The success story of “ a young boss”

workers are making water hyacinth chairs

Tuan’s hometown is in Tien Giang, his parents work as craftspersons in Can Tho city. At the age of 20, with 30 million VND given by his parents Tuan moved to Dong Nai to set up a business. At first, he did outwork for the big enterprises. He worked and learned at the same time. In 2003, he graduated from polytechnic university and decided to succeed his parents. His workshop had about 10 labors and then increased more than 100 labors special in domestic decorations such as flower pot, baskets etc. Most of them are made from water hyacinth, banana tree and so on.  

On realizing that home decorations made from water hyacinth and banana tree got “flourishing”, he has begun making the furniture also from this material. Then, he started to design the models and patterns and manufactured the wardrobes and sofas with the attractive models and colors by using banana and water hyacinth. When the products were finished, he came to big enterprises in Ho Chi Minh City to introduce to them and they were willing to advance the money to him so that he could buy materials and enlarge workshops. From a small factory with just a few workers, after six years his factory in Dongnai province now has 300 full-fledged employees and his business also creates works for over 3,000 trainees  in the Rehabilitation Center in Phu Giao district, Binh Duong province. His business has been getting brisk so he decided to set up a factory in Cay Gao commune, Trang Bom district. Now his revenue gets over 30 billion VND/ a year.

After taking many trips to Europe and American to find new market for his products, he realizes that to enlarge export market, the products must have high quality, beautiful model and a large quantity. Therefore, he invested heavily in equipments, facilities, researches to design the new models and sought for the big contracts. Specially, he invested 5 billion VND in a new production line to produce the iron frame of the products (not having these frames done outside like before) and nearly 10 billion VND in factory in Cay Gao commune, Trang Bom district. He said, “ his ultimate target is to make home decorations made from banana tree and water hyacinth under the trade mark of May Viet to have a strong foothold in the market and to create more works for local people”.

(Translated by THKC)