Starting/buying A Web Development Company

[sonicdragon]

I am interested in starting or (preferably) buying an existing website development company. The ideal business would have around 8-10 employees (3-5 programmers, 2 team leaders, 1 designer, 1 producer, 1 office manager, located around southern bangkok-bangna-bangplee-samut prakan.

I have checked sunbelt website periodically but not found anything interesting.

If anyone has any information, experience or advice I would be grateful.

Thanks

SD

[Casanundra]

I am interested in starting or (preferably) buying an existing website development company. The ideal business would have around 8-10 employees (3-5 programmers, 2 team leaders, 1 designer, 1 producer, 1 office manager, located around southern bangkok-bangna-bangplee-samut prakan.

I have checked sunbelt website periodically but not found anything interesting.

If anyone has any information, experience or advice I would be grateful.

Thanks

SD

Contact this address: [email protected]

I know the owner there and he is looking to sell or go into partnership on his existing businesses, one of which includes web development.

[Phil Conners]

Another one? This is a cutthroat market you're getting yourself into, have you done your homework?

[Sunbelt Asia]

I am interested in starting or (preferably) buying an existing website development company. The ideal business would have around 8-10 employees (3-5 programmers, 2 team leaders, 1 designer, 1 producer, 1 office manager, located around southern bangkok-bangna-bangplee-samut prakan.

I have checked sunbelt website periodically but not found anything interesting.

If anyone has any information, experience or advice I would be grateful.

Thanks

SD

We have no listings at this time for a website development. Had a website development firm that was listed several months ago but it has already been acquired.

Contact this address: [email protected]

I know the owner there and he is looking to sell or go into partnership on his existing businesses, one of which includes web development.

I'm familiar with Mark Holts Company which is a BOI company. Mark is a nice guy. His company in fact did one of our websites once (the work was out source by him to India). He told me India was cheaper and better quality work. However, we did upgrade the website several years ago and are no longer using this model.

Mark's primary business these days is real estate.

www.sunbeltasiagroup.com

[sonicdragon]

Another one? This is a cutthroat market you're getting yourself into, have you done your homework?

Yes, I think so

[sonicdragon]

<snip>

He told me India was cheaper and better quality work. However, we did upgrade the website several years ago and are no longer using this model.

<snip>

I've been outsourcing to india for a long time (also china and australia). I have a background in software development, but 10+ years ago. The problem I find is not being in control of these guys in india etc. It might be cheap, but in the long run it can be a lot of headaches. I have 1 lice project now that is already 3 months behind schedule coz the lead programmer made som fundamental mistakes - the boss told me that he fired the guy and had to start over, so from a cost point of view it's OK, but the delay is not. I have a business in HK that will be the anchor client. I am semi-retired in thailand now, so I thought that my own web development company would could kill 3 birds with one stone so to speak- give me something do do here, save time and money for my main business in HK, and hopefully turn a modest profit.

[Casanundra]

I have 1 lice project now that is already 3 months behind schedule coz the lead programmer made som fundamental mistakes

Probably caused by people sitting around scratching their heads and not knowing what to do...

[Prakanong]

<snip>

He told me India was cheaper and better quality work. However, we did upgrade the website several years ago and are no longer using this model.

<snip>

I've been outsourcing to india for a long time (also china and australia). I have a background in software development, but 10+ years ago. The problem I find is not being in control of these guys in india etc. It might be cheap, but in the long run it can be a lot of headaches. I have 1 lice project now that is already 3 months behind schedule coz the lead programmer made som fundamental mistakes - the boss told me that he fired the guy and had to start over, so from a cost point of view it's OK, but the delay is not. I have a business in HK that will be the anchor client. I am semi-retired in thailand now, so I thought that my own web development company would could kill 3 birds with one stone so to speak- give me something do do here, save time and money for my main business in HK, and hopefully turn a modest profit.

Outsourcing is fine but you need to choose wisely and have smebody you can work with. We are about to outsource another area of our work and as its the first time for many people here in these functions the roles and responisibilities have to managed caefully as you are finding

I have been asked to help in this complete new area as I have experience frm both sides. I would stil outsource IT to India and in fact will be visiting WIPRO next month in Bangalore just as a courtesy visit as they are our offshore partner in some systems.

I know this is a differentscale to what you are doing but I had considered doing what you are for a while. I am also going to outsource some private work i do for charity to India regarding moving a static website to a CMS (Joomla) site.

