Meeting Title: Brainforge AI Project Planning Sync Date: 2025-12-01 Meeting participants: Uttam Kumaran, Surfield Thomas, Jr.
WEBVTT
1 00:02:02.140 ⇒ 00:02:03.380 Uttam Kumaran: Hello, dude.
2 00:02:09.139 ⇒ 00:02:10.969 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: I wanna be like Utam when I grow up.
3 00:02:11.650 ⇒ 00:02:12.719 Uttam Kumaran: What does that mean?
4 00:02:17.350 ⇒ 00:02:19.319 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: If it’s a sales call, maybe…
5 00:02:19.320 ⇒ 00:02:23.790 Uttam Kumaran: I’m… I’m who, I’m who I wanted to be two years ago.
6 00:02:23.790 ⇒ 00:02:27.219 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: I’m trying to be Duck McScroge.
7 00:02:27.330 ⇒ 00:02:29.320 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: Forget it.
8 00:02:29.460 ⇒ 00:02:31.359 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: What’s up, baby? Talk to me.
9 00:02:31.360 ⇒ 00:02:32.279 Uttam Kumaran: How are you, bro?
10 00:02:32.600 ⇒ 00:02:36.010 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: We’re doing good! We’re gonna knock this fucking…
11 00:02:36.120 ⇒ 00:02:37.230 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: Bring no shit out of the park.
12 00:02:37.230 ⇒ 00:02:42.839 Uttam Kumaran: Yo, come to Austin sometime, or let me know. I want… now that we signed this thing, I gotta get… we gotta do dinner, we gotta do sake again.
13 00:02:42.840 ⇒ 00:02:51.840 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: 100%, 100%, I will make it happen. Now that it happened, I get to tell the wife and all that stuff, and she’s like.
14 00:02:51.840 ⇒ 00:02:52.480 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
15 00:02:52.480 ⇒ 00:02:55.309 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: And I was like, yeah, fuck yes, that’s gonna be awesome.
16 00:02:55.720 ⇒ 00:03:05.499 Uttam Kumaran: I told Robert that, too. I said, you know, I talk to Swerve about every 30, 60 days about, hey, I got you, coming soon, soon, soon, soon.
17 00:03:05.500 ⇒ 00:03:05.840 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: Yup.
18 00:03:05.840 ⇒ 00:03:08.050 Uttam Kumaran: So I’m really glad, finally.
19 00:03:08.050 ⇒ 00:03:08.700 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: How’s dope.
20 00:03:09.000 ⇒ 00:03:18.249 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: Let’s fucking do it. Yeah, if anything, if there’s anything you’re doing around South by Southwest time, I could probably make something happen there. I’ve always wanted.
21 00:03:18.250 ⇒ 00:03:19.220 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, yeah!
22 00:03:19.220 ⇒ 00:03:32.009 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: And then, I’m trying to get more into doing some speaking gigs, because I did one for New York Tech Week, that went really, really well, so I want to do a lot of that sort of stuff, and I know you’re into the marketing side.
23 00:03:32.010 ⇒ 00:03:36.610 Uttam Kumaran: Why don’t you send me… do you have the thing you did for New York Tech Week?
24 00:03:36.610 ⇒ 00:03:39.900 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: I wanna… I wanna see if I can get access to it.
25 00:03:40.030 ⇒ 00:03:42.030 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: Cuz it was through Google.
26 00:03:42.210 ⇒ 00:03:46.539 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: So I don’t know if they did it closed door, but there might be a video…
27 00:03:46.540 ⇒ 00:03:47.920 Uttam Kumaran: What was the topic.
28 00:03:47.920 ⇒ 00:03:55.779 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: It was about, building AI, but, like, kind of like the right way.
29 00:03:55.900 ⇒ 00:04:04.389 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: Which was not, like, all the buzzword-y shit, it was just, like, how do you actually, like, factor it in and think about it and build it into your, like.
30 00:04:04.500 ⇒ 00:04:08.359 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: organization, that sort of stuff, and how do you build complex AI?
