I believe that Vietnamese technology professionals have the ability to be some of the best in the world.

That’s why I’m launching ITviec.com, a new job website 100% focused on technology and IT jobs in Vietnam.  Our mission is to nurture Silicon Valley’s spirit of technology innovation, creativity and excellence in Vietnam.

ITviec will be the place for skilled technology people and companies to meet and build great things.  It will have skilled jobs for developers, designers, testers, software architects, project managers, user experience experts and IT professionals.  It will also contain career management advice and event information for technology people.

Launching ITviec is also a chance to build the kind of culture and the kind of company I have always wanted to build.  ITviec will be small but filled with Silicon Valley-style passion, fun and a commitment to building great things that add value to people around the world.  We call our employees “VIPs” because in our book each of our people is a Very Important Person.  I am personally committed to helping each VIP reach his or her life and career goals.

Working at ITviec will not be easy.  There will be big challenges and sometimes long hours.  But for the right people I can promise adventure, fun, a sense of achievement and personal growth that will be remembered for life.

Would you like to become a VIP?  Check out the positions listed below and apply today by sending an email to chris@chrisfharvey.com!

ADMINISTRATION MASTER

The Administration Master is responsible for managing all administrative, financial and compliance functions of ITviec.  This is a very important position — VIP.

Responsibilities:

Accounting

• Select and set up an accounting system
• Manage expense payments and receive customer payments
• Manage all bank accounts — capital account and operating accounts
• Keep the books — produce a monthly income statement, balance sheet and cash flow statement
• Provide financial recommendations to Founder
• Manage presence on the web — create cool and highly professional
• Establish financial controls and accountability
• File tax documents with government

Corporate Administration

• Ensure all government licenses are up-to-date and in order
• Administer and file appropriate paperwork with government when necessary (for example, change of address forms or appointment of new director for IT Viec)
• Other corporate administration responsibilities as necessary

HR Administration

• Create and administer employment documentation for ITviec VIPs (IT Viec calls all employees “VIPs”) — employment agreements and related documents
• Administer and manage payment of relevant employment taxes
• Design and administer VIP benefits plan
• Ensure ITviec complies with Vietnam labor laws and files all necessary paperwork with government

Other

• This is a startup, so everyone will have to do everything at some point
• Help as needed with other functions such as marketing, marketing events and sales

Requirements:

• Fire in the heart and hunger in the eyes
• Eager to learn and grow
• Ability and desire to accept LOTS of responsibility
• >3 years accounting experience of increasing responsibility in private company
• Experience with Vietnam regulations regarding operating a company in Vietnam
• Passionate about making a difference in people’s lives
• Strong English

Why You Will Love Working Here:

We have a fun, Silicon Valley style startup culture that values openness, transparency and awesomeness.  You will work closely with our Founder to create and grow our company from unknown to well-known in Vietnam.  Along the way you will receive an outstanding and valuable education on how to start and grow a small Internet company in Vietnam — sales, marketing and product strategy.

RUBY ON RAILS DEVELOPER

The Ruby on Rails Developer is responsible working with the Founder to make continual, Agile improvements to our website.  This is a very important position (VIP).

Responsibilities:

• Be a partner to the product owner in specifying new features and improvements and translate them into technical requirements and user stories
• End-to-end implementation and roll-out of new features, including architecture, design, implementation, test, deployment and maintenance
• Be an active part in the continuous optimization of the agile engineering process that emphasizes on short iterations and learning through feedback from product managers, customers and data
• Take the lead of the technology and process and make sure modern frameworks, tools and methodologies are used in order to become and remain a high-performing and efficient engineering organization
• Do what it takes to build an awesome and profitable product for our users and customers

Requirements:

• At least 6 months experience in Ruby on Rails development in production-level web applications required (We will TRAIN YOU IN RUBY!)
• Deep understanding of web user interface technologies like HTML/CSS and JavaScript/JQuery required
• Well-rounded engineer with a solid understanding of the whole Ruby on Rails / Web stack (incl. database and infrastructure components) and experience with modern tools and methodologies preferred
• Experience working in Agile environments and Scrum desirable
• Solid understanding of the whole software development lifecycle (analysis, design, implementation, roll-out, maintenance) desirable
• Experience with web-based consumer products desirable
• Excellent English desirable

Why You Will Love Working Here:

We offer training with some of the best Ruby developers in Saigon and a chance to make a difference.  We have a fun, Silicon Valley style startup culture that values openness, transparency and awesomeness.  We celebrate big achievements by taking the team for BBQ and beer.

