NOV 2020 — Starting a business is hard. Starting a business on another continent is even harder. But that’s precisely what Brett Doyle set out to do. In the Philippines, the manufacturing industry is the top contributor to the country’s economic growth. The food and beverage (F&B) sector is among the largest contributors within this industry. According to the official data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), the F&B sector accounted for 9.7% of GDP and for 50.9% of the nominal gross value added (GVA) in 2018. Determined to bring big business all the way from the United States, Brett Doyle founded Mosaic Solutions in 2016. Headquartered in Manila, Mosaic Solutions is a profit optimization company that sells software to aid businesses with data analytics, inventory management, point of sale, and purchasing for F&B across South East Asia. Some of Mosaic’s clients include big name franchises such as WildFlour, Din Tai Fung, California Pizza Kitchen, and many more. In September 2020, Mosaic Solutions raised USD$1.5 million in pre-series A funding led by an Australian firm.

Brett is an American who started his career in investment banking, but has had a myriad of varying roles ranging from VCs, consulting, and biz-dev sales. He moved his family to the Philippines 4 years ago with a dream to grow a shiny start up in rising Asia. Although he doesn’t speak Tagalog yet, most of his employees are local. While the local employees know the ins and outs of the culture, Brett hones in on his extensive knowledge of international F&B business and adapts it to the Philippine world.

But the real question is why choose the Philippines as the starting point amongst other rising stars in Asia?

Brett says that firstly, Mosaic Solutions has a long term vision to focus on Southeast Asia and receives investment through a parent company in Singapore. As the Singapore Corporate Securities Law exists similarly to other developed countries, the chances of receiving funding are much larger as startups have a broader investor base. If you’re a filipino tech startup, nine out of ten times chances are that your investor base will be only Filipino. For seed funding, it’s difficult to solidify cross border deals if you’re exclusively in a singular market such as the Philippines. Additionally, the reality is that Singaporean laws are more transparent so global investors have more overall confidence in their financial protection. Brett now focuses his startup investment as a regional play, directing his contributions to the Philippines using overseas resourcing. But I guess this still doesn’t answer the question of why the Philippines so let’s take a closer look.

As a foreign business owner in the Philippines, Brett says his draw to the country came from two major reasons: (1) Western products and brands always prove strong in the Philippines and (2) English is the predominantly spoken language. Having most of his prior work experience in the US, many western brands do very well in the Philippines. If business owners are looking around various Asian markets, the Philippines is a notable contender with home to 110 million people. It’s a big enough market to prove yourself and build a defensible marketable position that scales itself. At the same time, business owners can answer less questions and deal with minimal political red tape when compared to other well established markets like Singapore and Hong Kong. Furthermore, the Philippines gives business owners access to a fast growing, English speaking young labor market. For Brett, it made a lot of sense to build a regional office in Manila. He notes, however, that every business is different, so it’s important to evaluate case-by-case whether the country profile fits your needs.

Aside from demographic and cultural fit, Brett has to combat being an outside foreigner when doing business in the Philippines. Contrary to the western transactional business model, he says that doing business in the East is all about building relationships with partners where trust is earned over time. This requires more time in the meeting room that occupy the day, and more Manila traffic to sit in. With its congestion level in 2019 totaling to a whopping 71%, Metro Manila ranks 2 out of 416 cities across 57 countries in most urban congestion. Aside from the rush between meetings, one weakness he noticed is that Filipino expat entrepreneurship still lacks connection to the local Filipino business community and that most of his connections are other fellow expats. There’s always room for improvement, but with his family and the Mosaic team by his side, “the Philippines is now what [he] considers home.”

Brett admits that there are competitors in the US that have similar platforms to Mosaic Solutions, but they are almost one hundred percent exclusively focused on North America. However, at some point they will need geographic expansion. By the time they do that, Brett believes that he will be okay given he has the first mover advantage and that business in SE Asia has historically relied on long term relationships rather than short-term transactions. Mosaic Solutions already has additional satellite offices in Vietnam, Singapore, UAE, and India with more expansion coming soon. It is becoming increasingly common that foreign tech players come to the Philippines and leave within a few years because one-to-one tech expansion doesn’t sell well. For example, modifying your business model to sell from US to UK would be easier than US to the Philippines. Many companies choose to opt out of that additional effort. Brett can’t emphasize enough that building a reputation that allows you to be seen as local and regional is something that can’t be oversold. Unless you really focus on localization, your business may matter in the US or Europe, but not in the Philippines.

Adapting your business to cultural norms is just one obstacle, but what about surviving a worldwide pandemic? According to Rappler, Manila’s COVID-19 lockdown was regarded as the longest-running in the world with seven-and-a-half months of confinement for almost 14 million residents. Naturally, Brett was forced out of his comfort zone to figure out ways to continuously support his business. He immediately allowed his employees to work from home but wanted to retain high levels of engagement with his employees and clients.

Brett chose (2) and wanted to help serve the broader Filipino community. Everything he read was that food was the biggest issue during the pandemic and many people could not go out to get day to day sustenance. That’s why Brett and his team started the #FeedManila initiative. From the start, Brett received donations that he used towards Mosaic’s restaurant partners and paid them to provide meals which additionally kept their employees paid. At the end of it all, they were able to provide over 2,500 meals while at the same time enhancing his client relationships. He is currently working with his team to repurpose to make the effort a permanent, more standalone part of his business.

Dine to Unite is an extension to the #FeedManila initiative Brett and his team at Mosaic Solutions created during the lockdown. The platform helps restaurant partners determine which outlets are doing delivery and takeaway. They built a marketing brand that featured 1000+ restaurants in their directory so that customers can directly order food through Mosaic’s restaurant partners rather than using other food delivery applications that take a 30% cut from deliveries.

So far we’ve covered cultural barriers, worldwide pandemics, and a glimpse into what it takes to build a business in the emerging markets. Brett says, “there are always a unique set of challenges when running your business in the Philippines and that’s exactly what makes it rewarding.” But many would argue that they’d rather settle for creating their company in a country with much more funding opportunities. Those were precisely my thoughts at least. Is it really true? Yes and no.

The VC’s in the Philippines take a more logical approach with regard to funding. There are no big tech companies to gobble them up so investors are looking for sustainable growth. Brett says the region is still young in terms of tech and there’s a lot of work to be done. But isn’t that what makes the challenge rewarding at the end of the day? In the Philippine market, there’s double digit annual growth organically when compared to developed markets in the West. Brett makes clear that “30-40% of the consumption dollars by the end of the decade will be F&B and that’s a number that’s not happening in other markets.”

With COVID-19 being a short-term setback for now, Brett and his team at Mosaic Solutions have been able to invest in finding a way to use capitalism for good. At the end of the day, we’re all human beings trying to ensure we have basic necessities such as our next meal and there aren’t enough companies (big and small) that are brave enough to step up during uncertain times like these. I asked Brett if he had any advice for aspiring Filipino tech entrepreneurs and here’s what he said:

I get my leadership style from various people in my life. I don’t have a particular role model, but a lot of the core values I believe in are empathy and transparency with my team and stakeholders. Understanding your customers and their pain points are one of the most important things for me—to make sure you’re truly solving a problem. Don’t build tech for the sake of tech. Build tech to make something better; to fix a problem; to solve a problem. Find early clients who are helpful in giving honest feedback and get financial deals that will give that feedback. Most importantly, be honest, transparent, and realistic with your shareholders.

Entrepreneur Stats

NAME Brett Doyle

COMPANY Mosaic Solutions

LOCATION Makati, Manila, Philippines

EDUCATION Dartmouth College (New Hampshire, USA)