Mini AI: Small application, big effect for business

mini AI - Ảnh 1. — Mr. Duong Chau, the person who came up with the idea and founded Mini AI - Photo: NVCC

Faced with high advertising costs and difficulty in retaining customers on e-commerce platforms, Mini AI was born with the idea of building a small application that integrates multiple features right on Zalo OA. The platform helps small and medium-sized businesses promote their brands, increase customer interaction while still optimizing operating costs.

Mini App: A New Way for Small and Medium Businesses to Retain Customers

The recent dependence on e-commerce platforms has caused many businesses to face difficulties due to high fees, customer data "bleeding" and difficulty in building sustainable assets for themselves.

This problem is also the concern of Mr. Nguyen Phan Thanh Tin (Tin Tmark) and the founders of Mini AI including Duong Chau, Ba Nhuan, Quoc Dat and Dang Khoa (Leo Vo).

Studying the Chinese market, businesses found a solution instead of building their own website or relying on email, they focused on developing Mini Apps on WeChat. The actual number of about 4.3 million Mini Apps operating on WeChat, surpassing the total number of applications on the App Store and Google Play, creating a revolution in approaching and retaining customers.

This trend can be completely recreated in Vietnam with Zalo, that idea led to the construction of Mini AI with its own development platform. Mini AI is designed to operate right inside the Zalo platform - this social network has more than 80 million users.

At the core of the platform is a combination of affiliate marketing, artificial intelligence (AI) and automation. This turns each customer into a sales channel and increases loyalty through automated care. Mini AI enhances the shopping experience with interactive mini games, smart voucher sharing and seamless online and offline connectivity.

There, customers can accumulate points and receive incentives. The platform also flexibly combines business models from retail to B2B (business to business), F2C (factory to consumer) or service industries such as booking, queuing, and reminders.

From Idea to Reality: Mini AI Expands the Smart Business Ecosystem

Mini AI entered the market in 2023, when Mini App was still a relatively new concept in the country. The first few versions had continuous technical errors, making it even harder to convince businesses to believe in this unprecedented model. The company had to endure losses to maintain operations but never gave up on its goals.

To realize the vision, Mini AI builds a platform based on the following pillars: data security when applying Zalo's security ecosystem, adding a detailed authorization mechanism, encrypting all sensitive information and having a 24/7 security monitoring team, absolutely protecting business and user data.

The plus point is that it can be flexible, the interface can be easily customized according to the brand. The platform ensures development within the legal framework, integrating electronic invoices according to regulations to help businesses be more convenient.

Not to mention, it is also possible to work with businesses to build a knowledge system to support training and can be accessed quickly as well as customer care via the Zalo platform.

Currently, Mini AI has about 1,000 corporate customers with nearly 2 million users. Among them are some brands that have successfully raised capital on the reality TV show Shark Tank, along with some government agencies and a few startup incubators. In the Startup Wheel 2024 startup competition, Mini AI entered the top 10.

We knew this game would be long and there would definitely be quite a few challenges but we chose to go all the way and never give up.

Mr. YANGZHOU

Automated marketing, smart vouchers and mini games: All in one app

"In the next 3-5 years, our goal is 100,000 customers," said Duong Chau, adding that Mini AI is expanding its ecosystem to accompany small businesses and business households. In the context of promoting the use of electronic invoices, Mini AI hopes to become an effective support platform, providing suitable software at low cost and the easiest to operate for business households.

Looking back at the results achieved, Mini App has had many quite good campaigns. For example, in the campaign with KFC, Mini App helped issue more than 40,000 vouchers attracting more than 20,000 participants and contributed to helping KFC win the title of "Creative Food Brand of the Year" at Van Xuan Awards 2024.

Another case is Mini Min wholesale supermarket. Since applying Mini App, the average revenue has reached about 300 million VND/month. At the same time, it has built a network of more than 5,000 brand ambassadors.

Tuoi Tre Startup Award 2025 officially launched with the theme 'Building the future with AI', inspiring the spirit of innovation and promoting AI applications in young startups.

Accepting registrations for Tuoi Tre Startup Award

Tuoi Tre Startup Award 2025 is organized by Tuoi Tre newspaper and the Ho Chi Minh City Youth Union, in collaboration with the Business Startup Support Center (BSSC) with special advice from Mr. Pham Phu Ngoc Trai - founder and chairman of the Packaging Recycling Alliance (PRO VN).

The program is accepting applications from startups until September 30 to select 30 outstanding startups for the final round. There will be a top 10 selected from the above 30 to continue to select the top 5 to meet directly with the members of the professional evaluation board in the final round in the form of Coffee Talk scheduled at the end of October.

The promising startups will be honored at the gala event in November and receive special awards with the support of the following units: Asia Commercial Joint Stock Bank (ACB ), Thanh Thanh Cong - Bien Hoa Joint Stock Company (TTC-AgriS), VinaCapital Group, An Hoa Construction Inspection Joint Stock Company, Dai-ichi Vietnam Insurance. In particular, the highest award worth 100 million VND is supported by Mr. Pham Phu Ngoc Trai, program advisor.

Startups who register to participate, please visit the program's website at: https://tuoitre.vn/nhip-song-tre/tuoi-tre-start-up-award.htm to see detailed rules and download the registration form.