First off, I don't believe in coincidence or luck, and that all things act together for an unknown purpose. I haven't always believed that, but it's where I'm at today and where I've been for quite a few years.

With that said, my wife and I were attending a music festival in 2005-ish with free tickets we had received from a radio station. The tickets offered access to the station's hospitality suite and I'm of the opinion that free food and drink just tastes better than it's paid-for counterpart, so we spent plenty of time there.

We were talking around to some of the other attendees and station employees, and we ultimately came across Tower. He was the morning radio host at the station - young, lots of energy, and lots of talking. My wife and I can also be talkers, so that's what we did. I remember leaving the show and wondering what was up. We were very different than Tower, but we seemed to mix so well and authentically.

Flip forward 15-ish years, Tower and I stayed in loose touch and talked a few times a year about random topics (relationships, jobs, kids, life, purpose). I enjoyed our friendship because it required very little time investment to keep it going, yet I could always count on an honest conversation when I needed it (side note - that's the kind of friend I try to be - you don't need to invest a lot of time with me to get an honest answer and loads of support when you need it).

Remember I said I couldn't get this idea out of my head, even though I really wanted to? Building a website from the ground up that relied heavily on social network relationships and promotion for success, in an industry unfamiliar to me, using technology unfamiliar to me was a risk too ridiculous for a person like me to ever consider. The next idea that came into my head was to talk to Tower - I knew he'd worked on a few startups and had broad knowledge about web-driven promotions. I also knew he would give a quick, honest answer - good idea, bad idea without any hesitation.

I called him out of the blue, and the conversation was less than 5 min. I shared the idea with him, he thought about it for a few seconds, and said "dude, that's a good idea." I took a few seconds, and I said "s***."

Now what? We agreed to talk again after the upcoming weekend on what to do next (and I hoped the answer was nothing).

As always, thanks for reading, and please send us an email at drew@fundfly.com or seth@fundfly.com to share your student loan stories, ideas for the Fundfly community, and your honest feedback!