.890 ⇒ 00:47:30.230 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
304 00:47:31.670 ⇒ 00:47:39.360 Robert Tseng: I don’t think we have a shortage of tools or knowledge at this point. I think AI has eliminated that. I think it really is a cultural shift, and so, you know.
305 00:47:39.750 ⇒ 00:47:55.649 Robert Tseng: the person that we would… I mean, this… this role that we can define together is, like, yeah, I mean, I think you have… you have the skills, I think the individual, like, your standards are there. I think where… what would be helpful coming… I mean, I would like you to talk… have you talked to Uten, my business partner, yet?
306 00:47:56.100 ⇒ 00:47:58.410 Garrett Gibson: Not yet, actually. Okay. Yeah.
307 00:47:58.410 ⇒ 00:48:15.459 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I think, usually, like, only one of us needs to kind of talk to the candidates, but I actually think I would like you to talk to him as well. I mean, I’m gonna give… I think I’m gonna give him, like, a good rep on, like, hey, you should really talk to Garrett, this is what I think. But yeah, I think he’s gonna really…
308 00:48:15.680 ⇒ 00:48:27.620 Robert Tseng: kind of… he’s a little bit more philosophical with me than me. He’s the… he’s the technical… he’s the CTO, or like… I mean, we’re co-CEOs, but technically, he’s the systems architect for kind of how we run our business, and so…
309 00:48:27.620 ⇒ 00:48:27.980 Garrett Gibson: Absolutely.
310 00:48:27.980 ⇒ 00:48:32.449 Robert Tseng: I think he’d be very intrigued by your position, that, like.
311 00:48:32.960 ⇒ 00:48:45.639 Robert Tseng: yeah, building this culture of iteration, and that… and, like, is that, like, what we need at this stage? Because I totally thought, coming into this conversation.
312 00:48:45.640 ⇒ 00:48:56.170 Robert Tseng: it was gonna be, I… we need somebody who is a rock… like, a superstar, and, like, setting high standards, who’s, like, you know, just their… their first or second…
313 00:48:56.170 ⇒ 00:49:05.640 Robert Tseng: try, like, effort is just gonna be… was just gonna raise the bar. But I think what I’m getting from you, and, like, your experiences, and the story that you’re sharing with me, is that, like.
314 00:49:05.920 ⇒ 00:49:25.660 Robert Tseng: there is, like, a… yeah, like, there is an iterative way to kind of raise the bar for people, and that’s… I guess that’s, like, if I were to summarize, like, the one-sentence, like, theme that I’m getting from this conversation with you, like, that’s… that’s what I think, like, GARET stands for, like, you know, in his role. Absolutely. Would you feel like that’s a fair assessment of you?
315 00:49:25.660 ⇒ 00:49:35.120 Garrett Gibson: Yeah, just to evolve, kind of, over time, and I think you can apply that, like, to even other areas in your life, like, you know, as you get better at sports, or you learn something new.
316 00:49:35.270 ⇒ 00:49:37.830 Garrett Gibson: It’s, you know, you’re gonna iterate on it, and…
317 00:49:37.990 ⇒ 00:49:40.299 Garrett Gibson: You know, develop your knowledge, and…
318 00:49:40.560 ⇒ 00:49:43.080 Garrett Gibson: You know, develop skills, things like that, so…
319 00:49:43.590 ⇒ 00:49:57.740 Robert Tseng: Sure. Well, I know we’re a little bit of time, I’m happy to go a little over, and if you have any questions that you want to ask me, yeah, anything on the table, logistically, or kind of, yeah, if, you know, is this… I mean, is this still something that you’re interested in, and whatever
320 00:49:58.150 ⇒ 00:49:59.789 Robert Tseng: You can… everything’s on the table, no worries.
321 00:49:59.790 ⇒ 00:50:11.980 Garrett Gibson: Absolutely. No, yeah, it definitely sounds like a great opportunity. I think, it sounds like I can kind of blend, you know, my skill sets in this role, and I also like the opportunity of being able to kind of, you know, have that business development aspect, and…
322 00:50:12.110 ⇒ 00:50:19.310 Garrett Gibson: You know, help, you know, have opportunities to drive, you know, the company forward, you know, obtain new clients, things like that.
323 00:50:20.900 ⇒ 00:50:28.210 Garrett Gibson: I guess I’ll ask you, about your kind of background. How did you kind of start out, like, at Brainforge and stuff like that, and what did you work.
324 00:50:28.210 ⇒ 00:50:28.840 Robert Tseng: Sure.
325 00:50:28.840 ⇒ 00:50:29.370 Garrett Gibson: work on before.
