Snapshots of San Diego

First newsletter of 2025! I hope January has been treating you well so far. As promised, I wanted to share a bit about my overseas trip last November.

This trip was to attend a conference called brightonSEO San Diego, which is in—as its name suggests—San Diego.

I’m based in Singapore, which is roughly on the other side of the world. So, why did I fly all the way to the US to attend the conference?

Because I won a free ticket for it…in Februrary. 😂

You have no idea how many months I’ve waited to post this meme, LOL. It also became irrelevant because I was actually also offered a free ticket to the first-mentioned SEO conference. But I was busy with work then, and so I didn’t go.​

Got a picture with the brightonSEO mascot—the SEO Gull!​

Going to the conference was totally worth it. Not only was it a great excuse to travel, but I also got to see big-name people in the industry in person and meet with people from one of my client companies.

Plus, one of the conference talks I attended was a roundtable discussion for freelancers and agency owners to chat about the issues we face when running our businesses. We talked about possible solutions, too.

The people there mostly provide SEO services (SEO is search engine optimisation, i.e. helping websites rank higher in Google’s search results). So, while some of the discussion was freelance SEO-specific, other topics are more universally faced by freelancers in any industry.

Here’s a summary of our discussion for three of these topics in case you find them useful.

Networking to generate leads

If you want more leads, go to places where you can network with peers or clients. (Getting to know more peers is great because they may be able to refer you to clients.)

These places include:

• Co-working spaces. You don’t have to take up a dedicated desk, but having a membership lets you attend the happy hours, where you can meet new people.
• Events where potential clients gather. For example, if you want to work with small businesses, go to events for small business owners.

Scaling the business

If you have way too much work than you can handle, consider subcontracting it out.

You’re still working with the client, and you’re still overseeing the work and making sure it’s of high quality. Who does the work might not matter as long as you deliver the value you promised the client.

Subcontracting would mean growing your business into more of an agency, where you do more people management instead of the work itself. So, you have to like doing this.

Get AI to take meeting minutes for you

AI tools that can join your video calls to summarise your meetings are hot right now.

Some of these note-taker tools are Otter AI, Fathom, Fireflies, Read and Spinach.

I don’t use these tools, so I can’t personally vouch for them.

I do use TurboScribe to transcribe interviews, though. It works amazingly—I wax lyrical about it here—but it doesn’t integrate with video conferencing platforms. I might give Fathom a shot if I need to take meeting minutes more often.

More freelancer news

Use your SkillsFuture credits top-up by 31 Dec 2025

Remember how COVID-19 struck five(?!) years ago?

When that happened, the Singapore government gave all Singapore citizens aged 25 and up as of 31 Dec 2020 an extra $500 in SkillsFuture credits so we can upskill ourselves.

This credit top-up expires at the end of this year, i.e. 31 Dec 2025. So, just a gentle reminder to people who haven’t used the credits (this includes me, hi 🙋‍♀️): Use them before they expire!

​Check out SkillsFuture-eligible courses here.​

Platform workers aren’t covered in upcoming workplace anti-discrimination laws

The Workplace Fairness Act will come into effect in 2026 or 2027 to ensure employers treat their employees fairly, and also protect employees from certain types of discrimination.

But since platform workers aren’t employees, the Act doesn’t apply to them. Some Members of Parliament have called for these workers to be covered under the Act as well.

​This article mentions this issue briefly + some other things the Act won’t cover (e.g. discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation).