Notice of Operations - within 45 days

Something that I had not realized when I first started the process was that within 45 days of receiving a business license the entity is required to publish a notice of operation.

The notice requires you to fill out details of your employees, office location, bank account number and more.  Then you must publish the notice in three newspapers.

This requirement should have been driving the timeline for most of what I did. While I set up the entity as soon as possible it set in motion a 45 day time clock during which time I had several things that I had to accomplish. I needed to change my cheap ro, I needed to set up a bank account which I had to be there in person for, I needed to change my address from the temporary address to the permanent address and I had to figure out what newspapers I could publish things in and in what form.

While I did not No exactly what would happen if I missed that 45 day time. My thought was that I would need to start over. Since I had not yet hired any employees the portion where I notified the government of my employees was very easy I also did not yet have a bank account so I was able to mark it as blank. However I did need to the same time I had to have my chief Ro changed to my permanent ro. With only 45 days there was very little slack between the time frames and for mailing purposes I basically have to get all my documents to my attorney in Vietnam within about a month of the company starting and then they only had a week or so to file everything all the changes and get the notices into three consecutive newspapers over the course of a week. If I were to do this again I would delay the entity set up until I had the ability to take the chief are all to Vietnam so that all of the signatures could be taken care of at once when the entity was set up. I would also before setting up the entities I would have made the office selection so that I would never have to change the office. I would also set up a bank account during that first week when I was there in Vietnam with the chief ro.

All of these decisions are based on the fact that there is no time savings benefit from doing some portion ahead of time because in the end the additional trips and documents that go back and forth make it so there is a longer delay during the setup of the company.  And a trip is still required to Vietnam for the chief ro

Changing the office address -forms

As part of the overall plan for setting up the representative office entity at a temporary attorneys address. An important next step is to change the address to be final office space that we rent. However the process is not Temple Run since we are the most we need help with an attorney to do this for the actual submission and we also need approval from the home office. Until we had 10 different forms. We had to fill out a corporate resolutio. in English and Vietnamese, A decision to change the address in English and in Vietnamese we had to fill out the application to the hanoi authority in Vietnamese and English.  We filled out an expla atiom of the address change in vietnamese and english (to describe to the authority why we are changing so quickly. We filled out a form 80 in Vietnamese only We filled out a power of attorney which was a single form with both English and Vietnamese.  For this particular filling,  I was heading to Vietnam for a week to open the office and welcome my new employees for their first day so I am just going to schedule an appointment with the Hanoi authority and my attorney and my office manager so we can do our own filings in the future.     It also saves my 65$ shipping. (Combined with the other form I would have had to send the shipping savings are almost 10% of the flight)

Notes on office space

Selecting and office space in Hanoi was rather easy.  I am a small company looking to enter the Vietnam market rather quickly and inexpensively.  So ideally I would be able to find an office space that is already built out. Even better would be if it has furniture in it.
As you may have seen in several of my other posts, that is exactly what I found. It turned out that the one i selected was the only one that a realtor search found so this might be somewhat rare.  As I was talking noncommittally. The building manager evaluating the space she did say that she would repaint the space at no cost and give us the first month free so that we could do our office fitting out.    Once I agreed however we had to work remotely in order to put the deal together. Where the quick turnaround time starts to become an issue. We talked about a start time about 7 days in the future with a one month period for a fitout.
This seems like plenty of time to implement t.  However we had to deal with a 150 page agreement,  the first original came from hanoi via some 6 day mail,  then I had to had to have time to review sign and return.  Next it takes about 3 business days for a check to clear. So realistically the lease dates started well before payment had been made and the agent is willing to turn over the keys.

Since I was not there but my office manager was he received the "handover" document.  Apparently this document is very important as the realtor was hesitant when I called her about meeting to pick up the keys.  I will be anxious to see what it is.

Once the office had been painted I asked the lard lord for a suggestion for an Internet contact.  Previously I had requested a couple of contacts in the landlord forwarded them to me. However my attempts to contact them via email and no one ever responded. Each of the Contacts also have a phone number however when I attempted to call the phone number they did not speak English so we could not get anywhere with any kind of order. Sorry I asked the landlord pearl pearl again this time she did a warm and nice and sent an email conversation that she was having with him.  I was able to respond to both of them and jump into the middle of the conversation and they very quickly forwarded Oracle. Internet speeds are interesting in that I can buy 100 mags for about $90 however only 2% of that speed is for international. That means that the majority of traffic we would be doing is severely restricted. It will be interesting to see how much speed we actually get.

Importance of Selecting a Chief RO in a Representative Office

Selecting and hiring the Chief RO of a representative in Vietnam is important.

As you may have seen in some of my other posts,  I (as the owner of Matraex, Inc) am not allowed by Vietnam statute to be the Chief RO of the entity in Vietnam,  however I must have a Chief RO

Some of the factors to consider.

