Businesses you can start from P10,000 to P25,000

Small business enthusiasts, here is another article for you.

In the previous post, I mentioned businesses that you can start in less than P10,000. Now, I will be giving you these businesses you can start from P10,000 to P15,000. I found this article based on the article posted in Entrepreneur magazine official website: Businesses you can start from P1k to P100k (Part 1)


Read this article too, you may find it helpful: http://smallbusinessphilippines.blogspot.com/2012/02/small-business-idea-10000-to-30000.html

P11,000 TO 25,000

T-shirts

 http://www.flickr.com/photos/51035767928@N01/

Specialty Sauces

http://www.flickr.com/photos/35034361412@N01/

Bags and Cases

http://www.flickr.com/photos/23912576@N05/

The impetus for becoming an entrepreneur is not always a compelling drive and immediate need to make money. Indeed, for these five entrepreneurs who made good on an initial capital of only P25,000 or less, the reasons for going into business varied from fulfilling a class requirement, filling a personal need for a particular product, and simply taking the cue from one's innate business sense.

Darkuscase founders and artists Ace del Mundo and Lui Cornelio both loved bags, and so they were disappointed when they couldn?t find in the market suitable and acceptable gig bags for musical instruments. The two had in mind soft, colorful, and hip cases to go better with their artistic inclinations, but what were available then were only the typical hard, bulky, and unattractive cases.

This prompted del Mundo, guitarist of the pop-rock band Kenyo, to make designs for his own bags. Since he hails from Bulacan, which is considered the country's bag-making capital, he didn't find it hard to find people to execute his designs. Thus, in September 2006, he and Cornelio put up Darkuscase, with him as chief designer and in charge of production and with Cornelio in charge of marketing.

"It was more than just money," says Cornelio. "When you come up with an idea for a product and really believe in its worth, you just have to make things happen using whatever resources you have at the moment."

The name Darkuscase had a simple enough origin. Cornelio explains: "Darkus is Ace's name-handle on the Net, a name he came across in a comic book while still in college. Since he was known to friends online as Darkus, it made sense for us to carry the name. We felt it sounded unique and cool and had the potential for great brand-name recall."

Initially investing P15,000 of their own money in the business, they bought bag-making materials and second-hand equipment to get started. Sales of their products was brisk, so they recovered their investment in as little as three months. Today, from having only one subcontractor at the start, they now have three to cope with the increasing orders for their bags.

After almost three years in operation, Darkuscase is still in its growth phase. It doesn't have a physical store for its products as yet, but its online store, www.darkuscase.com, has been doing good business. 

Aside from bags for musical instruments, it now also sells guitar and camera straps; guitar picks; pedal cases; messenger, belt and travel bags; and so-called flag bags (messenger bags with flaps decorated boldly with a country's flag). The initial buyers of these products came from the partners' immediate circle of friends, but now anybody can order them through their online store.

Darkuscase is taking its business slowly but surely. "The first few months, we had the usual hits and misses since we both had no business background to back us up," says Cornelio. "We then received valuable inputs from our first wave of clients, and that helped us a lot especially in the production process for our bags."

All bags that Darkuscase makes are made-to-order and customized according to the size of the musical instrument. It takes 10 to 34 days for an order to be filled, depending on the quantity of the order.

Explains Cornelio: "Every order we receive goes through a unique production process because every client has his or her own unique set of requirements. Early on in the business, we were already aware of this challenge so we focused on working closely with different groups or communities of sewers and material suppliers for our bags. After our first year, each group now has its own skills and resources to manufacture particular bag lines for us."

Spoofs Limited Inc., maker of the highly popular t-shirts with tongue-in-cheek and in-your-face lines, is another niche player that started its business on very limited capital. Some of the phrases used in its shirts border on copyright infringement and on the vulgar, but the company's 17 years of existence is proof that there is a substantial market for offbeat products.

Charlie Dobles and Drew Marcelo came up with the idea for Spoofs Limited as part of the requirements of their Ateneo de Manila class in entrepreneurial management. 

