6 Honest Reflections Before 2026 Begins
Year 2 of solopreneurship, best of Growthmates in 2025, and more.
Hello everyone 👋 I’m Kate Syuma, and welcome to Growthmates.news — the newsletter where we explore growth stories to inspire your professional and personal growth. Join the community of 7,300+ Product, Design, and Growth people from companies like Amplitude, Intercom, Miro, Atlassian, Grammarly, Framer, and more.
This year didn’t rush by — it unfolded. Quietly and unevenly, sometimes slowly, sometimes all at once. 2025 felt like a year of integration. Less about chasing the next milestone, and more about understanding what truly deserves my energy.
For me, it became a blend of building Growthmates more intentionally, deepening my solopreneurship practice, and learning how to create without living in constant “push mode”. There were seasons of focus, seasons of pause, and many moments of recalibration — both professionally and personally.
Before we step into 2026, I wanted to pause and reflect — on what this year taught me, what I’m taking forward, and what I’m consciously leaving behind. Here’s a very honest year-end reflection, wrapped up with the best of Growthmates in 2025 👇
🚀 Growthmates Recap: My 2025 year
If you’re reading this newsletter — thank you 💜 With everything moving so fast in our industry, I truly hope this space feels like a pause — a place where you can slow down, reflect, and get inspired, rather than overwhelmed.
Before we dive in… Meet Growthmates Partners 🚀
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What we’ll cover today:
A very honest year-end reflection — what this season taught me, and what I’m taking into 2026.
The story behind my 2nd year of going solo — what quietly paused, what unexpectedly scaled, and what’s coming back next year.
The best of Growthmates in 2025 — most-read articles, top LinkedIn posts, and favorite resources you might’ve missed.
A few gifts for you toward the start of a New Year. 🎁
Now, let’s dive into today’s reflection 👇
⭐️ What this season taught me
1. What’s about to ship — and why it feels personal.
Not many people know this, but Growthmates started as a podcast.
Three years ago, it was a side project where I interviewed growth-minded people from companies I deeply admired: Notion, Canva, Dropbox, and others. I didn’t have a big plan back then. I just wanted conversations that felt real and inspiring.
Over time, that small side-gig quietly grew into an ecosystem:
An advisory practice where I support B2B companies that want to drive growth through user experience and the core product, not surface-level experiments.
A newsletter with 7,000+ readers from Amplitude, Intercom, Miro, Atlassian, Grammarly, Framer, and more.
An educational course on User-Centric PLG in the AI era.
Brand partnerships with products I genuinely use and love.
And yes — the podcast.
Last year, I didn’t have enough time (or energy) to give all five equal attention. Something had to pause. The podcast quietly moved to the background.
But next year, it’s coming back from 20th January 🚀 — with a new theme: “The Creator’s Path.”
This season feels especially close to my heart. I recorded conversations with people who create in very different ways, and who deeply inspire me:
Michael Riddering — from creating courses to building companies
Nad Chishtie (Lovable) — why self-made generalists will shape the future
Ioana Teleanu — how to become a creator and pivot your career
Felix Haas (Lovable) — about lifelong “creator mindset” over job titles
Catt Small (Dropbox) — creating courses, books, advising with FT job
I hope 2026 becomes a year of creative endeavors for many of us — whether that’s a business, a course, content, or a product you’ve been postponing for too long.
2. What it looked like from the outside vs. what was really happening.
From the outside, I heard a lot of things like:
“Kate, you grew so fast.”
“Wow, you built such a big business.”
“How do you even manage all of this?”
Inside, it felt very different.
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