326 00:50:29.370 ⇒ 00:50:30.220 Robert Tseng: Yep.
327 00:50:30.370 ⇒ 00:50:44.769 Robert Tseng: Yeah, like, so I’ve been kind of consulting for 3 years now. My last in-house role, I was leading the data team at Ruggable. They’re, like, a D2C econ brand in LA.
328 00:50:45.280 ⇒ 00:50:53.149 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I guess, like… and my business partner was kind of an early data engineer at WeWork. We were both part of massive data teams, like.
329 00:50:53.660 ⇒ 00:51:13.620 Robert Tseng: that were really bloated, and I think, like, the tech has fundamentally changed, and we saw it coming when we both kind of jumped into, kind of, services, thinking that, like, the opportunity was now to basically do the same work we were doing, but leaner, and for multiple clients, to try to, like, really just make more money from it, I guess.
330 00:51:13.870 ⇒ 00:51:30.229 Robert Tseng: I… we thought that that was true 3 years ago, and I think in the past 6 months, the tech has took a meaningful step that, like, if no… if the models do not get any better, I don’t even care about GPT-5.5 or whatever, it doesn’t matter. I think the tech is already there, in terms of, like.
331 00:51:30.230 ⇒ 00:51:44.849 Robert Tseng: most data work, it can be automated. And we’re already telling you, 20% of our tickets are AI kind of executed. I think that… that will… that percentage will continue to go up. Like, I could… I could see it going up to 50% by the end of… end of the year.
332 00:51:44.850 ⇒ 00:51:51.859 Robert Tseng: And so I think the window of opportunity for, like, kind of Davis data services is limited.
333 00:51:52.310 ⇒ 00:51:56.170 Robert Tseng: I think this is a business that will kind of… it’s like a… we…
334 00:51:56.550 ⇒ 00:52:03.950 Robert Tseng: just ride this wave, do as much as we can in the next 2 years, and I… I think that’s… I think that’s it. Like, I think…
335 00:52:04.090 ⇒ 00:52:19.519 Robert Tseng: you know, a single, like, a one-man data team is, like, is already possible today for the best data people, and in two years from now, it’ll be even, like, a low-level data person can basically run a data team by… on their own. So, with all of their, like, kind of, like, agents. So…
336 00:52:19.520 ⇒ 00:52:38.980 Robert Tseng: Yeah, that’s my perspective on, like, why I’m in the Brainforge, like, how I… how I ended up in Brainforge, and, like, why… what we’re… what I’m looking to… to… to do with, with Brainforge in the next… in the next year or two years. So I think it’s going to be very exciting. We’re trying to grow as quickly as we can now, and yeah, just get a good outcome for the people that are on board.
337 00:52:38.980 ⇒ 00:52:39.600 Robert Tseng: So…
338 00:52:39.600 ⇒ 00:52:40.140 Garrett Gibson: Cool.
339 00:52:40.390 ⇒ 00:52:44.419 Garrett Gibson: And, and you’re based in New York, right? Is that where you live right now?
340 00:52:44.940 ⇒ 00:52:50.739 Robert Tseng: I am. Although, you know, we have 5 people in LA, I mean, I know you’re in LA as well.
341 00:52:50.740 ⇒ 00:52:52.379 Garrett Gibson: They have another, yeah.
342 00:52:52.380 ⇒ 00:52:56.859 Robert Tseng: enough people in LA, like, I might end up coming back to LA.
343 00:52:57.450 ⇒ 00:52:58.190 Robert Tseng: So…
344 00:52:58.190 ⇒ 00:53:00.260 Garrett Gibson: So you lived here originally then, right?
345 00:53:00.430 ⇒ 00:53:07.049 Robert Tseng: Yeah, when I started, I guess, like, my previous company was called Pungo, Brainforge was.
346 00:53:07.050 ⇒ 00:53:07.580 Garrett Gibson: Okay.
347 00:53:07.580 ⇒ 00:53:27.320 Robert Tseng: partners brand. We basically merged. It’s the same, it’s the same company, but, like, I… the people I had were in LA at first. I tried to build a team in New York over the past two years. It didn’t really pan out. Like, people have come and go. Somehow the LA team has just continued to get bigger, and then we have people kind of scattered across the world, but we’re about 25 people right now.
348 00:53:27.520 ⇒ 00:53:30.590 Garrett Gibson: Okay, cool. That’s a good size.
349 00:53:31.010 ⇒ 00:53:35.749 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, I don’t really want to grow any bigger. I feel like I want to keep it at 20, 20 people.
350 00:53:35.750 ⇒ 00:53:40.919 Garrett Gibson: Yeah, with, like, an AI company, you don’t really need a big headcount, right? So… Yeah.
