Will impact startup become a new hot buzz in Vietnam?

Social impact startup projects at Techfest 2020.

Like any hot new concept, many assume we understand them rightly & fully; but with impact entrepreneurship, the risk is more & more evident; impacts could be wrongly created. 

Trends to emerge

Let's go back to early 2014! We witnessed the rise of “startups” in Vietnam. The new hot trend quickly penetrated our society. Suddenly, everybody wants to become a founder. Many young people want to become descendants of Mark Zuckerberg, … Just with a laptop & a bold idea, we can embark on the journey of a startup founder. The trend was losing its heat around 2 years ago. Once the survival rate, let alone the market product fit rate, was too low. While the resources allocated for startup were simply quite a lot. Reality bites! The startup journey is just too difficult, not glamorous as it seems. But those entrepreneurs who can operate “simple business models" (F&B, selling popular local products on eCommerce, …) deserve praise for their perseverance & generating a surplus to the society.   

Besides “startup”, we also witnessed the emerging trend of “mentoring”. Perhaps, the startup is glamorous; mentoring for the startup must be even more so. As a result, plenty of mentors pop up. Similar to startups, the trend of mentoring also collides with reality. Mentors have to be very patient, work hard to build trust, relationships with their mentees before any advice-giving, nurturing. Just reminiscing about mentors' achievements or others simply cannot help mentees to learn, to become more mature, more rounded. 

Social impact business

Go back to the concept of “impact entrepreneurship", there are some facts that I truly hope we do not ignore, should we decide to become impact entrepreneurs one day:

First, impact entrepreneurship is still “entrepreneurship" at heart, meaning we still have to create a solution (product/service) to a particular problem in the environment (that may be relevant to renewable energy, …) Good ideas, pure intention, beautiful ideals are just not enough to create positive impacts.

Second, impact entrepreneurship is not just philanthropy activities, social enterprise, or non-profit organization. Founders of any impact project must strive to build his/her project one way or another, like any other business venture out there. How can we save the world if we cannot even take care of ourselves?   

Third, impact entrepreneurship is all about climate change, environment, …: These are just pieces of a much bigger picture. We can always refer to Sustainable Development Goals by UNDP for a more comprehensive overview & inspiration. 

Lessons learned & experiences in our own entrepreneurial environment are there for us to learn, then to approach “impact entrepreneurship" with a better maturity & mindset. Creating straw from a plant to replace plastic straws; thus reducing plastic consumption is a good impact idea. But producing straw from plants that people don’t want to buy/use, or farmers growing that particular plant to satisfy market demand, causing imbalances in the environment; then the idea may not have that positive impact, after all. Solve a problem by creating a new one! This does not impact entrepreneurship as originally intended.