The Startup Wife(42)

“Can’t they talk to each other?” Rupert asks.

“They do,” Jules replies, “but we need to give them something more.”

“I understand,” Cyrus says. “That’s why I’ve been doing the WAICast.”

“They need more than five minutes a day.”

“What’s the damage?” Rupert asks.

“Maybe I should make the videos longer,” Cyrus muses.

“If we open a help line, we need to staff it. At least ten full-time staff, maybe more.”

“Can we outsource?”

Jules says we can’t outsource. “This isn’t like returning your dishwasher because it won’t fit under the counter.”

“I like the idea of providing the community with more resources,” Cyrus says.

“Then you have to agree to fundraise,” Rupert tells him. “And before that, we have to agree on how to monetize. I have some ideas.” He shares his screen. We all turn our chairs. “Number one. Advertisements.” He shows a slide of the platform, only with ads for yoga pants that can be worn to the office and office pants that feel as comfortable as yoga pants.

In glorious chorus, Cyrus and I shout, “NO.”

Rupert sighs and leans back in his chair so I can see the shiny quarter-size circle of bald at the top of his head, a sight that makes me hate him a tiny bit less.

“It’s important to remain calm,” Jules says. “Rupert makes an interesting point, but we would have to significantly change our idea of what we are doing and why we are here to go down that road.”

“Number two. Selling data—not the personal stuff, just a few limited things, all aboveboard.”

We repeat our opinion, louder this time.

His third idea is this: “We get people to pay ninety-nine cents for each ritual.”

This is met with cheesecake-thick silence.

He closes his laptop and groans. “I knew it wasn’t a content play, but you guys really need to get a handle on optics. How’s this thing going to look like anything more than a social experiment? A very expensive experiment that I put money into.”

“Rupert, it was my impression that you’d come on board because you believed in the vision,” Cyrus says.

Rupert throws his hands up. “Of course I believe in the vision. I just expect the vision to deliver on revenue. I didn’t do it to make a bunch of hippies feel better about the state of the world.” He puts two fingers between his neck and his shirt collar. “This is a business, not a charity.”

Jules puts on his most soothing Caboty voice and says, “We understand. Of course you want to see a return.”

“I have investors too,” Rupert whines.

“Totally get it. And we will come up with a solution. We will.”

Cyrus is trying to appear to look busy by arranging a piece of paper in front of him. I reach over and put my hand on his elbow. “It would be so much better if we didn’t have to think about revenue, I get that.” I let my words sink in and soften him. “But there are realities here that we have to contend with.”

Cyrus meets my gaze, nods.

“In the first place, let’s just raise a bit more money. That’ll give us time to consider our options.”

“Look, I’ll go in for a little more. But then you’ll have to find someone with a heart as big as mine,” Rupert says.

“There’s no one like you,” Jules soothes. “We really appreciate it, Rupert.”

Rupert settles back in his seat. “Fine. I’m agreed. Here are some people who might be interested.” He brandishes a list. “Most of your premier-league funds aren’t going to get into social media. The market is mature, and there’s no guarantee anyone will make a significant dent. But there are a few who have cropped up. The first is a new fund called Woke VC.”

I’m trying to keep a straight face. “Are they…”

“Yes,” Rupert says, grave. “They are targeting diversity.”

“What does that mean?”

“Five percent of their funding goes to companies founded by minority women.”

“Five percent?”

“That’s the target. Right now it’s about one point five.”

“Sounds cutting-edge.”

He rolls through a list of funds: GreyGrey, Founders Friend, Telepathic, Bolton Steinberger, Crush, Firework. He lists the pros and cons of each, the probability of landing one of them. He tells Jules and Cyrus they have to go to the Valley to make their pitches. “Get your gloves on,” he says. “We’re going into the ring.”





Nine

KILLING EVERYONE




Jules and Cyrus go on a road show. They take their decks, their projections, Gaby’s financial models, and they fly back and forth from the West Coast and return with stories about all the boardrooms they pitched at, Prets they ate at, rooms they shared at Holiday Inns. Now that Cyrus has signed off on our plans for WAI, he’s as ready to pitch it as the rest of us. That doesn’t mean he sticks to the script—part of the Cyrus/Jules routine is that Cyrus goes off book and behaves and speaks as if he has wandered off a mountaintop and into a boardroom. There’s the time he leads the partners of Steiner Jenkins in a group meditation in which they sit facing the wall of their boardroom and chant “om” in three-part harmony. There’s the other time, when someone asks him while scrolling through a phone, why on earth anyone would rather talk to people about how we die rather than to their friends about how to make homemade yogurt, and Cyrus reaches across the table, puts his hands on the man’s shoulders, and looks so deep into his eyes that the guy starts crying right there in front of his boss.