Open For Business

For many heirs in Malaysia’s family businesses, the biggest decision is not how to grow what they inherit, but whether to stay at all. Kelvin Khandhar, a third-generation carpet trader, chose to step away after nearly a decade to start Victoria Carpets from scratch.

He joins us to talk about the unspoken pressures of succession, why leaving can feel harder than starting over, and how a new generation is redefining value, quality, and long-term thinking in traditional industries.

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What if your truck battery never failed again?

For a logistics firm, a dead battery is more than just a nuisance, it’s a broken timeline, spoiled cargo, and lost revenue. Dennis Yong, CEO of VXI Crest, is out to eliminate that risk by turning the humble starter battery into a visible, data-driven asset.

Through a joint venture called Advanced Accumulators, Dennis is replacing traditional lead-acid batteries with IoT-enabled Lithium Ferrous Phosphate (LFP) technology. These "smart" batteries store up to 400% more energy at half the weight and allow fleet managers to monitor health in real-time. They even feature an "Over-the-Air Jumpstart", a remote function that lets a manager start a stalled truck from a dashboard hundreds of miles away.

Dennis explains why he’s betting on the underserved "marathon runners" of the road, commercial trucks and vans, and how his "frenemy" strategy with industry veterans YSK Marketing and FJ Union is helping him scale a regional battery empire across Malaysia.

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Building a catering business is easy to start, and notoriously hard to scale. For Andrew Chee, Founder and CEO of RunningMen Celebrations Group, the challenge wasn’t just serving good food, but building a system that could deliver consistency, creativity, and reliability at scale.

In this episode, Andrew breaks down how RunningMen grew from a student-run venture into a multi-format halal catering and events business, the gap they spotted in a crowded market, and the operational decisions that shaped their positioning today. 

We explore how the company thinks about revenue, service design, and execution in a low-margin industry, and what the next phase of growth looks like as RunningMen plans ahead

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In an industry often defined by high-speed logistics and international imports, Brenda James of Nook Flowers is carving out a different path in Malaysia. Known for her "Grown Not Flown" philosophy, Brenda joins us to discuss the intricacies of "Responsible Floristry", from championing local Cameron Highlands growers to championing circular based systems. We dive into the business logic behind her boldest decisions, including stepping back from the Valentine’s Day rush to preserve quality and supply chain integrity.

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From a single kiosk to beating Starbucks and becoming Malaysia’s largest coffee chain in just 6 years.

The journey began just months before the pandemic in 2019. Today, ZUS Coffee has cemented the "App-to-Cup" model as the new industry standard, overtaking the legacy giant by outlet count.

Venon Tian, Group COO of ZUS Coffee, joins BFM Open For Business to decode the strategy behind the disruption. Unlike competitors that focused on the "Third Place" experience, ZUS treated coffee more like an e-commerce product, leveraging data to convert frappuccino drinkers into espresso loyalists.

But the disruptor is now facing its own disruption. With the "Second China Shock" bringing aggressive tech-native competitors like Luckin Coffee into the scene and giants like Mixue crowding the RM10 price bracket, Venon explains how ZUS plans to defend its dominance while expanding into new markets, including Pakistan.

We discuss:

• The "Fun Drink" Funnel: How Zus uses flavoured drinks (like Watermelon Lattes) as a customer acquisition tool to bridge the gap for non-coffee drinkers.

• Data over Delivery: Why Zus insisted on building its own app rather than relying solely on Grab or Foodpanda, allowing them to track exactly when users drop off or increase consumption.

• The "Avengers" Structure: How the company navigated the potential chaos of having eight co-founders by professionalising management and adopting Amazon’s "Humble is Cool" culture.

• Hyper-Localisation: From selling curry puffs in Malaysia to launching Ube Lattes in the Philippines and Tom Yum Americanos in Thailand.

• The Global Ambition: Why Zus is expanding into Pakistan and how they balance owned-and-operated stores with master franchising for rapid regional scale.

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Malaysia has top hospitals, competitive pricing, and a strong reputation in medical tourism yet much of the demand is still controlled by foreign intermediaries.

