Meeting Title: Brainforge Interview w- Demilade Date: 2026-04-22 Meeting participants: Gideon Fernandez, Demilade Agboola
WEBVTT
1 00:02:03.120 ⇒ 00:02:04.360 Gideon Fernandez: Hello, hello!
2 00:02:05.030 ⇒ 00:02:06.770 Demilade Agboola: Hi, Gideon, how are you?
3 00:02:07.900 ⇒ 00:02:09.350 Gideon Fernandez: I’m doing well, yourself?
4 00:02:09.669 ⇒ 00:02:16.999 Demilade Agboola: I’m doing very well. Sorry for being, like, a bit late. My Zoom needed to restart. It always needs to update at the worst time.
5 00:02:17.830 ⇒ 00:02:20.549 Gideon Fernandez: No worries. And how’s your back, though?
6 00:02:21.450 ⇒ 00:02:32.670 Demilade Agboola: It’s much better now. So, like, yesterday, it was just really, really bad, so I had to, like, go to the hospital, and, like, they… we had to, like, look at different things.
7 00:02:32.810 ⇒ 00:02:36.489 Demilade Agboola: I have some context of what’s going on now, so at least that’s very helpful.
8 00:02:37.220 ⇒ 00:02:41.150 Gideon Fernandez: Oh, has this been, like, an ongoing case for you?
9 00:02:41.800 ⇒ 00:02:56.200 Demilade Agboola: Yeah, yeah. Some days just are worse than others, and unfortunately, yesterday was one of those days where it’s… it was worse. So, I said, okay, you know what, let’s try and get to the bottom of it, instead of just trying to, like, manage it, so…
10 00:02:56.750 ⇒ 00:02:58.539 Demilade Agboola: That’s it.
11 00:02:59.100 ⇒ 00:03:02.219 Gideon Fernandez: Oh man, I’m rooting for you, hopefully you get better there.
12 00:03:02.730 ⇒ 00:03:08.059 Demilade Agboola: Thank you, thank you. On the bright side, it’s much better today, so… that’s good.
13 00:03:08.560 ⇒ 00:03:09.110 Demilade Agboola: Didn’t it?
14 00:03:09.110 ⇒ 00:03:15.820 Gideon Fernandez: Do they actually do something, administer something for you to help you with the pain, or is this, like…
15 00:03:15.820 ⇒ 00:03:17.540 Demilade Agboola: I mean, it’s kind of just like…
16 00:03:17.780 ⇒ 00:03:22.009 Demilade Agboola: We do, like, scans, just kind of figure out, like.
17 00:03:22.110 ⇒ 00:03:29.660 Demilade Agboola: What was going on, so, like, you know, some… Poster issues, some, like…
18 00:03:30.330 ⇒ 00:03:53.939 Demilade Agboola: feet issues, so it’s like, oh, you’re not putting the right pressure here, so it’s, you know, obviously, I know things about, like, the human body. If one part’s not great, it starts to… other sides… other parts start to overcompensate, yeah, and that leads to, like, pain or issues in the other part. So, it’s like, yeah, we need to get this going, we need to… So, upper and I have flat feet, so because of that, my pressure doesn’t distribute
19 00:03:53.940 ⇒ 00:04:12.469 Demilade Agboola: properly, and so they’re getting back issues, things like that. So I have to get, like, insoles, there’s some exercises that they need me to start doing. But in the meantime, they did give me some painkillers to help, like, manage the pain. But, like, going forward, they’re like, okay, so we need to start doing more of this.
20 00:04:12.470 ⇒ 00:04:22.190 Demilade Agboola: Physical therapy. Yeah, exactly. So that would help, just get you to the point where you’re comfortable with all of it. So, yeah, it was,
21 00:04:22.390 ⇒ 00:04:24.420 Demilade Agboola: It was quite the day.
22 00:04:25.370 ⇒ 00:04:31.590 Gideon Fernandez: Yeah, my, my interest outside of work has a lot to do with, like, physical therapy and…
23 00:04:31.700 ⇒ 00:04:33.480 Gideon Fernandez: Mobility is, like, a big thing.
24 00:04:33.480 ⇒ 00:04:34.060 Demilade Agboola: Alrighty.
25 00:04:34.060 ⇒ 00:04:40.579 Gideon Fernandez: that I’m, like, super… vigilant on, so I know when it comes to these kind of things, we’re…
26 00:04:40.910 ⇒ 00:04:46.230 Gideon Fernandez: Like, everything starts, especially from the ankles as well, so from the feet and the ankles.
27 00:04:46.250 ⇒ 00:04:47.220 Demilade Agboola: Yeah.
28 00:04:47.280 ⇒ 00:04:50.280 Gideon Fernandez: Everything from there to the posterior chain.
29 00:04:50.470 ⇒ 00:04:55.089 Gideon Fernandez: To your posture, like, compensate, so if you don’t have that kind of mobility.
30 00:04:55.210 ⇒ 00:04:57.260 Gideon Fernandez: If you don’t have that distribution.
31 00:04:57.510 ⇒ 00:05:05.079 Gideon Fernandez: Across your feet, especially some are flat feet, footed, some have, like, a higher arch, so it really depends.
32 00:05:05.430 ⇒ 00:05:06.110 Demilade Agboola: Yeah.
33 00:05:06.110 ⇒ 00:05:09.819 Gideon Fernandez: So you kind of have to kind of deal with… with that as well.
34 00:05:10.150 ⇒ 00:05:25.850 Demilade Agboola: Yeah. And unfortunately, I do play, like, a lot of sports, so I play, like, a lot of football, soccer, depending on where you’re from, and I also play, like, tennis quite a bit, so obviously that’s, like, a lot of stopping, starting, twisting, all of that, so…
35 00:05:26.380 ⇒ 00:05:27.179 Demilade Agboola: They’re like, yeah.
36 00:05:27.180 ⇒ 00:05:28.670 Gideon Fernandez: Yeah, I’m based in,
37 00:05:28.790 ⇒ 00:05:35.419 Gideon Fernandez: In Florida, but I currently live in Mallorca, so it’s football where I’m currently at right now.
38 00:05:35.420 ⇒ 00:05:39.919 Demilade Agboola: Alright, football. Sorry, I grew up in Nigeria, so it’s definitely football to me.
39 00:05:40.120 ⇒ 00:05:44.609 Gideon Fernandez: Yeah, yeah, no worries. I’m used to it, so…
40 00:05:45.140 ⇒ 00:05:47.209 Gideon Fernandez: And where are you, where are you dialed in from?
41 00:05:47.700 ⇒ 00:06:02.980 Demilade Agboola: So I’m currently in Malta, I live in Malta, at the moment, but I do, you know, because I’m, like, a nomad, so I do travel quite a bit sometimes, or sometimes I’m, like, in the US, because my girlfriend lives there, so it’s quite a bit of movement at times.
42 00:06:03.680 ⇒ 00:06:06.610 Gideon Fernandez: Well, right now we’re sitting in the same sea.
43 00:06:06.940 ⇒ 00:06:09.590 Demilade Agboola: Exactly. Pretty cool. Yeah.
44 00:06:10.010 ⇒ 00:06:12.670 Gideon Fernandez: So yeah, it’s like 5 o’clock for you, too. Cool.
45 00:06:12.670 ⇒ 00:06:13.760 Demilade Agboola: 05 for me.
46 00:06:14.240 ⇒ 00:06:16.420 Gideon Fernandez: Yeah, same. Same, same.
47 00:06:17.170 ⇒ 00:06:19.489 Gideon Fernandez: We could have had this earlier today.
48 00:06:19.490 ⇒ 00:06:32.929 Demilade Agboola: Honestly, yeah, I just kind of, like, sync my calendar to, like, the US time, because it, like, it would… if I do a call at 10 o’clock, and I’m starting work at, like, 2, 3, it’s kind of just weird to then…
49 00:06:32.990 ⇒ 00:06:45.479 Demilade Agboola: Because I’d rather just do things I need to do in the morning, so, like, you know, do my grocery shopping, do, like, you know, whatever activities I have planned in the morning, and then when I’m done, I can just come back and just get my day started and sit with it throughout the rest of the day.
50 00:06:45.480 ⇒ 00:06:47.189 Gideon Fernandez: That’s… that’s my day as well.
51 00:06:47.660 ⇒ 00:06:49.240 Demilade Agboola: Exactly, so…
52 00:06:49.240 ⇒ 00:06:50.069 Gideon Fernandez: Exactly what you mean.
53 00:06:50.690 ⇒ 00:06:52.040 Demilade Agboola: Cool.
