Who I am and why I am qualified to talk about entrepreneurship.
First and foremost, I am an RMIT alumnus. During the time at RMIT, I founded of the IT Club. Together with my team, we were building a platform to facilitate professional and personal development of our fellow students. I am also among the first organizers of MultiUni, an NPO aiming at turning the community into a university with high quality and free courses. In 2010, I was the first IT student of RMIT Vietnam to have his internship overseas. Being the first had some problems with it, but the experience and knowledge I gained was a blast. Every hardship and difficulties was worth it. Back to Vietnam, at the age of 21, I established Cogini Vietnam, the main R&D center of the company in Asia. I have experienced different working environment, namely Taiwan, Singapore and Dung Quat industrial zone. I have got precious opportunities of working with gifted entrepreneurs from all over the world and contributes an essential part to their successful startups.
It is quite obvious that my profile is no where as profound as any of the professors you are having and my achievement in the industry is minuscular. But I enjoy what I have been through in the world of entrepreneurship and I believe that "Finding joy in the journey is more important that reaching your destination". I hope my experience will be entertaining.
Who is an entrepreneur?
Now we are here, talking about IT and Entrepreneur, but what does it actually means by "entrepreneurship", how to be classified as an "entrepreneur"? The definitions on the internet are countless.
Some are funny.
"My son is now an 'entrepreneur'. That's what you're called when you don't have a job." - Ted Turner
Some are inspiring.
"The entrepreneur always searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an opportunity." - Peter Drucker
And this is my favorite
"Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one." - Bill Gates
Before we proceed, lets try to agree upon what "entrepreneur" we are talking about. Later in life, each of us will develop a different definition of entrepreneur. But only for today, lets try to reach an agreement. Although the word entrepreneur and the meaning it conveys are very motivating and inspiring, I believe it is the most overused and misused word in this century. When I was a kid, I never heard of such word. The closest synonyms that I could possibly find are "businessman", "businesswoman". But nowadays, you have a side project, your are so entrepreneurial; you open a shop, you must be a entrepreneur then.
There are many creative creators out there. In the tech world, they are usually hackers who create applications with little or no idea how will they make money from that. They don't even need that. They do it just because it is satisfying for them to do so. And there are small business owner, too. There is a high risk in running a business, but that doesn't necessarily require any brilliant ideas nor create any new value for the world. An entrepreneur, in my opinion, is one with great idea and know how to turn that into a business with thorough vision, foresight and understanding of the market. The entrepreneur is a visionary executor. The creator and business people are necessary support, but not required. Based on that definition, further down the talk I will be focusing on realizing the vision, rather than how to create a product or how to run a business.
What does it takes to be an entrepreneur?
Even though market factors can affect the success and the scope of your business, they have little to do with entrepreneurial spirit. Some tend to complain a whole lot about it, that the local users are so conservative, that the lack of infrastructure prevents the business growth or most frequently the market is not ready for this idea. Well, bullshit. Vietname actually has a very strong potential for ICT development. The country is one of the countries with highest number of mobile and Internet users. The population is young and adopt quickly to new products, just look at how they pick up Facebook and groupon. And did you know that Vietnamese users are the most skillful one when it comes to DNS config? And if that is not convincing enough, there is always the rest of the world. I agree that there are a lot to do with the infrastructure of the country, but that should be considered an opportunity, not a barrier. Clickmedix is one of our joint product. Clickmedix is a healthcare service for rural areas. It in fact applies the advantages of technologies to overcome the lack of infrastructure in rural areas all over the world, to bring modern healthcare to more patients. Last week, Clickmedix won the Recommendation Award from World Bank.
Now that we have excluded most negative external factors, what does it take to be an entrepreneur? I think the two most dominants one are an idea and some love.
An idea that is suitable for a startup is one that tackles an existing yet-not-satisfied need of users and provide it elegantly and profitably.
When I was a kid, everything that I needed was provided, I didn't have to go seeking for it. So I used to think of a good idea as something very rare, hard to perceived, "beyond the reach". But the more I experienced, the more I realized how wrong I was. The needs of human beings turn out to be quite basic: get stuff done, make them laugh, stay connected, fill downtime, etc…
The initial idea for your business should be big and bold. Be expansive in how you think about its features, the target users, the opportunities to set it apart from the rest. Let crazy ideas roll. Fill the drawing board with your wildest ideas. Don't set any constraint or limit on you, other people will do that for you, there is no point of doing so for yourself.
However, no matter how good an idea is, it cannot be a cow cash. Why? It is just a thought, it is valueless. To realize an idea, you need to build a product. And it is the time you need to kill your darlings, your wild and beloved ideas. I call it "survival of the fittest". You are not just building a product, you need to build a good one that people will know about it, use it and even better, recommend it to others; and build it fast. Hence, there is no room for nice-to-have features. Every feature surviving the slaughter must be a must-have one.
