Vanchai Ploypong says he is a businessman First and an artist second.

            Although he started out as an uneducated chauffeur for a jewelry store, Vanchai Ploypong now sits in the driver’s seat of a thriving jewelry business.

            Poverty forced Vanchai Ploypong to drop out of school at 16, shortly after his father died, and leave his agricultural background in Sukothai Province, He arrived in Bangkok with no special skills except a desire to work hard and learn.

            Today he speaks fluent English and French and owns three jewelry shops, where he sells pieces that he designs and manufactures in his workshop. His business is small—1,500 pieces a year—but steady and Mr. Vanchai is preparing to launch into exporting, mainly to the Japanese market.

            Currently, all of his pieces—which retail for US$200-$4,000—are handmade individually, but for his export market he will start casting jewelry on a limited scale. “I have seven people in my workshop now, but I plan to add three more. Eventually, I’ll go up to 15,” Mr. Vanchai says. “For the first year I want to start with just B1 million for export, enough to cover my expenses. Next year, I may export B3 million worth of jewelry. But that’s just a dream.”

            Mr. Vanchai began his career as a driver for the T Man jewelry shop on Silom Rd. The business catered to American GI’s, and Mr. Vanchai learned English while chauffeuring them in –between the base and the shop. “They didn’t know when they went to Vietnam whether they would be killed or not. They would just drink and spend money,” Mr. Vanchai says.

            Not content with being a driver the rest of his life, Mr. Vanchai began talking to the salesmen and gold-smiths at the shop, asking questions about how to judge a stone or make a setting. “We didn’t have a gemology school then,” he explains. “You had to learn any way you could from other people.”

            After the Vietnam War ended, the T Man shop went bankrupt. “The owner made a lot of money for the first 15 years and then he lost everything in one year,” Mr. Vanchai says.

            Determined not to make the same mistake, Mr. Vanchai set out on his own course. He began operating a small stone trading business out of his house. “Instead of working eight hours a day, I worked 12 hours,” he recalls.

            He decided early on that learning a third language would help him convince more people to buy from him, so he enrolled for morning classes at the Alliance Francaise. The strategy worked. “At the beginning, I only sold loose stones to the French because they would not accept Thai jewelry. The quality of the settings was not high enough,” he explains. “I decided I could do something to improve it.”

            After observing jewelry designs in France, Mr. Vanchai started developing his own. “I got my ideas from Europe and adapted them to Thailand,” he says. He opened his first shop, called Chaliang, in Siam Square seven years ago. His store deviated from the traditional Chinatown-style gold shops common to Thailand.

            “At that time, most jewelry stores used neon lights to decorate and the owners put everything in the window. They bought from factories and they bargained with customers over the prices. I wanted to change the attitude, create a revolution, in jewelry shops. The first change I make was decoration—I used dark tones and spotlights. I didn’t put everything in the window, just a few samples, second; I specialized, working only in 18 karat gold. And third, I sold at a fixed price.”

            Mr. Vanchai wanted to emphasize that his designs were individually made and unique. “I wanted to appeal to the new generation of Thais,” he explains. “Young people who work and don’t depend on their parents. They have their own apartments and their own ideas. They want something of their own taste that nobody else has.”

            Mr. Vanchai parlayed his language skills into a sideline job as a tour guide, and cleverly included his jewelry shop on the tour. “At first, I didn’t tell the tourists that it was my shop,” he recalls. “But then I make friends with many of them and they told me it was better to be open and tell people.

            Within 11 months, Mr. Vanchai’s new concept proved so successful that he opened a second location on Silom Rd, also called Chaliang. He eventually sold the Siam Square location to his sister and opened another Silom outlet, called RF Creations. His most recent branch opened at a hotel in Chiang Mai.

            Large glass windows fronting his Silom Rd. locations open onto small workshops, so people passing by can watch the goldsmiths creating the jewelry. “People love something unique and this is an important point of my marketing,” Mr. Vanchai explains.

            Although he is expanding into exporting, Mr. Vanchai says he will continue to keep production low so the quality remains high. At the recent Bangkok International Jewelry Fair, he received an order from Japan for 100 pieces. He finds that simple, classic designs work well in both the European and Japanese markets.

            “My problem now is I need to develop a team. I cannot expand my business alone,” Mr. Vanchai says. “I need good sales people and designers. First, they must love their work and second, they must be willing to learn. I’m willing to teach, but it’s difficult to find people who really want to learn.”