31 00:04:08.360 ⇒ 00:04:09.300 Uttam Kumaran: I thought, like…
32 00:04:09.300 ⇒ 00:04:27.480 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: I was on a panel, there’s a bunch of PhDs on the panel. So, like, the PhDs took the academic route, I took the, like, well, I actually build this shit, so here’s the real, like, real, real about it. so it went over really, really well, and it was at a nice spot. It was at Tiger Wood and fucking… what’s his name?
33 00:04:27.600 ⇒ 00:04:34.829 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: Tiger Woods and, Justin Timberlake, they have, like, a solo house in Manhattan.
34 00:04:35.800 ⇒ 00:04:42.689 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: So it’s really, really cool. Yeah, I’m actually gonna ping him, ping my rep for Google to see if he could give me the…
35 00:04:42.690 ⇒ 00:04:46.000 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, ask them, dude, we should do. I mean, if you’re in town here, we should do an event.
36 00:04:46.000 ⇒ 00:04:47.250 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: Yeah, 100%. I agree.
37 00:04:47.250 ⇒ 00:04:48.920 Uttam Kumaran: Wish a talk or do something, yeah.
38 00:04:48.920 ⇒ 00:04:51.430 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: I love it, love it, love it, love it, love it. Alright, cool, sweet, we’ll make it happen.
39 00:04:51.430 ⇒ 00:04:55.089 Uttam Kumaran: How did this… how did… how did the Remo chat go with… with Robert?
40 00:04:55.320 ⇒ 00:05:13.589 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: Really, really well. Me, again, Robert… Robert, I like Robert. Like, he’s, like, very, like, he feels, like, very much like a PM, like a want-to-move-the-chains person, and I like that. And then… the fucking guys at Eden, they’re just, like, they’re all.
41 00:05:13.590 ⇒ 00:05:14.480 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, they’re crazy.
42 00:05:14.480 ⇒ 00:05:21.100 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: Which is whatever, I work with the type all the time.
43 00:05:21.210 ⇒ 00:05:25.440 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: So no sweat off my back, really. But yeah, like…
44 00:05:25.670 ⇒ 00:05:43.930 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: the… the thing with Cameron and them, that’s a fucking dumpster fire. Like, we’re gonna get that shit next year, like, there’s… because again, he just… they got the wrong guy to do the task of pushing the change, and that’s really the issue, because he’s not a bad engineer, he’s just an engineer. He doesn’t understand, like, business value and all the rest of that shit.
45 00:05:45.070 ⇒ 00:05:45.400 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
46 00:05:45.400 ⇒ 00:05:49.889 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: Yeah, we’ll knock this shit out of the park. I’ll get that shit buttoned up in a bow, and it’ll be fun.
47 00:05:50.320 ⇒ 00:06:03.700 Uttam Kumaran: So, yeah, I think… I think basically, if you want to join, like, we do, all the engineers, like, all… we do… we talk about data engine, analytics engine, and AI in the mornings. You want to join that, then we’ll just carve out time to talk Remo.
48 00:06:03.900 ⇒ 00:06:09.870 Uttam Kumaran: Usually we don’t… usually that doesn’t end up lasting the whole time anyways, but, like.
49 00:06:09.870 ⇒ 00:06:10.280 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: Okay.
50 00:06:10.280 ⇒ 00:06:12.910 Uttam Kumaran: If we need to extend, we can extend.
51 00:06:13.270 ⇒ 00:06:13.839 Uttam Kumaran: kind of a clock.
52 00:06:13.840 ⇒ 00:06:16.620 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: Paul… hold on, that’s the… let me just make sure.
53 00:06:16.880 ⇒ 00:06:20.829 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: That is the call at 9.13.
54 00:06:20.830 ⇒ 00:06:22.659 Uttam Kumaran: AE, AI, stand-up, yeah.
55 00:06:22.660 ⇒ 00:06:27.920 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: Alright, cool, sweet. Cool. I will definitely be in the one tomorrow on Tuesday.
56 00:06:27.920 ⇒ 00:06:35.269 Uttam Kumaran: Well, tomorrow we have the… tomorrow we have the Lilo kickoff, so we can join… maybe we’ll join… we can join a little bit earlier.
