Open For Business

BFM Media

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. 1d ago

    Breaking the Mould of the Malaysian Craft Business

    Friends Craft Cooperative is Malaysia's largest community craft centre, operating a successful pottery and wood studio in Seksyen 13, Petaling Jaya. The fully bootstrapped business executes three distinct models at once: renting affordable studio access to hobbyists, training apprentices from low-income backgrounds through a sponsored programme, and manufacturing commercial furniture and restaurant tableware. Through this diversified approach, the cooperative generates between half a million and a million ringgit in revenue and has doubled its growth every year for the past three years. Founder Teoh Jia Chern operates the business with a sharp critique of the local artisanal space. He argues that much of the industry survives on "pity purchases" - expensive objects sold to T20 consumers and corporate CSR budgets entirely on the strength of the "handmade" label, rather than the quality of the product itself. Because this model relies on elite sustainability and a high price floor, it can never scale or deliver genuine impact. Friends Craft Cooperative was built to be the exact opposite, focusing on high-quality, scalable manufacturing that stands on its own merit. Chern joins us to unpack the operational realities of running a three-in-one craft business and how they manage to compete with manufacturing giants like IKEA and Taobao. We explore the cooperative's highly unusual democratic profit distribution, and why Chern insists on earning the exact same salary as his senior team, and his strategic plans to make himself entirely replaceable. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    Breaking the Mould of the Malaysian Craft Business

  2. 4d ago

    The Malaysian Launching an LLM Into Orbit

    The commercial space industry is moving away from exclusive government monopolies to an era where securing a rideshare slot on a commercial rocket is now accessible to private citizens. Ken Chan is proving exactly how accessible this new frontier is by building KENSAT, a 2U CubeSat, entirely from his home. Outfitted with an NVIDIA Jetson running a compressed language model for in-orbit computing, the satellite will soon launch on a SpaceX rideshare, marking the first time a Malaysian private individual has put a satellite into orbit. While launch costs have significantly decreased, Ken quickly discovered that internal satellite components remain heavily priced for institutional buyers and suffer from months-long lead times. With zero prior hardware experience, he designed his own power and radio boards to bypass these bottlenecks. After successfully passing the rigorous vibration testing required for launch, these homemade components became the foundation of Swordholder Technologies, a solo venture built to disrupt the inaccessible satellite parts market. Ken joins us to discuss the realities of building and launching a satellite on a bootstrapped budget. We explore his pivot from co-founding a massive crypto derivatives exchange to starting a zero-revenue aerospace hardware business, and unpack the real economics of commercial space rideshares, the process of qualifying homemade hardware for orbit, and how Swordholder Technologies plans to bring affordable infrastructure to the booming space economy. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    The Malaysian Launching an LLM Into Orbit

  3. 5d ago

    The Prescription to Scaling a RM20m Clinic Group

    In 2012, three doctors opened a family clinic in Pasir Gudang with a simple but radical proposition: to provide good quality healthcare at prices ordinary working families could afford. Fourteen years later, that single clinic has rebranded as Mediwira and expanded into a formidable network of 22 outlets, comprising thirteen dental clinics, seven medical clinics, and two doctor-led medispas. It generates over RM20 million in annual revenue, and now the fully bootstrapped group has set a target to reach 100 outlets across Malaysia by 2030. What makes Mediwira unusual is its ownership structure. Rather than relying on salaried employees, every single clinic is run by a doctor or dentist holding real equity as a partner. To reach their 100-clinic goal, the group must find nearly 80 more clinician-partners willing to buy-in amidst a national doctor shortage, all while standardising operations across dozens of outlets without destroying the unique local ownership that makes them successful. Dr Mok joins us to unpack where the profit margins actually sit across their different business lines, why their dental arm now outnumbers medical almost two to one, and the immense capital and leadership required to hit their 2030 target. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    The Prescription to Scaling a RM20m Clinic Group

  4. 6d ago

    Building a Systems Business, One Restaurant at a Time

    In 2023, after nine years studying and working in New York, Michael Ang came home to join his family's hospitality business. Today PHASE2 runs full-service restaurants, casual dining, café concepts, a central kitchen, food production, consumer packaged goods, and beverage development under one roof, anchored by fifteen authentic Taiwanese-style outlets across the Klang Valley generating around RM30 million in annual revenue, entirely self-funded. MJ will tell you the food is almost the easy part. What's hard is everything underneath it: the operational discipline, supply chains, culture, and technology that determine whether a restaurant group can scale. He joins us to unpack why menus can be copied but operating excellence can't, and what a Southeast Asian expansion and eventual IPO ambitions could look like over the next five years. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    Building a Systems Business, One Restaurant at a Time

