Gentle reminder that personal income tax-filing season has begun! The filing deadline is 18 Apr 2026, but I wouldn’t leave tax filing to the last minute. Here are IRAS’ tax resources for self-employed persons. Happy filing!
And now, on to today’s main topic:
When you start a business—freelance or otherwise—you can’t just take a backseat and let things coast after the business takes off.
So many things could happen to throw your business off course:
- Others see your success and start competing businesses.
- Customers might decide they don’t like or need what you sell anymore.
- Your landlord might hike your rent eyewateringly high (case in point: see the second news story below).
- Search engine and social media algorithms change, getting you less online visibility and customers.
- An entire WAR could break out and disrupt your supply chains.
And so on.
The sales aren’t going to just roll in on autopilot forever. If you want to stay in the game, you need to be constantly on your toes.
Constantly working hard to get customers. Constantly innovating to keep customers interested and fend off competitors. Constantly watching your costs to ensure your business stays in the black.
When you start a business, you have to commit to it for the long haul. If you don’t think you can do that for your current idea, pick a different one.
Because the work never stops.
More freelancer news
Protect & Grow: Contract Writing & Finance Essentials for Coaches (free workshop)
Oh hey, I have a workshop coming up in less than a month!
As its name suggests, this workshop will cover both contract writing and finances.
In the contracts component, I’ll cover how coaches can:
- Identify essential contract terms, as recommended by Singapore’s Tripartite Standards.
- Write a simple contract for your freelance business.
If you’ve attended one of my contracts workshops with NTUC last year, you’ll likely find the Tripartite Standards content familiar.
But the contract writing part is new—you’ll get to prepare a simple contract using a template on the spot! I think this will be more helpful than just listening to me talk the entire time. 😂
The finance component is ALSO completely new. 🤩 I’ll be sharing how you can:
- Set up a tried-and-tested framework for paying yourself a fixed income regardless of your month’s earnings.
- Set a freelance revenue goal that helps you keep up with your monthly income payments.
I’m really excited about this new component. And yes, it’ll have hands-on activities, too. Earlier this year, I completed and passed(!) my ACLP course, where I learnt how to conduct activities to facilitate learning. So, I’m armed with a new cert and ready to put it to good use.
The key workshop details are in the flyer above. But in case you can’t see them:
- Date and time: 9 Apr 2026, Thursday, 9.30am to 12pm
- Location: NTUC Centre, Level 8, Room 801, 1 Marina Blvd, Singapore 018989
- Price: FREE
Register for the workshop here. And if you’ll be coming, reply to this email to let me know!
Goodman Arts Centre is increasing short-term rental by 60%
Goodman Arts Centre, which rents out project studios to self-employed artists and art groups, will increase the rent for short-term rentals of one to 12 months by 60% starting from around July 2026.
According to the centre, it had charged low rental rates and not raised them for the past 14 years.
24 renters will be affected by the rent increase.
More details on the rent increase (and its impact) here.
This post was first published in my email newsletter on 12 Mar 2026. If you liked it, sign up for my newsletter here:
