FOUNDED in 2013 by a group of French, Swiss, Belgian, Indian and Thai entrepreneurs, eatigo makes a business of connecting empty stomachs to empty tables. Via their website, iPhone and Android applications, the eatigo guys serve up time-based discounts of up to 50% for all participating restaurants, every day at over 100 of the most popular dining places in Bangkok.

The discounts apply to every food item on the menu and can be booked at no cost whatsoever online with no need for any credit card information and no printing of coupons.

Aaron Grieser and Brian Bartusch 
Founders

TWO fates collided when home-brewers and beer fanatics Aaron Grieser and Brian Bartusch met at a food festival in Spring of 2012. Realizing their mutual love of all things craft beer, the two joined forces to create Thailand’s first craft beer importing company, Beervana (read our feature about the company here).

Since launching Thailand’s first craft beers, it can be safely said that Beervana started a movement. Whereas only a few years ago Bangkok was a virtual beer desert, today the city is awash with great craft beer, including many imported by new beer distributors following in Beervana’s footsteps.

And Beervana remains at the vanguard. “We are a mission driven company, and we have two missions,” says Aaron. “We are here to help lead a vibrant beer scene in Thailand, and to have the most fun doing it.”  

Innovation is clearly part of Beervana’s secret sauce: from Thailand’s first brewing and beer judging courses, to experiments with a tech-centric self-pour draft beer wall, to the launch of Beervana’s new smartphone app ‘BEERME.’ 

“We don’t just want to do something new for Thailand, though” Aaron explains. “We want to make Thailand a hub for beer innovation in the world.”  

www.seekbeervana.com

Sarah Huang
Co-founder

AFTER nine years in the corporate doghouse Australian expat Sarah Huang – a mother of one and a dog owner – broke free to venture out on her own. With help from business partner Harprem Doowa and Ardent Capital, a local venture capital fund led by veteran entrepreneur Adriyn Vanzyl, she launched Thailand’s first vertical e-commerce stores, Petloft.com and Venbi.com. 

Now with over 5,000 SKU’s, 20,000 customers and hundreds of direct relationships with major brands such as Royal Canine, Unicharm, Nestle, Betagrow and Nike, Venbi and Petloft have become leading e-commerce stores for baby and pet essentials.

“We started out with 12 employees working from the top of a coffee shop struggling to make our first 1,000 dollars, which took 30 days.” says Sarah. “One year later we are bringing in 100k with a staff of 12 overlooking the central business district of Bangkok from a high-rise.

“Unlike other start-ups interested in flipping and selling, we’re concentrating on winning the market and building a sustainable busines. We operate in a lean startup environment and we’re conscious on how we spend investor’s money. We’re working on achieving profitability and plan to expand into Indonesia and the Philippines.”

www.petloft.com 
www.venbi.com 
www.whatsnew.asia

Anthony McDonald
Founder and CEO

AN Australian national, Anthony founded X2 (CrossTo) Resorts group in 2008. He is a successful serial entrepreneur, who after years of experience in property investment and services industries embarked on an innovative strategy in forming X2 Resorts, a personal endeavour aimed at satisfying the needs of design-focused travellers looking for something different to the traditional tropical resort designs that, while well executed, proliferate the Asian region. 

“I love boutique and design hotels, and in my first resort I was involved in every detail,” says Anthony. “From finding the location, choosing the architect, securing bank funding, overseeing the construction, and heading the hotel management – I did it all.

“Later, the idea of starting a hotel management company came across my mind and in 2011, Boutique Hospitality Management Asia (BHMAsia) was established.”

Currently, Anthony is CEO of BHMAsia. Besides Kui Buri, X2 has expanded to various locations including Samui, Chiang Mai, Sydney, and soon River Kwai and Phuket. Over the last five years his projects have won 10 local and international awards for design, architecture and landscape.

www.BHMAsia.com, www.X2LOBBY.com

Rusi Hancock
Founder

GEORGIA-born Rusi has built up a potentially lucrative business designing and manufacturing a range of beautiful hand-made leather bags and a collection of stunning jewellery and accessories. Her Thai-made products, which are marketed under her RusiDesigns brand, have appeared on the catwalks of fashion shows in the UK and Georgia. And today they’re sold in boutiques in Paris, London, Mexico, Singapore and other locations in the UK. To date, she has created two season’s collections of bags, with some available in up to 12 different colours. www.rusidesigns.com  

Carl Heaton
Managing Director

CARL is well known in Bangkok for his dry Northern English humor and ubiquitous social media presence, but above all else, it is his drive and vision in helping to put Bangkok firmly on the map as a venue for web and graphic design training that best reflects his entrepreneurial vision. 