57 00:06:35.270 ⇒ 00:06:41.439 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: Chat, and then join that one. Exactly, that’s exactly what I was thinking. So, yeah, we’re on… we’re on the same page.
58 00:06:45.790 ⇒ 00:06:47.379 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: I mean, yeah.
59 00:06:47.430 ⇒ 00:06:52.100 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so… This one is, like, they have this,
60 00:06:53.230 ⇒ 00:07:03.829 Uttam Kumaran: they have this Stitch platform that they got built by this other firm. It doesn’t work perfectly, and the other firm is, like, gatekeeping auth and, like, all this stuff, and they kind of are, like.
61 00:07:04.040 ⇒ 00:07:07.590 Uttam Kumaran: They basically are gonna fire them and sort of want us to develop.
62 00:07:07.760 ⇒ 00:07:10.349 Uttam Kumaran: One, it’s sort of, I bought us a… yeah.
63 00:07:10.600 ⇒ 00:07:16.420 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: The stitch thing itself, right, is… A internal tool, though, right?
64 00:07:16.890 ⇒ 00:07:17.590 Uttam Kumaran: Correct, yeah.
65 00:07:17.590 ⇒ 00:07:19.000 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: Alright, cool, sweet, alright, keep going.
66 00:07:19.660 ⇒ 00:07:22.490 Uttam Kumaran: So they basically want us to,
67 00:07:23.820 ⇒ 00:07:28.589 Uttam Kumaran: they basically want us… the one I bought is 4 weeks to say, like, we’re gonna figure out, like.
68 00:07:28.970 ⇒ 00:07:46.580 Uttam Kumaran: the… what’s the deal? Like, basically, what exists right now, what exists in terms of auth, hosting? They have, like, this… they have, like, 10 different repos for different services, so we’ll probably, like, try to consolidate, and sort of basically… by the end of this week, I would like just an understanding of, like, phase one, which is
69 00:07:46.770 ⇒ 00:07:49.690 Uttam Kumaran: Create a monorepo architecture.
70 00:07:49.870 ⇒ 00:07:59.940 Uttam Kumaran: hosted on their own infra, like, ideally AWS, or if you want to propose railway, that’s fine, whatever it is. And then I kind of want to basically understand, okay.
71 00:08:00.320 ⇒ 00:08:14.050 Uttam Kumaran: do we think we can do that in 4 weeks? If we can do it faster, I probably won’t tell them that. Probably will just do it faster. Then, the next piece is they’re… so they’re basically, like, an e-commerce agency managing the ad budgets for several different
72 00:08:14.210 ⇒ 00:08:20.380 Uttam Kumaran: Brands, and they want to build an internal ad for… like, ad spend forecasting tool.
73 00:08:20.530 ⇒ 00:08:30.330 Uttam Kumaran: They have some Python code that’s, like, the backend of the forecasting. It takes some front-end inputs, and then outputs a data frame, and the data frame gets displayed.
74 00:08:30.540 ⇒ 00:08:40.890 Uttam Kumaran: They probably want some… it’s probably a little bit more complicated, but, like, for the most part, it is probably gonna remain some back-end Python that lives in some notebook.
75 00:08:41.049 ⇒ 00:08:56.559 Uttam Kumaran: or it’s basically a Python script, mainly because you’re doing data frame manipulation in Pandas, takes some input from the front end, displays it in, like, a columnar format on the… on the front end. I actually have,
76 00:08:57.940 ⇒ 00:09:01.639 Uttam Kumaran: I feel like I have screenshots of it that I can show you.
77 00:09:02.650 ⇒ 00:09:05.369 Uttam Kumaran: But I will… yeah.
78 00:09:06.310 ⇒ 00:09:13.760 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: I guess, while you show that, Shamir, I had a couple of questions. Sure. The document that you had with the requirements, that was…
79 00:09:13.990 ⇒ 00:09:17.039 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: Steven made them, or, like, they made them? Because, like, there.
80 00:09:17.040 ⇒ 00:09:20.119 Uttam Kumaran: No, no, we, no, we, we, we wrote, we wrote them.
