I would like to learn a lot... like how to be succesful in business

Dorena-  First, read up on starting and managing a small business.  I found some helpful on-line articles (and they're free!)....like the following: 7 Essential Principles of Small Business Sucess; also- 5 Essential Principles for Growing Your Small Business; and 10 Guiding Principles for Start-Ups....and a few more you can check on.   Your local library may also have guides for doing business.

Then look around...and also check yourself.  If you feel you have the skills required to plan, launch and operate the kind of business you like....then go for it.

Learn from others....from people in small business and other folks who might share their experience in the art of enterpreneurship.  If their is an organization in your area that can provide pointers in doing business...go to them and learn.   Study the market environment in the area where you plan to do business.  Is there a demand for the kind business you have in mind?  Will this demand remain constant?  Or is this a temporary demand?   Are you able to satisfy this demand?  Check on your resources?   Are you flexible?  Means...if and when the demand suddenly changes (for whatever reason) are you able be flexible...change your strategy, find an alternate provider (of your resources), shift downward, increase the demand (for services or products)?   Perhaps other expats in this forum will jump in with their ideas on how to be successful in business.   

Getting started is just the beginning.  Continue to learn as you go along in your business....learn the pitfalls, what to avoid, what to go after, and how to keep the momentum that will propel you to succeed.  And maintain good bookkeeping and record keeping techniques from the very beginning.  Success is not just just being able to continually provide the services (of your business) or, products...but also maintain accurate records and accountability of everything you do in your business.   That's the aspect of the business that many entrepreneurs fail to do well---which almost always lead to failure.  No matter what kind of business you get into, large and or small and simple...it will require careful planning and preparation.   I hope you don't go into the common attitude (as the ones I have commonly known in the Philippines)..."bahala na Lang!" And leave at that.

Good luck in whatever business you get into.

Hi Dorena,

How about attending seminars about entrepreneurship or investing money where it will grow with speakers who can speak base on their experience?

There is a growing trend that only a few people seem to notice: HYDROPONICS!
It is an extremely low cost (almost zero money), business start and a sure way to success without having to go into any kind of partnership.
You don't even need to attend any training session, all information is available online (YouTube).
Get yourself a few Styrofoam crates, a few net cups, lettuce seeds, two bottles A and B of nutrients and start planting. All of this for about 1000 pesos. In about 35 days you'll have your first harvest that will pay for your initial investment. After that, you'll have a big smile on your face.
Everybody wants to eat fresh lettuce.
Here on Palawan we pay from 150 to 250 per kilo. People here can't afford to buy per kilo, they buy per 'bunch'.
About 100 to 200 gr per bunch.

PalawanBob wrote:

There is a growing trend that only a few people seem to notice: HYDROPONICS!
It is an extremely low cost (almost zero money), business start and a sure way to success without having to go into any kind of partnership.
You don't even need to attend any training session, all information is available online (YouTube).
Get yourself a few Styrofoam crates, a few net cups, lettuce seeds, two bottles A and B of nutrients and start planting. All of this for about 1000 pesos. In about 35 days you'll have your first harvest that will pay for your initial investment. After that, you'll have a big smile on your face.
Everybody wants to eat fresh lettuce.
Here on Palawan we pay from 150 to 250 per kilo. People here can't afford to buy per kilo, they buy per 'bunch'.
About 100 to 200 gr per bunch.

Not so fast, many years ago in the states I had a grow house for Herbs (hahahaha) using hydroponics the startup was quite expensive, (all automated). Some 40 years ago.

You have to grow a lot of lettuce to justify your time, maybe after a few failed harvest, you might be successful.

Now this part I speak from experience. I have two Mars grow tents, two sets of high intensity
LED lights. I grow eight varieties of tomatoes and four varieties of onions, all my seeds are not
available in the Philippines.

Now the two bottles A and B nutrients are not correct for all crops. I tried them, things grew wildly but the fruit was very small, I now use nutrients formulated specifically for my tomatoes, My Miracle Grow for Tomatoes is imported and very expensive.

I opted out of hydroponics, with holding tanks for water with nutrients, submersible water pumps, PH meter, plumbing and timers.

Now I use three gallon woven pots for final transplanting, with loam soil. I tried 10 gallon, 7 gallon and 5 gallon woven pots. The three gallon woven pots work for me.

First you need the seeds, then you need rockwool to germinate the seeds or some other medium, once germinated you transplant them and watch them grow in 16 oz plastic cups. When big enough I transplant them into grow bags.

Well. There are more than two fertilizers although some plants produce some themselves.
Nitrogen, Phosphor and Pottasum are the main,
but some need things as calcium, magnesium and sulphur too.

Normaly fertilizes are diferent MIXES, which can have NPK valuesspecified (where K =Potasium..)

