Marvel-ous Ninjutsu

00159. It’s hard to spend money when you’re young.

About a month later Peter and Theo completed the website and application for the shop. Theo wanted to show it off to everyone so he asked his parents to invite everyone in the family over for a BBQ on the weekend.

After everyone ate and were relaxing in the backyard, Theo brought out a tablet he asked his mom to buy for him. Even though Theo and his family were now rich, she didn’t want to at first. His parents liked to keep most modern technology out of the house, so that was the main reason she refused. If it wasn’t for the fact she was given a computer from work and asked to use it at home, they never would have gotten one in the first place.

And if Theo hadn’t shown interest in programming and even designed his first game. The family wouldn’t have loosened the restrictions and bought him and Milly their own computers. At this point the family still didn’t have a TV in the house and Daniel is the only one with a smartphone because Ezekiel gave her one for work. Daniel and Jacob both enjoyed the house without electronics because it made the family spend more time together. They even had a family game night a few times a week.

Actually the only reason Daniel relented and bought Theo a tablet, is because he explained he needed it to help with programming and testing applications. The tablet was basically bare besides the completed application for the shop he wanted to show off to everyone. Theo walked over to Jacob with the tablet and said, “Dad, this is the program Peter and I made for the shop.”

As Jacob took the tablet, Ben, Sara and Jon came closer to see it as well. Jacob pushed the icon to launch the application and they were greeted by a slick loading screen that displayed some of the cars they built over the years. After it opened up, it asked for a username and password.

Jacob showed the screen to Theo as he asked, “Why did it ask for this?”

“This is the customer portal. It's so we can keep track of customers and their build specifications. It will also track a lot of other customer information in the future.” Theo said with a smile.

“But we already keep all that information in the office.” Jacob said.

“That's all in folders and binders you have to dig through. This will be digital and all you have to do is push a button or two to find it. We also added a search function to make it even easier.” Theo said with a proud smile.

Ben and the others nodded in understanding as Jacob said, “Alright, so it will make things easier on us when we have to do paperwork.”

“That's not even the main reason we made it.” Peter excitedly said.

“Dad login with the user name testaccount and the password test12345.” Theo said as he smiled slightly.

Jacob entered the information and a new screen popped up. It was the main menu for customers and it listed a handful of options they could check out. Place build order, modify build order, check build progress, purchase history, payment center, and a few other icons filled the screen.

Theo pointed to the modify build order button as he said, “Press that.”

After Jacob pressed the button, the screen changed to show a realistic 3D model of one of the cars in the shop. It just arrived a few days ago and was going to be stripped down next week before they checked the frame and cleaned up any rust.

Jacob studied the model for a few moments before he said, “Not bad, it looks just like that Ford Galaxie in the shop.”

Theo smirked as he said, “That's because it is. We took a bunch of pictures with the application and it created this model. Now hit modify.”

For the next half an hour Theo and Peter showed everyone the real power behind the application and at the end of it Jacob asked, “How did you even come up with this?”

Theo shrugged as he said, “I just watched how you interacted with customers when you talked over a new build and then made a program that could do the same thing.”

“But this 3D model doesn't make sense, how did you make it do that?” Jacob asked as he pointed at the completed car build.

Theo shrugged as he said, “We just thought of everything that it needed to do and created the functions for it. It wasn't that hard.”

Peter nodded in agreement before he added, “Yeah, that was probably the easiest part to make. All the options, parts, body work, lights and other stuff was the hard part.”

Jacob glanced between the two boys for a moment before he asked, “So what else can this do?”

Another half an hour passed as the boys proudly showed off all the features of the application for the customer before they showed the admin side. It let them keep track of the builds, take pictures, document the progress, create a parts list that could be ordered with a push of a button. It also included a lot of other helpful features like billing, inventory and consumables tracking, shop budget, payroll and more.

By the end everyone was thoroughly impressed and praised the boys on their ingenuity. Before Jacob placed the tablet down Theo said, “We also built a website that interacts with the application.”

“What?” Jacob asked in surprise.

Theo had Jacob back out of the shop application and open a web browser before he typed in a website address. The website opened up to a simple page with a custom logo that read, ‘Welcome to P&M.’

Theo tapped on the logo and it opened up to the home page that only displayed three things. The first was a login button for customers, the second was a contact button that gave you an email address you could contact the shop through and the last one read, ‘About Us.’

In the about us area it stated that P&M was a small, family owned business that created unique custom cars made to order. There were no pictures of the cars they created, no pictures of the family or anything else. It was overall very simple and unassuming.

