Meeting Title: Brainforge x Element Project Onboarding Date: 2026-03-19 Meeting participants: Advait Nandakumar Menon, Uttam Kumaran


WEBVTT

1 00:00:10.770 00:00:11.830 Uttam Kumaran: Hello.

2 00:00:13.430 00:00:14.890 Advait Nandakumar Menon: Hey, hey, what’s up?

3 00:00:15.400 00:00:16.530 Uttam Kumaran: Hey, how are you?

4 00:00:17.560 00:00:19.579 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, nice to see you too.

5 00:00:19.760 00:00:21.090 Uttam Kumaran: How’s the week going?

6 00:00:22.610 00:00:30.889 Advait Nandakumar Menon: So far, so good, settling in, getting used to all the tools, the workflows, and everything, slowly getting onboarded, but yeah, settling in nice.

7 00:00:30.890 00:00:39.970 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, cool. Yeah, there’s a lot to… a lot to, unpack, and, like, I… I hope you’re impressed by, like, some of the AI stuff that we’re doing, so…

8 00:00:39.970 00:00:55.999 Advait Nandakumar Menon: Yeah, I… I did, yeah. Like, yesterday I was trying to understand the whole automation, the Brainforge platform that you guys have built, so… I think it’s a really nice, reusable template you have set up over here, so… Yeah, I’m slowly getting used to it, but it’s really impressive.

9 00:00:56.000 00:01:11.110 Uttam Kumaran: Cool, thank you. Yeah, I mean, we’re… that’s why I sent a message today, like, if you have any thoughts while you’re onboarding onto it, anything that’s difficult, or anything where you’re like, hey, I like this, but I wonder if I see it a little bit differently or get more help, like, you just send a message anywhere. Sure.

10 00:01:11.110 00:01:11.510 Advait Nandakumar Menon: It’s.

11 00:01:11.510 00:01:20.660 Uttam Kumaran: meant to be something that everybody’s using for all their work, whether it’s drafting documents, analysis, like, research, whatever. So, that’s great.

12 00:01:20.660 00:01:21.220 Advait Nandakumar Menon: But yeah.

13 00:01:21.220 00:01:27.849 Uttam Kumaran: I’m pumped, like, I’m glad I know, like, we got through some of the, like, the visa stuff and everything.

14 00:01:27.850 00:01:28.979 Advait Nandakumar Menon: Oh, yeah.

15 00:01:28.980 00:01:36.649 Uttam Kumaran: I’m glad, like, that’s all, but the team has been excited to sort of have you on board, and like, yeah, I’m also excited that you’re starting to beat everybody on the team, so…

16 00:01:37.460 00:01:41.459 Advait Nandakumar Menon: Yeah, yeah, thank you for giving me this opportunity as well, so…

17 00:01:41.470 00:01:59.039 Advait Nandakumar Menon: Try, like, learning about brain force and the kind of work you’re doing, driving forward with the data and AI aspect specifically, it’s been, really wonderful to look at from the outside perspective, but, giving me the opportunity to work in it as well is, I’m really grateful for that, so thank you.

18 00:01:59.040 00:02:05.799 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so tell me, tell me any questions or any thoughts, like, how can I be helpful? Like, yeah, anything.

19 00:02:08.009 00:02:16.750 Advait Nandakumar Menon: I would first want to understand, like, so right now I’m working on the Element project, right? So, so we are in the phase of

20 00:02:16.880 00:02:25.879 Advait Nandakumar Menon: delivering the BI aspect, is it? Like, the data engineering, the… all the data architecture stuff is, done, or…

21 00:02:25.880 00:02:29.170 Uttam Kumaran: It’s actually all a little, kind of happening in the Yeah.

22 00:02:29.170 00:02:29.690 Advait Nandakumar Menon: Head, I don’.

23 00:02:29.690 00:02:37.419 Uttam Kumaran: kind of happening in parallel right now, so let me show you, like, a view of, like, what that looks like.

