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Hell yes or hell no
You cannot succeed in business if you are not fully committed to it. When given a business idea or opportunity, it is either a hell yes or a hell no. If you are unsure about it, and just want to dip your toes to try, best not to do it. You cannot halfheartedly start something…
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I only do business with long-term people
I’m very selective about who I work with—whether it’s suppliers, landlords, customers, and employees. I look for partners I can see myself working with for years to come. Why? Because when you choose long-term people, reliability, trust, and quality become non-negotiable. These relationships aren’t transactional; they’re built on the promise that we’ll all do our…
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Entrepreneurs are designers
Entrepreneurs without a system and documentation have a job. They have to show up to work to make sure the business does not fall apart. They cannot leverage their time. The business is reliant on them. Entrepreneurship is more about building systems and documenting the processes. That’s the whole essence of entrepreneurship. You are not…
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If you love coffee, don’t start a coffee shop
If you are passionate about something, please don’t make it into a business unless you’re ready for all the complexity and hardships that come with running one. When you’re passionate, you romanticize it so much that you think turning it into a business will be even better. But the reality is, running a business is…
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Capitalize on your strengths
I used to believe that we should spend time addressing our weaknesses—polishing them until they’re “good enough.” But the more I’ve reflected on it, it is clear to me that this approach is often inefficient. Instead, you’ll get farther by doubling down on what you already do best. We’re all wired differently. Some people thrive…
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The problem with no code app development
I paid for a Bubble course last year, and only today did I finally get around to going through it. While watching the videos and learning the platform, I had a moment of reflection: when you build an app with Bubble, you don’t truly own it. Technically, Bubble does. That’s because your app runs on…
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It Will Be Hard, Then It Will Be Easy
One common thing I’ve noticed about success—whether in business, sports, or career—is this: it will be hard for years, and then it gets easy. When I first started boxing, I was stiff and nervous. My muscles would tense up, so my punches lacked speed. There was no grace in my movement. During sparring, I’d last…
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Sometimes the best move is staying still
In business, sometimes the best move is staying still. The more you force the business to scale, the higher the chances of things going wrong. You’re already profitable as you are, but you feel tempted to expand because you see your competitors going hard. But is it really the right move? The more you scale,…
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Humans are wired for growth
I am slowly convinced that humans are wired for growth. There are many things that happens when humans get comfortable. Physically, comfort makes the body weak. There is no resistance that makes it anti-fragile to whatever challenges that may come. Skill wise, comfort makes the brain stagnant. If you work in tech and you are…
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Survivorship bias
I still have a throbbing headache from the last sparring. I got caught with a clean right hook. This got me thinking about the career paths of boxing, Muay Thai, and MMA athletes. It seems like the risk-to-reward ratio is pretty high! You see the greats like Manny Pacquiao, Rodtang, GSP—and one would think it’s…
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Adjust the app for the user
I am building an internal tool for ordering in our company. A lot of our people are non-tech so I had to make the app really simple. It is insane how the little change in the UI could affect how people use the app. What seems super simple to me is complicated for other people.…
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Don’t wait for perfect
I know a few very successful entrepreneurs who started businesses without even writing a business plan. They have an idea and went out and executed. Back then, I thought this was not wise. How could you start something without a blueprint? As I get more experience in business, I realized that executing fast to test…
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Reframe your Why
I’ve recently reconnected with my Christian upbringing, and one pastor who’s made a deep impression on me is Tim Keller. I don’t remember the exact sermon, but I remember the core message: people who root their identity in Christ tend to live with more peace and joy. He explained that when your identity is tied…
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What’s not going to change in the next 10 years?
