TUNA LIFE Read Free Page A

in the international arena. The last company out of the blocks had been founded by three Bond University students. They had developed a new smartphone app, a math game of all things. It had proven quite successful in Asia, and the three students had recently dropped out of their studies to pursue the development of the app full-time. Vesna raised her gaze from the screen. This was exactly what the Gold Coast needed. Success stories. She located Scott Davis’ number from the intranet directory, and picked up her phone.
     
     
     

3
    The blank computer screen stared at Andrew. He sat in his office chair staring back. Neither of them blinked. But when the screensaver turned on, Andrew realised it was time to do something.
    He had been so bedazzled by the presentation he had witnessed at the Hilton hotel four weeks earlier; the hooded teenager who, cocky and arrogant, had explained to the audience how he had developed an iPhone application that transformed your mobile phone into a flashlight. There were hundreds of competitors, but users had taken a liking to the minimalistic user interface the teenager had created, and in less than a month, without any marketing whatsoever, the free application had been downloaded forty-three thousand times.
    Forty-three thousand times.
    It was amazing.
    The pro version cost ninety-nine cents, and the teenager received seventy percent of the gross revenue. Unfortunately, very few seemed to be willing to shell out a dollar to buy the pro version, but the teenager envisioned a huge potential if he could translate the free version into other languages. Andrew was dumbfounded. The teenager wasn’t even a programmer. He told the audience that he had taught himself app-programming over the last twelve months by downloading free lectures from the Khan Academy. The flashlight application had been developed in less than a month; he had done it late at night, in between his afternoon shift at McDonald’s and school.
    Andrew Engels felt he had witnessed something truly remarkable when the teenager, still on stage, verbally accepted an investment of sixty thousand for forty-five percent of the company. Was it possible? What in hell was Andrew wasting his life trying to become partner at Avensis Accounting for? When a teenager with an IQ of ten could raise this amount of money, without having any revenue, without even having a business. He had sold four copies of the pro version, the paid version. Four copies. This was the opportunity Andrew had been waiting for.
    This was the new gold rush, the new Klondike.
    And he needed to seize the opportunity before it was gone.
    Andrew had left the Hilton Hotel without returning to the tax conference. He had simply jumped into his car and driven straight to the office, where he had written up his resignation in less than thirty seconds. Then he had walked straight in to his boss, Gerard Cassar, and handed him the letter. Gerard Cassar hadn’t shown any feelings. “That’s a shame,” he had said. “You were the next in line to make partner. We had big plans for you, Andrew.”
    Andrew didn’t believe a word Cassar said. He had heard that promise too many times before. And who cared anyway? It didn’t matter anymore. After having witnessed how easy it was to raise funds, Andrew knew he had made the correct decision.
    The correct decision . How wrong he had been. It had seemed so obvious there and then. Even his mandatory four weeks of notice had seemed to fly past. Now he bitterly regretted not having spent those precious weeks of guaranteed pay to do some groundwork. Seriously. Had he believed that he could just sit down in front of a computer, brainstorm a little bit by himself, and come up with a million-dollar idea? He had been an idiot. That’s what he had been.
    He didn’t even own a smartphone. Avensis Accounting had always provided their employees with Blackberry Bold models. Officially, the reason had been that they were more secure. The real