"PEOPLE call me Superman!" begins Brian Johnson Lowe, the handsome founder and CEO of Poptron, an e-commerce platform for local start-ups to accelerate their growth and create more accessibility.
Breaking into a hearty chuckle that immediately lights up his hitherto earnest face, the 42-year-old is, for the first time in our chat, grappling for an answer to the unexpected question: Which superhero do you identify with most?
"Definitely not the flying part. But of all the superheroes, I tend to relate to Superman's story," continues Lowe, the chuckles eventually subsiding.
Adding thoughtfully, he muses: "You know, the way he was born into it (the power) and his struggles with it. He was already a grown-up by the time he realised he could fly."
Now in his element, the former co-founder of My Performing Arts Agency (MyPAA — a privately owned arts consultancy and arts event management agency that supports the continuing development of artistic and cultural efforts in Malaysia) points out the fact that Superman, just like him, lost his father and endured much pain because of it.
"Also, he eventually completely embraced his calling. He had people criticising him; and those who considered him a saviour. He has to be at the front but at the same time, invisible. It's something I can relate to…" Lowe continues breathlessly before breaking into a sheepish grin upon realising that he'd just been talking at the speed of a bullet train!
No, no, please continue, I mouth, encouraging the affable Penang-ite to elaborate further.
The hum of the air-conditioner in the cosy little room that we're in seems to grow louder with the ensuing pause.
His expression earnest, Lowe muses: "I don't really like being at the front, to be honest. Even during my MyPAA days I never enjoyed it. It was never about me. It was about the artists. I prefer to put the purpose at the front — not me."
And it's the "purpose" that continues to fuel this self-confessed perfectionist. Seated across from me, clad in a light blue shirt and a contented smile on his face, Lowe is raring to share about his latest mission — Poptron.
A NEW MISSION
Taking a gingerly sip of his Flat White, Lowe informs me that Poptron — a portmanteau combining the words "pop-up", "trust" and "online" — was launched barely a couple of months ago.
It features a list of micro and emerging brands that sell a variety of products, ranging from furniture to food, to skincare and fashion.
Enthusiastically, Lowe confides that the Movement Control Order (MCO) period proved to be a huge turning point for him.
"I only started Poptron during this time," he explains, adding that prior to the "lock down", he was still "double-hatting", namely juggling MyPAA and this new idea.
He'd done all the ground work and research but, as he puts it, didn't have the catalyst.
"The MCO became the catalyst," declares Lowe, before continuing that his excitement was dampened somewhat when he witnessed many in the creative industry having to struggle.
"Actually, I had to shut down MyPAA as a result of that. But it was during the MCO that I realised I'd learnt so much at MyPAA about helping creative people that it was time for me to merge these two realms. After all, creative tech is NOW!"
He subsequently dived headlong into this new "venture"; doing everything from pitching to nearly 50 investors with zero funds, and subsequently securing RM4 million in seed funding. Everything was launched in 30 days and well… that's why he's talking to me today.
"I've never really fundraised for myself before, like what I'm doing with Poptron now," muses Lowe.
"I've always fundraised for the arts, for example for the prestigious Royal Arts Gala where the King and Queen were the patrons; fundraised for Borneo 744, Malaysia's first Blue Ocean Entrepreneurship Township in Kuching, Sarawak… But I never really fundraised for my own thing."
Elaborating, he continues: "So I asked myself how far I could go. I then decided not to set myself that goalpost and to just do it. I was already 'locked up' anyway. So I did my 36-months spreadsheet and pitched that. That took me three weeks and then I just picked up the phone and kept calling. My network helped me. They were all locked up as well so everybody had 15 minutes to spare!"
He got rejected 42 times, confides Lowe, eyes dancing at the recollection. But it was okay. "Everyone referred me to somebody else and then another. From the Malaysian network it moved to Singapore, to Hong Kong, to Australia, US and then Europe. Eventually, I secured funding from Hong Kong, Singapore and China."
A TALE TO TELL
Although Poptron was launched only recently, its story, shares Lowe, started two years ago. His eyes light up as he regales me with how it all started.
"When I was working with MyPAA, I used to wander around the Publika promenade during my lunch breaks and enjoyed seeing the different bazaars there. I was always intrigued by the people who manned these pop-ups."
Continuing, he remembers picking up a shoe at one of the stalls, which had caught his attention. "I happened to be in the market for new shoes at the time. The one I'd picked up looked really solid. I checked for the brand but didn't recognise it. The person manning the stall actually came to talk to me and offered me details on the shoes."
The cost was RM499 but Lowe never blinked, thinking it worth the price "… because it really felt like a Ferragamo," he says, smiling.
He soon discovered that the young man he'd been talking to happened to be the designer of the shoes and founder of the brand.
