Observations and Lessons from Vietnam’s Blooming Economy and Business Support Ecosystem.

After spending a month in Vietnam with SwissEP, here are some observations and ideas for improving startup support.

Indexed for quick reference:

Government

A communist regime has its benefits. My biggest observable benefit from this trip is that if the government decides to support or invest into a specific sector/cause, it will greatly flourish because there is strong continuity (since parties don’t change every election) and stability (policies are less likely to change as a new party steps into control). Since my previous trip in 2019, I observed a push towards accelerating innovation and business support, which has only appears to have grown stronger in this trip. Better yet, there appears to be a growing interest in supporting Social Impact Businesses (SIBs).

Businesses are hesitant to accept government funding in fear of being involved in corruption scandals. Government employees were also hesitant to push for funding initiatives because they didn’t want to make themselves targets for bribery.

Learning from how some funding programs are structured in Canada, if possible, they could explore having government grants that are disbursed through independent organizations. These organizations would be vetted, and are required to pass on 70-80% of the funding directly to the businesses that are applying for it, keeping no more than 20-30% for administrative fees. Disbursement organizations would do the work of qualifying businesses based on eligibility criteria, reporting, and financial management.

To take it a step further, grants could be set up to disburse through reimbursement instead of up-front cash. This would reduce irresponsible expenditure and ensure that businesses indeed spend on what they propose to use the funds for.

Other government related funding ideas to explore include tax credits (to encourage R&D or investment in specific sectors or technologies).

Easy to say, hard to do. Ecosystem stakeholders will have to do the heavy lifting to influence and nudge government in the necessary direction if it’s not already underway.

Universities

Entrepreneurship is a mindset, not a skill.

All of the universities have some form of entrepreneurship center/incubation program. Partially because the government has been pushing them to do so and uses “# of companies started” as a KPI to evaluate university performance. As such, many of them are pushing students to start companies; however, they’re understandably seeing low survivability rates for these student-led businesses.

Students are here for an experience and to learn. They’re not serious, and sometimes they don’t yet know their mission/calling and need more time to explore. When they graduate, many are eager to get a job – to pay of student loans/gain more experience.

Instead, my encouragement to the universities I had the chance to speak to was to focus on alumni, to explore the commercialization of research, or to better engage existing corporations/startups instead of trying to create new ones.

Commercialization of research comes with it’s own set of challenges: primarily around IP ownership. I don’t have the easy answer to this as I’ve yet to see any university (western too) that has found a satisfactory method to address IP distribution and disputes. Everyone wants a piece of the pie. Stakeholders include: the company, university, and researcher (which in some cases, will become the founder and will want to run the company. In others, will want nothing to do with commercialization and be content with licensing their IP).

The reminder here is that IP is worthless unless successfully commercialized, and more importantly, can’t be commercialized successfully if no one is willing to relinquish it. Ultimately, the company should own 100% of the IP, less it will make it neigh impossible to find investors and other companies will never want to acquire them in the future.

Consider how IP could be gradually “earned” through time vested or bought over from the university/researcher. There’s no perfect way to do this, but I believe it’s more important for universities & researchers to tamper their expectations, be less greedy, and instead settle for a reasonable profit in exchange for the reputation instead of trying to hog IP that can’t be commercialized because no one can reach a settlement.

For engaging with corporations/startups, here are 2 ideas observed from initiatives I’ve seen played out in Canada:

Research programs that companies can apply to and get help for solving their problems.

For example, a university could establish a reputation for having a good food processing R&D initiative. Companies that need food processing support would naturally be drawn towards working with that university. Such a program would help students get more real-life experience, expose companies to potential future hires, and bolster the university’s reputation if the research yields interesting innovation. Mitacs is an example initiative that could be mimicked to further facilitate this type of academic + industry collaboration.

Open community skill oriented projects

Similar to the above, but instead of R&D heavy projects where researchers would be matched with companies, utilizing classes or courses to create projects that will benefit startups.

