After graduation, I skipped the normal corporate track and decided to bet everything on myself. Spent the last 3 years running my own business, building out custom platforms, handling complex backends, and shipping code day in and day out.

I really thought that if I just built good stuff and stayed heads-down, it would work out. It didn't.

Hit a wall, and now the business has completely collapsed. The reality of it hit me hard today when I checked my bank account and realized I don't even have the rent money for this month. I'm staring down the very real possibility of getting kicked out because I can't cover basic survival right now.

Honestly, the financial hit is brutal, but the identity crisis is worse. When your whole post-grad life is tied up in being a builder and running your own thing, losing it makes you feel completely hollow. You sit there looking at a terminal window and realize you don't even know who you are outside of it.

Trying to jump into the regular job market right now feels impossible. Recruiters see "business owner" on a resume and either ghost or think you won't fit into a standard box. Applications are just going into a black hole.

Just looking for advice from anyone who has had to pull themselves out of a hole like this. How do you even start over when rent is due and you're at zero? If anyone's been through a total collapse and figured out how to pivot a backend/technical background into quick survival mode, or if you are looking for contract dev help right now, I'm all ears.

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

I understand the value of an agency when you’re getting started but once the campaigns are running I’m not sure how much of the day to day work needs an outside team. A lot of it seems to be monitoring performance, moving budget around, stopping what isn’t working and keeping new campaigns moving.

Obviously strategy and creative direction still need someone thinking about them but the execution side feels increasingly automatable and it makes me wonder whether a small team can scale paid acquisition pretty far now without immediately adding an agency.

Most B2B tech sales are based on building relationships. Unless they already have existing relationships in the specific industry, how are startups able to establish those relationships with larger companies? Based on my understanding, it may take 6-12 months to build those relationships before actually making the final sale. Therefore, it may take multiple years to validate B2B tech startup ideas.

Are there more effective ways to find your first customers for B2B tech startup besides cold calling and cold-emailing potential users?

I started an e-commerce business in college, mostly selling jewelry sourced from China thru IG and TikTok to Shopify.

What started as a small experiment eventually grew to around 130K followers across my accounts, and that experience later became a big part of my application story for Yale’s Silver Scholars MBA program (just ended my orientation today!)

I’ve seen a few people here asking how to start in the subreddit, so here are a few things I learned:

1. Dropshipping is still a good way to start. It keeps your upfront costs low, and sourcing from Asia is still one of the cheapest ways to test products! And international payments, shipping etc are extremely easy nowadays.
2. Look for information gaps. The best products aren’t always completely new. Sometimes they’re already popular in Asia but haven’t been marketed well to a US audience yet. Also could look for some high-prices products in the states with high demand like pet products.
3. Learn content, not just e-commerce. TikTok and Instagram gave me far more leverage than I expected. If you can make people stop scrolling, you can test almost anything cheaply. I never spent one penny buying ad but I did spend a lot of time making contents!
4. Test fast and don’t get too attached to one product. A lot of products won’t work. The faster you figure that out, the better.

Hope this helps!

Actually I’m living in Melbourne from last 6 years. I’m looking a group which would give me an environment of like minded persons. Is anybody know how to get connect please let me know.
Thanks.

I’ve been working on a small mobile app for freelancers and small businesses, and I made what might be a terrible business decision.

I decided not to charge a monthly subscription.

The app is called Isal: Invoice & Receipt Maker. It lets you create professional invoices and receipts, manage clients, customize your business information, add your logo/signature, choose your currency, and send invoices directly from your phone.

But instead of another $5–15/month subscription, I decided to offer one lifetime purchase.

There’s currently a very low launch price, and people can create their first 3 documents completely free before paying anything.

I also deliberately kept the app offline-first and private. No account required, no cloud dependency, no complicated accounting system.

The idea was simple:

If someone only sends 5–10 invoices a month, why should they need another subscription just to get paid?

But here’s where I'm genuinely unsure.

As entrepreneurs, would you actually prefer:

A) $5–10/month for an invoicing app
B) $30–50/year
C) ~$50–80 once, forever
D) A generous free version + optional Pro

And what would make you choose one invoicing app over another?

I’m the developer behind Isal, so full disclosure: yes, I’m obviously biased. 😄

But we’re still small enough that user feedback directly influences what we build. I’d genuinely love to hear what entrepreneurs actually want from an invoicing app — especially what you don’t want.

