[HATCH! REVIEW] Studying the demand of Start-ups for Supporting Activities in Vietnam

REVIEW

STUDYING THE DEMAND OF START-UPS FOR SUPPORTING

ACTIVITIES IN VIETNAMCase Study In Information and Communication

Technology - Startup Ecosystem

Researchers: Le Viet DatCo-founder HATCH! PROGRAM

Nguyen Quang HuyResearch Analyst InternIDG Ventures

Published in National Economics University Review

Supervisors:Le Duc Hoang, MAProfessorNational Economics University

Nguyen D. T. HangExternal Relation DirectorIDG Vietnam

Aaron James EverhartBusiness DirectorLandor Associates

Hanoi 2013

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ........................................................................................................ 2 GLOSSARY ............................................................................................................................... 3 LIST OF TABLES ..................................................................................................................... 4 LIST OF FIGURES .................................................................................................................... 6 CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................ 7

1.1 ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................ 7 1.2 ABOUT RESEARCH .................................................................................................. 9

1.2.1 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES ................................................................................. 9 1.2.2 RESEARCH GOALS ........................................................................................... 9 1.2.3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ......................................................................... 9 1.2.4 SCOPE AND SCALE ........................................................................................ 10

CHAPTER TWO: STARTUPS KNOWLEDGE REVIEW ..................................................... 11

2.1 STARTUP DEFINITION .......................................................................................... 11 2.2 STAGES OF STARTUPS LIFECYCLE ................................................................... 13 2.3 STARTUP ECOSYSTEM AROUND THE WORLD ............................................... 16

CHAPTER THREE: OVERVIEW OF ICT STARTUP ECOSYSTEM IN VIETNAM .......... 23

3.1 ICT START UP IN VIETNAM ................................................................................. 23 3.2 FACTORS ENABLING THE STARTUP ECOSYSTEM IN VIETNAM ................ 28 3.3 SURVEY ANALYSIS ............................................................................................... 51

3.3.1 SURVEY DESCRIPTION ................................................................................. 51 3.3.2 PARTICIPANT’S DESCRIPTION .................................................................... 53 3.3.3 GENERAL OBSERVATION ............................................................................ 55

3.4 RESULT ANALYSIS ................................................................................................ 56

3.4.1 KNOWLEDGE & NETWORK .......................................................................... 56 3.4.2 CAPITAL & PROFESSIONAL SERVICES ..................................................... 82 3.4.3 STATISTIC COMPARISION BETWEEN SUPPORTING ACTIVITIES ........ 96

CHAPTER FOUR: CONCLUSION ...................................................................................... 101 APPENDIX ............................................................................................................................ 106

APPENDIX I: SURVEY FORM ........................................................................................ 106 APPENDIX II: SURVEY RESULT ................................................................................... 111

REFERENCES ....................................................................................................................... 115

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

ICT Entrepreneurship has become an important sector for many countries around the World. It

is not only contributing to the wellbeing of the entrepreneur, the prosperity of the country but

also to the betterment of human being. New communication and technology platform are

making positive changes to our way of living and Entrepreneurs like Elon Musk, Mark

Zuckerberg and etc. are the ones making our World a better place.

Coming to Vietnam from 2000, the entrepreneurial spirit in ICT in Vietnam has been

developing through 3 generations. From that time, ICT startups have been demonstrating its

importance to the Nation. E-commerce, software, application, communication channels and

many more new, made-in-Vietnam platforms in ICT has made a great transformation to the

country comparing to the time in 1990s. Fortunately, the global entrepreneurial community

has start watching closely the movement from Vietnam and investing into it. Therefore, ICT

entrepreneurship could be one of the missing puzzle, required to get Vietnam out of the

middle-income trap.

However, despite the importance of startups in the economy, the survival rate of startups in

Vietnam is still low. This is partly because of the under development of the supporting

activities for enhancing the sustainable growth and long-term development of startups. By

conducting this research over 16 supporting activities in Vietnam, we have observed a strong

demand of startups for them. The most desirable activities are Advisory and Mentorship,

Compliment Events, Media, Education Course on Entrepreneurship and Angel Investor

Network.

On the other hand, there is a critical gap between the demand and supply for startups’

supporting activities. Therefore, the research has stated out an essential mission of building a

strong ICT startup ecosystem in Vietnam with a system of integrated supporting services.

Moreover, looking into the opportunity side, the research also shows a highly potential market

for startups’ supporting activities. In that new market, financial sector plays one of the most

important roles providing financial leverage for the survival and development of startups.

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GLOSSARY

Angel investor: An angel investor is an affluent individual that provides seed-funding for start-up in exchange for agreeable ownership equity. Aspiring Entrepreneurs: Aspiring entrepreneurs are people that deeply want to start new businesses. Auxiliary services: Services that don’t directly affect the development but necessary to the administration and daily operation activities of a startup. Startups: New ventures that are designed to grow fast, solve a serious market pain, and satisfy the demand of many people. Co-working Space: Co-working space is a shared working environment, usually an office, where people from different startups and organizations can come and work together Crowd-funding: A platform that startup could raise fund for by calling donations from the community. Entrepreneur: Entrepreneur is someone who exercises initiatives by organizing a venture to take benefits of an opportunity and being a decision maker to the production of goods or services.

Incubator/Accelerator: Incubators and accelerators are programs designed to support for the development of startups through providing a package of resources, advisory and services

Mentors: Are senior people in community that assist startups by providing consultancy, advisory and mentorship.

Seed-funding: The fund provided for startups in its earliest stage of valuating business model Serial Entrepreneurs: An entrepreneur who continuously comes up with new ideas and starts new businesses. Startup Ecosystem: A community of entrepreneurs and their startups in various stages in conjunction with other individuals and organizations in a location (physical or visual), interacting as a system to create new startup companies.

Startups’ Supporting Services/Activities: Services/Activities support for the sustainable development and fast growth of startups.

Venture Capital (VC): VC is a sub-category of private equity that invests in early-stage, high risk but high potential growth startups and requires high return from them.

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Participants’ Statistics on Gender, Title, Age and Location .................................................... 53 Table 2: 2 Groups of 16 Supporting Activities ...................................................................................... 56 Table 3: Advisory and Mentoring Service - Descriptive Statistic .......................................................... 56 Table 4: Advisory and Mentoring Service - OLS Estimations between S&D and Availability ............ 58 Table 5: Advisory and Mentoring Service - OLS Estimations between S&D and Cost ........................ 59 Table 6: Advisory and Mentoring Service - OLS Estimations between S&D and Quality .................... 59 Table 7: Advisory and Mentoring Service – Correlation Matrix ........................................................... 60 Table 8: Advisory and Mentoring Service - OLS Estimations between Quality and Cost .................... 60 Table 9: Incubator/Accelerators Service - Descriptive Statistic ............................................................ 61 Table 10: Startup Community Event - Descriptive Statistic .................................................................. 63 Table 11: Startup Competition – Descriptive Statistic ........................................................................... 65 Table 12: Startup Competition - Regression Model ............................................................................... 66 Table 13: Communication Channels and Media – Descriptive Statistic ................................................ 68 Table 14: Education Courses - Descriptive Statistic .............................................................................. 69 Table 15: Education Course – Regression Model .................................................................................. 70 Table 16: Educational Courses - Regression model between two variables Quality and Cost .............. 71 Table 17: Educational Courses – Multicollinearity Sub-test 1 ............................................................... 73 Table 18: Educational Courses – Multicollinearity Sub-test 2 ............................................................... 73 Table 19: University Support - Descriptive Statistic ............................................................................. 74 Table 20: Governmental Support – Descriptive Statistic ....................................................................... 76 Table 21: Governmental Support - Regression Model ........................................................................... 77 Table 22: Online Community – Descriptive Statistic ............................................................................ 78 Table 23: Online Community - Regression Model ................................................................................ 79 Table 24: Offline Community - Descriptive Statistic ............................................................................ 80 Table 25: Offline Community - Regression Model ............................................................................... 82 Table 26: Co-working Space / Office Solution – Descriptive Statistic .................................................. 82 Table 27: Co-working Space / Office Solution – Regression Model ..................................................... 84 Table 28: Auxiliary / Back-office Services - Descriptive Statistic ........................................................ 85 Table 29: Auxiliary / Back-office Services – Regression Model ........................................................... 86 Table 30: Investor Network - Descriptive Statistic ................................................................................ 87 Table 31: Investor Network - Regression Model ................................................................................... 88 Table 32: Venture Capital - Descriptive Statistic .................................................................................. 89 Table 33: Venture Capital - Regression Model ...................................................................................... 90 Table 34: Crowd-funding Portal - Descriptive Statistic ......................................................................... 92 Table 35: Crowd-funding Portal - Regression Model ............................................................................ 93 Table 36: Other Funds - Descriptive Statistic ........................................................................................ 94 Table 37: Other Funds - Regression Model ........................................................................................... 95

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Table 38: Other Funds - Regression Model for two variables Quality and Availability ........................ 95 Table 39: Supporting Activities - S&D Statistic Matrix ........................................................................ 96 Table 40: Matrix result of Z Test on S&D of each paired samples ........................................................ 97 Table 41: H1-Approval matrix result on S&D of each paired samples .................................................. 98 Table 42: t-test results for two groups of startups ................................................................................ 100 Table 43: Supporting Activities for Startups – Conclusion Summary ................................................. 102 Table 44: Survey Sample - Participant Database ................................................................................. 111 Table 45: Supporting Activities on Knowledge & Network - Survey Result ...................................... 113 Table 46: Supporting Activities on Capital & Professional Services - Survey Result ......................... 114

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: The Global Startup Ecosystem Index ..................................................................................... 16 Figure 2: Component Index of Tel Aviv Startup Ecosystem ................................................................. 19 Figure 3: Component Index of Singapore Startup Ecosystem ............................................................... 21 Figure 4: Statistics figure of participating startups by ICT Sub Sectors ................................................ 54 Figure 5: Participating Startup's Current Stage ...................................................................................... 54 Figure 6: Advisory and Mentoring Service - Demonstrated Graphs ...................................................... 57 Figure 7: Incubator/Accelerators Service – Demonstrated Graphs ........................................................ 61 Figure 8: Startup Community Event – Demonstrated Graphs ............................................................... 63 Figure 9: Startup Competition – Demonstrated Graphs ......................................................................... 65 Figure 10: Communication Channels & Media – Demonstrated Graphs ............................................... 68 Figure 11: Education Courses – Demonstrated Graphs ......................................................................... 70 Figure 12: University Support – Demonstrated Graphs ......................................................................... 74 Figure 13: Governmental Support – Demonstrated Graphs ................................................................... 76 Figure 14: Online Community – Demonstrated Graphs ........................................................................ 78 Figure 15: Offline Community – Demonstrated Graphs ........................................................................ 80 Figure 16: Co-working Space / Office Solution – Demonstrated Graphs .............................................. 83 Figure 17: Auxiliary / Back-office Services - Demonstrated Graphs .................................................... 85 Figure 18: Investor Network - Demonstrated Graphs ............................................................................ 87 Figure 19: Venture Capital - Demonstrated Graphs ............................................................................... 89 Figure 20: Crowd-funding Portal - Demonstrated Graphs ..................................................................... 92 Figure 21: Other Funds - Demonstrated Graphs .................................................................................... 94

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CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

1.1 ABSTRACT

Recently, the ICT entrepreneurial scene in Vietnam has become more inclusive. This is

definitely good for the economy with more dynamic and innovative companies contributing to

the economy. However, the survival rates of them are low comparing to other countries in the

region such as Singapore and Thailand. There are a lot of reasons causing the differences

among survival rate of startup in different countries. However, one of the decisive reasons is

the impact of startup supporting services to the establishment and long-term development of

startups. Because of its nature empowering for the creation of new companies, these

supporting services include many different items: mentorship, consultancy, funding, office

place, training, education course, research, human resources, strategy, management,

accounting, hosting and etc.

Generally, these services are provided by many different third-party providers in the economy.

However, there are incubator and accelerator which provide a customized package of

supporting resources for new companies. They are the angles for startups as they provide a

safe environment for startups with full of security (necessary supports) so that they can focus

on develop their product, actualize their business plan and execute strategic actions for

sustainable growth. Therefore, business incubator and accelerator can reduce small business

failures and directly enhance the survival rate of startups.

The official website of the National Business Incubation Association (NBIA) of America has

also given out the evidence on the impact of incubator and accelerator on startups.

Historically, NBIA member incubators have reported that 87 percent of all firms that have

graduated from their incubators are still in business. In the general population, 66 percent of

new firms survive at least two years, and 44 percent survive at least four years. It is important

to note that these figures are not directly comparable, due to differences in survey

methodology, time frame and other factors. However, looking at them side by side does

strongly suggest that business incubation reduces the risk of small business failure and offers a

valuable comparison.

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Therefore, we can see how supporting services, in general, can strongly affect the

development of a startup. However, in Vietnam up to now, startup supporting services still

seem to be new to the market and they need an orientation for their development. This

orientation should be based on startups’ demand and suppliers’ capability. On the other hand,

there has not yet been any official and scientific research that could show clearly the

alignment between these two market factors. Furthermore, most of startups’ information about

this comes from online media channel. Unfortunately, most of them are news portals and

blogs, which are based exclusively on personal perception and lack of statistic evidence.

Therefore, we have been determined in conducting a scientific research to partly reveal the

real scenario and contribute to the orientation of supporting services for startups in Vietnam.

Moreover, as founders, startups and those supporting services interact as a system creating an

ecosystem, we would also provide an overview about the ICT entrepreneurial ecosystem in

Vietnam.

Our research will identify startups’ demand, provide the big picture about the startup

ecosystem in Vietnam and give an overview over the supporting market for startup’s

development in Vietnam.

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1.2 ABOUT RESEARCH

1.2.1 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES

» Evaluate the gap between supply and demand of supporting activities for ICT

entrepreneurship in Vietnam.

» Build the first foundation for further research that enhances the development of

entrepreneurship in Vietnam, especially in ICT sector.

1.2.2 RESEARCH GOALS

» Summarize common terminology, theories, researches and perspectives about

entrepreneurship in ICT sector that are well recognized in the world.

» Provide a brief overview about some ICT entrepreneurial ecosystem around the World to

know about what factors create them and what are important to them.

» Give a detailed overview about the ICT entrepreneurial ecosystem in Vietnam and factors

creating and enabling it in Vietnam.

» Identify Vietnamese startups’ demand for supporting services from the ecosystem.

» Make evaluation on the gap between supply and demand for supporting market for ICT

entrepreneurship in Vietnam.

1.2.3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This research is conducted using both quantitative and qualitative method:

» In qualitative method, we have conducted some ‘analysis of documents and materials’ and

‘listing with brief descriptive observation” to give an overview over different ecosystem in

Vietnam and in the World. Without any previous scientific research and as most of the

information is from personal perception, this method could give an appropriate

observation over the big picture of the startup ecosystem.

» In quantitative method, we have conducted a survey to get a specific statistic figures that

will help to identify the gap between the supply and the satisfaction of new startups for

supporting services. The survey is built based on the assumptions made at the beginning of

the research. These assumptions are summarized from previous articles and researches but

most of them do not have back up figures.

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1.2.4 SCOPE AND SCALE

a) SCOPE

This research is initially aimed to explore the entrepreneurship in Vietnam in general.

However, because of the unlimited resources and also the increasing necessity for ICT

entrepreneurial research, this research will focus only on ICT startups. Furthermore, this

research has tendency to provide an overview over the startup ecosystem in Vietnam.

Demand of startups for services and ecosystem development are affected not only by the

physical existence of the stakeholders but also other mental factors. These factors are history,

culture, business etiquette, development stage of the economy and the economic sector, type

of interaction between physical entities and etc. However, within the limitation of this report,

we will only make observation on the physical existence of supporting services and the

ecosystem of ICT startups in Vietnam.

b) SCALE

The report approaches different stakeholders in the ecosystem to do the research. They are:

mentors, founders in different stages and other service providers in the market. However, as

the ecosystem is still young and there have not yet been too many activities, researchers focus

more on founders in different stages.

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CHAPTER TWO: STARTUPS KNOWLEDGE REVIEW

2.1 STARTUP DEFINITION

There are several ways to define a startup; however, not all of them can differentiate between

a startup and a normal enterprise. Many people equalize startup with a cloth shop or a

restaurant. In this kind of definition, startup is just simply about establishing a new business

and operating it overtime. However, in this report, startups are those new business defined to

be unique entities that occupy typical characteristics. Even if these characteristics are

described differently in different point of view, startups in whatever explanations still hold

key common nature.

In order to simplify, we will use only one reliable point of view. It is the one credited to Paul

Graham, Founder of Y-Combinator - the most successful incubator worldwide. In his article

“Startup = Growth” published on September 2012 on his own website, Paul Graham believes

startup should be identified based on the ‘Growth’ - main factor and Demand Scale and

Reachability – two sub factors. Specifically, the main factor ‘Growth’ here should not be

understood an ordinary growth that any business, new or old, must have in order to survive.

‘Growth’ here means super-fast growth and the startup is a new venture designed to grow

extraordinary fast. In other word, successful startups are the ones possess a significant growth

that outstanding them out of normal business. However, if we just look at growth rate, we will

not have full point of view to realize what businesses are startups. Example is that at early

stage of expanding business model and at final stages of maturity, startups normally have a

low or average growth rate. This is indifference with other companies.

In this case, we look into other two sub-factors which are also the vital factors allow startups

to have an impressive growth rate beyond others. These sub factors are Demand Scale and

Reachability. Firstly, Demand Scale describes a startup trying to create solution for a market

pain that a majority of customer really need. Secondly, Reachability describes a startup trying

to reach and satisfy the need of this big number of targeted customers. To be more clearly, we

look at an example. A spaghetti restaurant locates in one district; just a certain number of

customers in this district are convenient to eat in this restaurant. Even though, if this restaurant

is very famous and many people in other districts also want to have meal there; it can’t satisfy

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all of them who have the deman or simply unable to scale up easily. Now compare to

Facebook, it has created a new demand for social network for hundred millions of people and

its platform has reached and been reached most of them.

In conclusion, startups are extraordinary businesses that have outstanding competencies and

potential that other companies do not have. These factors allow startups to be able to achieve

an amazing growth rate.

Based on Paul Graham’s perspective, in this report, we propose other viewpoint that asserts

startup in Vietnam with some characteristics bellow:

• Solve a serious market pain and satisfy the demand a great number of people,

• Incorporate certain amount of innovation to effectively tackle down the market pain,

• Be designed to grow fast and have a promising high growth rate.

We also based on these characteristics to find startup who invited to complete the survey.

Looking further, we can also identify startups in other industries, besides ICT, by using these

characteristics. For instant in Vietnam, there are many startups in Food & Beverage industry.

One of them is the ‘Super Fresh Sugar Cane Juice’ franchise. It satisfies a large market need,

innovates in branding and customer experiences for an old, popular service and is designed as

a franchise to grow fast on duplication. Until now, the ‘Super Fresh Sugar Cane Juice’

franchise has expanded rapidly and achieved high growth rate nationwide.

However, in this report, we just concentrate on startups in ICT industry.

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2.2 STAGES OF STARTUPS LIFECYCLE

Startup is a new venture designed to grow fast. Then, in the executing process to achieve that

growth, there are many common stages for all startups. Therefore, in order to have the same

perception over the development stage of startup, we create definition for each stage and call

the combination of them as ‘Startup Lifecycle’.

There are many way to classify a startup lifecycle. These classifications are very important to

analyze startup because of different characteristics and concerns of startup at each stage. The

upcoming list summaries some common startup lifecycle:

a) The list begins with lifecycle that stated in the article “7 biến số quan trọng cần cân nhắc

khi áp dụng các lời khuyên và kinh nghiệm startup” in Westart (21/12/2012), author Việt

Dương. Access 21/6/2013.