54 00:06:52.210 ⇒ 00:06:56.740 Demilade Agboola: So, just, like, this column will just be…
55 00:06:57.270 ⇒ 00:07:16.950 Demilade Agboola: it’ll be more conversational, like, so there’s no, like, live coding or nothing, it’s just… I would just like to walk through different scenarios with you and understand how you problem-solve, what assumptions you make, what questions you ask, and just kind of get an idea of how you are… how you work and how you engineer things,
56 00:07:16.950 ⇒ 00:07:25.000 Demilade Agboola: So that’s basically how the call will be. If you have any questions about that, does that sit well with you? Any issues?
57 00:07:25.700 ⇒ 00:07:26.450 Gideon Fernandez: No, no.
58 00:07:26.650 ⇒ 00:07:27.829 Gideon Fernandez: Sounds great, yeah.
59 00:07:28.260 ⇒ 00:07:37.430 Demilade Agboola: Okay, I think just high level, would you be able to, like, walk me through, like, your experience and what your tech stack entails?
60 00:07:38.170 ⇒ 00:07:44.790 Gideon Fernandez: Yes, so high level, I’ve been working as a freelance analytics engineer.
61 00:07:45.050 ⇒ 00:07:47.270 Gideon Fernandez: For the past 8 years.
62 00:07:47.600 ⇒ 00:07:55.929 Gideon Fernandez: And for the past… since about 2020, I’ve been working around the tech stack, around Snowflake, DBT, Fivetran.
63 00:07:56.280 ⇒ 00:08:06.189 Gideon Fernandez: A lot of the problems that I solve is implementing an analytics platform And working with a business.
64 00:08:06.350 ⇒ 00:08:13.800 Gideon Fernandez: to develop, models for them because they don’t have any insights to take action on. So whether it’s from.
65 00:08:13.940 ⇒ 00:08:26.510 Gideon Fernandez: They don’t have any insights into how their marketing campaign performance is and how that’s affecting attributions. How is that, how’s that affecting their subscription rates,
66 00:08:26.760 ⇒ 00:08:35.950 Gideon Fernandez: their revenue operations. So, a lot of times, they don’t have any technology in place, so I come in
67 00:08:36.309 ⇒ 00:08:38.799 Gideon Fernandez: Set it up, set up their warehouse.
68 00:08:38.960 ⇒ 00:08:48.679 Gideon Fernandez: set up dbt, then I work with the different, business teams to get them, the models that they need so that they can ultimately
69 00:08:49.120 ⇒ 00:08:57.510 Gideon Fernandez: With my goal, is to get them to self-serve. And oftentimes, these are businesses that… these are business stakeholders that don’t have
70 00:08:57.900 ⇒ 00:09:04.180 Gideon Fernandez: a lot of technical expertise, and I’m finding that nowadays it’s starting to get easier…
71 00:09:04.300 ⇒ 00:09:09.490 Gideon Fernandez: And direct access into this, into their metrics.
72 00:09:09.490 ⇒ 00:09:09.950 Demilade Agboola: Yeah.
73 00:09:09.950 ⇒ 00:09:15.009 Gideon Fernandez: So, in the before days, I was also, kind of wireframing.
74 00:09:15.280 ⇒ 00:09:22.850 Gideon Fernandez: these kind of things for them to get them an idea of what it will look like, so I was using Figma and Miro for that.
75 00:09:23.440 ⇒ 00:09:31.530 Gideon Fernandez: And then… building out, like, a starter pack of dashboards for them, whether it’s in Tableau, Looker,
76 00:09:31.650 ⇒ 00:09:36.310 Gideon Fernandez: Or even Metabase is what I’ve been working with a lot lately these days.
77 00:09:36.420 ⇒ 00:09:42.829 Gideon Fernandez: And then helping them, and training their teams to, to use Metabase.
78 00:09:43.440 ⇒ 00:09:55.040 Gideon Fernandez: And then I also have… and because of that, I do have a background in teaching, because I teach at Siemens, dbt and Snowflake in their, Advanced and Fundamental courses.
79 00:09:55.300 ⇒ 00:09:55.699 Demilade Agboola: Oh my gosh.
80 00:09:55.700 ⇒ 00:10:12.600 Gideon Fernandez: So, oftentimes, that tech stack there is strictly, dbt and Snowflake, their data mesh, setting that up so that they can release, data products for… basically across their… their workforce, their global workforce, so…
81 00:10:13.320 ⇒ 00:10:17.330 Demilade Agboola: Okay, that’s pretty good. I like the extensive background,
82 00:10:18.370 ⇒ 00:10:33.339 Demilade Agboola: And even just the fact that you’re teaching, that’s pretty cool. Because, like, honestly, I feel like just generally teaching is one of those, like, underrated skills, because, number one, you need to understand the concept, number two, you need to be able to break it down,
83 00:10:33.610 ⇒ 00:10:37.810 Demilade Agboola: like, build people along in that. So, yeah, that’s… that’s pretty cool. It’s a really good background.
84 00:10:38.000 ⇒ 00:10:38.619 Gideon Fernandez: Thank you.
85 00:10:39.090 ⇒ 00:10:39.750 Demilade Agboola: Yeah.
86 00:10:41.540 ⇒ 00:10:55.509 Demilade Agboola: Alright, so, like, just kind of, like, moving along with that. So here’s, like, the first, like, scenario question. So say we have a client that wants to build out, like, a daily revenue modeling map.
87 00:10:57.270 ⇒ 00:11:05.350 Demilade Agboola: or, like, daily revenue model, and they have, like, 3 main sources. So they have Stripe, they have Salesforce, and they have Google Ads.
88 00:11:08.200 ⇒ 00:11:18.619 Demilade Agboola: that’s all they know. How would you design the solution, and what assumptions would you make? What questions would you ask? Like, how would you drive that engagement, basically?
89 00:11:19.440 ⇒ 00:11:26.910 Gideon Fernandez: Sure. So, we have… we’re trying to build a revenue… Martin model, assume…
90 00:11:27.330 ⇒ 00:11:29.119 Gideon Fernandez: I’m assuming this is in dbt.
91 00:11:29.310 ⇒ 00:11:32.299 Gideon Fernandez: Right, so this is a semantic layer.
92 00:11:32.590 ⇒ 00:11:43.930 Demilade Agboola: This is anything you want, so, like, you’re basically the consultant, you’re saying, hey, so this is what I want to use, this is why I would use it, this is this tool, this is… whatever assumptions.
93 00:11:44.050 ⇒ 00:11:53.389 Demilade Agboola: questions you would ask, like, you know, it’s basically up to you. I just want to hear how you, like, think about these things, how you solve these problems, and what your focus is on.
94 00:11:53.910 ⇒ 00:11:58.429 Gideon Fernandez: Yeah, and what was that third data source? I, I, it was Google, Google, what is that?
95 00:11:58.430 ⇒ 00:11:59.150 Demilade Agboola: That’s…
96 00:11:59.150 ⇒ 00:11:59.990 Gideon Fernandez: Oh, Google Ads, okay.
97 00:11:59.990 ⇒ 00:12:01.600 Demilade Agboola: in Salesforce.
98 00:12:02.110 ⇒ 00:12:15.180 Gideon Fernandez: Google Ads, Stripe, and Salesforce are 3 sources, and is it safe to assume this would be, like, a brand new client, or would this be, like, an existing client that’s already in the portfolio of Brainforge?
99 00:12:15.700 ⇒ 00:12:24.510 Demilade Agboola: So let’s just say this is a brand new client, so we… so there’s nothing set up from our perspective. We’re going in there to provide expertise, and you’ll be leading that.
100 00:12:25.100 ⇒ 00:12:25.960 Gideon Fernandez: Okay.
101 00:12:26.100 ⇒ 00:12:30.329 Gideon Fernandez: So, one thing I, would advise and…
102 00:12:30.750 ⇒ 00:12:35.479 Gideon Fernandez: Before we build out anything, especially a revenue marks model.
103 00:12:35.780 ⇒ 00:12:38.219 Gideon Fernandez: is, I would ask these
104 00:12:38.320 ⇒ 00:12:46.349 Gideon Fernandez: key questions first, because, I want to understand also the business context. Who is the stakeholders that we’re working with?
105 00:12:46.600 ⇒ 00:12:48.900 Gideon Fernandez: Because when we were talking about revenue.
106 00:12:49.640 ⇒ 00:12:54.279 Gideon Fernandez: Revenue can mean something different than, from the marketing team.
107 00:12:54.390 ⇒ 00:12:56.499 Gideon Fernandez: Because they may be talking about marketing revenue.
108 00:12:56.710 ⇒ 00:12:59.570 Gideon Fernandez: Than our executive team.
109 00:13:00.050 ⇒ 00:13:08.939 Gideon Fernandez: than our products team, who may be thinking that of product MRR, Right? So, I would understand.
