Marina was born in Canada, years after her parents immigrated during the Vietnam War. She studied commerce with a focus on marketing, and had educational and internship stints in South Korea and Hong Kong. She was a Finalist in the Globe & Mail Cannes Young Marketers Competition.
She has over 10 years of brand management experience at companies including Unilever, Bacardi, LG Electronics and Spin Master. With the inspiration of trying to build a sustainable future for my nephew and working to support local economic growth and job creation from my parent’s hometown, she decided to venture on my own to bring to the world truly eco-friendly solutions through my new sustainable brand, EQUO.
Recently, Marina and EQUO won the SME100 Fast Moving Companies in Vietnam award and was named Flik’s 21 Womxn Entrepreneurs to Watch in 2021.
What is EQUO all about?
EQUO is a sustainable brand delivering easy solutions for everyday single-use plastic items. First line of products is drinking straws made from grass, rice, coconut, and sugarcane that are 100% plastic-free, biodegradable, compostable, and non-toxic! Additional categories will include utensils, dishware, and stationery. They are easy, no-brainer switches so simple, you may not even notice them – even though Mommy Nature does. We at EQUO don’t force you to use one material which has limitations in colors, size, use, or disposability. We don’t ask you to learn or change your actions or behavior. We want you to continue going about your day – except in a way that is better for the environment.
Tell us a little bit about your background and how you started your business?
I was born in Canada, years after my parents immigrated during the Vietnam War. My journey started when I moved to Vietnam to help my family. In a country that is known for its coffee, I explored one of the multitude of cafes in the city, and that’s wmye I happened upon the first product in the EQUO line up: the Grass Straw. With the inspiration of trying to bridge the gap between Vietnam and the rest of the world, building a sustainable future for my newborn nephew, working to support local economic growth and job creation from my parent’s hometown, and the desire to raise Vietnam’s profile as a global leader in sustainability and innovation, I decided to venture on my own to bring to the world truly eco-friendly solutions through the sustainable brand, EQUO.
EQUO helps to address the UN Sustainable Development Goal #12 – ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns. My goal is to drive educational awareness about the plastic pollution problem locally in Vietnam and to give people a reason to care about a generally overlooked category by building a bright, attention-grabbing brand.
My aim is to make plastic-alternatives widely available with firstly drinking straws and utensils, in order to force production to slow down and eventually be eliminated altogether for single-use plastics. Approximately 90% of all the plastic produced on the planet is used only once – if the world starts to replace these with sustainable alternatives, these small solutions can have a big impact.
How has the pandemic affected you or your new business?
Our business almost went down multiple times during the pandemic. We launched on to Kickstarter right before the pandemic really started to effect things in May of 2020. During that, the world went in to lockdown and we didn’t know when it was going to open up again. Factories, logistics, travel all shut down – all things essential to our business. We continued to continue to try to continue business and had to absorb a lot of costs that we had not planned on in order to do so. It was a struggle just to get past 1 year for our business. Also, our products help to serve the food service industry, and customers we saw interested in our products prior to the worldwide lockdown ended up having to delay their orders or they ended up closing down and being out of business altogether. We took blows left and right by having our customers taken away and our ability to deliver product severely affected.
What were the top mistakes you made starting your business and what did you learn from it?
Hiring agencies or third parties to do work for you. While this may work at a corporate level, for small businesses this can eat up costs quickly without being delivered the focus, attention and level of work you expect. We learned this costly lesson as it seemed like we weren’t able to get from our third-party services the same caliber of work as those in-house. Some of the biggest things we achieved we did by ourselves.
Trusting resumes – One of the biggest things I learned is someone’s resume is not indicative of their ability to adapt or work well, especially in an unstructured environment like a startup, or during a pandemic where you have to work from home, instead of being in the office all day. My best hires were those who were less experienced but willing to put in the work, had the energy to learn, and the ability to adapt quickly. Some of my worst hires were those who had amazing credentials but ultimately had been so far removed from daily, menial tasks and the high demands of a startup.
What is one thing that you do daily to grow as an entrepreneur?
I read motivational quotes. It sounds weird, but when you’re an entrepreneur and everyone, every day is giving you advice from a million directions and there seems to be a never ending mountain of work, sometimes you need to read from the experiences of those who went through the exact same thing, in order to remind yourself to keep going because it will be worth it in the end.
What are three books or courses you recommend for new entrepreneurs?
Paul Arden – It’s not how good you are It’s how good you want to be – Quick easy read, but so poignant in delivering the message of how self-belief and motivation can make you stand out and achieve more.
James Doty – Into the Magic Shop: A Neurosurgeon’s Quest to Discover the Mysteries of the Brain and the Secrets of the Heart – Longer read but its all about visualizing your success and building your path to that end goal.
Dalai Lama – The art of happiness – It’s a good read to help find your purpose and what you’re trying to achieve with your business but also in life.
What is the one thing you wish you knew before starting your business?
How hard it would be. You will have to work harder than ever before in your life. You’re going to have to believe in yourself even when no one does. You’ll have to do all the things you don’t want to do because it’s necessary for your business. The glamor we see about entrepreneurship hides all the trials, tribulations, and troubles that business owners really go through on a daily basis. It is a marathon.
What has been your most effective marketing strategy to grow your business?
Being seen everywhere – Linkedin, Facebook, Instagram, Clubhouse. Telling everyone that will listen and showing anyone that sees anything on the internet or social media. The first part of selling your product is getting people to know it even exists. The more times you bombard them, the more curious they will be about what it is all about. Also, telling your story is key to your success. There are millions of brands out there, and telling your story can do wonders to setting you apart.
If you only had $1000 dollars to start a new business, knowing everything you know now, how would you spend it?
Creative. If you can’t afford a real prototype, you can afford to visualize it down on paper and show people your idea and vision. Visuals are so powerful in being able to convince people.
What’s your best piece of advice for aspiring and new entrepreneurs?
Believe in yourself. If you don’t, no one else will, and that is the FIRST step to becoming a successful entrepreneur. Thinking you can when everyone else thinks you can’t.
What’s a productivity tip you swear by?
Always archiving my email. Trying to make sure you action and sort your email everyday will make your list of tasks for that day seem less daunting. It also helps you prioritize. A clean inbox is the most satisfying thing in the whole world.
What is your favorite quote?
“Better an oops than a what if”.
We only live on this Earth for a small speck in time. Be bold, be brave, make mistakes, but NEVER be left wondering ‘what if’?
What is your definition of success?
Success is different for everyone, and that’s why my definition of success is whatever it is that makes you happy and makes you feel like you have lived your life well.
How do you personally overcome fear?
To overcome fear, I always remember that I’m just one of the billions of people in the world. Yes, I might fail, or be embarrassed, or totally bomb at something, but so do billions of other people at the exact same moment in time. So in the scheme of the whole universe, that fear you have of failing will only be remembered for a second before it is gone and forgotten.
Also, the fear of not knowing drives me. Not knowing how things could be and how much you can achieve, trumps the fear of not trying.
How can readers get in touch with you?
Find me on LinkedIn with my name or on Instagram @marinatv_
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