• The Chief RO,  must be present to pickup the seal.  When they pick it up,  they must sign the official papers and registers to start the entity.  As they are signing they actually must use the stamp as well to stamp next to their signature on the official records at the Police headquarters.
• The Chief RO must make a decent wage.  When I wanted to add the responsibility of being the Chief RO to my wife's monthly responsibilities,  the added duties were not much.   Review the books monthly,   perform any signatures as directed by the company through corporate resolution.  These requirements would be minimal and would require at most 5 to 10 hours per month.  So I suggested that I would increase her yearly wage by $5000 for the added responsibilities.  It turned out that our Vietnam attorney thought that idea would not pass scrutiny by the Hanoi Authority.   They suggested an income of $2000 / month and they indicated that this would be one of the lowest incomes of any of the Representative Office companies already in Hanoi.
• The Chief RO must be the one to sign official contracts in Vietnam.  As a Representative Office in Hanoi,  our company will not be allowed to make agreements between the Hanoi entity and another Vietnam entity,  the Vietname Representative Office is not recognized as its own entity.   Instead Matraex must make the agreement between Matraex headquarters and any other company in Hanoi.  However,  in at least one case we found that a Vietnamese company was only willing to accept a signature from the Chief RO on a contract.  It appears that this is because the Chief RO is the only 'localized' signature that is allowed to represent the company in vietnam.  This makes sense because we had to legalize the Chief RO's passport and submit it with the application.  Even though I am the president of the company they are making an agreement with.  the only locally recognized agent,  with a legal local signature,  is the Chief RO. 
• Because of the last point,  the Chief RO of the company holds all of the power of the company; it will likely be worth while to investigate a way that I might be able to register myself (the president) as a locally approved agent of the company.  However in the mean time,  you must  have ultimate trust in the Chief RO.
• The way that I decided to get my Representative Office started in Hanoi,  coincided with an education trip to Hanoi,  so my Chief RO was a trusted school class mate.  However this meant that I had to file a change to the Chief RO soon after to the long term RO.  This meant that while I was in Hanoi the first time,  I had to either 
• prepare my interim Chief RO to sign agreements as the temporary stand in or
• wait until the Change of Chief RO was processed.
• Changing the Chief RO does not take cost any money with the Hanoi Authority and the form to do it is online here.  
• http://english.hanoi.gov.vn/documents/10180/30802/845.doc?version=1.0
• The form allows for many changes however it indicates some complexities for changing the Chief RO, which imply some items which need consideration when selecting a Chief RO.
• The amount of PIT (Personal Income Tax) that was paid by the previous Chief RO.  The form also requires a certification that the PIT was paid.
• A reason that the Chief RO is being changed is required - so basically the decision to change the Chief RO will be scrutinized and it should not be taken lightly.
• The company office location change form is included with the template to change the Chief RO,  which indicates that it may be somewhat common for the ChiefRO and the address to change at the same time
• When changing the Chief RO,  I have to certify that the previous person filed and paid all PIT. This issue somewhat explains why it was important to make a larger salary for the Chief RO.   Because this may allow the government to collect a higher tax on the salary.  I am not positive whether there will be a requirement for the payment to the Chief RO to be made subject to Vietnam payroll taxes and roles.  However because of this,  an important factor to consider when selecting a Chief RO,  is whether to select a local,  or an ExPat.  In the case that an ExPat is selected,  then a whole slew of tax relates issues becomes an issue.
• Is the Chief RO allowed to collect the income in the US since the though the services are all performed from the US?
• If the taxes must be paid to the Hanoi Authority, are taxes paid in Vietnam retaxable in the US?
• How does the company account for and report salary paid to the same individual using two different methods and tax rates.
• Each of these issues potentially creates complexity for the company that selecting a local may not.

Making a job offer - Pay - Employees request a formal offer and need between 30 to 45 days

Employment is a much more formally contracted affair in Vietnam than it is in the USA.

Most professional positions require a contract,  which addresses some very specific points.  If you are hiring an employee away from an existing job,   their existing contract requires either 45 days (if they were hired on a PERManent position) or 30 days if they were hired on a fixed length contract.

Employees seem to want an official job offer which details the terms of a new position before they are willing to give notice (this seems reasonable even for a US employee) however it seems that a formal job offer may have some 'teeth' behind it. Once a job offer is made,  an formal employment contract must be filled out and address:

• Length of Contract
• PERManent contract will require some severe errors by the employee to fire.
• Fixed Length will also require some severe errors to fire,  but will work well for a startup which is unsure of the duration while getting things moving
• Pay Rate - The pay rate and frequency of pay should be documented
• Bonuses -  a 13th month bonus is customary (and possibly mandatory)
• Pension - a pension fund should be calculated at the rate of 1 month salary per year
• Raises - the contract should dictate when reviews and raises are considered (i am not positive if this is required, or just happens to be customary in all of the ones I have seen)
• Job Description - The job description shsould be spelled out closely.  If you have any problems with the employee and need to write them up or let them go,  the Government (or union) authority will use this Job Description in evaluating whether the person was doing their job.

When calculating the Pay Rate,  an interesting conversation has come up that I didn't expect.  It appears that there is term called Gross and Net pay.   Gross is the amount that the employee is paid,  prior to their Government Deductions.  Net is the amount they receive after their deductions.

The interesting thing is that,  when I posted some job descriptions on websites and put a salary / pay rate.  I did not specify whether it was Gross or Net (I did not notice anyone else doing it either), however I received a request from one candidate that when I make a job offer,  that I make the rate a 'Net' rate.  Basically the candidate was just negotiating with me,  which is completely acceptable,  however with out a little research I did not understand what he was really saying.

Here are the basics of it

• An employer / employee contract establishs the Gross Pay Rate
• An employer pays an additional 22% in SMUI Taxes on top of that (Social, Medical and Unemployment Insurance)
• The employee has about 10.5% deducted from their Gross Pay Rate for their portion of SMUI Taxes.  This is the Net Rate (100-10.5 = 89.5% of Gross)
• The employee then has to pay PIT (personal income tax) which is calculated based on a formula that I have not figured out yet.  Most likely it is very complex like the US IRS calc.  I know that it does have some minimum level of income,  possibly a head of household and individual dependendant deductions

Representative office in Hanoi - Beginning Operations

After filing and receiving your seal in Hanoi,  you have 45 days to begin operations.
This is a formal process which requires filling out some documents and filing them with the Departments of Industry and Trade.

Vietname / Hanoi maintains a website for this process,  which does not have a lot of clear instruction.  However they have a template form,  which helps to identify a couple of important steps that need to be followed

• You must submit a form describing the details of beginning operations.  The form has the name of the person doing business,  the bank account,  the date you started,etc
• There are additional portions of the form which can help you to:
• change the head of the Representative Office
• register employees
• change the address of the headquarters

When I started to discuss the need to make several of these changes,  my attorney was quoting $200 for each form,  but it turns out that they can all really be done at the same time,  almost in the same form.

I will be looking for an attorney,  that will be able to review my work in filling out the forms , confirm that they are filled correctly,  receive them by fedEx and then submit them to the authority for me and scan the results to me.

