Home-grown Malaysian tech startup, RAGE has been the talk of the town for reinventing the local coffee scene in the Klang Valley with a refreshing new cafe concept and mobile application, DrinkRage. Armed with a catchy “RAGE to #NeverSettle” tagline, the brand hopes to assemble go-getters, dream chasers and entrepreneurs to do what they love, and #NeverSettle, while fuelling themselves with specialty coffee and other sumptuous offerings.
Let’s hear more about RAGE from GIS alumna Makissa Sophia Smeeton (Class of 2012), the company’s Chief Community Officer and Designer.
Makissa, can you please tell us more about the growth of RAGE Coffee?
We are just 5 months old and currently have 11 locations, with 1 more to go at the end of the year! It has been a surreal yet exciting time, especially seeing something grow from scratch – and seeing my designs everywhere.. Slowly but surely adding more pink around KL. We are all very humbled with what has happened so far and are still learning everyday. Our team is expanding fast too, which is great for meeting new people who are add to RAGEs culture and family.We have a lot more in store and can’t wait to see this come to life!
Tell us about your personal journey with the company.
I began as a freelancer, and helped come up with RAGE’s branding and identity. My work quickly evolved into a full-time community role, which involved setting up our first RAGE store and flagship outlet. In addition, I have worked on marketing across digital and social channels, graphic design for menus, packaging, and even designs for our website and App (which is now available on both the App Store and Google Play – DrinkRage!).
How would you describe RAGE’s vision and values?
At RAGE, we encourage individuals to RAGE against the mundane: why allow society to label you? If you’re a creative you can also be corporate, and vice versa!
We are a community driven through 3 R’s:
- Relationships: building relationships with those around you, and/or your relationship with the environment or your health)
- Revitalisation: through our drinks or the punching bag we have at our flagship outlet (whenever you need a stress outlet!)
- Reinventing: perspectives and ideas.
What are your future plans for RAGE Coffee?
With the fast ‘RAGE boom’ as we call it where we have opened a total of 11 locations, 2 of which are fully fledged kitchens, our plans are now to keep growing our community of RAGErs and to explore ways in which we can benefit one another more. This involves more collaborations, partnerships and events that we would host in our Flagship space, vendor for at out of home events and co-hosting various others. We always aim to give back, and believe that we should ‘RAGE for change’ wherever possible. So far, we’ve already hosted a platter of events at our flagship space including jazz nights, board game nights aWithout giving too much away, we will also be teaming up with a Malaysian NGO soon to create some fun, magical events to raise funds for them.
We are also proud to have released our App, DrinkRage, for both iOS and Android. With this we have also integrated events under the ‘Community’ function of the App, where customers can get involved in learning new skills in workshops, kickback with jazz nights and even work out a sweat through Shadow boxing activities too!
We are also open to getting involved in more community events as coffee/pop-up vendors. If you’re running an event in KL and keen to know more, all you need to do is contact RAGE at: hello@drinkage.com
GIS Alumni Discount!
We take pride in caring for our community, and growing up at GIS played an important role in my life. This is why we want to extend an invitation to the GIS community to enjoy a little RAGE!
All GIS members and alumni can enjoy 5% off their drinks, either by showing their GIS ID Card at one of our 11 locations, or by using the promo code RAGEGIS on our DrinkRage App. This promotion is applicable for one year until October 1st 2020.
Bringing you coffee and community on demand through our 11 locations, our DrinkRage App is available for download on both iOS and Android.
Let’s paint the town RAGE together.
Promocode: RAGEGIS