He turned a failed client into his first company

The first real meeting happened in an old warehouse in Brooklyn. The white paint was peeling. Pipes were exposed overhead. The table was a makeshift plank. It looked like the least glamorous stage of a startup, but to Darren it meant freedom. Across from him sat Lucy Halvorsen. She was twenty-four, a dropped-out MIT coder who had built core systems at a data startup before being pushed aside after clashing with the founder. She had a strange, quiet aggression. In ordinary conversation she was almost spare. The moment she began describing architecture, fire moved behind her eyes. “What do you need?” she asked. “A tool that helps small institutions see cash-flow risk,” Darren said. “Not a flashy dashboard. Not something made to impress investors.