September 24, 2025 • 33 mins
In this episode of The Messy Middle Matters, Indra is joined by Victor Malena, founder of Ops on Tap, to explore the subtle but powerful difference between being smart and being prepared.
Victor shares a career-shaping story from an early mentor who taught him that success often comes less from being the "smartest person in the room" and more from being the one most ready to engage, ask questions, and adapt. Together, Indra and Victor unpack what preparedness looks like in practice—curiosity, clarity, and creating space for others to contribute—while reflecting on how identity, leadership, and even AI play into the dynamics of modern work.
Whether you identify as an operator, a leader, or someone navigating the messy middle of your own career, this conversation offers fresh insight into why preparation isn’t just a safety net—it’s a strategy for thriving.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Indra Klavins (00:05):
Hi. I'm Indra, and I'd like to welcome you to
the messy middle matters, wheremy friends and I explore all the
twists, turns and challengesthat arise in the messy middle
of work. So welcome to the messymiddle matters. If you're a
regular listener, you'll noticesomething different. Today, I've
got a guest, and Amanda's offfor the week, so Victor Melena
(00:26):
is going to be joining us. He'sthe founder of ops on tap, and
we're going to have a really,really good conversation. So why
don't you tell everyone a littlebit about yourself? Yeah.
Victor Malena (00:36):
So Victor Melena, founder of ops on tap, I
actually just started this year.So I started with the goal, in
mind of fractional operations.So how can you get someone
tactical in your business tohelp you either start something,
fix something, clean someone,clean up the mess, yeah, but
without full time commitment,because sometimes these are just
(00:58):
short term projects. Sometimesyou can't afford a full time
person, so just helpingbusinesses scale and scale
correctly. That's been myintention, and there's been some
positive reception to it. But Ithink fractional is, is the
future, and we're going to see alot more of it.
Indra Klavins (01:15):
I think you're right. It's, it's, think that's
another topic for another day.Maybe you, Ashley and I can get
together. So I first met youthrough Ashley and the founders
funders, fractional
Victor Malena (01:26):
community. Shout out. F3 I love her. I adore her.
She's amazing. She's She'sfantastic. Have
Indra Klavins (01:33):
to get her on the pod. I've mentioned her on the
pod multiple times. Have to gether into the pod. So today we're
going to be talking about thedifference between being smart
and being prepared, becausethere is a difference. And I
don't want this there. Yeah,there is a difference. And we
could talk about like, smart is,I think, much more like book
smart, maybe understanding,like, having the right degree,
(01:57):
the right this, the right that,and prepared is a whole nother
thing, and I think that you andI err towards the prepared side
of things. I
Victor Malena (02:07):
think a proper operator always errs towards the
prepared side, because we talkedabout it during the f3 event
that you talked about, and I hadmentioned that that story for my
manager, yes, yes. And it reallyresonated with you. And you're
like, we need to do this. Let'sdo it. But yeah, backtracking
(02:28):
that. So I had a manager when Iwas at a SAS B to B Company, and
his name was Li Wang. Shout out,Li Wang. He is still one of my
very dear friends to this day.But he was younger than me. I
think I was 27 at the time. Hewas 25 he was a director
already. He was leading ourIndia operations. And then he
slid into, I believe his titlewas, VP of Operations. I'll have
(02:51):
to fact check that, but I was inawe of him, because, you know,
the C suite of people alwayswent to him for answers.
Everyone around the companyalways went to him, yeah. And I
commented once when we were at ahappy hour. I was like, Lee,
you're the always the smartestguy in the room. Like, you know,
I just want to let you know itdoesn't go unnoticed. And He
scoffed at me. He was like,think I'm the smartest guy. He's
(03:14):
like, No, I'm not the smartestguy. And he said, I'm the most
prepared person in the room. Andthat always stuck with me, yeah.
And I was like, What do youmean? He's like, anytime there's
a meeting and we're going totalk about something that I
don't know, I always research itahead of time, and I always ask
the questions I need to ask, soI'm always prepared to give
insight, to ask questions, toget deeper knowledge. I'm always
(03:38):
ready to do that, yeah. And italways stuck with me that I was
praising him to be like, You arethe smart guy. He was like, No,
I'm just prepared. I just knowwhat I need to do, and I know
that I need to get it done.
Indra Klavins (03:50):
Yeah, yeah, you're highlighting a few
different things. And I, I likethe fact that it's preparation
can take lots of different typesof forms in that story that you
told Right? Like it's, it's thethe there was the research
portion, and then there's thehaving to the conversation,
prepared to engage, because it'smaybe not a research situation.
(04:11):
Absolutely, which one in yourexperience, like, which one do
you find that you rely on alittle bit more, like one or the
other, or like from a verypractical perspective, or ideal
perspective, like any angle thatyou might want to
Victor Malena (04:22):
in my experience, you are prepared to ask
questions and open so the ladderof what you were talking about.
Because with being a fractionaloperator, being an operator in
general, I think you're you haveto come to the conversation
prepared to learn and preparedto understand the person's
(04:44):
predicament. Because asoperators, you know, we're there
to fix things. We're not there.We're not learning for just for
the sake of learning, we'reunderstanding there's a problem
and we have to fix it. So Ithink for an operator to be
prepared, they have to beprepared to be. Quiet, to
listen, to ask engagingquestions, to draw on past
(05:08):
experiences where they've seenfail points and ask the person
you know, is this the failurethat you're experiencing, or is
it something similar to this,but just giving space to learn
and understand the other personand where they're coming from.
Indra Klavins (05:23):
Yeah, it's a framework that often comes up on
the podcast or like a framing, Iguess not a framework of framing
is just like always having asense of curiosity.
Victor Malena (05:34):
Yes, absolutely, yeah. And I think that when
you're the smartest person inthe room, going back to that is
you don't allow curiosity tobreathe. You're not allowing
curiosity to take precedent inthese conversations, in these
meetings, because you are tryingto spout off what you've known
(05:58):
that you've seen this beforethat. And I do this sometimes
too, because I'm trying to, ifI'm trying to win over a client,
I'm trying to exude confidenceby saying, like, Hey, I've done
this before, blah, blah, blah,and you're killing the
curiosity, and you're notallowing the other person to
kind of lead the conversationwhere you needed to go. Yeah.
Indra Klavins (06:16):
And so, you know leaders, whether they're whether
their smarts are from academiaor their smarts are from, you
know, leading organizations, andthey've moved their way up that
that ladder to a senior role.They often are comfortable in
the spotlight. They don't notall of those leaders know how to
(06:37):
create that space for air tobreathe and new ideas to come
in. Do you have any you know,what's your What are your tips
and tricks or approaches forcreating that space when there
is that leader that's justdominating that room, and which
sometimes is really useful,like, if you're in a like, you
understand, like, there theymight be on an earnings call,
(06:59):
right? That's not a space toinvite curiosity. You want to be
really clear and have a certainpresence. But if you're in a
town hall, maybe where you're,you know, navigating change that
may not be invest How do youhelp to create that space with
that leader?
