“Ferna takes pride in its long relationship with Potato Corner. Despite the
growing demands, Potato Corner continues to deliver. Ferna has made
itself a reliable partner and will be ready for the new challenges with its
commitment to value, quality and integrity.” – Giovanni K Co, President,
Ferna Corporation
“PEOPLE WILL ALWAYS HAVE THESE SENTIMENTAL
FEELINGS. WE HAVE TO TAP INTO THAT.”
“My advice to everybody is to work 100 per cent
on whatever they are doing,” he says. “A lot of people
say you have to multitask, and that’s okay, but there’s
nothing better than putting 100 per cent of your
mind into whatever you’re doing. It’s like driving
- when you’re driving, all your focus is on the road.
The moment you pick up your phone, half your
focus is on driving and half is on your phone.”
With this solid grounding in business, JoMag
and three other partners (his brother-in-law among
them) started Potato Corner in 1992, with just
150,000 pesos, around US$6,000 at the time. JoMag
had to borrow money to make the investment, and
a cart offering flavoured French fries was opened in
SM Megamall, the second largest in the Philippines.
It wasn’t altogether perfect, however; JoMag recalls
the small team made their fair share of mistakes in
those early days.
“In the first three months, we changed our cart
three times,” he recalls. “We weren’t entrepreneurs.
We were making all these mistakes. We realised the
first cart had the wrong signage, so we changed it.
Then two months later, we realised that we needed
to improve again. The entire history of Potato Corner
is learning and improving.”
As far as JoMag is concerned, taking risks
and making errors are acceptable (within reason),
since it gives an entrepreneur room to learn and
grow. He believes that in failure the seeds for
success are planted.
Nevertheless, JoMag has dedicated himself
to improving in other ways, having undertaken
a master’s degree in entrepreneurship to “take
the company to the next level”. Although he says
he wasn’t an entrepreneur to start with, he sees
Potato Corner as fundamentally an entrepreneurial
organisation – agile, cooperative and streamlined.
“Our DNA is about making sure that we’re
focused on business,” JoMag says. “It means we’re
small. We’re a micro-business – three people manning
the stores. We make sure we’re always flexible and
dynamic. To us, a decision has to be made within
24 hours. The decision on whether to open a new site
should take 24 hours. We’re fast. We’re always ready.”
This agility is achieved through the company’s
use of people power; JoMag compares it to Uber.
“We used other people’s time, organisation and capital
to grow,” he explains. “That’s why we could grow
rapidly, by using other people’s resources. We’re not
an asset-based company. We’re an IP-based company- 80 per cent of our stores are franchised. That’s how
valuable our franchisees and partners are to us.”
Potato Corner’s success is equally buoyed by
an enduring, well-loved brand, alongside which
its customers and franchisees have grown, too. The
company’s target market has always been children - in fact, a focus group of kindergarteners chose the
trademark. But Potato Corner isn’t limiting itself by
targeting only kids; deep down, JoMag believes we’re
all kids, and customers will continue to patronise
Potato Corner long after they’ve grown up.
“We make sure the flavours we have today are
the same as what we had in 1992,” he says. “People
can come back and say, ‘This is the same thing I used
to eat 20 years ago.’ We’ve seen what happened to
Coke when they tried to introduce a new taste.
For food, it’s important to stick to what made you
successful, because people will always have these
sentimental feelings. We have to tap into that.”
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