---
categories:
  - "[[Meetings]]"
type: []
date: 2026-07-22
org:
loc:
people:
  - "[[Darsh Shah]]"
topics: []
granola_id: 5cd670ae-93f4-4342-a811-ccc0d83b8c6f
source: granola
---

# Budget review and spend realignment with Shanah
## Notes

## Summary

### Budget Overview and Pillars

- Four pillars discussed; indie acquisition will be low-spend

  - Funded from community or marketing budget (meetups, etc.)
- Unapproved initiative flagged at ~$1M if approved

  - Not budgeted for this year; Bill is aware, money would be reallocated


### Vendor and Spend Reconciliation

- Kyber Play is the primary bucket for spend; costs rose due to two new contractors

  - One under community, one under programs
- 3DF line item unrecognized; needs investigation
- Mod Squad: target monthly cost capped at $6-7K (emergency use only)
- Chiro Plate spend increased; reallocation made but overall spend still cutting
- Swag vendor (Swag Hits RDP): recognized, may be used again for prizes
- Cherry Pick Talent: tagged to programs team, for educational video
- RDP Creative: tagged to community, potential future use for Mega Jam prizes
- Paper Dog: unclear ownership, better directed to Shawn Flint


### Budget Category Cleanup Needed

- “Creator Growth” no longer exists as a category; needs to be replaced with a Community line

  - All related spend should roll under Community for now
- Evangelism budget: headcount moved to Jonathan Fitzpatrick and Aaron Lee

  - Budget ownership should transfer to them going forward


### Handoff Before Maternity Leave

- Speaker going on maternity leave soon; Anna Milner leading the team while out
- Plan to sit down with Anna before leave to clean up budget tracking through year-end
- Team tracks expenditures quarterly; open to switching to monthly cadence


### Next Steps

- **Clarify Paper Dog vendor ownership with Shawn Flint**

  Ownership is unclear and better directed to Shawn.
- **Transfer evangelism budget to Jonathan Fitzpatrick or Aaron Lee**

  Headcount already moved to them; budget should follow.
- **Reclassify Creator Growth spend under Community and clean up budget categories**

  Creator Growth no longer exists; all related lines should consolidate under Community.
- **Sit down with Anna Milner before maternity leave to align on year-end budget tracking**

  Anna is leading the team during leave; needs full visibility before handoff.

Chat with meeting transcript: [https://notes.granola.ai/t/0596c473-0aa1-4f15-b710-3e212c1949d0](https://notes.granola.ai/t/0596c473-0aa1-4f15-b710-3e212c1949d0)

## Transcript

**system**: That if that gets approved, again, not approved yet, we will need to figure out the budget for that because it's not something we had budgeted for this year and it would come out to be probably.

**system**: More or less a million dollars.

**system**: But again, not yet approved. And like we still like Bill is aware of that one and we would move some money around, I think.

**microphone**: Right.

**system**: My fourth pillar, which is indie acquisition, won't be a big spender. It'll be things like.

**system**: Doing a meetup here and there and we can just pull it from like a community budget or marketing budget.

**microphone**: Right.

**system**: Yeah.

**system**: Cool. Perfect.

**system**: Yes.

**system**: Cool.

**system**: I hope so.

**system**: Yes. I also just shared with you, I do.

**system**: I'll go back and triple check that.

**system**: Again. But I do also ask my team.

**system**: To track their like expenditures on a quarterly basis, but we can do monthly if you want.

**system**: If that's the frequency with which we are checking.

**system**: So we can look into that.

**system**: Okay.

**system**: Perfect.

**system**: Thank you.

**system**: For sure.

**system**: Yep.

**system**: Great.

**system**: Amazing.

**system**: SDF let me click into it.

**system**: Yeah.

**system**: Hold.

**system**: On. I got to get on VPN.

**system**: I think.

**system**: Yeah, I don't recognize that one kyber play is our.

**system**: Is the one that everything should be bucketed under. And honestly, the spend just went up for that because we hired.