"Then I started to engage him and we talked for a while," continues Lowe, adding: "I told him I wanted to buy the shoes. I handed him my debit card as I didn't have enough cash on me. But he didn't have a card processor."
To cut a long story short, Lowe shares that he agreed to make the purchase online. "I was told to go to the website," he recalls. Sheepishly, he adds that three weeks later when he was ready to make the purchase, he'd forgotten the name of the brand!
"I Googled everything I could think of," admits Lowe, adding: "I went on Instagram and Facebook… You'd think that you can find everything in the digital space but I couldn't locate his brand. I only found him two months later — in another pop-up. This time I paid cash!"
This "incident" — of not being able to locate the seller (and the brand) — niggled at him. But not enough until it happened a second time.
Remembers Lowe: "My team and I were looking for gifts for the speakers involved in Borak Arts (a platform that attempts to create opportunities and build capacity through the congregation of local and international cultural leaders, artists, presenters, producers, intermediaries, funders, academics and students). They took pictures of the items, came back and once we knew what we wanted, it was time to look for the brand."
But they couldn't. Just like what Lowe went through previously, they'd forgotten the name! "That was when I decided to do something," exclaims the father-of-one.
"I took a year to really investigate before eventually realising that a lot of these 'microbrands', who, although were very good at their craft, weren't necessarily great at digitalising the whole sales process. That's when I decided to start Poptron."
BRINGING A COMMUNITY TOGETHER
The idea, explains Lowe, is to give them all the tools they need to be successful so they can focus on what they like to do — making their products.
He elaborates: "I call them 'microbrands' and 'micro SMEs' because usually these brands are founded and operated by maybe one or two people who work day and night, seven days a week. They struggle and hustle to put their brands and themselves out there."
Struggle is something he can truly relate to, confides Lowe, adding that having been in the creative space before, he's fully aware of what they were going through. "I know it's very frustrating when you have a passion but you don't know how to push yourself to a point where you can sustain your passion in your daily life."
He confides that he gets really excited when he sees THEM excited by the heights they can reach by being a part of the Poptron "community".
"Their excitement fuels me to go back to the team and try to find more ways that we can empower them. Every time they win, I feel like we win together," says Lowe, softly.
Many of these brands, he shares, are extremely "conscious" brands. They purposely choose fabrics that are fair trade, ingredients that are organic.
"It's all thoughtful," says Lowe, adding: "My mission is really to nurture these kinds of communities because they really inspire the sort of meaningful lifestyle in pockets. They have their fans who go from one pop-up to another to buy this kind of thing. Not only do I want to elevate this inspiring lifestyle, I also want to multiply that impact."
And what do you get out of this, I blurt out. "You mean monetary?" He poses in return. And then, with a firm shake of his head, Lowe replies: "At this stage, the monetary part isn't that important. I believe that if you build a great product, you solve a problem, and at the same time you generate impact, the money will come."
The Penang-ite, who was also responsible for conceiving, writing and presenting the strategy and execution papers to form Cultural Economy Development Agency (CENDANA) admits that he'd always been intrigued by creativity and technology.
"I've always found ways to bring these together in small ways," shares Lowe before admitting that this is his first real foray into solving and bringing real tangible products into the market, where people are actually transacting thousands of dollars.
"It's scary," he emphatically admits, before confiding: "And not being a person who has been 100 per cent brought up in that technological sphere can be very intimidating. My challenge is trying to build a product fast enough to solve the problems quick enough. We need to catch up with the rest!"
It's still early days, I assuage him. And he smiles, again sheepishly. Taking another sip of his coffee, Lowe muses that he's his own biggest critic. "I'm just OCD," he says, chuckling good-naturedly. But he doesn't view the problems as a burden. In fact, problems are what drive him.
"I've always been what I call 'industry agnostic'," confides Lowe, before elaborating: "It means that I can jump into any space — industry — and if I love it or are passionate enough about it, I'll dive deep to find out how to scale myself up or to at least make sure that I know enough to contribute back towards improving things."
HIS NORTH STAR
Just like Superman, Lowe is quietly resolute in his mission to make the world a better place.
The global climate change triggered a serious reflection and as he admits: "I'd been silently observing it. I watched this video called The Fourth Second which made me realise that if you compress the life span of the planet, which is 4.5 billion years old, and put the lifespan of humanity on planet into seconds, we as a human race have been on planet Earth for about three seconds of its 24 hours."
Despite the brevity, we've done enough damage to the point that we're probably NOT going to reach the fourth second, says Lowe, silent dismay lacing his tone.
He adds: "And we've done that so badly and so casually that we don't even realise it. We're actually accelerating it every single second."
