Meeting Title: Brainforge x Default Project Sync Date: 2026-04-09 Meeting participants: Brylle Girang, Uttam Kumaran, Greg Stoutenburg
WEBVTT
1 00:00:07.280 ⇒ 00:00:08.650 Brylle Girang: Hello! Hi, Greg.
2 00:00:12.440 ⇒ 00:00:13.449 Greg Stoutenburg: How’s it going?
3 00:00:14.580 ⇒ 00:00:17.979 Brylle Girang: Good! We just finished a project review with Miranda.
4 00:00:18.840 ⇒ 00:00:20.549 Greg Stoutenburg: Cool. So you’re warmed up.
5 00:00:21.220 ⇒ 00:00:22.760 Brylle Girang: We are warmed up.
6 00:00:22.760 ⇒ 00:00:25.569 Greg Stoutenburg: I’m coming into this cold, I feel this is unfair.
7 00:00:27.120 ⇒ 00:00:28.949 Brylle Girang: No, you can do it, like, you want.
8 00:00:28.950 ⇒ 00:00:32.250 Uttam Kumaran: Say it again? You feel like, you feel like, yeah, you’re coming in cold?
9 00:00:32.450 ⇒ 00:00:38.019 Greg Stoutenburg: I said, you guys are warmed up, well, because Bea just said that you came out of a review with Miranda. I said, oh, so you guys.
10 00:00:38.020 ⇒ 00:00:38.589 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I’m Rick.
11 00:00:38.590 ⇒ 00:00:40.469 Greg Stoutenburg: but I’m coming in cold, it’s unfair.
12 00:00:40.870 ⇒ 00:00:49.189 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, it should be. It should be like that, yeah. It’s… it’s your… you’re the one asking for the… you’re the one that needs… I don’t need a review. I’m not.
13 00:00:49.190 ⇒ 00:00:50.120 Greg Stoutenburg: Is that anything?
14 00:00:50.230 ⇒ 00:00:57.369 Uttam Kumaran: Miranda’s like, I’m kind of nervous for this. I’m like, yeah, I… yeah, you should too. I’m kind of nervous for you, I think.
15 00:00:57.780 ⇒ 00:01:00.140 Uttam Kumaran: Your project is confusing.
16 00:01:00.580 ⇒ 00:01:18.499 Uttam Kumaran: And I know it well, but I think these are good, like, I actually think, right, since we talked, I don’t know, it’s 3 weeks ago, about this concept, we’ve done this now with Pranav, we just did it with Miranda, and I feel like it’s really, really positive. I think…
17 00:01:18.530 ⇒ 00:01:23.039 Uttam Kumaran: Given our company culture is really, like, wholesome and supportive, these aren’t, like.
18 00:01:23.080 ⇒ 00:01:40.380 Uttam Kumaran: that, like, it’s not like people aren’t trying to tear people down, it’s actually… has been so far all about the plan and ideas. Additionally, one thing that I’m trying to do, and I actually… you can actually… you can even see this on the call, is, like, I’ve created… I’m working on, basically, project review skills.
19 00:01:40.380 ⇒ 00:01:54.759 Uttam Kumaran: So, it’ll give you a sense of, like, what are the things that you’re… it’s gonna audit your project and kind of, like, give you, like, here are all these questions, here are potential holes, and I actually use it on my side to prep for this. So, sort of, like, giving everybody the, like.
20 00:01:54.940 ⇒ 00:02:11.870 Uttam Kumaran: the pre-test, the answer book, the whatever they need, because, yeah, and it’s actually more of just, like, what else are the holes, and I think, basically, what we’re finding is, like, if we hold a really high bar, the clients are either there or below, so we’re gonna be in a good spot.
21 00:02:12.270 ⇒ 00:02:12.880 Greg Stoutenburg: Yep.
22 00:02:13.180 ⇒ 00:02:14.709 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah,
23 00:02:15.390 ⇒ 00:02:22.069 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, I am, of course, looking at the output of the project review skill right now.
24 00:02:22.500 ⇒ 00:02:26.080 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, no, I like it. I think that there’s… I think that…
25 00:02:26.280 ⇒ 00:02:30.850 Greg Stoutenburg: I mean, well, it’s really just a version of asking for feedback, right? And I think that anyone should be able to
26 00:02:31.340 ⇒ 00:02:42.020 Greg Stoutenburg: get feedback and answer questions before they go in front of a client and say with a straight face, here are the reasons why I want you to give me somewhere between 60,000. So…
27 00:02:42.210 ⇒ 00:02:56.539 Greg Stoutenburg: That seems reasonable. Yeah. I will, I mean, I will call out one thing, which is, I have not managed to talk to all the stakeholders that we talked about the other day, scheduling those one-on-ones with, and,
28 00:02:56.660 ⇒ 00:03:11.080 Greg Stoutenburg: I talked to… so I’ve talked to Laura already, I’ve got time on the calendar with Deanna next Monday, that’s when she said she was first available. And, we’ll talk to Ryan in a little bit here, but about, like, dashboarding and stuff, but I’ll just kind of try to squeeze it in.
29 00:03:11.680 ⇒ 00:03:12.880 Greg Stoutenburg: So…
30 00:03:13.070 ⇒ 00:03:26.079 Greg Stoutenburg: acknowledging that gap, which I think is kind of an important gap, given the goal here, I… I mean, I’m able to riff, though. I’m able to riff on where I see the opportunities for outcomes rather than just outputs.
31 00:03:28.140 ⇒ 00:03:29.880 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, perfect. I mean.
32 00:03:29.880 ⇒ 00:03:30.210 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah.
33 00:03:30.210 ⇒ 00:03:35.820 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, let’s… let’s just start with, like, tell me what Default does, and tell me, like, their…
34 00:03:35.980 ⇒ 00:03:37.399 Uttam Kumaran: their pricing model.
35 00:03:37.990 ⇒ 00:03:51.820 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah. So, default… I mean, I’ll just… I’ll talk about where they want to get to, because I actually know that better than where they are right now. So, where they want to be next month is a, they’re largely a sales-led company, but they’re adding a PLG motion.
36 00:03:51.820 ⇒ 00:04:08.099 Greg Stoutenburg: The way that they make money is by a customer signing up and connecting their calendar and their CRM and things like that, and enabling their customer success and sales teams to, to book meetings, to get clients, to do outreach.
37 00:04:08.100 ⇒ 00:04:22.979 Greg Stoutenburg: And, sort of manage their revenue generation opportunities in the default platform. It allows for the ability to build automations, it allows for the ability to make custom connections to a variety of systems, so that you can manage all of this stuff
38 00:04:22.980 ⇒ 00:04:40.580 Greg Stoutenburg: on that sales and customer success side in one place. And the way that they get money is, they sell seats, and they sell features. So, well, sorry, yeah. They sell… they have a couple of different product tiers. The way that they make money is by companies
39 00:04:40.580 ⇒ 00:04:52.040 Greg Stoutenburg: adding seats and choosing tiers that have certain feature sets. There’s still some open question right now as to which feature sets will belong to which tiers.
40 00:04:52.040 ⇒ 00:05:08.930 Greg Stoutenburg: But basically, it’s, I mean, it’s a scaling operation where they’ve got pretty natural gates from, all the way from someone signs up for an account on their own and wants to schedule meetings, up to larger enterprises with larger teams and more advanced feature sets.
41 00:05:10.970 ⇒ 00:05:15.639 Uttam Kumaran: So, like, in what was… not… are they not, like, just, like, a Calendly competitor?
42 00:05:15.780 ⇒ 00:05:17.329 Uttam Kumaran: Or, like, a column.
43 00:05:18.510 ⇒ 00:05:20.849 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, because they… well, I mean…
44 00:05:21.570 ⇒ 00:05:39.830 Greg Stoutenburg: one of their offerings is a Calendly competitor, they just have a lot more than Calendly does. Calendly doesn’t allow you the opportunity to, like, connect to Sales Nav and find new leads. Calendly doesn’t offer the opportunity to do any kind of, like, prospecting. It’s just… it’s a Calendly.
