Stepping back, starting over: A Thai entrepreneur forges a new life

Mont Watanasiriroch ran a successful motion graphics and lighting installation company that transformed Thailand’s nightlife scene. Now, he serves lattes and americanos, bucking trends in Thai society for a better work-life balance and improved mental health.  

For more than a decade, Mont Watanasiriroch lived the high life in Thailand’s entertainment industry.   

He owned a successful motion graphics company called Swerb. Over time, his company evolved into the Zieght Project, through which Mont and his small team of creatives would design lighting and visual installations for major music festivals and events, including the well-known Wonderfruit festival.   

Sometimes, he DJed.   

Mont, an entrepreneur in Thailand, has found his life changing in unexpected ways over the last couple of years. Image: Supplied

But since last year, the 40-year-old’s lifestyle has changed completely.   

Swerb is no longer a motion graphics company, but rather a small café Mont runs from the ground floor of his family home in Bangkok’s Sathorn district. Every day follows a familiar routine. Gone are the late nights and parties. So too are the high fees, the rush of the job and the measure of fame he had achieved with Swerb, Zieght and his DJ sets.   

“I’m not expecting to earn much anymore. I’m just trying to keep my café going and be healthy; just take back ownership [of my life],” he says.  

Like many Thai professionals his age, Mont came upon a fork in the road in the past two years.   

For long stretches of time, Thailand’s pandemic restrictions put his work on ice. He kept his employees on the payroll throughout 2020, burning through savings in the hope that the worst would soon pass. But continued COVID-19 outbreaks scuppered that possibility.   

By early 2021, he halted Zieght’s everyday operations and began commissioning his former employees irregularly, whenever the odd job would materialise.   

Mont's journey has included a spot or two of DJing. Image: Supplied

“It feels very weird when you don’t have any income,” Mont explains. “I thought we had passed the critical point at the end of 2020. I had to do something to generate money.”  

When he decided to open a café — an idea he had toyed with for years — he discovered a slower, simpler way of life. He could wake up early, go for a run before work and end his day no later than 5pm. He enjoyed the change and the new challenges so much that even after Thailand eased its pandemic restrictions, allowing for a full return of nightlife events, he chose to leave his old life behind.   

It’s a trade-off with which he admits he’s still coming to terms.  

“The hardest part for me right now is trying to find balance — trying to put myself at peace about my previous job and slowly appreciate what I have here,” he says.   

A 15-minute walk from Bangkok’s central business district, Swerb is named after his original company, but the parallels between the two businesses end there.   

While dozens of coffee shops have opened in Bangkok during the pandemic — one of few food and beverage businesses that could operate normally under the city’s restrictions — Swerb stands out from the pack because it reflects Mont’s style and creativity.   

The café is filled with potted plants, coffee-making gadgets, mismatched furniture, a turntable and record collection, ceramic mugs made by his host mother from the year he studied in California as a teenager, and unique coffee beans customers won’t find anywhere else in Bangkok. (Mont asks friends who travel to the US or Europe to hand-carry hard-to-find coffee products back to Thailand for him.)   

Mont's cafe reflects his own style and forms a community hub. Image: Supplied

Mont hasn’t tried to attract café-hoppers, either — a Bangkok subculture that mushroomed during the pandemic. When new cafés open, social media-savvy crowds come in droves, seeking photos of designs and drinks worthy of their Instagram feeds. Instead of betting on this unpredictable crowd to yield immediate financial returns, he has created a venue he hopes will be more enduring.   

He explains that Swerb immerses him in the community and allows customers to unplug and enjoy a break from the pressures of daily life. “I try to make everyone feel comfortable, like it’s their own house, and talk to them,” says Mont. “Parents really like it here because their kids can run around freely.”  

While it has come at a financial cost, running a café has allowed Mont to define success on his own terms. In a society where competition has surged in white-collar communities, especially among parents aiming to give their children a leg up in life, learning and business, he is bucking trends.   

Mont’s career reversal has also benefitted his mental health. It’s something he talks about with a candour that’s rare to encounter in Thailand, where more than three million people struggle with poor mental health but talk of their illnesses remains taboo.   

Mont explains that he used to pressure himself to work constantly, but his newfound routine has given him the freedom to focus on his well-being. He has found himself with more time to pursue running, for example, a hobby he picked up when work began to weigh on his physical and mental health.   

With all the changes in his life, Mont found more time to pursue his hobbies. Image: Supplied

Recently, he completed a 100k race in France, part of the esteemed Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc (UTMB) trail running series.  

His new life has also given him time and space to wrestle with the doubt he still feels. He was, after all, a pioneer of visual arts in Thailand’s nightlife scene, and it’s unusual for anyone in Thai society to leave a successful career to embark on a new and uncertain future unlikely to enhance one’s personal wealth.  

But with each day, the doubt has begun to disappear, and his independent streak seems less like an outlier in Thai society than a possible guiding light for other people his age or younger.   

“Honestly, sometimes I think, ‘How is this going to end up?’,” he says. “But the thing that I’ve started to realise slowly is [the benefit to my] mental health. This space just feels right.”  

- Asia Media Centre