VIISA

VIISA's investment in SHub - a Vietnamese edTech startup

Sat, 29 Jan 2022 09:27:13 -0800

VIISA is glad to announce our latest investment in a EdTech startup named SHub, an online teaching, learning solutions for classroom management.

“Besides the online training solution that is close to traditional training and easy to use, we highly appreciate the feature of assigning, correcting, grading assignments and creating online examinations via SHub. These features help learners and teachers to optimize their time on a learning platform, reducing unnecessary and time-consuming operations.” - Mr. Hieu Vo, Board Member at VIISA said.

SHub's solutions

Currently, SHub has more than 200 school partners, more than 100.000 teachers, and more than 3 millions users who are students. Nguyen Dang An, Founder and CEO of SHub, shared that SHub is the fruitful result of a group of university friends after a passionate journey creating viable platforms to serve his studying at school. SHub was established when the whole team went through all levels of education in the traditional education system, thus, the team soon understood the benefits and potential of online education.

With a vision to make online learning a basic life necessity and make online teaching profession become a high-income career, An believed that VIISA's companionship has given the team more motivation to improve the platform. “I approached a lot of funds, but decided to connect to VIISA because of the directions that the fund has given. Instead of looking at the team background, VIISA spent a lot of time discussing and understanding...Read More

BASE.VN - A VIETNAMESE SAAS PLATFORM STARTUP ACQUIRED BY FPT CORPORATION

Tue, 04 May 2021 08:20:37 -0700

On May 4th 2021, Base, one of VIISA portfolio startups held the Technology Industry Blockbuster Event with the participation of special guests. The event marked an important milestone in the development of this SaaS platform in Vietnam.

At the event, Base.vn announced their strategic cooperation with Vietnamese technology giant FPT Corporation under a non-disclosure M&A deal. This cooperation promises to bring optimal, improved and perfect corporate governance solutions to widely disseminate in Vietnam and the world.

Established in August 2016, Base.vn is known to be one of the pioneers in the field of building a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) business management platform in Vietnam. The solutions from Base.vn range from work and performance management, information and communication management, human management and development to customer and business management. In more than one application, these solutions are grouped to solve different enterprise problems. Unique and easy to use with high performance, Base.vn is currently trusted by more than 5,000 customers including top corporates as well as a large number of SMEs in Vietnam. To date, Base.vn is perceived to be the number 1 enterprise platform with 5 million launched projects, 13 million monthly used times and created 12 million jobs.

Accompanied by VIISA at pre-seed stage and follow on funding at seed stage, with the continuous support in terms of business development and fundraising. Base.vn consecutively brought back proud titles. The platform has received many honors awards in the category of digital transformation where “Outstanding Digital Platform” at "Make in Vietnam Digital Product" in 2020 is an example.

Base.vn is the third startup under VIISA portfolio that we officially witnessed their the next step of the meaningful journey with new investors. After nearly 5 years of actively supporting startups in Vietnam, VIISA has invested in 40 companies in both forms: direct...Read More

Entrepreneurship is getting easier with online learning program - Y Combinator

Mon, 02 Nov 2020 18:21:51 -0800

The fact is that, if you weren't currently working on a startup, you could find it is so hard to participate in any startup program. Now luckily, we find Y Combinator.

In helping active entrepreneurs develop their businesses, Startup School has been incredibly popular, supporting over 140,000 founders since 2017. With online curriculum, Y Combinator help entrepreneurs personally focusing on developing their businesses, opening the Entrepreneurship School for aspiring entrepreneurs who are interested in launching a business in the future.

Thousands of lessons and guidance ranging from how to get started, how to talk to uers and how to find suitable share market-tested entrepreneurship advice are all available on Y combinator Program. In order to put these lessons into motion, high-impact exercises are developed addressing key early topics such as creating successful startup ideas, finding or vetting a co-founder and validating the project with prospective customers.

Startup School will even assist you when you're ready to take the next step and actually start working on a project. There are thousands of entrepreneurs constantly searching for a co-founder right now, meaning talented potential founders won't even need to come up with their own. So, in order to take advantage of our partner offers, frequent updates, community workshops and extended program, Y Combinator is to be launching its community's co-founder matching program, making a better place for founders to exploit their potential. Prospective Founder members will move to an involved founder profile at any time!

Y Combinator program will start on 9th October 2020. If you’re interested in starting a startup someday, or know someone who is, sign up for Startup School, Y Combinator would be a good choice.

The Covid-19 pandemic indeed has caused a severe impact on the whole economy in general and harsh challenges to startup companies in particular. We believe the situation has made startup founders more aware of available support and resources by working with suitable accelerator programs. Throughout the selection process, we focused on giving meaningful advice to all applicants based on their stage of development and market conditions regardless of being accepted into the program.