45 00:05:41.300 ⇒ 00:05:45.450 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, so default does have that feature, but it has a lot more than that feature as well.
46 00:05:46.390 ⇒ 00:05:46.950 Uttam Kumaran: Right.
47 00:05:48.450 ⇒ 00:06:02.199 Uttam Kumaran: Cool, okay, so then I guess tell me, like, how… how does our work… next phase for them? I mean, you know, my contacts with them is… I actually kind of known Caitlin now almost 2 years, and I knew default
48 00:06:02.200 ⇒ 00:06:11.079 Uttam Kumaran: kind of two years ago. Again, for me, I actually saw them primarily as downly alternative back then. Now, of course, I’m.
49 00:06:11.080 ⇒ 00:06:11.740 Greg Stoutenburg: Well, they were.
50 00:06:11.740 ⇒ 00:06:12.150 Uttam Kumaran: involved.
51 00:06:12.770 ⇒ 00:06:23.450 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I’m aware of all the ways that they’re sort of different now, and I hear their, like, ambition to sort of be the top of funnel for sales, and by owning that, they can…
52 00:06:23.820 ⇒ 00:06:29.869 Uttam Kumaran: add auxiliary products. So tell me how, like, the money that’s coming to us right now is, like.
53 00:06:30.070 ⇒ 00:06:33.589 Uttam Kumaran: This is, like, helping, gonna help them, bro, help them to this next phase.
54 00:06:33.860 ⇒ 00:06:36.349 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So,
55 00:06:36.530 ⇒ 00:06:45.410 Greg Stoutenburg: Am I talking to you guys? I just realized this. I went into presenter mode, like, as if I were on the call, and I was talking to Caitlin. Am I talking to you guys?
56 00:06:46.450 ⇒ 00:06:49.470 Uttam Kumaran: Wait, what do you mean? Who’s… what do you mean, who else are you talking to?
57 00:06:50.010 ⇒ 00:06:55.459 Greg Stoutenburg: No, I mean, like… Are we simulating? Is this, like, a model?
58 00:06:55.460 ⇒ 00:06:58.380 Uttam Kumaran: You’re speaking to Head of Delivery.
59 00:06:58.750 ⇒ 00:07:00.599 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. That’s my… that’s…
60 00:07:00.600 ⇒ 00:07:03.600 Greg Stoutenburg: I am exactly speaking to the head of delivery. No, no, no, but like…
61 00:07:03.600 ⇒ 00:07:20.769 Uttam Kumaran: you’re speaking to the… yeah, whoever’s in this role, this is their job, is to be… yeah, they’re not Caitlin, but I may… but I’m gonna… I may, like, for example, for Pranav, I gave him… I’ll show you, like, I’ll kind of lead on to the… to the next question, which is gonna be, like… It’s fine. Okay, here, listen, yeah, here’s.
62 00:07:20.770 ⇒ 00:07:25.910 Greg Stoutenburg: I just realized I pretended that I was talking to, you know, Victor or something for a second there.
63 00:07:25.910 ⇒ 00:07:30.899 Uttam Kumaran: We’ll do this, we’ll do that next, but yeah, my question is, like, how is the…
64 00:07:30.900 ⇒ 00:07:31.260 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah.
65 00:07:31.260 ⇒ 00:07:32.510 Uttam Kumaran: Maybe that, that, that, if you could.
66 00:07:32.510 ⇒ 00:07:33.549 Greg Stoutenburg: Why give Brainforce money?
67 00:07:33.550 ⇒ 00:07:34.680 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
68 00:07:34.680 ⇒ 00:07:47.700 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, here’s why. So, talking to my actual colleagues, the reason they should give Brainforge money is because their reporting is disorganized and all over the place, and they don’t know what to do with it.
69 00:07:47.730 ⇒ 00:08:01.460 Greg Stoutenburg: They don’t know what to do with the reporting that they have. They also need guidance on the outputs of the reporting that we’re giving them now. So, I’ll give an example of this. When I talked to Caitlin a month ago,
70 00:08:01.540 ⇒ 00:08:12.640 Greg Stoutenburg: she knew that she had to create some way to onboard new users and lead them to a first value moment and make money. That’s just… that’s, like, the broadest sketch possible of someone working on activation.
71 00:08:12.640 ⇒ 00:08:24.179 Greg Stoutenburg: on a product where someone can sign up on their own. And I am being neutral right now between, are we talking about a PLG sign-up, are we talking about a sales-led sign-up? Either way, someone has to get in the app for the first time.
72 00:08:24.180 ⇒ 00:08:25.290 Greg Stoutenburg: And just…
73 00:08:25.770 ⇒ 00:08:36.170 Greg Stoutenburg: did not seem to have some options in mind, but a sort of limited set, really with just, like, they need to connect to calendar. Her thought was just, like, make them connect to calendar.
74 00:08:36.480 ⇒ 00:08:54.520 Greg Stoutenburg: Okay, fine. I was able to add a lot to different things that a user could do on this journey that do include connecting a calendar, but the point is that we had to zoom out a little bit and go, how is it that someone finds value in using default? What makes it so the user finds value for the first time?
75 00:08:54.540 ⇒ 00:09:08.859 Greg Stoutenburg: And then, I was able to sort of sketch out a few different paths that would lead to that value, and ultimately resulted in her making a decision that she showed a week ago or two weeks ago, was actually one of the paths that I described on that call.
76 00:09:08.860 ⇒ 00:09:09.560 Uttam Kumaran: Yes, so…
77 00:09:09.560 ⇒ 00:09:10.090 Greg Stoutenburg: So, one is…
78 00:09:10.090 ⇒ 00:09:10.420 Uttam Kumaran: Nice.
79 00:09:10.420 ⇒ 00:09:13.559 Greg Stoutenburg: One is just the expertise, right? Is to be able to say.
80 00:09:13.560 ⇒ 00:09:30.869 Greg Stoutenburg: We have an opinionated take, we have a principled but opinionated take on how to get your users to value. The reason why that matters is because users who find value are the ones who pay. So it’s not just about, like, being nice to users. Alright, so one is just, like, the expertise that’s going to help
81 00:09:31.230 ⇒ 00:09:32.270 Greg Stoutenburg: Pay the bills.
82 00:09:32.450 ⇒ 00:09:35.469 Greg Stoutenburg: The other is this. As these reports come in.
83 00:09:35.720 ⇒ 00:09:51.760 Greg Stoutenburg: they need to have something to do with it. It’s… it’s not enough to just, like, have the reports. When I talked to Laura yesterday, I didn’t even have this context before. I saw all our dashboard spec, you know, I kind of came into default midstream through the reporting stuff that you and Demi have been working on. And,
84 00:09:51.760 ⇒ 00:09:56.500 Greg Stoutenburg: What I didn’t know is that the reason why we have all these dashboard requests is because Laura is
85 00:09:56.500 ⇒ 00:10:05.580 Greg Stoutenburg: has the responsibility of managing all these teams to make sure that they’re functioning excellently. This is a management exercise. All this dashboarding we’re doing is just for management.
86 00:10:06.270 ⇒ 00:10:14.779 Greg Stoutenburg: It’s coaching. It’s like, so if we find that one of the BDR’s output is lower, we want to find out why, so that Laura can make a plan to help them.
87 00:10:15.830 ⇒ 00:10:17.739 Greg Stoutenburg: I didn’t know that.
88 00:10:17.740 ⇒ 00:10:19.480 Uttam Kumaran: I didn’t know that. I didn’t know that either.
89 00:10:19.480 ⇒ 00:10:23.780 Greg Stoutenburg: This is the whole point. This is all Laura cares about. This is the only reason she’s asking me questions.
90 00:10:23.780 ⇒ 00:10:36.069 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, okay. And another context for you is our billing person at default just got let go, and Laura is now our billing person. So, I assume she’s also fucking slammed.
91 00:10:36.070 ⇒ 00:10:44.820 Greg Stoutenburg: She has a lot of responsibilities, and this is gonna help her get some time back and get some insight back. Now, she’s got, like.
92 00:10:44.930 ⇒ 00:10:55.300 Greg Stoutenburg: a little too much going on to have all those insights for herself, so one of the recommendations I made when we were looking at the, the, customer success… right? Yeah, the customer success dashboard.
