Disruptr: Lim Chong How, Founder & CEO of MyPayment Gateway.
What inspired you to start the business?
- MyPayment Gateway is an eWallet unified payment solution for vending/self-service machines in Malaysia and other countries in Southeast Asia. We provide an option for machine owners to accept payments online without any hassle.
- The COVID-19 and global lockdown spiked the usage of cashless payment especially in the digital wallet form (eWallet) to increase tremendously over the past two years. I also have family members and friend who were running a self-service laundry business and they were looking for a solution to implement a cashless system in their businesses.
- I tried to help them find the solution in the market, however none fit the criteria they were looking for. They were either too expensive for SMEs or too complicated to implement. Furthermore, the systems were not reliable and not stable. Hence, I came out with the idea to develop our own solution.
What has the journey been like?
- I started to design the concept in February 2022 and got all necessary components for a trial run in March 2022. After few rounds of trial & error, correction of mistakes, my team was ready to launch and implement our system in our 1st self-service laundry outlet in Penang in April 2022.
- Since then, we have expanded our market to other states in Malaysia like Perak, Kelantan, Selangor, Johor & Sarawak. We even penetrated the market outside Malaysia such as Singapore in September 2022 & Indonesia in October 2022.
Biggest achievement and what is one regret that you wish you had or had not done?
- The biggest achievement so far is going beyond boundaries and expanding our presence to neighbouring countries such as Singapore & Indonesia within a short period of few months. And we solved the integration issue with the local currency and we support 90% of different brands of laundry machines.
- One thing that I regret was I wish I had done this as early as 2020 when the pandemic had started so that I could have helped more business owners.
Where do you see yourself in the next 1 year?
- In the next one year time, we are going to support more businesses across multiple countries such as Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, & Philippines. We will also be looking into setting up local support teams in each region.
Where do you see yourself in the next 5 years?
- In next five years, we plan to pivot and become one of the most usable & reliable payment gateway service providers in Southeast Asia region.
What keeps you going to keep running the business?
- I love technologies, and I am always wanting to be part of the journey to transform SMEs through digitalisation. With the help of my supporting team, mentors and local partners, it allows me to keep doing what I love to do and bring positive impact to the society.
What is one local startup you would like to work together with and why?
- We would love to work with Revenue Monster as we are currently integrated with their system as our backend payment processing system. We resonate well as partners & our values align with their value and mission.Furthermore, they provide very good customer support time to time.
Who is one founder (local or international) that you look up to?
- Sivavenayakam, who is the co-founder of 25Startups Incubator. I believe he and his team can provide a lot of values for startup founders like myself.
Why should investors invest in your startup?
- Cashless payment is the future. All businesses needs to have the option to accept ePayment regardless they are a brick-and-mortar business like self-service laundry bars or technology-based business-like ecommerce. We see a huge market potential as 80% of the machines in the market are yet to able accept payment online.
- With ready system and the technology that we have, we can easily to fill the market gap and by combining experiences in our management and technology teams, we are fast penetrating the markets.
- Furthermore, our business model is sustainable and scalable. We are also confident that we can pivot to become a payment gateway service provider for all kinds of SMEs in the near future.
- MyPayment Gateway is a member of 25 Startups.