Anna Nguyen

Nga Nguyen is one of the co-founders of TemplatesGo.com, a company that was established in June 2022 with the aim of simplifying the writing process for legal documents by creating a document generator. Originally from Vietnam, Nga has been residing in Barcelona since 2018. Before starting her own business, she spent more than eight years in the supply chain industry as a logistics and export manager. During her stay in Barcelona, Nga achieved her master’s degree and worked as a short-term intern at a startup company, where she developed her network and gained valuable experience for her current project.
Despite her professional background and expertise in International Trade and Business Development, Nga decided to make a career change and pursue her entrepreneurial vision of building Templatesgo to help simplify the way of creating formal documents for individuals and businesses.

What is your typical day, and how do you make it productive?

My typical days are quite simple. I usually start my new day at the gym and make myself a healthy breakfast for a great kickstart. Then, I start my work by reviewing pending tasks and quickly checking emails I need to reply to. As we are a remote team, I assign new daily tasks on Trello, and we communicate our work through Telegram. My main task is analyzing our business and competitors’ data, testing our products, and developing our SEO and marketing strategies. We don’t have daily meetings but once weekly to discuss what improvements each team member wants to develop in our system, content ideas, and so on. We also discuss and evaluate new ideas to pick the most relevant and necessary for our projects.

How do you bring ideas to life?

The inspiration for the Templatesgo platform appeared in my mind when I was crafting an invitation letter for a friend with my partner. We discovered that searching for document samples, copying and pasting, and composing an entire formal letter was time-consuming, and we believed there had to be a more efficient approach.
This was how we came up with the idea of developing a tool to aid people like us in generating documents with greater ease. In my prior work, I was responsible for crafting contracts, addendums, and formal letters, so I had firsthand experience with the amount of time and effort required to conduct research and produce legal documents. That’s why I decided to start a business that would provide an easy-to-use, editable tool for creating a range of formal documents and simplifying the writing process for individuals.

What’s one trend that excites you?

Sincerely, AI is the trend that I have impressed in recent years. It has the potential to revolutionize various industries and solve complex problems quickly that humans may take quite a long time to solve. For example: writing code.

What is one habit that helps you be productive?

Doing exercise and the steam sauna three times/a week is a morning routine that improves my productivity. I typically allocate 30 minutes to exercise and another 10 minutes to the sauna to energize and refresh myself for the day ahead. Following this, I begin with easy tasks to accelerate my workflow. This approach helps me to get started faster and maintain focus throughout the day, with other tasks requiring more time and effort.

What advice would you give your younger self?

Set goals to learn how to create side projects, invest time in learning new set skills and get out of your comfort zone earlier! I have to admit that I didn’t plan any goals concretely when I was in university. I didn’t think about what I wanted to do or have any passion. Instead, I followed society’s standards guiding me, “find a secure job, earn money, and get married”. But I believe women nowadays have their own choice to make and desire the way they want to be.

What is the one thing you repeatedly do and recommend everyone else do?

Listen more and talk less. It works for any aspect, from relationships to business. In business, I believe listening skill is one of the emotional intelligence skills that can help you build stronger relationships with clients, customers, users and colleagues. Listening more can help you understand their needs, challenges, and goals, you can provide better solutions and more effectively communicate the value of your products or services. It also helps you build a better team by listening to their problems, ideas, or needs to build a better relationship.

When you feel overwhelmed or unfocused, what do you do?

I would drink water and take a little break to go for a walk outside. It helps me calm and refresh my mind whenever I feel overwhelmed or unfocused. No matter how busy you are, allow yourself to relax if you are under pressure. Your mental health is important. Priority it first.

What is one strategy that has helped you grow your business or advance in your career?

I always tried to find a way to solve problems, even though it seemed impossible, in both business and career. Whenever I encountered problems, I would ask myself: What is the problem, why did it happen, and how can it be resolved? I keep exploring and seeking to identify its root cause and analyze possible strategies or methods to solve it. Furthermore, I kept myself curious to learn new things as I worked towards a solution, which helped me to grow and improve my knowledge.

What is one failure in your career, how did you overcome it, and what lessons did you take away from it?

As I previously worked in the B2B business, one of my big failures was not checking the background of the business client’s financial profile and getting scammed. It took half of the year to solve this client’s caused problems and debt when he made excuses not to pay our company and tried to take the goods containers. You will at least stumble on scammed clients or partners once in business. So, my lesson is to check their background and perform an inspection carefully before starting a new business or cooperation by checking their business years, LinkedIn profile, talking to people who know them, etc.

What is one business idea you’re willing to give away to our readers?

I am willing to share my business idea Templatesgo.com. I want to share how I come up with the idea and how this business can help simplify anyone’s work of creating documents.

What is one piece of software that helps you be productive? How do you use it?

I would suggest Trello for a remote company like us. It allows us to allocate tasks clearly and in detail. We can follow up quickly on new tasks or once tasks are completed or pending and determine which tasks will be the priority daily.

What is the best $100 you recently spent?

I recently invested that amount of money in purchasing items to organize my home better. I greatly enjoy having a neat, clean, well-organized living space. Additionally, it helps my mind clear when I wake up in the morning. Seeing everything in its place, without any chaos or mess, helps me improve my productivity and refresh my new day.

Do you have a favorite book or podcast from which you’ve received much value?

The book “Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ” by Daniel Goleman has significantly influenced my life and character. Through his writing, Goleman emphasizes the significance of emotional intelligence in leadership and today’s society. He highlights four critical components of emotional intelligence: self-awareness, self-regulation, social awareness, and relationship management.
I believe these abilities are vital for anyone striving to be a successful leader and effectively handle the complexities of the modern world. Whether you hold a leadership position or desire to enhance your personal connections, cultivating your emotional intelligence can lead to significant improvements. At least, in my case, It is.

What’s a movie or series you recently enjoyed and why?

The series “You”, I love Psychology Genre.

Key learnings:

• Being an entrepreneur is a challenging journey that requires perseverance, resilience, and determination.
• Create good routine habits and maintain them to improve productivity and work-life balance.
• Entrepreneurship requires daily discipline and consistent effort. Even on tough days or when inspiration is lacking, doing at least one task to establish your workflow during the day is crucial.