Brian Tenorio’s journey towards becoming a successful entrepreneur began with this Chinese proverb: “Don’t leave until everyone is clapping.”

An up-and-coming freelance graphic designer at the time, he first heard this proverb in 2002 during a conversation with Sonia Ner, the director of the Ayala Museum and a client of his. It was a week before he was to leave for the United States to begin his Masters in Design Management studies at the prestigious Pratt Institute in New York. The Ateneo de Manila University graduate had by then already gained a considerable reputation as a graphic designer, doing work for such clients as the prominent business leader and photographer Jaime Zobel de Ayala and the Instituto Cervantes Manila, the prestigious Spanish language academy.

When Ner quoted the proverb to him, it made such a powerful impact on Tenorio that he began to doubt the wisdom of leaving the Philippines to study abroad. It dawned on him that it made more sense to achieve something big in his homeland first before doing that— “Don’t leave until everyone is clapping.” He still did leave for New York as planned, though, but he eventually decided not to push through with his studies at Pratt and came back to Manila a few weeks later. Instead, he accepted a scholarship from the Asian Institute of Management for the pilot class of its new Managing the Arts program.

FALLING INTO PLACE

“Things just fell into place,” Tenorio recalls. Indeed, his decision not to study abroad set a chain of events that directly led to the creation of Tenorio Manila, his own fashion label for designer shoes and accessories. The exclusive collection—all personally designed by Tenorio himself—quickly gained a cult following among Manila’s set of discerning young professionals, who saw his exciting new creations as a much welcome alternative to imported designer brands.

Today, from selling less than 50 pairs of shoes through a rudimentary website in 2003, Tenorio Manila has grown into a major entrepreneurial venture valued at over P3 million. It now services more than 1,000 individual clients, mostly from the power-dressing office crowd in Makati City’s central business district. And because of the company's strong prospects for growth, Tenorio and his business partners—Angel Escano and Namee Jorolan and a silent major investor—decided to do it in a much bigger way. Last year, they set up TM Worldwide Inc. as a corporate vehicle for effecting Tenorio Manila’s transition from Internet-based shoe seller to high-street fashion retailer.