Oh dear.
I knew that smile of hers.
She got up and came over, putting her hand out to shake Grant’s.
“And what do you do?” he asked.
“UX—user experience. Come see.” She motioned for us to follow her to her desk and sat in her seat again, one leg tucked under her. “Have you used the app?”
“Nope,” Grant said.
She cocked a disbelieving brow at him, and he laughed.
“I really haven’t,” he promised. “But I’m anxious to see what you’ve done with it.”
Katie turned to the guy next to her—a new intern. “You can take your lunch, Alex.”
Alex looked the slightest bit reluctant, but he nodded, got up, and left.
Grant took the vacant seat, and Katie gave him a mini-tour of the app interface, highlighting all the areas where we’dadapted to user feedback or made advances in our profile onboarding flow.
I observed from the sidelines. The rush of my friends showing off their hard work and talking animatedly about Matchify never got old.
“You really should fill out a profile if you want to understand Matchify, though,” Katie said, closing out a few windows.
Grant looked at me. “Do you have one?”
“No.”
Grant’s brows shot up. “Really?”
“Really.”
He wasn’t the first person who’d asked that question, but I had a feeling he wouldn’t accept my usual explanation.
He sat back in his chair and looked at me evaluatively.
To my annoyance, my hand stole to my hair, tucking the stray pieces behind my ears.
“You’re not married, are you?” he asked.
“Not that it’s your business, but no.”
He showed no sign at all of being affected by my putting him in his place. “If you believe in your product so strongly, why don’t you use it?”
“It’s fairly common practice amongst tech CEOs.”
“And drug dealers.” The teasing wink robbed the words of offense. Almost. “What are you afraid of?”
I drew back instinctively and noted Katie’s eyes widen. “Afraid of?” I laughed incredulously. “It has nothing to do with fear.”
Grant shrugged, but I got the sense he was enjoying this. “Then what is it?”
“A certain amount of distance is valuable.”
“Maybe. But isn’t your job as CEO of Matchify to understand the user experience?”
“Our data tell us about the user experience, and of course, we have in-house testing. Katie lives and breathes this stuff,and I certainly don’t think my own experience more important than anyone else’s.”
