
What I learnt bootstrapping my startup from Thailand for six months - pieterhg
http://levels.io/bootstrapping-startup-thailand/
======
gosukiwi
Living in Argentina is quite cheap too if you are from North America or
Europe, the currency is devaluating so hard dollar is actually 10 to 1,
meaning you can rent a nice place for $200 (no pool just a normal appartment),
good thing is though, there are no prostitutes and such, and you wont get
charged so much for beeing foreigner, Argentina is full of europeans
forgeigners so nobody can really say if you are from Argentina or not unless
you are asian or black, and even so, people just dont care.

Now dont go to the north though, I'm talkign south of Buenos Aires and below
that is a whole different story xD

~~~
hauk1
Why not north?

~~~
gosukiwi
Well... In a nutshell the north is poor and south is rich and full of
international tourism.

It's something weird of Argentina as a country, 50% of the population lives
only in the capital, Buenos Aires. The capital has always had a lot of power
(they used to have access to the only port of the city, so they kept ALL the
taxes money, while all other provinces received none and were not allowed to
have a port).

So, only people in Buenos Aires were rich, everyone else was poor, what made
the south "not poor" is the fact that basically nobody lived there (because of
"La conquista del desierto"
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conquest_of_the_Desert](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conquest_of_the_Desert)),
people moved south from Buenos Aires to find new customers, find new
oportunities and just avoid the "city life".

Also, the south is full of international tourism, cities like Bariloche are
full of immigrants and a beautiful Apine-styled architecture, tourists and
outsiders are treated quite nicely :)

The north on the other hand has a very native south american culture as there
are a lot of immigrants from Bolivia and Peru which have a strong native south
american lineage, people is closed-minded and isn't really used to outsiders.

~~~
hauk1
Great thanks! Always wanted to go to Argentina.

~~~
gosukiwi
Argentina is great for international tourism I can assure you, cheap and
classy, if you handle Euros or Dollars of course, if you ever come visit the
country I highly recommend Bariloche, relly, it's beautiful, "El Bolsón" is
nice also, a lot of green and nature, also full of international tourism.

If you want tango and city-life Buenos Aires is nice, but as all big cities it
has bad parts and good parts :)

------
EarthLaunch
Be careful about that cultural isolation. I'm an arch-introvert with mostly
online friendships. I lived in a small mountain community alone for a year and
was happy enough. But I tried working from Ukraine for 3 months, and although
it was fascinating, the cultural isolation made me leave. It's a strange
feeling, almost like you aren't on the same plane as the society you're in, or
as if you're watching from a bubble.

~~~
yashodhan
Cultural isolation defines me as a person. So no problems there. How did you
like Ukraine? Where were you based? Was it cheap and comparable to Thailand
for a place to bootstrap in?

~~~
EarthLaunch
The isolation is extreme when it's an unknown language and non-"western"
culture. Though I would still consider Ukraine relatively western.

I was in Luhans'k, an industrial city with a college district, located near
the eastern border with Russia. I worked remotely from a euro-style ($1200/mo)
flat. It was 4 years ago.

I loved walking around the city in the snow, looking at shops and markets. The
local tech scene was pretty much dead, at least for a foreigner who didn't
speak the language. It might be as cheap as Thailand, but probably less
accessible and fun. I have yet to visit Asia. I couldn't handle continuing to
bootstrap there because of my isolation.

Edit: I think you'd have MUCH better luck in Kiev.

~~~
phillc73
I believe even better chances in Lviv, in terms of not feeling so isolated.

The West of Ukraine is more orientated to the European Union, than the East of
Ukraine, which looks towards Russia and has a large ethnic Russian population.

My, albeit brief, experience in Lviv was that enough people spoke at least
basic English enabling me to communicate. Knowing German also helped in many
cases, as did learning at least the basics of Ukrainian for simple daily
situations.

Housing is expensive, if you want something other than a badly fading Soviet
era apartment on the edge of town. Food and entertainment is reasonably cheap.

~~~
EarthLaunch
I think you're right, and I'd love to visit Lviv someday! There is also a lot
more art there.

------
johnnyfd
I made Panda in Chiang Mai at the co-working office space, Punspace. I too
have bootstrapped my business while working here on the cheap. Since I was on
a budget I was living off of $600US a month, I authored the book "12 Weeks in
Thailand" base on how I quit my job, moved to Thailand to live on the cheap.

