2026-03-27_brainforge_q2_planning_sync_d261d40a

Meeting Title: Brainforge Q2 Planning Sync Date: 2026-03-27 Meeting participants: Uttam Kumaran, Kaela Gallagher, Rico Rejoso, Brylle Girang, Robert Tseng

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WEBVTT

1 00:00:25.820 ⇒ 00:00:26.760 Kaela Gallagher: AIM!

2 00:00:26.900 ⇒ 00:00:27.560 Uttam Kumaran: Hello…

3 00:00:28.220 ⇒ 00:00:29.289 Kaela Gallagher: How’s it going?

4 00:00:29.900 ⇒ 00:00:31.529 Uttam Kumaran: Good, how are you?

5 00:00:31.530 ⇒ 00:00:32.380 Kaela Gallagher: Good.

6 00:00:32.570 ⇒ 00:00:35.889 Uttam Kumaran: How was, lunch yesterday, or… yeah.

7 00:00:36.190 ⇒ 00:00:44.640 Kaela Gallagher: It was good! Jarrell was able to join, like, it was kind of, a last-minute decision from him, but I’m excited, it was the first time he met.

8 00:00:44.840 ⇒ 00:00:46.829 Kaela Gallagher: Amber, so that was cool.

9 00:00:46.830 ⇒ 00:00:47.160 Uttam Kumaran: Cool.

10 00:00:47.160 ⇒ 00:00:52.399 Kaela Gallagher: We went to, like, a Vietnamese place. I had, like, an amazing pork belly banh mi.

11 00:00:52.400 ⇒ 00:00:56.160 Uttam Kumaran: No, that’s my order. I don’t really like pho, actually. I mean, like…

12 00:00:56.360 ⇒ 00:01:01.630 Uttam Kumaran: I’ll get it, but I… I don’t really get the hype. I love banh mi, it’s, like, the only thing.

13 00:01:02.180 ⇒ 00:01:02.780 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah.

14 00:01:02.780 ⇒ 00:01:04.549 Uttam Kumaran: I love Bon Mi.

15 00:01:04.780 ⇒ 00:01:07.970 Uttam Kumaran: And I’m trying to think if there’s anything else Vietnamese that, like.

16 00:01:08.330 ⇒ 00:01:11.799 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, I like… I get the coffee. I get a Vietnamese, like…

17 00:01:11.800 ⇒ 00:01:16.540 Kaela Gallagher: Okay, okay, yeah, Jarrell got the Vietnamese coffee.

18 00:01:17.670 ⇒ 00:01:22.839 Kaela Gallagher: What was I gonna say? Oh yeah, it was, like, 80 degrees outside, so I was like, I cannot order pho right now.

19 00:01:23.930 ⇒ 00:01:24.770 Kaela Gallagher: away.

20 00:01:24.770 ⇒ 00:01:28.690 Uttam Kumaran: I also just never finish it, and then I’m… I don’t know, I just feel like…

21 00:01:29.050 ⇒ 00:01:35.009 Uttam Kumaran: it’s, like, the same pace. I like… banh mi, it’s so good.

22 00:01:35.010 ⇒ 00:01:36.729 Kaela Gallagher: So good. Yeah, and then…

23 00:01:36.730 ⇒ 00:01:41.770 Uttam Kumaran: The veggies are, like, pickled veggies and pate or whatever, it’s great.

24 00:01:41.770 ⇒ 00:01:46.670 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah. Amber and I were able to do, like, some co-working too, so it was nice.

25 00:01:47.500 ⇒ 00:01:49.080 Uttam Kumaran: Nice. Okay, cool.

26 00:01:52.920 ⇒ 00:01:54.199 Kaela Gallagher: Here we go.

27 00:01:55.140 ⇒ 00:01:56.020 Brylle Girang: Hello!

28 00:01:56.350 ⇒ 00:01:57.150 Rico Rejoso: Hey guys!

29 00:01:58.930 ⇒ 00:02:06.940 Uttam Kumaran: Robert’s running late, but we can just hang out and can even start on some stuff. Yeah, how’s the week going, or how did today go?

30 00:02:11.930 ⇒ 00:02:13.610 Uttam Kumaran: Go for it, Brika.

31 00:02:14.310 ⇒ 00:02:29.350 Rico Rejoso: Yeah, on my end, was just picking up some of the stuff that Eliza left out, and also was… I mean, this week was mainly focused on planning the OKRs for me, since I went through with Vixel, and also made some changes, today, got it checked out.

32 00:02:29.470 ⇒ 00:02:42.099 Rico Rejoso: Right? So, next step for me is just to plan out, like, the tickets need to work out to get those, you know, executed, and also maybe to check in with our executives regarding those, that we’re preparing.

33 00:02:46.780 ⇒ 00:02:51.460 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I thought week overall was good. I’m trying to think even, like, what…

34 00:02:52.900 ⇒ 00:02:56.079 Uttam Kumaran: What was the deal last week? Like, where were we last week?

35 00:02:57.550 ⇒ 00:02:58.700 Rico Rejoso: with…

36 00:03:01.650 ⇒ 00:03:03.650 Uttam Kumaran: Mom, I’m trying to even remember, like, what we…

37 00:03:03.770 ⇒ 00:03:06.930 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, I’m looking at my calendar, last week seemed kind of insane.

38 00:03:07.740 ⇒ 00:03:12.019 Uttam Kumaran: I think… was la- last week, I feel like things were all over the place. This week, I feel better.

39 00:03:12.980 ⇒ 00:03:14.470 Uttam Kumaran: What do you guys think?

40 00:03:14.550 ⇒ 00:03:17.440 Kaela Gallagher: Last week, our leadership meeting was, like.

41 00:03:17.440 ⇒ 00:03:19.200 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, yeah.

42 00:03:19.200 ⇒ 00:03:25.610 Kaela Gallagher: We needed to, like, debrief a little bit. So, yeah, I feel like this week we’re more on track.

43 00:03:26.010 ⇒ 00:03:27.590 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I think,

44 00:03:29.460 ⇒ 00:03:38.029 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I mean, yeah, it seemed like so long ago. Yeah, so I went ahead and did a lot of the… tried to do as much of what I talked about, which is, like.

45 00:03:38.250 ⇒ 00:03:51.320 Uttam Kumaran: setting delivery standards, giving CSO and SL some clarity. Not, like, fully done yet, but it’s getting better. I think the clients, like, that Pranav and Greg are on are also getting better. I think Pranav is actually doing a great job.

46 00:03:53.400 ⇒ 00:04:12.569 Uttam Kumaran: I think I worked a lot on, like, setting delivery standards and things like that. Probably needs, like, one more turn of the wheel, but I feel really ready going into next month on the delivery side. And I can kind of share more today. And then on the, like, platform side, I feel pretty good as well.

47 00:04:12.670 ⇒ 00:04:16.649 Uttam Kumaran: In terms of, like, what we’re gonna work on, I have a pretty clear roadmap.

48 00:04:16.910 ⇒ 00:04:22.060 Uttam Kumaran: of things for Miranda to sort of step into. I think I’m gonna kind of get her…

49 00:04:22.250 ⇒ 00:04:32.949 Uttam Kumaran: sense for, like, where she wants to be in, like, the entire pipeline. I mean, we have everything from, like, true product management work, but one thing I’ll be looking forward to, if she can…

50 00:04:33.230 ⇒ 00:04:42.640 Uttam Kumaran: both scope projects and execute, and just… and really act like me and Clarence right now are sort of doing both on the platform team, so I think that’ll be great. Yeah, I think we had, like.

51 00:04:43.020 ⇒ 00:04:47.180 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, really good headway on sales as well, like…

52 00:04:48.380 ⇒ 00:04:54.129 Uttam Kumaran: like, I got an in after, like, a long time into, EY.

53 00:04:54.280 ⇒ 00:04:57.460 Uttam Kumaran: For a potential deal, which would be our first

54 00:04:58.060 ⇒ 00:05:01.180 Uttam Kumaran: If it closes, it’ll be our first Fortune 500.

55 00:05:01.460 ⇒ 00:05:04.830 Uttam Kumaran: Which is pretty crazy for a…

56 00:05:05.450 ⇒ 00:05:10.609 Uttam Kumaran: Cute little company like ours, so… That’s when…

57 00:05:10.780 ⇒ 00:05:17.449 Uttam Kumaran: The element thing is still kind of shaky, but it’s, like, at… even more at the finish line.

58 00:05:17.910 ⇒ 00:05:19.760 Uttam Kumaran: Than it was last week.

59 00:05:21.260 ⇒ 00:05:25.599 Uttam Kumaran: We had a couple other deals that are, like, gonna go through, which is good.

60 00:05:25.720 ⇒ 00:05:30.980 Uttam Kumaran: I think Jor-El is starting to pick things up, like, it’s been nice having him.

61 00:05:31.140 ⇒ 00:05:34.340 Uttam Kumaran: Around, and we’re gonna pair on some stuff next week.

62 00:05:34.520 ⇒ 00:05:45.609 Uttam Kumaran: And then, yeah, I think I also was kind of happy that this team had a sense to work on the project plans. I am interested, before we, like, sort of go into that.

63 00:05:45.740 ⇒ 00:05:56.430 Uttam Kumaran: like, how you guys felt about that process. It’s not a process… like, it’s a process typically Robert and I have done quarterly, but I’m actually, like.

64 00:05:56.710 ⇒ 00:06:15.469 Uttam Kumaran: I hope, like, you know, the framing of it makes sense, and it’s actually great because it matches a lot of what I’m trying to do on the delivery side, which is, in this sense, Brainforge is the client, right? And each of you own your areas, and almost saying, like, okay, defend why we should

65 00:06:15.630 ⇒ 00:06:20.369 Uttam Kumaran: be working on these items, and kind of one thing I told B is, like.

66 00:06:20.940 ⇒ 00:06:30.690 Uttam Kumaran: discount, like, the resourcing first. You know, one thing is, like, hey, I believe if we work on these items next quarter, we will be here. And then one thing for y’all is, like.

67 00:06:30.780 ⇒ 00:06:42.269 Uttam Kumaran: once the ROI is clear, then it’s actually a lot easier to be like, hey, I want this resourcing in order to achieve this, these tools, whatever. And so that’s what I told Bea, is like.

68 00:06:42.270 ⇒ 00:06:51.650 Uttam Kumaran: since B is deciding about Amber and Mustafa, don’t form-fit your plan to these two people. I said, work on the plan first, then make the pitch for why you need

69 00:06:51.670 ⇒ 00:06:53.740 Uttam Kumaran: An additional 20 hours, and then…

70 00:06:53.980 ⇒ 00:06:56.869 Uttam Kumaran: we’ll assign who we have, you know, so…

71 00:06:57.340 ⇒ 00:07:02.490 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I’m just kind of interested in, like, how you guys thought about the process, you know, this week and last week.

72 00:07:02.850 ⇒ 00:07:03.570 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah.

73 00:07:03.870 ⇒ 00:07:23.009 Kaela Gallagher: I really liked putting together, like, my OKRs, because, I mean, obviously I came in with, like, one month left of Q1, and so I had a very, short time to hit OKRs that were already laid out for me, so, like, putting together them for myself and, like.

74 00:07:23.120 ⇒ 00:07:32.440 Kaela Gallagher: figuring out, like, what is achievable, I think, was really exciting. So, I liked being, like, involved in the process.

75 00:07:33.740 ⇒ 00:07:34.290 Uttam Kumaran: Cool.

76 00:07:39.070 ⇒ 00:07:46.959 Rico Rejoso: Oh, same goes for me. It’s like I have everything planned out already in my mind, and I just have to list everything down in cursor, so I can, you know, lay out that

77 00:07:47.330 ⇒ 00:07:50.800 Rico Rejoso: The tickets and everything, and execute it afterwards.

78 00:07:53.870 ⇒ 00:08:03.889 Brylle Girang: Yeah, I enjoyed the planning so much, because it opened up our minds on where we are at currently, and what we can achieve in the next few quarters.

79 00:08:04.520 ⇒ 00:08:11.049 Brylle Girang: I think what you suggested, Otam, where the plan should not fit the people, is really…

80 00:08:11.400 ⇒ 00:08:23.499 Brylle Girang: eye-opening, and it also helped me, like, remove the restrictions when it comes to figuring out what we can actually do without thinking of if someone can do it or not.

81 00:08:24.940 ⇒ 00:08:30.020 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I think that’s something… I mean, Robert, it’s sort of all converging with how we’re even pitching with clients, is like.

82 00:08:30.690 ⇒ 00:08:33.489 Uttam Kumaran: ultimately, like, I trust… I… you guys…

83 00:08:34.380 ⇒ 00:08:45.840 Uttam Kumaran: know your domain really well, so I’m less… I’m actually surprisingly less worried about the way you get it done. I’m very interested in, like, what is getting done and why you feel like

84 00:08:45.920 ⇒ 00:08:57.890 Uttam Kumaran: it is going to be impactful on the business, which forces you to think about the business, right? It’s oftentimes pretty common for people to work in companies and not really know, like, what hap… what… how we sell, and…

85 00:08:58.060 ⇒ 00:09:02.329 Uttam Kumaran: something we see all the time. Like, a lot of our clients, some of the people we work for.

86 00:09:02.470 ⇒ 00:09:09.210 Uttam Kumaran: they don’t even, like, really get how their piece plays into the broader vision, and so in this sense, I wanted to flip the tables and say.

87 00:09:09.500 ⇒ 00:09:14.610 Uttam Kumaran: Think about how your area fits into what we’re doing broader.

88 00:09:14.730 ⇒ 00:09:33.570 Uttam Kumaran: And then, I know you’ll… you’ll backfill all the ways of getting there. And then, as I said, my job is to, my job is to ask you why you chose the timeline, why you feel like this is the most important thing, what… what did we decide not to work on, right? And, like, what from, like, this quarter

89 00:09:33.730 ⇒ 00:09:37.209 Uttam Kumaran: Instructed you to sort of present those options, so…

90 00:09:37.630 ⇒ 00:09:50.220 Uttam Kumaran: I also think it’s great. I mean, the other piece is, like, I wanted this team to be the mo- like, to be as organized as possible, because everybody in the company is gonna work with us. And so the more organized we come across.

91 00:09:50.360 ⇒ 00:09:57.189 Uttam Kumaran: the more it sets the standard for everybody else. And again, like, I think the standards and delivery side

92 00:09:57.590 ⇒ 00:10:00.940 Uttam Kumaran: it’s like, if we’re the client, right? Sort of like, if you’re…

93 00:10:01.070 ⇒ 00:10:06.819 Uttam Kumaran: it’s sort of like, we make sure our house is, like, pretty clean as well, and so I think that’s also helpful.

94 00:10:09.000 ⇒ 00:10:16.349 Uttam Kumaran: So, yeah, I mean, I kind of wanted to just use this time to go through… I don’t know, Robert, if you had any other, like, updates. I kind of wanted to just, like, go around the horn and…

95 00:10:16.700 ⇒ 00:10:20.249 Uttam Kumaran: go through… the project plans.

96 00:10:20.590 ⇒ 00:10:21.760 Robert Tseng: Oh, let’s do it.

97 00:10:22.080 ⇒ 00:10:22.720 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

98 00:10:22.970 ⇒ 00:10:23.810 Uttam Kumaran: So…

99 00:10:24.220 ⇒ 00:10:31.530 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, if anyone wants to go first, feel free, and then I will… I can present also, my stuff for platform.

100 00:10:34.390 ⇒ 00:10:37.450 Kaela Gallagher: I can kick it off with mine.

101 00:10:37.450 ⇒ 00:10:38.000 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

102 00:10:38.490 ⇒ 00:10:41.180 Kaela Gallagher: And I’ll share my screen.

103 00:10:42.400 ⇒ 00:10:59.779 Kaela Gallagher: But Tom and I have some comments going on the side, so this is definitely still open for feedback and, interpretation, but basically for me, on the people and recruiting side, I think the main focus is building systems that, will allow us to

104 00:10:59.780 ⇒ 00:11:10.899 Kaela Gallagher: scale well, and, like, building repeatable processes, so I think everything kind of comes down to these three here, like, having clarity within our teams.

105 00:11:10.900 ⇒ 00:11:27.210 Kaela Gallagher: Creating repeatable systems for… for hiring, onboarding, and then performance management, and then commitment to our team through benefits or structure, and just improving retention overall. So, I came up with five

106 00:11:27.220 ⇒ 00:11:30.060 Kaela Gallagher: objectives that I’d like to hit this quarter.

107 00:11:30.480 ⇒ 00:11:41.890 Kaela Gallagher: The first one being building clarity in roles, ownership, and team structure. So, part of this will be doing standardized job descriptions for 100% of our team.

108 00:11:42.050 ⇒ 00:11:47.889 Kaela Gallagher: Both, you know, our current team and then expected new hires as well.

109 00:11:48.210 ⇒ 00:12:07.090 Kaela Gallagher: Another one will be building out an org chart. I think this will be super helpful in understanding, like, gaps on our team and where new hires will fit in. If anybody has suggestions on the best place for me to build this out, if this is something that would be good in Notion or good in Figma,

110 00:12:07.120 ⇒ 00:12:10.170 Kaela Gallagher: Would, like, appreciate some… some direction there.

111 00:12:10.390 ⇒ 00:12:23.060 Kaela Gallagher: And then I’ve started doing this with new hires. I think this has been super helpful, especially as, like, Robert and Utam are meeting day one, and, like, getting people started, is having a 30-60-90 plan.

112 00:12:23.310 ⇒ 00:12:24.579 Kaela Gallagher: When they walk in.

113 00:12:25.020 ⇒ 00:12:29.100 Kaela Gallagher: Any questions or commentary on Objective 1?

114 00:12:32.030 ⇒ 00:12:35.820 Brylle Girang: Well, for the org chart, I would like us…

115 00:12:36.110 ⇒ 00:12:46.129 Brylle Girang: to, like, put it in the Forge. And I think, Otam, this is going to be… and most of my stuff, too, will be dependent on the new Forge, the new The Forge website being launched.

