Lim Wei Shan
Practice principal. Former operations lead at a Penang food marketplace. Writes the two-sided reports and chairs definition workshops.
The practice
A small desk in Perai, reading other people’s markets.
Agent Canvas Base exists because marketplace apps in Malaysia are often described with a single activation number that hides the stall. We started the practice after sitting in too many rooms where a food app celebrated new kitchens while riders in Butterworth still opened empty maps, and where a classifieds app counted listings that never took a call.
The work is deliberately old-fashioned. We take an export, we argue about definitions, and we write a report that a product lead can hand to operations without translating jargon. We are not a software vendor. We do not retain a login to your app after the briefing. The artefact is paper (or a PDF that behaves like paper) and two conversations.
Why Penang
The office is at Prai Industrial Estate, Phase 4, because that is where several of the B2B exchanges we read actually live — parts, logistics, factory procurement. Consumer marketplaces in George Town and Butterworth sit a short drive away. Being here means a briefing can include a walk past a wet market or a purchasing office, which is sometimes more useful than another slide about drop-off.
How we work
Every engagement has a named writer and a second reader. The writer runs the workshop and drafts. The reader is instructed to find places where we have implied an event that was never recorded. If the second reader cannot see the field, the sentence comes out. That habit is slower than a dashboard screenshot. It is also why clients keep the document.
We take a small number of reports at a time. If a window falls entirely inside a festival fortnight, we will say so and wait. Fees are quoted per engagement; there is no retainer for “access” to us.
People
Who writes, who reads, who sits with sellers.
Three people. Credentials are ordinary for this kind of work: years inside marketplace operations, not a laboratory.
Rajendran Menon
Second reader. Previously kept seller records for a classifieds app. His job is to strike sentences that assume a field the export does not contain.
Nur Aisyah Rahman
Field interviewer when a seller study includes a stall visit. Trained in qualitative interviews; she does not recruit sellers unless you introduce them.
What we will not pretend
We will not describe this practice as a laboratory, a campus, or a movement. We write activation reports for marketplace apps. If your question is really about paid acquisition, kitchen photography, or rebuilding event collection, we will say the report cannot do that work and point you back to the people who can.