Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What I learnt bootstrapping my startup from Thailand for six months

levels.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 191 posts

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

#121

Post by fingerprinter »

RomanPushkin wrote: post #54

> The enterprise loves C# coders. But that’s not necessarily the best language for a startup stack. Why? It's quite easy, much more powerful, performance is great! Jeffrey Richter in his book "CLR via C#" says it's often more fasten than even compiled C/C++. Have you heard about Entity Framework and ASP.Net MVC? It's growing like a mad thing, a lotta features, improvements and so on. Maybe the license price is high?…

I've always liked C#, and even like Visual Studio to some degree, but I would never develop it for anything other than a hobby application.

Why?

Windows.

I'm not going to be tied to a an entire ecosystem like that. If MS was serious about being developer friendly, really serious, they would not tie developers to Windows. It might not make the most strategic sense, but in the day and age of the cloud and big clusters of no-cost image spinups, Windows doesn't make sense.

And, no, Mono is not a real alternative. There's too many good languages and frameworks to be fiddling with Mono in production.

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

#122

Post by math »

hackerboos wrote: post #38
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…

>EDIT: Of course, I'm not exactly familiar with the visa situation since I don't actually need it. Based on the OP, it seems pretty complicated, but still worth the hassle. I lived in Thailand for several years and 'bootstrapping' your business there as a foreigner without a work permit is breaking the law. You need a work permit to do ANY type of work in Thailand and although working out of sight is unlikely to get…

I live in Cambodia (Phnom Penh) and over the last few years have seen many expats move from Thailand to here due to the relative visa situation (very difficult in Thiland, very easy in Cambodia). Cost of living here is about the same as Thailand. The number of decent places catering for westerners has increased dramatically over the last few years. Local people are very friendly. I reckon Phnom Penh an awesome place to live.

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

#123

Post by parennoob »

Pinatubo wrote: post #118
homakov wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ps. Traveled around the world now living in pattaya. Asq questions.

Do you honestly believe those prostitutes enjoy sleeping with people like you?

If you think enjoyment is a prerequisite to doing a job, then there are several people working on crufty "enterprise" Java-based systems that would love to benefit from your crusade.

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

#124

Post by auvrw »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #106
pieterhg wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

or you can take university classes, a win for both the visa and language situations.

the random foreigner who replies to a couple of job listings, has industry experience, and can crank out more than php or javascript spaghetti (because there are plenty of good developers here who will work for much less than sv wages) can definitely find startup-like situations. or maybe i just lucked out, dunno.

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

#127

Post by rockyleal »

practicalpants wrote: post #47

Ah, I'm so on the verge of doing this. I quit my programming day job a few weeks ago and really want to make this happen. However... I'm terrified of the SF real estate market when I return. I'm also torn about whether to give up my apartment or find someone to sublet (or AirBnB it?) to have something to return to. Any advice, from anyone here who knows SF/SV, or has done something like this, about the above, or abou…

Just for the record, what OP is doing is illegal. His main goal while in Thailand is work. By working while on a tourist visa he is breaking Thai law.

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

#128

Post by 1gor »

j1z0 wrote: post #112
hackerboos wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>EDIT: Of course, I'm not exactly familiar with the visa situation since I don't actually need it. Based on the OP, it seems pretty complicated, but still worth the hassle. I lived in Thailand for several years and 'bootstrapping' your business there as a foreigner without a work permit is breaking the law. You need a work permit to do ANY type of work in Thailand and although working out of sight is unlikely to get…

Look I'm American who has been living in SE Asia (mostly Malaysia) for the past 10 years. I've spent lots of time and worked in lots of countries here including Vietnam, Thailand, Philipines, Singapore, India and obviously Malaysia. In Asia a work visa is intended for foreigners working for locally incorporated companies. Regardless of what it says on the websites, if you have a tourist visa you are free to startup /…

j1z0 So, out of the countries you mentioned, where one could engineer the best bootstrapping lifestyle? Why have you chosen Malaysia?

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

#129

Post by homakov »

parennoob wrote: post #123
Pinatubo wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you honestly believe those prostitutes enjoy sleeping with people like you?

If you think enjoyment is a prerequisite to doing a job, then there are several people working on crufty "enterprise" Java-based systems that would love to benefit from your crusade.

That. Do you honestly enjoy writing PHP? Likely no. Nobody cares

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

#130

Post by noisy_boy »

junto wrote: post #2

Interesting post. As someone who lives outside his homeland, and predominantly speaking a foreign language, I can completely identify with your comments about how hard it is to cope with the concept of being disconnected with your homeland's society and not fitting in with the new one. Slowly things have improved for me as I have learnt to speak the local language, but deep-down I still feel like an outsider. I have…

Learning basic Thai is quite simple - you cover the basic food items, numbers and common touristy words. Things get difficult when you decide to read/write.
Post reply on HN