BIZIDOL
CHÀO VIETNAM PROJECT 2009
16 Aug 2009 – 9 Jan 2010
PROPOSAL
Contents
1. MISSION – VISION – OBJECTIVES 4
4.4 Graduates and working adults 8
7. IMPORTANT INFORMATION FOR SUPPORTERS 9
Chào Vietnam - the Vietnamese Student Club at Singapore Management University endeavours to facilitate the incubation of a generation of passionate and successful Vietnamese entrepreneurs that will dedicate their talents to the development of the economy of Vietnam.
- To inspire potential entrepreneurs to succeed by educating on the key factors of successfully raising funding.
- To facilitate learning and working opportunities of potential Vietnamese entrepreneurial students.
- To promote greater interaction among passionate and promising Vietnamese entrepreneurs, entrepreneurial students and interested venture capitalists.
- To bring forth a mutual goal: to spare a thought to how Vietnamese can contribute to the development of Vietnam in a professional way.
- To create a platform for interested parties to gather, learn, and discover enormous business prospects of a vibrant entrepreneur environment of Vietnam.
2009 has been an excellent year for Vietnamese students at Singapore Management University (SMU). Efforts to transform ourselves into a strong, organized and bonding community finally paid off, resulting in the establishment of Chào Vietnam Club, the first-ever official representative organization of Vietnamese students at SMU, with initial population of more than 110 students.
Chào Vietnam Club aspires to become the connection point linking up SMU community and the country of Vietnam through the bridge of culture and business.
As a big family that lives and breathes Vietnam, Chào Vietnam Club has a heart to serve our Vietnamese fellows and share the prideful culture of our motherland with international friends. We understand that people are our biggest asset and ultimately see the ability to empower our people is a key determinant of success in achieving the mission and objectives we have set. But challenges are all ahead. In order to become a stronger organization, besides building sustainable commitment within the community, we need to actively branch out to embrace changes and explore professional opportunities. Hence, gaining supports from all members, the executive committee have decided to take initiatives and courage to plan on organizing several business-oriented events and activities.
Chào Vietnam - the Vietnamese Student Club at Singapore Management University (SMU) aims to contribute its distinct cultural traits to the diversity and vibrancy of the school community, and to promote greater interaction between all members of the campus. At the same time, we endeavor to facilitate learning and working opportunities of all interested parties by opening up enormous business prospects through the window of an up-and-running economy of Vietnam.
Our Objectives:
- To reflect a positive image of the country and people of Vietnam.
- To strengthen the bond amongst the Vietnamese community at SMU and in Singapore at large through academic, informal and professional activities.
- To promote dynamic cultural exchange and global networking between Vietnam and SMU, adding to the cosmopolitan vibrancy of the university.
- To represent the Vietnamese community at SMU in interaction with various clubs and communities, inside and outside school.
Mr. Nguyen Hoang Trung, Chao Vietnam President
Ms. Natalie Le Chan Phuong, Project Manager
Website:
Contestants entering the competition will have to submit:
- Letter of intent
- A video 3-5 minutes delivering a summary pitch of their business concept
- A 1000-word brief business plan
The videos will be reviewed by a panel of judges who will select the 6 best ideas with consideration to votes from the audience.
Other contestants will receive feedbacks, comments and suggestions on their ideas.
The Gala Dinner is a venue to gain insights, comments and suggestions to the business plans. It is an excellent opportunity whether you want to learn more about starting up a venture, land an internship opportunity or even a job.
The Dinner will be an exclusive networking event open only for contestants, judges, VCs, business leaders, successful entrepreneurs and other guests of honor.
Finalists and guests will receive complimentary passes. Other contestants will have the option to attend the Dinner with a $10 entrance pass.
After obtaining advice, teams will have the option to go back to Vietnam to do market research. Round 2 will entail:
- A 3000 to 5000-word business plan to be submitted 1 week before the Finale
- 15-minute presentation to the judge and an open audience
Judge will decide on the 3 winners with consideration to votes from the audience.
Contestants in the first round will receive complimentary passes to Finale Night. Non-contestants can obtain the entrance pass at $5.
Judges will evaluate the plans based upon their likelihood of actually becoming the basis of a viable business. This consideration, in turn, will include factors such as
- the potential of the market opportunity defined in the plan, and the strength of the team's argument that their product/service meets that need,
- the overall evaluation of potential reward to risk,
- the appropriateness of the strategy for exploiting the opportunity,
- the reasonableness of the plan for financing the business,
- and the team's ability to actually implement the plan.
While the contest is referred to as a "Business Plan Contest," it is really about the commercial merit of the proposed new venture. The judges evaluate the plans not as documents per se, but as visions for a potential new venture and, as such, focus on the idea, its potential for economic success and the likelihood of achieving that success based upon the team's plan and experience.
Naturally, the more concrete the plan—all else being equal—the better. Thus, teams that have a proven technology, recruited partners, or even attracted "beta" customers will likely be seen to have raised their chances of success.
Voting system will be in place for both round 1 and round 2. While not an overriding factor, popularity will be one of the criteria judges look at when shortlisting finalists.
