June 2016 - Mommy Ginger

It’s 1:00 PM here in Manila and I am in my “Game-On” mode. It’s been weeks since we launched our Beauty Biz Bliss Community, and admittedly, I have had not time to write this announcement. It’s not because I’ve been slacking off, but on the contrary, I’ve been making things happen. I wanted to spread the news about this community at the proper time. And I think, now is the perfect time, since we will be launching one of our projects (the website) in a few weeks.

We have received questions on what Beauty Biz Bliss is and what’s it all about. Apparently, one of the buzz words in this day and age, is COMMUNITY. By definition, this is what a community means.

A community is a social unit of any size that shares common values, or that is situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a village or town).

Why has this become something that is so talked-about, when it has been there since time immemorial? I think it’s because of the fact that with the advent of technology, sharing of ideas and common values can now be communicated and shared faster. You can now more efficiently connect with people, in our case, ladies with the same beliefs and values. Before, these people gathered in a certain geographical area, but with the advent of the internet, we can just gather online — in a Facebook group, in a platform like Meetup.com or create a circle in Leanin.org, etc. We can even just chat using Viber, Whatsapp, etc.

As a testimony to this, the core idea of establishing Beauty Biz Bliss started when Martine of MakeitBlissful.com, Frances of topazhorizon.com and yours truly, was formulated in Facebook messenger several nights in the past when we talked about our own issues as women. We then realized that we could grow this community and give the same support (support that we were getting from each other, thus, becoming more successful in the things that we get into) to other women. This was when we finally decided to create Beauty Biz Bliss. We then sought the help of our ever reliable Project Manager, RJ Dancel to join us make things happen.

Frances, Ginger and Martine with RJ!

What is Beauty Biz Bliss?

Our mission for Beauty Biz Bliss is to empower women to love themselves, pursue their dreams, and to build a blissful community of like-minded women that can act as a support group for each other. We know that there are women out there, of all ages, stature and who come from different walks of life, who would want a solid community who understands their needs and who would be willing to work with them to achieve their goal. We all ourselves #bossbellas and #happyrebels because we have succeeded in pursuing our unique passions and earning well from our endeavours—even though we were told this can’t be done, and we know there are so many talented Boss Bellas and Happy Rebels out there. We want to find these ladies!

What our community does?

To fulfill this goal, we set up different Beauty Biz Bliss projects, which will help women learn more about and appreciate themselves, give them knowledge and confidence to hone their craft, and connect with other women who will be their support group. We will do this in an environment that inspires creativity and casual but empowering conversations. Everything will be beautiful and blissful!

BeautyBizBliss.com Website: In this site, ladies of all ages can engage with different members of the community and look for potential collaborations. They are free to create personal messages, create group discussions or start forum topics. We will have a free access and a premium membership access, where we will give more perks like free tickets to events that we create and access to different materials, tools and tips! Those who are premium members will also be featured in a portion our page as the Boss Bella of the month.

Beauty Biz Bliss Gatherings: We will create beautiful and inspiring gatherings and in those gatherings, we will tackle topics on beauty, business and bliss. We will invite women experts who are also part of the community to do that talks. We will also invite brands who support women to be part of the event by giving out fabulous freebies and tools that these women can use to achieve your personal and professional goals.

We definitely have more in-store for the women in this community. Our goal is to build this community and have women not only from the Philippines, but from different parts of the world, gather, share share stories and lend support to each other.

What happened during the BBB’s first gathering?

Okay, just to share with you what we do during gatherings, I will share with you what happened during the first ever Beauty Biz Bliss Gathering. Well, first of all, prior to the launch, I had a great time coming up and collating the wonderful Beauty Biz Bliss Kit that was given to all the attendees. The kit was made up of items that Martine, Frances and I use.

The Beauty Biz Bliss Kits!

Inside (and outside since the items could not fit inside the box anymore) the Beauty Biz Bliss are items that we love and use!

