Meeting Title: Business Growth and Acquisition Discussion Date: 2026-05-07 Meeting participants: Robert Tseng, Michael’s Notetaker, Michael Lin
WEBVTT
1 00:02:06.450 ⇒ 00:02:07.930 Michael Lin: Hey, Robert!
2 00:02:08.389 ⇒ 00:02:10.499 Robert Tseng: Hey, Michael! Long time no see!
3 00:02:10.500 ⇒ 00:02:14.190 Michael Lin: Yeah, it’s been a wh- it’s been a while. I feel the last time I saw you was…
4 00:02:14.190 ⇒ 00:02:14.870 Robert Tseng: I think…
5 00:02:14.870 ⇒ 00:02:17.430 Michael Lin: maybe Mitchell Park in Palo Alto.
6 00:02:17.690 ⇒ 00:02:18.290 Robert Tseng: cow.
7 00:02:18.700 ⇒ 00:02:19.839 Robert Tseng: I remember.
8 00:02:19.840 ⇒ 00:02:23.000 Michael Lin: That was gotta be over a year ago, so…
9 00:02:23.000 ⇒ 00:02:25.230 Robert Tseng: Yeah, probably.
10 00:02:26.500 ⇒ 00:02:28.140 Michael Lin: Cool. How’ve you been, man?
11 00:02:28.540 ⇒ 00:02:35.940 Robert Tseng: Doing well. I mean, things are… things are pretty busy, but, yeah, I mean, still in New York.
12 00:02:36.400 ⇒ 00:02:43.919 Robert Tseng: And I guess… Businesses… business has been growing a lot, and… Yeah, I think…
13 00:02:44.170 ⇒ 00:02:54.020 Robert Tseng: now that it’s getting closer to summer, I think the weather’s much nicer in New York, so starting to go out more, and I think it’ll… it’ll be good to…
14 00:02:54.220 ⇒ 00:03:06.710 Robert Tseng: to get out from… it was, like, the coldest winter in New York, this past year, in the past… for, like, the past 30 years, so it was actually kind of depressing. Like, I had to… had to leave New York a couple times, but
15 00:03:06.860 ⇒ 00:03:18.289 Robert Tseng: But yeah, I think, spring’s… it’s pretty late… late spring, early summer now, so it’s been good to get out and, yeah, just feel… feel… feel like the life coming back.
16 00:03:18.870 ⇒ 00:03:26.229 Michael Lin: Okay, cool. Glad to see you’re enjoying life, and congrats on all the growth. What do you think was the unlock that led to that?
17 00:03:27.200 ⇒ 00:03:39.399 Robert Tseng: I think there’s… I mean, there’s an obviously shift in the market. I think there’s more sophisticated buyers now that understand, like, what they want, or at least they have a…
18 00:03:39.400 ⇒ 00:03:49.619 Robert Tseng: they’re able to reach for the experience that they want, which in Cloud Cowork, OpenClaw, these types of releases kind of turned AI work into something that was more…
19 00:03:49.950 ⇒ 00:03:59.510 Robert Tseng: tangible, and us being kind of, like, a mostly data engineering company first, like, it made, like, what we do kind of come to the forefront of it, where it’s like.
20 00:03:59.800 ⇒ 00:04:05.869 Robert Tseng: you know, if you just plug in… I mean, if you just connect a bunch of MCP,
21 00:04:05.870 ⇒ 00:04:25.430 Robert Tseng: try connections into your… into cloud or open AI, you’re not going to really get that great of an output. But if you actually are able to have better data foundations, and we understand how to do some of the steering to make the outputs better, that… that makes… that makes them more valuable for enterprises. So, I think that was really the biggest shift in the past
22 00:04:25.600 ⇒ 00:04:39.600 Robert Tseng: 6 months, and yeah, so I think the business… we’ve doubled the team in the past six months, things have been continuing to hire a lot, so I think things have really kind of taken off this year, specifically.
23 00:04:39.860 ⇒ 00:04:53.750 Michael Lin: Wow, okay, good for you. And, you know, you mentioned the acquisitions, too, so I guess, you know, that was, I guess that was something you mentioned in the text, so I thought maybe that’s, something we can discuss in this call.
24 00:04:53.750 ⇒ 00:04:54.220 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
25 00:04:54.620 ⇒ 00:05:13.370 Robert Tseng: I mean, I’m curious just to hear, you know, just how you feel like the business is going. I think it was kind of presumptuous of me to kind of say… say that kind of via text, so can take a step back and just kind of better understand where… how you’re feeling about… about the business, and, you know, yeah, even before we talk about that.
26 00:05:13.600 ⇒ 00:05:27.589 Michael Lin: It’s going alright. I have some long-term… I have some of my long-term existing clients that continue going, and I have an engineering team supporting them. I feel, for some reason, the market has been very different for me. I feel like I’ve tried a lot of different things in the last 8 months.
27 00:05:27.590 ⇒ 00:05:39.370 Michael Lin: And then the business grew in the last couple years, and it kind of hit a plateau, maybe about 8 months or so, and then no matter what, I tried, and I’ve tried basically everything at this point.
