Meeting Title: Brainforge x Caliber Partnership Discussion Date: 2026-03-30 Meeting participants: Wessel Malan, Kaela Gallagher
WEBVTT
1 00:01:10.130 ⇒ 00:01:10.930 Wessel Malan: Good morning.
2 00:01:13.200 ⇒ 00:01:14.150 Kaela Gallagher: Morning.
3 00:01:14.370 ⇒ 00:01:15.329 Wessel Malan: How are you?
4 00:01:15.600 ⇒ 00:01:17.200 Kaela Gallagher: Good, how are you?
5 00:01:17.200 ⇒ 00:01:19.779 Wessel Malan: Very, very good. Thanks. Have I pronounced your name correctly?
6 00:01:20.170 ⇒ 00:01:21.770 Kaela Gallagher: Kayla, yes.
7 00:01:22.400 ⇒ 00:01:25.170 Wessel Malan: Cool. Yeah, vessel.
8 00:01:25.400 ⇒ 00:01:27.260 Kaela Gallagher: Vessel, nice to meet you.
9 00:01:28.130 ⇒ 00:01:29.470 Wessel Malan: You’re in Texas.
10 00:01:30.380 ⇒ 00:01:32.739 Kaela Gallagher: No, I’m actually based in LA.
11 00:01:33.210 ⇒ 00:01:34.600 Wessel Malan: Oh, lovely, okay.
12 00:01:34.600 ⇒ 00:01:35.080 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah.
13 00:01:35.080 ⇒ 00:01:38.260 Wessel Malan: And just recently joined the Brainforge team.
14 00:01:38.670 ⇒ 00:01:41.250 Kaela Gallagher: Yep. Yeah, just about a month ago.
15 00:01:41.640 ⇒ 00:01:43.619 Wessel Malan: Okay, and how’s it, how’s it been?
16 00:01:44.030 ⇒ 00:01:56.519 Kaela Gallagher: It’s been great! Yeah, it’s been going really well leading, like, people in recruiting efforts, so, yeah, it’s been exciting. How, how do you and, Utom know each other?
17 00:01:57.120 ⇒ 00:02:00.950 Wessel Malan: It’s a bit of a roundabout story, so…
18 00:02:01.100 ⇒ 00:02:07.640 Wessel Malan: So our business, which I’ll tell you about in a minute, we’re doing business in the US, in the UK, and South Africa.
19 00:02:07.940 ⇒ 00:02:12.239 Wessel Malan: And when I was… I was in the US in February earlier this year.
20 00:02:12.430 ⇒ 00:02:21.720 Wessel Malan: At a data conference, and I met… I met a guy named Jody, and we sort of hit it off. He’s a bit of a contractor in the data space. He’s actually in,
21 00:02:22.740 ⇒ 00:02:24.470 Wessel Malan: I believe he’s in Utah?
22 00:02:25.180 ⇒ 00:02:25.830 Wessel Malan: So, I think…
23 00:02:25.830 ⇒ 00:02:26.290 Kaela Gallagher: Okay.
24 00:02:26.290 ⇒ 00:02:40.230 Wessel Malan: And, anyways, and so we had enough and started doing some sort of light, discussions about work together, and he then said, well, it might be worthwhile, you know, getting to know Utam. I think they met each other also through some work.
25 00:02:40.380 ⇒ 00:02:45.290 Wessel Malan: And so he facilitated an introduction, and that’s where it sort of all got started.
26 00:02:45.290 ⇒ 00:02:46.470 Kaela Gallagher: Okay, okay.
27 00:02:47.080 ⇒ 00:02:54.370 Kaela Gallagher: Got it. I guess, like, what… what do you guys offer? What’s… what’s your, business?
28 00:02:54.800 ⇒ 00:02:56.680 Wessel Malan: Yeah, so I’ll talk a little bit about…
29 00:02:57.640 ⇒ 00:03:06.219 Wessel Malan: the company and how we started, just our history, I think it’s… it’s quite important. And then I’ll just talk a little bit specifically about why we…
30 00:03:06.420 ⇒ 00:03:19.410 Wessel Malan: started chatting to Brainforge and to UTOM specifically. So, we’re a data and AI-focused consulting business, I think probably not unlike Brainforge from the discussions I’ve had with Utom.
