I love to teach. I post about #dataengineering and #mentalhealth daily. 

Many years of data engineering experience doing growth analytics at Facebook, security infrastructure at Netflix, and pricing and availability infrastructure at Airbnb. 

You can find me by looking up EcZachly on all social networks 

Join my Data Learning Platform https://www.dataexpert.io

Zach Wilson

Databricks is going to win “data” the same way that Meta won “social media” 

They are uniquely positioned because of the convergence of a few trends:

- the death of the data analyst
We are moving away from analytical architectures and towards action-oriented architectures. Instead of “the data engineer does ETL so analysts can look at it” it will be “the data engineer creates context for AI agents to do something” Actions will reduce timelines and speed up business velocity. Humans will no longer be the analytical bottleneck. 

- the crushing of data siloes 
Open table formats like delta and iceberg will make business able to do things that were previously though impossible! We’ll finally have all the context for our AI in one place. Entire business context + Agents = a waterfall of business value! 


I’m launching a paid Databricks boot camp on February 9th. Send me a DM with the word Databricks and I’ll get you the details!

Founder @ DataExpert.io | ADHD | 500k+ followers | Angel Investor

No alternative text description for this image

The first speaker lineup for the analytics engineering boot camp is going to be so amazing! 

These sessions are what truly separates my boot camp from “just another data course”

Data modeling is far from dead! It’s actually more relevant than ever. 

There’s been an interesting shift in the seas with AI. Some people saying we don’t need to do facts and dimensions anymore. This is a wild take because product analytics don’t suddenly disappear because LLM has arrived.

It seems like to me that multi-modal LLM is bringing together the three types of data:

- structured

- semi-structured

- unstructured

Dimensional modeling is still very relevant but will need to be augmented to include semi-structured outputs from the parsing of text and image data.

The necessity for complex types like VARIANT and STRUCT seems to be rising. Which is increasing the need for data modeling not decreasing it.

It feels like some company leaders now believe you can just point an LLM at a Kafka queue and have a perfect data warehouse which is still SO far from the actual reality of where data engineering sits today

Am I missing something or is the hype train just really loud right now?

I'm doing a live with Karan Dwivedi to talk about a cybersecurity boot camp that is launching on January 9th! 

This boot camp has an amazing capstone project where you do all of these on a company server!
- threat modeling
- detection engineering
- preventative controls 

Don't miss this webinar tomorrow!

January 9th Cybersecurity Boot Camp Webinar

Co-Founder & CTO @ Staq | Data Scientist

I’m a physicist turned data scientist, now a founder building The Runway Ventures — a weekly newsletter to help people learn from startup failures to become the top 1% founders.

I spent the first 3 years of my career helping companies solve business problems as a data scientist. Meantime, I was also a corporate trainer, speaker, and writer in data science. Then, I spent the next 3 years building startups. 1 failed, 1 acquired.

🧗🏻 This is how I got here:

• Got my degree in Physics from Nanyang Technological University.

• Started as a data scientist at SME (Titansoft), then MNC (Micron) before joining a startup (Hackwagon).

• Quit my job during COVID (wild timing), joined an incubator, found a co-founder, and built my 1st startup (Staq). Spent 1.5 years building Staq but we failed. Despite our mistakes, we learned a lot.

• Was very lost after my 1st startup’s failure. Spent the next 2 months doing self-reflection and exploring my curiosity.

• Started my 2nd startup building Leadgram at an influencer marketing agency (X10 Media). 8 months later, we got acquired by The Smart Local (TSL) Media Group.

***

After 3 years of building startups, I'm convinced that mistakes are the best teachers to become a better founder. For any startup, there are many ways to succeed, but only a few ways to die.

That’s why I started The Runway Ventures. 

Every Sunday, I analyse and share 1 failed startup story, 2 mistakes made, and 3 lessons learned with actionable tips to help you learn from startup failures.

Real life case studies, with key takeaways you can apply in your business.

No theories or BS.

99% of startups failed because founders made mistakes.

You’ll learn why and how startups failed to become the top 1% founder.

