A Viet American entrepreneur building in Saigon.

Tuan Le

0:00And I love Vietnam, you know, it was fun, food was good, blah. It was affordable. But I never felt the need to be like, I need to live here, you know. This is when I was 14, 15, 16. I never felt the need. One thing I would say though, I don't need to be friends with the team members. That's okay for them too, because they don't want to hang out with me either. Because I feel like there is a pressure, you know, I have to like this person, or I have to hang out with this person. For me, I'm totally cool going home, hanging out with my kid or, you know, or my own friends, right?

Quang Do

0:32It's lovely to meet you and you know we’ve been around in Ho Chi Minh on a few events together. I never had the chance to properly get to know you. And so I come in with a very blank slate and no real detail about your life. And I think with curiosity I will carry this conversation and so yeah Tuan why don't you get started by telling us a bit about yourself.

Tuan Le

0:56Yeah, thanks for having me, Quang. I've been telling my story for a long time, right? Because I've been here for what, 12 years now. So every time somebody new comes, know, I get to tell them a little bit about how I started and things like that. So I'm glad to share. There's been a few developments since my last chat with other people about my story. So let's start from the beginning. I was born in Da Nang, central Vietnam. In 1985 and I was raised there until I was 10 and then I moved to Los Angeles, California. I was there for a few years then I moved around Southern California. I went to UC San Diego and studied business management science to be precise. I had a chance to travel to Tokyo for study abroad. After college, I worked in sales, international sales, mostly fire alarms. And then after that, I quit and joined art school. I studied masters in advertising. I quit that. Moved back to Vietnam in 2010. Worked in advertising for one of the big fours. And then I moved from Vietnam to Dubai.

2:13Worked for TBWA Dubai for another two years. Then I met my wife. Then we came back to Vietnam to open our business. And that was 2013. And since then I've done a few things which I'm sure we'll get into. Fast forward. 11 years later, 12 years later, we've had a few brands under our belt. I have a design studio and I'm also on a few nonprofit projects. Yeah, that's kind of the short of it.

Quang Do

2:44I love it and there's so much, I think, to unpack. So many transitions and you know, I would really like to dig deeper into the beginning because, you know, OV is a community of Vietnamese and there are so many shades and forms and kinds of overseas Vietnamese. So each unique story is interesting in itself. And so could you share a bit about that transition from actually Vietnam to US and how that artistic kind of know, and ambition came about. How did you became, you know, creative and interested in building business as a young person?

Tuan Le

3:17Yeah, so I mean I was nine or ten so I wasn't really thinking that much about you know art or creativity or business. I just followed my dad and my sister to rejoin my mom and my brother who left earlier by boat. So we settled in Los Angeles. I was just normal kid in LA playing video games getting into trouble that kind of thing. My interest in business started with my mom, because she was a small business entrepreneur. So she did nail salons, restaurants, she sold cigarettes, she did a lot of illegal stuff, I'm not gonna say. And then later I went to study business in UC San Diego. So that was the genesis of the ambition.

Quang Do

4:02And what kind of people kids did you hang out in LA and California was it you know, very Vietnamese?

Tuan Le

4:09Yeah, have you seen.. Yeah, very Vietnamese. Chinese, Vietnamese, Cambodians. Have you seen the movie Beef? Sorry, a series Beef with Ali Wong?

Quang Do

4:17No.

Tuan Le

4:18No? Man, you should watch it. Anyways, no, there's a character in there. He's like a cousin, right? That cousin is always getting into trouble, like, you know, it's doing random stuff for money, hustling basically. Basically everyone around me was like that, and I'm the kind of the straight and narrow kid, right? Going to school and that kind of thing.

Quang Do

4:40Does it capture your childhood? Okay, and did you, know, were you a good kid or did you cause trouble in there as well?

Tuan Le

4:46I mean, every kid causes trouble, right? It's just you get caught up in it. You're not the instigator, but you would follow along with somebody. And then, yeah, but then once I got to college, I left that kind of behind.

Quang Do

4:59And how did you think your artistic sort of part of you did develop? What kind of influences and environmental factors do you think did influence that?

Tuan Le

5:09I think it started as a reaction to business. So after studying business at UC San Diego, I went to sales. So when I was doing sales, I really hated it. I did not like the environment, the office. I love my colleagues, but that work was not for me. And so my exploration came as a rejection of that. Then I went to art school, like the opposite. And I think at some point in art school, I realized that, maybe I can use a little bit of both, you know, like what I understand about business, what I study in school, and plus, what my interest is, which is design, creativity and art, and maybe do something along those lines.

Quang Do

5:59How did your parents feel about you going into art and more creative direction And how did you manage that how did you manage your.

Tuan Le

6:01They thought I was nuts. I'm sure this is the same story as every Asian parent. They wanted me to study business. I just moved away from home. I moved away from home. They were more than perfectly happy to see me go to work and then come back at the end of the night for dinner. But I just felt like one year of that was crazy. I just, I left home and I went to San Francisco to study art.

Quang Do

6:31And did they try to influence you and like how much friction was there or what were they quite supportive and trusting still despite not approving of the past?

Tuan Le

6:41I think they've always been supportive. My parents are not very restrictive. They're supportive, but they don't know enough to actively help you. You know what I mean? Like they're not the parents who has connections in this place, an internship offer here to kind of push you that way. They're more like, we don't know, but you seem to know, so do your thing kind of. But are you sure? You know, they're that kind of parents.

