ENTREPRENEURIA

L MIND
Module 2
Entrepreneurial Start-ups
 Why are you Interested in
Entrepreneurship?
• You may have an idea that can change the world or improve an
existing process you are familiar with

• You may have a technological breakthrough and want to capitalize on

it (perhaps, by founding a startup)

• You may have a passion and want to learn about entrepreneurship

while looking for a good idea, technology, and/or a partner
 Why are you Interested in
Entrepreneurship?

In any of these cases, at this stage you may want simply to uncover the world
of startups and entrepreneurship. If so, let us get started!
 What is a Startup?
• A startup is an organization designed to innovate a new product or service
under conditions of extreme uncertainty (“The Lean Startup” by Eric Ries)
• An organization encompasses mission, vision, strategy, hiring, accounting,
finance, operations, etc.,

• In this context, however, it operates under too much uncertainty, following

leap-of-faith assumptions concerning its invention

• Innovation = Invention × commercialization

• This implies that having a product does not mean you have a business
 The Single Condition for a Business
• The single necessary and sufficient condition for a business is a paying
customer

• The day someone pays you money for your product or service, you have a
business, and NOT the day before

• But, having a paying customer does not mean you have a sustainable
business!

• To have a sustainable business, you need enough customers paying enough

money within a reasonable amount of time
 Entrepreneurship
• Entrepreneurship is the process of creating a sustainable business

• There are two types of entrepreneurship

• Small and Medium Enterprise (SME)
• Innovation-Driven Enterprise (IDE)

SME IDE
Market Local and/or Regional Regional/Global
Invention Not Necessary Necessary
Jobs Non-tradable Tradable
External Capital Typically No Yes
Growth Linear Exponential
SME and IDE Expected Revenue &
Job Trends
Revenue & Jobs

Revenue & Jobs

“Burning Area”

Time Time
SME : Usually Not Risky IDE: Much Riskier, but
More Ambitious (Go Big
or Go Home!)
SME and IDE Expected Revenue &
Job Trends
Revenue & Jobs

Revenue & Jobs

“Burning Area”
The Focus of this
Course!
Time Time
SME : Usually Not Risky IDE: Much Riskier, but
More Ambitious (Go Big
or Go Home!)
STARUPS
Revenue & Jobs

“Burning Area”

Time
IDE : Much Riskier, but
More Ambitious (Go Big
or Go Home!)
STARUPS
 Entrepreneurship vs. Management
• IDE entrepreneurship is a special kind of management
• Entrepreneurship is cool, innovative, and exciting
• Management is dull, serious, and bland
• What is actually exciting is to see a startup succeed and change the
world
• This cannot happen without managing it rightly
• The road to excitement passes through the (boring)
management stuff!

• Why IDE entrepreneurship is a special kind of management?

 Entrepreneurship vs. Management
• Why special?
• Traditional business thinking suggests:
• Perfecting a product, even if takes a great deal of time; hence, long cycle times
• Large teams and hierarchical organizations
• Failures are unacceptable

• Modern business (or entrepreneurial) thinking suggests:

• Building a minimum viable product (MVP); hence, short cycle times
• Focusing on what customers want, thus experimenting tremendously
• Failing as a prerequisite for success
• Small teams and flat organizations
 Schools of Thought in
Entrepreneurship
• Three major schools of thought:
1. “Just Do It”
• Most entrepreneurs are wary of implementing traditional management practices,
afraid that this will invite bureaucracy or stifle creativity
• They assume management is the problem, hence, chaos is the answer
• Unfortunately, this approach leads to chaos more often than it does to success

2. “Launch a Rocket Ship”

• Specify every single step to take in excruciating details (typically by tapping into a
proven set of techniques used for managing big companies)
• Specify the expected result of every single step taken– what happens if a tiny error
occurs? Can you adapt or pivot?
 Schools of Thought in
Entrepreneurship
• Three major schools of thought:
3. “Drive a Car”
• Set a (hypothetical) path to reach a destination (you are not sure whether
this path will lead to the destination)
• Experiment with and validate your path
• Persevere, adapt, or even pivot if needed
• If you are driving to work, do you give up if there is a detour in the
road or you made a wrong turn?
• No, you remain thoroughly focused on getting to your destination

The third school of though is the recommended one!

