Wai Hong Fong learned the ropes in retail by helping his uncle in Melbourne, Australia sell giftware online. That later led him to spot an opportunity to supply small shops and cafés in Southeast Asia with point of sale tools to manage their inventory, orders and payments, and track performance. Previously with no easy access to technology, his customers were able to make the leap online. 

Wai Hong estimates there are 20 million such small businesses in Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines where his company StoreHub operates. “We want to kind of even out that technology inequality in the parts of the world where we felt that this is a major problem,” he says.

During the pandemic, he threw small restaurants a lifeline when StoreHub provided them with a consumer-facing food delivery app within 48 hours.  

Wai Hong talks about his entrepreneurial journey from Melbourne to Shanghai to Petaling Jaya on this episode of Rise of the Next.

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