March 24, 2025 • 36 mins
Show Notes
The Three Keys to Startup Success:
- People & Talent: Building the right team is critical. Having the right people in the right roles ensures strong execution.
- Product-Market Fit: If the product doesn’t fit the market, traction will be difficult. Founders need to be adaptable and willing to pivot.
- Execution: Every decision impacts the next move—attention to detail and strategic planning are essential for scalability.
The Reality of Startups & Market Readiness:
- Many startups fail not because of bad ideas but due to poor timing.
- Founders often walk away too soon instead of waiting for the market to mature.
- Example: EV adoption in Southeast Asia remains slow due to cheap petroleum.
Malaysia’s Startup Ecosystem & Future Outlook:
- Malaysia aims to reach 5,000 startups by 2025 and develop five unicorns.
- The government is investing in AI initiatives to push startups toward AI-powered solutions.
- Founders should focus on how AI can drive revenue and close sales rather than just integrating AI for the sake of it.
About Peter Ho
Peter Ho is an accomplished business leader with a wealth of experience in e-commerce, project management, and product management. He has worked with multiple Fortune 500 companies, overseeing complex projects, managing diverse teams, and driving strategic growth. His expertise in business operations and market execution has made him a key player in developing successful products and optimizing large-scale business processes.
Beyond his corporate career, Peter is also an entrepreneur, having launched and managed ventures that showcase his ability to identify market opportunities and create innovative solutions. His strong professional network, combined with his strategic mindset, enables him to navigate dynamic business landscapes and drive impactful results.
Connect with Peter Ho:
LinkedIn: https://my.linkedin.com/in/peterho06
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:06):
Welcome
to biz dev titans,
where we uncover the secrets that make biz
dev a game changer.
We are going to cover strategies
and dive into the mindset and tactics
that get you results.
Get ready for conversations that reveal what truly
works
for biz devs like you.
(00:28):
Here is your host,
Barns Lamb.
Today, we are delighted
to be with our distinguished guest,
mister Peter Ho, a veteran in Malaysia tech
scenes with over two decades
of experience.
(00:49):
From finding his successful
startups to monitoring the next
generation of entrepreneurs,
Peter has his fingers on a pulse of
Malaysia's innovation's
ecosystem.
Hello, Peter. Happy Lunar Chinese New Year. Best
wishes to you and your family.
How are you?
Hi, Vance. Thank you. Thank you. Yes.
(01:12):
That's how we speak in Cantonese, and I'm
a Chinese and, based in Malaysia. So, yeah,
I'm good. And this week, we have been
celebrating Chinese New Year. And in Malaysia, it's
a big celebration.
Okay? We have particularly two days of holidays
here in Malaysia.
Fantastic.
Thank you again for
(01:33):
coming to the podcast and after the holidays.
So
before we start our podcast, perhaps that you
can do a quick intro to our listener
about who Peter Ho is.
Sure. Sure. That'll be good. My name is
Peter Ho. So I've been in the
telco industry in Malaysia for all or more
(01:53):
than twenty odd years.
So I work with companies
like Maxis,
Motorola,
Cellcom,
and the last engagement that I have for
the last two years was with Telecom Malaysia,
particularly
a brand called Unifin. So it has been
a very dominant
home player
for Malaysia.
So that's my experience.
(02:14):
And for the last couple of years as
well, I
very involved in the startup scene and also
mentoring quite a number of startups. So now
I'm currently working with the a few government
agency entities
that works on the projects for all the
startups in Malaysia. So I'm currently mentoring quite
a number of startups in, Malaysia.
(02:36):
Oh, fantastic. This is exactly what
our audience looking for,
some in and out of Southeast Asia tech
scenes.
And, yeah, during our
conversation previously,
you you mentioned that you also have
a lot of outside of
Malaysia as well. I think you have some
(02:57):
other
countries coming into Malaysia. So
I guess the question is is that
can you tell me a little bit more
some of those
folks coming from outside of Malaysia coming to
you? Who are they looking for
particular to really set a foothold into Malaysia?
Sure. I think
(03:17):
Southeast
Asia name has been very hot and the
scene for startup has been very hot for
the last four to five years. Particularly
for Malaysia,
during the pandemic
days, the government has started a lot of
initiatives
to
help companies and SMEs
to
probably
to do some transformation.
(03:37):
You can name it either digitization
or
transition to digital on all funds of the
format. That's where it really started
my engagement with the government
agencies. The three key agencies that I usually
work with is, like, for example, Cradle Fund,
Talent Corp, and MDebt. These are the guys
that we work with and to help all
(03:58):
the these startups and so on. So since
there is a startup scene in Malaysia, we
have, of course, the internal startups that in
Malaysia that wanted to need help or even,
help them to scale their business and move
them out of the country. Of course, at
the same time, there are
organizations outside of, example, Korea from North Asia
(04:19):
and also from China. So I've been hosting
quite a few of these
current tourism organizations where they brought the startups
into Malaysia.
And, of course, the China
lately last year, there was a group from
China and Viano who did the visit to
Malaysia to talk about
maybe exploring
and also looking at the entire Southeast Asia.
(04:41):
When they land and they look at at
things, they don't only look at Malaysia. They
look at Southeast Asia as a whole. Now
Malaysia has been a very good landing ground
due to a couple of other factors like
that. I think we can, talk a bit
later. Then to focus on this, the experience
that
we gather and the experience that we can
share with this organization or startups that come
(05:02):
in from Korea and China,
two major thing that I always share with
them. The first one is about how do
you go by doing local business.
That's super important. How to sell of a
company? Who do you get connected with? What
kind of rebate? What kind of incentive?
What kind of things that you can take
advantage of when you're in Malaysia? Visa,
particularly. Wow. I spent a lot of time
(05:23):
with a lot of China people talking about
visas. And
currently,
lately, there's one who just got a ten
years visa
in Malaysia.
So those kind of things that is happening.
And this kind of government agencies are the
one who are helping them. Okay? Right. The
second one is
very much to the heart of a startup.
It's product market fit. Now does your product
(05:46):
fit into this market? And so on and
so forth. Now we are multiracial country, so
that's where it is making it even more
important.
Now if you target Southeast Asia, I think
it's even more important
to look at your product market fit. So
these are the two major thing that, I've
been engaging with them. And I hopefully and
(06:06):
they gained out, more experience and more information
when they land into,
Southeast Asia.
Fantastic. Thank you, Peter. So maybe we should
walk back a little bit.
You and I know each other since we
were in telecom day
days, and I think that
what led you into this type of work,
into a venture startup
(06:28):
ecosystem, it kinda be something that it's not
like, I wanna do this. Right? It gotta
be some reason
that you say, I've got to be able
to leverage my skill set
over thirty years in in the telecom business
and try to try to help some of
the young kids try to get into the
scene, so as speak.
You're absolutely right.
(06:48):
It was not like coincidentally.
The one day, one morning, I would come
and say, hey. I wanna quit my corporate
job, and I just wanna jump inside. It
it was not like that.
Now over the years,
I manages sales and distribution
of large organization.
We're talking about
getting millions of subscribers and and things like
that. That was one of the key thing.