116 00:12:46.360 ⇒ 00:12:46.880 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

117 00:12:47.420 ⇒ 00:12:55.490 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I think that’s fair. I think, Kayla, I think even for this item, and you’re gonna see for a lot of items, one thing I want us to challenge across the board is…

118 00:12:55.750 ⇒ 00:13:01.050 Uttam Kumaran: Looking for purpose-built software.

119 00:13:01.190 ⇒ 00:13:20.289 Uttam Kumaran: Instead, what I want you guys to do is name the requirements, and let, like, the platform team give you the best solution. If you’re like, hey, I need somewhere to write an org chart, it has to be visual, like, I need it to be modified, I need to be able to modify it in this way, and I need to be open to everybody, okay, then I can help you with the tech.

120 00:13:20.470 ⇒ 00:13:21.210 Uttam Kumaran: Right.

121 00:13:21.410 ⇒ 00:13:21.940 Kaela Gallagher: Okay.

122 00:13:21.940 ⇒ 00:13:29.040 Uttam Kumaran: And that way, what I want this to change this quarter is I want less of, like, this team…

123 00:13:29.330 ⇒ 00:13:47.860 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t want you guys to have to be like, okay, I… there’s a… there’s a software here, I gotta go figure that out. It’s like, come with the problem, and then we’ll decide as a group, okay, is it… should we just go… because there are some org chart software we’ve used. I think it’s great. But if it’s like, we just want to see people’s faces, we want to be able to tie it together, okay, I think I can…

124 00:13:47.900 ⇒ 00:13:53.310 Uttam Kumaran: I think we can give you that. So, that would be helpful. Yeah, so I…

125 00:13:53.310 ⇒ 00:13:54.140 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah.

126 00:13:54.340 ⇒ 00:14:05.249 Kaela Gallagher: I think, yeah, like, ideally, I would love to have something that is team-facing, something that the team can access and view, but then also, like.

127 00:14:05.380 ⇒ 00:14:22.690 Kaela Gallagher: selfishly, I’d love to have my own little, like, draft version somewhere where I can, like, drag people around and we can, see where, like, new hires would fit in best. But yeah, definitely something super visual. Faces and names and, titles and all that would be great, so…

128 00:14:22.720 ⇒ 00:14:25.760 Kaela Gallagher: Is that something that you would want me to create a ticket for, or just something.

129 00:14:25.760 ⇒ 00:14:26.170 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

130 00:14:26.170 ⇒ 00:14:27.590 Kaela Gallagher: The new brainstorming? Okay.

131 00:14:27.590 ⇒ 00:14:29.780 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, if you have a sec, you can just create a ticket.

132 00:14:29.900 ⇒ 00:14:32.730 Uttam Kumaran: And just throw it in platform, and that’s… that’s perfect.

133 00:14:33.030 ⇒ 00:14:35.129 Kaela Gallagher: Okay, cool.

134 00:14:35.130 ⇒ 00:14:36.330 Uttam Kumaran: Can you add something on this?

135 00:14:38.900 ⇒ 00:14:42.530 Robert Tseng: No, I was… I think I was just… yeah, no, I… I don’t…

136 00:14:42.530 ⇒ 00:14:43.160 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

137 00:14:43.160 ⇒ 00:15:02.790 Kaela Gallagher: Okay, cool. Objective two, this is kind of rolling over from Q1, but transition team to scalable and compliant employment structure, so, would love to convert our initial cohort over to a W-2 status, working with, like, Megan on quotes for benefits and all that right now.

138 00:15:02.790 ⇒ 00:15:07.349 Kaela Gallagher: And then, like, ultimately providing those benefits.

139 00:15:07.820 ⇒ 00:15:11.530 Kaela Gallagher: So this one’s pretty straightforward. Any comments or questions?

140 00:15:13.110 ⇒ 00:15:13.850 Kaela Gallagher: Cool.

141 00:15:13.850 ⇒ 00:15:17.900 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, I think question… I think probably point there is, like,

142 00:15:22.830 ⇒ 00:15:31.449 Uttam Kumaran: the stuff that Megan mentioned about, like, you have 5 people in California, so now, like, everything blows up, like, I think that’s the stuff that I’m probably most worried about. I just wanna…

143 00:15:31.780 ⇒ 00:15:37.600 Uttam Kumaran: I just want to see what the rules of the… on the field are for… W2?

144 00:15:37.810 ⇒ 00:15:38.420 Kaela Gallagher: Yes.

145 00:15:38.420 ⇒ 00:15:43.369 Uttam Kumaran: And then also rules on the field for benefits. And I think you’re… I can see your driving towards that.

146 00:15:43.380 ⇒ 00:15:44.299 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah. But, like…

147 00:15:44.300 ⇒ 00:15:45.270 Uttam Kumaran: That’s where…

148 00:15:45.500 ⇒ 00:15:59.189 Uttam Kumaran: You can rely on me for a decision, but the decision on this is going to require me to just kind of understand, because once we start some of these, it’s very hard to roll back, and there are some fixed expenses and fixed operational procedures that will have to happen

149 00:15:59.590 ⇒ 00:16:04.019 Uttam Kumaran: from that moment on, forever. So, I just want to know

150 00:16:04.620 ⇒ 00:16:06.209 Uttam Kumaran: what those are, because then I…

151 00:16:06.440 ⇒ 00:16:12.630 Uttam Kumaran: And then that way, like, as we work on the plan, I can tell you, okay, we should talk to Ian for insurance, see what changes here.

152 00:16:12.860 ⇒ 00:16:16.390 Uttam Kumaran: You know, and like, we’ll just have a cohesive plan.

153 00:16:16.660 ⇒ 00:16:20.880 Uttam Kumaran: that’s probably it, because I just don’t know much about this area, but…

154 00:16:21.000 ⇒ 00:16:28.240 Uttam Kumaran: The moment it sort of comes to my mind, I’ll start talking to people about it, but I think that’s kind of, like, what you’re driving towards, right? For… for this and…

155 00:16:28.880 ⇒ 00:16:29.790 Uttam Kumaran: healthcare.

156 00:16:29.910 ⇒ 00:16:33.120 Kaela Gallagher: I mean, I know, like, when…

157 00:16:33.280 ⇒ 00:16:43.980 Kaela Gallagher: probably, I mean, at least myself and probably some others on the team were brought on, like, this was kind of advertised as something, like, very in the near future.

158 00:16:43.980 ⇒ 00:16:44.530 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

159 00:16:44.530 ⇒ 00:16:56.040 Kaela Gallagher: So that’s why I made it a priority here, but if it’s something that we feel like might not be realistic for Q2, I don’t know that I want to list this as an objective and tie it to my bonus.

160 00:16:57.200 ⇒ 00:16:59.670 Kaela Gallagher: In terms of the California… I think it’s…

161 00:16:59.670 ⇒ 00:17:03.650 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, I think it’s realist… I think it’s realistic if you can get me the plan.

162 00:17:03.920 ⇒ 00:17:09.339 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. Like, the faster I can reflect and start to plan it out.

163 00:17:09.490 ⇒ 00:17:09.890 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah.

164 00:17:09.890 ⇒ 00:17:11.700 Uttam Kumaran: That’s… that’s… that’s what I need, so…

165 00:17:11.700 ⇒ 00:17:12.250 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah.

166 00:17:12.250 ⇒ 00:17:18.000 Uttam Kumaran: I’m like, yeah, that’s it. Like, I don’t think it’s… I don’t think outside of Q2 is, like, it’s just that…

167 00:17:18.000 ⇒ 00:17:18.530 Robert Tseng: Whoa.

168 00:17:18.780 ⇒ 00:17:19.750 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, go ahead.

169 00:17:19.750 ⇒ 00:17:25.329 Robert Tseng: What was Megan’s initial, like, what’s… what’s the… I don’t… I’m so out of the loop, like, what is the…

170 00:17:25.440 ⇒ 00:17:31.489 Robert Tseng: like, is it not just… like, how does it significantly change your estimate of, like, what was it? We estimated, like.

171 00:17:31.930 ⇒ 00:17:32.720 Robert Tseng: What percentage?

172 00:17:32.720 ⇒ 00:17:33.080 Kaela Gallagher: So…

173 00:17:33.080 ⇒ 00:17:34.109 Robert Tseng: Like, yeah.

174 00:17:34.400 ⇒ 00:17:52.009 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, so the thing that Utah mentioned about California is once your company has 5 W-2 employees, if even one of those employees is located in California, which is the case for us, we will be required to offer a 401K to

175 00:17:52.200 ⇒ 00:17:54.460 Kaela Gallagher: everybody. But…

176 00:17:54.460 ⇒ 00:17:58.019 Uttam Kumaran: Just… just the opening of the… just the ability to open an account.

177 00:17:58.020 ⇒ 00:18:01.109 Kaela Gallagher: Literally just the opening of the account. So, she

178 00:18:01.430 ⇒ 00:18:15.099 Kaela Gallagher: $200 a month for this cost, to be able to offer this account to the employees. So that’s… that’s the overview there. Cool. Robert, I think you’re on this, but… oh, maybe not.

179 00:18:15.180 ⇒ 00:18:25.939 Kaela Gallagher: I’m gonna send this to you now. This is, like, kind of the outline of where we’re at with W2, and Megan and Holly have, like, left some comments here. This is the initial, like, cohort that we would convert.

180 00:18:26.790 ⇒ 00:18:27.890 Robert Tseng: Yeah…

181 00:18:32.830 ⇒ 00:18:35.060 Kaela Gallagher: So… Anyway.

182 00:18:35.410 ⇒ 00:18:37.820 Robert Tseng: Okay. Yeah, I’ll look into it, I never saw those.

183 00:18:37.820 ⇒ 00:18:41.379 Uttam Kumaran: The complexity comes from, like, New York has different laws than…

184 00:18:41.570 ⇒ 00:18:43.840 Uttam Kumaran: Cali, and so really, for me.

185 00:18:44.660 ⇒ 00:18:53.020 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t care about all the laws. We’ll pay someone to do all that stuff. Just need to know, like, how much we pay, how much… who’s gonna do that, how much the pay is. I don’t like…

186 00:18:53.020 ⇒ 00:18:53.690 Kaela Gallagher: So…

187 00:18:53.690 ⇒ 00:18:56.179 Uttam Kumaran: Because to tell you the truth, Kayla, like.

188 00:18:56.320 ⇒ 00:19:02.619 Uttam Kumaran: Life is complicated, life is hard. I don’t… it’s like, that’s not interesting to me that it is hard, or there is a lot. I just need to know…

189 00:19:02.950 ⇒ 00:19:07.220 Uttam Kumaran: what’s the cost, and who’s doing it? Because that’s why I’m not interested in…

190 00:19:07.370 ⇒ 00:19:12.539 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, everything’s… everything’s fucking hard, so it’s like, whatever, but it’s like, how hard is it? Who’s gonna do it?

191 00:19:13.030 ⇒ 00:19:14.100 Uttam Kumaran: care about.

192 00:19:14.100 ⇒ 00:19:23.990 Kaela Gallagher: JustWorks would handle the compliance and the legal and the different states and all that, so that’s who she’s getting a quote from now, so it should be pretty comprehensive.

193 00:19:24.020 ⇒ 00:19:29.290 Kaela Gallagher: These were my initial estimates for JustWorks, and then,

194 00:19:29.290 ⇒ 00:19:44.099 Kaela Gallagher: she did make a comment that we will need to transfer workers’ comp insurance to JustWorks instead of who we have it with now, but she would expect the price to be similar to what we’re paying now, we just need to transfer. So, that’s where we’re at there.

195 00:19:44.100 ⇒ 00:19:48.649 Uttam Kumaran: This looks like it’s almost… it’s almost there, so… or at least almost there for, like, a first pass.

196 00:19:48.840 ⇒ 00:20:03.560 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, so I should have more… more information. She said 7 to 10 business days is usually how long it takes them to quote, and I sent her the information today, once I got Robert’s, birthday. So, we’re looking at probably not next week, but the week after to have things solidified.

197 00:20:03.560 ⇒ 00:20:11.020 Uttam Kumaran: And as soon as we have that page, we can send it to Ian, for, like, insurance, and then I have a couple of benefits

198 00:20:11.700 ⇒ 00:20:15.750 Uttam Kumaran: like, Robert, you may have, like, some of these benefits broker-type peeps, like…

199 00:20:15.750 ⇒ 00:20:19.890 Robert Tseng: I don’t know how you know all these random brokers, dude. I don’t have that many broker friends.

200 00:20:19.890 ⇒ 00:20:26.559 Kaela Gallagher: So we won’t… we don’t need a benefits, broker with JustWorks. They will do that for us.

201 00:20:26.560 ⇒ 00:20:32.710 Uttam Kumaran: That’s what… but that’s the thing, remember we were talking about, like, oh, JustWorks becomes the PEO, and, like.

202 00:20:32.710 ⇒ 00:20:33.430 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

203 00:20:33.600 ⇒ 00:20:34.869 Uttam Kumaran: So I was… I just, like…

204 00:20:35.900 ⇒ 00:20:48.819 Uttam Kumaran: this is where, like, the… if I start hearing JustWorks 100 times, I’m like, I’m not on Team Just Works, I’m Team Brainforge, you know? So I’m like, I don’t want to get boxed in just because they do every… like, this is for me, I just need to know the risk of being, like.

205 00:20:49.110 ⇒ 00:21:06.050 Uttam Kumaran: let’s go everything through to JustWorks, because what will happen, Kayla, is someone will be like, oh my god, I had a nightmare story with JustWorks. When I decided to do this big thing with the company, this could happen. So, something like that will come up, so I just need to, like, take this, send it to, like, 5 people, and be like.

206 00:21:06.630 ⇒ 00:21:10.469 Uttam Kumaran: are we good? So, that’s it, that’s it. Okay. Because, cuz, cuz…

207 00:21:10.640 ⇒ 00:21:30.359 Uttam Kumaran: And I don’t blame Megan, but she’s tight with JustWorks, but she also has one angle, right? Holly has another angle, Ian will have another angle, some other people in my network will just have another angle, and then we will have, like, at least, like, the 90th percentile understanding of, like, what to do here. That’s it, that’s all I’m looking for. Ideally, they say, no, this is a great plan, go for it, so…

208 00:21:30.510 ⇒ 00:21:44.639 Kaela Gallagher: Okay, awesome. Okay, yeah, so that’s where we’re at with Objective 2. Sorry to get sidetracked. Objective 3 is all about onboarding, which has been a huge focus for me, especially the past couple weeks.

209 00:21:44.810 ⇒ 00:21:56.269 Kaela Gallagher: So, the key results here, pilot the onboarding program with at least two new hires. Honestly, I could change this to a bigger number, because I think we’re going to have two in the next, like, two weeks.

210 00:21:57.120 ⇒ 00:22:05.760 Kaela Gallagher: But, like, would love to continue piloting the onboarding program, and then also collecting feed… feedback. So I…

211 00:22:05.760 ⇒ 00:22:11.849 Robert Tseng: Are we using the thing that, Vixel suggested? What was that tool?

212 00:22:11.850 ⇒ 00:22:15.159 Uttam Kumaran: No, not yet, I, I, I delayed,

213 00:22:15.480 ⇒ 00:22:17.550 Uttam Kumaran: Just until probably this next month.

214 00:22:17.860 ⇒ 00:22:22.059 Uttam Kumaran: They don’t… because they do annual plan, it’s like a thousand bucks, I was like, I just want to close the month, and…

215 00:22:22.620 ⇒ 00:22:23.859 Robert Tseng: Yeah, yeah, okay, okay.

216 00:22:23.870 ⇒ 00:22:32.599 Kaela Gallagher: One thing there is I did negotiate us, I think 20% off, and I think that expires at the end of this month, so we.

217 00:22:32.600 ⇒ 00:22:33.420 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, really?

218 00:22:33.820 ⇒ 00:22:36.360 Kaela Gallagher: We may see a full price next month.

219 00:22:37.620 ⇒ 00:22:41.660 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, I’ll email… I’ll email them, I’ll just email them, see what they say.

220 00:22:42.140 ⇒ 00:22:42.500 Kaela Gallagher: Okay.

221 00:22:42.500 ⇒ 00:22:45.959 Uttam Kumaran: I wanted to wait until this month, because it’s, it’s like, it’s like a thousand bucks.

222 00:22:46.230 ⇒ 00:22:49.709 Kaela Gallagher: Yes, yeah. So, on that.

223 00:22:49.710 ⇒ 00:22:51.440 Uttam Kumaran: You still think it’s… you still think it’s worth it?

224 00:22:51.980 ⇒ 00:22:58.089 Kaela Gallagher: I do, because you, you left a comment here about, like, measuring NPS. Yeah. Worklead can also do that.

225 00:22:58.470 ⇒ 00:22:58.990 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, okay.

226 00:22:58.990 ⇒ 00:23:08.670 Kaela Gallagher: Only can we do, like, onboarding feedback through that platform, but we can also do an NPS, and we can break it down by team, and really, like, pinpoint. Okay.

227 00:23:08.670 ⇒ 00:23:09.239 Uttam Kumaran: That’s great.

228 00:23:09.240 ⇒ 00:23:10.950 Kaela Gallagher: In the meantime.

229 00:23:10.950 ⇒ 00:23:13.380 Robert Tseng: I know which team’s gonna be the lowest.

230 00:23:15.190 ⇒ 00:23:16.070 Kaela Gallagher: In the meantime…

231 00:23:16.070 ⇒ 00:23:16.740 Uttam Kumaran: Team!

232 00:23:17.330 ⇒ 00:23:18.830 Uttam Kumaran: Platform team?

233 00:23:18.830 ⇒ 00:23:20.279 Robert Tseng: No, no, no, no.

234 00:23:20.280 ⇒ 00:23:21.710 Uttam Kumaran: And work to the boat.

