I recently got a chance to watch (again) one of the episodes of one of my favourite kiddie show (take note: kiddie show!) and, surprisingly, the episode was about SpongeBob Squarepants trying to become an entrepreneur. I want to be an entrepreneur! – That’s what he said (and so did Patrick, his best buddy). The idea of putting entrepreneurship as the theme for an episode of the infamous show of SpongeBob Squarepants made me think what the creators of the episode were trying to inculcate in the minds of their kiddie viewers. Why put such adult thing for a kiddie show? Are they really trying to tell their audience to become a real entrepreneur just like SpongeBob? Or could SpongeBob really be an entrepreneur? What the heck! But I should say it was one of the best episodes I’ve ever seen. The creators were effective in giving kids (like me) a firm idea about what entrepreneurship really is about. I don’t know where they got the idea of making the episode revolve around such topic, but I suppose that the creators of the show surely got a fascination (or should I say frustration) of becoming an entrepreneur.
And why am I telling you these? I just had an idea that this SpongeBob Squarepants episode is quite connected with our lesson in Entrepreneurship, one of our subjects in class (by the way, I’m an Accountancy student). My subject professor, Mr. Ramon Duremdes, in Asia Pacific College once discussed this so-called entrepreneurial mind that people have within them. According to him (and as said by the book we’re reading), people have this tendency to become an entrepreneur, given the right opportunity at the right time. It’s a process indeed: from deciding to become one, up to the actual putting up of the enterprise. An ENTREPRENEUR is actually someone who creates a new venture and assumes risks and rewards – that is he does the work all by himself (without having to get scolded by a hot-tempered boss), and every profit he gains (or every money he loses) goes to no one else but him. There’s another one called INTRAPRENEUR, who is, on the other hand, an entrepreneur working within an existing organization. The major difference between the two is that an intrapreneur works for an organization while an entrepreneur does not do so, thus creating his own venture.
We all know of people who became successful entrepreneurs. They are always featured on the business sections of every newspaper. Or if their success is a further achievement among business-minded people, their faces consume most of the spaces on the front cover of a business magazine. We all know of Henry Sy, who started a shoe store in Carriedo half a century ago, and is now the owner of the largest mall chain in the Philippines (not to mention that he is now the RICHEST person in town, with assets amounting almost double of that owned by Lucio Tan, another business tycoon who was the former richest guy in the country).
Could I ever achieve that? My grandmother owns a store in Manila, and my uncle has this internet shop. Since they started their businesses, they were able to stabilize their financial status. They were able to provide enough for their families. And in these extra-difficult times of crisis, they are still able to make their businesses survive. As for SpongeBob, he was able to turn into one of Bikini Bottom’s richest. All of those are because of entrepreneurship. I wish I could do that too.
What these things are trying to point out is that all of us (even characters in TV screens) can be great businessmen. It may seem too elusive, but if only we put our best foot forward, we all could become good business people.
