Author: Humans of Kuala Lumpur

(2/2) “I started off as an engineer, and have worked in corporate finance, IPOs, and even the sales line – so what was next?

(2/2) “I worked in China for 8 years, 5 of which was spent in Microsoft. My job in Microsoft was very stable with good pay. Not only that, it is a great company with products impacting the world. So when people ask me why I decided to come back to Malaysia, I told them it was for my two kids. I felt very strongly in bringing them back to grow up as Anak Malaysia.

I was born and raised in KL. Growing up in Malaysia, I had so many lovely memories here; the padang that I played in, the childhood friends and of course the food. We Malaysians are hopeless food lovers.

But the most unique is the diverse multiracial culture we have. I want my kids to grow up in this diversity and understand the differences between different people. I always thought that Malaysia is a great place to bring up children.

I married a Malaysian, and she moved with me to China. After 8 years in China, we were debating on a thousand things on what to do. If I continued building my career in Microsoft, should we go to Seattle, Microsoft’s HQ, but we felt that it was too far from Malaysia.

I’m a guy who loves challenges and startups. I used to have a very stable job and comfortable life, so why do this to my wife and kids? Thankfully my wife is very supportive and helps me take care of the family.

For a married person with two kids like me, the entrepreneurship journey is very very tough. You need to work the balance and harmony with family.

Family always comes first. With kids and without kids is very different life. With kids, you have to give up a lot of your personal entertainment. Say goodbye to your online games, your football matches at mamak.

Life is a lot of decisions to be made – no one has a crystal ball to see the future. Everything is a journey. If you chose the journey to start a business, make sure you are well prepared for it.”
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Humans of Kuala Lumpur is partnering with Malaysian 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! #HumansofMaGIC

Photostory by Amalina Davis
Edited by Mushamir Mustafa

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(This post was first published on July 14th 2018)

MaGIC Startups

(1/2) “I started off as an engineer, and have worked in corporate finance, IPOs, and even the sales line – so what was next?

(1/2) “I started off as an engineer, and have worked in corporate finance, IPOs, and even the sales line – so what was next? I wanted to do something that could change the world. At that time I naively thought, of joining a Silicon Valley startup – go to the US – and join Google or Microsoft. So I blindly applied to do an MBA in Stanford University – and was rejected.

Life is like a box of chocolates. A month after the rejection letter, I got interviews from Microsoft, Google and a few venture capitals. Eventually I decided to join Microsoft in China. Microsoft‘s HQ is in Seattle, but they have two big R&D centres in India and China.

I joined China’s engineering team on Microsoft Office, starting from Outlook, to Office Android, to Sharepoint Online. Sharepoint was the fastest selling Microsoft product ever.

They hired thousands of engineers for China. China has a big talent pool – every year China is producing 7 million graduates, the majority are engineering students. That’s the talent pool that they have the luxury of tapping from. I will always remember HR telling me, how they hired 1 person out of 2000 candidates.

A lot of people complain about the lack of talent pool in Malaysia. Last time we used to have a lot of Malaysians who are top students in universities abroad. But when they come back to Malaysia, its hard for them to find job opportunities where they can learn.

If there are more big tech organizations like Microsoft, Google and Amazon or well-funded local startups like Grab and Lazada – setting up global product engineering teams here in Malaysia, it will bring world-class engineering practice, that will nurture the local talent pool and subsequently benefit the local startup ecosystem.

This is exactly what happened in China 20 to 30 years ago. When Microsoft moved to China, it took them about 20 years to build up the talent pool. At the very beginning, they only employed junior engineers from China, whilst senior engineers were brought over from the US.

The senior engineers will nurture the junior engineers. In a few years time, the juniors became a strong middle layer. The middle layers came out and joined forces with the likes of Alibaba and Baidu, and continue to nurture homegrown startups.

Luckily, I managed to pull one of my colleagues from Microsoft China to start up a software business together. That’s how Kakitangan.com started.

We wanted to build softwares previously only available to big corporate companies, for smaller companies. Kakitangan.com automates HR (Human Resources) operations such as leave submissions and payroll operations, so the staff can spend more time building their business and their people.

