Cost of doing business
A July update.
We’re already in July. As I begin the third quarter, the business is in a weird state.
There are the usual cancellations and non-renewals.
But there are also newer subscribers, and those still maintaining their subscriptions (the real heroes).
Entrepreneurship has been a tough teacher.
When I drew a salary, there was a sense of entitlement. I expected, by law, to be paid by a certain day or date.
Given that the company wasn’t my own, giving even 50% felt good enough, I was already underpaid.
My byline was the hill to die on.
Anyone who questioned my integrity or challenged my work, I’d froth at the mouth and go rabid defending myself.
At stake were my name and my social media following.
In hindsight, all of it seems trivial.
With entrepreneurship, a day’s wages is not guaranteed.
“Hustle”, “work”, call it what you want.
But when you see 0 in your earnings dashboard, or run a week-on-week comparison and the number is red rather than green, reality hits.
So you get cracking. No time to think about “salary”.
When a nasty or smartass email criticising my work hits my inbox, there’s no time to froth at the mouth.
That egotistical hill has been levelled, like Ipoh’s limestone outcrops.
What follows is a polite reply, thanking the disgruntled emailer for taking the time to write in and closing the matter with a proper send-off.
Social media feuds, or attempts to draw me into one? Ignore.
Refund? Even on days when I could or should contest, I usually err on the side of issuing it.
Little do people know — or maybe they do, and just don’t care — that the fees to refund someone are borne by the publisher.
Interestingly, even to contest there’s some Stripe fees involved.
Social media following? It’s a ratio with only a small number willing to actually pay for your product.
And I think it’s all these that make being your own boss overwhelming.
Some have lived long enough to grow cynical of the human race while others just throw in the towel, hoping the return to office life and politics and a monthly salary would be a respite from the drudgery of exhausting oneself in the name of independence.
The real cost of doing business. Boy, it’s a learning curve, I must say.
Oh, the newsletter is finally stabilising.
I’m not going to pop the champagne just yet.
But, perhaps departing from the usual bleak tone of my previous monthly updates, I’m kicking off July with a sense of gratitude that there are still supporters of The Malaysianist.
And I guess I can look forward to ending the year stronger than I was in 2025.
Fingers crossed, I’ll level up to more pain.
As they say, it never gets easier, but I should be slightly better at handling the riot that is running my own business.
Not forgetting, here are the top stories for June, articles that drew around 3,000 views and converted at least 10 paying subscribers (monthly/annual/founding) each:
Keeping up with the connected. Nazir’s Ikhlas eyes a healthcare roll-up, a Care Concierge deal dies at the eleventh hour, and RHL’s HappyFresh bet goes south.
Brainjam #18: Privilege, power and PE. Is Ikhlas Capital is really just a Rolodex with a dash of luck?
The turnaround that tanked. Astro’s CEO did exactly what he was hired to do, but Astro’s stock tanked 67.5%, and the CEO got replaced by the man he replaced.
Searching for Boost amid the burn. Two years on, Axiata’s Boost is still bleeding and hunting a buyer willing to walk into a burning building.
Has Khazanah stopped growing? A reader asked me to check. The answer is intriguing.
Brahmal’s old KL. The Creador founder builds an art empire in old KL as PolicyStreet offers its first backers a quarter of what their shares were just valued at.
Priced for paralysis. Your insurance premiums are soaring, and the funds meant to protect you are the same ones cashing the hospital dividends.