I’ve been in tech for over a decade, and one thing I’ve noticed is how fast everything moves. Now with AI, it feels like change is happening every hour. Just open X (Twitter), and you’ll see a flood of new AI use cases popping up every day. If you focus too much on these rapid…
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Measure Progress by How Much Peace You Get
In relation to my previous post on controlled scaling, I’ve come to believe that one of the best ways to measure a business’s success is by the amount of peace you experience. If you can sleep well at night—if your mind is calm, your relationships are intact, and your health is steady—then your business is…
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Controlled scaling
In business, I’ve come to realize that controlled scaling is not just wise—it’s necessary. It’s the fine balance between being intentional and letting things unfold in their own time. Scaling a business is tough. It often requires a significant injection of capital to fund inventory and expansion, along with refining systems and hiring new people.…
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Business success is non-linear
I have been training Muay Thai seriously since January. One thing that I notice is that consisently showing up to train does not linearly translate to the same amount of improvement. For instance, I have been trying to get that snap from my roundhouse kick and every time, I intentionally try to understand and execute…
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Don’t tie your identity to your business
When you tie your identity to your business, your self-worth rises and falls with it. Every win boosts your ego; every setback feels like a personal failure. This emotional entanglement clouds your judgment and decision-making. Good decision-making blends data with emotion. You need both. But when your identity is on the line, emotion tends to…
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Focus on your customers
As a business, your main priority is making sure your customers are taken cared of. Remember a business exists because it is a solving a problem for someone. So a business should be focused on giving value to customers. And once you focus on giving value, you make sure your products are made of the…
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Business Checklist
I found this really cool post from Andrew Wilkinson on X. I recommend his book Never Enough: From Barista to Billionaire by the way. I posted a while back about what is a business and I thought I would add a checklist on what a business or entrepreneurship is – thinking about it from First…
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No solutions, only trade-offs
Thomas Sowell’s Basic Economics is one of my favorite economics books of all time. Why? Because it skips all the complicated formulas and charts you usually see in macro and microeconomics classes. I took both in university, and I still get haunted by those isoquants and isocost curves! Anyway, Sowell is such a clear thinker,…
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Problem? GOOD. Now take action.
One of the things I’m working to change in our company is how we deal with problems. Right now, the default is to talk about the problem — sometimes endlessly. And what happens when that’s the focus? Emotions get stirred up. People get frustrated. We overanalyze. There’s too much talk and too little action. The…
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Don’t follow your passion
In order to succeed, you need to “follow your passion.” We all have heard this phrase. But I feel uncomfortable with this. I know people who have become extremely successful not because they followed their passion. They simply pursued an opportunity, put their head down, overcame a lot of obstacles, and eventually became successful. Their…
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Sell with authenticity
I come from a family of entrepreneurs. Since I was exposed to business at a very young age, I could already spot a snake oil salesman from a mile away. These type of sales people usually talk a lot. They are masters at manipulating emotions and getting you to feel comfortable with them. They sell…
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What is a business?
A business solves a problem. It creates value by providing solutions to a problem. Answer these two question and you have yourself a business. The answer needs to be succint. If you wrote an essay answering these two questions, you have an overcomplicated business. It will probably not work.
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A relationship is more important than business
A few years ago, my parents and a family friend started a new business venture. As with most partnerships, the mismatch of goals and efforts eventually led to the splitting of the business. The split was filled with tension, and I had to step in and agreed to a split which was unfavorable to us.…
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Scaling a business versus staying small
I see entrepreneurs who are happy with one store. I also see some with the ambition of scaling to multiple locations. Scaling a business has its financial rewards but the level of risk and stress is also high. If you scale a restaurant to 10 locations, now you have more than 10 times the problem.…
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Simplify aggressively
I think a lot of problems can be avoided if you simplify aggressively. Whether it is in business or in your personal life, simplicity can be the cure. I know of business owners who are constantly stressed because they have not developed a system where the business runs without them. And the reason why they…
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Execute, make mistakes, learn, iterate
I have a friend who became successful in the restaurant industry and then one day decided to leave the industry to focus on travel. He wanted to start his own travel agency which at that time I thought was nuts. But he became successful in the travel agency business too. That friend is that guy…
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The pressure to succeed young
“Bro, I’m burned out.” I was totally caught off guard by my friend’s message. This dude is a machine. A one-man development team with two successful apps in the Apple Store and Google PlayStore. A week earlier, a buddy of mine who flips real estate sent me a message asking my thoughts on truck driving.…
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Passion in business won’t take you to the next level
Back in the day when Shopify and Woocommerce were not as easy as it is today, I use to work with mom-and-pops with their e-commerce. I would upgrade their brand image, advice on product description and images, work on their copywriting, design and build their website. Working with small business owners at the start of…
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Value is determined by the buyer
As of today, the floor price for a Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT on OpenSea is 87.5 ETH (Ethereum) – approximately $108,000. Last year’s bull run, when ETH was hovering between $2,500 to $4,000, many apes were sold north of a hundred. A JPEG photo of a primate on the blockchain is selling for hundreds.…
