Entrepreneurship is an outstanding trait of Generation Y people, those who were born in the 1980s or early 1990s and are around 30 years old or younger.
Gun Hopornsiri, a Gen Y investor, holds a stock portfolio worth one million baht at just 25 years old. His aggressive investment style is a key factor contributing to his wealth at a young age.
With a bachelor's degree in architecture from Chulalongkorn University, he serves as creative manager of Soap Villa Ltd, a family-run business. He is a privileged customer for small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) business at Kasikornbank.
Mr Gun learned much about savings and investment on his own a few years ago, beginning with deposits, a basic financial product of many banks.
Back when he was a kid, his mother would deposit and invest money for him, especially in government bonds.
He gathered his savings from gift money, such as Ang Pao or red envelopes during Chinese New Year. When he grew up and studied at university, his mum let him manage the deposit money himself.
At that time, he had about 20 deposit accounts for both fixed income and savings. Mr Gun gradually closed most of them and now holds one main deposit account. He maintains the basic deposit account for its flexibility with financial transactions.
Before reducing his deposit accounts to only one, Mr Gun was looking for a typical product from several banks that gave attractive interest rates. But the low-risk, low-return financial products didn't appeal to the aggressive young investor.
Lately, he has drifted away from deposits and ventured into the world of mutual funds _ higher-risk assets that give better returns.
"Return is the first factor for my investment, and I normally look for alternative investments with better returns," Mr Gun said. "I love to shop financial products from bank brochures and study the information myself. I can say that I'm interested in mutual funds."
His first foray into mutual funds was a Korean fund when he was at university. Then he moved to money market funds, later looking into gold bars and gold funds.
Mr Gun got satisfactory returns of around 30% on his asset investments the past few years, thanks to a significant rise in commodity prices.
Attractive returns on high-risk assets compelled him to press ahead into higher-risk investments and stocks.
Joining the Kasikorn Securities Young Investor programme through KS the Great Investor offered a gateway to new investing challenges when Mr Gun was 23.
He began pursuing higher-risk assets with an initial investment of 300,000 baht.
Among all 88 participants in the programme, Mr Gun was one of 11 new investors earning the highest return on investment, partly due to marketing advice. He got a Korean trip as a reward under the programme's conditions.
"Even if I'm teenaged, single and have no responsibilities, I prefer to invest in high-risk assets and the key reason is to make a high profit," he said. "As well, I love short-term investment rather than long-term."
His definition of short term is no more than one year.
Of his total investment portfolio, 80% is allocated to high-risk assets, largely via the stock market. He has studied diversifying the portfolio to cover foreign investments, particularly in Chinese and Indian funds to harness strong economic growth in those countries.
He is also interested in derivative products. His short-term investment experience has taught Mr Gun a lot, and he believes he can use his new knowledge to improve his routine life. Risk diversification and risk management are good policies for investment, business operations and life in general.
"Paying attention, good planning and thorough study lead to achievement," he said. "Bad experience and investment loss are also good lessons for the new investor like me."
Next up for Mr Gun: raising his portfolio value to 10 million baht in the next five years. This aggressive investor vows to meet the ambitious goal of his investment plan.