8 lessons from Filipino tech billionaire and angel investor Nix Nolledo

Ask anyone in the Philippine tech startup community who they think has the most inspiring success story and chances are many of them will tell you it’s Nix Nolledo.

A business management graduate, Nolledo felt like the odd man out in a family of lawyers and doctors. He couldn’t land a job at big corporations in the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis, so he ended up joining a fast-food chain company as assistant branch manager.

He has come a long way since those days. Nolledo now often hears the word “billionaire” attached to his name after Xurpas, the mobile content provider he co-founded, held one of the most successful IPOs on the Philippine Stock Exchange to date.

In a forum organized by The Founder Institute in Manila, in cooperation with Freelancer.com, Nolledo shares his startup journey with the audience. Before creating Xurpas, he says he tried several businesses – all of which failed.

However, as the cliche goes, failures are nothing but stepping stones to success. And there are lessons to learn. Here are eight valuable ones from Nolledo that young startups must take to heart:

1. Know that your real product is innovation, not the product you’re currently selling

Nolledo advises startups to be willing to disrupt themselves. “Whatever you’re selling today may have nothing to do with what you’re selling five years from now.”

He says from ideas comes innovation, which is crucial in a business. “It’s two things previously known combined to form something,” he notes.

To illustrate his point, he cites Elon Musk of Tesla Motors who months ago open-sourced much of the company’s technology, except its battery. Nolledo recalls how Musk’s cousin runs the largest publicly-listed solar company in the US, and together they’re disrupting the utilities industry. “Can you imagine the combination of a very reliable high-storage battery and the more affordable solar power?” Nolledo asks the audience.

Hundreds of attendees listen to Nolledo’s presentation during a recent forum sponsored by The Founder Institute in Manila. Photo courtesy of Xurpas.

2. When you set up your business, ask yourself, ‘Am I a vitamin or a painkiller?’

“If you want to quickly scale, solve a real pain point,” he says. Nolledo believes messaging app Line did just that following the devastating earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan in 2011. He says Line solved a need that anonymous messaging platform Nixle didn’t. “The citizens of Japan who needed to support each other during those trying times wanted to do it knowing each other’s identity.” So Line grew not just because it’s fun and entertaining, he says, but because it addressed a real pain point.