Quang Do

7:13Yeah, and then where did you where did your interest in? Seeing the world start was it something you know had all the time along and you just waited for the right time to come up Did this come later in life?

Tuan Le

7:24No. You know, I never left California until I went to Tokyo to study. And I think that's the start of it. After going to Tokyo to study, I felt like there's a whole new world outside of California, know, obviously, right? But for Americans, it's not very obvious. But, you know, I went and studied and, you know, you meet new people you've never met before. I met somebody from Kazakhstan in Tokyo and that kind of blew my mind. Like, where the hell is Kazakhstan? And then after Tokyo, once you open that gate, it's hard to come back. And then you go back to Orange County and you feel everything is quite small, closed. And so yeah, after that it was San Francisco, Dubai, all that stuff.

Quang Do

8:18I would love to dive deeper into you being Vietnamese and how you reconnected with that, you know all the way to Tokyo and all around the world Where were you visiting Vietnam here and there or was it something that also came later?

Tuan Le

8:25You know, my family is very close to our family back in Vietnam. So, you know, they would fly back every summer so, and I would follow along on some of these trips. And I love Vietnam, you know, it was fun, food was good, blah. It was affordable. But I never felt the need to be like, I need to live here, you know. This is when I was 14, 15, 16. I never felt the need, you know.

Quang Do

8:50And how did that come?

Tuan Le

8:51Until much later. Much later. Think when I was, you know, after San Francisco, I moved back to Vietnam to work in advertising. That was when I really saw the country for what it is, you know, both the good and the bad. And I felt like, this is where I could see myself living for a long time. So 2010 was when I rode the first bus from my, was staying in Binh Thanh to District 1. And I remember thinking like, man, this is the future. You're going from a place that's very local and undeveloped, and then you go straight to District 1 and you're seeing all these high rises coming up. So that's when I kind of caught that bug. I okay, I need to be here.

Quang Do

9:37And this was 2010, right? Your first time internship in..

Tuan Le

9:412010, my internship in Vietnam.

Quang Do

9:42Yeah, how was that? Like, how did it influence your thinking about Vietnam? You know, was this also the time when you decided, okay, I need to have my chapter in Vietnam and I need to be here more?

Tuan Le

9:54Yeah, I think what I realized is, you know when I was with my parents coming back, we're like going to local restaurants, we were like meeting with our families, eating at home. It felt very much like the Vietnam I grew up in, you know? But then when I started working in Saigon, that's when I saw another side of Vietnam. People who spoke perfect English, bi-cultural people, high rises, eating in nice restaurants. And I just see both sides of Vietnam, this high growth potential, and then this place that I've been rooted to. And so that two pieces of the puzzle felt like, okay, I can make my home here, 2010.

Quang Do

10:39How long was your internship?

Tuan Le

10:40It was only three weeks and then they offered me a full-time job. So I stayed for one year.

Quang Do

10:46Okay, can you tell us a bit more about that year? What were your expectations versus what did you experience? And 2010 is still, I think, early compared to now coming back to Vietnam being more mainstream amongst the Việt Kiều and our people, right? And back then you were kind of early still. So how was it for you?

Tuan Le

11:05Yeah, Not early enough for real estate, but early enough for professional development, right? Yeah, how did it define my expectations? So I came back looking for an internship, so I didn't really expect anything, you know? I was just like, okay, it's gonna be a fun little summer, meet new people, have a little work-cation, yeah.

Quang Do

11:22And just quickly, was it a Vietnamese company or was this international?

Tuan Le

11:26No, so this was Lowe at the time, they're one of the biggest here. Their clients were Unilever. It was huge, yeah.

Quang Do

11:35Okay, so culture-wise, was also more Western and more international, right? Not too Vietnamese.

Tuan Le

11:38Yeah, most of the people I work with are like, you know, bicultural, perfect English, a lot of expats as well. My boss was Filipino. Yeah, so I only expected an internship and then I got offered that full-time gig and I took it and tried to live as a local for one year. So it wasn't what I expected it at all. I quickly got over the honeymoon period of Old Vietnam is so new and cool and then realized I can't stand the heat, the traffic, sometimes the people. Yeah, so I left after one year to Dubai.

Quang Do

12:16Okay, what did you not so like?

Tuan Le

12:19I'm sure it's the usual, know, it's the culture shock, right? Whereas in the States, I feel like whether it's genuine or not, you walk into a shop and you know, there's great service, you know? It's probably not genuine. But then in Vietnam, then it's very abrasive sometimes, you know, like taking your order. It's very trivial, I'm going to sound like a first world problem, but it's trivial. But at that time, you're a young person and you don't know better, right? So you take those things at face value and you think, these people are so rude. Can I really live here? That kind of thing. You're just a kid. Traffic and you can't walk on the sidewalks, that kind of thing. Flooding, where I live was flooding.

Quang Do

13:06And if you now compare to And if you if you now compare back to the days Do you think all those factors you just got used to them or do you think Vietnam as a country also improved? Along.

Tuan Le

13:20I think both for sure, know, infrastructure, service quality, everything went up. That's for sure. And then another is, yes, I got used to it. But then there's a third layer, which is not only did I get used to it, I appreciate it. I was like, they're genuine. You know what I mean? Like this is how people are and they're not pretending to be otherwise. They still are very hospitable, right? They still welcome you to their home, their shops, whatever. It's just they're not fake about it. Which, you know, I'm not only used to it, I'm like, okay, I like that maybe even better than some fake downtown hotel in LA, you know.

