Meeting Title: Brainforge Interview w- Kaela Date: 2026-04-09 Meeting participants: Lisa Whall, Kaela Gallagher
WEBVTT
1 00:03:29.760 ⇒ 00:03:31.130 Kaela Gallagher: Hey, Lisa!
2 00:03:33.900 ⇒ 00:03:37.980 Lisa Whall: Turn the mute off, turn the camera on. How’s it going?
3 00:03:37.980 ⇒ 00:03:39.170 Kaela Gallagher: Good, how are you?
4 00:03:39.170 ⇒ 00:03:40.599 Lisa Whall: I’m doing great.
5 00:03:40.600 ⇒ 00:03:44.710 Kaela Gallagher: Awesome. Thanks for taking some time from me today, appreciate it.
6 00:03:44.710 ⇒ 00:03:47.009 Lisa Whall: Of course! Thanks a week now!
7 00:03:47.010 ⇒ 00:03:50.520 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, you were connected to us through Steve, right?
8 00:03:50.520 ⇒ 00:03:51.849 Lisa Whall: Yep, C. Krause, yep.
9 00:03:51.850 ⇒ 00:03:54.760 Kaela Gallagher: Okay, okay, cool. How do you know Steve?
10 00:03:55.140 ⇒ 00:03:56.990 Lisa Whall: We work together at 3Cloud.
11 00:03:57.280 ⇒ 00:04:04.440 Kaela Gallagher: Okay, okay, cool. And like, what is kind of putting you on the market now for something new?
12 00:04:04.440 ⇒ 00:04:15.169 Lisa Whall: Well, I took some time off. On September 1st, I left Quizzitive. They had a lot of delivery issues, and so it just…
13 00:04:15.710 ⇒ 00:04:24.439 Lisa Whall: you have to be able to stand behind what you’re selling, and we’ll leave it at that. So, for the first time ever in my career, I took the time off, and
14 00:04:24.560 ⇒ 00:04:35.800 Lisa Whall: have this… I’m kind of selectively talking to people over the last couple of weeks to see what my next move will be, so the timing is… is great, and if… if Steve vouches for you guys, then…
15 00:04:36.430 ⇒ 00:04:43.440 Lisa Whall: I’m interested. He’s… he’s a very good friend of mine. This is weird. Okay, I’m gonna tell you a very short story. So, I was in Switzerland this week.
16 00:04:43.720 ⇒ 00:04:55.939 Lisa Whall: With my son studying over there, and our family came over, and all this stuff. And I’m in the lounge, and randomly started talking to this family, and the son…
17 00:04:56.410 ⇒ 00:05:02.659 Lisa Whall: works with Steve at Mudesik, and the dad knew Steve. I was like…
18 00:05:03.060 ⇒ 00:05:13.269 Lisa Whall: What? This is so weird. So, Steve is… I’m like, I’m not a software Steve, I don’t go around the world talking about you, but you need to come.
19 00:05:13.980 ⇒ 00:05:15.520 Kaela Gallagher: Switzerland, of all places.
20 00:05:15.520 ⇒ 00:05:19.989 Lisa Whall: Yeah, it was like… It was this bizarre. It was… it was so funny.
21 00:05:20.190 ⇒ 00:05:38.710 Kaela Gallagher: I always… I always think that those things are signs. Like, I’ve kind of lived around the world, and the other day, I live in LA. I ran into somebody I was friends with in high school in Germany, and I was just like, oh my gosh, this is so crazy. So, those moments are always cool.
22 00:05:38.710 ⇒ 00:05:41.920 Lisa Whall: I had something like that happen when I was in,
23 00:05:42.100 ⇒ 00:05:49.690 Lisa Whall: Milan, and I needed help. Like, I was there for this big GE conference, and I was loading iPads for them, and
24 00:05:50.030 ⇒ 00:05:51.750 Lisa Whall: And my old assistant.
25 00:05:51.930 ⇒ 00:05:59.280 Lisa Whall: saw… I was in the lawn with Facebook, and she was there, and she helped me, like, manage this whole process.
26 00:05:59.850 ⇒ 00:06:05.510 Lisa Whall: I agree. It’s bizarre, man. So crazy.
27 00:06:05.890 ⇒ 00:06:18.469 Kaela Gallagher: Crazy! Okay, cool. I guess now that you’re, like, on the market, and you’ve had a few conversations, what kind of, like, positions are you looking for? What’s most important to you in your next role?
28 00:06:18.720 ⇒ 00:06:30.059 Lisa Whall: Well, I definitely want to work at a smaller organization. That’s just… I’ve always been attracted to startups and smaller organizations, so that’s one thing that’s very attractive to what you guys are doing. And,
29 00:06:30.360 ⇒ 00:06:36.859 Lisa Whall: Another thing, again, going by the information that Steve shared with me, really starting from the ground up.
