April 29th, 2011 Part1 @Taipei, Taiwan
I finally had an opportunity to interview Fines, a founder and an editor-in-chief TBI Taiwan. “The first encounter with TBI was an article about it. As soon as reading it, I got intrigued by that idea." Two months later, in September 2009, he flew to England to see John Bird, the founder of TBI, UK. The pilot version of TBI Taiwan Fines brought really delighted Mr. Bird and Fines got allowed to use the name “TBI” immediately.
After half-year preparation, TBI Taiwan was born in April, 2010. Since Fines had been working on web magazine “Roodo” for about ten years, lots of writers and photographers helped him out for the start. One of them is Aaron Nieh who has been in charge of cover design since the first issue.
The feature stories for the first issue was “Stupid Generation.” One and only editor for the magazine, Sharon revealed its purpose. “The target of TBI Taiwan is from 20 through 35 years old who aren’t afraid of failure and beginning their own business, like Steve Jobs. We wanted to express this message to our readers.”
Fines pours into his own money to get launched TBI Taiwan. “I get encouraged every time I see vendors recovering their self-esteem through this job,” he says with a peaceful smile. Sharon continues, “Since you spend most of your life at work, I wanted to do something fun as a job.”
The eyes of those “Stupid Generation” people glowed with pleasure.