Background: Along with plenty of success stories, the dark side of start-ups has only gained more attention from researchers recently even though a large number of start-ups failed after being launched. One of the main reasons is depicted to be the mismatch between business ideas and the market, yet there is a lack of literature available in this field, which leads to the need for a research about business idea validation. Therewith, the global technology trend made Asia an emerging market for technology start-ups. Located in the Southeast Asia, Vietnam is said to be a potential market for technology start-ups, especially software start-ups. Nevertheless, there is a lack of research about Vietnamese software start-ups in general, and particularly regarding the validation of business ideas.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore how Vietnamese software start-ups come up with their business ideas and in what way their business ideas are validated. Besides, the study also aims to explore the influence of the Vietnamese market including the Vietnamese government and people on Vietnamese software start-ups at the early stage.

Method: The exploratory research design is used to fulfil the research purpose with the empirical data collected through semi-structured interviews. The gathered data is then analysed by using a thematic analysis approach. Coding is carried out in order to recognize emerging themes and relationships between the collected data, which then helps us to draw our conclusions.

Conclusion: The conclusions are derived from the empirical data. Accordingly, business ideas can come from the experimentation, networking or observation of the founder/CEO or from the combination of these. Experimentation, networking and observation are also used to validate the business ideas along with doing market research and gaining feedback. The influence of Vietnamese government and people on start-ups is a twofold issue. On one hand, it encourages and supports Vietnamese software start-ups in running their business. On the other hand, it contains some drawbacks that are hurdles for them.