The Republic of Tea

Over 20 months of faxes, Mel Ziegler, Patricia Ziegler and Bill Rosenzweig record how they turned an idea into a tea company. The Zieglers had already co-founded Banana Republic, and their letters with Rosenzweig capture the fears, doubts and daily breakthroughs and setbacks of creating a business. The correspondence covers inventing a product, drafting a plan and setting up a partnership, and the book reprints the actual business plan the founders used to raise money. The paperback edition, part of the Currency line, adds a User's Guide by the authors, an introduction and discussion guide meant to help readers put the ideas into practice.

Seth Godin put it on a reading list, describing it as the story of an entrepreneur coming to grips with the obsessions of his audience and noting that, though out of print, it could still be found through used sellers such as AbeBooks.