There are 5 clearly stages:

• Problem/Solution fit: Startups discover appropriate solution for target problem

• Product/Market fit: Startups customize their products to meet two big requirement,

solving problem and satisfying customer need.

• Optimization: Startups finalize and extend its platform to efficiently and effectively

provide products/services to customers. They optimize all available resources in order

to increase profit margin.

• Scaling: Startups achieve its highest growth rate. Growth rate would be calculated in

term of customer scale, sale, or capital.

• Transitioning: Startups make decisions on keeping the business sustainable, selling it,

transforming by developing opportunities or getting down.

b) The second method is proposed in Speed up your Startup, author Mikko Järvenpää

believes there are six stages for a startup life. They are:

• Concept or pre-start: Founder finalizes his/her good idea about their future business

after a finding and filtering process.

• Pre-launch startup: Startup builds different products/services prototypes.

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• Beta stage with customers: Startup provides prototype to customers; gets feedbacks

and actualizes its final products.

• Established with customers: Startup finalizes the product; delivers to the market; sets

and retains relationships with customers.

• Deadpool: Startups may develop and gain great success. However, startups may fail

and have to sell out business.

• Acquired: Startups may be sold to other big corporation at a high price if they have

been successful during the deadpool stage or be sold at low price to regain part of

initial investment if they fail.

c) According to Steve Gary Blank in Four steps to the Epiphany, he proposes a model based

on three continuous, different centric: Company Centric, Product Centric and Customer

Centric (Agile Development).

Firstly, Company Centric (4 Stages):

• Customer Discovery

• Customer Validation

• Customer Creation

• Company Building

Secondly, Product Centric (6 Stages):

• Discovery: Startups focus on exploring whether they are solving a meaningful problem

and whether anybody would hypothetically be interested in their solution.

• Validation: Startups are looking to get early validation that people are interested in

their product through the exchange of money or attention

• Efficiency: Startups refine their business model and improve the efficiency of their

customer acquisition process. Startups should be able to efficiently acquire customers in

order to avoid scaling with a leaky bucket.

• Scale: Startups step on the gas pedal and try to drive growth very aggressively

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• Sustain: Startups reach the pick of growth with sustainable number of customers and

certain amount of revenue. All resources will be utilized to stabilize products and retain

market share.

• Conservation: Startups make actions to renew products or fall into declining trend.

Finally, Customer centric or Agile Development (5 Stages):

• Architectural Spike

• Release Planning

• Iteration

• Acceptance Tests

• Small Releases

According to rational consideration, we choose Steve Gary Blank’s proposed lifecycle –

Product Centric because of two reasons. One is that Product Centric lifecycle has more

specific classification than other models. It helps researchers have better understanding about

participating startups. Moreover, this classification was incorporated in the lean startup model

that has become familiar with Vietnam startup community. As a result, it will be more

convenient for startups to do the survey. The second reason is the model’s creditability. We

believe in the accuracy, popularity and the advancement of Product Centric lifecycle because

it was used in Startup Ecosystem Report 2012 (Startup Genome) – the well-known report

among global startups’ community.

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2.3 STARTUP ECOSYSTEM AROUND THE WORLD

A startup ecosystem is a community of entrepreneurs and their startups in various stages in

conjunction with other individuals and organizations in a location (physical or virtual),

interacting as a system to create new startup companies. These organizations can be in

different categories: universities, funding organizations, support organizations (like

incubators, accelerators, co-working spaces, etc.), research organizations, service provider

organizations (like legal, financial services, etc.) and large corporation. These organizations

typically focus on specific parts of the ecosystem function and/or startup at their specific

development stage.

Last year, “The Startup Ecosystem Report 2012” published by Startup Genome on December

2012 suggests a list of Top 20 Startup Ecosystems around the World, ranking based on several

index. The result is showed in The Global Startup Ecosystem Index below.

Most of the listed ecosystems are from developed areas like America (Silicon Valley, Los

Angeles, Seattle, New York City, Boston and Chicago), Canada (Canada’s Technology

Triangle: Toronto, Vancouver and Waterloo), Europe (London, Berlin, Paris and Moscow)

and Australia (Sidney and Melbourne). However, it is not unexpected to see Singapore, which

has been striving hard to be the leading ICT startup center in Asia, in the 17th place. Beside

Russia, India (Bangalore) and Brazil (Sao Paulo), from the BRIC countries, are also in the list.

However, the last ecosystem is not from China, but Chile (Santiago). This should be careful in

Figure 1: The Global Startup Ecosystem Index

Source: The Startup Ecosystem Report 2012

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making statement whether China has no ecosystem on the top 20 or just because not many

China’s startups takes part in the database of the report’s creator.

In order to understand more about what factors join in creating startup ecosystem around the

World and even somehow their history, we would have a brief look on several key

representatives.

Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley, in the southern region of the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California, in

the United States, is considered as the first startup ecosystem in the World. This ecosystem is

by far and away the strongest ecosystem for high-tech innovation and development,

accounting for one-third of all of the venture capital investment in the United States (Money

Tree Report, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Q1 2010 US results). Historically, Silicon Valley is

initially formed in the beginning of 1900s when an ecosystem has been formed between

Stanford University and high-tech firms in the region, based on the same interest of for the

industrial development of the area. After five decades of continuous collaboration, this initial

ecosystem had given born to many high-tech firms (Hewlett Packard, Varian Associates, etc.)

around the campus of Stanford University. Furthermore, under the strong assistance of the

State, Stanford Industrial Park, Stanford Research Institute (now SRI International), Xerox’s

PARC and many other high-tech initiatives had been created and made the ecosystem the

strongest technology center in the World. In 1957, the newly developed silicon transistor had

officially given the ecosystem the name known nowadays: Silicon Valley. During this time,

semiconductors are still a major component of the area’s economy. However, from 1960s,

Silicon Valley has been most famous for innovations in software with the founding of 3Com,

Adobe Systems, Cisco, Apple Computer, Microsoft and etc. Activated by these new high-tech

firms, from 1970s, Silicon Valley also observes the emergence of the venture capital industry

which later played an important role in the creation of startups. The development of the

Internet in mid 1980s and its commercialization in 1995 had made a great impact on the

Silicon Valley. Adapting the new interconnected network from the early day, Silicon Valley

had been leading the Internet bubble (from 1997 to 2000) and the new economy sector:

“Internet sector” or “information and communication technology”. After the dot-com crash

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and until now, Silicon Valley continues to maintain its status as one of the top research and

development centers or ecosystems in the world.

Before the dot-com bubble or even 5-8 years ago, we hardly heard of any other ICT

ecosystem. However, after the success of Silicon Valley with a great number of dot-com

companies were founded during the bubble, there has been an underlying trend to develop

other startup ecosystem around the globe. With inspiration from startup stories incubated by

Y-Combinator and 500 Startups (from 2005) and especially with the introduction of Eric Ries’

The Lean Startup from 2008, mastering the ICT sector has been the mission of many

communities and even countries.

Tel Aviv

The report finds that Tel Aviv, a highly advanced ecosystem in Israel, is the leading

alternative to Silicon Valley. The country has produced a highly respectful number of over

4000 startups in the high-tech industry with 60% of their startup can manage to raise funds.

Moreover, more than 40% of them are still around and play an important role for the job

market and economy of the country. This is more respectable as Israel is just created less than

7 decades ago, is geographically isolated and, still has war with surrounding neighbor

countries and has a population of just 8 million.

When the 2009-book “Start-up Nation: The story of Israel’s Economic Miracle” is released, it

showed how a great ecosystem has been the back-bone for this world-class innovation hub for

startups. Firstly, it is about the culture and perception of the whole country. “The great irony

of the Start-Up Nation story is that Israel has transformed the challenges it has faced into

assets that form the cornerstones of its culture of innovation. Adversity of all

kinds, such as being under attack, small, isolated, and lacking resources, have

forced Israelis to be resourceful, to do more with less, to innovate, and to be global from day

one. The fact that Israel specializes in adversity is most dramatically seen in downturns.”

Moreover, people tend to learn and study to advance themselves Secondly, Israeli government

has played a fundamental role in the dynamic nature of the startup ecosystem with 4.3% GDP

is invested in R&D. Furthermore, the Government has pushed so hard on branding its country

to be a startup nation and this effort has been paid off successfully with more attention and

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more resources. Implemented policy also makes it more comfortable for people to start their

company in Israel and even it is planning to implement a startup VISA for startup who is

interested in starting from Israel. Resource for startup including mentorship and funding are

the next most important factors. Based on The Startup Ecosystem Report, Israel has a healthy

funding source as strong as Silicon Valley on the funding index and even it is slightly more

focused on angels, and less on family/friends. Lastly, Tel Aviv also has a great supporting

industry and community. Beside other third party service provider, incubator and accelerator

play an important role for the sustainability of startups. Moreover, startups in Israel are also

supported by a small but open and enthusiastic mentor community which helps to reduce

failure by lesser mistakes in startups.

Figure 2: Component Index of Tel Aviv Startup Ecosystem

Singapore

The report noted Singapore, ranked 17th, has the potential to become the central startup

ecosystem of Asia, bringing together the markets of China, India, Indonesia, and Malaysia.

The city-state's "unique geographical position at the heart of Asia provides a fertile

environment for entrepreneurs to start, grow and scale their businesses not only in Asia, but

globally", it added. Singapore performed well, ranked 8th, in both the funding and talent

indexes. The funding index measures how active and how comprehensive the risk capital is in


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a startup ecosystem, while the talent index measures how talented the founders are in the

startup ecosystem.

The first impression when looking at this ecosystem is how active the Singapore Government

is in enforcing the community both directly and indirectly. The Singapore government has

been making concerted efforts to encourage a startup environment, setting aside funds to

support such activities and providing access to these via its various agencies including the

Economic Development Board and International Enterprise Singapore. At least there have

been two tax incentives in helping start-ups preserve cash flow and profits (no tax on first

S$100,000 of chargeable income for the first 3 years of tax assessment) and encouraging start-

ups to carry out more research and development (R&D) in Singapore (cash grant up to

S$20,250 for the first 3 years of tax assessment). That information is well published not only

to the whole community but also the World to attract talent resources in the Government’s

website (http://www.enterpriseone.gov.sg). Beside these indirect schemes, the Government is

also more than active in providing direct assistance to the purpose of creating new companies.

There have been four schemes implemented: government-aided equity financing schemes,

cash grants, business incubator schemes, and debt financing schemes.

Beside talent with a high index, the community in Singapore is also highly active and

interactive. Not only the community is attracting resources from outside with many regional

and global activities but also it is reaching out. Serial entrepreneurs, angel investors,

incubators and funding organizations are more than active in flying to other countries in the

South East Asia region seeking for new market and opportunities. One more to cover, best

media and blog channels (techinasia.com, e27.com and etc.) for startup community in Asia are

mostly based in Singapore.

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Figure 3: Component Index of Singapore Startup Ecosystem

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Overall Observation

After a brief review about the ecosystem, we can see how important is the role of an

ecosystem to the development of startups in the country. Moreover, we can see that a

developed ecosystem required a great deal of united goals from many resources in the

environment around startups. It is important for an ecosystem to have support from its

Government to develop. However, it is not the only case, a very strong advancement from one

factor in the ecosystem can also leading to an ecosystem. In the case of Silicon Valley, it is the

vision of the leaders of Stanford University (an academic entity) and other high-tech firms

(enterprises) in the region.

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CHAPTER THREE: OVERVIEW OF ICT STARTUP ECOSYSTEM IN VIETNAM

3.1 ICT START UP IN VIETNAM

ICT Entrepreneurship’s footprint has been recognized in Vietnam from 2000 and there is an

unofficial category which divides the ICT startup time into three generations. The first

generation is from 2000 to 2005, the second one is from 2006 to 2010 and third generation is

from 2011 to the present.

The first generation of Vietnamese ICT startups observed the popular introduction of

commercialized computer and Internet into Vietnam from around the mid of 1990s. By that

time, computer, mobile and Internet’s penetration is still not large and ICT was mostly about

Internet’s basic application, software and also games. Therefore, the idea of starting up a

company from the ICT factor is still not well perceived and even considered as a dream. As a

result, the ICT startup in this period might had come but left nothing remarkable.

The second generation of ICT startup from 2006 to 2010 comes with the inspiration from

initial success of VẬT GIÁ and VNG and also the more popularity of Internet and personal

computer in Vietnam. Smartphone are also introduced. However, the market in this generation

was more focused on the stock and the real estate market and the mass crisis later.

Two representatives of ICT startups in Vietnam from the second generation are VẬT GIÁ and

VNG:

VẬT GIÁ - is the first and currently the biggest e-commerce platform in Vietnam. VẬT GIÁ

is founded on 20/08/2006 by Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Diep, who has been familiar with e-commerce

while he is working in Japan. With the common perception that “Vietnamese people will

never buy goods from the Internet”, hardly there were any companies supported him and even

he had been refused by more than 20 technology companies to build an ecommerce platform

because of its complexity and high requirements. Therefore, he had to build his own team and

independently develop his company from scratch with 300,000 USD of self-financing. After

one year, on 15/07/2007, VẬT GIÁ was officially launched. The money was quickly burned

out after one year and he had to use all of his resource and network to raise additional fund for

VẬT GIÁ’s daily operation. Fortunately, on 03/2008, IDG Venture Capital made the

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investment on VẬT GIÁ. The ecommerce website quickly grown after that but lack of

experiences and knowledge, the company struggled in management crisis. Only after solving

the issues by skills applied from a borrowed book, Mr. Diep had been able to define the

company’s vision and key values and from that point, VẬT GIÁ started stabilizing and

developing to the current leading position.

VNG - is one of the largest Internet companies in Vietnam founded by Mr. Le Hong Minh.

Most, if not all, of the Vietnamese who are into gaming and technology know of his story as

an entrepreneur. The story started with Minh as a game lover from the time he was 15 when

games were introduced to Vietnam in 1992. After attending World Cybergames (one of the

most popular global event for games) in Korea in 2002, besides working as an investment

banker in Vina Capital, he established a small game room (internet cafe). Mu Global, an

online game, is so popular worldwide these days, but only in English. Therefore, Minh

thought there was an opportunity to make online games in Vietnamese. He failed to license

MU Global in Korea but successfully got Swordsman Online (a popular game of Kingsoft, a

Chinese software company). The game became a blockbuster in Vietnam, 6 months later after

its launch in 2005, under the company named Vinagame, initiative of VNG. The company is

profitable in the first year and even could got its first and only financing round from IDG. In

2009, Vinagame rebranded as VNG, an internet company, in which besides licensing and

developing games, VNG has other internet ventures in music distributor (Zing MP3), news

and entertainment portal (Zing News), chat platform (Zing Chat) and a social network (Zing

ME). These products are usually the leading service in its industry which have brought VNG a

great deal of awards. In 2013, VNG is trying to expand into the mobile sector with Zalo (an

application for communication via mobile) and also it aims to successfully extend its market

in China and Japan.

During this first two generations, people kept an eye on America’s Silicon Valley with Y-

Combinator, Facebook, etc. and even if the attention is directed out of America, it would just

stop over the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China). Therefore, what happened in

Vietnam did not catch much attention, not only from the world but also from the mass media

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in Vietnam. The evidence could be seen that most of the contents and news from that time was

recorded only on paper media and hardly could we track them backward.

Fortunately, the global entrepreneurial community around the World has now put more

attention on Asia, including Vietnam as one of the three most potential for future development

in ICT startups (Vietnam, India and China - VIC). This becomes one of the most important

factors for the development of the third generation of startups: from 2011 to present. Not only

mass media attention, this period comes with many more great backgrounds for the

development of a new startup scene. The internet users and mobile subscribers penetration of

Vietnam is rated high comparing to other countries in Southeast Asia in 2012: 1st rank in

mobile with 174% and 3rd rank in Internet with 30% (lower than Singapore and Thailand)

(Source: IMF). Furthermore, in Vietnam as of Q1 2012 smartphone penetration was around

30 percent but only 11 percent of subscribers had a 3G subscription (Source: GSMA

Intelligence). Furthermore, the ecosystem is more diversified with more supporting activities

from venture capital (Cyber Agent Ventures), co-working space (Saigon Hub), incubator

(5Design), community (HATCH!) and so on. Furthermore, the introduction of “The Lean

Startup” and many successful example of this model in Vietnam has been a great inspiration

leading to the very dynamic community nowadays with thousands of aspiring founders.

The third generation of ICT startups in Vietnam has been giving birth to many new startups

and many of them has been extremely successful not only in Vietnam marker but also in the

global market. Some recent well-known startups like that are Appota, MisFit, Kleii and

CocCoc.

Appota - is a dynamic & innovative company in ICT industry in Vietnam. The company

serves mobile developers, content providers, advertisers and smartphone users by being a

platform to connect and distribute mobile application. Appota was founded on 12/12/2011 by

Mr. Do Tuan Anh when he took part in the the Entrepreneurship course Founder Institute

organized by TOPICA Education Group and the Founder Institute International. From

participating in DEMO ASIA (a platform to showcase emerging technology and trend in

Pacific Asia) in Singapore on 01/03/2012, Appota had attracted more and more attention from

Asia and international mobile application developers. Best achievement of all is “Most

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Disruptive” award from Founder Showcase event organized by Founder Institute International

in America. This is not only a proud for Appota but also Vietnam and Appota had been named

as “Startup of Year 2012” by the Vietnam startup community. Now, Appota is now an

application distributor for international developers to Vietnam and it has opened its

representative office in Singapore and China.

MisFit - is a company specialized in making wearable accessories for medical health care by

using mobile application. MisFit is founded by Sonny Vu (successful entrepreneur in medical

health care in America) and John Sculley (former CEO of Apple Computer). In order to start

with a low cost and risk, MisFit used Indiegogo (a community funding platform - crowd-

funding - which help startup to raise fund from future user or donor from the vast community)

to raised USD $846,675, exceeding the initial goals of USD $100,000. Impressed the World

by this number, they are also further raised USD $7.6 million in April 2013 and they are

massively recruiting their R&D team in Vietnam to develop its first product: Shine.

Kleii - is an online storing platform (cloud service) co-founded by Mr. Nguyen Tuan Son and

Mr. Yerlan Tasbulatov in 2011. It is located in BTIC, a technology park located in Binh

Duong, north of Ho Chi Minh City, heavily invested by Vietnamese Government and aspiring

to be Vietnam’s technology hub like Silicon Valley. Using the freemium model like DropBox,

the company has been observing an aggressive growth in its users, about 750,000 users

worldwide in April 2013. Undisclosed amount of seed funding has been invested and it is

looking for series A funding from Silicon Valley. Kleii is especially ambitious in competing in

the the global market seriously. It has been experienced a spike in Japanese users and now is

focusing in the growing market in Brazil.

CocCoc - is another interesting story of Vietnamese startup. It is a Russian-financed

Vietnamese Search Engine plans to spend USD $100 Million to beat Google, which is not

only the top search engine but also the number one website in Vietnam (Source: Alexa).

Arrived on 30/01/2013 after two years of initiative, the team has about 400 people and has

burned over USD $15 million. Together with the CEO, Victor Lavrenko, there are also 40

engineers in the team who have had experiences battling Google back to Russia with the

native search engine, Nigma and Yandex. Focusing on what Google has not yet optimized for

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the local market, CocCoc has been continuously released more and more feature which should

be liked by the native. The discussion over the ambitious goal of CocCoc has gone to many

different directions but the scenery is still a positive sign for the entrepreneurship development

in Vietnam.

Even those examples cannot showed all aspects of the third generation of ICT startup in

Vietnam but it do show the undeniable impact and success that ICT startups are contributing

to the prosperity and the future development of this country. An estimated of dozens and up to

hundreds of startups out there is a promising number for the bright future of the third

generation.

