Entrepreneur BusinessMirror
E4 Wednesday, September 12, 2018
www.businessmirror.com.ph
Copperazo: More than just a business
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By Carlo Brix Sioting | Special to the BusinessMirror
INCE time immemorial, accessories have been an integral part of human beings’ adornment, an indication of their wealth, social status and individual taste. Gold, silver, and their alloy, as well as diamonds and other precious stones are favored as fashion pieces. With its rich natural resources, the Philippines has used these precious metals as basic elements in jewelry. Of late, with their innate creativity and imagination, local craftsmen have begun using copper, a malleable metal, in creating works of art and jewelry. One such artisan is Edwin Padillo, 38, a public relations practitioner, social worker, writer and craftsman. He is also taking a master’s degree in Social Work at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City. He is also father to an eight-month-old Lhasa Apso female he calls Boondie.
His business is called Copperazo, a play on the words “copper” and the Filipino word kapiraso meaning “pieces.” All the products are handmade locally with copper wires, semiprecious stones, leather, glass beads and recyclable materials. He sells his earrings, ear cuffs, bangles, bracelets, rings, necklaces and pendants in bazaars, fairs, special events and online—Facebook, Instagram and the Web. He calls his creations #WearableArt. The pieces are hand-made by Edwin himself in collaboration with his local crafters and grounded artists from Baguio, Tacloban and Dumaguete. “You don’t call them workers; you call them crafters. Right now, I have two in Baguio; I have a community in
COPPERAZO owner Edwin Padillo gestures during an interview. JAYMIE DELA CRUZ
Tacloban and I partnered with a social enterprise in Dumaguete where I source my beads,” Edwin said. “I craft. My brother and my nephew also craft. It’s not a big company, it’s a very small company, it’s a super microenterprise,” he added. In 2012 the business was passed on to Edwin by a friend. “I design. My crafters do, too. We get inspirations from what’s the trend. Artistically, I don’t want to limit their imagination and creativity by simply saying what I think is always right. In my experience, the
tastes of people are really different so there will be times when the designs I don’t really like would sell more to the public. So you just have to trust your crafters,” he said. Edwin said his business has a niche market. “Basically, we target those who are working because the price range is not that low, though it’s not that high either. A lot of my friends tell me our products are way cheaper than competition. I’d like to make it that way because I still want people to buy it.” “Most of my buyers are working women in their 30s, 40s or even in their 60s. They are mostly mothers and titas because they have the money. But what I really like about my buyers is they appreciate art. They are artistically inclined because they
In my experience, the tastes of people are really different so there will be times when the designs I don’t really like would sell more to the public.”—Pabillo
How Jack Ma became role model for China’s start-up generation
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ONG before he became China’s most globally prominent business figure, Jack Ma was just an English teacher trying to persuade his friends that they would one day buy things over the Internet. His vision changed China. As Ma makes plans to leave Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., his legacy will be an enduring one. He did far more than just create and build an e-commerce juggernaut into the most valuable company in Asia, impressive as that may be. He showed that an innovative private enterprise could thrive under a Communist Party regime once hostile, and still at times suspicious, of ambitious capitalists. To a remarkable degree, his path-breaking success created a model that gave rise to a technology industry that rivals Silicon Valley, propelling a Chinese economy on track to eclipse that of the United States. Ma is now China’s richest man, worth about $40 billion, and a headliner at global talking salons like Davos. At the same time, he’s complied with—and fiercely defended—his country’s ruling party even as it exerts ever tighter control over media, the internet and any hint of dissident speech. He’s gone so far as to praise the stability of one-party rule and chastise Western companies like Google that objected to China’s censorship practices. His approach demonstrated how entrepreneurial success can coexist with the Communist regime, paving the way for a new wave of start-ups. “He’s been a role model for our generation,” said Peiran Wei, a 36-year-old who says he had the confidence to cofound a start-up, an app developer called VideoUP, in large part because of Ma and Alibaba. Jack Ma’s personal story is now the stuff of schoolyard legend. He was born in 1964 to traditional Chinese musician-storytellers in Hangzhou, an ancient capital known for its historic sites and natural beauty. He honed his English by hanging around the town’s main hotel to practice with tourists. After working as a teacher, Ma turned to business, starting Alibaba.com in 1999 with 17 cofounders. He wasn’t the most technically savvy entrepreneur, nor would he claim the smartest. But he proved an inspiring leader who could rally his forces to fight foreign intruders or articulate a vision for modernizing China’s economy.
