Vietnam is ready for the AI era.

Jim Nguyen

0:00Vietnam now is, has grown up today. And I see that, there's a timing, a timing element involved, and the timing ele- specifically in high tech is there's platform shifts, right? We went from offline to online, so the US kickstarted that, and then the Chinese and the other folks really latched on. During there, this is where Vietnam was still growing up. We're at a point now where we're shifting from Web2 to Web3, whether it's crypto/AI or whatever you call it, but there's a platform shift that's happening, and if you were rolled back maybe 20, 25 years ago, it's where China was at in '95. Vietnam is now the same area. I think it's Vietnam is really, perfect with this platform shift a- as it's grown up.

Quang Do

0:46Jim, welcome back to Saigon. For those that don't know who you are, you know, how would you introduce yourself?

Jim Nguyen

0:53My name is Jim Nguyen. I'm a Vietnamese American. Before I start on what I'm doing now, let me go back in time a little bit. I was born in Vietnam, a little bit before the end of the war, and I came to, the US, late '70s, early '80s. In America, basically built my career there. And, fast-forward to really after college is really, I went to the high-tech field, and really it's, I moved to Silicon Valley, which is, back in the day, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale. But, w- was where I grew up and, it just so happens that's where the, the, tech innovation hub started. And I didn't know that at the time. It was just a stroke of luck. But yeah, so I ended America, went to high tech. We started out working with, for different companies and then-

Quang Do

1:49Give us the specific stack. The stations and milestones.

Jim Nguyen

1:54R- I, I'd really say that, coming out of college my I went to, I was an engineer out of college. I used to write device drivers for graphics chips. And then, that was when the internet boom started happening, '95. And then, that was when I started my first company. Internet companies really build out the data centers. So I w- I used to build out data centers, for you know, things like Webvan, Pets.com. So the company I worked with, was hosting their sites, and then, that's where my entrepreneur started. I was building, was helping building these data centers. Over time, there were different, areas that I saw that I could contribute, and that's how my entrepreneurship, journey started.

Quang Do

2:36Tell us what happened from there. What companies did you build?

Jim Nguyen

2:40So, the, the first company was Vianet, which was a, as I mentioned, helping, internet companies build, cloud data centers. The second company I built was, was a payments company, Ruby Coins. And, And it was something really, by accident, because I, I always host, I play video games, right? So I host tournaments and, what happened was some of my teammates were late. And I said, "Hey, why are you late for the tournament?" We're, we- we started, and, you know, we basically lost, because we didn't have enough people. Well, you know what? I had to pay in the game, pay outside the game, and reload the It didn't load, so I took that as an opportunity. I said, "Hey," I called my co-founder at the time, and I said, "Hey, can you build, can you bring the payments experience inside the game, so my players wouldn't do, wouldn't miss the game?" So long story short, he built the demo and then Ruby Coins, was that company. And then, you know, through, through working with m- many, game developers, we also partnered with PayPal. So a few years into that program, PayPal acquired us, and then, I joined PayPal to head up BD for them on the, digital side with focus on, new markets like, heavily regulated.

3:59And, so I started PayPal's crypto team in 2013. And so I was an early fan of crypto and it's always been payments, right? It's how do you move money, has been really my career is helping people move money. I thought that was very fascinating. It's not as simple, because every country has its own rules and regulations. So, my focus is how do I bring efficiency to something that is very fragmented, right? So moving money from one country to the next, you know, is very, whether it's costly, it takes a lot of time. So I want to be able to build a payments infrastructure to really make that seamless for the user, and that's the engineering challenge and product challenge that I took on. And still today, there are still many more issues to be solved and, so but that's what I'm chasing.

Quang Do

4:44And you went deeper into payments and financial infrastructure from there. What happened after PayPal?

Jim Nguyen

4:51So, I went to, I went much deeper into, crypto. So, after PayPal, I went to join OKCoin/OKX today, helped build out their, their organization outside China, and really bring to US, Europe, w- was the, was the goal there. And, you know, at the time, crypto was, you know, it was okay in certain areas, not okay in other aspects.

Quang Do

5:17What year was this?

Jim Nguyen

5:18This was 2017. 2017.

Quang Do

5:21Did you invest personally?

Jim Nguyen

5:23Yeah, so yes, I, that's how I got started. I used to mine, right? I was like, "What is this thing called mining?" So because I used to build data centers and I would have racks and racks of computers to mine different type of tokens, and that's how I get involved. But yeah, so I got involved with that in 2013 and, and then that's about it. It was, it was, it was a hobby. I mean, a lot of my, you know, startups and ventures and projects were really hobbies, right? It wasn't I sat there and goes, "Hey, you know what? That is very, inefficient. Let me go solve that problem." I, it wasn't like that at all. It was like, "Hey- I've always solved problems that I had, right? Video games, there was a problem. Crypto, how do you make this accessible? It was very tough for me to bring all these things up, you know, saying, you know, I'm deep engineering, but to get crypto to the mass, you gotta make sure that it's, easy to use, where it's just loading a wallet. So that's how it really started. I was solving my own problems that I had.

Quang Do

6:23And then OKX, what was after?

Jim Nguyen

6:25So OK- after OKX, I took a little time off, and then I, that was when most stablecoins took off. And, stablecoins was basically, I see it as a, a mechanism to move value, quickly, right? So, we built, a payment ser- infrastructure for that company, and, really, I think, where we, where we saw the opportunity was how do you enable, how do you move funds, outside of existing rails that works 24/7 on weekends and very cheap? So that was what we built. So it was a stablecoin infrastructure to help fintech companies move value across the globe. So are, there are a lot of great I- AI tools out there, and, you know, these vibe coding services, I would say, "Hey, if I'm gonna help my son build a website, I should give it an idea of what it is, and maybe build it for me. I should give it a domain name," and then the output of this whole thing is really clicking on the site, and you see, hey, the whole site has been deployed, and any user can come on there. Well, the problem is that, these vibe coding services only code, but to deploy this website, you still had to go to your sort of a database, CPU, and all these DevOps things related.

