Open For Business

SMEs Need a Sales Director, Not Sales Training 15.06.2026 34min

Small business owners often look at a declining pipeline and assume they have a sales problem, but what they usually have is a leadership deficit. Lacking the capital to hire a high-quality, full-time sales director, many SMEs resort to one-off, traditional sales training workshops. However, these event-based sessions often fail to produce sustainable results because they do not embed actual behavior changes or apply a data-driven, scientific rigor to the company's daily sales process.  SalesGeek was founded to bridge this exact gap. Created by Richard Few, the company operates a fractional sales leadership model, providing businesses with part-time sales directors for as little as 5 percent of a full-time executive's salary. Through a rapidly growing franchise system, SalesGeek deploys highly experienced sales professionals to work directly with founders. These directors refine go-to-market strategies, build robust data processes, and actively mentor local teams over an average two-year engagement until they successfully make themselves redundant.  Now establishing Malaysia as their Southeast Asian hub, Richard joins us to unpack the unit economics of a global, completely investor-free franchise. We discuss the severe limitations of traditional corporate sales roles that drive top talent toward franchise ownership, the financial structure distinguishing their "solo" and "scale-up" models, and why Malaysia's high concentration of SMEs makes it the perfect market for their expansion.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Restaurant Model Is Broken. Is Freshpod the Fix? 14.06.2026 41min

Operating a restaurant in Singapore is exceptionally challenging. With world-leading commercial rents, strict labour laws, and volatile food costs, traditional F&B margins are razor-thin. Joseph Ryan spent years navigating this system, opening major outlets like Five Guys for the Zouk Group in Malaysia. Seeing these structural flaws worsen after the pandemic, he realised the industry needed a completely new approach.His answer is Freshpod. Founded in 2021 with an ex-Goldman Sachs banker, this autonomous food kiosk bypasses traditional restaurant leases entirely. Operating without a chef or cashier, the fully refrigerated machines assemble fresh, customisable meal bowls in under 90 seconds. Following three years of R&D, they are now deployed in high-footfall locations like Gleneagles Hospital and Grab's headquarters, and are replenished daily.With over 60 locations locked in for expansion, Joseph joins us to discuss the business of automated food delivery. We explore the complex engineering required to keep machine-dispensed food fresh and safe, how the kiosk financial model compares to a traditional brick-and-mortar restaurant, and their possible expansion into Malaysia.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Bugs to Bursa? Pet World's Ambitious Next Chapter 11.06.2026 29min

When Choy Peng Yew last appeared on the show in early 2023, Pet World was on a massive growth trajectory. As Malaysia's largest homegrown pet food manufacturer behind household brands like ProDiet, ProBalance, and Delizios, the company was scaling at an impressive 27% CAGR. At the time, financial headlines were buzzing about a potential US$100M public listing in Singapore. However, the IPO never materialised. Instead, the company shifted its mandate from public markets toward strategic partnerships and private expansion.Amidst this corporate restructuring, Pet World quietly accomplished something entirely unexpected. Producing over 100,000 tonnes of pet food annually, the company partnered with SPCA Selangor and Singapore-based Nutrition Technologies to formulate Malaysia's first dog food using Black Soldier Fly Larvae (BSFL) protein. This leap into sustainable, insect-based nutrition signals a major shift in the company's product direction and their approach to the evolving global pet wellness market.Choy Peng Yew returns to the studio to unpack what the last two years have actually looked like from the inside. We discuss the strategic decision to pursue regional partnerships over a public listing, the science and commercial viability behind sustainable insect protein, and the company's aggressive expansion strategy across Southeast Asia, Northeast Asia, and the Middle East as they navigate the pet food market in 2026.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hata: $8M Series A, Bybit CEO Backing, & New Crypto 10.06.2026 38min

