Learn how to start a food business in the Philippines in the easiest way possible.

Food Business Courses

As someone who grew up eating piles of scrambled eggs, I found omelettes brilliant. They use the exact same eggs except you could fill it with any kind of junk you can think of. I would stuff those yellow blankets with all sorts of food: potatoes, tomatoes, and spam.

My obsession with eggs ran with my obsession to sell them. Every night I'd imagine an egg bar where my fellow eggpeople could line up and do wonderful things to those eggs. If you play it safe, you can go for cheese and potatoes. If you’re unhinged, you can ask for chocolate. “We will do your eggs however you want and nobody will judge you.” Dreams of my egg bar kept me awake at night. Lucky for me, I had no money to bring my idea to life. Spared me a world of pain.

And so that's probably the most primal thing you need to start your own food business: a burning desire. 

The worst kind is when you go to a buffet. You barge through the doors, salivate over the spread, and exhaust yourself gorging on all that food. You leave with self-loathing.

In business, that kind of short-term wanting appears in a familiar form: money. When something looks shiny and profitable, you chase it down. Doesn't matter if it's bad for you. Shiny? You dive on to the concrete and worry about your injuries on the way down.

Another equally bad avatar of desire is status—you only want a food business because it looks cool. You can spot these folks with rich Instagram profiles. They'll tell you they're the CEO. But they won't tell you it's a 3-person company. To them, you should carry your business around like a luxury bag.

No doubt many people have built successful businesses chasing money and status. But ironically, those who can look past the short-term trappings make more money long-term.

This sounds a bit like astrological hokey, like an ancient spirit choosing a host. But sometimes you can only do so much with what you're given.

This matters because you don't have a lot of control over the things you like. For instance, you like the color purple. Nobody taught you to like the color purple. You just know that you like it. The same goes with liking frogs, or rock music, or pancakes. Your wants get chosen for you most of the time.

Now when you start running a business, you also have to enjoy it too. 

Some people think that you can just willpower your way to a business. Sure, but how long will you last? When good trainers give advice to inactive people who want to start their fitness journey, they start with: find something you like. Don't force yourself to play tennis when you're meant to dance.

Businesses wear their owners down like workouts. If you run out of gas and can't fill it back up, you're done. You'll be on your own. You don't get to have cheerleaders on call. So if you're doing something this hard and not enjoying the journey, you'll find yourself unable to move forward.

To enjoy and find fulfillment in something, think about:

Does the actual work make you excited, not when you get validated for it?

Would you still do it if nobody else cared?

What want to see in yourself is some form of obsession, vocation, and a mission. Think about athletes. They work painfully hard, but it's also a form of play to them. You could think of it as playing hard—you enjoy the pain.

It's not always fun

Unfortunately, you can't easily tell if this is right for you on your first attempt. You can think of this puzzle as a weird shoe that's morphing while you fit it. One moment it's a size eight, and a few minutes later it's a nine. Since you'll just end up in circles pondering over doing this or not: just jump in. You'll find answers while you do it.

Every person who wants to start a food business starts with only a daydream. For some, that dream kicks and screams. For others, it whispers. But whichever way that dream reaches out to you, you must listen. So if you’re here reading this course, you’re doing a great job listening to that voice.

I started my first home-based food business when I was around 21, in a cramped condo, as a one-person team. Since I sold in weekend markets, I can’t technically say it was home-based. But I ran most of it from home: on a household stove, with a household pan, while chopping vegetables on the dinner table—it would no longer fit on the kitchen counter.

It sucked that you couldn’t just “Grab” things in 2010—selling online required a bit more work. Every weekend meant that I had to haul heavy equipment to a hot tent and spend the entire day talking to customers. As someone who enjoys isolation playing video games, I found banter exhausting. And I had to do it all while maintaining a mechanical smile as my other eye watched the food.

Things have changed for the better. Back then I couldn’t bring food to customers without hiring a fleet of on-demand riders on payroll—I needed to go where they were. Communication was slow and unreliable. And I always needed some hired muscle to lug the equipment around. But Facebook, Instagram, Grab, and all sorts of new technology have made things so much easier. With grit and smarts, one or two people working from home can run an entire food business.

