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INSPIRED
by the good set of business practices and tips he
gathered from people known in their respective
industries, Comm&Sense Inc. president Joseph Augustine
L. Tanco hopes to pay forward for the lessons he learned
in running his business by providing advice as well to
budding entrepreneurs.
Tanco, a
Batman comic series collector, says he wishes to someday
grow his ventures like Bruce Wayne, Batman’s alter ego.
Amid his admission, he adds that an entrepreneur should
always have competent people to work with as well as
good business practices from other people known in their
respective fields.
Tanco
also encourages budding entrepreneurs to start young.
“But what’s important is you have the guidance of
someone older and venture into something you are
interested in,” he adds.
As a way
to encourage the youth to become entrepreneurs someday,
Tanco’s company created the EntrepreYouth Challenge, a
twofold event aimed at equipping students who aspire to
be businessmen someday with the appropriate skills set
and know-how to run their future businesses.
He adds
that a part of the EntrepreYouth Challenge is an
interschool competition on the best business plan, while
another part is a seminar that features entrepreneurial
bigwigs from both the academe and the industries.
After
getting entries from various colleges or universities,
according to Tanco, a group of judges would review and
rate the business plans that were submitted, from which
they select the top five. Upon selecting the top five,
the teams would be notified and asked to defend their
business plans to another set of judges.
Not only
that, Tanco reveals Comm&Sense would also help the
winner of the challenge in setting up and getting a
preapproved financing package to start the business they
have proposed.
Comm&Sense
conceptualized EntrepreYouth to be an annual event that
will share insights to college students on how the
industry and businesses work and how to come up with a
plan so that they will be successful in the business
they will get into, he adds.
“Every
year, we will strive to come up with different topics
and themes that the youth can relate with and make them
understand the business more,” says Tanco.
Also an
employee
Apart
from Comm&Sense, Tanco also works under the business
development unit of one of the country’s premier
information and communication technology schools, STI
Inc., where he and his team do research on new
businesses that STI can get into. They also help
determine if such ventures would meet and match the
needs of the students and the school’s stakeholders as
well.
Because
he is an employee at STI, Tanco says he benefits from it
by being able to better understand his own Comm&Sense
staff since he himself knows how it feels to be in their
shoes as an employee.
“Whatever you experience as an employee, you could also
adapt to your own company,” he says.
Comm&Sense
is an integrated marketing and communications solutions
company, which offers events management and
organization, public relations and graphic/creative
designs.
“We
thought of combining these three services as a one-stop
shop offering to provide convenience to existing and
potential clients by just having one agency to handle
all their marketing needs,” he explains.
Tanco
says he and his business partner, Charlotte Fabian,
thought of making it more convenient for clients to
coordinate with just one company that would handle their
clients’ marketing requirements.
Apart
from convenience, he adds that his company also intends
to assist in the marketing needs of not only existing
businesses but even the new ones.
His
father’s footsteps
Tanco
graduated with a degree in Entrepreneurial Management
from the University of Asia and the Pacific, while he
took his Masters in Business Administration from the
Ateneo de Manila University.
Tanco
admits he never initially saw himself becoming an
entrepreneur, especially at his young age. It was only
in college, when he took up his course, that he realized
and decided to be an entrepreneur someday, he shares.
As a
businessman who is aware that risks will always be
present, Tanco says he carefully studies proposals or
ventures before he enters into them.
“I’m
willing to take risks for as long as I calculate them
first. I mean, I will not get into any business without
seeing a good window of opportunity and without
analyzing how that particular industry goes,” he
clarifies.
Being
the youngest son of businessman and STI chairman Eusebio
H. Tanco, he shares that his father has always reminded
him that there is no perfect business, only an
almost-perfect business.
“He also
told me that mistakes will somehow be committed and come
along the way, but what’s important is that you move on
after every mistake and learn and improve from it,” the
younger Tanco says.
“My
father never really babied me in doing a business or
working on a certain venture, but he only provided me
with guidance and encouraged me to make the decisions on
my own. And all I know is that one day, I will follow my
father’s footsteps,” he says. |
