Chapter Eighteen #2
She makes it sound so simple. I picture tomorrow, when we’re putting in a Sunday shift in the office.
I’ll see Lacey there all day, but I want her to pick up sushi and walk home with me after, I want her to tease me about my bleak gray apartment, I want to fall asleep with her in my arms and wake up like that, too.
I text her and ask if she thinks she could bring an overnight bag to work tomorrow. She says yes.
That was easy. Unlike getting Ella out of here for the night will be.
“I’m at the point where I shouldn’t be looking for bugs anymore,” Lacey says, “because the truth is, I really don’t want to find one.”
There’s a group of us in the conference room, where we gathered to look over a fix we put into place that didn’t entirely resolve an issue, but made it less noticeable. That huddle ended but we’re all sitting here together, working.
“How do you feel about the release?” I ask Lacey, not QA, because those guys never like anything. Everyone in the room looks at her, waiting to see what she thinks. She takes a moment to consider.
“I won’t say that it’s great and I love it. The performance issues are still there. But it’s a soft launch, so that should give us some time and cover to resolve things.”
“It’s messy,” Dave offers. “Having this much code written this quickly, with so many people contributing, it’s hard. AI makes it faster, but unspooling some of this to find the problems is not going to be a quick thing.”
I sigh. Not because I’m surprised, but because I agree.
“Did we hit fast and cheap but miss out on good?” I ask, even though it wasn’t all that cheap.
“No,” Lacey says. “I think we’re being hard on it.
We’ve been looking at it so much that all we see are the problems. Our customers are going to be pumped about this.
The Colony responded well to the beta. At the end of the day it’s something that works, and something that will make their lives easier.
It might be an ugly baby, but it’s ours. ”
“I love our ugly baby,” Ingrid says solemnly. “It’s going to grow up and be spectacular.”
We turn our attention back to the baby itself for a few minutes, until Trevor pops in.
“You guys. Have you seen the Tooity post?”
We shake our heads; all I’ve seen for the last one hundred years are Cursor and GitHub.
He screencasts to the big monitor from his phone. It’s another LinkedIn video from our buddies over at Tooity. This time they’re looking somber.
“Hey gang,” one of them says.
“What up, Sunday Scaries crew,” the other one adds.
“We just want to do a little update here. It’s been a while since we were online. We missed you guys.”
“We’ve been busy. You know what we were busy with. A big-time partnership and trying to lock in our Series C. Founder life, you know?”
“And because we’re always sharing our many wins with you all, we want to be candid.”
“For real. Radically.”
“Our huge partnership blew up last week. And then our funding went along with it.”
“It’s true. The sad truth is, we’re going to be shutting Tooity down over the next month.”
They look in the camera for a beat, with very sad eyes.
Then, “But we know this is part of startup life. It’s the risk we’re all taking. And that’s why we’re really pumped to be launching our new podcast tomorrow morning.”
“It’s called The Shutdown, where we’ll be sharing the story of closing down our company, while also talking to other founders who’ve had the same experience. We hope you’ll subscribe.”
“First episode drops tomorrow. Our special guest will be a therapist who specializes in founder grief. You can find it wherever you get your podcasts.”
“Those guys are so fucked up. I sort of love them,” Trevor declares when it’s over.
“Are they seriously monetizing their failure?” Lacey asks.
“This is great for us,” Dave says, thinking of the market share. He and the rest of the people present turn to me. “Isn’t it?”
And the truth is, I don’t know.
It’s good to be in a less crowded space. One fewer competitor for prospects to compare us with. Plus all existing Tooity customers will now be looking for a home, and Lettercat— with our new platform ready to purchase —will certainly benefit from that.
But what I’ve learned about VCs and getting funding is, they’re fine with risk when it’s on an unknown.
They’re happy to be called geniuses for a lucky bet, and it’s easy to write off failure as an unlucky one.
And if there’s a trend, they’ll all follow it.
That means one successful AI healthcare company guarantees funding for twenty-six other AI healthcare startups.
Conversely, it means that when one newsletter startup tanks, there’s a much rougher road ahead for any other newsletter-plus-so-much-more startup. Which is problematic for anyone currently looking to close another round.
Like maybe we just won a battle, but the war thing is not looking so great.
“Let’s just focus on getting the release out,” I say.
It’s pretty normal for Lacey and I to be the last people in the office these days, but it’s not normal for us to leave together and walk to Gochiso and pick up dinner like two hand-holding zombies in laptop backpacks.
I show her around my apartment, and she says if my design aesthetic goal was “corporate housing,” I nailed it.
Since we don’t have to worry about our food getting cold, there’s time for an in-depth tour of my bedroom. We eat sushi in our pajamas.
Am I happy?
I’d be happier if there weren’t so many things I was trying not to think about.
One, I haven’t heard from Edmund this weekend, not about the release or about the Tooity situation. There’s no chance he doesn’t know about it; he probably knew before the hosts of The Shutdown did.
Two, we still don’t have a green light on the release, and while I know we’ll push something tomorrow, the scope and the quality are not quite what I presented to the board.
It’s slim and it’s decent. I’ve overpromised and underdelivered, which means I’m at their mercy.
If they want to be pleased with me, it’ll be great.
If they want to find a problem, they won’t have to look too long.
Three, it’s very likely Lacey’s going to give notice in a couple of weeks. If she goes, she’s going to throw herself into this new company with the same amount of passion she’s had for Lettercat. That means I won’t see much of her anymore.
Though maybe I’ll have a lot of free time between sessions with my founder grief counselor.
I don’t really sleep all night because I’m dreading tomorrow.