NOTE. SAME crop can need DIFFERENT fertilizer at different steps of the growth.

Fertilizer is a big science      but lucky people with the knowledge hve made mixes anc info how to use - but then it cost mich more than if make yourself.  It can be hard to find ORGANIC fertilizer in the mix you need,but sometimes i can be as simple as animal poo solve it       NOTE. "Burned"animal poo.  Poo has to be stored a while before using to be safe (6-12 months or so depening of situation) while pee cn be used direct (after mix with water to not get to strong.)

coach53 wrote:

Well. There are more than two fertilizers although some plants produce some themselves.
Nitrogen, Phosphor and Pottasum are the main,
but some need things as calcium, magnesium and sulphur too.

Normaly fertilizes are diferent MIXES, which can have NPK valuesspecified (where K =Potasium..)

NOTE. SAME crop can need DIFFERENT fertilizer at different steps of the growth.

Fertilizer is a big science      but lucky people with the knowledge hve made mixes anc info how to use - but then it cost mich more than if make yourself.  It can be hard to find ORGANIC fertilizer in the mix you need,but sometimes i can be as simple as animal poo solve it       NOTE. "Burned"animal poo.  Poo has to be stored a while before using to be safe (6-12 months or so depening of situation) while pee cn be used direct (after mix with water to not get to strong.)

Correct on all accounts Coach The  "A" and B" solution is called "Snap", it  does not have the NPK values on their label or work sheet. It was developed University of the Philippines, College of Agriculture  and Food Science, Institute of Plant breeding. For me it produced a lots of foliage but almost no tomatoes and  they were small. Beefsteak & Heirloom Tomato seeds imported from the states with lots of red tape and fees. I Recently imported six other variety of Tomato seeds. I switched  from indeterminate to determinate tomatoes. Indeterminate is a vine that can grow three meters tall and determinate produces a short plant.

On the University worksheet they describe the hydroponic system that Palawan Bob mentions. I think it would be great for a high school project for kids or for a small garden in the provinces.

Now my growing medium is Loam Soil which consists of Garden Soil, Rice Hull, Cocopeat, Carbonized Rice Hull and Animal Manure. I mix this with Vermicast & Perlite. For Calcium you can use powered milk and for Potassium you can use Epsom Salt.

For my Vidalia Onions, it does not require sulfur, just the opposite to get the high sugar content for a sweet onion, it has to be low sulfur. I'm now growing other sweet onions, Walla Walla and Sweet Texas Granex. Some onions require short day and some a long day to grow properly.

In the early growth cycle I use a Mars Grow Tent with powerful LED lights, selected for the right wavelength. Then moved outdoors (patio), the tomatoes had to be hand pollinated using a ultra sound toothbrush as there are no honey bees in Pasig City.

Can you believe I munched 1/3 of a Cigar writing this.

Do you have a garden? Sounds like you are living in the city?
Why do you grow?
Hobby or for sale?

PalawanBob wrote:

Do you have a garden? Sounds like you are living in the city?
Why do you grow?
Hobby or for sale?

Yes I live in Pasig City, over crowded, noisy and dusty. We don't have a yard, the house occupies the entire property. We have a small balcony on the second and third floor. My wife & I live in a good size bedroom on the third floor, the third floor also has a kitchen & bath. So I have enough room for two Mars Grow Tents in our bedroom.

I didn't have much success for the complete project done indoors. The Tomato plants just grew too tall for the grow tent and had very few flowers. I was forced to move them outside on the balcony when they reached about five feet tall. Then I learned the difference between determinate and indeterminate tomatoes. The indeterminate keeps growing like Jack & the Bean Stalk, constantly producing Tomatoes. The determinate grows to a certain height and stops, it produces Tomatoes and dies.

(Now here is a fun thing you can do. Slice a Tomato horizontally at its thickest point, plant the slice just below the soil. In less than a week you will have several Tomato plants growing from that slice. When the plants are about a foot tall, select the healthiest plant and cut the other plants off.)

The second floor has three bedrooms and bath. The first floor has kitchen/family room and bath.

Now what motivated to have an indoor garden, don't laugh, I could not ever get a decent tomato & onion in the Philippines. My dream to have a cheeseburger, medium rare, cooked over Kingston Charcoal on a Webber Grill. Now for the best part: A large slice of Vidalia Onion & Beef Steak Tomato.

So I decide to grow my own. With all the investment,  my $100 tomato taste better.