7:40So there was friction in deploying these sites. And I said, "You know, it's good that I'm seeing this," because, you know, for humans, it was good to be able to get into that, We were just brought up in this friction how to deploy websites. But I said, "If we were gonna get a non-technical person, it needs to be seamless." So that's where my current company, which is, Inflow. Inflow enables really agents, as a new customer to help, to help them, you know, help us scale our operations.

Quang Do

8:16Many things we can dive deep into. You know, PayPal acquisition, entrepreneurial journey, crypto. And now, another venture. And we'll get to it. But going all the way back again, yeah, and you said you always solve your own problems. Where did you think that came from? Are you from an entrepreneurial family? Have you always been someone who loved to tinker?

Jim Nguyen

8:42You know, I guess, it's just a thing of my being a guy, you know. You just tinker things and it really didn't start out a way where I wanted to be an entrepreneur when I was younger. It's just, hey, I have this small problem. My bike is not running as fast. What do I do to make it run faster? So it's always been those little things that takes me to the next, the next step. So I, I'm, you know, being at the destination is something that is important to everyone. For me, it's getting to the destination. It's like how smooth can you get there? There are challenges getting to destination, so I focus on that area.

Quang Do

9:15The journey.

Jim Nguyen

9:16The journey, rather than destination. So I think that's where it came from was I enjoyed the journey much more. And not to say much more, but I focus on that, how do I make it better, che- and more efficient for me the next time? And then that's where, that's where it came from.

Quang Do

9:31Do you think this was shaped by, by the culture of the valley, you know? And I'm thinking from a perspective of putting a Vietnamese into the Silicon Valley, and you just become this builder and.

Jim Nguyen

9:44I don't believe so. I think it was just innate. That was something I just loved to solve problems, whether it was, you know, fixing my bike or fixing my remote control car, whatever it was when I was younger. It just so happens that, I was in an environment to be able to foster what I really love, right? The environment, you know, because ba- back in those days, the startup scene was fairly new, so it wasn't like you were born into the tech ecosystem like people are today. It was like, hey, I used to love to build things, and oh, you know, when I get older, there's this opportunity to do startups and create things. It just happens to be very similar to what I love. So it was I've always liked that, and the, the infrastructure of Silicon Valley was really the evolution of n- the next steps. So.

Quang Do

10:34Still on the, on the topic of cultural influence, being Vietnamese and having Vietnamese parents, how much and in which way did that influence you early on?

Jim Nguyen

10:47Well first and foremost, it was very different, because at home, my parents would not speak to me, in w- English. They forced me to speak in Vietnamese. And they said, "You know what? You can learn English at school, talk to your friends, but once you cross the doors into your home, speak Vietnamese." So, my parents always really, maintain our heritage. The food, the, you know, you know, and all the culture things that, that, Vietnamese people embrace. But then when I leave the house, then I adapt to the s- the environment outside. The language, the interaction with different types of people and really grow up in the, in the environment. That's what it is today. So really, straddling both sides. That was really, key in growing up. There was not one over the other, it was both, and that's why I enjoyed-

Quang Do

11:41That's great.

Jim Nguyen

11:41It's very, I.

Quang Do

11:42Multicultural.

Jim Nguyen

11:43And you know, it was painful because I m- because as a kid, you know, you When you go to school, you speak English with your friends, and then you come home and it's just natural. But then when your parents says speak Vietnamese, you had to shift. That wasn't, fun for s- a certain po- point of time, but I'm really glad that my parents did that and it's something that I enforce today. It's not something you like it today, but give yourself 20 years, 25 years. It's something that you'll appreciate. So I'm doing v- very similar things.

Quang Do

12:14Did you have other Vietnamese friends and exposure to the Vietnamese culture a lot?

Jim Nguyen

12:19You know, I did. The again, I had 2 groups of friends. There were, there were the Vietnamese, te- groups, and then also I was an athlete, so I hung out with, you know, baseball, basketball players and different sports. So, yeah, I had both types of friends. We all hung out together, plus in in that area, San Jose, Si- you know, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, there were a lot of Vietnamese, so w- we had access to folks like that. But I lived in an area that's a little further at the time. There weren't many Vietnamese, but there were some.

Quang Do

12:56Wonderful. I wish I had that I didn't have that. Let's dive a bit into early years, early builder journey. You built, Ruby Coins kind of in-game payments, which was acquired by PayPal. That first founding experience, what did it teach you?

Jim Nguyen

13:13I'm pausing because there's so many things that I learned, but I think it comes back to, really being close to the customer. That was really important because sometimes as a founder, you are too enamored with your own idea, and you try to solve a problem without impact, and that's why it was really important for me to solve the problem for myself, because I was the first customer. So I had this joust. You know, I would play as the seller of my product and also as the buyer, potential buyer of the product, right? So I would go back and forth. If I say this, does it make sense to me? So I just This is really, a- and you really need that to be able to have that first customer experience. So the first customer was always me. Listening to the customer, and then really how do you scale this out was maybe if I'm the customer, maybe I'll one-off, maybe I talk to more customers. Thought it was really important. The other thing w- is, with high tech, you can build forever, But how do you, build what's needed maybe next month instead of 2 years from now? I think that's really important, sometimes, because you're a builder, you always wanna say, "Hey, I wanna build something that's fast and scales really quickly."

14:30That, that's typically not how I build. It's like, hey, there are certain things you just have to, do manually, to really say, "Is this something you really wanna scale?" Or is it something you wanna slow down a little bit? A- and that was, to me, that was a really important thing, is you don't need to scale everything. You need to scale certain things, and then there are certain other aspects that you, it'll take, you need to take time to scale, right? So I think that that's the thing is first, going back first, be close to the customer. Hopefully, you are the customer, the first customer. Second is you don't have to build the full stack. As a matter of fact, you shouldn't build the full stack. You build just enough to solve that problem, and then, and then as you engage with the customers, you'll get that feedback loop. Say, "Hey, I've given you one feature. M- is it something you like, you don't like, or whatever?" So I think those are the 3 things that are very important is 'cause, is, the fast loop.

