Chapter 1: The Warehouse The warehouse smelled like dust and someone else's failed ambitions. Martin stood in the middle of the concrete floor, which stretched about forty feet in each direction. Not huge, but big enough for what he needed. The rent was cheap because the building sat on the wrong side of the industrial district, where most businesses had moved out five years ago. He was fifty-eight now. The number bothered him more than he wanted to admit. Boxes lined one wall, filled with promotional materials he'd ordered before securing actual clients. Probably a mistake, but the printer had offered a bulk discount. He'd always been susceptible to bulk discounts. The boxes contained five hundred brochures explaining how his platform would revolutionize the connection between small manufacturers and retailers. The graphic designer had charged him eight hundred dollars for the layout. Martin thought it looked professional, though he'd thought that about a lot of things over the years. The platform itself was ready. He'd hired two developers in Estonia who'd built the basic framework for twelve thousand dollars. The money had come from his retirement account, which now contained approximately four thousand dollars instead of the sixteen thousand it should have. His financial advisor had stopped returning his calls. Martin walked over to the folding table that served as his desk. His laptop sat open, showing the admin dashboard of the platform. The interface looked clean. Functional. He'd tested it dozens of times, clicking through the manufacturer signup process, the retailer browsing system, the contract generation tool. Everything worked. Three months of work had gone into preparing for this launch. He'd reached out to forty-seven small manufacturers, explaining how the platform could connect them with retailers they'd never access otherwise. Most hadn't responded. Five had expressed mild interest. Two had actually signed up. One of those two had signed a contract yesterday. Fifteen thousand dollars worth of orders from a retailer in Ohio who made artisanal soap and wanted to expand into boutique hotels. The manufacturer was a small operation in Pennsylvania that produced organic cotton towels. Martin's platform would take a twelve percent commission. Eighteen hundred dollars, minus the payment processing fees. The contract sat on his desk in a manila folder. He'd printed it out just to see it physically exist. Footsteps echoed from outside the warehouse. Martin turned toward the sound. The door was partially open because the lock mechanism was broken. The landlord had promised to fix it two weeks ago but hadn't shown up yet. Martin had learned not to chase landlords about small repairs. They either fixed things or they didn't. His daughter appeared in the doorway. Sarah was thirty-two. She wore a gray blazer over a white shirt, probably coming from her job at the accounting firm downtown. Her expression was tight in a way Martin recognized. She'd looked like that since she was fourteen, whenever she had something difficult to say and had decided she was going to say it anyway. "Dad." She didn't move from the doorway. "Sarah. This is a surprise." Martin tried to sound pleased rather than nervous. He was nervous. "I need to talk to you about something." She walked into the warehouse, looking around at the boxes and the folding table. Her eyes took in everything without commenting. Martin waited. He'd learned over the years that waiting was sometimes better than trying to steer conversations. "You borrowed money from me three years ago," Sarah said. "Twenty-two thousand dollars." "I remember." "You said you'd pay it back within eighteen months." "I did say that." "It's been three years." Sarah stopped about ten feet away from him. She didn't sit down, though there were two folding chairs near the table. "I got married last year. We're trying to buy a house. That money would have been our down payment." Martin had gone to the wedding. It had been a small ceremony in a park, simple and nice. Sarah's husband worked in IT, seemed like a decent person. Martin had given them a toaster as a wedding gift because he couldn't afford anything else. "I'm sorry," Martin said. "I should have communicated better about the repayment timeline." "Where did the money go?" Sarah asked. She probably already assumed she understood where it went, but she wanted him to say it. "The food truck franchise," Martin said. "I used it to cover the initial franchise fee and the first three months of operating costs." Sarah nodded slowly. "The food truck franchise that went bankrupt after seven months." "Yes." "Did you try to return the franchise fee after it failed?" "The contract was non-refundable." Martin had read that contract three times before signing it, telling himself it was a standard clause, nothing to worry about. The franchise company had gone bankrupt six months after his truck failed, so there wouldn't have been anyone to sue even if the contract had been different. "You've done this before," Sarah said. "Not borrowing from me specifically, but this pattern. You start something, you're convinced it'll work, you put