How To Be A Millennial Butler

- Jasmine Teo

WHO IS HE: Poon Da Qian, 24, founder of Butler in Suits, a housekeeping service for residential homes. Believe it or not, this is his third business. At 14, he was already helping to helm the family’s chain of Chinese mixed rice food stalls after his dad passed away. Four years later, he set up his own Western food stall, expanded it to three outlets, before shuttering it to go to NS. It was then that the idea for Butler in Suits was born. “I’ve had a maid all my life, but after she left, the house was in a mess. At that time, too, I did many staycations and blogged about it. So I thought, why is it you can enjoy the luxury of housekeeping in a hotel, but not at home? After all, you can spend up to $2mil on a condo these days, and yet, you don’t get the same kind of hotel hospitality,” says Poon. Besides sprucing up the house daily or weekly (depending on the customer’s subscription), the year-old company, which now serves over 100 homes, also places a robo-vacuum in the home and programmes it for an hour of vacuuming daily. And yes, the boss himself does get his hands dirty. “I service clients’ homes on weekends and in the event where there are last-minute requests and no one else can make it. That’s also one way for me to get feedback from clients about our services,” he muses.