Open For Business

Malaysians love biryani, but husband-and-wife Jatinder Singh Badwal and Kishpreet Bakshi, both from Punjab, felt something was missing here in KL: true dum biryani, sealed with dough and slow-cooked in a clay pot the way it’s made in Lucknow. So in July 2025 they started The Biryani Company: biryani cooked to order in clay handis brought in from India, sealed, and delivered across KL in the pot it was cooked in. They still hold full-time jobs, and cook and deliver only at weekends. In their first year they made around RM55,000 in revenue, are already profitable, and have sent out more than 1,000 clay pots with a 4.9-star Google rating. They join us to talk about the dum method, growing a weekend business, and their plans to go big with tourism and corporate clients. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As homes across Malaysia prepare to light up for Deepavali, three friends are having their busiest weeks of the year. Parveena Selvarajah of Saray, Vinodhini Gangadara Vadivel of Muse by Vino, and Nithya Pushpanathan of Tablescapes by Nithya, each grew their own brand independently, from sarees to handbags to dining-wear, while cheering each other on. Along the way they also joined forces on cultural showcases like the Chitra Edit. In this Deepavali special, all three join us in the studio to talk about building their brands, sourcing and curating for Malaysian customers, what the festive rush really looks like behind the scenes, and why friendship might be the best business strategy they have. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Alex Koh grew up in a Bata shoe store run by his parents, and spent more than 20 years designing and developing shoes for brands like Hush Puppies, Vincci and Bata, and making hardware in China for factories that supplied Jimmy Choo and Burberry. In January 2024 he launched his own label, Scenshuz: women’s heels designed in Kuala Lumpur and handmade in Malaysia, built on a simple idea that beautiful shoes shouldn’t have to hurt. One month later, he lost his sister, the person who inspired the brand and believed in it first. Bootstrapped and sold mostly through pop-ups and Instagram, Scenshuz is now doing between RM650,000 and RM700,000 a year in revenue. Alex joins us to talk about designing shoes for women, building a brand on comfort, and finding purpose through grief. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

After nearly two decades working with international game studios including Ubisoft, EA and Unity, Alitt Khaliq returned to Malaysia to build a game development company of his own. Founded in 2024 with Brian Kim, Albrite Studios is developing its first original title, Project XII, while taking on selected development partnerships to support their growth. Alitt joins us to discuss the business of building a game studio in Malaysia, the realities of financing and developing original game IP, and what it takes for a Malaysian studio to compete in the global PC and console market. We discuss: Why Alitt left established international studios to build a company in Malaysia. The business case for developing original games rather than focusing solely on outsourced work. What it takes to finance and bring an original game to market. How Albrite balances original IP development with co-development projects. The ambition to grow into a sustainable studio with a portfolio of original titles. See omnystudio.com/listener…

Daryl Diong started Z21 in 2019, when he was 20, with RM5,000. Today Z21 is the centre of three companies. Z21 builds online stores designed to turn visitors into buyers, Convex focuses on web optimisation, and A22A trains companies to use AI in marketing and content. Together they help brands connect with customers directly through their own websites and build a stronger presence on social media. Z21 has been profitable since its first month, with clients including Love, Bonito, Clarks and Naelofar. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Malaysia’s kopitiam culture owes a great deal to the Hainanese: the kopi roasted with butter and sugar, the kaya toast, the chicken chop. But many of the old recipes and methods are being simplified, or quietly disappearing. JJ Phun grew up in that tradition. His family’s story goes back to a 1938 coffee shop at the Kluang railway station, and in 2005 he took that heritage to the Klang Valley as Kluang Station, opening its first outlet at 1 Utama. Now he and his brother are starting again with Arang, a modern Hainanese kopitiam they launched in 2026. It is self-funded, and they say it is already a seven-figure business in its first year. JJ joins us to talk about turning heritage into a business, what two decades of running kopitiams has taught him, and why culture only survives when it stays commercially relevant. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Everyone glamorises entrepreneurship. Jeremiah Su would rather talk about the part nobody posts: going broke, losing friends, and the loneliness of running a business with no one who really gets it. After nearly two decades in branding and video production, including co-founding the agency Superminted, Jeremiah started The Beyond in 2022. It began as a group of business-owner friends complaining about bad clients, and has grown into a community he says has more than 800 members, built around “anti-networking”: games, live debates, karaoke and real talk, from Kuala Lumpur to Manila. It is still bootstrapped and pre-revenue, backed by sponsors and partners, with a flagship festival, BeyondFest, returning to KL in November. Jeremiah joins us to talk about the culture of failure, whether community can become a real business, and what happens when the founder is the bottleneck. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 2021, a Malaysian mother handed her daughter a bottle of used cooking oil, simply wanting it out of her kitchen. That single bottle birthed a household cleaning block that cut grease so effectively it stopped her husband's hands from blistering. Today, that kitchen experiment operates as Soapan Santun, a bootstrapped, plastic-free brand upcycling household waste—from used cooking oil to surplus avocados—into handmade soaps and shampoo bars. Founded by former teacher Anna Lee and former banker Louis Koh, the business successfully commercializes the circular economy on a micro scale. The founders launched the company with roughly RM1,000 and broke even within six months. Today, they drive between RM100,000 and RM150,000 in annual revenue entirely debt-free. But operating as a two-person manufacturing machine carries a brutal vulnerability. When the founders had a baby, social media algorithms shifted, and consumer spending softened, they watched their revenue drop by ten percent. They face a hard physical…

