Malaysia through the eyes of local startups

A country of 30 million people, Malaysia is a rich ethnic diversity of major races and is home to founders of international recognised names like AirAsia, Grabtaxi, Jobstreet and iProperty.

Last year, it was put into the international spotlight for the wrong reasons, from air safety concerns, political human rights concerns to the sovereign wealth fund saga, all these issues which sent the Malaysian Ringgit to tumble much worse than it should.

But despite all these upheavals, is Malaysia a market worth entering? How are the startups fairing in the current economic climate? I asked some local born and bred Malaysian tech entrepreneurs to give their insights.

Malaysia is not a homogenous market

Shuan Lee, Milkman of Milkadeal.com, an online cashback portal which offers up to 12% or RM40 on eCommerce transactions, shared his insights on the Malaysian market. “Malaysia is not a homogeneous market. Some of the variables include language, race, religion and geography. Therefore, any marketing effort will need to be tailored to the market that you are targetting towards.

For example, if you are in the fashion apparel business, there really is not much use trying to target Muslimahs if you are selling mini-skirts! In Malaysia, the Muslim market is one that cannot be ignored as it makes up the majority of the country.

East Malaysian customers are harder and more expensive to reach, though they are generally more loyal customers

Aside from that, geography comes into play too. East Malaysian customers are harder and more expensive to reach, though they are generally more loyal customers (as East Malaysian customers have less options to choose from there).”

CK Wong, founder of Silver Mouse, a marketing agency specialising in digital marketing, creative design & e-commerce services, provided a similar view. “Malaysia online consumers has three general segments: Malay, English and Chinese-literate markets, all with different tastes. For example, if you are to market to the Malay market, branding is very important. We have seen online businesses opt for outdoor advertising to target the Malay-speaking audience, which is rare among those targeting other segments. Besides the language and preference on brands or products, the marketing strategy for each audience group can be very different.”

Syed Ahmad Fuqaha, CEO of Katsana, a GPS tracking system for enterprises that focuses on in-depth behavioral analytics of the drivers, highlighted that for his industry, “We are dealing with logistics and transportation companies which are traditional and inherently a bit of a laggard when it comes to adoption of technology. A lot of them are starting to realize that in order to keep up with new competitors and reduce operation costs, technological innovation has to be deployed.”

“While it’s pretty straightforward to convince traditional businesses to adopt technology (provided that you can demonstrate a clear ROI), you will face a challenge in collection of subscription payments. Expect monthly rapport to get the invoice signed, returned and payment to be cleared two weeks after. Automated deduction through credit card and bank facilities will not do. Plan for delayed payments and cost of payment collection if your B2B startup wishes to offer service here.” He quips that this issue is a good pain point for a fintech startup to resolve” he added.

Kok Seong Ang is co-founder and CEO of Helpr, a nationwide on-demand chat based personal concierge assistant that is available through multiple messaging channels. He has noticed that despite the availability of online messaging channels, “there are a lot offline errands related queries, which requires us to deliver documents, order food, send flowers and gifts etc. Probably it’s due to the culture of traditional way of calling rather than messaging, the long working hours and poor traffic conditions in Malaysia, thus most of them choose to outsource and seek help from us to get things done.”

Challenge of educating consumers

Shannon Toh, Executive Director of Saltycustoms, which supplies and designs custom t-shirts for businesses using their proprietary technology, gave his take. “We are in our seventh year of running our business. During the early days, the biggest challenge was on educating our clients on the importance on creating a better, beautifully designed t-shirt for higher return-on-investment. It was also rather difficult seek out grants that would empower small businesses to scale quicker. This was before the big tech trend, where VC funding, accelerators were widely available.”

Effects of politics and the Malaysian Ringgit

Advice to startups

Ending thoughts