Episode 12: Navigating Vietnam’s Startup Boom: Culture, Capital, and Cross-Border Collaboration with Cuong Dang

Vietnam and Southeast Asia are fast becoming global hotspots for innovation and venture capital, but success in the region requires more than just money. In this episode of Inside CVC, Steve Schmith and Philipp Willigmann sit down with entrepreneur, investor, and community builder Cuong Dang to explore the realities of scaling startups and corporate ventures in one of the world’s most dynamic markets.

Cuong shares his journey from launching and exiting startups in the U.S. to leading Enterprise Holdings’ expansion into Vietnam, and now advising and investing in startups across Southeast Asia. He unpacks what international investors often get wrong about the region, why cultural context and trust matter as much as capital, and how his Vietnam Vanguard community is helping founders break through growth plateaus. The conversation dives into Vietnam’s most promising sectors—from logistics and supply chain to education and mobility—while offering practical advice for CVC leaders, corporates, and entrepreneurs navigating cross-border innovation.

Transcript

Cuong: 0:00

Thank you.

Steve: 0:04

Welcome to Inside CVC, the podcast that brings together leaders in innovation and capital investment to explore the trends shaping the business of corporate venture capital. I'm your host, Steve Smith, and together with Philip Willigman, we're speaking to corporate investors, entrepreneurs, and ecosystem builders driving the future of innovation. Each episode, we dive into the strategies, the partnerships, the big ideas behind venture investing at the intersection of business growth and emerging technology. Inside Inside CVC is brought to you by UPath Advisors, helping corporations and startups unlock sustainable growth through strategic partnerships. To learn more, visit upath.com. That's the letter U hyphen path dot com. In today's episode, we're joined by entrepreneur, investor, and community builder Cuong Dang, whose journey spans successful startups in the U.S., a major market entry for enterprise mobility into Vietnam, and now advising and investing in startups across Southeast Asia. Cuong shares an insider's perspective on Vietnam's evolving startup and venture ecosystem, its opportunities, challenges, and what international corporates often misunderstood when entering the region. We discuss why cultural context and trust matter as much as capital and how his Vietnam vanguard community is helping founders scale beyond their personal limits in the sectors that hold the most promise for cross-border collaboration. Quang also offers practical advice for CVC leaders, investors, and innovators looking to succeed in one of the world's most dynamic and fast-growing markets. Here's our conversation with Quan Dang. Perfect. All right. So tell us a little bit about yourself. What do you do professionally? What's taken up your time? How are you spending your time these days?

Cuong: 1:57

So my background is... Thanks for making this happening. I'm glad to be here. So my background professionally... I was in software industry. Then I had a couple of startups in St. Louis, Missouri. That's where you are, Steve. Some didn't do very well. And luckily, some did well. And the last deal that I did was 2016. I exited a company and had a chance to work with Enterprise family, the Taylor family, Enterprise Rent-A-Cart. So I did a deal with them to have the master franchise agreement for Vietnam first and then after Southeast Asia. And that's what brought me back to Vietnam. So I used my fund and I did a few things in terms of manufacturing, F&B, mobility space, real estate, but had some luck here and there. But now I'm doing quite a bit of consulting advisory, a capital advisory for startups in Vietnam and Southeast Asia and some angel investment through my syndicate. That's in a nutshell.

Philipp: 2:55

Great. Well, I'm so happy to have you on the show, Cuong, and it has been a great journey since we met a couple of months ago. I was in Vietnam the second time last year and I spent like nearly three months there. And I was so excited. I was like blown away with the energy and the dynamic in the country. And of course, the overall region, also in Southeast Asia. So when you came back, can you maybe share a little bit like, yeah, what has changed from your perspective? What is going on with the startup scene and the venture landscape in the recent years? And share with our audience your observations.

