ScandAsia Thailand - July 2016

JUL

2016

ScandAsia.dk ScandAsia.fi ScandAsia.no ScandAsia.se

15 years of innovation:Diakrit International enters a new era

JUL

2016

ScandAsia.dk ScandAsia.fi ScandAsia.no ScandAsia.se15 years of innovation:

Diakrit International enters a new era

Coming Events

ScandAsia is the only magazine that covers all the Danish, Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish residents in Thailand. We also publish a ScandAsia magazine in China, Singapore and the rest of South East Asia.

Your FREEScandAsia Magazine in Thailand

Please sign up for your own FREE copy: www.scandasia.comPublisher : 211 Soi Prasert Manukitch 29Prasert Manukitch RoadChorakae Bua, Lad PraoBangkok 10230, ThailandTel. +66 2 943 7166- , Fax: +66 2 943 7169

E-mail: [email protected] Editor-in-Chief : Gregers A.W. Mø[email protected]

Managing Editor :Joakim [email protected]

Journalist: Frederik Guy Hoff Sonne

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Daily news and features here:www.scandasia.com

Enjoy Scandinavian Cinema at Film Festival

The annual European Union Film Festival kicked off in Bangkok on 22 June. During July, the festival moves to Chiang Mai and Khon Kaen. Four Scandinavian movies have found their way to the program.

Bikes vs Cars (2015, Documentary)Bikes vs Cars is a Swedish documentary directed by Fredrik Gertten about the bike and what an amazing tool for change it can be. It highlights a conflict in city planning between bikes, cars and a growing reliance on fossil fuels.

Bikes vs Cars can be watched in Chiang Mai, Sunday July 17 at SFX Cinema in MAYA Lifestyle Shopping Centre and in Khon Kaen, Sunday July 24 at SF Cinema in Central Plaza.

The Fencer (2015, Drama)Finnish drama directed by Klaus Härö. Fleeing from the Russian secret police, a young Estonian fencer is forced to return to his homeland, where he becomes a physical education teacher at a local school. The past however catches up and puts him in front of a difficult choice.

You can watch the Fencer in Chiang Mai, Monday July 11 at SFX Cinema in MAYA Lifestyle

Shopping Centre and in Khon Kaen, Thursday July 21 at SF Cinema in Central Plaza.

Silent Heart (2014, Drama)Danish drama directed by Oscar-awarded director Bille August. Three generations of a family coming together over a weekend. A sick mother’s wish to die before her disease worsens gets harder to handle as old conflicts come to the surface.

Silent Heart is on the programme in in Chiang Mai, Sunday July 17 at SFX Cinema in MAYA Lifestyle Shopping Centre - and not in Khon Kaen.

The Sunfish (2014, Romantic-Drama)Danish drama directed by Søren Balle. Kesse is a third generation fisherman living in the small and windblown town of Hirtshals, in Northern Jutland. Kesse is struggling to survive, desperately holding on to the only way of life he knows. Due to increasing financial pressure, Kesse is forced to find more notorious and alternative ways of making ends meet. This in turn, leads him to meet his polar opposite, the female marine biologist Gerd.

The Sunfish is shown in Chiang Mai, Sunday July 10 at SFX Cinema in MAYA Lifestyle Shopping Centre - and not in Khon Kaen.

4 ScandAsia.Thailand • July 2016

News Brief

Ambassador met with Danes in Udon Thani

For the very first time in his soon six years’ ambassador period, Mikael Hemniti Winther, officially met the Danish expat community in

Udon Thani and the nearby regions of Northeast Thailand. The ‘meet and greet’-arrangement took place at the Good Corner, a Danish-owned restaurant owned by 4-years Udon-resident, Jytte Rasmussen.

The ambassador was flanked by Michael Madsen, consular staff at the Embassy, when they casually took up the space at the bar, while the around 30 local Danes, that had turned up, was seated at tables around the restaurant.

Mikael and Michael began with a loop of handshakes around the tables, before Mikael took the word and announced that the Embassy, to great excitement for the attendance, paid for free drinks and food for the next 2 hours. That’s an effective way to please a crowd.

The casual atmosphere continued throughout the meeting. Mikael ran through the timetable and invited people to ask “any questions they like”. Even though Mikael’s wife is from Udon Thani

and he regularly visits the region, this is his first official visit, he said.

“There are only eight people registered from the area on Danskerlisten, so if we have to look completely strict on this, only eight Danes a living in Udon, as far as we are informed”, the Ambassador told as one reason why he hadn’t visited before.

“But I can tell, that there are many more and of course we knew that”, Mikael said in his attempt for people to show more interest in the Embassy. As Mikael said, when the guests inquired about a Consulate, it goes both ways. People also have to do an effort, to show interest in the Embassy if they want to get as much as possible out of its service.