Wan Mahsuri Wan Ahmad Kamal, Founder and CEO of Medisuri, an AI-powered medical tourism platform is aiming to reposition Malaysia as a trusted global healthcare hub. We unpack the gap Medisuri is trying to solve, how the business fits into the medical tourism value chain, its monetisation strategy, early fundraising journey, and what scaling this platform could look like in the years ahead.

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What do you do when you’ve built a loyal audience and 5 years of momentum, but you feel trapped by the very niche that built you?

Michelle Chin, founder of Her Duit, recently announced a strategic overhaul of her personal finance brand, expanding beyond money into leadership, career, and life design. She joins BFM to deconstruct the mechanics of this pivot and why she refused to let the brand run on "momentum and guilt."

We also explore the harsh reality of the modern social media landscape, where the "Instagram Community" era has been replaced by the TikTok era’s algorithmic entertainment. Michelle explains why creators must now "buy attention" in the first 3 seconds to earn the right to deliver substance, and how she balances her identity as a "Founder Creator" running a VC-backed insurtech startup by day and a media brand by night.

We discuss:

• The Strategic Pivot: How Michelle transitioned from pure personal finance to holistic growth content to answer the question: "I have the money, now what?

• The Attention Economy: Understanding the shift to short-form video where knowledge is no longer king, hooks are.

• The "Her Duit" Machine: How Michelle scaled from spending 8 hours on one post to a streamlined operation using a virtual assistant, video editors, and AI tools like Claude for synthesis.

• The Worst Advice: Why "one-size-fits-all" financial rules (like saving 50% of income) are dangerous and induce shame. Monetisation & Synergies: Moving from B2C content to B2B employee wellness workshops, and how her role as a startup COO informs her content strategy (and vice versa).

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What do you do when you’ve built a loyal audience and 5 years of momentum, but you feel trapped by the very niche that built you?

Michelle Chin, founder of Her Duit, recently announced a strategic overhaul of her personal finance brand, expanding beyond money into leadership, career, and life design. She joins BFM to deconstruct the mechanics of this pivot and why she refused to let the brand run on "momentum and guilt."

We also explore the harsh reality of the modern social media landscape, where the "Instagram Community" era has been replaced by the TikTok era’s algorithmic entertainment. Michelle explains why creators must now "buy attention" in the first 3 seconds to earn the right to deliver substance, and how she balances her identity as a "Founder Creator" running a VC-backed insurtech startup by day and a media brand by night.

We discuss:

• The Strategic Pivot: How Michelle transitioned from pure personal finance to holistic growth content to answer the question: "I have the money, now what?

• The Attention Economy: Understanding the shift to short-form video where knowledge is no longer king, hooks are.

• The "Her Duit" Machine: How Michelle scaled from spending 8 hours on one post to a streamlined operation using a virtual assistant, video editors, and AI tools like Claude for synthesis.

• The Worst Advice: Why "one-size-fits-all" financial rules (like saving 50% of income) are dangerous and induce shame. Monetisation & Synergies: Moving from B2C content to B2B employee wellness workshops, and how her role as a startup COO informs her content strategy (and vice versa).

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Two years ago, Applecrumby was navigating its transition from a long bootstrapped journey into its next growth phase. Today, the company is expanding beyond baby care into kids skincare, scaling its retail presence, and rethinking what sustainable growth looks like for a consumer brand built on trust.

Co-founders Sean Tan and Jesmine Tan join us to break down what has changed since our last conversation in 2024, how their revenue mix and operations have evolved, the commercial logic behind their move into kids skincare, the economics of selling across online and physical retail, and how they are balancing scale with profitability as they plan for 2026 and beyond.

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Many professionals have deep expertise but struggle to turn that into a credible, sustainable career as a trainer, facilitator, or industry practitioner. Riley Goh is aiming to change that dynamic with The Lighthouse Academia, a Malaysia–Singapore based academy that helps practitioners professionalise their craft and build real training careers. Through accredited programmes, consulting, and courseware development, the company works with individuals, corporations, and government bodies to raise the standards of professional training. 

In this conversation, we explore how Riley’s training-the-trainers model works as a business, how the company makes money, and what growth looks like for a business that’s in a niche market.

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