  5. Aug 18

    Better Business School: Overcoming Founder Burnout Trap

    It is one of the most common paradoxes in business: an entrepreneur builds a company from scratch, grows it to multi-million-dollar revenues, and ends up trapped inside the day-to-day machine they created. They work through grueling hours, put out operational fires, and realise that scaling up has also scaled their stress. Chan Boon Yong and Lau Huoi Seong, co-founders of The Better Business School, join BFM’s Open For Business to discuss how their executive education platform helps operators transition into strategic leaders running profitable, purposeful assets. They break down their core curriculum, combining a "Courageous Leadership" mindset shift with the four pillars of the Scaling Up framework (People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash), to explain how neuroplasticity, Asian-centric case studies, and peer forum support prevent founders from defaulting back to old habits once training ends. Download The Better Business School 2025 Insights report for full key takeaways, and apply for their upcoming executive cohort running October 12 to 16. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    Better Business School: Overcoming Founder Burnout Trap

  6. Aug 17

    Waste Oil, Real Fuel: Inside FatHopes’ Refinery Bet

    If you've ever tossed out a bottle of used cooking oil without a second thought, you've handed away a rapidly appreciating commodity. The aviation industry is racing to decarbonise, and the feedstock for that shift is sitting in home kitchens and restaurant fryers across the region. Vinesh Sinha has spent sixteen years building the infrastructure to capture it. Founded in 2010, FatHopes Energy is now Malaysia's leading used cooking oil collector and distributor with its own digital traceability system. But the biggest change this year is an estimated US$500 million Sustainable Aviation Fuel refinery in Port Klang. Vinesh joins us to unpack where the refinery stands after an independent feasibility study, the challenges and opportunities ahead, and how volatile fuel prices are shaping the economics of clean fuel at scale. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    Waste Oil, Real Fuel: Inside FatHopes’ Refinery Bet

  7. Aug 13

    Bolttech: Building a US$2.1B Insurtech Platform

    Unicorn insurtech Bolttech has raised over US$600 million to build its global B2B2C insurance distribution platform, which now processes US$85 billion in quoted annual premiums and operates across 39 markets. Rob Schimek, Co-Founder and Group CEO of Bolttech, joins BFM’s Open For Business to discuss his transition from corporate leadership at AIG to pioneering embedded protection technology. He explains how Bolttech's orchestration layer enables telecom partners, retailers, and device makers to offer tailored protection products, details the capital-intensive infrastructure required to scale across four continents, and outlines the company's financial transition toward sustained EBITDA profitability and self-funded growth. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

  8. Aug 12

    Taking the Long Steep Approach to Business

    Founded twelve years ago, Rhymba Hills has steadily grown into a highly decorated, internationally recognised premium botanical infusion brand. The fully bootstrapped business has secured the prestigious Great Taste Award in the UK and a gourmet award in Paris, while successfully exporting to highly competitive markets including London, Japan, and Dubai. The company has also been appointed as a Strategic Partner for Visit Malaysia Year 2026 and currently supplies premium raw materials to one of the largest tea companies in the country. Despite the string of global achievements, the operational reality of the business tells a story of immense entrepreneurial endurance. Rhymba Hills is profitable and successfully holds premium retail shelf space, yet after more than a decade of grinding through gruelling two-year sales cycles and overcoming constant rejection, the business still generates under a million ringgit in annual revenue. Founder Ciinndey Wong has navigated the long-steeped growth entirely on her own terms, fighting through self-doubt and the constant pressure of making payroll to keep her vision alive. Ciinndey joins us for an unusually candid conversation about the harsh realities of slow business growth and what it genuinely costs to survive a twelve-year entrepreneurial journey. We explore the mental fortitude required to keep going when the financial scale does not immediately match the global accolades, as well as the challenges of acquiring customers in a highly traditional beverage market. We also unpack her upcoming export push into Europe and Hong Kong and discuss what the ultimate endgame looks like for a founder who refuses to quit. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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