How to make money in Thailand with a small capital?

[KonaRain]

Great stuff, finally..From grass roots street effort to using the web for a week's payday!

I want to follow this..

I remember the post about raising ducks for eggs..and ...sorry..meat.

Oh well,Aloha

[Heng]

Make, provide, and of course sell something that the locals are not able to create, provide or copy. Easier said than done, but IMO it's so much easier to prosper when you're the foreigner anywhere. Your somewhat unique spin on things is often that minor difference between failure and success.

[fekman]

You might want to save up some more cash and then try to open a business. I started my company in Thailand in 2007 but started it with about 5 million Baht.

We started from scratch and did good. We sold our company last year for several Million USD.

So it can be done, there are opportunities in Thailand, but dont do like everyone else and open a bar, hotel or restaurant. Not saying that wont work as I do have a few friends that have owned bars and restaurants in Thailand for more than 15 years and they do ok, they have their ups and downs, but they had experience prior to coming to Thailand.

All the people saying to make a small fortune in Thailand is to start with a large one or something like that have no idea what they are talking about as I'm willing to bet they never owned a business in Thailand.

If they did own a business and it didn't work out then I would say they had no experience or bad partners / workers stealing from them. If you do your home work, know what your doing you have a good chance to

succeed. So many guys on TV think they know everything about Thailand from sitting on a bar stool and getting all the stories from other expats in the bars. I lived and worked in Thailand for almost 20 years I have met Thai's that are good and Thai's that are bad. I have had an employee arrested for stealing, but then I have had employees invite me to their homes for dinner and to meet their families, just good down to earth people. So you cant judge all of Thailand from what you hear from other expats on a forum or in a bar.

Yes, there is corruption in Thailand but the system can work for an expat same as it can work for a Thai. When I was still working I had an issue with an employer and the labor board helped me take the employer to court which I won. You do need to learn how Thailand works too, it's not like back home. You need to show respect to the right people, know how to show the respect and know how to act. So OP I would suggest you spend more time in Thailand to learn how things work and at the same time save up more money. I wish you luck!

You seem to have experience and an interesting business story. Not many foreigners can say they did that here. Do you care to share more? The type of business? Sales volume? etc?

[papayasalad]

drill a hole in your land and pump water out . build pools in your house to store water, get a truck or 2 and sell your water in town. you can make up to 100k bahts/month easy. you can employ a driver so you don't have to work hard.

Edited December 31, 2015 by papayasalad

[Nomyai]

define "small"

define successfull! hahahaha.

Serious, mangoes karts do quite well. Roam the village and pillage mangoes and voila you got zero cost product!

[Heng]

drill a hole in your land and pump water out . build pools in your house to store water, get a truck or 2 and sell your water in town. you can make up to 100k bahts/month easy. you can employ a driver so you don't have to work hard.

You're going to run into license issues (which IMO are worth it if you can afford them) if you're in any kind of developed area. Drinking water and ice cubes are more attractive water plays in my opinion, but yes, you'll need to get your "FDA" license straightened out first. Where foreigners (or locals actually) can take this business is that unlike many places in the world, drinking water hasn't been pushed much here marketing wise (back home it's sometimes 10 seconds into the commercial before you know if it's a beer, water, or Gatorade "party" being pitched). Low start up as well... (less than 20k USD for single prod. line + single delivery vehicle).

[ericthai]

You might want to save up some more cash and then try to open a business. I started my company in Thailand in 2007 but started it with about 5 million Baht.

We started from scratch and did good. We sold our company last year for several Million USD.

So it can be done, there are opportunities in Thailand, but dont do like everyone else and open a bar, hotel or restaurant. Not saying that wont work as I do have a few friends that have owned bars and restaurants in Thailand for more than 15 years and they do ok, they have their ups and downs, but they had experience prior to coming to Thailand.

All the people saying to make a small fortune in Thailand is to start with a large one or something like that have no idea what they are talking about as I'm willing to bet they never owned a business in Thailand.

If they did own a business and it didn't work out then I would say they had no experience or bad partners / workers stealing from them. If you do your home work, know what your doing you have a good chance to

succeed. So many guys on TV think they know everything about Thailand from sitting on a bar stool and getting all the stories from other expats in the bars. I lived and worked in Thailand for almost 20 years I have met Thai's that are good and Thai's that are bad. I have had an employee arrested for stealing, but then I have had employees invite me to their homes for dinner and to meet their families, just good down to earth people. So you cant judge all of Thailand from what you hear from other expats on a forum or in a bar.

Yes, there is corruption in Thailand but the system can work for an expat same as it can work for a Thai. When I was still working I had an issue with an employer and the labor board helped me take the employer to court which I won. You do need to learn how Thailand works too, it's not like back home. You need to show respect to the right people, know how to show the respect and know how to act. So OP I would suggest you spend more time in Thailand to learn how things work and at the same time save up more money. I wish you luck!