Employee Interviews - Hilton Garden Inn

I received several job applications from the different websites that I submitted jobs postings too.    most of the applicants were quick to reply,   I requested an 'introduction video' so I could evaluate their interest and English Communication skills.
Once I found the people I wanted to interview,  I tentatively scheduled the day for interviews and identified the morning or afternoon.  It seems that more notice is better for employees that already have a job.  
When I showed up in Hanoi at the Garden Inn Hilton,  I evaluated the facilities that they could offer for having an interview.    The only options were some nice offices which required that they had to walk through the eating area,  or a $400 for the afternoon.   I opted for the offices in the back of the room since they were offered complimentary.

The space was nice,  and the staff had water, pens and paper.   It was nice that I had a female helping me interview with the room being tucked into the back of the hotel as I am sure it helped he be more at ease.  When answering questions,  she often felt more comfortable making eye contact with my female associate.

The interviews went very well in that all applicants spoke english well enough that I was could understand them,   they all had (what sounded to me like) a similar Vietnamese accent,  and I was able to understand better after conversing with Vietnamese more (I describe this,  because I imagine an interview will go better,  if the interviewer gains more experience conversing with Vietnamese first)

Driving in Hanoi.   Driving and Traffic are horrendous and I dont know how I would ever be on time.  In one case (one of my best applicants) was 15 minutes late.  I know that she had to take the afternoon off of her normal job to come to the interview,  however she did not mention it,  and I was unsure of how it would flavor the interview if I were to bring it up at the beginning of the interview.  The position I was asking about was for the office manager,  so I asked her about how she would deal with a tardy employee and she said that she would follow the procedure and policy,  which would most likely be to write up the employee.  So it seemed she feels punctuality is important but she was just unable to be punctual.  A way that I should have / could have set an expectation of how important it would be to be right on time.

Another issue that could have been related to traffic,  was that several employees showed up early (one employee 20 minutes early)  In these cases,  the front desk at the hilton,  graciously asked them to wait (the hotel has a comfortable waiting room) and then even showed them up to restaurant floor when needed.

Overall,  the interview location worked out,  however if I had a better understanding of the city and possibly what executive suites were available.  I likely would have tried to find a space such as a more executive board room that may have had a more professional entrance and a bit warmer office.



Some notes about Vietnamese culture,   they are very focused on team and process.  It seems reasonable that if one individual steps of line,   They should bet back into line if they are simply reminded about how it affects the team.

Dhl out - FedEx in.

Finally!

I got my documents back from DHL,  and so I talk to them on the phoen about how to get it back to Hanoi, quickly,  and they tell me.   well they tell me...   well they dont want to tell me.   that I should go to Fed Ex.   Because they say it will most likely be 3 days.

So I call Fed Ex.  and they say,   if I ship by 5:30 tonight (drop off at the airport)

Then it will get to Hanoi by the end of the business day Monday. (barring any customs issues)


So I say "Lets Go!!!"

I get on their site,  and find that with about 100 sheets of paper.  I am over the .5 lb limit. so I select a pack.

 Note that I selected that this is correspondence/no customs value.

cool thing was that it is cheaper to get it there sooner :)

So,   One more risk,   I will send it all through Fed Ex,   try and get it there soon enough that they will be able to get the application submitted in time. 

-------------------------------

Update,   the document got there by monday MORNING hanoi time.

Our attorney received it and within one day they reported that they had a scheduled date for when they would receive the approval from the government.

Unfortunately,  the approval was on the Wednesday when we were on site,  but then the official seal would not be available for one week after that.

I requested that the lawyer find a way to request that it is expedited,  for an additional fee for the extra services,  he said he would.

Hiring Vietnamese worker in Vietnam - feedback from a Payroll Company

Well,  I was on the fence about whether a payroll company would be worth it in vietnam after I did some research (which found that the cost of the company included 16M VND in setup,   6M VND / month minimum,  plus additional individual fees,  and that was the less expensive company Talentnet).

However,  I had no idea about vietnamese employment law.   I started recruiting employees by resume and the conversations I had with them included some very long job switching times (one said 45 days and another said 30 days).    I started to wonder about the logistics of how employment works and I asked the rep that has pitched a plan to me,  and here is what she came back with.

   - we will be a Representative Office so the agreement will be with Matraex, Inc Boise, Idaho, USA. We may take 30 to 60 days after we get make offers to get started.  Can you tell me when the monthly fees start? And when the one off fees are to be paid?TLN: The one-off fees will be charged in the first month of service after we complete all the set up. The first month of service starts when client has employee need to register with local statutory bodies and payroll processing. It means that even the service contract is effective from Nov 2015 but you do not have any employee on-board, we will not apply any  charge until the first employee on board. But most of the case, the chief Rep will need our assistance in tax registration and payroll.- in starting to post jobs and recruit. I have noticed differing amounts of time that some people individyals need before they leave another job and will be able to start. Can you tell me what I'd common (45 days seems long by USA standards, but is that reasonable by vietnamese standards? )TLN: The standard notice time in Vietnam is 30 days for definite term contract (1-3 years) and 45 days for indefinite term contract. It means that someone can start with you after they submit the resignation letter if their contract with current employer is definite contract.- for a job offer letter or contract you would be creating for us,  what terms are generally in the letter.  Compensation and benefits?  Number of days until start? Contract length?  (Basically I am trying to find out what is customary in Vietnam and what obligations I will have  as an employer to the employee)TLN: I attached herewith a standard labour contract template in billingual for your reference on the content.-if an employee is not working out, are there government regulations or contract requirements about firing that we have to think about?TLN: In VN, the Labour code in general is quite favor for the employee rather than the employer. Organization with more than 10 employees should have clear internal labour rules to define all cases of poor performance and other code of conduct breach for execution. Talentnet can help you to set up and register the Internal Labour rules with local authority before public to all employees. If your Rep. office is less than 10 persons, all your requirement should be mentioned clearly in the labour contract.Other than these questions, I am just looking for a timeline from you on how payments for the different services might go from you as we get started.  Can you help me with the order or timeline of these?- setup for you- TLN: within 4-5 weeks including regulatory registration- regulatory setup of payroll tax accounts- TLN: within 4-5 weeks including payroll system set up- write offer letter / contract- TLN: within 2 business days since the time we receive the request and employee personal data.- hire employee ( wait for employee start)- TLN: 30 days or 45 days.- employee start - TLN: all the information from new hire or termination should be informed to TLN on cut off date (pre-agreed between TLN and client) and then all the payroll set up and statutory registration for new hire will be carried out within that month or within an allowable by local regulation.- twice monthly payroll - TLN: Normally the twice monthly payroll only applicable for very few factory with blue colar workers. If your organization in VN is Rep. office with office staff, they prefer once monthly payroll. Please confirm that you still need twice monthly payroll so that we can revise the service fee accordingly.

