Philippine-founded e-commerce mentorship program LaunchStrong has marked its first year after mentoring more than 150 first-time Filipino founders and supporting the development of more than 100 homegrown e-commerce brands across various stages of growth.
Founded in 2025 by entrepreneur Jungie Gumiran, LaunchStrong is a five-week live mentorship program that helps aspiring entrepreneurs turn business ideas into consumer products and e-commerce brands.
The program provides practical guidance across the early stages of building a business, including product ideation and validation, supplier sourcing, positioning, pricing, branding, launch strategy, customer acquisition, and early-stage growth.
Based on LaunchStrong’s data, about 80% of first-time founders who joined the program without an existing product or e-commerce background have progressed toward launching their first online business.
The brands supported through the program span categories including wellness and supplements, food and beverage, personal care, pet care, and fashion. These include wellness brands Eat Move Love and Pharmatrust, food brand Magic Bowl, bath care brand Tonios, Filipino clothing brand TELA Pinoy, and pet care brand NanaPro Litter.
“E-commerce in the Philippines is becoming much easier to enter, but harder to win,” Gumiran said. “Opening a marketplace store or having a good product is no longer enough. Aspiring founders can generate sales and still lose money if they don’t fully understand business economics, platform fees, logistics, inventory, and cash flow.”
“Success, more than just the launch, is about making better decisions before putting hard-earned capital at risk so the business can survive and scale,” he added.
From building brands to mentoring founders
Gumiran’s practitioner-led approach to mentorship is rooted in his own experience building and scaling consumer brands.
He is the founder and CEO of homegrown wellness brand JUJU Lifestyle, which was established in 2021 and has since served more than 300,000 customers. Within its first year of entering physical retail, the brand expanded to more than 20 retail partners, including SouthStar Drug, HeyDay, Wellness Plus, specialty clinics, and fitness studios.
His experience also includes scaling digital marketing agency frameworks and navigating major early-stage setbacks. These experiences have shaped LaunchStrong’s emphasis on risk mitigation, product validation, and making informed decisions before investing heavily in a new business.
Gumiran has also used his educational platform, AdsLevelUp, to train more than 30,000 CEOs, freelancers, marketers, online sellers, and business owners through more than 200 webinars, workshops, and training programs since 2019.
LaunchStrong combines these practical lessons with live mentorship, digital courses, workshops, and consultations designed to give first-time founders a clearer view of the challenges involved in building an e-commerce business.
Rather than focusing solely on launching a product, the program aims to help founders understand the fundamentals that determine whether a business can become sustainable, including product-market fit, unit economics, customer acquisition, inventory, and cash flow.
Building the next generation of Filipino brands
As it enters its second year, LaunchStrong plans to continue supporting aspiring and first-time Filipino founders as they move from ideation and validation to sourcing, branding, launching, customer acquisition, and early-stage growth.
“Our vision is to give first-time founders the practical perspective to realize that they can build a brand from scratch, regardless of where they are starting from,” Gumiran said.
“In our second year, we want to equip more Filipinos with the skills, discipline, and execution capability to build sustainable consumer brands that can compete nationally and eventually scale beyond the Philippines.”
The program’s next five-week live mentorship cohort is scheduled to launch in December 2026, bringing together entrepreneurs to work through the practical challenges of building and scaling e-commerce businesses.
Since its launch in 2025, LaunchStrong has positioned itself as a mentorship platform for Filipinos looking to enter e-commerce with a more structured and informed approach. By combining hands-on mentorship with Gumiran’s experience in consumer brands, digital marketing, and entrepreneurship education, the program aims to help founders avoid costly mistakes while building businesses with long-term growth and global potential.
