Meet our Wolves’ Den Competitors: Bode Bode-George

Posted on Friday, March 18th, 2016

OlabodeBodeGeorgeThe Wolves’ Den is coming up on Wednesday, March 23! The Wolves’ Den is Algonquin College’s very own Dragon’s Den, and features five student entrepreneurs competing for legal help, seed money, and a mentorship opportunity.

Bode Bode-George is one of those competitors. His media company, TIME Corporate Groupe, encompasses a magazine and a streaming TV platform. Will the Wolves’ tune in for Bode’s pitch?

How did you come up with the idea for TIME Corporate Groupe?

TIME Corporate Groupe is the parent company that drives everything in terms of what we do in business – therefore TIME Corporate Groupe is a House of Brands. The word ‘TIME’ is an acronym for Time Is Money Enterprise, and that defines everything about our activities. I have always been fascinated with time, and the experience that goes along with the journey of life. The moment we as human beings are born into this world, our lives begin to count against us – what is it going to be? Are you going to waste your time playing games? Or are you going to straighten yourself out in order to make ‘A Dent’ in this world by touching people lives? For me I have chosen not to waste my time because Time Is Life.

Why did you decide to become an entrepreneur?

Actually, I do not like the terminology ‘Entrepreneur’ because it connotes a type of person, or a group of people. I see myself as a builder – one that builds people, one that builds businesses from scratch, and one that builds society. The term entrepreneur has a misconception in today’s society, where people tend to think that being an entrepreneur has a specific trajectory – e.g. come up with an idea, go look for capital from investors, pitch your idea, and if they like it you continue to build. More misconceptions about being an entrepreneur are, you should dress a certain way, look a certain way, talk with a certain verbal language from the entrepreneurial handbook, and so on; we are stuck with that type of trajectory.

The moment you as an intelligent being begin to think the way the whole world thinks, or the way a group of people in society think then you are no longer unique. Yes, there are certain principles you should have for success, but there are many paths to take in building whatever you wish to build. You have to be unique in how you think, and how you see the world. Just as the snowflakes have been created by God to have a unique design element and pattern because no two snowflakes look alike, so are we as human beings created and instilled by God with different and unique elements that make us who we are, very unique and powerful, so follow your path.

I got involved in building businesses because I saw how individuals and society thought in one-dimensional mind-frame, I had a desire to change it. The things that are present today only became the way they are because someone stood against the tide and created something that was impossible and made it possible. Just because mobile phones are hardware devices and have always been hardware doesn’t mean that there cannot be a digital programmed mobile phone without the hardware.

What have you learned in your studies, and as an builder?

I have been involved in business since I was 19, and every time I learnt something new and different along the journey. If I have to write down what I have learnt, I would probably have to write three volumes of books.

For this particular context I’ll give you two, the first is you must create your own path. You cannot be the next Bill Gates, or the next Warren Buffett or the next Oprah Winfrey, or the next Folorunsho Alakija because doing that makes you a copy and not an original. The second is that, if you want to start something, start doing it ‘NOW’ even if you have no money on you [actually you do have money on you, you have your monthly expense, take from there to start it] just figure it out, not tomorrow or the day after, NOW!

No one gave me a chance to prove myself, every time I tried speaking to people/mentors about certain things if this was good or not, they always came back with ‘Nah, I don’t think it’s something you can do’ or ‘You don’t have the elements and findings to do this’. Something sparked in me one day and I stopped doing that, and decided to go to Yahweh first, and everything and everyone else around me remained a silent background. Coming to Canada opened doors for me in to reading a lot of books, and understanding the value of money, life, and people. One of the very first few books I read were books by Donald Trump, and Warren Buffett, and the list goes on until I built my library with hundred of books. For me understanding the value of money not the way entertainment or the business media portrayed the value of money but how reality teaches you about money. The fact is that understanding the value of money can be 100 per cent effective when reality and life teaches you how to value money and how money should be valued.

What resources have you tapped into within the College? How are you preparing for the Wolves’ Den?

During my time in Algonquin College, I have been blessed to work with and learn from great professors like Jayne Van-Dusen, Elaine Dean, Richard Leigh-Bennett, and Laura Thorsel who have all instilled in me different aspects of marketing and branding. I have been in the world of communications and marketing for the past four years, but working with these professors for the past seven months has opened up a new world of insights and intelligence in different ways to understand and master marketing and branding.

Jayne showed me the various landscape present in the world of branding, Elaine instilled in me the techniques, and the intellectual portion of crafting marketing campaigns from scratch, Richard showed me the skeletal aspect of building the framework of brands, and Laura made me fall in love with marketing and the power of data. I’m preparing for the Wolves’ Den first by praying, studying, and using all what I have learnt from my intelligent professors to go into the Den, and I’m planning to come out victorious.

Good luck to Bode, and to all our Wolves’ Den competitors! Check back for another profile soon or meet the competitors on Wednesday, March 23 at 11 a.m. in the AC Hub.


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