Mike grew up poor. In fact, one of his strongest childhood memories is how his parents sometimes couldn’t afford to buy any food.

Instead, they’d have soy sauce…together with rice.

That was when Mike told himself that he wanted a better life.

Years later, he was making P400k/mo as a freelancer.

And now? He employs hundreds of Filipinos around the country giving them better lives.

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Mike Cubo’s Journey to Freelancing

* A graduate of Mass Communication from being a self-supported person

* Living from a very poor family who was born in Davao who have not owned a house, merely rent a house and transferred to a different place to survive

* Been into different jobs to support himself in college

* He got his first job as a Jollibee crew, working the day and going to school at night after work

* He becomes a sales clerk at Gaisano Malls in Davao as his second job

* He becomes a telemarketer at Marco Polo Hotel Waterfront which only paid by commission

 

His Paths after Graduated

Their family went to Cebu to look for the opportunity, but he became jobless for six months, so he decided to the telemarketing jobs to earn his living. Any kind of jobs he went through like credit card agents in HSBC and Union Bank. He also has been into selling membership cards of one of the resorts in Danao Cebu particularly Intosan Resort. He learned from selling over the phone. Life for Mike is very hard because he is a Mass Communication graduate while working this kind of job.

Unexpectedly, he got a son from a previous company which makes his life, even so, tough and earning not good enough to support as early as 20 years old. Strangely, he applied for a call center company in Cebu, Sykes Asia, but fell down going back home for he was declined due to unable to speak English fluently. He realizes that it was frustrating to response the interviewer every after 2 seconds. Davao people use Bisaya language, so when speaking English there, are social people where he’s not among them.

He helps himself to become a better person while living in Cebu. Every day he read books and novels and read them loudly with a pen in the mouth. He had found an old dirty, broken keyboard since he also had a problem in typing skills which also need for the job. After six months, he applied again the Sykes Asia and this time he got the job. He earned seven thousand a month being a TSR 1 and became a reporting analyst. He also went to Teletech as TSR 2 or L2, then at Lexmark as a Supervisor as a Tear 3 Engineer Supervisor, Trainer and Reports Analyst, Operations Manager at Concentrix. The expenses go higher so he tried in Singapore but he was failing to land a job there. He was jobless awhile, all their money were all used up, he had banks loan and that was the lowest point of Mike’s life. Then later he visualizes where his real path is.

 

Q&A Highlights

What motivates you most to the freelancing?

I heard oDesk and took me two months visiting the site. I had read most of the time Indian testimonies that they are earning high paying jobs at home. I was thinking “it was a scam”. I’m in a certain of safety net, like doubting that should I go to freelancing or not. I’m earning this, but how about the insurance of my kids, my car allowance, my perks? So I was at the peak point in my life. So, that started me to motivate into freelancing. I started as a Data Entry Specialist. At that time oDesk was very competitive and I do not have the experience history yet so I earned 3$ for 8 hours or something. I was very good in excel because I was a reporter ana...