28 00:05:39.670 ⇒ 00:05:44.030 Michael Lin: It seems like the most reliable, channels
29 00:05:44.180 ⇒ 00:05:54.799 Michael Lin: it’s kind of, like, mined out, basically. There’s… I feel there’s just a lot of saturation, so I have some existing clients I continue to serve, but yeah, maybe a different experience from what you see.
30 00:05:55.790 ⇒ 00:06:05.210 Robert Tseng: Yeah, no, I think that makes sense. I think the channels that were working two years ago were not really working for us. I think partnerships has definitely been, like, 60% of our pipeline comes from partnerships now.
31 00:06:05.360 ⇒ 00:06:07.440 Robert Tseng: So I think that’s…
32 00:06:08.040 ⇒ 00:06:21.490 Robert Tseng: But it took a while to kind of, get in the door with… and build those relationships. So, definitely, like, the platforms that we were using, outbound, stuff like that, it’s not really working anymore for us either. So, totally understand that.
33 00:06:22.200 ⇒ 00:06:39.230 Robert Tseng: But yeah, so I mean, you mentioned… obviously, you were interested in taking this call. I’m kind of curious, like, how are you thinking about it? Like, seems like… I mean, the business is still going, and so it’s like, it’s not like you have to, you have to exit the business, but, like, where do you… where do you feel like you want to be in a few years?
34 00:06:39.230 ⇒ 00:06:40.680 Michael Lin: Yeah, well, that’s…
35 00:06:41.060 ⇒ 00:06:59.199 Michael Lin: it’s really just an intro call, just to see how things, just to understand, like, your interests and mine, yeah. It doesn’t have to be something immediate, but I can keep you in mind for these things. I guess, you know, I came into this call really with just one… with one main question, which is, like, what would you… what are you… what’s of value to you?
36 00:07:01.540 ⇒ 00:07:03.920 Robert Tseng: What’s the value to, to, to us if we were…
37 00:07:03.920 ⇒ 00:07:06.079 Michael Lin: In an acquisition.
38 00:07:06.080 ⇒ 00:07:08.070 Robert Tseng: In an acquisition,
39 00:07:08.630 ⇒ 00:07:14.860 Robert Tseng: Well, I mean, I kind of knew that you had long-term clients, and yeah, I think that would be a…
40 00:07:15.790 ⇒ 00:07:40.559 Robert Tseng: I think we’re at a size now where we can kind of take advantage of some of the multiples, and… I mean, we want to exit the business, so I’m not in this for the long term. I think I want to package this business and sell it within 3 years. And so, now it’s kind of a grow as much as we can, and I think if there are other folks that are around our size or slightly smaller, I think that would be… it would be a good way to take advantage of
41 00:07:40.560 ⇒ 00:07:45.020 Robert Tseng: Of that, of the multiple that we would be able to get if we were to, kind of.
42 00:07:45.020 ⇒ 00:08:01.660 Robert Tseng: combined forces in that way. So, you know, I’ve talked to buyers in the market. We’ve been… we’ve been… we’ve received offers in the past… in the past, two quarters, and it’s what kind of got me interested. I’m like, why don’t we understand both sides of the table? Like, how do we really… I mean, like.
43 00:08:01.930 ⇒ 00:08:15.110 Robert Tseng: And I think, you know, buyers are kind of just buying… the way that the private equity market works is, it’s just multiples on your EBITDA. So if your EBITDA is above a certain number, then you get a higher multiple.
44 00:08:15.150 ⇒ 00:08:32.439 Robert Tseng: I think having AI engineering in your portfolio, and having clients that… AI clients also increases the multiple. And so, I think these are all just some of the considerations that we have. So we’ve been having these conversations now, with… with other folks in our network that we know are kind of
45 00:08:32.440 ⇒ 00:08:40.849 Robert Tseng: grinding it out and doing something similar, just to kind of see, like, hey, like, who would be interested in actually kind of going after an exit together? Yeah.
46 00:08:40.850 ⇒ 00:08:56.720 Michael Lin: Okay, so if there wasn’t, so, if there… in the case of an acquisition to you, then are you looking to take over that client, and you would continue managing things, or would you need my team to continue servicing them, but it’s just under your name? Like, how do you see the structuring there?
47 00:08:57.310 ⇒ 00:09:01.490 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so I think there’s a couple different ways,
48 00:09:02.220 ⇒ 00:09:04.529 Robert Tseng: What we have right now is we have…
49 00:09:05.020 ⇒ 00:09:24.190 Robert Tseng: four service lines under, under our business, and so there’s kind of, like, a GM for each one. So I think there could be a world where, you know, if… if you came in and you were, like, our GM of AI, perhaps, and you’re… and then you bring in your book, you basically become, like, an…
50 00:09:24.190 ⇒ 00:09:39.869 Robert Tseng: an employee, you get paid out through your book, we just kind of give you that over, like, 6 months or something, and so you get paid out for that, and also you can come and run the business. You can run the… you can run, like, our AI business here, if that’s something that you want. Or we could also just…
51 00:09:39.870 ⇒ 00:09:46.849 Robert Tseng: get by your book, and you can find your… you could find a way out. So, I think there’s… that’s really the… the two… the two options that I see.
