As the former head of operations for Tiki, one of Vietnam’s largest ecommerce marketplaces, Phan Xuan Canh encountered major difficulties when he had to hire hundreds of shift-based temporary workers for the company’s warehouse and events. Typically, this type of enlistment was handled by staffing agencies or Tiki’s own human resources department, involving lengthy spreadsheets containing the contact information of people who might take up these gigs.

Canh saw an opportunity to build a tech-enabled platform that is similar to Uber Works, which was launched in October 2019 and described by TechCrunch as a platform that matches shift workers with shifts. Beyond Tiki’s case, there was a good reason for Canh’s vision to come into being. In Vietnam, the demand for temporary work is extremely high, as a major part of the labor force constitutes what is known as the informal economy.