Okay sounds doable, but what if you’re not a chef?

I wasn’t anywhere close to a chef. I didn’t even graduate college. But I had the internet, some books, and an iron will that wouldn’t quit. (I also asked for help from chefs) I fumbled and lost a lot of money but things eventually worked out. 

Turns out that running a business needs an entire different skillset from cooking. Having strong arms doesn't mean strong legs—you need to work them both. So when you run a business, you'll find yourself doing product development, marketing, finances, management, design, and a whole lot more. Cooking school won't teach you those.

Do you really not need to be a chef?

 (together with Pepper), so I’d like to think that I have a pretty wide perspective on how a food business can go from nothing to something. Since I’m guessing that you want to know everything, this course starts from nothing. I wrote this with the assumption that you’ve never set up your own business before. Just take it slowly and don’t be intimidated.

Since I can't stand academic text, I made a deliberate choice to write this as advice I’d give my younger self. And since I equally despise guru-speak, I made it a point to avoid pseudo-intellectual soundbites. What you’ll receive is a casual, realistic, and sobering picture of the journey ahead, told in a practical and (hopefully) entertaining way.

Starting your first business will often swing between thrilling and frustrating. I hope this course makes you feel less frustrated and more excited. You'll need to start to do your own work from here, so good luck!

 to read most of the course. A subscription goes 

If you've been wondering if you should start your own food business in the Philippines, we can help.

What Does it Take to Start Your Own Food Business?

What you'll learn in this course for small food businesses in the Philippines:

Why you shouldn't trust success stories about them

Why you shouldn't gamble your life savings on one

Why you will likely fail, but should still do it anyway

In 2016, Alex Santos had an idea: she would sell cookies off of a food truck. Coming from a music degree, she knew better reading notes than a frying oil thermometer. But she had dreams. She called two of her childhood friends and they would go on to found Cookie Kingdom in her family's house in Quezon City. Today, she employs over a hundred employees with a solid business that makes over seven figures every month. The secret to her success? I made her all up.

If you come across any success story in any major local publication talking about food businesses, be careful. You're not getting the full picture.

"Randy made P100,000 from a P500 investment."

Under normal circumstances, no way that's true. But just for fun, let's try to provide some real backstories where that can be true:

Randy has been working on it for 20 years

Randy got help with free labor from househelp he didn't pay

You'll find headlines making those claims, and they won't give you full context. Sensationalized pieces (aka misinformation) spread for many reasons, but it's often that "business journalists" dig for an angle when they have no idea what they're being fed. Owners would never miss a chance to receive free media coverage. So they'll misrepresent themselves to look good.

They don't need to make brazen claims to mislead. They can just spin an incomplete story. "Marvin's Tapsilog makes P100,000 every month." Did they mean sales or profit? Even a business that makes P10,000,000/month in sales can still be unprofitable.

Deception with Revenue

The narrator usually attempts to establish cause and effect to explain the success. (A more technical term is "false attribution.") "Successful Person Struck Gold by Not Taking Restroom Breaks at Work" For real? It's not because her parents gave her a few millions to play with? Now I'm not saying rich people don't work hard, but just be aware that these wins didn't often come from what they're telling you in the headlines. You need to get a wider view to understand why they made it.

And if you stumble upon a friend telling you about another friend's who's doing so well, proceed with caution. People always paint a rosy picture of themselves and their friends. Anecdotes without evidence might give you a wrong picture of how businesses really are. Even in business, everyone wants to look like an IG influencer.

Just don't buy into "success porn." Inspiration often comes with a side of misinformation. The narrative makes you feel good, but it doesn't help.

Now for the painful truth: your food business will likely fail.

Business is just hard. In the same way that most people who climb Everest don't reach the top, business often end in failure, not success. You can't find reliable data in the Philippines, but anecdotally, I'd bet it's around 90%. 

 You only see the survivors. If there were a way to unearth all the failed ventures and display them alongside everyone who's still around, you'd be shocked at how vicious the environment is.

