Open For Business

Far Post Academy is a startup that offers futsal lessons for kids aged 18-months and up. They specialise in the technical, tactical and social aspects of futsal, and were kicking things into the big leagues when Covid-19 served them a red-card. They’ve since pivoted to take their futsal lessons online, offering respite for kids and relief for their parents. We speak to Director Jeremy Dev ab...

From a sound guy for Datuk Leonard Tan to starting InFront Consulting Group Asia Pacific, an award-winning pioneer regional specialist in Cloud & Data Center Consulting, Ray Chou is known as a serial entrepreneur that invests both in businesses and people’s life as he is also a business coach with Owners’ Circle. We speak to Ray about how he pulled it off, what inspires him and his...

Neybrfood is a curated online marketplace for home-cooked meals by home chefs within their neighbourhood. From their kitchen to your dining table, we enable home-chefs in the neighbourhood to earn an income from home whilst making delicious home cooked meals. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Many companies have leveraged the nature of the pandemic to embrace e-commerce fully, but with less in-person customer interaction, do brands really know what their customers want? Eyo Zhen Yi, managing director of e-commerce beauty platform Threebs, shares his thoughts on the beauty industry and the relationship between data management and successful e-commerce. See omnystudio.com/listener for pr...

Evolet is a home-grown digital platform that provides secure salary management for employers, as well as financial access and savings for the unbanked. We catch up with Founder and CEO Johnson Yu to discuss the challenges in serving the needs of unbanked Malaysians and the migrant workforce in the country, how they plan to digitalise the underserved segment of the population, and how all of this s...

In 2014, the United Nations estimated that 55% of the world's urban population lived in the Asia-Pacific region. Today, more than 50% of the Asian-Pacific population has become urbanized, with over 1.2 billion people living in urban centers. However, the urban poor has still been largely marginalized. Tim Tan, CEO and Founder of AffordAble Abodes, aims to build more affordable and environmentally-...

Sometimes, you have to go back to something that you love, and when you can turn that something you love into a business, there's potential for something great. We all know that Nasi Lemak is close to every Malaysians' heart, and when we want comfort food, nothing comes close to Nasi Lemak. Starting her business with just RM1 in the bank, Deborah has set out on a journey to produce gourmet home-co...

The pandemic has affected the education sector immensely, with schools and other learning institutions forced to shutter their doors and move almost entirely online. To help provide a perspective on what that shift was like, Melissa Liew, founder of Learning Fresh, an English studio-based innovation school for young learners aged 3-12, shares her thoughts. Image Credit: Rido | Shutterstock See omn...

With the desire to provide better alternatives to fast food, Ahmad Syafik Jaafar of Ira Noah co-founded Nanka, a company that uses jackfruits as burger patties. To find out why, we speak to Ahmad Syafik Jaafar while discovering how jackfruits stand out when compared to other meat substitutes and his aspirations for Nanka. Image Credit: Nanka | https://nanka.in/ See omnystudio.com/listener for priv...

As our country and the world continue to vaccinate, citizens work through lockdowns and other pandemic strategies, businesses fight to survive as employees lose their jobs too. Founder of Leverage Lab, Jeevan Sahadevan provides a powerful yet simple framework for everyone to put into their businesses and lives to begin thriving despite the continuing pandemic. Image Credit: kentoh | Shutterstock S...

AVANA is a social commerce platform that helps business owners sell online. They have helped over 100,000 businesses optimize their brands and automate their business capabilities online. Dough Little meanwhile is an arts and crafts business offering handcrafted natural play dough that tastes safe for children. Soh Yien Yee, COO and Co-Founder of AVANA and Dr Wong Mei Mei, Founder of Dough Little...

Flipping sneakers have been a viable business for decades. According to Statistica, a company specialising in market and consumer data, the overall global resale sneakers market is forecasted to reach a value of US$97.8 billion by 2024. In Asia, Novelship is known to be the fastest-growing marketplace for sneakers and streetwear. After just two years into the business, they have achieved their fir...

