Ivan said, “Yeah, but you’re not gonna be paying for locations, DJs, security, celebrities, and all the other things that I’ll need to pay for to get these parties off the ground. So my website needs to cater to the audience that I’m going after. And once we’re able to do that, if we find that the site is attracting other people than what I expected, then we’ll find a way to cater to them. And we can sit down and do that together. But I’m not a college student anymore, and I don’t have time for this website not to do what I need it to do, especially while I’m paying you for it.”

Jeff nodded and understood Ivan’s point. He said, “Okay. Well, let me ask you this: If you don’t have a lot of time right now to build your own list, would you be willing to buy a data list of African-American professionals in San Diego? Because we can research that for you.”

Ivan was still amazed. These guys were fast on their feet.

He said, “You can buy a list like that?”

“That’s what telemarketing companies do,” Paul answered him. “And now the internet companies are doing it.”

The plot thickened.

Ivan nodded and said, “All right. Well, let’s try that. In the meantime, what kind of price are we looking at to set up my logo and create and manage my website?”

The college partners discussed all of their price tags, including the management of the website, and nothing jumped out as outrageous, so Ivan planned to agree to most of it. At the same time, good business sense included negotiation, and Ivan wanted to make sure the two college students had an extra incentive to work hard for him.

He said, “Okay. I’ll pay you for creating the logo, and I’ll give you what you need for creating the site, but I can only pay you so much each month to manage the site until it begins to pay for itself. So the more traffic you create for me with all of your ideas, the more I can agree to pay you for management. Does that sound fair?”

Jeff looked at Paul and didn’t see a problem with it. They both had ideas for traffic already.

Paul looked back to Jeff and nodded.

“All right. We could do that,” Jeff agreed.

They then discussed putting everything in writing to sign for their next meeting.

Jeff stood up from his chair and said, “Okay, since we’re officially gonna be in business with each other, we can show you our lab now.”

Paul stood up with him, and that made Ivan stand.

“Follow us,” Paul told him.