(Cover Story - Original Submission. Go to http://www.ssilife.com.ph/magazine/issues/ for the edited version)
TECHY IN HEELS
It’s a topic often discussed in tech industries: why is the gender gap still apparent when we’ve made strides in work equality? It’s the very challenge that fuels three local tech companies, all founded by women, on a mission to change perspectives. These trailblazers prove that their insights on women’s issues and their femininity are their finest weapons in a testosterone-charged environment.
NATASHA BAUTISTA, GRABTAXI
“Because I am a woman, I know how to use my strengths… There are a few things I can do that, if men were to do it, it would be difficult for them to do.”
While it remains a headache for women to be promptly judged by the size of their waistlines or the clothes they wear, it’s a ploy Natasha Bautista has learned to use to her advantage. The catalyst behind GrabTaxi and now the head of GrabCar Philippines, Natasha turned to her modeling experience and BS Management degree from Ateneo de Manila University to launch a company once thought to be too early for its time. Today, GrabTaxi is used in key cities in the Philippines and is rapidly thriving in Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Vietnam, and Indonesia.
Fresh from university and fueled with intrepidity, the part time model stumbled upon the business idea when she took modeling to full swing and traveled around the world. “In 2012 I decided to do full time modeling and to travel. I used my modeling money to go from one country to another,” shared Natasha. She found success in Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines but soon after, her thirst for challenge caught up with her. “At the end of my travel year that’s when I was like, ‘What else is there to do?’ I really wanted to do something besides modeling. That’s when I interned in MyTeksi. MyTeksi was only a very, very small startup in Malaysia. I met the founder, I got invited to their office, and I was interning for two months,” she related.
After a Christmas break in the Philippines and realizing that the country had similar public transportation problems with Malaysia, her business acumen sparked the wheels in motion and she returned to MyTeksi. Not long after, she was pioneering the first MyTeksi business model outside of Malaysia, setting it up in the Philippines in 2013. “A lot of people didn’t believe in it. I had to go from one fleet to another. I think it took me at least 20 fleets to secure the first ever fleet who would try us out. And a lot of people didn’t believe that Filipinos were ready for it because it was so high tech. It was something so different and futuristic that people [doubted] Filipinos are capable of using smartphones to book taxis. That was the major challenge in the beginning,” shared Natasha.
But as Natasha constantly exhibits, it’s testing situations like this that fires her passions. Natasha looked back at her own public transportation experiences, memories of taking cabs in between casting calls and school, and how at times it presented more danger and exasperation for women. She knew the country is ready for GrabTaxi, Filipinos just needed to realize it. She took it upon herself to train cab drivers for the first few months, sometimes rallying groups as early as 5am, while devising ways to further market the idea. Her hard work eventually paid off and it wasn’t long after when smartphone downloads hiked and competitors gushed in. Today, GrabTaxi is the number one “automated location based smartphone booking and dispatch platform for the taxi industry” in the Philippines and Southeast Asia. And because Natasha is always up for challenges, she recently launched and heads GrabCar, a rent-a-car service that can be booked through the GrabTaxi’s application.
A model in a tech world may seem dissociated, but that’s exactly how Natasha grabs attention. She shared how her modeling skills help a great deal for sales pitches. And it’s not just her pretty face and charming aura that has anyone from drivers to executives holding onto every single word she says. Her professionalism and understanding of the industry retains their attention and earns their respect. “I actually don’t believe that there’s any struggle for women in this industry, and I feel like I have an advantage because I am a women,” ended Natasha.
APRIL CUENCA & JACKIE YAP, FLIPTRIP.PH
“We’re basically starting as the underdogs, just because. And having that motivation to prove other people wrong is something that really drives us because yeah, we’re women, and yes that’s the reason why we’ll succeed.” – April
Passion begets passion. It’s a driving force that turns ideas into actions, and eventually actions into advocacies. Such is the spark that seized April Cuenca and Jackie Yap after a serendipitous meeting as volunteers for the Yolanda Relief Operation. Their passion for travel and vision to highlight local destinations gave birth to Fliptrip.ph. And in just a year from its launch, the online travel platform is quickly revolutionizing how we back pack and tour the country.
The duo’s dissimilar backgrounds weren’t deterrents to the concept they had in mind, both anchored in boosting local communities through tourism. “The question really was ‘Why are the off-the-beaten-paths still off-the-beaten? And it came down to two reasons. One is that the information for these destinations is not readily available, and two, booking for the services is just one big pain,” shared April.
April has had a deep fascination for community development and tourism. The situations of far-flung destinations, particularly when calamities strike, affected April even at a young age, realizing that tourism is a way to help these communities. She entered the Tourism program in UP Diliman as a football scholar and after an injury stripped her scholarship, she dropped out and turned to the best teacher anyone can have: experience.