Companies spend a fortune training their people. But what happens weeks later, when a manager faces a difficult conversation or a hard decision and the trainer is long gone? KC See has spent 42 years in the training business. He founded Quest Learning Group in 1984 and has trained and mentored more than 1,600 professional trainers across Asia. This year he launched QuestBytes, an AI-powered, human-enabled platform. It uses AI to understand a person’s problem and match them with a qualified coach or mentor across four areas: leadership and culture, financial wellness, health and wellness, and business excellence. The company is in early commercialisation, has signed a partnership to reach the members of the Hong Kong-based AsiaCEO community, and is preparing for its first external raise through crowdfunding. KC joins us to talk about the gap between learning and doing, why he believes AI cannot replace human judgement, and what it takes for a training veteran to build a technology business. See…

When a Malaysian business gets paid in Singapore dollars, the money usually takes a detour through the US dollar, picking up fees and delays along the way. Sera wants to take out the detour. Sera is an on-chain exchange that lets payment companies, wallets and businesses swap one country’s stablecoin directly for another, Singapore dollars for ringgit for example, settled in seconds. It never holds its users’ money. Live on Ethereum since May 2026, it has processed more than US$7 million in volume, and it plugs into apps like YouApp, which lets travellers pay any DuitNow QR merchant with stablecoins. Founder Douglas Gan has been building tech companies since 1997, from ShowNearby to cross-border wallets. He joins us to explain stablecoin FX in plain terms, how a free-to-use exchange plans to make money, and why he thinks Malaysia is quietly one of crypto infrastructure’s biggest talent pools. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Most technology knows your taste through what you buy, search for or click on. Lekondo thinks what you actually wear says far more. Founded by Malaysian Yeng Tan, who grew up in Taman Tun Dr Ismail, the New York-based app lets people post their outfit of the day. AI picks out each item and builds a digital closet over time, and users can see how people dress around the world. Since launching in January 2026, it says it has passed 100,000 users in more than 50 countries. In 2025 Lekondo went through a16z speedrun, Andreessen Horowitz’s accelerator programme. It has since raised about US$3 million from investors including Verdict Capital and Japan’s DG Daiwa Ventures. Yeng joins us to explain what a “third space for fashion” is, how a free app turns style into a business, and what it takes for a Malaysian founder to raise from Silicon Valley. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

While the AI ecosystem is filled with developer meetups and technical hackathons, a gap remains for non-technical professionals, creatives, and entrepreneurs who need hands-on familiarity with AI tools. PROMPT:CITY is tackling this space by collaborating with cultural events like Urbanscapes 2026 to reach everyday consumers and hobbyists where they spend their time. Wong Joon Ian, Founder of PROMPT:CITY, joins Open for Business to discuss how he is building a sustainable events and media platform around AI education. He breaks down the unit economics of ticket sales versus corporate sponsorships, the rise of "vibe coding" and bespoke software, navigating creative backlash against generative tools, and his strategy for expanding the platform across Asia-Pacific subcultures. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 2015, a professional wedding planner preparing for her own marriage hit a brick wall. Despite her industry connections, she collided with the premium bridal market’s quietest rule: top-tier designers cut their gowns for one body type. If a bride falls outside those rigid proportions, the luxury tier shuts its doors. Rejecting the standard industry compromise of cheap lookalikes, East Chin flew to Barcelona. There, she discovered independent European ateliers crafting extraordinary, inclusive garments without the famous-name markups, and she returned home to build The Gown Atelier around them - Four hundred gowns spread across a lot of different labels, so that the bride nobody else could dress would walk down the aisle in something she loved. East joins us to strip away the romance of the wedding industry and expose the arithmetic of renting dresses. We break down the reality of competitor price wars, and discuss exactly why a premium gown that once paid for itself in two rentals now demands five. We also…

