Chapter 3: The Breakthrough Connection Martin's phone screen stayed blank. He refreshed his email again at 8:42 AM, then set the device face-down on the folding table. The warehouse was getting colder. His breath had started making small clouds when he exhaled. He opened his laptop and tried to focus on updating the platform's manufacturer database. Three new artisans had submitted applications last week. He needed to verify their credentials, check their production capacity, review their sample work. The process usually took about an hour per applicant if he didn't get distracted. The first application was from a leatherworker in Vermont who specialized in custom belts and wallets. The photos looked professional enough. The pricing seemed reasonable. Martin clicked through to the business registration verification link and waited for the page to load. His internet connection was slower than usual. Probably the cold affecting the router. He checked his phone again. Still nothing from Colorado. The leatherworker's business registration checked out. Martin added notes to the application about acceptable lead times and minimum order quantities. He moved on to the second applicant, a ceramics studio in New Mexico that made decorative tiles. Their sample photos showed intricate patterns, maybe hand-painted. The detail work was impressive. His phone buzzed. Martin grabbed it so fast he knocked over his coffee mug. The mug was empty, which was lucky. The email notification showed a message from Jonathan Chen, the warehouse landlord, about the heating system. A repairman could come Thursday afternoon. Nothing about the lock. Martin set the phone down and picked up the fallen mug. Thursday was three days away. He'd need to bring a space heater tomorrow if the temperature kept dropping. Maybe two space heaters. The warehouse was too big for one to make much difference. He went back to the ceramics application. The studio's production capacity was listed as fifty custom tiles per week, which seemed low for commercial orders. Martin made a note to ask about scaling up if demand increased. Retailers usually wanted faster turnaround times than that. At 9:28 AM, he checked his email again. Nothing new. The third application was from a furniture maker in Tennessee who built custom cabinets. The work looked solid but the pricing was high. Martin compared the numbers to similar manufacturers already on the platform. The Tennessee pricing was about thirty percent higher across the board. He flagged the application for a follow-up conversation about competitive rates. His phone buzzed again at 10:03 AM. Martin looked at the screen. LinkedIn notification. Someone had viewed his profile. He closed the notification without checking who it was. The heating system made a grinding sound from somewhere in the back corner of the warehouse. The noise lasted about ten seconds, then stopped. The building went quiet again except for the faint traffic sounds from the street outside. Martin stood and walked to the window. The glass was dirty enough that the view looked hazy. A truck drove past, then a sedan, then nothing for a while. The street wasn't busy this time of day. Most of the other buildings on the block were storage facilities or closed auto shops. Not much foot traffic. He returned to his laptop and started drafting welcome emails for the three new applicants. The emails needed to explain the platform's commission structure, outline the contract terms, provide technical specifications for listing their products. Martin had templates for all of this but he liked to customize each message slightly. Made it seem more personal. The Vermont leatherworker got a note about the platform's growing customer base in outdoor retail. The ceramics studio got information about recent inquiries from interior designers. The Tennessee furniture maker got a gentle suggestion about reviewing pricing to stay competitive. Martin sent all three emails by 10:12 AM. His inbox refreshed automatically. One new message. From the Colorado retailer. Martin opened it before he'd fully registered what he was seeing. The email was longer than the previous ones. He read it twice to make sure he understood correctly. The retailer wanted to proceed with a trial order. They liked the manufacturer's quote and the three-week lead time worked with their inventory planning. Instead of the minimum two hundred units, they wanted to order four hundred baskets. The email included specific measurements, material preferences, and finishing details. They'd attached photos of their retail space to help the manufacturer understand the aesthetic requirements. The last paragraph asked if Martin could facilitate the contract negotiation and coordinate the shipping logistics. Martin read the email a third time. Four hundred units. Double the minimum order. He pulled up his platform's commission calculator and entered the numbers. The basket manufacturer's quote had been eight dollars per unit. Four hundred units meant thirty-two hundred dollars total. The platform's standard commission was ten percent of the transaction value. Three hundred twenty dollars. Martin stared at the number. That wasn't right. He recalculated. Eight dollars times four hundred was definitely thirty-two hundred. Ten percent of thirty-two hundred was three twenty. He'd been thinking about this wrong. The commission structure was tiered. Orders under five thousand dollars were ten percent. Orders between five and fifteen thousand were twelve percent. Orders over fifteen thousand were fifteen percent. This order was under five thousand. Ten percent commission. Three hundred twenty dollars. Martin closed the calculator and opened it again. Maybe he'd entered something incorrectly. The numbers came out the same. He checked the manufacturer's original quote to make sure he had the right per-unit price. Eight dollars was correct. Three hundred twenty dollars was better than nothing. It was the first actual commission the platform would generate. But it wasn't enough to make a dent in what he owed Sarah, or cover next month's warehouse rent, or pay for the heating repair. He sat back in the folding chair. The metal was cold through his jacket. The