ChopChop founder Aaron Hee gives up investment banking scholarship to run a startup

Entrepreneurs suffer in the short-term so that they might enjoy a pay-off in the future. For Aaron Hee, founder of Malaysia-based startup ChopChop, that reality takes on an extra dimension.

Recently, he gave up his investment banking scholarship, which comes with a 5-year bond, to pursue his dream of becoming a first-time entrepreneur. That decision has a hefty price — a penalty fee of RM 400,000 (USD 130,000), borne by his parents at first, which he will repay later.

“It wasn’t a pleasant experience to make this decision… the least I could do is be really appreciative for the sacrifices my parents have made,” he told SGE in an email interview.

Aaron is well-aware that the success rate for entrepreneurs is small. But at least it beats a zero-percent probability, he adds.

Everything will ride on the ChopChop app, which lets users collect ‘chops’ from a variety of merchants in exchange for rewards. Think of it as an aggregator and digitizer of paper customer loyalty cards.

The app, available on iOS, Android, and Blackberry, is similar to Singapore players like Perx and Squiryl.

To use ChopChop, merchants will have to pay a subscription fee. Consumers, on the other hand, can download the app free-of-charge. Since Aaron commited full time to the startup in mid-April, ChopChop has signed up over 50 merchants. He claims a 500 percent growth in registered users within 4 months, although he did not reveal what the initial base was.

While bootstrapping for now, Aaron and his co-founders Jermaine Cheah and Aven Cheong have begun fundraising and are expanding into Singapore. He claims ChopChop has been cash flow positive since August.

Aaron joins a long line of investment bankers (or investment banker wannabes) who have left the lucrative career path in pursuit of their passions. Here, we dig deeper into his decision to pursue entrepreneurship and find out where he hopes to venture into.

SGE: How did you come to dislike investment banking and what got you interested in entrepreneurship?

Aaron: I have always thought that I would be an investment banker in university after graduation. I graduated in mid-2010, after one of the worst financial crises of all time. Right after graduation, I had to take one-year plus medical leave. People who are ill can’t do much physical activity, so resting and thinking is what I did most of the time (now I know why sick people are depressed).