SOFT LAUNCH Day 12

We skipped our classes that day. And the day after and the day after that, until our professors flooded our email boxes with warnings. Good news was I took those days to familiarize myself with my laptop, all shareable documents, file business paperwork with the Secretary of State’s office of Massachusetts and trademarks offices of Boston, draft a hard launch timeline, and minimally publicize a soft launch for, well, right now.

“It’s time,” I said feeling my voice shake. I never would’ve skipped Harvard classes for anything, but this felt like a once in a lifetime opportunity to do something life altering. I looked from Iris to Deacon to Wesley. “Are we sure we have all coding efficiencies and are we adequately debugged for…”

Deacon stood and handed me his computer. “Press here and we’ll be live.” He sat back down with a blank stare, but the gesture was enormous. How far we’d come in a few short days of knowing one another. He respected me and I him. When I nodded and he nodded back, I pressed the button.

“Now,” Wes said. “We wait.”

Iris looked down at her phone. “Not too long, we don’t.”

Iris had the Flavor of Harvard App’s Analytics Dashboard pulled up. “Two, three, no, seven sign-ups according to analytics. Fourteen, damn, seventeen. Okay, I’ll send the link.”

As soon as it popped up on the bottom of my screen, I clicked it. “Twenty-four, are these downloads?”

I looked around the living room. Iris sat back in her chair, stunned. Wes’s eyes were double their normal size and Deacon’s grin spread clear across his face, and then, as if realizing something, his smile melted away. “This will crash.”

“Oh shit,” Wes added. “You’re right. Is it too late to rate-limit?”

Deacon began typing feverously. “During development would have been ideal, but…”

“What is rate limiting?” I asked.

“Limiting the number of requests that can make it to backend within a given time,” Wes said. “It prevents an overload, or a crash.”

“Two-hundred users,” Iris said slowly and then glanced at the clock. “It’s been seven minutes. Headed for a crash, for sure.”

“This is a nightmare,” Deacon said still typing away. “Why didn’t I think of this?”

“It’s cool, man,” Wes said. “Three hundred. How do this many people know that we launched?”

“We did minor pub,” Iris said. “Just a few posts, nothing extensive enough to explain this.”

“Absolute fucking nightmare,” Deacon grabbed the back of his head.

“Wait. This may not be a bad thing. Stop stop,” I told Deacon. “Let it crash.”

“What?” Wes, Iris, and Deacon said together.

“Which of us is best at press?” I asked looking first at Iris, then Deacon and settling on Wes. “We can spin this. Think of it! The headline writes itself—Harvard whiz kids develop a dating App that crashes in minutes due to demand. We want this. How many users?”

“Phew,” said Wes. “Twelve hundred. And sixty have already filled in their nominations. They’ve been waiting for this.”

“Deacon,” I said slowly. “Breathe. This is what we want, trust me. Now how long before the App gets overwhelmed?”

“I’d say,” Deacon started. “Thirty, maybe forty minutes.”

“Perfect,” I said before going to the kitchen to grab four glasses and the only thing we had in the refrigerator to drink – 2% milk. “A toast.” I poured. “To the developers Pennypacker.”

We clanked and smiled. “We did it,” Iris said before taking a generous sip. “Now should we see who they’re nominating before it all goes to hell?”

“Yes!” we said together.

We sat and settled to find that most of the nominations went to Reginald Payne, the son of Alford Payne, Democratic Senator of Delaware. His square chin could have cut gouda into slices and his profile photo had a Vineyard house in the background. Another notable nomination was Tripp Bush, second and third nephew of two former presidents. He looked so much like a Bush that I could have guessed his lineage before seeing his name. Many were professional photographs with grey backgrounds like the kind you’d find in an acting studio.

“Is this really the best the one and only Harvard has to offer?” Iris asked as if reading my thoughts. “Boring dudes likely in finance and spoiled sons of powerful white men? No offense Deacon.”

“None taken,” he replied still looking at his own screen. “I agree with you. Lined up like this, these guys look ridiculous.”

“The chatroom agrees,” Wes said smiling. “Listen to this comment. Hey Harvard, your legacy affirmative action is showing. No offense…”

“None taken,” Deacon said again. “We’re at six-thousand active users in forty-five-minutes. Crash is eminent.”

“Oh,” Iris said. “This one is actually, oh.”

She turned her phone around to show an objectively beautiful human being on her screen. He wore jeans with a bit of wear and tear at the bottoms. A basic white shirt and a distressed cowboy hat. Tiny light brown hairs covered his chin and his smiled with his eyes and entire face. His hair peeked out from underneath his hat just enough to show that he had a full head of it. And endless mountains shown in the background.”

“Oh,” I responded. “Major?”

“He’s in law school,” Iris replied.

“Oh.” I glanced at Wes and decided to glue my lips shut.

“I get it,” Wes said. “And so does everyone else. He’s dominating the chat. They’ve already named him the Golden Cowboy.”

“Crashed,” Deacon said. “Tapped out at twelve thousand in less than an hour.”

