How they became content creators in Vietnam.

Will

0:00The cool thing about content creation is it allows for extremely fast feedback. If you compare to other industries in corporate, if you implement any change, it takes probably like a whole quarter or two for that even to be implemented and another quarter for the data to be in. What I loved about content creation and what really drew me in was really that kind of instant response within 3 hours, you know, if you made a good choice or not. At some point, like I created some videos to see like how the algorithm works. Funny enough, I think like one of the first five videos went viral. It got like somewhere around 2 million views and I was like, "What the hell is this?" This platform allows you to get the attention of millions of people instantly.

Quang Do

0:43Okay, my friends. Hello. Hello, Will and Tina. It's great to have you on the podcast. Thanks. As a couple, it's the first couple we have on the podcast. It might be the first creator couple as well. Yeah, maybe the last. Let's see. But, it's a slightly different audience as well, you know. You're quite known now in Vietnam, for the overseas Vietnamese community, you know, if they don't know you yet, you know, which they should be hopefully soon. How would you introduce yourself to them?

Will

1:18So, yeah. Hi everyone. It's William, William Bui. I'm a German Vietnamese just like Quang and yeah born in Vietnam came to Germany at the tender age of seven had my whole education whole career in Germany. First started in finance then transitioned over to tech and yeah on a on a Sunday morning in 2021 I decided 3 years ago I decided to yeah have a big change to my life and making the move back to Vietnam to find a wife to yeah to find a wife that was the main motive like many of yeah, and been in Saigon, back in Saigon for 3 years. Met her about a week after I got back to Vietnam. She hunted me right from you know the the immigration office at an OV event actually at we're actually an OV couple. We met at an OV event. So proud to announce that. Thank you. Thanks for we wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you. Yeah, actually yeah and then we started actually I have a background in tech and in finance.

2:37So I first started a startup here in Vietnam and just beginning of last year I left the startup and yeah was kind of soulsearching a little bit. At that time she was also soulsearching in terms of like career a little bit and yeah somehow we got entangled into a what would become now you know a quite interesting journey as creators both coming from very conservative backgrounds.

Quang Do

3:08I would love to dive deeper into the creator journey before we go to you. Did you find your wife?

Will

3:14Well I I'm still searching. I found my wife to be. Yeah. Our wife to be.

Quang Do

3:21All right. With that, let's here.

Tina

3:27Yeah. So, for me, I grew up in Vietnam actually. I went to Chuyên Ngữ. I only had one year of should I should I speak Vietnamese as well or English? Yeah. Fully English. Okay. So I went to a foreign specialized high school for a year before I went to have two my last two years of high school in the states and then continued on to have a full eight to nine years in the states full education. And then I came back here became a lecturer at Văn Lang University. And then after 3 years in Văn Lang I thought that you know I'm young I still want to explore more. I still want to maybe create something of my own. So I quit my job and kind of try to start a small little business just to see how it is out there. And during that time that I decided that there was a founder event actually at OV that my friend invited me to and I was like you know what like I should go out of my comfort zone because usually I never go to these network events you know I'm a bit shy. So and my friend was like, "Now you want to be like, you know, kind of do something of your own. You should go to these events and maybe talk to these people and see what they're doing."

4:45I was like, "Okay, fine." And then so I went to the event, met Will cuz Will also wanted to do a startup in Vietnam. So we kind of met each other at the right time, I guess, like at the time where we both kind of wanted to build something of our own. And so yeah, we fell in love and then yeah, now we created something of our own together.

Quang Do

5:08Okay. So, were you at that time looking for a husband as well?

Tina

5:15Not really. Just wanted to build something. Well, well, well, well. Yeah. But I stumbled upon my future husband. So, yeah.

Quang Do

5:24Then let's you know tell the couple story maybe the two versions if there are two versions or if there are one version. Oh the two versions. Well what how did it start from day one and you know how did it progress from there right until today?

Will

5:41Well they okay this is going to be a funny story for the OV community. First time we met OV event found an event we met there didn't talk much at that time I think we're more like focused on like networking than actually focusing on exactly finding someone yeah and then yeah we just got in contact like we connected on Instagram and like I think about a week later I texted her hey you know what you look like an interesting entrepreneur interesting but.

Quang Do

6:13But you texted her first of course as the [unclear].

Will

6:17I texted her first, hey, let's grab a coffee. And she was like, yeah, sure. Let's grab a coffee. 2 days before the coffee or one day, I think she's like, I have to go to Thailand. I'm sorry. It's a emergency in Thailand and then it never came to their coffee. So yeah, like she went to Thailand. I didn't, you know, I didn't ask her for a second time cuz I was like, "Okay, what doesn't mean to be, you know, doesn't mean to be." Sure. Sure. Sure. Sure. And then, yeah, a month later, we met at another OV. Second OV event. The second OV event. Yeah. That was like on the roof, a really nice rooftop bar. Yeah.

Quang Do

6:57Oh, this was the second. Okay. I was there, I think.

Will

6:59Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You were there. So, that was Okay. That was the second meeting of us. And yeah, we got to talking again. And that time it clicked. That time we talked all the way it's a networking event but we only with each other in so we talked like from 9:00 p.m. to like straight to like 3:00 4:00 a.m. in the morning. Oh wow. We even like after the event we went to eat something as well. Talked there more. Yeah.

Quang Do

7:24Okay. Why did you connect so well suddenly?

Will

7:29I think there's there was a lot of I think personal commonalities as well as cultural commonalities. Yeah, that ultimately brought us together. Then yeah, it felt meditation. You talked about meditation started with meditation. But at some point the conversation went so well that at some point we had to we had to play a game like okay let's find something where we disagree on. Yeah. Because we're everything was like hey I do this I do that. It's like same I do this I do that too. It's like okay let's try to find something where we actually differ because we can't be the same person. Yeah. So that's how we met and yeah after that we kept on meeting and you know it was not something like you know you walk in and everything and explosion of emotion and you know that's the one note. Yeah. There was an interest and then you kind of you build up. Yeah. You experience things together and more and more you create that bond and that relationship and that connection. Yeah. It's a stable growth instead of like something so big of a chemistry from the beginning. Yeah.

Quang Do

8:38And what was it from the beginning that attracted you about Will? About Will.

Will

8:44Meditation. Be honest. Be honest. Meditation.

Tina

8:50No, he started talking about meditation and you know I was in Hawaii for a while. And I feel like not many people can understand that kind of I would say like stillness kind of living in life and yeah and he also was in Mexico for a year. So I think that connected us a lot meditation and then yeah and physically he is my type I must admit. So yeah, so we just we just talked about many things and I feel like it's hard to find someone with like drive and ambition but at the same time still like do adventurous things like the way that I do because like you know in Hawaii I was also like I skydive twice. I scuba dived. I did all the like adventurous things, you know, and he also did it. He even has his diving instruction or what license? Diving license. Yeah. And he did all the things as well. So yeah, just like finding someone that has the balance of the two worlds, I say I have yet to find someone like that.

10:06So that's why we clicked a lot.

Quang Do

10:09Glad that happened. I think what most many people would be very curious about is the creator journey. You know, how did that come about? A lot of overseas Vietnamese actually, I think, dream of coming to Vietnam, creating content, you know, making a living. You've become perhaps one of the most recognized couples in the creator game in Vietnam, you know, tell us the origin story. Stop it. You know, who suggested this first? Who initiated this? Yeah. Who said, "Hey, let's do this as a couple." Yeah.

Tina

10:41Many people would be surprised, but it's actually him. And then you can go.

Will

10:45Yeah, it's really something of an origin story. It's I swear that's the truth cuz you know like you always hear of these people like saying, "Oh yeah, like it just randomly happened. I just randomly ran into this and then that worked and then all of a sudden it became a business." I always thought when I heard that when I watch YouTube videos and I hear that I was like, "God, that's so cliche." But that's exactly what happened to us. Yeah. So after I left my startup that I that I started here in Vietnam, I was like why am I doing that? Right. Why am I doing that? Now I'm in Vietnam. It's I have a girlfriend. That was unexpected. One I was doing for a while but I mean that was unexpected. So what am I going to do now? Right? And so I started like looking into different fields like e-commerce. I was looking into tech as well, talking to a bunch of people. I was also looking into content and social media because such a massive thing here in Vietnam. Like you go to any random stall, any random mom and pop shop, right? It looks very, let's say, very old school. Nothing's working. They probably count the money with per hand.

