Operator Notes on 11.11: Our Biggest Month, and Why It Still Fell Short

A raw breakdown of our 11.11 this year. What worked, what didn’t, where we hit the ceiling, and what really happens behind the scenes when a small team chases a big day.

Hi, I’m Shan. I run Xandro Lab, a science-first longevity brand in Singapore. Every Sunday, I write about what we are building, what I am learning, and how the journey feels from the inside as someone operating at the intersection of longevity, performance, and recovery.

This week, I want to write about 11.11.

Our web banner for 11.11. No deal, just 11.11. Simple.

Singles Day is the one day in the year that reveals the truth about where a brand stands. All the work that happens across the year, from product development to communication to demand creation, shows up in a very honest way on this one day.

It is a strange mix of excitement and pressure. The friction for consumers is the lowest, everyone is actively looking for deals, and the willingness to spend is at its peak. If things go well, it means you did many things right in the months leading up to it. If things don’t, it means the market has already given you the answer.

For me, 11.11 this year was a complicated experience. We achieved a milestone we had never hit before — crossing 100k in a single day — and yet, it didn’t feel as satisfying as I imagined it would. The growth was there, but so was the ceiling. Some parts of the business broke, some parts surprised me, and some parts made it clear that we still have a long way to go if we want to build a truly large company. This is my attempt to break it all down: what worked, what didn’t, where we hit limits, and what I need to fix going into next year.

In this week’s note, I want to break down our 2025 Singles Day in detail: the ads that worked, the surprising behaviour around bundles, how different channels performed, the cash flow constraints that shaped our decisions, and a sincere look at where the culture and execution fell short. This is an honest operator breakdown of our biggest month so far, and why it still didn’t feel like enough.