235 00:23:21.710 ⇒ 00:23:23.500 Robert Tseng: It’s gonna be my sales team.

236 00:23:23.500 ⇒ 00:23:24.040 Uttam Kumaran: Hahaha.

237 00:23:24.040 ⇒ 00:23:25.170 Robert Tseng: They’re still here.

238 00:23:30.960 ⇒ 00:23:47.860 Kaela Gallagher: What was I gonna say? Oh, in the meantime, for onboarding feedback, I did, like, we do have a Notion form, so I’ve sent that to, like, Idvate for his Week 1 feedback, and I’m using that, like, in the meantime, to just collect responses there.

239 00:23:48.250 ⇒ 00:24:05.489 Kaela Gallagher: And then, also, we’ll be piloting the buddy program. We have a couple pairings in place already, but none of them have been in place for 30 days, which is when we’re, like, doing the feedback and measuring the success of the program. So.

240 00:24:05.490 ⇒ 00:24:08.049 Uttam Kumaran: Monica, what’s the… what’s the perspective so far?

241 00:24:08.500 ⇒ 00:24:10.259 Uttam Kumaran: What’s the TLDR?

242 00:24:10.260 ⇒ 00:24:16.350 Kaela Gallagher: so far, like, it seems like it’s going really well. We have Advait and Amber, which I feel like was a really great…

243 00:24:16.350 ⇒ 00:24:20.620 Uttam Kumaran: Can you explain to Robert the, like, what is the ask for the buddies?

244 00:24:21.050 ⇒ 00:24:33.089 Kaela Gallagher: Yes, so we have it built out, but basically the buddy should be sending a message and connecting with the person day one, just as, like, an intro.

245 00:24:33.090 ⇒ 00:24:42.880 Kaela Gallagher: They should have another connection within the first 2 weeks of that person being onboarded, and then they should be a resource for anything, like.

246 00:24:43.830 ⇒ 00:24:59.190 Kaela Gallagher: oh, where, like, where can I put this, or what’s the deal with the Friday meeting, or what, like, any kind of random questions about, like, Brainforge culture or standard operating procedures, the buddy is supposed to be a resource for that.

247 00:24:59.190 ⇒ 00:25:00.240 Robert Tseng: Oh, wow.

248 00:25:00.690 ⇒ 00:25:19.230 Kaela Gallagher: Amber’s also, like, an additional resource to Edvate with the visa, so I think they’re partnering even more so than maybe, like, a normal buddy pairing would. But I think it’s going really well. Like, when I talked to Ed Vate, he had really great things to say about Amber and vice versa, so…

249 00:25:19.320 ⇒ 00:25:21.399 Kaela Gallagher: Excited about that.

250 00:25:22.540 ⇒ 00:25:27.060 Robert Tseng: Okay. Yeah, I didn’t actually realize this was, like, a formal… I always thought, like.

251 00:25:27.490 ⇒ 00:25:35.600 Robert Tseng: we’re just… I feel like it’s kind of like a pyramid scheme. We ask, like, the newest person to be… the second newest person to be the newest person.

252 00:25:35.600 ⇒ 00:25:36.120 Uttam Kumaran: No, that’s cool.

253 00:25:36.450 ⇒ 00:25:38.789 Uttam Kumaran: That’s called… that’s called paying it forward.

254 00:25:40.070 ⇒ 00:25:40.710 Kaela Gallagher: Yay!

255 00:25:40.710 ⇒ 00:25:47.869 Uttam Kumaran: That’s called… you get a BMW one day, so… BMW one day.

256 00:25:50.710 ⇒ 00:26:05.529 Kaela Gallagher: what was I gonna say? Oh, Miranda’s starting on Monday, and she’s gonna be paired with Pranav, and, like, they already have time on calendar to sync in the afternoon, so, yeah, I think it’s been going really well.

257 00:26:05.630 ⇒ 00:26:08.610 Robert Tseng: The mom and the buddy is gonna be so funny.

258 00:26:08.950 ⇒ 00:26:09.340 Uttam Kumaran: Why?

259 00:26:09.700 ⇒ 00:26:11.229 Robert Tseng: These are so serious.

260 00:26:11.640 ⇒ 00:26:14.489 Uttam Kumaran: Dude, he’s not that… okay, he is pretty serious.

261 00:26:14.490 ⇒ 00:26:15.200 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

262 00:26:15.200 ⇒ 00:26:18.640 Uttam Kumaran: But, like, I guess, yeah, I guess you could say it’s kind of serious, but…

263 00:26:18.670 ⇒ 00:26:21.629 Kaela Gallagher: I feel like Miranda can be pretty serious, though, too, right?

264 00:26:21.630 ⇒ 00:26:24.209 Uttam Kumaran: I feel like I try to make people laugh here and there.

265 00:26:26.240 ⇒ 00:26:32.870 Kaela Gallagher: And then we’ll need one for Garrett, too, so if anyone has any thoughts on that.

266 00:26:33.420 ⇒ 00:26:35.739 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, we’ll give him a buddy, too, but…

267 00:26:35.740 ⇒ 00:26:37.109 Uttam Kumaran: I feel like… I feel like…

268 00:26:37.600 ⇒ 00:26:40.479 Uttam Kumaran: Maybe Greg is a good person for him.

269 00:26:41.850 ⇒ 00:26:43.530 Kaela Gallagher: I feel like Greg would be good.

270 00:26:44.740 ⇒ 00:26:55.340 Uttam Kumaran: I just, like, how much… I just feel bad putting more stuff on this plate. Like, is it… is it, like, an hour a week or so? I mean, they’re already… we’re already gonna be meeting the four of us, so maybe it’s helpful.

271 00:26:55.500 ⇒ 00:27:06.019 Kaela Gallagher: Honestly, like, I would estimate this to be… it’s a 30-day program, and I would say it’s half an hour or less per week, on average. Like, it really shouldn’t be a huge…

272 00:27:06.310 ⇒ 00:27:09.140 Kaela Gallagher: time commitment from… Either end.

273 00:27:09.560 ⇒ 00:27:10.190 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

274 00:27:13.020 ⇒ 00:27:13.810 Kaela Gallagher: Cool.

275 00:27:14.400 ⇒ 00:27:17.530 Kaela Gallagher: Okay.

276 00:27:18.100 ⇒ 00:27:36.859 Kaela Gallagher: Objective four, improve team engagement, morale, and retention. So, I’d love to launch at least two, like, morale or engagement programs. So, for example, like, coaching, which we’ve started brainstorming on, Team Member of the Month I’m launching next week, which I’m really excited about, and partnering with.

277 00:27:36.860 ⇒ 00:27:39.089 Robert Tseng: I’m excited for that, I’m curious who wins.

278 00:27:39.390 ⇒ 00:27:45.350 Kaela Gallagher: I’ve only gotten 3 responses so far, and they’re all for different people, so I’m like, somebody please vote.

279 00:27:45.350 ⇒ 00:27:46.609 Uttam Kumaran: I picked the wild card.

280 00:27:47.410 ⇒ 00:27:51.919 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, okay, I don’t know, maybe should I just DM people to fill it out? Like, why aren’t people filling it out?

281 00:27:51.920 ⇒ 00:27:55.270 Kaela Gallagher: So, I tried to send an email to everybody today.

282 00:27:55.270 ⇒ 00:27:56.500 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I got the email.

283 00:27:57.000 ⇒ 00:27:57.830 Kaela Gallagher: Oh!

284 00:27:57.940 ⇒ 00:28:00.540 Kaela Gallagher: Wait, but B, you didn’t get it?

285 00:28:01.610 ⇒ 00:28:04.290 Brylle Girang: Maybe I’m… I was not part of the distro.

286 00:28:04.810 ⇒ 00:28:07.410 Kaela Gallagher: Wait, Rico, did you get the email?

287 00:28:07.710 ⇒ 00:28:09.100 Rico Rejoso: I didn’t, yeah.

288 00:28:09.100 ⇒ 00:28:09.450 Uttam Kumaran: What?

289 00:28:09.450 ⇒ 00:28:10.170 Brylle Girang: Oh, wow.

290 00:28:11.270 ⇒ 00:28:15.709 Kaela Gallagher: Maybe the email just goes to you, Utom. I tried doing brainforge-team at.

291 00:28:15.710 ⇒ 00:28:16.070 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

292 00:28:16.070 ⇒ 00:28:16.860 Kaela Gallagher: AI.

293 00:28:16.860 ⇒ 00:28:17.580 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, but…

294 00:28:17.580 ⇒ 00:28:19.840 Rico Rejoso: group, yeah, they’re not there, I guess.

295 00:28:19.840 ⇒ 00:28:26.099 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know, this is where I’m like, I don’t know, if Rico doesn’t know about the group, then it may be something I set up, like, 3 years ago.

296 00:28:26.510 ⇒ 00:28:27.080 Brylle Girang: Yeah.

297 00:28:27.820 ⇒ 00:28:28.290 Uttam Kumaran: Like, I promise.

298 00:28:28.290 ⇒ 00:28:29.020 Brylle Girang: Yeah, look.

299 00:28:29.020 ⇒ 00:28:41.299 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, you know, I set up Brainforge Team, because one day Slack was down, like, 2 years ago or a year ago, and I was like, I had to get in touch with everybody, so I just threw everybody into a group. It may not be… well, you should just re- you should just resend it, like…

300 00:28:41.300 ⇒ 00:28:47.250 Kaela Gallagher: Okay. Okay. Yeah, I was… oh my gosh, that’s so funny, it’s like 6 people. Okay.

301 00:28:47.670 ⇒ 00:29:03.440 Kaela Gallagher: I will send out that email again after this call, and hopefully get a little bit more engagement on that. And then we’re gonna do, like, a LinkedIn post too, which I think will be really fun, and hopefully people can, like, reshare it to their page, like… Oh, good.

302 00:29:03.440 ⇒ 00:29:05.840 Uttam Kumaran: Call a bunch of people, maybe for the next, like.

303 00:29:05.990 ⇒ 00:29:09.020 Uttam Kumaran: Every meeting I have… wait, when are you… what is this done, on Monday?

304 00:29:09.680 ⇒ 00:29:13.580 Kaela Gallagher: So, I’m going to announce it in the Friday meeting a week from today.

305 00:29:13.580 ⇒ 00:29:26.010 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, okay, so on Monday, I’ll basically start every meeting, and I’ll ask people, and I just won’t… I’ll just kind of, like, won’t start the meeting until people submitted it. I’m gonna… I’ll meet with everybody on Monday, one way or another, so…

306 00:29:26.010 ⇒ 00:29:28.550 Kaela Gallagher: Amazing. Yeah. Cool. Awesome.

307 00:29:29.050 ⇒ 00:29:43.649 Kaela Gallagher: Okay, and then Objective 5, I created an alternate Objective 5 based on Utem’s feedback. So, this one’s expanding on Q1 objectives, create a lean, repeatable recruiting system, so,

308 00:29:43.650 ⇒ 00:29:54.549 Kaela Gallagher: Posting 3 pieces of recruiting-related content, partnering with marketing, that’s been a great way for us to source in the past, and would like to utilize that moving forward.

309 00:29:54.730 ⇒ 00:30:13.980 Kaela Gallagher: And then, I’d also like to obtain 5 referred, candidates from current team members. I’m gonna say that Robert and Utam do not count as, referrals here. This is from, like, the rest of the team. And, these candidates must make it to the first step of the interview process for it to count as.

310 00:30:13.980 ⇒ 00:30:21.320 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I think that Objective 5, I’m gonna cover, like, outside of this group.

311 00:30:21.940 ⇒ 00:30:32.560 Uttam Kumaran: there’s really just sales and marketing in terms of non-delivery, so I was like, I would rather you ditch Objective 5 and do something on…

312 00:30:32.780 ⇒ 00:30:36.919 Uttam Kumaran: recruiting, and, you know, I was trying to think about, like, something that matters.

313 00:30:37.040 ⇒ 00:30:40.679 Uttam Kumaran: And I do think that a great success… a great, like.

314 00:30:40.960 ⇒ 00:30:58.330 Uttam Kumaran: something that, like, would indicate, like, a lot of success is, like, if we get internal referrals, and it’s sort of a vicious circle, right? And we already are getting that, and so I think get… having you do that lines up with a lot of our other targets, like, if people are happy, they reform more people.

315 00:30:58.380 ⇒ 00:31:02.949 Uttam Kumaran: And then it helps your, like, time as well, so it’s kind of like a.

316 00:31:02.950 ⇒ 00:31:03.340 Kaela Gallagher: wait for.

317 00:31:03.340 ⇒ 00:31:04.749 Uttam Kumaran: on special, you know, so…

318 00:31:04.750 ⇒ 00:31:09.500 Kaela Gallagher: Referrals are always the best candidates, too. Like, good people… Yeah, because some people…

319 00:31:09.500 ⇒ 00:31:16.489 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, and they put in a good word for us, and, like, they kind of talked behind the scenes, which is good, like, I don’t know, you know, so…

320 00:31:17.310 ⇒ 00:31:20.589 Uttam Kumaran: I think… I felt like I couldn’t think of another…

321 00:31:21.250 ⇒ 00:31:32.069 Uttam Kumaran: I couldn’t think of anything else. Like, for example, I was like, okay, maybe is there anything around automation? But I feel like you’re starting to get the hang of, like, the AI stuff already. I think we’ll pair more this quarter, like, I…

322 00:31:32.270 ⇒ 00:31:36.939 Uttam Kumaran: I feel like this is pretty good. Probably the only other thing that I could see

323 00:31:37.120 ⇒ 00:31:42.900 Uttam Kumaran: Coming up is, like, we don’t yet have a lot of metrics on our… interview funnel?

324 00:31:43.240 ⇒ 00:31:48.990 Uttam Kumaran: And I think maybe some… this could be for next quarter, which is something around, like.

325 00:31:50.090 ⇒ 00:31:56.099 Uttam Kumaran: maybe 80% of people that make it to the final round convert, right? And that way, it forces

326 00:31:57.040 ⇒ 00:31:59.690 Uttam Kumaran: It forces us to just have a really good funnel.

327 00:31:59.840 ⇒ 00:32:00.790 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know, so like…

328 00:32:00.790 ⇒ 00:32:03.380 Robert Tseng: Yeah, too many people are getting to the final right now.

329 00:32:03.580 ⇒ 00:32:05.979 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so that’s why I’m like, maybe we…

330 00:32:07.130 ⇒ 00:32:09.970 Uttam Kumaran: You could consider doing that now, or, like.

331 00:32:10.520 ⇒ 00:32:14.240 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know. I don’t… I don’t know if that’s… that metric is good enough, but like…

332 00:32:14.600 ⇒ 00:32:22.309 Uttam Kumaran: I also feel that way, I think… I mean, I think it’s good, because I feel like we’re already, like, pretty good at interviewing, and I just think we need to just…

333 00:32:23.010 ⇒ 00:32:26.509 Uttam Kumaran: Tighten it up at one notch earlier in the process.

334 00:32:26.910 ⇒ 00:32:27.420 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah.

335 00:32:28.550 ⇒ 00:32:32.690 Kaela Gallagher: I think another way to address that, too, is going to be, like.

336 00:32:33.640 ⇒ 00:32:39.260 Kaela Gallagher: potentially having Jasmine take Amber’s spot in the interview process, because.

337 00:32:39.260 ⇒ 00:32:39.760 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

338 00:32:40.590 ⇒ 00:32:47.510 Kaela Gallagher: if, like, that just makes sense if Jasmine’s gonna be, like, a lead, and I think she’ll be pretty picky.

339 00:32:49.600 ⇒ 00:32:53.409 Uttam Kumaran: I’m fine with that, yeah. I think there’s two pieces to that. One, yeah, like.

340 00:32:53.600 ⇒ 00:32:55.579 Uttam Kumaran: More of the service leads, like.

341 00:32:55.770 ⇒ 00:32:58.909 Uttam Kumaran: Because this is gonna be their team. I think second, like.

342 00:32:59.220 ⇒ 00:33:01.000 Uttam Kumaran: I think you should just do, like.

343 00:33:01.350 ⇒ 00:33:04.360 Uttam Kumaran: One of those recruiting feedback sessions once a month.

344 00:33:04.720 ⇒ 00:33:08.190 Kaela Gallagher: Yes, I have it on calendar for, like, a week or two from now, yeah.

345 00:33:08.190 ⇒ 00:33:18.550 Uttam Kumaran: And then also, some people are just starting to, like, get in the groove on recruit… on interviewing, where they’re like, okay, I have the questions, like, this is where Pranav’s like, should I be always using those questions? I’m like, no, your goal is to, like.

346 00:33:18.550 ⇒ 00:33:19.140 Kaela Gallagher: S.

347 00:33:19.140 ⇒ 00:33:20.109 Uttam Kumaran: It’d be a hell yes or no.

348 00:33:20.110 ⇒ 00:33:21.290 Kaela Gallagher: Excellent, yeah.

349 00:33:21.290 ⇒ 00:33:24.690 Uttam Kumaran: What I don’t want is, like, you ask all the questions on the sheet, and then you’re like, a maybe.

350 00:33:24.870 ⇒ 00:33:28.340 Uttam Kumaran: You know, and so… maybe… maybe there’s also, like.

351 00:33:28.490 ⇒ 00:33:31.920 Uttam Kumaran: For folks that are new to interviewing, there’s, like, maybe a training.

352 00:33:32.230 ⇒ 00:33:41.030 Uttam Kumaran: or everybody, we kind of communicate, or we review and interview with everybody. I don’t know. I think probably my larger piece is that, like.

353 00:33:41.710 ⇒ 00:33:44.870 Uttam Kumaran: We need to…

354 00:33:45.300 ⇒ 00:33:55.730 Uttam Kumaran: we need to find people that we’re, like, impressed by, because I see you’re having a lot of success getting people in the funnel, which means the middle of the funnel needs to just get tighter.

