The Curious Rise of Alex Lazarus

by Adam Leigh

  “And?”

  I did a fake drum roll on the table. I may even have hummed a few bars of Beethoven’s Fifth for added mood-setting. Then, with as much dramatic flourish as I could muster, I turned over a piece of A4 paper, and written in large Gill Sans type (after much serious font-searching) was the name:

  PrimaParent.com

  Julian seemed ambivalent. “Is it any good? he asked, clearly unconvinced.

  “Live with it for a day or two. It’s short. It alliterates. It suggests ‘first’ – i.e., you are the best. And it only costs £40 to register.”

  “All right. I’ll ask my mother-in-law what she thinks too. She’d be mortified if she thought this was all down to yours. I am genuinely very excited about this, I really am. We need to discuss it properly and at length.”

  Of course, I’m abbreviating the conversation. I had prepared a fuller technical presentation in anticipation of seducing him with my initial sales pitch, including the different search algorithms that might also be the basis of this site, and it certainly was a very quick decision to progress. It was 2012, not the failed dot-com boom of 2000, and just to give you some context, Facebook already had a billion users. We were not at the beginning of a revolution but in the middle of an age of limitless potential. If that sounds a bit over-simplistic, all I can tell you now is that for the first time in my working life I had an unshakeable resolve to work only for myself and not be an employee. The horizons of my future expanded and I envisioned glorious success, oblivious to any obstacles that could be encountered.

  We mapped out a series of meetings and the topics we needed to cover – from creating the product to building it and establishing a launch. Above all, we had to decide about its funding and the basis of our partnership. We needed some proper time off work for these discussions and realised that our imminent paternity leave could be used to carry on the conversation. The irony of undermining our support period for our spouses to plan how to make money from parenting was not lost on us. But as long as we did our bit, surely we could snatch some downtime to use for constructive business planning?

  And we were off.

  3. The Team

  A month after meeting Julian in the pub, my daughter, Emily, was born, and I was engulfed by a tidal wave of exhaustion. Theo, excessively disgruntled by the entry of a rival in the family, decided that the best response to sharing the limelight was to create poo mayhem. Eschewing his growing reputation as a potty-trained prodigy, he endeavoured to defecate as often as possible, but only in the most inconvenient places he could think of: his cot, the fruit and veg aisle in the supermarket and – his personal poo de résistance – the pool one Sunday morning at our local gym.

  I took my allotted two weeks’ paternity leave and was very happy four days after my happy news when I received a text from Julian with the terse message: Sam has arrived. Whole new world of sleeplessness. I promptly replied: Business planning in a coffee shop ASAP? He replied instantaneously: Pleeeease.

  There was the small matter of discussing with Sarah my embryonic business idea now that our most recent embryo was screaming with gusto and an impressive relentlessness. I had mentioned that I was considering a business idea with my new friend from the park when I went to meet Julian in the pub before Emily’s birth. Sarah had not really been too engaged in the conversation, mildly miffed that I would not be massaging her rather swollen feet in front of the telly.

  What about Sarah, who will have a significant but unwanted part in this narrative? You are going to like her lots more than you like me. We met in our final year at university and she has always been the perfect partner to smooth over the volatility of my needy personality. A GP in a local practice, she is adored by her patients and colleagues alike and does a host of additional voluntary work, particularly in providing counselling and emotional support to the wider community. Her altruism has allowed me to embark on a single-minded quest for personal glory. As will become apparent, there were many moments when her selflessness was strained by my lapses in paternal duty. Think of her as a sort of potty-mouthed Mother Teresa.

  The single-minded pursuit of an aspiration – by definition, a selfish quest for glory – can create unintended casualties. I was about to put that theory into practice by goading a kindly soul whose ambition could only be measured through the volume of people she quietly helped.

  Timing being everything, I chose my moment carefully to tell her that I was seriously thinking of abandoning a reasonable salary to live on her paltry GP’s stipend and our collective savings. She was delirious and depleted with exhaustion, so I was making her a treat of breakfast in bed. A bit suspicious, given that I’d only done this once before in our entire relationship and we’d never managed to get the Bircher muesli stain out of her favourite linen.

  Chomping in a zombified state on a piece of toast as Emily finally slept soundly beside her, she stared blankly at the wall, unable to focus her eyes on me.

  “So, you remember Julian?” I casually ventured.

  “No. Who’s that?”

  This was going to be a bit trickier than I had anticipated.

  “You know, the guy I met in the park and then went for a drink with.”

  “What about him?”

  “He’s just had his third.”

  “His third what?”

  “Child.”

  “What did he have?” she asked with not unreasonable indifference, given she had never met him.

  “A boy called Sam.” I realised that he had actually just told me the name, not the sex. “Or a girl called Sam. Definitely one or the other.”

  She smiled reflexively. She couldn’t have been less interested.

  Leaping to my feet with unnecessary theatricality, I started to pace the bedroom and deliver a short speech I had rehearsed on the toilet some ten minutes previously.

