If you’ve talked to more than one Vietnam market-entry firm, you’ve probably noticed something: they all sound reassuring, they all have a deck, and you still can’t tell them apart. That’s not because you’re bad at evaluating vendors. It took me a while to see it, but the reason is simpler: the deciding factor rarely makes it into a deck. Who keeps the software running once the entity is yours — you don’t settle that by reading. You settle it by asking.
Most brochures thin out where the running starts
Setting up in Vietnam is genuinely not hard. Entity formation is cheap relative to most markets, the paperwork is well-trodden, and a decent firm can get you registered in weeks. So the go/no-go decision moves fast — often faster than founders expect. Where people stall is not the deciding. It’s the running.
I knew how this worked in theory — staff, customers, and government offices don’t run on your home country’s logic. Knowing it didn’t help as much as I expected. The surprises still came, and not once: three or four times, in ways I hadn’t planned for. Some of the people who cleared the “should we enter” decision without breaking stride hit that stretch — and quietly went home.
So why does “Vietnam is easy” dominate what you hear? At some point I noticed something that honestly unsettled me: every foreigner I meet here is, by definition, someone who stayed. The ones who failed went home — you’ll never bump into them. So without anyone lying to you, the only stories in circulation are the ones that worked out. And those of us still here have every reason to say “come on in, it’s great” — I say it too. How hard the first year or two actually were rarely gets shared.
Net result: there’s an enormous amount of information to help you decide, and almost none about what it takes to run the thing afterward. The brochures lean the same way — not because anyone’s hiding the ball, but because that’s how the market’s information is skewed. The trouble is, running is exactly where it stalls.
The deciding factor: who runs it after — and three ways to ask
The scope of a market-entry firm is roughly the same everywhere:
- Entity setup and licensing (getting you legally operating)
- Market research (is there actually demand here, and for what)
- Local partner search (who you’ll co-invest or joint-venture with)
- HR and recruiting (finding and vetting your first local hires)
- Sales and distribution (getting product to customers once you’re set up)
- Software and IT execution (building and running whatever runs your business)
The first five compare reasonably well on track record and price. The one that doesn’t is the last: software and IT execution. Whatever business you enter with these days, a large share of the operation rides on systems — bookings, inventory, payroll, invoicing. “We do dev” can mean anything from writing code to owning the outcome, and how far a firm’s responsibility actually extends varies enormously. It’s also exactly where the “surprises after entry” concentrate.
A slightly embarrassing admission: early on, I assumed that if we built the foundation and handed it over, the client’s side would take it from there. But the surprises always came after the handover. Choose on entry-side terms alone — the cost of outsourcing development, say — and the stumble comes later, in operations. That was me on the builder’s side of the handoff, so I’d expect it to be at least as true on the buyer’s side.
So, at the end of your comparison, here are three questions you can put to any firm as-is:
- Is software your core business, or a service line added onto entry support?
- After it’s built, who runs it? Do you transfer it to us eventually, or keep operating it alongside us?
- Does what you build survive a specific person leaving, or does it depend on them?
To be fair: if your entry barely involves software, a service line added onto entry support can be plenty. The first and third questions aren’t right-or-wrong tests — the way a firm answers them shows you its design philosophy. The second question is different: it has no correct answer at all, because the correct answer is decided by you, not the firm.
Which answer is right depends on what you want
If what you want is “eventually, we run this ourselves,” then a transfer model fits — set up, operate, hand over ownership once it’s stable (you’ll see this called BOT, Build-Operate-Transfer). What to check in that case: whether the design covers what happens after the transfer — hiring, handover, your next development capacity. If transfer day is the goal line of the design, then “who do I hire to keep building this?” starts the day you take the keys.
If what you want is “keep the same team on the ground so I can focus on the business,” then an ongoing-partnership model fits. What to check in that case: whether they design away dependence on any one person. If the team you’re relying on long-term hinges on one irreplaceable individual, the day that person quits is the day your operation stops.
Neither model is better. The deciding move is matching the part that only surfaces when you ask — the “after” — against what you actually want. That’s the comparison you couldn’t make from the stack of PDFs.
Here’s how we answer the same three questions
Having written all that, it’s only fair that I answer them first.
Is software your core business? — Yes. We’re a development company; the market-entry work grew out of that.
Who runs it after it’s built? — We stay. Running companies here changed my mind about something: I used to treat delivery day as the day the system was finished. It never actually felt that way. The day it becomes real is the day someone on the floor says “that thing saved me.” That’s why we take on the post-entry execution phase as a whole, rather than handing off at the door.
Does it survive a person leaving? — We build it to. Designing out key-person dependency isn’t so we can step away. It’s so that nothing stops when someone does — and we’re still there the next morning.
One honest note on motive, since it’s behind all three answers. I run my own ventures here, with my own capital, on the ground. The trust that lets a foreigner do business in this market was built up over decades by the people who came before me — I’m drawing on an account I didn’t fill. I’d rather add to it than draw it down. So I chose the kind of work where you stay until someone tells you it helped.
Ask every firm the one line that comes after the brochure
When the comparison stalls, ask each candidate the question you can’t settle by reading: “After we enter — who runs it?” Ask us too, if you like.
In your case: who runs the “after”? And when the third surprise hits — not the first — who’s beside you?
FAQ
What’s the biggest risk in choosing a Vietnam market-entry partner?
Most buyers compare firms on how well they handle the decision — entity setup, licensing, market research. Almost none compare what happens after you sign: who’s still there when the surprises hit, and how many times you can expect them. That gap, not the entity paperwork, is where first-time entries most often stall.
Should my Vietnam entry partner also handle software development?
It can work well, and it’s an increasingly common model. The important thing is knowing whether software is their core business or an add-on, and whether their model ends at “operate and transfer” or continues as an ongoing partnership. Neither is wrong — just make sure you know which one you’re signing up for.
What does “Build-Operate-Transfer” (BOT) mean for a Vietnam ODC?
A firm sets up and runs an offshore development team on your behalf, then hands you full ownership once it’s stable — a planned, designed-in exit point. It’s a legitimate and common structure. The thing worth asking is what happens to your ability to keep building once that transfer happens, and whether the transfer is mandatory or optional.
Still working out who handles the “after”?
If you want to talk it through with someone who’s actually running things here day to day, grab time on my calendar. I’ll tell you what the surprises actually look like, no sugarcoating.
Book a 15-minute chat →
Shogo Harada原田 祥吾
CEO · Linnoedge Inc. · LinkedIn↗
Operating IT offshore development and overseas expansion support businesses across two bases: Tokyo and Vietnam. A leader who believes in “Systems over Spirit,” structuring cross-border businesses that often tend to be opaque. Committed to providing “reproducible quality” to organizations and clients rather than relying solely on individual skills.