A case for technopreneurship

Marco Urera, chief executive officer of Edsamail Holdings, has been an entrepreneur almost all his life. At the age of 10, he started his first business, a mobile disco, with a capital of P9,000.

In the last 13 years, Urera, who is now 34, established five corporations, some on his own and others with partners and family. Among the companies he set up are Fax n’ Parcel, a telecommunications and business center; Vision Technical and Management Services, a distributor of natural herbal products through multi-level marketing; and Evoserve, an internet service provider or ISP, application and web developer.

Great idea

The idea for Edsamail dawned on Urera when he attended the 1998 Communications Development Exchange or Comdex Conference in the United States.

"I thought it would be a great idea to offer a free e-mail service like Hotmail without having to burden the consumer with the cost of internet access," he said. "It was envisioned as a ‘preview to the internet’, where a connected consumer, armed with a personal computer, modem and telephone line experiences internet applications like e-mail even before he goes online."

The Edsamail software was developed in-house by an all-Filipino research and development team working with Urera at his ISP, Evoserve. The proprietary software includes free e-mail and dial-offerings.

When development was completed, the project was spun off.

Urera’s partners in Edsamail are iAyala Corp., the Yuchengco Group, Hambrecht & Quist, Walden International, Jafco Asia, and New Era of Singapore.

E-mail services

Despite the decline of free internet services in the US, Urera believes Edsamail can survive on its value-added offerings.

"The demise of free internet overseas is a natural progression of a maturing market. We also offer paid services called, ‘My Edsamail’, to our more than 800,000 subscribers in the Philippines and Singapore," he said.

Among the services offered by "My Edsamail" are mailbox-size upgrades from 2 megabytes to 5 MB up to 20MB; internet access from 12 hours up to 72 hours, with top-ups (the purchase of additional surfing hours) from 5 hours to 50 hours; and virus protection.

As head of such a young outfit (the oldest employee is 35 and the average employee age is 27), Urera puts a premium on creativity.

"To be an effective CEO in an organization like Edsamail, you must encourage creation and the only to do this is through lead collaboration. As a leader, there should be both freedom and focus to come up with effective and creative products. I also welcome change. I believe the role of a CEO is to support and energize."

Long after the dotcom bubble burst, Urera says Edsamail is thriving because of good, old-fashioned values and a lot of common sense. "I believe success in any business rests on sound and stable business principles as well as on professional and ethical practices. But the difference between a profitable business and a successful one lies in creativity."