Page 77 of Semantics

“Do you guys always work the weekends?” Stella asked, realizing that she wasn’t going to get an answer from Violet.

“Pretty much.” Enya pointed at Violet. “She doesn’t demand it or anything, but we like what we do. Arlowe’s butt is usually glued to that chair unless she’s going out to meet women.”

“Act like I do that every night, Enya. And speaking of my chair…”

Arlowe looked at Stella.

“Oh, sorry.” Stella stood quickly. “I should get out of your hair.”

“Stella, it’s fine,” Violet said. “I’ll eat the damn protein bar while Sarai changes slide thirteen, breaking it into three more slides, and moves it to the appendix, okay?”

“Yeah, okay,” she said.

Stella found that she didn’t want to go home when the four women got to work. She pulled out her own computer, sat down on a spare chair, and pretended like she was working on something of her own, but really, she was listening to the four of them go over their product and their pitch deck once more. Eventually, though, she closed her computer and found herself participating, and no one seemed to object or care that she didn’t work there.

“What if you highlight the differences here?” she suggested, pointing to the screen. “You’re going to get the questions, right? Might as well get the objections out of the way. Tell them why they’d invest in your product over any other one like it.”

“We do that a little later, I thought,” Violet said.

“Not really. You kind of gloss over it in the back part of the deck. I’m guessing you’re doing that because you’re worried about pointing things out directly, but I say you just do it. VCs tend to want directness. They value their time more than their money because their time is their money. I’d hit them with it.”

“But the leaders in the industry are way ahead of us,” Violet argued.

“Maybe so, but you’re doing something different than them. They’re gamifying language learning primarily. You’re doing that to compete, but you’re focused on translations. I haven’t seen any other app do what you’ve shown you’ve got right now; not to the degree you’re doing it. And you’re not even done adding all the functionality you want yet. Arlowe said she wants to make it so that it would work with just about every wearable.”

“She wants us to build our own. Why would we do that if we’re going to have our own? They wouldn’t buy it then.”

“Isn’t it smart to work with the available ones until you have it? I thought that was a great idea. Make everything you have widely available, get as much money and data as possible, and build partnerships. If, at some point, you do decide to build your own, you’ll have a bigger brand by then, and if it doesn’t make sense to do it, you still have those partnerships.”

“But their hardware isn’t built for what we offer.”

“No, not exclusively, but–”

“Stella’s right. It’s the best play,” Sarai interjected.

“Hey, it was my idea,” Arlowe said.

“Sure. Let’s pretend like we haven’t been talking about the approach for years and that I didn’t suggest it. Enya?”

“What?”

“Whose idea was it?” Sarai asked.

“I honestly just want lunch,” Enya replied.

“Shit.” Stella checked the time on the wall clock. “It’s two in the afternoon?”

“Apparently,” Violet said, looking pissed off.

“I hope you didn’t have lunch plans, Stella. You would have missed them,” Arlowe said.

“I didn’t. I do have dinner plans, though.”

“You do?” Violet asked.

“Yeah,” she replied, wondering where Violet’s surprise about that was coming from.

“Oh,” Violet said. “Well, sorry for keeping you. I can walk you out.”