For many 25-year-olds, starting a business is still a distant ambition. But in Zhejiang, a Chinese province known for its entrepreneurial spirit and thriving private sector, Malaysian entrepreneur Monish Mithra Waran Maheswaran has already become a serial entrepreneur, having launched two ventures in China.
When Monish arrived at International Campus, Zhejiang University in 2021, he was a student with an interest in solving real-world problems.
Five years later, he is helping small and medium-sized businesses streamline their operations, particularly those whose owners struggle to step back because company data, standard operating procedures and key decisions still depend heavily on them.
One client, an Indonesian energy-equipment manufacturer with 30,000 customers, relies on about 15 Excel spreadsheets and more than 30 WhatsApp groups across six departments. After 13 years in business, its owner hopes to hand over the company to the next generation, but daily operations still depend heavily on him.
"We're not trying to sell you another piece of software. We're trying to organize your entire company into one system," Monish said.
The roots of Monish's entrepreneurial journey can be traced back to his student days at Zhejiang University. In 2023, he recruited classmates to build a digital platform that better connects waste recycling to supply chains.
Running a startup while studying was demanding. Monish traveled to Malaysia for business meetings on weekends and returned to university for final exams during the week.
But he was not navigating the challenges of entrepreneurship alone. Between 2023 and 2025, Zhejiang University and its Zhejiang University International Business School gave him opportunities to present his ideas at various events.
"Even for an ordinary course project, professors would encourage you to enter competitions and see whether you could put the theory into practice," he recalled.
The team grew from four core members to 15 and won a prize in a Belt and Road entrepreneurship competition.
Yet recognition did not guarantee success. Some government procurement processes required suppliers to have at least five years of experience, a hurdle the startup could not clear. The venture never reached implementation.
Still, the experience revealed another market: businesses that needed better software rather than a recycling platform. Interactions with business leaders and investors from companies including Hikvision and Ant Group also broadened his horizons as a foreign entrepreneur in China.
After graduating in 2025, Monish stayed in Haining, Zhejiang, drawn by its central location in the Yangtze River Delta, which is one of the economic hubs of China.
There, he co-founded MJCX Studio with Indonesian Zhejiang University alumnus Leonard Davidson to develop digital tools for small and medium-sized businesses. Advances in artificial intelligence are making customized software more affordable.
Monish's ambitions extend beyond the city. He is exploring a joint venture with Indonesian B2B e-commerce group Ralali to help Southeast Asian businesses access Chinese AI models, including Alibaba's Qwen. He also works with the Enterprise AI Application Research Center at Zhejiang University's Huzhou Institute to promote its research overseas.
For Monish, connecting markets requires cultural understanding as well as technology. Although he learned Chinese growing up, living and working in China taught him that language alone was not enough.
Raised in a family that has run a taekwondo club in Malaysia for 30 years, he took up Wing Chun after meeting a local master. He now serves as vice-president of the Haining Wing Chun Martial Arts Research Association and is its only foreign core member.
"Before you sell anything, touch the ground, learn what the customer's world is really like," he said. "If you want to do business and live somewhere, understand the people first. Otherwise, you will only see the surface and spend 30 years in your own bubble of reality."