For example, there was an academic institution called RED Academy (discontinued) which focuses on industry-oriented skill training. e.g. digital marketing, website development, UX Design. They had a program where they would intake startups from the community to help them create a website. These startups would be assigned student groups from their web development and UX classes and the students would have to work together with the startups over a semester to create a polished website. It would culminate in a demo day where all the startups would gather to see the websites built by the student groups, should they like it, they can decide to keep and use these assets. This also created an opportunity for students and startups to evaluate each other for potential working opportunities.

Ecosystem Support Organizations

So many! To add onto the different centers and programs run by universities, there’s no shortage of private and public incubators/accelerators. Some cities even have upwards of 20 different organizations, many of which don’t clearly differentiate from each other and offer overlapping, if not identical support.

Differentiation/Distinction

As there are only so many ways you can support entrepreneurs, differentiation is always beneficial, but definitely not a requirement. An organization can still thrive if they provide excellent support whilst staying financially sustainable. Even if you’re not providing different support services, leveraging a distinctive angle will help better attract the right companies and also make it easier to attract or seek unique sources of funding.

Here are many potential ways to distinguish your organization from the others:

A misconception is that specialization results in less deal flow because you automatically alienate companies that don’t fit. This pressure is amplified if you’re in a smaller community or already struggling to find companies for your programs. It can be easy to think that the best course of action is to keep your options open and to work with anyone who’s willing to work with you.

I would argue otherwise.

Many founders still poorly understand the value of a business incubator/accelerator/consultant, and even to those who do, will primarily decide who to work with based on personal and business compatibility. Generalization dilutes your angle on compatibility.

Specialization makes it easier for the right companies to self-identify and apply to you. It also makes it easier for partners to identify and refer the right companies to you. If you’ve established a strong reputation in that area of specialization, founders will be more willing to travel to and potentially relocate their company to your city.

This is especially relevant to smaller communities a.k.a. flyover cities facing talent drain. Organizations in the community could collaborate to decide on how to best position the city and how they will each play complementary but not overlapping roles. Positioning should ideally leverage local resources or attractions.

For example: The city of Whitehorse in Yukon, Canada is a cold tundra region. It could be position as an ideal region for AI or Cloud Computing companies because it would require less energy to cool down their already power hungry servers.

Similarly, Hội An in the Quảng Nam Province of Vietnam could be positioned as an ideal pilot city for tourism or hospitality oriented startups given that a majority of the cities economy relies on tourism. A small community can also be positioned as an advantage – good pilot cities for startups to test and experiment before launching into larger metropolitan areas.

For more detailed reasoning: If you position yourselves as THE incubator for fashion companies.

Decide which lane you will play in and stay in it. Embrace that you’ll have to refer some potential clients to other organizations instead of trying to do everything. Also, don’t pursue specialization just because it’s trendy. For example, now that AI is the hot topic, don’t everyone go rushing into it. The same was observed with many organizations attempting to run SIB or female entrepreneur related programs.

If you’d like to get more ideas on differentiation, check out this detailed post to learn more about different ways to stand out and protect yourself from competitors. The decision to differentiation does not need to be done in a vacuum, as peers working toward a common goal, despite competing, organizations should get together to discuss. Discussions from these meetings may not feel productive if organizations are not cooperative or have conflicting agendas, some may even try to copy your ideas. Even so, they will still try to differentiate, nobody likes competing for the same pool of funding/revenue. Communicating your intentions helps deter others from moving into your lane and it may even help generate referrals.

Public vs. Private Sector Support Organizations

Less relevant if you’re a public organization, but some key reminders for private organizations whereby the founder/CEO = the business.

You are are not, and should not be your business. It may start that way, but you’ll want to transition away from it so that your business can grow and scale without you. As such, empower your employees:

Get your network from “in your head” to “on a spreadsheet”

It’s still yours, but at the same time is also the organization’s. Employees shouldn’t need to approach you to ask for suggestions for mentors, guest speakers, vendors, potential investors, customers, or partners to connect your companies with.