You seem to have experience and an interesting business story. Not many foreigners can say they did that here. Do you care to share more? The type of business? Sales volume? etc?

Sorry when we sold we signed a 5yr non-compete and non-disclosure so I'm not able to provide any details of the company products, equipment etc. I can tell you it was allot of work to get started.

The first few years we had no income as it was mostly equipment processing design and product development as we started a business that there is no processing equipment available at this time since this is more or less a new market product. I can say we sold one of our products to a distributor in Thailand and exported several other of our products to Vietnam, Korea, Australia, Honk Kong and Singapore. There are other success stories out there.

There are opportunities in Thailand but you need to know what you are doing, know how things work in Thailand. You cant just show up with a pocket full of money and start a business and think it will work. Prior to opening our company I lived and worked in Thailand for over 10 years. I will say when we opened the company I had some very good Thai friends that owned companies in Thailand and they provided allot of help with "Thai" things, such as when we first opened our processing factory I was told to go meet the Poo Yhai in that area and then go the police station meet with the police there, of course bring a gift to both places. Let them know what we are doing, providing jobs and helping the local economy by buying local products. Most govt things to be done (permits, getting inspections setup etc ) we would have Thai staff handle this, try and stay in the back ground to keep costs down.

Hope this helps as I can say too much more.

[simon43]

Common sense suggests that you should not put all your eggs in one basket, meaning that you should not invest all of your $10,000 in a single venture, since you will lose the lot (or little) if it all goes wrong.

So really, you should be looking to invest a fraction of that capital, perhaps $5,000. The investment options for that level are not great.

@Heng, I always thought the ice-cube making business was one of those unspoken Thai-only businesses, (meaning that they are not forbidden to foreigners, but that you are likely to get your legs broken in several places if you try to muscle in on that industry sector).

[BKKdreaming]

is this money you want to invest so someone else does the work and you sit in the background watching and hoping you do not get ripped off ?

or is this a job you are buying for yourself , where you do 90% of the work ( send a Thai to the Post Office etc) and you take all the profit ?

I think making some items to sell on Ebay etc along with listing items you can buy locally that others are not selling might make you some $$$$ without much risk ,

I know guys that list 100s of items and have nothing in stock , risky if its out of stock when sold , but you can lose a few bucks on a few items if you have to pay retail+ to fill an order ,

[timberpond]

is this money you want to invest so someone else does the work and you sit in the background watching and hoping you do not get ripped off ?

or is this a job you are buying for yourself , where you do 90% of the work ( send a Thai to the Post Office etc) and you take all the profit ?

I think making some items to sell on Ebay etc along with listing items you can buy locally that others are not selling might make you some $$$$ without much risk ,

I know guys that list 100s of items and have nothing in stock , risky if its out of stock when sold , but you can lose a few bucks on a few items if you have to pay retail+ to fill an order ,

I ever chatted with a New Zealander in CM and learned that he runs a webpage catering to the thai community in New Zealand. The products are local spices, medicated oils, dried fruit, etc. The thais family there will joint and bulk buy items on his website. Using paypal and apparently he just wakes up in the morning and consolidate the orders, make the purchase and go to the post office and he's free for the day.

Very simple operation running at very low cost... but of course, he doesn't make much out of it.

[Ks45672]

My neighbour runs a business reselling everything from mbk to people in Europe, he gets about 10 euros each for tshirts bought for only 80thb or so..... Especially the ones with funny pictures or logos that shops in Europe don't really have in stock.... You need to find a Thai seller who will allow you to take pictures of all the stock without buying it in advance....

[2road]

My neighbour runs a business reselling everything from mbk to people in Europe, he gets about 10 euros each for tshirts bought for only 80thb or so..... Especially the ones with funny pictures or logos that shops in Europe don't really have in stock.... You need to find a Thai seller who will allow you to take pictures of all the stock without buying it in advance....

Hi

What is mbk, Misspelled word?

Can i ask you if in Europe he r esells to retail stores door to door or if he has a buyer already ?

[timberpond]

Hi

What is mbk, Misspelled word?

Can i ask you if in Europe he r esells to retail stores door to door or if he has a buyer already ?

It's Mahboonkrong... a shopping mall in Bangkok.

[BKKdreaming]

My neighbour runs a business reselling everything from mbk to people in Europe, he gets about 10 euros each for tshirts bought for only 80thb or so..... Especially the ones with funny pictures or logos that shops in Europe don't really have in stock.... You need to find a Thai seller who will allow you to take pictures of all the stock without buying it in advance....

I think this would work until a Thai sees it as making "easy money" and starts selling them at 5 euros each ,

But the idea is sound , just have a back-up plan when this one runs its course......and find the next shop that will let you do it

I know a shop that makes and then wholesales Tshirts and then sells the same items on Ebay for not much more than the wholesale price