
Startup Workaway II: Thailand. 25 founders. 10 days. 1 kick-ass resort. - npt4279
http://startupworkaway.com/
======
webwright
I did the first StartupWorkaway in Costa Rica. The other 15 founders were
awesome (handpicked from 200ish applicants if memory serves). The venue was
epic (12,000 square foot villa with 2 pools on a cliff). And it was cheaper
than any vacation that I've ever taken (the economies of scale when 15
founders rent a big villa and a chef are pretty amazing). In fact, it was
probably cheaper than staying home.

I'd recommend the experience without reservation.

~~~
itmag
Very cool. Let's say I wanted to create something like this with 10 of my
friends. What would it cost, ballpark-wise?

~~~
npt4279
It depends on how fancy of a place you want to get, and if food is included.
Last time, in Costa Rica, we had 16 people in a $4 million dollar mansion with
a private chef preparing all our meals. It cost about $10,000.

~~~
rvenugopal1
Do you mind sharing a) How long was your stay? b) Was that $10,000 per person
or for 16 people c) Any information about amenities included

~~~
bnmrrs
Villas can be super affordable when you're travelling with large groups. I'm
the CTO of a startup that provides these sort of vacations. It's pretty common
that the per person rate works out to much less than a hotel would be and you
get the added bonus of an entire house!

Here are a couple of examples:

Sleeps 24 - $4,501/week - <http://demeure.com/properties/villa-turquesa--2>

Sleeps 13 - $4,569/week - <http://demeure.com/properties/casa-fermentini>

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jasonkester
Worth noting: You don't need to join somebody else's program to take advantage
of this. Big cool rental properties in exotic locations become really cheap
when you split them among an entire product team, especially if you consider
the alternative to be a month's lease at a cube farm.

My personal experience doing this:

[http://expatsoftware.com/articles/2006/12/chamonix-branch-
of...](http://expatsoftware.com/articles/2006/12/chamonix-branch-office.html)

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ashconnor
You do know it's illegal to work in Thailand without a work permit? Even
planning a startup is likely to be classed as working.

This may sound stringent but people have gotten into trouble for more trivial
activities such as karaoke.

I hope you've cleared this with immigration or everybody attending could face
deportation.

~~~
Radim
I've lived in Thailand, let me fix that sentence for you:

I hope you've cleared this with immigration or everybody attending could face
_paying a bribe._

~~~
ashconnor
I've lived in Thailand too. Not everybody takes a bribe.

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gexla
Warning: Once you get to one of these things you may not go back home. You
realize that as a coder you can just keep working remotely and stay there
(though not in the same expensive place after everyone leaves.) Crazy times we
live in.

NOTE: As others have mentioned. You aren't supposed to be working while on a
tourist visa but Thailand isn't the U.S. In some regards it's a bit like the
wild west where people won't bug you as long as you aren't taking jobs away
from the locals or making a bunch of cash off the local economy and people
start to wonder if you are really playing by the rules. You didn't hear this
from me though, respect the laws!

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codenerdz
So what did come out of original StartupWorkaway? Anything other than beach
lounging with 20 geeks?

~~~
webwright
We created touchbasecal.com there, for the most part. It hit #5 in Paid
Productivity in the App Store and still brings in healthy cash flow (though it
was never meant to be more than a "learn iOS and App Store marketing project).

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100k
I'm glad this was posted again, because I was trying to remember the name of
it late last year and I couldn't find it.

The reason I was trying to find the site was that some friends and I did
something similar (we called it "Vacation Startup Club") in Costa Rica in
November. It was awesome.

We rented two houses in Manuel Antonio (these: <http://casamonotiti.com/>).
They were easily the nicest vacation lodging I've ever used, and the view was
epic, and with 10ish people, very reasonable.

I was surprised how much we got done. We usually woke up early (it gets light
around 6am), had breakfast and coffee, then some people would start coding, or
go to the park or beach. After lunch, we'd begin in earnest and work until
dinner, then until about 9 or 10 most nights.

We finished our app, and then learned how hard it is to launch one. ;-) But
all in all, an amazing experience.

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kyebosh
This looks great, I hope it goes well!

If I may make a suggestion for next time though: please consider finding a
place with better wheelchair access. It's very disheartening to see the de
facto bias towards able-bods reenforced. Of course, I'm certain this wasn't by
intent, but it's something I'd love to see improved.

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davidw
Given the _frigid_ weather here in Italy (not at all what I signed up for!),
the idea of tropical beaches sounds particularly fantastic right now. Not sure
it'd work out with a wife and small kids though, maybe another time:-)

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WillyBoy
I think I saw that two of the spots for this workaway are being given away as
a prize for the AngelHack competition(?) I'd go just to be able to spend time
working with that kind of talent.

~~~
ralphshao
Yeah it's listed as coming soon on both eventbrites:
<http://angelhacksf2.eventbrite.com/> <http://angelhackbo2.eventbrite.com/>

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noobface
NPT4279: 2 total submissions.

Startup Workaway II: Thailand. 25 founders. 10 days. 1 kick-ass resort.
(startupworkaway.com) 19 points by npt4279 33 minutes ago | 3 comments

Startup Workaway: 20 founders. 10 days. 1 beach house in Costa Rica. Apply now
(startupworkaway.com) 61 points by npt4279 283 days ago | comments

Not saying this isn't interesting or appealing to the HN crowd, but disclosing
that you are probably affiliated with this organization.

~~~
npt4279
Disclaimer: The 'organization' is me! Sorry; I didn't see a textfield to put
any commentary in, when you submit a URL.

~~~
mattmanser
One of your pages is broken on your site, this is you I'm guessing from the
npt: <http://startupworkaway.com/nick-tommarello> but it's returning a 404.

What noobface is saying is that you don't participate in HN apart from to
promote this, but that's not a big deal.

Seems like a cool idea. Did any companies emerge from the last one?

~~~
npt4279
If you try again, it should work. I had to tweak Apache config files to keep
the site up.

I don't post much content, but I read HN like 50 times a day, and upvote a
lot. :) I post this because I feel it's the coolest thing I do that relevant
to the HN crowd.

About half of the crowd there had existing companies, and the other half
hacking on stuff. Apps were finished, but no new companies were formed.

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mahyarm
Why is it only 10 days? Is it to fit with most people's 2 week vacation slots?
I would think a month would be more productive, or even better a 3 month
y-combinator style intense MVP rush.

Also isn't the internet on Ko Samui kind of shitty? Wouldn't a mainland
location by a nice beach be better internet wise?

~~~
leak
I am so up fo ra 3 month getaway. Sign me up if something comes around. I
think we could do it in India for super cheap.

~~~
mahyarm
I would think the Philippines would be better due to their relatively generous
visa extension policies (you can stay in the Philippines for 1.5 years on just
tourist visa extensions if you wanted to) and far less red tape in getting
things like SIM cards, renting places and so on. You can also get half decent
internet there too, it's tropical and there are beaches everywhere!

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paraschopra
Our whole startup (Wingify) spent one week in Thailand during December. Here
are our pics: <http://team.wingify.com/thailand-trip-pictures>

Though, to be honest, we couldn't work much there. It was all fun and
adventure.

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Terry_B
I love this concept and hope to do some remote working like this soon. Most
important factor though, how good is the wifi?

The world needs a website with tropical resorts rated by wifi quality.

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ericHosick
Submitted application.

