EMBA Class Team - prep for Vietnam Trip

Every year the 2nd year EMBA class at Boise State goes to Vietnam for a week as part of the International aspect of the program.  The program looks for projects to accomplish in Vietnam and then creates team or groups to work on each of the projects.

On the last day of the first year of the EMBA Program at Boise State I presented to the class the project I plan to take to Vietnam.  I plan to open a software development office in Vietnam.  My pitch to the class was that while in Vietnam I would like to:

• register with the government,  
• find an office space and outfit it and 
• interview and hire employees

Four other groups also pitched to the class,  some looking to sell product to Vietnam,  others looking to do market research in order to sell product to Vietnam and others to look for manufacturing service.  I feel like I ended up with some of the most motivated and experienced people in the class on my team (Brent, Shannon, Mark and Layne) and when we sat down to talk out the presentation,  we quickly identified many things that need to be done before we even go to Vietnam in order to be able to accomplish more when we are there.  Our Vietnam group will be able to start working on the project in September and we can work together throughout the month until we leave about October 1. The first thing we did is figure out what we think is accomplish-able in just over 1.5 days of work,  when we are there in Vietnam.  I set my sites pretty high,   before we leave Vietnam on October 12th I would like to:

1. Complete the regulatory filings
2. Find and sign on an office deal and prepare it with internet and utilities
3. Hire a business manager, a project lead and a developer

But we identified many things that need to be worked on even before September.

Even though I enjoy understanding the regulatory environment and being able to take care of filings myself here in the states, My group convinced me that I really need to find representation to help with the filing in Vietnam.   So, the first item I have to do before class starts up in September is to find Vietnam Representation and speak with US Representation to identify any state side issues.    This coincides with goal 1) above.   I have to figure out what kind  of filings I need and I will need help doing it before we get there.  I have actually already started my research into the type of entity I need to file,  I have many discoveries in this bog entry here

Next,  for item 2) above, I need to prepare guidelines for office space with minimal and ideal size, location, layout and other characteristics.   With this in hand in September,  we as a team will be able to start communicating with Real Estate agents or other companies to help us identify and filter down the list of office spaces we would like to look at when we are there.

Finally,  for item 3) I need to prepare job descriptions for open job positions.  With these job descriptions,  we as a team can work together during September to post job listings and solicit resumes to fill those positions.  Ideally we would then be able to go through a couple layers of video / skype communication and filter our list of interviews down to a reasonable number when we are there in Hanoi in October.

Since the amount of time we have during the EMBA week is rather short (1-2 days)  I have extended my stay until late (10PM) on Monday in order to give myself a couple more days to accomplish a bit more.