2025 is a crazy year filled with turmoil and sagas. Not only the events that you and I would hear on the news, but it is a year full of transition. Amongst many, is my older brother. He’s one of the few inspiring figures for me growing up. Primarily with his stellar academic achievements, obtaining full ride scholarships to Singapore and then to the US for university.
But now, he is going through the trenches of his entrepreneurship journey and starting his own business. For the first time since forever, I would see a car at the porch of the office when I arrive in the mornings.
No, not because Budi comes earlier to the office than me :) but because my brother is already there, getting to the office earlier than me.
I have also seen him setting up social media, website, kitchen, inventory, and many more that reminded me of the suuper beginning early days of Recompound (although Recompound is still early as this post was built). It is hard. Not hard because the tasks are inherently hard, but mainly because of the number of decisions, the uncertainty, and the persistence needed to go through failures when setting up a business.
I am grateful that I am in a unique position who’s actively building a business for people like my brother (yes he’s a client). Budi and I also happen to look at businesses actively, how they are run, how they operate, how they grow and develop moat as part as the core product we offer.
So I’d like to take this opportunity to share 25 lessons that I have learned in 2025. More of like a pep talk for my brother, which you could also access. I genuinely hope that you could use it as an opportunity to reflect on your 2025 (the data that you have) to allow you to be a better version of yourself in 2026.
Oh and I recorded myself on YouTube, explaining the points. So this post only contains the points. If any of those interest you, go on to the video to learn more.
To my brother, here are some lessons that I learned in 2025. I genuinely hope that you will find some (at least one) of them valuable:
Levels to this game
Intellectual honesty is hard
Value is action
Social media is not a popularity contest
Investments is a lot more broad than you think
Logic is limited
Language is also limited
Quality is more important than quantity
But quantity is more important than quality
Financial freedom might be the wrong goal
Macroeconomics is BS (mostly)
Nothing is truly 0 risk
Possibility sells, probability confuses
In the 21st century, being smart is equals to being stupid
It is never about the achievement, it is about progress
Comparison with others is inevitable
Luck is a requirement
Proper system beats motivation
Knowledge is a commodity
Being a specialised generalist is important
People will not quit smoking because smoking kills
People quit smoking on their own accord
Being a non-conformist is tough
Work is invisible
It’s okay to set an absurdly crazy goal
Also to you our dearest reader, happy holidays, may you have an enjoyable time with your loved ones.