Nguyen Van Thai - Shark Tank season 7: The quiet shark, criticized for having few Facebook likes

Besides the familiar sharks like Shark Binh and Shark Hung, Mr. Nguyen Van Thai is a strange shark, sitting in the hot seat of the show for the first time.

Shark Thai is introduced as Co-founder and Vice President of Thai Huong Group.

Having started his business 10 years ago, however, Mr. Nguyen Van Thai is a businessman who is quite secretive to the press and media. The name of Thai Huong Group - of which Mr. Thai is Vice Chairman - is often introduced through the introduction of Group Chairman Nguyen Linh Huong.

According to information on the Group's website, Thai Huong was formerly the Linh Huong Natural Cosmetics brand, providing handmade products since 2014.

During the next 10 years of starting up, this unit continuously built 4 factories to serve production, at the same time, continuously launched subsidiaries. One of Thai Huong's factories is located in Industrial Zone 2, Phu Nghia Industrial Park, Chuong My District, Hanoi.

With a total construction area of 6,000m2 and a total usable area of 12,000m2, the factory has a capacity of 2 million products/month. In 2023 alone, this unit said it will produce and launch 196 cosmetic products to the market.

Currently, there are 5 companies owned by the Group with Mr. Nguyen Van Thai as Vice Chairman, including: Thai Huong Pharmaceutical Group Joint Stock Company, Thai Huong Investment and Trading Company Limited, Thai Huong International Advertising and Communication Company Limited; Viss Future Technology Joint Stock Company; Thai Huong International Pharmaceutical Joint Stock Company.

The unit provides many services from cosmetic processing, formula development, packaging and label design consulting to supplying raw materials, semi-finished products... Regarding human resources, the group has a total of about 70 factory management experts. The factory staff has 200 people, 5 experts in product research and development, and 100 people working in the office, according to the announcement on the website.

Participating in Shark Tank season 7, Mr. Thai said: "To create big changes in the cosmetics industry, startups not only need capital, but also need comprehensive support in technology, production capacity, management and sales distribution... With the existing Thai Huong ecosystem, we want to accompany startups to conquer the market and reach out to the world."

Mr. Thai's appearance on Shark Tank season 7 also marks the first time a businessman in the cosmetics industry has sat in the hot seat. According to reports from many market research units, the scale of the cosmetics industry in Vietnam is increasing over time. A report from Nielsen said that Vietnamese consumers' spending on cosmetics is not much, but is gradually increasing. The average cost that a Vietnamese woman spends on cosmetics is at 500,000 - 700,000 VND/month...

Controversy over Facebook likes

As soon as the first episode aired, the audience and many Startups were especially interested in the "attractive" statements of this Vice President.

Following the program's developments, before the Startups' fundraising, Shark Thai said that he was not only willing to invest in production but also affirmed that he would help them develop sales channels on social networking platforms. Because this "shark" has a social networking ecosystem that is an effective distribution and sales channel?

Before the capital call of Startup Nguyen Van Duy - CEO of Seichou Machi Ramen and his colleagues, Shark Thai eloquently said that he was ready to invest money in this Startup. "I only invest 2.5 billion VND in your production sector. Your stores still belong to you. You can still call for capital from other Sharks", Shark Thai said.

In particular, Shark Thai also emphasized the product consumption stage of the Seichou Machi Ramen brand Startup with an attractive promise: "I will help you seed sales, connect famous KOCs on e-commerce platforms, so you can sell your products there".

Notably, in the capital calling section of Startup Tran Dinh Kien and Vu Thi Tan - two co-founders of the T-Clean brand, Shark Thai frankly assessed the weaknesses of the Startups and affirmed the strength of his Thai Huong Pharmaceutical Group: "I realize that your weaknesses are my strengths, because in terms of cost of goods sold, I can completely weigh and measure for you accurately. I can reduce for you 10%, even 15%".

"I have been a KOC, I have developed many tiktok, facebook, and social network channels. I will have a sales policy for you", Shark Thai declared and finally "closed" to invest 3 billion with 18% of shares for the T-Clean brand Startup.

After successfully "closing the deal", Shark Thai will deploy capital contribution to T-Clean and help Startup optimize cost of capital, develop sales channels, and consume products. But the question is, with the help of Shark Thai, will the T-Clean brand be as successful as Shark Thai and Startup expect? Because, on social networking channels such as Facebook, TikTok, which is said to belong to Thai Huong Pharmaceutical Company, there are very limited updated information and it is worth mentioning that the interaction of each post is very low, only a few likes, or a few hundred likes. Some people know that after 2 days of posting, there are only 5 likes...

For example, an account named Thai Huong Pharmaceutical Group Joint Stock Company posted on its wall: "Appointment at 8:30 pm tonight. The first episode of Shark Tank season 7 officially airs. These are the images recorded by the crew while my Shark Nguyen Van Thai was enthusiastically working on the Shark Tank set.

Everyone, please watch and join the program, along with the Sharks so that the Sharks can help many Startups, bringing more value to the national economy in general". However, after 2 days, the interaction of this post only had 5 likes.

Or, another article: "The result of Shark Thai after the end of episode 1. After the persuasion process, the deal between Shark Thai and T-Clean was successful with the decision to "close the deal" of 3 billion VND for 18% of shares". After 9 hours of posting, this article only attracted 5 likes.

On the tiktok account named Thaihuonggiacong, there are only a few dozen clips sharing images of the unit, production process and products. However, most of the clips posted only receive a few dozen to a few hundred likes.

Besides, there are also many Facebook social network accounts with Shark Thai's image, such as: Shark Nguyen Van Thai, Nguyen Van Thai... which have only updated very little information and have low interaction.

Shark Tue Lam was accused of using a fake name and lying about his age, so he immediately spoke up to clarify, dragging Miss Y Nhi into this? Keng07:16:38 09/11/2023Le Han Tue Lam is known as the new shark, also the only pink shadow on the Shark Tank Vietnam hot seat. As soon as she appeared in the hot seat, many viewers expressed admiration, but there were also many mixed comments.