The Morning Founder

Terms of use

The short version: read it, quote it with a link, don't republish it whole, and don't feed it to a model. Everything below is that, in more words.

In effect from 2 August 2026

1. Who you are agreeing with

The Morning Founder is published by ReallyCreativeIdeas.com Pte Ltd of 45B Temple Street, Singapore 058590. Using this site or subscribing to the newsletter means you accept these terms. If you do not, the remedy is simple: don't, and unsubscribe if you already have.

2. What you get, and what I don't promise

The newsletter is free. I intend to publish one story every morning, seven days a week, but I am not promising that in a contractual sense — I may miss a day, change the schedule, change the format, or stop entirely. If I ever stop, I will say so in the newsletter rather than letting it trail off.

I may remove anyone from the list at my discretion, which in practice means bounced addresses and abuse, not disagreement.

3. Who owns the writing and the illustrations

The text of every story, and the watercolour illustration made for it, belong to ReallyCreativeIdeas.com Pte Ltd. The underlying facts do not — nobody owns the fact that a company was founded in 1962. The particular telling is mine.

What you may do without asking

• Forward an issue to anyone you like.
• Quote up to about 150 words in an article, post or presentation, with attribution to The Morning Founder and a link to the story.
• Link to anything here, including deep links to individual stories.
• Screenshot a paragraph to share it, which is how most people quote things anyway.

What needs permission

• Republishing a story in full or in substantial part, anywhere, including translations.
• Using the watercolours separately from the story they were made for.
• Any commercial use — course material, a paid publication, a client deliverable.
• Using this material as training data for a machine learning model, or systematically scraping the archive for that purpose. This one is a flat no rather than a "write to me", and it applies regardless of what any general web-scraping licence claims.

Permission is usually yes and always free for non-commercial use. Ask at support@reallycreativeideas.com.

4. Other people's trademarks

These stories are about real companies, and their names, logos and product names belong to them. They are used here for identification and commentary — reporting on a company, which is permitted — and nothing on this site should be read as affiliation with, endorsement by, or authorisation from any company or person written about. None of them have approved these stories. Most of them do not know they exist.

5. Sponsorship

Sponsors buy a labelled slot inside an issue. They do not buy the story, they do not see it before it goes out, and they cannot change it. If a company that has been written about later sponsors an issue, it will not be the same issue, and the sponsorship will be labelled at the top. The full arrangement is on the sponsorship page, and it is part of these terms.

6. Accuracy, and the limits of it

Every claim is checked before publication, twice, against at least two sources. That process is described on the about page and it is real. It is not infallible. This material is provided as it is, without warranty that it is complete or error-free, and when something turns out to be wrong it is fixed and logged on the corrections page with the date.

Nothing here is business, financial, investment, tax or legal advice. That is set out properly on the disclaimer page.

7. Liability

To the fullest extent the law allows, ReallyCreativeIdeas.com Pte Ltd is not liable for any loss arising from reliance on anything published here, from the site being unavailable, or from any decision you take after reading a story. Nothing in these terms limits liability for fraud, for death or personal injury caused by negligence, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be limited.

8. Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of Singapore, and the courts of Singapore have exclusive jurisdiction. If you are a consumer somewhere with laws that give you rights you cannot sign away, this clause does not take them from you.

9. Changes

I may update these terms. The date at the top changes when I do, and anything that materially affects readers will be mentioned in the newsletter rather than quietly edited in.