12:02Like there there's no there's no like cash register or something but they have like a live stream phone going on like it's very it's very interesting in some in some sense bizarre and I was like social media is so big so I want to build something in Vietnam perhaps for Vietnam so I should be looking into this and I started off from like a very corporate perspective yeah you know like maybe thinking about like agency business or all kinds of like ways you can you can start a career or start a business in content in social media and for that I had to understand social media. Yes. Up until that point right I was 20 29 at that point I spent probably two days on Tik Tok up the first 29 years of my life. So I downloaded redownloaded Tik Tok and I was like okay how does this work? How do I create content? Oh, this is a for you feed. Like that's how it started.

Tina

13:03He literally had no social media background like doesn't even use social media.

Will

13:07My last Instagram post was like 5 years ago or seven years ago. Yeah. Yeah. So I started getting into it to understand okay what is this? Why do people love this? Did a bunch of research, started at some point like I created some videos to see like how the algorithm works of sort and yeah funny enough I think like one of the first five videos went viral. I think like my it got like somewhat somewhere around 2 million views and I was like what the hell is this? Yeah, I shot this like about five minutes with a bunch of my friends. What the hell is this?

Quang Do

13:46Tell us about the video quickly.

Will

13:48It was It was a trend video actually. It was kind of like a dance video. Of course, it's Tik Tok, so it's got to be a dance video. But there was like a bit of a twist. So, it's like a dance, right? And there was like one beat where you like pull something into the frame and some people pull in their boyfriend, some people pull in whatever, a gift, a ring, right? And I pulled in like a grab driver that would run me over. Yeah. Very kind of localized, right? Get like there's a lot of grab drivers driving around and yeah, that got like 2 million views. And that was the first time I think I really understood scale. Like the five minutes that you put into filming it and maybe another 10 minutes you put into editing the video, uploading it and it gets exposure to millions of people. Your face is shown to millions of people. This platform allows you to get the attention of millions of people instantly. That was something that shocked me at the time. I mean, I've been working at scale businesses before, but always only as an employee. So, I always only heard and basically secondhand experience scale, but firsthand experiencing scale of this caliber was the first time.

15:13And yeah, from that time I was hooked. I was like.

Quang Do

15:17You smell the power.

Will

15:19Yeah, maybe there is something here, right? And then yeah, we did more I did more clips and at some point we're sitting down. I was like I was asking, hey, yeah, like this content thing, it's going somewhere. There's some potential. Like what should we do? What should I do? Right? And then we mapped out a few a few ideas kind of like overseas Vietnamese content kind of like Viet coming back to Vietnam kind of content or tech content. All kinds of different niches that we mapped out. One of them was couple content. Yeah. And I think in that time so that's the thing right the thing about working to together with your partner is also like being together with a partner especially at the time we dated for a few months few months or a year something like that right it's like we were kind of getting to know each other more and more and the couple thing what was top of my mind was it would allow us to work together would allow us to probably experience 5 years of couple differences and couple friction in a very short amount of time. Yeah. Right. So I was like let's do this.

16:37Right. So yeah and that's why we kind of ended up in the couple content space. If you think about content, it's also in terms of like couple content, it's also would you say very easy to get into couple content because there's simply not a whole lot of couple content out there because you need two people. You need a couple to do that content, right? And it's not always easy to find like a second person that has that time to to shoot to even think about content to just be available for when something funny happens to have a phone there to like to record it. Right. Right. Right.

Tina

17:14So, both, yeah, less competitive, I would say. It provided the market as well as the personal wish for us to be closer to each other, to learn a little bit more about each other's behaviors. Also, Will's Vietnamese is not the best, like mine. So, he was like, you know what? Yeah, my Vietnamese is not the best as well, so maybe you could help me. Also, he doesn't understand too many like Vietnamese jokes and so he needs someone with more like local knowledges. Yeah. Yeah.

Quang Do

17:46And how did you feel about his proposal?

Tina

17:49His proposal. Oh, actually we started in a very interesting constellation. Yeah. At the beginning, I kind of just supported him and we went in with like me not showing my face actually like the first couple of videos.

Will

18:05She was wearing like a.

Tina

18:07I was wearing a mask. I was wearing a mask and I was like, "Oh, you know, how about like winning?" That's an example of Do you know winning the couple the German German Vietnamese creator? Yeah. And she basically she does couple content, but like the guy the boyfriend always covers his face. Like we never know who the guy is. I thought, "Oh, maybe we could do that." Because I guess just from my like oh I don't know if I want to be into the in this space. So at first we did a few videos like that and then eventually I guess I decided that you know what I should step out of my comfort zone. We can do this as a couple. We can tackle this and maybe if I go more into it and use more of my Vietnamese skills, we can scale bigger and yeah, so I decided to fully join him later.

Will

19:01Yeah, to be fair, it is a risk, right? Like it is a risk to expose yourself to to so many people. It is an opportunity like it gives you some sort of an opportunity to you know to be seen and to have that exposure but also it puts a lot of spotlight on everything from your behavior from how you look from even your daily mood right.

Tina

19:23So especially I'm from a traditional background like I was in education I love education I was a lecturer and that kind of traditional background it's kind of contradicts I had to think a lot, you know, it contradicts the creator kind of lifestyle. So, I had to put a lot of thought into it before I made that decision, but yeah, eventually I did.

Quang Do

19:48So, what I really like about this is it has it has a all-in element to this where you know, you're very early in your in your couple journey and your relationship 3 months in and you know, it signals to each other that you're both in this and commit to this, right? Because once you've established a bit of a public presence as a couple, Yeah. It also means we're in this for.

Tina

20:08It was scary. It was scary. It was scary. It was very scary.

Quang Do

20:14Did it Did it feel early? And I'll ask separately.

Tina

20:20Yes, it definitely felt early to me. Yeah, but I guess you know it's at the right time. I was in the mindset of fully experiencing something and like building something. So we both were actually we both were in that mindset. So and also you know I felt like he could be like this could be something real. So I just went in.

Quang Do

20:48What about you? What about you?

Will

20:50Well I mean it was I think the first few months she was just testing it with like you know incognito mode. Yeah. But I think like by the time she decided to like go in full like exposing face and all think by the time we were together for one year. So yeah, we had a bit of a grasp of who the other person is and a bit of a grasp of if something could become of this. Obviously it was still very risky probably more for her than for me. Yeah. Now getting into my perspective, back then I was just thought that, okay, I lived in Germany most of my life. Really, no one knows me in Vietnam. Just, you know, I went viral a few times, but no one knows me in Vietnam. So, if I [expletive] it up, if you know, worse comes to worse, of course, you know, don't scam people, but if worse comes to worse, nothing works out, then worst case, I can always go back. Go back and have the career that I left. Right? For me, it was yes, a risky move and yes, a steep learning curve and yes, a let's say a very challenging time, but at the same time, I had only everything to win and nothing to lose. And that's why it was probably easier for me than for her.

22:08Yeah. And yeah, so we had a lot of talks around, you know, like if we're going to do this, it needs to be we need to be on it because she doesn't like we don't want to just expose or risk something for something medium or something mediocre or something that's like a hobby. Yeah. Right. So as soon as she came in, it was like, okay, it's full of.

Tina

22:31Yeah. It was definitely risky for me because obviously, as you know, I grew up here. I have a lot of communities here. I have people. My parents are traditional. Yeah. My parents have friends that are on social media. I have like my whole my whole like life is here. So, and then I also have people in the university or the education field that I know, right? So, it's definitely a lot more riskier for me. And I'm a girl, I'm a female.

Quang Do

23:02Yeah. I would love to dive deeper into Yeah. The whole evolution of day one creator until today where you're at. Yeah. But maybe before that Yeah. And we can start with you know, what did you become? What did you want to become before you now happen to end up being a creator? What was your.

Tina

23:18Yeah, honestly like I always wanted to be a lecturer. Lecture. And then I achieved that dream. But at that time I was like focused on linguistics, right? And then I'm in it. And I also even climbed to kind of the top of that department. And when I went to this conference, there was a conference that we went to and there are like people in the top of the field and I listened to them and I realized that like I do want to be in a different like field, not linguistics specifically cuz actually I had two degrees. I was in both communications and in linguistics and I just at that point I just realized that conference just made me realize you know what I actually want to be more in the communications field. So that's why I even made the decision to go for a masters at NUS in communications because I wanted to switch fields and actually being here being creators it is it is still kind of aligning with being in the communications field that's what I actually learned about at NUS as well. So it's not as much of a misalignment compared to Will. I would say Will is like completely different. So cuz it's kind of still like on the on the path on the same kind of path and I got the masters also because I want to later still come maybe come back into education and still teach in this field but in English.