30 00:06:36.990 ⇒ 00:06:53.740 Lisa Whall: AI… I’m gonna say everything, and I’m using that loosely, but even internal processes, and this has always been my dream, ever since AI really hit the market, is to create a true end-to-end AI service delivery capabilities, and
31 00:06:53.880 ⇒ 00:07:02.820 Lisa Whall: Steve said that your founder is very, that’s kind of his mantra, too, so he thought that it would be good to get together, and I mean, every detail
32 00:07:03.180 ⇒ 00:07:16.580 Lisa Whall: what can we do, both externally and internally, to optimize things so that we can get back to building relationships? Again, I’ve been in sales… I used to be a CPI, but then I got into technology and sales.
33 00:07:16.740 ⇒ 00:07:18.410 Lisa Whall: And we used to be able to just…
34 00:07:18.610 ⇒ 00:07:25.179 Lisa Whall: go out and meet with people, like, that was our job. And I followed the world. And then we became admins.
35 00:07:25.800 ⇒ 00:07:36.040 Lisa Whall: I mean, and so we’re sitting behind computers 90% of the time, and it got really boring and really tedious, and it wasn’t fun anymore. And so now, coming into
36 00:07:36.420 ⇒ 00:07:52.270 Lisa Whall: And I’ve talked to some larger companies, too, and I’m like, they’re never going to be able to turn this around fast enough. They’re just not. You know, it’s like turning around, you know, like, Hitachi and some of the other players I’ve been talking to, and I’m like, that’s not what I want to do. I want to build, and I want to be part of something
37 00:07:52.580 ⇒ 00:08:02.089 Lisa Whall: that’s AI-focused from the ground up. And when I say AI, I’ve done a ton of research on you guys, and I did put together a little present, too, if we want to go through that.
38 00:08:02.240 ⇒ 00:08:08.279 Lisa Whall: But, just the way that you have everything Organizing your website.
39 00:08:08.410 ⇒ 00:08:18.550 Lisa Whall: I just… I’m really attracted to what you guys are doing, so I was very, excited, but where I was going with it is, as we all know, AI is… sits on top.
40 00:08:19.700 ⇒ 00:08:20.090 Kaela Gallagher: Nice.
41 00:08:20.850 ⇒ 00:08:21.199 Kaela Gallagher: And jeez.
42 00:08:21.200 ⇒ 00:08:25.250 Lisa Whall: You guys are, again, doing all the things. If I was gonna start on my own.
43 00:08:25.890 ⇒ 00:08:36.149 Lisa Whall: you’ve got to take care of the data first before you can have the fun with AI, and that’s why 95% of AI projects are failing right now, because the data is a disaster.
44 00:08:36.150 ⇒ 00:08:36.850 Kaela Gallagher: Exactly.
45 00:08:36.850 ⇒ 00:08:38.409 Lisa Whall: get out of POC,
46 00:08:38.679 ⇒ 00:08:49.700 Lisa Whall: I’m telling you all the things that you already know, and so I really just like your positioning and your approach to the market. It’s the right… you’re in the right place at the right time.
47 00:08:49.950 ⇒ 00:08:52.939 Kaela Gallagher: Yay! Well, yeah, I joined about a month ago, so I’m.
48 00:08:52.940 ⇒ 00:08:53.570 Lisa Whall: Oh, okay.
49 00:08:53.570 ⇒ 00:08:56.679 Kaela Gallagher: I’m, like, relatively new to the company, but I will say.
50 00:08:57.220 ⇒ 00:09:14.439 Kaela Gallagher: my initial impression was kind of the same, like, looking at the website and kind of understanding, like, what Brainforge stands for, immediately I was like, wow, like, this is a very exciting place to be. But even now, like, being on the other side of it, the amount that we have, like.
51 00:09:14.440 ⇒ 00:09:22.259 Kaela Gallagher: Built and invested in internally, and the kind of, like, tooling that we have available, and the way that, like.
52 00:09:22.260 ⇒ 00:09:34.779 Kaela Gallagher: Robert and Utam have pushed me to use AI and make my life easier in every aspect of my role. It’s just, honestly, like, has been the best
53 00:09:34.940 ⇒ 00:09:42.250 Kaela Gallagher: career, you know, change for me. Like, the best career move I think I could have… could have made. Like, I’m just learning so much, so…
54 00:09:42.530 ⇒ 00:09:46.999 Lisa Whall: makes me so happy. That’s… that’s what Steve… Steve literally called me after he had,
55 00:09:48.040 ⇒ 00:09:49.879 Lisa Whall: Eitan? Eitan? Am I saying that right?