(07:08):
Second one,
in the last
couple of jobs also, I also manage product
marketing. I also manage product development. You can
imagine if you were to as a startup,
if you own distribution, you own product marketing,
and you own product development. I'm like the
CEO of the company.
Like, I was saying, I don't sit in
that position, but I sit in the position
(07:29):
of the p and l here.
Sales,
marketing, everything driven back into a p and
l of that business.
Right. And when during the pandemic hit and,
I move out a bit
of the telco zone,
I moved to fintech.
Group
gave me the opportunity at a part time
in,
(07:49):
2020
during the pandemic.
And we were looking into fintech as a
company. How we did that was to look
at the consumer business and also look at
the b to b business. In the b
to b business,
during the pandemic, one of the biggest thing
that we could help a organization
is cash flow.
(08:09):
So what did happen did was and I
was at a place at that moment. And
how did we take cash flow and do
into a fintech lending
into the SMEs. Now,
again, you ask me why and how do
I get involved in all these and
how do you leverage on this? Oh, definitely.
Because of my sales and distribution network that
(08:30):
I have so much of connections with the
local businesses and things like that.
The cash flow business or the micro lending
was superbly in place for this time for
the cash flow during the period. So we
went out. We did a lot of lending
to this organization and companies and so on.
So that's where the two things marry together,
and I saw the huge opportunity
(08:52):
that every single company, whether you're big, small,
there's an opportunity to do a startup,
to create a new product.
Okay? So I always talk about the six
p. You know in marketing is a four
p. The Yes. Standard principle. The other two
p's I always look at is the people
and the process. So
with the people and the process that you
(09:13):
have, the right talent, the right people putting
in the right place, and the right
process, it will be exponential.
And I equate that six p into the
execution of the business.
So that's how I got into it
from big to small. Even the smallest idea
of a startup who just only have an
ideation
at this point. I'm even coaching them in
(09:34):
those areas.
I always see that opportunity on the next
step for each of them. Great. Fantastic. It's
no wonder I said, how how could I
tell company I get into this? Now I
understand.
That was an in between story. That was
an in between story. Okay. And it just
got me going with it. Now if we
don't help the smaller ones, so who are
gonna help them? And there's another opportunity. And
(09:56):
the opportunity at that point of time, of
course, is the pandemic. Right. And it's
just exploded.
I can tell you that business. Okay. Of
course, there's risk. There are sectors that we
don't lend money to and things like that.
There was a vision of the management team
to decide how do we craft that product
and just go to market. Is there any
particular
(10:16):
area expertise
in your,
you know, like, the last four or five,
like, not four or five years. It's more
like six, seven years while you're doing this.
Is there a particular
area that my listeners say,
I'll copy the whole for this particular
industry or this particular or you just blank
it. Anybody can come in. I will take
(10:37):
a look at it and do assessment and
see if we can fit.
I think the assessment or the expertise that
me
have, we have different group of people with
different expertise, definitely. So my area of expert,
definitely go to market. So the go to
market section will be the product, the sales
and distribution,
(10:57):
and, of course, to look at what I
call the new
business, the new model business innovation.
Right. See, a lot of time that people
are very stuck with your current product and
your current way of doing business. We will
start to teach them and explore how do
you do your business differently.
Whether it be in the country or outside
of the country, you need to look at
(11:18):
all the opportunities
and check all the risk, and, of course,
launch it to successfully. Of course, any startup,
you will just do MVP.
When you do a MVP, you need to
do a validation before you scale. And Mhmm.
Organization or company startups that we have, yeah,
has been always been doing this. And our
advice is take a step by step approach.
(11:39):
Don't jump in it unless
you know for sure or you have a
giant competitor who's already doing it. Okay? That
is a different strategy of them.
So Right. That's a good point. Very good
point. Yeah. That's a very good point. So
what are some of the key achievement
so far in your career in your in
terms of this particular startup
(12:01):
helping startup coming through, learning product marketing, product
development?
And I really particular like the, last post
that you did on LinkedIn about six p.
I think that often people just missing the
last two,
and I thought that this was a very
poignant
post for this particular podcast that we are
talking today. So Yeah. Go back to it.
(12:21):
You just, you know, look back in terms
of what you have done so far. What
are the key achievement
you would say, uh-huh. This is what I
did.
There are several. There are several.
They are on the point that when I
was in an organization
in the telco organization.
You're one example of the organization will be
how the expertise of go to market
(12:44):
really help the organization to exponential the subscriber.
So in the last few years when I
was in telecom Malaysia, we start telecom relations
start to get back into the mobile business.
They've been out of the scene for several
more than a decade. Yes. That's right. Finally
we came back. So as a late comer
back into the scene and things like that,
(13:04):
you really need to exponential your channel network.
So all the entire GTM
needs to be executed excellent.
When you execute
excellent,
you get the number of touch point.
In telco business, it's all about touch point.
It's about all the web subscriber.
Take the product. Take everything on
(13:25):
to be on path with your competitor.
You will need what I call if you
read my yesterday's post, which I think you
did Yes. Yes. Yeah. The end of the
day is competitive edge. You have the competitive
edge. You need to build the competitive edge.
So once I build the competitive edge, we
went to a million subscriber within the same
(13:45):
year. So you can imagine that you are
struggling. You are trying to figure out what
you wanna do. But we are an expertise
of ours, mine, and the group of people
that brings this GTM or execution into the
marketplace
to exponentially very, very quickly.
That's one good example.
The second example I can give it to
(14:06):
you is that many, many times that I
work with founders.
Okay? Startup founders. And you will find a
brilliant technical guy. You'll find brilliant engineer.
The problem is they do not know how
to execute the GTM. They do not know
how to sell. They will give you a
GTM, but the GTM is a plan GTM.
That's what I call it. A non executable.
(14:29):
The reason behind that it cannot be executed
is is too high level.
The too high level
of a GTM is the one that always
tell you, I'll go to social media.
I will use influencer
and and so on and so forth. Yeah.
The thing is the influencer
and the people or even if you have
a digital marketing team, they probably don't quite
(14:51):
understand how to execute it. They know how
to create the content. They probably do not
know how to execute it on ground.
The on ground execution is super important is
how do you close the loop? Okay. Any
startup who's listening to it, end of the
day is very simple.
You need to close the sales.
You do not close the sales. There's no
(15:12):
sales. There's no revenue.
So in the engagement
of that execution of the GTM,
have to make sure there's engagement of a
closing of sales. So I've done quite a
few where
the startup has a couple of products.
Okay? And, again, because of the experience and
the type of
partners and customers that we work with, these
(15:34):
are the giant MNCs.
Now when you have a product and connect
into a giant MNC, who has a 10,000,000
consumer subscriber
using? Just think about it. If my execution
with the 10,000,000 and we can convince the
companies
to take a look at this, take a
look at this data, what do you think
is the success rate on that side? So
(15:55):
I give you one example, will be the
insurance. So I did one small micro insurance
connecting to one of the big boys.
And with that insurance on the first month,
zero
zero social media marketing. They only did a
bit of their own app in app marketing.
We have a banner on the app. They
(16:15):
have 30,000
premium on one month.
Wow. So that's the kind of things that
what I call execution
and scalability.
