Oranuch Lerdsuwankij, Thailand’s Only Female Entrepreneur Driving The Startup Industry

Over the last few years , we have seen a lot of activities, mentions and events focusing on startups in Thailand by both the  government sector and also the private sector but none has impressed us the most in terms of their approach, professionalism, honesty and credibility as the Techsauce Team in Thailand. Besides their consultancy services and other commercial platforms, their annual  technology conference, Techsauce Global Summit  is the most best run in Thailand and can be considered the leading technology event in South East Asia. Exploiting people to simply make money is the last thing on their agenda as can be seen by the prices of their tickets, their booth spaces and sponsorship packages unlike certain startup advisories and accelerators charging ticket prices like Bt 10,000 above for substandard events and speakers and are just in for themselves to make money and network. The techsauce events are not only managed professionally but also features some of the best speakers in the global industry and the accompanying workshops etc are truly value for money especially for new startups or struggling entrepreneurs needing insights.


Oranuch Lerdsuwankij, Co Founder and CEO Techsauce
 
Techsauce CEO and co-founder is leading female entrepreneur cum innovation specialists, Oranuch Lerdsuwankij, commonly called Mimee. She is recognised as one of the pioneers in building the Thai startup ecosystem and has played a big role in encouraging and supporting numerous successful startups in Thailand.
 
Lerdsuwankij graduated from King Mongkut Institute of Technology Ladkrabang (KMITL) in telecommunication engineering and holds a master degree in information technology management. She is also the partner and Marketing Director of Computerlogy Co. Ltd., a software company focusing on Social Media Marketing and Big Data.
 
Prior to  starting her own business, she had  experience in product development , product strategy and marketing with Truemove, TA Orange, and Total Access Communication (dtac) for more than 12 years.
 
She has been frequently invited as special speaker by various institutions and organizations such as: the Harvard Project for Asian and International Relations (HPAIR) 2014 (Tokyo); Startup Asia (Singapore); Innovfest (Singapore); Judge in Mobile application contest NTT DoCoMo (Japan); Department of Business Development (DBD) Ministry of Commerce; and Department of industrial promotion ministry of industry Thailand.
 
In 2012, Oranuch realized that the tech startup ecosystem in Thailand was very small. As a tech entrepreneur, she understood the challenges startups face therefore wanted to build a media, knowledge management and reporting platform for local startups to help launch and grow their businesses.
 
Oranuch is the kind of person that knows how to connect and identify with new entrepreneurs and struggling startups, having come from humble beginnings. She came from a middle-class and her father was bankrupted as the result of the 1997 Asean financial crisis. She however finished her education and worked to help support her family and even her younger sister’s education and in the process build a name for herself in the tech world.
 
Her first job was in DTAC’s product development team. Her role, which lasted three years, involved communication between the marketing and engineering teams. Oranuch then moved to TA Orange to take on similar work, but also getting involved in OPEX/CAPEX so that she could practice evaluating operational costs,a skill that she now says helped her a lot when she is helping startups. After a few years, she then moved on  to work for a technology vending company as a solutions manager for a short while, before returning to work for True Corporation. She was a part of the launch of 3G and BlackBerry in Thailand at that time and expanded her domain to cover more marketing work. 
 
While working at True Corp, she started her media business journey by joining with friends to establish Thumbsup, a news website that provided online content, initially about digital marketing. She loved writing a blog and sharing her knowledge with others.
 
Her changing point came when she began reading startup stories and found that Thai start-ups were not widely recognised in Southeast Asia. She created a new area on Thumbsup to publish and promote start-ups. It was her passion for startups that lead her to establish Techsauce in 2012 with plans to help startups and corporates.
 
In 2014, she separated the startup content from Thumbsup and established Techsauce Media. Her first startup community event was called “Start It Up”.
 
Techsauce Media set out to be a content generator that developed quality informative content for startups and corporates.Oranuch said good content does not need to be in a media format; it can be presented in an event format such as the Techsauce Global Summit in which content is created to get individuals to learn more about start-ups and corporate innovations at an events,conferences and workshops.
 
The Techsauce Global Summit did indeed grow into a educational and inspirational platform for many startups not only In Thailand but also from other South-East Asian Countries. Techsauce 2020 is expected to even surpass any event in Asia as its moving to a bigger location with an even extensive programme, with word already spreading around that it will be The Global Startup Event Of The Year. To date no other startup event in Thailand can come close to Techsauce in terms of content, professionalism and approach. There has been some knock offs startups events by both the private and government sectors which were truly disappointing.
 
Thailand Startup News along with all existing platforms such as www.thailandmedical.news, www.globalhealthcare.news and more than 4850 news platforms that we are creating before the end of 2019 has been inspired by the Techsauce Team and its CEO.