YouSaid · the spoken record

Mel Ziegler

lines on the record: 79
first: 2018-12-25
most recent: 2018-12-25
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“A full time commitment are a workable business structure. My letters were all dreams about marketing and positioning. No wonder I was stuck. I understood the concept for the business, but I guess I was waiting for someone to give me the product. I have learned so much in the past twenty months. Business isn't just about an idea for a business. It's fundamentally about a product that has an intrinsic value to a customer. It is taking me a long time to get here, and I'm still only at the beginning.”
2018-12-25 · Founders · #52 The Republic of Tea: The Story of the Creation of a Business, as Told Through the Personal Letters of Its Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So they start developing the product, and then this is, I'm going to close here on a letter that takes place in December 1991. Remember, they sell their first, they make their first dollar in revenue in May 1992, so about five months after this. And this is Bill finally getting it. So our hero has finally arrived with the desire and, more importantly, the action to become an entrepreneur. And he's reflecting, he's writing to Mel, and he's reflecting on, I think anybody reads this book would see. So he says, I reread some of my earlier letters to you this afternoon, and I'm almost embarrassed by them now. How could I be so oblivious to the fact that there is no way to start a business without having a tangible product?”
2018-12-25 · Founders · #52 The Republic of Tea: The Story of the Creation of a Business, as Told Through the Personal Letters of Its Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yet, even after a year of not doing much about the Republic, the idea was still very much alive in me. I grew discontented and unfulfilled producing marketing projects for other companies and began to spend more of my mental energy figuring out how to get in a T business. So the Faxes come back up. And you notice that maybe for every, I don't know, like five faxes that Bill sends Mel, he actually gets a response because I think Mel at this point is just tired of. Basically, just tired of going back and forth and not. I mean, he doesn't want to brainstorm anymore. He wants this company to exist because he thinks it's important. So these last few sections are, I'm going to skip over that part because, you know, I don't want to bore you more with that. This is Bill. You know what it is? I feel like.”
2018-12-25 · Founders · #52 The Republic of Tea: The Story of the Creation of a Business, as Told Through the Personal Letters of Its Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Have everything you need adding is just going to make it more complex. Our casual efforts amounted to nothing. Not a surprise there from anybody that's been listening so far, right? Neither of us had had the time or the energy to make it a priority given our other responsibilities running the design firm. We tried to get some logo and packaging going for the tea, but the pressing needs of the studio always took precedence and we made little progress. So now at this point, we are... 15 months from the day he said he was going to start the company. It's still not being run yet.”
2018-12-25 · Founders · #52 The Republic of Tea: The Story of the Creation of a Business, as Told Through the Personal Letters of Its Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“His friend makes him a partner, brings him into the business. So that seems really weird because where did this, it's called Clement Mock Designs. Where did that come from? You've been talking, we've been sending faxes now. We're two, let's see, 200 pages of faxes. How did you make this left turn into another business? So he says, a year has passed since my last letter to Leaves. I had spent a busy 11 months with Clement mock designs developing marketing programs and materials for clients. Although Clement, that's his friend, and I hope to get the tea company going during this time. Oh, that's another thing. Then he said, why can't get this done? So let me add another partner. You know how that works.”
2018-12-25 · Founders · #52 The Republic of Tea: The Story of the Creation of a Business, as Told Through the Personal Letters of Its Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I don't want you to be mistaken like I'm making fun of this guy because I'm not. I've done this myself with ideas and I've just seen this so many other people do it. It's just so much easier to see it when it's happening outside of ourselves. So this is one year later, no progress. He eventually gets his stuff together and I'm almost there. It's just, uh... By now, you realize Bill's hyped up about the idea, he loves the idea of tea. And then we see his actions are not lining up with his heart. And so this is what happens in the interim between this, I should say, I should explain before I read this part, in the interim this year, he decides to start another business with a friend. So his friend has this business that does like design work for companies.”