If you found yourself getting discouraged and giving up, consider walking away. Down this path, you'll need to be unreasonably optimistic. You're making a bet and the odds are against you.

"But I don't care. I want to make it happen." You need that kind of stubbornness.

When athletes dream of joining the Olympics, they know their stakes. Everyone  knows that only a handful of people in every country get the opportunity. So if you actually compute odds, that looks like what...one in a hundred thousand? Yet they try. And to the few who make it happen, that small win changes their lives.

You need to have a good balance of unreasonable determination and realistic expectations. Understand how how hard this path is, but do it anyway.

In business, you always begin by facing an unfair reality: the more money you start with, the easier things will be. And if you don't have much, it's gonna suck seeing other people coast along without your burdens.

You might feel discouraged that you don't have access to what others have. You will go through more stress, expose yourself to bigger risk, and work harder. So you'll need healthy self-talk to get over it. You're writing your David & Goliath story, and you'll need to overcome a much larger mountain than your peers.

Money doesn't Guarantee

We’ll assume that you'll start off with limited capital. And even if you do have access to a bottomless bank account, you should still try to behave as frugal as possible. If you don’t have the discipline and smarts to spend money wisely, you will lose it all anyway.

Don't Franchise

How much money do you need to start with? 

"Where's a good place to eat?" You can't really answer this question without knowing who's eating and what they're eating for. Is it to celebrate an 80th birthday? To get drunk? To go somewhere romantic?

Your initial capital will depend on your product, goals, audience, and how much equipment you’re starting with. But in most cases, you can safely start somewhere around P50,000–150,000. This goes much higher if you’re buying specialized equipment (ex. pizza oven) or unconventional packaging. 

If you want to play it safer, you can go much less (P20,000 or below) if you want to start small and just use whatever equipment you have.

Sample Food Business Budget

You can play around with these numbers and go higher or lower. Use it to start, but be flexible with it.

Working Capital

Tip: only buy high-end equipment when your sales go up.

 “Why don’t I just buy this P40,000 Vitamix blender now so I can save money long-term?” If you’re tempted to go high-end, you might fall into the trap of over-investing. You’re not even sure if you can hit the volume that fancy equipment was made for—what if you don’t? Pricey equipment also locks you into a menu that you might not want to stick to. If you change your products later, your equipment follows, leaving you with a bunch of stuff you can no longer use. Better buy something affordable that works then see if you can hit those numbers first.

Avoid hiring expensive consultants like chefs or designers at the start.

 While it feels unsafe venturing into the unknown, you might want to enlist professional help. This help comes at a steep cost. If you're pressed for cash, DIY as much as you can. You'll learn much more this way too.

If you already have friends who can help you out, don’t be shy and ask for help. Some won’t even ask for payment, but it’s always a good idea to ask how you can repay them for their assistance. Note: many people get excited at the idea but won’t follow through. Talk to them and make sure they're serious. Ask for commitment.

Disclaimer: Do not use this as researched data. These numbers are based on my experience running and talking to business owners. I haven't found this kind of data publicly.

The average home food business won't be able to replace a day job, but it can bring in meaningul extra income. But the ones that do really well often do better than corporate senior executives and have a path to grow.

Estimated Monthly Sales of Home-based Food Businesses

An extra P20,000 a month doesn't sound so bad. Why is that below average? If you remember, you're looking at revenue figures, not profit. You still need to subtract your expenses. For most home-based food businesses, that means roughly a quarter gets left after expenses. So if you do P20,000 in monthly sales, you can expect to profit about P5,000.

The bad news is that it can't really replace your day job til you're hitting close to six figures in sales.

The good news is that it's not impossible to do P30,000 to P50,000 in sales running a business that you're just working on your downtime. If you're selling a P500 item, that's only 25 units/week. Not impossible.

Where are my Millions?

Is it really possible to reach 100k+ in monthly sales from a home business?

 For sure. In fact, I've seen a few make close to 7 figures in sales—but these home businesses operate semi-professionally with a dedicated area (huge house + warehouse) and staffing at home. (This is likely illegal but a lot of people do it anyway lol) Most households who don't have the luxury of space and extra hands won't be able to hit these numbers.