31 00:03:19.500 ⇒ 00:03:38.560 Wessel Malan: And, we operate, as I said, across three regions, South Africa, the UK, and the USA. We’re about… we’re into our fourth year of operation now, but, and sitting at roughly 80 people in the team, and that number is continuing to grow. But,
32 00:03:39.550 ⇒ 00:03:44.770 Wessel Malan: There’s quite a lot of history behind the business, so part of the reason we were able to grow so quickly is
33 00:03:44.940 ⇒ 00:03:48.369 Wessel Malan: All of us in the leadership team, not myself,
34 00:03:48.510 ⇒ 00:04:04.839 Wessel Malan: Well, the leadership team that’s founding and building this business was also responsible for the founding and building of another business, which they did over 20 years, which was also in the consulting space. Very focused in South Africa, and very focused on the Microsoft platform. So we were…
35 00:04:04.940 ⇒ 00:04:10.820 Wessel Malan: sort of very, very successful in this business, and sold it off eventually. I know the leadership, because that’s where I…
36 00:04:11.420 ⇒ 00:04:24.360 Wessel Malan: That’s what… that was my first job. I joined that business as a developer myself, and sort of grew up in that business a little bit. So there’s been a huge amount of history in working and consulting businesses.
37 00:04:24.480 ⇒ 00:04:29.200 Wessel Malan: And anyway, so we built that business for 20 years, we eventually sold it on.
38 00:04:29.810 ⇒ 00:04:38.380 Wessel Malan: To another company, and the leadership team then felt that there was more to be done in the consulting space. And so we started the caliber business.
39 00:04:38.440 ⇒ 00:04:40.630 Wessel Malan: But it was started with…
40 00:04:40.690 ⇒ 00:05:00.189 Wessel Malan: it was started, I think, specifically also to say, like, what would we do if we had a blank sheet, a blank canvas, and we could sort of start a data and AI consulting business with 20 years of, sort of, what if, and if we could redo this and fix this mistake in hindsight. And so we really built the caliber business specifically for that, and because of that.
41 00:05:00.370 ⇒ 00:05:06.570 Wessel Malan: One of the things that happened quite naturally is that we partnered very well with other consulting businesses, because
42 00:05:06.890 ⇒ 00:05:16.650 Wessel Malan: we understood the pains of running a consulting business extremely well, specifically in the world of, sort of, I guess, tech skills, and then for us, specifically in the world of data and AI.
43 00:05:16.750 ⇒ 00:05:22.649 Wessel Malan: And so in the South African region and in the UK region initially, we found ourselves partnering with
44 00:05:23.290 ⇒ 00:05:28.420 Wessel Malan: especially in South Africa, all these companies that used to be our competitors, that we used to sort of go head-to-head against
45 00:05:28.840 ⇒ 00:05:37.780 Wessel Malan: to win the opportunities, we found that, suddenly we could partner with them, because of the way that we set up our business. And so the…
46 00:05:38.200 ⇒ 00:05:56.560 Wessel Malan: the old business was very focused on being the very best Microsoft partner in this region, and so, you know, you were… you couldn’t be that friendly to other consulting businesses, because, you know, you had to go and beat them to win this Microsoft opportunity, otherwise you might not be awarded the Partner of the Year again, right? And so you… Yeah.
47 00:05:56.560 ⇒ 00:06:01.280 Wessel Malan: Yeah, had to stick your elbows out a little bit and make sure you were the one to get the opportunity.
48 00:06:01.440 ⇒ 00:06:03.670 Wessel Malan: But then when we started the caliber business.
