02/07/2026
Where It All Began: The Keekay Story — Part 1: The Leap
Looking back, I think the biggest risk I ever took wasn't building a business. It was leaving a stable job before I knew if my dream would ever work.
Back in 2014, I was working for an Australian company based in Cebu. I had been there for two years. It was a good job. Every payday brought security. I knew exactly what my life would look like a month from now, six months from now, maybe even a few years from now.
But every day after work, my boyfriend (who is now my husband) and I would find ourselves talking about something else.
Business.
Ideas.
Possibilities.
He had been learning about entrepreneurship and digital marketing, and one conversation after another slowly changed the way we saw our future.
We weren't dreaming about becoming rich. We were dreaming about building something that belonged to us.
After months of talking, planning, and praying, we finally made a decision that, looking back, probably sounded crazy.
We resigned.
No investor.
No backup business.
No guarantee that we would make even a single peso.
Just two young people who believed that if we gave everything we had, maybe—just maybe—it would work.
To fund our first business, we sold some of our valuable belongings.
There wasn't a dramatic investment round or a big loan waiting for us.
Every peso mattered.
Our idea was an online makeup store called Keekay.ph.
Dropshipping was still relatively new at the time, but we believed it could work. I spent countless hours researching suppliers from eBay and independent online stores in the Philippines. After reaching out to many sellers, I finally built relationships with three reliable dropshipping partners.
I wanted to understand the industry, not just sell products.
So I attended a makeup seminar by Mary Kay, asked questions, took notes, and immersed myself in a world that was completely new to me.
Looking back, I smile because I was completely obsessed.
My days often started at 5:00 in the morning and ended around 1:00 the next morning.
But strangely...
I don't remember feeling exhausted. I remember feeling alive.
Every product we uploaded.
Every page we designed.
Every SEO improvement my husband made.
Every small task felt like another brick being laid toward a dream we couldn't yet see.
We didn't have money for Facebook ads. So my husband poured everything he had learned into SEO.
Our hope was simple.
Maybe one day...
Someone searching on Google would discover a brand they had never heard of.
Then, just three weeks after launching **Keekay.ph**...
It happened.
We received our very first order.
Not from an advertisement.
Not from a paid campaign.
But through Google.
Our SEO had worked!!!
I can't even describe the excitement we felt. It wasn't just because we made our first sale.
It was because someone we had never met had found us organically, trusted us enough to place an order, and proved that what we had been building actually had a chance.
In that moment, a dream stopped being just an idea. It became real.
*To be continued...*
