CEO Born in the Year of the Pig: Turns 5 Billion in Capital into a Company Worth 600 Billion.

Nguyen Viet Hung – Color Me

Born in 1995 in Quang Tri, Nguyen Viet Hung dedicated most of his time to Computer Science from his high school years. With over a dozen major and minor awards, he was directly admitted to FPT University with a 140% scholarship.

In 2015, noticing that many students in Hanoi were interested in learning graphic design but the tuition fees at centers were often quite high, around 2.5 to 3 million VND/month, Hung decided to open his own classes at a price of only 500,000 VND/month. The first course launched with 3 classes and 45 students.

By the second course, more than 100 people had registered within just one week of opening applications. Hung realized that instead of just opening a class, he could establish an entire center. So, the young man and his friends went all over Hanoi, searching every corner to rent a location and purchase desks, chairs, and equipment.

To date, Color Me has a total of 3 branches in Hanoi and 1 in Ho Chi Minh City. Besides the reasonable tuition fees and lively curriculum, Hung’s startup also has a “lifetime warranty” policy for students. This means that if they have taken a course, they can come back to retake it for free at any time.

Color Me also applies many new technologies in education, such as taking student attendance using QR codes, having an automated email system that forwards questions to instructors, and especially a private social network for students to exchange ideas and view each other’s design work.

Bui Quang Minh (Minh Beta) – Beta Cineplex

Bui Quang Minh (Minh Beta) was born in 1983. In addition to his admirable academic achievements, including receiving a full Fulbright scholarship from the US government and being accepted into the MBA programs at both Stanford and Harvard, Minh Beta is also impressive for his entrepreneurial journey, turning 5 billion VND into a cinema chain valued at up to 600 billion VND.

Sharing with the press, Minh Beta said he was the founder of the Doco Donuts coffee and pastry chain in Vietnam. However, he unexpectedly sold the chain and went to the US to study at Harvard. Two years later, Minh returned to Vietnam and entered a field previously dominated by major, well-funded players: the cinema business.

With over 5 billion VND from the savings he made selling the Donuts stores, he borrowed more from his parents and friends to gather 10 billion VND, just enough to build the first cinema complex in Thai Nguyen with 3 screens. Aiming to bring cinemas to smaller provinces or suburban areas, Beta Cineplex offers affordable prices (around 50,000 VND/ticket), accompanied by food and beverage services to attract customers.

After two rounds of funding, the first of which was just 6 months after its launch, Beta Cineplex was valued at 600 billion VND. Today, the system has 10 cinema complexes nationwide.

Minh Beta is also the composer of the hit song “Viet Nam Oi” and has ventured into artistic activities such as producing television series and feature films.

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Nguyen Huu Tuat – FastGo

Born in 1983, Nguyen Huu Tuat had 15 years of experience in the technology sector before taking on the role of CEO at FastGo.

Officially launched in June 2018, just two months after Grab’s acquisition of Uber Southeast Asia, FastGo now has 40,000 drivers operating in 10 cities across Vietnam. According to CEO Tuat’s statement to Nikkei, despite being less than a year old, FastGo has rapidly expanded into the region.

They entered Yangon last month and are now targeting Jakarta – the home of Go-Jek. It is understood that operations there could officially begin this coming March.

Speaking about FastGo’s competitive advantage, Nguyen Huu Tuat said: “We don’t collect commissions from drivers. We only collect a small fee if they earn a minimum amount each day. Additionally, FastGo drivers do not have surge pricing during peak hours, and users have the option to tip the driver.”

In 2019, FastGo will seek to expand its market to the US and Brazil, while continuing to penetrate more major cities across Southeast Asia. However, regarding profitability, CEO Tuat did not disclose specific details, affirming that profit is not FastGo’s priority at this time.

Ha Bui – Sohee

Born and raised in a poor rural area of Thanh Hoa, Ha Bui always cherished the dream of becoming a successful entrepreneur. After graduating from high school, Ha studied economics in Ho Chi Minh City.

While studying, she worked part-time to cover her student living expenses. Her passion for fashion began to ignite when she worked as a sales assistant at a clothing store, where she was later promoted to manager.

After working in Saigon for a while, Ha Bui returned to the North to start her own business. Beginning as a distributor for high-end office fashion brands, Ha moved on to launch her own fashion brand, taking full control from material selection and manufacturing to product business strategy.

In October 2013, Ha Bui opened the first Sohee store in Thanh Hoa City – her hometown. Over the next 5 years, she successively opened other official showrooms in key northern cities such as Ha Long, Hai Phong, Bac Ninh, Lang Son, and Viet Tri.

Explaining the “surrounding the city from the countryside” strategy, the 1983-born CEO said that there are not many high-end office fashion showrooms in the provinces, forcing women to travel all the way to Hanoi to shop, which is quite inconvenient.

Meanwhile, the number of well-off women in the provinces is very large; they are willing to spend and are not as demanding as customers in Hanoi. Another point is that the investment cost for a showroom in the provinces is much lower than in Hanoi, while the purchasing power is greater due to the wider market.

“Therefore, I decided to take Sohee to the provinces first, but I promised myself that I would return to Hanoi when I was strong enough. As for choosing Thanh Hoa, it’s because that is my hometown, and I wanted to start in my hometown first,” Ha Bui shared with the press.
With this sound strategy, Sohee now has a total of 14 showrooms, including 3 branches in Hanoi.

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Le Viet Thang – 1Office

Since he was a second-year student of applied mathematics at Hanoi University of Science and Technology, Le Viet Thang had cherished the dream of creating his own software, turning textbook theories into practical applications to help businesses manage effectively.

In 2009, Thang used the 30 million VND his father secured by mortgaging their land title at the bank to start his first company, Dos. After Dos failed due to an inability to raise investment capital, the CEO, born in 1983, shifted to his second model, 1Office.

This is an “n-in-1” model that helps small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) solve many problems such as digitizing all records and documents, providing features for scheduling meetings, sending contacts, sending SMS messages, announcing new events, group chat, conversations, and more. For a company of about 20 to 50 people, the cost for 1Office is only about 1-2.5 million VND/month.

“The problem we’re solving isn’t new; in essence, this problem has been solved globally, but the disadvantage is the excessively high cost. Meanwhile, in Vietnam, over 90% are SMEs with limited operating budgets,” the 8x CEO said.

In 2014, Le Viet Thang was honored with the Sao Khue Award after much effort. By 2016, 1Office received the Potential Startup award, voted for by a community of 200 Founders.

Source: cafef.vn