Dealflow in Thailand – Immigration and The Life in and out of the Border with Michael Bereslavsky

Today we are talking Thailand lifestyle and business. It is also about buying online businesses more in the content and software as a service or SAS business world. It is an interesting follow-up, an interview with Michael Bereslavsky who is also a business broker and based in Thailand.

√ Michael’s VIP Expert Page
√ Domain Magnate – Michael’s website
√ Thailand immigration info

Thank you Michael! This has been a great talk. Thanks for your time and I think you’ll give some people some insights about Thailand .

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Episode 266 of Global From Asia. We are talking about deal-making in Thailand. Welcome to the Global From Asia podcast where the daunting process of running an international business is broken down into straight-up actionable advice. And now your host Michael Michelini. Thank you very much for choosing to download and listen and stream or however you’re getting this into your ear buds, or maybe you’re putting it on the speaker phone at your office or your kids. My kids

[00:00:33] sometimes listen to the show or listening to it. They just bust into my home office honestly during the recording. So I I think they might be more popular. You guys might like listen to them more than me. Maybe, ha. Told my son maybe he’ll become the host one day. Six years for this show in October.

[00:00:53] There’s been some pauses and ups and downs and did the shows, two a week. Sometimes do show every other week. We’re at 266 shows at the Global From Asia interview series. We had the e-commerce Gladiator series which had somewhat of an ending, or a new beginning last week. Got a lot of feedback from listeners and some people don’t listen to every single shows that they didn’t know the whole story. And they were listening to one show saying Mike.

[00:01:14] I don’t know what’s going on. Sorry about that. I guess I’m making the Assumption some of you followed some of the previous series of the shows. We will keep things rocking and rolling. This week’s interesting follow-up. It’s interview. We have another business broker. There’s I’m getting in the world of business brokering or buying and selling of businesses myself.

[00:01:36] This one’s also about buying online businesses more in the content and software as a service or SaaS business world. And, he’s based in Thailand. I bumped into him in a group, talked about Thailand Elite visa and immigration and and we turned it into an episode. So it’s a mix of lifestyle, hows, tips, why choosing to live in Thailand?

[00:02:00] Like I also chosen what’s the pros some of the cons all these different immigration options some of you and maybe watch my video blog at Mike’s blog.com. And you seen some of the struggles I’ve been through when I first came here. There is some hassles I think immigration is a pain in the butt anywhere. But he’s he talks about some of the perks he gets as a Thailand Elite Visa holder for 20 years, which is pretty amazing and we get into some other stories and in my blah blah blah section after I’ll talk about some of my first year almost come into a year of living in Thailand.

[00:02:37] And we’ll hear about some my own pros and cons as well. So without further ado let’s get into this week’s show globalfromasia.com/episode266.  For the show notes and full transcription, we are investing in transcribing this and we have an amazing team LJ and Sheryl and Alvin and Mindy and more helping make this show go online after my big mouth is done talking on the microphone, but let’s get into this week’s show.

[00:03:05] Are you looking to get into Amazon FBA but you don’t want all the headaches of dealing actual business you looking to be more of a passive investor getting exposure to the growing FBA business. So as you might have heard in recent episodes, I am a partner at alpharockcapital.com. It is a holdings company going through the process of being a proper fund but not yet technically can see that buying and holding and consolidating Amazon FBA companies if you are interested to get involved

[00:03:34] Or even maybe sell your business. Check it out alpharockcapital.com.  Thank you everybody for tuning into another Global from Asia podcast. We are talking Thailand and Deals trading and lifestyle. I have exciting guest on the show today, Michael.  I’m going to try my best, Bereslavsky from Domain Magnate.

[00:03:59] So thanks so much for making it today on the show, Michael. Thanks, Mike and good morning. Yeah, it’s a great morning. So you’re up earlier in Europe, now you say.  I am in Chiang Mai Thailand right now so nice. Okay. Great. Eleven am. Yeah same time zone here. So we’re talking today in we’re going to kind of do a mix of business and lifestyle as always people like a little bit of technical part of you know, living in Asia.