Together with four other classmates, the two raised P18,000 to jumpstart a business with real-world potential. Then, within the prescribed 21 days of selling for products proposed in their class, they sold at various school venues t-shirts emblazoned with spoofs of popular clothing labels, among them Bolo (Tagalog for machete, and a take on the Polo brand), United Couples of Banatan (a take on the Benetton brand), and Timberlang labels (a take on the Timberland brand).

"The best way to test your market is to sell to actual customers," says Dobles, and they did just that. At the end of the selling period, they sold 1,200 units and their project garnered for them a grade of 'A.'

After college, in 1992, Dobles and Marce lo decided to pursue the business in earnest, producing up to 30,000 t-shirts initially. But there was one major roadblock to their enterprise: clothing retailers refused to carry their t-shirts because of the provocative and legally questionable lines printed on them.

This was highly problematic to the partners because in those years when online marketing was still alien territory, you had to have shelf space in the shopping centers if you wanted to sell anything. Indeed, it was only when an unlikely retailer, Gift Gate (licensee of Hello Kitty products), agreed to carry the Spoofs Limited products that other retailers relented and started carrying the products as well.

Today, Spoofs Limited now has expanded to almost 30 outlets, seven t-shirt lines, and two support companies.

"By starting small, I was able to build an identity for my product," says Tina Vitas, owner of the Sarsarap line of bottled Filipino-style food sauces.

Vitas started Sarsarap in April 2008 on a budget of about P20,000 of her personal money. The Vitas family has a restaurant called Mama V in Malate, Manila, and her mother, Tita, would make special sauces for the dishes served at the restaurant. Among these sauces were chili cheese, sweet mustard, chili vinegar, and siling labuyo (hot chili). Vitas saw the potential of those sauces for reaching a larger market if sold on their own.

She then started to develop her mother's sauces, testing the market for them by at first joining small bazaars and later the big food expositions. "Majority of what I spent initially was for the rent of the booths at the bazaars and food expos, which wasn't cheap," Vitas says. In less than half a year, she was able to recover her initial investment.

Vitas, who describes herself as someone "who thinks 40, looks 30, and feels 20," had spent the first year of her business feeling the market's reaction to Sarsarap. She explains: "I didn't really want to venture into growth until my production volumes were already in place. I'm just beginning, a year later, to go into expansion mode."

Her one year of market testing led Vitas to repackage, rebrand and relaunch her products, a process that she says required her to put in more working capital into the business. By the third quarter of 2009, she intends to launch still another brand, one that she says is "new and improved, but with the same taste that our customers have grown to love."

Starting small and on a tight budget gives the entrepreneur the advantage of pursuing an idea without the worry of losing millions in investments, and as these five entrepreneurs have discovered, doing so with pluck and persistence has a better than good chance of being rewarded with success.

KEYS TO BUSINESS SUCCESS

• Tina Vitas of Sarsarap: "Aggressive guerilla marketing, hands-on sales and customer service, and empowerment training of our sales team. These really spelled the difference for our brand despite limited distribution."

Lui Cornelio of Darkuscase: "Joining music festivals and music-centric events, and making our products accessible to the market via the Internet. Overall, however, it boils down to the tried-and-tested formula of sipag at tiyaga [industriousness and patience].?"


Read this article too, you may find it helpful: http://smallbusinessphilippines.blogspot.com/2012/02/small-business-idea-10000-to-30000.html

Businesses you can start less than P10,000

For business in the Philippines using small capital, click here: http://smallcapitalbusinessphilippines.com/

Putting up a small business is a challenging thing to do. It requires patience doing the research about your market, your product and your marketing method. 

But we cannot deny that putting up small business requires capital, funds, or simply we call it MONEY. We may have the ability to be patient in doing everything but we do not have the resources when it comes to raising funds to get our small business started. 


Read this article too, you may find it helpful: http://smallbusinessphilippines.blogspot.com/2012/02/small-business-idea-10000-to-30000.html

http://www.flickr.com/photos/43529122@N08/

I researched some more and found an article in the Entrepreneur magazine official website which gives you an idea on businesses that you can put up that requires small capital. The title of the article Businesses you can start from P1k to P100k (Part 1)  

ENJOY READING!!