Quang Do

15:20Tell us a bit about the experience building Ruby Coins. How hard was it?

Jim Nguyen

15:25Oh, it-

Quang Do

15:25How did you know it, it would be successful? And the acquisition as well.

Jim Nguyen

15:30Yeah, so we, what we built at that time, w- we didn't have any other, you know, documentation or books or any websites to learn from. It was all like, hey, this is a problem and we just need to be able to solve it, and there's no reference. We can't go out there and see what others have done and apply this. So that to us was like, hey, how do you Because the area's so new, how do you know what you're focusing on is the right thing, right? That was really the challenge and wh- which is why you need to be very close to the customer. So that was a challenge. The second challenge was that, resources, right? Resources is highly constrained. It was very small team. We can't do all the features. So how do you make sure that each line of code, each feature you have is really absolutely needed? But but yeah. Those are the 2 key things.

Quang Do

16:28And when did you know it would succeed then, when-

Jim Nguyen

16:31So I mean, I What happened was, you know, a- as we started to get more customers to integrate and more partners wanting to come in, we, w- we weren't even thinking about, hey, what does success mean? We were just thinking about, hey, people believe that this is a problem, and they wanna integrate to improve their experience. Which is what we, how we started the idea a few years ago. So we were just excited about that, right? We say, "Hey, someone's gonna buy this thing. B- buy this product from us and use it." So that to me was where the focus is how do I get more, integrations with our partners and get them to use it? You know, w- what I look at is just building value. And you know, good things will come if you can build value. So it's less about what does success mean. It's, for me, success is, hey, there's the customer, and there are more c- more customers like that. Whatever comes after that is really a cherry on the top.

Quang Do

17:25Talk a bit, about the acquisition. What was that process and experience like?

Jim Nguyen

17:29Yeah, it was, You know, PayPal was a, was a partner and at the time, PayPal saw, PayPal experienced similar issues in the traditional e-commerce. And the issue is that when you're sitting inside of a shopping cart, you would have to leave the shopping cart to another screen to go check out and pay, and then you have to go back into, the cart. The process of going in and out, it could be, you know, technical errors, you're too far from the data center, whatever it may be, there's a conversion drop. So when you leave that experience, conversion drops. So PayPal saw that data, so they already saw inside the, the traditional commerce. What we were solving for is a similar experience in the digital world, video games, right? So anything digital. So, they had launched a product to help, shoppers on the e-commerce side, reduce the friction. So we integrated that product inside the digital, and over time, that project just made sense. And, they said, "Hey, w- join the team." So we did.

Quang Do

18:40For you personally, what was this experience like?

Jim Nguyen

18:45Again, I go back to I you know, whether it's a an actual customer who was paying our fees or it was a partner like PayPal who wanted us to join the team, that's just another form of a p- of a customer. Like, we say, "Hey, there's this other customer that wants us to join them and really scale this thing." So for me, it was, it was, each time there was a new integration, a new partnership, it was, is more validation of, of, the idea we're doing, and that's the journey, right? So I don't know if I ever have a hard stop that, hey, this is where you stop. It's always keep climbing, and then you just keep climbing higher and higher and those steps are basically, you know, comes down to one thing, customer adoption, right, and partner adoption. And the experience was really great. Going into, you know, when we were at a startup, small, super lean, but when we went to, when we joined PayPal, what it gave us was the ability to operate at scale, right? That, to me-

Quang Do

19:47Resources.

Jim Nguyen

19:47Resources is one thing, but what I mean by at scale is differ- is a- another factor is like, yes, we were able to deploy some customers America, some customers Europe, but how do you deploy customer everywhere in the world, right? Leverage the backbone of PayPal, who they've had the infrastructure already and to push products out. So how do we get, at scale, more customer adoption across the globe, right? And then there, if there's more, customer adoption, then it goes back to the product. Can the product Is it fast enough? Is it easy to integrate enough? So scale is in different, there are different vectors of scale, right? There's a customer adoption, the performance, and also the compliance, right? Payments is a, is a trust, is a trust business. So it gave us the ability to say, "Hey, you know what? We didn't think about this before, but now that we're part of a large organization who is heavily regulated," they've got licenses nearly everywhere, it gave us a whole new area to learn from. So it was a, for me, it was a continuing continuation of a learning experience. And I'm really glad I was able to be there because, operating at scale is something that is, for me, it was, it was precious. Especially payments.

Quang Do

21:03Tell us more about your experience at PayPal. What did it teach you about payments, money- and operating at scale?

Jim Nguyen

21:10Well, I told my co-founder, and I was, younger, but I said, "Hey, w- we're never gonna have," it, you know, a resource issue anymore because PayPal's huge. They got a whole bunch of people. But that's not really the truth, right? Whether you're a 10-person startup or 100,000-person, public company, Fortune 200, you still need, the right projects. They could, they can double down on the right projects. It's not free for all, so everything has to have an ROI. So that was the first thing, was, "Hey, you have to earn our keeps, even at PayPal. Just because we are part of a large organization doesn't mean we get automatic resources." We gotta really, prove that we're bringing ROI. The second was there's something that, you know, people talk about the PayPal network, PayPal network.

Quang Do

22:04PayPal mafia.

Jim Nguyen

22:05PayPal mafia, whatever you call PayPal, what is it? For me, the most rewarding thing was being able to work with people across the globe who are the best at what they do, and the learning experience from there was amazing. So that, to me, was like, you know, before the, I went in, it was like, what is this PayPal mafia, PayPal network doer? That's it. It was that access to so many people who are at the top of their game, and be able to learn from them and really contribute, right? From that, I think that, to me, is really invaluable. And then the final thing is, you know, like all businesses, I was given the opportunity to start, various other segments, right? Whether it's, you know, gambling, crypto, you know, going after managing regions, you know, different vertical markets. That was I was given the ability to say, "Hey, let's find a region where PayPal wa- wants to grow and that aligns with our team, and let's get deployed in that area, and I guess go for it." So I s- I was sitting in the, headquarters in San Jose. But, you know, there are times where I spent, a lot of my time in Europe, and there are other parts of the time where I spent a lot of time in South America, right?

