- Building an SaaS platform was tough, each challenge proved a costly lesson in technical debt
- Build a product that solves real problems and achieves product–market fit, and money will follow
The path to building a successful tech company is rarely straight. Overnight success stories (rarely from Malaysia or its Southeast Asian neighbours though), often steal the spotlight, yet they mask the years of trial, error, and persistence that truly define a founder’s journey.
For Jeffri Shahul Hamid, founder and managing director of Kuala Lumpur-based Enginemailer, the journey spans over two decades. Enginemailer is a cloud-based platform that now delivers around two billion emails each year. His story is one of problem-solving and tight cash flows. Through it all, he’s learned when to hold course and when to pivot.
[Correction: An earlier version gave the wrong amount for emails sent a year.]
“I was born and bred in Malaysia. An average boy, not from a rich family,” Jeffri said. “I went to Cochrane Road School in Kuala Lumpur. I finished my SPM (equivalent to O levels), and fortunately enough, I got a government scholarship to study mechanical engineering in the UK. But when I came back, I didn’t pursue engineering,” he says with a laugh.
What stayed with him though, was the engineering mindset. “If you don’t know how to build a bridge, you go to the library, read a book, and you would know how to build a bridge,” he explains.
That mindset, to learn fast and solve problems, shaped his early career. Jeffri’s first job was with Keppel T&T in Singapore in 1999, working across Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines as part of a regional team building data centres.
“So, from my first job onwards, it was IT for me,” he says. “But two and a half years later, I realized it just wasn’t my cup of tea. I wanted to solve problems and not just be another number.”
From IT support to enterprise software
In 2002, he launched his first venture, Teneo Communications, initially focused on IT support and server management.
“I had a sleeping partner because, at the time, to set up a Sdn Bhd (Ptd Ltd), you needed two shareholders,” he said. “Honestly, for the first two years, we didn’t know what we wanted to do. It was about survival.”
Jeffri had grand plans to work on mobile image and ringtone downloads. He would wake up every morning and head to a coffee joint to work on a business plan. But he lacked the technical knowledge to make any progress. A year went by, and he realized he was on his own. Bills piled up, and his savings ran dry. “This was the point where I had to decide between going back to work for someone or figuring out a new service where I’m in control,” he recalls.
The company gradually pivoted into software development, building a content management system for SMEs well before platforms like WordPress or Joomla gained popularity.
“I wrote a business plan to raise money for a CMS (content management system) product. Those were very early days.”
He successfully raised US$500,000 (RM2 million) in 2004 from angel investors, but the SME model proved unsustainable. Many clients lacked the ability to produce content, forcing the team to take on additional work at no extra cost. “We made a lot of assumptions about SMEs that weren’t backed by data. Scaling was a nightmare. Without the cloud, each client required a separate installation,” he explained.
The challenges pushed him to pivot in 2005. They started focusing on enterprise clients, and it paid off. Early wins included media companies, banks, and big hotels. Soon, the email business was sending 50 million emails for one client and 30 million for another. That’s marked the real start of what would become Enginemailer, built around the need to help companies manage emails at scale.
“When we talk about problem solving, there are really two problems to solve,” Jeffri says. “One is the customer’s problem, but the other is our own. We couldn’t scale, and we struggled to win the next client.”
When a customer suddenly wanted to send more than 10 million emails, server capacity and bandwidth became immediate bottlenecks. The enterprise setups were heavily customised, making the system complex and extremely difficult to scale.
“We always thought sending 10 million emails would be like sending a thousand. One time, a client hit that mark, and we had to scramble. We had to rebuild databases. We had to reengineer processes. And we even had three team members copy millions of files overnight across servers. It felt like changing the wings of a plane mid-flight. That experience pushed us to build more robust software as the platform matured.”
Expanding internationally brought its own frustrations. Jeffri tried growing through partners, but the model proved tedious. For every 1,000 emails, Enginemailer earned about US$0.25 (RM1), while partners charged US$2 (RM8.) Much of the value was lost to middlemen, and the revenue rarely flowed back to Malaysia.
“Our first push was into Indonesiain 2017, where we landed a few prominent brands. That’s when we realised we had little control over pricing. End customers were paying 8 to 15 times more than what we charged through resellers. Collections were tricky too, and the imbalance made us rethink our approach,” Jeffri said.
At the same time, selling to large organizations was getting tougher. Governance, compliance, and data privacy requirements were increasing. On top of that, even though the business had pivoted to enterprises, it was still working with SMEs, juggling both markets at once.
“We spent time educating SMEs in the hopes of selling to them, only for many of them to sign up with global platforms like Mailchimp or MailerLite. That’s when we knew we had to change,” Jeffri says. “The world was moving to the cloud, digitalization was accelerating, and on-premise systems no longer made sense.”
Rebuilding for scale
By 2018, Enginemailer was rebuilt as a cloud-based SaaS platform, designed for scale with self-service sign-ups, automated onboarding, and rapid deployment.
“When we started, the goal was to remove scaling barriers and expand from enterprises to SMEs. Our first cloud attempt was just spinning up a Virtual Machine. We didn’t even know about microservices. After our first 10 paying customers, the registration system couldn’t keep up and needed a complete overhaul. Later, sending 10 million emails a day forced us to redesign the delivery engine. Each challenge was a costly lesson in technical debt.”
