Founding an HR Company: The Story of Kate Ringcodan, Co-Founder of CrewBloom

First and foremost, hello everyone. Again, I’m from a very small island country named the Philippines. It’s in Southeast Asia. My name is Kate and I co-founded CrewBloom. So CrewBloom is in the remote outsourcing space. Allow me to give a very brief background about I guess my childhood and like I, cuz I feel like it kind of drove me to where I am at the moment. So again, I grew up in a very rural area in the Philippines, it’s up north. And the typical mindset that the parents always tell their kids, it’s not just mine, I hear it from other parents as well, is this. So their advice is for you to study hard, find a good job, and only then you’ll be successful and get a good life.

Ideally in my country, because of very limited opportunities, it’s better if you fly abroad or go abroad and find a job. Take a space way better there. So, as you could imagine, I wasn’t brought up to be entrepreneurial. I never thought about becoming an entrepreneur and my mindset is really limited to just, you know, having a job. Ideally, you know, white collar jobs, either becoming a doctor, a nurse, or a lawyer because all of those professions are really good paying jobs. So now I guess the question is, how did I become an entrepreneur? Why did I find CrewBloom alongside my co-funder? So I guess like, let me tell you a little bit of a story about my mom. My mother was a preschool teacher and around 2008 she was only earning roughly a hundred dollars per month. So , in her spare time, she would sell aprons and Tupperware as a side hustle.

So that would help greatly in funding the needs, the needs of our big family. And around 2010, she decided to go abroad. She worked there as a domestic helper. I’m convincing her to go back and stop working, but she’s like, no, I want my own money. So I , I just like to let her be, but she’s still abroad. And then four years after that, my sister also decided to go abroad and she’s a nurse and she’s, you know, still there as well. She didn’t want like, leave her job because if she tries to go back to the Philippines, she’s not gonna get as much pay as she’s getting there. So there, and then, you know, I realized that the challenge that I am gonna face when I graduate is the very limited opportunity and the very low compensation that was being offered. And there, like when I graduated from the university, I experienced that, you know, I went to the capital city,

I submitted tons of applications and I got so many rejections, mainly because of two things. First, I don’t have enough experience, which is understandable. And then the second is my asking salary is quite too high. And mind you ladies, I was only asking for 20, 40, $80 per month. They said it was too high. So I was like, oh my God, what’s going on? What is it like, why is it high? I, do I not deserve this type of salary? So that period of time was really challenging for me. I was like, I don’t wanna do this anymore. I don’t dunno if I could still do it. It was very discouraging. Should I go abroad? You know, like those are the things that come to mind. But luckily, you know, I stumbled across this job posting. It says, Hey, like, this is a complete work from home job.

And I was like, oh, this is perfect. Like, I just don’t like the traffic in the metro. I don’t think it’s worth it for me to spend four hours just commuting, like back and forth, you know? So that’s when I started my remote work journey. So immediately after graduation, I just started my remote job. And then fast forward two years later, I met my co-founder Brianna, while I was looking to grow professionally. And that’s where my career boom, adventure and I would say entrepreneurial journey started. So a little bit of background about Klum. We connect businesses with talent that they need in order to grow specifically sales and support talent. And we also help job seekers find the jobs that they love. So uc, Klum wasn’t my idea. It wasn’t my brainchild, it was my co-founder’s idea. But when Brianna shared her thoughts about, okay, I’m looking for someone that I could grow klum with, I was like, can it be me?

I was really shy to say that time because I was supposed to be, you know, CrewBloom’s client’s first hire. But I said, I wanna do this. You know, the reason being is because it just resonates with me what CrewBloom is aiming to do. And I just picked up the courage even though I have no experience, no background in entrepreneurship, I have no background in startups or growing a company. No recruitment background, really nothing. I just have a remote work background. But I presented myself because that’s like a once in a lifetime opportunity that I know I wanted to do long term.

And that I guess was my biggest motivation in being an entrepreneur and just doing what I’m doing right now. So I would say that the biggest lesson or realization that I have is that no one is born an entrepreneur. I’ve heard that from other ladies a while ago as well. And that’s really true. No one is born an entrepreneur, but you, you become an entrepreneur due to many factors that you’ve experienced in your life. It could either be your childhood experience or while growing up you saw something that you felt you wanted to change or you’re motivated by, you know, the problems that you’re seeing around you, or you just wanted to help people. And that’s like so many good reasons why you become an entrepreneur. I never wanted to become an entrepreneur. I just wanted to help people. I just wanted to solve problems. But here we are. And yeah, I’m glad that I took that journey. I’m glad I took that courage to say, can I be that person?

And I never looked back. So yeah, I guess like trusting yourself as well, that you could do it. And always remembering that your goal to help other people should be greater than your fears and doubts is, you know, always top of mind. So allow me to leave this good from former President Barack Obama. has, you know, like a motivation for everyone. Change will not come if we wait for some other person or if you wait for some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for and we are the change that we seek. So I guess that’s it. This is my small presentation right today.