God is there and enough
From a video by Faith & Co
Sonny Vu and Christy Trang Le, the husband and wife co-founders of Misfit Wearables, have had their faith tested as entrepreneurs. But relying on their faith, they helped build up a company founded on servant leadership, as well as Vietnam’s emerging R&D talent. This is part of their story:
"Often it feels that God is silent. As a Christian entrepreneur, being able to deal with the fact that God seems to be silent all the time is hard. We pray for wisdom. We pray for smarts. We pray for people who will lift the burdens with us. We pray for funding. Usually it feels like he's silent. One thing that we've understood now and I think we understand, is that God is there. He might not be saying anything at the moment, or we can't hear it, but that promise that he is there, the sense that he is there, I think is enough for us.
"Why did God give us the business. There was definitely time that I felt extremely nervous and there were times that I felt exhausted. And we were constantly challenged, and we were doing things that we were not yet qualified for.
"When we first started Misfit is was really just us starting in our apartment. And by the time wearables was really hot, and the angle we took was instead of focusing on fitness, endurance sports and what not, we went after fashion. Something that was beautiful, something that people would want to wear all of the time. It was really fashion focused, very design oriented, and I think we won a following.
"Everyone thinks we came to Vietnam because of money, because it's cheaper here, cheap labour. But we came here because of the attitude. The attitude and the working spirit.
"We had a number of values which we kept for a long time. Do more with less. Think before you talk. Listen, be a misfit, meaning you got to do things differently. And then we added servant leadership. It's very nice sounding. It's like yeah I'm a servant leader, yeah, I'm gonna serve my team. And it's like great we got lunch catered but you're going to be the last in line, right, because you're the most senior person in the company. If you get upgraded to business class, are you going to give up that seat for the intern that you're travelling with, because that's what's expected. It's not even a nice thing to do, you're just supposed to do that.
"It was some time until we realised, when we reflected on some of the best people we had, what was the common thing that they all shared that we loved about them, that made them so unbelievably productive, so trusted. I think it really comes down to this notion of self-sacrifice. Because if you have people who are inherently giving, who watch out for each other, watch out for another person before themselves. But who will watch out for the company and the resources before them. There's nothing that you wouldn't give them. There's nothing that you wouldn't entrust them with.
"I wouldn't want the purpose of work to be just to get a bunch of money so we can donate to a church. I'd be missing a very important part of why I'm doing what I'm doing. If the why can be very intrinsic to what I'm doing, that what I'm doing is worship. Business is the way that I express the faith that I have. It cannot be separated from life and because of that God has to be there."
Watch the 7 min video of Sonny and Christy's journey:
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From a video by Faith & Co, 13/03/2019