Cuong: 3:27

So I came back to Vietnam in late 2017, right? It wasn't intentional in the beginning to say, I'm going to make a move moving back to Vietnam and live there for a long time or anything. It's just accidentally signed a deal with Enterprise, learning about the market and seeing the great opportunity because there's a lot of interesting things that are happening in the region and especially Vietnam. So moving back to Vietnam was exciting. Lots of energy, lots of excitement, lots of buzz around the world on Vietnam. And then the start-up Landscape was, I think, the peak of a lot of investments, funds around the world trying to get into Vietnam. And even though Vietnam has the big funds that have been there for a long time, but the newer ones actually setting up recent years, which is quite interesting and quite specific into fintech, gaming, in recent years, AI focus, edtech, and so forth. We get a little hiccup. after 2019, which is COVID happened. And the first year was they're still getting some funding coming in. But then after that, Vietnam is hitting a bumpy road in terms of capital flowing in. And also the quality of companies, the quality of startups that are popping out is also struggling at that time. But it's resuming in the market at the moment. So that's where we are.

Steve: 4:54

So what do you think has drawn this interest to invest in Vietnam?

Cuong: 4:58

I think it's because of a new market. Vietnam as a country is quite sexy, it's quite hot, has been for the last 10 years, more because of international trade, because of the manufacturing industry, because of the transformation that the country has been doing with consistent, amazing economic growth. Then there's a lot of traditional industries. So there's not a lot of disruption. in terms of how to improve what has been done for the last 30 years in outsourcing businesses, in manufacturing businesses, in energy and so forth. And that's why people are looking at Silicon Valley or London or other major metropolitan cities with a lot of maturity, a lot of excitement, a lot of very good talent, a lot of different ideas, whereas Vietnam didn't have a lot of that. That's why there's a lot of opportunities and then investors looking at, well, this is new land. We want to be there and we want to be the first wave. They're betting on it.

Philipp: 5:57

You mentioned that, you know, a lot of interest from international funds. So from your perspective, obviously, you spend a lot of your time in the United States. What do U.S. and European corporates and investors often misjudge about Southeast Asia and Vietnam? It's a lot there. Take your time.

Cuong: 6:16

Yeah. This is a good question because in recent years, I was a Forbes CEO, Forbes Vietnam CEO for five years, almost five years. And what I've learned through the market in Vietnam and also some countries in Southeast Asia, it's a second layer of issues with leadership and management. There's a lot of raw talent. There's a lot of great people that are building the first wave of businesses. And then there are people that are inheriting the business. And there are people that are self-made. young people that created successful business that is hitting a plateau in terms of leadership capability, elevating, moving people from middle management into senior management. And this is a big challenge, not just in corporate, but it's also in business in general, including startups. When companies or funds from the US, from Western world, let's just say Western countries coming into Vietnam, they don't look at it in the way that they need to They bring their own platform, their own playbook. And I thought, I've done it before. It worked. So I'm going to try to apply that here. But what I see is in Vietnam, more specifically, it's better to come in, build trust, do the deal. The deal is not about what you see in the books, but it's also creating that level of trust in the local market. And then you will learn a lot more than just what is in the books. And that's often misunderstood. by foreign funds.

Steve: 7:45

So do you have other advice given that backdrop? Other advice for Fortune 500 CVCs or heads of innovation that are considering investing in Southeast Asia or Vietnam specifically?

Cuong: 7:57

Yeah, I think one example that I have would be, let's say, a company that is in a growth stage, whether it's SMEs or startups in a growth stage, well-funded. They're going to think about scaling regionally and so forth. Often they have better structure. They have people sitting on the board. They have gaffanins and so forth. The common mistake that people look at is this playbook that I have. Everything looks great, but they don't understand why sometimes at the end the deal didn't close or things that they're trying to implement, it didn't get passed because the board sometimes has an invisible seat. The invisible seat that was a cousin that's connected to the founder or a relative that is connected to the government official. or influenced by the father or the mother or the first generation that funded the business in the beginning, that is very dangerous. And it's often seen and not talked about. So companies coming in, they looked at everything, it looks great. And they still couldn't understand why it didn't work, why the deal didn't go through, why I couldn't close the deal, why we couldn't go through that M&A stage, why we couldn't exit. There's a lot of that.