Eventually, two startups in Medical-Tech and Fashion-Tech were selected to join VIISA 3-month program journey.

The 2 startups selected for VIISA Acceleration Program Batch 8 in Orientation Day

Doctor Bear is a health platform for patients with chronic diseases. The mobile app enables users to consult with specialised doctors via video call and offers various test packages according to the treatment plan. DoctorBear Team consists of a group of medical doctors with over 15 years of professional experience and an in-house technology chief. Doctor Bear's vision is to become a trusted companion app for people with level one chronic diseases in Vietnam, and later the SEA region.

Drobebox is a disruptive fashion tech startup that offers a clothing subscription service for women. Subscribers can truly unlock their dream closet by using DrobeBox's packaged service and simply enjoy any desired items without buying, maintaining, and of course, cleaning. Moreover, DrobeBox’s service provides a unique opportunity for users to explore a whole new retail experience, because users can decide to own any item they love after fitting. DrobeBox is found and managed by a passionate tech-background team who believes only AI can recommend clothes to women better...Read More

BUSINESS MODELS - The most important building block for a market entry

Sat, 29 Aug 2020 02:46:27 -0700

BUSINESS MODELS - The most important building block for a market entry

The startup world is fast-paced, constantly changing, and fiercely competitive. Even today, 9 out of 10 new startups fail - and the top reason? A product that doesn’t fit the market.

As a coach and mentor, I have worked with numerous startups across Europe and Asia, helping founders and teams develop, fine-tune and validate their business models - in what I believe is one of the most fundamental and crucial aspects that separate the success stories from the rest when entering a new market.

A common misconception is that a business model focuses primarily on the financial side of a business - making sure that revenue covers operating costs so that one can have a profitable, rather than loss-making venture. In reality, a good business model needs to do so much more.

A successful business model focuses not just on the financials, but every aspect that makes your business relevant in the market you’re planning to enter. Beyond the dollars and cents, a business model should always begin by answering several critical questions:

Who are my customers, and what are their needs?
Which of their problems are we solving with our product or service?
How can we make sure our solution is delivered to customers effectively?

Whether you are launching an entirely new product, or aiming to break into a new market or explore a different segment, working out the answers to these questions will help ensure that limited resources are used in a way that is informed, targeted and impactful. Spend the time to get it right, and you’ll land on that elusive, but...Read More

𝗦𝗜𝗚𝗛! 𝗜𝗧’𝗦 𝗔𝗡𝗢𝗧𝗛𝗘𝗥 “𝗡𝗢”.

Wed, 26 Aug 2020 20:10:10 -0700

Bootstrapping your business: Your passion is undoubted. Your team is one of the best in town. You got the solutions beautifully delivered. You have a promising number of trial customers. During Venture Capital (VC) interviews: You did a great pitch and had great conversation exchanges with the investor.

But, they rejected you at the end, multiple times. How come?

Remember, unless you have come up with a "rocket science like” technology based product that is going to save the world, or you had several successful ventures prior to this project, there is a high chance of a “No”.

In this article, based on our experiences and researches, we will share with you some key takeaways on this scenario from our perspective.

➤ Dealing with the investment committee (IC).

Typically, a VC is founded and managed by its partners. And the partners will be the ones to review and make the final call to put money into a company, or not.

In Vietnam, for most of the times, an Associate or Analyst, or however they want to be called, will propose and justify for your startup to be invested.

Of course, they do not want to lose creditability in front of IC. Therefore, it is likely they will turn down unless they are super confident in your startup.

➤ Trust in the founders.

Never think VCs will only fund you and walk away, letting you do whatever you want. For...Read More

Numbers talk! Are you focusing on the right metrics?

Mon, 24 Aug 2020 23:45:24 -0700

Identifying and tracking metrics are important to measure and analyze a startup’s health. However, not all metrics and indicators should be equally monitored. Each startup with different business models working in different industries should focus on certain metrics depending on their business goals and stages of development.

Therefore, understanding and choosing the right metrics to analyze would help you stay concentrated on what matters most to achieve your business objectives. Below you will find some of the metrics that VIISA and other VCs often look for when analyzing a startup.

As a startup founder, you are the one to decide what metrics to improve for certain goals that the startups are focusing on. For example, if your startup is aiming to increase brand awareness, the website traffic and click through rate (CTR) are some of the indicators to trace.

If you want a more engaged audience to trial your product, you can focus on daily/monthly active users (DAU/MAU) and furthermore to figure out how to improve customers’ loyalty, the retention rate is the one to pay attention to. These metrics will be helpful in measuring the stickiness and forecasting the traction revenue potential of your startup.

