She Taught Herself to Code and Built Her Own System: Inside Watt Up Alpharex

Philippine Tool Talks · Builder Insider Series

She Taught Herself to Code and Built Her Own System: Inside Watt Up Alpharex

Most contractors buy software or give up on it. Sahhara Laureano spent six months learning to code and built HARA-ONE herself — and she is opening it up to other Filipino contractors.

Builder Insider Series · Hosted by Engr. Sophia Panlilio and Tool Expert Tin · Runtime 56 minutes

Featured Builder · Watt Up Alpharex

Sahhara Laureano

CEO & Founder · Chief Operating Officer, Watt Up Alpharex

Electrical Solar CCTV & Auxiliary Structured Cabling Commercial & Industrial

An electrical and auxiliary contracting firm serving commercial and industrial projects across Metro Manila. Winners of the Best Strategic Blueprint at Beyond the Build Batch 3.

The name is an electrical joke, and it works

Before anything else, the hosts wanted to know about the name. Alpharex comes from Alpha, the company's Chief Operating Officer. The page name is where the wordplay lives: not "what up," but Watt Up. Because what is electricity measured in? Watts.

It is the kind of detail that tells you something about how this company thinks. Catchy enough to remember, specific enough to their field that nobody confuses them for a general contractor.

Six years in the field before day one

Sahhara spent six years with an electrical and auxiliary contractor handling commercial and industrial work before she started her own firm. She discovered she liked the whole shape of the job — talking to clients, closing deals, and the technical side underneath it all.

That grounding matters. Both founders came out of the field, and the company has an engineer on the team. They did not start a contracting business and then learn contracting.

Why they turn down residential work

This was one of the sharpest business lessons in the episode. Watt Up Alpharex deliberately does not chase residential jobs — the electrical requirement is too small for them. But they are also not competing head-on with the giants of the industry.

Instead they sit in the gap: mid-size commercial and industrial scopes that are too small to interest the largest players, but too demanding for firms without the papers, the experience and the credibility to handle them. Because they carry a lighter overhead than the big companies, they can deliver comparable service at a lower cost.

It is a deliberate positioning decision, not an accident of who happened to call. Any contractor still saying yes to everything should sit with that for a minute.

From electrical into CCTV, cabling, LED and solar

The scope grew outward from a single foundation. Electrical knowledge is the base; extra-low-voltage auxiliary work — CCTV, fire detection and alarm systems, door access control, structured cabling — sits on the same principles at a different voltage. Their best-selling services now cluster around electrical work and the extra-low-voltage scopes, with solar drawing steady interest.

Three things to check before you install solar

• Your actual consumption. Know what you are using before you size a system, or you will pay for capacity that never earns its keep.
• Your roof. Condition and structure matter. A roof that needs work in two years is a roof you do not want panels bolted to today.
• Your budget. Know the number before you start the conversation, not after.

And you do not have to pay for it in one go

This was the most practical stretch of the episode. A residential solar installation typically runs in the ₱300,000 to ₱500,000 range — which sounds like a wall until you know it can be financed. Alpha pointed to GSIS, SSS and Pag-IBIG, plus green banks offering installment terms specifically for solar installation.

Spread against a system with a long service life, the monthly figure starts looking a lot more like a utility bill than a capital expense. Worth checking your own eligibility before assuming solar is out of reach.

The system she built herself

Here is the part that makes this episode different from most contractor interviews.

Like most growing firms, Watt Up Alpharex started with Google Sheets and Excel. Then they moved to Google AppSheet, which worked — until it did not. Documents, images and PDFs needed somewhere to live, and construction runs on documentation. Losing a proof of payment is not a filing inconvenience; it is money.

So Sahhara studied. Roughly three months on the coding materials, then months more building. The result is HARA-ONE — a single system covering costing, accounting, taxation, employee management, requests and approvals, and the documentation that used to scatter across chat threads and folders.

The name is deliberate. Hara for core or essence, drawn from her own name. One for one ecosystem, one source of truth for contractors.

What actually changed

• Requests for mobilization, materials and reimbursements are already in the system — approval takes minutes instead of chasing.
• Accounting reports that used to take a week now come together far faster.
• New hires onboard against a documented process instead of absorbing it from whoever is nearby.
• Performance conversations became output-based, which quietly made the workplace healthier.
• The data itself became a decision tool: more manpower, more marketing, or push sales?

Her advice to contractors who feel tech is beyond them is refreshingly free of evangelism. Everything is hard at the start, especially the data entry. But the tools are available and the process flow exists. It is up for grabs.

She is now opening HARA-ONE to other contractors, with startups and smaller firms squarely in mind — the ones losing money to gaps they cannot see yet.

Build the system before you scale

Their sequencing is worth copying. Systems first, then growth — because scaling on top of a mess multiplies the mess. Conflicts among employees, revolving funds for projects, documentation gaps: these take a toll on jobs during the first year, and they get worse with volume, not better.

Beyond the Build, and finding the why

Watt Up Alpharex went through Beyond the Build Batch 3 and came out with the Best Strategic Blueprint. They split the experience cleanly in two.

Day one was operations — scaling up as a company, delegation, and the hardest lesson for any founder: letting go. Trust the people you hired. They are there because they are good at what they do.

Day two was the why. Sahhara came in with an answer — a healthy environment for her employees — and was told plainly that this was not yet her why. What surfaced instead has become the value the whole company runs on.

It applies to a project, a conversation, a team member's day, and — through their interest in renewable energy — to the country the next generation inherits. As one of them put it: we did not pave the way for you, we left the way better for you. You are paving your own.

For contractors weighing whether a programme like Beyond the Build is worth it, their answer was two words. Just do it. Because on your deathbed, what you remember is not what you did — it is what you did not.

Quick Fire

• Most underrated tool on a job site? The wire stripper.
• Solar, CCTV or cabling — most satisfying to finish? Solar.
• A dream project not yet planned? A solar farm.
• Watt Up Alpharex in one word? Dreamer. Visionary.

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