The First Pot of Sinigang
In March 2016, Rene Domingo cooked his first batch of sinigang na baboy using a borrowed aluminum pot and a propane tank he rented for ₱850 a month. He was forty-one. He had ₱30,000 saved from eleven years of working as a foreman's assistant at a construction site in Imus, Cavite. His wife, Lorna, had just been laid off from a garment factory in Bacoor. Their son, Marco, was in second year at DLSU-D.
That was the whole budget. No business plan. No consultant. No bank loan, because the bank had already rejected his application three times — insufficient collateral, they said. No collateral. What collateral could a man with a tricycle and a rented apartment have?
He set up a table with a plastic tablecloth along a road near a construction project in General Trias, Cavite. A hand-painted sign in marker on cardboard: SINIGANG NI MANG RENÉ. ₱80 NA LANG.
He sold to construction workers. Not because he targeted them strategically, but because they were the only people passing by at six in the morning.
The Grind Nobody Talks About
The first two months were brutal. He woke at 3:30 AM to go to the market in Dasmariñas, haggling for pork bones and kangkong at prices that changed daily depending on the weather. If it rained, vegetables went up. If there was a typhoon in the Visayas, pork prices spiked. He absorbed it all because ₱80 was already pushing what a construction worker earning ₱400 a day could afford.
He registered his barangay business permit at ₱300. He got his DTI registration for ₱500. He filed his BIR Form 1901 at the Revenue District Office in Trece Martires and waited in line for four hours. His monthly tax was ₱1,500 — a manageable amount, but it was one more thing he had to set aside from income that barely covered rent.
By the third month, word had spread. Workers from other sites started showing up. Then they started asking for delivery — can you send two containers to the building site in Alabang? Can you do forty packs for our crew in Taguig?
He said yes. Then he cried in the bathroom because he had no idea how to fulfill it.
The Moment Everything Changed
The turning point came in November 2017, when a property developer's site supervisor, a man named Aling Tess's husband, ordered 200 packs of meals for a subcontractor meeting. They liked the food. They asked to put in a standing order — 150 packs, three times a week.
That single account brought him ₱120,000 a month in guaranteed revenue. For the first time, Rene had predictable income. He hired his first two employees — a helper and a delivery rider on a motorbike he bought secondhand for ₱28,000. He registered them with SSS at ₱900 per employee per month and PhilHealth at ₱600. He was running payroll now, whether he had the money or not.
By 2018, his monthly revenue hit ₱280,000. His net margin was thin — about 22% after ingredients, labor, rent, fuel, and taxes. He was making around ₱60,000 a month, which was good, but he was also working nineteen hours a day. His knees were giving out. Lorna was running the kitchen alone most evenings.
The First Franchise Was Almost a Disaster
In 2019, his cousin Jun asked if he could open a branch in Rosario, Cavite. Rene said yes because of utang na loob — Jun had lent him ₱10,000 when Marco had a dengue scare in 2016. Family. You don't say no.
He charged Jun a franchise fee of ₱120,000. The agreement was simple: use Rene's recipes, his supplier contacts, his name on the sign. Jun would pay 8% of gross sales as a royalty.
For four months, it worked. Then Jun started changing recipes. He added sweet sauce to the sinigang because his customers preferred it. He switched to a cheaper brand of fish sauce to save ₱200 a week. Rene drove to the Rosario branch and tasted it. He sat in the kitchen and said nothing for ten minutes.
The fight lasted two weeks. Jun said he was the one paying rent, so he could do what he wanted. Rene said the name on the sign was his reputation. They didn't speak for a month.
They resolved it the way Filipino family businesses resolve everything: Lorna cooked lunch, and they talked over it. They agreed on a standardized recipe card that went to every branch — exact measurements, exact brands. And a penalty: if quality checks failed twice, the franchise agreement could be terminated.
Twelve Branches and Still Cooking
Today, in 2024, Sinigang ni Mang René has twelve branches across Cavite, Laguna, and Metro Manila. Seven are company-owned. Five are franchise units. Total monthly gross revenue is approximately ₱2.1 million. Net profit after all expenses sits around ₱420,000 a month.
Rene still wakes up at 4 AM. He still cooks the sinigang himself at the central kitchen in Imus — the one that supplies all twelve branches. He has fifteen employees at headquarters. He has a small accounting firm in Bacoor handling his BIR filings, but he reviews the numbers himself every Friday night.
He has never taken a bank loan. He has never sought an investor. He grew the business from ₱30,000 using cash flow, family labor, and the stubborn refusal to quit.
His son Marco graduated and now manages operations. The kitchen is cleaner than Rene's hands ever were. But the sign still says ₱80 NA LANG.
Lessons for the Rest of Us
Rene didn't have a business degree. He had something rarer: he knew exactly who his customer was, and he refused to let the product drift. His margin was thin because he chose to keep the price low, not because he couldn't charge more. That was a decision, not a limitation.
The franchise model wasn't a strategy he read about in a book. It was what happened when he got overwhelmed and needed help but couldn't afford to hire managers. He outsourced to family because family was cheaper, and then he formalized it because informal arrangements rot businesses from the inside.
His story isn't unique. It's the story of a million small business owners in the Philippines who are building something with nothing, who register with barangay halls and wait in lines at BIR, who absorb typhoon-season price hikes instead of raising menu prices, and who measure success not in headlines but in whether their children can eat three times a day.
If you're starting a business in the Philippines — whether it's a carinderia, an online shop, a service — here's what Rene's story actually teaches: start smaller than you think. Charge less than you want. Solve one problem for one group of people. Let the market tell you when to grow. And when you grow, write the rules down before the first fight happens, because the fight will come.