🤝🏻 Join us here (it’s free!): www.therunway.ventures

🔗 FB: @admond1994
🔗 Twitter: @admond1994
🔗 Instagram: @admond1994

Admond Lee Kin Lim

$10M of her own money. 12 years of building. Gone.

Rosaline didn't fail because she lacked vision.

She quit her corporate career at 50+, put $5M savings and $5M debt on the line, and started CXA from her living room in Singapore.

Her goal? Build a unicorn before 60.

At its peak, CXA had:
• $58M raised from top investors (EDBI, B Capital, HSBC)
• 600+ enterprise clients including Fortune 500s
• 400,000 employees served across 20 countries
• 50% annual revenue growth

Then it all unraveled. Slowly.

CXA didn't explode. It bled out over years — layoffs, asset sales, hub shutdowns, pivot after pivot.

The fatal trap? Running two businesses at once.

A regulated, people-heavy brokerage AND a capital-intensive SaaS platform. Both demanding. Both draining. Neither sustainable together.

The hardest part wasn't the financials.

It was disappointing the team who risked everything to join her.

The full autopsy of CXA — how Asia's insurtech pioneer got squeezed between two business models, the 2 mistakes that sealed its fate, and Rosaline's own reflection on what she'd do differently.

Subscribe to read it → https://lnkd.in/gdDrhgtq

P.S. Full story drops tonight 8pm. She fought for 12 years — that deserves respect.

Admond Lee

Helping you become the top 1% founder by learning from startup failures | 2x founder | 1 exit | Founder @ The Runway Ventures 🚀

🇰🇭 Cambodia's first super-app. 1 million users. Acquired by Grab.

Then erased from existence in 6 months.

Nham24 wasn't built by some Stanford dropout with VC millions. It was built by a 40-something corporate exec sick of wasting 2 hours in Phnom Penh traffic just to get lunch.

Borima Chann left 20+ years at Coca-Cola and Hello Axiata to build something locals actually needed — a Khmer-first delivery app when everything else was built for expats.

By 2024, Nham24 had:
• 1 million+ registered users
• Thousands of merchants and riders
• Food, groceries, parcels, even ride-hailing

Then Grab showed up. Acquired them in December 2024.

The message? "Partnership. Independence. Continuity."

The reality? By July 2025, the app was dead. Users forced to migrate. Balances had withdrawal deadlines. The brand that felt "local" and "theirs" — gone.

Tonight 8pm: The full story of how Cambodia's local champion got cornered by giants, the 2 critical mistakes that sealed its fate, and what every founder competing against well-funded players needs to know.

Subscribe to get it when it drops → https://lnkd.in/gdDrhgtq

P.S. Nham24 didn't die because the product was trash. It died because it proved the market — then the giants arrived to take it.

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S$30. Age 16. Zero experience.

That's how Zames Chew started Repair.sg with his 14-year-old brother, Amos Chew.

No training. No mentors. No blueprint.

They learned repairs by shadowing handymen they found on classifieds — even selling leads just to tag along.

🇸🇬 For years, Zames answered customer inquiries at 4AM and drove out to do repairs by 7AM. 7 days a week. No systems. No backup.

The business was at the brink of death for 7 years straight.

Then COVID hit. Jobs vanished. The loan they took to grow ended up being used just to survive.

Everything felt like it could collapse at any moment.

But that lockdown became the best thing for the business.

With no jobs to rush to, Zames and Amos finally had time to think. They started hiring and delegating. Let go of team members who didn't fit. Rebuilt the culture from scratch.

2024 — S$1.7M revenue. 20,000+ customers.
2025 — S$3M+ revenue. HaiDiLao and Coffee Bean as clients.

All bootstrapped. Zero funding raised.

Tonight at 8pm, I'm publishing the full story — how two teenage brothers built one of Singapore's most trusted handyman brands, the 2 mistakes that nearly killed them, and the exact changes that turned everything around.

Subscribe to read it → https://lnkd.in/gdDrhgtq

P.S. S$30 to S$3M. No funding. Just grit. I sat down with Zames for a full podcast — he held nothing back. Story + podcast drops tonight.

