What was said
What this says
Current to 11 Oct 26Dana Whitaker saw a second demo with a new account executive. The deal stands at £62,000 including one-off implementation. She was told Growth has no freshness credits and still wants security answers in writing before a leadership decision by 16 Jan 2026.
What happened: Matteo Ricci, who has picked up the account, ran the 3 Nov 2025 demo with Hannah Lowe. Dana brought IT security questions on region, audit trail and permissions.
Commercial: Matteo said £62,000 is the total deal including the one-off implementation, not an annual subscription price. He also stated plainly that Growth service credits cover availability and not data freshness, which is an Enterprise feature.
Customer view: Dana does not think Enterprise is needed but will flag the point to her finance director. That director dislikes surprises at renewal.
Watch: no go-live date was given and the written answers are outstanding. Leadership wants to decide by 16 Jan 2026.
Themes
Current to 9 Oct 26Who was there
BB-Demo
Them
Follow-up
Next steps
Current to 9 Oct 26- Hannah Lowe to send the written note on region, audit trail and permissions once Dana forwards the security spreadsheet.
- Matteo Ricci to send the proposal splitting implementation from subscription, with a note on what changes at first renewal.
- Hannah Lowe to propose a connector sequence for the plan.
Risks
Current to 9 Oct 26- Security answers on residency, audit trail and permissions are still outstanding and could delay the decision.
- The finance director may weigh the lack of freshness credits on Growth against Enterprise.
Opportunities
Current to 9 Oct 26- Dana plans to show the dashboards builder to her finance director, and the tenant timeline page was strongly welcomed.
Transcript
- Matteo Ricci NoneGood afternoon, Dana. Can you hear me properly? I've changed headset since the last time.
- Dana Whitaker NoneHi, yes, I can hear you fine. Afternoon to you, I suppose, though it's earlier here.
- Matteo Ricci NoneOf course, apologies, I always forget. Hannah is just coming in. Ah, there she is.
- Hannah Lowe NoneHello both. Sorry, I was stuck on another call that overran. Hi Dana, good to see you again.
- Dana Whitaker NoneYou too. I have to say, I hadn't realised I'd be meeting someone new, Matteo. Nice to meet you.
- Matteo Ricci NoneA pleasure, Dana. I have picked up the account, and I've read the notes and listened back to the first session, so you won't need to repeat yourself. I would rather you heard from me directly that the handover is complete and that nothing has been dropped.
- Dana Whitaker NoneGood. I've had enough of repeating myself this month.
- Matteo Ricci NoneUnderstood. So, let me restate the timeline as I have it. You told us your leadership wants to decide by 16 Jan 2026, which is a Friday. Working back from that, we need the security questions closed, a proposal you can defend internally, and your operations leads convinced. Today is about the last of those and the first of the others. Is that still right?
- Dana Whitaker NoneThat's right. Nothing has moved. I did bring one thing, though. A colleague in IT has been reading what Hannah sent over, and he's got a list of questions. He couldn't join today but I'll read them out as we go.
- Hannah Lowe NoneThat's helpful. Before I share my screen, can I ask what you most need to know by the end of this call? I'd rather start with his list than with my slides.
- Dana Whitaker NoneTwo things. First, where does the data physically live and who can see it. Second, how do I know it's current, because the whole point is that my people trust it on a Monday morning.
- Hannah Lowe NoneGood, those are the right two. Let me take the first. To be precise: the brain runs inside your own Snowflake account, so the data lives wherever you've set that account up. We don't hold a separate copy. The people who can see it are the people your own access rules allow.
- Dana Whitaker NoneHe'll ask about region. We're a US business and some of our clients are particular about that.
- Hannah Lowe NoneUnderstood. The short answer is it stays in the region of your Snowflake account. The longer answer is that there is also a dedicated residency option on our side, and I don't want to say more about how it applies to you until I've checked with our security lead. I'll put that in writing.
- Dana Whitaker NoneThat's an honest answer. He'll like that more than a confident one.
- Matteo Ricci NoneLet me confirm that in writing as well, Dana, so that both items go to your colleague in one note.
- Hannah Lowe NoneRight, I'll share now. You should see the home page. This time I've loaded the extract you sent after the first session, which has a larger set of tickets and a good number of service contracts.
