Entrepreneur 21: MELISSA LIMCAOCO

MELISSA LIMCAOCO

Business: Entertainment Gateway

Category: The Young Millionaires

She launched Entertainment Gateway Group with a few friends as partners. When they started it there was so many possibilities because telecommunication companies didn't have a lot of content for the phone. The inspiration came from "what ifs" and "why nots", so as soon as they started offering services, the different telcos immediately started snatching. They started with a service that allow subscribers to order via their mobile phones, greeting cards that were then sent through snail mail to their recipients. Then they introduced the invitation and greeting e-cards before coming up with branding  logo and picture messages. The early stages of the business was challenging because it was very technical and her background was in marketing. They had to learn about the architecture of telcos. As there was no existing business model or study about it because it was new.

The best strategy they did was when they concentrated on music. That's where their market is - the youth. Music is their strength. They partnered with Music One and Tower records.

When she met with Friendster U.S. she found out that they were looking up unto them. The American company's technical staff were so amazed with the creative and innovative content that they had produced. That's when she realized that since the business possibilities were endless, they had to go global.

The business environment is very competitive, because everyone's so good in the field. The challenge is how to become the best. There's a need to be more creative to appeal to more consumers to use the service.

"My role model is General Electric's Jack Welch for developing the greatest human resource system.I value my people, and I hope that I could be as competent as he when it comes to running our company. The company has its own advocacy; all the partners studies abroad, but all came back to the Philippines. We want the business to be here to generate jobs for Filipinos, not to take them away from their families."

GOLDEN RULE:
"If you want to do something, don't approach a third party but go directly to the person you want to do business with. A third party complicate's things."