93 00:10:55.940 ⇒ 00:11:07.939 Greg Stoutenburg: was, hey, let’s look at the contract sizes that the CSMs are renewing at, right? So if in March we see, here are our three CSMs, and here’s
94 00:11:07.940 ⇒ 00:11:22.789 Greg Stoutenburg: how much NRR that one has, and here’s how much GRR that one has, and comparing across. I said, hey, why don’t we add a new chart that will show what the contract sizes are for those, because that actually kind of shows you a little bit more about who’s nailing it on the sales front, right? Because they’re gonna…
95 00:11:23.120 ⇒ 00:11:28.310 Greg Stoutenburg: tend to have, have larger deals coming through. She was like, oh yeah, that’s great, let’s do that.
96 00:11:28.440 ⇒ 00:11:34.349 Greg Stoutenburg: So, we’re providing the insight that’s going to lead to,
97 00:11:34.350 ⇒ 00:11:53.220 Greg Stoutenburg: you know, lead to increased value like that, right? So, the output of something like… the natural output of something like that is we run this for 3, 5 months, something like that, and we go, hey, here are your… here are your customer success folks who, have consistently delivered, you know, over the whole last quarter, highest contract renewals.
98 00:11:53.900 ⇒ 00:12:09.630 Greg Stoutenburg: maybe they… maybe it’s time to move these people into a sales role, right? And, like, we go, you know, that person makes it over to sales, and now it’s like, hey, check it out, Brainforge created this pipeline for you to identify talent that you’re growing, because she said she works with a lot of younger folks and stuff, and…
99 00:12:09.630 ⇒ 00:12:11.860 Uttam Kumaran: I want this for my company.
100 00:12:11.860 ⇒ 00:12:12.210 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah.
101 00:12:12.740 ⇒ 00:12:17.630 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, well, you should pay Brainforge. That’s the way to do it, but Brainforge doesn’t…
102 00:12:17.630 ⇒ 00:12:19.320 Uttam Kumaran: I’ll try that.
103 00:12:20.160 ⇒ 00:12:21.670 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
104 00:12:22.470 ⇒ 00:12:23.520 Uttam Kumaran: Great, great, great.
105 00:12:23.520 ⇒ 00:12:28.019 Greg Stoutenburg: Right, right. So, you know, it’s providing those sorts of insights, or,
106 00:12:28.460 ⇒ 00:12:31.149 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, I mean, I’m just trying to think through the other… the other dashes.
107 00:12:31.150 ⇒ 00:12:36.709 Uttam Kumaran: No, that’s helpful, so I guess, I guess, I guess let me, let me ask you a question, like, let’s you call,
108 00:12:37.030 ⇒ 00:12:38.060 Uttam Kumaran: Let’s say…
109 00:12:38.480 ⇒ 00:12:45.729 Uttam Kumaran: you call, like, Victor calls you, right? And he’s like, okay, yeah, that’s all great and all, but, like.
110 00:12:46.190 ⇒ 00:12:48.889 Uttam Kumaran: I’m worried that you guys are gonna fumble my data.
111 00:12:50.690 ⇒ 00:12:55.310 Uttam Kumaran: And… Like, how are you guys not gonna fumble my data?
112 00:12:55.420 ⇒ 00:13:03.879 Uttam Kumaran: Is his question. He’s like, all that business out is great, but I’m CTO, my job is to make sure that, like, our… we have… one of my tenants is data security.
113 00:13:05.150 ⇒ 00:13:09.309 Uttam Kumaran: Tell me about, like, how you guys think about that, and what we’re doing.
114 00:13:09.870 ⇒ 00:13:15.370 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah. I mean, my instinct there is to push back and say, why do you think we’re going to fumble your data?
115 00:13:16.480 ⇒ 00:13:25.160 Uttam Kumaran: fair, but I also think this… and this is something that I’m asking for a leading question, because it’s not something that we spend a lot of time talking about.
116 00:13:25.310 ⇒ 00:13:34.079 Uttam Kumaran: And for this client, in going through each of the different stakeholders, it’s helpful for you to map what they care about.
117 00:13:34.090 ⇒ 00:13:50.869 Uttam Kumaran: The exact same exercise you did for Laura, you need to do for Victor, you need to do for Nico, you need to do for the people that you may end up in front of. Like, let me give you an example. Let’s say in 2 months, I’m coming to New York, I said, Greg, come to New York with me, let’s go say hi to default.
118 00:13:50.920 ⇒ 00:13:55.550 Uttam Kumaran: Nico stops us and is like, who are you guys? And we’re like, oh, we’re Brainforge. And he’s like.
119 00:13:56.180 ⇒ 00:14:00.260 Uttam Kumaran: He’s like, oh, yeah, I saw we paid you guys 50 grand, like, what do we get?
120 00:14:01.680 ⇒ 00:14:04.520 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, and I need to know what Nico cares about in order to answer that question.
121 00:14:04.520 ⇒ 00:14:11.809 Uttam Kumaran: You need to know, because it doesn’t matter. It’s not… it’s not about what the… the answer is only… it’s, like, what his answer needs to be.
122 00:14:12.020 ⇒ 00:14:30.349 Uttam Kumaran: So, but it’s exactly… but you did this for Laura, and so my… my… it’s my… my telling to you is the same as what you know, which is just, like, go do this for everybody, but then also, I would like you to think about codifying this in the platform, and then also think about, like, a framework for the CSO group.
123 00:14:30.380 ⇒ 00:14:48.369 Uttam Kumaran: Like, how can you… how can you mention the CSO group, like, yo, I literally went and just asked someone, like, what they wanted, and it led to this, like, amazing unlock for me to understand their… their interests, and here’s how I’m using it. And Pranav should go do this too, Garrett should go do this too, and…
124 00:14:48.370 ⇒ 00:14:48.760 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah.
125 00:14:48.760 ⇒ 00:15:00.380 Uttam Kumaran: I think that’s one of… one of my aspects of the project review, is for you to literally say, like, here are the five people that matter, because… because let me tell you, Victor is the budget owner.
126 00:15:00.710 ⇒ 00:15:01.650 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, okay.
127 00:15:01.650 ⇒ 00:15:10.509 Uttam Kumaran: Victor signs… Victor signs, but Caitlin is our champion. I don’t really know if she has a sponsor, because she’s already kind of at the top.
128 00:15:12.120 ⇒ 00:15:20.989 Uttam Kumaran: Right? So, but… and… but now it’s kind of changing, and where Caitlin is kind of becoming the sponsor, and we’re trying to turn… we’re trying to create 5 champions.
129 00:15:22.040 ⇒ 00:15:27.719 Uttam Kumaran: Does that make sense? Like, Caitlin is at the top of this organization. To date, we’ve only worked with her.
130 00:15:27.740 ⇒ 00:15:29.710 Uttam Kumaran: Now, our job is to be, like.
131 00:15:29.730 ⇒ 00:15:42.760 Uttam Kumaran: Caitlin brought Brainforge in. Everybody loves Brainforge, so she wins, because she, like, for Taniko and to her leadership team, looks like she made the, like, the right call.
132 00:15:42.760 ⇒ 00:15:55.539 Uttam Kumaran: For the people underneath, they don’t even know they needed a data team or what it took to do it. They’re like, I’m super happy, I didn’t think we’d ever have this. And then Victor is like, look, I care about the data security, and…
133 00:15:55.590 ⇒ 00:15:58.459 Uttam Kumaran: I’m also really happy, I feel comfortable, right?
134 00:15:58.460 ⇒ 00:15:59.250 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, okay.
135 00:15:59.250 ⇒ 00:16:10.030 Uttam Kumaran: See how it’s actually very easy. I think the one unlocked for me as an engineer, becoming a consultant, is I wasn’t really privy to the fact that everybody… people actually…
136 00:16:10.150 ⇒ 00:16:12.609 Uttam Kumaran: Their… their interests come first.