However, there are still many aspects preventing the third generation to develop to

maximization. Three most critical issues are the lack of capital, market understanding and

experiences. Lack of knowledge and market understanding is the biggest problem that makes

some startups become dreamers who create an imagine market. As Vietnam is a developing

market, its users’ behavior is totally different that in developed country. Thus, without

proactive innovation, many startups will waste their time and resources exploring a not yet

mature or developed market. Lack of knowledge or experiences, on the other hand, leads to

failure deal to lesser mistakes and unsustainable model for development. For some startups,

founders are too technically oriented and lack the management skills or business mindset to

grow their business. For other startups, founding ICT startups without the understanding of

new technology and platform is also a dangerous deal. The last critical issue is the lack of

fund, as the venture capital and incubator industry in Vietnam is not yet developed.

Furthermore, unstable market and lack of market’s official research and information for risk

management is also a constraint for seeking outside funding.

Many startups recognize their weakness, but it’s not easy to find suitable cofounders, mentors

as not many people can commit to follow a startup’s dream in the long run. This creates a

strong demand for support from a larger scale: from the government, the community and etc.

Moreover, these supports would be more effective and efficient if it come from a united

ecosystem with the same vision and goal.

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3.2 FACTORS ENABLING THE STARTUP ECOSYSTEM IN VIETNAM

An ecosystem consists of not only physical units, but also the interactions between them, other

units and the environment within and surrounding them. In order to deeply understand an

ecosystem, we need to go to the root of the interactions which is the culture, the history and

many other factors of the ecosystem. However, as the ecosystem in Vietnam is just in the

beginning of the development stage, it is still too early to make a concrete conclusion based

only on personal observation and unofficial data and research. Therefore, under the scale and

scope of this research, we will only provide an overview over the current situation of startup

ecosystem in Vietnam by listing out those entities and organizations that are considered to be

contributing to the startup ecosystem.

3.2.1 ENTREPRENEURS

The world pictures entrepreneurs as innovative and driven people that want to turn their ideas

into real businesses. To define how many types of Entrepreneurs there are is not an easy job

due to the simple fact that every entrepreneur is unique and different. However, in this part,

there are some listed categories that most entrepreneurs would fall into in Vietnam market.

a) Aspiring entrepreneurs

Aspiring entrepreneurs are people that deeply want to start new businesses. Most of them are

considered as young, talented and ambitious, no matter they have ideas or not, their career

paths are not supposed to be as normal as an employee in a specific company. These days,

when entrepreneurship is one of the priorities of the country, the trend of wannabe

entrepreneurs hits many of Vietnamese youth with bright new ideas that could bring great

benefits to, the society or even help build high-revenue businesses. Therefore, there are quite a

number of events which encourage those ideas to be presented and developed. Additionally,

online platforms like Forums, clubs and websites of startups are also created to support those

would-be entrepreneurs to find partners or share experience and knowledge. As estimated,

there are around thousands of wannabe entrepreneurs that are soon to be young entrepreneurs.

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b) Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneur is someone who exercises initiatives by organizing a venture to take benefits of

an opportunity and being a decision maker to the production of goods or services. His

responsibilities are to seek for business opportunities and create business systems to utilize

those opportunities for financial gain.

As a matter of fact that Entrepreneurship is considered as a critical vital to the prosperity of a

nation, yet in Vietnam, the full potential of entrepreneurship has not been fully realized.

According to the statistics of General Statistics Office 2012, the number of entrepreneurs is

approximately 36,000, in which SMEs account for 97% of total entrepreneurs but contribute

only 40% of GDP. This is not the ideal image for Vietnam despite great deal of effort and

investment. However, facing the situation that entrepreneurial spirit is spreading faster than

ever and the development of supporting systems and program, there would be a strong belief

in the brighter future of the entrepreneurism in this country.

c) Serial entrepreneurs

Serial entrepreneur is who continuously comes up with new ideas and starts new businesses.

As opposed to a typical entrepreneur, who will often come up with an idea, start the company,

and then commit to develop the company through time, a serial entrepreneur will often come

up with the idea and get things started, but then give responsibility to someone else after some

concrete achievements and move on to a new venture. This can be a good thing if

the individual has lots of unique ideas and is the best one suited to get each one started, but

can be a bad thing if the individual stops putting time into a company that needs his or her

help, in order to try to move forward with a new idea that may or may not succeed.

d) Foreign entrepreneurs

This is because of Vietnam is now a new attention point for entrepreneurial community

around the world, especially, when more and more Vietnamese startups are making their

position in the global market. Furthermore, as “The Lean Startup” is the most popular model

recently, cheap bootstrapping has been an important factor. With cheap food, cheap renting,

cheap transportation and not many insurance policy, Vietnam provides startups - which has no

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concern on the place but the Internet - a very good place to start their next dot com giant.

Furthermore, “the cost of operations is low as such it is easy to pivot or to test several ideas/

products”, said by Jeffrey Paine, found partner of Golden Gate Ventures in the interview with

Albert Mai for his blog “Vietnam Startup from Perspectives of Overseas Investor”. Low cost

of operation also leads to another advantage for investors when funding through stages.

These foreign forces are a great source of mentors and investors for the community in

Vietnam.

3.2.2 INVESTORS / FUNDING SOURCES

A typical startup goes through several rounds of funding. When startups look for the early

stage investments with their growing business, there are three main types of investors for

startup businesses: friends and families, angel investors and venture capitalists. However, as

the traditional investment market in Vietnam has been stricter due to the economic crisis, there

are some different forms such as investment fund and crowd funding platform which help

startups deal with the fund exercise.

a) Friends and Families

Besides self-financing, investment from friends and family is the second most-used-way in

financing a new business when there is no alternative available. One reason for this fact is that

this type of investors is the one that could provide the earliest seed money for startup and

agree to receive return or repayment later on and even without interest payment. They are not

considered as accredited investors under the government obligations; however, it is still

counted an investment. Therefore, it should not be take it easy by putting trust as a key

management as most of Vietnamese people perceive but still need to be documented in written

forms.

b) Angel Investors

An angel investor is an affluent individual that provide most seed-funding for start-up in

exchange for agreeable ownership equity. Angel investors have to take big risk, as they have

to trust the start-up team and investing in a business model with high level of uncertainty.

These individuals tend to form into group and split risk into smaller parts. By far, the most

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prominent angel investor groups are SAVVi Angel which specifically targets on technology

startups in Vietnam.

c) Venture Capitals

This could be considered as the most desired form of investors for startup founders. Venture

Capital is a sub-category of private equity that invests in early-stage with high risk but high

potential and growth startups and requires high return from them. Most VCs start to invest

after the angel investors have provided the seed funding. In Vietnam so far, some foreign

venture capital firms set their footsteps in Vietnam startup market and stirring up Vietnam’s

venture capital landscape. IDF Ventures and DFJ Vina Captial are pulling away from tech

startups and shifting to more incubatory and practical approach. CyberAgent Ventures and

Japanese VC firms have made active investments focusing on Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh city.

IDG Ventures: By far IDG Ventures Vietnam is the most prominent VC in Vietnam, a part of

the International Data Group (IDG) having global operation over 5 countries (Vietnam, China,

India, Korea & U.S). Their main focus is consumer technology, media or ICT industry in

general. Highlighted portfolio includes: Moore Corp, YeuAmNhac, Vinagame, Tamtay JSC,

FBNC, Cyvee (Media & Entertainment), Apollo Vietnam, VC Corps, Pyramid Consulting

(Information & Communication Technology), WebTreTho, Vietnamworks, Vinabook,

PeaceSoft, Hocmai.vn, DiaOcOnline (Tech-enabled business), Vinapay, Diadiem JSC

(Consumer Product).

DFJ Vinacapital: This is also one of the earliest VCs in Vietnam. DFJ is part of Vinacapital

and joint-force with Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ) network. DFJ Vinacapital leverages on the

extensive resource from Vinacapital with 200 companies invested & DFJ with 600 portfolios

funded globally. Highlighted investment deals are: Chicilon Media, Timnhanh & Yeah 1!

Corporation.

CyberAgent Ventures: It is part of CyberAgent Group – in which highlighted investment

deals are CleverAds, Nhaccuatui, Colorbox & Tiki.vn. One of their newest startups

investments is Seconds, which already reached the series A level.

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d) Investment Funds

Vietnam has not yet set a large amount of investment funds that actually focus on startups

these days as the percentage of failure is estimated to be high (around 75%). However, as the

startup trend is developed than ever, it seems to have more investment funds established.

PVNI (Prosperous Vietnam Investment Corporation) is a venture capital network investing

in highly potential startups in Vietnam from $25000 - $250000 in seed, or more in the

consecutive rounds. Its current focus is high quality consumer goods and services, green food,

high tech, social media and education. This fund brings real-life experiences and capital

resources to help outstanding entrepreneurs turn their promising ideas to market-defining and

market-leading companies.

SAVVi (Strategic Alliance Vietnamese Ventures International) - is a subscription based

global platform providing services to those wishing to do business with Vietnamese

professionals and Vietnam. Based in the U.S. with chapters in Northern and Southern

California, Texas, Vietnam, and France; SAVVi provides an angel investment group, training

and consulting.

Học+Làm=Giàu investment fund with IDT’s funds (trading, investment and international

technology development joint-stock company) and other fund sources: Selecting the brilliant

ideas, business solutions to invest. It starts with 5 billion VND, including 1 billion from IDT

and 4 billion from others.

e) Crowd-funding

Crowd-funding is started from 2006 and quite popular in the world, but has just come to

Vietnam this year 2013. Basically, it is a platform that startup could raise fund for by calling

donations from the community. Appearing in the startup community from 2006 with Pledgie

but IndieGoGo (2008) and Kickstarter (2009) are most well-known in the global startup

community. There have been some Vietnamese startups successfully raising fund via this new

approach, the most popular case is MisFit with $846,675, exceed 850% of their goal, from

IndieGoGo.

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Ig9.vn - is the first crowd funding website in Vietnam. The website has not only attracted

startups but also many community projects. Some projects have successfully raised fund from

the crowd. Even there are still not many startups choosing this platform to finance their work

but it is great that Ig9.vn has brought the awareness of crowd funding to the community in

Vietnam.

3.2.3 MENTORS / ADVISORS / CONSULTING FIRMS

When startup founders are in trouble with their sustainable business development

management, mentors appear to lend entrepreneurs a hand by sharing their lifetime of business

experience. From all backgrounds and working fields, mentors are often classified into 3

categories.

a) Startup Experts

They are serial entrepreneurs with experience in multiple startups fields that successfully grew

up and stand solid on the market, or being sold to giant companies. As they have been through

a startup life, from an idea to the market, facing different stages of development, dealing with

variety of crisis or difficulties, they could be one of the most inspired people to dispense not

only experience but the true entrepreneurial spirit to the youth, who aim to be the real

entrepreneur.

b) Industry Experts

They are individuals with an extensiveness of industry-specific experience. At that particular

industry, they could be persons considered as top notch industry insiders, adopting broad view

of the industry, and probably have catered a lot of market research reports in needs of the

industry players.

Most of Vietnam industry experts are former business analyst at government offices, head

professors in Vietnam business top universities, directors or CEOs.

c) Profession Experts

Profession Experts are those who currently working on a specific field and have a strong

expertise on their profession. They are the one who can train startups with a set of specific

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skills or give advice on several issues relating to their profession (Law, Accounting, Finance,

Marketing, IT, Infrastructure, Operations, etc.).

This class of mentors roots from department directors, managers that have experiences

crossing various workplaces, from professors of specific-knowledge universities, or

institutions in Vietnam, or even from former startup founders, CEOs. These mentors are

qualified of having real understanding Vietnam’s business facts within their particular

expertise. They helped startups in startup program sessions as consultants of from naming,

branding company to legality of the startup company. Each part of startup plans is in want of

specific-knowledge mentors that help prepare startups with potential risks ahead, and transport

factual solutions or previous implications of others.

Several mentors are competent to fit all above categories. In general, Vietnam has plenty of

entrepreneurs doing business on, yet the factual number of experienced startup entrepreneurs

that could provide and be ready to share relevant advice to overall entrepreneur community is

small. Mentors are not many available, plus not many rooms for them to dispense their

knowledge like meet-ups or mentorship-promote activities. Hence, mentorship is in high

demand for domestic startups.

d) Consulting Firms

Beside mentorship from mentors or advisors, startups could also seek for help from consulting

firms. These are the enterprises which focus is to giving consultancy in their expertise (market

analysis, strategic management, strategy, branding, ideation, etc.). Currently, startups when

entering those services need to pay for a specific fee and get consulted for a period. However,

with the strong mentorship program under the consulting firm, there could be considered as a

money-worth investment for positioning the development direction with sustainability.

3.2.4 INCUBATORS / ACCELERATORS

Incubators and accelerators are programs designed to support for the development of startups

through providing a package of resources, advisory and services. This package varies based on

the differences in target startup, market situation and stage or specific demand of startups. In a

general understanding, incubators are specially focused more on necessities for a very new

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startup can feel safe and focus on developing its business by offering office space, business

skills training, advisory and access to financing and professional networks. On the other hand,

accelerators help companies to get from the stage of incubation into high growth and mature

development by providing high-value resources on strategic development. Because of the

differences in the demand of startup in different stages, an incubator program usually last from

3 to 6 months and an accelerator program lasts after one year and even longer.

Business incubators increase the survival rate and reduce the risk of small business failures.

The official website of the National Business Incubation Association (NBIA) of America has

also given out the evidence on the impact of incubator and accelerator on startups.

Historically, NBIA member incubators have reported that 87 percent of all firms that have

graduated from their incubators are still in business. In the general population, 66 percent of

new firms survive at least two years, and 44 percent survive at least four years. It is important

to note that these figures are not directly comparable, due to differences in survey

methodology, time frame and other factors. However, looking at them side by side does

strongly suggest that business incubation reduces the risk of small business failure and offers a

valuable comparison.

Along with the growth of startups, various types of incubators have established to support

initial ideas and enforce its development in the startup arena. There are approximately more

than 10 incubators in the whole of Vietnam in the two major cities Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh.

Some incubators are highly appreciated by startups and have contributed greatly to the

positive growth of startup in Vietnam in the past few years.

Topica Founder Institute, operated in Vietnam by TOPICA Education Group, is an early-

stage startup accelerator and global launch network that helps entrepreneurs create meaningful

and enduring technology startups. Through a part-time four-month program, existing and

prospective founders could launch their dream companies with professional trainings,

constructive feedback, and auxiliary supports from experienced startup CEOs. Topica Founder

Institute has been successful create a launching platform for Appota. Beside the Founder

Institute, TOPICA has been actively supporting the ICT entrepreneurship in Vietnam with

different valuable and impactful programs in incubating and accelerating new technology

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businesses. It is the one supporting the establishment of the first incubation center in Vietnam:

CRC-TOPIC, under the support of World Bank InfoDev.

SME Networking and Mentoring (SME) Program – a non-profit project under the

authorization of U.S. Embassy launched from 2011 that provides young business people with

opportunity to learn and share through mentorship, at the same time a social networking

platform to young enterprises. Furthermore, the serial activities of SME program have

provided short-term solutions at the same time a foundation to achieve long-term goals of

enterprises when they are able to establish a close connection between successful business

people and startups.

5DESIRE - is a Vietnamese Incubator and Consulting Firm accelerating startups in different

sectors through an array of business resources and services support. Every year, a limited

number of the best startups are chosen by 5DESIRE to participate in an incubation program

focusing on product development, technology, business strategy, etc. During this incubation

process, 5DESIRE works intensively with these budding companies to enable them to thrive

and flourish by themselves. 5DESIRE is running a co-working space aiming to gather global

entrepreneurs, experts and developers.

Becamex Technology & Innovation Center (TIC) - is a large center in Binh Duong (30km

from Ho Chi Minh City) that provides support to new startups with free of charge, including

space and IT infrastructure rentals with capital, beside giving free consulting services.

Furthermore, up to $50,000 in seed funding and its ability to bring world-class mentors from

top notch group of consultants are also considered as a valuable support for global-competitive

startups from Vietnam like Kleii.

VYE Entrepreneurship Bootcamp – is an annual program held by Vietnam Young

Entrepreneur (VYE) in collaboration with Stanford Technology Venture Program and

Vietnam National University in Ho Chi Minh City. Funded by PVNI, this program aims to

bring world-class entrepreneurship education, inspiration and network from major

entrepreneurship ecosystem in the world to Vietnam, including Silicon Valley. This program

is organized as an incubator for educating founding team and supporting for the development

of the early-stage startup. One of the most distinctive points of this program comparing to

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others is that VYE has been able to bring a wide range of high-profile mentors from around

the World, including Professor Tom Kosnik form Stanford University.

FPT FICO - is an incubation company operated by FPT University to ignite the

entrepreneurial spirit within its students and help them to start their businesses. This initiative

of FPT, one of Vietnam’s biggest technology companies, is expected to create a good

momentum between FPT, the company the university and the incubators to create more and

more startups.

mLab - is a program enforcing the development of mobile application community under the

support of World Bank. It is also running mobile application competitions to encourage and

incubate new ideas of mobile applications.

Egg Agency - is a new incubator huddled up outside of Saigon’s city center with a very

promising working environment. The real value addition is that it is a growth hacking

incubator that brings in new entrepreneurs and runs them through laps of real business to build

experience for their own projects.

Quang Trung Software City - is an industrial park dedicated to foster the Vietnamese

technology industry and one of the key projects in Ho Chi Minh City development plan of the

government. This is a center to host several technology universities as well as 100 existing

software enterprises and IT services. Half of them are foreign companies. With more than

22,000 people are working and studying and the number is still increasing, this would be a

center to give birth to more great startups of Vietnam that could be globally competitive.

X-incubator – is an individual technology incubator in Vietnam. It has monthly round of

selecting the best qualified 3 startup projects to invest (based on 4 clear criteria). The fund is

around 15$ to symbolically support the startups in early stage of turning ideas to practice and

introducing the brand new products to the community. The special support based is that the X-

incubator administrator consulting freely all problems related to the product launch, bridging

relationships to startup expert vibe, and marketing through his media channels in 3 months

after the startups selected. The administrator is co-founder and directors of tech startup

companies.

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Apart from those listed above, there are government programs to accelerate and support the

startup scene. One of them is the national startup program launched by Vietnam Business

Forum powered by Vietnam Chamber of Commercial and Industry with multiple activities at

the same time: educate business startup, create a Vietnam startup information gateway listing

all the start projects through years, organize idea festivals to attract investors for the projects,

build a startup funds to boost startup activities, startup book/flip publication to enrich startup

knowledge for Vietnamese, or create startup clubs to bridge incubators and projects.

3.2.5 CO-WORKING SPACE

Co-working space is a shared working environment, usually an office, where people from

different startups and organizations can come and work together. Co-working space is not

only about physical space but also about connecting to a like-minded community in the same

space. This model of office solution is attractive to freelancers, self-employed or work-at-

home professionals and independent contractors who has no office or wants to escape from

distractions at home. Normally, co-working space is cheap but still can provide full basic

accommodation for daily working.

The Start Center – is a co-working space initiated under the START Network (SAVVi

TOPICA Accelerator for Resourcing Technology), which is a World Bank-funded

collaboration between SAVVi Investors’ Forum, TOPICA Education Group, and John von

Neumann Institute at Vietnam National University HCMC. These ones have been actively

connecting and supporting for the ecosystem of startup in Ho Chi Minh City. Furthermore,

they are the hubs and links to connect to the local ecosystem to the global network by different

activities.