 Who is an Entrepreneur?
• Anyone who creates a startup is an entrepreneur
• This implies that an entrepreneur should have a (strong) appetite of risk taking

• But an entrepreneur needs not create a startup; she/he can operate inside
“established” organizations
• This entrepreneur is typically referred to as “intrapreneur”

• In addition, an entrepreneur does not need to invent!

• E.g., Steve Jobs identified the computer mouse created by Xerox PARC and
commercialized it effectively through Apple
• E.g., Larry Page and Sergey Brin used AdWords (which was created by Overture
Services, Inc) on their search results pages
Shoppe
Carl Ocab, at the age of 12,
started tinkering with the
The housing crisis is one of the major
Internet. He created information
problems facing the Philippines. Earl
websites and forums. By age 13,
Patrick Forlales and Zahra Halabisaz
he started carlocab.com. After a
Zanjani seek to tackle this problem as the
few months, the website hit the
co-founders of Cubo, a company that
top spot of Google for a highly
designs and constructs bamboo houses in
coveted keyword in its niche. It
just four hours. It is a fast and easily
was at this time that various
deployable solution. The original design
media outlets noticed him. Today,
for the units was inspired by the bamboo
he has turned carlocab.com into
huts that Forlales’ grandparents had built.
one of the highest caliber
Cubo also supports community housing
internet marketing agencies,
Georgianna is a serial entrepreneur currently
based in the Philippines. She is the founder and
owner of three companies: Fetch! Naturals, a
line of all natural pet care products made out of
100% plant Aqueous Extract, MyOffice
Philippines, one of the first Filipino owned and
operated virtual office in the country for mobile
workers and Permitly PH, an online platform to
help entrepreneurs start a business in the
Philippines. Through Fetch! Naturals, she is able
to spread awareness in the Philippines when it
comes to pet care and using natural
alternatives. With MyOffice, she is active in the
local start-up community, supporting
entrepreneurs by giving them an affordable
alternative when it comes to office space and
support services. The goal of Permitly is to help
entrepreneurs with the processes when it
comes to starting a business in the country.
Kenn Costales is the founder and CEO
of Monolith Growth Consulting, a
growth marketing agency that enables
CEOs and owners of global and
regional eCommerce and SaaS
companies to grow traffic, conversions
and sales at a CPA that unlocks scale.
It has served over 30 clients with a
growth management team covering
paid acquisition, conversion rate
optimization, content marketing and
conversion-based design. As a self-
funded business with no investors, it
prioritises its customers’ success,
which has led to over 90% of clients
retaining its services on a monthly
Ronson Culibrina is a visual artist who works
mostly in paintings, sculptures and
installations. He graduated with a degree in
advertising from the Technological University
of the Philippines. Also last year, he
completed a residency grant at Liverpool
Hope University-Creative Campus in the
United Kingdom. In the past, his art mainly
revolve around playful takes on history,
politics, diaspora and cultural diffusion,
appropriating imagery drawn from the
canons of art history, consumer and popular
culture to express parodies and
commentaries. His most recent works deal
with ecological transformations and its
sociocultural impact, inspired by his
hometown and formative environment. He
works closely with his collective composed of
young and emerging artists in the
Matthew Cua founded SkyEye Analytics Inc.
which was initially a university project in
2009 while taking up his Master’s degree in
Environmental Science. Cua had to handle
everything by himself. He eventually
managed to turn $20,000 initial funding and
some research funds into a company with 24
full time employees and $600,000 in annual
turnover. SkyEye has developed its own
software, hardware and operational