The questions from the crowd where round and about and ranged from complaints about the lack of rights as an expat and what the use of tax-paying is, as they “don’t get anything from that”.

It escalated when Jens Andersen, expat since 2009, took the floor and said “we pay our taxes, but what rights do we have? We have no health

care and we have no right to vote”.Mikael were willing to discuss the issues raised

by Jens Andersen, but also made it clear that it was out of his scope as the ambassador. Tax-issues and right-issues are strictly political questions and goes back to the central government in Copenhagen. The Embassy is a subject to the rules decided by the government.

Mikael explained: “It’s a very common mistake that many people think, that we as an Embassy has a say on the political agenda back in Denmark. We have a political engagement in Thailand, to tell the Thai government what we think of the situation in Thailand, but we don’t have a mandate back in Denmark.”

More questions concerned practical or more personal issues. When all shots were fired, Mikael and Michael sat to have a chat and a beer with the guests.

Afterwards he evaluated the meeting with ScandAsia.

“I have been planning to go to Udon Thani for some time now. I’m always happy to be out of the office and meet with the Danes. There are many frustrations and my experiences tells me that most of them are solved by meeting people - that also goes for today in my view. So I’m satisfied with today”.

What is the purpose behind these “Meet the Ambassador” events?

“The purpose is to show people that the Embassy is not some kind of ivory tower. We are always at service, available and happy to chat. People often have a lot of stories they want to share, especially when you sit down and have a beer with them and sometimes they also find interest in what you actually do as an ambassador.”

Mikeal Hemniti Winther is ending his period as Danish ambassador to Thailand this summer, when he is moving to Bangladesh.

June 2016 • ScandAsia.Thailand 5

News Brief

PR consultant and Thailand blogger Jan Källman passes away

The Swedish journalist Jan Källman has passed away during a trip to Hanoi, where he suffered a stroke that eventually took

his life after almost a fortnight in hospital in the Vietnamese capital.

He was based in Bangkok since 2008 as Asia correspondent for Cafe a Swedish lifestyle magazine. Jan contributed to a range of other Swedish media from Bangkok as well but he probably became most known among Swedish readers in and outside Thailand through his blog “Bara i Bankan”. In this blog he reflected in his own style over life, people, politics and small and big events in Bangkok and Thailand, rarely politically correct. Sometimes he brought up what he felt was his own shortcomings and doubts.

Jan had a long career in media and public relations in and from Sweden before the move to Bangkok, a city he came to love long before making it his new home. Football was a special interest. For a period in his life he worked as a sports writer for Sweden’s largest morning paper DN. From Bangkok he wrote among

else a long feature about Sven-Goran Eriksson’s struggle as Manchester City coach during Thaksin Shinawatra’s ownership of the club.

Jan’s photographer of choice was Dennis Thern. They worked together during many assignments over the years. Here follows a short piece by Dennis about Jan:

“I met Jan back in 2002 when we did a job together for a travel magazine. Already then I felt his strong detailed descriptions of the surroundings and his meticulous research, which I really enjoyed through out the years when we worked together.

He really cared for the people we met and interviewed, which was a really nice touch.

On weekends we were hanging out from time to time. Mostly for dinner at a few selected restaurants that always delivered but also to watch English Premier League football which we both considered to be the most fun league to follow.

We talked on the phone for almost 30 minutes the day before he ended up in the

hospital. He sounded fine and we talked about possible assignments, documentary films and other ideas we discussed from time to time. It was a huge chock to hear about this less than 48 hours later.

Me and other friends have fond memories of Jan. He will for sure be missed for many reasons!”

Jan Källman became 61 years old. He is survived by his mother and two daughters.

He will be put to rest in Sweden in a private ceremony later this summer.

Christer Nilsson/Dennis ThernAs a final tribute we provide a link to Café’s

long obituary over Jan, http://www.cafe.se/jan.kallman/

Jonas Andersson, the Swedish Thai Luk thung singer, performed on Sunday 26 June 2016 for the first time in an opera when he sang on

stage in the Thai composer Somtow Sucharitkul’s latest opera in his series of “Das-Jati – Scenes from Ten Lives of the Buddha”.

Jonas Andersson was one of a handful of Thai music celebrities: The singer Khun Ploypailin Jensen, H.M. King Bhumibol’s granddaughter, the rock icon Pod Moderndog, “Thailand’s Got Talent” winner Myra Molloy and jazz singer Athalie De Koning. Trisdee na Patalungconducted the Siam Orpheus Choir and Siam Philharmonic Orchestra.

Jonas Andersson has on his Instagram account uploaded photos from the rehearsal extensively

and has clearly been fascinated by the great experience to participate in the opera.