355 00:33:55.880 ⇒ 00:34:15.749 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. You know, like, I don’t want to restrict as many people, but that could be my fault on the screen side. That could be, like, people at the first level just need to be more opinionated. But I do want to kind of bias towards, hey, if people make it to the final round, we’re gonna take an hour from, like, 3 people, and then discussion, like.

356 00:34:15.880 ⇒ 00:34:19.770 Uttam Kumaran: Those should be people that someone on that call is like, I love this person.

357 00:34:19.770 ⇒ 00:34:20.270 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah.

358 00:34:20.270 ⇒ 00:34:20.670 Uttam Kumaran: You know?

359 00:34:20.670 ⇒ 00:34:32.370 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, like, everybody on that call, I mean, yeah, if somebody gets to a final, like, they’ve already talked to, you know, Awash and Damien. Like, Awash and Damian should feel comfortable, like, yeah, my name is on this candidate, and I’m so excited.

360 00:34:32.370 ⇒ 00:34:33.820 Uttam Kumaran: And I don’t think that was the…

361 00:34:33.820 ⇒ 00:34:34.790 Kaela Gallagher: them to Utom.

362 00:34:34.790 ⇒ 00:34:39.299 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, and I don’t think that was the case for a couple. Which is… which I think is, like, that’s the change.

363 00:34:39.530 ⇒ 00:34:46.989 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. And I think some people are like, yeah, this person’s okay, or they’re good, and they’re like, pass. I think…

364 00:34:47.679 ⇒ 00:34:52.310 Uttam Kumaran: Either we say… like, one other way of doing it is you say,

365 00:34:53.340 ⇒ 00:34:57.079 Uttam Kumaran: You know, you have a… you have a bar of, like, 1 to 5, you can just do 1 to 3.

366 00:34:57.640 ⇒ 00:35:01.660 Uttam Kumaran: Like, sometimes people will just pick, like, 3. It’s like when you say, like.

367 00:35:02.010 ⇒ 00:35:08.270 Uttam Kumaran: pick something between 1 and 10, and people do 5. It’s like, no, you just, like, 1, 3, 7, or 10.

368 00:35:08.500 ⇒ 00:35:09.300 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, I am.

369 00:35:09.300 ⇒ 00:35:15.069 Uttam Kumaran: So, you could also do pass-fail, like, you just make it easy for them and force people to make that decision.

370 00:35:15.240 ⇒ 00:35:20.349 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. You know, and it should be tough, but people should themselves be like.

371 00:35:20.820 ⇒ 00:35:23.470 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t… I wouldn’t want this person on my team, so it’s kind of.

372 00:35:23.470 ⇒ 00:35:23.790 Kaela Gallagher: I mean.

373 00:35:24.150 ⇒ 00:35:24.690 Uttam Kumaran: You know?

374 00:35:25.830 ⇒ 00:35:31.589 Uttam Kumaran: And then if we have a conflict, then that’s great, because then we’re discussed and we reach, but right now, I think some people got, when I reviewed, I was like.

375 00:35:31.720 ⇒ 00:35:34.969 Uttam Kumaran: it’s, like, 3, 4, 5s, 4 fives, but then I’m like.

376 00:35:35.720 ⇒ 00:35:37.989 Uttam Kumaran: I’m like, I don’t know, we got to the end, and I’m like.

377 00:35:38.470 ⇒ 00:35:43.919 Uttam Kumaran: I feel like I was… even Sam wasn’t, like, super excited. I’m like, alright, I feel like this person got in.

378 00:35:44.460 ⇒ 00:35:50.500 Uttam Kumaran: all the way to the end, you know? And so… but this is a change. I don’t think any… I don’t think we’re, like, making this explicitly clear yet, so…

379 00:35:50.500 ⇒ 00:35:56.100 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, we can talk about this a lot in our next retro, too. Okay, a couple…

380 00:35:56.360 ⇒ 00:35:59.420 Kaela Gallagher: Notes here. Plan U.S. off-site.

381 00:36:00.160 ⇒ 00:36:05.430 Kaela Gallagher: Do we think that that is happening in Q2, or should I postpone to Q3?

382 00:36:06.490 ⇒ 00:36:11.870 Uttam Kumaran: I… I guess, like, similarly, like, Get a sense of cost.

383 00:36:12.020 ⇒ 00:36:13.440 Uttam Kumaran: I can think about it.

384 00:36:13.580 ⇒ 00:36:19.309 Uttam Kumaran: like, I think maybe… maybe my ask is not plan the off-site for the quarter, but just, like.

385 00:36:19.620 ⇒ 00:36:24.559 Uttam Kumaran: Can we create an off-site plan? It may just take, like, an hour or two to think about.

386 00:36:24.930 ⇒ 00:36:30.410 Uttam Kumaran: but, like, I would like to try to do one this year.

387 00:36:31.090 ⇒ 00:36:34.999 Uttam Kumaran: I just want to know, like, yeah, what are sort of… what’s the all-in cost?

388 00:36:35.920 ⇒ 00:36:38.250 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so…

389 00:36:38.250 ⇒ 00:36:38.860 Kaela Gallagher: Abraham.

390 00:36:38.860 ⇒ 00:36:41.289 Uttam Kumaran: Not necessarily for next quarter, but…

391 00:36:41.900 ⇒ 00:36:42.660 Kaela Gallagher: Okay.

392 00:36:44.180 ⇒ 00:36:46.570 Kaela Gallagher: Got it. Well, I think that’s it for me.

393 00:36:49.210 ⇒ 00:36:51.680 Uttam Kumaran: Anyone else have any thoughts on, like, recruiting?

394 00:36:57.720 ⇒ 00:36:58.460 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

395 00:36:59.880 ⇒ 00:37:01.650 Uttam Kumaran: Maybe, Rico, you wanna go next?

396 00:37:02.550 ⇒ 00:37:03.110 Rico Rejoso: Yep.

397 00:37:09.960 ⇒ 00:37:13.950 Rico Rejoso: Okay, so, you just have this…

398 00:37:14.450 ⇒ 00:37:19.760 Rico Rejoso: I mean, I just re-write everything earlier today, so I might have to…

399 00:37:20.110 ⇒ 00:37:25.510 Rico Rejoso: change some of this one based on the feedback from Vexil and, Blue Thumb earlier.

400 00:37:26.120 ⇒ 00:37:35.479 Rico Rejoso: But yeah, first one for the OKR1, which is the request, intake, and triage. Our objective is all operation requests flow through one funnel and are managed linear.

401 00:37:35.820 ⇒ 00:37:47.699 Rico Rejoso: So, it’s just a one clear path into linear, so requests don’t just sit in three urge to make sure that, to get everything, either in backlog or in the current cycle.

402 00:37:47.880 ⇒ 00:37:49.990 Rico Rejoso: Within one business day.

403 00:37:50.240 ⇒ 00:37:57.129 Rico Rejoso: And also to make sure that we inform the requester once it’s done, either through linear comment or send them a feedback through Slack.

404 00:37:58.110 ⇒ 00:38:05.279 Rico Rejoso: One thing while I, this, this came from, this quarter’s, OKR as well, and one thing that I wanted to

405 00:38:05.390 ⇒ 00:38:08.469 Rico Rejoso: Ads, or let’s say, continue this one to…

406 00:38:08.620 ⇒ 00:38:24.420 Rico Rejoso: Quarter two is because we also… I’m gonna use this one to gather feedback, or let’s say data from our team members. Because right now, what we have are the common requests, which is access or expense, right? And we want to gather more of what

407 00:38:24.550 ⇒ 00:38:35.699 Rico Rejoso: the team are experiencing. So aside from making sure that, all requests are not just in Slack, but are in Linear, there’s also a way for us to gather data from our team members and, to come up, or to

408 00:38:35.870 ⇒ 00:38:47.240 Rico Rejoso: identify gaps from operations, delivery, and fill in with solutions. So I think that’s the reason why we have this as OKR1, or our first objective for this quarter.

409 00:38:47.830 ⇒ 00:38:48.480 Rico Rejoso: Second.

410 00:38:48.480 ⇒ 00:39:03.780 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, on that one, I feel like one of the reasons I like this is it sort of gets into what I’ll talk about, the platform, which is just, like, I think a lot of these we’re gonna start to be able to do via AI, and tracking is just gonna be the biggest bottleneck.

411 00:39:03.830 ⇒ 00:39:10.960 Uttam Kumaran: So, I think this is great. I think, Rico, probably what’s gonna happen is just what I’ve seen at every company I’ve been in, which is you just have to remind people, like.

412 00:39:11.560 ⇒ 00:39:13.560 Uttam Kumaran: How to do things around this.

413 00:39:13.680 ⇒ 00:39:28.109 Uttam Kumaran: So, I, like, I’m gonna forget, I think people just don’t know how to use linear asks, so I know… I’m sure you’re thinking about putting it into the onboarding, but some type of reminder, or, like, maybe during the Friday meetings, or something, I don’t know.

414 00:39:28.310 ⇒ 00:39:30.920 Uttam Kumaran: But now that also, like, people can use the linear…

415 00:39:31.320 ⇒ 00:39:40.319 Uttam Kumaran: thing, like, super easily. Like, even just do atlinear, help me out. So, yeah, I feel like this is a totally fair objective. I think you’ll hit it.

416 00:39:43.260 ⇒ 00:39:58.070 Rico Rejoso: And also, I set up a reminder for this one for every week to go out, to remind the team that we have, like, varieties of ways to request to operations, aside from linear ass. We have the slash command, which is currently down at the time. I submitted a platform request for that.

417 00:39:58.260 ⇒ 00:40:14.940 Rico Rejoso: But yeah, to remind them to utilize the program, or let’s say, the tools that we have, and everything can be done through Slack as well, right? So I have that set up, a reminder set up for next week as well, and also going to discuss this one during our, all-hands meeting next Friday.

418 00:40:16.880 ⇒ 00:40:20.880 Rico Rejoso: Okay, any questions for, the first objective, or OKR1?

419 00:40:23.680 ⇒ 00:40:24.520 Rico Rejoso: Alright.

420 00:40:24.870 ⇒ 00:40:35.880 Rico Rejoso: Next one is for the client AR and team AP predictability. It’s just, our objective is timely invoices sent out to our clients, or,

421 00:40:36.280 ⇒ 00:40:52.170 Rico Rejoso: record, past due AR in linear, make sure we track it every day as well, to make, to follow up with our clients and, prior AP work, worksheet, and confirm each cycle until we close out, all APs, for the month.

422 00:40:53.630 ⇒ 00:41:09.739 Rico Rejoso: So, our goal is to make sure that monthly invoices go out for, on a fixed calendar rule, that is in coordination with our finance team, and make sure that late clients or late, AR are tracked and linear as well, so we can follow up, and until we close that out.

423 00:41:09.880 ⇒ 00:41:24.600 Rico Rejoso: the same process with our AP worksheet. Once we receive… usually, the process is once we receive that AR, we work on the AP worksheet to submit it to Finance, and we, get confirmation from UTOM on whether… who should be prior for this week, and close that out.

424 00:41:24.640 ⇒ 00:41:44.060 Rico Rejoso: So it’s just basically tracking, making sure that we track that one, and we follow up as much as we can. There are suggestions from Vixel on the OKR number 2, and I still haven’t added that one as well, including the other key results that Nuta mentioned about the credit card, the ACH. I haven’t still added those ones yet.

425 00:41:44.130 ⇒ 00:41:45.380 Rico Rejoso: for OPR.

426 00:41:46.110 ⇒ 00:41:52.249 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I think one thing, Rico, on this is, like, I think you can, use this metric of AP aging.

427 00:41:52.370 ⇒ 00:41:54.480 Uttam Kumaran: as, like, your KR here.

428 00:41:55.240 ⇒ 00:42:03.619 Uttam Kumaran: Basically, in finance, there’s a standard way to measure, like, how late You are to collect.

429 00:42:04.180 ⇒ 00:42:08.530 Uttam Kumaran: I think it would be helpful to just look up a benchmark.

430 00:42:08.740 ⇒ 00:42:11.320 Uttam Kumaran: And C, and that could be the KR.

431 00:42:11.450 ⇒ 00:42:14.670 Uttam Kumaran: I just think, like, I like where your head is at, but I think

432 00:42:15.200 ⇒ 00:42:18.359 Uttam Kumaran: No late… no late balance in someone’s head.

433 00:42:19.480 ⇒ 00:42:25.150 Uttam Kumaran: Pick a simple rule, anything over X days must have a ticket. Feel like it’s a weak target.

434 00:42:25.310 ⇒ 00:42:30.230 Uttam Kumaran: I think if you target towards… like… 80%…

435 00:42:30.230 ⇒ 00:42:30.750 Rico Rejoso: Yeah.

436 00:42:30.750 ⇒ 00:42:34.980 Uttam Kumaran: AP Aging within… 1 to 30 days or something is, like.

437 00:42:35.310 ⇒ 00:42:37.860 Uttam Kumaran: Gives you, gives you, like, a better thing to hit.

438 00:42:38.520 ⇒ 00:42:42.199 Uttam Kumaran: And then… I actually think, like.

439 00:42:42.940 ⇒ 00:42:45.890 Uttam Kumaran: KR3, you almost don’t need, because…

440 00:42:46.580 ⇒ 00:42:52.609 Uttam Kumaran: that just is a way of achieving the second key result, is the AP thing, right?

441 00:42:52.870 ⇒ 00:42:58.049 Uttam Kumaran: That’s why it’s like, I wanna… I wanna make sure that, like, we’re not… key result isn’t, like.

442 00:42:58.990 ⇒ 00:43:03.600 Uttam Kumaran: okay, in order to achieve this objective, I’m going to do this. It has to be a measured thing.

443 00:43:03.970 ⇒ 00:43:07.959 Uttam Kumaran: So, I feel like if you just make the key result for 2,

444 00:43:08.090 ⇒ 00:43:12.569 Uttam Kumaran: we’re gonna get AP aging to this. Megan can tell you what it is today.

445 00:43:13.430 ⇒ 00:43:17.130 Uttam Kumaran: then you can probably remove the KR3. Does that make sense?

446 00:43:18.310 ⇒ 00:43:19.379 Rico Rejoso: Got it, yeah.

447 00:43:20.960 ⇒ 00:43:22.699 Uttam Kumaran: Some people’s KRs are gonna be, like.

448 00:43:22.800 ⇒ 00:43:27.000 Uttam Kumaran: create this plan, right? But I want us to move away from that, because… Quick.

449 00:43:27.230 ⇒ 00:43:31.650 Uttam Kumaran: I want us to move much more towards, like, hitting a result of an outcome of a metric.

450 00:43:32.020 ⇒ 00:43:32.560 Uttam Kumaran: You know.

451 00:43:32.560 ⇒ 00:43:37.790 Rico Rejoso: Got you. Yeah, I got that on my open question here in person, so I think I haven’t resolved that one.

452 00:43:38.310 ⇒ 00:43:39.470 Rico Rejoso: Cool. Sorry, yeah.

453 00:43:40.030 ⇒ 00:43:45.780 Rico Rejoso: Yeah, note that as well, probably we’re gonna enter this meeting. Okay. So that’s for OKR, too.

454 00:43:45.900 ⇒ 00:43:47.039 Uttam Kumaran: Cool, this is great.

455 00:43:48.380 ⇒ 00:43:59.100 Rico Rejoso: Yeah, OKR3 is policy adherence, basically for Clockified P2 and all, policy that we set up. So for this partner, as you noticed during our retro, we sent out a

456 00:43:59.180 ⇒ 00:44:10.650 Rico Rejoso: a lot of policies, and we remind the team about the policies that we’re implementing, right? Specific… and we also enforce escalation, and inform the team about the process for escalation. So.

457 00:44:10.740 ⇒ 00:44:30.209 Rico Rejoso: Our objective for quarter number two is to make sure the team members follow all our policies that we’ve written. We have an operation-facing, policy document and a team-facing policy that we shared with the team, and making sure that everyone is informed how the policy works. This time, we want to make sure that we’re enforcing and we’re getting results from it.

458 00:44:30.450 ⇒ 00:44:31.859 Rico Rejoso: Okay? And…

459 00:44:32.360 ⇒ 00:44:44.619 Rico Rejoso: We’re also, tracking who are non-compliant with the policy. We started doing it so this month, March, and we have a few individuals, as well, in our database… on our database.

460 00:44:45.790 ⇒ 00:44:47.700 Rico Rejoso: Regarding the KR…

461 00:44:52.620 ⇒ 00:44:53.350 Rico Rejoso: Yeah.

462 00:44:53.520 ⇒ 00:44:59.490 Rico Rejoso: Basically, that’s our… one of our… one of our objectives for this quarter, make sure that all policy that we,

463 00:44:59.630 ⇒ 00:45:06.570 Rico Rejoso: inform the team, on the first quarter will be enforced, and we’ll track, non-compliant this quarter as well.

464 00:45:07.540 ⇒ 00:45:20.809 Rico Rejoso: Because this is also affecting some of our processes, which includes our finance and our capability to send out invoices for clients and team members, especially with the Clockify, and also our delivery when someone is out and no one… or, let’s say.

465 00:45:20.810 ⇒ 00:45:28.840 Rico Rejoso: the policy is not being followed by team members, right? Which is a two-week notice, prior to the scheduled event.

466 00:45:29.330 ⇒ 00:45:34.919 Rico Rejoso: So that’s making sure that, this policy, or all policies, are being followed. That’s our… one of our objectives for…

467 00:45:35.370 ⇒ 00:45:37.370 Rico Rejoso: This, coming second quarter.

468 00:45:39.890 ⇒ 00:45:41.170 Rico Rejoso: Okay. Questions?

469 00:45:46.310 ⇒ 00:45:50.949 Uttam Kumaran: I feel good about this, I mean, I’m wondering, like, if you’ve already kind of hit this, or what, like, what do you think?

470 00:45:52.400 ⇒ 00:46:09.110 Rico Rejoso: Not yet. I… I mean, I cannot say that we’ve hit this yet, because we just enforced… I mean, we just had the escalation process this month, right? So unless we see that those… because there’s an… there’s an aging for all escalation. Let’s say, if you violated one, policy.

