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They sat down, inches apart.
He touched her arm. “I appreciate theprivateshowing.”
Stranger danger, stranger danger.
“And let’s appreciate that this is strictly business, as I owe my partners a fiduciary duty.” She touched his hand. “But there’s always Wednesday.”
“Here’s to always Wednesday.”
“And then we’ll bring you in for a full meet and greet. The rest of the team are dying to get to know you.”
“I really enjoyed meeting your partners, Joe and Bill. Rock solid, both of them.”
“Yes, they are.”
She went over the plans for Laser Focus, which she had written on her laptop, cobbling together bits and pieces from other such plans she had gained access to. It all had a professional appearance because she was really good at Excel and Photoshop and what she didn’t know she could always find out. She actually thought the business concept wasn’t bad, but she wasn’t going to be the one to see if it would work or not. All she needed to do was get the $2 million wire transferred tomorrow.
“Love the name by the way—Laser Focus,” said Crandall.
“I wish I could claim credit for it, but it was that before I came here. However, I wouldn’t leave a VP slot at IBM for nothing. You remember our main concept of pop-ups, of course. But leveraging them in a totally unique way. We refer to it as a latitude-based, instant market supply coordination factored, gross throughput decision-making process.” She glanced at him. “It’s all algorithm-centric, of course. No human can operate at the speeds we need to balance out supply and demand and also definitive location-focused stratagems. Pop-ups must literally ‘pop up’ right when and where the customer needs them to.”
He looked utterly bewildered by all of this but said bracingly, “Pop-ups, of course. Great idea. Always loved the concept.”
“Now, as we discussed before, postpandemic a great many people have or will be starting their own businesses or can work remotely. However, the future dynamic of work has been fundamentally altered, and they don’t want the office space and headaches that come with that. And many businesses have cut back on their office footprint and don’t have the requisite flexibility anymore. And workers don’t always want to sit at their kitchen table and do Zoom meetings while their kids are screaming in the background. That’s where we come in. And while there are temporary office space companies galore, like WeWork, Impact Hub, and Regus, we thought why not make the temp workspacealso‘temporary.’ That way we, as landlords, don’t have to bear the underlying brick-and-mortar property costs. And then we simply pass some but not all of those savings on to our clients. In essence, instead of their coming to us, we go to them.”
“Love it!”
She smiled and touched his arm. “It’s a hybrid system that I think will come to dominate the space in the very near term. Our physical structure has been engineered so that it can be put up and then disassembled in less than one hour, and that includes all equipment provided to the customer on a semicustomized basis. It’s trucked off and either sent to a new site where there is an algorithm-based demand, or warehoused until it’s needed again. But our goal is to have an eighty-five percent deployment at all times. Idle inventory does not make us money.”
She clicked some keys and a new screen appeared. “As you can see, our projections, while conservative, are quite eye-popping. We’re cash flow positive after only eleven months, and in two years’ time, with costs under control and a firm book of business, we’re forecasting net profit margins at over twenty-eight percent. That beats our benchmark by a good eight hundred basis points. We have painstakingly built solid relationships with all necessary vendors and space owners. I’ve had this business plan vetted by a dozen seasoned businesspeople whose opinion I really value, and they all deem it an unqualified home run.”
She glanced at him to see if his eyes were glazing over. They were.
Bingo.
“But I don’t have to tell an experienced investor like yourself anything. You either see it as a good deal or not.”
“And I do see it as aterrificdeal.”
“And your investment gets you fifteen percent of the company on apostmoney basis.”
“An incredible opportunity at a very fair valuation.”
“We plan to align with a SPAC or other appropriate vehicle within two years, and take it public forat leasta three-hundred-million-dollar valuation, making your ownership interest worth—” She pretended to be calculating in her head.
He said, “Forty-five million. A nice return on investment.”
She smiled. “No fair—you’re quicker on the draw than I am.”
“Hey, I’m not just a pretty face.”
She saw him out, letting him kiss her on the cheek.
Wednesday, Wednesday. But by then I’ll be a thousand miles away. Enjoy dinner and drinks and tears alone, or maybe try taking your wife out, you jerk.
CHAPTER27
C?LARISSE LOOKED OVER ATthe electronic marquee in the lobby where the name Laser Focus did not appear. But Crandall had never even looked. She knew he wouldn’t, especially with her gushing self in the lobby to distract him.