With the strong laws favouring employees,  I asked about probation periods

-  should I be considering a probationary period?  Is this even allowed? - Probation period should be applied. Maximum time for a probation period in VN is 60 days.

Very useful information,  all of it!   I also asked for an example job contract.   It turns out that all jobs need contracts so she attached one.   Everythign in it is pretty clear,   job termination is ONLY for cause.   I have not figured out about the ability to terminate the employee if you no longer need them.
Additionally,  in the contract it lists the insurance rates.   Which show that employers must pay 22.5% insurance (medical, social, other) on all employee wages.

Vietnam Employer - Employee insurance rates

Tung Shing Square - Hanoi Vietnam - Possible Office Space

There are many options in hanoi,  and it is difficult to track much of the research,  so I am doing this much in a blog.

In talking with my Savills contact in hanoi about possible office spaces.   we have looked at several  possible locations,  the came up with this awesome graphic of many offered buildings.

Even though this graphic looks complete,  there are are only a few buildings listed,  there are hundreds more which appear in every street view on google.

I have taken particular interest in Tung Shing Building just north of the CBD. 

The realtor said that it may be somewhat finished space and more ready to quickly move into.

The price is 26$ / meter and the space is 100 meters which is a 2600$ / month commitment,  perhaps more than I would like to otherwise spend.  (I have requested pictures of the interior.)

One thing that appears nice is that the building is only a few minutes away from the hotel I am already staying in

 It appears that an available space on the 10th froor in at the front of the building facing the river.   I am hoping that there are windows and a view of some sort of the city.































Google Street view shows some great features of the building

10th floor

a guard not looking worried,  a family on a bike complete with pollution protection and a strapped lady walking somewhere

Accross the street

These pictures were sent to me by the realtor,  who snapped a couple of pictures inside the office

Finding Hanoi Employee - Where to post jobs

More information on our journey to find the best places to list jobs.

A suggestion came up to try posting a job on Linked In.  I have used Linked In jobs before and I got a couple of resumes from it,  it is a US company and it is easy to use and only 199$.  I was considering it.

So I decided I would research it a little bit,  I went  to Linked in and searched for jobs in Vietnam.  It seemed to come up with many jobs for PHP developers.  Some in HCMC and some in Hanoi.  seemed kind of promissing,  but then I decided to find out how many of the jobs were in Hanoi.  So I search Linked in for PHP in "Hanoi Vietnam" instead of only "Vietnam" and.... No results.
Turns out,  the ONLY results you can find are for "Vietnam".   Not very useful (people do not travel across the whole country for jobs).  This reduced my confidence here, but then I noticed a little note next to the results that DID show up.  The note showed the the job listing was imported from  another site.

Basically this means that companies are NOT using linked in to post jobs in Vietnam.  So I connected to the most popular of these sites and looked at posting there.
http://tuyendung.com.vn/ had a free registration and it let me go through the process of setting up job postings with no expense - Once everything is entered,  it appears to be inthe 'pending' state.  I dont have any emails or anything saying there is another step.   Hopefully this means that a person will review the posting and accept.  Or maybe they will contact me and request payment.  Either way I wil update when I find out what it takes to get listed on the Linked In site in Vietnam.

ITViec - accepts job postings

After fussing around with some applications and turned down opportunities to post jobs,  I finally connected with ITViec and got signed up with their service.

The sent over an invoice for three jobs,  but then they turned down one of the jobs  since it is an office administrator and it doesn't really fit for the IT level of the site.

https://itviec.com/admin/jobs - here is where I go to administrate my jobs

http://matraex.com.vn/ - here is the site that I refer my jobs to

https://itviec.com/jobs/wordpress-html5-php-wordpress-project-manager-team-lead - project manager
https://itviec.com/jobs/wordpress-jquery-php-wordpress-developer - php developer



The invoice they sent the second time with only two jobs was less than 2/3rds of the first one,  so I had already converted the 4M VND to USD and overpadi by about $25.  If this turns into applications,  then this will be the best value for job sites in Vietnam I have seen.

Just for reference I am showing what the backend looks like.
The numbers are after the jobs have been posted for about 1 hour.

Job Posting Sites - some translations and some important things addressed with entity and benefits

I recently wanted to post some job listings on some Job Posting sites in Vietnam.

It was difficult to find the sites that were popular for my industry,  but I did find a job listing agregator called careerjet.vn.   I did a search for PHP Developer,  and it came up with many listings,  what I did was I went through each of the listings from the different sites and I counted them up.   And from the results I found that many of the sites had only one listing for PHP developer,  and some had 3 or 4,  but two of them had the most.

• itviec.vn - 14
• jobstreet - 15

I contact itviec and they quickly replied requesting some information about the company which I then told them,  and i linked them to each of the job listings for Matraex.com.vn.

Jobstreet was a bit more difficult,  and it required that I fill out an application form.   Since the application was in VN,  I had to translate it in order to figure out what to fill out.  I provide the translations below.  Once complete,  I emailed it to salesvn@jobstreet.com

-----------------------------------------------

After I made the application above,  I was quickly told by jobstreet,  that until I have my Representative office setup in Vietnam and I could provide the required id numbers issued by the vietnam authority I am not able to post on any of their sites.  This basically puts a stop on my plans to be able to post jobs prior to my visit,  since my application package is held up in customs

However ITViec has been very helpful,  they made some recommendations for a package to purchase,  and then they made an immediate discount (I did not ask).   And they sent me  an invoice for how to transfer money to them to get stated.

