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I signed up for vnSpoke a while ago, checked out the site and could not find much to do. Recently, a good friend of mine sent me the very first invitation, and it’s the only one. Since I have full confidence in the service’s future, let’s break it down.

1/ What are vnSpoke’s main value propositions?

-Recommendation: this is one of the cornerstones of LinkedIn success. However, I am not sure about vnSpoke. vnSpoke does not require the existence of a relationship between the recommender and the recommended (colleague-colleague, junior staff-senior staff, etc). Basically, I can “recommend” anyone I know. Hardly surprising, vnSpoke recommendations tend to be quite personal and informal.

One example:

H.Pho, an Associate at IDG Ventures Vietnam, recommended Wendy, cofounder of vnSpoke: “hottie smartie”!

Then Wendy poked back: “G.Q. photo”.

While I am betting that Wendy and Pho are hot, smart professionals, comments like these make vnSpoke more like the Vietnam’s Myspace or Yahoo360 version of “connecting professionals”. What is a recommendation for? Objective, provable evidence of qualities you or your organization desire in a professional environment.

-Reconnect with classmates/colleagues: vnSpoke has the invitation and email address import tools. Also, when you send invitation, the system automatically eliminates email addresses of your direct connections. However, it would be great if vnspoke allows me to check whether their friends are *already* registered. That way, I leverage my existing network to reach out more people without feeling uncomfortable.

2. Market size: Can you scale? can you scale? can you scale? Market size is perhaps the single most important concern for startup. At this point of writing, vnSpoke has only 9257 users. You can say this is impressive, given that they haven’t done any heavyweight marketing, except some online article. I doubt if more than 30% of them user the service on a weekly basis, let alone daily basis. Two important questions: What is the average number of connections per user? How many invitations do users send out? It’s easy to get people sign up through initial buzz, but to keep and grow users over time is definitely a challenge.

– Demand: how many professionals in Vietnam truly needs to use vnSpoke to advance their career? I always hear the roaring preach: Everyone needs networking. Maybe, but what kind of networking? Only certain types of jobs such as HR, venture capital, technology, investment or journalism require aggressive networking. This networking madness is growing – no doubt about it – but for now it represents a very small community.

– Culture: First, most of Vietnam’s business activities take place primarily in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi, and people all know each other. This is both good and bad news for vnSpoke. If vnSpoke appeals to enough people, the whole community will sign up. If not, no matter how cool or efficient, vnSpoke will have a hard time. Second, vnSpoke poses a great behavioral challenge to users: you scratch mine first or I scratch yours first? This is a no-no in user experience, because it turns off many people. You want your users to keep clicking, inviting, laughing, or whatever, constantly. Your users should not spend time wondering what to do. Finally, if you want me to use the service, it has to be good. If you want me to invite my friends to use it, it gotta be super-awesome. Otherwise, we may get bad feedback.

After all, relationships are all about community. It’s a tricky chicken-and-egg dilemma: relationships create community, yet community enables relationships to flourish. Tough choice!

– Vietnam’s web2.0 space is getting increasingly crowded, but I still have only 24 hours a day. If I spend 10 minutes on Yahoo 360, Clip or Baamboo each, I have 30 minutes less for other sites including vnSpoke. Welcome to competition!

– How about international expansion? Quite unlikely in this crowded business networking space

Since the vnSpoke leadership team come from consulting and private equity background, I bet they did all the market sizing and segmentation, SWOT analysis, competitive analysis and all other strategy stuff. Maybe they are just testing one scenario. After all, most startups have to reassess assumptions and react to market changes. This is why startup people, like Wendy and Khanh, need a lot of flexibility and agility.

3/ Monetization: it seems that they lean towards advertising, as opposed to subscription. I applaud this. Vietnamese people are quite price sensitive, especially to some new service. The target group tends to have stable jobs, high income and partners or children. Absolutely lucrative! Since vnSpoke’s users have high income propensity, vnSpoke can also expand into marketplace, rewards programs, etc. But first off, vnSpoke team must make the service useful so users come back often. A lot of users=$$$. A lot of loyal users=$$$$$$.

But HOW? New features? Expensive advertising campaigns?