Jaedals was created to kill the historical compromise between comfortable “trekky sandals” and style. But the brand's true differentiator lies in its unconventional production engine. Rather than relying wholly on traditional factory assembly lines, the company employs underserved women across Singapore who sew and embellish the sandals directly from their own living rooms. After spending nearly two decades building global campaigns for advertising agencies like Ogilvy and TBWA, founder Maggie Dumra launched the brand last year and immediately weaponised her corporate experience to scale the business. Today, Jaedals operates a flagship store in Orchard Road's Mandarin Gallery and secures premium shelf space at Club 21 and KrisShop. By deliberately reinvesting every dollar back into product and team development, the bootstrapped company tripled its revenue over eighteen months without taking a single cent of institutional equity. Now, the brand is pushing into its first international market: Malaysia. Maggie…

Batik Boutique is accelerating its retail expansion with the launch of its 1,500-square-foot flagship outlet at Merdeka 118, alongside achieving B Corp recertification with a 92-point score. The social enterprise saw a 75% year-to-date growth in its B2B segment and a 20% rise in B2C retail, further boosted by a viral moment when Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim wore their joint-designed shirt at the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia. Amy Blair, Founder and CEO of Batik Boutique, joins Open for Business to unpack how the brand capitalised on its Formula 1 collaboration with the Bahrain International Circuit. She discusses managing artisanal supply chains alongside retail expansion, utilising AI for operational efficiency and B2B design, and balancing corporate gifting with long-term brand equity. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For more information on BFM's SME event, click the link here. Gyms in Malaysia aren’t known for big profits, and there’s no shortage of them. So why would seven friends who train together open another one? COR3 in Kota Damansara is a “box,” the term functional fitness folks use for their gyms. It’s a semi-outdoor space packed with barbells and weights. Six months after opening, it already has more than 150 members. Joanne Lim and Eddie Yap, two of the seven co-founders, join us to talk about why they started COR3 and how the business works. We discuss: Seven founders, no single boss: How a group of friends from very different careers makes decisions together, and how they funded the gym. Fitness meets hospitality: What sets COR3 apart, how they make first-timers feel welcome, and why they put community and good coaching first. The business side: Why they chose a semi-open space, how they plan to grow, and their partnership with AirAsia ahead of Malaysia’s first HYROX race this December. See…

For more information on BFM's SME event, click the link here. Virgin Honey makes ready-to-use Acacia honey spoons, with an aim to offer a cleaner and more convenient way to enjoy honey without the mess of a traditional jar. Founded by Veenondhra Subramaniam, the Malaysian FMCG start-up is building a business around a familiar product in a different format. We discuss who buys single-serve honey, how Virgin Honey is building its market, and what it takes to turn a simple product into a scalable food business. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For more information on BFM's SME event, click the link here. Kakao Origin serves non-alcoholic drinks made with Malaysian single-origin chocolate, the first of its kind in the country. It started as a stall in Central Market and now has a flagship at Dayabumi. We talk about who pays RM16 to RM20 for a cup of chocolate, how they source beans from Malaysian farmers, and whether a drink shop can boost the local cacao industry. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For more information on BFM's SME event, click the link here. Frank Marini started in the mailroom of an American tour company as a part-time college job. Thirty years later he runs Railbookers Group, the world's largest independent rail holiday company. It builds trips around trains - the rail, the hotels, the sightseeing and the transfers. It offers more than 5,200 rail journeys, employs almost 400 people across seven countries, and is the national tour operator for Amtrak in the United States. Last October it opened a Singapore hub to serve Southeast Asia, and Malaysia is now one of its markets. More Asian itineraries are on the way. Frank talks to us about what an independent rail holiday actually is, building a business by listening to customers, and why train travel is having its biggest moment in decades. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For more information on BFM's SME event, click the link here. Can children participate in Malaysia’s growing cashless economy without being exposed to the risks of adult financial products? Vircle founder and CEO Gokula Krishnan Subramaniam believes children need a safer way to manage money, but making digital payments accessible also raises questions about regulation, parental oversight and financial literacy. From launching Scan & Pay for Kids to expanding beyond schools with DuitNow QR payments, Gokula shares how Vircle is growing its platform, making everyday spending safer for children, and building a financial service that helps younger users develop better money habits. We discuss: Whether minors can register for e-wallets under Malaysia’s current regulatory framework. How Vircle is making digital payments safer for children. Why the company is expanding beyond schools into everyday spending. How digital payments can help children develop financial literacy. What will it take for Vircle to scale into…

