What Inspired Us to Start Outsourcify in Thailand?
Outsourcify was not born from a polished market-entry plan. It grew from the experience and circumstances of its two founders: Kwanruedee, returning home after four years in Australia, and me, leaving a consulting career in France for Thailand.
The Personal and Professional Journey
My career began in France, where I worked in software engineering—basically, as a coder. After earning an engineering degree from UTBM, near the Swiss border, I joined a large Paris consulting firm and spent long assignments inside major companies. I had a good salary and good colleagues, so I was not escaping a bad situation. I simply wanted a change.
Before leaving, I discussed the move with the owners of Oceane Consulting, the smaller firm employing me at the time. I finished my assignment on good terms, registered as a sole trader in Paris and kept a few projects from my professional network.
I had visited Thailand only once, for a three-week holiday, but I decided to take the opportunity.
Armed with a few freelance projects from my previous professional network, I arrived in Thailand in 2010. Soon after my arrival, I began working with local companies, most notably creating websites or custom CRM systems, including one for a property developer in Pattaya/Jomtien. It was through this work that I met Kwanruedee.
Kwanruedee, my co-founder had just returned to Thailand after four years in Australia, where she pursued studies in English language and business, building on her prior software engineering education and experience in Thailand. We briefly worked together at the property development company, and as we began a personal relationship, we both realized the potential for combining our strengths in technology, business, and international experience.
2 French expats working in our meeting room
Recognizing the Outsourcing Opportunity
In France, I had managed outsourced teams in India, Poland and Tunisia. I saw the financial advantages, but I also saw projects slow down because requirements, ownership or small linguistic details were misunderstood. My own role was eventually transferred to Poland after my final assignment in Paris. The lesson was not that one country was better than another; it was that low rates mean little when communication creates rework.
Our idea was to combine a permanent technical team in Thailand with direct communication and enough overlap with European working hours. Kwan understood Thai business and culture; I understood the expectations of European clients. Together, we could offer sensible costs without treating development as an anonymous hand-off.
We contacted digital agencies directly and offered to work as their development partner. Early relationships came from France, Australia, Germany and Sweden; some continue today. Direct clients now account for most of our work, although we still value white-label agency partnerships.
Early Vision and How It Evolved
Initially, Outsourcify focused on web development services leveraging technologies like PHP and WordPress. However, our vision and offerings expanded significantly over time, and the technology in general greatly evolved in 15 years. As our client base diversified, we recognized the need to provide a more comprehensive set of services, leading to our hiring UX/UI designers and later expanding into mobile app development.
Furthermore, obtaining Board of Investment (BOI) certification in Thailand marked a significant evolution in our company’s journey. The BOI certification not only provided financial incentives and simplified processes for hiring international talent but also reinforced our long-term commitment to operating in Thailand. You need a clear business plan that involves numbers of employees to recruit, and you must stick to it if you want to keep the approval. Work permits and visas are also quite complicated and time consuming to handle in Thailand, you get a specific office for these with the BOI, and you have less restrictions regarding the ratio between Thai nationals and foreigners in the company. We wrote a specific article on the subject of the Board of Investment (BOI) certification.
Today, roughly one-third of our team is international and the rest is Thai. We serve both Thai and overseas clients, designing and building web applications, websites, mobile applications and the systems behind them.
Thailand, at the intersection of tradition and modernity
Why Thailand—and Why Bangkok?
Bangkok gives us access to Thai graduates, experienced international hires and a growing technology community. It is well connected to the rest of Asia and Europe, and its quality of life helps us keep people for longer than a project or two. For clients, that stability matters: they work with a team that knows their product rather than a rotating pool of contractors.
There are trade-offs. Visas and work permits take time, and recruiting strong English-speaking developers remains competitive. BOI status helps with international hiring, while our internship relationships help us develop local talent. This mixed team is not a marketing formula; it is how the company has operated from the beginning.
What the Original Idea Became
The original idea still holds: keep the team close, communicate directly and build relationships that last. What changed is the scope. We are no longer only an outsourced PHP team for foreign agencies; we now work directly with clients from discovery and UX through development, launch and maintenance.
In the next article, we’ll dive deeper into the early challenges we faced as a young web agency and how overcoming them set the stage for sustained growth.
The Outsourcify Story #3: Overcoming Early Challenges
One of our first company trips with the team to Kanchanaburi
