Eugene Lim: The Entrepreneur Redefining Community Living

In Singapore’s real estate landscape, conversations often revolve around numbers: yields, market cycles, square footage, and returns. But for Eugene Lim, Founder & CEO of The Assembly Place, the story has never been about numbers alone. His work centers on something deeper — the belief that a living space can do far more than house people. It can connect them.

After two decades in real estate, Eugene has built one of Singapore’s most influential co-living and hospitality platforms, with more than 3,500 keys across 102 locations. But the path to building the country’s largest co-living operator did not begin with a business model. It began with empathy, observation, and the conviction that belonging is one of the most powerful forms of value.

A Social Experiment That Became an Ecosystem

The Assembly Place started in 2019 as a simple experiment. Eugene had noticed two challenges happening in parallel: young professionals frustrated with restrictive rental conditions, and landlords unhappy with low rental yields. Instead of seeing these issues as unrelated complaints, he recognised an opportunity to design a solution that served both sides.

He rented a single house in Orchard, refreshed it with modest renovations, and opened it to six young women from different countries. What happened next became the foundation of everything that followed.

Within weeks, these strangers were exploring Singapore together, sharing meals, swapping cultural stories, and forming friendships that lasted long after they moved on. Watching people connect — not because they were placed together, but because the environment made connection natural — convinced Eugene that co-living could become something more powerful than the market realised.

Today, The Assembly Place’s portfolio spans boutique hotels, serviced apartments, student accommodation, hostels, and flexible living solutions. What began as a house has grown into a community-driven ecosystem.

Nimble Thinking in an Unpredictable World

The way Eugene tells it, strategy is important — but rigidity is fatal.

“In business, you must be nimble,” he says. “If Plan A doesn’t work, you pivot. You can’t be stubborn. You must listen.”

This mindset became vital during COVID-19. While many real estate operators struggled with collapsing occupancy and operational challenges, Eugene pivoted quickly, adjusting offerings, repackaging spaces, and responding to a rapidly changing environment.

Resilience, for him, is not a personality trait. It is a deliberate practice — the willingness to adapt without ego.

Redefining Success

In the early years, success was measured in the traditional ways: number of rooms, occupancy rates, and commercial performance. But as The Assembly Place expanded, Eugene’s understanding of success grew alongside it.

“Success is meaningless if only you believe in the vision,” he says. “Success is when your team shares it with you.”

Today, he sees success not only in strong numbers, but in strong alignment — a senior team that moves with purpose, a culture that sets high standards, and junior colleagues who join the company and immediately feel inspired by the people around them. Commercial growth matters, but it is the people carrying the growth that make it sustainable.

What drives him each morning is the pursuit of continuous improvement. He begins every day with the same question: How can we be better than yesterday?

“I tell my team we are only as good as our last project,” he says. “Every day, we start from zero again.”

The Philosophy That Sets The Assembly Place Apart

There is a sentence Eugene often repeats — a line that captures the core of his thinking:

“Anyone can copy our hardware. What they cannot copy is our software.”

Hardware is the building. Software is everything intangible: community programming, shared spaces designed for interaction, residents who feel part of something larger than themselves, and the emotional memory a place creates.

He hopes that years from now, former residents will tell their children about the months they lived at The Assembly Place — not because the walls were beautiful, but because they met people who changed their lives. He has seen friendships form between people who never would have crossed paths otherwise, yet still exchange Christmas greetings years later.

It’s also why the company is named The Assembly Place: a space where people from all backgrounds assemble, connect, and leave with something lasting.

The Athlete Behind the Founder

Much of Eugene’s discipline comes from sport. He has been an athlete his entire life — rugby, canoeing, triathlons, Ironman races, ultramarathons, and most recently, HYROX competitions. His lifestyle reflects that discipline: he wakes up at 5:30am every day, trains before sunrise, fasts 16–18 hours a day, takes more than 30 vitamins daily, and does ice baths four to five times a week.

“Discipline is everything,” he says. “It’s the single most important ingredient for an entrepreneur.”

Sport taught him grit, resilience, and the ability to keep going when circumstances break others. It also reinforced the idea that progress is built through consistency — not intensity alone.

A Shift Toward Simplicity, Empathy, and Meaning

As he matured, Eugene’s perspective on happiness changed profoundly. In his younger years, happiness was tied to financial milestones. Today, it is defined by health, clarity, and contentment.

These days, he values simple moments: a slow run, a quiet morning, time spent with a small circle of meaningful friends. He gravitates toward people who are motivated and positive but also compassionate — a combination he believes is increasingly rare in business.

“You can be aggressive and ruthless in business,” he says, “but you should never lack empathy.”

Empathy, he notes, is a quality he had to intentionally develop. It has become central to how he leads.

A Life Without a Divide Between Work and Self

Eugene does not believe in separating work and life.

“If you really love your work, it becomes part of your life,” he says. “If you separate them, you’ll be happy on weekends and depressed from Monday to Friday.”

For him, fulfillment comes from integration — building something meaningful, contributing consistently, and staying engaged with the world around him. It’s also why he doesn’t believe in the concept of retirement. You can slow down, he says, but contribution should continue.

An entrepreneur evolves: first a builder, then a leader, then a mentor. Each stage has its role.

The Legacy He Hopes to Leave

When asked what he hopes people will remember in 30 years, Eugene doesn’t talk about square footage, key count, or expansion. His answer is simple: he wants to be remembered for shaping how people live together.

He hopes people will look back and see him as someone who introduced a new way of living in Singapore — a model built around human connection, not just accommodation.

“It’d be nice if people remembered that I built an empire with many keys. But nothing beats being remembered as a placemaker — someone who builds community out of a hardware space, out of a dead space.”

For him, legacy is about the feeling people carry with them after they leave: the friendships, the shared experiences, and the sense that their time at The Assembly Place was a meaningful part of their story.