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My Mate [Age 42] Plans to Start a Business Before Retirement. I Exploded & Cringed. | by Aldric Chen | The Startup | Aug, 2025

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A guy staring at his laptop at night.
It takes a different character to start a business. Photo by Ionut Roman on Unsplash

To be clear, I don’t write people off.

Starting a business alone is a feat. Hanging in there? What a character. Bringing it to profitability and scaling it? Unbelievable. What grit.

I have a lot of respect for folks who gut their way to success.

And of course. I also have my fair share of meeting idealistic people.

Firstly, there is nothing wrong with being idealistic. We have ideas. We realize them. That is how we answer our highest calling and wildest dreams.

Then, there are naive ones.

My mate is one of them.

The conversation

He is my high-school mate.

Let’s call him Jeff.

For as long as I have known him, Jeff has been a patron of the conventional path. Good grades, scholar, Magna Cum Laude in Accounting School, and rising through the corporate ranks at breakneck speed.

Jeff migrated from Singapore to Bangkok 5 years ago.

He was already a financial controller when we last met 3 years back. Then, he was running a team of…

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