The Financial Coconut Podcast

Jeremy Ko’s first gym died after about a year. No triumphant founder montage. He was fresh out of NS, knew fitness, but did not yet know how to run the business. That failure gave him the thing he could not buy from a franchise deck: context. More than a decade later, he says his group has 25+ gyms, alongside fitness equipment, sports supply and climbing businesses. The part worth stealing is not...

Most people try to make their jobs sound more impressive. Shaik Nifael does the opposite: "I clean longkangs for a living." He left school without the conventional qualifications his parents had hoped for and ended up doing the work he had been warned about growing up. At first, even Shaik was embarrassed by it. Then something shifted: engineers were listening to his advice, clients reli...

Would you buy an ETF just because it is cheaper, more tax-efficient and easier to access from Singapore? With new UCITS ETFs coming to SGX, that choice is about to become much more relevant for local investors. But convenience is only one part of the equation. In this episode of Chills with TFC, Reggie, Dawn, Chuin Ting Weber and Kang Wei Chin unpack what investors should actually look at before c...

A customer watched her live stream for SIX months before buying anything. The reason? "You're not someone that fly by night." Dawn sits down with two homegrown Singapore care brand founders - to break down how small local players actually win in a market dominated by Korean giants and Western imports. It's not bigger ad budgets. It's not paid magazine awards (those are scams...

At 24, Nicholas thought he was choosing between photography and film production . Then he spent 36 hours in a concrete cell . Lights on around the clock. Air-con blasting. Almost nothing except time to think. And one question kept coming back: “Is this all my life is worth?” The arrest didn’t instantly give him a new career. But it forced him to question the path he had spent years building. Then...

Most of us plan for the hospital bill. But what happens if you cannot work for months… or even a year? Daniel was chasing FIRE. Then cancer forced him to stop working… but not in the way he had planned. At 34, Daniel found a lump after a 5km run. Nine days later, he was diagnosed with stage 2B Hodgkin lymphoma. Six months of chemotherapy followed: 12 sessions, 13kg lost and a treatment bill of ove...

For years, the credit card debate had two camps: Team Miles or Team Cashback. Now, Trust Bank is adding a third contender, which is Stockback. This week on Chills with TFC, Reggie sits down with Dawn from SG Budget Babe, personal finance YouTuber Demi Zhuang and Johnathan Chua from The Daily Ketchup Podcast to compare how they reward their spending. Dawn reveals why becoming a mum pushed her from...

Three companies, three very different IP playbooks. A top-10 global dairy brand patents individual probiotic strains and prints the story on packaging to justify a premium. A food-traceability startup patents its core process but keeps its actual signature method a trade secret, refreshed yearly to catch counterfeits. A local kopi-brewing startup can't patent its process at all, so recipe, hardwar...

A 100% keyword match on a resume used to be the goal. Now it's often the reason it gets rejected before a human ever reads it. Career coach Samantha Ng joins co-hosts Adrian and Faith to break down why fresh grads are sending out hundreds of applications and hearing nothing back. The diagnosis isn't a weak resume, it's a hiring system that screens through AI before anyone sees the document, filter...

His first salary in Jakarta was S$150 a month. He saved 40% of it. Eleven years on in Singapore, he sits seven or eight years out from a S$2.5 million FIRE number, with two kids and a helper. Meet Deka, the Indonesian professional who built 630,000 subscribers in eighteen months teaching the thing his banker friends in Jakarta had never heard of: index investing. No gurus, no hot tips, no McLaren...

Singapore's National Day Rally 2026 changed how family support works. In the past, families got a bigger payout for each additional child, more money for the second child, even more for the third. That system is gone. Every child now receives the same flat support each year, no matter their birth order. Our guests explained why this matters more than the dollar amount itself: incentive-based payou...

Every Singapore business that outgrows Singapore looks north. Most stop at Johor. It's close, it's familiar, and anything further feels like a different order of decision. Sabah is three hours away and does not make the shortlist. Closing that gap is now Kevin George Ukang's job. Five months into running Invest Sabah, after sixteen years inside a regional development authority, his pitch to Singap...

Everyone says Singapore stocks are going cheap. So one guest pulled the Bloomberg numbers before walking into the studio: small caps here trade at 13 times earnings on average. Hong Kong? About four. Malaysia, 11. Her verdict: not undervalued. "Fairly priced." Meet Lawrence Loh, the NUS professor who has scored SGX-listed companies on governance for over a decade, and Hwee Li Ong, the SAC Capital...

