When Souvanhnuvong Samountree announced that he was able to turn into an entrepreneur, his family was surprised.
“When I first told my parents, they asked me, ‘What are you doing? It’s impossible in Laos. You’re still in high school.’ But I don’t believe them,” she said. “After six months, we had a lot of clients.”
The 19-year-old, often called “Bou,” co-founded Book Delivery, certainly one of the primary startups to emerge from Laos’ burgeoning capital, Vientiane. True to his word, he became an entrepreneur while still in highschool, and a 12 months later he’s on the forefront of running a business the likes of which the country has never seen before.
Concerned in regards to the prices and absence of excellent books in Vientiane, Bou and five colleagues began an internet retail business, offering a service to order and deliver books that were too expensive or unavailable within the country on to customers’ doors.
“It’s a giant problem. I want to read, I want books, but there are so few bookstores in Laos. People want knowledge,” he said.
The idea is easy and low-tech, a necessity in Laos, where only half the population has web access and smartphone use remains to be a brand new phenomenon. Book Delivery uses suppliers in Thailand and the UK to source any desired book title, and in addition works with publishers to offer latest distribution avenues for Lao authors.
“Before, writers in Laos couldn’t sell their books. People don’t find out about them. We can do the marketing, and now they sell in huge numbers – 1000’s,” he said.
Today, revenues are still modest, with monthly customer numbers in the handfuls, not a whole bunch. And while it’s not an idea that may necessarily encourage success within the region’s more advanced entrepreneurial markets, it’s an example of the small beginnings that startups in Laos are experiencing.
This growing sector is basically the results of the determination and risk-taking of Souphaphone Souannavong, a financial advisor who founded Vientiane’s first start-up, Toh Lao Coworking Space, in 2014.
The small hub provides a workplace where young entrepreneurs are encouraged to collaborate, with high-speed web and space for meetings and events. It was an initial risk, he says, but he hopes it’s the precursor to “a mini Silicon Valley in Laos.”
“We just started testing to see if it would work or not. I had a lot of concerns at the time, but I thought, ‘Let’s try,’” she said. “We had to start from scratch.”
She cited the dearth of exposure to external markets for aspiring entrepreneurs, which stifles original ideas and creativity, as initial and prevailing challenges, in addition to a lack of awareness of how start-ups work. Despite this, she is confident in regards to the sector’s future success.
“I don’t think that if other countries can do it, why cannot we. Maybe it’s going to be slower, but I’m sure it’s going to occur. The market is small, however it’s still something that should be reached,” she said.
And this market is becoming greater and larger daily.
“YOU ARE THE BOSS”
Vientiane is growing rapidly; town’s population is anticipated to extend by 54.5 percent between 2015 and 2025, bringing the full variety of residents to an estimated 1.6 million.
While Souannavong admits that Vientiane remains to be just a few years away from developing right into a tech city on the size of Malaysia’s Cyberjaya, he plans to take the subsequent step in March by opening a bigger co-working space with an accelerator program, which could eventually result in the startup tapping right into a larger regional market.
And while Vientiane is growing, it remains to be dwarfed by other major competitive hubs, comparable to Ho Chi Minh City and Bangkok. That has had an impact on the investment of angel investors, a key driver for entrepreneurs who need to grow their businesses but lack the capital or ability to generate profits.
Steve Landman, a member of the Mekong Angel Investment Network, founded and supported by the Australian government, says investment in Laos has been slow due to the startup sector’s infancy.
“We haven’t found any investable companies at this point,” he said. “The size of the market is important. In particular, is the product or service scalable to other markets? Because most countries in the Mekong region are not sustainable markets.”
In Vientiane’s case, the intention is to find town’s “startup hero.” That’s also a key step, Souannavong says, to unlocking understanding amongst a population most of whom don’t value risk-averse entrepreneurship.
This traditional resistance, mainly among the many older generation, is an energetic obstacle to 1 group hoping to turn into a frontrunner within the Vientiane startup scene.
Souliyo Vongdala and Mangkonephet Sayasane are co-founders of Bizgital, an increasingly profitable marketing solutions company serving international clients comparable to Coca-Cola and Heineken, in addition to Foxpress, an internet courier service.
This latest project solves a transparent problem in Vientiane – the postal system – but interest in it remains to be limited.
“In Laos, the postal service may be very weak and unreliable. If you send something very helpful from abroad here, it’s going to more than likely wander off or stolen,” said Vongdala, a confident, U.S.-educated 25-year-old.
“But in Laos it is really difficult to change people,” he said.
He says that is because of an ingrained culture, explaining that the majority of his colleagues’ families generally don’t support entrepreneurship, as an alternative encouraging them to take traditional, secure jobs in banks or corporations.
“Change is coming. The younger generation can be even higher… they read in regards to the success stories and have the energy to do something,” he said.
Foxpress currently serves mostly online retailers who use Facebook as a platform to run their business. As more people start using the service, they hope to create a central app that works similarly to Uber, but for couriers.
“Laos is a small country, there are numerous problems to resolve, so which means there are numerous options. If you do not succeed with the primary one, you do the second, third or tenth,” Vongdala said.
“But if you do something right… you can make money while solving a problem, and that’s something you should be proud of.”
At Book Delivery, Bou also has greater plans – to remodel the business, using Amazon as inspiration. In the approaching months, the group plans to introduce clothing and footwear to its online offering and further explore the probabilities of e-books, which is latest within the country.
“I love it. Others are afraid of failure,” he said. “If you want to do something, you should do it. You’re the boss now.”
Source : Asia News Channel
