Pham Hoang Thai Duong started his own company immediately after graduation and achieved a lot of success. He had a great passion for programming and decided to establish a company specialized in outsourcing.
After 3 years, the company had developed and needed a restructure. A restructure required a huge amount of money. Duong didn’t have the money needed and was forced to leave the company and sell his shares without receiving one single dollar.
“At that time, after losing my own company, is felt very upset and depressed. I was bankrupt, my father became ill, and my mother was undergoing radiation treatments for cancer, so my mood was really bad. I wasn’t going to allow myself to sit around and be sad, I had to get out of the situation as quick as possible,” Duong said.
Pham Hoang Thai Duong succeeded with a new startup model.
Researching different businesses, Duong noticed that not many companies in the flower market were able to achieve great supplies. Usually, flower shops only manage to take in around 50 orders per day. To be able to handle up to hundreds or thousands of orders per day, you need a support system software.
As he researched the business models of big flower companies all over the world, the former IT engineer discovered that the computer plays an important role in the process of operating a company, processing orders, and analyzing data. Duong seized the opportunity and set up a flower delivery website called Hoa Yêu Thương.
Having taken out a loan of $ 700 USD, Duong set up the website with just a minimum of functions. The website was officially published on October 10, 2010.
On the first day of business, 12 orders came in via the website. He inherited an amount of knowledge about flowers and flower decorations from his mother, so he went out and bought the flowers, arranged them, and delivered them to the customers himself. For each order sold, Duong earned 100,000 VND.
“At first, my family and friends objected because they didn’t believe the flower industry could grow nor that I had what it took as I was a technical person,” Duong, who was born in 1981, said.
Although he both lived and worked in the same room, after receiving 12 orders on the first day, he felt motivated to continue his work.
Duong’s company got off to a good start, but after the holidays orders began to decrease gradually, and only a few orders sporadically showed up. In order to stay in business, Duong had to earn money using his experience and technological knowledge to give advice to and implement eCommerce solutions for other companies.
This extra job unexpectedly brought in 1,5 billion VND in three years, money that enabled him to invest in research activities. He continually kept trying to maintain the flower sales and tested it all on the same software he and his team developed to build a professional flower service.
“Our technology intelligently handles the ordering process, calculates the delivery time accurately as well as the amount of materials that should be imported,” Duong said, adding that he still remembers the difficulties of his early career in the flower market. He used to perform every single task himself. He doesn’t even remember how many times he was told to leave the inn where he lived because he didn’t have money to pay the rent. At New Year 2014, Duong owed more than 300 million VND and was forced to close his flower shop. He had to bring everything he owned to a pawn shop to get through the day, such as his phone, car, and camera.
Although having only two employees working in a small office in an alley, Duong’s entrepreneurial model was selected a successful Google Display Network (GDN) applying business model. Duong was to introduce to local and regional businesses how he successfully implemented GDN. Duong’s business model was also invested in by funds, and media companies honored his company among 4 other startup companies. This was the motivation Duong and his team needed to believe that the path they had chosen was the right one.
To always be able to supply the most beautiful flowers, every three months Duong held a flower arrangement contest for employees to look for new designs. More than 345 flowers appeared on the website which was designed by Duong and his team. If a flower design didn’t fit the market and didn’t sell, it would be replaced. It was very important to Duong not to use imported flowers, as he wanted to stimulate the development of Vietnam’s flower market.
On October 20, Duong’s company offers 350 products and makes more than 900 million VND per month. The 35 m2 flower shop is already overcrowded, and the company often has to stop taking in orders.
Using data accumulated for 5 years combined with feng shui elements, weather, and business information, the BI (Business Intelligence) system created by Duong can predict the number of incoming orders, so the company can make sure there’s enough flowers on stock, as well as enough employees to complete customer orders.
“In the near future, Vietnam’s flower market will be worth more than a billion dollars. To get its share of this potential market, my company needs capital to reinvest and continuously develop. We aspire to build up the ecosystem of the Vietnamese flower market during the next 5 years, so Vietnam will be one of the top five countries with a growing flower industry and is named on the “flower map” of the world,” Duong says.
Written by Diễm Phạm