Thailand startup ecosystem through the eyes of Amarit Charoenphan, founder of co-working space Hubba

Hubba is Thailand’s first co-working space for entrepreneurs, innovators and creative professionals. Hubba was set up in August 2012, and has soon emerged as the major hub of startup activity in Thailand. We caught up with Hubba’s founder Amarit Charoenphan to know about Thai startup ecosystem and his future plans for Hubba. Here are the edited excerpts of the conversation:

The genesis

Initially the idea was to build a co-working space, but it has evolved since the time we set up. We have everything that a good co-working space has; Wifi, good chairs, good people and good staff. However, we have pivoted ourselves to be an ecosystem builder, a leader in terms of the space we offer, the events and the activities that we organize and curate for the startup ecosystem. Basically, our job is to help the startup community in Thailand to grow and be more successful. We normally host two to three events a week to bring the community together.

Mix of startups

We now have 25-30 startups, half of them are in technology (gaming, mobile apps, social etc), and the rest are in design and outsourced development. About 90% of the crowd at the co-working space comprise of expats. Most guys are digital nomads, bootstrappers, live anywhere and work anywhere type of crowd – and they find the space very comfortable. Lots of them are from the US, Europe, and some are from Israel, Japan, Korea.

E-commerce and associated tools seems to be in the rage right now (curated, mobile commerce, shopping cart for Facebook, social commerce, CRM platforms etc are all hot) as people in Thailand like to sell stuff. Customer loyalty apps used to be cool last year, but they have now gone out of fashion.

Thai internet/smartphone penetration is bound to grow but credit card penetration, fear of fraud culture and problematic payment gateways will hamper the growth to some extent.

Some of the interesting companies using the space at Hubba right now are

• Fastinflow (consumer insights and analytics)
• Computerlogy (web and FB app development)
• Sabuy (mobile CRM)
• TheQuests (mobile app for professionals to create meetups)

I would say the startup ecosystem in Thailand is very very nascent, but is growing really quick.

Telco's role in the ecosystem

At this point in time, Thailand is a very telco led ecosystem. The Government has not been putting as much money or interest in startups as it should, so the three major telcos are taking the lead to help grow the space. These three Thai telcos also run accelerators -- Dtac, AIS and Incube

Top Thai Startups to look out for

Builk - Builk.com is a professional social network connecting construction professionals to their suppliers, designers and customers in an easier way.

Stamp - Stamp provides a simple and natural way to authenticate any secure transaction by simply "stamping" the screen of asmartphone. The patent-pending technology is very easy to use, and can be applied across a broad range of applications via their SDK.

Ookbee - Thailand's first e-book store. Ookbee makes it easy for you to publish, distribute and sell your digital publications to aworldwide audience.

SocialEnable - SocialEnable is a powerful social media management tool which allows users to manage various social media channels from one application. This application contains campaign management and measurement features to let an enterprise go beyond social media marketing with Social CRM.

Wongnai – If you’re in Thailand and need to find a place to eat Wongnai can help you pick restaurants around you. Wongnai features more than 100,000 restaurants from all over Thailand with detailed information, real user reviews, and perks! (basically Wongnai is like the Yelp of Thailand)

Around 10-15 companies are getting funded each year in Thailand as of now.

Influencers to talk to if you are going to Thailand

• Paul Srivorakul (Executive Chairman of Ardent Capital)
• Pawoot Pom Pongvitayapanu (President of Thai E-commerce Association)
• Moo Natavudh (CEO at Ookbee - Thailand’s one of the most successful startups)
• Krating Poonpol (General Manager, LivingSocial Thailand)

Challenges

There are a few very good mentors and teachers who can help. Very soon you run out of good people to talk to because everyone is talking to the same handful of people. There are not enough people who can teach the next generation and who can add knowledge to the community. So at Hubba for our events, we have started looking outwards to tap the network in Singapore, Indonesia, Japan and bring some of the investors and mentors from there to share knowledge with the community here. We still don’t have enough successful startup founders or second time founders who can guide the new ones on how to startup and what not to do, but I am sure slowly we will have more of those here.

There's a lot of buzz and excitement about the quality of Thai startups, the question is, can we deliver on the hype and show that we have real startups with global ambition?

We shall be closely tracking Thai startups and will bring you stories from their journeys regularly. So stay tuned. We thank Amarit for taking the time and introducing us to the ecosystem.

For further information about Hubba, visit their website http://hubbathailand.com/