Why a french banker quit his job and moved to vietnam?

"Choosing to become an entrepreneur, may create tough challenges to overcome, and may cause a lot of difficult life changes. However, creating a start-up and being self-employed is meaningfull and can be a turning point in your life. Having to learn new skills and facing new challenges is hyper-stimulating," says Guillaume Rondan, a former banker who has become an entrepreneur. This was followed by successes, failures, new life experiences, professional and countless personal challenges to overcome.

Working More and Earning Less

In investment banking the days are quite long, but the career path is interesting, and can bring in a significant amount of money. When you build software that manipulates several million dollars in the financial market,the workday is quite a rush. As a start-up owner or when you are self-employed, you have to invest a lot of time in your career. You can't just stop thinking about your project when you get home. You can also have severely low income or negligible financial gain for the first several months of your career.

Many people who have started their careers in high-paying corporate professions, such as bankers, strategy consultants and business lawyers are not ready to make a career reset and work for a low-income job that would involve a significant loss of salary.

Being an Entrepreneur is a lot of hard work and sports a lot of challenges that people who are just looking to gain lots of money quickly will not want to deal with. If you want a career path with minimal difficulties, this job isn’t for you. On the other hand, if you are passionate about your project and you’re willing to take risks everything will be easier. You will have to invest a lot of your time, energy and money during this journey, but you will learn a lot about yourself, and you will be completely committed to what you do. You will have the satisfaction of loving what you do, and customers will appreciate that in the long run.

An Emotional Roller Coaster

In an ordinary business, the functions and interactions of employees are regulated by titles and an organizational chart. The manager decides the rules, and his subordinates follow them and report their own team’s performance to him or her. There may be peaks of activity or stress, but in general if things are going well the level of satisfaction is quite stable ; nothing extraordinary but average. Everyone has a well-defined role, their field of action is clear and no one is irreplaceable. As a start-up or a self employed worker it's different. You are in charge of everything, and carry all the responsibilities on your own shoulders.

Entrepreneurs are obsessed with questions like: « Does my product or service meet a market need? » « Will my customers be willing to pay this price for my service » « What promotional strategy should I use to build impact without cutting down my entire margin? »

To be an entrepreneur you have to be driven enough to take action and achieve big goals every day. You also need to be able to criticize your own work. The degree of involvement is very high. Some entrepreneurs lose sleep thinking about their projects. Losing sleep and overworking yourself can lead to several emotional problems, which is another risk of the career. You have to be a very strong individual to succeed in the field.

Then Why Make All These Sacrifices to Start From Scratch?

Becoming an entrepreneur is one of the best ways to truly take control of your life and become financially free. It will take several years of sacrifice, strong personal involvement and challenges to face, but it will all be worth it. You manage your own schedules and you don't have to answer to anyone as long as your customers are satisfied with your products or services.

From Simon Sinek’s perspective (author or Find you Why), becoming an entrepreneur requires defining your vision. As soon as the first results start to appear you can reinvest your earnings to make your company grow, delegate a part of the work, hire and build a team. Then you will have a business that is improving your life. Tim Ferriss, author of the book 4 Hour Work-Week followed this path. He grew his business and made it work to achieve personal and financial gain. After a few years, you will be able to really spend four hours a week on your business and spend the rest of the time doing what you like: travelling, learning a new language, or practicing a hobby for fun without worrying about the money you have to earn to pay your bills.

From Being an Entrepreneur to Settling Down in Vietnam

Why Vietnam? Its quality of life, ease of starting a business, economic dynamism and an entrepreneurial spirit that is deep inside the society has been the main reasons that attract fresh, young entrepreneurs or those expats looking for a first working experience in Southeast Asia. Living in Vietnam is an excellent choice for an expat. Recently ranked as the 2nd most popular destination for expats in Internations' annual Expat Insider 2019 study, the country attracts entrepreneurs, investors, and graduates looking for opportunities. The friendliness of the Vietnamese people, cost of living, growth of the country and opportunities are the key factors of this study about life in Vietnam. Being an entrepreneur in Vietnam is a perfect mix of all those qualities, and anyone who lives there can thrive in their business and personal life.

Guillaume Rondan is the founder of Movetoasia.com : a growing community dedicated to investors and entrepreneurs to help them moving to Asia.