Quang Do

24:52Now having a taste of both worlds you know are you glad to be on the creative side?

Tina

24:59Definitely. Is this it? Definitely. There's so much that come out of it. There's so many opportunities there. I don't think people understand until they're in it. I'm happy. I'm happy where we are. But maybe I'm selfish to think that maybe later on I still can be in education as well cuz actually I love education. Like I love teaching. I love being in the classroom. So yeah.

Quang Do

25:26I think actually there's a world where where you can combine in you know I think it's better to bring education into the creator world because you're now then in full control you don't have an institution that you need to get hired for but you just run your own and you have your own distribution your own platform I think that's even more powerful.

Tina

25:46Yeah. So my I think my dream is to combine the two and that would be like the perfect world for me. So hopefully.

Quang Do

25:55Will what about you? What makes you want to be the opposite I think there's a entrepreneurial spirit that has been.

Will

26:01Definitely so to give a bit of context I went to business school and you know in business school you're always trimmed or like kind of like led towards okay either you become a consultant or you go to investment banking right that was kind of the main two glorified paths from business school so yeah I ended up in first in in finance investment banking And then ultimately when kind of the momentum shifted to tech companies being like kind of the pinnacle of where you as a business graduate want to be. That's like that's when I call so like kind of slowly move towards the tech side of things. However, right up until that time I think I was in the workforce for six seven years. I would say like I've seen quite a bit and I've experienced quite a bit of kind of how to be an employee, how to be in a corporate setting and it's like it's a good life, not going to lie. It's a good life. You know, you on a Friday afternoon, you shut your laptop, you go to your weekend, you don't worry about anything up until Monday. It's great. But it was never fulfilling for me. I've always wanted to do more to be more accountable to my outputs.

27:23I've always wanted to be also more free and flexible. Your own boss, my own boss basically, right? So yeah I think at the end of 2021 oh sorry at the end of 2022 that's when you know as you were approaching your 30s and I kind of also thinking about family and you know where you end up I was thinking okay you know there was at that point I had like a major step to make in my career like either you know work towards that promotion which then would give you more money then would bind you to a certain place, you know, the golden the tech golden handcuffs basically. And so there was kind of like a choice I had to make between are you going to, you know, go into the corporate direction or are you going to use that opportunity now to jump up because the higher you get, the harder it gets to jump up, right, and get into move back to Vietnam and get into starting to do my own things.

Tina

28:27It was a really good opportunity, by the way. It was in Switzerland. A lot of people would have taken that job. Yeah.

Will

28:34Sorry. What was the rest the second part of the question?

Quang Do

28:39In basically the another universe, what did you want to become initially before becoming a Tik Tok? Yeah. Okay. Okay. So, I think you tried your hands on tech entrepreneurship then.

Will

28:50Yeah. Exactly. So the drive has always been to build out my own business to I think the goal has always been to build up my own business as you will mainly because I wanted to be fully accountable to the inputs that I bring in like 100 like whatever inputs I given I want to see exactly what happens with them and I want to see exactly what output comes out there because in a corporate setting you never really see your outputs right and that's was something that always intrigued me and I loved learning. I love problem solving and I love just you know taking on something that I don't understand slowly understanding it slowly mastering it and yeah at some point making a living of it right so there was there was no one profession that I loved to do but there was always that kind of challenge of conquering the unknown and doing that for a living that I was I was passionate about and now comparing to content creation the cool thing about content creation is it allows for extremely fast feedback. You put out a video within 3 hours you know how that idea perform. Yeah. So you have a lot of iteration like we post once a day.

30:06So that means over the course of seven weeks we have seven times a feedback and the viewers are essentially our customers to some degree right and if you compare to other industries in corporate if you implement any change it takes probably like a whole quarter or two for that even to be implemented and another quarter for the data to be in right so what I loved about content creation and What really drew me in was really that kind of instant response. Within three hours, you know if you know, made a good choice or not. And if you made a good choice, you double down. If not, you abandon. Yeah. And then, and based on that, you could you iterate seven times a week. 52 times a year. That's that was amazing. Yeah.

Tina

30:58And in some form it's still I would say still aligns with Will's dream because it's still you know working for yourself and making a living out of it. So yeah.

Quang Do

31:09I think that's actually the appeal of content creation. Why so many of our generation wants to do it. You have on one hand full creative control. You're literally the one who is the full director of any output that is happening. Plus you have immediate feedback. Yeah. Right. So it's such sort cycles. You put it out and the world knows and you know as well.

Will

31:29Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. That's what I love about it. Yeah.

Quang Do

31:35Let's go deeper. You know, it's a dream of so many people, you know, how have you done it? And you know, since starting and ramping up and scaling from the early days to today, what has changed? What systems have you set up? What's the process now? Is there even a process? You know, how ad hoc, how flexible, how creative? So, what's the process? How do you create content? And you say one piece per day like how what's behind the scenes?

Will

32:00Yeah. Well, should I you want to.

Tina

32:02His system is crazy. He I've never seen anyone. He built from scratch a whole notion system for us from everything like from pre-production to production to post-production to brand deals to like everything that he built from scratch for a system for us to use. You can go into detail in the tech technicality of it. Everything is on the system that he built and it's very structured because it's Will, you could go.

Will

32:34Yeah I love notion this is not this is not a sponsor but tell us notion sponsor us. Yeah. So actually in the in the in the early days right just to talk a little bit about the early days versus now like a lot has changed right in the early days it was all about okay we need to learn how this thing works how this thing so called Tik Tok or Instagram works so I was I was trying like different times to post there was time where I set my alarm on 6:00 a.m. wake up just to pose and then go back to sleep, that kind of stuff. And you know, back then, what would you say back then? It was it was a lot of like discovery, just discovering how it works. And you know, you do go through ups and downs as well. And you know, you when you when your first video goes viral, you have a massive high like nothing compares to it. It's crazy because like oh my god two million people have seen my video. Like that's crazy. I've never done anything where two million people were like interested in it. And then of course, you know, at some point after you go, you can't always go viral. So there's going to be low points. There's going to be certain weeks or months where you just have zero views or like barely any views.

33:54And then you start questioning your life and then you start like saying that is this the right path I'm doing, right? And then in those moments you talk to your partner like yeah thank God what is this like did we lose it did the platform change? Yeah right and it's really if you've done a few of those swings you kind of understand that oh yeah it is kind of like the cycle and sometimes you're low but then it's going to come out. The only thing that you need to bring with in that moment is consistency as in like okay that sucks this like this week we the videos don't perform let's use that as a learning and improve it next week and not getting discouraged by it because I think a lot of creators or people that want to be creators they abandon ship once things are bad and sometimes things will be bad like at some point you will have no views for a week or two or maybe three, right? So, that's what we had to learn, right? On the system side, yeah, I'm German. We love systems. We love I was shocked databases.

35:13We love processes. Crazy. Yeah, and notion has been the backbone of our operation. We built like a database like basically like a content plan that suits our needs into there. So starts with okay whenever we have an idea put it in there right and then put it in there put everything you need to know or like you you're thinking of like all the details into that basically that project like each video is basically a project right and then it goes through certain like top of the funnel then it goes through certain stages and so on it's basically just a way to manage your work right there are many ways I think there are some softwares out there that do that as well. But of course, if you have your unique workflows, yeah, sometimes better to build your own.

Tina

36:07I always tell him that he can sell this system because it's so easy to use and it's like so I feel like it would be so beneficial any content creator. But yeah, let's sell it. Anyone interested? Anyone interested, let me know. Let me know. $100 you get the course. Put the discount code 20 for 20% off. System is crazy. I swear.

Quang Do

36:30So, Tina, what do you love about the system? What is it that makes life easier?

Tina

36:34It's because like after we have the system, I also I'm trying to build my also my own personal channel. So, like when I use his system using to do my personal channel, I was like, "Oh my god, life is so much easier." Cuz you I put everything like you can see clearly all of your ideas and then you can see you can put like where it you want to air it or like you can see the whole content table you can see the brand deals you can see every like everything like I don't even know how to describe it this system.

Quang Do

37:08It's almost like a sales force for content creation like you see.

