Bằng trải nghiệm của bản thân, doanh nhân Tạ Minh Tuấn – Chủ tịch sáng lập kiêm Giám đốc điều hành Help Corporation – đã đúc kết ra công thức khởi nghiệp thông minh với sáu nguyên tắc vàng. Một trong sáu nguyên tắc đó là phải nắm bắt được thị trường và biết cách “giáo dục” thị trường mà doanh nghiệp muốn nhắm đến.
Six principles for smart entrepreneurship
After many years in business, working in different jobs, positions, and sectors, Tạ Minh Tuấn distilled a smart entrepreneurship formula with six golden principles:
Entrepreneur Tạ Minh Tuấn at the discussion “Starting a Business—Turning Dreams into Reality” on 10/7, organized by the Learn to Get Rich Project.
• Principle 1: Market—Market demand
• Principle 2: Competitiveness—Competitive advantage
• Principle 3: Passion—The circle of passion
• Principle 4: Social—Positive social impact
• Principle 5: Legal—Legal understanding and compliance
• Principle 6: Scalability—A business’s ability to scale
Discussing market demand, Tuấn shared: Essentially, there are 3 types of market demand:
– An established market: fierce competition.
– A market that currently exists: prepare thoroughly from the outset.
– A market that does not yet exist: know how to educate the market.
According to him, newly launched products are often judged by users because they do not yet trust or understand them and do not want to change. Yet they actually need these products very much. What matters is that businesses know how to educate the market. Market education is how a business approaches customers and helps them learn about and trust its products. Done well, it gives your business countless opportunities in vast markets.
Three lessons in market education
Tuấn shared that his dream is to leave a positive legacy for everyone, so that he will not be forgotten when he passes away.
To illustrate, entrepreneur Tạ Minh Tuấn offered many practical examples of educating the market:
Lesson 1: Prepare the right attitude toward difficulties
Lingerie company Triumph wanted to enter the African market. It sent two sales directors to research and survey the market. The first returned to report that African women preferred a natural lifestyle and often did not wear bras, concluding that the market had no potential. The 2nd director returned with the same report. However, he realized that educating African women about the benefits of wearing bras correctly would surely make this a large and promising market. Based on scientific research, Triumph indicated that women who regularly did not wear bras would suffer harmful effects on the nerves connecting the breasts and brain, causing memory loss.
Lessons learned: With the right attitude toward difficulties, countless opportunities will come our way. Fear of hardship prevents success. By educating a potential market, Triumph captured the African market as a pioneer.
Lesson 2: Educating the market requires both reason and emotion
An example of successful market education is razor brand Gillette. The company wanted to enter the Indian market, but faced a challenge: Indian men often wore long beards. After researching the market, it conducted a survey of Indian women. Only one question was asked: “Do you prefer men with beards or clean-shaven?”. The results strongly favor the answer “I prefer kissing a man if he has shaved cleanly beforehand.”
Lessons learned: Educating the market and changing customers requires combining rationality and emotion. Gillette transformed market research figures into emotional, influential stories, combined with sexy advertising campaigns that touched emotions and attracted target customers. People are influenced more by emotion than by data, but data underpins emotion so it is not baseless. This strategy helped Gillette pioneer and dominate the Indian market.
Lesson 3: Understand the culture and psychology of your customers and target market
Most people think X-men is a foreign brand. In fact, X-men is “Made in Vietnam.”
X-men uses a very “Western” brand name to appeal to Vietnamese consumers’ preference for foreign goods. Its commercials always feature a “hero rescuing a beauty” in true American style. With the slogan ‘A Real Man’, X-men tapped into Vietnamese men's feelings about being frequently compared with others. This made a strong impression on customers and helped X-men gain a promising market.
However, X-men's success also lies in creating messages that influence women, who have a major impact on product purchases. The message is: “If you love your husband, let him use his own shampoo.”
Lessons learned: To educate the market, you must understand the psychology and culture of customers and the target market. X-men understood Vietnamese people's preference for foreign products and the psychology of Vietnamese men and women. X-men would make Vietnamese men elegant and attractive with its distinctive fragrance. Vietnamese women, to show love for their husbands, would “let him use his own shampoo,” and X-men would be the first brand they thought of.
Entrepreneur Tạ Minh Tuấn affirms: “A business that understands its market, educates that market, and continually innovates is certain to succeed.”
A brief introduction to entrepreneur Tạ Minh Tuấn
‘Entrepreneur Tạ Minh Tuấn pioneered the “personal doctor” model in Vietnam. In 2009, while a third-year student at Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology, he founded Help International and the Giấc Mơ Đôi Chân Thiên Thần Fund with capital of several million VND. Two years later, he ventured into education and founded Yup Institute, a pioneering academy for entrepreneurship training and support in Vietnam. He had the honor of being recognized by the Center for Social Initiatives Promotion as one of Vietnam’s fifteen outstanding social entrepreneurs.’
Chương trình liên quan tại YUP Education: X-Startup – khóa học khởi nghiệp «Khởi Chánh Nghiệp» · The Journey – lộ trình phát triển doanh nhân
