Open For Business

BFM Media
  • 0.0 (0)
  • Business
  • Updated Semiweekly

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.

  1. 21h ago

    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 therapy already existed in Kuala Lumpur, but mostly in small rooms built for one or two people. Their bet was that recovery works better as something you do alongside other people — a third space that isn't home and isn't the office. Co-founders Paul Leo Versley and Lyv Koh join us to talk about building a physical, capital-heavy business from scratch, the operational reality of heating a sauna and chilling plunge pools in a tropical climate, and on their hardest problem - persuading people that recovery is a habit, not a treat. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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

  2. 1d ago

    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 merchants to package their unsold inventory into "Value Bags," selling them at a fraction of the original price. This model allows businesses to recover sunk capital on food destined for the landfill, while providing customers with heavily subsidised meals. Despite being entirely self-funded, the startup has already achieved profitability and successfully onboarded over 500 merchant outlets, including global hospitality players like Hilton and Marriott. The platform drives revenue through three distinct streams: merchant subscriptions, per-bag transaction fees, and a unique monetization angle tied to corporate ESG reporting. By proving that sustainability can directly impact a merchant's bottom line, the platform has managed to scale rapidly across the local F&B ecosystem. Founders Hariharan Nagendran and Vishnu Pathmanaban talk to us about building a marketplace out of inventory everyone else was throwing away. We discuss the B2B sales cycle required to convince luxury hotel chains to sell their buffet surplus, exactly why they refuse to position the app as a discount platform, and their strategic rationale for seeking external capital now that the bootstrapped model has been proven. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    Bagging Profits From F&B Surplus

  3. 4d ago

    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 and hotels, direct-to-consumer retail, and private dining events.  Founder Victor Dejesus’ trajectory in the F&B import sector is quite unconventional. After arriving in Malaysia on a corporate assignment with IBM, he resigned to remain in the country, launching his first Spanish import enterprise in 2000. He successfully scaled that initial company to six million ringgit in revenue before selling a 70 percent stake to local partners. However, as he watched that entity narrow its operational focus and scale to roughly RM30 million without him at the helm, he made the rare decision to walk away from the massive enterprise he created and restart his original, wider-ranging concept entirely from scratch. Victor joins us to discuss building the exact same F&B business twice in a single market. We also cover importing a foreign gastronomic culture into a region that doesn't naturally reach for it, how a lean operation effectively balances both B2B and B2C revenue streams, and the math behind his ambitious plan to force 50 percent growth in a stagnant post-Covid market. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    Building, Selling, and Restarting a Gourmet Import Business

  4. 5d ago

    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 Cambridge-trained psycholinguist Chang Yin Jue and REDtone technopreneur Dato' Wei Chuan Beng, Otti now generates seven-figure revenue across five distinct streams, recording roughly 740 percent growth since its first operational year.  The institute successfully secures B2B and B2G contracts, boasting a client roster that includes Novartis, Grab, Standard Chartered, DHL, and government entities like the Ministry of Health. Aster joins us to discuss bootstrapping a B2B training institute to seven figures, why she argues that most corporate AI training is selling the wrong framework entirely, and the difficult work of breaking founder dependency to build a company that can scale without its original creators. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    Mind & Heart: The Business of Human-AI Synergy

  5. 6d ago

    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 women-focused wellness community. Then they built something together. The Women Wellness Festival began as a gathering and is now, Malaysia's largest women's wellness event. Two editions, both sold out. The third edition runs on the 3rd and 4th of October at the Hyatt Regency Kuala Lumpur at KL Midtown - Two full days, more than fifty sessions, and a speaker list that includes squash legend Datuk Nicol David, and two-time Hyrox world champion Hannah Prescott. But behind the breathwork and the women's circles is a genuine operating business. Sponsors to sign, a venue to fill, a programme to curate, vendors to vet, hundreds of delegates to move between rooms on schedule, and a set of numbers that has to work. Sarah Lian and Diane Chia join us to talk about the business of building an event this size, including how they knew the demand was there, how it's funded, how they measure whether it worked, and where it goes from here. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    Inside Malaysia's Largest Women's Wellness Festival

  6. Sep 29

    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 the local veterinary market.  Offering advanced hydrotherapy, laser therapy, and pulsed electromagnetic field therapy, the fully bootstrapped business treats pets suffering from arthritis, spinal injuries, and paralysis. Over fourteen years, the clinic has processed thousands of complex medical cases and established a robust B2B referral pipeline with traditional veterinary practices. Today, Paws Rehab is expanding its commercial footprint beyond physical clinical hours by launching proprietary joint supplements, specialised rehabilitation products, and digital education platforms. Sydney joins us to talk about bootstrapping a niche medical service from day one, how to build a veterinary referral network from scratch, and the strategic operational shift required to scale a clinic into a scalable product business. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    A New Leash on Life for Our Furry Friends

  7. Sep 28

    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 spot.  Rather than replacing a company's applicant tracking software, Revo sits underneath existing systems to map exactly where a manufacturer’s best hires actually originate, pinpointing specific competitors, schools, and plants, to rank new candidates against historical success data so hiring managers "never hire from zero." The company was co-founded in January 2025 by former national squash players Andrew Lee and Randy Lim. Andrew joins us to discuss why hiring remains the only major business function historically immune to data, how the platform effectively identifies passive candidates and builds bench strength, and the strategic rationale behind leaving Silicon Valley to build a globally competitive enterprise software company out of Malaysia. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    Revo: Never Hire From Zero

  8. Sep 25

    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 as a commis chef at two-Michelin-starred Dewakan) he built a physical education business rooted entirely in human transformation. Over a thousand students from more than thirty nationalities have since passed through his doors at Reserved.KL. Revenue has jumped from RM100,000 in 2024 to RM350,000 in 2025, and is currently tracking toward half a million ringgit this year. The entire financial model however, rests on one founder in one room, with a strict hard cap of ten students per class. Chef Ben joins us to unpack the unit economics of a solo teaching business and the exact mechanics of escaping the founder bottleneck. We discuss the strategic paradox of attempting to scale via online courses when his core thesis demands physical presence, the commercial viability of international Panettone competitions, and what happens to a business when the only path to growth is becoming less personal. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    Making Dough by Teaching Dough
See All (2K)

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 (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.

Information

  • Creator
    BFM Media
  • Years Active
    2010 - 2026
  • Episodes
    2K
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 BFM Media Sdn Bhd
  • Show Website
    Open For Business

More From BFM89.9

You Might Also Like