It takes gumption to pick yourself up after repeated business failures and keep trying. But Phaiwan Malailoi sleeps well at night knowing he finally found a success with his herbal fragrance.
Mr Phaiwan's time in high school taught him to be patient enough to face multiple failures and still persevere.
He credits the late King Bhumibol with giving him the strength to focus on specific knowledge.
"The late King Bhumibol inspired me to work tirelessly until I found a path leading me to real happiness," says Mr Phaiwan, who is 55.
Ketapat is a unique Thai perfume made from vetiver grass roots.
After graduating from high school, he owned a small shrimp farm.
"I ran the shrimp farm for a few years and then it collapsed and I lost everything -- my money, my land and my car," he says.
Mr Phaiwan blames monoculture -- reliance on one agricultural crop -- and a lack of knowledge for the failure.
"The failure was because of selfishness as everybody wanted to get rich at that time by running shrimp farms. There were hundreds of shrimp farms along the river and the chemicals we used caused serious water pollution, which killed a massive amount of shrimp," he says.
Mr Phaiwan started over as a truck driver and looked for other opportunities to earn more for his family.
He eventually started a new business with a product that was promoted by the government's One Tambon One Product (Otop) initiative. It was a herbal pillow, a pillow stuffed with several types of Thai herbs that make people relax and smell good. Some of the herbs are thought to have properties that make people sleep well.
"I had to travel to many places to buy herbs from villagers for my pillow. What I saw was every house had clumps of vetiver grass abandoned as unwanted by the homeowners," says Mr Phaiwan.
Back then very few people knew about the potential of vetiver grass, but late King Bhumibol tried to promote its use for soil and water conservation.
One of late King Bhumibol's royal initiatives had the Agriculture Ministry develop strains of the grass to find the one best suited to Thailand's weather patterns, then distributed the grass to many villages via the Land Development Department.
The company also makes skin care soap.
But without knowledge of how to take care of the plant, Mr Phaiwan saw many clumps of grass left unwanted, scorched by the sun at several households that he visited to buy herbs.
"That made me think of late King Bhumibol, who tried very hard for this project, but it was ultimately abandoned. I thought this should not happen. I needed to do something to make the late King's objective to make use of vetiver grass come true," he said.
Mr Phaiwan read up about the late King's experiments on the grass to see how he can make use of them.
First he dried the grass roots, chopping them into small pieces and stuffing them into the pillows, expecting the fragrance would permeate the pillows.
"The pillows were too hard. I failed again, and I was extremely disappointed in myself," says Mr Phaiwan.
"But something encouraged me to reread the late King's book on vetiver grass experiments completely. On the last page of the book, it said the roots of the grass have a property that can be used as a fragrance agent for lotion or perfume-related products."
That inspired him to try again, so he sought more knowledge about the grass from Suranaree University of Technology, where they collaborated on a method to extract the aromatic and fragrant agents from the root of the grass.
It took six to seven years to create a new product, but finally he came up with a perfume made with the fragrance of grass roots.
He named it "Ketapat" after his son.
Mr Phaiwan started promoting the perfume via the government's Otop channel and received a warm welcome from consumers as the perfume has the unique gentle aroma of Thai flowers.
The perfume is sold in a 35cc bottle for 590 baht.
He started to gain more customers once he started promoting on social media.
The next step was to expand his vetiver plantation areas to produce more perfume to meet rising demand.
"I have eight rai of vetiver plantation areas and a network of freelancers that grow the plant to secure raw materials for my business," said Mr Phaiwan.
Today he earns millions of baht a year from his perfume business.
Although some cosmetic companies have approached him for joint ventures or to be their original equipment manufacturers, he has turned down all proposals.
"I think about the late King and his teachings. He taught us to be modest and think thoroughly before making an investment. I need to consider whether these projects have strong potential, if I have the plantation area and if I can hire more employees to expand for such projects. Late King Bhumibol would teach us to take every step carefully," says Mr Phaiwan.
