Monday, December 04, 2006
Entrepreneurs
Hi,
The employed unemployed --- entrepreneurs
When people talked about entrepreneurs in Singapore they generally referred to the very successful ones, like Mister Sim Wong Hoo and a few others. They really missed the myriads of others that exist in our country.
An entrepreneur by definition means a person who organizes and manages any enterprise, especially a business, usually with considerable initiative and risk.
Take a walk about any of our HDB , housing and development board, estate shopping centres, but one can never count correctly the number of entrepreneurs that operate there. They are so numerous that even if one uses an adding machine one is unlikely to come out with the exact number.
All each one of them has is a glass showcase and a stool outside a shop fronting the five foot way. His catchy sign says WE PAY THE HIGHEST PRICE. And usually the man sitting there is young, hardly thirty years old if older, sporting the latest hairstyle and wearing a gold chain or a bangle. But he knows his business, he has such innate talents.
By now if one catches on that I am referring to the secondhand hand phone vendors one has hit the nail squarely on the head. With the hand phones obsolescing themselves so rapidly, this business thrives. And with our youngsters being so adapt at using these modern gadgets, it is so easy for these unemployed to just set up a business like that. Take any model of hand phone to them and they will readily quote you the price. And if anyone thinks that they have gasaked or guessed its value, one will be surprised that any other vendor will quote you about the same price. They know all about these phones and their present worth.
I had an old hand-me-down model which was too good to throw away but which nobody wants, in perfect working condition and complete with the accessories. So, one day, while I was about the Toa Payoh Central shopping centre I decided to have fun with it. The first stall man took a look at it and offered me $20. About twenty or thirty paces along another quoted $15. Thereafter it was $15 with just a look. Well, I strolled along, stopped, showed it to each one of them in turn, and heard $15 each time.
I was reflecting that the first man was being kind to me or that he did not know his business. As it was, it was not that I was tired, my hand was tired and I had heard the same $15 too often. I sold it for $15 to this next guy who systematically went through all the various functions of the phone in quick time and okayed the deal, for something still useful yet unwanted and which was environmentally polluting when discarded.
That same model old hand phone was selling for $50, the same price mine would be when it turned around. It did make one vendor happy and I had $15 more to buy VCD movies and saving the environment.
Are these young fellows not entrepreneurs ? If not, how about the mother of all these entrepreneurs, the fellow who gave franchises to all these young fellows or at least showed them the way; there may be one, since they all operate about the same way. It could be any one of us, no ?
Remember Old Fagin in the story Oliver Twist.
Have a nice day
Ronald
The employed unemployed --- entrepreneurs
When people talked about entrepreneurs in Singapore they generally referred to the very successful ones, like Mister Sim Wong Hoo and a few others. They really missed the myriads of others that exist in our country.
An entrepreneur by definition means a person who organizes and manages any enterprise, especially a business, usually with considerable initiative and risk.
Take a walk about any of our HDB , housing and development board, estate shopping centres, but one can never count correctly the number of entrepreneurs that operate there. They are so numerous that even if one uses an adding machine one is unlikely to come out with the exact number.
All each one of them has is a glass showcase and a stool outside a shop fronting the five foot way. His catchy sign says WE PAY THE HIGHEST PRICE. And usually the man sitting there is young, hardly thirty years old if older, sporting the latest hairstyle and wearing a gold chain or a bangle. But he knows his business, he has such innate talents.
By now if one catches on that I am referring to the secondhand hand phone vendors one has hit the nail squarely on the head. With the hand phones obsolescing themselves so rapidly, this business thrives. And with our youngsters being so adapt at using these modern gadgets, it is so easy for these unemployed to just set up a business like that. Take any model of hand phone to them and they will readily quote you the price. And if anyone thinks that they have gasaked or guessed its value, one will be surprised that any other vendor will quote you about the same price. They know all about these phones and their present worth.
I had an old hand-me-down model which was too good to throw away but which nobody wants, in perfect working condition and complete with the accessories. So, one day, while I was about the Toa Payoh Central shopping centre I decided to have fun with it. The first stall man took a look at it and offered me $20. About twenty or thirty paces along another quoted $15. Thereafter it was $15 with just a look. Well, I strolled along, stopped, showed it to each one of them in turn, and heard $15 each time.
I was reflecting that the first man was being kind to me or that he did not know his business. As it was, it was not that I was tired, my hand was tired and I had heard the same $15 too often. I sold it for $15 to this next guy who systematically went through all the various functions of the phone in quick time and okayed the deal, for something still useful yet unwanted and which was environmentally polluting when discarded.
That same model old hand phone was selling for $50, the same price mine would be when it turned around. It did make one vendor happy and I had $15 more to buy VCD movies and saving the environment.
Are these young fellows not entrepreneurs ? If not, how about the mother of all these entrepreneurs, the fellow who gave franchises to all these young fellows or at least showed them the way; there may be one, since they all operate about the same way. It could be any one of us, no ?
Remember Old Fagin in the story Oliver Twist.
Have a nice day
Ronald
# posted by chunmu @ 5:39 PM 