Somtow’s “Das Jati” has been taking shape for more than a decade. By the end of the year Opera Siam will have produced five of the 10. And Somtow will be halfway through the task of composing what will be, if completed, the “biggest opera of all time”, eclipsing the previous record holder, the four-opera Ring Cycle by Richard Wagner, in breadth and number of characters.

Swedish singer in first Thai opera


News Brief

Danish-Thai Chamber of Commerce shook off ten years of dusty image when Asbjørn Overgaard Christiansen – mostly

known as the Commercial Counselor at the Royal Danish Embassy – on Saturday night took the stage as the MC of the first ever Danish Ball in Thailand. This was his night and he was amazing, fresh, energetic. He wore his smart tuxedo as casual as if he was always dressed like this and he filled out the stage as if he was born to be up there, addressing a ballroom full of discerning gala dinner guest. Good choice, Dancham!

The enter tainer of the evening, Michael Carøe was also a good choice. Looking back at his performance, he had clear ly planned something else. But that changed, when he asked the audience for Frank Sinatra suggestions and

then took up a suggestion from Eivind Mellerby, probably the only Norwegian that night. Starting crooning the song “Fly me to the moon”, Michael Carøe jokingly added “Oh, I forgot to mention that the person suggesting the song must come up here and dance as well”. Next thing, you had Eivind Mellerby dancing there all alone on the dance floor in grand style – except he was not there alone for long. Within seconds, the floor was filled with other guests, Asbjoern and his wife Gitte of course the very first, who were itching to also get out there and move their feet before the “real” band would come on the stage later.

Michael Carøe went with the flow, took even a detour into some disco tunes to the delight of his uncontrollable audience, until he eventually ended up with “My Way”. Nice!

And that’s pretty much the way this great night went on and on – surviving even a lucky draw for shower of lottery gifts – and carried on until midnight to the tunes of Rhythm Nation band. And after a break for a midnight hotdog snack, the most hard core party-goers went on till 2 am.

What a night!The photos here are from Dancham’s official

photographer. On ScandAsia.com you will find two small VDO clips.

First Danish Ball in Thailand rocked!


News Brief

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As par t of the Danes Wor ldwide establishment of a Danish mother tongue school for kids in Thailand, 32 energetic

kids gathered in five playgroups to have fun while improving their Danish.

NiST had made their indoor playground available for the kids and their parents on 14th May. While the parents had a space to chat and have a coffee in, the children were in good hands of four volunteer teachers that orchestrated the structural playgroups from 8:30 am to 1 pm. The playgroups were arranged for small kids ranging from 2 to 5 years.

The children’s got the chance to speak Danish and learn new words while playing with peers. Some of them got to speak Danish for almost the very first time and some of them enjoyed the rare occasion to speak Danish with other kids. The playgroups was divided into different difficulty levels.

Mai Ellegaard, parent and initiator behind a Danish school in Thailand, reports of very positive reactions: “People were very excited both parents and kids, and the volunteers did an amazing job. Most of us were sticking around for a little while after it ended. At one point the older kids wanted to join to play as well. So overall I think it went very well”.

Photos by Steen Trolle.

Danes in Bangkok launch Kids Playgroups


15 years of innovation:Diakrit International enters a new era

Celebrating 15 years in business in 2016, the year started with a major step forward for Diakrit as the up to then owners Pegroco Invest and SEB Venture Capital sold their

holdings to the international media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp Australia.

ScandAsia meets Diakrit to learn more about the company that is in for an exciting time ahead.

“This is an incredible milestone for our business and a stepping stone towards our vision,” commented a thrilled Co-Founder, President & Chief Executive Officer Mr Fredrik Bergman, as he announced the deal earlier this year. This is an acknowledgment of the excellent business model we have created, the outstanding team we have assembled and the innovative visualization solutions we continue to develop. We are proud,” he said.

Bangkok-based, Swedish growth company Diakrit International Ltd. is taking their slogan ‘Seeing is believing’ to the next level with Virtual Reality (VR) , and the media giant News Corp on board as their new majority shareholder. As a start-up they have not only managed to survive the first tough years, but also that invisible seven-year barrier, much thanks to constant development and improvement of their solutions that have been game-changing for a traditional sector: real estate.

By Joakim Persson


they will be able to continue their leadership in the industry as an independent, disruptive force that, as Fredrik puts it: “must not just keep up with what is happening, but continue to set the pace going forward”.

“We have to be there in the forefront of development and are constantly working on launching new technology. There are some smaller, emerging competitors with potential in this market, but we still have a pretty long lead after 15 years at the forefront of our industry.”

The VR experienceWhat is also really exciting for Diakrit these days is Virtual Reality (VR). In late 2015 they launched their VR app, allowing customers to inspect and virtually experience properties that are not yet built.

