"Join forces" with the start-up community

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Supporting the startup community should offer "fishing rods" instead of "fish". Photo: Internet

Issuer of "fishing rod"

An expert shared the experience of Finland, in which, the programmes to support start-up innovation have been actively engaged in and funded by enterprises and the public sector, especially in the training and application of new digital technologies. Most notably, Nokia has helped train a generation of engineers, world-class entrepreneurs and other experts; the founders of successful startups in Finland today.

Therefore, coming back to Vietnam, many enterprises have devoted resources and profits to support start-ups. For example, Vingroup launched the VinTech Fund for Research and Application (VinTech Fund) with expected sponsor of 15 application research projects, with the amount of up to 10 billion VND per topic. Many medium enterprises also participate in supporting and promoting the startup community. The support of these enterprises does not only cover capital investment, but also provides free solutions or products or ones with cheaper prices than normal enterprises.

At MSB Bank, startups can use a dedicated payment account, M-Startup. This account will help enterprises save costs and facilitate transactions when they have free account management, free annual fee, transfer fee reduction or cash transaction reduction. VNPT Hanoi offers discounts for basic services for startups such as high speed internet, digital signatures and electronic invoices. ISA Joint Stock Company donates a support package of nearly 3 million VND to newly established enterprises when purchasing accounting software.

Sharing on this issue, Hoang Cong Doan, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Song Thao Investment Joint Stock Company, Chairman of Vietnam Startup Club said the Government, ministries, branches and enterprises have done good work to build a startup ecosystem and now should focus on quality and substance. Therefore, all enterprises believe that the support should give "fishing rods “instead of "fish”, so that startups can choose their direction to build successful business models, from that they will return to use the services, products or become customers of enterprises that have supported them.

Guiding by policy

The concern of enterprises when supporting startups is that the policies are not clear. According to Hoang Cong Doan, investors have faced many obstacles when they wanted to invest in startups. Because most start-ups were only formed on ideas, so to have real beginning capital to support further development in the later stages was very difficult.

Sharing the same view, Le Thai Duong, Business Development Director of Rehoboth Vietnam said the biggest difficulty when starting-up was not resources; it was the framework to create startups. We had a huge and strong startup movement, but in fact the development of startup infrastructure was not commensurate. From these ideas, according to the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI), less than 10 percent of start-up enterprises became success, supporting policies for start-ups was in the outside. Therefore, this needs the involvement of enterprises themselves, because no one understands enterprises like enterprises, so that they could have practical and closer support.

Understanding this situation, at the end of November 2019, the Ministry of Planning and Investment issued a draft of the Prime Minister's Decision approving the National Program to support small and medium-sized enterprises in their startups, joining industry clusters and value chains in the 2021-2025 period. The draft states that start-up support activities need new and breakthrough strategies, directions and ways to create fundamental changes of the whole system, including proposals for completion and operation of the National Innovation Center (NIC);supporting the development of 15-20 creative start-up support centres, nursery units of small and medium-sized enterprises; supporting about 3,000 small and medium-sized enterprises starting their businesses from innovative business ideas and models; supporting about 500 enterprises participating in the program to successfully raise capital from domestic and foreign investment funds, venture capitalists. The total budget for this support programme is expected about 5,000 billion VND.