Just writing down a few thoughts after hearing that an old company has closed its doors. It’s also a good time to reflect on two years since I first stepped into the startup world.
UP
October 2015, I joined AhaMove as an Operations Associate. It was my first full-time gig. The title sounds fancy, but honestly, I was lucky enough to be one of the first members of the Hanoi team, which meant I got to try out a bunch of different roles.
In the early days, we didn’t have an official office, so we shared space with the GHN team at Sky Light, all the way at the end of Minh Khai Street, near Times City. I was still in school back then, living near Trade University, so I commuted across the whole city every day. After a few days at the office, we moved around to different GHN hubs. That’s where I learned how to use the app, went through training, and practiced delivering packages—from picking up from the shop to handing them over to customers. I spent the most time at the HUBs in Hai Bà Trưng and Thanh Xuân. I still remember the Thanh Xuân hub—we didn’t even have enough chairs for the three of us, so we just stood around watching everyone work, listening to instructions, and taking breaks to breathe some fresh air. My first delivery was to a girl at Trang Tiền Plaza, and she was so pretty I just couldn’t stop staring at her while handing over the package.
My first client meeting was tagging along with Trường to iPOS to discuss a partnership. After that, we rolled out at some restaurants using iPOS systems, introduced our service, and trained their staff. At that point, we were short on drivers, so restaurants would place orders, but no one would pick them up, or if they did, it would take ages. And with food, you need it delivered ASAP. After two or three days, one restaurant decided to cancel, even cursed at the shipper and my boss. It was a shock. I used to think working with big companies (and to me, GHN, AhaMove, and iPOS were big at the time) would be smooth and easy, with clear processes. I never expected things to be this uncertain.
I remember sitting at Book Coffee doing the first month’s report—about ten orders a day, seven or eight of which were canceled. A day with half the orders done felt like a win. There was one day Gấm and I stood by the pond near the Thanh Xuân hub, just looking at each other. We didn’t know what to do. We said, “Let’s just try one more month. If things don’t change, we’ll call it quits.”
After the failure with restaurants, we learned and moved on to shops selling items that didn’t need strict preservation and needed a system to manage shipping and daily shipping fees. Some shops were introduced by iPOS, and others we had to find ourselves. We still didn’t have any brochures or sales kits—just a phone with the app installed. Out of ten shops we visited, eight would say, “I’m too busy for this,” and one might be interested. If we were lucky, one would actually agree to install the app. After a few instances where customers installed the app and placed orders but no drivers were available, we started to wise up. Whenever the sales team went out, we’d send someone else along. If a shop agreed to install the app, we’d immediately message the team on Telegram to be ready. As soon as they placed an order, someone would accept it in five seconds, pick it up, and deliver it in no time. Shops loved it. But honestly, before we heard those compliments, we faced way more rejections and complaints.
The days during that period were all about free shipping for shops that agreed to use our service. New shops were coming on board, but just as many were leaving. Even with the free shipping, the waiting times for drivers were way too long. We scraped by through those last two months of 2015. The report charts at the end of each week and month were just a rollercoaster, up and down all the time. Everyone felt pretty drained. We all knew that the main reason shops were leaving was that we didn’t have enough drivers, but if we recruited more drivers, we wouldn’t have enough orders to keep them busy. It was a constant balancing act. Despite the frustration, no one complained too much because both the operations and sales teams knew that everyone was giving their best. During this time, most of us were staying at the office until 7 or 8 p.m. every day. There were even days we sat until past 8, trying to decide on new pricing policies after two months of trial runs—looking at the data, discussing, tired but kind of happy too.
