JOHNLU KOA: CEO of
The French Baker
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Subject
THE ENTREPRENEURIAL MIND
Presented to the Business & Management Department
Of STI College – General Santos, Inc.
Submitted to:
MS. FREEDOM BOLIPATA-BIALA, MM
Instructor
Submitted by:
Kyle Lawrence B. Jamora
BSIT 2-1B
September 2019
FREEDOM BOLIPATA-BIALA, MM
Business & Management Department
STI – College – General Santos, Inc.
Table of Contents
BACKGROUND
PERSONAL ............................................................................ 1
EARLY LIFE
EDUCATION
START-UP .............................................................................. 2
START OF A SUCCESS STORY
BLUE OCEAN STRATEGY
“TATANG SY”
CHALLENGES ........................................................................ 4
GROWTH AND COMPETITIONS
CONTRIBUTIONS .................................................................. 5
APPENDICES ......................................................................... 6
BACKGROUND
PERSONAL
WHO IS JOHNLU KOA?
Johnlu Koa is the Founder & CEO of The French Baker Inc. and Lartizan. He
brought in Chatime from Taiwan in 2010 as the Philippine franchisee. He is also
responsible for the success of VAAN LAACK, a mono-brand European chain of men’s
and ladies’ clothing. He is currently director for government relations of PHILBAKING.
He completed his BSBA and MBA degree, with honors, from UP Diliman and taught
marketing in the same university for 15 years from 1989-95. His company, The French
Baker, won the Agora Award in 1994 as the “Marketing Company of the year”. In 1997
he received his TOYM award for entrepreneurship. In 2005, he received the second
highest recognition given by Ernst & Young as the country’s “Emerging Master
Entrepreneur”. He is an advocate and active mentor of GoNegosyo since its founding
in 2005. He is also trained artisan baker with more than 20 years of experience. He is
steeped into the tradition art and science of French baking and is well versed on the
use of ancient grains. He shares his insights about innovations.
EARLY LIFE
Johnlu grew up in Binondo. His parents, Raymundo Koa Sun Len and Cristina
Go Chu, reared him as well as his brothers at an early age as businessman. They
would buy toys that Johnlu would sell to his classmates at Xavier School and to friends
at the neighborhood.
EDUCATION
He finished his elementary education from Xavier School and obtained his
degrees in Business Administration in 1979 and MBA in 1984, both from University of
the Philippines, Diliman. Johnlu Koa entered the business college of the university of
the Philippines (U.P) in 1973 and graduated with honors cum laude, in 1984, he
graduated from the MBA program of the same college, landing among “Top 10 MBA
graduates” of the U.P. junior Marketing Association from 1978-79. The same
organization won the “Most Outstanding Student organization” in 1979.
THE START OF A SUCCESS STORY
After Johnlu graduated, he thought of helping his alma mater by accepting a
teaching position as full-time instructor. His area was in corporate strategy and
Marketing. He began his teaching career at 22 year old and ended it at the age of 37.
He is a self-taught baker who constantly took baking seminars in Europe and U.S.
After returning from t-month backpacking tour of Europe in1989, inspired by his travels
and seminars, also seeing the business opportunities resulting from the positive
change of government from Marcos to Aquino, and the improving business climate,
he ventured into French Baking by establishing “The French Baker” brand firstly in
Manila.
BLUE OCEAN STRATEGY
His positive mindset drove him to expand his business beyond the expectations
of many despite several coup attempts to topple down the Cory Aquino Presidency.
What he did was an application of the “BLUE OCEAN” strategy where he entered an
uncontested market space by being the first in his own category. He created a “French
bakery-café and restaurant” which in 1989 was totally unheard of his huge success
was manifested in the opening of several stores in rapid succession within the SM
SuperMalls chain.
“TATANG SY.”
Johnlu started making his market research and discovered that of all restaurant
segments, there was a lack of French-inspired bakery restaurants in the mid 1980’s.
