The SG Hustle

Recently, there has been quite a bit of news about F&B businesses closing down, with rising rental, manpower and raw material costs often being cited as the main reasons. Some of these businesses have been around for decades, and yet eventually they reach a point where they can no longer continue.  I know I might get flamed for saying this, but these are just my honest thoughts after looking at how the F&B landscape has changed over the years. I don't really believe there is such a thing as a truly loyal customer. A customer doesn't keep going back to the same ice cream stall, fish soup stall or coffee shop simply because they are loyal to the owner. They go back because they like the food, the price, the convenience and the overall experience. The moment they feel that another place offers something better, cheaper or more interesting, they will probably give that place a try. At the end of the day, customers don't owe any F&B business their loyalty. They spend...

I know I’m going to sound like a boomer saying this, but let me remind you, I’m only 35 this year. I’ve been noticing a worrying trend among youngsters, and honestly, it doesn’t seem to be stopping. More and more young people are growing up believing that they can become an influencer or, as we now like to call it, a Key Opinion Leader (KOL), and make a good living without necessarily needing an education or a conventional career. Now, before anyone jumps on me, I want to make it clear that I have absolutely nothing against influencers or KOLs. If you can build an audience, create good content, attract advertisers and turn your personal brand into a successful business, good for you. That is a legitimate career. The problem begins when young people start looking at influencing as an easy alternative to studying, learning a skill or building a proper career. Social media has made this even more dangerous because we are constantly exposed to the winners. We see the influencer driving a F...

 There's a sentence I hear quite often: "I want to quit my job and be my own boss." I understand the appeal. I've thought about it too. There's something attractive about waking up and knowing that nobody is going to tell you what to do. No manager asking where you are. No boss checking whether you've finished something. No one scheduling a meeting at 4pm when you were hoping to leave early. You become your own boss. Sounds like freedom. Except there's one small problem. You don't actually get rid of the boss. You just get more of them. I'm still an employee. And I also have a business. For now, I still have my job. At the same time, I have a side business that I'm building. And honestly, I think this is a useful position to be in because I get to see both sides. As an employee, I have a fairly obvious boss. There are expectations. There are deadlines. There are things I have to do even when I don't feel like doing them. But when the workda...

A while ago, I wrote about my company's restructuring. Like many others, it made me stop and think about something much bigger than just one company. Is job security still a thing? That question led me to another one. What does having a "valuable skill set" even mean in today's workforce? Ten years ago, the answer seemed straightforward. Marketing was booming. If you knew how to create videos, edit content, or run social media campaigns, you had an advantage. Those skills were in demand, and they paid well. Around the same time, being an influencer became a dream career for many young people. Throw a stone into a crowd, and chances are someone would tell you they wanted to become a content creator. Brands were spending heavily on digital marketing, and authentic personalities became valuable assets. Fast forward to today, and the landscape has changed dramatically. AI can now generate marketing copy, design graphics, edit videos, and even create virtual influencers. S...

A few weeks ago, my company went through a small round of restructuring. Retrenchment, if we're using the honest word instead of the corporate one. I was safe. My name wasn't on the list. I want to be careful here, because "I survived" is not a success story. It's just where the dice landed this time. But watching it happen up close taught me more about financial planning than any amount of portfolio modelling I've done for myself or my kids. So here's what I actually saw. The workload didn't disappear with the people. The first thing that happened had nothing to do with money. There's no backfill. The work those colleagues used to do didn't get retrenched along with them, it got redistributed to whoever was left. Same output expected, fewer hands to do it. Nobody warns you about this part. You assume surviving a round of cuts means things go back to normal. They don't. Normal was the headcount before. What's left is the new nor...

A few weeks ago I wrote about the AI simulation I built for my sons' investment portfolios, ang bao money, baby bonus, STI ETF, dividend reinvestment, projected out year by year all the way to 2046, when they'll be 21 and 23. I could tell you, with real historical data behind it, roughly what their portfolios might be worth in twenty years. I had a spreadsheet. I had assumptions. I had a plan. I could not tell you, six months ago, whether I'd be alive and well enough to see any of it. That's not a dramatic exaggeration. It's just what happens when you spend your evenings projecting compound interest for your children and zero minutes projecting anything for yourself. The gap I didn't notice I sit with numbers for a living, in some sense. I like modelling things out, contribution schedules, expected returns, what a portfolio looks like at year 8 versus year 20. It's satisfying to turn a vague hope, "I want my kids to be okay financially" int...