The industry-shaking enterprise was inspired by Woudwyk’s frustration with the maltreatment of the Philippine labour force, especially by foreign BPOs. Through ProSource, he asserts that the Philippines is not a low-cost, low-skill labour destination, but a pool of highly skilled engineering talent that has been underutilised and underappreciated for far too long. He proclaims: “We believe that the Philippines is an amazing hub for technical talent and the geographic location of someone should not dictate the kind of work they’re capable of doing or the salary they should be paid.”

ProSource is just one of the many ventures under his watchful eye. In addition to ProSource, Woudwyk runs SocialDesk Tower, the 20-storey wellness-driven, co-working-tech-campus hybrid in Salcedo Village that houses ProSource. He also manages the finances and production processes of Crosta, the much-talked-about pizzeria chiefly managed by his now-wife and business partner, Ingga, with four new branches in the works. Finally, Woudwyk's business, software development, and restaurant acumen come together in Pickup.ph: an all-in-one, zero-commission online ordering platform changing the game for restaurateurs in this economic downturn. 

Learn more about the easygoing enterpriser, ProSource, and Pickup.ph, below:

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What was the inspiration behind starting ProSource? How has ProSource grown since you first started?

In a previous business, we hired Filipino tutors and when I first started hiring in Manila, I noticed that BPOs promote the Philippines as a low-cost, low-skill labour destination. This “70 per cent off storewide” mentality, as I call it, really does an injustice because it attracts the wrong kind of foreign employer to the Philippines for the wrong reasons. We were inspired to start ProSource with the opposite proposition; we believe that the Philippines is an amazing hub for technical talent and the geographic location of someone should not dictate the kind of work they’re capable of doing or the salary they should be paid.

We have worked tirelessly to put together a skill-based global pay scale. I would be lying if I said it was easy and that we grew rapidly from day one. In reality, it was the opposite; we started out with just five seats and it has been six long years of training clients and demonstrating that the Philippines is a major hub for engineering talent. Today, with over 1,000 seats, we are very proud to say that many of our engineers are paid on par with their foreign colleagues. We are also lucky that all our clients share the same beliefs, and because of that, we are a viable alternative to moving overseas as an OFW, for talented engineers looking for a great career.

You call yourself ProSource’s “founder and innovation guy,” what does this entail?

I personally don’t like titles and I have always struggled to explain to people what it is that I do at ProSource. The easiest way to explain what I do is to explain that even though ProSource is six years old, we act as a nimble startup. As we grow, we understand that there are new challenges we need to overcome and these challenges require you to strategise, continuously innovate, and be as agile as a gazelle to make the necessary changes in order to grow continually. I have a great co-founder who is CEO and so my role is to oversee the business, strategise where we are going, and design what we need to implement in order to get there. 

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Please tell us about Pickup.ph. What services does it provide? How might restaurateurs use of the application?

As owners of a small pizza restaurant, we really suffered during the pandemic since 100 per cent of our sales came from delivery apps and their commissions made it untenable. The idea of Pickup.ph was Ingga’s. We initially built Pickup.ph for Crosta so that we could remain in business. As it happened, we have lots of friends in F&B who asked to use the app as well. Eventually, we decided to open Pickup.ph to other retailers.

GrabFood and FoodPanda do a great job in the food delivery space for new customer acquisition, so we don’t think the world needs another FoodPanda or GrabFood. Instead, we wanted to build a different online ordering platform that took zero commission and was free for merchants to help with the same issues we faced at Crosta.

Our platform allows merchants to be able to sell their products online, manage orders, receive payment, and update customers, [all while offering] integrated delivery with our delivery partners GrabExpress and Lalamove.

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I love that you describe ProSource as “by developers, for developers”, and Pickup.ph as “for restaurateurs, by restaurateurs.” As a restaurateur yourself, what were the biggest frustrations you encountered and how does Pickup.ph address these issues?

One of the frustrations my partner, Ingga experienced was that, when you want to build your own online ordering site, you quickly realise just how complicated and incomplete a lot of the options in the market are. So, not only is it an extremely complex process, but Ingga was already very busy managing the pizza shop. That’s the case with the majority of SME business owners, they wear multiple hats: juggling sales, operations, marketing, HR, and overnight with the pandemic, there we all had to become experts in eCommerce as well.

We wanted to take the Canva approach to eCommerce, taking something that is otherwise complicated and inaccessible to a lot of business owners and make it uncomplicated and accessible to everyone. With Pickup.ph, a retailer can set up their store, sell online, accept payments, and schedule automated delivery in minutes. We wanted to make it as easy as possible; the setup should be as simple as creating a Facebook page. We believe that in this new post-pandemic era, being online and able to accept direct orders will be a basic necessity, just like having an Instagram account for your business is a basic necessity today.

How do you maintain the Pickup.ph app/service with zero commission?

We believe that if online ordering is to become a basic necessity, it needs to be free. Our business is built on a freemium business model like Canva: a feature-rich suite of free tools and an optional premium plan, which doesn’t force users to go premium just to use the app. If you are using the tool and see the value in the application, you’re more willing to upgrade to the premium tools because you see the demonstrated value for the business.

We will be releasing a suite of premium tools that will enable existing retailers to take their Pickup.ph experience to the next level, but we will always maintain a feature-rich free tier. We love the freemium business model, especially opposed to a lot of online platforms that make you pay a premium before you even get to determine whether or not it is a useful tool for your business.

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Apart from being commission-free, why are more and more restaurants transitioning to Pickup.ph? What does its all-in-one solution for restaurateurs include?

We are seeing a shift where retailers are not only using online delivery apps but also taking an active interest in building their own online ordering store, owning their own customer data, and being able to control the customer journey so that the experience is in-line with their brand. These brands are more active in advertising on social media and that’s because Instagram has become the place where people can discover new brands and products. 

As restauranteurs, we can share what we felt were the basic all-in-one necessities:

• A branded website with online ordering
• A beautiful and clean interface that is easy to use
• Payment integration
• In-store order management
• Real-time customer order tracking and updates
• Delivery integration
• Sales reports and dashboards

Learn more about ProSource, the software-focused BPO here, and Pickup.ph, the revolutionary ordering platform, here.

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