2026-04-07_brainforge_delivery_leadership_weekly_sy_68b15aae

Meeting Title: Brainforge Delivery Leadership Weekly Sync Date: 2026-04-07 Meeting participants: Brylle Girang, Demilade Agboola, Samuel Roberts, Uttam Kumaran, Greg Stoutenburg, Zoran Selinger, Awaish Kumar, Jasmin Multani, Pranav Narahari, Jasmin Multani

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WEBVTT

1 00:00:10.290 ⇒ 00:00:13.609 Brylle Girang: Hello, sorry, was in a call with Awash.

2 00:00:14.450 ⇒ 00:00:15.020 Greg Stoutenburg: Right?

3 00:00:15.020 ⇒ 00:00:15.770 Uttam Kumaran: Hey, guys.

4 00:00:21.740 ⇒ 00:00:24.329 Uttam Kumaran: having my lunch, which is a Baby Bell cheese.

5 00:00:24.540 ⇒ 00:00:26.040 Uttam Kumaran: Actually, I’m having two of them.

6 00:00:27.400 ⇒ 00:00:29.629 Uttam Kumaran: And then I have to have real lunch after this.

7 00:00:29.630 ⇒ 00:00:31.660 Greg Stoutenburg: I was gonna say, that’s it?

8 00:00:32.350 ⇒ 00:00:39.279 Uttam Kumaran: This is, like, my midday snack, but I love these, and, like, my girlfriend keeps buying them. I’m, like, two a day.

9 00:00:39.680 ⇒ 00:00:41.310 Samuel Roberts: It’s ridiculous, it’s so good.

10 00:00:42.450 ⇒ 00:00:48.459 Uttam Kumaran: They’re delicious. I don’t even know, like, what it is, it’s, like, cheese product or something, whatever.

11 00:00:50.020 ⇒ 00:00:52.480 Uttam Kumaran: And, like, the wax is kind of weird, like…

12 00:00:52.800 ⇒ 00:00:57.599 Uttam Kumaran: That’s not got… like, I’ve definitely been eating wax residue, you know, for years.

13 00:00:57.600 ⇒ 00:00:57.960 Greg Stoutenburg: Sure.

14 00:00:58.610 ⇒ 00:01:00.200 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, for sure. That, like, oily.

15 00:01:00.200 ⇒ 00:01:05.639 Uttam Kumaran: And, like, it looks like you’re supposed to eat the wax, like, it’s not… like, I’m not…

16 00:01:05.640 ⇒ 00:01:07.619 Greg Stoutenburg: That’s like an apple, or a donut.

17 00:01:07.930 ⇒ 00:01:13.360 Uttam Kumaran: But it’s almost like… Like, should I just munch the whole thing? I don’t know.

18 00:01:16.830 ⇒ 00:01:21.719 Uttam Kumaran: Cool. B, you want to message Renam, and who else are we… who else are we missing?

19 00:01:24.900 ⇒ 00:01:26.939 Greg Stoutenburg: I think taxes are…

20 00:01:28.530 ⇒ 00:01:42.080 Greg Stoutenburg: I was just trying to pull up a, the scene, and it’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, when they take Charlie to a farmer’s market for the first time, and he eats a pear, but he doesn’t know that you’re not supposed to, like, eat the core, he just sort of… he just goes top down.

21 00:01:46.320 ⇒ 00:01:47.139 Uttam Kumaran: That’s funny.

22 00:01:49.210 ⇒ 00:01:57.990 Zoran Selinger: them, I just missed talk about Always Sun in Philadelphia. I was just preparing my bag, and I just heard, like, OISN in Philadelphia, what?

23 00:01:59.270 ⇒ 00:02:00.399 Zoran Selinger: I missed it.

24 00:02:00.880 ⇒ 00:02:04.359 Uttam Kumaran: We haven’t done a favorite TV show, like, Friday question.

25 00:02:09.110 ⇒ 00:02:31.239 Greg Stoutenburg: Zoran, because, well, Utama just said that, like, with the baby bell cheese, it seems like you’re supposed to eat the outside of it, and then I said that it just reminded me… I just put this into the fun and random channel, but it reminded me of the… the episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, where they take Charlie to a farmer’s market for the first time, and he’s, like, eating fruit that he’s never even seen before, and he just eats a pair, just like, you know, stem, core, and all, and just kind of puts the whole thing in.

26 00:02:33.180 ⇒ 00:02:34.919 Greg Stoutenburg: It says, this tastes like sand!

27 00:02:36.800 ⇒ 00:02:44.219 Zoran Selinger: I just find myself and my brother talk, like, retelling scenes from Always Sunny a lot, when we hang out.

28 00:02:44.820 ⇒ 00:02:45.420 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah.

29 00:02:45.560 ⇒ 00:02:50.850 Greg Stoutenburg: That’s a good thing. I mean, talk about, like, a show that did not attempt to,

30 00:02:50.970 ⇒ 00:02:56.910 Greg Stoutenburg: appeal to everyone’s tastes. But yeah, I agree.

31 00:02:57.050 ⇒ 00:02:58.920 Greg Stoutenburg: No salesmanship on this one.

32 00:02:59.260 ⇒ 00:02:59.990 Zoran Selinger: Yeah.

33 00:03:01.960 ⇒ 00:03:03.550 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, so I…

34 00:03:03.730 ⇒ 00:03:11.729 Uttam Kumaran: this is, like, I think a first meeting of everybody, sort of, on the delivery leadership team, but I sort of wanted to do, like, one of these a week where

35 00:03:11.880 ⇒ 00:03:21.659 Uttam Kumaran: I just sort of, like, have a discussion about, like, one part of, delivery, and I’m sure we’ll get broader into just, like.

36 00:03:21.840 ⇒ 00:03:23.170 Uttam Kumaran: consulting and…

37 00:03:23.430 ⇒ 00:03:33.589 Uttam Kumaran: the art of, like, you know, what we do, which is basically monetizing expertise, right? So, these are supposed to be, like, kind of informal. I’m gonna set the stage with,

38 00:03:33.830 ⇒ 00:03:50.700 Uttam Kumaran: like, a topic, and really, like, I’m… one is… I want to go around the horn and see, like, what people already know about this topic, share, like, what it is from my perspective, and just, like, kind of, like, coach and learn and see how I can be supportive as well.

39 00:03:50.720 ⇒ 00:04:08.989 Uttam Kumaran: So we’ll kind of see how these things go. I mean, I think it’s… I’ve learned a lot doing this business, a lot more than I actually previously knew about consulting, and for me, these sessions once a week are just to impart some of that wisdom, whether it’s, from resource management to sales,

40 00:04:09.690 ⇒ 00:04:22.390 Uttam Kumaran: to, like, actually dealing with, like, difficult clients, like, whatever it may be. So hopefully this is, like… I don’t know if we’re gonna take the whole hour every week, but, you know, hopefully this is a really dense, valuable.

41 00:04:22.480 ⇒ 00:04:32.769 Uttam Kumaran: part of, you know, the week for everybody here. And so today, I kind of wanted to talk about, like, what we’re describing as DSOs, which is Delivery Source Opportunities.

42 00:04:33.010 ⇒ 00:04:52.339 Uttam Kumaran: And maybe I’ll just tell you a little bit about how we’ve thought about it so far, and sort of how we’re thinking about it this quarter. But delivery source opportunities are sort of, as the name explains, it’s opportunities that the delivery team sources. And these are sales opportunities, these are opportunities for revenue, and

43 00:04:52.400 ⇒ 00:04:58.149 Uttam Kumaran: delivery source opportunities is a luxury for most consulting companies. Rarely…

44 00:04:58.150 ⇒ 00:05:15.079 Uttam Kumaran: you know, and what you see, what you find when you see amazing consulting businesses is that the people that are on the ground executing work are always looking for ways in order to help their clients more, and therefore bring money into the business. It’s very rare for a company as early as we are

45 00:05:15.080 ⇒ 00:05:16.219 Uttam Kumaran: Which is…

46 00:05:16.220 ⇒ 00:05:26.180 Uttam Kumaran: I feel like 3 years has been a long time, but we are pretty early in this, in this, you know, industry. And how does everybody, when you’re in a client, go and say, cool.

47 00:05:26.180 ⇒ 00:05:39.410 Uttam Kumaran: what else is messy around your house? How else can I be helpful? It’s like, you know, I had, you know, people come in to fix something at the house, and they should look around and be like, what else is broken around here? Like, is there… I saw your lights are broken, I saw the garage isn’t working.

48 00:05:39.410 ⇒ 00:05:48.440 Uttam Kumaran: Right? And, like, I feel like it’s helpful to think about us in that way, where we are solution providers, and we are outcome-driven people, whatever in…

49 00:05:48.440 ⇒ 00:05:58.810 Uttam Kumaran: And we are only limited by the amount of services that we can do that we’re confident in deploying. So we won’t come in and say we can build iOS apps, right? Even though people have asked us for that.

50 00:05:58.830 ⇒ 00:06:09.830 Uttam Kumaran: Because right now, it’s not a service that we’re 100% comfortable that we can nail and deliver an outcome on, and but anything data, AI, strategy-related, we do feel like that.

51 00:06:09.890 ⇒ 00:06:24.399 Uttam Kumaran: So, I don’t know, maybe, like, I could just… I think, like, Greg and Pranav, I probably talked to you two the most about, like, DSOs. Maybe I was just, like, wondering if you guys can give your perspective on, like, how you’re thinking about delivery source opportunities, maybe even in the last, like.

52 00:06:24.400 ⇒ 00:06:41.720 Uttam Kumaran: month or two as, like, y’all have pushed closer to the account management side. And then, yeah, would just kind of like to have a discussion on hearing from everybody on, like, what is the gap to… like, how do you feel about walking into a client and sourcing an opportunity?

53 00:06:41.720 ⇒ 00:06:42.399 Jasmin Multani: You can adoption.

54 00:06:42.400 ⇒ 00:06:44.600 Uttam Kumaran: And then I could… I could talk a little bit about, like.

55 00:06:44.600 ⇒ 00:06:44.950 Jasmin Multani: something.

56 00:06:44.950 ⇒ 00:06:47.180 Uttam Kumaran: What’s submitting an opportunity to sales, actually.

57 00:06:47.180 ⇒ 00:06:47.550 Jasmin Multani: looks like.

58 00:06:47.550 ⇒ 00:06:48.140 Uttam Kumaran: too, so…

59 00:06:52.040 ⇒ 00:07:03.380 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, I think, like, I would love to understand how to go for it. For example, while working with CTA, I think there’s a lot of work

60 00:07:04.190 ⇒ 00:07:13.100 Awaish Kumar: Like, we have a… Like, the team that we are collaborating with, but then, like, we… we haven’t… like…

61 00:07:13.420 ⇒ 00:07:17.240 Awaish Kumar: Try to reach beyond that, like, for example, our marketing

62 00:07:18.720 ⇒ 00:07:20.950 Awaish Kumar: Team is working, how we can…

63 00:07:21.090 ⇒ 00:07:26.310 Awaish Kumar: Like, support dashboarding on… for that, or support, like, collection of data.

64 00:07:27.590 ⇒ 00:07:31.810 Awaish Kumar: For the team, and then… Also, like,

65 00:07:32.040 ⇒ 00:07:40.389 Awaish Kumar: There is a lot of work that they are doing, kind of data engineering, building… especially on data engineering, where they are building those

66 00:07:40.570 ⇒ 00:07:44.630 Awaish Kumar: Data pipelines for…

67 00:07:44.790 ⇒ 00:07:53.130 Awaish Kumar: ingesting data from different APIs. So, like, there is some kind of that kind of work that we…

68 00:07:53.300 ⇒ 00:07:59.050 Awaish Kumar: can be in our scope as well. So how are you… Thinking about, is that something

69 00:07:59.990 ⇒ 00:08:03.890 Awaish Kumar: kind of an opportunity to go after. It’s like… Just…

70 00:08:04.020 ⇒ 00:08:09.010 Awaish Kumar: Like, keep up with the pace, however it is going.

71 00:08:11.480 ⇒ 00:08:18.179 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, maybe a good question, maybe Greg or Pranav, do you guys wanna just… I think the question is, like, hey, I’m on a client.

72 00:08:18.470 ⇒ 00:08:20.350 Uttam Kumaran: There is a bunch of opportunity.

73 00:08:20.510 ⇒ 00:08:26.730 Uttam Kumaran: like, how can I think about forming that, like, DSO, or forming that, like, thesis? Yeah.

74 00:08:26.730 ⇒ 00:08:43.979 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah. Yeah, I… I mean, I guess with the… with the caveat that my best pitches haven’t closed yet, I think what I would say is… Yeah. Yet, yet, that’s right, yeah. End of… end of this week, that’s what we’re looking for. I… I think for me, like, I…

75 00:08:44.739 ⇒ 00:08:49.079 Greg Stoutenburg: I mean, I guess I’ll say the part that I think is helpful first is

76 00:08:49.239 ⇒ 00:09:07.989 Greg Stoutenburg: I know… I mean, I think I know where my strengths are and, like, where my knowledge base is strongest, and we’ll, like, kind of start by leaning on that. So just as an example, did a brief product analytics sprint for a company, recently, and just, like, this is a funnel from login to a purchase event.

77 00:09:08.809 ⇒ 00:09:23.389 Greg Stoutenburg: Anyone who gets as far as even the initial event is already pretty high intent. The fact that this is their conversion rate is, like, brutally bad. And even if we go, alright, well, ignore the sign-in event and just start with, like, the flow creation.

78 00:09:23.389 ⇒ 00:09:39.919 Greg Stoutenburg: that’s still really bad, because someone who clicks this button is supposed… they’re signaling that they intend to get to here. So I can look at something like this and just look at that drop-off and go, like, hey, I know they’re leaving money on the table, because that’s a… that’s a big drop-off there.

79 00:09:39.919 ⇒ 00:09:44.779 Greg Stoutenburg: And so then can say that to the stakeholder, like, hey, you know, if we…

80 00:09:44.809 ⇒ 00:09:51.179 Greg Stoutenburg: if we were able to optimize this to standard SaaS metrics,

81 00:09:51.289 ⇒ 00:09:56.539 Greg Stoutenburg: You know, you’d actually… you’d get, like, a 10% lift in…

82 00:09:56.609 ⇒ 00:10:12.499 Greg Stoutenburg: revenue from the ones that actually make it to here. So just, like, as an example, I guess that’s the way… that’s the way I tend to think about it, is, like, what’s the workflow already, and what do I know about ways that it can be improved?

83 00:10:12.899 ⇒ 00:10:25.679 Greg Stoutenburg: that, for me, is a helpful way to start. What’s harder for me, and so, like, Uta and Robert have been helpful in pushing me on this, I’m trying to get better at it, is thinking of the business more holistically, right? Like, what I just described is kind of a patch.

84 00:10:25.819 ⇒ 00:10:28.399 Greg Stoutenburg: In something that they’ve already set up.

85 00:10:28.819 ⇒ 00:10:43.709 Greg Stoutenburg: what I’m still working on is finding ways to think through, like, alright, what else can Brainforge bring to this business to just make the whole thing better? And what other opportunities are there for more Brainforge work, through our various services? So…

86 00:10:43.710 ⇒ 00:10:46.130 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, and said another way, I think…

87 00:10:46.260 ⇒ 00:10:56.199 Uttam Kumaran: Greg, you did the job that I think everyone on this call is good at, because we’re all pretty technical, like, explaining, like, what we need to do. I think we’re super awesome at that.

88 00:10:56.280 ⇒ 00:11:11.950 Uttam Kumaran: what we need to do, how we do it, and doing it, we’re, like, super… we’re, like, smash hit on. Like, that’s the foundation of our business. We’ve always been really good at that. And this is the feedback I gave Pranad today, is what is the outcome

89 00:11:12.110 ⇒ 00:11:27.440 Uttam Kumaran: Like, what is this… what does success look like is where I think a lot of, even including me, I had to make a real transition. You have to put a sales hat on. You have to think about, if you were talking to CEO, and you’re like, hey, you’re… we would like $50,000.

90 00:11:27.610 ⇒ 00:11:32.110 Uttam Kumaran: And for that, I’m gonna deliver you $500,000 in value.

91 00:11:33.380 ⇒ 00:11:49.680 Uttam Kumaran: That… and… and full stop, okay? I’m in, right? Cool, we’re in. Then it’s like, great, the way we’re gonna do that is we’ve identified a conversion rate issue. Put it very simply, you’re buying, you’re paying for all these customers, and they’re not going through the funnel. We have…

92 00:11:49.820 ⇒ 00:11:57.990 Uttam Kumaran: a set of tools and methods to increase that. We expect to increase it this much. If it does increase that much, you’re gonna get this much money out.

93 00:11:58.160 ⇒ 00:12:01.750 Uttam Kumaran: Compared to what you’re gonna pay us, seems more than reasonable.

94 00:12:02.000 ⇒ 00:12:09.620 Uttam Kumaran: You see how in none of that I described, like, Snowflake, I described Amplitude, I described Timeline?

95 00:12:10.140 ⇒ 00:12:13.590 Uttam Kumaran: The sales and the way our sales are going is…

96 00:12:13.700 ⇒ 00:12:19.190 Uttam Kumaran: after you get someone to be like, I want this, Then it’s all project management.

97 00:12:19.330 ⇒ 00:12:36.560 Uttam Kumaran: Right? Then it’s all, like, oh, what’s a timeline, who’s involved, what are the tools involved, blah blah blah. We have made the… we have always had an issue, because I’ve always led with that. Because I was like, that’s what I feel like is complicated. In fact, actually, what people want to hear, typically, is like, hey.

98 00:12:37.160 ⇒ 00:12:45.829 Uttam Kumaran: We got your back. We are gonna be a… we are consultants that not only come in and deliver the work, we are actively trying to find more things to help you with.

99 00:12:45.980 ⇒ 00:13:01.670 Uttam Kumaran: We think that we found something, and that we can affect, and there’s other things that we don’t do around here. So this is something that’s squarely in our target, and then you layer on more. We went and did it for X client, right? Here’s a case study for that. And then you… and then you can say.

100 00:13:01.800 ⇒ 00:13:09.840 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, and then if you want us to go deeper, we can go deeper on the project plan, who’s involved, timeline, blah blah blah. But the first thing to get is, like.

101 00:13:10.500 ⇒ 00:13:11.920 Uttam Kumaran: Who is it for?

102 00:13:12.100 ⇒ 00:13:15.930 Uttam Kumaran: what is they gonna spend on it? Like, what’s the value, right?

103 00:13:16.220 ⇒ 00:13:24.380 Uttam Kumaran: Then you can think about, on the timeline, how to accelerate that, how much, you know, but, like, the first thing has to be true, and yeah, go ahead, Awish.

104 00:13:24.950 ⇒ 00:13:30.870 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, I mean, so, like, seeing that example of conversion rates, or…

105 00:13:31.270 ⇒ 00:13:35.969 Awaish Kumar: Like, that’s, like, pretty… it’s something really… it is easy to…

106 00:13:35.970 ⇒ 00:13:38.209 Uttam Kumaran: It’s tangible, it’s easy, for the business, yeah.

107 00:13:39.040 ⇒ 00:13:46.610 Uttam Kumaran: So give the CTA… give the CTA example that’s in your head, and let’s all… let’s see if we can all brainstorm, like, how we would approach it.

108 00:13:47.570 ⇒ 00:13:56.549 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, like, for something like CTA, we, like, the work that is happening, maybe within their team, is something,

109 00:13:57.380 ⇒ 00:14:02.709 Awaish Kumar: kind of exists in the same work stream. It is not beyond my workstream, like.

110 00:14:02.900 ⇒ 00:14:13.579 Awaish Kumar: for example, I move Zoron and then ask for more money. It’s still in the same work stream, still… but maybe it’s not in the SOW that we are targeting.

111 00:14:13.580 ⇒ 00:14:16.419 Uttam Kumaran: Let me, let me challenge you even to take a further step out.

112 00:14:16.720 ⇒ 00:14:20.159 Uttam Kumaran: let’s say I’m the CEO of CTA, right?

113 00:14:22.050 ⇒ 00:14:27.219 Uttam Kumaran: do the exact exercise that I just did, which is, like, What is the problem?

114 00:14:27.950 ⇒ 00:14:29.830 Uttam Kumaran: And how much is it costing them?

115 00:14:30.380 ⇒ 00:14:41.620 Uttam Kumaran: Right? So whenever we address a problem, it’s either we’re here to save you money, or we’re here to expand your money, right? We really like the second option. The first option happens, too.

116 00:14:41.620 ⇒ 00:14:54.989 Uttam Kumaran: Right? But you always want to find, hey, in order to fix this, we are going to deliver you X amount of revenue, right? So, see if you can think about the problem that you’re facing, and see if you can frame it that way. Like, do you think you have the framing?

117 00:14:56.500 ⇒ 00:15:05.920 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, I… I-I don’t… No? Right away, but…

118 00:15:07.090 ⇒ 00:15:12.939 Awaish Kumar: Like, converting that into… in terms of… money is what I’m…

119 00:15:14.140 ⇒ 00:15:18.380 Uttam Kumaran: But see, this is where I want to even back up, because I’m telling you, don’t worry…

120 00:15:18.930 ⇒ 00:15:36.780 Uttam Kumaran: even for that, we can help you out, but until you’re… and this is where, like, we’re gonna get into, like, what it takes to submit a DSO and, like, what sales is looking for, but there’s 3 core things that we’ve identified we always need as part of what we’re calling an opportunity. We need a champion.

121 00:15:37.140 ⇒ 00:15:40.030 Uttam Kumaran: We need whoever is the sponsor.

122 00:15:40.270 ⇒ 00:15:56.770 Uttam Kumaran: Right? So typically, for example, let’s say I was coming into Brainforge, and, like, Sam, I call you. I am, like, an OpenAI competitor, I call you, hey, we can do everything OpenAI does for 50% of the cost, 2X the speed.

123 00:15:57.130 ⇒ 00:16:00.670 Uttam Kumaran: Like, and you review it, you’re like, they’re awesome, right?

