Business
At age 16, he spent $23 to buy a website domain. 9 years later, his blue-collar business brings in $1.3 million a year
Almost a decade later, what started as a blue-collar side hustle by two brothers, now has over 20 employees and is on track to bring in about $2.3 million in 2025, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It.
Image credit: CNBC
Growing up, Zames Chew thought he wanted to work a white-collar role at a company like Google, but his career took a different turn.
Today, the 26-year-old runs the Singapore-based handyman service Repair.sg, alongside his 24-year-old brother and co-founder, Amos Chew.
In 2024, their Singapore-based company Repair.sg brought in 1.7 million Singapore dollars (about $1.3 million), according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It.
“When I was younger, my dream was always to work in big tech,” said Chew. But one day in early 2016, he discovered a gap in the market.
“Our parents were looking for a service provider to fix something around the house,” said Chew. “I was just looking online, and … there [seemed] to be nowhere to find service providers [online] back in the day.
So I was like … let me put together a website and see what happens from there.”
So, at age 16, Chew spent 30 Singapore dollars (about $23) to buy a website domain name, had his father help him register the business, and Repair.sg was born.
Almost a decade later, what started as a blue-collar side hustle by two brothers, now has over 20 employees and is on track to bring in about $2.3 million in 2025, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It.
Starting a side hustle at 16
As kids, the Chew brothers loved being hands-on.
“My brother and I would do everything together. That means building Legos, building PCs, taking things apart,” said Chew.
”[We] have always been building projects together, and it has [been] our dream to … work together when we became adults.”
The two were able to realize this dream during their teenage years after starting Repair.sg.
The company gained momentum slowly until the last few years when its growth started to soar, said Chew.
For the first three years of the company, the brothers were still in school, so they had to squeeze in work for the business in between classes, or during their evenings.
What a lot of people don’t know is that there’s a lot of education … [and] licensing behind some of the services that we do, and it goes beyond just taking a screwdriver and hammer [to] things,” he said.
So they spent years acquiring the knowledge, skills and licenses necessary to run their business.
In addition, before the business scaled, they would take on most jobs themselves such as replacing lights, and fixing furniture.
“For the first seven years, up until perhaps even early 2024, [the business] was basically at the brink of death most of the time,” said Chew. “We were young and weren’t very good business owners.”
Credit: CNBC
Business
Flutterwave buys Mono for $40 million
Under the deal, Mono will continue to operate as an independent product, with no changes to its leadership or operations.
• Flutterwave Nigeria HQ, Lagos
Flutterwave, Africa’s largest fintech company, has acquired Nigerian open banking startup Mono in an all-stock transaction valued between $25 million and $40 million.
The acquisition brings together two major fintech infrastructure players as Flutterwave looks to strengthen its payments stack with open banking, data, and identity capabilities.
Under the deal, Mono will continue to operate as an independent product, with no changes to its leadership or operations.
The transaction allows Mono’s investors to at least recoup their capital, with some early backers reportedly recording returns of up to 20x.
(Nairametrics)
Business
Venezuela: Crude prices edge lower following Maduro’s overthrow
CNBC reports that U.S. crude oil fell 31 cents, or 0.54%, to $57.01 per barrel. Global benchmark Brent fell 22 cents, or 0.36%, to $60.53 per barrel.
• An oil-themed mural in Caracas, Venezuela
Crude oil prices edged lower Sunday, as the overthrow of President Nicolas Maduro by the Trump administration has cast deep uncertainty over oil-rich Venezuela.
Venezuela, a founding member of OPEC, sits on the largest proven crude oil reserves in the world at 303 billion barrels or about 17% of the global total, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
CNBC reports that U.S. crude oil fell 31 cents, or 0.54%, to $57.01 per barrel. Global benchmark Brent fell 22 cents, or 0.36%, to $60.53 per barrel.
President Donald Trump made it clear Saturday that U.S. investment in Venezuela’s oil sector is a key objective of the regime change operation that ousted Maduro.
“We’re going to have our huge United States oil companies — the biggest anywhere in the world — go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure,” Trump said in a press conference from his Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida.
The president said Saturday that the U.S. embargo of Venezuelan oil remains in place.
Business
MAN woos CBN, MOF for manufacturing refinancing facility
The Director -General of MAN, Segun Ajayi-Kadir, made the call for the facility in a report on the manufacturing outlook for 2026.
Cover image: MAN
The Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) has called on the monetary authorities ( CBN and MOF) to introduce a Manufacturing Refinancing and Rediscounting Facility (MRRF) believing that it can reinvigorate the manufacturing sector in 2026.
The Director -General of MAN, Segun Ajayi-Kadir, made the call for the facility in a report on the manufacturing outlook for 2026.
He said that the MRRF is to enable banks to refinance approved manufacturing loans at single-digit rates for up to seven years.
He emphasised that to ensure a more robust manufacturing sector in 2026 , there was need for:
- 1. Launch a Manufacturing Refinancing and Rediscounting Facility (MRRF) that allows banks to refinance approved manufacturing loans at single-digit rates for up to 7 years.
- 2. Create a publicly accessible dashboard tracking lending flows, interest rate spreads, loan approvals and sectoral disbursement patterns in real time.
3. Further reduce the benchmark interest rate by at least 200–300 basis points over the next two quarters to make credit affordable for manufacturers.
4. Craft and ensure the effective execution of the implementation strategy for the recently approved Nigeria Industrial Policy.
5. Categorize manufacturers as strategic users of gas to remove the gap between what manufacturers and electricity generation companies pay per cubic foot of gas.
6. Introduce a stable, transparent gas pricing framework for manufacturers and prioritize local gas supply before exports.
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