Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – Not all refugees from a region live in poverty when they arrive in another country. One of those who had good luck was David Tran.

Tran is a refugee from Vietnam who came to the United States to seek asylum. There, Tran then started a business and is now successful in having assets of US$ 1 billion or Rp. 15 trillion.

What's the story?

In the beginning, Davin Tran was a victim of the Vietnam War. He and 3,000 other people fled Vietnam to go to the US in 1978. He came as a refugee and hoped that the US government would take him in.

However, he is not like other refugees who rely on help from other people. As a former successful entrepreneur, he then wanted to start a business at Uncle Sam from scratch. Quote ForbesTran then sold his 2 kg gold savings as business capital.

From this capital, Tran chose the Vietnamese chili sauce business. Regarding this business, Tran is already familiar. While in Vietnam, he and his brothers traded chili sauce until they became rich.

So, when starting a business in Los Angeles, Tran already knew what things he had to do. It only took him two years, precisely in January 1980, to set up the business and successfully establish a chili sauce brand called Huy Fong.

At first, Tran marketed chili sauce in the Vietnamese community and of course it immediately sold well on the market. Even so, this did not make Tran proud.

“I knew, once the Vietnamese people settled here, they wanted their own hot sauce… But I wanted something that I could sell to more than just Vietnamese people,” he told Business Insider.

On this basis, he expanded his target market to the wider community. Unexpectedly, the chili sauce he made was selling well on the market. New York Times said the chili sauce suits the US palate and is suitable for use in all culinary delights.

Since then, he started making profits. In 1987, Tran moved Huy Fong's operations to a larger building. Then a decade later, he bought a large factory to produce thousands of bottles of chili sauce.

Interestingly, Huy Fong's success was not through advertising at all, but only through word of mouth sales. On this basis, Tran always maintains the quality of his chili sauce so that this kind of marketing method is maintained.

Apart from that, he also tries to keep prices from being too expensive.

“My goal was to try to make hot sauce for rich people at the same price for poor people,” he said.

Until now, Tran is still focused on selling. In fact, he not only sells typical Vietnamese chili sauce, but also typical Indonesian chili sauce. All of them are under the Huy Fong banner. On this basis, Huy Fong was crowned the king of chili sauce in the US, after Tabasco and Frank's RedHot.

Meanwhile, Tran himself is now mentioned Forbes has assets of US$ 1 billion or Rp. 15 trillion. He was then named the most successful and richest former refugee in the United States.

[Gambas:Video CNBC]

(mfa)