This morning, I have a conversation with Anh Hung about Vietnamese start-ups. We talk about the most useful Vietnamese online services. We both agreed that Vietnamworks.com, a human resources service of Navigos Group, is one of the best. But we also complained about Navigos Group’s newest service, Caravat.com. Like I said “It’s too late to apologize” on Twitter, Caravat.com has been made a lot of mistakes on it’s spamming day two weeks ago.
Via some resources, I known that the CEO of Caravat.com is a very low-tech woman doen’t care about Caravat.com’s technology at all. Like everybody, I was disappointed to hear that. What does Navigos Group think Caravat.com are? Caravat.com is a LinkedIn.com clone, so what’s that about? It is not about a nice website with a very good user interface and a very fancy user experience design. It is not about the professional who appears on Caravat.com’s homepage. It’s not about the meaning of the term “handshake” that define the type of user’s relationships. It’s not about they chose Drupal as their platform and now all they have to do is making the module to hook into it… No, at first, it is about a good service what can serve 30 mil users using two data-centers with 600 machines. Yeah, you can say Caravat.com doesn’t need that much from the beginning. You are right! But if you don’t think about it from now, when will you think about it? Before you thinks about the website, thinks about the platform that help your website works. The CEO of Caravat.com, I don’t think she know how to make a platform. I am sorry if I was wrong but while Caravat.com don’t have any plan to recognize that their system is spamming the professional users, everybody can say that.
Caravat.com is not the first LinkedIn.com clone in Vietnam. Cyvee.com has been working on it for years. The reason why Cyvee.com was not success while they are the only one in the market is just like Caravat.com, they don’t have any platform to guarantee that the service runs smooth. Last month, a two years student of University of Economics, Ho Chi Minh City has been exploited a big hole of security of Cyvee.com. One of my friend who also exploited this bug said she can get Cyvee.com’s user database whenever she want. You know, the user database must be the treasure of all online services, while Cyvee.com don’t have any plan to protect their database, how can the user feel safe to use them. Cyvee.com doesn’t build their service base on any platform, how can they scale themselves?
The same is Caravat.com. They maybe have a different layout, they maybe have a different target audience by targeted to another market, but the way they do their business is exactly the same way of Cyvee.com. Create a website, launch it, watch it run and fix bugs. Dear Caratvat.com’s CEO, what can you say if Micheal Arrington ask you about your company’s system? Can you make sure that you can talk about your company platform like Mack Zuckerberg did when he is interviewed by Tech Crunch CEO? I really don’t think so. Online market is about the technology, what you can do it first or not. While you are a low-tech person, let do anything to improve it.
Then, how to be different? Just do it like Pownce.com. I knew that Pownce.com will be shutdown at Dec 15th, 2008, but the way Leah Culver and her friends made Pownce.com is still a very good case study for anyone who want to make thing special. These fantastic six are not just build a Twitter.com clone, but a system that made them proud to be the second popular micro-blogging service. If you want to look to Pownce.com clearly from top to toe, you can go there. You better hurry up because this page maybe not exist after Dec 15th, 2008. As you can see, the way Pownce.com introduce themselves is the way they talk about their system, the system what built, maintained by six persons. If they don’t have a good platform, how can they do that?
And, for a closer example, just do it like LinkedIn.com. Read their blog the know what they care about when making LinkedIn.com. Not so easy hah? Create a website? Launch it? Watch it run and fix bugs? Come on, forget about it!
I am still believe that Caravat.com can be different. I am in love with Vietnamworks.com services, and I admired what Navigos Group done while doing their business. The truth is: If Caravat.com just want to be the best in Vietnam, they don’t have to do anything. I don’t see anyone can be the opposite of Navigos Group in Vietnamese. But if Caravat.com have some ASIA dream or bigger, (like me and my friends haha), they have to revise their plan. Right now!
Update: Due to the fact that no one agrees with me about the way I called Caravat.com’s CEO is “a very low tech woman”, I fixed. I really want to apologize to her about my aggressive words about her. I don’t want to hurt anyone, I just want to prove that how important is a platform in a start-up. That’s all.
Phew. Good article but a little bit aggressive with some words like “low-tech”. Ok, just wording, don’t care. The problem with Caravat here in my opinion is marketing, not tech. User don’t want to know bout the back-end of Caravat, Cyvee or LinkedIn… they only want to use and gather some “revenue” from it. So, if they have a good mkt plan, they need to research and find out the level of technology of user or sth like that. They need to know behaviour of target users when they using Internet… It’s not tech prob, it’s the mkt prob.
I know a low-tech woman who was offered by both Google and Yahoo to be a manager.
She doesn’t use Twitter or any of those ’social media’ services but she always rock in anything she does. 
