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- 🤯 Repair.sg: The Mistakes Behind a S$3M Repair Business
🤯 Repair.sg: The Mistakes Behind a S$3M Repair Business
The real story of burnout, poor delegation, and wrong priorities before things finally worked.
Admond Lee
February 01, 2026
P.S. One brand ran a single The Runway Ventures campaign and generated 250+ founder clicks that turned into inbound leads.
Hey Founders,
👋🏻 Welcome to The Runway Ventures (🎙️Podcast Edition) — where I interview founders and deep dive into their stories to help you become the top 1% founder by learning from their startup journey and mistakes with actionable insights.
💸 Most startups don’t die because revenue is low. They die because cash quietly disappears.
You can look profitable on paper and still hesitate on hires, overspend phantom money, or make decisions off gut feel.
Osome is hosting a 30-minute webinar to help founders get real cash flow clarity — without spreadsheets, accounting jargon, or becoming an accountant.
If you want clean books and fewer nasty surprises, this is for you.
It’s on 10 Feb 2026. The webinar is FREE. Don’t miss out.
Today’s story is an inspiring one. I had a podcast with Zames. He shared how he and his brother (Amos) built a $3M repair business starting with S$30 of savings at the age of 16. Let’s get to it! 🚀
Today at a Glance:
🫡 1 Founder → Repair.sg
⚠️ 2 Mistakes → Didn’t delegate early
🧠 3 Lessons Learned → Work “on” the business, not “in” the business
🔗 The Runway Insights → YC: How to get your first users
💰 Southeast Asia Funding Radar → HeyMax secures $11M (Series A) to accelerate and unify loyalty and travel rewards across APAC
🤝🏻 Together with The Coffee Break
I’ve been reading The Coffee Break for about a year to stay on top of Malaysian and global news. Because of that, I no longer read news from social media and platforms like Mothership. No more noisy “breaking” news like PropertyLimBrothers’ affair (yeah, Melvin Lim & Grayce Tan).
Just 3 minutes a day, I get to know all important local and global news and why it matters to me. Pure signals.
If you want to stay informed and be smarter, seriously, join me and read The Coffee Break (it’s free).
🫡 1 Founder: Zames Chew (co-founder of Repair.sg)
🌟 The Highlights
🇸🇬 Founded by Zames Chew and his brother Amos Chew, Repair.sg is a Singapore-based home and commercial repair company known for transparent pricing and reliable, customer-first solutions.
The Problem — 🤨 Home and business owners in Singapore often struggle with finding reliable, fairly priced, and prompt repair services.
Many face issues like hidden fees, no-shows, poor workmanship, or unclear communication — especially for last-minute fixes or ongoing maintenance.
The Solution — 👨🏻🔧 Repair.sg offers on-demand, transparent, and professional repair services for both homes and commercial spaces.
From electrical and plumbing work to aircon servicing, their team delivers fast, upfront-priced solutions with a customer-first approach — making property maintenance simple, predictable, and trustworthy.
Amos Chew and Zames Chew (2 brothers & co-founders of Repair.sg)
🧍🏻🧍🏻 Founder Story
Repair.sg started in 2016 as a passion project by teenage brothers Zames and Amos Chew.
😩 It all began when Zames spotted a gap in the market – his parents needed something fixed at home, but finding a reliable repairman online was nearly impossible.
So with S$30 of savings, he bought a website domain (Repair.sg) and, with his dad’s help (since he was underage), officially registered the business.
With no formal training, they learned repairs by shadowing veteran handymen they found through classifieds — even selling leads just to tag along.
⚒️ What began as a simple website connecting homeowners to contractors slowly evolved into a full-service operation.
Over time, they picked up the tools themselves, earned trade licenses, and turned their side hustle into one of Singapore’s most trusted repair brands.
