Silicon Knight (#TheCastle) | +18 | BWWM - Billionaire Book

07://Delivering

First thing in the morning, I was back on Growin' Hope Farm. My nose was right against that damn pink binder as soon as I opened my eyes. I scraped every inch of it for any tiny detail I could glean from the hole punch pages. My thirst for anything I could get on Hadrian Valentine was unquenchable. But the book had bare facts about Hadrian.

The barest hint of identity on the web is hard to pull off for a normal person. We put all kinds of things online. Favorite foods, random pictures, forgotten photo albums, and all types of items. I've never underestimated Toni's stalking powers, but this is thin. Hadrian appeared out of thin air with the launch of Heron Inc seven years ago. All the coverage focuses on the three founders, yes, but it's through the lens of Issa, and Steven. There are a few questions that are asked. Who were Heron Inc investors? It's a privately held company, so that information isn't public. The market is hungry for the company to go on the stock exchanges like so many tech companies have. It's an industry leader in AI technology with Open Airi the backbone for many companies. Heron Inc. is expanding its offerings into hardware, energy, and aerospace at the end of next year.

The more I try to make sense of Hadrian, the less sense it makes. For St. Hottie, our relationship was one and done. Maybe our relationship was now extra. I didn't really know? But a tiny part of me hoped for more and I really shouldn't. Forget thoughts of Mr. Saint Hottie behind, I chided myself. I leave the binder on the little table and head outside the bus. Then I drop some food in Odin's bowl; the farm cat doesn't need it. We have to ask people to not feed the cat and everyone always feeds him. Which, in turn, causes him to get fat until we crack down again. One eye'd Odin pads up to the bowl near the shed. The cat looks at my food offering like a king looking down on me as the peasant. He accepts the offered food with the dignity of an emperor.

As Odin eats his food, peeps of ducklings follow him out. Trying to take a couple of nips at his bowl. I spread a tiny bit of duck starter feed on a towel for them. Then place the water bowl up high for my cat so the ducklings didn't try and get in it. And put the sip cup drippers for the ducklings. The three ducklings dive into their feast of seed.

I shake my head during the days of work. I've been up since three am and my concentration is split between two tasks. Figure out Hadrian, that part of the plan failed spectacularly. Also, completing the outline and brief for the Heron Project. It was less hard than I thought it would be.

I take the wheelbarrow full of wood chips and dump it in the garden with a mission. My first appointment of the day is Martin to go over the designs I emailed him this morning. I had way too much to do, and it was overwhelming. Adding more of Hadrian's projects changed everything for me. At least I've already packed the normal food delivery to the high school. But growing enough is going to be a huge gear up to meet the orders and the possible order of the luxury gym.

My biggest issue wasn't the Heron Projects. I'd gain access to a huge not-for-profit and need to work with Martin. It was an insane amount of money, but those projects could help people. I can also use employees from the company, which means I can hire new people. We try to hire regularly because it takes a long time to train people. And normally if a person has a good personality and is willing to work, we can find places for them. In some cases, we expanded our business because we hired someone and they worked out. We very rarely have employees leave, which is half the battle for a business like ours. Since farming and ranching are complex, worker retention is vital. You have to work with so many things because many of our farms are the size of a backyard in someone else's home. And sometimes as big as a rented 30 acre farm as a tenant farmer. It makes things very complex and employees help so much.

My major problem, though, was The Castle Gym. Based on Hadrian's brief, it's basically a co-op: a luxury fitness retreat on steroids. According to what I can tell, they are looking to do as much as they can onsite on larger properties over 100 acres. Those Castle properties are all over the country. The largest and oldest of which is located in California. But they have multiple locations big and small throughout the country. With every scan of the location, I became more shocked by the size of the castle's offerings. Penthouse suites, townhouses, farms and whole ranch farms from New York to California. In places like New York, they have countryside farms with gyms. Picture perfect bed-and-breakfast style settings. They even had luxury accommodation and gyms in Manhattan Billionaires' Row. So many different states make it so expansive and an absolute daunting task.