With an income of 42 million VND per month and holding a management position at a multinational company, Mr. Ngo Cong Truong still decided to give up. After initial difficulties, his own company now has a turnover of 5.4 billion VND per year.

Below is an article about a startup story shared by Mr. Ngo Cong Truong, Chairman of VietBurning Education and Consulting Company with VnExpress readers.

I am 29 years old, born and raised in Quang Nam. Also because I come from a poor family in the Central region, I have known to be independent since childhood, with a lot of passion, determination and iron will in life.

When I was 15 years old, I entered high school at the High School for Mathematics, Hue University of Science, then I studied Mechatronics - Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology. Right from the first year, I went through a lot of work to find my passion and try to see which field is my strong point.

I choose to do things that are not related to the engineering that I am studying, from organizing a Play Station game competition for students in Ho Chi Minh City, to keeping cars, keeping helmets, selling flowers, then worked as a tutor, 2D-3D mechanical design, marketing at an international English center... to explore his own business capabilities.

After graduating from university, I decided to stay in Saigon to work, then experienced many positions at multinational companies from interns, trainee administrators, employees, senior managers. middle to senior management.

In 2010, when he was in a managerial position of a multinational company with a salary and bonus of about 42 million dong per month (about half a billion dong a year), it was considered the dream and striving goal of many people. people, but I gave up and chose to start a business because I thought that when I decided to do something, I had to do it quickly. Furthermore, my inclination is to act, because if there is a dream without a plan of action, it will just be a daydream and become an illusion or fantasy.

At that time, I thought, if I go to work, let's say I am working to the position of head of the department and receive a salary of about 1,500 USD per month, equivalent to 18,000 USD a year, including a bonus of 20,000 USD. After 10 years of working, the income is about 200,000 USD, if including salary increase and promotion, it reaches 250,000 USD, or 5 billion VND.

But I have the opposite problem, if you start your own business, in 10 years, you can earn 5 billion VND, maybe from the first day if you are lucky, or maybe the last day of the 10th year. From year 11 onwards, you will have your own business with 10 years of experience and a professional staff.

In addition, I also believe that starting a business must be started early so that if there is a failure, it must fail quickly. Only then will success come to me soon after many failures.

I started out very simply and by accident. From the beginning, I just wanted to use all my passion, youth and enthusiasm to contribute to the community. So I chose the field of counseling and education, in which there are many different activities. The concept that if you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far, go with many people, and finally I decided to choose the type of joint stock company so that many people can contribute: "I am willing to share to own a It is better to have a small slice of the pie in a large company than to own a large slice of the pie in a small company."

At first, I was a bit confused and didn't know what to do with this company, because there was not much capital, no office, no idea, limited capacity, no relationship... But then, after the ambiguity At that time, I chose the field of soft skills training for students and this is a market with many competitors.

This project is a trading platform for students, including hostels, tutors, jobs, skills, services... It is considered my brainchild with a lot of enthusiasm and effort. However, after a period of maintenance, due to insufficient resources (capital, people, relationships) to support the project, I decided to close.

After that, I found a new field of activity that the company could pursue in the near future, and in line with the set goals, it was "Optimizing the business operating system" - Operational Excellence (OE), based on Lean concept, Six Sigma - statistical process improvement method to reduce error rate. This is how I can help businesses get it right the first time, reducing waste, consistent quality, increasing profits, increasing competitiveness and sustainability.

This method is quite old in the world, but still new in Vietnam. That's why when I started implementing it, I faced a big challenge because I was one of the pioneers in this field in Vietnam. Over the course of two years, I have continuously shared my knowledge of OE with the business community, entrepreneurs, and startups to help them understand the concept.

I believe that whether society can reduce waste or not, each individual in society must reduce waste. And if we want to compete with countries in the region, we must achieve the same level of efficiency and surpass them. Moreover, I have passion and strong belief that Vietnam can completely become an exporter of value and knowledge.

Because of finding the right path, after a long time trying to research and experiment in many different directions, I now have certain successes. Currently, the company has more than 40 clients in the field of consulting and education, of which 80% are Vietnamese companies and 20% are multinational companies.

Our customers today are all leaders in the fields they operate in, from plastics, timber, hospitals, banks, manufacturing, services to start-ups.

After a period of initial operation, the company's current average monthly revenue is about 450 million VND (5.4 billion per year), and the revenue target in 2015 is at least 600 million per month ( ie 7.2 billion a year).

Although what I have achieved is not a big thing, it is also a valuable experience that I have learned after 5 years of starting a business and now want to share it again. I want to say, when starting a business, there will certainly be many difficulties and it is never rosy.

To be successful, you need to start a smart and lean startup, following the concept of OE (reducing waste, reducing costs, increasing profits). In addition, you should focus on what is your core competitive strength, what we do is not as good as others, boldly outsource, and do not need to be the one to do it all. Besides, you should care about real efficiency, don't be afraid of others saying you don't know how to do it.

For example, when you start a business and succeed, 50% of people like you, the rest don't. It's important that you look at half of the people who are advocating to try because we can't live to please everyone. Besides, let's have dreams that make everyone laugh at first glance, but then have to actualize it with specific actions to make the dream come true. At that time, you are the one smiling, not anyone else.

I also think that, if you don't study methodically in school, you have to study in life school with very high tuition fees. Therefore, I personally invest in both classroom learning and practical learning. I am currently studying for a PhD in business administration and running my own business.

Another thing that I feel is that many young people today almost only want to learn success stories, but few people will learn about failure. But did you know that behind the success stories of today's business owners are their terrible times of failure. Then you should boldly fail, stumble, but do not be allowed to repeat the failures and mistakes that have been experienced. Finally, always remember that if you want to have an end, you must have a beginning, who is big but never small, who succeeds without fail, from there as a foundation for your start-up.