Saigon Hub – is a new venture on co-working space of 5 co-founders and 2 investors in Ho

Chi Minh City from May 2013. This co-working space not only provides startups with

different packages of office solution for startups but also aims to be the center for startups

activities. Value added like consultancy and market analysis is also provided.

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3.2.6 AUXILIARY SERVICES

Startup clients frequently request business startup services including: staff recruitment,

marketing service, accounting, payrolls, etc. through a provider. For example, one startup may

need some marketing on social media like Facebook; they will do a business with some

Facebook account owners with high numbers of friends or page likes, or approach a multi-

media company to help.

Although startups do not have a complicated structure like developed enterprises or

corporations, the general and administration management is still in need. With the limitation in

human resource and being lack of management experience, those items like recruitment,

payrolls, accounting, etc. would be ideal to be outsourced. This matter did lead to the

establishment of many agencies that providing auxiliary services. By spending an affordable

but worth amount, startups could focus more on their main activities but still ensure the

quality of office management.

For example, Softlayer provides a rock-solid technical foundation and allows startups to put

their resources focus on business development. Technically, SoftLayer offers fast speeds and

intricate level of control over the hardware help with a solution package to Vietnam startups in

one year free.

3.2.7 COMMUNITY / SOCIAL NETWORK

a) Offline Community

HATCH! - is a not-for-profit community aiming to unite and build a strong startup ecosystem

in Vietnam. Its mission is to be a connecting point between mentors, investors and startups to

effectively utilize the available and suitable resources for the development of those startups.

HATCH! OPEN is an offline coffee talk for the community, which aims to create an open

platform for any individual to come and share his ideas or concerns, contribute to the

community and connect to the network.

The Start Network – a Ho Chi Minh City based network of physical and Human resources

dedicated to supporting technology start-ups and early-stage investors. The network provides

resources for tech startups including knowledge, startup library, and especially the links

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between potential stakeholders. Furthermore, the Start Network aims to build the startup

ecosystem.

b) Online Community

Before 2009, online communities were not yet popular in Vietnam which led startups scattered

over small online groups in a particular field and shared little connection with others.

However, since 2009, with the development of the internet as well as the development of the

2nd startup generation focusing more on technology, startup communities was established as

online community as a communication channels for startups to connect and interact.

Online startup community Launch - a relatively strong Vietnam Internet Startup community

of developers and startup folks with slogan “Think.Start.Grow.”. The community started in

2009, and was the first one introducing the latest trends, systematic knowledge, or practical

experience from world Tech villages to startups in Vietnam. Growing with time as an effective

communication platform for startups, the community has created monthly offline events for

members inviting domestic successful CEOs coming to share their journeys. Currently Launch

has 7851 members building a vibrant and dynamic startup community. It acts as the

momentum of startup scene in Vietnam encouraging startups to develop, and leveraging the

size of their infrastructures and markets through acting as an open platform for members to

breach into small specific groups, to discuss hot topics about Tech in Vietnam, or to create

opportunities to meet foreign startup experts coming to Vietnam. In the long run, the

community needs more bright ideas contributed and circulated to build activities in order to

sustain the flame of startups.

Vietnam Start-up Club – is one chain of Start-up Club network throughout Singapore,

Malaysia, Thailand, Japan, Philippines, Vietnam, and Australia. The club helps local start-up

ecosystem develop by getting startups involved and organize offline meetings for like-minded

individuals to expand their network and build business connections. The members actively

share knowledge, and support other members if they are in need of professional advice. It also

provides media partnerships within the group.

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3.2.8 GOVERNMENT

Vietnam government has launched a significant number of policies, activities, and projects to

support domestic startup situation in the past 10 years.

Firstly, Vietnam has continuously improved its legal systems to provide a better environment

to support the development of new enterprises in the market economy. In 1990, Vietnam

adopted for the first time its Enterprise Law. This could be considered as the first positive

move of the government in creating a new environment for entrepreneurship. Besides, the

New Enterprise Law (NEL), which replaced the two former Laws, was adopted in 1999 and

took effect on January 1, 2000. The NEL firmly fostered entrepreneurial spirit in the country.

The NEL revoked unnecessary business license restrictions in 145 industries, trades and

services, and eased private entry in the market. It also created new channels for private

investment funds. The New Enterprise Law clearly defined the governmental administrative

function and promoted independent entrepreneurial activities. New regulations on the

Business Register that ease the establishment of enterprises have been implemented. Thus,

while a new enterprise granting a license under pre-NEL took 98 days on average; under post-

NEL, licenses are granted within 15 days. Basically, startup that wants to figure out

information on licenses and permits to register its own business could easily access to business

registration online services powered by Vietnam government.

Since 2003, Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) has started the annual

Entrepreneurship Competition for student that has been collected 1500 projects and ideas.

Recently, VCCI together with the National Youth Union and Business Forum Newspaper are

racing up “Youth Startup Supporting Program” encouraging Vietnamese young people to

engage into entrepreneurship. The program run with a series of activities relating to startup:

education at local level, information gateway, ideas festivals, startup funds, other written form

of information materials, or startup clubs.

In September of 2012, Ministry of Science and Technology and Microsoft Vietnam

collaborated to launch the “Information Technology Training and Business Startup Center for

Youth” project in Hanoi University of Science and Technology.

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In November 2012, the government approved “Project Preparation and Startup Support

Facility”. This facility enabled the Government of Viet Nam to directly support startups in

Vietnam, financed by ADB.

On December 12th, 2013, The ASEAN Foundation, in cooperation with VCCI had launched

“Enhancing ICT Skills of SMEs in ASEAN” Project. The objective of this business

accelerator program has been to provide mentorship and assistance for the participating

enterprise in implementing ICT to expand its market. The selection of entrepreneur and the

content of the project are supported by Microsoft.

3.2.9 UNIVERSITIES / COLLEGES / SCHOOLS

a) Campus Activities

The campus activities on entrepreneurship in Vietnam are energetic. Most of the university

campuses have an entrepreneurship club and some are successful in enforcing entrepreneurial

spirit in student.

One of the most successful clubs is Tomorrow Entrepreneurs Club of Foreign Trade

University in Hanoi with the Kawai Business Startup competition. This competition has been

organized annually from 2005 for a wide range of university in Hanoi. Kawai competition,

after 8 times of organizing, has received more than 800 entrepreneurial projects from

thousands of students from different background: economic, commerce, technology,

agriculture and etc. This quality program has received many supports from VCCI and many

well-known mentors and organizations.

However, these other club are still not impactful enough as they focus more on educating

skills and knowledge rather than real world learning-by-doing experiences. Furthermore, lack

of connection to the academic unit and the real world business network is also a constraint for

those clubs to make more empowerment.

On the other hand, for technology-oriented university, some incubation centers have been

created for their own students and staff. There has been incubator center in Hanoi University

of Science and Technology, Ho Chi Minh University of Technology, Ho Chi Minh

Agriculture and Forestry University and FPT University. Those centers have recognized many

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new innovative and marketable ideas; however, lack of providing a systematic knowledge

base on business and the market, these centers are more focus on enhancing technology skills

and techniques of students.

Beside those activities, talk shows and small scale conferences with experts as guest speakers

are also organized in universities, mostly in economic field, to respond to students’ enquiries

about startup.

b) Education Courses

Still not yet see full entrepreneurship course in University. Only apparently one subject or

some scattered matters are discussed in business subjects and added by the lecturers due to

their own experience.

c) Scientific Researches and Graduation Thesis

Research on entrepreneurship in Vietnam is not yet developed. Even there has been hundreds

of research; however, most of the researches are still narrowed into general topic.

Furthermore, hardly we can find a topic specific into ICT startups as it is still new and not

much data has been collected.

As ICT entrepreneurship is developing, it is important for increasing the supply of

entrepreneurship research, supporting for the development of startups. This action is crucial

for the community as one of the most critical issues of startup in Vietnam is the lack of market

knowledge and information.

3.2.10 COMPLIMENT EVENTS

a) Conferences

HATCH! FAIR – expected to be annual startup fair competition where 25 best startup

projects will be incubated in 2 months and do pitching within3 days in a workshop festival to

get funded from investors, plus 2 years under close supervision and support. This upcoming

fair tentatively starts in July, 2013. This is going to be the very first startup festival in Vietnam

that focuses on the 2month mentorship and 2year support or follow up to assure (guarantee)

the sustainable development of a startup idea.

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Vietnam Mobile Day – is an annual conference for mobile community in Hanoi and HCMC.

In this conference, people have opportunities networking and listening to sharing of key

persons in the community covering key concerns and important insight about the community

and the market in Vietnam. VN Mobile day stands out in mobile developer community due to

its technical quality of the presentations which give attendees strong perspectives of mobile

landscape in Vietnam. Vietnam Mobile Day is developing year by year with the growing of

the mobile community.

Vietnam Startup Conference – is an annual conference for startup in Vietnam. It creates a

platform for startups networking, educating and sharing with high-profile founders and

experts. This conference is to bring together key stakeholders in the Vietnam technology

entrepreneurship ecosystem for the purpose of sharing knowledge and building networks to

support the formation and development of high-impact new ventures. The first event

organized in 2012 in Ho Chi Minh City had attracted a wide range of foreign entrepreneurial

stakeholders who are interested in Vietnam market.

Barcamp Saigon – is a participant-oriented conference for sharing ideas and experiences that

has been organized from 2008. In this event, participants are free to propose for a presentation

in any topic. Thus about 100 topics that received the biggest number of vote from other

participants will be continuously showcased in the big venue along the one-day conference.

Because of its dynamite atmosphere and a wide range of ideas presented from the community,

Barcamp Saigon has attracted around 1500 participants each year. Therefore, not only this is

an opportunity for sharing and learning but also a great chance for networking in a large scale.

Failcon – is a conference for exclusive sharing about failures and mistakes of startup

founders. This aims to be a platform for people to learn from their own and others’ failures,

get lessons and move forward to achieving success. On the other hand, this conference also

has a greater impact of empowering people and encouraging a culture of accepting failures as

a normal aspect of starting up.

Startup Asia Conference - a large scale 2-day conference brought by Tech in Asia

(techinasia.com) focusing on tech startups and entrepreneurship. The conference shows newly

launched and product-ready tech startups, along with a huge line-up networking opportunities

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with numerous industry professionals, startups, investors, corporate and government

representatives from all around Asia. The agenda penetrates a fresh and honest insight into the

upcoming industry trends. The conference is a great chance for Vietnam startups approaching

inside and outside Asia market. About 40 - 50 Vietnam startups joined the event in the 2013

event.

DEMO Asia – is a premier platform for companies throughout Asia to launch their products

in front of global stakeholders as well as for international companies, who are aiming for the

Asia market, to have a chance showcasing their product to the market. A hand-selected group

of new products will make a public debut to global press, savvy investors, corporate acquirers,

strategic partners, and buyers.

DEMO ASEAN - produced by IDG, is a launching pad for emerging technology and trends

which is similar to DEMO Asia. DEMO ASEAN will be organized the first time in Vietnam

in September 2013 with a 3-day showcase and conference.

b) Seminars:

Start ME up – a monthly startup event in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam (powered by Keewi’s team

and technology) featuring founders, venture capitalists, investors, representatives from big

companies around South East Asia and Silicon Valley. Until now, it has organized 8 events

featuring 22 speakers. Speakers are invited to share their experience at the events and to

engage with local startup community. The idea behind the seminar is “share the inspiration to

motivate”. It has the do fireside chats, panel discussions, startup seminars, movie screening

with prestigious speakers from Golden Gates Ventures, TechInAsia, JFDI Singapore,

SoftLayer, VietnamWorks, etc.. The last event on April 16th, 2013 did attract about 110

participants.

c) Competition Events

Startup Weekend – is a 54 hours event where developers, designers, marketers, product

managers and startup enthusiasts come together to share ideas, form teams, build products and

pitch products to mentors, judges and investors. Startup Weekend Vietnam firstly organized in

Saigon in 2011 and in Hanoi in 2013, roots from international Startup Weekend.

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Startup Wheel – is a competition launched by Business Startup Support Center, powered by

Youth Union of Ho Chi Minh City, in collaboration with the City’s Young Entrepreneur

Association, Youth Union’s Young Science Technology Development Center, and Communist

Youth Union in various universities in Ho Chi Minh City. The competition targets to senior

students and fresh graduates with start-up desire. The best idea will receive cash prizes sum up

to 100 million dongs and the investment opportunities to commercialize those products.

Beside the main prizes, the best idea could also receive the investment or zero-interest rate

loan up to 500 million dongs in 3 years.

Kawai Business Start-up Competition - is a business startup idea contest organized by

Tomorrow Entrepreneurs Club of Hanoi Foreign Trade University. This annual competition

has been organized from 2005 for a wide range of university in Hanoi. Kawai competition,

after 8 times of organizing, has received more than 800 entrepreneurial projects from

thousands of students from different background: economic, commerce, technology,

agriculture and etc. This quality program has received many supports from VCCI and many

well-known mentors and organizations.

VYE Startup Race – is a competition providing students with full experiences on the real

process of startup, organized also by VYE. The event is focused on building a short term plan

within the limitation of financing and time.

Startup with Microsoft – is a tech startup competition organized by Information Technology

Department of Hanoi University of Science and Technology. Vietnet Center and Microsoft

support participants to develop unique ideas for future business startup projects. The

competition is one of the constructive activities organized by Microsoft in Vietnam, targeting

to students and local labors to enhance technology skills implementing in the reality.

d) Other Events

HATCH! OPEN – is an offline coffee talk for the community, which aims to create an open

platform for any individual to come and share his ideas or concerns, contribute to the

community and connect to the network. Each event has a specific topic and one speaker is

invited to support for the knowledge and experiences sharing between participants. There have

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been 20 events organized with 15-30 participants for each event. HATCH! OPEN is expected

to develop in the future and attract positive interest from startup communities when other

activities of HATCH! grow.

Tech Tuesday and Web Wednesday – are a regular networking event for Digital media and

Internet industry in Vietnam. The event is organized preferably at the last Wednesday of every

month with a variety of topics and guest speakers in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. The

valuable aspect of this networking event is the guest speakers and the specific boundary of

topic and high participation of the guest speakers.

3.2.11 MEDIA

a) Information and Blog Portals

SGE (sgentrepreneurs.com) – is an online publisher dedicated to Southeast Asia startup and

entrepreneurship scene since 2005. The website features and interviews entrepreneurs to share

individual’s knowledge which brings each entrepreneur to be an inspiration for the others, as

well as sets up startup event calendars for those interest to attend.

E27 – a media company focusing on growing Asia’s technology startup ecosystem

whichreports on the latest news that impacts the tech startup ecosystem and wider tech

industry, highlight web and mobile applications that emerge from Asia, profile the founders

behind these startups and provide our readers with thoughts and insights from trusted industry

professionals and mentors. The site is trusted source of news for startups, investors, and

professionals in technology industry. Besides, E27 also organizes the much-celebrated

Echelon conference. Other community events includes: Founders Drinks, a monthly meet-up

in several cities around Asia and most recently, Echelon Ignite, a spin-off conference from

Echelon to catalyze younger startup communities.

TechInAsia – is an online news-and-blog portal for tech-startups. It is based in Singapore.

The channel stands out because of a wide pool of blogger and collaborator around Asia with a

great number of quality articles every day. What further make it stand out are two quality

events: Asia Startup Conference and TechInAsia Meetup.

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Startupdigest provides full startup event calendars in Vietnam (HCMC) and all over the

world.

Keewi.com is a successful startup on providing ticketing solutions for event organizers such

as promotion, online reservation and ticketing, barcode check-in at door, managing

registration, managing check-ins, and state-of-art in-event networking mobile web app for

participants. Keewi follows lean startup model which adapts to customers’ needs and has

becoming a well-known and valuable solution for event organizers.

Action.vn – Vietnam Information Technology and Startup news portals, it features their own

interviews with startup founders. The content provides the inspiration sources and lessons to

learn from former startups.

Westart.vn – a fast-growing profound news portal about startup and technology in Vietnam

which daily update information for around 1500 people. Its core value is the the deep contents

in clear focused topics: analyzing the world technology companies’ products and strategies,

building and developing startups, identifying new trends in technology and startups with

insight recommendations.

Pandora.vn is a news portal for quality information, review and analysis about technology,

the Internet and startups. Backed up by 5DESIGN, Pandora.vn has also created the X-

Incubator to help people bring their ideas into life.

Talking in ranking, pandora.vn, westart.vn, action.vn are considered as three most reliable

and quality media for startup in Vietnam with valuable articles. Pandora and Action are two

reliable website in top 500 and 700 of Alexa (website traffic ranking in Vietnam).

b) Personal Blogs

Saigonist.com is run by an expat writing about technology, entrepreneurship, software, and

living and traveling in Saigon, Vietnam. The blog owner pictures the startup scene in Vietnam

by his own eyes.

Startupof.me is run by Albert (Khoa) Mai, a passionate Vietnamese that has been actively

involving in startup community in Vietnam since he was a student. The blog is about his

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personal thoughts on Vietnam startup scene as well as the implement of the lean startup to

personal-development.

3.2.12 OTHER RESOURCES

a) Resource Directory

Resource Directory is a literal map for listing all the information and resources that can

support for the development of a startup. These resources and information could range from

colleges, universities to businesses and up to government’s efforts in encouraging the

sustainable development of entrepreneurship in a particular area or a country.

HATCH! B.I.R.D (Business Intelligence Resource Directory) – initiated by HATCH! - is still

the first and only entrepreneurial resource directory in Vietnam. The resource submission form

has been published but the online directory is under construction and going to be released in

the beginning of July, 2013. This is expected to act as a platform utilizing those precious

resources for entrepreneurship in Vietnam and could make a huge impact on the startup scene.

b) Internship Program

Internship program provides people to have opportunity to work in a quality companies for a

short term. The purpose of an internship is not for financial goals, but education, experiences

and professional development.

STAR-Ex – is an internship program organized by VYE. It aims to provide an opportunity for

students to intern in entrepreneurial environments including startup companies, venture capital

funds, startup projects at corporate, etc. Besides the internship, students are also able to

participate in series of workshops/seminars/talk simulating the process of building a venture.

The workshops are aiming at building leadership capability, soft skills and entrepreneurial

mindset for the students.

GENERAL OBSERVATION

General observation shows that the ICT startup scene in Vietnam has been extremely dynamic

and fascinating. There is a tremendous wave of entrepreneurship spreading. Not only we can

see Vietnamese entrepreneurs, mentors and investors generating a great impact but also many

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foreigners are coming to Vietnam. They play as entrepreneurs, serial entrepreneurs, investors,

mentors and many other impactful stakeholders in the big picture of the startup ecosystem.

Going back to the ecosystem in general, startups’ supporting activities have been developing

dramatically over the past two years and growing rate is increasing. Supporting activities has

been developed not only in a wide scale but also in a deep scope with many new activities and

organizations.

However, the scene is still fragment and thus, the supporting activities have not yet been

utilized for the development of ICT startups in Vietnam. It lacks of a leader to unite them into

one united ecosystem, focusing on building an effective and efficient supporting platform.

Finally, we look at the opportunity side of the scenario. The development in the past two years

has created a strong base for the next advancement. Not only, it is a good platform for startups

but also a newly created and potential market for more supporting activity supplier to jump in.

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3.3 SURVEY ANALYSIS

3.3.1 SURVEY DESCRIPTION

The survey is researcher’s main method to understand the situation of supporting activities for

startups in Vietnam. In order to satisfy the purpose of the research, as could be seen in

Appendix I, the survey has totally nine questions. There are five descriptive questions, two

evaluation questions and two informative questions respectively in the order of the survey.

The first five questions are five descriptive questions which are important to classify

participants and observe the different behaviors in each category. This helps researchers to

provide comprehensive and qualified conclusion. Furthermore, it also helps to have more

possible findings which may become valuable input for further researches.