If you don’t trust your employees to make the right referrals, you’re not doing it right: Have you hired the wrong people? Did you provide them the right training and guidance? Did you share enough context and information on your “spreadsheet” so that they know what makes a good/bad intro?

Let them make decisions, facilitate your programs or start their own, consult with your companies

You shouldn’t be a 1-man-show, empower them with the training and information they need to succeed.

Instead of telling them what to do (tactics), show them how to do it (frameworks, tools, templates)

The former varies depending on context and it’s hard for your inexperienced employees to give specific advice to many your many different companies. The latter is however, more universal and timeless. Equip your program managers with them so that they can ideate on initiatives that your companies can test.

Build a library of stories and examples

Most of the advice we give comes from our personal experience or observations, compile them in detail so that your employees may also learn from them and incorporate them into program content or the advice that they give to your companies.

Build the brand and reputation of your organization

You can still leverage your strong personal reputation for the benefit of your organization, but remember, you won’t have the capacity to work with everyone that seeks your support. Don’t let ego get in the way; instead, elevate your team and build their reputation.

Activities

Competitions

Many startup competitions overemphasize pitching. It’s too much like a popularity contest. I generally discourage entrepreneurs from partaking them as the time invested isn’t worth the value returned. Yes pitching is important, but it’s not everything. Some entrepreneurs are amazing at pitching but terrible at execution; the reverse is also true.

Instead, focus more on pitch feedback. Or, if you run a competition, make it worthwhile for companies to get involved by building in mentorship or direct exposure to potential customers. Otherwise, the prize and media coverage better be worth it.

Hackathons

My favorite activity for company creation. I recommend more! Focus less on “building/coding” type of hackathons and design them to be more about getting out of the room, doing customer interviews, and market or demand validation. From my experience of participating and volunteering in, Startup Weekend by TechStars is one of the best models to mimic.

I believe hackathons are the best for birthing new companies because:

In hackathons, you usually pitch your idea and form a team around it. Because it’s done this way (as opposed to a skill/position approach when you go out to find a co-founder: “I’m looking for a CTO!”), you’ll tend to form a team that is much stronger as they are genuinely passionate about your idea/mission. When you form a team by looking for skills, it’s harder to filter for interest/passion because candidates who are interested will say the things you want to hear because they know that’s what will get them the opportunity. By forming teams around the idea/mission, it’s easier to filter for skill after attracting people who are authentically interested in your idea.

Hackathons also provide the opportunity to form a better team by allowing you to better assess your teammates behavior under high pressure. To add to that, people form stronger bonds when they overcome obstacles or go through bad experiences together.

Prizes are a nice incentive, but even if a team doesn’t win, many survive post-hackathon because the demonstrated traction or market validation done during the event gives them the motivation to continue. Unlike many other startups that inadvertently focus on building a solution first, only to realize quickly after launching that there is poor demand.

Incubation

• Training & education is good, but ensure that you incorporate real-world experience into your curriculum, not just as assignments or homework. Build in sessions dedicated for these activities. Force your companies to go outside, pick up the phone, speak to customers, validate, get rejected.
• Beyond content, the value of your network (mentors, investors, potential partners/customers) is equally important. Be strategic, invest time and energy in curating and fostering your network, and highlight it as a key selling feature.
• A program/cohort-based approach will require you to fill your funnel with new companies every time you run it. It’s neither a pro/con, but recognize it and have the accompanying activities to constantly nurture new leads. Depending on how you price vs. your # of employees, you may need to run multiple cohorts a year to be financial sustainable . Whilst at Spring, to support our team of 3 through revenue from the incubation program alone, we found ourselves running 1 cohort every other month (6 a year). Each cohort was about 10-20 companies. To get that number of new companies every 2 months, we had to run at least 1 workshop and attend 1 community every week. We’d usually do more. Including weekly evening sessions for our active cohort, I was working till 9/10pm 3-4 days a week.