49 00:06:03.710 ⇒ 00:06:19.879 Wessel Malan: we shifted from a Microsoft focus to a people focus, and decided instead that the Calibre business and the real mission for the Calibre business is to be the very best place to come for data and AI skills on both sides of the coin. So we’re focusing very aggressively on our employee value proposition, so…
50 00:06:19.880 ⇒ 00:06:36.329 Wessel Malan: what would attract those sorts of people to work in a business, and to make sure we attract them. And then on the other side of that, to make sure our partners and customers, we have direct customers as well, you know, know that when they come to us, that those are the types of people available in our business. And because we shifted our focus to that, it meant that,
51 00:06:36.440 ⇒ 00:06:41.710 Wessel Malan: Suddenly, we could partner really well, because it didn’t matter whether it was another consultancy or perhaps the end customer.
52 00:06:41.760 ⇒ 00:06:57.149 Wessel Malan: who was coming to us to use our team, our focus is on finding, building, developing, and making available the very best data people. So the focus shifted, and suddenly we were partnering with all these businesses. We then found the same in the UK market as we entered there, that,
53 00:06:57.200 ⇒ 00:07:05.960 Wessel Malan: that one of the best places for us to work was actually in partnership, and so similarly, we’ve taken that approach to the US market. We’re very new in the US market.
54 00:07:06.770 ⇒ 00:07:19.870 Wessel Malan: really, this year is our entry into that, off the back of our success in South Africa and the UK. Our dream was always to operate in the US market. When we started the caliber business, it was… the dream was always
55 00:07:19.960 ⇒ 00:07:33.500 Wessel Malan: Actually, US, UK, and South Africa. And so this year, you know, we’ve sort of said we’re not going to wait any longer, it’s our dream to operate in that market if we can, and so we’re going to go and make those moves into that market.
56 00:07:33.630 ⇒ 00:07:36.350 Wessel Malan: But yeah, I think…
57 00:07:37.010 ⇒ 00:07:43.140 Wessel Malan: Maybe to talk specifically to why we love the partnership model and some of the pains that we understood that,
58 00:07:43.280 ⇒ 00:07:45.439 Wessel Malan: That we’re trying to address with our business.
59 00:07:45.580 ⇒ 00:07:58.910 Wessel Malan: The major one is that our chief operational officer from the previous business became our CEO, and so her job was always to make sure that as we landed projects with new customers, that she had teams available to go deliver on that work.
60 00:07:59.060 ⇒ 00:08:05.319 Wessel Malan: And so she knew the pains best of all, and she’s now leading our business. And, you know, she…
61 00:08:05.320 ⇒ 00:08:23.769 Wessel Malan: she often sat with this pain point of… obviously, one of the main things you’re doing in a consulting business is trying to manage your bench, right? And the balance of your bench to make sure that you’ve got maybe some people coming available as you land project work, but that there’s never just people idly sitting on your bench, because it’s just a cost in a consulting business.
62 00:08:23.790 ⇒ 00:08:30.009 Wessel Malan: But she would have this headache where the sales team would walk in really excited, they’ve landed this big deal, they’ve been chasing.
63 00:08:30.110 ⇒ 00:08:37.519 Wessel Malan: or out of the blue, and they, you know, they’d say, great, we need an architect to start on Monday, and two engineers on Wednesday, and, you know…
64 00:08:37.659 ⇒ 00:08:54.240 Wessel Malan: Yeah. She would sort of turn around and say, well, you know, I’m not… you can’t just walk out, I’m not a shop, you know, I don’t have people sort of sitting on the shelf. That architect’s locked up for another 6 months, the engineer maybe will be free in 3 months’ time, that’s when we could reasonably look to start the work.
65 00:08:54.420 ⇒ 00:09:05.520 Wessel Malan: And there was always sort of this disappointment on the customer side, and the delay, and obviously the sales team, and so we changed Caliber to say we will always have a bench, and that bench is meant to serve our partners.
66 00:09:05.590 ⇒ 00:09:17.559 Wessel Malan: So we’ll always be investing ahead to make sure that there are people in our bench, and we’ve structured our business from a commercial and from a learning perspective, specifically to make sure that there’s always a bench of people available. And the idea there being that
67 00:09:17.610 ⇒ 00:09:31.159 Wessel Malan: what we want to offer our partners is, first of all, sort of speed to delivery, so when they land a project, they know they need to start executing, that they could turn around to say, I need an architect to start on Monday, and two engineers on Wednesday, and we can say, great, we’ll see you there, type thing.
