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 special flip. Right this 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 line with paperwork reviewed by CNBC Make It.
“Once I was youthful, my dream was at all times to work in huge tech,” mentioned Chew. However at some point in early 2016, he found a niche out there.
“Our mother and father had been searching 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 aspect hustle by two brothers, now has over 20 workers and is on observe to usher in about $2.3 million in 2025, in line with paperwork reviewed by CNBC Make It.
Beginning a aspect hustle at 16
As children, the Chew brothers beloved being hands-on.
“My brother and I might do all the things collectively. Which means constructing Legos, constructing PCs, taking issues aside,” mentioned Chew. “[We] have at all times been constructing tasks collectively, and it has [been] our dream to … work collectively once we turned adults.”
The 2 had been in a position to notice this dream throughout their teenage years after beginning Restore.sg. The corporate gained momentum slowly till the previous couple of years when its progress began to soar, mentioned Chew.
For the primary three years of the corporate, the brothers had been nonetheless at school, in order that they needed to squeeze in work for the enterprise in between courses, or throughout their evenings.
“What lots of people do not know is that there is a variety of training … [and] licensing behind a few of the providers that we do, and it goes past simply taking a screwdriver and hammer [to] issues,” he mentioned. So that they spent years buying the data, abilities and licenses essential to run their enterprise.
As well as, earlier than the enterprise scaled, they might tackle most jobs themselves comparable 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 loss of life more often than not,” mentioned Chew. “We had been younger and weren’t superb enterprise house owners.”
Chew mentioned that within the early days, he and his brother did something and all the things that folks had been prepared to rent them for, and they’d go so far as to set an alarm at 4 a.m. to ensure they might reply to early messages from potential clients.
All through this time, there have been many arduous classes realized and a few jobs they should not have taken, Chew mentioned in hindsight.
“[Maybe] expectations had been utterly totally different, or maybe they had 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 approach as a result of we form of believed the societal perception that we had been decrease than the remaining or not as revered, so we had been form 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 give attention to 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 instances.
Whereas the 2 get pleasure from their work, they’ve confronted numerous pushback by their mother and father and strangers alike, mentioned Chew. “Rising up, our mother and father at all times [told] us issues like: ‘For those who do not examine arduous, you are going to find yourself doing a guide labor job, and it may be terrible. Do not you wish to sit in an workplace with aircon?'” he mentioned.
“[And] once we began talking [with customers] … they might inform us to our face: ‘You guys are children. You guys needs to be learning at school and never doing this type 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 had been at all times very insecure about what we did, as a result of whereas we did get pleasure from it, the negativity did get to us. So we made it some extent to not publicize that we had been doing this,” he mentioned.
Nonetheless, he has now acknowledged that basically, the work they supply creates nice worth for patrons. Moreover, he enjoys the job, and loves that he will get to work along with his brother — which was finally extra essential than how others view their vocation.
“I am optimistic for the way forward for the house,” he mentioned, including that in the previous couple of years, he is seen an uptick within the quantity of youthful folks coming into blue-collar industries. In reality, Chew says a few of his buddies have left their white-collar jobs for blue-collar ones, and “a variety of them are happier than they ever had been.”
“I am completely happy that I did not take heed to anybody else and [kept going], as a result of if I had been pressured to sit down in an air conditioned workplace 5 days per week, typing away at a pc, I do not suppose I might expertise the identical quantity of happiness, success, pleasure that I do working this enterprise with my brother at the moment,” mentioned Chew.
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