April worked as a tour guide and logistics manager for a travel show. After that stint, she continued to work as a travel consultant. At only 25 years old, she’s been to the Philippines’ 51 out of 81 provinces and she’s on the road completing the other 30 before her 26th birthday. In all her travels, she immerses herself in its local culture, learning about the people and finding interesting spots to recommend. She began to develop a vision that will later become FlipTrip.ph, an online travel platform that connects users to local communities and organizes their trips and itineraries.
Jackie, on the other hand, has lived in eight different cities in five countries. Growing up overseas, she would visit the Philippines on holidays and didn’t know much about places outside Manila. She never worked in tourism but loved to travel for fun. She built her communications and marketing career in Australia where she worked in editorial, marketing and public relations, and even business development. The communications maven yearned to explore her home country and help local businesses grow. When she heard about April’s idea, she jumped on the chance to turn herself from city girl to island nomad. Travelling with April unlocked the adventurer in her. She craved for the unique experience and lived on an island barefoot for a full month. Here, she said, she found paradise.
April and Jackie with their tech partner Ragde Falcis entered IdeaSpace Foundation and won the Philippines Qualifier of Echelon's TOP100 Startups’ Peoples' Choice award. The challenge to get tourism industry players and travelers to trust them didn’t swiftly disappear with the win, however. “Initially we found some of the challenges were because we were quite younger than a lot of people when it comes to starting your own company. A lot of the people that we met when we were trying to connect to grow, they found that we were either too young or we were just women,” related Jackie. That’s when they worked harder on campaigns, and created a seamless website with an online reservations system anyone can quickly understand.
Today, FlipTrip.ph is garnering the attention it deserves not just in the Philippines but also abroad. The young trailblazers are the ideal examples of how age and gender aren’t restraints in building a business, and that with the drive to succeed and an eye always on the goal, it’s impossible to flop.
VALENICE BALACE & MARA ANG, PEEKAWOO
“We had to do everything that people we’re doing but we had to do it twice and, you know, in heels.” – Val
Valenice Balace and Mara Ang, friends who both hail from College of Saint Benilde, once navigated the dating scene with much trepidation. They tried going out, clubbing, and eventually looking in dating websites. Unfortunately, the platforms were either leaning toward serious relationships or are geared more on hookups. They wanted something that caters to their needs, something that was wholesome and safe. "We were looking for a way to meet guys but not put up too much effort. Because knowing Filipinos and generally Asians, we go out but we don’t make eye contact [laughs]. We tried dating apps but most of them are too forward," said Valenice. Little did they know that they reflect a widely untapped market of conservative Filipinas and Asians who are searching for the same thing. Valenice and Mara grabbed the opportunity by the horns and created Peekawoo, a dating site and app that’s made for women, by women. They exemplify that as in any successful business, it all starts with focusing on your target market’s needs and revolving the model around that.
Then single and mostly confined behind their 9-to-5 work desks, Valenice and Mara admit how they were once content on being out of the limelight. “We were the ones who were always on the background. Like in parties, we’re usually the ones in the back, not gaining much attention to ourselves,” Valenice explained. But with a groundbreaking idea like Peekawoo, they had to move out of their comfort zones and push themselves to realize their dream. And in just two years of operations, the site has garnered over 25,000 users all over the world. The concept has even been featured in BBC, CNN, The Wallstreet Journal, and the like. Peekawoo is backed by investors and is part of Kickstart Ventures. It’s among the rising dating apps in Asia, and it may soon become number one in the region.
Valenice, Peekawoo's CEO, is a Computer Applications graduate who've worked in IT, particularly mobile phones and apps, for major companies in the country. She understands the technical side of the business while learning entrepreneurship through the process of setting up Peekawoo. "For one you get a lot of attention because there’s not a lot of girls into IT. Those are the perks. There’s also a downside, usually when you start talking code people think you don’t really know what you’re saying. We always show the results of what we can do," she shared. Today, Valenice is the face and voice of Peekawoo as she leads the company and explores ways to further it in the forefront.
Mara takes the COO hat and handles daily operations. She ensures everything is taken cared of from the inside. Although Mara's background isn't in IT, she carries her fascination for technology and gadgets with her, which started at a very young age. She even managed a tech blog and wrote mobile and app reviews before her stint in Peekawoo. It's only fitting that she took on the task of handling Peekawoo's day-to-day business. "The challenges [in the beginning] were mostly on the fund raising part because a lot of us in the team are technical. We [also] had to go through several developers, about two to three, before," she shared.
Because they're the target market, Valenice and Mara continuously improve upon their business model by being active customers themselves. Peekawoo also organizes events and meet-ups to help their users connect. It's this kind of personal touch that magnifies Peekawoo's strong brand image and appeal. In a business where 99% of the team behind it is women, Peekawoo is a reflection of their very personalities. That's an element that gives it heart, making it hard to replicate.