The first question is to know the role and expertise of participants in the ICT startup

community. Beside several level of experiences in entrepreneurship (future founder, current

founder, serial founders), the question also consists of other different roles that the research is

also targeting to understand the market from different points of view (investor, mentor,

blogger and other interested party). This understanding will help us to know from what

perspective participants answer the survey.

The next two questions are to classify in age and geography. Age is divided into three main

groups: from student age to 2 years after graduation to demonstrate young and inexperienced

founders, from 25 to 34 to demonstrate the next 10 years of working and studying experiences,

from 35 to 44 to demonstrate mature observer to the market. The younger and older age

people are less significant to the ICT startups. On the other hand, geography includes two

major cities (Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City) as they are the main hub for ICT startups in

Vietnam. A blank box to fill in is also provided for other geography. Geography or location

should be paid attention because answers could be so different due to difference in location.

Moreover, we need to know whether the results are too biased by location.

Question 4 and question 5 focus on starting up experiences. Question 4 is about business

sector with 6 major categories in ICT industry in Vietnam. The input for this classification is

gained from previous unofficial research. The last question in five descriptive questions is to

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classify the startup lifecycle that the founder is experiencing. The 6 stages are chosen from the

most common and significant model that has been explained in the part of definition. The

question is crucial to provide analysis and conclusion.

The heart of the survey lies into two evaluation questions, question 6 and question 7. The

researchers asked participant to rate four criteria of 16 startups supporting activities with the

scale from 1 to 5. The scale is quantified to run econometric models later in order to observe

the behaviors of 16 activities in a qualitative perspective. The number of action required is

larger so matrix table is used for easier completion. 16 activities are also divided into two

categories for easier assessment. In order to prevent startups from misunderstanding the

meaning of each category, examples are provided beside some unfamiliar services.

The criteria is ‘The importance of the supporting service to the survival and development of

startups’ (S&D) which represents demand for the service. On the other hand, ‘Availability’ is

to represent ‘Supply’. Two other criteria are ‘Cost’ and ‘Quality’ representing for the situation

of the activity in the current market. Therefore, with these four criteria we can have an overall

view over the situation of each activity and can explore findings from that.

The last questions, question 8 and question 9, are extra informative questions prepared for

further researches and exploration. Fortunately, we have received many support and advices

from participants to improve our survey.

Participants also contacted us to discuss possible cooperation on our survey in the future.

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3.3.2 PARTICIPANT’S DESCRIPTION

Due to the effect of participants’ characteristics on analysis results, the report will provide

participant description as one of primary input.

The survey has totally 33 participating startups working in ICT industry. They are diversified

by gender, title, age, location, business sectors and company stage. The table below will

provide more information of first four characteristics.

Table 1: Participants’ Statistics on Gender, Title, Age and Location

Gender Male Female Unknown

26 4 3

Title Current Startup Founder Serial Startup Founder About to startup 23 6 4

Age 18-24 25-34

20 13

Location Hanoi HCM Others

27 4 2

According to the table, most of participating founders are male and their age is around from 18

to 24 years old. Most of them are running their first startup or already have several startups

before. Four remained founders have been concrete in their ideas and about to establish their

own startups. Therefore, they also qualified for this survey.

Last but not least, startup location must be concerned because there is a serious imbalance

among different location. Startups in Vietnam located mostly in two big cities Hanoi and Ho

Chi Minh. However, due to resource limitation, research team just able to approach mainly

startup in Hanoi. Minority number of participating startups locates in Ho Chi Minh City,

Danang and other provinces.

Source: Survey Results

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Figure 4: Statistics figure of participating startups by ICT Sub Sectors

Among 33 participating startups, three sub-sectors receiving most attention are Ecommerce,

Software/Application/Game Development and Education/E-learning. Each startup may

operate in one or more sub-sectors, so total number of startups in all sectors are higher than

33. Other business sectors are Brand/Graphic Design, Q&A Online, Social Network, Cloud

Computing, Social Health, Outsourcing, Crowd-funding, and Consulting services.

Figure 5: Participating Startup's Current Stage

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16

Qua

ntity

ICT Sub Sectors

ICT Startup Business Sectors

43%

21%

21%

6% 6% 3%

Startups' Current Stage

Discovery

Validation

Efficiency

Scale

Sustain

Conservation



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As you can see in the figure, 43% survey participated startups are in discovery stage. Startups

in validation and efficiency stages take 21% each. 15% left are classified in Scale, Sustain and

Conservation stages. These figures partly demonstrate current structure of ICT startup.

However, it also influenced by resource limitation. Research team is unable to approach

founders of big startups that are in further stages like Scale, Sustain and Conservation, such as

VNG, Vat Gia, PeaceSoft, Tinh Van, Goldsun ForcusMedia, etc.

3.3.3 GENERAL OBSERVATION

According to collected survey response and direct interaction with startups, research team

found out some subjective points of view.

Firstly, not all startups understand totally about 16 supporting services listed in the survey.

Even though, these services are available in Vietnam, some founders have not known them

before and need close explanation from researchers. On the other hand, experienced founders -

who have startups in higher stages - have better knowledge about these 16 services. The same

thing happens between young founders in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi City. All young

founders in HCM city can do survey easily without confusing. However, some young founders

in Hanoi are still confused and misunderstanding about those services.

Secondly, demands for different supporting services are different significantly by startups

stages, by business sectors and by founder ability. For example, startups in discovery and

validation stages prefer support from mentors, incubators, startup competition, and crowd-

funding portal; meanwhile startups at further stages appreciate auxiliary back-office services,

community events, and education courses about entrepreneurship. Another example, startups

in e-learning seem to underestimate the supporting from co-working space and office solution;

on the other hand, startups in software/application/game developer have a strong demand for

this.

Even these are just some subjective opinion concluded from the execution of our survey, it

does state out about how complicated the startup community is. Besides all the observable

facts and data, there are also other factors relating mental and social perception that influenced

the market a lot but hardly anyone has explored these factors. Therefore, it required many

more further research in these fields for us to understand better about the startups economy.

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3.4 RESULT ANALYSIS

In the survey, we divide 16 startups supporting services into two big categories: Knowledge &

Network and Capital & Professional Services. The first category include 10 services and the

another content 6 services listed down in table below.

Table 2: 2 Groups of 16 Supporting Activities

Knowledge & Network Capital & Professional

Advisory and Mentoring Co-working Space/ Office Solution

Startup Incubator/ Accelerator Auxiliary/ Back-office Services

Startup Community Events Investor Network

Startup Competition Venture Capital Company

Startup Communication Channels & Media Crowd-funding Portal

Education Courses about Entrepreneurship Other Funds (Loans, Grants, etc.)

University Support

Governmental and International Support

Online Community

Offline Community

3.4.1 KNOWLEDGE & NETWORK

a) Advisory and Mentoring

Table 3: Advisory and Mentoring Service - Descriptive Statistic

Advisory and Mentoring Statistics S&D Availability Cost Quality

Mean 3.53125 2.59375 3.3871 3.2 Median 4 2.5 3 3 Maximum 5 5 5 5 Minimum 1 1 1 2 Std. Dev. 1.13548 1.103057 1.11587 0.92476 Skewness -0.749918 0.417948 -0.3701 0.39382 Kurtosis 3.164002 2.622392 2.55976 2.38502 Jarque-Bera 3.035204 1.121745 0.95822 1.24822 Probability 0.219237 0.570711 0.61934 0.53574 Observations 32 32 31 30

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Figure 6: Advisory and Mentoring Service - Demonstrated Graphs

According to statistic figure in Table 2, most of founders appreciate the support from

Advisory and Mentoring. Normally, these founders try to find out a suitable mentor for

themselves or at least, are aware of the necessary to have a mentor. Looking at the mean

value of each variables in the Descriptive Statistic Table and Demostrated Statistic Graph,

there is an imbalance among demand and supply for the service. Founders belive that

Advisory and Mentoring service takes fundamental role in the survival and development of

startup. However, the availability of service does not satisfy the demand.

Applying econometrics in analysis, after executing Jarque-Bera test with

• Ho: Variable has normal distribution

• H1: Variable does not follow normal distribution

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S&D

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Cost

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Quality

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All variables S&D, Availability, Cost, Quality of Advisory and Mentoring service have

normal distribution because their P are higher than 0.05. Moreover, their Skewness and

Kurtosis test results also support this statement.

Execute three OLS estimations; assume S&D (importance rate of the service for the survival

and development of startups) is dependent variable explained by three independent variables:

Availability, Cost and Quality

Table 4: Advisory and Mentoring Service - OLS Estimations between S&D and Availability

Dependent Variable: S&D Method: Least Squares Date: 07/10/13 Time: 10:40 Sample: 1 33 Included observations: 32

Variable Coefficient Std. Error t-Statistic Prob. C 3.331400 0.526970 6.321797 0.0000

AVAILABILITY 0.077051 0.187414 0.411126 0.6839 R-squared 0.005603 Mean dependent var 3.531250

Adjusted R-squared -0.027544 S.D. dependent var 1.135480 S.E. of regression 1.151011 Akaike info criterion 3.179621 Sum squared resid 39.74482 Schwarz criterion 3.271229 Log likelihood -48.87393 F-statistic 0.169024 Durbin-Watson stat 2.150558 Prob(F-statistic) 0.683902

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Table 5: Advisory and Mentoring Service - OLS Estimations between S&D and Cost



COST -0.069085 0.190951 -0.361793 0.7201 R-squared 0.004493 Mean dependent var 3.548387


Table 6: Advisory and Mentoring Service - OLS Estimations between S&D and Quality



QUALITY -0.008065 0.238397 -0.033828 0.9733 R-squared 0.000041 Mean dependent var 3.533333


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Test the correlation among variables above, we have a correlation matrix:

Table 7: Advisory and Mentoring Service – Correlation Matrix

S&D AVAILABILITY COST QUALITY

S&D 1.000000 0.081013 -0.081013 0.027362

AVAILABILITY 0.081013 1.000000 -1.000000 0.415018

COST -0.081013 -1.000000 1.000000 -0.415018

QUALITY 0.027362 0.415018 -0.415018 1.000000

According to 4 tables above, we could conclude that three variables (Availability, Cost, and

Quality) do not explain variable S&D. However, they still have correlation with each other,

which shown in the Correlation Matrix Table. Look further to previous incorporate analysis;

we believe that startups really understand the importance of mentors or advisors for their

survival and development. They consider finding a mentor as a must-do strategy rather than an

optional choice or an ordinary service. Moreover, two variables Cost and Availability

fluctuate inversely, which reflect that participated startups do not have to pay an expensive fee

to their mentors or advisors, except for initially searching cost. Unfortunately, the Cost and

Quality of mentors seem not to collaborate with each other. Taking OLS estimations for

Quality and Cost, we have:

Table 8: Advisory and Mentoring Service - OLS Estimations between Quality and Cost

Dependent Variable: QUALITY Method: Least Squares Date: 07/10/13 Time: 11:04 Sample: 1 33 Included observations: 29



Adjusted R-squared 0.141582 S.D. dependent var 0.875220 S.E. of regression 0.810899 Akaike info criterion 2.485125 Sum squared resid 17.75403 Schwarz criterion 2.579421 Log likelihood -34.03431 F-statistic 5.618137 Durbin-Watson stat 1.838800 Prob(F-statistic) 0.025176

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Variable Cost could explain variable Quality (P=0.0252 < 0.05) but their coefficient (-

0.328629) is negative. It seems to be abnormal. However, this result reflects the reality that

startups - who have invested much effort into finding mentors and advisors - tend to set a high

expectation. Thus, they will be disappointed if they could not find suitable mentors or if the

quality is not good. Moreover, there is a lack of connecting activity to find mentors.

Therefore, when service providers for Advisory and Mentorship have established a true

market, Cost would probably fluctuate positively with Quality.

b) Startup Incubator/ Accelerator

Table 9: Incubator/Accelerators Service - Descriptive Statistic

Incubator/Accelerators Statistics S&D Availability Cost Quality

Mean 2.83871 2.6 2.931034 3.071429 Median 3 3 3 3

Maximum 5 4 5 5 Minimum 1 1 1 2 Std. Dev. 1.067607 0.968468 1.066739 0.857584 Skewness -0.17612 -0.055599 -0.22153 0.582138 Kurtosis 2.904899 2.060554 2.200989 2.883753

Jarque-Bera 0.171938 1.118656 1.008608 1.597229 Probability 0.917623 0.571593 0.603926 0.449952

Observations 31 30 29 28

Figure 7: Incubator/Accelerators Service – Demonstrated Graphs

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S&D Availability

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In a startup ecosystem, incubators and accelerators hold a crucial position. These special

entities, unlike others, provide a full package of value ensuring for the development of a

startup. This value is like providing founders with a safe and full-functioned environment for

them to concentrate on creating growth. Participating in an incubator/accelerator program,

startups are provided with a customized package includes co-working space, auxiliary

services, mentorship, consultancy, funding and a wide range of valuable network. In overall,

this service is one of the most effective ways to enhance sustainability of startups.

However, the research shows that even if incubators or accelerators are slightly available in

Vietnam but they only have an average importance rate. This is because of Vietnam market is

still unfamiliar to this model so startups do not really understand about the beneficial

programs. This underestimation, unfortunately, decreases the demand toward this important

service and in turn, discourages new suppliers to enter the market. The evidence could be

observed from the opposite and mismatched rating in the demonstrated graph of S&D,

Availability, Cost and Quality. This mismatched rating also shows that even if the supply is

available, it still does not satisfy the ones who understand and have the demand for the

service.

Therefore, incubators and accelerators should make effort in educating the market and making

different packages of services for different targets. About educating the market, incubators and

accelerators in Vietnam should gather into a community or association to together make

change in the perception of the market. Furthermore, the research also shows that there is still

an under-explored demand for the service in Vietnam and it is potential for new suppliers to

enter the market.

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c) Startup Community Event

Table 10: Startup Community Event - Descriptive Statistic

Startup Community Event Statistics S&D Availability Cost Quality

Mean 3.3125 3.46875 2.354839 3.2 Median 3.5 4 2 3

Maximum 5 5 5 5 Minimum 1 1 1 2 Std. Dev. 1.029798 1.046788 1.141589 0.761124 Skewness -0.834204 -0.516155 0.500968 0.133631 Kurtosis 3.291836 2.455526 2.306963 2.612245



Figure 8: Startup Community Event – Demonstrated Graphs

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S&D

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Availability

0 2 4 6

1 2 3 4 5 6

7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

31 32 33

Cost

0 2 4 6

1 2 3 4 5 6

7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

31 32 33

Quality

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Based on the listing of about 20 events for startups and the descriptive statistic of events for

startups in Vietnam, we can see that the supply is slightly high (Availability = 3.46875) with a

wide range of events. They are organized regularly throughout Vietnam and Asia. As event is

an inexpensive and flexible way to share ideas and expand networks, the demand for this is

slightly high too (S&D = 3.2125).

However, we still can observe the lowest rating (1 over the scale of 5) on demand and supply

for events. Consequently, this demonstrates that events for startups have not yet brought to

participants a satisfied service. This can be explained that events have not yet be able to

deliver key value such as following-up community, expertise and information sharing and

valuable connection. Therefore, the demand and quality of current events might be reflected

by the low cost of them. It is because of the low cost comparing to acceptable benefits, people

have a great demand for this as one of the only activities for meeting up with the real

community. However, we also need to consider about the demand side as Vietnamese people

have not yet been open-minded over giving and sharing. Therefore, it is very hard for an open

meet-up platform like events could create more values regardless of its mechanism.

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d) Startup Competition

Table 11: Startup Competition – Descriptive Statistic

Startup Competition Statistics S&D Availability Cost Quality

Mean 2.65625 2.96875 2.4 2.933333 Median 3 3 2 3

Maximum 5 5 5 5 Minimum 1 1 1 1 Std. Dev. 1.153099 1.204411 1.003442 0.980265 Skewness 0.059996 0.060344 0.383226 0.133378 Kurtosis 2.395573 1.853652 2.939201 2.944232



Figure 9: Startup Competition – Demonstrated Graphs

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S&D

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Availability

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23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

31 32 33

Cost

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1 2 3 4 5 6

7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

31 32 33

Quality

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Table 12: Startup Competition - Regression Model



AVAILABILITY 0.014331 0.183851 0.077950 0.9385 COST -0.099313 0.226661 -0.438157 0.6652

QUALITY 0.472020 0.220879 2.137009 0.0430 R-squared 0.166768 Mean dependent var 2.714286


As observed from the Descriptive Statistic, the mean of Startup Competition variable receives

medium point. However, Startup Competition seems to meet founders demand and provide a

Quality superior than Cost. To have further understanding about these variables, we run

regression model taking S&D as dependent variable and three remained variables are

independent variables. Their relationships are shown in table 11. Due to Probability (Prob =

0.0430) is smaller than 0.05, coefficient of Quality variable is significant. In other word,

Startup Competition’s Quality contributes to explain the importance of this activity to the

S&D of startups.

To further explain the result, some facts should be provided. Startup Competition in Vietnam

currently attracts students who have business ideas and plays the role of an education course

rather than an incubating event. In addition, quality of competitions depends mostly on

external factor which is the quality of mentors. Therefore, demand for startup competitions

remain low and fluctuate closely with competition’s quality. However, founders still invest in

these competitions because of sub-benefit such as public recognition and networking.

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Furthermore, quality of current startup competitions is average and sticks to the quality of

mentor rather than that of participants. Consequently, only a small number of winning

business plans gets executed in reality. Therefore, qualified founders refused to take part in

competitions because the reward could not reward sufficiently to the risk of idea copy-cat at

early stage. This action probably reduces startup demand for Startup Competition even though

service is available with high quality and low investment.

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e) Startup Communication Channels & Media

Table 13: Communication Channels and Media – Descriptive Statistic

Startup Communication Channels & Media Statistics S&D Availability Cost Quality

Mean 3.290323 3.806452 2.066667 3.310345 Median 4 4 2 3

Maximum 5 5 5 5 Minimum 1 1 1 1 Std. Dev. 1.216376 1.222548 1.112107 1.003688 Skewness -0.233807 -0.625669 0.785824 -0.2203 Kurtosis 1.931443 2.185749 2.864347 2.552839



Figure 10: Communication Channels & Media – Demonstrated Graphs

Facing the popular of the startup trend, parallel with the development of ICT, Comm channel

and Media has become a crucial tool to connect startups with the community. This issue is

shown at the high mean value in D&S and its Availability. The possible reason for the

phenomenon is its effectiveness (quality – high) and efficiency (cost – low) in being a bridge

between startups and their targeted audiences. In fact, Startup could build up its own website

and blog or fan page to get their customers posted, however, with the strong development and

the supportiveness of the community, there are many concrete startup channels with free of

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S&D Availability

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Cost Quality

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charge like techinasia, SGE, GIK, etc. – which are willing to spread out the valuable

information to its subscribers. This is a good signal for the development of startups when they

are provided with not only better information but also wider publicity in communication in

comparison to previous startup generations.

f) Education Courses about Entrepreneurship

Table 14: Education Courses - Descriptive Statistic

Education Courses about Entrepreneurship Statistics S&D Availability Cost Quality

Mean 3.3 3.2 3.214286 3.615385 Median 3 3 3 4

Maximum 5 5 5 5 Minimum 1 1 1 2 Std. Dev. 1.118805 0.924755 1.133893 0.852147 Skewness -0.312547 -0.404462 0.191658 -0.36745 Kurtosis 2.416297 2.502081 2.138241 2.583166



According to the descriptive statistic table of education course for startups, startups are now

more and more paying attention to its sustainability as the demand for education courses is

reflected high (mean of S&D equals to 3.3). Catching the demand from the market, there is an

increasing number of institutions provide young startups with quality short courses.