CEO @ Repair.sg | Fastest-Growing Property Maintenance Company for Businesses and Homeowners with 1800+ Google Reviews | Loved By More Than 30,000 Happy Customers! ❤️

Repair.sg

COO @ Repair.sg. Taking care of your property!

41 phone calls. 1 founder. 0 emails.

When Sina decided to shut down LearningLoop.com, he didn't send a mass email.

He called every single investor — personally.

1 VC. 40 angels. One by one.

"It was uncomfortable, but it felt like the right thing to do."

4.5 years of building. A peer-learning community for founders. #1 Product of the Week on Product Hunt. 60 paying founders who'd collectively raised tens of millions.

Then he hit the startup deadlock:

Needed money to hire. Needed traction to raise. Neither would move first.

Most founders would've sent a polished shutdown email and moved on.

Sina picked up the phone 41 times instead.

I was one of those calls.

I angel invested in Integral 2 months before he decided to shut down. He called me, shared his decision, and returned my full investment — he hadn't spent it yet.

Tonight at 8pm, I'm publishing the full autopsy of Learning Loop — how a promising founder community became a venture-scale software bet, the 2 mistakes that sealed its fate, and why Sina chose to end it cleanly rather than drag it out.

Subscribe to read it → https://lnkd.in/gdDrhgtq

P.S. This story is only possible because Sina was open to share his journey, mistakes, and learnings. Sometimes how you shut down says more about you than how you built.

LearningLoop.com

10 years ago, I moved to SG with less than $800 in my bank account.

I was 20 and was applying for universities. Many people told me I'd have better job prospect in SG with better currency power (SGD1 = RM2.5).

I was sold by the dream. So I applied for NTU, got accepted (with tuition fee loan), and I moved to SG few months later from Malaysia.

🟢 Dot 1: Studied Physics at NTU

When I got there, I stayed at a dorm with a roommate. I had the opportunity to learn from the best professors and peers. It was intense, competitive, but I'd never forget the learning environment. It was exactly the place I wanted to be at. Free to learn. Free to think. Free to discuss and share.

🟢 Dot 2: Life-changing internship

In my Year 3, I couldn't find any internship. I was rejected by all companies. I was lost. Luckily, my professor wrote me a recommendation letter to do my Final Year Project overseas at CERN. I got accepted!

At CERN, I went to their workshops. I saw how machine learning was used in research and applications. I was hooked and obsessed. I found my passion in data science and never looked back ever since.

🟢 Dot 3: Changed my career track

After I was back to SG, I decided to make a leap to go into data science. It wasn't easy as I thought. I self-learned Python, ML, and did a bunch of data science projects (part-time, internship) to build my portfolio. 2 years later, the hard work paid off, I finally became a data scientist!

🟢 Dot 4: Quit my job to build a startup

After my graduation, I joined an SME, then MNC, before joining a startup. I learned how to build and navigate uncertainties at the startup. Most importantly, I wanted to build mine for a bigger impact. So I quit my job.

3 years after, despite the challenges, I've never regretted quitting my job. Because my startup journey shaped who I am today.

As I think how I moved to SG on a whim, I'm grateful for all the opportunities. 

Sometimes, all it takes is taking a leap of faith and enjoying the adventure.

___

Steve Jobs once said, "You can't connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future."

I guess Steve is right.

***
By the way, I'm building The Runway Ventures — a weekly newsletter to help you learn from startup mistakes and become a better founder.

My 1st startup failed terribly because of my costly mistakes. Don't be like me.

Join 20,000+ founders here (it's free!): https://lnkd.in/gdDrhgtq


P.S. This is the picture taken when my family came to SG for my graduation day ❤️

The Runway Ventures

3-5% of every payment. Gone. For 2 years.

That's what running TRV without proper business banking cost me.

When I started The Runway Ventures, I thought I could just "figure out" the finance stuff later. Classic founder mistake.

Then scaling hit.

• Clients paying from US, Europe, Singapore, Malaysia — each transfer eating 3-5% in FX fees
• Paying vendors overseas — waiting 3-5 days for transfers to land (plus more fees)
• Stitching together 4 different tools just to manage TRV's finances

The breaking point? I calculated how much I was bleeding on cross-border fees alone. It wasn't pretty.

