Building his bouquet business brick by brick
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Mr Brent Ng started The Block Bouquets in May 2022, a month after making his first floral block arrangement.
ST PHOTO: GAVIN FOO
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SINGAPORE – He made “block bouquets” for someone he liked, and won her heart.
Mr Brent Ng’s pretty posies – with flowers made from plastic bricks, embellished with artificial flowers and ribbons, and cocooned in paper – were also a hit with his friends and schoolmates, who bought graduation bouquets from him.
Realising that his creations could be more than a gesture for the people close to him, he started The Block Bouquets in May 2022, a month after making his first floral block arrangement.
“When I first started my business, the response was nothing short of overwhelming,” he said. In June 2022, his business made its viral TikTok debut, garnering 33.7K views on his younger sister Alena’s account (@alenangsy). As a micro-influencer, she played a crucial role in promoting the business. Since then, the most popular video from the business has soared to more than seven million views on TikTok.
After working for a month as a staff nurse in a clinic following national service, Mr Ng decided to make the shift to full-time in April 2024, putting aside his previous dreams of pursuing a career in healthcare.
He felt “conflicted on whether to quit healthcare, as I was very passionate about it”, but after thinking things through, his priority was focusing on his business as a full-time job. “When my business is stable, I can always go back to healthcare,” he said.
His parents had mixed reactions – his mother was “really supportive”, but his father questioned whether he could earn money building brick bouquets – until he found out how much he earned.
In a single month, Mr Ng could hit five-figure earnings from running his business full-time.
The 23-year-old nursing diploma holder from Ngee Ann Polytechnic has continued to cultivate his business, which now employs a full-timer and five part-timers, aged 19 to 23.
Mr Brent Ng’s pretty posies were a hit with his friends and schoolmates, who bought graduation bouquets from him.
ST PHOTO: GAVIN FOO
His bouquets range from $26.90 for a single blue rose bouquet, which has around 130 blocks, to $169.90 for an “enchanted bouquet”, which has 756 blocks. The simple ones take about 40 minutes to put together, while complicated bouquets can take two hours.
“My weirdest order was a soju bouquet (brick flowers with soju bottles) – we had to get three empty soju bottles, but we didn’t want to waste them, so we just chugged the soju down to empty the bottles,” Mr Ng said with a chuckle. There were even multiple customer orders for a bouquet featuring a Gundam toy; the toy alone took the team five hours to put together, while the bouquet took another 6½ hours.
In October 2023, Mr Ng took his business global by shipping products worldwide and hiring a content creator to manage the company’s social media accounts. Orders surged, prompting him his first full-time hire the following month – a decision he called his “first big gamble”.
Flower bouquets made of brick pieces and artificial flowers at Mr Brent Ng’s office in Kallang on Sept 13.
ST PHOTO: GAVIN FOO
“Hiring staff comes with accounting for salaries. If the business doesn’t do well, how are you going to pay them? That was my first risk, but it was the best decision I ever made,” he said.
His decision proved to be effective when he received around 30 orders a day for the month leading up to Valentine’s Day 2024.
“I had around eight or nine staff members working – we worked past midnight just to make bouquets. They would come in the morning at about 11am and go home at 6am, which is the latest we’ve left the office.”
His will soon realise a two year-long dream of having a physical retail space when his shop opens in October at #02-03 87 Kampong Bahru Road.
Mr Brent Ng hopes to bring this store concept beyond Singapore to Korea, as “there are more couple-based activities there”, and Melbourne.
ST PHOTO: GAVIN FOO
Besides having a larger space to display his bouquets, Block Bouquets will also offer activities there. For instance, couples can assemble their own bouquets together, which will take around 1½ hours for easier designs and around three to four hours to put together more complicated bouquets.
Mr Ng hopes to bring this store concept beyond Singapore to Korea, as “there are more couple-based activities there”, and Melbourne, as he enjoys visiting it.
His advice to young entrepreneurs? If you really believe in your original ideas, then go all out with it. If people try to copy your ideas, your experience still gives you an edge, he said.
“It took a lot of trial and error over these three years – I had to pick up marketing, accounting, and do lots of paperwork to help my business grow. But now I know the ins and outs of this business and have gained the trust of my community.”