Victor Malena (07:13):
I think you did a really great kind of
contextualizing it, becausecontext does matter. So if
you're a leader on an earningscall or during a fire drill,
that calm, that that kind ofstern or calm voice that's
directing things, absolutelyNow's not the time for
curiosity. Now's Now's not thetime to venture down these
(07:37):
rabbit holes that are going tolead you nowhere. You need
results and solutions so but ifyou're a leader and you want to
allow, you know, curiosity andpreparedness to breathe in the
room, bring in the juniorperson. Oh, okay, allow
perspective to enter the room. Ithink oftentimes, and we've been
(07:59):
in them where, where we'recoming up and they're like, Oh,
you don't need to be on thiscall. Or, you know, you need to
focus on something else. No,allow the person to a be in the
room and grow, yeah, askquestions that you wouldn't even
think to ask, because it'sallowing diversity of thought in
the room. So I think it'sincredibly important that you
(08:20):
allow people to come in withyou, and if, let's say, there's
not, you're not, you can't dothat. Yeah, another thing you
can do is just ask the simplequestions. You're talking about
ACV, you're talking aboutcustomer acquisition costs and
stuff like that, and all theseacronyms are flying across the
room, ask the simple question,how's that? How's that being
(08:40):
calculated? How are you doingthat? Where are you getting the
data from?
Indra Klavins (08:45):
Yeah, oh, that's a really good one. Yeah,
Victor Malena (08:49):
yeah, it's but the thing is, is that I think
we're scared to be the dumb onein the room. We're scared to
look stupid in front of ourpeers, that oftentimes you you
let the details get away, like,Where, where is if, if you're
bringing it from you know yourERP system, and it's just like,
(09:12):
well, I know for a fact thatwe're having problems with our
ERP integration. It's notbringing in and over the data.
So that number is wrong, and youhave to piece together these,
these simple questions, toarrive at a better understanding
of where you are in yourbusiness, where you're at in
this project, where you're atanywhere. And I think that's
(09:33):
being the prepared one in theroom, being being prepared to
ask those, those sillyquestions. I don't want to call
them dumb questions, becausethere are no dumb questions,
Indra Klavins (09:42):
but sometimes there are. But honestly, I don't
know. I
Victor Malena (09:46):
don't think so. I think that there are times where
I'll ask this, I'll ask the dumbquestion, like, here's if we're
talking ACV, which is avernacular that we know in
business and tech companies.Tell everyone i. CV is so that's
the thing. Am I talking aboutannualized contract value or
average contract value? Twodifferent numbers, gives you two
(10:10):
different calculations. So yougot to ask the dumb question.
What do you mean by ACV?
Indra Klavins (10:17):
Yeah, to me, that's not a dumb question. I
was thinking about, like, reallysilly, ridiculous questions,
but, yeah, no, I think that. Andit's I love. I also find that
when you're in that room andyou're trying to create that
space and ask that question,like, just like, what inevitably
happens is somebody over slackor something else is like, Thank
God you asked that, because Iwas wondering what they're
(10:39):
saying. That's one benefit ofit, and the other benefit of it
is that it models the behaviorof asking, asking a fundamental,
a foundational question, right?That will help everyone just
align Yeah, on their sharedunderstanding, which was one of
my favorite phrases,
Victor Malena (10:58):
but yeah, but to pull on your on your comment,
there about like, when peoplelike, Thank God you asked that
question. I think that iscreating a culture, and that's
creating leaders by asking thosequestions, by being prepared to
ask those questions. Yeah,
Indra Klavins (11:15):
and in my experience, and I've got stories
for days on this one, but in myexperience, I think that the
people who are more likely toask questions are women and
minorities. Yes, and that comesfrom, some of that comes from
the various conditioning thatdifferent folks have had, and
some of that comes from, like, Iwas in a I was in a workshop
(11:36):
where, like, one of thetakeaways for the people who are
listening to this. It was in aworkshop as a panel discussion
was, you know, women will askthe dumb question because you
they already assume that youthink that they're dumb, like,
you know what? I mean, they'vealready they don't have any
social capital to lose by askinga question, right? Which is
really interesting. So to me,it's, it's, I think that the
(12:00):
more that those of us who arecomfortable taking the risk, or
for whom the risk is lower,whether because I think that I'm
a person with like I have, Ihave both low and high risk at
the same time. I just walk areally fine line. And I can do
it. I can model the behaviorfrom my white self, you know,
like doing that, I hold acertain presence with that, but
(12:22):
I also have, like, a societaldifference with my female side
of things. So, like, it's just,it's, it's really interesting
just cultivating that, andcultivating ways where the
people who are the dominance,who are not used to being
questioned or asking questions,yeah, helping them navigate that
too.
Victor Malena (12:41):
That's really interesting, because I do feel
that being a minority in theroom, the assumption is for me,
yeah, is this person might notbe as educated, or might not
know, you know, certainvernacular and how we speak. So
I use that to my advantage, andI ask the questions, and
(13:02):
sometimes asking the obviousquestion in a non condescending
way, sure, sure,
Indra Klavins (13:10):
you do have it appropriately, yeah, and
tactfully, tactfully,
Victor Malena (13:14):
I think it diffuses the situation where I
can enter the conversation alittle more gently, yeah?
Because now we're speaking, youknow, we're now saying, like,
Hey, we're not operating on thesame playing field. We're not
operating on the same, you know,kind of preparedness. Let's,
let's peel it back, yeah, andlet's talk at a level that we're
(13:35):
all comfortable with, yeah,yeah,
Indra Klavins (13:37):
yeah. And that benefits everyone, yes,
absolutely everyone in the room,no matter what their seniority
is, no matter what theirpersonal background is, no
matter what their education is,because we all have biases to
your example before that. Like,an acronym can mean 50 different
things, like, and it's just, andwe do love an alphabet soup in
today's modern workplace, like,it's like, which, what do those
(13:59):
letters mean today? Just myfavorite one. My favorite one is
PM, because, I mean, I come fromthe school of program management
and all of that's that programand then product management, and
then it can be somethingperformance management, it can
be like, 500 other things,
Victor Malena (14:12):
probably too so, but yeah, it's funny you say
that, because doing ops on tap,I'm like, Oh, I do FSA work. You
say FSA to everybody, they'rejust like, oh, the Federal
Savings Account. And I'm like,No, I mean financial solutions,
architecture or financial.There's just so many different
(14:32):
ways you can split that acronym.So I think speaking clearly,
asking the questions like, Whatdo you mean by that? I think
just give us a level ofcommunication that we're all
comfortable with 100%
Indra Klavins (14:44):
like side topic, our most popular episode is
always downloaded. Episode isour second episode of all
episodes, but it's words matter,okay? Because I think that's a
very thing, very popular thingto think about talk about in our
society right now. But one ofthe take. Ways was, have a
shared glossary. Write themdown, have a spreadsheet. So
Victor Malena (15:07):
whenever I go into a meeting with a client, I
say, Hey, I'm going to speakyour language. Like, let's say
they're implementing a newsystem. Systems have their own
words. Vocabulary. I'm not goingto try to teach you these words.
You teach me Your words, yourvocabulary, yes, let's do a
sheet. Yes, let's do a GoogleSheet. It's free. Why not? And
(15:31):
that way we can start speakingthe same language. And I can say
like, Hey. You say project phasein NetSuite or in any other
system, it's milestone, yeah. Sowhen you say phase, it means
milestone. When I say milestone,that means phase, and start
learning and collaborating thatway.
Indra Klavins (15:47):
And that's a different version of that
preparedness, right? Like, andyou're preparing yourself,
you're preparing everyone, andthat has that pays dividends for
the long haul, because you'redoing for the entire everyone in
that room and the wholeorganization too, because you
know that that spreadsheets canbe really
Victor Malena (16:03):
popular, yeah, and it's so funny you say that
because I didn't even thinkabout it this way. But anytime.