24 00:02:37.680 00:02:38.470 Uttam Kumaran: Welcome.

25 00:02:38.470 00:02:45.429 Advait Nandakumar Menon: I was just going through the data platform documentation that you guys have, the spreadsheet. Cool. I was just going through it, so… yeah.

26 00:02:45.430 00:02:50.489 Uttam Kumaran: Great, great, great. Yeah, so, like, this is, this is sort of our Gantt chart on, like.

27 00:02:50.630 00:03:02.030 Uttam Kumaran: where we are on pieces. And so, we actually have been, like, sorry, some of these are, let me try to get to the old baseline.

28 00:03:02.870 00:03:13.409 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so we actually are working through Amazon, working through Walmart, this is all, like, data being ingested. We have our dashboards.

29 00:03:13.410 00:03:32.719 Uttam Kumaran: And then we’re working through, like, a lot of different, reporting at the same time. So all three are continuing to happen. We have things that we’re ingesting, we have things that we’re modeling, and then we have, like, our dashboards and our analytics. So that… the dashboard piece just recently started to… that work stream just recently started to… to happen.

30 00:03:33.840 00:03:37.950 Advait Nandakumar Menon: Okay. So, is retail and wholesale the focus for now? Is that.

31 00:03:37.950 00:03:39.140 Uttam Kumaran: Yes, that’s correct.

32 00:03:39.140 00:03:41.580 Advait Nandakumar Menon: the number one priority right now? Okay.

33 00:03:41.580 00:03:42.820 Uttam Kumaran: That is correct, yes.

34 00:03:43.240 00:03:48.149 Advait Nandakumar Menon: Okay, okay, yeah, that’s what I also understood from that document as well, so…

35 00:03:48.530 00:03:57.770 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so, like, I’ll kind of show you, like, this is actually, like, our, our presentation, today…

36 00:03:58.390 00:03:58.789 Advait Nandakumar Menon: I’ll be presenting.

37 00:03:58.790 00:04:12.649 Uttam Kumaran: this in, like, 25 minutes or so, but we’ll kind of walk through, like, this is sort of like our North Star for our engagement. So we’re understanding the commercial side of the business, and I don’t know how familiar you are with, like, e-commerce businesses at all.

38 00:04:13.530 00:04:24.249 Advait Nandakumar Menon: I have a rough idea, but, not, that much experience with e-commerce. Specifically, I haven’t worked with e-commerce clients as such, so… yeah.

39 00:04:24.250 00:04:26.769 Uttam Kumaran: Like, yeah, I think, like, even at high level.

40 00:04:26.990 00:04:28.569 Advait Nandakumar Menon: Like, at the high level.

41 00:04:28.570 00:04:40.090 Uttam Kumaran: things, they’re selling things online, these guys are selling things in stores, they’re selling things through Costco and, like, wholesale. And so, roughly, what they’re trying to do is measure how much things they can sell, what are the things they’re selling.

42 00:04:40.150 00:04:49.999 Uttam Kumaran: who they’re selling to, right? So it’s really focused on the commercial side of the business. And then there’s also pieces around supply chain, inventory, things like that. And so.

43 00:04:50.420 00:05:02.330 Uttam Kumaran: They sell through Amazon, through Costco, through Shopify, Walmart, Target, like, a lot of different areas. So our main number one goal is to understand everything about how they sell. And so we’re going.

44 00:05:02.330 00:05:02.650 Advait Nandakumar Menon: resource.

45 00:05:02.650 00:05:05.630 Uttam Kumaran: Source by source, ingesting the data, bringing it in.

46 00:05:05.760 00:05:17.270 Uttam Kumaran: You know, and then… and then we’re sort of driving towards measuring that. So today, we’ll… we’re gonna kind of… we’ll walk them through what… the status of our Omniaccelerator, and so really.