471 00:46:09.110 ⇒ 00:46:16.650 Rico Rejoso: And if you didn’t repeat that within the next 60 days, the policy will be dissolved. I mean, that escalation… escalated,

472 00:46:17.140 ⇒ 00:46:26.789 Rico Rejoso: let’s say, that escalated issue will be dissolved within 60 days. But if you did the same thing again within 60 days, then we’ll escalate it to the second occurrence.

473 00:46:27.050 ⇒ 00:46:38.229 Rico Rejoso: Right? So, we don’t have enough data yet to confirm that those individuals that we have on our database right now are being compliant already with the policy that we’re enforcing to the team.

474 00:46:38.930 ⇒ 00:46:41.999 Rico Rejoso: So I think it’s… 42 is a good way to measure that one.

475 00:46:42.490 ⇒ 00:46:43.070 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

476 00:46:45.420 ⇒ 00:46:59.219 Rico Rejoso: And lastly, this one is, this is a tentative OKR, which is for, next month, okay? This is to monitor our prior, month… monthly operations OKR, because most of this OKR is not…

477 00:46:59.670 ⇒ 00:47:05.509 Rico Rejoso: It’s… let’s say it’s due within this, within the next, within next month, or April.

478 00:47:05.870 ⇒ 00:47:09.959 Rico Rejoso: Right? Because as Vixel mentioned, that OPRs, or let’s say,

479 00:47:10.140 ⇒ 00:47:24.840 Rico Rejoso: our OKRs will be dependent on the requests coming from our stakeholders, and should not… I mean, could possibly last for 3 months or for the whole quarter, but can be changed month to month. So there’s a possibility that we might prior add more OKRs for,

480 00:47:25.340 ⇒ 00:47:41.029 Rico Rejoso: for this month, and deprioritize some of our OKRs the next month. So, OKR4 is a way for us to monitor and make sure that once the OKRs are hit, we are, let’s say, or we park them for this month, we’re still monitoring those OKRs that we set up for quarter two.

481 00:47:41.030 ⇒ 00:47:46.429 Uttam Kumaran: Feedback that came from… from Pixel, or, like, how did you, come to the, this, this, okay, this one?

482 00:47:47.000 ⇒ 00:47:48.850 Rico Rejoso: Because, I was thinking, like.

483 00:47:49.050 ⇒ 00:48:04.720 Rico Rejoso: Yeah, I mean, Vision is, correct when it comes to OKRs for operations. I mean, we don’t have one… I mean, an OKR may change month to month, depending on what we should prioritize for the… for this month, right? And some may be parked

484 00:48:04.720 ⇒ 00:48:11.789 Rico Rejoso: Or let’s say maybe we made, the prior summer, OKRs that we have, or objectives we have for this month.

485 00:48:11.840 ⇒ 00:48:20.870 Rico Rejoso: So if ever we add more, we make sure that we monitor some of the OKRs that we are… we initially tend to monitor or achieve for this quarter.

486 00:48:21.130 ⇒ 00:48:27.359 Rico Rejoso: So, this one is still tentative, I’m still coming up with ways how to measure this one and making sure that we can follow this one, so I haven’t…

487 00:48:27.580 ⇒ 00:48:29.969 Rico Rejoso: Yeah, as I mentioned, this is still…

488 00:48:30.070 ⇒ 00:48:35.970 Rico Rejoso: a work in progress in QR, that I’m thinking how we can implement or, program it.

489 00:48:37.130 ⇒ 00:48:37.680 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

490 00:48:39.660 ⇒ 00:48:43.700 Rico Rejoso: Yeah, so those are the list of OKRs that, I have for our next quarter.

491 00:48:43.820 ⇒ 00:48:51.559 Rico Rejoso: any feedback or suggestions for OKRs that you see, like, an issue that the operation team can handle, just let me know and we can work on it.

492 00:48:51.740 ⇒ 00:48:55.200 Rico Rejoso: Together and putting it or adding it for our next quarter.

493 00:48:55.410 ⇒ 00:49:00.550 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I think one thing about the policy adherence, I want you to think broader than, like.

494 00:49:01.230 ⇒ 00:49:05.070 Uttam Kumaran: slap on the wrist. Like, think about why people don’t…

495 00:49:05.300 ⇒ 00:49:08.260 Uttam Kumaran: Fill out their stuff on time, and how we can make it easier for them.

496 00:49:08.960 ⇒ 00:49:10.899 Uttam Kumaran: I think it’s really annoying, like.

497 00:49:11.310 ⇒ 00:49:16.299 Uttam Kumaran: for a long time, I used to do timesheets. It sucks, and it’s like, I used to be late all the time, so I’m like.

498 00:49:16.610 ⇒ 00:49:26.880 Uttam Kumaran: I want us to see how we can make it easier versus, like, you’re… you’re not… because what… unfortunately, Rico, what people will start to see the operations team as is, like, the police.

499 00:49:27.330 ⇒ 00:49:30.230 Uttam Kumaran: And, like, instead, you want to be, like.

500 00:49:30.340 ⇒ 00:49:34.290 Uttam Kumaran: Hey, you didn’t fit this policy, like, how can we help you get there?

501 00:49:34.550 ⇒ 00:49:39.760 Uttam Kumaran: You know? And I think Demi has given some good feedback. I’ve tried to…

502 00:49:40.030 ⇒ 00:49:42.929 Uttam Kumaran: ship a couple of things around Clockify, just didn’t… it just…

503 00:49:43.050 ⇒ 00:49:57.550 Uttam Kumaran: didn’t end up going, I just didn’t finish it out. So, that’s how I think I want you to think a little bit about the operations team, is like, it could be easy to be the team of last resort, and instead, I think thinking about, like, a solutions team is a better framing.

504 00:49:57.690 ⇒ 00:50:08.839 Uttam Kumaran: Like, how can you help people get to their OKRs faster, whether that’s tooling, reminders, similarly for the other one. Operations is supposed to grease every wheel in the company, you know?

505 00:50:09.070 ⇒ 00:50:12.720 Uttam Kumaran: And so I want… I think that’s gonna be a helpful way.

506 00:50:12.950 ⇒ 00:50:19.320 Uttam Kumaran: Also, just to avoid, like, Just being, like, the, yeah, like, the police officer around company, you know?

507 00:50:21.520 ⇒ 00:50:22.549 Rico Rejoso: Got you, yes.

508 00:50:23.140 ⇒ 00:50:28.339 Rico Rejoso: I think that’s, one thing during our first security escalation. I mean, we didn’t really…

509 00:50:28.430 ⇒ 00:50:46.199 Rico Rejoso: You know, explain to people that we’re monitoring anything or everything that they’re doing. One feedback that I got from Ashwini, when I also talked to him about his first appearance of not following the out-of-office or PTO policies, him just not really being aware that the policy exists.

510 00:50:46.580 ⇒ 00:50:54.260 Rico Rejoso: So, one reason is that they’re not looking at… they’re not really reading off things off in Slack, which is the BrainPunch, or our BrainPunch team channel.

511 00:50:54.370 ⇒ 00:51:04.100 Rico Rejoso: They’re not looking at it. He probably haven’t attended much retro that we have bi-weekly, so that’s why he’s not fully informed of it, so…

512 00:51:04.330 ⇒ 00:51:07.549 Rico Rejoso: Yeah, those are, like, a couple, reasons why…

513 00:51:07.960 ⇒ 00:51:11.999 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I just want… I think I want to share is, like, it’s easy to…

514 00:51:12.690 ⇒ 00:51:28.870 Uttam Kumaran: It’s easy, and your mind will always push you towards being like, this person didn’t do it, they suck, like, they’re not responsible, like, always find out, like, is there a point at which we weren’t communicating enough, we didn’t enforce the thing, and then escalate up.

515 00:51:28.940 ⇒ 00:51:34.239 Uttam Kumaran: Right? Because you’re gonna find that half the time, it’s something, like, we could have avoided, and it’s like a miscomm.

516 00:51:34.400 ⇒ 00:51:37.040 Uttam Kumaran: And so, you do a good job of that, but…

517 00:51:37.260 ⇒ 00:51:43.969 Uttam Kumaran: I think it’s just helpful to remind… remind us that the system is not perfect, it’s all kind of new for people, there’s change management, so…

518 00:51:44.310 ⇒ 00:51:49.489 Uttam Kumaran: But yeah, at some point, some people are gonna just be like, I’m not doing that, and then it’s worth escalating.

519 00:51:51.060 ⇒ 00:51:51.840 Rico Rejoso: Got you.

520 00:51:54.320 ⇒ 00:51:54.940 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

521 00:51:56.940 ⇒ 00:51:57.730 Uttam Kumaran: Cool.

522 00:51:58.070 ⇒ 00:52:01.849 Uttam Kumaran: B, do you want to go?

523 00:52:01.850 ⇒ 00:52:02.440 Brylle Girang: Yep.

524 00:52:07.520 ⇒ 00:52:08.280 Brylle Girang: Okay.

525 00:52:08.630 ⇒ 00:52:20.070 Brylle Girang: There. So, for quarter two onwards, we’re going to work on actually building a learning and development team, a learning and development process here in Brainforge.

526 00:52:20.220 ⇒ 00:52:27.440 Brylle Girang: I listed here the three main problems why now our quarter two is the best way to start.

527 00:52:27.850 ⇒ 00:52:29.199 Brylle Girang: And that is…

528 00:52:29.540 ⇒ 00:52:42.149 Brylle Girang: Because of three main things. The first one is that we are shipping, especially the platform team, our shipping changes much faster than what the team can absorb. We have been shipping updates left and right.

529 00:52:42.150 ⇒ 00:52:52.520 Brylle Girang: And then nobody gets to teach people how to actually use these updates, how to actually use these changes, how to maximize their workflow using these new features.

530 00:52:52.730 ⇒ 00:52:56.730 Brylle Girang: The second is that we have… up.

531 00:52:56.850 ⇒ 00:53:13.420 Brylle Girang: we have partnerships, or we have leads that we can close, because our people are not properly certified. For example, we don’t have much people who are Snowflake dbt and only certified, and that prevents us from getting more deals, closing more clients, getting more partnerships.

532 00:53:13.580 ⇒ 00:53:31.059 Brylle Girang: And the last part is that clients have been asking us to train their teams on AI, or help them implement AI workflows, and then we’re doing it for free. Some sort of a courtesy, of a courtesy from Brainforge.

533 00:53:31.200 ⇒ 00:53:38.120 Brylle Girang: So, quarter two is the right time to build the learning and development team, because our delivery standards are being reset.

534 00:53:38.170 ⇒ 00:53:54.350 Brylle Girang: Our platform is getting a lot better, and I believe that this is going to be a good commercial opportunity that we’re going to send out to our clients. And that also leads us to our main objectives here, and the first one is that

535 00:53:54.440 ⇒ 00:54:02.980 Brylle Girang: the learning and development team should not just be an internal team, and the learning and development in Brainforge should also lead us to

536 00:54:03.220 ⇒ 00:54:09.690 Brylle Girang: generating more revenue through these two unlocks.

537 00:54:09.690 ⇒ 00:54:25.910 Brylle Girang: The first one is if we certify people, if we achieve 100% certification for our delivery team members for each service line, then we’ll be able to close more leads, we’ll be able to get more partnerships. That generates more revenue.

538 00:54:26.070 ⇒ 00:54:28.229 Brylle Girang: Then the second one,

539 00:54:28.520 ⇒ 00:54:47.129 Brylle Girang: we are exploring that L&D, learning and development, might be a new service line offering for clients. So this is echoed by something that you shared, Robert, earlier within the week, where a kid was earning hundreds of thousands just trying to teach people how to install OpenClaw.

540 00:54:47.610 ⇒ 00:54:51.740 Brylle Girang: And this is also echoed by a discussion between…

541 00:54:51.870 ⇒ 00:55:00.429 Brylle Girang: between me and Jor-El, where he mentioned that a lot of companies are super behind when it comes to implementing and actually utilizing AI.

542 00:55:00.740 ⇒ 00:55:07.879 Brylle Girang: And that exposes a huge, huge opportunity for us to go into these clients and tell them, hey.

543 00:55:08.120 ⇒ 00:55:09.220 Brylle Girang: We have…

544 00:55:09.610 ⇒ 00:55:19.200 Brylle Girang: fix these problems in Brainforge. We have tried… we have taught our people how to utilize AI, how to maximize AI. We can help you out there.

545 00:55:19.570 ⇒ 00:55:24.350 Brylle Girang: So that is what the long-term vision for learning and development is.

546 00:55:25.270 ⇒ 00:55:26.870 Brylle Girang: And then the next objective.

547 00:55:26.870 ⇒ 00:55:30.469 Uttam Kumaran: Does that make sense? I just want to pause. Does that make sense to everybody?

548 00:55:31.300 ⇒ 00:55:34.310 Uttam Kumaran: like… Yeah.

549 00:55:34.310 ⇒ 00:55:34.700 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah.

550 00:55:34.700 ⇒ 00:55:38.459 Uttam Kumaran: This is a… and this is like a… this is a new team formation.

551 00:55:38.730 ⇒ 00:55:44.559 Uttam Kumaran: You know, so I just want to make sure everybody’s sort of on the same page with, like, why this is needed, why now.

552 00:55:44.750 ⇒ 00:55:45.580 Uttam Kumaran: You know?

553 00:55:52.640 ⇒ 00:55:55.229 Brylle Girang: Okay, Robert, what are your thoughts there?

554 00:55:58.490 ⇒ 00:56:01.930 Robert Tseng: Yeah, Mike, the certifications…

555 00:56:04.360 ⇒ 00:56:16.319 Robert Tseng: Yeah, whether they’re internal or external, yeah, that makes sense. Kind of figuring… creating, like… yeah, I mean, we were ultimately wanting people to get trained in the Brainforge way of doing things. I think this makes sense. I feel like great agencies, like.

556 00:56:16.740 ⇒ 00:56:19.610 Robert Tseng: I don’t know, every time I think about, like,

557 00:56:20.410 ⇒ 00:56:30.640 Robert Tseng: I think your… your… your fan steak buddy came from, ambush. Ampush, yeah, Ambush did this. But they… I mean, that was, like, later on when they…

558 00:56:30.660 ⇒ 00:56:49.490 Robert Tseng: kind of group more than 50 people, but yeah, I mean, I think kind of setting the foundations here, it’s like, everybody knows an MPOS-trained, like, digital marketer kind of comes out a certain way. And, you know, yeah, we believe that people that come through Brainforge, like, if they’re trained in BrainForge, they are all AI-enabled in their work, and

559 00:56:49.490 ⇒ 00:56:56.290 Robert Tseng: you know, these are all the… these are all the skills they come out with. Like, I think this is… this is great. This makes our people more valuable.

560 00:56:56.900 ⇒ 00:57:11.640 Robert Tseng: I mean, I frankly think, you know, in the… and this is, like, thinking way ahead, but it’s like, yeah, I feel like this is part of, like, the… part of the negotiation as well. Like, I feel like we can… this gives us more leverage when we’re talking to candidates, too, where, like.

561 00:57:12.220 ⇒ 00:57:29.169 Robert Tseng: yeah, I think, like, the fact that we’re able to kind of increase their market value by coming… by when they work here, I think is… I think this sounds good to me. We’re in the business of developing people, so, like, I feel like this makes sense to me.

562 00:57:29.380 ⇒ 00:57:34.809 Uttam Kumaran: B, do you have some of, like, those books that I sent you? Because I think some of these is, like, kind of what I think about.

563 00:57:35.060 ⇒ 00:57:39.600 Uttam Kumaran: like… I mean, I was really, like, spending time thinking about

564 00:57:40.090 ⇒ 00:57:53.630 Uttam Kumaran: the agencies or, firms that have this sort of notion, and so in, like, marketing, like, Ogilvy is very famous for this, like, they were the first, one of the first, most famous marketing agencies, basically.

565 00:57:53.820 ⇒ 00:57:55.449 Uttam Kumaran: did, like, the…

566 00:57:56.010 ⇒ 00:58:11.950 Uttam Kumaran: marketing for, like, all… they were basically pioneered, like, marketing. And this guy, David Ogilvie, and that team, like, basically the best. And even now, like, it carries a lot of weight. Kind of, like, weaker… weaker team now, but still pretty big. And then Goldman Sachs has this, too. Like.

567 00:58:12.170 ⇒ 00:58:18.969 Uttam Kumaran: there’s, like, a way of working at Goldman Sachs, and, you know, if you’ve met… if you’ve met anyone that’s ex-Goldman Sachs, they are…

568 00:58:19.260 ⇒ 00:58:23.710 Uttam Kumaran: absolutely sick. Like, they’re, they’re, like, they’re also just, like, typically, like.

569 00:58:24.020 ⇒ 00:58:37.420 Uttam Kumaran: machines, like, there… there’s, like, nothing… I don’t know, I’ve never met anybody in banking that’s, like, like that from… from… from everybody. And then consulting, you know, commonly, there’s, like, there used to be a sort of McKinsey way.

570 00:58:37.480 ⇒ 00:58:45.650 Uttam Kumaran: is very famous in consulting, but like, you know, now you see Bain, BCG, right? You see a lot of that.

571 00:58:45.650 ⇒ 00:58:46.890 Robert Tseng: Brain Forge.

572 00:58:46.890 ⇒ 00:58:49.699 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I see Brave Forge, and V-Seed.

573 00:58:50.400 ⇒ 00:58:53.480 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know, VC’s kind of weak sauce, like, but it,

574 00:58:54.340 ⇒ 00:59:01.610 Uttam Kumaran: What other… I put up… oh, Toyota Way. Toyota Way is also a very famous book about, basically, the manufacturing process of Toyota.

575 00:59:01.720 ⇒ 00:59:06.159 Uttam Kumaran: And, how they think about that. And so there are these, like, canonical things.

