Considered a pillar of future technology industries, blockchain is opening up many opportunities for practical applications, creating a vibrant wave of startups and innovation in Vietnam. However, start-ups in this field are facing many difficulties and barriers in terms of legal, technical, human resources and marketing issues. More than ever, a comprehensive solution to solve these bottlenecks is what blockchain startups are looking forward to.

Blockchain is currently one of the breakthrough 4.0 technology trends, and is a fertile ground for Vietnam's startup ecosystem. Recently, there has been a wave of Vietnamese startups and businesses applying blockchain technology, attracting great attention from investors as well as observers.

Take Axie Infinity for example - the blockchain game of Sky Mavis continued to successfully raise $152 million in the series B round in October 2021, was valued at $3 billion, and reached a capitalization value exceeding $8 billion. More recently, in December 2021, Whydah - a Vietnamese blockchain start-up also successfully raised $25 million from major investors such as Eternity Ventures, Hashkey, Bitscale, Morningstar Ventures, Youbi, PolkaStarter.

To become one of the "technology unicorns" and achieve outstanding achievements like those enterprises, blockchain application projects in Vietnam need to overcome the difficulties and challenges of this particular field.

The “drought” for blockchain personnel

Because blockchain is a relatively new technology, highly qualified and experienced staff are still scarce. According to VietnamWorks' “Information Technology Human Resources Market Report 2019”, those with blockchain and artificial intelligence (AI) expertise are receiving the highest salaries.

Accordingly, the Blockchain-related software development group receives an average salary of $2,241 per month, while the AI-related software development group has a salary of $1,844 per month.

Therefore, with the increasing number of blockchain businesses being opened, the human resources market still cannot satisfy the demand for high-quality personnel for this industry.

Peculiar marketing strategy

Since the customers of traditional industries are mostly ordinary consumers, businesses mainly apply popular forms of communication such as TVC broadcasting (advertising clips), radio, and online advertising on social media, etc. However, for blockchain projects, the audience is the community and group of potential investors, so branding and marketing strategies are completely different.

For example, let’s look at a digital asset developed on the blockchain platform that has created a fever in the past year, NFT. Many NFTs are considered "crazy" expensive, but users around the world are still willing to spend millions of dollars to collect and trade. These include the collage "Everydays: The First 5000 Days" by artist Beeple that sold for $69.3 million, or the case of Decentraland platform selling a virtual land of "565 square meters" for 2.43 million US dollars, more expensive than the value of some real-life bustling areas in Manhattan (New York).

Obviously, without appropriate marketing activities, which help to build a community large enough to create influence and strengthen investors' confidence in the exclusivity and potential of NFT, the crazy numbers above are borderline impossible to achieve.

The most common feature of blockchain start-ups is that they only focus on developing their platforms, products, and services without having reasonable marketing plans to bring the project closer to the community and investors. In addition, in the current market, there are not many experienced media units to advise and provide specific types of marketing services for this market.

Launchpad - the platform to help Vietnamese start-ups become "blockchain technology unicorns"

Mr. Nhat Phan - Co-founder and CEO of BHO, a blockchain project developed fully by Vietnamese engineers, commented: “These are common difficulties and challenges for all blockchain businesses, especially new startups entering this market. To grow, businesses must overcome the barriers of capital, human resources and marketing that are very peculiar to this industry.”

Firstly, on the issue of raising capital, according to Mr. Nhat, blockchain start-ups need to consider and choose capital raising platforms that are experienced in capturing market trends and community’s sentiment.

Secondly, for start-ups just entering the blockchain field who are still struggling to know where to start, look to a team of professional advisors, who have a lot of experience in organizing and developing blockchain projects, to minimize risks in this relatively new field.

Thirdly, while there is a shortage of blockchain labor in the market, start-ups should take advantage of this resource from partners who have the available staff to ensure the quality and progress of the project.

Last but not least, the community is an integral part, accounting for 60-70% of the determining factor for the success of a blockchain project. Therefore, start-ups need to develop appropriate marketing plans to build their own community with optimal costs, and still ensure efficiency.

In the near future, the BHO project is completing and launching BHO Launchpad. This is a platform to support blockchain start-ups to develop communities, thereby helping to raise capital for these projects. Mr. Nhat shared: “BHO Launchpad was created to support new Vietnamese start-ups participating in the blockchain field. We have had a large network of media & social networking communities in more than 20 countries and territories, more than 10,000 media partners including news sites, communities and KOLs. With BHO Launchpad, we expect it to be the perfect match for fledgling blockchain projects.”

Blockchain technology can be considered an inevitable trend, and has great potential. However, because it is a new and nascent business field, Vietnamese start-ups will face many new challenges, in addition to the usual obstacles when starting a business. Learning, as well as relying on the experiences and resources available in the market, is a wise step, which helps businesses "stand on the shoulders of giants" to quickly grow and seize opportunities.

Source: https://cafebitcoin.org/launchpad-mot-trong-nhung-giai-phap-ho-tro-cac-start-up-blockchain-thuc-hien-uoc-mo-tro-thanh-ky-lan-cong-nghe/