Starting a business with '0 VND' with bamboo flute

Not only is he a keeper of the passion for traditional musical instruments among young people, diligently teaching and playing the flute for free on Youtube, Nguyen Van Mao (nickname Mao “Meo”) also successfully started a business with a chain of 25 stores supplying bamboo flutes across the country.

Nguyen Van Mao's fate in the bamboo flute business was also by chance. Mao said he knew and loved playing the flute since he was 8 years old. Even when he was a university student, Mao still kept the habit of playing the flute with flutes bought at the market for 10,000 - 15,000 VND/piece. Mao often posted flute playing clips on Youtube, and clips teaching how to play the flute for those who were exposed to the bamboo flute for the first time.

“With the initial desire to help young Vietnamese people love bamboo flutes more, and teach flute playing to those who want to learn” - Mao recalls. Gradually, many young people who watched the clip liked to learn to play the flute and asked Mao where to buy good flutes. Grasping that psychology, Mao posted a few bamboo flutes for sale online. But the number of people calling to ask to buy flutes was too much, Mao came up with the idea of ​​doing business from the flutes he made.

In 2012, Mao's bamboo flute business grew stronger, bringing in an income of up to 20 - 25 million VND/month. To prevent his flutes from being confused with other popular products, Mao registered for trademark protection at the Intellectual Property Office.

To widely promote his brand as well as connect the passion for bamboo flutes across the country, Mao created a website about bamboo flutes.

In 2013, having accumulated a certain amount of capital and also wanting to create favorable conditions for flute lovers to buy, Mao opened the first bamboo flute shop in Hanoi. To widely promote his brand as well as connect the passion for bamboo flutes across the country, Mao created a website about bamboo flutes. From being the Chairman of the Hanoi Bamboo Flute Club, then the Chairman of the Northern Bamboo Flute Club, and now Nguyen Van Mao is the Chairman of the Vietnam Bamboo Flute Club with a fixed number of members of up to 40,000 - 50,000 people.

Recalling the early days of starting his business with “0 dong”, Mao said that in the early days of entering the business, Mao also encountered certain difficulties. Mao was determined to learn and realized that to make a good flute, the flute maker must first know how to play the flute and know how to process the flute. From the initial stage of choosing the blank to completion, it took one day. Everything was done manually, with little use of machinery.

Nowadays, flute making techniques have developed a lot, if technology is thoroughly applied, hundreds of flutes can be produced every day. Mao knows the profit, but still preserves the manual method, completely using his ears to sense the sound of the flute, combined with techniques honed over time. "A good flute requires good materials. When importing raw materials, I almost have to throw away half of them. Everything is checked by a specialized measuring machine, then manually carved" - Mao said.

Carefully before leaving the factory, if the inspection finds any defects or produces an imperfect sound, Mao immediately burns it. Therefore, on average, Mao's flute factory can produce 500 flutes per day, but after strict inspection steps, only 300 flutes will be released. Therefore, Mao Meo's bamboo flutes are famous for their unique aesthetics and quality.

The "Mao Meo Bamboo Flute" brand has been copyrighted by Mao and each flute sold on the market is affixed with the brand's stamp. Currently, the "Mao Meo Bamboo Flute" facility creates jobs for more than 100 people. Each month, the facility sells about 8,000 flutes at a price of 330,000 VND/flute. Revenue from flutes alone has peak months reaching nearly 1 billion VND/month.

Doing business from your passion is a good direction, but what motivates Mao to do business in this field still comes from Mao's enthusiasm for the bamboo flute movements of young people. The concept is that just blowing a tune from the bamboo flute can calm the human soul, forget the fatigue, pressure of life... so Mao cherishes the desire to "cover" "Mao Meo bamboo flute" all over the world.

According to Economics & Urban