Chương 5: Six Weeks to Breathe

Once the core team was assembled, things got easier. I now had people I could dump part of the work on, and I used that shamelessly. I ran them hard, gave them tight deadlines, demanded results. Partly so they would not ask too many questions about the money and the plans. Partly to see what they could do under pressure. I have to say, I liked what I saw. The first assignment was simple: build your departments. Find the right people, vet them, hire them. Two weeks for everything. They managed it.

Not smoothly, not without mistakes, but they managed it. Prescott proved invaluable. He personally sat in on every interview, screening candidates with almost frightening thoroughness. Some of them fell apart on the most basic questions, and I could only shake my head at the people my executives had tried to drag in during the first few days. But little by little, the quality improved. Each of my seven, consciously or not, looked for people like themselves: principled, competent, and with fire in their eyes.

Harold himself, instead of searching ads for HR people or poaching from competitors, brought in three plump old men from crumbling unions. Gray-haired, short of breath, wearing baggy suits that probably remembered the Truman administration. I looked at them and thought: Harold, have you lost your mind? I definitely don't need dinosaurs like these. Then I noticed who they had brought with them. Young, solid-looking guys. Not thugs, but not office plankton either. Calm, attentive, with sharp eyes.

The kind who can talk, persuade, and, if necessary, apply pressure. Union school. Those old men knew how to negotiate when the stakes were not executive bonuses, but miners' wages and the right to take sick leave. And the young ones had spent years learning from them, though apparently they never had the chance to take their seats. The unions were not exactly in the best shape these days. Prescott caught my eye and gave the smallest shrug. Trust me. I know what I'm doing. I decided to trust him.

In the end, that was exactly what I paid him for. Jennings worked faster than anyone. On the first day, he called former colleagues, people who had left Sullivan & Cromwell after him. Not out of solidarity, no. They had simply seen where the firm was heading and did not want to be part of it. They had not received any black marks, but they had never managed to return to their previous level either. The legal market is tight, and partners at large firms have long memories.

When Jennings called and said something new was being built, and that he saw potential in it, three agreed to join. Chen had the hardest time. Socialization was clearly not one of her talents. In all her years of work, she had not acquired friends, or even acquaintances. Just numbers, charts, and sleepless nights over tables. She solved the problem her own way: she went to her alma mater and came back with three graduates. Young, full of enthusiasm, and holding degrees that meant nothing yet.

"They can count," Chen said when I asked about her selection criteria.

"I'll teach them the rest." Corrigan brought in half his family. I was already preparing a speech on the inadmissibility of nepotism when Prescott invited me to sit in on the interviews. After the third candidate, I understood that the Irishman knew what he was doing. His cousin could sell ice to Eskimos. His niece convinced me in fifteen minutes that I urgently needed a pen I was already holding in my hand. His sister also managed to surprise me.

We gave her several possible sales schemes, and she casually sketched out improvements for each of them. The Corrigan family turned out to be a clan of born salesmen, and I did not give a damn about the rest. Salazar brought in his nephew, a young patent attorney with a Yale degree and two years at a mid-sized firm. The kid could have aimed higher. Much higher. But he came to our, as he put it, "promising outfit" on one word from his uncle. I appreciated both the trust and the willingness to take a risk.

People like that are rare, I have to admit. Although, hand on heart, it was not so much faith in the bright future of Aegis as the boy's attachment to his uncle. Salazar had replaced his father after his parents died. Ruthman refused to expand his staff.

"For now, the link with Miss Chen is enough for me," he said, puffing on his pipe.

"Perhaps later I'll bring in a couple of people from academic circles. Once I understand where the company is headed." Eleanor surpassed everyone in energy. In one week, that restless woman conducted twenty-three interviews and selected five people. She introduced each of them to me personally, with a brief dossier and an explanation of why this particular candidate. Her choice was flawless: experienced managers who knew the real estate market from the inside. Kozlowski performed a small miracle.

She poached eight engineers from General Electric. Eight. People who worked at a stable corporation with good salaries and prospects. They came to us, a company with no history, no product, no guarantees. They came because they respected her. Because they remembered how she had stood up in a meeting and said the truth no one wanted to hear. And because of that, they decided to trust her judgment. Oh, I had not paid those detectives for nothing. Definitely not for nothing. And those people brought in more people.

In total, we ended up with fifty-eight employees, including support staff: secretaries, cleaners, couriers. Every department was staffed. Legal, finance, patents, sales, research, real estate, and human resources. The mechanism had been assembled and was ready to start. Only one tiny problem remained. Chen. She demanded reports on the company's cash reserves. Every day. Sometimes twice a day.

She looked at me over her glasses with the expression of a person who sees an approaching disaster and cannot understand why everyone else is calmly drinking coffee. I think she had already started calculating on her own. Adding rent, salaries, overheads. Estimating how much money I had started with and how much was left. That is the problem with smart people: they are damn hard to hide things from. Naturally, I gave her nothing.

