The Startup Wife(41)
Jules, Cyrus, and I try talking about other things, but our conversation always circles back to WAI. “Remember,” Jules says, “when you wanted to call it the Infinite Wisdom?”
Cyrus denies it. “I never wanted to call it that.”
“I wanted to call it Why the Fuck Not?” I say.
“Well, why the fuck didn’t you say anything?”
I’ve had two gin-egars, so I decide to tell the truth. “Because somewhere inside my little immigrant heart, I’m not interested in telling the truth. I just aim to please.”
Jules shuffles over to me and squeezes all the air out of my lungs. “You’re safe here,” he says. And I believe him.
It doesn’t take long after that—just enough time for our fermented rhubarb chia puddings to arrive, and for Jules to start humming Money money money, must be funny, in a rich man’s world—for me to banish my doubts and feel like we’ve returned to old times, old times being last year when Jules and I were standing in front of Li Ann trying to explain why on earth we belonged in her little oasis of magic.
* * *
These days Jules is looking like he goes to the dry cleaner instead of swishing things around in the laundry basket and pulling out whatever smells the least bad. He shows up in blazers and ties, and when he sits down, his socks announce themselves in flashes of color and bright patterns. And he sings all the time, not just in front of Cyrus and me but in the hallways and before we start meetings and in line for Rory’s latest vegan shake. Is he in love? I wonder, but then I would’ve known, and anyway, when would he have had time to fall in love? He’s always here, locked away in a corner with Cyrus or Gaby. He hasn’t said so, but I can tell he’s feeling a little tortured about the Cyrus worship, too. And while Cyrus is crafting handwritten notes to his fans, Jules and Gaby and I have to keep things moving. Thousands of people sign up on the platform every day, and we’re busy hiring, troubleshooting, debugging, and monitoring the community. So far it’s buzzing along like a raucous Asian wedding, but I have this feeling of dread that something terrible will happen and everyone will start hating each other—not unlike a wedding, late at night when the guests have gone home and the mother of the bride discovers the caterers have made off with the leftover biryani.
Even though we have decided not to become rich, and even though—and possibly because—WAI seems to have gotten off to the best possible start, it is a hungry beast that requires constant feeding.
“We have seven weeks of runway,” Jules says at the next board meeting.
Rupert tells us not to worry about the runway. “As long as you’re willing to take on more investment.”
Cyrus has booked Utopia’s boardroom, a soaring space on the top floor with a table the size of a small cruise ship.
“Rupert, you’ve made yourself clear, and for the record, let me restate my position: I will only take additional VC dollars if we are approached by someone who shares my vision of the company and its future.”
“Our vision,” Jules says.
“Clearly, the vision is a three-pointer. Unquestionable.”
“I’ve heard too many stories of founders raising too much money because they get undue pressure from their board,” Cyrus says.
No one has asked my opinion, but annoyingly, I have one. “It’s going to depend on how we plan to monetize.”
Rupert turns to me like I’ve just been teleported onto my seat. “Of course it does,” he says. “That’s the number one question everyone is going to ask.”
“Great,” I say, applauding the sound of my own idea. “So, how are we going to answer that?”
“We’re not going to monetize,” Cyrus says. “We are not doing this for profit—that was the whole point.”
“Then we have to shut down in a few weeks,” Jules says. He pulls out his laptop, takes a few seconds to connect to the monitor on the far side of the room, and projects a spreadsheet onto the screen.
“If we’re not spending anything on customer acquisition or marketing, why is our burn so high?” Cyrus asks.
“Burn is better than churn,” Rupert says.
Churn, I am told, is just not the latest fad in cultured butter but the number of people who sign up, then abandon, the platform. In our case, once they’ve asked the platform to give them a ritual, they’re hooked, perpetually asking it more questions, coming back daily and sometimes multiple times a day to see what their friends are doing, posting photos, commenting on other people’s rituals, and in general just hanging around like they have nothing better to do than to sit around not worshipping God.
“It’s the team, the servers, the constant updates. And we need customer support.”
Rupert stops scribbling. “Customer support? The WAIs need customer support?”
Jules and I have been talking about this. “All the social media platforms—Google, Facebook, Instagram—they spend a lot of money policing their users. Making sure we don’t get exposed to the dark side of humanity.”
“I don’t see why we need to police our own community,” Cyrus says.
“So we don’t let them do something colossally fucked up,” Jules snaps.
“We’re mitigating risk,” I explain. “Plus, we need a way to take care of the community. People are getting emotionally involved, and these are some of their most intimate moments, their fears, their desires, all coming out, and we have to find a way for them to talk about it, or we risk them getting hurt.”