I first heard about the “Why Not” forum from Smart’s Mon Isberto. At the time, I thought it was just a marketing gimmick or people pounding their fists on the table about something nationalistic when they are actually just marketing themselves. This blog post by Niña Terol has made me see that there must be something real here for the politics-weary Filipino who wants to change the world — often through entrepreneurship. I post this with the permission of Mark Ruiz, one of the founders of Why Not. Read on:

By Niña Terol
 
It was an ordinary Thursday night, and yet Warehouse 135, the hip warehouse-turned-club on Yakal Street in Makati, was filled to capacity. Only it wasn’t filled with clubgoers and party scenesters—it was filled with young professionals, creative minds, thinkers, and dreamers who all dared to ask a question that would set the tone for the entire evening’s talks: Why not?
 
The WhyNot? Forum, according to founders Mark Ruiz and Bam Aquino, is a “smorgasboard of great, brave ideas—an open-source innovation soup that will hopefully inspire other Filipinos all over to connect adjunct thoughts, take impactful action, and weave together new breakthrough ideas.” Inspired by the TEDTalks of the United States ( www.ted.com), it is based on the simple idea of gathering some of the best minds in the country to share their respective ideas for 15 minutes each. By asking The Question and challenging outmoded assumptions, it is hoped that WhyNot? Forum will spark a thought revolution that will encourage people to “think new thoughts, share big dreams, do brave things.”

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It’s not hard to imagine that from the OFW perspective, financial dreams are not made of candy clouds and somnambulant wanderings between bright business ideas. They are built by wide-eyed hard work and sacrifice. Unfortunately, financial security at home – the dream of almost every OFW I know – gets trumped by many things, not least of all the inability to start a small business.

Nielsen Media Research simply described this inability as a tendency to depend on monthly remittances for daily expenses. Jay Mendoza, NMR says most families of OFWs prefer to have no other sources of income.

I’m not an expert on the OFW community, but I think there’s more to the story than that, just as there is more to a business than capital. There must be more to the figures than just languid dependence and zero creativity.

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Every entrepreneur knows about the futility of moving with herds. You see a herd, get worked up by how profitable they look as they come down the highway stampeding all the way and you move quickly to join only to realize that you jumped in too late at too high a cost.

There’s not a hotter business idea these days that will compare with call centers. But can 10-seaters slug it out with the big boys? If you’re a Johnny-come-lately, do you still stand a chance?

Joji Ilagan Bian, a businesswoman from Davao says “Smites” or small and medium-scale IT enterprises are sprouting up and they are banding together to compete with big companies.

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The student with a clever idea for a business, the office worker who has been dreaming of starting a unique pastry shop, the OFW  who has been living poor so he can save enough money to start a business — all labor under the assumption that it takes money to make money.

I, too, believe that money begets money because capital is where the energy of an enterprise comes from. It’s not the only source, of course. An inspired business model, determination to succeed and all that are all folded into the business enterprise. But when it comes to money and capital, either you have it or you don’t have it.

Cynthia Baello, in “From P200 to riches”, an article from the Philippine Daily Inquirer, made me think again. She started her business with P200, and grew it from there. This story has several business lessons for everyone.

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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.

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