52 00:09:48.220 ⇒ 00:09:55.740 Michael Lin: I see. Yeah. Does your business have engineering capabilities, like software engineering and AI engineering?
53 00:09:55.930 ⇒ 00:10:07.720 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so I think AI engineering is probably, like, 40% of our business now. Software, it’s been more ad hoc. We actually just had our software person leave then last quarter.
54 00:10:07.720 ⇒ 00:10:25.709 Robert Tseng: He got pushed to one of our clients, just kind of funny, which is… it happens. But, yeah, so I don’t… I don’t really think we want, like, a traditional software firm. I think AI… I think an AI engineer, like, a senior AI engineer lead… engineering lead is… who’s client-facing.
55 00:10:25.710 ⇒ 00:10:31.869 Robert Tseng: it would be huge, because, yeah, I think, like, we’re getting a bunch of…
56 00:10:31.940 ⇒ 00:10:41.789 Robert Tseng: And we’re… yeah, I think that’s… I think that’s where the business is headed, and I don’t expect data to continue to be like most of our business, probably even 6 months from now.
57 00:10:42.000 ⇒ 00:10:42.720 Michael Lin: Really? Okay.
58 00:10:42.720 ⇒ 00:10:43.270 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
59 00:10:43.690 ⇒ 00:10:44.320 Michael Lin: Okay.
60 00:10:44.570 ⇒ 00:10:45.580 Michael Lin: Yeah.
61 00:10:48.390 ⇒ 00:11:00.980 Michael Lin: Okay, this is something I have… I can keep in mind, and I need to think about this a little bit. It’s not like a decision that’s also completely just up to me as well, because there’s sometimes some changes that happen on the client side, too, that affects my… my decisions, too.
62 00:11:01.370 ⇒ 00:11:11.400 Michael Lin: Sure. I have to think about this a little bit, but it’s something that I can keep you in mind. Particularly, I think, I have a couple clients, I think there’s one client that I’ve had for a couple years.
63 00:11:11.400 ⇒ 00:11:23.559 Michael Lin: I’m thinking that could be the main one. I have some smaller ones, but the smaller ones I might just keep, just because they’re smaller scale. But if there was one, the long-term client, where we built them some software.
64 00:11:23.670 ⇒ 00:11:34.930 Michael Lin: over the last couple years, and now it’s deployed across multiple locations, and it’s like, all their back office teams use this, maybe that’s the main one. I have to think about this a little bit. I can’t really give you a decision today, though, so…
65 00:11:34.930 ⇒ 00:11:38.630 Robert Tseng: Oh, yeah, of course not. Yeah, no, I think it’s just… this intro call, I mean, I think, like.
66 00:11:38.790 ⇒ 00:12:02.170 Robert Tseng: you know, if you were to be interested in, like, kind of going further, I’d probably, you know, I obviously would like to sign an NDA with you, and I would like to do a business deep dive on both sides. Like, I want to share with you, kind of, you know, more of, you know, I’ll give you two options on our side. Maybe there’s more than two options, but I want to at least show you more clearly what those are, and then also from your side to, better understand, like, you know.
67 00:12:02.530 ⇒ 00:12:16.099 Robert Tseng: what you think you would be able to provide in this type of agreement. So, yeah, I think that’s… I would… I was… I’m… I’m not… was not expecting to do that in a short call like this today.
68 00:12:16.100 ⇒ 00:12:21.909 Michael Lin: Sure, sure. Yeah. Okay. Cool. Cool. Sounds good. I’ll keep in mind, I’ll think about it, and then I’ll let you know, so…
69 00:12:22.310 ⇒ 00:12:30.210 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, so you mentioned, yeah, you have these long-term clients, but, like, kind of, in a few years, like, you… how long…
70 00:12:30.210 ⇒ 00:12:43.500 Robert Tseng: do you want to stay in the business? Like, I guess I’m… I think that… that to me is really the biggest, signal on, like, whether something like this would even work, because, yeah, I mean, I’ve talked to other folks that are, like.
71 00:12:43.710 ⇒ 00:12:48.740 Robert Tseng: Yeah, this is, like, a lifestyle business for them, and they want to keep doing this for a while, like, going for…
72 00:12:48.970 ⇒ 00:13:00.900 Robert Tseng: like, the going for an exit that we’re going for is not really something that they’re interested in. So, I mean, I would love to hear more about, kind of, like, what you think you’re trying to go for.
73 00:13:00.900 ⇒ 00:13:04.660 Michael Lin: I think medium-term, I’m… I have this, like, you know.
74 00:13:05.250 ⇒ 00:13:09.990 Michael Lin: don’t make major changes. I have these long… it’s like long-term relationships with these folks.
75 00:13:10.120 ⇒ 00:13:16.349 Michael Lin: They trust me, and I trust them. It’s not even that difficult at this point. I think the hardest parts are actually behind us at this…
76 00:13:16.500 ⇒ 00:13:23.730 Michael Lin: At this point, so… medium term, you know, keep things as is. Longer term, I’m not sure. Longer term, I’m not sure.
