He proudly says that he has been with his children through all the little growing up milestones. He has also learned to build an income from setting up booths at fairs and freelance jobs. We are grateful to have you over and conducting the caricature 101 workshop.
Do you have a story? Let us know here: https://forms.gle/ht4HsvbxgSgcKS5h8
(This post was first published on October 12th 2018)
We hear stories from Sabah and Sarawak to the United States. Thank you, Roshan for spending time with us!
Do you have a story? Let us know here: https://forms.gle/ht4HsvbxgSgcKS5h8
(This post was first published on October 3rd 2018)
He also stayed for one of the workshops. We would like to extend our gratitude to this royal who humbly came to speak to all of us.
Do you have a story? Let us know here: https://forms.gle/ht4HsvbxgSgcKS5h8
(This post was first published on October 3rd 2018)
We are fortunate to have you constantly supporting our storytelling endeavours, especially for this Humans of KL ‘Stories from Malaysia’ Photostory Exhibition. Thank you for your helping hand in making this exhibition and workshop a success!
Do you have a story? Let us know here: https://forms.gle/ht4HsvbxgSgcKS5h8
(This post was first published on October 3rd 2018)
We would like to extend our appreciation to her for telling her cancer journey, from the time of pre-diagnosis, surgery, chemotherapy and post-treatment till today. You are truly a survivor!
Do you have a story? Let us know here: https://forms.gle/ht4HsvbxgSgcKS5h8
This post was first published on October 3rd 2018)
“My working holiday experience in US is the greatest adventure of my life so far.
There was this random night, I came across this ‘working holiday’ thing on the Internet and I was like ‘oh US?’, a country that has never be on my list and I just signed up for it because I want to experience the so called ‘US culture’.
One of the US cultures I’ve experienced is that they are a proud nation to the extend that they think they are the best.
I remember I went to US during Christmas, so my boss wanted me to help with the Christmas tree decoration and she asked me ‘do you celebrate Christmas in Malaysia? Have you ever seen evergreen?’
I know she wasn’t being mean but at the beginning, I felt like ‘oh she is looking down at us, she thinks that Malaysia is a very kampong place, very rural’.
I was working as a housekeeper in a ski resort in Peru, Vermont and it was an unforgettable experience for me. It was very tough at the beginning because I overestimated myself, the physical work was beyond my limit – I’m small in size and not that strong.
Also, during winter, the temperature reached -20°C, and I was under the weather for almost 2 months.
It was very tiring for me. My parents were forcing me to quit and come back to Malaysia.
I felt like giving up but I didn’t want to, I had a feeling that I will look down at myself if I gave up. Now, I feel like it is an achievement, I learned a lot of things, not only about US but about myself.
I remember there was this old man, he was my co-worker as a mechanic in the resort. He told me one should always have a ‘student’ mentality: to always be willing to learn, regardless of what positions you hold, your age, your wealth – and that’s been the wisest thing that I have heard along the journey.
Despite I can talk so much about travelling, I do feel lost and depress sometimes. It’s because I don’t have a job now, I don’t have an income and I still living on allowance.
I tried very hard to get a job in UK after I finished my degree in Liverpool because I really love the city so much.
It’s about the lifestyle and the people I met, all the experiences made me grow so much and so quick. In the end, I didn’t get any.
I believe that good things take time and things happened for a reason. These simple quotes and beliefs hold me every time I’m on the edge of breaking down”.
Photostory by Samantha Siow
Edited by Mushamir Mustafa
Do you have a story? Let us know here: https://forms.gle/ht4HsvbxgSgcKS5h8
(This post was first published on October 27th 2018)
Couldn’t recognize you with all that hair! Haha
– Mushamir
Do you have a story? Let us know here: https://forms.gle/ht4HsvbxgSgcKS5h8
It came about when I realised the degree in music I was studying for was not something I want. My passion was always music but the degree taught me how to be a performer and not the business side.
I was more curious of that (the business side). I thought why not explore to see if there is a potential growth in this market.
The music industry doesn’t have much support from both private and government sector, which led alot of local talents moving overseas to gain popularity before coming back.
With this little experience, I wasn’t ready to go into it. It was a struggle, so I went back to university, did my degree in commerce; but before that I sat down with my dad.
He has a unconventional parenting method of his own, something that I’d pass on to my own kid. He said: ‘you’re smart I know you’ll get it but let me count the cost in funding your degree and all that extra cost of accommodation and cost of living.
You see this amount here – RM300,000 to RM500,000. What if I take that money, give it to you to start your own business and you don’t need to go to university?’
I was 19, failed my first business, lost my footing for the longest period of time. I knew I need to be in an environment to gain my footing again. My response to him was to get a higher education.
My dad asked me why do I wanna study commerce and why do I wanna go to university, but I knew this is the right one for me. I need to share my experience with people my age. University was a good experience and a place for me to study.
My main aim at that time was to work in an investment bank or go into management consulting. I was young, full of self-confidence and highly influenced by the people I stumbled into.
I tried to pursue a career in consulting, worked six months of consulting in Australia and some work with a company in America.
Then I attended a community event and my friend who worked in a local venture capital in Malaysia was introducing venture capital to the public. From that event, I met two ladies of whom one of them got me to work up consulting slides.