Another big memory was visiting a potential client who had about 100 orders per day. At that time, we were averaging around 100 orders a day, so landing this client could’ve been a real game-changer. As soon as we got there, we saw bags of sweet potatoes piled up at the entrance. And the smell of roasted sweet potatoes filled the house. Their deliveries were bulky—each driver needed a foam box to carry the orders, with a few extra bags tied to the front. Each delivery weighed around 20-25 kg. Just looking at it made me feel tired. Our drivers were used to handling lighter stuff that could easily be hung on the bike, and now we were talking about big foam boxes that they had to bring back after each delivery. The shop was all the way out near Cầu Diễn too, not even in the center. I knew that if we closed the deal, it’d be great, but just looking at it was overwhelming.
I asked how they managed their delivery team. The first issue was that each of their drivers carried about ten orders and covered entire routes. They also carried extra potatoes just in case new orders came in while they were delivering—coordinators would call and send them on new deliveries along the way. The problem was that our system only allowed each driver to take a maximum of three orders at a time. If we let them take more, it wouldn’t guarantee delivery times and would mess with our operations team’s coordination—one driver carrying five orders would be out all morning, and it defeated the purpose of having a flexible, on-demand model. I was chatting with the shop while also messaging the team back at the office, and we decided on the spot to increase the order limit to five for them (each “multi-point order” could include up to five different delivery addresses from a single pickup). Everyone wanted to see if we could make it work.
Next, we had to talk pricing. They were paying 20k per delivery point, no matter the distance. With a max of five points per order, AhaMove could potentially earn 100k per trip. If we optimized the routes well, this could be profitable. (AhaMove’s pricing was 20k for the first 4 km, plus 5k per extra km. For multi-point orders, we calculated the distance from the pickup to the final delivery point, adding 5k per stop. So, for an order with three points over 6 km, it’d be: 6×5000 + 2 stops x 5000 = 40,000đ). The challenge was figuring out the best route for five delivery points across their daily 100 orders. The shop refused to do the routing themselves. More messages back to the team. After a bit of thought, we decided AhaMove would do it for them in the beginning. Thương took on this job because she knew Hanoi like the back of her hand. So, for a long time after that, Thương and Gấm would come to the office early, get the list of delivery points for the day, and sort them out for the most efficient route. Later, when the deal was well underway, the tech team developed a route optimization tool. You could just enter a list of points, and it would automatically arrange them to minimize distance and cost. But until that tool was ready, it was all Thương and Gấm. Work started at 8:30, but they were online on Telegram as early as 6:30 some days.
And then, there was the issue of the foam boxes for deliveries. Their drivers were hired on a long-term basis and had to bring the boxes back after delivery. Now, if our drivers took over, they’d have to bring them back too. But there had to be some incentive for them, right? No one wanted to ride all the way back just to return a foam box. More negotiations. We finally settled on paying the driver an extra 10k per box return, covered by the shop.
Done.
Looking back, getting that deal done was a whole process and one of the most memorable experiences. There were times when things got really tense because both sides wanted more out of it. I even had some pretty heated discussions with the shop owner. But I stood my ground because I knew that at that point, this was the best solution for both sides. AhaMove got a major client, and the shop got a management system that saved them a ton of time, effort, and even costs. In fact, after three months, their shipping costs were down by 10-15% compared to their previous system (if I remember correctly).
And slowly, steadily, AhaMove got through those tough early days and became more stable. Once we had a certain number of loyal customers, it became easier to build a solid team of drivers. Of course, churn rates for both shops and drivers were still high, but by then, the model had proven itself, and the market was established enough for AhaMove to hold onto its core customers with different support policies. Now, after two years, AhaMove is one of the top players in the one-hour delivery market in Vietnam, ahead of regional competitors like Grab Delivery and Indonesia’s Top Jek.
DOWN
After AhaMove, I got the chance to work with another team in the same delivery tech space. Unlike at AhaMove, where I focused mainly on sales and operations, at this company (let’s call it B), I got to work a lot more with the tech team on building the product. From finalizing the business model and specifications to deciding which features to launch in the first version and testing the UX/UI—everything was new, and none of it was stuff I’d had the chance to do at AhaMove. Of course, new opportunities come with new challenges. With a higher role came more responsibilities. When you’re starting something for the first time, a mentor can be a huge help, but if there’s no one to guide you, you just have to figure it out on your own. And sometimes, that means making mistakes along the way.
