I launch into a version of the speech I gave in class, explaining the thought process behind the app, what it does and why people will want to use it. He smiles and nods as he listens, and even throws in a pensive look here and there. About halfway through, he starts to scribble notes on a legal pad. I’m shocked to feel like things might actually be going well. I sit a bit taller in my chair.

“...and eventually, as the app grows successful, we can start monetizing by limiting how many times people can check their score to three times a week, and then charging 99 cents to check it.”

“That’s a really interesting idea,” he says, skimming his notes. “I’m impressed.”

“Thank you,” I say.

“So how many users do you have?” he asks.

I look to Sara. She’s looking from Robbie to me and back.

“What?” Michael asks. “What’s going on?”

I clear my throat and turn back to him. “We’re not sure.”

“What do you mean?” He looks at Sara. “You didn’t build a way to gather that sort of information?”

“We did,” Robbie says. “It’s just...”

“We haven’t checked it yet,” Sara admits.

“You haven’t checked it?” Michael looks back to me, disbelief in his eyes.

“The thing is,” I say, “we just launched yesterday.”

He stands up. His face is red, and he seems to be holding himself back the best he can, his calm, cool, Californian demeanor gone. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. I didn’t know an exhale could sound that angry. “So tell me exactly why—besides the obvious fact of who your father is—you are in my office right now?” His gaze digs into me.

“Well...I knew it could take months to get meetings, so I sent out a few feelers yesterday.” I’m speaking too quickly, almost tripping over my words. “I didn’t know we’d be asked to meet today, I thought it’d be in a few months and we’d be in the perfect position to pitch by then.” I pause, weighing whether I should say what I want to next, knowing Sara will want to kill me. But things are already spiraling rapidly and the Hail Mary pass is my only option. “We’re hoping to hit a million users in three months.”

He shakes his head and walks to the door to pull it open. “Well maybe you should spend more of your time building your product and less planning for what you’re going to do when it’s magically the next big thing. Either way, you should definitely stop wasting mine.”

Sara and Robbie stand quietly and walk out the door with their tails between their legs.

I stay back for a second. “Sir, I—”