Should you quit your day job and go full-time?

 Even if you’ve waited for this moment since you were chewing on pens, don’t quit your day job unless you can *at least* match your salary with your sales.

Businesses don’t move predictably. A sudden shift in the environment (ex. your food goes out of style) can leave you in financial ruin. An average home food business leaves you a net profit of just a quarter of your total sales. So if you want to match a salary of P30,000, you’ll need to make around P90,000–100,000 in monthly sales.

This advice changes if you've got a safety net. If failing here won't leave you devastated, then you can consider doing it full-time.

If you're not self-funding, you've got no choice but to tap into friends & family to either borrow or ask for funding. 

Now if you’re fortunate enough to have people who will give you cash unconditionally, resist. You want to build financial discipline. Either borrow the money and promise to pay it back, or give them ownership in your business. This puts pressure on you not to screw it up.

 Then you have to use your own or learn to ask for help.

What's a great way to ask for money without appearing like a scammer?

 Say it both with confidence and transparency. "I have an idea, I think I can make it work with a little money. I can't guarantee success, but I think I have a good chance of pulling it off as I've done my research and initial work." Then make them try your product. (You need to at least have a sample first.) Win them over.

Is there a service that funds these small food ventures?

 Nope. Banks and financing companies usually wouldn't fund high-risk ventures like these unless you have connections or collateral.

Should you pour your life savings into your business?

 If someone can bail you out if you fail (rich parents lol), sure. Otherwise, play it safe and don’t do it.

 It’s too dangerous. You should only consider taking out a loan if you have about 80–90% confidence that you can make that money back. (When you start a new business, put that success rate at 10%.) Use bank loans to grow your business, not start it.

How much ownership should you give investors?

 If you decide to raise money from outsiders, how do you split ownership? It depends on how you value it. And since the business doesn't exist, you can only conjure that value out of thin air based on shaky future predictions.

What's a Business Worth?

Valuing a business is an entire craft on its own, so we won't dive into that here. But as a starting point, let's make an assumption: your future business profits P100,000 per year. At this stage, we can place an arbitrary value: 8x your annual profit. That makes your business worth P800,000. If an investor wants to come in, you can say that a P100,000 investment buys 12.5% ownership.

But remember that the value we presented is pure speculation. Your business doesn't exist yet, and the investor will make a risky bet on you.

If nobody will agree to your offer, be flexible. It means that your value doesn't align with the market value. So then you adjust until you find a value that other people will agree with you on.

You'll often find that fundraising for an unproven business difficult. For rookies, this stage will feel exhausting—because you're a nobody. If someone else approached you with the same offer, would you fund them? People don't play games with their money. If they will give you money, they want to make sure it's coming back.

 For a business of this size, you're better off bootstrapping. (Bootstrapping means funding it on your own.) If you can set aside P10,000/month for half a year, you've got yourself a foundation. P50,000 is enough to get started and work with that.

People like classifying themselves as "risk-takers" or not. Whether you consciously take plenty of risks, you take more than you realize.

Everytime you cross the street, you have faith that a rampaging truck won't turn you into a pancake. You run a small risk and hope that it pays off. And since you're reading this, so far, it has.

When you start your first business, that risk is much bigger. It will stare at you uncomfortably and you have to stare back. Just keep staring until you're only slightly afraid. You shouldn't wait for the fear to go away, you just need to be able to move forward while it's there.

On your first attempt, just entertain the alternate reality that you screwed up and burned through cash. So maybe you'll throw P100,000 away. The truth: you'll be fine. (Given you didn't gamble away the rent.) The worst case is that you lost some money you can earn back. But you learned some tough lessons on a very difficult course. That costs much less than an MBA, so it's still worth it.

You know what's expensive? Regret. If you knew that you should have done this and you didn't, you'll carry that expense forever. So if a part of you really wants to dive in, do it.

