See you soon. Take care.

-Z

It only takes a simple Google search to realize that a) Zareen would be completely lost without me and b) Mr. Holmgren most likely does not want to talk about the urn. I click into his LinkedIn profile and see that he’s a venture capitalist from Silicon Valley. A “tech enthusiast” with a “knack for start-ups.” His rap sheet includes being an initial investor in Groupon, Slack, and Instagram. Holy shit, this guy’s got an eye for ROI.

I extract his email from the contact card Zareen sent and shoot him a message. Moments later, he zips me back a reply that says he’s in LA for the weekend and wants to meet up. He goes on to say that he read about The Influencer Firm in Forbes and wanted to connect “one-on-one” with the developer behind the company’s success to see what else I may have in my programming repertoire. I sit back and think this is my chance to give a bona fide tech guru a tour of my app. I double-check the projects he’s been a part of and confirm he missed the boat on investing in Tinder. With all his tech bases covered except for modern dating, my guess is that if he saw what my app could do, I’d be able to sell him on it in a flash.

Sure. When and where? By keeping it short and sweet, I remove the hint of desperate excitement I secretly feel. Though impromptu in nature, this is a meeting I’ve been coveting since Suitor Zero—the first guy through my app.

Tomorrow is my only free day. The wife and I are going to see Hamilton tonight.

The cool thing about not technically having a job right now, or a boyfriend, or family that lives within three thousand miles, is that my schedule is as free as I want it to be. Except then I realize that tomorrow is Sunday. And Sunday is the singles cruise I promised to go to with Casey. I know it’s in the evening, but there’s no way I’m missing a one-on-one with Warren Holmgren.

It’s not necessarily his deep pockets I want, so much as his deep roots in the tech hub of America. If I can get someone like Warren to back me, well, then I see no reason I can’t add the clout-worthy salutation Founder of... to my LinkedIn profile in the next three to five years, ample time to give this thing a proper name. After all, I can’t just call it “my app” forever. I always said TIF was just a stepping-stone and now I’m finally getting closer to taking that leap. As soon as I figure out how to schedule all of this.

I came here for the clear mind, right? So let’s think this through, I say to myself. Warren said tomorrow. And while he may have discussing this over a forty-five-dollar martini in mind, I’m going to counter with breakfast instead so we can meet sometime in the morning. I’ll sit down with him for an hour, two at the most, come back to my place, start getting ready by two, and I’ll leave with Casey for the cruise by four. That all seems doable, right?