47 00:05:18.250 00:05:36.520 Uttam Kumaran: So, really, that, like, this is sort of, hey, we’re… where we are in our pilot of setting up the BI tool. Greg is going to be walking through our plan of, like, our pilot plan, how we’re ramping up, what is the phased approach. Then we’ll kind of be presenting, like, talking a little bit about, like,

48 00:05:36.590 00:05:42.610 Uttam Kumaran: adoption, like, how do we talk about the adoption of the BI tool within Element? We’re gonna be talking.

49 00:05:42.610 00:05:42.970 Advait Nandakumar Menon: talking about.

50 00:05:42.970 00:05:49.260 Uttam Kumaran: everything around ingestion, so we’re still doing data engineering work, we’re still modeling data, and then…

51 00:05:49.260 00:05:50.050 Advait Nandakumar Menon: Okay.

52 00:05:50.050 00:05:52.069 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, that’s our presentation today. So…

53 00:05:52.700 00:06:05.399 Uttam Kumaran: sort of all the pieces are still being worked on. We should be done with all the ingestion, maybe in, like, 3 months, and then modeling will take a bit longer, but right now, the star of the show is everything on the analytics, strategy, BI.

54 00:06:06.700 00:06:13.760 Advait Nandakumar Menon: Okay. So, when did this project start? You’re saying everything is going in parallel right now, so when did this…

55 00:06:14.260 00:06:15.319 Uttam Kumaran: We started in November.

56 00:06:15.320 00:06:15.850 Advait Nandakumar Menon: Nope.

57 00:06:16.200 00:06:17.330 Advait Nandakumar Menon: Okay, okay.

58 00:06:17.330 00:06:20.360 Uttam Kumaran: And really, it was, like, maybe a month and a half of, like, discovery.

59 00:06:21.050 00:06:21.790 Advait Nandakumar Menon: Okay.

60 00:06:23.660 00:06:30.259 Uttam Kumaran: And so, then we started really working this year, and then we’re signing a renewal right now to expand our relationship, you know, so…

61 00:06:30.440 00:06:41.550 Advait Nandakumar Menon: Okay, okay. So, like, it went from discovery and for, like, for 3 months of contract, and another renewal is what you’re trying to, get from them right now?

62 00:06:41.550 00:06:48.849 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so we went through discovery, but we also build. So, we don’t do a lot of, like, formal consulting delivery where it… discovery, where it’s like.

63 00:06:48.920 00:07:07.010 Uttam Kumaran: three months of meetings, like, we tend to just get things out. So, we did a lot of discovery, but then we also built, like, we built DBT, Snowflake, ETL tool, we pushed towards modeling. So, like, we’ve been making good progress. The renewal is about, can we bring on more team members?

64 00:07:07.100 00:07:24.830 Uttam Kumaran: So, really, I think, like, by the start of next month, we’re gonna start… get this… get a sense of, like, who’s gonna be on this account longer term. But, like, we have a line of sight into that, so that’s why I’m starting to loop in more people like Jasmine, like you, and, like, Amber, who are, like, starting to think about more of this… this client.

65 00:07:24.830 00:07:25.409 Advait Nandakumar Menon: Okay, that doesn’t.

66 00:07:25.410 00:07:40.510 Uttam Kumaran: But we have a lot of other clients as well, like, I think you’ll start to get exposure, you know, I think this week is really just gonna be focused on getting a sense for, like, how we do things, but we’re gonna have… you’re gonna have exposure onto SaaS businesses, we have, like, legal clients, so…

67 00:07:40.720 00:07:51.609 Uttam Kumaran: again, but I think in the strategy team, the whole goal is really, like, driving adoption of reporting, and then pushing out, like, the business actually is able to use those insights for decision making.

68 00:07:52.670 00:07:53.390 Advait Nandakumar Menon: Oh, God.

69 00:07:54.420 00:07:55.629 Advait Nandakumar Menon: That makes sense.

