Filipino Books on Getting Rich (Part 1)

Today I spent hard earned P280 on a book "Negosyo: Joey Concepcion's 50 Inspiring Entrepreneurial Stories". It is the first Filipino book I've bought in a long time, not so much as I'm not impressed with Filipino authors but more because printing is usually of lower quality despite almost same prices of foreign counterparts. Lousy excuse, I know.

In any case, like so many aspiring entrepreneurs, I felt that even with access to books by Trump, Kiyosaki, Buffet and the like, there is something so very unique with Philippine economy that someone like me would need a more accurate map to navigate within our own business territory.

Indeed, there are universal rules of business (whatever they are, maybe in a future post) and obviously they should be applicable in any time and place - for example selling higher than what goods or services cost you. But for specific strategies, especially if an entrepreneur wants to apply the solid approach of "modeling", it is important to know how people who are more or less like you, a Filipino, succeeded in the Philippines.

There were lots of choices in the bookstore, but I wanted something light and inspiring to start. "Negosyo" was my pick as it would also help me in my subproject to choose and focus later on one particular Filipino businessman I can research in depth and maybe meet some day.

Too bad though, Sandy Javier who created the super successful Andok's Chicken franchise wasn't among the featured entrepreneurs. His, I heard, was a real classic rags to riches story.