576 00:59:06.280 ⇒ 00:59:11.839 Uttam Kumaran: I also agree, I felt… I feel like… and I… I sort of always…

577 00:59:11.920 ⇒ 00:59:31.029 Uttam Kumaran: wonder, like, whether it’s me or the outside world, but I feel like we’re very opinionated about how the way we do things. People tend to shed a lot of weight in the way they do things when they come here, in a positive way, and I think it’s worth wrapping that into a story, and hitting that really hard on the onboarding, and then also bringing everybody up with us.

578 00:59:31.380 ⇒ 00:59:34.680 Uttam Kumaran: I think it’s really good for culture and camaraderie, and

579 00:59:34.850 ⇒ 00:59:44.059 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I mean, we… I think we should pick from all the people in the past that have done this, and take… just steal everything that’s worked, and do our own, like, it’s… it’s great.

580 00:59:53.040 ⇒ 00:59:59.439 Brylle Girang: Robert, I also want to get your thoughts. What do you think about, like, this being a service offering for our clients?

581 01:00:02.570 ⇒ 01:00:12.380 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, I think, we’ve been wanting to… Especially for, like, other…

582 01:00:12.590 ⇒ 01:00:17.479 Robert Tseng: I mean, I’m just trying to think of, like, who the initial… who I would initially sell this to, like…

583 01:00:17.790 ⇒ 01:00:24.070 Robert Tseng: I’m being brought… I’m gonna do a talk in a couple weeks with, A bunch of…

584 01:00:25.180 ⇒ 01:00:33.060 Robert Tseng: CEOs of, like, agencies, I haven’t picked my topic yet, but this would be interesting.

585 01:00:33.920 ⇒ 01:00:43.480 Robert Tseng: the AI-enabled agency worker or something, like, maybe this would be… I don’t know if that’ll be my main… yeah, I think, like, just being… I think they’re interest… the agencies are interested in, like, how we…

586 01:00:43.480 ⇒ 01:00:49.689 Uttam Kumaran: I think you should… I think learning development is a left field. Who have we heard about in our last 3 years that has

587 01:00:49.830 ⇒ 01:00:52.760 Uttam Kumaran: talked about learning and development. Nobody. Like, I’ve…

588 01:00:53.040 ⇒ 01:00:55.670 Uttam Kumaran: This is the first time I’ve actually, like.

589 01:00:56.350 ⇒ 01:01:02.019 Uttam Kumaran: thought about it seriously, and it’s clicked for me why it’s, like, so important, because… and two things, like…

590 01:01:02.550 ⇒ 01:01:08.360 Uttam Kumaran: the, like, change management is such… like, I was so frustrated, I’m so… always so frustrated with, like.

591 01:01:08.810 ⇒ 01:01:22.010 Uttam Kumaran: I’m sitting here running, like, 100,000 things, and then I’m like, everybody, also do that, and I’m like, what is the gap? And yes, it’s, like, very childish, like, I could… there’s obviously a gap, but, like, I’m trying to understand what that is.

592 01:01:22.200 ⇒ 01:01:27.179 Uttam Kumaran: And then secondarily, like, the ground is moving, like, underneath everybody at the same time.

593 01:01:27.560 ⇒ 01:01:36.119 Uttam Kumaran: So, I think learning development is a really interesting talk, like, you know, to think about, to think about, like.

594 01:01:36.990 ⇒ 01:01:41.279 Uttam Kumaran: And you can… there’s a lot of, like, past canonical versions of this.

595 01:01:41.840 ⇒ 01:01:44.639 Uttam Kumaran: And it’s a great pitch for our company as well.

596 01:01:44.970 ⇒ 01:01:51.500 Uttam Kumaran: there’s this… we have this, like, revenue angle, right? So… I don’t know, I think this is an interesting talk.

597 01:01:51.700 ⇒ 01:01:52.200 Uttam Kumaran: Versus.

598 01:01:52.200 ⇒ 01:01:53.490 Robert Tseng: Now they’re talking about…

599 01:01:53.490 ⇒ 01:01:54.200 Uttam Kumaran: Building.

600 01:01:54.490 ⇒ 01:01:59.200 Uttam Kumaran: building, like, a sales GTM workflow, and I don’.

601 01:01:59.200 ⇒ 01:02:07.470 Robert Tseng: Oh, I’m definitely not doing that, but yeah, I mean, I was… yeah. Okay, sure, then yeah, B, let’s… let’s, let’s do it. Maybe I’ll work with you on putting together my thought.

602 01:02:08.220 ⇒ 01:02:12.390 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, and B, can you share with everyone why, like, I think one thing I called, and I think…

603 01:02:13.660 ⇒ 01:02:27.569 Uttam Kumaran: you know, I would love all… I would love even… I know from Rico and from Kayla a little bit, but, like, why do you think you’re the right person to run this team? I would love for you to share a little bit about your background for everybody, and, like, why you think, like, okay, this is what, like.

604 01:02:27.760 ⇒ 01:02:32.779 Uttam Kumaran: I wanna get up every day and, like, Destroy these initiatives.

605 01:02:34.450 ⇒ 01:02:36.999 Brylle Girang: Yeah, definitely. So,

606 01:02:37.710 ⇒ 01:02:45.379 Brylle Girang: My first job was a kitchen server in McDonald’s, so this was when I was a working student.

607 01:02:45.610 ⇒ 01:02:49.609 Brylle Girang: I needed to… to get my ass off.

608 01:02:49.740 ⇒ 01:02:59.240 Brylle Girang: my chair when I was in vacation, and so I tried… I tried working, right? It also gives me allowance, it gives me money.

609 01:02:59.530 ⇒ 01:03:06.749 Brylle Girang: That was my first job, and then after that, I went to a BBO company, also as a working student.

610 01:03:07.210 ⇒ 01:03:10.450 Brylle Girang: And I worked in a healthcare account during that time.

611 01:03:10.600 ⇒ 01:03:14.400 Brylle Girang: And then later on, I worked for 3 years.

612 01:03:14.620 ⇒ 01:03:22.349 Brylle Girang: a startup, Athena, that matches executive partners to U.S. clients, that matches the top 1%.

613 01:03:23.080 ⇒ 01:03:27.880 Brylle Girang: Of… from… from all these roles, this…

614 01:03:29.180 ⇒ 01:03:44.869 Brylle Girang: Okay. From all these roles, these were mainly customer service roles. These were mainly about customer experience. But at the same time, customer experience, I would say, in my opinion, customer experience is

615 01:03:45.410 ⇒ 01:03:56.610 Brylle Girang: an umbrella, or under the learning and development umbrella. Because what do you do when you are in the customer service team, when you are in a customer service role? You teach people

616 01:03:56.660 ⇒ 01:04:07.810 Brylle Girang: You teach people if they reach out to you. You teach people if there are gaps within their understanding of the product, and your understanding of the product, right?

617 01:04:08.570 ⇒ 01:04:18.369 Brylle Girang: That’s the same dilemma that we have right now in Brave Forge. We’re shipping out food out of the kitchen, and then people refuses to eat.

618 01:04:18.760 ⇒ 01:04:25.190 Brylle Girang: what we’re shipping out. So I’m working on Otam’s analogies here when it comes to.

619 01:04:25.190 ⇒ 01:04:28.710 Uttam Kumaran: I love the restaurant analogy, I was just gonna type that out.

620 01:04:28.950 ⇒ 01:04:40.270 Brylle Girang: But we don’t know if the food is spoiled, we don’t know if the people have different preferences, but we don’t have something

621 01:04:40.330 ⇒ 01:04:50.520 Brylle Girang: That monitors that. We don’t have a floor manager going around asking people, hey, did you like the food? Hey, this is how you can eat your food. You can take out the tomatoes if you don’t want it to.

622 01:04:51.300 ⇒ 01:04:56.280 Brylle Girang: So that is why I think, with my experience when it comes to customer service.

623 01:04:56.460 ⇒ 01:05:11.729 Brylle Girang: I would be able to, like, get some of those customer experience background, and then treat it as a way for us to ensure that learning and development is going to be a serious thing, that our people will be… will be treating it as is.

624 01:05:13.120 ⇒ 01:05:14.950 Brylle Girang: Yeah, did that convince you?

625 01:05:18.980 ⇒ 01:05:21.510 Robert Tseng: It’s a great… it’s great. You are the man for the job.

626 01:05:23.190 ⇒ 01:05:23.829 Robert Tseng: You’re ignoring me.

627 01:05:23.830 ⇒ 01:05:24.650 Brylle Girang: Thank you, I owe higher.

628 01:05:24.650 ⇒ 01:05:25.260 Robert Tseng: now.

629 01:05:26.710 ⇒ 01:05:29.570 Uttam Kumaran: You’re hired. You’re hired. You’re fired, you’re hired.

630 01:05:29.570 ⇒ 01:05:30.480 Brylle Girang: Oh, gosh.

631 01:05:30.480 ⇒ 01:05:31.349 Robert Tseng: I love that clip.

632 01:05:31.350 ⇒ 01:05:35.150 Uttam Kumaran: Has anyone seen Wait, what is that from again?

633 01:05:36.000 ⇒ 01:05:38.809 Robert Tseng: Oh my god, oh, okay, I’ll find it for you.

634 01:05:39.410 ⇒ 01:05:45.120 Uttam Kumaran: You’re fired, you’re hired. I, you know, I just used to watch a lot of The Apprentice growing up with my sister, so we would always be, like.

635 01:05:45.300 ⇒ 01:05:48.519 Uttam Kumaran: You’re fired, to my mom.

636 01:05:48.520 ⇒ 01:05:51.639 Robert Tseng: It’s, Eric Andre, like, doing a Wall Street sketch.

637 01:05:51.640 ⇒ 01:05:52.250 Kaela Gallagher: Oh my god.

638 01:05:52.250 ⇒ 01:05:58.010 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, I know, I know, where he’s, like, pretending he’s talking about stocks on the phone.

639 01:05:58.840 ⇒ 01:06:01.880 Robert Tseng: Everyone watch this at some point, it’s hilarious, yeah.

640 01:06:02.150 ⇒ 01:06:02.800 Uttam Kumaran: That’s so funny.

641 01:06:03.090 ⇒ 01:06:04.710 Brylle Girang: So, and then…

642 01:06:06.990 ⇒ 01:06:07.640 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

643 01:06:07.640 ⇒ 01:06:15.229 Brylle Girang: Yeah, yeah, so that’s… that’s really, like, the goal of L&D, but I’m also going to go through the rest of the objectives here.

644 01:06:15.440 ⇒ 01:06:23.149 Brylle Girang: Objective number two is Brainforce standards literacy. So, initially, this was just supposed to be

645 01:06:23.300 ⇒ 01:06:40.380 Brylle Girang: how we can ensure that Brainforge is AI-native, is AI-enabled, and that after discussions with OTAM, that should not be the goal, right? AI is just going to be a tool for us to ensure that we meet our standards. So the second objective here will be more of how can we make sure

646 01:06:40.380 ⇒ 01:06:52.650 Brylle Girang: that the business and our people are meeting our standards, and how can we make sure that we know the gaps between our standards? How do we know… how do we know how… how… how…

647 01:06:53.070 ⇒ 01:07:01.089 Brylle Girang: how far the floor is from the ceiling. That’s what we’re trying to… trying to understand and solve here.

648 01:07:01.170 ⇒ 01:07:16.850 Brylle Girang: The most important thing here is that when we teach about our standards, it’s not just going to be for our new hires, and we need to make sure that our existing people also goes through the same process. We need to make sure that our existing people

649 01:07:16.850 ⇒ 01:07:22.400 Brylle Girang: is reformed in a way that meets our standards in quarter two.

650 01:07:22.890 ⇒ 01:07:41.630 Brylle Girang: And at the same time, we’re also going to be teaching, like, how to use cursor, how to use AI, but all of the use cases should revolve around how it can help us meet our standards. So it’s never going to be a standard of, hey, you should know how to use AI, but rather.

651 01:07:41.700 ⇒ 01:07:47.990 Brylle Girang: If you want excellent delivery, here is how you can use AI to do that. Here is how AI can empower you.

652 01:07:49.410 ⇒ 01:07:54.340 Brylle Girang: And the third objective here is change management and feedback loop, so…

653 01:07:54.470 ⇒ 01:08:03.149 Brylle Girang: As I said earlier, having a floor manager would really help out in ensuring that our people actually understands what we’re shipping out of the kitchen.

654 01:08:03.840 ⇒ 01:08:09.189 Brylle Girang: And last… the last initiative, or last objective here, is to enable service lines.

655 01:08:11.360 ⇒ 01:08:22.460 Brylle Girang: So, I think this is the most AI-focused objective here, and the main goal here is to ensure that our service lines are able to

656 01:08:23.229 ⇒ 01:08:41.560 Brylle Girang: are able to develop their own processes, their own workflows that are AI-enabled. So this is where I need resources when it comes to teaching our people. Obviously, I don’t have… I don’t have, like, the skills to dive deep into analytics, into data engineering, and that is where I need

657 01:08:41.689 ⇒ 01:08:53.280 Brylle Girang: people who can help me translate, you know, our learning curriculum into something that is more service-line focused, so that I’m not going to be teaching about cursor. Hey, here’s how you can

658 01:08:53.390 ⇒ 01:09:04.330 Brylle Girang: add your folder to your repo, etc. But it’s going to be how can we ensure that, you know, we build omni dashboards in one minute, in 5 minutes, using our AI tools.

659 01:09:04.670 ⇒ 01:09:05.180 Uttam Kumaran: Cool.

660 01:09:06.270 ⇒ 01:09:14.170 Brylle Girang: Yeah, again, you know, how this fits long-term, I believe that this will also… if our people…

661 01:09:14.210 ⇒ 01:09:31.460 Brylle Girang: are AI-native, our AI-focused, if our people are enabled, that will translate to our clients. Our clients will see how confident we are when we talk about AI. Our clients will see how confident we are when it comes to delivery, and that should also enable

662 01:09:31.600 ⇒ 01:09:34.510 Brylle Girang: Enable them to see more and trust in us.

663 01:09:35.859 ⇒ 01:09:52.620 Brylle Girang: Yeah, that’s learning and development, and this is a whole plan. I would love your feedback and comments here. Oh, one more thing before I forget, yeah. So, part of this is actually us leading, like, a leadership curriculum, which would start as a book club.

664 01:09:52.680 ⇒ 01:09:59.060 Brylle Girang: And one of the main push that we’re making this quarter is ensuring that, you know, people

665 01:09:59.700 ⇒ 01:10:11.189 Brylle Girang: are upskilling themselves, especially our leaders. We want to make sure that our leaders are also focusing on how they can develop and improve themselves, and not just their teams.

666 01:10:11.190 ⇒ 01:10:22.070 Brylle Girang: So, the first step there would be, you know, motivating them to read books. Maybe we can launch… we will be launching a book club, but I would like it to evolve into more of a

667 01:10:22.070 ⇒ 01:10:26.889 Brylle Girang: A performance expectation, not just, you know, a motivational factor.

668 01:10:28.220 ⇒ 01:10:44.730 Brylle Girang: Yeah, I would love to work with you. Yeah, exactly, I would love to work with you here, Kayla, because I believe that this is going to be also a culture thing, and not just, you know, a learning and development thing. We need to help our people, help the business develop the habit into actually

669 01:10:44.860 ⇒ 01:10:46.999 Brylle Girang: Trying to learn something day by day.

670 01:10:47.240 ⇒ 01:10:59.880 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, and this is something that I was like, look, maybe we do it, and then we make an open invite. I… I always… like, we used… we did a book club for a while, like, once a quarter, it was really, really great, and the books were literally about stuff that we needed to do and learn about, like.

671 01:11:00.050 ⇒ 01:11:03.400 Uttam Kumaran: we read StoryBrand, we read…

672 01:11:03.780 ⇒ 01:11:06.589 Uttam Kumaran: the CEO within, which is about OKRs, like…

673 01:11:06.950 ⇒ 01:11:10.670 Uttam Kumaran: I think, yeah, I mean… but I really care about this group.

674 01:11:11.030 ⇒ 01:11:15.160 Uttam Kumaran: Learning about the next thing that we’re going after, and…

675 01:11:15.640 ⇒ 01:11:22.270 Uttam Kumaran: For the rest of the company to just… to kind of follow our lead, so… Yeah.

676 01:11:23.340 ⇒ 01:11:24.510 Uttam Kumaran: TBD.

677 01:11:24.670 ⇒ 01:11:26.860 Uttam Kumaran: Nothing within, there’s nothing going on with him.

678 01:11:30.500 ⇒ 01:11:33.069 Robert Tseng: Sorry, I’m not… I’m making too many jokes today.

679 01:11:33.070 ⇒ 01:11:43.249 Uttam Kumaran: No, you’re fine, you’re fine. Okay, then maybe I… I feel like I wanted to just present, quickly just about sort of the,

680 01:11:43.650 ⇒ 01:11:51.639 Uttam Kumaran: the platform team, and sort of, like, what I’m thinking about for this quarter. And then I think remaining plans sort of are, like.

681 01:11:52.030 ⇒ 01:11:56.060 Uttam Kumaran: I think, Robert, just kind of getting from you, sort of, like, sales, and then I think…

682 01:11:56.270 ⇒ 01:12:00.259 Uttam Kumaran: We don’t really have a plan for finance, legal, I think, Rico, I’ll work with you on that, I just…

683 01:12:00.700 ⇒ 01:12:08.269 Uttam Kumaran: Ran out of time. Sales, finance, marketing. But let me first start by just talking about, like, how I’m looking at the…

684 01:12:08.410 ⇒ 01:12:12.199 Uttam Kumaran: Marketing team for, the platform team for this quarter.

685 01:12:12.430 ⇒ 01:12:16.309 Uttam Kumaran: Let’s see if I can…

686 01:12:19.620 ⇒ 01:12:23.520 Uttam Kumaran: So maybe I’ll just start by, like, kind of…

687 01:12:23.780 ⇒ 01:12:39.050 Uttam Kumaran: I’ve always had this thought about, like, Brainforge as a platform. I think this is gonna be our first start in defining the platform on, sort of, like, the engineering and the AI and the building side. But actually, you can think about the whole company as a platform.

