You can’t rush a good rise

By: Freddierick Nathaniel Manalo, Corporate Planning Officer

Time is an essential ingredient in baking, where mere seconds can ruin a beautifully crafted bread. Lennie Piñana, a baker from Brgy. Laguan, Rizal, Laguna, embodies this mastery over time in every single bread she bakes.

She started as a domestic worker in Hong Kong in 2006, putting in hours serving a family she had no relation to. As part of her work, she was responsible for preparing food for her employers, which is where she first learned how to bake.

This work was a stable and reliable source of income, but together with her husband, she dreamt of a day when they could go back home and start their own business.

In 2019, months before the onset of the COVID pandemic, she decided to return home and stay for good. It was during this time that she decided to put up a bakery, turning her baking skills into commercial use. However, despite her capability, she saw that the market was into hard biscuits like paborita, ugoy, hakobina, and puto seko, far different from the cakes and cookies she baked abroad. To bridge the gap, she employed five experienced bakers to help her.

To support this venture, Lennie sought help from CARD Bank, Inc., a microfinance rural bank.

As a client-saver since 2013, she was familiar with the bank’s product offerings, so she applied for and was granted a loan amounting to PHP 20,000.00, which she used as working capital. Despite this financial support, she recognized that starting a business carried a big risk; that’s why they decided that her husband would remain working overseas as their safety net if the venture didn’t work.

As years passed, the business survived and grew despite the low demand during the pandemic, but this did not happen without challenges. She admitted that the early years of their business were filled with losses and supply problems, which she treated as an investment to secure her future market share. She saved during peak seasons and took out loans during the dips, keeping the business afloat despite the struggles.

Over eight years of operations, their clients expanded to Laguna, Rizal, Quezon, and even parts of Metro Manila. Over these years, Lennie managed to temper the seasonal ups and downs of her business, adjust and improve production, and help send her only child to college through her loans in CARD Bank.

She currently still employs the five bakers she started with, while also offering part-time employment to nanays in their neighborhood. Despite her success, she remains humble and prudent, a quality and lesson sometimes forgotten by other business owners.

She gave simple advice and a warning to future business owners: “Hindi siya one click; mahabang panahon ang kakailanganin; kailangan siyang pagtiyagaan.” (It doesn’t happen instantly; it takes time and you must work hard for it.)

Her business journey is a reminder that success takes time. Just like building her bakery, it took years of patience, skills, and consistent effort. By staying flexible through difficult periods, she managed to build a business that continues to support her family as well as her community today.