Now that my business is successful, my budget is closer to $1,500 a month and
I'm living a great life in Thailand. I have some video tours of life in
Thailand at [http://www.JohnnyFD.com](http://www.JohnnyFD.com) \- my blog

------
digitalnalogika
Thanks for the post, I now feel like I want to do similar thing sometime in my
life. Is there any other interesting, safe, cheap place where you could live
comfortably using at most $1000/month?

~~~
dxbydt
Props to the OP for being open to exploring a whole different continent. But
frankly, there are plenty of university towns right here in the USA that'll
fit the OP's 1000 USD budget very well. As a TA in a CS grad program, I made
$800 per month. With that money, I lived in a comfortable studio & had
everything the OP describes & when I graduated in 2 years, in addition to my
Masters degree, I had managed to save $5000, which I used for downpayment on a
car. Most students live like this & some of the frugal TAs manage to save much
more than 5K.

~~~
crucialfelix
$1000/mo in thailand is living WELL. truly paradise, gorgeous weather, go to
nice clubs, best beaches in the world. no comparison with just passing time in
a university town in the US.

you could merely survive for much less in thailand

~~~
dxbydt
Am just pointing out that bootstrapping a startup in a university town on 1k
USD is definitely doable. You don't have to go all the way to Thailand and
flout visa rules(yeah most of those rules are not exactly enforced but they
are still on the books)

~~~
notahacker
It's a fair point, but you'd never go to Thailand _mainly_ to save money
anyway: it's one of the most expensive countries in the region and certainly
no easier to live in (beyond the tourist/expat ghettos)

------
mattront
Education visa is a good option for staying long-term in Thailand. You just
need to enrol into a course (usually 60 to 180 hour Thai language or English
language course) and that will give you 15 months visa that can be extended
for up to 5 years. Total cost for 15 months is around 1000 USD and you don't
have to leave the country every couple of months. Just Google "thailand
education visa". It's also a good way to learn something while staying in
Thailand.

~~~
moepstar
Does that have any limitations, though? Like an age limit?

~~~
mattront
No age limit. Most courses are run by small private schools that are flexible
with how and when you actually study. Education visa can be arranged before
coming to Thailand, or for 500 USD you can change your tourist visa to EDU
visa while in Thailand.

------
junto
Interesting post. As someone who lives outside his homeland, and predominantly
speaking a foreign language, I can completely identify with your comments
about how hard it is to cope with the concept of being disconnected with your
homeland's society and not fitting in with the new one.

Slowly things have improved for me as I have learnt to speak the local
language, but deep-down I still feel like an outsider. I have a sneaking
suspicion that this feeling never goes away, and I'm learning to just accept
it.

Integration is hard. I imagine learning Thai is a much bigger challenge than a
European learning French, German or Spanish for example.

Good luck to you I say!

~~~
pieterhg
OP here :) I didn't necessarily mean it as a bad thing. It helps yourself to
become more independent and less of a follower of your particular society's
group-think, potentially giving you more unique ideas.

~~~
junto
True. I guess it makes a difference if your stay is intended to be a permanent
one or not! It sounds like yours is temporary, whilst mine is intended to be
permanent.

------
uladzislau
Other post by OP is very interesting and helps to ponder upon such questions
as:

1\. Why it's cheaper over there?

2\. What are the downsides and hidden pitfalls?

[http://levels.io/make-money-where-prices-are-high-spend-
it-w...](http://levels.io/make-money-where-prices-are-high-spend-it-where-
prices-are-low-does-income-arbitrage-work/)

------
mbenjaminsmith
I've lived and built two companies in Thailand over the last 14 years. Before
your pop your Macbook Air in a backpack, read my points.

1\. Bangkok is not cheap. If you want to have a life that resembles anything
you're used to coming from a Western country, you're going to live in Bangkok
and you're going to live in a relatively expensive part of the city.

Yes, you can live in a concrete block with plastic furniture and eat noodles
on the street every day. You can probably get by for not much more than $1k
doing so. When you can no longer stomach that, you'll find the city is quite
expensive.

A decent apartment in a favorable part of town will cost you $1300 - $2000 per
month. I don't mean a family-sized place, I mean a 1 bedroom with a "livable"
amount of room and furniture that doesn't give you the willies.

Once you're sick of your local noodle vendor you'll find food prices quite
high as well. My wife and I spend more on groceries than we did when we lived
in SF (we shopped at the Safeway in the financial district). As for
restaurants: We grabbed two meals outside yesterday. One was dim sum that came
to about $30 for the two of us. The other was a tonkatsu place and the bill
came to about $25. While that's probably cheaper than the US (for the same
quality) that's hardly a meal for $1. We spend over $100 for a meal often. I
don't know anyone (Thai or foreign) that would consider that overly expensive.

Wine and imported beer are expensive and the taxes are going up. American
craft beer is going to go up to $10/bottle direct from the distributor. If you
can stomach the local swill (think Budweiser without the quality control)
knock yourself out.

