building companies @newcampushq writing about business, money & being a dad usually home by bath time
Singapore
Joined December 2014
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Most people think resilience comes from hardship. I'd argue a lot of it comes from having a stable base to return to. When you know home won't fall apart if you fail, you can afford to try things that might not work.
I believe the greatest gift you can give your kids is a calm home. It’s not the big house or the best toys that stick with them. It’s a place where they feel safe. Where mistakes are met with patience. Where voices stay low. Where hard conversations are always followed by repair. Kids absorb everything. Create peace and they'll carry it for life.
Will Fan🕊 retweeted
At @ycombinator, we're excited to fund more crypto startups solving financial needs including AI capital raising, stablecoins, trading, and agents.
Here's our latest crypto request for startups. Our next application deadline is Monday.
Daring greatly means being the one who's actually in the arena, dust and sweat and all, not the one critiquing from a safe distance with the benefit of having risked nothing.
We've reached a point where people who've never built a company have absolute certainty about how companies should be built. Meanwhile, founders who've spent years building one will openly admit how much they still don't know. The internet has created a strange world where those with the least experience often have the strongest opinions, while those with the most experience are expected to defend every word they say. It's remarkable how much easier entrepreneurship looks when the only thing you've ever built is an opinion about it.
There are really two kinds of founders who end up winning. One rides a wave aggressively, sells hard into momentum while the market's hot. AI being the obvious one right now. The other just grinds quietly for years until they've positioned themselves to get lucky. Both work.
my favorite founder archetype = the cockroach
1 month of runway, can’t make payroll...you quietly write them off.
Then they’re back...new restructuring plan or new product. Absolute conviction that PMF is just around the corner.
Across the years I've learned that startups rarely die when the money runs out. Most die when the founder’s will does.
Cockroaches don’t run out of will. Bet on them
Raising too much too early feels like winning at the time.
It's often the exact mechanism that strips founders of the outcome later, diluted past the point of meaningful upside, stuck running a company that’s not theirs anymore.
Watched too many friends end up on the exact treadmill this is warning about, bigger house because their peer group upgraded, nicer car because it felt like falling behind otherwise. None of it was really about the stuff. It was about not wanting to look like they'd fallen behind.
Funded doesn't mean focused. What separates the founders who compound from the ones who just stay busy is timing, knowing when to go all in versus when to sit tight and let the setup finish building itself. Most founders never learn patience because urgency feels more productive.
i see so many founders operating like broke people trying to make money.
chasing every opportunity.
taking random gigs.
doing everything themselves.
optimizing for quick cash instead of long-term leverage.
and the crazy part? these are funded founders from top accelerator programs.
i feel like accelerator quality has gone downhill.
being busy isn't a strategy. having funding isn't a strategy.
great founders think in systems, build leverage, and focus on what compounds.
Will Fan🕊 retweeted
BIG STEP FOR STABLECOIN ADOPTION IN THE US
🇺🇸 The US banking regulator has finalized its stablecoin rules under the GENIUS Act, effective Jan 18, 2027.
This will help more banks and financial institutions issue stablecoins under clear rules.
Nobody puts "be a good, helpful, honest person" on a business framework slide, but it's probably the single highest leverage thing you can actually control.
Will Fan🕊 retweeted
99.3% of the people telling you that “distribution is the only moat remaining” have never distributed anything except that opinion.
Will Fan🕊 retweeted
Be profitable and run your company with maximal agentic loops
You don’t need to sell more of your co anymore
$10M profit per year reinvested is like an annual Series A no dilution
The best startups do this now. No whinging about the Series A/B crunch.
You don’t need saving.
Series A and Series B are the hardest rounds for founders today.
Founders launch a vertical AI SaaS company. They reach $1M-$3M ARR in 2 years or $5M-$10M in 3-4 years.
They go out to market with their 1x-3x growth. Almost no interest from investors.
If it's not the right category or a deep, long-term conviction bet, most investors stay away.
Founders are stuck with large pref stacks and a market that doesn't value this growth. They are neither sustainable (at their current burn) nor venture-fundable (without growth).
The exit options (if available) don't leave much for the team. In most cases, founders are required to join the acquiring company (but they aren't interested).
I talk to many founders who have been misadvised, and they keep grinding without making progress.
The Series A or B that didn't happen won't magically happen in 1 year with a little more progress. If the market moves much faster than your company progresses, you will always be behind. If you are told today to hit some metrics and come back, the market will have already moved by the time you return.
The founders who last don't fall in love with what they built. They fall in love with the problem that made them build it in the first place.
Will Fan🕊 retweeted
Tokenizing a US $4.75 trillion education industry, especially across emerging markets, is a vision that is becoming more achievable with the rapid evolution of technology.
Decentralized educational protocol @opencampus_xyz is building a brighter future for students that covers learner AI agents built with @hellominds_, student loans that are funded and repaid on-chain, and seamless digital credentials that you can carry effortlessly with you everywhere you go.
More to come! 📚
Will Fan🕊 retweeted
Significant developments with .@opencampus_xyz
• $EDU buybacks funded by education revenue, verifiable onchain. TinyTap ($30M+ revenue)
• First fully onchain student loan with 6,600+ students, repaid with yield
• 50M academic on EDU
• AI learner agents with @hellominds_ – at Central Region, Singapore
AI can write your pitch, build your product faster, and analyze your funnel. It still can't replace the founder who genuinely enjoys the relationship behind the sale. That human layer is the moat.
People chase 6 month wins and forget the actual alpha in business is survival measured in decades. Health is the compounding asset nobody puts in the deck. You can't build for 20 years on a body that gives out at 45. The long game requires a body built for the long game.
There's never been a better time to bet on yourself instead of waiting for a term sheet. Tools, audiences, and distribution used to be locked behind capital. Now they're mostly just a decision away. Go prove the demand yourself, and the funding conversation changes entirely, if you even still need it.
Even founders who built their whole identity around going against the grain struggle with this one. I want my kid to think differently about status and grinding, but I was built inside the exact system I'm trying to protect him from.
