Vietnam Coworking Spaces: Start Saigon

Start Saigon
8bis/14 Nguyễn Thị Minh Khai, Đa Kao, Quận 1,
Hồ Chí Minh, Vietnam
start-saigon.com

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The more entrepreneurs I meet in Vietnam, the more I realize that the people I’m meeting here are pioneers of Vietnam’s future startup scene. Every chat is filled with passion and excitement, but also with a somber realization that it’s going to be difficult work to build up, as we’re just at the beginning. I believe in five years, we’ll look back on Vietnam and realize we arrived at a time when it was still “cowboy territory” and notice the many great improvements that have been made.

This is what I thought of while meeting and chatting with Martial Ganiere, the owner of Start Saigon. Start Saigon was a bit difficult to find at first; it was within an alleyway and the exterior was undergoing some renovations and a rebrand. I eventually found the spot, and Martin – the founder of Start Saigon – and I had a great chat over some lunch and coffee.

While many startup tech entrepreneurs are happy to tell you about their big ambitions and ideas, Martial was definitely more grounded in conversation, looking to test all assumptions and gave me a realist view of the startup environment in Ho Chi Minh City. He gave me an example of the rundown of the Web Development and design environment in Vietnam. Vietnam is definitely a tough market, because many local Vietnamese companies won’t pay over $100 USD bucks for a website – as web development companies are ubiquitous and many churn out websites where quality can sometimes be questioned.

Martial and I also delved into what was one of the biggest issues in Asia’s startup scene – finding local talent. I’ve never fully realized how the little changes in our education system really affect a country many years, perhaps decades later, until now. This is clearly an issue Vietnam faces – a country playing catch up. To be fair, development is moving at a breakneck pace. There appears is a lack of an overall community to help further educate, develop and nurture any budding talents that make it through by sheer talent. The result is a lag in thinking and lack of structure for innovative tech talent. Many of the startup hubs host Vietnamese students from abroad who are coming back in droves with fresh ideas for the country.

Martial mentioned that a couple years ago, the startup community was growing very healthily in numbers, however has since become slightly fragmented. His hope is to build something to bring everyone together and provide more opportunities and educational sharing opportunites for aspiring developers, whether that’s in the form of seminars, internships, apprenticeships and opportunities to work on valuable projects as a way to really test skills. We can already see how these ideas are helping in Hong Kong, with secondary educational resources like General Assembly.