124 00:16:00.780 ⇒ 00:16:05.300 Uttam Kumaran: So let’s think about who the players involved are. Sam is… is the champion.

125 00:16:05.660 ⇒ 00:16:14.989 Uttam Kumaran: Right? So Sam needs to come to the meeting and be like, I love these guys, I reviewed their stuff, they’re great, we did a POC, the team is awesome, I need them.

126 00:16:15.540 ⇒ 00:16:24.669 Uttam Kumaran: I’m the sponsor, right? Because I’m the person that’s gonna be like, okay, Sam said it’s good, I’m gonna make sure that we have executive approval.

127 00:16:24.880 ⇒ 00:16:37.250 Uttam Kumaran: Right? So Sam can accomplish the objective he has. And then you’ll have a budget owner, right? In our company, it’s kind of like me or Robert, but in a bigger company, you typically have, like, IT.

128 00:16:37.380 ⇒ 00:16:40.990 Uttam Kumaran: Right? You’ll have whoever is, like, the money is coming from.

129 00:16:41.010 ⇒ 00:16:57.950 Uttam Kumaran: And in our transition from working with small and medium-sized businesses, we’re no longer working with, like, where it’s just, like, it’s a business like mine, where I may be, like, one person is playing two of those roles. There is someone we’re selling to, there’s, like, their boss, and then there’s whoever, like, needs to approve the money.

130 00:16:58.120 ⇒ 00:17:05.240 Uttam Kumaran: Right? So, in order to submit an opportunity at Brainforge, you need to have the names of those 3 people.

131 00:17:05.380 ⇒ 00:17:13.190 Uttam Kumaran: And you need to have already reached out and been like, this is ready for sales to make… you’re ready to intro sales to them.

132 00:17:13.560 ⇒ 00:17:15.939 Uttam Kumaran: That is gonna be the qualifying criteria.

133 00:17:16.050 ⇒ 00:17:19.760 Uttam Kumaran: Right? So you… and I’m telling you, like, it’s… it’s as simple…

134 00:17:20.150 ⇒ 00:17:29.449 Uttam Kumaran: But also, like, as difficult as that, because at CTA, for example, we have Catherine. She’s the… she’s the champion, right? So who’s the sponsor? Her boss.

135 00:17:29.770 ⇒ 00:17:32.960 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, but guess what? I don’t… I’ve talked to her a couple times.

136 00:17:33.110 ⇒ 00:17:52.779 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t think we have, like, the tightest relationship, right? So we have to go get that. And who’s the budget owner? It’s probably Jay or someone from finance, right? So who is that? So in order for me to submit an opportunity to sales, I need to have those, and then I already needed to have talked to all those 3 people, sort of primed sales to come in and be like, cool, we’re ready.

137 00:17:52.940 ⇒ 00:17:59.980 Uttam Kumaran: Right? And that’s… that’s sort of it. So that’s what I want to… I think I want to make it easy for everyone to think about these three roles.

138 00:18:00.340 ⇒ 00:18:04.929 Uttam Kumaran: Think about, is this ready for me to make an introduction to…

139 00:18:05.460 ⇒ 00:18:18.359 Uttam Kumaran: Robert or Utam to come sell this opportunity, right? So the second piece is then, once… once you’re at that point, the next… the 201 course here is, like, how am I going to show you guys how to sell it without involving sales at all?

140 00:18:18.510 ⇒ 00:18:20.420 Uttam Kumaran: Right? But that’s, again, like.

141 00:18:20.750 ⇒ 00:18:31.890 Uttam Kumaran: Typically, people fast-forward to that, where it’s, like, sales tactics, blah blah blah, like, that is the… the smallest point here is, like, can you identify it? And can you draft it in a way where, okay, it’s like.

142 00:18:32.290 ⇒ 00:18:39.439 Uttam Kumaran: I can wrap my head around… wrap my arms around what the problem is, who needs to be convinced, and, like, what the outcome for the business is gonna be.

143 00:18:40.970 ⇒ 00:18:47.880 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, I have… I mean… I’d like to understand two things. I have an example with Eden.

144 00:18:48.720 ⇒ 00:18:54.499 Zoran Selinger: So, they currently don’t do anything around, around side effects.

145 00:18:54.980 ⇒ 00:19:05.310 Zoran Selinger: Like, headaches, nausea, whatever. Which is… these cohorts are really interesting, like, to understand churn rates, And…

146 00:19:05.500 ⇒ 00:19:07.950 Zoran Selinger: Get ahead of them, churning.

147 00:19:08.290 ⇒ 00:19:15.020 Zoran Selinger: Help them deal with symptoms, and, you know, stay a customer. So… It…

148 00:19:16.460 ⇒ 00:19:24.780 Zoran Selinger: it looks like we… we could… that could result in a significant, like, monetary value for Eden.

149 00:19:24.990 ⇒ 00:19:35.490 Zoran Selinger: If we do it properly. But it… partially, it’s part of our workflow already, right? Because it’s, let’s say it’s enablement of some kind, right?

150 00:19:35.740 ⇒ 00:19:41.220 Zoran Selinger: But… Also, Part of it is…

151 00:19:41.600 ⇒ 00:19:46.219 Zoran Selinger: Not something that we do, like running campaigns actively, which…

152 00:19:46.510 ⇒ 00:19:54.889 Zoran Selinger: the end of that work, like, the result of that work will be running email campaigns, SMS campaigns, which we do not own.

153 00:19:55.040 ⇒ 00:19:59.049 Zoran Selinger: So, we are not in the full, like, this is.

154 00:19:59.050 ⇒ 00:20:02.620 Uttam Kumaran: So this is a great example. This perfect example.

155 00:20:02.620 ⇒ 00:20:03.350 Zoran Selinger: Yeah.

156 00:20:03.350 ⇒ 00:20:08.879 Uttam Kumaran: And, like, let me give you, like, even hearing that, I can see that even maybe I was not super clear.

157 00:20:09.720 ⇒ 00:20:13.869 Uttam Kumaran: I think this is where identifying the opportunity

158 00:20:14.460 ⇒ 00:20:16.820 Uttam Kumaran: is I want to separate it from

159 00:20:17.500 ⇒ 00:20:30.500 Uttam Kumaran: like, sales will ultimately qualify if it’s something we can do. Let me give you an example, Zoran. You know, we still have a relationship with, Cutter and these guys, right? I also… we have a relationship with a bunch of other email marketer folks.

160 00:20:30.970 ⇒ 00:20:38.229 Uttam Kumaran: So, if you were to come and say, look, Mitesh is this person, the sponsor is this, these people have the budget.

161 00:20:38.910 ⇒ 00:20:50.140 Uttam Kumaran: And you would say, look, I know we could do this part, but we don’t have this part. Then it’s up to sales to say, okay, do we need to hire? Do we need to find an external contractor? Do we need to find an external partner?

162 00:20:50.960 ⇒ 00:20:59.929 Uttam Kumaran: And then they’ll figure that out, right? Ultimately, not every… for example, there may be some clients that come to us, be like, I do want the iOS app, but I want the…

163 00:21:00.080 ⇒ 00:21:09.729 Uttam Kumaran: and I’m open to however you want to do it, here’s a million dollars. I’m gonna go… we’re gonna… we’re gonna hire someone to do the iOS part, and we’ll handle the AI part, right?

164 00:21:10.100 ⇒ 00:21:16.410 Uttam Kumaran: Until… and then, eventually, if we find that we start doing a lot of iOS stuff, okay, then we’ll build iOS service.

165 00:21:16.610 ⇒ 00:21:21.269 Uttam Kumaran: Right? So, I’m actually less worried about us

166 00:21:21.660 ⇒ 00:21:30.670 Uttam Kumaran: like, I’m less worried about us having all the services necessary to do, but if I’m more worried about having clarity of there’s a problem.

167 00:21:31.130 ⇒ 00:21:38.389 Uttam Kumaran: we… I can wrap my head around the problem and the ROI, and it’s in a place where we can reach out.

168 00:21:38.880 ⇒ 00:21:52.540 Uttam Kumaran: Because ultimately, I want… we need to increase the amount of opportunities to then find the ones where, can we do it today? Is this, like, okay, maybe in 5 months we’re gonna hire so-and-so, we can do it then, right? So, but this is a great example of, like.

169 00:21:52.950 ⇒ 00:21:57.539 Uttam Kumaran: I think that’s a perfect example of, like, look, you can even say in the DSO, like.

170 00:21:58.200 ⇒ 00:22:02.469 Uttam Kumaran: I think we have this, here’s the opportunity, here’s the ROI story.

171 00:22:02.670 ⇒ 00:22:05.440 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t think we have all the services internally.

172 00:22:05.590 ⇒ 00:22:11.069 Uttam Kumaran: But, like, the opportunity’s there. Cool. Sales can go to figure out the…

173 00:22:11.400 ⇒ 00:22:14.740 Uttam Kumaran: The risk and, like, how to sort of craft a story, you know?

174 00:22:15.230 ⇒ 00:22:23.080 Uttam Kumaran: But I can tell you, for everybody else on the call, there’s a lot of cases in where we just can sell the things we already do, right? Like.

175 00:22:23.290 ⇒ 00:22:34.079 Uttam Kumaran: Greg and Pranav are in clients where they could sell some of the AI work, right? Similarly, like, we’re in AI clients where we can… we’re totally… it’s, like, already doing a lot of data work.

176 00:22:35.580 ⇒ 00:22:44.779 Uttam Kumaran: And so, it’s both a mix of, like, how are the service leads advertising their services and training and partnering with the CSOs to, like.

177 00:22:44.930 ⇒ 00:22:48.889 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, what is the… what is the two-liner on edge layer, right?

178 00:22:48.910 ⇒ 00:23:05.530 Uttam Kumaran: And how do you get it to the point where Greg and Pranav can walk into a client and see that there is maybe an edge opportunity, they can go have the conversation, and then eventually, like, I’m gonna show you that you guys will close… you guys will close and close the entire SOW.

179 00:23:05.700 ⇒ 00:23:10.539 Uttam Kumaran: But you can tell that, like, the CSOs are the… are the gates in.

180 00:23:10.790 ⇒ 00:23:30.339 Uttam Kumaran: And the service leads are the one that’s like, okay, how do I get everybody to talk about my service in a sort of marketable way? But all of us are in people, theoretically, in these businesses, right, in these houses, looking around. So one of the easy ways, like, you know, I told Greg we just met, like, 3 or 4 of the default stakeholders. I said.

181 00:23:30.430 ⇒ 00:23:39.730 Uttam Kumaran: go call every one of them, and ask them, like, find out what it takes to get them promoted. Find out what they want, what they need personally in order to win.

182 00:23:39.930 ⇒ 00:23:43.569 Uttam Kumaran: And is there anything that we could do to make that reality?

183 00:23:44.040 ⇒ 00:23:45.950 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, on that topic… That’s just simple.

184 00:23:45.950 ⇒ 00:23:46.460 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

185 00:23:46.960 ⇒ 00:23:56.099 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, on that topic, one of the things that has become just really clear in the last couple of weeks, including from that conversation, is that, we just need to have relationships with

186 00:23:56.100 ⇒ 00:24:08.159 Greg Stoutenburg: every, you know, a lot of people at our clients. Those names that are coming up frequently, like, need to get a one-on-one with them on the books, at least occasionally, and get to know them a little bit.