2018-12-25 · Founders · #52 The Republic of Tea: The Story of the Creation of a Business, as Told Through the Personal Letters of Its Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's so important. And I think again, I bring that up because I think that's very common. And if you feel that in yourself, just know, okay, my mind's playing tricks on me. I'm going to snap out of it and I'm going to focus on what I need to do, not what I can do. He was waiting and waiting and waiting for something to happen, initiating nothing. So their communication slowly just dries up and there's a year gap. And so I'm going to skip over the book doesn't have any separation of parts. It's like the beginning. So they call the first sip, which would be the introduction. Then all the facts I just read to you. Then one year later and then the epilogue. The epilogue is where I started the podcast. So now we're in one year later. And this is Bill. I mean, you kind of get an idea of...”
2018-12-25 · Founders · #52 The Republic of Tea: The Story of the Creation of a Business, as Told Through the Personal Letters of Its Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And this is such a good point. Since need is today so infrequently the criterion for whether a product is sold or purchased, it is no wonder that this booby trap has become so prevalent. Be the customer, not the seller. Approach business from the standpoint of the customer's needs, not yours. All else will follow. And then he makes another good point here. We're selling tea from an inner passion. Passion is something that everyone understands.”
2018-12-25 · Founders · #52 The Republic of Tea: The Story of the Creation of a Business, as Told Through the Personal Letters of Its Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He needed to figure out himself what to do. He had to get over the compulsion of turning to someone outside himself to tell him what the business should be. And this is the perfect two-line summary for this section. Nobody invents the business for the entrepreneur. That's his job.”
2018-12-25 · Founders · #52 The Republic of Tea: The Story of the Creation of a Business, as Told Through the Personal Letters of Its Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I did quote unquote a business, was lucky enough to succeed and left it gladly because the reason I went into business in the first place was to free, this is probably the most important part, was to free myself of ever having to work for anyone, including myself. I was glad to leave because it had become increasingly clear to me that the true path to personal growth for me would be to do nothing, not to do more of something. The point of business for me was to become financially independent so I did not have to spend my life acting out anybody else's construct of what life is about. However, in looking to me to fashion the what of the tea business, Bill was clutching at. I knew I wasn't going to run the business day to day, and I knew the business could never have any staying power unless Bill felt in his bones that it was his.”
2018-12-25 · Founders · #52 The Republic of Tea: The Story of the Creation of a Business, as Told Through the Personal Letters of Its Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And now he's going to lay out how he thinks about business. There are people who do business even when they don't have to. They do it compulsively for the game of it. They do it because it offers a clear measure of success in an otherwise chaotic world. But I am not one of them. This is old Dehawk-esque philosophy. To me, business is something you don't bother with if you don't have to. Unfortunately, I didn't have to when Bill came along. On the other hand, I firmly believe that if you do have to do business, then you should do it without complaint, without ambivalence, with full mind and heart as best you can. Never allowing yourself to forget why you are doing it.”
2018-12-25 · Founders · #52 The Republic of Tea: The Story of the Creation of a Business, as Told Through the Personal Letters of Its Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“At this point, I lack the confidence and understanding to do the business on my own. See, this is good that at least he's self-aware. That's like hugely important. He's saying straight out. I'm just, I don't, I'm doubting myself, not the idea. So Mel's departure was that much more unsettling. But I also didn't want Mel to lose confidence in me, so I kept trying to make a plan. I wrote several progress reports, yet left on my own, I wondered if I could make it happen or if I would fail. I'm sure Mel was wondering the same thing. So his week of practicality or the practical week.”
2018-12-25 · Founders · #52 The Republic of Tea: The Story of the Creation of a Business, as Told Through the Personal Letters of Its Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No matter how good yours is, the world never finds it easy to welcome a new idea. Think about what we just heard a few minutes ago, the list of nine reasons on why not to get into the TPS is a great example of that. And that's all the more true in business. And it will be even more true in a sleepy business like tea. Who has time for yet another product, especially one that's already 5,000 years old, and a society charge on replacing yesterday's gadget with today's latest, greatest technological breakthrough, not a lot of people are going to be eager at first to use up their Mastercard limit on an item that they may think was already obsolete before Rome was built. Here's another thing to think about where would the computer industry be today if it focused on selling computers only to people who already had computers?”
