Why I returned from Silicon Valley to Vietnam

Photo credit: Pixabay.

Everywhere I look in Vietnam these days, I see cranes. Not those that fly, but construction cranes. While some look at them and see ugliness, I see these towers reaching skyward symbolizing Vietnam’s striving ambition and promise.

Welcome to Vietnam, my place of birth, a land now full of vibrancy and youth that reminds me of my days in Silicon Valley. I’ve returned here not out of sentimentality or longing for my homeland (though I do love it here) but because I believe the country is poised to become the next technology hub, birthing startups that could become international companies.

If you haven’t been to Vietnam lately or at all, you might be surprised by the vibrancy of the tech scene here. Calendars are filled with meetups, events, and hackathons. New startups, incubators, accelerators, and venture builders are popping up every day. The energy is mesmerizing.

But buzz alone doesn’t pay the bills; great returns do. I wouldn’t have uprooted my life and relocated here as a venture investor unless I had something more than a gut feeling.

Vietnam has all the necessary ingredients for an explosion in innovation: a young, educated population and a sizable returning diaspora serving as a catalyst. I’m convinced it’s a chain reaction in the making. Let me break it down.

The Vietnam effect

Despite being a relatively impoverished country, with a per capita GDP of US$2,100, Vietnam has a 94.5 percent literacy rate. Perhaps, more importantly when it comes to startups, Vietnam does surprisingly well in math and sciences, especially given its relatively low GDP.

Look at international competitions and you’ll find a disproportionate number of Vietnamese students on top. For instance, a Vietnamese student just won the International Mathematical Olympiad competition. They’re so impressive that researchers are actually studying what they call the “Vietnam effect,” scores that no one would predict based on the country’s GDP.

The Western effect

To make it as an international tech company, you really need to understand Western cultures and markets.

Vietnam, with less than one-sixth of the region’s population, accounts for nearly half of the region’s college and university students in the US. In 2016, Vietnam sent 21,403 students to the US—more than Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand combined, according to the Institute of International Education.

But there’s another factor that makes me really believe in Vietnam: a large Vietnamese diaspora who are returning home, after migrating in the 70s and 80s, to launch tech companies.

They’re drawn here for the same reasons I was: abundant and highly qualified but inexpensive talent, an educated population, a culture nurturing startups, and a fun, vibrant place to live. They have the unique experience of being truly bicultural, understanding both Western and Eastern cultures.

Here are a few examples, all of whom I happen to know personally because of Vietnam’s tight-knit tech community:

• Binh Tran, co-founder of San Francisco-based Klout, returned part-time to Vietnam. He’s now a venture partner at 500 Startups Vietnam.
• Henry Nguyen, who grew up in Virginia, also returned and is now the managing general partner at IDG Ventures.
• Sonny Vu, co-founder of Misfit (a company purchased by Fossil), currently serves as founder-president and CTO of Fossil Group – Connected Devices. He tapped heavily into the engineering talent here while building his company and has recently moved back.

Youth

Size matters

It just feels right