Founder Stories
Individual entrepreneur narratives and business journeys from across the region
She Built SPC Juice to Help Her Cousin. Her Cousin Did Not Live to See How Far It Has Come.
The founder of Vidad Food Processing, Darizel C. Vidad of Brgy. Binacag, Banna, Ilocos Norte, developed a sweet potato with calamansi juice from a college feasibility study, transforming it from a product with a 2-day shelf life to one with a 2-month shelf life at room temperature and up to 5 months when refrigerated, into an FDA-eLTO-approved food enterprise, and representing Region 1 at the National Young Farmers Challenge Season 5 in April 2026. The people who inspired her most did not make it to that stage, but she kept going anyway.
Destined to Hustle, Designed to Deliver. How Disenyo Digitals Is Closing the Creative Gap in Northern Luzon.
Jennifer Fuentes Castro of Destine Events and Disenyo Digitals started with a single creative gathering during a transition period after working overseas. What grew from it is a creative and digital solutions platform now working with LGUs, training young creatives, and building the kind of regional creative economy that Northern Luzon has always had the talent for but not always the infrastructure to support.
For the Millions, Not the Millionaires — How Alam Mo Ba Baguio Is Giving Baguio's Small Businesses the Visibility They Were Never Getting
Josh Inman and co-founder Karen Perez launched Alam Mo Ba Baguio in November 2025 to solve a problem they lived personally — and in six months, the platform has clocked over 60,000 unique visits and advertised more than 1,000 events, activities, and deals from Baguio's small business community.
She Went Looking for Cacao and Found Farmers Who Had Already Given Up. Eva Padua Decided That Was Not the End of the Story.
Eva Ritchelle D. Padua started Dulche Chocolates in Baguio City as a chocolate lover who wanted to make healthier bars. She ended up becoming the Cordillera's first bean-to-bar chocolate producer, a DOST grant recipient, a BPI Sinag national winner, and the founder of an enterprise that now exports to five countries — built on a promise she made to farmers she had never planned to meet.
She Started Selling Handcrafted Pieces on a Manila Street Corner in 1990. Thirty-Five Years Later, She Is Attempting a Guinness World Record in Baguio City.
Adelaida Guia of Abiakak built a family craft enterprise that spans crochet, indigenous beadwork, and handcrafted Tree of Life décor across three decades, two cities, a pandemic pivot, and now a world record attempt for the Largest Crochet Mandala by an Individual.
He Joined a Government Competition Just to Get the Certificate. His Bean Chicharon Ended Up in Switzerland.
Ryan Rebolledo of FRANS Food Processing in Tabuk City, Kalinga, started Beancharon as a classroom feasibility study. It is now a DA-grant-funded, DTI-registered enterprise that won at the provincial and regional levels of the Young Farmers Challenge and is heading to the national stage.
Geneva Gañalon Started a Duck Farm in La Union. Now She Is Building an Agri-Tourism Enterprise That Employs Mothers and Out-of-School Youth.
G's Duckery Food Processing in Bacnotan is what happens when a young farmer decides that a duck farm can be more than a duck farm — and builds a social enterprise around that belief.
He Did Not Want to Waste a Single Strawberry. Now He Is Building a Premium Wine Brand That Tastes Like Benguet.
John Glenn Libag is a fourth-year student in La Trinidad who turned a supply problem into Bo-oy Food Products — a circular, zero-waste enterprise built entirely around the strawberry, and one of the most quietly ambitious young ventures in the Cordillera.