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EASTON

For years, I’ve been the only person making decisions for Sacrifice Nothing. Every single major decision I made would keep me up at night. After I went public, I actually looked forward to having a board. What could be better than having a whole team of experts in the business world, all of them working with me to make Sacrifice Nothing the best luxury brand in America?

It was a dream, basically.

Or at least, that’s what I thought, because I’m a moron.

“The profits from the Vicenzo Imbruglia line have held strong,” Mr. Jimenez says. “And the men’s watches are also outperforming the projections.”

“The evening jackets have done very well,” Mrs. Yaltzinger says. “But not by as much as the grooming kits.”

“You’re all saying good things,” I say. “So why does it sound like you’re complaining?”

“This company went public six months ago,” Mr. Dressel says. “And you brought us in just after, alongwith one of the best pots of money from any IPO last year. You did all that so that Sacrifice Nothing could really take off.” He frowns. “And yet, our profits have simply. . .” He shrugs. “Risen a little.”

I blink. “I’m sorry—twenty-five percent in two quarters isn’t meteoric, but it’s a far cry from?—”

Mrs. Yaltzinger runs a hand through her hair. “Sure. The market as a whole has declined, and we’ve turned a profit. No one’s upset, but we still think, as we did when we first came in, that we need to launch a women’s line.”

I blink. “Vincenzo doesn’t do women’s shoes.”

Sometimes I wonder why someone who clearly has no interest in fashion is sitting on our board, but Mrs. Yaltzinger is a professor at Harvard Business School, so I suppose that’s something. “If you’d rather, we can start with watches, then, or professional wear. Our concern is that you’ve been ignoring half the population. Think what kind of gains we could have if we were also serving the other half of the professionals and wealthy socialites?—”

Now it’s my turn to be annoyed. “How do you think I’ve managed to create six separate lines of products that have all turned consistent profits with relatively minimal expenditures in the last six and a half years?”

“Celebrity support?” Mr. Dressel’s borderline obsessed with celebrity attention, and I’m beginning to think my endorsements are the only reason he joined the board.

“Scarcity?” Mr. Jimenez is the only person on my board without a fancy degree. He has started and subsequently sold six very successful startups in different sectors, so his input is usually just a little different. “That’s what makes your products consistently sell out.People have to pay full price or they won’t get them at all.”

They’re smart people, but they don’t get it, not really. “Have you ever heard ofUndercover Billionaire?”

The board blinks. A dozen of them, and no one has any idea what I’m talking about.

“It’s a reality show that started in 2019 with a billionaire named Glenn Stearns. He was dropped into a small town with a hundred bucks, a car, and a tank of gas. He was tasked to turn that into a million-dollar business in under ninety days.”

Mr. Jimenez frowns. Mrs. Yaltzinger arches one eyebrow. Mr. Dressel clears his throat. The others shift in their seats and grunt or scrunch their noses.

Clearly none of them would have taken that gamble.

They’re smart people, but other than Mr. Jimenez, they aren’t entrepreneurs. They don’tcreate.They’ve been trained toadd value.

“This particular man did do it—can you guess how?”

Still, blank stares.

“It was not in any way related to the way he turned his first million when he started out. That had, in fact, taken him quite a bit longer than ninety days, but he had learned something valuable in his years of business.”

Still no one has input. My board is useless.

“What he did was start a barbecue joint that had live music. He knew nothing about barbecue, and that wasn’t even his first venture. He turned the hundred bucks into seed money by selling used tires on the side of the road at first. But once he had startup capital, the barbecue joint is where he went next.” I smile, because I’m about to connect the dots for them. “Why did Glenn Stearns start a barbecue? Because he kept his eyes open while selling used tires and he noticed something about thearea. He didn’t develop a product and then market it.” I shake my head. “That’s what almost every business person does, but it’s really a fool’s errand. No, Mr. Stearns identified a need, and once he had done that, he crafted the perfect solution for an existing problem. People there wanted live music, and they needed a good barbecue place. The last one had closed.”

Mrs. Yaltzinger says, “You’re saying that your men’s line does well because you’ve identified needs and are filling them.”

I nod slowly. “Do you know how I started? My first product was designer shoes that were also comfortable. I knew it was possible, because my first pair of designer shoes were so comfortable that I couldn’t bring myself to replace them. In desperation, after the soles wore out, I took them to a cobbler.”

Mr. Dressel’s always the most impatient of the bunch. “We’ve humored the storytelling, but the point is?—”

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