B was founded by two people, both of whom had their own successful companies. One was a tech company specializing in outsourcing and tech solutions for foreign clients and banks, while the other was in mobile solutions (with a well-known online earning app). After nearly four months, we finally completed the app and set a launch date for June. The whole team was excited, hoping for big things.
In early July, I quit.
Two weeks ago, an old colleague messaged me to let me know that B had officially shut down after more than six months of operation.
START
I left AhaMove in early July 2016, after nine months on the job. To this day, I try not to talk much about why I left. To me, AhaMove is like a first love—beautiful, full of memories. There were good times, and there were bad times. Some of the sadness sticks with me even now.
In the beginning at AhaMove, everyone gave it their all, covering whatever came up and helping each other out. No boss, no employee—just a team and a leader. After about two months of working on bike deliveries, I was assigned to a new project: developing the three-wheel truck delivery service. For the first month, Trường and I went up and down Phạm Hùng Street, looking for spots with lots of three-wheel trucks to introduce our service and convince them to work with us. Working with three-wheel truck drivers was a whole different game compared to motorbike drivers. Some of the truck drivers were older, and even just teaching them how to use a smartphone was tough. Getting them to use the app and go through the steps to complete a delivery took even longer. There were some who needed a whole month of hand-holding just to learn how to accept an order, mark it as “arrived,” and then mark it as “completed”—a process that takes ten seconds. The younger drivers with smartphones had different issues. First, they already had their own regular gigs. Plus, they couldn’t go alone—they had to “hire” a veteran to ride with them to avoid fines. Convincing them to use the app was hard because AhaMove didn’t have many orders at first.
The market for three-wheel truck deliveries mostly revolved around moving houses and delivering large quantities for restaurants and supermarkets. But moving houses is seasonal—it doesn’t happen year-round like motorbike deliveries. In the beginning, since there weren’t many moving orders, the company diverted some deliveries from BigC Thăng Long and Metro Hà Đông to these truck drivers, hoping that over time, the external orders would grow and we’d reduce our dependence on these pre-arranged deliveries. At that point, there were way more truck orders in Saigon compared to Hanoi, and the truck team in Saigon was also bigger.
Back when I was working on bike deliveries, even though customers would yell and drivers would complain, everyone on the team had this quiet determination to keep going. I felt the same. I could listen to complaints from drivers or customers all day, and still show up the next day because I believed that everyone was doing their best to improve, and I trusted Trường, Hoài, and the whole team. But when I started working with trucks, I didn’t feel that same clear sense of belief. Maybe it was because our team was so small—just Hà and me, and later on, Hằng and Thắng joined to help. While the truck team had to face this whole new, tougher market, it seemed like all the focus was on the bike team. That might have been why Hà and I felt less motivated. Every day, the two of us would sit at Highland Coffee in BigC Thăng Long, showing up early before BigC even opened, buying some bread for lunch, and just waiting by the phone. Either waiting for the drivers to call asking why there weren’t more deliveries or for the BigC logistics team to call for a pickup. It was the same thing day after day.
Eventually, it became clear that things weren’t improving. There weren’t enough external orders coming in, so each day was just a repeat of going to BigC, waiting for deliveries, calling drivers, riding along with them, and dealing with all the confusing paperwork. Both of us got tired—Hà didn’t quit, but I did. I tried to avoid being at BigC as much as possible, while Hà stayed there all day. Even when she got sick, she didn’t dare take a day off, or maybe she just couldn’t because she knew if she wasn’t there, no one else would be.