I am a bit concerned that once I pay ITViec they will also say that I can not make a post until after I have received confirmation from the Ministry of Industry and Trade with my "RO Number".    That is something that I will just have to risk,   at a cost of about 105$ per posting,  the price though is pretty inexpensive compared to the cost of other services.

ITViec really helped me out though in the advice they gave me when I just emailed them asking about whether the Jobs I am posting are competitive.

I asked how I could come up with a posting that woudl get lots of apps.  They describe that the position I am looking for is the most popular IT in Vietnam right now.  However they kindly included a couple of job descriptions that are getting alot of apps.

They explained that everyone looks at compensation and benefits as the most important part.

Here are the job descriptions included

number 1:

Example 1 from Japanese Company.

Featured benefits include: 

- Have opportunity to work with overseas clients and work in Japan
- Join the dynamic, young and friendly project team
- Attend project training before working with clients directly if need
- Have the stable career path
- Attractive salary, based on skill and experience
- 13-month bonus program
- Additional bonus performance based bonus in addition to 13-month bonus
- Monthly event with company employees (play tennis, football,... and party).

Number 2:

Example 2 about Umbala for their title jobs: 1) Crazy Senior Android (Up to $24000/year) 

->> It is very attractive candidates, they received a lot of CV for all last jobs.

(*) Umbala Labs, a crazy labs is based in Mountain View, CA, USA. But we believe in Vietnamese talents, who can work with us to disrupt the world challenges, so that we setup our production & operation center based in Saigon, Vietnam.

(**) Company Culture:

BE CRAZY
"We need you, crazy rock-stars, to make great innovations and contribute to the disruptive world."

BE FREE
"Freedom leads you to think outside the box and simplify our lives."

BE REVOLUTIONARY
”We have our own direction to discover this world. Challenge yourself by joining us to make the revolution.”

(***) What we offer you:
1. A crazy and challenges word-class startup environment. Where you and our talent software engineers can create something with Umbala to disrupt Silicon Valleys, and make magical thing to millions of people all around the world.
2. Benefit: Salary (software engineer up to $18,000/year; Senior software engineer up to $48,000/year) + Stock options (0.01% - 1%) + 100% salary during probation period + End-of-year Tet bonus + Excellent health insurance.
3. Onsite opportunities: short-term and long-term assignments in Silicon Valleys office.
4. Culture activities: football, badminton, yoga, and massage.

With these two job descriptions,  I was able to update my description to include some benefits I had planned by just had not included in the descriptions:

• Health Insurance
• 13 month bonus
• And Onsite opportunities (if the developer is good,  we would love to have the come onsite to the USA to work for 1 month or more!) 

Sending Representative Office application - documents to Hanoi - DHL and Customs

After almost two months of preparing documents I finally am ready to send the parckage to my attorney in Hanoi. 

While they did not need the documents labeled.  I had spent so much time on putting the package together I decided I wanted to come up with a table of contents and document type cover sheet.  With this I can keep a copy of the of the form of the application.  It also helped me to discuss the contents of the application.  I created a video where I talk through each of the pages in order to document many of the steps, thoughts and reasons I did things.

After the video I went to ship it to vietnam.  I talked to the Hanoi professor /expert in my MBA class about what the best method of sending mail to vietnam was.  She said FedEx but then said she had never done it, and she referred me to the class assistant who said FedEx was how she had sent a bunch of gifts and customs in vietnam had opened and basically held it for ransom (a bribe).  With no help I looked up DHL and called them.  They said they handled the packages all the way to hanoi, but then she said that she was not actually certain because sometimes logistics will be offloaded to a third party.  Anyway I decided that the 80$ fee was worth it.  So I shipped it from the UPS Store.

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Update: 8/24 - Over the weekend I could not track the shipment and saturday I called and left a message and I called again to day to the UPS Store,  and left a Voicemail about the fact that I could still not track the DHL shipment.

After I left the Voicemail I called DHL,  they said they had no record of the package by number but then they asked details of where it was coming from and going to,  from this they found a package which had been entered into their system but they said it was not entered until 5:45PM,   4 hours after their cutoff time (and almost 6 hours after I dropped it off).  The lady on the phone apologized but she said they didn't even have record of the package so they did not know to pick it up at the UPS Store.  She recmmended that I call the UPS store to figure out what happened. 

Since the UPS Store had called me on the other line while I was talking with DHL,  I called them back and Elizabeth (the lady that helped me ship on Friday) picked up.  She apologized and she said she felt she must have jinxed the shipping since she said she had never had any problems,  however it seemed that the lady she called on the phone (while I was standing right there) never entered the transaction as she should have.

Regardless:  the lesson here is that perhaps the UPS Store was not a better method than actually sending it my self.  I could have more reliably called DHL,  and scheduled a pickup from my office and I would have been able to asure that the pickup happened, personally.

While I felt like the transaction would have been MORE reliable on the US side if done at a DHL Distributor,  it looks like that third party actually introduces an additional possible failure point.  I will be scheduling direct with DHL in the future if the rest of the shipping / transit works out.

The issue ended up costing me two days,   now, instead of arriving on Tuesday,  the package is scheduled to arrive on Thursday the 27th.

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On Monday August 31st I received a notice by email from the local upsstore saying that there seems to be a problem with the shipping package.

It turns out that in stead of contacting me they contacted the local upsstore to let them know that they were in need of a local phone number and or email for the receiver.   I provided them with that information by first emailing back to my contact at the UPS store and then including the Internation Tracking Specialist that was on her email chain.   

Next I looked up the contact information for DHL Vietnam and called them (using Google Hangouts).   I talked to them and they told me the number and email they had on file and I confirmed it,  by morning,  I received an email from the reciever saying that there seemed to be a problem where the documents were stuck in customs waiting on a duty (a fee).

