My Angelpreneur

Last Friday, a good friend, Joey Cuisia, celebrated his 65th birthday and announced his new chapter in life as he retires.

Joey Cuisia is an “intrapreneur”, or an entrepreneurial leader inside a corporate organization. His 16 years as the CEO of PHILAM has brought the company to great heights despite the troubles that the mother company faced overseas. Having served as the head of Central Bank at one point in his life and mentored by one of this country’s top entrepreneurs – Henry Sy, Joey has indeed accomplished a lot. If I placed it all in this column, it won’t fit.

With all his success, for me, his greatest achievement is his family. His love for his family and his wife Vicky led them to raise a wonderful family. His deep sense of spiritual relationship with God has truly blessed him. His spouse Vicky has also always been the right co-pilot for him. His success is accomplishing a balanced life.

I guess one day, we all have to face retirement. However, there is no such thing as real retirement. There just comes a time when we just have to shift gear and start serving a higher level of purpose in life, like spiritual service, community service, among many others. When we have been blessed with so much in our life, it is important that we also try to bless others.

Yesterday, we launched our fourth book – the “GO NEGOSYO: 21 Steps on How to Start Your Own Business”, in a fully packed venue with 300 plus people. The book has not even gotten to the shelves of the bookstores and yet we have been selling very fast in our very recent Negosyo Summit and gatherings when the book was first introduced. We made the book quite unique from all the other How-To books. The authors I chose to help me put this book together are Dean Pax Lapid and Ping Sotto. Pax is the dean of the Entrepreneurship School of Asia founded by Vivienne Tan and Joel Santos. Pax is also an entrepreneur and a very lively teacher. You will not get bored in his sessions. Ping is a self-help guru and motivational speaker. He is also an entrepreneur owning a couple of Shell stations.

From the moment we conceptualized the book, it was important that everything will be very easy to read, understand and apply even for those who did not finish college. The authors adopted the basic principles that give entrepreneurs a higher chance to succeed. You can also finish reading it in one or two days. We also planned to have it sold in the bookstand for a very affordable price of less than P200.

Together with the launch of this book, we also launched last night our “Angelpreneurs”. Go Negosyo Angelpreneurs are seasoned entrepreneurship gurus and Go Negos-yo mentors, who have the heart to educate and guide existing and budding entrepreneurs in their entrepreneurial journey. They will be the lead lecturers in the Negosyo Seminar Series that we intend to conduct around the country. These would be two-day seminars on the How-To’s in Entrepreneurship. These seminars will therefore complement the How-To book we have introduced to help micro and small negosyantes become more innovative, more strategic and smart.

Let me introduce the Go Negosyo “Angelpreneurs” who are first to join our cause: Mylene Abiva [president, Philippine Marketing Association], Danny Antonio [president of ACE Center for Entrepreneurship and Management Education, Inc.], Jay Bernardo [director of the ACE Center for Entrepreneurship and Management Education, Inc.], Marites Dimaculangan [managing partner, Dimaculangan, Dimaculangan and Co. CPAs and Dimaculangan Consulting Inc.], Nonoy Espileta [president and chief operating officer of Julie’s Franchise Corp. (JFC)], Dr. Andy Ferreria [The Entrepreneurship Guru], Illac Diaz [executive director, My Shelter Foundation], Rommel Juan [president, Binalot], Johnlu Koa [president and CEO, The French Baker], Benel Lagua [president and COO, Small Business Corporation], Dean Pax Lapid [Dean, Entrepreneurs School of Asia], Jorge Saguinsin [professor, Ateneo Graduate School of Business], Joel Santos [president, Entrepreneurs School of Asia], Jonas George Soriano [lead facilitator and lead director, Philippine Social Enterprise Network], Ping Sotto [The Self-Help Guru], Henry Tenedero [president of the Center for Learning and Teaching Styles Philippines (CLTS) and MINDful Ideas], Randell Tiongson [director, Registered Financial Planner Institute (Phils.)], Reuel Virtucio [Executive Director, Punla sa Tao Foundation], and Jorge Wieneke [program director, Ateneo Graduate School of Business Center for Continuing Education].

We definitely welcome others who wish to join our Angelpreneurs, as long as they have the expertise and the heart for the advocacy to teach and share their learnings to the marginalized micro and small negosyantes or aspiring entrepreneurs.

On the Negosyo seminars, each session will be an opportunity to learn or revisit the key principles in entrepreneurship: mastering self and the opportunities around to continuously generate relevant innovations; mastering the enterprise from set-up to marketing, product development and managing finance. We are also making this seminar package available to people or institutions willing to sponsors scholars for this two-day program in their locality. The Seminar package comes with free How-To book for each attendee. We plan to have only around 200 participants per seminar to encourage greater interaction and learnings.

The new How-to book and the Negosyo Seminars aided by Angelpreneurs are part of Go Negosyo’s relentless efforts to see Micro SME’s become stronger negosyantes and find their respective competitive edge. We should all help our micro and small negosyantes to scale-up and soar to greater heights.

It’s time that we just don’t teach a nation how to fish, but help this nation learn to fly.

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Next week, Go Negosyo will be going to the City of Pines, as we mount our annual Teen Negosyo in partnership with the Department of Education. This year will be the fourth Teen Negosyo, as part of Go Negosyo’s campaign to recognize and develop the entrepreneurial spirit of the youth sector. With this year’s theme Teen Negosyo University: “We’re in Business”, we have prepared more interactive and elevating forums and breakout sessions that will surely condition and push for a negosyo mindset and attitude among the 3,000 participating students and educators.  

Teen Negosyo will be a week-long program for all aspiring young negosyantes and everyone interested in entrepreneurship education. Teen Negosyo University opens on July 26-31, 2009 at Teacher’s Camp, Baguio City. Interested parties can call the DepEd CSCA Director Joey Pelaez and his team at 6363603.

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For feedback, email me at [email protected], or thru my Joey Concepcion Facebook account, or thru SMS at 09189656333. For free business advice, visit www.gonegosyo.net. Watch the GO NEGOSYO: Kaya Mo! Show in QTV, every Saturday and Sunday 8 to 8:30 a.m., with replays in NBN every Sunday 9:15 to 10 p.m.