2018-12-25 · Founders · #52 The Republic of Tea: The Story of the Creation of a Business, as Told Through the Personal Letters of Its Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I take him to mean that if you want the right answer, you better be careful you're having the true problem. A suggestion. When you define the problem, this is a niche business and we need a tangible, practical niche to succeed. I understand your frustration, and I agree we do need a niche or a niche. But is this really the problem? I hope you can find the time this afternoon to take a walk and look at this. You may not want to hear this, but no matter how good yours is, the world never finds it easy to welcome a new idea. Let me repeat that because I think it's so important.”
2018-12-25 · Founders · #52 The Republic of Tea: The Story of the Creation of a Business, as Told Through the Personal Letters of Its Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This is a hugely important sentence. Problems drive most people to distraction Distraction is a way to avoid looking at what wants to be looked at. So after your sobering day, let me offer you a few hopeful words from he's heavily influenced by Eastern philosophy. This guy named Jay Krishnumurti. I've heard this word said properly before and my mouth just will not accommodate that request right now the request for my brain is being denied. Krishna Murti. That's not how you pronounce it. I've heard it said right. All right. Don't worry. The important part is the quote. We don't need to worry about that. The answer, the answer is in the problem.”
2018-12-25 · Founders · #52 The Republic of Tea: The Story of the Creation of a Business, as Told Through the Personal Letters of Its Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I guess it's a little like going out on a date with someone when you know you're in love with someone else. And so this is the letter that Mel writes him back, which I think is, again, he's got like this whole like, Entrepreneurial Philosophy that I find interesting that's based on other things that he spent time learning. He's kind of remixing it into and applying it to building companies. So, this is Mel rating to Bill. The flip side of every opportunity is a problem. You may think it is a remarkable thing that you've come face to face with a problem within hours of expressing your commitment to taking on the challenge. But I am not surprised at all. Among your many talents is a clear-headedness combined with a willingness to see. This is probably so much a part of you that you may not even be aware of it.”
2018-12-25 · Founders · #52 The Republic of Tea: The Story of the Creation of a Business, as Told Through the Personal Letters of Its Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I like to take risks. How much risk can I afford? I need to provide an income for my family. My challenge is to transition from my present income to my new income as smoothly as possible. So the reason I'm including this because I'm sure this is a very common feeling. I think it's helpful to understand that other people throughout history and throughout different times have these same feelings and that it's perfectly normal. The Republic of Tea needs me full time right now. I want to spend all my energy and concentration on this. It's tough when your head and heart have to be at odds. This clarifies my goal. I want to develop the plan for the Republic of T to make it a viable income-producing entity soon. I want to be working full-time for what I believe in. I want to end the frustration of working with my head for income while my heart lies elsewhere. I'm sure that it's pretty universal that people understand what that feeling that he's going through right now.”
2018-12-25 · Founders · #52 The Republic of Tea: The Story of the Creation of a Business, as Told Through the Personal Letters of Its Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“At the moment, I'm being pulled, and unfortunately for me, I guess and for many, it is the root, its root is monetary. I am pulled by opportunities that exist today for me that provide an income. These opportunities are real intangible. So this is his day job as being a consultant. I'm pulled by the excitement and potential of our new endeavor. I believe in it. Yet it is unproven. It offers unknown potential and unknown failure.”
2018-12-25 · Founders · #52 The Republic of Tea: The Story of the Creation of a Business, as Told Through the Personal Letters of Its Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Run into this kind of thinking constantly because humans do not, it's weird. Things change all the way around all the time, everywhere around us yet. We somehow delude ourselves into thinking that things aren't changing, that there's that I just, I don't see the point of ever uttering the sentence. There's nothing new to be done because we know that that's never true. Okay, so I want to skip ahead. I don't need to spend too much more time on that. This is actually really good because the note I left myself is the doubts of nascent entrepreneurship. And then on the very next page, advice from somebody who has already done it. So we're going to see the difference between somebody that's full of doubt and then somebody that has a certain level of confidence based on past success. So this is Bill, first Bill writing to Mill. I share this in the spirit of our friendship and in the interest of thinking out loud in search of your voice.”