688 01:12:39.050 ⇒ 01:12:44.070 Uttam Kumaran: In a similar way, you can think about, like, McKinsey as a platform. If you think McKinsey.

689 01:12:44.110 ⇒ 01:12:56.199 Uttam Kumaran: McKinsey is not one person, it is sort of a way of doing things, it is their brand, it is the way they recruit, it is the way they sell and deliver, and so it is a platform for,

690 01:12:56.330 ⇒ 01:12:58.449 Uttam Kumaran: monetizing expertise.

691 01:12:58.670 ⇒ 01:13:01.940 Uttam Kumaran: And so, similarly, I think about…

692 01:13:02.230 ⇒ 01:13:10.480 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, this is just because I’m an engineer. I think about all of our things as services, and I think about the way that we,

693 01:13:11.540 ⇒ 01:13:25.530 Uttam Kumaran: The way that, we offer recruiting, we offer sales, we offer delivery, all as the various services in our company, and that anybody that joins us, anybody that works with us, gets the benefit from the platform, and that

694 01:13:25.530 ⇒ 01:13:40.810 Uttam Kumaran: we continue to invest in the platform, invest in the way we do things, and then hire more people to execute using the platform, right? So you’re not executing outside of the platform, the platform works for everybody, and net-net, similar to operations, every wheel kind of gets greased.

695 01:13:40.890 ⇒ 01:13:42.180 Uttam Kumaran: And so…

696 01:13:42.730 ⇒ 01:13:52.779 Uttam Kumaran: I have a couple things to kind of share today, and, really, like, I want to start by saying, like, the platform team really has… he’s evolved from, one, like.

697 01:13:52.950 ⇒ 01:14:04.300 Uttam Kumaran: I… one… I was just doing a lot of this work myself. One day, I hired, Miguel, who used to work, who introduced me to Casey, and then I hired Mustafa, and then we sort of had an AI team, and so…

698 01:14:04.300 ⇒ 01:14:15.320 Uttam Kumaran: sort of, like, just cascaded, because I was doing a lot of AI and needed help, and… and I actually want to kind of get back to, like, what I thought the original goal of the platform team was, was enabling everybody across…

699 01:14:15.370 ⇒ 01:14:22.669 Uttam Kumaran: the business. And so, really, the purpose is building infrastructure tools and execution systems that enable Brainforge to scale.

700 01:14:23.070 ⇒ 01:14:35.550 Uttam Kumaran: We are Brainforge’s internal platform team. Our customers are internal, and our goal is to make those teams more effective. So I just want to say, like, the customers are not external. These are all… we work for all of your teams, and every team.

701 01:14:35.580 ⇒ 01:14:47.320 Uttam Kumaran: And I’m gonna kinda say, like, what is in our scope. So, right now, our scope is, like, the plat- the Forge platform, data infrastructure, how people develop, the AI infrastructure, internal tools.

702 01:14:47.970 ⇒ 01:14:53.550 Uttam Kumaran: The products we own, or anything that is requested by other teams, or anything that we propose, that we develop.

703 01:14:53.790 ⇒ 01:14:59.759 Uttam Kumaran: And then, basically, what’s out of scope is, like, anything that’s super client-specific, anything that’s client-facing.

704 01:14:59.930 ⇒ 01:15:13.719 Uttam Kumaran: These will go owned by service leads, these will get owned by the actual delivery folks, right? So we… we want to try to avoid building things just for one client. Instead, I’m gonna enable the people on that team to then build it for their client.

705 01:15:13.900 ⇒ 01:15:30.070 Uttam Kumaran: So there’s a lot in here about, like, how we do everything, but I think really, like, the fun part of this plan and the fun target for us is that I want 50% of the work that comes out of this team to be done end-to-end by AI this quarter. Meaning.

706 01:15:30.200 ⇒ 01:15:37.199 Uttam Kumaran: there’s not a person that writes a line of code for that work product that comes out.

707 01:15:37.560 ⇒ 01:15:56.330 Uttam Kumaran: And this is really the promise of this team, is to actually allow for other teams to also drive towards objectives like that. And so, on this team, it’s primarily just gonna be me and Clarence. There’s gonna be a set of AI agents that we’re already using to do a lot of this work, and our target is exactly that, like, 50% of the tickets.

708 01:15:56.530 ⇒ 01:16:02.769 Uttam Kumaran: are done entirely by AI. A ticket can be, Kayla is like, hey, I want the calculator to reflect this.

709 01:16:04.160 ⇒ 01:16:10.019 Uttam Kumaran: it could be as much as, like, an AI responds to you and then executes it, it could just be me assigning it, but, like, basically.

710 01:16:10.890 ⇒ 01:16:22.519 Uttam Kumaran: I want to, like, hopefully for 50% of the things, not write a line of code, and I think we have a clear path towards that. I think I’ve basically… that’s how my life has been the last, like, 3-4 months anyways for a lot of my stuff.

711 01:16:22.690 ⇒ 01:16:37.840 Uttam Kumaran: And so there’s some things here around, like, how we think about building these systems, and, like, feel free to have a look at it. And then I kind of go into some, plans and tools,

712 01:16:38.300 ⇒ 01:16:42.909 Uttam Kumaran: again, I think I just want to pause there. Does the kind of goal of the platform team

713 01:16:43.070 ⇒ 01:16:45.300 Uttam Kumaran: Makes sense,

714 01:16:45.730 ⇒ 01:16:55.159 Uttam Kumaran: Does thinking about, like, a platform underneath every team internally make sense? Like, any questions I can answer before going, like, a little bit further?

715 01:16:55.760 ⇒ 01:17:02.039 Kaela Gallagher: Just clarifying, like, Miranda’s also going to be a part of this, starting Monday, yeah, okay.

716 01:17:02.040 ⇒ 01:17:03.039 Uttam Kumaran: Yes, yeah, yeah.

717 01:17:03.530 ⇒ 01:17:04.050 Kaela Gallagher: Cool.

718 01:17:06.230 ⇒ 01:17:09.329 Uttam Kumaran: So this is, like, our directive, this will be her directive,

719 01:17:09.790 ⇒ 01:17:13.529 Uttam Kumaran: So, basically, it’ll be figuring out where she fits in.

720 01:17:13.990 ⇒ 01:17:22.040 Uttam Kumaran: but we have everything sort of ticketed, and things are ready to go. Like, a good example of something that I… that I’m proposing that we work on is, like.

721 01:17:22.430 ⇒ 01:17:25.949 Uttam Kumaran: this company OKR database. I think, Rico, this is basically…

722 01:17:26.210 ⇒ 01:17:27.939 Uttam Kumaran: What you would need, which is, like.

723 01:17:28.290 ⇒ 01:17:33.050 Uttam Kumaran: Can we have a UI for people to type in their OKRs, write in updates?

724 01:17:33.230 ⇒ 01:17:34.420 Uttam Kumaran: do everything.

725 01:17:34.670 ⇒ 01:17:38.549 Uttam Kumaran: So, like, there’s a… there’s a plan for that, so… that’ll be, like…

726 01:17:38.620 ⇒ 01:17:47.489 Uttam Kumaran: But this… in this way, this is something… everything needs to have a customer. And so there’s gonna be some things where everybody in Brainforge a customer, like, for example, making sure cursor works.

727 01:17:47.520 ⇒ 01:18:02.109 Uttam Kumaran: It’s something, like, everybody needs, right? But this is something where I need to find the customer before building it. And so, Rico, if you’re… you’re the customer for this, then we build this for you. Something like skill usage tracking? Okay, this is something that B is the customer on the learning development side.

728 01:18:02.190 ⇒ 01:18:12.330 Uttam Kumaran: Right? And then there’s some stuff like this paperclip platform that we’re testing. This is where the platform team is actually the customer, because this is just, like, a new way of doing some work.

729 01:18:13.810 ⇒ 01:18:19.989 Uttam Kumaran: we have a lot of plans that I’ve sort of, like, worked on throughout the last, like, 6 or 7 months.

730 01:18:20.130 ⇒ 01:18:25.970 Uttam Kumaran: That I finally, like, just put all into one place. Everything from, like.

731 01:18:26.470 ⇒ 01:18:31.939 Uttam Kumaran: Revenue forecast, to, like, hours estimation, to, like, different linear agents.

732 01:18:31.990 ⇒ 01:18:47.920 Uttam Kumaran: So there’s a lot of fun things in here to take a look at, but a couple things that I wanted to focus on, in particular, was sales engineering. So this plan isn’t done yet, but we’re gonna work on a specific plan for sales engineering. I think

733 01:18:48.000 ⇒ 01:18:52.989 Uttam Kumaran: Jarrell and Robert are the clear customer here, which is, like, what demos are needed?

734 01:18:53.010 ⇒ 01:19:11.840 Uttam Kumaran: what sort of workflow automations are needed for you guys to sell faster, research faster, put something in front of clients faster. This is something that I’m probably gonna work closely with Pranav on, as he’s probably gonna… it’s probably just gonna be me, Clarence, and… and him closely on this sort of part of the project, and that way.

735 01:19:12.090 ⇒ 01:19:20.410 Uttam Kumaran: what I’m trying to do is build methods for the sales team to sell faster. So we’re gonna have a plan around sales engineering,

736 01:19:20.510 ⇒ 01:19:26.309 Uttam Kumaran: I think the lovely thing about this is, like, this is typically, like, a full team in a company, and I think we have a path towards

737 01:19:26.860 ⇒ 01:19:31.689 Uttam Kumaran: you know, just kind of rolling that into a lot of the work that we’re actually already doing.

738 01:19:31.800 ⇒ 01:19:44.289 Uttam Kumaran: The next piece is, like, what we’re calling, like, AI Execution Harness. Let’s see if this… yeah, so I’ll talk about this. This is a little bit, like, heady, so you can just, like, ask me any questions if it’s a little bit confusing, but…

739 01:19:45.420 ⇒ 01:19:59.939 Uttam Kumaran: basically, the context of the problem here is that, like, this is actually what enables the 50% or more of platform tickets can get completed end-to-end by AI. And there’s a word that’s kind of in the AI world right now called harness.

740 01:20:00.040 ⇒ 01:20:18.380 Uttam Kumaran: You can think of a harness like, if you’re skydiving and you have a harness with a parachute, and you land safely, that’s a great analogy here. Harness is basically what… what are the rules and methods that wrap around the AI that direct it to do a piece of work that’s able to go end-to-end, do it, test, and then alert that it’s done.

741 01:20:18.560 ⇒ 01:20:26.049 Uttam Kumaran: And so, to go back to, like, what is the current state right now, one is, like, we create tickets.

742 01:20:26.160 ⇒ 01:20:36.230 Uttam Kumaran: one of us executes it using AI, but there isn’t sort of, like, a systematic involvement of AI in end-to-end, meaning, like, from the… from the moment a problem

743 01:20:36.430 ⇒ 01:20:39.910 Uttam Kumaran: There’s actually… one piece is, like, from the moment a problem is identified.

744 01:20:40.010 ⇒ 01:20:44.260 Uttam Kumaran: To it getting picked up, researched, executed, and delivered.

745 01:20:44.600 ⇒ 01:20:51.620 Uttam Kumaran: We will actually also then move to a point, and we’re already doing that, and I’ll show you some examples, of AI actually coming to the table with ideas.

746 01:20:51.760 ⇒ 01:20:55.650 Uttam Kumaran: And then it becomes more of human in the loop on, like, what are the ideas.

747 01:20:55.800 ⇒ 01:21:00.120 Uttam Kumaran: that we want to work on. And so, right now, the problem statements is, like.

748 01:21:00.530 ⇒ 01:21:12.600 Uttam Kumaran: like, my eyes are only open so much, you know, during the day. Reviews of code is becoming the bottleneck. Like, we’re shipping 30 or 40 different pieces of code daily that’s becoming tough to review.

749 01:21:14.270 ⇒ 01:21:22.059 Uttam Kumaran: There’s no framework by which we decide on new tools. We’re sort of just picking on the latest thing that comes out.

750 01:21:22.160 ⇒ 01:21:37.929 Uttam Kumaran: And then also, like, I think not everybody in the company, including us, we’re not always, like, okay, we know that if we hand this to AI, it’s gonna get done well. You guys probably see a version of this in Cursor, but imagine you’re being like, hey, AI, I want you to build,

751 01:21:38.060 ⇒ 01:21:42.440 Uttam Kumaran: an OKR tool that, according to Ricoh’s specs, Go.

752 01:21:42.650 ⇒ 01:21:47.669 Uttam Kumaran: how can I have trust that it’s actually gonna go develop that, or bring me in when it needs?

753 01:21:47.830 ⇒ 01:21:52.449 Uttam Kumaran: So there’s… there’s some… there’s some pieces here around, like.

754 01:21:52.980 ⇒ 01:22:00.929 Uttam Kumaran: context, specs, verification, and this is really, like, Clarence’s world to really develop this, but really what this should be is, like.

755 01:22:01.130 ⇒ 01:22:11.489 Uttam Kumaran: no matter what the task is at Brainforge, there is a way for a piece of it to get executed by AI, and this is sort of the harness around that.

756 01:22:14.860 ⇒ 01:22:20.070 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, and there’s some stuff around, like, I’m gonna migrate the website, a couple things on the infrastructure side, but…

757 01:22:20.170 ⇒ 01:22:23.680 Uttam Kumaran: Any questions about, like, the platform team in general?

758 01:22:23.830 ⇒ 01:22:26.059 Uttam Kumaran: like, AI in general.

759 01:22:28.290 ⇒ 01:22:39.740 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, like, anything around this sort of team and, like, how we’re thinking about it. I didn’t talk about, like, sort of the commercial implications of a lot of this work. I can also explain some of that, so…

760 01:22:43.840 ⇒ 01:22:45.439 Kaela Gallagher: I don’t have any questions.

761 01:22:46.550 ⇒ 01:22:50.750 Kaela Gallagher: I think this looks, like, really interesting. I think it’ll make a big impact.

762 01:22:55.970 ⇒ 01:23:00.160 Brylle Girang: Do we have, like, a new target for the open work ITE?

763 01:23:01.810 ⇒ 01:23:05.320 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I mean, it’s… it’s basically blocked by…

764 01:23:05.440 ⇒ 01:23:07.969 Uttam Kumaran: Like, me getting a few hours of time.

765 01:23:08.100 ⇒ 01:23:14.880 Uttam Kumaran: I think I would love for you to be the customer for it, and for you to give me a sense of, like.

766 01:23:15.650 ⇒ 01:23:26.429 Uttam Kumaran: when you need it by, so that I don’t just keep saying, like, as soon as I can get to it. So if you have a plan that you want to roll it out, and you have some specifications of what it needs.

767 01:23:27.040 ⇒ 01:23:28.790 Uttam Kumaran: I’m happy to work towards that.

768 01:23:29.690 ⇒ 01:23:30.140 Brylle Girang: Yeah, okay.

769 01:23:30.140 ⇒ 01:23:44.410 Uttam Kumaran: I have a version of it up that you can play around with, and maybe that helps frame your reference. I would love for you to actually maybe help me set some deadlines there, so that I can build that out for you. Again, like, part of this, for the whole period of this team.

770 01:23:44.800 ⇒ 01:23:53.909 Uttam Kumaran: like, I’ve both set the deadlines, then more recently, I’ve been doing a lot of the building, so we kind of were just spraying and praying and building everything we could for me to get a sense of the plan here.

771 01:23:54.150 ⇒ 01:24:03.949 Uttam Kumaran: But I… I think I would like to shift towards something, like, much more structured, so that, of course, we’re gonna start to build people into this, like Miranda, Clarence, others, and

772 01:24:04.260 ⇒ 01:24:07.080 Uttam Kumaran: There needs to be a clear client for there to be feedback, you know.

773 01:24:08.080 ⇒ 01:24:15.770 Brylle Girang: Okay, yeah, let me marinate on it a little bit, but I’m thinking if open work can be, like, a good supplement for our LMS.

774 01:24:19.120 ⇒ 01:24:19.660 Uttam Kumaran: Cool.

775 01:24:21.410 ⇒ 01:24:23.919 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, on the commercial side.

776 01:24:25.200 ⇒ 01:24:32.559 Uttam Kumaran: the AI part of our business was completely born out of, like, our work for ourselves. So, similar to the L&D,

777 01:24:32.670 ⇒ 01:24:43.889 Uttam Kumaran: like, this is meant to show what is possible on the frontier of AI, and then for our commercial team to go be like, wow, we can take that and we can sell it. And so.

778 01:24:44.330 ⇒ 01:24:53.420 Uttam Kumaran: we did a lot of, like, research and trial and error this quarter, and I think we have a few areas of the product that

779 01:24:53.620 ⇒ 01:24:56.849 Uttam Kumaran: Totally has opportunity to take it, wrap it, and sell it.

780 01:24:57.080 ⇒ 01:24:58.420 Uttam Kumaran: But…

781 01:24:59.050 ⇒ 01:25:16.840 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t want this… like, this team’s job is to help our company, and we pick off pieces that are working, and we… and we go and we wrap it, and we sell it. So, that’s sort of what the sales engineering piece is gonna be. I see… I could see that fitting pretty well under learning and development, too, so I think we’ll see, kind of, this quarter, like, how…

782 01:25:17.370 ⇒ 01:25:19.810 Uttam Kumaran: You know, this all shakes out, but,

783 01:25:20.070 ⇒ 01:25:21.759 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, that’s sort of the plan here.

784 01:25:22.710 ⇒ 01:25:23.250 Brylle Girang: Okay.

785 01:25:27.990 ⇒ 01:25:28.630 Uttam Kumaran: Cool.