“The digital experience will only continue to grow and the person looking for a new home online will continue to get better and better online tools to make qualified decisions when they buy real estate online. The VR experience is going to really take off in the next couple of years, and Diakrit is really pushing the boundary within this

“Joining News Corp will give Diakrit the ability to leverage News Corp’s global presence and resources, and accelerate worldwide adoption of our industry-leading solutions. We see News Corp as the right strategic partner as we continue to expand and grow our business to become the world’s #1 provider of digital visualization solutions for the real estate industry,” he says to ScandAsia.

“The real estate market in Australia [News Corp’s home turf that Diakrit is currently entering], the U.S, and around the world have only just begun leveraging our type of digital content, so the potential is enormous.”

Likewise, News Corp intends to utilise the Swedish company’s solutions and expertise, to further drive Diakrit’s growth in new markets, and in turn, their own property businesses and real estate agent partners will benefit enormously.

“News Corp is the world’s largest owner worldwide of proper ty por tals, including the largest property portal website in Australia, via REA Group. They recently acquired one of our current client par tners, iProper ty, which is a Malaysia-based property site operating in Thailand. We look forward to a closer collaboration directly with them now that we are part of the same family. We are also looking forward to grow our presence in Europe and in the U.S market, and we are establishing ourselves even stronger into Europe.”

“The main reason behind News Corp’s investment in Diakrit is that they saw us as the perfect spider in their global web of property portals, but also to their newspapers/magazines. In Australia alone they own 126 newspapers with weekly real estate supplements,” says the CEO. “Real estate in general is a very big topic in Australia.”

And with this media giant within real estate, Diakrit sees News Corp as the perfect match to their business.

“They believe in us, our values and our long-term vision, and they want to help us get there faster. We trust that our knowledge of real estate marketing and digital content, together with News Corp’s resources and global reach, will be a winning combination,” Fredrik welcomed the new majority shareholder.

New strategic partnerRecently, both Diakrit and their previous owners had agreed that in order for the company to continue its international growth, a more strategic partner would be needed. SEB and Pegroco were ready to hand over the ship to a more strategic and globally experienced captain.

“SEB and Pegroco are two great Swedish Venture capitals that joined us back in 2008 and who have been with us ever since, helping us build this company through both opportunity and challenge.”

“Pegroco has actively supported Diakrit from when the company was a small star t-up with ambitious goals in Laholm, Sweden, with a strong vision, to today’s situation where they have a vast portfolio of leading digital marketing solutions and services provided to over 2,000 real estate agents, property portals and developers worldwide,” says Fredrik.

He believes that with News Corp’s backing,

The real estate market in Australia [News Corp’s home turf that Diakrit is currently

entering], the U.S, and around the world have only just begun leveraging our

type of digital content, so the potential is enormous.

area. We have already released VR applications for new development, residential resale and rentals, and we are releasing VR solutions for commercial real estate in the next couple of months.”

Nor thern Europe’s largest developer, Swedish-founded NCC, was first out to offer their prospects this new virtual experience.

“You can do it on the go. By looking at the planned development in your mobile phone, you can just click on the VR app icon and then turn to using the Gear VR,” Fredrik explains.

“NCC featured the VR experience in their sales office display, using Samsung’s Gear VR equipment, which is the first market standard. There is, however, another western standard expected within shortly that makes it very easy to bring VR with you to where the customer is.”

Diakrit’s VR app connects to their flagship online software, the D-NavigatorTM, which is a customized product for new developments. One can experience the development project from a facade or aerial view, to see its surroundings, its interiors and to get a wide range of detailed information about each unit within that development. Users can then visualize their new home down to the finest of details including door panel materials and selection of appliances.

The next step for the VR app is to experience existing homes with it: “We know it can be difficult to imagine any future living space by just looking at a couple of photos and a floor plan. But even after visiting an open house in an existing home, it can sometimes be difficult to remember the look and feel of that particular space. With the VR app you can give a 24-7 virtual tour of any apartment online, by allowing visitors to use the VR glasses to enter an empty place and stand in the middle of the room to get a feel for the true dimensions and space.”

And then there is the Augmented Reality technology (AR), which is a technology that will enable the creation of images within applications that blend in with contents in the real world. With AR, users are able to interact with virtual contents in the real world, and are able to distinguish between the two.

“You’ll have interactive worlds within X

Diakrit International’s founding team: Dick Karlsson, Exec VP & CSMO; Fredrik Bergman, President & CEO; Martin Fritze, VP & CTO


years from now. And what that X represents I cannot say but it is very exciting. The technology is advancing very fast,” Fredrik predicts.

“We are very impressed by Augmented Reality, which might become even larger than VR as you combine virtual with reality,” he adds.