**system**: Two new contractors. One of them is under community and one of them is under.

**system**: Programs.

**system**: But it's fine. We conducted it all there for now and just move stuff around if we need.

**system**: But yeah, I don't recognize the 3DF one.

**system**: Okay, perfect.

**system**: Yes.

**system**: Yes. Let me get you. Here's the executed one.

**system**: Because it's also.

**system**: It's not like helpful because legal keeps also.

**system**: Instead of us.

**system**: Starting a new.

**system**: So w they keep just amending the old one.

**system**: Which makes it really confusing.

**system**: Let me figure out, I have the S of W. So let me just try to figure out where.

**system**: The like which is the latest.

**system**: One.

**system**: But yes, I didn't get that for you.

**system**: Because it's a pretty significant decrease.

**system**: In.

**system**: Spending. Okay, here we go.

**system**: It's tied to.

**system**: Scrolling back through the legal.

**system**: Ticket.

**system**: Which never helps.

**system**: Because.

**system**: They titled, okay, 64396.

**system**: It should be.

**system**: This one should be the one that's tied to the.

**system**: I think it's this one.

**system**: How do I check? I have the invoice. How do I check which PO it's tied to?

**system**: Out here?

**system**: Before 396?

**system**: Found it.

**system**: P o2.

**system**: Here you go. I'll just send you the link.

**system**: I don't know if you can you see that?

**system**: 021100.

**system**: Yeah, so total is 72 500 ish.

**system**: It definitely did because it ran the entire.

**system**: It that that one expired technically expired at the end of.

**system**: March. We did a, so it technically expired at the end of March.

**system**: I did a temporary three month extension just because I got all of this right when the layoffs hit.

**system**: And then just needed a couple months to like figure everything out.

**system**: So the old one.

**system**: Technically like we rolled into.

**system**: A reduced one starting like June.

**system**: First ish.

**system**: Which I can look and see my other invoices.

**system**: Against let me see if I can even see my old ones.

**system**: Because.

**system**: We definitely approved.

**system**: I definitely approved spending against that line.

**system**: Okay.

**system**: Here's one from February.

**system**: And it is tied to.

**system**: This PO.

**system**: And it was about 52.

**system**: I don't know if it's going to match the one that.

**system**: You're looking at like the total spend.

**system**: I don't know why I got it.

**system**: February.

**system**: Okay.

**system**: We budgeted a bit, but I don't think they're great.

**system**: And so we pretty significantly reduce the number of hours we were spending on them.

**system**: So here all this is like.

**system**: I would say like.

**system**: Directionally how I have.

**system**: Tried to reduce things.

**system**: But some of this has changed slightly. So like I think we even.

**system**: Hold mod squad down more.

**system**: But but I don't I'm not expecting from here on out I'm not expecting mod squad monthly cost to be more than about 6k.

**system**: Unless we have like an emergency like we've used them in emergency.

**system**: Asks in the past.

**system**: But it should be not exceeding about six to seven thousand.

**system**: A month.

**system**: But chiroplate did go up. So we just reallocated some money there, but we should still be cutting.

**system**: So paper dog.

**system**: I thought that was tied.

**system**: To, I don't want to misspeak.

**system**: That.

**system**: So that might be better asked of Shawn Flint.

**system**: Swag hits RDP. I do recognize.

**system**: It's a swag bender that they used for swag orders in the past.

**system**: We might use them again. Cherry pick talent. I do recognize that one. That one can be tagged to programs to my programs team.

**system**: Yes.

**system**: And that's for.

**system**: An educational video RDP creative can be tagged a community as well.

**system**: That was like kind of a hangover one that we had from the.

**system**: Layoffs as well, but we may use them in the future for like.

**system**: Mega jam prizes or stuff like that.

**system**: I mean, so we probably need to actually redo this.

**system**: Delineation because creator growth technically doesn't exist anymore.

**system**: And we should have a community line here.

**system**: That loops in all of this.

**system**: So this should all technically go under community for now.

**system**: The other one is evangelism.

**system**: That one.

**system**: I don't have the evangelism team anymore, although I'm still very much in touch with them. This one might need to be transferred to Jonathan Fitzpatrick or Aaron Lee.

**system**: The evangelism head count moved to them.

**system**: And so they probably are better suited to be managing the budget going forward for them.

**system**: Yeah.

**system**: Amazing.

**system**: Yeah.

**system**: Cool.

**system**: Okay.

**system**: Sure.

**system**: Is this shared with anna milner?

**system**: By chance?

**system**: Okay.

**system**: That's okay.

**system**: She did.

**system**: Yeah.

**system**: Cool.

**system**: Totally. Okay, great.

**system**: I'm going to be on maternity leave soon. And so she's going to be, she is leading the team while I'm out. And so I'll make sure that I do the cleanup.

**system**: But then whenever like her and I can sit down before I leave just to make sure we're tracking through the end of the year.

**microphone**: Oh yeah perfect.

**microphone**: That sounds great.

**microphone**: Thank you so much, Shanah, for your time.

**system**: Okay. Thanks so much. Sorry I was late. That was chaos.

**microphone**: Don't worry about it at all.

**microphone**: Good.

**system**: All right.

**system**: Bye.

**microphone**: Awesome thank you so much bye.