On entrepreneurship: the family and business mix

On Entrepreneurship is a column that I write for Forbes Magazine in the Philippines. I wrote the following for the October 2015 issue.

Asia is the runaway leader for creating large family businesses. Credit Suisse studied 920 companies with at least US$1 billion in market capitalization and a family stake of at least 20 percent. It found that 76 percent of these were in Asia.

So what makes family businesses tick? As usual, I asked a few friends with million dollar businesses about their experience.

The good

Frank is Filipino and his family has been in retail for close to 50 years.

What’s great about being in a family business is that it’s yours. You fully benefit from the hard work you put in.

John is Filipino and his family has been in real estate and manufacturing for more than 60 years.

You have a lot of say in the direction of the company. You are empowered and have authority. You can take bigger risks. You have absolute access to information.

Eric is Singaporean and is in engineering. After staying as a private business for 50 years, his family has decided to take the company public next year.

This business was started by my dad and it has gone from strength to strength over the last 2 decades. Making my parents proud is a big source of motivation for me so helping the company grow is quite satisfying.

The bad

The future

Ending thoughts