110 00:13:09.280 ⇒ 00:13:19.880 Gideon Fernandez: Who are the business stakeholders, that would be, reading this or analyzing a, a revenue, metrics?
111 00:13:20.580 ⇒ 00:13:25.080 Gideon Fernandez: What are the, KPIs, that drive the success?
112 00:13:25.660 ⇒ 00:13:29.520 Gideon Fernandez: Around, these revenue KPIs.
113 00:13:30.070 ⇒ 00:13:34.370 Gideon Fernandez: How are they approaching revenue at this point.
114 00:13:34.760 ⇒ 00:13:42.809 Gideon Fernandez: Are they looking at LTV? Are they looking at, MRR? Are they looking at,
115 00:13:43.080 ⇒ 00:13:47.399 Gideon Fernandez: In terms of, like, their, their retention or churn, right?
116 00:13:47.540 ⇒ 00:13:56.190 Gideon Fernandez: So, how are these different metrics, how are they currently reading the metrics, or how are they currently analyzing it in the first place?
117 00:13:57.770 ⇒ 00:14:04.900 Gideon Fernandez: And then I would also get an understanding of what is their business model and their revenue model to begin with, right?
118 00:14:05.070 ⇒ 00:14:17.720 Gideon Fernandez: Because it’s definitely a different, revenue model when we’re talking about a subscription-based service versus, something that where they’re just selling something like a high-ticket B2B kind of service as well.
119 00:14:18.110 ⇒ 00:14:19.010 Demilade Agboola: Okay.
120 00:14:19.010 ⇒ 00:14:20.820 Gideon Fernandez: So what are those measurables?
121 00:14:21.310 ⇒ 00:14:28.860 Gideon Fernandez: And then, I would understand what are their challenges, too, with it.
122 00:14:29.440 ⇒ 00:14:36.010 Gideon Fernandez: What are the… what is keeping them at night? Are there certain, like, metrics, especially around revenue?
123 00:14:36.200 ⇒ 00:14:40.189 Gideon Fernandez: That they need a deeper understanding, especially revenue in terms of
124 00:14:40.460 ⇒ 00:14:46.600 Gideon Fernandez: attribution. Like, where are their, you know, are they having difficulty.
125 00:14:46.780 ⇒ 00:14:53.499 Gideon Fernandez: Providing revenue from their different, various customers, understanding where revenue is coming from.
126 00:14:55.170 ⇒ 00:15:02.920 Gideon Fernandez: And so then, that kind of would drive the design, I think, with the revenue marks model, because then I would also…
127 00:15:03.570 ⇒ 00:15:12.890 Gideon Fernandez: ask, what is the current technology in place that the client already has? And if it’s zero, what you’re saying? Is that correct, that there’s no…
128 00:15:12.890 ⇒ 00:15:13.880 Demilade Agboola: Yeah, it’s, it’s…
129 00:15:13.880 ⇒ 00:15:14.430 Gideon Fernandez: pollution.
130 00:15:14.430 ⇒ 00:15:15.490 Demilade Agboola: Yeah, exactly.
131 00:15:15.490 ⇒ 00:15:15.860 Gideon Fernandez: Okay.
132 00:15:15.860 ⇒ 00:15:16.950 Demilade Agboola: Pinfield.
133 00:15:17.170 ⇒ 00:15:23.890 Gideon Fernandez: Perfect And so, what I’ll… what I do, too, is, kind of set the expectations of.
134 00:15:24.630 ⇒ 00:15:32.360 Gideon Fernandez: What, a data architecture would look like, especially if the stakeholder is more on the business side.
135 00:15:32.480 ⇒ 00:15:38.949 Gideon Fernandez: And this is something I’ve done many times before, is, getting them to understand
136 00:15:39.330 ⇒ 00:15:43.540 Gideon Fernandez: That this is the end state of…
137 00:15:43.710 ⇒ 00:15:48.119 Gideon Fernandez: Revenue, right, of what they need, executive level, whatever the stakeholders are.
138 00:15:48.320 ⇒ 00:15:58.240 Gideon Fernandez: But I would also, kind of draw it out as to, what the architecture looks like from a solution standpoint, especially if that is…
139 00:15:58.430 ⇒ 00:16:05.009 Gideon Fernandez: Generally, a stakeholder that is providing the credit card to paying for the services as well?
140 00:16:05.120 ⇒ 00:16:08.590 Gideon Fernandez: So I’m keeping in mind is… What is the budget?
141 00:16:08.740 ⇒ 00:16:12.220 Gideon Fernandez: That’s needed to deliver these insights.
142 00:16:12.870 ⇒ 00:16:18.090 Gideon Fernandez: Right. Okay. Because oftentimes I don’t want to…
143 00:16:18.780 ⇒ 00:16:23.239 Gideon Fernandez: recommend a solution that they don’t have very little budget on.
144 00:16:23.340 ⇒ 00:16:28.829 Gideon Fernandez: And then try to tailor a solution that caters to that budget.
145 00:16:29.870 ⇒ 00:16:34.589 Gideon Fernandez: I would also understand, their data volumes, as well.
146 00:16:35.060 ⇒ 00:16:44.829 Gideon Fernandez: Because what is the… like, are they… does it… are we trying to process billions of transactions, or is it just,
147 00:16:45.360 ⇒ 00:16:50.940 Gideon Fernandez: a source set of CSVs, but because this is Stripe’s Salesforce.
148 00:16:51.300 ⇒ 00:16:56.239 Gideon Fernandez: and Google Ads. My initial thinking is, something…
149 00:16:56.450 ⇒ 00:17:03.099 Gideon Fernandez: If they’re on a tighter budget, it would look something like an air bite as something that, just to start off with.
150 00:17:03.280 ⇒ 00:17:11.470 Gideon Fernandez: For example, or something a bit more sophisticated, like 5-strand, because I do know that
151 00:17:11.690 ⇒ 00:17:13.770 Gideon Fernandez: Both have the connectors.
152 00:17:13.940 ⇒ 00:17:16.290 Gideon Fernandez: Set up for all three sources.
153 00:17:16.720 ⇒ 00:17:17.440 Demilade Agboola: Yeah.
154 00:17:18.619 ⇒ 00:17:30.919 Gideon Fernandez: And then, depending, again, on the budget, what kind of warehouse do they need? Can they allow to have, right? So, my default at the moment is Snowflake.
155 00:17:31.360 ⇒ 00:17:44.379 Gideon Fernandez: And then, do they have, the budget to have some kind of DBT license, and how many, developers are we looking at here? So, if we’re assuming one developer.
156 00:17:44.660 ⇒ 00:17:46.870 Gideon Fernandez: From what I’ve seen.
157 00:17:47.350 ⇒ 00:17:54.620 Gideon Fernandez: we’re looking at a data stack that could cost, upwards of, 4… 300 to 400 USD a month.
158 00:17:55.100 ⇒ 00:18:01.790 Gideon Fernandez: From past pro- this is based off past projects, dealing with upwards of 100 million
159 00:18:02.050 ⇒ 00:18:03.850 Gideon Fernandez: Active rows per month.
160 00:18:04.180 ⇒ 00:18:08.650 Gideon Fernandez: And having a production job running.
161 00:18:08.820 ⇒ 00:18:18.070 Gideon Fernandez: Twice a day, on dbt’s, 15,000 models a month? Is, is there, is there a cap on the developer plan?
162 00:18:18.510 ⇒ 00:18:21.080 Gideon Fernandez: And so getting that holistic picture.
163 00:18:21.300 ⇒ 00:18:28.330 Gideon Fernandez: of what that could look like, drawn out is something I would also present to the business.
164 00:18:28.720 ⇒ 00:18:34.949 Gideon Fernandez: And then, once you get the green light, kind of approaching it from…
165 00:18:35.220 ⇒ 00:18:42.030 Gideon Fernandez: then, where I would start to look at, like, what does the data design look like? Are we taking this, a Kimball?
166 00:18:42.440 ⇒ 00:18:51.780 Gideon Fernandez: data approach, data design approach, like a star schema, facts, and dimensions to build out, those models.
167 00:18:52.060 ⇒ 00:18:56.120 Gideon Fernandez: Okay. And then, from there.
168 00:18:56.800 ⇒ 00:19:02.629 Gideon Fernandez: What is the best way for the client to consume those revenue models? Is it…
169 00:19:02.800 ⇒ 00:19:09.679 Gideon Fernandez: Through a spreadsheet, because… There’s a solution with coefficient that connects directly to the warehouse, or…
170 00:19:09.800 ⇒ 00:19:19.219 Gideon Fernandez: Do they already have… again, one of those ones, what do we have in place? Especially, sometimes they already have a BI tool, like Tableau, already set up, right?
