Young Filipino entrepreneurs

rule country tilt

By: Doris Dumlao-Abadilla

Philippine Daily Inquirer

02:10 AM April 6th, 2015
IT ALL began with a social networking site put up by Filipino college kids, where
travelers can post an upcoming overseas trip and then earn extra income by accepting
online requests to bring home goods.
This project has since evolved into muber.com, an online marketplace for travelers
willing to act as couriers for hard-to-find items.
The site is seen having great growth potential, which is one reason why the students
behind the start-up company recently won the Philippine Global Student
Entrepreneurship Awards (GSEA), a premier competition organized annually by the
Entrepreneurs Organization (EO), a global network of 10,500 entrepreneurs.
Country championship
Muber based on moveris run by a young triumvirate composed of Leo Lope
Lofranco, a 21-year old student at the Ateneo de Manila University, his 18-year-old
brother and fellow Atenean, Life Christian Lofranco, and Leos high school buddy,
21-year-old Francis Plaza, a fresh graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT).
Leo is the chief executive officer, Life the chief operating officer and Francis the chief
technology officer of the Pinoy dotcom firm.
By winning the GSEA country championship, the team bagged a cash prize of
P250,000 and the right to represent the Philippines at the global GSEA competition to
be held this April 15 to 17 in Washington DC.
Leo, being the CEO, will represent the company and be among the eight from Asia
all winners in their respective countrieswho will vie for the global award, which
comes with a $10,000 cash prize.
But more than any cash prize, GSEA offers a mentorship program that will allow
these young entrepreneurs to level up, said Raymond Rufino, EOs regional head for
Asia for the GSEA program.
With that, they (mentors) can really provide good valuable input and facilitate the
growth of the business, Rufino said, The partnership with the mentors is very
critical because we feel thats how you can bring these students to the next level.
The idea for the dotcom firm was born in the United States.

Leo, a Life Sciences or Biology student, was doing laboratory research at Harvard
University under a fellowship program in 2013 when he reunited with high school
classmate Francis, who was then a senior college student at MIT.
They talked about entrepreneurship and how start-up companies in the United States
were becoming the next big thing in the corporate world.
While we were traveling as well, so many people were asking us to buy stuff for
them, so we thought, why not create a platform for that niche of people who do that
almost every day for their friends and family? Thats where we got the idea for the
platform, Leo told the Inquirer.
Delivery requests
Leo, who is now on his fourth year at the Ateneo, and Francis cofounded Muber,
which was incorporated in Delaware.
Life, a Computer Science major, later joined the company.
Help another person by fulfilling delivery requests while earning more from your
travels Earn as much as P700 per item. Easy and Hassle-Free! Muber says on its
website, which is designed to appeal to a younger crowd.
The pitch is to earn while helping someone get the goods that they want.
In the beginning, Muber was populated by netizens from the founders own circle of
friends but now, it has built a database of what these young entrepreneurs describe as
trusted travelers.
If youre the shopper, you just go to our websiteits more of an e-commerce site
and you go through the whole process. The items that are listed there are not usually
found in the Philippines or if they are, they are relatively cheaper [on the site], Leo
explained.
Leo said that when Muber was launched in February 2014, the site functioned more
like a social networking site.
After a few weeks, we realized our users only wanted to get their shopping items as
fast and affordable as possible, no matter how it was fulfilled. So in September last
year, we relaunched Muber to have this kind of modelan end-to-end shopping
gateway for overseas items with a promise that your items will arrive in five to 10
business days, he said.
This upstart dotcom firm has already fulfilled over a hundred transactions since its
relaunch in September last year.
In-demand items
Everything went really well. We had positive reviews and no negative reviews as of
yet, Leo said.
Based on these young entrepreneurs computations, if they reach 300 to 400
transactions in a month, Muber can break even.
Leo said among the most requested items were card games, specifically Cards Against
Humanity, which are available only in the United States.

He also cited requests for beauty products and recently, the Jawbone fitness tracker
bracelet. The items going through Muber are typically worth $80 or $100 or up to
$150 apiece.
For now, the goods are coming from the United States, but these young entrepreneurs
are thinking of expanding into other countries also served by the likes of Amazon.
Japan and Singapore were identified as areas for immediate expansion.
For now, the founders themselves personally go to the airport to pick up the items
from their volunteers and then deliver these to their clients.
For more difficult addresses, they use couriers.
They also handle the technical requirements themselves, such as addressing glitches
and bugs. That means that they have to be online all the time.
How then are the Lofrancos able to balance studies with this upstart business?
Very difficult! Life admitted. We dont have social lives! Leo added.
To settle the transactions, Muber uses a third party software that takes care of credit
card transactions. The company does not yet have a cash-and-delivery service.
GSEA
Rufino, executive vice president of property developer The Net Group, said EO
created the competition entered into by Muber to inspire todays young people to take
up entrepreneurship.
By highlighting the stories of these successful student entrepreneurs, EO hopes to
embolden others to also put up their own business.
From the Philippine perspective, why were so excited about this program is because
entrepreneurship is something that intimidates a lot of young people. A lot of young
people think that entrepreneurship is for later on in lifethat its for after theyve
worked in a company for a long time and maybe theyll become an entrepreneur.
Maybe thats something theyll consider at some point but not really right now,
Rufino said.
EO hopes to change the mindset through the GSEA, which is unique because it links
partner students with established EO mentors.
Aside from helping them with the presentation, this entrepreneur is also a mentor in
their business. They can open doors for them so we try to match them. For example, if
the student is in the tech sphere or industry, well try to find a tech entrepreneur in the
same space to mentor them. If theyre in the food business, well try to find an
entrepreneur thats also in the food industry. With that, they can really provide good
valuable input and facilitate the growth of the business, Rufino said.
Another unique aspect is that beyond the business plan, this competition looks at the
student himself. If you look at our judging criteria its really judging whether the
student entrepreneurs demonstrated what we feel are the important characteristics and
traits of a successful entrepreneur. Were they able to learn from their mistakes? Were
they able to articulate the vision and marshal the resources necessary to achieve that
vision? Were they able to look for and get assistance when they needed it, rather than

doing it all on their own? In terms of strategy, were they able to formulate a strategy
that combine financial planning, marketing and public relations? Its not so much
whether the business is a huge business or a successful business; in fact your business
doesnt even have to be profitable, all we need is that you have sales, Rufino said.
Amazing students
The only requirement for the program is that the business must be operating for at
least six months and has some revenue. Even if its not much, even if youre losing
money but you have revenue, thats enough for us, he said.
For Rufino, its exciting to see so many students successfully launch businesses.
When I was in college, starting my own business was something I couldnt even
imagine. It was something that was just so far from reality for me. There was just
school, being part of a school team and getting together with friends. But starting and
running a business, I couldnt imagine, he said.
Yet, today, we have all of these amazing students who are launching and running
businesses. One of the things that is exciting about that is, if other students hear their
stories and see kaya ko pala (I can do it after all), its not impossible. Its something
that is attainable, that is doable. That process is the goal: to try to inspire young people
to say kaya pala (it can be done). If other students were able to do it to pursue their
dreams and start businesses, then why cant I do that, too? And, if we can do that for
the Philippines, where you inspire an entire generation of students to start picking up
entrepreneurship, imagine what they would be like 10 or 20 years after graduation.
Some of these students may be the next big business owners.

Read more: http://business.inquirer.net/189728/young-filipinoentrepreneurs-rule-country-tilt#ixzz3jhpsJjRe

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