56 00:09:49.880 ⇒ 00:09:50.860 Kaela Gallagher: Tom, yeah.
57 00:09:50.860 ⇒ 00:09:52.559 Lisa Whall: And he’s like.
58 00:09:52.680 ⇒ 00:10:02.260 Lisa Whall: Dude, you gotta talk to these guys, because he talks exactly like you. It’s like, I’m the same. Like, every, yeah, every aspect. Wait, before I do that…
59 00:10:02.390 ⇒ 00:10:03.770 Lisa Whall: How can I make it better?
60 00:10:04.030 ⇒ 00:10:04.590 Kaela Gallagher: Yes.
61 00:10:04.590 ⇒ 00:10:05.750 Lisa Whall: Fantastic.
62 00:10:05.920 ⇒ 00:10:12.489 Kaela Gallagher: Yes, it’s so funny, like, sometimes people will ask Utsama a question, but he’s built out
63 00:10:12.490 ⇒ 00:10:27.040 Kaela Gallagher: just an insane, like, brain of the company, and we have so much information in, like, GitHub, and Cursor can basically answer any question at this point, and so people ask him a question, he’ll be like, go ask Cursor, like…
64 00:10:27.040 ⇒ 00:10:28.110 Lisa Whall: That’s cursor.
65 00:10:28.110 ⇒ 00:10:29.430 Kaela Gallagher: That’s crazy.
66 00:10:29.430 ⇒ 00:10:31.610 Lisa Whall: Great, I love that.
67 00:10:31.610 ⇒ 00:10:32.250 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah.
68 00:10:32.430 ⇒ 00:10:39.949 Lisa Whall: That’s great. And another thing, a role that I’ve been looking at, because I’ve been talking to, you know, direct sales roles and partnerships, and
69 00:10:40.200 ⇒ 00:10:45.150 Lisa Whall: I’ve done both, and I really do enjoy the partnership side of things.
70 00:10:45.670 ⇒ 00:11:02.430 Lisa Whall: It just makes things so scalable, and you guys are at the point right now where you’re doing everything right, and just from what I’ve heard, again, on the third hand in texting with Litan, is, okay, now how do we scale? Like, and the only thing for firms, like.
71 00:11:02.700 ⇒ 00:11:10.129 Lisa Whall: the best way, I won’t say the only way, but the best way is through partnerships, of course, and I’ve ran global partnerships,
72 00:11:10.560 ⇒ 00:11:16.669 Lisa Whall: And, you know, I’ve worked a lot with Microsoft and other large companies, and…
73 00:11:16.960 ⇒ 00:11:29.089 Lisa Whall: that’s… every role that’s been a partnership role that’s come across, I get a lot more excited about, and so I’m like, okay, I think I need to shift back into the partnership, because I want to scale, I want to see multi-million dollar deals, I want…
74 00:11:29.090 ⇒ 00:11:43.399 Lisa Whall: to build that ecosystem, versus picking off one deal at a time. And I understand with the role, because it’s, you know, in a startup phase, that you’re going to be… that’s my assumption, correct me, that at first you’re going to be taking the,
75 00:11:43.400 ⇒ 00:11:52.419 Lisa Whall: opportunity to the finish line, and that’s fine, because I’ve done that many times. But as you grow, and grow partnerships and grow the sales team, you have scale so much.
76 00:11:54.350 ⇒ 00:12:07.339 Kaela Gallagher: The partnerships that you’ve done in the past, I know you mentioned, like, working with Microsoft, but were they, like, were they kind of, like, technical partnerships, or, like, what company were you doing it for?
77 00:12:07.340 ⇒ 00:12:27.189 Lisa Whall: So I worked for a company, called BinaryTree, and they… this might… this dates me a little bit, but, when… so, Lotus Notes was the hot email service back in the 90s and 2000s, and then Microsoft came about, and then, of course.
78 00:12:27.480 ⇒ 00:12:37.280 Lisa Whall: 365 came about. But a lot of large companies were secretly still on Lotus Notes, like, large banks and…
79 00:12:37.520 ⇒ 00:12:53.230 Lisa Whall: So, when I… it was an ISV, and I ran a partnership program, and basically, we worked directly with Microsoft to kind of get the last, because it was a migration tool, so it was to get the last of the big dogs off of
80 00:12:53.660 ⇒ 00:12:57.550 Lisa Whall: Lotus Notes and onto 365, and so…
81 00:12:57.810 ⇒ 00:13:04.770 Lisa Whall: we did it just directly with Microsoft. We did a 10 to 15 million dollar deal, where they were using our software.
