We had finally gotten close to moving into our own apartment, but the journey to get here over many months had been revealing.
Dealing with realtors had been a despicable process. Incompetent, unethical, greedy agencies with no sense of accountability, having taken over an industry like vermin.
Now the apartment being described in this story had gotten approved an entire month before our (present day) move-in date, but just before we signed the contract, the agent lost had the door keys & main entrance fob.
It took a whole month to source a new key & the fob while we were held in limbo in temporary accommodations. This was due to bureaucratic crossed connections between the apartment complex, rental agents, the landlord, and the official locksmiths of the building.
It reminded me of a short series I watched, where Gordon Ramsay deals with the bureaucracy within the prison system in the UK, in trying to get a bunch of inmates access to a kitchen to learn how to cook.
Of course, with the number of surveillance cameras they have in these apartments, and the hundreds of prison-like rules, it's not dissimilar.
One of these dumb rules was being assigned just one-hour by the new building manager for the elevator usage on move-in day. This system was so ridiculous that if we missed this hour of booking for any reason, we’d have to reschedule the move-in a few days later.
The chaos this kind of stupid system can heap on people’s lives is fascinatingly lost on pencil pushers.
Fortunately, a friend had agreed to give us a hand on move-in day, so we could now get everything sorted in one straight session. With the van rental being charged by the hour, everything had to run to a tight schedule.
On this fateful day however there was no sign of our friendly help. Under shortage of time (& hands) we began loading up as fast as we humanly could from our storage unit, and we somehow made it to the final item: The hulk of a washing machine.
At a badly timed moment just before this major lift, the auto loading/lifting tray for heavy objects got jammed. So in between trying to lift this beastly machine with the help of my partner (who’s only slight), & the awkward height from the ground, the imbalance of weight exasperated a hernia issue — which, I didn’t realize I’d been developing until then.
The bad lift was the breaking point, and the subsequent pain was excruciating!
But then just as we were about to drive off to the apartment, our friend finally arrived. He was able to help move everything into the apartment from the carpark once we arrived there.
I was pretty useless after the washing machine antics. Over the next few days I was in horrible physical pain — I couldn’t sit properly, let alone walk.
The plan behind wanting to move months ago into our own space was to have somewhere to think clearly: We needed to figure out what we were going to do with Zen Black. Were we going to build our own products? Were we going to work with clients? Most importantly, what was our philosophy?
We had a bit of money saved, but ridiculous experiences with rental agents and landlords kept us constantly delayed from moving into a suitable place.
We subsequently had to spend obscene amounts of money on short-term stays via Airbnb. This bled our cash at a rate that we just couldn’t have anticipated. It was week-to-week living in the most awkward and uncertain way.
Even the low quality places advertised via Airbnb were grossly over priced. Places that would have been rented out nominally via classifieds platforms in recent years, were being rented out via Airbnb at inflated amounts.
By the time we finally moved into our own apartment and paid our first months rent, deposit costs, all the various connection fees for the right to live here, we were now down to just one extra months rent in our pocket.
We were on a 60-day deadline right away.
My partner, who had remained steadfast through all the madness across the previous months, fell into a bad internal space. The cherry on the cake was my hernia; the pain was so severe, I had to slowly drag one foot at a time to move.
I remember having to go to the mall to pick up some bed sheets, and a fairly quick walk (under normal conditions) ended up taking me 40 minutes of slowly dragging one foot at a time instead!
A month flew by under these conditions; everything was a blur. Its only when we received a notification for the next months rent, we realized we were now down to just food money for the remainder of our time after this payment.
The early incompetence of the Agency (Realtors) had also gotten worse. There was a long list of issues, which were just a symptom of having no accountability and seeing you as just a number in their records.
So here we are, a month away from potentially losing this apartment, whilst not having figured out our next steps — all the while dealing with a debilitating physical and mental state.
We just got to a stage where we said: ‘To hell with it, bring on the worst. We'll still find a way'’.
A couple of days after confronting the worst case scenario, I felt a little bit better. I had a thought that we should drop Tim a line.
We hadn’t really been in touch with each other for the last 10 months, but he had made me an offer a while ago, and I felt I should take him up on it.
I reluctantly made the call, and bless him, he came through on his word — we were able to buy ourselves some extra time.
We still badly needed to figure out our next steps, but the mental fog around what to pursue was refusing to lift.
So as to not get mentally or physically stagnant, we decided to attend a few meetups around the city to check out the local tech scene.