Because if she had seen the real state of affairs, she would most likely have packed her things and left, taking with her everyone she could warn. And she would have been absolutely right, it has to be said. Two months. We had, at best, two months before bankruptcy. Money was leaking through our fingers like water: rent, salaries, equipment, licenses, insurance, damn paperclips and toilet paper. Little things that, together, turned into thousands. And if you counted the launch of the project, it was even less.

About a month, and that was it. Finita. So when the last employee had been hired and the last small issue had been more or less settled, I called all the department heads into the conference room. It was time to show my cards. At least part of them. Snow was falling outside. The room smelled of coffee and… I sniffed. Cigarettes. Someone had managed to smoke while I was gone.

"Corrigan," I said without turning around.

"I know it was you. Stop smoking in the office."

"Boss, how do you always figure me out?" There was more admiration in his voice than repentance.

"You're the only one who smokes Lucky Strike. Everyone else smokes Marlboro or Camel. As a non-smoker, I can tell the difference." I turned to the board and picked up a piece of chalk.

"And you're the only one who always sits by the window so you can blow smoke through the crack." Someone snorted. Corrigan spread his hands with the look of a man caught, but not defeated.

"Gentlemen," I said, standing by the board, "the time has come to explain why I gathered you here. What we are going to do. What we are going to make money on." Margaret adjusted her glasses. Ruthman leaned back in his chair, arms folded across his chest. Kozlowski took out a notebook. I took the chalk and drew a square. A small, simple square.

"Do you know what this is?" Puzzled looks.

"A square," Corrigan said with a faint smirk.

"Possibly a piece of paper. Depends on your perception."

"Exactly. A piece of paper." I drew a second square next to it, smaller.

"Now imagine that this piece of paper can be stuck to any surface. Then peeled off. Then stuck again. No tape, no pins, no paperclips. By itself." Silence.

"Sticky notes?" Jennings raised an eyebrow.

"For reminders?"

"For everything." I turned to them.

"Notes on a telephone. Reminders on a refrigerator. Marks in documents. Messages for colleagues. Shopping lists. Bookmarks." Chen frowned.

"Mr. Miller, that sounds rather… ordinary. People already use paper and pins."

"Exactly. They use them because there is no alternative." I set down the chalk and walked to the table.

"How many times today did each of you write something down and lose it? How many times did you look for the right document in a stack of papers? How many times did you forget to call someone back because the note got buried?" This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it Silence. I saw several of them glance involuntarily at their notebooks, at the chaos of papers in front of them.

"Now imagine a small pad that fits in your pocket. You tear off a sheet, and it sticks. To a monitor, to a folder, to a wall, to a phone. You write 'Call Johnson at three,' stick it to the phone. You call him, take it off, throw it away. It leaves no marks and doesn't damage the surface." Corrigan leaned forward.

"Secretaries," he said slowly.

"Every secretary in every office in America…"

"Go on."

"They're drowning in notes. Messages for the boss, meeting reminders, phone call notes." His eyes lit up.

"If it works the way you describe, they'll fight for these pads."

"Not only secretaries. Accountants can use them as bookmarks in reports. Lawyers can mark case files. Doctors can leave notes on patient charts. Students can use them in lectures. Housewives can stick shopping lists on the refrigerator." Ruthman coughed.

"Mr. Miller, the idea is curious. But how does it work technically? An adhesive that can stick and be peeled off repeatedly is not a trivial task." I looked at Kozlowski. She was already writing quickly in her notebook.

"Anna-Maria?" She raised her head.

"A low-adhesion acrylate adhesive," she said thoughtfully.

"It wouldn't bond permanently. It would… grip. Like…" She snapped her fingers, searching for the word.

"Like gecko feet. Many weak contact points instead of one strong bond."

"How long to develop the formula?" She bit her lip.

"If the idea is sound… two or three weeks for experiments. A month for a stable formula."

"You have three weeks for a working prototype." She nodded. No panic, no objections. Chen tapped her pencil against the table.

"Assuming the technology works, production will require equipment, premises, personnel. That means months and significant investment."

"We won't produce it ourselves." Everyone looked at me.

"I'll explain." I returned to the board and drew a simple diagram.

"Aegis Patents owns the formula and the patent. We do not build factories. We license the technology to existing manufacturers." Salazar nodded slowly.

"Royalties from every unit sold…"

"And upfront payments for exclusive licenses." I circled the diagram with chalk.

"Look. There are dozens of paper mills and stationery manufacturers in America. They already have equipment, logistics, distribution channels. What they do not have is a product that sets them apart from their competitors." Corrigan snapped his fingers.

"We don't go to retail chains. We go to the manufacturers."

"Exactly." I looked at him.

