Fourteen years ago I stepped away from heading a Managing Directors’ office at Maybank to join Silmyi, Malaysia’s original Legendmaker. A talk about football heroes and cycling champions just reminded me exactly why.
Last week I watched Silmyi give a talk at MyIPO’s seminar on IP and Sport, held during Hari Intelek Negara 2026. He was speaking on protecting sports brands in the digital marketplace. On that big screen behind him, two names stood side by side Mokhtar Dahari and Datuk Azizulhasni Awang. Two legends. Two very different stories about what happens when you have, or don’t have, a True North.
He described how Supermokh, a boy from Kampung Pandan, turned down Real Madrid out of love for Selangor and the national team. His 89 international goals placed him first on the all-time men’s scoring list, a record he held from 1980 to 2004, 24 years before Cristiano Ronaldo (128 goals) and Ali Daei of Iran (109 goals) eventually surpassed him. The crowds always knew where his heart was. His True North was never in doubt.
Supermokh's True North was patriotism. The crowds knew it. That clarity
is what made him a legend, not just a footballer.
Then came the recent example. Datuk Azizul “the Pocket Rocketman” a World Champion, an Olympic medallist, a man who survived open heart surgery in 2022 when doctors said no, then went on to win Gold and Bronze at the Perth UCI World Cup in 2026 at age 38. An extraordinary human being. And yet, when Silmyi researched the brand ahead of the talk, the trademark status of “Pocket Rocketman” was nowhere to be found in available online records. He raised this from the stage. The moment was striking enough that the MyIPO team conducted an on-the-spot check right there in the room. It turned out the trademark “Pocket Rocketman” had in fact been registered, but the fact that even a diligent online search had failed to surface it tells you everything about the gap that exists between having something protected and having that protection visible, discoverable and actively working for your brand.
I sat there thinking: this is exactly what Silmyi has spent fifteen years trying to fix. This is what a Legendmaker does.
Our Own True North
When Silmyi founded Brand Geeks Inc in 2011, I was heading the Maybank Client Coverage Managing Directors’ Office. The work kept me busy. But it wasn’t where my heart was. He had a simple, almost stubborn idea, that branding and marketing should be accessible to all, not just corporations with large budgets and dedicated agencies. I joined him full time in 2012. It was not the conventional move. But I had seen enough inside banking to know that the brands which truly mattered, the ones with staying power, were the ones built on something real. And most of them were being left to figure it out alone.
Over the past fifteen years, our True North has been this:
Nurture Legendary Brands that Change the World.
It sounds grand. The reality of living it has been anything but easy.
Big brands, we learned, rarely want to change anything. They have processes, committees, legacy thinking.
Small brands, meanwhile, often lack either the cash flow to invest in brand-building or the conviction that it is worth the investment at all. We have spent fifteen years navigating that tension, finding the ones ready to move, ready to fight for something.
And we have developed legends. Not overnight. Not without setbacks. But we have seen brands that were
invisible find their voice, MyTeksi (now known as Grab), BillPlz, Evenesis, Trisilco, CashKu, Sycarda and so on. We have seen founders who were uncertain about their own story discover that their True North had been there all along, they simply had not named it yet. That is what a Legendmaker does: not create the legend from nothing, but reveal and protect what was already there.
What I Know About My Partner
Every time I watch Silmyi on stage, whether it is a room of fifty people or a national seminar, the same thing happens. He finds an angle nobody expected. He connects a Malaysian cycling champion to a question about trademark discoverability and suddenly the entire audience is leaning forward. That is not a trick. That is what happens when someone has spent their whole career thinking deeply about one thing.
He is a fighter. He was one when he started Brand Geeks Inc with nothing but a clear idea and a stubborn belief. He is one now, as we prepare for what looks to be a very difficult global economic period ahead. On his birthday this year, I want to say this plainly: I am grateful to have made that leap in 2012.
We are heading into a global recession. I am honest about my worry. But I am equally certain that this Legendmaker will make sure brands,
big and small, are equipped to face what's coming.
That is why the Challenger Brand Canvas he has developed matters so much right now. Because in a downturn, the brands that survive are not the biggest, they are the ones that know exactly who they are and why they exist. The ones with their own True North locked in, the ones with their own qiblah.
Fifteen Years On
Watching that MyIPO session, I was reminded why I made the leap in 2012. The brands building Malaysia’s future, the small ones, the sporting ones, the founder-led ones were being left behind. They had legends in the making. They just needed a Legendmaker to help them protect and grow what they were building.
Supermokh knew his True North. The crowds knew it too. Datuk Azizul is a living legend and the work of
making his brand as visible, as protected and as discoverable as his achievements is exactly the kind of work that still needs doing.
For Brand Geeks Inc, that has always been the work. Fifteen years in, it still is. Happy birthday, Silmyi!
About The Author
Siti Manisah Binti Mohamad Sarujee, a registered Technology Transfer Professional. Completing her Doctorate at IIUM developing an Islamic-informed market readiness framework for research commercialisation. Activation specialist, leads Module 3, ensuring every brand strategy built in the room has a clear, executable path to market. She knows which founder needs a push and which one needs a framework.
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Regarding Brand Geeks Inc
Since 2011, Brand Geeks Inc has helped brands evolve into tech-empowered market leaders. We’ve guided 300+ brands, including MyTeksi (before it became Grab), to turbo growth. We don’t just nurture legendary brands that change the world, we nurture the people who build them. Explore our portfolio and services at brandgeeksinc.com
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