Daryl Lim Interviewed Quang Do on His Startup Wednesdays Series

Daryl is currently an Investor at Trihill Capital, investing in early-stage startups across South-East Asia & Founder of The Next Batch.
He was previously at Hypotenuse AI (YC S20) and Deskimo (YC S21), wearing multiple hats across Growth, Product, Partnerships, Marketing and Analytics.
Guest Author: Daryl Lim

🙌 Welcome back to Startup Wednesdays, featuring #VCs, #founders & #operators here in South-East Asia. For this week, we have Quang Do, Founder of Overseas Vietnamese and Account Manager at Google

💭 What inspired you to establish the global community of overseas Vietnamese professionals?

I’m a first-generation Vietnamese immigrant. As such, I lacked two things: clarity on my cultural identity (earlier in life) and career guidance & network (later in life).

In pursuit of both, I was searching for an existing community for people like myself.

My hypothesis: fellow overseas Vietnamese would be willing to connect with and support each other – if they’d get connected to each other somehow.
I wasn’t able to find such a community, so I went ahead and started one. And my hypothesis has proven to be true.

Overseas Vietnamese is now a community for Vietnamese professionals with 30,000+ members in 40+ chapters globally.

💭 What challenges have you encountered in fostering connections and support among overseas Vietnamese professionals?

The inherently global DNA of OV is the key challenge. Everyone loves OV’s mission, no matter where they’re from and based. But how do we bring together our members across borders and timezones effectively and sustainably?

It’s an ongoing process of finding and trying platforms, formats and activities that give our members chances to connect, support, and learn from each other.

An upcoming one is the inaugural OV Summit in late January in Ho Chi Minh City where, for the first time, we bring together the global community for 3 days of high-quality programming and socializing.

💭 What is your favourite book and why?

I’ve just finished my third book from Lee Kuan Yew and loved all of them. I consider them to be the only how-to books on how to transform a third-world country into a first-world country.

As for novels, it’s Ocean Vuong’s masterpiece ‘On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous’ which is a letter from a Vietnamese gay immigrant boy to his mother (who cannot read) in beautiful, stunning prose. This book will hit you.

💭 How do you see the community evolving in the coming years?

OV is my lifetime project and commitment. With that time horizon, we’re just getting started.

As I get to know and talk to more and more members, it’s becoming clear that there is so much more potential with OV.

Next up, we will empower our local chapter leads with more guidance and support to bring and grow the OV experience in more cities around the world. We’re also working on a dedicated fellowship program to bring together the highly ambitious of us.

Generally, I tend to brainstorm and fantasize a lot about OV’s future when the days are long–member club, startup incubator, angel syndicate … all of them?

Whatever it’ll be, we’ll always be driven by the potential positive impact OV can have on the Vietnamese diaspora and people.

#Vietnamese #community #diaspora