Tina

37:12Everything in there you see everything in there and it's so easy to use and it's so easy to organize everything for you to know exactly where things are and I'm more of a chaotic person. So before that I'm just like oh actually I did sure and then I forget about it or like oh this brand but then I don't know when is it again I have to go back to Zalo, the communication to talk to the brand like when did we decide or like yeah but now everything is on one platform you see everything right even like oh did this brand pay us yet like before I would have to go back and did they pay which brand is it like which but yeah but everything is on there so yeah.

Quang Do

37:51And how do how do you come up with ideas how do you come up with them and how do you capture.

Will

37:55Yeah. So in terms of process, right, the how does the creative process go, right? So we have like we have defined for ourselves like several pillars of content or several like types of contents that we would do. Every let's say every brainstorm session of course you know we have our team and and the team helps us too. Every brainstorm session we would look at those pillars to see okay recently we've not been doing these kind of contents anymore or recently these kind of content are like kind of trending again maybe we should doing that we should do that again right or there are certain serieses like for example you have like a video that works well maybe you want to maybe you want to do a part two of it becomes a series right and then you balance out between you know longer videos, more serious videos, shorter, funny videos. You basically you have a whole variety of classifications. We have a whole variety of classifications and we want to see to balance out our content in a way that okay, for a whole week maybe, you know, we want to have like a good mix of longer and shorter videos, not just like a whole week just short memes or short like videos or whatever, but like really a good mix.

39:11So people that follow our channel closely sees a you know sees a variety of content that kind of would intrigue them to stay and watch.

Tina

39:24That's something you can also see on the system like on a week like how many like which how many percentage of what type of pillars is on one week but you can see on his system but.

Quang Do

39:36What are the pillars? Can you share? No the secret. Okay.

Will

39:42There are so-called like you know skits for example where we actually act we act like a let's say the girlfriend is on her period and hence why she's more emotional right and of course you can do it in natural and you can do it in a just like a meme like way. It's like a acting way act. Yeah that but like in a short and very funny kind of way. Yeah, these are these are the kinds of content that probably get a lot of shares because people would share like, "Oh, yeah, you're like this or yeah, I'm like this every month." But for example, those they don't draw in that many followers because those are more generic. They show less of our personality and more just to like to hook people in, right? And those for example we would try to balance out with some longer videos where we talk about ourselves or about our perspectives opinions. Perspectives. Exactly. Or just answer simply answer viewer questions. Yeah. Right. And through us answering and exposing a little bit more of our perspective, people understand us a little bit more, resonate more, relate more, and hence hopefully follow. Yeah. Right. And those are the ones that would get the most. Exactly. So short skits, us talking about each other or about like our relationship or answering sometimes is a challenge.

41:05Yeah. Right. Sometimes it's just some something as silly as we do like the challenge is who has better reflexes. Yeah. Yeah. Something like that, right? So, the other day we shot a video where you know like those F1 drivers where they, you know, you drop the ball and you kind of catch them and we did that at home. You know, those are like just some fun stuff pranks as well. That's a whole pillar of of content, right? And you want to see that you have a good mix of those throughout the week, not just doing pranks, not just having long conversations. Otherwise, it would be, you know, it would be a bit I mean, I guess you can do that too, but you want to have a good mix to kind of cater to all kinds of audiences, right?

Quang Do

41:49So, it could be a mix of virality and attracting followers as well instead of just virality. Virality or just attracting followers, I guess. Yeah. Super let's try to extract some general lessons for aspiring creators. Have a system divide up and and be intentional about what kinds of content you know is have a variety of things. What other lessons would you be able to share with consistent?

Tina

42:16Oh my god, that's the most important thing. Be consistent. Yeah, even if it's hard, even when since he started, there hasn't been one day that we miss a post. Wow. We haven't missed a post. We have zero almost 600 posts now. I think every single day. Every single day post.

Will

42:34Yeah. So, if you're an aspiring creator, I would give you the advice to pick three concepts. We call it pillars, but could be three concepts. Let's say you do vlogs. Let's say you do get ready with me. You let's say you do dances or talking head, whatever. Whatever. Yeah. Pick three and rotate. Yeah, that's what Tina now Tina is building her own channel. And that's also what we worked out. It's like, okay, pick three pillars and just rotate. Like one day you do vlog, the other day you do get ready and the third day you do a dance and then you start from again, right? And that's how you also that's also a way to not immediately or too soonly exhaust all your options because if you only do vlogs, there's only so many things you can do, right? You might go through them all in like two months, right? In rotating through that, you allow yourself a bit more time to come up with a bit more new ideas for each pillar. Yeah. And see feedback. And see feedback and see which works. Yeah. And slowly you can then expand. Maybe at some point you have five concepts or six concepts. But also not too many pillars. That would be too much. Yeah. Exactly. Focus on three to four I would say. Yeah. Yeah.

Quang Do

43:49And I guess for many people it's they start with exactly that up and down. You know, a very few may have some traction. How do you guys manage the emotional part of this? Like how do you.

Tina

44:02He actually gets more affected. Yeah, he gets a lot more affected and then I I'm more I'm the positive one I guess. So I would kind of be there for him and we both kind of like go through it together. But yeah.

Will

44:16Yeah. And the good thing of us doing couple content is we're both in it together. We have partners emotional support, right? And beyond that, like if you're a solo creator, find a reference group, find other creators, exchange ideas. I talk with other creators. We talk with other creators on a daily basis and they know the struggle, right? If you tell your parents, they don't know. They've never done Tik Tok dances before. If you tell most of your friends, they don't know. They think you do too do know the answers, right? And maybe you do, but like the thing is find people that can relate to you that maybe can help you as well, right? And you can, you know, if you're in a group of with five other creators, you learn five times as fast because they share your their learnings with you too instead of just you trying to like fight through it yourself, right? We're lucky we have each other. Yeah. Yeah. We're lucky we have each other. Yeah. Find like a support system through friends if you have a partner through your partner. Ideally in the industry for the emotional part maybe just you know your friends is fine. Like I also have like a group of guy friends and we would meet just once a week for smoothies and then we talk about the sorrows of life you know sorrows of life. Sometimes I'm like, "This week was shit."

45:35And they're like, "Bro, it's okay, man." And then and then they remind me sometimes like, "Yeah, you remember last that time where you complained to us and then like a week later you went viral again." True. Like things went up again. And Yeah. And then it's like, "Yeah, that's true. This just another one of those. It's just another one of those." If you've been through a few, it just becomes another one of those. And then it makes it more bearable. I would say I'm more resilient now than I was a year ago when we started. Yeah. Yeah.

Quang Do

46:08Okay. Talk us through that the through the journey from beginning to now, you know, is it stabler now and are things moving as you wish or how does it feel for you now if things flop, you know? Are you are you more used to it and more resilient?

Tina

46:26I think now definitely if things flop we are a lot more resilient to it compared to before since we already know the drill. We know it's going to be up and down. Working with agencies and brands obviously there are some struggles to it as well. The more you grow the more you know deals you will get and the more complicated things get I would say. So, but we're definitely tackling it a lot better emotionally compared to before.

Quang Do

46:59Okay. Yeah. How did it start with the commercial commercialization and brands and so on. What was the.

Will

47:05So, we're lucky that we're in a very vivid market. Vietnam, as I as I said, right, everyone and their mom is on Tik Tok, on social media, on Facebook, right? So, there's a lot of eyes in social media. That's why even like I think as we when we were as small as like 2,000 followers, brands were already reaching out. Yeah. To say, "Hey, look, you know, we want to send you something or you want to come by our shop and, you know, experience this and that." It was surprising how small we were and how many approaches we got already, requests we got back then. And even now, and even now, like maybe it's we're lucky in a sense that we're new and kind of to some degree new and relevant and fresh. That's why like a lot of brands are discovering us and testing and you know, want to work with us. I reckon like if you're a bit longer in the industry, they're the dynamics would be different. But yeah like so far I mean it's it's our first year commercializing as well right and it's been fun there fun parts of it there are difficult parts of it there are scary parts of it especially in Vietnam again where the market is not quite mature it's still somewhat the Wild West so there's a lot of intransparencies still there's a lot of things that don't go as they should right and you as but that's the way of Vietnam, right?

48:42That's the way of Vietnam because we're not in Germany. Again, I love my systems and I love my processes, but obviously Southeast Asia as a as a whole in Vietnam in particular doesn't have that many structures, doesn't have that many playbooks, doesn't have that many and best practices, right? And yeah, so you you really like you learn to navigate and in learning navigating the content business I on everyday basis I learn more about how to do business in Vietnam and that I hopefully can apply later on when we think about opening other businesses. Definitely struggled a bit at the beginning a lot.

