The Start-Up Read online

  Chapter 1

  “Maybe I shouldn’t have quit,” Fi said into her iPhone. She hurried up the street looking for Coupa Café. She hardly spent any time in Palo Alto. Although Coupa was a well known café, she’d never actually been there herself.

  Her best friend since college, Tessa, roared into the phone, “Don’t say that! Quitting was the best thing you could have done! They didn’t deserve you. Remember how miserable you were?”

  “I know. I know! But I should have at least found a new job before quitting. That would have been the responsible thing to do.” She passed by two coffee shops. None of them were Coupa Café. “Where is this place? I’m going to be late!”

  Tessa answered, “You are going to find a great job. You are a talented software engineer. You are definitely going to find something soon.”

  Fi spun around the sidewalk. Where was this place? “Well, I probably won’t get this one since I can’t find where damn Coupa Café is!”

  A shaggy haired guy on a skateboard whizzed by. “Coupa? It’s right there.” He pointed to a shop with a colorful awning across the street.

  Fi called after the kind Samaritan. “Thank you!”

  Sprinting across the street, Fi said, “Okay. I found it. Wish me luck.”

  “Good luck! You don’t need it though! You are an amazing engineer. You deserve a job that speaks to your purpose and gels with your spirit.” Tessa said.

  When they first met, they were just Freshman at Berkeley. Tessa believed in connecting to the spiritual universe and finding happiness through listening to your subconscious. In the beginning of their budding friendship, Fi was not used to this kind of thing. Their dorm room was full of crystals, tarot cards, and books on spiritual well being. After a while, she enjoyed her friend’s musings on the spiritual realm. In fact, she found many of Tessa’s words of wisdom to be helpful in her everyday life.

  Tessa continued, “Repeat after me: I deserve happiness and appreciation.”

  Fi took a deep breath. “I deserve happiness and appreciation.”

  “You do! Okay. Have a great interview!” Tessa said.

  Fi took another deep breath before opening the door. Inside, she scanned the room. She was supposed to meet Adam Garvey, the Chief Technical Officer. The company’s website didn’t have any photos of the founders. She really had no idea who she was looking for.

  She spotted a wiry guy with thick spectacles, in the zone and typing away on his laptop. That had to be Adam!

  Marching up to the table, in as much feigned confidence as she could muster, she held her hand out, “Hi Adam! I’m Fi.”

  The guy looked up from his computer squinting his eyes behind his lenses. He shook his head, “I’m not Adam.”

  “You’re not?”

  A gorgeous black man with broad shoulders and an easy smile interjected from another table. “I’m Adam!” He stood, revealing his tall stature, and motioned for Fi to come over.

  Flustered, she shook Adam’s hand. “My mistake!” she laughed, trying to cover up her embarrassment. Adam was tall, lean, and had a dimple in his left cheek when he smiled. She hadn’t expected the CTO to be smoking hot. Within seconds, the interview became even more stressful.

  “No problem!” he said with a laugh.

  She took a seat with her face flushed. Regretfully,she assumed the hottest guy in the café was not a CTO? Then, another impossibly beautiful man sat down at the table with them. He had on a navy blue blazer with a t-shirt. He set down three cups of coffee.

  He held out his hand to her, “I’m Blaine. The CEO.”

  She gulped, really feeling the heat building in her cheeks. Taking his hand, she said, “Fi. Fi Thomas.”

  Blaine sat down. He had a casual air about him, but she could feel his eyes looking her over. Tessa and Fi had gone on a mini-shopping spree. At her last job, Fi had worn what all the other engineers wore to work every day: jeans and t-shirts. The women in the company who were higher up dressed differently in tasteful power dresses. Fi had on one now. It was a fiery red and hugged her curves she often hid under baggy t-shirts. After quitting, she wanted to start a new chapter in her life and become the person she always wanted to be. It wasn’t easy. She felt like she was faking it.

  “Fake it until you make it!” she told herself, when she put the dress on earlier that morning. That saying always seemed easier said than done.

  Here she was now, completely faking and failing at being a confident brilliant engineer in a sophisticated power dress and heels. What she would have given to be in one of her jeans and t-shirt ensembles to hide herself behind!

  Adam typed into his laptop and then looked up at Fi, again with that killer smile. That dimple was sexy and adorable at the same time. “Thank you so much for meeting us.”

  Fi answered, “Thank you for the interview.”

  Adam asked, “I see your last job was at Gipton. Why did you leave?”

  Fi had prepared for these questions about her last job. Obviously, that was going to come up, but it still struck an emotional chord with her.

  She exhaled slowly. The truth would set her free, right? Wasn’t that something Tessa would say?

  “Honestly,” she paused, looking into their handsome faces. Of all the job interviews she’d ever had, even the incredibly grueling one to get into Gipton, none even compared to how hard it was to be interviewed by these two GQ models. “I was treated quite poorly there. My technical lead was unappreciative of my efforts. Although I secured two patents for the company, I was not promoted or compensated in a manner that fit with my experience and talent.”

