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Cultivating the ZUS Spirit:
My Key Takeaways from Speaker's Speech
The Training Rewards
It’s always on an absolute high note that I handed out ZUS Coffee gift cards to my students who won prizes during my recent Next-Gen Workforce Productivity and Creativity: Mastering Strategic Output with NotebookLM training sessions. Seeing their happy faces when they received them was incredibly rewarding. For so many of us, coffee is a daily morning essential the moment we wake up.
11 July 2026- I finally attended an event I had been looking forward to for weeks: Demo Day Batch 8 at the TEGAS Digital Village, Kuching. (a Charitable Trust dedicated to promoting TVET & STEM Education, Digital Innovation and Digital Entrepreneurship amongst Sarawakian.) While the entire atmosphere was buzzing with innovation & pitching, the absolute highlight for me was the keynote by Venon Tian, the Group COO of ZUS Coffee.
It was clear he had spent significant time preparing a presentation designed to deliver deep, actionable value. His story was a masterclass in raw passion, strategic execution, and the unique reality of scaling a business.
Tegas Digital Village Batch 8 Demo Day
Venon Tian's sharing on the stage
From a 200-Square-Foot Store to a Coffee Empire with 1000+ outlets today
Every massive success story starts with humble beginnings. Venon shared how ZUS Coffee began with the team working as part-timers out of a tiny 200-square-foot store. Later, they moved into an office space located directly above a Watsons store. Despite the grueling daily grind, they happily climbed those staircases every single day because they were genuinely passionate about the work they were building.
In a world obsessed with rigid corporate templates, Venon dropped a refreshing truth bomb: it is perfectly okay not to have a strict 3 to 5 years plan. Sometimes, you just have to keep showing up and working for it.
Culture, Focus, and the Power of Execution
As the company scaled, Venon shared his perspective on business shifted radically. He admitted that he did not initially believe in the importance of corporate culture. However, scaling up taught him that setting the right tone early is critical to holding a growing organization together.
The Dynamics of Growth: Attacking, Defending, and Learning
Using a brilliant football analogy, Venon explained that modern business requires a balance of attacking and defending. Attacking means pushing boundaries and driving forward with absolute energy. Defending means identifying the organizational gaps, filling them, and ensuring your operational infrastructure stays in place so the company does not explode under the pressure of its own growth.
People surprised he learned the tools are mostly from YouTube, reading, and observing giants like HaiDiLao. Continuous looking and reading & watching videos are his primary engines for growth. This has hit into my soul. If we truly want to learn something, we will find a way.
The Ultimate Career Conclusion: There is No ZUS Without You
We already know Zus Coffee is heavily driven by technology today. However, he firmly stated, "Technology is not going to replace you." He looked out at the room and reminded everyone that the human element is irreplaceable, concluding with a powerful reminder that there is simply “No ZUS without You”.
For your own career development, let this be your ultimate self-motivation cue. Developing into efficient and competent people requires an act of daily agency. Stop waiting for the perfect 3-5 year blueprint if you don’t have. Instead, commit to continuous learning, master the everyday mundanity of your craft, protect your focus from external noise, and execute your ideas with absolute precision. You hold the ultimate power to evolve your career infrastructure, therefore you should step up to the plate, find your balance of attack and defense, and level up your professional lineup today.
