Founders
Episode 52 #52 The Republic of Tea: The Story of the Creation of a Business, as Told Through the Personal Letters of Its Founders
Founders

Episode 52: #52 The Republic of Tea: The Story of the Creation of a Business, as Told Through the Personal Letters of Its Founders

Founders

Episode 52

#52 The Republic of Tea: The Story of the Creation of a Business, as Told Through the Personal Letters of Its Founders

David Senra is the host of Founders, where he studies history's greatest entrepreneurs. This is what he learned from reading The Republic of Tea: The Story of the Creation of a Business, as Told Through the Personal Letters of Its Founders.

What I learned from reading The Republic of Tea: The Story of the Creation of a Business, as Told Through the Personal Letters of Its Founders.

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A business is born (0:01)

don't start a business unless you are the first customer (22:49)

what it is like to fall in love with an idea (25:31)

starting a business is like making a movie (27:15)

on slowing down (32:32)

the problem with being able to argue both sides of an idea (37:00)

editing & narrowing your focus (46:51)

ideas in the form of action (51:39)

history doesn't repeat, human nature does (57:00)

the doubts of nascent entrepreneurship (59:51)

Steve Jobs had one speed: Go (1:07:39)

be the customer, not the seller (1:16:21)

Bill finally gets it (1:22:00)

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#52 The Republic of Tea: The Story of the Creation of a Business, as Told Through the Personal Letters of Its Founders

Introduction

And so a business is born. Like all birth, it began with a gathering of the energies of conception, then a fusion and growth. As a gestation, it was exactly as long as it needed to be. Recognizing that true creation takes place outside time, the Republic of Tea came to life when it was ready to be born. It was, to be sure, Bill, who carried it in him for the 20 up and down all-around months documented in these pages. And it was Bill, who in accepting his first dollar for a tin of tea in May 1992, delivered the baby to the world. As for my role, I got him pregnant. In compiling these letters for publication, a keystone of ancient Hindu philosophy comes to mind. Everything happens as it does because the universe is as it is.

There is no formula for starting a business. It is an exercise as unique as the individuals who undertake it. Starting the Republic of Tea was an exercise in allowing things to happen. So starting a business is no different from starting anything else, a marriage, a painting, or a new life. The opportunity it presents as a path to self-realization is the one most often overlooked, and yet I feel this is the ultimate -- excuse me. And yet I feel this is ultimately its greatest benefit. A business that is conceived in practicality will be congenitally dry. Bill and Patricia and I may have been a little wacky in some of our early ideas, but this is because we knew the day of practicality would come.

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