The Freaks Shall Inherit the Earth: Entrepreneurship for Weirdos, Misfits, and World Dominators

10Fall in Love with Not Knowing, Redux

I got a great letter the other day out of the blue from a reader named Jenson Lu. He and his sister, Mei Fang, decided to start an online e-commerce men's clothing retail brand called Mincino (http://mincino.com), selling 10 new men's shirt designs per quarter. You know—why not? As Jenson explained in his letter,

Unlike other people, we are neither geniuses [nor individuals with] big dreams. We are doing it because we are crazy e-shoppers turned small business owners who…think that it's fun to offer male shoppers more offerings from a local and layman perspective.

We aren't ambitious; [we] are pretty down to earth…we understand that business isn't about the fame or glamour or riches, but what value will we bring to our consumers, and whether the value is what consumers truly want.

Jenson and Mei Fang are aware that they don't know everything they need to know to survive this experience. Yet their attitude is pretty exciting and admirable.

Despite the challenges that my sister and I faced—and [the fact that there are] definitely more to come in the future, we shall embrace the storm as two bootstrappers who have nothing to lose but all to gain: experience and “potential revenue,” and probably plenty of clothes to wear for the coming year as well!

Jenson was kind enough to let me know that part of what fueled his journey was reading the stories I had shared of other entrepreneurs who didn't exactly know what they intended to do upon starting ...