Monday, August 18, 2008

ive got a nano

ive got a nano, a nano-enterprise. as distinguished from micro-enterprise. and that's the reason why i havent been blogging as much for the past two months.

a few months back, ive been entertaining the wild idea of having a small business on the side. ive always been such a corporate guy, ive wondered if i could actually handle a SME (small medium enterprise). it was also a way of helping out people by providing employment ('give a man a fish and he eats for a day....')

opportunity landed on my lap, a heaven-sent. turns out a colleague's sister wants out of her retail business. and just at the right time, i offered to buy her rights and assets. it's really a tiny, tiny enterprise, hence the nano-enterprise. it's a little diner somewhere in qc.

right at day one, i got involved in the business. since it was existing, there were some steady clients. all it needed was some renovation, additional working capital. and i started to get my feet really wet into it. i supervised the renovations, with its two million little headaches (part of cost-cutting is micromanaging). buying the hardware materials, handing out the arawan sweldo. oh my.

then it was the purchase of the dinnerware, utensils, kitchen stuff. it was onwards to quiapo to really get good quality bargains! i haven't been there in a long, long while. now, im there almost weekly! and there's makro! never thought id actually be one of those I see standing in line with huge packs of groceries.

it's all so retail. and lately, after the blessing and all, things are picking up. i spend free time just supervising and serving clients. im meeting new people, with their own stories. hmmm. i think ill start another blog about their kwentos.

such different paradigms: the corporate mega-enterprise and my nano. it's my incubator for face-to-face market research on neighborhood consumer behavior. and beyond that it's me experiencing a new set of people again. and some of them are quite attractive. hahahaha.

6 comments:

Quentin X said...

This is very courageous CC; getting out of your comfort zone. I have always been in retail and/or pharmacy all my life. I don't think I'd survive in the corporate world. I can't stand meetings and committees.

Crap Newsman said...

Tell me about it. I have a friend who used to work as a salesperson for a hardware store (small town, near palengke, etc.) and (s)he would keep on talking about attractive customer #1, attractive customer #2, #3 with the "bulge", the BIR agent with the tight T-shirt, the hot older guy, etc. including the attractive police man who would xerox peso bills (for a drug sting/buy bust) lol

Anonymous said...

how cool! it's your personal "cheers"..

mikel

Joaqui said...

I love the last paragraph. :)

Anonymous said...

At first I thought you were talking about an iPod nano. Hehehe.

Good luck with the nano-enterprise; it will certainly give you learnings and perspective to run your mega-enterprise better. :-)

closet case said...

thanks, quent! hahaha. love the way you've summed up corp life: meetings and committees!

hey nice stories there, borg_queen!

yup. maybe less "cheers" and more "carinderia" =)

thanks, joaqui! that's the catch!

thanks, vince! yes, i really hope it would. and i hope it earns! hahaha