So
in a way, yes, you have a lot
of startup and founders
who are pretty techy. They know their product
very well and so on. But once you
do a quick market validation and consumer willing
(16:37):
to pay for it, we are connected
into a giant. And the giant is the
one that's gonna help you to
really bring the business. So when you say
that what what are the key
value you bring to the table is
really connect the dots.
You really know how to connect.
You have left. Do you have the products?
(16:58):
You have the execution. You got everything has
to be lined up perfectly. It's like, okay.
Alright. Alright. Yeah. Alright. You're
absolutely right, Vance. We I have a model.
We have a model here. We call it
connected circle.
So by connecting these guys
together with a methodology,
okay, I think we can bring a lot
of companies and organization very far. And, again,
(17:20):
we have done it before. We are not
saying based on a theory but a group
of people who really have done it. Maybe
in an industry connecting it, doing it. Again,
over again, we can show what the use
case that we have done and so on.
But again, I think sometime,
anything
in any other country or any other markets,
Timing is so important.
(17:41):
And then the consumer
perception,
the consumer education. Okay?
So we have also done things with a
lot of startup where they think that the
product is fantastic.
Unfortunately, sometimes you need a bit of time
of education,
like insurance and things like that. It's time.
It's time. Right. Yes. It will go, but
(18:02):
it's time. Because the consumer doesn't understand it.
Do I really need to buy now or
should I buy it later?
Right. Thing. Right. So
different situation,
different product, different timing, these are very, very
important.
Exactly. Thank you, Peter. It's really, really
excellent point you mentioned that
is is very important to
(18:23):
to have all the check boxes, so to
speak, right, to get it done.
Obviously,
we love to hear your success, and
I think as a
experienced
coaches and
seasoned
executives,
you gotta come for a lot of hurdles,
a lot of challenges.
(18:43):
And
I'm sure our listener would love to hear
about
how you handle that, how you
manage that disappointment,
so as speak. Right? So, yeah, I'd love
to hear some of the war story
that you can share with us if possible.
Sure. Sure. I think the
disappointment
(19:03):
things like disappointment,
things like
not succeeding.
Yes.
Every single business
startup,
coaches, mentor,
they're up and down. There is no guarantee
of a % of something that you go
out and do, and you will be a
major success.
Now, however,
you can still plan for it before you
(19:24):
executing it. So most of the time is,
if you find that something is not working
correctly for the next three months or the
next six months, you gotta start thinking of
pivoting.
Now a lot of people use this word
loosely, pivoting and and so on and so
forth. But you don't know what you are
pivoting to.
You need it. You need the expertise
(19:46):
to really pivot into that and and and
so on and so on. Again, even if
you pivot, there's no guarantee that you will
because
maybe
no one has done it before.
Now I don't really get a lot of
disappointment.
I get sad sometimes. It's because
the other part of the business is either
the founder or the connector that we're connecting
(20:08):
don't understand what you're trying to do. And
then we'll be a bit more disappointed because
I have not probably done well enough to
educate them.
Why this way is better or why this
way could work?
Okay? Not so much so of the disappointment
when we launch something
and it didn't take off.
Now most of the time, you know, as
(20:29):
a start up, you're launching something new.
I can give you an example of a
company that I'm coaching now.
We have gone through couple
of government agencies. We've gone through
you probably know a VC called Gobi partner.
Yes. I know. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep.
I heard that. Yeah. Yep. Gobi. I think
(20:50):
Southeast Asia or Asia,
really popular Gobi.
If not since such an end to end
application,
anywhere, they cannot find. That was the word
that Gobi gave it to me. We can't
find a competitor.
I think you're absolutely
correct. You can't find. The reason for not
finding that competitor is because no one did
(21:11):
as much as expensive
that we did on the application.
And why we did that is because myself
and the owner of that organization,
in distribution.
And we are in South Asia distribution. And
I can tell you this
Southeast Asia distribution, but you have been here.
You've been to Hong Kong, you've been in
China, you've been Southeast Asia, you know, totally
(21:33):
different from North America and totally different from
Europe. Yeah. That that's correct. Even the mom
and pop shop
Yes. Behaves the
Yes. Between Asia and Europe and Yes. North
America. Yeah.
So I told my partner, this is a
gold mine that you have this application.
Okay? It's now the question is how do
you market in Asia and how do you
(21:54):
market in Europe and North America eventually.
So
sometimes, yes, you can call it disappointment.
You can call it even failure
and things like that. But we will always
probably come up back again and relook at
the situation and go.
But the more disappointing thing is is the
sometimes it's with the founders.
(22:15):
It's the mindset.
You see, when you drop down
once and it didn't work out for round
one for whatever reason, okay, is that a
founder could just walk away.
Now sometimes, it they just walk away too
early.
There are products I think you have seen
yourself. There are startup product
which are way beyond its time.
So the question will be, how do you
(22:36):
pivot it for today's market while you're waiting
for the market to mature?
And you want very simple example. Do you
think EV is gonna be very exponential huge
in Southeast Asia
for the new feature? I don't think so.
Because petroleum is cheap,
particularly Malaysia.
Yes. Why would I want everybody
just rush out then to just buy a
(22:58):
EV?
Mhmm.
I think just environment
factor and stuff like that. Yes. I will
take that into consideration.
But the thing is, who's gonna take consideration
of my money? The income I have, the
budget that I have. Right. It's not gonna
be easy. It's not gonna be easy.
Right. Right. So
wherever you are, whoever you are, whoever found
(23:19):
this,
take disappointment as a challenge.
Rise up again and reconnect again and reboot.
Thank you. I I have several of them.
Several of these days.
Thank you. Thank you, Peter. I think that
speaking on my on my own experience, I
think definitely
two point you mentioned, it was very
hit home very hard because I experienced it.
(23:42):
One is that market readiness,
huge.
I think that
you you hit the nail in the head,
so to speak, in North America
saying that you're really right in a point.
Second part is is that really know how
to pivot into a
strategy where you can actually say, okay. While
I'm waiting for a market to mature,
(24:03):
how are we going to leverage that key
learning into keeping the shop going. Right?
That's a very key component.
So if you
have three tips
for a listener
that make you successful
before you do,
and they said,
I think
(24:24):
these three tips can help me
to really get into
being a start up and really
going through all this process. What are the
three tips that you can share with our
listeners?
In any business, whether you're a start up
or you're on a large organizations,
the three tips that
I can think of will be number one,
I think is about people and talent.
(24:46):
That's superbly important.
The people yourself
as a founder, yourself
as
a leader,
you can be a
senior vice president of an organization and things
like that. The first thing is the people.
Are you leveraging
the right people for the right job? So
if you are really
leveraging the right people for the right job,
(25:09):
It makes your execution
excellent
because you will know that they can deliver
on the component that you needed. They will
be able to execute it on the way
that you want it. Mhmm. The second one
that I'll look at is the product.
Again, the product market fit. Does it really
fit into the segment that you want to
sell to? Now if you continue to sell
(25:31):
a product that doesn't fit in, that's where
you lose sales or you can't even get
traction.
