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[This is a sponsored article with Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC).]

Whether or not you realise it or not, chances are high you’ve come throughout Foodie Media’s movies earlier than.

It’s solely the corporate behind a number of the greatest meals media platforms within the nation, equivalent to KL Foodie, Johor Foodie, Halal Foodie, and plenty of extra. They’ve even expanded their attain to different international locations with manufacturers like Singapore Foodie, Jakarta Foodie, and Manila Foodie.

And that’s only one small portion of all of the completely different media manufacturers they run.

Most lately, they’ve additionally been making information headlines for searching for an preliminary public providing on the ACE Market.

Foodie Media has come an incredible means since they first began 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 agent and later ran a Hainanese rooster rice hawker stall whereas promoting frying pans within the morning market. Pinn Yang would assist him after faculty, which taught him the worth of exhausting work, individuals expertise, and enterprise fundamentals from an early age.

From there, he went on to pursue a advertising and marketing diploma from Tunku Abdul Rahman College, and later interned at Tencent/WeChat Malaysia. It was right here that Pinn Yang labored on a meals discovery app, which sparked his curiosity within the intersection of expertise, content material, and meals.

“After Tencent’s meals discovery app didn’t take off, I returned to Penang in 2016,” he informed Vulcan Submit. “I realised there was a niche—meals content material in Malaysia was fragmented, and plenty of superb native companies have been invisible on-line.”

With that realisation, Pinn Yang began Penang Foodie as a aspect venture together with his brother and his spouse.

At first, it was only a easy weblog and Fb web page. They have been in a position to earn a couple of cents a day from AdSense, however after they hit their first 1,000 followers, they understood the facility of neighborhood.

“That was the ‘aha’ second,” Pinn Yang declared. “If we might construct a platform that connects individuals to nice meals and empowers small companies, we might create one thing impactful. By 2018, we determined to totally commit and incorporate Foodie Media.”

Making a reputation for themselves

Whereas content material creation may look simple from the skin trying in, Pinn Yang is aware of the reality—it’s exhausting, very exhausting.

This was particularly the case because the founding staff bootstrapped every thing. Their preliminary capital was used to buy a digicam and a laptop computer for enhancing, which was paid throughout a 36-month instalment.

“All the things was a problem at first,” he defined. “Content material creation, discovering our voice, understanding algorithms. For the primary few months, development was painfully gradual.”

Nevertheless, as soon as you persist and overcome that preliminary wrestle, development is oftentimes exponential.

“I bear in mind it took us near a yr to realize our first 1,000 followers on Fb, and simply in the future to realize the following 8,000,” Pinn Yang reminisced.

Within the early days, the staff would work on content material at evening after their day jobs. When income hit RM15,000 a month, they lastly determined to give up and go into the enterprise full time.

Staying hyperlocal and genuine

With this saturated media panorama, it’s exhausting to face out. However Foodie Media discovered a profitable technique by holding its content material area-specific in addition to staying within the forefront of stories and tendencies.

“Our followers got here from us staying hyperlocal and genuine. We informed tales about hawkers, their struggles, and their passions. Individuals linked with that,” Pinn Yang stated. “Our strategy is easy: individuals first. We inform tales that Malaysians care about, whether or not it’s viral meals, avenue distributors, or the brand new opening of an eatery that individuals need to strive.”

The Foodie Media mantra is to entertain, encourage, and inform, with out dropping authenticity.

“We now have a robust editorial pulse and depend on neighborhood suggestions to remain grounded. And naturally, behind the scenes, we’ve constructed a stable content material engine to keep up consistency and high quality,” he stated.

As we speak, the staff has round 70 full-time editors and a management staff managing 36+ manufacturers, together with KL Foodie, Penang Foodie, Johor Foodie, Malaysia Homie, and extra.

Whereas it has grown right into a sizeable staff, Pinn Yang understands the necessity to frequently enhance and keep related because the barrier to entry of their business is somewhat low. Many influencers and creators can simply dip their toes into content material equivalent to Foodie Media’s.

“However the media house is a marathon, not a dash,” Pinn Yang clarified. “It’s not nearly one viral video, it takes years of consistency to construct belief and recallability behind the model.”

Increasing into different verticals

From the early weblog days of Penang Foodie, Foodie Media is now a multi-brand, video-first media firm.

They’ve even expanded past content material and now deal with collaborations with creators, stay commerce, and even offline occasions like meals festivals.

“Philosophically, the most important change is objective,” Pinn Yang shared. “At first, it was about development. As we speak, it’s about impression: serving to small companies thrive via storytelling and social media.”

Pinn Yang sees Foodie Media as not only a meals media platform. Whereas they began as that, Foodie Media right this moment has greater than 30 manufacturers throughout completely different verticals equivalent to property, automobile, and tech.

“We’re an ecosystem that connects content material, creator, commerce, and neighborhood, which we seek advice from because the 4 Cs internally,” he shared.

As an alternative of merely specializing in meals movies, Foodie’s intention is to encourage experiences. They at all times try to be at the place the eye is at.

With that in thoughts, Foodie Media is doubling down on wider media classes and genres of content material. They’re additionally investing into digital commerce and AI expertise.

“Lengthy-term, we need to construct Southeast Asia’s main content-commerce platform, one which empowers creators, manufacturers, and communities, Pinn Yang shared.

Supporting their efforts is MDEC, the Malaysia Digital Financial system Company. Foodie Media is part of MDEC’s Founders Centre of Excellence (FOX), a platform devoted to cultivating high-potential startups.

Particularly, MDEC focuses on supporting these displaying robust scale-up tech icon potential.

FOX equips these high-potential firms equivalent to Foodie Media and founders equivalent to Pinn Yang with instruments and information they should innovate and scale globally.

Greater than the payout

To start with, success was all about getting views on social media, as that was what paid the payments.

However now, years into the enterprise, Pinn Yang discovered that the guts of the enterprise is about creating impression at scale, altering lives of SMEs, constructing a legacy model, and galvanizing the following technology of creators.

“If I might return, I’d inform my youthful self: you probably did the fitting factor,” he shared. “And to any younger entrepreneur, cease worrying about what different individuals suppose.”

“Endurance is the sport. Play the lengthy sport. Concentrate on model. Construct neighborhood. And most of all, fall in love with the method, not the payout.”