Groupon Malaysia was built by YouthAsia, a social technology company that Neoh cofounded to bring young people together. They have built social advertising and research platforms and organized a youth festival that attracted around 80,000 people. For them, ecommerce was just an extension of this youthful community: Those discounts include your usual array of deals on buffets and restaurants, spas, travel, and electronics (especially iOS, Neoh says). But Groupon Malaysia, where the average age is 24 or 25, has also become its own community of young people. They also organize company events using Groupon deals; once, they went ice skating and got to meet other customers who bought the groupon. Neoh is also planning to spin off a philanthropic arm of Groupon Malaysia, which recently partnered with Unicef to raise almost $50,000 in just a week. Neoh’s advice for entrepreneurs is to keep an attitude characteristic of youth: “Always stay hungry to learn and change and improve – always believe the best is yet to come.”