The Boss Bellas were all given a mini 3-tiered cake from La Dolce Vita (https://www.facebook.com/ladolcevitaph/)

We also had products from A Vanilla Story (https://www.facebook.com/avanillastory)

Cookies from The Little Whisk https://www.facebook.com/The-Little-Whisk-1687884504787602/

Emergency kits from Oleia (https://www.facebook.com/oleia.ph/?fref=ts)

Products from https://www.facebook.com/AloeCurePH/ and https://www.facebook.com/PhysiogelPH/?fref=ts and of course, printing from https://www.facebook.com/alfoxprinting/

Product from Girlstuff (https://www.facebook.com/GirlstuffForever/?fref=ts), Cusina (https://www.facebook.com/cusinahome/?fref=ts), Design Hatch (https://www.facebook.com/designhatchph/?fref=ts) and Huile Solutions (https://www.facebook.com/HuileSolutions/?fref=ts).

We also had boxes of Ready Coffee from BTL (http://brewyourbestyear.com)

We had the gathering at Co.Lab. We knew that this was the perfect venue for an event that exuded both power and grace. And not to mention, the Co.Lab team is also made up of powerful women!

Thank you Co.Lab for hosting our first BBB gathering!

The styling was care of Hey Holiday. Let me tell you just how amazing Alessa of HeyHoliday is! She really understood the vision and executed it well. The venue was inspiring, motivating and comforting! 🙂

This is how the beautiful and powerful the place was!

The tables were send for the journaling activity that we had. Thank you Gourdo’s for the materials (http://www.gourdos.com/)

Speaking of activities, we had two activities during that afternoon! Well, four, if you count eating and networking! BTW, thank you Bobby of the Cuisinero for the yummy food and Bayani Brew for our drinks! Thank you, Ron, for supporting this event!

We started the afternoon by introducing Beauty Biz Bliss and what we stand for. We also introduced what was in store for all the ladies in the community. Then, each one introduced themselves to everyone else. It was such a nice feeling getting to finally know and meet people whom you normally would just follow online or read about online. There was a lot of “oh! So it’s you!” reactions from the ladies. The mix of women was just perfect — we had creative entrepreneurs, bloggers, women in tech, women in traditional businesses, coaches, authors, women in beauty and fashion, women community heads, leaders in the corporate world, startup founders, and other fields. I loved the diversity and this is what we really want to achieve for each gathering.

*Photo from RJ of TheMillenialPanda.com 🙂

After introductions were done, we moved on to an activity that was sponsored by Moleskine! We all created the first pages of our journals. We had materials also from Gourdo’s that we could use.

The 3 winners got books from author and Boss Bella Marianne Mencias. The book was What’s Your Life’s Masterpiece? 🙂 I have a copy and it is a very inspiring book!

The next activity was to design our own shoes! The shoes were lovingly customized for the BBB gathering by Boss Bella Elayne from Spring Manila.

Customized BBB Shoes from Spring Manila (https://www.facebook.com/springmanila1/?fref=ts)

We also invited Boss Bella Jeng of Sucker for Succulents to teach us how to decorate our shoe!

Thank you, Jeng and Elayne, for all the support!

The contest of designing their shoes is still ongoing and the prize are totebags from Brownroots Creatives! Each one also went home with a GC that they could use to have a customized Boss Bella or Happy Rebel Shirt made!

We had such a great time during the launch. The ladies are so thankful to these brands for all the support that was given! We appreciate all the help to inspire all these women in our country!

Thank you again to:

Moleskine / Biogenic Alcohol / Oleia / Bayani Brew / Hey Holiday / Co.Lab / Spring Manila / Design Hatch / The Cuisinero / The Little Whisk / Cusina Home / Gourdo’s / The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf / Aloe Cure / A Vanilla Story / Carlos and Veronica / Girlstuff / La Dolce Vita / Aloe Derma / Jolly / Physiogel / Alfox Printing Services / Brownroots / Biscoff

We are thankful for the support that these brands have given!

So, are you excited to be a Boss Bella? A Happy Rebel? Support us by subscribing to our newsletter at http://beautybizbliss.com 🙂 We will be announcing a lot of things and developments really really soon!

Be a #BossBella!

Love,

PS: Would you like to partner with us?

Beauty Biz Bliss will be a strong brand and will do so much in helping partner brands build brand awareness and engagement with our audience. If you think you have something to share or contribute or if you are a brand who wants to tap our community, please contact rj@beautybizbliss.com

PPS: We have a circle in Leanin.org. Please visit http://leanincircles.org/circle/beauty-biz-bliss and join us!