Quang Do

14:01I'm on a very similar journey, you know. I've moved here two, three months ago. I've been here a lot, but you only know once you truly live here and do the day-to-day, right? And I think as a beginner, you go on the street, you grab coffee, you notice the small things, and you question this, like, and you compare it to your own very narrow worldview, know, up until over time you soften up and you're like, okay, this is how.. Things have always been and it has its own system. To me as a German and coming from Singapore as well, things appear to be very unsystematic, very unstructured, but there's some pattern to it and things are working out in their own ways, which is very interesting for Vietnam, but you only get to.

Tuan Le

14:44To say it's not better?

Quang Do

14:45Yes, absolutely. Yeah, tell us a bit more about the Dubai time and then from there, what was after.

Tuan Le

14:53So I was recruited to Dubai towards the end of that one year. And then I decided to leave. Having said all that thing about Vietnam, I decided to leave for two reasons. One is the salary was much more. And then the second reason is I was trying to get away from a relationship. I should have just had an open conversation, but instead I used Dubai to kind of get out of it. Yeah, so that's why I took the job.

Quang Do

15:21Was this someone from Vietnam in Vietnam?

Tuan Le

15:23Yes, so she was the reason I got the internship in the first place to try to go back and be with her.

Quang Do

15:31And then you left her. So how was that in Dubai and how long did you stay and what was next?

Tuan Le

15:37I stayed for two years. I got basically to my dream job at TBWA. At the time, it still is one of the biggest. Their clients include Apple and Adidas and the best of the best. So it was a dream job. The office was beautiful. I got there and they put me up in a nice hotel. I'm like, my God, I made it. And it was really beautiful. And I was one of the, one of two Asian people in the office. The other Asian person was my partner, he's Filipino. Everybody else was like, know, Syrians, Palestinian, Egyptians, lot of Egyptians. So that was a new culture shock. I've never seen so many people from the Middle East at the office. And then having to work in English and then have someone translate it to Arabic was another challenge as well because I don't understand the language. Yeah, so it's really fun.

Quang Do

16:38And I think now we come to the more interesting part so how was then The next steps towards moving full to Vietnam like how did that period look like and decision-making and thoughts?

Tuan Le

16:49Yeah, I think it happened six months before I actually made the move back to Vietnam. I had met my girlfriend, who's my wife now, in Dubai. And after a few months, more. We started to not like the country very much because she and I are not married. So we technically cannot be together under the same roof, show affection in public. I'm sure you know all of these. And at the same time, she was struggling at work as well. So all of those factors together made us decide that, we should leave Dubai. And so we had the choice between Beijing or Saigon. Beijing because my old boss moved there and I was able to get some opportunities there. And then Saigon because I had previously worked there. So we decided on Saigon after a research trip and we just saw that the country was still continuing to grow. There were concepts in Dubai that we can take to Vietnam. It's relatively affordable to start a business, which we had wanted to do. So we decided to pack up and move to Vietnam in 2013.

Quang Do

18:00Beautiful and you know how did your now wife then girlfriend think about the move and you know what was her relationship with Vietnam up until that point did she ever go She stayed ever since I was with you.

Tuan Le

18:09She's never been to Vietnam. She's French, but she's only been to Latin America and other places for travel, but she's never been to Asia. So Vietnam for her was as foreign as Dubai was for my parents. It was like something out there. So she took a big leap of faith to come with me. She didn't really have any expectations, you know? Yeah, thank God. She didn't have any expectations and I think it was kind of cool to see that in parallel with me because I've been there, I know what to expect. And then for her, it was like a complete blank slate. And I think for her, it was really tough because she couldn't find many friends. It was very lonely. And the way we did business in Vietnam was not something she was used to. And so it took her a lot of time and effort to get over that initial hump. Whereas you and I, we get over it pretty quickly. In Dubai, I was in a similar situation to a lot of your audience in Dubai, because they're working in a professional setting and they're thinking about Vietnam, whether to go back to work or to go back to open a business.

19:31So I think most of the, was in the same shoes as most of your OV audience now, if they're not already in Vietnam, thinking about that move. So I think for me, I took my time and I think I was better for it. I took six months with my girlfriend at the time to write a business plan. So we felt like we had a safety net. Okay, we have a plan, this is what we're gonna do. I didn't just go randomly. So I think that really helped, kept me.

Quang Do

20:01Tell us about the plan.

Tuan Le

20:04Confident. The plan is actually available online. You if they follow one of my businesses, the first post is the business plan. I let it in public so anyone can download it just to see how naive, how optimistic we are, how well planned we were, and yet everything kind of fell apart after. So I left it there as like a lesson for everyone else and just a fun reminder for myself.

Quang Do

20:35Can you share a bit about it?

Tuan Le

20:38Sure, So we were inspired by this business in Dubai at the time. It was a hybrid between a co-working space and a cafe. And their business was selling coffee at a premium for people who need a nice, inspiring place to work. And then also to sell meeting spaces, workshop spaces, things like that. Basically a co-working model plus a specialty coffee model combined. So we brought that back to Vietnam. We had segmented our audience. We had studied the market. We did financial projections, all that stuff. And then the moment we hit the ground, was like everything changed. We couldn't find the location in a district with a lot of workers at the rent that we had projected. And so everything just kind of like, we had to work with what we got basically. And we were selling coffee at a premium, 70,000, so $3 at that time in 2013. It was a very expensive cup of coffee. And so we're very niche. So we had to pivot right after.

Quang Do

21:51Tell us about that progression of Dubai to Vietnam challenges And how did.

