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Only a few of us will become overnight millionaires as the person that won the hundred-million Grand Lotto jackpot.  While many of us long to have the same good fortune, some of us get rich the old-fashioned way: by dint of hard work and doing good business.

In that class belongs Edgar “Injap” Sia II, who became a billionaire—never mind if not overnight—when Jollibee Foods Corp. bought 70 percent of his upstart food company, Mang Inasal, in November 2010 for P3 billion.

But how did Injap exactly create his multi-billion peso brand? Entrepreneur.com.ph asked two experts to dissect how Mang Inasal became the brand it is today.

STEP 1: MOP THE FLOOR
Much is said of being hands-on with your business, but with Sia, who started Mang Inasal at 26 years old, he couldn’t be hands-on enough.

“It has been said many times that Injap would mop the floors of his first few restaurants. This speaks volumes of his humility and character,” says Lex Ledesma, a native of Iloilo province who is the executive director of The One School and a serial entrepreneur himself.

Incredibly, Sia was doing these menial jobs at Mang Inasal while running four other businesses in Iloilo: Injap Color Express, a photo-developing shop; the Four Season Hotel, which he founded with two friends; Holland Water, a water-refilling station; and Mister Labada, a laundry shop.

Also, as his business was expanding, Sia insisted on personally knowing a place where a Mang Inasal branch would be put up. As a result, “Injap has a thorough grasp of locations in the country,” says Armando “Butz” Bartolome of GMB Franchise Developers, whom Sia approached to help build Mang Inasal’s franchising operations. “He traveled to every town using various means of transportation and staying in any type of hotel. It was his way of understanding the culture and habits of each town.”

STEP 2: MAKE A GAMBLE
A son of entrepreneurs who owned a supermarket in Roxas City, Sia is renowned by his peers as a business-minded risk-taker. For instance, Injap bought and sold cars from classmates and friends soon after graduating from Iloilo Central Commercial High School, the country’s second-oldest Filipino-Chinese school, according to car salesman Jun Bañares, whose brother went to the same school.

While these stories may just be part of the Mang Inasal founder’s growing folklore, Rodrigo Sangrador Jr., the top man in Iloilo for Injap Investments Inc.—Sia’s holding company with growing interests in condominium development and real estate—acknowledges his boss is somewhat of a daredevil.

Proof, he says, is the gamble Sia took in locating the first Mang Inasal outlet at a parking building instead of inside a mall—and then expanding the space he rented from just 100 sq m to thrice its size.

“With Mister Labada, Sir Edgar was the first tenant of the Paseo, but nobody else wanted to locate here,” says Sangrador, noting that Sia even borrowed P2.4 million from his parents to put up Mang Inasal because he believed his concept would work despite the location. “Robinsons loves Sir Edgar. He gets a lot of credit from for proving that this building is just as viable for commercial and food establishments as (spots in) the mall.”

STEP 3: THINK OF THE CUSTOMER
Despite the fame that business success could bring, Sia was never one to hog the spotlight. Innately shy, Injap would come to Mang Inasal stores anonymously, and when the staff did recognize him, “kapag nakita siya, sinasabi niya na huwag siyang unahin (when we see him, he’d tell us not to accommodate him),” says Ma. Remely “Rem” Luaña, the present store manager of the first Mang Inasal outlet.

Sometimes, Luaña adds, Sia would hold meetings at the air-conditioned portion of the Mang Inasal Robinsons outlet. But when a lunch or dinner crowd would arrive and more seats were needed, Injap would either give up half the air-con area for customers to use or give the room to the patrons entirely, moving his meeting elsewhere.

Another time, when the 320 sq m restaurant was overflowing with customers beyond its 300-seat capacity, Injap requested Robinson’s management to let them place more tables and chairs around the store’s perimeter so around 80 more people could be seated—and the mall bosses agreed at no additional rental cost to Mang Inasal, say Luaña and Sangrador Jr., who oversees the chain’s 20 outlets in Iloilo as part of his duties.

STEP 4: SPREAD THE WEALTH
Sia is a hero in Iloilo not only for putting up a national brand from the provinces (as opposed to starting one in Metro Manila), but also for giving opportunities to small-scale suppliers around Mang Inasal outlets across the country.

“Despite his many success, Injap has a soft spot in his heart. He has assisted many people by giving them livelihood and dignity,” says Bartolome, the franchising guru. “During the time he was putting up Mang Inasal, he found an old lady in the public market at a corner selling some baskets of kalamansi (a citrus fruit, used in sauces for the grilled chicken). He then asked her to supply his first few branches. The woman found herself earning more than she could ever dream of in her lifetime.”

Other materials used in Mang Inasal—the rice used in the store’s trademark “unlimited rice” promotion, the banana leaves used to line the wicker plates at its restaurants—are also sourced from small traders from even the most remote locations in Iloilo and elsewhere, just to ensure a level of service and consistency for the entire restaurant chain, adds Sangrador Jr. For instance, the town of Maasin in Iloilo has thrived by supplying the business with 70 percent of the bamboo sticks used to skewer the chicken for barbecuing.

STEP 5: BE UNIQUE, THEN FRANCHISE
Although offering chicken inasal is not an original concept, Sia built Mang Inasal’s brand on three things: a new idea, an irresistible offer, and franchising.

“In my opinion, Mang Inasal is a Blue Ocean (concept), being the first and only fast-food inasal chicken vendor in the market,” says Ledesma, The One School founder, noting that similar restaurants follow a casual-dining concept—and no unlimited rice promos. “Jollibee tried to compete by offering a similar product before finally realizing that it made more sense to just acquire its competitor.”

For Ledesma, Jollibee buying Mang Inasal is proof that if an entrepreneur aspires to go big-time, “it’s not enough that you have a good product. You have to create a niche and have a clear unique selling proposition.”

“Injap didn’t even create a new product, but instead presented an old product in a whole new way,” he adds. “It also helped that (Sia) had the marketing know-how to create the unlimited rice trend.”

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