2018-12-25 · Founders · #52 The Republic of Tea: The Story of the Creation of a Business, as Told Through the Personal Letters of Its Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He's saying, but this is a moment that separates entrepreneurs from weenies. We have to plug ahead to find the opening. My point being is that those things are usually not true because it's only too late in most cases, it's only too late if you're just going to copy what other people are doing. You know, like they said before, tea has been consumed and sold by humans for over 5,000 years. What this guy, the guy that Bill's talking to is telling him, it's like, oh, it's too late. The ship has left. You're just too late. You got to go find an opportunity. Well, we know that's not true because a few years later they start the business. That business succeeds. They sell it. And the people they sold it to are still operating profitably almost 25 years later. So it's just a reminder that I'm not saying don't go out and research. That's not what I got from reading this book. It's just that you're going to.”
2018-12-25 · Founders · #52 The Republic of Tea: The Story of the Creation of a Business, as Told Through the Personal Letters of Its Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Then Bill continues writing. He says, In a bigger context, these are the types of things you always run into when you start a new business. And what's weird is it starts to give him doubts. I don't think that's weird. I should say it's weird, but.”
2018-12-25 · Founders · #52 The Republic of Tea: The Story of the Creation of a Business, as Told Through the Personal Letters of Its Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And there's actually, he numbers them. It's wonderful. So he's telling Mel the results of this conversation. He goes, this was the conversation where you hear these kind of things coming from a person who is there and who is tried, meaning it's already in the tea industry. Number one, the market is controlled by several big players. Number two, there is little opportunity left. Number three, the field is not as hot as it once was. Number four, there's a lot of people already doing it. Number five, who needs another one? Number six, difficult if not impossible to move within the market. Number seven, difficult if not impossible to enter the mass market. Number eight, very risky to get involved. And number nine, and the one that you hear constantly and the one I hate all the time, there's nothing new to be done.”
2018-12-25 · Founders · #52 The Republic of Tea: The Story of the Creation of a Business, as Told Through the Personal Letters of Its Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But in this, I found another example of something I've already mentioned in this podcast. I mentioned others. And one of the reasons that I spent so much time reading about history and listening to podcasts about history is because I love the fact that history doesn't repeat what human nature does. And in this case, Bill has had a bunch of conversations with people already in the industry trying to do more market research, more get more advice. He's going to hear some stuff that you hear constantly.”
2018-12-25 · Founders · #52 The Republic of Tea: The Story of the Creation of a Business, as Told Through the Personal Letters of Its Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Was unsure of the idea. I think he was unsure of himself. So I think that probably stops more people than being unsure of the idea. All right, so a few pages later. They're doing some market research, and a lot of that stuff I'm going to leave out of the book. I mean, there is some interest, like they have business plans where I skip over. They have pro forma projections, all that stuff. It's just honestly just not interesting to me. I went to business school once. I don't want to go again.”
2018-12-25 · Founders · #52 The Republic of Tea: The Story of the Creation of a Business, as Told Through the Personal Letters of Its Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That I thought too much, and I can see the continual self consciousness that accompanied me through much of this early exploration. So the note I also love myself during this is like, if you think too much, you're going to, the more time you dedicate to thinking about an idea instead of actually trying and testing it, it's too easy for you to talk yourself out of it. So I was constantly reflecting on my own search for the right thing. I badly wanted this to be it, meaning his life's work. Although I yearned for tea to be right for me, to be my true calling, I knew this was beyond my control, but I kept on pushing. In retrospect, I might have been trying to. So that's just one example of many. I don't think after reading the book, I don't think”
2018-12-25 · Founders · #52 The Republic of Tea: The Story of the Creation of a Business, as Told Through the Personal Letters of Its Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Meantime, as the Minister of Leaves waited for the tea business to snatch Bill away from the computer to get itself started, he himself thought it best to serve the Republic by taking the opportunity to further explore the philosophical underpinnings that made him so excited about tea as an agent to change the world. So that's from Mell's perspective at this time. On the very next page we see a private journal entry from Bill is basically agreeing because what is Mel saying there? Mel saying that Bill's thinking too much. You've thought about it. That's great. You know what you want to do. Just go do it, right? And so now Bill's kind of realizing that himself. And he says, I had that peculiar feeling one sometimes has in a fall in love at first sight relationship that things were moving so fast that I needed to keep under control so I didn't lose myself. On the other hand, I just wanted to go with it. I often felt”
2018-12-25 · Founders · #52 The Republic of Tea: The Story of the Creation of a Business, as Told Through the Personal Letters of Its Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Something very competent, something common that we hear all the time, that ideas are not important to executions, everything. This was the most valuable thing I had to say. But Bill was not ready to hear it yet. And I decided a better messenger to tell him was the business itself, not me.”