  “Anyway, I’m thinking of going into business with him to launch a new parenting website. We’ve had a really interesting idea and we’re going to write a plan and see if we can get some funding. I’ve come to the conclusion that, unbelievably, nobody is doing this properly. I know it’s odd timing, but you’ve always encouraged me in whatever I want to do. Well, I think now is the chance to do my own thing. You know I’ve been so frustrated working for someone else. I’ve never been more excited to have met someone who I really think might be a great counterbalance to my skills. Do you believe me, that I can create something for myself?”

  I stared at my shoes, having delivered this rather florid speech (although I have to say I think I nailed it), and my heart beat a little faster, because I wouldn’t have wanted to upset Sarah for anything. Silence. I was too scared to look up.

  “Well, say something, please.”

  But Sarah couldn’t say anything because she had fallen asleep, and a piece of granary toast and marmalade was stuck to her forehead. I carefully peeled it off and cleaned her sticky face with a Pampers Extra Sensitive wet wipe. I couldn’t have loved her more at that moment, as she and our gorgeous daughter breathed peacefully in synchronised unison.

  “I’ll take that as a ‘yes’ then, and I’ll be sure to keep you updated,” I whispered as I edged out of the room.

  ***

  Julian and I met, as often as we could flee our parenting responsibilities, at Manuela’s, a local Mexican café with a menu based on creative ways to smash an avocado. Our conversations were very focused, due to the shortage of time, and we set clear goals. Early on, we divided up the plan as follows: site construction, functionality, technical spec, marketing and acquisition – that was my remit and experience; company structure, funding, P&L forecasts, growth strategy – Julian ploughed into these with enthusiasm.

  Our meetings continued with regularity as we went back to work. We would try to find moments of temporary calm each evening to speak and would carve out as much time at the weekend as was practical. This was not sustainable, and we knew we had to quickly commit to this project if we believed in its potential. One Sunday morn
ing in early October, sitting at our favourite table in Manuela’s, Julian announced with mock solemnity that it was time to escalate our plans.

  “We need to go to the next level.”

  “Julian, I am not moving in with you.” He ignored me, but I suspected for the first time that my wisecracks might be beginning to grate.

  “We can’t sit here much longer pontificating. We need bums on seats and names on spreadsheets. If we don’t recruit a great team, we might as well settle up for the coffee and carry on our jobs.”

  “I am not doing that,” I said forcefully. “I’ve checked out and I think they’ve noticed. If I carry on like this, I’m going to have to ask Manuela for a job smashing the avocados.”

  “Right then,” he replied, stretching his fingers and cracking his knuckles as if preparing to perform delicate surgery, “do you know anyone vaguely competent?”

  “What do you take me for? My little black book is awash with competence.”

  “How quaint. You still use paper.” Already it was clear – he loved having the last word in any debate with me.

  ***

  It’s hard to achieve global success on your own. We had to actually persuade some people to sign up quickly to our vision and take a risk with us. Indeed, we knew we needed a team to give credibility to our initial investor presentations. We identified our immediate priorities that day. We needed to recruit a core team of three people straight away. Our first priority was a CTO (chief technical officer), our genius who could build this and make it work. We also had to have a good finance director in place to help us forecast growth, calculate its cost, and manage the money for us carefully while ensuring sufficient governance for our investors. Finally, we wanted an experienced operations director, someone to shout at us all and make things happen by producing complicated spreadsheets explaining who was doing what by when.

  We would also recruit some gullible, malleable interns to do endless amounts of work for as little as we could pay them. Fooled by naive optimism that they’d have the opportunity for imminent success, they would be sustained by a lot of free food and alcohol to mask this modern version of capitalist slavery.

  Julian quickly found a potential finance director. Remember I mentioned that he had a small stake in a nightclub? His school-friend Barnaby Something-Something had bought a run-down wine bar and relaunched it as Soirée, and Julian had put some seed money into the project. The club had gained traction when it was used as the venue for the incredibly popular reality TV show So I Want to Marry an Heiress, in which a succession of men from different social backgrounds go on stilted dates with an array of boarding-schooleducated beauties, united only by their trust funds and magnificent dowries. There were seven partners who owned Soirée and Julian wanted to introduce me to Simon Rees, whom he described as ‘the coolest accountant you will ever meet’.

  I had the mindset that Julian and I needed to trust each other completely and, with so much to do so quickly, we had to support each other’s recommendations wholeheartedly. A couple of days later, after work, I sat in a booth at Soirée meeting Simon, who was not only cool but had what I believe a previous generation would refer to as ‘matinee idol good looks’. His handshake was so firm and confident I immediately felt inadequate and a sorry excuse for masculinity.

  “I’ve heard great things about you, Alex. Julian thinks you are a marketing genius.”

  I stammered an incoherent reply and shrugged my shoulders in an attempt at modesty that looked more like a muscle spasm.

  “Julian says you’re the greatest accountant since…” My voice trailed off. You try to think of a famous accountant on the spot; it’s not easy. I changed tack and thought I should at least ask some vaguely professional questions.

  “So, where did you qualify?”

  Julian and Simon exchanged a furtive glance, which I think, in retrospect, I mistook for irritation that I should have done my homework properly.

