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What I learnt bootstrapping my startup from Thailand for six months

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Re: What I learnt bootstrapping my startup from Thailand for six months

#101

Post by berntb »

asveikau wrote: post #82
berntb wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has been discussed often, some web sites keep cost statistics. For example, Google: living costs london cluj (I was outsourced to Cluj, Transylvania in Romania. I recommend it. 250 Euro/month for a nice, central 50 m2 apartment. People are nice, it is safe. Different. Beautiful women. Mountains, but no sea. University city. The food is very good, but could be more international -- a few sushi places and one(!) I…

I thought that maybe the Romanians pronounced the letter J similar to its original use in Latin; that consonant made when the letter i brushes up against another vowel, as in iudex , like an English Y. But no, I look it up and they pronounce it as [ʒ], almost like we do in English. Therefore, I will make my corny joke: you don't want your software written in a place that sounds so similar to "kludge". :-)

Sadly, that term seems to have fallen out of use -- I have had to explain it to lots of young computer people in Cluj. :-)

Re: What I learnt bootstrapping my startup from Thailand for six months

#102

Post by cyrilga »

Amazing article! I am doing the same (bootstrapping from Asia) and would agree with almost anything but the budget. I am currently in Ko Tao (=paradise) and during low season, you get a comfortable room for 8000 baht / month ($300) 5 min from the beach. In Chiang Mai I was renting a large bedroom on Airbnb for $9/day. Vientiane as well is a good option, they love foreigners there and there are a lot of french expats. I would stay away from Vietnam (Saigon and Hanoi) as you have constantly to be on your guards unless you go to Hoi An or Nha Trang. Has anybody tried the Philippines?

Re: What I learnt bootstrapping my startup from Thailand for six months

#103

Post by Radim »

pieterhg wrote: post #70
Radim wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not. There's plenty of more detailed info out there, and I don't claim to be any sort of expert after mere two years, but here's two stereotypical extremes: Tourist-eyes : beautiful beaches; nice weather; safe; cheap food; laid back, friendly smiling people -- PARADISE! Live-and-work-there-eyes : rampant bigotry and racism (common to most SE Asia); dishonesty ("losing face" and all, again shared across SEA and no…

You're absolutely right on most of those points. With regards to the racism: I did experience it when I entered night clubs, and it felt weird I had to pay an entrance fee and the Thais did not. But on the other hand, I know foreigners (esp. Westerners, like me) simply cause a lot of trouble in night clubs and obviously hitting on their women. In a weird way, you pay that off with an entrance fee. In my limited exper…

Actually, I meant racism toward dark-skinned people (Thais or otherwise), not so much toward Westerns.

To wit, skin whitening is a monstrous business in Thailand.

I'll never forget the forest of umbrellas on really hot days, or people walking in long sleeves, just to fend off the sun and "stay white" :)

Re: What I learnt bootstrapping my startup from Thailand for six months

#104

Post by cyrilga »

cyrilga wrote: post #102

Amazing article! I am doing the same (bootstrapping from Asia) and would agree with almost anything but the budget. I am currently in Ko Tao (=paradise) and during low season, you get a comfortable room for 8000 baht / month ($300) 5 min from the beach. In Chiang Mai I was renting a large bedroom on Airbnb for $9/day. Vientiane as well is a good option, they love foreigners there and there are a lot of french expats.…

Of course during low season, there is quite a bit of rain, which helps focusing on developing your startup and not going to the beach.

Re: What I learnt bootstrapping my startup from Thailand for six months

#105

Post by jeff_facebook »

pieterhg wrote: post #83
crazygringo wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, who cares? Work permits are to make sure you don't steal jobs from the locals. Working on your own project has nothing to do with that. So while it may be breaking the letter of the law, it's certainly not breaking the spirit of it. My point being, you shouldn't have ethical issues with it -- it's like driving 57 in a 55 zone. I know people who have been deported for not having the right visa -- a phone cal…

Exactly. The culture of the judicial system works in a wholly different way in developing nations than in the West. They don't practice laws like we do. When you cause trouble in Thailand, they'll find any law you might have broken, just to get you, but when you don't cause trouble, most of the times you're fine, even if you might be breaking the law in official terms. I heard it's the same in China. Sure, it's a ris…

I spent 2 years living in Thailand on back-to-back tourist visas (and eventually ran out of passport pages) and a little over 2 more with a work permit. You are making the visa situation out to be MUCH simpler than it really is. You'll very quickly learn this, should you want to stay longer term.

Every category of visa requires between 1-6 border runs per year, even with a work permit. If you get a permit and it expires or you lose the sponsored placement (which is tied to the permit) you have 15 days to leave the country.

