Launch: a Facebook group at the heart of Vietnam’s startup ecosystem

Although Vietnam’s startup scene can seem mysterious to folks outside, it’s a teeming ecosystem on the inside. I think it’s quite fragmented; there are super early stage startups without funding and incubators to foster them. There’s angels lacking in deal flow, and there’s growth stage startups struggling to make the jump to maturity. There’s disconnects across a startup community that is more mature than the majority of its neighbors (having been boosted 10 years ago by IDG Venture Vietnam’s $100 million fund) and the roaring might of FPT, Vietnam’s largest technology company.

And yet, there seems to be an eye of the storm to all of this, and it’s Launch. It’s the central place where much of the startup ecosystem goes to gripe and share about the current state of Vietnam. This Facebook group, which started in 2008 with only a handful of friends (most of them working for IDG Ventures Vietnam), was started with the purpose of giving the tiny startup community of Vietnam a place to chat online. Today, the group has near 18,000 Facebook users, with over 700 users pending acceptance. Suffice it to say, it’s the number one place to go online if you want to talk about startups in Vietnam.

The group’s conversations cover a lot of topics:

• how to get funding
• why certain startups fail
• what can we do to rouse the community
• latest news
• invitations to regional tech events and opportunities
• top trends in tech

And the beauty is that many of the people in Launch are actually prominent people in the startup ecosystem, from Thuy Thanh Truong to Hung Dinh to Ho Viet Hai. It attracts many wantrapreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs. At the same time many in the ecosystem who don’t post on Launch are still lurking in the background. It’s often that Tech In Asia folks will go to events and hear people follow up on conversations happening in Launch. Thus, logging into Launch is stepping into a microcosm of Vietnam’s startup ecosystem.

From humble beginnings to internationalizing

From the beginning Launch was always a place where people wrote in Vietnamese. In fact, when it first started, members would translate articles from sources such as Paul Graham and share them with each other.

In its first year, Launch was an intimate group of 400 people. Members would use the platform to share stories and chat about the fledgling ecosystem. It was only after the first year, when startups became more prominent, that the group was opened up to new members.

But with growth, the quality of Launch posts have fluctuated. Newcomers bring in fresh questions but also naivete. It’s thus been a struggle for Launch to retain its high quality members while at the same time helping newer members. That’s exactly why the admins have repeatedly crunched down on posts, restricted new members, and added a totally new set of rules. In the meantime, tens of new groups have formed, including:

• Startup Jobs Vietnam – The title is self-explanatory. In the beginning days of Launch, many people would solicit for jobs, but admins cracked down on this to preserve the startup conversations.
• VietStartUp in London – A group dedicated to Vietnamese people living in London.
• Digital Marketing Agency – Obviously, a group for folks in the digital marketing space.
• Tech Talk – A fledgling group for startups in Da Nang, Vietnam’s third rising city.
• E-Commerce Group – The number one place for ecommerce people to come and talk online retail.

This is just a taste of the many groups that are flowering across the many shades of Vietnam’s startup ecosystem. And yet Launch has remained resilient as one of the main places that people go for startup chatting.

In recent months, Launch has been through a new wave of changes. These changes are emblematic of changes in Vietnam’s startup ecosystem. In the last 6 months, Tech In Asia has met more than 20 different angel investor groups and/or venture builders keen on investing in Vietnam’s tech startups. Something is brewing.

When I posted a challenge to Launch members to use more English, the entire community was aflame with controversy. Eventually, this lead Launch admins to institute a new policy: every time someone posts something on Launch in English, it must be tagged with #enlaunch. This allows foreigners and people who want to practice English to track all the English conversations happening in Launch. It’s a big step for the Launch community, to now welcome foreigners into the black box that is the Vietnamese startup ecosystem. It’s a possible sign that Vietnam’s ecosystem is starting to think more regionally. And Launch is decidedly at the center of it all.