Ersnt and Young point to these criteria for the best outsourcing relationships

• Establish measurable goals and objectives;

• Ensure that both parties benefit from the relationship;

• Maintain mutual respect and willingness to learn from one another;

• Involve senior management support;

• Use a joint, multilevel relationship management approach;

• Continually track and measure performance and provide feedback;

• Establish a periodic, formal and fact-based relationship;

• Have a progress review process in place;

Seems easy enough but many outsourcing operations gow awry - you can get there though as we have even after initial pian on both sides.

sorry for thread hijack ...... walks sheepishly away

To the OP

I have thought about what you want to do - if it was me I would go the India route with Thai staff doing graphic type work which there are many very skilled practicioners. That is just my opinion as someone in corporate MNC IT so aon a small scale I do not know the model even if i once ran my own conultancy in IT in Thailand

[sonicdragon]

<snip>

I have thought about what you want to do - if it was me I would go the India route with Thai staff doing graphic type work which there are many very skilled practicioners. That is just my opinion as someone in corporate MNC IT so aon a small scale I do not know the model even if i once ran my own conultancy in IT in Thailand

We've been doing this already for a long time - with graphics done in HK and USA and programming in india. It's precisely this that I want to change. If I lived in india, fine. But I live in thailand I've found that the lack of control and direct oversight is a significant hindrance. I have found that the indians always want to use some other project they worked on as a basis for what we want - as if it's a generic project, whereas the reality is that it's very very bespoke. For instance, we had an e-commerce project re-write (legacy ASP into ASP.net), and they came up with a database schema that is entirely inappropriate to our requirements. When questioned on this it turned out that they took their schema from another "similar" project. This only came to light when we encountered significant performance problems in the last stage of testing.

Edited March 2, 2007 by sonicdragon

[RedCardinal]

I'd be very interested in your experience with this endeavour. I've been an SEO consultant for about 5 years now and am toying with the idea of setting up an SEO/development agency in Thailand where I spend about 1/2 of my time.

I'm curious though whether the development skill set is readily available here in Thailand? I know that the Thais are very artistic, but are they good on he programming side?

sonicdragon - I hope you don't mind me sending you a PM. I'd love to hear how you get on with this.

[Prakanong]

<snip>

I have thought about what you want to do - if it was me I would go the India route with Thai staff doing graphic type work which there are many very skilled practicioners. That is just my opinion as someone in corporate MNC IT so aon a small scale I do not know the model even if i once ran my own conultancy in IT in Thailand

We've been doing this already for a long time - with graphics done in HK and USA and programming in india. It's precisely this that I want to change. If I lived in india, fine. But I live in thailand I've found that the lack of control and direct oversight is a significant hindrance. I have found that the indians always want to use some other project they worked on as a basis for what we want - as if it's a generic project, whereas the reality is that it's very very bespoke. For instance, we had an e-commerce project re-write (legacy ASP into ASP.net), and they came up with a database schema that is entirely inappropriate to our requirements. When questioned on this it turned out that they took their schema from another "similar" project. This only came to light when we encountered significant performance problems in the last stage of testing.

We find the "Indians" "Challenging" to say the least in our line of business even if it has not been done by them before they always think they know better - they can improve the processes in the future but stick by the SOP till you have done the study and got some experience.

Slippage with them!!!! - tell me about it. They always underestimate effort and time required and promise too much - why??

I do not know - over-confident? Nah - not enough experience to judge properly is my opinion and too eager to please.

I have just an hour ago finalised my visit to WIPRO - I am sure thats a different class to the many small indian guys offering services over the www - well I hope it is.

Edited March 2, 2007 by Prakanong

[Prakanong]

"I'm curious though whether the development skill set is readily available here in Thailand? I know that the Thais are very artistic, but are they good on he programming side?"

I have found the artisitic side very good but not the programming - I work in IT as the regional head it IT for a large division of a very large MNC.

Of course there will be good Thai developers but not in the depth you can find elsewhere

Our development is back in Europe. offshore with WIPRO in India and our own "Offshore" site in Bangalore.

[sonicdragon]

"I'm curious though whether the development skill set is readily available here in Thailand? I know that the Thais are very artistic, but are they good on he programming side?"

I have found the artisitic side very good but not the programming - I work in IT as the regional head it IT for a large division of a very large MNC.

Of course there will be good Thai developers but not in the depth you can find elsewhere

Our development is back in Europe. offshore with WIPRO in India and our own "Offshore" site in Bangalore.

Yes, I know what you mean.

Well, for my requirements anyway, I don't think that a wealth of experience is really needed. We're not writing operating systems, or trading systems for banks. Good quality recent IT graduates could form the backbone. 2 x Lead programmers would obivously need solid experience and the producer might need to be western educated thai, or possibly farang.

I'm not sure if this anecdotal evidence means much but there is a wide selection of thai language IT books in SE Books stores - so there is obviously some demand from people wanting to get skills - most of the well known publishers seem to have thai language editions. I was quite surprised at the variety actually.

Edited March 2, 2007 by sonicdragon

[Prakanong]

"I'm curious though whether the development skill set is readily available here in Thailand? I know that the Thais are very artistic, but are they good on he programming side?"

