So sorry for the lack of posts last week. I poured water over my laptop. Of course, I did something phenomenally short-sighted when I tried turning it on to see if it still worked. It did. For around 2 minutes. Until it permanently died. I tried writing on my tablet, something less comfortable than writing on a real keyboard, but still palatable. There was just something seriously demotivating typing on something which had major cracks on the screen. You see, a friend of mine accidentally dropped it a few days ago. I found it amusing that after years and years of surviving multiple crazy toddlers at home, one perfectly-angled drop would finally shatter its honorable, … [Read more...]

  Before we did a change in business model, our prices in STORM for flexible benefits looked something like this: 0-500 Employees:                   P75,000/month 500-750 Employees:               P120,000/month 750-1000 Employees:             P150,000/month Then we changed business models in 2013. We started making revenue from our vendors instead. We became an online shop for benefits. Since we did this, we reduced our reliance on the monthly retainer fee. We became a volume-driven company. More employees, more people buying benefits our store - more revenue. At a certain threshold, we could give our services for free. Our pricing then became something like this: 0-250 … [Read more...]

Looking at the Philippine landscape, in a few years I think there will be two major types of firms here in the our country: The Behemoth They are already here, and they will grow even bigger. I've recently pitched to a couple of BPO firms who project to number in the 50,000's by next year. That is a mind-boggling number of people to manage. Already, I feel for the would-be HR Heads of these firms. I think this trend would just continue on the next few years. Why? Well, first of all I think the first world will continue to push even more work our way. We have seen this trend happen as more and more processes APART from voice support are gradually entrusted to BPO's here. We … [Read more...]

I've been getting a quite a few emails asking startup questions. Here's one of them I was just about to answer, then my brilliant wife suggested, "Why don't you answer it through a post so more people can benefit?" I love my wife. Reader Ken asks: 1) What are the principles behind a successful start-up entrepreneur?  One can write whole books just talking about this topic. But if I were to offer a distilled, admittedly shoot-from-the-hip answers, they would be: a) Find a good great partner. Don't go for more than 3 people in your founding team. 2 is zen: maker/seller. b) Business model > product. Obviously, the product is crucial. But how will you generate a scalable … [Read more...]

Last night, we hit 250 people registering at the event. We've now got around 20-30 people in the waitlist as well. Considering we've got a bigger space we can work with than the last conference, some people who got tickets and reached to say they cannot make it (thank you so much!) and how it just would be a shame if we limit the number of people who can participate, we're releasing 70 more tickets for the event.  For those who already got tickets, I do implore you - since the tickets are free AND limited, you WILL be screwing over someone who might truly want to go if you reserve a ticket and flake. If you do find that you cannot make it on Saturday for some reason, do email me at … [Read more...]