171 00:19:19.480 ⇒ 00:19:20.250 Demilade Agboola: Yeah.
172 00:19:20.250 ⇒ 00:19:22.900 Gideon Fernandez: So we can connect it to an existing
173 00:19:23.230 ⇒ 00:19:28.989 Gideon Fernandez: Data visualization, if they already have a tableau, or recommend something that would be, like, a partner.
174 00:19:29.330 ⇒ 00:19:33.489 Gideon Fernandez: at Brainforge, like, for example, if Brainforge is a partner at Omni.
175 00:19:33.790 ⇒ 00:19:37.370 Gideon Fernandez: I’ve got some experience there, so,
176 00:19:37.600 ⇒ 00:19:42.879 Gideon Fernandez: I think it’s more about, how they would consume Those revenue models.
177 00:19:43.390 ⇒ 00:19:43.990 Demilade Agboola: I don’t know.
178 00:19:45.170 ⇒ 00:19:59.469 Demilade Agboola: Alright, great answer. I mean, it’s very extensive, very thorough, that’s great. In fact, some of the follow-up questions, you’ve already, like, touched on bits of them, so I think, without further ado, let’s just, like, kind of go into them.
179 00:19:59.610 ⇒ 00:20:02.920 Demilade Agboola: So, one of my follow-up questions was just basically going to be…
180 00:20:03.170 ⇒ 00:20:09.580 Demilade Agboola: So in this scenario, would you ideally want to use a start schema or a normalized schema?
181 00:20:09.840 ⇒ 00:20:13.599 Demilade Agboola: And when… Would you use either?
182 00:20:14.010 ⇒ 00:20:23.619 Demilade Agboola: right, like, what’s your preference, and what scenarios are you like, okay, this is for… this for me is when I’ll use the star schema, and in what scenarios are you like, no, this for me is when I’ll use the normalized schema.
183 00:20:25.900 ⇒ 00:20:29.599 Gideon Fernandez: I… so, I default to the star schema approach.
184 00:20:29.790 ⇒ 00:20:30.610 Demilade Agboola: Okay.
185 00:20:30.610 ⇒ 00:20:36.440 Gideon Fernandez: But before I do, This is kind of, like, one of those ones where…
186 00:20:36.570 ⇒ 00:20:39.240 Gideon Fernandez: where I would ask questions first before just…
187 00:20:39.970 ⇒ 00:20:46.420 Gideon Fernandez: saying the answer. So, my first question, I don’t know if this is something that you can answer, but…
188 00:20:46.900 ⇒ 00:20:54.210 Gideon Fernandez: Who are the stakeholders that would be consuming the… the revenue models.
189 00:20:55.690 ⇒ 00:21:00.319 Demilade Agboola: So in this question, let’s just say… in this scenario, let’s just say it would be, like, non-technical stakeholders.
190 00:21:01.440 ⇒ 00:21:03.249 Gideon Fernandez: One technical stakeholder.
191 00:21:03.430 ⇒ 00:21:04.870 Demilade Agboola: non-technical.
192 00:21:04.870 ⇒ 00:21:13.189 Gideon Fernandez: Oh, none tech… okay. So, no technical stakeholders. Would this be, like, the… the… like, marketing? Finance. Okay, perfect.
193 00:21:13.740 ⇒ 00:21:14.290 Demilade Agboola: Okay.
194 00:21:14.290 ⇒ 00:21:18.569 Gideon Fernandez: So, if we’re, delivering this for the finance team.
195 00:21:19.260 ⇒ 00:21:21.429 Gideon Fernandez: And it’s just for the finance team.
196 00:21:21.660 ⇒ 00:21:33.570 Gideon Fernandez: I would still build this in a way that it could still be expanded if these revenue models need to be expanded, and scaled to different teams.
197 00:21:33.870 ⇒ 00:21:37.550 Gideon Fernandez: And the reason why I like and prefer
198 00:21:37.710 ⇒ 00:21:41.030 Gideon Fernandez: the star schema approach is because…
199 00:21:41.350 ⇒ 00:21:45.960 Gideon Fernandez: It allows you to, use the same models.
200 00:21:46.600 ⇒ 00:21:51.860 Gideon Fernandez: Across multiple teams, even if the end consumers…
201 00:21:52.160 ⇒ 00:21:56.799 Gideon Fernandez: Are… is just one single stakeholder team, such as finance.
202 00:21:57.180 ⇒ 00:22:14.440 Gideon Fernandez: And so, I would look at, for the finance team, setting the fact, model at a grain that’s… I prefer, like, at a transactional layer that has all of the foreign keys stored, so that it maps to…
203 00:22:14.780 ⇒ 00:22:17.890 Gideon Fernandez: Like, a customer dimension.
204 00:22:18.020 ⇒ 00:22:27.249 Gideon Fernandez: It maps to, any types of… if there’s any physical facilities involved, manufacturers, it just really depends on the industry.
205 00:22:27.430 ⇒ 00:22:33.440 Gideon Fernandez: business information, address, dimensions.
206 00:22:33.560 ⇒ 00:22:39.109 Gideon Fernandez: And everything kind of map back into, at the core of that star schema.
207 00:22:39.350 ⇒ 00:22:40.520 Gideon Fernandez: Okay.
208 00:22:41.060 ⇒ 00:22:47.749 Gideon Fernandez: So, understanding what those finance needs are, and then being able to kind of design and cut up the data
209 00:22:48.090 ⇒ 00:22:55.010 Gideon Fernandez: In a way that allows the finance team to get it all, especially… okay, so we’re dealing with Salesforce.
210 00:22:55.750 ⇒ 00:23:00.470 Gideon Fernandez: Stripe, and Google Ads, and if this is…
211 00:23:00.670 ⇒ 00:23:05.589 Gideon Fernandez: And for the finance team, oftentimes, in my experience.
212 00:23:05.710 ⇒ 00:23:13.340 Gideon Fernandez: finance team scare… solely cares about… more about the Stripe data, right? Because it’s everything from…
213 00:23:13.650 ⇒ 00:23:19.020 Gideon Fernandez: That they would need to calculate, you know, their LTVs, their MRRs.
214 00:23:19.020 ⇒ 00:23:19.500 Demilade Agboola: Yeah.
215 00:23:19.500 ⇒ 00:23:21.450 Gideon Fernandez: Revenue, over time.
216 00:23:21.700 ⇒ 00:23:27.150 Gideon Fernandez: But getting those answers, or those questions answered, of what the finance teams
217 00:23:27.300 ⇒ 00:23:30.639 Gideon Fernandez: Really is trying to answer.
218 00:23:30.950 ⇒ 00:23:38.170 Gideon Fernandez: And kind of designing, that data model accordingly is… and starting off with a star schema, I find to be the most…
219 00:23:38.350 ⇒ 00:23:39.230 Gideon Fernandez: Flexible.
220 00:23:39.810 ⇒ 00:23:45.219 Demilade Agboola: Okay, fair. In what situations, or will you ever, like, consider using, like, a normalized schema?
221 00:23:46.850 ⇒ 00:23:51.729 Gideon Fernandez: For a normalized schema, so this would be something like,
222 00:23:52.860 ⇒ 00:23:59.650 Gideon Fernandez: Like… like a one… normalized scheme where it’s not denormalized, but more of taking it at the…
223 00:24:00.400 ⇒ 00:24:08.279 Gideon Fernandez: at the face value of what the data is… is actually being, ingested? Is that what you mean by that?
224 00:24:08.900 ⇒ 00:24:18.609 Demilade Agboola: Okay, so, a normalized schema would be, rather than having, like, multiple tables, like your fax and your DIMs, you’ll have, like,
225 00:24:19.250 ⇒ 00:24:20.149 Gideon Fernandez: One big table.
226 00:24:20.350 ⇒ 00:24:31.399 Demilade Agboola: Yeah, one big table, basically. You have, like, a more aggregate table, like, where you’ve already, like, pre-aggregated or pre-joined and done the calculations you need to do.
227 00:24:31.590 ⇒ 00:24:40.829 Demilade Agboola: So in what situations would you feel like you would want to do that, or is that something you just figure, like, there’s no point doing, if you have your star schema?
228 00:24:41.300 ⇒ 00:24:49.380 Gideon Fernandez: Yeah, I, I actually… I haven’t really encountered a case that…
229 00:24:50.080 ⇒ 00:24:58.710 Gideon Fernandez: where we would do, like, a normalized schema, but I’m trying to think of possibly when… That would be…
230 00:24:58.870 ⇒ 00:25:05.729 Gideon Fernandez: more advantageous to do. And one thing that comes top of my head is possibly…
231 00:25:05.870 ⇒ 00:25:08.800 Gideon Fernandez: When you’re trying to keep your, your maintenance…
232 00:25:09.000 ⇒ 00:25:12.239 Gideon Fernandez: As low as possible on those models.