187 00:24:09.160 ⇒ 00:24:18.530 Greg Stoutenburg: I know that’s something I need to work on more, like, you know, I realize, like, alright, you know, I got default here, but I really only talked to Caitlin and Annika. So, you know, it’s time to expand that.

188 00:24:19.300 ⇒ 00:24:33.550 Uttam Kumaran: But guess what, Greg? If you go to, like, one of the Workstream owners at default, like, you go to Deanna, who runs Account Management Client Success, you build a great relationship, you scope an opportunity, she’s the champion, guess who’s the sponsor? Caitlin.

189 00:24:33.840 ⇒ 00:24:46.320 Uttam Kumaran: You literally can come to me and be like, Deanna wants to do this work, I think we can do it. I will call Caitlin on the phone, and we’ll push it forward. So that’s how you leverage me, right? Because Robert and I are going to go even above the top.

190 00:24:46.500 ⇒ 00:25:04.239 Uttam Kumaran: Right? I’m gonna come in through one of their vendors. I’m gonna come in through their CEO. Like, but for me to do that, and to get a layup to do that, we need to identify, like, what the opportunity is, because then I can… I can… I can speed it through. Right now, because Robert and I are in both seats.

191 00:25:04.310 ⇒ 00:25:18.090 Uttam Kumaran: it’s tough, right? Yeah. Where… and it’s tough just partly in time and relationship building, and like, this is the thing, Awash, I haven’t had time to go build a relationship with Jay. On Element, I haven’t had time to go build a relationship with Jason.

192 00:25:18.230 ⇒ 00:25:36.740 Uttam Kumaran: that’s what, like, me and the CSOs need to start to do, because as soon as you start solving problems, it’s like at our company. Problems will find you, right? And it’s great. It’s, like, such a win-win. It’s like… it almost, like, feels weird being, like, saying that, because that’s not typically how business goes.

193 00:25:36.740 ⇒ 00:25:54.729 Uttam Kumaran: you rarely get a consulting partner that is like, hey, I think we can help you, and here’s actually the story, let me even help you pitch it, and I think you’re gonna get promoted if this wins. When has anyone ever, like, come to someone as a consultant and ever said that? Like, rarely, right?

194 00:25:54.790 ⇒ 00:26:05.049 Uttam Kumaran: And we found this mechanism to make it such a win-win, because we can do all these things, we’re really great. In fact, you’re gonna find that many of our clients just don’t even know

195 00:26:05.150 ⇒ 00:26:07.149 Uttam Kumaran: The amount of services that we do.

196 00:26:07.340 ⇒ 00:26:19.189 Uttam Kumaran: Right? And so, you’ll see that, like, these will get easier and easier, but what I’m telling you is gonna be tough is, like, sales and opportunity scoping is different than the engineering and the execution.

197 00:26:19.310 ⇒ 00:26:32.229 Uttam Kumaran: So you really need to, like, take a different hat and, like, wear it in those moments, and really push to turn off the, like, how is this getting done and when? But, like, what outcome does this achieve?

198 00:26:32.570 ⇒ 00:26:36.849 Uttam Kumaran: And ideally, like, how… what revenue outcome does this achieve?

199 00:26:37.330 ⇒ 00:26:38.279 Uttam Kumaran: And, like.

200 00:26:38.410 ⇒ 00:26:45.620 Uttam Kumaran: Now that we’ve identified the revenue outcome, we’ve identified the problem, we have two services that attack directly that.

201 00:26:46.160 ⇒ 00:26:48.769 Uttam Kumaran: Do you want me to, like, put something together?

202 00:26:49.200 ⇒ 00:26:55.179 Uttam Kumaran: And can we… or can we put something together to get… like, can we put it together, you know, as two, with the client?

203 00:26:55.480 ⇒ 00:27:07.599 Uttam Kumaran: So you’ll see, but I think it is a shift, even for me, it was a serious shift in the way you’re thinking, and the CSOs are going to be tasked with spending most of their time doing this, but in terms of, like.

204 00:27:07.600 ⇒ 00:27:16.510 Uttam Kumaran: straight cash opportunity for this team. If you guys submit those opportunities, like, it’s like, even if you were just to submit the opportunity and be like, Robert, you go call them.

205 00:27:16.810 ⇒ 00:27:23.729 Uttam Kumaran: Like, I have the intro, I briefed them, I said we’re gonna do it, they said they’re open to talking to us, you go call them? You’ll still make money on that.

206 00:27:24.050 ⇒ 00:27:24.870 Uttam Kumaran: Right?

207 00:27:25.120 ⇒ 00:27:27.150 Uttam Kumaran: Which I think is, like.

208 00:27:27.700 ⇒ 00:27:38.910 Uttam Kumaran: amazing. I don’t… I don’t think in any company I’ve worked on, they’ve ever given the people that are executing the work, sort of, that opportunity. They’ve been like, yeah, okay, you bring in a deal, we’ll give you money.

209 00:27:39.150 ⇒ 00:27:52.659 Uttam Kumaran: But I’m like, you guys are already, like, you’re inching, you’re basically there. It just takes a… just a different switch of the brain to move from execution mode to, like, opportunity-seeking mode. This is just how I kind of frame it in my mind.

210 00:27:57.900 ⇒ 00:28:11.310 Greg Stoutenburg: just to illustrate, again, you know, so I did one draft of that pitch that I showed a moment ago that was based on one of the things I found in the conversion funnel. I had some other ideas in there. Robert had a… Robert Newton had a lot of feedback around.

211 00:28:11.330 ⇒ 00:28:21.769 Greg Stoutenburg: pointing to the opportunity for the business, and then on the second pass, like, this was just much better. Like, I… I started off the pitch with their pricing reference.

212 00:28:21.770 ⇒ 00:28:36.509 Greg Stoutenburg: to just look at how the company actually makes money, and then, you know, sort of realize, like, hey, one thing we could do is, like, a win-back campaign and reduce churn, and if we reduce it even a little bit, you know, we can point to figures like this, you know, we can get them

213 00:28:36.590 ⇒ 00:28:44.539 Greg Stoutenburg: $115,000,or$200,000, or $640,000. Like, that’s just a much better pitch.

214 00:28:44.590 ⇒ 00:28:59.949 Greg Stoutenburg: than, some of the really, you know, just more technical sounding, like, here’s how I can optimize your funnel, type work, or here’s how I can make your analytics a little more efficient, which were, you know, sort of the places that my mind just kind of naturally goes to.

215 00:29:01.480 ⇒ 00:29:07.700 Uttam Kumaran: And you’re gonna find, like, your pitch has to really hit the person that’s gonna be your champion. Like, if your champion’s a technical person.

216 00:29:07.960 ⇒ 00:29:16.109 Uttam Kumaran: You will have to pitch it to them in sort of a technical way, but still, for the sponsor or for the budget owner, you need to have the business side.

217 00:29:16.210 ⇒ 00:29:23.550 Uttam Kumaran: There’ll also be people who we’re working with where you… they don’t… they don’t even care how we get there. They don’t know any tools, nothing.

218 00:29:23.710 ⇒ 00:29:27.750 Uttam Kumaran: But they trust you. They’re like, you’ll figure it out, but just help me frame this.

219 00:29:27.890 ⇒ 00:29:28.670 Uttam Kumaran: Right?

220 00:29:29.040 ⇒ 00:29:45.769 Uttam Kumaran: So you kind of have to put these… this framework of this budget owner, champion, sponsor, like, I… that’s… that’s a really healthy way of sort of understanding who the people you’re dealing with are. I mean, it’s almost really simple to be like, my job is to get this person promoted and get this person a win.

221 00:29:45.960 ⇒ 00:29:53.360 Uttam Kumaran: like, get this person Employee of the Month? Okay, like, what do I do to do that? I think it’s, like, simplifies it a lot, you know?

222 00:29:59.060 ⇒ 00:30:16.570 Uttam Kumaran: What are the questions? This is a great… I love this discussion, I think this is really helpful. Like, I think, Demi, you put some stuff in the chat, like, I’m interested in people who have… who are trying to do this now, if you have a situation that we want to walk through as a group on, like, how we could handle it, or if you’ve tried before and you want some feedback.

223 00:30:17.000 ⇒ 00:30:19.160 Uttam Kumaran: yeah.

224 00:30:22.960 ⇒ 00:30:28.179 Demilade Agboola: I think my question is related to when we push things.

225 00:30:28.540 ⇒ 00:30:37.219 Demilade Agboola: But we get, like, oh, we don’t have the budget for that responses, what is our, like, how do we handle that? Do we want to…

226 00:30:37.600 ⇒ 00:30:44.669 Demilade Agboola: Have a cycle that we come back and check in on that, or do, like, how do we want to just go about…

227 00:30:45.450 ⇒ 00:30:52.269 Demilade Agboola: Converting from, like, just opportunities that we have in a document somewhere into, like, eventually closing.

228 00:30:53.100 ⇒ 00:31:02.220 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, it’s a great… this is a great example, and I assume you’re kind of… well, it’s a little bit of a discussion on, like, Magic Spoon. This is where, like, and Robert is who taught me this, is, like.

229 00:31:02.930 ⇒ 00:31:12.329 Uttam Kumaran: Each of those people we’re dealing with has a job in addition to us. The champion, the budget owner, and the sponsor, they have jobs in order to get this. It’s not purely us.

230 00:31:12.460 ⇒ 00:31:20.139 Uttam Kumaran: And a good way is, like, we actually, if the champion really wants it, they need to go fight for that budget.

231 00:31:20.370 ⇒ 00:31:27.969 Uttam Kumaran: And we’re gonna help them do that, right? Ultimately, like, I think we’ve seen this a couple times, like, Greg, you kind of saw this at README, like.

232 00:31:28.160 ⇒ 00:31:30.129 Uttam Kumaran: They didn’t want to fight for the money.

233 00:31:30.740 ⇒ 00:31:34.420 Uttam Kumaran: And you could… now it’s when we figure out, like, okay, why not?

234 00:31:34.610 ⇒ 00:31:39.820 Uttam Kumaran: Is it because… They’re, like, about to get fired, and they, like, don’t want to ruffle feathers.

235 00:31:39.960 ⇒ 00:31:43.729 Uttam Kumaran: Is it because, like, They don’t know how to articulate it.

236 00:31:43.910 ⇒ 00:31:48.949 Uttam Kumaran: But they, like, believe in us, but, like, they can’t, like, go to a meeting without us and, like, say what it is.

237 00:31:49.140 ⇒ 00:31:51.300 Uttam Kumaran: Is it like Magic Spoon, where, like…

238 00:31:51.540 ⇒ 00:31:56.260 Uttam Kumaran: They probably blew a bunch of money on this past consultant. They got us.

239 00:31:56.820 ⇒ 00:32:05.949 Uttam Kumaran: and they didn’t expect to sort of increase higher, but it’s clear they want it. Okay, then it’s like, how should we start to meet with Mary on Magic Spoon and say, like.

240 00:32:06.080 ⇒ 00:32:12.939 Uttam Kumaran: who is the budget owner? Like, what do you think they care about? Like, how do they look at, like, spend and ROI?