Mhmm. Okay? Now then the question will be,
are you gonna pivot it? Are you gonna
change the product? Are you gonna introduce a
new product?
That's where the six p yesterday message come
on. So I went on to the train
yesterday, and I saw this big huge thing,
(25:52):
and I'm not sure you
you know who's Grab. Grab is one of
the larger
Yes. Guy.
Yeah. Yeah. Southeast Asia. Okay. They're large.
In fact,
they had a deal with Uber. Uber left
Asia and, let them continue.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So they they continue to
launch new feature. It was a group
(26:12):
buy of food.
And, the message was so clear to me
that
when you ask your colleague to help you
to order your lunch, he got so confused.
Then there's a group
kind of group order. I'm not sure how
it works. I haven't tested it, but it
gives me the impression is when you group
together with your friends or colleagues and you
(26:34):
start to order, and you give you a
new functionality, everybody jump in and just click
in onto the menu and order itself. And
it Yes. Come on a single order. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. It was fantastic.
Yes. Okay? So the product fit is,
for even so the people, the product. And
I think I always say this word is
the executioner.
(26:54):
Okay? So
be mindful
that what execution
means, the word
is very simple.
Mhmm. But, actually, the work done
is very, very tedious
and detailed.
Mhmm. Because every single detail that you launch
has the impact of the next thing you
do. Mhmm. Mhmm. Okay? So
(27:18):
then once you have that execution
figure out correctly,
I can tell you you can see your
scalability of that exponential
of your sales. That's gonna happen
Remember?
Fantastic. These are the three major thing that
I think,
all founders or
or or entrepreneurs
should look at. I think there are more
(27:39):
definitely. But these three is the thing that
is gonna make your product sell. You know
what? This is a fantastic this is these
three key things I can tell you, I
can
attest to that is absolutely important.
Peter We're going through that ourselves. Yeah. I
did. We are we we did.
Peter, if you
obviously, you have a very successful career. You
(28:01):
have done so much for the startups
and not only in Malaysia, but anyone coming
to Malaysia.
So what is next for
Peter Ho? And
we have accomplished so much already. You have
done so much for
the Malaysian
start up scene and innovations,
(28:21):
you know, very successful career with Telkom.
So what are your goal and aspiration the
next five to ten years?
And, obviously, I I'm gonna invite you every
single time I could to interview you and
see what's going on. Right? But what are
the five to ten year things that you're
looking in the future?
It's, this is what I wanna accomplish.
Yeah. I think
(28:43):
the startup seems is something that I've been
very interested for the last couple of years.
And one of the reason that I'm in
here is to help the Malaysian companies, the
Malaysian startup.
So I saw the vision
from the country.
Initially, if you remember the unicorn days,
Malaysia has
(29:04):
two
key indicator that I remember during the pandemic
when it was launched. First indicator was
to build 5,000
start up.
They wanted to build 5,000 start up by
2025.
That means end of this year.
5,000 start up. I can tell you where
is it now. It's
(29:25):
it's crossed 4,000
today.
Getting to 5,000, I think, is within reach.
Okay. That's number one. The second thing that
they wanted to do was
probably get five unicorns
in Malaysia. I think currently we have two.
One is, and I can't remember the the
second one. Okay? So there's two. Now but
(29:45):
I think the unicorn game has
somehow
dissolved
for the last one, two years. And I
think all the PCs and all the governments
or the agencies are slightly looking, slightly differently,
and I think they're changing that model. Because
of this,
I really get more from it. And, actually,
I spent a lot of time with this
(30:06):
group of people.
In fact,
I have started to go to the next
level. The next level is the university.
So I am with Asia Pacific University at
this moment. I've done the last year, I
was invited to be their mentor for the
students into
their APU accelerator program.
This year, we are going into something slightly
(30:27):
different. I'll be doing some workshop with them,
train them, and so on. So there is
a lot of guidance and the root area,
which is the students who
are very entrepreneur, so and so on so
far. So while building that, you will come
up to the next level startup. The next
level will be the SME, and the next
level will be all the MNCs.
(30:48):
So, again, the aspiration, if you ask me
that question of the five to 10 is
to build from the root all the way
up. Okay? And each of the level
has a different name.
And I think not only myself,
several of experienced people, even yourself,
can actually come join me, participate,
and we can help them.
(31:08):
We can create programs.
Okay? By creating that program, it will help
every single one of them. Even in Toronto
yourself, if you start building a community and
help them layer it down from industry to
start up
innovation ideas
to someone who's already running business for a
couple of years now wants to scale.
And where the organization of huge who wants
(31:30):
to do transformation,
I think I've already mentioned four to five
program. So if you jump in into the
four or five program, I think it take
me more than longer than ten years. So
you have to
keep me going.
But, again, these are the these are the
things that there's a a single person or
multiple of me
with a few partners who are expertise in
different areas and and so on. So I
(31:52):
also need help from people who are expertise
in finance
and so on. Helping this organization in different
level to help them to
flourish or even get, further into the marketplace.
Well, Peter, I want to ambition? Yep. Yep.
The ambition is really to get the different
layer and help them. We all thank you,
Peter, for the invite. I definitely will take
in considerations to join you for in Malaysia
(32:15):
for sure. I mean, I would take any
of the two in come yes. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Last but not least, I promise I
I end this particular
podcast. I want to
to share with someone that
who rising up just like you did
and, you know, telecom,
(32:35):
where, you know, startups.
If you wanna give tips
to your younger self,
what would you say to
the younger version of Peter Ho?
He's a tough one.
One of the biggest thing that I could
have told myself,
is maybe
(32:56):
to
leave the corporate world earlier, much earlier, much
earlier,
and
go to the other side. So what I
discovered for the last few years, and very
interestingly last night, I had a dinner
with
a very close friend, very successful guy as
well in the corporate world and so on.
(33:17):
We have because you are in a particular
industry, you're a particular area, and you work
with the same group of people
here in your health. So you probably know
the people for two decades or three decades,
and you work with them and so on
and so forth.
But you haven't meet the other 7,000,000,000
more people
the other side in the world. You have
(33:38):
never seen anything.
So
the equation was,
if you were to move out
today to something else, you need to move
your circle out. Mhmm. Okay? That's why also
I connected back to
program that I call connected circle.
The the circles are different in different area.
I give you this example that we checked
(34:00):
last night is,
here, we were talking about the people that
we meet, the people that we know.
Now I'm telling him that the people that
I meet and I know, I've not known
them
all my entire life. I just know them
five minutes ago, ten minutes ago. Mhmm. We
run
different things.
We got different ideas.
(34:22):
And when you sit down with them in
different circles of people, it gives you different
flavor.
Mhmm. It gives you different vibe.
Yeah. It gives you different ideas.
Mhmm.
That's what I cherish.
So
the telecom guys,
yes, we are stuck there. Always two g,
three g, four g, five g.
(34:44):
Yes. It's almost technological.
Yeah. I know. But
the business side of things are very different.
And when your business, the circle
even different. So if I have an opportunity,
I probably believe
the corporate
entities,
much earlier.
Venture into what I'm venturing now, and even
venture even further opting
(35:06):
because it helps me to learn even much
faster.
Mhmm. So that's the the the biggest thing
that I think that's what happened.
