I’m Tyson Lim, CEO of Homeez – Singapore’s No. 1 Renotech company. With our renovation platform, homeowners are able to save up to 60% on renovation costs by connecting them to direct suppliers. Over the past ten years, I have been involved in the renovation industry. It was before I started this online renovation platform that I worked as a sales interior designer and then managed a sales team of 50 interior designers.
The idea of digitizing this traditional industry has always been an interesting concept to me, but I was never brave enough to explore the possibilities that technology can offer. There are many businesses that have been affected by COVID-19, and the renovation industry is no different. I made a decision at that point to kick off this journey with a few of my good friends, all of whom had varying skills to employ.
With the launch of our Design Now program in late 2021, homeowners will be able to design their homes online and receive instant quotes right from the comfort of their own homes.
At the beginning, we were primarily focused on providing DIY services to the HDB market, which was where we started. After launching, however, we realized that many private homeowners and even landed homeowners were interested in saving money by utilizing our system and were exploring it further. For the moment, current technology is not able to meet the needs of the private market. Keep your fingers crossed, we are working on it at the moment, so make sure you stay tuned!Ultimately, our vision is to become the Taobao of home renovations. By empowering homeowners, we hope to prevent renovation scams and nightmares and save their money. Additionally, we are looking to expand to many cities in the world that have stack homes, such as KL, Hong Kong, and Shenzhen, among others.
Despite our desire to empower homeowners with DIY renovation systems and guides, we realize that many homeowners want superior service coupled with low prices when they invest in their home renovation project. Unfortunately, we do not have any Interior Designers (ID) or Project Managers as part of our platform to be able to deliver these services.
In order to offset these costs, we turned our business around and started working with freelance project managers and designers who charge homeowners a fixed rate for their services. In this manner, some of the conflicts of interest that could arise between IDs and homeowners will be prevented. This is due to the fact that IDs are paid through a markup scheme, and there are many opportunities to have hidden costs during the renovation process.
I believe that there are many values that a person requires in order to succeed in business. However, one of the most important traits a business owner should have is the ability to solve problems. The key to solving a problem, whether it is a business problem or a customer issue, is to resolve it and then learn from it.
Being humble and hungry are two things I believe in. In this way, you will attract many mentors and benefactors. Despite having many mentors, I consider myself to be my own benchmark when it comes to achieving success. I will always strive to be a better version of myself every day.
There are three things we value at Homeez: Assurance, Empowerment, and Transparency.
I would like Homeez to be remembered as a Singaporean start-up that solves a complex renovation problem for homeowners all over the world.
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