Thai business strategy is like poker

 GOING ALL IN!!! 

The famous words you hear when people play poker.

You risk everything to gain a lot.

To all the do-gooders out there, I know not all Thai people do like this, plus I'm a Thai national myself, so I'm not "Thai bashing".

I'm just saying I see this sort of practice done to extremes a lot more by Thai people I know compared to westerners I know.

During the Asian financial crisis in 1997, many Thai people lost everything, including wealthy Thai people, because even after many Thai people become wealthy, they don't stop huge investments and even borrowing large sums of money to become richer and richer. Eventually, all this big risk taking will catch up with you. The old saying is 'the house always wins".

I've had discussions and outright debates with Thai people whom have told me I should invest a huge chunk of my money, and borrow money against my assets for business ideas they tell me can make me much money, whether it be a hotel, flipping condos or a restaurant.

I tell them I'll keep on doing things the way which works for me, which is saving money little by little, do a low risk high reward investment, repeat the process. 

I will say living in Australia much of my life, I've noticed many Australians are at the opposite end of the extreme, they're content with working a 9 to 5 job and renting all their life, and don't like taking risks.

Even when house prices were much more affordable in Australia in the early 2000s, the Australian ladies I dated had no ambition or plan to ever save for a deposit and buy a home, they said they wanted to rent, even though they pretty much had nothing to lose, and as I anticipated, as house prices in Australia increased, so did rent prices, to the point renting in Australia is unaffordable for many people. So playing things too safe can also come back to haunt you 

It's like refusing surgery because there's a tiny risk of complication, but not doing anything poses a higher risk of death.

But going back to Thai people, I personally know Thai people who mortgaged their house to fund a restaurant or some other business idea. They say it's because they want to make lots of money. The business fails, they lose their house. In fact, I personally know a LOT of Thai people this has happened to.

I used to know an Indian bloke, whom him and his Thai wife ran a successful guesthouse in Thong Lor. It had a nice, relaxing rainforest theme, rooms were 500 baht per night, with your own shower and bathroom, good Wi-fi and he got lots of guests, and the place was often booked out.

The place had only 10 rooms, but when you're fully booked out everyday, you're bringing in 5000 baht per day. I'd imagine with only 10 small rooms (15 square meters), with basic furniture (a bed, small cheap table and cupboard) maintenance costs would be low.

However, the Indian guy (I'll refer to him as "M") and his Thai wife split up, and the guesthouse was sold to other Thai people.

6 months or so after he sold it, I visited the guesthouse again out of nostalgia (I'll refer to the guesthouse as R). I was dating a girl who lived in BKK, and I travelled from Pattaya to BKK to meet her. She lived in shared accommodation, so me and her needed privacy.

When I arrived there, I saw a Thai couple (whom looked like they were in their early 30's) had taken over running the place, and straight away I noticed the Thai "let's go all in", business strategy had come into affect. They raised the price of rooms from 500 baht per night to 800 baht per night. For 800 baht per night, I could rent much bigger and better rooms nearby.

It wasn't because of inflation the room prices rose by 60% so quickly, because it had only been 6 months since M had sold the guesthouse. Yes, it was around Christmas time, but other hotels nearby that had much bigger rooms hadn't increased their prices by so much in the 6 months prior. Not surprisingly, with it being near Christmas, all the rooms in these other hotels were booked out.

I even checked the room prices for R during low season not long after M sold it, still 800 per night.

Even though R had only 10 rooms, it still had a few rooms available around Christmas and New Year, according to Agoda. Anyways, me and the Thai lady I was dating (I'll refer to her a D), stayed at R.

When me and her arrived there, we approached the new Thai couple running the place, and I politely asked the lady could we check in early, because M always allowed it. The lady made a big scene, made a horrible face at me and pushed a sign at me which had "check in at 13:00" written on it. So yeah, the mystery of why the place was half full around Christmas was unraveling.

When me and the D returned after a few hours to check-in, the lady handed me the keys while making a groaning sound. I could see the new owners had invested heavily in security, there was security cameras everywhere, and monitoring screens behind the reception. They put cushions on the chairs and it was nice they kept the rainforest theme.

