Karsten Aichholz

Karsten is a former pro-gamer turned tech entrepreneur, the youngest of three sons to a British mother and a German father. He worked across India, Dubai, Austria, and Germany as a management trainee at Lufthansa before settling in Bangkok, where he founded Thailand Starter Kit to help newcomers find their feet and make the most of life in Thailand.
Hire-and-Manage-a-Team

HR: How to Hire and Manage a Team of Rock Star Thai Employees

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In the close to 10 years I’ve been running companies in Thailand I’ve probably done more than 200 job interviews. I still remember the very first one. Especially my surprise when I heard the candidate wasn’t too keen working on Saturdays. It seems the management books I read before coming here were a bit out of date when they talked about how common 6-day work weeks were.

Over the years I caught up with current times and tested a lot of new recruitment options myself. From job ads in the restrooms of an IT conference (funny, but not successful) to enlisting university professors in my headhunting efforts (not funny, but tremendously successful).

In the end I came up with some solid recruitment insights that resulted in a great team and significantly reduced turn-over and Tylenol consumption.

Here are the lessons I learned as a German entrepreneur while building a Thai team.

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A-Cross-Cultural-Management

HR: A Cross-Cultural Management Guide to Thailand

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A few weeks back I wrote about building a kick-ass team of Thai employees and how to deal with the challenges of recruiting and assembling an awesome team. Today I’d like to look at the day-to-day management of an expat manager in Thailand.

What follows is my own best practices that I came to use over 10 years while running a tech start-up out of Bangkok. For my own company these turned out to work quite well, but that doesn’t mean it’s the only or the best way to go about it. What might have worked for a tech company of 20 people might not be suitable for larger organisations or different industries, so take this with a grain of salt.

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A-Cross-Cultural-Management

HR: A Cross-Cultural Management Guide to Thailand

by

A few weeks back I wrote about building a kick-ass team of Thai employees and how to deal with the challenges of recruiting and assembling an awesome team. Today I’d like to look at the day-to-day management of an expat manager in Thailand.

What follows is my own best practices that I came to use over the last 10 years while running a tech start-up out of Bangkok. For my own company these turned out to work quite well, but that doesn’t mean it’s the only or the best way to go about it. What might have worked for a tech company of 20 people might not be suitable for larger organisations or different industries, so take this with a grain of salt.

Read more

Do-a-Business-in-Thailand

General: Is It a Good Idea to Do a Business in Thailand?

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When my former business partner and I picked out Thailand, I was 22 years old. Thailand was on our radar because he had done an internship here. That was it.

From the get-go, the main reason to look into Thailand were lower costs and the flexibility of a web-based business: Things seemed a lot cheaper and for our customers it didn’t matter if we were located in Germany or Thailand. My business partner had some professional contacts in Bangkok, nothing bending-the-rule-of-law-crazy, but ‘having someone who you trust and can ask’.

That was a good starting point, especially since we were heavily bootstrapping.

The due diligence process that would determine the rest of my life, came down to some very basic questions: Does Thailand really like to see foreign investors succeed? Are Thais happy to coexist with an expatriate population? Is the infrastructure – from a labor market to international internet connections – functional to the degree we require? Are the costs significantly lower compared to being based in Germany?

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modern condo in Bangkok featured image

An In-Depth Guide to Renting an Apartment in Bangkok

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This guide to renting in Bangkok was written to help you cut that two week-long search down to two days. Whether you’re a first-time expat or just wondering if you can find a better deal than you already have, this should make things significantly easier.