The Business Card That Changed Everything

A Café, a Coffee, and That Feeling of Stuck

Late '90s. Autumn. I’m sitting in some depressing café with plastic chairs, sipping an Americano and nibbling a cheesecake—because that’s all I can afford, and the coffee is non-negotiable.

It was that kind of time—when life felt like it was buffering. No clear plan. Work was annoying. The city weighed on me. I felt like I was stuck between “still young” and “why hasn’t anything worked out yet?”

The Startup Table and the Forgotten Card

In the corner, a lively group. One guy pulls out a laptop! Shows something to the others. I catch a few words—startup, demo, pitch, angel investors. These words sounded like a spaceship to me at the time. I wasn’t from that world. I was from the world where PowerPoint took 20 minutes to load, and “project” usually meant something my boss made up again.

A few minutes later, they leave. But one of them forgets his business card on the table.

The Email That Wasn’t a Resume

I hesitate for a second. Then I take it. Then I sit there another 15 minutes, just turning it in my fingers.
Then I write an email:

“Hey. I overheard you. I can do this, I’m curious about that, I know a bit of this. If you need someone—I’m around.”
And I hit send.

It wasn’t a resume. It was a jump.
One of those jumps that begins with: “Well… why the hell not?”

A Different Life from One Message

Three days later, they replied.
A week later, I was in their new office talking marketing and building presentations that actually loaded.
Another week later, I got paid—not for hours worked, but for results delivered. A first.

I still think about that café sometimes. About that business card. About how everything would’ve gone a different way if I’d just finished my coffee and walked home.

Sometimes fate hands you a business card.
More often, you just have to ask yourself:
Why the hell not?
And jump.