Feast the moment opportunity to just go out
and learn.
Peter, I want to
end this podcast with, deep appreciations
in sharing your
decades of experience and
(35:28):
across telecom and ventures
and
showing our audience that what it takes to
be a successful
entrepreneurs.
And,
again,
I wanna thank you,
and I will take you all
a cue in terms of maybe I come
by helping you out in Malaysia and Southeast
Asia
(35:49):
and maybe do some collaborations
going forward.
But
you're always welcome to join our podcast anytime,
But until then, Peter, I wanna thank you
again for your time. We appreciate it. Thank
you. Have a good have a good day.
Good time to Yeah. Thank you. Good year.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you for listening to the Biz Dev
(36:11):
Titans.
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don't forget to subscribe and leave us a
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Welcome
to biz dev titans,
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We are going to cover strategies
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Get ready for conversations that reveal what truly
works
for biz devs like you.
(00:28):
Here is your host,
Barns Lamb.
Today, we are delighted
to be with our distinguished guest,
mister Peter Ho, a veteran in Malaysia tech
scenes with over two decades
of experience.
(00:49):
From finding his successful
startups to monitoring the next
generation of entrepreneurs,
Peter has his fingers on a pulse of
Malaysia's innovation's
ecosystem.
Hello, Peter. Happy Lunar Chinese New Year. Best
wishes to you and your family.
How are you?
Hi, Vance. Thank you. Thank you. Yes.
(01:12):
That's how we speak in Cantonese, and I'm
a Chinese and, based in Malaysia. So, yeah,
I'm good. And this week, we have been
celebrating Chinese New Year. And in Malaysia, it's
a big celebration.
Okay? We have particularly two days of holidays
here in Malaysia.
Fantastic.
Thank you again for
(01:33):
coming to the podcast and after the holidays.
So
before we start our podcast, perhaps that you
can do a quick intro to our listener
about who Peter Ho is.
Sure. Sure. That'll be good. My name is
Peter Ho. So I've been in the
telco industry in Malaysia for all or more
(01:53):
than twenty odd years.
So I work with companies
like Maxis,
Motorola,
Cellcom,
and the last engagement that I have for
the last two years was with Telecom Malaysia,
particularly
a brand called Unifin. So it has been
a very dominant
home player
for Malaysia.
So that's my experience.
(02:14):
And for the last couple of years as
well, I
very involved in the startup scene and also
mentoring quite a number of startups. So now
I'm currently working with the a few government
agency entities
that works on the projects for all the
startups in Malaysia. So I'm currently mentoring quite
a number of startups in, Malaysia.
(02:36):
Oh, fantastic. This is exactly what
our audience looking for,
some in and out of Southeast Asia tech
scenes.
And, yeah, during our
conversation previously,
you you mentioned that you also have
a lot of outside of
Malaysia as well. I think you have some
(02:57):
other
countries coming into Malaysia. So
I guess the question is is that
can you tell me a little bit more
some of those
folks coming from outside of Malaysia coming to
you? Who are they looking for
particular to really set a foothold into Malaysia?
Sure. I think
(03:17):
Southeast
Asia name has been very hot and the
scene for startup has been very hot for
the last four to five years. Particularly
for Malaysia,
during the pandemic
days, the government has started a lot of
initiatives
to
help companies and SMEs
to
probably
to do some transformation.
(03:37):
You can name it either digitization
or
transition to digital on all funds of the
format. That's where it really started
my engagement with the government
agencies. The three key agencies that I usually
work with is, like, for example, Cradle Fund,
Talent Corp, and MDebt. These are the guys
that we work with and to help all
(03:58):
the these startups and so on. So since
there is a startup scene in Malaysia, we
have, of course, the internal startups that in
Malaysia that wanted to need help or even,
help them to scale their business and move
them out of the country. Of course, at
the same time, there are
organizations outside of, example, Korea from North Asia
(04:19):
and also from China. So I've been hosting
quite a few of these
current tourism organizations where they brought the startups
into Malaysia.
And, of course, the China
lately last year, there was a group from
China and Viano who did the visit to
Malaysia to talk about
maybe exploring
and also looking at the entire Southeast Asia.
(04:41):
When they land and they look at at
things, they don't only look at Malaysia. They
look at Southeast Asia as a whole. Now
Malaysia has been a very good landing ground
due to a couple of other factors like
that. I think we can, talk a bit
later. Then to focus on this, the experience
that
we gather and the experience that we can
share with this organization or startups that come
(05:02):
in from Korea and China,
two major thing that I always share with
them. The first one is about how do
you go by doing local business.
That's super important. How to sell of a
company? Who do you get connected with? What
kind of rebate? What kind of incentive?
What kind of things that you can take
advantage of when you're in Malaysia? Visa,
particularly. Wow. I spent a lot of time
(05:23):
with a lot of China people talking about
visas. And
currently,
lately, there's one who just got a ten
years visa
in Malaysia.
So those kind of things that is happening.
And this kind of government agencies are the
one who are helping them. Okay? Right. The
second one is
very much to the heart of a startup.
It's product market fit. Now does your product
(05:46):
fit into this market? And so on and
so forth. Now we are multiracial country, so
that's where it is making it even more
important.
Now if you target Southeast Asia, I think
it's even more important
to look at your product market fit. So
these are the two major thing that, I've
been engaging with them. And I hopefully and
(06:06):
they gained out, more experience and more information
when they land into,
Southeast Asia.
Fantastic. Thank you, Peter. So maybe we should
walk back a little bit.
You and I know each other since we
were in telecom day
days, and I think that
what led you into this type of work,
into a venture startup
(06:28):
ecosystem, it kinda be something that it's not
like, I wanna do this. Right? It gotta
be some reason
that you say, I've got to be able
to leverage my skill set
over thirty years in in the telecom business
and try to try to help some of
the young kids try to get into the
scene, so as speak.
You're absolutely right.
(06:48):
It was not like coincidentally.
The one day, one morning, I would come
and say, hey. I wanna quit my corporate
job, and I just wanna jump inside. It
it was not like that.
Now over the years,
I manages sales and distribution
of large organization.
We're talking about
getting millions of subscribers and and things like
that. That was one of the key thing.
(07:08):
Second one,
in the last
couple of jobs also, I also manage product
marketing. I also manage product development. You can
imagine if you were to as a startup,
if you own distribution, you own product marketing,
and you own product development. I'm like the
CEO of the company.
Like, I was saying, I don't sit in
that position, but I sit in the position
(07:29):
of the p and l here.
Sales,
marketing, everything driven back into a p and
l of that business.
Right. And when during the pandemic hit and,
I move out a bit
of the telco zone,
I moved to fintech.
Group
gave me the opportunity at a part time
in,
(07:49):
2020
during the pandemic.
And we were looking into fintech as a
company. How we did that was to look
at the consumer business and also look at
the b to b business. In the b
to b business,
during the pandemic, one of the biggest thing
that we could help a organization
is cash flow.
(08:09):
So what did happen did was and I
was at a place at that moment. And
how did we take cash flow and do
into a fintech lending
into the SMEs. Now,
again, you ask me why and how do
I get involved in all these and
how do you leverage on this? Oh, definitely.