82 00:13:04.960 ⇒ 00:13:10.620 Lisa Whall: And their, Center of Excellence, but we also did a lot of direct
83 00:13:10.730 ⇒ 00:13:15.379 Lisa Whall: things as well, so very strong relationships with Microsoft.
84 00:13:15.940 ⇒ 00:13:30.889 Lisa Whall: let me think of some other partnerships that I’ve worked with. I know a little bit about Snowflake, I know you guys have done a lot with Snowflake. Why don’t I pop into my presentation, then I can kind of talk about my background, why… that’s cool. I mean, it’s still easy to create, again.
85 00:13:31.740 ⇒ 00:13:33.750 Lisa Whall: So easy to create presentations, though, that look great.
86 00:13:33.750 ⇒ 00:13:35.470 Kaela Gallagher: Madness, yes.
87 00:13:35.470 ⇒ 00:13:35.930 Lisa Whall: do I…
88 00:13:35.930 ⇒ 00:13:40.159 Kaela Gallagher: Actually, maybe before you hop in, I can tell you a little bit more about, like.
89 00:13:40.160 ⇒ 00:13:40.930 Lisa Whall: Don’t worry.
90 00:13:40.930 ⇒ 00:13:41.620 Kaela Gallagher: I mean, this.
91 00:13:41.620 ⇒ 00:13:45.130 Lisa Whall: I’m so excited to show, you know, show off my work.
92 00:13:45.140 ⇒ 00:13:58.849 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, maybe this will… will, like, help guys do a little bit, even for, like, tomorrow when you chat with Utong, too. But, I can kind of go over, like, our main pain points and why we’re hiring for this role right now.
93 00:13:58.850 ⇒ 00:14:00.060 Lisa Whall: That would be bypassive.
94 00:14:00.060 ⇒ 00:14:18.850 Kaela Gallagher: Yes. So, the way that things are set up right now is that Robert, one of our founders, he’s, like, our managing partner, is running our entire go-to-market sales efforts. And Utam, our CEO, has been trying to manage partnerships, but obviously they have a lot on their plate.
95 00:14:19.580 ⇒ 00:14:26.160 Kaela Gallagher: Utam is, like, barely making it to, you know, calling a couple people at Snowflake every week. Like…
96 00:14:26.340 ⇒ 00:14:45.880 Kaela Gallagher: he just doesn’t have a lot of time to dedicate to, like, developing these relationships. And the relationships that he does have at Snowflake, they’ll send us lead lists, they’ll let us know, like, who’s using Snowflake, or who needs an implementation, or whatnot, but then we don’t have a lot of, like, bandwidth to go
97 00:14:45.880 ⇒ 00:14:48.300 Kaela Gallagher: Track those… those clients down.
98 00:14:49.750 ⇒ 00:15:04.690 Kaela Gallagher: Robert’s also looking for somebody that can take initial calls and kind of qualify partnerships. Once a partnership or a client is qualified, he’s, like, more than happy to hop into the process, but
99 00:15:05.110 ⇒ 00:15:09.479 Kaela Gallagher: taking over that initial step for him would just be huge. Sure.
100 00:15:09.730 ⇒ 00:15:20.149 Kaela Gallagher: And then anybody that can bring, like, previous relationships, especially with, you know, tech companies to this role would be huge for us as well.
101 00:15:20.420 ⇒ 00:15:35.599 Kaela Gallagher: right now, like I mentioned, we’re working a little bit with Snowflake, but want to go a lot deeper there. We’re working with a platform called Omni, so they’re also sending us some… some lead lists. Omni is kind of similar to, like, a Tableau or, like, a Power BI.
102 00:15:35.670 ⇒ 00:15:53.690 Kaela Gallagher: But then Robert has, like, a whole spreadsheet built out of, like, 15 other partners that maybe we’ve been in touch with in the past that we really want to build a little bit more. Not sure if you’ve heard of, like, Mother Duck, Amplitude, Mixpanel, these are companies whose
103 00:15:53.690 ⇒ 00:15:56.420 Kaela Gallagher: Tools we’re already kind of implementing.
104 00:15:56.670 ⇒ 00:15:57.260 Lisa Whall: Right.
105 00:15:57.410 ⇒ 00:15:58.590 Kaela Gallagher: And…
106 00:15:59.580 ⇒ 00:16:11.770 Kaela Gallagher: even now, with our limited bandwidth of being able to actually, like, go after these partnerships, 60% of our revenue has still come from partnerships. So it’s a huge part of our business.
107 00:16:12.130 ⇒ 00:16:17.529 Kaela Gallagher: And we’re just looking to invest even more in it. So, that’s kind of the overview right now.
108 00:16:17.670 ⇒ 00:16:29.940 Lisa Whall: Perfect. Thank you so much for that. I kind of… that’s in line with what I prepared, just based on what’s on the website, so that’s perfect. Perfect. Fantastic. Thank you for sharing that.