Steve: 9:07

It seems so far we've talked about Investment into Vietnam, innovation coming into Vietnam. I think about companies like VinFast. Do you have a point of view or can you share a little bit about the state of innovation being exported out of Vietnam to other parts of the world? For VinFast,

Cuong: 9:29

I think VinFast... It's a great company. It's a great conglomerate in Vietnam. There's a group itself that owns different businesses. I don't see VinFast being very innovative, and it's hard to see that VinFast exporting innovation from Vietnam to other countries yet. They had some projects in terms of AI, projects in terms of the energy space that they serve, their own platform. I think they are building a very strong foundation for innovation a new market. You look at EV market, it's quite new. There's not a lot of competitors. Everybody's learning how to do that. Obviously, we see Tesla as the leader in that space. And then now China, BYD in terms of scale and market share. Tesla never sold themselves as a car company. It's always positioning as AI. Whereas VinFast never positioned themselves as AI. They were position themselves as building an infrastructure that they can make cars accessible and saving the environment and starting with Vietnam. And they're trying to go through this whole strategy and sell to Southeast Asia. And they've been gaining some traction. Go back to that. I don't think that they have much to offer in terms of innovation. That is, we're not seeing outside yet.

Philipp: 10:46

Thank you very much. When we talk about what Vietnam has to offer, can you share a from your perspective, a bit about the founders' mindset, kind of also the pace of execution, what makes Southeast Asia and Vietnam so different? What excites you about kind of like the mindset when it comes to innovation in the region?

Cuong: 11:05

I would say speed is one of them. The founders are scrappy and they're committed. They're very hungry and they're very smart people and a lot of raw talent. What we see is they're less obsessed with thinking about the exits for the business, quite honestly. They think about the status elevation. They think about the security. They think about the sustainability of the business in the future. I think it's, I'm not saying right or wrong, but I think it's a different mindset when investors come in and say, okay, we need to figure out how to exit this deal. Whereas most of the founders here, they were thinking long-term and they just start very aggressively. What we see is the lack of depth in terms of leadership and system. So, I've been advising a lot of companies here and the majority of the founders I met, they never grown beyond the founder's ability. They get stuck at $10 million, $30 million revenue or $50 million revenues because they never built or they were not empowered with system and process and the depth of leadership that they can build for the future. So everything is around them and every day is their hustle, even though the company is big and they're still holding the key to decision-making. It's been quite challenging. A few of them who are coming back from abroad, which is Germany or Australia or the US, they were educated and they might have some experience there. They will see things differently. Whereas the local founders will have that as a challenge. And many of them that I've seen were very founders-driven leadership style, not system-based, not depth, not preparing for... growth beyond their own ability. That has been a challenge.

Philipp: 12:50

You have created something which I found fascinating and had the pleasure of joining called Vietnam Vanguard. Can you talk a little bit about that? Why you started it? And I think it obviously you're trying to build some of the structure which is lacking for those founders to get to the scale stage.

