Ranking among the world’s mega cities, Bangkok is strategically located in Southeast Asia. This city is dynamic especially at the time when the waves of transition in the globe are raging. Urban growth becomes a clear evident in Eastern Bangkok where True Corporation via True Digital Group established True Digital Park (TDPK) to transform a suburban plot into “the hub of startups”, aimed at building Thailand’s Silicon Valley.
With TDPK now in its sixth year, True Blog interviewed its general manager “Dr. Tarit Nimmanwudipong” who talked about TDPK background, management approach behind neighborhood transformation, and his practical mindset for this fast-changing world.
Experiences expand horizons
Born to a middleclass Chinese-ethnic family in Thailand, Tarit grew up in Bangkok’s Songwat area where wholesale businesses including his family’s chemicals business mushroomed. Just like most kids in the 80s, Tarit had his own parents as his idols. Inspired by his father, he dreamed of becoming a chemical engineer one day.
His studiousness and perseverance took him far. Not only that he successfully entered the Chulalongkorn University’s Faculty of Engineering, but he also won a Fulbright Scholarship just two years after his graduation. He flew to the United States with two years of work experience, accumulated during his time at a Rayong-based factory. Both his master’s and doctorate degrees are in chemical engineering, conferred by the University of California, Davis. His impressive profile paved the way for him to serve as a postdoctoral research fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the lab of world-class energy tech firm Topsoe in Denmark for well over two years.
“I have set clear life goals from the very beginning. From a young age, I was determined to pursue the highest level of education. I enjoyed learning and studied well. Whenever I got opportunities, I did my best. Such characteristics are typical of a scientist,” Tarit said.
His life was so smooth and successful that it seemed certain he would one day work as a university lecturer or a government researcher. But fate had another plan. While he was navigating on his career path, he discovered an interesting “choice” and successfully enrolled in Boston Consulting Group’s Bridge to BCG program. This eye-opening initiative helped him deeply understand consultancy and realize another aspect of his potential.
Following his return to Thailand, Tarit worked as a management consultant at the world’s leading consulting firm Roland Berger. His first project there was to develop a national plan on sports development. Although Tarit had never worked as a consultant before, his potential had been proven. The researcher-turned consultant worked efficiently alongside holders of MBAs. Tarit in fact even had an advantage, with the entrepreneurial mindset acquired from his family’s business. This consultant therefore had “both theories and practical experiences” to share.
Tarit had worked as a consultant for a few years, with a diverse range of projects coming to his desk. Among them was True Digital Park or TDPK.
Turning ideas into results
The project brief was to make TDPK achieve “Thailand’s hub of startups” goal in order to fulfill the country’s digital infrastructure via a community hub. It took Tarit and his team nearly a year of research, field trips and educational visits using various overseas facilities as case studies to identify target groups and draw up a blueprint for this project.
But the blueprint was just the beginning of more efforts needed. It also required leadership to turn ideas on paper into reality. That’s why Tarit received an offer to work for TDPK, initially as Head of Commercial. His impressive performance led to his eventual promotion to the post of General Manager.
“In the beginning, I worked with piles of papers and presentation. So, to me, driving implementation was quite a big challenge. I started working directly at TDPK in 2018 during its pre-leasing phase. My key mission then was to approach prospective tenants targeting tech startups equipped with majority of tech talents such as programmer and data engineer. This will help us forge ahead strategically, meeting target growth. With startup mindset and fast move, TDPK’s first year’s occupancy rate for East Building (Phase 1) rapidly reach 70%, higher than CBD market average,” he recounted.
The honeymoon period, so far, didn’t last long. Soon later, Tarit faced a tough test that materialized in the form of “COVID-19 crisis”.
“Spatial and temporal uncertainty”, triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, posed a big threat. For risk-management purposes, TDPK first focused on “maintaining good ties with customers” so as to serve peace of mind during the precarious period. Provided to customers were assistance, online seminars, and a vaccination center. During his battle against the crisis, Tarit even noticed new business opportunities. Guided by his vision, TDPK has since tapped into new sources of income with its businesses now covering – 1.Office and retail space leasing 2.Co-working space membership 3.Event space rental and organizing service 4.Workspace design and project management 5. White-label incubation and training service and 6.Ecosystem tour
Experiences Beyond a Space
Tarit said TDPK was established in response to the vision of True’s telecom-tech ambition, with the aim to differentiate True from its rival brands and underline True’s role as the “leader of the future”. Thus, a deeper customer insights and global climate are mandatorily required, along with keeping a close distance to vendors as well as competitors.