When you're sick of taking taxis and the BTS/MRT, have fun buying a car at 50%
- 300% above US prices.

2\. Visas are not easy. If you really want to _fake_ it here it means
constantly traveling in and out of the country. The problem with that (beyond
the fact that it usually means traveling to the least interesting parts of the
surrounding countries) is that they limit it to a certain number of tourist
visas for every six month period or something similar (I can't remember the
actual rules, sorry).

The common way around this is to use a "visa service" which basically means
you're paying someone to bribe someone to look the other way. It's not only
illegal, the rules for it change seemingly month to month, based on whoever
ends up in a position of power in what embassy.

To do it properly: a) register a business with the requisite capital and Thai
shareholders, b) get the appropriate visa c) get a work permit. I've been
through it. It's not cheap or easy.

To not do it properly means breaking the law in a country where you most
likely don't speak the language. Have fun with that.

3\. Sex isn't everywhere. My wife and I go out for drinks 1.5 times a month
and I can't remember the last time I saw a prostitute. If you're going
somewhere with a free flow of hookers then you're probably seeking that out. I
see young people do this quite often -- the only difference between these
young people and so-called "sexpats" is that young people often go
"ironically". They're all equally as stupid.

4\. The local talent pool is mixed. The entrepreneurs here are generally
managers, not doers, so you're probably never going to find a technical co-
founder. Programming/technical ability on the whole is quite low. Try browsing
the website of any publicly traded Thai company and you'll see what I mean. It
is possible to find good graphic designers, administrative types, etc.
Salaries are low here so that could possibly be an advantage. Having said
that, I know people who have built large tech companies (100+ employees) and
the consensus is that the disadvantages here outweigh the advantages. Most
people I know in tech here outsource to Eastern Europe or somewhere else.

Investors are hard to find and mostly unsophisticated in relation to tech.
Tech-savvy ones do exist, but they generally buy companies outright and keep
you on as a glorified project manager.

5\. When you're ready to put down roots, you'll find doing things legally is
an expensive pain in the ass and -- here's the kicker -- you'll have to give
up 51% of your company to one or more Thai people. If it's not someone you've
known for a decade then, well, good luck with that. Yes, there are ways around
this but they require you to put your company in a legal gray area.

6\. Inflation isn't rampant. Cost of living has gone up considerably on the
scale of decades but it's pretty hard to notice in a few months.

~~~
pieterhg
Re: apartments, that's simply not true. A 1-br apartments in Bangkok is not
$1300 - 2000 per month. You might be paying foreigner/expat prices and getting
heavily scammed. I found a 1-br apartment 5 mins away from the BTS (public
transport) for $300-$500. That's with a pool. And not uncommon. Same with the
food, you might have been paying foreigner prices there too. I'd pay $7 for a
table full of sushi for one person. And that would be a very very luxurious
place. I' always check the prices before entering a restaurant, like any place
in the world really. Many foreigners simply go to the non-local places in
tourist traps and end up paying too much. Bangkok doesn't help as it's already
expensive relative to the rest of the country. Just like any big metropolitan
city really. That's why I wrote, stay out of Bangkok. Yet even then if you
want, you can live cheaply in Bangkok too if you're smart about it. Thai do it
on $500/m in Bangkok.

Re: western food, I think it's obvious that if you're looking for Western
products, you're going to pay more than in the West. You're not in the West
after all! It's a bit spoiled to expect Western food to be the same price as
in your home country. However, if you can assimilate, live, eat and drink like
a local, you can live very cheap.

That's why I stayed in Chiang Mai. It has low rent, low cost of living,
abundant nature and countless of coffee places to work from.

Re: sex workers, I don't know if you're in my age group (I am 27) so YMMV, but
if you go clubbing in Bangkok or Chiang Mai, you will run into prostitutes.
Everywhere.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Thai grocery stores are more expensive than (or at least comparable) the
states even for raw fruits and vegetables, or rice! And this is at bangkok
supermarkets aimed at locals, not even the fancy ones. Americans just don't
realize how food they have it.

The problem is that Thai taxes are high and there are price supports for
farmers so their living standards can improve; they also aren't as mechanized
than in the states.

