Alyanna T.

Estilong March 2, 2019

BSA 1-11 Managerial Economics

From pedicab to balut: Meet Pinoy coffee shop

owner in Ireland
Jeffrey Velasco a Filipino originally from Tondo, Manila managed to carve a niche in
Ireland’s coffee industry. From a humble pedicab driver and a balut vendor at night he managed
to get from the bottom to the top. He went to Taiwan to work for several years as an electronics
technician and later came back to the Philippines. With the money he earned abroad, he launched
a billiards business, a small bar, and an internet café. Wanting to have a better life, he went back
abroad to Ireland in 2006 this time not alone but with his wife who is a nurse. In Ireland, Velasco
worked as a coffee barista in the morning and a staff in a bed and breakfast place during the
night in 2013, and with the encouragement of his former employer, Velasco took a leap of faith
and purchased a failing coffee shop business in a populated part of Cork. He named his coffee
shop Cuppacity Coffee & Bagels. The shop became an instant hit among Irish customers, luring
in both the young and old.

Despite the presence of bigger coffee chains, he managed to stay afloat and slowly built his
customer base. He used this as an advantage to get regular costumers that kept his business
running. This Relationship Marketing made his company focus on building relationships with their
customers instead of always exclusive trying to sell them something (transactional marketing).
Customers who love your brand more will also spend more money with your brand. Many
traditional retailers have found this to be true. He managed to build his second branch in a very
busy city but with a lot of competitors. Nevertheless, his business stayed afloat because of the
strategy he learned from his first branch and now, the coffee shop is visited by more costumers
because of his location-based marketing. With a big city, he will have more chances to be visited
by many costumers instead of establishing a new branch in a remote area where there are no
competitors but low rate of costumers as well.

What I really admire from this article is that form being a handyman himself, he
began to personally convert the place into his vision of a personal, friendly and homey-type of
space where each customer will have a family feel. He was hands-on in everything from carpentry
to plumbing, purchasing materials, doing maintenance work, and even hiring employees for the
coffee shop business. He became close with his costumers because he himself goes to the café
everyday to serve them. He then had this connection with the people. And not just that but also
because he hired different nationalities in his branches. He has Irish, Polish, Romanian,
Lithuanina, Malaysian, and Brazilian workers. His training from his past jobs proved to be valuable
in the industry that he is in and is passionate about. From the coffee shop he was hired in before,
he probably learned a lot on how to manage a coffee shop business. From balut and pedicab
driver, he was able to earn and develop his sense of perseverance because it takes a lot of hard
work for a person to be able to work during night and day. All these hardships were finally paid
off. It is pretty evident here the saying “Pag may tiyaga, may nilaga” for he himself proved that
in every hardship and obstacle, there is a priceless prize waiting for you at the end.

Source: Garcia, R. (2018). From pedicab to balut: Meet Pinoy coffee shop owner in Ireland.
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