Wade arrived on the train from London this afternoon for his first visit to Liverpool. He’s here to have some Global Hangover meetings we’ve arranged and to really get things going.
Our first was with Business Link at 4pm. This is a non-profit organisation that spends European money to help people set up new businesses and to see those businesses through their first couple of years. They also teach young naïve business people who haven’t the foggiest idea what their doing some street smarts. We need them!
We arrived at their Liverpool office at four, checked in at reception (I took enormous pleasure in writing ‘Global Hangover’ in the ‘Company’ column of the visitor book) and immediately there was some confusion. It soon became very apparent that the meeting wasn’t in the Liverpool office at all, but over the water in Birkenhead at a second office. Apparently I knew this. I didn’t even think to ask – I knew they did have a second office because T-A works for Business Link and divides her time between the two, but I somehow assumed it was the Liverpool branch. I’d visualised this meeting, and having been to the Liverpool office before I’d visualised it there. But whatever – we’d messed up even before our first Business Link meeting. We are pathetic and shouldn’t even be allowed to set up a company.
Cursing my stupidity and lack of professionalism, we dived down into James Street train station and one stop later were in Hamilton Square over the water. We went over the water in a tunnel. We went under the water. We went under the river to Birkenhead. T-A picked us up in her car, having left her desk to collect this hapless pair whom Business Link are probably already despairing of.
Still, all in all the meeting started 30 minutes late and was with a woman called Sam. You may recall I went to a house party she hosted a few months ago with T-A. The one where I got out of performing stand-up by lying that my material was racist before having an awkward chat with a black man. Yeah, that party.
Anyway the meeting went well. She’s handing us over to a fellow Business Link employee called Alistair who handles I.T. and Internet companies. Probably sick of having late people on her own books – can’t blame her. No, Alistair sounds like the right man for the job. Will meet him next week. Sam really likes the idea and despite asking lots of questions that exposed us a little (such is her job) she agrees it could be hugely profitable. Indeed, we are going to be classed as a High Growth company based on our targets.
The targets that we don’t know how to achieve. But we shall.
T-A drove us back to Liverpool and we watched England play worse than they did on Saturday and loose 2-0 to Croatia. Man alive, we really are poor. But the point of the evening was to show Wade, who’s literally a professional socialite, the bar scene in this fair town. We dived in. He seems to really like it, and is amazed at the variety of venues and how friendly everyone is. I’m so glad – it’s important he sees the potential in Liverpool. He’s always going to live in London, but the company will be based here in its formative stages. He’ll commute for a couple of days every week.
It’s important now that I can dedicate as much of my time as possible to this and come to terms with having a proper job. Very soon it will stop being a fun idea and become a huge responsibility. But it’s about time I got some of that.
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