70 00:07:56.040 00:07:56.700 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

71 00:07:58.300 00:07:59.280 Advait Nandakumar Menon: Yeah, so…

72 00:08:00.170 00:08:15.340 Advait Nandakumar Menon: This was one of the first, not one of, this is the first project I’m having a look into, so that’s good. And I think, Robert, when I was talking to him, he mentioned, like, I’ll be working with Greg as well on, I think, Global VetLink is the other one.

73 00:08:15.340 00:08:16.420 Uttam Kumaran: That link, yeah.

74 00:08:18.130 00:08:20.640 Advait Nandakumar Menon: He mentioned, so… yeah.

75 00:08:20.770 00:08:21.329 Advait Nandakumar Menon: Yeah, that…

76 00:08:21.330 00:08:22.220 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t have.

77 00:08:22.220 00:08:23.820 Advait Nandakumar Menon: to that, but that’s another…

78 00:08:23.820 00:08:25.919 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t have a ton of context on.

79 00:08:26.040 00:08:37.480 Uttam Kumaran: But I’m… I’m really involved in, like, Element, Default, and CTA, but yeah, Greg leads that client. There’s some clients that I don’t… I’m not really familiar, I don’t know exactly what’s going on, so…

80 00:08:39.659 00:08:40.919 Advait Nandakumar Menon: Okay, okay.

81 00:08:42.770 00:08:43.169 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I mean.

82 00:08:43.179 00:08:44.069 Advait Nandakumar Menon: I think if…

83 00:08:44.070 00:08:54.230 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I think if one thing I can recommend, too, while you’re fresh, is to, yeah, try to use the AI tools as much as possible. Like, I think you’ll see that we’re very, very forward with that, and…

84 00:08:54.570 00:08:59.299 Uttam Kumaran: trying to use it as a partner to help you accelerate your work. It’s like, we’re really, really…

85 00:08:59.650 00:09:06.660 Uttam Kumaran: Intentionally, like, interested in, and especially for the strategy team, like, you guys are the star of the show when it comes to data.

86 00:09:06.760 00:09:22.460 Uttam Kumaran: And I want… I want you guys to be able to really take a customer, show them information, and then drive them to a decision where they can make more money. And, like, the faster and the more confident you guys are in doing that is, like, however I can be, you know, helpful to make that true.

87 00:09:23.440 00:09:42.140 Advait Nandakumar Menon: Yeah, yeah. So I was just using, like, I set up cursor in the morning slash afternoon, and I was trying to get a sense of this Element project, so I connected the Brainforge platform and the Element repositories from GitHub, and was just asking to summarize, like, where you guys are at, what’s being done.

88 00:09:42.370 00:09:49.570 Advait Nandakumar Menon: Like, essentially, like, a new person who’s stepping in and trying to understand, so I used Cursa for that.

89 00:09:49.570 00:09:50.180 Uttam Kumaran: Great.

90 00:09:50.180 00:09:55.790 Advait Nandakumar Menon: Yeah, I summarized it, pretty well, so from there, I’ve been looking at the documentation and stuff.

91 00:09:55.790 00:10:06.250 Uttam Kumaran: Cool. Yeah, I think we’re gonna be improving a little bit of how we do handoffs and onboarding onto specific clients, so that, like, yeah, if you have any feedback while you’re onboarding, you’re like, it would have been nice to see this.

92 00:10:06.460 00:10:24.389 Uttam Kumaran: like, I’m happy to take that, because I’m gonna be… I can work on the system, but also, look, if you have opportunity, if you’re also seeing things, you can push a PR with edits and create skills, and so everybody here, like, contributes back to the platform, and so that’s what I would suggest, too, is as you’re onboarding.

93 00:10:24.710 00:10:30.030 Uttam Kumaran: like, leave it in a better place than you found it, you know? That would be helpful.

94 00:10:32.600 00:10:33.350 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

95 00:10:35.080 00:10:39.550 Uttam Kumaran: Cool. What else, dude? Where are you, where are you at, like, in the States?

