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Carin Gan is one of the co-founders of CoffeeSpace, a matching app for startup co-founders. (Carin Gan pic)
\nKUALA LUMPUR: A successful company is rarely defined by its idea alone, but by the people behind it. The right mix of co-founders, teammates and collaborators often determines whether a concept becomes a working product or fades away before it begins.<\/p>\n
For many aspiring entrepreneurs, finding these people remains one of the biggest challenges early on. This gap led Carin Gan and two others to launch CoffeeSpace<\/a> in 2023.<\/p>\n Drawing on their own experiences, they set out to make team formation more intentional by helping people connect based on shared ambition, complementary skills, and a genuine desire to build.<\/p>\n Often described as a \u201cTinder-like matching app for startups\u201d, CoffeeSpace was founded by Gan alongside fellow Malaysian Hazim Mohamad and Fauzan Maulana from Indonesia.<\/p>\n The platform matches users based on their skills, ambitions and startup interests, making it easier to form co-founding teams and early-stage collaborations.<\/p>\n According to Forbes, the platform has attracted more than 25,000 users, generating around two million swipes and approximately 50,000 matches.<\/p>\n \u201cMost people don\u2019t wake up one day and decide to start a company. It usually starts with something much smaller: a side project, a random conversation, meeting someone interesting, or joining somebody else\u2019s idea. That\u2019s the journey we\u2019re trying to support,\u201d Gan, 29, told FMT Lifestyle.<\/p>\n \u201cEspecially now, with AI making it easier than ever to build, there are so many people with ideas who can turn them into reality. Often, all they need is the right people around them and a little encouragement to get started.\u201d<\/p>\n Born in Kuala Lumpur, Gan attended Catholic High School and Sunway College before receiving a scholarship to study in the US at the University of Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n While at university, she enrolled at the Wharton School of business. Rather than following the traditional finance path, she found herself drawn to building products and taking computer-science classes.<\/p>\n After graduating, she joined Meta as a software engineer before eventually leaving to build CoffeeSpace.<\/p>\n This year, Gan was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30<\/a> Asia list in the Social Media, Marketing and Advertising category. She joins a select group of Malaysians recognised by the publication, including entrepreneur Daniel Woodroof<\/a>, social activist Allison Choong<\/a>, and Machino founders<\/a> Amy and Esther Tai.<\/p>\n Today, Gan splits her time between San Francisco and Malaysia as she continues growing CoffeeSpace and expanding its team here.<\/p>\n She recalls spending much of the company\u2019s early days onboarding users and personally introducing potential matches. At one point, she and her team were spending their Sundays manually matching people to ensure the quality was right.<\/p>\n She said building something you care about with people you genuinely enjoy working alongside can feel like \u201ca really fun school project\u201d, albeit on a much larger scale.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s a big part of what inspired CoffeeSpace. We wanted to help more people take that first step into entrepreneurship and discover whether it\u2019s something they love, too.\u201d<\/p>\n Gan emphasised that starting something and making it work are \u201cvery different things\u201d. Much of what CoffeeSpace has become was shaped by listening closely to users, and learning lessons that could never have been figured out in isolation.<\/p>\n Building world-changing companies<\/p>\n Asked which entrepreneur she would \u201cswipe right\u201d on to build a company with, Gan names Canva CEO Melanie Perkins.<\/p>\n \u201cBuilding Canva alone is an extraordinary achievement, but what I admire even more is how many barriers she broke through along the way,\u201d she said. \u201cAs a female founder building outside Silicon Valley, she\u2019s expanded people\u2019s perception of who gets to build world-changing companies.<\/p>\n \u201cMost people know Canva today, but they forget how many years and how many rejections came before it. There\u2019s something incredibly inspiring about someone who keeps going despite hearing \u2018no\u2019 over and over.\u201d<\/p>\n Her advice for aspiring tech entrepreneurs? Optimise learning over outcomes, especially in the early stages.<\/p>\n \u201cMost founders spend a lot of energy trying to avoid failure. I think a better question is whether you\u2019re improving. As long as you\u2019re learning, adapting and getting better, you\u2019re probably moving in the right direction.<\/p>\n \u201cThe bigger risk usually isn\u2019t making mistakes,\u201d Gan concluded, \u201cit\u2019s not learning fast enough from them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Carin Gan is one of the co-founders of CoffeeSpace, a matching app for startup co-founders. 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CoffeeSpace matches users based on their skills, ambitions and what they want to build. (CoffeeSpace pic)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/58dcc37e-coffeespace-founders-lifestyle-emel-pic-020726-1.webp\"\/)
Gan with CoffeeSpace co-founders Hazim Mohamad (left) and Fauzan Maulana. (Carin Gan pic)<\/p>\n