It’s great they were able to finally unlock the secret to reliably producing black pearls but how the hell did they have 19 _years_ of runway. How did they even keep the operation running that long?
By taking on a ton of loans. Cultivating the pearls was not an all-or-none exercise. They did get a few good pearls in the 19 years - just not enough to sustain the business.
How they found people who gave them loans for 19 years of experiments is something I'm curious about too.