Looking to start a project in Vietnam

Hi,

So you wilk buy a land and build up your hotel?

How much do you want to invest in this project? Sorry I am curious a bit about the profit number you gave above

Regards

I was thinking to rent a place and renovate. Since buying ground in hcmc is too expensive.

If so, have you checked where you want to do business and how the rental is for 500-1000m2?

And how about decoration, equipment,...?

The rental will be around 10.000$ my guess. But I'm not sure yet in which district to locate. Some say it's better in 7, some say it's not good in 7, most say best in district 1.

"Think twice before you start anything" is my first advice 
If it is fixed strongly in your mind, then the location is very important as a beginner.
Buying land is not wise, just lease enough. Keep a minimum of 3 - 6 month money for expenses and don't think about profit during that period. Don't spend any dong from the income during this period, if possible. Beware if it is a partnership business. Make sure you got all  related documents before start.
And....
Don't forget; customer is the king 
Good luck!

Nearly 50,000 businesses shut down every year in VN, there is a good reason why,its not easy doing business here with all the red tape and paperwork. A restaurant that size you will be paying a large fee to the local mafia(police).

I would advise against district 7 to be quite honest.

It just doesn't have the numbers like district 1 does for example.

District 7 is where most expats come to live.

They are not tourists.

And don't be out spending like tourists as a result.

In fact, I'm surprised how many of the businesses here in district 7 survive.

They're never really that busy.

Let alone make profit.

Charma and colinoscapee's advice reminds me about people who sell food on the government and run when the policemen come.

I like those business. I was told that a vegan restaurant earns 70m as profit everyday.

Regards

Dejavu.dot wrote:

Charma and colinoscapee's advice reminds me about people who sell food on the government and run when the policemen come.

I like those business. I was told that a vegan restaurant earns 70m as profit everyday.

Regards

Maybe a months profit,not a day. On that profit you would be making 1.4 billion vnd a month, very,very unlikely

It is true.

That vegan restaurant has been opened for such a long time so it is usually crowded until 2am.

But unluckily that family has a bad son who spends 200-300$ for gamble a day.

Well 300 usd is only about 6.4 million, way short of 70 million. Whats the name of the restaurant.

I dont know the name. It locates in tran dinh xu str. If you want to go there, I will ask my friend.

Another vegan buddhism place I like eating is locating in Nguyen Trai street -opposite to 23/9 park, near Bud ice-cream. I think the profit is the same.

Profit?  Or revenue?

I think that's profit Dan.

That's impressive.  It makes me wonder what the bia oms make. 

Dejavu.dot wrote:

I think that's profit Dan.

Ok, now its I think its profit. I can tell you that making 70million a day is very very high profit.

Yes. Vegetables in VN is cheap. No need to build up a restaurant with conditioners. No need nice chairs or tables. Just a normal restaurants which anyone can join in, you will earn a big profit.

My neighbor was very poor, owned people a lot of money. After that his wife was advised to sell pork and rice in every evening from 3pm to 8pm without having to pay for the yard. Just some cheap tables and seats. After 3 months, they paid all of their debt, hired some countryside girls to help them, bought a 10 000$ car for rent.



Another one poor boy near there rent a very small shop to sell clothes for poor boys at suitable price-under 100 000d. He bought that shop and a house next to it to make the shop bigger 2 years ago. Until 12pm of new year eves, that shop is always full of laborers.

At the end of a business, it is not about big profit of every products, it is about satisfaction of customers.

colinoscapee wrote:

Well 300 usd is only about 6.4 million, way short of 70 million. Whats the name of the restaurant.

I was thinking the same as you. Correct me if I am wrong. 70 million is about $3400 usd a day? Selling something more than just vegetarian dishes. 

MIA2013 wrote:

colinoscapee wrote:

Well 300 usd is only about 6.4 million, way short of 70 million. Whats the name of the restaurant.

I was thinking the same as you. Correct me if I am wrong. 70 million is about $3400 usd a day? Selling something more than just vegetarian dishes. 

Yes and about 1.2 million usd a year, from selling cooked veges. I doubt it, but then again nothing is impossible,you would need about 1500 customers a day to make that sort of profit.

