News podcast
The US market is the dream of many global startups — and where many startups die fastest. Enormous scale, fierce competition, and American customer expectations are completely different from Vietnam or Southeast Asia.
We gathered 4 Vietnamese founders who have actually built businesses in the US — not just representative offices — and asked directly: what do you wish you'd known beforehand?
Things Not in the Textbooks
"The US isn't one market — it's 50+." B2B SaaS in Texas is completely different from B2B SaaS in New York. Don't think you understand "the US market" after talking to 10 customers in San Francisco.
"Customer success costs 3x what you think." Especially for B2B, churn rates in the US are high if onboarding and support isn't strong enough. Many Asian startups underestimate this.
“It took us 18 months to realize that our ICP in the US was completely different from our initial assumptions. The first year was actually research disguised as sales.”