JACK MA
“Intelligent people need a fool to lead them,” he once said. “It’s easier to win if you have people seeing things from different perspectives.” Alibaba has brought e-commerce to remote villages of China and expanded into artificial intelligence, health care and Hollywood movies. Less than 20 years after its founding, the business that Jack and his cofounders built is valued at $420 billion, more than any of the older state-backed enterprises in his country. “He started his company with 18 people in an apartment and even today whenever I pass that place I think of him,” said Wei, who is also from Hangzhou. “It’s a 20-year-old apartment complex that doesn’t look posh but I still get inspiration from it.” One of the first to see the promise of Ma was Japan’s Masayoshi Son. His SoftBank Group Corp. led a $20-million investment in Alibaba in 2000 and now holds a stake worth about $120 billion. “He had no business plan, zero revenue,” Son said of Ma on The David Rubenstein Show. “But his eyes were very strong. I could tell from the way he talked, he has charisma, he has leadership.’’ It was Alibaba’s record-setting initial public offering that altered the country’s tech industry for good. Ma and team raised $25 billion, more than any other company before or since, a wake-up call for venture capitalists that there were fortunes to be made on the country’s start-ups.
appreciate this kind of methods and techniques. That’s why the hashtag is Wearable Art.” Edwin said among the three online sites, Facebook has the highest concentration of people buying the products. “We also sell in bazaars because we need to be visible, but most of the time, bazaars are expensive so medyo lugi because of the rent. As much as possible, I would try every weekend only, but not the whole month.” His products are amazingly functional and beautiful. His rings have an adjustable feature that fits every buyer’s size and shape. The idea is ingenious as Edwin learns that the number of their plus-sized customers is increasing. Venturing into jewelry was not really what Edwin set out to do.
The impact was immediate. Beijing-based smartphone maker Xiaomi Corp. raised venture funding a few months after the IPO at the highest valuation in the world, at $46 billion. It was soon surpassed by Uber Technologies Inc., but the floodgates were open. Venture deals in China rose from $4.4 billion in 2013 to $16.6 billion in 2014 and reached $62.6 billion in 2017, according to the market research firm Preqin. This year, China is on track to surpass the US in both venture capital raised and IPOs. “The China start-up scene wouldn’t exist in the same way without Jack Ma,” said William Bao Bean, a Shanghai-based partner at venture capital firm SOSV. “The celebrity of Jack Ma and the success of Alibaba made start-ups an acceptable career choice, which has fueled one of the biggest technology markets in the world.” Ma wasn’t just successful. He broke the mold for China’s business leaders, typically faceless chiefs running mammoth state-owned enterprises like PetroChina and China Mobile. He dressed up like Michael Jackson and tried the moon walk. He wore a 3-foot feather Mohawk and makeup to perform at a company party. And he dispensed Yoda-like axioms that were collected in dozens of management books. “To many he’s the face of China’s Internet—no one really knows what Pony Ma looks like,” said Bean, referring to the chief executive officer of Tencent Holdings Ltd. In that role, Ma would occasionally criticize his home country, including for its pollution problems, a potentially dangerous proposition given the power of the ruling party. But especially under current President Xi Jinping, he was forced to quiet his independent voice and often defended the government’s practices against its critics. “Facebook and these companies, if they come here they have to follow the rules and laws,” said Ma in December. “Google, they left—we did not kick them out. When you do business in any country you have to follow the rules and laws.” Mark Natkin, managing director of Beijingbased Marbridge Consulting, said business leaders including Ma have faced pressure to support the government under Xi, who has emerged as the country’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong. Bloomberg News
“Actually, as a businessman, I would want to venture into food because I know how to cook and that’s actually my dream. But Copperazo found me. A friend wanted me to try jewelry crafting using copper wire. I got the hang of it and actually, became good at it,” he said. “What made the business fulfilling for me was the discovery that I am artistic,” he said. “I became a self-taught crafter by just watching tutorial videos on Youtube and reading manuals.” He said he would eventually want to go into export, but he admitted he needed to be more confident about his capability and his products. “One time, I looked at a competitor’s products. I got depressed because her jewelry pieces were gorgeous. But then, she was an artist who studied design in college,” he said. “I now have buyers from overseas. Hopefully, before I reach the age of 40, I will no longer have to be in a 9-to-5 job,” he said. Copperazo accessories are available in Market Liberty, second floor, Evia Lifestyle Center in Las Piñas City.
