I was 23 and living in Squatters Area near Visayas Ave, Quezon city.
Yes, you read that right. I grew up in a squatters area.
I had no money.
I had no direction in life.
I had no mentor to guide me where to start to change my life.
... and the worst part was...
A few months back, I faced a significant incident that resulted in my departure from the company I was working for.
This meant I couldn't continue pursuing my goal of becoming a Chief Engineer.
Yes, I was a Seaman back then.
And to show I wasn't well-off, my father's only condition for college was to pass the Maritime Academy entrance exam in Bataan, where they offered a full scholarship.
Yep, I passed and spent my whole 4 years inside the academy to pursue a seafaring career as an engineer.
I spent 3 years to practice my professional career.
But if you think I have the capital to invest in business, you're wrong. The whole savings that I got from my seafaring career was lost because we used it to fund our first family business venture, a poultry farm.
To cut the story short, we lost it in 2 years time along with my whole 3 years savings.
Then I started learning eCommerce and Dropshipping, spent the whole first 2 years of my journey to sell Generic products.
At first it was great. It was 2016 that time and it's the eCommerce Gold Rush where you can sell anything and expect that it would sell like pancakes.
But soon after, I realized that selling generic products isn't the best way to build a sustainable business so that's where I started to create my own brands.
It was great that time, because finally you've launched your brand, spent huge sum of money to fund my inventories til' I realized that I still have the same mindset back when I was selling generic products.
I focused on selling trendy products and white label it.
For the record, Product white labeling is a great way to start a brand but if you're not careful on your market selection, it could lead to massive loss of time, money and opportunity.
But let me start by sharing this. .
There’s a stupid myth out there..that you need lots of capital to Launch your Ecommerce brand.
… Well sometimes it doesn’t..
And if you want to SUCCEED in the Direct-To-Consumer Brand/Ecommerce Space it is almost never the answer...
My partner, Diane even started her own unique make up cosmetics line for women who don't usually wear make up with just less than 20,000php.
Even if we have the capacity now to massively invest on building our new brands. We still stick our own methodology of starting lean.
What you need is to start now. Yes, as in NOW!
I always advise my students to not look for something that you don't have when starting.
Start with the resources that you have.
Your knowledge.
Your passion.
Your experience.
Use it! To build something great.
Sometimes you just need to be resourceful.
I know, because I tried.
I gave it everything I had.
I gave it my BEST shot.
And it didn’t work.
Because I played by the rules and I did everything right...