Where in Pampanga Started as a Love Letter to Our Province

It started with our daughter Isa.

In 2016, Joise and I were both working the same graveyard shift at the BPO. Our days off were precious. So we made a simple rule — at least once a week, we take Isa out. A park. A restaurant. Somewhere she can run around and just be a two-year-old.

Every time we went out, we took photos of her and posted them on Facebook. Our hashtag was simple — #WhereIsIsaNow and #WIIN.

People loved it. Her posts got reactions and comments. Friends started asking where we were, what the place was like, whether it was worth visiting.

And somewhere in those small moments — in the middle of coffee cups and toddler smiles — an idea was born.

Instead of telling people where Isa is now, what if we told Kapampangans where in Pampanga to go?

Where to eat. Where to play. Where to stay. Where to enjoy.

That was it. That was the beginning.

We just wanted to tell our province’s stories

Joise and I did not start Where in Pampanga to build a business. We started it because we wanted to document what Pampanga looked like — and share the stories we discovered along the way.

We love this province. Not in the way you say it for a tourism brochure. In the way you feel it when you grow up somewhere, raise your children there, and realize that so many of its stories are going untold.

We wanted to change that. One feature at a time.

Since I had a background in web development, we built a website. Joise and I worked on the ideas together from the very beginning. We put up a Facebook page. And then we got to work.

How small we really started

I want to be honest about this because I think it matters.

In the beginning, we had no clients. No following. No income from it at all.

For the first month, Joise and I reached out to cafes and small restaurants around Pampanga with a simple offer — let us feature your business on our platform and write a blog about you. In exchange, we asked for one dish or one cup of coffee.

That was our rate. A meal. A coffee.

Our goal was not money at that point. Our goal was to build a directory. A place people could search when they wanted to know where to eat, where to go, what was worth trying in Pampanga. We wanted the website to become useful before we asked anything from it in return.

So we showed up. We featured businesses. We wrote stories. We published consistently.

And then something happened that we did not expect.

The moment we realized this was real

Businesses started coming back to us.

Not to complain. To thank us.

They told us their sales went up after the feature. New customers came in saying they found them through our page. People were searching for places in Pampanga and our platform was showing up with the answers.

And then they said something that changed everything.

They wanted to come back — but this time, they wanted to pay us.

That was the moment Joise and I looked at each other and understood what we had quietly built. We started it as a love letter to our province. We kept going because we genuinely enjoyed it. But the businesses coming back with money in hand — that was the signal that what we were doing had real value.

Where in Pampanga was not just a passion project anymore. It was a business.

What I want every regional creator to hear

If you are building something outside of Metro Manila, I want you to hear this clearly:

Local is not a limitation. Local is your edge.

You know your community in a way that no big media company ever will. You know the stories, the people, the places, the culture. You know what your province is proud of and what it is still waiting for someone to discover.

That is not a small thing. That is everything.

Where in Pampanga grew because we were genuinely from here. We were not outsiders covering Pampanga. We were Kapampangans telling our own story. And people felt that difference.

You do not need to be in Manila to matter. You do not need a big budget or a big team. You need a genuine love for the place you are building in — and the consistency to keep showing up for it.

Start where you are. Tell the stories only you can tell.

That is how something real gets built.