233 00:25:12.510 ⇒ 00:25:20.490 Gideon Fernandez: So maybe where, you are working with an engineering team, that doesn’t necessarily have…
234 00:25:21.020 ⇒ 00:25:26.279 Gideon Fernandez: The technical expertise to be able to manage it, and so being able to, kind of.
235 00:25:26.870 ⇒ 00:25:30.670 Gideon Fernandez: Aggregate it in one single,
236 00:25:30.860 ⇒ 00:25:34.240 Gideon Fernandez: place would be advantageous, because it’s… it’s…
237 00:25:34.460 ⇒ 00:25:39.109 Gideon Fernandez: More manageable by a larger team, rather than,
238 00:25:39.570 ⇒ 00:25:42.849 Gideon Fernandez: If your team is kind of like a hub-and-spoke, for example.
239 00:25:43.120 ⇒ 00:25:47.250 Gideon Fernandez: And, you’re able to kind of, divide and conquer.
240 00:25:48.150 ⇒ 00:25:49.939 Demilade Agboola: Okay, that’s fair, that’s fair.
241 00:25:50.670 ⇒ 00:25:57.380 Demilade Agboola: Alright, follow-up question would be… Say in this model, we start off really,
242 00:25:58.600 ⇒ 00:26:18.070 Demilade Agboola: it starts off fast, it’s running really well, and over time, we have, like, a 400 million raw query, and it’s taking forever to run. Assuming, like, the worst case scenario, and it’s, like, really badly built, how would you go about, debugging and optimizing your dbt models?
243 00:26:18.180 ⇒ 00:26:19.800 Demilade Agboola: of this dbt model.
244 00:26:20.120 ⇒ 00:26:25.549 Gideon Fernandez: Yeah, is it safe to assume, like, there’s, CTEs involved in this?
245 00:26:25.550 ⇒ 00:26:33.109 Demilade Agboola: Worst case scenario, like, the worst of the worst, how would you just go, okay, so this is something I need to get out of this model?
246 00:26:33.370 ⇒ 00:26:38.670 Gideon Fernandez: Yes, that’s… that’s a good question. So, I would first look at… 1.
247 00:26:39.000 ⇒ 00:26:43.430 Gideon Fernandez: Which model is… is causing… The bill to run.
248 00:26:44.150 ⇒ 00:26:49.210 Gideon Fernandez: And if we… if we’re able to, identify
249 00:26:49.350 ⇒ 00:26:54.210 Gideon Fernandez: the culprit model, I would start within that model.
250 00:26:56.180 ⇒ 00:27:02.840 Gideon Fernandez: And then I would start to understand, what’s that data lineage looks like that leads up to the model.
251 00:27:02.950 ⇒ 00:27:08.210 Gideon Fernandez: You know, what are the dependencies, what are the upstream and downstream models?
252 00:27:08.770 ⇒ 00:27:12.700 Gideon Fernandez: Especially at, you know, 2 to 3 models, right?
253 00:27:13.270 ⇒ 00:27:15.999 Gideon Fernandez: And then within, within that model.
254 00:27:16.120 ⇒ 00:27:23.510 Gideon Fernandez: I would try to, understand which is the CTE, For example, is causing
255 00:27:23.700 ⇒ 00:27:31.320 Gideon Fernandez: Causing that. Is that scan on 400 Million records, necessary.
256 00:27:31.580 ⇒ 00:27:37.169 Gideon Fernandez: Right? It… how is this, Why is…
257 00:27:37.620 ⇒ 00:27:46.869 Gideon Fernandez: you know, what’s happening upstream of that that’s causing that? So, are there any rooms for improvement to, change the materializations
258 00:27:47.170 ⇒ 00:27:53.690 Gideon Fernandez: On not just that particular model, but the up, but the upstream models.
259 00:27:53.980 ⇒ 00:28:00.680 Gideon Fernandez: Is there opportunities to exclude views, building views, for example, to…
260 00:28:00.950 ⇒ 00:28:06.670 Gideon Fernandez: Lessen the performance time, because if we’re… materializing,
261 00:28:07.040 ⇒ 00:28:14.660 Gideon Fernandez: tables, that’s not necessary, or, sorry, views. Is there an opportunity to convert those views to…
262 00:28:14.840 ⇒ 00:28:18.440 Gideon Fernandez: To materialize them as tables. And then,
263 00:28:18.610 ⇒ 00:28:24.829 Gideon Fernandez: those views that could potentially be running a long time, can we also exclude them, from the build?
264 00:28:25.060 ⇒ 00:28:28.779 Gideon Fernandez: So those are, like, the starting points that I would look at,
265 00:28:29.370 ⇒ 00:28:32.449 Gideon Fernandez: To see if we can enhance the performance of those models.
266 00:28:33.180 ⇒ 00:28:35.540 Demilade Agboola: Okay, okay,
267 00:28:36.550 ⇒ 00:28:43.700 Demilade Agboola: All good. So this is just, like, the final question, and if you have any questions for… for me after, please do let me know.
268 00:28:43.920 ⇒ 00:28:49.449 Demilade Agboola: I can… I don’t have, like, a hard stop, so I can quickly, like, you know, go through those questions that you might have.
269 00:28:49.860 ⇒ 00:28:51.459 Gideon Fernandez: Oh, same, I don’t have a hard stop either.
270 00:28:51.690 ⇒ 00:28:58.430 Demilade Agboola: Okay, alright, so say our client comes and says they want a dashboard.
271 00:28:59.220 ⇒ 00:29:07.500 Demilade Agboola: So this is a new scenario. Client wants a dashboard, but there aren’t, like, clearly defined metrics or context of how the dashboard looks like.
272 00:29:07.990 ⇒ 00:29:11.270 Demilade Agboola: How do you ensure you get those,
273 00:29:11.980 ⇒ 00:29:16.370 Demilade Agboola: Crystallized to define your modeling and what you’re going for.
274 00:29:16.550 ⇒ 00:29:23.360 Demilade Agboola: Also, in line with that, they also want, like, really fast delivery, so they want maybe turn around by tomorrow.
275 00:29:23.670 ⇒ 00:29:33.389 Demilade Agboola: that’s going to affect, you know, something around the architecture, maybe scalability, maybe your QA process. Just basically technical excellence will take a hit.
276 00:29:33.590 ⇒ 00:29:35.289 Demilade Agboola: With such fast turnaround.
277 00:29:35.390 ⇒ 00:29:36.850 Demilade Agboola: How do you…
278 00:29:37.490 ⇒ 00:29:46.289 Demilade Agboola: Number one, get the clarity you desire, as well as also balance technical excellence and quick turnaround time.
279 00:29:47.390 ⇒ 00:29:53.929 Gideon Fernandez: Oh, okay. So, it sounds like this is a kind of a two-pronged… Question, where…
280 00:29:54.100 ⇒ 00:30:00.259 Gideon Fernandez: One, if I’m summarizing this correctly, a client wants to a dashboard.
281 00:30:00.420 ⇒ 00:30:07.090 Gideon Fernandez: And they don’t really have clarity into, the metrics that they need on this dashboard.
282 00:30:07.280 ⇒ 00:30:09.399 Gideon Fernandez: And then, too,
283 00:30:09.780 ⇒ 00:30:16.390 Gideon Fernandez: Related to that, there’s the issue of, if we do build out a dashboard, there’s an impact to the architecture.
284 00:30:16.500 ⇒ 00:30:26.299 Gideon Fernandez: That, could potentially, delay this from happening when the client is asking for a 24-hour turnaround time. Is that correct?
285 00:30:26.510 ⇒ 00:30:27.220 Demilade Agboola: Yes.
286 00:30:27.710 ⇒ 00:30:38.460 Gideon Fernandez: Okay, so, what I would do first is, to address this two-part problem. I would first start addressing it at the customer.
287 00:30:38.670 ⇒ 00:30:39.779 Gideon Fernandez: First, right?
288 00:30:39.960 ⇒ 00:30:49.920 Gideon Fernandez: is, one, What is the critical need, that is, the metrics that you need?
289 00:30:50.110 ⇒ 00:30:56.139 Gideon Fernandez: And so, to get them to that answer, what I’d like to start off with is…
290 00:30:56.520 ⇒ 00:30:59.400 Gideon Fernandez: Can you… I would ask, can you,
291 00:30:59.840 ⇒ 00:31:04.950 Gideon Fernandez: Write me, or send me, or tell me, Top questions.
292 00:31:05.450 ⇒ 00:31:10.930 Gideon Fernandez: that you are looking to answer that you can’t answer today, with Adido.