137 00:16:13.110 ⇒ 00:16:29.590 Uttam Kumaran: Right? Yes. And like, I’m… I’m not really like that, personally, so I was never… I was all… even as an employee, I was like, whatever the… I’m at this company, do whatever the company needs until I’m not at this company. I never… it’s… whatever, and so…
138 00:16:29.620 ⇒ 00:16:37.810 Uttam Kumaran: But it was helpful for me to realize that, not critique whether it’s right or wrong, it’s… that is the way it is, and that’s the game on the field.
139 00:16:38.020 ⇒ 00:16:38.390 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah.
140 00:16:38.390 ⇒ 00:16:40.480 Uttam Kumaran: To basically plan around that.
141 00:16:40.930 ⇒ 00:16:41.560 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah.
142 00:16:41.900 ⇒ 00:16:46.849 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, okay, that makes sense. Should I try to get that call with Victor, and with Nico as well?
143 00:16:47.230 ⇒ 00:16:47.930 Greg Stoutenburg: You’re gonna say.
144 00:16:47.930 ⇒ 00:17:06.679 Uttam Kumaran: You’re not… I don’t think you’re gonna get the call with Victor, but if I do, I will bring you. Because I also am not getting… I will… so that’s actually… so this is actually a good thing. I think it’s good for you to push on me and be like, hey, I don’t know if I can get the call with Victor and Nico, but can you help me do that?
145 00:17:06.810 ⇒ 00:17:13.820 Uttam Kumaran: I’ll… I’ll go fig… I’ll go figure it out, and I… I’m gonna… I’ll see if we can talk to Victor, or at least we can do, like, a Slack…
146 00:17:14.599 ⇒ 00:17:17.160 Uttam Kumaran: say hi, or I can possibly lay it out to them.
147 00:17:17.589 ⇒ 00:17:26.030 Uttam Kumaran: get involved on something. I haven’t… I haven’t spoken to NEO in 6 months, but when I was in New York about 6 months ago, I came in and, like.
148 00:17:26.150 ⇒ 00:17:29.470 Uttam Kumaran: Help them think through, like, a major architecture decision.
149 00:17:29.580 ⇒ 00:17:34.359 Uttam Kumaran: That was, like, kind of hurting them, and they were like, okay, this guy’s legit, like…
150 00:17:34.360 ⇒ 00:17:34.810 Greg Stoutenburg: Right.
151 00:17:34.810 ⇒ 00:17:37.440 Uttam Kumaran: So, I feel like we have some goodwill, but…
152 00:17:37.720 ⇒ 00:17:45.739 Uttam Kumaran: Again, this is a good… this is a good thing for… if I come to you and say, look, I don’t think we’re gonna get their time, then maybe you’re like, maybe we should go to New York.
153 00:17:46.120 ⇒ 00:17:51.699 Uttam Kumaran: And then I’ll be like, okay, is that, like, how much is that trip? Is that two grand? Is it worth it? Okay, let’s go.
154 00:17:51.700 ⇒ 00:17:52.290 Greg Stoutenburg: Yup.
155 00:17:52.820 ⇒ 00:18:08.300 Uttam Kumaran: This is actually, again, I think I’m even learning, like, how do I, as head of delivery, support you guys as CSOs? And I think if I tell you that your job is to go understand these people, and you need an avenue, my job is to get you that avenue, you know, if you can’t get it yourself.
156 00:18:08.720 ⇒ 00:18:10.080 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
157 00:18:10.240 ⇒ 00:18:21.569 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, I mean, Laura responded within 10 minutes, I think, of me saying I’d like a one-on-one, and we had it the next day. Deanna took a minute, but, you know, I’ve got time on the calendar. And then…
158 00:18:21.570 ⇒ 00:18:34.170 Uttam Kumaran: No, it’s not… it’s not the fact that they’re… like, this is where it’s not, like, an element situation where they’re like, don’t talk to anyone. This is just, like, a really fast-growing startup. Right. They, like, are… they’re, like, our… their Slack looks like our Slack.
159 00:18:34.500 ⇒ 00:18:38.680 Uttam Kumaran: Right? So think about derelict companies like our company. Everybody’s busy.
160 00:18:38.810 ⇒ 00:18:45.899 Uttam Kumaran: And… and Nico and Victor, in particular, are very busy, and I’ve been very guarded over their time.
161 00:18:46.190 ⇒ 00:19:00.000 Uttam Kumaran: I… I think we can still get it, but I, like, we… what I want to do is, like, if… I think the New York thing could be a good… could be a good option. Yeah. Like, you could also meet Shivani, like, so that’s… that’s a good thing for us to brainstorm as a good outcome.
162 00:19:00.420 ⇒ 00:19:07.040 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I agree. And it’s, it’s a three and a half hour train ride from Lancaster to Penn Station, so…
163 00:19:07.040 ⇒ 00:19:10.989 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, really? Oh, okay, not bad. Alright, so you can be in and out.
164 00:19:11.410 ⇒ 00:19:13.480 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, yeah, I can even do a same day.
165 00:19:13.480 ⇒ 00:19:14.190 Uttam Kumaran: Very…
166 00:19:14.750 ⇒ 00:19:20.340 Greg Stoutenburg: I could leave in the morning and do, you know, we do a late lunch, and then I could even just come home. You know?
167 00:19:20.340 ⇒ 00:19:25.760 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, I’m not as interested in staying there either, so… but it’s kind of tougher for me.
168 00:19:25.760 ⇒ 00:19:31.410 Greg Stoutenburg: Well, talk about that budget going up, right? I mean, we’re talking about, like, you could get… you could get me out there and feed me.
169 00:19:31.410 ⇒ 00:19:33.789 Uttam Kumaran: No, dude, my emotion… my emotional…
170 00:19:33.790 ⇒ 00:19:34.410 Greg Stoutenburg: 200?
171 00:19:34.410 ⇒ 00:19:35.250 Uttam Kumaran: New York.
172 00:19:35.420 ⇒ 00:19:37.680 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
173 00:19:37.680 ⇒ 00:19:39.030 Greg Stoutenburg: It’s either 200 or…
174 00:19:39.030 ⇒ 00:19:46.330 Uttam Kumaran: I should fly to you. I should fly to you and come on the train with you, and then come back, and stay in the Marriott nearby, near your place or something.
175 00:19:46.330 ⇒ 00:19:47.250 Greg Stoutenburg: Seriously, yeah.
176 00:19:47.570 ⇒ 00:19:48.820 Uttam Kumaran: God.
177 00:19:49.640 ⇒ 00:19:51.020 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah. Anyway…
178 00:19:51.020 ⇒ 00:20:06.489 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, B, B, B, what questions do you have so far? And then maybe we can, we can, we can look into the, actual project milestone plan. I feel… I feel comfortable at your, your, your high-level understanding. I feel… I feel like you have a path
179 00:20:06.610 ⇒ 00:20:10.179 Uttam Kumaran: I still would like you to close out at least
180 00:20:10.360 ⇒ 00:20:18.120 Uttam Kumaran: I think your directive is clear, and to turn those people into champions, and turn Caitlin into more of the sponsor. I think she would prefer that.
181 00:20:18.250 ⇒ 00:20:23.940 Uttam Kumaran: So, I think that’s really clear. I would like to see that codified as a goal in this project plan, really explicitly.
182 00:20:24.170 ⇒ 00:20:27.749 Uttam Kumaran: You could put Nico and Victor as, like.
183 00:20:28.030 ⇒ 00:20:29.929 Uttam Kumaran: Basically, you have to work with me, but…
184 00:20:30.420 ⇒ 00:20:36.019 Uttam Kumaran: We’re not in, like, negative… we’re not in negative territory with them, so it’s, like, it’s more of a bonus.
185 00:20:36.210 ⇒ 00:20:37.489 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
186 00:20:39.510 ⇒ 00:20:40.810 Uttam Kumaran: And…
187 00:20:44.660 ⇒ 00:20:45.330 Greg Stoutenburg: I’m just writing it down.
188 00:20:45.330 ⇒ 00:20:49.410 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I… yeah, I think, yeah, B, go ahead.
189 00:20:49.850 ⇒ 00:21:06.190 Brylle Girang: Yeah, I have one main question here, and I think this is going to be a segue in the project plan, Greg. We had problems in the past where… what the client’s sentiments and Brainford’s sentiments are not actually meeting. Like, the perspectives are not… are not colliding.
