When Joel Cabugos first came across Jacques “Jax” Reyes online in 2022, he was not looking for a business partner. He simply noticed a content creator whose credit card discussions were drawing hundreds of comments and thought there was something bigger that could be built around that conversation.

Joel already had experience in finance, having worked as an Equity Research Analyst and handled online marketing for Angping Securities before moving into Web3 and crypto as a Business Development Executive. His experience in Web3, in particular, showed him what a community could do beyond simply gathering people in one place.

So he reached out to Jax with an idea: build a community together.

Jax had already been thinking about creating a Facebook community, even if Facebook was not his preferred platform at the time. The timing worked. KasKasan Buddies was officially established in July 2022.

For Jax, however, the idea was never really about creating a bigger version of himself.

“The power of the community will always be BIGGER, BETTER, MORE POWERFUL, than just me or just a single content creator,” he said.

That thinking would eventually become important as KasKasan Buddies grew far beyond its original credit card conversations.

When The Community Became Bigger Than The Idea

In the beginning, there was no formal structure. Joel handled community building, management, and the day-to-day operations on Meta, while Jax continued creating content on TikTok and directing credit card enthusiasts toward the Facebook community.

They also have their CMO, Joram, helping expand the community’s social media presence.

The division of responsibilities was not something they sat down and formally designed. It developed around what each person was good at.

Joel was the community builder, the person thinking about engagement, management, partnerships, and ways to keep conversations moving. Jax focused more on credit cards, new topics, and the content ideas that could help address what people were looking for.

“We look at the strengths of each other,” Jax explained.

That arrangement became even more important as the community expanded.

Joel remembers reaching the second year and surpassing half a million members as a turning point. The stories coming from the community were no longer limited to credit cards or promotions. Members were talking about debt, business, livelihood, illness, milestones, and simply making it through another year.

“All of these stories started with one financial decision,” Joel said.

That was when the two founders began seeing KasKasan Buddies differently. It was no longer simply a Facebook community. It had become a movement around financial literacy and inclusion.

For Jax, the realization came in a different way. KasKasan Buddies had simply grown beyond him.

“I always love to say that I am not KKB, KKB is really everyone in the community because it is a collective effort,” he said.

Keeping A Two-Million-Member Community Productive

Growth brought a less visible responsibility: keeping the community trustworthy.

For a financial community with more than two million members, misinformation can have consequences. So can seemingly harmless posts that turn out to be scams.

In its early days, when the group had fewer than 50,000 members, Joel could manage the posts more easily. That became impossible as more people joined, each bringing different backgrounds, beliefs, and intentions.

The solution was not simply to rely on the administrators.

Joel said the members themselves became an important part of keeping the community safe. They report inappropriate conversations, correct misinformation, and call attention to details that may otherwise be missed.

The nature of the community helps, too. Since members are interested in finance and credit cards, incorrect information tends to get noticed quickly.

Joel also personally reviews around 300 to 500 post requests every day. After doing it for years, he said he has developed a sense for recognizing suspicious intent.

The bigger problem, however, is often outside the post approval process. Scammers can still operate through comments or private messages, where the administrators have less control.

That makes trust less about having a perfect system and more about having a community that is willing to look out for one another.

Building Beyond Facebook

The KKB app came from the same principle.

Jax said the app was not meant to become a separate project from the community. It was another way to make information easier to access.

A Facebook group can be useful for stories, discussions, and testimonies. But when someone simply wants to find a dining promotion, check a credit card’s features, track a budget, or use a financial calculator, a dedicated app can make that process easier.

“It’s always about WHAT the community needs and how can we lessen that friction,” Jax said.

The app, in that sense, became a companion to the community rather than a replacement for it.

The same thinking also applies to partnerships.

KasKasan Buddies has worked with institutions including CCAP, FinTech Alliance PH, and CICC, as well as the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas. For the founders, the deciding factor is not simply the size or name of a potential partner.

The question is whether the partnership can help advance financial literacy and provide something valuable to KKBuddies.

Joel said the community cannot create lasting impact by working alone. Partnerships with institutions that share the same advocacy allow the message to reach further.

Jax sees these partnerships as another form of accountability.

“They serve as our guide post, guard post, and reminder we have to produce content that are truthful, valuable, and most importantly made especially for KKBuddies and Filipinos,” he said.

Why “KasKas Safely” Became Part Of The Mission

The community’s mission has also expanded.

What started around credit card discussions and savings tips now includes scam protection, fraud awareness, and digital safety.

For Joel, the shift was difficult to ignore.

As technology changes, so do the ways people can be deceived. AI-generated content can make it harder to distinguish what is real, while scammers continue finding new ways to target people.

The founders had already seen stories of people losing money through investment scams, phishing, and the sharing of OTPs.

That changed the question from simply asking how Filipinos could grow their money to asking how they could protect it in the first place.

“Teaching people how to protect their money is just as important as teaching them how to grow it,” Joel said.

Jax pointed to an earlier partnership with Whoscall in 2024, which provided around PHP 50 million worth of premium subscriptions for anti-scam and fraud awareness protection. He said scam protection had always been part of KKB’s work, but the increasing sophistication of scammers made it even more important to keep pushing the message.

The partnership with CICC, he added, gives KKB another way to help Filipinos understand what they can do when faced with fraud and scams.

More Than The Next Credit Card Hack

KasKasan Buddies may still be a place where people discuss credit cards, promotions, and money-saving tips. But the community that Joel and Jax built has become much harder to define by those things alone.

Its growth forced the founders to think about moderation, misinformation, partnerships, financial safety, and the responsibility that comes with having millions of people listening.

The founders do not describe themselves as the entire community. In fact, both repeatedly return to the same idea: KasKasan Buddies belongs to the people who participate in it.

That may be the simplest explanation for why a community that started with two people talking about credit cards became something much larger.

Joel and Jax may have started KasKasan Buddies, but the movement they describe is built through the everyday decisions, questions, corrections, warnings, stories, and experiences of the KKBuddies themselves.

And as Jax puts it, “I am not KKB.” The community is everyone who continues to make it what it is.

For Joel and Jax, the growth of KasKasan Buddies has never been just about reaching another membership milestone or adding another platform. The bigger responsibility has been keeping the community useful as more Filipinos rely on it for financial information, protection, and guidance. What started with credit card conversations has grown into a wider push for financial literacy, inclusion, and digital safety. And while the founders may continue to build new tools, partnerships, and conversations around that mission, the principle remains the same: every decision has to answer one question first, whether it helps the KKBuddies. In a community this large, that simple standard may be what keeps KasKasan Buddies from becoming just another platform and allows it to remain a community built around people, helping people.