~~~
gotrecruit
i believe the reason why thai supermarkets are so expensive is because the
erm.. "real" thais buy their stuff from the street wet markets, rather than
air-conditioned supermarkets. places like Tops are meant for expats, tourists,
rich locals, etc.

~~~
pieterhg
Exactly. I'd pay 20 baht (USD 0.60 or EUR 0.40) for 4 bananas from a street
vendor or market. I'd pay 10x that in the super market. Super markets here are
for the high society, tourists and expats. It's not going to be cheap if you
don't assimilate and start living like a local.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
I don't think the wet markets pay taxes or are subject to much gov
interference. A lot of Thais buy groceries at Tescos, its not just a
"foreigner" thing. You also can't buy everything in a farmer's market, and at
any rate, you aren't quite sure what you are getting.

Living in china, we are more worried about safe food than cheap food, not sure
if Thailand has similar problems. 便宜没好货，好货不便宜 as they say.

------
jamornh
Thai national here, and as a fellow bootstrapper I would have to agree with
most of the points of the OP. The reason why I left my well-paid job in
Singapore and come back to Thailand to bootstrap my startup is due to the much
lower cost of living and un-tapped talent pool.

I'd like to add that the quoted figure of $1,000 USD a month is rather high.
Most Thais can get by with $500 USD. That is the current starting salary for
undergraduates. Now, keep in mind that if you are a foreigner, there will
definitely be a surcharge since it is expected that you are able to afford
more. As a local, I can cheaply rent an apartment outside of Bangkok (granted
without a pool) for $100-150 USD a month. If you include utilities, phone, and
internet you might need around $250-$350 USD, and you will get air
conditioning.

EDIT: As for food, his mentioned price of 40 Baht for a bow of chicken rice
which has now supposedly increased by 25%. It feels slightly over priced to
me, but not by much. The average cost of a bow of food is still around 30-40
Baht ($1 USD to $1.33 USD) per serving and have not increased, as far as I can
tell, for the 2 years that I have been back. So if you're pretty frugal, you
can definitely get by with $5-7 USD a day for food + drinks. If you really
want to go for "ramen diets" then you can definitely get by with lower IMO.

The current going prices for co-working spaces in Thailand are around $7 - $10
a day, net, and most of these places open 7 days a week. But if you can work
from home, you can ignore that cost.

Regarding the OP's point about the startup scene, he is correct. It's very
much in its infancy and the local work-force are not as familiar with the
startup ecosystem and are very risk averse. To add to that, most employees
will not understand how equity work and will prefer to work for a safer and
more secure jobs. This is a cultural thing so pushing the startup mentality is
still a big hurdle that the great people at Launchpad and HUBBA are trying
their best to overcome.

Overall I'm quite optimistic about the way Thailand is moving with regards to
startups, but it is very much in its infancy and founders are not as well-
informed. A lot of incubators and "startup schools" are in it for the fact
that it seems like the cool thing to be doing, but most have no idea how to
run one and no experience in the space. IMO, there isn't much right now that
the founders can gain from the partnership since both sides are basically
feeling their way around.

In the end though, I can't recommend Thailand enough as a place that you
should come and bootstrap just for the cost of living, wonderful culture, and
an assortment of holiday locations. Although, as a Thai, I may be completely
biased.

EDIT: Of course, I'm not exactly familiar with the visa situation since I
don't actually need it. Based on the OP, it seems pretty complicated, but
still worth the hassle.

~~~
hackerboos
>EDIT: Of course, I'm not exactly familiar with the visa situation since I
don't actually need it. Based on the OP, it seems pretty complicated, but
still worth the hassle.

I lived in Thailand for several years and 'bootstrapping' your business there
as a foreigner without a work permit is breaking the law.

You need a work permit to do ANY type of work in Thailand and although working
out of sight is unlikely to get you deported, working in co-working spaces
isn't exactly out of sight and a phone call to immigration would get you
arrested, deported and blacklisted from the country.

Getting a work permit in Thailand is very very difficult. Foreign owned
businesses have to employ Thai citizens and require silly amounts of
registered capital deposited in Thai banks. It's marginally easier if you are
an American.

Thailand is not worth the hassle and FFS research the law before you just up
and go there!

~~~
j1z0
Look I'm American who has been living in SE Asia (mostly Malaysia) for the
past 10 years. I've spent lots of time and worked in lots of countries here
including Vietnam, Thailand, Philipines, Singapore, India and obviously
Malaysia.

In Asia a work visa is intended for foreigners working for locally
incorporated companies. Regardless of what it says on the websites, if you
have a tourist visa you are free to startup / bootstrap your new enterprise.
If your coding up a new website, hosting it on Amazon and serving customers
over the internet your not really doing business and the country your living
and honestly no body cares. It's cool.

If you want to start selling to locals, offering consultancy services to
locals then yes you should probably get a visa. But of course you don't need
the visa until you are actually doing that.

People who quote websites stating "facts" about visa's in SE Asia obviously
don't know how the law works in SE Asia. In SE Asia the law is a guideline and
your clout / how you treat people is much more important than the words
written on the page, when it comes to the courts and the interpretation of the
law.

So if you want to bootstrap in Asia, chillax and just do it. If your too
worried about it, your probably won't adjust well anyways.