Fresh off an $8 million Series A funding round co-led personally by the CEO of Bybit, David Low, Co-Founder and CEO of Hata, unpacks what’s next for this young crypto exchange. We discuss how the platform accumulated over 225,000 users and passed RM100 million in assets under custody, the heavy capital requirements needed to incentivise professional market makers for deep order-book liquidity, and how they cleaned up their cap table to streamline corporate execution.David also shares how Hata is actively de-risking its business from market volatility by shifting away from purely activity-based trading fees toward institutional custody solutions, staking products, and hands-on corporate B2B onboarding. Finally, we explore the Securities Commission's newly updated regulatory guidelines, explaining why faster coin-listing paths coupled with higher capital requirements are a net positive for maturing Malaysia's Web3 ecosystem.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

26 Years, 15 Films & the Business No One Tells You About 08.06.2026 55min

Red Communications has been running since 1999 — 26 years of producing television, film, branded content, and digital programming for audiences that the industry had largely ignored: women, young people, families. The 3R show ran for 15 years and was funded entirely by sponsors. Gol & Gincu became a film and a TV series. Kami did the same. Oh My English ran for six years on Astro. Club Mickey Mouse ran for five years on Disney. The company has produced 14 films. The 15th, Khadam, opens in cinemas on 11 June 2026.Between the first film and the 15th: a breast cancer diagnosis in 2012, a six-month treatment hiatus during which RM1 million in reserves disappeared and RM1 million in debt appeared, a pandemic that nearly took the company, and a decision to sell a stake to Astro just to stay afloat.Founder and Executive Producer of Red Communications Lina Tan talks to us about what the business of creativity actually looks like — the budgets, the red tape, the streaming disruption, the influencer competition, and the specific madness of trying to get a Malaysian film made and seen.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The RM100M Bet on Automated Parking 07.06.2026 28min

In Japan and South Korea, parking a car is entirely automated. You drive into a bay, turn off your engine, and walk away while a robotic system lifts and stores your vehicle in a multi-level tower. There are no ramps, no circling for spots, and no wasted space. Yet in Malaysia, this highly efficient infrastructure remains virtually unseen.Ir. Yow Kai Yong has spent the last 14 years trying to change that. A consultant engineer with two decades of experience in Malaysia's property development sector, he started Parktech Solutions in 2011 with four other co-founders. As co-founders eventually left due to a sluggish market, he became the last person standing, officially taking over the company in 2021. Today, that persistence is paying off in a massive way. Parktech Solutions is now preparing to install one of the largest automated car parking systems in ASEAN at Milla Residence in Wangsa Maju. Built in partnership with Beverly Group and South Korea's Samjung Tech, the project features 2,358 bays and 21 car lifts, pushing the company's order book to a RM100 million.Kai Yong joins us to discuss the business and mechanics of automated car parking systems. We cover what it takes to survive for over a decade pushing a product the local market wasn't ready for, the sudden shift driving their eight-figure revenue projections for 2026, and why robotic parking is no longer just a luxury convenience, but a critical sustainability and urban density play that Malaysian developers can no longer ignore.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Farm That Heals What Classrooms Can't 04.06.2026 25min

After a 30-year career at PETRONAS, a pandemic-induced mental health challenge pushed Zalina Abdul Rahim to completely rethink her retirement. Retreating to her family's farm in Hulu Langat, she witnessed three distinct crises converging at once: a generation of city children completely disconnected from nature, neighbouring farmers losing their entire harvests to lockdowns, and devastating local floods that demanded immediate community action.Her response was not a casual retirement hobby. In 2021, Zalina launched Ekar Lui Farm School, a bootstrapped enterprise offering STEM and sustainability-based learning in a real-world agricultural setting. Catering to mainstream schools, corporate leadership programmes, and neurodivergent children, the social enterprise has proven its market demand, growing its operations by 200 percent in 2025 without a single ringgit of external investment.Zalina talks to us about the tight unit economics of keeping animals fed and children engaged on a bootstrapped budget, how she gained access to grants and collaborations which helped accelerate growth, and what it takes to build a viable ESG education hub that prioritises purpose over pure profit.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Building a Six-Figure Global AI Agency Before Graduation 03.06.2026 28min