Eventually that leads you to a bigger picture. You need a business model. Anyone here can tell me what is a business model? In short, a business model defines the way you operate your business. But I have this brilliant idea, it is all in my mind, I don't need this form of "documentation". Documentation sucks, lets just roll it out. That was exactly what did I think whenever I wrote a proposal. But listen, you can't run a business all alone, you need a means of communication that you can share and inspire others. Furthermore, entrepreneurs are typically hopelessly optimistic. They tend to underestimate the complication of little details. There might be a hidden risk some where in the plan, writing it down, think about it while you are writing, is the first round of fail filtering.
Eventually that leads you to a bigger picture. You need a business model. Anyone here can tell me what is a business model? In short, a business model defines the way you operate your business. But I have this brilliant idea, it is all in my mind, I don't need this form of "documentation". Documentation sucks, lets just roll it out. That was exactly what did I think whenever I wrote a proposal. But listen, you can't run a business all alone, you need a means of communication that you can share and inspire others. Furthermore, entrepreneurs are typically hopelessly optimistic. They tend to underestimate the complication of little details. There might be a hidden risk some where in the plan, writing it down, think about it while you are writing, is the first round of fail filtering.
I usually refer to "the canvas" from Business Model Generation as a standard form of business model. It is illustrative, detail enough to understand the business yet general enough to leave room for idea to flower. And believe me, many investors love it too.
The second factor that matters on the path of an entrepreneur is love.
Or to put it more accurately, love, fear and the dots of life. Let me tell you my journey. My adventure started from the day I entered RMIT, became a part of its young and talented students, like all of you down there. Here, right in the campus, I met amazing people, friends of my life. One of them, I can never forget. He is Le Ba Huy. Huy came from Silicon Valley, the heart of the IT world. I was blessed to have Huy be my lecturer in my very first semester. Huy was a very inspiring lecturer, his lectures were filled with excitement and brilliant ideas. He then was my first employer, mentor and friend.
Under Huy's guidance, I proceeded to teach myself iOS programming. The topic was smoking hot as the app store first came out. Developers were provided a whole new era to explore, the post-PC era. There was not lot of resources back in the day, the sample code from Apple was barely enough for Hello World programs. To improve our competencies, we started to pick up freelance projects and initialize in-house projects. Balancing 4 courses at school and intensive iOS programming was hard. But sweet Jesus, those days were so exciting, inspiring and wild. Pizza & coke in the room, computers on 24/7 and hands moving non-stop on keyboard, we discussed, we hacked, we created products that never existed before, felt like we were having the world in our hands. Those days was incredible.
And I thought that that was it, my hands were full and I couldn't take anything else. But no. In the world on entrepreneurs, good enough is never enough. We decided to share our knowledge, meet more amazing people out there. We organized MultiUni, a innovative form of university, driven by the community. I went panic with all of my group assignments, almost failed an elective course, but screw that, during one year, I had met more awesome people than I ever had in my life.
After the success of MultiUni, I was convinced that there were always room for improvement in conventional education system. The need of IT students to have a more active learning environment besides the classes was undeniable. Therefore we established the IT club, promoting an active student-centered learning environment.
Besides iOS, I had no hope for a practical application in my life from doing these thing. I did them because they were fun. And I love it, I am satisfied just by doing what I love. But gradually, in my life, somehow, all the dots are ultimately connected together. Working in the IT club gave me chances to meet various professors in my program. Fortunately, one of the professors acknowledged my ability and arrange me an internship overseas. That was a amazing.
Back to Vietnam, I established Cogini Vietnam. It was challenging, given that my major has always been software engineering. But the experience and relationship I developed during the time at MultiUni and IT Club was the real deal. Guess what, the first four staff of Cogini Vietnam, including me, were the management board of the IT Club. Running a company has lot of pressure, it is real money and business we are handling there, not assignments. But in the nutshell, I found that it is similar to running the club back there. How fortunate.
None of these I would have achieved if I wasn't given the opportunity to do what I love. How important it is to do what you love? Once you set you footstep in the software industry, you would have recognized that you have to keep learning new thing everyday, at school, at home, after graduation, just to keep on pace with the rest of the world. The moment you stop learning new thing, is the moment you are left behind. To work sustainably, you need to work 40 hours a week and enjoy your life. I think it is the biggest lie among the entrepreneurs that I have ever heard. The entrepreneurs that I work with, they don't sleep. Because if there is anything for those who wait, that must be what left behind by those who hustle. And where is all this energy comes from. Little money, glory, fame, what are you doing, you are doing that for your love itself, for the challenge, for the thrill of discovery.
How to find what do you love? I don't know, I am not you. But if you don't know what you love (except the money and fame) you are probably thinking of entrepreneurship like a fashion trend, not an achievement in your life. But I never found anyone succeed doing entrepreneur half-hearted. You have to put your heart into this. If you haven't got the answer, perhaps it is not the right time for you to start up yet.
Whatever you are doing. Failure is an option, but fear is not. No innovation in life has been achieved without risk, you have to be willingly to take those risks. Many people hesitate to work on something they aren’t familiar with because they are afraid of the unknown. But just do it. Explore new ideas. Experiment with new things. If you are successful, the reward could be huge. Even if you aren’t, you will still come out better than before.
What does it take to execute your ideas.
It is said that idea is cheap, what is important is the execution. I do not entirely agree with the statement. But it is true that not all entrepreneurs succeed in implementing their ideas. And it is how you operate the business that makes the difference. Any startups have to deal with issues that I found suitable to be grouped into these 4 groups.
