The Inspirational Figure Of Dang Le Nguyen Vu And His Influence On My Life

“Vietnam Coffee King”, this is how Forbes Asia described Dang Le Nguyen Vu, an inspirational figure with his life objective wakening the start-up spirit of Vietnamese youth generation up. Behind the glorious and honour description is an arduous, challenging childhood of a boy dreaming to revolutionize Vietnamese coffee ecosystem and lead to the top coffee-export nation. Following him for such a long time, his motivational speeches and attitudes toward modernized enterprise progress profoundly influence my personality as well as my mindset.

Confidently walking into the meeting hall of the Trung Nguyen centre, he gradually looked around the crowd waiting for him starting giving inspirational quotes. “What Starbucks is doing is terrible. They are not selling coffee, they are selling coffee-flavoured water with sugar in it”, he said. This is my first impression on the Coffee King. The way he talked, the speech he presented in front of thousands of Vietnamese young entrepreneurs immediately made me amazed. In that official conference, he challenged one of the most successful coffee brands in the world and declared that his priority mission is improving the living standard of Vietnam’s coffee highland regions. And that was how I admired Dang Le Nguyen Vu, ambitiously and enthusiastically spreading the “ dare-to-do ” spirit to the Vietnamese young generation.

Coming back to his youth, this is a long story which is the typical model of “zero to hero”, born into a poor peasant family, quitted medicine university, began to study, research coffee and finally founded Vietnam’s biggest chain of coffee houses. At first, anyone could be skeptical by his incredible achievement and contradict background, including me. However, the more you dig deeper into his autobiography, the more you admire his dramatic effort and desire of changing Vietnamese coffee ecosystem. The first producing institution was the single-room building where he, on his own, painted the first sign of Trung Nguyen Corporation. His initial customers and support come from the mutual “trust” of coffee farmers who received his promises of sharing revenues. What he achieved after 15 years was out of expectancy, 3000 employees, a truck fleet, and more than that, a global trustworthy brand exporting top-quality-coffee beans, a successful chain of coffee houses with the revenue of 250 Million USD. Unofficial ambassador of Vietnam start-up spirit, that is what I think of Dang Le Nguyen Vu. He was the first one who translated and freely published 4 well-known, inspirational books to foster entrepreneurship spirit among young generation: Start-up nation: The story of Israel’s economic miracle – Dan Senor, Think rich and grow rich – Napoleon Hill, No failure but trials – Chung Ju Yung, The encouragement of learning – Fukuzawa Yukichi. During the stage 2008-2015, these 4 famous books translated by Trung Nguyen Corporation created significant impression in public and marked next progress in Vietnamese business culture with the increasing number of cutting-edge technology and service enterprises, according to the Cafebiz statistic. This wonderful spirit is also described from his mindset to the decoration of coffee chain. The ranch and coffee houses are in the traditional style, oddly decorated inside. When you first step into, you would be surprised with the glorious living room fulfilled with revolutionary figures: Napoleon, Warren Buffet, Mas Tse Tung and that is how he draws inspiration to change the world.

Coupled with his enthusiasm, I believe that the passion and inspiration of risk-taking in changing the society are the fast-spreading catalyst to the young generation. Dang Le Nguyen Vu comprehensively understand Vietnamese characteristics: being afraid of changing and progressing and the way he slowly presented the innovative point of view about social obligations and personal thoughts made thousands of young people, including me, inspired. From my perspective, an influential figure is someone could, intentionally and unintentionally, change your out-dated mindset to absorb new knowledge and shape your behaviours. Personally, I have learned various thoughts from his famous quotes and inspirational speeches, tried to do different activities that I have never tried, partly contributed to our society. I believe that one day I will have an opportunity to meet him and share with him my achievement rooted from what I learn from his inspirational stories.