In recent times, a growing number of students in Da Nang have become actively involved with startups, breaking through barriers to bring their innovative ideas and quality products to the market. Noticeably, they deserve great praise for being creative and dare to take risks and not be afraid of failure, as well as learning from experience to fuel future success.

The CEO of the Da Nang Entrepreneurship Support Company Ldt (DNES), Mr Pham Duc Nam Trung, sharing startup experience with local students at a recent event

‘My Son - Vanishing Cultures Tour’ was amongst the 5 startup projects participated in the recent Demo Day investment festival held by the Songhan Incubator (SHi) at the city-based University of Architecture in order to raise capital at their early stage.  

How to promote the time-honoured Champa culture, which is facing the threat of falling into oblivion, and attract even more visitors to the My Son Sanctuary as well, has always occupied the mind of Duong Thi Diem My, who has graduated from the Da Nang University of Foreign Language Studies. This sole reoccupation indeed inspired the girl to embark upon the ‘My Son - Vanishing Cultures Tour’ start-up project.

Under the project, My is planning to open a Champa restaurant at the sanctuary, and meticulously chooses traditional Champa dishes such as ‘canh chua thap cam’ (sour suop using miscellaneous ingredients, and ‘ca ro kho la me’ (anabases cooked with tamarind leaves) in order to serve her customers.

With her ambition of bringing back the Champa cuisine to the My Son Sanctuary, My is determined to make great efforts to bring her startup idea into fruition despite whatever challenges she has to face.

Developing start-up projects is very tough as challenges, difficulties, and even repeated failures can become common startup problems. In reality, most startups developed by students fail in early stages due to their lack of the 4 most important elements for successful entrepreneurship: time, knowledge, experience, and such resources as finance and manpower.

23-year-old Nguyen Mai Ly, for example, could not proceed with her iKids startup project because of a shortage of financial and human resources.

However, such a failure did not discourage the young woman as she always keep in her mind that “Failures, mistakes, screw-ups, and shortcomings not only make us uniquely who we are, but also teach us powerful lessons”.

Ly realised that she had learnt valuable experience from her start-up project. Hence, her potential and creativity was stimulated well.

The CEO of the Da Nang Entrepreneurship Support Company Ldt (DNES), Mr Pham Duc Nam Trung, remarked that failure does not deeply upset students who are young and inexperienced but hold strong passion for startups.

Fearlessness of failure, ability to ask questions, international-scale thinking and curiosity are the qualities needed to become a successful entrepreneur. Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.