For more information on BFM's SME event, click the link here. A year ago, Tupai came on BFM to talk about Malaysia's maths problem. Since then, the numbers have gotten worse. In SPM 2025, 21.7% of candidates did not pass Mathematics, and in the latest PISA, Malaysia's maths score fell to 397 points, with only 35% of 15-year-olds reaching basic proficiency, against 65% across OECD countries. We get into: What's new in Tupai 2.0: The new parents app and Tupai 2.0. The results so far: Tupai's results from schools that use their app. The business model: How Tupai finances their activities and when they expect to make a profit. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For more information on BFM's SME event, click the link here. In 2014, the first SCORE Marathon drew 3,674 runners. Two months ago in Putrajaya, the 2026 edition drew 51,077 across two days - and was officially entered into the Malaysia Book of Records as the largest running event in the country's history. That is a fourteen-fold increase in twelve years, achieved by a company that has never raised a ringgit of external funding. When Patricia Tan and her partners founded SCORE in 2013, they built it the way you build a brand rather than the way you organise an event. Systems, governance, commercial thinking, and a portfolio of owned intellectual property: SCORE Marathon, KL Half Marathon, KL Women Running Festival, the Malaysia Pickleball Championship. Today SCORE is an eight-figure, profitable, entirely bootstrapped business. And it was recently appointed by Sport Singapore to organise the BYD Singapore International Marathon this December. Patricia joins us to talk about the economics of mass participation…

For more information on BFM's SME event, click the link here. Everyone has visited a car dealership, yet almost nobody understands the underlying economics. The actual margin on selling a vehicle remains thin; dealerships actually make their money through servicing, parts, and financing. Janessa Kuek operates AG Autoworld, a massive Johor-based Proton 4S dealer group and part of her family's larger enterprise. Under her second-generation leadership, the group recently swept eight major awards at Proton's global conference, securing the PROTON CEO Award and officially cementing its position as Malaysia's highest-volume dealer group. But the traditional auto retail model is currently colliding with a technological shift. Proton’s e.MAS brand now dominates the Malaysian electric vehicle market, capturing over sixty percent of national EV registrations this year. Because EVs require fundamentally less mechanical maintenance, the lucrative aftersales engine is disappearing. To combat this structural threat,…

For more information on BFM's SME event, click the link here. When Inbaraj Suppiah was last on this show, JomHack was a hackathon company - designing and running 48-hour innovation sprints for corporates and government agencies. It is now, to a considerable extent, a school. For the past year JomHack has run a free 30-day Python bootcamp. Daily classes, no fees, and no coding background required. 380 students have been through it, every place sponsored by JomHack itself. Running alongside that is something considerably larger. In 2024 Gamuda approached Inbaraj to design and implement a free AI Academy, in partnership with Google Cloud, training people in fullstack AI development over three-month cohorts. It is now on its eighth cohort in Kuala Lumpur, its sixth in Sabah, and its maiden edition in Sarawak . All of it free to the participant. Which raises the obvious question: who pays, and why? Inbaraj Suppiah returns to the studio to talk about how a company built on hackathons ended up building a talent…

The Contrast Club opened in Damansara Heights around three months ago: a communal Finnish stone sauna, pool-sized cold plunges, and a hot magnesium pool. You move between them - hot, cold, hot again - in a shared space rather than a private room. That communal choice is the whole idea. Contrast therapy already existed in Kuala Lumpur, but mostly in small rooms built for one or two people. Their bet was that recovery works better as something you do alongside other people — a third space that isn't home and isn't the office. Co-founders Paul Leo Versley and Lyv Koh join us to talk about building a physical, capital-heavy business from scratch, the operational reality of heating a sauna and chilling plunge pools in a tropical climate, and on their hardest problem - persuading people that recovery is a habit, not a treat. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Every day, Malaysians discard roughly 13,800 tonnes of food. A significant portion of this isn't consumer waste - it is perfectly edible surplus that merchants produce to manage the unpredictability of daily walk-in traffic. Value Food was built to solve this inefficiency. The app allows merchants to package their unsold inventory into "Value Bags," selling them at a fraction of the original price. This model allows businesses to recover sunk capital on food destined for the landfill, while providing customers with heavily subsidised meals. Despite being entirely self-funded, the startup has already achieved profitability and successfully onboarded over 500 merchant outlets, including global hospitality players like Hilton and Marriott. The platform drives revenue through three distinct streams: merchant subscriptions, per-bag transaction fees, and a unique monetization angle tied to corporate ESG reporting. By proving that sustainability can directly impact a merchant's bottom line, the platform has managed…

