Interview with Suphakrit Chongprasankiat Owner of Sopha & Mr. K Best Tailors
Recently in his travels to Chiang Mai, Thailand, Vincent LoTempio had the opportunity to meet with and interview the Co-Founder and Owner of Sopha & Mr. K Best Tailors, Suphakrit Chongprasankiat.
Below is Mr. LoTempio’s interview with Suphakrit:
What is your name and your business name?
Suphakrit Chongprasankiat and my business name is Sopha & Mr. K Best Tailors.
What is your background and how long have you been involved with this industry?
Sopha & Mr. K Best Tailors is a made-to-measure tailor. With over 19 years of experience, we provide hand-made specialties with only the best quality. We carefully tailor our products to satisfy both our local and international customers. Our professional tailors exquisitely craft our hand-made masterpieces like suits and dresses. We guarantee your satisfaction.
Where are you located?
We located in Chiang Mai, Thailand on Wichayanon Road at the corner of the Night-Market intersection.
What exactly are you trying to accomplish?
Our goal, as experienced tailors, is to create exquisitely crafted suits and dresses for our customers.
How did your idea come about? How did you get started in your business?
Sopha, my wife, graduated from Thai garment school nearly twenty years ago. She has worked in the garment field since were teenagers. Three years after her graduation Sopha decided to open a tailoring business. We have been designing and producing clothing for foreign-customers more than nineteen years.
How did you organize your team?
We have five people working at Sopha & Mr. K Best Tailors. My wife, Sopha, is the head of the team. She makes the designs and patterns to suit customer needs. The other employees at Sopha & Mr. K Best Tailors are tailors who help to create suits, dresses, and other garments. Sopha then checks the quality of all of our work.
What were some of your concerns as a start up?
Starting out nearly twenty years ago, we thought it would be hard to start a business when we did not know the tailoring market in our local area very well. However, since then we have found that we just love to make our customers happy and deliver to them the garments that they want.
What is your favorite aspect of being an entrepreneur?
We love being able to take a customer’s vision for a garment and turn it into something real. We focus on creating a quality product that looks good!
As a startup entrepreneur what type of lessons could you give to inventors and people with new ideas as to how to bring their ideas to fruition?
People measure you from what they see. If you want to do something, just do it! And keep doing it until you feel proud of your work. That’s the key to success as an entrepreneur.
What are the top 3 skills you believe are needed to be a successful entrepreneur?
- Work smart – efficiency is important!
- Work hard – focus on improving the quality of your work!
- Focus on a particular market that you are interested in to limit your competition
What is your favorite quote?
“Do right. Do your best. Treat others as you want to be treated.” – Lou Holtz
With that quote in mind, Suphakrit provided us a little more insight into the process of a start up and the life of entrepreneur
Another aspect of being an entrepreneur.
As mentioned above, there are many obstacles when starting a new business or company. Learning new skills and adapting to changing circumstances are a common part of the process of starting a new business. However another hurdle is getting financing for the business itself.
Finding investors and financing is a common issue among many start-ups. Investors want to invest in businesses that can not only generate revenue and profits, but also in businesses that have protection for their intellectual property. When a business has strong intellectual property protection, investors will be more likely to be at ease knowing that what they are financing would be protected.
Security and comfort is always a nice thing, right?
What forms of intellectual property are available?
Intellectual property can be protected by either trademarks, copyrights, patents, or trade-secrets depending on what kind of businesses the starts ups are engaged in or what products or services are offered.
Great services and great results.
Sopha & Mr. K has received a large amount of great reviews, indicating the high quality of their service and products.
On tripadvisor alone, Sopha & Mr. K has received over 230 reviews, with almost all of them being excellent.
“ We have been going to Mr K, each time we visit Chiangmai, for many years. In this time, we have had 35 shirts made to measures (for my husband, son and friends), a cashmere and wool suit, a cashmere and wool coat, a dress and jacket for a wedding and many casual ladies tops. The quality of cut and fit is excellent, the fabric wears extremely well. I would highly recommend you go here when in Chiangmai.”
Sopha & Mr. K also ranks #3 out of 179 Shopping in Chiang Mai on tripadvisor.
Reviewers also left some great feedback Sopha & Mr. K’s Facebook.
“Great experience. Mr K is fantastic, he works very well and his prices are incredibly low. I highly recommend.”
What are your thoughts on Sopha & Mr. K and intellectual property rights? Leave a comment below to let us know what you think!
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Disclaimer: This article is not legal advice. It is only for educational or entertainment purposes only. Please do not use the article or contents of the article without permission. For legal advice and questions, please contact registered Patent Attorney Vincent LoTempio.
