The Spotlight™: Minson Vo’s Mission to Help Others Speak with Confidence
- Flori Meeks Hatchett
- Jun 23
- 6 min read
Updated: Jun 26
When Minson Vo trains people to be effective public speakers, everything he does comes from a place of empathy.
There was a time when the idea of speaking before an audience utterly terrified him. He wasn’t very comfortable with expressing his opinions, either.
“I went through my middle school and high school years with a lot of trouble speaking up and asserting my views when I needed to,” said Vo, who grew up in Houston. “This probably stemmed from the family I grew up in. My parents are from Vietnam, and I was a first-generation American. In traditional Asian culture, you’re not encouraged to speak up. You’re actually encouraged to defer to authority. So I didn’t know how to speak up. I didn’t know that I should have spoken up.”
But gradually, Vo seized opportunities to build his speaking skills. He realized he was good at addressing audiences, and he liked it. As he progressed, he also recognized a great need for a training program geared toward his generation.
That epiphany is the foundation behind his business, SpeakRdy, which specializes in public speaking training for Generation Z clients.
“I’ve been having a great time with SpeakRdy,” Vo said. “I love the feeling I get from being able to help people live and communicate with confidence.”
Discovering the Power of Words
It was an Instagram ad about negotiation that led Vo to dip his toe in communication training. He noticed it during his senior year of high school.
“I thought it was super cool that you could say certain things to influence the way people reacted and influence human behavior,” he said.
He liked the idea so much that he started learning more about negotiation and, eventually, training to be a negotiator himself. That experience led him to launch a negotiation training service, a business he juggled with business courses at the University of Houston. Vo and several friends went on to develop course curricula, test questions, and other training resources.
Vo also decided that he could benefit from membership in Toastmasters, a nonprofit devoted to helping members strengthen their public speaking and leadership skills.
“In Toastmasters, I had a great time in terms of practicing my speeches and building more confidence in speaking in front of people,” Vo said.
He valued Toastmasters, especially the networking opportunities it provided. Still, he felt most people need more practice than club meetings typically allow to truly excel.
What if he could offer a different option?
So Vo gave public speaking training a try, initially by working with friends and his negotiation business partners. From there, he got some speaking engagements on negotiation and effective speaking. His presentations were so well received that he and his friends decided to incorporate them into their negotiation business.
“We did keynotes for high school students and college students, which then led me into wanting to do presentations and trainings for professionals and people who were jumping into the corporate world,” Vo said.
“That’s when I started SpeakRdy, a company to help people improve their public speaking skills through practice-based training.”
The Roots of Speaking Anxiety
Since Vo launched SpeakRdy in April 2024, he has trained more than 185 professionals. Today, it’s his sole business focus. And it’s needed. Fear of public speaking is universal; it’s one of the most common anxieties humans face.
“People are afraid of speaking because they are afraid of being judged,” Vo said. “They’re afraid that when they open their mouths, people are going to think badly of them. That’s why you have people freezing and rambling, because in the middle of what they’re saying, they start getting these negative thoughts. ‘Did what I say land?’ ‘Did I come off as too assertive, too nice?’”
This fear is deeply rooted, Vo adds, and goes back to when humans lived in tribes. In that era, being judged negatively could result in being kicked out of a tribe, which made survival far more challenging.
“If you weren’t in a group, you would be vulnerable to predators,” Vo explained. “You might not have the strength to hunt for food, and your life would be at risk.”
Our environment and social dynamics have changed considerably since then, but the fear of being judged negatively lives on, he says.
Practice, Practice, Practice
Vo’s approach to helping students overcome their fears of speaking? He starts by assessing his clients’ skills.
“When I meet with clients, the first thing I do is I make them give a speech on the spot. It freaks everybody out, but it is one of the most effective things ever because you get to see how that person responds under pressure and the habits they use when they give a speech. It is the most realistic representation of what level they are. Then you can start building them up.”
Those initial sessions are followed by ongoing practice sessions with Vo. After each, he talks about what went right, what needs work, and how the client can improve. Then the cycle begins again.
“My approach is about repetition,” Vo said. “It’s about giving feedback. It’s about failing so people get a sense of what it feels like to speak, what their weak points are, and how they can improve through action.”
Building a Business the Human Way
Vo, now 22, speaks with the wisdom and confidence of a considerably older person when he describes his business. That could be, at least in part, because he’s been an entrepreneur since he was a teen. He’s had time to try things, to fail, and to learn from his mistakes.
“I failed three businesses before I started SpeakRdy. One of the biggest lessons I got from that is you can’t treat people as transactions. I didn’t build the relationships that I would have wanted if I were to have the same team right now. The same applied to the way I interacted with people and the community back then. I would always ask myself, OK, what can I get out of this? What can they do for me?”
Several years later, Vo makes bringing value to others a high priority. “Doing business is much more relationship focused than transactional now. And that has done great things. Everybody wants to talk to a friend. Nobody wants to talk to a person who’s always trying to sell them something first.”
Vo also has gained an appreciation for the huge time investment a successful business requires.
“I used to be under the impression that when you have your own business, you would have to work less than you would working for a company, or there would be less work involved because you could use different software and AI. That has not been true at all. Starting a business takes a lot more work than being employed by a company. However, you’re trading your time for the freedom to choose the direction you want to take the business in.”
Minson Vo: Speaking Up on a Global Stage
Earlier this year, Vo graduated from the University of Houston with degrees in management and entrepreneurial studies. Soon after, he embarked on a new chapter. For years, he had dreamed of living overseas. After making several visits to South Korea to work with his mentor (a Yonsei University professor he met through Toastmasters), Vo decided to spend the rest of the year in Seoul to grow his business and continue sharpening his skills.
Living and working in Seoul has been a deeply rewarding experience, Vo adds.
“The culture here is much more collective, more about we and you instead of I. American and Western culture tends to be very individualistic. I’m going to express myself. I’m going to do things for myself. And to clarify, I love that as well. But East Asian culture has elements that I really appreciate. Everybody here is so caring in a way that’s humbling. Americans are very caring, but this is a very different vibe.”
Looking ahead, Vo wants to expand SpeakRdy’s reach while staying true to its mission.
“My main goal for the company is to enable thousands of people a year to live with confidence through high-quality public speaking training.”
Learn more about SpeakRdy.
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