We always enjoyed the process of building something, like serving customers and things along those lines. It's always been fun for us.
 | 🫡 By 2019, Repair.sg had grown from a side hustle into Singapore’s go-to handyman brand, known for transparent pricing and customer-first service. 😍 Their bright yellow vans became a familiar sight as word-of-mouth spread. |
What began with basic fixes expanded into full-service maintenance — even landing clients like HaiDiLao and Coffee Bean.
💰 By 2024, the team had served 20,000+ customers and hit S$1.7M in revenue — all without raising a cent of funding.
🚕 Every time Zames sees another yellow Repair.sg van on the road or hears a customer say “thank you, you saved the day,” it hits home that this wild journey — which began with a S$30 domain and a dream — was entirely worth it.
🌋 The Lowlights
For the first seven years, up until perhaps even early 2024, the business was basically at the brink of death most of the time.
Of course, the journey wasn’t all sunshine and soaring revenue graphs.
⏰ In the early days, the brothers had no mentors and no blueprint, so every step was trial and (lots of) error. They handled almost every job themselves — Zames was literally answering customer inquiries at 4:00 AM and then driving out to do repairs at 7:00 AM.
🚨 They made every mistake in the book:
over-investing in logos and websites instead of what customers actually cared about
hiring without defining any real company culture
doing everything themselves to the point of burnout
The emotional toll was real.
🦠 At times, they even hid what they were doing, afraid people would look down on them for running a “blue-collar” business. The lowest point came during the COVID lockdown — a loan they took to grow the business ended up being used just to stay afloat as jobs vanished overnight.
Everything they built felt like it could collapse at any moment. But instead of quitting, they kept showing up — mistake after mistake, fix after fix — and quietly learned how to build something stronger.
🚀 The Comeback
All of the real change, all of the real learnings… happened because we had a lot of time to think during the lockdown
🧠 Paradoxically, the worst crisis they’d faced became the best thing that happened to Repair.sg’s business. With jobs on hold during 2020’s circuit-breaker lockdown, Zames and Amos suddenly had something unfamiliar: time – time to breathe, reflect, and strategise instead of just scrambling from one urgent task to the next.
After nearly burning out doing everything himself, Zames realised the business couldn't grow unless he learned to delegate.
🔥 So, he started:
Hiring & trusting others with responsibilities
Brought on technicians and admin staff
Shifting his focus from fixing taps to leading the company
Pivoting to B2B maintenance contracts with stable, repeatable work.
He and Amos then rebuilt the culture from scratch
Prioritising customer-first values
Letting go of team members who didn’t align
Now, every hire is vetted not just for skills but for attitude — empathy, integrity, and a willingness to learn.
Learned to have tough conversations
Confronting problems directly (with respect and honesty)
Turning from avoiding conflict to treating feedback as care
That focus paid off: revenue surged, team morale improved, and Repair.sg became a business that could scale — not just survive.
🤑 In 2025, they’ve grown to 20+ staff and S$3 million+ in revenue.
📌 Here’s the TLDR of Repair.sg:
2016 – 🚕 A Humble Start
At age 16, Zames Chew spotted a lack of online home repair services in Singapore and launched Repair.sg with his 14-year-old brother, Amos.
Initially ran it as a simple website connecting homeowners to handymen, while learning the ropes through YouTube and help from veteran contractors.
2016–2020 – ⛈️ Grinding & Learning
Repair.sg remained a side hustle while Zames attended polytechnic.
The brothers hustled to handle jobs after class, even selling leads to experienced repairmen in exchange for mentorship on the job.
They acquired necessary licenses (electrical, air-con, etc.) and slowly built skills, but the business stayed very small.
These early years were tough. No outside funding and lots of mistakes (from undercharging clients to hiring mishaps) keep things rocky.
2020 – 🦠 Crisis & Reflection
The COVID-19 circuit breaker hit. Home repair work paused for about 2 months, threatening to sink the business.