109 00:16:31.230 ⇒ 00:16:32.400 Lisa Whall: Echo Holden.
110 00:16:33.190 ⇒ 00:16:37.589 Lisa Whall: I used to not be a deck person, because quite honestly, I hated creating them.
111 00:16:38.340 ⇒ 00:16:38.980 Lisa Whall: But now with…
112 00:16:38.980 ⇒ 00:16:39.650 Kaela Gallagher: Now you don’t…
113 00:16:39.650 ⇒ 00:16:42.170 Lisa Whall: Like, my pleasure.
114 00:16:43.530 ⇒ 00:16:53.310 Lisa Whall: So… I think this aligns with, you know, what we’re talking about, where partnerships drive, so…
115 00:16:53.840 ⇒ 00:17:11.789 Lisa Whall: if you don’t have relationships, which it sounds like, you know, again, you’re gonna go… Snowflake is actually where I would start, of course, but over time, AWS, and Azure, you have to build strong relationships with them based on, I believe, where you guys are going, but it takes time.
116 00:17:12.329 ⇒ 00:17:16.779 Lisa Whall: I have the relationships there, with both AWS and Microsoft.
117 00:17:17.019 ⇒ 00:17:25.819 Lisa Whall: But you have to understand that even if you’re besties with these people, you still have to be in the partnership program, you still have to prove win.
118 00:17:25.819 ⇒ 00:17:26.179 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah.
119 00:17:26.180 ⇒ 00:17:36.109 Lisa Whall: to prove yourself. So I just wanted to be clear that while these are important, they take time, investment, both financially
120 00:17:36.110 ⇒ 00:17:48.560 Lisa Whall: in order, it’s a pay-to-play model, in a sense. So if anybody comes to you guys and says, I can get you into Microsoft overnight, and you don’t have all the paperwork done, and co-sell, all that.
121 00:17:49.470 ⇒ 00:18:03.609 Lisa Whall: it just doesn’t happen. And so, I just wanted to kind of start off there, because that’s the long tail of where partnerships… one of many partnerships, like you said, there’s so many different places to partner.
122 00:18:03.610 ⇒ 00:18:11.399 Lisa Whall: But I did want to call that out, because I… I think if any good partner person in what you guys are doing, if…
123 00:18:11.570 ⇒ 00:18:26.810 Lisa Whall: didn’t mention that, you would be like, there’s a huge gap here. Like, why wouldn’t you work with them? But it does take time to get into that co-sell deal registration. And I know how to do all of that, because I’ve worked at smaller companies that I had to do all of that work.
124 00:18:27.010 ⇒ 00:18:31.959 Lisa Whall: So I can be a hands-on person. I think a lot of people have
125 00:18:32.320 ⇒ 00:18:50.009 Lisa Whall: already things had been established. I’ve had to actually establish that with, some startups that I’ve been at. So, very familiar with starting at ground zero with Microsoft and getting, you know, slowly climbing. But it’s a climb that’s… it’s worth the climb.
126 00:18:51.160 ⇒ 00:19:00.940 Lisa Whall: But this is what I’d say. It’s highly crowded, you’re not going to get immediate traction. I mean, maybe you’ll get lucky, I can’t say… never say never, but they are essential for a long-term partnership.
127 00:19:01.800 ⇒ 00:19:08.969 Lisa Whall: And so I went through, obviously, your website. I caught a couple of… but it sounds like there’s even more on the list, which I expect
128 00:19:09.540 ⇒ 00:19:16.519 Lisa Whall: or more. So, definitely, based on what I saw, we’d start off with Snowflake. It sounds like there’s already relationships.
129 00:19:16.770 ⇒ 00:19:24.500 Lisa Whall: What about Databricks? Is… are you guys a primary at Snowflake shop? I was just curious. And again, don’t spread yourself too thin, I was just.
130 00:19:24.500 ⇒ 00:19:41.689 Kaela Gallagher: Right now, we’re definitely primarily Snowflake. Utam actually has a background in data engineering, and he’s just, like, a snowflake wizard, and so, we’re able to do really good work there. I don’t think we’ve explored Databricks yet, but definitely an option.
131 00:19:41.690 ⇒ 00:19:48.279 Lisa Whall: Okay, cool. I… With the size of the company and the bandwidth, focus on Snowflake, I was.
132 00:19:48.280 ⇒ 00:19:49.800 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, yeah.
133 00:19:50.110 ⇒ 00:19:54.279 Lisa Whall: And then, of course, there’s all of the different… these were just from your website.
134 00:19:54.740 ⇒ 00:19:55.210 Kaela Gallagher: Yes.