However, limited by the survey question, we are not sure if the survey participants have

already take part in an education course and give their own experiences or not. Therefore, the

result might not yet reflect the reality. It is possible that founders rating this service base on

their feeling or available secondary information, which influenced significantly by media and

heading behavior. For example, in 2012, Topica Founder Institution has appeared regularly in

lots of communication channels with the incubation of Appota and had created a great

branding for the Institution. As a consequence, startups’ answers may inflate the quality of

Education Course in general.

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Figure 11: Education Courses – Demonstrated Graphs

Table 15: Education Course – Regression Model


Variable Coefficient Std. Error t-Statistic Prob. C -1.701881 1.243386 -1.368746 0.1849

AVAILABILITY 0.443645 0.194560 2.280254 0.0326 COST 0.361281 0.161011 2.243822 0.0352



Execute regression model for this service with S&D is the dependent variable and

Availability, Cost and Quality are all the independent variables. As a result, we have:

S&D = -1.701881 + 0.443645 Availability + 0.361281 Cost + 0.668406 Quality + u

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S&D Availability

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Cost Quality

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Therefore, the demand of Education course about entrepreneurship would be explained 47.1%

by three independent variables. Specially, when average cost of course increase by one unit,

average of demand (S&D) will increase by 0.361281 units.

One concern in equation is that Cost has positive correlation with the startups’ demand (SD).

The abnormal relationship may be explained by startups’ belie that high fee courses go with

high quality. Therefore, courses with high cost can win trust from them and then have higher

demand.

Table 16: Educational Courses - Regression model between two variables Quality and Cost





Similar with Quality and Cost of Advisory and Mentoring, Quality and Cost of Educational

Courses have negative correlation, which do not follow market normal rule. The reason is also

expectation. When founders pay much money to take an educational course, they expect to

learn much knowledge from it. However, currently, when they agree to pay more to take a

better course, they feel a little bit disappointing. Extra return is not worth compare with extra

cost. In other word, providers fail to provide advanced benefit of more expensive course to

customers or fail in propositioning.

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In addition, there may be multicollinearity error in the function. However after taking some

test we could conclude that model are error-free with Multicollinearity. Apply Rule of Thumb

of Klien we see that:

R2 test1: 0.275480

R2 test2: 0.262335

R2 (Regression model): 0.471342

R2 Test < R2 (Regression – Table 16)

Model:

S&D = -1.701881 + 0.443645 Availability + 0.361281 Cost + 0.668406 Quality + u

is creditable

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Table 17: Educational Courses – Multicollinearity Sub-test 1

Dependent Variable: COST Method: Least Squares Date: 07/20/13 Time: 01:48 Sample: 1 33 Included observations: 26


QUALITY -0.478287 0.260675 -1.834798 0.0795 AVAILABILITY -0.341243 0.241705 -1.411820 0.1714

R-squared 0.275480 Mean dependent var 3.269231


Table 18: Educational Courses – Multicollinearity Sub-test 2



AVAILABILITY 0.226689 0.182206 1.244133 0.2260 COST -0.266954 0.145495 -1.834798 0.0795



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g) University Support

Table 19: University Support - Descriptive Statistic

University Support Statistics S&D Availability Cost Quality

Mean 2.62963 1.92 2.807692 2.375 Median 3 2 3 2

Maximum 5 5 5 4 Minimum 1 1 1 1 Std. Dev. 1.148516 1.077033 1.059027 0.824226 Skewness 0.296965 1.385163 0.390184 0.171031 Kurtosis 2.531203 4.385181 2.628659 2.566464



Figure 12: University Support – Demonstrated Graphs

University Support normally includes researches, consulting services and educational courses.

As we observe from the descriptive statistic table, demand for these services is in average

level; meanwhile availability and quality remain low. However, reminding the case of

Stanford University and the creation of Silicon Valley, all of these figures should be higher.

Further analysis is showed below.

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S&D Availability

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For researches:

S&D for University support is not high as it should be; even though it is considered as a quite

reliable source of information. In university, researches could have higher quality in

comparison to the available information in communication channels as well as provide startup

with concrete insights about the previous/current situations or predictions for the development

trend. A reason for Startup to lean on the research as it is conducted by professors or students

with instructions of their supervisors, with time and physical and mental efforts when focusing

on digging deeper in one problem. However, quality of the researches is not good as expect

that cause lower the demand of startups.

The availability is seriously low because of two reasons. First, professors and students do not

frequently publish their researches. Event their researches have high quality but startups could

not reach. Second reason, many researches are lack of customization and practical implication

for ICT startups. Therefore, startups do not receive what they really want. Therefore, startups

rate the availability low.

For Consulting Services:

Startups also have great demand for consultancy from University but the fee for this is

relatively high to consume. Moreover, the gap between academic and practical mindset may

cause barrier for startup to work with professors. Consequently, it is hard to find suitable

support from university. Event startups can find one, they will not be easy to absorb

knowledge and utilize this support right away.

In conclusion, university support has lots of available potentials but has not yet utilized

enough. The problem lay out a mission for ecosystem to change this unmatched situation.

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h) Governmental Support

Table 20: Governmental Support – Descriptive Statistic

Governmental and International Support Statistics S&D Availability Cost Quality

Mean 3.222222 1.913043 3.181818 2.809524 Median 3 2 3 3

Maximum 5 5 5 5 Minimum 1 1 1 1 Std. Dev. 1.368136 1.083473 1.296015 1.167007 Skewness -0.225608 1.269873 0.327522 0.184061 Kurtosis 1.922218 4.169558 1.80965 2.445376



Figure 13: Governmental Support – Demonstrated Graphs

It is understandable when there is high expectation from the support of government and other

organizations. However, according to table and figures above, you can see the serious

imbalance between the demand and availability of Governmental and International support.

Normally, when talking about governmental support, people will think of promoted policy to

encourage the creation of new company. However, it is true that this kind of support has not

yet been discussed over a new generation of ICT industry in Vietnam. The administration

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S&D Availability

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process is still complicated and there are not many incentive policy for new startups. This led

to a low rating in quality of this service. Furthermore, the low rating over availability is also

affected by the lack of information. It means that startups were not provided with sufficient

information about supporting programs from these special entities. In addition, the number of

supporting programs is naturally limited compared to the number of startups in demand.

Table 21: Governmental Support - Regression Model

Dependent Variable: COST Method: Least Squares Date: 07/20/13 Time: 03:11 Sample (adjusted): 2 32 Included observations: 20 after adjustments


AVAILABILITY -0.653125 0.271120 -2.408992 0.0276 QUALITY 0.231250 0.227786 1.015207 0.3242



Look further into independent variables, Availability is significant in explaining Cost. The

reason is that startups do not pay money to receive supports as a normal service. They pay cost

in finding process, assessment procedure and some execution cost. Sometime, two first kinds

of cost – initial cost take significant amount in total cost. Therefore, if governmental supports

become more available to startups, they will save much cost.

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i) Online Community

Table 22: Online Community – Descriptive Statistic

Online Community Statistics S&D Availability Cost Quality

Mean 3.46875 4.033333 1.967742 3.206897 Maximum 5 5 4 5 Minimum 1 1 1 2 Std. Dev. 1.190944 1.0662 1.048296 1.013456 Skewness -0.157684 -1.108209 0.770383 0.415277 Kurtosis 1.899002 3.695797 2.40082 2.129022



Figure 14: Online Community – Demonstrated Graphs

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S&D Availability

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Cost Quality

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Table 23: Online Community - Regression Model






Online community has shown its advancement compare with other activities. Online

community is important to startups under their evaluation, has very high availability, has low

cost and achieves acceptable quality. Therefore, online community should keep moving

forward and improve quality.

About regression model, we see that variable Availability, Cost and Quality do not explain

S&D. Therefore, online community is a natural requirement for a ICT startup ecosystem. With

the development of the ICT, currently in Vietnam, mostly startups are getting posted with the

new trends, opportunities and entre news via online channels due to its second-to-second

update regardless to geography. Therefore online community has been automatically and

continuously established and become more and more popular, provide startup with a platform

to discuss and transit the latest technique or tools to enforce the team efficiency. The

availability of the online community could be everywhere, covered the whole region,

countries or divided into cities.

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The platforms are quite open and include of many kind of startups, entre and even mentors or

investors, the information and experience discussed are quite variety and valuable. That would

be why many startup consider this would be another qualified resource where they could learn

from and make use of.

We do not need any further mathematic work to prove the necessary of online community

toward startups.

j) Offline Community

Table 24: Offline Community - Descriptive Statistic

Offline Community Statistics S&D Availability Cost Quality

Mean 3.5625 3.612903 2.25 3.133333 Median 4 4 2 3

Maximum 5 5 5 5 Minimum 1 1 1 2 Std. Dev. 1.242721 1.085585 1.107161 0.860366 Skewness -0.452274 -0.454084 0.796918 0.734754 Kurtosis 2.170994 2.504156 3.293629 3.162957



Figure 15: Offline Community – Demonstrated Graphs

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S&D Availability

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Despite of being established later than the online community, the offline one is now also get

more attention from the startup community. It would be great to get the knowledge and spirit

spread via different online platform like forums, blogs, news pages, but it would be greater

when those ambitious people could sit together and discuss more about particular issues or just

to realize the online community to the offline one with inspiring face-to-face networking. This

is the main reason led to the high S&D of this community. Another reason for this is that

online community has reached it downturn with no new initiative encouraging the interaction

between its huge numbers of members. Therefore, people are no more comfortable on a virtual

space with too many people. This naturally creates a new demand of direct interaction which

led to the formation of new offline community.

Another benefit brought from offline community is the trust between people within the

community, when they could experience the real people with the real passion and work. It

would encourage the openness and tight up the bond between members within the community.

Furthermore, this kind of service can solve one of the most critical issues facing by startups in

Vietnam. It is about finding co-founders, which requires a lot of interaction and trust gained.

These are the reason make offline community become more and more popular with high

quality.

The rating difference mostly comes from cost. Normally, due to geographic and personal

conditions, each startup pay different amount of cost (money, time, etc) to join and maintain

status in community. These cost are definitely higher than cost from taking part in an online

community. Moreover, the availability of offline community also lower than online

community due to geographic constrain and other condition.

Similar to online community, three variables Availability, Cost and Quality do not explain

S&D. This support that offline community is naturally necessary to startups regardless of their

changeable characteristics: Cost, availability and quality.

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Table 25: Offline Community - Regression Model






3.4.2 CAPITAL & PROFESSIONAL SERVICES

a) Co-working space/ Office Solution

Table 26: Co-working Space / Office Solution – Descriptive Statistic

Co-working Space / Office Solution Statistics S&D Availability Cost Quality

Mean 3.4194 2.6333 3.1000 3.1034 Median 4 3 3 3

Maximum 5 5 5 5 Minimum 1 1 2 1 Std. Dev. 1.232185 1.033352 1.093870 0.859602 Skewness -0.300463 0.207943 0.282963 -0.540929 Kurtosis 2.059153 2.473784 1.611782 2.410433



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Figure 16: Co-working Space / Office Solution – Demonstrated Graphs

According to statistics figure and Demonstrated Graphs, the demand for Co-working

space/Office Solution remains at medium-high level. This is because there are more and more

startups would like to have their office to work with team and concentrate on work with an

affordable budget. However, supply of services has not met the demand in term of quantity.

However, this is consider as a good number when the co-working space could partly serve the

demand from the community regarding to its first time commercially realized one year ago in

HCMC, Vietnam.

About cost and quality, there is a similar between mean of two variables. However, when

looking at graph, we identify that some startups could find qualified co-working space/office

solution with low price; meanwhile others have to pay higher cost for lower office quality.

The problem may be explained by ineffective information transmit or location. Another

possible reason for this is because of the lack of knowledge on the package of value provided

by co-working space. This package provides not only a place to work but also consultancy, co-

working and co-sharing environment, value-added events and unlimited opportunity for

networking. Therefore, if people do not understand about this package of value, the mindset

over cost rating varies.

0

2

4

6 1

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

32 33

Cost Quality

0

2

4

6 1

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15 16

17 18 19 20

21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

32

S&D 2 Availability NA

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Table 27: Co-working Space / Office Solution – Regression Model

Dependent Variable: S&D Method: Least Squares Date: 07/18/13 Time: 14:50 Sample (adjusted): 2 33 Included observations: 29 after adjustments

Variable Coefficient Std. Error t-Statistic Prob.

C 3.128157 1.172526 2.667878 0.0132 AVAILABILITY 0.046140 0.239939 0.192300 0.8491

COST 0.220856 0.226074 0.976920 0.3380 QUALITY -0.170747 0.291491 -0.585772 0.5633

R-squared 0.042506 Mean dependent var 3.413793 Adjusted R-squared -0.072393 S.D. dependent var 1.210585 S.E. of regression 1.253639 Akaike info criterion 3.417420 Sum squared resid 39.29026 Schwarz criterion 3.606012 Log likelihood -45.55259 F-statistic 0.369945 Durbin-Watson stat 2.507613 Prob(F-statistic) 0.775339

After running regression model for group of variables or pair of variables we see that

variables of Co-working space/Office Solution do not explain each other’s. This results show

the fact that, startups recognized the importance of Co-working space/Offices and willing to

pay for this necessity. Demand remains high regardless of availability, cost or quality. In other

word, startups have to adapt with condition of services event it is expensive or low quality.

Therefore, Co-working space/Offices should be classified as a primary aspect needed to

improve to support effectively the development of startups.

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b) Auxiliary / Back-office Services

Table 28: Auxiliary / Back-office Services - Descriptive Statistic

Auxiliary / Back-office Services Statistics S&D Availability Cost Quality

Mean 3.1000 2.8929 2.9655 3.1429 Median 3 3 3 3

Maximum 5 5 5 4 Minimum 1 1 1 1 Std. Dev. 1.213431 1.030616 0.905647 0.705234 Skewness 0.160180 0.215427 0.067375 -0.842693 Kurtosis 1.993720 1.828196 2.585734 4.475328



Figure 17: Auxiliary / Back-office Services - Demonstrated Graphs

The demand for the auxiliary services is indicated high. The possible reason for the increase in

demand is the solution for using resources effectively and efficiently. Startups, by outsourcing

other tasks that they could have it better managed outside, could focus more on developing

and innovating their products.

0

2

4

6 1

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

32 33

S&D Availability

0

2

4

6 1

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

32 33

Cost Quality

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Look at mean numbers; we see the approximate between demand and supply, between cost

and quality. However, when see the Demonstrated Graphss; there is unmatched situation

between demand and supply among participants’ answers. This may be caused by the

difference of lifecycle stages among startups. Some early-stage startups could not afford to

consume back-office services and show low level of necessity. In another hand, further-stages

startups feel worth to invest in back-office services to achieve sustainable development in

long-term; and cost are affordable to them.

Table 29: Auxiliary / Back-office Services – Regression Model



C 0.139873 1.463959 0.095544 0.9247 AVAILABILITY 0.111149 0.262146 0.423998 0.6755

COST 0.157659 0.268216 0.587806 0.5624 QUALITY 0.678497 0.347995 1.949733 0.0635

R-squared 0.199095 Mean dependent var 3.074074 Adjusted R-squared 0.094629 S.D. dependent var 1.206582 S.E. of regression 1.148075 Akaike info criterion 3.250004 Sum squared resid 30.31574 Schwarz criterion 3.441979 Log likelihood -39.87505 F-statistic 1.905836 Durbin-Watson stat 2.673915 Prob(F-statistic) 0.156829

About cost and quality, startups seem to rate quality of service at high level compared to cost.

The reason is that back-office services in Vietnam are usually provided by giant companies

who have utilized their resources to provide qualified services. Moreover, many startups do

not have economic professional background like Accounting, Auditing, HR, and Finance and

have not consumed these services before; therefore, it is hard for them to rate. In other word,

the statistic results for Back-office may be affected much by brand name, knowledge

limitation. Consequently, statistics results for this service do not portray truly the fact.

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c) Investor Network

Table 30: Investor Network - Descriptive Statistic

Investor Network Statistics S&D Availability Cost Quality

Mean 3.6667 2.7586 2.9630 3.1538 Median 4 3 3 3




Figure 18: Investor Network - Demonstrated Graphs

According to statistical analysis, we conclude that demand for investment network remain

high for all stages of startup. However, the access to the investor network is quite limited and

differentiated by startups stages. Normally, some upper-stage startups and potential startups

will receive more attention as well as investment from investors. Meanwhile, others struggle

to find investment. Cost and quality are matched because first generation of investors are first

movers who usually wisdom and experience. Therefore, startups have to pay the cost worth

with the quality of fund.

0

2

4

6 1

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

32 33

S&D Availability

0

2

4

6 1

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

32 33

Cost Quality

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Table 31: Investor Network - Regression Model



C 3.588983 1.230880 2.915787 0.0080 AVAILABILITY -0.096751 0.242430 -0.399091 0.6937

COST -0.001412 0.258925 -0.005455 0.9957 QUALITY 0.094633 0.273827 0.345593 0.7329


Moreover, after run regression models, three variables Availability, Cost and Quality do not

significant to explain demand and explain each other. In other word, the demand for

investment is natural and necessary to startups regardless current characteristics of investment.

Look at startups supporter’s perspective, we should improve investor network to indirectly

support development of startups.

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d) Venture Capital

Table 32: Venture Capital - Descriptive Statistic

Venture Capital Statistics S&D Availability Cost Quality

Mean 3.4667 2.4643 2.9231 3.6800 Median 3 2 3 4

Maximum 5 4 5 5 Minimum 1 1 1 1 Std. Dev. 1.166585 1.035737 1.092633 0.988264 Skewness -0.315950 0.198738 -0.409680 -0.646714 Kurtosis 2.459619 1.914594 2.478265 3.483040



Figure 19: Venture Capital - Demonstrated Graphs

Refer from Investment Network and statistic figures of Venture Capital Company; we see that

venture capital funds are not really available for all startups. It is obvious because there are

only two relativel active VCs in Vietnam now. They are IDG Venture and Cyber Agent

Venture. Furthermore, VCs just target on a handful of high potential growth startups. On the

other hand, funding is definitely always in great demand of startups and VCs are in top

0

2

4

6 1

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

32 33

S&D Availability

0

2

4

6 1

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

32 33

Cost Quality

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priority. Many startups want to access to VCs investment but small number of them can do.

The situation leads to serious unbalance between demand and supply.

Similar to Investment Network, demand of startups for funding from VCs are natural and

necessary; especially, when other sources of fund are not effective and hard to access in

general. About cost and quality, startups really believe in VC’s quality. It is true because VC

in Vietnam has lots of experience in managing money, supporting startups and controlling

risk. Moreover, VC also provides some extra benefit such as consultants, mentors, knowledge,

network, HR and etc. to ensure the success of startups. VCs in Vietnam also have a larger

important network which is really important under the economy scene in Vietnam.

Table 33: Venture Capital - Regression Model



C 1.501587 1.232873 1.217958 0.2367 AVAILABILITY -0.065939 0.210451 -0.313321 0.7571

COST 0.221735 0.210714 1.052305 0.3046 QUALITY 0.408517 0.230876 1.769424 0.0913


VCs in Vietnam also adopt the revenue model of royalty and exist opportunities. Therefore,

the relative initial cost is really low and is mostly about approaching fee.

In conclusion, VC is an extremely crucial factor for the development of a startup ecosystem,

contributing directly to the creation of new startups. Furthermore, this is also the factor

enforcing for the development of most startups into later advanced stages of the startup life

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cycle. Reminding the case of Silicon Valley and Tel Aviv, Silicon Valley is only created after

the development of the VC industry and Israel’s ecosystem is famous for its high penetration

of VCs over population (80 VCs / 7 millions). Therefore, considering the supply – demand

balance and also the potential of the market, it is essential to develop the VC industry in

Vietnam.