We provide our service through the web, so our web site will be the BEST jobs website in Vietnam.  We need developers who are passionate about creating great products and who love to learn.  This is a very important position.

SALES CHAMPION (several positions in HCMC and Hanoi)

Although we provide our service through the web, our business relies heavily on Sales and Marketing.  We will succeed or fail based on the quality of our sales people.  This is a very important position.

Responsibilities:

Working closely with Founder, The Sales Champion will take responsibility for explaining to customers how we can help them to find great IT people to help them build great things, and how we can do this better than anyone else.

• One Sales Champion must have leadership potential to lead a small teams in HCMC or Hanoi.
• Prospecting new customers in the IT space.
• Call and email customers to learn about their problems and explain how we can help them achieve their goals.  Sometimes meet customers face-to-face.
• Convince companies to post jobs on our site for free during our introductory period.
• Enter new customer information in the CRM database along with follow-up action items.
• Attend industry events and networking to meet HR managers and directors of IT companies and companies who hire IT staff.
• Post jobs for customers on the website.
• Always be a positive public representative for our company.

Requirements:

• Eager to learn and grow.
• Fire in the heart and hunger in the eyes.
• University degree
• 1-2 years of working experience — no sales experience necessary (except for Hanoi — sales experience highly desirable).
• Attractive and pleasant appearance.
• Desires to learn how to sell and interact with customers in an international-standard manner.
• Excellent English.
• Stubborn (cứng đầu) — does not give up easily.

Why You Will Love Working Here:

We have a fun, Silicon Valley style startup culture that values openness, transparency and awesomeness.  You will work closely with our Founder to create and grow our brand from unknown to well-known in Vietnam.  Along the way you will receive an outstanding and valuable education on how to sell and manage customer relationships and run and develop a sales team.  This is perhaps the best sales training in Vietnam.  I also will teach you everything I know about leadership.

MARKETING LEADER

If Sales are the soldiers on the ground, Marketing is the Air Force providing cover from above.  Marketing builds customer awareness and shapes perception of the ITviec brand as THE place to find skilled IT professionals through online and offline communication channels.  This is a very important position.

Responsibilities:

Working closely with Founder, The Marketing Leader will take responsibility for brand objectives and brand action:

• Define our desired branding and positioning in a written document that guides all of our marketing activities.
• Manage presence on the web — create cool and highly professional Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter profiles for the company that reflect our positioning as a high-level service for experienced IT professionals.
• Regularly post to Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn suitable job content, events content and items of interest to experienced IT professionals.
• Promote the brand online and communicate how we can add value to experienced IT professionals.
• Develop relationships with companies that organize IT events so we can inform our users of events that may be of interest to them.
• Manage all elements of planning and running educational events for IT professionals that we sponsor.
• Suggest relevant IT-related content that add value to our audience and post to our blog.

Requirements:

• Eager to learn and grow.
• Fire in the heart and hunger in the eyes.
• 0-2 years experience in basic marketing, preferably online.
• Regular user of Facebook, LinkedIn, Anphabe and Twitter.
• Passionate about brands and communication.
• Excellent English.
• Interest or experience in IT field is desirable.

Why You Will Love Working Here:

We have a fun, Silicon Valley style startup culture that values openness, transparency and awesomeness.  You will work closely with our American MBA Founder to create and grow our brand from unknown to well-known in Vietnam.  You will run online and offline campaigns and create ads and other effective marketing material.  Along the way you will receive an outstanding and valuable education on how to create and position an effective brand.  If you are looking to earn an MBA in Marketing this is it.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.  The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but he who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

Lately I’ve had a few people feel compelled to share with me why my new business won’t work.  They don’t like the name.  They think the niche is too small or I won’t be able to find the right developers in Vietnam.

