Reborn Rich: Prices Dropped, My Savings Didn't novel Chapter 96

Chapter 96: Chapter 94: You’re a Surprisingly Good Person

Cecilia Sterling’s single sentence left the other three utterly stunned.

She kept her gaze fixed on Timothy Rowe, not saying a word to rush him, simply waiting for him to speak first.

Timothy Rowe instinctively glanced at Gavin Garrett before turning back to Cecilia Sterling. He thought he understood, but he wasn’t entirely sure.

He hesitated for a moment before asking tentatively, "You’re saying... you want to invest in our project?"

Cecilia Sterling raised an eyebrow and nodded. "If you can convince me, I’m willing to invest."

Now that he had a definite answer, Timothy Rowe couldn’t help but ask, full of doubt, "Is your family involved in the artificial intelligence industry?"

Cecilia Sterling pursed her lips and shook her head.

Timothy Rowe asked again, "Then are any of your relatives? Or is there some other reason?"

Cecilia Sterling couldn’t help but smile at how cautiously Timothy Rowe was trying to feel her out. "Neither of those. You know, I find you quite interesting. You run around with your carefully prepared materials trying to find investors, not even hesitating to pose as a waiter just to sneak in and find an opportunity. But now that a potential investor—me—is approaching you, you’re the one who’s getting worried. Do I look like a scammer?"

Timothy Rowe and Gavin Garrett shook their heads in unison. Gavin Garrett broke into a grin. "That’s not what we mean. We’re flat broke right now, and the project is stalled for lack of funds. There’s nothing for anyone to scam us out of."

"Timothy is just a very meticulous person. Besides, I also find it hard to believe someone would invest in us for no reason. It just seems too good to be true."

"For no reason?" Cecilia Sterling’s eyes sparkled as she smiled and shook her head. "I’m not doing it for no reason. If your program is really as good as you say, won’t we be able to make a lot of money from it in the future?"

"I have a motive, too. And it’s the most straightforward one there is: to make money!"

Just then, the restaurant owner began bringing out the dishes. Seeing this, Cecilia Sterling said, "Let’s eat first. You two can take this time to gather your thoughts and figure out how you’re going to convince me to fork over the cash."

Timothy Rowe and Gavin Garrett nodded blankly, clearly still trying to process everything.

With a few extra dishes on the table, the two young men’s appetites were noticeably better. It was mainly because they hadn’t splurged on a meal in a very long time.

Watching them wolf down their food, Cecilia Sterling pursed her lips, feeling a touch of emotion. She asked casually, "How many people are on your team? Are you all students from the same department?"

Gavin Garrett swallowed the food in his mouth before shaking his head. "Not all of us. There are eight of us in total. Six are from the computer science department, and two are underclassmen from the math department. We handle the programming and development, while the two younger students handle the data calculations."

Cecilia Sterling nodded at his explanation and asked, "Is it expensive to develop this program? If you actually managed to secure an investment, what kind of budget would you need?"

The two exchanged a glance, and Timothy Rowe was the first to speak. "It’s impossible to estimate the total budget. A program requires countless optimizations from its inception until it can go live, and each optimization costs money. So, we can only seek an initial round of funding for now. Once the program’s core is fully developed, we’ll need follow-up investments to gradually refine it to an optimal state."

Gavin Garrett added, "And then there are servers, the tech stack, multifunctional technical requirements, third-party data integration... all that costs money. A lot of people think developing a program is just a bunch of coders tapping away at keyboards, but that’s not it at all. This is especially true for our field, artificial intelligence, which is more complex, has a longer cycle, and a much lower tolerance for error. That’s why Timothy assumed you wouldn’t understand earlier. Truthfully, our biggest fear is that investors won’t understand what the money is being spent on."

"But what you have now is still just a work in progress. Are you confident you can make it as good as you say it will be?" Cecilia Sterling asked, looking at them both.

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