Meeting Title: Brainforge Sales Strategy Sync Date: 2026-03-20 Meeting participants: Jorrel Sto Tomas, Uttam Kumaran, Robert Tseng


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1 00:01:13.540 00:01:14.650 Uttam Kumaran: Edited.

2 00:01:14.780 00:01:17.139 Jorrel Sto Tomas: Hey, Tom, long time no talk. How you doing?

3 00:01:17.140 00:01:17.690 Uttam Kumaran: Damn.

4 00:01:23.610 00:01:24.530 Robert Tseng: Ayyyy!

5 00:01:25.900 00:01:27.529 Jorrel Sto Tomas: Hey, Robert, what’s going on?

6 00:01:27.830 00:01:29.060 Robert Tseng: Hey, guys!

7 00:01:29.320 00:01:31.260 Uttam Kumaran: Hey, sorry, my earphones just cut out.

8 00:01:31.390 00:01:36.519 Robert Tseng: No, all good. The, AI kickoff for Eden was… was great, yeah.

9 00:01:36.520 00:01:44.490 Uttam Kumaran: Okay! Dude, I was like… anytime you’re like, the AI kickoff was… I was like…

10 00:01:45.390 00:01:49.169 Uttam Kumaran: What was good about it? Tell me what changed, or, like, what was, like… yeah.

11 00:01:49.170 00:01:58.669 Robert Tseng: No, I think it was good that I paired with Pranav. Pranav is a little bit… a little bit, like, too engineer, like, minded.

12 00:01:58.670 00:01:59.330 Uttam Kumaran: It’d be better?

13 00:01:59.330 00:01:59.730 Robert Tseng: space.

14 00:01:59.730 00:02:02.060 Uttam Kumaran: He’s getting… do you think he’s getting better?

15 00:02:02.060 00:02:09.600 Robert Tseng: No, his communication is good, like, he shows his competence, but then, like, there’s a little bit too much jargon in what he’s saying. You know.

16 00:02:09.600 00:02:10.000 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.

17 00:02:10.009 00:02:18.859 Robert Tseng: like, there, and he’s like, yeah, first thing we need to do is establish all these vector clusters, and da-da-da-da-da, and it’s like, they’re not gonna know what the heck that even means, like, just…

18 00:02:19.600 00:02:25.080 Robert Tseng: spell it out, but it’s fine, I’m, like, there to kind of translate, so…

19 00:02:25.460 00:02:26.810 Uttam Kumaran: He’s learning quickly, yeah.

20 00:02:26.810 00:02:31.570 Robert Tseng: Yeah, no, he’s good. He’s good. Or, yeah, I mean, I hope he’s good.

21 00:02:31.570 00:02:38.980 Uttam Kumaran: Cool, dude. Jarrell, it’s good to be, like, connected again, and like… Yeah, I feel like…

22 00:02:39.250 00:02:45.610 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know if Robert kind of told you, but, like, a lot of things are moving fast around here, so I’m, like, pumped to see how we can work together.

23 00:02:46.070 00:02:57.950 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, I told Utam, I was like, look, I think Jarrell could come in today and sell our… sell our work. And, I don’t know what that would hap… what it would take, or what it would look like for him to do that, but…

24 00:02:57.950 00:03:06.510 Robert Tseng: you know, we just wanted to… yeah, I shared a doc with you, gave you a little bit of a sense of our… of our numbers, and kind of… I mean, I can elaborate a bit more, I know I didn’t really…

25 00:03:06.610 00:03:17.930 Robert Tseng: I left you hanging there with just some stuff to look through, so you let me know, like, where you feel like you want to fill in the blanks, and we can kind of… we can kind of go to wherever you feel like you want more… more information from.

26 00:03:19.860 00:03:27.880 Jorrel Sto Tomas: Yeah, I mean, I think, in general, I’ve gotten a good outlook from the weekly business review, as well as,

27 00:03:28.020 00:03:29.110 Jorrel Sto Tomas: the…

28 00:03:29.250 00:03:49.129 Jorrel Sto Tomas: kind of… at least from what you’ve typed out, Robert, what your gaps are regarding, you know, conversion from MQL to SQL, and whatnot. But I’m curious, yeah, just, like, in plain terms, where you guys are really seeing those gaps, and, yeah, just…

29 00:03:49.300 00:03:57.290 Jorrel Sto Tomas: I, I just wanna, I wanna get a better picture from, from both you and Utam, what the, yeah, what, what are your, what are your guys’ most, like.

30 00:03:58.570 00:04:04.760 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, let me give… let me give you… yeah, let me give you, like… my perspective is gonna be primarily on, like.

31 00:04:04.980 00:04:06.580 Uttam Kumaran: The thing we’re selling.

32 00:04:06.780 00:04:09.819 Uttam Kumaran: And I think we’re… we’re… we are, like…

33 00:04:10.000 00:04:17.369 Uttam Kumaran: We are continuing to sell the traditional, like, data work, which is, like, data warehousing, data modeling, data engineering.

34 00:04:17.519 00:04:19.559 Uttam Kumaran: BI and strategy.

35 00:04:20.029 00:04:26.830 Uttam Kumaran: I think that stuff, we actually have so many, like, case studies, tons of wins on, I think.

36 00:04:27.110 00:04:31.420 Uttam Kumaran: Like, literally, if you, like, just went out into the market and sold, you could probably…

37 00:04:31.750 00:04:34.699 Uttam Kumaran: You’d probably sell, like, $100,000 of business, like.

38 00:04:35.090 00:04:47.370 Uttam Kumaran: next week. Like, we are really, like, we have a solid set of assets, wins, and, like, a good credibility there. On the AI side is where we’re actually, like.

39 00:04:47.510 00:04:51.329 Uttam Kumaran: I think innovating in terms of new service development.

40 00:04:51.570 00:05:03.920 Uttam Kumaran: In particular, I think we’re finding that we internally have generated, like, developed a really, really good system for how we use AI, and we’re finding, like.

