How this S’porean ex-lawyer grew his matcha brand into a biz raking in 7-figure revenues

In 2013, Elias Tiong took what seemed like a pretty safe bet—he enrolled at law school at the National University of Singapore. A high-achieving student who breezed through his A-Levels, he was encouraged to pursue law as it could open doors in his career.

And it did—four years later, Elias found himself in training at a prominent law firm, fast-tracked on a career path that many would envy. Yet, something didn’t quite sit right with him.

“Some aspects of corporate legal work felt less meaningful, and left me feeling like a paper-pusher,” he admitted in an interview with The Straits Times. “Part of me felt that I wouldn’t be able to find meaning in this work in the long run.”

That’s when he discovered a different passion: craft matcha. During a trip to Japan, he frequented convenience stores and noticed that they carried a variety of healthy teas that weren’t available in Singapore.

He saw an opportunity to bring “healthier tea options” to the local market, so Elias took the plunge to start Crafti in 2019—and in the last 12 months, the business has surpassed seven figures in sales.

They started out selling bottled lattes

In the beginning, Crafti started out as a side hustle—something that Elias had worked on after hours and over the weekends. Then the pandemic happened, and with it came a surge in demand.

For him, this uptick was a sign that they were “on to something bigger,” and that Crafti had found “some level of product-market fit.”

By 2020, he made the decision to step away from his legal career and focus on Crafti full time. “There was always a limit to how much I could do while juggling a full-time job,” he shared.

Customers were relying on us to provide not just products but also a reliable, consistent experience—something that I had difficulty delivering while juggling this with a full-time role. While I saw that we could grow Crafti into something that could genuinely improve lives, I felt that it would require my full focus.

If you look at Crafti’s offerings today, you’d notice that they have significantly evolved from when the brand started out. Crafti, which, back then was known as Craft Tea Fox, started out by selling bottled lattes.

“[Our initial idea was] to create a healthy, sugar-free bottled tea beverage that would be different from the usual green tea options available [in Singapore],” he shared.

With no prior business experience, Elias shared that they wanted to move cautiously, so he started small by investing around S$1,200 to rent a pop-up space at an event, S$500 on glass bottles and matcha, and another S$100 to get certified for food handling. “This was our minimum viable product to test the waters.”

After gaining confidence from the pop-up, he worked with a food factory to produce small batches of 400 to 1,000 bottles, investing between S$2,000 to S$3,000 for R&D and initial production costs.

Launching products was “the easy part”

Looking back on the business’ early days, Elias recounted that it wasn’t all smooth sailing. “It was actually quite a challenge,” he shared, adding that he struggled with the shelf life of his first product. “It didn’t sell fast enough with our stockists to make any meaningful revenue.”

That was when I realised that creating and launching products was the easy part. The hard part was to pick up and learn marketing so that we could get people interested. Of course, the product has to be good first—effective marketing amplifies the performance of an already good product.

After launching some successful digital marketing campaigns, people gradually started taking an interest in the brand. Yet, it still wasn’t enough.

“We struggled to make any profit for the first two years because our business model wasn’t well thought out,” he candidly admitted.

“With our bottled drinks, we were manufacturing in tiny batches (really labour-intensive) and doing a lot of refrigerated home deliveries (really expensive), and there was just a lot of inefficiency.”

One of the lowest points of the business came during the launch of a new flavour, when an entire batch of 500 bottles “tasted flat”—completely different from the sample they had created.

We had to scramble to figure out what was the problem, conduct taste tests, and review the production process. Eventually, we realised that the tea powders weren’t being stored properly, causing them to lose their flavour and the resulting flat taste.

The brand ended up having to call every customer who had placed an order for the new flavour to inform them that they had to delay their delivery. The product was only shipped once Crafti had fixed the production process and conducted “rigorous checks” on their quality.

There was also another incident when a short circuit at Crafti’s warehouse over the weekend caused all of their refrigerators to shut down.

“All of our bottled drinks went bad—over a thousand bottles,” he shared. “When we returned to the warehouse on Monday morning, the entire warehouse smelled like milk gone bad. We had to discard all these bottles and manufacture replacements urgently.”

A variety of tea powders and teaware

To overcome these challenges, Elias pivoted Crafti’s business model away from ready-to-drink products to “products with longer shelf lives”—today, the brand offers a variety of tea powders and teaware, though they still specialise in craft matcha.

In 2023, they rebranded from Craft Tea Fox to Crafti, seeking a “simpler name to better capture their mission of crafting healthy products.” The brand now focuses on small-batch production and “crafting products with intention” to support their customers’ health and wellness journeys.

According to Elias, all of Crafti’s matcha are sourced directly from Japan. “We work with our network of partners in Uji and Wazuka (both in Kyoto), Nishio, and Shizuoka, and meet with them about once a year,” he shared.

The matcha harvest occurs once a year in early May, with the tea leaves stored in refrigerated warehouses prior to processing. The entire production process takes about one to two months, from securing the raw materials to processing the tea leaves and undergoing organic inspection before they are ready.

Each batch of Crafti’s matcha undergoes third-party lab screening in Japan, including microbial, fungal, heavy metal, and radiation tests before they are exported. These tests are essential as tea leaves are one of the few plants that cannot be washed before consumption.

“If it undergoes further processing in Singapore, it undergoes further tests here as well,” he added.

It’s “all about the long haul”

Over the past two years, the business has been growing profitably, scaling gradually by reinvesting their own capital. Though Crafti’s main source of revenue comes from the B2C front, they also supply to about 50 businesses, including An Açaí Affair and Udders.

Beyond Singapore, the brand ships its products to the US and is currently exploring expansion opportunities in other overseas markets.

Reflecting on his journey, Elias shared that the biggest lesson he’s learned is that entrepreneurship is “all about the long haul.”

Shifting his mindset from earning a monthly salary to focus on long-term value creation was challenging, but “staying focused on the bigger picture” has helped him keep moving forward.

Visiting and working closely with suppliers in Japan has also deepened his appreciation for the craft of matcha production.

It’s really important to know your product and the people you’re serving. Our suppliers take incredible pride in what they create—they’re basically artisans. That was deeply inspiring for me.

We’ve learnt to take this approach to the products we create, and this also motivates me to share what they do with more people.

Also read: At 23, he acquired Swee Lee. Now, this billionaire’s son is building his own music empire.

Featured Image Credit: Elias Tiong/ Crafti