Day Eight

No visit to UEF today. Instead we walked to the Hard Rock Cafe. Kinda surprised me that they have a Hard Rock Cafe here. I wouldn’t have guessed that this type of thing would be successful in Vietnam, especially because it is almost entirely American. This is the reason I’m a middle class American student and not a hugely successful and wealthy businessman. I’ll leave that to David and Dan Thai. They co-own, if I understand correctly, Viet Thai International Joint Stock Company. The two Vietnamese brothers were raised in the United States. David is the founder of the company. Dan gave a large portion of the presentation today. He could not stay the entire time because he had another meeting to go to. He explained to us that Vietnam presents a very attractive market to Western businesses because of the growing economy, young population and their will to become Westernized. The centerpiece of Viet Thai is Highlands Coffee, which is like Starbucks except that it isn’t. It has sit down meals and uses a completely different type of coffee bean. Side note, Vietnamese coffee should come with a warning label. It is very strong. My chest was pounding after two cups. I thought it was interesting that Highlands actually wants Starbucks to come to Vietnam for direct competition. After Dan Thai’s presentation, we ate lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe. Next we walked through a high end mall where Viet Thai owns quite a few stores. It amazed me that a brand like Armani could be successful in Vietnam where the average person makes between 1 and 3 US dollars per day and an Armani tie costs $150. We stopped at a Highlands Coffee in the shopping center. Next we headed to another Highlands store to which is attached a training center for new Highlands employees. Here the director of Highlands Coffee spoke to us. It was a relatively informal Q&A session and I was surprised how down to Earth and normal the presenter seemed.