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e) Crowd-funding Portal

Table 34: Crowd-funding Portal - Descriptive Statistic

Crowd-funding Portal Statistics S&D Availability Cost Quality

Mean 2.7586 3.0741 2.8000 2.6400 Median 3 3 3 3

Maximum 5 5 5 4 Minimum 1 1 1 1 Std. Dev. 1.272095 1.384695 1.258306 0.810350 Skewness 0.039176 0.131546 0.128070 -0.224789 Kurtosis 1.825070 1.670033 2.261773 2.644631



Figure 20: Crowd-funding Portal - Demonstrated Graphs

As the budgeting exercise need solving, startups are seeking for different methods to get

funded. Crowd-funding is just developed in early year 2013 but get a considerable attention

and demand from the startup community. In the market currently there is one Vietnamese

organization introduced the crowd-funding to the community, but startups could also use other

international platform to crowd-fund on a global scale. Assessment to the crowd-funding

platform is not difficult but the cost to get the project posted and the required royalty is still a

0

2

4

6 1

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

32 33

S&D Availability

0

2

4

6 1

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

32 33

Cost Quality

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number to consider. With the previous successful cases, startup still rates highly this method

as a new way approach community fund. This could also come from higher trust between

startups on the community and vice versa, from the donators on their investment. This is a

quite promising method to help startup deal with their budget.

Table 35: Crowd-funding Portal - Regression Model



C 2.877106 1.218287 2.361599 0.0290 AVAILABILITY -0.148782 0.212265 -0.700927 0.4918

COST -0.224187 0.219416 -1.021744 0.3197 QUALITY 0.382671 0.362675 1.055133 0.3046


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f) Other Funds

Table 36: Other Funds - Descriptive Statistic

Other Funds Statistics S&D Availability Cost Quality

Mean 3.0345 2.2692 2.8400 2.6667 Median 3 2 3 3




Figure 21: Other Funds - Demonstrated Graphs

Although the traditional funding methods are more and more strict to any project or startups

applied, the demand on this source is still high. Maybe it is the traditional and safe way to get

invested from the perception of entre even they are required to pay high cost.

Other funds also demonstrate similar characteristics with Investor network, VC Investment

and crowd-funding services. However, it has difference in Quality and Availability. For other

funds, availability is significant to explain quality. In other word availability contribute

0

2

4

6 1

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

32 33

S&D Availability

0

2

4

6 1

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

32 33

Cost Quality

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importance role to evaluation of startups to it. Therefore, fund providers should be active to

contact, provide information to startups to improve their value in startups mind.

Table 37: Other Funds - Regression Model



C 2.688012 1.003542 2.678524 0.0144 AVAILABILITY 0.123121 0.223482 0.550924 0.5878

COST -0.034365 0.207835 -0.165346 0.8703 QUALITY 0.051548 0.296853 0.173650 0.8639


Table 38: Other Funds - Regression Model for two variables Quality and Availability

Dependent Variable: QUALITY Method: Least Squares Date: 07/18/13 Time: 16:50 Sample (adjusted): 2 33 Included observations: 24 after adjustments


C 1.827346 0.360635 5.067024 0.0000 AVAILABILITY 0.380070 0.142833 2.660941 0.0143


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3.4.3 STATISTIC COMPARISION BETWEEN SUPPORTING ACTIVITIES

a) Comparison on S&D

Table 39: Supporting Activities - S&D Statistic Matrix

To compare S&D of 16 services (have No of sample > 30) we use Z Test

• Ho: Ui – Uj ≤ 0

• H1: Ui – Uj > 0

Advi Inc/Acc Event Compe Media EduC Univ Gov/Int OnlC OffC Co-w Aux Angel VC Crowd OthF

Mean 3.53 2.84 3.31 2.66 3.29 3.30 2.61 3.22 3.47 3.56 3.42 3.10 3.67 3.47 2.76 3.03

Median 4 3 3.5 3 4 3 3 3 3.5 4 4 3 4 3 3 3

Maximum 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 4

Minimum 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

Std. Dev. 1.14 1.07 1.03 1.15 1.22 1.12 1.13 1.37 1.19 1.24 1.23 1.21 1.18 1.17 1.27 1.02

Skewness -0.75 -0.18 -0.83 0.06 -0.23 -0.31 0.35 -0.23 -0.16 -0.45 -0.30 0.16 -0.60 -0.32 0.04 -0.69

Kurtosis 3.16 2.90 3.29 2.40 1.93 2.42 2.60 1.92 1.90 2.17 2.06 1.99 2.66 2.46 1.83 2.33

Jarque-Bera 3.04 0.17 3.83 0.51 1.76 0.91 0.77 1.54 1.75 2.01 1.61 1.39 1.92 0.86 1.68 2.84

Probability 0.22 0.92 0.15 0.78 0.42 0.63 0.68 0.46 0.42 0.37 0.45 0.50 0.38 0.65 0.43 0.24

Sum 113 88 106 85 102 99 73 87 111 114 106 93 110 104 80 88

Sum Sq. Dev. 39.97 34.19 32.88 41.22 44.39 36.30 34.68 48.67 43.97 47.88 45.55 42.70 40.67 39.47 45.31 28.97

Observations 32 31 32 32 31 30 28 27 32 32 31 30 30 30 29 29

Note: i: Advisory → Otherfund (Column) j: Advisory → Otherfund (Row)

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Apply this formula to calculate Z value for each paired samples, we have the comparison table below:

Table 40: Matrix result of Z Test on S&D of each paired samples


Advisory 0 2.495 0.807 3.059 0.812 0.807 3.148 0.933 0.215 -0.105 0.375 1.443 -0.459 0.221 2.492 1.802

Inc/Acc

0 -1.792 0.652 -1.554 -1.647 0.806 -1.177 -2.212 -2.482 -1.983 -0.892 -2.865 -2.191 0.263 -0.727

Event

0 2.401 0.078 0.046 2.509 0.282 -0.561 -0.876 -0.373 0.741 -1.253 -0.550 1.857 1.060

Competition

0 -2.122 -2.231 0.166 -1.700 -2.773 -3.024 -2.536 -1.474 -3.400 -2.749 -0.328 -1.361

Media

0 -0.032 2.233 0.199 -0.588 -0.878 -0.415 0.612 -1.224 -0.578 1.652 0.886

Edu Courses

0 2.341 0.233 -0.575 -0.875 -0.396 0.664 -1.233 -0.565 1.734 0.954

University

0 -1.812 -2.869 -3.114 -2.637 -1.599 -3.482 -2.846 -0.475 -1.497

Gov/Int

0 -0.731 -0.992 -0.573 0.355 -1.305 -0.722 1.311 0.579

Online Com

0 -0.308 0.162 1.207 -0.656 0.007 2.244 1.535

Offline Com

0 0.459 1.482 -0.338 0.313 2.492 1.823

Co-working

0 1.020 -0.799 -0.154 2.041 1.323

Auxiliary

0 -1.831 -1.193 1.054 0.225

Angel Network

0 0.659 2.836 2.202

Venture Capital

0 2.226 1.518

Crowd-funding

0 -0.912

Other Funds

0

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Compare with Z 0.05 = 1.65 to know if H1 is approved, we have the table below.

Table 41: H1-Approval matrix result on S&D of each paired samples


Advisory

H1 H1

H1 H1 H1

Inc/Acc

Event

H1 H1

H1 Competition

Media

H1

H1 Edu Courses

H1

H1 University

Gov/Int

Online Com

H1

Offline Com

H1 H1

Co-working

H1 Auxiliary

Angel Network

H1 H1

Venture Capital

H1 Crowd-funding

Other Funds

For example, the yellow box show H1, it mean that with current sample, we can conclude S&D of Advisory and Mentoring Program is

higher than S&D of Incubators / Accelerators. On the other hand, the blank box shows that with current sample we could not compare

S&D of the paired two samples.

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According to the table above we have some conclusions: Advisory seems to be very importance to the survival and development of

startups comparing to others services. On the other hand, university support, crowd-funding and other funds have less impact on the

survival and development of startups than other services.

b) Comparison on Lifecycle Stages

Researchers divide 33 participated startups into two groups.

- Group 1: 21 startups that are on Discovery and Validation stages.

- Group 2: 12 startups that are on four later stages in the startup lifecycle.

We use t-test: Two-Sample Assuming Unequal Variances to compare results from two groups for 16 startups supporting activities.

Hypothesis:

Ho: Ux – Uy ≤ 0

H1: Ux – Uy > 0

Formulas for t-value and degree of freedom:

Reject Ho if t > t(n, 0.05)

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The t-test result shows that we could not make a significant comparison for all variables with current sample. Only the t-test of S&D of

Crowd-funding Portal and Availability of Other Funds shows the approval on H1. The results are showed in the table below.

Table 42: t-test results for two groups of startups

Statistics/Activities Crowd-funding Portal Other Funds

S&D Availability Cost Quality S&D Availability Cost Quality Mean (x) 3 3 2.944 2.706 3.053 2.706 2.941 2.875

Std. Dev. (x) 1.338 1.328 1.211 0.849 1.026 1.160 1.029 0.885 Observations (x) 20 18 18 17 19 17 17 16

Mean (y) 2.222 3.222 2.429 2.500 3.000 1.444 2.625 2.250 Std. Dev. (y) 0.972 1.563 1.397 0.756 1.054 1.014 1.506 1.035

Observations (y) 9 9 7 8 10 9 8 8 Critical Value 1.764 -0.366 0.859 0.610 0.129 2.869 0.538 1.461

Degree of Freedom 21.023 13.962 9.727 15.400 17.978 18.491 10.198 12.287 T(n,0.05) 1.721 1.761 1.012 1.753 1.734 1.734 1.012 1.702

Test H1 Ho Ho Ho Ho H1 Ho Ho

Apply t-test for two groups through all 16 activities, with available sample, we could conclude that:

• Startups on later stages in the lifecycle do not need Crowd-funding Portal as startups on the first two stages.

• For early-stages startups, Other Funds’ availability is higher than older startups. This may be explained by amount of

loan, flexibility and responsibility. Early-stages startups are normally small; therefore, the risk management and payoff

for the necessary loan are more affordable and flexible than other startups.

• For other activities, with current sample we could not make observation between two groups.

Because of the small sample size, we do not test the differences among startups from different business sectors, or compare the

importance of 16 activities to startups at different lifecycle stages. This would be done in further researches.

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CHAPTER FOUR: CONCLUSION

Entrepreneurship in information and communication technology sector has made the World

changed quickly. It not only contributes directly to the economy of a Nation but also provides

unlimited innovative solutions for World’s issues. It changes the way people live, communicate

and do business.

Entrepreneurship in ICT has come to Vietnam from 2000s and has made great impact on the

Nation. This is promising to be the change maker for Vietnam’s local issues and contribution to

solve world issues in global scale. Fascinatingly, Vietnam has become a new attention point for

ICT entrepreneurial community worldwide with many globally successful stories and the highly

potential emerging market.

However, ICT startups in Vietnam have not yet been sustainable. The survival rate and its

contribution to the Nation are low. Thus, it is strongly recommended for the Nation to build up a

strong startup ecosystem supporting for the sustainable development and long-term growth of

ICT entrepreneurship. In that ecosystem, supporting activities for startups is one vital element

contributing directly to the progression of the high-growth businesses. There are many supporting

activities and each contributes differently to the ecosystem.

By conducting this research over 16 supporting activities in Vietnam, we have observed a strong

demand from startups for them. However, there are still several implementations that we need to

consider.

Firstly, excluding online and offline community, there is a critical gap between the demand and

supply of other supporting activities. The market pain on the supply gap is in Advisory and

Mentorship, Education Course and Funding Sources including Angel Investor Network, Venture

Capital and other entities. Consequently, startups could not utilize available benefit provided by

supporting activities and could not have an effective and efficient launch or execution.

Furthermore, many startups could not pass minor mistakes and fail. This is because of startups

are still close-minded and passive in finding supporting services. Furthermore, they tend to be

reluctant to share ideas and contribute to the community around them.

Looking at the supply side, startups’ supporting activity providers are still lack of a systematic

development. They are lack of an ecosystem leader to unite the startup scene and also lack of

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communication to startups to understand their demand. Different activities providers should

cooperate to provide a supporting package with better quality and lower price. They also need to

think again their product’s customization, customer approach and prepositioning to ensure the

best understanding between them and startups.

More specific, problems of each activity are summarized in table below:

Table 43: Supporting Activities for Startups – Conclusion Summary

Services/Activities Problems/Signals/Characteristics Possible Conclusions/ Solutions/Improvement

Advisory and Mentoring

- Supply does not satisfy demand.

- Low availability causes higher cost for startups.

- Lack of service providers delivering consultancy or giving hand to find suitable mentors.

- Startups, who have invested effort and money in finding mentors, tend to rate mentor quality low.

- Establish entities specialized in giving consultancy or connecting mentors to startups.

- Create a new culture of finding mentors and becoming a mentor.

- Other supporting services (event, incubator, community and etc.) should integrate mentorship value in its delivered package.

Incubator/ Accelerator

- Startups are unfamiliar with this special service and underestimate the value of it.

- Supply does not satisfy whom in demand.

- Demand of the market is not encouraging for supplier.

- Educate startups about the function and importance of incubator/accelerator.

- Customize different packages of value for different target and communicate them.

- Establish an incubator/accelerator association.

Community Event

- Demand is intermediate.

- Supply is slightly high with many community events organized regularly for different backgrounds.

- Value has not yet been maximized and is in low level. Cost is low.

- Integrate more valuable benefits into events: mentorship, community, experiences and insight sharing and etc.

- Activate the mindset of sharing, giving and being inclusive for startups while taking part in these events.

Startup - Supply meet demand and quality is - Customize to deliver more key

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Competition superior to cost.

- Demand is still low compared to other activities

- Competitions have been about education rather than execution orientation.

- Value delivered to startups is still low.

value to startups: quality mentorship, valuable connection and integrated experiences.

- Define the purpose of each events: education, fund raising, connecting and etc.

Startup Communication Channel & Media

- Demand and Supply is high.

- Quality is good. Cost is low.

- Most of channels are in the form of blog providing personal observation rather than scientific point of view.

- Provide more articles and researches with scientific basement.

- Collaborate with other academic or research organization to provide more accurate articles.

Education Courses

- Demand and supply are higher than average and demand is slightly higher than supply.

- Quality is really high but maybe rating is influenced by media.

- Provide more education course for startups.

- Deliver value added by adding networks and incubation.

- Have a more accurate research on the importance rate, supply-demand and quality of this to make recommendation.

University Support

- Demand is really low.

- Availability and quality remain typically low.

- Compared to other factors, cost is relatively higher.

- Create new initiatives, under the assistance of the government, to support for startups on consultancy and researches.

Governmental Support

- High demand but low availability for governmental support

- Low availability and complicated procedure cause extra sunk cost – cost of registration and finding

- Startups were not provided enough information about supporting policies and programs

- Publish new incentive policy: tax, funding and collaboration.

- Have more systematic long-term support rather than provide only short-time assistant.

- Create a communication platform between startups and the government.

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Online Community

- Supply is really high. Demand is high too.

- Cost is low, but the quality is just slightly above average.

- Community management for the online platform is still poor, with not many value added.

- Build up mechanism to create more value for startups: offline meeting, networking, database and etc.

Offline Community

- Demand and supply are high and approximately equal to each other.

- Quality is above average and cost is low.

- The demand is increasing and require for more and more activities.

- Establish new community

- Communities should join in hand together to build up a large community

- Each community should have more interaction activities.

Co-working space/Office Solution

- Consuming advantages is not equal for each startup.

- Information about office solution is not available for everyone.

- The demand is increasing high.

- Educate the market about new office solution.

- Open new co-working space with open areas for any people to come.

Auxiliary/Back-office Services

- Demand is differentiated by stages of startups

- Supply is slightly low and does not satisfy the demand

- Customize services to be suitable for each stage of startup.

- Collaborate with others to provide a package of services.

Investor Network

- High demand from all stages of startups.

- Accessibility is not equal among startups, older startups normally have more chances than early-stage startups

- Cost and quality of fund/extra benefit is normally matched

- Diversify investor network to provide more opportunities for early-stage startups.

- For startups, be more active in branding and networking with investors to exploit sources of fund.

Venture Capital

- Serious imbalance between supply and demand. Many startup want to access to VC fund but minority of them can do.

- Should have incentive policy to encourage activities of more VCs in Vietnam.

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Crowd-funding Portal

- The service is very new in Vietnam but received much attention.

- No new startup used this service.

- Improve its services for startups by providing social engagement consultancy and more initiatives to enhance startups’ branding.

Other Funds

- Demand for traditional funds remains high in early stage startups.

- Availability is significant in explaining quality

- Create new funding program, under the assistance of the government, specially customized for startups.

Secondly, demand and evaluation for 16 activities are different by startup lifecycle stages, by

business sectors and by significant level. According to analysis, older startups have different

interest and demand different supporting activities.

Lastly, the research has stated out an essential mission of building a strong ICT startup ecosystem

in Vietnam with a system of integrated supporting services. Moreover, looking into the

opportunity side, the research also shows a highly potential market for startups’ supporting

activities. In that new market, financial sector plays one of the most important roles providing

financial leverage for the survival and development of startups. Thus, as ICT entrepreneurship is

still new to Vietnam, people in the financial sector like researchers should give more effort in

researching for the new market and adopt a new wide range of financial tools and knowledge

specialized about ICT startups. This will enable them to be more active in assisting for the

development of ICT startups and ICT startups ecosystem in Vietnam.

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APPENDIX

APPENDIX I: SURVEY FORM

Tìm hiểu về Hệ sinh thái Khởi nghiệp tại Việt Nam

Q1 Chọn một/các miêu tả phù hợp nhất về bạn:

q Sắp khởi nghiệp

q Đang khởi nghiệp

q Đã có các sản phẩm khởi nghiệp khác nhau

q Nhà đầu tư

q Nhà cố vấn, tư vấn

q Nhà báo, nhà viết blog

q Những đối tượng quan tâm khác đến khởi nghiệp: ____________________

Q2 Tuổi của bạn:

m 18 - 24

m 25 - 34

m 35 - 44

m Khác.

Q3 Thành phố bạn đang sống:

m Hà Nội

m Hồ Chí Minh

m Thành phố khác: ____________________

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Q4 Lĩnh vực mà bạn đang khởi nghiệp hay đang quan tâm tới nhất?

q Thương mại điện tử (E-commerce)

q Thanh toán (Payment)

q (Phát triển phần mềm/ứng dụng/trò chơi (Software/Application/Game Developer)

q Giáo dục và các khoá học (Education, E-learning)

q Mảng khác ____________________

q Chợ giao dịch trực tuyến (Market Place)

q Truyền thông (Media)

Q5 Nếu bạn đang có một sản phẩm khởi nghiệp, thì sản phẩm của bạn đang ở giai đoạn nào:

m Khám phá: Trong quá trình tìm kiếm ý tưởng phù hợp, giải quyết được vấn đề và thu hút được chú ý của khách hàng

m Khẳng định: Khẳng định được tính đúng đắn và cần thiết của ý tưởng, nhận được sự quan tâm, tư vấn và đầu tư

m Tiêu chuẩn hoá: Hoàn thiện mô hình kinh doanh, tăng hiệu suất và đem lại giá trị nhiều hơn cho khách hàng.

m Quy mô hoá: Giai đoạn mà sản phẩm khởi nghiệp nắm lấy mọi cơ hội và phát triển với tốc độ cao trên thị trường. Mô hình kinh doanh đươc nhân

rộng.

m Bền vững: Giai đoạn mà sản phẩm khởi nghiệp đạt đến mốc tăng trưởng cao nhất với nguồn khách hàng và nguồn thu ổn định. Nguồn lực được tập

trung vào ổn định sản phẩm và giữ vững thị phần.

m Bảo toàn: Giai đoạn cần làm mới sản phẩm hoặc đi vào giảm quy mô.