~~~
hackerboos
Somebody who throws Singapore in with a list of other South-East Asian
countries and goes on to state that laws are just a guideline clearly has no
idea what they are talking about.

I can only speak for Thailand and Singapore and both are stringent on
enforcement when it comes to visas. I've never heard of anyone walking away
with a slap on the wrist or being able to bribe their way out of a situation
with regards to visas.

In one of my first replies I said that if you are working alone and out of
sight then yes you will probably get away with working in any of those
countries.

My whole point though is that it's irresponsible to promote breaking the law
here on HN and especially foreign laws at that.

~~~
fadzlan
Well... I am from Malaysia. As long as you are not employed, not conducting
any activities that earn money from locals (ie. consulting, etc), not
employing anyone, you are not technically running a business/being employed.
So you are not running against the letter of the law

Come to think of it, there could be a lot of people coming here with business
on Ebay... and keep checking their Ebay website every minute. It would be
weird not to mention wrong to be checking anyone doing anything on a webpage
on a coffee shop.

And if there is co working area, well, as long as you are not hired and not
running local business, believe me, no one cares. Just by being there does not
constitute you breaking the visa, when employment visa specifically talks
about being employed.

And if you want to open a local company, that is easy too. I had a guy from
Australia interviewed me after he had opened a company here. It takes somewhat
less than a day to do.

If you want to hire foreigners however, that might take a while, since you
need to go through the due process. But if you are in the tech sector, you
could go for MSC status application, where you could hire foreigners as much
as you want and even have tax exemption for few years.

The worse case is that you are here working for your company for few months
before the MSC status is approved. Last time I worked it took about 8 months
for it to get approved, all the time where my Italian boss and European
colleagues keep leaving the countries after 90 days. From what I understand,
even that is kosher, since they are in a payroll from an incorporated company
in UK.

Bottom line is, at least for Malaysia, the government here is doing the best
it can to get the cross pollination of talent from outside to the locals. And
as many of the commenters here mentioned, if you are not causing trouble with
anyone, no one has any reason to check on you.

------
practicalpants
Ah, I'm so on the verge of doing this. I quit my programming day job a few
weeks ago and really want to make this happen. However... I'm terrified of the
SF real estate market when I return. I'm also torn about whether to give up my
apartment or find someone to sublet (or AirBnB it?) to have something to
return to.

Any advice, from anyone here who knows SF/SV, or has done something like this,
about the above, or about what I could do returning to an ungodly housing
market, in terms of the time it will take to find something as well as the
price, with myself not likely having more than a couple thousand in the bank?
And let's say I have ~ $13k now, so maybe I could return with a good enough
cushion...

~~~
justincormack
If you are scared of a real estate market, then doing a startup is probably
not for you.

~~~
practicalpants
I did my own startup for a year and a half. It's reasonable to fear running
out of money and plan accordingly.

Some practical tips for handling housing is what I was fishing for.

------
scheff
Great write up! I'm thinking of doing the exact same thing. A couple of
questions -

Why the limitation to being able to only do 6 months? Do they stop renewing
your visa after that?

Have you looked at other neighbouring countries like Laos, Burma and Cambodia
for a similar arrangement?

~~~
pieterhg
Thanks!

The most I could get from the Thai embassy in Amsterdam was a double-entry
visa. If I wanted a triple-entry visa (giving me 3x90 days or 9 months), they
required me to have booked all my flights in and out of the country
beforehand. That was a bit too much planning for me.

I believe there's education visas if you study Thai at a school for a year,
but that seems like too much of a distraction while starting up a business.

Yes, I'm actually trying Phnom Penh in Cambodia in 2014. Cheaper, although
internet connectivity might not be up-to-par and it's a lot less safe from
what I've heard.

~~~
maccman
Or Saigon - had a great time there.

[http://blog.alexmaccaw.com/traveling-writing-and-
programming](http://blog.alexmaccaw.com/traveling-writing-and-programming)

~~~
pieterhg
I'm actually in Saigon right now! Do you have any recommendations for spaces
to work? I am trying SaigonHUB on Monday.

~~~
maccman
Hmm, I was usually working out of my hotel room or cafe's along Phạm Ngũ Lão
street.

------
mathattack
How is the education there? I found locals to complain about the talent the
schools produced.

That said, it's a wonderful country. Avoid the tourist traps and you miss much
of the sleazy side.

If I were 23 I would take it over Iowa ten times out of ten.

------
cyrilga
Amazing article! I am doing the same (bootstrapping from Asia) and would agree
with almost anything but the budget. I am currently in Ko Tao (=paradise) and
during low season, you get a comfortable room for 8000 baht / month ($300) 5
min from the beach. In Chiang Mai I was renting a large bedroom on Airbnb for
$9/day. Vientiane as well is a good option, they love foreigners there and
there are a lot of french expats. I would stay away from Vietnam (Saigon and
Hanoi) as you have constantly to be on your guards unless you go to Hoi An or
Nha Trang. Has anybody tried the Philippines?

