David Wong spent 10 years in digital media across Malaysia, China, and Singapore โ working at Nuffnang, WPP, and an adtech startup. The pay was good. The expat packages were comfortable. But he had a problem nobody around him could solve: he loved golf and had no one to play with.
"The simple answer is nobody wanted to play golf with me," Wong told Mr Money TV. "For golf you need two things. You need money and you need buddies. I had money because I was working... but even with the money, I couldn't do the things I love because I didn't have the people to play with."
So he built Deemples โ a golf matching app that pairs golfers who want to play together, regardless of whether they know each other. Think of it as the social layer that golf never had. Nine years later, the platform has roughly 150,000 users across Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and Indonesia.
The cold start: building while employed
Wong did not leap blindly. Deemples was built and launched while he was still employed. The app went live on the App Store in September 2016, and he set himself a clear validation threshold: 1,000 downloads in Malaysia, 500 in Singapore. Within three months, the app had 3,000-4,000 downloads โ and users were actually playing rounds through the platform.
Only after hitting that milestone did he hand in his resignation. He then served a six-month notice period, even opening new markets for his employer during that time. "If we can get Malaysia to 1,000 downloads and Singapore to 500 downloads, maybe we have something," he recalled. "So within three months, we got it to 3-4,000 downloads... people are using it. People are trying it."
That discipline โ building in parallel, setting quantitative gates before quitting โ stands in sharp contrast to the "burn the boats" mythology that dominates startup culture. Wong's approach was calculated: validate demand first, then commit resources.
The Tinder model: matching before monetising
Deemples operates as a two-sided marketplace. Golfers are both the users and the product โ just as daters are on Tinder. You do not pay to find someone to play golf with. The matching layer is free because charging for it would kill the network effect before it starts.
Monetisation came through golf course bookings โ an "Agoda for golf" model where courses list tee times and Deemples takes a commission. But Wong deliberately delayed this revenue model. The original plan was to build global scale first, then monetise. COVID forced a strategic pivot.
"David was going to connect the whole world first before we monetised," Wong admitted. "But then COVID came and we were like, okay, let's just monetise now." The team shut down expansion to other countries, focused entirely on Malaysia, and began onboarding golf courses.
The results followed a clean doubling pattern: 10 courses in year one, 20 in year two, 40 in year three, 80 in year four. Revenue doubled annually for four consecutive years.
Malaysia's hidden golf advantage
Wong made a compelling case for Malaysia as a golf destination โ one that most Malaysians themselves underestimate. A round of golf in Malaysia can cost as little as RM40-50, while the same activity starts at RM300 in Thailand (2,000-4,000 baht) and RM300+ in Indonesia (600,000-700,000 rupiah for a weekday round).
"People think oh maybe Indonesia is cheaper, Thailand is cheaper, Philippines cheaper. No, no, no, no. Malaysia is one of the cheapest places," Wong said. "These days, if you go out to eat a meal, a hot pot meal already costs 70, 80, 90 ringgit. So that's cheap golf."
This price advantage is already attracting inbound golf tourism from Korea and China โ a pattern Wong sees accelerating as Deemples consolidates its Southeast Asian footprint before pursuing partnerships with Japanese and Korean equivalents.
Leadership, patience, and the long sales cycle
Wong was disarmingly candid about his shortcomings. "I'm a terrible leader, that's for sure. I don't even do the hiring now," he said. He credited his CTO โ originally hired as an engineer who later bought into the company โ with teaching him to close decisions faster and validate before building.
The golf industry's pace forced a different kind of startup discipline. Some golf courses took four to five years of relationship-building before signing onto the platform. There was no competitor to accelerate market education. "If there was a competitor that came along at the same time... that would have been much better," Wong said. "There was nobody with us. We were the ones educating the market alone."
His resolution for 2026 captured the tension between urgency and relationship: "Piss people off less."
What comes next
Deemples is consolidating Southeast Asia before looking north. Wong's roadmap is partnership-driven: work with existing platforms in Japan, Korea, and China rather than competing head-on in unfamiliar markets. "The Japanese and Korean guys are taking care of that... eventually hopefully we'll start working together. At this point, let us take care of Southeast Asia first."
His closing advice for founders considering an unconventional path was blunt: "Do it only if you're willing to go all the way. If you're not willing to, don't do it... money will only drive you so far. Purpose will drive you further when there's no money."
Adam Tan โ growth lens
The Deemples story is a case study in what happens when a founder picks the right problem in a market that looks too small โ then discovers the market is larger than anyone assumed.
Golf in Southeast Asia is underpriced relative to North Asia by a factor of 5-8x. That gap creates two investable dynamics. First, inbound golf tourism to Malaysia (especially from Korea and China) is a growing segment that benefits any platform sitting between supply and demand. Second, the low price floor means the addressable market is wider than "rich uncle golfers" โ Wong himself noted that anyone spending RM500-1,000/month on recreation can afford regular golf.
