The short answer
I was a software engineer in Kyoto. WPP later bought a majority stake in the agency I co-founded. Now I build AI agents for small businesses.
I didn't plan to work in advertising. I studied computer science at SFU and computer systems technology at BCIT, and I wrote software in Japan. My friend Justin Cohen and I set up our company in Saigon to build websites and software. The turn came when an art director needed something built that he couldn't build, and I could.
If you think you have the wrong background for the business you want to build, this page is for you.
A two-week break that turned into a company
My name, Ly Viet, means "leaving Vietnam." In the 1970s, my parents did exactly that. I grew up in Vancouver.
In 2004 I took a two-week break from my job in Kyoto and went to Saigon. Three years later, in 2007, I moved there. Justin, also from Vancouver, and I co-founded Sofresh in Ho Chi Minh City. We set out to build websites and software, not ads.
The job that turned a coder into an ad man
One night in a Saigon bar, I sat next to an art director. He needed an interactive website for Pond's and didn't know how to build it. I said I could. He worked at Ogilvy.
Ogilvy started calling us with more projects. Then the client called us directly. That one job turned a coder into an ad man.
I had no ad background. What I had was the skill to build the digital work the ideas needed.
What being an engineer gave our agency
- We could build the idea, not just pitch it. The Pond's job came to me because the art director couldn't build it and I could. That stayed true: when an idea needed something interactive, the team built it instead of handing it off.
- We questioned the brief. JWT once hired us just to produce a Poca chips job for PepsiCo. We questioned the brief and pitched a better digital idea, and PepsiCo later made us the digital agency for all its brands in Vietnam. Engineers ask "will this actually work?" before they start.
- We wrote the process down. After one project went badly, our own review said we were late and coordination was weak. We turned it into a rule: strategy goes before creative. Engineers fix the system, not just the bug.
Where it went
WPP bought our agency in 2012. Sofresh became Mirum Vietnam, then merged with JWT into Wunderman Thompson Vietnam, which I led as CEO, with 100+ people. Justin and I exited in 2021, after 14 years.
What I tell small business owners now
You don't need the "right" background to build a brand. Build around what you can do that others in your market can't. For me, that was code. For you, it might be your craft, your trade or the way you look after customers. Put it at the centre, then tell the story plainly.
That's also why I build AI agents today. It's the same skill, pointed at a new problem.
The research behind this: The Coder Founders, 106 agency deals checked.
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