So at my old job, I was aFinancial Solutions Manager for
NetSuite implementations. Sowhen we would get ready for
these implementations, I wouldpull the CFO aside and I would
tell him, just so you know, thisis going to be like going to the
dentist every day for the nextsix months. Yeah, it's going to
(16:26):
be painful, it's going to beuncomfortable, and it's going to
be just unpleasant, becausethere's going to be times where,
you know, you made anassumption, and we can't meet
that assumption. It happens. Nomatter what I tell you to do,
it's going to happen. There'sgoing to be times where I
misunderstand what you were,what you want to do, because I'm
not in your head. It's justgoing to happen in these
(16:48):
projects. And I didn'tunderstand, like, now that you
frame it that way, I didn'tunderstand that I was preparing
them for what was going tohappen. And, you know, more
times than not, they'll pull measide. I was like, you know,
thank you for having thatconversation with me. Like,
anytime I would get angry, Iwould think he warned me about
this, this was going to happen.So I think, yeah, preparedness
(17:09):
of expectation, expectations
Indra Klavins (17:11):
management, yeah, yeah, that's, that's I hadn't, I
didn't, I hadn't clocked thatuntil now. Yeah, it's just, it's
such a I think so much of whatwe do in the type of work that
you and I do is layinggroundwork, laying groundwork
and just seeing when that'll beready. You know, like just and
(17:32):
sometimes people will saysomething that I've gotten
before is like, I'm overpreparing. I'm like, I would
rather over prepare and not usehalf of my stuff, yep, then not
be sitting there on my heels upevery night until two o'clock in
the morning, trying to catch upbecause I didn't do that one
(17:53):
thing everyone so, like, that'sin people who aren't in our
roles. Just always like, sit andstare at me. Like, Why would you
waste that kind of energy. Butfor me, it's never really been a
waste. I don't know, how aboutlike, I don't know, give a
similar experience. Not so like,it's that. It's like, what am I
over investing, right? Yeah,
Victor Malena (18:09):
there is no over investing. I feel like, because
the feeling of when the scenariothat you prepared for plays out,
it's just such a rush. It's,it's not a validate. A
validation, I think, is toosmall of a word for that feeling
of when an operator plan ascenario out it's happening,
(18:31):
yeah, and you've had thedocumentation, or you have the
solution prepared to deploy it.Yeah? Because you're just like,
Oh, I'm not crazy. Yeah. Thisis, this is, this is what I
exactly what I thought was goingto happen.
Indra Klavins (18:44):
Yeah? And it's not an ego trip. You're not
like, oh my gosh, look at me.It's just like I paved the way.
Yeah, yes. And look at them likethey get to thrive there. The
situation is there, the projectis to thrive. Whatever business
gets to thrive, whatever it is,
Victor Malena (18:57):
absolutely it's, it is I feel like a I think good
operators have a pathologicalneed to be validated in their
doomsday planning.
Indra Klavins (19:12):
It's hard.
Victor Malena (19:14):
It's the truth, because we spend our time
thinking about how things can gowrong. I honestly don't care how
things can go right, becausethat just means that I'm out of
a job.
Indra Klavins (19:28):
Well, the good news, when you work with humans
and technology, I'm suresomething will always go wrong.
Victor Malena (19:32):
Yeah, absolutely. I was working with a friend of
mine just recommended a project,you know, shout out. They just
were both part of operatorsguild. So it's a guild of
operators come together. But hehad said something that really
resonated with me, which was,people, processes, technology,
okay, people first, then theprocess, then the technology
(19:54):
that you're working on. He'slike, because you can't do the
technology without the people orthe processes. The. Process
doesn't matter without thetechnology or the people, and
people will always matter abovethose two other things. So he's
like, people process technologyin that order. And
Indra Klavins (20:09):
my business name is people process things for
that for the same reasons forme. Like, things is much broader
for me, you know? But it's like,yeah, the same thing. And I
think that there's enoughframeworks that validate that,
because it is with people likeyears ago, I never sat for my my
my PMI certification, I neverbecame a pump so but I remember
(20:32):
from that, like stakeholder,stakeholder management, when
they taught us a stakeholder,the definition of a stakeholder
is like anyone who can impactyour project for better or
worse, I'm like, because peoplecan. People are first and like,
and we work with people, and youwant to make those people
thrive, so like for differentreasons, that people have to
come first,
Victor Malena (20:51):
absolutely. And what's interesting about that in
those projects is when they talkabout stakeholders, and you said
the definition perfectly, anyonewho has can be impacted by the
project that you're happy somethe the lack of preparation
sometimes is talking about the,you know, the Indra, the intern,
(21:11):
or the person that is Junior,that it like you're not, ah,
they'll figure it out. No,they're stakeholders as well,
and you have to be prepared toanswer their questions, train
them on these things. Becausethree people sat in a room and
it was like, we're going torevamp this whole project,
because we were impactedslightly by
Indra Klavins (21:30):
this. Yeah, you know, as you're talking, what's
coming to mind is something youand I have talked about casually
in a different context, butlike, AI's role in all of this,
right? Because, you know, Ithink about interns, I think
about AI. Think about I thinkabout people early in their
career. Events mentioned them acouple of times. They need
leadership. They don't likesoftware will only get them so
(21:53):
far, right? You know, they needrole models. They need people to
mentor them, etc, etc. And thenthere's also, so like, that's
one angle of the AI. The otherangle of the AI is, since we're
talking about, like, thiscuriosity and preparedness,
like, how does, how does AI playinto this for you? Like, when
you're thinking about thepreparedness, piece of it good
(22:14):
or good or bad, because I feelboth ways about
Victor Malena (22:16):
AI. AI is great for day to day stuff at a very
kind of small, intimate, likesmall, and I say intimate,
because it's one on one. Itshouldn't be organized way where
it's just like someone is sayingsomething that you don't fully
understand. If you don't havethe confidence ask a question.
(22:37):
That's fine. Can ask yourchatgpt, your Claude, your
Gemini. Hey, what is meant bythis? Now it has come out that
AI hallucinates, that AI is notdependable, so don't take it at
face value, and it should, Idon't say sparingly, but it
should be used in instanceswhere you're not making
(23:00):
impactful decisions, and itstill needs the human element.
But yeah, I think there, thereis use for AI, for, you know,
drafting an email, for lookingover your work, for
understanding clarity in yourdocumentation that you've been
working on. I think that isincredibly helpful.
Indra Klavins (23:18):
Yeah, I use it. You use it. I use it all the
time, every day.
Victor Malena (23:22):
Yeah, I running a business. I don't have a
marketing person, so pleasecreate this LinkedIn post for
me, or apply to jobs or doingthings like that. That's is very
useful. Should AI be definingyour strategy? Should it be
replacing your junior personthat is helping you put together
some data models, no, it's notreliable humans. Also, I haven't
(23:48):
seen AI use the human aspect ofcatching anomalies in data or
asking the dumb questions,because AI, yeah, right. You
can't read a room. It can't reada room, yeah? Well, you said
something earlier while we werepreparing. This is that a eyes
are sycophants.
Indra Klavins (24:06):
They're sick of fans, yeah. So it loves telling
me how wonderful I am and howsmart I am exactly,
Victor Malena (24:13):
exactly. And, you know, a junior person might
slip, hey, this is dumb, like,why are we doing this? And, or,
or the not even say that it'sdumb. It's just like, hey, can
you explain why we do thisprocess? I don't get it. And in
the in explaining the process,you're like,
Indra Klavins (24:29):
yeah, why do we do this? Yeah, yeah. Like, I
heard something the way that agood way that I heard AI
described. And there, this wasin the context of like Google
Search versus using somethinglike a GPT, right? AI is an echo
of the data that existed when itcame into the AIS, Ll, large
(24:52):
language, large language model.Yeah, right. So I'm like, I
always think of it like thatecho kind of thing, like, it's
just, like, it's, it may. Or maynot be accur ate. I may have
bounced across a couple ofdifferent things, but yeah,
Victor Malena (25:04):
to also go down a rabbit hole.