786 01:25:29.340 ⇒ 01:25:38.689 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, I know it’s been a kind of a long meeting. I feel like that’s sort of what the main things I wanted to go through. So, I feel like some people got some feedback on,

787 01:25:39.210 ⇒ 01:25:42.080 Uttam Kumaran: project plans. Maybe if you guys want to plan on…

788 01:25:42.550 ⇒ 01:25:50.539 Uttam Kumaran: like, implementing that, and then we… let’s try to confirm Monday morning, if we can. I would like to kind of just, like, lock things down and start driving.

789 01:25:50.830 ⇒ 01:26:01.529 Uttam Kumaran: One request I would have is, you can use the cursor to help you break out your project plans into linear initiatives and projects and tickets.

790 01:26:01.690 ⇒ 01:26:12.809 Uttam Kumaran: If it’s helpful for you to keep a to-do list. Linear is going to continue to be the home for kind of where we’re, like, understanding, where work is getting done. The second piece is, like.

791 01:26:13.240 ⇒ 01:26:31.720 Uttam Kumaran: y’all are running teams, it may seem for some of y’all that you’re running solo now, but you’ll have teams in the future, and you will… you’ll find out the same difficulty that everybody’s finding out, is making sure of, like, what work is getting done when, by who, is difficult. And so, I think, Rico, your model of trying to get everything into linear is great.

792 01:26:31.830 ⇒ 01:26:39.439 Uttam Kumaran: So I would recommend, for the platform team, there’s not a single thing that’s gonna happen outside of linear. In fact, even if I work on something ad hoc.

793 01:26:39.670 ⇒ 01:26:43.010 Uttam Kumaran: It’s part of my thing, I just basically created a ticket anyway, so…

794 01:26:43.200 ⇒ 01:26:54.429 Uttam Kumaran: I recommend you trying to use Cursor to help you break things out into linear initiatives, and also help you report out on it. Like, hey, here’s where we are in Objective 1, Objective 2, this plan.

795 01:26:54.860 ⇒ 01:26:59.200 Uttam Kumaran: And then also, as you have pieces, you can start to assign work to other people on the team, so…

796 01:26:59.360 ⇒ 01:27:00.910 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

797 01:27:03.430 ⇒ 01:27:18.749 Kaela Gallagher: I guess to follow that up, Bea or Rico, if you guys are going to do that right now in cursor, put your stuff into linear, I would love to watch, because I’ve never used linear and have no idea how to use it, so…

798 01:27:19.140 ⇒ 01:27:20.759 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, B, I feel like that’s you.

799 01:27:21.010 ⇒ 01:27:23.740 Brylle Girang: Yeah, that is learning and development.

800 01:27:25.110 ⇒ 01:27:40.109 Uttam Kumaran: We’re learning and developing. There’s a… I wrote a Q2 skill or something, but yeah, you should totally… maybe if you want to sit with Kayla and help her do that, I think that’d be awesome. I believe there’s a recruiting team, but I think you can walk her through all of that and, like.

801 01:27:40.170 ⇒ 01:27:46.290 Uttam Kumaran: pretty quickly, I feel like you’ll… you’ll see that it’ll help you see everything in one place, in terms of tasks.

802 01:27:46.720 ⇒ 01:27:47.490 Brylle Girang: Okay.

803 01:27:47.780 ⇒ 01:28:00.649 Kaela Gallagher: Cool, yeah, right now I have this, I’m not even going to share my screen, because it’s a little bit embarrassing, sticky note on my computer that I just write everything in, and that’s how I keep track of all my work.

804 01:28:00.650 ⇒ 01:28:11.369 Uttam Kumaran: No, that’s a way… that’s… that’s how… like, I… that’s why I don’t blame anyone for… for finding a way through. It’s just, I think you’re gonna… our job is to show you that the cursor linear

805 01:28:11.520 ⇒ 01:28:16.780 Uttam Kumaran: process is, like, faster, and it’s, like, easier, you know? And so that’s…

806 01:28:16.960 ⇒ 01:28:30.509 Uttam Kumaran: that’s the thing, you shouldn’t leave that… you shouldn’t leave being like, no, now another AI thing that’s, like, so complicated. It should be like, oh, damn, I could literally just, like, give it a plan, it’ll break things down, and then also, like, once a week, say.

807 01:28:30.670 ⇒ 01:28:34.289 Uttam Kumaran: Where am I… where am I according to my plan? Like, how far off am I?

808 01:28:34.560 ⇒ 01:28:39.610 Uttam Kumaran: M… That’s possible, like, today, and, like, yesterday.

809 01:28:39.730 ⇒ 01:28:50.599 Uttam Kumaran: So, I’m pumped for, like, this crew to also… part of why I told B is, like, for leader… for learning and development, like, this crew matters for all of us to get that first, and then…

810 01:28:50.600 ⇒ 01:28:51.140 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah.

811 01:28:51.140 ⇒ 01:28:52.650 Uttam Kumaran: It’ll help for everybody, you know?

812 01:28:52.890 ⇒ 01:28:55.249 Kaela Gallagher: Super helpful to me, too, because, like.

813 01:28:55.410 ⇒ 01:29:13.060 Kaela Gallagher: you know, I’m doing orientation with everybody that we’re bringing in, and a lot of times, like, if they have questions in their first week, they’re shooting them over to me, and it gives me a really good idea of, like, what we have available to help people. Rico, I felt so bad, Jarrell was asking, like, oh, can I get access to HubSpot? And I was like, oh…

814 01:29:13.060 ⇒ 01:29:25.699 Kaela Gallagher: message in Slack, and then, like, 30 seconds later, I was like, no, don’t message in Slack, we actually have something built out with linear, and you can create a ticket for Rinko, so it’s, like, a good reminder of me of where to just send people.

815 01:29:26.120 ⇒ 01:29:26.800 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

816 01:29:26.800 ⇒ 01:29:27.440 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah.

817 01:29:29.090 ⇒ 01:29:29.800 Kaela Gallagher: Cool.

818 01:29:29.800 ⇒ 01:29:38.870 Uttam Kumaran: Great. Okay. Alright. Thank you, everyone. Strong week. I feel like this was good. I feel like we have a lot, of momentum going into the next quarter, so appreciate the time.

819 01:29:39.640 ⇒ 01:29:41.189 Kaela Gallagher: Cool, have a great weekend!

820 01:29:41.190 ⇒ 01:29:42.560 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, thank you.

821 01:29:42.800 ⇒ 01:29:43.260 Brylle Girang: bye.

822 01:29:43.260 ⇒ 01:29:45.519 Robert Tseng: Thanks, everyone. You want to stay on for a sec?

823 01:29:45.520 ⇒ 01:29:46.409 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

824 01:29:47.970 ⇒ 01:29:54.779 Robert Tseng: Dude, I’m, like, chatting with this… this Deloitte lady, and she’s just, like, so… she thinks we’re crazy, which is kind of funny.

825 01:29:54.780 ⇒ 01:29:59.979 Uttam Kumaran: She thinks she’s… yeah, I saw your note, but I don’t even know what it… I don’t even know how you get connected to this person.

826 01:30:00.540 ⇒ 01:30:02.139 Robert Tseng: I met her at the operating event, too.

827 01:30:02.140 ⇒ 01:30:03.240 Uttam Kumaran: Oh!

828 01:30:04.830 ⇒ 01:30:08.250 Uttam Kumaran: She says she doesn’t believe… she… wait, so what did she… what did she say?

829 01:30:09.210 ⇒ 01:30:11.819 Robert Tseng: I’m, like, literally chatting with her right now, I’m like,

830 01:30:12.210 ⇒ 01:30:16.430 Robert Tseng: Okay, the way I’m framing it is, like, This is…

831 01:30:16.430 ⇒ 01:30:20.450 Uttam Kumaran: Totally clearance-type deal, bro.

832 01:30:20.800 ⇒ 01:30:24.939 Robert Tseng: Dude, I know, I’m just… okay, I’m just riffing. Alright, whatever. I’ll do that.

833 01:30:24.940 ⇒ 01:30:29.529 Uttam Kumaran: No, no, no, what did she say? What did she say? I wanna hear, you can’t… you can’t just let me… yeah, what is she saying?

834 01:30:30.650 ⇒ 01:30:48.750 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, so I… we chatted a little bit at the event, and then afterwards, she was like… I knew she was intrigued, she was like, look, Deloitte is selling all of this, like, AI strategy stuff, the pipeline’s drying up, no one’s gonna buy this a year from now anymore. We need to know what to sell next. And she was very unimpressed with the strategy, like, with the strategy frame.

835 01:30:48.750 ⇒ 01:30:50.770 Robert Tseng: I’m sorry, I was just like, this product is not it.

836 01:30:50.770 ⇒ 01:30:52.679 Robert Tseng: And so I was like, look, custom…

837 01:30:52.680 ⇒ 01:31:04.999 Robert Tseng: custom product as a service is the… is what you… is what you need to be selling. And, you know, you know, the whole, like, $1spentonproducts,$6 spent on services, the product’s not the moat, we’re kind of like… I’m just kind of trying to get on our wavelength.

838 01:31:05.000 ⇒ 01:31:05.680 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah.

839 01:31:05.680 ⇒ 01:31:25.549 Robert Tseng: And she’s like, so what? Like, you’re trying to sell Deloitte? Deloitte’s your targeted customer? And I’m like, no, I’m not interested in selling… I mean, I’m more interested in, like, the second bite. Like, I want to co- I want to show Deloitte, like, what our capabilities are, and then co-sell with you, we can subcontract under you. Deloitte has the distribution, but, like, we have the capabilities.

840 01:31:25.550 ⇒ 01:31:39.509 Robert Tseng: So, I’m trying to get her to agree to this, like, working lunch with me, where… I don’t know what I’m gonna show her yet, but the idea is that our platform vicinity thing is gonna be in a place yet where I can get a similar clearance-type conversation going with this…

841 01:31:39.510 ⇒ 01:31:40.870 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, well, I have a couple things.

842 01:31:40.870 ⇒ 01:31:42.999 Robert Tseng: Straight up shooting at her, yeah.

843 01:31:43.000 ⇒ 01:31:46.949 Uttam Kumaran: Couple things. One, yeah, I mean, dude, Clarence is the person, like.

844 01:31:47.490 ⇒ 01:31:50.070 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I don’t… like, something about these people…

845 01:31:50.570 ⇒ 01:31:57.589 Uttam Kumaran: I… I almost, I’m like, what… I literally was on this call with you, I’m like, what… I literally was like, become Clarence, like, what would he say? Like, say the job?

846 01:31:57.590 ⇒ 01:31:58.210 Robert Tseng: Like, I’m like…

847 01:31:58.720 ⇒ 01:32:00.440 Uttam Kumaran: Push on them, but then, like.

848 01:32:00.660 ⇒ 01:32:07.179 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I was like, it was like… I was just like, just try not to, like, do… say whatever I felt. So, I sent you one thing.

849 01:32:07.420 ⇒ 01:32:10.979 Uttam Kumaran: I feel like I… I ran into a couple of,

850 01:32:11.880 ⇒ 01:32:19.750 Uttam Kumaran: I ran into a couple things that I think are worth you reading and basically referencing if you’re talking to someone at this scale.

851 01:32:19.910 ⇒ 01:32:24.210 Uttam Kumaran: Let me,

852 01:32:27.950 ⇒ 01:32:30.419 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, let me get this…

853 01:32:33.140 ⇒ 01:32:33.890 Robert Tseng: Damn.

854 01:32:34.500 ⇒ 01:32:36.939 Robert Tseng: Bold. I am emboldened.

855 01:32:37.880 ⇒ 01:32:38.739 Uttam Kumaran: What do you mean?

856 01:32:38.740 ⇒ 01:32:40.540 Robert Tseng: Ugh, I’m like…

857 01:32:41.770 ⇒ 01:32:43.349 Uttam Kumaran: Why? What do you mean?

858 01:32:44.130 ⇒ 01:32:51.900 Robert Tseng: I mean, I’m just a straight-up stranger. I had one conversation with her, I’m asking her to go to lunch, like, you know, like… Yeah, fuck yeah, what the fuck?

859 01:32:52.690 ⇒ 01:32:53.679 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, hell yeah!

860 01:32:53.680 ⇒ 01:32:58.199 Robert Tseng: I was never this aggressive when I was dating, you know?

861 01:32:58.330 ⇒ 01:33:00.710 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, dude, I mean… Yeah.

862 01:33:00.710 ⇒ 01:33:02.150 Robert Tseng: Me neither.

863 01:33:02.750 ⇒ 01:33:03.440 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

864 01:33:03.440 ⇒ 01:33:03.890 Robert Tseng: Hilarious.

865 01:33:05.080 ⇒ 01:33:08.639 Uttam Kumaran: So those are, those are two things, and then…

866 01:33:31.870 ⇒ 01:33:40.509 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I’m sorry, there’s just a bunch of articles that came out about Enterprise AI this week that I have to read this weekend. Like, some of these are really good, though. I, like, skimmed them.

867 01:33:44.730 ⇒ 01:33:57.669 Robert Tseng: Like, I know what to say to, like, get them to be interested. I don’t have the inner politics and, like, kind of, like, to get… No, that’s the thing, dude, the inner politics… I’d just be, like, talking just, like, I’m just, like, I just look like an interesting specimen, you know, but, like, I’m…

868 01:33:57.980 ⇒ 01:33:58.690 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

869 01:33:59.130 ⇒ 01:34:02.239 Uttam Kumaran: No, but dude, that’s the thing, like… I’m not into learning.

870 01:34:02.240 ⇒ 01:34:04.380 Robert Tseng: circle-like clearances. I don’t think I… I mean, I don’t know.

871 01:34:04.380 ⇒ 01:34:10.959 Uttam Kumaran: No, but what I learned from Clarence is they want to… They want to buy…

872 01:34:11.430 ⇒ 01:34:16.179 Uttam Kumaran: One thing that these people know is that exactly what she said.

873 01:34:16.480 ⇒ 01:34:20.969 Uttam Kumaran: What they get hyped up on is when you say something and you’re like, but you can’t buy this.

874 01:34:21.110 ⇒ 01:34:25.939 Uttam Kumaran: Like, your team can’t do this. You know your team can’t do this. Yes, there’s a lot of politics.

875 01:34:26.050 ⇒ 01:34:29.100 Uttam Kumaran: But… We’re the only people that could do it, so…

876 01:34:30.080 ⇒ 01:34:33.079 Uttam Kumaran: Kinda like Sia. It’s, like, a lot of negging.

877 01:34:33.250 ⇒ 01:34:39.059 Uttam Kumaran: It’s, like, what I’ve seen. And then there’s a lot of politics, but ultimately.

878 01:34:39.880 ⇒ 01:34:43.949 Uttam Kumaran: They’re trying to… they’re all trying to sell something to their clients, and so…

879 01:34:44.090 ⇒ 01:34:47.860 Uttam Kumaran: I think some of the things that I just shared with you should be helpful for you to, like.

880 01:34:48.180 ⇒ 01:34:54.530 Uttam Kumaran: Give her some… Like, stats on, like, how things are… Are changing, because…

881 01:34:54.870 ⇒ 01:34:56.870 Robert Tseng: Do you have anything on hand? She’s like.

882 01:34:57.490 ⇒ 01:34:58.410 Uttam Kumaran: I did, I sucked it to you.

883 01:34:58.410 ⇒ 01:35:07.019 Robert Tseng: I have a thousand consultants under the AI data team, like, why would we use you, you know? I’m like, well, it’s because you guys haven’t gotten there yet.

884 01:35:07.020 ⇒ 01:35:09.840 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I mean… I mean, I slacked you, I slacked you some stuff.

885 01:35:10.110 ⇒ 01:35:10.950 Robert Tseng: What, where?

886 01:35:11.870 ⇒ 01:35:13.819 Uttam Kumaran: I just did, that’s what I’ve been talking about.

887 01:35:14.780 ⇒ 01:35:17.810 Robert Tseng: No, no, I’m in our Slack, I don’t see…

888 01:35:17.810 ⇒ 01:35:18.440 Uttam Kumaran: Red.

889 01:35:18.680 ⇒ 01:35:21.280 Robert Tseng: Oh, okay, oh, okay, okay, okay, okay.

890 01:35:26.770 ⇒ 01:35:29.989 Uttam Kumaran: So these are just a couple of things that, like, came out this week.

891 01:35:31.150 ⇒ 01:35:35.110 Uttam Kumaran: On the market.

892 01:35:35.970 ⇒ 01:35:40.490 Robert Tseng: Okay. Let me read this, and I’m, like, you’re literally, like, coaching me through, like, a…

893 01:35:41.270 ⇒ 01:35:44.960 Robert Tseng: Like a text messaging exchange.

894 01:35:45.140 ⇒ 01:35:51.230 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I want you to read that, and I mean, I would say the second thing I sent you.

895 01:35:51.430 ⇒ 01:35:56.620 Uttam Kumaran: is a total sell for us. Like, what to expect when you’re deploying AI in the enterprise?

896 01:35:56.820 ⇒ 01:36:00.510 Uttam Kumaran: This is exactly… like us.

897 01:36:01.130 ⇒ 01:36:04.489 Uttam Kumaran: Especially the first piece.

898 01:36:06.290 ⇒ 01:36:06.880 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

899 01:39:14.730 ⇒ 01:39:17.139 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, I’m gonna go chat with Amber.

900 01:39:17.310 ⇒ 01:39:18.249 Robert Tseng: Yeah, go for it.

901 01:39:18.490 ⇒ 01:39:19.729 Uttam Kumaran: Just keep slacking me.

902 01:39:20.180 ⇒ 01:39:25.360 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I will, I will. Thank you for these articles, I’m, like, I’m pulling pieces out, and I’m continuing the conversation.

903 01:39:25.360 ⇒ 01:39:28.239 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, okay, okay. Yeah. Thank you. Alright, alright.

904 01:39:28.240 ⇒ 01:39:29.359 Robert Tseng: I’ll let you know how this goes.

905 01:39:29.360 ⇒ 01:39:30.920 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, okay, bye.