What Is The Best Business To Do In Cm?

[Maejo Man]

Somehow it is OK for you to blatantly advertise on Thai Visa, but you object to me praising a place that I have no financial interest in at all, but really appreciate.

<snip>

Sorry p1p didn't see your post till I had posted

[chanchao]

Smooth.

[Wolfie]

Sorry p1p didn't see your post till I had posted

p1p posted at 2006-06-28 11:44:35

you posted at 2006-06-28 12:07:11

I suggest you heed p1p's warning

[svenivan]

Hi Hong,

As for your question about doing business in Chiang Mai, don't start a restaurant because then you will have all thes old grumpies you have seen here as guests complaining about everyone and everything!

Starting a business in LOS is easy but making good money is almost impossible! And don't think you can make money on the thais, even more impossible. And should you be successful in that within three months you will see at least half a dozen thai competitors selling the same service for half the prize.

If you can do something using your own skills and with non-thais as customers then you might have a slight chance.

Thailand is a wonderful country with wonderful people but it is very hard to make any money here!

But good luck anyway!

[Ulysses G.]

Hi Hong,

As for your question about doing business in Chiang Mai, don't start a restaurant because then you will have all thes old grumpies you have seen here as guests complaining about everyone and everything!

:D

[Maejo Man]

p1p posted at 2006-06-28 11:44:35

you posted at 2006-06-28 12:07:11

I suggest you heed p1p's warning

When the phone goes mid post you don't know who has posted before you. In future I will check

[Mahseer]

Away from F&B........know of a bloke that makes a fair living off of a 'multiple warehouse arrangement' he set up in Perth, WA. Pretty simple in as much as he made the smallest space around 20 cu mtrs and then various others with an average a typical single car garage size but included a sample of double garage type spaces. Each had a key held only by the renter and a disclaimer had to be signed for each just in case 'illegal articles' ended up in there. Once set up just need a couple of decent guards per shift, a manager and little else. You can find these in plenty of places in the States I believe but like I said the one I know of was in W.A. May already be in existence in Chiang Mai and but no first hand knowledge. Pretty handy for working on your motor or storing those pieces you no longer have room for but don't want to get rid of.

Anyway back to the F&B battle.....

[The Dan Sai Kid]

Away from F&B........know of a bloke that makes a fair living off of a 'multiple warehouse arrangement' he set up in Perth, WA. Pretty simple in as much as he made the smallest space around 20 cu mtrs and then various others with an average a typical single car garage size but included a sample of double garage type spaces. Each had a key held only by the renter and a disclaimer had to be signed for each just in case 'illegal articles' ended up in there. Once set up just need a couple of decent guards per shift, a manager and little else. You can find these in plenty of places in the States I believe but like I said the one I know of was in W.A. May already be in existence in Chiang Mai and but no first hand knowledge. Pretty handy for working on your motor or storing those pieces you no longer have room for but don't want to get rid of.

Anyway back to the F&B battle.....

You would need to get somewhere where there is no danger of flooding.

[svenivan]

How about servers?

I own about a hundred servers here in the U.S. and have this idea of shipping them to Thailand (C.M.? Bangkok?) when I move to Thailand, putting them into a colocation center and renting them out (as dedicated root servers, virtual root servers, virtual servers).

Is there a fiber optic data cable that connects C.M. to the rest of the world?

If yes, WHERE does it terminate? (Street address?)

Or do I have to do this in Bangkok? (I prefer C.M. to Bangkok, personally.)

-Harry C.

I think you have to pay a lot to get those servers into the country. And you will find that you can probably only get a tenth from customers here compared to what you get in US.

So why don't you let the servers stay in US and just take the monthly income from there to Thailand?

Or is it the work you like and not the money?

With ADSL you can take care of the business from here.

Just my idea.

[rishi]

If you can do something using your own skills and with non-thais as customers then you might have a slight chance.

