Forbes Vietnam in February released its 30 Under 30 list of young people who have positive influences in their spheres of operation in Vietnam.

Nguyen Tuan Cuong

Nguyen Tuan Cuong, co-founder of Amanotes, is one of them.

Unlike the other names on Forbes’ list, Cuong and his company remain unfamiliar to many Vietnamese.

Amanotes, one of the major players in the mobile game music community, was established in 2015 by Cuong and Vu Tuan Binh, CEO and co-founder.

App Annie last year listed Amanotes as one of the top 20 mobile apps on all platforms, together with Facebook and Bytedance. SensorTower also listed Amanotes in the world’s top 20 applications with the highest number of downloads in 2019.

App Annie last year listed Amanotes as one of the top 20 mobile apps on all platforms, together with Facebook and Bytedance. SensorTower also listed Amanotes in the world’s top 20 applications with the highest number of downloads in 2019.

The company’s flagship is Magic Tiles 3 which simulates musical instruments such as piano, guitar and drums, allowing users to play famous songs. It has had 275 million downloads since its launch in 2016.

In 2012, the two co-founders met each other for the first time thanks to a post on Launch, a group of the Vietnamese startup community on Facebook.

Cuong then just graduated from the Foreign Trade University which was seeking a job. Binh was a co-founder of a music game startup called MusicKing, but it failed and had to shut down in 2009.

Binh, who plays piano, Vietnamese bamboo flute and guitar, wanted to develop a new project which utilizes both music and technology.

Cuong had an idea about a startup for interactive music games.

Amanotes in its first days took shape from the funding of the two co-founders. The only external funding source was from the revenue they got designing websites for other companies.

“We wany users who don't have music background to be able to play. So we focused on making music as vividly as possible,” Cuong said about Magic Tiles 3.

The co-founders also provided best experience to players through simple operations.

Cuong thinks that the success of Amanotes stems from allowing users to experience the whole song.

Amanotes has not revealed the financial situation of the company, but Cuong said the revenue is created from ads and the sale of items in the game. Amanotes also has profit sharing agreements with developers who develop games on Amanotes’ platform.

Mai Lan 

AI is trend at Vietnam’s startups

Voice recognition technology, artificial intelligence (A.I), blockchain and big data are the major trends at startups in Vietnam in 2020.

Vietnamese startups find it difficult to call for capital

South Korea, not the US or Singapore, is the market where many Vietnamese startups will call for capital, according to Pham Ngoc Huy from Vietnam Silicon Valley.