241 00:32:13.100 ⇒ 00:32:29.089 Uttam Kumaran: Because some people have, like, very different, like, that… and again, you can dissect each of these roles. The budget owner, the champion, and the sponsor, right? So the budget owner, okay, if it’s IT, then you’re… they’re like, okay, how do they look at IT budget across the board?

242 00:32:29.200 ⇒ 00:32:34.189 Uttam Kumaran: Like, what do they need to see from a vendor to make it look like it makes sense, right?

243 00:32:34.490 ⇒ 00:32:43.440 Uttam Kumaran: So you’ll find some people, it’s kind of purely vibe-based. It’s like the CEO just needs to sort of like you, and so our job is to, like, get in front of the CEO.

244 00:32:43.730 ⇒ 00:32:54.479 Uttam Kumaran: And so, a question for this, once you’re able to convince the champion that this is worth doing, you need to pair with them to get the other two on board, right?

245 00:32:54.690 ⇒ 00:32:58.749 Uttam Kumaran: Getting the budget owner is fine. There’s many companies where we befriended the budget owner.

246 00:32:59.380 ⇒ 00:33:07.430 Uttam Kumaran: And… but they’re like, well, I’m not on your project, like, I wanna… I wanna get you the money. I think you guys are good. You have to convince… you need a champion.

247 00:33:07.810 ⇒ 00:33:27.130 Uttam Kumaran: Right? And so, once you get the champion, you can then go to the… you can then work with that person to be like, hey… because what you’ll also find, and this was another big change when we moved from SMB and mid-market, is it’s not their money. It’s not that individual’s money. In fact, again, their only thing they care about is doing well at their job and crushing their goals.

248 00:33:27.410 ⇒ 00:33:32.010 Uttam Kumaran: And so, it’s framing it like, hey, we want to help you do this.

249 00:33:32.340 ⇒ 00:33:37.489 Uttam Kumaran: I want… like, Demi, I would say, like, okay, what is… what are… what are Mary’s goals?

250 00:33:37.600 ⇒ 00:33:38.400 Uttam Kumaran: like.

251 00:33:38.540 ⇒ 00:33:45.320 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t… I don’t really know, personally. Seems like they’re kind of keeping this thing up. She’s managing this team. I’m not really sure.

252 00:33:45.600 ⇒ 00:33:48.849 Uttam Kumaran: But once she’s convinced that we can help her.

253 00:33:48.880 ⇒ 00:34:05.859 Uttam Kumaran: then it’s up to her to say, like, okay, and I just have to get the money to get to these guys to help me, you know? But this is where they have to internally play the politics with us. With us or for us. We can’t do it… we can’t do it alone. So in CTA, right, in Catherine, we have a great champion.

254 00:34:05.910 ⇒ 00:34:10.330 Uttam Kumaran: She manages up, she goes to CEO, she talks about us, she goes to IT.

255 00:34:10.699 ⇒ 00:34:14.479 Uttam Kumaran: we’re very lucky in that I don’t have to go do that work, but

256 00:34:14.699 ⇒ 00:34:25.780 Uttam Kumaran: just like I usually say, I’m gonna take that luck, and then we’re gonna start running laps. Like, I’m gonna take her goodwill that she’s built, I’m gonna go meet with those people as well, and we’re gonna start expanding.

257 00:34:26.020 ⇒ 00:34:34.529 Uttam Kumaran: in some clients, it’s not as easy, you know? Your champion is nervous, they just got hired, they’re not sure if they… what budget, so you have to, like.

258 00:34:35.050 ⇒ 00:34:42.180 Uttam Kumaran: you have to help them get over the hump. Like, Pranav at ABC, Yvette runs, like, one of the biggest divisions in that company. She has a lot of pull.

259 00:34:42.889 ⇒ 00:34:50.969 Uttam Kumaran: So you have a great champion, right? We also have a great… you have also a great sponsor, because we met with all the sponsors, they love us.

260 00:34:51.449 ⇒ 00:34:57.719 Uttam Kumaran: The budget owner is Matt, who comes in in the meeting, so you have a lot of clarity, right? You know all those people.

261 00:34:58.100 ⇒ 00:34:59.140 Uttam Kumaran: involved.

262 00:34:59.310 ⇒ 00:35:16.750 Uttam Kumaran: like, Matt is kind of the budget owner, the C… Matt’s kind of also the sponsor, Steven may be the sponsor, but at least you know all those people, and they’re really tuned in. In Element, we had a lot of difficulty, because we really weren’t allowed to go discuss and spread our arms beyond Shivani.

263 00:35:17.150 ⇒ 00:35:28.250 Uttam Kumaran: And so, for that reason, we live or die based on this one person, our champion, who really, like, she wasn’t doing a good enough job championing us internally.

264 00:35:28.550 ⇒ 00:35:42.730 Uttam Kumaran: So now, you’re gonna see on this client, we’re gonna shift. I’m gonna go become really good friends with Jason. Robert is gonna go try to meet Phil. We’re going to de-risk and try to start to, like, build relationships with the sponsor and the budget owner.

265 00:35:42.990 ⇒ 00:35:49.889 Uttam Kumaran: The champion stays, but this is also where we have to kind of watch our ass. If the main person that we’re working with gets fired.

266 00:35:50.310 ⇒ 00:35:53.610 Uttam Kumaran: which has happened before, what happens to us, right?

267 00:35:54.260 ⇒ 00:35:59.929 Uttam Kumaran: So we’re also, like, kind of, like, always have to keep in mind who those people are, and manage each of them.

268 00:36:01.230 ⇒ 00:36:02.680 Uttam Kumaran: Does that help, Demi?

269 00:36:06.510 ⇒ 00:36:11.269 Uttam Kumaran: But you have to sort of put a new hat on when you talk to her and do this, like…

270 00:36:12.340 ⇒ 00:36:15.359 Uttam Kumaran: It has to be more about, like, how else can we help? Like.

271 00:36:15.710 ⇒ 00:36:20.219 Uttam Kumaran: I feel like you have to almost go, like, yo, we can do so much more for you, like…

272 00:36:20.570 ⇒ 00:36:27.360 Uttam Kumaran: what’s going on? Like, how can we… how can we make this? You guys, I think, like, we can make a clear budget case. How do I help you do that?

273 00:36:28.120 ⇒ 00:36:28.890 Uttam Kumaran: you know.

274 00:36:32.270 ⇒ 00:36:36.230 Demilade Agboola: Just being able to figure that out for Magic Spoon.

275 00:36:40.770 ⇒ 00:36:46.709 Demilade Agboola: Yeah, I think, I think we might just… there’s definitely opportunities there, and even, like, the 3-month window.

276 00:36:47.240 ⇒ 00:36:56.989 Demilade Agboola: I believe that ends in, like, what, May? So, we should actually just start thinking of how we want to ramp up conversations on, like, hey, how do we expand the budget from

277 00:36:57.390 ⇒ 00:37:00.590 Demilade Agboola: The maintenance budgets were on until more…

278 00:37:01.050 ⇒ 00:37:05.850 Demilade Agboola: Exploratory budgets, even if it’s just for what?

279 00:37:06.670 ⇒ 00:37:08.530 Demilade Agboola: 30 hours a week, or $40 a week.

280 00:37:08.530 ⇒ 00:37:08.990 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.

281 00:37:09.290 ⇒ 00:37:11.690 Demilade Agboola: We can start to use that to…

282 00:37:11.940 ⇒ 00:37:15.139 Demilade Agboola: provide more value, within the Magic Sprint team.

283 00:37:16.590 ⇒ 00:37:17.180 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

284 00:37:26.720 ⇒ 00:37:29.829 Uttam Kumaran: I guess Jasmine, Sam… well, yeah, yeah, go ahead, go ahead.

285 00:37:29.880 ⇒ 00:37:32.839 Demilade Agboola: Also, in terms of, like, delivery,

286 00:37:33.200 ⇒ 00:37:41.610 Demilade Agboola: Is there a way we can help, like, increase visibility of what the agreed-on scope for our projects was, or our client was?

287 00:37:41.610 ⇒ 00:37:42.030 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

288 00:37:42.030 ⇒ 00:38:00.849 Demilade Agboola: So, it’s much easier for us to then see where opportunities… opportunity areas can be found. So we know, hey, this is what we agreed on, but hey, we could also potentially do more in this regard, or hey, they’re asking for these things, it’s not in the scope, so we’re not just doing it because we feel like

289 00:38:01.130 ⇒ 00:38:07.869 Demilade Agboola: We should, you know, do this for the clients, where we can be like, hey, that’s actually within scope, and we can actually ask for more.

290 00:38:09.140 ⇒ 00:38:12.769 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I mean, I’m good, so that’s good feedback. I’ll make sure that all of the…

291 00:38:13.010 ⇒ 00:38:17.989 Uttam Kumaran: like, SO… like, the scopes of the SOW are… are in the platform.

292 00:38:18.070 ⇒ 00:38:26.349 Uttam Kumaran: linked to the client, so you have that. At any moment, you can also… this group can go ask Rico, do you want to go see that scope of work?

293 00:38:26.420 ⇒ 00:38:34.820 Uttam Kumaran: And also, as we move forward, you’re gonna see we’re not gonna do… we’re not gonna… me and Robert are not gonna write SOWs in isolation without review.

294 00:38:34.880 ⇒ 00:38:50.429 Uttam Kumaran: like, by at least one person in this group, if not, like, multiple people. So you should have a… you should start to get a lot more understanding of, like, the contract terms, the scopes, and we’ll do a brown bag on, like, writing an SOW and, like, the legal language.

295 00:38:50.430 ⇒ 00:38:57.800 Uttam Kumaran: And stuff like that. But yeah, I can make that… I’ll try to make the scopes for each existing client pretty clear in the platform.

296 00:39:06.180 ⇒ 00:39:12.179 Greg Stoutenburg: I think something that might be helpful for the team, whether this is, I don’t know, an SOP or something else, or just coaching, is, like.

297 00:39:13.140 ⇒ 00:39:24.860 Greg Stoutenburg: having a sense of identifying who those… who’s in those roles at a client, you know? Who is the sponsor? Who’s the budget owner? You know, who’s the champion?

298 00:39:25.260 ⇒ 00:39:28.130 Greg Stoutenburg: Like, yeah, help identifying those people, and then, like.

299 00:39:28.750 ⇒ 00:39:33.289 Greg Stoutenburg: Best ways to create those relationships that are going to be valuable down the line.

300 00:39:33.760 ⇒ 00:39:41.040 Greg Stoutenburg: something else that stood out to me when I had my first conversation with Robert, based on the, on the draft.

301 00:39:41.520 ⇒ 00:39:48.259 Greg Stoutenburg: extension pitch for Global VetLink is, he was asking these questions about the business that I realized, I thought, like.

302 00:39:48.260 ⇒ 00:40:04.189 Greg Stoutenburg: I know the answers to about 1 out of 5 of those, because… no, I haven’t been… I haven’t been asking the champion questions about their business structure and things like that. I mean, like, I knew some of the basics, like, I know how they got paid, you know, I know… I know how the system works.

