ZUNZUNSTARTUPS
Recently, during a coffee catchup with a senior venture investor who has been active in Vietnam for many years, he shared a concern that I believe is far from unfamiliar to many of us in the startup ecosystem. His fund has been investing in and supporting a company for nearly a decade. The business is still operating, and even showing growth in certain segments. Yet as the fund reaches the stage in its lifecycle where returns need to be realized, he has been unable to find sufficient alignment with the founder to open a viable exit path. That conversation made me reflect more deeply on a broader issue within Vietnam’s startup ecosystem today: the exit and liquidity flow is becoming increasingly clogged. And when this flow is obstructed, the consequences go far beyond a handful of funds or companies—it creates ripple effects that impact the entire ecosystem.
At their core, venture funds are fiduciaries. We receive capital from LPs and deploy it within a finite fund lifecycle—typically around ten years—with a clear mandate to generate returns. Exit, therefore, is not merely about “investment return”; it is tangible proof that a fund has fulfilled its responsibility. Conversely, when exits fail to materialize, LP confidence erodes. More dangerously, confidence in the Vietnamese market itself may be called into question.
Viewed from a wider lens, the absence of meaningful exits is like a river whose flow has been blocked. Investors become more cautious, or even withdraw altogether. Founders find it harder to raise capital. Startups struggle to attract top talent, as the perceived “upside” of joining a startup fades in comparison to safer job alternatives. And those standing outside the ecosystem gain yet another reason to stay on the sidelines. Once trust begins to decline, almost none of us are truly immune to its impact.
I believe this exit bottleneck reflects deeper structural limitations of the market. While Vietnam’s public equity markets have made notable progress in recent years, IPOs remain a very narrow door for the vast majority of startups. The number of companies that are truly of sufficient quality, scale, and sustainability to meet listing requirements is still relatively small. This, in turn, makes later-stage investors more cautious, as future exit paths remain unclear. As growth capital slows, exit pressure flows backward—landing squarely on founders and early-stage investors—making the liquidity challenge even more acute.
At the same time, from my observation, one of the biggest bottlenecks lies in the lack of genuine alignment on exit between founders and investors. Exit is almost always mentioned during fundraising—M&A, or IPO, even founder buybacks. What concerns me, however, is how many founders truly and seriously consider how those scenarios might be realized in practice, rather than simply mentioning them because it is “the right answer.” In reality, most exits in Vietnam’s startup ecosystem take the form of secondary share sales—partial exits overtime tied to new funding rounds—or full exits through M&A. From a technical standpoint, these structures are not unfamiliar. Yet the real “choke point” rarely lies in legal or financial mechanics. More often, it lies in the leadership intent of the founder.
That intent shows up in whether founders remain committed to building the company through successive stages of growth; whether they understand that different phases require different types of shareholders with different strengths; and whether they are willing to view a liquidity event as a strategic opportunity to restructure the cap table—to “pass the ball” to shareholders better suited for the next chapter.
A well-designed liquidity event does not only allow investors to exit. It also enables core team members and long-tenured employees to realize part of their ESOP value, giving them greater personal stability and the motivation to continue the journey. Particularly in developing markets, I have learned a very pragmatic lesson: you do not need to wait for a once-in-a-lifetime exit. Smaller, earlier, and more frequent liquidity events—partial secondary sales, partial ESOP cash-outs—often give founders and teams a sense of security, empowering them to take on bigger, bolder challenges. In contrast, placing all expectations on a single “big bang” moment often exhausts both founders and investors, leaving no one with the outcome they hoped for.
I was once deeply impressed by a founder who told me he viewed creating exits for shareholders as a leadership responsibility. Not because of pressure, but because he understood that prior investment capital had enabled him to build his company in the first place. If those investors cannot exit, future generations of founders will struggle to access similar opportunities. Seen this way, exit is no longer a personal matter—it becomes a responsibility to the ecosystem.
To achieve this, founders need both heart and vision. Heart, to honor those who believed in them during the hardest moments. Vision, to design a truly win–win liquidity event—not only for themselves, but for shareholders, the team, and for the company’s long-term future. That said, leadership responsibility does not rest solely on founders. Investors, too, must be mature enough to speak early, speak honestly, and speak consistently about exit, rather than avoiding difficult conversations until it is too late.
A well-designed exit is not about selling the dream; it is about handing the dream over to the right people at the right time. It allows shareholders who have completed their historical role to pass the baton, enabling the company to move into its next phase with more suitable partners. From this perspective, exit is not at odds with long-term company building. On the contrary, it is an inevitable part of the maturation journey.
All of this can only happen sustainably when there is a strong foundation of trust between founders and shareholders. Without trust, exits easily devolve into tense negotiations—or even confrontations—where no one truly wins. Trust does not emerge by accident. It is built through simple but difficult practices: honest conversations when things are not going well, transparency even when the news is bad, and a shared focus on the company’s long-term interest over short-term personal gain.
I have heard stories where trust eroded to the point that shareholders resorted to “hard measures” to force an exit. Such exits may solve the liquidity problem on paper, but they rarely leave anyone feeling whole. By contrast, when trust runs deep, conversations about exit can happen earlier, more calmly, and more constructively. A mature founder understands that the company does not belong solely to them. It is the product of trust, time, capital, and the youth of many people. Leadership responsibility, therefore, does not end with growing the company—it also includes designing fair and meaningful transition points for those who have walked the journey together.
After many years of investing in volatile, developing markets, I have come to believe that exit should not be viewed as an event, but as infrastructure. Without exits, capital does not circulate. Without capital circulation, the next generation of founders cannot begin. In that sense, every meaningful exit today is a prerequisite for the ecosystem’s tomorrow. Vietnam’s startup ecosystem will only truly mature when more founders see exit as part of leadership, trust as a strategic asset, and shared success as the ultimate goal. When that happens, startups will not only create economic value—they will create trust, the most precious currency for any ecosystem seeking to sustain and renew itself.
As a deeply committed venture investor, I always hope to co-design meaningful, winning exits with the founders I partner with—exits where founders can look back on their journey with pride, investors fulfill their responsibility to LPs, and teams are fairly recognized for their contributions. Only when our ecosystem produces more sustainable companies and more meaningful exits like these can Vietnam truly prove that this is a positive-sum game—one where everyone wins, together. So yeah, founders—let’s keep fighting for that future, together.