Ngoc the academic became a true farmer, daily tilling the land and planting crops in her hometown in Dak Hring commune, Dak Ha district, in Kon Tum province.

Ngoc’s decision surprised her parents and villagers in her hometown. They could not understand why she, a well-educated woman, decided to give up an easy life to embark on the hard work of farming.

Seeing ripe farm produce unsold, Ngoc decided to both cultivate and collect raw materials from farmers and start a business in agriculture, processing food and foodstuff, fruits and medicinal herbs. Her company, Apanax, was established.

However, as she could not properly calculate the required initial costs, the estimated capital needed soared by 10 times. As a result, she had to move heaven and earth to seek capital.

"Honestly speaking, my family opposed my startup plan because it was too risky. A girl who only knew her books for years, with no experience in business, and always looked at life through rose-colored glasses then risked the family’s lifetime assets for bank loans,” she said. 

“But eventually, my parents agreed to mortgage their assets at banks to get loans after hearing my persuasions every day,” Ngoc recalled.

A large workshop was built, and after three months, Apanax began marketing dried banana and jackfruit products. After that, local farmers no longer had to discard their bananas and jackfruit, and their lives became less hard.

However, misfortune rushed down. The company had been operational for just a short time when the Covid-19 pandemic broke out, forcing the workshop to halt operations due to lockdowns.

However, after the pandemic, her workshop resumed operation. The company collects 30-50 tons of bananas and 100 tons of jackfruit from farmers each month. Sometimes she collects 2 tons of bananas and 4 tons of jackfruit a day.

Her dried bananas and jackfruits have conquered customers’ hearts, distributed through sales agents and supermarkets. Today, they are available in green-product stores OCOP (one commune one product) sale agents, and at major supermarkets in various provinces and cities.

In 2024, the mother of three, including a newborn, both took care of her children and ran her business. Sometimes she spent sleepless nights to draw up business plans. She brought her small child to meetings and sale promotion events.

2024 was a prosperous year for Apanax as its two products were recognized as 4-star OCOP at the provincial level. The Kon  Tum Provincial People's Committee granted her the certificate of Rural Industrial Products of the Province.

The two products were also granted a certificate on outstanding rural industrial products in the central region and Central Highlands in 2024.

Apanax is one of the rare businesses in KonTum province certified by the provincial People's Committee as a High-Tech Agricultural Enterprise.

In late November 2024, two Apanax products received intellectual property certificates from the Intellectual Property Office.

Lessons for startups

After five years of running her own business, Ngoc said entrepreneurs need to be mentally strong, thoroughly understand what they plan to do, and be well-prepared for implementation.

“If you find pressure when being an employee and you want to give up jobs, you’d better not to think about starting a business, because the pressure you have to bear when running your business will be ten times bigger,” she said.

“As an employee, you just need to focus on doing your job well, but as an entrepreneur, you need to handle everything, big and small," Ngoc explained.

She said that entrepreneurs need to prepare capital arrangement well.

"When starting, financial resources are very important because you have to spend money on many things, while you still don’t have revenue. Most startups fail because they lack cash,” she said. 

“Therefore, you should prepare for the scenario that you don’t have any income for six months or one year. You need to know where the money will come from to sustain your startup during this period,” she explained.

When asked how much capital one needs to have to start a business, the director suggested that the amount depends on the business field, but entrepreneurs can start from small capital of tens of millions, or hundreds of million dong.

Tuan Nguyen