Lan Tran

Decision Lab's Q2 2024 report sheds light on the factors contributing to Gojek's exit from Vietnam. As the market shifts, it's crucial for ride-hailing companies to reassess their strategies and focus on building strong brands to stay competitive. 👇 Check the report below:

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Google, Temasek and Bain's latest e-Conomy report is out, and is an annual must-read about (biased opinion) the most exciting region globally in Southeast Asia. There's no better time to be in Southeast Asia: 1. Growth: revenue, profitability and GMV are all heading in the same, positive direction year-on-year 2. Videos and the creator economy as a driver of e-commerce growth 3. According to Lightspeed's recent study, Southeast Asian consumers are highly value-based and deal-seeking. However in the case of the food delivery category, search data is showing a declining reliance on promotions in the way consumers' search for food 4. The deal and investment landscape is likely to pick up, with software and services, fintech, and medtech/healthtech the leading sectors of focus 5. USD30B: the amount invested into Southeast Asia on AI infrastructure - in H1 2024 alone 6. AI speed to returns: early adopters in Southeast Asia are seeing returns on their investments within 12 months of implementation(!....?...) 7. Looking forward: inflation pressures continue to ease; GDP growth outlook appears to be robust and outpacing developing economies; and strong growth in foreign direct investment, exports and consumer spending are indicators of more continued optimism in the region https://lnkd.in/gBad_4rc

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A new e-commerce player enters the Thai market. The entry of Chinese e-commerce giant Temu into Thailand is set to intensify competition and potentially disrupt local retailers like Lazada, Shopee, and TikTok. Temu's aggressive pricing strategies and rapid delivery services are expected to attract many consumers but may lead to the shuttering of local factories and increased economic strain on SMEs. But experts urge the Thai government to implement stricter import regulations to protect local businesses from the influx of cheap, non-branded products. With recent rumors of the Lazada Group looking to divest its stake in Lazada Thailand, could this also be the straw that breaks the camel's back, motivating the e-commerce giant to reconsider its Thailand strategy? https://lnkd.in/gNdZdJF5

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An IPO excites entrepreneurs and investors, offering rewards from early bets and access to larger capital pools. In Vietnam, the tech community anticipates its first major local IPO, looking to its four tech unicorns, each valued over US$1 billion, to lead the charge. 1. VNG Corporation In August 2023, VNG filed for a U.S. listing after VINFAST ’s Nasdaq debut but withdrew due to market conditions. Founded in 2004, VNG remains unprofitable and listed on Vietnam’s UPCoM without raising funds. 2. VNLIFE VNLife, parent to VNPAY is considering a trade sale over an IPO. CEO Niraan De Silva noted the complexity of IPOs and Vietnam’s retail investors’ inexperience with tech businesses. Profitable and well-capitalized, VNLife became a unicorn in 2021. 3. MoMo (M_Service) Founded in 2007, M_Service, behind MoMo, plans an IPO by 2025. Despite significant losses, MoMo serves 31 million users. CEO Nguyen Manh Tuong has called for government support for tech companies seeking public funds. 4. Sky Mavis Sky Mavis, the blockchain studio behind Axie Infinity, has not publicly discussed an IPO. Its valuation peaked at nearly $3 billion in 2021 but fell after a major cryptocurrency heist. These unicorns are set to reshape Vietnam’s IPO landscape, potentially inspiring a wave of tech listings. #Growth #Unicorns #IPO #Vietnam #Investment #Tech #AI #Innovation #Transformation #Business #Scale I The Business Times I Jamille Tran

