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How 3 friends without any hospitality experience started renting out over 400 tiny homes in remote locations around the world
20.09.2024 - 09:53 / insider.com
How nice would it be to leave everything behind, unplug from the world, and relax abroad?
This thought lingered in Adrian Chia's mind after a two-week family vacation exploring the Great Ocean Road in Melbourne in 2016.
Shortly after returning hometo Singapore, he floated the concept of living an unplugged life byhis friend Dave Ng, whom he'd met in his 20sduring mandatory national service.
"We were just chitchatting, but Dave started thinking about it seriously," Chia, now 43, told Business Insider. Ng came up with the idea of creating a tiny house on wheels — a mobile house that could be easily relocated if a particular location did not attract guests.
In 2017, the pair decided to sell their businesses — Chia had been working in IT and Ng in waste management— and start a tiny house business called Big Tiny. Theyinvested 100,000 Singapore dollars, or around $77k, each, and dove into brainstorming their first prototype.
"I knew I was venturing into uncharted territory," said Chia, who was married with two young kids and had a newborn at the time.
With no experience in architecture or building, their first roadblock was figuring out how to build a tiny house.
"I can't even change the door knob at home," said Chia, adding that the thought of having to fit a kitchenette, a bedroom, and a living room into a 20-foot space was daunting.
They hired an architect to help with the design of the house and agreed ona few essentials. First, the house had to be on wheels. Next, they had to ensure that the house did not feel claustrophobic.
Six months of trial and error later, Chia and Ng assembled the first prototype home in Chia's garden in Singapore.
They began scaling the business by sending tiny houses overseas. The first two were sent to Australia, one to Victoria and the other to New South Wales.
In 2018, Chia convinced a friend from elementary school, Jeff Yeo, to join the team of founders and help with branding. Yeo had worked as an account director and manager at several marketing agencies.
Together, they raised around SG$4.2 million over two funding rounds, Chia said. That includes SG$3.8 million in the second round, which took place in 2021.
After garnering attention from local media, the team started to receive inquiries on how to purchase tiny houses, Chia said.
So, in 2017, the team started a program that allowed people to buy a tiny house for around SG$90,000. In return, they managed the hotel side of the business by renting the unit back from the buyer. They either rented the tiny house for two years and paid 8% a year or five years and paid 10% a year. Big Tiny then earns from the profit of nightly stays, Chia said.
Although the headquarters is in Singapore, Big Tiny's first move was to send tiny
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