I realized that every single time I’ve embarked on a big project I’ve had at least one person delight in telling me reasons why it wouldn’t work.  I had people tell me I was crazy for moving to Vietnam.  I had people tell me that a cross-cultural marriage would be too hard.  I had people tell me I could never train staff in Vietnam to assume director-level positions.  I proved them wrong in all cases.

The critics in our lives — “those cold and timid souls” — are against us.  They want us to fail to excuse their inability to try.

We are the men and women actually in the arena, faces marred by dust and sweat and blood, daring greatly.

Let’s prove them wrong.

*Image from peterbillingham.com.

PS – Did you like this post?  Click here to tweet it.

I love it.  Here’s why.

When one of my people asks me for more money I get to ask him for more value, or at least ask him to explain how his value contribution has increased.  I LOVE to have conversations with people on my team about how they can contribute more value.

I used to talk about this all the time in my old company.  At our monthly All Hands meeting I’d regularly tell everyone that I was dying to pay each one of them a higher salary.  And all they had to do in order to get that higher salary was to contribute more value.  Have ideas and take action to solve our problems better.  Expand their scope of responsibility.  Take initiative and deliver more value to our customers.

This was such a great message.  Delivered again and again, it began to chip away at an entitlement mentality with which most managers are depressingly familiar.  You know the one — “Hey boss, I’ve been here for a year now so I’d like a salary increase.”

I wanted to break the common belief that time at a job = regular higher salary.  Every chance I got, I’d repeat the message that I expected everyone in our company always to be learning and growing.  “Learn more to earn more.”

We believed that everybody should have an opportunity to improve themselves, so we organized an internal “university” to teach classes and mini-courses such as “Effective Communication,” “Presentation Skills” and even “Story Telling.”  (Story-telling was fantastic for marketing people and managers.)  I taught a long-term “mini-MBA” course to managers.  Each of these activities helped us to create a “learning culture” in the company.  Everyone knew that they were expected to learn and grow continuously.  Our leaders set the example by practicing what they preached.

All these activities and messages helped nudge people into a mentality of “How can I increase my value?” when they found themselves wanting more salary (which is all the time).  It got more people thinking about how to improve our business.  It got every brain in the game.

Yes, I had to pay higher salaries.  And I was glad to do it.  Because I got my money’s worth.

The secret is the great violin players set aside concentrated, focused 2-hour blocks of time to practice twice each day.  The average violin players do not.

Working with great focus on a difficult subject for only 3-4 hours a day separates the great from the average.  Then the rest of the day the great violin players can relax and stop thinking about playing.  In other words, “If you’re busy you’re doing it wrong.”

This is a big challenge for me.

I have a couple talks coming up this week.  I gotta double down and focus on them.  Planning, writing and practicing a talk is consuming and hard work.  I’ll start with 1.5 hours in the morning, 1.5 hours in the afternoon of focused work.  I won’t check email or do other, smaller tasks during that time.  Let’s see how this works out!

Effective communication is making sure you are understood.

I learned this when I took flying lessons.  If you don’t communicate well when you fly a plane you might kill others or kill yourself.

Pilots use a special system to make sure their messages are understood by other pilots and the airport tower.  They always repeat the message back so the other party is 100% certain they understand the message.

If you are in two-seat Cessna plane with the tail number 352 and the tower tells you to descend to 1,000 meters and turn to 210 degrees heading you will answer like this: “Airport Tower this is Cessna 352, descend to 1,000 meters and turn to heading 210 degrees, roger.”  That way the Tower KNOWS you have received and understood their instructions.

This is a great habit to follow in business.

Never assume that someone understands what you say.  Ask him to repeat the message back to you.

For example, after reviewing an assignment with someone on your team you should ask them to restate the assignment.  When you start doing this you’ll be surprised at how often your people didn’t understand your meaning even if they said they did.