  Julian answered for Simon in a way that suggested I had caused offence. “Simon has been finance director to many different businesses, including several who have had very healthy exits. He’s very good at creating individual financial structures for different businesses.”

  “Guilty as charged,” Simon added, with a humility that seemed a fraction insincere.

  “What makes you think this is a good opportunity for you?”

  “If Julian thinks this is huge, I’m in. We’re always of one mind in anything we do. I have worked and raised money for many different digital businesses over the last five years. I am what you need, Alex. Trust me, I’m the man for this.”

  For the next fifteen minutes, he reeled off a series of obscure businesses and I was bombarded with acronyms and arrogant jargon. I knew what each term meant, but I couldn’t extricate their context from a series of statements about companies I knew nothing about. He was basically asserting success in everything he had ever done.

  He sat back and folded his arms and was momentarily distracted by a very pretty waitress refilling our glasses. I felt that the interview was over. As an interview, it was pretty one-sided and lacked the traditional core ingredient – the requirement to answer questions.

  As suave as he was, I didn’t know what to think. We had a pleasant conversation thereafter. Unlike us, he was most definitely single, and his conspiratorial conversation suggested he was of the opinion that the best approach to relationships was to have several running concurrently. He was unashamedly uninterested in our proposition. We could have told him that we were creating a business to get rid of nuclear waste by building schools on highly contaminated areas, and he would have told us he was in. He and Julian wanted to work together. There was no debate to be had.

  Julian rang me first thing the next morning with puppyish enthusiasm. “How impressive is Simon?’ he began.

  “Well, if I was ten years younger and a woman, I’d be drooling.”

  “He can start in a week. He wants your input so he can begin validating our forecasts and projections.”

  “Are we going to see someone else? This is quite an important role, after all.”

  There was an uncomfortable silence.

  “Alex, you’re going to need a little more faith in my choices, if we’re going to make this successful.”

  Slightly taken aback by his aloofness, I decided that this was a moment for unity and mutual faith.

  “OK. Of course I trust your judgement. Tell him he’s in. It’ll be great to have the financial rigour in place. He can choose his own abacus or slide rule. Whatever he wants.”

  Business books, which I really can’t abide, would suggest that ‘your instinct is your most potent weapon’. However, when you have momentum and you are in a hurry, sometimes it is easier to ignore it. In Simon’s case, I had no idea if he could even switch on a calculator.

  ***

  When it came to the CTO, I was much more certain who I wanted to work with from the outset. There was no way to have confidence in the venture if I didn’t know who was going to be my tech partner.

  Dimitri Kharkachov was Ukrainian and a genius.

  He had come to the UK as a twenty-year-old computer science graduate from the V. N. Karazin National University in Kharkiv, his home town. He was the son of an engineer who had built the telecommunications infrastructure in Ukraine, post the collapse of the Soviet Union. Dimitri was a science and maths genius. He entered university at sixteen, routinely coming top of any academic challenge that came his way. It seemed an inevitability that he would follow the guidance of his professors and complete a PhD, eventually spearheading important research projects to assert Ukraine’s superiority over its neighbour and rival, Russia.

  However, Dimitri’s ambition had taken an unexpected turn, which his controlling parents could not have anticipated. Unbeknown to them, he was supplementing his meagre student existence by sitting in his dingy room moonlighting as a developer for some of the biggest digital brands in the world. As part of the virtual community of global
expertise, he could work cheaply, remotely and quickly on any project.

  He was truly remarkable. Attending the minimum number of classes, he effortlessly completed his work on time and to an impeccably high standard. His day was split into segments dedicated to the different strands of his commercial and academic work. He slept five and a half hours every night, which was the minimum amount of replenishment he needed, and always ate the same meal at the same time based on a plan he had created for himself to optimise nutrition and sustain consistent energy levels.

  By the time he graduated, he had amassed a bank account with $60,000 and had worked on Airbnb’s upgraded user review feature and Uber’s driver app, as well as numerous projects for major brands. He had earned the nickname ‘Dimitri Einstein’ in this virtual world. Everyone wanted him on a project.

  The day he graduated, he announced to his devastated parents (he was an only child and they lived for his accomplishments) that he had got a job in London, joining the team of a major digital build agency for whom he had worked remotely. They had recognised his astonishing ability and offered him a staggering salary for a twentyyear-old, moving him from drab suburban Kharkiv to a converted studio apartment in Shoreditch. He was that unique, and worth the disproportionate investment.

  My good fortune was that, within two hours of him starting on his first day, I found myself in a meeting with him at the agency, where I was the managing partner. Dimitri’s arrival was heralded like the signing of a junior striker from the Barcelona Reserves. We were all fascinated to meet this Mozart of the digital age.

  Mozart isn’t a bad analogy, as Dimitri was a prodigy with limited social ability. His English was perfect, and his soft accent sounded more American than anything else. But if your life has been spent behind a screen, eye contact can prove challenging. Dimitri soon earned a new nickname, ‘Russian Rain Man’, which he hated. Not the autistic reference, but the ignorance of his proud Ukrainian heritage.