I’m beginning to think most good ideas come from high school buddies who want to change the world for good and coffee shop talks late into the night.
An exaggeration, of course, but that’s exactly how it started for Paolo Benigno A. Aquino IV and Mark Joaquin Ruiz. These two thirty-somethings have come up with an idea to alleviate Philippine poverty one sari-sari store at a time through a business model that aims to create the first Filipino branded sari-sari store chain.
They both gave up their leadership positions in their regular jobs – Aquino as chairman of the National Youth Commission and Ruiz as senior customer marketing manager in Unilever – to set up Microventures Inc. last year and begin the Hapinoy Store chain.
If the idea sounds like a novel, idealistic and quite impossible idea, blame it on their youth and, perhaps, genetic make-up. Does the “Aquino” surname ring a bell? Paolo Benigno or Bam as he is known to friends, is the nephew of former President Cory Aquino and the late Ninoy Aquino.
Interestingly, however, big corporate names like Smart Communications smell a good business proposition and have signed on for a long-term engagement. Smart public affairs chief Mon Isberto told me their main reason is definitely not altruistic. Nestle, Colgate, Century Tuna and the maker of Oishi have also signed up. They all think they can fulfill their “doing good while doing well” sort of thing in this new idea.
The concept of the sari-sari store is a Filipino invention that comprises a major chunk of the Philippine economy, numbering to around 650,000. Question is, can Microventures make this thing work?
Here are the mechanics:
Beneficiaries of Microventures’ microfinance partner, Center for Agriculture and Rural Development Inc., who are in good standing and has an existing sari-sari store can sign up to join the Hapinoy Store program.
Beneficiaries of CARD are mostly nanays, the more glamorous title being work-at-home moms. If you are familiar with how microfinance works, these nanays work together in groups of five or thereabouts, so when Bam says the nanays have to be in good standing to be considered for the program, I imagine they need to have good peer reviews.
Reason? Under the program, Microventures will take a chance on these stores by giving sari-sari stores a makeover with bright paint and the huge Hapinoy smile plus additional capital from CARD. The stores will have direct access to manufacturers resulting in a bigger margin, the nanays can qualify for trainings under sari-eskwela where they will learn about inventory management, credit management and other stuff.
That should be of interest to overseas Filipino workers who are always enticed to put up a sari-sari store and fail because of bad management. The Hapinoy idea is like franchising and professionalizing how the business is done. Eventually, if all goes well, Microventures wants to see the sari-sari stores evolving into bigger businesses.
It’s not very hard to see how manufacturers will benefit from the scheme. Stripped of the PR lingo, they are merely expanding their market so they can reach areas where the big dealers cannot go. I asked Bam if Microventures itself could survive with a profit? Those trainings, makeovers, logistic support, the food we ate for lunch during the press conference – all those require money!
“We are trying to fulfill our business and social objectives at the same time. We don’t want mere dole outs, we want to help people on the ground. But we will also fulfill our business objective and we will be sustainable once we have the scale,” he said.
The targeted scale is at least 100,000 stores. Whew. That’s a lotta work, but it’s an idea that I personally think is worth trying. When you write business stories day in and day out as a profession, you see a neat idea immediately. This is definitely one of those.
August 17th, 2008 at 11:38 am
what are the steps and procedure in acquiring sari-sari store?
August 6th, 2008 at 9:38 pm
hi people pls help me settle my mind. i am going to start a small sari-sari store. My problem is how do i know the total profiet of the day when my sales is from a mixture of sold items. i just wanna start making money myself.
February 15th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
i don’t have sari-sari store yet but i want to open a store that’s why I’m looking for a microfinancing institution to help me open a sari-sari store… I’m i qualified to be part of the HAPINOY program.please consider Bulacan Area.thank you.
January 8th, 2008 at 8:46 pm
hi anne, as of a few months ago, hapinoy is operating in the CALABARZON area, not yet in Palawan. No news yet when they will open in your area :(. Keep in touch, though, because I know they have a tight deadline so they really need to expand this year.
January 2nd, 2008 at 11:49 am
hi!
how can i join? is there any requirements? is it already existing in a far province like Palawan?
