Accompanying as a pioneer

Despite being a new "shark" in Shark Tank Vietnam season 7, shark Nguyen Van Thai - Co-founder and Vice President of Thai Huong Pharmaceutical Group Joint Stock Company (Thai Huong Group) has impressed the startup community as well as the audience watching the program with his wholehearted willingness to support startups with all the resources the company has.

Mr. Nguyen Van Thai is an entrepreneur who has gone through many arduous start-up journeys, from lack of capital, knowledge, experience, especially lack of guidance from predecessors, forcing him to explore on his own and encounter many "unsteady" times, to building the name of Thai Huong Group, which is currently one of the "respectable" scale cosmetic companies in Vietnam, with a factory area of ​​12,000m2 according to CGMP - ASEAN standards, with a capacity of 2 million products/month.

Therefore, Shark Thai understands very well the difficulties and pressures that a startup faces as well as the importance of a guide. With the companionship of predecessors, startups can limit mistakes, shorten time and effort to reach the desired goal on the path of entrepreneurship.

Shark Thai shared: "Usually, the strongest resource of a startup is enthusiastic, dynamic, intelligent people, but they lack capital, knowledge, experience... If they have the help of a mentor, a successful business, a startup can completely reach great leaps in the future, which is difficult to happen if they go alone."

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Thai Shark at Shark Tank Vietnam season 7. Photo source: Shark Tank Vietnam

According to Shark Thai, Thai Huong Group is what it is today thanks to many lessons learned. Besides its own growth, there is also the continuous two-way exchange and supplement of knowledge from partners. This "shark" said: "Thai Huong Group's partners in the cosmetics industry are all large enterprises in developed and demanding cosmetics markets such as the US, Korea, Japan... Working with these global enterprises, the benefits I receive are not only business opportunities but also the opportunity to learn from their business development experiences. That is extremely valuable".

With the spirit of sharing, learning from each other, exchanging experiences, the next learns from the previous, the previous guides the next, Shark Thai and Thai Huong Group wish to accompany and support start-up businesses to together reach prosperity and development.

Give while you have the chance

Sharing the reason for becoming a "shark" when he is not yet a super-rich, super-large enterprise, Shark Thai said that supporting startups is not only for "big guys" because knowledge from super-large companies is not necessarily suitable for applying to startups in the early stages - enterprises that need a different set of competencies to survive.

With experience in building Thai Huong Group from zero to a business that rival companies have to consider when competing, and international partner companies seek out, Shark Thai is not afraid to invest in startups that have “nothing” in the early-stage to help them build a foundation. This is something that not many investors are interested in because at this stage, startups have not achieved stable profits.

As evidenced by some of Shark Thai's deals on Shark Tank Vietnam season 7, he is willing to go with startups from the roots. Specifically, with the multi-purpose cleaning product startup T-Clean, Shark Thai especially focused on "weighing and measuring" to help startups reduce product costs using his experience in manufacturing cosmetic products.

Or like the way he made a deal that went straight to the point, solving the exact problem the startup needed with the startup Po Lang - a brand specializing in researching and developing natural skin care products from fresh avocados by committing to purchasing all products at competitive prices. Or with the startup 100% protein product from probiotic Yeast Era, it was a commitment to specific sales KPIs for the startup.

More special is the timely companionship and support to overcome the consequences of vegetable straw startup Ecos right when this startup had to face fierce challenges from Typhoon Yagi .

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Shark Thai and Mr. Le Van Tam - Director of Ecos vegetable straws. Photo source: Shark Tank Vietnam

Participating in Shark Tank Vietnam season 7 is just a highlight in the journey of bringing investment opportunities and supporting young businesses of Shark Thai, this journey of his will continue even more in the future.

“I really like a quote from the famous work 'The Thorn Birds': It is not the giants who are brave, but the brave ones who are giants. We also have the same point of view, not waiting for the giants to give us opportunities, but: there is no better time than now”, Shark Thai shared.

Ngoc Minh