2018-12-25 · Founders · #52 The Republic of Tea: The Story of the Creation of a Business, as Told Through the Personal Letters of Its Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Perhaps a more reasonable assessment of me would be to recognize that I am a man who himself once started a business on $1,500 in three weeks and got lucky. Therefore, I tend to place a greater value on ideas in the form of action than action in the form of ideas. And so what he means by there, the action in the form of ideas is that, yeah, Bill's doing stuff. He's working on this every day, but he's just typing. He's just generating more ideas. He's got it completely backwards in Mel's opinion. That experience of founding my own undercapitalized, highly impractical business taught me an undelible lesson, not the sort one might hear in the hallowed halls of business schools. Life is not an idea. Starting a business is not an idea. It is getting things done. So that's, you know.”
2018-12-25 · Founders · #52 The Republic of Tea: The Story of the Creation of a Business, as Told Through the Personal Letters of Its Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Moment away from the keyboard in the 21st century to grow my fruit and vegetables. The whole idea of our exchange was that Bill was going to start the tea company. He wrote about it, he talked about it, he came to visit about it, meaning coming to Mount Bill's house to stay, but no tea company. Now I am not unaware that the reader could easily view me. He converses with about starting a tea business on an airplane at the beginning of the month to have the actual tea on the supermarket shelves by the end of the month.”
2018-12-25 · Founders · #52 The Republic of Tea: The Story of the Creation of a Business, as Told Through the Personal Letters of Its Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A vaguely uncomfortable feeling began to set in, and then I suddenly realized that discomfort was Bill's, not mine. He was obsessively thinking the business through, but other than typing words on a computer, he wasn't yet doing anything to get the business started. Did he find the doing of the doing of starting the business less compelling than the idea of it? If he represented the Apple generation, meaning the company started, if he represented the Apple generation of young business mavens, and indeed he brought every new Macintosh computer as soon as it was released, it made me wonder if a generation of great thinker typers, he made that word up, by the way, thinker-typers, was not about, was not yet about to inherit the world. They definitely did, but I would say thinker-doers or typerdoers. I started to worry about who might be able to spare a”
2018-12-25 · Founders · #52 The Republic of Tea: The Story of the Creation of a Business, as Told Through the Personal Letters of Its Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Was paralyzed by inaction. He just constantly wanted to keep making business plans and all this other stuff that you could imagine somebody that's never been an entrepreneur might think to do, which is which gives the illusion of work, but you're not actually getting anything done. So this is Mel reflecting on what's going on. And keep in mind, he's writing these words in 1990. You could easily think of like how they could still be applied today. So he has this idea, like basically you need to have ideas, but ideas need to be in the form of acting.”
2018-12-25 · Founders · #52 The Republic of Tea: The Story of the Creation of a Business, as Told Through the Personal Letters of Its Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I've said this to you before, but back in the day when I had a MySpace profile, the quote on my MySpace profile, I still remember to the state, still one of my favorite quotes. There's no such thing as security only opportunity. And I think that's very, very much what he's saying there. Okay, skipping ahead, this is a large part of what I focus on is the fact that there's a lot of times where Mel just becomes completely discontent with Bill because Bill is, as you can imagine, like what I said earlier, like why would you be writing faxes over the course of two years? Like you're selling tea? Like, how long could this possibly take?”
