A Good Law Firm...

[ajarnwills]

Can anyone help me here..... I'm looking for a law firm who can help me set up a language school in Thailand. They must have experience in this field.

I'm looking for a firm in Bangkok/Chonburi province.

[Chang_paarp]

Can anyone help me here..... I'm looking for a law firm who can help me set up a language school in Thailand. They must have experience in this field.

I'm looking for a firm in Bangkok/Chonburi province.

If no one has told you look no further than the forum sponsors :

sunbelt asia and Indo-siam

Greg Lange

Sunbelt Asia

www.sunbeltasia.com

Steve Sykes

Indo-Siam Group

www.thaistartup.com

If you need any assurance they are both very professional read a few of their replies in this and other forums. Better still see them and make them into real people rather than letters on a flickering screen.

[ajarnwills]

Can anyone help me here..... I'm looking for a law firm who can help me set up a language school in Thailand. They must have experience in this field.

I'm looking for a firm in Bangkok/Chonburi province.

If no one has told you look no further than the forum sponsors :

sunbelt asia and Indo-siam

Greg Lange

Sunbelt Asia

www.sunbeltasia.com

Steve Sykes

Indo-Siam Group

www.thaistartup.com

If you need any assurance they are both very professional read a few of their replies in this and other forums. Better still see them and make them into real people rather than letters on a flickering screen.

Well.......I took your advice and emailed both of them and never heard a thing.

I'm trying to set up a couple of operations on behalf of international companies both with expected turnovers of 6 figures plus($); so one is looking for a company that is at least on the ball...not a conclusion I can draw from the above really is it?

[Chang_paarp]

I use the phone and make an apointment if it is important.

[Sunbelt Asia]

Well.......I took your advice and emailed both of them and never heard a thing.

I'm trying to set up a couple of operations on behalf of international companies both with expected turnovers of 6 figures plus($); so one is looking for a company that is at least on the ball...not a conclusion I can draw from the above really is it?

Sorry to hear this. Could you please tell me what e-mail address this was send to and what day? I like to check if the e-mail was received by us. If we did get it and it wasn't rejected by the server, I will be happy to forward the response from us time stamped. We answer on average 500+ e-mails a day so we take it very serious at our firm.

Please be sure to check your mailbox filter, as Steve from Indo-Siam is also very disciplined with his staff answering e-mails. This may be where the responses are...in the filter.

I'm sending this to you as well by PM.

We are looking forward to working with your firm.

Regards,

Greg Lange

Managing Director

Sunbelt Asia Co., Ltd

02-642-0213

glange @sunbeltasia.com ( no space between the e and @)

[Indo-Siam]

Well, AJW - you need to check your e-mail system, because it is defective. I most definitely responded to your inquiry - I did so on 15 May. Here is the text portion, less the attachments:

Hello Will -

Steve Sykes here, replying from Bangkok. I'm an American who serves here as Managing Director of the Indo-Siam Group.

Thanks for your inquiry.

I saw your posting on the Thaivisa.com forum, and I did not reply - because I don't think my company could reliably produce satisfactory results at a reasonable price (from your perspective).

First off, I will make clear: I think your proposed activity is a GOOD business idea, fulfilling an existing unsatisfied demand, and if/when brought to fruition, it should have excellent commercial success. I wish you good luck!

The bad news is, there are lots of complications. Right off the top: The Governor of Chonburi is a corrupt tyrant, and he very tightly controls work permits in Chonburi province. It will be frustrating and costly dealing with the Chonburi work permit office. And - there is nothing I can do to efficiently work around this.

Next - your proposed activity will require a coordinated launch involving both the Ministry of Commerce (MOC), and the Minsistry of Education (MOE). The minute a process requires coordinated approval from multiple Ministries - WATCH OUT. Many of the Ministries are antagonistic toward one another - as if they are competitors - and they find endless fault with documentation from the competing Ministry.

The MOE is generally an "appearances are everything" elitist organization - with very little business sense. They live in a false world of facades of how things "ought to be." It is very hard to confront them with the practical realities of creating a profitable business activity.

I have avoided chartering schools, since I first looked into that sector back in early 2002 - so my information may be somewhat outdated. But, back four plus years ago, the general requirements to get a school approved included:

1) You had to submit resumes for a full slate of instructors - and your line-up had to include some number of Thai PhD's - even if you were proposing to teach English. Basically, a school must participate in what amounts to a "jobs program," for unemployed Thai PhD's. This is all for a PROPOSED school that does not yet even exist.

