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Originally Posted by LivinLOS
To do business here as a Us company having a branch office is highly complex.. Almsot always easier to simply open a thai company as a subsiduary..
There used to be some advantages for US citizens owning 100% of shares.. This is / has been phased out as a WTO stipulation to gain fair practice, I believe the old entities in this arrangement were grandfathered in but to be honest it was not much that they were allowed and I heard they got intense scrutiny for thier torubles.. Probably better to just hide in the herd.
Software and IT in gerneral is something the BOI are always talking about setting up benefits for (fast track visa's etc etc etc) but it just never seems to actually happen.. There is a specific software organisation here on phuket (searching phuket gazette will get you info) and they may be able to give you some inside knowledge but I think they are looking for people who are able to invest large amounts of inward capital..
I would say your last point about the Thai market is a massive understatement.. they wont want to work wth you, they wont want to contract you, payment may be slow and legal system are against you, etc etc etc..
I do think that having a code farm here would be a viable business, I used to run a multinational labour firm and considered setting up a consultancy solution (with my ex partners in Europe) taking contracts and clients there and fulfilling them here.. Then I realised after years of the rat race bringing my workaholic problems here was exactly what I was trying to get away from.
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Just have to say -- great info, thanks a ton!
That's exactly what I was thinking -- the basic idea that I was kicking around, sort of the starting point, was "code farm". But then, I've read a lot of articles (not to mention I've noticed this with ALL of my Lao friends here in the states) talking about the kind of cultural communication difficulties that can often happen, saving face -- well, frankly, the average software project is so incredibly messy and iffy *anyway*. It's hard to get people with everything in common to stay on the same page and communicate status to managers, etc.
All in all, I think that Contract work is a fickle enough, personal-business-relationship-enough issue that I can see some problems with maintaining trust and cultivating relationships with overseas . . . I was actually thinking that it might be better for an existing consulting house that's already doing well to -- when they get the resources to take it to the next level -- leverage cheap coding to work on PRODUCTS, rather than one-off contracts.
I mean, that's the goal of most small consulting firms -- consulting pays for R&D, and as you solve their problems you build a product that you can resell. But in practice, it's very difficult to make that transition . . . we are coming up against this now in the company I work for.
Hmm. I wonder if my boss (owner of company) would be interested in checking this out, since I'm learning Thai and going to thailand at some point anyway . . . he's a great guy, he gives it just as much intensity as I do, etc. It's just that if we can't start reusing some of our effort here I'm going to go batshit insane.
Man. Sorry for only coming here and talking about work stuff -- thailand's such a fun country, and I seem to want to make it very boring for myself.
