There are no startups in Thailand!
Two years ago I published an appeal article, “ Do you want coworking in Thailand? Which excited Habr. Unfortunately, the co-working center in Chiang Mai did not work out. The answer to the question “why?” Deserves a separate discussion, and here it is worth mentioning another fact: the post forced the attention of IT people to Thailand. Now there are so many Russian-speaking freelancers, entrepreneurs and start-ups who live here, winters and are going to come, that I want to say: “guys, it's time to get comfortable villas out of their holes , it's time to do something in common, at least - to start a discussion!”
More than once articles on Thailand have appeared on Habré as a convenient base for working on web projects. The warm climate and low-cost infrastructure attract IT professionals from all over the world. But about what is happening in the field of local startups of information, very little is not something that is in Russian, but even in English. This article is intended to fill this gap.
In short, there is no start-up scene in Thailand right now, and besides there are almost no start-ups themselves, with rare exceptions. About why this is happening, well told John Berns in the article " Why Thailand Sucks for Tech Startups ." Even the word "startup" in Thai is still missing (as, incidentally, in Russian). In the local market a lot of free niches. Do you want to - Amazon Thai open, you want - Yandex. Leading in the Thai web sites are implemented for the most part very poor, somewhere at the level of the mid-90s of the last century. With all this, in a country with 65 mil. population in 2010 recorded one of the highest rates of growth in the number of Facebook users - at the moment 12% of the population have accounts there, which is probably the cause of Thai sociality - and offline they have hundreds of friends, and in social networking profiles and altogether thousands, if not tens of thousands. The number of smartphone users over the same period increased by 1000%. The iPhone, Blackberry are widespread, the popularity of Android systems is growing at a wild pace. I feel that Thailand is on the verge of an explosion of IT and web technologies. Something significant should happen here in the next 1-2 years. It's time to join and be directly involved in these processes.
')
As I said, today the Thai startup scene is a wasteland. Nevertheless, there are shifts. At the moment, different groups of people are making efforts, which together can lead to the creation of a Thai startup scene soon. I would like to tell about these efforts here.
This is a large two-day party of geeks and related parties, which has already been held 4 times in Thailand. Its format is similar to the conference, but the topics of the reports are born right on the spot, participants vote for interesting topics, and then, following the results of the voting, less informal speeches take place from morning to evening. Mainly, issues related to IT are touched upon, but there are also unexpected reports like “How to get a Japanese gel-friend”. In summer, the fifth Barcamp will be held in Bangkok, presumably in June, the exact dates are still unknown. Information will appear on http://www.barcampbangkok.org/ , but it is better to join their group on Facebook or subscribe to Twitter.
Last year BarCamp was held in the northern capital of Thailand, Chiang Mai. Follow the progress of events through the Barcamp Chiangmai website and the group on Facebook .
The idea is to organize a permanent comfortable working space for people of the same spirit, where you can work on your projects, share ideas with like-minded people, engage in coworking and have fun. An attempt to create such an institution had already taken place a couple of years ago, for some time it even existed under the name Bangspace , but it had to be closed, because the creators could not attract a sufficient amount of finance (it is assumed that those who want to work in Hackerspace must pay small membership fees ).
An attempt to recreate Bangkok Hackerspace has been resumed, it is now at the stage of room selection, meetings of initiators and all those who wish to participate are held regularly. This site contains all the information relating to the project. Online communication takes place mostly in a group on Facebook .
I heard or read, now I don’t remember where that a similar initiative is either planned or already takes place in Chiang Mai.
These are groups of people with common professional interests who occasionally hold meetings where speakers speak on various topics related to programming, design, usability and IT business. Here is a list of all found groups:
Community of online marketers. Meetings are organized regularly. I know almost nothing, but I heard from several people at once that this party is quite popular and useful in terms of establishing contacts with the leaders of digital marketing in Thailand. Approximately the same people can meet at more pretentious events, where the entrance costs quite a lot of money, for example, at the Digital Marketing Congress , which will take place on April 27-28.
It is not yet clear what this event is, but it makes sense to follow its development.
Finally - the most interesting initiative:
The mission of this organization is to become a catalyst for the formation of the Thai startup scene. I recommend to download the presentation in English , where goals and tasks are described in detail, as well as join the Thailand IT Mentors group , which is a temporary online community site. And do not be confused by the name Thailand IT Mentors - this is the very association that we are talking about here. If you are interested in Thai IT start-up scene and you would like in any capacity, even as an observer, to participate in its creation - register boldly.
Initially, this group was started as a community of IT mentors, and at the moment it includes about 30 people who want to try themselves in this role. These are people with different backgrounds: there are developers, there are financiers, entrepreneurs, managers. The name “IT Startups Association of Thailand” appeared literally the other day at a meeting where I attended, and it is intended to reach a much larger circle of stakeholders. At the very initial stage, the task of this organization will be to declare itself, to make it clear that there are mentors, there is an exit to interested investors, to organize a series of speeches, meetings, in short, to conduct some kind of public relations, so that potential startups will think about the opportunities that they open up. I repeat, at the moment the stage of IT start-ups has to be created from a complete zero. The more interesting to participate in these processes. In the future, there should be incubators, venture funds, online and offline platforms for communication of startups, angel investors, regular events, pitch events, in general, all the components of the developed IT community.
The association will be officially registered in the very near future, and then it will start preparing for the summer Barcamp, where it plans to powerfully declare itself. There is already information on this topic in the Google group, the link to which I gave above.
We, my addictedtothai colleague and I, who live in Bangkok and are better informed of current information on the topic, are personally interested in contacts with Russian-speaking like-minded people who are not indifferent to this topic. At least, for joint campaigns on different IT parties, and at the maximum - possible cooperation. For example, it would be very interesting to work on the transfer of Russian startups to Thai soil.