23:26It depends on the project. So that was really valuable. It's like you get access to the top minds you can learn from. And then second is, if there are areas where you see opportunities for PayPal to be even more, embedded, then plan together. Let's see what we'll do. So I think that was really, a amazing experience for me, for sure.

Quang Do

23:48I just want to make a point here that how can we build, you know, such a network and power structure for the Vietnamese community that is similar to the PayPal mafia? You know, it seems so powerful. People support each other so trustingly and you know, selfish, selflessly. With overseas Vietnamese, you know, my goal is really to establish such a thing. We have a global diaspora, sufficient in size, many people in high-level positions, right? And I, I'll, I'm very inspired actually. I'm not sure if mafia is the right term for that. But there is a bit of, there could be a bit of a tribalism where we help each other, and we would be much more successful and much more powerful, and have a sense of belonging to something, if you could- build such a thing. So what was your personal exposure to that PayPal mafia structure, and how did you experience the power of it?

Jim Nguyen

24:45Well, how ex- experience was, first of all, you know, you have to prove yourself to be part of a team, right? And then also be able to go and, provide value. You know, learning is one thing, but also how do you contribute to the growth as well? And I think that's really important is there's a give and take. Hey, if you, if you're gonna learn, then you need to reciprocate and contribute to the system. I think that's really important. In terms of how, you know, the reason it's called the PayPal network or different words is it's very unique. So each network has its own meaning. Stripe has their own, you know, Google has their own, so does Facebook, right? And a- and, while we're focused on the high tech here, different groups have different purposes, right? And I think PayPal early days was how do we get payments across this? And there were some amazingly smart people that started it. For Vietnam, you know, it comes back to purpose. And first of all, I wanna gra- congratulate you for building OV with your, with your co-founder, Huy. But the purpose here is, you know, how do we get Vietnam to, continue to grow, right? I shared this, with other OV members and said, "You know, when the internet was taking off, you know, China was at a place where they were grown up."

26:06And they really latched on to the internet and took off, right? At that time, Vietnamese was still growing up. It was still growing up. Vietnam now is, has grown up today, and I see that, there's a timing, a timing element involved, and the timing ele- specifically in high tech is there's platform shifts, right? We went from offline to online, so US kickstarted that, and then the Chinese and the other folks really latched on and said, "Hey, we're gonna grow with it," But then during there, this is where Vietnam was still growing up. We're at a point now where we're shifting from Web2 to Web3, whether it's crypto/AI or whatever you call it, but there's a platform shift that's happening, and if you were rolled back maybe 20, 25 years ago, it's where China was at in '95. Vietnam is now the same area. So, m- my suggestion and how I'd love to contribute is let's How do we get the team that you've built, and level up, that team as well as share how to latch onto this new platform, AI. Really the core infrastructure of Vietnam, just like, you know, in China. You go everywhere, you paying with your hands, your Everything's mobile, everything's digital completely, right?

27:2810, 15, 20 years from now, why can't we have Vietnam, run by AI, right? Maybe we have, you know, coffee shops is everywhere in Vietnam, right? So maybe we have 2 or 3 owners, but m- maybe some robotics to help with the things like, you know, serving. So I think, being able to latch on to a technology shift is important, and then getting the right, team in place, to s- kickstart that process and then continue to evolve and grow over time. I think that's really important here. I think it's Vietnam is really, perfect with its platform shift a- as it's gone up.

Quang Do

28:07Maybe we shift the topics a bit- No but this is super interesting. Why?

Jim Nguyen

28:10I believe, So you have to be, I use it very loosely. You have to be, like I mentioned, grown up. The country has really developed, and then there has to be a opportunity. The opportunity's that platform shift, But to real- really make it there, then it's the people in the company. So one of the things is, you know, I've worked with many, offshore engineers. Vietnam is one of my favorites to hire engineers. I say C++, Java, probably the best, some of the best teams in the world. And the literacy rate, is it 95, 98%? Super high, right? So I think those 2, you know, the academics is there, which is very similar to China, right? Tsinghua University, Fudan, they have all those things, and there are great schools here, great fundamentals. And when I s- speak to my colleagues abroad or in America, they love hiring Vietnamese engineers, right? Because they're really good at programming. So I think that's really the fundamental requirement is, do you have the people in the country to operate at this scale? The answer is yes, right? Of course, Vietnam needs a little, They're really good at s- at doing specific things, programming, but I do think that Vietnam can benefit from thinking infrastructure, system, systems thinking, and really the whole entire product or whatever you call that.

29:37I think that's really useful.

Quang Do

29:40What is, what is your role with Vietnam in your current business?

Jim Nguyen

29:44So m- my company right now, Inflow, is basically giving agents, and this agents who's the buyer. The agent is the new buyer, and the seller has to be able to accept payments from agents. So how do you enable agents and the businesses that serve them the ability to transact? So think of it as, a PayPal for agents is what we're building. How we're doing, here is, I've got a couple engineers here in Vietnam. My, my first business hire also is in Vietnam as well. He went to school in America. He came back to, Vietnam to stay and, over time I do look to grow the team over here, make this our Asia office, you know, the whole, the whole center. I think it was maybe 10 years ago, it probably would've been in a different country, Hong Kong, Singapore or Korea, different areas. But now that, because it's mature, I think, you know what, it's maybe I can kill a few birds with one stone, right? First of all, have, have an office where I believe the amazing talent is. Second is really, I, I'm Vietnamese.

31:02I wanna make sure that, you know, Vietnamese people and to do whatever I can to help contribute, to ecosystem. I also think that, a critical infrastructure for any country is really how do you move money in and out. A lot of money, and, do it in a regulated way. So it just so happens that's my area of e- expertise. So if there's opportunities for me to contribute to that, that's why I'm here. So there's a couple of things more than, more than just, you know, I'm Vietnamese.

Quang Do

31:32We have 2 very interesting topics here. One is your current business, Inflow, agentic payments, and the other one is Vietnam. And let's spend the rest of our time to dive into each. First the core thesis of Inflow, and then you already succinctly mentioned agents are going to be the buyer. Can you expand a bit on the core thesis, and what does it mean when agents become customers?