[00:04:29] Of course Asia, and of course, you are a deal your broker dealmaker. Do you want to maybe introduce yourself a little bit to our listeners? Oh sure, so I run a small private Equity Firm called the Domain Magnate. We buy businesses. We manage our own portfolio. They also recently started our first fund.

[00:04:51] With investors and our strategy is generally to buy content and SaaS businesses. So if I am to find the best deals to manage them and try to improve things and then they try to resell quickly. Do make some profits and that’s something that I’ve personally been involved in for the past 15 years and that’s also always been my passion, you know, just buying and selling things.

[00:05:20] Online businesses the main names, to real estate in different countries. All kinds of things like that. Exciting. Yeah. I mean, it’s it’s exciting. I mean, I’m actually I don’t know if we should catch up to I’m deeper into FBA lately. But I mean, I’m also passionate about content. A lot of our listeners do online businesses and SaaS and FBA and it myself actually we’re more actively working in consolidating certain FBA companies, which I could mention to you is really really new for my my own world, but it’s exciting times and.

[00:05:54] It’s great to have you on the show. So when you’re doing that so you pick to kind of sensor your life and work around Thailand. How did that how did you first get into thinking Thailand’s the place to be? Well, I used to live in Israel. And then I started traveling a bit more. And I decided to see if I could move out and you know move to a different place.

[00:06:20] So I’ve been traveling quite a bit for past 3 or so years, and I just found myself coming back to Thailand every time.  So I figured that I quite like it and I decided too that I might just make it one of my sort of Home bases. And I got a Visa and I even bought some real estate here and that’s it.

[00:06:45] And I’ve learned three words in Thai so far and for years, okay. Yeah. I’m new to Thailand too so I’m taking notes for myself. And, I’ve been in a little bit less than a year. And yeah, it’s definitely a nice, nice place and relaxed. Good quality of life cost of living and it’s true where I we we don’t need to learn Thai right.

[00:07:11] I mean you said you have a few words, but you can you can live pretty well without the language which is, I know some listeners might be concerned to travel outside her home country with languages and things like that. Yeah. It’s a difficult language to learn like it’s not it’s not like English just not like the European languages.

[00:07:29] It’s just more complicated. Definitely and then there’s a different character sets. It always looks like these curly curly lines, you know. And, it’s a tricky one. Well, there’s a part of this but I think one of our first world problems, I think of a lot of listeners and ourselves as we can kind of almost pick anywhere, but I don’t think anywhere is exactly perfect.

[00:07:53] I think every country or location has negatives. What would you say or maybe you don’t you don’t see any is there anything that’s an issue here in Thailand from your perspective? Yeah. Absolutely. I think everything has some benefits and some downsides. I had you know, it’s funny you say that because I had that impression when I first decided to move out of Israel and decided that maybe I will just go and live somewhere else and then I realized that I could live anywhere pretty much and there is the result of choice.

[00:08:25] So I’ve spent some time in Europe. I was in US, Canada. I was in South America. I travelled a little bit around Asia and you know everything you can’t drive would go I’d start thinking. Would I like to live here and just start looking at the different benefits and downsides figuring out what fits best?

[00:08:46] Okay. Yeah, it’s true. And do you have any specific negatives you can think of or in Thailand? Yeah, when it comes to Thailand, I’m guessing when you compare it to the Western world. It’s not it’s not as developed. So it’s not a problem, not as tidy not as clean. The language certainly is a barrier.

[00:09:14] So most yeah, most locals did not speak much English. Because there’s a more educated people would try not to speak good English, but most people in Thailand, I would say to not speak almost any English at all. There are probably quite a few things you can you can come up if in terms of negatives, but I think the positives are pretty good as well.