Because of my sales and distribution network that
(08:30):
I have so much of connections with the
local businesses and things like that.
The cash flow business or the micro lending
was superbly in place for this time for
the cash flow during the period. So we
went out. We did a lot of lending
to this organization and companies and so on.
So that's where the two things marry together,
and I saw the huge opportunity
(08:52):
that every single company, whether you're big, small,
there's an opportunity to do a startup,
to create a new product.
Okay? So I always talk about the six
p. You know in marketing is a four
p. The Yes. Standard principle. The other two
p's I always look at is the people
and the process. So
with the people and the process that you
(09:13):
have, the right talent, the right people putting
in the right place, and the right
process, it will be exponential.
And I equate that six p into the
execution of the business.
So that's how I got into it
from big to small. Even the smallest idea
of a startup who just only have an
ideation
at this point. I'm even coaching them in
(09:34):
those areas.
I always see that opportunity on the next
step for each of them. Great. Fantastic. It's
no wonder I said, how how could I
tell company I get into this? Now I
understand.
That was an in between story. That was
an in between story. Okay. And it just
got me going with it. Now if we
don't help the smaller ones, so who are
gonna help them? And there's another opportunity. And
(09:56):
the opportunity at that point of time, of
course, is the pandemic. Right. And it's
just exploded.
I can tell you that business. Okay. Of
course, there's risk. There are sectors that we
don't lend money to and things like that.
There was a vision of the management team
to decide how do we craft that product
and just go to market. Is there any
particular
(10:16):
area expertise
in your,
you know, like, the last four or five,
like, not four or five years. It's more
like six, seven years while you're doing this.
Is there a particular
area that my listeners say,
I'll copy the whole for this particular
industry or this particular or you just blank
it. Anybody can come in. I will take
(10:37):
a look at it and do assessment and
see if we can fit.
I think the assessment or the expertise that
me
have, we have different group of people with
different expertise, definitely. So my area of expert,
definitely go to market. So the go to
market section will be the product, the sales
and distribution,
(10:57):
and, of course, to look at what I
call the new
business, the new model business innovation.
Right. See, a lot of time that people
are very stuck with your current product and
your current way of doing business. We will
start to teach them and explore how do
you do your business differently.
Whether it be in the country or outside
of the country, you need to look at
(11:18):
all the opportunities
and check all the risk, and, of course,
launch it to successfully. Of course, any startup,
you will just do MVP.
When you do a MVP, you need to
do a validation before you scale. And Mhmm.
Organization or company startups that we have, yeah,
has been always been doing this. And our
advice is take a step by step approach.
(11:39):
Don't jump in it unless
you know for sure or you have a
giant competitor who's already doing it. Okay? That
is a different strategy of them.
So Right. That's a good point. Very good
point. Yeah. That's a very good point. So
what are some of the key achievement
so far in your career in your in
terms of this particular startup
(12:01):
helping startup coming through, learning product marketing, product
development?
And I really particular like the, last post
that you did on LinkedIn about six p.
I think that often people just missing the
last two,
and I thought that this was a very
poignant
post for this particular podcast that we are
talking today. So Yeah. Go back to it.
(12:21):
You just, you know, look back in terms
of what you have done so far. What
are the key achievement
you would say, uh-huh. This is what I
did.
There are several. There are several.
They are on the point that when I
was in an organization
in the telco organization.
You're one example of the organization will be
how the expertise of go to market
(12:44):
really help the organization to exponential the subscriber.
So in the last few years when I
was in telecom Malaysia, we start telecom relations
start to get back into the mobile business.
They've been out of the scene for several
more than a decade. Yes. That's right. Finally
we came back. So as a late comer
back into the scene and things like that,
(13:04):
you really need to exponential your channel network.
So all the entire GTM
needs to be executed excellent.
When you execute
excellent,
you get the number of touch point.
In telco business, it's all about touch point.
It's about all the web subscriber.
Take the product. Take everything on
(13:25):
to be on path with your competitor.
You will need what I call if you
read my yesterday's post, which I think you
did Yes. Yes. Yeah. The end of the
day is competitive edge. You have the competitive
edge. You need to build the competitive edge.
So once I build the competitive edge, we
went to a million subscriber within the same
(13:45):
year. So you can imagine that you are
struggling. You are trying to figure out what
you wanna do. But we are an expertise
of ours, mine, and the group of people
that brings this GTM or execution into the
marketplace
to exponentially very, very quickly.
That's one good example.
The second example I can give it to
(14:06):
you is that many, many times that I
work with founders.
Okay? Startup founders. And you will find a
brilliant technical guy. You'll find brilliant engineer.
The problem is they do not know how
to execute the GTM. They do not know
how to sell. They will give you a
GTM, but the GTM is a plan GTM.
That's what I call it. A non executable.
(14:29):
The reason behind that it cannot be executed
is is too high level.
The too high level
of a GTM is the one that always
tell you, I'll go to social media.
I will use influencer
and and so on and so forth. Yeah.
The thing is the influencer
and the people or even if you have
a digital marketing team, they probably don't quite
(14:51):
understand how to execute it. They know how
to create the content. They probably do not
know how to execute it on ground.
The on ground execution is super important is
how do you close the loop? Okay. Any
startup who's listening to it, end of the
day is very simple.
You need to close the sales.
You do not close the sales. There's no
(15:12):
sales. There's no revenue.
So in the engagement
of that execution of the GTM,
have to make sure there's engagement of a
closing of sales. So I've done quite a
few where
the startup has a couple of products.
Okay? And, again, because of the experience and
the type of
partners and customers that we work with, these
(15:34):
are the giant MNCs.
Now when you have a product and connect
into a giant MNC, who has a 10,000,000
consumer subscriber
using? Just think about it. If my execution
with the 10,000,000 and we can convince the
companies
to take a look at this, take a
look at this data, what do you think
is the success rate on that side? So
(15:55):
I give you one example, will be the
insurance. So I did one small micro insurance
connecting to one of the big boys.
And with that insurance on the first month,
zero
zero social media marketing. They only did a
bit of their own app in app marketing.
We have a banner on the app. They
(16:15):
have 30,000
premium on one month.
Wow. So that's the kind of things that
what I call execution
and scalability.
So
in a way, yes, you have a lot
of startup and founders
who are pretty techy. They know their product
very well and so on. But once you
do a quick market validation and consumer willing
(16:37):
to pay for it, we are connected
into a giant. And the giant is the
one that's gonna help you to
really bring the business. So when you say
that what what are the key
value you bring to the table is
really connect the dots.
You really know how to connect.
You have left. Do you have the products?
(16:58):
You have the execution. You got everything has
to be lined up perfectly. It's like, okay.
Alright. Alright. Yeah. Alright. You're
absolutely right, Vance. We I have a model.
We have a model here. We call it
connected circle.
So by connecting these guys
together with a methodology,
okay, I think we can bring a lot
of companies and organization very far. And, again,
(17:20):
we have done it before. We are not
saying based on a theory but a group
of people who really have done it. Maybe
in an industry connecting it, doing it. Again,
over again, we can show what the use
case that we have done and so on.
