Ton Villanueva had spent more than two decades building a corporate career when he decided it was time to leave.
Over 21 years, he worked across the petroleum, construction materials and technology industries, with stints at companies such as Microsoft, Pilipinas Shell, Lafarge Republic, Phoenix LPG and Unioil Petroleum Philippines. His career also included leadership programs overseas and an expatriate assignment in Vietnam.
By the time he turned 40, however, Villanueva decided that the career he had spent much of his adult life building was no longer what he wanted for the next stage of his life.
“I left the corporate world at the peak of my career because I found meaning and a higher purpose outside it,” he said.
Today, Villanueva is founder and president of Anarvi Ventures, a group with interests in consultancy, e-commerce, wellness, logistics, retail, distribution and petroleum engineering. One of its flagship brands is Modern Fox, a premium grooming and social destination that combines grooming with coffee, cocktails and a lounge.
His experience offers an important lesson for aspiring entrepreneurs. Starting a business does not always require leaving a job as early as possible. A corporate career can provide skills, networks, discipline and experience that become valuable once an employee eventually decides to become an entrepreneur. For Villanueva, that preparation lasted 21 years.
Start small before betting everything
Villanueva’s first experience with business came long before he became an executive.
He grew up in Iligan City. His mother was a public school teacher while his father worked as a van salesman for Coca-Cola Philippines. At 15, he moved to Manila to attend De La Salle University.
Aware that his parents had limited financial resources, Villanueva looked for ways to supplement his allowance. He eventually discovered Cartimar and became friends with a trader who supplied replica basketball and lifestyle shoes.
He saved part of his allowance, used the money to buy inventory and resold the shoes to students at DLSU.
“Every week during U-Break, I would take a jeepney to Cartimar to pick up my supply,” he recalled. “I was even held up twice during those jeepney rides.”
The business was small, but the experience gave Villanueva something that aspiring entrepreneurs cannot easily acquire from books: evidence that somebody was willing to pay for something he could source and sell.
This is one reason small entrepreneurial experiments can be valuable. The objective does not always have to be building a large company immediately. A small venture can teach an entrepreneur how to identify demand, manage limited capital, source products and deal directly with customers.
For Villanueva, selling shoes also gave him confidence that entrepreneurship was something he could eventually pursue, but he did not immediately quit school or abandon the idea of employment.
“I knew that one day I would build businesses of my own, but I also knew I first needed to take the corporate route to learn, develop myself, and build the foundation I would eventually need as an entrepreneur,” he said.
Use employment as entrepreneurial training
At 19, Villanueva joined Microsoft Cebu. After almost two years, he moved to Shell Philippines. He also completed his MBA at the Ateneo Graduate School of Business through a Shell scholarship program.
Over the next two decades, his corporate career exposed him to financial management, operations, strategy, supply chains, performance management and leadership.
An employee who wants to become an entrepreneur can sometimes look at employment mainly as something to escape. Villanueva approached it differently.
A large company can become a training ground. Employees can learn how budgets are prepared, how managers evaluate investments, how companies hire and develop people, how performance is measured and how systems allow an organization to operate beyond the abilities of one individual.
Those lessons become especially important when a small business begins to grow.
“My 21 years in corporate life, from entry-level roles to managerial and executive positions, gave me a tremendous advantage as an entrepreneur because it taught me the value of structure, processes, systems, and accountability,” Villanueva said.
The lesson is not that an aspiring entrepreneur should necessarily spend 21 years in corporate life. It is that the years spent working for someone else can become part of the investment in a future business if the employee deliberately learns from them.
Test entrepreneurship before making the leap
Villanueva also did not wait until leaving employment to find out whether he could run a business.
At 24, while working at Shell, he partnered with a college friend to start a trucking company.
He did not even have enough money for his equity contribution, so he borrowed the amount from his partner and repaid it in 12 equal monthly installments. The business eventually grew, and Villanueva sold his stake in 2022 to concentrate on his other ventures.
There is a useful principle here. Starting a business on the side can allow an aspiring entrepreneur to test three things before giving up a salary: whether customers will actually pay, whether the economics of the business work and whether the person really enjoys running a business.
Entrepreneurship looks different when salaries have to be paid, customers complain and capital is at risk. A side business can therefore serve as a relatively controlled experiment before someone makes a much larger career decision.
But Villanueva eventually discovered the limitation of this approach.
A side business can only remain a side business for so long
For years, Villanueva maintained both his corporate career and entrepreneurial interests.
Eventually, he felt that dividing his attention was preventing him from giving either one his full commitment.
“You can probably be good at both, but I realized that, at least for me, I could not become great at either while dividing my attention between two demanding worlds,” he said. “You cannot serve two masters with the same level of commitment.”
This presents a difficult decision for anyone building a business while employed.
Keeping a job reduces financial risk. The salary provides personal cash flow while the entrepreneur tests the business. It also reduces pressure to withdraw money from a young company, but there can eventually be an opportunity cost.
If the business begins to require more attention than evenings and weekends can provide, maintaining two careers may slow its development. The entrepreneur must then decide whether the additional upside from focusing on the business justifies giving up the security of employment.
There is no universal point at which someone should resign. The decision depends on savings, family obligations, business cash flow, access to capital and tolerance for risk. For Villanueva, that point arrived at 40.
Do not confuse a successful career with the right career forever
Villanueva did not leave because his corporate career had failed. He says he enjoyed it.
“I enjoyed the corporate grind for 21 years: the executive clothing, nonstop plane rides, boardroom presentations, public speaking, leading teams, coaching young managers, strategic planning, analyzing financial statements, supply chain planning, and everything else that came with being a corporate executive,” he said.
But over time, the work became routine.
“More importantly, I felt that I was not building something of my own,” he said. “I was not building a legacy. I was busy helping build someone else’s dream.”
This highlights another entrepreneurial lesson. The decision to leave a career does not have to come from dissatisfaction or failure.
Sometimes the trade-off changes. Early in a career, employment can offer greater value because the individual needs skills, experience, savings and professional credibility. Later, those benefits may become less important while the opportunity cost of postponing entrepreneurship becomes greater.
“I chose to bet on myself while I was still young enough to have the energy, appetite for risk, and time to build something meaningful,” Villanueva said.
Bring corporate discipline into entrepreneurship
Leaving corporate life also does not mean abandoning what was learned there.
Villanueva says he now uses scorecards, monitors financial performance, develops processes and relies on data rather than instinct alone in running his businesses.
A founder can initially manage a small business through personal supervision. As the organization expands, however, the founder cannot make every decision, serve every customer or watch every employee.
Systems allow the business to become less dependent on the founder. At the same time, Villanueva discovered that entrepreneurship changes the way those decisions feel.
“When it is your own capital, your partners’ money, and your employees’ livelihoods at stake, every decision feels more personal,” he said.
This combination may explain why his corporate years remained useful even after he left them behind. Corporate life taught him structure. Entrepreneurship forced him to add ownership, speed and resourcefulness.
A job can provide training. A side business can provide testing. Savings and experience can reduce some of the risks. But if the business eventually proves that it deserves more attention, the entrepreneur may have to decide whether keeping the security of employment is beginning to limit the opportunity.
Villanueva spent years preparing before making that decision, then, at 40, he decided the preparation was enough.
“There comes a point when you have to stop treating your dream as the side project and give it the time, focus, and responsibility of your main life’s work.”