TDPK has now worked alongside True as a “platform” that connects people who shared common values and goals – high ambition, making dream a reality, growing business innovatively – together under an energetic environment, while a balancing act of life can be maintained. This is aligned with our motto – One Roof, All Possibilities”.
TDPK has truly created a community with dialogues blossoming among customers and tenants. So, this project stands out for being a new-style Center of Gravity. While traditional property development concept focuses on buildings, TDPK places an emphasis on “building a community”.
“The public may perceive TDPK as a building. But to me, it’s about a campus and people,” Tarit said, “Many more buildings will go up in the capital for sure. But tenants will continue to look for proximity to their partners and friends, which saves their travel time. Importantly, the key component of TDPK is dynamics from human activities at its campus. Simply put, we are building a city for our customers”.
Having its community as its strength, TDPK presents multiple functions to its customers. This “selling point” has given TDPK an upper hand, allowing its fees to hover above the market average. Today, TDPK shines as a perfect destination for tech communities, resulting in a vast number of tech-focused events.
Previously, TDPK houses hundreds of small to large-sized startups, including four Thai and foreign unicorns. Such records underline the fact that tech startups that accorded importance to a meaningful community chose TDPK as their headquarter. Word-of-mouth has spurred startups’ confidence in TDPK.
“We developed TDPK based on a diverse set of perspectives – project developer, business operator and customer. This was to ensure that TDPK is to serve the real needs of customers, especially communal infrastructure, amid fast-changing trends. Importantly, sustainable business practice must be highlighted, which can be seen though the financial performance.” Tarit reiterated.
Next Step of TDPK
For several decades, there have been widespread discussions in Thailand on how important research is. Yet, the country has still largely failed to apply research findings for clear impacts. As public access to research is limited, “Role Models” are scarce in the field at the time more youngsters should be inspired to do research that will strengthen their homeland. Indeed, research has crucial importance to Thai economy’s opportunities and survival in the face of the country’s lower competitiveness, inflows of Chinese goods, technological transition, and geopolitical conflicts around the world.
“After having spent a massive amount of money on technological imports, Thailand should now focus on research,” Tarit said as a man who used to dream of becoming a scientist. Now, he hopes TDPK will play a rival role in driving research on tech and innovations.
Conducting research in Europe and the United States for about a decade, Tarit believes “research awareness” holds key to the economic success of developed nation. In his view, research leads to fruitful talks at macro and micro levels, fund-raising, lab development, presentations, and business matching.
“Our building was built not just to attract tenants. We don’t have any intention to keep grabbing a new plot of land and jumping into a new property project either. This is because we have developed DPK as an Engine for Change for our own organization, our customers as well as the public. These three sectors thus have close ties at TDPK. They are inseparable,” he explained.
TDPK’s role as an Engine for Change is reflected across numerous dimensions. For one, thanks to data-driven space management, TDPK can quickly transform the functional purposes of a zone fast based on its customers’ needs. For instance, office space can be reconfigured as co-working space in a very short time.
Key for Thailand’s Startups
Currently, Thai startups is facing a huge challenge in fundraising, fueled by negative news and sluggish economy. The pessimistic outlook can also be seen among SMEs sector. According to Tarit, this situation has stemmed from the world’s ongoing economic recession, geopolitical conflicts, wars, and startups’ business model that has required huge investments in their early stages, which do not resonate well with the current economic climate.
Despite such hostile environment, TDPK remains firmly committed to its positioning as the hub of startups, its mission of maintaining good momentum for their industry, and its intention to attract new talents to the field.
“After the fire died down, rekindling is difficult. So, it’s best to keep the fire or momentum alive. Maintaining the momentum is now our mission,” Tarit said about what TDPK intended to do.
Presently, TDPK has been home to over 260 startups along with 13,000 registered members. More foreign investors are expected to establish their startup bases in Thailand too via the TDPK – BOI collaboration, which offers Long-Term Resident Visa.
TDPK is now stepping into its sixth year under Tarit’s leadership. Its key three DNAs, just like his, are 1) Balance; 2) Creativity, and 3) Courage. Describing himself as an executive with a scientist’s mindset, Tarit appreciates how his commercial and scientific knowledge have been complementing each other. With insights from both fields, the depth and breadth of his expertise are formidable. They remove loopholes and turn challenges into opportunities by creating “innovations”.