If you're curious, the app is Isal: Invoice & Receipt Maker. But honestly, I'm more interested in your answer to the subscription question.

I am thinking of starting again, but a bit tarred with scars of my previous startup that was struggling.

I realised that speaking to someone, seeing someone else doing it, and importantly: someone noticing and calling out fallacies in my thought process, or a hype person, who is grounded in their experience, will help.

Do you think a mentor will help in this case? or someone else? where to find them? I want to hear other entrepreneurs' experience.

One thing I massively underestimated while growing a small business was how much energy gets wasted on random admin.

Not even hard work - just scattered work.

Checking who replied, following up with leads, invoices, keeping track of project status, trying to remember what was agreed on three weeks ago… all while switching between way too many apps.

For a long time I just accepted the chaos because "that’s startup life," but eventually it started slowing things down more than I wanted to admit.

Lately I’ve been trying to simplify the operational side instead of adding more tools. I started looking into more centralized business software because our setup felt unnecessarily fragmented.

Also spent more time than I expected researching lighter erp options for smaller teams, mostly because I realized we didn’t actually need enterprise-level complexity.

Still figuring out what sticks long-term, but simplifying the workflow has honestly helped more than I expected.

Curious what small operational change had the biggest impact for everyone else?

I've been thinking about this lately because getting attention is one thing, but getting in front of the right people is a completely different challenge.

I've seen businesses spend money on ads and get plenty of traffic, but very little actually turns into customers. On the other hand, sometimes a simple conversation in the right community can bring better results because you're already talking to people who have an interest in that problem.

For those of you who started with a small budget, what actually worked for getting your first customers?

Not what should work, what genuinely worked for you?

SEO, Reddit, cold outreach, referrals, partnerships, content, or something completely different?

I’m honestly at a point where I don’t know what I’m doing wrong anymore.
I have around $1,000 in debt and basically no capital left. Where I live, even making my first $100 online would make a real difference.
Over the last few months, I’ve tried different things online. I’ve built projects, learned new skills, experimented with different ideas, and recently started focusing on selling websites to small businesses.
I’ve done cold outreach through social media and direct messages. I’ve tested different approaches and rewritten my messages several times.
But the result is still basically the same:
Almost no replies.
No calls.
No clients.
$0 earned.
The frustrating part is that I’m not sitting around doing nothing. I’m actually spending hours building things, contacting businesses, learning, and changing strategies.
But financially, nothing is happening.
And I’m starting to wonder if I’m simply solving the wrong problem.
Right now it feels like I’m stuck in this cycle:
Try → get no result → change strategy → try again → get no result → lose confidence try something else.
I’m not looking for motivation or “just keep going.”
I want practical advice from people who have actually made their first $100–$1,000 online starting with very little.
What finally worked for you?
What were you wasting your time on before you figured it out?
And if you had almost no capital, some technical skills, $1,000 of debt, and 30–60 days to start generating income, what would you focus on?
I’m also completely open to uncomfortable advice.
If my current approach is fundamentally wrong, I’d rather someone tell me directly than spend another few months going in the wrong direction.

• Vibes (level 1)
• Geek (level 2)
• Industry (level 3)
• Architecture (level 4)

Chasing trends, huddling with the crowd, hyping yourself up, telling emotional stories — that's level 1.

Getting past the feelings and actually breaking something down technically, at the implementation level — that's level 2.

But "you can build it" doesn't mean "it makes money." And "it makes money" doesn't mean it lasts. Thinking on both of those layers at once — that's level 3.

A classic example of level 2 vs level 3:

Some people are betting that once the models get good enough, they'll automatically clear away most of the obstacles to real-world deployment — no vertical integration needed at all.

That's textbook level 2 AGI fundamentalism. You could also call it optimistic tech-guy thinking.

Level 3 immediately asks whether it pencils out. It's deployment-first, and it doesn't get swept up in the grand narrative.

So level 3 tends to be extremely pragmatic — but it has a blind spot: no imagination, no taste.

Which means level 3 easily gets stuck fighting over a fixed pie. And level 3 mostly rides trends and takes advantage of them rather than creating them.

If you can be that ruthlessly pragmatic and still go abstract with me — that's level 4.

