How I Started Craftifyle With ₱55,000 and Zero Experience

I was never supposed to start a business.

I was a second year college student in Zamboanga City when my scholarship money came in. ₱55,000. For most people my age, that goes straight to tuition, groceries, and saving what's left. That was the smart move. The safe move.

I didn't take the safe move.

The Idea

I'd been watching content about entrepreneurs online for a while — Filipino creators building businesses from nothing, people turning skills into income. And I kept thinking: why not me?

I didn't have a specific idea at first. What I had was a question: what do people spend money on for celebrations in Zamboanga City? Parties. Graduations. Weddings. Events. And at every single one of those events — a photobooth.

I'd seen photobooths at events my whole life. I never thought about who owned them or how much they made. When I started asking around, the numbers surprised me. A single 3-hour event booking. That was real money for a few hours of work.

So I did the math. Bought the equipment. And started Craftifyle in November 2024.

What I Got Wrong First

Here's what nobody tells you: buying equipment is the easy part.

My first few months were humbling. I had a photobooth but no clients. I had no following, no reputation, no connections in the events industry. I was a college student asking strangers to trust me with one of the most important days of their lives.

I tried everything to get those first bookings. I posted on Facebook. I messaged event coordinators. I offered discounts I probably shouldn't have offered. The first few bookings came in slow — but they came.

And then something shifted.

The First Real Win

Ateneo Fiesta 2024. ADZU's biggest student event of the year. Three days. Thousands of students.

Getting that concessionaire slot felt impossible when I applied. I was nobody. But I put together a proposal, showed up prepared, and somehow got it.

Three days. 2,400 photos shot. 967 photobooth strips and 4R prints delivered.

That event changed everything. Not just the revenue — but what it proved to me. That Craftifyle was real. That I could operate at scale. That people genuinely enjoyed what I was building.

The Hard Lesson About Focus

Here's something I'm not proud of: Craftifyle almost didn't survive because I kept starting other things.

During those first months, I launched a t-shirt business. A stationery business. A car detailing service. All at the same time as running the photobooth. I thought being busy meant being productive. I thought more businesses meant more income.

What it actually meant was that none of them got my full attention.

The t-shirt business had inconsistent quality. The stationery never got proper marketing. The detailing service had no systems. All of them fizzled out within a few months.

The photobooth survived — not because it was the best idea, but because I kept showing up for it even when the others were competing for my time.

The lesson I learned the hard way: one thing done excellently beats five things done halfway.

Where We Are Now

18 months in. 50+ events covered. Grand openings, school recognition days, weddings, birthday celebrations, corporate events. Kenny Rogers Roasters at SM City Zamboanga. Ateneo Fiesta two years in a row — with 2025 being 7 days, 4,671 photos, and 1,862 photobooth strips.

Craftifyle is the photography and photobooth business I built from that ₱55,000 scholarship check. And it's still going.

I'm not sharing this to impress anyone. I'm sharing it because when I was starting out, I couldn't find many stories from people building businesses in Zamboanga City — in the Philippines — from nothing. I wanted to be that story for someone else.

If you're sitting on an idea and waiting for the perfect moment — this is me telling you the perfect moment isn't coming. Start with what you have. Figure it out as you go.

That's what I did. It worked.