During this pandemic, many have shifted their gears towards owning and creating their own business. I keep seeing friends and family posting about their new ventures. This peaked my interest and I decided to learn how it really is to start an MSME or maybe even start my own.

I started with what I already know. I had a class in economics and business during my college years so I do have a small idea on how to start a small venture. As I started writing down the things I knew, I started getting excited but at the same time I was anxious about it. I knew that one needed capital and an idea on what product or service they would offer in order to get the ball running and because of this, it made me hesitate on my decision of actually start my own business. I find it rather funny how I still have this notion that I can just follow the formula of creating a business in all those shows and movies wherein the main character starts a business that I’ve seen throughout the years. I knew that it wouldn’t work so I went on to search for answers in the internet. Maybe then I’d get a better grasp of things.

As I searched for sources, I started learning things especially the state of our MSMEs in the country. According to the Oxford Business Group, the Philippine’s business sector is composed with 99.6% MSMEs. These MSMEs face many challenges such as lack of technical capacity, lack of access to regional markets and the lack of access to finance. During the pandemic, I found out in the report of ADB that 59.9% of microenterprises had no sales in March 2020 due to the lockdowns that happened around the world. MSMEs that also had operated continuously during the lockdown also had a drop in their sales. However, there are some MSMEs that had a sales increase due to their special demand.

This got me thinking, despite other MSMEs having their sales drop to almost zero, there are some that rose to the occasion. This got me digging more on what happened. I believe that is more to why sales with these MSMEs went higher than expected. I started reading more journals and reports on what made these MSMEs gain sales.

This got me thinking, despite other MSMEs having their sales drop to almost zero, there are some that rose to the occasion. This got me digging more on what happened. I believe that is more to why sales with these MSMEs went higher than expected. I started reading more journals and reports on what made these MSMEs gain sales.

This got me thinking, despite other MSMEs having their sales drop to almost zero, there are some that rose to the occasion. This got me digging more on what happened. I believe that is more to why sales with these MSMEs went higher than expected. I started reading more journals and reports on what made these MSMEs gain sales.

This got me thinking, despite other MSMEs having their sales drop to almost zero, there are some that rose to the occasion. This got me digging more on what happened. I believe that is more to why sales with these MSMEs went higher than expected. I started reading more journals and reports on what made these MSMEs gain sales.

Do’s

1. Research about the business landscape
2. Have a plan and vision
3. Know your customers
4. Adapt to the trends in business
5. Integrate technology

Don’t

1. Do not stick to only one way of doing things
2. Do not skip on organizing and creating a plan
3. Do not underestimate capital requirements
4. Do not decide on things too quickly when it comes to things you have minimal information on
5. Do not ignore the economics of the business

Becoming an entrepreneur can be an adventure of a lifetime. As we all know though, in an adventure, challenges are inevitable. Mistakes are going to me made and it is alright. My research is not full-proof and I believe that the best way to know if you will be a successful entrepreneur is actually start on it. Experience is the best teacher after all. You can only prepare and anticipate challenges up ahead.