[circuiter]

Giving advice is so easy, so here goes:

> Just a bit of background. I'm 23 years old this year.

You're still young, don't worry, the sun is still rising in your life, but don't just sit back and watch it.

> Graduated last year from a top university in UK with a Bachelors(Hons) Chemical Engineering. Right after I graduated, I went back to my home country Malaysia. I always knew I wanted to start a startup.

Congratulations, with an engineering degree from a top UK university, apart from whatever you learned and whoever you met, migration to other countries is easier for you.

> In fact, I did try to start a couple of startups -Tripadvisor-ish for students, Groupon clone and some small 'projects' during the summers like trying to sell "pure fruit juice" during carnivals and stuff like that. None worked out.

You've failed several times early, that's good, failure is a good teacher and failing is much harder when you have a spouse and two kids. The important thing is to know why you failed and learn what you should and shouldn't do next time. Hopefully there were people to give you feedback. You also need to look at your ideas in a more fundamental and original way. The desire to solve a problem and a way to the solution should come first, not the startup. Describing startups as "Tripadvisor for students" , "Hackernews for ballet dancers" , "Mixpanel for paper trails" betrays a wrong mindset. An example of doing it the right way would be "I have an idea for a case that allows you to use electronics with magnetic storage in places that have strong passive magnetic fields, I should start a company to sell this to the several industries in my state"

> Last year when I came back, tried to start an online grocery startup but within 2 months, I just knew it wasn't feasible unless I had some decent funding or some sort.

Be glad you didn't have enough money to spend to setup an online grocery.

> For the next 6 months, I literally just stayed in my room trying to come up with ideas, but none came up.

You should've expected that, isolating yourself in your room isn't the place to come up with ideas. You need to go out, look at what people are doing, talk to them, do things, be busy, go to events. Maybe some people have the ability to generate ideas upon request, but for me, it happens when you're not looking, like at a party, in the shower, when driving. You don't 'come up' with ideas, you 'get' ideas.

> Ever since then, I’ve been trying to sell an animal feed called rumen bypass fat(dad’s idea), but no customers so far.

Did you study the market? Were animals hungry and farmers broke and was your feed cheaper and better?

> If you asked me what I really want in life, I’d say I want to make a difference on a large scale.

Why so grandiose? Anyway, a lot of people seem to want that. What you want in life shouldn't be what you want in a startup. In life, I hope I become a good father, a good husband, spread joy, reduce suffering. I could do that if I made sure my neighbor never went hungry, or by solving world hunger - win, win.

> I’d like to start a startup that solves hard engineering/science problem.

Good, so find the problem and the startup will follow.

> The local startup scene is still playing catch up at the moment. The hot stuffs are ecommerce, on demand startups etc...

You gotta catch up before you can lead, so are you bold enough to get into the local startup scene and move it forward?

> Hence, I’m not particularly excited about joining the startups in the local scene and I would like to avoid joining big corporate companies. Any advice?

See above.