The reason to be in Vietnam is shifting: less about making things cheaply, more about selling to a market that’s finally big enough to matter.
I help companies find out whether their product can actually survive in Vietnam — by getting into the market with you, not by mailing you a report. We order your competitors' products online to see how they really arrive. We sit in real kitchens. We meet store owners.
And when it's time to launch, my team runs it on the ground — company setup, licenses, the festival booth, the staff handing out samples.
For years, the reason to come to Vietnam was simple: make it here, cheaply. That's no longer the whole story.
Incomes are rising. A real middle class is forming, and it's spending: on food, on brands, on the kind of products that used to be export-only. The questions I get have shifted. A few years ago people asked how do I produce here cheaply? Now they ask how do I sell here, and who do I partner with to do it?
The opportunity now isn't just building a base in Vietnam. It's coming to this market to sell.
For small and mid-sized companies, and for founders willing to move before the crowd does, the next five to ten years are worth taking seriously.
The numbers behind this (income levels, growth rates, how Vietnam compares to neighbors like Thailand, and how to read the "middle-income trap") are covered in a separate article.
We've run booths at numerous Japan Festivals in Vietnam, and handled full booth operation — design, build, staffing, and run-of-show — at the Saigon Exhibition & Convention Center (SECC). Right now we're helping a cacao farm and a chocolate maker build a collaboration product, and working out how a Japanese sake & amazake brewery can win shelf space in the Vietnamese market.
Launching in a new market is exciting, but the uncertainty is real — and in Vietnam it's specific. From everything I've seen working here, four things trip companies up before they even start.
Most market research ends in a slide deck. The problem is, you can't taste a slide deck, and your customer can't either.
So I do the research with you, in the market — in the stores, in real homes, in the actual buying moment. You see what I see — because the decision to commit your budget should be yours, made on what's real, not on my summary of it.
When the research points one way or another, I'll say it plainly — including when it says don't.
A clear "not yet, not like this" before you've spent the launch budget is one of the most valuable things I can give you.
— Shogo Harada, CEO, Linnoedge
Typical approach
How we work
Most research firms hand you a report and walk away. My team does the research and runs the launch — the same people, in market, from first visit to first sale. Here's what that looks like.
This is the part most firms skip. With you, we:
When the research says go, my team handles the entry end to end, so you're not stitching together five vendors in a country you don't operate in yet:
You don't get a report about the market.
You get the market, first-hand.
Fair question. Two things make it concrete, not a promise.
The worry
An offshore vendor that hands off and goes quiet
Something unusable arrives, or the team disappears before the project is done.
How we work
One team
The people who tell you whether the market works are the people who help you enter it.
Hands-on
I lead the work with my team, in the field — not a hand-off to a back office.
On the ground
Booths at numerous Japan Festivals and full operation at SECC — we've done the unglamorous parts that decide whether a launch lands.
We'll tell you when to stop. Success is your launch working, not our invoice.
Let me put the order first. When companies start with incorporation, they usually end up redoing it later. Here's the default I run.
Already incorporated and hitting a wall? We start from a later step. The order flexes to where you actually are.
Market-entry cost swings by an order of magnitude depending on how much you hand off. So I'll put both in writing — the numbers we can share, and why the rest can't be quoted until we scope it.
For reference, market-entry consulting often starts in the tens of thousands of dollars just for upfront research. For the same spend, we'd rather use it to prove the product sells in-market than deliver a slide deck. Start with test sales and you get the market's answer before you spend on incorporation.
Honestly: if all you want is the cheapest possible registration, we're not the right fit — a registration-only firm will beat us on price. Where we help is when you're looking past setup to what comes after.
Bring the product and the market question.
I'll tell you what the market actually looks like.
That's exactly what a first session is for. Bring the question — I'll tell you what the market actually looks like, and whether it's worth your move.
I don't research the Vietnamese market from a desk — I live in it. I lead the work with my team, in real stores, real homes, and at the booth on launch day.
So I bring the session what a report can't: what I've actually seen work and fail when a product meets a Vietnamese shelf — including the times the honest answer was "not yet."
Based in Ho Chi Minh City. Working with companies entering Vietnam from Japan and beyond.