Lola
HELL IS A party where the hosts expect you to mingle, asking random strangers for obscene amounts of money. It feels like a bad joke. Hi, my name is Lola. I’ll do anything for a million bucks. I have very few boundaries left, although anal or sex slave for a year are still out. Around me, a crowd of beautifully dressed people chat about their newest business projects and sip champagne from crystal flutes. Waiters in black tie circulate, offering trays of delicious nibbles. I don’t fit in here, a nerdy girl engineer in the thrift-store little black dress that’s my go-to for social functions requiring heels.
This is the glamorous side of Silicon Valley, the part featured in glossy business magazines starring successful, extroverted dealmakers. It’s also a pond stocked with fat, captive fish and I need to toss in my line and pluck one out. Tonight’s mixer isn’t even one of the now-legendary venture capital parties where the VC boys make disgusting come-ons and would-be girl bosses choose between start-up funding and ethics. This is a perfectly respectable party for grown-ups.
Instead of schmoozing, I watch from the sidelines, clutching my champagne flute. I don’t “people” well. People are best in small doses. Plus, the VC guys judge relentlessly from the moment I start my pitch. It’s like a beauty pageant but without the fun tiaras. While trying not to fall over in my heels, I’m expected to produce insightful, thirty-second sound-bite answers about how the company I founded is going to contribute to The Greater Good and make tons of money in the process. Coding is so much easier.
So I’m pathetically grateful when I spot a familiar face. Maple weaves through the glittering throng toward me. She recently launched an online yoga wear company building on her brand as a successful athleisure influencer. After six months of swimming in the start-up waters myself, I know she’ll succeed. She doesn’t take no for an answer and, thanks to years as a principal for the San Francisco Ballet, she’s happy standing out while everyone looks at her. Tonight, she’s a flamingo in a sea of penguins. In her neon yellow bandage dress, white blazer and chunky, tasseled heels she looks like the million bucks I need so badly.
She clicks to a halt by my side, heels together, toes out in a perfect first position. “Hit me with tonight’s plan.”
Lists are awesome, and without a checklist of things to accomplish tonight, I’d just walk from one side of the room to the other and go home. I hold up my phone so she can see tonight’s list.
Hunt down two venture capital groups
Introduce self to reps
Trade business cards
Be charming (heh)
Maple borrows my champagne before delivering the bad news. “The partners from J&H have already come and gone.”
Well, poop. VC firms pick a very few companies to invest in each year and most look for unicorns—privately held start-ups worth a billion dollars or more. Invest in the next social media sensation and you can buy your very own tropical island (and a yacht and a private jet) when it goes public. Calla, my start-up, is worth more like a thousand bucks, and that’s just because I bought good office furniture.
Move on, I remind myself. Start-up funding is like speed dating. “Bayview Capital.”
“Four o’clock.” She points helpfully as I’m currently sans glasses and can’t see more than two feet in front of me. While I plot the shortest, least-peopled course toward the Bayview guys, Maple hums under her breath and scans the room. Her party game is dividing its suit-wearing occupants into hypothetical keep and discard piles. Some people apply Marie Kondo’s organizational theories to their closets and kitchen cabinets; Maple applies those principles to men. Since she’s in a committed relationship and I’m adamantly not, I’m the one who’s supposed to rummage through the keepers and pick someone fun. She refuses to believe me when I say I simply don’t have time for a relationship right now.
Ten minutes later, I’ve located Bayview Capital’s representative (wearing a lovely Hugo Boss suit), made painful but effective small talk and exchanged business cards. The basic premise of the networking event is simple. Collect business cards and make introductions, hoping to score a request to come back and interview for the big money during working hours.
Mission accomplished, I return to Maple, scanning the room for the nearest exit.
As always, Maple cuts straight to the chase. “Are you going already?”
Uh, hello? The room is pushing the fire marshal’s stated limits. Leaving would be civic-minded. “I’ve had a glass of champagne, handed my business card to twenty-seven random strangers who gave me their cards thus promoting us to casual business acquaintances and met the people I came to meet. Why would I stay?”
Maple gazes at me patiently. “To have fun?”
I get the sense Maple is serious and not making a joke. I love to laugh as much as the next person, but challenged in the humor department? Yes, yes, I am. Clarification is required. “You want to stay here?”
“Let me sum up—free champagne, free food.” She tucks her arm in mine, ensuring I can’t escape without towing her like a boat anchor. Thirty seconds later, we’re tucked into prime real estate—a padded window seat with picture-perfect views of downtown San Francisco and the city night lights. When I first moved here, I visited the aquarium on the Wharf and strolled through a huge glass tunnel while a dozen species of sharks and rays swam up checking me out. This feels remarkably similar except the sharks in this room aren’t particularly interested in me. I’m the tiniest fish.
“This is a party, Lola.” Maple mimics scanning the room like a sailor checking out the horizon. Probably for pirates. “There are hot guys here.”
“Really?” Successful people possess many fine qualities, including drive, discipline and intelligence, but when God handed out looks, they’d been too busy standing in the drive, discipline and intelligence lines to score hotness.
“Yes.” Maple nods vigorously.