Yes, there are business you can start from P1,000 to P100,000!

For less than P10,000, one can start a spiced-ham or bottled-food business, a t-shirt company can get off the ground with under P25,000 in capital, about P50,000 should be enough to get a shoe factory up and running, and one can start a travel and tours agency for just P100,000.

No matter what business the aspiring entrepreneur has in mind, it's been proven that a little cash can go a long way, and most Filipino business owners know this by heart. 

Indeed, according to the latest statistics from the Department of Trade and Industry, 97 percent of all registered businesses in the country are micro enterprises, or those with under P3 million in assets. And this obviously doesn't take into account the thousands of other businesses in the "underground economy"--those that operate without government licenses and don't pay taxes on their incomes.

Most of these "micro-biz" doubtless had started with an initial capital way below P3 million, which is a princely sum particularly in these tough times. Of course, these funds for business startups can come from anywhere, but the most common sources are personal savings, pensions, loans from banks or pawnshops, and cash gifts from relatives and friends. 

How to raise startup capital can be a challenge in itself, but the much greater challenge to the would-be entrepreneur is how to parlay these resources into a viable and profitable enterprise.

As demonstrated by the men and women whose stories appear in the succeeding pages, these dream businesses can become a reality even with an initial capital of just P100,000 or less. And the opportunities are to be found in areas as diverse as home-service massage, bag-making, creative work for exhibits, and food-cart franchises, to name just a few. 

The only limits to the prospective entrepreneur's choices are his or her passion for the business and the available startup funds. And, of course, there's an advantage in starting small, for it allows the entrepreneur to learn the ropes of the business with minimal risk before going into costlier ventures in the future.

So, whether you only have P5,000 as a graduation gift from your parents or as much as P95,000 saved from your days of working from 9:00 to 5:00, now is the best time to explore your entrepreneurial options. You can become an entrepreneur no matter what stage or station of life you are in. Just let these stories help guide you on your way. 

P10,000 AND BELOW

Thai Massage

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Meat Processing

http://www.flickr.com/photos/77979959@N00/

Gift-Wrapping

http://www.flickr.com/photos/84345058@N00/

A lot of people want to put up a business of their own but are deterred by the thought that it would need a huge investment. Well, they are wrong. There are so many businesses that could be started with P10,000 or less, like the gift-wrapping service, home-service spa and massage, meat processing venture, and eatery that were put up by the seven entrepreneurs we are featuring in this story.

In fact, Chiqui Barretto got started with her first Wrap It Up! gift-wrapping shop in Calamba, Laguna, in 2000 by simply spending on transportation to Divisoria to get her initial supplies. Preeyada Saengpradab and her husband Roland Saenz de Tejada opened Preeyada's Real Thai Massage in 2008 in Bacoor, Cavite, with only two dozens of towels they had purchased from Divisoria. 

Ruby Sauza-Limbaña and sister Roselita Sauza invested only P200 in 1983 to start Rosa Foods, their Kalibo, Aklan-based meat processing business. And Mary Maranan and husband Aristeo put up only P450 in 1980 to start a small restaurant, Mary's Eatery, in San Fernando, La Union.

How each of these three entrepreneurs grew their business from such humble beginnings offers valuable lessons in real-life entrepreneurship.

FATEFUL BEGINNINGS

In the case of the Maranan couple, the P450 they used to start an eatery in San Fernando, La Union, 29 years ago was actually money they had borrowed from a friend. They were in such dire straits at the time after sustaining heavy losses as biyaheros or traveling buy-and-sell agents.

Maranan recalls: "We really had a hard time as biyaheros, peddling our wares in a bamboo tray all over the town. We would do it the whole day under the heat of the sun--a very exhausting task that gave us no assurance at all of selling anything."

Indeed, the biyahero couple went bankrupt before long, so they decided to venture into what they thought was a more reliable business. They saw a captive market of jeepney drivers from a nearby terminal and put up their eatery beside it. This was how they got Mary's Eatery started, and the business did well during its first year. It served the usual carinderia fare in the morning, and beer and grilled street foods like "adidas" (chicken feet) in the evening.