68 00:09:31.160 ⇒ 00:09:37.830 Wessel Malan: And secondly, that they can sort of go out and sell without restraint, right? I mean, I think a lot of consulting businesses also
69 00:09:37.830 ⇒ 00:09:53.860 Wessel Malan: managing sales pipelines to your recruitment pipeline to try and say, you know, I understand how many people I need to hire, and maybe we don’t go for that deal because we don’t, you know, we don’t have the people, and we’re not going to hire people because it’s only a 3-month deal, and then our team size is going to shrink back down again.
70 00:09:53.860 ⇒ 00:10:04.290 Wessel Malan: And so, really, what we wanted to offer our partners is the ability also to sell without restraint, to say, take on the deals you maybe otherwise wouldn’t have taken on because of the short nature of the deal, or whatever it is.
71 00:10:04.320 ⇒ 00:10:15.679 Wessel Malan: We will be your burst capacity, so you can go and shrink back down again when you need to. And obviously, you can then, you can go and sell those deals and know that you’ve got an excellent delivery partner, sort of.
72 00:10:15.960 ⇒ 00:10:20.299 Wessel Malan: alongside you. Obviously, the excellence of delivery partner piece comes…
73 00:10:20.540 ⇒ 00:10:23.639 Wessel Malan: Once we’ve worked together, you know.
74 00:10:23.790 ⇒ 00:10:33.930 Wessel Malan: you can start to get a sense of the quality of the team, but really, that’s what we wanted to offer our partners. So that’s a little bit about the business. From a technology standpoint, also important to note that
75 00:10:34.010 ⇒ 00:10:48.950 Wessel Malan: yeah, we’ve got a great Microsoft background, we understand that space very, very well because of the previous business. We’ve shifted that, we’ve… because the other pain that we had from a previous business was that we… we were a Microsoft shop, which meant we walked around with a very big Microsoft hammer.
76 00:10:48.970 ⇒ 00:11:05.700 Wessel Malan: and every nail that we saw, you know, the answer was always Microsoft, no matter what the problem was. We realized that that’s probably not the case in the data and AI space, and that there’s a whole bunch of really interesting players offering amazing solutions. So we’ve shifted our partnership structure, we’re partnered with Microsoft.
77 00:11:06.050 ⇒ 00:11:21.969 Wessel Malan: Google Cloud Platform, AWS, Snowflake, and Databricks, and then there’s a whole host of skills across the open source technology stack as well within our team. Obviously, you can’t partner with them, but there’s a strong capability. So that’s a little bit about the business and where we fit in.
78 00:11:22.590 ⇒ 00:11:25.560 Wessel Malan: I feel like we’ve said a lot, yeah.
79 00:11:26.310 ⇒ 00:11:34.219 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, yeah, definitely, like, very interesting for sure. I’m curious, the bench that you…
80 00:11:34.580 ⇒ 00:11:42.019 Kaela Gallagher: provide, I guess, like, what are your fees, and how is that kind of structured, and, like.
81 00:11:42.180 ⇒ 00:11:51.259 Kaela Gallagher: If we wanted to, you know, hire one of those people, do we have to give a timeline up front? Like, how does that whole structure work?
82 00:11:52.080 ⇒ 00:12:06.989 Wessel Malan: So, yeah, sure. So, in terms of our fees, I can share with you our standard rate card. It’s like our partner rate card. It’s either a time and material, so per hour cost, or some sort of a retainer fee, if you’re saying, okay, we want the person for…
83 00:12:06.990 ⇒ 00:12:19.610 Wessel Malan: 6 months, and we want to sort of pay consistently across those months, there’s just a monthly retainer fee that’s essentially just accumulation of one of the hourly rates, so I can share that with you, and it’s fairly straightforward.