  Were these words really coming out of her mouth? She’d practiced it over and over again with Tessa, but actually saying it in a real interview was entirely different.

  Blaine looked at her, his face furrowed with kindness. “That’s terrible.”

  “Yes. It was, but that’s behind me and I’d like to be part of another company that speaks to my purpose.”

  Omigod. That was not something they’d rehearsed. Did she actually say: speaks to my purpose?

  Blaine asked, “How does Luv Maite speak to your purpose?”

  Fi felt infused with confidence. She had read Luv Maite’s mission statement and truly believed in it. If anyone needed help meeting people, she did. She imagined there were other people just like her, used to hiding behind their screens, instead of interacting with others.

  “Any individual who has any interaction with social media has a treasure trove of data about themselves. This data can be analyzed and…”

  A man with chiseled chin and a body just as sculpted sat down at the table. He grumbled in an Australian accent, “You didn’t get me a coffee?”

  Blaine remarked, “We didn’t think you’d make it.”

  He waved him off, looking around. “So where’s the engineer we’re interviewing.”

  His abrupt entrance threw Fi off. She stuttered, “I’m… right here.”

  The man grabbed Adam’s coffee and took a sip. “Are you having a laugh? We are interviewing a bloke.”

  Adam scoffed, taking his coffee back, “You’ll have to excuse our CEO’s brashness.”

  Blaine laughed, “He was raised in a barn. You do have barns down under, right? Or are they called something else. Billabongs or Dundees or something? ”

  The man raised his hands in defense. “My bad. My assumption was that Fi was a male name.”

  “Oh ya? You meet a lot of dudes named Fi at the gym or something?” Adam chortled.

  He ignored the heckles and stuck his hand out to her. “I’m Crawford.”

  Fi took his hand. She felt her face blushing again. Just when, she’d recovered from earlier. “I’m Fi. It’s short for Fiona.”

  Crawford nodded his head, “Ahhh. Okay.
Fiona.” He looked at Adam and Blaine. “Carry on. Where were you?”

  “Fi was just explaining why she wants to work for Luv Maite,” Adam answered.

  All three sets of eyes bore into her. She never had captured the attention of this level of hot before. Ever. Maybe one guy at a time. But three hot guys hanging on her every word was almost too much for her to handle. She remembered Tessa’s mantra before the interview, “I deserve happiness and appreciation.”

  With her nerves rattled, she continued, “Like I was saying, Luv Maite utilizes the wealth of data from users’ social media accounts, analyzes the data with presumably, natural language processing…”

  Adam interjected, “That’s right.”

  A smile spread across Fi’s face. This interview was going well! “Using AI, Luv Maite, then makes predictions on who a user would be most compatible with. It’s genius!” Her voice fell. “It’s also a great way to help people connect. Not everyone is outgoing and social. The usual dating apps are generally based on looks. Luv Maite is proposing something better. A way for people to truly connect.”

  Blaine commented, “You’re gorgeous so surely you have no problem in that department.”

  “Bloody hell, Blaine!” He held a hand up to Fi. “Don’t answer that. Are you sexually harassing an employee before she even becomes an employee?”

  Blaine rolled his eyes and crossed his arms. “Whatever. Just saying. It’s an honest question.”

  Crawford shook his head. “Let’s get back to real questions. Where did you go to college?”

  “Berkeley.”

  He glanced over at her resume in front of Adam. “But you weren’t a computer science major?”

  Fi strummed her fingers on her lap. “No. I was a Biology major. My roommate was a CS major. I kept on with Biology but she taught me how to code. Instead of going into a Biology career, I decided to go into software, which I feel is my true calling.”

  Adam’s raised an eyebrow. “Self taught programmer. Impressive!”

  Fi dismissed his praise. “No, not really self taught. Tessa taught me a lot. And um... My college boyfriend was a computer science major, too.” Fi cringed as soon as she said it. Trevor had been a computer science major when they were at Berkeley, but he was reluctant to teach or even talk about his studies with her. He barely helped her. When they both ended up working at Gipton together, he certainly did not try to help her with her career. Why did she feel the need to bring him up every time asked her about how her computer science career started?

  Ugh. Habits are hard to break.

  “We want to be as transparent as possible,” Blaine looked at the other members of Luv Maite before continuing. “We are in the early stages of a start up.”

  “I’m totally okay with that. I like that actually. I really want to be a part of something in its early stages.”

  Adam’s eyes lit up. “Fantastic!”

  Blaine remarked, “You are probably used to luxurious work conditions from being at Gipton. Our headquarters are pretty modest in comparison. Are you okay with that?”

  Fi shrugged her shoulders. “Absolutely!”

  Blaine gave her a smile leaning back in his chair. “Sounds like a perfect fit.”

