Chapter 4 Rethinking The Plan

After the first party we threw on our own we derived some pretty good lessons. We learned immediately that it would take much more work and more planning to successfully gain a good amount of profits from our scheme.  Its funny now because when I look back I recognize how much of a scheme we were pulling but at the time it happened we only saw it as "work." To develop the next party, we needed to find another rental space, so we skipped the next day of school to drive around and meet up with several owners who we figured would give us the space relatively cheap as long as we made the purpose seem legit. Our reasoning for renting the space was always the same, "We are throwing a big birthday party!" Surprisingly, it worked and we acquired the space and every space from then on.

Once the space was signed for and ready to go. we had to get the word out. We did so by making flyers to pass out at every single high school. None of the original group members had any skills in graphic design so that's when DB joined the team. DB's real name is Tony. He was a senior at my high school and we called him DB because it stood for dancing boy. Gosh that was a lame name, but it played the part! He would always be the one leading all the new dances in the club, a site to see. DB really never had shit to do so he practiced with a few illustrating programs and eventually got some skills to design our flyers for the parties. He typically took about two hours to complete the design and have it ready to be printed and uploaded to the internet.

Facebook at the time was a piece of shit so there were many social networks we had to use to get the word out and reach as many kids as possible. When the flyers were printed up (about 5000) we split them into bundles to deliver to two students we convinced at each high school to pass them out to the "coolest" kids. They had no problem with doing so as long as they got in free. This was costly for us because we had to make sure that the number of free entries didn't effect the amount of profit to the point where we weren't making our reserved revenue. So to regulate the foot soldiers we employed they were constrained to make it to our party by a certain time or the deal would be off. They didn't have much trouble being late. Not even less then a semester had went by and I could already see how well we do at this(party throwing) as long as we played it smart.

The second party was a bigger success. We found a location right up the street from my house that used to be an old funeral home that got turned into a banquet hall. The name of the place was the "Touch of Elegance" aka The TOE! That night was absolutely crazy, it felt like I could see my dreams unfolding right before me. We had came up with a scheme that was perfect! Tons of sweaty people standing in box listening to music and paying to do so. After the night was over we had made about $3000. My cut was 700. In less than 4 hours I had made enough money to buy chocolate milk for my entire graduating class.

The next morning Lucky and I acted a straight fool in the mall. We literally bought everything we wanted just because we had the money to do so. I felt somewhat like a celebrity but at the same time, a criminal.