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 position at an organization like Google, however his profession took a unique flip. In the present day, 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), based on paperwork reviewed by CNBC Make It.
“Once I was youthful, my dream was all the time to work in large tech,” stated Chew. However sooner or later in early 2016, he found a spot out there.
“Our mother and father had been in search of a service supplier to repair one thing round the home,” stated Chew. “I used to be simply wanting on-line, and … there [seemed] to be nowhere to seek 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 title, had his father assist him register the enterprise, and Restore.sg was born.
Nearly a decade later, what began as a blue-collar facet hustle by two brothers, now has over 20 workers and is on observe to usher in about $2.3 million in 2025, based on paperwork reviewed by CNBC Make It.
Beginning a facet hustle at 16
As children, the Chew brothers liked being hands-on.
“My brother and I might do every part collectively. Meaning constructing Legos, constructing PCs, taking issues aside,” stated Chew. “[We] have all the time been constructing tasks collectively, and it has [been] our dream to … work collectively once we grew to become adults.”
The 2 had 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 progress began to soar, stated Chew.
For the primary three years of the corporate, the brothers had been nonetheless at school, so 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 lots of training … [and] licensing behind among the providers that we do, and it goes past simply taking a screwdriver and hammer [to] issues,” he stated. In order that they spent years buying the information, abilities and licenses essential to run their enterprise.
As well as, earlier than the enterprise scaled, they might tackle most jobs themselves similar to changing lights, and fixing furnishings. “For the primary seven years, up till maybe even early 2024, [the business] was mainly on the brink of demise more often than not,” stated Chew. “We had been younger and weren’t excellent enterprise house owners.”
Chew stated that within the early days, he and his brother did something and every part that individuals 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 onerous classes realized and a few jobs they should not have taken, Chew stated in hindsight.
“[Maybe] expectations had been fully completely 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 stated. “We simply took no matter got here our approach as a result of we type of believed the societal perception that we had been decrease than the remainder or not as revered, so we had been type of simply grateful for no matter we received.”
It wasn’t till 2021 when each brothers determined flip Restore.sg from their passion 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 a substitute.
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 numerous pushback by their mother and father and strangers alike, stated Chew. “Rising up, our mother and father all the time [told] us issues like: ‘When you do not research onerous, 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 stated.
“[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 sort of work. That is for those who quote, unquote, do not make it in life,” he stated.
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 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 a degree to not publicize that we had been doing this,” he stated.
Nevertheless, he has now acknowledged that essentially, the work they supply creates nice worth for patrons. Moreover, he enjoys the job, and loves that he will get to work together with his brother — which was in the end extra necessary than how others view their vocation.
“I am optimistic for the way forward for the house,” he stated, including that in the previous couple of years, he is seen an uptick within the quantity of youthful folks coming into blue-collar industries. The truth is, Chew says a few of his mates have left their white-collar jobs for blue-collar ones, and “lots of them are happier than they ever had been.”
“I am glad that I did not take heed to anybody else and [kept going], as a result of if I had been compelled to sit down in an air conditioned workplace 5 days per week, typing away at a pc, I do not assume I might expertise the identical quantity of happiness, achievement, pleasure that I do operating this enterprise with my brother at present,” stated Chew.
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