Quang Do

49:22Let's go deeper there like what are the challenges? What are the struggles? What did you underestimate?

Will

49:27So on a creative side, right, I underestimated the difficulty to I mean it's hard as it is to make content that is relevant and that's that people like, right? If you have, you know, if you have complete freedom, it's hard enough to make something that goes viral. Now imagine having 10 restrictions or 20 restrictions from the brand. Hey, you have to show the product in a certain way. It needs to be on screen for that many seconds. You have to talk about all the USPs of the product. You have to say exactly word by word this or it needs to be in a in a in a at home or you need to be outside like there's so many like constraints and then requirements that you have to take into account in thinking about a piece of content that you can build on top of that. It's incredibly hard. Sometimes we sit there for like 3 hours, the whole team thinking about what can we do. Yeah. To make it as organic as possible so that people want to watch it but that people don't cringe when the product comes on, right? How it still looks organic, right? And because at the end of the day, we want to do the best for our for the brands that we work with and we want to do the best for the viewers because both of them are our customers, quote unquote, right? We have to make both happy. We want to make both that.

50:46Right. Right. And how do we do that? Yeah. And yeah, sometimes we do it better than other times. Yeah. That's definitely one that we Yeah. That is still really hard. Yeah. Still hard. Still hard. And then of course, you know, some brands or some agencies are more strict than others. Yeah. Right. Like you know, some brands are more like, okay, you know, we want you to do content exactly like we want it. But then even restrict on the ideation part even the creative part and then we have to fight back to say hey why do you book us if like why do you book our like channel and creativity when you don't want it right and then we have to fight back and that cost a lot of energy sometimes and thirdly I think contract maybe it's a me thing or us thing because we're new in this space but I think In Vietnam again, it's Wild West. So you have to always double check the contracts and make sure that everything is fair cuz if you it's not like in Germany where you can okay can kind of trust have some kind of trust have some kind of like it's a bit like in Germany it's a bit easier to say okay it's a contract. Of course you read through it but most likely there's nothing in there that's going to that's going to put you at a disadvantage.

52:06Right. Yeah. And here every contract you have to review in detail and fight for every you know every inch. Yeah. That takes a lot of time as well. Right.

Quang Do

52:20What about you Tina? Is there anything even beyond brands and everything about content creation in general that you underestimated or feel still challenged by?

Tina

52:31I'm not sure about other creators because it's only like one person for them but because we both work together so I guess we had to learn a lot. On how to work with each other because we're both I guess I would say stubborn people. We're both strongly opinionated people. And at the beginning we there were there were a lot of discussions there were a lot of strong there were a lot of long discussions on how to approach this and I think we didn't have trust in each other yet when we first started. So it was definitely a struggle for us at the beginning. We did fight a lot but then the more that we work together the more I guess we realize where our strengths lie and yeah obviously as you can see he's a very systematic person more structured he is more consistent and more like organizational so he would take care of anything regarding to that and then I'm more creative I know more Vietnamese I know more about the market here the local side of things so I would be more in charge of the creative and the communication side of things with brands and everything. So I guess now we we've worked together long enough to like have that trust of like okay whatever that goes on his side let him decide and then whatever goes on my side let me decide.

53:57So yeah now so that now it's better we still sometimes butt heads but now it's a lot better than before where we struggle a lot with that.

Quang Do

54:07Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a great way to actually move into switching gears a bit talking about a bit about you as well because kind of work and life blends a lot if you're a creative couple literally right. Yes. But before we move there maybe very quickly to wrap up the business part of content creation. Anything else specifically for overseas Vietnamese aspiring creators that you would advise, suggest if they come to Vietnam and try to establish themselves here?

Tina

54:37Overseas is more you. Yeah, feel free to share. I'm local. I don't know.

Quang Do

54:42But if you were to start at zero, 20, 25, 20, 26, how would you go about it?

Will

54:47Yeah, not precise instructions, right? But I want to I want to I want to leave a note of encouragement to say that you know it is scary as a overseas Vietnamese. Maybe your Vietnamese is a bit broken. Maybe it's not as you know it's scary to all of a sudden do content for Vietnamese audience right but it is possible. Why? Because of course you have to brush up on your Vietnamese but it doesn't need to be perfect. Y right? But what do you do have that is sort of unique that is basically your USP your competitive advantage is you do have a perspective that many people in Vietnam don't have and could find interesting and in the business of content and attention them finding you is interesting is everything. So use that unique perspective brush up on your Vietnamese. Yeah. Because if you just do English and don't go out of your comfort zone, it's not going to, you know, h it's going to be really hard. But brush up on your Vietnamese. Start posting consistently. Like probably the first 20 videos will suck. Yep. But it's fine. Look at it as a learning space.

56:06Oh, you the first 20 videos like you found 20 ways it didn't work. And maybe the 21st way you find works and then it starts from there and it costs you nothing. You have your smartphone cost you nothing and you can do it at home and you can shoot probably 10 videos a day right so I would encourage people to try give it if you want to try give it an honest half a year try probably within half a year within six months you will have gone viral and you have gone to the bottom and perhaps you will have gone up again right and then see for yourself if that life is for you if you find joy ing it and Yeah. And then after six months an honest try, not like a halfass try. Yeah. Like an honest like you work so hard on it kind of try. Yeah. Because there is a lot for the taking. There is a lot for the taking. When whenever I we do like a longer video and we talk about our perspectives and let's say I talk about my perspective on relationships that I you know have from Europe, have from Germany. People are very interested in. So you do bring something unique that people here not everyone can offer, right? Use that. Yeah. Right. But learn Vietnamese. Yeah. But definitely really that's what is.

Quang Do

57:24Is there a platform you would recommend to start with? Tik Tok or.

Will

57:28Tik Tok for sure? Tik Tok for sure.

Tina

57:30Yeah, Tik Tok for sure. It's definitely the most the easiest I would say to perform right now currently in Vietnam cuz everyone uses it cuz Instagram is a bit less in Vietnam. Yeah.

Quang Do

57:43And how did you expand platforms? What was your journey there?

Tina

57:46I think we just kind of started posting like using what we posted on Tik Tok and just started posting on other platforms. Yeah, that's it. Not much.

Will

57:56We're still very early on in like the this is our basically we just completed our first year and the first year we focused on Tik Tok first and yes we did cross post to other platforms as well and it did you know help us to get some followers on Instagram and YouTube as well but we didn't focus yet too much on it. You haven't if you know once you have a bid out a bigger team and then you define different strategies because Tik Tok works differently than Instagram and Instagram works differently than YouTube. Ultimately we want to have a dedicated strategy for each of those platforms. Yeah. But before you do nothing post. Yeah. Before you just like okay I do one video for Tik Tok a day and then I'm off. Before that just post that on Instagram as well. You don't lose anything.

Quang Do

58:46Awesome. Yeah. Let's switch gears. I think this might be, you know, more interesting for maybe a different kind of kind of listener. Let's go a little bit more personal. You know, crosscultural. Personal. We're a crosscultural couple. One OV, one from Vietnam. You know, how how do those differences make things interesting but also challenging? And you've mentioned a few of the initial challenges perhaps, but you know, just share with us openly. Oh my gosh.

Will

59:17You can take this one. What's this?

Tina

59:20So he actually before meeting him I've never been friends with a German person before. Even friends like even friends, right? We're missing out. You're missing out. It's crazy. And I've spent so I basically like my kind of cultural background is a mix of Vietnamese and American and him is a mix of Vietnamese and Germany, right? And it's so different like the way that he approaches even language like even him speaking English even if it can be like this sentence can mean completely different things for me. So he is so literal with his words like he like his kind of understanding of semantic is completely different from me. Yeah. So at the beginning even with the language we had to figure that out a lot because sometimes he says something and I thought that he meant differently because if you say that in America it could be so offensive. It could be like you're trying to just ditch someone passive aggressively. But he's like, "No, no, no. I mean like literally this is this." And I'm like, "What?" So that that took us like probably months to figure out that he just words things differently because from German to English, it like in Germany things are just so literal and they don't mean much behind the words, I guess.