In the past having attended quite a few meetups, they’d eventually become tedious affairs because people were afraid to have any real conversations.
People used these meetups to procure free pizza/drinks and catch up with people they’ve met at previous events. Most of them already had decently paid jobs, so there was little interest or incentive for collaborations.
In some way it makes sense: People who are building things are busy with their venture, not hanging out in meetups.
With the passage of time and a different perspective however, we felt it would be good to check them out again. We were looking for that off chance meeting with one person that could spark something.
During this period, we had also figured out how to control the discomfort of the hernia via a change in our diet. We cut out all heavy wheat products like pasta and noodles. This immediately reduced the bloating that used to make the pain worse. Smaller portioned meals in a soupy base were also a tremendous help.
I was still not able to sit straight, but I figured out a good angle to sit down in so it wouldn't hurt. The walking part had also gotten better. I could now move via gentle steps without having to drag one foot at a time.
The meetups though, were not going so well. We were starting to get a bit disillusioned by the interactions.
It's hugely challenging when you don’t see the world like most do. They constantly try to force you into a box in which you cannot breathe, and we just couldn't associate with people on this level anymore.
It’s very much an existential, internal, battle for creative people. There is no surface level solution to it. You just have to stick it out in the dark for ages at times.
It was tiring, but we didn’t have the option to stop. Rent payments would pop up so quickly that one wondered if time itself had actually sped up. We were still no closer to any kind of financial or philosophical breakthrough. None of our pitches for projects were being reciprocated either.
But even while it can suck real bad, obstacles like these come about in life to push you into a new territory: where you are supposed to go.
Around 5pm one afternoon I was in quite a lot of physical discomfort. My partner mentioned that she forgot to notify me about a meetup we should attend at the local Bitcoin Centre.
The main presentation was due to begin in 30 mins, but it was about an hour long journey during peak hour on public transport.
I was on a beanbag, exhausted, just wanting to fall asleep. To deter myself from considering the meetup, I calculated that by the time we got dressed and arrived at the center, the main presentation would be finished.
For a few minutes I tried to convince myself that it’s not worth going, but counter to my state of exhaustion, I experienced one of my intuitive nudges — a strong urge that we had to go.
Even my partner was now beginning to have second thoughts, but I insisted we must do it. We got dressed and made our way up there.
By the time we arrived the 2nd and final presenter was finishing up their talk. I looked at my partner and muttered that we may have just wasted our time, but she responded, “We’re here now, so we might as well hang about”.
At the conclusion of the presentation, the meetup host announced that they’ll be gathering for drinks and pizza in the entertainment area, so we grabbed a couple of drinks and decided to chill out.
Across the room my partner spotted one of the speakers who gave the final talk standing there by himself. She said we should go and say hi to him.
We walked up to him and chatted a bit about Bitcoin — this was 2014, mind you; there was a different kind of vibe and excitement about this stuff.
Somewhere during our little conversation another random guy joined us. The speaker and this random guy knew each other, so they began chatting away. We felt kind of ignored, but with half a drink left in our bottles we decided to hang around until we finished.
Just as we were about to put our bottles on the table and head off, the guy who’d interrupted our previous conversation asked: “So what do you guys do?”
Despite this being my most hated question, I described something about product building, conversions, philosophy and experiences. His ears immediately perked up, and he enthusiastically announced: “This is great, you're just the kind of people I’ve been wanting to speak to!”
Turns out that he'd been trying to build a Bitcoin exchange, but the previous combo of Devs and Designers had really fucked it up.
Intuition, huh?
Long story short. In 3 weeks time (because our coder only had a short window free), we designed and developed a brand new front-end and customer portal, to integrate with the dreadful back-end system he'd already been paying for.
The result produced was quite possibly in the top 5 amongst the exchanges around at that era. The only other decent ones were kraken, quoine and safello — all funded to the tune of millions.
This one, in comparison, had cost the owner peanuts.
But we didn’t care about it because our deeper purpose in building this was more important: From never having attempted something of this complexity before, we had absolutely crushed this project.
This told us that we were ready to take the next big step of building something far more substantial. I’ve always felt it was possible to achieve exponential jumps driven by self knowing and belief in life, and this project had been the perfect validation.
We also realized that the level of intensity & creativity we possessed in finding solutions, & the manner in which we could translate this into a frictionless interface, was on a different level to most others.
We made enough money from the project to buy us a few months of time — to figure out what we actually wanted to build for ourselves.
Thus, began the next insane adventure.
