This week on Hustleshare, host Ron Baetiong sits down with Nina Ellaine Dizon, the founder of Colourette Cosmetics, as she shares her journey from selling items in school to accidentally entering the beauty space through soap—and scaling the brand exponentially through online growth. Nina also opens up about her decision to raise venture capital and how it reshaped Colourette’s trajectory from a side hustle into one of the country’s most recognizable beauty brands.

Resources:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nina-ellaine-dizon-b24bb6100/

Website: https://colourette.ph/

Links/Sponsors:

OneCFO: https://www.onecfoph.co/

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This week on Hustleshare, host Ron Baetiong sits down with Kim Lato, founder and CEO of KimStore, the Philippines' longest-running and largest electronics e-tailer. Kim shares her incredible 19-year journey from selling cameras on Multiply as an 18-year-old college student to building an e-commerce empire that survived platform shutdowns, customs controversies, family tragedy, and a global pandemic—emerging stronger each time.

00:02:06 – Kim's hustle: Building KimStore.com from scratch

00:06:41 – The Fil-Chi way: financial literacy from age 12

00:09:04 – Launching on Multiply: from hobby to side hustle

00:11:25 – Early fulfillment: LRT rides with cameras to meetups

00:14:15 – Wild Wild West: ghosting customers and cash-on-delivery struggles

00:16:36 – 2008 financial crisis: choosing full-time hustle over job hunting

00:19:29 – Building the first team: CSRs and in-house riders in Tondo

00:21:52 – Riding the group buying wave (Groupon era)

00:24:18 – Go Negosyo feature: "I want to be the Amazon of Electronics"

00:29:02 – When Multiply shut down (2013): pivoting to Facebook

00:35:17 – 2015 tragedy: Dad shot 8 times in inside job holdup

00:36:45 – Finding God: the turning point that changed everything

00:42:36 – Lazada and Shopee: competition or opportunity?

00:48:10 – COVID-19: The breakthrough year (2020)

00:52:35 – Building brand equity vs. just selling

00:54:02 – Delayed gratification: first car after 9 years

00:56:01 – Finding purpose beyond the hustle

"I wasn't really certain about what I'm doing, but I took a leap of faith that I think this is something worth pursuing. I think we could make this big. And that really helped me do this in a bigger aspect."

Website: https://www.kimstore.com

Facebook: KimStore (3M+ followers)

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kimstorePH/

Links/Sponsors:

OneCFO: https://www.onecfoph.co/

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This week on Hustleshare, host Ron Baetiong sits down with Smile API co-founder Jan Pabellon to uncover how he bounced back from a failed first startup, taught himself tech, built his own dev shop, and discovered the massive credit data gap holding millions of Filipinos back. Jan also reveals what pushed him to become a founder again and how Smile API is now taking on one of the biggest challenges in Philippine financial inclusion.

Resources Mentioned:

Website: https://www.getsmileapi.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jpabellon/

Links/Sponsors:

OneCFO: OneCFO

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.