For a small group of people, Startup may be merely a trend. For us, however, it is how Vietnam can bridge the gap between hundreds of billions and trillions of USD in GDP. ‘New’ things must be created to close that gap because the ‘old’ has stagnated. Some will succeed upon a foundation of many failures, rooted in a culture that dares to fail: society viewing failure with understanding, encouragement, positivity, and kindness. I have only seen negative attitudes toward failure in people who have never truly committed to entrepreneurship. I have never met a true Entrepreneur who does not carry a culture of daring to fail within.
Thank you to the article's author and the person responsible for this column, who encouraged me by saying, “You're such an interesting subject, we have to save material for later articles.” That felt so good to hear (haha). In truth, I am cautious around the media and often do not tell everything I have done. But having a chance to sit and talk openly feels wonderful.
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Tạ Minh Tuấn believes people always possess the power to create solutions, and that “if you have not yet overcome a difficulty, it is because you are not creative enough.” With this mindset, Tạ Minh Tuấn has undertaken many projects and never stopped challenging himself.
“Be humane toward failure; ‘start up’ even if it is a trend,” says Tạ Minh Tuấn, the young man named among the most influential people under 30 in Vietnam and Asia for two consecutive years by the magazineForbes vote.
At age 28, Tạ Minh Tuấn had founded and run numerous companies and projects. Alongside this came titles and honors many would envy: among Vietnam's top 15 social enterprises in 2011, selected by the Center for Social Initiatives Promotion (CSIP); among Vietnam's top 30 people under 30, selected by Forbes Vietnam; and among Asia's top 30 people under 30, selected by Forbes Asia.
Those honors recognize Tạ Minh Tuấn’s efforts in many fields, most notably two ventures founded and led by the young man from Quảng Ngãi: HELP International, a pioneering home healthcare enterprise, and YUP Education, a leading entrepreneurship training enterprise in Vietnam.
Honored Twice by Forbes
List 30 Under 30 from the prestigious Forbes magazine is valuable recognition for young people creating social impact. For Tạ Minh Tuấn, business and entrepreneurship are also ways of maturing. Being honored by Forbes twice offers an interesting reflection on this entrepreneur born in 1988.
The first time always feels special. Yet Tạ Minh Tuấn was reserved. “Hearing that I was among Forbes Vietnam's 30 outstanding people in 2015, I was naturally delighted—indescribably so. But I shared the joy only with those around me, then on Facebook. Overall, I tried to contain my emotions,” he said.
But afterward, as Tạ Minh Tuấn shared, he felt regret. He regretted not that he had failed to do something more spectacular, but simply that he had been too hesitant and had not dared to live true to his feelings.
“Heaven must favor me. In 2016, it gave me another chance for joy when my name appeared on Forbes's Asian list. This time, I decided to stop pretending and fully experience my strongest, truest feelings. I let loose,” Tuấn shared humorously.
Turn pain into action
There is a sad story behind the HELP International remote healthcare project that Tạ Minh Tuấn rarely recounts. Yet it is typical of his journey.
While still in year 2 of university, Tuấn dreamed of realizing his ambition to become an entrepreneur. Tạ Minh Tuấn's Online Marketing project in 2008 was still quite novel. His inexperience as a new entrepreneur caused the project to fail because he could not keep up with managing its expanding scale.
The first failure became even heavier when Tạ Minh Tuấn's father then developed cancer. The young man thought deeply about health and healthcare. He realized illness was difficult to avoid, but prevention and continuous monitoring could minimize risks as much as possible.
Although HELP International, a project using the “family doctor” model, still faced many legal obstacles, Tạ Minh Tuấn found ways to persuade people. After adjustments, the model has now spread through society. “When faced with difficulties, you have two choices: stand there and curse, or act to overcome the obstacles,” Tạ Minh Tuấn asserts.
“A trend? So what?”
Tạ Minh Tuấn believes people always possess the power to create solutions, and that “if you have not yet overcome a difficulty, it is because you are not creative enough.” With this mindset, Tạ Minh Tuấn has undertaken many projects and never stopped challenging himself.
Tuấn currently has several businesses and community activities, including serving as CEO of a garment company with over 500 employees and factories in Ho Chi Minh City, Can Gio, and Ben Tre, exporting worldwide. It is “completely unfamiliar” work requiring him to “manage older people with longstanding experience, making it a very difficult yet fascinating challenge.”
Discussing entrepreneurship, Tạ Minh Tuấn also draws on his own career thinking to assess the reality that many young Vietnamese people are ‘starting businesses’ as a trend.
“In Vietnam, entrepreneurship may partly be a trend. But I believe we should encourage people to try. Whether driven by genuine ambitions and ideas or simply following a trend, thinking and acting to create value for society is still good,” Tạ Minh Tuấn said.
Having shared extensive experience on startup ideas, leading to YUP's founding, Tạ Minh Tuấn appreciates the American mindset. He says the strength of a country like America lies in its culture of not fearing failure.
“It is the absence of fear of failure that creates a nation's strength. Americans are great because they have that fearlessness about failure. If you fear failure, there is no success. Without success, the gap of trillions of USD in GDP cannot be filled. I think Vietnam should learn this: be more humane when looking at others' failures. Do not belittle them. Let them act and fail so that they can succeed,” Tạ Minh Tuấn shared.
Excerpt from Thanh Niên Newspaper
Original link: http://khoinghiep.thanhnien.vn/…/hay-8216start-up8217-du-do…