In December 2015, Thắng joined to help with reporting. We sat at Highland Coffee in BigC Thăng Long until 8 p.m., and then had to finish up at a cafe near Foreign Trade University the next morning, even though it was Sunday, and Thắng lived all the way in Linh Đàm.
Truck deliveries were like this: Hà coordinated with BigC’s logistics team, arranged the shipments, waited for the drivers to come back, and then helped load up the trucks. I only had one job—taking photos of it all.
In March 2016, AhaMove officially decided to shut down the three-wheel truck project and focus on bikes. The truck team moved back to the office, which had by then relocated to Mipec Tây Sơn.
Coming back to the office felt strange. I felt disconnected, like everyone was on a new fast-paced track and I was just standing on the sidelines. Hà, on the other hand, jumped right back in and fit in just fine.
So why did I feel that way? I think, looking back, I was just really insecure. Four months on the truck project and it all came to nothing. Coming back and seeing everyone moving ahead, I felt like I couldn’t keep up. I wanted to, but I was scared I didn’t have it in me. Then there was the feeling that all my work with the truck project wasn’t recognized. All of that just made me pull away from everyone else even more. I started showing up late, leaving early, not caring about KPIs or the bigger team goals, and snapping over little things. The more insecure I felt, the more I tried to act like I didn’t care. It created a really tense, negative vibe for the whole team. Eventually, it all came to a head, and I decided to leave. I felt like I wasn’t adding value to the team anymore.
When you start needing recognition instead of continuing to push forward, when your ego becomes bigger than the collective “we,” maybe that’s when you’ve lost the motivation to keep going. It’s like standing on a mountain peak, refusing to move forward, or not daring to descend to climb higher.
“If you don’t dare come down from a peak, you won’t be able to climb a higher one” — Minh from VNG.
Looking back now, all that insecurity was something I created for myself. After I left AhaMove and caught up with my old teammates (after they’d also left), I found out that they never thought I was incapable of keeping up. Some of them were even surprised when I quit, especially after we’d gotten through the toughest part and were just starting to grow. But for me, if I could go back, I’d still make the same decision, because that was who I was at that moment in June 2016. Sometimes, you hear things so often you think you understand them, even say them to others, but it’s only when you experience them yourself that they truly sink in.
Despite all the difficult times, my experience at AhaMove also gave me valuable lessons that I carry with me even now. I learned that a startup doesn’t need a lot of people at the beginning, and definitely not a lot of managers or department heads. All you need is a true leader—someone who understands the product and the market, who’s 100% focused, willing to get their hands dirty alongside the team, and who has unwavering belief in the team and the product’s success. Someone who will keep going even when no one else believes, even if they’re walking alone, when others have given up and left. Because at the beginning, aside from that shared belief, we didn’t have anything else. I learned that even an experienced team has to go through trial and error, and experimenting means there will be mistakes—probably more mistakes than successes.
Early teammates are the same—what matters most is having a “get shit done” attitude, being willing to do whatever it takes to achieve the common goal, and trusting each other. Like Thắng delivering packages late into the night on March 8th, like Hà running a red light because she was too focused on deliveries and ended up getting stopped by the police, like Gấm staying at the office until 11 p.m. to help me finish up invoices and never complaining. And like me, believing that as long as we had Hoài, Trường, Gấm, Hà, and everyone else, AhaMove would get through those tough times. Simple as that.
When I moved to company B, everything was different. We had a nice office right in the center of Hanoi, a solid tech team, a big marketing team, and the founders already had a well-established network. But I only really felt the belief in our product and our team during the early days. As time went on, that belief seemed to fade. Even though the founders were really passionate, both of them had other successful businesses that required their attention, so they couldn’t fully focus on this new venture. Then there was the team. I had countless conversations with H. about how in the beginning, there would be lots of issues, and the sales and operations teams would have to put up with customer and driver complaints. It’s always the hardest part when you’re just starting out. Things are rough, and there’s no perfect process—you just have to adapt and build as you go. But H. wanted a clear, precise process and an optimized plan from the get-go. The more things played out, the more it became clear that we just had different perspectives. And when two people no longer share the same belief, the best thing to do is to part ways. So, I left.