The enterprise AI market is currently flooded with polished demos, confident sales pitches, and massive invoices. But behind the scenes, many of these highly touted agents and automation platforms break the moment they encounter real data, real users, and edge cases. Genta AI Solutions has been hired repeatedly to fix this exact problem, stepping in to replace failing AI systems built by other vendors. It is a costly industry reality that most tech companies refuse to talk about.What makes this story unusual is the person telling it. Mahmoud Ashraf (Komy) is a 22-year-old final-year cybersecurity student at Asia Pacific University in Kuala Lumpur. He founded Genta in late 2024 and bootstrapped it to high six-figure revenues in under a year with zero ad spend. Serving enterprise clients across the US and Europe, Genta builds custom AI agents with a strict "no platform lock-in" policy, ensuring clients actually own the infrastructure that gets built.Komy joins us to expose the growing gap between AI marketing and actual AI engineering. We discuss what it really takes to build reliable artificial intelligence for operations-heavy businesses, why client ownership is becoming the ultimate dealbreaker in enterprise procurement, and how he navigates the grueling balance of running a scaling global business while completing his final year of university.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Robot Revolution On The Retail Floor 02.06.2026 21min

Edwin Yap's family built the physical infrastructure of retail. As the leaders of Jemco Group, they grew the family business into Malaysia's largest producer of the shelving, racking, and logistics systems that hold supermarkets and warehouses together across Southeast Asia. Taking over the company during the pandemic, Edwin spent years observing the shop floor and realised the next essential layer of retail infrastructure wouldn't be a static fixture. It would be a robot.To capitalise on this shift, Edwin launched MR. ROBOT, a startup betting that humanoid and service robots are moving from science fiction to the shop floor faster than most business leaders realise. He recently secured a US$5 million funding round from an investor lineup that includes MR D.I.Y. International, China's AgiBot, and The Hub's Investment Group, signed an MOU at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference, and is now developing a RM10 million ASEAN-first robotics data collection centre to power the next generation of physical AI.Edwin joins us to unpack the business of "embodied AI", how they are already driving a 20 percent sales uplift at customer events, and the honest reality of what humanoid robots can and cannot do in 2026.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

KPJ Healthcare: 3 Million Patients, One Standard of Care. 28.05.2026 21min

With a massive network of 30 hospitals serving over 3 million patients annually, KPJ Healthcare faces the massive challenge of ensuring consistent, high-quality care across facilities of varying sizes and ages. To achieve this, the group is rolling out the KPJ Health System (KPJHS) — an integrated framework designed to standardise treatment, control costs, and manage patient expectations across the entire network.Positioned as Malaysia's first private academic health system, KPJHS is built on the core pillars of practice, education, and research & innovation. By centralising highly specialised medical expertise into regional Centers of Excellence (COEs) via a hub-and-spoke model, KPJ ensures patients with complex conditions receive seamless, top-tier care without needing to repeat diagnostic tests or navigate a messy referral process.  Prof. Dato' Dr. Hanafiah Harunarashid, Chief Medical Director of KPJ Healthcare, joins us to unpack this ambitious operational transformation. We discuss the strategy behind launching 15 COEs by 2030, how a real-time clinical dashboard measures surgical outcomes against global benchmarks like the Mayo Clinic, and the five-year cultural shift required to put the patient at the absolute center of the healthcare system.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Building the Waze of Malaysian Healthcare 27.05.2026 29min

After spending decades in clinical medicine and digital health, Dr. Raymond Choy analysed over three million data points on drug pricing and uncovered a massive inefficiency. In just a four-week trial tracking only six drugs, one insurer saved RM100,000. The waste in the system wasn't theoretical. It was quantifiable.To fix this broken journey, Dr. Raymond and commercial lead Fabian Lim launched HEYDOC Health. Dubbed the "Waze of Healthcare," the platform doesn't try to replace traditional doctors, clinics, or pharmacies. Instead, it acts as an intelligent orchestrator. Powered by an AI intelligence layer called RightK and a RM29.90 monthly subscription known as FutureK, the platform connects every touchpoint in the outpatient journey to make the entire system smarter, cheaper, and infinitely easier for patients to navigate.Dr. Raymond and Fabian join us to discuss scaling the business to a RM7m ARR, the validation from their recent Foodpanda pilot, and whether a simple 1-ringgit-a-day subscription can actually solve the quiet sustainability crisis plaguing Malaysian primary care.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How Two Skaters Built a Business to Fund the Dream Malaysia Wouldn't 25.05.2026 28min