Q6 Bạn hãy cho điểm từ 1-5 những dịch vụ khởi nghiệp (Vốn + Dịch vụ trực tiếp) tại Việt Nam theo các tiêu chí dưới đây:

m Điểm 1: Ảnh hưởng ít - Khó tiếp cận - Chi phí cao - Chất lượng thấp

m Điểm 5: Ảnh hưởng nhiều - Dễ tiếp cận - Chi phí tối ưu - Chất lượng tốt

Nếu bạn không hiểu rõ về dịch vụ hay không chắc chắn về câu trả lời của bạn, bạn có thể để trống phần trả lời

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Độ a/h tới sự tồn tại và phát triển của startups Khả năng tiếp cận dịch vụ Chi Phí Chất lượng

1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5

Văn phòng chung/Các giải pháp văn phòng ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

Dịch vụ phụ tá hỗ trợ hành chính (kế toán, trả lương, tuyển dụng, bảo hiểm) ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

Mạng lưới nhà đầu tư (Angel Investor Network) ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

Cá nhân và tổ chức đầu tư mạo hiểm (IDG Ventures Vietnam, CyberAgent) ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

Hệ thống gọi vốn cộng đồng (Crowdfunding Portal) (5) ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

Các nguồn vốn khác (Vay ngân hàng,...) ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

Khác: ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

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Q7 Bạn hãy cho điểm 1-5 những dịch vụ hỗ trợ khởi nghiệp (Tri Thức + Network) tại Việt Nam theo những tiêu chí dưới đây:

Điểm 1: Ít ảnh hưởng - Khó tiếp cận - Chi phí cao - Chất lượng thấp Điểm 5: Ảnh hưởng nhiều - Dễ tiếp cận - Chi phí tối ưu - Chất lượng tốt

Nếu bạn không hiểu rõ về dịch vụ hay không chắc chắn về câu trả lời của bạn, bạn có thể để trống phần trả lời.

Độ a/h tới sự tồn tại và phát triển của startups

Khả năng tiếp cận dịch vụ Chi Phí Chất lượng

1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5

Nhà cố vấn / Công ty tư vấn m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m

Vườn ươm khởi nghiệp m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m

Sự kiện cộng đồng cho các nhà khởi nghiệp m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m

Các cuộc thi khởi nghiệp m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m

Các kênh thông tin về khởi nghiệp (Action.vn, blog startupof.me,...) m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m

Các khoá học về khởi nghiệp và kỹ năng liên quan ( TOPICA Founder

Institute, Blackmoon,...) m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m

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Q8 Địa chỉ liên lạc: Họ tên, Email, trang web startup (nếu có) của bạn. Điều này sẽ giúp chúng tôi rất nhiều trong việc tổng hợp và phân tích số liệu sau khảo sát. Mọi thông tin của bạn sẽ được giữ kín và chỉ phục vụ cho mục đích nghiên cứu.

Q9 Nếu bạn có yêu cầu hoặc góp ý gì cho chúng tôi xin hãy viết tại đây. Những góp ý của bạn là rất quý giá đối với chúng tôi và sẽ giúp chúng tôi hoàn thiện hơn trong những lần nghiên cứu sau. Xin chân thành cảm ơn!

Hỗ trợ từ trường Đại học (NCKH, ngành học khởi nghiệp,...) m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m

Hỗ trợ từ chính phủ và các tổ chức nước ngoài (chính sách, đầu tư, tư

vấn,...) m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m

Cộng đồng trực tuyến (Launch, các forum,...) m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m

Cộng đồng offline (Startup Weekend, HATCH!,...) m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m

Khác m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m

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APPENDIX II: SURVEY RESULT

Table 44: Survey Sample - Participant Database

No Name Description Gender Title Age Location Business Sectors Stage

1 Hòa Phạm Founder Ubox Male Current Startup Founder 18-24 Hanoi Software/Application/Game Developer Efficiency

2 Tran Tien Thuc 123TV Male Current Startup Founder 25-34 Hanoi E-commerce Efficiency

3 Nguyen Tuan Anh aothun14 Male Current Startup Founder 18-24 Hanoi E-commerce Discovery

4 Tran Hoang Trung Thailand University Male Current Startup Founder 18-24 Hanoi Mobile App + Sofware Developer Validation

5 Annie Trang Ha Cloverling (Dat) F Current Startup Founder 18-24 Hanoi Brand Design + Graphic Design Validation

6 Hoàng Minh Thành Founder.me Male Current Startup Founder 18-24 Hanoi E-commerce Discovery

7 Bruce Nguyễn aribnb Male Current Startup Founder 18-24 Hanoi Ecommerce + Market Place Discovery

8 Phan Quý Long hieubiet.vn Male Current Startup Founder 25-34 Hanoi Q&A (Hỏi đáp) Efficiency

9 Nguyễn Tiến Thành Internship, investment from Japan Male Current Startup Founder 18-24 Hanoi Software/Application/Game

Developer Efficiency

10 Lê Thị Bích Nga Reading Community F Future Founder 18-24 Hanoi Education + E-learning Discovery

11 Nguyễn Đình Lộc Startup Weekend Male Seri Founder 18-24 Hanoi Ecommerce + Education, E-Learing + Market Place Discovery

12 Nguyễn Thanh Minh DeltaViet Cofounder Male Current Startup Founder 25-34 HCM Education + E-learning Efficiency

13 Lê Viết Đạt Cofounder HATCH! Male Current Startup Founder 18-24 Hanoi (Other) Startup Supporting Services Validation

14 Dương Quang Anh Cofounder Eduhub Male Current Startup Founder 18-24 Hanoi Education + E-learning + Media + Fashion Validation

15 Đoàn Chiến Thắng Founder Ucan.vn Male Current Startup Founder 25-34 Hanoi Education + E-Learning Discovery

16 Anonymous U Current Startup Founder 25-34 Hanoi Ecommerce + E-learning + Developer + Market Place Discovery

17 Nguyễn Thanh Tùng Co-founder vn2rap.com Male Current Startup Founder 18-24 Danang Ecommerce + Payment +

Developer + Cloud Computing Conservation

18 Phạm Minh Khuê Founder Invifire Male Current Startup Founder 18-24 Hanoi Ecommerce + Payment + E-learning + Media Discovery

19 Nguyễn Quang Đức CEO&President at HSP Male Current Startup Founder 25-34 Hanoi (Other) Social Health Scale

20 Võ Phước Hậu Founder icedolphin Male Current Startup Founder 18-24 HCM Payment + Market Place + Social Network Discovery

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21 Phạm Minh Toàn

CEO & Founder Time Universal

Communications (Investor)

Male Current Startup Founder 25-34 HCM E-commerce + Developer + Media Sustain

22 Đinh Trần Tuấn Linh Founder Chiemtinh Male Seri Founder 25-34 Hanoi Developer + E-learning + (Other) Horoscope Validation

23 Đặng Thị Hồng Nhung Current Founder F Current Startup Founder 18-24 Hanoi E-commerce Discovery

24 Phạm Quốc Đạt Seri Founder + Mentor Male Seri Founder 18-24 Hanoi (Other) Tư vấn Sustain

25 Giang Internship, Investment from Japan Male Current Startup Founder 18-24 Hanoi Software/Application/Game

Developer Discovery

26 Đặng Minh Tuấn Seri Founder + Blogger + Coder Male Seri Founder 25-34 Others Developer + Media Efficiency

27 Đinh Anh Quân Founder Gamo Male Seri Founder 25-34 Hanoi Software/Application/Game Developer Scale

28 Lại Tuấn Cường (Jason Lai)

Founder Linkleads, Brokersend.com Male Seri Founder 25-34 Hanoi Ecommerce + Developer Efficiency

29 Anonymous U Current Startup Founder 18-24 HCM Ecommerce + Developer + E-learning + Media Validation

30 Lê Anh Quang Worked at ig9.vn Male Future Founder 25-34 Hanoi Ecommerce + Payment + E-

learning + Market Place + Media + Crowdfunding, EFP system

Discovery

31 Anonymous U Future Founder 25-34 Hanoi Outsourcing Discovery

32 Linh Dong Work at Handymoon F Current Startup Founder 18-24 Hanoi Ecommerce Validation

33 Vũ Trung Kiên Work at Gik.vn Male Future Founder 18-24 Hanoi E-learning + Media Discovery

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Table 45: Supporting Activities on Knowledge & Network - Survey Result

Advisory Inc/Acc Event Event Media EduC University Gov/Int Online Com Offline Com Name S A C Q S A C Q S A C Q S A C Q S A C Q S A C Q S A C Q S A C Q S A C Q S A C Q

Hòa Phạm 1 5 4 4 1 3 2 5 1 2 1 3 1 2 2 5 1 4 1 5 1 3 1 4 2 2 1 3 1 5 1 3 3 5 Tran Tien Thuc 5 2 2 3 2 2 4 3 3 4 3 3 4 4 2 3 4 4 2 4 4 4 2 3 3 4 2 3 3 2 4 2 5 4 2 4 5 4 2 3 Nguyen T. Anh 3 2 2 3 3 4 3 4 4 2 4 4 2 2 4 4 5 4 2 4 5 4 4 4 2 2 2 2 5 5 4 2 4 5 4 3 3 Tran H. Trung 4 1 4 3 2 4 3 2 2 3 2 3 4 2 3 2 2 2 2 2 1 4 2 4 2 3 4 2 3

Annie Trang Ha 3 2 4 2 3 2 3 2 3 4 2 3 3 2 3 3 5 4 2 3 3 2 3 3 3 2 3 3 5 2 3 2 5 4 2 3 5 4 2 3 Thanh 4 2 3 2 3 2 3 2 4 4 2 3 3 2 3 3 4 2 3 2 3 4 2 4 4 2 3 3 4 2 3 3 2 4 2 3 4 4 2 3

Bruce Nguyễn 1 1 3 3 1 1 3 3 3 3 2 3 3 3 2 3 1 2 3 3 3 3 2 4 3 3 2 4 1 3 2 4 5 4 1 5 5 5 1 5 Phan Quý Long 3 2 5 1 4 3 1 4 4 1 4 3 4 5 4 1 4 4 5 4 3

Nguyễn T. Thành 4 4 2 3 4 4 1 4 Lê Thị Bích Nga 5 2 3 3 4 2 3 3 2 2 3 3 2 3 1 2 4 3 2 4 Nguyễn Đình Lộc 3 4 3 5 4 3 2 1 2 3 3 3 3 4 3 2 2 4 4 4 3 3 2 2 2 Nguyễn T. Minh 4 3 2 3 5 4 2 4 4 4 1 3 3 3 2 3 3 5 1 3 5 4 3 4 3 2 3 3 2 2 3 3 2 5 2 2 2 4 2 2

Lê Viết Đạt 5 3 4 4 3 3 4 3 4 4 3 4 3 5 3 2 4 3 1 4 3 3 3 3 3 2 2 2 4 2 3 2 5 5 1 2 5 5 1 3 Dương Q.Anh 4 4 3 3 2 4 1 3 1 5 1 3 1 5 1 2 2 5 1 4 4 4 3 4 3 1 2 2 5 1 2 3 3 5 1 4 1 5 1 3 Đoàn C. Thắng 4 4 3 4 4 2 2 5 5 4 1 5 4 4 1 5 4 5 1 5 4 4 2 5 2 1 5 1 2 1 5 1 4 4 2 5 5 4 2 5

Anonymous 4 2 4 4 3 3 4 3 3 3 3 3 3 2 3 3 3 3 3 4 3 3 4 4 3 2 3 3 3 2 4 1 2 2 2 2 2 Nguyễn T. Tùng 1 1 4 2 3 1 4 3 4 4 2 4 1 1 2 2 5 5 1 5 4 2 4 5 1 1 1 2 5 1 5 5 5 5 1 5 2 3 3 4 Phạm Minh Khuê 3 2 5 4 2 1 4 2 1 3 2 1 3 2 1 4 2 3 4 2 4 2 4 1 4 1 Nguyễn Q. Đức 3 2 3 3 3 2 2 3 4 3 2 3 3 3 2 3 2 4 1 3 4 4 3 4 3 2 2 3 3 3 2 4 3 3 3 3 3 4 1 3 Võ Phước Hậu 4 3 4 3 3 4 2 4 4 5 3 4 4 4 3 4 3 5 5 3 4 2 4 4 2 2 4 2 4 5 2 3 3 5 3 3 4 3 2 3

Phạm Minh Toàn 3 2 2 3 3 3 4 2 3 4 4 2 2 2 2 2 2 4 2 3 3 3 3 4 3 2 3 3 4 2 3 4 2 4 1 3 3 4 1 3 Đinh T. T. Linh 2 4 1 4 1 3 2 2 3 4 2 3 3 4 3 4 2 5 1 3 2 4 5 2 1 1 3 1 1 2 3 1 2 3 3 2 2 3 3 2 Đặng T.H. Nhung 5 1 5 3 5 3 3 4 5 3 3 4 5 3 3 4 5 3 3 4 5 3 5 1 5 1 5 5 5 5 5 4 Phạm Quốc Đạt 4 2 4 2 4 2 4 2 4 3 4 3 2 4 3 3 4 2 4 2 3 4 2 4 5 2 4 2 3 1 5 2 4 4 2 4 5 3 3 3

Giang 5 5 1 2 3 3 3 3 3 4 4 3 1 1 5 1 2 4 3 1 3 2 4 4 4 2 5 3 Đặng Minh Tuấn 3 1 2 2 1 1 1 2 4 1 1 2 5 1 1 2 5 1 1 2 2 1 5 2 2 1 1 2 2 1 1 2 5 1 1 2 5 1 2 2 Đinh Anh Quân 3 3 1 3 3 3 4 3 4 5 2 4 3 2 1 3 4 5 3 3 5 5 3 5 3 5 5 3 1 1 5 3 3 5 1 3 3 5 1 3 Lại Tuấn Cường 4 3 2 3 2 1 5 2 3 4 5 3 3 4 4 3 4 5 4 4 4 4 2 4 2 1 4 2 5 1 2 1 3 5 4 2 2 4 4 2

Anonymous 4 3 3 2 3 3 4 4 4 4 4 4 2 2 2 2 3 2 3 3 3 3 3 4 4 4 4 3 3 3 3 4 3 4 5 3 3 Lê Anh Quang 3 3 3 4 3 3 3 3 2 4 1 2 1 5 1 1 2 4 2 3 2 3 3 3 1 1 2 2 3 1 5 5 2 5 1 2 3 5 1 3

Anonymous 5 3 3 5 3 2 2 3 3 5 2 2 1 4 2 2 2 5 1 2 4 3 5 4 1 1 3 1 4 1 5 3 3 5 1 3 4 3 3 3 Linh Dong 4 3 3 3 3 4 3 3 4 3 2 3 4 4 2 3 4 5 2 4 3 2 5 2 2 2 3 2 3 2 3 3 4 5 2 3 3 4 2 3

Vũ Trung Kiên 4 3 4 4 3 2 3 3 2 4 2 4 3 4 2 4 3 5 1 4 2 3 5 3 1 1 3 2 4 4 2 4 3 3 3 3

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Table 46: Supporting Activities on Capital & Professional Services - Survey Result

Co-working Space Auxiliary Services Angel Network Venture Capital Crowd-funding Other Funds Name S A C Q S A C Q S A C Q S A C Q S A C Q S A C Q

Hòa Phạm 2 2 1 5 3 5 1 4 1 5 2 2 Tran Tien Thuc 4 2 4 4 2 4 4 3 3 2 4 3 2 2 4 4 2 3 3 3 2 4 3

Nguyen Tuan Anh 5 2 4 4 4 2 4 4 5 2 3 4 3 2 3 3 3 4 2 2 3 4 2 4 Tran Hoang Trung 5 2 2 3 2 2 4 2 4 2 2 4 2 2 4 3 2 3

Annie Trang Ha 3 4 4 3 3 2 3 3 3 4 3 3 3 2 4 3 4 2 2 2 4 2 2 2 Thanh (Đạt Contact) 4 2 2 2 4 2 3 3 5 4 2 3 4 4 3 4 4 2 2 3 3 4 3 4

Bruce Nguyễn 5 3 3 3 5 4 3 3 5 4 3 3 5 4 3 3 5 4 3 3 1 4 3 3 Phan Quý Long 1 2 2 4 1 2 4 4 5 2 5 2 1 2 4 4

Nguyễn Tiến Thành 5 5 3 4 5 4 3 4 Lê Thị Bích Nga Nguyễn Đình Lộc 4 3 3 4 2 2 3 3 3 3 4 3 3 3 4 3 2 2 3 2 2 2 4 2

Nguyễn Thanh Minh 3 4 4 3 5 4 2 4 4 3 3 3 4 3 3 4 2 2 3 3 3 1 2 4 Lê Viết Đạt 4 3 4 4 3 4 4 4 5 2 3 2 5 2 3 3 4 4 3 2 4 3 3 2

Dương Quang Anh 2 2 4 4 3 4 1 4 5 1 3 5 5 1 3 5 4 3 3 2 2 1 5 1 Đoàn Chiến Thắng 2 3 4 4 3 4 2 3 4 3 4 4 4 1 1 5 1 1 3 3 1 2 2 3

Anonymous 4 3 2 2 2 2 2 3 3 3 3 4 3 2 3 4 4 3 3 4 4 3 2 3 Nguyễn Thanh Tùng 3 1 5 2 2 2 4 2 3 2 2 3 4 1 3 4 1 5 1 2 4 1 1 3

Phạm Minh Khuê 2 3 2 3 2 2 3 3 2 1 3 3 2 3 3 Nguyễn Quang Đức

Võ Phước Hậu 5 3 2 3 2 2 3 1 4 4 1 3 4 4 2 3 3 3 3 3 4 4 2 3 Phạm Minh Toàn 3 1 2 3 4 3 2 4 3 3 2 3 3 3 2 4 2 4 4 2 4 1 2 2

Đinh Trần Tuấn Linh 2 2 4 2 4 2 5 3 2 4 5 2 4 4 5 4 1 5 5 3 4 2 2 3 Đặng Thị Hồng Nhung 4 3 2 1 4 5 2 4 5 4 2 4 5 5 4

Phạm Quốc Đạt 3 2 2 2 2 4 3 3 5 1 5 1 3 2 4 2 3 3 3 4 1 4 2 Giang 5 1 3 2 3 3 3 1 1 5 1

Đặng Minh Tuấn 1 4 2 3 1 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 4 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 Đinh Anh Quân 5 1 5 3 5 3 3 5 2 3 3 5 1 1 5 2 5 1 3 3 1 5 1 Lại Tuấn Cường 4 4 2 4 4 3 3 3 4 3 3 3 5 2 3 5 3 5 4 3 2 1 2 2

Anonymous 4 4 4 3 3 3 3 3 4 4 3 2 3 4 3 2 2 3 3 2 2 4 Lê Anh Quang 3 2 2 4 5 1 4 3 4 4 2 3 3 3 3 4 1 5 1 3 2 2 4 4

Anonymous 2 3 2 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 4 5 3 2 4 4 2 2 5 2 3 1 3 2 Linh Dong 3 3 4 4 2 4 2 3 4 2 2 3 4 3 4 3 4 4 3 4 4 3 3 3

Vũ Trung Kiên 4 2 5 3 3 3 4 3 3 2 3 3 3 4 2 3 4 5 1 4 4 5 5 3

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Data & Analytics

[HATCH! REVIEW] Studying the demand of Start-ups for Supporting Activities in Vietnam