41 00:05:04.190 00:05:08.390 Uttam Kumaran: That clients are interested in very, very similar things to what we’re using.

42 00:05:08.500 00:05:13.049 Uttam Kumaran: And that we’re building, like, services around those new capabilities.

43 00:05:13.480 00:05:16.160 Uttam Kumaran: I would say, like, from…

44 00:05:16.450 00:05:31.380 Uttam Kumaran: a seller’s perspective, like, I think the first thing I mentioned is, like, just tried and true, like, data service stuff, whether that’s product analytics, data modeling, whatever. I think for really, like, what it is that’s unique is the AI stuff.

45 00:05:31.710 00:05:40.580 Uttam Kumaran: It’s unique because I think we’re some of the first people to… that are actually, like, able to go to market with, not only some of these

46 00:05:40.800 00:05:43.279 Uttam Kumaran: Tools and methodologies, but, like.

47 00:05:43.560 00:05:50.629 Uttam Kumaran: we are also using it so heavily internally. I think compared to a lot of people in the market selling this stuff, we’re, like.

48 00:05:50.950 00:05:55.130 Uttam Kumaran: basically, like, not frauds. Like, a lot of people that are selling…

49 00:05:55.610 00:06:02.389 Uttam Kumaran: software platforms that… that do things. They’re not bespoke to… to the things that clients need.

50 00:06:02.490 00:06:11.389 Uttam Kumaran: We also… the more we use the system, our system improves. So, like, and we finally, I think, in the last, sort of, 6 months, found that

51 00:06:11.820 00:06:18.670 Uttam Kumaran: The AI sort of context layer, the methodology around that, the outputs.

52 00:06:18.900 00:06:36.910 Uttam Kumaran: people are really, really interested in, and it wasn’t the case, like, 8, 12 months ago. And for that reason, like, I think that’s where, like, there’s a lot of money, and there’s a lot of opportunity for pricing in different ways, but the demand is, like, really extraordinary.

53 00:06:37.130 00:06:43.800 Uttam Kumaran: And I think we are, like… I think Brainforge is on the leading edge of some of the ways that we’re…

54 00:06:43.970 00:06:53.510 Uttam Kumaran: you know, transforming our business with AI, and so there’s an opportunity for someone to come in, look around, and be like, cool, I can go sell this.

55 00:06:56.000 00:07:15.940 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, and then, you know, I think the last piece about, sort of, us on the delivery side is we now have someone that leads recruiting, so we can easily staff, you know, up, you know, pretty mid-level senior people here in the States. Our internal team, like, we’re getting a lot more polished on how we move from, like, SOW to development.

56 00:07:16.320 00:07:24.129 Uttam Kumaran: And then the brand is growing, like, so I think we have a growing brand, and it’s continuing to grow, like, in the market, so that’s, like, my perspective from, like.

57 00:07:24.550 00:07:27.430 Uttam Kumaran: you know, if I was walking in and tasked to sell this.

58 00:07:27.590 00:07:32.619 Uttam Kumaran: I feel like we’ve set the groundwork, like, you know, pretty well. I’ll let Robert speak to, like.

59 00:07:32.900 00:07:38.869 Uttam Kumaran: Where in the, like, you know, conversion process and things were getting hung up on, but, like.

60 00:07:39.480 00:07:47.709 Uttam Kumaran: that’s, like, I think more of the, like, why Brain Forge, why now? Like, is there demand… is there demand for what we’re… what we’re actually selling?

61 00:07:50.640 00:07:54.250 Uttam Kumaran: Any, like, thoughts or… yeah, any questions?

62 00:07:55.330 00:08:00.640 Jorrel Sto Tomas: No, I mean, it’s… I briefly mentioned to Robert, the other day,

63 00:08:00.780 00:08:19.349 Jorrel Sto Tomas: I’m seeing a similar, just demand spike all of a sudden. I think part of it was just how fast AI has changed in the last 6 months, where it became from, you know, intangible to, now everyone wants to create their own clawed artifact.

64 00:08:19.820 00:08:20.320 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.

65 00:08:20.320 00:08:23.650 Jorrel Sto Tomas: wants to buy a Mac Mini. I’ve actually, I’ve had, like.

66 00:08:23.810 00:08:30.250 Jorrel Sto Tomas: several conversations in the last two days of companies that want to buy up Mac Minis just to run OpenClaw.

67 00:08:31.020 00:08:31.900 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.

68 00:08:31.900 00:08:39.159 Jorrel Sto Tomas: So, yeah, I agree with you. It’s, if there’s any time to sell, it’s now.

69 00:08:39.579 00:08:47.109 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, and what I would say is, like, I feel really lucky that not only have… I feel like the stuff you’re reading about,

70 00:08:47.549 00:08:52.469 Uttam Kumaran: on Twitter and on LinkedIn is stuff we’ve been doing for, like, more than a year.

71 00:08:53.119 00:08:58.459 Uttam Kumaran: And, like, if you think about the stuff you’re able to do on a personal level.

72 00:08:58.539 00:09:04.679 Uttam Kumaran: We’ve been doing that as a company for a while. Like, everybody in their company is on cursor.

73 00:09:04.759 00:09:24.519 Uttam Kumaran: building, like, things, not just engineers, like, sales, marketing, recruiting, operations. And everything that you’re seeing around open source tools, we basically are able to go from seeing something in the market to, like, weaving it into our platform in, like, you know, 48 hours.

74 00:09:24.889 00:09:32.509 Uttam Kumaran: The last piece is, yes, you’re seeing a lot of demand, but there’s few service firms that are able to actually, like, deliver.

75 00:09:32.779 00:09:47.759 Uttam Kumaran: Like, if you look at, like, the big consulting firms, nobody in there is, like, doing anything. Like, they’re… they’re, like, they’re kind of, like, a year behind in even getting an offering up to attack this. You also are gonna have a wealth of, like, freelancers that are, like.

