We started by helping strangers. We ended up helping home cooks.
Dapor didn't start as a catering app. It started as a way to help people during the hardest part of the pandemic — and what we learned along the way changed everything.
We started with a peer-to-peer web app.
In 2021, Malaysia was under lockdown and people needed help. Waymaker was a peer-to-peer web app connecting people who needed help with people who could give it. Groceries, medicine, a listening ear. Nothing complicated, just people showing up for each other when it mattered most.
It worked better than we expected.
Source: "A passion to help, and it's more than Milo and rice bags," Free Malaysia Today, July 2021
Along the way, we noticed something else.
As people lost jobs and income during the pandemic, many turned to something they already knew how to do well: cook. Home kitchens that had only ever fed family started feeding neighbours, then strangers, then whole events. It wasn't a side hustle anymore — for many, it was becoming a real income.
The skill was never the problem. The opportunity to turn it into something sustainable was.
"How can we empower people like them to become micro-entrepreneurs — to work from home, do what they enjoy, earn a living and eventually grow their business into something sustainable?"
This was never just a business idea.
In founder Arun's childhood home, the kitchen was where his mother's skill truly shone — dishes rich with flavour, prepared with an ease shaped by years of experience. But like many homemakers, her talents rarely extended beyond the family kitchen. Caregiving responsibilities always came first, and the opportunity to turn that passion into income never materialised.
It wasn't just his mother. Co-founder Richard's wife loved to cook too, but raising three young children made it difficult to turn that skill into a business. For Arun, it was a pattern he couldn't ignore.
Source: "A recipe for change: turning cooking skills into income," Free Malaysia Today, May 2026
So we built the thing that was missing.
Dapor soft-launched in December 2022 — a platform designed to give home-based cooks and caterers real visibility, and to give customers an easy way to find them. No more scattered social media pages, no more guessing. Just a direct connection between great food and the people looking for it.
Today, that idea has grown into two ways to work with us — Direct and Drop — but the mission hasn't changed since the first volunteer request was answered on Waymaker: help people, by connecting them to the people who can help.
The short version.
Waymaker launches as a peer-to-peer web app during COVID-19 lockdowns. 350+ requests posted, 280 needs met.
Dapor soft-launches in December, connecting home-based caterers with customers across Malaysia.
Dapor grows into two programs — Direct and Drop — serving one-off events, everyday lunch pools, and offices alike.