At 24, Nguyễn Văn Hiệp became a business owner by establishing an English language center with 50 classes. Hiệp achieved something his peers greatly admired. Moreover, what we do not yet know about Hiệp is that he starting a small business with just 1 million dong while still at school!!!
So How Did the Young Man Born in 1989 Become the Director of an English-Language Center?
Nguyễn Văn Hiệp participated in a startup camp with Stanford University professor Tom Kosnik, startup experts and entrepreneurs from Vietnam, Singapore and the United States.
Thick-skinned” Enough to Be a “Trader”—Starting a Small Business While Still in School,
Despite high entrance scores at leading universities—29 at Foreign Trade University and 26.5 at Hanoi Medical University—Hiệp chose economics.
In his first university year, noticing his English was weaker than his classmates’, Hiệp came up with a way to “hit two targets with one arrow”: copy and sell English-learning discs to the entire cohort. He bought two discs for VND 60 thousand, compressed and duplicated them, then sold them for VND 8 thousand per DVD and VND 3 thousand per CD.
Hiệp shared that although he had resolved to be brave, when facing fellow students in his cohort he found it very difficult to start pitching the product, feeling embarrassed and shy for fear they would see him as a “trader.” But after doing business for a while, he became more “thick-skinned” and gradually got used to this early period of selling. Owner Nguyễn Văn Hiệp starting a small business from his own weakness in English.
Referrals from his English teacher helped the disc business run smoothly. Hiệp said he earned a profit of 2 million dong after deducting blank-disc and advertising-printing costs. He used it to buy a hard drive for English-learning materials, with great determination. At the end of the first semester of his second year, his TOEIC result became a sensation, with friends gathering around to ask his learning secrets.
At the end of his second year, driven by a passion for business, the young man born in the 1980s began making plans. Thinking that “quite a few others also want to do business like me,” Hiệp recruited people by posting a few simple lines on Yahoo.
With the naive belief that ‘more people means more strength,’ Hiệp accepted all 9 applicants and continued the English disc sales project on a larger scale, splitting the capital equally with each person contributing 1 million dong. Over two months, his group's revenue exceeded 60 million dong, despite discarding 200 defective discs. Hiệp said he felt happy and proud, as these were his first impressions of and practical encounters with work starting a small business despite still having weak and unprofessional management skills.
Do not be afraid to ask & Lessons from a young man's small-business success
After those 2 months, Hiệp had the opportunity to learn from a soft skills expert. During that time, he acted as his teacher’s “motorbike taxi driver,” met many leaders of large companies and corporations, and learned a great deal.
Hiệp believes opportunities to meet such people are available; what matters is whether we seize them. When opening his English center, Hiệp also sought out entrepreneurs in the same field to learn from them.
To become someone, you must know the path to becoming that person. Meeting these entrepreneurs answered many questions, making Hiệp's “map” clearer and clearer, so he could “just keep going!”
During that time, Hiệp acquired many more skills. By the next season, his product sales were completely different. Better-looking, higher-quality products led to much stronger sales, and at times he employed as many as 20 people.
As graduation approached, Hiệp identified the work that would truly shape his future direction: opening an English language center. Hiệp said: “When you are young, you must always give your best. If you lose everything, start again, and eventually you will succeed! But I knew very little about this industry, had few connections, did not know any good English teachers and did not know how to recruit students. This was my second time feeling my way in the dark.”
With only 20 million dong for everything, Hiệp deliberated over every expense. However, because the teachers' quality was inadequate and students' abilities varied, the first class failed.
The second class also failed. Although Hiệp invited a highly talented classmate to teach, he could not open evening classes to meet participants' needs. Eventually, he managed to open 4 classes.
After choosing a name for the center, the 8x founder opened classes under the new name, but students distrusted it and stopped registering. Moving to a location with poor bus access made Hiệp’s business situation even worse. Although discouraged, he never thought of giving up. “As long as I can hold on, I must keep trying to the very end,” he shared.
From a Small Business Startup to a Breakthrough
Hiệp's business breakthrough was sparked during the 2012 enrollment season. Understanding new students' concerns, he wrote two Facebook posts, “What First-Year Foreign Trade University Students Need” and “The Secret to Mastering English Without Extra Classes,” which received many likes and shares from friends and younger students.
Through this, many people learned about and enrolled at Hiệp’s center. To expand, he spent VND 31 million a month renting a favorable location. Hiệp said: “Initially I taught 4 classes, sometimes growing to 16–18. That money would go toward hiring advertisers, finding good teachers, building a website and enrolling students…
Teaching directly also helps me understand participants better. I am very happy to have received such positive feedback!” Since 9/2012, everything has settled into place, and participant numbers have steadily increased.
After Tết, Hiệp stopped teaching and focused solely on management. Each month, his center opens 15–20 classes, each with 15 students. The center currently has 50 classes, nearly 20 staff members and teaching assistants, and nearly 20 teachers. Hiệp’s goal over the next 5–7 years is to open 100 other English training centers across the country.
Source: Dân Trí
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