CHAPTER 1
It wasn’t where Violet had seen herself.
Ten years ago, she’d been sitting in her parents’ brownstone in Manhattan, with the three women she’d met in Amsterdam the previous fall.
They had been slightly drunk that night, yes, but the following day, they’d been sober, and before they had all flown their separate ways to go home, they’d discussed their plans.
Violet, the one with the business degree and soon to be in her MBA program, would be their CEO.
Sarai would be their head of marketing and sales – at least, at first, because she didn’t want to lead sales forever.
Arlowe would be the one to code it all. Enya would be the one to tell Arlowe what to code and Sarai what to market and sell.
Violet would be more than just the company’s CEO, of course.
She’d be their chief investor since she’d volunteered to use her trust fund – or, at least, most of it – to fund their venture and keep them afloat until their business started making money, and she would be the one in charge of the books, their chief legal counsel, their…
well, just about everything else they needed, and she’d have to do that while she was in school full-time.
It had been Enya’s idea to build the best language translation app on the planet, and as a polyglot, she’d had the skills that they’d need to build the thing the right way, as well as the experience of learning languages, and they’d planned to take all of her tips and tricks and add them to the learning functions of the app.
Part of their plan had also involved wearable hardware, but that hadn’t happened yet.
Well, a lot of what they’d planned so far had yet to come to fruition.
It had been ten years since that New York trip.
They’d worked remotely for the first two, while Violet had been in school, but as much as they’d all believed in remote learning, starting a business together with them being in four different places most of the time had been difficult, and it had gotten to a point where flying to get together every so often no longer made fiscal sense, and as the one footing the bill, Violet had known that better than any of them.
So, they’d made the decision to move to the same city, and not just any city but the new East Coast version of Silicon Valley, where other start-ups had been trying to start up just like them, and they had opted to rent a four-bedroom house and live together.
That allowed them each to save money on rent and for them to use their garage as their office, which also saved them gas money on top of other things.
It did make their electric bill astronomical, but that would’ve been the case no matter where they worked, so Violet wasn’t bothered by it.
What did bother her was that they were all about thirty-two years old now, and their app, while in all the app stores, wasn’t doing much for them.
They’d yet to make a single dime from their business after putting ten years into it and living eight years in this house.
She had her father breathing down her neck to rejoin the family business, telling her that she’d had her fun, but she was in her thirties now, and it was time to stop with this nonsense.
She had her mother trying to send her money without her father finding out and Violet telling her that she was fine, even though she really wasn’t.
At least, she had her friends. They’d gone from being the three women she’d met one fall afternoon at an airport to the three most important people in her life.
Arlowe, Sarai, and Enya had been with her through everything: all the business stuff, yes, but also the breakups, the family issues, the anxiety of being the CEO of a failing company, and everything else along the way.
She’d been returning the favor, of course, but Violet was still so surprised that after living and working together this long, they were all still together, still close, and still trying to make this happen.
“We need the hardware,” Arlowe stated in their daily stand-up meeting before she bit into a Red Vine. “The hardware would set us apart.”
“How, exactly? We’d just be the tiny company no one has heard of, trying to sell them something that they can get from another, much larger company that they already use,” Sarai suggested.
“We need to get the learner part of the app to the point where it can compete with the other language apps of the world. If we do that, we will be able to fund the rest of what we want to do.”
“The hardware, if we get it right, will be better than any of the rest of them can build.”
“How, Arlowe? They have thousands of engineers, hardware and software ones, working on wearables,” Sarai protested.
“Ours is only going to be for languages.”
“And how is that better? Their wearables do everything, and ours would only do one thing? Explain it to me like I’m five.”
“Be really good at one thing instead of just mediocre at everything. They’ll use their AI to translate or something, and those suck,” Arlowe said. “Ours will be Enya-made.”
Enya-made was what they called it whenever Enya was the one creating the feature or working on a language, which was all of their languages because Enya was a genius.
“We can’t keep relying on me,” Enya replied. “I want to do it all, but I can’t. We need something to help me out here, as much as it kills me to admit that. I’ll review everything, but it’ll make it go so much faster until we can hire more people like me.”
“There is no one like you,” Arlowe said.
“You know what I mean. Plus, having this software or something like it makes us more marketable. Right, Sarai?” Enya asked.
“She’s right. I know that we can hire translators, but not at the speed we need to get this done by, and even then, some of them are going to get things wrong anyway, and we’ll have to check their work no matter what,” Sarai replied.
“We’ve been doing this for ten years, and we have no backup plan for Enya.
It’s either her or bust. My thought is that we buy this software, use it at least temporarily to get us where we need to be, and then we either keep it or do something else.
