From a little boy who sold tofu and lottery tickets on the street, Tran Van Tinh (Tony Tinh) is a self-made man who built IMM Group from nothing.
Born in the 1980s to a farming family, Tinh hails from Binh Minh, Vinh Long, a province in Mekong Delta in southern Vietnam. The main income of Tinh’s family was derived from their homemade tofu. The job requires much manual labor, so Tinh would wake up at 3:00 a.m. every day to help his parents prepare tofu before leaving for school at 6.00. After school, he and his brothers continued to work until late evening. This work involved extensive contact with water that ulcerated his hands and feet. Therefore, he usually felt into the river while carrying heavy flat winnowing baskets of tofu on his head.
Tinh recalled: “I cried almost every day when using alum water to cure ulcerated wounds in my toes and fingers because it was painful and burned. At that time there was no machine. We had to row a sampan more than one kilometer against the river current to reach the market to have tofu beans ground in market mill. We would then row the sampan back home, carry the ground beans from the mill to the working area, put the ground beans into a cloth bag, knead and squeeze the cloth bag to extract the soya milk, boil the soya milk, add ingredients to condense the milk into tofu, put tofu into a frame, use a rock to press the frame to harden the tofu, cut tofu into small pieces, fry them, and then carry them to the market for sale.”
Despite these hardships, Tinh and his brothers enjoyed going to school and would cry a lot if they missed any classes. Their parents always encouraged them to pursue education for a better future. They received excellent academic results every school year and were also chosen as role models for having overcome hardships to stay in school.
When Tinh was in Grade 3, a tragic accident in 1989 changed fate of the whole family. His father fell from a height of more than 10 meters and as a result suffered a severe spinal cord injury. The family sold off everything to save his father. After a year of treatment, his father was back home but with his body half paralyzed. His family went broke. Feeling desperate and depressed, Tinh’s father attempted suicide several times. But as time has gone by, he decided to start over again to ensure that his children would become good and productive people. He supervised the family to continue making tofu and did work himself even in a wheelchair.
Tinh started to sell lottery tickets from Grade 5 to further support his family. In Grade 6, he had to learn English because of the curriculum requirement. He hated English classes because his pronunciation was awkward. Every time he spoke, the whole class would laugh at him. He determined to master English and not let anyone look down on him or he would quit schooling. He asked his father for permission to attend English class in the evening from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. at an English center in Can Tho more than ten kilometers away from home. His father refused at first because he was too small to go that far in the evening alone, left alone that he had to go by ferry. Eventually, his father let him attend to English class in Can Tho as he loves his son more than anything in the world. Tinh shared,
“At that time, the English center where I studied had an associate program with a school in Canada where I would take five classes per week, three hours each class. I am not sure if it was because of my passion to learn English or because of my determination to prove something to my friends or their excellent curriculum that I studied with all my heart. I would mumble things in English while doing other things and looked absolutely ‘abnormal.’”
With this start, Tinh talked to foreign tourists if he happened to see them, improving his English with practice and making friends with many foreigners. These were the foundations for his later confidence in communication and business. He started to think he could change his fate. He dreamed of becoming someone great and speaking English fluently as he saw tour guides do everyday.
In 2000, Tinh left his hometown for university in Ho Chi Minh City. To sustain himself in a big city, he would work as a newspaper delivery man, waiter, tutor, and other jobs.
In his free time, he went to the computer rental store and learned more things. Thanks to his English capability, Tinh could search and find documents of computer, coding and networking languages, etc. Tinh even found the online information and got applied to a tourism company to make his dream come true. In the meantime, he continued his research on keywords business (SEO) for tourism, made videos to teach website coding and sold them online, studied finance and accounting, etc.
After a time operating tours, he had a small amount of capital. Therefore, he decided to collaborate with a foreign partner in a SEO project for a Vietnamese tourism website, providing advertising services to Vietnamese restaurants, hotels, and travel agents. Unfortunately, not many people in Vietnam at that time knew the Internet and Google, so the project failed after a few months.
In 2005, he helped a Canadian friend to set up a representative office in Vietnam. Tinh took the chance despite having little experience.
“This practice was brand new for Vietnam during that time, so you would have to learn everything along every step. I searched online for information and consulted Vietnamese authorities for the standard procedure. I did everything myself, including finding premises to rent, buying computers, and recruiting local staff,” Tinh said.
After the first successful project, Tinh recognized the value of this potential service to foreigners. Borrowing money from friends, he opened Perfect Investment Consulting Company with only one CEO-cum-staff—himself. The office was actually his rented bedsit. With the modest capital, he advertised his investment consultancy services through online forums and targeted companies interested in investing in Vietnam. Thanks to the reasonable cost, his prestige, and detailed plans, he had a few more clients and saved some money.
In 2006, the company was renamed Immigration Co., Ltd, and provided immigration services to Canada along with representative office establishment. The service was one of the first of its kind in Vietnam. At this time, the office moved to a bigger space of 20 square meters, and he had his first staff.
He organized his first Canadian immigration workshop in Ho Chi Minh City, attracting 157 participants despite a high entrance fee. The workshop secured about 40 contracts. The company services then expanded to immigration consultancy to other countries such as USA and Australia.
After 10 years of steady growth, Immigration Co., Ltd has now developed into IMM Group with three member companies – IMM Immigration, IMM Consulting, and IMM Management. IMM Immigration provided consulting services for residence by investment in the US, Australia, Canada and Europe for investors. IMM Consulting is specialized in foreign enterprise establishment and management for Vietnamese investors. And IMM Management provides services related to Vietnamese real estate investment and management consulting for foreigners.
At present, IMM Group has offices in Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, Hai Phong, and Singapore with some 40 employees and members. Moreover, IMM Group is a member of MSI Global Alliance (MSI), a global association of over 250 legal and accounting firms in more than 100 countries around the world. IMM also established a charity fund for disadvantaged people in Vietnam.
The slogan “Inside Out” summarizes IMM Group’s business philosophies throughout its 10 years of operation. This message fully represents every aspect of the group, which is taking all intrinsic ability (Inside) to develop and not limiting in one aspect (Out). It is also interpreted through personal development guidance, using human factors, the little things including manners, behaviors towards people, working capacity (Inside) to be the foundation of the group’s success and development (Out).
In terms of the reciprocal nature of the “Inside Out” philosophy and the Group’s values, IMM Group always emphasizes the real, inside value of each individual of the group and applies genuine moral values (Inside) to business activities, customer services, and partnerships with external partners (Out).
In terms of mission, IMM Group focuses on balancing internal goals such as creating a corporation in which all employees can archive happy (Inside) and establishing a charitable foundation to help the unfortunate (Inside) with external goals such as providing service satisfaction (Out) and contributing to enhancing the self-respect and advancement of Vietnamese people in the global community (Out).
“We consider integrity our top priority, paying full attention to our service and products. This requires dignity, consistency, and the professionalism of each and every member of the Group,” Tony Tinh said.
IMM GROUP
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