But again, I think sometime,
anything
in any other country or any other markets,
Timing is so important.
(17:41):
And then the consumer
perception,
the consumer education. Okay?
So we have also done things with a
lot of startup where they think that the
product is fantastic.
Unfortunately, sometimes you need a bit of time
of education,
like insurance and things like that. It's time.
It's time. Right. Yes. It will go, but
(18:02):
it's time. Because the consumer doesn't understand it.
Do I really need to buy now or
should I buy it later?
Right. Thing. Right. So
different situation,
different product, different timing, these are very, very
important.
Exactly. Thank you, Peter. It's really, really
excellent point you mentioned that
is is very important to
(18:23):
to have all the check boxes, so to
speak, right, to get it done.
Obviously,
we love to hear your success, and
I think as a
experienced
coaches and
seasoned
executives,
you gotta come for a lot of hurdles,
a lot of challenges.
(18:43):
And
I'm sure our listener would love to hear
about
how you handle that, how you
manage that disappointment,
so as speak. Right? So, yeah, I'd love
to hear some of the war story
that you can share with us if possible.
Sure. Sure. I think the
disappointment
(19:03):
things like disappointment,
things like
not succeeding.
Yes.
Every single business
startup,
coaches, mentor,
they're up and down. There is no guarantee
of a % of something that you go
out and do, and you will be a
major success.
Now, however,
you can still plan for it before you
(19:24):
executing it. So most of the time is,
if you find that something is not working
correctly for the next three months or the
next six months, you gotta start thinking of
pivoting.
Now a lot of people use this word
loosely, pivoting and and so on and so
forth. But you don't know what you are
pivoting to.
You need it. You need the expertise
(19:46):
to really pivot into that and and and
so on and so on. Again, even if
you pivot, there's no guarantee that you will
because
maybe
no one has done it before.
Now I don't really get a lot of
disappointment.
I get sad sometimes. It's because
the other part of the business is either
the founder or the connector that we're connecting
(20:08):
don't understand what you're trying to do. And
then we'll be a bit more disappointed because
I have not probably done well enough to
educate them.
Why this way is better or why this
way could work?
Okay? Not so much so of the disappointment
when we launch something
and it didn't take off.
Now most of the time, you know, as
(20:29):
a start up, you're launching something new.
I can give you an example of a
company that I'm coaching now.
We have gone through couple
of government agencies. We've gone through
you probably know a VC called Gobi partner.
Yes. I know. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep.
I heard that. Yeah. Yep. Gobi. I think
(20:50):
Southeast Asia or Asia,
really popular Gobi.
If not since such an end to end
application,
anywhere, they cannot find. That was the word
that Gobi gave it to me. We can't
find a competitor.
I think you're absolutely
correct. You can't find. The reason for not
finding that competitor is because no one did
(21:11):
as much as expensive
that we did on the application.
And why we did that is because myself
and the owner of that organization,
in distribution.
And we are in South Asia distribution. And
I can tell you this
Southeast Asia distribution, but you have been here.
You've been to Hong Kong, you've been in
China, you've been Southeast Asia, you know, totally
(21:33):
different from North America and totally different from
Europe. Yeah. That that's correct. Even the mom
and pop shop
Yes. Behaves the
Yes. Between Asia and Europe and Yes. North
America. Yeah.
So I told my partner, this is a
gold mine that you have this application.
Okay? It's now the question is how do
you market in Asia and how do you
(21:54):
market in Europe and North America eventually.
So
sometimes, yes, you can call it disappointment.
You can call it even failure
and things like that. But we will always
probably come up back again and relook at
the situation and go.
But the more disappointing thing is is the
sometimes it's with the founders.
(22:15):
It's the mindset.
You see, when you drop down
once and it didn't work out for round
one for whatever reason, okay, is that a
founder could just walk away.
Now sometimes, it they just walk away too
early.
There are products I think you have seen
yourself. There are startup product
which are way beyond its time.
So the question will be, how do you
(22:36):
pivot it for today's market while you're waiting
for the market to mature?
And you want very simple example. Do you
think EV is gonna be very exponential huge
in Southeast Asia
for the new feature? I don't think so.
Because petroleum is cheap,
particularly Malaysia.
Yes. Why would I want everybody
just rush out then to just buy a
(22:58):
EV?
Mhmm.
I think just environment
factor and stuff like that. Yes. I will
take that into consideration.
But the thing is, who's gonna take consideration
of my money? The income I have, the
budget that I have. Right. It's not gonna
be easy. It's not gonna be easy.
Right. Right. So
wherever you are, whoever you are, whoever found
(23:19):
this,
take disappointment as a challenge.
Rise up again and reconnect again and reboot.
Thank you. I I have several of them.
Several of these days.
Thank you. Thank you, Peter. I think that
speaking on my on my own experience, I
think definitely
two point you mentioned, it was very
hit home very hard because I experienced it.
(23:42):
One is that market readiness,
huge.
I think that
you you hit the nail in the head,
so to speak, in North America
saying that you're really right in a point.
Second part is is that really know how
to pivot into a
strategy where you can actually say, okay. While
I'm waiting for a market to mature,
(24:03):
how are we going to leverage that key
learning into keeping the shop going. Right?
That's a very key component.
So if you
have three tips
for a listener
that make you successful
before you do,
and they said,
I think
(24:24):
these three tips can help me
to really get into
being a start up and really
going through all this process. What are the
three tips that you can share with our
listeners?
In any business, whether you're a start up
or you're on a large organizations,
the three tips that
I can think of will be number one,
I think is about people and talent.
(24:46):
That's superbly important.
The people yourself
as a founder, yourself
as
a leader,
you can be a
senior vice president of an organization and things
like that. The first thing is the people.
Are you leveraging
the right people for the right job? So
if you are really
leveraging the right people for the right job,
(25:09):
It makes your execution
excellent
because you will know that they can deliver
on the component that you needed. They will
be able to execute it on the way
that you want it. Mhmm. The second one
that I'll look at is the product.
Again, the product market fit. Does it really
fit into the segment that you want to
sell to? Now if you continue to sell
(25:31):
a product that doesn't fit in, that's where
you lose sales or you can't even get
traction.
Mhmm. Okay? Now then the question will be,
are you gonna pivot it? Are you gonna
change the product? Are you gonna introduce a
new product?
That's where the six p yesterday message come
on. So I went on to the train
yesterday, and I saw this big huge thing,
(25:52):
and I'm not sure you
you know who's Grab. Grab is one of
the larger
Yes. Guy.
Yeah. Yeah. Southeast Asia. Okay. They're large.
In fact,
they had a deal with Uber. Uber left
Asia and, let them continue.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So they they continue to
launch new feature. It was a group
(26:12):
buy of food.
And, the message was so clear to me
that
when you ask your colleague to help you
to order your lunch, he got so confused.
Then there's a group
kind of group order. I'm not sure how
it works. I haven't tested it, but it
gives me the impression is when you group
together with your friends or colleagues and you
(26:34):
start to order, and you give you a
new functionality, everybody jump in and just click
in onto the menu and order itself. And
it Yes. Come on a single order. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. It was fantastic.