The smart phone as their best friendThe company has come a long way since 2001, especially when considering their recent quick development and their strongest growth up to now started to happen with the introduction of smart phones.

Already in 2003, Diakrit, today known for their state-of-the-art technology and innovative software, star ted focusing on architectural drawings and taking the steps into 3D floor plans, in their strive to revolutionize the presentation and marketing of homes and office spaces (which back then consisted in poor photos and blurry floor plan sketches as the norm).

“We have a powerful real estate engine that affects how we develop and produce our solutions, but it is our continued focus on clients’ and end users’ needs that have made us successful. Combined with technology advancements, our platform has evolved to reach a higher level. The smart phone is our best friend since it has developed a completely different platform for displaying our solutions in today.”

Place that in comparison with the years 2005 – 2009 where they had “fantastic products” but were ahead of their time, due to too slow band with.

“The visualization tools we develop are at the absolute cutting edge. To us, innovation is only valuable if it’s user friendly and makes a real difference.”

“With technology development and digitization as wind in our sails, I see us now continuing our journey into new markets with new innovations,” says the CEO and predicts: “In three years, I see our business as fully mature in

the Australian market and ourselves undoubtedly as the #1 provider of digital visualization solutions for real estate agents in Australia. We will, of course, also have an even stronger foothold in our home turf, Scandinavia, and on top of that, having established in several more markets.“

“Since our objective is to continue a high rate of growth and maintain profitability by entering and expanding into markets where the real estate sector is still in an early phase when it comes to using premium rich media content, we will also focus on developing our businesses in Asia, the US and Europe, seeing the same potential for our products as we do in the Scandinavian and Australian market.“

Based on previous outcomes Fredrik is confident: “We bring with us a proven track record of business development, a scalable business model and an offer that provides significant financial value for our customers and partners.”

The world’s #1 providerTheir long-term goal to become the number one provider for digital visualization solutions on all markets, will evidently keep the schedule very busy and filled with continuing development of

leading solutions for the global real estate market.Here the founding team plays a crucial role:

“What especially Dick Karlsson and I are creating, is the vision forward, with short lead-time onwards to launch new services and products and are very much focusing on the market. Meanwhile, Martin Fritze, is the brainchild behind our products.”

At their Bangkok head office today, there are many Swedish employees, in addition to Danes, Norwegians and Germans, who work within IT/R&D, New Construction/3D Team, HR, Marketing, in addition to customer support. And programmers come from all over the world. There are also around 300 in-house photo editors and draftsmen. In the next coming 18 months their number of employees will need to double in order to manage the expected growth on next markets.

“As co-founder I have always thrived on the customer and consumer experience, and as CEO, I get the pleasure to work with major real estate clients worldwide. I personally find it encouraging when I see that Diakrit is completely self-going, as is the case in the Nordic countries today. It’s amazing to see that the company that we, as founders, star ted in a basement back in 2001 and put our hear ts and minds into, is now up and running as an organization by itself. Our entrepreneurial drive probably still means a lot for the company. We want to stay in the entrepreneurial world since that’s what differentiates Diakrit from its competitors. Our clients don’t just see us as a supplier who works on an operational level to provide them with what they need - they see us as a strategic partner that will go beyond operational levels to help them become successful,” concludes the CEO who also advocates a flat organisation.

“I don’t like building up hierarchies, so we have an open door policy.”

‘Seeing is believing’ – Fredrik’s clarity of vision and entrepreneurial instincts help pave the way for continued growth and success.


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Wo young Danes arrived to Phuket in 2012 with plans for some months of party and fun. Against all odds they’re now serving almost 13.000

customers in their three Sandwich-franchises. Meet young Danish Sandwich-entrepreneurs Daniel Baven, 28, and Mark Perthu-Hansen, 25.

Daniel Baven, educated chef, arrived in Phuket February 2012. He found a job as chef in Phuket but too much par tying made him unemployed and flat broke a few months later. In the meantime he met Mark Perthu-Hansen, a Danish electrician.

In the autumn of 2012 they signed a 3-year contract on a 4-room townhouse at 12/34 Viset Road in Rawai with shared ambitions to make a living in Thailand. This is when their adventure began.

Opening a Sandwich ShopDaniel found a new job as chef and Mark tried to find something to get his hands on. “Many times we talked about the possibility of opening a simple pasta-shop in the ground floor of the house”, Daniel remembers.

But after having screened the surrounding areas and concluding that there was at least ten Italian restaurants they scrapped the idea.