1:00:44So language wise that workwise work-wise, he is so structured, so systematic, and sometimes, you know, in the creative industry, things need to flow. Things need to be a bit more creative. Things need to be a bit more spontaneous. So we also fought a lot on that because he's like, "No, no, we have to we have to we have to prepare everything. We have to do this and that." And I'm like, "No, no, no. Just be in it. Just be spontaneous." Like, that creates better content. And then that also is a fight constant fight between us. And that's also a challenge. But I guess like eventually we found kind of a good medium of like we kind of before we film there are a few things that he want me to know. Just like basic things that he wants to tell me beforehand and then when we go in we can expand on more and we can be more creative and spontaneous. So that's a good medium for us. But that was also a huge challenge at the beginning. And then personal relationship wise, obviously culturally, German Germans and Vietnamese people work very differently.

1:02:01And date very differently cuz there are things that, you know, like Vietnamese girls, we want. What do you want? Wow. That's a whole podcast in itself. I'm telling you, like, you know, Vietnamese girls, we're used to being like a bit spoiled and like chiều. This is a word in Vietnamese, right? Chiều like, which means like, you know, you're a guy and you should like whatever, you know, you should kind of us give us what we want a little bit cuz we're girls and we're just here being your girlfriend, being your girlfriend. Or at the beginning it's very common for Vietnamese girls to expect that for if we go somewhere right for example there's this spot this date spot even if you live super far from us we expect you to come and pick it up pick us up and we go there together and at the beginning he was like oh hey let's meet here at 7:00 p.m. and like I don't know I was like are you not picking me up? And he's like no it's the opposite way for me. So just meet there. And I was like what do you mean? Listen up. Listen up guys. What do you mean you're not picking me up? And he's like no it's too far for me.

1:03:19Yeah. So a lot of that like being gallant, you know, being being kind of Yeah. So that was a it was a huge dating difference in the beginning.

Quang Do

1:03:34How was it? How was it for you?

Will

1:03:37Well, yeah, same really. When I was on the I was sitting in the airplane on the airplane, right, flying back to Vietnam to like move here, I was like, "Huh? Okay, work is one thing, but dating, how many people, like realistically, how many girls are there that I can date? Right? Cuz of course, you know, Vietnam has 100 million people, 45 million women or 40 million women. Yeah. But how many people speak English, right? A lot less. How many people have been abroad? A lot less. How many people could a broad meaning could resonate with my kind of way of thinking because if we're two different we we're not going to match either. So I actually arrived at a very small number like dating would be hard because you know finding someone that is compatible with who you are. Yes, I was born in Vietnam. Yes, a big part of my identity is Vietnamese. But I grew up in Germany and I can't deny that. And so Germany or like eur being European being German is a big part of me too. And to find someone that can resonate with that, that could potentially relate to that could be a challenge and it is, you know, it is.

1:04:57And there's Yeah. But yeah, luckily you know, with her specifically.

Quang Do

1:05:08What were the challenges or other things that were specific?

Will

1:05:12Yeah, specific challenges. She mentioned a lot about them about them already. Like she you know grew up in Vietnam but also went to the US for school. I lived most of my life in Germany. The way we approach life in Germany is very very different. Things just work and everything has its order. Everything has a system. Everything has a process and you know if something doesn't go according to process we kind of panic a little bit. There's a bit of like a micro panicking in there. Yeah. And in Vietnam that's like normal. Yeah. Right. So like there there's just a lot of you know like small everyday things where I would I would react in a very different way and she would react in a very different way.

Tina

1:05:59Like for example if things don't go to according to plan I'll be like oh yeah then we just do this and he's like wait why are things not going to plan? Like this would annoy him so much. Whereas like I guess like Vietnamese people they're used to chaos. They're used to things changing or they themselves just change things last minute. But for him, he's more used to just everything going exactly to plan.

Will

1:06:22So yeah, just like an example, for example, we let's say we need to go to the notary. In Germany, you have to make an appointment or like let's go you go to the doctor, right? In Germany, takes you probably two months to get like a doctor appointment, right? For me that that's that when I when I arrive in Vietnam I'm like okay let's say we go to the to the doctor okay I have to set things up I have to call early and you know set things up and for her it's like no just go just the day before she just calls I was like you just go and then sometimes I would be like why didn't you prepare like you know for me like I have a whole different context for me it's like okay you have to call early so you save a spot you save an appointment otherwise you miss it and for her because she has a whole different context. It's like, yeah, like let's just go. And I'll be like, why did you not call before? Like, now we don't get an appointment. And then I realize, oh, I'm not in Germany. And then I realized, okay, in Vietnam things happen.

Tina

1:07:21Even my parents, they'll be like, well, we're here now. What do you mean we're here? You're here now. Cuz my parents are in Hanoi. And sometimes they just fly in like without telling us, right? And I'm so used to that. I'm like, yeah, yeah, they're just here. And then Will was like, "Your parents are here. Why didn't they tell us anything? Oh my gosh, do I have to do this now?"

Will

1:07:42Yeah. Family is yet another thing too. Like family, of course, you know, like in Asia, in Vietnam, we have different customs and you know, you have different duties as a family member. When your parents are here, for example, I have to take them around. For example, I have to spend time with them. I have to, you know, go out of my way to like to like spend time with them and cater to them. In Germany, it's a whole different thing. In Germany, it's like, oh, your parents in town going to have one dinner and then I'll I'm gone. Oh, really? Yeah. It's like that. Your parents and of course, you know, like if I can, I spend time, but it's not like, okay, I'm going to take vacation days at work to like just be there, pick them up from the airport. Like, it's not a thing. In Germany, you say, oh, okay, like, when are they coming to our apartment? Like is more like that. Yeah. Right. So I have to learn too to like these like small Yeah. Family duties even though you know again born into a Vietnamese family but learned dating learned family customs family custom in a certain also like you grow up you see other families act like this or you adapt that or you watch TV and it's different right? Yeah and now it's like I'm still learning. I'm still learning.

1:09:02Right. So sometimes she would pull me aside and say like hey you know you know in this kind of situations in Vietnam we do this and that. Yeah. Right. So I think we've developed to a point where she understands that if I miss something or if I appear to be rude sometimes or I miss like a custom to not take it personal but say probably he doesn't know it. So I'm like hey just so you know you should have done this and that. And then I'm like, "Oh, oh, that's how it works." Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And yeah, I think it's this kind of over the last three years, we developed a bit more of that benefit of the doubt to say, maybe they don't mean it. Maybe they they're not an [expletive] Maybe they, you know, just don't know it. Yeah. And that helps a lot. That helps a lot.

Quang Do

1:09:52I think I think a lot of this actually resonates with a lot of listeners because even if you're not a couple, you grew up in the west as overseas wise, you come back here, you see all of these cultural differences, right? But it's at the maximum when you're a couple because then you have it daily in very small situations. It's so nuance. I have the same with my wife and it's challenge. It's challenging, but I think it makes a very interesting relationship as well. And I always say she's a local as well. I'm diaspora overseas. We're similar enough to connect because we're both Vietnamese, blood, ethnicity, parents, culture, but we're different enough to always have so many interesting observations of the differences. And I love to analyze through them. Yeah. And I think you make it very well that you make it your content as well. Yeah. Yeah. You know, you can totally lean into those, right? And make it content.

Tina

1:10:47Yes. 100%. 100%. That's also one of our pillars. Yeah. It's one of our pillars content. Video couple content. Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

Will

1:10:54The one I would say silver lining I would throw in here cuz it's not all bad. Like where you said that hey we're similar enough to be able to connect. There's some awe I would say in being able to connect on different languages. We in English, but also we have like we have a sense of like understanding in Vietnamese as well and it adds a dimension to the relationship. It's quite interesting.

Tina

1:11:28Yeah, cuz I feel like even when we speak different languages, we have a certain different kind of identity and cultural identity that attach attaches to it. So I feel like I connect I connect with him both in Vietnamese with my Vietnamese identity and my English identity. So it's like another dimension of our relationships.

Quang Do

1:11:50How about your Germans?

Tina

1:11:52Sorry. He's been making me learn German and I'm like no don't try. It's a long it's too much.

Quang Do

1:11:58But I love what you said actually. I think one element of this is actually and this is again from an OV perspective is Will and I we grew up speaking Vietnamese with our parents which means German then means it's kind of the outside world outside of the house which means it's kind of third party more than family is Vietnamese much more close much more intimate much more trusting whereas outside world classroom it's the wide world right and it's kind of that external world and at least for me if I if I speak now Vietnamese with people. It feels much more closer because it's how I associate family and how I associate my people. Yeah. Versus kind of this external host country that I grew up in, right? It's very similar now that Vietnam instant closeness, right? Yeah. Yeah. I like that. It's interesting. That's interesting.