77 00:13:23.730 ⇒ 00:13:24.260 Robert Tseng: Okay.
78 00:13:24.590 ⇒ 00:13:25.390 Robert Tseng: Okay.
79 00:13:25.810 ⇒ 00:13:26.610 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
80 00:13:28.860 ⇒ 00:13:45.320 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, I’m trying to see what… how else do you feel like I can be helpful for you, you know, at this time? Like, even acquisition and all that aside, like, that’s, you know, as a partner, like, is there anything we can help with, or, yeah.
81 00:13:46.380 ⇒ 00:13:52.379 Michael Lin: Nothing at the moment. I’ll keep you in mind if something comes up, but I think, yeah. But I appreciate the offer, though.
82 00:13:52.830 ⇒ 00:13:55.759 Robert Tseng: Okay. Cool. Yeah,
83 00:13:56.360 ⇒ 00:14:10.140 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, I, you know, I always appreciate, you know, I started this journey, a few years ago, and I think you were one of the early people that I got connected to. Really learned a lot from your writing first, and then kind of connected you, and
84 00:14:10.270 ⇒ 00:14:22.200 Robert Tseng: in real life, so I think, it’s, you know, it’s… I was thinking about it, kind of coming into this call, like, hey, wow, it’s been… it’s been a while. Feels like… like a… like a…
85 00:14:22.330 ⇒ 00:14:26.709 Robert Tseng: It feels more like 5 years, but it hasn’t been that… hasn’t even been that long.
86 00:14:27.420 ⇒ 00:14:31.640 Michael Lin: It’s, come full circle. What do you think were your biggest learnings from all of this?
87 00:14:33.080 ⇒ 00:14:40.719 Robert Tseng: I think… Going through different phases of the organization, the first
88 00:14:40.940 ⇒ 00:14:43.700 Robert Tseng: phrase, I would say, was just, like.
89 00:14:46.420 ⇒ 00:14:56.650 Robert Tseng: hustling and trying, like, anything that would work to get traction, and not being so opinionated about how it needed to be done. So, I think…
90 00:14:56.760 ⇒ 00:15:02.839 Robert Tseng: yeah, going from that 0 to 1, I… I felt like that was one chapter of the journey.
91 00:15:02.930 ⇒ 00:15:15.869 Robert Tseng: Then once I actually merged with my business partner, since we actually went through a merger, like, kind of a little 2 years ago, or actually less than 2 years ago, I think that was also a moment where I felt like.
92 00:15:15.870 ⇒ 00:15:24.880 Robert Tseng: you know, I didn’t want to be a solo founder, and I wanted to have a business partner that I could trust, so this was somebody I worked with on
93 00:15:25.070 ⇒ 00:15:33.539 Robert Tseng: A couple, like, larger clients, and felt like we could work well together, so taking that step of faith to really
94 00:15:33.630 ⇒ 00:15:52.849 Robert Tseng: kind of partner… partner with him, and, you know, knowing that, yeah, just two different cultures. I had a team of, like, five, he had a team of, like, 5 as well, and kind of just, like, figuring out how that would mix together. It didn’t. I think 30% of the people left, and I think that’s pretty normal. And so… but kind of going through those
95 00:15:52.970 ⇒ 00:16:04.919 Robert Tseng: kind of going through those challenges, figuring out how to run this organization, and having two separate roles, as being two, like, leaders in organization. That was, like, another chapter.
96 00:16:04.920 ⇒ 00:16:22.780 Robert Tseng: And then once we started to scale, and now we’re like, don’t… we’re 25 people, I can’t meet with everybody anymore, it’s, like, building out the, like, middle layer of leadership, thinking more about, like, organizational structure, and I think that’s something that I’m more interested in seeing my role become over the next few years.
97 00:16:22.800 ⇒ 00:16:26.380 Robert Tseng: I am very interested in, like.
98 00:16:27.000 ⇒ 00:16:37.410 Robert Tseng: building… building partnerships, grafting, kind of, like, different opportunities in. Like, I think that’s where my… that’s where my domain really is. He’s… he’s gonna keep being…
99 00:16:37.490 ⇒ 00:16:39.969 Robert Tseng: the, I mean, he’s basically our, like.
100 00:16:40.000 ⇒ 00:16:52.870 Robert Tseng: engineering kind of leader right now, and the technical visionary for the org, but I do everything on the commercial side. So, I think that’s… that’s been kind of accepting that that’s the role that I’m in now, and…
101 00:16:52.870 ⇒ 00:17:04.769 Robert Tseng: Still feeling like, okay, I’m excited by it, and I can… I feel like I could see myself doing this for a few years. Like, I think that’s what has been this current chapter, I think.
102 00:17:05.680 ⇒ 00:17:08.550 Michael Lin: That’s incredible. That’s great. Those are really good lessons there.
