Entrepreneurial spirit leads friends to franchise success

Starting up a business of your own is quite hard taking into consideration all the preparations and conceptualizations that one has to do, this is the reason why five friends decided to invest in a franchise business instead, to eliminate the possible risks involved.

College friends Nelly Nonette M. Ouano, Lourie Antonette V. Yap, Janet L. Uy, Kristelle Lynee P. Ong and Elmer Philip G. Lim took the challenge of operating a Bo’s Coffee franchise at the I.T. Park few years back in 2005, when entrepreneurs still doubted the investment potentials of the area. They spent about five million for investments and became the first Bo’s franchisee in Cebu and called themselves as Bean Teasers Club, Incorporated.

But being located in an inaccessible area and the first coffee shop to operate in that whole strip, the friends did not expect the business to become successful. From its opening in August, patrons kept coming in no time even if that time Cebuanos were still naïve to the concept of coffee shops.

According to Ong Bo’s deep root in Cebu, being known as the first famous coffee shop in the city was able to help them establish the market that easily.

“Bo’s is known for its quality and affordable coffee and its relaxing ambiance. But as franchisees, we agreed that we can do our thing and meet half-way specially in terms of managing the operations. We also give suggestions for new products to the Central office,” she added about the partners’ franchisor-franchisee relationship with BO’s Coffee.

The partners shared that they particularly invested on Bo’s because it had an opening that time they decided to invest. And since the coffee industry was booming at that time and coffee shops were almost everywhere, the partners grabbed the opportunity without second thoughts even if that particular move was a risk on their part as beginners.

 “It was indeed a risk for us to be here. But why not? This was a calculated risk and we thought that we would not lose that much,” shared the partners.

The partners were amazed that even if the IT Park has already been flagged by multinational companies and international locators coming from the IT and BPO industries nowadays, they observed that most of their clients actually are walk in and only 20% comes from call centers. They were amazed of this turn out thinking before they started that the bulk of their clients will be among the immediate market.  It just proved that Cebuanos have started to change their lifestyle and could now afford to have fun outdoors.

But with this growth of the BPO industry in the city, coffee shops have also flourished in IT Park and more have located in the area. But even with the coming in of many new players, the partners are still confident that they will not be left out in the competition. Recently they have renovated the shop to improve the ambiance and make it more appealing to customers.

They said that although they still have a lot of things to learn from the business, they are confident that for two years they have had built their client’s trust.