After a quick tour of the site Ben asked, “Why didn’t you add any pictures of the cars we made?”

Theo looked up at Ben as he said, “You guys don’t like to show off or advertise, so we wanted to keep it simple. This is mostly designed for the current customers in mind anyways.”

Jacob nodded before he reached over to pat Theo and Peter on the head and said, “Great job you two.”

Theo smiled at his dad before he said, “Everything is basically ready to go, we just need to collect customer contact information and emails before we send them links so they can create their accounts.”

“Sounds good to me. I will start going through our customer list on Monday and try to collect everyone's email for you.” Ben said.

“We will also need to spend some time adding all the customer information stored in the office to the program so we have a digital copy of everything.” Theo said after a moment.

It took a few weeks to get emails for all their customers, but once everyone was signed up, it made everything easier. The shop bought tablets for everyone to use and it took everyone a little while to get used to it. But within a month everyone adapted to using the tablets and application for work. The feedback from the customers was also very positive and they liked the fact they could get updated pictures of the build progress.

There were a few issues with the whole process though. The first one was an easy fix, Theo used magic to make all the tablets more durable. They would still break, but it took a lot more force than normal to do it.

The other issue was from a couple customers who saw the application as a way to try and micro manage their car builds. The shop always had a few customers who would call weekly for updates or something like that. But with the application and updated photos of the builds, two customers decided they could call whenever new pictures were uploaded. It wouldn’t have been an issue but they would basically waste Jacob, Ben, Sara or Jon’s time as they asked details about the photos and what was the next step in the process. Or they would complain about something they noticed in the photos and ask to have it fixed immediately. Even though it was something that was already planned to be fixed at a later stage of the process.

After a week of that happening, Jacob called the problem customers and basically told them, “If you keep calling us over every photo we send you. We will stop the build where it is now and you will have to find another shop to complete it.”

Theo wasn’t completely sure how those whole conversations went, but both cars were still in the shop and being worked on. Theo also updated the application to help deter other customers from doing the same thing. In the build progress area just before you entered it each time, a disclaimer message popped up that read, ‘Please do not call the shop about any issues you might see in the progress photos. They are progress photos only, not photos of the completed project. If for some reason you want to change or modify the build, please do so in the modify build area. Do keep in mind that extra charges will occur if you do so late in the build. Thank you.’

With all of that out of the way, Theo again asked his dad about expanding the shop and buying more tools. It was winter break and Theo was helping his dad out in the shop when he asked, “Have you and mom thought about my idea more?”

Jacob glanced up from the engine he was in the middle of disassembling as he asked, “What idea?”

“Expanding the shop and getting more tools.” Theo said.

“Oh. Well, we still think you should invest that money and save it for when you're older.”

Theo gave his dad a flat look as he asked, “Do you know how much money I have?”

“After helping buy Jon and Sara their house and splitting the money with Peter and Milly, you should still have around three million currently in bonds right?” Jacob asked.

“That’s only from the sale of the game when I still owned it. My six percent share in Vibe is worth a lot more.”

“But you have to sell those shares to make any money.” Jacob said.

Theo shook his head before he said, “No, I earn six percent of whatever the company makes each year in profit. So I will probably make millions this year just by owning part of the company.”

Jacob looked up as he asked, “You really think you can earn that much?”

Theo nodded his head as he said, “They sent out an email the other day that reported the estimated profits for the year. I showed it to mom and she said I would make at least seven million after taxes this year.”

Jacob froze for a few moments before he asked, “Really?”

“Yeah, that's why I want to help expand the shop and get more equipment. I will always have money as long as I hold onto the Vibe shares.”

Jacob started to work on the engine again as he said, “I'll have to talk with your mom about it.”

Just after winter break and the start of the new year. Daniel agreed to let Theo spend some of his money to expand the shop and buy new equipment. She was still partly against the idea, but Theo begged her for two weeks straight before she finally relented to the idea. He was pretty sure Jacob begged her too, but he didn’t like to snoop on them so he wasn’t completely sure.

As for how they would expand the shop, Theo used his Ezekiel persona to help out. Since he bought up all the properties around the area already, he put up an empty plot of land next to his dad's business for sale and waited. Within a week his parents contacted him about the land and asked to buy it.

Theo used a third party to sell the land to them for a reasonable price and from there they contacted an architect firm. Since the plan was to expand the shop they needed to get plans drawn up and a lot of other things done. The estimated time before everything was completed was around the end of summer if everything went smoothly. As for the cost of the land, construction, tools, permits and everything else. It wasn’t cheap, but Jacob and Ben were able to get everything they wanted done and Daniel wasn't too upset about it.