TECHY IN HEELS
Image from ssilife.com.ph
It’s a topic often discussed in tech industries: why is the gender gap still apparent when we’ve made strides in work equality? It’s the very challenge that fuels three local tech companies, all founded by women, on a mission to change perspectives. These trailblazers prove that their insights on women’s issues and their femininity are their finest weapons in a testosterone-charged environment.
NATASHA BAUTISTA, GRABTAXI
“Because I am a woman, I know how to use my strengths… There are a few things I can do that, if men were to do it, it would be difficult for them to do.”
While it remains a headache for women to be promptly judged by the size of their waistlines or the clothes they wear, it’s a ploy Natasha Bautista has learned to use to her advantage. The catalyst behind GrabTaxi and now the head of GrabCar Philippines, Natasha turned to her modeling experience and BS Management degree from Ateneo de Manila University to launch a company once thought to be too early for its time. Today, GrabTaxi is used in key cities in the Philippines and is rapidly thriving in Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Vietnam, and Indonesia.
Fresh from university and fueled with intrepidity, the part time model stumbled upon the business idea when she took modeling to full swing and traveled around the world. “In 2012 I decided to do full time modeling and to travel. I used my modeling money to go from one country to another,” shared Natasha. She found success in Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines but soon after, her thirst for challenge caught up with her. “At the end of my travel year that’s when I was like, ‘What else is there to do?’ I really wanted to do something besides modeling. That’s when I interned in MyTeksi. MyTeksi was only a very, very small startup in Malaysia. I met the founder, I got invited to their office, and I was interning for two months,” she related.
After a Christmas break in the Philippines and realizing that the country had similar public transportation problems with Malaysia, her business acumen sparked the wheels in motion and she returned to MyTeksi. Not long after, she was pioneering the first MyTeksi business model outside of Malaysia, setting it up in the Philippines in 2013. “A lot of people didn’t believe in it. I had to go from one fleet to another. I think it took me at least 20 fleets to secure the first ever fleet who would try us out. And a lot of people didn’t believe that Filipinos were ready for it because it was so high tech. It was something so different and futuristic that people [doubted] Filipinos are capable of using smartphones to book taxis. That was the major challenge in the beginning,” shared Natasha.
But as Natasha constantly exhibits, it’s testing situations like this that fires her passions. Natasha looked back at her own public transportation experiences, memories of taking cabs in between casting calls and school, and how at times it presented more danger and exasperation for women. She knew the country is ready for GrabTaxi, Filipinos just needed to realize it. She took it upon herself to train cab drivers for the first few months, sometimes rallying groups as early as 5am, while devising ways to further market the idea. Her hard work eventually paid off and it wasn’t long after when smartphone downloads hiked and competitors gushed in. Today, GrabTaxi is the number one “automated location based smartphone booking and dispatch platform for the taxi industry” in the Philippines and Southeast Asia. And because Natasha is always up for challenges, she recently launched and heads GrabCar, a rent-a-car service that can be booked through the GrabTaxi’s application.
A model in a tech world may seem dissociated, but that’s exactly how Natasha grabs attention. She shared how her modeling skills help a great deal for sales pitches. And it’s not just her pretty face and charming aura that has anyone from drivers to executives holding onto every single word she says. Her professionalism and understanding of the industry retains their attention and earns their respect. “I actually don’t believe that there’s any struggle for women in this industry, and I feel like I have an advantage because I am a women,” ended Natasha.
APRIL CUENCA & JACKIE YAP, FLIPTRIP.PH
“We’re basically starting as the underdogs, just because. And having that motivation to prove other people wrong is something that really drives us because yeah, we’re women, and yes that’s the reason why we’ll succeed.” – April
Passion begets passion. It’s a driving force that turns ideas into actions, and eventually actions into advocacies. Such is the spark that seized April Cuenca and Jackie Yap after a serendipitous meeting as volunteers for the Yolanda Relief Operation. Their passion for travel and vision to highlight local destinations gave birth to Fliptrip.ph. And in just a year from its launch, the online travel platform is quickly revolutionizing how we back pack and tour the country.
The duo’s dissimilar backgrounds weren’t deterrents to the concept they had in mind, both anchored in boosting local communities through tourism. “The question really was ‘Why are the off-the-beaten-paths still off-the-beaten? And it came down to two reasons. One is that the information for these destinations is not readily available, and two, booking for the services is just one big pain,” shared April.
April has had a deep fascination for community development and tourism. The situations of far-flung destinations, particularly when calamities strike, affected April even at a young age, realizing that tourism is a way to help these communities. She entered the Tourism program in UP Diliman as a football scholar and after an injury stripped her scholarship, she dropped out and turned to the best teacher anyone can have: experience.
