The Billionaire’s Fake Marriage

“Fu*k!” Janet exhaled closing her laptop and leaned back in her chair. She knew how this review was going to be and now she was regretting going against Kitty’s advice to read it. The review did not try to analyze the root cause behind the failure of the service but just made Janet more anxious by stating the obvious facts.

Janet knew that in order to save her new company, she had to take some drastic steps, but nobody was telling her what those steps were. Everybody was telling her that there was a problem, but nobody could describe the problem to her. It was getting harder day by day to understand what was going wrong.

One thing was clear though, Janet was not going to change how the service worked. No matter how many articles criticized the forced privacy of the users, Janet was not going to take it off. It was the core concept of this service that was aimed to provide a sense of comfort and safety to its members. She remembered how she felt at the Neil Island when nobody in the group knew anything about each other. And Janet wanted her users to feel the same thing with her service. “I am not taking off the privacy!” Janet said to herself, trying to figure out what else could be the reason for people turning their backs on her company. She knew there were worse dating services that were getting so many registration each day, but why were people not coming to her?

Was she missing something obvious?

Janet believed in the model of how the service works and so she started thinking about the people related to it. “Maybe I do need to change the marketing team..” she thought, but then she also remembered that the same team got her trending worldwide before the launch. “The team is good,” she again thought, dropping the idea of firing anyone.

“Fu*k this! I am going to sleep.” Janet was tired and so she crashed into her bed, deciding not to think about it anymore tonight.

*****

Kitty was getting ready to leave for work when an unknown number appeared on her cellphone.

“Hello?” Kitty answered buttoning her shirt.

“Hey Kitty! This is Bilal. Remember me?” the voice danced out of the phone and suddenly, Kitty was smiling.

“Bilal? Of course I remember you. But I am afraid this is a bad time. I am leaving for work.”

“Actually, I called you regarding your work.” Bilal replied.

Kitty suddenly stopped doing everything, “What do you mean?”

“You were with your friend Janet when we met. And now I am seeing her name in these articles about her website High Seas. How are you guys holding up with these bad reviews piling on?”

“Thanks for reminding us how bad we are doing,” Kitty said unapologetic and suddenly Bilal realized his mistake.

“I am sorry Kitty, I did not mean it like that. It’s just that I decided to try the service myself and wanted to share my opinion with you. I thought maybe you’d like to have a fresh perspective.”

Kitty instantly saw the value of Bilal’s opinion. Janet came up with the idea of High Seas to help people like herself and Bilal. She did not create this service for teenagers who were looking for a quick hookup. This service was created for people who had everything but companionship in their lives. Bilal told her exactly what she needed to hear.

“I am so glad you called, Bilal!” Kitty thanked him.

“No problem. I just thought maybe you’d need some help.”

“Yes, we need all the help we can get right now. And thank you so much!”

“I guess you are in a hurry for your work. I will talk to you later, Kitty. Take care.”

Kitty could not believe it, the man was a God send to tell her what was wrong with their action plan. But then Kitty quickly left her home. She reached Rebecca’s office where she found Janet waiting with her.

“You wont believe who called me today!” Kitty said entering the office, “Bilal!”

“Who?” Rebecca had no clue who this person was, but Janet was astonished.

“The prince?” she said.

“Prince? A real prince?” Rebecca was intrigued. “How does she know a prince?”

“Not just a real prince, but a handsome one,” Janet filled in Rebecca.

“Wow! But… how do you know a prince?” Rebecca really wanted to know.

Janet smiled, looking at Kitty knowingly and this was enough for Rebecca to figure out.

“Get out! You made out with a prince? What does that entitle you to? At least a palace in his country. Also, where is he from?”

“Dubai! He is from Dubai,” Janet told her.

“Would you two shut up? There is something important that Bilal told me.”

“Is he marrying you?” Rebecca asked chuckling and it only made Kitty mad. She could see Kitty’s nostrils flaring up.

“Alright, I will zip it now. So tell us what it was,” Rebecca finally piped down.

“Bilal tried our service and gave me his feedback,” Kitty told them.

“We already have feedback from many of our users. How is that important?” Janet asked.

Kitty sat down and looked into her eyes. “Tell me..” she said. “When you came up with the idea, whom did you have in mind?”

Janet remembered the evening when she came up with the concept of High Seas and suddenly, she realized what Kitty was trying to tell her, “Oh sh*t!”

“See?” Kitty said.

“We have been doing it all wrong.” Janet held her head.

“Somebody tell me what is going on here.” Rebecca was feeling left out.

Janet and Kitty took a moment to collect their wits before Janet started explaining it to Rebecca.

“I came up with this idea to help people get closer to each other despite their status and identities in the outside world. Most rich people are worried that people will pretend to fall in love with them only for their money. And so on our holiday I met a group of these people who had a rule, ‘nobody was supposed to ask or tell who or what they were in the outside world’.”

“Nice! Like a secret society of powerful friends.” Rebecca was getting excited.

“Exactly! And that was the core concept behind this idea — to make people confident that people will like them for who they really are and not because of how much money they have,” Janet added into her explanation.

“But then, the model is still the same. What is the problem?” Rebecca asked.

Janet felt quite embarrassed to answer this, “The problem is… we have been targeting the wrong demographics. We were going after college students, singles and teenagers.”

“While our idea is tailor made for people who are filthy rich!” Rebecca pointed out shamelessly.

“Well you make it sound like it’s a bad thing, but … yeah!” Janet finally admitted.

But now even Rebecca was able to see the power behind this idea. However she also saw one major problem with it. “But to succeed, any service needs more users, and if we are being elitist and selective, how are we going to .. you know.. succeed?”

“Two ways —” Janet answered, “One — the service is free right now but we will start charging our users once we have enough of them. And two — once people will know that the site is a place for rich and powerful people to mingle, everybody would want to be a part of this.”

“It’s like a private club being opened for anybody who can afford the admission fee. Ordinary people are going to line up to get in.” Kitty said.

“So all we need to do is change our marketing strategy and BOOM!” Rebecca got excited.

Finally they knew what was going to turn things around for them.

“But, there is one more thing!” Kitty stopped their celebration.

“What?” Janet asked.