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“Why the fuck would I buy you a food truck?”
“I told you,” Jinyoung sighs exasperatedly, “Owned media? Brand awareness purposes?”
Yugyeom continues to glower at Jinyoung, dead eyes as if he’s plotting murder. The clock reads 11.12am – way too early for Jinyoung’s whimsical trivialities he likes to call marketing efforts. They have just failed to raise a Series A round, surely there are more pressing matters to deliberate about.
“A food truck,” he states, facial features still not moving an inch, except a lip twitch. “A goddamn food truck,” he repeats.
“You have to admit it’s a nice food truck,” Jinyoung says, blinking. “That agency is doing a pretty good job churning out designs in so little time.”
“I don’t care if it’s a nice food truck, Jinyoung-sshi,” Yugyeom hisses. “We’re an on-demand moving company and you’re telling me to go invest in a fucking food truck?”
Jinyoung doesn’t understand the need for Yugyeom to raise his voice.
“No, scratch that—four fucking food trucks?”
Nope, doesn’t understand at all.
“Listen,” Jinyoung proposes, shifting in his seat so that he’s sitting up straight, hands in his pocket. It’s an uncomfortable position to be in—both the way he’s seated and the current repercussion this whole food truck ordeal is resulting in.
He shouldn’t have listened to Jackson, that bastard. Backend engineers should never be allowed to moderate any marketing-focused brainstorming session ever again.
“Before you turn this idea down, think about the PR value these food trucks can generate,” says Jinyoung. Not a day goes by that he doesn’t thank himself for being shockingly skilled at negotiating. (“Impressive, bordering on manipulative,” said Bambam, multiple times over various occasions.)
When Yugyeom cocks his head to one side as a sign of interest, Jinyoung continues, “Our current goal is to gain initial traction so that we can put out excellent metrics to lure the big investors in, am I correct?” he prompts, earning a nod from the CEO.
Kids are so smart these days, Jinyoung muses whenever he’s reminded of the fact that he reports to someone three years younger for a living.
“Say we station our food trucks in one of the city’s hottest spots. We can invite other small-medium culinary businesses—or even form partnerships with them, if Youngjae wants to make money out of it—curate our own little pop-up food festival, and bam,” he explains, gesturing wildly, “PR value. An often overlooked metric but of immeasurable worth nonetheless.”
Yugyeom ponders at the suggestion, pursing his lips. “That’s got nothing to do with what our brand stands for, though.”
Jinyoung groans. “Food may not be the first thing people associate with us when we introduce ourselves as a logistics company, but that does not limit the possibility of the actual, physical objects that we can transport. For all I know, when we expand to South-East Asia later, they might even use our fleet for transferring livestock,” he announces with mild exaggeration. “Livestock, Gyeom, live chickens and rabbits and cows and—“
“I get it,” Yugyeom interrupts, holding one hand up to signal Jinyoung they’re nearing the end of the conversation. “I get where this is going, but do you really think it’s worth the time and energy? Your to-do list,” he pauses to look at his computer monitor where he keeps a tally of everyone’s tasks, ”is looking pretty shit right now.”
A very large part of Yugyeom’s job obliges him to challenge ideas, one after the other, so inherently, it’s moments like this that light a spark in his bonfire heart. Not to mention the satisfaction that comes with arguing against a group of subordinates who are relatively older than you – it’s almost the highest form of honour, except having veto power sort of already beat that by miles.
“Of course,” answers Jinyoung, overflowing conviction in the glint of his eyes. “I wouldn’t have come to you in the first place if I didn’t, would I, Gyeom-ah?”
Jinyoung is known to be a force of nature amongst angel investors for nothing, after all.
The logistics business is a tough one to tackle. It’s regulated, driven by costly fixed capital and promises of warranty, and to make things even more difficult, the market tends to be reluctant when they see an innovative (or groundbreaking, as Yugyeom likes to phrase it) business model being brought out by a firm so reliant on heavy day-to-day operations.
