Dr. Rahim Lost Millions Before He Built MyHeart Centre.
Dr. Abdul Rahim Tahir is no ordinary doctor. He is a heart specialist with more than a decade of experience, a solid reputation and deep expertise in his field. But the moment he stepped into business, none of that automatically meant he knew how to build and run one.
Before MyHeart Centre existed, Dr. Rahim had already tried more than seven different businesses — dates, coconut milk, nuts, a factory and a few other ventures. Some didn’t work out, some stalled halfway, and from all of that he admits the losses he carried eventually ran into the millions.
That experience taught him one very important thing: being an expert in your profession is not the same as being able to build a business.
Dr. Rahim had capital, ideas, and he read business books too. But the real challenge showed up when all that knowledge had to be turned into decisions and action. When too many opportunities look attractive, the question is no longer whether an idea is good or not. It’s what to do first, which opportunity deserves the focus, and how to manage people, marketing, operations and systems properly.
That experience mattered a lot when he and his wife, Puan Khadijah Khalid, started thinking about building something that eventually grew into MyHeart Centre.
The decision wasn’t easy. At the time, Dr. Rahim already had a stable career as a heart specialist, Puan Khadijah was working too, and they had family responsibilities. On top of that, the memory of past failures was still fresh, so deciding to try again came with a very real fear — what if the same thing happens again?
But this time, their approach was different.
After going through the RichWorks programme and later being in the The Titan mentoring community in 2019, they stopped looking for just any business to do. Instead, they started looking at the strength Dr. Rahim had built over the years — his expertise, his reputation, the trust patients had in him, and a deep understanding of a real problem in the market.
As a heart specialist, Dr. Rahim saw for himself how many patients wanted faster answers about their heart condition. In the public hospital system, getting access to a specialist can take time, while in private hospitals the cost can be higher.
That’s where the idea came from — an outpatient heart specialist centre where patients can get checks, consultation and clear explanations faster, without having to go through the whole hospital process at the early stage.
That was the foundation of MyHeart Centre.
Today, MyHeart Centre is in about its sixth year and has grown to two locations. According to Dr. Rahim, the service model they built is one of the more unique ones in Malaysia because it focuses on specialist outpatient heart care outside the traditional hospital setting.
But like most businesses that grow, opening one centre doesn’t make the journey easier. When one centre becomes two, the challenges change too. It’s no longer just about medical expertise, but about building a team, systems, operations and management that can hold the quality of service even when the founder isn’t at every location.
This is where Dr. Rahim and Puan Khadijah’s journey gets more interesting. After going through several failures, they no longer see MyHeart Centre as just a clinic. They see something that can grow, help more patients, and at the same time be built into an organisation with systems and long-term continuity.
Today, their challenge is no longer whether the market needs the service. The demand is already there. The real challenge is making sure the systems, team and organisational structure are strong enough before expanding further.
They also have the aspiration to build more centres and, in the long run, potentially develop a hospital focused on cardiovascular care.
But the biggest lesson from this journey isn’t just about how far MyHeart Centre will go.
It’s about what happened before they got to this point.
Dr. Rahim had the expertise, the reputation and the capital, yet he still lost millions because he eventually realised that professional knowledge and business-building knowledge are two different things. You can be excellent in your field and still need to learn strategy, management, finance, marketing, systems and leadership once you enter business.
Failure also doesn’t mean someone isn’t cut out to be an entrepreneur. Sometimes it happens because you’re trying to build something without the knowledge, clarity and guidance that match the level you’re aiming for.
For Dr. Rahim, the journey meant going back to learning — this time not as a heart specialist, but as a founder.
He had long known how to take care of the human heart. But to build an organisation around that expertise, he had to go through failure, carry the losses, learn again, and finally understand that expertise alone is never enough to build a business that can last and grow.
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