Graduated engineer building own startups in Malaysia

Watch the full interview here:

In this episode of Stories of Hackers, we talked with Jon, one of our friend we met in an event. He studied engineering for 4 years in Germany and came back to Malaysia. Then he feel like he could explore more other things, so he started to dig everything he could to the career direction that he preferred, and that's where he started to build his own startups business. We truly hope that his stories can bring motivation to all of you to taking that first step into making decision that will change your life!

Can you share about yourself, your background, what you do now?

I graduated from Germany, I studied engineering, I was there from 2006 to 2010 and I really enjoyed myself there. After I came back to Malaysia, I did engineering for a bit, I did change companies a few times as I was exploring different fields of engineering and then at some point I decided that I want to do something more like I want to be in control of the direction that I'm taking and that's how I started going to looking for startups. I worked for typical engineering company so I started my career in Penang, I work for Intel for 2 years then I came back to Kuala Lumpur and I worked for a Swedish company with a branch in KL but I was outsourced back to other companies to their clients in Sweden. After that somehow I decided to change my career to startups.

What is your feel of startups versus working corporate?

I think going back to my first career at Intel, I actually appreciate the experience a lot, Intel has a very good graduate preparation program I believe it's the same for many of the bigger companies. The graduate training programs I think those programs really prepare a fresh grad to transition to the working world so I had the experience I had to go through all the trainings that they provide so unlike startup where we have to just learn everything on our own right, we are pretty much lost we figure things on our own but at big companies we are actually guided in the right direction. My final corporate job before going to startup was engineer base in Indonesia so I was in Kalimantan and I was really away from more modern lifestyle, I was literally living in a plantation and I set up the palm oil factories where they get the raw palm oil. So the work itself is very challenging but along the way I've also seen how sad you know life can be in Kalimantan and that got me slightly depressed, not so much but slightly I was quite sad looking at the people around there and there's a slight contrast with how much I was earning and how much you know my company is actually earning and so I thought I want to do something that can give a lot more back. It's all about the impact, that was one of the reasons I wanted something more let's say in terms of direction instead of boss telling you "Okay just get this project done, save me money finish a project fast" you know it's not about just making money for a company but having what kind of impact not just I can give to people but also what kind of working environment I want to create for my own team.

Why don't you share with us in a sentence, what is it you're working on now?

So tying back to my own experience, me and few other friends we were all studying in Germany and we noticed that a lot of Malaysians want to study overseas but not many people actually can afford right. At the same time we discover that stunning Germany is actually such a great experience and it's a lot more affordable so people who thought that they can't actually afford an overseas education, they can actually do so in Germany because it's tuition free so you save on tuition and all you need to worry is about your lifestyle, how you spend on your accommodation, how much you spend on your food and how much you spend on going out so we want more people to experience what we experienced . What can you get more out of what you're learning in the university is the experience outside of the university and we think Germany has a lot to offer.

Let's say people who want to go university, people who want to get degree, they want to go overseas, how would they decide when there's so many universities, what is the ideal profile?

This is such a tough question to answer but I will say one way which is to think further beyond just getting a degree, what do you want after that. For example, going to Australia can be fine. Why? Because it's different enough where you get a very foreign experience but near enough that you can come back to Malaysia when you need to right so I think that's one. At the same time, let's say you're looking to migrate for example or if you are looking to work overseas before you return to Malaysia. Is there a great opportunity in those countries? So I mean that is another consideration so it really depends on what you want out of your experience. I would say taking everything into consideration, the options available at the universities, the budget they have for research and also like for example work opportunity, after you graduate as well as working part-time while you're studying, Germany has a lot to offer for students that are interested in Science and Engineering. Number one, there are about 400 Universities in Germany so in total right now they are offering 21,000 courses, there's no restriction on what students can study but a good sum of those courses are engineering courses that means that if you're interested in engineering there's sufficient option in Germany and then also because it's one of the aging countries like Japan they are looking forward to retain talent so if you graduate and you have good results, it won't be difficult for you to stay on, there's an opportunity for you to stay on, an opportunity for you to get a job there. If you could take into consideration you know that the standard of living is very high which translate to better salary, the currency is very high that every 200euros you are actually saving like 1000MYR. Also if you're talking about lifestyle, some people if you like work life balance, Germany has a lot to offer because you can't really like in Malaysia you're expected to work late, you're expected to work on weekends to achieve to complete whatever work that you're doing. In Germany is, there's a very strong focus on having this work life separation not even bad separation that you know after hours you can expect that you have all the time for yourself, your employers or your boss and manager won't be disturbing you, at the same time Germany might not be suitable to people who want a lot of those city excitement for example if you want to be out drinking at night or if you like the mamak culture or on weekends you want to be hanging out with all your friends at the mall for example then Germany is definitely not for you. But if you like to have your alone time, if you like to spend time outdoors going hiking, maybe then Germany is right for you.

