Turning a supper stall into a $10m empire

At 10pm, when most students were winding down, Mr Lee Ray Sheng was firing up the wok at his Nanyang Technological University (NTU) hostel canteen stall.

- Hedy Khoo

Armed with garlic, bean sprouts and soya sauce, the second-year computer science undergraduate transformed a quiet canteen into a late-night supper venue.

In February 2020, the owner of Raydy Beehoon sold out 200 packets of his $3 supper set of fried beehoon, chicken wing and egg. That was just the first night. Within weeks, sales doubled. Over two months, he earned $70,000 in revenue.

"We cooked 30kg of beehoon and cracked 500 eggs a night. It was madness," recalls Mr Lee, now 25.

"I used to pay hostel mates with cars to 'dabao' economy beehoon from a supper spot in Jurong West," he says with a smile. "Eventually, we thought - why not cook our own?"

What inspired it all was regular suppers with his hostel study group. Four friends, four times a week, rustling up late-night plates of beehoon with ingredients bought from Sheng Siong supermarket. Their hostel pantry soon filled up with hungry hostel mates willing to barter soya sauce and frozen fried foods for a plate of supper. So, Mr Lee invested $5,000 of his savings - earned since age 14 from gigs like working at McDonald's - into Raydy Beehoon and rented a canteen stall.

Every night, he and his friends cooked from 10pm to 2am. "My friends helped for food and $8 an hour," he says.

Then Covid-19 hit. Most would have packed up. But he pivoted his business to make Telegram-based deliveries in a rented truck, pulling in $600,000 over the next two years.

SCRAPPY START Entrepreneurship is in Mr Lee's blood. He is the second of three children born to a sales engineer at a semi-conductor company and a quality management consultant. At 13, he raised $600 selling bubble tea at a charity carnival at Maris Stella High School. At 17, he worked part-time then apprenticed at online food ordering company Grain, and learnt how scrappy start-ups scale up.