Of course, you don’t have to depend on only 1 stream of revenue. Leverage sponsors and fully maximizing your co-working space as a real-estate business. Many support organizations misunderstand the role of a physical space and overestimate what they need. Space isn’t necessary for innovation; in-fact, many startups won’t need office space when they start. And vice versa, co-working tenants often never partake in your programs. They’re well and truly 2 separate businesses and should be operated as such, trying to tie them together or use shared resources to promote them only leads to a distracted team and diluted brand.

Acceleration

Incubation gets you from idea -> launch. Regardless of business, type of solution, technology, or industry, there are common challenges and business basics that can be packaged into a program.

Acceleration on the other hand, is about getting from launch -> scale. This is where paths start to diverge and more bespoke support becomes necessary. I’m not a fan of acceleration support done through a program or cohort-based approach. Instead, I recommend just-in-time models that allow founders to raise issues as they arise and get the help they need when they need it.

Consulting-based or peer groups/masterminds are some examples. In those formats, if a company has a pressing fundraising problem, they won’t need to wait till the session on fundraising to address it.

Problem is, how do you scale just-in-time/bespoke since you can’t copy-paste like when you run cohorts for a program? Here are some ideas:

Rolling intake

Ideally, companies should be able to join anytime instead of needing to wait 3-6 months for the next cohort to begin. This might not be possible when you start, but you’ll want to transition to a structure that will allow you to either start new groups relatively frequently or roll them into ongoing groups.

Program Managers Portfolio/Account Managers

The role of a Program Manager shifts or is replaced by a portfolio/account manager. This subtle difference allows them to think in an ongoing company/capacity perspective instead of a time-bound cohort approach.

“Automate” what you can control

Since you can’t copy-paste content, be attentive to recurring problems and opportunities that are raised by your companies. Create assets (frameworks, guides, templates, self-paced virtual content) that will remove the need for you to repeatedly answer the same question manually.

Automate your marketing and standardize your recruitment process. You should also do this if your run programs, but it’s more important than ever if you’re doing bespoke. Create intake application workflows, a company evaluation scoring sheet, templates for tracking progress, and more…

Identify a common growth objective

Although I said that acceleration shouldn’t be programmatic in nature, there is a specific instance where it can work: when you orient it around a specific growth objective. For example, a program for exporting into a new market, fundraising program to raise a seed round, or a growth program that aims to double a company’s revenue. Doing this however, requires that you have the specific expertise to help companies achieve those objectives.

Investment Funds

Specifically observed in Vietnam. Every organization is interested in or runs a startup fund. Here are reasons why most organizations should stay away from starting or managing one, even if it’s easy to get money for it:

Your fund isn’t your main selling point

Many organizations believe that they need a fund to be attractive to entrepreneurs and be competitive in the ecosystem. If everyone’s doing it, following along doesn’t make you different.

Instead, cultivate your specialization and build a reputation for it. This is important even if you already have a fund. Savvy entrepreneurs would rather accept smart money from strategic organizations that can help them accelerate by opening more doors than a mediocre organizations that are trying to be a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none.

Not all companies need funding

Money doesn’t solve all problems. Many entrepreneurs think they need funding, most don’t actually need it, and fewer are ready for it.

Fundraising isn’t the best option for cashflow or operational capital. If the entrepreneurs you meet have those problems, they need to fix them before they’re ready to raise capital.

The nature of fundraising also pushes companies down the hyperscale route. That itself isn’t a bad thing; however, some founders want to or have solutions are better suited to grow via bootstrapping/alternative capital (loans/grants/crowdfunding). There’s no one right way to build a business and it’s more important to encourage them to build a business that they enjoy running.

Funds aren’t a viable option for sustainable revenue (for most)

Funds take 7-10 years to realize a return because it takes just as long for most startups to go from inception to exit. In that time, it’s not generating revenue and instead costs you time and money to manage.