Zames secured a small loan and government wage support helped cover the 5-6 staff on payroll. During the downtime, Zames and Amos reevaluated everything. They read business books, seek advice, and decided to overhaul their approach — this moment becomes the catalyst for change.
2021 – 🚀 All-In & Reboot
Coming out of lockdown, the brothers committed full-time to Repair.sg (no university, no plan B). They implemented major changes:
Started delegating tasks and hiring more technicians, defined a clear mission, and instilled a stronger company culture.
They parted ways with employees who didn’t align with the values, and tightened up operations to be more efficient and focused.
2022 – 👨🏻🔧🧰 Pivot to Scale
Repair.sg pivoted toward more specialised, repeatable services.
Zames stopped trying to be a “jack of all trades” and instead productised offerings (e.g. maintenance packages).
Began securing B2B clients and larger contracts, providing more stable income. With better processes and a motivated team, business started picking up momentum – monthly revenues grew and client referrals increased thanks to improved service quality.
2024 – 💰💰💰 Breakthrough Year
Repair.sg crossed the 7-figure revenue mark, generating ~S$1.7 million in 2024. The team expanded to 20+ staff and over 20,000 total customers served.
The brand’s yellow vans become a familiar sight across Singapore, and the startup gains media recognition (featured by CNBC, Vulcan Post, Channel NewsAsia, etc.) as an example of young entrepreneurs thriving in a blue-collar industry.
2025 – 🏄🏻♂️ Continuing to Grow
With lessons learned, Repair.sg scaled to S$3M+ in revenue for 2025 and has started servicing well-known commercial clients (e.g. HaiDiLao, Coffee Bean), boosting its credibility.
Zames and Amos become advocates for the skilled trades, proving that choosing “spanners over spreadsheets” can be both fulfilling and profitable.
🫡 What began as a teenager’s after-school experiment has blossomed into a multi-million dollar handyman empire built on grit.
And perhaps the best part?
The story is still being written, one repair job at a time.
Want to learn more about Repair.sg?
⚠️ 2 Mistakes
Mistake 1: Didn’t delegate early
I was telling people that I’m a business owner, that I’m an entrepreneur — but really I was just a very, very poorly paid employee who works way too much for my own business.
Zames tried to do everything himself — sales, repairs, customer service, admin. He worked 7 days a week, from morning to night, with no real systems or backup.
For years, the business couldn’t grow because it fully depended on him.
He only started delegating after burning out and reading The E-Myth, which made him realise he was working “in” the business, not “on” it.
Mistake 2: Spent too much time on branding & design (non-important stuff)
I spent way too much time on stuff like the logo, the branding, the website — things that didn’t matter. I thought it made us look legit, but customers just wanted fast, reliable service.
In the early days, Zames focused a lot on logo design, website polish, and visual branding.
He believed that looking professional would help gain customer trust. But customers didn’t care about the logo — they just wanted fast, reliable service.
That branding focus pulled time away from fixing actual operations and service quality.
🧠 3 Lessons Learned
Lesson 1: Work “on” the business, not “in” the business
Zames was doing everything — repairing leaky faucets, answering 4am customer messages, updating the website — all while calling himself a CEO.
His turning point? Realising that he hadn’t built a business.
He’d built a trap.
🌮 Key Takeaways:
Founders stuck in day-to-day ops aren’t scaling — they’re bottlenecking.
Delegation isn’t about trust. It’s about designing a system that doesn’t require you to function.
The first system you need isn’t tech — it’s deciding what only you should do, and offloading the rest.
🛠️ Operator Playbook:
📖 Read The E-Myth book
It’s a must-read for every founder stuck in daily ops.
🧰 Build a time audit map (today)
For 7 days, log everything you do in 30-min blocks. Label each as:
CEO (strategy/partnerships)
Ops (work a team member could do)
Admin (automatable or outsourceable)
🤖 Systemise before you scale
Create a basic SOP for your most common tasks (i.e. inbound job requests, technician routing).
