1,000 Readers. Thank You.

1,000.

That is how many of you now receive Inside 25/8 Fintech. The first edition went out on 23 May 2026. This is number 26. Welcome back, and welcome to everyone who joined in the last few weeks.

Before I say thank you properly, let me take you back to a much smaller audience.

1. A Newsletter Nobody Asked For

On 3 November 2009 I sent out my first audio newsletter. An MP3, three to four minutes, for the sales team I was building at the time. Every 14 days, a new one. I was proud of it. Nobody around me had anything like it.

In January 2010 I had promised the team a newsletter from the Maldives, "if there is internet". There was. So I recorded it on the balcony of water bungalow 380 at sunset and started with an apology: "Sorry, I know what the weather is like at home."

In December 2010 I wrote an honest review of the year. My summary: "I had expected much, much more." More sign-ups, more feedback. Being early often means that most people are not ready to come along yet.

I kept going anyway. Just with clearer expectations.

2. What You Kept Coming Back To

Sixteen years later, the format is different, the topics are different and so is the audience. When I scroll through the 26 titles of this newsletter, three threads keep coming back.

People before scale. Community, trust, kind candor and the team behind every visible project.

Money as a long game. Savings, stock tips with a mask on, and what we pass on to the next generation.

Starting before it is perfect. Forced reboots, unpolished milestones and, just last week, starting before you feel ready.

None of this was planned as a series. It came from posts in my network and from moments in my own week.

3. This Week: The Person on the Other Side

This week's four posts looked like four different topics. Side by side, they tell one story.

On Monday I wrote about July 2021, when I said in a meeting: "If someone had told me a year ago: you'll be back in Cyprus, new company, new industry. I wouldn't have believed it." Nobody gets to see the end first. You only see the next step.

On Tuesday it was my father. Graz, late 1999. He drove me to the conversation that started my career, because I didn't dare to drive into city traffic yet, and he waited two hours in the car. His sentence: "Where there is a will, there is a way." Now I see a second meaning in it. Sometimes the way is a person who believes in you before you have proven anything.

On Wednesday: three video calls in one afternoon, with people I had only known as names on LinkedIn. Connecting is a click. The second conversation takes intent.

On Friday: why I don't have a closing time and still keep an empty inbox. And a sentence from a conversation about family offices: roughly 80 percent of the effort goes into administration, only 20 percent into actual investing. That is not a problem of effort. It is a problem of structure.

A father in a parked car. Someone who replies and suggests a date. A team that rebuilds the boring routines so the important work gets the time. Every step this week had someone on the other side.

4. Why 1,000 Matters to Me

1,000 is not a big number on LinkedIn. Some posts collect more reactions than that in a single day.

For me it means something else. In 2010 I sent a newsletter to people from my own team, and I still wished for more feedback. Now 1,000 people have chosen to subscribe to a weekly letter about fintech, entrepreneurship and the moments in between. Nobody had to.

Every one of you is a person on the other side. Every reply, every comment, every "this one made me think" is the second conversation I wrote about on Wednesday.

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So here is my thank you, and one small request. Tell me in the comments: which topic should I go deeper on in the next 26 editions?

Thank you for reading, for sharing and for writing back.

Stay focused and trust the process.

Your Thomas