@Epi.Longo: Like what I said before, I was think twice before said these “low-tech woman” words. I agree with you about the next step of Caravat.com is make a good marketing plan. But what will be the next step of this next step? What helps Caravat.com make sure that what they listed on their marketing plan will running smooth? Hire some more developers or rebuild the website?
@Huy: Her job is about “social media” brother, isn’t it? Does Miranda Priestly know about fashion?
Now she works for her own media company. No, media, not that shitty social media.
)
I think Epi.Longo is right. Surely Caravat’s female manager has her own technical assistant or technical leader who takes care of technical stuffs. Technology is not Caravat’s main problem. The problem is their marketing plan doesn’t work and no one likes them
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@Huy So that media company is doing something called “shitty social media”? Huy, I don’t think your team leader is always understand you.
The prob of some tech company (i don’t think Navigos is a tech company) is they don’t build mkt plan before launching any product. Not the next step but the first step.
@Epi.Longo: I got you. Thanks for your comments.
Being low-tech and having no clue about what you’re doing are two different things.
Like Epi.Longo said, as a users we care less about what’s going on behind the scene, but about whether Caravat helps us build good connections and improve our employability.
So the problem with the CEO is that she doesn’t know what she’s doing doesn’t have a reason.
About marketing, I think Caravat is attractive in the long run and in fact it doesn’t need to market to a wide audience, just high-profile executives. If it really helps people find better jobs, they will automatically go there via word-of-mouth.
My two cents
I’m wondering if you “hi-tech” guys can ever do anything better or earn any money from any of your “professional website” (Caravat, Cyvee are all amateur huh).. or just work for some companies for monthly salary then come home to comment on others’ works
Anyway, I know in SEO and Mkt, talking about famous and hot stuff really works
P.S. putting some Adsense on this blog is also a good way to earn money from website in a “hi-tech” way, man.
Dear Mr. Guest, you have to read my article clearly before said that. Sorry about my English but while my friends still know what I mean, you better try harder.
I don’t know about SEO and Marketing, but if you are good at these field, why don’t you leave you identity here before show off your skills? Don’t you know the simple key of Marketing that teach you to praise your brand whenever you can?
Thanks for advised me, but I don’t think Google Adsense can make my site more professional.
I have heard this problem before, i have nothing to say but look forward to see what will happen. Success or not?
Nice article, but lots of grammar mistakes
Thanks for sharing your ideas!
Look like an aggressive article has attracted quite some objections. Anyway thank author for your shape-eyes review. The long vision of a system like Linkedin’s two 600-machines centers is critical in term of an ambitious virtual society.
But in term of biz, I just have a small wonder. Regards to “anh Hung” ’s comment: if they focus on high-profile executives now, then why those English-speaking executives choose caravat and forget or reduce their time spent on Linkedin.
Last but not least, I agree that a low-tech profile does not really make sense, the prob here is “does the CEO has any ideas of what caravat is heading to or not”
Thank you again Duc Ban. Your sunglasses look cute just like the way you wrote the article.
Hi Ban, as much as I respect your judgment, I have to disagree with some of your points in the article:
- I don’t know if it’s the language problem, but calling someone “low-tech woman” is quite discriminated, imo. I had a chance to talk with Caravat’s CEO. She’s smart, “battle-tested” & seems like to have a clear strategy for Caravat.
- While it’s good to have a technical-competent CEO, it’s even better to have business-oriented ones, here’s why
- Any service has its own problem, from technical to content, marketing… With new services like Caravat, we can’t jump to conclusion so fast.
@All: Thanks for your comments, and sorry about my English.
Your comments are so useful to me. I think I have to say “sorry” to Caravat.com’s CEO about the way I called her.
@Epi.Longo @Anh Hùng @PhuongSaga @Sonny: Yes, I understand what you guys said. Maybe it’s because my terrible English, but all I wanna say isn’t about the versus between “hi-tech knowledge” and “business knowledge” at all. You know, before doing a business, you must list out all of your features. My point is I don’t think Caravat.com’s platform features have been listed yet. This is the reason why they spammed us, this is the reason why her CEO of Caravat.com have to say her apologies to her users. At her position, she don’t have to do that if she has assume all basic troubles could be happened.
Oh shit!!! a idiot review and superficial vision. I don’t think it’s good for someone to comment something that they don’t understand clearly about it. You don’t understand about IT, framework and online marketing in general and about Caravat in particular. So, plz don’t maunder about what you don’t understand.
@Quoc Viet: Haha, OK OK OK…
Thanks Ban for sharing your thoughts. I don’t really agree the term “low-tech woman”. I’ve worked with Ms Thanh (you know what I’ve worked on, right?), she’s very nice, smart and has the business sense, and she’s not “low-tech” at all. She is a CEO, not CTO. Being a CEO of a tech company or web startup doesn’t mean she has to cover everything from tech to business.
