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?
July 19, 2007 at 4:06 am
I knew about vnSpoke some months ago and already have a profile at this social network.
I think “social network for professionals” is a really good idea. It focus to a market with “smart users”. But, that market is not large and I don’t think vnSpoke can scale up. It also doesn’t make big money.
It’s great if vnSpoke was a part of Vietnamworks !
I’m sorry if my English is too terrible 😦
July 19, 2007 at 4:08 am
Good analysis, keep going.
July 19, 2007 at 4:35 pm
There seems not to have many professionals joining vnSpoke so far. I think the idea is awesome, but vnSpoke should make greater effort to keep the environment going more professional, which make them different from other networks like Y!360 or MySpace.
A very good post! May I post it as a news on vnSpoke? ^^
July 26, 2007 at 9:14 am
Expats in Vietnam seem to use Facebook for networking more than VNSpoke. However, I regularly post news stories & PR from our website on VNSpoke and it’s become a valuable source of web traffic for my company.
August 7, 2007 at 9:44 am
Hi Khoa. This is Pho (yah, the same Pho you were referring to in this post:). You might have mistook the VNSpoke’s informal “tag” feature for the LinkedIn’s more elaborate “recommendation” function. Good point on the fine balance between “professional networking” and “social networking” though – SN is a dark hole which one’s carefully-designed-community can sink into very quickly.
August 8, 2007 at 4:37 pm
Hi Pho: Thanks for pointing that out. I should have used the “tagging” term for vnSpoke. I think if there is mention of relationship (“A works at IDG” or “B is a business partner of C”, it will add a greater level of credibility and professionalism to the tagging feature.
November 2, 2007 at 7:19 am
have you checked CyVee.com the upgrade VnSpoke lately? will have another review on it? ^^
November 8, 2007 at 8:21 am
A short review on CyVee along with other social networks in VN at http://web2vietnam.wordpress.com
I see many improvements and users are more active than expected.
September 21, 2008 at 12:01 pm
Hi Khoa!
Thanks for your insights over the web 2.0 in Vietnam. very interesting to learn more abt the social media scene in Vietnam as well.
Apart fr the VnSpoke, have you joined VietCircles? It seems quite popular! =)