135 00:19:55.740 ⇒ 00:19:58.860 Lisa Whall: You know, made sense to low-hanging fruit.
136 00:19:58.980 ⇒ 00:20:01.610 Lisa Whall: And again, using AI,
137 00:20:01.970 ⇒ 00:20:07.650 Lisa Whall: We can automate a lot of the outreach so that we can actually have real conversations
138 00:20:07.990 ⇒ 00:20:14.690 Lisa Whall: While we have this going on. So, I’m super excited to set that all up, to be frank with you.
139 00:20:14.690 ⇒ 00:20:15.140 Kaela Gallagher: Yay!
140 00:20:15.140 ⇒ 00:20:15.840 Lisa Whall: do, like, this.
141 00:20:15.840 ⇒ 00:20:16.980 Kaela Gallagher: Listen!
142 00:20:16.980 ⇒ 00:20:18.620 Lisa Whall: selling machine.
143 00:20:18.620 ⇒ 00:20:20.909 Kaela Gallagher: Yes. Awesome.
144 00:20:20.910 ⇒ 00:20:27.669 Lisa Whall: And I don’t know if you saw it, but I’m gonna be super cheesy, so hang on now. But, I did write a book called.
145 00:20:27.670 ⇒ 00:20:29.489 Kaela Gallagher: I saw that!
146 00:20:29.490 ⇒ 00:20:40.440 Lisa Whall: And, it’s a good door opener, and I can also send people copies, and I’ve sold thousands of these, and gotten speaking engagements, so I think that that’s another thing I can bring to the partner.
147 00:20:40.670 ⇒ 00:20:46.459 Lisa Whall: Side of things that… I’m an author, I’m ahead of the curve, you know.
148 00:20:46.460 ⇒ 00:20:46.940 Kaela Gallagher: Y’all.
149 00:20:46.940 ⇒ 00:20:48.830 Lisa Whall: I think this gives me that credibility.
150 00:20:49.510 ⇒ 00:20:52.140 Lisa Whall: With a lot of these… with the partners.
151 00:20:52.510 ⇒ 00:21:01.660 Kaela Gallagher: Awesome. Yeah, we’re starting a book club, like, amongst leadership, but I think we’re just gonna open it up to all of Brainforge, and maybe that’s… that’s one of our next reads.
152 00:21:02.160 ⇒ 00:21:04.789 Lisa Whall: Happy to send you copies. Awesome.
153 00:21:05.730 ⇒ 00:21:07.929 Lisa Whall: So this is just kind of…
154 00:21:08.120 ⇒ 00:21:12.570 Lisa Whall: again, I’m already repeating myself, but where we’d start with snowflakes and go.
155 00:21:12.570 ⇒ 00:21:12.930 Kaela Gallagher: Yo.
156 00:21:12.940 ⇒ 00:21:23.100 Lisa Whall: Where do we have the most deals? Where do we have the most case studies? Let’s get some traction. You know, that’s great that we have the list of 15 partners, but let’s really narrow it down.
157 00:21:23.180 ⇒ 00:21:36.120 Lisa Whall: to where we’re going to get quick traction, and again, we’re going to absolutely start with Snowflake. And a lot of people from 3Cloud, where Steve and I used to work, actually, have gone over to Snowflake, so I think that we can get some.
158 00:21:36.120 ⇒ 00:21:36.640 Kaela Gallagher: Cool.
159 00:21:36.640 ⇒ 00:21:38.779 Lisa Whall: Some good, deep, traction there.
160 00:21:40.720 ⇒ 00:21:43.620 Lisa Whall: And then, just some of the things that we would do.
161 00:21:44.260 ⇒ 00:21:47.560 Lisa Whall: So you’ve already aligned the tools, now we just need to align
162 00:21:47.740 ⇒ 00:21:56.629 Lisa Whall: you know, the partnerships, figure out… I have not gotten deep into a Snowflake partnership, though I need to understand how their co-cell works.
163 00:21:57.100 ⇒ 00:21:57.530 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah.
164 00:21:57.530 ⇒ 00:22:05.840 Lisa Whall: flow, how do we set up a proper partnership, and not just be… we want to be on the inside of things, and I know they have a pretty robust partner program, so…
165 00:22:05.840 ⇒ 00:22:19.220 Lisa Whall: that’s where I definitely start, like, how do we become official? Because, again, if we’re not official, they don’t get quota relief, they don’t get all the partner perks, and so, again, if somebody says, I can just walk us into Snowflake.
166 00:22:19.220 ⇒ 00:22:23.590 Lisa Whall: That’s great, but… You do need to have the infrastructure set up.
167 00:22:23.720 ⇒ 00:22:29.160 Lisa Whall: In order to do it properly and to scale within Snowflake, and to be taken seriously, quite honestly.