As a determined young man on the cusp of his twenties, however, Yugyeom recognised this as a gap waiting to be monopolised. After incubating the idea on the wall of his dorm room for about a week, he wasted no time in recruiting some of the best engineering minds on his campus ground—Jackson and Mark, both foreigners, and crazy good at coding.
There was also Bambam, the Human-Computer Interaction major exchange student from Bangkok who, halfway through his overseas study period, took a little too much liking to Yugyeom and as a result, decided to stay with the intention of being the best frontend web developer Yugyeom’s ever seen.
It would’ve been creepy if visa extensions weren’t such an earnest thing to do.
That was three years ago, when they started out slowly, because each of their parents were still under the impression that their sons aspired to graduate from university on time. Roughly two years later, Mark called up two of his friends as Yugyeom began to envision a more polished, business-oriented direction for the company, as opposed to blindly building an application program.
Why Jaebum and Youngjae had willingly left management consulting for his tiny startup, Yugyeom will never understand.
From then on, things fell conveniently into place. Much like how Jinyoung winded up under their wing.
“—and that’s why I think you should double-check the term sheets. Are you sure your valuation makes sense? We want to be competitive, not scare off venture capitalists, hyung.”
“I understand that you want to be realistic about this, but—”
“Wait, why are Jaebum-hyung’s metrics in a much bigger font than mine?”
“Not sure if you got the memo but brand-building isn’t exactly our first and foremost priority at this point, buddy.”
“When will you dense assholes realise that database security is not something Mark and I can pull out of thin air?”
“Then what the heck are we paying you for?”
“I don’t get it.”
“Four years in and it’s astounding how you still don’t get it, Bam.”
Tuesday mornings are reserved for alignment meetings, or otherwise known as the most agonising 90 minutes of the week. Even the building janitor would agree on this.
Their official launch date gets pushed back for another three weeks, courtesy of the backend duo for missing an integral part of the user journey and consequently screwing up their latest sprint—or, in other words, an entire two week’s worth of coding, which unfortunately in their field of work is the equivalent of at least 2 years.
“You gotta be fucking kidding me,” Bambam exclaims in an unnecessary high-pitched voice when Mark brings him the news. Jackson shoots him a disgusted look. “So I did all of that for nothing.”
“Oh fuck you,” Mark retorts, pushing the cap of his hoodie off his head aggressively as a statement. “Your job is child’s work; any functioning human with a goddamn laptop can re-do all of that and get it up and running under two hours.”
“Exactly,” Bambam replies nonchalantly as he downs a mouthful of cheeseburger. He chokes on a pickle and spits it out in the process. “A bit of a stretch there with the two hours though—probably four, minimum, but exactly.”
Mark hasn’t showered in four days and there stands Bambam, casually wiping a trail of tomato sauce off his chin at 8 in the morning, that son of a bitch.
“I’ll get my stuff refined before lunchtime even arrives and Jaebum-hyung will saunter into this shithole we call our workspace at, say, 2, and find you unable to reboot shit—which means you’ll have no choice but to come out to him about this grave you’ve dug for yourself and that, will definitely make you and Jackson-hyung the single source of Im Jaebum’s Tantrum of The Century,” he says in a single breath, throwing his burger wrapping into the bin. For declarative purposes, of course. “So who’s the real winner here?”
Mark is struggling to keep his fists inside his pockets. Frontend just happens to have it easier, that’s all. “Shut. Up.”
When Yugyeom walks into the office at half past 11, no one bothers to greet him. “Alright, which one of you dipshits ruined it this time?”
Silence.
“Does anyone have anything to confess or do I have to bring Youngjae-hyung’s dog over to sniff out your sorry ass?”
Much to Bambam’s dismay and Mark’s delight, Jaebum does not throw a fit after being informed of the unfortunate news. Instead, he closes his eyes, sighs inwardly, and tells Mark to give him a few minutes before gathering the entire engineering team at Jackson’s table to begin problem-solving.
It’s only partially endearing.
“I admire that about Jaebum,” Jinyoung quips from the pantry, cheap coffee in his hands and eyes on Jaebum’s back.
