The Republic of Tea

If you're in a partnership, starting a business, or just looking for some inspiration to keep you focused on the direction you're going, then buy this book.The illustrations and the background "thinking" that are added to the conversation truly give the reader a sense of understanding. What I found to be the most interesting is how quickly the entire idea of TROT came together. Within a month of meeting, Mel and Bill had the ideas and the philosophy of TROT down. When it comes down to it, there was very little change from those initial conversations until the final product launched.

Mel & Patricia Zeigler are geniuses at creating raving fan businesses. They were the originators of the greatest store I've ever been in, Banana Republic. They sold it to the Gap and it is NOTHING like it's former self, which was reminescent of an Indiana Jones adventure complete with jungle headquarters and a jeep.This book documents their next venture and details how they developed the business. It is like an adventure as you follow the letters to each other with new ideas.If anything, I use this as a model for writing business plans. That's the biggest compliment I can give.

My thanks to the authors for sharing- honestly, openly and truthfully- what it really takes in business to maximize objectives that include but go beyond the simple pursuit of profit. This is a must read for anyone who wants to launch or scale a socially responsible business venture.

This book has been an extremely usful resource to my company. Although my company also started small, Team 5 Technologies, it is now a large corperation. This book helped me understand more about giving the customer what they want, and putting myself in the customers shoes. After all, a company is only worth the value of it's products. With this is mind my good friends, read the book, Nick J. Frost - T5T

This book was an "accidental" purchase (if you believe such things are accidents). I am in the process of starting up my own business & had had my belly full of the "Make a Gazillion Dollars in Your Sleep!" genre, as well as the "Fourteen [rational, linear] Steps to Guaranteed Business Success" types. Then this book shows up and my thinking about my own business startup changes -- the business re-invents itself as we begin to work together. This book is the perfect antidote to the 80s/90s hype-style-M & A-IPO feeding frenzy. This book has encouraged me to slow down, go for commitment and integrity, and truly succeed.