Meaningfully Impacting the Economy in The Philippines: John Jonas, CEO of OnlineJobs.ph (Part 1)

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. 

John has built an online job portal specifically focused on the Philippines. Very interesting story of how one entrepreneur has held steady his priorities and built a terrific lifestyle business! Kudos!

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background?

Capital Efficient Entrepreneurship: Glamping Hub CEO Ruben Martinez (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: What about number of travelers? Are we looking mostly at couples traveling or are we looking at group travel?

Ruben Martinez: Our demographic is between the ages of 25 and 42. There really is something for everybody. We do get a lot of families and couples, and ladies weekend and solo trips. Really because of the variety of accommodations, you can find something at your price point within your area.

Capital Efficient Entrepreneurship: Glamping Hub CEO Ruben Martinez (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: What did you see on the horizon that if you could do that, it would move to the next level?

Ruben Martinez: Some of the strategy was built around normalizing the word glamping itself. Anytime somebody says glamping, they’re going to list out their thoughts. Their thoughts are probably different from everybody else’s. This idea of unique outdoor experiences was still new.

Capital Efficient Entrepreneurship: Glamping Hub CEO Ruben Martinez (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: What about financing? Did you bootstrap it? How did you get it off the ground?

Ruben Martinez: At the very beginning, it was bootstrapped. It took about two years, more or less, before we got our first angel round. We had a small round that allowed us to invest in a little bit of technology and hire a few people.

Bootstrapping First from Colorado, Then Scaling with VC Funds: Faction CEO Luke Norris (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: What does this do to your revenue? You’re approaching $20 million in revenue and you’re facing competition. What happens? How does the revenue change?

Luke Norris: At this point, the revenue started to flatten a little. We’re growing but we’re not growing anywhere near what we used to. We’re still finding our way on how to position this complex product.

Capital Efficient Entrepreneurship: Glamping Hub CEO Ruben Martinez (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: What was the spark for the business?

Ruben Martinez: The idea of Glamping Hub came from the simple fact that nobody was representing unique outdoor accommodation online. Everybody has gotten into hotels, apartment rentals, and condo rentals.

Bootstrapping First from Colorado, Then Scaling with VC Funds: Faction CEO Luke Norris (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: Talk to me a little bit about the co-labelled and white-labelled channel partnerships that kicked in gear. How did they come about?

Luke Norris: We had established an early go-to market motion. The key to this next level of success was NetApp. We were able to co-label with them where they were signing up service providers to resell and help us sell our service and solutions. That virtuous circle is what helped expand us on the map rapidly.

Capital Efficient Entrepreneurship: Glamping Hub CEO Ruben Martinez (Part 1)

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. 

Travel has been a popular category for entrepreneurs to build capital-efficient businesses in. Read the story of Glamping Hub.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background?

Ruben Martinez: I was born and raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I went out to University of New Mexico for a year before I transferred to a university here in Denver, Colorado.