96 00:10:40.250 00:10:52.719 Advait Nandakumar Menon: I’m in Cincinnati, Ohio, so I came for my Master’s at the University of Cincinnati, so, I moved here, and I’ve been here only, so… yeah. What about you?

97 00:10:52.960 00:10:53.970 Uttam Kumaran: I’m in Austin.

98 00:10:54.470 00:10:58.210 Advait Nandakumar Menon: Okay, awesome. Yeah. Were you born and brought up in the States?

99 00:10:58.210 00:11:00.500 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I was… I was born in California.

100 00:11:00.950 00:11:02.100 Advait Nandakumar Menon: Okay, okay.

101 00:11:02.100 00:11:05.669 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, but then I lived, in New York for a while.

102 00:11:05.850 00:11:08.060 Uttam Kumaran: And then I’ve been here for maybe 4 years.

103 00:11:08.670 00:11:09.610 Advait Nandakumar Menon: Okay.

104 00:11:09.610 00:11:13.060 Uttam Kumaran: We have one other person in Ohio. Did you meet Sam yet?

105 00:11:13.970 00:11:17.159 Advait Nandakumar Menon: Nope, I don’t think so. Okay. I don’t recall.

106 00:11:17.160 00:11:25.429 Uttam Kumaran: Dan is on the AI team, but you’ll meet him. He’s out of office right now, but he’s in Ohio, you guys should go get coffee or something. I think he’s in Col… I think he’s in…

107 00:11:25.890 00:11:28.349 Uttam Kumaran: Maybe he’s in Columbus? I’m not sure.

108 00:11:28.570 00:11:31.200 Advait Nandakumar Menon: Okay, okay. I…

109 00:11:31.570 00:11:36.189 Advait Nandakumar Menon: Maybe I’ll reach out to him, but yeah, I… I don’t think I’ve heard that name before.

110 00:11:36.590 00:11:42.970 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. No, he’s great. You should, I’ll connect, like, I’ll connect you guys over, over Slack.

111 00:11:45.170 00:11:45.840 Advait Nandakumar Menon: Sure.

112 00:11:47.930 00:11:49.230 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, dude. Well, yeah.

113 00:11:49.230 00:11:50.299 Advait Nandakumar Menon: I also saw on him.

114 00:11:51.170 00:11:52.180 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, go ahead.

115 00:11:52.580 00:11:57.420 Advait Nandakumar Menon: Yeah, I think there is an internet issue on my end, sorry about that.

116 00:11:57.420 00:11:57.810 Uttam Kumaran: There you go.

117 00:11:57.810 00:12:04.450 Advait Nandakumar Menon: I saw you also speak Tamil, like, do you speak Tamil? I saw something listed on your LinkedIn.

118 00:12:04.450 00:12:06.389 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, but my whole family is from.

119 00:12:06.390 00:12:06.750 Advait Nandakumar Menon: Oh, God.

120 00:12:06.750 00:12:14.100 Uttam Kumaran: Tamil nod, and like, yeah, I could speak Tamil. I don’t speak it that often, but I understand really, really, like, fluently.

121 00:12:14.280 00:12:20.210 Uttam Kumaran: But because I don’t speak it that often here, it’s tough. I don’t know if you speak Tamil.

122 00:12:20.940 00:12:27.349 Advait Nandakumar Menon: Yeah, I am so… in India, I am from… I was born in Kerala, but I was brought up in Chennai my whole life.

123 00:12:27.350 00:12:33.609 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, okay, okay, nice. My cousin has a… my cousin has a nice house in Chennai, and like…

124 00:12:33.610 00:12:34.010 Advait Nandakumar Menon: I was there.

125 00:12:34.010 00:12:37.369 Uttam Kumaran: maybe a year and a half ago, but my family’s from Motheray.

126 00:12:37.900 00:12:39.140 Advait Nandakumar Menon: Oh, I’m gonna do it.

127 00:12:39.140 00:12:45.890 Uttam Kumaran: And so… I, all I do is watch Mother Eye Cooking… Mother Eye Food vlogs.