The rooms though were pretty much the same as before. Had the "free breakfast", but they downgraded it to be just toast and jam, where as M would serve toast with egg and jam.

M always made the extra effort to make guests feel happy, such as having the occasional house party where he would provide food and drinks in the lobby, and the guests could mingle. When I stayed there for a month or so, M had my clothes dry-cleaned for free.

M liked to talk to the guests and socialised.

I know Indians aren't people's favorite group of tourists, but M didn't behave like the stereotypical Indian tourists, he was generous, polite and he was smart.

Me and the D stayed there only 2 days because D said she felt the lady running the place treated D as if she was a prostitute, and I did see the lady  running the place make a horrible face to D.

 D was from Sissaket and had Khmer features, where as the lady running the place was white skinned, BKK Chinese looking and acted as if she thought she was a hi-so.

Me and D moved to a serviced apartment that was mainly for Thai people for the same price per night, that was also in Thong Lor. The reason I didn't initially book this apartment is the staff running this place weren't friendly either when I lived there before.

My point is, the Thai couple running the place thought by increasing the price by an extra 300 baht per night, they could make lots of extra money, but I think that and their poor customer service drove people away.

Afterwards, I looked at the Agoda reviews and saw how customer reviews changed from being positive when M was running the place to having a lot of negative reviews. 

Customers said things such as the couple running the place have a poor attitude, they act like you're disturbing them when you ask them a question because the couple will be busy looking at their phone. A reviewer said the lady made him wait 10 minutes when he wanted to check-in while she fiddled with the coffee machine.

 I left an honest review talking about my experience, but the lady or possibly the man who was running the place with her responded "you cannot check-in before 13:00 you can read", and either she or him responded with snarky comments to anyone who criticized the way they ran the guesthouse.

So in other words, no constructive criticism please, don't make us lose face, but we can treat customers poorly.

If I didn't know any better, maybe they blamed foreigners for the business not getting many guests despite them raising the price by 60% while downgrading breakfast and and treating guests like shit.

The guesthouse did eventually close, not sure if it went out of business, but if it had, it's not a surprise and the couple running the place would have lost money they invested, or whoever owned the place would have.

Another example is, I bought a dessert at Lom Sak market (sweet coconut milk with noodle-shaped jelly things) for 40 baht, and afterwards, my Thai wife told me it should only be 10 baht, and she took me to another seller who sold the exact same thing for 10 baht.

Anyways, I bought the same dessert from the seller my wife showed me another 30 or so times. Now had the first seller not ripped me off, I would have bought from her many more times, but she only thought about one day and went for the easy "charge farang 4x more", without thinking maybe his Thai wife will be there, and without thinking will I come back again.

I had bought fruit from the seller who ripped me off a few times (my wife was with me those times), and she had a pretty big store, so it wasn't like she has no other sources of income.

My father was a Ford manager for 40 years in Australia, and my brother is a manager for Dulux in Australia. They often talk about business strategy, ie good customer service, quality products etc. Not "let's raise the prices higher to make more money easily".

But I'll give an example of a Thai lady with good business strategy. She inherited an entire building with apartment rooms from her father, she kept making money renting out the rooms without doing any crazy huge investments trying to get even more rich.

She did invest in low risk high reward businesses such as a dry cleaning business in an area where there's many tourists. She analysed things beforehand and said many hotels charge much money for dry cleaning, so she'll offer a cheaper dry cleaning service to tourists, and the business made money.

She invested in a successful restaurant, selling farang food such as burgers and fries in an area where there's many farang. Restaurant wasn't anything fancy or poshy, just a casual dining experience where farang could enjoy reasonably priced American style food. 

She didn't borrow huge amounts of money and invest in condos or other crazy things hoping to become mega rich.

As for me, I earn an income through earning interest and buying and selling land. I live comfortably, I don't want to take huge risks hoping to become mega rich, just to show everyone.

I live in Lom Sak, which is a comfortable place for me to live, and food in Lom Sak is very cheap since food grows well in Phetchabun. As I keep saying, it's not just about how much money you make, but what your expenses are