"What's the offer?" Frank seemed interested and asked.
"I'll shoot you a promo, do some marketing, and draw traffic into the shop." Alex put it in simple words.
"Oh. So you want me to pay you for making an ad?"
Alex nodded. "The way I'll do the promotions, it's guaranteed to get you tons of customers. All I want is the entire profit for the next three months."
Frank was shocked hearing that. The entire profit!? That was too much!
Alex could sense the worry. "Mr. Frank, I've been coming here since I was a child. I don't want your shop to be closed but you know, even I've got debt to pay. It won't hurt you much even if you pay as it's just for three months and the rest is all you. Think about it."
Alex didn't speak further and stayed silent.
Frank was having a hard time deciding as there was too much money involved. However, as he continued to ponder, he realized that if nothing was done with the pizzeria, in the coming year or two, he'll have to shut it down.
Still, the entire profit was too much and he was hesitating.
After a solid ten minutes, Frank sighed and gave up thinking.
The pizzeria was going to shut down anyway, it was better to take this risk.
Plus, Alex was a good kid and he could understand his situation of being in student debt.
Frank shook hands with Alex and was in for it.
"Sweet. I'll see Mr. Frank tomorrow morning then."
Saying so, Alex went to Melissa and drove back home.
Next day.
Alex arrived at 7 am and Frank was there already, waiting for him.
Alex took out his phone and said, "we'll be recording with this. Just trust me, it'll be good."
Frank trusted Alex and didn't question much. He wasn't well versed with the technology of today and let youngsters do what they wanted to do.
Alex made Frank knead a dough and wipe his imaginary sweat off his forehead. He then made him do more labour inducing tasks and finally set the pizza in the brick fire oven.
Once the pizza was ready, it was hot and looked delicious.
Frank cut it and plated it properly to serve.
As he went inside his restaurant, there was no one present and Alex properly recorded this moment.
They were then done with the filming and had the pizza for themselves.
Once it was around noon, a few people flocked in and Alex recorded how Frank did everything on his own.
By 2 pm, Alex was done and bid Frank goodbye saying he should expect people in the coming few days.
Frank didn't have high hopes but still was rooting for Alex to succeed.
Once Alex was home, he edited the video properly and made it appear emotional as well as casual.
Alex made it sound like he was a young relative of Frank and showed how Frank was struggling to make ends meet despite having some of the best pizzas in town.
He also expressed in the video that he was young currently and couldn't support his uncle Frank. Then he asked the people watching to at least try the pizza of his uncle once and they'll know just how delicious this thing is.
This was the first video and it was a short one minute one.
Once Alex was done with it, he uploaded it to a very popular platform called TakTak.
He then didn't bother to even check the stats of the videos and went to spend time with Melissa.
In the afternoon, Alex made another video and this time it was from the perspective of a guy who's been going to Frank's Pizzeria since ages and was sad to know that their place was going to shut down soon.
This video showed Frank doing all things alone and then a warm pizza with a great cheese pull.
This guy then explained that he came to know this place was shutting down from another TakTak video. He then tagged the video in his own and it was the one Alex had made in the morning.
Alex posted this one on the app and logged off.
He went to Melissa again, had dinner, and slept with her in his embrace.
Alex was really short on money and he needed tons of it in the coming few months.
Not only because he wanted to start a business with Samuel, but also because he had to give it to his college and bribe them into letting him have a degree faster.
It would take him more than million dollars to do that but that was fine since he would be making them soon anyway.
Alex was currently expecting money from two sources, the startup that was coming up and Mazzano.
But they would take time and Alex was too broke right now. He needed some quick bucks and he thus expanded his options and went to Frank.
Alex was well aware of what would get popular quickly on social media in this period of time and thus made a video accordingly. Whatever things he put in them, they weren't false or wrong by any means.
Frank's shop for sure was shutting down sooner or later if he didn't see profits. Hence, his videos may be simple, but contained deep emotions.
.
.
.
.
.
A week passed.
As Alex had expected, the video blew up and there were people queuing up in front of Frank's shop, waiting to get a taste of his pizzas.
He was working alone at the start, but people from the crowd decided to volunteer and within a few days when Frank saw some profits, he hired staff and got to work.
The number of people increased with each passing day as many made more videos and posted them on social media, stating that the pizza indeed was really good.
At the end, Frank was able to retain so many customers because of his own hard work. His pizzas really were good and he just needed some attention to get famous.
In just a week, despite the number of staff members increasing and Frank making more than three hundred pizzas a day, the queue at his shop was long and the waiting period was almost five hours.
At the start Frank was making little profits, by the end of the week, his profits shot up to a whopping $8,000+ in a single day.
He sold over five hundred pizzas each day, averaging at around $20 per customer.
Since people were waiting in line for so long, they all thought that they wouldn't be returning anytime soon and ordered as much as they could in one time.
Thus, most people got themselves at least two medium size pizzas and Frank's profits went off the charts.
Sadly though, Frank had to give it all to Alex as per the promise and nothing could be done about it.
After paying for the ingredients, the staff, and the maintenance cost, the profit that Alex got in hand by the end of the week was a whopping $15,000.
He immediately put them all to the startup's stock and waited.
In three more days, Frank sent Alex $15,000 again as the sales were that good and Alex once again invested them in the startup.
By the end of the week, Alex had $20,000 in his account.
As it had been two whole weeks now, his parents should be back soon.
To keep them away for a while longer, he sent them $10,000 and surprised them.
His parents were both dumbfounded with this and wondered how their child suddenly got so much money.
But Alex explained to them over call on what he did and as they checked their socials, they could see Frank doing really well and finally understood everything.
They were really proud of Alex for helping Frank and also thanked him for being such a filial kid.
At the end, after telling him that they loved him, the old couple went back to vacationing and they wouldn't be back in at least two more weeks.
With the remaining $10,000, Alex went shopping with his wife and took her on a nice dinner date in one of his city's most expensive restaurants.
After their dinner date when they were home, Melissa told him that she preferred being at home and eating takeaways rather than going out in public and eating so formally like that.
Alex took note of it and they slept together once again without doing anything naughty other than kissing and cuddling.
Next day.
25th September, 2030.
It has been exactly fifteen days since Alex's reincarnation back in time and today was the day the startup he had put so much money in would boom like a rocket.
Alex was in his bedroom, his focus fully on the stock of the startup he had invested almost $30,000 in.
Just yesterday afternoon news came out that this startup had gotten a huge funding and was one of America's most innovative and futuristic companies.
It was safe to invest here and people were going crazy about it.
Everyone was waiting for the stock market to open up all around the country and were sitting at the edge of their seats, wanting to buy the stock of the startup at the cheapest price.
Alex was looking at the table clock all this while and it was 8:59 am. The seconds arm was ticking and inching closer and soon as it hit 9 am…
RINNGGGG!