People who is considering UK, Australia, Germany. What's the few basic things they should consider?

Number one, their family actually, but before that we have always stressed in understanding what you want to do as interesting as it may sound, free education doesn't just justify that you should just consider Germany blindly, you must also consider everything else for example if you think that what you study like foreign engineering. Number one okay then Germany is still a good choice for you. Then what else do you want to consider, do you have siblings that also wants to study overseas? It is actually very most families can afford to send one child to most universities that they want to study at but not many will be able to send two or even three but Germany's affordable. Germany is not cheap but it's a lot more affordable compared to UK compared to equivalent countries so if you're studying in the UK in Australia and U.S you are actually going to be spending much more there versus to when you go to study in Germany.

Tell us about your business if you can share on how it works?

so first when we first started promoting the idea of studying Germany immediately we found that you know studying in Germany is not so simple asjust learning Germany and applying to the university the whole application process is complicated what documents do you need what requirements do you need to fulfill right so we found that you know some previews are not recognized some previews are recognized and not just that the subject combinations are equally important how do you then the next question is how do you then choose between 400universities right and not just that it's also very frightening to to choose to study in a country where you don't have as many friends and family it is less so in other countries because in Australia and in UK there are already quite a number of Malaysian students there that is not in Germany so there is no support from the community because those communities it's not it does not exist so what we do is we actually package like in terms of meeting the timeline so there are two intakes in Germany so first of all we guide students what they need to have like what are previous subjects you need to take depending on what you want to study yes right second we offer the language classes we package them all together back then you can actually go and learn language from some schools but they're offered in stages in the levels and then we say that doesn't make sense if my goal is to study in Germany i can't be waiting for example at the higher level they don't have enough students they'll just be and they have enough students to start the class but that doesn't make sense then i would then you know i'll have to delay the intake to the next available once i complete all the different levels right so we need to have a back-to-back intensive classes i'll tell them what what is the most important thing visa application unity selection we need someone to guide them and what we do is we actually have this very comprehensive university preparation program so to help students to meet all the different requirements and then it's up to them which university did they want to study and what they want to study our job is to guide them to meet every single of those requirements therefore they have the maximum options available

How do you make money on this?

So this is going to be very contradicting right, business we need money to survive but at the same time we are not just about making money right the balance is how can we help students and still make it easy for them to think okay Germany is actually a lot more affordable despite having to pay for preparation program so we make money by running the preparation program so unlike for example agents that help students study in the UK we don't earn any commission because it's for free so we run this preparation program and we hope that by completing the preparation program they are more than equipped to start you know their studies at the university and above is language classes and the other half is like understanding the culture yes um and then assisting them with other things that they need for example we are actually based in Malaysia and in Germany so we have a company there as well so it's a back-to-back solution where um over here in Malaysia they go for Germany classes and then when they go to Germany imagine okay how do you pack the bag when you're not there for holiday how do you pack the bag for three years of studies right so we guide them on that when they touch down an airport they are most likely still very unfamiliar with the language yes they have been learning language for some months yes but you know they are learning in Malaysia outside of class they speak in Malay in English and Chinese in Germany you don't have that choice right so we have airport pickup we have someone that is there ready to receive them we have arranged accommodation for them we have prepared for example if you are landing in Germany on Saturday night Sunday nothing is open so what do you do right so we have to do the free shopping for them so that Sunday at least they have some snacks they have things to eat and so on even after completing the language program we have we need to guide them on how do you select university this is even more complex right we actually have a series of workshops where we first expose them to the different types of universities so that is again something different in Malaysia we know what a university is and if you don't go to university maybe let's say you're more inclined in technical fields you go to a vocational school in Germany there's a lot of in-betweens there are universities with focus in technical studies so usually applied sciences for example and those can't be and those are actually not location schools they are actually universities so how do you then choose between studying at university and the university of applied science so we assist students we make them aware of the differences we understand from them what they want to study we then propose a list of universities yeah based on which courses are famous there.

Anything to tell the audience before we call it a day?

I think maybe one is that regardless of whether the listeners relate their students or there are people who are interested in starting right yes um i think having clarity is important meaning you ask yourself difficult questions like what are you really representing what do you really want to solve are you really listening to the people you want to help right a lot of times people want to do fancy things even studies right they want to study at a fancy university or they just want to follow their friends or even in startups you want to start a fancy company I think what I realized is that uh for those that don't really know living I mean working in the startup is tough right uh you are you are throwing away at 40 hours work week and replacing that with like 80 hours work with more than just the fancy part of startup you need to understand how the thing you need to get yeah uh to to really pull through with your idea so having the clarity of what you want to solve uh will help you pull through people say you know try many things and fail fast i actually want to say if you understand what you want to do hold on to it and hopefully you'll reach your you you'll start being successful sooner than later

Thanks for the awesome interview !

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