~~~
cyrilga
Of course during low season, there is quite a bit of rain, which helps
focusing on developing your startup and not going to the beach.

~~~
macarthy12
But downpours = bad internet in Thailand :-)

------
rogerthatplease
On one hand, it's a great article. On the other hand, it's really misleading!
Lots of commenters in here would agree with "levels," but that's only because
they are like-minded.

You can easily live on 500-600 euros per month, stay in beach bungalows,
rented houses, or amazing bamboo houses where the owners bring you fruit every
morning, and that includes unlimited 3G internet, the wireless internet they
already have on site, and your bus and plane tickets around Asia.

No offense, but it's a little bit of a shame to accidentally mislead people on
how much the costs are (a pool??!?!?!), and it's also a shame that the author
didn't check out Malaysia, which is far less touristy, has almost no sex
tourism, and has some really incredible places (with internet).

Shop at the markets. Eat at night markets, food stalls, and normal thai
restaurants (but proper restos... not all stalls)... we went out with some
local friends in Bangkok, ate famously, and the bill came to like 8 dollars
(three different restos). Look for places like Chiang Mai... but also, move
about yo! We did 3 weeks at a time in each place, moving down through
sukhothai, ahyuthaya, etc., worked with laser focus, and spent way, way less
money.

Really not much need for an incubator if you're confident in what you're
doing.

------
throwawayQWERTY
Note: Using throwaway so my employer doesn't find out about my plan to
eventually leave.

Are there any places similar to this in USA? Cost of living around $1000 (give
or take), good internet access, no car needed, decently cheap food and rent,
and possibly an affordable coworking space? I'm looking to bootstrap an
internet company and while I don't mind living abroad, I'd be much more
comfortable here in the US, seeing as I've lived here my whole life.

~~~
tomca32
It's possible even in NYC.

Around Jamaica you can get a room for $400-$500. Although it's not an
apartment, just a room in a big house, so you can't make parties and stuff but
is otherwise quite comfortable.

Going to Manhattan also doesn't take too much time. E train goes directly and
is express so it's a 45-60 min commute.

As for food, cook at home. If in Manhattan, there's a great $1 pizza on
Bleecker St. Lots of free coworking spaces in Manhattan - Wix for example.

I wouldn't call it a luxurious life by any stretch of imagination, but it's
doable to live in NY for $1000 a month and not really feel poor (or it could
be just a story I tell to myself to feel better).

~~~
diziet
You're much better finding a room somewhere further in Long Island and taking
LIRR to the city than the E train!

------
chespirito
One qualifier to: "Thailand’s government is wholly responsible for this
situation" (viz. rampant sex tourism).

I would clarify that it is fully but not uniquely responsible. Sort of like if
two men set out to murder a third and they both poison his drink on the same
night, they are both fully but not uniquely responsible for his death.
Analogously, sex tourists share responsibility, as perhaps do other
governments whose actions influence the kind of governments that Thailand is
likely to have.

Just a minor point of mine on a side-observation! Otherwise, lots of insights
I enjoyed. I hadn't given much thought to start-up culture in SE Asia. One
thing that doesn't get mentioned is the language: Did you get by exclusively
with English (and Dutch, lots of ex-colonies being out that way)?

If you're serious about growing a start-up over a long stretch of time in
Thailand it seems like you would want to have some Thai, if nothing else to
draw from a greater pool of local talent when recruiting.

------
imperio59
The article seems to imply that it is impossible to live for less than $1000 a
month (internet included) in the US in a remote area where you can focus.

I regularly travel out to Eastern Washington (close to the border by Montana)
and the area is very rural and prices relatively cheap for rent (and house
prices are not unreasonable if you're looking to buy). No one will come bug
you if you live in the woods, and Satellite internet (while not perfect) is
decent as long as you're not doing anything too bandwidth intensive. You can
also always live near a bigger city and get Cable internet.

As far as food costs go, if you can fish, hunt and grow a vegetable garden,
you can be self-sufficient most of the year.

I'm not saying everyone needs to go out and live that lifestyle, but I just
wanted to challenge the assumption that you couldn't live for less than $1000
a month in the US. A lot of people do, and aren't necessarily poor or bad off
either.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
I hope you mean Idaho and not Montana. Spokane is cheap but not that cheap, in
the more rural communities like Newport, you could probably do $1000/month
with lots of work cutting wood and such. If you want cheaper, cross the border
to Idaho or Montana, but the farther away we get from infrastructure, things
actually become more expensive, not less.