293 00:31:12.130 ⇒ 00:31:21.460 Gideon Fernandez: So… Depending on those questions that they are, that are business critical, I would look at prioritizing
294 00:31:22.080 ⇒ 00:31:26.959 Gideon Fernandez: what those questions are with the client as well, because they may send back
295 00:31:27.570 ⇒ 00:31:29.950 Gideon Fernandez: 5 or 6 questions, for example.
296 00:31:30.420 ⇒ 00:31:32.949 Gideon Fernandez: But maybe there’s one burning question.
297 00:31:33.120 ⇒ 00:31:35.179 Gideon Fernandez: That needs to get answered right away.
298 00:31:35.380 ⇒ 00:31:42.630 Gideon Fernandez: So setting those expectations of, okay, here are your questions, here’s the one that is really at the top of your list.
299 00:31:43.190 ⇒ 00:31:46.000 Gideon Fernandez: What is…
300 00:31:46.120 ⇒ 00:31:54.540 Gideon Fernandez: The best way, like, why do you need this as a dashboard, and why does it need to be turned around in 24 hours?
301 00:31:55.560 ⇒ 00:31:58.230 Gideon Fernandez: So, I would question, you know, the…
302 00:31:58.370 ⇒ 00:32:03.110 Gideon Fernandez: the solution, oftentimes, the client is asking for, because what if…
303 00:32:03.300 ⇒ 00:32:05.460 Gideon Fernandez: This is something that could be…
304 00:32:06.050 ⇒ 00:32:10.620 Gideon Fernandez: Taking care of, of, let’s just say, of a one-off
305 00:32:10.740 ⇒ 00:32:13.240 Gideon Fernandez: ad hoc query to get them
306 00:32:13.360 ⇒ 00:32:20.890 Gideon Fernandez: The answers that they need within that 24 hours, but then, being able to set expectations that if they want this as a dashboard.
307 00:32:21.080 ⇒ 00:32:25.120 Gideon Fernandez: This is something that could, potentially…
308 00:32:25.220 ⇒ 00:32:28.540 Gideon Fernandez: Impact the data architecture that would
309 00:32:28.770 ⇒ 00:32:31.999 Gideon Fernandez: Take a longer timeline than a 24-hour.
310 00:32:32.130 ⇒ 00:32:38.800 Gideon Fernandez: time, turnaround time. But I would run this in parallel first, to also,
311 00:32:39.080 ⇒ 00:32:42.780 Gideon Fernandez: see with, the team, that I would be working with.
312 00:32:42.920 ⇒ 00:32:49.159 Gideon Fernandez: what our options are, because definitely collaboration, I think, is key to see…
313 00:32:49.270 ⇒ 00:32:58.930 Gideon Fernandez: To presenting them, the internal team of what we’re facing, why we’re facing it, and the kind of, deadline
314 00:32:59.100 ⇒ 00:33:02.770 Gideon Fernandez: That we need, because oftentimes,
315 00:33:02.990 ⇒ 00:33:06.580 Gideon Fernandez: Having a one-off query in a spreadsheet, would…
316 00:33:06.700 ⇒ 00:33:16.240 Gideon Fernandez: Stop the bleeding temporarily, but also be able to deliver a more robust and thorough solution that the client can consume.
317 00:33:16.350 ⇒ 00:33:21.710 Gideon Fernandez: Going through a… A more structured process.
318 00:33:21.980 ⇒ 00:33:28.009 Gideon Fernandez: And so being able to communicate and to set expectations with the client, I think, is important, because
319 00:33:28.160 ⇒ 00:33:33.880 Gideon Fernandez: If we’re able to… See what, they need.
320 00:33:34.200 ⇒ 00:33:38.520 Gideon Fernandez: By defining that in the questions that they, that they listed out?
321 00:33:38.880 ⇒ 00:33:42.349 Gideon Fernandez: Asking why does it need to be as a dashboard?
322 00:33:43.020 ⇒ 00:33:45.820 Gideon Fernandez: are, are, like, critical questions that I would ask.
323 00:33:46.130 ⇒ 00:33:50.570 Gideon Fernandez: And then being able to compromise on a solution, that gets them
324 00:33:51.180 ⇒ 00:33:56.369 Gideon Fernandez: What they need within that 24 hours, but also, ensuring that
325 00:33:56.510 ⇒ 00:34:03.329 Gideon Fernandez: the dashboards that they need is also delivered, that may or may not be delivered within that 24-hour timeline.
326 00:34:04.260 ⇒ 00:34:06.230 Demilade Agboola: Okay, that’s fair, that’s fair.
327 00:34:07.060 ⇒ 00:34:15.770 Demilade Agboola: Alright, that was basically, like, the final question from my end. I’m not sure if you had any other questions, or any questions you’d like to ask.
328 00:34:16.520 ⇒ 00:34:27.180 Gideon Fernandez: Yeah, first, I’d love to know your background as well, your time at Brainforge, projects you work on, you worked on, anything cool, anything that you, you can share with me?
329 00:34:28.060 ⇒ 00:34:30.930 Demilade Agboola: I mean, my background,
330 00:34:31.739 ⇒ 00:34:34.610 Demilade Agboola: So, I mean, I basically started off as a…
331 00:34:35.429 ⇒ 00:34:38.869 Demilade Agboola: I started, like, electrical electronics engineering in school.
332 00:34:39.080 ⇒ 00:34:45.060 Demilade Agboola: basically finished school, and I was like, no, I want to do something else, and I found, like, data very interesting.
333 00:34:45.270 ⇒ 00:34:53.579 Demilade Agboola: And so I basically started, like, learning data, got into it, worked with a startup back in Nigeria. I was there for, like, 2 years.
334 00:34:53.710 ⇒ 00:34:58.700 Demilade Agboola: I was basically, like, a one-man data team, and that was pretty,
335 00:34:59.020 ⇒ 00:35:09.399 Demilade Agboola: extensive experience, but it made me learn a lot. And then eventually, I then got a job with a company, consulting company, based in New York called Hiticulture.
336 00:35:09.590 ⇒ 00:35:17.970 Demilade Agboola: And I was there, as an analytics engineer on their team, and so I was, you know, involved with a lot of things around, like.
337 00:35:18.030 ⇒ 00:35:30.159 Demilade Agboola: Getting the clarity we need for, like, client projects, being able to deliver, different technical requirements, across, you know, multiple clients in multiple industries.
338 00:35:30.740 ⇒ 00:35:37.500 Demilade Agboola: And then over time, I then got another job in a company in Saudi Arabia, so I worked with them.
339 00:35:37.760 ⇒ 00:35:42.650 Demilade Agboola: I was their DVT specialist, so I was on their… Because that’s Analu’s team.
340 00:35:42.850 ⇒ 00:36:01.390 Demilade Agboola: And they were trying to have, like, a huge migration of, like, all their logic from, like, Tableau extracts, like, having an extracts into, like, dbt, but they didn’t write dbt. The people who wrote dbt were on their engineering team, so they needed someone in-house who could help them, like.
341 00:36:01.650 ⇒ 00:36:20.489 Demilade Agboola: fast-track some of the logic they were trying to move, as well as give them proper context into how, like, dbt should be written, and how to avoid, very common issues people ran into. So there’s a lot of, like, driving that initiative, helping people with context, helping build, like, the base models that people were building off of.
342 00:36:20.610 ⇒ 00:36:25.950 Demilade Agboola: So I was also there, and then shortly after, That,
343 00:36:26.210 ⇒ 00:36:31.410 Demilade Agboola: Actually, no, right after that, that’s when I joined Brainforge. So I’ve been at Brainforge for a little over a year.
344 00:36:31.960 ⇒ 00:36:35.800 Demilade Agboola: And… basically, yeah, my role here is…
345 00:36:36.170 ⇒ 00:36:49.460 Demilade Agboola: Typically the same as a lot of my previous roles, in the sense of it’s a lot of, like, helping people with data modeling, getting good clarity on, like, how products should go.
346 00:36:49.680 ⇒ 00:36:54.729 Demilade Agboola: What the budgets are, what the restrictions are, and just, like, being able to map that out.
347 00:36:55.300 ⇒ 00:37:01.500 Demilade Agboola: As well as just being able to also deliver as… on the projects.
348 00:37:02.790 ⇒ 00:37:12.049 Demilade Agboola: in terms of, like, what products we’ve worked on, or what products I have worked on, I mean, there are a number of clients, so pharmaceutical clients,
349 00:37:12.240 ⇒ 00:37:16.990 Demilade Agboola: CPG clients… SaaS clients,
350 00:37:17.590 ⇒ 00:37:31.609 Demilade Agboola: And effectively, they typically want, like, different things, but it’s always the same concept and the same principles remain. It’s all about figuring out what they need, what they want, and being able to…
351 00:37:32.460 ⇒ 00:37:46.779 Demilade Agboola: connect with them, understand… I feel like empathy is a very important thing in, like, data, because if you’re not able to, like, get into people’s shoes and understand what they need to see, and understand what drives them on a day-to-day.
