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But still, it was annoying.
“Your first presentation is in fifteen minutes.” Jana set the roster down in front of me with a friendly smile. Jana also moonlighted as our trusted confidant, she has been with us for years. Since the very beginning when we were running off loans until we made a name for ourselves.
“Thanks.”
I took off my sports coat and adjusted my tie. I had gotten used to being overdressed next to Jake. He always looked like he just left the gym; the MMA gym we own and was our first endeavor. It started out as just that, a gym, but now it was home to a few B-list fighters, Division I schools, and has become its own fitness brand. But I could never ditch my dress pants, tailored shirt, and silk tie. No way.
Jake finally came in with five minutes to go, when the first presenter was already outside. As I suspected, he was wearing khaki shorts and a Polo. He always had the buttons undone to show off his tattoo. I thought his shoulder piece of roses and thorns was a drunken mistake, but apparently it wasn’t. The chest tattoo was after that.
“You ready?” He sat next to me and I stifled my annoyance.
“I’ve been here for thirty minutes.” I said in response. He just laughed and shook his head.
He took one pen pad, and in big letters he wrote ‘yes’ on one, and ‘no’ on the other. I shook my head, but smiled.
“Whatever. The only way we work is when you do the hard work, and I seal the deal with my thug tattoo and muscles. It’s proven.” Man, he was a dick sometimes, but also an entrepreneurial genius.
When we met in college, I
planned to just work on software, and maybe develop my own. But he stepped in and showed me how to brand myself, and how to make a fortune with my brain. I was opposed to starting out with investments like the gym and coffee shops for undergrads, but it was what built us. Now, we could pretty much do whatever the hell we want. And a lot of that was due to his attitude.
“Right.”
He geared for another rebuttal but then there was a knock, and Jana told us number one was here. Jake didn’t hide his ‘I’d rather be anywhere else’ groan. But he knew why we do this. Mentorship is a big deal, especially when you can make someone loyal to you at a young age, and become their spring board.
These younger people have great ideas…some of them. Jake and I were both almost thirty, we had lost touch with what was trending, and selling. So, these hopeful college students come in and tell us what we we’re missing, and we give them an offer they can’t refuse to capitalize on it. It’s fool proof.
“Who is this guy?” Jake grabbed the roster, and found his file in the large stack of thirty.
We had a team vet all these applications before we even looked at them. We get almost two thousand proposals, and they narrow it down to thirty before they subject us to hours of unpreparedness and entitlement. Seriously, it gets worse every year.
The school specifically might be the problem, it was no Ivy League, but UCLA had a lot of pretentious students, fueled by family money and entitlement. Only a rare gem actually deserved what we have to offer, and I doubted I would even see one today.
“Something about sustainable agriculture?” Jake asked. I chuckled softly and shook my head.
“No, recyclable agriculture. He is an Ag student, so that’s probably why we have never heard of it.” I told him. Jake shook his head and frowned.
“Hopefully it’s good.”
It was not good at all. I could see the bits and pieces, but they just did not fit together. I wondered why he was even so nervous, it was just the two of us. How could he ever make it in our board room, full of ten power suits worth more than the school’s endowment? Those are the kind of things I look for as well. Can we send them out into the business world sharks, with our names on their resume saying that we taught them?
Hell no.
“Thank you, we’ll be in touch.” I offered my best poker-faced smile as he took down his presentation.
He even had graphics set up, but he never got to explaining the big ass graph he sat right in front of us.
“We have got to get someone else to do these.” Jake leaned back in his seat, rubbing his face in frustration.
“Then we wouldn’t know who’s walking in our office, or who we are buying.” I said.
“Uh huh. Maybe you should do it alone then, since you are so damned good at it.” He retorted.
I shook my head. Jake could be a real trip sometimes. Honestly, when it came down to it, he was still responsible. The gym we have is what he tends to focus on. Not only does he operate it himself, he trains there too. In other days, he planned to be an MMA fighter, but somehow that plan got lost in the wind.
He doesn’t talk about it, and I don’t ask. But I know it has something to do with his parents. When we met, they had recently died. I think that was why we took to each other so easily, and why we work so well as business partners. I grew up with my aunt, so we both know how to appreciate shit before it’s gone.
Most business people don’t do that, and that is why most businesses fail.