retailer was waiting for a response. Martin forwarded their email to the basket manufacturer with a professional introduction about coordinating the contract details. He suggested they use the platform's standard agreement template, which included payment terms, delivery schedules, and quality assurance provisions. He offered to handle the logistics coordination and provided his direct phone number for questions. The email took fifteen minutes to write. Martin edited it four times before sending, checking for typos and making sure the tone struck the right balance between helpful and professional. His inbox refreshed at 10:47 AM. The manufacturer had already responded. They could accommodate all the specifications and were ready to formalize the agreement. They asked if Martin could send over the contract template by end of day. Martin pulled up the template file and started customizing it for this specific transaction. The process was straightforward enough. He filled in the manufacturer's information, the retailer's details, the order specifications, the pricing breakdown, the payment schedule. The template had fields for all of it. The payment schedule was the tricky part. The manufacturer wanted fifty percent upfront and fifty percent on delivery. That was standard for custom orders. But some retailers preferred net-thirty payment terms, which meant they paid the full amount thirty days after delivery. Martin drafted two versions of the payment schedule and sent both to the retailer with a note explaining the options. The retailer responded by 11:23 AM. They'd do fifty percent upfront if the manufacturer would agree to a fifteen percent deposit with the remaining thirty-five percent due on delivery confirmation and the final fifty percent at net-thirty. It was a compromise that split the risk. Martin forwarded the counteroffer to the manufacturer. They accepted it within twenty minutes. He updated the contract template with the agreed payment terms, added the shipping logistics details, and sent the final version to both parties for digital signatures. By 2:45 PM, both signatures were in. The contract was executed. The order was official. Martin saved the signed contract to the platform's records and updated the transaction log. The system automatically calculated the commission and added it to the pending payments queue. Three hundred twenty dollars would transfer to his business account once the manufacturer received their first payment from the retailer. He leaned back and looked at the warehouse ceiling. The exposed beams needed cleaning. Dust and cobwebs had accumulated in the corners. He should probably deal with that at some point. Three hundred twenty dollars wasn't going to change anything. It wouldn't impress Sarah. It wouldn't prove the platform was viable. It was barely enough to cover two weeks of his food budget. But it was real money for real work that actually happened. The first transaction the platform had successfully closed. A manufacturer and retailer had connected through his system, negotiated terms, and signed a contract. The basket manufacturer would produce four hundred units over the next three weeks. The Colorado retailer would receive them and stock their shelves. Customers would buy the baskets. The whole chain would function because Martin had built something that facilitated it. He checked his email again. Nothing new since the signed contracts. The warehouse was still cold. His phone battery was down to forty-three percent. The folding chair was making his back sore. Martin stood and walked around the space. His footsteps echoed off the concrete floor. The building was too big for what he actually needed. Half the square footage sat empty. He could probably negotiate a smaller space for less rent, but moving would cost money he didn't have. Better to stay put and hope the platform started generating enough business to justify the overhead. His phone rang at 4:17 PM. Sarah's name appeared on the screen. Martin answered. "Hey." "Are you busy?" Sarah's voice sounded tired. "Not really. What's up?" "I need to switch weekends for Thanksgiving. Brian's parents changed their travel plans." Martin pulled up his calendar app even though he didn't have any conflicts. "Which weekend?" "The one after. November twenty-third instead of the sixteenth." "That works." "You're sure? You don't have anything scheduled?" "I'm sure." Sarah paused. "How's the warehouse?" "Cold. The heating broke." "Of course it did." Martin didn't respond to that. He walked back to his laptop and checked his email while Sarah said something about Brian's mother being difficult about holiday planning. His inbox showed no new messages. "Are you listening?" Sarah asked. "Yeah. His mother's difficult." "I said she's not difficult, she's just particular about timing." "Right." Another pause. "Is everything okay with your thing? The platform?" Martin considered telling her about the basket order. The signed contract sitting in his records folder. The three hundred twenty dollars pending. But it seemed too early. Sarah would probably point out that three hundred twenty dollars was nothing compared to what he owed her. She'd be right. Better to wait until there was more to show. "It's fine," he said. "Fine as in actually fine, or fine as in you don't want to talk about it?" "Just fine. Nothing major to report." Sarah sighed. "Okay. Well, I'll let you go. See you on the twenty-third?" "See you then." The call ended. Martin set his phone on the table and stared at his laptop screen. His inbox refreshed automatically. One new message. The sender was a furniture retailer in Oregon. Martin opened it. The email was brief. The retailer was looking for suppliers of custom woodwork, specifically small batch production of dining tables and chairs. They'd found the platform through a web search and wanted to know if Martin had any manufacturers who could handle orders in the fifty to two hundred unit range with customizable dimensions and finish options. Martin read the message twice. Furniture was a different category than baskets but the platform wasn't limited to any specific product type. The challenge was finding manufacturers who could meet the specifications. Custom