2025: Foundation Building and Finding Out
A brief reflection
2025 was a year of pathfinding, building and pivoting. It feels like two years in one — the first half in the Massachusetts suburbs, the second half in vibrant Somerville.
Building LokBros Studio was a major focus of 2025 and will remain so in 2026.
For those of you curious about of the details, the full story of the 2025 business journey is on the LokBros newsletter, which I hope you’ll subscribe to!
2025 was full of family, a weaving between work and play. There was the annual cooking competition, nights of prayer together, lively karaoke sessions, heated debates, and lots of leaning on each other. We celebrated milestones: Kaamil went on an adventure to Patagonia. Nabeel proposed to Nga. Jackie was maid of honor at a best friend’s wedding, and crushed her career goals.
It was a year in pursuit. I shed a layer of insecurity, willing to sound a little crazy, take risks, learn new tools, fail, and try again. It’s a year that bears the marks of foundation building, a year with curves and tangents that somehow belong to the same thread.
It was a year of flow: a yearning and focus to make something real — without some external goal as motivation. When seeds of doubt found themselves planted, they were eventually washed away by a deep trust in the Divine, a trust that confirms the path I’m on.
It was a year of technical learning: I deepened Ruby knowledge while diving into Elixir, learned a whole lot about go-to-market strategy and the new world of go-to-market engineering. I stepped out of typical text editors to use Helix and CLI-based AI tools.
It was a year of new friends and old: from collaborators and connections at Toucan events to folks from out of town visiting us in Boston, from celebrating close relationships at weddings to jamming for hours with online connects, I’m grateful to have fostered an in-person and distributed community who I lean on and love.
Some Highlights:
Moved to Somerville, embracing the city.
We launched an app to help people gather: flockUp. (A reimagining of the app is the in the works!)
Hosted ambitiously-playful popups – from DIY galleries and musical shows to ticketed events where a large art studio turned into a playful bioluminescent jungle.
Acoustic Toucan (March)
Electric Toucan (May)
Peachy Toucan (August)
Moonlit Toucan (October)
Activated 5+ more events — co-hosting meetups and adding our experiential tech.
Signed a lease for a LokBros office
Traveled to Mexico with Jackie for a getaway
Explored Italy, getting a touristy taste of European perspective
Energized myself with trips to NYC, hanging with friends new and old
Visited Austin for the first time since we moved out in 2023
Into 2026
2026 promises to be another dynamic year, one where the doors are wide open to business, community, and adventure.
Some intentions:
Share the journey. (Posting on LokBros brand new Substack!)
Get vulnerable, ask for help, and listen intently.
Be online to create in-person bridges.
Host more meetups and events.
Establish a new working cadence/culture in our new office.
Less analysis and planning, more executing, asking, and conversing.
Lean in with full-bodied yes-es only.
Here’s to an amazing year ahead.
If you’ve got a year in review, drop it in the comments! I love reading them.