76 00:09:48.089 00:09:51.459 Uttam Kumaran: I just did this personally, and then they go into an enterprise, and you’re like.

77 00:09:51.579 00:10:03.659 Uttam Kumaran: oh, this is… you’re not, like, a legit organization. So we’re in a really nice sweet spot to, like, completely capitalize, and we are also having a lot of these conversations at, like, Fortune 1000 level.

78 00:10:03.759 00:10:09.889 Uttam Kumaran: And we’re close. And the last piece I’ll say is, like, Robert and I are both selling part-time.

79 00:10:10.199 00:10:21.619 Uttam Kumaran: You know, me, it’s even, like, part, part, part-time, and we’re building… we’re bringing in business. So, we’re like, yo, if someone can just focus on this and just bring this thing home.

80 00:10:21.699 00:10:32.149 Uttam Kumaran: I feel like you’re gonna crack it, you know? And I… yeah, and I can… I think, probably, I hope, like, your question should be more like, okay, all those things being true, like, what’s broken?

81 00:10:32.259 00:10:36.579 Uttam Kumaran: And I think that’s probably what, like, Robert can, like, speak a little bit about, you know?

82 00:10:38.410 00:10:50.610 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, I guess, you know, I mean, Jerral, if you have any other questions, feel free to ask, otherwise, like, I feel like we… we see the opportunity now, and I want to show you, kind of, like, where… where you… I think you could fit in at Brainforge.

83 00:10:52.290 00:10:55.109 Jorrel Sto Tomas: Yeah, yeah, would love to see that, yeah.

84 00:10:55.590 00:11:03.939 Robert Tseng: Cool. Well, so, like, you know, I shared this talk with you, and I also shared our WBR with you. I mean, I run this… how I run the sales team, pretty much. And so…

85 00:11:03.940 00:11:19.610 Robert Tseng: I mean, there’s a lot of numbers here, but kind of… I’ll kind of call out a couple things that don’t pop out of the page. One is that, like, if you look at the proposal that were sent, like, we’re really… this is, like, the biggest, you know, like, this is the… this is the metric that matters. The more we send, these are the shots on goal that we have to close deals.

86 00:11:19.610 00:11:24.689 Robert Tseng: 80% of these are from partner referrals, and so this is, like, huge kudos to

87 00:11:24.690 00:11:35.889 Robert Tseng: I think largely Uten’s reputation in the industry. We’ve built out pretty strong partnerships with, like, Omni, Snowflake, you know, and the other kind of, like.

88 00:11:35.940 00:11:38.299 Robert Tseng: data… other… other data…

89 00:11:38.440 00:12:01.440 Robert Tseng: tools that are funneling us business, and also, you know, coming from our existing clients who are willing to kind of refer business to us because they like working with us. And then, like, you know, the rest is pretty much coming from just outbound, which is really just me, just chucking things out when I can here and there, either from kind of connections from events that I come… get through.

90 00:12:01.440 00:12:15.299 Robert Tseng: Some bidding platforms, like either Catalan or OROP work still, and then, yeah, I guess, like, beyond that, it’s like, we have all these lead lists, but we just don’t have people who can get on the phone and talk to these people in an intelligible way.

91 00:12:15.300 00:12:21.170 Robert Tseng: So, you know, we, you know, we obviously have, like, a couple other people on the go-to-market team.

92 00:12:21.170 00:12:37.929 Robert Tseng: who we had brought in originally, he’s truly not a salesperson. He’s a marketer, he can do the content side, but, like, put him in front of a client, he cannot sell, like what we have. And so, I think, like, that’s the biggest difference here, where I’m really looking for somebody who can

93 00:12:38.290 00:12:45.239 Robert Tseng: kind of come alongside me in the sense of, like, we have these lead lists, let’s just, like, take them and, you know.

94 00:12:45.240 00:13:10.180 Robert Tseng: get on calls with them, actually snuff out where the real opportunities are, and as soon as there’s a real opportunity, I think we have the supporting, like, kind of crew to develop proposals, pricing is already pretty, like, optimized and everything, and we can basically kind of get that to the finish line. And so the way I want to, like, kind of, you know, start small and incentivize them for you is, like, you know, if you feel like you can come in and you can activate this book of business, try to snuff out where the

95 00:13:10.180 00:13:21.739 Robert Tseng: opportunities are. As long as you can bring them to real opportunities, you’ll get credit for that, and it’s easy for us to assign you commission for that, and we were very generous with kind of how we do commission for new business.

96 00:13:21.740 00:13:27.790 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so I think that’s… that was… that… that’s kind of what I see from the bottom of the funnel.

97 00:13:27.790 00:13:42.859 Robert Tseng: at the top of the funnel, it’s just, like, meetings booked, to me, is, like, the only metric that matters, making sure that we’re actually spending enough time with leads. And between me, Utam, and I guess it was, like, and Luke, who is still at our company, will be a part of this.

98 00:13:42.860 00:13:50.269 Robert Tseng: But really, like, you know, we’re just making sure that we’re consistently, like, getting enough calls booked. And, you know, this is just a function of…

99 00:13:50.410 00:14:08.149 Robert Tseng: you know, you and I, like, you know, we’ve all been kind of founders at one point or another, and, you know, I’m sure you know how to build pipeline and just book meetings. So, I think once it does, I know, kind of, the stats for, like, how we measure up in terms of, like.

100 00:14:08.150 00:14:12.030 Robert Tseng: What… if we… if we fill pipeline.

101 00:14:12.030 00:14:23.280 Robert Tseng: what percentage of it is actually going to close? Like, I feel like our close rates are pretty high. It’s all kind of, like, outlined in the way that we’ve been tracking things here. So,

102 00:14:23.280 00:14:36.560 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I guess, like, that’s… that’s really, like, from a pipeline perspective, where the… the focus needs to be, which is really just getting somebody to come alongside with me and… and just fill… fill pipeline at the… at the top.