103 00:17:08.550 ⇒ 00:17:09.099 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
104 00:17:11.069 ⇒ 00:17:28.470 Robert Tseng: Yeah. What about you? What do you… how do you think, I mean, you mentioned things have plateaued a bit, but, like, yeah, you can kind of, you know, there’s some… there’s some long… you have long-term… you have long-term clients, you also have, like, kind of your long clients, like, kind of… you’re… I’m sure you’ve been doing this for a while, so, like, what… you’re pretty settled into your… into your rhythm now.
105 00:17:28.880 ⇒ 00:17:37.020 Michael Lin: I have a, I guess, a lot of lessons on, many lessons. Maybe the main one is just that I think that there are
106 00:17:39.450 ⇒ 00:17:58.480 Michael Lin: there… I think that’s… entrepreneurship success is determined by a lot of… by a mix of different factors, and some of the biggest factors in entrepreneurial success are even larger than our individual selves, and actually out of our control, actually. I think I reached that conclusion, actually, maybe…
107 00:17:58.540 ⇒ 00:18:08.079 Michael Lin: when I was testing… I was running weekly experiments on every single channel, basically. I’ve tried everything, truly. Like, truly everything. Content, LinkedIn, outbound.
108 00:18:08.080 ⇒ 00:18:30.269 Michael Lin: outbound, inbound partnerships as well, and then when I started running these experiments and measuring the performance and conversion rates across the funnel, I came to a stunning conclusion that all these channels are actually very saturated, and that the rates were very, very low. And then I realized that, like, even if I continued optimizing this a little bit more, the rates were very low, the optimization might improve it a little bit, but it’s not going to be 10 times better.
109 00:18:30.270 ⇒ 00:18:35.830 Michael Lin: Right? Then… and it was at that point that I realized that, I think that if…
110 00:18:35.840 ⇒ 00:18:38.379 Michael Lin: these channels, if everybody…
111 00:18:38.380 ⇒ 00:19:01.210 Michael Lin: talks about it already, then it’s already a little bit too late at that point. The channel’s already… it’s already been completely saturated. So then I realized, basically, what I mean by the forces that are much more powerful than our individual selves is that, really, the market is actually far more powerful, and that you could be really smart and hardworking, and you can do everything right, but then if
112 00:19:01.210 ⇒ 00:19:01.940 Michael Lin: it’s…
113 00:19:01.940 ⇒ 00:19:20.610 Michael Lin: poor timing and a bad market, then there’s that mark… that… it’s like the weather, basically. Like, the weather is gonna be far more powerful than anyone else. Like, we could choose to fight the weather, or we could just try to work around it. And I feel like, that’s… that’s basically the conclusion I came to. There are a lot more forces at play for entrepreneurial success than just,
114 00:19:20.740 ⇒ 00:19:25.759 Michael Lin: than just in… algorithm for trying experiments and trying these different channels, so…
115 00:19:25.760 ⇒ 00:19:26.320 Robert Tseng: Sure.
116 00:19:26.950 ⇒ 00:19:31.330 Robert Tseng: I mean, that makes sense. I mean, the way that I’m sure you measure your experiments pretty vigorously, I think…
117 00:19:31.440 ⇒ 00:19:37.549 Robert Tseng: weekly cycle is pretty short. I mean, partnerships for us, like, it took, like, 9 months to get…
118 00:19:37.870 ⇒ 00:19:40.449 Robert Tseng: door of, like, a partner, right? And, like…
119 00:19:40.450 ⇒ 00:19:44.170 Michael Lin: Partnerships I had long… by the way, the weekly cycles was for shorter things that I, like.
120 00:19:44.170 ⇒ 00:19:44.570 Robert Tseng: Culture.
121 00:19:44.570 ⇒ 00:19:55.970 Michael Lin: For example, I could do weekly cycles. Partnerships, I’ve tried that too, actually. And also, my content is on, like, a 4-month cycle, so I do have longer cycle things, but even those actually didn’t really turn.
122 00:19:55.970 ⇒ 00:20:19.729 Michael Lin: turn out. Like, partnerships, I did this whole, outreach thing, using… combining outbound with partnerships, and I did this over a couple months, and the point was to establish X number of partnerships, and then see if anything will convert within the next 6 months. And then nothing converted, and then I… and then… but it was kind of like, I spent a couple months, just like, let’s say, 1 or 2 months, trying to nurture all those partnerships, and then maybe keep in touch with them, and then see, what happens.
123 00:20:19.730 ⇒ 00:20:24.009 Michael Lin: But if nothing comes about in about 6 months or so, then I start to question the whole experiment.