Spanish Cellar KL is a fully bootstrapped, three-million-ringgit gourmet import business supplying the Malaysian market with premium Spanish olive oils, farmhouse cheeses, wines, saffron, and cured meats. The company operates across three distinct revenue streams: B2B distribution to restaurants and hotels, direct-to-consumer retail, and private dining events. Founder Victor Dejesus’ trajectory in the F&B import sector is quite unconventional. After arriving in Malaysia on a corporate assignment with IBM, he resigned to remain in the country, launching his first Spanish import enterprise in 2000. He successfully scaled that initial company to six million ringgit in revenue before selling a 70 percent stake to local partners. However, as he watched that entity narrow its operational focus and scale to roughly RM30 million without him at the helm, he made the rare decision to walk away from the massive enterprise he created and restart his original, wider-ranging concept entirely from scratch. Victor joins us…

Otti is a corporate training and research institute focused on what it calls "Human-AI Synergy". The Institute teaches professionals to aggressively leverage AI for productivity without sacrificing independent, critical human thought. Co-founded in 2020 by neuroscientist Aster Wei alongside Cambridge-trained psycholinguist Chang Yin Jue and REDtone technopreneur Dato' Wei Chuan Beng, Otti now generates seven-figure revenue across five distinct streams, recording roughly 740 percent growth since its first operational year. The institute successfully secures B2B and B2G contracts, boasting a client roster that includes Novartis, Grab, Standard Chartered, DHL, and government entities like the Ministry of Health. Aster joins us to discuss bootstrapping a B2B training institute to seven figures, why she argues that most corporate AI training is selling the wrong framework entirely, and the difficult work of breaking founder dependency to build a company that can scale without its original creators. See…

Three women who have been friends for thirty years each built a business in wellness. Raja Jesrina Arshad scaled PurelyB into an eight-figure superfood brand. Diane Chia co-founded Millennia Village, an integrated lifestyle destination for active seniors. Sarah Lian built Supparetreat, a women-focused wellness community. Then they built something together. The Women Wellness Festival began as a gathering and is now, Malaysia's largest women's wellness event. Two editions, both sold out. The third edition runs on the 3rd and 4th of October at the Hyatt Regency Kuala Lumpur at KL Midtown - Two full days, more than fifty sessions, and a speaker list that includes squash legend Datuk Nicol David, and two-time Hyrox world champion Hannah Prescott. But behind the breathwork and the women's circles is a genuine operating business. Sponsors to sign, a venue to fill, a programme to curate, vendors to vet, hundreds of delegates to move between rooms on schedule, and a set of numbers that has to work. Sarah Lian and…

Paws Rehab is Malaysia's leading animal rehabilitation centre, operating as a highly profitable, mid-six-figure enterprise. Founded in 2012 by Sydney Chik, a UK-trained physiotherapist who traveled to the US to become a Certified Canine Rehabilitation Practitioner, the clinic addresses a gap in the local veterinary market. Offering advanced hydrotherapy, laser therapy, and pulsed electromagnetic field therapy, the fully bootstrapped business treats pets suffering from arthritis, spinal injuries, and paralysis. Over fourteen years, the clinic has processed thousands of complex medical cases and established a robust B2B referral pipeline with traditional veterinary practices. Today, Paws Rehab is expanding its commercial footprint beyond physical clinical hours by launching proprietary joint supplements, specialised rehabilitation products, and digital education platforms. Sydney joins us to talk about bootstrapping a niche medical service from day one, how to build a veterinary referral network from scratch,…

Modern factories operate on extreme precision, meticulously tracking yield histories, supplier metrics, and machine maintenance schedules. Yet, they possess almost zero institutional memory regarding their own hiring history. Revo is an HR technology platform built to fix this operational blind spot. Rather than replacing a company's applicant tracking software, Revo sits underneath existing systems to map exactly where a manufacturer’s best hires actually originate, pinpointing specific competitors, schools, and plants, to rank new candidates against historical success data so hiring managers "never hire from zero." The company was co-founded in January 2025 by former national squash players Andrew Lee and Randy Lim. Andrew joins us to discuss why hiring remains the only major business function historically immune to data, how the platform effectively identifies passive candidates and builds bench strength, and the strategic rationale behind leaving Silicon Valley to build a globally competitive enterprise…

Chef Ben Chua operates a highly specialised, fully bootstrapped sourdough baking studio out of Tropicana Avenue, Petaling Jaya. Following a deliberate, unconventional eight-year apprenticeship (which spanned a finance degree, a stint as a Grab driver, and an unpaid bakery internship while working as a commis chef at two-Michelin-starred Dewakan) he built a physical education business rooted entirely in human transformation. Over a thousand students from more than thirty nationalities have since passed through his doors at Reserved.KL. Revenue has jumped from RM100,000 in 2024 to RM350,000 in 2025, and is currently tracking toward half a million ringgit this year. The entire financial model however, rests on one founder in one room, with a strict hard cap of ten students per class. Chef Ben joins us to unpack the unit economics of a solo teaching business and the exact mechanics of escaping the founder bottleneck. We discuss the strategic paradox of attempting to scale via online courses when his core thesis…