103 00:14:36.560 00:14:47.090 Robert Tseng: And, you know, if you want to be involved in closing business, you can feel free to… I mean, I’m happy to kind of do that with you, but I really just need… need somebody to…

104 00:14:47.280 00:15:02.489 Robert Tseng: to help me… help me build pipeline. That’s… that’s really what it is. So, it’s a little bit more involved than, like, lead list building, because we have a bunch of leads kind of floating around, but just kind of turning… it’s, like, really lead qualification is, like, the… is, like, the…

105 00:15:02.490 00:15:13.670 Robert Tseng: Is what I’m… is what we need here. And it… and it needs to be done through a call with… from… with somebody who can actually spot out, like, what’s a real fit and what’s not.

106 00:15:13.670 00:15:29.640 Robert Tseng: I’ve just… we’ve just had so many… like, our team gets really distracted, and there’s a lot of noise out there, so we get tossed opportunities that are not real opportunities all the time. And I think that’s really my frustration with, kind of, like, our current, like, kind of team setup, that, like, they’re not really, like.

107 00:15:30.030 00:15:49.200 Robert Tseng: kind of trusting the system, and just, like, kind of realizing that we have a top-of-funnel problem. That’s, like, the biggest… that’s the biggest issue. So, anyway, I’ll just pause there, kind of see… does that kind of check out with what your interpretation was of what you read here? And yeah, I mean, I can… we can kind of take it in whatever direction from there.

108 00:15:49.490 00:16:08.060 Jorrel Sto Tomas: Yeah, yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. So, you have no… so, just to get this interpretation correct here, so you have no problem getting lead lists and, like, generating those potential leads, but you’re having trouble converting those to qualified.

109 00:16:08.230 00:16:09.190 Jorrel Sto Tomas: leads.

110 00:16:09.490 00:16:13.310 Jorrel Sto Tomas: Is that what I’m… is that a correct interpretation?

111 00:16:13.470 00:16:17.489 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I would say that’s correct. Like, I… and, like, once… you know, we…

112 00:16:17.490 00:16:34.139 Robert Tseng: the way we describe in our nomenclature, marketing-qualified leads. That’s just anything the marketing generates as a… I mean, some minor interaction, maybe somebody who views our content, but a very low-intent, like, way of getting into that list. But to become a sales-qualified lead in SQL, like.

113 00:16:34.260 00:16:46.979 Robert Tseng: yeah, you have to have gone through a qualification process. And right now, the MQL to SQL conversion is, like, near zero, whereas the benchmark should be 30%, you know? So, I think, like, we have a bunch of…

114 00:16:47.020 00:16:52.260 Robert Tseng: Leads that are just not being qualified, because the team just doesn’t know how to qualify them.

115 00:16:52.260 00:17:16.270 Robert Tseng: And if you left it up to me, and, you know, we’re trying to just make a big push to the end of the quarter, I’m gonna skip over this. I’m just gonna go to the channels that I know have worked well for me, I’m gonna go back into my Rolodex, and we’re just gonna do what we have done without what the team’s doing. So, it kind of feels like I’m maybe working against the team a bit, because, you know, if they’re not kind of showing me that they can convert, you know, leads, they can qualify leads.

116 00:17:16.270 00:17:38.620 Robert Tseng: then I’m just kind of reverting back to what has gotten us to this point. And I’m not saying that’s great, that’s just, like, my way of trying to keep momentum on less, because it’s like, when you’re back into a corner, you just go to what you know works, and so I just… that’s all I can do, just do… just do what works, and I know that’s not what’s gonna get us to, like, you know, the goal of where we need to go.

117 00:17:39.430 00:17:40.100 Jorrel Sto Tomas: Okay.

118 00:17:40.270 00:17:49.089 Jorrel Sto Tomas: Do we have a playbook already on, like, our checklist that our, you know, the team goes through to qualify those leads, or is that something that’s…

119 00:17:49.190 00:17:53.030 Jorrel Sto Tomas: Still kind of nebulous based on the service offerings.

120 00:17:53.450 00:18:08.129 Robert Tseng: Yeah, it’s a bit nebulous. I mean, all the firmographic things, you can figure out, like, kind of size of the organization size, revenue, whatever, like, all the clay stuff that you can scrape out, but I don’t find that to be enough. The quality is quite low, and that’s why I’m saying, like.

121 00:18:08.130 00:18:17.079 Robert Tseng: just having somebody… I mean, you have… you have a taste for it, you know? When you’re talking to organizations, you tell me, like, who’s… who’s, like, who’s… who’s ready for it, like.

122 00:18:17.080 00:18:33.189 Robert Tseng: you know, as soon as you see the logo and you see the situation, you would know, right? And it’s kind of like, yes, we can continue to, define what that is, but I feel like when I’m articulating this to our sales team, it just becomes like a massive clay table that, like.

123 00:18:33.190 00:18:51.350 Robert Tseng: still doesn’t really develop their intuition. So, like, I’m a little bit, like… I don’t feel like we need to do much more. Like, we can continue to build it on the fly as we go. Like, you know, if you and I were to partner, I’m sure we’d get a lot farther than me trying to turn what I’m looking for into play table requirements for the team.

124 00:18:53.190 00:18:55.189 Jorrel Sto Tomas: Okay, yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense.

125 00:18:55.190 00:19:14.939 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I think, Jarrell, it’s like, it’s… I think it’s even, like, it’s… I think it’s even, like, simpler. Like, Robert and I, like, we can go out in the market, look it through our network, hit people, go get meetings. There’s just nobody on the current team that is able to do that. Like, I think we…

126 00:19:15.390 00:19:31.510 Uttam Kumaran: like, I’ve also been able to open up partnership channels with companies that, like, a company our size should not be talking to, and there’s AEs ready to send us business, there’s AEs sending us their lead lists, and, like, I… we’re just out of time.