Like a lot of expats in Thailand, Carl started out teaching English and IT. But it was while working as a project manager for a small web design company that his entrepreneurial spirit came to the fore. Frustrated by the lack of web design skills among local businesses in Bangkok, Carl combined his knowledge of IT and his teaching experience to set up Web Courses Bangkok (WCB). 

Driven by Carl’s high standards and attention to detail, WCB grew rapidly from a humble beginning with just one staff to become a leader in the field of IT training, offering courses in web design, graphic design and online marketing. WCB’s clients include everyone from homegrown startups to Coca Cola and the United Nations.

Now an officially accredited school and internationally recognized training centre, WCB will soon be the only web training center to offer Education Visas and the company has recently expanded to include a design agency and jobs portal.

www.webcoursesbangkok.com

Conor Bracken
CEO

ORIGINALLY from Dublin, Ireland, Conor first came to Thailand in 1993 and fell in love with the country and became fluent in Thai. Like many newcomers, his first job was as an English teacher but when Internet and email came to Thailand he saw the opportunity to create a translation company using websites and email to connect clients and translators around the world while leveraging the lower costs of living here.

Lacking his own source of funding, he set up his first translation company as a minority shareholder in conjunction with the largest English language school at the time; and later joined forces with one of the largest “portals” during the dotcom heyday.

  In 2006, he struck out on his own and with the backing of the Thai Board of Investment founded Andovar, a full-service translation and localization provider which handles not only all types of text translations, but also audio recording (with on-site recording studios), subtitling, desktop publishing and Flash engineering in all languages. Since then, the company has been growing at a steady pace with additional offices in Medellin (Colombia), Singapore, Miami, and this year a new production facility in Kolkata, India.

Conor is also a founding director of the Irish-Thai Chamber of Commerce.

www.andovar.com

Each day, only the 10 best deals are shown per destination. All hotels are of the three to five-star segment, and more than 100 destinations are available to date.

“The room rates on HotelQuickly are on average ca. 25-30% cheaper than the cheapest flash deal online,” says Christian. “HotelQuickly guarantees the lowest price or else refunds twice the difference.”

HotelQuickly App Co. Ltd. is a BOI certified company registered in Thailand. The entire IT development is being done out of Thailand, serving the region. The head office, including four out of five co-founders, is based in Bangkok (Silom). Total headcount is around 20.

www.hotelquickly.com

Daniel B. Fraser 
Adventurer-in-Chief

SMILING ALBINO is a luxury adventure and tour company in Thailand founded by Daniel Fraser, an entrepreneur and television host from shows like Long Krung (Thai PBS) and Farang Song Thai (Ch 5). Daniel’s Tourism Authority of Thailand video went viral and won a film award in Germany, and helped Daniel win MThai media’s “Most Talked about media personality” in 2014. Smiling Albino is a team of travel enthusiasts in Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar and Nepal. Adventures are built from continuous travel, innovation and refinement. “We host billionaires, celebrities and discerning travelers seeking an authentic, original experience,” says Daniel. “Through community-based tourism and industry-leading ethical touring

standards, Smiling Albino connects socially-conscious travelers with the real life of the peoples of SE Asia. We don’t just connect dots, we create them.”
www.smilingalbino.com

Laurent Couche
Owner

WITH a wide portfolio of Thai and European clients, Asia Media Studio’s services include naming development, logo design, brochure design, packaging design, stationery design, print production, and website design and development. All graphic design work is undertaken in-house in a modern well-appointed studio.

“We provide expert advice and creative solutions to help our clients revamp and improve all aspects of their visual communications,” says Laurent, “and our experienced team comprises dedicated professionals with expertise in a range of marketing and creative disciplines who share a common passion for high quality visual and creative work.”
www.asiamediastudio.com