Jim Nguyen

31:59I'm gonna go a few levels back or up. The thing is that I think that everybody today is drowning in work. I don't know of you as a single person, unless they're retired or they've chosen like a If they're in the workforce, even in school, right? I'm so, I'm so tired, I need help. I'm always behind. So the thesis here is not about agents being a customer. It's how do you leverage technology to make yourself more efficient? That's the core thesis. It just so happens that the agent can be that, quote unquote, "assistant" to help you, right? In the past it could do certain things like, "Hey, send money for me. Do, send an email for me." That's right. So software's doing that. But with the intelligence built in, now you can do multi-step. So you can really have a twin of yourself, right? So for and this is pretty common is, is agents is a, is, is leverage for humans to increase their productivity. So how do you, enable agents to be your, first of all your teammate, and then if it is truly your teammate, whether it's your personal life or professional, then it needs to have the capabilities that you do.

33:23It is making decisions. It is being able to pay for things. It is being able to make money, right? So it is truly your twin, but in a digital world. But what's missing so far is, every single payment system in the world was built around humans. The human was onboarding, the human was registering, the human was pushing the button after they've decided what to buy, so the logic, right? If you remove the human from that equation, the entire system breaks. So you have to build it natively for the agent from the ground floor. The analogy that I use with, with folks is very similar to 1994, '95, '96, where you had offline payments and online. It The output is the same. You're buying something and you're paying, but the mechanics is very different. The mechanics of buying coffee at an offline store is different than the mechanics of buying something online, right? So it's the same, but same thing here with agents. The agent's gonna do the same thing. They're gonna go buy coffee for you as well, but there's no UI. There's different types of policy engines in there. So the mechanics is what we build for, is how do you interf- integrate between the buyer and seller. The first buyer was human to human, then it was human to a website, now it's an agent to the website, right?

34:42So it's the mechanics that we're building for. That's what we're-

Quang Do

34:47First instinct would be, you know, the trust element. Like how do we make sure that the agents work on your behalf and in a trusted way?

Jim Nguyen

34:57I think when the, you know, I recall crypto as we, you know I think when people, when we describe something new and use too much tech, it's a little further away from reality, for a vast majority of people, and it's tough to grasp. For agents, very simply put is, you know, because we're a regulated entity moving money, even though it's an agent moving money, it's always tied to a human. So we don't have rogue agents in our system, So it's literally this agent belongs to Jim or Quang, and Quang or Jim is KYC'd, right? So the end people who are do- the real people, you know, it's Jim buying from a store that Quang is hosting, but we have the agent in the middle transacting for us, right? So it's still the transaction's reserved. So how do we build trust? W- we tie the agent identity, and we ta- haul all the agent identities back to the seller and the buyer. That's how we do it, because that's what the, the money movement licensing says.

Quang Do

36:04It's moving from KYC to KYA, right?

Jim Nguyen

36:07Exactly. Exactly. It's not only KYA, but it's how do you tie KYA to KYC, KYB, and when do you do what? So in the past it was, you know, KYB, KYC, but then now you have this intermediary, and do you give the full buying power, So if you go onto a website, you have full buying power because you're the decision maker, but do you wanna give your agent the full buying power? The answer is probably not. Over time you will, but I'm gonna start off with, hey, giving the agent, guidelines on what to do. That's really the difference in this payment system that, that's brand new.

Quang Do

36:38And how reliable is it? Where are you at with the tech?

Jim Nguyen

36:41So we are, deploying, We started, we we've went really fast. So we started the company in September of 2025. We launched the product in December of '25. We're in the process of integrating, a handful of customers now, and, it's probably the fastest company that in terms of from idea to product, it was really, you know, Inflow is really a, is the next step in our s- my co-founder and I have been working on startups together for 17 years. It's really a 17 year muscle memory building Inflow. We didn't start 3 months ago and started to think about these ideas. We were working in various areas, and these really contributed to what agentic commerce needs. That's so really that's how we've compounded our knowledge to really able to deploy that into a product, at Inflow. So yeah, it's been very exciting. I'm at that stage where I'm really excited 'cause we have customer-- Oh, the customers really believe what we're saying and they're, and they're actually integrating. So these are paying customers. So yeah, happy about that.

Quang Do

37:53You mentioned platform shift. The finance industry, payment industry is very old. Things are very established in their ways. You are this new player coming in. What needs to happen on a grander scale for the platform shift to happen? And not just incrementally, but the full platform shift.

Jim Nguyen

38:19So there are 2 things we wanna look at here. Regulation is there, it's set. Maybe they'll have small iterations to, at least get added for new technologies. But by and large, a vast majority of the regulations already at, you need to-- Whatever product you're building, you have to ensure that it meets the regulations that's there today. The regulation is not gonna change for the platform shift, So you gotta tie it back. The second thing is when we talk about platform shift, it's more about the technology and the interaction model rather than changing the regulation. There's 2 layers here. There's the technology layer and there's a regulatory layer, right? That stays. When we talk about platform shift, it's like how do we take h- from paying for with a credit card in a coffee shop to taking that same credit card you have and entering that online so that, so the coffee shop receive the same credit card number, right? So that's the platform shift itself at the technology layer. But the regulation is the same whether you're online or offline, right? Same thing with agents. Now the agents are talking, but the regulation still needs to tie back as if you're offline or on the internet, right?

39:37So there are 2 layers here that you wanna look at. So what is the platform shift? Certainly not regulatory. It's the technology.

Quang Do

39:46But is there basically green light and basically you, you're free to play in terms of regulations for the shift to happen, or is there roadblocks that should make it easier for you over time?

