You know those people who are just not very good friends with deodorant? You run into them once in a while, maybe in a crowd, or on public transport - bonus points if it's on a hot day. Most people react to that by being disgusted, and honestly, I get that. Never have I thought that the smell of a sweaty man can be anything else but off-putting. That is until I ran into somebody who changed everything about that.
A year ago, when I was eighteen years old, two of my friends and I started a small tech company in our hometown. We had this idea in high school that we always wanted to explore and I never thought we would ever actually go through with it, but we did! Right after our graduation, we pulled up all the money we had saved and invested it all into this project. It was our baby. We were working on it hard, day and night. I can't stress how much time and energy we invested in this thing, so naturally, we were expecting to collect the fruits of our effort soon!
Sadly, you can probably guess how it goes for most companies like that. Great enthusiasm at the beginning, but then the reality hits you hard. With the few resources we had access to, we had trouble generating any kind of profit. A couple of customers were interested in our product, but it just wasn't enough to keep us above water, so we ended pouring more and more of our money into it.
A couple of months later, one of my friends dropped out of the whole thing and decided to get a regular job instead. The other one didn't say anything, but I could tell he was starting to have second thoughts too. I started becoming nervous. I didn't want this project to go south, especially since - in my eyes - we had barely even started.
The solution was obvious. Find an investor, so we could pour more money into marketing and get off the ground.
Finding somebody willing to invest in a small company like ours that only generates a few hundred dollars every month at best and which is also run by a pair of teenagers was not easy. I sent out emails, asked around, tried as hard as possible to find a good contact, but I was unsuccessful. Until one fateful day.
I didn't know this guy very much, but the friend of his friend told me he would put a good word in a company that he was in contact with somehow. I didn't know much about the company back then but I was grateful that he would do that for us. Then I kind of forgot about it and started looking elsewhere, because I didn't want to get my hopes up... until I received an email.
It was them! The company! They said in the email that they saw our website, that they were impressed with our product, and that they wanted to meet with me, personally, to discuss our future! I can't express how excited I felt after seeing that email. At first, I thought it was just a prank, but the more I looked into the company online, the more I was convinced that this was a real chance for us!
The company specialized in making perfumes and colognes. That kind of threw me off later when I calmed down from the excitement and started thinking about it. Our product was very tech-oriented, and I didn't see a lot of overlap between our fields. Why would they want to invest in us? However we were too desperate to question anything - my friend and business partner told me that he was thinking of dropping out as well and I knew I had to take action.
Over the next couple of days, I was in contact with various people from this company. The cooperation they had in mind was a large investment in our company in exchange for advertisement services and some shares. Specifically, they asked for fifteen percent. Even though I was very grateful for this opportunity, it was important for me to have our company as independent as possible, so I started negotiating that. I was pretty sure I could make them go down to ten percent. They seemed to be happy with the phone calls and finally, they told me that the CEO of the company wants to meet me personally to officially discuss and sign the deal.
That was the day when everything happened - and here is where I finally get back to my initial topic.
It was almost a hundred degrees outside and I was suffering in my tight suit while on the way to the basketball court. The CEO, Jim Wolf, was apparently really into baseball in his free time and wanted to meet me right after his game was over. He asked me to meet me at the court - I guess he was a very busy man who could only squeeze so many meetings into his already tight schedule. I took the bus there and walked up to the court, which seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. Not a lot of people were at the bleachers, just a handful of onlookers looking at something that seemed like a casual game of baseball between a couple of friends. I didn't know which one of them was Jim, but the players noticed me soon enough - I was sticking out like a sore thumb with the suit I was wearing in that weather - and one of them quickly ran up to me.
He was a tall man with a very athletic build. Not overly buff, but with really nicely toned muscles that only regular workout and lots of running around could give you. He must have been in his late forties and didn't look like a CEO of anything, as much as a friendly uncle. Sharp blue eyes and a semi-kept beard that was a mixture of blonde and ginger. He was wearing a fitting baseball uniform, red and white stripes, complete with the cap and the tall socks. The hairy forearms and the patch of pubic hair coming out of his collar was a hint to me that Jim Wolf was very hairy and he wasn't about to let a blade of a razor change anything about that.
When he approached me, he was drenched in sweat and wearing a smile on his face.
"You must be Andy," he said when he saw me and immediately stuck out his hand to greet me, "Pleasure to meet you. The name is Jim Wolf, but feel free to just call me Jim."
His friendly attitude was a pleasant surprise - I thought I would have to deal with some kind of cold-blooded corporate shark, but this guy seemed nice enough. Another thing that I noticed about him was his musk, that hit me from a mile away. That kind of honest, sweaty smell you could only get if you were a man running around all day in this weather. That was nothing surprising though and I didn't want to be rude, so I pretended I didn't notice anything.
"Yeah, that's me... Um... It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Wo... I mean, Jim. I hope I'm not too early?"
"Oh, no worries," he replied, waving his hand, "The boys and I were just wrapping this up. Tell you what - my driver just pulled up in my car in front of the other entrance. He's going to drive us to my office to discuss our deal. Would you mind waiting for me in my car? I will only take a minute."
Of course, I had no issue with that. I nodded and assured him that I will be waiting for him there and told him to take as much time as he needed. Then he ran back to the court while I walked off to the entrance.
I knew that a CEO would drive something fancy, but I wasn't expecting a full-blown limousine to be waiting for us in front of the basketball court! A huge, black, shiny beautiful limo was just there, waiting for us, contrasting the empty field behind it. It looked so out of place! I felt intimidated the minute I saw it, but then I put it together and walked up to it. Before I could even knock on the window, one of the doors in the back opened for me itself.
"Good afternoon," the driver said to me in a cheerful, professional tone, "Please take a seat and make yourself comfortable. Mr. Wolf will be here in a minute."
I greeted the driver and took a seat at the left, leaving some space for Jim for when he gets back. The leather seats were very comfortable and the whole car was nice and cozy. The interior of it matched the shiny front. It was luxurious - not in a kitsch way, but you could just tell that everything was top quality. The driver was sitting in the front with the window pulled down. He didn't look like he had anything else to say to me and just kept a professional smile. Fair enough.
I was expecting that it would take a while before Jim showed up - I assumed that even if he finished up the game already and said goodbye to his friends quickly, it would take him a while to shower and change into some fresh clothes. It was searing hot outside, after all. Imagine my surprise when the door opened and I saw Jim there in the exact same state as when I met him!
He was still drenched in sweat and was about to sit on these expensive seats in his dirty, sweaty baseball uniform! I tried to hide my shock out of fear of seeming rude and handwave it away, thinking that it was probably normal for rich people to do weird things like that. I didn't understand how he could be comfortable though!
