Posted by Dustin Kemp on July 01, 2014
I’m breaking from my usual blog post theme of universities to write about a different topic: how Backpack can help start a business. My inspitation for today's blog post came today when my aunt visited and we were discussing me starting my own business. As some of you may know, I am moving to Vietnam in August to teach English. What you probably don’t know is that I love indoor rock climbing. My aunt is a climber, too, and so I was talking to about continuing my hobby in Ho Chi Minh City, the part of Vietnam in which I will be living. I told her that I would love to keep climbing, but I was having a great deal of trouble locating climbing gyms in HCMC, to which she replied that I should try starting my own climbing gym. At the time, I laughed and offhandedly said “Maybe someday,” but later, I realized it was an amazing idea! Vietnam, like many third world countries, is rapidly developing in today’s age of increasing urban development, and now is the perfect time to start a business. Starting a gym is not the most labor-intensive or time consuming form of start-up business, and it would be possible to do it without even having to quit my teaching job. Of course, startups require a significant initial investment, but it is a tantalizing prospect.
Once I started thinking about it more seriously, I realized one major issue: obtaining materials. Since indoor rock climbing is not yet popular in Vietnam, materials, such as climbing walls and climbing holds (the fake rocks jutting from the walls) are not available there. This is where Backpack comes in. Like I have discussed in past posts, with Backpack, the world is your marketplace. By connecting with reliable members of the Backpack community, even the most “exotic” items can be obtained without paying ridiculous fees for imported goods. Backpack would make my plan of starting a climbing gym in HCMC, something which I would absolutely love to do, a more cost-feasible option. To others out there who would also love to start their own business, especially if it would be in a developing country, now is the time. The world economy is currently ideal for startups, and Backpack can help make your dream a reality.