303 00:40:04.190 ⇒ 00:40:16.920 Greg Stoutenburg: So I’m able to identify some opportunities that way, but not in this more comprehensive way that we’re talking about right now, where we could find opportunities to pitch other services. So, I think that’s something that could be useful for the team.

304 00:40:17.790 ⇒ 00:40:18.330 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

305 00:40:18.870 ⇒ 00:40:21.340 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I think maybe, again, I don’t know…

306 00:40:21.830 ⇒ 00:40:32.449 Uttam Kumaran: Maybe one thing we can do is think about, like, okay, action items from, like, these brown bags, but maybe it is helpful for you guys to just think about, for the clients you’re on, who are those 3 people?

307 00:40:32.890 ⇒ 00:40:36.080 Uttam Kumaran: And then, next time you chat with me, or…

308 00:40:36.340 ⇒ 00:40:40.159 Uttam Kumaran: chat with Robert or whatever, like, I can help you think about

309 00:40:40.410 ⇒ 00:40:48.380 Uttam Kumaran: like, how to make the opportunity. But again, ultimately, there’s one thing about identifying those people, but identifying the opportunity first

310 00:40:48.540 ⇒ 00:40:52.669 Uttam Kumaran: is important, because the champion may be different than the person we’re working with right now.

311 00:40:52.870 ⇒ 00:41:04.170 Uttam Kumaran: Right? So part of this is, like, meeting some of the people, and then forming the opportunity. So I think, you know, also a good exercise could be, like, okay, how can I start to…

312 00:41:05.390 ⇒ 00:41:12.519 Uttam Kumaran: look at my client, I see a couple opportunities, let me just write them down and start to see what’s the distance between me submitting this as a DSO.

313 00:41:13.140 ⇒ 00:41:15.279 Uttam Kumaran: And that could be good, you know?

314 00:41:20.380 ⇒ 00:41:26.659 Uttam Kumaran: like, I think for ABC, for example, Pranav, there’s a crystal clear opportunity. They love us.

315 00:41:26.760 ⇒ 00:41:31.219 Uttam Kumaran: Like, I feel like there’s a good shot. Default as well, I think there’s… there’s a good shot.

316 00:41:31.240 ⇒ 00:41:49.060 Uttam Kumaran: like, I think even an element, even for how big this new contract is, there’s still other things that we can do for them. Eden is a perfect case study, and like, we’ve always just, you know, found more stuff to deliver for them. I think Demi and Awash, we have some work to do on Magic Spoon CTA.

317 00:41:49.260 ⇒ 00:41:51.919 Uttam Kumaran: You know, but again, like.

318 00:41:52.460 ⇒ 00:41:58.120 Uttam Kumaran: the first thing starts with, like, are we doing the work well? And I think we’re getting to a point where, like, nothing’s really, like.

319 00:41:58.230 ⇒ 00:42:03.470 Uttam Kumaran: Knock on wood, like, things are not as on fire as, like, you know, they used to be 6 months ago.

320 00:42:03.860 ⇒ 00:42:14.479 Uttam Kumaran: And we’re staffing up, and so I want to see, like, the amplitude of, like, shits on fire to go down, but then take that… that… that gap of fresh air, we should go fast.

321 00:42:14.780 ⇒ 00:42:21.170 Uttam Kumaran: okay, like, we’re 2 months out of renewal, can we see if there’s anything else we can do for folks? Can we start mapping those opportunities?

322 00:42:21.400 ⇒ 00:42:24.520 Uttam Kumaran: And so can I start submitting some of these DSOs?

323 00:42:27.530 ⇒ 00:42:31.929 Uttam Kumaran: And again, the DSO could even be as light of, like, hey, this company doesn’t have a BI tool.

324 00:42:32.370 ⇒ 00:42:35.329 Uttam Kumaran: There’s someone who runs data out of Grafana.

325 00:42:36.120 ⇒ 00:42:41.320 Uttam Kumaran: Like, this is the person who runs the budget, this is the person who owns that project, this is their boss.

326 00:42:42.150 ⇒ 00:42:45.320 Uttam Kumaran: I think there’s a pitch here. That’s it, right?

327 00:42:45.490 ⇒ 00:42:52.330 Uttam Kumaran: Simple one. Okay, we should bring in Omni, we should run, like, an Omni sprint, perfect. Could package that, sell that, right?

328 00:43:00.440 ⇒ 00:43:10.029 Samuel Roberts: Now, do we think of this as, like, new services that we’re not already selling, or is there, like, additional scope for what we’re actually doing? Is that another side of this, too? Or is that…

329 00:43:10.030 ⇒ 00:43:12.290 Uttam Kumaran: Can you say it a different… can you say it another way?

330 00:43:12.690 ⇒ 00:43:32.400 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, well, so, I mean, the example in my mind is I got called into a call with ABC, where they wanted… they knew we were doing transcript stuff, and Evolve is another tool they’re using, and then they were setting up an endpoint, and it’s not much kind of beyond what we’re doing, but it was one of those things where I didn’t know how it kind of fit with what we’re currently doing scope-wise for them.

331 00:43:32.830 ⇒ 00:43:35.190 Samuel Roberts: Imagine other scenarios where they’re asking.

332 00:43:35.190 ⇒ 00:43:35.530 Uttam Kumaran: Perfect.

333 00:43:35.530 ⇒ 00:43:40.989 Samuel Roberts: that is well beyond what we’ve, you know, laid out, but without letting it creep into the current…

334 00:43:40.990 ⇒ 00:43:44.400 Uttam Kumaran: In the past world, aka, like, 3-6 months ago, we’d have just done it.

335 00:43:44.400 ⇒ 00:43:44.750 Samuel Roberts: Yeah.

336 00:43:44.750 ⇒ 00:43:45.300 Uttam Kumaran: Right?

337 00:43:45.300 ⇒ 00:43:46.179 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, exactly.

338 00:43:46.180 ⇒ 00:43:49.899 Uttam Kumaran: for it, and so you’re… this is perfect. This is…

339 00:43:50.080 ⇒ 00:43:54.929 Uttam Kumaran: This is also what is such a joy in our business, which is why we’ve grown, is

340 00:43:55.300 ⇒ 00:44:00.940 Uttam Kumaran: we never had a concept of delivery source opportunity. Most of our clients would come to us, be like, we want you to do this.

341 00:44:01.460 ⇒ 00:44:04.179 Uttam Kumaran: That’s, like, way too much work on their end, but that’s, like.

342 00:44:04.400 ⇒ 00:44:07.009 Uttam Kumaran: they’re literally, like, handing you in the silver platter, like.

343 00:44:07.010 ⇒ 00:44:07.380 Samuel Roberts: Ryan.

344 00:44:07.380 ⇒ 00:44:09.660 Uttam Kumaran: We need this, here’s why, right?

345 00:44:09.770 ⇒ 00:44:20.690 Uttam Kumaran: So, in that situation, I think it’s up to the CSO and you to kind of make a call, right? Because the CSO ultimately is on the hook for delivering what has been scoped

346 00:44:21.020 ⇒ 00:44:22.170 Uttam Kumaran: on time.

347 00:44:22.280 ⇒ 00:44:26.589 Uttam Kumaran: And so, if this fits in there, like, I’m all… I’m… this is where I’m, like.

348 00:44:27.220 ⇒ 00:44:33.160 Uttam Kumaran: You guys know, we’ve given out so much in, like, sort of, like, non-scope-free work, and, like.

349 00:44:33.310 ⇒ 00:44:49.750 Uttam Kumaran: it’s been good because we come up to a client and we just do our best. We do everything they want. We’re not, like, penny pinchers, right? But, like, I also think that we’re getting to some companies where it’s actually… I used to have this approach because we would be dealing with small businesses, and, like.

350 00:44:49.910 ⇒ 00:45:06.169 Uttam Kumaran: every week, they would ask us to do more, and I’m like, we can’t keep… like, how do we keep modifying? That’s not the case in the enterprise and large. They’re actually down to just sign another scope, if that’s what gets them there. And so part of this is, like, working directly with the CSO to say, hey, I got asked about this. I think there’s an opportunity.

351 00:45:06.220 ⇒ 00:45:11.760 Uttam Kumaran: Does this fall under our existing scope? If not, I think we can form a DSO out of this.

352 00:45:12.280 ⇒ 00:45:17.949 Uttam Kumaran: Right? And then Pranav is already gonna start working on the renewal, which is end of May for ABC.

353 00:45:18.080 ⇒ 00:45:23.579 Uttam Kumaran: You can either tag that on there, or if it’s earlier, then we just… Carve it out, right?

354 00:45:23.790 ⇒ 00:45:29.609 Uttam Kumaran: But again, you’ve almost been handed, like, 50% of the way, which is, like, there’s this problem, like.

355 00:45:29.810 ⇒ 00:45:39.850 Uttam Kumaran: And then you can work with them. You can ask, sort of, like, PM-style questions. Okay, how much is this problem, like, worth to you? Like, what is this affecting right now? Can we quantify it? And then you can say, okay, like.

356 00:45:40.320 ⇒ 00:45:45.459 Uttam Kumaran: I’m not… you could just basically say, like, I’m not sure… I’m not sure yet, I have to go meet with our team to see if this is in scope.

357 00:45:45.810 ⇒ 00:45:57.699 Uttam Kumaran: And you can do that, or you could say, like, if it’s not in scope, is this something that ABC would be… you guys would be interested in, like, putting additional budget towards? Like, what would need to… what would you need in order to make that pitch internally?

358 00:45:58.320 ⇒ 00:46:11.650 Uttam Kumaran: And these are literally, like, the candid consultant-to-client conversations that you can have once you have the relationship. It’s not… you’re not… you’re no longer being, like… it’s no longer a sale, it’s actually just like, hey, we’re… we’re at your house.

359 00:46:11.880 ⇒ 00:46:13.670 Uttam Kumaran: We’re like a handyman, like…

360 00:46:13.810 ⇒ 00:46:17.610 Uttam Kumaran: All this other thing’s broken, like, you want us just to fix it before we’re at it? Like…

361 00:46:18.390 ⇒ 00:46:25.289 Uttam Kumaran: You’re right, it changes the demeanor and, like, the sense of the conversation versus, like, super, super salesy.

362 00:46:25.590 ⇒ 00:46:30.259 Uttam Kumaran: You know, and so that’s a good example of the client is actually like, hi, we have this problem.

363 00:46:30.470 ⇒ 00:46:38.710 Uttam Kumaran: Ultimately, though, the client and your champion may not know the nuances of the SOW involved, so you don’t want to bore them with, like.

364 00:46:38.840 ⇒ 00:46:43.309 Uttam Kumaran: oh, this is out of scope, I don’t know, I gotta call my boss. Like, don’t… I would say, like, that’s…

365 00:46:43.540 ⇒ 00:46:51.900 Uttam Kumaran: Instead, you almost want to be like, perfect, let’s get everybody hyped up on that we can solve this problem. Let me get back to you if it’s in scope. Is it out of scope. Do you think, like.

366 00:46:52.080 ⇒ 00:46:53.790 Uttam Kumaran: Let’s say it’s anonym scope.

367 00:46:53.910 ⇒ 00:46:58.480 Uttam Kumaran: Do you think, like, there’s some budget to put towards this? Because I think we could totally knock this out of the park.