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December 31, 2014, 11:30 PM Vietnam Time—where were you? I was with these giants of the insurance industry, the number one company in the market at the time, Prudential Vietnam Assurance Private Ltd. We held that position by creating a clear vision and executing our plan with ruthless precision. Pictured here are my "Super 7" Region Heads, each managing around 30 General Agency offices and 25,000 agents. These leaders were at the top of the insurance game in any market, any country. This was my living room at the time, with some of my California wine on the table. We took a brief break to snap this photo before the team was back on the phones, calling agents, underwriters, and General Agency offices, coordinating the year's close and chasing down every possible policy to get them issued. In that month alone, nearly 100,000 prospective customers and agents heard the Prudential story, whether to join the industry as agents or as clients. These were event machines—they recruited, developed, knew underwriting and compensation, and most importantly, knew how to listen and solve problems. Some of my fondest memories were leading this team each month and quarter. If you ever need to chat about how to build and sustain great distribution teams, I’d be happy to connect. Luu Ky Nam, Executive Coach Thien Le Ba Luc Dang Giao Nguyen #Leadership #InsuranceIndustry #TeamBuilding #PrudentialVietnam #DistributionExcellence #Memories #VisionExecution #Networking

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🌟 𝑨 𝑯𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒇𝒆𝒍𝒕 𝑨𝒏𝒏𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒄𝒆𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕: 𝑶𝒖𝒓 𝑱𝒐𝒖𝒓𝒏𝒆𝒚'𝒔 𝑬𝒏𝒅 𝑭𝒐𝒓 𝑵𝒐𝒘 🌟 Today, I am sharing a decision that has been both painful and therapeutic for us at Raijin.ai - AI Analysis Assistant. We are shutting down our product and pivoting away from our beloved user research AI agent. It has been a difficult few weeks and I wish we pivoted sooner, but on hindsight, here’s why it took so long: - 𝐖𝐞 𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐛𝐥𝐞𝐦 𝐰𝐞 𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐫𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐨𝐥𝐯𝐞 Inspired by Y Combinator’s advice to build something that solves your own problem, we embarked on a mission to use LLMs to synthesize all the tons of user interviews we had done. However, we realized that the problem was not frequent enough and many user researchers / designers even preferred manually listening to the call recordings. The macroeconomic conditions leading to downsizing of product, design and research teams also shrank an already highly competitive market. But the most painful part of this is that our team still uses our own tool to do user research - which showed that there was indeed a problem to be solved here. - 𝐖𝐞 𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐮𝐧𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐛𝐥𝐞𝐦𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐨𝐥𝐯𝐞 𝐧𝐞𝐱𝐭 Despite early clues that this path might not work out for us, we found ourselves at a crossroads, unsure of what to pursue next. We already had some robust tech that we built and we were searching for problems. We explored various avenues, from a B2C version to a Slackbot, and even ventured into the LLM tooling space. Each attempt taught us valuable lessons, but none provided the strong buyer case we needed. As we close this chapter, I want to express my deepest gratitude to everyone who supported us along the way. Your encouragement and feedback have been invaluable. But this far from the end. Our team loves working together, and our goal to build products that customers love remains unchanged. Watch this space, as we are excited to announce that we will be launching something new in a few weeks time! 🚀 I will do a deeper dive as a post-mortem post for everyone to learn from our adventures in this space once we have some time. Thank you for being part of our journey. Here’s to new beginnings and a renewed sense of purpose! #startuplife #entrepreneurship #founder #productmanagement #productdesign #userjourney #userresearch #B2B #saas