Cuong: 13:06

Vietnam Vanguard is somewhat of a community that inspired by my days during Forbes that I was running a program called Forbes 30 under 30. Everybody knows Forbes has a known for billionaire list, and then 30 under 30. Forbes is kind of all brand in America. So 10 years ago, they came up with an idea called Forbes 30 under 30 to celebrate the startup from the young minds, and it became a bit more relevant today. Otherwise, in the past, they just talked about Warren Buffett, Jack Welch, Bill Gates, and the previous generation are making a lot of money. They're losing relevance. relevancy to the young audience. So they did that successfully with the Forbes 30 under 30. When I took over Forbes for Vietnam market, that export didn't work because in Vietnam, there's two things. People don't like to be known for being very rich, culturally speaking, and also unwanted regulatory bodies visiting just the new market. Second part would be the country is not big enough. It's not sophisticated enough. It doesn't have the great education system like a Western European country or in America. So to find 30 candidates that are best in the country to fit into that DNA that Forbes started in America, it didn't work. So I had to come up with some different ideas. And I said, well, why don't we find the people actually running and building the economy today that is very sustainable? And this is the audience that I think that we've seen in terms of the late 30s and early 40s that are running multi-billion dollar companies and also having big ideas and great ideas that are executed well. So I brought the idea out and I said, okay, we'll celebrate that group. And we're going to call it Vietnam Vanguard. The Vietnam Vanguard is to make sure that we bring people together. We've seen the characters, the traits that they want to be. They want to play a part of helping to shape and to influence and to transform where Vietnam will be in the future. And my job is to create this community, to connect them, for leadership development, number one. Number two, for peer network and lesson learned. And number three is opportunities in investment or exporting outside of Vietnam. So these three things, that's the core of Vietnam Vanguard. And this bridge well into the issues that I shared earlier in terms of leadership. Many startups, many SMEs stuck at the stage of struggling to have breakthrough in terms of growth, a hockey stick in terms of their revenue. They've been around for a long time. They're hitting plateau at $20 million. They don't know how to get to $50 million. They don't know how to get to $100 million. It's been challenging. And this community is supposed to help them to see beyond that.

Steve: 15:49

So you think about that community, you think about the sectors that could be represented in that community. What do you feel are the most promising sectors to help drive that cross-border collaboration, some of that exporting that

Cuong: 16:05

you highlight? They're very quite mixed. I think the manufacturing, the distribution business, the education. I think one that's actually once stood out is logistics and supply chain. So Vietnam's industry is big, lots of manufacturing companies. businesses, the logistics and supply chain is huge. China plus one tailwinds, but it's still very fragmented. If you visit and you see, and you talk to people, you know, a 30-year-old company in the logistics industry, and they couldn't see beyond that. They couldn't adopt asset-light model. They're still very old-school. They're still very transport-driven. They own 200, 500, 1,000 trucks that they have to operate. It's just a lot of headaches and a lot of problems. In Vietnam, there are many foreign companies coming in and selling logistics management, supply chain management services, because they've seen what happened, what worked in Japan, in South Korea, or in Germany and the US. And they were selling this principle, this management system to local companies, and they make more money. Many local companies don't have or have yet to see an economy to transform that way just yet. That's why we haven't seen a lot of innovation in this space. There are some players that we've seen in this group, the Vanguard community, as opposed to open up more opportunities and help them to go beyond the borders or to adopt different innovative approach to their business. So it could be more sustainable. It could be a breakthrough in the 30-year-old traditional logistics business.

Steve: 17:44

You talk about supply chain and the strength of the manufacturing sector. I'm curious, the global conversations around the United States and tariffs, you turn on local business news here, you hear frequently companies like Nike and the potential impact to their manufacturing footprint in Vietnam specifically. Do these geopolitical conversations around tariffs impact anything? Are you concerned about those? in terms of the impact on what's going on in Vietnam? It's a

Cuong: 18:14

very big question. A disclaimer that I'm not an economist, but I can share from perspectives. Absolutely. Hosting different conferences for Forbes and at the level of the executives that I met and I did interview for. I think this is a big thing for a lot of companies in Vietnam, this big impact for the even entire economy. We've seen Vietnam get hit on 46% of tariffs without understanding any logical reasoning behind that. But we're not here to discuss that. What Vietnam did was quite interesting. They tried to pack their bags, go over there and try to have a conversation with Trump on how we can work together. Not to challenge him, why? Show me the facts or change his mindset on something because it's wrong or anything because that's not the right approach. So when we're looking at locally, domestically speaking, it's challenging For a lot of companies, and it forces a lot of companies to start thinking about diversifying their sources and not being heavily reliant on the American market. Most of the investors coming into Vietnam in this space, many probably have already assumed, are Chinese investors or Taiwanese investors. They've seen what the U.S. would do for China's relationship, and then they have already done that 10 plus years ago. Going to Vietnam, they're setting up shops and all that stuff. Somewhat is... These investors are somewhat prepared already. But today, I don't know after what 90-day pause from Trump's tariff is, but everybody is worried and concerned. And the discussions around these things is, how do we diversify it? How do we go to different markets? And recently, I hosted a conference where Philip attended in Vietnam called the Growth Beyond Borders for companies in Vietnam to think about how do we integrate in this very turbulent time. And These are the conversations we have, but nobody knows the answer just yet.

