A refugee who went hungry for six days is now feeding thousands with his meal delivery app

Tri Tran, co-founder and CEO of Munchery, a food ordering app based in Silicon valley valued at about $300 million. Photo credit: TechinAsia.

Rarely do we come across entrepreneurs who have faced the question of life and death – literally – in their own lives. After writing this story on Uber CTO Thuan Pham, I assumed that chances of meeting another such braveheart was next to nil.

However, in the Mission district of San Francisco – known for its cool graffiti and now, a big homeless population – I ran into another entrepreneur with an interesting history. Tri Tran, the CEO of Munchery, fled communist Vietnam in a boat in 1986, after making four failed attempts.

As a boy, he once spent five nights in a refugee boat on the ocean without anything to eat. Now he has raised US$117 million and supplies meals to tens of thousands across the Bay Area, New York, Seattle and Los Angeles daily.

Captured and jailed in Vietnam

After the fall of Saigon to the communist regime post Vietnam War, the economic hardship and brutality imposed by the new government led to an exodus of about 2 million people from the country.

I could not feel the bottom and started sinking. I had sunk almost neck deep, when an unknown hand pulled me out.

Tri’s family – his mother and father (both teachers) and an elder brother of 17 years – had previously tried to escape the country four times in a refugee boat. They failed miserably. The family was jailed. Emigration was illegal by law and people were being killed in concentration camps. They were called re-education camps.

After their release, a superstitious boat owner predicted that it was a zodiac combination that led to this mishap. “He asked only three of us to board the boat next time,” said Tri, now 41. He reserved only 3 seats for the family – for a price in gold at about US$500 per person, at that time.

That’s when his grandmother (from his mom’s side) put her foot down. She asked both parents to stay back. “She had lost her husband very early in life. She did not want her daughter to face the same fate or break their marriage,” Tri said.

South Vietnamese refugees walk across a U.S. Navy vessel in 1975. Photo credit: Wikipedia

At the age of 64, his grandma decided to undertake this treacherous journey. They left their hometown Ba Ria on April 30, 1975. Ironically, it was the country’s independence day, commemorating when the North Vietnamese army captured South Vietnam.

“All three of us left the house in the middle of night and started walking across rice fields, hiding from the police. We had to cross a mud creek which was about 10 feet wide. The adults could jump across, but I fell right in the middle,” Tri recalled.

“I could not feel the bottom and started sinking. I had sunk almost neck deep, when an unknown hand pulled me out,” he recounted.

Going thirsty

Bullets and grenades

Finding investors as a delivery boy

Tri’s tips for Silicon Valley entrepreneurs: