For over a decade, Lê Hoàng Nhật has remained steadfast in one pursuit: building things that matter. From his early days as a fresh graduate of Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology to becoming the Founder and CEO of AirCity, a rising star in Vietnam’s proptech scene, Nhật’s journey has been anything but linear.
His story isn't a tale of overnight success but of trial, error, reflection, and resilience.
The Early Hustle: Projects, Not Yet Startups
When Nhật graduated in 2011, many of his peers opted for stable jobs in established corporations. But he chose a different path that was uncertain, under-resourced, and often solitary: entrepreneurship. His first venture was a simple website that helped people find entertainment spots. It was crude, clunky, and ultimately didn’t take off. But what it sparked was more powerful: a relentless urge to create value through innovation.
In the following years, he cycled through projects, a nonprofit education platform, a rooftop music café and an app for boarding house management. While none of them scaled, they gave him a crash course in what it meant to build, fail, and start again.
By the time he was 27, Nhật had gone through four or five ventures, all of which struggled to survive. He was filled with self-doubt, especially as peers began rising in their careers. But in hindsight, those failures gave him two crucial things: real-world lessons and the humility to build better.
Entering Proptech: From Software To Services
In 2016, Nhật stumbled upon Vietnam’s emerging rental housing trend: renting whole houses and subletting individual rooms. Not only was it not revolutionary, it was also ripe with inefficiencies especially in operations. After shadowing his friends who were managing properties, Nhật realized that many pain points from tenant check-ins to maintenance could be solved with simple software. That led to his first real step into proptech.
He launched Ami, a SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) platform for rental property management. It quickly gained traction, even winning the 2017 Techfest Vietnam. But it also revealed the industry's deeper challenges: adoption.
“Many landlords weren’t tech-savvy. They weren’t used to structured workflows, much less software dashboards,” Nhật recalled. To address this, he pivoted again, this time with a white-label software solution called Houze, allowing property management firms to rebrand the technology as their own. And then Houze was acquired by another company.
It was at that time, Nhật, then served as Houze’s CTO, solidified his understanding of the real estate market, its friction points, its stakeholders and its inertia. But the desire to build something more impactful lingered.
Building AirCity: The Hybrid Model
In late 2021, Nhật joined the startup accelerator Antler during its first batch in Vietnam. He left his CTO role to go all-in on a new vision: AirCity.
Unlike Ami or other SaaS ventures, AirCity was different in both model and ambition. Instead of just selling software to landlords, AirCity operates as a full-stack property management service, what Nhật calls a “technology housekeeper.” They don’t just give landlords tools; they manage the operations on their behalf using those tools.
Think of it this way: traditional SaaS gives you the recipe; AirCity sends you the chef.
By charging a higher monthly fee (e.g., 200,000 VND per unit), AirCity offers landlords end-to-end services, from rent collection to maintenance, powered by its proprietary technology. The value? Peace of mind and professional-grade service.
This hands-on approach allows AirCity to gather better data, improve services in real time, and directly shape user experience — something most proptech platforms struggle with.
Beyond that, AirCity also solves three core problems for landlords:
- Occupancy: Real-time vacancy data helps fill rooms faster via listing platforms and broker partnerships.
- Operational Cost: AirCity reduces management expenses from the typical 10–15% to just 5–7% of revenue.
- Asset Care: By rotating maintenance staff across multiple buildings and digitizing task tracking, they offer efficient, proactive upkeep.
These improvements aren’t just theoretical. For many landlords, AirCity offers a measurable reduction in cost and increase in operational clarity.
But Nhật’s ambition doesn’t stop there.
AI, Robotics, And The Future of Proptech
Looking ahead, Nhật envisions AirCity as a robotics and AI company for property management. With falling hardware costs and improved AI capabilities, the timing feels right.
“Rather than creating entirely new AI systems, the focus should be on understanding and implementing existing ones in practical applications,” he stated.
AirCity is beginning to integrate facial recognition, license plate readers, and smoke detectors into its buildings — all connected to a unified AI platform. This reduces the need for costly 24/7 security personnel while improving safety and convenience for tenants.
The next frontier? Robots. Nhật sees potential in deploying cleaning, delivery, and security robots across residential buildings. With staffing shortages and aging labor forces, automation could become not just an advantage but a necessity.
Lessons In Leadership: Grit, Culture, And Consistency
AirCity's unique construction stems directly from Nhật's unique approach to building it. After more than a decade of highs and lows, he’s committed to crafting a strong internal culture.
“You can’t demand loyalty with contracts,” he reflected. “But you can inspire it through vision and shared growth.”
This philosophy seems to resonate. Some of AirCity’s best engineers stayed on despite higher offers elsewhere, driven not just by product vision, but by a sense of shared purpose.
Lê Hoàng Nhật’s journey is a reminder that success rarely comes in a straight line. His path is filled with abandoned projects, tough decisions, and quiet resilience. Now it leads to a startup pushing the boundaries of proptech in Vietnam.
With AI and robotics on the horizon, AirCity is not just managing buildings, it’s reshaping how we think about living in them.