352 00:37:47.080 ⇒ 00:37:53.789 Demilade Agboola: you’re just gonna be building stuff, and it’s not gonna be useful. So, just being able to…
353 00:37:54.730 ⇒ 00:38:11.459 Demilade Agboola: inter… interact with the clients, and part of, like, Brainforge, and one of the things we’re also trying to do, and that has been a part of our hiring process recently, has been… we want, like, engineers who are very comfortable interfacing with clients, so not just engineers who are…
354 00:38:11.490 ⇒ 00:38:15.810 Demilade Agboola: You know, good pushing out code, which is… it’s a good thing to have.
355 00:38:15.970 ⇒ 00:38:19.480 Demilade Agboola: But we also want people who are able to, you know, reach out to the clients.
356 00:38:20.060 ⇒ 00:38:22.600 Demilade Agboola: Get some context on what they do.
357 00:38:22.710 ⇒ 00:38:30.939 Demilade Agboola: Get some context on, how what we’re doing ties into what they need, and as a result, are able to
358 00:38:31.290 ⇒ 00:38:39.290 Demilade Agboola: take that context into what they were… what they’re writing as code, also means that they’re able to stand out,
359 00:38:39.710 ⇒ 00:38:44.430 Demilade Agboola: In here, and puts less pressure on our, like, clients facing
360 00:38:44.600 ⇒ 00:38:51.679 Demilade Agboola: people, right? So it’s less pressure, because they don’t have to always go into calls trying to balance that technical knowledge.
361 00:38:51.800 ⇒ 00:39:08.720 Demilade Agboola: as well as, like, that human empathy knowledge as well, because the engineers themselves can do that, and that takes a burden off of the client-facing people. But yeah, I will say that, like, that’s a bit of my background, as well as just kind of, like, working with Brainforge as a whole.
362 00:39:10.050 ⇒ 00:39:20.599 Gideon Fernandez: And, have you… are you always working on a client project, or are there some, like, in-between time, in-between projects? Kind of like, how’s that structure work over there?
363 00:39:21.260 ⇒ 00:39:27.120 Demilade Agboola: I will say that… We tend to have, like.
364 00:39:29.520 ⇒ 00:39:35.129 Demilade Agboola: part of why we’re hiring is so that I can get some time off of clients,
365 00:39:35.840 ⇒ 00:39:37.720 Demilade Agboola: Because I’m, like…
366 00:39:38.780 ⇒ 00:39:56.130 Demilade Agboola: the goal is for me to focus internally, and so internal… what the internal focus would look like is a lot of playbooks, a lot of context in, like, how we do things, and how things should be done, and creating, like, data standards and modeling standards, and so there is not… it’s not just a thing of, like.
367 00:39:56.130 ⇒ 00:40:03.220 Demilade Agboola: We’re always looking out. We do want to look inwards as well. So we have our, like, our internal AI team.
368 00:40:03.220 ⇒ 00:40:17.109 Demilade Agboola: We have our, like, internal teams that we also try and support in different ways. And so, yeah, ideally, the goal is to be able to, you know, obviously have time for client projects, but also be able to…
369 00:40:17.920 ⇒ 00:40:31.209 Demilade Agboola: Internally, we find our processes to the point that we’re as efficient as possible, but we’re also, able to take those learnings from efficiency and have it cascade across as many clients as possible.
370 00:40:32.410 ⇒ 00:40:37.710 Gideon Fernandez: Oh, wow. Yeah, that’s… that’s awesome. That’s great to… To know that,
371 00:40:38.100 ⇒ 00:40:44.379 Gideon Fernandez: You also have that need to look internally, but also need someone to kind of fill in the gaps, right, to…
372 00:40:44.580 ⇒ 00:40:47.760 Gideon Fernandez: To work externally with the clients, okay.
373 00:40:47.760 ⇒ 00:40:50.459 Demilade Agboola: Definitely. Cool. I feel like…
374 00:40:50.800 ⇒ 00:41:00.409 Demilade Agboola: the goal is obviously, like, because internally, I mean, we have, like, data engineers, but in terms of, like, peer analytics engineers, I’m, like, the only person on the team.
375 00:41:00.710 ⇒ 00:41:07.879 Demilade Agboola: So the goal is, hey, how can we ensure that, you know, Another person is on board.
376 00:41:08.410 ⇒ 00:41:18.479 Demilade Agboola: on the team can maybe be clients, can handle, like, a lot of, like, the data modeling, but it’s also able to,
377 00:41:19.850 ⇒ 00:41:28.139 Demilade Agboola: you know, do things around the internal part of the business, can say, hey, I think we should have playbooks on this, I think this, we need to standardize these processes.
378 00:41:28.240 ⇒ 00:41:41.470 Demilade Agboola: And that, in such a way that, like, when we get new clients, the logic and the things we’ve learned from previous clients can start to scale, and we can just get, like, that 1% onto 1% better with each client.
379 00:41:42.610 ⇒ 00:41:51.399 Gideon Fernandez: And can you, within those clients, right, because you’re mentioning that this is, like, a client-facing, role, that’s important.
380 00:41:52.960 ⇒ 00:41:59.749 Gideon Fernandez: what are the, like, the client stakeholders are you, working with? Are these, like, the executive teams, or are these, like.
381 00:41:59.980 ⇒ 00:42:04.590 Gideon Fernandez: Working directly with an operations team. Can you talk more about that?
382 00:42:04.950 ⇒ 00:42:07.530 Demilade Agboola: It tends to be a mix,
383 00:42:09.240 ⇒ 00:42:21.300 Demilade Agboola: Usually, yes, we do have to interface with the execs, and usually those are the first people we have to, like, make sure their overview of their business is good, and in a good state.
384 00:42:21.540 ⇒ 00:42:29.580 Demilade Agboola: Because again, those are people that tend to sign the checks, so it’s very important that they are in a good spot with how we operate.
385 00:42:29.740 ⇒ 00:42:43.480 Demilade Agboola: And then, yes, we do have, like, interface with the different, like, arms and operations across the business, so sometimes it’s finance, sometimes it’s, marketing, sometimes it’s the actual ops teams.
386 00:42:43.750 ⇒ 00:42:48.969 Demilade Agboola: But yes, we try to interface with everybody and ensure that they also, like.
387 00:42:49.640 ⇒ 00:42:52.599 Demilade Agboola: In a spot where they are the most efficient.
388 00:42:52.760 ⇒ 00:43:09.739 Demilade Agboola: They’re seeing the data to be the most efficient team possible. They understand who’s doing well, what’s happening, what happened yesterday, what happened, like, over the last 2 weeks, 3 weeks, and then that gives them the power to be able to, you know, make better decisions on a day-to-day.
389 00:43:11.940 ⇒ 00:43:18.249 Gideon Fernandez: Awesome. Yeah, that’s, that’s kind of, like, how I face what I’m dealing with, too, is, like, sometimes…
390 00:43:19.020 ⇒ 00:43:27.340 Gideon Fernandez: You have to work with the executive team, so they think much more high level than someone that is working directly with finance, for example.
391 00:43:27.340 ⇒ 00:43:36.839 Demilade Agboola: I agree, I agree. Yeah, I… I find that, like, being able to…
392 00:43:37.070 ⇒ 00:43:41.589 Demilade Agboola: Build that out, like, ensure that everything we’re doing, is useful.
393 00:43:41.950 ⇒ 00:43:45.769 Demilade Agboola: Associated with the most important stakeholders is how you build trust.
394 00:43:45.970 ⇒ 00:44:05.110 Demilade Agboola: I mean, obviously, if you do, like, you model stuff for… if the stakeholder is unhappy, or you’re doing stuff around the business, they will still be unhappy. They, you know, they need to have their needs seen and handled first, and then the benefit starts to cascade down to everyone else within the company.
395 00:44:07.020 ⇒ 00:44:07.770 Gideon Fernandez: Awesome.
396 00:44:08.440 ⇒ 00:44:13.229 Gideon Fernandez: And I know that, so, like, last question for me, too. I don’t want to take too much of your time.
397 00:44:13.390 ⇒ 00:44:14.330 Gideon Fernandez: Perfect.
398 00:44:14.770 ⇒ 00:44:26.370 Gideon Fernandez: the… the role, you know, is… is definitely open-ended, too, right? Because you’re… you could work on, like, certain projects, some projects could have already a tech stack, some already have…
399 00:44:26.550 ⇒ 00:44:36.839 Gideon Fernandez: Nothing at all, right? So, say you’re in, like, the first 30 days starting at Brainforge, like, how would you kind of define the success of your…
400 00:44:37.110 ⇒ 00:44:38.770 Gideon Fernandez: First 30 days there.