Right now, many people are unable to celebrate with their loved ones in the traditional way. Lockdown restrictions and physical distancing remove a lot of joy and sharing from the celebration equation. So how do you still reach out with a nice, safe gesture? Ryo Okubo, director of Giftee Malaysia, discusses the concept of eGifting and how virtual gifts can benefit both the consumers and the mercha...

Mono Premium Melon aims to grow the best Japanese melons in Malaysia using Japanese methods. With their IoT setup, the amount of nutrients or water a plant needs, amending the fertiliser composition and monitoring its temperature can all be done remotely. We speak with the co-founder of Mono about their radical methods, which include playing music for their melons. Image Credit: Fotosr52 | Shutter...

On this episode of Failing Forward, we discuss the Pareto Principle - the 80/20 connection that was discovered in the 1800s but is still being applied to almost every aspect of our lives today, especially in the business world. Click here for more episodes of Failing Forward. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A centralised kitchen with shared services staff, dining and sales infrastructure so that vendors can focus solely on cooking delicious and nutritious food is what MOJOS Kitchen aspires to be. The co-founders, Gaurav Joshi and Sharayas Saranthan, discuss why they started MOJOS and how they plan to expand their food delivery service company. Image Credit: MOJOS Kitchen | Facebook See omnystudio.com...

A centralised kitchen with shared services staff, dining and sales infrastructure so that vendors can focus solely on cooking delicious and nutritious food is what MOJOS Kitchen aspires to be. The co-founders, Gaurav Joshi and Sharayas Saranthan, discuss why they started MOJOS and how they plan to expand their food delivery service company. Image Credit: MOJOS Kitchen | Facebook See omnystudio.com...

Founded in 2014, WhyQ started out as a hawker-first digital ecosystem enabling hawkers in Singapore to deliver cooked food and order wholesale raw-material supplies aided with integrated POS systems. WhyQ works to digitalise not just hawkers, but also small businesses such as MSMEs across all industries and sectors in Malaysia. Image Credit: WhyQ | Facebook See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy...

The pandemic has thrust many a business headfirst into the world of e-commerce whether they’ve liked it or not, and with the surge of companies crowding the internet, it can feel like your brand is getting lost in the crowd. Benjamin Fong, founder of digital marketing AI-infused platform, Peasy. AI, tells us about how he’s revolutionising digital marketing with artificial intelligence....

Eatcosys is an F&B and retail tech solution provider that aims to help businesses ride the wave of disruption by going digital. The platform, which provides digital solutions that cover the entire lifecycle of F&B businesses, is the brainchild of Vincent Kok - formerly of event-tech provider VMO and foodie site foodadvisor.my. We speak to Vincent about the impact Eatcosys is making in the...

Imagine an advertising technology platform powered by the crowd for the crowd with hopes to provide brands with the best reach possible. MyBump Media aims to decentralize advertising and provide advertising-income opportunities to everyone! To find out more on their game plan and how they hope to expand, we speak to Dhanish Athif and Nadia Jalil, Co-Founders of MyBump Media. Image Credit: MyBump M...

Business travel in 2020 came to a grinding halt as a result of worldwide Covid-19 travel restrictions. While video calls have kept companies connected virtually, we have now worked remotely long enough to fully appreciate its benefits as well as its limitations. There is still real value in business travel for companies with 60% of business travellers saying that major deals and decisions cannot b...

Getting older is inevitable for all of us, and it’s important to recognise and hopefully prepare for as comfortable an experience as possible. But sometimes, elderly care can prove difficult, especially in the pandemic where shops are closed, inter-household interaction is discouraged or even outright banned, and getting around is tougher than ever. Irene Lee, CEO of Elder Elite, discusses t...

Enterpryze is an Irish-born software company focused on providing business and accounting software solutions for start-ups and high growth companies across the globe. Morgan Browne, CEO of Enterpryze, discusses why he started his business, how it has been affected by the pandemic and his future goals for it. Image Credit: Enterpryze | enterpryze.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy informat...

Atome is a leading Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) platform in Asia, which found its way to Malaysian shores last quarter of 2020. It is part of Advance Intelligence Group, a Series-C AI-driven technology company in Singapore, which is now working to partner online and offline retailers in the region to increase conversions and grow average orders and customer segments. We speak with Atome Malaysia &...