The Leadership Stack Podcast

How are you able to adapt and build your business? What do you do to adapt and get ahead of the curve? As leaders, Harry goes out and smells the air. He knows where the industry is going to. If you can’t see the direction, you will have a hard time adjusting to the coming trends. In Harry’s case, more and more of his clients no longer want a storyboard and a video shoot. They want Harry to just wo...

What is so remarkable about Reality Box that you get most of your clients out of word of mouth? Reality Box does not have any revision caps. They never ship out a product unless the client is absolutely happy with it. Harry will do everything in his abilities to please his clients. This is not in the contract that Harry provides to his clients. But it’s something that most of his returning clients...

What’s your vision for Reality Box? When they started, Reality Box was named Boxed reality. They wanted to cover people’s events and everything that happened. Afterward, they will send it to their client in a box. The box contained a USB, a DVD, and Photos of the event. They focused on shooting what’s real and direct as little as possible. As the years went by, the market dictated something that H...

Is your dad’s brand still up? Is he still working? Harry Uy’s dad is still very much active in the photography business. This is because his father’s brand is his name. As long as people know that he still provides these services, he will always get clients. His only problem was his rates. Were there any clients of his that transitioned to you? How did you handle that? Those that successfully tran...

Harry Uy graduated from De La Salle University with a degree in Computer Science. He is my upperclassman and was the person who referred me to one of my first clients. He is the co-founder of Reality Box. They started as an events coverage company focusing on both photography and videography. Now they’ve adapted and are now focusing more on corporate media productions. Most of their recent clients...

Do you think that there is a strong manipulation in our stock market? Marvin isn’t really sure. He’s not someone from the PSE, he was never a broker, nor was he an investment banker, or someone that dealt with mutual funds. He was just an outsider that was trading in the market. This is why technical analysis works best for Marvin. He doesn’t have any other source of news or data besides the chart...

What does Marvin Germo spend money on? How do you maintain your mindset of thriftiness and financial discipline? Marvin is a simple man. He spends his earnings mostly just on coffee, food, and the occasional vacation.  In the past decade, Marvin’s income has increased dramatically. Despite this, his level of spending remains the same as it was before.  This financial discipline has come from how M...

One of the things that a lot of people do is to invest in real estate. What’s your take on that given that you’ve been investing in REITs? REIT is a derivative, but it’s basically a stock. A derivative is a piece of paper that says you have exposure to something but do not own it. REIT gives you exposure to anything that has a possible rental income.  For less than PHP10,000 you can buy a stock of...

Why don’t you trade for other people? You can manage the risk, but you can’t manage the people’s emotions. For Marvin, it will always be better if they trade for themselves. If people can’t manage their funds themselves, then they’re better off putting it in a mutual fund, that way it’s regulated as well. Marvin thinks that investing your money is your responsibility. No one will take care of your...

How Much Annual Interest Rate is a Good Investment? This depends largely on your goal. If you’re only on the lookout for extra cash flow, then anything that’s fixed, guaranteed, and that beats the bond rate of the government or inflation, then that’s already good enough. If you’re after growth, then it’s a totally different story. The benchmark for growth when it comes to investments is the PSCI. ...

Many people believe that the stock market is where the money is. To be successful in trading the stock market, you just have to learn about technical analysis and watch a few tutorials about it. However, based on one of the best stock market analysts and traders in the Philippines, Marvin Germo, the most effective way to trade is for you to do what you’re good at. Keep in mind that like any busine...

One of the things that is most difficult for startups is getting the right people for your team. How do you get the right people? First of all, Anthony believes that you have to pray for the right people to come into the business. Without prayer, you won’t know who’s coming into your business. Second, he concentrates on the character of the person even before the technical skills of the individual...

Who is Anthony Laborte? Anthony Laborte is an entrepreneur who started up his company while he was just a second-year college student. The name of the business was IIPI which stands for International Industry Partners Incorporated. What’s interesting was that during that time, Anthony did not have any direction concerning why he named his business as such. It was a very generic name because, at th...