401 00:44:39.510 ⇒ 00:44:44.079 Demilade Agboola: I think success in the first 30 days will rely on…
402 00:44:44.560 ⇒ 00:44:51.880 Demilade Agboola: I think this role, especially in the first couple of months, will be client-facing.
403 00:44:53.420 ⇒ 00:45:06.449 Demilade Agboola: So, the role, like, success in the first 30 days would look more like, how easy is it for you to integrate into what we have, how easy is it for you to build on top of what we have, and kind of see, like, okay, hey.
404 00:45:06.570 ⇒ 00:45:17.029 Demilade Agboola: you guys are doing this, cool, this might be a better way, these are, like, ways in which you can handle this in a more efficient way.
405 00:45:17.630 ⇒ 00:45:23.119 Demilade Agboola: And like I said, part of, like, why we’re looking at this role is, hey, we want to be able to…
406 00:45:24.420 ⇒ 00:45:36.569 Demilade Agboola: kind of like how when I came in, so Utam’s our, like, CEO. Otam used to love the modeling. Part of, like, why I was hired is, like, hey, we want Otam to have more time to be…
407 00:45:36.840 ⇒ 00:45:46.039 Demilade Agboola: to get clients, right? Like, and so my role came in as, like, okay, I’m handling a lot of, like, the modeling aspect of things. And so now, it’s kind of like…
408 00:45:46.110 ⇒ 00:46:02.499 Demilade Agboola: okay, we want to have the same thing for Demody, but instead of, like, DMLD focusing on clients, it’s more of, like, okay, Demody standardized the processes, like, ensure that what we’re doing is scalable and repeatable. So, you know, success would look more like, hey, how easy is it for Demody to be able to
409 00:46:03.490 ⇒ 00:46:21.580 Demilade Agboola: take his hands off as many, things as possible, right? Like, how easy is it for him to say, like, hey, no, this client is fine, he’s… it’s with Gideon. Like, that would… and obviously, we understand that you need support, like, in the first couple of days, definitely, but it would also be, like, that balance of.
410 00:46:21.580 ⇒ 00:46:26.219 Demilade Agboola: how easy is it for Gideon to integrate into the…
411 00:46:26.220 ⇒ 00:46:36.339 Demilade Agboola: process, understand… that’s why we need you to, like, understand dbt, for instance, because if you don’t know how to, like, you know, model and use dbt.
412 00:46:36.460 ⇒ 00:46:47.619 Demilade Agboola: I will still be heavily involved. You know, if you don’t know how to actually interface with the client, and talk to them, and get, like, what’s really on their plate, I will still be heavily involved.
413 00:46:47.770 ⇒ 00:46:52.880 Demilade Agboola: But yeah, in terms of things like the context, I can always give that, I’m always there and available for that.
414 00:46:53.290 ⇒ 00:46:57.969 Demilade Agboola: But being able to, like, balance both, like, a people-facing as well as a…
415 00:46:58.440 ⇒ 00:47:05.069 Demilade Agboola: Technical expertise, you know? That would be what success looks like in, like, the first 30 days.
416 00:47:05.930 ⇒ 00:47:11.449 Gideon Fernandez: Yeah, I mean, I’m starting to realize more and more how you are more, critical.
417 00:47:11.580 ⇒ 00:47:14.429 Gideon Fernandez: to Brain Forge that they would want to…
418 00:47:14.770 ⇒ 00:47:22.599 Gideon Fernandez: To pull you more into internal, structuring into… than, working on the… the client stakeholder piece.
419 00:47:23.290 ⇒ 00:47:23.870 Demilade Agboola: Yeah.
420 00:47:24.240 ⇒ 00:47:25.350 Gideon Fernandez: So, getting…
421 00:47:25.860 ⇒ 00:47:35.940 Gideon Fernandez: Success, it sounds like success is getting you, out of, out of the weeds is… is the… the main goal here.
422 00:47:36.250 ⇒ 00:47:46.779 Demilade Agboola: Yeah, I mean, definitely. Obviously, with the… with standardizing processes as well, and having someone else on board, it also means that…
423 00:47:46.850 ⇒ 00:47:58.590 Demilade Agboola: we can also get more clients, because now, if more clients come in, we have playbooks that we can use, especially, like, with the presence of, like, AI, and we can standardize certain things and say, hey.
424 00:47:58.760 ⇒ 00:48:12.580 Demilade Agboola: this is our playbook on how, for instance, we model Salesforce, right? Like, this is our playbook on how we, when PRs are merged, this is what… this is what AI looks for and gives a summary in our,
425 00:48:13.040 ⇒ 00:48:23.520 Demilade Agboola: in our PR request, so you can kind of see, and it makes merging PRs easier, faster. Maybe we can even start to have playbooks on how, like.
426 00:48:24.220 ⇒ 00:48:39.790 Demilade Agboola: before even, like, someone else sees it, we have, like, feedback. So, like, hey, you shouldn’t have, like, 20… 30 files being changed now on PR. It’s hard to review, make it, like, within, like, 10… 10 or less. Things like that. Like, we can start to have playbooks in such a way that…
427 00:48:40.750 ⇒ 00:48:50.110 Demilade Agboola: Now, when we have more clients, or, like, new clients, it’s easier for us to still be able to be as impactful
428 00:48:50.580 ⇒ 00:48:52.950 Demilade Agboola: With even less effort.
429 00:48:53.620 ⇒ 00:48:55.910 Demilade Agboola: Because we standardize certain processes.
430 00:48:56.830 ⇒ 00:48:59.619 Gideon Fernandez: Yeah, there’s a lot of opportunities there.
431 00:48:59.760 ⇒ 00:49:00.710 Gideon Fernandez: Yeah.
432 00:49:01.040 ⇒ 00:49:03.039 Gideon Fernandez: Especially if you work on one platform.
433 00:49:03.210 ⇒ 00:49:07.030 Gideon Fernandez: Like, for, like, like, Fivetran?
434 00:49:07.160 ⇒ 00:49:10.659 Gideon Fernandez: What I learned is, like, the models that come out of Fivetran.
435 00:49:10.910 ⇒ 00:49:14.090 Gideon Fernandez: are way different, can be different than what Airbite…
436 00:49:14.500 ⇒ 00:49:17.410 Gideon Fernandez: For example, is pulling in, so…
437 00:49:18.090 ⇒ 00:49:26.569 Gideon Fernandez: Yeah, that’s good to… good to see that there’s a lot of investment internally in there, so that’s great. Makes everyone’s jobs easier.
438 00:49:27.740 ⇒ 00:49:33.189 Demilade Agboola: Yeah, definitely. That’s the, that’s the goal, just to, like, improve efficiency and just, like.
439 00:49:33.340 ⇒ 00:49:39.779 Demilade Agboola: Ensure that we are able to, you know, keep satisfying our clients to the best of our ability.
440 00:49:40.760 ⇒ 00:49:41.530 Gideon Fernandez: Right.
441 00:49:41.640 ⇒ 00:49:42.550 Gideon Fernandez: Cool.
442 00:49:43.170 ⇒ 00:49:44.170 Demilade Agboola: Alright then.
443 00:49:44.170 ⇒ 00:49:45.300 Gideon Fernandez: It was a… yeah.
444 00:49:45.740 ⇒ 00:49:47.609 Demilade Agboola: You wrote… you wrote something? I think you had more.
445 00:49:47.610 ⇒ 00:49:50.200 Gideon Fernandez: Oh, I was gonna ask about next steps, what does that look like?
446 00:49:50.480 ⇒ 00:49:58.499 Demilade Agboola: Yeah, so I will be able to… I’ll give Kayla, I don’t know if you talk to her, Kayla, our… my feedback, and I’m sure she’ll be in touch with you.
447 00:49:59.330 ⇒ 00:50:05.219 Gideon Fernandez: Okay. And it’s Demilade, right? That’s… that’s how to pronounce it Okay, perfect. Thank you, Demolar.
448 00:50:05.220 ⇒ 00:50:12.240 Demilade Agboola: It was great talking to you, likewise. Also, thanks for, like, asking up on my back, you know, that’s…
449 00:50:12.880 ⇒ 00:50:15.979 Gideon Fernandez: Oh, yeah. You know, it happens. Take care of it.
450 00:50:17.140 ⇒ 00:50:20.509 Demilade Agboola: I’ll do my best. Alright then, have a great day.
451 00:50:20.510 ⇒ 00:50:21.630 Gideon Fernandez: You too. Bye.