Indra Klavins (25:07):
I don't mind a side rabbit hole. Yeah, side
quest.
Victor Malena (25:09):
So I went to this AI in go to market strategy kind
of thing. I know nothing aboutgo to market strategy. It has
become the buzzword. I feel likea lot of businesses are hiring
for, they're looking for islike, what is your GTM,
especially startups like. So Iwas like, Oh, let me learn more
about this. And they weretalking about AI's role in it,
(25:29):
and I asked the dumb question. Iwas just like, What is the
biggest roadblock for AIdeployment? And they're just
like, oh, adoption, oh, this orthat. And my follow up question
was like, Isn't it the data?Isn't it like, if you have bad
data, what is the point oflayering AI on top of that, if
(25:50):
you don't have required fields,if you don't have great
processes in place already thatare like descriptions or
anything like what you're goingto have garbage in and garbage
out. So for me, I think AI isthe jury's still out on, like,
actual Small Business adoption,talking about, like, small and
(26:10):
medium sized businesses,startups and stuff like that,
larger businesses, I feel like
Indra Klavins (26:15):
maybe, maybe because I don't, I don't know if
anyone ever fully tackled thebig data problem, yeah, right.
And those lakes of data, whichdata do you actually trust
inside? Like, what's, what's themaster data for this data point?
Because it lives in 50 databasesacross an enterprise. So, like,
what's the source of truth?What's the single source of
truth? Yeah, which were createdby humans, right? And humans are
(26:40):
messy, no matter what we try andtell ourselves. So this the
story that, the story thatstarted this conversation and
the idea of coming onto the podwas was early in your career.
How has that shaped who you are,what your career path has been?
How is that like? How has thatinformed that? Or has it not?
(27:03):
Did it just reinforce somethingthat was
Victor Malena (27:04):
already there? No, I think early in my career
path, I was going down anaccounting and finance kind of
trajectory, so, and I'll evengive a little more context to
that, I actually was in collegefor a couple of years. College
just wasn't for me. Dropped out2010, to 2015, every odd job you
(27:27):
can think of. I was doingretail, overnight, doorman,
canvassing, catering, Captain. Idid it all. And when I landed at
this B to B, SAS startup, Ididn't know what B to B was or
SAS, I was just an officemanager. Just was the guy
stacking the shelves, makingsure everyone in the office had
(27:48):
what they need. And the CFO tooknotice of me. He was like, Hey,
you should join the financeteam. I was like, Sure. Three
months later, the CFO, thiscontroller and senior finance
associate, all quit, collegedropout, head of this SAS, B to
B, you know, multi million andARR and kind of managing it. So
(28:10):
there I was developing, kind oflike a bookkeeper trajectory,
and learning finance, learningaccounting. I went back to
school to try to do get anaccounting degree. We were
talking about getting a C Yeah,getting a CPA. I was like, Oh,
I'll go back to school. CPA.When my old manager, Lee stepped
in and started kind of mentoringme, and he said that it was just
(28:33):
kind of like, how are you themost prepared person in the
room? It's honestly inoperations and data. And what is
the what is the correlationbetween the two? If I'm talking
about accounting, accounting isjust the management of numbers.
You're not there when thenumbers are created. You're not
there for sales you're not therefor sales ops. You're not there
(28:53):
in the room discussing vendorcontracts. And which are the
vendor partners for you, rightfor you, and how are they best
for the businesses? You're notthere. One of the projects that
I did was moving from ourservers to AWS. So what is the
cost benefit analysis aroundthat? Accounting doesn't really
(29:14):
get you prepared for that. Yeah.So thought of it that way, yeah.
So to say that that that thatconversation greatly informed my
career path. And how are you themost prepared person in the
room? How are you most preparedfor handling business in
changing environments? You'rethe person that's in the middle.
(29:37):
You're the person not onlymanaging the finances and the
accounting, but you're alsomanaging deal structure. You're
helping the leaders understandwhere we are in a cash position.
You're understanding that fpnais not always reliable, and you
have to go to Sales and talk todifferent leaders and understand
where what their take is on thebusiness, and then ask the dumb
(29:58):
questions to all of them, hey. Asales manager, you're saying
that we're gonna get $3 millionin next quarter. You really
believe that? Yeah, do youreally believe that it's more
like two six? Okay, okay, that'sfine. Yeah, that's a better
number. Yeah. Client Management,we say that we're gonna have a
90% renewal rate. What's reallygoing on? Man, these two
(30:19):
customers, they're also, it'sgoing to be like, 85 talking to
people and understanding that,and then putting that all
together and being in the roomjust like, hey, this is kind of,
actually where everyone's thetemperature check is really
going to be. This is where weunderstand. And I think that's,
that's, you know, to thepodcast, the messy middle,
Indra Klavins (30:40):
yeah, no, it's, it's like, what's coming to
mind, and I, we're generalists,we're generalists. And it's like
that, I'm just thinking aboutthat squiggly path that you had
post college, like, before youlanded, where you landed right,
like, trying a whole bunch ofdifferent things, like, and
just, and feel, I think thatthat that thought about
preparedness and landed onfertile soil because you already
(31:04):
were that type of person who wastrying lots of different stuff
and willing to do a hustle andall that kind of stuff. So it's
a it's a different approach, andwilling to have those
conversations with people andpush them just a little bit.
You're like, Hey, you don't wantto make them uncomfortable, but
you want to get them to behonest. Absolutely
Victor Malena (31:19):
right. Yeah. And I think up until that point, you
always try to be the smartestperson in the room, yes. And
being in college dropout, beingunsure of my career path, I'd
never was able to do that. Andyou know, in accounting, you you
have to be because you have toknow the numbers or everything
like that. But I think from thatconversation forward, you get to
(31:43):
an I was like, Oh, the game isactually just knowing as much as
possible and being in a positionto ask as much as possible so
that you know what's going
Indra Klavins (31:51):
on. Yeah, and people love talking about
themselves, yeah, or the thingsthat they're passionate about
depends on what it is you canfeeling. If you engage with
curiosity, it's amazing whatthey'll share.
Victor Malena (32:04):
Well, company, happy hours too. You get a
couple of old fashions you,you'll know all the secrets.
Indra Klavins (32:11):
That's true too. That is very, very true. I've
had my Yes, well, that's adifferent part. That's the after
dark version. Yeah, that's theoutdoor dark version. We covered
a lot of ground. We covered alot of ground. I feel like we
went left, we went right, we butwe were, we were strictly and
curious and doing and yeah,thank you, Chris, thank you for
(32:34):
taking the time. I hope thatwe'll do this again, because I
feel like we have lots of otherthings that we can talk about.
Victor Malena (32:39):
I think we treaded water on some deep
levels that we could have went alittle,
Indra Klavins (32:44):
we could have gone deeper on a whole bunch of
different things. But I, youknow, I think that that whole
wanted to cover the spectrum ofpreparedness, which is, you
know, pretty broad, pretty forus. Yeah. Thank you so much, and
thank you for
Victor Malena (32:57):
having me. I It's
Indra Klavins (32:58):
truly my pleasure, and I'm sure that my
listeners, our listeners, aregoing to get something really
great out of this. So thanks forjoining on the messy middle.
Thank you. Bye everyone. Allright. Awesome. That was fun.
