19/03/2025
New City Vibe has closed. When I started, I did so because I wanted to experience something new. Now that our son will be born soon, I think it’s time to say that I was successful and move on to the next challenge. So this strange chapter lasted about one year, and it brought me fulfillment, excitement, new friends, new skills, and valuable life lessons.
A few things I learned:
💡how to negotiate for Vietnamese property rental and haggling for goods
💡how to manage projects with lots of moving parts
💡what doesn’t work in advertising (and a little about what does)
💡why location is so important for a brick-and-mortar business
💡how to grow, harvest, and propagate banana, cashew, and papaya trees in our back garden
💡how to make a pumpkin spice latte from scratch, and many other recipes
💡how to train, motivate, and manage employees
💡empathy
💡assertiveness
💡planning growth
💡analyzing profit and loss
💡how to design and teach art curriculum to children.
💡how to paint a motorcycle with acrylics
💡the value of free time/avoiding burnout
💡how to organize events
💡how to appreciate the people who support you
💡your product can be amazing but if the location sucks it isn’t going to work
💡in an English language school, the foreigner is the product, making it hard to scale a good product
💡you can probably run almost any business without paying for a physical location
Thank you to everyone who came and visited and made Vibe a great place over the last year 🪴
