Vehicle for Supporting Community Events

[Ian]

Dear All,

Depending on what mailing lists and FB groups you read, you may have already heard about the IT Startup Association of Thailand's pledge drive we have been holding. We have been seeking pledges to help cover the costs to become an officially registered Thai association. We already have a website up here: http://www.itstartups.org/

On our website we talk about a range of activities and programs we plan the association to work on to support the IT entrepreneurial community here in Thailand. Many of the people who are working on founding the official association are and have been strong supporters of IT community related events like Barcamp.

The IT Startup Association of Thailand could be a reliable vehicle that helps moves the Thailand IT community forward. As an official Thai association, the organization would have the ability to manage funds for one time events, ongoing programs or other activities and programs to support the community and accept tax-free donations. The association could partner with other community groups to provide them support, which may be particularly critical during a group's startup phase.

The number and types of activities that the association will be involved in will be almost entirely guided by its members. Beyond Barcamps, there are other potential international events and programs the association could help to bring to Thailand.

Additionally, the association formation committee has already been playing a role in being a central point of contact and connection point for the IT community here in Thailand. We would like to continue and strengthen this role in the community as an official association.

We started our pledge drive in February and are very near our pledge goal needed to formally register our association with the government. We are looking for more people within the community committed to being founding members of the association. We are asking that these initial founding members pledge to pay their first year membership dues upfront. The amount is up to the individuals but we are asking for a pledge in the range of 3,000 to 5,000 baht. Of course, more would be appreciated.

A lot of our efforts have been spent on this pledge drive and coordinating with law firms. This has delayed us from moving forward to providing direct assistance to Thai startups. Additionally, our unofficial status has prevented us from fully engaging and securing commitments from both prospective corporate sponsors and partner organizations. The future status of our association will determine the type of support we provide to the IT community in Thailand. We have decided that if we can not reach our pledge goals by September 15th that we will likely discontinue pursuing formal registration as an Association and pursue the goals of the Association as an informal group. Unfortunately, not being formally registered will not allow us to accept corporate sponsorships and any future events or activities the members wish to organize and will require a request of funds from individual members on an event or project basis. If you have not had the opportunity to pledge your membership dues please do so by September 15th so we may successfully conclude our pledge drive, commence the formal registration process and eventually pursue our ambitious but worthy mission.

Pledging is simple, merely email one of us with your pledge amount with your full name (or name of your company) and we will record your pledge. Once we have the full amount needed to move forward, we will email all of you that have pledged with the account into which you can deposit the money. Written confirmation for receipt of funds can be provided if requested.

If you would like more information beyond what is on our website, please feel free to contact one of us. We thank you in advance for your support.

Sincerely,
Ian Korman (korma...@gmail.com) and Dave Shelters (david.k...@gmail.com)

[Ches Martin]

Not sure if the Barcamp list is the most ideal forum to raise and answer questions about this, but we can move it elsewhere if it carries on and disturbs people...

A few questions if you don't mind:

- Do you have detailed prospectuses planned and written up for the programs described on the Programs section of the web site?

- Have you begun building a roster of mentors who are willing to be recognized at this stage?

- Are there Thai nationals that you have worked with to this point who have showed interest in being founding/board members of this association? That seems to me fundamental to reducing barriers to success in this endeavor.

- I suppose there is somewhat of a chicken-and-egg problem here in that you probably need registered status before you can legitimately seek investors. Do you have plans for funding strategy and organizational structure if you do achieve this status that you can publish? Are you making any offers of founding member benefits to those who are willing to pledge at this stage, given that they carry through with donation/investment if the pledge goal is met?

I think your mission is worthy so I hope I don't come across as critically grilling, just figure these are due-diligence questions you're going to encounter from potential supporters, if you haven't already :-)

Regards,

Ches

[Jan Detlefsen]

Don't think anyone minds a bit of a discussion in this otherwise sleepy list :)

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[Andreas Becker]

Hi could you please point out why we need another Association?

There are already plenty of Associations dealing with promoting Software Development and Startups.

Who are those people you mention?
Who do they work for or do they have companies?
Could you present something like a business plan, so it will be more understandable actually what you try to achieve and how you will be able to achieve it.

As mentioned already, do you have any Thai members?
Why did you not join one of the existing Associations?

Open Source / Closed Source?

etc.

