KOTA KINABALU: When Kudat-born Poong Ka Vui first came to the city to have his car air-conditioner repaired a few years ago, he tried searching the Internet to find a reliable and affordable workshop that could do the job.
He saw a few with high ratings given by past customers, so he went to one.
However, when he arrived, the price quoted was unexpectedly high and so he had to call some friends to get better recommendations.
“That took a while and honestly, it was quite troublesome, because some of these friends had to ask other friends before they could get back to me,” said the 30-year-old.
“At that moment, an idea came to my mind. I thought, why isn’t there an app that has all the details of shops or businesses with reviews, prices and useful information under one umbrella?” Poong said.
At that point, the computer engineering graduate and software developer decided to gather some friends and create an app that does exactly this.
He forked out his own money and teamed up with his younger brother Ka Tsun, 27, who is in computer science, and two friends from Kota Kinabalu with totally different backgrounds.
Poong and his brother designed the app and a website to go with it, and at the same time taught their two friends – Chiew Jian Zhi, 25, a civil engineer and Lim Chiew Yee, 24, a hotel management graduate – graphic design and app development.
He taught Chiew how to code while also providing online links on the subject so that the latter could learn hands-on whenever he had the time.
As for Lim, she was taught graphic design and like Chiew, also learnt a lot through the Internet.
“And soon, our first prototype was out. That was in March, 2021,” said Poong, adding that their second prototype came out sometime around June that same year.
“After various attempts to fix what was needed and to improve our app, we finally launched our product, which we named SabahReview, around February last year,” he added.
The app was rebranded as Reviewbah in December as this team of four wanted to expand their market outside the state and felt that a general name would be more inclusive.
Poong said this app is like a supermarket for all sorts of businesses and their reviews, details and relevant information such as items for sale, prices of goods, location and “what-not”.
“At the moment, we only have fewer than 4,000 registered users and around 6,000 app downloads,” he said.
Their website, however, has more substantial traffic of around 15,000 to 20,000 views and clicks per month.
The app is available for both the Android and iOS platforms.
As Poong is not yet earning from this mobile app but still has to pay salaries to his friends and brother, he hopes to attract potential investors and maybe advertisers to garner some income.
“We hope that with this app, businesses – regardless of their nature or scale – will be able to better market their products and services.
“However, as an app developer, I also hope to earn what I’ve spent all this while. My parents are supportive of this venture, but at the same time, they worry about its sustainability,” he said.
The son of an engineer father and a principal mother hopes more Sabahans would be involved in software development, coding and technology-based fields, seeing that there is vast potential but still very little involvement from locals.
“If we want to see Sabah develop more robustly, we must diversify our economic activities and banking on technology is one good way to go,” said Poong.
Source : The Star