This is about the wisest thing said on this thread! Regardless of whatever kind of brick-and-stone business, we're talking about - if it doesn't take any special skills to run that business - the most you can possibly make out of it would be daily bread and butter... Forget about savings for old age, forget about health/life insurance, forget about other insurances as well, forget about getting initial investment back to your bank account. Forget about anything but making a more or less decent month-to-month living .... And this only if business is successfull ... With this sort of business - (if its not just a hobby) success means you manage to survive, that's it.

It seems that regardless of which kind of brick-and-stone, non-skills-requiring business (restaurant, bar, coffeshop, internet cafe, bookshop, guesthouse) - the general business "environment" makes sure things level out so that noone will ever make more than just that - bread and butter. This for the very good reasons that Thailand is flooded with unskilled would-be-entrepreneurs (be it foreigners or Thais) - that can do the same as you.

The best opportunity would be if you have required highlevel skills - by means of education or employment - that would eliminate 99% of those unskilled opportunists floating around ... But, of course, you'll have to figure out how to utilize those skills in a profitable way, which means finding a proper skill requiring niche ...

[Mali_in_CM]

chuang,

You got that right.

[Inspector 2211]

How about servers?

I own about a hundred servers here in the U.S. and have this idea of shipping them to Thailand (C.M.? Bangkok?) when I move to Thailand, putting them into a colocation center and renting them out (as dedicated root servers, virtual root servers, virtual servers).

Is there a fiber optic data cable that connects C.M. to the rest of the world?

If yes, WHERE does it terminate? (Street address?)

Or do I have to do this in Bangkok? (I prefer C.M. to Bangkok, personally.)

-Harry C.

I think you have to pay a lot to get those servers into the country. And you will find that you can probably only get a tenth from customers here compared to what you get in US.

So why don't you let the servers stay in US and just take the monthly income from there to Thailand?

Or is it the work you like and not the money?

With ADSL you can take care of the business from here.

Just my idea.

>a tenth from customers here compared what you get in US

200 Baht per month for a dedicated root server?

You gotta be kidding.

Please provide a link to a Thai hosting provider with such prices.

Right now, I rent out dedicated root servers starting at $45 p.M.

>why don't you let the servers stay in US

Two reasons:

- once in a while you gotta swap out a harddisk or motherboard, are you suggesting

I should fly from Thailand to the US to swap out a harddisk?

- if the servers stay in the US, the soon-to-be-ex-wife will be able to get her

greedy fingers on them...

>Or is it the work you like and not the money?

Not a lot of work involved, not a lot of money either, but my point is:

In Thailand you don't need a lot of money (compared to California).

I figure, roughly, living expenses in C.M. would be about a tenth (give or take) of the living

expenses in an urban area of California (L.A., S.F., S.D., S.J. to name a few).

Don't harp on the "tenth", could be a nineth or an eighth. But you get the idea.

So, is there a fiber optic backbone running into C.M. or not?

Chanchao?

-Harry C.

[rishi]

Best Business.......needless to say, MONEY LENDER....20% interest per month..not per year...

Won't work ... There's a guy down each and every soi of CM, that does it for 5% a month. Everybody in the neighbourhood knows him ... and he knows two things: 1) tough guys who know how to regain bad debts. 2) nearby competition ... think a bit of the combination of 1) and 2).

[rishi]

So, is there a fiber optic backbone running into C.M. or not?

Chanchao?

-Harry C.

No, there's not. The only kind of backbone you'll find in Thailand is the 30-40 year old underwater em cable connecting Thailand with the inferior foreign world. The handling of the capacity of that cable is solely up to CAT's discretion. They haven't found it reasonable to upgrade it even though they must have heard that something called Internet has happened.

If you're seriously considering bringing in server equipment and setting up some kind of server business in Thailand. There are (at least) three very prominent factors you've better consider carefully:

1) Import duties. They'll be way beyond reasonable expectations.

2) Licences. Hindrances for obtaining those will be will be very close to unsurmountable.

