[This is a sponsored article with Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC).]
Whether or not or not you realise it or not, chances are you’ve come all through Foodie Media’s motion pictures sooner than.
It’s solely the company behind plenty of the best meals media platforms inside the nation, comparable to KL Foodie, Johor Foodie, Halal Foodie, and plenty of further. They’ve even expanded their attain to totally different worldwide places with producers like Singapore Foodie, Jakarta Foodie, and Manila Foodie.
And that’s just one small portion of all the utterly totally different media producers they run.
Most not too way back, they’ve moreover been making data headlines for in search of an preliminary public offering on the ACE Market.
Foodie Media has come an incredible means since they first started out as a humble channel referred to as Penang Foodie in 2016, launched by Pinn Yang.
Meet the true foodie
Pinn Yang, the CEO and co-founder of Foodie Media, was born and raised in foodie capital, Penang.
His dad labored as an insurance coverage protection agent and later ran a Hainanese rooster rice hawker stall whereas selling frying pans inside the morning market. Pinn Yang would help him after school, which taught him the price of laborious work, people skills, and enterprise fundamentals from an early age.
From there, he went on to pursue a promoting diploma from Tunku Abdul Rahman Faculty, and later interned at Tencent/WeChat Malaysia. It was proper right here that Pinn Yang labored on a meals discovery app, which sparked his curiosity inside the intersection of know-how, content material materials, and meals.
“After Tencent’s meals discovery app didn’t take off, I returned to Penang in 2016,” he knowledgeable Vulcan Submit. “I realised there was a distinct segment—meals content material materials in Malaysia was fragmented, and plenty of fantastic native corporations have been invisible on-line.”
With that realisation, Pinn Yang started Penang Foodie as a facet problem alongside along with his brother and his partner.
At first, it was solely a straightforward weblog and Fb internet web page. They’ve been able to earn just some cents a day from AdSense, nonetheless after they hit their first 1,000 followers, they understood the flexibility of group.
“That was the ‘aha’ second,” Pinn Yang declared. “If we might assemble a platform that connects people to good meals and empowers small corporations, we might create one factor impactful. By 2018, we decided to completely commit and incorporate Foodie Media.”
Making a popularity for themselves
Whereas content material materials creation might look easy from the floor attempting in, Pinn Yang is conscious of the fact—it’s laborious, very laborious.
This was notably the case as a result of the founding crew bootstrapped all of the items. Their preliminary capital was used to purchase a digital digital camera and a laptop computer pc for modifying, which was paid all through a 36-month instalment.
“Each half was an issue at first,” he outlined. “Content material materials creation, discovering our voice, understanding algorithms. For the first few months, growth was painfully gradual.”
Nonetheless, as quickly as you persist and overcome that preliminary battle, growth is oftentimes exponential.
“I keep in mind it took us close to a yr to realize our first 1,000 followers on Fb, and easily sooner or later to realize the next 8,000,” Pinn Yang reminisced.
Inside the early days, the crew would work on content material materials at night time time after their day jobs. When revenue hit RM15,000 a month, they lastly decided to cease and go into the enterprise full time.
Staying hyperlocal and real
With this saturated media panorama, it’s laborious to face out. Nonetheless Foodie Media found a profitable approach by retaining its content material materials area-specific along with staying inside the forefront of stories and traits.
“Our followers bought right here from us staying hyperlocal and real. We knowledgeable tales about hawkers, their struggles, and their passions. Of us associated with that,” Pinn Yang said. “Our technique is straightforward: people first. We inform tales that Malaysians care about, whether or not or not it’s viral meals, avenue distributors, or the model new opening of an eatery that folk want to aim.”
The Foodie Media mantra is to entertain, encourage, and inform, with out shedding authenticity.
“We’ve bought a strong editorial pulse and depend upon group options to stay grounded. And naturally, behind the scenes, we’ve constructed a steady content material materials engine to deal with consistency and prime quality,” he said.
Proper now, the crew has spherical 70 full-time editors and a administration crew managing 36+ producers, along with KL Foodie, Penang Foodie, Johor Foodie, Malaysia Homie, and additional.
Whereas it has grown proper right into a sizeable crew, Pinn Yang understands the need to repeatedly improve and hold associated as a result of the barrier to entry of their enterprise is comparatively low. Many influencers and creators can merely dip their toes into content material materials comparable to Foodie Media’s.
“Nonetheless the media space is a marathon, not a splash,” Pinn Yang clarified. “It’s not almost one viral video, it takes years of consistency to assemble perception and recallability behind the mannequin.”
Rising into totally different verticals
From the early weblog days of Penang Foodie, Foodie Media is now a multi-brand, video-first media agency.
They’ve even expanded previous content material materials and now take care of collaborations with creators, keep commerce, and even offline events like meals festivals.
“Philosophically, the biggest change is perform,” Pinn Yang shared. “At first, it was about growth. Proper now, it’s about have an effect on: serving to small corporations thrive by storytelling and social media.”
Pinn Yang sees Foodie Media as not solely a meals media platform. Whereas they started as that, Foodie Media instantly has better than 30 producers all through utterly totally different verticals comparable to property, automotive, and tech.
“We’re an ecosystem that connects content material materials, creator, commerce, and group, which we focus on with as a result of the 4 Cs internally,” he shared.
Instead of merely specializing in meals motion pictures, Foodie’s intention is to encourage experiences. They on a regular basis try to be on the place the attention is at.
With that in ideas, Foodie Media is doubling down on wider media lessons and genres of content material materials. They’re moreover investing into digital commerce and AI know-how.
“Prolonged-term, we have to assemble Southeast Asia’s principal content-commerce platform, one which empowers creators, producers, and communities, Pinn Yang shared.
Supporting their efforts is MDEC, the Malaysia Digital Monetary system Firm. Foodie Media is a part of MDEC’s Founders Centre of Excellence (FOX), a platform dedicated to cultivating high-potential startups.
Notably, MDEC focuses on supporting these exhibiting sturdy scale-up tech icon potential.
FOX equips these high-potential companies comparable to Foodie Media and founders comparable to Pinn Yang with devices and knowledge they need to innovate and scale globally.
Larger than the payout
To start out with, success was all about getting views on social media, as that was what paid the funds.
Nonetheless now, years into the enterprise, Pinn Yang found that the middle of the enterprise is about creating have an effect on at scale, altering lives of SMEs, establishing a legacy mannequin, and galvanizing the next period of creators.
“If I could return, I’d inform my youthful self: you in all probability did the proper issue,” he shared. “And to any youthful entrepreneur, stop worrying about what totally different people assume.”
“Persistence is the game. Play the prolonged sport. Give consideration to mannequin. Assemble group. And most of all, fall in love with the tactic, not the payout.”
- Be taught further about Foodie Media proper right here.
- Be taught our totally different startup tales proper right here.
Featured Image Credit score rating: Foodie Media
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