Thanks for taking your time to answer. I hope you didn't munch the other 2/3 of the cigar while writing.
Quite surprising to see you doing this in a big city just to satisfy your food cravings, I always thought that Pasig has everything to offer, food especially.
Here we import Vidalia onions from Luzon. Too hot to grow them here.
No fancy foods here yet. Not even in PPC.
We grow a little of everything, Dragon Fruits, pineapples, Pomegranates, Marangs, Star apples, Mangos, Coconuts, Jack fruits, Guavas, Limes, Rambutan and just recently started Figs.
We still don't have a vegetable garden but it's coming.
Life in the jungle is fairly challenging. It takes a lot of energy just to keep the place free from weeds. Snakes love tall grass. Wild animals love our fruits. Giant bats are the biggest fruit eaters.
I am dreaming to start my own hydroponics for growing my own lettuce. It's coming but I have plenty of other priorities. Things break down here more often than in the city. Everything is more complicated to repair.

PalawanBob wrote:

Thanks for taking your time to answer. I hope you didn't munch the other 2/3 of the cigar while writing.

<SNIP>
Quite surprising to see you doing this in a big city just to satisfy your food cravings, I always thought that Pasig has everything to offer, food especially.

<SNIP>
Here we import Vidalia onions from Luzon. Too hot to grow them here.

<SNIP>
I am dreaming to start my own hydroponics for growing my own lettuce. It's coming but I have plenty of other priorities. Things break down here more often than in the city. Everything is more complicated to repair.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Vidalia Onions are seasonable in the US grocery stores, in order to be called Vidalia they have to be grown in Vidalia County Georgia. The same genetic onion grown elsewhere cannot use the name Vidalia.  So you can buy other onions that look like Vidalia, taste like Vidalia but marketed under a different name.

Texas Granix and Walla Walla are also sweet onions like Vidalia. It was difficult even finding Vidalia seeds, most online big time seed producers were always out of stock. If you would try to buy Vidalia seeds on Amazon or Ebay, heaven knows what you will get, I read a lot of complaints that the seeds were not Vidalia.

Pasig does have almost everything to offer for my family: Wife, Stepsons, Daughter-In-law, but being an American set in my ways, I like many food things I enjoyed in the states.

I believe the hot weather here in Pasig is part of my problem. That's why I bought Grow Tents, our bedroom has aircon 24/7. When I lived in Las Vegas the temperature sometimes is 115 f or 46 c. Not knowing what I was doing I planted Tomatoes & Green Peppers, they did not produce anything.

I believe growing lettuce hydroponics could be done very easily, maybe you should try a simple setup that wouldn't require a lot of time for maintaining the project. Then you can get bigger ideas how to build a system for commercial sales.

We have no plans for doing any business... not yet. Especially not these days. There is something called Cov.. 19 (did you hear anything about it?) that I am worried will kill 50% of us... that's why I chose to live with monkeys rather than humans. They are a pest but they are harmless.
Humans,.. well, it's another story...
My friend is complaining that TV is only showing cemeteries, hospitals and Ambulances zipping around carrying sick people.
People dropping dead like flies.
How come you are still alive?

PalawanBob wrote:

Here we import Vidalia onions from Luzon. Too hot to grow them here..

According to official soil info, there are no farmland at Palawan suiting good to grow onions  (except a tiny land in Sofr Espanola).   That's why Palawan importi much onions.  The only farmlands good for onions in Phils I know of are around Baguio plus "Litlle Baguio" =Northwest of Iloilo.

PalawanBob wrote:

We have no plans for doing any business... not yet. Especially not these days. There is something called Cov.. 19 (did you hear anything about it?) that I am worried will kill 50% of us... that's why I chose to live with monkeys rather than humans. They are a pest but they are harmless.
Humans,.. well, it's another story...
My friend is complaining that TV is only showing cemeteries, hospitals and Ambulances zipping around carrying sick people.
People dropping dead like flies.
How come you are still alive?

There is something called..  19   [This statement under review]

People dropping dead by flies.  [This statement under review]

Switch off TV and watch Pornhub. [This statement approved]

At 80, he is too old to watch porn.
Occasionally he watches the song competition shows on Saturday and Sunday night. Most of the songs are from pre 2000. There is nothing else worth watching.
TV News are no news any more so we watch old movies that he stored on his external drive. He also has some nice classical music that goes well with a bottle of wine, Italian cheese French baguette and French onion soup. We make an effort and take time to prepare the table according to proper rules and make eating a celebration. That is the highest luxury I enjoy here in the jungle.

Now, hydroponics is a viable solution as a source of income for anyone who would be ambitious enough to have more than 3000 lettuce plants. My goal is only less than 100.
There is one filipino on YouTube who has achieved that, and more. He says that's not a dream, it's achievable. I do believe it...!!!

PalawanBob wrote:

At 80, he is too old to watch porn.
We make an effort and take time to prepare the table according to proper rules and make eating a celebration. That is the highest luxury I enjoy here in the jungle.