On top of that, startup investing is risky business. The average success rate for angel investors is 1 in 100. If you don’t have a large enough fund to diversify your portfolio and contribute to follow on rounds, you might not turn a profit. For this same reason, angels are the main funding source for startups. Angel investors are only accountable to themselves, VCs or family funds manage other people’s capital thus are more risk adverse and have stricter investment criteria.

Starting a fund is only a good idea If you have the patience to see it to fruition and enough expandable capital that you wouldn’t cry over if lost. Otherwise, play the long game. For example, instead of starting a fund to address the lack of capital for SIBs, Spring focused on investor training and popularizing alternative paperwork like redeemable shares or revenue-backed financing to foster a larger pool of impact investors in the local community.

Program Promotion/Startup Recruitment

Internal vs. External Language

You don’t have to (and might not want to) use the same terms you use to talk about your activities to describe your program to the general public.

For example, “Hackathon” is internal industry lingo that refers to intensive events whereby participants present ideas, form teams, work together, and finally pitch their lessons/progress. The term originated from the tech sector but is now also often used to describe non-technical competitions that follow a similar format. Many of which don’t even require the development of any functional software, product, or service.

As such, we may still refer to those activities as “Hackathons” internally for the purpose of understanding our planning initiatives or when describing it to potential funders/sponsors. However, if they’re not technical in nature, we should use other language externally like “Design Jam” or “XYZ Challenge” to better communicate the event and reduce misconceptions (e.g. I should only participate if I have the technical knowledge to build something) that might hinder registrations.

Another example is Đông Á University in Da Nang. They run a startup competition (that’s what it’s called externally), but the training, mentorship, format, and support they provide throughout the competition has it looking more like an incubation program from an organizer’s perspective.

Redefine Marketing

Marketing as we traditionally think of it = paid advertising and social media. These mediums are only effective IF it’s easy to communicate the value of your program through words and imagery. This is possible IF you have a very clear (who it’s for, what the outcomes are, how it works) and unique (clearly differentiate from the many alternatives) program. Unfortunately, although we all think we are different or better, and communicate it well, it’s rarely the case. As with many other service businesses, our clients only best understand the value and quality difference in our offerings by experiencing it first-hand.

Words and imagery aren’t sufficient and convincing enough to capture and articulate experiences. Hence, support organizations get most of their deal flow through referrals/word-of-mouth instead. Put yourself in your client’s shoes. If you were an entrepreneur, how would you choose between incubator A or B, or consultant A or B? They could toot their own horn and claim to be the best, but you still wouldn’t trust them. You would make your decision based on:

• Reviews or testimonials, bonus if you see something positive said by someone you know/trust.
• If you were referred or recommended to by someone in your network.
• If you’ve “tried” before you buy, i.e. attended an event, workshop, or booked a consultation session run by the organization and it left you with a positive impression.

The former 2 are indicative of you making your judgement based on the experience of others, and the latter, your personal experience. Ergo, show, don’t tell. Instead of trying to communicate the value of your programs, you need to give people a means to experience it.

I’ve advised support organizations to stop wasting their time (and money) marketing their programs. That advice has been met with resistance, I’ve failed to clarify. I should have said: “If you stop traditional marketing to focus on word-of-mouth/referrals, it doesn’t mean that you lose control on deal flow.” There is a false impression that:

• You can’t control the volume of referrals you get. That’s not true, there are direct activities you can do that will predictably generate referrals on a regular basis.
• Traditional marketing is predictable. More money you put into it = more leads. Also not true, you could make a lot of noise and it will get you noticed, but the # of leads you’ll get isn’t proportional to your spend. This approach only works well with physical products or unique solutions that can be easily communicated with image/text.

Focus instead on experiential marketing.

In the context of entrepreneurship support programs: events, workshops or webinars, panel discussions, fireside chats, demo day, info sessions, and free consultation or strategy sessions are ways to expose them to what working with you is like, the energy of your community, the strength of your network, the knowledge of your experts. A sample of your experience.