124 00:20:24.010 ⇒ 00:20:29.379 Michael Lin: Same thing with content as well. I tried the content, and I have 4-month cycles, and it’s,
125 00:20:29.380 ⇒ 00:20:42.569 Michael Lin: so I wanted to see, like, if anything would happen within, from… like, if I just combined all the impressions from 4 months of content, like, what would… what would happen? And I felt like that was a longer cycle, but then the results were mixed as well, so…
126 00:20:42.660 ⇒ 00:20:46.819 Michael Lin: Yeah, I’ve had longer cycle experiments too, but
127 00:20:48.020 ⇒ 00:20:50.580 Michael Lin: Yeah, the results are so-so, so…
128 00:20:50.580 ⇒ 00:20:51.210 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
129 00:20:52.400 ⇒ 00:21:08.260 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, frankly, like, the volume that we do is not… I mean, we’re a small fish in this big pond still, so I wouldn’t even say that even the channels that work for us, like, you could have very much just gotten… gotten lucky. So, like, I don’t really think that there is something
130 00:21:08.340 ⇒ 00:21:15.970 Robert Tseng: I don’t think we’ve done enough to, like, know what… if we’ve really optimized any channel. But yeah, I think that’s…
131 00:21:15.990 ⇒ 00:21:33.800 Robert Tseng: that is the constant slog of sales and… services sales, I think. You just never know what you’re doing is actually working until something does come through. Yeah, it’s just really… I mean, the way I see it is you’re trying to take as many shots on goal as you can, and
132 00:21:33.800 ⇒ 00:21:40.990 Robert Tseng: Yeah, like, how big of a relationship net can you really cast and nurture over time? So,
133 00:21:41.010 ⇒ 00:21:51.710 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I think there were definitely deals that came through that… that we had already given up on, and there were deals that were very… that we were so sure were gonna go through that just, like.
134 00:21:52.000 ⇒ 00:21:58.369 Robert Tseng: on the day that they were supposed to sign, they just, like, drop it, right? So, like, there’s all these things that you can’t really control as well.
135 00:21:58.370 ⇒ 00:22:22.420 Michael Lin: I had those examples, that… I understand that deeply, because there were a lot of sales calls where I had learned over time, and I kept a… I have to keep a notebook of all the lessons I learned from every sales call, and every call’s recorded, so each sales call gets better and better. And it would reach the point where I had… I feel like I had run perfect sales calls, literally perfect sales calls, and then they will tell me that, like, some guy on their team left, and then now they can’t close for the next…
136 00:22:22.420 ⇒ 00:22:34.639 Michael Lin: couple months, and it’s like, after investing a lot of effort in, and then I was like, that’s what I mean. Like, these are forces completely out of my control, and I ran a… like, these are perfect calls, and what else are you gonna ask me to do? What else can I do, right?
137 00:22:34.640 ⇒ 00:22:35.190 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
138 00:22:36.110 ⇒ 00:22:44.009 Michael Lin: That’s what I mean. Like, a lot more of this is out of my control, as out of an entrepreneur’s control than… than it is, actually, so…
139 00:22:44.210 ⇒ 00:22:44.720 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
140 00:22:46.460 ⇒ 00:22:47.180 Michael Lin: That would nope.
141 00:22:47.180 ⇒ 00:22:48.650 Robert Tseng: I… I’m in agreement.
142 00:22:48.650 ⇒ 00:23:00.459 Michael Lin: I do feel entrepreneurship does teach you a lot about systems, though. Like, building systems, like business systems and stuff. Sure. It’s almost… I think systems is important, and it also taught me maybe one valuable lesson was about constraints.
143 00:23:00.490 ⇒ 00:23:15.119 Michael Lin: Where, if you’re not working on the constraint within the system, then the constraint… solving the constraint is where there’s the most leverage, so sometimes if you don’t see a lot of results, it could be you’re working on the wrong part of the system. Those are lessons that were very valuable, too. But, yeah, so…
144 00:23:15.520 ⇒ 00:23:21.570 Robert Tseng: Yeah. No, I think that’s… that’s right. I think there’s the intuition for spotting where the constraints is. I feel like I’ve…
145 00:23:21.680 ⇒ 00:23:29.659 Robert Tseng: gotten much better at that. So, but yeah, I think as a data person, we tend… I tend to…
146 00:23:30.140 ⇒ 00:23:44.709 Robert Tseng: I feel like I… ironically, I trust my gut more now than I did when I first started. I think I was a lot more… I care a lot more about rigorously measuring everything up front, because, like, I was just, like, searching for the alpha anywhere. But now, I just feel like…
147 00:23:44.740 ⇒ 00:23:50.320 Robert Tseng: the most important thing will surface if I, like, give myself enough, like.
148 00:23:50.590 ⇒ 00:24:07.160 Robert Tseng: space to… to think about it, and I think that’s… that’s what I try to carve out, at least, you know, one day a week. Like, I’ll have time to just… just to take a step back and… and think about where I should focus my time, so…
149 00:24:07.160 ⇒ 00:24:27.860 Michael Lin: You know, it’s funny you said that. Actually, in my 2025 retrospective, I write things to start, stop, and continue, and one of the lines I wrote was, trusting my intuition more over other people’s advice. So, I understand, I understand, and I’m also a data… a very, like, logical data-driven person. I learned to lean into that. I found out I was right, basically, most of the time, actually, so…
150 00:24:27.860 ⇒ 00:24:28.390 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
151 00:24:28.390 ⇒ 00:24:31.680 Michael Lin: Even if I couldn’t explain it, so…
152 00:24:32.170 ⇒ 00:24:45.569 Michael Lin: So, yeah, you know, regardless, you know, whatever happens with your consultancy and entrepreneurship, too, and wherever you go later on, I will say that a lot of the lessons now, I think, will supercharge you competing against anyone else, too.
