No one came to their basement shop. They built a billion-baht label anyway
Three Bangkok accountants started Gentlewoman in a basement with no investors, kept launching through Covid, and now open in Singapore.
Their priciest piece cost S$3,000. Then a judge asked why they weren't selling abroad
Afzal Imram and Lin Ruiyin funded their first jewellery collection with branding work. The hard part was never the design. It was the price.
He dropped out to clean grease traps. Now every Starbucks in Singapore calls his crew
Shaik Nifael failed his O-Levels and started at the bottom of Singapore's drainage trade. Jetters Incz now keeps the pipes clear for the big food chains.
He doesn't speak Japanese. He's opening a ryokan in a town tourists skip
Ray Hoe put pandemic stock gains and a home-equity loan into a family ryokan in Toyama. No hospitality background, no Japanese. Doors open in September.
The pharmacist who bottled trust — and put it on Malaysia's shelves
Adibah Mazlan turned pharmacy-job savings into The Raw — a bootstrapped skincare brand now in drugstores across Malaysia. No investors, science first.
Seven startups earned him $0. The eighth passed $600K a year
Jon Yongfook launched seven products in a year and earned nothing. Then came Bannerbear — bootstrapped from Singapore past $600K a year, all documented.
Twitter killed his $14K/month app. He rebuilt — alone, from Vietnam, in 5 days
Tony Dinh lost his best product to an API price change, then built TypingMind into a $1M+/year one-person company. Every number here is public.
Welcome to Selfmade Founders Asia
Asia's builders, finally in focus. One real founder story a week — numbers and setbacks left in.