[00:09:40] I’d say the main thing I like about Thailand is that the culture is really really kind of nice and positive and polite. So as today, a few weeks ago I was I was in the Grab, Grab is your local Uber. And about 10 or 15 minutes after I left the the taxi, I suddenly saw the taxi driver come by. I was at the doctor’s office and he came by and he gave me a 1,000 Baht note.

[00:10:12] And I was really surprised like what’s going on? I I know that I paid I paid automatically through the app. Hmm and it turns out I just drop some cash in the cab. Like it just fell out of my pocket. And of course I had no idea I would have never even noticed that so he could have just you know continue to it, but he realized that and then he came back to return.

[00:10:36] So, you know, we do it happen in a place where you’re living right now. That’s great. True true. Yeah, they’re very very honest. I think it’s also a lot of the religion is primarily Buddhist. There’s temples everywhere and they think their, their lifestyle is is not as money oriented which sometimes might be a negative because they’re.

[00:11:00] Maybe always in a rush either right? Sometimes I may be add to his little bit slower here. I spent many years in China. So it’s much slower here, which is a good and a bad thing. But yeah, you can definitely trust people don’t, in my experience. Don’t don’t ya like you are very honest and don’t take advantage but I think one of the issues of for me at least has been immigration, I’ve.

[00:11:26] I’ve been I’ve been learning about it. But I think a lot of the digital Nomads maybe the the startups might not have good options. I guess you can take karate class or you can take Thai class. You know, I think there’s there’s some options but I think immigration is a little bit of a headache if you’re not if you’re not sure where or how long you’ll stay or other options.

[00:11:53] Yeah, absolutely. I’ve noticed that in the past, in the past couple of years specifically they’ve gotten a lot more strict. So I know many many people, some friends as well that got in trouble with immigration recently in Thailand. Yeah, they’ve been cracking down. I think it seems like it’s happening everywhere around the world because I think years ago governments didn’t really know about this whatever you want to call digital Nomads or lifestyle.

[00:12:22] Business entrepreneurs etcetera they didn’t really know. And we online business people could kind of just go under the radar and live anywhere and just kind of do Visa runs, but it’s it’s I think most governments now are realizing this is a thing and they are they’re catching up.  and. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:12:46] And then I think the next part is, you know, there are some options. I think Thailand has an elite Visa program which which is interesting but it’s definitely would say more at the elite level. Do you want to share about this program that that they have?  Yeah, so this is the one that I bought recently.

[00:13:08] And I gave it some thought so there are several options right now. If you’re coming in for like a short-term you can just get a regular Visa. Well, this is the this exemption you can stay for one month in Thailand or 40 days in most passports and then you can extend it for 30 more days.  But then it becomes more difficult because the next time you come into the country.

[00:13:35] They might not let you in. They might force you to get a visa and that happened a couple times with some people I know. So the option would be to go get a free month Visa all the 6-month Visa, which is something that you can just get through for your Embassy like in the US or wherever before you go to Thailand and a longer term option would be to get a one-year Visa.

[00:14:00] So they have few options. Like you mentioned the if language learning or there’s Muay Thai and that but that forces you to go to classes. So you actually have to go take a couple times a week do some classes and learn so spend some time. And the other option is the Thai Elite visa which I think is the best option if you can afford it.

[00:14:26] So the ones that I got is for are we had and they have several options? The one that I got is for 20 years and it costs 1 million Baht. So that’s about $32,000 and that basically a Visa. It’s a renewable one year Visa so you can spend you can stay in the country for over 20 years and every time you enter you get a one-year stamp.

[00:14:55] Awesome. Yeah, it definitely seems like the way to go and I know some listeners might be thinking it’s a little bit much but I know I saw in the group, you know, we can ..in Invest Like A Boss group and I saw yeah, I think if we do the math right people don’t realize it just look at the total number. But I think if you’re really dividing it all out and the travel of the all the school costs all that.