After spending two decades building apps, websites, and CRM systems for Southeast Asian enterprises, Steve Wan watched his clients pour increasing budgets into traditional digital advertising models for diminishing returns. Realising that interactive campaigns effectively captured consumer attention but were prohibitively expensive to custom-build, he launched RewardinMe. Today, the bootstrapped, no-code platform allows brands to independently deploy interactive mechanics such as spin-to-win, scratch cards, and quizzes, across web, social, and in-app channels. Steve joins us to discuss the platform's core commercial proposition - zero-party data, what a massive logo list actually means for the bottom line of the company, and RewardinMe’s recently launched AI agent, designed to fully automate campaign strategy, creative generation, and reward recommendations. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When award-winning architect Katrine Cheong last appeared on the show in December 2024, the conversation centered around the design mechanics of building Little Precious, a premium confinement centre in KL Eco City. Today, she returns to discuss a drastically different reality: the shifting economic ground beneath the maternity business. Since opening in 2020, her single-site, 20,000-square-foot facility has served over a thousand mothers, operating with 60-plus medical professionals and a strict one-to-two nurse-to-baby ratio. With packages starting north of RM31,000, it is effectively a luxury hotel that carries the exorbitant staffing bill of a private hospital. Katrine joins us to discuss the hard unit economics of the confinement industry. We unpack the mechanics of occupancy and break-even points, if she will continue to champion a single-site model rather than scaling, and the brutal reality of retaining specialised nurses amidst a national shortage and aggressive poaching from Singapore. See…

Ghostbird Coffee started in 2015 out of operational frustration. After transitioning from the IT industry to help found The Owls Café, Thomas Ooi and Tiong Hsien Qing realised they wanted absolute control over their most critical supply chain element: their coffee. What began as a small Seputeh roastery built to supply their own shops has scaled into a massive nationwide B2B operation. Growing from roughly RM1.5 million in 2020 to RM7.07 million in 2024, the fully bootstrapped business currently generates between RM600,000 and RM800,000 monthly, with a clear operational target to consistently clear a million a month. The business now executes across seven distinct revenue streams—spanning roasting, B2B wholesale, e-commerce, a retail coffee bar, co-roasting, roastery consultation, and running major events like the Malaysia AeroPress Championship. Beyond their operational footprint, the founders are making a massive strategic bet on Malaysian Liberica. Traditionally dismissed as a cheap, sea-level filler crop…

Ling's Focacceria operated on an incredibly focused business model: one type of dough, transformed into a menu of focaccia loaves and sandwiches featuring Malaysian flavors like otak-otak, and vadai. Built by a former corporate communications and copywriting professional with zero F&B background, the Mutiara Damansara shop survived a brutal first year of poor management and severe debt. By tightly restructuring the business, founder Choy Ee Ling successfully cut payables, grew year-two revenue by 12 percent, and entered her third year completely debt-free. By the time the shop’s lease was up for renewal, the bootstrapped business was generating over six-figures in revenue and sitting firmly in the black. Then, she shut it down. Ling joins us to discuss the mechanics of digging a retail shop out of vendor debt, how social media fundamentally changed her customer acquisition, and exactly what happens to a company's sales when a founder announces they are closing a profitable business for good. See…

Faramore is a bootstrapped, direct-to-consumer footwear brand solving a highly specific market gap: affordable, handmade shoes designed exclusively for women with wide, chubby, or bunion-prone feet. Operating on a strict pre-order model to maintain clean cash flow and eliminate excess inventory, the brand prices its entire catalogue under RM95. By leveraging organic customer acquisition through founder Farah Che Lamin's personal Threads account, Faramore has rapidly scaled to roughly RM500,000 in revenue within its first year. This hyper-niche focus is a calculated response to a harsh entrepreneurial reality. Farah previously spent seven years successfully building her first footwear brand, LANIA, only to shut it down after being overwhelmed by aggressive market copycats. With Faramore, she executed a decisive strategic pivot, betting that a product meticulously engineered from the ground up for an underserved demographic provides a structural moat that is fundamentally harder for mass-market manufacturers…