November 26th, 2007 at 10:20 am
Hello! I am the chairperson of Bayung Sibul Multi Purpose Cooperative of Pampanga. With the Colayco Foundation for Education and our cooperative, we will host and prganize a trade fair and seminar on the 18th of January at the Plenary Hall of WOW Hilaga city of San Fernando Pampanga. The seminar’s advocacy is to help Kapampangan OFW families, small entrepreneurs, working class, college students and cooperatives to grow their business and manage their personal finances through seminars that will provide them the practical tips and strategy frameworks. This project aims also to educate Kapampangan on how to plan, save and invest their hard earned money to legitimate small businessess and eventually ERADICATE the JUETENG business in our province.
In line iwth this undertaking, we wish to invite your group to be our special partner of this event by way of becoming our inspirational speaker and providing us the inofrmations on how Kapampangans can avail HAPINOY Sari-Sari Store.
Thank you po!
October 4th, 2007 at 5:27 am
kindly check out our website as well : http://www.hapinoy.com
October 3rd, 2007 at 9:07 pm
Hi Everyone,
I’m Mark Ruiz from MicroVentures, Inc.
Before anything else, i’d like to thank you for your interest and questions. I’d just like to respond to some of them :
1. Hapinoy is currently offered only to members of microfinancing institutions who have sari-sari stores.
2. Our pilot is currently with CARD (Center for Agriculture and Rural Development), the largest Microfinancing Institution in the Philippines but we also have a lot of other MFI partners. Our pilot is in (7) towns in the CALABARZON area.
3. We currently have 1,000 Hapinoy stores as part of our pilot, but a lot of other MFI sari-sari stores are just waiting to be operationalized. We are just ensuring that very sound systems are in place before scaling up.
4. We don’t get a “franchise fee” from the Hapinoy stores. There is a very minimal one-time participation fee, but it depends on the MFI partner. In our pilot, the participation fee is only P150 with already corresponding benefits such as additional capital, access to best prices (for our partner manufacturers), training through our SariSariSkwela, and a store makeover. The sustainability and viability of the benefits for our Nanays comes from the support of our partner-sponsors who are happy to help because they also benefit from the sales and distribution to the Hapinoy network.
Should you have any more questions (and in fact, ideas and suggestions!), do send us an email : info@hapinoy.com
All the best,
Mark Joaquin Ruiz
Managing Director
MicroVentures, Inc
October 3rd, 2007 at 1:30 pm
hi rosita,
sorry for the late reply. as of now, you need to be a borrower of the microfinance organization called CARD so that you can join the Hapinoy movement. You can go to CARD’s website, here is the link: http://www.cardbankph.com/
good luck and keep that fire in your belly for entrepreneurship going!
Regards,
Salve
September 25th, 2007 at 11:53 pm
How to be a member and do you have choice sites I intend to put a store infront of my house and be a lead store very soon. Hope for your early response.
Thank you.
September 21st, 2007 at 7:13 pm
pinoy investor, they earn from distribution of goods. From my understanding, there are no franchise fees. They are just starting, so I don’t think they have the figures already. First 1,000 stores pa lang last week. They are targeting something like 100,000 stores by the end of next year.
September 21st, 2007 at 7:05 am
[...] to Salve, Microventures will take a chance on these stores by giving sari-sari stores a makeover with [...]
September 18th, 2007 at 4:17 pm
Very interesting. Where does Microventures get its income - franchise fees or profit from selling goods? What’s the ave. sales & net income per month? Are prices lower than makro, uniwide or jc spice? How many stores does it have?
Great work guys!
September 18th, 2007 at 2:38 pm
hi scaredy cat, ms. fernandez and blue ice: you can go to the Microventures website (click on the link in the blog post) and send them an email. They will be very happy to know you’re interested. Or, you can email your request to me so I can forward to Bam Aquino. My email address is lightdream@gmail.com.
September 18th, 2007 at 10:42 am
Hi Salve
Its a very great idea and it will help and challenge a lot of people who are indeed need help to progress.
By the way how to join and what are the qualifications.
Regards
September 18th, 2007 at 10:02 am
Hi! how can i contact Microventures? Tnx. More power.
September 18th, 2007 at 1:39 am
Hi Salve-
Great news.
How to join? Who to contact?
Cheers!