153 00:24:45.570 ⇒ 00:24:54.909 Michael Lin: Right? If you’re… if you understand systems, you understand these experiments, you understand how to move fast, you know, a lot of people, employees, for example, I don’t think they can operate like that. So…
154 00:24:55.180 ⇒ 00:24:55.650 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
155 00:24:55.650 ⇒ 00:25:13.199 Michael Lin: You’ve also spoken to a lot more executives and higher-level people, and you know how they think, and so that helps a lot in the future as well. Whereas a lot of employees, they just… they’re part of a system, but they don’t understand the whole system. But your system’s thinking… from entrepreneurship, you understand the whole system a little more. It helps you navigate things better, so…
156 00:25:14.030 ⇒ 00:25:19.269 Robert Tseng: Yeah, no, I agree. And, I mean, my wife is a corporate employee, so it’s,
157 00:25:19.830 ⇒ 00:25:37.369 Robert Tseng: It’s actually… sometimes we… a lot of times we don’t see eye to eye on, like, you don’t move fast enough, or you’re not thinking about, you know, you’re not really thinking beyond, like, kind of the role that you’re in, and I may, you just… you just realize that, like, that’s just not how corporate trains you to think. So, I think…
158 00:25:38.060 ⇒ 00:25:46.630 Robert Tseng: Yeah, whatever, whatever… I mean, there’s a lot more self-belief that, like, whatever I end up doing, whether it’s this business or the next one, like.
159 00:25:46.630 ⇒ 00:26:02.450 Robert Tseng: I can go back to first principles, kind of trust that I can… I can build things from… from scratch. So, yeah, I… I do feel like it has really been a very costly journey, but have unlocked, like, a superpower along the way, so…
160 00:26:02.450 ⇒ 00:26:03.769 Michael Lin: No, for sure, for sure.
161 00:26:03.770 ⇒ 00:26:04.300 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
162 00:26:04.740 ⇒ 00:26:09.020 Michael Lin: So… so cool. Have you been playing pickleball much, or…
163 00:26:09.020 ⇒ 00:26:20.289 Robert Tseng: I haven’t. So, the side quest that you had… I didn’t tell you about was… so, I mean, this was, like, what, 9 months ago? I didn’t realize… I mean, the business was, like, growing, but, like, not that fast.
164 00:26:20.500 ⇒ 00:26:24.499 Robert Tseng: So I… I started… I went to… I’m in law school.
165 00:26:24.500 ⇒ 00:26:25.690 Michael Lin: Oh, really?
166 00:26:25.690 ⇒ 00:26:30.810 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I’ve been doing, evening classes at a law school that’s, like, two weeks… two blocks away.
167 00:26:30.880 ⇒ 00:26:48.649 Robert Tseng: Today’s… this week’s actually my finals week. I’m wrapping up on Monday. So, yeah, but I’m… I’m… I’m taking a leave of absence. There’s no way I can… I can do both anymore. But yeah, as a result, I haven’t really played pickleball since last August, and I’m looking forward to…
168 00:26:48.700 ⇒ 00:26:52.019 Robert Tseng: Being able to play pickleball again.
169 00:26:52.020 ⇒ 00:26:55.949 Michael Lin: Wait, so what are you trying to do with law school, then? What are your thoughts on that?
170 00:26:56.320 ⇒ 00:27:06.309 Robert Tseng: I think that was more of, kind of, personal enrichment. I always thought I wanted to go back to school for something, and
171 00:27:06.550 ⇒ 00:27:10.509 Robert Tseng: I didn’t really know if I was… how long I was gonna stay.
172 00:27:10.690 ⇒ 00:27:28.959 Robert Tseng: in… in this business, and so I was kind of just thinking about the next chapter, and I… I think I want to be doing… I think I want to stay in services, like, I don’t think I’d go and work for a product company later in my career. And I think law was always something on my mind, like, specifically public interest law.
173 00:27:28.960 ⇒ 00:27:35.960 Robert Tseng: immigration, housing, these are issues that I care a lot about personally, so, I went to law school to try to
174 00:27:35.960 ⇒ 00:27:41.970 Robert Tseng: find a way to do that. But ironically, like, Yeah, I think, you know.
175 00:27:42.410 ⇒ 00:27:45.319 Robert Tseng: I actually work with legal clients now, and, like.
176 00:27:45.500 ⇒ 00:27:59.029 Robert Tseng: I just… I saw that, like, I don’t really need to go through this type of training in order to, like, have a… to open a door in this space. I think entrepreneurship has definitely empowered me to be, like, I think I can always try to find a way in to…
177 00:27:59.030 ⇒ 00:28:06.419 Robert Tseng: yeah, if I find another way in, and, like, I don’t have to necessarily go through that track. So, I’m, like, totally not really…
178 00:28:06.640 ⇒ 00:28:21.419 Robert Tseng: that into finishing my degree and becoming a practicing attorney. I think I… I see that, like, I have a valuable skill set right now, that is pretty, like, industry agnostic, especially, at least during right now, when everyone is still figuring out how to
179 00:28:21.520 ⇒ 00:28:28.459 Robert Tseng: how to use AI, so, yeah, I think I’m… I’m at peace with, kind of, stepping away from it.
