Malaysian Start-Ups, Blooming The Money Tree

Blooming The Money Tree

Starting up a business is never easy, even online start-ups are not spared the challenges and risks. About three out of four start-ups fail and 90% of those are related to online or tech industry. It takes exceptional leadership and probably quite a bit of luck and timing to become highly successful in developing a business from the ground up, growing it to compete with established brands. Here are some examples of Malaysia’s fastest growing online start-ups:-

Jobstreet is the largest online job employment portal in Malaysia and South East Asia according to Forbes. Currently, it serves about 80,000 corporate customers and 11 million jobseekers. This start-up was formed on the vision of providing an automated platform for accurately matching employers and jobseekers. In an era where job placements have switched to online platforms, this idea was timely to strike at the job-hunting industry.

MyTeksi started out as an idea when two Malaysian students, who were pursuing their MBAs at Harvard Business School entered a business plan competition. They won 2nd spot which is a first in many years for a team from Asia. Wanting to improve the efficiency of the horrid Malaysian taxi service, this idea spawned into a nifty mobile app that match make passengers and taxi. The app has since been downloaded onto more than 1.2 million mobiles devices in over 15 cities in the region.

Brainchild of two Malaysians passionate about elevating the local fashion scene, Fashion Valet is one of the leading online retailers housing over 200 brands. They carry a wide range of wearables from home grown brands to designer and high street brands. Launched in 2010, Fashion Valet was inspired by the online shopping culture in London where the idea was formed to connect retailers with customers on an online platform. It has delighted many Malaysian men and women by creating a fashion lifestyle convenience.

Another successful Malaysian online start-up, Nuffnang, is now the world’s leading blogging advertising community; reaching out to more than 300,000 bloggers across 8 countries and regions including Malaysia, Singapore, Phillipines, Australia, China, Hong Kong, Thailand and UK. Their unique proposition provided a platform for bloggers to earn from advertisement placements in their website, while advertisers reach out to their market audience through the bloggers’ community. This combined community makes for stronger relationships that work interactively and collaboratively.

This website is hailed to be the eBay of Malaysia and it is the biggest online auction portal in Malaysia, serving the local community with an avenue for online trading at low cost. Started out during the dotcom boom, the website floundered through the global dotcom bust in 2000 but persevered until today where this online auction site is now the No.1 online auction site in Malaysia. It has been reported that their earnings easily going over RM20,000 on a daily basis.

Starting out as a web hosting provider in Malaysia, Exabytes Network has grown to be the largest web-hosting company in Malaysia with its own servers and 34,000 clients in over 120 countries. It capitalised its business strategy on the demands of internet commerce and became an MSC Status company while awarded with the Best Reseller Performance 2011 By MYNIC (The Malaysia Network Information Centre) and The 2011 Golden Bull Award.

Founded in February 2000 by a Malaysian entity who anticipated providing for the needs of online payments, it is today one of the biggest online payment service providers in Asia processing over 6,000,000 transactions per month with an annual revenue of RM460 million. An MSC Malaysia Status Company, it currently handles over 600,000 physical and virtual payment channels across 80 countries worldwide.

Why Are They Successful?

Most of them stuck to a winning formula of persevering to their ideas, simplifying their mission, practising over-delivering that makes them stand out, adapt quickly to market environment and embracing mistakes as lessons to be learned. If you have plans for a start-up, these exemplary successful start-ups mentioned above would be worth your observation.