So I switched to Airwallex.

Why? Their infrastructure is built from the ground up for businesses like ours. Not a Wise plugin. Not a bank add-on. Actual global financial rails.

What changed:

Receiving payments — local bank details in 60+ currencies. No more 3-5% FX hits.

Paying vendors — 200+ countries via local rails. Most arrive same day instead of 3-5 days.

Card spend — 1% unlimited cashback on everything.

One platform — no more tool-stitching.

The Endowus team reduced up to 90% of overseas transaction fees using Airwallex. They also earned S$30,000 in cashback alone. I'm not there yet, but the savings add up fast when you're not getting hit with hidden FX fees on every transaction.

If you're a founder still running finances on duct tape and spreadsheets, check out Airwallex → https://lnkd.in/gvwbNc5Y

P.S. With the Airwallex for Startups program, there's exclusive perks to unlock — more cashback, free FX, and waived collection fees on the first $110k usage. Just open and activate your account to access them. No purchase required.

Airwallex

Cambodia's first super-app just got erased.

1 million users. 9 years of building. Gone in 6 months.

Nham24 wasn't built by VCs or expats. It was built by a 40-something corporate guy sick of wasting hours in Phnom Penh traffic just to get lunch.

At its peak:
• Cambodia's first homegrown super-app
• 1 million+ users
• Survived Covid as a lifeline for locals

Then Grab showed up.

Grab acquired Nham24 in December 2024. By July 2025, the app was discontinued. By September, the company ceased operations.

Nham24 didn't die from fraud or bad product. It got cornered by giants with deeper pockets, then absorbed.

The 2 mistakes that sealed its fate:

Full autopsy → https://lnkd.in/ge_PYyHh

P.S. Some users were so angry they said they'd switch to foodpanda instead of Grab. That's how much the local brand meant.

Everyone's posting their 2026 goals. Mine? I'm posting what I'm saying NO to.

Most people chase goals by saying YES to everything. More meetings. More advice. More "opportunities."

I'm doing the opposite.

My anti-goals for 2026:

❌ Distraction — If it doesn't move the needle, it doesn't get my attention.

❌ Random "coffee chats" — Unless there's a clear purpose, it's a no.

❌ Advice from non-operators — I only take advice from people who've actually built something.

❌ Sleeping late — Can't build anything great running on 4 hours of sleep.

❌ Eating junk — Hard to think clearly when you're running on instant noodles and regret.

❌ Wrong people — If you drain my energy, you're out.

❌ Doomscrolling — 30 minutes of scrolling = 30 minutes of building, lost.

Founders obsess over what to add. The best ones obsess over what to remove.

What's one thing you're cutting in 2026?

P.S. I've seen startups die from founders saying YES to everything. Don't let that be you.

2025 down.

Scaling The Runway Ventures to become the largest startup newsletter in Asia (that founders actually read).

Hello 2026.

P.S. Join 20k founders to learn from startup failures + become better operators: https://lnkd.in/gdDrhgtq

LinkedIn Wrapped 2025

I've analysed why $50M startups collapse overnight. Still can't pick the right spicy level in a hotpot. Went with "very spicy". Regrets incoming.

A $50 bag became $70 overnight.

One policy change. 10,000 miles away. And a thriving factory in Myanmar was dead.

🇲🇲 Twinkle was a Tier 1 supplier to Samsonite, Callaway Golf, Matalan. Over 200 workers. $4.4M+ in exports to the US alone.

They'd cracked the formula — import components from China and Vietnam, assemble in Myanmar where labor was cheap, export to Western brands at 20-30% savings.

Everyone in the supply chain was making money.

Then the US doubled tariffs overnight.

40% on Myanmar imports. That $50 bag now cost $70 after duties. Margins gone. Vietnam and Indonesia became cheaper overnight.

Within weeks — orders pulled, factory shut, 200+ workers sent home with 1 month's pay.

No warning. No runway. Just shutdown.

⚠️ Twinkle didn't fail because demand disappeared. Orders were still coming in. Machines were still running.