The early days were marked by trial and error as the team learned to navigate the shift from on-premise servers to the cloud. Backed by an existing digital business that was generating revenue, they reinvested profits to fund Enginemailer’s growth. The journey was fully bootstrapped, with no external capital raised. A point of pride for Jeffri.
The initial team was small. One front-end developer, one back-end developer, and a consultant acting as entrepreneur-in-residence, working closely to stabilize the platform. “Today, we have eight full-time staff. Four developers, a head of department, marketing, and account management. We also work with partners for content, SEO, and other services,” Jeffri says.
Growth was largely organic, driven by word of mouth. A key inflection point came in 2024 when Enginemailer launched on AppSumo, a popular platform connecting software startups with early adopters and deal-seeking customers. It attracted nearly 1,000 paying customers and a wave of valuable feedback.
That input helped shape the platform’s next phase in 2025. Integrations with tools like Zapier, Make.com, and CRMs such as HubSpot and Salesforce now allow Enginemailer to connect with thousands of systems, extending its reach globally.
Even as the platform was rebuilt in 2018, the core problem remained unchanged. ‘Our goal has always been to help businesses manage their database,” Jeffri says.
Many SMEs still struggle to store and manage customer data, while compliance has become increasingly important. Enginemailer was early to adopt PDPA (Malaysia’s Personal Data Protection Act) and GDPR (Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation) standards, tracking consent and ensuring secure handling of data.
The business model has evolved as well. “The shift has been from making RM1 million from one client to making RM1 from a million clients. The scale is completely different. Educating 100,000 clients digitally is very different from handling one enterprise,” he notes.
[RM1 = US$0.25]
Today, Enginemailer serves both premium users with monthly subscriptions ranging from US$9 to US$499 and enterprise clients paying RM10,000 to RM20,000 per month.
(Correction: An earlier version gave the wrong pricing for premium users.)
A cornerstone of the platform’s strategy is its “free-forever” plan for SMEs, offering unlimited subscribers and up to 10,000 emails per month. When usage exceeds the limit, users can upgrade starting at US$9. Unlike many competitors, Enginemailer does not charge based on the number of contacts, allowing clients to retain their database, history, and templates while scaling.
“Everything is automated. Failed payments downgrade to free plans automatically. Unlike many competitors, we don’t penalize growth. You retain your database and templates and can upgrade or downgrade anytime,” Jeffri says.
Expanding channels, AI and security
Email marketing, Jeffri stresses, is a middle-of-funnel strategy. “It’s not about instant sales, but building long-term engagement. An F&B business, for example, can collect emails over months and run a big campaign during holidays without paying repeatedly for ads. This creates lasting value,” he explains.
The platform currently delivers around 2 billion emails a year, with a goal to double that in 2026. Revenue is tied directly to value creation rather than subscriber numbers. “Our key metric isn’t subscriber numbers, it’s the number of emails sent,” Jeffri notes.
AI has become transformative. “AI allows us to provide international support around the clock without hiring multiple staff. It also helps detect spam, optimize campaigns, and improve content.”
“Costs are minimal, and we even provide some AI features free on the basic plan. Our goal is to make marketers succeed. When they succeed, we succeed,” he explains. AI generates subject lines, campaign suggestions, and insights, all cost-effectively.
With WhatsApp integration since end 2025, customers can reach audiences through both email and WhatsApp via a direct, Meta-approved integration. The team is now taking it a step further, working on an agentic AI bot that will integrate directly into WhatsApp conversations, with a planned launch in Q2 2026.
Security remains paramount. “So far, we haven’t faced major issues. Security is taken seriously because customers upload client data. Our architecture uses modern designs like microservices, cloud systems and we invest heavily in infrastructure. One mistake could ruin trust, and trust is everything,” Jeffri explains.
Customer first and scaling right
Reflecting on lessons learned over the years, Jeffri emphasizes customer-centricity. “When you’re building a SaaS, it’s never about us. It’s about the customers,” Jeffri says. “From the start, we thought we were the experts because we had a product. But what really matters is what the customer wants and the problems you’re solving for them.”
Scale, Jeffri adds, creates clarity. “If you’ve never sent 10 million emails a day, you won’t know how to design architecture. It will fail if you don’t think in terms of scale.”
He also warns against chasing revenue prematurely. “If you do, every client becomes a custom request, and you lose focus. Build a product that solves real problems and achieves product–market fit. Money will follow.”
“Rushing for VC funding often leads to technical debt and chaos,” he advises. Strategic fundraising, Jeffri adds, is about finding the right partner who can help merge the product, go to market, and integrate into the ecosystem.
After 20 years in entrepreneurship, Jeffri has embraced the human side of business. “It’s no longer about me. It’s about legacy, training people, and building a strong mindset. Seeing others succeed is far more rewarding than doing everything yourself,” he reflects.
Today, Enginemailer serves over 3,000 customers, with international subscribers contributing about 20% of its revenue. Jeffri’s journey with Enginemailer is a story of solving real problems. It’s also about scaling and learning along the way, all while keeping the customer at the heart of every decision.
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