April worked as a tour guide and logistics manager for a travel show. After that stint, she continued to work as a travel consultant. At only 25 years old, she’s been to the Philippines’ 51 out of 81 provinces and she’s on the road completing the other 30 before her 26th birthday. In all her travels, she immerses herself in its local culture, learning about the people and finding interesting spots to recommend. She began to develop a vision that will later become FlipTrip.ph, an online travel platform that connects users to local communities and organizes their trips and itineraries.
Jackie, on the other hand, has lived in eight different cities in five countries. Growing up overseas, she would visit the Philippines on holidays and didn’t know much about places outside Manila. She never worked in tourism but loved to travel for fun. She built her communications and marketing career in Australia where she worked in editorial, marketing and public relations, and even business development. The communications maven yearned to explore her home country and help local businesses grow. When she heard about April’s idea, she jumped on the chance to turn herself from city girl to island nomad. Travelling with April unlocked the adventurer in her. She craved for the unique experience and lived on an island barefoot for a full month. Here, she said, she found paradise.
April and Jackie with their tech partner Ragde Falcis entered IdeaSpace Foundation and won the Philippines Qualifier of Echelon's TOP100 Startups’ Peoples' Choice award. The challenge to get tourism industry players and travelers to trust them didn’t swiftly disappear with the win, however. “Initially we found some of the challenges were because we were quite younger than a lot of people when it comes to starting your own company. A lot of the people that we met when we were trying to connect to grow, they found that we were either too young or we were just women,” related Jackie. That’s when they worked harder on campaigns, and created a seamless website with an online reservations system anyone can quickly understand.
Today, FlipTrip.ph is garnering the attention it deserves not just in the Philippines but also abroad. The young trailblazers are the ideal examples of how age and gender aren’t restraints in building a business, and that with the drive to succeed and an eye always on the goal, it’s impossible to flop.
VALENICE BALACE & MARA ANG, PEEKAWOO
“We had to do everything that people we’re doing but we had to do it twice and, you know, in heels.” – Val
Valenice Balace and Mara Ang, friends who both hail from College of Saint Benilde, once navigated the dating scene with much trepidation. They tried going out, clubbing, and eventually looking in dating websites. Unfortunately, the platforms were either leaning toward serious relationships or are geared more on hookups. They wanted something that caters to their needs, something that was wholesome and safe. "We were looking for a way to meet guys but not put up too much effort. Because knowing Filipinos and generally Asians, we go out but we don’t make eye contact [laughs]. We tried dating apps but most of them are too forward," said Valenice. Little did they know that they reflect a widely untapped market of conservative Filipinas and Asians who are searching for the same thing. Valenice and Mara grabbed the opportunity by the horns and created Peekawoo, a dating site and app that’s made for women, by women. They exemplify that as in any successful business, it all starts with focusing on your target market’s needs and revolving the model around that.
Then single and mostly confined behind their 9-to-5 work desks, Valenice and Mara admit how they were once content on being out of the limelight. “We were the ones who were always on the background. Like in parties, we’re usually the ones in the back, not gaining much attention to ourselves,” Valenice explained. But with a groundbreaking idea like Peekawoo, they had to move out of their comfort zones and push themselves to realize their dream. And in just two years of operations, the site has garnered over 25,000 users all over the world. The concept has even been featured in BBC, CNN, The Wallstreet Journal, and the like. Peekawoo is backed by investors and is part of Kickstart Ventures. It’s among the rising dating apps in Asia, and it may soon become number one in the region.
Valenice, Peekawoo's CEO, is a Computer Applications graduate who've worked in IT, particularly mobile phones and apps, for major companies in the country. She understands the technical side of the business while learning entrepreneurship through the process of setting up Peekawoo. "For one you get a lot of attention because there’s not a lot of girls into IT. Those are the perks. There’s also a downside, usually when you start talking code people think you don’t really know what you’re saying. We always show the results of what we can do," she shared. Today, Valenice is the face and voice of Peekawoo as she leads the company and explores ways to further it in the forefront.
Mara takes the COO hat and handles daily operations. She ensures everything is taken cared of from the inside. Although Mara's background isn't in IT, she carries her fascination for technology and gadgets with her, which started at a very young age. She even managed a tech blog and wrote mobile and app reviews before her stint in Peekawoo. It's only fitting that she took on the task of handling Peekawoo's day-to-day business. "The challenges [in the beginning] were mostly on the fund raising part because a lot of us in the team are technical. We [also] had to go through several developers, about two to three, before," she shared.
Because they're the target market, Valenice and Mara continuously improve upon their business model by being active customers themselves. Peekawoo also organizes events and meet-ups to help their users connect. It's this kind of personal touch that magnifies Peekawoo's strong brand image and appeal. In a business where 99% of the team behind it is women, Peekawoo is a reflection of their very personalities. That's an element that gives it heart, making it hard to replicate.
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