The entrepreneurial story of Vietnamese coffee king Dang Le Nguyen, who gave up medicine and went into business

The entrepreneurial story of Vietnamese coffee king Dang Le Nguyen, who gave up medicine and went into business.

When it comes to Vietnam, most people don’t think of coffee. However, this Southeast Asian country successfully surpassed Brazil as early as 2012 and became the largest exporter of robusta coffee (cheaper, mainly instant coffee). The total coffee export volume has also remained among the top three in the world in recent years. It is not an exaggeration to praise Dang Le Nguyen Vu as the spokesperson of Vietnam, a big coffee country.

It is not an exaggeration to call Dang Le Nguyen Vu the spokesperson of Vietnam, a big coffee country. The Trung Nguyen Corp. he founded is the largest coffee retailer in Vietnam, and the group's business has expanded to the Chinese and Southeast Asian markets. According to Deng Liyuanyu's plan, the group's business will grow rapidly in the next few years, and the group's sales will reach US$1 billion by the end of 2016.

A. Wealth History

?Abandoned medicine to sell coffee, mother cried a lot?

Zhongyuan Coffee is headquartered in the most prosperous first neighborhood of Ho Chi Minh City , there is a Zhongyuan chain store not far around the corner. In cities large and small in Vietnam, this coffee king's "territory" is everywhere, with more than 40 directly-operated stores and more than 1,000 franchised stores. Like Starbucks and other American-style coffee shops, all Zhongyuan Coffee chain stores have the same style: subtropical green vegetation can be seen everywhere, and coffee tables and chairs are dark brown.

Vietnam is deeply influenced by Confucian culture and has always been secretive about wealth. But Deng Liyuanyu, the owner of Zhongyuan Coffee, acts unruly. This one of the top five richest men in Vietnam is over 40 years old. He has a bald head and likes racing cars and horse riding. He has a fancy coffee machine in his office, Che Guevara’s face on the wall, and a Harley in the room. motorcycle. He has raised more than 120 famous horses in his coffee manor, and his style is no different from that of European and American rich men. He likes to observe the Starbucks chain model at the foot of the snow-capped mountains in Switzerland and study irrigation technology in Israeli farms. He also lectured at MIT and chaired many international conferences.

Deng Liyuanyu was born in a rural area, and his family could only support one child to go to college. So, his sister voluntarily dropped out of school, and he entered Saiyuan University to study medicine. When he was in college, Deng Liyuanyu and his classmates loved drinking coffee. Vietnam’s coffee culture originated from the French colonial period in the 19th century. Coffee has long been a necessity for locals’ daily lives. Everyone, regardless of gender, old or young, loves to drink a cup of iced coffee.

In 1996, 25-year-old Deng Liyuanyu saw that coffee would be the most potential industry in Vietnam, so he wanted to abandon medicine and go into business. When my mother heard about it, she burst into tears.

In Deng Liyuanyu’s view, his mother had the greatest influence on him. She worked in a brick factory, and I would go there to help make bricks when I was young. At this time, Deng Liyuanyu was already in his senior year of medical studies, and his family was very puzzled by his decision. He admitted that in the entire process of establishing Zhongyuan Coffee Group, this period was the most difficult. In the end, his parents agreed with Deng Liyuanyu's choice. ?Family love can conquer everything. ?

?I am different from others in terms of packaging and distribution?

In 1986, Vietnam started economic reform. After ten years of change, when Deng Liyuanyu founded the company in 1996,? There is energy everywhere, as long as you dare to think and do it? The reason why he chose to start his business in Buon Ma Thuot, Dalat Province, Vietnam is because the plateau area in central Vietnam is naturally fertile ground for coffee and is rich in two types of coffee beans, Arabica and Robusta. This is one of the top ten best coffee producing areas in the world.

At the beginning, Deng Liyuanyu bought a coffee roasting machine for US$200, rented a small room with the help of his classmates, and made the sign Trung Nguyen (meaning "Zhongyuan", a local minority name of the nation). He wants to change local poverty by selling coffee.

With no funds on hand, Deng Liyuanyu used the method of "borrowing chickens to lay eggs" and went door to door to persuade coffee growers to provide coffee beans, and he would share the profits after he sold the coffee.

After gathering the free ingredients, he answered the phone, roasted coffee, and rode his bicycle to deliver the goods alone. At that time, many people started with him. ?Others laugh at me, why did I give the company such a grand name?

But in just 6 months, his Zhongyuan Coffee has surpassed the sales of other companies, and the bicycles used for delivery have also turned into motorcycles. Mainly because he observed that there was no brand name for Vietnamese coffee at that time. ?I am different from others in terms of packaging and distribution. ?For example, Zhongyuan coffee does not need to be vacuum packaged because vacuum will affect the aroma of the coffee.