81 00:09:20.510 ⇒ 00:09:26.829 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: Alright, cool, yeah, because, like, some of the requirements, and I’ll tell you the ones that are, like, the ones that are, like, hmm…
82 00:09:26.980 ⇒ 00:09:35.150 Uttam Kumaran: No, no, they’re all kind of, like, up in the air. They’re not… it’s not perfect. Meaning, I told them the first 4 weeks is for us to…
83 00:09:35.270 ⇒ 00:09:37.210 Uttam Kumaran: Basically, figure out what’s possible here.
84 00:09:37.210 ⇒ 00:09:37.690 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: Alright, cool.
85 00:09:37.690 ⇒ 00:09:55.470 Uttam Kumaran: I said, at this point, there’s still so much up in the air, so, like, we’re gonna work together on, like, updating a Gantt chart together, creating an architecture diagram, and then agreeing on, like, what can or can’t be delivered. So, I’ve sort of explained. I said, like, look, otherwise, we’re gonna have to do some paid discovery here.
86 00:09:55.560 ⇒ 00:10:03.119 Uttam Kumaran: But, like, I don’t know, it’s gonna take time. Like, this is… basically, what we’re doing now for clients is I’m going in and saying, this is, like, a sample
87 00:10:03.250 ⇒ 00:10:04.559 Uttam Kumaran: Scope of work?
88 00:10:04.690 ⇒ 00:10:18.059 Uttam Kumaran: But, like, ideally, as we get into enterprise, dude, everything is, like, the first month is just, like, figuring it out and agreeing together on, like, what the scope is. I’m confident in that, like, even if… like, a lot of that they didn’t explicitly say.
89 00:10:18.430 ⇒ 00:10:27.950 Uttam Kumaran: we wrote it, but I was like, here are… here are types of features or characteristics of the application that you… you can probably expect, but we’ll work with you on this.
90 00:10:28.200 ⇒ 00:10:38.970 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: Cool, no, that makes sense. Yeah, the discovery process for my current joint that we’re doing for, Asset Link, the huge one for principal, is 3 months.
91 00:10:39.290 ⇒ 00:10:43.039 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: Okay. So, again, like, I’m used to that process.
92 00:10:43.040 ⇒ 00:10:46.170 Uttam Kumaran: So here’s, like, here’s, like, what the application kind of looks like.
93 00:10:46.440 ⇒ 00:10:55.869 Uttam Kumaran: like… It’s sort of like… these input fields, The output is, like, A bunch of charts.
94 00:10:57.210 ⇒ 00:10:59.909 Uttam Kumaran: Again, these are very ugly anyways, so it’s like…
95 00:11:00.980 ⇒ 00:11:07.549 Uttam Kumaran: they’re just outputs that get generated, probably as a data frame with rows, and then they get piped to the right place. Yeah, that’s fine.
96 00:11:08.030 ⇒ 00:11:12.510 Uttam Kumaran: So… And this is what the app looks like right now. So Stitch…
97 00:11:12.600 ⇒ 00:11:14.770 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: dot agi.supply.
98 00:11:14.770 ⇒ 00:11:17.250 Uttam Kumaran: This is one of their clients, it was Newton Golf.
