Call it whatever you want, but you must be insane to go out on your own. “OK Derek, why are you being so negative?” I’m not. I am being blunt. And if this is not your cup of tea, this would be a good time to bounce — this article doesn’t get prettier from here […]

Starting a business comes with it’s set of challenges. A boutique ad agency startup is no different. By the time I realized how much it takes to run a startup, there was no looking back. I was in too deep. My boutique ad agency has to work! Some people give me grief for using the […]

Anyone who’s starting their own business understands and can appreciate how difficult things can get — financially, physically, mentally, and spiritually. Let’s face it, start up life is a pain in the ass. I’m not going to sugarcoat how difficult it is to run a start up, especially unfunded. If you are thinking about starting […]

  Picture speaks louder than words   Here’s a screenshot taken on 8/23/2018 for my own name “derek chew” in Google image search.   I captured the first fold of the results page. It contains a total of 36 images; 9 per row. At a glance, there’s a professor with the same name who’s dominating […]

Once in a while, a great story pops up about a startup life and experiencing growth, going on hiring sprees, and closing huge round of funding to fuel expansions. I love reading those stories. I especially enjoy it when it happens to be someone I know! I get excited and cheer for them because it’s […]

The stark truth is that 99% of start ups fail, and a fraction of the remaining 1% might be profitable, and that’s being generous. That’s 1 in every 100 startups! Several launch and fail within the same year, while others die a slow death as they spend their newly found VC money on lavish office […]