Philipp: 20:10

If we kind of stay with this theme, cross-border, obviously, that's an exciting topic for all of us on the phone, given that we are right now in three different geographies in the world. How do you kind of think about how these cross-border partnerships can help enable innovation in Southeast Asia and in Vietnam? Any perspectives on that?

Cuong: 20:32

Yes. The biggest thing for the Vanguard community, for example, was many of the members were not exposed to regional integration. So not being exposed to regional integration limits their ability to think creatively or to lead with different mindsets. So with an idea of helping them to connect, to have a joint venture, to have co-ownership, or to co-design something, I think The teams work together. They bring their own unique perspective, their own cultures, their way of working in the business, sometimes challenging what we've learned in the West. I met with teams from Thailand. We just do because we sense the intuition said that we're going to do it. And sometimes that's very uncomfortable for people. I met with teams who are investors from Singapore backed by Taiwanese people and some Chinese investors and said, okay, well, in Vietnam, when you do a deal, it's you invest because you trust the people and you feel like the founders that can bring more than just what you see in the books. And that's not, you can't explain that to people in the West. It doesn't have any evidence to support that. And it's hard to support, to convince the investment committee to agree with that. But many of the family offices across the border and funds around the region, they do that. And I don't know how, That playbook could be transparent or even convincing to people in Europe or in America. So what do corporations need to do before they show up in the region? I think they need to unlearn the headquarters logic first thing first. So whatever that logic, that framework that we have at home coming to Vietnam, they need to be willing to unlearn that and willing to let go and just listen. To study how business is taught, it's just how trust is earned and how power flows in this region. I have an example. This is a very big company that I've been dealing with for the last six months. And we were in discussions of setting up a presence here. And their team, in parallel, at Enter Vietnam, had many meetings with top companies, executives. And they came out, nothing done, nothing closed. And they said, our salespeople are there. We have teams there. They're moving and they're doing a lot of things, but they're It's not there. It's not converting. The money is not there. And I asked him, are you team Vietnamese? Are you team local people? No, we people from the US, people from Australia, people outside. We fly there often and we meet people and we meet companies. We meet decision makers. And I share with them what you're missing is a cultural translation layer. And you don't have that. You never know why deal is not closed. Why are you investing in the wrong thing? Because you don't have a cultural translation layer. People are sitting there and can sense and can interpret for you that whole energy in there. And that's what's really important. And I think companies in the US or in Europe or CVC, they're exploring, they want to do that. They need to not just have a consultant, not just have somebody to speak their language, but they have to have a local person who truly understands the translation layer, so that can help them to save more time and to be more effective.

Steve: 23:57

You talk about culture in this sense, the culture of Vietnam and the people there. I have to believe a piece of culture or culture in what you just described also relates to a company culture. You talk about unlearning that culture when looking to invest and scale in Vietnam. I'm curious if you're able to talk about that in the context of enterprise. Certainly a very cultural, has a very deep, a very strong culture going back to the founders, a culture that is very strong within the company today. As you went to scale and introduced the brand and the company to Vietnam, did you find yourself working through that with management back in the U.S. in the same way that you