That was great. Thanks fortaking time with us in the messy
middle. Word of mouth remainsmost powerful way for people to
find us. If this episode sparkedsomething for you. We'd love it
(33:21):
if you'd subscribe to thepodcast on your favorite app,
download a few episodes andshare it with someone else who's
navigating the in between. Doyou have ideas for future
episodes or topics you'd like usto explore? You can find our
feedback form at the messymiddlematters.com or in the show
notes. Thank you for joining uson this journey, this work is
better when we do it together,until next time you.
Hi. I'm Indra, and I'd like to welcome you to
the messy middle matters, wheremy friends and I explore all the
twists, turns and challengesthat arise in the messy middle
of work. So welcome to the messymiddle matters. If you're a
regular listener, you'll noticesomething different. Today, I've
got a guest, and Amanda's offfor the week, so Victor Melena
(00:26):
is going to be joining us. He'sthe founder of ops on tap, and
we're going to have a really,really good conversation. So why
don't you tell everyone a littlebit about yourself? Yeah.
Victor Malena (00:36):
So Victor Melena, founder of ops on tap, I
actually just started this year.So I started with the goal, in
mind of fractional operations.So how can you get someone
tactical in your business tohelp you either start something,
fix something, clean someone,clean up the mess, yeah, but
without full time commitment,because sometimes these are just
(00:58):
short term projects. Sometimesyou can't afford a full time
person, so just helpingbusinesses scale and scale
correctly. That's been myintention, and there's been some
positive reception to it. But Ithink fractional is, is the
future, and we're going to see alot more of it.
Indra Klavins (01:15):
I think you're right. It's, it's, think that's
another topic for another day.Maybe you, Ashley and I can get
together. So I first met youthrough Ashley and the founders
funders, fractional
Victor Malena (01:26):
community. Shout out. F3 I love her. I adore her.
She's amazing. She's She'sfantastic. Have
Indra Klavins (01:33):
to get her on the pod. I've mentioned her on the
pod multiple times. Have to gether into the pod. So today we're
going to be talking about thedifference between being smart
and being prepared, becausethere is a difference. And I
don't want this there. Yeah,there is a difference. And we
could talk about like, smart is,I think, much more like book
smart, maybe understanding,like, having the right degree,
(01:57):
the right this, the right that,and prepared is a whole nother
thing, and I think that you andI err towards the prepared side
of things. I
Victor Malena (02:07):
think a proper operator always errs towards the
prepared side, because we talkedabout it during the f3 event
that you talked about, and I hadmentioned that that story for my
manager, yes, yes. And it reallyresonated with you. And you're
like, we need to do this. Let'sdo it. But yeah, backtracking
(02:28):
that. So I had a manager when Iwas at a SAS B to B Company, and
his name was Li Wang. Shout out,Li Wang. He is still one of my
very dear friends to this day.But he was younger than me. I
think I was 27 at the time. Hewas 25 he was a director
already. He was leading ourIndia operations. And then he
slid into, I believe his titlewas, VP of Operations. I'll have
(02:51):
to fact check that, but I was inawe of him, because, you know,
the C suite of people alwayswent to him for answers.
Everyone around the companyalways went to him, yeah. And I
commented once when we were at ahappy hour. I was like, Lee,
you're the always the smartestguy in the room. Like, you know,
I just want to let you know itdoesn't go unnoticed. And He
scoffed at me. He was like,think I'm the smartest guy. He's
(03:14):
like, No, I'm not the smartestguy. And he said, I'm the most
prepared person in the room. Andthat always stuck with me, yeah.
And I was like, What do youmean? He's like, anytime there's
a meeting and we're going totalk about something that I
don't know, I always research itahead of time, and I always ask
the questions I need to ask, soI'm always prepared to give
insight, to ask questions, toget deeper knowledge. I'm always
(03:38):
ready to do that, yeah. And italways stuck with me that I was
praising him to be like, You arethe smart guy. He was like, No,
I'm just prepared. I just knowwhat I need to do, and I know
that I need to get it done.
Indra Klavins (03:50):
Yeah, yeah, you're highlighting a few
different things. And I, I likethe fact that it's preparation
can take lots of different typesof forms in that story that you
told Right? Like it's, it's thethe there was the research
portion, and then there's thehaving to the conversation,
prepared to engage, because it'smaybe not a research situation.
(04:11):
Absolutely, which one in yourexperience, like, which one do
you find that you rely on alittle bit more, like one or the
other, or like from a verypractical perspective, or ideal
perspective, like any angle thatyou might want to
Victor Malena (04:22):
in my experience, you are prepared to ask
questions and open so the ladderof what you were talking about.
Because with being a fractionaloperator, being an operator in
general, I think you're you haveto come to the conversation
prepared to learn and preparedto understand the person's
(04:44):
predicament. Because asoperators, you know, we're there
to fix things. We're not there.We're not learning for just for
the sake of learning, we'reunderstanding there's a problem
and we have to fix it. So Ithink for an operator to be
prepared, they have to beprepared to be. Quiet, to
listen, to ask engagingquestions, to draw on past
(05:08):
experiences where they've seenfail points and ask the person
you know, is this the failurethat you're experiencing, or is
it something similar to this,but just giving space to learn
and understand the other personand where they're coming from.
Indra Klavins (05:23):
Yeah, it's a framework that often comes up on
the podcast or like a framing, Iguess not a framework of framing
is just like always having asense of curiosity.
Victor Malena (05:34):
Yes, absolutely, yeah. And I think that when
you're the smartest person inthe room, going back to that is
you don't allow curiosity tobreathe. You're not allowing
curiosity to take precedent inthese conversations, in these
meetings, because you are tryingto spout off what you've known
(05:58):
that you've seen this beforethat. And I do this sometimes
too, because I'm trying to, ifI'm trying to win over a client,
I'm trying to exude confidenceby saying, like, Hey, I've done
this before, blah, blah, blah,and you're killing the
curiosity, and you're notallowing the other person to
kind of lead the conversationwhere you needed to go. Yeah.
Indra Klavins (06:16):
And so, you know leaders, whether they're whether
their smarts are from academiaor their smarts are from, you
know, leading organizations, andthey've moved their way up that
that ladder to a senior role.They often are comfortable in
the spotlight. They don't notall of those leaders know how to
(06:37):
create that space for air tobreathe and new ideas to come
in. Do you have any you know,what's your What are your tips
and tricks or approaches forcreating that space when there
is that leader that's justdominating that room, and which
sometimes is really useful,like, if you're in a like, you
understand, like, there theymight be on an earnings call,
(06:59):
right? That's not a space toinvite curiosity. You want to be
really clear and have a certainpresence. But if you're in a
town hall, maybe where you're,you know, navigating change that
may not be invest How do youhelp to create that space with
that leader?
Victor Malena (07:13):
I think you did a really great kind of
contextualizing it, becausecontext does matter. So if
you're a leader on an earningscall or during a fire drill,
that calm, that that kind ofstern or calm voice that's
directing things, absolutelyNow's not the time for
curiosity. Now's Now's not thetime to venture down these
(07:37):
rabbit holes that are going tolead you nowhere. You need
results and solutions so but ifyou're a leader and you want to
allow, you know, curiosity andpreparedness to breathe in the
room, bring in the juniorperson. Oh, okay, allow
perspective to enter the room. Ithink oftentimes, and we've been
(07:59):
in them where, where we'recoming up and they're like, Oh,
you don't need to be on thiscall. Or, you know, you need to
focus on something else. No,allow the person to a be in the
room and grow, yeah, askquestions that you wouldn't even
think to ask, because it'sallowing diversity of thought in
the room. So I think it'sincredibly important that you
(08:20):
allow people to come in withyou, and if, let's say, there's
not, you're not, you can't dothat. Yeah, another thing you
can do is just ask the simplequestions. You're talking about
ACV, you're talking aboutcustomer acquisition costs and
stuff like that, and all theseacronyms are flying across the
room, ask the simple question,how's that? How's that being
(08:40):
calculated? How are you doingthat? Where are you getting the
data from?