2018-12-25 · Founders · #52 The Republic of Tea: The Story of the Creation of a Business, as Told Through the Personal Letters of Its Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“As you know, this idea is an entirely inconsistent with my previous utterings. Consistent this is why I said there's a lot of information in these paragraphs that I think are valuable. Consistency can offer only safety and certainty. There is no such thing as safety and certainty. It's human folly to think there is. I personally... That sentence, like I kind of agree with on a personal level. So in a world where nothing is certain and nothing is safe, what I'd like to do is offer the customer the next best thing, a great cup of tea.”
2018-12-25 · Founders · #52 The Republic of Tea: The Story of the Creation of a Business, as Told Through the Personal Letters of Its Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Just see if it led anywhere. It still leads to the Republic of T. And the greeting kind of sounds like it was still influenced from Mel and Patricia. Like it's not like, hey, you reached Republic of T. It's like you're going into a new country. And I wind up talking to one of the sales reps there. And she's like, do you want to order something? I was like, no, honestly, I was reading the book about your company and I just wanted to see if the phone number still worked. Okay, so let me get off that tangent back into the book. So my point being is he laid out something they're still doing almost 30 years later. So he said, we should test the concept inexpensively in one major market, then use the results of the market test to raise national treasury to blitz the country. So again, he's still speaking in country terms, not company terms, which means basically, hey, we'll test to make sure that people like RT, then we'll raise money, and then we'll go all out like on a federal level.”
2018-12-25 · Founders · #52 The Republic of Tea: The Story of the Creation of a Business, as Told Through the Personal Letters of Its Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But, anyways, I was reading over the appendix and looking at their advertisements. And remember, they start off also just like they did at Banana Republic by selling by catalog. And so in these advertisements, they came out in the 1990s, early 1990s, they have phone numbers. I called the phone number.”
2018-12-25 · Founders · #52 The Republic of Tea: The Story of the Creation of a Business, as Told Through the Personal Letters of Its Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Explicitly rejected distribution deals with larger companies like Costco or Target in favor of this specialty stores. You can also order on their website. It's funny because in the book they have, let me just tell you, let me go off on a little tangent real quick. So the Pendix is full of stuff. The Penix might be a reason enough to buy the book, but because it shows early catalogs, shows you the sketches, the early product ideas, early advertisements they did. And again, I think that's the biggest thing I learned besides the founders of Banana Republic being relentlessly resourceful. It's they create entire new worlds. They're not creating a product. Like you're reading. I guess you can just Google it if you want or if you don't get the book. I think I might have, the book is actually hard to find. I had to buy a used copy on Amazon”
2018-12-25 · Founders · #52 The Republic of Tea: The Story of the Creation of a Business, as Told Through the Personal Letters of Its Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“By staying focused on flavored lightly caffeinated teas, we are espousing the ethic of everything in moderation, which is one of the taglines of the business. We are about balance and harmony, about looking at ourselves and liking what we find. Coffee is slimy overkill. Tea is sweet union with life. So now he's going to talk about some product ideas. He says, peach, paco, passion fruit, peppermint, blackberry nut. These are among the first 12 treasures we will make from the obscure, vastly underappreciated asset of flavored black teas. We will be welcomed on the shelves of natural food stores and gourmet supermarket shelves. So to this day, the Republic of Tea, which in some cases has valued about $125 million,”
2018-12-25 · Founders · #52 The Republic of Tea: The Story of the Creation of a Business, as Told Through the Personal Letters of Its Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So it says our focus should be flavored teas. These are healthier than coffee, tastier than other teas that are popularly available, and have a whimsy about them, as they should coming from our mirthful little republic.”