99 00:11:17.460 ⇒ 00:11:17.980 Uttam Kumaran: And…
100 00:11:18.710 ⇒ 00:11:21.709 Uttam Kumaran: There’s an admin panel where they put in keys, and it…
101 00:11:22.510 ⇒ 00:11:30.439 Uttam Kumaran: it’s just kind of, like, not great right now, and there’s a bunch of… and so basically, this forecasting thing, they actually built in ChatGPT
102 00:11:30.950 ⇒ 00:11:34.419 Uttam Kumaran: themselves, and they, like, we want to move this to our platform. So…
103 00:11:34.750 ⇒ 00:11:46.559 Uttam Kumaran: I think they may already have some of this code. This is what we’ll kind of walk through tomorrow. I think they had ChatGPT basically build this in React for them. So hopefully a lot of the job, or some of it’s, like, sort of already…
104 00:11:46.750 ⇒ 00:11:47.949 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: So, this was the…
105 00:11:48.140 ⇒ 00:12:00.109 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: this was the part here that probably scared me the most, because I saw, like, they want to have empowered workflows to where they can just, like, claud code some shit, and I’m just like…
106 00:12:00.400 ⇒ 00:12:13.609 Uttam Kumaran: No, so I… so basically, what I was trying to get to tell them, and this is, like, where I’m, like, I want them to be able to, actually eventually start to help
107 00:12:13.740 ⇒ 00:12:14.590 Uttam Kumaran: like…
108 00:12:14.700 ⇒ 00:12:29.810 Uttam Kumaran: ship some features themselves, or their team, but it’s not, like, a requirement. Mainly, I said, we’re gonna build the repo in a way that… these guys are good at, like, using AI to generate, wireframes, and generate
109 00:12:29.860 ⇒ 00:12:43.199 Uttam Kumaran: like, potential prototypes, of which they should hand off to our team to go polish up. But what I don’t want to do is, like, I don’t want to kill that, because they’re actually talented enough to, like, understand that they can prototype really fast.
110 00:12:43.200 ⇒ 00:12:54.880 Uttam Kumaran: And that helps us, like, not take, like, a shitty idea or have to go through the PRD process, right? So what I’m trying to promote with some of our clients is that I actually want them involved in the development process at this point.
111 00:12:54.960 ⇒ 00:13:04.550 Uttam Kumaran: Like, generate a proof of concept, or generate, like, the UI that you like, and then hand it to us to go build. I’m not expecting them to, like, ship end-to-end features.
112 00:13:04.550 ⇒ 00:13:10.390 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: Got you, okay, cool, cool, cool, cool, yeah, because I was like… because, like, again, it’s like that, coupled with AWS, I’m like…
113 00:13:10.480 ⇒ 00:13:22.640 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: there’s a lot that could go wrong that a non-engineer’s not gonna know what to do, and you can very quickly burn down your own house. So I was like, I don’t know if that’s where you want to lead, but how you explain it just now makes more sense.
114 00:13:22.710 ⇒ 00:13:30.570 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: Yeah. Yeah, I agree, because I actually would agree, because, like, we’re having great success right now with our product manager, because he’s just, like.
115 00:13:30.930 ⇒ 00:13:40.009 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: Again, he’s new to the game, but he came from a materials design world, and then he just started doing designs in Cloud Code, and he’s technical, so we ended up firing our designer.
116 00:13:40.460 ⇒ 00:13:41.320 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know that.
117 00:13:41.320 ⇒ 00:13:43.960 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: the designs, but he comes up with, like, the rough.
118 00:13:44.370 ⇒ 00:13:47.949 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: And then hand them to an engineer, and then we, like, make them pretty.
119 00:13:48.110 ⇒ 00:13:57.349 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: So I actually… I like that flow, because… It’s like… They know the most about…
120 00:13:59.970 ⇒ 00:14:03.169 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: product that they want to, you know.
121 00:14:05.730 ⇒ 00:14:06.639 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: They don’t…
122 00:14:07.710 ⇒ 00:14:13.790 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: I know how to tweak it to make the right thing, but if you give me that prototype, I can then build it into something much quicker.
123 00:14:15.060 ⇒ 00:14:16.170 Uttam Kumaran: Yep, exactly.
124 00:14:16.170 ⇒ 00:14:16.680 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: Okay.
125 00:14:17.180 ⇒ 00:14:17.840 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: Cool.
126 00:14:18.600 ⇒ 00:14:25.100 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: Sweet, I like… So, I mean, the biggest… Yeah, and then…
127 00:14:25.430 ⇒ 00:14:34.579 Uttam Kumaran: I’m gonna also… I’m just gonna start… I’m gonna go poke through all the repos, and I’m gonna kinda consolidate it all into, like, one for us.
128 00:14:34.790 ⇒ 00:14:46.679 Uttam Kumaran: And just do a little bit of background work. Yeah, ideally, if we can chat a little bit earlier than the meeting tomorrow, like, we can… we can game plan it a little bit. Basically.