Isaac Sabas Part 3   What were some of the challenges that you’ve faced as the CEO of Pandora Labs and now VP for Product of Bolton Labs? How did you overcome them? The most common would be nonperforming leaders. Those that do not perform according to Isaac’s expectations.  What he does is he has an honest conversation with them. Isaac reiterates their mission and vision, as well as the expectatio...

How did Isaac Sabas found Pandora Labs? Isaac Sabas founded Pandora Labs in 2012. It started way back when Isaac was teaching Computer Science at De La Salle University. He saw before that the students were demotivated because of their vague future after graduating. Isaac wanted to show them that the talent that Filipinos had was globally competitive. This goal led him to research the best opportu...

Isaac Sabas Part 2   From being someone that calls the shots to becoming a Vice President, what are some of the biggest lessons that you’ve realized so far? How has the transition been? One of the nicest things that happened was that Isaac built up trust with his partners. The trust was, in a sense, a deep understanding of one another. That both of them were on the same page, particularly in their...

How do you manage millennials? JC has around 30 to 40 millennials that are currently working under him. They used to have a lot of structured feedback and planning sessions. They used to implement the PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act), they also had weekly meetings and many different types of reports. However, JC thought that this didn’t work out too well for them. When everybody is always meeting together...

Who is Juan Carlo Del Rosario? Juan Carlo is the sole heir to one of the most highly acclaimed catering services, which was named after him, Juan Carlo The Caterer. They do weddings, corporate events, debuts, and even kid parties. I personally think that they’re one of the best caterers in terms of décor, taste, selection, price, and service.  How would you measure up to the passion that your pare...

Do you ever argue with your dad at work? JC argued a lot with his dad, particularly before he had a large stake in the company. He would regularly spite his father by smoking right in front of him just to get him mad. The disrespectful behavior that JC had disappeared all of a sudden when he learned that God will always love him no matter what. With the feeling of security from the Lord, JC had be...

What’s your advice to budding entrepreneurs? Venchito has a lot to say when it comes to starting a business. Primarily because now is the easiest time to start one. The first thing that he said was that it would be best if budding entrepreneurs go and collect experience first in their desired industry. He mentioned working for two to five years to collect both the work experience and technical kno...

Who is Venchito Tampon? Venchito is the co-founder and marketing director of Sharprocket—an SEO company that only offers link building services and content marketing.  When he’s not running the business, Venchito goes out to speak in schools, non-profit organizations, and different companies. He also conducts trainings that revolve around our own advocacies.  The trainings that we provide are for...

There were some days when Charles felt alone. This is because he had to remove all of the distractions in his life. He realized that for him to be happy, he had to accept that fact. Charles took the road less traveled by.  What he wanted was different from what most other people of his age do. When others were thinking only of making money and going on vacations, Charles wanted to build new things...

For Charles, Bitcoin will not be the currency of the future. Rather, it’s going to be the technology of the future. Blockchain in particular. Bitcoin is not perfect. The currency system worldwide has its flaws and has gone through several major changes. Long ago, gold was the standard. Now it’s technically oil, and it seems as if data is going to be the next contender. Oil is most likely the curre...

Why is vision such an important aspect to becoming an entrepreneur? Charles shares his most important advice to would-be entrepreneurs here! At 21 years old, Charles Gener started his own business on his father’s lawn. He started small and reached ROI in three years. Now he is 27 years old and continuing his quest to innovate and change things for the better.  What’s your advice to would-be entrep...

Who is Charles Gener? Charles is the CEO of Velcomms. He is a technical person who understands computers. Aside from IT and technology, he is also interested in music and more recently, blockchain technology. How did you start your business? The internet services industry is one of the scarier fields to penetrate because there is a lot of politics and is dominated by two or three sharks in the Phi...