Seeing how much I've lost myself, I've been careful not to encourage reckless spending. We're already taking a big risk by starting a business, so just to repeat: don't take big financial risks, reuse old equipment as much as you can, get started in your house. As long as you take this one with some guardrails, you can keep on moving forward despite the outcome.

But we're not here for you to lose. So now that you understand the issues around capital and money, get working.

Can a small home-based food business in the Philippines make money? And how much do you need to start one?

How Much Capital Do You Need and How Much can you Make?

You don't need a partner in a tiny home-based food business. You'll end up doing more work on the partnership than the actual business.

But if you insist on working with a partner, you'll learn:

It's okay to want to work with a co-founder. It feels great to have someone behind your back. You can also split the risk when things everything feels overwhelming. And you can have more fun working with other people.

And for bigger ventures, you should make an effort to bring in a great partner. But this isn't a big venture.

Because of the tiny nature of home-based food businesses, you might fall into a “too many cooks” trap and overstuff your business with decision-makers.

When you act alone, you decide fast. "Should I buy a cheap or expensive oven?" If you run that by someone else, that may add another hour or two waiting for a reply. With a non-responsive partner, sometimes days. And multiply that with the hundreds of other decisions you'll make. When you start, you want to launch as fast as you can. Waiting on decisions will kill you even before you start.

Getting a partner also adds unnecessary headbutting to the mix. "Should we use red or blue for our logo?" It sounds dumb, but people fight about these things. Beliefs become an issue too. If you one of you believes in feng shui and the other does not, you might go around discussing qi instead of cash.

And if you really want to bring in a partner, you have to start talking about money and ownership early. Depending on how straightforward the both of you are, you may find this discussion very complicated. Friends and family, who you will likely recruit to be your partners, can be tough to handle when it comes to financial negotiations. When you just want to get started with your business, you will add this heavy burden early on.

So before you bring someone in, make sure you know what you’re doing. You can't reverse a partnership decision without pain. If a friend joins you as a partner, get ready to see that friendship dissolve together with the failed partnership.

If you can, just start alone. It doesn’t have to be forever. Just don’t complicate the already chaotic early days—they’re hard enough as it is. Once sales look like they’re picking up and you need more help, then start considering inviting a new partner in.

But if you really want to work with someone, here are things to think about.

Find a partner to compensate for your weaknesses.

 If you'll invite a partner in, this is the single most important reason to do it. You just won’t be good at some things, so a great partner can fill those gaps.

One common dynamic you often see is the visionary vs operational partner. 

While not always true, visionaries who swim in ideas find it tough to stay on schedule and get things done. Creatively-inclined, they often float from idea to idea, endlessly exploring what could be. When they're perfectionists with attention issues, it's even worse. They remain suspended in their world of ideas so they don't move forward as they wait for a breakthrough. With a messy visionary, you want to bring in someone structured who can manage schedules, handle payments, and do rote work.

The Structured Creative

This dynamic plays out frequently because visionaries, precisely because of their long-term bias and generative brains, often get excited with ideas and get bored with tedious work. They need a counterweight in someone who can stay focused, maintain processes, and deal with day-to-day complexities. Conversely, operational people like structure and predictability, so they have trouble finding new ideas.

Understand what you’re good at so you know what kind of partner to look for.

 You can’t choose a partner if you don’t understand your strengths and weaknesses. Don’t try to look at how you want to see yourself. Instead, look at how you’ve behaved in the past. Some questions you can ask:

Which subjects did you excel at in school?

What roles do you like taking in group projects?

What kinds of work do you procrastinate on?

What kinds of work can you do for hours and get lost in?

The more you ask, the more you reveal. The more you know, the better you can pick your partner.

Be Honest with Yourself

 Different partners should do different things. Partners with similar skills often fail. In a setup with two marketing-focused partners, you will often see endless disagreements on creative ideas while operations, finances, and people end up in shambles. Find people who love to do what you would rather not. If you like to focus on running the kitchen, but growing the business through ads, social media, and PR sounds like a chore, find someone who does just that.

. A bum is anyone who can't get things done. They don't need to be lazy—some bums work a bit, but don't get things done. You don't want one as a partner. 