It failed because one trade decision thousands of miles away made the business mathematically impossible.

Tonight at 8pm, I'm publishing the full autopsy — the 2 critical mistakes that made Twinkle vulnerable, and why even a profitable business can collapse from forces completely outside your control.

Subscribe to read it → https://lnkd.in/gdDrhgtq

P.S. 200+ workers lost their jobs over a policy they never saw coming. Their story deserves to be told.

1.5 years. $0 revenue. 2 months of runway left.

That was Staq — my first startup.

We built a universal API for digital lenders to access SME financial data. Months of user interviews. Months of building. Pilots with big lenders. Sandbox integrations.

On paper, we had momentum.

In reality? Zero paid contracts. Cash bleeding out. No time left to iterate.

By December 2022, we were dying. Our last resort was an acquire-hire deal. We waited 4 months in limbo. No clarity. No backup plan. Just waiting to hear if we still had a future.

April 2023 — the deal fell through.

Staq was dead. That period broke me.

⚠️ 2 mistakes that killed us:
1. No founder-market fit — we had no domain expertise, no network. We spent months validating what insiders would've known in weeks.

2. Fell in love with the solution — we copied Codat's UK model without deeply understanding the problem in SEA. By the time we realised, we had no runway left to pivot.

The truth? We ran out of time before we could find something that worked.

If I were starting Staq today, I'd use Replit.

Not because it would've saved us. But because it would've let us test 10 ideas in the time we spent building 1. Spin up an MVP in days, not months. Validate with real users before burning runway.

What took us 3 months to build in 2022, founders can now ship in a weekend.

If you're building something, move fast. Seriously.

Try Replit → https://lnkd.in/gwEWVKAt

P.S. Staq failed. But if my story helps one founder move faster and validate sooner, it was worth sharing.

Replit

$58M raised. 300 employees. Fortune 500 clients.

12 years later, she had to sell everything.

Rosaline quit her corporate career at 50+. Put $10M of her own money on the line — $5M savings, $5M debt. Started CXA from her living room.

Her goal? Build a unicorn before 60.

At its peak:
• 600+ enterprise clients including Fortune 500s
• 400,000 employees served across 20 countries
• 50% annual revenue growth
• Break-even in sight

Then it all unraveled. Slowly.

CXA didn't explode. It bled out — layoffs, asset sales, hub shutdowns, pivot after pivot.

⚠️ The fatal mistake: running 2 businesses at once.

A regulated, people-heavy brokerage AND a capital-intensive SaaS platform. Both demanding. Both draining. Neither sustainable together.

Back then, building software was expensive. You needed large dev teams across multiple countries just to test if an idea worked. CXA had 70 engineers in Vietnam alone.

By the time they realised the SaaS model wasn't proven, they'd already burned through millions.

That's the part that stuck with me.

A friend of mine spent $20k on a dev agency. Took them a year to build an MVP. It didn't even work.

Today, founders don't need 70 engineers — or dev agencies — to validate a SaaS idea. Tools like Replit let you prototype in a weekend, test with real users, and know if something works before burning through your runway.

What took millions to build back then, you can now test for almost nothing.
If you're building something, validate cheap. Validate fast.

Try Replit → https://lnkd.in/gwEWVKAt

P.S. Rosaline fought for 12 years. Her biggest lesson? She wasn't frugal enough early on.

Most founders pitch investors wrong. He raised $11.2M doing the opposite.

Himanshu Upreti is the co-founder & CTO of Ai Palette — acquired by GlobalData in 2025 after raising $11.2M.

I invited him to our Beyond Runway masterclass. Here are 10 takeaways:

💰 BEFORE YOU RAISE

• Validate a "hair-on-fire" problem first. Use The Mom Test. Get to the truth, even if it hurts.

• Paid pilots > free POCs. Even $10-$20 signals real value. Free means they don't care.

💰 GETTING YOUR FIRST TERM SHEET

• Find one anchor investor. Get their term sheet. Use it to trigger FOMO with others.

• Tier your investor list. Pitch Tier 3 first (practice). Tier 2 next (warm). Tier 1 last (dream investors). By then, you'll have answers to every question.