351 00:53:40.950 ⇒ 00:53:55.680 Robert Tseng: But yeah, I mean, you know, if… I guess if this LA office thing ends up becoming… coming to fruition, I don’t know if Caleb mentioned it, if it’s possible that, like, hybrid will be, like, what we want in LA. I don’t know if you’d be okay with that.
352 00:53:55.680 ⇒ 00:54:04.480 Garrett Gibson: Absolutely, yeah. I actually probably appreciate hybrid a little bit more, just because it’s cool, like, being able to see people in person and things like that, you know, so…
353 00:54:04.480 ⇒ 00:54:06.599 Robert Tseng: Yeah. And what part of LA are you in?
354 00:54:06.750 ⇒ 00:54:08.830 Garrett Gibson: I’m in a Redondo Beach area.
355 00:54:09.020 ⇒ 00:54:10.530 Robert Tseng: Oh, great, okay.
356 00:54:10.530 ⇒ 00:54:12.219 Garrett Gibson: Yeah, do you know where that is, right?
357 00:54:12.660 ⇒ 00:54:13.370 Robert Tseng: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
358 00:54:13.370 ⇒ 00:54:14.410 Garrett Gibson: Very cool, yeah.
359 00:54:14.410 ⇒ 00:54:16.699 Robert Tseng: I mean, everybody is on the west side of LA.
360 00:54:16.700 ⇒ 00:54:19.229 Garrett Gibson: Yeah, you’re a little bit…
361 00:54:19.230 ⇒ 00:54:20.789 Robert Tseng: Further south, but.
362 00:54:20.790 ⇒ 00:54:21.529 Garrett Gibson: Okay, cool.
363 00:54:21.530 ⇒ 00:54:24.530 Robert Tseng: I think most of the team is actually in, like, Culver City.
364 00:54:24.530 ⇒ 00:54:25.340 Garrett Gibson: Okay, yeah.
365 00:54:25.340 ⇒ 00:54:28.960 Robert Tseng: and Venice, so I guess it’s all kind of there.
366 00:54:28.960 ⇒ 00:54:31.310 Garrett Gibson: area, right? Yeah, yeah.
367 00:54:31.310 ⇒ 00:54:31.680 Robert Tseng: ugh.
368 00:54:31.680 ⇒ 00:54:33.780 Garrett Gibson: Cool. Cool.
369 00:54:34.440 ⇒ 00:54:45.500 Garrett Gibson: Well, yeah, I think those are… those are kind of the main things I had. Yeah, I mean, in my perspective, it sounds like a great opportunity. I think, I feel like I could add a lot of value, you know, to the company, and…
370 00:54:45.770 ⇒ 00:54:50.889 Garrett Gibson: Yeah, excited to potentially contribute.
371 00:54:50.890 ⇒ 00:55:01.449 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so I’ll definitely connect you with Utam. I think I’m gonna tell him to give you a call. I appreciate you being flexible with this interview process. I mean, I would just say, kind of like…
372 00:55:01.730 ⇒ 00:55:09.599 Robert Tseng: Yeah, and he… I mean, like I said, he’s gonna really, kind of, probably talk to you about your vision and, like, the philosophy side of.
373 00:55:09.600 ⇒ 00:55:10.000 Garrett Gibson: Yes.
374 00:55:10.000 ⇒ 00:55:14.629 Robert Tseng: this type of decision. Absolutely. Yeah, I think we both look at your background, we’re like.
375 00:55:14.980 ⇒ 00:55:28.569 Robert Tseng: like, yeah, why would somebody with so much enterprise experience want to come and join, like, a small company? And I think he’ll probably ask something similar, so I’m just kind of giving you a heads up on what you could probably expect from him, but otherwise, I really enjoyed this conversation. Yeah.
376 00:55:28.570 ⇒ 00:55:29.040 Garrett Gibson: I appreciate it.
377 00:55:29.040 ⇒ 00:55:43.159 Robert Tseng: the time you spent on the exercise, and, yeah, you know, I don’t know if you’re recruiting for any other roles, but, you know, even if this doesn’t work out, you know, feel free to… yeah, you have… consider me, like, a part of your network now, and I’d be happy to make any intros.
378 00:55:43.160 ⇒ 00:55:48.939 Garrett Gibson: Absolutely. Cool. Yeah, I appreciate that. Thanks so much, Robert. Yeah, looking forward to the call with, Utzan as well. Alright.
379 00:55:48.940 ⇒ 00:55:49.350 Robert Tseng: Thanks, Garret.
380 00:55:49.500 ⇒ 00:55:52.139 Garrett Gibson: Talk to you later. Have a good day. Alright, bye. Bye.