Sheryl Barrozo: The hand behind Sendang’s Cakes market success By Rizal Raoul S. Reyes @brownindio Contributor
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HE wants to be a full-time mother but has to help augment the family income so she thought of establishing her own business. With a limited capital and no idea of what business to put up with, Saint Paul’s University Quezon City alumna Sheryl Barrozo, the hand behind Sendang’s Cakes, drew inspiration from her late mother’s mamon recipe that she used to bake for her children’s afternoon snack. Barrozo recalled that the idea started when she accidentally discovered her mom’s old oven in their house at the Provident Village in Marikina City. She brought the oven for repair and her aunt e-mailed her the mamon recipe of her mother, which she found in one of her notebooks. Skills wise, it was not difficult for Barrozo to perform baking chores because she worked as her mother’s assistant during her past baking sessions. And so, Sendang’s Cakes was launched in 2013. “It’s simply nostalgic. I wanted to recreate the mamon she made so my kids could also taste it, but I don’t know how and she was not able to pass it on to me. So, I took short baking courses here and there but to no avail. I just kept learning, posting photos and earning at the same time. Fortunately, a cousin of mine had the recipe written in index cards which was really a great help to develop a better quality,”Barrozo told the BusinessMirror in a recent interview. Barrozo adopted a cautious attitude in building the business. She also made sure that the products that she sells are really delicious and has value for money. Furthermore, she beefed up her techniques of the trade to become more competitive by taking baking courses. She admitted it was not easy because 80
percent of studying was based on actual baking chores. Although it was financially challenging because she was just starting, Barrozo took additional courses from Sylvia Reynoso Gala to hone her baking skills. To manage her funds efficiently, Barrozo had to maintain the quality of her cakes and mamon to ensure the money keeps on coming so she can pursue additional baking courses. Barrozo admitted being an entrepreneur involves blood, sweat and tears. With limited capital, Barrozo admitted it was not a walk in the park for Sendang’s in its fledgling years. Nevertheless, she was determined not to ask additional assistance from her husband in building the business. “I slowly made my way in acquiring the right equipment through profit. I chose the bigger equipment because it provides bigger output in a shorter span of time,” she said. During her first year, Barrozo worked on a lighter pace having just one or two orders per month with only December as the peak month. Later, it became incremental, especially in her third year and fourth and fifth years, when orders came on a weekly basis. “Since I am still building the business, Sendang’s is on a start-up basis,” she said. Marketing Sendang’s cakes and mamon was another challenge for Barrozo. Since she had very limited resources, Barrozo utilized a marketing strategy based on posting products online at appropriate times.“I sold my products after dinner or before midnight where a lot of people will crave for sweets,” she recalled. She also tapped her showbiz connection by selling products initially to former beauty queen and actress Alma Concepcion. Moreover, her products get exposure and promotion on It’s Showtime when one of the hosts is celebrating his birthday and she is the cake sponsor.