PPPS: The #OleiaMoments contest is still ongoing! Post a picture of your Oleia Moment and use #OleiaMoments and #BossBellas #BeautyBizBliss and get a chance to win a Php 1000 GC from Charles and Keith! We will announce the winner on July 15! Post away on Facebook!

I have a terrible headache and I know it’s because I didn’t take coffee today. It must be my system telling me that I lack caffeine. I wonder how I was able survive sleepless nights way back in college. Staying up later than 1 pm in now impossible for me. When I do stay up beyond 1 am, rest assured that I will be needing that long siesta the day after. Oh my! I sound like a ninety-year old lady. Hey, but seriously, I think I need a personal robot to help me keep up with the things that I need to do.

This got me thinking, If I had a robot, what would I make it do? What does Ginger need help with?

Here are the gazillion things that I need my personal robot to do:

1) Blogs – I need my robot to type my article for me, proofread and edit it, look through my all of my files for the appropriate picture and post it on my site. This will allow me to just dictate and say my thoughts, and focus on thinking and researching about what my next topic will be. I will need my robot to suggest related topics also that will matter. Oh! And I need my robot to occasionally send out questions to my readers on what topics do they want me to talk or write about.

2) Schedule – I need a personal robot who can arrange and rearrange my schedule for me. I need it to be automatically set aside time for ME-time and maximize my time by grouping meetings in the same geographical location. It will keep tabs on what is the most convenient time of the day and location for me and for the person I am meeting, so that no one will waste anyone’s time. It will tell me when to leave the house so that I arrive in that location just in time — not too early and not late. It will also notify me if I need to do something else in that location before going home, based on previous “wishes” — like wishing to see that fabulous dress in a mall and how much it costs or picking up a loaf of bread from the nearby grocery store since we are running out of it soon, etc.

3) Work – My personal robot will list down all the deliverables of each member of the team and will remind them of the deadline. It will also give them tips on the project itself, like where to research for information or whom to talk to based on how I would do the project or based on whom I would go to. It will also automatically schedule one-on-one meetings with my team (using my personal scheduler’s feature) and would automatically track progress of each one and give me a clear metric on how far my team members are from their defined personal and entrepreneurial goals. I would also ask it to fix all of my files at home, and arrange it per startup and tell me if I need to do anything with that file.

My list could go on and on…

So there, is is the reason why I need a personal robot. How about you? If I were to give you a robot, what would you need for it to do?

Share your thoughts on Facebook and use #personalrobot and #mommyginger so that I can reply, too!

My husband and I are cheese lovers. He recently shared a video on facebook of delicious raclette cheese sliding down from a pan. It look so yummy so I am sharing the video with you!

https://www.facebook.com/thisisinsider/videos/1535765220064204/

So I went through raclette recipes online and other recipes with cheese. I then thought of creating a dish that I could prepare for when friends come over.

We normally have friends over at our house on Saturdays. And week after week, we have always been ordering food from restaurants located near the place where we live or we have food delivered to our home. Oftentimes, our decision is the latter since we are all too lazy to go down and eat out! So seeing this video got me inspired to create dishes with melted cheese. At first, I thought of making nachos, then I shifted to thinking of making a “heavier” meal, since light snacks aren’t really our thing! Haha! We are all voracious eaters!

I saw a Chicken Fajitas recipe online that I wanted to follow. Of course, recipes are useless if you don’t have the right tool. Luckily for me, I have my Oster Mini Raclette Grill at home.

This Oster Mini Raclette Grill comes with a Non stick grill removable plate, 4 non-stick mini pans, an On/off switch with indicator light and Cool touch side handles. That’s it! It’s so simple to use, and that’s the reason why I love this kitchen tool.

Okay so for Chicken Fajitas, I only needed the following ingredients: Chicken breast strips, red and green bell pepper, onion, mushrooms, tomatoes, garlic sauce (I found one in a bottle) and cheese that you can melt (and it doesn’t have to be raclette).

I cooked the chikcken breast strips on the griller and melted the cheese on the little pans that was included.

I placed all the ingredients inside the pita wrap and that was it.