everything into it, and then it falls apart." "This is different." Martin pointed toward the laptop. "I have an actual signed contract. Revenue. A real business model that's been validated." "How much is the contract worth?" "Fifteen thousand dollars." Sarah looked at him for a long moment. "Fifteen thousand dollars." "It's the first one. There will be more." "You borrowed twenty-two thousand from me. You're showing me one contract worth fifteen thousand. Even if you pay out nothing in expenses, you're still seven thousand short." "The commission structure is sustainable. Each contract generates ongoing revenue, not just a one-time payment. The Ohio retailer is looking at placing quarterly orders." Martin heard himself talking faster, explaining the business model the way he'd explained it to the manufacturers and retailers. Sarah's expression didn't change. "I've heard this before," she said. "Different businesses, same confidence." "You were twelve when I started the import business," Martin said. "You don't remember what that was like." "I remember Mom crying in the kitchen because the supplier in China had disappeared with your deposit. I was twelve, but I wasn't deaf." Martin's wife had left him fourteen years ago. She'd remarried, moved to Arizona, and according to Sarah's occasional updates, seemed happy. Martin didn't blame her for leaving. The marriage had been difficult for a long time before she'd finally decided to end it. "I'm not asking you to forget the past," Martin said. "I'm asking you to look at what I have now. Real contracts. A functioning platform. Actual customers." "One customer." "The second manufacturer is negotiating with a retailer in Colorado right now. The deal should close next week." Sarah pulled out her phone, tapped something, and then showed him the screen. It was a banking app, showing a savings account balance. "This is what I have left after the wedding and the first year of rent. Eleven thousand dollars. My husband has about the same. We need forty thousand for a down payment on anything in a decent neighborhood." "I'll pay you back," Martin said. "As soon as the revenue starts coming in consistently, you'll get regular payments." "I don't want regular payments someday. I want to know whether I should give up on ever seeing that money again." Sarah put her phone away. "I need to know whether to plan my life around having that twenty-two thousand or not having it." "You'll get it back." "When?" "I can't give you an exact date. Business revenue doesn't work on exact dates." "Then I'll make this simple," Sarah said. "I'm not investing anything else. I'm not offering encouragement. I'm not going to pretend this is different from all the other times." "I'm not asking you to invest anything else." "And if this business fails like the others, I'm done." Sarah looked at him directly. "I won't cut you out of my life completely, but I won't have these conversations anymore. No more explanations about why the latest thing didn't work. No more listening to plans for the next venture. We'll talk about weather and holidays and nothing deeper than that." The warehouse suddenly seemed colder. Martin had expected some version of this conversation eventually, but hearing it stated plainly was different than anticipating it. "That seems harsh," he said. "It's not harsh. It's necessary." Sarah's voice was steady. "You're my father, and I love you, but I can't keep doing this. Every few years, there's a new business, a new plan, a new promise that this time will be different. And every time, it ends the same way." "Forty years is a long time to keep trying," Martin said. "That should count for something." "It would count for more if you'd succeeded once." Sarah turned toward the door. "I hope this works. I really do. But I can't afford to hope too hard anymore." She walked out without saying goodbye. Martin listened to her footsteps fade across the parking lot outside. A car door opened and closed. The engine started, then faded into the distance. He sat down at the folding table and stared at the laptop screen. The dashboard still showed the same numbers. One manufacturer connected. One retailer served. One contract signed. His phone was sitting next to the laptop. He picked it up, checking his email out of habit. There were three new messages. One was spam about business insurance. One was a newsletter from a marketing platform he'd signed up for months ago. One was from a manufacturer in Oregon who'd expressed interest two weeks ago. Martin opened the Oregon manufacturer's email. The message was polite and brief. The manufacturer had decided to go with a competitor's platform instead. They appreciated Martin's time and wished him success with his business. The competitor they'd chosen was called ConnectSource, which had been operating for two years and apparently had better name recognition. Martin read the email twice. The manufacturer was the second interested party he'd been counting on. The one who was supposedly negotiating with the Colorado retailer. He closed the laptop and looked around the warehouse. The boxes of brochures sat against the wall, five hundred copies explaining