Partners in Life

Founders of coconut ice cream brand, Sangkaya, John Isaac Ho and Sangrida Kaya unveil to Jessica Liew how the ‘tree of life’ sealed their fate together

It started off like any other love story. Nearly four years ago, John Isaac Ho, on a break from a bustling corporate career, crossed paths with the enigmatic Sangrida Kaya, a Thai events organiser passing through Kuala Lumpur on a project. But neither would have imagined building an ice-cream company churning a turnover of more than RM30 million a year. Plus in the process, finding the love of their lives in each other. The couple counts many accomplishments since that first meeting—such as opening 30 Sangkaya outlets in a year. But really, getting married in January 2016 was the testament of their journey as partners in life. “On New Year’s Eve of 2014, we sat down to talk about resolutions for the coming year. The first one I came up with was to get married, and our dream wedding was to have elephants,” revealed Ho. Later that year, the couple planned out the entire wedding in a month, which took place in their dream venue, Chiang Mai, complete with an elephant parade and dinner under the stars, being surrounded by their loved ones. But it’s not without reminiscing about their humble beginnings that Ho and Sangrida count their blessings. Before Sangkaya was conceived, Ho was toying with a and toast business. Each day, Sangrida bought raw ingredients, to experiment with recipes, and the balance was thrown out. They discussed ways to put coconut milk and the coconut itself to good use, and that’s when the eureka moment struck. Ho, himself not an ice-cream person, recalled enjoying a coconut ice-cream at Chatuchak market, and latched onto this idea. “First of all, there are multiple health benefits to coconut and secondly, ice-cream reaches out to everybody—this product was a springboard to tell the community of its advantages,” explained Ho. They began researching, experimenting, and eventually selling. To save on money, they bought a traditional Thai ice-cream churner costing RM800, and transferred it across the Malaysia-thai border via a fourhour freight train and tuk tuk journey. Ho single-handedly worked the machine from a shoplot in Kuchai Lama—two hours yielded a tub of 4kg ice-cream per barrel—almost onethird of what their growing, first stall in Jalan Alor demanded. Despite the exhaustion, it was the clear vision of Sangkaya’s future that kept the couple going. “The one mission was to spread the good benefits of coconut across the world. Every coconut that I cracked, every ice-cream she scooped, every step of the way, we were reminded of why we were doing this and the future we were looking at,” said Ho. Business was growing, and their relationship flourished, too. “We were new in the relationship and we got to know each other on the spot,” Ho reflected. “Our journey is likened to being on steroids.” Quite the opposite of Ho’s romantic side, there was nothing sentimental about his views on entrepreneurship. To him, it’s about ‘bootstrapping’—the ability to start from scratch. “Have the right expectations. Understand that entrepreneurship is basically about servitude, that is all.” His focus and drive earned him the admiration of Sangrida, a carefree and giving person by nature. “He is the person who taught me about teamwork, respect for each other, discipline and leadership. My life feels full because of him, and together we’ve learned a lot,” said Sangrida. Finding love and seeing it through the most life-changing time, it’s a story that’s hard to come by. “We may not be living a very romantic life but the experience of togetherness is in the daily life,” declared Ho, as he gazed lovingly at his partner in life.