Tuan Le

21:55Sure, like I said, I was probably in the same shoes as a lot of people in OV, right? Working in a professional environment, wanting to make a move back to the homeland, either to work or to open a business. So I think I really benefited from.. Spending six months to kind of build a business plan, even though we didn't follow the business plan too much, but it gave me the confidence to go, right? Not just like blindly go, like eat, love, you know? And so I really credit that with giving me the emotional confidence to do it. And I suggest people do the same, have a Know that it's gonna adjust and you need to pivot, but at least have one.

Quang Do

22:38And how did that plan work out for you and you quickly mentioned maybe you can reiterate again. What was the.

Tuan Le

22:44It was a business plan to open a coworking cafe, right? So it's a coworking model plus a coffee shop model. Coworking because we sell dedicated spaces, we sell office rooms, we sold workshop space, and then cafe because we made specialty coffee, so we sold coffee at a premium. We were hoping that vibe would be enough to draw, you know, young professionals, creative professionals, creative companies willing to pay for it. I think quickly we found out that we needed a much bigger space to turn a profit. And also the motto was way too niche. Coffee at $3.70,000 in 2013 was a lot of money for a coffee that you would pay every single day. So we just had to adapt.

Quang Do

23:32And how much capital did you have planned for it? And how much did you want to invest?

Tuan Le

23:39Yeah, I mean very little. Had $45,000 at the time. We burned through that in like three months and then we borrowed three months after operating. So it took us some months to find a space and then three months to operate. And then we borrowed a few more thousand dollars and then we got our first client for the design studio. So a client came into the cafe, liked what we did and asked us to do the same for his company. And kind of that's when we started the design studio and that's when we started to make some money. I jumped ahead a little bit to the design studio.

Quang Do

24:19So yeah, a client came into your coffee and you were already doing design.

Tuan Le

24:22And liked what we did. No, we didn't. So we weren't doing design, we were just doing coffee. And then a client liked what we did with the cafe and asked us to design his space. And so we saw an opportunity and opened a design studio. And that's when it, like our career in Vietnam kind of took off a little bit.

Quang Do

24:45Okay, lucky occurrence and what happened to the cafe did you close?

Tuan Le

24:49We closed the cafe after another two, three years and it became the design office. Like it became the design office. That's what we worked out of instead of selling coffee to other people.

Quang Do

25:01Did you ever make money with the coffee shop? Did you have profitable months?

Tuan Le

25:05I'm sure we had some months with a big event booking or something like that where we were positive But in hindsight, it was probably all downhill. Yeah, it was a slow death.

Quang Do

25:15Okay, and if you now compare this to today and let's jump a little bit because new now running a few coffee bakes shops You know, would you would you think this is a space worth pursuing then versus now? What is your thought on this?

Tuan Le

25:28I mean, I wouldn't do it again. I wouldn't do it now. Know the co-working market is very tough. It's a real estate play, right? So you need a lot. And then the coffee market is also super competitive. In Vietnam, I think there was a study that Gen Zs, go to coffee twice a day. So you cannot expect them to pay like.. 70,000 which is like around 100,000 now twice a day, know They will make like 600,000 a day and they would pay one-third of that to coffee doesn't make sense So I would never do that again Yeah now.

Quang Do

26:06So the design agency was your rescue, probably, and then you were shifting to services. What was the design agency space back then and how did you position yourself in that space?

Tuan Le

26:18Yeah, back then there weren't a lot. I'm sure you know there's Rice Creative, there's the Legacy agencies that do design as a side project, like the Ogilvy's, the Lowe's. So design wasn't their focus, they were doing advertising and then design was part of that to service advertising. In terms of design only studio, at that time maybe there was Rice and then there was us, the lab. And so there weren't a lot of competition. Our differentiator was that we also do architecture. So we do graphic design and architecture together. And a lot of projects require both skill set. If you're building a new restaurant, you're building a new hotel. Yes, you need somebody to build a building and design the space, but you also need the graphic to communicate, to position the brand, to put on the wall even. So we're in a niche, lucky space and we grew with the country. As more space is open, they need our services.

Quang Do

27:16And how did you acquire those skills for yourself?

Tuan Le

27:19So I went to art school, so even though I didn't specialize in design, I studied design as well in school. And then I just hired people with the skill set that I like. I'm not an architect by trade, so I hired architects and then together we worked on the project.

Quang Do

27:34And how do you think, know, the lab, was it the lab already branded as such back then? And how did you position yourself in the market? Did you accept the architectural part of it? Do you think there was a specific design thinking or school of thought that you embodied that other companies didn't have?

Tuan Le

27:54Yes, was the lab already. Yeah, I think you kind of mentioned the buzzword right there. Design thinking, right? We didn't profess to do design thinking like IDEO did, but we were very much inspired by that whole process, right? That design is not just visual end product. It's thinking, it's strategy, it's research. And for us, we did a lot of that, not just the end product. So when clients come to us, we ask for a lot of time. And that time is spent on getting to know their customer, getting to know them, getting to know the market, R&D-ing different design materials and ways to do stuff, and then finally delivering something that hopefully is different and effective. So yes, design thinking, but we didn't brand it as such. We just practiced it.

Quang Do

28:42Yeah, and I'm super curious here to you know learn You with probably more a Western kind of design Thinking and service thinking coming to Vietnam where things have been done in a certain more Vietnamese way, perhaps How did you educate your clients on getting on board with your thinking and how did you position your agency to be different? And how did you, at the same time, adjust to Vietnamese taste, Vietnamese ways of doing things? So how did you marry that?