"James, imagine this. You own a medium-sized paper mill in Pennsylvania. You make notepads that are no different from your neighbor's notepads. You compete only on price, and that is a race to the bottom."

"And then we appear…"

"And offer you an exclusive license for a revolutionary product. You become the only manufacturer of sticky notepads on the East Coast. Your competitors are left biting their elbows. Your product is on the shelves, theirs is not." Chen was writing fast.

"Deal structure?"

"An advance payment for an exclusive license. Fifty to a hundred thousand dollars, depending on region and segment. Plus royalties, about five to seven percent from each package sold."

"How many licenses can be sold?"

"We split the market." I began writing on the board.

"East Coast. West Coast. Midwest. South. That is geography. Now the segments: office market, retail, educational institutions, medicine. Each segment gets a separate license." Ruthman whistled.

"If we sell even four or five licenses at fifty thousand…"

"Two hundred to three hundred thousand upfront. Before the first notepad even reaches a store shelf." Silence. I watched them digest the information.

"This is…" Jennings paused, searching for the right words.

"This is elegant. We do not carry manufacturing risks. We do not freeze capital in equipment. We do not hire workers."

"We own the idea. Everyone else does the dirty work and pays us for the privilege." Chen looked up from her notes.

"But if the technology is so simple, what stops them from copying the formula and refusing to pay royalties?"

"Patents," Salazar answered before I could open my mouth. He was already scribbling something in his notebook.

"We patent not only the adhesive formula. The method of application. The pad format. The way the sheets are peeled off. The packaging design. We build a patent fence, dozens of small patents around the core idea."

"And a trademark," I added.

"Stick-It. Once the product becomes popular, the name becomes generic. Try competing after that with a brand every housewife knows." Corrigan grinned.

"So my job isn't to sell notepads. My job is to sell manufacturers a dream. Hm. Interesting assignment. I'll have to start with acquaintances."

"You catch on quickly."

"That's what you pay me for." He leaned back in his chair.

"I'll need samples. Working samples that can be shown and touched."

"You'll have them in three weeks."

"Then in four weeks you'll have your first check." I nodded and wrote a second word on the board: REFLECTIVE PATCHES FOR CLOTHING.

"Second product. Simpler than the first." Kozlowski raised her head.

"Like road signs? Microspheres?"

"Exactly. The technology already exists. Glass microspheres that reflect light back toward the source. They've been used for road markings and traffic signs for twenty years."

"And no one thought to apply it to clothing?" Ruthman asked, a note of disbelief in his voice.

"Industrial thinking. People who make road signs don't think about clothing. People who sew clothing don't know about microspheres." I began drawing on the board.

"Patches. Strips. Stickers. Sewn-in bands. All of it can be coated with a reflective compound. A child walks to school in the dark, and a driver sees him from a hundred meters instead of twenty."

"Child safety," Grant said quietly.

"That is… that is a strong political argument too. Sales won't be a problem."

"A very strong one." I looked at her.

"Eleanor, how hard do you think it would be to convince a school district to buy reflective patches for students?" She smiled slowly.

"After the first child is hit by a car in their district, very easy. Before that… one active parents' committee would be enough."

"Or one local newspaper article about the problem of child road safety." Jennings gave a soft snort.

"You are suggesting we create demand before we create the product?"

"The demand already exists. Parents want their children to be safe. They simply do not know a solution is possible." I tapped the chalk against the board.

"Our job is to show them that the solution exists."

"And the target customers?" Chen asked.

"Municipal contracts." I started counting on my fingers.

"School districts. Police departments: patrol uniforms, traffic officer vests. Road services. Construction and road worker unions. Bicycle clubs and associations." Corrigan whistled.

"One contract with the New York Department of Education. How much would that be?"

"One and a half million students," Grant answered.

"If even a third of them receive patches…"

"Five hundred thousand units. At a dollar apiece…"

"And a cost of fifteen cents," Kozlowski added.

"Microspheres are cheap. Application to fabric is a simple process." Chen calculated quickly.

"Four hundred and twenty-five thousand in gross profit. From one contract."

"And that is just New York," I said.

"There is also Chicago. Los Angeles. Philadelphia. Houston. Every major city is a potential client." Jennings raised a hand.

"Mr. Miller, allow me to clarify. Municipal contracts are slow. Bureaucracy, tenders, approvals. Months, sometimes years."

"Correct. Which is why municipalities are the long-term target. For fast money, there is another route." I turned to them.

"Retail. Parents will not wait for the school district to move. They will buy the patches themselves. In a hardware store, a supermarket, a children's clothing store."

"The same licensing scheme?" Salazar asked.

"Almost. But there is a nuance." I looked at Kozlowski.

"The reflective compound is not our invention. We cannot patent it. But we can patent specific applications and designs." She nodded.

"The patch shape. The fastening method. The application pattern. Specific compounds for specific fabrics."