129 00:14:47.200 ⇒ 00:14:48.910 Uttam Kumaran: These guys are just, like…
130 00:14:49.250 ⇒ 00:14:56.409 Uttam Kumaran: e-com marketers, so they just want to see that we’re, like, getting access to stuff and building. I’ll send them an update today.
131 00:14:56.850 ⇒ 00:15:06.640 Uttam Kumaran: the fact that we talked and things like that, and sort of talk about game plan, and we’ll kind of take it from there. Like, I guess my question for you is, like, sort of, like, what, like.
132 00:15:06.860 ⇒ 00:15:07.710 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: Gotcha.
133 00:15:07.710 ⇒ 00:15:17.359 Uttam Kumaran: I guess, what’s your… what’s your overall capacity now? Like, are you just gonna be working on these two? Are you still doing asset link stuff? Like, how comfortable do you feel taking both of these on?
134 00:15:19.960 ⇒ 00:15:21.139 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: I feel very.
135 00:15:21.140 ⇒ 00:15:23.440 Uttam Kumaran: And maybe a loaded… maybe a loaded question.
136 00:15:23.440 ⇒ 00:15:24.150 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: right…
137 00:15:24.580 ⇒ 00:15:43.479 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: No, it’s not a loaded question. I’m comfortable taking these two on. I definitely don’t have any capacity for more. I have very much tapered down on the asset link side, because I’m kind of looking at it as like this. I really want to do something new come January.
138 00:15:43.490 ⇒ 00:15:46.829 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: So, I’m, like… Yeah, why don’t you work with us, bro?
139 00:15:46.860 ⇒ 00:15:48.740 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: Yeah, well, that’s the thing, right? Like, I…
140 00:15:48.740 ⇒ 00:15:53.420 Uttam Kumaran: Well, my main thing was, like, I told Robert that I was, like.
141 00:15:53.860 ⇒ 00:15:58.550 Uttam Kumaran: Yo, we should just have… we should continue to lean on surf, maybe for this, like.
142 00:15:59.000 ⇒ 00:16:08.940 Uttam Kumaran: for this AI application development service that we’re kind of doing now, or, like, something around, like, developing applications with some AI spin, but I was, like.
143 00:16:09.440 ⇒ 00:16:12.369 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, for me, the biggest risk here is I’m like.
144 00:16:12.870 ⇒ 00:16:20.020 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t want… if you’re… if you’re taking both of these on, and juggling other clients, I don’t want to get dropped.
145 00:16:20.190 ⇒ 00:16:26.469 Uttam Kumaran: And so, I’m like… I’m like… and I mean, I know you, but that’s… that’s my biggest… that’s the biggest…
146 00:16:26.930 ⇒ 00:16:33.849 Uttam Kumaran: thing on my mind is, like, I want to make sure that… so, I just want to make sure that we’re still, like, we’re…
147 00:16:34.040 ⇒ 00:16:45.840 Uttam Kumaran: if we’re not at the top of your list, how can I make that happen? And I’m like, we want to go sell more of these. And so I’m like, can we trust Surf to own these, and, like, start to build something around you?
148 00:16:46.030 ⇒ 00:17:00.910 Uttam Kumaran: you know, and this is something we could talk about as we get into this, but that was basically me and Roberts, like, I just don’t want to get burned if you’re like, okay, you go get, like, two more clients somewhere else, and then now you’re just juggling all of us. And so we’ve had that happen before, you know?
149 00:17:00.910 ⇒ 00:17:05.120 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: Well, I’ll give you the short and skinny of it, right? Like,
150 00:17:05.359 ⇒ 00:17:08.430 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: the way I designed it is that this, right? Like…
151 00:17:08.670 ⇒ 00:17:13.850 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: I’ve started tapering down on the asset link side already anyway.
152 00:17:14.180 ⇒ 00:17:20.859 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: And with these two clients, I would be making more money here.
153 00:17:20.910 ⇒ 00:17:38.410 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: Now, there’s no long-term on this side, again, from current standpoint, but, like, that’s what I’m looking up to, because, like, I want to use this as a launchpad to, like, actually blunt, like, start going into just my own shit, and, like…
154 00:17:38.460 ⇒ 00:17:47.890 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: ideally, there’s a conversation to be had where it’s just like, do I just join on and just do it with the Brainforge team? Which I’m open to.