Now, I understand why so many teams in this space couldn’t grow, while AhaMove managed to take off. Most others were struggling or couldn’t make significant progress over a long period.
I think each of us is, in some way, an entrepreneur. Every job we start is like a new beginning, and we never know if it’ll go up or down. The only thing we can do is give our all with each new start. Sometimes, we don’t know where we’re heading or what tomorrow will bring, but as long as we’re surrounded by people who share the same belief in something better, who share the same uncertainties but are willing to face them together, that’s enough. Knowing that here, we can try, we can make mistakes, but we’re still supported and trusted by our teammates—that’s all we need. And who knows, the people walking alongside us today may turn out to be lifelong friends. I still keep in touch with a few old colleagues, even though we’re all in different places now. Some moved to Saigon for work, others went back to school. I’ve received so much help from AhaMove friends whenever I faced tough times in Saigon, or during my unemployment—both materially and emotionally. It’s something I’m proud of when I talk about AhaMove.
If you asked me now, two years later, whether I’d choose to join a startup again or become a credit officer (since I studied finance and banking), I think I’d make the same choice. Startups gave me the opportunity to meet and work with energetic, passionate young people who are willing to face uncertainty every day. They also gave me the chance to experience all kinds of emotions: joy, disappointment, hope, frustration, trust—and to confront myself every day. Am I still interested in learning new things? How do I deal with uncertainty, unemployment, feeling lost, looking back and still trying to find my way forward? Maybe I don’t have all the answers yet. But well, it’s worth all the pain.
Startups are great. And the downsides? They’re okay too, because they give us the chance to face new challenges. Sometimes, the process of struggling to regain balance (like after a breakup, unemployment, etc.) is when true courage is tested and forged. This process can be just as valuable as proving yourself. (Borrowing words from Brené Brown in “Rising Strong.”)
As someone once said, “If we try something new, we may fail. But I’m ready to take the challenges. Where it would take me, what’s there for me, or how to do it—let the journey reveal itself.” Because, you know, life goes on.
These are moments I’ll remember for a long time.
October 2015: The first days. Our Trello avatar. I still haven’t dared to open Trello again—too many undone cards. Taken at the Hai Bà Trưng hub, borrowing Gấm’s bag just to look cool :))
Decorating the office for Christmas 2015. Even amidst all the stress from customer complaints, we still found time to buy decorations. Well, “buy decorations” meant Thắng and I went to the A tower of Mipec, just a few steps away, to pick things out. The problem was neither of us knew what to buy, so we kept sending pictures back to the team for guidance. We ended up with two strings of decorations (still don’t know what they’re called), a set of fairy lights, and a bunch of balloons.
Startup Christmas? A laptop for dispatching, two phones ready. Home was just a few hundred meters from the office, but no time to get back.
The usual scene: Thắng doing reports, Long looking for new clients, Gấm holding the phone coordinating.
Sapa, February 2016.
March 2016: The whole team at Gemini Nguyen Chi Thanh when the office lost power.
Watching the livestream of Ngôn—our CTO—chatting with Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google.
April 2016. By this point, Thắng, Hà, and Long had left. Now, only Quang and Nhân (the two on the far right) are still with AhaMove. As for the rest of us, from left to right: Đức moved to Saigon to continue his startup journey, Hà is planning to study abroad after a year grinding at Topica, I’m currently unemployed, Thắng is working in Saigon, Long just stepped down from TopCV as a co-founder to embark on a new journey, Linh joined the public sector in import/export, Thanh is studying in the UK. Nhân is a sales team leader at AhaMove, and Quang, once the best seller, is now taking on a new challenge in marketing.
First public reveal: Liberty Enlightening the World, AhaMove version.