2018-12-25 · Founders · #52 The Republic of Tea: The Story of the Creation of a Business, as Told Through the Personal Letters of Its Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Okay, so I'm going to skip ahead a little bit. This part was interesting to me because there's a lot of notes I left myself. One was the importance on editing or narrowing your focus. Then what's fascinating to me is in 1990, they come up with their distribution strategy. And then it looked up because the company's still around. They start the company a few years later, they sell it to another private company. And that company is run by a family to this day. And I was researching like how they what the state of the business is today. And they're still using the same distribution that Mel was writing out in 1990. And there's just a lot of ideas in a few short paragraphs. So let me just jump into it. So this is mail responding because he's trying to focus Bill. He feels Bill is not going to be able to sort of business without understanding where they're going to set like where are they going to set out from.”
2018-12-25 · Founders · #52 The Republic of Tea: The Story of the Creation of a Business, as Told Through the Personal Letters of Its Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Because for so long, business has measured itself only in terms of profits, there is a tendency now on the part of young entrepreneurs like you to overcompensate and think more in terms of saving the world than making a profit. For all its virtue, there is a fundamental flaw in this thinking. There won't be a business to save the world with if the business does not make a profit.”
2018-12-25 · Founders · #52 The Republic of Tea: The Story of the Creation of a Business, as Told Through the Personal Letters of Its Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Fortunately, business guides us with an absolute way to measure its success. This is the key point here. Business always thrives on profit. So when everyone who has an association with a business, it's investors, its employees, its vendors, and its customers all realize a profit from that association. The business is happy. That is why if you start a business, you assume the responsibility to make it thrive. You will hire others who will join you in your cause and whose families as well as they will depend on you to captain their ship through the choppy waters of reality. In other words, the first order of a business is to be successful, and a business is successful because it is profitable and”
2018-12-25 · Founders · #52 The Republic of Tea: The Story of the Creation of a Business, as Told Through the Personal Letters of Its Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Happiness needs no cause. It is an unspeakable great tragedy of our times that so many people are desperately looking outside themselves for the source of happiness when it's already inside them waiting to be tapped. Now he's going to apply this to businesses. To make a business thrive, however, takes a little bit of effort. Business is about another kind of relationship, the one between you and me. When we conduct business together, we create a third entity, the business relationship. Unlike you and me, the business itself is not endowed with a natural innate happiness. It is our responsibility to make it happy, and that means making it thrive. What causes a business to thrive is the mutual agreement we make between us that we will both benefit from our business relationship.”
2018-12-25 · Founders · #52 The Republic of Tea: The Story of the Creation of a Business, as Told Through the Personal Letters of Its Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In my view, all things are born to thrive. You cannot go wrong when you create something, be it a life or a business. If you take responsibility to see that it thrives, what makes a thing thrive? People thrive on happiness. There is nothing elusive about happiness. It's here always. The only problem is that sometimes we're not here for it. One sure way of not being here is to resist the uninvited, meaning stuff we have no control of things we can't plan, which is sadly what most people do most of the time. But happiness is the primal birthright of the man or woman who does not resist it. The common fallacy about happiness is that you have to do something to attain it. Not so. Happiness is built into our DNA. It's not an add-on option.”
2018-12-25 · Founders · #52 The Republic of Tea: The Story of the Creation of a Business, as Told Through the Personal Letters of Its Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And very, very, very hard to deal with. Okay. Okay, so now I'm gonna skip ahead, and this is getting more into Mel's philosophy on happiness, business, and profit. Okay, so he says this is Mel writing to Bill. Reading over your personal goals and vision, I find myself moved. I was not nearly so clear thinking when I set out to establish Binet Republic. And a lot of the problems I endured in the last decade could have been avoided had I been able to see life in the full spectrum that you do now. Your goal's nearly mirror mine. In fact, with one notable exception, in starting a business, mine would be a different expression of priorities. To explain why I need to go back in time.”
2018-12-25 · Founders · #52 The Republic of Tea: The Story of the Creation of a Business, as Told Through the Personal Letters of Its Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This entire point of bringing this up, which is why it's so weirdly difficult and why I think entrepreneurs have a hard time relating to people, like explaining their problems to people that aren't entrepreneurs. And he said, this is a weird psychological state, meaning you have to be of two minds constantly. And to remain in it as you must for many years is just not normal. And I think that's why you see so much talk about an entrepreneurial community about like trying to advocate for like a healthy mental state because not only are you probably pushing yourself to physical limit, but you're most likely pushing yourself on a mental limit as well because you're confusing yourself because you have to be able to switch back and forth from being completely optimistic that it's going to work out and then completely pessimistic so you can actually identify the things that would prevent it from working out. And it can be very, very confusing.”