- The Product
- The Team
- Financial Issues
- Legal Issues
I covered pretty much all about the product previously so I won't repeat myself here. But did you know that many startups get acquired or receive invest because of its awesome team rather than the idea?
I would like to divide a team into two parts: the founders and the members. Founders are one who join the startup from the very first day and own a part of it. Choose a founder as wisely and carefully as choosing your life partner. A good founder is the one who can help you shape up the business and place the product above the relationship with you. That is harsh, but that harshness is necessary for a good product. That's why it is very risky to invite your high-school or college friends to be your co-founders. Do it right, and you gonna have the sweetest time in your life. But do it wrong and you lose a friend for good. Founders in a team also need to possess supportive skills that by working together they bring the harmony to the team. I usually refer to this as the three hats rule: Developer, Designer and Business People. Find your place and look for co-founder that can compensate what you are lack of.
Members are those who got hired to facilitate the business development. There are many sources of talents in Vietnam: universities, enterprise staff that are looking for a new breeze in their career, or right from your competitors. Wherever you are looking for talents, I suggest embracing diversity and welcoming new schools of thought in your team. There was time where 100% staff of Cogini was RMIT. At first, it was fun, we understood and work with each other pretty well. But at some point thing started to get boring because we were too alike. But the situation changed dramatically when we brought in the first non-RMIT member. He was superb. Not only that he fit well in the team, he also compensated what we were lack of, offered us the new school of thought that hadn't been found among RMIT members. Yes, talented team members are great, but how can I find them? It depends on the company's strategy though. Some where in the early state, Cogini looked for its staff with the assistant of mass media. It turned out to be highly unproductive. We received a huge number of CV, spent many hours interviewing but hardly found any outstanding applicants. We then changed the strategy to actively seek for the talent ourselves, with the support of the word of mouth network. It has been quite good so far, the quantity of applicants greatly reduced and the quality hooped up. But Cogini business is software development, we look for genius developers. If you are working on one of those enterprise solution like Java or .Net and need a lot of monkey coders, hand picking might not be efficient.
And a team always requires an environment to develop. And this is crucial, it is the team culture, all its dynamic nature, motivation, inspiration, that sets you apart from others and attract talent. Like a bonsai, team culture need caring from the very first day. I am lucky because I was given the authority to shape up the culture of the company, and from that experiment different methodologies in management. And here is what I have learned: be like water. Like water hitting rock, don't expect immediate effects from your changes or new policy. Embrace what the team is having and slowly yet firmly change it into the direction you want. Once everything is in the right flow, rewarding the team for the good job and maintain the flow, it will help the new comers get into shape quickly.
A good working environment is also what talented employees are concerned about. Enterprises and well-established companies possess very professional working environment, back up by their strong flow of venue. If you want to provide a better working environment in term of facility, you gonna have a bad time. But that doesn't put you in the disadvantaged position. This is an area where your creativity can shine to make the company unique, unlike enterprises which have multiple layer of policy, regulation and are considerably slow when it comes to changes.
Financial Issue
Every startup needs survives till they receive the first round of investment or make the first sale. In other word, startup founders are on their own till the prototype of the product is formed.
Unlike many other industries, the financial barrier for hardware and facilities in software development is relatively low. In fact it is too easy to equip a software engineer that almost any coffee shop in this city would do. Founders are not very likely to received salary for the work as they own the business. And with all the amount of adrenaline running in their blood, they can literally live on bread and roses.
But eventually you need more people to help you accelerate the development speed and soon you will find out that this entrepreneur game is an expensive one. You need money to pay for these people and pay them generously if you want to keep the good ones.
Most startups in Vietnam I have been talking to depend on either self-fund or friends and family investment or both at this stage. One more support that is very popular in countries with strong startup screen is Business Incubator program. Typically you will be provided an office with basic infrastructure such as furniture and internet connection. This usually take places in a warehouse or university campus. Besides that, the organizers behind the program are usually high-profile investors who can provide you various help. Last but not least, the chance to work with other hot startups is very compelling on its own already. Soon this model is becoming the next trend in Vietnam startup screen.
When you finally manage to reach to the next stage, a prototype of the product, you will be able to aim at higher targets: angel investors and venture capitals. It is both a bless and a curse to work with these investors. On one hand, they will be able to help you tremendously, thank to their investment, experience and network. On the other hand, your company might easily become their property. Remember what happened with Steve Jobs in 1985? Got fired from his own company.
Legal Issue
This issue is ignored by a lot of entrepreneurs. Cogini Vietnam had been operating for 8 months by the time it acquired its legal status. I am not the best person around to talk about legal factor in Vietnam economy, but from my point of view, it is only matter when you have grown to a certain size and start to go public. Prior to that, no one even know if you can make it that far or not, so why wasting your time for these paperwork? On the other hand, I acknowledge the importance of a proper legal status, it is just not your duty as a business owner to the government, but also to protect yourself from other competitors.
That's pretty much it. Thank you for the listening. Drop me a line if you find the world of entrepreneurship interesting.