The Sauza sisters went into the processed meat business in Kalibo, Aklan, to augment the family's income. In 1983, while on vacation in their hometown, Roselita had asked her sister Ruby to think of a sideline business so they could stretch her vacation money. Roselita was working at the time as a government employee at the Region IV office of the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) in Manila.

Both of them knew how to make longanisa, so the sisters decided to use P200 of Roselita's money to buy 5 kg of meat and the needed spices. They then started making longanisa and Ruby sold it to the various government offices in town. Roselita returned to Manila to get back to work after two weeks, but Ruby continued the business because of the growing demand for their product.

In the case of Chiqui Barretto, she went into the gift-wrapping business without really intending to. She had a desktop printing shop at Waltermart in Calamba, Laguna, a franchised business called Personalized Greeting that she has been running since 1998. Her shop is right beside the Abenson appliance store, and it just so happened that customers buying appliances for gift-giving got into the habit of buying rolled gift-wrapping paper from Barretto's shop.

In time the Abenson customers started asking Barretto to gift-wrap their appliances as well. Although it was not her shop's line of business, Barretto would agree to personally wrap the appliances so as not to disappoint the people asking for the service. The volume of the gift-wrapping orders then grew to a point that Barretto decided to make gift-wrapping a regular business.

In November 2000, she asked the Waltermart management for permission to offer gift-wrapping as a regular service. She explained that Christmas was already approaching and there was no shop offering the service anyway. Waltermart approved her request and allowed her to set up a gift-wrapping table for 35 days at a very reasonable rental rate.

Recalls Barretto: "I started this with only my credibility as capital. I got the materials I needed on a 30-day term from local suppliers. The table I used was remodeled scrap from my cousin's shop, for which I later paid P8,500."

The business, which she initially called the Gift Wrap Company, did so well that she was able to pay the suppliers and the rental even before the due dates.

Preeyada and her husband Roland, who are used to getting a massage every week, got into the Thai massage business because they could not get the real Thai massage from the local parlors. "I was very disappointed with the Thai massage that we were getting," she recalls. "I'm a Thai and I love Thai massage, so I know what a real Thai massage is." 

At that time Preeyada was commuting from Barangay Molino in Bacoor, Cavite, to Makati City where she worked with a golf-tour and travel company. She found all that traveling so tiring so she decided she might as well put up a business of her own offering real Thai massage. 

Not having enough capital to put up a massage parlor, though, she started with a home spa/massage service in 2008. She would call potential clients using her personal mobile phone, and her husband Roland would provide her with flyers to be distributed to the nearby villages. She has since trained six people as therapists to help her handle her growing clientele.  

EXPANDING THE VENTURES

For these seven entrepreneurs, growing their respective businesses has not been easy considering that they were all started with small capitalizations.

At least in the case of Barretto, however, she was able to expand her Gift Wrap Company by just plowing back its profits into the business. In 2002, after putting up an improved storefront for her original Calamba gift-wrapping outlet, she put up another branch at Sta. Rosa, Laguna, and registered the business under a new name, Wrap it Up! The company now has 11 branches and will be opening three more this year.

"I was able to put up one branch after another from the profits of every branch," she says. "I eventually opened the business for franchising, improved each of the stores and their merchandising, and trained my employees using the profits generated by the business."

In the case of the Sauza sisters, they recovered their initial investment in Rosa Foods in less than a month. They were able to increase weekly production from 5 kg to 10 kg, then to 15kg and on to 20 kg because a meat supplier had agreed to give them a daily credit term--too short actually, but still a great help to the fledgling Rosa Foods. 

Later, the Sauza sisters chipped in money to buy a meat grinder. This enabled them to increase their daily production to 100 kg by the end of their first year in the business. 

After paying back the P450 they owed from their friend, the Maranan couple decided to expand and move their eatery to make it bigger. Every now and then they borrowed small sums of money from their friends to finance their expansion. 

Even as the business grew, however, the couple maintained their strategy of catering primarily to the masses. In 2002, after further renovating and expanding it as well as improving its menu, they changed the name of the eatery from Mary's Eatery to R&M Canteen, Catering & Videoke.

