How radio DJ Carlos Hinolan started a tech firm with P500

What can you do with P500 these days?

You can watch a movie, buy decent clothes, or treat yourself to a reasonably delicious lunch or dinner.

Fourteen years ago, Computer Science college dropout and former radio DJ Carlos Hinolan used that amount to build a technology firm that offers "multi-sensory branding" thru customized audio, visuals and scents for fast-food chains and convenience stores .

Now the company AudioWav is waiting for regulatory approvals on its planned initial public offering (IPO) valued at P2.66 billion on the Philippine Stock Excange.

The company plans to use the proceeds from the IPO to expand in the region, starting with Singapore and Indonesia.

'Customize the sound'

"When I was in radio, I really wanted to have my own radio station. But when you are a young guy, back then, you cannot just own a radio station because you need a congressional franchise to be able to do it," Hinolan told GMA News Online in an interview.

"But then I saw there's a lot of traffic inside the malls, inside the stores, at the supermarkets. But what they have is dead air. There's really nothing happening inside. And I said, 'Why don't I customize the sound?' And that's what I did," the founder, Chairman and CEO of tech firm AudioWav noted.

Seizing the opportunity, Hinolan used P500 to buy a microphone and create voice content for his "big break" and very first client Chowking, the fast food chain which had 238 fast food restaurants nationwide at that time.

"You could say I was lucky that we created relevant content for those 238 stores. And they used that content to tell their customers what's for breakfast, what's for lunch, what's for merienda and what they can take home to their families," he said.

Asked how he convinced such a well-established client to sign deal, the tech entrepreneur noted it was about the product. "It's not about how small you are ... It's about how good your content is. At the end of the day, content will always be king," he said.

"If you look at Facebook, or what's happening in viral videos, some of those fantastic contents came from cheap cameraphones and they're gathering millions of views. So it's all about relevant content," Hinolan emphasized.

But in order to grow his business, he said his service needed to evolve – not just stick to CDs and flash drives to be played in the backrooms of stores.

"We realized that we cannot do it anymore with just CDs or USBs, so we ended up with our proprietary devices to be able to push and centrally control these devices via the internet," he said.

AudioWav's proprietary devices include audio players, LED screens and scent diffusers.1

"We customize music, scent and messaging. For example, we place these devices in large chains and we played music and we put messages in these devices being played inside the stores so that customers will be informed and entertained," he said.

"Now that we have our own platform and we realize we can do (business) in Singapore and Indonesia, we are looking at doing the whole of Asia and that's why we're listing the company. We're opening it to everybody so that everybody wins and grows," he added.

The firm is yet to secure approvals from the Securities and Exchange Commission and Philippine Stock Exchange for its maiden share sale. —  VDS, GMA News