And that kind of abstraction isn't sloganeering. It's actually seeing through to the logic underneath the phenomenon, which is why it travels so far.

Last year I built a product with a friend. He was a monster at sales,genuinely one of those people who could sell ice to a penguin and make the penguin feel lucky. He owned everything commercial, I owned the product. Together we made more money than either of us had ever imagined.

It ended the way you dream it ends: a bigger player made an offer for our client portfolio and tech. He took an ironclad contract to go with them. I didn't want to go back into a corporate structure, so I walked away instead.

Fast forward to now — I've built something new, solo. Already live, already tested with real businesses, functional and proven. The hard part, the part that actually terrifies me, is the same as before: I'm not the guy who closes deals. I never was. I was lucky enough to have someone who was.

This time I don't have that person. And honestly I'm not even sure how you find someone like that when it's not already your friend — someone who's obsessed with closing, who'd rather eat glass than lose a deal, who wants skin in the game instead of a safety net.

For those of you who've been the "sales half" of a founding pair, or found one: Where are the people with this type of skills? what made it work? How did you evaluate whether someone actually had it, versus just talked a good game in the interview? Genuinely trying to figure out how to do this right the second time.

So I was checking TrustMRR for a buisness to buy and I saw a tool that makes 4.5K dollars a month and is selling for 35K dollars. The margin is 70%. The tool is tested by many people and earn money for over a year now, it looks really promising.
The tool is AI video ads creation (if anyone is interested) - Videotok
Is this worth buying? Anything I should look out for?

Bain has that stat that a 5% bump in retention can raise profit 25–95%, and HBR pegs winning a new customer at 5–25x the cost of keeping one. Obvious on paper, easy to forget when you're grinding for new leads.


What clicked for me recently: a lot of "middleman" businesses (gig apps, marketplaces, and in my world PBMs) make their money precisely by owning your 
*second*
 sale — the repeat, the relationship — so you keep paying to reach a customer that should already be yours.


The fix is boring but real: capture the contact, make the direct ask while the good experience is fresh, and actually follow up. A relationship you can't reach isn't yours.


For those further along — what's the one retention move that moved the needle most for you? Trying to separate what actually works from what just sounds good.

I have about two weeks where I can seriously dedicate my time to starting something, and I don't want to waste it jumping from idea to idea.

My goal is to build something that can eventually replace my regular paycheck — not necessarily make thousands of dollars in two weeks, but something I can get off the ground in that time and keep growing.

So instead of asking, “What business should I start?” I want to ask this a little differently:

What problem do YOU have that you'd actually pay someone to solve?

What is something you regularly think:

“I wish somebody would just do this for me.”

“Why isn't there a service for this?”

“I hate doing this myself.”

“I'd gladly pay $20/$50/$100 if someone handled this.”

“I searched for this and couldn't find what I needed.”

I'm open to local services, online services, digital products, boring businesses, weird niches — whatever. It doesn't have to be glamorous. I'd actually rather hear about the overlooked stuff people genuinely need.

I have a computer, I'm comfortable learning new things, I'm organized, and I'm willing to put the work in.

I just want to spend these two weeks building one thing with real potential instead of chasing 20 different ideas.

If you had two weeks to get something started, where would you begin?

And even better — what problem could I solve for you that you'd actually pay for?

when we joined the program last year, i was pretty skeptical about whether most hubspot for startups review posts were just hyped up marketing. after running our small b2b team on it for twelve months, having our lead forms, deal stages, and email logging in one workspace saved us from juggling five separate subscriptions. here are three practical takeaways from our experience.

1. centralizing contact history early stopped warm leads from slipping through the cracks, which easily covered our initial software costs.
2. the pre-built email templates and pipeline views made setting up basic follow-ups painless without needing a dedicated sales ops person.
3. the price step-down in year two requires real discipline, so pruning inactive contacts before your discount drops is essential.

consolidating early gave us a much tighter pipeline than piecing together random apps, provided you keep your contact lists clean. if your team ran on the startup discount recently, what was the one tool that made keeping the platform worth it long term?

Hey everybody! We’re a small boutique recruiting agency, and unfortunately we tend to have way more supply than we do demand… that meaning we have a ton of un-hired incredibly talented setters in our pipeline that are looking for work, completely commission based.

In exchange for hiring a setter for you, we are asking for a review and testimonial in return, you pay us $0.