Tuan Le

29:14I think in the beginning we were lucky, right? The first client came to us by chance. And then we were also lucky that the team we formed to do that first project performed well together. And that project became semi-famous in town. You it was like a nest inside Bitexco at the time, which was like a very nice building. It was a cafe, financial service space. It looked like something out of New York or LA. And so from that, we got a lot of clients who wanted that. So we didn't need to convince anybody about it. You know what I mean? It was self-selecting. Already came because they wanted that. So we didn't need to educate anyone really. In terms of adapting to the local style, like you said, I didn't think it was adapting. I think it's more like we try to learn. We try to learn from local materials. We try to incorporate local craftsmen into our design project. We try to buy from local suppliers. Was like that. It was like, okay, we got a platform. We got somebody who's willing to pay for this project. Let's try to get people who have been doing this for a long time. Instead of buying a table from China, let's get a local craftsman to build this table.

30:30So that was our approach.

Quang Do

30:32And how has the business evolved until today? Plus, how has the design market in Vietnam evolved? Did you see more players popping up? Did you see it became more competitive? And did you see, your business been, you know, going through all of those cycles and trends healthily and robustly?

Tuan Le

30:51No business is immune to competition and boom and bust cycle, right? So we had like explosive growth in the first few years. We went from two people to I think 30 people and then we dropped a little bit and then now we're slowly growing back again. The market grew and as the market grew a lot of people opened design studios people we used to work with people who work with our competitors. It's very easy to open something in Vietnam, right? You need an Instagram account, you need a website and an office. You can come by quite cheap. And if you have the skill set, you can do the work yourself and then hire a few more people to help you. So it's very easy to start, low barriers to entry, But it's really hard to scale. You know, there's like a lot of studios, but nobody is like, you know. The Google, the Apple of the design studio. So I think we're at this place where there might be consolidation because there's too many players and it's too competitive. I think that's where we are at now.

Quang Do

31:54Where do you think do you or does the lab sit within the market? Are you one of the dominant players for your specific niche or do you play more in the mid market? Like where do you see yourself there? In Vietnam.

Tuan Le

32:08Yeah, I think in terms of where the skill sets meet, branding and interior architecture, we are one of the few to offer those services integration. In terms of design in general, I think there are some names that you would recognize and I think we are one of them.

Quang Do

32:26In Vietnam, just adding that.

Tuan Le

32:27I would say maybe top five in terms of name recognition of design studios. And then in terms of headcount, right now we're at 16 designers, 40 in total if you count business support. So in terms of headcount, I think we're one of the bigger ones, design studio. In terms of revenue, I don't know, probably not the top because we don't pitch. And I think that's been one of our.. Weak points, right? We just service inbound clients. I think we might need to rethink that because as the market gets more competitive, even the top studios, they pitch. And so we're thinking whether we should pitch. We've been doing a lot more in-depth consultation whereas before we would need to sign contracts first before we do it. It's just adaptation.

Quang Do

33:10What about pricing? Where do you think you sit there in the market?

Tuan Le

33:13I would say from a scale of 1 to 10, think we're around 6 or 7. We're quite affordable, but people think we're super expensive. We're not.

Quang Do

33:25Can you share a bit about your now more holistic overall portfolio of businesses and sort of what share takes the agency and the F&B?

Tuan Le

33:35So the way we think about it internally is we are in the creative business. And for us, we don't make a distinction between a creative product like a space that we built, a brand that we built, or a bakery that we launched, or a cafe that we launched. All of those use the same skill set. The only thing we need more on this side is operation, right? Which we built a whole separate team to do. So yeah, in the holding company scheme of things, we think we're in the creative business. In terms of operation, it's two different operations.

Quang Do

34:09And what is the sort of what would you consider the main business in terms of revenue? Like what's the most important piece?

Tuan Le

34:14The F&B group is much bigger now.

Quang Do

34:15Well, was this something that evolved over time or, know.

Tuan Le

34:20Remember I said the design studio saved the F&B business, right? Saved the cafe, right? And that had turned like 180. As we were making money from the design studio, we funnel it back to invest into the various businesses, right? Because we just thought that.. We didn't want to be in the service, design service forever. We don't pitch, so we're never going to get to a certain scale. The market will probably be very competitive. And so we try to use our design skills and creative skills as an edge to launch these different businesses. And now the F&B group is much bigger than the design studio. For example, the F&B group is about 200 people now, whereas the design is about 40. And we have, I think, eight locations. In terms of revenue share is probably like 1 to 10 or maybe 2 to 10. Yeah, in terms of numbers, yeah. Yeah it's a.

Quang Do

35:08Okay, and this is the direction you want to push it or you do you want to be more F&B over time?

Tuan Le

35:16I mean, I think so. Not F&B. I think for now we're doing F&B, but I usually think of us as creative or a little bit below that is hospitality. Eventually I want to see if we can get into hotels or boutique hotels. Yeah, so I try not to think of it as.

Quang Do

35:35Yeah, building the empire. You know, I'm trying to go a bit deeper here because I think this is interesting. It's interesting even for me personally. I see in Vietnam a lot of restaurants and F&B pop up and then they scale very fast. And my thinking is.. They need to reach economies of scale just because probably one or two branches are sometimes too little right to survive. And so I see you know compared to West where people usually really focus on one location establish that very well in Vietnam. Sometimes after one or two years they suddenly open five more after they have validated. And so for your six locations when do you think at which number did you scale beyond? Profitability and beyond where you were saying this is a real business and this is the money maker.