This gave me the idea that this kind of dish will be perfect for a house party. I know a lot of people now who throw house parties. Probably I’m already a part of that era who would rather stay home. Here are some of the things that you need to prepare to throw an amazing house party!

And in order for you to throw that perfect house party with Oster Mini Raclette Grill, we are giving you the chance to own one!

If you are interested to buy one of these lovely Oster Mini Raclette Grills for your home, these are available in Anson’s, Landmark, Rustan’s and Coleman Stores. They are also available online at Lazada: http://www.lazada.com.ph/oster-ckstgr126-074-mini-grill-2887648.html

Hurry and share (please make sure that the post is tag for “public” viewing) the photo on facebook. Share a tip to throw amazing parties at home and tag Oster Philippines (http://facebook.com/OsterPHL). Please use the following hashtags: #useOster #OsterEasyHomemadeFresh #OsterMiniGrill #mommygingerfinds

My giveaway will end on July 3. I will choose the best tip by then and I will announce the winner on my Facebook Page http://facebook.com/MommyGinger

Good Luck! 🙂

I was going through the receipts of the things that we spent in Singapore for the 5 days we were there. I can’t believe that we went way beyond our budget! Haha! And to think, most of our money was spent on food. Boy, we must be big eaters!

But I’m glad that my husband and I are not big spenders. We splurge on food, but I think that’s the only thing that we splurge on. I’m glad that we both look at money the same way. There are a lot of couples who fight over finances. If you find yourselves disagreeing over money, I think this conference will be helpful.

CCF Family Ministry will be hosting the Biggest Family and Finance Conference this July 30, 2016 at the CCF Center in Fronterra Verde, Pasig City.

Family and Finance Conference is a whole day workshop dedicated to teach and help families manage finances better. This year’s conference includes the country’s top financial speakers: Mr. Randell Tiongson, Mr. Chinkee Tan, Mr. Edric Mendoza and Pastor Joby Soriano. These speakers will be sharing how to set financial goals and manage finances as a family, as well as what to teach kids and the biblical perspective about money.

Here is my good friend, Edric Mendoza to share with you what to expect from this event:

If you want to attend, please register here: http://familyandfinance.ph/

My husband and I fight over how to manage money sometimes, but we don’t turn it into a big issue. Our belief is that if we lack funds, then we need to create more sources of revenue. This just means that our sources of revenue is not enough. For controlling and monitoring our funds, we use the envelope method where we already set aside a specific budget inside an envelope for the expenses that we have.

I can’t wait to learn more about handling and managing money from these speakers. I know that I will be able to pick up a lot of insights on how they handle money as a couple.

Again, if you want to attend, please register here: http://familyandfinance.ph/

As I gazed from across my seat, looking at the multitude of people riding the MRT in Singapore, I realized that the episodes from my favorite TV series, Silicon Valley, were actually true. In this case, however, they were in the US and I was in South East Asia.The stories if the technopreneurs in that show were almost very close to reality. This weekend proved to be an amazing experience. It wasn’t because we won that pitch competition or we got to raise seed funding (because we didn’t but we’ve been getting emails already from VC’s since this morning!), but because I learned so much about myself, about our team, and about this interesting world encapsulated in one word — tech.

Thank you, Tasha of ASpace for the photo!

The Early Bird Catches the Worm

We went to Singapore to showcase our web/mobile application called Taxumo. Our flight from the Philippines left at 10:00 PM and we arrived at Singapore at 1:00 AM the following day. There were four of us, Ej (CEO), Alex (CFO and the CPA in our team), Dex (CTO) and yours truly. We arrived hungry so we had to eat at the nearby McDonalds, a brand familiar to us. We left the airport after and arrived at our hotel around 4AM. We had to be at Singapore Expo (the venue at 7:30 AM) to set up so that meant we had to leave at 7 AM (yup, since traffic wasn’t really evident in Singapore). EJ and I woke up to the messages of our colleagues at 7 am and hurriedly rushed so that we could leave right away. We really thought we were late, but lo and behold, we were actually one of the earliest ones there at 8:00 AM.

Taxumo Booth: We probably talks to more than 500 people!

