Total pages in book: 18
Estimated words: 17220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 86(@200wpm)___ 69(@250wpm)___ 57(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 17220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 86(@200wpm)___ 69(@250wpm)___ 57(@300wpm)
I want to say something, to finally introduce myself, but we’re in the middle of the midday mail swarm, making it awkward. She looks away anyway when her phone pings in her hand.
It allows me to watch her, unguarded for a moment as she reads. Her hair is so straight and smooth it falls into her eyes, and she absently brushes it behind her ear. When she does, I see that she’s laughing down at her phone. She has the widest, most beautiful smile.
She looks up at me again, and I realize I’ve been caught staring. I quickly look away, turning to jog back up the steps to my apartment.
Email correspondence between Jude Tilde
Subject: Welcome to Codeify!
Date: January 28, 2026
Hi Veronica,
I hope you’re doing well. My payroll manager has let me know that half of the payment has been direct deposited into your account as of yesterday afternoon. Please select the laptop and desk chair and send both receipts to me as an email attachment. I will forward them along for your reimbursement.
Now that you’re officially on board, I’d like to get things rolling. Attached you’ll find slides detailing:
Our company and product background
Marketing goals and strategy
Current assets and collateral
Point of contact and workflow for the consulting agreement (for now you will be working with me, but at some point we will spin your discussions off to engage with the project lead, Adam)
Once you’ve had a chance to review this, I’ll send over our first planned pitch for you to help us design.
I look forward to working with you.
Best,
Jude
Hi Jude,
Thanks for sending this information, it was very helpful. Although I understood about a teaspoon of the coding info, the technology is impressive, and my research tells me your programmers are at the top of their game. I am confident that you have a lot of strength to leverage here, and with a strong marketing plan should see good growth.
Like programming, marketing is a blend of creativity, calculation, and strategy, and I find that knowing a bit more of the “behind the curtain” things about the company can help find the right tone for the campaign.
I’ve read that Codeify was founded by your older brother Jason, but that you’ve taken over since his accident. Can you tell me a bit of your history with the company? What are your goals, and how do they differ from Jason’s original ones?
I’ll have more questions for you as we move forward, but I think that’s a good place to start.
-Veronica
Veronica,
Yes, Jason founded the company ten years ago. He had a business background, and had done well in corporate finance, but when he and his wife Kelly had their first child, Jason quit to do something a little less soul-sucking and which allowed him more time with his family. With my tech background and his MBA, we decided to go into business together. Jason would be the CEO and handle the business end of things, and I would be the tech lead and get to play in programming all day.
I never had much interest in being in charge, but here we are, and I’m very dedicated to making sure that we get back to where we once were—pulling in a strong profit and growing each year. We certainly have the innovation for it; it’s just a matter of making sure the scaffolding around this innovation is strong.
Unfortunately, my degree is in computer science, so there are many aspects of the business side of things that go way over my head. We’ve got a great finance person, a great HR person, a team of incredible programmers, but what we lacked before you was the vision to tell the world outside what we do.
I’m attaching the information on our newest custom app program, which we have yet to officially name. I’m very excited about this technology because it will be one of the fastest and most user-friendly custom app designing services on the market once we launch.
Let me know your first impressions and brainstorms,
Jude
Jude,
This is so cool! I’m honestly over here trying to think of an app that I would want made just because it looks really fun to build one. Now that I’ve seen you can design a huge range of beautiful app interfaces, I’m even more curious: what happened to your PowerPoint slides, my dude!
Thanks for sharing the information about Jason, too. I’m sure that’s been really hard on all of you, and having to take over a new role on top of that is a lot. Not to get too personal, but my mother suffered a traumatic brain injury when I was a teenager, and it shook us all up pretty significantly, so I know the disruption, stress, and anguish that comes with TBIs. My heart goes out to you and to Jason’s family.