For city & local government partners · Da Nang, Vietnam
Frontier Club puts Vietnamese founders and developers in the same room as international builders, so locals get hired, taught, and co-founded with. The second beat is roots: companies that stay and grow from Da Nang, not a visit.
440+ builders on the community list, 5 events in six weeks, and a phased partnership plan inside.
Frontier Club · Da Nang City, Vietnam
What we run
Events, meetups, workshops & mentoring, multiple times per month
Multiple times a month we run AI meetups, workshops, and founder mentoring. The room is the mix: Vietnamese founders and developers next to international builders, so locals get hired, taught, and co-founded with. Community gatherings are how people find teammates and stay.
AI Meetups
Open builder nights
Talks, demos, and hands-on coworking for developers and founders shipping with AI.
Founder Hub
Peer sessions
Founder Hub pairs international founders with Vietnamese builders in the same room.
Workshops
Hands-on formats
Focused sessions that turn tools and workflows into practice, not slides alone.
Founder mentoring
Ongoing support
Direct mentoring for startup founders on shipping, go-to-market, and connecting to the right people.
Traction on the ground
440+ builders on the Da Nang list
In roughly six weeks: 5 events run and around 100 unique builders checked in. Early proof the mix is already in the room: Vietnamese builders and international founders, together.
440+
Builders on the Da Nang community list
5
Events run in roughly six weeks
~100
Unique builders checked in at Frontier
What Singapore did
Let foreign founders in. Require them to hire locals.
This is not a foreign-company versus local-company jobs contest. Singapore never published that split. They let a foreign founder arrive with an idea. They cannot stay as a one-person shop. Renewal requires citizens and PRs on payroll, and rising local spend. A founder who never hires a local is treated as a tourist.
EntrePass renewal ladder
Local hires (citizens/PRs) and local spend must rise, or the founder does not stay.
Local hires
Local spend
2nd renewal
1 local hire
S$100k spend
6th renewal
5 local hires
S$700k spend
11th renewal
10 local hires
S$1.15m spend
Tech.Pass
Holders are meant to mentor, invest, sit on boards, and teach locally. The foreign talent is there to leave capability behind.
The mechanism
Not more foreigners. Foreign founders + local engineers/founders in the same room, with a rule that locals get hired, taught, or co-founded with. That is the model that can benefit Da Nang.
This is the case for a Da Nang initiative that follows Singapore's lead. These are Singapore ecosystem totals, not a foreign-versus-local jobs chart. Officials published growth: startups, jobs, a share of GDP, and most of ASEAN venture capital sitting next to local talent.
3,600
Tech startups in 2019
World Bank 2021
18,000
Jobs in 2019
World Bank 2021
~168k
Jobs by 2035, projection
PwC
~2%
of GDP by 2035, projection
PwC
2.5×
extra SEA jobs per Singapore startup job
PwC
4th
globally, StartupBlink 2025
EnterpriseSG / EDB
ASEAN VC share
About 60 to 72%
of ASEAN venture capital, EnterpriseSG / EDB. Singapore concentrated the region's capital next to local talent.
The model for Da Nang
If Da Nang follows that lead: mix Vietnamese founders with international founders, then measure local hires and local spend. That mix is already in the room. Enclaves do nothing.
Singapore published these totals. Frontier Club did not cause them.
Vietnamese founders and developers get hired, taught, and paired as co-founders because international builders are already in the room. Stay and grow from Da Nang is the second outcome, not the headline. Resolution 136/2024/QH15 already gives CIT and PIT holidays for startups, AI, and semiconductors: tax holidays attract bodies, they do not create the mix. Frontier Club is the conversion layer already running.
01
Local jobs and local spend
Visiting founders hire Vietnamese PMs and engineers and spend in the city (Singapore's own success metric). Meetups and workshops, multiple times per month, are where those introductions start.
02
Co-founders and teammates
Founder Hub pairs international founders with local builders in the same room.
03
Skill transfer
Workshops and mentoring that leave capability behind, not just RSVPs.
04
Roots, not stopovers
Companies that open a Vietnam entity, not a tourist pass.
05
Bridge
Local startups to international investors, and the reverse.
Phase 1 scoreboard
Phase 1 money buys measurement, not RSVPs. The 30M VND founder-tracking software line is how we report this.
01 Vietnamese hires by visiting / landing founders
02 Local co-founder / teammate pairings from Founder Hub
03 Local vendor / office / venue spend
04 Workshops taught to local teams
05 VN entities opened vs tourist passes
Use of funds
Where the sponsorship goes
Every đồng goes into running the program on the ground in Da Nang. At full program, the monthly budget breaks down like this:
Full program · monthly
650MVND
≈ US$24,700 per month, covering the full events, mentoring, and staffing program.
We're proposing a phased start, beginning at 260M VND per month. See the next page.
Staffing
Community and operations team running events, founder support, and partner reporting.
280MVND
Regular event spaces
Venues across the city for meetups, workshops, and founder sessions, multiple times per month.
180MVND
Prizes
Hackathon and demo-night prizes that attract serious builders to compete and ship.
90MVND
Design & printing
Signage, banners, standees, and event materials for every event.
70MVND
Software tools
Founder-tracking software. This is how we report Vietnamese hires, local pairings, local spend, workshops taught, and VN entities opened.
30MVND
The ask
A phased partnership: start small, scale with results
We're not asking for everything on day one. Phase 1 proves the program at a lean budget and buys measurement, not RSVPs. Each later phase scales as the scoreboard moves: local hires, pairings, spend, workshops, and Vietnam entities.
Phase 1 · Prove
Months 1–3
260MVND / month
≈ US$9,900 / month
·Regular event venues secured
·Design, printing & prizes covered
·Founder-tracking software to report the scoreboard
