From National Service to a Grants Business
Edward and Oliver met while doing their national service in Singapore, where they served together in the police. Even then, they talked often about building a business of their own.
The idea took shape over lunch one day. Oliver shared a news article about Harvey AI, an AI tool built for law firms. The concept struck them as simple, an information product that could scale massively, and they started thinking about building something similar. They were also about to start university in different places, so they wanted a business they could run remotely.
Both now study economics, and they've found some useful overlap with running a business, such as working out how to price a product. They started Optra Labs in August 2025, straight after national service ended, and incorporated it with Osome in 2026.
For Edward, national service taught him the value of independence. In Singapore, he says, a career path is often seen as something you can't control. He and Oliver realised it's something you can control, and that it comes down to your appetite for risk and for independence.
You learn best by doing. If you want to learn business management, go manage a business. You want to study entrepreneurship, be an entrepreneur.
Helping SMEs Find the Funding They Qualify For
Optra Labs supports SMEs in Singapore across what Edward calls the grant discovery to acquisition journey.
On the discovery side, its main tool is a grant eligibility assessment. It goes beyond telling a business whether it qualifies for a government grant and shows the extent to which it qualifies. That gives owners a checklist of action items, so they can prioritise which applications to pursue first.
On the acquisition side, Optra Labs helps SMEs prepare their own applications. That means drafting KPIs (key performance indicators), detailing the project scope, sourcing vendors where needed, and handling the extra diligence and admin that make an application thorough and give it the best chance of approval.
The founders noticed that early-stage startups can raise money from venture capital (VC) firms, but SMEs at a later stage can't. A business three years into operation won't raise a funding round, yet it may still have operational needs that call for significant capital.
Government funding can fill that gap, yet many owners don't know they qualify. Those who do often can't find the time to research the opportunities and apply around a busy schedule. That's the workload Optra Labs helps lighten.
As a founder working with other founders, you realise that you really do share very similar problems, and being able to help reduce that workload or burden goes a long way.
Why Singapore Was the Place to Start
The founders are Singaporean, and their customers are Singapore businesses, so incorporating there made sense. Edward also points to Singapore's strong startup and SME ecosystem. In the Asia-Pacific region, he says, it stands out as a hub for innovative businesses and as a financial centre.
Just as important, they wanted to be sure they were solving a problem that exists. They spoke to peers working in adjacent spaces and attended Business Show Asia in Singapore a few times to test demand in person.
The funding is there. In Budget 2024, Singapore committed more than S$ 1 billion over five years to AI compute, talent and industry development (source). Edward's question is whether SME owners know about AI-related support like this, and whether they're tapping into it.
Choosing Osome on a Brother's Recommendation
Oliver first heard about Osome from his brother, who had incorporated his own business with Osome. His brother described the process as seamless, with Osome handling everything for him. Oliver also found the pricing competitive, and choosing a Singapore-based company felt more comfortable than going with an external provider.
When the two sat down over lunch to talk about incorporating, Edward's first question was how long it would take. He expected the usual slow administrative work. Oliver told him it could be done within a couple of days, and Edward suggested they start the next day.
Time is currency, so the convenience of having things done quickly made it quite compelling, even for someone like myself who hadn't heard of Osome until Oliver raised it.
Incorporated Within Days, With App Notifications Along the Way
Oliver handled the setup on behalf of both founders, over lunch. They made the payment and submitted their personal identification details, which Oliver recalls doing through Singpass. An Osome customer support representative then reached out with the documents from ACRA (Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority). Once they'd signed each one, the company was incorporated.
Edward describes the process as almost interactive, with the representative sending each document to sign until everything was done. The founders used the Osome app throughout.
We didn't have to keep going in and checking every time we needed to sign a document or make a change. It would just send us a notification.
Time Saved, and What a Founder's Hour Is Worth
Doing it themselves, Edward estimates, would have taken several hours. That includes researching the process, deciding which provider to use, checking whether they needed other contractors or service providers, and preparing the information for ACRA.
Putting a dollar value on that time is harder. Optra Labs is in the business of saving time, as Edward often says, so he knows how valuable it is. If you value your time at $ 100 an hour, he says, someone will ask why not $ 200, then why not $ 300. At any stage of business, there's no ceiling to what a founder's time is worth, and spending it on work that can be done quickly carries a real opportunity cost.
Oliver adds that incorporation was a one-time task for them. With accounting on top, he expects they'd save much more time across the whole business journey.
The work that you guys are doing shows that the incorporation process does not need to be a multi-hour exercise. It can be done very, very quickly.
Growing Beyond Singapore
Optra Labs is now in its growth stage. Through time spent working in this space, the team has refined its ICP (ideal customer profile) and established product-market fit in Singapore. The next step is scaling beyond where they are today.
That brings new unknowns and challenges, which Edward sees as part of a continuous learning process. The team has grown too. Justin joined after meeting Edward at UCLA, and the founders now work across California and Sydney, having found a time-zone overlap that works for all three. Optra Labs is also looking to solve the same problem for businesses in the United States.
Advice for New Founders
Each of the three has a different piece of advice. Justin's is to define a very specific problem you can solve, the way Edward and Oliver did for the Singapore market, and build towards product-market fit.
Oliver wishes they'd planned more from the start. Clearer planning around what to scale and what to change, he believes, would have saved them delays and put them further ahead.
For Edward, it's about balance. Take risks, but know where your risk appetite ends. Put people first, since the product comes second to the team you work with. And learn to push through difficult times, because every business has them.
Facing the issues actually builds the company. You analyse the issue, you attack it, and you find a way to make something more efficient or improve your product or service.
