Jake Deleon's earliest memories are of helping his mother and grandmother make Filipino delicacies like lumpia — fried spring rolls.
"Food was always equal to love and bonding," Deleon — the 39-year-old founder and CEO of Fila Manila, a line of Filipino simmering sauces inspired by Deleon's parents' recipes — said. "All the great conversations and moments I saw with my family happened around food."
Deleon, a first-generation Filipino American based in Philadelphia, recalled these blissful moments during the early days of the pandemic when he read that Filipinos and Filipino Americans made up the largest share of immigrant health-care workers on the frontlines. Inspired by their work, but disappointed by a lack of Filipino food in the consumer packaged-goods space, he launched Fila Manila in 2020 as a way to "ignite Filipino cuisine and our community," he said.
While entrepreneurs have launched a record number of new companies in the last two and a half years, immigrants launched a great share of those startups: According to a 2021 report by the entrepreneurial nonprofit Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, six out of every 1,000 immigrants started a new business in 2020. For many entrepreneurs, tapping their immigrant or first-generation roots helped them start and run successful companies.
For example, Deleon's approach to entrepreneurship centers on the "work hard and make it happen" mentality that his parents instilled in him.
"I got inspired by that immigrant grit growing up and I apply it today, being as scrappy as possible," Deleon, who used his pandemic stimulus check to launch his business, said. "How do you get things done with the least amount of resources?"
Insider spoke to eight Asian-American entrepreneurs across industries to learn how their unique experiences have contributed to their professional pursuits.