Jim Nguyen

40:02You know, r- r- regulation comes in when there's, concerns, to help protect consumers. So if you're a regulated business and you develop technologies to help, to transact, but also maintain the security of the consumers, the buyers or sellers, then that's so far it's okay. I'm sure there's gonna be new agentic related, regulation that's coming by. There's already some already. But, maybe that's for different areas. But in terms of payment space, it's less about the regulation, it's more about how do we get the seller and the buyer to trust each other at that level, right? So again, it's at the, at the technology layer. We're still very early. I'm I'm not gonna say that, there's enough regulation. I'm sure there's more. But today there's nothing stopping it from moving forward. Whereas back in the crypto days, you know, nothing really happened until the stablecoin act, went through. So far I don't see that happening in agent commerce yet, but, you know, that's the life of a startup.

Quang Do

41:13Is there a crypto blockchain element in Inflow?

Jim Nguyen

41:17Instead of going to the technology, you wanna go back to the core use case. It's the buyer and the seller. Who's the buyer and the seller, right? So if you're a human-based, buyer-seller, then it's gonna be fiat based, whether that's your, you know, bank card, credit card or local payment option, Zalo, for example. That's the way that humans transact. That's tied to a fiat system, so all the payment infrastructure that's built so far has been fiat based, with the exception of crypto being, or stablecoins being the rails to move, cross border. Agents, I believe, is probably the second use case for stablecoins. The first use case was trading. Actually the third use case. The first use case was trading, the second use case was, cross border payments. The third use case is agents. Because the spender needs to have its own native currency, just like humans has their own native currency. Credit card, bank card, fiat. That's our native. Agents, you know, have stablecoins. So the, that was a long way to answer your question.

42:33The answer is yes, but I wanted to get into the reasoning of, of how we see the world. But then again, as a spender, if the agent is paying the human or the human's paying the agent, you need to be, have a system to convert, right? Is it credit card into VND to euro, right? So you have to have that conversion system ready because just as, you know, when you go back to your hometown in Germany, you know, I have VND, but in Germany I need, you know, euros. So you convert that back and forth. Same thing with agents here. So it ties back to who the buyer or the seller is, and the buyer and seller needs to have its own native. Agent's native is stablecoins.

Quang Do

43:17Let's dive a bit into this current entrepreneurial journey you're in and it's not your first business. You said it's the fastest business you've built and launched. What has been the current experience? What are challenges? What keeps you up at night?

Jim Nguyen

43:36As with every business, the challenges come from left field, right field, and then there's sometimes you can see it, sometimes you can't. But it's always about, market adoption first and foremost, right? Because we're early in the game and, you know, if we ha- we have 5 years to wait, then that's a different story, right? But we have timeframes in startups, right? So first of all, is, is the timing right? That's the first question, is we know agents are gonna be the buyer and peop- and sellers need to sell to agents. But is it today, next quarter, or next year? When does that happen? So the challenge in the startup is like, okay, can we pick our market segments or our customer segments to re- to bring the why now closer to today rather than tomorrow. So that's really the challenge that I've been working on with the team. That's really the biggest one.

Quang Do

44:34It's timing.

Jim Nguyen

44:35Why now. Why now is the biggest one.

Quang Do

44:38And how do you solve for it? What's your Are you early, late, right there?

Jim Nguyen

44:47I would say that we are, early on the agent e-commerce, but, as with every, new technology r- revolutions, the time to adoption is shorter, right? I while technology does take 20, 30 y- years, 40 years for full adoption, even the internet today, right, is not full adoption yet. It's high, high penetration rate, but not full. It's gonna take a similar timeframe. But, how long did it take people to embrace mobile payments, online payment? It took a long time, right? With the things that's happening now, I think that time is gonna be shortened. So it is early, but it is not, you know, decade early. It's, we're like quarters, years here.

Quang Do

45:43Once it's taken off, it would.

Jim Nguyen

45:45Be- because why? Because agents will help you do more things. That's fundamentally what it is, If you can deploy a team of agents to help your life much better and at a fraction of the cost for hiring somebody- That's really the lever here, right? For example, like we all have bills to pay. What if you can have an agent to, "Hey, here are all the bills you need to pay today. Will you approve these? Will you disapprove these?" Yes, pull that all together for me and give me a consolidated view, right? Oh, I wanna build, fly my parents here, right? What's their schedule like? But you don't have to call them. You don't have to talk to them. You have their agent talk to your agent, yeah, figure it out. It goes, "Hey, Quang, your parents can come here next week. They can only spend, you know, 2 weeks with you. Will you approve this, this purchase?" So H- it, it's, I think it's imminent. But there are certain areas where it's faster than others and which is where our customers are being deployed. And so, so yeah, it's lots of things are happening in the space.

Quang Do

46:50And who are those you think that are early to adopt these? Who are your customers basically and you know, who are the first segments of demographic and target customers that would be very interested?

Jim Nguyen

47:05You know, one of the things that I, learned over time in doing startups, it's very tough to, to instill s- onto somebody else, a use case they don't, they don't believe in. They have to feel it, and they have to want it, right? So we don't do that anymore. What we do is you go to, "Hey, who's gonna really need agents to help them out?" And we've figured out several markets that we're going with. Those are the people that are deep into agents, and they live and breathe agents, and these are the developers of agents say, "Hey, we figure out our ICP," which is initial, customer profile, to be able to, launch. And we launched with, several customers in the last, few weeks. We're gonna have probably a dozen more in the next month here, and you'll be seeing who they are. But, but they're all very close, and they, and they feel the pain, right? And let me give you an example. Today, everybody talks about OpenClaw, but, but one thing that is not making it outside, make it generally public is sometimes these agents are getting a They're just tying a wallet, and they're signing up for a service.

48:22But then there's no-- But these agents are spending way over their spending limit, 5, $10,000 a day on services. And the human wakes up to, "Oh, I have a $10,000 bill that my agent spent last night. What do I do?" Well, you gotta pay for it because that's your agent, belongs to you. So how do we in, how do we build payments to help the human control that spending? That's where, little insights into where we're looking at is really deep into ecosystem, people are d- who are using agents today and deploying agents.

Quang Do

48:58You've been building multiple times. Now what do you do dif- what do you do differently this time? What do you do better this time?