In 1994, the Maranan couple diversified by opening City Image Salon, which offers hair and makeup services as well as gown rentals. They will soon be also opening a resort with 20 cottages at Cabaraoan in San Fernando City, La Union.

As to Preeyada and her husband Roland, they were able to eventually put up a shop of their own, Preeyada's Real Thai Massage Center, in August 2008 despite not having enough capital. 

What Preeyada did was to save the profits from their home-massage service to fund the establishment of the center, and to negotiate as a low a rent as possible from the owner of the shop space. To further economize, the couple used the furniture in their house to furnish the center and asked Preeyada's friends and family members from Thailand to bring oils, ointments, and herbs to the center in exchange for getting a massage.

Preeyada used the business's profit to buy more equipment, furniture, oil containers, service boxes, beds, and beddings. After six months, the couple was able to open another branch in Tagaytay City, again furnishing the new center with some used equipment and furniture from their first branch. "To expand, we would literally reuse our resources," Roland says, "What we don't need, we don't buy; what we could save, we save." 

In the case of Rosa Foods, it now has a separate HACCP-accredited factory that produces 300 kg of processed meat daily. It has consistently pursued a strategy of not stocking up on inventory, producing only according to the demand. This has made the business more cost-efficient, and with its inventories always moving very fast, there is very little wastage or none at all.

Rosa Foods currently supplies various outlets in Western Visayas and in Manila. It now also has a store in Boracay and a warehouse-outlet in Iloilo to cater to their Bacolod and Iloilo customers.  

What these seven entrepreneurs have proven is that it is entirely possible to grow a business from scratch--literally with only P10,000 or even much less. And what they have done, any entrepreneur worth his or her salt certainly can do, too.

ROAD TO SUCCESS

For Chiqui Barretto of Wrap It Up!, the key to success in business is having a good grasp of the customers' motivation, behavior, and taste and being able to communicate it to the employees. 

She calls her employees "wrap artists" and expects them to know precisely why they are in the business. She explains: "We make every gift a masterpiece. No matter how simple the gift is, it must always exude the 'specialness' of the recipient."

Barretto adds that you also need to cultivate good relationships with your suppliers. This way, she says, they will be willing to help you in any way they can when you want to expand your business.

For Mary Maranan of R&M Canteen, success was made possible by her having the courage to pursue the business despite the difficulties and by making every effort to keep the trust of her suppliers and creditors.

Her advice to would-be entrepreneurs: "To earn the trust of your creditors, make it a point to pay whatever you borrowed from them."

For Preeyada and Roland of Preeyada's Real Thai Massage, success was the result of investing in the training of their therapists and of incorporating the Thai culture in their services. 

Preeyada explains: "Our business is healing. Thai massage is not just a simple massage but is all about healing; it's a combination of reflex and yoga. So we make our therapists study the Thai culture and its connection with the massage. They must understand that they're not just offering a service but are actually healing their clients."

For Roselita Sauza of Rosa Foods, success came largely from her decision to go full-time in the business to better manage it. By doing so, she says, she and her sister Ruby were able to standardize the system of the whole business, including accounting, inventory, and production. This enabled the company to expand and capture a larger market.

Read this article too, you may find it helpful: http://smallbusinessphilippines.blogspot.com/2012/02/small-business-idea-10000-to-30000.html

Yehey! A Blog about Small Business in the Philippines is here!

"Filipinos are so creative in many ways."


This line looks so promising to me. It will make you say "WOW" right? But the poverty rate in the Philippines as of today is so high.

Why?

Because most of the Filipinos do not have a WEALTHY MINDSET.

Wealthy mindset? What is it?


When I was a kid, I was always reminded to be excellent at school so that I can work in an elegant office anywhere in Metro Manila. I know most of the Filipinos have the same experience. Everybody is expected to do well at school so that when you finished school, you will land in a very good JOB.

A job. This is the goal of many of the Filipinos since then even up to now. A job.