In smaller companies, HR spend most of their time doing payroll and leave applications. These are the kind of things you should use software to automate, and let your staff focus on the important work – how to keep employees engaged, how to keep employees improving.

If 3 years down the road, we help Malaysian SMEs (Small-Medium Enterprises) become 10{eb97150a49149dc6c9e8165e90f1c9129bb6172e02a598b4264a1fc329d7d5bc} or 20{eb97150a49149dc6c9e8165e90f1c9129bb6172e02a598b4264a1fc329d7d5bc} more efficient, that’s a relatively good contribution to the country.

Agencies like MaGIC has helped us grow, by introducing us to other startups that eventually became our clients. By joining the ASEAN Accelerator track, we also made friends with startups from the rest of Southeast Asia, which we still keep in touch until today. It even taught us how to explore and move the business to other countries.

That’s how I hope to contribute to a better Malaysia, by bringing international world class engineering knowledge to Malaysia, due to our experience as founders of a software company, where we can help build Malaysia’s talent pool. I always tell my colleagues, the future is not talked out, the future is built out. The future is built by you, one step at a time.”
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Photostory by Amalina Davis
Edited by Mushamir Mustafa

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(This post was first published on July 14th 2018)

MaGIC Startups

(1/2) “If I were to write a book about myself, I would call it ‘The Roller Coaster’.

(1/2) “If I were to write a book about myself, I would call it ‘The Roller Coaster’. When I first entered university, I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t know where to go, I didn’t know what to study. I think this stage happens to a lot of people. In my first year of uni, I failed my subjects. But something happened that changed my life forever – my father was hospitalized for 6 months and it was a wake up call for me.

After he entered into hospital, I decided to stay in Malaysia, I studied in a local university so I can be close to my family.

In my first year of uni, I failed my subjects, so you can see that I was not too keen on studying, but after my father got hospitalized, that’s when I woke up and I realized I want to start a business to support myself and I said ‘you know you need to study hard’.

My results improved in second and third year of university when I started getting Distinctions.

While studying, I also started working to support myself. I made a decision to start a contracting company, for renovation. It was tough and I didn’t have a wonderful university life – it was always spent either working, going to meetings or studying. This is how I started my career and background in this industry. That actually changed my whole life.

When I graduated, I went into the construction business. I remember there was one project where we lost a lot of money due to a combination of factors. Because of this loss, we realized that we have to change the industry by increasing the transparency and options for homeowners and contractors. I won’t call it a failure, I call it a learning curve, and it taught us how to recover from a loss.

From there, BuildEasy was formed.

BuildEasy is an online platform that connects freelance interior designers and homeowners. We help homeowners find the right designer, design their dream home and turn their dream home into a reality.

My advice to aspiring entrepreneurs is this – idea is cheap and execution is a lot of hard work. Success is 97{eb97150a49149dc6c9e8165e90f1c9129bb6172e02a598b4264a1fc329d7d5bc} hard work and 3{eb97150a49149dc6c9e8165e90f1c9129bb6172e02a598b4264a1fc329d7d5bc} luck. I believe luck will only come when you set the right conditions, and the right condition will only come when you work hard for it. There is no substitute for hard work and there is no shortcuts.

Along this journey, MaGIC has really changed the way we look at things and we are very proud to be a part of them. We participated in the Stanford Go2Market programme, where we had a one week course with a professor from Stanford. We even went to Stanford University in the US for two weeks! It taught me to see things from a global perspective – from my small tiny dream to be a Malaysian champion, to eventually become a regional champion.

I think MaGIC really stands for magic – it has given us the magic and through it, we created our own motion and spell.
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Photostory by Samantha Siow
Edited by Mushamir Mustafa and Amalina Davis

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(This post was first published on July 18th 2018)

MaGIC Startups

“I am mixed Chinese-Kadazan from Kota Kinabalu, Sabah…”

“I am mixed Chinese-Kadazan from Kota Kinabalu, Sabah. The government school I went to had a strict language policy – when you speak English, it has to be proper English, same goes if you are speaking Malay. Education is done differently there compared to government schools.