Indra Klavins (08:45):
Yeah, oh, that's a really good one. Yeah,
Victor Malena (08:49):
yeah, it's but the thing is, is that I think
we're scared to be the dumb onein the room. We're scared to
look stupid in front of ourpeers, that oftentimes you you
let the details get away, like,Where, where is if, if you're
bringing it from you know yourERP system, and it's just like,
(09:12):
well, I know for a fact thatwe're having problems with our
ERP integration. It's notbringing in and over the data.
So that number is wrong, and youhave to piece together these,
these simple questions, toarrive at a better understanding
of where you are in yourbusiness, where you're at in
this project, where you're atanywhere. And I think that's
(09:33):
being the prepared one in theroom, being being prepared to
ask those, those sillyquestions. I don't want to call
them dumb questions, becausethere are no dumb questions,
Indra Klavins (09:42):
but sometimes there are. But honestly, I don't
know. I
Victor Malena (09:46):
don't think so. I think that there are times where
I'll ask this, I'll ask the dumbquestion, like, here's if we're
talking ACV, which is avernacular that we know in
business and tech companies.Tell everyone i. CV is so that's
the thing. Am I talking aboutannualized contract value or
average contract value? Twodifferent numbers, gives you two
(10:10):
different calculations. So yougot to ask the dumb question.
What do you mean by ACV?
Indra Klavins (10:17):
Yeah, to me, that's not a dumb question. I
was thinking about, like, reallysilly, ridiculous questions,
but, yeah, no, I think that. Andit's I love. I also find that
when you're in that room andyou're trying to create that
space and ask that question,like, just like, what inevitably
happens is somebody over slackor something else is like, Thank
God you asked that, because Iwas wondering what they're
(10:39):
saying. That's one benefit ofit, and the other benefit of it
is that it models the behaviorof asking, asking a fundamental,
a foundational question, right?That will help everyone just
align Yeah, on their sharedunderstanding, which was one of
my favorite phrases,
Victor Malena (10:58):
but yeah, but to pull on your on your comment,
there about like, when peoplelike, Thank God you asked that
question. I think that iscreating a culture, and that's
creating leaders by asking thosequestions, by being prepared to
ask those questions. Yeah,
Indra Klavins (11:15):
and in my experience, and I've got stories
for days on this one, but in myexperience, I think that the
people who are more likely toask questions are women and
minorities. Yes, and that comesfrom, some of that comes from
the various conditioning thatdifferent folks have had, and
some of that comes from, like, Iwas in a I was in a workshop
(11:36):
where, like, one of thetakeaways for the people who are
listening to this. It was in aworkshop as a panel discussion
was, you know, women will askthe dumb question because you
they already assume that youthink that they're dumb, like,
you know what? I mean, they'vealready they don't have any
social capital to lose by askinga question, right? Which is
really interesting. So to me,it's, it's, I think that the
(12:00):
more that those of us who arecomfortable taking the risk, or
for whom the risk is lower,whether because I think that I'm
a person with like I have, Ihave both low and high risk at
the same time. I just walk areally fine line. And I can do
it. I can model the behaviorfrom my white self, you know,
like doing that, I hold acertain presence with that, but
(12:22):
I also have, like, a societaldifference with my female side
of things. So, like, it's just,it's, it's really interesting
just cultivating that, andcultivating ways where the
people who are the dominance,who are not used to being
questioned or asking questions,yeah, helping them navigate that
too.
Victor Malena (12:41):
That's really interesting, because I do feel
that being a minority in theroom, the assumption is for me,
yeah, is this person might notbe as educated, or might not
know, you know, certainvernacular and how we speak. So
I use that to my advantage, andI ask the questions, and
(13:02):
sometimes asking the obviousquestion in a non condescending
way, sure, sure,
Indra Klavins (13:10):
you do have it appropriately, yeah, and
tactfully, tactfully,
Victor Malena (13:14):
I think it diffuses the situation where I
can enter the conversation alittle more gently, yeah?
Because now we're speaking, youknow, we're now saying, like,
Hey, we're not operating on thesame playing field. We're not
operating on the same, you know,kind of preparedness. Let's,
let's peel it back, yeah, andlet's talk at a level that we're
(13:35):
all comfortable with, yeah,yeah,
Indra Klavins (13:37):
yeah. And that benefits everyone, yes,
absolutely everyone in the room,no matter what their seniority
is, no matter what theirpersonal background is, no
matter what their education is,because we all have biases to
your example before that. Like,an acronym can mean 50 different
things, like, and it's just, andwe do love an alphabet soup in
today's modern workplace, like,it's like, which, what do those
(13:59):
letters mean today? Just myfavorite one. My favorite one is
PM, because, I mean, I come fromthe school of program management
and all of that's that programand then product management, and
then it can be somethingperformance management, it can
be like, 500 other things,
Victor Malena (14:12):
probably too so, but yeah, it's funny you say
that, because doing ops on tap,I'm like, Oh, I do FSA work. You
say FSA to everybody, they'rejust like, oh, the Federal
Savings Account. And I'm like,No, I mean financial solutions,
architecture or financial.There's just so many different
(14:32):
ways you can split that acronym.So I think speaking clearly,
asking the questions like, Whatdo you mean by that? I think
just give us a level ofcommunication that we're all
comfortable with 100%
Indra Klavins (14:44):
like side topic, our most popular episode is
always downloaded. Episode isour second episode of all
episodes, but it's words matter,okay? Because I think that's a
very thing, very popular thingto think about talk about in our
society right now. But one ofthe take. Ways was, have a
shared glossary. Write themdown, have a spreadsheet. So
Victor Malena (15:07):
whenever I go into a meeting with a client, I
say, Hey, I'm going to speakyour language. Like, let's say
they're implementing a newsystem. Systems have their own
words. Vocabulary. I'm not goingto try to teach you these words.
You teach me Your words, yourvocabulary, yes, let's do a
sheet. Yes, let's do a GoogleSheet. It's free. Why not? And
(15:31):
that way we can start speakingthe same language. And I can say
like, Hey. You say project phasein NetSuite or in any other
system, it's milestone, yeah. Sowhen you say phase, it means
milestone. When I say milestone,that means phase, and start
learning and collaborating thatway.
Indra Klavins (15:47):
And that's a different version of that
preparedness, right? Like, andyou're preparing yourself,
you're preparing everyone, andthat has that pays dividends for
the long haul, because you'redoing for the entire everyone in
that room and the wholeorganization too, because you
know that that spreadsheets canbe really
Victor Malena (16:03):
popular, yeah, and it's so funny you say that
because I didn't even thinkabout it this way. But anytime.