127 00:19:31.510 00:19:38.369 Uttam Kumaran: So for Robert and I, it’s a complete time problem, like, we just don’t have time to go sell like we used to.

128 00:19:38.440 00:19:51.030 Uttam Kumaran: And so, I think, like, someone’s gonna walk into this business sometime in the next 60 days, and sell, like, another $2 million worth of business, and make a shitload of money.

129 00:19:51.170 00:20:03.310 Uttam Kumaran: And, like, I think you should give it a go, and, like, and do that. Like, and I think you also have a clearly awareness of the AI piece. It’s another thing that not many people,

130 00:20:03.480 00:20:10.459 Uttam Kumaran: who are, like, traditional software sellers have that knowledge, and, like, we are actively selling, like.

131 00:20:10.540 00:20:30.120 Uttam Kumaran: open-claw-style interfaces, and solutions to large enterprise. And so that number that is possible, I don’t even know, right? Like, I think about if I was just handed, like, a vehicle with all these capabilities, I’m like, to sell AI right now, like, I think this is it.

132 00:20:30.280 00:20:35.270 Uttam Kumaran: And so, right now, we’re staring at this list, and we’re staring at these numbers, and I’m like.

133 00:20:35.440 00:20:40.559 Uttam Kumaran: okay, the only choice I have is to go… we have to go find someone who just wants to hardcore go sell this.

134 00:20:40.660 00:20:45.829 Uttam Kumaran: Like, we built everything out in terms of the brand, the connections, everything else, you know?

135 00:20:47.820 00:21:01.700 Jorrel Sto Tomas: Yeah, yeah, no, I’m with you there, don’t get me wrong, I definitely see the opportunity. More so, more so, I just want to make sure that, yeah, that there are no other leakage, you know, as a, as a.

136 00:21:01.700 00:21:02.070 Uttam Kumaran: Sure.

137 00:21:02.070 00:21:10.470 Jorrel Sto Tomas: operator as much as Robert is, I also want to find the quick wins as well, because especially if the…

138 00:21:10.790 00:21:22.150 Jorrel Sto Tomas: as the business scales, and this is something I always talk to other CEOs about, right? As the business scales, that’s also another important, you know, thing that I also think about, is like, okay, if

139 00:21:22.290 00:21:28.959 Jorrel Sto Tomas: if I do go and, you know, tackle these lead lists, and we book a lot of meetings, and we, you know.

140 00:21:29.080 00:21:39.369 Jorrel Sto Tomas: get to maybe 70% or 80% there, right? You know, what does that look like, right? Is, like, if the rest of the machine is still having leakage. So, that’s maybe

141 00:21:39.700 00:21:57.949 Jorrel Sto Tomas: where I’m asking those questions, right? Because on this document as well, you know, there’s another highlight that says that SQL stage is also staying, you know, around 21 days, right? And so, what does that look like, even if I were to go and, you know, help out, book out these meetings and qualify these leads?

142 00:21:57.950 00:22:10.900 Jorrel Sto Tomas: if it also takes 21 days per meeting booked to… to actually get these, you know, closer to, you know, a deal closed, right? And so, sure. But that’s really the only other, you know,

143 00:22:11.400 00:22:21.859 Jorrel Sto Tomas: From the document, once again, it’s probably very different than the progress you guys may have, you know, have made so far, but from the document that Robert had shared with me, you know, those were my initial interpretations. But…

144 00:22:21.860 00:22:22.990 Uttam Kumaran: Totally, totally fair.

145 00:22:22.990 00:22:30.230 Jorrel Sto Tomas: But I do agree with you. I… I’m seeing it. I’m, like, it’s kind of getting ridiculous with the people.

146 00:22:30.230 00:22:30.910 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.

147 00:22:31.210 00:22:36.440 Jorrel Sto Tomas: that I’ve been exposed to, how much they want this stuff, yet have no real…

148 00:22:36.440 00:22:38.700 Uttam Kumaran: They have no chance of getting there.

149 00:22:38.890 00:22:39.510 Uttam Kumaran: And…

150 00:22:39.510 00:22:41.260 Jorrel Sto Tomas: We’re all buying Mac Minis, so that’s…

151 00:22:41.260 00:22:55.010 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, but that’s not… that’s not a solution for, like, a $500 million serious company, you know what I mean? And so, I think we’re one of the few people… and also, I think what we’re looking for in, like, a person to come sell.

152 00:22:55.010 00:23:08.760 Uttam Kumaran: like, what I’m looking for when I think about leading, like, a sales engineering motion is someone to be like, yo, we need this feature in, like, 2 days. Okay, cool, I will get you that feature in 2 days. Or, like, help me whip together this demo. Okay, we will do that.

153 00:23:08.760 00:23:16.209 Uttam Kumaran: like, we’re looking for a partner there, and I also agree with you. I think what’s… what you’re gonna see happen, and what we’re seeing happen.

154 00:23:16.220 00:23:18.909 Uttam Kumaran: Is the enterprises that we’re selling to.

155 00:23:19.100 00:23:34.270 Uttam Kumaran: are, like, 2 to 3 years behind where we are, like, as a business, and they’re, like, getting… gonna get lapped, basically. And so, they don’t even… they’re not even… they’re still, like, on teams, on… on, like, Copilot, and then…

156 00:23:34.470 00:23:54.080 Uttam Kumaran: on their personal life, they’re seeing all this stuff change, and so they’re gonna pick a partner to go build out the next set of capabilities, because the noise is getting really high. And so, I think we have a chance to kind of get in there and, like, leverage every connection we have to sort of kind of take the moment on, and I really want us to…

157 00:23:54.220 00:24:07.149 Uttam Kumaran: Like, one thing that we’ve had challenges with is, like, we could sell to businesses making, like, 5, 10 million dollars, but not only is the check not big enough for the amount of value we’re gonna unlock, they just, like…

158 00:24:07.310 00:24:19.059 Uttam Kumaran: they don’t… their expectations for, what it is we’re delivering are so, like, kind of out of bounds, meaning they’re like, oh, this is, like, a vibe-coded thing. And so we’re… we’re gonna kind of try to skip that

159 00:24:19.240 00:24:20.420 Uttam Kumaran: Entirely.