368 00:46:58.650 ⇒ 00:47:02.330 Uttam Kumaran: then they’re gonna tell you, like, oh, I don’t know, or, like.

369 00:47:02.770 ⇒ 00:47:07.420 Uttam Kumaran: oh, I don’t know, I would have to convince so-and-so, and they’re like, okay, perfect, let me help you, like, make that.

370 00:47:07.730 ⇒ 00:47:10.539 Uttam Kumaran: Now you can kind of understand what it would take to do that.

371 00:47:10.540 ⇒ 00:47:11.510 Samuel Roberts: sense, yeah.

372 00:47:20.220 ⇒ 00:47:25.210 Uttam Kumaran: Anything else on, dSOs, broadly.

373 00:47:42.460 ⇒ 00:47:43.270 Uttam Kumaran: Okay?

374 00:47:44.020 ⇒ 00:47:49.400 Uttam Kumaran: I just… I know we have a little bit of time. I guess I wanted just to take, like, maybe a second,

375 00:47:49.870 ⇒ 00:47:56.680 Uttam Kumaran: And then we have probably 10 minutes. I guess, Sam, like, wondering if everybody took a stab at doing, like, looking at allocations?

376 00:47:57.030 ⇒ 00:48:02.379 Uttam Kumaran: Today, I guess primarily Demi, Jasmine, Awash, Sam.

377 00:48:02.520 ⇒ 00:48:11.049 Uttam Kumaran: If you guys… we sent some messages back and forth. Do you guys have a chance to look at allocations at all? If not, would you… with, like, a short demo.

378 00:48:11.770 ⇒ 00:48:15.869 Uttam Kumaran: Just on this call, like, help get your head around, like, what it is the ask is there.

379 00:48:16.740 ⇒ 00:48:18.180 Jasmin Multani: I’d like a short demo.

380 00:48:20.450 ⇒ 00:48:35.110 Uttam Kumaran: Sam, maybe I can task you, or… or we can try someone… someone new, like, Awash, I don’t know if you’ve done the allocation stuff, but do you want to… you can try and just share a screen, and we can walk through, like, allocating the folks on your team.

381 00:48:36.520 ⇒ 00:48:45.729 Awaish Kumar: Okay, I haven’t thought about… Like, who to allocate, but I can… I’ve tried operating…

382 00:48:47.100 ⇒ 00:48:48.920 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, maybe, Sam, I can…

383 00:48:49.060 ⇒ 00:48:54.219 Uttam Kumaran: I think this is interesting. I’ll let you sort of, like… let’s say I was to ask you, like, help Awash.

384 00:48:54.220 ⇒ 00:48:54.700 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, totally.

385 00:48:54.700 ⇒ 00:49:00.260 Uttam Kumaran: Do the allocations for… His team, which, basically, it’s… it’s his time.

386 00:49:00.700 ⇒ 00:49:06.799 Uttam Kumaran: maybe some of my time, and Ashwini’s time, yeah, feel free.

387 00:49:13.510 ⇒ 00:49:15.729 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, so this was just Brainforge, I forget the…

388 00:49:16.690 ⇒ 00:49:17.350 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.

389 00:49:17.890 ⇒ 00:49:18.500 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, yeah.

390 00:49:19.420 ⇒ 00:49:20.170 Awaish Kumar: Coach?

391 00:50:02.360 ⇒ 00:50:02.950 Samuel Roberts: Okay.

392 00:50:04.810 ⇒ 00:50:12.899 Samuel Roberts: Oh, yeah, I was learning my way around here yesterday. Once I had access to some things, that made things a little bit easier, so hopefully we have the right,

393 00:50:13.840 ⇒ 00:50:18.340 Samuel Roberts: Access at this point, but… The way I did it was I went to…

394 00:50:19.000 ⇒ 00:50:21.419 Samuel Roberts: Projects, and then filtered…

395 00:50:23.380 ⇒ 00:50:27.489 Samuel Roberts: By what you needed to worry about, which looks like it is probably right here.

396 00:50:29.100 ⇒ 00:50:29.800 Awaish Kumar: Okay.

397 00:50:30.390 ⇒ 00:50:37.690 Samuel Roberts: And then… Yeah, schedule and timeline was where I was playing the most.

398 00:50:37.920 ⇒ 00:50:38.700 Samuel Roberts: Think.

399 00:50:38.700 ⇒ 00:50:41.420 Awaish Kumar: Well, it’s different than before, right?

400 00:50:42.570 ⇒ 00:50:45.700 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, it looked like there’s… I don’t really know what it was before, but…

401 00:50:46.310 ⇒ 00:50:49.759 Samuel Roberts: This is… this is what I’ve… what I saw yesterday, so…

402 00:50:50.000 ⇒ 00:50:53.719 Samuel Roberts: What I was able to see was the timeline view, which was helpful.

403 00:50:54.320 ⇒ 00:50:57.010 Samuel Roberts: But that… was just preference, I suppose.

404 00:50:57.010 ⇒ 00:51:02.670 Uttam Kumaran: So I guess you know the ultimate goal here is basically, like, where are people staffed, and how much time, right?

405 00:51:02.670 ⇒ 00:51:03.310 Samuel Roberts: Dang.

406 00:51:03.920 ⇒ 00:51:04.600 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

407 00:51:05.300 ⇒ 00:51:08.390 Awaish Kumar: So this is… Okay, we have…

408 00:51:09.910 ⇒ 00:51:13.670 Awaish Kumar: For CTA, Ashuni, I’m not here.

409 00:51:14.320 ⇒ 00:51:16.909 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, you should be able to add yourself there.

410 00:51:19.250 ⇒ 00:51:25.699 Demilade Agboola: Also, as service leads, do we see every project that our service is utilizing? Or…

411 00:51:25.990 ⇒ 00:51:33.070 Demilade Agboola: Every project that is utilizing our service, or, like, are we just seeing products that we are… assigned to.

412 00:51:34.610 ⇒ 00:51:45.180 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I’m still figuring it out, but I guess, like, ideally, you’re gonna be able to see everything that your service is being used.

413 00:51:45.680 ⇒ 00:51:50.799 Uttam Kumaran: I’m… I’m not sure yet whether the way I’m gonna handle that is, like.

414 00:51:51.050 ⇒ 00:51:53.299 Uttam Kumaran: Assigning you a service lead?

415 00:51:54.120 ⇒ 00:51:57.570 Uttam Kumaran: in order to see it, because I’m kind of playing around with how the…

416 00:51:58.630 ⇒ 00:52:06.159 Uttam Kumaran: Permissions work in operating, but yes, ideally, anywhere where your service is being used, you should be able to see who is executing that service.

417 00:52:10.720 ⇒ 00:52:15.660 Uttam Kumaran: So the other thing, Sam, is, like, I don’t know how much AI you use for, like, your stuff.

418 00:52:15.660 ⇒ 00:52:18.250 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, I… I was in Cursor, it… it…

419 00:52:18.410 ⇒ 00:52:30.129 Samuel Roberts: it did an okay job. It was a little aggressive, trying to push things before I was ready to commit them, kind of, to operating, but, it’s definitely worth taking a stab at that if you’re interested, Oish.

420 00:52:31.800 ⇒ 00:52:32.830 Awaish Kumar: Okay, dude.

421 00:52:34.000 ⇒ 00:52:36.479 Samuel Roberts: So there’s a couple skills in there.

422 00:52:36.890 ⇒ 00:52:37.690 Samuel Roberts: Sorry.

423 00:52:38.070 ⇒ 00:52:44.389 Greg Stoutenburg: Sorry, just to back up, I’ve never seen this before. Can you just sort of, like, give me the vision of what this is for?

424 00:52:44.590 ⇒ 00:52:49.389 Greg Stoutenburg: I mean, this looks like… this looks like it’s on the other side of Clockify, or something like that.

425 00:52:51.390 ⇒ 00:52:54.590 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, go anyway, Shakai, go for it, go for it.

426 00:52:54.970 ⇒ 00:52:58.569 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, it’s like, start, like, managing the…

427 00:52:58.790 ⇒ 00:53:04.340 Awaish Kumar: the expectation, with the Clockify, like, assigning people

428 00:53:04.760 ⇒ 00:53:10.950 Awaish Kumar: allocations for the people on the projects, so, like, here I say, like, Avaesh will be kind of…

429 00:53:11.080 ⇒ 00:53:13.770 Awaish Kumar: working 10 hours per week on CTA.

430 00:53:14.820 ⇒ 00:53:27.029 Awaish Kumar: And clockify is more like when I’m adding, like, I did work 10 hours, or 12, or 8, whatever, actually worked on that client, it’s more like a forecasting of…

431 00:53:27.380 ⇒ 00:53:32.879 Awaish Kumar: How much… A time, this client needs for me.

432 00:53:33.070 ⇒ 00:53:34.320 Awaish Kumar: Or, my team.

433 00:53:35.050 ⇒ 00:53:35.730 Greg Stoutenburg: Okay.

434 00:53:36.670 ⇒ 00:53:38.239 Greg Stoutenburg: Okay, that’s helpful. Thank you.

435 00:53:38.240 ⇒ 00:53:40.360 Uttam Kumaran: So, basically, it’s like…

436 00:53:40.710 ⇒ 00:53:46.420 Uttam Kumaran: you know, you can think about our business as having, like, X amount of hours available for execution.

437 00:53:46.730 ⇒ 00:53:52.899 Uttam Kumaran: And this is basically, like, okay, how much of the time goes in… like, how much…

438 00:53:53.200 ⇒ 00:53:57.890 Uttam Kumaran: Who from the service is executing what, and how much time are they basically allocated?

439 00:53:58.100 ⇒ 00:53:59.610 Uttam Kumaran: So, roughly, it’s…

440 00:53:59.810 ⇒ 00:54:13.420 Uttam Kumaran: right now, all of us are still doing a lot of work, so you could say Sam would be allocating… if Pranav is spending time executing AI service work, Casey and Mustafa himself, right? So he’s… he’s owning, like.

441 00:54:13.850 ⇒ 00:54:19.050 Uttam Kumaran: From the project review onwards, like, who’s executing what, where, and for how long?

442 00:54:19.870 ⇒ 00:54:31.989 Uttam Kumaran: And this is something that we used on and off over the past, like, 2 years, but now that I think, kind of separating responsibilities, you basically are gonna look at, okay, of the people that are able to execute my service, like, where are they?

443 00:54:32.160 ⇒ 00:54:34.730 Uttam Kumaran: How much time are they spending? Things like that.

444 00:54:37.480 ⇒ 00:54:38.310 Greg Stoutenburg: Got it.

445 00:54:40.530 ⇒ 00:54:45.090 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, there were also skills that were, was it SL,

446 00:54:46.250 ⇒ 00:54:49.380 Samuel Roberts: I don’t know, they’re prefixed with SL allocation, I think?

447 00:54:49.790 ⇒ 00:54:53.430 Samuel Roberts: If you just, like, type slash SL, see what pops up, I guess.

