BM2104

Names Edcel Fernandez Section BSBA 701 Date 9/30/2022

ACTIVITY
Successful Entrepreneurs and Their Inspiring Stories (eCompareMo, 2015)
Somewhere between poverty and success lies failure. If there’s one thing most highly successful people have
in common, it’s that they failed at some point in their lives. Walt Disney was fired from a local newspaper by
his editor because “he lacked imagination.” Sir Isaac Newton failed at managing their family-owned farm as a
young man. Henry Ford’s early engine prototypes were turned down by the company he worked at. Steve
Jobs was initially booted out by Apple after he founded it. The Beatles were dropped by their label when they
were starting. Thomas Edison, the inventor of light bulbs, was expelled from school for being unteachable.
Jeff Bezos, the richest man as of 2021, made costly mistakes launching Amazon.
In the Philippines, there are also many inspiring stories of how some Filipino businessmen failed but
somehow made it to the top despite countless challenges and pitfalls. Joey Antonio, the founder of Century
Properties (real estate development, marketing, and property management services), went through a series
of failures with his previous small business ventures before becoming the head of his firm. At the tail-end of
the Martial Law era, Antonio and other people decided to swim against the tide and gambled with the then-
shaky real estate industry. Fast forward to 2021, Century Properties now houses some of the most luxurious
properties all over the country.
Alfredo M. Yao, the founder of Zest-O Corporation, first experienced failure when poverty forced him out of
school. After earning his doctorate at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines, he opened his own
printing press. There he saw the potential of “doy packs”—plastic containers that can stand upright—and
pitched it to beverage companies in the late ’70s. Juice manufacturers rejected his idea at the time, so he
spent hours in his own kitchen and concocted his own juice. Zest-O was born, and from there, he founded
banking, realty, and airline companies.
Socorro C. Ramos, the founder of the National Book Store, is no exception to business pitfalls. When Ramos
and her late husband opened their first store in Escolta, they had to find ways to survive a wave of hardships:
heavy book censorship by the Japanese during the war, a fire that razed their first branch during the Battle of
Manila, and a typhoon destroying almost all of their merchandise after the war. Despite all of these, they
persevered and now have more than 100 branches nationwide, on top of the family’s other investments.

Answer the following items: (4 items x 10 points)

1. What are the common characteristics of the three (3) Filipino entrepreneurs described above? How
did these characteristics influence their businesses?
Desire for responsibility is one of the traits shared by the three Filipino company owners that
were described above. This is because they hold themselves deeply responsible for the success of
their companies. They like having control over their resources, which they then apply to achieving
their own set of objectives.

2. How did entrepreneurship aggravate yet eventually improved the lives of the featured personalities
in the case?
Entrepreneurship worsened but eventually improved the lives of the personality features in
the case because they showed their ability and to reach their goals, even if they were rejected by
other people they still continued their businesses. they are the not one to let failures stop them from
achieving their goals

3. How do you think these businessmen manage the pitfalls of entrepreneurship? Propose better ways
of managing and avoiding business failures.
They just always finding a way to survive the wave of hardships and continuing taking the risk,
and also they develop a Solid Business Plan because if an entrepreneur’s business model passes the
feasibility test, the next step is to prepare a business plan. For any entrepreneur, a well-written
business plan is a crucial ingredient in preparing for business success
 4. Currently, what do you think is the primary force that drives entrepreneurship in the Philippines?
How can the Filipinos capitalize on this force to boost the economy in times of recession?
The key forces behind entrepreneurship in the Philippines include the ability of Filipinos to
launch a business, the size of the domestic market in the country, and the high regard society has for
business owners. On the other hand, two significant obstacles for entrepreneurs are the availability
of cash and the capacity to manage and expand the business.
By generating money, jobs, and social mobility, entrepreneurship has the potential to reduce
poverty. In the Philippines, the informal economy employs the majority of the workforce. 38% of
people run small enterprises on their own and struggle to make ends meet.

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