160 00:24:20.560 00:24:23.459 Uttam Kumaran: And we’re having conversations with people that are, like.

161 00:24:23.690 00:24:35.159 Uttam Kumaran: half a billion dollars and up, and just trying to crack it. So for some of those deals, those are gonna be, like, 6, 9, 12-month enterprise sales motions.

162 00:24:35.260 00:24:43.999 Uttam Kumaran: But additionally, we are actively selling to, like, people that are several hundred million dollars, and some of those deals are closing in, like, 21 days or less.

163 00:24:44.080 00:24:57.580 Uttam Kumaran: So, we have to hit both, right? Like, if a Fortune 500, someone I’m connected to is like, hey, I have an option for you to pitch us, where we’re not gonna… we’re gonna… we’re gonna take that every day of the week.

164 00:24:57.680 00:25:00.510 Uttam Kumaran: But the procurement cycles are insane, you know?

165 00:25:02.490 00:25:04.209 Jorrel Sto Tomas: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

166 00:25:06.780 00:25:21.310 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I guess, like, last thing I’ll say here is, like, yeah, I mean, as far as, like, kind of deals getting stuck in the pipeline, I mean, that’s where I feel like getting a little bit of relief would be helpful, in terms of, like, knowing that if you’re able to kind of keep the top funnel

167 00:25:21.520 00:25:36.980 Robert Tseng: coming, then I’m… like, this is… this is really a function of it takes me two to three weeks to cycle through every stage of the sales cycle before I come back to, like, nurturing, or middle of funnel, or whatever. I, like, spend a week in top of funnel, build up our pipeline.

168 00:25:36.980 00:25:56.529 Robert Tseng: Then the next week, middle of funnel, I move everything along, and then I’m scrambling to close the deals, or, like, get the deals to the finish line on the last one. And it’s just like this kind of 3-4 week cycle that I take, like, I run laps around the sales team. And so, you know, I believe that this will meaningfully drop as well, just by having somebody who can reliably

169 00:25:56.530 00:25:58.709 Robert Tseng: Put deals in the pipeline.

170 00:25:58.880 00:26:12.269 Robert Tseng: And then, obviously, as you kind of move… if you want to move down funnel and kind of actually go and close those deals yourself, like, I mean, I’m… I’m sure that’s the best case scenario. And so I’m, like, trying to just…

171 00:26:12.270 00:26:21.910 Robert Tseng: try to keep… keep the ambition small. You know, obviously, you want to feel like where you… feel confident with where you… you feel it can help out, and so I think that’s kind of… that’s kind of the starting point.

172 00:26:21.920 00:26:46.900 Robert Tseng: And the last thing I’ll say from these numbers is, you can see we’ve made some meaningful progress, and I’ll call out a couple things. One is, like, before, our total average, like, contract value before, like, the all-time, like, around 15K, right? In the past quarter, like, this quarter, we doubled our rates. Like, we have just jumped up to 30K a month. Average contract length is 3 months. And so, we’re signing… we’re signing, like, 50 to 100K deals every single time.

173 00:26:46.900 00:27:04.310 Robert Tseng: And so, even if you were to, like, kind of… if we were to scope this to be, like, a 10% commission thing on, like, a… I don’t know, like, a $100K deal, you sell, like, a one of those a month, you know, like, that’s, you know, that’s… that’s… that’s 10… that’s 10 grand a month. And so, like, I… I just feel like…

174 00:27:04.440 00:27:24.110 Robert Tseng: And, like, there’s not even… it doesn’t even involve, necessarily, you taking it all the way to the finish line. You just gotta, you know, kind of have a meaningful contribution. We can describe, like, what that… what that looks like. But whether the commission falls between 5% to 10% on a deal like that, I believe there is money to be made on this now, and as we talked about it, like, a couple days ago.

175 00:27:24.110 00:27:40.720 Robert Tseng: I think this is the land grab, where people are open to buying. Procurement processes for AI tools have shortened significantly compared to what we were seeing, like, last year, where everybody was having us talk to their finance, their legal, their whatever, and now it’s like.

176 00:27:40.840 00:27:49.609 Robert Tseng: yeah, our existing clients who are doing data work, they’re like, hey, do you do AI work too? And damn, I got, like, an extent… I got, like, an additional scope of work

177 00:27:49.610 00:28:05.980 Robert Tseng: through within 2 weeks. And so, like, I think, like, that’s why I feel like this is a good time to come in. Like, I don’t want to set you up for failure, either. Like, I just feel like if you already know how this tech is working, you’re obviously optimistic about it.

178 00:28:06.030 00:28:16.220 Robert Tseng: There’s a very short feedback loop that you can get from just, like, talking to… to people, within our… within our list already, or whoever you… even you have in mind.

179 00:28:16.220 00:28:26.820 Robert Tseng: That, like, will give you a return on… on your effort immediately. So, I don’t know, like, I just feel like there were so many other moments where I feel like I could have

180 00:28:26.820 00:28:42.700 Robert Tseng: called you and asked you to come in, but, like, I feel like this is… this is the… this is the time where I believe we’re gonna double our… our business in the next 3… in the next three months. And so, it’s just kind of a matter of, you know, who… who wants to come and drive that forward with us.

181 00:28:43.760 00:28:54.240 Jorrel Sto Tomas: Yeah, yeah, I mean, I’m already bought in, I just wanted to make sure we’re, you know, that all the information here is, is as accurate as, as,

182 00:28:54.460 00:28:57.900 Jorrel Sto Tomas: Yeah, as the spread of your documents…

183 00:28:58.080 00:29:02.519 Jorrel Sto Tomas: have stated, so, but no, let’s, let’s do it, let’s run it, let’s,

184 00:29:02.560 00:29:20.169 Jorrel Sto Tomas: you know, would love to just shadow a couple of those, you know, some of the meetings that you’re closing, Robert, or Tom. Just see how you guys flow, how you guys sell, and just get a better understanding, like, what, you know, what are the right motions, right?