How do you turn a Pan Mee restaurant into a scalable FMCG business? For Meet Mee, the answer came when COVID forced the company to rethink how it could reach customers beyond its restaurants. Co-Founder Chan Foo Chuen shares how the company developed its instant Pan Mee, built a business across e-commerce and retail, and grew annual revenue from under RM1 million in 2020 to more than RM10 million in 2025, while still working towards profitability. We discuss: Why Meet Mee moved from restaurants into packaged food. The product development challenges behind instant Pan Mee. How the company built its e-commerce and retail business. Why growing revenue does not necessarily mean being profitable. Meet Mee's plans to increase production and enter the Indonesian market. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Founded in Kota Kinabalu in 2015, Borenos Fried Chicken is an independent fast-food chain that has steadily grown into a highly successful eight-figure enterprise. Over the past twelve months, the company has aggressively scaled from six to eleven outlets, officially establishing a foothold in the Klang Valley with locations in Puchong, Damansara Uptown, and Bandar Baru Bangi. Along the way, the business has proven its market demand, securing Grab's Crowd's Favourite Western Food award three years running and a BrandLaureate World Halal award. Despite posting strong per-outlet revenue in its home state, crossing the South China Sea has presented its founders with fresh operational hurdles. And after eleven years building brand equity and community backing in Sabah, Borenos has effectively had to start from zero in West Malaysia - acquiring customers from scratch while competing directly against hundreds of established global franchise outlets. In this Malaysia Day special, Co-founder & CEO Janice Yeo talks…

As residential floor plans across the Klang Valley continue to shrink, Mocof has built a highly profitable, seven-figure business by addressing the gap in spatial efficiency. Operating under the SPAZE label, the company manufactures premium transformable furniture, such as wall beds that fold into shelving and sofas that convert into beds, engineered with high-end European compressed-air mechanisms. The fully bootstrapped business has maintained steady 8 to 10 percent year-on-year growth for fifteen years, operating premium showrooms in Pavilion KL and Setia City Mall while securing lucrative B2B contracts with ANSA Hotel and Paramount Property. Despite this established retail and manufacturing success, founder Eric Cha is now betting the company's next aggressive growth phase entirely on software. Mocof is developing a proprietary AI layout tool designed to ingest condominium floor plans and instantly generate optimised, space-saving designs with fully validated upfront costs. Eric joins us to discuss the…

Atlas Collectif is a performance running apparel brand operating out of Kuala Lumpur and Dubai, producing technical kits built on design, performance, and sustainability. Within three years of launching, the brand has scaled to over RM3 million in annual revenue, recording 178 percent year-on-year growth. Operating with a lean core team of just six people, the business has successfully established 20 distribution points across five countries and secured major strategic partnerships, including a three-year deal with adidas that will evolve into a full capsule collection in 2027, and a partnership with the KL Half Marathon to outfit roughly 8,000 runners. Co founder Hugh Koh joins us to discuss building a globally competitive athletic brand from Kuala Lumpur. We also discuss the USD 400,000 seed round to accelerate its physical and international expansion, and how the company utilises community as their primary customer acquisition channel, building highly localised run clubs across five global cities. See…

Linaco is Malaysia's largest coconut ingredient manufacturer, exporting coconut milk, cream, and ready-to-drink coconut water to more than forty countries under brands like Rasaku and Cowa. Operating production facilities across Batu Pahat, Bandar Enstek, and Kalimantan, the company supplies modern retail supermarkets, restaurants, and industrial food manufacturers. Last year, the group successfully crossed half a billion ringgit in annual revenue, achieving this massive scale without taking a single ringgit of outside capital in two decades. Despite this financial milestone, the business is navigating the most violent period of coconut price volatility in living memory. With global benchmarks nearly tripling due to drought, pests, and international buying surges, Linaco is executing a massive RM400 million vertical integration strategy in Sabah to grow its own supply and protect its margins. Furthermore, after twenty years of strict self-funding, the business is officially preparing to enter an aggressive…

YonMing Group is a fully bootstrapped commercial vehicle aftermarket giant operating across Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar, and Hong Kong. The business model spans five distinct revenue streams, including supplying genuine parts for European heavyweights like Volvo, Scania, Mercedes-Benz, and Iveco. Additionally, the company operates dedicated workshops and 24-hour breakdown teams, sells used parts and whole trucks, and serves as the appointed Malaysian distributor for Chinese manufacturer Shacman. Finance Director Kau Hau Jian joins us to unpack the hidden financial engine of parts distribution and the currency risks involved in a thin-margin industry. We also discuss the strategic impact of Chinese trucks disrupting a market traditionally dominated by European brands, the operational hurdle of digitising an industry built entirely on human relationships via the YM Super App, and how the impending electrification of commercial fleets will alter the economics of the parts…