Deng Liyuanyu is also a pioneer in Vietnam's "franchising" business. He established a unified brand and quality standard for Zhongyuan Coffee and vigorously promoted it. Today, Zhongyuan Coffee Company has 3,000 employees and a fleet of trucks. It is also the company with the most franchise stores in Vietnam and has landed in overseas markets.

In Deng Liyuanyu’s plan, by opening coffee shops in big cities in the United States such as New York and Boston, he will reverse the ratio of 70% of Zhongyuan coffee supplied to the domestic market and 30% to exports. ?He also plans to find partners in the United States and sell 15% of the company's shares to investors. ?In the future, this proportion can reach 30%. ?

B. Wealth concept

Creating the top coffee to challenge multinational companies

Legendee, the top variety of Central Plains coffee, comes from "Wild Weasel Coffee" and is Deng Liyuanyu's proud work. It is said that in the early years, wild ferrets in Vietnam liked to pick coffee beans in the fields, but they could not digest them and could only excrete them through the secretion of a special digestive enzyme. The next day, coffee workers will search for intact coffee beans from wild weasel excrement, wash and dry them, then bake them with butter, and finally produce coffee with a chocolate-like flavor. Due to its special craftsmanship and rare production, Vietnam's wild ferret coffee is expensive and is regarded as the world's top coffee together with Indonesia's civet coffee.

Deng Liyuan Yu was born with sex that uses his brain. He later specially invited German experts for technical guidance, used a special formula to simulate the digestive enzymes in wild weasels, and developed Legendee with a lower caffeine content, so that people can cook the world's most delicious food without having to go through the feces of wild weasels. Best iced coffee ever.

When talking about Starbucks, which opened its first store in Vietnam in February 2013, Deng Liyuanyu disagreed. The most powerful thing about it is that it tells a story that is deeply rooted in people's hearts. ?He said, ?But what they sell is not coffee, it is just a cup of sugar water with coffee flavor. It is difficult to change Vietnam’s traditional coffee culture. Those who go to Starbucks just want to show off their fashion sense, but if you want to taste real Vietnamese coffee, come to us. ?

However, like many countries that produce coffee, cocoa, and cane sugar, the money earned in Vietnam is only a fraction of that in the coffee industry. Deng Liyuanyu did some calculations: Usually, for every US$20 of output value created by the global coffee industry, coffee bean-growing countries can only receive US$1. Most of the profits go to multinational companies such as Nestlé and Starbucks. ?He was determined to destroy the old order. He predicts that in the next 15 years, if coffee bean productivity is improved and added value is increased in the roasting and packaging of coffee beans, Vietnam should be able to make a profit of US$20 billion from coffee production.

Promote ecological planting? New coffee doctrine?

Deng Liyuanyu drinks 10 cups of coffee every day. A few years ago, he went to Germany to buy the world's largest coffee museum and transplanted it entirely to Buon Ma Thuot, Vietnam, expanding the scale five times. ?I want to build this place into a holy place for coffee believers around the world. Deng Liyuanyu said, "There are 200 million people in the world who drink coffee every day." ?

In Bon Ma Thuot, Dang Liyuanyu also owns a model coffee plantation covering an area of ??500 hectares. In the huge manor, people can watch the entire process of making coffee, from coffee bean planting, cultivation, harvesting to processing.

Deng Liyuanyu spent a lot of money to build this plantation, and even the fertilizers were imported from Finland. A few years ago, he went to Israel for an inspection and found that the local drip irrigation system not only saved water and labor, but was also very efficient, so he introduced it immediately. Now, he has also started installing the system for free to local coffee growers. ?Previously our coffee yield was more than 800 kilograms per hectare. The second year after installing this system, our production increased to more than 1,200 kilograms. Last year, our annual output soared to 2,040 kilograms.

?Grower Ma Zong said.

Not only coffee, Deng Liyuanyu also extended this ecological estate model to Dalat red wine, PhuQuoc fish sauce, BinhThuan dragon fruit, CanTho Royal No. 5 pomelo and other Vietnamese agricultural products, Harvard University professor Peter Timo Define these practices as "neo-coffeeism".

In the future, Deng Liyuanyu intends to promote this green agricultural model in backward areas such as Asia and Africa. Obviously, Deng Liyuanyu regards coffee as Vietnam's "soft power". "If the green agricultural ecological model based on coffee is developed and promoted globally, Vietnam will have a certain say in the global economic and trade field." Peter Teemo deeply agrees with this and points out that the green agricultural model should become the focus of Vietnam's economic transformation.

Peter Timo commented on Deng Li Yuanyu, "He looks like a Vietnamese economic ambassador." ;