For startups at market-entry and scale up stage, measuring the effectiveness of its marketing plan is important. Revenue per dollar of sale expense is one of the indicators that are applicable in this stage. Conversion rate is also important and at the same time, tracking the drop offs and finding out the reasons behind them are crucial as well, as it gives you an idea of what needs to be fixed.

In our previous topic on what investors want to see in your startup, we mentioned about the unit economy model. Lifetime value of a customer to your company (LTV) and...Read More

WHAT DO INVESTORS WANT TO SEE?

Tue, 28 Jul 2020 20:33:48 -0700

WHAT DO INVESTORS WANT TO SEE?

With a strongly rising number of startups in SouthEast Asia, especially Vietnam, in recent years, grabbing a chance to meet an investor individually is gold. However, there are entrepreneurs who fail to nail those first interviews. This is due to several causes which sound very reasonable: lack of investor meeting experiences, mismatching in expectations from both sides, language barrier, etc.

Having been working with a good amount of international and domestic investors, VIISA took an opportunity to quickly survey some of the investors hoping to figure out the true scenario from the other side. Before we dig any deeper into this topic, please remember that we do not talk for all investors. Especially, the “investors” we are mentioning in this topic are mostly early-stage investors (angels to pre-series).

Below are some of the critical aspects of your company that you can definitely get better prepared for those valuable meetings.

1. YOUR PRODUCT FIT

➛ In a world when ideas are born by seconds, it’s easy and very common that your problem statements are based solely on assumptions. At the beginning, you might not see it as a big deal. However, as your customer base grows, at some point in time you will see a slow-down in the chart. And you absolutely do not want to risk landing in a situation where nobody wants your solution, which is rather sad given the amount of time and finance put in. Remember, if there is no need from the market/ no problem to be solved, there is no business.

➛ So, do your homework. Verifying the problem, designing the solution and having it clearly defined to your investors are...Read More

VIISA Founder's Sharing: Ask Locals

Thu, 23 Jul 2020 19:56:36 -0700

VIISA Founder's Sharing: Ask Locals

Ask Locals is a TravelTech startup that has just graduated from VIISA Acceleration Program Batch 7 this July 2020. Having spent a few weeks following up with the investors after VIISA Investment Day, Ms. Ngoc, founder of Ask Locals finally has time to do a short interview with us. Below is her sharings:

Why did you come up with the idea of Ask Locals in the first place?

Having been studying and working in the tourism industry in England and Vietnam for more than 6 years, I received lots of questions from my friends about where to go, what to do in Vietnam. However, I also have heard lots of complaints from my foreign friends who encountered tourist traps in Vietnam. And therefore, I came up with the idea to create a community of people with the same passion of showing tourists how beautiful Vietnam is, as well as sharing tips to avoid bad experiences when traveling in Vietnam. And that is why we have Ask Locals today.

Why did you change your startup’s name from Ask Vietnamese to Ask Locals?

After having received lots of advice from our mentors and EiR at VIISA, we decided to use the name “Ask Locals” for our startup because it creates a better opportunity to scale up. We still keep the name “Ask Vietnamese” for the community in Vietnam. And when we expand to other countries, we will have Ask Japanese, Ask Malaysian, Ask Thai, etc. Before joining VIISA Acceleration Program, what difficulty did you and Ask Locals team have to face? We always found it difficult to explain to other...Read More

When to apply for an Incubator or Accelerator?

Thu, 23 Jul 2020 19:45:39 -0700

When to apply for an Incubator or Accelerator?

Both "Incubator" and "Accelerator" are programs in which startup founders are offered opportunities to get mentorship and connection at a very early stage of their startup journey.

As a startup founder or simply a startup enthusiast, the terms "Incubator" and "Accelerator" may confuse you some time. So as to help you and startups who are thinking of applying for one, yet don't really know whether the two are the same thing or not, to help you differentiate between Incubator and Accelerator, below are some clarifications:

1. Startup's stage

Incubators are designed primarily for startups at their very early stage. Incubators help them validate their idea, build their prototype, do research on their customer segments, plan out the business, and so on. This will help set the foundation for any startups to build their minimum viable products (MVP).

Accelerators, on the other hand, are ideal for startups who already have MVPs. Joining an accelerator will help startups in building sustainable business models, and focus on developing go-to-market strategies and scale-up. Some early tractions are also considered for startups to get accepted to Accelerators.

2. Duration

Incubation programs tend to be long-term, normally from 6-12 months, or even 2 years or open-ended depends on different incubators. Acceleration programs, however, are fixed-term, cohort-based programs that last for 3-6 months only.

3. Program structure

Incubators often offer startups a flexible schedule depending on each process of refining the idea and working on their business...Read More