A Malaysia Fintech startup reflection of 2019 — The turning point
In 2019 we would like to present you the char koay tiow and roti canai masters! 🎉Resume from the last post of https://shauntan8.medium.com/a-malaysia-fintech-startup-reflection-of-2018-the-new-breath-836c4001f139, 2019 is a very massive turning point for the whole team.
2,3 consultants coming in for review, business plan and mentor. Whenever we asked about consultants background, they always refuse to expose it and said they have few successful portfolios without naming it, that’s really fishy, dude! 😕
Since the beginning of 2019, the whole team was placed under the weekly meeting with the consultants without a clear agenda and topic. What is even worst is we need to explain to them what is CTA, HTTPS and the jargon during the meeting. Besides us, our sister company digital marketing head is also under review and weekly meeting with the consultants, and the DM head need to explain the concept of CPC to them and why we need to spend money on AdWords (they thought free organic SEO covers everything? 🧐) Funny stories going on and on.
Finally 1 day, the consultant said we must subscribe to their business plan for our startup, they claimed the business plan gonna help the startup get more a 5X of the current funding. At some points, we’re amused by the confidence of the consultant (if they can do it, why they’re not doing it for themselves but for us, that’s doesn’t make sense), yet we couldn’t reject ’cause the consultants are appointed by the major stakeholders. At first, the consultant guarantees their business plan gonna be useful, later on, he refused he mentioned that. That’s why we called him roti canai master. You always flip and flip. We all understood there’s no guarantee but the concern is they are never responsible for their actions and words.
Lots of games behind the curtain and if we don’t play the game, the game will play you.
When near the end of 2019, the consultant reviewed the team is not fit for the startup and planning for the retrenchment before Covid hits. Their reviews merely on verbal between the major stakeholder without any report or convincing result. Well, we just have to accept it. 😊
End game — 2020
After the incident, Personally found out the major stakeholders expect a breakeven in 2 yrs, So the major stakeholders hire consultants to review the whole company. and result in retrenchment, at the same time, the funding is draining too.
Soon after consultants took over, they get their own team to take care of everything. Afterwards, the new team found out lots of issues coming from the insurer side ( like stability and edgy case exceptions ) then the consultant team try to rebuild their own, after 6 months of the rebuild, they also stop the rebuild n exit. Left the major stakeholders alone in the dark.
That’s the story for it
Disclaimer
Sharing all these are not meant to condemn any consultant but to remind anyone to beware of a potential high intelligent scam.
