Living, working in thailand

[Liquid Soul]

I am wanting to live in Thailand and open a restaurant on Koh Phangan Where do I start?? My girlfriend who is Thai lives there, does this help me in any way. Appreciate any advise help. Thanks Nick

[fester]

Hi Moonman,

Yes, it helps to have a strong financial Thai partner who knows the ins and outs of taxation, bribes and accounting. Koh Samui and surrounding island are not known to have the best business pratctices against farangs.

Do you have a budget?

Do you have a business plan?

Heve you worked in the restaurant bisiness before?

How long have you been living in Thailand?

Do you know the Surathani area of Koh Samui/Koh Phangan?

How much is your investment?

What is your profit estimations?

[dazdaz]

Hi,

What type of food and restaurant do you have in mind?

What is the market in that area for a restaurant?

How much reliance upon travellers is it dependent.

[Liquid Soul]

 thanks boys. Another thing if I decide to buy an existing restaurant, how do I go about applying for visa to work in thailand and run this operation??? This is my preferred option as to setting up company..... Any advice>>>>

[James-uk]

Hi

I also have been considering buying a small bar in the Sukumvit area as a means of income when I go to Thailand.  But how can this be done?  Does it make it easier to obtain work permits or residency permit?  etc.  Thai permissions and visas seem a very complicated issue, which seem to me to go around in circles and are full of "If's" "Ands" "Or" and "Buts".

[mowlem]

Sounds strange I know, but BEFORE doing anything like committing money to anything, live here for a year, teach English, and learn some of the language. Try to live near where you were going to run your business. Find out the problems, who is untrustworthy etc.

Ask yourself this... What am I going to do to make this work, that the pevious owners didn't.

Sorry, but about 90% of farang bar/retaurants fail here. I hope you succeed. Sorry for being a downer.

[dazdaz]

It's great that you can offer so many services, however I feel it's important that people know the hard facts about the closure of many businesses and the real statistics of the success rate before they spend their life savings in a venture.  A more balanced view would save people many hardships.  Having read the Danish bakers story, i'm still looking for a proper autobiography in book form of someone who has setup a successful or not business in Asia/Thailand.  In fact a story on an unsuccessful business would be of more use because you learn from someone's mistakes over the years in a matter of hours.

Does anyone have any such hard figures, which can be reconfirmed on how many farangs have a business in Thailand, how many open per year, how many close and so forth.  The real issues faced, ways to deal with them, etc.

There are so many unknown factors involved, that people need more assurance in order to go through with it.  It sounds a great dream, which can happen, but there does'nt appear enough information to prepare from the side of those who want to do it.  If that requirement can be met, you'll tap a large market.

I don't want to put people off, in fact the opposite, more people should be able to make their dream come true, but armed with considerable knowledge, provable statistics, proper market analysis, knowledge of the pitfalls that most farang run business's run into and ways to deal to get out of tricky situations.  So far, this information does'nt appear to be easily obtained ...

Kind regards

[sevinnow]

My advice on this subject:   With all your life savings, spend 25% on a property (you can build a house for £5000 in the rural area's) maybe your girlfriend has family, have the house in her name but get a 30 yr lease in your name. Thus giving you a home for 30 yrs and should Thai laws change and farangs are allowed to own land outright you could always transfer it back to you.

Secondly spend another 25% on your business investment and only invest further when you are making money.

Thirdly if all goes wrong walk away recollect your thoughts on what went wrong and do it a second time right with another 25% investment (remember 90% of business to forigners go wrong the first time)

Last but not least if your second business venture folds take your pride and the 25% left and go home to your native country with "some cash" left.

Remember you still have the lease on your house to spend future holidays at.

:cool:

[Sunbelt]

The advantage of being in our business is we get to see companies that are very successful and ones that unfortunately are not. We defiantly see more successful companies as we those tend to be brought to the market and contact us.

I feel accountants have a good insight as well. What I have heard from a number of them who know me, around half of the businesses make money and the other half is losing. I’ve heard variations of that over and over again.

That’s why I feel strongly if you do due diligence, you have a good chance of surviving and making money. When you do acquire a business with clients. Can it still fail? Absolutely and the reason is not everyone is fit to be a manager. No guarantees but you sure put the odds of success on your side.

Can a person make money in Thailand starting up? YES! I've seen that three... richer than they could possibly dream. One man came to Thailand 8 years ago, flat broke with $10,000 from his brother. He started a courier company. He now makes 1 million net profit a month and just built a house worth 40 mil. Paid in cash.

Another  Farang started a export company of antiques and wood products over 12 years ago. He made 5-10 times his money invested every 6 months. Sold out a year ago and has a 40 million baht home as well. Not too many of those houses in Thailand!

Another Farang was flat broke in 1999. He started a massage parlor and now makes over 2 million baht NET profit per year.    

Could and would these businessmen make money in their home country. You better believe it!

As a famous lawyer told me once “people that fail here would fail where they came from. People that do well in their country, do very well here, if they don't get lost in the night scene"

All you have is in life is odds. We try to give people a much better chance in business. I don't know of one business a person acquired from us in the past year that is losing money.  I must add we had one close call. A British guy happily acquired a restaurant using our service. Only wanted to make around 20,000 baht month as he hated to teach English. The business the first three months made around 60,000 baht a month!  He and his girlfriend were at the business most of the time. He then started exporting stuff to England and making 100,000 Baht a week. He started not going to the restaurant some days and that then became weeks. The next month, the restaurant made just 10,000. The last month he broke even.  Our firm sold the business fast for him but 150,000 Baht less as he was motivated to sell and took the first bid. He only made 40,000 baht net  for 5 months but that’s not a lot for his time the first 3 months. On his exporting, he tells me is going great. The long hours got to him and he found a great contact to buy his stuff in England. His feeling was” Two hours a week for 100,000 Baht profit or 70 hours for 15,000 Baht? “He took the two hours. Restaurants are long hours and usually steady profits. Cash flow and clients from day one is a beautiful thing but it still takes hours.

[James-uk]

Sounds strange I know, but BEFORE doing anything like committing money to anything, live here for a year, teach English, and learn some of the language. Try to live near where you were going to run your business. Find out the problems, who is untrustworthy etc.

Ask yourself this... What am I going to do to make this work, that the pevious owners didn't.

Sorry, but about 90% of farang bar/retaurants fail here. I hope you succeed. Sorry for being a downer.

??? I think that is very good advice indeed!!

Many thanks.

[James-uk]

My advice on this subject:   With all your life savings, spend 25% on a property (you can build a house for £5000 in the rural area's) maybe your girlfriend has family, have the house in her name but get a 30 yr lease in your name. Thus giving you a home for 30 yrs and should Thai laws change and farangs are allowed to own land outright you could always transfer it back to you.

Secondly spend another 25% on your business investment and only invest further when you are making money.

Thirdly if all goes wrong walk away recollect your thoughts on what went wrong and do it a second time right with another 25% investment (remember 90% of business to forigners go wrong the first time)

Last but not least if your second business venture folds take your pride and the 25% left and go home to your native country with "some cash" left.

Remember you still have the lease on your house to spend future holidays at.

:cool:

I could'nt agree more!!!  I intend to take this advice, it made me realise a few realities.

Many Thanks, James-uk