So at my old job, I was aFinancial Solutions Manager for
NetSuite implementations. Sowhen we would get ready for
these implementations, I wouldpull the CFO aside and I would
tell him, just so you know, thisis going to be like going to the
dentist every day for the nextsix months. Yeah, it's going to
(16:26):
be painful, it's going to beuncomfortable, and it's going to
be just unpleasant, becausethere's going to be times where,
you know, you made anassumption, and we can't meet
that assumption. It happens. Nomatter what I tell you to do,
it's going to happen. There'sgoing to be times where I
misunderstand what you were,what you want to do, because I'm
not in your head. It's justgoing to happen in these
(16:48):
projects. And I didn'tunderstand, like, now that you
frame it that way, I didn'tunderstand that I was preparing
them for what was going tohappen. And, you know, more
times than not, they'll pull measide. I was like, you know,
thank you for having thatconversation with me. Like,
anytime I would get angry, Iwould think he warned me about
this, this was going to happen.So I think, yeah, preparedness
(17:09):
of expectation, expectations
Indra Klavins (17:11):
management, yeah, yeah, that's, that's I hadn't, I
didn't, I hadn't clocked thatuntil now. Yeah, it's just, it's
such a I think so much of whatwe do in the type of work that
you and I do is layinggroundwork, laying groundwork
and just seeing when that'll beready. You know, like just and
(17:32):
sometimes people will saysomething that I've gotten
before is like, I'm overpreparing. I'm like, I would
rather over prepare and not usehalf of my stuff, yep, then not
be sitting there on my heels upevery night until two o'clock in
the morning, trying to catch upbecause I didn't do that one
(17:53):
thing everyone so, like, that'sin people who aren't in our
roles. Just always like, sit andstare at me. Like, Why would you
waste that kind of energy. Butfor me, it's never really been a
waste. I don't know, how aboutlike, I don't know, give a
similar experience. Not so like,it's that. It's like, what am I
over investing, right? Yeah,
Victor Malena (18:09):
there is no over investing. I feel like, because
the feeling of when the scenariothat you prepared for plays out,
it's just such a rush. It's,it's not a validate. A
validation, I think, is toosmall of a word for that feeling
of when an operator plan ascenario out it's happening,
(18:31):
yeah, and you've had thedocumentation, or you have the
solution prepared to deploy it.Yeah? Because you're just like,
Oh, I'm not crazy. Yeah. Thisis, this is, this is what I
exactly what I thought was goingto happen.
Indra Klavins (18:44):
Yeah? And it's not an ego trip. You're not
like, oh my gosh, look at me.It's just like I paved the way.
Yeah, yes. And look at them likethey get to thrive there. The
situation is there, the projectis to thrive. Whatever business
gets to thrive, whatever it is,
Victor Malena (18:57):
absolutely it's, it is I feel like a I think good
operators have a pathologicalneed to be validated in their
doomsday planning.
Indra Klavins (19:12):
It's hard.
Victor Malena (19:14):
It's the truth, because we spend our time
thinking about how things can gowrong. I honestly don't care how
things can go right, becausethat just means that I'm out of
a job.
Indra Klavins (19:28):
Well, the good news, when you work with humans
and technology, I'm suresomething will always go wrong.
Victor Malena (19:32):
Yeah, absolutely. I was working with a friend of
mine just recommended a project,you know, shout out. They just
were both part of operatorsguild. So it's a guild of
operators come together. But hehad said something that really
resonated with me, which was,people, processes, technology,
okay, people first, then theprocess, then the technology
(19:54):
that you're working on. He'slike, because you can't do the
technology without the people orthe processes. The. Process
doesn't matter without thetechnology or the people, and
people will always matter abovethose two other things. So he's
like, people process technologyin that order. And
Indra Klavins (20:09):
my business name is people process things for
that for the same reasons forme. Like, things is much broader
for me, you know? But it's like,yeah, the same thing. And I
think that there's enoughframeworks that validate that,
because it is with people likeyears ago, I never sat for my my
my PMI certification, I neverbecame a pump so but I remember
(20:32):
from that, like stakeholder,stakeholder management, when
they taught us a stakeholder,the definition of a stakeholder
is like anyone who can impactyour project for better or
worse, I'm like, because peoplecan. People are first and like,
and we work with people, and youwant to make those people
thrive, so like for differentreasons, that people have to
come first,
Victor Malena (20:51):
absolutely. And what's interesting about that in
those projects is when they talkabout stakeholders, and you said
the definition perfectly, anyonewho has can be impacted by the
project that you're happy somethe the lack of preparation
sometimes is talking about the,you know, the Indra, the intern,
(21:11):
or the person that is Junior,that it like you're not, ah,
they'll figure it out. No,they're stakeholders as well,
and you have to be prepared toanswer their questions, train
them on these things. Becausethree people sat in a room and
it was like, we're going torevamp this whole project,
because we were impactedslightly by
Indra Klavins (21:30):
this. Yeah, you know, as you're talking, what's
coming to mind is something youand I have talked about casually
in a different context, butlike, AI's role in all of this,
right? Because, you know, Ithink about interns, I think
about AI. Think about I thinkabout people early in their
career. Events mentioned them acouple of times. They need
leadership. They don't likesoftware will only get them so
(21:53):
far, right? You know, they needrole models. They need people to
mentor them, etc, etc. And thenthere's also, so like, that's
one angle of the AI. The otherangle of the AI is, since we're
talking about, like, thiscuriosity and preparedness,
like, how does, how does AI playinto this for you? Like, when
you're thinking about thepreparedness, piece of it good
(22:14):
or good or bad, because I feelboth ways about
Victor Malena (22:16):
AI. AI is great for day to day stuff at a very
kind of small, intimate, likesmall, and I say intimate,
because it's one on one. Itshouldn't be organized way where
it's just like someone is sayingsomething that you don't fully
understand. If you don't havethe confidence ask a question.
(22:37):
That's fine. Can ask yourchatgpt, your Claude, your
Gemini. Hey, what is meant bythis? Now it has come out that
AI hallucinates, that AI is notdependable, so don't take it at
face value, and it should, Idon't say sparingly, but it
should be used in instanceswhere you're not making
(23:00):
impactful decisions, and itstill needs the human element.
But yeah, I think there, thereis use for AI, for, you know,
drafting an email, for lookingover your work, for
understanding clarity in yourdocumentation that you've been
working on. I think that isincredibly helpful.
Indra Klavins (23:18):
Yeah, I use it. You use it. I use it all the
time, every day.
Victor Malena (23:22):
Yeah, I running a business. I don't have a
marketing person, so pleasecreate this LinkedIn post for
me, or apply to jobs or doingthings like that. That's is very
useful. Should AI be definingyour strategy? Should it be
replacing your junior personthat is helping you put together
some data models, no, it's notreliable humans. Also, I haven't
(23:48):
seen AI use the human aspect ofcatching anomalies in data or
asking the dumb questions,because AI, yeah, right. You
can't read a room. It can't reada room, yeah? Well, you said
something earlier while we werepreparing. This is that a eyes
are sycophants.
Indra Klavins (24:06):
They're sick of fans, yeah. So it loves telling
me how wonderful I am and howsmart I am exactly,
Victor Malena (24:13):
exactly. And, you know, a junior person might
slip, hey, this is dumb, like,why are we doing this? And, or,
or the not even say that it'sdumb. It's just like, hey, can
you explain why we do thisprocess? I don't get it. And in
the in explaining the process,you're like,
Indra Klavins (24:29):
yeah, why do we do this? Yeah, yeah. Like, I
heard something the way that agood way that I heard AI
described. And there, this wasin the context of like Google
Search versus using somethinglike a GPT, right? AI is an echo
of the data that existed when itcame into the AIS, Ll, large
(24:52):
language, large language model.Yeah, right. So I'm like, I
always think of it like thatecho kind of thing, like, it's
just, like, it's, it may. Or maynot be accur ate. I may have
bounced across a couple ofdifferent things, but yeah,
Victor Malena (25:04):
to also go down a rabbit hole.
Indra Klavins (25:07):
I don't mind a side rabbit hole. Yeah, side
quest.