I have found the artisitic side very good but not the programming - I work in IT as the regional head it IT for a large division of a very large MNC.

Of course there will be good Thai developers but not in the depth you can find elsewhere

Our development is back in Europe. offshore with WIPRO in India and our own "Offshore" site in Bangalore.

Yes, I know what you mean.

Well, for my requirements anyway, I don't think that a wealth of experience is really needed. We're not writing operating systems, or trading systems for banks. Good quality recent IT graduates could form the backbone. 2 x Lead programmers would obivously need solid experience and the producer might need to be western educated thai, or possibly farang.

I'm not sure if this anecdotal evidence means much but there is a wide selection of thai language IT books in SE Books stores - so there is obviously some demand from people wanting to get skills - most of the well known publishers seem to have thai language editions. I was quite surprised at the variety actually.

Yeah - I noticed a lot of Thai language IT books too.

There was also a lot of what I think were "Indian" English editions in very cheap paper too - duno if they are still about.

I notice a lot of Mandarin IT books here in Singapore which I found strange as the education language here is English

[benahlie]

Greetings to all admins & memebers.

Could anyone enlighten me about the 'Business Club' at schovimit, Bangkok.

I had read about their advertisment in the Bangkok Post and please kindly inform me their address, for I wish to joy the club and use their services.

I had lost the copy of the Bangkok Post.

Thanking all.

[Martin_F]

IMHO, it really depends on your business model and your market.

Is your market Thailand or international.

Look at the Thai sites and then compare them to the international offerings. There is quite a bit of difference outside the foreign based company offering solely foreign offerings in Thailand.

For example compare the tesco lotus site http://www.tescolotus.net/ to the teso uk http://www.tesco.co.uk site or the http://www.bot.or.th or http://www.moc.go.th/.

It will give you some ideas on the differences.

For outsourcing the real problem is the specification from Thai to Indian English. This can be a real concern especially with who is doing the specification.

You also you have to consider how you want to develop the comapny. Is it to market to Thai companies then the mention of ousourcing will turn them off especially if you mention India.

But if you get the right people in the business it is possible to make a success but you need the business connections to get the work. And that is the difficult part.

[MarcHolt]

I am interested in starting or (preferably) buying an existing website development company. The ideal business would have around 8-10 employees (3-5 programmers, 2 team leaders, 1 designer, 1 producer, 1 office manager, located around southern bangkok-bangna-bangplee-samut prakan.

I have checked sunbelt website periodically but not found anything interesting.

If anyone has any information, experience or advice I would be grateful.

Thanks

SD

We have no listings at this time for a website development. Had a website development firm that was listed several months ago but it has already been acquired.

Contact this address: [email protected]

I know the owner there and he is looking to sell or go into partnership on his existing businesses, one of which includes web development.

I'm familiar with Mark Holts Company which is a BOI company. Mark is a nice guy. His company in fact did one of our websites once (the work was out source by him to India). He told me India was cheaper and better quality work. However, we did upgrade the website several years ago and are no longer using this model.

Mark's primary business these days is real estate.

www.sunbeltasiagroup.com

Although Sunbelt posted the facts, they didn't cover all the details.

Yes, we made a website for them. They ordered a pre-designed website which was pointed out to them at the time of sale. However, the woman, who no longer works for them, tasked with implementing the site did not understand computers, nor would she listen when I tried to explain this. Instead, she insisted that we make changes that weren't included in the original specifications. Since she wasn't prepared to pay for the changes I did what I could. Obviously, without further payment to substantially change the way the program worked, I couldn't do much. She was, as a result, never happy. Perhaps that is why she no longer works at Sunbelt?

My primary businesses (plural) are IT and real estate. Both are successful.

The IT business is doing very well as I have a close association with two Indian outsourcing companies. Both do very good work and I have relatively few problems. However, I do have to watch them carefully to keep them on the right track. One has tried to fob off old work onto me, but I stopped it immediately. Any competent IT buyer could do the same.

In the last 12 months we have made a variety of great websites, and we are currently working on 10 projects, including a business management program on an Intranet, adding a shopping cart and payment gateway to an existing book selling site, an online home decor website, a non-profit NGO website, a medical equipment website, and so on.

All of this work is being done by my Indian outsourcing companies. Most projects are completed within 4 weeks.

The company is back on the market for sale, as I have to return to Australia for personal reasons. I may ask Sunbelt to help sell the company, but have not signed a contract with them yet.

Why do I outsource?

Because it leaves me free to do the sales and marketing, and to manage the projects. I used to employ up to 12 Thai programmers/designers, but I had so many problems with them (prima donnas, lazy, incompetent) that I scrapped them and started outsourcing more than 6 years ago. This has worked well for me.

By the way, my name is MARC with a 'c'.

Edited March 11, 2007 by MarcHolt