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Zames Chew and Amos Chew are the co-founders of Restore.sg.
Courtesy of Restore.sg
Rising up, Zames Chew thought he wished to work a white-collar function at an organization like Google, however his profession took a unique flip. At the moment, the 26-year-old runs the Singapore-based handyman service Restore.sg, alongside his 24-year-old brother and co-founder, Amos Chew.
In 2024, their Singapore-based firm Restore.sg introduced in 1.7 million Singapore {dollars} (about $1.3 million), in accordance with paperwork reviewed by CNBC Make It.
“Once I was youthful, my dream was all the time to work in massive tech,” mentioned Chew. However sooner or later in early 2016, he found a niche available in the market.
“Our mother and father have been on the lookout for a service supplier to repair one thing round the home,” mentioned Chew. “I used to be simply wanting on-line, and … there [seemed] to be nowhere to search out service suppliers [online] again within the day. So I used to be like … let me put collectively a web site and see what occurs from there.”
So, at age 16, Chew spent 30 Singapore {dollars} (about $23) to purchase a web site area identify, had his father assist him register the enterprise, and Restore.sg was born.
Virtually a decade later, what began as a blue-collar facet hustle by two brothers, now has over 20 staff and is on monitor to usher in about $2.3 million in 2025, in accordance with paperwork reviewed by CNBC Make It.
Beginning a facet hustle at 16
As youngsters, the Chew brothers liked being hands-on.
“My brother and I’d do every little thing collectively. Meaning constructing Legos, constructing PCs, taking issues aside,” mentioned Chew. “[We] have all the time been constructing initiatives collectively, and it has [been] our dream to … work collectively after we turned adults.”
The 2 have been capable of notice this dream throughout their teenage years after beginning Restore.sg. The corporate gained momentum slowly till the previous couple of years when its development began to soar, mentioned Chew.
For the primary three years of the corporate, the brothers have been nonetheless at school, so that they needed to squeeze in work for the enterprise in between lessons, or throughout their evenings.
“What lots of people do not know is that there is loads of schooling … [and] licensing behind a number of the providers that we do, and it goes past simply taking a screwdriver and hammer [to] issues,” he mentioned. In order that they spent years buying the information, expertise and licenses essential to run their enterprise.
As well as, earlier than the enterprise scaled, they might tackle most jobs themselves corresponding to changing lights, and fixing furnishings. “For the primary seven years, up till even perhaps early 2024, [the business] was principally on the brink of demise more often than not,” mentioned Chew. “We have been younger and weren’t excellent enterprise house owners.”
Chew mentioned that within the early days, he and his brother did something and every little thing that folks have been keen to rent them for, and they might go so far as to set an alarm at 4 a.m. to verify they may reply to early messages from potential clients.
All through this time, there have been many laborious classes discovered and a few jobs they should not have taken, Chew mentioned in hindsight.
“[Maybe] expectations have been utterly totally different, or maybe they have been simply actually low cost and it was a ache for us, or … they weren’t very good folks,” he mentioned. “We simply took no matter got here our means as a result of we type of believed the societal perception that we have been decrease than the remaining or not as revered, so we have been type of simply grateful for no matter we obtained.”
It wasn’t till 2021 when each brothers determined flip Restore.sg from their interest right into a full-blown enterprise that it started to develop and scale. The 2 additionally determined in opposition to attending college to allow them to deal with the enterprise as an alternative.
Blue-collar stigma
The Chew brothers are a part of a wave of Gen Zers who’re selecting blue-collar industries over white-collar ones, or over attending college, in some circumstances.
Whereas the 2 take pleasure in their work, they’ve confronted plenty of pushback by their mother and father and strangers alike, mentioned Chew. “Rising up, our mother and father all the time [told] us issues like: ‘Should you do not research laborious, you are going to find yourself doing a handbook labor job, and it should be terrible. Do not you need to sit in an workplace with aircon?'” he mentioned.
“[And] after we began talking [with customers] … they might inform us to our face: ‘You guys are youngsters. You guys must be learning at school and never doing this sort of work. That is for those that quote, unquote, do not make it in life,” he mentioned.
Because of the societal stigma round blue collar jobs, Chew says he and his brother tried to maintain their enterprise a secret for some time.
“We have been all the time very insecure about what we did, as a result of whereas we did take pleasure in it, the negativity did get to us. So we made it some extent to not publicize that we have been doing this,” he mentioned.
Nonetheless, he has now acknowledged that basically, the work they supply creates nice worth for purchasers. Moreover, he enjoys the job, and loves that he will get to work along with his brother — which was finally extra vital than how others view their vocation.
“I am optimistic for the way forward for the area,” he mentioned, including that in the previous couple of years, he is seen an uptick within the quantity of youthful folks getting into blue-collar industries. In truth, Chew says a few of his associates have left their white-collar jobs for blue-collar ones, and “loads of them are happier than they ever have been.”
“I am completely satisfied that I did not take heed to anybody else and [kept going], as a result of if I have been compelled to sit down in an air conditioned workplace 5 days per week, typing away at a pc, I do not suppose I’d expertise the identical quantity of happiness, achievement, pleasure that I do working this enterprise with my brother in the present day,” mentioned Chew.
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