448 00:54:56.300 ⇒ 00:55:04.120 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, so I played with these a little bit, but I really, once I kind of had it using the API, I was able to have it pull

449 00:55:04.370 ⇒ 00:55:07.630 Samuel Roberts: what was currently there, I was able to pull…

450 00:55:08.140 ⇒ 00:55:14.730 Awaish Kumar: I mean… Is this the one to update the… operating.

451 00:55:15.770 ⇒ 00:55:18.400 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, but it had, it had more,

452 00:55:18.580 ⇒ 00:55:23.349 Samuel Roberts: more than I needed for my, kind of, starting from the fresh… I forget exactly what that one was for.

453 00:55:23.350 ⇒ 00:55:31.169 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, just, you can also go ahead and say, like, what skills… yeah, what’s… okay, you actually did that, yeah, what skills are available. So try, yeah, try the SL allocation audit, see what happens.

454 00:55:31.420 ⇒ 00:55:32.220 Samuel Roberts: Yeah.

455 00:55:33.600 ⇒ 00:55:38.100 Awaish Kumar: Okay, for this, I don’t have to say anything, like, what it does, or it just…

456 00:55:38.100 ⇒ 00:55:38.980 Samuel Roberts: Kinda?

457 00:55:40.400 ⇒ 00:55:42.780 Uttam Kumaran: It should prompt you if it requires any inputs.

458 00:55:42.780 ⇒ 00:55:43.990 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, it should.

459 00:55:48.050 ⇒ 00:55:49.339 Awaish Kumar: Let’s see what it does.

460 00:55:51.200 ⇒ 00:55:53.070 Awaish Kumar: Okay, I think I haven’t…

461 00:55:54.230 ⇒ 00:55:55.300 Samuel Roberts: Yep, yep.

462 00:55:56.990 ⇒ 00:55:59.990 Samuel Roberts: One thing I noticed with this was I had to… it kept…

463 00:56:00.600 ⇒ 00:56:04.530 Samuel Roberts: re-prompting me to enable or allow 1Password.

464 00:56:05.250 ⇒ 00:56:06.110 Samuel Roberts: Yeah.

465 00:56:06.440 ⇒ 00:56:14.670 Samuel Roberts: Which I don’t… know how to stop. I think it’s because these are all separate processes here.

466 00:56:16.430 ⇒ 00:56:22.379 Samuel Roberts: But I don’t know if that was, like… were you… had you used this skill before, Utam, to test it out? Was it prompting you.

467 00:56:22.380 ⇒ 00:56:26.689 Uttam Kumaran: I think so, yeah, but… I mean, but this is where, if it’s broken, just push and fix, yeah.

468 00:56:26.690 ⇒ 00:56:30.219 Samuel Roberts: That’s what I was gonna say, I just wanted to make sure that that wasn’t something on my end that I had, like, locked down in one pass.

469 00:56:30.220 ⇒ 00:56:30.940 Uttam Kumaran: No.

470 00:56:30.940 ⇒ 00:56:35.830 Samuel Roberts: But I will… I’ll figure that out. Okay. But I think it’s… I think it’s the way Cursor makes the calls, which…

471 00:56:36.140 ⇒ 00:56:37.270 Samuel Roberts: I’ll have to figure out.

472 00:56:45.980 ⇒ 00:56:49.020 Brylle Girang: I think the MCP has not been enabled.

473 00:56:49.530 ⇒ 00:56:50.180 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, you wanna use.

474 00:56:50.180 ⇒ 00:56:50.680 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, but…

475 00:56:50.680 ⇒ 00:56:51.370 Samuel Roberts: I think.

476 00:56:51.370 ⇒ 00:56:53.000 Uttam Kumaran: You wanna use the API.

477 00:56:53.230 ⇒ 00:56:53.970 Brylle Girang: Okay.

478 00:56:55.550 ⇒ 00:56:56.449 Awaish Kumar: Maybe I can.

479 00:56:56.450 ⇒ 00:56:57.529 Uttam Kumaran: I’m suitcases.

480 00:56:58.540 ⇒ 00:56:58.900 Awaish Kumar: Nebula.

481 00:56:58.900 ⇒ 00:57:04.570 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so maybe a wish… Well, the MCP doesn’t have all the different paths you need, so…

482 00:57:04.570 ⇒ 00:57:05.430 Samuel Roberts: Yeah.

483 00:57:05.430 ⇒ 00:57:06.670 Uttam Kumaran: I sort of ditched it.

484 00:57:08.640 ⇒ 00:57:11.749 Awaish Kumar: then I should have access to API key, because I have.

485 00:57:12.900 ⇒ 00:57:13.750 Uttam Kumaran: I think it’s in there.

486 00:57:13.750 ⇒ 00:57:18.550 Samuel Roberts: So, yeah, it definitely… that’s how I was able to use it, was enabling the…

487 00:57:23.850 ⇒ 00:57:25.140 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, there it is.

488 00:57:26.310 ⇒ 00:57:26.870 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

489 00:57:27.610 ⇒ 00:57:31.599 Awaish Kumar: So… Which one is it?

490 00:57:32.350 ⇒ 00:57:33.520 Awaish Kumar: Because I don’t want…

491 00:57:33.520 ⇒ 00:57:35.360 Uttam Kumaran: That one, she’s that one’s that one, yeah.

492 00:57:35.360 ⇒ 00:57:36.530 Samuel Roberts: The newest one, yeah.

493 00:57:46.340 ⇒ 00:57:49.659 Samuel Roberts: You know, I should be able to pull it automatically, like this, with the…

494 00:57:51.040 ⇒ 00:57:51.880 Awaish Kumar: Let’s see.

495 00:58:17.340 ⇒ 00:58:18.070 Samuel Roberts: Yeah.

496 00:58:21.400 ⇒ 00:58:22.030 Awaish Kumar: Okay.

497 00:58:42.920 ⇒ 00:58:44.020 Awaish Kumar: Oh, it’s…

498 00:58:48.500 ⇒ 00:58:50.260 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, those are what I did before, too.

499 00:58:58.530 ⇒ 00:59:02.129 Samuel Roberts: Can you, expand maybe this one?

500 00:59:03.520 ⇒ 00:59:04.840 Samuel Roberts: errors printing.

501 00:59:05.440 ⇒ 00:59:06.620 Awaish Kumar: So it’s unauthorized.

502 00:59:08.830 ⇒ 00:59:12.560 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, I didn’t have that issue. I was working with the 1Password prompt like this.

503 00:59:16.590 ⇒ 00:59:18.639 Uttam Kumaran: Well, maybe I’ll delete the other ones.

504 00:59:18.640 ⇒ 00:59:21.040 Samuel Roberts: That’s for… yeah, maybe it’s finding the wrong one.

505 00:59:23.990 ⇒ 00:59:26.630 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, mine just found the right one, I guess, I got lucky.

506 00:59:29.130 ⇒ 00:59:31.179 Samuel Roberts: I mean, they didn’t have access to the older ones, I don’t.

507 01:00:10.510 ⇒ 01:00:13.370 Awaish Kumar: Okay, can it… Find.

508 01:00:15.930 ⇒ 01:00:21.209 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, maybe I have to jump, but maybe… yeah, so basically what you should see here is you should basically see, like.

509 01:00:21.470 ⇒ 01:00:23.070 Uttam Kumaran: What are the projects?

510 01:00:23.200 ⇒ 01:00:25.080 Uttam Kumaran: And it should tell you, like.

511 01:00:26.550 ⇒ 01:00:32.329 Uttam Kumaran: what’s in operating. And so, really, like, what I’m… what I’m asking from this SL group is just, like.

512 01:00:32.450 ⇒ 01:00:39.079 Uttam Kumaran: think about the people on your team, and work with Cursor until it’s clear that, like, everybody…

513 01:00:39.190 ⇒ 01:00:41.380 Uttam Kumaran: Has their hours sort of in the right client?

514 01:00:41.710 ⇒ 01:00:43.519 Uttam Kumaran: Right? So, I think…

515 01:00:44.040 ⇒ 01:00:50.510 Uttam Kumaran: Demi, you’re kind of in a good spot, it’s just you, but that’s also for you. You’re sort of just make sure you’re like, okay.

516 01:00:50.660 ⇒ 01:00:58.279 Uttam Kumaran: work with the operating skills to say, like, okay, I need to be allocated 10 hours in…

517 01:00:58.780 ⇒ 01:01:01.809 Uttam Kumaran: Magic Spoon, 10 hours here, 20 hours here.

518 01:01:01.920 ⇒ 01:01:13.699 Uttam Kumaran: And then just tell me, like, what’s broken. I sort of need some feedback to just confirm. But from my side, I want to be able to look and say, okay, everybody at Brainforge on the delivery side.

519 01:01:13.750 ⇒ 01:01:23.259 Uttam Kumaran: 80% of their 40-hour week is sort of put into one of the clients. And then similarly, on your side, you’re like, anybody that’s working on my service.

520 01:01:23.520 ⇒ 01:01:28.559 Uttam Kumaran: I know where they’re… You know, where their time is going.

521 01:01:28.820 ⇒ 01:01:31.030 Uttam Kumaran: And you can just focus on April.

522 01:01:31.190 ⇒ 01:01:34.749 Uttam Kumaran: We’ll kind of confirm it, and then we can move on to the rest of the quarter.

523 01:01:36.480 ⇒ 01:01:37.110 Awaish Kumar: Okay.

524 01:01:39.670 ⇒ 01:01:47.980 Uttam Kumaran: And yeah, send some feedback, I think, for all of y’all. I think, Sam, even, like, what you mentioned, the skills aren’t working, just let me know what’s… what’s jank.

525 01:01:47.980 ⇒ 01:01:52.229 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, I just wasn’t sure, I didn’t do a deep dive, because I thought there might be a 1Password thing, I was trying to figure that out.

526 01:01:52.230 ⇒ 01:02:10.399 Uttam Kumaran: Anyway, it should be smooth, right? So just tell me if it’s not smooth, and again, for everybody, this is just, like, where people are assigned to. So at any moment, I can be like, cool, out of the strategy team, where’s everybody’s time associated with? A good example of this is, like, you just don’t want someone floating on one client, and they have, like, an extra…

527 01:02:10.590 ⇒ 01:02:19.530 Uttam Kumaran: 10, 20 hours that could go somewhere. Additionally, for Kayla, this is going to be helpful, because for her, I want her at any moment to say, like, is everybody super slammed?

528 01:02:19.680 ⇒ 01:02:23.880 Uttam Kumaran: what… how does… what is… what does the future look like in terms of resourcing? How can she…

529 01:02:24.080 ⇒ 01:02:28.370 Uttam Kumaran: appropriately, like, have a staffing plan, and so this is the up… this is upstream of that.

530 01:02:32.250 ⇒ 01:02:32.950 Uttam Kumaran: Cool.

531 01:02:33.850 ⇒ 01:02:34.720 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

532 01:02:35.290 ⇒ 01:02:42.030 Uttam Kumaran: Thanks, everyone, for the time, hope it’s valuable. If you have any questions on DSOs, let me know, and we’ll do another one of these next week, so…

533 01:02:43.350 ⇒ 01:02:43.949 Awaish Kumar: There you go.

534 01:02:44.230 ⇒ 01:02:45.610 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, thank you.

535 01:02:45.720 ⇒ 01:02:46.830 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. Bye too soon.