This was where I started my exposure to the tech start up scene. I met a lot of entrepreneurs at this time. One thing led to another and three months before I graduated I got this random email from a person to be a launch manager for Yelp in Malaysia.
I thought this was a good opportunity to come back to Malaysia, packed my things and moved back to KL. In my stunt to launch Yelp, I thought I could have my own team but I had to do everything my myself.
My biggest challenge was learning to manage a huge number of people, including hiring and firing close to 300 people. It was an interesting experience, the pay was extremely good but I was tired, burnt out and had no weekends.
Since I was back in Malaysia, I thought let me understand and get connected to the tech start up scene here. That was when I started working with Aizat at his then tech management company. In 12 months we networked with so many people, understood how the ecosystem is and the amount of innovation in place.
I had also went back to my family business. I was figuring things out. I knew I was passionate with the tech space, digitalization and how innovation can help the economy.
And that is how the idea for Dropee.com came about.
We understood that FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods) products move fast every single day. People keep thinking prices keep increasing but the fact is there are multiple layers and middlemen that are in the supply chain.
These days with the internet you can know who is buying your products.
There are many brand owners who doesn’t know this because the middlemen refuse to give the information to them.
Today we are the one stop shop for inventories and have retailers from a small town pub all the way to four star hotels. What we sell is convenience and transparency in pricing.
Malaysian Global Innovation and Creativity Centrewas the someone from day one who can hook us up with the right investors or partners. They have been helpful in networking, connecting us to people within Malaysia, regionally and globally.
I had grown up in a family of entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship was sort of my second language. We believe in owning scalable and sustainable businesses. Scaling and we have that.
We understand the trading industry quite well and I am confident we can make it into a profitable business”.
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Lennise Ng is the Co-Founder of Dropee. She was recently awarded the ‘Founder of the Year’ Award at the ASEAN Rice Bowl Startup Awards!
Humans of Kuala Lumpur is partnering withMalaysian Global Innovation and Creativity Centre(MaGIC) in featuring inspiring and impact-driven entrepreneurs, problem solvers and startups in their mission to solve Malaysia’s problems!
Photostory by Christine Cheah
Edited by Mushamir Mustafa
Do you have a story? Let us know here: https://forms.gle/ht4HsvbxgSgcKS5h8
(This post was first published on October 25th 2018)
“In my final year, and everyone sits for SPM, I made myself sick so that I can extend the papers to resit the exams.
After that happened, my dad kicked me out of my own house because he was so upset with me. I was not even 18 years old. So, I said, ‘ok, cool’ and I went to stay at my friend’s place.
It was only when I came back to the house, my mom opened the door for me and he told my mom not to. I realised he really meant it. I saw my sisters tearing up to help me, but my dad didn’t want to see me.
At that time, I was in UiTM. I had to struggle for a little then, working at 7-11 at night and selling ‘nasi lemak’ to my university mates to keep myself afloat. At that point of time, I realised how important studies are. I didn’t study when I was in high school, I’d copy someone or come up with my own thing and do barely enough just to make sure i pass.
If I could turn back time, I would appreciate studying because subjects such as history, accounting and Bahasa Malaysia could have made me learn faster with lesser mistakes. In business, if people did a mistake, you need to learn and think better, and do stuff differently to avoid that kind of mistake. People usually don’t see a value in reading and all these education including myself. Only when I realised that everyone is ahead of me, did I understand its importance.
After my diploma in UiTM, I found out that it wasn’t an easy thing to do for my dad when he kicked me out of the house. I reconciled with my dad after I graduated and made it up when I got a scholarship and went to Adelaide.
I wanted to make a come back so I did my whole degree in 2 and a half years instead of the usual 4 years. As I was finishing my business and finance degree in Australia, I worked there for about a year. After more than a year, I found out there are a lot more opportunities in Malaysia, especially in the financial sector. There were also not many players in the tech industry, as compared to the states.
I came back and opened my own tech investment fund, raised close to RM 2 million in less than 3 months. Back then I was working with Ashran (current CEO of MaGIC), and he was impressed. I went and looked at companies in the States where we could replicate in Malaysia, seeing if investors wanted it or not. We helped build 11 companies in that a year.
During that time, I met my other co-founder for Dropee. I came out of the company and we startedDropee.com from scratch.
And in that one year and nine months, we serviced 1,200 retailers and over 700 brands in the Klang Valley”.
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Aizat Rahim is the Co-Founder and COO of Dropee.
Humans of Kuala Lumpur is partnering withMalaysian Global Innovation and Creativity Centre(MaGIC) in featuring inspiring and impact-driven entrepreneurs, problem solvers and startups in their mission to solve Malaysia’s problems!
Photostory by Christine Cheah
Edited by Mushamir Mustafa
Do you have a story? Let us know here: https://forms.gle/ht4HsvbxgSgcKS5h8
(This post was first published on October 26th 2018)
And thank you so much for your artwork featuring us and DiverseCity as part of the Kuala Lumpur International Arts Festival and
for giving an inspiring talk about being an artist!
Do you have a story? Let us know here: https://forms.gle/ht4HsvbxgSgcKS5h8
