CHAPTER 32
“So, I hear things are going well between you and Gabi,” Violet said.
“Been talking to Arlowe, have you?” she asked.
“No; Enya, actually.”
Sarai smiled and replied, “Things are going great. We’re together.”
“Told you,” Enya spoke up from her desk. “By the way, I get your room.”
“What?” Sarai asked.
“When you move out. Your room is bigger than mine.”
“Move out?” Sarai asked.
“Gabi’s different. I can tell.”
“You think we’re moving in together after a few weeks? Are you crazy?”
“Maybe,” Enya replied with a smile. “But I mean in general – when you decide to move in together, I’m taking your room.”
“You can have it if that happens,” Sarai told her. “Now, since Gabs is working from home today and could come out of her room at any second to grab lunch or something, maybe we could table all of this moving-in-together-way-too-soon commentary.”
“You’re falling in love with her, aren’t you?”
“Vi, come on. Don’t contribute to this, please. We just started dating. Besides, we have a lot of work to do. This commercial is due to the network first thing tomorrow. We’ve got a lot riding on this.”
“So, yes.” Violet nodded. “Yes, is the answer.”
Sarai could only smile. She and Gabi had had an amazing weekend.
Yes, they’d gotten made fun of for leaving their clothes, including their underwear, outside overnight, but it had definitely been worth it, and after their somewhat awkward breakfast on Sunday, they’d spent much of the rest of the day in bed.
They’d made love without caring about their roommates in the house.
They’d talked. They’d held one another. Then, they’d emerged and sat on the sofa snuggled up while watching a movie with Enya and Arlowe.
They’d slept in Gabi’s room, and Sarai had been instructed to bring some clothes to keep there, which she’d thought a little silly since they lived in the same house, but she’d done it anyway.
She’d also told Gabi that she could keep whatever she wanted in her room.
“It’s new, Violet,” she said.
“I know, but you seem really happy. I honestly feel like I’m missing so much, not living here. I love living with my girlfriend, but I hate missing things here.”
“If you hadn’t moved out, Gabi couldn’t have moved in,” Sarai suggested.
“True. But you ran into her at the bar, so you could’ve seen her again and still be dating her.”
“Yes, but then, you wouldn’t be living with Stella, and you love Stella.”
“I do love her. She’s the most frustrating woman on the planet, but she’s my most frustrating woman on the planet.”
“Okay. Shut up. Everybody, shut up,” Arlowe instructed as she jogged into the garage.
“Where have you been?” Violet asked.
“I was working in my room, and I figured it out.”
“Figured what out?” Enya asked.
“Did I just hear someone run down the hall?”
Sarai turned to see Gabi standing in the doorway now.
“Hey, babe.”
“Hey. Is everything okay?” Gabi asked, walking into the garage.
“Arlowe is freaking out about something,” Violet said.
“I can finish the gamification.”
“Finish it?” Sarai checked.
“The code; I can write it. I can do it right now. I’ll text Mitchell and Clay so that they work on it with me. It’s almost done already, but there’s a shortcut that I just read about on some Discord server I’m on. I can use it to create the feature we wanted to have out before the commercial.”
“The commercial?” Sarai asked.
“Yes. It’ll allow them to chat with their friends, create personalized challenges, send invitations for people to join the app and those challenges, and they’ll get referral points in the game, like we’ve talked about.
I wasn’t going to be able to get it done by the time the commercial aired, but now, I can. ”
“Because of a shortcut?” Sarai asked.
“A coding shortcut, yeah,” Arlowe said. “There’s more to it than that, and I can do it, but if we can push the commercial for just a few days, that would give me the time to do that and the time to QA everything, too.”
“Do you need any help?” Gabi asked, moving behind Sarai and putting her hands on Sarai’s shoulders.
“If you’re offering, I won’t say no,” Arlowe replied.
“I can help at night when I’m done with work.”
“Um… Your girlfriend would like to see you at some point this week, Gabi,” Sarai chimed in.
“You literally live with her. Act like you won’t see her for days,” Arlowe retorted.
“I can help and still have time for you,” Gabi told her, squeezing Sarai’s shoulders.
“What does this all entail, Arlowe?” Violet asked.
“If I can have those few days, with the commercial airing and the other marketing Sarai has planned to go out with it, I think I can increase subscribers by five percent.”
“That’s it?”
“Subscribers, Violet,” Enya noted. “She said subscribers, not downloads.”
“You really think you can make that much money off a few new features in the game part?” Violet asked.
“Yeah, I do. It’s addictive once you get started with it, and they’ll have the free trial that’s just long enough to get people hooked. I’ll need Sarai to update the commercial, though.”
“You need me to update it? It’s done. I had a few finishing touches to put on it, but I was going to send it tonight.”
“Can you wait?”
“No, Arlowe. It’s due at eight in the morning. If they don’t have it, they won’t run it when we need it.”
“Can we change the time when it airs?” Arlowe asked, practically bouncing on her feet.
“We wanted it to air during that event for a reason. Its prime audience is our demographic,” Sarai replied.
“I know, but we can do better. I just need a little more time.”
“Arlowe, this would be a big risk,” Violet said. “We’re spending a lot of money on this.”
“I know. But if we choose another slot, will we be out anything?”
“I’d have to call the network and find out if moving will cost too much,” Sarai said.
“I know it’s going to cost something. Everything does.
It could put us over budget, or we’d have to choose a less expensive time slot to come out even, I guess.
I don’t know. I’ll have to check. The updates to the commercial are the main concern I have, though.
I animated and edited this all myself, so it’ll take time to add in whatever you want, Arlowe. ”
“It’ll be worth it, Sarai.”
“And the commercial is not airing tomorrow,” Violet added.
“Yeah. So?” Sarai asked.