Solemnly, he confides that he has a three-and-a-half-year-old daughter. "What world am I going to leave her with?"
A blanket of sombreness suddenly descending on our chat, Lowe adds that the "a-ha" moment for him was triggered as a result of two very important events in his life — his daughter's birth and his father's passing.
"My father passed away last year," he begins, before continuing softly: "Going through the whole process of burying him, feeling the earth in my hand and knowing that your lifespan isn't infinite and that you'll eventually perish to the ground… I asked myself what I'm going to leave behind."
He'd never been able to answer that question before. Until those two things happened.
"It hit me then that I wanted to leave this planet or at least try to leave this planet in a better state than when I arrived," shares Lowe.
Thoughtfully, he confides that he pondered what he could do, in his own capacity, to change things.
"Not much, I realised," he concedes, adding: "Even if you changed your life to the absolute max and be an environmentalist or live in the mountains and be self-sustaining etc, you're still not contributing enough to tilt anything."
Then he found the golden opportunity — through Poptron.
"I realised as I talked to these brands, all of whom are promoting organic, fair trade, reducing carbon emissions… we could together make an impact."
Excitedly, Lowe points out: "If I had 60,000 brands like this, that positive impact can be multiplied; it's much more than I can possibly do on my own, in my lifetime. That's my thing now. Creativity and technology, empowering society but at the same time, contributing our bit to this goal. Just like how Tesla is doing, a company I really admire."
The soft-spoken Aquarius admits that he's deeply attracted to the idea of finding ways to improve society without infringing on their natural, inherent sense to be creative. "But at the same time, multiplying this positive impact. That's my North Star!"
Losing his father, reiterates Lowe, was life-changing for him.
"It really put everything into perspective," he says, adding sagely: "One's purpose in life is very important. For me, it had never been set at the beginning; it has been a constant discovery process. For some people, it's discovered late. I'm 42. Damn, I've finally discovered it!"
TRUE LOVE
A sense of unbridled energy permeates our little space as suddenly as the blanket of sombreness had, before it.
I soon discover that with Lowe, nothing is ever dull. For starters, contrary to his image of the somewhat preppy intellectual, he's actually a grunge-king.
"I love grunge!" he exclaims, as our chat begins to veer towards slightly lighter topics. My expression of surprise prompts him to happily share that his true love is actually music. He's the composer, producer and rhythm guitarist for his band, Primitive Leap!
His eyes light up when he says: "Well, I did use to have a band. But ever since I moved to KL, it has been hard for me to return to Penang to jam with the boys. The last time we were together was over a year ago. I've been with the band since school. They're my childhood friends!"
His band, he proudly declares, was pretty majmuk (multiracial). "We had one Malay, one Chinese, one Indian, and one DLL (others), which was obviously me, being a Eurasian!" Lowe reels off, before confiding that it (the make-up) was all quite accidental, and not by design.
His love affair with the guitar was triggered by his late father, Christopher, who used to be in the Navy and played in a band.
Turning to a folder next to him, Lowe pulls out an old picture, which upon closer inspection, shows a toddler being held by a man.
"That's dad," says Lowe, as I note the beginning of a tear welling in his eye. "Today would have been his birthday," he adds, before apologising profusely for becoming emotional. Suffice it to say, Lowe, an only child, was very close to his father who passed away from a heart attack.
"Dad was quite a character; quiet but strong," remembers Lowe, who has a background in Business Administration.
"I think I picked up a lot of those traits from him. But he also had another side to him. Everyone remembers him as being a happy person with an infectious laugh. His two passions in life were music and drinking!"
Lowe, whose mother, a housewife, still lives in Penang, recalls seeing many pictures of his late father during his band days in the Navy.
"He played in a band called Night Hawk," exclaims Lowe, chuckling fondly.
Continuing, he shares that his father taught him how to play the guitar and as he got older, both father and son would play together in church.
"I started with a normal acoustic guitar. Dad would teach me the oldies," he remembers, adding: "You Are My Sunshine was literally the first tune I learnt and dad would sing along as I played. Later, I graduated to electric guitar — that was about the time I found my band boys."
Why didn't you become a rock star, I prod, imagining this preppy, artsy person in front of me decked out in leather and chains.
Lowe grins before replying: "I chose not to pursue a career in music because I knew it'd be difficult. My father had a lot of friends who, after moving on from the Navy, decided to become musicians and played nights in pubs. It was difficult to make ends meet. They were happy people but they struggled. I didn't want that."
As fate would have it, Lowe has found his calling. And it's one that he's happy to answer. As I drain the last few drops of my already cold cappuccino, I lob him my final — and most important — question. "Seriously though, Brian, do you actually have those Superman glasses?"
His guffaws fill up the room and on that note, I am guessing that he does!