Euphoric Reasons: July 2012

I was so thrilled to be invited by Smart Communications and IdeaSpace Foundation to join them in their technopreneurship school roadshow. This is in line with their advocacy to promote the spirit of technology entrepreneurship among the youth. To be able to share my journey as a technopreneur to these students was simply euphoric!

Here's my journey in few clips:

I have always been in love with technology. That being said, I thought it is best that I share with you, my adventures and experiences as I chose to be an entrepreneur, using technology as my platform.

Growing up, the toys I played with included resistors, capacitors, integrated circuits, multi-testers laying about in my dad's shop. You can see the influence by my dad who was and actually still IS into electronics. I graduated from college as ECE and went on to pursue my Masters in IT.

It was that time when Nokia introduced the first Symbian phone when I did my thesis proposal on mobile platform but my professor back then rejected it. For me, it was all I wanted to do. It's all I could think of; I was obsessed. So I quit school and developed some apps. Smart was the first one to launch our apps and get us as one of their content providers. I eventually needed to incorporate.

From 2003 to present, I founded other IT companies which provided mobile apps and web services not just here in the Philippines but in Singapore and Japan as well.

You can see that I have a great love for technology. I also have a great love for. . . . . . . .SHOES! I created my personal shoe database. So instead of rummaging through my closet every day I simply browse my shoe albums in my computer. It was the perfect solution! It was to my delight that after my magazine feature, I started receiving messages/emails from friends and other readers requesting for their own shoe organizer solution. Instead of creating databases for each one of them, I decided to organize a team to build a portal to enable ALL shoe lovers to easily organize their collections online and even share it with everyone.

Shoephoric is steadily growing organically; gaining more members, followers and getting the interest of brands and investors. Smart has always been there to support our endeavors. Last February, we went with Smart to the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona to showcase our Android app. In the backend, Shoephoric has enabled us to expand our capabilities - as we constantly improve our platform in order to provide a better product and better user experience.

Are we only about shoes, then? I say, why stop at just shoes? The platform, I'm referring to the application of course; not my shoes, once completed, can serve to be used for other types of collections. It's actually appropriate for anything that makes you euphoric. With that in mind, Youphoric Labs is waiting to be incorporated this year. Our collection platform will be used by the biggest local broadsheet for all it’s new niche websites that is targeted for specific hobbies, interests and lifestyle.

Over the years, despite the difficulties of being an entrepreneur and the challenges of technology, I have always been driven to create something hoping that I can contribute to technology that makes lives better. It's highly possible that I might not have pushed as far as I did had my passion not been there. How far you decide to take it, is all up to you. You may be disappointed; you may be hurt; or you may cry but don’t give up because in the end it’s all worth it to be your own boss.

JCI MANILA - MAPUA TECHNOPRENEURSHIP BOOT CAMP