10 Actions Vietnamese People Need To Take To Save Their Startup Scene Today

The Vietnamese startup community is in a crisis. New companies are struggling to scale, there’s a lack of mentors, no money for new startups, not enough investors, not enough early adopters, drama abounds, and the economy is tanking. At least, that’s what most startup people in Vietnam are chattering about these days. But that kind of talk isn’t helping. In fact, it’s generally just adolescent startup whining. Apple and Microsoft were both founded during a recession, and more than half of the Fortune 500 companies were founded during a recession. So, get over it.

We should be listening to Bruce Lee’s advice: “To hell with circumstances, I create opportunities”.

The discussions in Vietnam’s startup scene need to shift away from all the whining and into a proactive discussion of what we can do to foster the community. Forget about finding investment (it’s cliché to complain about investment anyway), start investing in the people.

I’ve distilled a list of 10 things that every person in Vietnam’s startup scene needs to be thinking about and definitely start doing today. If you’re reading this, and you’re not doing these things already, it’s time to start. ‘Ask not what your startup community can do for you, ask what you can do for your startup community’. And I know, most of this stuff is difficult and maybe impossible, but it all has to start somewhere, one person at a time.

1. Develop a “give before you get” mentality

In Vietnam, one of the things we suffer from is a “taking” philosophy. The mentality is almost always “what am I going to get out of it?” If there is a new event, or a product or an interesting company, people immediately want to know how they will benefit from it. This needs to change right away. People need to think how can I make it better? What can I do to contribute?

The problem with this for some Vietnamese people is, “What if I give but others just take? So I’ll just give them nothing!” This is exactly the kind of thinking we need to break, and it needs to start somewhere. Strong startup communities are built on the foundation of people who help each other. When Instagram’s founder Kevin Systrom called up friend and Quora co-founder Adam D’Angelo in the middle of the night, he helped him right away. What was Adam’s reward for this? Sometimes we never know. When we give, we shouldn’t expect some kind of concrete outcome. Something will come, we just don’t know what. Sometimes the real reward is being able to be a part of history, being a part of the history of a really cool startup. Don’t think about your own personal benefit – the best way to live is for others.

2. Be a mentor and be mentored

A giving mentality naturally leads to mentorship. Vietnam is suffering from a serious lack of mentors. Programs like Founder’s Institute do get experienced entrepreneurs out of the woodwork and contribute to the community but there aren’t enough mentors that are out there proactively meeting young startups and coaching them forward. Most of the time, the excuse is “Oh, I don’t have time to do that, I’m a very busy guy, I have to run my own startup.” I’m sorry, but this is bullshit. As Brad Feld, author of Startup Communities says, people who say these kinds of things “fundamentally miss the point of what a leader does.” People like this don’t know how to look long-term at their own startup community. They don’t realize that by mentoring, everybody benefits on broad and deep levels.

And the beauty of a community with many mentors is that mentors create new mentors. If you decide today that you are going to start mentoring, you need to remember that the founders, new leaders, and startups that you begin to mentor may eventually become your mentor. You can learn from them too. That’s how a startup community organically grows. Leaders create new leaders.

3. No more “Ném Đá”

Vietnamese people have this weird habit of “ném đá” (literally meaning “throwing rocks”). It means people like to criticize without giving any solid feedback, it means they complain just to complain. This is not constructive at all. And I know, it’s a part of modern Vietnamese culture, but this habit needs to break in order for everyone to grow. If you are reading this, it needs to start with you. When you try a new app, or learn some news about a startup, or encounter a new event, instead of just complaining about it, stand up and think about how the app could be better, share with the founders what they could do to improve their business, and tell the event organizers how they can make the event better.

Unfortunately, in Vietnam, the two most common reactions people have to things is either be totally quiet, or to ném đá. Now it’s time to add a third one to the mix: think hard about how things can be improved and share those thoughts with everyone.

4. Be inclusive

For outsiders, foreigners, and new young entrepreneurs, it’s always difficult to know how to get involved in a new startup community. In every startup community across the world, there are gatekeepers into a startup community. Good gatekeepers know this and they network with all of the leaders in a community and introduce new people to the right people. This needs to happen more often. There needs to be more gatekeepers in Vietnam, and it needs to be easier to get inside the community.

5. Connect your colleagues today

6. Ignore the drama

7. Play a non-zero-sum game

8. Think long-term

9. Stop hiding

10. Get connected outside the startup community

The future of Vietnam’s startup community