@Ban: Don’t say sorry about English — I know a man who makes more than $30K a month by blogging named John Chow and his English may be not better than you
Anyway, we need to get ideas cross, that’s all.
Apart from exceptional good design, Caravat.com is now in its infancy, I think — a lot things in to-do list and it is understandable that the system may not work as desired sometimes. Yet, they still have time to fix them (especially after reading your blog post, if they do.)
Pownce.com is not good example, I suppose. It provided too many features (and buzz around its female leader) but never took off because they lacked focus. Twitter wins for its simplicity finally as we all know.
I don’t think Caravat.com will be another Facebook or even LinkedIn, it’s about another recruitment network with extra functionality to look trendy. So, they are now making biz competing with VIPDatabase and other rivals on the same segment.
Their approach, as I see on the front page, is very “traditional” (it does not mean bad, however.) If I wanted something innovative, I’d prefer VietLadder.
My 2 cents.
@Ban: Pls fix paragraph settings for comments. They look really ugly: no space between.
@quốc việt: then tell us what you know about IT, framework, online marketing, and Caravat, otherwise you will be listed as “loser of the month”
It’s good to read your point of view about Caravat.com. I have discussed with Ms. Thanh Nguyen but I think she is nice, knows clearly what she want and how should do.
In my opinion, you are on the technique site and force her orientation like your thought. Do you think every successful CEOs of social networks must know deep inside technique like experts?
I see lots of Navigos potential competitors, what they did is protect their market, their brand. Caravat.com is LinkedIn clone but not same market segment and position.
Best regards,
@Phuong: Last week after I posted this article, one of my friend told me about your article about Caravat.com. I was thought: “What the hell is that?”. Right after when I read your comment on this article, all I have to say to you is: “What the hell is that?”, again.
Please go away and don’t ever leave any comment in my blog again. I will be appreciate a lot.
Thank you very much for your comment.
Best regards.
Just to comment as a friend.
Even though this is your personal space, it reflects your personality and attitude to the world. Internet is not an option to real world, it reflects another angle of a dynamic world of we live in. Ban, you are a leader, an entrepreneur, a business man, just act/talk/write like one. Business is not just tecky-tecky things; it’s about strategic, vision, planning, financial and lots of other things. I believe you know these so it will be great to have strategically and subtle feedback with deeply understanding of business when commenting on a business.
You don’t have to respond me, just take a deep breath. Look forwards to your future sharp-thoughts
@Thuan Ngo: Thanks for your advice my friend.
About these things to do of a leader such as strategic, vision, planning, financial etc, there are my daily tasks to be someone. My comment to Caravat.com or something is based on the result after I do a deep digg in to them. This is the reason why I can make sure that I was right or not. Maybe my English writing is not good to people can understand my thought.
Will tell you more when we arrange a meeting at Kien Truc in the future. Hehe.
Thanks for writing about us, Mr. Ban. We find all comments about Caravat valuable. All publicity is good publicity!
Cheers,
Chris Harvey
Caravat.com Chairman
Btw, thanks for your kind words about VietnamWorks!
Just dropped by to see your hot article keke. What I want to say, Minh Tran and Thuan Ngo did it for me.
Hope to see u at Kien truc too.
nice post!
Almost 6 month after you wrote this post, I wonder how caravat.com and vietladders.com are doing. Obviously, both of them didn’t do too well. There are not much activities on their site. May be you are right about the low-tech woman after all
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Clone concepts will ever work in Vietnam when they just try to clone the concepts but forgot that you need more than a concept to make it work.
Hi X,
Yeah, time has the answer, right?
But this answer is not good for us – Vietnamese users – because a best service could not be better, because some unacceptable reasons.
Ban.
hi Ban, hom nay chị mới đọc article này… it’s rock!
@VietNga 6 tháng rồi chị, mấy cái em viết trong đó giờ nó đã thành sự thật hihi. Em thì em vẫn muốn có dịch vụ tốt để xài hơn…
Hi Ban,
chi copy entry nay ve blog cua chi hen
se ghi source doang hoang
Sorry for typing vietnamese without accents…german laptop is not that convinience
Dạ, cảm ơn chị!
(Em viết tiếng Anh còn sai nha chị, hihi).
@Ban:
- Vietnamworks once lost their entire database (including the back up!) and had to go out to buy them back. The scandal was quite unimaginable for a company like Vietnamworks. And I don’t think a job search firm that lost the entire user database is “one of the best”.
- you know how much Vietnamworks lavish on their office rental?
- you know how quickly it takes Vietnamworks to burn out millions of investment dollars?
Thats certainly food for thought, where can I get more information on this?