Tuan Le

36:22So under the F&B group, there are a few brands, right? We have a matcha brand, we have a French pastry brand, we have a Taiwanese casual eating brand, and then we have a lounge, a Sky Lounge, right? The cocktail lounge. The lounge is not gonna be scalable because it's tied to a specific landmark. All the other three are meant to be scalable. I'll take Bakes for an example. You're most familiar with that one. It's a French pastry We need a central kitchen, right? We have a huge central kitchen and At the store level the French bakery is profitable, but if you include the central kitchen is not So then we need to reach a scale where the central kitchen's fixed cost is distributed and so that number is eight we need eight stores to Reach economies of scale.

Quang Do

37:12Man, that's yeah. But how many bakes do you have then? Then you are below 8, right?

Tuan Le

37:18At least eight store. We have 5.5 and the reason I say 0.5 is that it's a kiosk in a mall and the other are full-fledged stores. So almost there, almost there.

Quang Do

37:28Okay, so yeah, what's the plan for the next month is it 25?

Tuan Le

37:32So right now we are bootstrapping. So ever since day one, we haven't used outside money. And so what we wanna do is get to economies of scale with our own money and then try to look for investment to scale faster and profitably. I think the problem with some of the examples you said is like they scale unprofitably. From the very beginning. And if they don't have investment, then they have to cut, right? For us, we try to scale slowly with our own money until we get to profitability, then we scale fast. That's the plan anyways.

Quang Do

38:07Do you have any more advice for fellow business owners in general or if it's more F&B specific then share that as well. Looking back on all your experiences in Vietnam, what are some of the things that people always do wrong you feel? You've perhaps done wrong and now only as a more experienced business owner.

Tuan Le

38:28Yeah, I like it.

Quang Do

38:29Very Vietnam specific things that people underestimate a lot or get wrong.

Tuan Le

38:32I think I won't say advice. I'll just say I'll share my lessons and then if they take whatever they can take out of it, it's cool. Because I'm still learning. Like honestly, I'm still learning. So I think one is that Vietnam tends to be seen as a place where.. You can get around things, know, do things in like a non-legit way. I recommend to go legit from day one. If you have any time horizon that is more than a few years. You know, if you're trying to make some money in two, three months and get out, okay, sure, whatever. But if you have a time horizon, legit, yeah.

Quang Do

39:09And just quickly, double clicking on that. What does legit mean? What does the proper way..

Tuan Le

39:15Legit means proper, I mean, you know, hire an accountant. Do your taxes. Don't try to cut corners with the government. Yeah, just do things by the book. I mean, as much as possible, right? Of course, it's a developing country, so there are things that you need to be flexible with. But in general, try to do the same business you would do in Korea. Try to do the same business you would do in America. And I think it's a much better upside.

Quang Do

39:47Cool Thanks for that. How about other advice or other lessons? I think you were about to list a few.

Tuan Le

39:53People? Yeah, people. Think the impression is, people are like, labor is cheap here, so that's where I'm gonna make my margin, right? But the good people are not cheap, you know? Because you're competing the good people with the Google Singapores, the unicorns in Vietnam. The really well-run local businesses like Pizza 4P's. So yes, labor is relatively cheap, but good labor is expensive everywhere. So I think be prepared to pay good people well to keep them. That's the second lesson. Third lesson is I think the growth story in Vietnam is best captured in the middle class, the growing middle class, the families, the mass. I think niche businesses can do well, you know, like a really high-end restaurant or whatever, but I just think it's so risky, you know, or a really niche design thing could do well, but it's just.. It's a risk that you have to take. For me, the safer bet is this is a big-ass pool. I'm gonna cast my net into that pool. And I think you can still make it sexy and designy, but try to aim for that market. That's what we have been doing.

Quang Do

41:10What have been some of the consumer trends and preferences that you've seen from the young middle class, especially more Gen Z, do you think that Vietnam is progressing towards?

Tuan Le

41:23I think casualization. Think that whole white glove fine dining has its audience. But by and large, I think people want something more casual, more friendly, more accessible in terms of both pricing and branding. Nothing too stuck up. That's the trend. Of course, there's always counter trends, Yeah, and we try to do that because we try to catch that, right? Matcha is ceremonial, right? So in Japan, would like, you know, it's a whole thing, but we try to make it approachable and fast in Vietnam. So basically take matcha and then take milk tea and try to combine those two experiences. Same with French pastry. Before, if you want French pastry in Vietnam, you have to go to a nice restaurant. You have to go to a hotel. But we try to make French pastry accessible to a lot of people. So we try to casualize a lot of businesses concepts.

Quang Do

42:14And then a bit more personal question perhaps. You know, I was born in 1993. I think you are sort of this half or quarter generation above me and we're getting older, but.

Tuan Le

42:25Yeah, go ahead.

Quang Do

42:26How do you stay at the pulse of the time in terms of understanding pop culture, understanding what is cool? What does your media consumption, social media consumption look like? How do you get your information and your inspiration?