- Dana Whitaker NoneI see it. Oh, that's a lot more than last time.
- Hannah Lowe NoneIt is. And you'll see these counts of indexed records beside each source. They've moved since the first load, which is what you want. If one stayed flat for weeks, that would tell you the connector had broken or the source had changed.
- Dana Whitaker NoneThat's his second question. Is that how I'd know about staleness?
- Hannah Lowe NoneIn part. The refresh runs overnight and should be complete by 07:00 your local time on business days. If a source is flat, you'll see it here. What I'd add is that being available is not quite the same as being fresh. The brain can answer a question perfectly well on data that's a day or two behind, so the freshness counts are the thing to watch.
- Matteo Ricci NoneMay I add something there, Dana, because I would rather you heard it from me than found it in the paperwork? On the tier we're discussing, Growth, the service credits in the contract cover availability. They do not cover data freshness. Freshness credits are part of the Enterprise tier.
- Dana Whitaker NoneHmm. So if the data goes stale, I don't get anything back?
- Matteo Ricci NoneNot as a service credit, no, on Growth as standard. What you do have is the refresh schedule we've just described, and our team looks at those counts too. If freshness credits matter to your finance director, then that is a fair reason to look at Enterprise, and I'd rather we discussed it openly now than after signature.
- Dana Whitaker NoneOkay. Thank you for saying that. I'll note it. I don't think we need Enterprise, but I'll flag it to him and to the finance director, so it's a conscious choice.
- Hannah Lowe NoneShall I carry on? I'd like to show the lease-renewal flow on your data, as that's what you came for.
- Dana Whitaker NonePlease. Go for it.
- Hannah Lowe NoneI'll type: for tenants with a lease ending next quarter, what did they say on their last renewal call, and are there any open tickets?
- Hannah Lowe NoneThere we are. It's grouped by building. For each tenant it gives a one-line summary of the call, the open tickets, and a link to the contract. Let me open this one.
- Dana Whitaker NoneThat's the one with the lift problem. I remember that. It's all in here, even the part where the tenant threatened to leave.
- Hannah Lowe NoneAnd the link takes you to the exact moment in the recording. I'd always encourage opening that before acting, because a summary is a summary.
- Dana Whitaker NoneYes. And that's what I'd tell my team. Check the source for anything that matters. Can I ask it a harder one? How many of our contracts renew automatically if nobody does anything?
- Hannah Lowe NoneLet's see. That's a contract-reading question, and it's a good test.
- Hannah Lowe NoneIt's given me a list with a clause quoted for each. Two of these it has flagged as uncertain, and I'd rather it did that than guess. Look, the wording is ambiguous in this one.
- Dana Whitaker NoneThat one is genuinely ambiguous. Our own lawyer argued about it. So it's behaving better than most of my staff.
- Matteo Ricci NoneWhich is, I think, the principle. It shows you what it found and where, and it is honest about what it doesn't know.
- Dana Whitaker NoneLet me read his next question. He asks whether the people who ask questions are logged. He wants an audit trail.
- Hannah Lowe NoneTo be precise, I know the brain records questions asked and who asked them, because that's how we measure usage. Whether that satisfies an audit requirement as you'd define it is a different matter, so I'll check the exact detail with our security lead before I answer in writing. I don't want to overstate it.
- Dana Whitaker NoneFine, put it on the list.
- Hannah Lowe NoneIt's already on there. That makes three items for the written note: region and residency, the audit trail, and how access maps onto your drive permissions.
- Matteo Ricci NoneAnd I will add what your colleague's own security review needs to see, so we shape the document around his checklist and not ours. Dana, does he have a standard form?
- Dana Whitaker NoneHe does. A spreadsheet of questions he sends every vendor. I'll forward it. It's long and a bit tedious.
- Hannah Lowe NonePlease send it. I'd rather answer his questions in his format. It tends to get through the review faster and it means fewer follow-ups for everyone.
- Dana Whitaker NoneWill do. Now show me the dashboards, as promised. My finance director thinks in charts.
- Hannah Lowe NoneOf course. I've built a rough one using the extract. Open tickets by building on the left, renewals by quarter on the right, and a table underneath of contracts that end soon.
- Dana Whitaker NoneCan I change the grouping? Say by region rather than building?
