Open For Business

How does a homegrown, 20-year-old beverage brand survive the influx of massive foreign competitors like Mixue? Coolblog CEO Sueli Lew joins us to unpack the company's evolution from a founder-led business to a private equity-backed franchise empire generating RM70 million in revenue. We discuss their hypermarket strategy, the unit economics of their 300+ stores, and Archipelago Capital Partners' ultimate exit strategy.

Founded in Johor Bahru in 2005, the brand aggressively scaled its initial footprint by targeting hypermarkets and secondary towns, quietly building a massive loyal customer base while bigger competitors fought over expensive, premium urban storefronts.

To sustain that scale and defend its market share in today's brutal F&B environment, Coolblog had to grow up. Now backed by Archipelago Capital Partners, the company has professionalised its operations, overhauled its supply chain, and dialed in its franchise economics to prepare for its next major financial milestone.

Learn More About:

• The 50/50 Playbook: Why maintaining an even split between corporate-owned and franchisee-owned stores gives the headquarters vital "skin in the game" for product testing and operational empathy.

• Franchise Economics: A breakdown of the numbers behind their 300-store network, from the initial setup cost to the financial mechanics.

• Supply Chain as a Moat: The strategic necessity of running an in-house distribution center to rapidly fulfill unexpected demand surges for viral items, like their Kunafa Pistachio Chocolate drink.

• Institutionalising the Business: How the private equity buyout led to the establishment of dedicated business development, Halal compliance, and quality control teams, replacing legacy systems like manual punch cards with biometric scanners.

• The Private Equity Endgame: Archipelago Capital Partners' midterm ambition for Coolblog, including potential exit strategies like a strategic merger, a listing, or an acquisition by a foreign entity within the next 12 to 24 months.

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BateriHub doubled from 100 to 200 branches in a year, promising roadside battery support within the hour. But what does it really take to scale reliability across Malaysia?

With over 800,000 vehicles sold in 2025 alone, breakdown scenarios are no longer rare inconveniences. They’re part of everyday mobility. In this conversation, Stanly Ng, General Manager of BateriHub, explains how the company built a fully direct-owned nationwide network covering 500+ service areas across 11 states and why control, not franchising, underpins its growth strategy.

We explore the operational strain behind rapid expansion, what healthy unit economics look like for each branch, and how the next phase toward 300 outlets and East Malaysia will be funded. As volumes grow, so does responsibility. We also discuss how used batteries are handled, and what accountability should look like in Malaysia’s automotive aftermarket.

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Most digital agencies sell rankings and traffic. Growth.pro sells visibility within AI systems.

Founder and CEO, Alvin Koay, has built an AI-first SEO agency designed for a world where search engines are no longer the only gatekeepers. Instead of focusing purely on keywords, the company helps brands structure their digital presence for AI citations and measurable commercial outcomes.

In this conversation, we explore how Growth.pro makes money, how they are different in a crowded agency market, the operational challenges of running an AI-driven marketing business, and what’s next for the business going forward.

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Running a restaurant is notoriously brutal. Running one successfully for over three decades is rare. Scaling it into a 9-figure, multi-brand F&B empire, while keeping it entirely in the family, is something else entirely.

Founded in 1990 as a single restaurant in Shah Alam, Serai Group has evolved into a hospitality powerhouse behind concepts like Serai, Jibby & Co, and Jibby East Grill, alongside a strong B2B business.

To unpack this 30-year generational success story, Founder Rina Abdullah, alongside daughter Datin Qistina Taff and son-in-law Datuk Mohd Najib Abdul Hamid, join the show to discuss building the Serai Group legacy.

Learn About:

• Family in the Boardroom: How a mother, daughter, and son-in-law structure corporate decision-making, manage inevitable disagreements, and separate family dynamics from business strategy.

• From 1 Restaurant to a Portfolio: The evolution into a multi-brand group.

• Scaling Without Losing Control: The operational realities and growing pains of expanding a massive F&B footprint.

• The Capital Question: After 30+ years of independent, self-funded growth, is the family finally open to bringing in outside capital and institutional investors?

• The Next Decade: What lies ahead for the Serai Group empire and their thoughts on generational succession.

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From making less than RM1 a day as a Penang food blog, to ringing the bell on a RM75 million ACE Market IPO. Foodie Media’s co-founders share their recipe.

In 2016, it was just a side hustle, a simple food blog called Penang Foodie fueled by cents from AdSense. Fast forward 9 years, and that side hustle has transformed into a digital media juggernaut with over 46 million followers across a portfolio of 37 lifestyle brands, ranging from KL Foodie to Malaysia Homie.

Fresh off their 2025 ACE Market debut and now armed with RM50 million in cash reserves (as of their Q1 results), husband-and-wife duo Lim Pinn Yang and Ang Rui Mei join BFM’s Open For Business to unpack their story from scrappy content creators to public company executives.