All Vietnamese students, graduates or working adults under 28 are eligible to enter the contest.
Contestants can participate as individuals or in teams (not more than 5 people per team).
The event plans to attract venture capitalists, business leaders, successful entrepreneurs and professionals who are familiar with business ventures (hereby will be referred as Guests).
The panel of judges will comprise 3 people and the Board of Advisors will comprise 5-8 people from our pool of Guests.
Judges will be the one who make decision on the outcome of the contests. Board of Advisors will give advice, feedbacks, comments and mentoring session if possible. The two roles will be mutually exclusive as to retain fairness to the competition.
Gala Dinner:
Finale Night: Auditorium – Level 2, School of Accountancy, Singapore Management University
The event website will be the main contact point between organizers, contestants and audience. The following information will be featured on the website:
- The competition (Rules, Important dates, Prizes)
- Registration
- Entries
- Guests (Judges, Board of Advisors, Guests of Honor, Sponsors)
- Gala Dinner
- About us
- Resources (podcasts, info on writing business plan, setting up business, links, etc)
- Press
- Q&A
Winner: $500 + in-kind services + trophy
1st runner up: $300 + certificate
2nd runner up: $200 + certificate
Press release will be sent to prominent newspaper and magazines in Vietnam with the purpose of getting a cover story on them.
Newspapers and magazines: Tuoi Tre, Thanh Nien, VNExpress, Kinh Te Sai Gon, Doanh Nhan, etc.
Create a Facebook group to create more awareness.
Reach out to students via websites, forums, emails, clubs.
Singapore: SMU, NUS, NTU, SIM
Vietnam: RMIT, DHQT, DHKT, DHBK, DHNT
UK, USA, Australia, Germany, etc
Liaise with organizations to feature the competition and encourage people to join: VN2020, VietAbroader.
Reach out to these groups via alumni network at NUS, NTU, SMU. Also utilize contacts at VN2020 and Facebook.
Chairperson
Nguyen Hoang Trung
Organizing Committee
Nguyen Hoang Trung
Le Chan Phuong
Nguyen Tri Dung
Phan Cam Van
External relations
Nguyen Hoang Trung
Le Chan Phuong
Nguyen Tri Dung
Phan Cam Van
Phan Kim Anh
Publicity (4)
Website (3)
Logistics (2)
Finance (1)
Vietnam is, without doubt, the fastest growing economy in the Southeast Asia region. GDP growth has exceeded 7% for each of the past four years thanks to deregulation and privatization, along with buoyant exports helped by the commodities boom. Vibrant young workforce has underpinned economic expansion, rapidly increasing foreign direct investment.
Per-capita income has doubled over the past 15 years and mounting wealth is boosting 20% per annum growth in domestic consumption in this second largest market in Southeast Asia after Indonesia. Throw in stable politics and the government's commitment to market reforms, Vietnam was termed "ten-year buy" by Merrill Lynch and "the New Powerhouse of Southeast Asia" by Citigroup.
We are organizing this competition with the hope to connect the dots between outstanding business ideas and valuable sources of capital. The fundamental benefits in participating in this event are as followed:
- Visibility and networking opportunities through the competition's activities with students, business leaders, venture capitalists and successful entrepreneurs.
- Understand more about Vietnamese culture and way of doing business through Vietnamese eyes.
- Access to the pool of high-quality ideas and talents that are overseas-educated.
- Opportunities to groom and grow the next outstanding enterprise.
- Listen to the opinions of the youth generation who represents 40% of the consumers.
- Wide media coverage with good PR opportunity
In particular, we are honored to invite you to participate in this competition via 3 capacities with varied benefits:
Being on the panel of judges is the most demanding post with the most influence on the outcome of the competition:
- Select 6 finalists through video and business plan entries based on predetermined criteria
- Guest of Honor in the Gala Dinner to give comments and suggestions for improvement
- Select 3 winners based on presentations and detailed business plans
- Special recognition during opening remarks of Gala Dinner and Finale night
- Speaker opportunities in the Gala Dinner and Finale night
- Biography, description of company included on event website
Being on the Board of Advisors brings tremendous satisfaction and highest level of interaction with our contestants:
- Gives advice on ideas, writing business plan through podcasts
- Option to participate as team mentor
- Guest of Honor in the Gala Dinner to give comments and suggestions for improvement
- Access to all video and business plan entries
- Special recognition during opening remarks of Gala Dinner and Finale night
- Speaker opportunities in the Gala Dinner and Finale night
- Biography, description of company included on event website
Being a sponsor of the Chao Vietnam Business Plan Competition comes with many benefits besides opportunities to network with participating teams, business leaders, venture capitalists and successful entrepreneurs.
