Truong Cong Hieu, founder of Edutrend Creative: Building a launching pad for educators

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Truong Cong Hieu, founder of Edutrend Creative

Catch the short video wave

In 2020 and 2021, when TikTok became a global phenomenon, Truong Cong Hieu felt that this could be a "wave" of the times, like how Facebook or Shopee once stirred up the Vietnamese market.

As a TikTok user, Hieu quickly realized that there was no shortage of content about travel, beauty, and cuisine on this platform, while videos from people working in education were almost non-existent. “People with good professional knowledge often do not have the mindset of building a TikTok channel or marketing. From there, I decided to build a model to support people working in the knowledge field to develop their own businesses,” Hieu said.

To update his knowledge about the TikTok platform and how to create videos on this platform, Hieu chose to self-study online and attend any free events.

For those who are still wondering whether it is too late to develop marketing channels through short videos, Truong Cong Hieu said that when he started his business, many people asked this question and until now, they continue to ask, but have not started working. While reality proves that if you are persistent and disciplined, channels can completely increase their views by 50% after a few months. "It is only too late if we just sit here asking instead of starting to work," the founder advised.

Among the companies Hieu has worked for, the company that laid the foundation for his future entrepreneurial journey is a training company with about 200 employees. When he joined the company in 2023, Hieu was the only employee responsible for building a TikTok channel from scratch. With the knowledge and acumen of a young person, Hieu helped the business build a successful short video channel system, achieving 1 billion views on multiple platforms, bringing in high conversion rates. There were even days when the TikTok and Facebook Reels short video channels received more than 300 messages asking to register for courses with a conversion rate of 15-20%.

“Many people think that they have to make videos with a lot of views, but in my opinion, the most important thing is conversion. From that video, they have to attract more students, they can’t invest too much and then not get results,” Hieu said.

During his time working part-time at the company, Hieu tried his best to complete 3 tasks at the same time: studying, working, and developing his own startup model. Based on practical experience, the young founder began to form the idea of Edutrend Creative, a training model that helps knowledgeable people build their own short video channels, applied on many platforms such as TikTok, YouTube, Facebook... From there, each person can develop their personal brand and attract students sustainably.

From individual courses to comprehensive ecosystems

In the early days of starting his business, Hieu started with a 1:1 teaching model, Hieu directly shared knowledge with education center owners and business owners, with a price of 25 million VND for a 2-3 hour exchange session. However, Hieu quickly realized that this method was ineffective because it was time-consuming, and only helped a small number of students. To optimize resources and reach more people, Hieu decided to "package" his knowledge into an online course. The course was designed and taught by the founder himself, including 100 videos, each video only about 5 minutes long, with a price of over 12 million VND - a price considered the highest on the market today.

The advantage of the course, according to Hieu, is not only in the content, but also in the fact that learners can participate in an existing community. Here, they can exchange, update knowledge and receive 1:1 support from Hieu's staff whenever they encounter difficulties.

From an initial online learning platform, Edutrend Creative has developed into an “ecosystem” specializing in providing training, marketing and technology services specifically for those working in the field of knowledge business. Hieu shared: “In Vietnam, there are many people teaching about short videos, however, Edutrend Creative is the first unit to focus on developing training programs specifically for those working in the field of knowledge business”.

According to Hieu, the Edutrend model consists of three main components: First is the training sector, specializing in providing short video courses for people working in the education sector. Second is the marketing and communication sector, in which instead of self-studying and doing things by themselves, educational enterprises are supported by startups to design business models, run ads and build brands. When the centers have developed stably, it is also the time when they need the third service of startups, which is student management software, online marketing channel management, etc.

Hieu believes that this model, although new in Vietnam, has been successful abroad, so it will have great potential, especially when the Government is aiming to soon make English the second language. Besides, the lifespan of educational models is shortening compared to before due to increasingly strong competition, so the opportunity for a comprehensive support platform like Edutrend Creative is very open.

Last May, Hieu decided to quit his job at his old company to focus on developing his start-up. Hieu estimates that he has sold about 150 courses to individuals and has taught directly to 6 businesses.

Currently, Hieu is a senior student at Ho Chi Minh City University of Economics and is expected to graduate in 2026. Despite being busy with his studies, the founder still devotes a lot of enthusiasm to his start-up, through actively perfecting the student care process, aiming to sell 200 more courses in 2026. Furthermore, Hieu has a plan to expand to the international market by converting the teaching content in the videos into English.

Source: https://baodautu.vn/truong-cong-hieu-nha-sang-lap-edutrend-creative-xay-be-phong-cho-nhung-nguoi-lam-giao-duc-d382826.html