Sir Jorge,
Good afternoon.
Here is the copy of the edited story of my entrepreneur life.
Thank you.
Edu Tuazon
Entrepreneur test and Factoring
I was not surprised with the high results of the four traits namely: achievement striving, industriousness, taking control and creativity because I am really like that in life but with the average score in the passion trait, I made a self reflection.
I had humble beginnings in life. I was the youngest child from a brood of seven. My parents were married at 18 and 21 years old and did not finish high school. My parents sold ice as their first business. They got the ice from the town's ice plant in the morning and only paid at 5 o clock in the afternoon. Such was the trust between the ice maker and vendor. They sold ice for so many years and as their children and savings increased, my parents started to sell more goods in the store like: firewood, charcoal, "bakya", softdrinks and some canned goods and bottled soy sauce and vinegar. Then as we grew older, my mother also cooked special viands for rich folks in our town. The term was "kasera", meaning the customers regularly got their viands for lunch and dinner. I remember my mother waking up early to travel from our town in Concepcion, Tarlac to do her marketing for food supplies in Pampanga market in Angeles City, Pampanga, where there is a wide array of goods to buy. Through the years of my childhood and teen years, I witnessed my parent's industriousness and sought all means to increase their income. They started a backyard piggery and poultry business, rented comics (this is the reason why I read at the age of 6), etc. When we were about to open a mini grocery store though, all the consigned valuable goods were stolen. We were back to zero, lower than zero to emphasize the bankruptcy. I, as a student was affected as I have to write promissory notes for our tuition fees. Looking back and analyzing this stage in life was a practice of humility and negotiation. Our school principal was kind enough to our family because the four of us are studying in a private school were all of us are in the top ten of each class because we were motivated by our eldest sister, who graduated cum laude from the Philippine Normal College. Yes, though we were financially challenged, our parents believed that education is the best investment and their only legacy to us. This drove me to achieve more in life.
Despite the misfortune, I remember it clearly that my parents did not complain nor blamed anybody. Life continued and the empty store was filled with cheap foods to sell to our customers. My parents continued the ice business and soft drinks and my mother started to cook banana cues, kamote cues, pealed mangoes, quail eggs, "balut", peanuts in fried, boiled and roasted versions, a lesson in innovation indeed. I was happy I had many choices for snack. But at a young age, I was grade 5 then; I realized how resilient were my parents was and how they took control of their lives with heads up high and living ethically.
Mother continued to increase her native snack offerings which includes "maja blanca" and fried sweet cassava patties. One rainy day in the month of August, 1976, sales in the store was slow and the cassava patties were a lot for the family to just snack on. By the providence and grace of God, which I think was the main reason for the creation of the delicious cassava cake, which is my business now, I witnessed my mother as she pressed the cassava patties in a worn out square aluminium tray and baked the first cassava cake in our rice-hull powered stove and oven.
Slowly the recipe was improved and in the late months of 1976, we supplied our school canteen, The Holy Spirit Academy with cassava cake slices. It is still so vivid in my memory that I carry a tray of cassava cake slices during flag ceremonies only to go straight to the canteen first before I proceeded to our classroom.
Years past and the cassava cake was further improved even with crude tools and equipment and the extra income from made to orders helped us significantly, even augmenting my expenses for medical school.
I was "guidedly forced" into medical school by my grandfather who was a general practitioner and a first cousin of my maternal grandmother. The clinic of my grandfather was just beside our "sari-sari" store. The medical profession was introduced to me early in my formative years. When I am busy helping in our "sari sari" store, I sneaked into the clinic and observed my grandfather and helped his attendants prepare medicines for patients, I was multitasking even when I was young.
In college, i learned about the word entrepreneur and immediately fell in love with the word. I said someday, I will be an entrepreneur. I even encouraged my parents to sell the cakes in the major highways to have more customers, because our town is in a cul de sac location,but my suggestion was ignored and I remember my mother said, "who will buy" . On this note, I think they had fear. Years past again and I went to medical school and residency training for Surgery, where I learned more the values of discipline,punctuality,perseverance. Also my decision making skill was further sharpened in the rigorous and demanding workload during hospital duties.
I was still motivated to go into business during my specialty training in surgery and saw the opportunity to distribute cassava cake in our hospital canteen and a bus station convenience store in Tarlac . After my 5 years of training in Surgery from the Tarlac Provincial Hospital I was hell bent to start my business and "swerti" my uncle,the youngest brother of my mother got our recipe and systematized the baking of cassava cake in Angeles City. My uncle's business flourished and he was generous enough to be my mentor in the operations of the baking process.
So as I started to practice my career as a surgeon, I also started my own Ralo's cassava cake business and found a trusted partner ,who was the husband of my first cousin. The brand name is the nickname of my son ,Raphael. This chapter in my life was not void of challenges and controversies as I would say, but with faith and perseverance I overcame the difficulties and "crossed the bridge with scars to tell a story about the wars and realities in my life"
Within 8 months of operation, we had 4 stores: 2 stores in Pampanga, 1 in Nueva Ecija and 1 in Bulacan. My years of exploration and gallivanting paved the way in looking for strategic places for our stores that catered to travellers who were looking for pasalubong items. Our product was a hit.
After 6 years of business, my finances were improving exponentially and I ventured took the risk to diversify businesses where I partnered with colleagues of mine in the medical field. The results were disastrous and discouraging. Also some employees in my cassava business resigned and copied our product and became our competitors.
Feeling betrayed by the people I loved and respected, I simply prayed for guidance. The recent circumstances brought me to the business school. I was determined to learn more about the intricacies of business so I can minimize my mistakes and to be a better and stronger person too.
And so I think the factoring test on passion really revealed to me, that I have not move on though I still have the strong faculties of a strong entrepreneur. I still harbour some fear of being fooled again, betrayed, maligned, by new partners and employees. But I know I must correct this and start again and remember to count my blessings. Fortitude is the trait for me now, to rise and soar high again like the phoenix and be a billionniare at the age of 60. 4
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