The Scuro studio featured horror posters, an oversized gothic chair, as well as props, candles, and head-banging music to create the vibe. Customers could paint with screwdrivers, sponges and strings, and end each session with fruit punch in ‘blood bags’.
The timing was perfect. The opening coincided with Halloween and there were many bookings in the first month. Lim earned enough to cover rent. But in the second month, bookings dropped by more than 50 per cent. It “flopped”, she said.
In Singapore, entrepreneurship comes with significant capital outlay and risks, Lim said. Most of her start-up capital went into the first month’s rent and a two-month deposit. She also had to sign a two-year rental contract.
“Imagine the stress I was under because I did not have any runway,” Lim said.
Thinking that her studio would shut down, she broke the news to her boyfriend and friends, and promised them she’d get a job, work hard and get her life together. She even told her landlord to start searching for new tenants.
“I was calculating the debt I would be in and regretted going so hastily into a business,” Lim said. “But I was not going down without a fight.”