Look likes everyone had spoken - Don't jump cos you're uncertain.

clinical therapy

well, I get what you mean - you need to get into the circle first before you can find one, or they find you.

the plan is to start small with 1 experienced, the rest freelance if needed.
not planning to quit my job. Wife who left her HR career to be home maker few years ago, willing to help manage doing admin/HR/logistics.

I asked my therapist during one of the session

1. how much they pay for this work and how far can you go?- 1800(starter) to 5000(supervisor) can go higher if you get into bigger corporate brands
2. whats your future plan, are you going to be a therapist forever? - I want to open my own center
3. How much to start? - Its not much, about 20k, monthly supplies are cheap - most opex is salaries
4. Well if its not much, why don't you start one already - Well if I have the money, I'll do it.
5. Where is your boss (husband & wife) - well they manage admin and payroll for 3 centers (each at different states) - but in the process of giving that to 3rd party.

These answers kind of pushed my interest further to think of starting one

The setup is simple. Nothing fancy, probable 2nd hand furniture - place looks clean and pleasant. 3rd floor shoplot, you wont know they exist. Only way to contact them by sending your contact in the company website, and they will contact you for initial verbal queries, then set appointments.

i checked around my area, 3rd floor shoplot is around rm1200-1600.

what do you think? 50k enough?

I dont have experience in this line, so i cant advice. Have you check out any licensing requirement, dont you have to be a member of a registed body?
But you are an engineer, is there any business you can do within your subject matter expert? I see many therapist provide service online, can u do that first without giving up your job? I think 50k will go fast like water. Especially on payroll. Count first how much sessions need to cover payroll, marketing. What is your plan to get people to switch terapist to you? Can you throw price? Is the price controlled by registed body?

initial plan is to go with one "expert" then the rest freelance.

I believe there are experts out there who want to run their own but don't have the funds. I had a conversation with one of them.

well, if u done the due diligence. hope u all the best. careful on human-staff-workers relationship that i mentioned though, try have backup plans if they leave

when you mention you are an engineer but you didn't mention which field you are in - software, mechanical, electrical, etc ?

my suggestion:
-sales: try to learn some basic marketing first and get your first sales, setup a simple free website to get leads and sales
-office: with 50k, can do virtual office first (either from home or co-working space)
-hr: if you want to hire technical staff 1st, maybe offer something better than salary like company share? later can buy back the share
-hr: you can get freelancer 1st, don't hire permenant/contract for the time being, hiring and people manage is a very tedious & headache process

hope the above helps

yes I think I need permit to run, I've seen that cert in the the center hence why I need an experienced (certified) member on board. Those online ones are freelancing, hence they may not need a center unless they want a stable income or a proper place to conduct their session.

It's funny that I have no interest in doing a business related to my line of work XD
1. the capital cost is high
2. you need to find a big contract to cover cost
3. my company contracts are all from abroad, local companies cant afford.
4. I can do online freelancing for clients abroad but you have to compete with people from pakistan/india who are 2-3 times cheaper.
4. there is one local company that I know doing something similar but the owner used to have ties with a former PM - so sapu all local n gov, now struggling to pay his employees because cant land contracts as  former PM out of the game. One of the employees now works under me. The employee (n others) had to sue the company for not paying his salary and epf - almost a year court case before settlement.

yeap, that's one of the risk I'm trying to figure out as I would need their certification to apply the permit.