With 200,000 Members, Wongnai.com Claims to be Thailand’s Yelp

Restaurant review site Wongnai.com is the Yelp of Thailand, or at least it claims/wants to be. And with over 200,000 members so far under its belt, it seems well on its way. It was founded in July 2010 by Yod Chinsupakul and Pattrawoot Suesatayasilp, who are both frequent travelers. There weren’t any restaurant review sites back then in Thailand so they decided to build one themselves. Chinsupakul said:

We travel a lot and we use Yelp (and similar sites in other countries) all the time. It was very useful and we really want the Thai people to have similar tools to make their lives a little bit better. Instead of relying on the few food critics we have in Thailand, it’s just better to listen to the crowd.

Wongnai.com hasn’t received any investment so far and generates revenue through ads, listed articles, and businesses. The team has a total of 12 full-time staff. Chinsupakul says that his main competitor is Hong Kong’s Openrice but claims that Wongnai has more users.

We recently also featured Zodio, another Yelp-wannabe startup based in Thailand. Surely, there is space for one review site in each country at least. But it is a little early to judge who will emerge as the winner. In Singapore, Hungrygowhere, a Yelp-like site focusing just on restaurant listings and recommendations got acquired by SingTel for more than $9 million. Small money to our readers in Silicon Valley but that sum is decent by Southeast Asian standards, I think.