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𝐃𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐟𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐕𝐢𝐞𝐭𝐧𝐚𝐦 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐮𝐩𝐬: "𝐕𝐢𝐞𝐭𝐧𝐚𝐦'𝐬 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐮𝐩 𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐬𝐲𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐦 𝐢𝐬 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐥𝐲 𝐝𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐒𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐨𝐧 𝐕𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐲" 💥 Vietnam is becoming a hotspot for startups in Southeast Asia, attracting a diverse array of foreign entrepreneurs. Founder Homebase and Persona Studios highlight three key factors driving this trend: - Abundance of Technology Talent: Vietnam offers a rich pool of tech-savvy individuals, ideal for building innovative teams at a budget-friendly cost. - Central Location in Southeast Asia: Situated at the heart of the region, Vietnam provides easy access to markets, facilitating global expansion. - Comprehensive Support Ecosystem: With a supportive investment landscape and startup-friendly environment, Vietnam offers resources for budding ventures to thrive. The influx of foreign founders has significantly fueled Vietnam's startup scene, with notable growth in sectors like logistics, finance, education, lifestyle, proptech, AI, and F&B. These founders, from diverse origins such as Japan, Singapore, Korea, India, Europe, and the US, contribute to the country's entrepreneurial allure. According to Homebase and Persona Studios, Vietnam's appeal lies in its tech talent, cost-effective workforce, and robust investor support, making it an ideal hub for tech-driven ventures eyeing regional and global growth. "Vietnam is an extremely dynamic and rapidly growing market with a young, tech-savvy population. The culture here, combined with government support for innovation, makes Vietnam an ideal expansion ground for us," shared Phillip An, Co-founder and COO of Homebase. According to Phillip An, Antler’s support has been crucial to Homebase’s success: “The relationships and operational insights we’ve gained from the experts at PropertyGuru and Alibaba have been invaluable. Antler has not only introduced us to such quality advisors, but also connected us to the right investors at each stage of Homebase’s development.” Antler plans to invest $6 million in startups in Vietnam by 2024, providing pre-launch and growth-stage funding to startups – up to $600,000 per company. This commitment once again underscores Antler’s vision of Vietnam’s potential as a regional tech hub. #PRstory #newsrelease #PRdistribution #PRconsultant #publicrelation

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Without fail the Thais' unique style of content messaging – they still rely on the beautiful craft of advertising storytelling platform – never fails to 'entertain' while hitting a home run with the message intent. Brilliant :) And, in a time when all the rage is to turn to #AI to 'craft' don't forget the one bastion of our own unique, albeit imperfect, human gift remains equally salient to complement and may even connect better in an emotional level no artificial intelligence can. Cling on to our #HumanIntelligence or #HI and never let it go as the world seared forward towards perfection aided by #artificialintelligence. https://lnkd.in/gE_p8S_y #convergence #convergenceincommunication > #Contagio #insightsdriven #branding #marketresearch > #PiquantIdeas #creativity #advertising #marketing #marketingstrategy #contentstrategy #contentplanning #consumerjourney #consumerbehaviour #consumerexperience #madschoolsg #ngeeannpoly #nanyangpoly

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Grab Delivers Strong Q1 2024 Results, Raises Annual Profit Forecast Grab kicked off 2024 strong with a 24% jump in revenue for Q1. This impressive growth, reaching $653 million, exceeded analysts’ estimate of $642 million. It was driven by both their largest revenue stream, food delivery  (up 19%), and ride-hailing businesses (up 27%). As a result of Q1’s performance, Grab has increased their profit forecast for 2024. They have adjusted their projected core profit to between $250 million and $270 million, versus their previous estimate of $180 million to $200 million. Meanwhile, revenue projections for Grab remain at $2.70 billion to $2.75 billion. Beyond their top-line growth, Grab is also making serious progress towards profitability. Their focus on cost-cutting has paid off with three straight quarters of positive earnings. These efforts, along with their commitment to strengthening core businesses, solidify Grab's position as a leader in Southeast Asian tech. Looking forward, Grab is looking into new initiatives to boost its earnings moving forward, including digital banking. They have partnered with financial institutions in Singapore and Malaysia for online lending and banking. Grab anticipates these ventures to become significant revenue streams in the coming years. With strong momentum and a clear focus on profitability, we are definitely excited to see Grab’s journey in 2024! #grab #grabfood #grabcar #earningsreport #fooddelivery #ridehailing #southeastasia

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Some of the things to consider when thinking of entering the Thai market. 1. Pick the right business structure: * Limited Company: Common among foreign investors. Requires strategic partnerships due to a 51% Thai ownership rule. * BOI Promotion: Grants 100% ownership and tax breaks for innovative tech companies that meet the Thailand Board of Investment's criteria. * Sole Proprietorship: Restricted to Thai nationals. Not typically an option for foreign entities. * Partnerships: Choose between licensed and limited partnerships, each with a different liability and structure. 2. Handle registration and compliance: * Register your company with the Department of Business Development. * Procure necessary licenses, including VAT registration for annual sales over 1.8 million baht. 3. Recruit top talent: Capitalise on Thailand's skilled tech workforce, particularly the competitive Gen-Z market. NOTE: You will have to pay a premium as a foreign business (up to 20%). Also, be aware that you will compete with local corporates for the best talent! Let me know if you would like to find out more 🙏 #TechExpansion #Thailand #BusinessStrategy #TalentAcquisition