More than once articles on Thailand have appeared on Habré as a convenient base for working on web projects. The warm climate and low-cost infrastructure attract IT professionals from all over the world. But about what is happening in the field of local startups of information, very little is not something that is in Russian, but even in English. This article is intended to fill this gap.
In short, there is no start-up scene in Thailand right now, and besides there are almost no start-ups themselves, with rare exceptions. About why this is happening, well told John Berns in the article " Why Thailand Sucks for Tech Startups ." Even the word "startup" in Thai is still missing (as, incidentally, in Russian). In the local market a lot of free niches. Do you want to - Amazon Thai open, you want - Yandex. Leading in the Thai web sites are implemented for the most part very poor, somewhere at the level of the mid-90s of the last century. With all this, in a country with 65 mil. population in 2010 recorded one of the highest rates of growth in the number of Facebook users - at the moment 12% of the population have accounts there, which is probably the cause of Thai sociality - and offline they have hundreds of friends, and in social networking profiles and altogether thousands, if not tens of thousands. The number of smartphone users over the same period increased by 1000%. The iPhone, Blackberry are widespread, the popularity of Android systems is growing at a wild pace. I feel that Thailand is on the verge of an explosion of IT and web technologies. Something significant should happen here in the next 1-2 years. It's time to join and be directly involved in these processes.
')
As I said, today the Thai startup scene is a wasteland. Nevertheless, there are shifts. At the moment, different groups of people are making efforts, which together can lead to the creation of a Thai startup scene soon. I would like to tell about these efforts here.
Barcamp
This is a large two-day party of geeks and related parties, which has already been held 4 times in Thailand. Its format is similar to the conference, but the topics of the reports are born right on the spot, participants vote for interesting topics, and then, following the results of the voting, less informal speeches take place from morning to evening. Mainly, issues related to IT are touched upon, but there are also unexpected reports like “How to get a Japanese gel-friend”. In summer, the fifth Barcamp will be held in Bangkok, presumably in June, the exact dates are still unknown. Information will appear on http://www.barcampbangkok.org/ , but it is better to join their group on Facebook or subscribe to Twitter.
Last year BarCamp was held in the northern capital of Thailand, Chiang Mai. Follow the progress of events through the Barcamp Chiangmai website and the group on Facebook .
Bangkok Hackerspace
The idea is to organize a permanent comfortable working space for people of the same spirit, where you can work on your projects, share ideas with like-minded people, engage in coworking and have fun. An attempt to create such an institution had already taken place a couple of years ago, for some time it even existed under the name Bangspace , but it had to be closed, because the creators could not attract a sufficient amount of finance (it is assumed that those who want to work in Hackerspace must pay small membership fees ).
An attempt to recreate Bangkok Hackerspace has been resumed, it is now at the stage of room selection, meetings of initiators and all those who wish to participate are held regularly. This site contains all the information relating to the project. Online communication takes place mostly in a group on Facebook .
I heard or read, now I don’t remember where that a similar initiative is either planned or already takes place in Chiang Mai.
Meetup interest groups
These are groups of people with common professional interests who occasionally hold meetings where speakers speak on various topics related to programming, design, usability and IT business. Here is a list of all found groups:
- Web Design, UX Design and Web Development Group
- Ruby on Rails Programming in Thailand
- IPhone / iPad Developers in Thailand
- Bangkok Affiliate Marketing Group
- Graphic Designers in Bangkok
Web Wednesday Thailand
Community of online marketers. Meetings are organized regularly. I know almost nothing, but I heard from several people at once that this party is quite popular and useful in terms of establishing contacts with the leaders of digital marketing in Thailand. Approximately the same people can meet at more pretentious events, where the entrance costs quite a lot of money, for example, at the Digital Marketing Congress , which will take place on April 27-28.
Mobile Monday Bangkok
It is not yet clear what this event is, but it makes sense to follow its development.
Finally - the most interesting initiative:
IT startups Association of Thailand
The mission of this organization is to become a catalyst for the formation of the Thai startup scene. I recommend to download the presentation in English , where goals and tasks are described in detail, as well as join the Thailand IT Mentors group , which is a temporary online community site. And do not be confused by the name Thailand IT Mentors - this is the very association that we are talking about here. If you are interested in Thai IT start-up scene and you would like in any capacity, even as an observer, to participate in its creation - register boldly.
Initially, this group was started as a community of IT mentors, and at the moment it includes about 30 people who want to try themselves in this role. These are people with different backgrounds: there are developers, there are financiers, entrepreneurs, managers. The name “IT Startups Association of Thailand” appeared literally the other day at a meeting where I attended, and it is intended to reach a much larger circle of stakeholders. At the very initial stage, the task of this organization will be to declare itself, to make it clear that there are mentors, there is an exit to interested investors, to organize a series of speeches, meetings, in short, to conduct some kind of public relations, so that potential startups will think about the opportunities that they open up. I repeat, at the moment the stage of IT start-ups has to be created from a complete zero. The more interesting to participate in these processes. In the future, there should be incubators, venture funds, online and offline platforms for communication of startups, angel investors, regular events, pitch events, in general, all the components of the developed IT community.
The association will be officially registered in the very near future, and then it will start preparing for the summer Barcamp, where it plans to powerfully declare itself. There is already information on this topic in the Google group, the link to which I gave above.
P.S
We, my addictedtothai colleague and I, who live in Bangkok and are better informed of current information on the topic, are personally interested in contacts with Russian-speaking like-minded people who are not indifferent to this topic. At least, for joint campaigns on different IT parties, and at the maximum - possible cooperation. For example, it would be very interesting to work on the transfer of Russian startups to Thai soil.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/116938/
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