Romancing: The App #MFRWHooks
Excerpt
Chapter 1
“We’re live with Wanda Blake, CEO of Romancing: The App.”
Wanda shifted in her seat, smoothing her skirt across her knees. “Hello Tonya.”
“It’s been five years since you took your company public, and you’re still on top of the dating market,” the talk show host leaned in. “What’s your secret?”
“Love,” Wanda said simply.
“Love?”
“Yes,” she went right into her elevator pitch, explaining her business model for the thousandth time. “Other apps will sell you hook ups or dates, some can even say that they will find you a life partner, but our app is the only one out there that specializes in love.”
“I think some of your competitors would disagree,” the TV personality argued.
“They would like to think they offer love,” Wanda smiled her practiced smile, “but they would be wrong. According to internal surveys, our customers said they were most likely to find physical attraction, proximity and shared ideals on Romancing: The App. Studies have been done on the mechanics of love, and what really goes into the chemistry between two people. Some of the most important factors are…” she trailed off, letting the viewing audience jump in with the answer.
“Physical attraction, proximity and shared ideals,” the TV host finished for her.
“That’s right,” Wanda punctuated the statement with a cheerful three checkmarks in the air. “Everything that science says is important to a loving relationship, Romancing: The App has to offer. We are leading in the field because we understand what people are looking for in a partner.”
“What about you?” Tonya asked. “What are you looking for in a date?”
“Of course, I’m on the app.” Wanda winked at the camera. “So you can come take a look at my profile for an introductory subscription rate of $14.99 per month.”
“There you have it folks, romance guaranteed at $14.99.” The host smiled brightly, absorbing all the attention as Wanda waved her arms in frustration.
“You can’t say it’s guaranteed,” the CEO complained.
“And we’re clear,” the producer called.
“You can’t say it’s guaranteed,” Wanda repeated herself, off the air.
“Why not?” Tonya picked at her microphone, resettling it higher on her chest.
“Because I’ll get sued,” Wanda grumbled, exasperated.
“Oh,” Tonya slumped her shoulders, deflated. “Can we redo that last scene?”
“We’re live,” the producer said.
“Can you issue a correction?” Wanda wanted to know.
“Sure thing,” the producer replied, holding a hand out to help her off stage. “Thank you so much for stopping by.”
“Thank you!” Tonya waved.
Wanda opened her arms, ignoring both of their dismissals. “What guarantee do I have?”
“We’ll issue a statement,” the producer assured her. “It’ll go at the end of the broadcast. You can check in with the control room.”
Wanda took his hand in disgust, climbing up out of her seat and off the stage. She was met by Andy, her personal assistant and Darla, her public relations specialist. “Was that okay?” She asked.
“You did great boss,” Andy said.
“Thank you,” Wanda turned on the charm.
Andy had been with her from the beginning, when Romancing was just an idea in the concept phase. Wanda had been frustrated by the lack of serious dating apps available for business professionals. She had been on Catch-a-Date and Lovvers, and found them both creepy. As soon as she posted her profile pic, dozens of guys swarmed her, offering nothing in the way of conversation. They wanted to meet her in person and told her she was ‘hot.’ She had met one young man over coffee, but he was only interested in talking about porn, so she bought her latte and left.
She reasoned that there were millions of other women out there, just like her, looking for love. Whatever shape or form that came in didn’t matter. What mattered was the feeling of belonging, the knowledge that you had met your soulmate. There was no way for a digital dating app to provide that service, until Wanda created it.
She had still been in graduate school, and after those disappointing experiences, she pivoted to take classes in human relations as well as business. She did her master’s thesis on love, and all the ways that it demonstrated itself in human society.
There was a mother’s love for her child, a brother’s love for his sister, and a friend’s love for her friend. There was love in a general sense, that led people to do good works, and there was love of home and country that inspired soldiers to join the army. But what Wanda wanted to package and sell was the most classic variety of love. Two consenting adults of any sexual orientation, skin color, national origin or political philosophy, coming together to enrich each other’s lives, that was the type of love she sought. Yes, there was often sex, but there didn’t have to be.
Wanda wanted a platform free of dick pics and sexual innuendo, where people could go to connect on a deeper level. She didn’t ban sex talk or sexting because that was an important part of most people’s love stories. But she didn’t want the hit-it-and-quit-it crowd, or those who were just interested in a few dates.
The breakthrough that she had developed went like this: if a guy was interested in a girl, he had to pass through a quiz first. The girl could ask any ten questions she wanted to. Some of them were yes or no questions, and some were short answer. Like a job application, the mere suggestion of writing turned some creeps off.