the advantages of his platform. The folding chairs and table looked temporary, like they belonged at a yard sale rather than a business headquarters. The concrete floor was cold, and the heating system made rattling sounds that suggested it might not last through the winter. Forty years. The first business had been a consulting firm when he was twenty-three, fresh out of college with a business degree and ideas about organizational efficiency. It had lasted eleven months before he'd run out of clients and money. Then there had been the software company in his late twenties, the brief restaurant venture at thirty-two, the import business Sarah had mentioned, the online education platform, the commercial real estate partnership, the specialty retail store, the food truck franchise. Each one had made sense at the time. Each one had felt different from the previous failures. Each one had taught him something, though apparently not enough to prevent the next collapse. The warehouse was quiet except for the heating system's rattling. Martin opened the laptop again and looked at the dashboard. One manufacturer. One retailer. Eighteen hundred dollars in commission, which would arrive in thirty days according to the payment terms. He had approximately three thousand dollars in his checking account. The warehouse rent was eight hundred per month. He owed the Estonian developers another eight thousand for the enhanced features they'd built, payable in installments over the next four months. His car needed new tires. His health insurance premium was going up next month. Sarah was right that fifteen thousand wasn't enough, even if the entire amount had been clear profit. But businesses didn't run on single contracts. They needed momentum, multiple clients, steady growth. He'd built the framework for that growth. The platform worked. The business model made sense. The market existed. He just needed more manufacturers to sign up. More retailers to browse the platform. More contracts to generate more commissions. Martin pulled up his spreadsheet of potential manufacturers. He'd contacted forty-seven, but there were three hundred and twelve more on his list. Small operations that made everything from furniture to textiles to specialty food products. The list had taken him six weeks to compile, cross-referencing business directories with trade publications and industry forums. He could send out another fifty emails this week. Maybe a hundred. The response rate so far had been around ten percent, which meant he could expect ten more expressions of interest. If two of those converted to actual signups, and if those manufacturers attracted retailers, then more contracts would follow. The math worked. It always worked on paper. His phone rang. Martin looked at the screen, hoping for a manufacturer or retailer. It was his landlord. "The lock on the warehouse door," the landlord said without preamble. "I can't get to it this week. Maybe next week." "Okay," Martin said. "You should probably get a padlock in the meantime. There's been some break-ins in that area." "I'll do that." The landlord hung up. Martin added "padlock" to his mental list of expenses. Twenty dollars, probably, unless he went with something heavy-duty. He stood up and walked over to the boxes of brochures. He pulled one out and looked at the design again. The color scheme was blue and green, which the designer had said conveyed trust and growth. The text explained the platform's features in clear, simple language. There was a QR code at the bottom that linked to the signup page. Five hundred brochures. He'd planned to mail them to manufacturers, but postage would cost another two hundred dollars he didn't have. Maybe he could deliver them in person to local businesses instead. It would take time, but time was something he had more of than money. Martin returned to the laptop and pulled up his email. He started composing a message to the next manufacturer on his list, a company in Wisconsin that made handcrafted leather goods. He explained the platform's benefits and the revenue opportunity and the simple signup process. The email sounded exactly like the forty-seven he'd already sent. He read it over three times, trying to find ways to make it more compelling, more distinctive, more likely to generate a response. Nothing occurred to him. He sent it anyway. Then he sent nine more emails to the next manufacturers on the list. The warehouse's heating system rattled more loudly than before. Martin made a note to ask the landlord about that too, though he already anticipated the answer. Next week. Maybe. Outside, the sun was starting to set. The warehouse had two small windows near the ceiling, and the light coming through them was turning orange. Martin checked the time on his phone. It was almost six. He'd been here since nine in the morning. He should probably go home. His apartment was twenty minutes away, a one-bedroom unit in a building that had been scheduled for renovation three years ago. The renovation kept getting delayed. Martin's lease was month-to-month, which gave him flexibility but no stability. Before leaving, he checked his email one more