Recycle your business cards

This chapter begins:

Troy knew he'd worked for technology startups long enough when, for the fourth time in a row, his employer went bust before he'd worked his way through his first box of business cards. Matt-coated, heavy stock, and wide enough to accomodate the ridiculously obscure job titles of the modern technology startup, nearly a third of a box of unused cards still mocked him from the box he kept in the top drawer of his desk. He'd barely made it to five industry breakfasts in this current persona; barely got his usual circle of professional friends to update their addressbooks; barely learned to roll off his own polysyllabic job title in a casual manner, as if he'd been in the job for more than six months. As if the company was actually a company, rather than a good idea in search of a customer.

He picked up a card and ran it over his fingers, really feeling the rough surface for the first time. It felt like recycled cardboard. Maybe from recycled business cards. Maybe even recycled from the three other companies where he'd worked, and failed to use all his business cards. Maybe there was a business in this - recycling business cards - picking them up in special branded bins from companies that had hit the wall, putting them through the recycler, and printing new cards cheaply for new startups. It would need a website. It would need a great brand. It would need some capital...

He slammed the card down on the desk so hard his fingers hurt and the lid of his laptop juddered for a second. God, what was wrong with him?