Will

1:12:50Yeah. Even back in Germany, every time I go to a Vietnamese restaurant Yeah. You feel it feels great. It's like, yeah. It's a safe place. That's interesting. And then I would talk Vietnamese to them and they would, "Oh, you're Vietnamese, too." Like, and we talk about it. Yeah. It's very nice.

Quang Do

1:13:04Interesting. Quickly creator economy in Vietnam. And then we wrap it up. But, you know, what do you think? What makes Vietnam now exciting to be a creator? To choose to be a creator in this market, especially as overseas Vietnamese or even Vietnamese returning.

Will

1:13:23I think speaking to our audience as overseas Vietnamese, right? Diaspora coming from Germany, comparing Germany or Europe to Vietnam, I think I really underestimated the entertainment industry in Vietnam, right? In Germany, if you hear about influencers or even actors Oh, yeah. Yeah. Even actors, you're like, "So what?" Right. Yeah. But in Vietnam, that's true. Entertainment is really such a big part of culture and it's such a big part of society. Wow. It's so normalized. Exactly. That it's a lot more prominent, right? And what effect it does have is well in Vietnam, you walk around, you see some people like some youngsters on the road just doing some Tik Tok dances and that's the most normal thing in the world. Yeah. Right. Whereas in Germany, even if you just take as much as a selfie on a public space, people would look at you like weird, right? So the entertainment in general, like just the everything around Okay, like the entertainment industry is so prevalent and so cherished. I would say still like kind of important, right? As well as the curiosity towards social media to be able to broadcast yourself to everyone, right?

1:14:45Everyone gets excited about it. So when you talk about how is the Vietnamese creator economy different than any other let's say more mature country I can say for Europe it's like people are a lot more excited about it here and it feels a lot more socially accepted and feels a lot more hence it feels a lot more real than it is back in Europe and you feel a lot more supported. Yeah. Yeah. To do this compared to it was like in an in a world where people kind of socially rejected I guess. Yeah.

Quang Do

1:15:29Yeah. You mentioned a very interesting I that's a good point. That's a really good point. I would even say beyond support you feel very empowered. I see this across all videos and overseas experience. They come here they leave all of that former identity trying to act cool trying to that's a European thing. I think it's mindset. We always try to make things effortless and not try too hard. Yeah, you always try to not try too hard, right? So whenever you try to take a selfie, you already signal to everyone, hey, I'm trying to look good in front of camera. It's like complete reverse. People dress up to go to coffee shops. Yeah. Exactly. The activity is making content. Yeah. Exactly. Even just shoot photos.

Tina

1:16:06Even if like I don't dress up and I go out and then my parents or my sister, why are you dressing like this? Just dress up like just be, you know, be presentable. It's completely different. It's extremely empowering. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it normalizes it a lot even for like at the beginning I was like, "Oh, this is so this is so cringe." Like calling a camera in front of me. But now it's like Yeah. Now I feel empowered. Now I take it out like it's my job. I have to do this and I'm going to do it. Yeah. Right. It's a good job. It's a great job. Honestly, we enjoy it. Yeah. We enjoy it. We enjoy working together. We enjoy the freedom that it gives us. Yeah.

Quang Do

1:16:45Are you excited about Vietnam as as a creator?

Tina

1:16:49Yeah, 100%. I mean, I just feel like the future is technology and communications. Like that's what I think the future is, you know, like being a creator, it's essential for businesses, right? And I feel like in Vietnam if you know the economy is growing and the more businesses there are the more you know creators are needed. So yeah.

Will

1:17:18I'm also excited about Vietnam's creator economy in a sense that there's still so much so many like areas untouched like within the space that exists already. There's still so many dark spots you can still like undiscovered spots you can still make it to something there like a there. So okay how do I put this within this to create a space that already exists there's so many niches that are unexplored that can be uncovered right whereas if you compare to the US or Europe where the markets are more mature it's been discovered already right on top of that of course that space is expanding right because Vietnam as a market also Vietnam as a society develops right from perhaps you know the let's education level rises year over year, generation over generation and that brings upon different kinds of needs for content, right? And that itself develops, right? And still developing of course. Exactly. And of course as that you know that kind of as the education level increases also the demand for better types of content increases as well.

1:18:37Then you can look at Europe and then you can look at the US the US for just talking about the topic of not getting too political here but like talking about the topics of let's say female menstruation right it's kind of like not so talked a lot about even mental health or even mental health in Vietnamese society right but it's developing and that kind of market or that industry or that niche slowly opens And then all of a sudden you have so much content that exists already on in international context that you can you can localize into the Vietnamese and that's how it grows the whole bubble grow like the whole market grows right and there's so much that you can still do for Vietnamese audiences in terms of content to count on that.

Quang Do

1:19:29Is there any myth or misconception about content creation in Vietnam or what are some of the mistakes you the early creators do.

Tina

1:19:39I'm thinking when I heard that question, I'm thinking about my parents cuz when we first started doing content, I mean, even now, but there they were like, what do you mean Tik Tockers? What is that? Like, how do you make money off of that? Like, you're just anyone can be a Tik Tocker. Like, that guy on the street can be a Tik Tocker. You've had so many years of education. Why are you doing this? So I feel like the myth is like it's not a real job and that anyone can do it for local. I'm from like the local I guess my parents perspective. That's a myth that I immediately think about.

Quang Do

1:20:18Yeah. Did you have to break through?

Tina

1:20:21Yeah, definitely. It was a few months of us kind of convincing them. But I think now they see that we do well. I think like it's always like that. It's like you just have to prove to them that like you actually reach some kind of success and then they will slowly accept it.

Quang Do

1:20:37Yeah. And today are they supported?

Tina

1:20:40They definitely support it more now. Not like fully but a like a lot more than from the beginning. Yeah. When we were like oh yeah we want to break into this field. They were like what field? That's not a real field. But yeah that's what I that's a myth I'm thinking of right now. Yeah.

Quang Do

1:21:00Yeah, that's a very good one. That's a very good one. Maybe you can even reflect on your own journey like what were you naive about going into this.

Will

1:21:10Talking about you know making content right it is obviously a creative field right and I think it's not so much of a myth but more towards like me being contrarian in that sense that even though it's a creative field and probably most of the creators you know are successful because they're creative right I as a good German view it also like from a data and organization standpoint. Yeah. Like I think you can learn how to make good content by looking into the data, looking into the analysis and trying to figure out what worked and what didn't, right? And I think in the industry way too few people do that. Of course, you know, like you can of course have success being completely chaotic and being just purely based on creativity, but you can also be and that's probably the way that I went with and probably a lot the way that a lot of people that have been in like a corporate career tend to think of it. You can also be successful with diligence with looking at the data and going at it at from a from a analytical standpoint and maybe it gives you the edge even.

Quang Do

1:22:33You mentioned a little bit about Vietnam's creator economy expanding. There's a lot of, you know, white space still. Whites space, that was the word. Yeah. Would you actually recommend people to become creators in general? Is it an easy career to break into, you know, is it should make a general recommendation?

Tina

1:22:53I wouldn't say easy. I wouldn't say it's a easy field to break into, but I think it's a great time to be a creator right now in Vietnam. I think with reach, you know, with personal branding, there's so much that comes out of can come out of it. Not just like from you being a creator but later on with your reach you can maybe I don't know expand to other things open your own business or use your platform to do even broader things right so I think right now yes I would recommend other people to do it yeah if they can it's not it's definitely not that easy though I think that's a myth that's the myth that's the myth people think it's easy but like you can ask my assistant I think we work all day every day. We don't even have weekends. But yeah.

Will

1:23:47Should people go into this field? If you're interested, if you're curious, I mean, with everything in life, there's there's pros and cons, right? There's opportunity and risks, right? Opportunity, you can have, you can earn money, you can be independent, you can work more flexibly, right? You can have impact as well. You can use your reach to do good or too bad or whatever, right? But it gives you the opportunity. On the other hand, you're in the public eye. And if you don't like that, maybe you shouldn't do it. If you are okay with it, perhaps you should. If you love it, you should definitely do it. Right? It's kind of like kind of I guess that personal yeah that's decision and personal I'm losing the word but personal decision that you have to make because being in the public eye is not for everyone and you can do so many things wrong and there are certain things that you can't do anymore right if I don't know I can't be pissed dr I can't I can't be really drunk and like do stupid stuff anymore right or as much as you say the wrong word at a public event, it could backfire, right?