190 00:21:06.260 ⇒ 00:21:10.370 Brylle Girang: What’s going to change this quarter? What’s going to…
191 00:21:10.970 ⇒ 00:21:14.200 Brylle Girang: What are we going to do with our plan to change that?
192 00:21:14.770 ⇒ 00:21:33.669 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, yeah. My plan is to be more social with our primary points of contact. And that means things like the call that I had with Laura yesterday. So, something that I see happening in work at Brainforge is that it’s really easy to get caught up in the details and stop seeing the forest.
193 00:21:33.670 ⇒ 00:21:38.190 Greg Stoutenburg: And we need… we need to see the forest. So, like, someone like…
194 00:21:38.530 ⇒ 00:21:57.170 Greg Stoutenburg: I think I’ve actually been very successful in, well, I mean, they didn’t renew, but with README, like, I came in, saw a kind of tense situation, and made her feel really good and confident in one meeting. And not because I had some magic thing to do, but I just asked her… like, I asked her what she was… she had all these questions where she thought that there was something wrong with our data, and I was like.
195 00:21:57.510 ⇒ 00:22:09.800 Greg Stoutenburg: basically, like, why? I was like, what is it that you’re, you know, you’re concerned about whether this percentage should be 4.2 or 3.2? Like, what’s the concern? And got to…
196 00:22:09.800 ⇒ 00:22:17.560 Greg Stoutenburg: I have to go present this every week, and I’m gonna be in front of the board, and I need to feel confident that I can answer their questions, and I don’t feel confident, like.
197 00:22:17.560 ⇒ 00:22:32.950 Greg Stoutenburg: Major unlock, right? Talking with Shivani, like, I could see pretty quickly, you know, I mean, Utam teed me up for this, but I could see pretty quickly that she’s a, she’s a stickler, but, like, I think it also looks like she’s a stickler because
198 00:22:32.950 ⇒ 00:22:44.859 Greg Stoutenburg: At least in part because, she’s anxious because she has to do reporting as well. So she’s like, I have to go in front of these VPs and stuff, and, and represent this as done and accurate.
199 00:22:45.010 ⇒ 00:22:49.689 Greg Stoutenburg: But I… then she, like, gets nervous, because… wait.
200 00:22:51.810 ⇒ 00:22:55.700 Greg Stoutenburg: I’m so sorry, one second.
201 00:22:56.050 ⇒ 00:22:57.170 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, all good.
202 00:23:01.030 ⇒ 00:23:02.860 Brylle Girang: Greg’s background is so iconic.
203 00:23:04.550 ⇒ 00:23:12.930 Uttam Kumaran: No, dude, your background today looks really good, dude. It looks like you’re in some type of garage, or… but then… it’s like an AI garage.
204 00:23:13.240 ⇒ 00:23:15.939 Brylle Girang: This is a virtual background.
205 00:23:17.950 ⇒ 00:23:20.370 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, no, I know. This is my favorite.
206 00:23:20.370 ⇒ 00:23:23.699 Brylle Girang: This is my favorite virtual background, though.
207 00:23:24.250 ⇒ 00:23:25.000 Greg Stoutenburg: Sure, sweet.
208 00:23:26.340 ⇒ 00:23:27.640 Uttam Kumaran: Everything good, Greg?
209 00:23:28.200 ⇒ 00:23:33.080 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, it’s just… life is really insane right now. I’m moving…
210 00:23:33.080 ⇒ 00:23:33.720 Uttam Kumaran: Moving?
211 00:23:33.880 ⇒ 00:23:35.029 Greg Stoutenburg: There’s roofers.
212 00:23:35.360 ⇒ 00:23:43.700 Greg Stoutenburg: My girlfriend’s texting me because she lost her cat, because I’m also managing a renovation at her house to make room for my boys to, like, have.
213 00:23:43.700 ⇒ 00:23:44.370 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah.
214 00:23:45.990 ⇒ 00:23:47.950 Greg Stoutenburg: It’s all the same date!
215 00:23:48.950 ⇒ 00:23:49.829 Greg Stoutenburg: This has been the last…
216 00:23:49.830 ⇒ 00:23:52.420 Uttam Kumaran: This is how life happens.
217 00:23:52.420 ⇒ 00:23:54.239 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, seriously.
218 00:23:54.640 ⇒ 00:23:57.959 Uttam Kumaran: We can pick… if you have stuff, we could pick it up later, too. I want to make sure you.
219 00:23:57.960 ⇒ 00:24:01.000 Greg Stoutenburg: No, no, this is… there’s no point, because there’s.
220 00:24:01.000 ⇒ 00:24:01.380 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
221 00:24:01.380 ⇒ 00:24:02.820 Greg Stoutenburg: else later, so…
222 00:24:04.580 ⇒ 00:24:13.609 Greg Stoutenburg: Okay, so what I was saying is, about, Shivani is similar concern, right? So she’s got these worries about precision.
223 00:24:13.610 ⇒ 00:24:35.809 Greg Stoutenburg: So then, if you use the wrong word when she’s like, but I defined the word in this document, now she’s concerned that you’re not paying attention, and if you’re not paying attention, then you’re gonna fumble the work and embarrass her. Well, she’ll be embarrassed when she goes to pass it up. So that’s where I think she’s concerned, and I was able to just, like, you know, again, have a couple conversations and, like, hear her out on that concern, and then,
224 00:24:36.040 ⇒ 00:24:52.970 Greg Stoutenburg: finally, you know, with Laura here, getting the unlock, that the reason we’re doing all this dashboarding is because she’s spread so thin and needs to have insights that help her drive the financial stuff, that’s her actual background. Drive the financial stuff, yeah, that’s, like, her main job. She’s basically got a second job
225 00:24:52.970 ⇒ 00:25:02.880 Greg Stoutenburg: as, like, chief of staff, and has to make personnel decisions, has to do coaching, and stuff like this. So, what that means is that the way to interact with her, the way to think about dashboarding with Laura.
226 00:25:03.180 ⇒ 00:25:14.300 Greg Stoutenburg: is to think about what does someone need to know in order to be an effective manager, and drive KPIs for all the individual teams? Like, the reason Lev is here is because Lev reports to Laura
227 00:25:14.300 ⇒ 00:25:34.200 Greg Stoutenburg: And, not the reason he’s here. The reason why we’re doing dashboards for him is because he reports to Laura, Laura needs certain pieces of information from him, so they collaborate on what that is, and then we get specs from him. So then the way to engage him, right, is he’s someone who needs those insights to have a powerful team that he can, you know, show Laura about, right? Impress his boss.
228 00:25:34.350 ⇒ 00:25:36.259 Greg Stoutenburg: So, anyway.
229 00:25:36.530 ⇒ 00:25:51.149 Greg Stoutenburg: those are all personal insights, and I think when it comes down to it, like, we’re working with people that have these emotional needs around security, around, you know, being impressive, right, because that leads to outcomes like you get a paycheck, you get a promotion,
230 00:25:51.150 ⇒ 00:25:56.350 Greg Stoutenburg: you know, we’re dealing with people, so I think that a way that I want to turn it around is by
231 00:25:56.350 ⇒ 00:26:13.460 Greg Stoutenburg: Fortunately, with changes that we’re making with responsibilities at Brainforge, I can push some hours onto, you know, other people, and have time to have even just one more check-in per week for, you know, important stakeholders on projects that I’m on.
232 00:26:14.990 ⇒ 00:26:15.650 Brylle Girang: Okay.
233 00:26:16.010 ⇒ 00:26:17.769 Greg Stoutenburg: The answer was kind of long, sorry about that.
234 00:26:18.940 ⇒ 00:26:19.540 Uttam Kumaran: Great.
235 00:26:21.540 ⇒ 00:26:25.219 Uttam Kumaran: Cool. Yeah, I mean, I would love to,
236 00:26:25.510 ⇒ 00:26:31.420 Uttam Kumaran: walk… just walk through briefly the, like, actual execution plan. Yeah. And, like, timeline.