A knock on the door startled all of us. We remained quiet, but the knock continued, this time, louder and more frantic.

“It’s Reynolds! Your RA!”

“Do we know her?” I asked Iris.

“From orientation, I think.” Iris shrugged.

“You’re about to be on the news!” Reynolds yelled through the door. “Turn it on now! 3! And when will the App be back up? Looks like you overloaded!”

Ignoring her question, we rushed to the television and turned to 3. “A new dating App just hit the market, folks. It called Flavor of Harvard and looks to be modeled after the popular 2000’s VH1 dating show, Flavor of Love. This innovative application may bring a new form of dating to the old model market – in this model, the community nominates, votes on, and chooses who their dater winds up with. But sorry to folks outside of the Harvard University system, this App is only open to those with a Harvard.edu email address. For now, at least.”

“What an interesting concept,” the fellow reported responded. “Bummer we can’t all sign up. My sister is a professor. I wonder is the App open to staff. If so, I’ll have to snag her password. For research purposes, of course.”

“Of course,” the other reporter laughed. “Now, onto the murder of a…”

“Oh my God,” was all I could say.

Another knock made us all jump. “When is the App coming back online?”

“Tomorrow morning!” Deacon replied.

“Fuck,” we heard a small crowd say outside of the dorm room door.

***

Wes’s interview with Talk of Boston was set for the following afternoon, but the four of us pulled an all-nighter to sift the information that hour online had gathered for Flavor of Harvard. By 2AM, we’d poked a few holes in the App that needed to be fixed before our 7AM relaunch. Deacon focused on Cloud Scaling while the rest of us plugged as many weak spots as possible.

“That reporter mentioned staff and professor email addresses,” Wes said rubbing his sleepy eyes. “It was a good point. How should we handle that?”

“Not much can be done,” Deacon said barely looking up from his work. “edu is edu.”

“Most of them will just join to vote,” said Iris. “And if they join to date, the chatroom will be hilarious.”

“Agreed,” I said. “Let it play out.”

An email marked urgent popped up on my screen from my Harvard account. I clicked it and the title said show no one. Instinctively, I took it into my room to open privately. The email was from an anonymous address and flagged.

Sophia-

I admire your endeavor. I, too, started in a dorm much like the one you’re working in right now. Before you ask how I’d found you, I’ve located your initial filings for your business through the Secretary of State’s office and would like to propose an injunction. You have an education to pursue. A valuable one at one from the most prestigious schools in the world. This education will take up much of your time and you will not have much left for the demands of a newly built business simultaneously, so I would like to relieve you of this stressor, and purchase Flavor of Harvard along with all its responsibilities for an amount of your choosing. We can discuss numbers further into the future, but first, reply to this email with a simple yes and I will have my team send my personal jet along with the address to my home so that we may properly meet.

Thank you for your time and congratulations again on your success thus far—

Z

I shut my laptop like it was on fire and rejoined the group.

“Everything okay?” Wes asked looking exhausted.

“We should get some sleep,” I told him, and then looked around. “We won’t be able to do anything if we don’t sleep at least a few hours.”

“Can I stay here for the night?” Deacon asked still not looking up from his frantic typing.

“Okay,” Iris said. “But you have to promise you’ll actually sleep at some point.”

He locked eyes with her and nodded. I could have sworn I spotted affection in that look, but no way. It was Deacon after all.

“I promise,” he smiled to her and her only.

She winked and went into her room. Wes grabbed my hand and led me to bed where we slept together. No sex or even kissing, we simply laid in each other’s arms. He fell asleep instantly as I lay away thinking of the anonymous email.

Visions flashed through my mind of resources unlimited. My mother who’d sacrificed everything for her five children. Every seed she’d planted and watered and honored in its growth. Every wet, muddy evening she’d let the chickens in or coaxed naughty goats back into their pens. Every broken-down car she’d pushed out of traffic with her hands and her own help. Our tiny, cramped, cozy home tripled in size. Fenced with wrought iron instead of chicken wire. A flashy new coop erected, and a greenhouse made of glass.

Travel! Gerry finally getting to Ketchikan to climb the glaciers. Rosa and Eleanor swimming with the manatees off the Florida coast. And Ricki calming his naturally anxious nerves in the Keys. Mama. Going wherever she dreamt and getting whatever she dreamt of, all thanks to me selling Flavor of Harvard my second week at the University. It would be a life altering opportunity. Maybe even generation altering. This mystery developer could be a billionaire, easy.

Wes breathed slow and deep as he lay next to me. I ran my index finger through his hair, and he squirmed a bit like he was having a lovely dream. It would destroy him. Iris, too, who had dropped everything to make me look decent for our initial date. Encouraging, kind, brilliant Iris would never forgive me for selling the App she’d help design without her knowledge. And Deacon. We’d started off so horribly, but now, the thought of hurting him hurt me.

I couldn’t.

I wouldn’t.

No way I was such an awful person.

But also, this felt like the way of wealth and privilege. This felt like the road to financial freedom for my family and lineage. This felt like the life of a Harvard educated Chief Executive Officer.