1:25:04So, it limits you to certain degrees, but if you're okay with it, then by all means, yeah, by all means, because of because the impact that you can have is powerful. Yeah, for sure.

Quang Do

1:25:19How was that journey for you quickly? Getting out there, getting yourself out there, how is it today versus then? And how do you feel about it?

Will

1:25:27It's weird, man. It's weird. It's really weird. Yeah, cuz sometimes like you get recognized now. Yeah, we do. So weird. We do a lot actually, which is crazy. Yeah. Like sometimes like we go and fly somewhere, we went to the airport and like we get stopped probably like three times. Oh wow. Which is which never happened to me before. Yeah, it's bizarre.

Quang Do

1:25:48Yeah. How does it feel like for you? How do you feel about it?

Tina

1:25:51Yeah, at the beginning it was definitely weird like oh my gosh, people actually know us. But now I guess we feel grateful. We feel just like we're so thankful for them. If they come and want to take a photo, we're like, "Yes, of course." Like we're very thankful now because obviously they are the ones that, you know, give us the platform we have today. So yeah.

Quang Do

1:26:14What about you as a as a German private?

Will

1:26:18It's so good. It's so bizarre. Yeah. Like when it first happened, I was like, "Oh my god, what is this?" And still now, right, we get recognized probably once or twice a day, like just when we go out. Yeah. And I I'm still not used to it. But I guess now I don't feel as uncomfortable with it as Yeah. Beginning. And sometimes people would come and say, "Oh yeah, like you know, where's Tina? I saw this clip." And they were like they're asking like personal questions. It feels like they know our lives and this is the first time we meet them. Yeah. And it's quite something. It's quite something. And of course, we try to be and we are thankful and we try to treat them as nicely as possible. You know, if they want to take pictures, of course, and that kind of stuff. And we want to also like sometimes engage with them. Ask them, hey, yeah, what you know, like what do you like about our content and like where do you live and that kind of stuff, right? And we try I try to normalize it. It's still it's still kind of weird. But again, right, that's the something like that. Even if you were influencers in Germany, it wouldn't happen. Yeah. First of all, you don't see any you don't meet that many influencers in Europe.

1:27:35And even if you do, no one really talks to you. And in Vietnam, it's a whole different thing. They're more open. They come, hey, hey, I saw you on TikTok. It's like you're damn right.

Tina

1:27:47There was some time. There was one time when Will was driving you on his scooter and there was another scooter next to us. They just drive up and they were like, "What?" It was crazy. We were just like, "Oh my gosh." Like literally the scooter next to us, they drive up just to say hi. Yeah.

Will

1:28:04It's really cute. It's really, really cute. And I think that makes up for at least for the discomfort for me. It's really, really cute. And we really appreciate that.

Quang Do

1:28:13Yeah. Now being in this life this situation you know you chose that career life there's perhaps no going back there maybe there's another stage in the future but now being here you know first Will how has your definition of success ambition changed from you know tech Google previously now being fully in this what does success for you look like now.

Will

1:28:36I think success for me personally very personally looks like you're doing well financially. You don't have any struggles. You are happy, you have a let's say a loving partner, you have a loving family, you don't sacrifice your personal life for career success. And perhaps, just perhaps, if you're successful enough, you have a little bit more impact on society, a good sort of impact on society, right? And in in our position, it's like, yes, of course, we want we want to make a living with content. At the same time, we don't want our relationship to suffer under it. Luckily it's done more good than bad to our relationship. And thirdly with our platform with the reach that we have we want to give a bit of a positive message a bit of a good social impact I suppose back to society.

Quang Do

1:29:52Tina coming from Vietnam moving to US there's family expectations on what a good career looks like you know how has your identity shift now being a creator and what the success for you personally.

Tina

1:30:03Yeah I'm just now thinking of something that Will actually told me in the first few months that we dated on a few dates but he was like saying how it's one of the most important things in life as a human being is to know what you want to do, where you want to live, and who you want to be with. And that resonated with me a lot. And I feel like right now success for me is that is I think I know what I want to do, where I want to be, and who I want to be with. And all of those are answered for me at this point in my life. And I feel like yeah, I'm just happy with where I'm at in life right now.

Quang Do

1:30:54That's beautiful. It sounds very basic, but I think it's actually the average person has not found answers.

Tina

1:31:01Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Because when I met him, I don't think I was sure about any of these the answers to any of these questions actually. So that's why it resonated so much with me.

Quang Do

1:31:11That's follow up on that and then we can wrap up. You know in five years Will and Tina what has it become what kind of impact did you want to have had on people in five years.

Will

1:31:22So right now it's Will and Tina right and we're building up you know this platform to talk about relationships to demystify parts of relationships and that's right now let's say the value and our contribution that we want to deliver to society in five years hopefully the platform is bigger hopefully we can tackle more societal discussions. We can shed more light on different you know parts of the discourse and hopefully right in that time we can run a platform that goes beyond us. Y it's not just us anymore. Perhaps there are different mediums there are different concepts that we can yeah can introduce so that we can at some point retire in terms of like, you know, having to always be in front of the camera and at some point maybe step back behind the camera and kind of lead it from there. Yep. Right. That's ideally.

Tina

1:32:32Yeah, we do have plans for sure. I think expanding to Yeah. Long form secondary. But I'm glad we're on the same page. But yeah, I guess like expand long form or build a company, a media company out of it.

Quang Do

1:32:50So then maybe you know on the personal side. We're not getting too personal, but you know, Will and Tina literally where will you be in five years? Well, putting you on the spot. Yeah, that's fine. That's fine. Huh? What? I feel like this is a bit I don't know. I feel like there should be something on there. No, looks good.

Will

1:33:12No. Yeah, it's hopefully, you know, like without jinxing it, hopefully it goes as well as it does now. Yeah. And yeah, we in 5 years, I think, this is about a good time to also like build up a family in that in that regard. I don't know working on ourselves, working on our relationship, working on our whatever by then institution that we are and have as a couple and Pink Diamond.

Quang Do

1:33:45Anything to add Tina?

Tina

1:33:46Pink Diamond only cooking classes. Cooking classes. Yeah, he said he's going to pay for my cooking classes this year.

Will

1:33:56Yes, I will voluntarily pay for cooking classes.

Tina

1:34:00No. Yeah, I agree with him. I think we do want a family personally in five years, I think. And just expand from there. Yeah.

Quang Do

1:34:10And by the way, you know, on the business side, having a family makes for a new category of content.

Will

1:34:17That's true. That's true. That's what I always say. I always think, you know, parent content, parenting content is actually quite a huge thing. That's interesting. A lot of people they think of having a child as a cost center, right? Oh, like you have to think about Yeah. You know, how much does it cost school and everything in our industry? It's a profit center. It's like a revenue center because yeah, you can just do more content just about everything, right? Pregnancy, even family, whatever, like baby care, everything, right? Yeah, it's definitely it's very interesting case. Yeah. Yeah.

Quang Do

1:34:54Fantastic. How can people follow you and why should they? What can they expect?

Will

1:34:59It's Will and Tina on every platform. It's Will and Tina.

Tina

1:35:05Yeah, they can just expect good cross-cultural conversations or some laugh some laughter sometimes and some, you know, relatability out of it. Yeah.

Quang Do

1:35:16Will the pitch why should I invest?

Will

1:35:19Why should you invest? No, I think what we deliver to our audience or what we try to deliver is you know you you're at work, you go home from work, maybe you're fighting with your partner or whatnot, right? And then you watch our content and some of it feels relatable, some of it feels familiar, and perhaps it gives you a bit of a smile. Yeah. Right. Perhaps you in that moment you don't think that your partner is the uniquely unreasonable person in that moment when you're in conflict, right? But perhaps you think, "Oh, it's just another one of those." Yeah. They have it too. They find about this too. Yeah. Exactly. And perhaps you know and I hope that's the kind of impact that we can have on our viewers and maybe more impact later on in the future. Yeah. And that's my elevator pitch.

Quang Do

1:36:09Fantastic. You do. Thank you so much for coming on. I will say let's do a followup in the future, you know, once things are at the next stage and level. Even, you know, one episode just cultural differences, just couple stuff. I think that would be interesting. We put my wife on as well.

Will

1:36:25Yes, for sure. For sure. We go very deep and there. Sure. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you, man, for having us.