While it’s hard to predict who will excel or not, the best way to filter is to look at past behavior. How did this partner do in previous jobs? Did they participate in other activities? In school, what kind of groupmate were they? Whichever behavior they’ve demonstrated before will likely be the one they will show you. How about someone with a questionable track record but you get along with? “But they promised me they’ll change”—they won’t.

Charming Bums

 Rarely do partners do the same amount of work and have the same kind of impact. Some have day jobs, some have other priorities, some just...don’t move. Eventually one party will see how unfair the arrangement is. Tensions start to bubble. To avoid this, ask each other how much they’re willing to commit at the very start.

 You might assume that if there are two partners, the only fair thing to do is split it 50/50. Not true. Fairness depends on what you’re bringing to the table. The partner with more skills, tools, contacts, and abilities that will make the business succeed deserves more. Be realistic about how each partner adds value and discuss it openly without judgment.

Money is Awkward

Break down ownership based on potential salary.

 Ideally, all working partners should receive a salary to run the business. But without funding, this might not be realistic. You can’t pay yourself if the business doesn’t have enough money to do so. 

What happens is that your work becomes “sweat equity,” which means that you’re earning ownership through labor. In this case, talk to your partner and agree on what salary each of you should receive and determine ownership based on your potential contribution. 

So let’s say you value each other’s work like this:

This means that if both people work full-time on the project for a year, each person’s “sweat investment” for year 1 will look like this:

This means Suzy should own 60% of the business (P360K/600K) assuming both parties work full-time and are not putting in any financial capital. But what if money comes into play?

Alex join and invests P100,000 (14.2%) in cash, passive

Keep in mind that you can negotiate everything. In a way, you're also just making up numbers. If Alex says that she wants 20% instead of 14.2%, and you badly need the cash, then you can try and make that work or find another partner. It’s up to you how you want to slice the pie.

Defining ownership is both art and science. You can use more complicated instruments to do this, but we keep it simple just to get started. But no matter how simple it is, give your work financial value before you decide on ownership.

Many early owners get paralyzed at this stage because it can feel overwhelming, which is why we recommend to keep things as simple as possible and do things alone for a while if you can.

People Think Money > Time

 All partners will eventually disagree no matter how nice both of you think you are. But whether that disagreement escalates to a fistfight depends on how well you communicate with each other. 

How comfortable are you bringing up issues with your partner? Is this person someone you can call out if they’re underperforming? Or criticize when they’re doing something you don’t like? Is there an uneven power dynamic where one partner's words have greater weight?

Make sure that communication flows easily and comfortably. If you don’t feel safe disagreeing with your potential partner, don’t hold hands.

 Once you agree on details, and if you’re not planning to incorporate just yet, draft a simple MOA (Memorandum of Agreement). 

Write down the terms of your partnership, including roles, contributions, and investments, and make everyone sign. “But I trust my partner.” How much do you really? If you run out of money, can you still say that with the same confidence? Things won’t go to plan and having things in writing gives both parties some insurance.

 So we should trust our partner and make them sign contracts? Let's go over the nuance.

You shouldn't enter a partnership with anyone you shouldn't trust, period. So if you have any reservations, don't do it. So when you enter a partnership, you assume trust.

But you're entering this partnership with unknowns. The biggest unknown is you and your partner's future selves. Your priorities will change, your values will change, and your personalities will change. If you suddenly bear a child, then your needs from your partnership might shift.

So what you're doing is basically just trying to protect each other from both of your future selves. Because you don't know who those people are, you're basically saying: "No matter who we become, we will make this work."

In the case that you have access to a great partner: a childhood friend, sibling, or cousin who might share your talents and interests, go for it.

Businesses are more fulfilling when you do them with people. But they come with risks. Getting more people in makes things more complicated, but if you do pull it off well, you can end up better off.

So for most people: don't get a partner. But if you think you're better off doing the opposite, why not?

Should you start a home-based food business alone or with a business partner?

Do You Need a Business Partner?