Jim Nguyen

49:07Each time it's different. I wish I had a, a recipe to do the same thing over and over. It's basically, you know, my co-founder and I, we, we work, anticipate challenges. That's the first thing, anticipate challenges. There are always gonna be challenges, whether it's, you know, government com- coming and say, "Hey, you know what? That's illegal," or there's a new competitor coming up that's doing something similar with a, with a bigger team, with more money, right? There's always different competition, and maybe with- within the customer, right? The customer will say, "Hey, we're gonna push back the deployment, for 3 weeks or 3 months. We won't do it now." So, the first thing that I embrace is, there are gonna be challenges, and those challenges will be, like, deep. Certain times we feel like, "God, this is gonna sink us," So my co-founder and I goes, "Prepare for those," first of all. 'cause sometimes you go in being a newer founder, you anticipate everything's gonna be positive. But what we've done is we said, "You know what? The positive days, they will come. Manage the bad days." That's what, that's what we focus on. So that's h- how we h- that's how we focus our mental model.

50:23The second thing is, you know, my co-founder are, were very well together in this. We're framework thinkers. How do you framework and how do you put a mental model together for something to work? Systems. And then really focus on the items that's absolutely necessary and non-negotiable. Build those first. And there are other components that are still out there. You know, let time There's a factor of time where, you know, maybe there's a solutions provider that's gonna come with an amazing solution in there, so being able to, give yourselves a little time, but then push on the items that will drive to revenue sooner than later, right? That doesn't mean you wait forever. Oh, answering your question.

Quang Do

51:07Looking forward, what kind of company do you want Inflow to become? What kind of impact do you want it to have?

Jim Nguyen

51:17You know, if I were to sit into someone, you know, a few years down the road, if they wake up and they've built a product for agents or wanna sell to agents and say, "Hey, I wanna be able to monetize, and I wanna have my agents," you know, Inflow is the API, MCP, or CLI that they want to integrate. So really be top of mind for someone looking to monetize or move money with agents is our API. That's my goal.

Quang Do

51:44Let's talk about Vietnam. Bringing it all together, your industry, payments agent e-commerce, you being an entrepreneur, and knowing what it takes to build a business, and then you being Vietnamese, what needs to happen in Vietnam for the platform shifts that you mentioned? You saw, you s- you see positive signals. What needs to happen in the next years?

Jim Nguyen

52:08Well, first and foremost, mobi- mobile adoption here is crazy, right? Mobile payments is crazy, so-

Quang Do

52:14Crypto as well.

Jim Nguyen

52:15Crypto is amazing, right? And I think that, for a shift, you know, like a countrywide shift, there needs to be top-down commitment, right? How does, the top-down believes that, hey, what needs to improve in our current infrastructure today to get us to that global scale when we think of Shanghai, when we think of, you know, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, Korea as these, financial hubs? What does Vietnam need to do to get there, to be top of mind? Hey, you know what? I don't need to s- when I send money to Vietnam, I don't need to skip and hop from Hong Kong or Sh- or Singapore. I can go direct. How do you do that, right? So, I think that's really important is what does the country itself need to do to get leveled up? And I think it has to be foundational, And then, so top-down, and then, and then there needs to be a supporting cast, right? Ma- main supporting cast, and I think OV could be one of those pillars. To say, "Hey, the team here at OV has built payments infrastructure of different types to move money in and out of, countries, in a regulated way, with great technology.

53:33We can apply" of course, it's not a photocopy, but it's hey, we have the background to build and operate at scale outside of Vietnam. Can we take that contribute that to Vietnam to help them grow, right? So that's one of the pillars. So if you got the main pillars, say, hey, level up Vietnam, and that there, there's different pillars. And you know, IFC is one of them. OV, I h- I hope we can be, is to contribute, our, our ability to execute and build products, right? I think that, there are a lot of groups and Listen, w- we're in a world where there's there are a lot of ideas, but, you know, one of the areas when I really like the people I recruited for OV is, these folks built, and they deliver, they ship products. And I think that's really, what's needed is someone, a team that's built before and a team that wants to continue to build to help, Vietnam. So I think that that's where it's at. 2 things, commitment from, the center, of Vietnam, and then the pillars that's needed, and then those pillars needs to have a execution arm that's executed at a global scale.

Quang Do

54:46Where sits Inflow? Do you think Vietnam will be adopting agent e-commerce in the foreseeable?

Jim Nguyen

54:53I don't know about Vietn- Vietnam. Or what I can say here is, it comes down to use cases, right? What use cases will need, agents? So you have to look at, the vast majority of how commerce happens in that country, right? And I think that agents will be deployed for different use cases in different countries. Just to start off. You know, maybe in Silicon Valley there's a lot of people, you know, buying GPU, buying compute, so maybe agents are buying GPU compute. But in Vietnam, you know, tourism is a huge business, so maybe instead of calling your travel agent or trying to figure out on your own how to book the travel, maybe ask your agent to be able to book a flight into Vietnam or out of Vietnam. So there are different use cases, and that's what I think it's gonna be tied to use cases.

Quang Do

55:50What is it for Vietnam? And I'm just thinking agriculture, manufacturing, construction, buying commodities, buying materials, right?

Jim Nguyen

55:58Exactly. Exactly.

Quang Do

55:59The B2B.

Jim Nguyen

56:00The B2B. I mean, I mean, like, you know, you've got rice, right? You've got coffee. But the whole- Operational behind that is crazy, right? How do you deploy some agents, have it work 24/7, and really save that operator efficiency a- and then really have this, th- these people do different things, maybe expand to new export products instead of having to deal with, hey, making sure the inventory from one end to the other end is right. N- no, the agent's gonna handle inventory, the payments, have the agent do that. But maybe this company is focused only on coffee, right? Maybe have this company also expand to rice or other goods that they wanna sell, right? Maybe travel agents today are so bogged down with only trying to book travel to Vietnam. Well, maybe if they can get agent to book to Vietnam, but maybe now they can focus on Europe and other countries, right? So, as automation becomes a part of life, then we can really expand our focus and do more. I think that's where it's gonna help.

Quang Do

57:03How do you think about go-to markets, in general for Inflow geographically?