~~~
imperio59
I did mean Idaho, Colville/Metaline Falls area. It's true once you get far
enough the cost of living goes up in a way, but I've found those parts to
still be fairly cheap cost of living (on the face of it), assuming you already
own land.

------
erikb
If you think you know the place after six month you are in for a loooot of
surprises, e.g., culture shock, or to see that after some time you are not
really a foreigner and not really a local anymore. You also have to apply to
rules, just different ones from the locals. But that only happens after people
learn to know you after some time.

------
RomanPushkin
> The enterprise loves C# coders. But that’s not necessarily the best language
> for a startup stack.

Why? It's quite easy, much more powerful, performance is great! Jeffrey
Richter in his book "CLR via C#" says it's often more fasten than even
compiled C/C++.

Have you heard about Entity Framework and ASP.Net MVC? It's growing like a mad
thing, a lotta features, improvements and so on.

Maybe the license price is high? Yep, but with EF you can switch MS SQL
database to any other one. And, moreover, you can obtain a license for free on
bizspark. And, for sure, you can switch to Mono if you prefer Linux or Mac.

BTW, you comparing "proprietary language C#" to Java, but Java is by Oracle ;)

PS [http://net.tutsplus.com/articles/editorials/why-many-
develop...](http://net.tutsplus.com/articles/editorials/why-many-developers-
hate-asp-net-and-why-they-are-wrong/)

~~~
fingerprinter
I've always liked C#, and even like Visual Studio to some degree, but I would
never develop it for anything other than a hobby application.

Why?

Windows.

I'm not going to be tied to a an entire ecosystem like that. If MS was serious
about being developer friendly, really serious, they would not tie developers
to Windows. It might not make the most strategic sense, but in the day and age
of the cloud and big clusters of no-cost image spinups, Windows doesn't make
sense.

And, no, Mono is not a real alternative. There's too many good languages and
frameworks to be fiddling with Mono in production.

------
stratosvoukel
1000$ is supposed to be enough to live in lots of european countries as well.
Eg. Estonia, Greece, Austria

~~~
javert
I found that number to be pretty depressing. I think I could get somewhere
pretty close to that, here in North Carolina, USA.

~~~
a8da6b0c91d
In the original post the point was raised that at that cost of living you
don't have to lift a finger. All your cleaning, laundry, and cooking are done
by others.

It's trivially easy to find a really nice space to rent in the USA for $500 or
so. The catch is you'll still be doing all your own cooking and cleaning. And
you'll be surrounded by hicks.

~~~
javert
I think your hicks comment is unnecessary and incorrect, but otherwise, this
is a good point.

------
robertlf
Very informative post. I only have two questions. First, how difficult it is
to get a good Internet connection there? Can you buy a "hotspot" device? Also,
what about healthcare? If you get sick, can you get access to good medical
care at a reasonable price?

~~~
pieterhg
You can get a 3G data card for $20/m from TRUE. That gives you fast 3G in all
major city areas, and free ridiculously fast Wi-Fi all-over Bangkok. I'd
upload 2GB videos for my YouTube channel daily on those connections. If there
was no Wi-Fi, I'd tether my MBP to my iPhone's 3G connection. The network was
always faster than I've ever experienced in Amsterdam.

I can not advice about your particular healthcare situation, but I'm a Dutch
national on a standard Netherlands healthcare plan. That means I have
worldwide coverage and all treatments are covered up to the price that the
same treatment would cost at home. The Thai private hospitals are usually
cheaper than those in my country while offering a ridiculously luxurious
service. That means I pay nothing.

Fortunately, I haven't stayed there a lot. Only once, for food poisoning, when
I visited Thailand a few years ago.

------
MichaelTieso
I've been traveling around the world for the last 5 years and have started
various businesses on the road. It's been an incredible experience. I just
moved to Sayulita, Mexico a week ago where I plan to finish my new startup
ForkFox.com. I'll be here for 6-months. The downside is that there isn't much
for resources. I'm basically here to just focus on programming but in
paradise.

Having been to Thailand several times, the food there is AMAZING.

------
uladzislau
Any language barrier issues in Thailand?

"English is a mandatory school subject, but the number of fluent speakers
remains very low, especially outside the cities." \- Wikipedia.

~~~
jamornh
Personally I think this depends largely on what types of community you're
going to be around the majority of the time. If you're talking about living
day to day, ordering food and getting around, you won't need much Thai to
actually live here. Ordering food will require some pointing and sign
languages at street food stores (most of them understand English numbers +
sign language), but at restaurants in malls, English is "well-enough"
understood and you won't have any problems (or they'll call the manager to
talk to you.) Now of course, if you're in the startup scene, you're probably
going to know some locals that can speak both languages well and are willing
to help you around, however, you should alway try to learn the local language
enough to get by on a daily basis.