185 00:29:20.250 00:29:22.010 Jorrel Sto Tomas: But yeah, happy…

186 00:29:22.150 00:29:26.350 Jorrel Sto Tomas: more than happy to go and make this, you know, make this happen. Whatever the.

187 00:29:26.350 00:29:31.499 Uttam Kumaran: What do you… what do you… what are you up to, Jarrell, right now? Like, what’s your time like, and…

188 00:29:31.800 00:29:32.849 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I mean.

189 00:29:32.850 00:29:35.019 Jorrel Sto Tomas: My only… the only… I told Robert…

190 00:29:35.020 00:29:38.679 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, like, if this becomes 40, 50 hours a week, are you good with that?

191 00:29:38.980 00:29:46.019 Jorrel Sto Tomas: Yeah, because here’s the thing, the only thing that I do these days, Uptam, is vibe code, and take me.

192 00:29:46.020 00:29:49.049 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, okay, so you should work here, bro. Yeah, you should work here.

193 00:29:49.050 00:29:51.179 Jorrel Sto Tomas: All I do is vibe code and do things that.

194 00:29:51.180 00:30:04.159 Uttam Kumaran: So I spend the first 40, 50 hours of my week on my normal job, and then I do another 40 to 50 hours of vibe coding, between hours of, like, 8pm and, like, 1AM. And so…

195 00:30:04.160 00:30:04.549 Jorrel Sto Tomas: Yeah, so I…

196 00:30:04.550 00:30:15.220 Uttam Kumaran: I think… I think you’re gonna walk in and see… I think you’re gonna… yeah, I think you’re gonna walk in and see… see something pretty cool about what we’re doing. So, dude, I, like…

197 00:30:15.640 00:30:18.939 Uttam Kumaran: I’m really pumped, like, I think you’re gonna take it, so…

198 00:30:19.630 00:30:26.439 Jorrel Sto Tomas: Yeah, I mean, I think, I think ultimately, I’ve… ever since I added AI to my workflow 6 months ago, like.

199 00:30:26.530 00:30:38.680 Jorrel Sto Tomas: I’ve seen a 10x gain in my productivity and time, and so I just find that I’m spending less and less time doing other things now. And so, yeah, I’m…

200 00:30:38.700 00:30:48.250 Jorrel Sto Tomas: My job is just to sell, whatever it is, like, whether it’s the… whether it’s FusionNode, the cybersec company, but we mostly sell on APAC, or, you know…

201 00:30:48.360 00:30:56.720 Jorrel Sto Tomas: or help my product team, that’s pretty much it. That’s my night job, and then during the day, I kind of just go to random events in LA. That’s kind of my routine now.

202 00:30:58.090 00:31:16.020 Robert Tseng: Dude, you turn any of those into Brainforged pipeline? Dude, you’re… you’re gonna… I mean, you’re gonna make more than both of us, like, immediately. Like, we… we don’t pay ourselves that much, so, like, let’s… I mean, like, you gotta tell us what, like, what would… I mean, I wanna kind of ramp you up, you know, as… as quickly as I can, like…

203 00:31:16.060 00:31:22.220 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so, I mean, we’ll start you here in the sales. We can have you shadowing calls, and you can kind of

204 00:31:22.220 00:31:45.709 Robert Tseng: pick and choose, but I know that you’re… you’re nice, you’re generous with your time, but, like, we want to pay you for this, right? So, that way, you take it… you… we feel like you take it seriously, you move at the speed that, you know, that we want to see you move at, and then, like, yeah, if you jump in and you’re like, shoot, I want to do go-to-market engineering work as well, and you want to be contributing to our repo there, because it’s just me.

205 00:31:45.710 00:31:55.890 Robert Tseng: shooting off a PR every now and then, or asking UTAM for features, like, you’re welcome to contribute to, like, the platform as well, too. So, I mean, I think there’s just a lot of

206 00:31:55.940 00:32:00.089 Robert Tseng: work that you… you can do. Like, it’s… it’s not a matter of how much

207 00:32:00.400 00:32:23.469 Robert Tseng: how much we can pay you to find work for you. It’s just as much as you wanna… you wanna take on, but I think, like, the highest leverage thing here is really, I think, for you to open, like, you’re already well connected. I feel like… I feel comfortable with putting you in front of any of our leads. Like, I feel like you could really take a sales conversation, like, in a meaningful way… in a meaningful direction, so…

208 00:32:23.470 00:32:31.780 Robert Tseng: That’s why I told Utam I would like to start with you here, but, you know, doors open to any part of the business you want, you want to help out with.

209 00:32:34.250 00:32:38.549 Jorrel Sto Tomas: Yeah, let’s start there. I think I… I want to, once again, like.

210 00:32:38.770 00:32:41.319 Jorrel Sto Tomas: As a founder as well, like…

211 00:32:41.330 00:32:51.669 Jorrel Sto Tomas: I’m capable of a lot of things, and so wherever I can be leveraged the highest, and then as I examine the functions of your business, that’s where I can continue to insert myself.

212 00:32:51.670 00:33:01.459 Jorrel Sto Tomas: Yeah. So, I’m practical. I don’t like… I’m very anti-get-my-hands-into-everything-immediately, because that just creates structural, you know, structural issues.

213 00:33:01.460 00:33:09.949 Jorrel Sto Tomas: And so, yeah, so yeah, so I think, you know, the initial plan, right, is let’s get me in front of leads, let’s help, you know, let’s, let’s, let’s…

214 00:33:10.110 00:33:24.830 Jorrel Sto Tomas: let me help you close, let me help you get those, you know, like, across… across whatever, you know, you need to get, and then, as I get to understand your business better, then I can start to, you know, see if I can help out in other… other functions, or, you know, move…

215 00:33:24.830 00:33:35.109 Jorrel Sto Tomas: further down the funnel. But I think, yeah, Robert, we’re… I know you as an operator, if that’s where you think that I can be the most helpful, put me there first, and then we can figure out what to do from there.