My school shaped who I am. They allowed us to express ourselves, be how we are, in what we were aligned with. There were no restrictions or values to practice as long as its legal. I noticed that some of my friends in the Peninsular only got the same exposure in university or college. So we become more outspoken and outgoing.

And so it has always been my childhood dream to become a pilot. When I saw the birds fly in the sky, I used to imagine myself up there. After STPM, I took a few gap years where I graduated as a certified commercial pilot. But life has it in such a way that when times go bad and you are only left with an STPM qualification, you better find a way out.

In 2010, the aviation industry was going through a lay off period. I realised that if I get retrenched, I can’t get a decent job. Eventually, if I don’t get retrenched now, and I am laid off at 40, how bad is that? If I have a degree, I can still be an office boy or a clerk.

At 22, I did my degree in international business and marketing. College was also the place I met my co-founder for my startup Catjira, Sheng who was a finance student. We were two eccentric guys with spare time over the weekday nights and weekend, and we came up with our own side project. That was how we started tinkering with softwares and when we saw a little form of traction, we went all out.

How CatJira is today is very different from when we first started. We have pivoted across multiple products to come to what we are now, which is social media analytics.

Think of it as Facebook 2.0, where we are able to give you more information on your Facebook page insights and turn it into an easily understandable presentation.

We can tell clients what kind of audience might have potential pockets of opportunity, with proper cross-reference age and the location of these groups of people.

In the beginning, the nature of our work took us a year and half to two with no revenue. It took us three years to gain proper traction. Three years of tightening your belt, cutting cost wherever is necessary. The seed funding helped keep us sustainable, if not we both would have gone back to the corporate field.

I have been in both corporate and startup; it’s the same to me. The only difference is, you will have an emotional tie to your own company, so your drive is higher.

That is something I won’t deny. Even in start ups, you don’t wake up everyday loving what you do. There will be days when you feel like quitting, and question whether it’s worth it. But when those days happen you just have to ask yourself why you started it and is it worth continuing.

MaGIC has been integral to our early days as a place where like-minded people and resources gather. I’d akin them to be a safe space or a nursery for early stage companies. There’s workspace, educational modules, and a team that looks after our welfare to enable us to focus on what we do. They eventually became the bridge for us to move forward into things such as growth and investments. They joined MaGIC for a cause, and that is translated into how they touch our lives.

If time and opportunity arises i would like to move my company back to Sabah. Its an environment where its conducive for software development. It’s peaceful. Mountains are an hour’s drive away; islands, 20 minutes away. It allows creative work to be more productive.”
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Photostory by Christine Cheah
Edited by Mushamir Mustafa and Amalina Davis

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(This post was first published on July 15th 2018)

MaGIC Startups

Part 2/2 “When I tell people I have many medicine to take, they don’t believe me. Let me show you.”

I had an accident in the Loke Yew roundabout seven years ago. Since then, I’ve been taking painkillers everyday. I also have an OKU card.

Then there’s also these high blood pressure pills. I am scared if I don’t take it I will be paralysed; but its all up to Allah. If its time, its your fate.”

– Humans of Kuala Lumpur

Story by Christine Cheah
Photo by Irene Yap

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(This post was first published on May 15th 2018)

Part 1/2 “When I was young, I was very handsome. So she came to mengurat (tackle) me.”

“Eh, you don’t listen to him. Its our parents who arranged our marriage. I was from Penang and he was from Kedah. We have been married for over 40 years.”

– Pak Ali’s breakfast warung in Batu 18, Hulu Langat is the kaffeeklatsch of the town and all food served are cooked and prepared by his loving wife daily.

– Humans of Kuala Lumpur

Story by Christine C
Photo by Irene Yap

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(This post was first published on May 14th 2018)

marriage

“I’m scared that my vote would be rejected”

“I’m scared that my vote would be rejected if I didn’t mark the voting paper correctly so last night (Monday May 7) I practiced marking on a piece of paper.