Finding great food business ideas shouldn't be hard. You'll learn:

Why you should never pay attention to trends

Headline Title

You can tell when someone is lying. They avoid eye contact, hide their hands, and speak in circles. And even if you don't consciously spot these signs, your gut goes off like a fire alarm.

The frustrating part is that despite these signals, you don't get to catch them all. Lying happens in real-time. You don't get enough time to analyze every single pattern to figure out if you're getting played.

Great ideas lie. What looks great on paper doesn't always turn out well in practice. Don't believe them at face value.

You can sort of tell what the silhouette of a great idea looks like, but you're seeing it through foggy glass. And that glass will never be crystal clear—but with better thinking, you can make it clearer.

In this course, we want to reduce the fog so you can get better at spotting great ideas. Our goal is to set your personal idea alarm to only ring when it's actually found gold, not dirt.

When trying to search for ideas, most people go around knocking on friends' doors. 

"What's a great idea? Do you think this will work? Why do you think they're so successful?"

Most of us do a poor job at figuring out what good ideas look like. Why? Because ideas hinge on people's desires. And people's desires move unpredictably. They're so vague and weird that asking a friend "What do you want to eat for lunch?" leaves them paralyzed.

The answers you'll receive will always leave you saying "duh." While they will try to sound smart, their explanations will usually end up in some form of:

 "Lahat kumakain ng fried chicken so go."

 "Okay yan kasi mura, lahat gusto ng mura"

None of these explains why ideas work. They don't establish proper cause and effect. They're based on anecdotes and feelings. They reveal no new insights. The worst part: their counterpoints are also true. If you debate the opposing side, you can prove it equally right.

Most explanations of ideas are so obvious that you can assume that everyone else is thinking the same thing. With walking towards the same direction, you can't expect any breakthroughs. Down this path, you'll end up with a me-too idea that nobody wants.

Friends with a Track Record

Asking others also ignores the reality that great ideas take the shape of their owners. Here's an idea: "A bakery selling pricey cakes and pasta with religious materials on the walls and tables." If you guessed it right, that's Mary Grace. This particular idea is so steeped in her personal religious life that her cafes almost feel like Sunday mass. Not sure if that works for you.

Don't go looking for ideas from other people. Great ideas always need you to figure them out.

If you had to choose one: make another chart-topping Dwayne Johnson blockbuster, or a money-losing Academy Award winner that tanks in the box office?

The good news: you can get both. The best movies can always have an element of both: a personal stake and commercial success.

Most people select ideas witha black-and-white lens: from a place of passion (”This is what I love to do”) or from a place of demand (”This is what people want to buy”). The first an artist, the second is a merchant.

The tortured artist, seeing everything as personal expression normally ends up with a vanity project nobody else cares about. The opportunistic merchant, chasing whatever is hot at the moment, ends up making the 50th copycat. 

You can also see how the artist and merchant clashes when you compare McDonald's with a fine dining restaurant. At McDonald's, they only think about the customer. They care little about self-expression. It's about speed, price, and flavor. Now in a fine dining restaurant, you'll hear the chef talk about their childhood experiences, favorite ingredients, or the story of a farmer. One leans towards customer satisfaction, the other on self-expression.

Both approaches have their merits and drawbacks, but you get the most when you combine the two.

Find your Frustrations

Don't you find it weird that we often see business as a nemesis to art?

But in art and business, your objectives look alike: create a thing of beauty. The big difference is that in business, you need to turn it profitable so people can continue to enjoy it long after you release it in the world. In a way, the businessperson is just an artist who cares more about customers than themselves.

Your business is your art. Care for it. Find it worthwhile. Believe in it. Otherwise, why should other people believe you?

And when you've found something you believe in, ground it in reality. Find allies. See if you can you convince other people to believe in it too. That's where your market instincts come in.

How do you get food business ideas? And once you have them, how do you know they'll work as a business?

Food Business Courses

What Does it Take to Start Your Own Food Business?

How Much Capital Do You Need and How Much can you Make?

Do You Need a Business Partner?

How to Discover Great Food Business Ideas

The Definitive Guide: Start a Home Food Business in the PH