An Open Letter From The Messy Middle
What I am going through right now.
To my current and future readers,
Today is a bit different. I couldn’t finish last week’s writing, it didn’t feel right. In the end I decided against publishing it. Instead, I decided to turn that into an open letter today.
Before you start reading, I’m Shan, and I’m building Xandro Lab, a longevity science brand in Singapore. Every week I share raw notes on building, marketing, and navigating the messy world of health and performance. Today is personal.
Here we go.
There’s this phase in business that doesn’t get talked about enough. It’s not the beginning. Beginnings are messy but exciting. You’re allowed to be wrong, to look amateurish. And it’s not scale either. Scale has its own chaos, but at least the direction is clear.
This is something in between. The messy middle.
Somewhere along the way, in last 6 months, I stopped doing things I used to enjoy.
I used to create content almost every day. It didn’t come naturally at first. I hesitated for a long time before posting anything. But once I started, I stopped overthinking. Just posted. It reconnected me to old friends, colleagues and even my school teachers. Even now, months later, people bring up those posts.
Then I stopped. Told myself there were more important things. Operations. Growth. Fires to put out. But I don’t think that was entirely true.
The business took a hit. August to November was supposed to be big. I had forecasts, prep, inventory. Month after month, reality didn’t match.
The shock came in Sep. Much lower revenue than I anticipated. October wasn’t promising either. Then in November, even after months of stocking up, we didn’t have enough inventory to sell. Production couldn’t keep up. Orders came in that we couldn’t fulfill. Watching demand show up and not being able to meet it was a different kind of frustration.
I lost it. Multiple times. I couldn’t understand where the problem was. I was trying my best but the system wasn’t supporting it. I kept asking myself if I didn’t create enough urgency. If I was too careful. Too cautious with timing.
In a strange way, I failed quietly. No one outside a few people in the company would know. Revenue looked stable from the outside. But inside, I knew we missed what we were capable of. It could have been life-changing for the entire company - new markets, new products, more visibility, so many more consumers and large strategic investors.
What hurts is the math. I had already started spending heavily to take the brand to the next level. 2-3x more than usual. The bet was that scale would come by November and make up for everything. Instead, I was left with large bills and the same revenue I started the year with. That bet wiped out almost all the profit we made.
In a way, it taught me that growth and scale are not linear, and definitely not guaranteed. Few months can be great, and a lot more months can go worse. Even when you’re putting in more effort than ever.
I also have been trying to elevate everything. People. Content. Product quality. Packaging. I keep telling myself I want to build a global brand, not just a Singapore brand.
But then another thought creeps in. If we don’t have die-hard fans here, does it make sense to aim for the rest of the world? Without a strong core, global just feels flaky.
And yet. Isn’t that how business works? You try multiple products, markets, users. See what sticks. If you don’t keep trying, you don’t create options. When things turn bad, you’re left with nothing.
Somewhere in the middle of this is the question of focus. I still don’t know what focus really means - one brand? one product? one team? one market?
Sometimes I say something that sounds neat. “My focus is longevity.” But what does that actually mean? Longevity supplements? Which ones? For whom? I keep things generic. Maybe because I’m scared of getting cornered into something specific and losing the ability to do other things.
It reminds me of dating. Always looking for the next best thing keeps you moving. But it also stops you from pouring everything into one thing. One product. One team. One brand.
There’s also this strange desire to stay a little independent. A little uncommitted. I want to be recognised for building something meaningful. But I’m afraid of letting it become my identity.
If it becomes my identity, can I carry it? Am I credible enough? Will I do justice to it? Will I now have to start doing Ironman and change my whole life? Not a bad choice, honestly. But still.
And then the darker thought. What if this fails badly and destroys my reputation? What if I take the fall for something shaped by suppliers, scientists, systems, decisions outside my control?
This fear has been with me for a long time.
Beyond business, my own identity feels conflicted too.
I left home in 2011. Studied eight hours away for four years. Bangalore for five years. Dubai for one. Singapore for MBA, then entrepreneurship. This whole journey has been thousands of kilometres from where I started.
In some ways, I’m grateful for the distance. It lets me take risks. No constant social pressure. No uncles and aunts projecting their fears onto what I’m doing. Being far away makes it easier to ignore the noise.
But it creates a conflict too. Culturally, people return home. From work. From holidays. From life phases. I don’t return anywhere. I return to myself. Literally.
Maybe that’s also part of the messy middle. Far enough to be free. Far enough to feel unanchored. Still building. Still unsure. Still questioning whether this phase is teaching me something or quietly asking me to change course.
In fact, this is the first time I’m writing in two weeks. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. The blog, the content, meeting people. All of it stopped.
But I want to return. To writing. To creating. To trying new things to grow the business. To meeting people. To building myself again.
Thing is, I don’t have answers yet. I’m still inside it. In some ways, I have started to like this messy middle feeling - failing and figuring things again, and again.
I’ll know what this phase meant once I’m out of it. For now, I’m just here.
A chilly Sunday at Hiroshima,
Shan
2nd February 2025
Dear Shan, thanks for sharing such a genuine article. I am beginning to think about starting a business myself. Thanks for letting me have a glimpse of what I am getting myself into!