MANILA, Philippines - Being a foreigner in the Philippines is not always easy but the challenge could even double if you head a Philippine company.
Frederic Levy, the French founder and chief executive officer of successful Filipino startup company CashCashPinoy, has mastered the difficult task and has managed to stir a pioneering online company.
CashCash Pinoy is a membership-based online shopping store that sells goods, services and travel coupons at hefty discounts.
The company has 120 employees as of 2014 and has a unique and sophisticated fully integrated end solution required of an online shopping store such as graphic designers, photographers, procurement people, logistics, marketing and other specialists.
Against this backdrop, Levy has been successfully leading his team of mostly Filipino employees.
The key to this, says the French executive, is to know the culture and the psyche of the Filipino people.
“Filipinos are easy to handle if you know how to do it. If you don’t, you can have a lot of headaches. You have to be careful with the way you say things. A lot of people will not work for the company. They will work for you,” Levy said in an interview.
“If you get it, it’s a perfect relationship. If you miss it, it’s a lot of headaches,” he added.
But Levy seems to have mastered it. Since the company opened in 2010, he has earned the loyalty of his employees.
“Some have been with me since Day 1,” he said.
Levy even has an employee who told him that he was willing to take a bullet for him while another had the “CashCash Pinoy” sign tattooed on his back.
Indeed, with Levy at the helm, the online shopping store has been growing steadily since it started as a pioneer business.
“In September 2010, we launched the site. Initially we wanted something simple, easy to understand. It immediately appealed to the Filipino consumer. We launched it. We pioneered. There was no code, no benchmark. We needed to open a lot of doors,” Levy said.
According to Levy the company had to talk to a lot of suppliers including restaurant owners who initially did not understand what the whole concept was about.
“But it went well. So after that, we decided to grow the business. A year after we opened, many have arrived in the country,” he said.
The rest, as they say, is history.
Levy, who graduated as a lawyer in France, said that the company has ensured quality control for its products, carefully monitoring the whole supply chain.
As a seal of guarantee, CashCash Pinoy is the only e-commerce site in the country that gives a 100 percent automatic refund for its products as an authenticity guaranty.
It is no joke to give something like that said Levy but it’s a reflection of the quality of the company’s products.
Now, CashCash Pinoy continues to grow and has big plans for the future.
In November last year, the company announced that it successfully raised $2 million from Singapore-based Private Equity firm, Hera Capital.
Proceeds from the current round of funding will be used to further accelerate the strategies for long-term growth of the company and its members based in the Philippines.
To date, CashCashPinoy has secured over $4 million in total financing since establishing operations in 2010. Previous investments came from international and Filipino successful entrepreneurs.
“When you know the game, you are able to bring down prices. There are a lot of brands there. We are selling a lot of ideas and there will be more in the future. We already launched a lot of paintings. We have a lot of discounts on unique items,” Levy said.
He is also open to listing at the local bourse if the right opportunity presents itself.
The objective is to keep on developing, he said.
“It’s a good business. It’s a question of what will be your value. In the digital business, the key is execution. You need to execute perfectly,” said Levy.