Throw Caution to the Breeze: Give up your fears today! We did

It’s coming up on our eighth year in business this year in Taiwan. And I’m always surprised that we’ve come this far. It’s taken quite a lot of effort, but a few days ago, I was chatting with some friends who really thought that what we did was amazing.

I always have the sense that when I am in a conversation like that, there’s a kind of pessimistic resignation to the participants who talk about our actions. They really take their fears over losing money and run with them. They say things like: “You started a business without marketing (so?); you didn’t have any business funding (so?); you didn’t have any customers (so?); you gave up your job(s) and your security (yep!) and so on…” it gets a little tiring.

What we knew: Taiwan had a very established market for our service; that market was very mature in some respects, but seriously underserved in terms of quality and scale. So, there was risk that we wouldn’t succeed. But I worked in quite a few businesses that failed, and my wife worked in several small businesses that succeeded.

Between us, we thought we had as good a chance as anybody, and better than most. Most of all, we enjoyed what we did; we are much less worried now than before and feel we could cope; and we are excited by the future.