How Nuffnang Founder Timothy Tiah Was “Duped” Into The Co-Working Industry and Built A Profitable Business

In this edition of Open for Business, Colony’s Co-Founder and CEO Timothy Tiah takes us through lessons learnt, challenges faced, and journey ahead in the ever-evolving landscape of coworking. Among other things, we explore how Timothy was “duped” into this business, his concern with the financial engineering that goes on with the EBITDA profitability of some businesses, the strategy of building a premium co-working offering through Colony and a low-cost, no-frills option through Jerry Coworking Space, his preferred exit strategy, and much more.

Co-founded by husband & wife duo, Timothy Tiah & Audrey Ooi, Colony is a more luxurious take on the co-working space concept and was launched late July 2017. The idea was to transform the work experience with beautiful serviced office spaces and world-class amenities, taking inspiration from Silicon Valley offices.

They started with a team of 15 people and had 2 branches initially, and within a year raised US$5 million with Cornerstone Partners (acquiring a stake at US$15m-US$20m valuation). Today they have 6 main co-working spaces, multiple event spaces, and in 2021, introduced Jerry Coworking Space - a cheaper, fully-automated, no frills option.