I launched 5 startups in 2016. Here's why, how, and what I learned

Asim raised $7 million without telling investors what they were investing in, reports Tech In Aisa

This year I launched five startups from nowhere. Here, I’ll tell you how it happened; how I ended up venture building before I knew what a venture builder was, how I manage to get through two lawsuits in the space of six months, and how I raised $7 million without telling investors what they were investing in.

How I began

Towards the end of 2014, the Malaysian property market was looking as dead as a dodo, (not good for my property development company), so I started looking for something to keep myself busy.

My last tech venture had been back in 2010 when I co-founded and ran ThinkProperty.my which became Malaysia’s 2nd largest property website in no time. 18 months after launch we had gotten acquisition offers from both iProperty and PropertyGuru and sold for the then highest publicly announced amount paid for a website in Malaysia.

 

Part-time job site

In November 2014 I was chatting with a Canadian expat, Fazila, and she mentioned to me that there were no good part-time job sites in Malaysia. After a quick check, I agreed and thought I might as well leverage my experience in classifieds. However, I couldn’t find anyone to start this business with. I wanted to start lean to see if it worked, so it was not worth bringing in an ex-investment banking colleague from the UK. The easy option was a 19-year-old part-timer at my property development company, Daniel.

Daniel had impressed me despite only doing menial tasks as an intern because he worked with so much passion and he always worked for the team.

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This article was published on Tech In Asia. Yo can read it here.