Doing business in Vietnam

Why Vietnam?

Finest Future's customers were families in Asia, so I moved to Ho Chi Minh City to run the company's revenue. In under five years the Vietnam company grew from its first 15 students to more than 1,000 across Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia and Myanmar, and it won the Asia Pacific Enterprise Awards' Inspirational Brand Award in 2024 and Fast Enterprise Award in 2025. Later we franchised the model to operators in Indonesia and the Philippines.

What is different about doing business here?

• Trust comes before the contract, and it is personal: partnerships are made between CEOs more than between companies.
• Agreements matter, and so does making sure they are followed. Start with a pilot and written goals.
• Hire for the customer, not for the founder's comfort. English fluency and CVs told us little.
• Lead without being the expert. Let the people who know the market decide what they know best.

Company setup, licences, tax and labour law are questions for a local lawyer or accountant. These posts are about running the business.

Where to start reading

1. Doing business in Vietnam as a foreigner: seven lessons from five years in Ho Chi Minh City.
2. Hiring in Vietnam: why we stopped screening for English and CVs, and what we hire for instead.
3. Grow sales without salespeople: how the partner network that started in Vietnam reached 15+ countries.