”Then, one evening while chilling at our balcony we came up with the idea to do a sandwich-shop. There was only one in the area and they used really crappy hot dog bread for their sandwiches. We wanted to do something proper”, they decided and Lucky 13 Sandwich took form: “I was wearing an ugly belt that I had bought for my first apprentice salary when I was 15, but it was the only belt that fitted me at the moment. It said Lucky 7 Bastard on the buckle that was formed as a horseshoe and then we ended up deciding on Lucky 7 Sandwich”, Daniel explains. They later modified it to Lucky 13 Sandwich because of the irony between Lucky and 13.

The day after they each took a loan of 150.000 baht from their parents and began the work straight away.

“I’m very positive that they did not expect us to actually do this”, Daniel says and Mark interrupts: “They were probably just looking forward to see us again in some months, when the money was spent.”

But things accelerated. Daniel was still

working full-time as a chef, while Mark was scouting around the nearby streets in Rawai to get some cheap deals on chairs, tables, kitchen equipment, carpenters and plumbers and so on.

“This is always how it works, even from day one, Daniel is never there until the store is set up and ready to operate,” Mark laughs.

Lucky 13 Sandwich in Rawai had its grand opening the 18th of December 2012. Daniel and Mark had spent a total of 450.000 baht.

“The room was totally sterile, we had used cheap outdoor furniture for both inside and outside; we had made everything ridiculously cheap. In addition to this, Daniels ex-girlfriend was working there for free as our only staff member. The only decoration we had was a broken toy-helicopter that we bought in a drunken moment,” Mark recalls.

At the opening day Daniel was in Malaysia to renew his Visa for the new work permit. Full of expectations he called Mark to ask for a report on their first day. They sold one coffee, Mark reported.

“I was crestfallen”, Daniel says.By the end of January 2013 they had sold 280

sandwiches since opening their doors.

From adventure-seeking backpackers to franchise entrepreneurs

Lucky 13 Sandwich founders Mark Perthu-Hansen and Daniel Baven


From adventure-seeking backpackers to franchise entrepreneurs

“We didn’t have a goal and had no idea about revenues and stuff like that. We just wanted a place that had potential to finance our rent and then eat some good food,” Mark says, admitting that this was not sustainable in the long run.

Saving a struggling businessIn February 2013 they made their first step into more serious business. A common friend introduced them to Facebook advertisements.

“This was a huge turning point for us. It cost a bit of money, but we were getting 10 visitors more a day”, Daniel Explains. The Facebook advertisements they used, and still use, is one of the things that has taken Lucky 13 Sandwich to where it is today by “getting out there”, for a minimal cost compared to traditional advertising options.

Some weeks after this revelation Daniel, full of confidence that this could actually work, hired a deputy head. Aim is her name. This was a big step in the enterprise, as Aim was their first paid staff and hired with a monthly salary that was high for such a poorly performing sandwich place selling only 280 sandwiches per month. But “Aim is still today the biggest key to our success”, Daniel says.

The success, though, was far from predictable at that time. By April 2013 Mark was forced to return to Denmark to make some money on the side that could fund the project. Daniel still worked as a chef and tried to support the poorly performing business from his paycheck. They were struggling.

In June they were forced to introduce a new angle to the project. Daniel moved out of the house, which meant they had four rooms free to make money on. They got listed on Booking.com and this saved the Lucky 13 Sandwich enterprise in the end.

“We had ugly losses in 2013, but we made money on our guest house, so that was how the company kept afloat”, Daniel tells, as he admits that he didn’t believe they would make serious money on selling sandwiches ever back then.

The transformation of Lucky The shop had sold 1200 sandwiches by January 2014 - a significant improvement compared to the year before, when the number was less than 300.

Sensing a progress Daniel and Mark made their biggest investment; one Kawasaki Ninja

motorcycle each bought from the profits of Lucky 13 Sandwiches. Almost. The Kawasaki’s eroded the economy forcing Mark, once again, to return to Denmark in April 2014 to work. “It was a terrible move, but totally worth it,” Mark firmly adds.

While the company was going nowhere, Daniel got a perfect chance to make a proper living in Thailand. He was promoted to Food and Beverage Manager in June 2014 with a paycheck that would grant him a wealthy living.

Then he met a girl and as illogical as it sounds she encouraged him to put all his efforts on the Lucky-business. So in August 2014, two months after the promotion, he quit the job, recreated all the menus, developed a diet plan and got in touch with two experienced franchisers mentoring him in the business field.

At the same time Aim, the store manager, made the critical move and decided to keep the shop open for 24 hours with free delivery around the clock.

“From that point on we star ted to have regulars that ate our sandwiches every day and some even several times a day. It rapidly grew our brand into something people were taking

“I was wearing an ugly belt that I had bought for my first apprentice salary when I was 15, but it was

the only belt that fitted me at the moment. It said

Lucky 7 Bastard on the buckle that was formed as a horseshoe and then we

ended up deciding on Lucky 7 Sandwich


serious”, Daniels explains. In other words sales were increasing.