To compete at the international level, Malaysian National Figure Skaters Eunice and Edmund Lai train six hours a day on ice that costs money, with coaches that cost money, in a system that offers very little financial support. For most national athletes in this position, the choice is simple: find a wealthy sponsor or quit the sport entirely.Instead of waiting for a sponsor, Eunice and Edmund decided to build their own financial engine. They founded Grano Break, an artisan granola brand designed specifically to fund their athletic ambitions: every bag sold is a micro-sponsorship of the duo that directly funds their international coaching and competition fees.The duo, together with their mother Selina Ling join us to discuss the hidden financial realities of being a national athlete in Malaysia, their pivot into OEM manufacturing, and the intense discipline required to build a profitable business while simultaneously training to represent the country on the global stage.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Bedroom YouTuber to a Seven Figure Finance Group 24.05.2026 30min

In 2017, Spark Liang quit a comfortable job as a Thomson Reuters analyst to make financial literacy videos from his bedroom. Within six months, he organically grew 100,000 Facebook followers and successfully raised RM1.5 million from them through equity crowdfunding on Ata Plus. In a rare startup success story, he bought back those early shares, giving his original investors a massive 300 percent return.  However, the journey wasn't entirely smooth. After discovering the harsh reality that everyday consumers rarely want to pay for financial education, Spark executed a major business pivot toward B2B corporate training. Today, FinSpark has evolved from a simple media channel into a diversified seven-figure corporate group. The ecosystem now spans financial media, SC-licensed corporate consulting under MMC Financial, and even a TVET institution known as SUMA College.  Spark joins us to unpack the realities of monetising an online following, why identifying a problem doesn't always equal a viable market, and the group's ambitious five-year roadmap toward a public listing.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What A Horse Knows About Your Leadership, That You Don’t 21.05.2026 26min

Malaysia's corporate training market runs on slides, seminars, and motivational talks. It is also, by most accounts, not working. Burnout is at record levels. Trust between leaders and teams is eroding. And the soft skills that make the difference — self-awareness, emotional presence, the ability to genuinely listen — are exactly the ones a classroom cannot teach.Nurul Atiqah Anuar believes the answer might be standing in a paddock.A Chartered Governance Professional who spent a decade in boardrooms across the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, she co-founded Setenang — a leadership development programme built around one of the oldest non-verbal feedback systems in the world: horses. Not riding them. But standing with them, leading them, and being read by them.Atiqah joins us to talk about how a 500kg animal with no interest in your job title, your KPIs, or your quarterly results will show you — in real time and without filters — exactly who you are as a leader.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Two Childhood Friends, A Game & A Million Views in Japan 20.05.2026 41min

Childhood friends and lifelong gamers Kashif Khairul and Rizal Azlan co-founded 1+1 Studios in 2024 with one conviction: that the best co-op games should bring people closer together, not just put them side by side. Their debut title, Duo Quest, is a co-op roguelite deckbuilder where your friendship is literally a game mechanic — you answer questions about each other to generate attacks, meaning the better you know your partner, the harder you hit.The game has not yet launched commercially. But it has already won an award at Gamescom Asia in Bangkok, been nominated for Best Multiplayer at Gamescom LATAM 2026, drawn over 5,000 players to a closed playtest, and gone viral in Japan with over a million views. All this from a six-person studio in Kuala Lumpur, with no external funding.Kashif and Rizal join us to discuss the gap in the co-op game market, why friendship became the design brief, what Malaysian indie developers need to break through and whether the local scene is more ready than it looks.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Stage Has Changed. Define’s Principles Haven't. 19.05.2026 39min

