Doing business in Malaysia..

Assalamualaikum wr wbt,

I hope you are in best of health and iman.

Let me be straight here. I do not come from a well to do family. We are from a very humble background. My dad is a driver, as he only passed his O Levels. My mom only studied until primary 6 in the rural Malaysian education system, and she worked mostly as a cleaner for most part of her life.

Life was hard, but we were never in a state of poverty. Although it is kinda sad to say this but we never had an actual place to call home...and we had to "tumpang" in relatives homes a few times. Otherwise, we had to rent a small unit somewhere just to grab a roof over our heads. My parents divorce did not help while I was 9 and 14 years old (they remarried and divorce again)

So in actual fact, to venture and start-up my own enterprise was the counter-intuitive decision I have ever made.

The deck was stacked heavily against me since day one. I had no real connections. I was not what you call an ultra sociable person. I was a moody and only open up to a few close folks. And even then, I was raised up in Singapore and I had not much of a friend base in Malaysia, although I do have some few contacts who are highly supportive and appreciative.

In Malaysia, its all about connections, connections and CONNECTIONS!!!

From this article, we can see that Malaysia ranks 3rd in crony capitalism.

Anybody who can hook up with a Tan Sri or Dato's or any YBs is as good as striking lottery.

Personally, I hate it. Ironically, I do not believe in meritocracy either. Meritocracy is just an illusion for the majority to suppress the minority (but thats for another topic!) On the other hand, getting jobs or projects, simply through who-you-know or mere acquiantaince... is not a bang up way to secure competent vendors or suppliers.

I have always believe and stubbornly stuck to my ethics, to be morally upright (or uptight to certain folks) and shy away from any hanky panky. However, such idealistic standard means it has been one very very very slow struggle to bring income in.

Although in spite of all these obstacles, we are slowly gaining some foothold and momentum, but it has been one very painful journey!