Thanks

[Ian]

Dear All,

Thanks to both Ches and Andreas for taking time to ask some good questions. I agree with Jan that talking about this in this group should be ok. What we are talking about is a group whose founding members are some of the same people that brought Barcamp to Thailand in the first place and would like to continue to support it happening on a more regular basis.

I am happy to say that most of the questions asked are answered on our website: http://www.itstartups.org/ . Anyone truly interested in knowing more about the association we have been trying to start for awhile now should check out the website which includes the current version of the presentation we started giving in various forms for about 2 years now. Short answer is 'Yes' to all of the questions.

1. Yes, we have detailed ideas for programs that we propose the Association will run, see summaries of those here: http://www.itstartups.org/our-programs/ We have more detailed ideas for the programs, however, the details of programs must be decided by members. We want to have quality programs and that takes input from a larger group and some discussion. So, you are right, there is a chicken and an egg problem. Anyone who would like specific details about any of the proposed programs please send us an email and we will give our personal plans for the program.
2. We have had a roster of people interested in forming the Association since 2010, some of which would like to be mentors. In fact, we initially only had the vision of doing mentoring but once we engaged in dialogue with prospective members and prospective startups, we expanded the potential scope of the Association. We already have lots of specific ideas on how we would create a quality mentor program.
3. The Thai government requires you to provide a list of 'promoters' in addition to some founding members. All of the Association's promoters are Thai citizens. Our goal is to create an international association from the start. We want to be inclusive of all stakeholders. This is one element of the Association that sets us apart from many of the current associations. Our Association is forward looking to work within the ASEAN framework so we use the approved language for that framework. Of course, we would like to provide some documentation in Thai (how to make a business plan for starters).
4. Funding is a very important question. We really can't accept funding legally until we get official status as an Association. We are doing a pledge drive for our initial legal fees because we want to ensure we have a solid group of committed founders that will enable the Association to be successful. A couple of our founders could probably foot the bill all by themselves but then that wouldn't really result in anything viable. Our founding members are some of the same people that have successfully gotten funding for Barcamp. You have seen the list of sponsors before and we plan to approach them (and others) for corporate sponsorship. We already have some corporate founding members.
5. Thai law requires that we provide the organizational structure to apply for Association and they have minimum requirements for that structure. However, the structure/officers that we currently are submitting is subject to change at our first meeting as an official Association. In a nutshell, its is your basic Director and Board structure with committees.
6. We will decide on privileges for founding members at our first meeting as an official Association. We have discussed founding members pledges will cover their membership dues for extended periods. We have always been very clear on membership dues in that their purpose is to show a token sign of commitment to being an active member. The programs of the group will be run by donations, grants and corporate sponsorships. Also, corporate members and sponsors can get benefits such as those that they get sponsoring Barcamp.
7. Our founding members have been in Thailand for many years. They have actively gone out and met with major stakeholders that are already in place to support IT startups in Thailand. There are large gaps in what Thailand has now and we believe that our proposed Association can help fill these gaps. In fact, we have already been doing that for years. We would like to focus more on this work but the majority of our time has been spent setting up the Association.
8. Our founding members include: successful in country IT startup entrepreneurs, authors of books in IT entrepreneurship, Internet engineers, etc. Once our Association becomes official, we plan to post more bios on our site. For now, please take the time to read the founding committees bios here: http://www.itstartups.org/about-us/our-team/
9. Our Association has already been discussing our planned programs with Software Park, Joint Foreign Chambers of Commerce in Thailand ICT group, and many other potential partner groups throughout ASEAN. We are very adamant about the fact that we don't want to duplicate efforts of existing Associations, government incubators, international/regional events, etc. No other Associations in Thailand have discussed doing the work that our Association plans to do that we know of.
10. Personally, I would like to bring an elevated level of quality and ethics to the IT community. A key part of this is being transparency. Being transparent and respecting the privacy of the members of the Association can be a difficult balancing act though.

If you have any other questions please let us know. If you think of anything we should definitely add to our website please let us know as well.

Regards,
Ian Korman

[Ian Korman]

P.S. We are 7,000 baht short for our pledge goal. Global Entrepreneurship Week is in November. If we were to proceed with the official Thai paperwork to become Association soon, from what our law firm told us, we could have it completed by then and help organize or participate in some activities.