One of the most difficult parts of entrepreneurship is starting – getting the momentum, taking the first definitive step to translate the dream business to reality, seizing the moment.
If you ask existing entrepreneurs to look back at their beginnings, they will tell you different start-up stories. Some found a location or a store space first. Others just started producing from home and selling to neighbors. Still others began with a study that indicated the market was ready for what they are about to offer. There were those who began by raising capital first either through a loan or by partnering with someone with resources to invest. And there were a lucky few who’d say all they had to do was to seize the moment — grab the opportunity that came knocking on their doors.
May the following start-up stories provide the rest of us dreamers – not yet doers – the inspiration to take the plunge, a plunge which, needless to say, should ideally have been preceded by well-thought out planning.
Letty’s Buko Pie
For Letty Belarmino of Los Banos Laguna, entrepreneurshp and financial independence have always been a “grand wish.”
As far as she can remember, she has always loved to bake. No one was surprised when she enrolled in a course in home economics in college. When marriage beckoned, however, she dropped out of her studies. She continued baking and cooking but only for her household.
She struggled to manage a limited income to meet the needs of her family. Often she thought about going into business to help with the expenses.
One day, she just did it. With P200 she saved from scrimping her household budget, she brought ingredients to make pies in her kitchen. She made batches of four to eight buko pies daily, without help, selling these to the neighborhood and sometimes to the market.
The pies sold quickly. When demand grew she formalized her business with the help of husband Isagani who later ”professionalized” the business with his product-development strategies. It was a bit later that they put up a store.
This was how Lety’s Buko Pie, today among the best buko pie sold commercially in the country, began. Today, Lety’s frozen buko pie are exported to the United States and other countries.
Figaro Coffee Company
One Sunday afternoon after lunch, Chit Juan and her friends were savoring brewed German coffee, a gift from her sister who was based in Europe.
One friend reminded Chit to order more of the coffee from her sister as the precious granules were running out.
Chit commented that with the amount of coffee they were consuming weekly, they might as well put a café. No one in the group disagreed and soon the gathering involved into a business planning session.
One of them volunteered to look for store space and found one — a small kiosk at Glorietta, Ayala Center in Makati. The group, all of them professionals, dug into their pockets and among themselves raised the initial capital.
Soon enough, Figaro Coffee Company was born.
Chit handled business development and marketing functions. The others helped in operations, design, construction and technical details of coffee making.
In the next few years, they would train professional managers to help them run the business as more and more stores opened and the company got bigger. Franchising later led them to other business partners and more success.