Victor Malena (25:09):
So I went to this AI in go to market strategy kind
of thing. I know nothing aboutgo to market strategy. It has
become the buzzword. I feel likea lot of businesses are hiring
for, they're looking for islike, what is your GTM,
especially startups like. So Iwas like, Oh, let me learn more
about this. And they weretalking about AI's role in it,
(25:29):
and I asked the dumb question. Iwas just like, What is the
biggest roadblock for AIdeployment? And they're just
like, oh, adoption, oh, this orthat. And my follow up question
was like, Isn't it the data?Isn't it like, if you have bad
data, what is the point oflayering AI on top of that, if
(25:50):
you don't have required fields,if you don't have great
processes in place already thatare like descriptions or
anything like what you're goingto have garbage in and garbage
out. So for me, I think AI isthe jury's still out on, like,
actual Small Business adoption,talking about, like, small and
(26:10):
medium sized businesses,startups and stuff like that,
larger businesses, I feel like
Indra Klavins (26:15):
maybe, maybe because I don't, I don't know if
anyone ever fully tackled thebig data problem, yeah, right.
And those lakes of data, whichdata do you actually trust
inside? Like, what's, what's themaster data for this data point?
Because it lives in 50 databasesacross an enterprise. So, like,
what's the source of truth?What's the single source of
truth? Yeah, which were createdby humans, right? And humans are
(26:40):
messy, no matter what we try andtell ourselves. So this the
story that, the story thatstarted this conversation and
the idea of coming onto the podwas was early in your career.
How has that shaped who you are,what your career path has been?
How is that like? How has thatinformed that? Or has it not?
(27:03):
Did it just reinforce somethingthat was
Victor Malena (27:04):
already there? No, I think early in my career
path, I was going down anaccounting and finance kind of
trajectory, so, and I'll evengive a little more context to
that, I actually was in collegefor a couple of years. College
just wasn't for me. Dropped out2010, to 2015, every odd job you
(27:27):
can think of. I was doingretail, overnight, doorman,
canvassing, catering, Captain. Idid it all. And when I landed at
this B to B, SAS startup, Ididn't know what B to B was or
SAS, I was just an officemanager. Just was the guy
stacking the shelves, makingsure everyone in the office had
(27:48):
what they need. And the CFO tooknotice of me. He was like, Hey,
you should join the financeteam. I was like, Sure. Three
months later, the CFO, thiscontroller and senior finance
associate, all quit, collegedropout, head of this SAS, B to
B, you know, multi million andARR and kind of managing it. So
(28:10):
there I was developing, kind oflike a bookkeeper trajectory,
and learning finance, learningaccounting. I went back to
school to try to do get anaccounting degree. We were
talking about getting a C Yeah,getting a CPA. I was like, Oh,
I'll go back to school. CPA.When my old manager, Lee stepped
in and started kind of mentoringme, and he said that it was just
(28:33):
kind of like, how are you themost prepared person in the
room? It's honestly inoperations and data. And what is
the what is the correlationbetween the two? If I'm talking
about accounting, accounting isjust the management of numbers.
You're not there when thenumbers are created. You're not
there for sales you're not therefor sales ops. You're not there
(28:53):
in the room discussing vendorcontracts. And which are the
vendor partners for you, rightfor you, and how are they best
for the businesses? You're notthere. One of the projects that
I did was moving from ourservers to AWS. So what is the
cost benefit analysis aroundthat? Accounting doesn't really
(29:14):
get you prepared for that. Yeah.So thought of it that way, yeah.
So to say that that that thatconversation greatly informed my
career path. And how are you themost prepared person in the
room? How are you most preparedfor handling business in
changing environments? You'rethe person that's in the middle.
(29:37):
You're the person not onlymanaging the finances and the
accounting, but you're alsomanaging deal structure. You're
helping the leaders understandwhere we are in a cash position.
You're understanding that fpnais not always reliable, and you
have to go to Sales and talk todifferent leaders and understand
where what their take is on thebusiness, and then ask the dumb
(29:58):
questions to all of them, hey. Asales manager, you're saying
that we're gonna get $3 millionin next quarter. You really
believe that? Yeah, do youreally believe that it's more
like two six? Okay, okay, that'sfine. Yeah, that's a better
number. Yeah. Client Management,we say that we're gonna have a
90% renewal rate. What's reallygoing on? Man, these two
(30:19):
customers, they're also, it'sgoing to be like, 85 talking to
people and understanding that,and then putting that all
together and being in the roomjust like, hey, this is kind of,
actually where everyone's thetemperature check is really
going to be. This is where weunderstand. And I think that's,
that's, you know, to thepodcast, the messy middle,
Indra Klavins (30:40):
yeah, no, it's, it's like, what's coming to
mind, and I, we're generalists,we're generalists. And it's like
that, I'm just thinking aboutthat squiggly path that you had
post college, like, before youlanded, where you landed right,
like, trying a whole bunch ofdifferent things, like, and
just, and feel, I think thatthat that thought about
preparedness and landed onfertile soil because you already
(31:04):
were that type of person who wastrying lots of different stuff
and willing to do a hustle andall that kind of stuff. So it's
a it's a different approach, andwilling to have those
conversations with people andpush them just a little bit.
You're like, Hey, you don't wantto make them uncomfortable, but
you want to get them to behonest. Absolutely
Victor Malena (31:19):
right. Yeah. And I think up until that point, you
always try to be the smartestperson in the room, yes. And
being in college dropout, beingunsure of my career path, I'd
never was able to do that. Andyou know, in accounting, you you
have to be because you have toknow the numbers or everything
like that. But I think from thatconversation forward, you get to
(31:43):
an I was like, Oh, the game isactually just knowing as much as
possible and being in a positionto ask as much as possible so
that you know what's going
Indra Klavins (31:51):
on. Yeah, and people love talking about
themselves, yeah, or the thingsthat they're passionate about
depends on what it is you canfeeling. If you engage with
curiosity, it's amazing whatthey'll share.
Victor Malena (32:04):
Well, company, happy hours too. You get a
couple of old fashions you,you'll know all the secrets.
Indra Klavins (32:11):
That's true too. That is very, very true. I've
had my Yes, well, that's adifferent part. That's the after
dark version. Yeah, that's theoutdoor dark version. We covered
a lot of ground. We covered alot of ground. I feel like we
went left, we went right, we butwe were, we were strictly and
curious and doing and yeah,thank you, Chris, thank you for
(32:34):
taking the time. I hope thatwe'll do this again, because I
feel like we have lots of otherthings that we can talk about.
Victor Malena (32:39):
I think we treaded water on some deep
levels that we could have went alittle,
Indra Klavins (32:44):
we could have gone deeper on a whole bunch of
different things. But I, youknow, I think that that whole
wanted to cover the spectrum ofpreparedness, which is, you
know, pretty broad, pretty forus. Yeah. Thank you so much, and
thank you for
Victor Malena (32:57):
having me. I It's
Indra Klavins (32:58):
truly my pleasure, and I'm sure that my
listeners, our listeners, aregoing to get something really
great out of this. So thanks forjoining on the messy middle.
Thank you. Bye everyone. Allright. Awesome. That was fun.
That was great. Thanks fortaking time with us in the messy
middle. Word of mouth remainsmost powerful way for people to
find us. If this episode sparkedsomething for you. We'd love it
(33:21):
if you'd subscribe to thepodcast on your favorite app,
download a few episodes andshare it with someone else who's
navigating the in between. Doyou have ideas for future
episodes or topics you'd like usto explore? You can find our
feedback form at the messymiddlematters.com or in the show
notes. Thank you for joining uson this journey, this work is
better when we do it together,until next time you.
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