Try & include a little chocolate into his diet. I think it may help & has he watched the movie "Chocolat" as yet? A classic romantic comedy-drama film directed by Lasse Hallström (Yr.2000)
(Omo)

PalawanBob wrote:

At 80, he is too old to watch porn.
Occasionally he watches the song competition shows on Saturday and Sunday night. Most of the songs are from pre 2000. There is nothing else worth watching.
TV News are no news any more so we watch old movies that he stored on his external drive. He also has some nice classical music that goes well with a bottle of wine, Italian cheese French baguette and French onion soup. We make an effort and take time to prepare the table according to proper rules and make eating a celebration. That is the highest luxury I enjoy here in the jungle.

Now, hydroponics is a viable solution as a source of income for anyone who would be ambitious enough to have more than 3000 lettuce plants. My goal is only less than 100.
There is one filipino on YouTube who has achieved that, and more. He says that's not a dream, it's achievable. I do believe it...!!!

A man is never to old to watch porn. . . .All these lovelorn middle age men when they dream of having  a young Filipino girl friend they are going through male menopause. Now when you reach our age we are going through our second menopause and we watch our dream on Pornhub.

Yes nice classical music, a bottle of Cold Duck or  Asti Spumante, of course cheese, baguette and French Onion Soup. Enjoy it all with a wonderful Filipino woman and turn the lights down low.

Well if you're going to sell the lettuce make sure to sell a bottle of Rougefort Salad Dressing with each lettuce sale.

PalawanBob wrote:

At 80, he is too old to watch porn.!

Well. My granddather did run after women still when he was 80 +, when much younger grandmother had died.  . He started his FIRST own businesses when he was in age when normal people retire. Later switched to employed seller, selling lorry loads of chickens for eggs/fatening,  foder, seeds, fertilizers and such until he was 92.  He still thought of himself as young at least some after he got a cmplicated broken foot when he got hit by a car, but by that he lost his very good stamina.   
My 87 yp mother found out rather recently she isn't 18 anymore, but she is still in better shape than many Filipinos     by they find it crazy to exersise, while myy mother walk at least 2 km per day.
And I'm 68 and plan to start family, I start thinking it's time      and 2 -3 new businesses. (One now at distance and 1-2  more if I get there. But I plan to teach the wife to handle things so I can  retire     so family can manage them after I'm dead.)

So part of "age" depend of own mind...

PalawanBob wrote:

Now, hydroponics is a viable solution as a source of income for anyone who would be ambitious enough to have more than 3000 lettuce plants. My goal is only less than 100.
There is one filipino on YouTube who has achieved that, and more. He says that's not a dream, it's achievable. I do believe it...!!!

Pehaps you are talking about a Filipino from south part of Luzon? I don't know now, but before covid he earned much by growin vegss and lorry transported them toManila.  He started with some hectares own land, but grew fast by leasing much more land.

I am still waiting for a feed back and more information from the original poster. Your original post is very incomplete, more information coming from your side would be a great benefit to YOU.
Sounds like you lost money on trycicle? This is not unusual. I know a person who did just that. Bought a trycicle to rent it out and lost his shirt in the process.
Anyone here would agree with me that a trycicle business is a bare survival business.

PalawanBob wrote:

I am still waiting for a feed back and more information from the original poster. Your original post is very incomplete, more information coming from your side would be a great benefit to YOU.
Sounds like you lost money on trycicle? This is not unusual. I know a person who did just that. Bought a trycicle to rent it out and lost his shirt in the process.
Anyone here would agree with me that a trycicle business is a bare survival business.

Don't expect that because it was posted 2016   

Thanks Coach, I didn't notice the date.

🤣😂🤣😂 Hope he hasn't been waiting 5 to 6 years.

Not to stay busy, because almost no work   

/Loan shark can be very profitable - and deadly         A majority of murdered foreigners I  saw at a long list some years ago were loan sharks taking advantage of poor people making them more poor, so these murders made the world some better...  Common with 480 % interest recounted to  per year          Beside that I believe it's illegal for foreigners to be involved in.

/BUT at "Harvest sharing" and such BOTH sides EARN by them being financed get more income by that e g by affordng proper fertilizer.    =One finance the costs for a crop period normaly EXCEPT for work. The other have the space and do the work.
E g for rice it's common with money back plus 25-33 % of the rest to the financiere.  (But the foreigners I know did it to be kind to some they knew so they asked for lower percentage and one of tthem gave his share of the harvest to sharity.)
It's NOT lending, it's as temporary partnerships for a project period, so if the crop fail by bad weather the farmer DON'T get in dept to the financiere.   Can be much different between regions if it functions, what they are used to and if there are such, but I know of such at Bataan, Bohol. Palawan and Mindanao.

coach53 ~

Correct. The first funeral I attended was that of a young Filipina lender. The debtors decided to wipe out their loan by blowing her brains out. They turned themselves in and walked because they threatened everybody who might try to press charges.