237 00:26:32.790 ⇒ 00:26:39.809 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, so, I need to get calls with the people that I just mentioned,
238 00:26:39.940 ⇒ 00:26:48.380 Greg Stoutenburg: to, you know, finish this, like, this was the note from the other day, Tom, when we talked about this, like, replace with just more around a growth strategy.
239 00:26:48.380 ⇒ 00:26:48.920 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
240 00:26:49.170 ⇒ 00:26:59.890 Greg Stoutenburg: that will involve some things like this, but I’ll also just be able to broaden it. Basically, anywhere we’re preparing a dashboard, I’m gonna look at, okay, how do we drive what this dashboard is showing us?
241 00:27:00.190 ⇒ 00:27:19.069 Greg Stoutenburg: Okay, so initiatives, PLG optimization, growth, and product experimentation. They’ve already got a sales motion in place, the PLG play is new, and we can advise on that using what we’re learning from Post Hog, which we’ve set up now, and our dashboarding now.
242 00:27:19.530 ⇒ 00:27:30.179 Greg Stoutenburg: Second is, I mean, this could have just been relabeled, like, closing out all the data platform stuff that’s been in the works for a few months.
243 00:27:30.590 ⇒ 00:27:48.600 Greg Stoutenburg: make sure that we’ve got, you know, we’re not getting those messages that are like, hey, these two sources don’t reconcile, and I don’t know why. That’s documentation that’s finishing the dashboarding, that’s defining the KPIs and putting them in front of stakeholders. And then, finally, what we’re calling growth strategy here, this is going to be…
244 00:27:48.860 ⇒ 00:28:08.150 Greg Stoutenburg: looking through all of those… all of those dashboard areas, again, all the things that we’re creating reporting on, and finding where we can unlock the business and drive it forward. I can’t share as much detail on that, because we don’t have all of the dashboarding work done, but this will be, you know, hunting for those insights, quantifying the outcome, and pitching it.
245 00:28:09.290 ⇒ 00:28:22.599 Greg Stoutenburg: milestones for this. I created two milestones for the PLG stuff. I mean, this, you know, this was… this was an AI-provided date, this is in a week, so it’s not gonna happen. But, with,
246 00:28:23.160 ⇒ 00:28:27.609 Greg Stoutenburg: With our product analytics work in place, That means…
247 00:28:28.240 ⇒ 00:28:48.060 Greg Stoutenburg: looking at where we can see improvements, creating experiment specs, like, say, for example, we… we say that, and this is where they’re leaning, right? One interaction with default OS, and then performing some action after that interaction. So, like, for example, searching for something, and then, like, connecting your calendar.
248 00:28:48.060 ⇒ 00:28:57.219 Greg Stoutenburg: will be treated as an activation moment. When we’re able to look at that funnel from sign up to what we want the activation target to be, we find a drop-off.
249 00:28:57.220 ⇒ 00:29:06.810 Greg Stoutenburg: We create experiment specs about what the hypothesis is, what we’re going to do about it. And we do this for every core funnel.
250 00:29:07.070 ⇒ 00:29:09.270 Greg Stoutenburg: For, on the PLG side.
251 00:29:09.910 ⇒ 00:29:20.529 Uttam Kumaran: So one question I have right now is, like, I haven’t personally, like, logged into Posthog in a while, and I know, like, the client keeps bringing up, like, Posthog versus Omni, like…
252 00:29:20.740 ⇒ 00:29:34.069 Uttam Kumaran: Are you gonna… and I think this goes to a broader thing of, like, our weekly meetings, I think we need to start rotating… I think we need to talk about, like, the things we’re doing, but this client is a show-and-tell client, like…
253 00:29:34.500 ⇒ 00:29:45.320 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know necessarily an element is like that, but I know for this client, and for CTA, another client of ours, I think the most fun and the most, like, bang for your buck on those calls is gonna be, like.
254 00:29:45.450 ⇒ 00:29:51.429 Uttam Kumaran: let’s discuss something, here’s what we put out, things like that, is my punch. Like, I know…
255 00:29:51.830 ⇒ 00:29:58.910 Uttam Kumaran: there’s… I know still, like, maybe we don’t have all the events, and post-hog is weak, but, like, I would like to see how we… we…
256 00:29:59.330 ⇒ 00:30:00.850 Uttam Kumaran: Turn those calls.
257 00:30:00.960 ⇒ 00:30:04.480 Uttam Kumaran: Into, like, the exact opposite of where they were 6 weeks ago, which is, like.
258 00:30:04.660 ⇒ 00:30:06.040 Uttam Kumaran: We should be like, hey.
259 00:30:06.300 ⇒ 00:30:11.839 Uttam Kumaran: here’s just a one-pager on, like, all the stuff we did, but I want to take this 45 minutes we have and, like.
260 00:30:12.000 ⇒ 00:30:20.210 Uttam Kumaran: Go through this dashboard, kind of, like, a couple things we found, have a discussion, look at some product analytics together, like, do an exercise together.
261 00:30:20.430 ⇒ 00:30:23.150 Uttam Kumaran: You know, move us more into that strategy world.
262 00:30:23.290 ⇒ 00:30:40.099 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. Or explaining to Caitlin what you learned from the people. Default is also a very people-forward business, meaning she is interested in, like, you mentioning, hey, I talked to Deanna, I talked to Laura, and this is what I found, and I think here’s how we’re gonna help them.
263 00:30:40.230 ⇒ 00:30:42.749 Uttam Kumaran: Like, want to share that with you, that that’s, like.
264 00:30:42.930 ⇒ 00:31:00.850 Uttam Kumaran: we’re thinking a lot about the team that reports to you, and, like, how do you get a win out of us, and, like, even just saying that stuff out loud, and moving her… again, that’s moving her into more of our sponsor, which is, like, she checks in once a week, everything’s on track, she asks internally, everything’s on track.
265 00:31:01.310 ⇒ 00:31:03.070 Uttam Kumaran: - yeah, you know?
266 00:31:03.530 ⇒ 00:31:20.100 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, I agree. In the last two weeks, I’ve tried to make sure we have, like, some dedicated time to look at something we’ve actually done, rather than just saying, here, we did it. Yeah, and I do think that we need to keep going in that direction, and I think…
267 00:31:20.210 ⇒ 00:31:24.829 Greg Stoutenburg: Today could be a good day to just, like, ask some questions, like.
268 00:31:25.330 ⇒ 00:31:27.359 Greg Stoutenburg: Just ask… just ask her, like, where do they care.
269 00:31:27.360 ⇒ 00:31:28.000 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
270 00:31:28.130 ⇒ 00:31:30.870 Greg Stoutenburg: Why do they want this? .
271 00:31:30.870 ⇒ 00:31:31.510 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
272 00:31:31.670 ⇒ 00:31:47.449 Greg Stoutenburg: So yeah, I think I should… it would be, I guess feedback for myself is just be braver in saying things like that, because I always worry there’s going to be something in the vault I didn’t see, and then, like, I’m gonna ask a question that was answered, like, the day before I got on the project, and then, you know…
273 00:31:47.450 ⇒ 00:31:54.489 Uttam Kumaran: Well, just, just, just tell me, hey, I’m gonna ask these questions, like, any gotchas. I’ll tell you, right? I’ll tell you.
274 00:31:54.490 ⇒ 00:31:59.770 Greg Stoutenburg: Can I go ahead and just ask during the call, like, why do these people care about these reports?
275 00:32:00.730 ⇒ 00:32:03.279 Greg Stoutenburg: Any reason why I shouldn’t just do that?
276 00:32:04.190 ⇒ 00:32:09.210 Uttam Kumaran: I think you should… give your…
277 00:32:10.320 ⇒ 00:32:12.920 Uttam Kumaran: Perspective from what we know so far.
278 00:32:13.340 ⇒ 00:32:14.080 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah.
279 00:32:14.080 ⇒ 00:32:16.119 Uttam Kumaran: And then say, like, does this align?
280 00:32:16.590 ⇒ 00:32:17.070 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, yeah.
281 00:32:17.070 ⇒ 00:32:20.620 Uttam Kumaran: Why do these people care with reports? You’re giving her too broad of a question.
