Author: Jeremy
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If School Could Make Someone Like Me Hate It
I recently saw a limerick displayed prominently on the wall of a primary school: Perhaps it was chosen because it rhymed correctly. Perhaps nobody thought much about it before enlarging it and putting it on a wall for hundreds of children to read every day. But look at what it actually says. A wonderful star…
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When You Are Young, Hard Work Is Your Capital. Later, Judgment Must Become Your Leverage.
In polytechnic, I could play Dota until 10 p.m., suddenly remember an assignment was due, and work until four or five in the morning. Sleep for an hour, leave home at six, reach school by eight, and keep functioning until mid-afternoon before crashing. Sometimes I went close to 30 hours without proper sleep. I was…
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Glasses Are Not an Accident
Singapore has the highest childhood myopia rate in the world. By Primary 6, roughly 65% of Singaporean children wear glasses. By university, it’s closer to 80%. A Singaporean child today is more likely to have damaged eyesight by adulthood than not. This is not a mystery. It is not a tragedy or bad luck. It…
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Good Entrepreneurs Kill Ideas
People sometimes look at our group of businesses and assume that we just keep executing based on instinct, and somehow most of the things we touch work. Movement First. Javy Sports. Fit Bloc. Arkkies. Apex. The gyms. The sports supplies. The metal fabrication. The different pieces somehow look quite neat after the fact, as if…
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Say You Were Lucky
I bought an office workstation in July last year and only set it up recently, which is slightly ridiculous but also quite typical of how business purchases sometimes happen. You buy something because it is needed, or will be needed soon, or because a window opens where you can settle the problem before it becomes…
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The Load Shift: Twenty Years of Indoor Climbing in Singapore
When I started climbing in Singapore around 2005, I was sixteen or seventeen, and the gym looked nothing like it does today. The wall was just covered in holds. Hundreds of them. No tape, no colour coding, no grades. You walked in, looked up, and had to invent your own route — or watch someone…
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The Ironies of Becoming a Successful Entrepreneur
I was at the Läderach counter with my son recently, buying chocolate at S$22 for 100 grams. He watched me pay, and I found myself explaining — half to him, half to myself — that this is what work is for. Not to hoard money endlessly, but to be able to enjoy something indulgent once…
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The Client Who Threatened to Burn My Warehouse
The friend whose first order started my trading business also introduced me to the client who would one day threaten to burn my warehouse down. I’m still grateful to him. I was in my early twenties when a friend — a coach I’d met through mutual circles — placed a small order with me. Equipment…
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Compounding Does Not Only Belong to Finance
When people speak about compounding, they almost always mean money. They mean savings, investments, interest, and the quiet arithmetic of letting capital sit still long enough to multiply itself. That is one form of compounding, and an important one. But it is not the only form, and I suspect it is not even the most…
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The Joy of Entrepreneurship
A lot has been said about entrepreneurship, and most of it tends to fall into one of two camps. Either people warn you away from it — because it is uncertain, difficult, and the odds are low — or they romanticise it too much, as though it is some glamorous act of self-invention, full of…