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Kota Kinabalu: MessengerCo Co-Founder cum Chief Executive Officer Heaster Andrea Hilary (pic) said her corporate gifting platform grew because she hired people who were better than her at their jobs.
“I knew from the start that I needed co-founders who complemented my own gaps, a chief technology officer (CTO) to handle the product and a chief operating officer (COO) to run daily operations, because my own strength lies in finance, funding and strategy rather than in technology,” said Heaster, now in her 11th year as an entrepreneur and fifth year running MessengerCo.
She shared her approach at the CEO Masterclass Podcast Live, themed “Conversations that Matter,” held at the Sabah International Convention Centre in conjunction with the CEO Masterclass Sabah 2026.
The event was organised by the Sabah Young Business and Industry Leaders (SYBIL) in collaboration with the Malaysian International Chamber of Commerce and Industry Sabah and supported by the State Industry, Entrepreneurship and Transport Ministry. Daily Express is the media partner.
“To be honest, I am only good at talking. I know nothing about tech. My strength is in finance, accounting and strategy. I can take care of the company’s funding, resources and manage it well.
“At that time, I knew I needed a CTO and also a COO, someone who is very good at running the business even if I am not there,” she said, adding that she wanted to build a team capable of thinking for the business, not just carrying out tasks handed to them.
“I do not want to just hire people who get a customer inquiry, fulfil it and deliver it. I need someone who can also help us think about what is wrong, how we can improve, how we can automate some processes,” she said.
She said after building her team, she went on to build processes, goals and achievable outcomes for them.
She said she deliberately hires people stronger than her in their own fields and empowers them to run their areas without needing her sign-off.
“We hire people who are better than us. My head of sales is a better salesperson than me, my CTO is obviously a better coder. My job is to make sure they have the resources and the vision is clear. From day one, I told my COO, your job is to make me redundant, because if I am needed for every decision, we cannot scale,” she said.
She acknowledged that trusting a team this way does not come easily to most founders.
“It takes a lot of ego management to admit that people are better than you at their jobs. But if the vision depends only on you, it is a weak vision. It has to be able to live on its own,” she said.
She said this trust in her team carried her through her hardest stretch as a founder, when investors questioned her age and her choice of industry.
“When I spoke to investors, they told me that gifting is a tradition business, ‘Why should I invest in you? or ‘You are too young.’ Those are the moments where you double question yourself.
“But then I look at my team, I see my CTO, I see my COO, and I see the customers using MessengerCo and I realise that the mission is bigger than my fear.
“My darkest moment was probably when we were building the Minimum Viable Product and it kept failing. Tech is hard. But my CTO kept saying, trust the process. And I did,” said Heaster, who is in her 30s.
Her advice for young entrepreneurs is, “Do not wait”.
“A lot of people wait for the perfect economy or the perfect idea. There is no such thing. The best time to start was yesterday, the second best time is now. And do not be afraid of failure.
“In my 11 years, I have failed so many times, but each failure was just a lesson that helped me build MessengerCo.
“Just start small, test your idea, and if it fails, pivot fast. Grit is more important than a PhD in business,” she said.