282 00:32:20.900 ⇒ 00:32:23.320 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah. Yeah.
283 00:32:23.610 ⇒ 00:32:24.170 Greg Stoutenburg: Okay, bye.
284 00:32:24.170 ⇒ 00:32:26.760 Uttam Kumaran: I can see her being like, Greg, they…
285 00:32:26.970 ⇒ 00:32:31.639 Uttam Kumaran: They need data to look… see if they’re making money. Like, what are you talking about? Right.
286 00:32:31.640 ⇒ 00:32:37.899 Greg Stoutenburg: You’re the wrong person for the job, it sounds like you don’t know what dashboards are for. Yeah.
287 00:32:37.900 ⇒ 00:32:54.450 Uttam Kumaran: You don’t want it to be that, but you want it to be like, hey, like, okay, it’s clear Laura is, like, just looking at this, Deanna’s looking at this, Ryan’s looking at this. Like, we’re building the dashboard for them, and I went deeper on this, just to, like, align. I want to make sure that that’s how you feel. And also, like.
288 00:32:54.550 ⇒ 00:33:05.019 Uttam Kumaran: this is where… think about what Caitlin’s role… Caitlin’s role is to make sure that those people are telling you what’s right. Like, they may say they need one thing, Caitlin’s like, that’s not on their plate, right?
289 00:33:05.020 ⇒ 00:33:06.060 Greg Stoutenburg: Right, yeah.
290 00:33:06.060 ⇒ 00:33:10.530 Uttam Kumaran: So part of what you need from her is for her to be like, that’s right.
291 00:33:10.800 ⇒ 00:33:29.350 Uttam Kumaran: That person is… does need that, and like, it’s actually really great that we made that super explicit. Or that person shouldn’t be asking you about that, like, Lev is kind of going off the deep end, we should focus on this. Because ultimately, if you work on something for Lev, and Caitlin didn’t approve, it’s not… like, we still get jammed.
292 00:33:29.350 ⇒ 00:33:30.219 Greg Stoutenburg: Right, right.
293 00:33:30.220 ⇒ 00:33:47.710 Uttam Kumaran: Right? And then this is where, once you confirm that, you can now turn Caitlin into, like, hey, Caitlin, like, I think we’re in a good spot. I actually think, like, I would love if I could just get, like, 15 minutes of Nico’s time to just, like, say hi, show him how we’re doing data, see if there’s, like, anything that we can help him on.
294 00:33:48.110 ⇒ 00:33:48.440 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah.
295 00:33:48.440 ⇒ 00:33:49.549 Uttam Kumaran: and, like.
296 00:33:49.770 ⇒ 00:34:04.120 Uttam Kumaran: But then you could ask that, but ultimately, she’s gonna want… she doesn’t want to put her neck out on the line, ask a… invite a vendor to a call, and then we fuck something up, right? So you see how these all, like… these all stack, like, the Maslow’s hierarchy stacks.
297 00:34:04.120 ⇒ 00:34:04.840 Greg Stoutenburg: They’re all personal.
298 00:34:04.840 ⇒ 00:34:06.210 Uttam Kumaran: really nicely.
299 00:34:06.210 ⇒ 00:34:06.910 Greg Stoutenburg: It’s all blank.
300 00:34:06.910 ⇒ 00:34:13.200 Uttam Kumaran: I can… I can go… if you’re crushing it, I will start to meet with… I will go get coffee with Caitlin every week.
301 00:34:13.340 ⇒ 00:34:25.439 Uttam Kumaran: The problem is, before, I couldn’t go get coffee with her, because I know she’s gonna be like, this kind of stinks. You know, so it’s all stacked to, like, ultimately the… for me to go get coffee with her and be like.
302 00:34:25.850 ⇒ 00:34:35.269 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, you guys need, like, a cursor-style thing. Let me show you what we’re doing there, and then… and then she’ll be like, yeah, and I’m like, okay, cool, let me… let’s set up something with Greg next week, he can walk you through, like…
303 00:34:35.670 ⇒ 00:34:36.100 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah.
304 00:34:36.100 ⇒ 00:34:38.150 Uttam Kumaran: commercially, how this would work. That’s…
305 00:34:38.150 ⇒ 00:34:38.659 Greg Stoutenburg: Yep.
306 00:34:39.219 ⇒ 00:34:41.359 Uttam Kumaran: Right? That’s how you use me, you know?
307 00:34:41.360 ⇒ 00:34:45.769 Greg Stoutenburg: Yep, yeah, yeah. No, that’s, yeah, that, that sounds good. I agree.
308 00:34:46.840 ⇒ 00:34:50.120 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, okay. Should I keep going?
309 00:34:51.060 ⇒ 00:34:51.670 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
310 00:34:52.139 ⇒ 00:35:05.849 Greg Stoutenburg: Next 8 minutes here. Okay. Second thing, part of the parent project for PLG optimization, basically documentation on what the outcomes were, and what we did, and how things are going, and a roadmap for the following quarter.
311 00:35:05.989 ⇒ 00:35:07.849 Greg Stoutenburg: To just continue on the same work.
312 00:35:09.959 ⇒ 00:35:13.829 Greg Stoutenburg: I think that sort of fits cleanly in there.
313 00:35:14.589 ⇒ 00:35:23.229 Greg Stoutenburg: Salesforce and GoToMarket Marts. We’ve, right, we’ve got some dashboarding that’s been done on these things. Basically, just…
314 00:35:23.429 ⇒ 00:35:26.529 Greg Stoutenburg: This could just say, continuing this work.
315 00:35:26.939 ⇒ 00:35:33.169 Greg Stoutenburg: for, yeah, for what we get out of Salesforce, and the go-to-market motion.
316 00:35:34.319 ⇒ 00:35:41.199 Greg Stoutenburg: These… I think these ones are already in…
317 00:35:42.119 ⇒ 00:35:49.759 Greg Stoutenburg: These ones have already been teed up to a degree. We don’t have complete spec on them, but these ones have already been teed up, and the work just needs to continue.
318 00:35:49.999 ⇒ 00:36:08.249 Greg Stoutenburg: with the ultimate goal really being to get to here. It’s the analytics enablement. We want them to feel confident that all their data is right, that they can get in, look at dashboards that are reliable and informative, and are treated as robust sources of truth internally.
319 00:36:08.249 ⇒ 00:36:13.469 Greg Stoutenburg: And they can do things like interact with Blobby and get information that’s going to be relevant and accurate.
320 00:36:13.559 ⇒ 00:36:17.259 Greg Stoutenburg: That’s the golden state of things to give them.
321 00:36:17.399 ⇒ 00:36:23.749 Greg Stoutenburg: But the real unlock, again, is that business value that we were talking about before. This is all… this is all enablement.
322 00:36:23.979 ⇒ 00:36:26.459 Greg Stoutenburg: So that they win in the market.
323 00:36:33.370 ⇒ 00:36:34.210 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
324 00:36:35.110 ⇒ 00:36:40.230 Greg Stoutenburg: I guess the last thing that I’ll call out is that this touches all parts of the business.
325 00:36:40.450 ⇒ 00:36:43.250 Greg Stoutenburg: As it is right here. So,
326 00:36:43.470 ⇒ 00:36:54.929 Greg Stoutenburg: Right? Getting everything from their marketing to the activity of their customer service and salespeople, high-level financial stuff.
327 00:36:55.050 ⇒ 00:36:58.009 Greg Stoutenburg: Right? What’s coming in from deals and opportunities?
328 00:36:58.180 ⇒ 00:37:00.810 Greg Stoutenburg: That… that touches all parts of their business.
329 00:37:01.170 ⇒ 00:37:14.370 Greg Stoutenburg: And then this tees up, then, a Q3 plan of we go, alright, now all this stuff is in place, and here are our ideas of where opportunities are to actually make money off of this stuff that we just did for a quarter.
330 00:37:15.450 ⇒ 00:37:16.040 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
331 00:37:20.220 ⇒ 00:37:28.759 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, and then can you scroll to the bottom of this? I want to know, kind of, two things. One is, like, did you work with any of the service leads on…
332 00:37:29.360 ⇒ 00:37:32.470 Uttam Kumaran: Like, any of the technical plan here?
