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.

Precisely how Brian Tenorio got into the designer footwear business is another story of the serendipitous kind. One afternoon, during a break from their Management of Arts studies at the Asian Institute of Management, Tenorio and a classmate of his went to Quezon City, and, looking for ways to while away their time, decided to explore the various retail outlets of the Marikina Shoe Expo in Cubao. Purely by chance in one of the shops, Tenorio met and got to talk with footwear consultant Tess Endriga. The discussion fired Tenorio’s interest in shoe design and right after, in a frenetic burst of creativity, he designed a few pairs and put them up for sale on his personal website. He was amazed by the number of pairs he was able to sell with those initial creations of his: 50 pairs after only a few weeks.

SOLE COLLECTOR

At first, Tenorio only did personal shoe fittings for his customers in their homes or offices, selling as many as 100 shoes per month in this manner. Because his clientele was growing so fast, however, he put up Tenorio Manila’s first public showroom in April 2007 at Apartment 904 of the Prince Plaza I condominium, just across the Greenbelt shopping complex in Makati City.

The Tenorio Manila label now has five artisans to execute his shoe designs, and employs a general manager with a staff of three to handle marketing and sales. The business is now handled by its corporate arm, TM Worldwide Inc., into which Tenorio’s business partners had made an initial investment of P750,000. Tenorio’s contribution to the venture is the brand equity of the Tenorio Manila label as well as his services as its creative director.

Tenorio sees his business of making designer shoes as a way of providing great fashion to Filipinos, thus increasing the beauty and goodness all around him. And no less ambitious is his ultimate goal for the business: “I want Tenorio Manila to become a global designer label from the East.  Like Havaianas for Brazil, I want the brand to always be associated with the Philippines.”

Tenorio Manila’s design philosophy expresses this vision for the business with even greater clarity: “Tenorio Manila seeks to discuss values that are real, palpable, and essential. These are the ends of design, the more foundational aspects of our nature. Tenorio Manila attempts to bring to its clientele a wearable exposition of the three universal concepts of Luxe, Lust, and Love: the enlightenment about things, the physical desire for the aesthetic, and love in its general sense.”

Tenorio says that his venture into entrepreneurship has not only enhanced his value as a designer but also made him a better manager of people and of himself.  “My perspectives and insights in design and my network of contacts tripled as result of it,” he says, adding that it has also exponentially increased his threshold for crisis management.

He recalls that in the beginning, when he was making his first shoe designs and selling them, he didn’t even want to think about the business side at all. Today, however, he has become very entrepreneurial, even maintaining two other sidelines besides running Tenorio Manila: doing professional graphic design work for clients and teaching design classes. “Setting up and running Tenorio Manila has made me recognize and appreciate business as a force and as an art form,” he says.

Contact details:

BRIAN TENORIO

Tenorio Manila

Apartment 904, Prince Plaza 1, Dela Rosa St, Makati City

Mobile: 0917-6280926

Email: shoes@tenoriomanila.com

Website: www.tenoriomanila.com