Hello, this is another tea time video where we talk about something for fun. This week, we talk about why we struggle with our respective side-hustles/passion projects. Hope y'all enjoy.

0:00 Intro

3:25 The topic

8:50 It's hard to do things without external motivation

15:00 Other productive things as an excuse/distraction to not do the creative project

19:25 Taste grows faster than skill, which sucks

25:37 What if your creative project is not monetizable?

34:25 It can feel nice to be productive

39:31 Doing your passion project full-time is an extraordinary outcome

44:40 What if your work is never acknowledged?

49:01 Creating as a way of being

53:04 Summary, and creative resolutions for 2025

1:03:33 Conclusion

We recorded this chat when we visited Ruiming's house in Japan. Hope y'all enjoy.

0:00 Intro

Hi everyone, this is a casual chat we had over tea time. We hope you will enjoy chilling with us.

*THIS PODCAST EPISODE IS SPONSORED BY UOB*

We've been away for a while travelling Southeast Asia promoting our books.

We talk about the trade-offs for the creative soul who wants to run a creative business.

Juliana Chan is a scientist and scholar turned business owner. Today, she runs Wildtype Media Group, managing a 20-member team — based in Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines and India — with 30 to 40 regular freelancers around the world.

Is overtime ever justified? Why do good employees leave? Do you have to worry about your own job being irrelevant? 

This episode, we get the whole TWS team to have an open conversation on these hard topics. We hope you enjoy it. 

Also, this is our first sponsored podcast - a shoutout to Workforce Singapore for sponsoring this conversation. To find out more about what grants and tools are available to kickstart your company’s job redesign initiatives, visit https://go.gov.sg/tws-jobredesign 

Featuring (from left to right):

Wei Choon (Co-founder)

Ruiming (Co-founder)

Vivienne (Account Manager)

Wen Xin (Artist)

0:00 Intro

1:16 Why are they called The Black Hole Group

10:05 Starting a hostel in their 20s

15:17 The margins of running a hostel

21:08 Scaling the business

24:02 Do you hang out as friends now?

28:58 Working together as friends/cofounders

37:15 Growing a business = compounding learning

41:00 COVID as a wake-up call

48:20 Co-founders with different lifestyles

54:21 Would you recommend starting a business with a close friend

Jeremy Tan is a professional magician who does a lot of work on cruise ships!

We talk to him about the pros and cons of working in such a unique job, what it takes to succeed as a magician, balancing artistry and corporate crowd pleaser, adapting to COVID, and more.