[00:15:17] I don’t know if you’d like to share some of the mathematical processes. Yeah, so it’s like sixteen hundred dollars per year and you don’t have to do any kind of Visa runs. You don’t have to worry about it. If you are staying in Thailand, you don’t have to go to the extensions. So it’s you you save a lot of time.

[00:15:43] You also get some extra VIP services so you get fast track to Airport. You might get some limo service to the airport, which is just like a grab. Yeah, if they call it, it’s funny. They call it the limo service. But in reality is just just a regular car that you know, it’s like the same as grab. Wow.

[00:16:05] Did he give you champagne or anything? Yeah, it’s not it’s not an actual. Limo. It’s very strange. It’s just a regular car and it’s actually more complicated than Grab because you have to order it up front like this case and then you have to confirm it and then like you have to explain and give them the address and everything.

[00:16:23] So it’s easier to just use grab. Yeah. Yeah, especially in Chiang Mai. It’s not so far from the airport and stuff. But well that’s a. There’s some perks. I mean, I’ve I don’t have it. Yeah, I’m, honestly for me, I’m on a guardian Visa have two kids. So I’m like a dad. So as long as I pay my kids school and and everything.

[00:16:44] I’m okay, but it’s a. There’s and I know some people what they do is, course you can set up a register a company and hire yourself and hire four Thais or there’s these services that are gray I would say. I don’t know how legal they are. But you probably heard of these where they can hire you for a fee.

[00:17:04] You pay your pay yourself through them, which is seems like it’s somewhat popular in Thailand, but I would say some the gray area. There’s different different options. But I think for like this Thai Elite Visa is a you know, they try to make it a VIP experience. They also will you know, you don’t have to do these travels as much, you know, it’s a VIP experience and they get to show you.

[00:17:35] You know. You know, you could do the math if you divide out the flights and all these or the fees or taxes or if you registered a company Etc. You know, I think I’ve heard others entirely. These are to say it does work out over the time does that mean you’re 20 years is you’re a lifer or I don’t know just seems like you must love it here, right?

[00:17:56] You’re looking for a long term. I like it. Yeah. I’m not sure how long I’m gonna stay here. I think I can definitely see myself coming to Thailand for first few months every year and you know, it’s nice just to have an option and to know that that you can that you are always like a VIP tourist in in Thailand.

[00:18:18] Even if you are living on the other side of the globe. True, you got that. It is so has a card you have like a some kind of a special card for this for must be right on your passport is there is a. Yeah, it’s called The Elite Card. Nice. It’s yeah, it’s actually kind of handy so I showed that a couple times like I showed it at the bank once it’s a Bangkok bank and I noticed how the attitude just changed immediately cuz I’m usually dressed just like your average backpacker on you know in short and they don’t pay that much attention because that’s how everyone is dressed.

[00:18:58] And I just showed that the Elite card and I noticed attitude immediately changed. There you go. Okay, like come in please sit here and enjoy some extra services like they want to open another bank account or something like that and then I’ll give me to show me how to use. I forgot like there is this extra ATM service like you set up the the bank app and all those things, that’s handy.

[00:19:31] That does sound like a good perk and I think also, you know some other benefits let’s talk maybe on a deal flow. So you’re buying selling businesses I think Thailand is also probably good for networking. I mean, there’s a lot of I know there’s a lot of community. There’s Advanced is that part of it or I mean you.

[00:19:49] Would you say that’s a benefit of Thailand? There must be a lot of people. I’d say that Chiang Mai, Chiang Mai has quite a quite a good community of entrepreneurs. Actually I noticed that you recently interviewed Matt Diggity who’s also my. Yeah. Yeah, he’s a yeah, very active and experienced SEO guy definitely recommend checking out that episode for listeners.

[00:20:13] Yeah, of course, he does a conference for SEO we talked about and yeah, there’s this place has become the hub for Nomads, I guess this but there’s somewhat of a negative a little bit some of my friends, you know, they say it’s a lot of times newbies come here right there. It’s kind of gotten that first.

