RTIST: Creative talent-matching platform by UTAR alumna

From left: Chua (third, seated) and Tony Chua (eighth, seated) with Rtist team members

Chua Li Yee, a journalism alumna from UTAR and her brother Tony Chua co-founded “Rtist” (www.rtist.com.my), a website that enables people to rent creative talents (designers). From its humble beginning of just a handful of designers, it now has several hundred designers registered under its portal. Its services are used by many advertising and design agencies.

“My entrepreneurial journey started when my brother Tony Chua shared his thought of starting a design agency with me at a Mamak stall. I was turning 30 at that time and I wanted to do something different with my life. I wanted to try my hands on entrepreneurship. So, that was when my life changed completely,” shared Chua.

Chua

From left: Chua and her brother Tony Chua

In 2015, Chua kick-started her entrepreneurial journey by operating a small design agency with only four employees. Chua and her brother soon realised that it was not enough to meet the needs of their clients by just providing design services alone, so they adjusted their servicing direction by providing a full package which includes design, printing and shipping services. Soon, it dawned on them that many SMEs had design needs but the companies lacked dedicated designing departments to address the demand. This resulted in the formation of “Your Creative Department”, a concept that introduced these companies to outsource their creative work to her company.

The first year of running the agency had Chua feeling physically and financially exhausted. The concept “Your Creative Department” felt like nothing more than a slogan, they were struggling to stay afloat. In June 2016, Chua interviewed a local designer who had just returned from Australia and that changed their future. Based on the interviewee’s resume, it was clear that he was not suitable for their agency, but Chua knew of a friend who needed a local designer specialist urgently at an advertising agency. Chua and her brother decided to do things differently by “renting” out the designer. In August 2016, their company officially pivoted their business model and became Rtist - a platform for renting out creative talents. And today Rtist provides online and offline handpicked creative hiring solutions to businesses. Chua’s decision to pivot their business from a designing agency model to a creative platform was also inspired by the sharing economy concept of Uber.

Rtist gathers the creative talents in Malaysia under one roof to build a comprehensive creative talent library. They compile and standardise the talents’ personal info and portfolios up-to-date to increase the confidence of their clients when hiring a stranger and shorten the hiring process. And now, if there are any companies looking for designers, they can just log in to www.rtist.com.my and filter from thousands of designers by clicking the location, expertise, talent specific criteria, availability, etc. Then the company can directly contact the designer to meet up and discuss. The process to hire a designer at Rtist is easy as it minimises the hiring risk and saves cost in the long term for the employee.

Rtist Webpage

It was great news for Chua when she learnt that her company was one of the recipients of Cradle CIP 300 Grant. Cradle CIP 300 Grant is a pre-seed programme that provides a conditional grant and value-added assistance up to RM300,000 for entrepreneurs to kick-start innovative technology-based start-ups. The purpose of the programme is to assist early-stage entrepreneurs to both develop and commercialise their products. With the grant, Chua and her team were able to build and launch Rtist online job platform in May 2019 with 2,600 creative talents registered from different states of Malaysia and now they are better equipped for expansion.

Rtist’s online platform officially went live on 10 May 2019

Chua and her team also collaborated and created partnerships with several schools like Malaysian Institute of Art (MIA), Raffles College, New Era College, etc to educate students through ‘Get Your First Job’ campaign. The campaign enables students to save their portfolios on the platform and start their career at Rtist. Chua and her team have also participated in SMEs and creative-related exhibitions besides collaborating with community-based organisations like Junior Chamber International (JCI), Sunway iLabs and co-working offices to direct more client traffic to Rtist.

Chua and her team participating in exhibitions

Rtist conducting designer workshop for creative designers

Chua and her team collaborating with Malaysian Institute of Art (MIA) for ‘Get Your First Job’ campaign

The team is no stranger to success. Rtist has bagged multiple awards, including winning Top 10 in the MyStartr Dream Factory Startup Contest in 2017 and Top 5 in the Selangor Accelerator Programme in 2018 and 2019. Rtist also managed to emerge as the second runner-up at the prestigious Create@ Alibaba Cloud Startup Contest Malaysia.

Front row, from left: Chua (second) and her brother Tony Chua (third) won Top 10 in the MyStartr Dream Factory Startup Contest in 2017

Chua (second row, most right) and her team won Top 5 in the Selangor Accelerator Programme in 2018

From left, standing: Tony Chua (seventh) representing Rtist to receive the second runner-up prize at the prestigious Create@ Alibaba Cloud Startup Contest Malaysia

“Do not feel embarrassed by your failures; learn from them and start again. Nobody can take over your experience and what you have learnt. You will learn to think differently and have a different mindset when you venture into the entrepreneurial journey. Break your big goals into small steps. Make sure you always improve yourself and get closer to your goal. Reward yourself when you achieve small milestones,” said the successful alumna.

She added, “The first step is always crucial, keep trying and don’t wait for the perfect moment to kick start a business. Be optimistic and pivot fast!”

About RTIST

Rtist is Malaysia’s creative platform, which connects businesses to the right local creative talent on demand- whether Freelance, contract, internship or permanent, through online talent-matching platform, www.rtist.com.my & offline handpick solutions. Rtist allows creative talent to have more exposure, opportunity and be visible online.

Rtist website: www.rtist.com.my