Six stories from a founder’s August.
A month’s worth of writing from Dr. Mazlan Abbas — on pitches that failed, pilots that stalled, and the uncomfortable questions a founder keeps circling back to. Grouped by what they’re really about, not just when they were posted.
Startup Journey & Lessons
The unglamorous middle of building FAVORIOT — the pitch that didn’t land, the partnership that stalled after the photo op, the pilot that worked and still went nowhere.
I Pitched My Elderly Monitoring Startup to Nearly 100 Investors. Here’s Why They All Said No.
Before FAVORIOT was an IoT platform, it was a smartwatch for elderly care — and almost a hundred investors turned it down flat. The question none of them actually asked out loud is the one that still shapes how he pitches today.
Read the full story → Aug 22, 2026The MoU Photograph Is the Easy Part
The handshake, the signing, the photo — that’s the simple bit. What actually happens to a partnership once the cameras stop and everyone drives back to their real jobs is a different story entirely.
Read the full story → Aug 15, 2026I Thought a Successful Pilot Would Naturally Become a Real Project. I Was Wrong.
Two pilots, both technically flawless, neither one a paying customer. What he learned about the wide, quiet gap between “it works” and “someone will actually buy it.”
Read the full story →Leadership & Reflection
Slower, more personal essays — the kind written after hours, when the day’s meetings are over and the bigger questions surface.
Would We Listen to Advice From Our Future Selves?
A time machine, one message, your past self on the other end of it. The question is easy to ask — the honest answer he arrives at is a lot less comfortable.
Read the full story → Aug 7, 2026The Moment I Realised Our Dashboard Was Not the Answer
For years, more devices and better dashboards meant better decisions — that was the whole industry’s belief, his included. Then he watched organisations with beautiful dashboards keep making the exact same mistakes.
Read the full story →National Tech Vision
Written for Merdeka week — a wider lens on Malaysia’s technology industry and where confidence in it still runs short.
Discover more from Dr. Mazlan Abbas
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