2) You had to submit copies of curriculum lesson plans and teaching materials - for MOE approval. Actual proposed text books.

3) If you will run a school facility, you had to submit complete actual floorplans of all facilities - classrooms, offices, toilets - everything - plus a street map showing surrounding neighborhood details - for the street address at which you proposed to set up the school. This is all for a PROPOSED school that does not yet even exist.

4) You had to submit proposed student fees, proposed teacher and adminsitrator salaries, proposed teacher work schedules,and copies of your propsed commercial advertising copy - all for MOE approval.

Practically-speaking, my opinion was that it was best to first charter a Thai Private Co.Ltd as a generic holding company - at this point, you cannot use the word "school"or "education" or "institute" (etc.) in your company name. Use this to obtain a generic work permit, and as a vehicle for paying-up capital, before dispersing funds on preparatory expenses. Then, using this holding company, you basically have to set up the infrastructure of a school - without actually operating it - just to gather the data needed to apply for approval to operate a school. Later, after approval to pursue the activity of running a school, you change the company name to reflect the educational nature of the company. This sounds fairly ridiculous - welcome to the Thai MOE.

The process I describe would be frustrating, and expensive - and I think it would be hard for me to set and then reliably meet expectations. I don't like to create unhappy customers.

There is a bit of good news - albeit "wrapped" in frustrating hypocrisy: Once you obtain the MOE "seal of approval" for your proposd school - based on the excruciatingly detailed plans you submitted - when you then proceed to execute the plan, you are basically free to change everything - hire different instructors, set up in a different facility, use different texts, etc. All the rubbish they put you through is just mindless "checklist" compliance to demonstrate that you subscribe wholeheartedly to the unrealistic demands of an "ideal" program - based on how strignent the idealistic standards are - no one can actually meet them. After you are set up, you simply need to file an after-the-fact amendment to your application, effectively stating that by the time your proposed plan was approved, the passage of time had meant that your originally proposed teachers, facility, and texts were no longer available - and are the details of what you actually executed.

So - one key to all this is to find someone who ALREADY has a copy of previously approved proposal for a similar school - and simply copy the entire plan, with minor edits - if necessary, go find "figurehead" Thai PhD's to lend you their identities - for a fee - until you get your proposal approved. This is basically what you were actively seeking on the Thaivisa.com forum - and my company simply has no such approved template. I did look at one such format once - in early 2002 - at IDP Education Australia down on Silom Road, back when a friend of mine was Director of Studies there. But - he is long gone.

That's pretty much how I see things. We could easily help you set up a holding company, and get you a work permit as MD of that company. I'm attaching several documents addressing that generic process. But - I wouldn't tackle the school chartering part of the task for under XXX baht - to create an approvable application from scratch. I judge that to be the "opportunity cost" of time that we can otherwise spend on orchestrating 6-8 more conventional start-ups - that involve just MOC.

As I said before, good luck! You will have to stumble through an ugly swamp, in-between where you are now, and the green grass on the far side. It will be painful - but once you make it to the far side, the grass will probably still be green - and now that same swamp will be deterring the proliferation of too many competitors. It becomes your friend.

I hope my reply has been of some help. And - perhaps the current process is actually easier than I describe above. And - if you already have a really detailed business plan and academc infrastructure plan, you may be well on your way.

Cheers!

Best regards,

Steve Sykes

Managing Director

Indo-Siam Group

Bangkok

Edited May 23, 2006 by Indo-Siam

[RAZZELL]

Well, AJW - you need to check your e-mail system, because it is defective. I most definitely responded to your inquiry - I did so on 15 May. Here is the text portion, less the attachments:

Hello Will -

Steve Sykes here, replying from Bangkok. I'm an American who serves here as Managing Director of the Indo-Siam Group.

Thanks for your inquiry.

I saw your posting on the Thaivisa.com forum, and I did not reply - because I don't think my company could reliably produce satisfactory results at a reasonable price (from your perspective).

First off, I will make clear: I think your proposed activity is a GOOD business idea, fulfilling an existing unsatisfied demand, and if/when brought to fruition, it should have excellent commercial success. I wish you good luck!

The bad news is, there are lots of complications. Right off the top: The Governor of Chonburi is a corrupt tyrant, and he very tightly controls work permits in Chonburi province. It will be frustrating and costly dealing with the Chonburi work permit office. And - there is nothing I can do to efficiently work around this.

