Entrepreneurial mindset is biggest challenge in starting business | Business and Politics - video Dailymotion

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Entrepreneurial mindset is biggest challenge in starting business | Business and Politics  Rommel Ng, co-founder of Buffalo's Wings N' Things, tells the story of how he started his restaurant business in 2009 despite being a journalism graduate. He says that the biggest challenge in starting a business is developing an entrepreneurial mindset.   Subscribe to The Manila Times Channel - https://tmt.ph/YTSubscribe    Visit our website at https://www.manilatimes.net    Follow us:  Facebook - https://tmt.ph/facebook  Instagram - https://tmt.ph/instagram  Twitter - https://tmt.ph/twitter  DailyMotion - https://tmt.ph/dailymotion    Subscribe to our Digital Edition - https://tmt.ph/digital    Check out our Podcasts:  Spotify - https://tmt.ph/spotify  Apple Podcasts - https://tmt.ph/applepodcasts  Amazon Music - https://tmt.ph/amazonmusic  Deezer: https://tmt.ph/deezer  Stitcher: https://tmt.ph/stitcher Tune In: https://tmt.ph/tunein   #TheManilaTimes  #businessandpolitics

Transcript

00:00 - Good evening and welcome to SMNI.

00:02 You're watching Business and Politics.

00:04 I'm your host, Dante Klingkamp.

00:06 Our guest tonight is a veteran restaurateur,

00:08 and in a larger context,

00:09 our topic will focus on entrepreneurship.

00:12 We'll talk to Romel Nang,

00:13 who co-founded Buffalo's Wings and Things,

00:16 after honing his skills in Shakey's Pizza,

00:18 Outback Steakhouse, and Jollibee Food Corporation.

00:21 He's also a co-founder and director of Resto Coach,

00:24 which is an advocacy group that aims to inspire hearts,

00:27 empower minds, and equip business owners

00:29 and stakeholders in the restaurant industry.

00:32 Many of them are micro, small,

00:33 and medium enterprises, or MSMEs.

00:36 As mentioned before in this program,

00:37 MSMEs are vital to the Philippine economy.

00:40 They comprise 99.6% of all registered firms.

00:43 They also account for 35% of gross value added,

00:46 and employ about 60% of the labor force.

00:49 We'll ask Mr. Nang,

00:50 what does it take to succeed in business?

00:53 And with entrepreneurs looking ahead at 2024 and beyond,

00:56 what are the opportunities and challenges

00:57 facing the food industry?

00:59 - Sir Romel Nang, welcome to Business and Politics.

01:02 - Thank you for having me here, sir.

01:04 - Now, I'm really curious about your journey.

01:08 We were talking a lot about your past.

01:11 Turns out you were a journalism major.

01:15 I feel like the interview could be

01:17 going the other way around,

01:19 (speaking in foreign language)

01:20 Tell us how you became interested

01:23 in the restaurant business.

01:25 I understand it somehow runs in your family, right?

01:28 - Yeah, I think the DNA came from my Lolo,

01:31 who was a first generation migrant from China,

01:34 so in the 50s.

01:35 So he came to the Philippines with his brothers.

01:38 I think one of the brothers knew how to work with watches.

01:43 So he put up a watch shop in Doroteo, Jose, Manila.

01:47 And then the other brother knew how some wood sash work,

01:51 you know, artistry and woodworks.

01:54 So he put up a woodwork shop in Caloocan.

01:56 And then my Lolo put up a noodle shop in

01:59 what was known then as General T. de Leon, Valenzuela,

02:01 which is now known as Carujatan.

02:04 So from the small noodle house, noodle shop, I think,

02:07 and beside the road, near the church,

02:10 it grew into a full-blown restaurant

02:12 in front of the San Miguel Beer Brewery.

02:16 - I see. - Actually,

02:17 what was known before us, up to now, sir, BBB.

02:20 - Okay.

02:21 - That place, Bulacan Beer, Balintawak Beer Brewery,

02:24 but it's actually in Bulacan.

02:26 - In Polo, Bulacan.

02:26 So that's where he put up his restaurant.

02:29 So literally, at night, sometimes I sleep at,

02:34 in the local dialect, sir,

02:35 parang natutulog ako sa pansitan, literally.

02:38 - So literally na pansitan.

02:39 - Yeah, on top of it, because daytime,

02:40 we used to have customers in the second floor,

02:42 but at nighttime, it's a sleeping area for grandchildren

02:46 and the children of my Lolo.

02:48 So-- - So you grew up

02:51 playing your Lolo's, I guess, restaurant.

02:54 You met him and you--

02:57 - Yeah, I still had an opportunity to be with him

03:00 until I was seven years old.

03:02 - Okay, so you still remember?

03:04 - Yeah, I still remember the shop, people making,

03:08 you know, what made us famous then was our pansit,

03:11 which had fish balls, which are really made from scratch.

03:16 - Oh, wow.

03:17 - You know, which is, and then the answer,

03:19 it's very hard to find right now.

03:21 So the recipe from China and my Lolo's know-how,

03:25 and we became a precursor of, you know,

03:29 the pansit areas now.