[00:20:33] Destination for the new digital Nomad so but there’s people like you and me and and Matt Diggity and others that are spending more time here too. But I think there’s also quite a bit of new people which which is which is fine, you know, of course, we will at least I welcome, you know, people new to the online business world and.

[00:20:54] But it does give that ability for people anywhere because it’s little pretty low costs and pretty welcoming and there’s meetups all the time people can go to and especially in this industry, you’re in content and SaaS type of business world. There’s plenty of that here, but of course we can do online as well.

[00:21:14] Like we’re doing this podcast online and other parts. Do you want to share like, maybe what’s the normal life, day in the life for you, Domain Magnate, like some deals you want examples or some some some ways you would do your normal work?  Yeah, yeah, so there is quite a big Community like you mentioned.

[00:21:37] And says the maturity are starting out. So Chiang Mai mostly attracts people that want to go and going to figure things out and try to start the online business, but also quite a few people that have established businesses. And some serious companies and know there are quite a few FBA people here as well.

[00:21:59] There are so there are so many events. That’s crazy. Like everybody has something. There are entrepreneurs events that attract like a couple hundred people and it’s just and it just a random weekly event for example. So this seems quite big so for me personally, In terms of the business, what we do is we buy we buy different mostly content and SAAS-sites.

[00:22:27] So for example, last month’s report accountant business with makes about 150,000 dollars in profit and so we are working on that. We got, We acquire the South business with about 50,000 dollars in annual profit. And so that’s that’s the kind of businesses we deal with.  For me personally My Lifestyle.

[00:22:54] It’s one of the things I like about Thailand is of course the the costs so everything is kind of cheap and you can get some really good services and Chiang Mai for most things.  True. So I’m able to have a really good lifestyle here without spending, you know nearly as much as I would in other places.

[00:23:13] So I’m able to so I have a I have a personal trainer that that goes with me to the gym every day and he’s a professional bodybuilder like one of the bodybuilders in Thailand for some. Nice. Yeah, like I have Bodywork specialist with I go to every once in a while just to do some massage to help if some you know, if some with some posture and spinal alignment things like that.

[00:23:38] Like the medical service is also very good. Like their medical check-ups and things like that. That’s pretty good here in an expensive not expensive. Going, you know going to the pool and just things like that with food is it’s possible to get. Excuse me. There’s healthy good quality food also at reasonable prices.

[00:24:06] So you can you can pretty much get anything you want at, inexpensively here. That’s what I. Yeah, totally totally agree with you mean, it’s also what’s that medical tourism? I think Thailand’s a top Place globally for people take a vacation do some medical things and you still save money net from doing it in your home country.

[00:24:28] So I think there’s a huge industry for for that here. But of course if you and I are like we’re living here we can just do it anytime we want to but some people, you know, make it make it make it a trip. And so here’s let’s back to your business lifestyle. So you’re you know, like you’re going to have your personal trainer and you know, your your masseuse and then you’re doing your business trade.

[00:24:53] So thank you most do not online or is there any off I mean are you doing this at events and person or is this purely like purely like calls like this and and email. Is there any offline element purely online? Yeah, it’s all been online so far. Actually it’s interesting. I’ve never done. I’ve never done an online deal offline.

[00:25:16] I’ve done offline deals offline. Like I bought some some properties here and there so that’s something that you have to do offline, of course, but when it comes to online businesses, it’s only been online deals. Okay, so there’s no like a meeting in a garage and one person brings the suitcase and one person brings the domain transfer.

[00:25:42] Yeah, that’s, not yet. But yeah, there are definitely meetings and meetups. So like some of the people that I’ve done deals. We’ve met before in person, but somehow the deals themselves have just always happened online. I don’t know that’s how it’s been here. I mean, I think that’s the beautiful thing about buying something online businesses.