Events are still a form of marketing. In fact, it’s possible and easier to advertise for events (compared to programs) because:

• You can define an event with a clear and specific topic.
• Your speaker’s reputation can pull a crowd.
• There’s a lower barrier to entry (events cost less than programs). The more expensive (both money, but also time) something is, the more people want to experience it or speak to someone before committing. Same reason why organizations that sell high ticket items are more sales rather than marketing dependent.

I said stop marketing your programs, I didn’t say stop marketing entirely. Promote what people easily understand and recognize that people need to take a few steps before they can buy into your program. Here’s what your experiential marketing funnel might look like: Ad -> Workshop -> Email Inquiry -> Strategy Call -> Program.

Facilitate referrals/word-of-mouth

Besides giving people a first-hand experience, the next best thing you can do is cultivate transparency on second-hand experience. A lot of this won’t feel like the type of marketing you’re used to, but is still marketing all the same. There’s still a target audience, messaging, different channels, and % of conversion that you’ll aim to optimize.

Here are some specific actions that you can take today (and repeatedly for every program/cohort):

#1 Decide on a specialization or reputation that you’d like to establish for your organization.

The sooner, the better your deal flow volume and quality.

#2 Solicit testimonials and reviews from your alumni.

Automate solicitation in your workflow. e.g. in your post-program communication.

You don’t need to post them on every channel. Leverage the ones that are relevant for your region/culture: Website, Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Baidu (百度), etc.

#3 Have your alumni share their experience (what they learned, how the program helped them), not just their progress in your info sessions or demo day.

#4 Leverage alumni as fireside chat guests, panel discussion members, or workshop guest speakers.

They aren’t just “students”, but also have much to teach and are often eager to give back.

Of course, it helps if they say something positive about your program too. However, don’t directly ask them to give a promotional pitch or it won’t be authentic. Instead, ask them to do #3 above.

#5 Reach out to other organizations in your ecosystem that serve your potential customers.

Not just once, but for every upcoming intake or new program. Of course, in moderation and respectfully.

Tell them who’s a good fit, ask if they know anyone who might be interested, or request that they spread the word in their next newsletter or on their social channels.

Make it as easy as possible for them to share by tagging them on social posts that they can repost or pre-writing sharable content that they can easily copy-paste-edit in a social sharing package.

#6 Build exposure and referrals directly into your programs. For example, an open session where members can invite outsiders to join an existing cohort/group to get a taste of the value and experience.

For a detailed example, you might have heard of personal development/life-changing/leadership programs like Landmark or PSI. They’re highly experience-driven as participants walk away with something different depending on their initial circumstances, how they interpret the lessons, how they apply them to their personal situation, and what actions they took. Many of these programs even come across as somewhat “cult-ish” because participants who experience eye-opening transformations are overly enthusiastic about encouraging their friends and family members to go through the same.

I’m not a fan of how they design word-of-mouth, but there are some elements worth learning from and some improvements that could be made for it to be less cult-ish.

Disclaimer: Many of the lessons and frameworks they share are truly valuable. Often, the impact is greatest to those who are “broken”. Although I use the word broken, it would be incorrect to describe these individuals as flawed or damaged. Many relationship issues or our sense of self worth stem not from personal issues but instead from an incorrect mindset or misattributed meaning to events that have occurred to us. The less problems, misconceptions, blindspots, incorrect beliefs, etc. you have, the less life-changing such a program will be for you.

Worth mimicking: They build open sessions directly into their program. There’s an evening where participants can, and are encouraged to bring guests to join the program. This allows guests to hear what participants have learned and listen to the real life-changing impact that it has had on their friend/family (and other participants). Not only does this provide prospects with a chance to get a taste of the experience, it’s also designed to facilitate and encourage word-of-mouth.

Another thing done well here is how they manage expectations and build trust. It’s made clear for program participants to maintain confidentiality on the sensitive and very personal things that others share. The organizers also make it clear that participants should only share what they’re comfortable with in this open session as they’re exposing themselves to outsiders who have not committed to the same agreement of confidentiality.

What they could change: They do a lot to encourage participants to invite and share the value with others; however, they don’t provide much guidance on how to properly share without coming across as being overbearing.

