On the sidelines of the Hanoi Innovation Summit, Hanoitimes talked with CPO of Vietnam’s major e-commerce platform Tiki Sakshi Jawa on the potential and also challenges of Vietnamese startups in reaching out to the global market.
CPO of Vietnam’s major e-commerce platform Tiki Sakshi Jawa. Source: Ngoc Thuy.
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Vietnam currently has a contingent of 250,000 engineers, which is probably bigger than a lot of countries. So I see Vietnam could become a Silicon Valley variant of Asia in the near future.
Moreover, Vietnamese people are very open to learn and to work in ambiguous or uncertain situations. Seventy percent of Vietnamese population are below 35 years of age, and they are very open to learn new things and welcome global practices and exposures.
So in the next few years, Vietnam will be one of the biggest market for tech. What is stopping Vietnam right now is the young population. They don't have more than 10 years of experience in tech. Once they become more experienced, the Vietnamese tech industry would be even more advanced, so the future is very bright.
What makes Vietnamese startups attractive to foreign investors?
The first thing is talent. There are a lot of talents in this country right now, that have not been explored.
Secondly, it is the ability to work with ambiguity, which means they can effectively cope with change, and decide and act without having the total picture, which could be the difference between success and failure.
Right now, the quantity of talents in Silicon Valley is not as high as before, so in fact, there are a growing number of companies importing Vietnamese talents. For example, Japan or Canada are taking a lot of engineers from Vietnam. The reason is the talent being so good that they can gain from such talents. Moreover, there is a big difference in the cost of getting talents in Vietnam compared to that in Silicon Valley. And I believe the gap would be bigger because the cost of getting talents is going up higher, but it is a long way off to reach that of Silicon Valley’s stage.
What are the challenges for Vietnamese startups, especially in a time it’s getting attention from investors worldwide?
Foreign investors coming to Vietnam is partly due to the country having one of the fastest growing middle class in the world as well as GDP growth. This is a golden period of time for e-commerce and startups to flourish in Vietnam.
For Vietnamese startups, I think it is more about global reach. From my view, a lot of startups probably do not know where they can reach and how do they position themselves in a global market. So the challenge is that they need to widen their horizon and see how and where they can get their funding from.
For example, a lot of startups here are reaching out to South Korea or Japan, they don't reach out to Europe or the Silicon Valley. But I think it is just a matter of time before they reach out to other parts of the world
Startups in Vietnam have only been developed for the last six or seven years, so its pretty early at this stage right now.
Any plan from Tiki to support the startup community?
As a startup itself, we try a lot to support entrepreneurs and local businesses. Because Tiki is not just a company that is running on its own, we also have a lot of support from the local businesses so we will continue to do our best to support the startup community.
We have just acquired a local company called TicketBox, so we are looking on how to build on this startup ecosystem and merge into our ecosystem.
Thank you very much!
