As Red Ribbon began to grow beyond its first store, Tessie Moran found herself operating in a stage familiar to many early entrepreneurs but rarely talked about openly: scaling without infrastructure. Demand was increasing, new locations were opening, but the business was still being run with household tools, borrowed space, and manual processes. Growth came first. Systems followed later.
By the time Red Ribbon opened its third store, production was still happening entirely at home. “By the third store, Tessie was making all the cakes in our apartment,” her husband Danny recalls. “So we had to deliver everything from the apartment to the store—naka-jeep lang.” There was no commissary, no delivery fleet, and no centralized kitchen. Cakes were baked, packed, and transported using whatever resources were available at the time.
This setup was not a strategic preference. It was a necessity. Moran scaled the business using what she could control directly, choosing resourcefulness over waiting for ideal conditions. Expansion was driven by demand rather than long-term planning. When customers in other areas asked for access to the same products, Moran responded by opening new locations—one at a time—while keeping production centralized at home.
Pasig became the second location around 1981. The concept was simple: offer the same cakes that were already selling well elsewhere. “It was basically the same concept,” Moran explains, “something that wasn’t available in Pasig, only in Makati.” The success of the Pasig store confirmed that demand extended beyond the original area. That validation led to subsequent openings in Greenhills and Makati Avenue by 1983.
As the number of stores increased, operational pressure intensified. Producing at home meant longer hours, tighter schedules, and increasing physical strain. Yet Moran remained deeply involved in every aspect of the business. Delegation was limited, partly due to resource constraints and partly due to quality control. Consistency mattered, and in the absence of systems, consistency depended on direct oversight.
Much of Moran’s time during this phase was spent on research—not in formal settings, but on the ground. She personally studied products, packaging, and presentation. “Aside from researching products, I was also researching packaging,” she says.
Certain cakes required specific containers to preserve quality, while others needed boxes that could protect their structure during transport. Moran and her sister regularly traveled to Divisoria and Quiapo to source cake pans, boxes, and materials. “We would buy the pans, the packaging, the boxes, lahat yan,” she recalls. “Quiapo and Divisoria were our destinations.”
Design was also handled in-house. Moran didn’t outsource box designs or branding decisions. She experimented herself, choosing materials, testing layouts, and speaking directly with suppliers. Those supplier relationships became informal sources of operational knowledge. Ingredient suppliers, in particular, provided guidance on usage and efficiency. They explained how to work with certain products and suggested ideas that helped streamline production as volume increased.
One of the most significant operational milestones during this period was the purchase of Moran’s first Hobart mixer. The upgrade represented more than increased capacity—it marked a shift in confidence. “I remember buying my first Hobart mixer,” she says. “It’s probably the same feeling you get when you buy a nice car.” The mixer allowed her to standardize production and reduce manual strain. “I was so excited, I couldn’t sleep,” she adds. “I even carried it with me. It was like having my first BMW.”
Despite these incremental improvements, operations remained fundamentally manual. Deliveries were coordinated using jeeps, schedules were managed informally, and production was adjusted daily based on orders. There were no written procedures, no forecasting tools, and no automation. Moran learned through repetition, gradually refining processes as new challenges surfaced.
What stands out in this phase of Red Ribbon’s growth is not speed, but discipline. Moran did not attempt to scale faster than her operations could support. Each new store came with added strain, but also with lessons that informed the next step. Growth was not driven by projections or aggressive expansion targets—it was pulled by customer demand and sustained through hands-on problem-solving.
Red Ribbon’s early expansion demonstrates that scaling does not always begin with structure. Often, it begins with endurance. Before systems, there is improvisation; before infrastructure, there is discipline. By producing cakes in her apartment, designing boxes herself, sourcing materials from Divisoria, and delivering products by jeep, Tessie Moran scaled Red Ribbon the only way possible at the time—manually, deliberately, and in response to demand. That period of DIY scaling did more than grow the business. It built operational intuition that no system could replace.
This article includes quotes from an interview originally published by Esquire Philippines, authored by Henry Ong.