- Hannah Lowe NoneYou can. I'll do it now. Group by region, and there. It redraws straight away. And anyone you give access to can build the same thing in a few minutes. That's the dashboards builder, which is included in Growth.
- Dana Whitaker NoneThat's the one I'll show my finance director. He doesn't want to talk to a chatbot, but he will look at a chart.
- Matteo Ricci NoneA very sensible way to approach it. The chart gets him in the room, and the questions follow. May I ask, Dana, who in operations would own this once it's live? I find the rollouts that work all have one named owner.
- Dana Whitaker NoneI have an analyst in mind. She's already the person who builds everything in spreadsheets, so she'd be thrilled to stop. And I'd be the sponsor, I suppose, on the operations side.
- Matteo Ricci NoneGood. I'll make a note. Not a name for the contract, just so I can say to your finance director that someone is accountable.
- Dana Whitaker NoneRight. Before we go further, I want to see something else. Can it tell me what a tenant has been saying across all three sources over time? Not one call, the whole picture.
- Hannah Lowe NoneThat's what the page for a tenant does. Let me open one. Here, you have the timeline. Tickets, calls and contract events in order, with the themes pulled out at the top.
- Dana Whitaker NoneThat's the view I've wanted for years. Can I ask my team to look at one of these before every renewal conversation?
- Hannah Lowe NoneThat's the pattern I'd suggest. Make the page part of the preparation, and then see how many people actually open it after a month. That's a useful number for you as well, as it tells you whether it's earning its keep.
- Matteo Ricci NoneDana, shall I move to the commercial side while the dashboard is still on the screen? Hannah, please stay for questions.
- Dana Whitaker NoneYes. Go ahead. I want to be clear what I'm taking upstairs.
- Matteo Ricci NoneOf course. The proposal, as scoped, is the Growth tier, for the operations teams you described, with the connectors we've discussed. The value of the deal as it stands is £62,000, and I want to be precise about what that is: it is the total for the deal, including the one-off implementation. It is not an annual subscription price.
- Dana Whitaker NoneThat was the question on my mind. So the number my finance director will see on the second year is lower than that.
- Matteo Ricci NoneDifferent, certainly. I would rather not say how much lower until I've written the breakdown, because I won't quote a figure on a call that I haven't checked line by line. Let me confirm that in writing, with implementation and subscription shown separately.
- Dana Whitaker NoneThat's all I needed. Thank you. I'll have that conversation internally once it arrives.
- Matteo Ricci NoneWhat does your finance director need to see, in order to sign something like this? Do you know how he thinks about it?
- Dana Whitaker NoneCost against hours saved, mostly. And a clear picture of what happens at the end of the first year. He hates surprises at renewal. He's been burned before.
- Matteo Ricci NoneThen I'll include a plain note on what happens at the first renewal and what changes, so nothing is a surprise to him. I would rather have that conversation now than in a year's time.
- Dana Whitaker NoneHe'll appreciate it. And the timing: can you give me a go-live date, so he can see when the benefit starts?
- Matteo Ricci NoneNot today. I won't give you a date that Hannah's team hasn't agreed, because then it's only my hope and not a commitment. What I can do is ask for a proposed plan and put it in the proposal with the owners named.
- Hannah Lowe NoneI'll sit down with the team this week and come back with a realistic sequence, connector by connector, so that Dana can see which sources come first.
- Dana Whitaker NoneGood. Then I think we're nearly there. Let me recap what I'm expecting, so I've got it right.
- Matteo Ricci NonePlease. That would be helpful.
- Dana Whitaker NoneHannah sends the written note on region, audit trail and permissions, in the format of my colleague's checklist, once I've sent him that spreadsheet. You send the proposal with the split between setup and the yearly part, plus what happens at renewal. And I get a plan for the order of the connectors.
- Matteo Ricci NoneExactly right. And I'll add a short summary of today's discussion about freshness and service credits, so the point on Growth against Enterprise is in writing and nobody has to rely on memory.
- Dana Whitaker NoneThank you, Matteo. I'll get the spreadsheet to Hannah tomorrow.
- Hannah Lowe NoneLovely. Thanks, Dana, thanks Matteo. Speak soon.
- Matteo Ricci NoneThank you both. Best regards, and have a good rest of the day.