12/08/2026
Business loans are GOOD DEBT if used smartly.
𝐀𝐭 𝟏𝟓, 𝐬𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐫𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐝 ₱𝟐𝟎,𝟎𝟎𝟎 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐚 𝐛𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬. 𝐇𝐞𝐫 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝟏𝟓𝟎 𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐭𝐬 𝐬𝐚𝐭 𝐚𝐭 𝐡𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐧𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐥𝐲 𝐚 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫, 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐬𝐡𝐞 𝐤𝐞𝐩𝐭 𝐛𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐥 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐝 𝟐𝟎𝟎,𝟎𝟎𝟎 𝐜𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐬.
Cleo Loque had already been trying small businesses long before she knew exactly what kind of company she wanted to build. As a child, she sold ice candy to classmates, and during summers she ran a small sari-sari store. Growing up around parents who worked in real estate and later opened a laundry business also exposed her early to selling, taking risks, and earning on her own.
In 2019, when she was only 15, Cleo borrowed ₱20,000 from her parents and started Hiraya Pilipina. Her first idea was simple: statement shirts with messages meant to empower women. She bought around 150 plain shirts and designed the prints herself using the Phonto app. But the beginning was far from an instant success. The shirts stayed in their house for almost a year because Cleo was busy with school. She eventually began selling them during the pandemic while balancing the business with online classes.
And even after the shirts started selling, Cleo still did not know exactly what Hiraya Pilipina would become. She experimented with tote bags, abaca masks, perfumes, accessories, and other products. Instead of forcing the original idea to work forever, she watched what customers were actually buying. When silicone bras and ni**le pasties began performing better than the rest, she made a difficult decision: change direction and focus on what the market was telling her.
That change became a major turning point. Cleo noticed that many existing products did not properly serve women with different body sizes. Hiraya Pilipina began creating larger and smaller molds for its pasties and silicone bras, putting size inclusivity at the center of the brand. The move was not always welcomed. Cleo faced some backlash for openly marketing intimate products in a conservative market, but she continued using social media and e-commerce to talk directly with customers and understand what they needed.
Growth brought a completely different kind of problem. During one TikTok live sale, Hiraya Pilipina suddenly received around 4,000 to 5,000 orders in a single night. Cleo only had about three employees helping her at the time, leaving the small team struggling to fulfill an amount of orders they had never expected. Rather than treating the experience only as a success, Cleo had to learn how to build systems, hire the right people, and manage a company that was becoming much larger than the teenage project she had started.
By 2025, Vogue Philippines reported that Hiraya Pilipina had built a community of around 200,000 customers. The brand also took another major risk in 2024 when Cleo brought in Nadine Lustre as a brand ambassador. Cleo later described the collaboration as one of her biggest bets because Hiraya Pilipina was still a bootstrapped local company without a large amount of cash to spare. The move paid off by increasing both awareness and sales. In 2025, the company reached another milestone by bringing Catriona Gray into the brand as an ambassador.
At the same time, Cleo was still finishing college. In 2025, she graduated from Enderun Colleges with a degree in Entrepreneurship. She had studied as an academic scholar and said she financed her own education. Years earlier, at only 18, she had already shared that being able to pay her own tuition was one of the achievements she was most proud of.
Cleo Loque’s journey did not begin with the perfect product or a complete business plan. Her first shirts sat unsold. She changed products several times. She made expensive mistakes, struggled to be taken seriously because of her age, and had to learn how to lead while she was still a student. What helped the business grow was her willingness to test, listen, change, and execute.
Sometimes, finding the right business does not happen on the first try. You build, listen, adjust, and eventually discover where your idea truly belongs.
