Alec Nguyen

Having split time between Vietnam and Japan, Alec (Anh) Nguyen joined HIS in his 10th-grade year. Once an avid martial artist, Alec has applied his discipline to co-found an AI company that earned over a million dollars in revenue in the first year alone. Find out more about Alec's experiences that make our Class of 2019 Alumnus tick!

What brought you to HIS and what did you like the best?

I came to HIS because I was looking to return to Japan after living a few years in Vietnam. And honestly, I love the winter sports that I could do at HIS and in Hokkaido the best.

What are you doing now?

Right now, I’m building my AI tech company called Afforai in Austin, TX (which is where Elon Musk lives, there are a lot of cybertrucks here).

What is your greatest accomplishment to date?

There are different metrics and the different ways I define success. In terms of traditional standards, Afforai did nearly a million dollars in revenue last year 2023, which is our 1st year of business. We raised over half a million dollars in venture capital funding from some of the best VCs in the world. But I also define being able to attend HIS as one of my best accomplishments. I truly really loved and enjoyed my time at HIS. I miss the hiking trips, the ski trips, and so many more. That really shaped who I am today to persevere and endure the challenges in building my company.

What is the biggest challenge you've faced so far in your life?

It's a super broad question, but I think it’s more of coming to terms with accepting who I am, and the way I view the world is pretty different. I’m very much a if no one is going to do it, I’ll do it myself kinda person. This is one of the challenges that I recently faced just last year as I was about to graduate college. No one wanted to hire me. It really sucked but I think it turned out for the best. I really enjoy what I’m doing now, building what I’m passionate about.

How have overcome/are you overcoming that challenge?

No one wanted to hire me so I hired myself by building my own company.

What's the most valuable skill or trait you gained from your time at HIS, and how is that helping you in your current life?

I still remember to this day, I asked a lot of questions and was curious about how a lot of things get done. Sometimes, that annoyed some teachers :))) (sorry Mr. P and Ms. Harmon) but I never really changed, and now, being in my position hiring people and responsible for building a great team for Afforai, I get to ask a lot of questions to make sure I’m hiring the best people who are not only talented in what they do but can work well with my team.

In your exclusive interview on YouTube, you mentioned you often spend 100 hours a week doing work. How do you manage that? 

I think that was an underestimation, I probably work more than that. I basically work when I’m not asleep, and when I don’t work, I think about work. I’m a bit addicted to work right now at this stage of my life. But I wouldn’t rather do anything else in my 20s. It’s my shot. My success is dependent on my own work output so… I think 4 years in college helped me build and refine my study and work management system. I learned when I was the most productive to do this type of work; when I was not productive, I switched tasks. Things like that. And now, I apply that system to my work.

In that same interview, you showed off your awesome library in the Afforai office. You also shared three of the most important books to you. What are those books again and how important is reading to you? What part has reading had in your success? When did you truly become a reader?

Well, the books were The Mom Test, Digital Marketing for Dummies, and Get Backed. Reading great books saved me a lot of time avoiding pitfalls in building Afforai, and time is one of the most valuable assets I have right now. I can’t afford to waste my time doing things that don't contribute to my business. As I said in the video, the book Get Backed taught me how to build a compelling pitch deck to pitch investors that ultimately helped me raise over half a million dollars in Venture Capital funding for my company Afforai. So, sometimes, it can really be quantifiable. I think HIS taught me to enjoy reading a bit, but it wasn’t really until college that I realized I really need to read or else I would fail the class ooopss :)) Maybe this is not the answer you expected.

Tell our readers in words about your company Afforai. What is it all about? Who's it for? How did you and your co-founder come up with this idea?

Afforai is the AI-powered reference manager that helps researchers manage, annotate, cite papers and conduct literature reviews with AI reliably. We came up with this idea based on our personal struggles doing research back in college. Professors, researchers, and students alike spend hundreds of hours doing one literature review, and I didn’t think this was the most optimal way to do it. And so I explored how technology can help with optimizing this literature review process and that’s how Afforai was born. We just recently announced our official partnership with Northern Arizona University to implement Afforai on the school campus, helping both professors and students enhance their productivity.

Any advice for future Huskies?

I don’t know, I still don’t think I’m in the position to give any advice because I’m also trying to do my best everyday. So maybe I’ll leave with that, do your best, put in your best effort in everything you do because how you do anything is how you do everything. Pretty cringe but that’s how I really view it.