"And the brand. We need a brand. I suggest SafeGlow." I wrote the name on the board.

"Every mother will know that name. Did you buy SafeGlow for the child, dear?" Grant raised a hand.

"I have a question about how the two products connect."

"I'm listening."

"Stick-It and SafeGlow are different markets, different clients, different sales channels. Are we not spreading ourselves too thin?" Good question. Smart question.

"At first glance, yes. But look more closely." I drew two overlapping circles.

"Both products are simple to manufacture. Both are licensed rather than produced by us. Both are patented and protected by the same team. Both are sold by the same sales department, just to different customers. For us, this is simply a way to generate profit twice as fast." I tapped the overlap.

"And there is a point of contact. Schools. School district offices buy Stick-It for administrative work. The same schools buy SafeGlow for students. One client, two products." Corrigan snapped his fingers.

"Bundle offer. Buy both and get a discount."

"Or: 'A free SafeGlow batch with a Stick-It order above a certain amount.' The school principal solves two problems with one deal." Chen took off her glasses, wiped them, and put them back on.

"Mr. Miller, let me be direct. All of this sounds… convincing. Very convincing. But how much time do we actually have? I suspect we are short on it." The question I had been waiting for and fearing. I spread my hands in a gesture that was supposed to look careless. Not sure it worked.

"We have enough money for six weeks of operating expenses. If we include all my ideas." Silence. Heavy. Ringing.

"Six weeks," she repeated in a flat voice.

"And you are telling us this only now?"

"Because now it matters. Before, it did not." I held her gaze.

"Margaret, I did not hire you to panic over numbers. I hired you to help turn six weeks into six years." Several people in the room smirked. They more or less understood that their boss had been dodging and withholding things from the very beginning.

"Schedule." I walked to the board and began writing.

"Weeks one to three: Kozlowski develops the adhesive formula. During that time, you prepare all documentation. In parallel, we buy microspheres and test the reflective coating.

"Weeks three to four: samples of both products are ready. Corrigan starts visiting manufacturers with Stick-It. Grant approaches school districts with SafeGlow.

"Weeks four to five: we sign the first licensing agreements. We receive advances.

"Week six: the money is in the account. We keep breathing." Jennings leaned back in his chair.

"A very aggressive schedule."

"We do not have the luxury of being conservative."

"And if something goes wrong? If the formula does not work on the first try? If manufacturers don't bite?"

"Then we improvise." I looked him in the eye.

"Ronald, three years ago you refused to sign a fraudulent opinion and lost everything. Your job, your reputation, your family. But you are here. You did not break. You did not give up. Because you know how to fight when the stakes are high." A pause.

"The stakes are high for all of us now. And I believe this team can handle it." Silence. Then Kozlowski said quietly:"Three weeks for the formula is possible. If we work without weekends."

"I have weekends?" Corrigan smirked.

"News to me. I thought they were canceled along with my previous job." Grant nodded.

"I know three school principals who will listen to me. Former clients, from back then." Salazar was already writing in his notebook.

"I'll start preparing patent applications today. By the end of the week, drafts for both products." I looked around the table.

"One more thing." I pointed at the door.

"Behind that door are people who believed in us. Secretaries. Analysts. Engineers. Guards. Almost sixty people who came here because we gave them a chance. You can be angry with me for not telling you earlier. But look at these numbers. The chance is real. And how we use it depends only on us." A pause.

"If we screw this up, they will be out on the street in a month and a half. Right before New Year. With families, children, debts." I looked at each of them in turn.

"I am not going to screw this up. And neither are you." Corrigan slowly rose to his feet.

"Well, gentlemen. Seems we have work to do." One by one, they began standing up. Gathering notebooks, exchanging remarks, dispersing to their corners. Kozlowski lingered by the door.

"Mr. Miller?"

"Yes?"

"Low-adhesion acrylate adhesive. Reflective microspheres." She looked at me strangely.

"You describe all this as if you already know it will work." Dangerous moment.

"Anna-Maria, I read everything I could find before calling this meeting. I put everything I had into this. And even what I did not have. Believe me, I looked into all of it." A half-truth that sounded like the truth.

"I do not know how to do it. I know it is possible. That is the difference between an entrepreneur and an inventor. The entrepreneur finds the people who know how." She watched me for another second. Then nodded.

"I'll find the how."

"I don't doubt it." She left. I remained alone in the conference room. Outside the window, snow was falling. Christmas New York shimmered with lights. Sticky notes and reflective patches. In my world, ordinary things you never even thought about. Post-it Notes would go on sale in five years. 3M would spend almost a decade fiddling with a "failed" adhesive before accidentally realizing how to sell it. Six weeks. Forty-two days to turn a piece of paper and reflectors into money. Or lose everything.

I turned off the light in the conference room and went to my office. There was a lot of work to do.