The Department of Trade and Industry – Misamis Oriental organized the Youth Entrepreneurship Summit held on November 24 at the N Hotel in Cagayan de Oro City. About 300 students from different schools attended the summit, all eager to learn about entrepreneurship from distinguished speakers and young entrepreneurs.
The Philippine Center for Entreprenuership (PCE), more popularly known as Go Negosyo, was represented by one of its awardees and Angelpreneurs – Pocholo “The VoiceMaster” Gonzales. At age 25, he started his own voiceover services company, Creativoices Productions. Having mastered the art of voice acting, he envisioned the Philippines to become the center of voiceover excellence in Asia, and went on to build the first and only voice acting school in the country, the Philippine Center for Voice Acting. Since 2005, the school has produced more than a thousand graduates, and gave an opportunity to aspiring voice artists to get into what was once an elusive industry.
In 2009, Pocholo was awarded as Go Negosyo’s Most Inspiring Bataeno Microentrepreneur. His achievements in the voice acting industry, coupled with his life-long advocacy to inspire and empower the youth made him a perfect fit to be the resource speaker at the Youth Entrepreneurship Summit.
Pocholo’s main advocacy on Youth Entrepreneurship is centered on helping young people build what he calls a “passion-driven business.” His life and business is a perfect testimony of how building a business based on one’s life purpose is the best way to thrive as an entrepreneur. He believes that if you create a business for the purpose of making MEANING instead of making MONEY, the business becomes a vehicle to live one’s full potential while bringing value to others and the world.
During the first half of the summit, Pocholo came onstage to speak about “Unlocking the Entrepreneurial Mindset.” He talked about the 12 qualities of a person who thinks like an entrepreneur, like “being focused,” “committing to their why,” and “knowing how to prioritize.” He believes that everyone has to think, act and live like an entrepreneur, focused on serving others with their greatest passion and highest skill.
After lunch, the VoiceMaster spoke on another topic, “How to Invest in the Right Business.” He started by sharing the staggering statistics that 50% of startups fail within 1 year, and 96% never get to survive to a decade. He challenged the participants to reframe their mindset regarding business – to ask the right questions and seek the right answers. He advised the participants to go beyond starting a business that is trending or money-generating, but instead start a business that will enable them to express the best version of themselves. To better help the students start their entrepreneurial journey, Pocholo also led the participants to an activity where they choose their passion and skills from a list of many possible talents that they may possess.
The Youth Entrepreneurship Summit also featured other speakers to speak about various business opportunities – Ms. Katrina Jereza on franchising, Queritess Queja on agri-business, Roselle Machate on service-related business, and Viel Jose on manufacturing. An open forum with the speakers capped off the very successful summit.
With his passion to inform, inspire, involve and empower the Filipino Youth, Pocholo founded Negosyo Kabataan, a group of young entrepreneurs whose mission is to empower and enable young people to start their own passion-driven enterprises. As PCE’s youth arm, it launches the Youth Entrepreneurship Academy, which features training and mentoring programs to support the Youth Entrepreneurship Act (R.A. 10679) of Sen. Bam Aquino.
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