A decade after pioneering equity crowdfunding (ECF) in Malaysia, why and how is pitchIN expanding beyond startup fundraising toward a complete private-to-public capital ecosystem? Kashminder Singh, Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer of pitchIN, joins Open For Business to discuss the platform’s evolution and ambitions as a digital funding hub serving mature, profitable enterprises alongside tech startups. Kashminder shares how pitchIN navigated the post-pandemic "funding winter" by diversifying into corporate advisory services, initial exchange offerings (IEOs), and secondary market liquidity via PSTX 2.0. He also breaks down their upcoming peer-to-peer (P2P) debt financing rollout, strategic alignment with regulatory updates for LEAP and ACE market listings, and plans for executive succession and fresh capital raising. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Supergulp is a bootstrapped functional beverage brand built on delivering scientifically recognised prebiotic fibres (specifically inulin and acacia gum) in a traditional soda format. Designed to address the high-carbohydrate, low-fibre diets prevalent across Southeast Asia, a single can delivers approximately half of an adult's recommended daily fibre intake. The strategic premise is straightforward: rather than forcing consumers to drastically overhaul their dietary habits, the company improves the nutritional profile of a product they are already drinking. When founder Julian Koh last appeared on the show in October 2024, the brand was just months old and stocked in roughly 80 local outlets. Two years later, the business has aggressively scaled to over 1,000 retail locations across Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia, with Thailand slated as the next target. Operating entirely without institutional funding, the seven-figure business has roughly tripled its revenue year-on-year and successfully achieved…

Let's Coopi Roasters is a fully bootstrapped micro-roastery that recently expanded into its own commercial shoplot, the Coffee Lounge. Generating between half a million and a million ringgit annually, the business model relies heavily on B2B operations, with 70 percent of revenue driven by wholesale contracts. The company successfully supplies custom espresso blends and single-origin beans to cafes spanning from Shah Alam and Petaling Jaya to Terengganu and Brunei, while retail sales and specialized coffee education make up the remaining 30 percent of the business. Operating with a collaborative mindset, founder Hamizah Hamzah is navigating the operational reality of scaling a wholesale business without yet owning her own roasting machine. Beyond the immediate economics of coffee, she is leveraging her previous seven-year career as a behavioural therapist through a strategic partnership with EmployAble. Together, they are developing targeted vocational and job-readiness training for neurodivergent teenagers…

RujukRent is a tenant screening platform built to verify a prospective renter's identity, employment, and rental history within three days, entirely with their consent. Currently operating as a fully bootstrapped, solo venture, the platform operates on a pay-per-use model for landlords while remaining free for property agents. Despite its early stage, the business has already secured a strategic memorandum of understanding with the Malaysian Institute of Estate Agents (MIEA) and is actively developing a commercial leasing version of its product. Founder Dinesh Venkitesan, a lawyer by training, joins us to discuss the harsh realities of building a data business in a market that severely lacks data. We unpack the strict legal parameters of what can and cannot be checked, the financial mechanics of a pay-per-use model without subscriptions, and the path to scaling a solo bootstrapped startup. We also discuss the competitive landscape, and the difficult question of whether tenant screening actually eliminates…

WAY Sauce is a Malaysian brand that makes all-natural Nyonya, ready-to-use cooking sauces and pastes , including rendang, satay, and pulut lemak, with zero preservatives, MSG, or artificial additives. Certified to rigorous BRC, IFS, and Halal standards, the family business operates across both its proprietary brand and white-label OEM manufacturing, exporting to markets like Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, the UK, and the United States. Despite this international footprint, the operational reality of producing all-natural products is incredibly challenging. Co-founder & COO Benson Tan joins us to discuss the intense financial squeeze of manufacturing FMCG goods, navigating the constant tension between volatile raw material costs and the hard price ceiling that retail consumers are actually willing to pay. We also unpack securing shelf space in seven international markets, and the complexities of building products around Malaysia's most volatile ingredients. Benson also shares a blunt operational philosophy for F&B…

Asian Fried Chicken is an independent food and beverage business operating out of Seremban that offers a cleaner approach to comfort food. The menu features fresh, preservative-free, and MSG-free fried chicken paired with wholesome sides like broccoli quinoa and sweet potato fries. Having successfully survived its first 15 months - a critical milestone given that 60 percent of Malaysian F&B businesses close within their first year - the company is generating six-figure revenues and achieving intermittent profitability. However, the operational reality of the business dictates that walk-in dining traffic alone is not enough to sustain growth. In response, founder Anandasingam Thuraisingam has executed a decisive pivot toward B2B catering, targeting corporate clients, schools, and hospitals. Following a successful partnership with the Negeri Sembilan Cricket Association, the business is doubling down on a specific niche: becoming Malaysia's premier sports, community, and event food partner. To fuel this…

What does it mean for a business to contribute to nation building? For Merdeka, we speak to six Malaysian entrepreneurs working across urban development, STEM education, the creator economy, social enterprise, rural communities and financial inclusion, and explore how their businesses are helping to build a more prosperous business ecosystem in Malaysia. Image Credit: Shutterstock See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.