Tap Space’s founder started with just S$50 to kickstart his business

From keychains bearing the names of MRT stations to miniature bus models, transport merchandise is taking off in Singapore.

One business riding this wave is TapSpace, founded by 29-year-old Danial Sim—he started with just S$50, and now, he can sell thousands of items in a single day.

We spoke with Danial to find out more about how a holiday inspiration grew into a full-fledged business, with a store that regularly sees queues and can sell over a thousand products in a single day.

The idea for Tap Space struck him during a holiday in Korea

The idea for TapSpace struck Danial during a holiday in Korea in August 2023. There, he noticed a vibrant public transport culture and a genuine appreciation for transit systems through collectible trinkets—something he realised was largely missing back home in Singapore.

At the time, Danial was working in engineering and laboratory roles, hardly the typical background for someone launching a creative merchandise business. Though the idea of making transport-themed collectibles had lingered in the back of his mind, he had put it on hold due to the demands of his job.

Yet his love for public transport—and the nostalgia it evoked, from the sights and smells to the interiors—stuck with him throughout his daily travels around Singapore. Hence, a year later, in Aug 2024, he finally decided to give it a shot, starting with a S$50 investment to test the market.

That modest investment went towards sourcing local manufacturers for small-batch items like keychains. Danial’s breakthrough came when he found a Singapore supplier willing to work without minimum order quantities, a rare opportunity that let him test the market without a massive upfront commitment.

Starting from ground zero

Tap Space’s first merchandise line launched with just four MRT station keychain designs: Changi, Orchard, Punggol, and Sengkang, each priced at S$9.90.

To market his products, Danial started from scratch, launching a TikTok account with zero followers. Every single night, after dinner, Danial would religiously start a TikTok livestream to show what he’s come up with and engage with potential customers.

Beyond TikTok Shop, Danial expanded to Shopee after noticing that many Singaporeans prefer it for online purchases. Tap Space also regularly held pop-ups at hobby fairs to reach an even wider audience.

Danial’s hard work paid off eventually. Every day, he would gain “a few hundred followers” on social media, which proved to him that there was an appetite for transport trinkets in Singapore.

Gradually, customers also began requesting additional stations—Choa Chu Kang, Jurong East, Woodlands—laying the foundation for new product lines. Danial continued expanding, and today he has over 250 MRT and LRT-inspired key chain designs.

Tap Space broke even in one year

Every brand has its watershed moment. For TapSpace, it arrived in Aug 2025 at Takashimaya during a two-week invitational pop-up event coinciding with Singapore’s SG60 National Day celebrations.

The event marked a milestone for the business—it broke even, selling 1,500 pieces on the first day and completely selling out by day three.

It also showed Danial that Tap Space could grow beyond a hobby. After the pop-up, he took the leap from full-time employment into full-time entrepreneurship, recognising that the growing demand for his products required his full attention.

Shortly afterwards, he even opened a physical retail space at Burlington Square, giving customers a place to browse his collectibles in person.

Expanding Tap Space’s product range

Beyond MRT stations, Tap Space also offers other iconic transport symbols as keychains, such as the ‘May I have a seat’ and priority seating icons. The shop even sells MRT handles as keychains—initially sourced from local scrap yards, though Danial has since located the original supplier for these authentic pieces.

People thought the transport handles were 3D printed, like a fake thing. However, when they realised that it’s the actual thing, they buy them for funny uses, not just as keychains, but for the gym, or to walk their dogs.

Danial Sim

Apart from keychains, Tap Space has expanded into stickers, miniature models of buses, trains and taxis from different eras, figurines, and desk mats. Some of these products are even sold in blind boxes.

To balance local support with efficiency, Danial works with local manufacturers for small-batch restocking, while larger production is handled by specialised suppliers across Asia—China, Malaysia, and Thailand—for faster turnaround times.

Ambitions to go beyond merchandise & expanding overseas

Today, Tap Space’s store sees steady demand. According to the founder, it requires restocking two to three times weekly, a frequency backed by the “daily” queues it sees every day.

People just see public transport as something that you take; they don’t really think of it as a memory. When you turn it into something memorable and collectible, people be like, ‘Oh, I didn’t know that this can have so much memories in this one keychain or in this one design.’ That’s where it starts off.

Danial Sim

The shop attracts a wide range of customers, from parents with children to groups of overseas tourists seeking authentic souvenirs beyond the usual Merlion keychains. Many visitors come just to browse the carefully curated, cosy space, which, according to Danial, has been described as a ‘museum for mini Singapore transport.’

The founder has also managed to secure consignment placements in major retailers, including Popular bookstores and Toys “R” Us.

Looking ahead, Tap Space’s ambitions go beyond merchandise into technology. Danial is exploring NFC-enabled keychains that link to LTA wayfinding and EZ-Link systems, aiming to merge physical collectibles with digital utility.

As part of his efforts of “expanding thoughtfully,” Danial is also in the midst of coming up with bilingual versions of station designs, such as Japanese and English, which may appeal better to international visitors.

International expansion is also not off the table. Danial recently hosted a successful pop-up in Kuala Lumpur showcasing products inspired by Malaysian public transport, though he has not shared concrete plans for further expansion.

The transformation of mundane infrastructure—train handles, station signs, bus liveries—into coveted collectibles demonstrates that business opportunities often hide in plain sight, waiting for someone willing to see the extraordinary in the ordinary.

You don’t have to start with a lot of money. Can be like me: start with S$50. Use the money you have. You shouldn’t go all out; you should just try the small market first. If you go for small pop-ups around Singapore and there is interest, then why not?