💰 RUNNING THE PROCESS

• Treat fundraising like B2B sales. Build a CRM. Research each VC's thesis. Personalise every message based on their portfolio.

• Warm intros beat cold emails. Founder-to-founder referrals convert way higher.

• Traction > narrative. Investors didn't understand AI for CPG. But they saw Unilever and Kellogg's paying.

💰 AFTER YOU RAISE

• Monthly updates. Quarterly board meetings. Don't overpromise.

• Grab coffee. Build human connections beyond the cap table.

💰 TIMING

• Raise when you have 12-18 months runway left. Desperation = bad valuations.

• Raise just enough. 15 focused people can outperform a 30-person team.

What's one fundraising tip you'd add to this list?

P.S. This masterclass was exclusive to Beyond Runway — a private community for revenue-generating founders who learn fast, move faster, and win together. Join us → https://lnkd.in/gzYZj_3t

Co-Founder at AI Palette | Forbes 30 under 30 | Ex-Visa, IIT | AI Speaker, Angel Investor

Ai Palette

I used to lose 3-5% on every overseas payment. Not anymore.

2 months ago, I stopped using traditional banks for my business.

Here's my honest review of Airwallex:

𝗢𝗻𝗯𝗼𝗮𝗿𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 (𝗽𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗯𝘆 𝗔𝗜 𝗔𝘀𝘀𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻𝘁):
→ Account opened in a few days
→ The AI Assistant created a US Global Account for me in seconds (seriously)
→ Had questions? Got answers instantly, no waiting 3-5 business days for support
→ Finally understood how to actually use all the features
→ (Most fintech apps just throw you in and hope you figure it out)

𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗺𝗼𝗻𝗲𝘆 𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗲𝗮𝘀:
→ Super low FX rates (0.4-0.6% above interbank)
→ 95% of transfers arrive same day
→ Received payments from overseas clients without the ridiculous SWIFT fees

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘂𝗹𝘁:
→ Everything set up within days
→ Now I can actually focus on building my business

Last year I waited 5 days for a transfer to hit. Last week? Same-day.

That's the difference.

If you're running a business with overseas clients or suppliers, this is a no-brainer.

P.S. They have an "Airwallex for Startups" program — startup finance mentorship plus exclusive perks from OpenAI, Manus, Nebius, Notion, HubSpot for Startups, and more. If you're a founder scaling internationally, worth checking out → https://lnkd.in/gvwbNc5Y

He stayed in Singapore. His vision drifted further away.

Sina spent 4.5 years building LearningLoop.com — a peer-learning community for founders. Slept on friends' couches. Raised from 41 investors. Built something founders actually loved.

At its peak:
• 60 founders who'd collectively raised tens of millions
• #1 Product of the Week on Product Hunt
• A working community ready to scale

Then he hit a wall.

Not because the product failed. Not because founders didn't need it.

Because he built it from the wrong place.

"By not being in SF, my distance to my vision kept getting further and further away."

Fundraising momentum weakened. Feedback loops slowed. Investor conviction became harder to earn from 10,000 miles away.

When he needed capital most, he couldn't close the gap fast enough.

Learning Loop broke.

I angel invested in Sina. When he decided to shut down, he called me personally — and returned my full investment because he hadn't spent it yet.

That's the kind of founder he is.

The full story — how Learning Loop rose, why location killed its momentum, and what Sina would do differently → https://lnkd.in/g5qPBe7u

P.S. If you're building outside SF and think it doesn't matter… read this one.

$58M raised. 600+ enterprise clients. Break-even in sight.

Then she had to sell everything.

🇸🇬 Rosaline built CXA for 12 years. Put $10M of her own money on the line. Landed Fortune 500 clients. Grew revenue 50% annually.

By 2019, she was targeting profitability by early 2021.

Then COVID hit. Funding dried up. And the company entered the familiar sequence:

cuts → pivot → sell assets → downsize → wind down

The hardest part wasn't the financials.

It was selling right before hitting break-even — and disappointing the team who risked everything to join her.

CXA shut down in September 2025.