- Guests of Honor in the Gala Dinner and Finale night
- Special recognition with company name and logo included on the main page of the event's website, registration packet and all marketing material (press kit, poster, leaflet, etc)
- Full description of company to be posted on Sponsors page
- Special recognition in emails to all event newsletter subscribers
- Special recognition during opening remarks of Gala Dinner and Finale night
- Inclusion of company promotional items in participant and judge registration bags
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: NGUYEN Hoang Trung <hoangtrung.2006@economics.smu.edu.sg>
Date: Jul 1, 2009 12:40 AM
Subject: FW: Regarding Chào Vietnam Club's Idea of a Biz plan Competition
To: Yinglan Tan <gingkocapital@gmail.com>, TAN Yinglan <yinglantan@smu.edu.sg>
Cc: PHAN Cam Van <camvan.phan.2005@business.smu.edu.sg>, LE Chan Phuong <chanphuong.2005@business.smu.edu.sg>
Hi Prof,
I suppose you must have overlooked the email I sent last time.
Attached is our draft proposal (written for the purpose of introducing the project to potential VC's, judges and sponsors). We hope that you can take a look at it and give us any precious comments you might have.
Please let us know if we can meet up sometime to talk about this. Maybe we also need to clarify your role in our project (judges or advisor). I'll be coming over or sending someone to talk to you, so please suggest a timing and venue that are the most convenient to you.
We really look forward to hearing from you. Thank you so much for your time and concerns.
Regards,
Trung
From: NGUYEN Hoang Trung
Sent: Thu 25-Jun-09 00:21
To: 'Yinglan Tan'
Cc: PHAN Cam Van; LE Chan Phuong
Subject: RE: FW: Regarding Ch跢 Vietnam Club's Idea of a Biz plan Competition
Dear Prof. Tan,
This is Trung- Cam Van's friend, from SMU. We met the other day at Coffee Bean, Ang Mo Kio Hub to discuss the idea of a business plan competition. I am sorry for being out of touch for quite a while.
The programme of the competition is being written, and hence I would like to consult with you about a few points. After having conducted a survey and research, we decided to scale down this competition to only 2 rounds, and thus having a few questions that we hope you, with your own expertise, can help answer. In your opinion:
- What would be the suitable size of a team participating in a competition of this scale?
- What would be good entry formats for 2 rounds?
(Our suggestion: round one – a 5-min video clip + a rough business plan of no more then 1000 words, round two – a detailed business plan of no more than 3000-4000 words to be submitted prior to the finale and a 15-min presentation in finale night)
- If 6 teams are to enter round 2, how long before the finale do they have to submit the business plans so that the judges have enough time to skim through each and every plan in order to form initial judgement and prepare questions to probe the teams in the finale night?
- What are the criteria (with weighs) for each round?
If you think a short meeting would be a better idea than emails, please let us know when and where we can meet up. Currently I'm doing my internship, so a meeting within working hours might be hard for me, but I can try to get my teammate to come over and discuss the issues with you.
We'll be approaching Reza soon and let you know about the result. Thank you so much.
Regards,
Nguyen Hoang Trung
Undergraduate, School of Economics
Singapore Management University
Admission year: 2006
Email: hoangtrung.2006@economics.smu.edu.sg
Contact number: +65 82866964
From: Yinglan_Tan@LAPTOP [mailto:tyinglan@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, May 13, 2009 9:10 PM
To: NGUYEN Hoang Trung; 'Yinglan Tan'
Subject: RE: FW: Regarding Ch跢 Vietnam Club's Idea of a Biz plan Competition
Cheers, once you are done with Reza, send me the transcript / m3 and let me take a look. I will pass you more VCs to interview. Cheers, Yinglan
From: NGUYEN Hoang Trung [mailto:hoangtrung.2006@economics.smu.edu.sg]
Sent: Wednesday, May 13, 2009 1:02 AM
To: Yinglan Tan
Subject: RE: FW: Regarding Chào Vietnam Club's Idea of a Biz plan Competition
Thank you so much Prof, I'll get in touch with him and cc the email to you.
Cheers,
Trung
From: tyinglan@gmail.com [mailto:tyinglan@gmail.com] On Behalf Of Yinglan Tan
Sent: Monday, May 11, 2009 9:58 AM
To: yinglantan@stanfordalumni.org; nhtrung.daniel@gmail.com; NGUYEN Hoang Trung
Subject: Re: FW: Regarding Chào Vietnam Club's Idea of a Biz plan Competition
Trung
Pls start with
Reza Behnam <rbehnam@yahoo.com>, reza_behnam@idgvsea.com
Questions to ask are:
1. How has venture capital changed post-2008? Both globally and locally?
2. What do you see are the winning techniques for entrepreneurs in the downturn? Any help that the government can provide?
3. What are the commandments for VCs dealing with the downturn that you would like to share?
(i) managing portfolio companies, (ii) investing in new companies, (iii) fund-raising
4. Given the proliferation of VC firms over the past decade, what differentiates your firm from other venture capital firms?
5. One often hears that there is too much money chasing a small proportion of good deals in the Venture Capital and Private Equity business. Would you agree with this statement?
6. What advice would you give someone considering a career in venture capital right now, especially since jobs are extremely competitive and positions are limited?
7. In your opinion, what makes a good venture capitalist?
8. How does one get a VC to sit down and listen to their pitch?
9. What advice would you have for entrepreneurs who are raising venture capital?
Can do a podcast (using mp3 recorder) or simply find the answers to the questions by writing down. Send them to me to take a look once you are done and I will introduce you to more VCs.
Thanks,
Yinglan
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