The Billionaire’s Fake Marriage

Kitty took out a few images from a folder and showed them to Janet. These were the prints of the billboard and print ads that were about to be published all over the world. These prints were in several languages and had men and women of different ethnicities together. It was like almost every country was about to be invaded by High Seas.

“Wow!” Janet realized looking at the prints. “I just realized how big this thing is going to be. Look at all these faces and languages. So many people will see and hear about our idea.”

Kitty felt proud of her work, “See, this is going to be amazing!”

“I am kind of nervous now.” Janet threw a curve ball to Kitty.

“What? Why?”

“None of my ideas were launched on such a big scale before, Kitty. And now I am worried if I will fail in more than one country.” Janet made her apprehensions clear.

“The app and website are getting really good reaction from the test users. You should stop worrying about it now. Besides, it’s not in our hands anymore. We have put something big in motion here and now the only thing we can do is wait and watch.”

Kitty’s words did help Janet, but she was still nervous. “Yeah, you are right.” she said trying to hide her fears and doubts. Kitty could see right through her as Janet pretended not to worry about failing anymore. But Kitty decided not to push Janet anymore. This doubt was something she needed to tackle herself.

Days later Janet could see billboards of High Seas all over the city. She also saw how it was trending in social media with young people talking about it. The idea was clear, but how it was going to unfold created a mystery. A better less mushy version of the video was launched on the social media where the girl and boy met in a more believable fashion and not in fantasy land. The video quickly surpassed a million views within a week and Kitty made sure to let Janet know about it.

“One million views in just one week. We are on the right track here.”

It did boost Janet’s confidence but she was still a little skeptical. She had accepted this skepticism as a part of her nervousness. “It’s going to be great.” she would say to herself.

And then Janet saw something that made all her nervousness and skepticism wash away. An article in a reputed journal declared High Seas already a hit venture even before its release.

“With its global popularity and continuous trending, High Seas seems to be the next big thing that you would expect from Janet Crane; the founder of CookUp. The service is yet to be launched but is being widely discussed all over the world. With more than a million dollars spent in its marketing budget, High Seas is set to a booming launch this month. The website and app features on bringing people from different countries closer removing all the hurdles and hazardous scenarios. It not only talks about keeping its member’s details private but also advising them on Visa procedures after a successful match and relationship. With its global hype, High Seas is the talk of the town everywhere in the world. Lets see how it fares in the real sea after its launch.”

The article filled Janet with a new confidence. Now she knew that people were seeing what she envisioned. Her idea was soon about to become a reality and now she was ready for it.

*****

“You are going to be great,” Rebecca told Janet who was drinking a glass of water. It was her third glass in one minute.

“I have never seen you this nervous in any of your events before,” Kitty told Janet.

“I never launched anything globally before this,” Janet replied taking up another glass of water in her hands.

Rebecca then signaled Kitty to shut up and let Janet calm herself down.

“Now listen to me, Jan. You are going to go out there and tell all these people why you came up with this idea. Tell them how it is going to change the world. These people don’t understand yet what you are bringing to the table. This is going to change how we meet other people.”

Janet knew Rebecca was saying all this to cheer her up, and to be honest she was succeeding. Janet prepared herself as she saw the audience in the hall watching a new video created specially for the launch. It had different couples from various parts of the world coming together in an emotional montage. These included same sex couples as well. High Seas was for everyone. Janet held her breath as the video played and she waited for the reaction from the audience. As the video ended, the hall thundered with applause and the host called out Janet’s name.

“Go now,” Kitty gently pushed Janet onto the stage.

Walking slowly, Janet entered the stage amidst the cheers and applause and took the microphone in her hands. She could feel the gaze of all the attendees piercing her from down the stage. She had been on the stage many times before but nothing had made her immune to this stage fright of addressing so many people and explaining to them what her product was.

But Janet knew how this was going to go down. “Hello everyone. Thank you for coming here,” she started with greeting the audience. Janet knew how people loved being thanked for just being somewhere. “Today all of us are here to witness the birth of something amazing.. something that is going to change how we meet people forever.”

Janet looked around the hall and found that she had the audience at her command. People were waiting to listen to her.

“Some of you might be asking ‘Why do we need another dating site?’ or perhaps ‘How is this dating site different from so many others?’ … Well let me tell you that High Seas is not a dating site. It’s not a matchmaking service.. No sir!”

Janet looked at her audience again and found them still glued to her voice.

“Then what is High Seas?” Janet took a pause before answering her own question. “High Seas is a place where you can come and be yourself. What you are in the world outside does not matter to High Seas. We believe the only thing you need to connect with a fellow human being is by knowing who they really are.. not by what they do, how much they earn, or where they live. And so the users will not be able to view any information about each other except their names during their initial courting period. We would like to bring that element of mystery back into our lives that this technology has taken away from us. With just one click, now we can look for a person over the internet. But at High Seas, you are encouraged to be enchanted by the person you just saw. In order to know more about the people they are interested in, the users will have to perform some online tasks. And then they can also know what their person of interest does, only with the user’s permission of course.”

As Janet checked again, the audience was still under her control, and so she knew it was time for her to bring down the hammer.

“So let me introduce to you.. a new way of knowing people all around the world. High Seas .. a world without boundaries.”

With Janet’s declaration everybody in the audience received a text that had a link to download the App. People applauded and cheered and Janet was finally over her fear.

“Please enjoy your evening. Thank you for coming.” Janet walked backstage after thanking the audience. As Janet moved out, the host introduced the CTO of High Seas who informed the audience about the technical details of the app and website.

“You kicked ass!” Rebecca hugged Janet as she came back from the stage.

“You think they liked it?” Janet asked nervously, to which Kitty showed her how almost everyone in the audience was busy with their phones in the audience.

“Like it? They are already in .. look!”

Janet could see that people were playing with the app and website. Kitty opened a server that displayed the real time data of active users and it was teeming up with new registrations.

“Look, people are jumping on our server. We are getting around 5 new registrations in a minute. This is big!” Kitty was jumping with joy while showing the data to Janet.

“This is happening! This is finally happening,” Janet said to herself looking at her idea taking a real form on the server.