Pacita "Chit" Juan is the director and moving force behind the Figaro Coffee Company. Figaro franchisees are all notably young. Business partners Raymond Ambion and John Roque (JR) Ambagan are both 23 years old, Sheryl Genuino is in her early 20s, and Gigi San Diego, who has operated a Figaro franchise in Rockwell for five years, started her business partnership with the company when she was 25.
Was this usual? Chit Juan explains that the youth of the franchisees is not coincidental, "Coffee, as a global lifestyle product is also getting younger. We encourage our youth to learn to get into business early. We want marry the verve and excitement of youth with the spirit of entrepreneurship."
She expounds that starting your business while you are young is ideal. While the usual business plan of getting a job, saving, and then venturing into business when one has accumulated enough capital is not a bad idea, it comes with some drawbacks. Foremost of these is that after years of work, one may be too tired or too "washed-out" to effectively run a business. Moreover, with the low demand for labor, the first phase of the previously mentioned business plan (getting a job) may already be fraught with difficulty. Undoubtedly, suitable and good-paying jobs are few and far between nowadays, and while waiting for the "right" job, you could be delaying your progress. Consequently, to embark on a business venture of your own is not only courageous. It is a positive and astute career move aimed towards determining your own future and fortune.
However, Chit Juan is quick to stress that Figaro’s young partners are not exactly "babes in the woods" in the world of business. To be considered as Figaro franchisees, applicants need to display some requisite business expertise. It is only after this criterion has been satisfied that franchisees are obligated to undergo training at Figaro. Purportedly, this is to help them understand all aspects of the business, anticipate and address possible obstacles that may arise, and maximize all the potentials of the business to their benefit.
But who are these young business partners of Figaro? What are they like? One could say that Raymond Ambion, JR Ambagan, Sheryl Genuino, and Gigi San Diego are the face of the young and dynamic Figaro Coffee Company.
Cousins JR and Raymond are from Amadeo, Cavite, the biggest coffee-growing area in the southern Luzon area. JR is general manager of the family-owned Amadeo-Tagaytay Cable TV, and Raymond operates two businesses of his own – a bakery, and a vehicle emission-testing center.
It is easy to understand why Figaro is JR and Raymond’s business partner of choice. Aside from the fact that Figaro is one of the major consumers of barako grown in their area, the family has been involved with the coffee-growing industry for the longest time. Raymond’s grandmother, in fact, owned a coffee mill in the area during the 1960s. The family’s chose association with the coffee industry does not end there. Apart from the cousins’ Figaro franchise in Tagaytay, JR’s older brother, 28-year-old Albert "OJ" Ambagan, as mayor of Amadeo, Cavite, has embarked on a coffee rehabilitation program in the area.
Sheryl Genuino, too, is no business greenhorn. With family business in the education, manpower/industrial and retail sectors, she explains that getting a Figaro franchise is part of her family corporation’s thrust to venture into food and hotel operations. Why choose Figaro? Aside from the suitability of the coffee shop for the space at the Gateway Mall, she believes that the franchise offers a lot of promise.
Running her Figaro coffee shop in Rockwell for five years now, Gigi San Diego believes in the company so much that she is hoping to get another store. Perhaps, because of her longer experience with the company, she is better able to articulate why she chose Figaro as a business partner. "Somehow the fit is right for me. Why? Because I believe in systems," explaining that her business background involved dealing with multinational corporations. "Why Figaro? Because it is a Filipino-owned company. If I wanted someone to make money, I would rather help my fellow Filipino."
Definitely, it is an inspired move on the part of the Figaro Coffee Company to involve the youth in their company. Just as "wildlings" (that grow from coffee beans, haphazardly falling from the mother plant) need to be carefully uprooted and replanted in the proper places for them to develop effective root systems and become productive trees, people should also be encouraged to get into a business where they could apply their youthful enthusiasm and energies, establish roots, and flourish.