He is not too happy about the launch date being postponed either, as longer holdups mean more room for potential competitors to seize a share of their existing market, but at least this way he’s given a few additional days to send out invitations to more journalists and tech bloggers. It’s a give and take; still, media coverage is always a silver lining.
“What,” Youngjae snaps, which in itself is a very rare thing. But an extended period of negative cash flow is the last thing they need, so if Youngjae were to validate his concern, he has a ton to be frustrated about.
It’s one of those days where he wishes he wasn’t the only person in this godforsaken office with the intellectual capacity to interpret balance sheets.
“I said, I admire that about Jaebum,” says Jinyoung, breaking Youngjae out of his angry reverie. “He’s a leader who leads, you know. Notice how he didn’t blame any of his team members for what they did,” he explains diplomatically as he returns to his seat. “I admire that.”
Youngjae stares at him blankly.
“Gosh, quit with the staring.”
“You know that’s why he’s been single roughly his whole life, right,” utters Youngjae after a few minutes of uncomfortable glaring.
“Huh, really?”
“Huh, so you are interested.”
Jinyoung shrugs, pretending to brush off Youngjae’s absolutely inaccurate testimony. Mild curiosity is not to be mistaken for physical attraction—especially not when it involves his coworkers.
Not that anyone’s said anything about anything physical. Whatever.
“He continuously ends up devoting himself to his work and team so much that his own priorities get put on the backburner,” Youngjae carries on, walking over to where the photocopier is located because alas, this company is too poor to hire an errand boy designated to collect their printouts for them.
Jinyoung hums idly in response.
“I know this from experience,” Youngjae adds, wit in his voice, and then: “Don’t be jealous.”
Jinyoung involuntarily spills his coffee all over a box of sample brochures.
By virtue of their minor—“It’s actually pretty major but let’s not tell the rest of the guys that,” Jaebum confessed to Youngjae that day—screw-up in the middle of an excruciatingly painful funding round, it comes as a bit of a shock to the team when Yugyeom successfully closes a Series A deal – pitch-perfect Jinyoung and Youngjae’s unrivaled financial acumen in tow.
“They liked hyung’s food truck idea,” Yugyeom announces half-heartedly as he storms through the door. Youngjae quickly follows behind, and on the contrary, wearing an expression so radiant Jaebum can’t help but coo at. Jinyoung enters shortly after, with a smirk that bears a resemblance to the multi-million dollar deal he just scored.
“I would love to celebrate but until the legal fees are settled, I don’t want to be too excited just yet,” Yugyeom says, worried. “That being said, you’re all free to work from home tomorrow – you deserve it,” he finishes with a smile.
Youngjae cheers from where he’s heading for the toilet, at the same time as Jaebum jumps out of his seat to give Mark and Jackson the proud pat on the back they so rightfully deserve. In no time, Bambam already has one foot out the door.
“You’re welcome, losers,” Jinyoung declares flippantly, so as to hide the fondness simmering in his chest.
By some cosmic miracle, they hit five thousand transactions on the morning of their grand launch – 5 times more than Youngjae’s initial, already optimistic projections.
“Unbelievable,” Youngjae whispers at the rapidly increasing order statistics on his laptop screen. “Fucking unbelievable.”
Meanwhile, at a preliminary launch party inside a hotel ballroom somewhere in another part of the city, Yugyeom has risen to ‘media darling’ status.
Jaebum takes the liberty of popping the champagne he stole from Mark’s apartment the previous week. Deep down, Mark was always a hopeful one. “To Yugyeom’s leadership,” he cries out, taking a gulp. “I wish I could drink more but I really have to make sure our system does not fuck up.”
Mark chuckles from behind his desk. “Especially not on our grand launch day.”
“Especially not on our grand launch day,” Jaebum parrots, sinking back into his chair and winking at Mark before putting his headset on, ready to tune out the rest of the world for the sake of user experience fluidity.
If Jinyoung were watching him with literal heart eyes from the other side of the room, he pretended not to notice.