We’re struggling here and need to be able to go faster. ”
“Agreed. And look, I understand the complexities and the many, many issues, but we have to compete. Hell, we have to be around to compete, and this could help us stay around. We’re burning Enya out, and we’re still only four employees.
That’s not going to get any better the bigger we get.
Assuming we’re still around to get bigger…
” Violet added regretfully. “I reached out to a few companies who might be able to help.”
“You did? Already?” Arlowe asked. “Shouldn’t I be involved in that?”
“You can, but I don’t know if you should be right now. If you’re doing that, it means you’re not doing something else. Let me handle the initial stuff, and I will bring you in when I need you.”
“We’d still have to implement it, and you’ll need me for that,” Arlowe said.
“Then, let me hear back from the possible vendors, and we’ll see.”
“How much is that going to cost us?” Sarai asked.
“A lot,” she answered honestly. “Over a hundred grand at first if we went all-in based on the pricing models I’ve seen. Annually, it’ll be less since a lot of the one hundred thousand is the setup and implementation fees.”
“Jesus!” Sarai exclaimed. “And we really need this now? I thought we were going to find a real head of sales first so that I could focus on just brand building. Sales is not my area. I want to make content, Violet.”
“I know. And I want that for you, too, but we need to get the app in front of the right people, and you’re the best one we’ve got for that.
Enya is busy translating and coming up with the learner portion.
Arlowe has to code whatever is in Enya’s brain.
I’m busy doing everything else, so that leaves you. ”
“And we can’t get a salesperson, even if it’s not a head but someone entry-level, just to help out a little?”
“Not right now, Sarai. I’m sorry,” she replied.
“And we need the hardware, too. I think if we market it right, it’s the best call to make it, but that’s a whole other thing that we’re not only not ready for, but we can’t afford it, either.
I’m doing the best I can with my initial investment, what I’ve added on, and what I’ve gotten a few other, smaller investors – namely, my contacts – to contribute to this, but it’s getting harder the longer we go without making a profit. We might have to reconsider–”
“No way. Come on. Please don’t say it…” Arlowe interjected.
“Ads. We might have to consider adding ads,” she said, not thrilled with that idea, either. “It won’t make much, but it would be something to help offset costs.”
“We can’t. No ads, Violet. Our app shouldn’t have ads for stupid games.”
“And I completely agree with you, but it’s an easy way to make a few bucks, Arlowe.”
“Says you. I’d have to code where they go. You really want me to spend my time doing that?”
“No, but it could help in the long run,” Violet replied.
“Maybe we should talk about that when Arlowe isn’t two Red Bulls and a large coffee into her day,” Enya suggested.
“You really do drink way too much caffeine, Arlowe,” Sarai added.
“I’ve had two Red Bulls in, like, twelve hours. It’s fine. I was up until four.”
“That is also not healthy,” Sarai noted.
“I’m an engineer. It’s just how we are,” Arlowe argued. “You should be used to it by now. We’ve lived together for how long?”
“Too long,” Sarai stated.
“You’re right. You really should move out,” Arlowe replied.
“If anyone’s moving out, it’s you – your car is always leaking oil and is somehow in the way of mine whenever I want to leave.”
“It’s old because I’m not spending my money buying a new one, and I’m putting what I have from my other apps into this business.”
“Well, our daily Sarai-Arlowe fight has now commenced, which means our stand-up is over,” Violet noted with a little laugh.
“We spend too much time together,” Sarai said, closing her laptop.
“We all just need to get laid sometime this year,” Arlowe suggested. “I mean, seriously, we’re always here. How are we going to meet women if we’re always here?”
“No one is stopping you from driving that clunker you own down to the nearest gay bar,” Sarai said. “Go now. We’re fine without you for the rest of the day.”
“It’s ten in the morning, you asshole.”
Arlowe laughed and tossed her yellow smiley-face stress ball in Sarai’s direction, which flew by Sarai’s head and hit the garage wall, bouncing a few times before it rolled under one of the desks.
“What about me made you think I would catch that?” Sarai said with a laugh.
Violet stared around the hot garage and wondered how much longer they would be able to sustain this.
All the pressure was on her shoulders, and if their business didn’t make it, her friends would have to go work somewhere else, which meant that they’d all move out and possibly away, losing all of this.
Violet wasn’t ready to admit defeat just yet.
When her phone dinged, she looked down at the screen and saw that it was a text from her father.
“Oh, God… Not again,” she said.
“What?” Enya asked.
“My father has a new woman he wants me to meet. He thinks she’d be perfect for me.” She clicked into the message. “Guys, he sent me her LinkedIn profile.”
“Want to pretend like we’re dating so that he leaves you alone?” Arlowe asked. “I can dress up nicely for the Russell family picnic or whatever you rich people do in the summer.”
“No, but I reserve the right to change my mind later.”
“Just let me know so that I can buy some boat shoes.”