Meet Son Nguyen, the founder of electric two-wheeler start up Dat Bike, who traded the tech haven of Silicon Valley for the bustling streets of Vietnam to follow his dream. 

In a move that some might call bold, he swapped his software engineer's hat for a helmet, diving headfirst into the world of electric motorbikes.

"I actually quit my job in early 2018 because I really wanted to solve this problem of moving motorbike users from gasoline to electric. But my background was in software,” he says on an episode of You Don’t Know Vietnam.

With a bit of help from YouTube and a welding course, Son built electric motorbike prototypes in his back garden in the U.S. 

When people bought his prototypes, he knew he was onto something special. He’d spotted a gap in the Southeast Asia electric motorbike market and moved back to Vietnam on a mission. 

Not just any mission, but a grand plan to turn 250 million Southeast Asian petrol heads into electric bike enthusiasts. 

"When we say our mission is to convert everybody here in Vietnam and Southeast Asia from gasoline two wheelers to electric, we really mean it,” he says.   

Starting in Vietnam, the land of more than 65,000,000 motorbikes, Son wants to swap out the noisy, smelly petrol bikes for shiny, silent electric ones. 

First, he built the Weaver, a high-performance street bike to wow the tech-savvy and eco-conscious early adopters.

But that was just a warm-up. 

“We couldn't go into making a bike for the masses yet, because at the time, we didn't have any experience. Our supply chain wasn’t good enough. Our reputation as a brand was nothing,” adds Son. 

“So we had to make a bike that really stood out in terms of design, was really recognizable on the street and has a very core audience group, which is why we started with the Weaver. It is the only street motorbike on the market, even up until now."

Dat Bike’s business model is Direct to Consumer, which means that Son and his team are directly in touch with the end user. 

This makes for streamlined customer care and a rapid feedback loop. 

“We apply a lot of the philosophy from software to what we are doing right now. We have a very fast feedback loop from R&D to manufacturing to the consumer and then back to the drawing board again.”

“The Weaver proved our hypothesis that what people really, really need is high performance at an affordable price. 

“That’s when more people will make the switch to electric.”

With a supply chain in place, engineering expertise, a solid brand and good reputation, Son then launched the Quantum - a bike for the masses and a sign that the revolution is really underway.

“We are sitting on two trends right now," says Son. 

"One is that things will go from gas to electric, and the other is that manufacturing is moving away from China.

“With these two trends crossing, Vietnam has a very big opportunity to become the major electric two-wheeler manufacturer of the world.

“Vietnam has a very strategic advantage… our supply of the rare earth metal needed to make electric motorbikes and our focus on engineering and manufacturing talents.”