In the startup community and the white collar working population, we
understand English well enough to understand what you're saying but maybe not
converse with you fluently 100% of the time.

EDIT: I'm only referring to Bangkok in this case.

------
scheff
My small amount of research discovered that you can live in a serviced hotel
room for between 15,000 and 30,000 THB per month, which is $500 - $1000 USD.
This was in Chiang Mai. I explored a couple of different hotels.

You can get serious discounts for booking a room for 3, 6 months. Combine that
with eating out for every meal (instead of grocery shopping and cooking for
yourself) and it's an incredibly cheap option. Meals are as cheap as $1 each.

------
mr-happy
Is the quality of hackers good in Thailand? I'm particularly thinking about
skills to deal with javascript, node.js and MongoDB. I've heard mixed reviews
in the past - and it's been touched on a few times here - but would be great
to hear what the latest situation is.

------
znt
The title says 300K + subscribers, but when I go to the YouTube channel at
[http://www.youtube.com/user/electromixshow](http://www.youtube.com/user/electromixshow)
it says there are 38K subscribers. Am I missing something here?

~~~
pieterhg
Hi znt, you're right, the aggregate of all my channels is 300,000 subscribers
now. My biggest channel is here
[http://youtube.com/pandadnb](http://youtube.com/pandadnb). I've removed the
heading, since it might come across as unclear, thanks.

~~~
xSwag
Word of warning, 2 years ago I ran a large dubstep related channel which was
shut down. Be _very_ careful about copyrighted content, the record label
_will_ file dmca complaints even if you got permission from the artist! You
only get so many warnings. I would even suggest having a backup channel and
not to put all eggs in one basket!

~~~
pieterhg
Thanks xSwag, all my YouTube channels' content is licensed and legit. The
artists and labels ask me to put it up. I've never put up anything I did not
have permission to. Sorry to hear about your channel. YouTube copyright claims
can be ruthless although it's getting better these days.

------
RisingInflation
Inflation rising... I don't know what you are on about. Check your facts laddy
:) [http://www.tradingeconomics.com/thailand/inflation-
cpi](http://www.tradingeconomics.com/thailand/inflation-cpi)

Interesting story, however.

------
shurcooL
Very useful to know.

It makes a lot of sense to use your savings to bootstrap your internet/tech
startup in a place where living costs are much lower, but internet access is
pretty much the same. The savings will last much longer, giving you more time
to work.

------
hmkcode
So interesting..especially the article you wrote about how this article has
attracted 15K visitors to your site. Thanks

------
k-mcgrady
Excellent post. I've been considering Thailand and Vietnam for a while as
places to work remotely for 6-12 months.

------
kirk21
Awesome!

How did your family/friends react? What is your next stop?

Moving to Berlin next month to bootstrap.

~~~
pieterhg
They are quite used to me moving around a lot and just want to see me happy. I
am now in Saigon and my next stop is probably Phnom Penh and then celebrate
NYE in Hong Kong.

Berlin is awesome! What are you working on?

~~~
yla92
Quite nice to read your story. Btw, it will be great if you can make it to
Yangon/Rangoon too. (: (I am from Yangon)

------
genX
Should be called "When I take my laptop to country "x" I call it bootstrapping
a company, and now I will school you with my vast experience gained over 6
months in a hostel".....get a life, and a real job, you annoying tourist with
a laptop

------
boy88
just to confirm if I go to Thailand and want to do a business road trip
wherein i'm speaking at say a meetup.com event, I can get into trouble?

------
homakov
If you dont like sex tourism it is ur mental problem. Feel free to agitate in
your europez but please leave my thailand as is. Every girl has a right to do
anything and its not your business.

~~~
homakov
Ps. Traveled around the world now living in pattaya. Asq questions.

~~~
Pinatubo
Do you honestly believe those prostitutes enjoy sleeping with people like you?

~~~
parennoob
If you think enjoyment is a prerequisite to doing a job, then there are
several people working on crufty "enterprise" Java-based systems that would
love to benefit from your crusade.

~~~
Pinatubo
My question was in response to this post by the same person:

>"If you dont like sex tourism it is ur mental problem. Feel free to agitate
in your europez but please leave my thailand as is. Every girl has a right to
do anything and its not your business."

That seemed to imply that the prostitutes had willingly chosen their
profession, which led to my question.

~~~
homakov
Oh so you imply they all was forced? Hell no. It is just better than clerq in
7 11 for 5 times less salary

------
bsullivan01
Immigrant founders might also decide to go back to the motherland for a while
if things get rough in USA.