Tuan Le

42:40Yeah, there's a lot of caveats in here. So number one, I don't think I'm very cool compared to like in the eyes of young people. I think they think I'm an old guy. So I try to do the social media work myself on all the brands. So actually, if you go on all the brands, I'm the one behind the accounts. And the reason I do that is because I know my time is better spent elsewhere, but I try to take some time to do it because I want to know what people are saying. I want to know if I post this, do people react to it? With it then I know is this a good product or is this a good campaign or not so I don't outsource that I should but I like to be on top of it so that's one number two is that our team is very young I think the average age is about 26 27 and so it skews young and I get a lot of that feedback from my young staff right like when they have a birthday sometimes they buy from another brand and not Bakes. So I'm like, why are you buying from this brand? And they will tell me why. And that's the insight. And then another thing is I try to be involved in the community. If there's a pop-up event somewhere, I'll go. If there's a new brand, I'll go and check it out. I'll try it out. Just to keep myself informed. Sometimes I do deliveries at the shop.

43:57I'll do frontline work, right? And then I get like a little bit of feedback, instant feedback. I have a chat group directly with my frontline staff. So if you just joined the company for one week, you can have a direct chat with the CEO. And I try to keep those lines open. So that's kind of how I do it.

Quang Do

44:16Thanks. I think we're at a very interesting part of the conversation learning bit about you I would just ask you know, what does your day-to-day look like you said? Design a sort of 2 to 10 to the F&B You do a lot of frontline work. You're in the socials a lot Like how does your day and week look like as the business owner.

Tuan Le

44:34So I have a great team, right? I'm not doing this myself. I delegate a lot. So the projects on the design studio side, I have a lot of team leads who will just show me stuff if there's an issue. Yeah, if there's not an issue, they just take it forward without me. And so that's how I free up a lot of time to do these other stuff. My day to day would be, I would order from the shops to the office just to check on the products and also for my morning coffee. And then I do my meetings. Yeah, I check, like I do random checks all the time. I order from different stores. And then I have my morning meetings and then I'll do my lunch meeting. And then in the afternoon I do some focus work. You know, if I have a project that I'm personally leading, I would do the work. And then in the afternoon I'll.

Quang Do

45:24Okay, like quality check.

Tuan Le

45:25I messages, any leftover tasks, and then at night I'll catch up on some long-term planning. So it varies, but those are kind of the segments that I try to focus on.

Quang Do

45:36Yeah man, it sounds very cool that you know Vietnam entrepreneur business owner kind of life and if I were to ask you know looking back from where you've started in 2013 are you happy with where you're at?

Tuan Le

46:03I'm happy but I regret I regret a lot of the decisions that I've made in the 2017 2018 range I felt like it was unnecessary and it kind of put me back a little bit so yeah I'm happy I just wish I got some of the lessons earlier.

Quang Do

46:13Okay, now you have to share with us what were some of those lessons.

Tuan Le

46:17For example, we open a lot of businesses based on whim. Because we thought it was a cool idea, it a cool design. Remember we were a design studio, right? So we got caught up in a lot of the look, the visuals. And I didn't do the hard work of sitting down and projecting, doing market analysis, doing P&L. And I wish I had, know, because it would have saved a lot of money, but also a time, right? Those two, three years were the best time to do something, off right before the pandemic and then I kind of wasted it so I kind of regret that part other than that I'm quite happy with where we were yeah.

Quang Do

46:59Okay, and if you don't look at the past now looking only at the present, you know, is there anything you would like to Improve or what is what is the biggest challenge for you these days?

Tuan Le

47:09The biggest challenge is talent. For me, it doesn't matter what we do. When I look back, the biggest change in the business comes whenever we have key people join. We have a key account person join the lab studio, projects go up. We have a key finance person comes in, cost goes down, revenue goes up because there's financial discipline now. We have a key strategy person join, we develop new brands that are hits. For me, who's the next person that I'm gonna put into the group that is gonna take us to the next level. So think talent is one. Number two is that it's super competitive. So for me, I'm always like, okay, who do we need to pay attention to next? I don't do knee jerk reaction to competition, but I like to look at competition because then I can learn from them. I can see like, they're picking up on that trend. They're doing that. Then I learn and internalize it for our own businesses. So for me, it's talent and then it's competition. The third thing is because I'm new at it, fundraising. We're not at the stage where we fundraise yet, but talking to potential investors, I learn a lot about what they care about, the metrics they care about.

48:29I care about brand, right? They didn't ask me once about brand. They're like, what is your cost of labor? When do you hit economies of scale? What's the unit economics? I'm like, Which is great, you know? Because if I never talk to them, I never learn. And so, yeah, those are the three things I'm focused on right now. Who's the next person? Who's my talent? What is the competition doing so I can learn from the market, where the market is moving, and then worrying about the metrics that investors will care about?

Quang Do

49:02Yeah, and zooming in on one talent. How do you find? Screen vet and decide for the good people especially for something so perhaps Soft as you know creative thinking and taste and style. How do you do it?

Tuan Le

49:19I think a little bit the same as clients. It's a self-selective right they See that they will fit into this environment So they apply a lot of our people good people are people who are inbound they have applied to us and stayed over the years In terms of going out looking for people Look for people who are engaged what I don't mean like clicking like on everything but like You know seeing you post something about a thought and then contributing to that thought right? They're not passive people right seeing an OV event maybe go there or Seems like I'm pitching but OV, but I'm not I'm just using it as an example Just people who are not sitting on their butt. You know what I mean? People are putting themselves out there putting their thoughts out there getting feedback I like that engagement because I think that when I bring them into the organization I will get that you know, I will get them challenging me. I will get them talking in meetings I will get them going somewhere to do something rather than waiting for that thing to come. So I like engaged people I like people who are who are clear-minded. What I mean by that is in the creative industry, we have a lot of artists. You know what I mean? People who are self-absorbed, who are in love with what they do. But I like people who enjoy what they do, think what they do is cool, but are level-headed.