time. There was one new message from an address he didn't recognize. Martin opened it, expecting spam or another polite rejection. It was from the Colorado retailer. The one that the Oregon manufacturer had been negotiating with before choosing ConnectSource instead. The retailer's message was brief. They'd been planning to work with a manufacturer through another platform, but that manufacturer had quality issues with their previous orders. The retailer had found Martin's platform through a web search and wanted to know if any manufacturers could supply handwoven baskets for a chain of home goods stores. Martin read the message three times. Then he checked his manufacturer list to see who might produce handwoven baskets. There were two possibilities, both in North Carolina. He'd contacted them weeks ago, but neither had responded. He composed replies to both manufacturers, explaining the Colorado retailer's request and the potential order size. The retailer's message had mentioned needing five hundred baskets per month, which would translate to approximately thirty thousand dollars in monthly orders if the price point was right. Martin's commission would be thirty-six hundred per month. The math started working again in his head. Thirty-six hundred per month, plus the eighteen hundred from the Ohio contract, plus whatever other deals materialized over the next few months. It could add up to enough. Maybe not quickly, but enough. He sent the emails to the basket manufacturers. Then he sat in the warehouse for another twenty minutes, watching the light fade through the high windows, listening to the heating system rattle, thinking about Sarah's ultimatum and the Oregon manufacturer's rejection and the Colorado retailer's unexpected inquiry. Forty years of this. Forty years of the math working on paper and failing in reality. Forty years of thinking the next opportunity would be different. Martin closed the laptop and stood up. The warehouse was almost dark now. He needed to leave before he couldn't see well enough to navigate around the boxes. As he walked toward the door, his phone buzzed with another email notification. He pulled it out and looked at the screen. The email was from one of the North Carolina manufacturers. The message said they'd received his inquiry about the handwoven baskets but had decided to pursue other opportunities instead. They thanked him for reaching out. Martin put the phone back in his pocket and walked out of the warehouse into the parking lot. He didn't lock the door because the lock was still broken. He made a mental note to buy that padlock tomorrow. The drive home took twenty-three minutes instead of twenty because of traffic. By the time he parked in front of his building, it was fully dark. The streetlight near his apartment had been out for a week. He'd reported it to the city twice, but nobody had come to fix it yet. He climbed the stairs to his second-floor unit, unlocked the door, and went inside. The apartment was exactly as he'd left it that morning. A coffee cup in the sink, a stack of unopened mail on the counter, a couch that sagged in the middle. Martin sat on the couch and thought about nothing in particular for a while. Then he opened his laptop again and looked at the dashboard. One manufacturer. One retailer. One contract. He refreshed the email, though he'd checked it less than ten minutes ago. No new messages. The second North Carolina manufacturer still hadn't responded. They probably wouldn't. The Colorado retailer would find another platform, another manufacturer, another solution. The Ohio contract would complete its cycle, and maybe the retailer would place another order or maybe they wouldn't. Martin closed the laptop and looked around his apartment. The walls were white, the furniture was cheap, the whole place had the temporary feeling of somewhere you lived while waiting to move somewhere better. He'd been waiting for forty years. Tomorrow he would send more emails to manufacturers. He would follow up with the retailers who'd browsed the platform but hadn't committed. He would update the marketing materials and post on industry forums and research new potential clients. He would do all the things that made sense to do, the same way he'd done them for every previous business. The warehouse would still be there, with its broken lock and rattling heating and boxes of brochures. The platform would still function. The business model would still make sense on paper. And somewhere, Sarah was planning her life around the assumption that she'd never see her twenty-two thousand dollars again. Martin opened his laptop one more time and checked his email before going to bed. Still nothing from the second basket manufacturer. Nothing from any of the other forty-seven companies he'd contacted over the past three months. Just the one contract, sitting in the manila folder back at the warehouse, worth fifteen thousand dollars and representing everything he had to show for this particular attempt at success. He turned off the laptop and sat in the dark apartment, thinking about how fifty-eight was too old to have only one contract and too young to stop trying.