I think they need at least 3000 customers, if one pays 50k vnd. But with veges, I think its about 30k for one.
150 mils/a day to get 70mils profit.

Very rare people tell the truth. Normally almost business people exaggerate their income to others. During this short period of 5+ years I witnessed many businesses start and close in Q.1, Q.3, Q.7 and Q.5 
Some  6 months... 1 year... 2 years....
Many of them relocate to inner streets from main streets because of excess rent after 6 months, 1 year...
Real estate mafia plays their role well timely and attract the landlords by sweet words to evict the old tenant ...
"eagle never fly over money" 

MIA2013 wrote:

I was thinking the same as you. Correct me if I am wrong. 70 million is about $3400 usd a day? Selling something more than just vegetarian dishes. 

ngattt wrote:

I think they need at least 3000 customers, if one pays 50k vnd. But with veges, I think its about 30k for one.
150 mils/a day to get 70mils profit.

Dont forget drinks, drinks can be marked up 200%

colinoscapee wrote:

Dont forget drinks, drinks can be marked up 200%

Yes. I forgot.
But veges restaurant, they drink coke, milk and they cannot drink so much.
If in normal restaurant, they can drink beer so much, and some dishs are very expensive, maybe they can get that profit.

don't think about the drink. Most customers order ice tea only. 2000d/glass

I think it's true. No exaggerate. That vegan restaurant opens near 24h/day with over 3000 customers in 2 big house. No renting fee.  In July there are many people just eat vegetables only and if you have time, pass by the restaurant I recommended above to see how long you have to check up although it is not July of Chinese calendar any longer.

There are 2 ways of doing business in hcm.

1. Selling every products and earn big profit.

2. Selling every products and earn small profit but a lot of customers make huge profit.

We ate at this one seafood restaurant in Phan Thiet, myself and 9 family members. My bill was under $60 usd dollars. We had various dishes and several Heineken beers to wash it all down. The place was packed like sardines.The customer turnover rate is not that great because most people are not rushed into ordering, eating, and leaving afterward. We were there for at least 2 hrs. That's just the culture in VN. Now, this is a vegetarian restaurant, the food is not going to bring in a lot of money like the really good seafood restaurant do. Even if it is open for 24 hrs. the traffic is not going to be consistent enough to bring in that kind of money.  The OP said she didn't know the address, so I am assuming that she was told by someone who heard it through the grapevine. Nobody has time or the desire to sit all day long and verify if the story is true. That's why it is so easy to make those claims. 

charmavietnam wrote:

Very rare people tell the truth. Normally almost business people exaggerate their income to others. During this short period of 5+ years I witnessed many businesses start and close in Q.1, Q.3, Q.7 and Q.5 
Some  6 months... 1 year... 2 years....
Many of them relocate to inner streets from main streets because of excess rent after 6 months, 1 year...
Real estate mafia plays their role well timely and attract the landlords by sweet words to evict the old tenant ...
"eagle never fly over money" 

Yes I know.  I like the way you use ' real estate mafia". I like reading those ads.  Like funny stories

By the way we should think like 70m/day*360 days. This restaurant is over 30 years old. They has built up the fame for such a long time. I just asked my friend about the restaurant's name. If you want, pm me, I will send the name to your mail box cos I told something bad about that family above.

Dejavu.dot wrote:

Charma and colinoscapee's advice reminds me about people who sell food on the government and run when the policemen come.

I like those business. I was told that a vegan restaurant earns 70m as profit everyday.

Regards

That's a lot of profit. I currently have a business running with a monthly revenue of 280.000$+-. The profit I get out of this is only 10-15%. 4000 customers in a month, you're talking about 3000 a day haha

Why do you want another business if you are making 30,000Usd a month, thats a damn good income.

Why not enlargen your horizon when you can ?

Hello
A think this will be good idea but , there also have a lot from this style restourants ....

And what do you think about that?

My advice for this would be to come here and check out the local areas first for opportunities. Like mentioned above, there are hundred of these kinds of restaurant within HCMC. I'm not discouraging you. I just think it would do you well to come and check out the local ones and see what makes them successful.

Coming here will also let you know your target. It's not easy to create a "relaxing atmosphere" here. Vietnamese people can be very loud even when they're not drunk. They would bring children to the bar for food => loud and annoying cries. This can really affect your image of a relaxing place.