Tonight (May 8), I will be hanging around with my JKKK committee who will be teaching villagers and first time voters how to mark properly.

Its fun joining in the campaigns because I get to hangout with my friends.”

Seen in Hulu Langat on May 8, 2018

– Humans of Kuala Lumpur

Photo and story by Irene Yap
Edited by Christine C

The above interview was conducted in Malay.

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(This post was first published on May 15th 2018)

election politic

“I think my generation are blessed with choices, whether it’s their career, political views or even who they choose to be friends with.”

We are born with choices that were different from my dad’s generation or my grandad’s generation. They came from a generation where you do what you are given, and you stick through it no matter what hardship comes your way.

Hence most people in my age group tries to find meaning in what they do, and most of the time they can’t find it. We find different things to do and end up in square one asking ourselves ‘what am i doing with my life?’.

Young Malaysians want opportunities to contribute. Alot of people are focused on education and safety. I talk to my friends of different races and especially the lower income group; they want more opportunities to grow as a whole.

They want this country to grow and be more relevant, but they don’t want to hold too much responsibility just yet. Just like how a lot of my peers are getting more involved with different political or social impact groups in the country, but starting in small doses.

If there’s a need for the country, young people need to step up. The country won’t grow if everyone my age stays away from politics.

Everyone just needs to work as hard as possible within our means to the best of what we have.” – Raja Hamzah Abidin Raja Nong Chik

Story by Christine Cheah
Photo by Mushamir Mustafa

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(This post was first published on May 29th 2018)

“Isn’t that Iron Man’s watch?”

“I once had a young female passenger who was going to watch an Iron Man movie. She saw my watch and asked – “isn’t that Iron Man’s watch”? I said yes, it’s nicknamed the Iron Man G-Shock. She then said “but uncle, aren’t you a little bit too old to love superheroes?”. I then replied – “Do you know how old has Iron Man been published(1968)? Or Superman (1938)? Your grandfather knows them… Even Stan Lee (famous creator of several super heroes) is 90+ years old!”.

I’m 43 years old and my wife thinks I’m crazy for still loving super heroes and buying, reading manga/anime. And I said what’s wrong with it, we all have hobbies. My favourite superhero is Superman, because he’s invincible. But even so his weakness is Kryptonite. Goes to show that even the strongest person have a weakness.

Back then when I was young I could only enjoy the cartoons in the TV and seeing my friends play with them. Now that I have the money, I can finally enjoy them too!”

– Humans of Kuala Lumpur

Photostory by Mushamir Mustafa

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(This post was first published on May 30th 2018)

iron man

“Oh the environment doesn’t matter! The world is only going to end after I die.”

I think it is very selfish for someone to say that. Don’t you care about other people? How about your children and your grandchildren?

When I tell people I’m studying environmental science and I’m a conservationist, they called me a ‘hippie’. They will start asking questions like, ‘how are you going to get a job?’ or making statements like ‘you are not going to get any money’. I always knew that whatever job I’m going to do, it is not about the money.

For me, it is all about learning. I love learning about the environment because it is something that we are so closely attached to, but people just don’t think enough about it.

I started with environmental science in my undergraduate, so I did a lot of broad environmental subjects. In my masters in Cambridge, I decided to specialize in wildlife conservation because I want to work with protecting and preserving animals.

It is not a big topic here in Malaysia, even though we have so much wildlife and natural resources to protect. Maybe it is because we are a developing country so we don’t think about all these. I feel like sometimes we just think about how to make money from it, we don’t think of how to protect it.

I don’t think its their fault though, we just don’t get enough exposure here. Instead of watching cartoons growing up, I watched National Geographic and Animal Planet. That is the reason why, not just me, but all my siblings are very passionate about the environment.

My mother always told me ‘do what makes you happy because you are going to do this for a long time. You don’t want to be doing something that you don’t really like because it makes you miserable’.”

– Humans of Kuala Lumpur

Photostory by Samantha Siow
Edited by Amalina Davis

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(This post was first published on June 9th 2018)

environment