When my former business partner and I picked out Thailand, I was 22 years old. Thailand was on our radar because he had done an internship here. That was it. From the get-go, the main reason to look into Thailand was lower costs and the flexibility of a web-based business. Things seemed a lot cheaper and for our customers, it didn't matter if we were located in Germany or Thailand. My business partner had some professional contacts in Bangkok, nothing bending-the-rule-of-law-crazy, but … [Read more...]

What do entrepreneurs do all day? How do business owners and managers use their time to accomplish their goals? While I can't answer that on a representative basis, I can give you a pretty exact picture of what it is that I do all day long. Throughout the last two years I picked a number of weeks during which I assiduously kept track of every single thing I worked on. Here are the results. About Me I've been running a web-based business out of Bangkok, Thailand since 2006. At the time of … [Read more...]

Thinking about opening a Thailand office? Already have a virtual team and are wondering what the additional costs are of putting them under one roof? Curious how much overhead and benefits contribute to total costs? The following data offers some answers, allowing you to make a more informed decision in any case. Quick Summary Starting with the big numbers: My total cost per employee is ฿37,827 per month - or roughly $1,049.75. Overhead costs account for ฿10,451 of that and consists of … [Read more...]

A few weeks back I wrote about building a kick-ass team of Thai employees and how to deal with with the challenges of recruiting and assembling an awesome team. Today I'd like to look at the day-to-day management of an expat manager in Thailand. What follows is my own best practices that I came to use over the last 10 years while running a tech start-up out of Bangkok. For my own company these turned to work out quite well, but that doesn't mean it's the only or the best way to go about it. What … [Read more...]

How do you create a company out of thin air? What's the magic that let's you grow a business with no money in the bank? Bootstrapping means doing exactly that: Starting and growing a company on a shoestring budget. My own journey to becoming a tech entrepreneur started with having literally not a single cent to my name. I picked up a job at a local hardware store as a customer service guy on inline skates. I didn't even own a pair inline skates. That wasn't terribly surprising, considering I … [Read more...]