Page 12 of The Hard Launch

I look back to the newsletter. Our chef is a hustler, and she’s got a footer full of links to different places, including her own podcast. Another place for her to log in, another system for her to manage. It’s true to my idea, only it’s bigger. And it’s something that would be very useful to our customers.

Alright. I can do this kind of bigger.

I scribble one of my own. “Merch store.” Smack.

“Booking platform.”

“Premium content for paying subscribers.”

“Live video streaming.”

“Asian salad with tofu. Harvest salad with chicken.”

Jonnie is here with our lunch order.

“When do we stop?” Jude asks me, deep into his second pad of sticky notes. It’s getting dark outside, but I’ve had a lot of Dr Pepper. I’ll be up all night anyway, might as well be here.

“When the ideas get bad,” I tell him through the pretzel in my teeth.

“I think that was ten ideas ago for me,” he says, crumpling the sticky note in his hand into a ball. He tosses it into the recycling bin and pumps his fist when he makes the shot. Nerd.

I look down at my pad, where I’ve written “ads on buses” and decide it’s time for me to retire my Sharpie, too.

Jude approaches the note-laden board and surveys it, then starts moving ideas around, migrating the best ones to the top. I join him and do the same, while sinking the implausible or out-of-scope items down to the bottom corner. We work silently, aware of each other but sharing the space. A few times he rescues ideas I’ve discarded, pulling them back up and back into consideration. I split the top ideas into two tiers: tier one is reasonable for a first launch, tier two is not. He moves most of tier two back into tier one.

“There’s no way we can get that done with this team,” I tell him, moving one of them back down.

“Then we grow the team. Or we integrate. Or partner.”

“It feels like too much.” I cross my arms, looking at the massive scope before us.

He pauses mid-shuffle to look over his shoulder at me.

“Yeah? Tell me about all the people who find huge success by doing just enough, Lacey. Show me where they are.”

I move the Post-it back to where he had it.

“I need a break,” I say, and I go sit in the stairwell and call my mom. But I don’t cry.

I got too comfortable during the brainstorming session, and I forgot I wasn’t dealing with Glenn or my team. Jude always finds a way to remind me that he’s not a person I work with; he’s a person I work for.

I feel like the guy from that Instagram video, who’s showing the stitches he needed after his pet raccoon attacked him. He’s very sad and looking for sympathy, but when I watched it, all I could think was: what were you expecting when you let a raccoon live in your house?

CHAPTER SIX

JUDE

Friday was all about ideas.

Saturday we’re crunching the numbers.

Sunday, everything goes into the board deck.

I wouldn’t say I’m used to this pace, but I’ve been operating in it on and off for four years now. Tight deadlines, high tension. Pressure to deliver. When I was in school, I used to claim this was when I did my best work, but out in the real world I know that’s not true. Sleep is vital, fresh air is important, good nutrition is, too.

I look over at Lacey to see how she’s holding up. She’s wearing her blue light blocking glasses and chewing angrily on a gummy peach, like she’s about to kick her laptop’s ass, and my only thought is that I’d rather her anger be directed toward an inanimate object than toward me.

“Fighting with Excel again?” I ask.