When Mark returned in October 2014 the business was transformed. The brand of Lucky 13 was suddenly in high demand and they benefited from that rapidly.

In November 2014, Daniel and Mark sold their first Franchise store. Two Austrian guys, Michel and Matthias, who had followed the concept closely and showed repeated interest in opening a shop in Patong, were now ready to talk business.

By 10am the 4th of December 2014 the hotel “Aim Patong” served its last breakfast buffet. The morning after, on the 5th December at 6am, Lucky 13 Sandwich opened their first franchised store in Patong.

It was their first serious business move, but there was more to come. A few days later they received an interesting inquiry. An Italian guy was interested in the Rawai shop.

“Deal” they said and by January 1st 2015 they had opened Lucky 13 Sandwich Patong and Lucky 13 Sandwich Rawai had changed ownership from Daniel and Mark, to Daniele, the Italian guy.

The year of mistakesBy January 2015 they had more than 7000 customers through the doors, once again a massive improvement from the year before. But surprisingly enough Daniel and Mark refer to 2015 as the year of mistakes.

They invested all their funds won by the sale of Rawai into a 3-storage building in Patong as their new head office and central kitchen. It had it all, reception, conference rooms even a lounge area upstairs and down. To fill the space they hired 12 new staff members including a Business Development Manager, Marketing Executive, their own Accountant, as well as Mark’s mother as General Manager of the Patong store.

Lucky 13 was traveling on rails, except it was not. The new team consisted in good people, they state, but they didn’t know how to use them, and they didn’t have a fully developed business model. Daniel and Mark lost track of things.

the menu again and they were both trying to rethink the company from bottom to top.

“We needed to get our head out of our asses, end the stupidity and rebuild the franchise from our hard-earned learnings,” Mark says.

After two months of a brutal low season, they were slowly getting better, still selling a lot of sandwiches. And then they got momentum just at the right time. In September 2015 Bernie, an Englishman owning a guest house in Kamala with a beachside shack to spare approached Daniel and Mark. It was a no-brainer for the guys and by mid-October the third Lucky 13 shop opened in Kamala.

Paradise, palm trees and tasty Sand-wichesSince then business has only improved. In the month of January 2016 Daniel and Mark sold sandwiches to almost 13.000 visiting customers. They were finally building on a more sustainable plan for the company, avoiding new crisis and threatening bankruptcies, after learning the hard way about general business and the importance of strategy and sustainability.

In 2016 they are fully focused on constructing a new business model. Instead of depending on suppliers to provide their products, they want to produce things within their own supply chain and develop new branches to the business, such as bakery, coffee and catering.

“In this way, we can lower costs for ourselves, we can provide the products cheaper for all franchises and thus encourage more interest from investors as the privileges that follow are significant bonuses to everyone within the chain. This means that business is pretty much in our hands and we rely on fewer and fewer collaborators taking a cut. This way, we’re taking control and rapidly gaining influence in the Phuket market,” Daniel says.

As days are looking bright for Lucky 13, the ambitions are growing.

“I think all opportunities are open right now”, Mark says, stating that they are still holding back with opening new franchises right now, even though investors show interest.

“But we imagine to open one or two new shops around Phuket this year”, he says, mentioning Chalong and Phuket Town currently being enquired about from interested investors.

If this goes well, Bangkok or even international expansion could be next up. Daniel and Mark just have one dogma: “We want to keep the business in the Asian region. And we want paradise within reach. Paradise, palm trees and tasty sandwiches - those are the things we will never want to miss out on”, Daniel concludes.

Latest news: On 1 May a new “Wine & Dine” concept was successfully launched in Rawai - Lucky 13 Bar & Grill, located in the top of the BTR Suites, owned by the Dane Torben Busk Jensen, whom they paired up with in launching the new restaurant.

“We opened with a full house and despite a quite chaotic first day, it has been running on rails ever since. The customer base is growing rapidly. We have come across guests, who has been her 8 to 10 times already in the first 24 days, which is spectacular for this category of restaurants,” says Daniel.

“Fuck, I thought”, Daniel recalls. They were losing money. “In April we just knew it was game over. We had to fire everyone. Even my mom”, Mark explains. “It was really, really hard.”

Overnight Lucky 13 was transformed from a promising young franchise to the threat of bankruptcy.

“We were about to close it all. This was a tough blow for us”, Mark admits.

“We were down in the dumps for months,” Daniel adds.

They moved the central kitchen to the garden in Rawai where the project was born. Mark built a shelter-like room for a sparse budget, wherein the central kitchen operated. Daniel began to renew

The room was totally sterile, we had used cheap outdoor

furniture for both inside and outside; we had made

everything ridiculously cheap. In addition to this, Daniels ex-girlfriend was working there for free as

our only staff member. The only decoration we had was a broken toy-helicopter that

we bought in a drunken moment.