Jim Nguyen

57:09So our ICP, initial customer profile, was global. So you've got, customers in North America, Europe, as well as Asia. So it's really, the geo- the the go-to-market is not constrained by geo. The go-to-market is for parta- particular segment. And that segment is global, right? So that's what we're going after. You know, with how the internet today, you can reach the customers who can have conference calls, so, you know, of course it's always great to be in person, but, you know, these folks are diehard, you know, techies. So it's okay. We can, we can reach these fo- these folks online and be able to deploy this, the, these services across the globe. But 3 segments, the, North America, Asia, and then Europe are the 3 key.

Quang Do

58:06And in Asia, how, you know, how does Vietnam play into it?

Jim Nguyen

58:11Critical. We have some s- serious players in Vietnam. So it's you know, we're not deploying We are deploying a variety of sizes of companies, whether it's, you know, 3 to 5 people in a company doing, cool things. And, but then we're also deploying to, you know, very large, public companies, to use our technology. So I'm happy in terms of the coverage of, it's not only just, you know, 2, 3, 4, 5 person or large only, but it's across the spectrum. But the other thing interesting that's really interesting here that I haven't seen in the past is like, the large companies are moving extremely fast. We always think that, you know, large companies, don't move fast. Maybe they don't move fast for everything. But for AI, they're moving really fast. Arguably, and I, I've never seen the adoption this fast before at the public company level. And I would have to credit, you know, the executive team at these companies.

59:29They are saying, "This is a mandate." "You gotta do this." So it's top-down, you know, bottom-up, left, right, it, it's really a one of those things where, hey, you've opened a restaurant, n- now you gotta open your door, right? So it's like, hey, we've spent all this time building a restaurant, why are we not building a new door for a new customer type? And that's really the loose analogy that we're seeing right now, because agents is gonna be the buyer. Who moves fast first?

Quang Do

1:00:02Will you spend more time in Vietnam then?

Jim Nguyen

1:00:06You know, I you know, I still have family here. So I spend time here, already. But definitely, you know, not only with, you know, as we expand our office, I do see an opportunity for us to grow our team here locally, whether it's in Hanoi or, Ho Chi Minh City. One of the 2. I talk to my, to my team about that. But, so family of course, and then now layer on top of, the, the company, expansion, and then also, with, the effort here, supporting you on OV, right? Be here for that third effort. So there's really multiple opportunities to be here, more often now.

Quang Do

1:00:44What is your hope for Vietnam in the next years and decade to come now that you also try to play more of a role here?

Jim Nguyen

1:00:54You know, I I'd like to And I'm gonna be Vietnam could do a lot of things, but just from m- my perspective, is fully adopt, fully integrate AI as much as possible. Because it is literally doubling, quadrupling, and 10X the output that you can do there. Vietnam is There there's a, there's an age bracket now between 20 and 40 years old, which is a huge Imagine 10X that productivity. So leverage technology to increase productivity, and when you increase productivity, a lot of great things come out of there. You know, exports, imports, GDPs, whatever it is. I, I'd love to see Vietnam cont- to continue its growth. I think, we've seen a lot of charts where Vietnam is overtaking several other countries, in Southeast Asia. I'd like to see Vietnam at a hockey stick, you know? Different areas. Of course, it's not all gonna happen at once, but, being a techie and maybe I have a very, biased view, but hey, let's leverage technology and make that epicenter just like the, you know, the next layer of elec- electricity, you know, the phone, the internet is layer AI on top of that, is make that infrastructure.

1:02:16That's what I want to see.

Quang Do

1:02:17How would you recommend an average Vietnamese to adopt AI more for themselves and embrace themselves for this shift to happen?

Jim Nguyen

1:02:27Do exactly what they did for crypto. Start doing it. There was nobody teaching Vietnamese how to do crypto, right? They learned on their own. Go do it. Adopt as many a- AI tools as possible. And just, you know, ChatGPT, Claude, use all the tools. Use all those tools. And you know, maybe 30, 40, 50 years ago, if you didn't know how to type, it was kind of hard to get a job. And you know, when I was in school, we had to take typing classes, right? I think fast-forward to today, and then typing your email, right? Then you learn how to use email. In your, in our personal life. Now it's, it's being able to Where I'm heading at is you gotta be able to adapt to the tools of the time. Typewriters, email, AI. Embrace it. Fully embrace it. And I think the, and I think the demographic and the age bracket of Vietnam is the sweet spot for AI adoption. Like, you know, 20 years old to 45, that's where the vast majority of the population is, and that's really where you can adopt, start playing with it.

Quang Do

1:03:44And they're technically savvy.

Jim Nguyen

1:03:46They're already technically savvy.

Quang Do

1:03:47Strong STEM- I mean- and math background.

Jim Nguyen

1:03:49Like if they can, if they can, if they can participate, crypto at a global scale, I think Vietnam was for, for a long spre- part of time was number one, maybe it's number 2 now. Number 3. But, and you can handle crypto, you can handle anything. Because today, you know, AI is really just natural language. So it even, it's more than just techie people who have learned how to do crypto. Now you get a broader set and I think everybody just hop on as fast as possible. Be AI fluent.

Quang Do

1:04:23Final question. What would be your advice for a young Vietnamese, young overseas Vietnamese entrepreneur out there today to follow your footsteps and success?

Jim Nguyen

1:04:39I, I'm not sure they wanna follow my footsteps. There's a lot of pain. You know, for every, as you know very well, there there's the, We always celebrate the outcome, but, the road is I think the first thing is, be comfortable with falling down. There's I don't have much to share, but I- what I can share is that, there's a lot of bumps. And, be comfortable with falling down. Giving yourselves a few seconds to brush it off, whether it's, you know, brush all the pain, cry it out, bounce back up again. I think that's the most important is, don't expect to not fall. As a matter of fact, falling is part of the process. And it is painful, but, for me, what's rewarding is, hey, I fell last time, and I may The next time I may fall a little less or at a different angle doesn't hurt as much. But irrespective of how I fall, it's the ability to pop back up. I think that's the most important for me.

Quang Do

1:05:51Jim, thank you so much.

Jim Nguyen

1:05:53Thank you.