Another great use of this technique is to ask job candidates what their understanding of the job is when you begin the interview.  That way you can check if they read the job description carefully.  If they didn’t read the job description carefully you shouldn’t even consider hiring them.

On the flip side, get into the habit of repeating your understanding of what was said.  This is especially effective in sales — it will show your customer that you understand them and care about them.  I usually put it like this, “Let me make sure I understand…”  Then I restate the problem or summarize the actions we’ve agreed on.

When someone sends you an email always respond so they know you received the email.  A simple response is “Received and understood.”  If it’s a meeting, repeat back the meeting details: “Great.  See you at 12pm next Wedesday 27 March at Highlands Coffee at the intersection of Dinh Tien Hoang and Nguyen Dinh Chieu.”  That way the other person KNOWS you are both on the same page.

Try it today!

My “To-Do” List from 25 February. Note I didn’t check off “Product Document!”  I probably should break that item down into smaller tasks.

I found an incredible way to increase your productivity, instantly.

It’s called “making a list.”

Before you begin your workday, sit down and clear your mind.  Take out a piece of paper.  Write down all the things you want to do.

Then look at your list.  Ask yourself, “Which things on this list, if I take action on them TODAY, will best help me to achieve my goal(s)?”  The things that are most important will jump out at you immediately.  Put a star next to the super important items.

Then work from your list all day.

I’ve found that working from a list not only helps me to prioritize, but it also prevents me from wasting time on anything not on the list.  When I’m done with one item I just look at the list again and decide what’s next.

Work from a list and I guarantee your productivity will increase by 40% instantly.  You’ll get more done in less time.

PS – My understanding is this works even better if you write your list every night before going to sleep.  Then visualize yourself doing each thing on the list.  When you wake up your brain is primed to begin work without wasting time.

Anyone want to try this with me?  I’ll post the results in a week or two.

I thought that was pretty good.  Then I read about Peter Thiel’s philosophy of extreme focus.

Thiel believes that people should work only on their one most important project until it is finished.  Paypal executive Keith Rabois recalls that Thiel “would refuse to discuss virtually anything else with you except what was currently assigned as your number one initiative.”

Rabois also explained:

“The most important benefit of this approach is that it impels the organization to solve the challenges with the highest impact. Without this discipline, there is a consistent tendency of employees to address the easier to conquer, albeit less valuable, imperatives. As a specific example, if you have 3 priorities and the most difficult one lacks a clear solution, most people will gravitate towards the 2d order task with a clearer path to an answer.

As a result, the organization collectively performs at a B+ or A- level, but misses many of the opportunities for a step-function in value creation.”

He’s absolutely right.  I choose to do less important tasks all the time because they’re easier then my more important ones.

The challenge is to do it.  I’m gonna try it out.  I challenge my readers to do the same.  We’ll compare notes next month.

Game on!

Mango Seller photo courtesy of Dat’s Diary http://datdiary.wordpress.com

A friend of mine, Dat, writes a blog where he posts his observations of life in Vietnam.  Recently I read his post “Price Collusion in Vietnam.”  It’s a great little story that gives insight into why so few Vietnamese companies or entrepreneurs innovate.

They just don’t think that way.

Like the mango seller in Dat’s post, the strategy of most Vietnamese businesses boils down to “copy what everyone else is doing and cooperate on price.”

That’s why you always see like businesses clustered around each other in Vietnam.  Near my house there is “electric street” where there are many small shops that sell electrical supplies.  There’s also “safe street,” “key-making street,” and “sporting goods street.”  Each one is lined with shops selling virtually identical merchandise with identical prices.  Sometimes you can negotiate the price, but the lowest negotiated price is the same for each shop.

This puzzled me for a while when I first moved to Vietnam.  “Why should they cluster together like that?  Aren’t they afraid the other stores will steal their customers?”

Then I realized that their strategy was not to compete at all.  It was to cluster together and become known as the street where you go to buy X.  Then they collude to deny consumers any cheaper — or better — options and ensure a modest profit.