Tool: Trainual for building playbooks + onboarding docs.
👥 Use the “$10, $100, $1000” Filter
Zames was doing $10/hour tasks (scheduling jobs) instead of $1000/hour ones (building partnerships).
Rule: If it’s below your leverage zone, delegate or automate it.
Lesson 2: Customers don’t care about your logo
Zames admitted he spent way too much time polishing logos and tweaking his website — while ops were still shaky.
Because early on, he optimised for looking like a company, instead of acting like one.
🌮 Key Takeaways:
Branding builds trust — but only after you’ve earned it through reliability.
In ops-heavy businesses, trust is delivered through speed, transparency, and follow-through.
Your first 100 users will remember if you showed up — not your hex code or font pairings.
🛠️ Operator Playbook:
🔍 Run a utility audit
Ask 10 past customers:
“Why did you choose us?”
“What almost made you not book?”
My bet: Not one mentions your logo.
🚚 Invest in service layer first
Instead of design:
Set up a central WhatsApp/Telegram inbox with respond.io to manage all customer inquiries, bookings, and technician updates in one place.
Automate standard replies (e.g. pricing, booking forms) and route incoming requests to available team members in real time.
Track response times and customer satisfaction from a single dashboard — way more impactful than tweaking fonts.
🪞Brand = Experience (not aesthetic)
Zames’ biggest “brand asset”? His bright yellow vans, always on time.
In SEA, trust is earned offline. Uniforms, clean vans, consistent ETA > fancy landing pages.
Lesson 3: Culture > Revenue
One of Zames’ toughest moments? Letting go of their first hire — someone technically great, but toxic for the team.
In the absence of values, default behaviour becomes the culture.
🌮 Key Takeaways:
In service businesses, your frontliners are your brand. Misaligned behavior kills trust fast.
Culture isn’t about posters — it’s the behaviors you reward, tolerate, or fire for.
Early hires shape your trajectory more than your pricing or tech stack.
🛠️ Operator Playbook:
📜 Draft a 1-Page culture memo
Write 3 behaviours you always reward.
Write 3 behaviours you’ll never tolerate (i.e. lateness, poor attitude to customers).
Share it with every new hire, early.
🧪 Interview for attitude (not just skill)
Scenario-Based Questions (Attitude in action)
“Tell me about a time a customer was angry — what happened and how did you handle it?”
“Have you ever made a mistake on the job? How did you respond?”
“Describe a time you had to cover for a teammate — what did you do and why?”
Roleplay Drill (Live response to pressure)
“I’m an angry customer whose repair has been delayed 3 times. Roleplay how you’d talk to me.”
Watch for tone, patience, and whether they listen or just defend.
Reverse Reference Check (Character validation)
Ask: “If I called your old manager or teammate, what would they say about how you work with others?”
Then — actually call that reference and validate.
🔗 The Runway Insights
YC: How to get your first users (Read)
How to build a startup people actually care about (Read)
The new rules for fundraising in the AI era (Read)
Don’t solve problems that don’t exist (Read)
How to build a $1M/month funnels in 2026 (Read)
Netflix’s co-founder (Marc Randolph): My 3 criteria for success in early-stage companies (Read)
💰 Southeast Asia Funding Radar
HeyMax secures $11M (Series A) to accelerate and unify loyalty and travel rewards across APAC (More)
UangCermat raises $26M (Series A) to provide payroll-linked loans for blue-collar workers (More)
Decube raises $3M to build context layer powering enterprise AI (More)
Juspay raises $50M (Series D) to simplify payments for enterprise (More)
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That’s all for today
Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed today's issue. More than that, I hope you’ve learned some actionable tips to build and grow your business.
You can always write to me by simply replying to this newsletter and we can chat.
See you again next week.
- Admond
Disclaimer: The Runway Ventures content is for informational purposes only. Unless otherwise stated, any opinions expressed above belong solely to the author.
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