KUCHING: When you play the But Honestly card game, your immediate assumption is that it was invented by someone who is not from Malaysia.
You would be shocked to know that the founding members of the card game are actually all Sarawakians. The team of four are all below the age of 30, namely, Sarah Wong, 27, Ting Shi Qi, 26, Davin Ngu,24 and Regina Lim also 24.
The card game was established in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic, starting with a conversation between Wong and Shi Qi who later invited Ngu to join them.
But Honestly, approaching its third year, already has over 10,000 followers on Instagram and 13,400 followers on Tiktok and is slowly making an impact internationally.
All four members are from Kuching, and currently their cards have made their debut in the United States of America (USA), Singapore, United Kingdom (UK) and also other countries around the world.
The entire deck of cards has four levels — white, blue, red and black — and all have influences of psych theories.
New Sarawak Tribune interviewed Ngu to have him explain and share the journey behind the card game.
Journey to create deeper friendships
Ngu, commonly known by his peers as Davin, had a full-time teaching job in a private school in Kuala Lumpur where he worked close to two years before he quit to focus on the But Honestly business.
Despite his love for teaching, he had to look at his calling and where the business was going.
He reflected on the journey and of the wonderful success stories and heart-touching testimonies received from the public.
“It started back with Sarah and Shi Qi, the original founders of But Honestly, and how I came into (the picture) was (at the time) I was a psychology graduate, I was passionate about what they had.
“I came up with a few theories and I showed them, immediately the next question was, when do we start?”, he said.
The basic core value of the card game, according to Davin, is to build deeper relationships, adding that it is a tool, and the conversations that come out of it are totally planned and that is something they have developed from the card.
“The colours actually came from psych theories, where it states people need to get warmed up to conversations so we came out with 3 levels , level 1 is the easiest which is white, level 2 which is blue, conversations gets a bit deeper and then level 3, colour red, where from psychological perspective, red is something that is urgent.
“When people go into all 3 levels, that’s when we need to sit down, and reflect on the questions. Level 1 is like warm up, level 2 is where you’d have a little bit of fun and then level 3 is let’s get down to business,” Davin said.
The business grew in no time, and in less than three years, the business has attracted young adults, families and people from different social status enquiring about But Honestly.
“We know that this is a business adventure, at the same time But Honestly is also personal.
“Funny enough,when we were sharing our expectations and at the start of it we weren’t sure if this was a part time thing,” Davin explained.
Davin and the team decided from a business standpoint that But Honestly was a serious commitment.
“Every week we started researching after every game, we started developing questions, we started with 200 questions and then it went down to 50, we were so committed to it,” he said.
He shared that during the launching of ‘But Honestly, we didn’t like some questions, we felt that some decks were not perfect.
“I was doing my final year thesis, I was 21 (at the time) as we started in 2021, it kicked off on my birthday,” said Davin.
From tagline to brand name
But Honestly came from a common phrase used today, “but honestly right, I don’t think I’m doing well,” or “but honestly I’m struggling with something”.
But Honestly was a tagline and now the brand name of the card game.
When asked what has been the biggest challenge, Davin said the startup process was the biggest challenge.
“For me, I don’t want to fixate on the past because one of the biggest challenges is starting out. I remember starting out, one-shot we had 700 decks.
“We were in a small apartment and that was packing and packing, that was a challenge, we stayed up all night, just to pack the decks of cards,” he said.
For Davin today, the biggest challenge is to sustain growth and to move forward.
“The second challenge is growth. From a business point of view, we don’t want (to have) investors, we don’t want to veer away from our purpose (which is) to create deeper relationships.
“If we have investors, they will want to do what they want and (currently) everything is organic, right now we have enough,” he said.
But Honestly has its cards produced from Hong Kong and it takes four months to produce 1,000 cards. According to Davin, they started with a Malaysian company but the production process took seven months to produce 700 cards.
The entire deck, which has 3 levels each, consists of 100 cards
He said the card game was making an impact internationally, but that as a company, they were placing their foundations in Malaysia.
“People do recognise the brand, and that is super encouraging, the tagline ‘hey but honestly right’ is a Malaysian tagline and that has been a constant brand name and we don’t plan to change it,” he said.
“It’s quite cool when we meet up with people; many didn’t think we were a start-up.
“We met this friend in a cafe, he was so kind and he offered us this place to rent at RM400 plus, that event happened in one week and in one week, we got things done and we ran the event.
“It was super successful, it was sold out and this was last year,” he said.
Besides selling the card game online through its Instagram page and its website, But Honestly also earns through the various events it organises.
The end game
Davin dreams of having an office and one day owning a cafe to welcome But Honestly lovers over.
“The vision business-wise, definitely, is to have an international impact. I had a vision where I saw this huge continent and there were very small lights (in those areas).
“People were creating new friendships, our card game is still here probably they are not the right friends to journey with you. But a new community is being formed; we want to do this internationally,” he said.
He also said that all of his volunteers were unexpectedly Sarawakians.
“All of us are Sarawakians, our graphic designer was also from Kuching.
“Even when we hired volunteers, ten of them were all from Sarawak,” he said.
When asked what was the direction But Honestly was heading to, Davin said that it was first realising that there were others who also thought highly of them but also understanding that as a company, they were in a challenging environment.
“You realise that this is not just a passion project anymore. This is the real deal, there are people who just want to get money from you.
“Honestly, there’s no difference, but there are people who stir you on. Money is important because it provides survivability but also the highlight is when we realise that we are self-sustainable,” he said.
Davin recalled a conversation with the chief executive officer (CEO) of a company who complimented But Honestly, saying as a team they could be millionaires in six months if they wanted to.
It was then he realised that, “actually people do see potential in us,” he said.
“We have clients and people think highly of us. But on the flip side, I’m very keen on how to live my life better,” he added.
Davin said one of the advantages of But Honestly being in KL was for it to be surrounded by big offices.
But Honestly just launched a ‘Friends and Strangers’ event where people sat down for two and a half hours and played the game.
Besides that, Davin announced that But Honestly would be launching a ‘couples deck soon, where the gameplay will still be the same as the original card.
“We aim to launch the new card in May this year. It’s completely a separate deck. It’s a new card for couples,” he said.