This strategy works as far as it goes.  But it doesn’t encourage innovation.  In fact, it discourages innovation.  No one can be different because that throws off the price and product harmony.

A variation on this strategy I’ve seen is “copy, then charge a lower price.”  It often results in price warfare and lower-value products.  It’s  rare to see a business differentiate by solving customer problems better.  I think one of the reasons is that the role of sales to educate customers is poorly understood in Vietnam.

When you grow up in an environment like this it’s hard to think to compete any other way.  Which is why Vietnamese rarely innovate.  They’ve never seen it.  They don’t know how.

A Roman philosopher named Lucius Annaeus Seneca wrote that 2,000 years ago.

Recently I stumbled across Seneca’s essay “On the Shortness of Life.”  It’s a short read, and a great one.

Seneca talks about how many people reach the end of their lives and bemoan the fact that there is “not enough time” to live fully.  Seneca rejects this idea completely.  He says:

It is not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste much of it.  Life is long enough, and it has been given in sufficiently generous measure to allow the accomplishment of the very greatest things if the whole of it is well invested.  But when it is squandered in luxury and carelessness, when it is devoted to no good end, forced at last by the ultimate necessity we perceive that it has passed away before we were aware that it was passing.  So it is — the life we receive is not short, but we make it so, nor do we have any lack of it, but are wasteful of it.

He also suggests that we should manage time like money and not spend it foolishly:

Men do not suffer anyone to seize their estates, and they rush to stones and arms if there is even the slightest dispute about the limit of their lands, yet they allow others to trespass upon their life…No one is to be found who is willing to distribute his money, yet among how many does each one of us distribute his life!  In guarding their fortune men are often closefisted, yet, when it comes to the matter of wasting time, in the case of the one thing in which it is right to be miserly, they show themselves most reckless.

And he comments of the need to take action right NOW because we never know when time will run out:

“Why do you delay,” says he, “Why are you idle?  Unless you seize the day, it flees.”  Even though you seize it, it will still flee; therefore you must vie with time’s swiftness in the speed of using it, and, as from a torrent that rushes by and and will not always flow, you must drink quickly.

It’s humbling to realize that human beings were grappling with issues of mortality and living a meaningful life 2,000 years ago.  And they didn’t even have iPhones.

Currently I am in planning phase for website, product and service design.  I am looking for a student intern who is studying IT and web development.  Time commitment is 5-10 hours per week.

Activities will include:

• Customer research.  Conducting surveys with customers to understand their problems and the current ways they solve those problems.
• Data analysis.  Using Microsoft Excel to analyze customer purchasing data to identify purchasing patterns and opportunities.
• Marketing channel research.  Find where potential customers collect both online and offline, develop strategies and activities for reaching them.
• Website development.  Work with technology leads (not hired yet) to launch new website, collect website metrics and connect website metrics with CRM.
• CRM system.  Research cloud-based and client-based CRM systems, evaluate based on data and needs criteria and cost, recommend one solution for implementation.

I am looking for the following qualities in an intern:

• A passion for the internet and making things happen.
• A positive attitude.
• A willingness to do hard work (anything worthwhile takes effort)
• A love of learning and growing.
• Mobile app experience helpful but not required.

The internship will be unpaid in money but rich in learning and experience.  I guarantee the intern will learn a great deal about how to launch and position a web business:

• Marketing strategy and implementation.  How to create a unique market position message and craft a product and marketing plan that supports the positioning.  Everything is marketing!
• Sales.  The true meaning of “sales” and basic sales instruction.
• Website development and design.  Principles for excellent, simple and clear web product design that users love.
• CRM and database design.  Why a good CRM is so important and how to integrate the CRM into the data flow of the organization.

If interested in this exciting opportunity please send me a private message at chris[at]chrisfharvey[dot]com with the following:

1. Why are you interested in this position?
2. How can you add value to me?
3. Please name one website you think has good UI (user interface).  What makes it good?  Name one website with bad UI.  What makes it bad?
4. What is something you achieved that was hard to do, of which you are especially proud?

Thanks!

Cheers,
Chris