Andrew Anthony has been in the events industry since 1995 — when he was still in school, working as an event crewmember to fund his own education, with RM50 and a late brother who showed him the ropes. Three decades later, Define International has ran what Google called their first ever business listing activation in Malaysia, handled a landmark event involving the United States Presidential office, won gold at the MAHB Marketing Excellence Awards, launched a nine-storey ship at Keppel Shipyard in Singapore, and built a list of over 3,000 clients.And he has done all of this without a single ringgit of external investment. Andrew joins us to discuss the RM18 billion industry that policymakers are still not taking seriously enough, the payment terms problem that has plagued the events industry for decades, and the stubbornness of doing things right.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The ESG Firm That Was 15 Years Early, Then Right On Time 18.05.2026 29min

ESG guidance and advisory firm Joshua Rayan Communications (JRC) was established in 2007 with one clear conviction: that sustainability reporting should be done properly, personally, and affordably. Today, the bootstrapped, seven-figure firm boasts a near 100% client closure rate and serves corporate giants like Sunway, BAT, Ranhill, and MMC across Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia. Rather than treating ESG as a simple box-ticking reporting exercise, JRC provides end-to-end advisory. Using a unique "vanguard system" where senior leaders remain actively involved in project execution, they help clients identify critical data gaps long before a final report is drafted.  Founder and CEO Joshua Rayan joins us to unpack the business of sustainability reporting in a highly competitive market. We discuss running a 20-person consultancy with a "no-boss" culture, why homegrown ESG practitioners want to be more actively engaged in national policy and standard-setting rooms, and the firm’s ambitious five-year roadmap toward an IPO.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Two Pilots, A Grill & A Burger Place 17.05.2026 30min

In November 2022, two grounded pilots came on Open For Business to talk about a smash burger stall they'd started from a home kitchen during the pandemic. The story was charming — airline pilots flipping burgers at night markets — but the business was still early, still scrappy, still unproven.A lot has changed since then. Grill Haven now has a proper restaurant in Plaza Damansara, Bukit Damansara. FY2025 revenue hit RM3.65 million, up some 48% year-on-year. The team has been to Japan, twice. And they have their sights set on Johor, Penang, and a multi-brand F&B empire. We catch up with co-founder First Officer Afiq Nazar to find out what the last three years actually looked like from the inside — the discipline, the growing pains, and whether two pilots can really build a restaurant group without choosing between the cockpit and the kitchen.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Immigrant Story Behind America's Most Unlikely Aerospace Company 14.05.2026 39min

In 1977, Theresa Padilla moved from Mexico to the United States with nothing. Three years later, she took a job as a press operator at a small plastics company in Oxnard, California. That company was Rakar Inc. - founded in 1951 to make electrical connectors and insulators for the US military.Forty years later, she bought it.Today, Rakar is a Tier 2 supplier to NASA, Boeing, SpaceX, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, and the US Defense Logistics Agency. Theresa's son Diego, Executive Vice President and Advanced Manufacturing Lead, runs strategy and communications alongside her.This is the story of an immigrant woman who rose from the factory floor to run one of America's most specialised aerospace suppliers,  and why she believes Malaysia is the next chapter.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Not a Nursing Home. Not a Daycare. Something Better. 13.05.2026 39min

By 2048, Malaysia will officially be an aged nation, yet currently, only 14.7 percent of our elderly are actually ageing healthily. The traditional eldercare market is almost entirely focused on clinical nursing homes, leaving a massive gap for seniors who are medically stable but socially isolated. After witnessing this crisis firsthand in the home care sector, co-founders Gan Pooi Chan and Sandyeep Sandhu realised the real crisis in the care economy wasn't just a shortage of medical beds — it was a severe shortage of belonging.To solve this, PC and Sandyeep launched Kampungku in 2023. Actively rejecting the traditional "daycare" label, they built an engaging clubhouse where independent seniors can exercise, socialise, and rebuild their community on their own terms. Treating seniors as active participants rather than patients has proven to be a highly viable business model, with the company reaching full profitability and stabilising at a 15 percent quarter-on-quarter growth rate.PC and Sandy join us to unpack the dynamics of preventative eldercare and the structural challenges facing the industry. We discuss why lumping active senior centres into the same tax category as beauty and wellness is an unfair policy burdening middle-class families, the looming 60 percent nursing shortage threatening the sector, and a highly anticipated "larger-than-life" partnership that could completely change the scale of Kampungku's operations.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.