155 00:17:47.940 ⇒ 00:18:05.190 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: And, like, my main thing is, like, as long as I can get to at least base 20 grand a month, right, like, I don’t give a fuck. Right? Because, like, that keeps my family happy, and then the kickers on top of that are the kickers on top of that. And it’s like, I was telling Robert, too, it’s like, I’ve sold much bigger deals than this.
156 00:18:05.340 ⇒ 00:18:21.659 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: Like, the principal deal that we had is $3.5 million over 5 years, and they couldn’t do it without me, because none of… I’m the only tech… I was the only technical person. So it’s like, I can sell tech to technical peoples as well. So, like, I just want to be in a space where I can do that.
157 00:18:21.710 ⇒ 00:18:23.120 Uttam Kumaran: And it’s like…
158 00:18:23.160 ⇒ 00:18:26.910 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: I know you, and I know how you do shit, so I’m like, I would rather do it with you.
159 00:18:27.110 ⇒ 00:18:33.430 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: Versus, like, with a bunch of non-technical people, because, like, they don’t really get what happens underneath, they’re just like.
160 00:18:33.540 ⇒ 00:18:47.309 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: faster, faster, faster, but they don’t actually help in the process. Yeah. They’re like, I want this as a word, and then it’s just like, go. And it’s like, yeah, but you don’t have the infrastructure, you don’t have this, you don’t have that, and then they’re like, but we need to do it for cheaper, and it’s like this AI doesn’t…
161 00:18:47.530 ⇒ 00:18:48.610 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: Exactly, bingo.
162 00:18:49.040 ⇒ 00:18:54.389 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, that’s helpful. I mean, I think… I think, I think we’re… we’re both aligned. For me, I…
163 00:18:54.390 ⇒ 00:18:54.710 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: Cool.
164 00:18:54.710 ⇒ 00:19:14.509 Uttam Kumaran: I want… I want to get you that amount of money and more, and so we have these two. For me, I… I’m confident that, look, if we can sell another one of these, that it’ll be compelling for you to be like, okay, I think I could just manage these three. For us, I think we’re gonna… now, once we start selling one or two of these and we get good, we… we start to rip.
165 00:19:14.560 ⇒ 00:19:20.659 Uttam Kumaran: So, for me, it’s like, I want to know that if I was to go sell a half million dollar version of this.
166 00:19:21.080 ⇒ 00:19:24.900 Uttam Kumaran: That we have the ability to deliver. And so that’s really the…
167 00:19:24.900 ⇒ 00:19:25.280 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: Crazy.
168 00:19:25.280 ⇒ 00:19:27.910 Uttam Kumaran: confidence I need, and then I would love for you to…
169 00:19:28.230 ⇒ 00:19:34.759 Uttam Kumaran: think about it more about what it would be like. To give you a sense of how we’re thinking about the business, we’re sort of thinking about
170 00:19:34.770 ⇒ 00:19:49.880 Uttam Kumaran: trying to drive towards more service line owners who are at the both… who can both assist in the sales and the delivery. So less about, like, oh, we need to hire salespeople, then we only hire senior architects.
171 00:19:49.880 ⇒ 00:19:58.549 Uttam Kumaran: We actually want people like me, like Robert, like you, who can… someone described to me as someone that can go hunt and, like, bring the food home.
172 00:19:58.720 ⇒ 00:20:06.429 Uttam Kumaran: Right? And so, we’re kind of thinking about it, it’s like, for example, if I was to say, sir, if I have 5 clients.
173 00:20:06.480 ⇒ 00:20:25.850 Uttam Kumaran: I have a million-dollar service line around AI application development, and I want you to run that. You can use the budget in any way. There is a Brainforge amount, and then there is, like, you basically own the P&L around the service, almost like a general manager, and you’re, like, basically run that practice.
174 00:20:26.070 ⇒ 00:20:29.290 Uttam Kumaran: That is, like, a what… kind of, like, how we’re starting to think about it.
