Startup Grind in KL: a community designed to thrive

On Thursday 10th, 70+ people burst into SAYS.com office to the second Startup Grind in KL. Founders, geeks, techies, marketers all together in a chilled environment that brought that Silicon Valley atmosphere to KL, for one night.


Ai Ching, CEO and Founder of Piktochart, featured the local event sharing her stories as an entrepreneur: failure, success, passions. For one hour straight, you could see people hooked, their eyes wide open paying attention to every word from her.


The SAYS.com secret hideout, as they call it, had every free spot filled up with people who went there to get learn, get inspired by Ai Ching’s story and to connect.


For some people, networking was the best part of it. Before and after Ai Ching’s talk, you could see people walking around, meeting each other, shaking hands, talking with enthusiasm about their businesses, ideas, stories.


SGKL Ai Ching


The crowd had a great number of founders and startup people, but also a wide range community leaders and representatives for organizations who support entrepreneurs such as the MDeC, Founder Institute, TEDxKL, Endeavor and 500 Startups.


I daresay the biggest challenge was asking people to move from the office to another place where we could chill and stay for longer, since we had to close the office - which we finally succeeded to do by 23h, an hour after what we’d scheduled.


We could have stayed there for 3 hours more - and I personally admire Ai Ching, who stayed there until the end talking to people  - and lovely receiving everyone who was (literally) on a queue to talk to her.


The event ended - and along with accomplishment, I feel it could have lasted more. And I feel anxious excited about the upcoming Startup Grind in KL!


(photo courtesy from @khaileeng instagram)


Check the next events in here.


Short story of the Startup Grind in KL


On February 27th, it became a reality by having its’ first host confirmed: Khailee Ng (500.co, SAYS.com, Groupspore). Wide known for his great track as an entrepreneur and investor, Khailee brought in over 60 people to our first event at The Canvas.

The conversation was fun and insightful. At the end, Khailee reminded us that what makes Silicon Valley successful is not the amount of money or connections you got in there necessarily, besides it obviously has an impact. But mostly, it is the mindset that allows people aiming for more and reaching higher by simply believing that there are opportunities and possibilities to grow. The abundance mindset.


This is the mindset the Startup Grind is about to bring to KL! :) I’m glad if you join in!


Watch here the full interview with Khailee, recorded by our video partners: RISE.

After only 2 events, we've gathered a community of over 230+ people prevailing founders, CTOs and community leaders.