Being early in conferences, gives you the advantage. You get to practice your pitch to a few people (mostly co-tech startup founders), so that when investors come in, you have already amazingly mastered your pitch after saying it a dozen times over. Also, you already have prepared answering questions, and these questions will probably be the same questions repeated over and over again from different people.

Pitch, Listen and Participate

We have seen that in conferences like these, the people who ‘win’ (not used literally) are the people who maximize their presence in the conference. How do you maximize your presence? One is to share your idea to as many people as possible. Don’t be scared to share your idea as there may be investors who will be willing to help out, potential brand partners who might be willing to partner with you, existing solutions providers that may be able to integrate with your system, potential users who will have great insights and other enablers who may speed the process of launching or expanding your idea.

With the lovely Bev from e27! 🙂

We thought that Echelon Asia Summit was great because we got to meet with various venture capitalists. We also got invited to join totally awesome incubator and accelerator programs. We also got offers for help if we want to expand to other ASEAN countries.

Taxumo with our friends from No Coinz

Also, I have learned to be willing to listen to other people’s ideas, too. I got to meet a lot of interesting people with unique ideas and it was so inspiring to hear them. We mad new friends, like our Indian friends from NoCoinz and we got to bind with the other Philippine delegates, too.

Make Calculated Risks Fast

Taxumo with UnBum 🙂

I have always been exposed to how traditional businesses and how large corporations in the Philippines operate. I grew up with a family whose main business was putting up brick and mortar stores where we sell food. Preparations for these kinds of businesses would take years. My family was lucky since what we entered was a food franchise business; otherwise, planning, preparing and building wouldn’t have gone that fast.

Our CEO, EJ, pitching at Echelon Summit Asia 2016

We have noticed that in this industry, everything seems to move so quickly. A large number of the businesses there have only started with the idea less than a year. Prototypes have already been built, whether it be software or hardware, and these groups and entities have already validated ideas with customers. Most of the companies that have received seed funding where those that have shown some form of traction from paying customers.

Taxumo meeting after the conference!

It’s no wonder that concepts like the Lean Methodology and tools like the Javelin board and also methods like Agile and Scrum have taken this industry by storm. In this industry, all of the founders of the your company need to act fast and work fast while still working on the grounds that your ideas have been validated by your target market. We have noticed that some ideas are great ideas but don’t seem to get much attention since the problem and pain point wasn’t validated enough. We have also heard stories about great and validated ideas but since execution was slow, the idea never really flew and they were beaten by competition. Both are crucial. Check that your start-up has done or can do both.

Learn to Hustle

I never really understood what the term meant when I first encountered the word during our incubator program in Ideaspace. At first, I felt that the term was too ‘hard-core’ and ‘rough’ to be used in a business environment (lol! I thought that they should have used a more business-y term). But man, this week proved me wrong! Hustling was definitely what we did. In the two days that we were in #ECAsia2016, we probably talked to more than 500 people and pitched our idea to close to 10 investors.

Hustling! Taking our picture in between train rides!

In front of my dream office! This will go up on my vision board!

And that wasn’t all, the day after the conference, we visited 2 VCs and made a courtesy call to DTI – Philippine Trade and Investments Council Singapore. It was inside of the MRT in Singapore in between meetings where I found myself thinking about our country and our future. Both Venture Capitalists also mentioned that they haven’t had any visits yet from any startup from the Philippines.

Taxumo with Commercial Counsellor Glenn Penaranda and Ms. Cris Lacuna of DTI – Philippine Trade and Investment Centre in Singapore!

I know that we all know that we have talented people in the Philippines. What we know and what we have as a Taxumo, may even be nothing in comparison with what you, my readers, may be capable of doing or are capable of creating. We just have to try to achieve our dreams and try to make a difference. We may not be the best startup out there, winning competitions and all, but we will never stop trying.

We will never stop believing that we can create solutions that will make your lives simpler! Onwards we go!

Love lots,

PS. Thanks for the tip, Bianca Medina to not wear heels! haha! My feet hurt so bad! 🙂 haha! It was worth it though.

PPS. For Angels, VCs, Investors and possible partners, please email me at ginger(at)taxumo.com 🙂

The Beauty Biz Bliss Community: Be a Boss Bella!

Why I Need a Personal Robot?

Throw that Perfect House Party with Oster Mini Raclette Grill

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