He failed twice before ZUS.
He joined as the 8th co-founder — a year after the first store opened.
He holds less than 1% equity in what is now Malaysia’s largest coffee chain.
And yet Venon Tian is the most compelling founder story in Malaysian business right now.
In this episode of Do More, we went deep — past the highlight reel.
He told me that the Zeus boycott crisis wasn’t just a brand problem. It went all the way inside the building — senior team members started questioning whether they were working for the right company. What held them together wasn’t a PR strategy. It was conviction.
He told me that ZUS was already a national champion with 360 stores before the Starbucks boycott even began. The tailwind helped. But they had already done the work.
He told me what actually keeps him awake at 2am — and it’s not the IPO speculation. It’s whether there’s enough fuel supply for the next two months, and why ZUS stores in the Philippines sometimes have to shut because of power outages. The unglamorous reality of building at scale across borders.
And when I asked him what success means — after six years, a billion ringgit in revenue, and 1,000 stores — he said, honestly, he’s still searching for the answer.
So are his mentors.
That answer alone is worth 45 minutes of your time.
🎙️ Full conversation on the Do More Today YouTube channel — link in comments.
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