The woman could set certain questions to be make-or-break items, like smoking. If a man said that he smoked, and her preference was for a nonsmoker, the app would block his text even before he had a chance to say, ‘Hey baby, what’s up?’ It was all in the settings, and any person could set up their profile with a questionnaire filter, as long as they self-identified as female.
In the first few months after the app’s release, Wanda’s scrappy little company pushed a major social media campaign #Answerthequestion. Women everywhere posted their questions, and it was interesting to read them. There were hypotheticals: if you found $100 on the ground, what would you do? There were short answers: how many kids do you have? There were yes or no questions: do you believe in God? And there were multiple choice questions that acted almost like the SATs: you just woke up, do you a) text your mom, b) check your stocks c) grab a cup of coffee.
Over the years, they had to add features to stay relevant. The company grew from a garage band to a Fortune 500 corporation with offices in LA. At the top of her game, Wanda employed over one thousand people in five cities across the country. As they grew, they just had to keep adding departments.
Now instead of the bare bones tech team, they had development, marketing, HR, IT, the legal team, accounting, secretaries, facilities, and everything else that went with a large footprint. She insisted on keeping the family-like feel, and so each department was broken down into thirty person teams.
Wanda had never been a leader before, so she bought all the books and attended all the ‘women in power’ networking conferences. As the business grew, so did she. She was featured in all the major magazines, as one of the top women to watch in business. When she earned her first million, she bought a beach house in Malibu, and when she earned her first billion, she traded up.
Her company was her brand, so she liked to put her face out there sometimes. It was difficult when they asked her about her own love life. Despite creating a tool for other women to find happiness, Wanda had yet to discover her own.
She always thought about spending some energy tracking down a soul mate, scrolling through the millions of available men using her service, but somehow there was never time. There was always another fire that needed putting out, or a conference call or a sales meeting that she had to attend.
At first, every day was a crisis. Now that they were established, it seemed like the problems had gotten bigger. There were lawsuits in two states, people who had been injured by someone they had met. Wanda’s heart went out to them, and she wanted to split her proceeds indefinitely. But her lawyers convinced her that it was the price of business on an international scale, and that every product had its dangers.
Wanda took a deep breath as she walked past the cameras to the control room. “Excuse me,” she opened the door, distracting the half dozen technicians from their monitors.
Someone got up and hustled her out of the door. “Can I help you?”
“I just want to make sure you are going to print a message saying that Romancing: The App doesn’t guarantee love.” Wanda said.
The young man blinked at her, not following.
“I can’t guarantee love,” Wanda said again. “It doesn’t work that way.”
“That’s a shame,” he sighed. “Okay, I’ll roll it during the credits.”
“Thank you,” she smiled, feeling appeased.
“Shake it off,” Andy told her as they pushed through the sound stage door.
“I wish I could guarantee it,” Wanda said.
“I know,” Darla agreed.
“You don’t think I sounded too much like a salesperson?” Wanda worried.
“No,” Andy said quickly.
Darla frowned.
“What is it?” Wanda picked up on the other woman’s distress.
“Nothing,” Darla replied, putting her phone away.
“What?” Wanda demanded. She didn’t like secrets at work, they always spelled trouble.
“The Kiss Me App is being featured on TV21,” Darla divulged.
“Right now?” Wanda gasped.
“Yes,” Darla cringed, as if afraid of retribution.
“Let me see,” Wanda held her hand out for the phone.
Darla passed it over, shooting an apologetic glance at Andy. Wanda saw it but ignored it. TV21 was an online channel that often showcased tech inventions before they rose to prominence. They had introduced the world to the hairbrush light and the She-runner, a robot designed to clean shoes. Was it a coincidence that they were running a spot on the world’s worst dating app at the same time that Wanda was on TV?
Kiss Me was branded as the ‘anti Romancing.’ Who needs romance? Kiss me. was their slogan. Wanda had poured so much of her heart and soul into development and marketing of the product. She really felt like she was offering something important to the dating scene, like she was changing lives for the better. Kiss Me was a kick in the pants, and she would have loved to see it crash and burn.
She tried not to be jealous, but it was hard. The world likes an underdog, and she was too well established by this time to be the underdog. It seemed like all of Wall Street was rooting for Kiss Me to overtake her. She did her best not to let it get to her, but sometimes she let herself wallow in jealousy.
“Of course they’re on the air at the same time we are,” she grumbled.
“No one watches TV21,” Andy assured her.
Wanda sighed, reaching the elevator and pressing the button. “I love you Andy,” she said, only half joking.
Linky List