Full autopsy → https://lnkd.in/g6-su6z3

P.S. Rosaline's biggest lesson? She wasn't frugal enough early on.

10 founder lies 👇

"We're pre-revenue by choice."
→ We can't get anyone to pay us.

"Our burn rate is sustainable."
→ We have 4 months of runway and no plan.

"We're in talks with several VCs."
→ One associate replied "interesting" 3 weeks ago.

"The team is lean and scrappy."
→ It's me, my co-founder, and an intern who ghosted us.

"We're pivoting to capture a bigger market."
→ Our original idea failed. We're panicking.

"Our advisory board includes industry leaders."
→ A guy I met at a conference agreed to one coffee.

"We have strong product-market fit."
→ Our mums use the product.

"We're growing 20% month-over-month."
→ We went from 5 users to 6.

"We turned down acquisition offers."
→ Someone asked if we'd sell. We said "maybe." They never replied.

"We're building something revolutionary."
→ We're copying a US startup and hoping no one notices.

90% of startups fail because founders lie to themselves first.

The best founders I know? They're brutally honest about where they stand. No sugarcoating. No delusion.

Which lie have you heard?

P.S. More founder lies here: https://lnkd.in/gdDrhgtq

Fraud isn't getting bigger. It's getting smarter.

In 2026, fraudsters aren't doing high-volume spray attacks anymore. They're running sophisticated, targeted operations.

I've covered 100+ failed startup stories. Most die from obvious mistakes — bad unit economics, founder conflicts, running out of runway.

But I'm seeing a new pattern: sophisticated fraud.

What it looks like now:
•⁠ ⁠AI-generated IDs that pass document checks
•⁠ ⁠Deepfakes that fool video verification
•⁠ ⁠Synthetic identity clusters that look legit
•⁠ ⁠Post-KYC account takeovers

Fewer attacks, but each one is harder to detect — and far more expensive when it lands.

One bad actor slipping through can drain your treasury, destroy user trust, and end your company.

If you're building in fintech, crypto, payments, or marketplaces — this is the threat most founders aren't preparing for.

📅 Tuesday, 20 January — 3pm CET (10pm SGT) - Save the date!

Sumsub is hosting a free webinar with fraud experts from Revolut and Wise.

Reserve your spot here → https://lnkd.in/g8cNS9r2

P.S. I've seen startups die from things they never saw coming. Fraud is becoming one of them.

Sumsub

1.5 years. $0 revenue. 2 months of runway left.

That was Staq — my first startup.

We built a universal API to help digital lenders access financial data from SMEs. Launched in September 2022.

On the surface, we had traction — pilots with big digital lenders, sandbox integrations, a product that looked promising.

On the inside? Zero paid contracts. Cash bleeding fast.

By December 2022, we were dying. Our last resort was an acquire-hire deal. We waited 4 months in limbo. April 2023 — the deal fell through. We shut down Staq.

⚠️ 2 mistakes that killed us:

1. No founder-market fit — no domain expertise, no network. We spent months validating what insiders would've known in weeks.

2. Fell in love with the solution — we copied Codat's UK model without truly understanding the problem in SEA.

Staq died. But it taught me something.

Most founders don't fail from lack of effort. They fail from mistakes nobody warned them about.

So here's my ask.

If you've been through a startup failure, I want to hear your story. Confidentially.

I've done this before with founders like Sina (LearningLoop.com) and Shrayas Saranathan (Mojos Kitchen). After you submit, I'll personally reach out to learn more. You decide what gets shared.

Why share? Your story helps other founders avoid the same mistakes. And I'll promote your brand or new venture to 20,000+ TRV readers.

Share your story here → https://tally.so/r/lbqW7N

P.S. Your failure isn't the end of your story. It could be the start of someone else's breakthrough.

taplio

The Battle

Zach Wilson

Admond Lee Kin Lim

Followers

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Performance ScoreZach Wilson's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreAdmond Lee Kin Lim's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Zach Wilson

Admond Lee Kin Lim

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Zach Wilson's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreAdmond Lee Kin Lim's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreZach Wilson's LinkedIn Performance