Lim Yuan Ming launched What The Puff, a Singapore-based curry puff business, during his first year of university and expanded to multiple outlets within months. Lim and his brother Brandon prepare pastry by rolling dough, stuffing curry filling, pleating edges, and frying until golden, producing a crispy, buttery, savory snack that draws long queues. Lim balances a finance degree and entrepreneurship by taking supplier calls during classes, sacrificing his social life, and working until his hands ache. Parental experience and support in F&B aided development, and Lim aims to grow the venture enough to avoid office employment.
In their brand-new kitchen, underneath a neon sign that said "puffing good time," sibling duo Lim Yuan Ming and Brandon Lim showed me how to make the perfect curry puff. The brothers - who run the Singapore-based curry puff business What The Puff - rolled out the pastry dough, stuffed it with a curry filling, pleated the edges, and fried it golden. The result was a crispy, buttery, and savory pastry that drew a 15-person queue to their newest hawker stall in Singapore's northeastern Punggol neighborhood when Business Insider visited.
Lim, a 23-year-old finance sophomore at the Singapore University of Social Sciences, started the curry puff business in December. Business is booming - he's already expanded to two other outlets. Juggling college and a nascent business in a country known for a high food and beverage business failure rate is no easy task. He's had to forgo his social life, take calls from suppliers during classes, and work until his hands ache. But he's hoping the business takes off so well that he'll never have to set foot in an office.
Lim said his mother and father supported him juggling a food business and his studies. His father even suggested he drop out of college to build up What The Puff. "It's unconventional advice, but he's a pretty unconventional man," Lim said with a laugh. His parents have always been in the F&B industry, he said. They ran a laksa steamboat restaurant in the 2010s and later opened a Teochew porridge hawker stall when Lim was in middle school. He helped with cashiering and loading toppings on porridge on the weekends.
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