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PODCAST · business

Open For Business

by BFM Media

The flagship entrepreneurship show on BFM, featuring personal business stories from early stage start-ups, all the way to billionaire octogenarians in Malaysia and abroad. Notable guests include Martin Cooper (father of the mobile phone), Julian Assange (founder of WikiLeaks), Ralph Henry Baer (father of video games), Tony Buzan (Mindmap Guru), Isaac Tigrett (Hard Rock Cafe founder), Robert Kiyosaki (Financial Guru), Nick Vujicic (motivational speaker) and more. Tap into this valuable resource of shared experiences for the SME industry, which also touches on news, issues and trends affecting the business community and beyond.

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Episodes

  1. Can A Honey Spoon Find Its Place In The FMCG Market?

    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.…

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  2. Inside Malaysia’s First Single-Origin Cocoa Drink Shop

    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...

  3. Rail Estate: Building a Global Travel Company Around Trains

    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,...

  4. Can Vircle Change How Children Manage Money?

    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...

  5. Tupai Is Back: New Apps, New Numbers, Same Maths Problem

    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...

  6. How SCORE Built Malaysia's Biggest Race, And Just Won Singapore’s

    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…

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  7. Changing Gears: Running Malaysia's Top Proton Dealer Group

    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...

  8. Free Coding Bootcamps, and The Business Behind Them

    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...

  9. Hot, Cold, Repeat: Building KL's First Social Recovery Club

    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...

  10. Bagging Profits From F&B Surplus

    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…

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  11. Building, Selling, and Restarting a Gourmet Import Business

    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...

  12. Mind & Heart: The Business of Human-AI Synergy

    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...

  13. Inside Malaysia's Largest Women's Wellness Festival

    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...

  14. A New Leash on Life for Our Furry Friends

    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…

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  15. Revo: Never Hire From Zero

    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...

  16. Making Dough by Teaching Dough

    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...

  17. Hitting the Jackpot With Interactive Campaigns

    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...

  18. Delivering Growth in a Shrinking Maternity Market

    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...

  19. Spilling the Beans on Scaling a Wholesale Roastery

    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...

  20. Rise & Fold: Why Ling's Focacceria Closed Its Doors

    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,...

  21. If the Shoe Fits: Faramore's Bet on Wide Feet

    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,...

  22. Can A Pan Mee Restaurant Become An FMCG Brand?

    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...

  23. Borenos: Why Did The Chicken Cross The South China Sea?

    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…

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  24. The Business of Beds That Disappear

    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…

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  25. Going the Distance: Atlas Collectif's Run at the Global Market

    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…

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  26. In a Nutshell: Malaysia's Biggest Coconut Story

    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…

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  27. 46 Years Keeping Malaysia's Trucks Moving

    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,...

  28. Beyond ECF: pitchIN Bets On LEAP, SMEs, & P2P Finance

    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...

  29. Still Sparkling: Supergulp Two Years On

    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...

  30. She Delivered Coffee as a GoGet Rider. Now Cafés Buy Her Beans.

    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...

  31. Due Diligence, Due Rent

    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...

  32. Taking Nyonya Flavours to Texas

    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…

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  33. No Fowl Play: Rethinking Asian Fried Chicken

    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...

  34. Beyond The Business: How Entrepreneurs Are Building Malaysia

    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...

  35. Malaysia's Lost National Treasures, Rediscovered

    PurelyB is a wellness brand selling traditional Malay herbal supplements such as Pegaga and Tiger Milk Mushroom, formulated with Universiti Malaya-derived extracts. The company is actively expanding its physical footprint globally, establishing a US storefront, exhibiting at the Natural Products...

  36. The Management Buyout of M+C Saatchi Malaysia

    In February 2026, after twenty-three years as part of a London-headquartered global network, M+C Saatchi Malaysia completed a management buyout. The agency is now one hundred percent Malaysian-owned, led, and staffed, officially operating as M+C Saatchi KARSA. While they retain the Saatchi name...

  37. Breaking the Mould of the Malaysian Craft Business

    Friends Craft Cooperative is Malaysia's largest community craft centre, operating a successful pottery and wood studio in Seksyen 13, Petaling Jaya. The fully bootstrapped business executes three distinct models at once: renting affordable studio access to hobbyists, training apprentices from...

  38. The Malaysian Launching an LLM Into Orbit

    The commercial space industry is moving away from exclusive government monopolies to an era where securing a rideshare slot on a commercial rocket is now accessible to private citizens. Ken Chan is proving exactly how accessible this new frontier is by building KENSAT, a 2U CubeSat, entirely from...

  39. The Prescription to Scaling a RM20m Clinic Group

    In 2012, three doctors opened a family clinic in Pasir Gudang with a simple but radical proposition: to provide good quality healthcare at prices ordinary working families could afford. Fourteen years later, that single clinic has rebranded as Mediwira and expanded into a formidable network of 22...