I've thought about this long and hard. There is no way to stay "under the radar", without major hassles. This is the purpose of the mandatory visa runs. You'll either run out of passport pages from the 6 tourist visa runs per year (12 stamps -- 6 in, 6 out, 2 pages each) or you will have to get a real visa, complete with a sponsored work placement and proof of income. End of story.

Get caught at a border or an airport without a valid visa and you'll get fined 500 THB per overdue day, deported, and if the overdue period runs into months or years, blacklisted from future visas.

Re: What I learnt bootstrapping my startup from Thailand for six months

#106

Post by seanmcdirmid »

pieterhg wrote: post #83
crazygringo wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, who cares? Work permits are to make sure you don't steal jobs from the locals. Working on your own project has nothing to do with that. So while it may be breaking the letter of the law, it's certainly not breaking the spirit of it. My point being, you shouldn't have ethical issues with it -- it's like driving 57 in a 55 zone. I know people who have been deported for not having the right visa -- a phone cal…

Exactly. The culture of the judicial system works in a wholly different way in developing nations than in the West. They don't practice laws like we do. When you cause trouble in Thailand, they'll find any law you might have broken, just to get you, but when you don't cause trouble, most of the times you're fine, even if you might be breaking the law in official terms. I heard it's the same in China. Sure, it's a ris…

> I heard it's the same in China.

Not in this case: they specifically target foreigners working without permits here, though mostly English teachers.

China isn't really a cheap place for bootstrapping a startup, so the random foreigner coding in starbucks isn't going to attract any attention. Kai Fu's Innovation Works, a YC-style incubator, can help get foreigners working visas for incubated projects, I think.

Re: What I learnt bootstrapping my startup from Thailand for six months

#107

Post by a8da6b0c91d »

homakov wrote: post #88

If you dont like sex tourism it is ur mental problem. Feel free to agitate in your europez but please leave my thailand as is. Every girl has a right to do anything and its not your business.

> ur mental problem

Lol. It's "mental" to see whores, pimps, and johns and recoil. On the contrary, a malfunctioning disgust reaction to these things is more clearly a symptom of mental illness.

Re: What I learnt bootstrapping my startup from Thailand for six months

#108

Post by seanmcdirmid »

sirn wrote: post #60
jamornh wrote: post #17

Thai national here, and as a fellow bootstrapper I would have to agree with most of the points of the OP. The reason why I left my well-paid job in Singapore and come back to Thailand to bootstrap my startup is due to the much lower cost of living and un-tapped talent pool. I'd like to add that the quoted figure of $1,000 USD a month is rather high. Most Thais can get by with $500 USD. That is the current starting sa…

> Most Thais can get by with $500 USD. As local, I can confirm this. Though it was roughly three years ago, ~$400 a month back then could get me a very comfortable life in outer area of Bangkok (Onnut), this includes an apartment with to-the-door food service, air conditioning, parking slot, 10 minutes walk to the BTS (train station) and 16Mbps internet. No pool, though! The trick is to rent an apartment within BTS r…

I found food in Thailand to be particularly expensive, even at the grocery store; especially, oddly enough, rice, where Thailand should be the largest exporter! It was at least comparable to the states, where grocery stores are cheap by world standards, but I found it to be more expensive than China in general.

Re: What I learnt bootstrapping my startup from Thailand for six months

#109

Post by janameri »

pieterhg wrote: post #13
scheff wrote: post #11

Great write up! I'm thinking of doing the exact same thing. A couple of questions - Why the limitation to being able to only do 6 months? Do they stop renewing your visa after that? Have you looked at other neighbouring countries like Laos, Burma and Cambodia for a similar arrangement?

Thanks! The most I could get from the Thai embassy in Amsterdam was a double-entry visa. If I wanted a triple-entry visa (giving me 3x90 days or 9 months), they required me to have booked all my flights in and out of the country beforehand. That was a bit too much planning for me. I believe there's education visas if you study Thai at a school for a year, but that seems like too much of a distraction while starting u…

In Phnom Penh you will get a decent 5Mb mobile connection reasonably cheap, but fixed 'broadband' prices are expensive, like $30/month for 256kb!!

Re: What I learnt bootstrapping my startup from Thailand for six months

#110

Post by yla92 »

pieterhg wrote: post #64
kirk21 wrote: post #56

Awesome! How did your family/friends react? What is your next stop? Moving to Berlin next month to bootstrap.

They are quite used to me moving around a lot and just want to see me happy. I am now in Saigon and my next stop is probably Phnom Penh and then celebrate NYE in Hong Kong. Berlin is awesome! What are you working on?

Quite nice to read your story. Btw, it will be great if you can make it to Yangon/Rangoon too. (: (I am from Yangon)
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