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Quang Le sits across from me at a café in District 1, Saigon. He's just returned from a 3-week European trip meeting potential investors for startup number four — despite insisting startup three would be his last.
"Founder disease," he laughs. "Once you've been a founder, you can't stop. Your brain constantly sees problems and thinks of solutions."
“My first failure taught me the most important thing: 'good idea' and 'good business' are completely different things.”
Three Startups, Three Lessons
Startup #1: Right idea, wrong timing. An online food delivery platform in 2013 Hanoi — smartphone penetration too low, online payments not ready. Lesson: market timing matters more than the idea.
Startup #2: Right product, wrong co-founder alignment. A good SaaS exit at $200K each but values misalignment ended the partnership. Lesson: co-founder alignment on vision beats skill set.
Startup #3: Right problem, right team, right timing. Supply chain visibility for F&B — a pain Quang had lived through. Result: $40M acquisition by a Japanese logistics conglomerate.