128 00:12:45.890 00:12:48.280 Advait Nandakumar Menon: I understand, the food there is really good.

129 00:12:48.770 00:12:52.070 Advait Nandakumar Menon: I haven’t been there myself, but yeah, yeah.

130 00:12:52.070 00:12:57.340 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I don’t know, is there good… if there’s… is there good, like, South Indian food in… near where you are?

131 00:12:58.410 00:13:04.580 Advait Nandakumar Menon: So, in Ohio and Cincinnati specifically, it’s more catered towards the Andhra people, so…

132 00:13:04.710 00:13:13.559 Advait Nandakumar Menon: Telugu Foods is something very popular here. I think in Texas, you might find a lot of variety, so that’s something I’m planning to do as well, maybe visit Texas for the…

133 00:13:13.560 00:13:14.490 Uttam Kumaran: Yes, of fun.

134 00:13:14.490 00:13:23.619 Advait Nandakumar Menon: Yeah, there are a lot of, like, I think even Malayali restaurants, Tamil restaurants, I’ve heard about it, so…

135 00:13:23.620 00:13:26.830 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, here in Houston, there’s a lot. Here, there’s some.

136 00:13:26.940 00:13:31.739 Uttam Kumaran: Oh yeah, that’s the one thing I miss, is, like, is the food, you know?

137 00:13:31.970 00:13:33.110 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

138 00:13:36.240 00:13:48.340 Uttam Kumaran: Cool, dude. Okay, well, I’m gonna go prepare for this call, but Slack me whatever you need. I’ll be interested in, like, I think you’ll… you’ll have an interesting time on our… tomorrow, we have our company call on every other Friday.

139 00:13:48.340 00:13:48.800 Advait Nandakumar Menon: Oh, yeah.

140 00:13:48.800 00:13:57.430 Uttam Kumaran: still get to see everybody. And yeah, I’m super, super excited, like, dive headfirst, try everything, so let me know how I can be helpful.

141 00:13:58.170 00:14:09.679 Advait Nandakumar Menon: Sure. Just one thing I’ll mention to you, I think you did this for Amber as well, it’s a training plan called I-983 that you may have to… I have to fill it out, and you can just go through it, and if you’re okay.

142 00:14:09.680 00:14:10.040 Uttam Kumaran: Totally.

143 00:14:10.040 00:14:22.090 Advait Nandakumar Menon: you can just, sign it off, and that’s something I have to send it to my university, so I would say that’s really the only pending thing with respect to the work authorization slash visa stuff.

144 00:14:22.390 00:14:23.930 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, okay, yeah, send it to me.

145 00:14:24.610 00:14:32.079 Advait Nandakumar Menon: Yeah, yeah, that’s the only thing I need from you, but yeah, I’m really trying to get a hang of things, and if I run into anything.

146 00:14:32.080 00:14:43.650 Uttam Kumaran: Send question, yeah, send questions to the channel, you’ll see that we’re a very async, like, communication environment, so people are slacking and huddling, so don’t feel shy at all, like, try to send some stuff, or…

147 00:14:43.650 00:14:58.370 Uttam Kumaran: you know, even if you, like, want to send something, a good thing is to, like, wake up and be like, hey everyone, I’m working on this today, you know, and that way you can get feedback from people. So that’s what I would suggest, you’ll meet people faster, you’ll get into the weeds faster, so… yeah.

148 00:14:59.820 00:15:07.019 Advait Nandakumar Menon: Okay, okay, yeah, that’s something I will, I’ll build over the course of, next few days, so yeah, thanks for that.

149 00:15:07.320 00:15:08.440 Uttam Kumaran: Cool. Perfect.

150 00:15:08.590 00:15:10.440 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, sir. Thank you so much.

151 00:15:10.440 00:15:15.009 Advait Nandakumar Menon: Okay. Yeah, thank you, then. Talk to you later. Bye. Bye-bye.