[00:26:08] Like you can do it anywhere and of course, you know, there’s usually it’s like a checklist, of course the domain any kind of servers, you know, customer databases, but that’s a beautiful thing about doing online business is it’s pretty pretty transferable and can be done online. So that’s pretty amazing.

[00:26:31] Yeah, absolutely. And now that the act going into some bigger. Biggest like bigger scales and we are getting close to the looking at businesses, you know around 1 million dollars. I expect that there will be a bit more offline deals as well. So I expect that some of the some of those deals, I might get to to meet someone, you know to meet some of the sellers and negotiate a little bit directly.

[00:27:01] So that might happen soon. Okay, cool. Yeah, I mean think events are great for that and and networking and finding more finding more opportunities and more more deals. So yeah, I mean, I think. This has been a fun conversation and maybe you can share a little bit about how your business works or how people can connect with you.

[00:27:22] Yeah, sure. So if you have content business that you want to sell a Content or a SAAS business. Alright, now we denote by F be a businesses, but we’ll probably get into that next year. So you can just contact us by going to the domainmagnate.com/sell. Or you can look me up directly. Just Google Michael Bereslavsky and you know contact me through Facebook or Twitter. Cool.

[00:27:52] And this is for sellers. We feel also have different services for investors and they have a concierge buying Service as well, if you’re looking to buy established businesses.  And there we are currently starting a podcast which should go live sometime this month in August. Great. So it’ll be on the site if people can just find a podcast tab to subscriber listening.

[00:28:23] Yeah. Oh, yeah, it’ll be everywhere at will. Okay the iTunes. Yeah, and we have already recorded a couple interesting episodes. The first one one of the first ones was with a CEO flipper nice. So they have some really interesting discussions. Okay, great. I’ll check it out too. And this has been a great talk Michael.

[00:28:44] Thanks for your time. And I think you’ll give some people some insights about maybe why Thailand some of the some of the options was also for the immigration kind of immigration things. So thank you and we should also talk too I mean, I’m actually a pretty active in FBA space here and Contents, SAAS, hopefully there’s some ways we can also collaborate as well.

[00:29:09] Sure, thanks Mike and thanks for having me a pleasure to talk to you. My pleasure. Are you making payments in and out of Asia? Do you want to simple and lower cost way to do that? Check out goremit.hK one of our long-term sponsors here at Global from Asia support in the show support. If you enjoy what you’re listening to you can check them out.

[00:29:30] If you have a Hong Kong bank and you want to make payments to other parts of Asia and just pay a small Commission on your transaction rather than these fixed costs and other hassles or deal with traditional Banks they are. Good place to check out of course free to apply go through the KYC process.

[00:29:46] Once you are approved. You can make payments to China Philippines Vietnam Thailand and many other places. Check it out www.goremit.hk. Okay. Thank you Michael for sharing. I love making, making connections and meeting people one plus one equals three hopefully in life, at least that’s what we should all be working towards all.

[00:30:09] Plan to meet up with him soon and talk some business. So a little bit I said in my blah blah blah section at the end. I’m going to talk about some of my experiences in Thailand for the last year Michael and I were chatting about it after the interview too use like oh you’re here. Why are you here?

[00:30:24] Oh, and he also said other foreigners. He knows I have Chinese girlfriends or relationships also have recently moved down to Chiang Mai Thailand. So first, maybe I spend almost over 10 years 2007. I moved to Shenzhen, China for sourcing and opportunity seeking entrepreneur.  Sucker for punishment may be as well.

[00:30:50] I’d like a challenge. I like it. I like chaotic things. That’s that’s that’s a lot of friends. I met China like that 2D Adventure. And then you know you get married you get kids. Life changes. So for me and also the environment in China has changed a lot to me now. It’s really crazy. I mean a lot of my friends say.

