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

181–190 of 191 posts

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

#181

Post by nikster »

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…

Been in Thailand 10 years - honestly most Thais don't care one bit about the letter of the law. A banal example might be that unless there's a helmet check stop, you can drive by any policeman without a helmet on - nobody cares.

The work permit situation is not that clear either - there are different interpretations depending on who you ask. If you are here, but your income is entirely in another country, it's legal according to officials - the law just was not made for that situation. The law is to prevent foreigners from working illegally in Thailand - if the foreigner basically "brings their own job" to Thailand it's a different story.

Who can prove what you're doing on your computer? Will they ask the NSA and the IRS for assistance to uncover the company you're building? And if not, how could they tell whether you're not a trust fund kid playing Counter Strike all day long?

Once you start hiring people here, you'll need legal assistance, but even that is relatively straightforward. I know many with BOI companies here, with 100% foreign ownership.

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

#184

Post by gngeal »

ido wrote: post #138
eCa wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's possible to live quite cheaply in most of the eastern members of the EU.

For example you can live just fine in many fairly nice areas in Czech Republic and Slovakia for $1000/m (wife's family is Czech & Slovakian, never lived there myself but visited very often & stayed with locals).

$1000/m? Bah, you must be spoiled. I'd put that at $500/m or so. (Or perhaps it's just me being a reclusive hermit... :-))

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

#185

Post by dwfer55454 »

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…

No, not exactly.

As someone who has had enough back-to-back tourist visas to fill 2 passports, I can say that your outlook on visas is naive in the extreme. Be prepared to move along or go to quite some effort/expense to stay.

For an example of one of the subtleties I'm talking about: you need to show 400,000-800,000THB in a Thai bank account for a non-O (yearly renewal) visa. There used to be "visa agents" who would let you "borrow" this sum just long enough to flash to immigration officials. Having learned of this, the government mandated that the cash must remain deposited for 3 months. It's purpose is obvious and I can tell you that it's strongly enforced.

Another not so subtle point is that, if you get back-to-back tourist visa, you'll be visiting the border at least 6 times per year and consuming 24 passport pages per year. Passport reissue pretty much requires you to fly home.

Education visas require proof of enrolment in a real institution, which is also quite strongly enforced. There's a 4 year limit on renewals and you must renew out-of-country every year.

Getting the picture yet....? Short term tourist visas are deceptively easy. Everything else isn't.

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

#186

Post by chespirito »

One qualifier to: "Thailand’s government is wholly responsible for this situation" (viz. rampant sex tourism).

I would clarify that it is fully but not uniquely responsible. Sort of like if two men set out to murder a third and they both poison his drink on the same night, they are both fully but not uniquely responsible for his death. Analogously, sex tourists share responsibility, as perhaps do other governments whose actions influence the kind of governments that Thailand is likely to have.

Just a minor point of mine on a side-observation! Otherwise, lots of insights I enjoyed. I hadn't given much thought to start-up culture in SE Asia. One thing that doesn't get mentioned is the language: Did you get by exclusively with English (and Dutch, lots of ex-colonies being out that way)?

If you're serious about growing a start-up over a long stretch of time in Thailand it seems like you would want to have some Thai, if nothing else to draw from a greater pool of local talent when recruiting.

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

#187

Post by capisce »

YZF wrote: post #172
capisce wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was hiring a remote filipino worker and his dutch friend apparently.

Was that in the article somewhere? At any rate, there's some fine line where an activity that could otherwise be described as a hobby becomes work. It's the actual activity + intent + context + judgement of the authorities that matters... Presumably when you essentially establish residence, get paid, hire and manage other people, that line has been crossed.

Because clearly him spending his money there instead of somewhere else is a net negative for the country?

Here's the source for who he hired to work for his company: https://twitter.com/levelsio/status/389171438013267968

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

#188

Post by fadzlan »

hackerboos wrote: post #158
j1z0 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 /…

Somebody who throws Singapore in with a list of other South-East Asian countries and goes on to state that laws are just a guideline clearly has no idea what they are talking about. I can only speak for Thailand and Singapore and both are stringent on enforcement when it comes to visas. I've never heard of anyone walking away with a slap on the wrist or being able to bribe their way out of a situation with regards to…

Well... I am from Malaysia. As long as you are not employed, not conducting any activities that earn money from locals (ie. consulting, etc), not employing anyone, you are not technically running a business/being employed. So you are not running against the letter of the law

Come to think of it, there could be a lot of people coming here with business on Ebay... and keep checking their Ebay website every minute. It would be weird not to mention wrong to be checking anyone doing anything on a webpage on a coffee shop.

And if there is co working area, well, as long as you are not hired and not running local business, believe me, no one cares. Just by being there does not constitute you breaking the visa, when employment visa specifically talks about being employed.

And if you want to open a local company, that is easy too. I had a guy from Australia interviewed me after he had opened a company here. It takes somewhat less than a day to do.

If you want to hire foreigners however, that might take a while, since you need to go through the due process. But if you are in the tech sector, you could go for MSC status application, where you could hire foreigners as much as you want and even have tax exemption for few years.

The worse case is that you are here working for your company for few months before the MSC status is approved. Last time I worked it took about 8 months for it to get approved, all the time where my Italian boss and European colleagues keep leaving the countries after 90 days. From what I understand, even that is kosher, since they are in a payroll from an incorporated company in UK.

Bottom line is, at least for Malaysia, the government here is doing the best it can to get the cross pollination of talent from outside to the locals. And as many of the commenters here mentioned, if you are not causing trouble with anyone, no one has any reason to check on you.

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

#189

Post by studentrob »

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…

Not particularly unsafe, I live in PP. Lived in NYC previously and I liken it to that, just different things to watch out for. Mobile internet is good (Cellcard is the best), I think I've gotten up to 300KB/sec, though there is some lag connecting to, say, my Linode in NJ.. maybe a 1 second delay in the terminal. Anyway it's currently $1.50 for 7 days or 1 GB, whichever comes first, and I can reload if I finish early. I go to a coworking space (CoLab) for faster internet, all-day A/C, and a good quiet working atmosphere. I consider that membership part of my rent, though rent is cheap here anyway. Have a two bedroom, two bath, estimating 2,000 sq ft + a covered roof terrace, for $300 / month. And it doesn't get cold here =)

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

#190

Post by mr-happy »

Is the quality of hackers good in Thailand? I'm particularly thinking about skills to deal with javascript, node.js and MongoDB. I've heard mixed reviews in the past - and it's been touched on a few times here - but would be great to hear what the latest situation is.
Post reply on HN