Shao Rong Lee
Left the army for business, lost everything as a coffee franchisee, then took over a friend's campus salad stall in 2020 and built it into Supergreen — a build-your-own salad and grain-bowl brand with outlets across Singapore, about half of them run by franchisees he is determined not to squeeze.
Starting from zero?
Run your idea for a month as one stall in a place that already has footfall, and do not sign a lease until you know what a full day there actually takes.
Shao’s journey
The full story. The pivots. The lessons. One path among many.
What Shao started with
He did not start from nothing, and he did not start from comfort either. He left a stable army career for business, and his first venture was as the franchisee of a local coffee brand, where rent alone ran S$16,000–17,000 a month and he lost around S$50,000 inside a year. Supergreen was not built from scratch: in 2020 he took over a small salad stall on a college campus from a friend.
Every founder starts from a different place. Use this to calibrate — not to compare.
The franchise that failed
Before
He left the army and bought into a local coffee franchise. Rent ran S$16,000–17,000 a month and the brand behind it did not carry him.
Battle stories
The hard moments that shaped Shao.
Lost about S$50,000
Gone inside a year — the money, and any belief that a franchisor's system would do the work for him.
Bought a business, not an idea
It already had customers and a daily rhythm, which is a very different starting line from a plan.
Footfall went to zero
A lunch business is a location business, and for months there was nobody in the location.
From franchisee to franchisor
The terms come directly from what losing S$50,000 as somebody else's franchisee taught him.
Advice from Shao
Before you franchise anything
Ask the franchisor for the unit economics of an outlet that is currently open, and walk away if you are shown a projection instead.
Rent is the whole business
Work out what a day has to take to cover the rent before you sign, then stand outside the unit and count people for a week.
Take over rather than start over
A small business already running, even a struggling one, teaches you more in a month than a business plan does in a year.
Do not do it alone
Join the trade association for your industry — leases, hiring and suppliers are all easier when somebody who has done it will take your call.
If you grow through partners
Price the deal so your franchisees survive; a chain of failing operators is not growth, it is a queue of people you have let down.
Ask Shao a question
We review questions and bring the best ones to Shao in an upcoming interview.
Most asked
- How did you get your first 100 customers?
- What was your biggest financial mistake?
- How much did you really start with?
Founders with a similar path
People who started small and built something big.