So I called DHL in the US and they looked it up,  they immediately saw the note saying they need a number for the local receiver,  when I told them that they had already contacted the reciever they said (oh) it turns out that the documents had a value of $300 on them so it does need to go through customs.   She went on to say that it is standard to put a value on documents in order to show the cost that it might take to reproduce the documents.   (It would actually have cost more like $500 dollars to reproduce the documents  since I had so many legalized documents in there)  But anyway,  DHL says it is normal for this to go through customs.  However with the date they expected arrival (only 3 days after shipping)  it seems as though they did not expect a delay.

The next step is for me to call vietnam DHL to see what I can do to help the document to clear customs.

When i called the vietnam number using hangouts when it forwarded to my phone first and then called them the phone connection was so bad they were not able to help me out.  So I called the international tracking specialist that was on the email that I received

Esteban Monge

Certified International Specialist,

Advisor, Network Tracking and Tracing

DHL Express

1910 W Rio Salado Pkwy

Tempe, AZ 85281

Phone +1 888 853 1845 ext: 43390

Fax + 1 (480)-383-7515

esteban.monge@dhl.com

www.dhl.com

When I called the first couple of times the automated message said that the department was closed,  But then after 6AM MST I called and it went through,  but it went to the 'general' number that took me through a phone tree,  I started speaking with a representative and the phone cut me off.  But then when I called back,  someone picked up immediately!  I gave them the tracking number and asked if I knew who I was attempting to speak with.  I told her 'Esteban Monge' and she said 'he doesn't get in till 7AM would you like to leave a voicemail or send him an email?'   I said,  can you request that he give me a call back (since I had already left a voicemail and email for him ).  

While I am waiting for his call back,  it appears that I might as well describe a few thoughts that I have.  

• Right now it appears that customs is a concern when shipping to vietnam,  there is likely a best way to get documents to Vietnam and I did not know about it or follow it
• DO NOT use a UPS STORE for shipping DHL.   Contact them directly and include ALL of your contact information including email, mobile and work phone numbers,  also include ALL of your receving parties contact information (phone, mobile and email).    
• DHL seems to be pretty good at emailing so make sure you get the email immediately.  If you make sure to use a gmail enabled email address you can use the awesome translation feature to be able to 'sort of' read the text of emails they may send and get forwarded.
• Perhaps a good way to go about the shipping would be to attempt to send a document with a declared value of 0.  In the case (like mine) where it would cost money to reproduce the documents,  perhaps you can do that if you simply get two copies of all of the documents,  even two legalized copies of everything and only send one without value.  

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Update 9 /15/2015
It has been more than 2 weeks and we have made very little progress.  It appears that the 12 hour time gap makes it almost impossible to get anything done.  Basically there is never a time when a person from both Hemispheres is working so only a single email is passed in an entire day.  and Most of the time the email is in broken, incomprehensible english.     Another problem is that there is no single point of contact to resolve or address the issues (esteban? sarah?)   and once I connected with them,  they can only send an email.   While I request that they ask their Vietnam counter parts to address things in a way that allows them to make a choice,  no one is able to communicate and the document ends up sitting while DHL takes two weeks to figure out that the document package needs to have a declared value of 0$.   The complexity is that I sent a document saying it was $300 and they need to figure out HOW we change that value from $300 to $0.  
My attorney dnas writes something up which says I made a mistake (someone said they need something official)  I email that to a new contact I have in DHL Vietnam,  she says that now she is waiting on Vietnam Customs to describe whether that letter is enough or whether the need a new "invoice".  
It sounds like an invoice is an offical Customs / export / improt document,  however I have never filled one out or seen one,  so while it sounds like they may be waiting on it from me,  when I ask,  they can not describe whether they need something at all.

so,  it all comes down to communications. At this point,  I have only 2 weeks before I arrive in Hanoi so if the application is not approved,  I will have to reapply for the Representative Office using a person OTHER than my current Chief RO,  who will only be heading to Vietnam once in his life he says.  Hopefully they have figured it all out and are ready to deliver the documents tonight.

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Several rounds of communication with dhl,  them searching,  closing files, not responding,  not following up and I finally decide to email the CEO or a VP (recommended by Varun).  A little searching and I find that distort partment as a page that says send an email to the top. And then it has the CEO's email address. So I send email begging for help describing the fact that I have not been treated very well and I get a email back the next morning from a guy he said he would be taking care of it. So I email him in a little bit more information and I don't hear from him until the afternoon so I call him and a lady named Tara answers and when I hey I'm looking for John she says oh this is Michael Blood with I'm familiar with the issue and she will be taking it on so we talked a little bit she lets me vent and ultimately she said she will be working with the management here in the US and in Vietnam to resolve the issue. She said that the CEO is aware of the situation and they keep him updated on it. She said she would be doing investigation into it however I encouraged her to accept a letter saying we want the shipment returned immediately and she forwarded it to Vietnam and then didn't follow-up unfortunately until we had lost another weekend however it was still moving much quicker and now after a couple more days Vietnam customs supposedly has released the package to be returned to the US the tracking website has not been updated and I did confirm with her it will be updated as a package moves through the us back to The UPS Store where I dropped it off. One thing that I did find out when speaking with them was that the UPS Store is not a good idea for shipping internationally basically the people at the UPS Store have their own account with DHL so I have to go through the UPS Store for any formal request did you have any updates with the package. Also the package will be brought back to the UPS Store not to me to go and pick it up. And finally for the night identified earlier in the process they simply don't know what they're doing at the UPS Store come it turns out that this entire issue is related to the fact that the invoice which was filled out by Elizabeth at the UPS Store was not filled out correctly. While DHL should have caught the invisible out incorrectly do you have to shouldn't have filled out incorrectly. At this point I'm not sure if I will be working with DHL and UPS store to help them identify the flaw in their system or I'll just say I don't care I'm going to make sure it's filled out correctly myself in the future

Finding Vietnamese Employees

The goal for our trip in October is to be able to interview several possible candidates and possibly select one.