Yes. Okay? So the product fit is,
for even so the people, the product. And
I think I always say this word is
the executioner.
(26:54):
Okay? So
be mindful
that what execution
means, the word
is very simple.
Mhmm. But, actually, the work done
is very, very tedious
and detailed.
Mhmm. Because every single detail that you launch
has the impact of the next thing you
do. Mhmm. Mhmm. Okay? So
(27:18):
then once you have that execution
figure out correctly,
I can tell you you can see your
scalability of that exponential
of your sales. That's gonna happen
Remember?
Fantastic. These are the three major thing that
I think,
all founders or
or or entrepreneurs
should look at. I think there are more
(27:39):
definitely. But these three is the thing that
is gonna make your product sell. You know
what? This is a fantastic this is these
three key things I can tell you, I
can
attest to that is absolutely important.
Peter We're going through that ourselves. Yeah. I
did. We are we we did.
Peter, if you
obviously, you have a very successful career. You
(28:01):
have done so much for the startups
and not only in Malaysia, but anyone coming
to Malaysia.
So what is next for
Peter Ho? And
we have accomplished so much already. You have
done so much for
the Malaysian
start up scene and innovations,
(28:21):
you know, very successful career with Telkom.
So what are your goal and aspiration the
next five to ten years?
And, obviously, I I'm gonna invite you every
single time I could to interview you and
see what's going on. Right? But what are
the five to ten year things that you're
looking in the future?
It's, this is what I wanna accomplish.
Yeah. I think
(28:43):
the startup seems is something that I've been
very interested for the last couple of years.
And one of the reason that I'm in
here is to help the Malaysian companies, the
Malaysian startup.
So I saw the vision
from the country.
Initially, if you remember the unicorn days,
Malaysia has
(29:04):
two
key indicator that I remember during the pandemic
when it was launched. First indicator was
to build 5,000
start up.
They wanted to build 5,000 start up by
2025.
That means end of this year.
5,000 start up. I can tell you where
is it now. It's
(29:25):
it's crossed 4,000
today.
Getting to 5,000, I think, is within reach.
Okay. That's number one. The second thing that
they wanted to do was
probably get five unicorns
in Malaysia. I think currently we have two.
One is, and I can't remember the the
second one. Okay? So there's two. Now but
(29:45):
I think the unicorn game has
somehow
dissolved
for the last one, two years. And I
think all the PCs and all the governments
or the agencies are slightly looking, slightly differently,
and I think they're changing that model. Because
of this,
I really get more from it. And, actually,
I spent a lot of time with this
(30:06):
group of people.
In fact,
I have started to go to the next
level. The next level is the university.
So I am with Asia Pacific University at
this moment. I've done the last year, I
was invited to be their mentor for the
students into
their APU accelerator program.
This year, we are going into something slightly
(30:27):
different. I'll be doing some workshop with them,
train them, and so on. So there is
a lot of guidance and the root area,
which is the students who
are very entrepreneur, so and so on so
far. So while building that, you will come
up to the next level startup. The next
level will be the SME, and the next
level will be all the MNCs.
(30:48):
So, again, the aspiration, if you ask me
that question of the five to 10 is
to build from the root all the way
up. Okay? And each of the level
has a different name.
And I think not only myself,
several of experienced people, even yourself,
can actually come join me, participate,
and we can help them.
(31:08):
We can create programs.
Okay? By creating that program, it will help
every single one of them. Even in Toronto
yourself, if you start building a community and
help them layer it down from industry to
start up
innovation ideas
to someone who's already running business for a
couple of years now wants to scale.
And where the organization of huge who wants
(31:30):
to do transformation,
I think I've already mentioned four to five
program. So if you jump in into the
four or five program, I think it take
me more than longer than ten years. So
you have to
keep me going.
But, again, these are the these are the
things that there's a a single person or
multiple of me
with a few partners who are expertise in
different areas and and so on. So I
(31:52):
also need help from people who are expertise
in finance
and so on. Helping this organization in different
level to help them to
flourish or even get, further into the marketplace.
Well, Peter, I want to ambition? Yep. Yep.
The ambition is really to get the different
layer and help them. We all thank you,
Peter, for the invite. I definitely will take
in considerations to join you for in Malaysia
(32:15):
for sure. I mean, I would take any
of the two in come yes. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Last but not least, I promise I
I end this particular
podcast. I want to
to share with someone that
who rising up just like you did
and, you know, telecom,
(32:35):
where, you know, startups.
If you wanna give tips
to your younger self,
what would you say to
the younger version of Peter Ho?
He's a tough one.
One of the biggest thing that I could
have told myself,
is maybe
(32:56):
to
leave the corporate world earlier, much earlier, much
earlier,
and
go to the other side. So what I
discovered for the last few years, and very
interestingly last night, I had a dinner
with
a very close friend, very successful guy as
well in the corporate world and so on.
(33:17):
We have because you are in a particular
industry, you're a particular area, and you work
with the same group of people
here in your health. So you probably know
the people for two decades or three decades,
and you work with them and so on
and so forth.
But you haven't meet the other 7,000,000,000
more people
the other side in the world. You have
(33:38):
never seen anything.
So
the equation was,
if you were to move out
today to something else, you need to move
your circle out. Mhmm. Okay? That's why also
I connected back to
program that I call connected circle.
The the circles are different in different area.
I give you this example that we checked
(34:00):
last night is,
here, we were talking about the people that
we meet, the people that we know.
Now I'm telling him that the people that
I meet and I know, I've not known
them
all my entire life. I just know them
five minutes ago, ten minutes ago. Mhmm. We
run
different things.
We got different ideas.
(34:22):
And when you sit down with them in
different circles of people, it gives you different
flavor.
Mhmm. It gives you different vibe.
Yeah. It gives you different ideas.
Mhmm.
That's what I cherish.
So
the telecom guys,
yes, we are stuck there. Always two g,
three g, four g, five g.
(34:44):
Yes. It's almost technological.
Yeah. I know. But
the business side of things are very different.
And when your business, the circle
even different. So if I have an opportunity,
I probably believe
the corporate
entities,
much earlier.
Venture into what I'm venturing now, and even
venture even further opting
(35:06):
because it helps me to learn even much
faster.
Mhmm. So that's the the the biggest thing
that I think that's what happened.
Feast the moment opportunity to just go out
and learn.
Peter, I want to
end this podcast with, deep appreciations
in sharing your
decades of experience and
(35:28):
across telecom and ventures
and
showing our audience that what it takes to
be a successful
entrepreneurs.
And,
again,
I wanna thank you,
and I will take you all
a cue in terms of maybe I come
by helping you out in Malaysia and Southeast
Asia
(35:49):
and maybe do some collaborations
going forward.
But
you're always welcome to join our podcast anytime,
But until then, Peter, I wanna thank you
again for your time. We appreciate it. Thank
you. Have a good have a good day.
Good time to Yeah. Thank you. Good year.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you for listening to the Biz Dev
(36:11):
Titans.
If you enjoyed this episode,
don't forget to subscribe and leave us a
review
so that we get to meet and interview
more amazing leaders like you.
To download
the extended show notes with all the extra
tips on the topic we covered today,
head over to bizdevtitans.com.
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