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Highly recommend that startup enthusiasts apply for this opportunity. Interested parties can contact YaJu Wang for more details. 🔉 2024 Thailand Techsauce Exhibition and Training Program 📣 Event Details: Participate in Thailand's premier startup exhibition, Techsauce Global Summit 1. Online/Offline training courses: Challenges and cultural differences in entering the ASEAN market, fundraising and marketing strategies, business matchmaking, pre-departure briefing, etc. 2. Visits to key institutions and companies: Major accelerators, venture capital units, government agencies, and other leading enterprises 📅 Schedule: June 11: Registration deadline June 27: Online presentation selection meeting July 5: Announcement of selected participants July 15-26: Pre-departure training August 5-9: Official visit to Thailand (including Techsauce Global Summit) 🎖️ Benefits for Selected Participants: 1. Online/Offline training courses Exhibition booth and international marketing exposure at Techsauce Global Summit 2. Networking opportunities with investors, potential customers, and partners to expand into the ASEAN market #ASEAN #startups

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[ Why Founders Need VCs: Startup Success Insights in Vietnam ] Join us for a panel discussion on the vital founder-VC relationship! Founder Institute Vietnam presents an online event featuring insights from industry leaders with diverse backgrounds: Hieu T. - Founder/CEO of TopCV Vietnam, a VC-backed startup that successfully raised funds in Series B. With firsthand experience navigating the startup funding landscape, Hieu brings practical wisdom to the discussion. Laura Nguyen - Partner at GenAI Fund, specializing in investments in AI-first technology companies across Southeast Asia. Laura's expertise in emerging technologies and venture capital adds depth to our conversation. Giang Trinh - Director of Founder Institute Vietnam and Managing Partner at VMCG Capital. Giang's dual role as a startup ecosystem leader and venture capitalist offers invaluable insights into the dynamics of founder-VC relationships. 🗓️ Date & Time: May 14, 6:00 - 7:00pm, GMT+7 🎯 Who Should Attend? Entrepreneurs at any stage of their startup journey, investors, and industry professionals eager to explore the symbiotic relationship between founders and venture capital. This is your opportunity to gain valuable strategies, network with peers, and hear diverse perspectives from our esteemed panelists. Don't miss out! Register now to secure your spot and unlock the secrets of startup success.

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Traveloka was honored to participate again at this year’s Milken Global Conference in Los Angeles, themed “Shaping a Shared Future.” In a discussion on Asia’s opportunity landscape moderated by Diane Brady, the audience Binny Bansal, David Lee, Samuel Rhee, Brian Rogove, Songyee Y., and Caesar Indra were energized by the immense potential in our region and the ability to scale and share solutions across companies and sectors for a brighter tomorrow.  During the discussion sessions, Caesar shared his insightful thoughts on various topics, including travel trends in Southeast Asia and the role of gaming in AI development. Here are some highlights from the discussion:   1. AI and machine learning will impact our world in ways we cannot imagine – from creating positive socioeconomic impact including through job creation, to unprecedented advances in healthcare and financial services. We have to embrace this responsibly and are excited for its potential. 2. For businesses to succeed, localization is key.  A deep understanding of each country in our region is essential to success – and having the ability to leverage technology to transform challenges into opportunities. The best founders will find the hardest problems and solve them, localizing solutions because there is simply no one size fits all in Southeast Asia. Success necessitates localization at scale – and technologies such as machine learning and AI will be at the heart of this. 3. Asia’s investment landscape remains a bright spot despite global macroeconomic headwinds. From India to Southeast Asia, our entrepreneurial ecosystems are developing very quickly – thanks to growing economies, the availability of talent, young populations, a culture of innovation, and supportive regulatory environments.   You can watch the full session here: https://lnkd.in/gyRPEZny.

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