Entrepokiggas

My business partner and I are what my boyfriend calls entrepokiggas: entrepreneurial, po', Korean, and decidedly ghetto in our eating habits, if not our business trips. The moniker is a reference to Ice Cube's "We Be Clubbin'," which goes something like this: Hey hey hey look here look here. First of all I wanna welcome all y'all broke-ass entreponiggas to the Players Club.

Ah yes. My players club is definitely stocked with taco supremes (Taco Bell), Whoppers (Burger King), and chili cheese tater tots (Sonic). I get quite a mental bang for spending less bucks on equivalent goods or equivalent needs -- like breakfast, lunch, and dinner. (Which, I think, is partly how I've managed to survive for so long on zero income. That, and of course generous bridge loans from my lifelong benefactors: Dr. and Mrs. Parents. In b-school we'd call my little operation a low overhead, high revenue scenario.)

Business travel is no exception. My business partner and I made the third of three trips to the same city a few weeks ago to meet with a potential seller, and to tour potential housing options with our respective others (SOs): his wife and my boyfriend. We Pricelined the entire trip, paring down our expenses to the max. We shared one car (a cherry red Ford Fusion with a crappy turning radius), picking up each SO from the airport as she, then he, arrived on separate flights. We street parked the car to save on the $15 carport fee at the Best Western, then rose extra early to move the car before the meter maids swept the street. We had breakfast at McDonald's (Egg McMuffin Value Meal -- yum!), and lunch at one of the target locations. We chose a divey Vietnamese restaurant for dinner, and returned to the Bay on our el cheapo flights. As business trips go, it was a sparse one, and at risk for bleakness. But for the fact that we are so supported and loved.

It's hard being the SO of a searcher. Each time we submit a new Letter of Intent (LOI), we are consumed by anxiety as we await a response to our offer. Behind closed doors, we overreact to the minutest of overtures from the other side, and speculate ad nauseum about the meaning of their silences. We are insufferable. Our SOs are with us, patiently enduring, on the same side of the doors.

Moreover, when an LOI is accepted, and we ultimately execute a Purchase and Sale Agreement -- i.e. actually buy something -- their lives will change dramatically. We will forsake both time shared with them and our personal incomes in pursuit of our dream. But neither has direct control over the deal flow; both face limited efficacy over the outcome, in addition to the general uncertainty we face as searchers. Perhaps worst of all: we may not even succeed once we acquire a target business. It could all be for naught. Or worse.

I feel grateful for the admirable ways our SOs have played their roles. They have been gracious to us throughout the search process, showing loving interest, asking challenging questions, and expressing their faith in us all along the way. They have no script; they just play. It's been a long ride to the end of this, our first walk away decision. Without them, we couldn't have gotten here, heads held high. We wouldn't be able to dream of trying again. SOs show us love up in the club.

The Reply-All gaffe

Everyone's done it. They can usually remember when and why, and the thrill of panic and fear when they realized that they had actually done it. Ah yes, whoever designed Outlook, Gmail, and other email programs either had a wicked streak, or didn't realize the consequences of putting the Reply-All button right next to the Reply button.

Fortunately, it wasn't my business partner or me who committed the Reply-All gaffe this time 'round. It was the seller's rep. And in a plot twist more reminiscent of a soap opera rather than a business transaction, we discovered exactly what this particular seller thought of us: green, entitled, and power-hungry. We also realized that the seller's rep was misrepresenting us in a few ways.

Woah! That certainly wasn't the rejoinder we expected back from our measured reply to this seller's 'take it or leave it.' We had politely responded that if forced to choose, we'd have to 'leave it,' but here are the issues that, once addressed, can bring us back to the table. We really didn't want to leave it, but we came to embrace the view that a bad deal is worse than no deal at all. We had to walk away.

We've never had the experience of walking away from a deal before, but a close approximation is a breakup. Boy and girl meet and grow fond of each other, and then the time comes to fish or cut bait. Boy (that would be my business partner and me) says hey, I'm broke, but here's an IOU for a ring. Girl says forget your IOU, show me the money. Or else. And so boy says fine. Else. By the way, here's how you can bring me back.

In the pandemonium that ensued after the Reply-All gaffe, we learned that girl thought that boy was posturing. Which was interesting. Boy had thought girl was probably bluffing, but was responding in earnest anyway because boy was no good at playing games. Moreover, in his heart of hearts, boy had actually walked away. Misrepresentations, plot twist, missed signals... Were these the makings of a Shakespearean tragedy? (Comedy?) Or just real life soap opera?

Who knows. The moral of this story is this: don't click Send till you're damned sure that you want it going to everyone in the To, Cc, and Bcc fields. 'Cause once you click send, you're too late. It ain't coming back.