2018-12-25 · Founders · #52 The Republic of Tea: The Story of the Creation of a Business, as Told Through the Personal Letters of Its Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I can argue both sides. Like both arguments sound good. I don't know what the hell, like which one I should choose. So he said, this is Patrick's experience with that. He's like, you have to be optimistic on one hand because if you weren't, you wouldn't bother doing it in the face of adversity, meaning starting the company or the product that you want. On the other hand, you have to be pessimistic because there are tons of problems and you have to be tuned to spotting them so you can fix them. And this is...”
2018-12-25 · Founders · #52 The Republic of Tea: The Story of the Creation of a Business, as Told Through the Personal Letters of Its Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Timing. We're still a few years ahead from our time, from the perspective of the world coming around our way, meaning one of their goals is to get people to drink less coffee and to drink tea instead. So basically calm down, slow down. And five, what's the hurry? So there's a lot of confusions that follow in the following pages because they don't basically make this decision for another two years from the time he's writing this. And that's the problem with being able to argue both sides and it reminded me of one of the notes I took where if you don't know who Patrick Carlson is, he's the founder of this company called Stripe. Stripe is basically like the new PayPal, but on steroids. It's a much larger business. If you purchase anything online, I think like 80% of Americans at least speaking from the country that I live in.”
2018-12-25 · Founders · #52 The Republic of Tea: The Story of the Creation of a Business, as Told Through the Personal Letters of Its Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“would be delayed. Two, if we go all out, it seems inevitable that we'll have to bring in outside investors and therefore we'll have the money to do it right and do it big. Three, good story. Media attention could help frame the Republic of T as a phenomenon. Much excitement, meaning if you give them more than just maybe, let's say, five T's to talk about. We stand the chance of number four. We stand the chance of making the Republic of Tia household word in two years. Number five, much easier to sell to stores with a high profile introduction will do great in the self-space wars. Now here's him arguing the opposite. Five thoughts about this in favor of a slower buildup. One, we'll need less money and therefore we'll own more of the company. Two, learning curve. We get to make our mistakes quietly. Three people factor. It's always hard to find good people.”
2018-12-25 · Founders · #52 The Republic of Tea: The Story of the Creation of a Business, as Told Through the Personal Letters of Its Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He's not sure of what to do. There's a lot of confusion when starting a new business. So then I left myself was the problem with being able to argue both sides and then this quote I'm going to read you that I just took notes on from the founder Stripe Patrick Collison, which I think is a wonderful illustration of this point. So this is Bill writing to Mel. He says the question we've got to ask ourselves is, should we come out of the box with everything, like a full product line, thereby making a profound statement about who we are? Or do we start with a few lines and introduce new lines gradually? So do you try to incorporate everything from inception? Like everything's pre-planned and then you launch, or do you launch and then kind of iterate as you go? And he's going to argue both sides of this. He says, five thoughts about this in favor of the splash, meaning going all out. One, the catalog would not be complete unless we had the full line. So if we introduce lines gradually, the catalog would...”
2018-12-25 · Founders · #52 The Republic of Tea: The Story of the Creation of a Business, as Told Through the Personal Letters of Its Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The opportunities in tea were screaming at anyone who would be quiet enough to sip and listen. It was a perfect example of the fact that although entrepreneurs might like to think otherwise, one does not create a business. A business creates itself when the circumstances are ready for it And if the people it needs to create, and if the people it needs to create it are not yet ready, are up to the task, it will wait. For the moment, I was happy to wait along with it. Okay, so I'm skipping ahead in time a little bit. And this is now Bill is writing to Mel and we're going to start to see how, you know.”
2018-12-25 · Founders · #52 The Republic of Tea: The Story of the Creation of a Business, as Told Through the Personal Letters of Its Founders · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source