“So, if you can edit it today, you can still turn it in tomorrow, and Arlowe can work on all the changes and have it ready for launch by the time the commercial airs, right?”
“I should be able to do that, yeah,” Arlowe confirmed.
“What about mock-ups?” Sarai asked. “If you’re adding features, I’ll need to show images and–”
“I can help with that,” Enya said. “Arlowe and I have a bunch of those ready. I might just need to make some adjustments based on whatever it is that she wants to do.”
“Sarai?” Violet asked.
“It’s three in the afternoon already,” she replied. “This took me a lot of time to put together. I don’t know… I might need to change the whole thing to focus on what Arlowe’s doing if it could be that impactful to subscriptions. I might have to work all night.”
“I can stay,” Violet said. “And I can get Stella here if we need her for anything. Plus, your intern can help. We’ll pay her extra if she’s available to work tonight.”
“It’s still risky,” Sarai reasoned. “I might have to rework the whole campaign. That’s email edits, website changes, social media images and copy changes.”
“I think what Violet is saying is that the commercial is what has to change tonight, but everything else can be worked on over the next few days. Right?” Gabi asked.
“Yes. And I’ll help with all of that, too. I’ve got the contracts for the office that I have to take care of, but other than that, I’ll work on this with everyone until it’s done and we’re good,” Violet said.
Sarai looked around the garage at her friends, who all seemed to be supportive of this idea, which would mean a lot of work for all of them, but likely, mostly her.
It wasn’t that she didn’t want to redo the entire commercial.
It was that they would be taking a pretty big risk.
The commercial she’d already put together was good.
It was solid. She had animated two characters who weren’t cute little cartoons, but more like real people.
She’d written a good script that showed off the benefits of the app as well as why people might want to not only download but pay for the subscription.
She’d even called attention to globalization and had a comment in there about how, while a lot of people might speak English around the world, that didn’t mean that everyone did or that life wouldn’t be easier if a business professional or a student learned another language or two.
There were a couple of stats in there as well on how their app had shown language understanding almost twice as fast as their competitors. The commercial would work.
So, what Arlowe was suggesting was that she spend all night reworking it and adding info in about the features that they’d all been wanting to launch for a while, but with such a small team, it hadn’t been possible until right now, apparently.
If Sarai changed the commercial, saying that their app had all of these things, and then Arlowe and team couldn’t deliver, they would be risking a massive backlash that they might not be able to recover from.
“Arlowe, I need to know that if I do this, you can and will deliver. I’m not talking about the extra work I’d have to do. I’m talking about delivering on promises that we will be making in a television commercial and on social media. We can’t not have things ready.”
“They’ll be ready,” Arlowe replied.
“Sarai’s right: that’s a major credibility issue if we claim to have these things and they download only to discover that we don’t,” Violet said.
“Backup plan,” Enya stated. “If, for some reason, Arlowe isn’t ready by the time we have to tell the network not to air the ad, we pull the plug then so that we don’t end up making existing and potential customers upset.
We’re risking taking the hit on the airtime cost, but maybe we can work with them on airing the other commercial instead, or even later, when the new features are really ready.
If that’s not possible, we’d just have to air it in a cheaper time slot.
We won’t get the same bang for our buck, but at least we won’t be losing customer trust.”
“Makes sense,” Violet replied.
“Sarai, it’s your call. It’s your campaign idea, your work, and you are our head of marketing,” Arlowe said.
Sarai thought about how this was the first big risk they would be taking as a company, outside of starting the thing to begin with. She looked up at Gabi, who smiled at her, and Sarai nodded.
“Really?” Arlowe asked excitedly.
“I will need so much coffee,” she replied.
“Let’s get organized before you run off, Arlowe,” Violet said, pointing at her. “We need to make sure everyone knows what they’re doing, how, and when. Can you get Mitchell and Clay in here to help in person?”
“Sure.”
“And your intern, Sarai?”
“I’ll call her now.”
“Let’s work out our plan, then,” Violet replied.
“I have to get back to work in a minute, but I’m done at five. I’ll help after that,” Gabi added.
“Thank you,” Violet said before she began doling out orders.
About ten minutes later, they all got to work, but Sarai knew she needed a quick break before she dove in. That break also needed to not be in the garage, so she walked back to her bedroom with Gabi by her side.
“Need to be alone?” Gabi asked when they got to the door.
“No. Can you come in for a minute?”
“Sure.”
They closed the door behind them, and Sarai sat on the side of the bed.
“Is this crazy?”
“No,” Gabi replied.
“No? Just no?” she asked, laughing a little.
“Babe, your campaign is good. It would’ve worked, and you still might need it, so it will work, but I know about the stuff you’ve all wanted to add, and I trust Arlowe.
If she says that she can do it, she can.
It could grow the business faster. It’s work right now, but it means more progress in a shorter amount of time. ”
“I know.” Sarai sighed. “I have to rewrite a script and re-animate everything, though.”
“Not everything.” Gabi sat down next to her and took her hand. “Remember, your characters don’t actually move their mouths when they talk. It’s more a voice-over, so that means you can probably reuse a lot of what you’ve made already.”
“Yeah, but the screenshots or the setup will be different. I’ll have to use what I can, I guess.”
“I’m going to help Arlowe, but I’m also here to help you, so if you need anything, or even just a fresh set of eyes, you tell me, okay?”
“I will. Thank you,” Sarai said. “I know the change is a good one, but I really liked what I had come up with. It also took me forever to trust that I was right, that it was good, and now, I have to do that all over again.”
“And it’s going to be great,” Gabi told her before she leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “ Just trust yourself, babe. Your whole team does, or they wouldn’t all be working on this new plan right now. They believe in you. I believe in you. It’s time you believe in yourself again.”
“Yeah, okay,” she replied.