84 00:12:19.840 ⇒ 00:12:25.009 Wessel Malan: The… In terms of the hiring of our people,
85 00:12:25.190 ⇒ 00:12:28.659 Wessel Malan: Well, let me just make a note on… a comment on the rates as well. So…
86 00:12:28.990 ⇒ 00:12:31.099 Wessel Malan: Part of the focus of our business was
87 00:12:31.970 ⇒ 00:12:48.090 Wessel Malan: a large operational arm in South Africa, meaning many of our consultants sitting in South Africa. We now have a small hub of consultants in the UK, and actually no consultants in the US at this point, but we may hire. The thinking, the idea there being,
88 00:12:49.310 ⇒ 00:12:50.510 Wessel Malan: There’s a…
89 00:12:51.280 ⇒ 00:13:06.929 Wessel Malan: there’s a lot of… there’s obviously a labor arbitrage opportunity for… for… for our… on our rates between South Africa and the US, and between South Africa and the UK. And so the idea being there that we want to offer our partners, and also very, very competitive rates, allowing you guys to make…
90 00:13:06.930 ⇒ 00:13:12.879 Wessel Malan: you know, the maximum amount of margin, knowing that you still have, sort of, strong people. So…
91 00:13:13.250 ⇒ 00:13:18.290 Wessel Malan: I’ll share our red card with you. Our hope is that it’s… been quite a…
92 00:13:20.500 ⇒ 00:13:34.730 Wessel Malan: quite a strong rate card for you guys, meaning it really allows you guys to get access to great skills at a far more competitive price than you might do onshore. But, as I said, we’re new in the US market, so working with someone like yourself.
93 00:13:34.730 ⇒ 00:13:42.740 Wessel Malan: Would love to get that feedback from you, if you’re saying, actually, this doesn’t land all that competitively, or this is pretty on par to what we’d get on shore.
94 00:13:42.880 ⇒ 00:13:48.559 Wessel Malan: pleased to share that feedback with me. I think we’re eager to start to identify some of our initial partners.
95 00:13:48.640 ⇒ 00:14:05.370 Wessel Malan: And very flexible in those initial discussions to get a sense of what’s the right, you know, sort of pricing in the market. But I’ll share our US card, our road card with you, and you can maybe share with me your thoughts on that. But then, in terms of the hiring of our people, so we…
96 00:14:05.520 ⇒ 00:14:19.709 Wessel Malan: whether that would make sense for you guys. I know your team sort of sits also around the world a little bit, from what I understood from, Tom, there’s people around the world. So, yeah, so one of the things we… one of the other pains we found from running a consulting business for many years is that
97 00:14:19.710 ⇒ 00:14:30.439 Wessel Malan: our partners or our customers would eventually want to hire our people, and the answer was always no. It’s like, we’ve invested in our person, this is our IP, this is our product, you can’t buy it, we’ve shifted that. So…
98 00:14:30.520 ⇒ 00:14:48.990 Wessel Malan: our setup now is, if the person falls in love with you guys, and loves working with you guys, and you fall in love with the person, then we would like to, obviously, get out of the way of that, because we found in a previous life it was… if we didn’t, it was a bit of a lose-lose. We typically have a sort of 2-year retainer period.
99 00:14:49.210 ⇒ 00:14:55.269 Wessel Malan: So if the person’s been on retainer with you for 2 years, and you’re saying, I actually would like to hire them at this point, then we would…
100 00:14:55.270 ⇒ 00:15:12.269 Wessel Malan: allow you to make an offer to that person. We would obviously be a facilitator in that discussion, but at the end of that period, then, if they ultimately accepted your offer, they would then… could transition to… to moving, like, being directly in your team, and there would be no cost for that or anything. We would… we would facilitate that.
101 00:15:13.650 ⇒ 00:15:25.480 Wessel Malan: If you wanted to accelerate that and do it earlier than 2 years, then we would just need to understand when and why, and then we could… we would put forward some sort of a placement fee, typically, just depending on how we structured the contract.
102 00:15:26.670 ⇒ 00:15:28.340 Wessel Malan: Okay. Okay.
103 00:15:28.680 ⇒ 00:15:42.589 Kaela Gallagher: Got it. I guess, considering, like, your consultants currently are not in the U.S, are they open to working US time zones in the future? Like, have they partnered with U.S. companies?