Next - your proposed activity will require a coordinated launch involving both the Ministry of Commerce (MOC), and the Minsistry of Education (MOE). The minute a process requires coordinated approval from multiple Ministries - WATCH OUT. Many of the Ministries are antagonistic toward one another - as if they are competitors - and they find endless fault with documentation from the competing Ministry.

The MOE is generally an "appearances are everything" elitist organization - with very little business sense. They live in a false world of facades of how things "ought to be." It is very hard to confront them with the practical realities of creating a profitable business activity.

I have avoided chartering schools, since I first looked into that sector back in early 2002 - so my information may be somewhat outdated. But, back four plus years ago, the general requirements to get a school approved included:

1) You had to submit resumes for a full slate of instructors - and your line-up had to include some number of Thai PhD's - even if you were proposing to teach English. Basically, a school must participate in what amounts to a "jobs program," for unemployed Thai PhD's. This is all for a PROPOSED school that does not yet even exist.

2) You had to submit copies of curriculum lesson plans and teaching materials - for MOE approval. Actual proposed text books.

3) If you will run a school facility, you had to submit complete actual floorplans of all facilities - classrooms, offices, toilets - everything - plus a street map showing surrounding neighborhood details - for the street address at which you proposed to set up the school. This is all for a PROPOSED school that does not yet even exist.

4) You had to submit proposed student fees, proposed teacher and adminsitrator salaries, proposed teacher work schedules,and copies of your propsed commercial advertising copy - all for MOE approval.

Practically-speaking, my opinion was that it was best to first charter a Thai Private Co.Ltd as a generic holding company - at this point, you cannot use the word "school"or "education" or "institute" (etc.) in your company name. Use this to obtain a generic work permit, and as a vehicle for paying-up capital, before dispersing funds on preparatory expenses. Then, using this holding company, you basically have to set up the infrastructure of a school - without actually operating it - just to gather the data needed to apply for approval to operate a school. Later, after approval to pursue the activity of running a school, you change the company name to reflect the educational nature of the company. This sounds fairly ridiculous - welcome to the Thai MOE.

The process I describe would be frustrating, and expensive - and I think it would be hard for me to set and then reliably meet expectations. I don't like to create unhappy customers.

There is a bit of good news - albeit "wrapped" in frustrating hypocrisy: Once you obtain the MOE "seal of approval" for your proposd school - based on the excruciatingly detailed plans you submitted - when you then proceed to execute the plan, you are basically free to change everything - hire different instructors, set up in a different facility, use different texts, etc. All the rubbish they put you through is just mindless "checklist" compliance to demonstrate that you subscribe wholeheartedly to the unrealistic demands of an "ideal" program - based on how strignent the idealistic standards are - no one can actually meet them. After you are set up, you simply need to file an after-the-fact amendment to your application, effectively stating that by the time your proposed plan was approved, the passage of time had meant that your originally proposed teachers, facility, and texts were no longer available - and are the details of what you actually executed.

So - one key to all this is to find someone who ALREADY has a copy of previously approved proposal for a similar school - and simply copy the entire plan, with minor edits - if necessary, go find "figurehead" Thai PhD's to lend you their identities - for a fee - until you get your proposal approved. This is basically what you were actively seeking on the Thaivisa.com forum - and my company simply has no such approved template. I did look at one such format once - in early 2002 - at IDP Education Australia down on Silom Road, back when a friend of mine was Director of Studies there. But - he is long gone.

That's pretty much how I see things. We could easily help you set up a holding company, and get you a work permit as MD of that company. I'm attaching several documents addressing that generic process. But - I wouldn't tackle the school chartering part of the task for under XXX baht - to create an approvable application from scratch. I judge that to be the "opportunity cost" of time that we can otherwise spend on orchestrating 6-8 more conventional start-ups - that involve just MOC.

As I said before, good luck! You will have to stumble through an ugly swamp, in-between where you are now, and the green grass on the far side. It will be painful - but once you make it to the far side, the grass will probably still be green - and now that same swamp will be deterring the proliferation of too many competitors. It becomes your friend.

I hope my reply has been of some help. And - perhaps the current process is actually easier than I describe above. And - if you already have a really detailed business plan and academc infrastructure plan, you may be well on your way.

Cheers!

Best regards,

Steve Sykes

Managing Director

Indo-Siam Group

Bangkok

Great post Steve...Very informative

[Chang_paarp]

Whilst the O?P wanted to start his own business from scratch, whould it be easier, cheaper or quicker to;

1) buy an existing business,

2) change name to prefered one,

3) then expand to or move to a new campus in the preferred area?

Would this reduce some of the intial setup challenges?