[00:31:14] Wow, good thing you moved last year seems like a warzone literally happening at least in the Hong Kong side, which is sad makes me actually tear up a little bit, but it’s not why I left. I left mostly for my kids educational choices. I tell Michael after the interview, too. If you want English education in China, and I think at least 20 $30,000 a year for kindergarten which is insane right and of course I could have moved back to America.

[00:31:44] I’m an American could have hung out with my American friends or those in America. I’m not yet ready to put my hat up and hang up and in Asia and Thailand’s only a couple hours away. There’s tons of direct flights directly to Chiang Mai and of course in to Bangkok, it’s just an hour flight from Bangkok.

[00:32:04] So but I think the main, number one was the kids school. I am not down to Nimman, you know in Michaels based in Nimman and I try to get there when I can for some events, but I’m kind of up in the burbs about 20 or so minutes away from downtown Chiang Mai. And I’m in a house, I pay 600 bucks a month for 2 Story House 3 bedroom 4 bedroom depends on what you consider a bedroom, maybe even more. Three bathrooms and you know a little bit of a yard not as not like an American suburb yard, but kids can kick a ball around and it’s a gated community and.

[00:32:37] We’re about 10 or so minutes from the school. I wish I could walk there. I walk to school my mom and dad always wanted me to walk to school. I wish I could have walked with kids to school but there are super highways in between here and the school so we’re not walking distance. But you know, I I’m so far happy with it.

[00:32:56] It was a bit of a nightmare in Immigration for me. I’m a parent. These are Guardian Visa. So I paid my kids school up front at a half certain amount of money in the bank sir, my waiting time and processing and converting a visa from one to another all this nightmare and limit the lines. It’s actually seems to have gotten better even the last year but as in anything the transition and in the first part of anything is always the hardest.

[00:33:25] And I would say in this blah blah blah section. I I’m a family man. I’m a dad. I’m working online doing this podcast in my little actually I kicked my, my well my daughter out of this bedroom. I use one of the bedrooms as my studio. And they pop in sometimes to say hello, even though I tell them not to which I know is other Dad’s or mom’s working at home get a co-working space or office somewhere, but I still insist to work here usually get a lot of my work done in the morning.

[00:33:56] Anyway as much as I can the brain work the maker work afternoon is like the email and the phone calls and the the communications type of work, but we are working really hard here. And and we can work anywhere so I mean in Thailand and then I try to spend the you know evening with my kids. You know, it’s no matter how much no matter how rich you are you still need time time is I think the best asset so I’m really trying to spend as much time with my kids as I can and just want to make a good life for them II I know I won’t get these years back.

[00:34:33] So I’m you know, I’m hanging out suburbs of Thailand of has some friends make it out to here and really while you’re really kind of an American suburbs of Thailand. It’s true. I mean, you can’t even walk. There’s no 7-Elevens. I mean I can cross a highway. It would be about a 10-minute walk to a 7-Eleven.

[00:34:48] So but this is why I chose when I left China. I wanted this more family-oriented life online based work. I definitely think Thailand or many parts of Southeast Asia, of course, people are all crazy about Vietnam and other places, but for me, I’m a dad first. I’m probably losing out on some business opportunities. Did a pretty cool deal with Alpha Rock and Mark and them and we’ll get them more into show of course as well.

[00:35:16] But yeah, I’m I’m happy I moved to Thailand. I don’t know. Of course. We never know what would have happened if we had stayed where we were or went to a different place. But as far as this blah blah blah section of my first year in the first few months little bit stressful, I think anywhere new place, especially if you’re trying to go through the immigration of any country and the unknowns, your kids school, but their English is approved so much.

[00:35:43] When Miles was in and Maggie wasn’t old enough going to school when we were in China, but his here one English class A Day.  And I don’t want to disrespect anybody but the teacher English teacher that had met it’s not somebody I would invite over for dinner. Let’s say, but anyway, I don’t know I wasn’t so satisfied with the English level and we’re paying about ten thousand dollars a year or something for that.