Danial Sim

• Find out more about Tap Space here.
• Read other articles we’ve written on Singaporean businesses here.

Featured Image Credit: Tap Space

from the hot-stove dept

Way back in the ancient days of the year 2020, the world went through this pandemic thing called COVID-19. For those of you not old enough to remember such ancient history, it was a fairly significant health issue that caused a few disruptions throughout the world, including in these here United States. Trump was president at the time of the wild spread of the pandemic. There were shutdowns. There was a supply chain shitstorm. People argued over masks and school closures while staring at shelves where toilet paper used to be available so we could wipe ourselves. The government displayed such an impressive failure of leadership that I myself questioned why we should have a government at all if this is how it was going to behave.

But, to be fair, there were also some impressive things from government to come out of the pandemic. Trump’s administration initiated Operation Warp Speed to develop and distribute COVID vaccines so we could all get back to our lives. While the first Trump administration didn’t do so great at the distribution part of the plan, and managed to coat the world in incredible amounts of misinformation around the pandemic and these vaccines, it was still an impressive feat to bring these vaccines to market in record time. One of the government agencies that powered Operation Warp Speed was the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID), which was responsible for collating research on previous pathogens similar to COVID-19 and for building out the trials for the vaccines that would eventually come to market. If it weren’t for NIAID, it’s unlikely the government’s response to the pandemic would have been as rapid, or successful.

And if you think I’m wrong about that, there’s a chance that the next pandemic will provide us with an answer. That’s because this second Trump administration is actively choosing to remove exactly this sort of pandemic work from NIAID’s proactive efforts.

NIH director Jay Bhattacharya explained the restructure at an event with other top agency officials on 30 January. “It’s a complete transformation of [the NIAID] away from this old model” that has historically prioritized research on HIV, biodefence and pandemic preparedness, he said. The institute will focus more on basic immunology and other infectious diseases currently affecting people in the United States, he added, rather than on predicting future diseases.

Nahid Bhadelia, director of Boston University’s Center on Emerging Infectious Diseases in Massachusetts, says the decision to deprioritize these areas will leave people in the United States more vulnerable to pathogens that are constantly evolving in wildlife around the world and spilling into human populations, sometimes sparking outbreaks. “Just because we say we’re going to stop caring about these issues doesn’t make the issues go away — it just makes us less prepared,” she says.

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This is one of the things I’ve found about Trump’s second term most perplexing. His reelection efforts were arguably chiefly torpedoed by the pandemic. There’s an old saying in parenting that even a child can learn a lesson from pain. If a child touches a hot stove, they will get burned and will not touch it again. By installing the likes of RFK Jr. and his cadre of conspiracy theorists to manage the health of Americans, and by keeping the very agency that allowed for his rapid response to COVID from doing likewise in the future, it appears Trump wants to keep touching the hot stove. I don’t get it.

And it’s not like we don’t have outbreaks of infectious disease happening right now. We absolutely do. The measles infection count that has gone on for 14 months in this country is insane. There’s no reason COVID can’t mutate and come right back into our lives as a major health issue. Or there could be another novel pathogen that grinds all of our lives back to a halt once more. For a man so concerned with building walls, he’s tearing down the virtual protection that is proactive research and knowledge.

“NIAID’s work clearly neither prevented the pandemic nor prevented Americans from experiencing among the highest levels of all-cause excess mortality in the developed world during that time,” [Bhattacharya and subordinates] wrote. “Given the increasing prevalence of allergic and autoimmune disorders and the burden of common infections in the population over the past few decades, the NIAID must focus research on these conditions with a greater sense of urgency.”

This is a wild fictionalization of what occurred at NIAID. The agency doesn’t make healthcare policy. It advises the Executive Branch on what is needed to prepare for new and existing diseases, performs research into detecting those diseases before they become pandemics, and provides research and planning into how to respond to them. When Anthony Fauci led NIAID in 2017, he warned the administration of all of this and asked for funding to prepare for it. Not only did he not get his funding, but the administration also made staff and budget cuts impacting our pandemic preparations.

“We do need a public-health emergency fund. It’s tough to get it … but we need it,” Fauci said. “Because what we had to go through for Zika — it was very, very painful when the president asked for the $1.9 billion in February and we didn’t get it until September.”

But the Trump administration did not create such a fund, and instead cut spending for federal agencies responsible for detecting and preparing for outbreaks. In May 2018, Trump’s national security advisor disbanded the National Security Council’s pandemic response team, while in October 2019, the administration declined to renew funding for a pandemic early warning system.

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This administration is doing it again, except worse. This time, it’s not removing some funding and some staff that were used to prepare us for the next pandemic. Instead, he’s just removing the mission of pandemic preparedness from NIAID entirely. And there are future plans to remove funding for research on novel pathogens, as well.

The instructions to agency staff members to rebrand the institute’s language are only the first step towards implementing this new vision, according to the NIAID employees. NIH principal deputy director Matthew Memoli has ordered more changes, including the review of the portfolio of grants funding biodefence and pandemic preparedness, in the coming weeks and months, they say.

This is crazy. It’s as though we’re all in the back seat of the family minivan, while mom and dad drive us somewhere… except we have no GPS, no maps, the steering wheel moves on its own, and the windshield is made of lead.

The stove is still hot. And, unfortunately, as Trump makes another attempt to touch it, it won’t be his fingers that are singed, but our own.

Filed Under: covid, donald trump, health, jay bhattacharya, niaid, operation warp speed, pandemics, vaccines