150,000 users across four countries is meaningful for a vertical social platform in a niche sport. For context, most golf-tech startups globally struggle past 50,000 because they build for transactions (tee-time booking) without solving the social cold-start problem first. Wong solved it by making matching free and letting the booking revenue follow. That sequencing is exactly what makes two-sided marketplaces defensible once they reach liquidity.
The partnership play into North Asia is where the real upside sits. Japan's golf market alone is worth over USD 7 billion annually, and Korea's is growing aggressively post-COVID. If Deemples can become the Southeast Asian node in a federated Asia-Pacific golf platform โ handling inbound/outbound golfers across borders โ the revenue per user jumps significantly through cross-border bookings and golf tourism packages.
The risk? The same patience that got Deemples here could slow it down in a market that is finally getting competitive. RecLeague and other social sports apps are approaching the same problem from different sports. Wong will need to move faster than his instinct tells him.
Daniel Lim โ steady lens
Let me stress-test the numbers and the model, because "doubled revenue for four years" sounds impressive until you ask: doubled from what?
Deemples is nine years old with 150,000 users and commission revenue from golf course bookings. Golf course commissions in Malaysia typically run 10-15% on green fees. If the average booking through Deemples is RM100 and commission is 12%, that is RM12 per round. Even if 10% of the 150K user base books once a month, that is roughly RM180,000/month or about RM2.2 million/year in gross revenue. That is a real business, but it is not a venture-scale business. The doubling pattern (10, 20, 40, 80 courses) suggests revenue went from very small to small-to-moderate.
Wong was honest about the trade-offs. He has buddies but no money. He described extreme cost discipline during COVID and constant caution about reserves. That is the reality of building in a niche vertical without external funding announcements or big fundraising rounds to cushion the runway.
The moat question: Deemples' defensibility comes from network effects โ golfers are there because other golfers are there. That is strong in Malaysia where they are established, but weaker in newer markets where user density is low. A well-funded competitor entering Thailand or Indonesia with aggressive user acquisition could potentially out-spend Deemples in a market where Deemples has thin penetration.
The niche question: Golf is not pickleball. It is not going to 10x its participation rate in Southeast Asia over three years. The sport grows steadily, not virally. Wong acknowledged this himself โ the industry cannot keep up with how fast he wants to go. That puts a ceiling on growth rate regardless of execution quality.
The business is real, sustainable, and solves a genuine problem. But anyone looking at this as a high-growth tech play should calibrate expectations. This is closer to a profitable lifestyle-scale platform business than a venture-trajectory startup โ and there is nothing wrong with that. Wong seems to know it, too.
Sarah Abdullah โ action lens
Three practical takeaway threads from this interview โ for aspiring founders, for golfers, and for career pivoters.
If you are thinking about starting something:
Wong's validation framework is worth stealing. He set specific download targets (1,000 MY, 500 SG) before quitting his job. He built and launched while employed. He served a full six-month notice. He did not romanticise the leap โ he reduced the risk first. If you have a side project, set your own threshold: what number, reached by what date, would make you take it seriously? Write it down before the emotional momentum of building takes over.
His advice on motivation is equally concrete: "Don't do it just for money. Purpose will drive you further when there's no money." Nine years is a long time. If your reason for starting is a spreadsheet projection, you will quit when the spreadsheet breaks โ and it always breaks.
If you are a golfer considering Deemples:
The value proposition is straightforward. If you do not belong to a country club and do not have a regular group, Deemples solves the buddy problem directly. The app is free for matching. You only pay when booking a tee time through the platform, and the prices are the same as or close to what you would pay calling the course directly.
Wong's pricing data is worth noting for anyone calculating whether golf fits their budget. At RM40-50 per round at the cheapest courses, a golfer playing twice a month spends RM80-100/month on green fees โ less than many gym memberships. Add range practice and the occasional equipment purchase, and a realistic starter budget is RM200-400/month. That makes golf accessible to a much wider group than the "rich man's sport" perception suggests.
If you are mid-career and restless:
Wong's trajectory โ Nuffnang, WPP Shanghai, Singapore adtech, then Deemples โ is not a clean startup origin story. He sold Rainbow vacuum cleaners for RM1,000 commission per unit and outsold his friends who joined Shell. He was rejected from corporate jobs because interviewers could tell he would break rules. He spent a decade in digital media across three countries before finding the problem he wanted to solve.
The lesson is not "follow your passion." The lesson is that a decade of sales experience, regional market knowledge, and operational discipline gave him the skills to survive nine years of building a business in a slow-moving industry. The career before the startup was not wasted time โ it was the preparation that made the fear manageable. As Wong put it: "With the right preparation, the fear would be less."
Source Video
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