168 00:22:31.380 ⇒ 00:22:41.550 Lisa Whall: So when… when first… but you already have deals, so you guys aren’t starting from ground zero, and you have 60% of your revenue coming through informally.
169 00:22:41.990 ⇒ 00:22:45.719 Lisa Whall: We set this up in a formal way.
170 00:22:45.980 ⇒ 00:22:46.930 Kaela Gallagher: Exactly.
171 00:22:46.930 ⇒ 00:23:03.690 Lisa Whall: That’s gonna be awesome. So, focus, win deals. This is number one. And if you can bring them a couple deals, or help them really close in a significant way, you become their best friend, and all of a sudden they’re introducing you to everybody. And again, it sounds like you’ve already got great traction there.
172 00:23:04.070 ⇒ 00:23:10.460 Lisa Whall: And along the way, we’re still… we’re going to make sure that we’re covering off on AWS and Azure, so that we can…
173 00:23:10.610 ⇒ 00:23:14.329 Lisa Whall: The long term, have those relationships in place.
174 00:23:15.010 ⇒ 00:23:29.599 Lisa Whall: So, did a quick 30, 60, 90, you know, audit the existing deals, identified snowflake, led the line with the team, and just… how do we get things going? How do we get traction in a meaningful way?
175 00:23:29.960 ⇒ 00:23:31.600 Lisa Whall: And then, just…
176 00:23:31.910 ⇒ 00:23:45.800 Lisa Whall: Let me continue to… you know, just a lot of that lead management, and time kills all deals. The second one of those leads comes in the door, I will not leave my desk. If I get an inbound lead, I’m like a rat on a cheetah.
177 00:23:48.050 ⇒ 00:24:01.590 Kaela Gallagher: Amazing. Yeah, and this is something, like, I’ve committed to, is building out 30, 60, 90 plans for everybody before they even walk in the door, so they have a really good, like, pathway, so we would definitely iterate on this before… Oh!
178 00:24:01.590 ⇒ 00:24:03.189 Lisa Whall: Awesome, that’s perfect.
179 00:24:03.190 ⇒ 00:24:03.790 Kaela Gallagher: Buh.
180 00:24:05.120 ⇒ 00:24:13.930 Lisa Whall: And that’s… that’s really it. I try to keep it short and sweet, but again, I… I just… I think you guys are in the right place at the right time, and
181 00:24:14.580 ⇒ 00:24:18.689 Lisa Whall: You know, really excited to learn more and potentially be part of the team.
182 00:24:18.940 ⇒ 00:24:33.859 Kaela Gallagher: Yay, awesome! Thanks for preparing that. Yeah, super excited to have you chat with Utam tomorrow, and then I’ll also try to get you some time with Robert soon. That would be, like, the last person you would need to chat with. I would love to chat.
183 00:24:34.080 ⇒ 00:24:40.180 Kaela Gallagher: So I’ll work on… on getting that scheduled, too. You’re… you’re based in Tennessee, right?
184 00:24:40.180 ⇒ 00:24:41.410 Lisa Whall: I’m in Knoxville.
185 00:24:41.580 ⇒ 00:24:47.609 Kaela Gallagher: Okay, okay, cool. And then what… Oh, sorry, go ahead.
186 00:24:47.610 ⇒ 00:24:51.729 Lisa Whall: Oh, oh, I moved here from San Diego about a year and a half ago, so…
187 00:24:51.980 ⇒ 00:25:05.579 Kaela Gallagher: Okay, cool. I noticed on your LinkedIn you had a couple roles in San Diego, and I was like, oh, that’s so cool. I’m in LA, but I’ve always, like, wanted to kind of move down to San Diego, so that might be in the near future for me.
188 00:25:05.580 ⇒ 00:25:08.060 Lisa Whall: We love it, absolutely love it.
189 00:25:08.060 ⇒ 00:25:11.369 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, I get to visit a lot, like, my brother lives there now.
190 00:25:11.370 ⇒ 00:25:13.340 Lisa Whall: Oh, cool! Where does he live?
191 00:25:13.680 ⇒ 00:25:15.579 Kaela Gallagher: Well, he goes to UCSD, so he’s in London.
192 00:25:15.580 ⇒ 00:25:17.340 Lisa Whall: Oh, awesome!
193 00:25:17.340 ⇒ 00:25:18.810 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah. So, yeah.
194 00:25:18.810 ⇒ 00:25:20.509 Lisa Whall: at San Diego State, so…
195 00:25:20.510 ⇒ 00:25:31.779 Kaela Gallagher: Oh, cool, okay, awesome. Just one other, like, logistics question. Curious what compensation range you’re targeting.