180 00:28:28.460 ⇒ 00:28:30.890 Michael Lin: Okay. Yeah. Okay. Cool. Cool.
181 00:28:30.890 ⇒ 00:28:34.790 Robert Tseng: Yeah. Well, but it has been the most,
182 00:28:34.930 ⇒ 00:28:42.280 Robert Tseng: fun, I think, academic experience. I don’t… I think probably I felt that my undergrad education was…
183 00:28:42.430 ⇒ 00:28:48.930 Robert Tseng: not very fulfilling, so it was always kind of on my mind that I wanted to go back to school at some point.
184 00:28:49.230 ⇒ 00:28:52.039 Michael Lin: Where’d you go to undergrad?
185 00:28:52.390 ⇒ 00:28:53.640 Robert Tseng: I went to USC.
186 00:28:53.910 ⇒ 00:28:55.990 Michael Lin: Oh, you didn’t think it was unfulfilling?
187 00:28:56.410 ⇒ 00:28:59.199 Robert Tseng: Not as a business major. You don’t learn anything.
188 00:28:59.200 ⇒ 00:29:01.030 Michael Lin: Really? You don’t think so? Okay.
189 00:29:01.030 ⇒ 00:29:05.009 Robert Tseng: No, yeah. I mean, you learn basic… I mean…
190 00:29:05.920 ⇒ 00:29:17.299 Robert Tseng: nothing that you couldn’t have learned from being an entrepreneur. So, just like how I don’t really feel like people should go get MBAs, like, I… I mean, if you’re gonna stay on the corporate track, and it makes sense because you get a salary bump.
191 00:29:17.300 ⇒ 00:29:26.810 Robert Tseng: Sure, that makes sense, but will you actually learn anything in an MBA that, like, teaches you how to be an entrepreneur or a business owner? Like, I don’t think so. You still have to just go and do it, so…
192 00:29:26.940 ⇒ 00:29:27.690 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
193 00:29:28.340 ⇒ 00:29:45.130 Michael Lin: My cousin did an MBA at UCLA, and then I think he did that a couple years ago, and then a little bit later down the line, I just feel like he kind of regretted it. He wanted to learn some stuff about marketing, didn’t feel like he actually learned about it. They talked a lot about corporate. It was based on philosophies from a long time ago, too.
194 00:29:45.130 ⇒ 00:29:45.650 Robert Tseng: Exactly.
195 00:29:45.650 ⇒ 00:29:47.459 Michael Lin: Modern entrepreneurship’s very different.
196 00:29:47.590 ⇒ 00:30:02.980 Michael Lin: And then, they talked about things that he didn’t… he thought were a little bit pseudoscience, too. Like, they would talk about culture, and, you know, stuff like this. It… he didn’t… yeah, I felt he didn’t quite get what he thought he would get, but, you know…
197 00:30:04.440 ⇒ 00:30:10.419 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I think that’s, like, a very common sentiment for people that go to law… or that go to… go to business school.
198 00:30:10.430 ⇒ 00:30:30.399 Robert Tseng: I mean, law school, frankly, as well. A lot of people just end law school because they don’t know what they’re doing. So, I actually was… yeah, well, I mean, there were definitely some really incredible peers that I have in my class, but, yeah, I think many are just kind of… just… just doing it just because I don’t know what else to do as well. So, I think you can just find people like that in any… any discipline.
199 00:30:30.400 ⇒ 00:30:31.210 Michael Lin: Okay.
200 00:30:31.210 ⇒ 00:30:31.790 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
201 00:30:32.250 ⇒ 00:30:33.440 Robert Tseng: Cool.
202 00:30:33.440 ⇒ 00:30:46.100 Michael Lin: Well, Robert, let’s stay in touch. I think, you know, a lot of changes going on. Let’s stay in touch, let me know how things are going. If there’s anything I can help with, too, I’ll let you know, and I’ll keep you in mind for… on if anything happens between us as well.
203 00:30:46.100 ⇒ 00:30:47.540 Robert Tseng: Sure. Yeah.
204 00:30:47.640 ⇒ 00:30:48.740 Robert Tseng: Sounds good.
205 00:30:49.180 ⇒ 00:30:55.660 Michael Lin: Cool, okay, Robert, hope you, you know, hope everything goes well. I hope you play pickleball soon, too, so…
206 00:30:55.660 ⇒ 00:30:58.060 Robert Tseng: I will, I’m coming back to the game next week. How are you, Will?
207 00:30:58.060 ⇒ 00:30:59.480 Michael Lin: Okay, perfect, okay.
208 00:30:59.740 ⇒ 00:31:00.220 Robert Tseng: Cool.
209 00:31:00.220 ⇒ 00:31:01.570 Michael Lin: Okay, alright, take care.
210 00:31:01.570 ⇒ 00:31:02.519 Robert Tseng: Catch you next time. See ya.