In order to be prepared in October to be able to do that i plan to:

1. Post some employment ads in order to get some attention and get some resumes.
2. Screen resumes and select the ones that are worthy of further interview.
3. Request a video or skype interview.
4. Schedule in person interviews with the final candidates for an available time during October.

The first issue is finding job listing sites which can help me to identify competitive prices and be able to post my job.

I requested a bit of help from the contacts that the EMBA class has,  and Nancy and Kirk introduced me to Mr Hoang and Mr Dung (Zoom).  Mr Dung's first inclination is to pass along the resume's to groups and to large tech community groups.    This will certainly work for me once I have figured out what my 'employer competition' is.   So first I asked about sites out there.   Mr Dung had a suggestion to go to 

anphabe.com

The site appeared to be exactly what I needed in order to do some research,  they had multiple PHP developer positions and listed them with the salary.

By opening the listings I found that the salaray displayed on the list page was the upper end of the range of salary.      This really helped me to identify the range of prices that they were willing to offer.

Looking a bit deeper,  I notece that the majority of the companies offering jobs here are 'outsourcing' companies.  These are companies looking to fill positions in OTHER companies,  I would likely be able to call one of these companies and they would fill the position for me.

In order for me to get a true feel for the market and perhaps reach employees without reaching out to one of these staffing companies,  I need to identify some other sites and markets that employees may be looking

vietnamworks.com
This site is almost identical to anphabe in the search options it presents.  At first it appeared not to

have as many listings though as searches for project manager only returned 2 or 3 listings,  however a search for PHP returned a large number of listings.

The difference with this site is that they require a login in order to view salary.

The site conveniently allows you to login using your google login so I simply did that and now they have my personal gmail address.

Unfortunately,  it appears that this site allows the posters to say "negotiable" and not display a price for the posting,  which made the result set less helpful, however scrolling through the listings did show some  PHP developer position salary between 700 and 1500$.

On this site the positions listed appear to be from more varied companies and not so focused on a few 'volume' companies.  In addition the listings had titles like '5 PHP developers'.

Between these two sites I feel like I got a good understanding of the technical positions and a good salary I am looking to fill:

• PHP Developer $900 - $1500 / month with 1+ years of experience
• Project Manager $1500 - $2500 / month with 4+ years of experience

In both of these situations,  benefits seem to be key.  Researching the postings some benefits offered are:

• 12 days company sick leave
• accident insurance
• Loyalty Bonus: 50% of salary after 1 year of working
• annual workshop and training
• english training
• team dinner
• performance review
• 40 hour work week
• annual bonus
• 13th salary plus bonus
• Annual company trip and team building
• Sport club, free lunch

In general,  it seems to me that the salaries may be somewhat lower than the salaries in the US,  however the benefits offered are a bit more extensive and are offered up front,  I am not sure if this is an expectation or if this is just a less expensive way to entice developers.

While my presence in Vietnam will be small I will need to entice developers with financial benefits until I can figure out more extensive team building and events benefits.  These benefits seem reasonable:

• 12 days company sick leave
• 13th month salary
• Bi annual salary review
• 40 hour work week
• Overtime available

So these sites may be great at getting the word out,  however I now need a way to collect the resumes. So I went out and got the matraex.com.vn domain name and setup a website that will be used solely for a company presence for recruiting.    (Now I will need to get new business cards which use my michael@matraex.com.vn address).
I started with a copy of the matraex.com WordPress website and deleted all of the content and replaced it with Available  Jobs and a way to submit your resume.

Flying to Hanoi - Seat Assignments

I booked my flight to Hanoi using miles i earned on my Alaska Airlines card.

They partner with Korean Air who is flying me out of Vancouver to Seoul,  and Seoul to Hanoi.   One interesting thing about the flight was that when using Korean Air I was unable to setup my seat assignments using the Alaska Airlines portal.  So I had to call Korean Air.  
The first time I called,  I simply received a message "We are experiencing technical difficulties" which is kinda freaky for an Airline.  However when I called back they were very professional and when I selected option 2 for English I was immediately connected to a very professional and eloquent representative.

I was quickly directed to their website where I would be able to look at the seat layout of their planes.  She said I was on the Boeing 777-200ER so I looked it up and we choose seats for each of the four legs I have with them.

The rep also gave me an 8 digit reservation number which allowed me to go online to the My Trips area of their website and change my seat assignments.

Chopping a Company Seal on documents used in Vietnam

In order to show to the Vietnam Government that documents are official original company documents.  You must use a corporate seal.   The seal must be used over the top of all signatures.

In Vietnam they use the awesome term "chop" to describe the process of you putting the seal in place.

The seal must be chopped across your signature

As I was preparing a packet of papers to go to vietnam I ran into an issue with how to 'chop the seal' on documents that had multiple pages.  While the first descriptions I received from my Vietnam Attorney made me think I needed to sign (or initial) each page and then chop the seal over that initial.

However after doing this they returned messages describing that was not what they were looking for.

 In Vietnam, the seal on the multiple page documents used to chop on signature first and then stamp on adjoining edges of pages. 

What this description leaves a bit ambiguous is whether this method requires TWO stamps

• Signature
• Adjoining edges of pages

or whether these can both be done in a single 'chop'

So the method I will be using before sending the papers the long way to Vietnam by post is:   A Single Chop

To make a single 'chop' of the seal on a multiple page document.  The chop will be across the signature and (assuming the signature is on the last page) fanning all  previous pages over the top of the signature so that the seal also includes the edges of the previous page.

This method of stamping the edges of the paper is something that I saw on the 'legalized' papers that came back from the Vietnam embassy and it really does  help to show how exactly the papers line up.  However if you were to take the staple out,  and restaple then you would end up with the edges being misaligned,  which is a good reason NOT to take apart the staples after you have 'chopped a seal'


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08/20/2015 : Update

I have changed my mind,  after reviewing a document that I had legalized by the Vietnam Consulate,  I think that I recognize that they are looking for two separate seals.