techniques that allow it to provide services
faster, better and cheaper. It is part of the
United Nations OCHA which is responsible for
bringing together humanitarian actors to
ensure a coherent response to emergencies.
Stephanie Sy is the founder, CEO and Chief
Data Scientist of Thinking Machines. A Silicon
Valley start-up veteran and former Google
employee, she came home in 2015 with the
goal of making the Philippines a global hub
for data science. Since its founding in 2015,
Thinking Machines has grown into a global
data science technology company with a
client list ranging from the biggest
corporations in the Philippines to global
nonprofits and award-winning media
organizations. Thinking Machines, under Sy’s
leadership, continues to innovate and
experiment with new technology to help
solve problems. At only 30 years old, Sy has
turned Thinking Machines into a data science
powerhouse and shows no signs of stopping
now. She holds an undergraduate degree in
Management Science & Engineering from
Aisa Mijeno is a scientist and
entrepreneur that co-founded SALt.
Calling itself a social movement, SALt
provides lamps that run on salt water.
SALt has revolutionised lighting in many
rural communities across the
Philippines and helped them switch
from the use of kerosene. In 2014, she
was invited as an APEC CEO Summit
panel member together with ex-
President Barack Obama and Alibaba
CEO, Jack Ma. Looking forward, she
wishes to distribute more lanterns to
communities across the Philippines and
possibly throughout Southeast Asia.
Aisa is also the director of De La Salle
Innovation Labs.
Avin Ong is the founder of the Fredley Group
of Companies, a master franchise collection
of 120 restaurant and café branches
operating in the Philippines with over 1,000
employees and 9 separate brands in the
company portfolio including Macao Imperial
Tea, Nabe Japanese Izakaya and Hot Pot,
Mitasu Yakiniku, New York Fries & Dips and
Liang Crispy Rolls. This number will grow
with plans to have a total of 200 branches
operating by year 2020. Avin has double
MBAs from the Ateneo de Manila University
and ESSCA – Ecolé de Management in
Budapest, an honours degree from De La
Salle University and global experience with
Deutsche Bank. He spearheads the
company’s corporate social responsibility
initiatives and is also a Street Education
Programme champion.
Leandro Leviste is the founder of Solar
Philippines, Southeast Asia’s largest and
only integrated solar developer, investor,
manufacturer and procurement and
construction (EPC) solar company. Electricity
rates in the Philippines are among the
highest in Asia. Leandro saw an opportunity
and founded the company in his sophomore
year at Yale University. Solar Philippines
buys its panels from different suppliers and
then provides its customers with financing,
engineering and installation. Millions of
households across the Philippines currently
enjoy the benefits reaped from the solar
farm Solar Philippines develops, construct
and operates. Leviste has been invited to
speak at international forums all around the
world and is considered an authority on solar
in Southeast Asia.
 The Startup Realty
• The grim reality is that most startups fail

• There are five essential elements that lead to successful startups

TEAM &
IDEA BUSINESS MODEL FUNDING TIMING
Execution
 What Makes Startups Succeed?

Idea Team BM Funding Timing Idea Team BM Funding Timing Idea Team BM Funding Timing

10 9 8 6 10 8 9 5 4 9 8 10 7 7 10

Ranks over 10
Succeeded [Based on a study by IdeaLab]
 What Makes Startups Succeed?

Idea Team BM Funding Timing Idea Team BM Funding Timing Idea Team BM Funding Timing

8 5 4 6 6 4 5 6 10 4 4 5 6 10 4

Failed
[Based on a study by IdeaLab]
 What Makes Startups Succeed?

Time 42%

Factors of
Team & 32% success
Execution
across
Idea 28% more than
200
companies
Business 24%
Model

Funding 14%

[Based on a study by IdeaLab]

What Makes Startups Succeed?
Factors In Success Across 200 Companies
45% 42%
40%
35% 32%
30% 28%
25% 24%
20%
15% 14%
10%
5%
0%
Idea Team Bussiness Funding Timing
Model

[Based on a study by IdeaLab]