Learn about:

• The "4 C's" Engine: How they evolved from pure media publishing to monetising Creators (KOLs), Commerce (live streaming), and Community (offline events like the KL Foodie Fest).

• The Pasar Pagi Playbook: How Ping Yang's childhood mornings watching his father sell multi-tools at the morning market helped shape the company's content-to-commerce philosophy.

• Co-Founder & Spouse Dynamics: The messy reality of dating while building a startup, resolving fierce disagreements, and learning to divide operational roles.

• Surviving the Algorithm: How they mitigate platform risk ("rented land") across Meta, Google, and ByteDance to sustain 46 million followers.

• The IPO Reality Check: Navigating a RM75M public listing, why you shouldn't build a company just to go public, and the psychological toll of checking your own stock ticker.

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Aquaculture is one of the fastest-growing food production sectors, but it’s also exposed to volatility, rising feed costs, water quality risks, and unpredictable climate patterns. AquFish believes artificial intelligence can change that.

Founded by Rafiq Razali, AquFish is building AI and machine learning tools designed to help fish farms move from reactive decision-making to predictive operations. By combining sensors, analytics, and real-time monitoring, the company aims to improve yield, reduce losses, and optimise farm performance.

We explore how the idea came about, the technology stack behind smart aquaculture, where the business stands in terms of fundraising, and what it takes to scale an agri-tech startup in Malaysia’s evolving food security landscape.

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Would you trust a TikTok live streamer to sell you car servicing? Armed with US$6 million (RM24 million) in recent funding, ServAuto is betting that you will.

Co-Founder & COO Phoy Yong Hao unpacks how they are digitalising the traditional workshop ecosystem. The ex-Carsome executive breaks down how ServAuto uses an online-to-offline (O2O) model driven heavily by TikTok live commerce, having already served 30,000 customers and expanded to 150 workshops in just one year.

Learn about:

• The TikTok Conversion Engine: Why ServAuto relies heavily on TikTok live streams to answer high-intent customer questions and drive actual sales (with a claimed 10 million monthly views).

• The "Mom & Pop" Consolidation: How ServAuto standardises pricing, parts sourcing, and customer retention for neighbourhood workshops without outright replacing them.

• Tinting as Customer Acquisition: Why window tinting acts as the ultimate entry point for new car owners, bringing them into the ServAuto ecosystem.

• Preventing Platform Leakage: How ServAuto stops workshops and customers from bypassing their platform by controlling product quality and offering unbeatable wholesale parts pricing.

• The Carsome Synergy: The strategic advantage of sharing investors, an after-sales partnership, and a direct talent pipeline (via Carsome Academy) with the used-car giant.

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Once known for its 120-day pre-order white shirts, Oxwhite has since evolved into an omnichannel retail brand with physical stores, a broader product range, and fresh capital raised through equity crowdfunding.

Co-founder CK Chang joins us to discuss Oxwhite’s shift from online disruptor to retail player, the challenges of scaling beyond a single product, and what the next chapter of growth looks like.

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In 2017, Adrian Chia turned a holiday joke into Big Tiny, a "tiny house" hospitality group that now manages over 1,000 keys across 22 countries.

With RM150 million in revenue (2025) and positive cash flow since 2018, the company has big, non-tiny, ambitions ahead. The journey began with SG$200,000 of their own money and a prototype that took six months to build in Adrian’s own garden before being shipped to the Australian wilderness.

Backed by SG$4.2 million in funding, Big Tiny now operates an end-to-end model where they design, manufacture, and manage these "tiny hotels" on other people's land. Adrian joins BFM to unpack: 

• The IKEA of Housing: How a patented flatpack design allows professional teams to ship units globally and assemble a fully functional "tiny hotel" in just three hours.

• The "Micro-Hotelier" Ecosystem: How Big Tiny connects investors, land partners, and hospitality management.

• The Asset-Light Loophole: Mitigating land risk by registering homes with VINs so they can be moved if a landowner relationship sours.

• The "Sale & Leaseback" Engine: How selling units to investors funded rapid expansion while retaining management rights.

• The Pandemic Stress Test: How transparency saved the company when revenue hit zero, retaining 95% of investors.

• The 50/50 Goal: Shifting the revenue mix from manufacturing sales to recurring rental income.

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In Malaysia’s fragmented primary care landscape, Dr. Saifulhaziq Noorman is building something more structured. Through Kyno Primary Care and its 14-clinic Poliklinik Amalmedik network, he’s attempting to scale a healthcare business that blends specialist services with community clinics. And now, he’s raising capital via equity crowdfunding to accelerate that vision.

We explore the commercial logic behind the model, how the group generates revenue, why this is the right time to bring in investors, and what it takes to scale a clinic network in a tightly regulated industry. 

From unit economics to expansion strategy, this conversation goes beyond medicine and into the mechanics of building a healthcare business in Malaysia

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