[00:36:12] So it was like no English not much English learning and Maggie’s coming up for that as well. So 20 grand a year for two kids and little to no English. I feel was a little bit hard and yeah, I could teach my kids English. I could I could spend hours a day trying to teach them the alphabet. Of course.

[00:36:31] I read to them but they need proper education. I can’t self educate my kids honestly, even if I cut out a certain amount of hours, so I don’t have patience to be honest and I like to do my online work. And of course spend time with my kids, but I can’t be their teacher. So we looked around and.  you know, I learned a lot of my friends said oh Vietnam Vietnam like do you got kids or like no, I’m like, do you know anybody who has kids that has that goes to school there and they’re like no like one or two said yes, but then I looked and then they were maybe in.

[00:37:04] Corporate jobs with pay their kids school fee and it was $25,000 a year or something. I mean, seriously, I can’t I don’t even know if I had that kind of money. I would want to spend $25,000 a year for my kids kindergarten. I just feel like that’s Insanity. So anyways, I feel here in Thailand. I’m paying about 7 or 8 a year for each kid.

[00:37:26] It keeps increasing every grade. Miles has moved up to K-Three now, so the price has gone up every year steadily and then I always crack it up. I’m paying the bill literally this month that’s paying the bill for the school, you know. We brought the kids and my wife and we’re and they’re like, oh, yeah, we forgot about another charge and we’re going to last year.

[00:37:48] We did a survey and in the survey, they said that they didn’t like the food and they wanted more choices and some of the kids didn’t have enough food. So now we’re going to move to a buffet style lunch instead of a set lunch and that’s going to be another 10,000 baht as semester a kid. So sorry gotta add 20,000 Baht more for you this year.

[00:38:09] I’m like, I’m laughing. I’m like, you know, I had that like when I was your age, I ate those like I don’t know tater tots and like what was one of those US president said ketchup counts as a vegetable, you know, I was eating with those Styrofoam plates and you know, That’s the kind of lunch I ate and I or my mom would give me a doggy bag of lunch, you know pack a lunch for me.

[00:38:35] I think we usually buy the hot lunch, like hot lunch or cold lunch. You know, I think I’ll get the hot lunch, but these guys are going to get a buffet lunch now, so I guess they’re, you know, getting the good life the good life, but. And they’re definitely getting a lot of outdoor stuff.

[00:38:52] You know, I’m up in The Burbs of Thailand Chiang Mai in the mountains and there’s, my wife’s pretty happy to so many Chinese here. So half the time I can’t even remember if I’m left China were in like a Saturday night family, families get together and they’re all speaking Chinese even a kids are speaking Chinese and I’m just like this white dude on a phone kind of like my life in China again.

[00:39:13] Anyway, so far away seems happy, you know, it’s definitely a slower paced life. I. But of course I get out I come back to China I go to, I was just in Manila. I was in Bangkok, you know, so the kids and wife are happy here and I go out for my War battles into to these War zones. Literally. I probably go to Hong Kong soon and got a strap up man get my Shields and gas masks on before I go and kiss.

[00:39:40] Wife and Kids goodbye, and I hope I can make it back to the burbs and Chiang Mai in the mountains of North Thailand. So thanks so much for choosing to listen to Global from Asia getting up to six years here. And please try to support our sponsors. We have some regulars goremit.hk I try to plug them on a lot of the shows for cross-border payments.

[00:40:00] And of course one of our sponsors are our partners or my you know, a lot of my time now is alpharockcapital.com. Definitely check them out for Amazon FBA and we got even our guest today Domain Magnate Michael, is buying SaaS and content businesses, which kind of all works out, you know, you can buy and sell all these kind of different businesses and move out the Thailand and live the good life in the mountains.

[00:40:26] Come on out. See you guys later. Bye. To get more info about running an international business, please visit our website at triple www.globalfromasia.com that’s www.globalfromasia.com. Also be sure to subscribe to our iTunes feed. Thanks for tuning in.