Most investors love talking about equities. But in a world of higher interest rates, geopolitical uncertainty, tariff risks, AI disruption, and shaky market narratives, fixed income may be more interesting than many people realise. Natalie Tan , Head of Wholesale for Southeast Asia, and Nathaniel Wilson , Fixed Income Investment Specialist at Aberdeen Investments, break down how bonds, credit stra...

Burnout stories are common. What is rare is someone who actually steps off the “helicopter track” and rebuilds life from scratch. Dr Faith Nadine Choo, The Side Quest Doctor, did exactly that. After clocking 70 to 80 hours weekly and surviving 30‑hour hospital calls, she realised she was running on empty. Her turning point came during a palliative posting, watching a patient her age face terminal...

A millionaire tennis coach sounds like a flex… until you hear the grind behind it. Meet Jun Chong, a tennis coach who started the sport "too late" at 13, who runs Jun Tennis Academy in Singapore, and who today is a self-made millionaire investor behind SGWealthJourney. Explore his story on the early gains that made him cocky, the all-in earnings gambles that almost wiped him out, and the painful p...

Manhattan Fish Market is setting its sights on a comeback by returning to what made the brand memorable in the first place: familiar flavours, accessible seafood and a distinctly Malaysian identity. At Franchise International Malaysia 2026, CEO Deric Yeo and COO Sheikh Imran Iskandar shared how the home-grown halal seafood chain is rediscovering its original DNA while adapting to changing consumer...

Many retail investors chase tips, trends and rumours, yet overlook the one thing that consistently improves results: better thinking. We break down how AI‑style reasoning helps investors ask sharper questions, reduce emotional bias and build clearer decision frameworks. Learn: - Practical habits such as defining investment objectives, stress‑testing assumptions - Understand how data guides long‑te...

From one gym in 2017 to 16 clubs today, Jaya’s Anytime Fitness journey shows what disciplined reinvestment can achieve. Instead of taking profits out, he channelled earnings from each successful outlet into the next. That steady approach helped him scale across the Klang Valley while continuing to run other businesses. Meanwhile, Anytime Fitness Malaysia has grown from just 17 gyms in 2017 to arou...

He failed his startup. Lay awake at night convinced he'd ruined his financial future. Ten years later, he's sitting on a $4 million portfolio. Meet FIREPath Lion , the pseudonymous Singaporean blogger who shares everything most personal finance creators won't: his exact salary, every bonus, every investment, every number on the way to FIRE. No gurus, no day-trading, no genius stock picks. Just Bog...

Franchising can be one of the fastest ways to grow a business, but it can also become one of the costliest mistakes if you overlook the legal requirements. In this episode of The Financial Coconut Business Show, franchise lawyer and registered franchise consultant Damien Yeo unpacks the legal framework behind Malaysia's Franchise Act 1998 and explains why many businesses unknowingly cross the line...

Most people want to get rich faster. But what if the smarter move, especially in your 20s and 30s, is not squeezing every dollar out of a tiny portfolio? For busy professionals, wealth accumulation may start with something less sexy but far more powerful: growing your income, managing your spending, and consistently investing the difference. Chris How (semi-retired, founder of retireby50.me ), Chr...

Your “global” portfolio might not be as global as you think. Many investors buy a world index believing they are diversified across the planet. But if a large chunk of that exposure is still concentrated in the US, and especially in US tech, are you really spreading your risk? Reggie flew to Paris for the Amundi World Investment Forum and sat with Guy Stear, Head of Developed Markets Strategy, Amu...

Wise and Shine is coming back, and this time, we are looking for a new voice. The career landscape has changed. It is no longer just about climbing the ladder, asking for a higher salary, or figuring out how to survive middle management. Gen Zs are entering a workplace shaped by AI, higher expectations, tougher competition, and new definitions of success. That is why Wise and Shine is opening the...

Why are more Singaporeans investing overseas instead of at home? In this episode of Chills with TFC, Reggie sits down with Louis and Jameis to unpack what it would really take to make Singapore’s stock market more vibrant again. The conversation goes beyond returns. It looks at the deeper issues behind the SGX, from company fundamentals and corporate governance, to liquidity, retail participation,...