50:38You know, are like, okay, you don't like that, that's fine. Okay, this is data, I'm gonna try to use that and make a better product next time. You know, just clear, normal, smart people. So that's the second thing I look for, because I get a lot of artists, know, like angsty people, and I don't think it works in a modern organization. I like people who have hobbies, interests, because I think there's a lot more to work. Work. Those are the things I look for. Obviously, then there's the skill set, right? Can you actually design? Can you actually do this work, finance or accounting work? So that's the thing. That's the baseline. But I tend to look for these soft kind of cues in people. Engagement.

Quang Do

51:24Yeah, I think that's very.. Yeah, I think that's why that's the interesting part because they're probably not too easy to evaluate and I think your approaches is an interesting one because it's almost like choosing friends even like and this is something I've read a lot, know, work with people who you actually really admire, right? And I think Mark Zuckerberg has this framework where he says Would I report to this person? So would the relationship work reverse as well? Is this a person that is just probably in the creative industry, is generally cool, generally interesting interest, but professionally enough to follow through on the commitments, right? And so that's a very hard dichotomy, I feel, to balance and find those people. And this is what I feel would be very hard to evaluate, especially in an interview, right? It's very hard to..

Tuan Le

52:05I mean, you also have a two to three month trial period, right? So in that period, you should give them the right tasks and projects to get those out of them. Get those cues that you need out of them. Are they engaged or are waiting for you to check up on them all the time? That kind of thing. One thing I would say though, I don't need to be friends with the team members. And I feel like.. That's okay for them too, because they don't want to hang out with me either. Because I feel like there is a pressure, you know, I have to like this person, or I have to hang out with this person. For me, I'm totally cool going home, hanging out with my kid or, you know, or my own friends, right? And I don't want them to feel pressure to invite me to coffee or to drink. And I don't like that pressure in the company. We try to keep it like very, like.. Soft and easy. Yeah, you don't want to invite me to the party, it's fine. I'm not going to get angry and vice versa, you know. So that's the only thing I would say is different from me and Mark Zuckerberg. Other than the fact that he's the richest man alive. Sometimes.

Quang Do

53:14Yeah, good one! Yeah, okay Any exciting next steps for you in work in life, what is top one priority in 2025?

Tuan Le

53:21So I think I just had a baby. My wife and I just had a kid. So I think top one priority is to make sure we raise him right in the first few months and years. And then try to have another one. That's our next priority as well because I'm 39 now. I don't want to be too old by the time I have a second kid. So that's in terms of life. In terms of work, I want to get Bakes to eight. Bootstrap. And then from there, hopefully scale faster. The other brands, wanna prove the model by scaling two, three, just to see if there's traction and then follow the same trajectory. And then in the back of my mind, I'm always looking at the market, seeing what new concepts I can do. Like launch a new brand. And then on the design studio side, the priority is to get the guys to be leaders so that I can take a step back. They can make their own creative decision, their own design decisions, bring in their own clients. I feel like I'm coming up on my 10 years at the Lab, the design studio, and I feel like my voice is kind of oppressive. They always have to think, is Tuan gonna like this? Is Tuan gonna approve this? And I think in the creative industry, the wrong way to do it.

54:38You should not be pleasing anybody. So I want them to kind of do their own thing.

Quang Do

54:43And perhaps a few years down the road is there another third kind of business that you would be interested in getting to or transforming the whole thing into a certain new direction.

Tuan Le

54:56Getting to. Yeah, I wouldn't say a third business but right now I'm exploring different interests I've been Like I've been interested in consulting And the reason I'm interested in consulting is because I don't have a lot of time now to, that's probably the reverse of what a consultant would say, right? You need a lot of time to consult. But I feel like remote work for me, let's say I'm stuck at home, right? I can talk to somebody and affect some kind of change and add some kind of value. Whereas the other work I have to actually be there. So I'm interested in that now. I'm also interested in NGO work. Like right now I'm working on a project called Non-Library to build creative libraries in rural areas. So I wanna apply my skillset to kinda affect change. So that's the second interest. I'm also interested in F&B on a personal level, so I wanna study cooking. I cook at home, but I wanna study professionally. Not to open a business, just to see if I can do it. Yeah, so those are kind of outside of the realm of my immediate work.

Quang Do

56:03Can cook for me one time and invite me over once you have your first creation. Tuan, very insightful. I love the style we pushed with a bit of internet connection issues. You know, questions, answers, shortcuts. I love that. How can our members connect with you and follow your work?

Tuan Le

56:22I think you'll tag me on LinkedIn. Feel free to add me, message me. I try to answer every one of them. I might not be able to meet for coffee, but I'm really open to a short conversation on messaging or a call. I'm very open to helping anyone explore Vietnam, know, share my story, my lessons. Because I.. I encourage people to explore Vietnam because I think you have to scratch that itch. If you're in Canada somewhere and just thinking about this all the time and it's eating you, it's not gonna go away. You have to scratch that itch and then decide whether you want to stay or you want to go back. I think that's that. Outside of that, on Instagram, I'm bluefintuna.le. I share some of my work if you want to follow. And then my email is tuan at thelabsaigon.com. I read almost every single email and reply to almost every single one. So do reach out.

Quang Do

57:18Thank you so much for being on the show and talk soon.

Tuan Le

57:21Thank you for having me, Quang. See you guys at OV. Bye.

Quang Do

57:26That's it for today. If you enjoyed this, you will love the OV community. Learn more at overseasvietnamese.com.