Meet Kaodim, a service marketplace for Southeast Asia built by two former lawyers

The Kaodim team, from left to right: Back-end developer Nguyen vu Nguyen, co-founder Jeff Cheong, front-end UI/UX guy Gaddafi Rusli, and co-founder Choong Fui-Yu.

Here’s something interesting I’ve observed in the tech scene over the years – every other entrepreneur I meet will tell me that they used to be an investment banker. But seldom would I run into lawyers-turned-founders.

But Kaodim, a Malaysia-based service marketplace, was founded by not one but two former lawyers. Moreover, Choong Fui-Yu and Jeffri Cheong were at the top of their game in law before they decided to give it all up in the name of entrepreneurship.

Choong was a corporate and commercial litigation lawyer, and claims to have been the “leading profit generator” in his firm. Meanwhile, Cheong was an intellectual property lawyer working with an international law firm.

The duo shared a keen interest in tech alongside their day jobs. Choong was passionate about “innovative and disruptive businesses,” while Cheong had advised many startups, such as homegrown social network SAYS and taxi app MyTeksi, during his career.

The latter is also close friends with Khailee Ng of 500 Startups fame, and iMoney CEO Lee Ching Wei, among others in Malaysia’s startup community. Ching coincidentally went to the same high school as Cheong.

Empowering the customer

The idea for Kaodim emerged when Choong and Cheong realized that most Malaysians were finding service professionals through referrals from friends and making phone calls – a process which is extremely time-consuming.

Having observed the success of US-based Thumbtack – which recently raised US$100 million – the duo decided that Malaysians should be able to hire services with the same ease as “finding a cab instantly with taxi or car booking apps.”

Kaodim matches users who are looking for services – such as plumbing or electrical wiring – with the relevant service providers who are both interested and qualified in providing it. The user can put up a request for whatever they need, and service providers will respond directly to him/her with personalized quotations and other information about themselves. The quality of service providers can be determined through the reviews that they receive.