In the latest episode of our Crazy Smart Asia podcast, the co-founder and former CEO of Fave discusses the entrepreneurial x-factor, finding purpose and avoiding the grey line
Joel Neoh’s natural curiosity, creativity and out-of-the-box thinking have been evident throughout his career, but never did he expect that he’d start his own company.
He came from a family of mostly civil servants, so convincing his parents to support his initial decision to pursue entrepreneurship was a challenge. “When I came home each day, my parents would ask me what I was doing and when I would stop this hobby. It was tough,” he recalls. “There was a lot of insecurity in the early years as I graduated as a mechanical engineer. All my classmates went on to become engineers with good salaries.”
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Despite the pressure of taking the more conventional corporate route, Neoh stuck with his decision and found joy in being able to build his own business from scratch and freely apply his creativity to it. The impact that he eventually realised his startups were making kept him going.
In March 2023, Neoh made the decision to step down from his position as CEO of Fave, one of Malaysia’s most well-known fintech companies which he founded in 2015. He had planned to take a break and seek opportunities to give back to the local startup ecosystem he had long been part of. In July 2023, he started an early-stage fund called First Move, investing in consumer-focused startups in Southeast Asia.
A month prior to the fund’s launch, Neoh also announced that he had joined Hong Kong-based Prenetics, a genomic and diagnostic testing startup co-founded by fellow Gen.T honouree Danny Yeung. He is also the managing director of the company’s consumer health business, CircleDNA.
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While he never considered going into healthcare, Neoh shares that he chose to join Prenetics after losing a close friend to cancer last year and his aunt to the same disease 20 years ago. He thinks healthcare today is too focused on sick care, and not enough products and solutions are available to help people maintain their health or avoid falling ill in the first place.
In the latest episode of our Crazy Smart Asia podcast, Neoh dives deeper into these thoughts as well as why having the entrepreneurial x-factor is about being a visionary, an optimist and a realist. Here are a few excerpts from his episode. Click the audio player below to listen to the full episode or subscribe via Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.