With his talent and knowledge he gain from traveling to Europe and from the seminars
he attended, he thought of bringing in a taste of Paris – baguettes, croissants, and
ciabattas – to the Philippines, and opened the first French Baker outlet at the Annex
in SM City North EDSA in 1989. Starting from scratch, Johnlu’s “The French Baker”
started out as a bakery café serving sandwiches and pasta, as well as its signature
breads, a visit from SM Founder Henry Sy, Sr. gave Johnlu a priceless business
perspective; “One day, Tatang Sy dropped by and told me, ‘I think you will have a
great future if you were to do fast food,’” recalls Johnlu. “He meant not just
concentrating on breakfast and meriendafare, but food all day for Filipinos who eat 3
to 5 times a day.” And as they say, “the rest is history” Johnlu added. In 6 months’
time, Johnlu was given a second store, a third store after 8 months, and a fourth and
fifth store after 15 months. “I was really lucky SM gave me that special moment to build
my first shop at SM City North EDSA” Johnlu said. SM’s founder Henry Sy, Sr. made
a big role on the success of Johnlu Koa’s “The French Baker”.
CHALLENGES
Having a well-known and successful business is the outcome of a rough past.
When Johnlu studied business administration in UP, his view of schooling is quite old
school, why? KOA said “I’m quite old school. I believe there’s no such thing as being
self-taught, somewhere along the way, meron, but you need to know the basic skills-
reading, writing, arithmetic. I believe that schooling isn’t just what a book says but it’s
being related to humanity, how to compete, and harmonise with your situation. School
is not just exams and passing one level, it’s also about being recognized and earning
a milestone and network. It is quite easy to understand what Johnlu is saying, the
difference is how can you do it and apply it to yourself. When Johnlu starts teaching in
the university where he graduates and opened Honey Bread an industrial bakery and
supplier. The first challenge that Johnlu faced was when he is just starting up a
business where he slept in his own bakery that his office was right next to his bedroom.
GROWTH AND COMPETITIONS
Koa wasn’t interested in baking from the get-go. His teaching was paying for
his MBA and Honey Brand allowed him to start a savings fund. But when Johnlu
decided to go to transition where he specialized French baking and the French Baker
was born. It was a big break for Johnlu but starting the French Baker wasn’t easy. One
of the most challenging things the French Baker faced was growth and competition. It
was difficult to set a new industry model and dealing with competitors who would adopt
his model then try to outdo him. He was leading in French baking but soon enough,
Korean baking brands became his new competition. Operations are growing so there
was a lot of tech involved and because people come and go, it became a problem for
him to teach and reteach employees how to do things. When he was hiring people, it
was important for them to have the basic skills but the worth of their employment for
me was what they spent in baking school.
Johnlu defines challenges as lessons that give new learnings and insights. But
Johnlu mentioned one mistake was when the time he believed that his partners would
be the ones carry the cudgels for him in terms of product and market-related strategies
that turns out fail and veered away his core competencies.
CONTRIBUTION/S
Johnlu Koa always believed that the Philippines will one day improve
economically. His vision is to see the Philippines prosper in the new economy (digital)
by encouraging fellow entrepreneurs to take his path less traveled.
He serves as an icon of SME business success story in the country
He joined the GONEGOSYO movement of the Philippines Center for
Entrepreneurship as a speaker.
Donor of any fora around the country
Promotes entrepreneurial business education and entrepreneurial skill
building.
Put up PHILBAKING - then creates PINOY TASTY, believing that a
quality and affordable loaf bread would be a boon to Filipino consumers
nationwide.
APPENDICES
NEWS/ARTICLES
THE FRENCH BAKER
FACEBOOK PAGE
REFERENCES:
Retrieve from https://news.abs-cbn.com/ancx/food-drink/features/09/03/19/still-
baking-at-30-how-johnlu-koa-sold-french-breads-to-a-generation-raised-on-pandesal
Retrieve from https://web.facebook.com/thefrenchbakerphilippines/?_rdc=1&_rdr
Retrieve from https://www.coursehero.com/file/19932837/FINMAN/
Retrieve from https://enterpriseasia.org/apea/philippines/awards/ph-2014/johnlu-g-
koa/
Retrieve from https://mystorymysm.com/johnlu-koa/
Retrieve from https://josiahgo.com/qa-with-french-baker-founder-johnlu-koa-on-
innovation/