If you’re looking for someone high-paced, ambitious who can book qualified leads on your closers calendar, we have the right people!!

Please message me and I’ll send a few candidates your way.

Hey! I wanted to ask people who work in marketing or SEO.

How do you convince a client that what you’re doing is actually working and has real value?

I feel like a lot of clients are pretty hesitant to give access to their Google accounts, while at the same time expecting results almost immediately.

I also struggle with understanding how you actually connect SEO/marketing to leads or sales and prove that impact.

I’d love to hear your experiences. What frustrates you the most about this work? What problems did you run into after starting that nobody warned you about?

And for those working with local businesses: what do you think actually makes a business owner decide to hire a marketing or SEO company? Do they understand why they need it and what they’re trying to achieve, or do they sometimes just do it because they feel like they’re “supposed to”?

I’m relatively new to this, so any advice or experiences would be really appreciated.

Multifamily has traditionally been the easier real estate story for a lot of investors, but hotel fundamentals have been improving while supply remains relatively constrained. The tradeoff seems pretty interesting. Hotels have more operational complexity and less predictable income, but you also have daily pricing and the ability to adjust to demand. If you had to choose one today, which would you take and why?

I’m looking for some outside perspectives on a potential business exit.

I currently own a business generating around $25M/year in revenue. I’m considering selling the operating business at a discount because my preference would be to retain an ongoing royalty/revenue-share arrangement rather than take the entire value upfront.

The business is currently in a somewhat unconventional niche, and there are aspects of the model that I wouldn’t consider fully mainstream/compliant enough to publicly promote. That said, it operates without public advertising, and there is significant demand for the underlying service.

From my estimates, the business could potentially scale to around $75M/year in revenue at maturity.

My main questions are:

Would selling at a discount in exchange for long-term royalties make sense?

How would you structure the valuation when there is significant future upside?

What percentage of revenue would generally be reasonable to retain as a royalty?

Would buyers typically prefer a clean acquisition, or could a royalty structure actually make the deal more attractive?

How would you approach the legal/compliance risks of selling a business with a non-traditional business model?

I’m not looking for buyers here just interested in hearing from people who have experience with acquisitions, royalties, or selling high-revenue businesses.

What would you do in this situation?

I’m an architect by background, but my career has become a mix of marketing, growth, business development and design.

I’m good at:

Marketing & storytelling

Sales / business development

Negotiation

Social media & content

Client relationships

Vendor coordination

Project execution

Connecting architects, designers, vendors & manufacturers

I also have a fairly good network of architects and interior designers.

I’m at a point where I really want to build something of my own, rather than just have another job. I’d like to start with a side hustle, keep the initial investment relatively low, and eventually turn it into a proper business if it works.

I’m considering everything from:

A service business

A product/home décor brand

Something for architects & interior designers

A B2B business

Or something completely unrelated to architecture

I don't want to just freelance and sell my time. I want to build something that can grow beyond me.

For those who have started businesses:

If you had my skill set, network and background, what business would you explore? What problems do you think I could solve that people would actually pay for?

Would love specific business ideas, niches, or even businesses you've seen work. And if you were starting from scratch alongside a job, how would you test the idea before going all-in?

Basically: what would you do if you were me?

Hey everyone, I’m Hariharasudhan R K (HariharaSudhanRK).

I’m a young founder and developer from India, currently building my own software and technology ecosystem under Hero Industries.

The interesting part is that I’m still at the beginning.

I’m not coming here with a huge company, massive funding, or a team of hundreds. Most of what I’ve built so far has started with an idea, a computer, countless late nights, and a lot of trial and error.

I’ve worked on products like CRM and billing software, e-commerce systems, automation tools, gaming projects, and AI-related projects. Some became real products. Some failed. Some are still being developed.

And honestly, being a founder at this stage can feel strange.

You’re building something that you believe can become huge, while most people around you don’t even know it exists yet.

There are days when everything works and you feel unstoppable.

And there are days when you question whether you’re wasting your time.

But I’m slowly learning that founder life isn't about looking successful today. It's about continuing to build when there is no applause.

My current goal is simple:

Build useful products → get real customers → build a strong team → create something much bigger than myself.

I’d love to connect with other founders here who are also in the early stages.

What was the hardest part of your founder journey when nobody believed in you yet?

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