• One on the signature,  and
• one across the fanned edges of the entire set.

You will notice the small brad in the top left of the document.  This brad holds the papers in an exact location and as the papers turn it holds them in an exact spot,  which is different from a staple.  Perhaps this is to help the papers be somewhat 'tamper proof'.  if it is I can only hope that the less accurate staple is an acceptable enough method of keeping the papers aligned for me.

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Update:

Now I am probably getting to anal about it,  but there is likely a better way to do this.
The first round,  I ran the seal from the side which makes the name of the company always pressing through the highest number of pages.  Which doesn't show up as well.

So,   I am going to redo the 25 or so documents with the seal from the bottom and the company name spanning all pages so that it will at least show up on the single page impression

Avoid date issue with Secretary of State by getting documents and notary done at the same time

An interesting issue,  which could be avoided with experience was brought up by my DNAS attorney, One a document which I had the Secretary of State idaho create, notarize and certify was questioned by the Vietnamese authority.  

Basically they noticed that one of the documents was printed on July 22nd, yet it was not notarized and authenticated until July 29th so they asked me to explain.

They may accept the explanation.

I had the SOS print out the document on the 22nd,  but I did not take the document into be notarized and authenticated for legalization until one week later when I had the passports and other documents I needed.  When went back in and they said,  "we can go ahead and do that with document you already have".  

Basically they were able to easily verify the authenticity of the document,  and they remembered me. Perhaps they were atttempting to save me the 10$ fee.  I am not sure if this is acceptable document handling,  However it does seem non standard,  the document they notarized had left their hands and some authority may not accept that.

To avoid this,  Just get the documents all printed, notarized and authenticated at the same time

Providing Proof of Business Financial Stability to Vietnam Government

Working with DNAS to put together the documents I need for in order to apply to open a Representative Office in Vietnam has bee farily simple when I look back at it,   most of the forms and passport requirements have been simple,  however they also have a requirement to submit to them either a Certificate from the Federal Tax Authority stating that all Taxes have been paid and that our business is in good standing.  Or we have to get audited financials which are able to accurately show our balance and income sheet.

We spoke with the IRS agents on the phone and could not find any kind of a form or anything that the IRS could provide in order to prove that we are up to date.

We were about to give up when I decided to do some new searches
If you are an alien or you are about to expatriate,  you can file for a Certificate of Compliance to prove that you have paid your taxes before leaving.
http://www.irs.gov/instructions/i1040c/ch01.html

I called the IRS and they refered me to a form
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1120idq.pdf
which I quickly discarded, as we do not have these types of loans

So I followed the advice on the 1040-C and decided to go into the local IRS office and talk to the 'Area Director'.
http://www.irs.gov/uac/Contact-My-Local-Office-in-Idaho

They require that you schedule an appoint ment
http://www.irs.gov/uac/How-to-Schedule-an-Appointment-in-Idaho and I called  1-844-545-5640  in order to setup an appointment.    The wait time on the phone just to make the appointment was 7 to 10 minutes.


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Update: 8/4/2015
The scheduled appointment was just a way to avoid too many people showing up at once,  when I went in, I just told them when my appointment was,  without any checking they said okay and gave me a number (however the lady mumbled that someone there wasn't being honest about their appointment time because there was not 4 people even working to handle all of the appointments)
So I waited 45 minutes and was just about to assume they would not be able to get to me since lunch was coming up in just a few when a lady called our number.

She quickly identified that she is not well versed in International affairs but she did describe that the only thing she could thing off was the 6166 form which seems to to simply certify that the individual does pay taxes in the US.   This document is normally used to give to another country in order to let the other country know that the individual is paying taxes under certain US treaties.

She recommended that I call the International Group whose number is on the instructions to the 8082 form you file in order to get the 6166 to ask more questions.

So I had a transcript printed out which indicates the amount owed by the company.  Since we are an S Corp,  the amount owed is $0 as the the K-1 section the 1120S just allocates the full amount owed to the shareholder.

When I called the International Tax they could only think of the 'sailing' papers which is the 2063 form.   This form is something that a departing alien can fill out in order to demonstrate that they do not owe any more taxes.   However the form only has a place for a SSN and an ITIN,  it does not have a place for an EIN for a business.

So,  as a next step,  I sent the transcript off to the DNAS lawyer,  asking him if this was enough.   In addition I think I will simply fill out the 2063 form out for me personally,  my wife and the company EIN and I will go in and try to get something signed.

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8/3/2015
Another avenue we have been going down at the same time to try and figure out an audit: 
So we went to an accountant and asked about getting an audit done.  The time consuming process of getting an audit,  as well as the cost can be rather prohibitive for a small business ,  but the accountaint described that there are three options "compiled financials, a review and an audit",  each of these ends with an accountant opinion  letter attached to financials.  However we quickly found out that compiled financials is not enough,  and that the accountant opinion letter actually with compiled financials would actually state "this is not an audit" and "the accuracy of the financials was not validated".  Our DNAS attorney described that the financial audit is most importantly looking to determine the accuracy of the financials.  SO we are having to start a new process of getting our accountant to do a review.

It seems the best way to find out what level is acceptable,  is to request a 'proposed' letter from the accountant that they would send,  and forward that to the attorneys to confirm whether it is acceptable.  So when we connect with the accountant again we will verify first what options we will have.

The DNAS attorney came back and was not happy with the form of the opinion which states that the compiled financials is NOT an audit,  and it turns out that they want an audit,  which is cost prohibitive (and now time prohibitive for me in this project).   While the way that I worked with my accountant some how anchored them to give me a very low price,  the audit would still cost upwards of $5000 and could take a couple more weeks.  Being this late in the game  this would blow my October timeframe.   Since the accountant was already 75% of the way done with the financials I told her to finish them,   Perhaps they will come in handy when seeking a loan or something in the future,  or maybe I will ALSO be able to submit these financials  to the Vietnamese Authority in order to "help" with the application in the case that the other method we come up with is not good enough on its own.

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