216 00:33:36.170 00:33:48.899 Robert Tseng: Okay, cool. Then I’m gonna have Kayla kinda get you squared away, we’re gonna have to do some paperwork, whatever, we’ll get you Brayford account. Basically, first thing I’m gonna do is give you a list on Monday, and we can work through it.

217 00:33:48.900 00:33:59.369 Robert Tseng: I also have a couple calls scheduled for next week, so I’ll, like, kind of add you to them if you want to shadow. One is, like, about a 30K deal that I’m trying to close, I think.

218 00:33:59.370 00:34:09.490 Robert Tseng: that’s, you know, that’ll be, like, a later stage deal. And then, like, another one is, like, a first-time discovery, so I think those are kind of the immediate things that can line up with you.

219 00:34:09.860 00:34:15.650 Jorrel Sto Tomas: Okay. Yeah, let’s do that. Yeah, in terms of… in terms of compensation, I mean…

220 00:34:16.370 00:34:24.599 Jorrel Sto Tomas: commission-wise, like, I’ve done kind of the whole gauntlet, so, for me, it’s more so, can I meaningfully

221 00:34:24.690 00:34:33.750 Jorrel Sto Tomas: contribute to your business. You know, I don’t want to get ahead of ourselves like we did Robert a couple years ago, in regards to, you know, what makes the most sense, so…

222 00:34:33.750 00:34:45.869 Jorrel Sto Tomas: Wherever you feel the most comfortable commission-wise, I feel like, let’s start there, and we can, you know, as maybe 30, 60, 90 days goes by, and I am meaningfully contributing, we can, you know, re…

223 00:34:45.870 00:34:56.579 Jorrel Sto Tomas: renegotiate, you know, baseline from there. But, let’s go from the most mid-level we can, rather than, you know, set any high expectations. How’s that, Robert?

224 00:34:56.580 00:35:03.879 Robert Tseng: Yeah, that sounds good. And, you know, obviously, I thought very highly of you and your time with Pumgo, you know, with the limited time you gave, like.

225 00:35:04.070 00:35:24.519 Robert Tseng: Dude, I mean, I told Utah, you threw, like, a 100-person event with, like, no budget, and you got amplitude to pay for it. So, like, I know that you have that, like, dog in you, dude, and, like, whatever you… whatever you put your mind to, you can get something going. So, like, I didn’t give you any real resources in Funko. It’s a very… it’s a very different situation here.

226 00:35:24.520 00:35:26.909 Robert Tseng: now that we’re at this stage, so…

227 00:35:26.910 00:35:41.269 Jorrel Sto Tomas: Yeah, I’m also… yeah, I’m also a very different entrepreneur now than I was, two… two, three years ago, so I… I have a few ideas in mind, but I want to make sure… I want to make sure that, I can as seamlessly adopt your process as possible. And so.

228 00:35:41.270 00:35:41.720 Robert Tseng: Sure.

229 00:35:41.720 00:35:56.550 Jorrel Sto Tomas: So that’s just my ideology. I want to make sure I’m also keeping myself, you know, with those milestones, which is why I say, you know, let’s start at a base somewhere, and then we can move from there as we set out to accomplish, you know, the 30th, 60, and 90.

230 00:35:57.200 00:35:57.760 Robert Tseng: Sure.

231 00:35:58.320 00:35:59.240 Robert Tseng: Alright.

232 00:35:59.240 00:36:07.589 Jorrel Sto Tomas: Yeah, but let’s just kick it, let’s just… let’s get the round… let’s get the round running, you know, like, or hit the ground running, and, you know, let me… let me shadow some meetings, and let’s see what we can do.

233 00:36:09.130 00:36:13.539 Uttam Kumaran: Are you working this weekend, Jarrell? Are you doing something, like, do you have time on, like, Sunday?

234 00:36:14.080 00:36:16.340 Jorrel Sto Tomas: Sunday? Yeah.

235 00:36:16.340 00:36:21.050 Uttam Kumaran: Or I’m just gonna… I’m just gonna try to get you an account and, like, send you some stuff.

236 00:36:22.720 00:36:40.000 Jorrel Sto Tomas: Yeah, because my Philippines team starts working on, Sunday night, I am also working on Sunday night, so… Okay. So yeah, like, I’m… I’m, yeah, can… can… can hit… like I said, I’m ready to hit the ground running, let’s see what we can do.

237 00:36:40.000 00:36:51.749 Jorrel Sto Tomas: Yeah, I have… I have a bunch of events I’m going to in the next 2-3 weeks, and so it’s not… it’s not out of bounds for me to, throw this in… throw this in as a… as an additive, which is also why I’m, you know.

238 00:36:52.510 00:37:05.280 Jorrel Sto Tomas: Excited to start selling something, aside from FusionNode, because Cybersec is also heating up right now, but we’re selling domestically, mostly, in the Philippines at the moment, so, don’t have as much to sell here in the US at the moment.

239 00:37:07.840 00:37:08.340 Uttam Kumaran: Zach.

240 00:37:08.340 00:37:09.020 Robert Tseng: Okay.

241 00:37:10.710 00:37:11.979 Robert Tseng: Right? Who else?

242 00:37:11.980 00:37:14.650 Jorrel Sto Tomas: Let’s do it. Let’s run it, guys. Let’s make this happen.

243 00:37:15.320 00:37:16.500 Uttam Kumaran: Thanks, dude. I’m pumped.

244 00:37:16.500 00:37:18.359 Robert Tseng: Love to hear it. Alright, see ya.

245 00:37:18.360 00:37:19.919 Jorrel Sto Tomas: Alright, see you guys. Peace.