That's just an example. Come and get to know the people and the culture. I have an interest in starting a business in the future too so I've been checking things out. And you can learn a lot from the local expats who are successful as well.

I think you will find the OP is living in Saigon already.

colinoscapee wrote:

I think you will find the OP is living in Saigon already.

Sorry, it was late last night. I clearly was very stupid lol

Your ideas are quite interesting, there may be areas of mutual interest. Please send your contact details so I can contact you. I am in Spain at the moment but will return to Saigon in mid Sept. Cheers.

But still your profile shows that you are in HCMC 

maikhoi wrote:

Your ideas are quite interesting, there may be areas of mutual interest. Please send your contact details so I can contact you. I am in Spain at the moment but will return to Saigon in mid Sept. Cheers.

On holiday in Europe

Hi,
I'm independent contractor who work in start-up business (HR head hunter, set up everything from legal process to renting venue,...), networking, marketing, PR & mass media field. I'm also an independent writing professional as script writer for Vietnam television, copywriter for some agencies, journalist for magazines.
I had a coffee shop - restaurant in District 3 back in 2010 - 2012. The venue now closed because the landlord took it back to build up his building.

I say so to let you know I have quite a clear insightful view of the city regarding to business. These are some facts you may wanna know:
1. Location:
- It's really difficult, if not say impossible, to rent a 500 - 1000 m2 venue with only $10.000. The problem is you can but hardly rent a land with those budget. But there's almost no space in D1. There are some, but the government own them, the banks own them. You can rent the land from them if you are well-connected    but you won't know when they will take it back from you, saying changes happen in government policy or the bank have to sell the lands when it comes, blah blah blah. The second problem is if you rent a land with it construction, the price is high. At the moment, there's a vila at Alexandre de Rhodes St., right at Notre Dame Church, is for rent at more than $20.000/month. It's 560m2, And you may have to renovate the construction to fit in your ideal restaurant.
- Dist.7? Honestly, you won't make enough money to pay the rent. D7 is ideal for down to earth business like a DVD/blue ray shop, not a fancy restaurants. You can find some restaurants of that kind, but they are there mostly because of "government connection" than business.

2. Style:
- With the style you are saying, D1 is the only place. But your style is nothing different. Let says you find a ideal place with ideal rental, what makes us come if you have nothing different to other restaurant? And the price? Even expats with higher income than Vietnamese don't spend that much of money (VND600.000/per meal) daily. Yes we will, but very occasionally.

3. Price:
- Again, it depends on your customer target. But believe me, people are more practical. It's not only because of price but other issues like health, source they come from,... They won't spend that much of money for a meal daily. And if they spend that much, they will spend in well-known, high reputation restaurants, which will cost you another amount of budget for PR-marketing.

4. PR-marketing:
- Let's talk about this if you still wanna do what you have in mind. Or, I'll tell you another story of starting from a small but firm beginning and burst up later.

Sorry if I'm discouraging you but all I wanna do is just to give you some diverse reviews! Cause I known everyone is serious if they really wanna do business for money.

Here are some business ideas I think good, I personally am putting effort to start the up next year's
- Wine business. If you love hospitality, you like luxury things, we need a small, cozy, high standard European restaurant where VIP can talk business. Your price is ideal already.
- Import/export between Vietnam & other countries: a/Tourism. Bunch of things you can do. Like import special stuffs that we have to mostly import from China now. b/Medical: an open market with a huge demand of many things. Imagine teeth whitening paper, etc.
- Health care & beauty. Vietnamese people are getting to pay more and more attention to their health. Some people are trying to implement organic food farms but there's only 1 farm in HCM can do. It's not real good also.
- Education. It's a very fruitful business but complicated. Can't write it down here.
- Children: another huge market.
- Media & digital business: not new now but still need some really significant remarkable companies.
- Or... a business which help people want to invest to Vietnam, like you. ^__^

Well, it's always exciting to talk about great chances to invest to Vietnam and to benefit back to the investors, as usual.
I hope you will consider carefully and luckily will have enough 3 elements: great luck, great venue, great staff (like Vietnamese people say "Thiên thời, địa lợi, nhân hoà") and succeed.

Have a nice day,
Vi