Founder Tour · Manila · 7–12 February 2027
Five nights in Manila with ten Australian founders. Work your normal hours, meet your team, and let us handle everything else.
Register your interest
Why this trip exists
You know their names. You know their birthdays because payroll tells you. You've watched them on a Google Meet grid at eight in the morning for two years running.
You've never bought them lunch.
In February we fix that. The days are still work days — you won't lose the week — but you'll spend them in the same building as the people you employ, and the nights with nine other Australian founders who are in exactly the same spot.
The week
Someone meets you at the airport with your name on a sign. Twenty minutes up to Uptown BGC and you're in your apartment. Nothing on until seven, when the whole group sits down at Manam and we order for the table — too much of it, which is the correct amount. You'll meet the other nine over sisig and be in bed by eleven, because Monday is the one that matters.
Morning at the office. You meet your team. Most founders go quiet for a second. It's a strange thing, shaking hands with someone who's been on your payroll for three years. Then it's just normal — desk tour, introductions, photos, the lot. Afternoon is yours to work. We leave the evening clear on purpose; you'll be more tired than you expect.
A working day. At midday you take your team out — you host it, we pay for it, up to six of them. Dinner is at El Born with one of our clients, who'll walk you through what their first ninety days offshoring actually looked like, including the parts that went badly. Most people tell us this is the most useful two hours of the week.
Work through the day. We start at Electric Garden around nine, and by eleven we've walked over to Revel where there's a table waiting. It goes late. That's the point. Thursday morning is rough and the schedule is built around that.
Slow start, for obvious reasons. Work through the day. At three, Eiza runs a short reset session — Filipino ceremonial cacao and some guided breathing. It sounds like a curveball in the middle of a business trip and it is, deliberately. It also does something useful: it takes the room out of transaction mode before the part that matters. At four we sit down for ninety minutes. Ten founders, no agenda beyond what's working, what isn't, and what everyone would do differently. This is the hour people talk about when they get home. Then dinner at Dr. Wine in Forbes Town to finish it properly.
Flights home. Or come to El Nido with whoever else is going — two nights, quoted separately, and February is the best month of the year for it.
This is a real working week, not a holiday with a laptop. You'll work four full days and Thursday morning will hurt. We'd rather say that now than have you find out in February.
The people
Melbourne · co-founder
Co-founded Team Up Now, spends a good part of the year in Manila, and has taken this trip enough times to know which nights to leave empty. He'll be in the room for all of it.
Manila · Philippines lead
Runs everything on the Philippine side, from the office to payroll to the people you're about to meet. She also hosts Thursday's reset session before the founders' roundtable. If you want to know where to eat, ask her, not the concierge.
What you're actually getting
Two years of stand-ups compress into one morning. You'll learn more about how your team actually works in three hours in that office than in a year of Google Meet.
Everyone in the room employs Filipino staff. Nobody is explaining the time difference or defending the decision to offshore. That's rarer than it sounds.
Apartments have proper desks and fast wifi. Manila runs three hours behind Melbourne, so your mornings are quiet and your afternoons line up with Australia.
Eiza lives here. Julius has made this trip more times than he can count. Drivers, bookings, tables and the restaurant your team will actually enjoy — all sorted.
The details
Dates: Sunday 7 to Friday 12 February 2027
Where: Serviced apartments, Park Suites, Uptown BGC
Cohort: Ten founders, capped
Hosted by: Julius and Eiza
$4,000 + GST
Flights not included.
The honest bit
You could book an apartment, make a restaurant list and organise a car. You could also do that next month, like you meant to do last month.
The nine other founders are the part you cannot book. Neither are Julius and Eiza, who know why the team lunch matters and when to call it a night.
Businesses already running Philippine teams with Team Up Now
Questions people actually ask
Yes. Four full working days. The apartments have desks, the wifi is business-grade, and the three-hour difference means your afternoons line up with Australia. The only genuinely scheduled things are Monday morning and Thursday afternoon.
Then this is the wrong trip for now — most of the value is meeting people you already employ. Tell us anyway on the form and we'll talk about what makes more sense.
You could, and you haven't. That's not a dig — everyone means to go and nobody does. And the nine other founders in the room is the part that isn't bookable at any price.
One-bedroom serviced apartments in Uptown BGC. Kitchen, desk, laundry, gym and pool in the building. Everyone is in the same building, which matters more than it sounds — most of the good conversations happen at breakfast.
BGC is the safest part of Metro Manila and you'll be walking to almost everything. You're with us the whole week regardless.
Fine. Tell us when you book so we can get your transfer right.
Ask us. It changes the accommodation and the dinners, so we'll quote it separately.
Optional weekend
Friday is the end of the hosted week. We can point you in the right direction for a weekend, but the flights and bookings are yours.
Ten seats for February.
Existing Team Up Now clients get first call. A 25% deposit holds your place, with the balance due 9 January 2027.
If February doesn't work, register anyway — we'll run the next one mid-year and you'll hear about it first.
Expression of interest
Tell us a little about you and the team you have in the Philippines. We'll come back within two business days with the deposit link and everything you need to book flights.