18/09/2026
𝐇𝐞 𝐡𝐚𝐝 𝐚𝐥𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐲 𝐦𝐚𝐝𝐞 𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐛𝐲 𝐚𝐠𝐞 𝟐𝟏 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐛𝐚𝐝 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐝𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐥𝐞𝐟𝐭 𝐡𝐢𝐦 ₱𝟑𝟐 𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐢𝐧 𝐝𝐞𝐛𝐭. 𝐈𝐭 𝐭𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐒𝐭𝐞𝐯𝐞 𝐒𝐲 𝟏𝟐 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐟𝐮𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫. 𝐘𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬 𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐫, 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐭 𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐬𝐞 𝐚𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 $𝟒𝟐 𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐢𝐧 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐟𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐤 𝐍𝐨. 𝟏 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐅𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐓𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐬’ 𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐀𝐬𝐢𝐚-𝐏𝐚𝐜𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐜’𝐬 𝐟𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐬𝐭-𝐠𝐫𝐨𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐞𝐬.
Steve Sy had an entrepreneurial streak long before Great Deals existed. He has recalled selling stickers to classmates as a child and later buying and selling different products with the goal of becoming a millionaire while still young. By 21, he had already reached that goal. But early success also made him more willing to take bigger risks. A friend later introduced him to an investment involving a textile company that supposedly needed around ₱20 million in additional capital. Sy did not have enough money on his own, so he borrowed from friends and relatives to participate. Before the investment matured, the friend who introduced the opportunity fled and could no longer be reached, leaving Sy responsible for the money he had borrowed.
Instead of immediately accepting the loss, Sy initially borrowed even more money to pay existing creditors. That only made the problem worse. His obligations eventually grew from around ₱20 million to ₱32 million, spread across 36 creditors. He sold assets and used income from his insurance work to repay what he owed. Some months, he said he could give individual creditors only a few thousand pesos at a time. What he hoped would be a temporary setback became a 12-year process of rebuilding his finances and his reputation.
Those years did not stop him from looking for new opportunities. His business journey moved through insurance, retail, importing, and eventually e-commerce. Great Deals’ official history traces the operation back to 2012, when Sy was still a sole proprietor wholesaling products to stores while also selling through early online platforms such as Ensogo, Groupon, and CashCashPinoy. In 2014, the business opened its first office on Quezon Avenue and began selling on Lazada. Great Deals later became a corporation in 2017 and evolved into a full e-commerce support company for brands in 2018.
One major turning point came when Sy saw how quickly products could move online. BusinessWorld reported that Great Deals sold thousands of power banks in a single day during one of Lazada’s major sales. That experience made him realize that e-commerce was much bigger than simply selling his own products. In 2015, he approached a local brand and offered to manage its products online. By 2016, Great Deals had already onboarded its first multinational client.
That shift changed the company’s direction. Instead of focusing only on selling its own inventory, Great Deals began helping other brands manage their online businesses. The company handled tasks such as online store management, marketing, warehousing, order fulfillment, inventory, customer support, and data tracking. Over time, Great Deals worked with major brands including Unilever, P&G, Nestlé, L’Oréal, and Maybelline.
Investors eventually took notice. In 2020, Great Deals raised approximately US$12 million in funding led by Navegar. The following year, it raised another US$30 million in a Series B round led by Fast Group, with participation from CVC Capital Partners and returning investor Navegar. That brought the company’s disclosed funding across those two rounds to around US$42 million. The money was intended to help Great Deals improve its technology, expand its operations, and prepare for the continued growth of e-commerce in the Philippines.
Then came another major milestone. In 2022, Great Deals ranked No. 1 in the Financial Times and Statista’s Asia-Pacific High-Growth Companies ranking. The ranking measured revenue growth from 2017 to 2020, during which Great Deals’ reported revenue increased from around US$290,000 to US$88.77 million, an increase of more than 30,000%. A business that had started with wholesaling and online selling had become the fastest-growing company on a list covering businesses across the Asia-Pacific region.
The company continued to grow after that recognition. By 2025, the Philippine Daily Inquirer reported that Great Deals was operating around six hectares of warehouse space, handling more than 50,000 products and over two million transactions every year. But Sy’s own lessons from scaling the company increasingly focused on people. As the business became larger, he emphasized building leaders and systems that could keep the company running without everything depending on him.
What makes Steve Sy’s story especially useful is that his biggest setback came after he had already experienced success. He had made his first million and was chasing bigger financial goals when one decision changed everything. Sy has since acknowledged that impatience, the promise of unusually high returns, and investing in something he did not fully understand contributed to that mistake. The comeback required more than finding another profitable opportunity. It required facing creditors, rebuilding trust, continuing to work, and learning how to make better decisions.
That experience also changed the way his later business created value. Great Deals eventually stopped focusing only on finding products to sell and instead built a company that helped other businesses succeed online. What started as one person trying to find the next profitable deal became a company supporting hundreds of brands in navigating e-commerce.
The takeaway from Steve Sy’s journey is that one costly mistake can set you back for years, but it does not have to decide how your story ends. Entrepreneurship is not only about making the right decisions. It is also about taking responsibility when you make the wrong ones, learning from the damage, rebuilding trust, and using those lessons to make better choices the next time. Steve Sy’s path to Great Deals did not go straight through success. It went through ₱32 million in debt first.
