Every founder has a defining moment – but few experience both the highest peak and the deepest collapse in the same arc. For Alvin Koay – the Co-founder of Zicy – that journey didn’t just shape his career; it fundamentally changed how he builds, leads, and survives in an era of constant disruption.
Key Takeaways
- Success can be temporary – market shifts can quickly turn wins into losses if a business lacks adaptability.
- Managing downside risk is critical; survival matters more than aggressive growth.
- Small, consistent wins can compound into long-term resilience during uncertain times.
- AI is reshaping how customers discover brands, creating invisible losses for businesses that don’t adapt.
- True success evolves from external validation to internal fulfillment, impact, and long-term sustainability.
When Winning Turns Into Losing
In 2014, Alvin Koay was on top of the world. His startup, MobileAds.com, had just swept The Guardian Activate Singapore competition, beating 32 global tech startups and earning validation from a panel of investors, academics, and media leaders.
The rewards came fast: partnerships, ad spend, investment capital, and industry recognition. It felt like momentum was guaranteed.
But the tech industry rarely moves in straight lines.
Within a few years, the rise of platform dominance – particularly from Google and Facebook – reshaped the advertising ecosystem. Independent ad tech companies found themselves locked out by “walled gardens” that controlled both data and distribution.
MobileAds didn’t just struggle; it became obsolete.
The collapse was total. The company was gone. Savings were depleted. Confidence took a hit.
“That win-to-wipeout arc redefined survival for me,” Alvin reflects.
Starting Again at Rock Bottom
By 2019, Alvin faced a stark reality: nearly 50 years old, jobless, with three children and a single-income household.
To start over, he borrowed MYR30,000 from his 70-year-old mother. It wasn’t just financial support – it was time.
With that, he launched Growth.pro, an SEO agency built on a simple principle: deliver results or don’t get paid. No long-term contracts. No empty retainers.
But just as the business began to gain traction, another crisis hit – COVID-19.
“Everything froze overnight,” he recalls.
Budgets disappeared. Leads dried up. The uncertainty was immediate and suffocating.
His wife stepped in, baking cookies and cakes to support the household while Alvin hustled for clients through cold outreach, referrals, and relentless effort.
There was no long-term strategy in that moment – just survival.
His mindset became simple: focus on one small win at a time.
A new client. A proposal sent. A campaign that worked.
Those small wins compounded – and eventually stabilized the business. But more importantly, they reshaped how Alvin approached entrepreneurship.
Reinvention: From SEO to AI
Growth.pro eventually grew into a solid agency. But then came another disruption – arguably even bigger than the first.
The rise of AI-driven search.
Platforms like ChatGPT and Google Gemini began changing how people discovered information. Instead of clicking through search results, users started asking AI directly – and receiving complete answers instantly.
For businesses, this created a hidden problem: Customers were still searching – but brands were no longer being seen.
“No traffic drop you could track. No impressions logged,” Alvin explains. “Just customers choosing someone else.”
Rather than resist the shift, Alvin and his team leaned into it. They began experimenting with ways to get brands cited within AI-generated answers – testing, failing, iterating, and refining strategies in real time.
What started as internal experimentation soon became a structured system.
That system became Zicy.
Building for the AI-First Internet
Today, Zicy focuses on a simple but powerful mission: helping brands become visible inside AI-generated answers.
Instead of competing for rankings on search engine results pages, Zicy ensures that when a user asks AI a question, the brand appears directly in the response.
The platform tracks visibility across major AI engines, diagnoses why a brand is being ignored, and helps fix the structural issues – content, authority, and data signals – that influence AI outputs.
This focus on execution – not just analytics – sets Zicy apart.
“Most tools show you a dashboard,” Alvin says. “We help you act on it.”
Zicy’s real advantage, however, comes from its roots. Years of hands-on experience from Growth.pro have been embedded into the product – turning agency insights into scalable technology.
That approach has already begun to pay off.
At the JETRO Malaysia-Japan Fast Track Pitch Event 2025, Zicy was selected by ADA Global (Axiata Digital) as a Challenge Owner Winner – opening the door to pilot projects across 15 countries.
For a startup built in Penang, it marked a major step toward regional expansion.
Zicy vs. AI Visibility Solutions
| Dimension | Tracking & Analytics Tools | SEO & Content Platforms | DIY / In-house Approach | Zicy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Core Focus | Monitoring AI citations and visibility across platforms | SEO + content creation with some AI optimization | Custom experimentation and manual execution | AI visibility + execution (diagnose, fix, and improve presence in AI answers) |
| Strengths | Clear visibility tracking; competitor benchmarking; multi-platform monitoring | Strong SEO foundation; scalable content production; familiar workflows | Flexible; customizable; low upfront cost | End-to-end system: tracking + diagnosis + execution; built from real agency experience; AI-first approach |
| Limitations | No execution layer; requires manual action | Not AI-native; AI features are add-ons; often generic outputs | No framework; slow iteration; hard to scale; inconsistent results | Early-stage category; requires market education |
Note: Example of Solutions by Category
- Tracking & Analytics Tools: Peec AI, Otterly.ai, XOFU, XSeek, ZipTie
- SEO & Content Platforms: Semrush, Ahrefs, Writesonic, Evertune AI, Ayzeo
- DIY / In-house Approach: Internal teams, freelancers, manual prompt engineering workflows
Mindset: Built Through Failure
Alvin’s leadership style is grounded in experience, not theory.
He leads from the front in the early stages – immersing himself in the details until the team can take ownership. But once they do, he steps back and gives them space to execute.
Clarity is his core principle.
“People don’t fail because they lack skill,” he says. “They fail because they lack clarity.”
His decision-making is guided by a few hard-earned rules applicable for all founders:
- Never take risks with unlimited downside;
- Share risk with clients – earn results, not retainers;
- Double down on what’s already working;
- Build for real value, not just revenue.
Failure, once feared, has become an advantage. Influenced by thinkers like Nassim Nicholas Taleb and Viktor Frankl, Alvin sees adversity as something that strengthens systems rather than breaks them.
“When your worst fear has already happened and you survived it,” he says, “uncertainty loses its power.”
Redefining Success
In his early years, success meant external validation – awards, revenue, recognition. Today, it looks very different.
Success is seeing clients grow because of what his team built. It’s watching his team become better at their craft; it’s showing his children what resilience looks like in real life.
It’s also about building meaningful work from Penang – a place he calls home – without needing external validation to prove its worth.
“Life is the canvas,” he says. “You’re always mid-painting.”
FAQs
1. What does Zicy do?
Zicy helps brands become visible inside AI-generated answers from platforms like ChatGPT and Gemini. It tracks citation presence and helps businesses fix the reasons they’re being overlooked.
2. Why is AI visibility important?
As more users rely on tools like ChatGPT, traditional search traffic is declining. Businesses must adapt to ensure they are included in AI-generated responses where decisions are increasingly made.
3. What inspired Alvin Koay to build Zicy?
After rebuilding from a failed startup and running an SEO agency, Alvin saw firsthand how AI was disrupting search. Zicy was created to solve the emerging problem of invisible brand loss in AI-driven environments.
4. What makes Zicy different from competitors?
Zicy goes beyond tracking by focusing on execution. It combines AI technology with real-world agency experience, making it more practical and actionable than most tools.
5. What is Alvin Koay’s core business philosophy?
He focuses on minimizing downside risk, following real market demand, and adapting quickly. His approach emphasizes resilience, clarity, and consistent progress over time.
This Founder feature was developed in collaboration with Alvin Koay as part of Biz.bio’s ongoing Founders Storytelling Series. Inquire to submit your story.
