1
Erica
Present Day
I straightened the banner in front of my table at the Columbus Small Business Expo and frowned. “Does this look crooked to you?”
Lizzy, my best friend, glanced over. “It looks fine to me.”
“I think it’s crooked. Nobody will invest in my company if I can’t even set my table up properly!”
Lizzy came around from her table and put her arm around me. “Erica, sweetie? Listen to me. You need to relax. The sign looks perfect, and you have a great corner table right next to the main aisle. And all of that is secondary to the fact that you have agreatbusiness pitch.”
“You said that about my last two ideas,” I pointed out, “neither of which attracted any investors. I really need this one to pan out.”
This was my third year at the Columbus Small Business Expo, and the first two visits were spectacular failures. Renting a table at the expo was far from cheap, and I had emptied my checking account to get this table for my newest business venture. I didn’t know what I was going to do if I didn’t find any interested investors.
“Yours looks so much better than mine,” I said to Lizzy, gesturing at her table full of CBD-infused beauty products. “Should I have gotten a backdrop banner too? I don’t think the one draped in front of the table is enough…”
“What’senoughis this insecurity.” Lizzy took me by the shoulders firmly. If she had been born five centuries earlier, she surely would have been a no-nonsense tavern keeper, dispensing blunt opinions and smacking unruly guests on the side of the head. “Investors want to see confidence, Erica. Stop moping about the table! Stand up straight! Act like the bad-ass business girl I know you are!”
Her pep-talk succeeded in lifting my spirits a smidge. “Thanks, Lizzy.”
“What are best friends for?”
“Excuse me?” a man said over my shoulder. “Is that CBD shampoo?”
A potential investor,I thought when I saw him.They must have opened the doors to the expo.
Lizzy’s face brightened. “Yes it is! We have a full range of CBD-infused products…” She trailed off and glanced at me. “But my table doesn’t open for another five minutes. Why don’t you check out the other neighboring tables in the meantime?”
She elbowed me painfully in the ribs.
“Right! Yes!” I scurried back behind my table and cleared my throat. “My business venture is calledYours Forever Gemstones. We have partnered with a local laboratory to distribute custom-made gemstonesdirectlyto customers.”
The man, who wore sweatpants and a stained T-shirt, frowned. “What makes these gems special?”
“I’m glad you asked!” I handed him a flier from a stack on my table. “Normal lab-created gems, like diamonds, are basically pure carbon. What makes aYours Forevergemstone special is that the carbon comes from a loved one!” I dramatically plucked a strand of blonde hair from my head. “Simply send in a sample of your hair, or your wife’s hair--”
“I’m not married,” the man interrupted.
“Wife, or mother, or any loved one,” I quickly added. “The laboratory will make a custom gemstone using carbon atoms from the hair. It will be like wearing your wife—or other loved one—on your finger forever!”
The man scanned the flier I had given him and tossed it back on the table. “Not interested in gems. Let me know when the CBD table is open.”
I sighed as he walked away. “That was terrible.”
“You did fine!” Lizzy insisted. “That was a good warm-up for the better investors. You know it’s a numbers game. A thousand rejections don’t matter as long as they lead to one person who likes your idea.”
“I’m not going to have any hair left after a thousand rejections,” I muttered.
People started trickling into the big convention center. I put the discarded flier back onto the stack and smiled brightly at everyone who passed.
She’s right. One good pitch is worth all of the rejections.
A little old lady with a cloud of white hair squinted at my booth. “Yours Forever Gemstones?”
“Yes! The way it works is you send us a hair sample from one of your loved ones, and we create a gemstone from it! That way…”