Methodology & sources

What this is, and what it isn't

The Singapore SME Briefing is a weekly publication for owners of small and medium businesses in Singapore. We summarise the week that mattered to you in five minutes, every Monday morning.

What it is: a curated digest of verified, sourced, primarily public-data developments relevant to SG SME owners — government announcements, sector indicators, regulatory changes, and material business news.

What it isn't: investment advice, legal advice, tax advice, or a substitute for your accountant. It is also not a marketing channel for Aphyx — we publish it because we think it should exist, and because over time we'd rather be known as the studio that knows the SG SME landscape than the studio that buys Google Ads (we do that too, separately).

The rule we never break

Our sources

Tiered by what we treat as load-bearing:

Tier 1 — primary government & statistics

Used as load-bearing facts. We cite directly.

Tier 2 — credible journalism

Used for context and for events not covered by Tier 1. We attribute by name.

• Channel News Asia (CNA), The Straits Times, The Business Times, TODAY
• Trade publications (e.g., Marketing Interactive for ad/marketing, F&B News for hospitality)

Tier 3 — sentiment & colour

Used as texture only, never as a primary source. Always labelled.

• Reddit (r/singapore, r/singaporefi, r/SingaporeRaw)
• Public LinkedIn posts from named SG SME owners or industry voices
• Public WhatsApp / Telegram trade group threads, where shared with attribution

Citation conventions

You will see two patterns inside any Briefing edition:

• Inline source links — every factual claim ends with a small [src] link to its primary source, plus a numbered note in the Sources block at the bottom of the edition.
• Interpretation chips — when we extrapolate, forecast, or read between lines of public data, we mark it visibly: Aphyx interpretation. You can take it or leave it. We won't pretend it's settled fact.

What we do not do

• We do not invent a number when public data is missing or stale. We tell you the data is missing.
• We do not paraphrase a primary source so loosely that the link no longer supports the claim. If we tightened the language, we link the original.
• We do not use a press release's framing as our analysis. We summarise what the release says, then if we have a view, we mark it as Aphyx interpretation.
• We do not publish an edition rather than skip a week. If a week is genuinely empty of relevant news, we say so and move on. (We expect this to happen rarely.)

Corrections policy

We will get things wrong. When we do:

• We update the affected edition with a visible Correction block at the top, dated.
• We do not silently rewrite history. The original error remains visible above the correction.
• We thank the reader who pointed it out, by name unless they ask otherwise.

To submit a correction, email hello@aphyx.live with the edition, the claim, and your source.

Cadence & archive

• One edition every Monday morning (~8am SGT).
• Editions are permanent. We do not delete them.
• Archive is browsable at aphyx.live/briefing/.
• RSS feed at aphyx.live/briefing/feed.xml (going live with the first regular edition).

Who edits

Drafted with AI assistance against the source clippings of the week. Edited and signed off by a human at Aphyx before publish — currently the founder. The AI never publishes unilaterally.

Who funds it

Aphyx funds the Briefing as part of its publishing programme. It is free to read, with no paywall and no sponsored placements. You may see the occasional house ad for our own services. We will not run third-party ads or accept payment for editorial inclusion. If we ever change either of those, we'll say so prominently.

Contact

hello@aphyx.live — for any reason.

This methodology page is versioned. Last revised: 28 April 2026.