At the “Think Internationally – Act Nationally” discussion held on the afternoon of 2-12 at the Vietnam Young Leaders Forum 2016, participants raised the question of whether Vietnamese startups should go global first and then return to the domestic market, or vice versa.
Anco Family Food Joint Stock Company (Anco), which specializes in rice crackers and sterilized sausages, chose to develop the domestic market as a stepping stone before going overseas. As Anco CEO Hứa Cao Trí explained, the company understands domestic market needs, and winning that market is the first step toward accumulating experience and resources before expanding abroad.
Mr. Trí also says the domestic market will be a safety buoy for businesses when global markets fluctuate and become unstable.
While Anco approached the two markets sequentially, online hotel booking company VnTrip pursued both almost simultaneously. A booking platform with customers everywhere, VnTrip formed a strategic partnership with the global online hotel booking site Booking.com so Vietnamese customers could book internationally and vice versa.
Speaking at the forum, Lê Đắc Lâm, CEO of Vntrip, shared that with a startuplike Vntrip, winning in the domestic market is essential, and to achieve this, you must join the global game to integrate, learn and cooperate.
Furthermore, as soon as you prepare to raise capital from investment funds, going global becomes a mandatory part of your development roadmap, Mr. Lâm added.
From another perspective, Đinh Viết Hùng, CEO of Design Bold, a startup provides an online design tool that lets users design various publications through simple operations without installing anything on their computers, and argues that the first question is not whether to go global or local, but what value the product brings customers. Once that question is answered, determining the market, global or domestic, comes afterward.
Taking Design Bold as an example, Hùng said his company serves overseas customers, mainly in the United States, where people are more willing to pay than in Vietnam. Getting Vietnamese customers to pay for software is no simple challenge, he said.
According to Mr. Hùng, rather than adopting a global or domestic perspective and becoming constrained by geographical borders, we need to recognize that today's world is borderless (borderless). With one click, you can reach customers worldwide.
So how can you build a product that meets the needs of customers around the world? The answer is that you must understand customers, and that understanding comes from many factors, with accumulated knowledge and experience being indispensable.
“Many people wonder how Design Bold could be built in just one year and, within 12 days of launch, attract more than 40.000 registered users and generate US$133.000—nearly VND 3 billion—in revenue. It was not that simple. I attempted Design Bold three years earlier and failed. And I should say that Design Bold is the continuation of nearly 12 years I entrepreneurship with J.O.O.M Solutions Co., Ltd., rather than something achieved over one morning.
Collected
>> Great Articles on Entrepreneurship
>> Business Consulting Program
Chương trình liên quan tại YUP Education: X-Startup – khóa học khởi nghiệp «Khởi Chánh Nghiệp» · The Journey – lộ trình phát triển doanh nhân
