Creating good "land" to promote creative start-ups

Mr. Dam Quang Thang, Chairman of the National Innovation and Start-up Advisory Council, General Director of Agricare Vietnam Co., Ltd.

How do you evaluate start-up activities in Vietnam in the first half of 2022?

In 2021, we received nearly US$1.5 billion in investment for domestic start-ups. This is a very good signal in the context of the domestic and world economy being heavily impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. Therefore, in 2022, from such investments, many investment activities and cash flows have been implemented, bringing exciting development to the start-up movement.

In my opinion, start-up activities are going deeper and higher, bringing the community's awareness about entrepreneurship in a broader direction.

Therefore, innovative programs to support starting a business, including supporting organizations, financial institutions, and investment funds are replicated.

Leaders have also been understanding the thinking about start-ups, understanding the difficulties in start-up activities to come up with many solutions to remove problems.

With such support, nowadays, depending on the size and level of the start-up, many young people have come up with effective and sustainable business models and strategies. For example, turning advantageous products with local characteristics into products of high added value, creates pervasive effects on society.

As an example of a start-up model by trading in products related to the grey sedge, this start-up has turned a typical local tree into a luxury product, solving employment problems for local workers and artisans, building a brand name for lepironia articulata as well as local production.

Or some young people started a business based on local specialties such as Phu Tho sour meat, and developed a strategy to become a big company, leading in supplying food to the market.

These are good entrepreneurship models which need to be promoted and spread among young people.

In your opinion, how do start-ups in the current context need support to be more effective?

We are in the process of building and perfecting an innovative start-up ecosystem, so we need to learn from other countries' experiences and initiatives on start-ups. Currently, many initiatives have been applied by countries to encourage external resources to support domestic start-ups.

In Vietnam, the problem that many Vietnamese start-ups face is that they have not found a place to access resources. One of the three important types of "capital" that best supports start-ups is social "capital", which means that start-ups must know about the ecosystem and must participate in programs and events related to creative start-ups. Thus, start-ups will know which incubators there are, which support organizations, and even which experts to approach. In addition, start-ups always need financial resources, so it is necessary to solve the bottleneck to help more investors participate in the start-up market, and combine and support young people for finance or resources on a team of consultants.

Of course, this is not a problem that can be solved and supported immediately but needs a period to help young people have a good environment and "land" to promote creative start-ups.

In particular, for the start-up ecosystem, the university component is very important, because the university is a place that provides talent, the subject of entrepreneurship, provides academic related issues, the university's lecturers are also the advisers.

The association with the university will form start-up incubators, in which the biggest resource is former students - the successful start-ups come back to help students who are still studying, become investors, advise and directly support young people to start a business.

Successful start-ups are a problem, what conditions will be needed to bring the products of start-ups to the international market, Sir?

Not only start-ups but even enterprises that have been operating in the market for a long time, the export of products to international markets depends on the field, product quality as well as the conditions of the import market. With start-ups, export activities will need more than normal enterprises in terms of business size as well as meeting technical requirements.

Therefore, this issue needs a national-level methodical strategy. Start-ups are required to improve their capacity and need more social capital and financial resources. All these resources are already in the state's innovative start-up support programs, with the help of experienced experts, but the problem is how start-ups approach bringing products to the international market in the best way.

Thank you!