175 00:20:29.290 ⇒ 00:20:29.820 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: Easy.
176 00:20:30.140 ⇒ 00:20:35.850 Uttam Kumaran: We’re… we’re not gonna… I like that. There’s not gonna be much growth for people
177 00:20:35.950 ⇒ 00:20:53.249 Uttam Kumaran: beyond, like, sort of senior architect. It… you will have to move into sales, meaning you’ll have to move into, like, assisting with delivery and assisting there, because that’s, like, that’s, like, the real Navy SEALs, you know, that’s, like, Green Beret-type folks that I want to have. Like, we got sort of, like.
178 00:20:53.860 ⇒ 00:21:04.919 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know, I don’t think running a business where you have salespeople, and then you have, like, super senior tech people, and you don’t… we need the people like us who can do both, and those people need to get paid, because they’re good at both, you know?
179 00:21:05.110 ⇒ 00:21:05.570 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: Yeah, agreed.
180 00:21:05.570 ⇒ 00:21:07.469 Uttam Kumaran: And so… Agreed. Think about it.
181 00:21:07.970 ⇒ 00:21:15.210 Uttam Kumaran: work… as we… yeah, as we work together this month and next month, like, I want to put something together for us, so… Awesome.
182 00:21:15.430 ⇒ 00:21:18.410 Uttam Kumaran: You know… I think we can…
183 00:21:18.410 ⇒ 00:21:23.629 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: No, right? It’s like, I assist in the sales, but I get none of the top side.
184 00:21:23.830 ⇒ 00:21:25.239 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: Right? Which is brutal.
185 00:21:25.240 ⇒ 00:21:29.819 Uttam Kumaran: But, like, dude, like, think about it, there’s no other… I don’t think there’s another technical agency
186 00:21:30.040 ⇒ 00:21:40.569 Uttam Kumaran: like, I’m not, dude, I’m not a salesperson, but look at us, you know? Look what we’re doing. So I know that there’s people like us that exist, and I want to attract those, but I want everybody to win on the upside.
187 00:21:41.170 ⇒ 00:21:41.680 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: Okay, cool.
188 00:21:41.680 ⇒ 00:22:01.489 Uttam Kumaran: You know, if you come… if you come and source deals, like, if you were to come and bring deals to Brainforge, there’s a fact kicker. If you were to assist in the sales process, and on the delivery, there’s gonna be all these incentives, basically. And so the only path… you’re… if people that started Brainforge at the analyst level, mid-level, architect, the only path up is to move into that, like.
189 00:22:01.690 ⇒ 00:22:04.040 Uttam Kumaran: almost like GM, practice lead.
190 00:22:04.350 ⇒ 00:22:04.830 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: Cool.
191 00:22:04.830 ⇒ 00:22:06.790 Uttam Kumaran: You know, strategist role.
192 00:22:08.170 ⇒ 00:22:08.650 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: Gotcha.
193 00:22:08.650 ⇒ 00:22:10.060 Uttam Kumaran: You know? So…
194 00:22:10.610 ⇒ 00:22:11.490 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: Easy.
195 00:22:13.180 ⇒ 00:22:15.880 Uttam Kumaran: Sick, dude. I’m glad to be working together, I told Robert, but I was like.
196 00:22:15.880 ⇒ 00:22:16.370 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: Alright, let’s do it.
197 00:22:16.370 ⇒ 00:22:19.259 Uttam Kumaran: Glad to be… to be back in business together, so…
198 00:22:19.260 ⇒ 00:22:21.030 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: Let’s do it. Alright, let’s crush this thing.
199 00:22:21.790 ⇒ 00:22:26.980 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, sick. Alright, I’ll talk to you… I’ll talk to you later today, and then I’ll send some stuff in Slack. If you get a chance, just Slack me back.
200 00:22:27.230 ⇒ 00:22:28.090 Surfield Thomas, Jr.: Cool, will do.
201 00:22:28.450 ⇒ 00:22:29.960 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. Alright, bro.
202 00:22:31.140 ⇒ 00:22:31.780 Uttam Kumaran: Thanks, Ed.