woodwork with variable dimensions meant skilled craftspeople, not mass production facilities. He pulled up the manufacturer database and filtered for furniture makers. Twelve results came up. Most of them did cabinets or shelving units. Only three listed custom tables and chairs in their capabilities. Martin clicked through their profiles. The first was based in North Carolina. Their portfolio showed solid work but their minimum order quantity was five hundred units. Too high. The second was in Wisconsin. Their production capacity was listed as twenty units per month, which seemed too slow for commercial retail orders. Martin flagged them as a maybe. The third was in upstate New York. Their portfolio included dining sets with custom dimensions and multiple finish options. Production capacity was sixty to eighty units per month depending on complexity. Minimum order was fifty units. Lead time was six to eight weeks. Martin drafted an introduction email connecting the Oregon retailer with the New York manufacturer. He included information about both parties, outlined the retailer's basic requirements, and suggested they discuss specifications and pricing directly. He sent copies to both parties with his contact information and the platform's standard terms. The email went out at 4:52 PM. Martin closed his laptop and gathered his things. The warehouse was significantly darker than it had been an hour ago. Winter sunset times meant the space would be dim by five o'clock. He locked the broken lock as well as he could and walked to his car. The temperature had dropped enough that his breath was visible in the parking area. His car took three tries to start. The engine made a grinding noise that probably meant the battery was dying. Martin drove home thinking about furniture manufacturers and commission calculations. If the Oregon retailer ordered two hundred dining sets at whatever the New York manufacturer quoted, the commission would be higher than the basket order. Maybe a thousand dollars. Maybe more depending on pricing. But that was speculation. The retailer might not like the manufacturer's work. The pricing might be too high. The lead time might not align with the retailer's needs. Any number of things could prevent the deal from closing. Martin parked in his apartment building's lot and sat in the car after turning off the engine. The dashboard lights faded. His phone showed three percent battery remaining. He thought about calling Sarah back to tell her about both inquiries. The basket order was signed and official. The furniture inquiry was new but promising. Two active deals in one day meant something. The platform was functioning the way he'd designed it to function. But Sarah had sounded tired on the phone. She probably didn't want another call about his business ventures. She'd heard it all before. Different industries, different approaches, same pattern of initial optimism followed by eventual collapse. Martin got out of the car and walked to his apartment. The building's lobby was warm compared to outside. He took the stairs instead of the elevator because the elevator smelled like garbage. Inside his apartment, he plugged in his phone and opened his laptop. His email showed no new messages. The Oregon furniture inquiry sat in his sent folder. The basket order contract sat in his records. Both were real. Both existed in the system he'd built. Three hundred twenty dollars pending. Maybe more if the furniture deal closed. Martin heated a can of soup and ate it standing at his kitchen counter. His apartment was quiet except for the radiator clanking every few minutes. The building's heating worked better than the warehouse but not by much. He finished the soup and checked his email again. Still nothing new. The Oregon retailer probably wouldn't respond until tomorrow. Business communications rarely happened after five PM unless something was urgent. Martin would have to wait and see if they were interested in the New York manufacturer. He closed his laptop and turned on the television. Some game show was playing. People were spinning a wheel and guessing letters. Martin watched without really paying attention. His phone buzzed. Email notification. The Oregon retailer had responded. They'd reviewed the New York manufacturer's portfolio and wanted to schedule a call to discuss specifications and pricing. Could Martin facilitate an introduction call tomorrow afternoon? Martin sent confirmation emails to both parties suggesting a three PM conference call. He'd moderate the discussion and help them work through the details. The Oregon retailer responded first, confirming availability. The New York manufacturer confirmed ten minutes later. Three PM tomorrow. A potential second deal. Maybe. Martin turned off the television and sat in the quiet apartment. The radiator clanked. Traffic sounds filtered through the window from the street below. His phone sat on the counter showing the email confirmations. Two inquiries in one day. One signed contract. One potential deal in progress. The platform was generating activity after weeks of silence. Maybe it meant something. Maybe it didn't. Too early to determine the pattern from two data points. But something was different about today. The emails had come without him begging for them. The basket deal had closed without major complications. The furniture inquiry had found him through organic search traffic. The system was working the way systems were supposed to work when they actually functioned. Martin stood and walked to his window. The street below was mostly empty. A few cars passed. The building across the street had lights on in maybe half the apartments. People were home from work, making dinner, watching television, living their regular Tuesday evening lives. His phone buzzed again. Another email notification. Martin picked up the device expecting a calendar confirmation or spam message. The email was from a home goods retailer in Washington state. They were looking for suppliers of ceramic dishware and serving pieces. Small batch production, artisan quality. Had Martin's platform connected retailers with ceramics manufacturers before? Martin opened his laptop and started typing a response.