Many Filipinos are really intelligent. We cannot deny that fact because ACADEMIC awards from all over the world still continue to grow in numbers. There are a lot of INTELLIGENT Filipino graduates.

I have a question for you: If there are a lot of intelligent and skilled Filipino graduates, why does National Statistics Office shows 8% unemployment rate and 17.8% underemployment rate as of April 2010? This is a very sad statistics. It's even sadder as I think that if we do not have call centers, maybe this rate is higher that we can never imagine.

Why is it that we already did what our parents wanted us to do and that is to be excellent at school, but still many of us do not land on that dream JOB?

Do not tell me this, "Hey, maybe those that are shown in that rate are people who did not go to school." WRONG. I have a lot of friends who did well during our elementary, high school, and college days, but do not have a JOB. And I am sure you know many of your friends are like this too.

I also know people who has a job, good for them, BUT is that the job they deserve? Isn't it that they sacrificed enough when they are still studying but why are they getting a job that a high school graduate can also qualify? They are getting these jobs because for them, it is better to have a job than no job at all. They are getting these jobs JUST to have a JOB.

NOW, I CHALLENGE ALL OF YOU. Why don't we change our mindset? Let's all have a WEALTHY MINDSET.

As I have said, Filipinos are creative in so many ways. Do not let us waste our creativity for nothing. JOB is not the answer for everything. I believe in the saying that JOB means JUST OVER BROKE. Let our creative minds save us from poverty. Why don't we start using our creative minds to build a small business instead?

"But I told you I do not have money, why am I entering the world of business? I cannot even land on the job that I wanted and you want me to put up a business?!"

Again, that's why I told you build a SMALL business first. Everyone can do this even if you do not have money.

"You're wrong. I already have a small business but I am still poor. You are a liar!"

OK, given you have a small business, but are you practicing a wealthy mindset? It is not because you have a business means you are on your way to financial freedom. It is something to do with your mindset as well. Most of us Filipinos are academically literate but a less portion of the population is FINANCIAL LITERATE.

FINANCIAL LITERACY is a very important term to remember in the rest of our lives.

Financial literacy does not mean a complicated calculation of everything. It does not mean you have to be a graduate of a famous financial school just to learn this. THAT IS NOT FINANCIAL LITERACY.

Financial literacy can be learned by EVERYONE! Yes, you read that right! By everyone! Financial literacy will make you an expert on how to handle your own money, be it a salary of a factory worker or a salary of a Chief Executive Officer. Both will land into financial freedom if you are financially literate.

Did you know that a CEO, a president of the company, a teacher, a staff employee, a supervisor, a janitor, an engineer, a lawyer and other people who have different job positions and different salary ranges LAND ON THE SAME FINANCIAL CATEGORY if they do not know how to be financial literate?

WHAT?! A CEO and a janitor land on the same financial category?! But why?!

It is because job position and salary does not matter. It is your financial literacy that matters. Let us increase our FINANCIAL IQ. According to Robert Kiyosaki, a renowned author and businessman, Financial IQ is a solution to our financial problems.

This is a short video of Donald Trump and Robert Kiyosaki talking about Increasing Financial IQ.




But I still don't get it. I still don't understand!

That is why I made this blog. I also do not believe in one time learning. You should learn and see many articles, reviews, insights from the experts, ideas, and other links that will help you understand financial literacy.

I named this blog, "Small Business Philippines" because I believe that having a small business is the first step to be financial literate. If you do not have any ideas, I will also provide you in this blog some small business ideas, opportunities, small business related events, small business coaching programs and other things that will help you to be a successful Filipino entrepreneur. Oh by the way, people from all over the world can also use this blog because I also do include book reviews from the successful entrepreneurs, marketing ideas from renowned authors like Seth Godin and Jay Conrad Levinson, reviews of inspirational talks of Bo Sanchez and other successful speakers.

LET'S GO AND GROW TO BE FINANCIAL LITERATE! JUST FOLLOW THIS BLOG AS I SHARE ALL MY EXPERIENCES AND I HOPE THAT YOU WILL UNDERSTAND HOW TO INCREASE YOUR FINANCIAL IQ BETTER THAN I DO.