03:30 - Right, right, right.

03:31 - And, you know, sir, believe it or not,

03:33 even in the '70s,

03:35 yung inaapot ko '70s, '80s, we were already 24 hours.

03:41 So because, I think economically,

03:43 because the beer brewery had shifts,

03:45 and then-- - It made sense, yeah.

03:47 - The famous taxi company, R&E, before EMP.

03:50 - Okay, yeah, yeah.

03:51 - Taxi was near us, so-- - I remember that.

03:53 - We had to serve all those people at night.

03:55 So from that time, sir, when I took up journalism

03:59 at the University of the Philippines,

04:00 I found it necessary to do part-time work.

04:05 I was a working student, so I think that also rekindled

04:10 when I started working for Jollibee Foods Corporation,

04:13 Grand Central Monumento Branch in 1992.

04:16 I think that, you know, switched me from my plan

04:20 of being a journalist to-- - From journalism to QSR.

04:23 - Yeah, to restaurants.

04:24 At that time, sir, 1991, 1992, Jollibee was growing.

04:28 The QSR industry, the QSR sector, I would say,

04:32 was at its peak.

04:35 So it rekindled my interest in the restaurant industry.

04:38 So after I graduated, I pursued a career with Jollibee

04:42 as a management trainee.

04:44 And then, as you mentioned in the intro,

04:46 I worked for Shakey's as well, Outback Steakhouse,

04:50 Shakey's, and then went back to, you know,

04:54 doubled a little bit, your first venture

04:55 going to entrepreneurship catering.

04:58 And then after that, it failed, actually.

05:01 - Okay. - And then I went back

05:03 to work for Shakey's and then Outback again.

05:06 And then we founded Buffalo's Wings and Things in 2009.

05:10 - Wow, and then you started one store, right?

05:13 And how many restaurants do you have now

05:16 of Buffalo Wings and Things?

05:18 - Yeah, it's really, truly a blessing.

05:20 Now, 2009, we started with one store

05:22 in Ortigas Home Depot.

05:24 Now it's called Upper Deck.

05:26 - Upper Deck. - Yeah, Upper Deck,

05:28 along Julia Vargas.

05:29 That's where we started.

05:30 And it was dinner only.

05:31 - Okay. - Because we used

05:32 to have day jobs.

05:33 My co-founders and I used to have day jobs.

05:36 - Okay. - So what we did was--

05:37 - So it was on the side only. - On the side, yeah.

05:38 - Initially. - Yeah.

05:40 - But now it's your full-time work, right?

05:43 - Yes, I'm currently the president of the company.

05:45 - Right.

05:46 - And going back to your question,

05:49 from 2009, from one store,

05:50 we grew up to 55 stores in 2019.

05:54 - Wow, congratulations. - But when the pandemic hit,

05:56 of course, we had to pivot and--

05:57 - Sure, sure.

05:59 - Reposition some of the stores and relocate.

06:02 So now we're operating 39 stores.

06:04 - That's quite interesting.

06:05 But let me take a step back,

06:06 because I'm quite interested in your background,

06:08 because the entrepreneurial, I guess,

06:13 work ended with your grandfather for a while.

06:16 You were telling me that none of his siblings,

06:19 or none of his children went into that business.

06:22 Your father was a former police officer, right?

06:26 And I think you were saying that your mom's glad

06:29 that none of you two became police officers.

06:32 But tell me more about that.

06:33 And you said it got rekindled when you went to college,

06:37 had to take a day job.

06:38 But why did it end?

06:41 I mean, what interrupted it?

06:43 - I think there's another, unfortunately,

06:44 there's a gap between me going into the restaurant industry

06:48 and the restaurant continuing its operation,

06:51 the Noodle House.

06:53 It was called Delia's Restaurant.

06:56 And a lot of people from the Valenzuela, Marulas area,

06:58 still ask us about it when they see us.

07:02 - What happened? - That it's going to reopen.

07:05 I think there was a gap, because in the late '90s,

07:08 the restaurant was, the space was not ours.

07:13 I think my Lolo tried to purchase it several times,

07:16 but it was prime property.

07:18 So in the late '90s, the lease ended,

07:22 and ironically, who took over was Jollibee.

07:26 - Oh, okay.

07:28 - So, I was not yet ready, maybe, to take on the succession.

07:36 - Your siblings were not interested also?

07:38 - No, my siblings, my uncles, my aunts.

07:40 - Your brother, you're telling me,

07:42 was in Saudi Arabia for a long time?

07:44 - Yeah, he's an OFW, along with my sister-in-law, for 23 years.

07:49 They served the royal family of Saudi Arabia,

07:52 and after 23 years, they decided to go home.

07:55 He's now running a small business, a water station,

07:58 and, of course, taking care of the apos,

08:00 and he's a pastor now.

08:02 He's a Protestant pastor in Marulas and in Santa Maria, Bulacan.

08:07 - Yeah, I'm always very interested in how people get into the business,

08:14 and I'm interested also what others can learn from it.

08:19 And you were telling me earlier that when your grandfather

08:22 came to the Philippines from China,

08:25 his skill was to cook, so that's why he got into cooking,

08:29 or to the restaurant business.