By Klavs Johansen ([email protected])

มุมภาษาไทย l mum pha:să: thai l Thai Language Corner

Good news! As speakers of English, we have automatic (อัตโนมัติ / àttàno:mát /) access to a large and ever growing vocabulary of English loanwords in Thai, almost

without any effort.The past century is said to have been the

American one with most landmark technical developments originating in the USA. Just think aviation, computers and Internet. These technical developments have enforced the global penetration of the English language, which was already strong as lingua franca and language of commerce since colonial times. This, together with the resulting prestige of the language, have given English a tremendous influence on the vocabulary pool of other languages. Thai is no exception.

Indeed, most Thai trendsetters, academics, politicians and media personalities seem to intersperse their Thai with a considerable amount of loanwords from English. Whether this is out of necessity, i.e. no Thai equivalent exists for what they want to say, or to emphasize their knowledge of English depends, I guess. But for sure, their use of English transmits to the population in general and has caused an explosion of English loanwords in Thai during the last two or three decades.

For our purpose, we shall not discuss the desirability of this development, but just acknowledge the fact and note that we, as speakers of English, will know a growing number of Thai words exactly because they are borrowed from English. We shall in the following look at a small fraction of them, however first a note of caution on the spelling and pronunciation of the loanwords: Readers of Thai should note that the spelling of the loanwords may vary quite

a lot and the various rules, which will normally take you quite consistently from spelling to pronunciation, are not necessarily enforced. This in particular applies to the tone rules. When it comes to pronunciation of the loanword, we may hear anything from the strict Thai pronunciation to perfect English, depending on the speaker’s knowledge of the latter language and how common the word has become in daily Thai.

Now, let’s look at some examples. We start with a few everyday words which you are likely to hear more often, or at least as often, as any ‘genuine’ Thai equivalent, if such exists:วิว / wio / ~ a view,เบียร์ / bia / ~ beer,เช็คบิล / chék bin / ~ bill (please!), or in ‹genuine› Thai เก็บตังค์ด้วย / kèp tang dûai /,อพาร์ทเม้นท์ / àphà:tmén / ~ apartment,มอเตอร์ไซค์ / mor: toe: sai / ~ motorcycle, เบเกอรี่ / be: koe: rî: / ~ เค้ก / khék / ~ cake, แครอท / khae: rórt / ~ carrot.เบรก / brè:k / ~ break,แอร์ / ae: / ~ air-conditioning, and finallyก๊อป / kór:p / ~ to copy, which probably is much more common in spoken language than the Thai equivalent ถ่ายสำาเนา / thà:i sămnao /.

The last two, แอร์ / ae: / and ก๊อป / kór:p /, are good examples of the Thai tendency to shorten words, including those entering their language from English. Instead of copy we get ก๊อป / kór:p / just as instead of 7-eleven the Thais tend to say เซเว่น / se:wên /. Another example of this is เม้นท์ / mén / ~ comment, as used on social media and to some extend by the press.

Some more words of English origin:ซีเรียส / si: rîat / ~ serious, very common in อย่า

ซีเรียส / yà: si: rîat / ~ don’t be serious,แฟร์ / fae: / ~ fair, as in ไม่แฟร์ / mâi fae: / ~ unfair,ดับเบิ้ล / dàpbôen / ~ double,เว่อร์ / wôe: / ~ (o)ver, too much, another shortened word,คอนเฟิร์ม / khor:n foe:m / ~ to confirm,แคร์ / khae: / ~ care, often as ฉันไม่แคร์ / chăn mâi khae: / ~ I don’t care, andเวิ้ก / wóe:k / ~ work, as in มันไม่เวิ้ก / man mâi wóe:k / ~ it doesn’t work.

Finally, some loanwords, often slang, may distort the original meaning of the English word, sometimes beyond recognition, due, one presumes, to the lack of knowledge of English in the segment where the loanword is first introduced. A couple of examples of this are:

ฟิน / fin / ~ to be delighted, delightful, which some say stems from the first syllable of the English word ‘finale’, and

วิน / win / ~ motorcycle taxi stand, which is said to take its origin from the English word ‘win’, supposedly since the motorcycle taxis in the queue are receiving customers based on which driver came in first, that is who won. If this explanation is correct, it does take quite some imagination to follow!

As we may find these examples amusing, it is quite common with some misunderstandings whenever words are borrowed from another language. We only have to go to certain words of Latin origin in the Scandinavian languages to find some good laughs, but that is another story and, for now, I shall just say บาย ๆ / ba:i ba:i / and see you same place next time or, in between, at the Thai Language Corner on Facebook.

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