  Adam concurred, “I agree.”

  Fi’s heart soared. Did she just get the job?

  Crawford grunted, twisting his mouth in disapproval. “We’ll get back to you, and let you know. We still have a ton of interviews to go through.”

  Adam and Blaine eyes shot daggers at him, but they said nothing.

  Crawford rubbed his beard with his fingers. “It would be stupid to decide on someone so early in our interview process. You understand?”

  Fi’s heart, soaring through the clouds, quickly plummeted. She hid her disappointment and said, “Of course. I understand.”

  Chapter 2

  Blaine slouched on the couch. “I think she’s perfect.”

  Crawford groaned. “Of course you do. You made it blatantly clear your reasons for that. Leave it to you guys to want to hire a hot chick as the next engineer.”

  Blaine flipped his bangs off his forehead. “Okay. Yes. She’s hot, but look at her resume. She is the most talented person we’ve interviewed.”

  Adam piped in pouring himself a beer. “She is. She definitely is.”

  Crawford shuffled through the resumes in his hand. He held one up. “What about Gregory? He was good, right?”

  Blaine spat, “That guy was an arrogant prick.”

  Crawford shot back. “I guess you’d be an expert on that.”

  Blaine shrugged. “I think we have our fill of arrogant pricks in the company, counting you and me.” He pointed at Crawford.

  “I totally agree with that, too,” Adam said before taking a sip of his beer. His face crinkled in disgust. “I don’t know what you guys like IPA’s. They taste like rotten garbage.”

  Blaine had a faraway look on his face. “Isn’t garbage always rotten?”

  Crawford looked up from his shuffling. “No. You throw out perfectly fine shoes all the time, rich boy.”

  “I donate them. It’s my charity to the world.”

  Adam scoffed, “I’m sure the customers at Goodwill are thrilled to get barely worn Gucci’s.”

  Crawford help up another resume. “What about Matt?”

  Adam answered, “Matt is a good candidate.”

  Crawford read off the resume, “Graduated with Honors at Stanford.”

  “Fi also graduated with honors,” Blaine offered.

  Crawford huffed, “But not even in Computer Science!”

  Adam poured his beer into the sink. “So? That shows how brilliant she is. She studied Biology, but then managed to develop two patents. I can’t believe you care about that when you dropped out of school yourself.”

  “Matt was in the Boy Scouts,” Crawford said waving the resume in the air.

  “You are grasping at straws, my friend,” Blaine said.

  Crawford grabbed Adam’s glass. “Are you Rich Boy now? Don’t waste good beer.” He gulped down the leftover beer in the glass.

  Adam patted his friend on the back. “Has this anything to do with Jessie?”

  Crawford stepped back. “No!”

  “Does this have anything to do with the no dating rule? Because we wouldn’t be dating her, unfortunately. We will be working with her,” Blaine added.

  Adam offered, “We are developing a dating app. It would be awesome to have a woman on the team. Don’t you think?”

  Blaine said, “I agree!”

  Crawford grumbled, taking his beer upstairs. “I have to think about it.”

  Upstairs, he sat on on the balcony drinking Adam’s discarded beer. It did kind of taste a little rotten, but he wasn’t going to admit that to them. Just like, he couldn’t admit how much Jessie was still on his mind.

  He thought Jessie was the woman for him. They were dating for two years before she called it quits. When he’d left his consulting job to be CEO of Luv Maite, he’d taken a huge pay cut. They moved out of the swanky apartment in Pacific Heights to Blaine’s house in Palo Alto. Technically, it wasn’t Blaine’s house, but his parents. It made sense to turn the house into their place of work and home.

  Jessie was an only child. She grew up used to lots of attention. Living in the house with Adam and Blaine, Crawford’s attention was divided. Plus, this early on in their company, they were all working terribly long days. With a pay cut, Crawford didn’t have the time or money to whisk her away to luxury getaways or lavish her with gifts.

  Jessie couldn’t take their new lifestyle.

  “It’s going to turn around. It’s not going to be like this forever,” Crawford had pleaded.

  Jessie’s face was stern as she gently put her clothes into her suitcase. “I’ve given you six months to work this little experiment out. This job pays shit!”

  Crawford took hold of her shoulders. “For now, it does. But I believe in our product. I believe in Luv Maite!”

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nbsp; Jessie’s face crinkled. “Ew. I don’t. I can’t wait around while you try to figure out how to be a mature adult with a steady job.” Tears welled in her pretty blue eyes. “I deserve things in life! This was not what I signed up for when we started dating!”

  Crawford was heartbroken. He thought he was going to marry her. In the aftermath, he set a new company rule, “No dating.”

  Adam had no objections. He rarely dated, which Crawford found odd. In college, Adam had been lanky and looked like a thirteen-year-old. By the time he graduated, from hitting the gym relentlessly, Adam had filled out. He was a good looking dude, but he still barely, if ever, went out with any girls.