Cuong: 24:46

just described? Enterprise is a very interesting case. Very smart. The people that I worked with, they have this framework. They have a way of doing it. I think everybody who goes to school for their MBA or executive MBA probably take on enterprise case study. And they're known for great management principles. And around the world, enterprise as the model is you arrive at the airport, you rent a car in advance and you pick up the car and you do that yourself in vietnam it's not much of a market about soft drive it's a market for people renting a car with drivers renting a car with driver and then also leasing long-term lease with corporate and long-term lease with a fleet without drivers or with drivers that model is also not very popular in America because labor is expensive and you don't just have a driver everywhere you go. That's when you go to Uber and you have a short ride hailing thing. In Vietnam, the enterprise didn't force us to take their playbook and let you share, this is what we've known, this is what we've done, and this is what worked for us. But then we want to know what this market represents, how people behave, how consumers make decisions here. They're very collaborative, they're very willing They're willing to listen and we figure out a way to work together. They never took that playbook and say, this is it. This is people work great in Thailand and also Indonesia and in China. They have to work in Vietnam. It's never about that mindset. Even those were very close, closely in our proximity, geographically speaking, and they never applied the same playbook. That's what I respect about them. They're not just culturally sensitive about the country, but they also respectful about the way that each business are working. So it has been a fantastic relationship.

Steve: 26:36

Thank you for sharing that.

Philipp: 26:37

Philip? Yeah, thank you for sharing also a bit of the inside baseball. And going back to what you just said on enterprise, but also in general about the interest of international investors, corporations entering Vietnam and Southeast Asia. And feel free to expand a bit on the Southeast Asia side here. If you think about the ecosystem and you want to build a cross-border ecosystem ecosystem and partnerships to really help the region to grow, find the right founders, really tap into the skills and the strengths the region has. So what is needed from the outside? What is needed from corporations and partners from the US, from the Western world? outside of capital and what is really kind of like, from your perspective, what would it make it really meaningful to create strong ecosystem partnerships?

Cuong: 27:28

I think it's not just Vietnam. I think you, very good question. It's not just Vietnam. It's around Southeast Asia. The biggest problem that we've seen is a fragmented community that the investors, most of the time that I've seen, they're coming in the region, they come in looking for deals. They're exploring and identifying the startups to put money in, but not many startups are leading the charge of building a more sustainable system or process that help these companies to be more effective. For example, in recent years, funds are focusing on ESG strength or ventures that are sustainable, friendly to the planet, whatever that is. And they're complaining, we don't have enough deal flows. We don't have enough startups that are doing that. When I hosted this conference for Forbes, many of the investors come in and share their perspective. I looked at it and I said, Well, if we look into this region, ESG is not a priority. It's something that Western European countries enforce on them because they need to sell. They need to manufacture and sell to them. They need to do it for compliance purposes, not for planet Earth in the beginning. So if we want to do that, we change the mindset. If we want to change the mindset, we have to create a system and platforms and programs to help groom people into producing startups. But nobody's leading the charts. Not many companies are actually doing that to influence the whole region. In Vietnam, I don't see anybody doing that just yet. And what would be meaningful is something that CVC or investors coming in to create a foundation or even jointly with other funds to create a framework, a foundation to help these companies to build and test out ideas before we can have more deal flows. And I think that's one of the things that they could do. And the second thing I have to go back to is to build and invest in leadership, because we have a lot of great founders and great raw talent in this region, but we're going to hit the depth in leadership in year two, year three, if they have growth. And that's been challenging for a lot of people.

Philipp: 29:37

Right. I can see that. And I mean, when we were sitting together in Vietnam a couple of weeks ago, we spoke about some of the universities were coming to the region and Sukuna Logistics University, for example. And I heard from you, you're also working with the university. Can you maybe talk a bit about what specifically is needed on the education side and also what you have recently done?

Cuong: 30:02

So most recently, I signed a partnership to represent Washington University in St. Louis, especially Olin Business School, and focusing on executive education. So in the beginning, we do some short courses, some programs, and then corporate training, and then after we're going to do full-time executive MBA programs. WashU is a very well-respected top 15 in America. The programs are great. The education system is wonderful in Vietnam.

