So This Is My Why | Issue 3

If you grew up in Malaysia, you’ll probably know that our radiowaves used to be full of music & none-too-pleasant Gotcha Calls, but nothing that was actually intellectually edifying.

Which was something that Malek noted very early on and through a series of events, ended up founding BFM 89.9 – a business radio channel that, in case you didn’t know, also has a podcasting arm!

But BFM 89.9 isn’t Malek’s only achievement. He has previously:

• Worked as a lawyer at Allen & Overy in London;
• Completed his Harvard MBA (where he was classmates with Sheryl Sandberg & Employee #3 of Yahoo);
• Worked as a consultant at Boston Consulting Group; and
• Founded multiple companies including KL Classifieds, BFM 89.9 & Fi Life.

We discussed many things in this episode, including:

• 2:52: His childhood & having to decide which parent he would live with upon their divorce at the age of 5;
• 8:46: Why he studied law when his first love was in business;
• 10:22: Working at Allen & Overy (a Magic Circle firm), including on the bankruptcy of Canary Wharf;
• 11:48: Studying for his Harvard MBA;
• 15:43: Founding KL Classifieds in 1997 & why that landed him RM300,000 in debt;
• 16:50: How he got out of his debt & ended up working at JobStreet;
• 21:26: What he learned from his time as Head of Mobile at Maxis, then Yahoo;
• 23:20: What Sue Decker, then CFO of Yahoo, taught him about the importance of creating good products.
• 25:29: What pushed him to starting BFM 89.9, Malaysia’s only business radio channel;
• 30:50: The challenges he faced in getting investors on board;
• 36:10: The collapse of Lehman Brothers & BFM 89.9’s struggle to cover relevant content with their threadbare staff;
• 38:18: Getting sponsors for BFM 89.9 including from Malaysia Airlines;
• 45:47: Whether radio will ever be obsolete;
• 48:41: Why he started Fi Life;
• 50:27: Reading up on the investment portfolios of many other people on Fi Life’s “This Is How I Invest” blog series;
• 50:56: Impact of COVID-19 on the media space; and
• 53:18: How listeners can help Malek.

You can listen to Malek’s episode in full on: STIMY Website, Spotify, Apple Podcast, Stitcher, Listen Notes

P/S: In Malek’s episode, he discussed the issue of overspending on marketing as was the case with U For Life. Tagging onto that, Andrew Chen (General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz) wrote an interesting article on how startups die from their addiction to paid marketing that you might enjoy.

Looking for past STIMY guests in the business world? Check out:

• Ep 3: Dr. Julian Tan – Head of Digital Business Initiatives & Esports at Formula 1, on how he went from being bullied in high school to topping his year in Oxford, then Cambridge, before going on to bring esports into F1 (including the groundbreaking Virtual Grand Prix races that kept the lights on for F1 during the lockdown era!). Julian was recently awarded the Leaders Sports Awards too, which was well-deserved. Congrats, Julian!!
• Ep 7: Jan Wong – An enterprising serial entrepreneur who went from selling paper to his primary school classmates to founding one of Malaysia’s top martech consulting companies, OpenMinds Resources, which has also just launched a new learning app!
• Ep 9: Rabi Malla – an amazing Nepali social entrepreneur who works with Nepali indigenous communities (including the nomadic Raute tribe!) in selling their gorgeous handicraft to people around the world.
• Ep 16: Renyi Chin – founder of MyBurgerLab on how they went from almost burning down the kitchen during their R&D to running one of Kuala Lumpur’s most innovative burger chains around! (P/S: Their PB&J burger, aka the Elvis, is a favourite)
• Ep 23: Sarah Chen – Co-Founder of Beyond the Billion, a global consortium of over 80 VCs that have pledged over US$1 billion in investments in female-founded companies.