The startup story ‘Japanese Fish Cakes from Vietnamese Ingredients’ by a group of young Vietnamese people. One member is Nguyễn Hữu Thọ, a YUP student. The entrepreneurial spirit is always strongly nurtured at YUP.
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“A Female Entrepreneur's Japanese Fish-Cake Startup Using Vietnamese Ingredients”
Despite repeated failures during the first 9 months, Nguyễn Thu Hồng remained undiscouraged before succeeding with Japanese fish cakes made from Vietnamese ingredients.
Below is the story entrepreneurship of Ms. Nguyễn Thu Hồng, founder of Japanese Kamaboko fish cakes, has just received the “Best Female Founder” award at the Start-up Wheel 2016 entrepreneurship competition, was excerpted by VnExpress from a startup handbook recently published by Saigon Books.
In 2013, after 3 years of study at the University of Tokyo, I returned home and resumed life as a salaried civil servant. I seemed to drift, without direction. That year also brought many reports of unsafe fish cakes and fish cakes containing borax… Suddenly a question flashed through my mind: “Why don’t I make clean fish cakes?”
I used to eat fish cakes in Japan at a professor's home every spring. I really loved their delicious flavor, so I looked into them. Initially, I did not believe it was possible to make such tasty fish cakes with a naturally springy texture without any chemicals. But I was later completely convinced, and every time I ate them, I would tell the professor, ‘I will definitely develop business these fish cakes in Vietnam.”
Putting my idea into action, in August 2013 I decided to email the professor: “I want to develop Japanese fish cakes in Vietnam based on rigorous research into the nature of the proteins that create elasticity in fish, so Vietnam can also have clean, nutritious products like those in Japan.” After two days of waiting, the professor replied that he was willing to help. I was truly delighted, but also understood that the period ahead would be a succession of difficult, challenging days.
Every morning, I woke up at 4, went to the market to buy fresh fish, and experimented on my own. Everything was extremely difficult for an outsider like me. My first difficulty was a lack of equipment and chemicals. No one in Vietnam was doing this; I was the first, so I had to fend for myself and search. The second difficulty was that although research materials were available, key technical specifications were concealed. As a result, during the first nine months, despite immersing myself in research every day, I did not succeed once.
Yet I did not allow myself to become discouraged or give up, always maintaining hope and faith in what I had done. My persistence was rewarded: in the 10th month, I obtained my first result. Though small, it gave me tremendous encouragement to continue. I was truly overjoyed and immediately wrote to the professor and sent photographs. I then expressed my wish to return to Japan for a focused short course in this field.
The teacher said he would help cover airfare and accommodation, while I would cover food and transport myself. I was delighted, even though I had no money left after investing everything in research, and was determined to seize the opportunity. In 8/2014, I went to Japan and began a new course—a course in pursuit of a very clear dream. Yet this was also when I again faced the pressing difficulty of funding.
Because living costs here are not cheap, I had to find ways to cover my expenses. Knowing Vietnamese people in Japan liked fish cakes, I began bringing my homemade fish cakes from Vietnam to sell at 400.000 VND per kg, carrying 30-40 kg on each trip to Japan.
So my luggage always consisted of a backpack, a small suitcase, and 2 large suitcases of fish cakes. Sometimes February would arrive with bitterly cold weather, numb hands, and lips cracked and bleeding, yet I still dragged that enormous load onto the train. Honestly, there were times I teared up and felt sorry for myself. After two years of working so hard, I developed spinal pain from excessive lifting and carrying, not to mention that studying in Japan was exhausting, from morning until late at night.
Even so, I kept up with my studies. After grasping research methodology, I asked my professor for permission to intern at Japan's largest fish-cake company, where he worked as an expert. He said he would consult the company's leaders. I eventually met its CEO, a calm, intelligent, and cautious man. He said that if I wanted to develop a fish-cake business in Vietnam, I first had to become an expert in the field. Then I should invite a Vietnamese investor and CEO interested in the sector to come here; that would shorten my path. First, however, he agreed to let me stay at the company for a two-week internship, and they taught me everything they knew.
After finishing my studies and practice and returning to Vietnam, I eagerly got to work, hoping to bring the product to market soon. At first, I thought it would be very simple. Every day, I went to my office early, came home in the evening to make fish cakes until 2 a.m., then packed orders at 5 a.m. (I was mainly selling through social media then). After about a month, however, I became exhausted and had to be hospitalized, while the business still was not effective.
I realized I had been wrong and needed to change my strategy. That also helped me understand the need for a support team. So a fish-cake sales team was formed. Each person had a role, there was a clear plan, and everyone committed to enduring hardship and remaining loyal to the project's goal — but that is another story. After struggling for a while to sustain the team, I connected with a major investor who shared my passion for the community. He accompanied me to Japan to meet the CEO of one of Japan's leading fish-cake manufacturers and the professor, to collaborate on developing fish cakes in Vietnam.
Even now, the road ahead for Japanese-style fish cakes under a Vietnamese brand—made from Vietnamese fish using Japanese technology—remains difficult. Yet I have never abandoned my aspiration; it always guides me. In countries I visited, I saw people reserve the best products for their own people. Why can we not do the same for Vietnam?
Collected
Chương trình liên quan tại YUP Education: X-Startup – khóa học khởi nghiệp «Khởi Chánh Nghiệp» · The Journey – lộ trình phát triển doanh nhân