3) The backbone between Thailand and the rest of the world is so outdated, that only Thailand located businesses/individuals would have any interest in using your servers.

But, of course, feel free to go ahead and investigate.

[Maejo Man]

a tenth from customers here compared what you get in US

200 Baht per month for a dedicated root server?

You gotta be kidding.

Please provide a link to a Thai hosting provider with such prices.

Right now, I rent out dedicated root servers starting at $45 p.M.

-Harry C.

I think he must have been referring to co hosted or shared servers, as not even in Thailand could you rent a dedicated server for 200 baht a month, you'd simply loose money. There might be hundreds of domains, or more hosted off the one server.

There are a myriad of companies offering shared servers here from as little as US$5, but they are pretty basic with both capacity and bandwidth limits. The cheapest dedicated servers offered here start around US$40 a month and up.

[Gonzo the Face]

How about servers?

I own about a hundred servers here in the U.S. and have this idea of shipping them to Thailand (C.M.? Bangkok?) when I move to Thailand, putting them into a colocation center and renting them out (as dedicated root servers, virtual root servers, virtual servers).

Is there a fiber optic data cable that connects C.M. to the rest of the world?

If yes, WHERE does it terminate? (Street address?)

Or do I have to do this in Bangkok? (I prefer C.M. to Bangkok, personally.)

-Harry C.

I think you have to pay a lot to get those servers into the country. And you will find that you can probably only get a tenth from customers here compared to what you get in US.

So why don't you let the servers stay in US and just take the monthly income from there to Thailand?

Or is it the work you like and not the money?

With ADSL you can take care of the business from here.

Just my idea.

>a tenth from customers here compared what you get in US

200 Baht per month for a dedicated root server?

You gotta be kidding.

Please provide a link to a Thai hosting provider with such prices.

Right now, I rent out dedicated root servers starting at $45 p.M.

>why don't you let the servers stay in US

Two reasons:

- once in a while you gotta swap out a harddisk or motherboard, are you suggesting

I should fly from Thailand to the US to swap out a harddisk?

- if the servers stay in the US, the soon-to-be-ex-wife will be able to get her

greedy fingers on them...

>Or is it the work you like and not the money?

Not a lot of work involved, not a lot of money either, but my point is:

In Thailand you don't need a lot of money (compared to California).

I figure, roughly, living expenses in C.M. would be about a tenth (give or take) of the living

expenses in an urban area of California (L.A., S.F., S.D., S.J. to name a few).

Don't harp on the "tenth", could be a nineth or an eighth. But you get the idea.

So, is there a fiber optic backbone running into C.M. or not?

Chanchao?

-Harry C.

Get ready CM Vampires

Looks like another Blood Bank coming in !!!!

[chanchao]

> So, is there a fiber optic backbone running into C.M. or not?

> Chanchao?

Well, you can get dedicated lines of pretty much any capacity, BUT, it will be a lot more expensive than in the USA, AND you still have the bottle-neck of data in and out of Thailand to deal with. So like somebody else said, this would only work if you can rent them out in bulk to whoever is currently setting up the next on-line-gaming-hype-thingy for the internet-cafe-youths.

Of the other concerns, I think bringing them into the country is easier/cheaper than, say, a car. I know we do it sometimes for specific equipment that's hard to find in Thailand and expensive, but readily available on E-Bay in the USA.

Then, licenses I don't think are any more of a problem here than they already are in the USA right now.. presumably those servers already run some licensed (or unlicensed but legal) OS.

But ultimately, this business idea doesn't conform to what shall henceforth be known as The Svenivan Principle:

" If you can do something using your own skills and with non-thais as customers then you might have a slight chance. "

(it fails the second part, because with servers in Thailand, you'll be selling to Thai customers / companies)

Cheers,

Chanchao

[p1p]

Must say that almost everybody I know with any kind of Internet based business is hosting overseas. I even have some Thai friends with sites of purely Thai interest who host in the USA.

If you have an intended "international audience", Thai based hosting does not make sense.