  40. Building a Systems Business, One Restaurant at a Time

    In 2023, after nine years studying and working in New York, Michael Ang came home to join his family's hospitality business. Today PHASE2 runs full-service restaurants, casual dining, café concepts, a central kitchen, food production, consumer packaged goods, and beverage development under one...

  41. Better Business School: Overcoming Founder Burnout Trap

    It is one of the most common paradoxes in business: an entrepreneur builds a company from scratch, grows it to multi-million-dollar revenues, and ends up trapped inside the day-to-day machine they created. They work through grueling hours, put out operational fires, and realise that scaling up…

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  42. Waste Oil, Real Fuel: Inside FatHopes’ Refinery Bet

    If you've ever tossed out a bottle of used cooking oil without a second thought, you've handed away a rapidly appreciating commodity. The aviation industry is racing to decarbonise, and the feedstock for that shift is sitting in home kitchens and restaurant fryers across the region. Vinesh Sinha...

  43. Bolttech: Building a US$2.1B Insurtech Platform

    Unicorn insurtech Bolttech has raised over US$600 million to build its global B2B2C insurance distribution platform, which now processes US$85 billion in quoted annual premiums and operates across 39 markets. Rob Schimek, Co-Founder and Group CEO of Bolttech, joins BFM’s Open For Business to...

  44. Taking the Long Steep Approach to Business

    Founded twelve years ago, Rhymba Hills has steadily grown into a highly decorated, internationally recognised premium botanical infusion brand. The fully bootstrapped business has secured the prestigious Great Taste Award in the UK and a gourmet award in Paris, while successfully exporting to...

  45. An Honest Conversation About Running a Grub Business With Ahong

    Grub by Ahong & Friends is a wildly popular, no-frills steakhouse tucked away in a shophouse behind Happy Mansion in Section 17, Petaling Jaya. Operating with a partially self-service model, and limited seating that strictly demands advance booking, the restaurant serves up premium cuts ranging...

  46. Squaring Up to Southeast Asia's Data Problem

    If you sell products in a physical supermarket, decades of established tracking by companies like Nielsen ensure you know exactly how much product moved, your market share, and what your competitors charged. But in the Southeast Asian e-commerce sector, a market that generated US$157 billion in...

  47. Adding Life to Years: The Pharmacist Rebuilding How We Age

    Malaysia is ageing faster than almost any other country in Asia, yet the infrastructure to support this demographic shift barely exists. Addressing this massive gap is Seniora, a fully bootstrapped, seven-figure integrated elder care operation. Spanning across centres in Taiping, Penang, and…

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  48. Building a Seven-Figure Hotel Marketing Agency

    Hotels face a persistent shortage of marketing talent who truly understand their operations, while generalist agencies often fail to grasp the precise nuances of hospitality. Having spent over two decades collectively inside premium and luxury hotel brands, Lai Yen Yee, Melissa Mohan, and Juliana...

  49. (A)Head in the Cloud Space

    Cloud Space is a Malaysian cloud and artificial intelligence transformation company that delivers cloud migration, AI deployment, cybersecurity, and managed services. Despite widespread industry hype, its co-founders identified a critical flaw in the market: 80 percent of local businesses remain...

  50. Wahine Capital Is Closing. Rejina Rahim Tells Us Why.

    Wahine Capital was built around a persistent problem within the financial ecosystem. Women in Malaysia outlive men and are disproportionately exposed to financial vulnerability during divorce, illness, and widowhood. At the exact moment they most need access to their family's financial…

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ABOUT THIS SHOW

The flagship entrepreneurship show on BFM, featuring personal business stories from early stage start-ups, all the way to billionaire octogenarians in Malaysia and abroad. Notable guests include Martin Cooper (father of the mobile phone), Julian Assange (founder of WikiLeaks), Ralph Henry Baer (father of video games), Tony Buzan (Mindmap Guru), Isaac Tigrett (Hard Rock Cafe founder), Robert Kiyosaki (Financial Guru), Nick Vujicic (motivational speaker) and more. Tap into this valuable resource of shared experiences for the SME industry, which also touches on news, issues and trends affecting the business community and beyond.

HOSTED BY

BFM Media

CATEGORIES

business

Frequently Asked Questions

How many episodes does Open For Business have?

Open For Business currently has 1000 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.

What is Open For Business about?

The flagship entrepreneurship show on BFM, featuring personal business stories from early stage start-ups, all the way to billionaire octogenarians in Malaysia and abroad. Notable guests include Martin Cooper (father of the mobile phone), Julian Assange (founder of WikiLeaks), Ralph Henry Baer...

How often does Open For Business release new episodes?

Open For Business releases new episodes frequently with a large back catalog of 1000 episodes. Check the episode list for recent publication dates.

Where can I listen to Open For Business?

You can listen to Open For Business on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.

Who hosts Open For Business?

Open For Business is created and hosted by BFM Media.
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