Page 39

He really should have listened to Marlowe.

CHAPTER 12

Marlowe knew she was in trouble the second she walked into her class and saw everyone wearing button-up shirts and blazers. Conservative clothes. Like the people here were applying for a job at a business instead of learning how to run one.

She’d thought her flamingo sweater would make her look friendly and approachable. Now she felt like someone dressed to cater a luau.

The tables had been placed in a U-shaped arrangement in the classroom. About a dozen people were already seated, most of them older, a few chatting in low voices. One woman was scribbling notes on a tablet with a stylus. Notes. About what? The instructor hadn’t even arrived yet.

Marlowe slid into the last seat and opened her laptop. It was covered with stickers, which suddenly seemed juvenile. Her palms started to sweat. She hadn’t felt this out of place since sophomore year, when she walked into a debate team meeting by mistake, and someone handed her a packet titled “Rhetorical Fallacies.” She hadn’t known what either of those two words meant.

A man in his sixties walked through the door, stepped to the front of the room, and clapped once. “Alright, folks. Let’s dive in.”

He introduced himself as Mr. Wellington-Vandermeer—like one last name wasn’t sufficient—and launched straight into icebreakers. “Let’s go around the room and tell everyone what your background in business is, and what type of business you have or hope to start.”

Marlowe swallowed. Some people here already owned businesses? No one was going to be impressed by her work as a stylist. She glanced around the room as the others chimed in with their names and stories.

“Hi, I’m Monique,” one of the blazer women said. “I run an online jewelry store. I just crossed six figures this year, so I’m here to get a better handle on taxes and scaling.”

“I’m Ryan,” a man with a neatly trimmed beard said, “I’m starting a gourmet hot sauce company. Already sold my first hundred bottles at farmers’ markets.”

A man with tanned skin and a deep voice said, “I’m relaunching my family’s ranch as an eco-tourism experience.”

The spotlight was crawling toward her like an oncoming train. She could feel her brain scramble. Her mouth felt dry. And then it was her turn. “I—um. I’m Marlowe. I, uh ... want to open a salon. One day.”

That was it. One sentence. And not even a confident one.

Mr. Wellington-Vandermeer gave her a perfunctory nod and moved on. But her cheeks burned, and the woman next to her offered a flat, polite smile that practically screamed You poor thing.

Things didn’t improve from there.

Mr. Wellington-Vandermeer passed out budgeting worksheets and explained they’d be working in small groups on a sample business scenario. “Pretend you’re opening a bakery. Use this sheet to estimate your startup costs.”

Marlowe joined a group with Tablet Woman and Hot Sauce Guy. She’d forgotten their names already because she’d been panicking during introductions instead of paying attention.

“What do you think for equipment?” Hot Sauce asked her.

“You mean … like … ovens?” she offered.

Tablet Woman tapped her pencil on the worksheet. “Right, but how many? And are we leasing or buying?”

Leasing? Were there places that leased ovens? She didn’t want to ask in case the question made her look stupid. She didn’t even know what ovens cost, let alone how to calculate—according to a section on the worksheet—overhead or depreciation for them. Another box on the worksheet was labeled COGS.

She leaned in and whispered, “Is that the same as expenses?”

They both stared at her. Tablet Woman didn’t say anything, just started tapping furiously on her screen, researching some details. Hot Sauce said, “Cost of goods sold. It includes materials, direct labor, and manufacturing. Sometimes production overhead.”

So that was a yes, then? What was production overhead? And was direct labor different than other labor? She didn’t want to ask any more questions.

Halfway through the exercise, Marlowe faked a bathroom break just so she could breathe. When she returned, the group worksheet was already filled out, and no one asked for her input again.

Mr. Wellington-Vandermeer went over the worksheets and droned on about the “value proposition” and how every successful business needed to identify its core differentiator in the marketplace.

He used the phrase synergizing competitive advantage three times and referenced a Harvard Business Review article he claimed “all serious entrepreneurs should be familiar with.” Then he launched into a passionate, ten-minute tangent about the difference between fixed costs and variable costs, which, according to him, was “the backbone of any profit-oriented decision matrix.”

By the time he said, “Let’s pivot now to some light SWOT analysis,” Marlowe was ninety percent sure she was having an out-of-body experience.

And she had paid to be here.