196 00:25:32.590 ⇒ 00:25:34.700 Lisa Whall: Well, this is a contract roll, right?
197 00:25:35.170 ⇒ 00:25:35.770 Kaela Gallagher: Yes.
198 00:25:35.770 ⇒ 00:25:37.300 Lisa Whall: Fine with me, by the way.
199 00:25:38.470 ⇒ 00:25:42.329 Lisa Whall: Yeah. I mean, it just depends on…
200 00:25:42.660 ⇒ 00:25:45.959 Lisa Whall: you know, do you guys want me on full-time? I would assume yes.
201 00:25:46.950 ⇒ 00:25:48.370 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, so what…
202 00:25:48.380 ⇒ 00:25:55.429 Kaela Gallagher: We haven’t built out, like, a specific range for this position yet, trying to get an understanding of what people are looking for.
203 00:25:55.430 ⇒ 00:26:11.440 Kaela Gallagher: But our thought right now is, yes, this would be a full-time, like, 40 hours a week engagement. We would either have, like, an hourly or a monthly pay rate set up, but then in addition to that, we would want probably, like.
204 00:26:11.770 ⇒ 00:26:14.529 Kaela Gallagher: Half of the take-home to be commission-based.
205 00:26:14.530 ⇒ 00:26:14.860 Lisa Whall: Okay.
206 00:26:14.860 ⇒ 00:26:18.440 Kaela Gallagher: So that’s kind of what we’re… we’re looking at right now.
207 00:26:18.940 ⇒ 00:26:20.690 Lisa Whall: You know, let me crunch some numbers.
208 00:26:20.820 ⇒ 00:26:26.080 Lisa Whall: because I wasn’t sure how the structure, given it was contract, and kind of…
209 00:26:26.180 ⇒ 00:26:36.329 Lisa Whall: think through what makes sense from my perspective, and definitely, if you don’t mind, I’ll get back to you on that, but I’m sure… I’ll be reasonable, it’s a startup, like, we’re here to grow.
210 00:26:36.870 ⇒ 00:26:37.330 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah.
211 00:26:37.330 ⇒ 00:26:40.610 Lisa Whall: So, not sure we could make that work.
212 00:26:40.950 ⇒ 00:26:41.440 Kaela Gallagher: And just…
213 00:26:41.440 ⇒ 00:26:44.849 Lisa Whall: As well as, like, I was thinking, like, a weekly or monthly
214 00:26:45.000 ⇒ 00:26:48.399 Lisa Whall: Type of things, but obviously it breaks down to hourly, so…
215 00:26:48.400 ⇒ 00:27:00.149 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, and one other thing, too, is, we have been able, especially for more senior roles, to do, like, healthcare reimbursements. Oh, okay.
216 00:27:00.150 ⇒ 00:27:18.070 Kaela Gallagher: since it is on a 1099 basis, and we do have a goal to convert people to W-2 probably within this calendar year, so then obviously, like, once that happens and benefits are offered, the reimbursement would not be a thing anymore, but just something else that we can offer in the meantime.
217 00:27:18.070 ⇒ 00:27:28.209 Lisa Whall: Oh, okay, that’s really helpful, so thank you. That definitely factors into, kind of the package I’ll put together, because I am paying out of pocket right now for my healthcare, so…
218 00:27:28.210 ⇒ 00:27:28.530 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah.
219 00:27:28.830 ⇒ 00:27:30.950 Lisa Whall: We would be very helpful, and…
220 00:27:31.610 ⇒ 00:27:44.519 Lisa Whall: I’m not in any hurry to convert to W-2, so I’m fine being on contract. I mean, eventually you want to be part of things and see if there’s equity in the elbows, but that’s on the line. Yeah. I’m perfectly content being.
221 00:27:44.520 ⇒ 00:27:45.080 Kaela Gallagher: Okay.
222 00:27:45.600 ⇒ 00:27:55.670 Kaela Gallagher: Okay, awesome. Well, yeah, we’ll have you chat with Utam tomorrow, and then I’ll shoot you a ping as soon as I get some availability from Robert, and I’ll have you chat with him as well.
223 00:27:55.670 ⇒ 00:27:56.840 Lisa Whall: Okay, that sounds great.
224 00:27:56.840 ⇒ 00:27:57.629 Kaela Gallagher: Well, thank you!
225 00:27:57.780 ⇒ 00:27:59.099 Lisa Whall: So much for your time!
226 00:27:59.100 ⇒ 00:28:01.059 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, thank you as well, great meeting you!
227 00:28:01.060 ⇒ 00:28:02.039 Lisa Whall: Nice meeting you.
228 00:28:02.040 ⇒ 00:28:04.449 Kaela Gallagher: Take care. Talk to you later. Bye.