Entrepreneur Tran Lam, founder and CEO of Natural House Company Limited: Business is not only aimed at short-term goals.
There have been many products that have held the number 1 position in the e-commerce market, but CEO Tran Lam believes that such achievements are not as important as developing with his team every day, maintaining stable business operations and sustainable development.
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| Entrepreneur Tran Lam, founder, CEO of Natural House Company Limited |
From employee, to boss, then employee again
It is no coincidence that many people consider CEO Tran Lam as the “golden boy” of e-commerce platforms. Because for many years, his essential oil brand has held the top position in revenue and is loved on e-commerce platforms such as Lazada, Shopee…
With his achievements in business, he was also elected by the e-commerce platform Lazada as Ambassador to exchange, train, and help new sellers gain experience in accessing sales channels on the e-commerce platform.
In 2023, businessman Tran Lam's group of 5 brands, including Julyhouse, Macaland, Heviefood, Bub&Mum and Loli & TheWolf, reached an impressive revenue milestone of about 100 billion VND on the platforms. This figure also demonstrates the strength of the business in the context of declining consumer purchasing power. To achieve that success, Tran Lam himself had to make many trade-offs, from working for hire, to being an owner, and then going back to working for hire.
In 2005, after graduating from mechanical engineering, he worked in a natural essential oil production enterprise as a machine system maintenance employee. With his efforts and focus on his work, he was promoted to the position of director of the essential oil factory, in charge of almost the entire operation and production process, managing hundreds of employees and having the opportunity to meet many experienced partners.
At the end of 2016, realizing that his desire to build a career was strong enough, Tran Lam quit his job and started his own business. Based on the advantage of more than 10 years of experience accumulated at the factory, he started researching and developing his own natural essential oils.
He uses technology to extract essential oils from natural plants (cajuput, lemongrass, grapefruit peel, lavender, orange...), creating products such as mosquito repellent spray, fabric perfume spray, hair care set, dishwashing liquid, scented candles...
Lam poured all his accumulated capital after a decade of working for hire into his raw material gardens. But when he launched his product on the market, everything was completely opposite to his expectations. The storms of the market "buried" Lam's new essential oil product, which had been filled with all his passion and ambition.
After the shock, he regained his composure and found a job at another company as a sales staff, accepting a basic salary of several million VND so that he could work, learn, and take care of his brand and online store.
Thinking back to the hard days, working as an employee and building an e-commerce store at the same time, single-handedly taking on everything from product research and development, operations management, to delivery, Tran Lam never expected that one day his business would rise to the number 1 position in the e-commerce market.
“When I started doing business on e-commerce platforms, I never thought I would become Top 1 or have any specific position. Actually, my goal at that time was simply to find a way to sell products, make money and develop my business,” Tran Lam confided.
After a period of implementation, up to now, he owns about 150 products (floor cleaner, essential oils, mosquito repellent essential oils...), "covering" all e-commerce platforms. At the same time, his business is a supplier of pure natural essential oils and fragrance products for many partners and customers.
Understanding users is the key to creating your own path
In the eyes of his colleagues, Tran Lam is seen as a “phenomenon” on the e-commerce platform, when he decided to choose the path of self-production and building his own brand to create quality products to serve users, instead of just being a secondary seller. Therefore, Natural House Company constantly develops new products, creates demand and attracts customers' attention.
“More than 2 years ago, I noticed that the sellers on e-commerce platforms were all quite young. The way they did things at that time was quite simple: they saw which items were selling well and imported them to sell. At that time, not many people focused on building brands, researching and developing products to suit the needs and tastes of customers and improving quality. I did things differently because I started working at a natural essential oil factory, and I understood and had the ability to develop products. In addition, I used to be a manager, so I implemented the work more systematically,” he shared.
The owner of Natural House believes that, over time, e-commerce requires more depth, each brand needs to be more different to compete and survive. Thanks to understanding and efforts to meet the needs of users, Natural House has become a phenomenon on the e-commerce platform, rising to the number 1 position in the industry after a period of business.
“To maintain my leading position for many years, I have to constantly research and learn. I cannot stop trying when I am older, more experienced, or have achieved certain results,” Tran Lam said.
“Top 1 is not as important as stable business”
After the initial phase with only himself as an employee, Tran Lam started to build a team, recruiting part-time employees. After a year, the business grew more, he recruited more full-time employees. The company grew continuously, the current staff consists of more than 50 people.
With the orientation of building a sustainable business, Tran Lam develops everything in a systematic and process-oriented manner so that the team can follow along, understand the brand and users, and implement projects professionally. Of course, he understands that with a business development model following a systematic process, it will be difficult to be flexible and not easy to quickly grasp opportunities and new tools to break through like smaller sales units.
When asked if such caution would cause the company to lose its position as the Top 1 in revenue, Tran Lam frankly admitted: “It is not true to say that we are not afraid. When the team's capacity is stronger, we can maintain that position. But sometimes being Top 1 is not good, because we also have other goals.”
He cited examples of many units spending large amounts of money on long-term advertising, regardless of declining profits, trying to compete for the Top 1 position on e-commerce platforms, but then still "disappeared" from the platform. For Tran Lam, winning the Top 1 position is not as important as maintaining a stable, profitable business with the ability to develop in the long term.
Instead of competing on price and investing heavily in promotions, he focuses on sustainability and social responsibility in every business activity of the company. He works with farmers to build organic farms in Lam Dong , helping farmers have more jobs and a stable source of income. He works with factories in the same industry to reduce investment costs and lower selling prices.
“When development is stable, has a foundation, and is profitable, it will naturally rise to the leading position. That way it is much more sustainable,” Lam confided.
Thanks to the sustainable development perspective, although there were times when Tran Lam's products did not achieve the highest sales, in the hearts of users, customers and partners, his brands were still in the top position, always present on the e-commerce platform, not affected by price storms and sales competition of sellers.
How can you achieve a revenue of up to a million USD on an e-commerce platform, sir?
To achieve large sales, the market size must be large enough and the business itself must be capable enough to gain the necessary market share. For example, to reach the million-dollar threshold, the market size may have to be tens or hundreds of millions of dollars. At that time, the business's market share only needs to be a few percent to achieve the goal.
What do you think are the opportunities for new sellers?
The first opportunity is when they have unique products, or products that suit the tastes of shoppers on e-commerce platforms, because users can easily switch from one brand to another, if they see that the products are not too different, but the prices are very different. Now is the age of social networks, so sellers have the opportunity to reach consumers much easier than before.
After many years in business, what is your favorite thing about business?
Business is about creating value for society and for oneself. Business should not only aim at short-term and easily quantifiable goals, such as sales or market share, but should also pay attention to important long-term factors, such as the satisfaction and support of all stakeholders, from customers, employees and partners, to state management agencies.
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