In a saturated business landscape, start-ups carry the extra burden of being drowned out by more established brands that already gained their followings.
Entrepreneurs Jazel T. Gallaza and Joelle Dianne F. Venegas, two women from the online community Madiskarte Moms PH, knew that it was already hard enough to start a business–and harder still to do so in a saturated market. They made the wise decision to start businesses in which there were only a few competitors, and they approached it diligently: first by identifying their consumers, and then deliberately positioning their product for growth.
Dianne started Golden Pots Agriculture and Jazel started Kapekoh. Both businesses won Diskarteng May-Puso and Diskarteng Pasulong, respectively, at last year’s Gawad Madiskarte mounted by PLDT Home.
Like many people, Dianne took comfort in plants while locked down in her home during the pandemic. Her love affair with plants and the environment started when she was a young girl.
“We now have yearly floods in Bulacan, something that didn’t use to happen when I was a child,” she says. “I am passionate about the environment because if we do not do something, a lot of places are not going to be livable in a few more decades. People think they can’t contribute to helping the environment, and that there’s nothing they can do, but the truth is we only need to reconsider our daily habits. Small changes can make a difference.”
Dianne started Golden Pots Agriculture with a specific market in mind: people who love plants and want to grow them by using environment-friendly fertilizers, which are free from chemicals that degrade the soil and contribute to pollution.
While Golden Pots is very apt for today’s increasing awareness to protect the environment, she’s also doing this for the future of her daughter. “My daughter loves the outdoors. She enjoys swimming, biking, and playing under the sun. She always has little science experiments like growing plants from seeds.”
Dianne’s advice to entrepreneurs is to “stay true to their advocacies first, and business success will follow.” She reasons that consumers are now more knowledgeable about the reality of our environmental problems, and they’re becoming more aware of which brands truly support the environment and which companies are merely greenwashing.
Meanwhile, Jazel had the brilliant idea to differentiate her coffee by using corn instead. “By God’s grace, our business is thriving and doing well especially after I won in Gawad Madiskarte. A lot of individuals have shown their interest in the product and expressed their desire to do business with me.”
Because corn coffee is not so common in cities, Jazel was able to position Kapekoh as an authority in alternative coffee.
“Even before COVID, we were facing challenges in life, and it got worse when the pandemic came. But during that down moment, a door of opportunity opened. My business today serves as our bread and butter, and we’re able to help other people by supporting our local farmers, helping charities, and supporting other moms who want to earn from the comfort of their own home.”
She concludes, “All big and very successful businesses started small.” In this case, it started as small as a kernel of corn.