333 00:37:33.090 ⇒ 00:37:38.210 Greg Stoutenburg: So, Demi filled in everything that related to his project. Okay.
334 00:37:38.740 ⇒ 00:37:39.370 Greg Stoutenburg: And…
335 00:37:39.370 ⇒ 00:37:41.079 Uttam Kumaran: I know Jasmine kind of wasn’t here.
336 00:37:41.260 ⇒ 00:37:45.670 Greg Stoutenburg: Jasmine wasn’t here. Yeah, I mean, I can… I should run this by her, maybe this is something she can polish up.
337 00:37:45.670 ⇒ 00:37:48.790 Uttam Kumaran: That’s fine, like, it could, it could, it could be, it could be, like.
338 00:37:48.960 ⇒ 00:37:53.850 Uttam Kumaran: getting her up to speed thing, but that’s something that we want to just make sure… I want to make sure that
339 00:37:53.990 ⇒ 00:37:58.310 Uttam Kumaran: All the services that you’re pulling into this, the appropriate service lead.
340 00:37:58.500 ⇒ 00:38:01.400 Uttam Kumaran: signed off. So as long as Demi did.
341 00:38:01.540 ⇒ 00:38:09.199 Uttam Kumaran: That’s fine. I think the other piece, so, like, what would be helpful here is, like, these things are, like, just checked off.
342 00:38:09.370 ⇒ 00:38:14.370 Uttam Kumaran: Pranav did a good job of this. You could just literally just click the checkbox or be like, this is what it is.
343 00:38:14.600 ⇒ 00:38:16.880 Uttam Kumaran: I know it’s kind of, like, pedantic, but…
344 00:38:18.070 ⇒ 00:38:22.249 Uttam Kumaran: It’s just helpful for me to know that, like, you talked to Demi, or you talked to…
345 00:38:22.250 ⇒ 00:38:22.680 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah.
346 00:38:22.680 ⇒ 00:38:30.190 Uttam Kumaran: whoever, because then, ultimately, I want to go to them. If there’s a gap, I want to be like, yo, why did you sign off on this?
347 00:38:30.190 ⇒ 00:38:30.620 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah.
348 00:38:30.620 ⇒ 00:38:33.670 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, I don’t want them to be like, I don’t know what you’re talking about, yeah.
349 00:38:33.670 ⇒ 00:38:34.180 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, yeah.
350 00:38:34.180 ⇒ 00:38:52.380 Uttam Kumaran: And that’s, again, it’s for you to present, but it’s for them to be accountable for that piece. Right. And then the other thing is, and I think I gave the same feedback to Pranav, because I didn’t… I don’t think I made this clear, is for you to really understand the commercial terms of the contract, both the commercial terms and the resource allocation.
351 00:38:52.670 ⇒ 00:38:56.270 Uttam Kumaran: And I think if you go to the top of this document.
352 00:38:56.450 ⇒ 00:39:07.369 Uttam Kumaran: And I don’t… I think, B, we do… I think we do have some… I don’t know what, or… is there something anywhere… was there a section on, like, commercial terms? Yeah, like…
353 00:39:07.800 ⇒ 00:39:26.430 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, see, total revenue, yeah, so total revenue, total estimated hours. So maybe I’ll just give you some feedback there, maybe you could leave it even as a comment. So, one is, like, I… I want you to have a clear understanding of, like, what our current contract is, and what it… what it isn’t. So, that’s something that, like.
354 00:39:26.640 ⇒ 00:39:30.989 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t think I really put on your guys’ plate on this first round, but…
355 00:39:31.200 ⇒ 00:39:47.989 Uttam Kumaran: you guys can clearly handle it now. So, I’ll make sure that you have that, so you’re aware, clearly, like, what are our commercial terms. That way, you can start to understand, okay, how much money are we getting paid, and, like, what are the opportunities, right? Either for… and so I’ll be presenting to you guys, the CSOs, more about
356 00:39:48.050 ⇒ 00:39:53.690 Uttam Kumaran: contract structuring and term structuring, but this is a… yeah, this is one I’d like…
357 00:39:53.830 ⇒ 00:40:10.259 Uttam Kumaran: to you to know. And then, similarly, on the estimated hours side, I’m not… I’m not here to say, like, you need to hit 80% margin, like, that’s not… I’m not worried about that, but I am worried… I want to make sure that there are people allocated, and what is the number of hours allocated to each service that you’re using?
358 00:40:11.100 ⇒ 00:40:11.680 Greg Stoutenburg: Okay.
359 00:40:11.680 ⇒ 00:40:14.880 Uttam Kumaran: And so that is on your service leads to give you that.
360 00:40:15.170 ⇒ 00:40:18.019 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. But it’s up to you to present that course.
361 00:40:18.020 ⇒ 00:40:18.560 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah.
362 00:40:19.340 ⇒ 00:40:22.410 Uttam Kumaran: I think you just have to click enter on that one, yeah.
363 00:40:22.410 ⇒ 00:40:23.630 Greg Stoutenburg: Oh, okay.
364 00:40:24.600 ⇒ 00:40:36.449 Uttam Kumaran: So, like, for example, you could say, cool, I’m spending 5… I’m spending 5 to 10 hours a week, we have an AE that’s spending this, we have Advait that’s spending this.
365 00:40:36.580 ⇒ 00:40:43.000 Uttam Kumaran: like… And then… and then we’ll get better at, like, here’s a rough cost outlay, and…
366 00:40:43.170 ⇒ 00:40:54.359 Uttam Kumaran: like, that is just something I want you guys to start to understand the commercial terms a bit more. This all ladders into, like, you being able to renew and go get more stuff. And so, again.
367 00:40:54.360 ⇒ 00:40:55.030 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah.
368 00:40:55.030 ⇒ 00:41:11.649 Uttam Kumaran: the first step is to form the opportunity, the second step is to project manage the commercial terms, and then you’ll be able to do this whole… you’ll be able to… what you’ll see is this looks oddly similar to what Robert and I present as the final SOWs, you know, and so…
369 00:41:11.650 ⇒ 00:41:12.249 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, we’re giving.
370 00:41:12.250 ⇒ 00:41:13.120 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so that’s…
371 00:41:13.120 ⇒ 00:41:14.240 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah.
372 00:41:14.240 ⇒ 00:41:21.009 Uttam Kumaran: So, but, like, it’s gonna require you to have every single detail to then go make that pitch, you know?
373 00:41:21.010 ⇒ 00:41:21.719 Greg Stoutenburg: Right. Fantastic.
374 00:41:21.720 ⇒ 00:41:25.220 Uttam Kumaran: Have all the… all of the relevant ammo.
375 00:41:25.350 ⇒ 00:41:34.489 Uttam Kumaran: hopefully you don’t need to use any of it, right? But this is how sales works, is like, you need… you… and so that’s kind of how I want to ladder it, so I think.
376 00:41:34.490 ⇒ 00:41:34.900 Greg Stoutenburg: dope.
377 00:41:34.900 ⇒ 00:41:39.909 Uttam Kumaran: those are kind of two pieces of feedback. I’ll make sure I can get you those, and then… Okay.
378 00:41:40.420 ⇒ 00:41:44.240 Uttam Kumaran: I have one other question that maybe I can ask all the CSOs, is like.
379 00:41:44.660 ⇒ 00:41:45.639 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, I do it.
380 00:41:45.640 ⇒ 00:41:46.260 Uttam Kumaran: If you want to present…
381 00:41:46.260 ⇒ 00:41:47.710 Greg Stoutenburg: Ryan at… Ryan at default.
382 00:41:47.710 ⇒ 00:41:51.039 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, really? Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, go for it, go for it. I’ll send the rest inside.
383 00:41:51.280 ⇒ 00:41:53.649 Greg Stoutenburg: Cool, sounds good. Alright, thanks, guys. See ya.
384 00:41:53.650 ⇒ 00:41:54.290 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, bye.
385 00:41:55.000 ⇒ 00:41:55.540 Brylle Girang: Bye.