Philipp: 30:39

It's a Harvard of the Midwest, Steve told me. I don't know if that's If that's how it is seen.

Steve: 30:43

It's a great school. It is absolutely a great school.

Cuong: 30:47

And they have wonderful reputation. I mean, even I think Jack Dorsey came out of that. Twitter just came out of that. And even back in an old day, ALL was an invention from it. Many of the programs they've done is great. But going back to Vietnam, for example, we have a lot of people and universities that are visiting Vietnam, but they bring students out. They bring the executives out to go to their own country Whereas what I want to build is I want to have commitment with WashU to bring their faculty here and do your full program here in Vietnam, just like what they've done in China. And WashU and Fudan partnership has become top three in the world in terms of executive MBA. They've done a fantastic job. And many people who've gone through this program, there's nothing short but amazing experience. So my thought of bringing something like that to enable students the generation which is SMEs or middle managers to elevate into executive level or startups, startup founders in growth stage that need more than just hustling. They need system, they need process, they need depth, they need leadership. And we could get some of that from practitioner. Practitioner means people who are running successful companies like Intel or Coca-Cola or P&G or whatever to come in and teach some short courses, but they're not very structured. They're not a program that is not vetted just like a very prestigious university. So we need both. We need structured and we need practitioners to come in and do things together. And that's why I'm very excited to bring this partnership together with WashU and serve the market in Vietnam and Southeast Asia.

Steve: 32:31

What a terrific story. And yeah, I'm sure it's having an amazing impact there locally. Why don't we close by looking ahead? End of the decade, 2030. What's the big story in Vietnam across Southeast Asia? And what are the things that need to happen today to make that 2030 vision a reality?

Cuong: 32:57

Vietnam is going through a very... extreme transformation for the better. The last two years, we had a new secretary general, a new government. He's Secretary General Do Lam from Vietnam. He has a lot of love from the citizens. And it's quite transformative what he's been doing, consolidating country and getting rid of corruptions and implementing programs. And most recently was eliminating tuition for K-12 for the whole country. That's just absolutely phenomenal. And he's done a lot of things for the country. What's missing is I think everybody's watching to see where Vietnam is headed because Vietnam is in a place where it has a lot of potential for certain industry in the future. Whether it's high-tech manufacturing, whether it's focusing on financial services, focusing on semiconductor and AI, we don't know what it's trying to do. And I know that Vietnam doesn't want to be just like China many years ago by continue to focus and expand on the lower value chain manufacturing anymore. They're going to have a niche. They're going to figure out what it is. And everybody is watching. And I think for me, my own projection, and it's a bit controversial, would be whatever that 2030 or 2045, which is they aim to be a high income country, to get out of the middle income trap. It's not about who you know anymore in Vietnam. And I hope that become the depth of your experience, of your knowledge and your expertise that people do care and give you the platform to continue to build. But it's not because the relationship-driven society that we've seen in Vietnam have been operating for the last 50 years since the war ended. So that's my take in the future.

Steve: 34:49

Kun, such a fascinating conversation. Thank you so much. Appreciate you taking a few minutes and joining us today. Yes, absolutely.

Cuong: 34:56

Thank you very much. It's wonderful to be here. Really appreciate it. Thank you, man.

Steve: 35:04

That's it for this episode of Inside CVC. A big thank you to Quang Dang for joining us and sharing his insights on the realities and opportunities of building innovation bridges between Vietnam, Southeast Asia, and the rest of the world. From the importance of cultural translation layers to the leadership depth needed for scaling companies, Quang's perspective offers valuable lessons for any corporate venture or innovation leader eyeing the region. Inside CVC is brought to you by UPath Advisors, a And to catch up on all of our episodes, search InsideCVC on your favorite podcast platform or visit upath.com forward slash podcast. Thanks for listening to InsideCVC, insights helping shape tomorrow.