A week at Color of Vietnam

A week at Color of Vietnam turns on four fixed beats: a planning hour at the start of the week, a sample review in the middle, a visit to our partner facilities, and a tasting at the end. Between those beats sits each person's open work. This piece describes the week from the point of view of someone who has just joined, because that is the quickest way for a candidate to know what they will be doing on the Tuesday of their first week.

The four fixed beats

• Start of the week, one planning hour. The whole team stands around one board: open items, who owns them, due dates, what slipped from last week and why. It ends with the three most important items of the week.
• Mid-week, the sample review. New samples from the partner facility sit next to the previous version and a reference. Each sample leaves the table with a decision and a next step.
• One visit to our partner facilities in the Thạch Thất – Quốc Oai industrial park. The day follows the production schedule rather than a fixed weekday. The work there: watch the trial batch, meet QA, bring retained samples back.
• End of the week, the tasting. Products already on sale are tasted the way an eater would eat them, the sample tracking sheet is updated, and the week is closed: what got done, what carries over.

These four beats do not move. That is how our partner facilities know when to expect a decision from us, and how a newcomer has something to hold on to while everything is still unfamiliar.

What sits between the beats

Most of the week is not in the four beats. It is emails to the partner facilities, a half-written specification, a packaging file waiting for sign-off, a question from a buyer, content for one of the brands. We keep two small rules for this part. First, anything that comes up mid-week and is not one of the three most important items goes on the waiting board, unless it concerns food safety or a print deadline. Second, everyone keeps at least two meeting-free half days a week for work that needs long concentration.

A newcomer's first week

A newcomer takes on nothing with a deadline in the first week. Their job is to go through the four beats with a notebook:

• Planning hour: listen, and write down every term you do not understand. Nobody is embarrassed by this list.
• Sample review: taste and fill in a sheet like everyone else. The newcomer's sheet gets read, not skipped, because they are the only person at the table who has not yet grown used to our flavours.
• Facility visit: go with the R&D specialist. The only task is to observe and write three questions about what you saw on the line.
• Tasting: bring a snack you normally buy for yourself and put it beside ours for comparison.
• End of the week: fifteen minutes with the founder to go through the list of unfamiliar terms and the three questions.

By the end of that week a newcomer knows the four beats, knows where each sample stands, and has a list of questions of their own. Deadlines start in week two.

A recent first week

The most recent person to join went through exactly that week. The list of unfamiliar terms after the planning hour included water activity, tolerance, retained sample and reference sample. At the sample review, their sheet described a nut bar sample as slightly sticky on the teeth, while most of the other sheets did not mention it. That note went into the tracking sheet, because the rest of us had grown so used to the bar that we had stopped noticing.

The three questions from the facility visit: why there are two scales at the start of the packing line, why the operator tastes rice crackers at the start of a batch rather than the end, and why the box of standard samples is kept somewhere dark. At the end of the week the first two were answered in fifteen minutes. The third made us realise that our retained sample guideline never actually said to keep samples away from light, even though everyone did it out of habit. That line was added to the guideline the same afternoon. One question from a newcomer, in week one, fixed a document that belonged to the whole team.

What the week says about how we work

The weekly rhythm is where three of our values show most clearly. Small Trials: one trial loop fits inside one week, from sample arriving to decision to email to the facility. See It Through: open items do not vanish, they carry over until they are closed, and everyone can see them on the board. Speak Honestly: a newcomer's sheet weighs the same as the founder's, and the most naive question of the week can be the one that fixes a document.

If you would like a first week like this one, our Fresher Product R&D (FMCG) and Marketing Leader roles in Hanoi are open on the Careers page. You can apply through the form on the site, or ask us more about the rhythm through the Contact page.