08:32 But you had options, and so you sort of stumbled back into it.

08:38 Did you ever imagine when you were younger

08:43 that you would go into business yourself,

08:46 or did you imagine that you would be instead hosting a TV program,

08:50 or maybe writing columns for a paper?

08:54 What was your childhood ambitions when you were growing up?

09:00 - You know, come to think of it, I really wanted to write.

09:03 - Okay.

09:04 - I think it was high school when I really decided to pursue a journalism course.

09:10 I wanted to write. I wanted to become a columnist, eventually.

09:15 - You were in politics or business or food?

09:20 - I didn't have any specific-- - You just wanted to write.

09:22 - I just wanted to write. I knew that I had a passion for writing,

09:27 which I think now translated into something of a different medium,

09:31 but it's still the same.

09:33 - Talk about the rest of the coach.

09:36 - But going back to your point, sir,

09:39 the biggest difficulty looking at it now,

09:43 looking back at it now, rather, is the mindset.

09:48 - Yeah. That's what I'm very curious about.

09:51 - What would give us the mindset of doing business?

09:55 Because my Lolo died in '78. I was only six.

09:58 So most probably he would have had the most entrepreneurial mindset.

10:02 And my mom was, as I told you backstage earlier,

10:05 she was also an entrepreneur in her own right,

10:08 entrepreneur in her own right, doing small buy-and-sell businesses

10:12 while tending to the restaurant as this daytime cashier.

10:15 So all of those things put together, you don't realize.

10:18 Because once you finish school, the orientation is to find employment,

10:23 which I did, you know, Jollibee Foods.

10:26 And the pay was good, better than other industries.

10:29 I think that was one of the reasons why I went into restaurant as well,

10:33 knowing that it's going to be a more difficult path if I took on journalism.

10:38 And then, of course, from being a service crew to becoming a manager

10:44 and then eventually becoming of a higher position,

10:48 the comfort zone comes in, that you're comfortable with the 15/30th salary,

10:54 the bonuses, et cetera.

10:56 - People are afraid to lose that security, right, when they go into business.

11:01 Were you concerned about that?

11:03 Or were you more confident because you had your grandfather to look at

11:08 and your mom was doing the sideline business?

11:11 - Yeah, I think the reference to my past came late.

11:15 I think I was carried away by the norm.

11:20 I would say the norm, the normal mindset, finishing school,

11:26 working for a good company, big company.

11:28 I had great opportunities working particularly for Outback Steakhouse.

11:32 I was at one time a director for Southeast Asia.

11:35 - Wow. And it was part of the bistro group back then?

11:38 - Initially, yeah.

11:40 And then it was sold to the mother company in the U.S.

11:43 and that's when I came back.

11:44 - I see.

11:45 - I had two tours of duty for Outback.

11:48 So when I came back, it was already being run by the U.S. company

11:51 and I was assigned to handle several markets.

11:54 So you'd imagine the perks and the comfort zone

11:59 because you can travel, you're exposed, you're moving up the ladder.

12:04 But one time, I think I was with my friends, co-founded Buffalo's Wings and Things,

12:10 and we had a conversation about retirement.

12:13 - Okay.

12:14 - Because when you're young, you don't even think about retirement.

12:16 - Sure.

12:17 - Especially in the restaurant industry, we're trained to--

12:19 - It's so fast.

12:20 - And we're trained to work hard, closing to opening, ending inventory,

12:25 month-end inventory and such.

12:27 So I think in 2009, when we were conversing with my co-founders

12:32 of Buffalo's Wings and Things, the talk about retirement,

12:36 because you realize that in the restaurant industry,

12:38 unlike in multinational companies or banks,

12:41 you don't really have an institutionalized retirement policy or program.

12:47 - Sure.

12:48 - So personally, I--

12:51 - You're quite young to think about retirement.

12:53 - In '09, right?

12:54 - Yeah.

12:55 - Because one of the problems in the industry is, of course, the wear and tear.

12:58 - I see.

12:59 - You work weekends, you work late nights, so--

13:02 - Opening to closing.

13:03 - I remember it fondly.

13:05 I went home and tried to think about it seriously, and I said,

13:08 "I need to get out of my comfort zone, and I need to think of the future."

13:12 And I guess I formulated the idea that the framework should be,

13:18 "Okay, gain experience for maybe two decades,"

13:21 which was, I think, the length of my experience at that time,

13:25 and then eventually the graduation should be to become a restaurent negotiante

13:29 or a restaurant entrepreneur.

13:32 So that's when it started.

13:33 So I opened my mind when I was invited by my co-partners to start Buffalo's Wings and Things.

13:39 I think that opened my mind because I just came also from a failed business.

13:43 I started--

13:44 - The catering, yeah.

13:45 - Catering.

13:46 So I guess that's one lesson that I can share to the viewers,

13:51 that failure actually sharpens you.

13:55 - It can be instructive, yeah.

13:57 - The grit to learn from the insights of the failure and continue on better and stronger.

14:04 [silence]

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Entrepreneurial mindset is biggest challenge in starting business | Business and Politics

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