104 00:15:43.090 ⇒ 00:15:49.470 Wessel Malan: Yeah, we’ve done some work in the US. Typically, what’s happened is,
105 00:15:50.710 ⇒ 00:15:56.539 Wessel Malan: Look, I think the team’s fairly open to working whatever hours they need to work.
106 00:15:56.720 ⇒ 00:16:10.640 Wessel Malan: Part of the reason they joined the business is sort of the flexi hours type thing, and understanding where they need to be online and when they can be off. Typically, how we have delivered in the US is that the team would sort of slightly adjust their hours to allow them to have, let’s say, anywhere between
107 00:16:11.370 ⇒ 00:16:28.850 Wessel Malan: 2 and 6 hours of sort of online time with the same time as the US team, and then after that, the US team may be logging off, and they continue on for a little bit, and then they log off. But I think typically for us in our afternoons, you know, the team is signing on around 3 o’clock in the afternoon on our side and working till
108 00:16:28.880 ⇒ 00:16:32.580 Wessel Malan: About 11 at night, that typically puts them…
109 00:16:32.690 ⇒ 00:16:40.719 Wessel Malan: like, on the same working days as what you guys are doing, and they’re pretty open to that, but yeah, so I don’t see that being a big blocker.
110 00:16:41.010 ⇒ 00:16:42.070 Wessel Malan: Okay.
111 00:16:42.070 ⇒ 00:16:50.989 Kaela Gallagher: Okay, got it. Just to provide, like, some context to where we are currently at, we’re about…
112 00:16:51.040 ⇒ 00:17:10.280 Kaela Gallagher: 25 to 30 people right now, and I’m looking to extend, like, 3 to 4 offers in the next couple weeks. I actually come from a staffing and, like, recruiting background, so, I’ve been able to, like, source our talent so far.
113 00:17:10.599 ⇒ 00:17:13.749 Kaela Gallagher: I don’t know that, like, we have…
114 00:17:13.760 ⇒ 00:17:24.570 Kaela Gallagher: an immediate need for a partnership right now. I think we have to see kind of where things settle after we bring on these… these few hires in the next couple weeks, but,
115 00:17:24.569 ⇒ 00:17:34.100 Kaela Gallagher: great to know, like, you know, the kind of partnership that we could have, and, like, how quickly you guys are able to move. I can definitely, like.
116 00:17:34.330 ⇒ 00:17:43.780 Kaela Gallagher: keep that in mind for us as we’re moving forward, and like you mentioned, like, I think short-term projects is maybe where this would be most useful for us, so…
117 00:17:43.780 ⇒ 00:17:44.210 Wessel Malan: I bet.
118 00:17:44.250 ⇒ 00:17:48.960 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, super, super helpful to know. I appreciate you telling me more.
119 00:17:49.500 ⇒ 00:18:02.919 Wessel Malan: Everyone, what I’ll do is I’ll pop you over a rate card so you have that as well. And then, yeah, I think, you know, as things settle on your end, and if you find an opportunity, just reach out, and I can respond with profiles. I think, obviously, the…
120 00:18:02.920 ⇒ 00:18:16.259 Wessel Malan: the proof is always in identifying something initially that one can work on together. That’s often the best way to get to know each other, but, happy to also share any use cases and partnership sort of use cases where we’ve delivered with other
121 00:18:16.340 ⇒ 00:18:23.660 Wessel Malan: consulting houses just to give you some comfort. But, in the meantime, I’ll just share a rate card with you, and we can go from there.
122 00:18:24.090 ⇒ 00:18:28.280 Kaela Gallagher: Okay, that sounds great. Thank you so much, I really appreciate your time today.
123 00:18:28.600 ⇒ 00:18:31.480 Wessel Malan: Thanks, Caleb. Thanks for making the time. Wonderful meeting you.
124 00:18:31.480 ⇒ 00:18:33.150 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, you as well. Hope you have a.
125 00:18:33.150 ⇒ 00:18:34.570 Wessel Malan: Alrighty, you too.
126 00:18:34.570 ⇒ 00:18:35.800 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah. Bye.
127 00:18:35.800 ⇒ 00:18:36.480 Wessel Malan: Right.