Another idea that I’ve yet to have the opportunity to implement is to do something similar for mastermind groups. In groups that I facilitate, we have hotseats for each session. These hotseats are 30-minute presentations designed to give a single company the room for a deep-dive into their problem and to receive detailed feedback. To encourage word-of-mouth and to expose outsiders to the experience, we could run occasional open sessions whereby existing members could invite a friend who they believe might benefit from being on the hotseat. This also gives members in the group an opportunity to be creative and work on solving new problems. By looking at someone else’s problem, it helps them put their own in perspective and come up with new ideas.

Incentives: Internal vs. External motivation

A final word of caution on the topic: It might sound like a good idea to incentivize people for referrals by rewarding them with cash or credits. This is a form of external motivation. Research (read Jonah Berger’s book Contagious: Why Things Catch On for a more detailed explanation) however, has shown that providing external motivation actually decreases referrals as it offsets the intrinsic desire (or internal motivation) for someone to refer something because they truly believe it’s of value to the receiver. Should the receiver be aware of the sharer’s reward, it also decreases their perception of value for what’s being referred as the act of referral is seen as inauthentic.

My personal experience with this aligns with the lesson. Early at Spring, we explored implementing referral credits for our programs, only to see referrals drop to 0.

For more ideas and examples on how to encourage referrals and speak to internal motivation, I strongly recommend learning about Jonah’s STEPPS framework in the book linked above.

Community Events

A rising tide floats all boats. Instead of promoting your own events for your own agenda, explore collaborative events that aim to collectively excite and educate the greater community.

Vancouver Startup Week is one such example. It’s a week-long event with workshops, startup open offices, competitions, and even parties. It exposes and elevates the entire sector whilst promoting collaboration and referrals between the various organizations that serve similar customers.

Punctuality

A word on this as it appears to be a common challenge faced by every organization I’ve met (not just in Asia). Everyone blames it on the local culture and defaults to designing their events to account for tardiness (15-30 minute buffer/networking time before actually starting).

I disagree on this approach and I’ve implemented an alternative which has seen success. If you account for people showing up late, people WILL show up late as they’ve come to expect that the main event doesn’t start till a while after.

Time is valuable, both for you and your entrepreneurs. Teach and encourage them to respect their time and the time of others. Bad etiquette translates outside of events and damages their reputation when they are slow to communicate or late to meetings (customers, partners, advisors, investors). This also affects you if you’re the one referring them to someone else.

So what can you do?

Start your events ON-TIME

Yes, people will still show up late, but as you run more events, less and less will do so as you start to establish your reputation with events.

Set and manage expectations around punctuality

Make it explicit in your event description and agenda. I’ve even gone as far as not letting people in after a certain time. Originally this was because I lacked the manpower to buzz people up the elevator once I started, but found that this led to better attendee behaviour in future events despite alienating a few people (who I probable wouldn’t want to work with anyways) who weren’t on-time.

Give them a reason to show up on-time

This is why we kick-off events with strong keynote speakers (building in “networking” time at the start of your event defeats the purpose, people who are interested will show up early to network or can do so after).

Start events with community announcements. This encourages people who have something to share to be punctual. Announcements are under 60s and don’t only have to come from other organizations. Individuals are also encouraged to share if they believe there’s something to gain from the people in the room. For example: Looking for a job, hiring, launching a product and looking for early users, doing a survey, etc. It also helps foster your community.

Or have giveaways/share resources like slides, templates etc. at the start instead of the end.

Being Strategic with Activities

Every organization I’ve met is stretched thin with a lean team that’s trying to do too many things. Automation and standardization of workflows/processes help, but it’s more important to strategically align and design your activities to ensure that they’re leading to the right desired outcomes, feeding into and complementing each other, and reducing the need for you to replicate the same thing in different ways.

Here’s a checklist to go through everything you explore running a new activity, initiative, or event:

If you enjoyed this read, here are more lessons from my trip: