Young Vietnamese entrepreneurs must pay attention to six crucial steps in order to successfully found a startup business, said CEO of Startup Viet Nam Foundation (SVF) Pham Duy Hieu at a forum held on Friday in Hai Phong.

First, he said, you must find your inspiration. Once this has been found, it is important to learn the necessary basics of how to start a business. Next you should set up a startup group, in order to learn from and support fellow entrepreneurs who could possess invaluable skills to help you along the way. Once you’re connected you must learn the essential skills required for creating your own startup. It is important to make sure that you are always growing and learning from your mistakes, and finally, you must believe in yourself to become the champion, he said.

The forum was organised to educate the many young people who have failed to launch a startup because they had no prior experience in running a business.

The forum, co-held by the SVF and the city’s Science and Technology Department, also aimed to motivate more young people to have a go at creating a start up business.

According to Hieu, many people get inspired and take the leap to start their own business, but rather than continue to move forward and adapt, they simply stay where they are and complain.

The second step would provide the most streamlined knowledge, he said, this knowledge was essential for someone starting a business, and would help them avoid hurdles along the way.

The purpose of setting up a startup group was to help the people who want to start a business, by giving them the tools to find the complementary pieces for themselves, he said.

“Each person in the group will have different talents, and some will be essential to support the other,” Hieu said.

Additionally, the launch of a startup requires the participation of mentors and advisors that could become shareholders of the startup. In the early stages, a startup needs to join hands with other forces to grow and develop together, he said.

During the later stages, a startup should follow the rule of multiplication and division. The “multiplication-and-division” rule means that leading businesses should work together with startups, so that the benefits will be multiplied, and the scale and growth potential to each will be amplified accordingly, he said.

However, Hieu also added that youngsters should not be afraid of failure. If they failed to successfully create a startup then they should try again, because each failure will serve as a lesson to bring them closer to success.

Other speakers at the forum answered questions from young people about mechanisms and policy at both central and local levels to support startups, as well as how non-governmental organisations work to give support for startups. Questions were also raised on how to choose a suitable field for a startup, what the role of the investor encapsulates, and how to gain access to investment funds.

Speaking at the forum, vice chairman of the People’s Committee of the city Le Khac Nam said that the youngsters would be the generation to shoulder responsibility to make a prosperous Viet Nam in the future.

Therefore, the city would create the most favourable conditions for local young people to create startup companies, he said.

As scheduled, following the forum, a meeting will be held on May 31 by the Dien dan doanh nghiep (Business Forum) newspaper and the Hai Phong Young Entrepreneurs Association with the aim of allowing young people to network and share experiences related to startups.

Last year, Viet Nam recorded the establishment of 126.859 new businesses, in part due to the Government’s strong promotion of startups.

Data from the General Statistics Office shows that the country now has 561.064 businesses.

The country is expected to become a startup nation with one million businesses by 2020.—VNS