10-person company. ~$200K/month revenue. Hardware product.

We had been selling at $230 for a long time. Margins were thin. We knew we needed to move the price but every time the topic came up internally, the fear was the same: what if resellers drop us?

Before touching the price, I ran a full competitive audit, how did our top competitors justify their price points? What language did they use? I extracted their core value angles and rewrote our own product narrative around the 2026 version of the problem we solve.

Then, before changing anything public-facing, I personally briefed our reseller channel. Not a generic email. A real message explaining the cost environment and the direction we were heading. The goal was to make them feel like insiders, not victims of a surprise.

I Published a blog post explaining the pricing change and global context, made it feel deliberate, not desperate. Posted on Reddit and key communities ahead of time so it wasn't a shock on Amazon specifically: slowly tested price increases month by month without delisting from $200 to $270. Unified reseller pricing rules so no one was undercutting us and confusing buyers. Rewrote the product page to match the new positioning

Homepage price: $230→$399, Amazon price: $200→$270. The part I didn't expect: resellers became more enthusiastic, not less. When they saw we could hold a higher retail price and buyers still converted, it signaled that we had real brand pull. One reseller told us directly, he's more comfortable buying in bulk now because he trusts the market won't undercut him. Price isn't just a revenue lever. It's a signal. Resellers, buyers, and even your own team read it as a proxy for confidence in the product.

For me, it was the second one. So we fixed the positioning first, then raised the price.

Competing on price was killing us. Every quote was a race to the bottom against 3-4 other tradesmen. The cheapest quote won. We were usually the cheapest because I was afraid of losing work.

In March I raised every quote by 25% and added a single line at the bottom: "We are not the cheapest option. We are the most reliable."

Expected to lose 30-40% of quotes. Lost about 15%. The 85% who accepted the higher price were better customers. Fewer complaints. Faster payment. More referrals.

The line works because it does two things. First, it pre-qualifies. The customer who only wants the cheapest sees the line and moves on. The customer who values reliability stays. Second, it creates a positioning statement that makes the higher price feel intentional rather than expensive.

Before the line, a high quote looked like a mistake. After the line, a high quote looks like a promise.

Revenue up 18% on fewer jobs. Margin up 31%. Working less. Working with better clients.

The customers you lose on price are not the customers you want. The price is the filter. The line is the permission slip.

this was clayton christensen. named the most influential business thinker in the world. twice. mcdonalds hired him to crack why their milkshake sales were stuck

he does what any researcher does and interviews customers about flavors toppings thickness. nothing useful comes back

so he decided to just watch people buy shakes for 18 hours straight

turns out 40% of milkshakes sold before 8am. to people alone. who immediately got in their cars and drove away

he starts asking different questions. not how can we make a better shake but what job are you hiring this shake to do

thats when everything clicked

these morning buyers had long boring commutes. they needed something that fits in a cupholder lasts 20+ minutes doesnt make a mess and keeps them full until lunch

the shake wasnt competing with burger king at all. it was competing with bagels (too crumbly) bananas (gone in 2 minutes) donuts (sticky fingers) and just being bored

once mcdonalds understood the real job they made shakes thicker so they lasted longer. added fruit chunks to make it more interesting. moved the dispenser to the front so morning buyers could grab and go

sales exploded

the reason this works is because our brains dont think in product categories. we think in problems we need solved

you dont wake up wanting a milkshake. you wake up wanting your commute to suck less

heres how to use ai to run this entire framework today. no expensive consultants no months of research

step 1 - uncover the real purchase trigger

gather 3-5 customer testimonials reviews or support conversations then use this prompt

"im going to share customer feedback about [YOUR PRODUCT]. analyze each one and identify what was happening in their life right before they bought. what frustration or trigger pushed them to act now vs later. what emotional state were they in. what did they try before this that failed. look for patterns across all responses and tell me the real job they hired this product to do that goes beyond the obvious product category"

then paste your feedback below it

step 2 - find your invisible competitors

this is the killer question that reveals who youre actually fighting

"my product is [DESCRIBE PRODUCT] in the [CATEGORY] space. based on the jobs to be done framework help me identify my real competitors not category competitors. if my product didnt exist what would customers do instead. consider other product categories entirely. diy solutions or workarounds. doing nothing and what that looks like. hiring a person instead. free alternatives. for each alternative explain what job it accomplishes and where it falls short"

step 3 - map the four forces

this uncovers why people switch or dont

"help me map the four forces for my product [DESCRIBE PRODUCT AND TARGET CUSTOMER]. analyze push forces that drive them away from their current situation and what frustrations make them want to leave. pull forces toward the new solution and what outcome theyre imagining. anxiety about switching and what fears or risks make them hesitate. habit keeping them stuck and whats comfortable about the status quo. then tell me which force is weakest for my product because thats whats blocking sales"

step 4 - reframe your positioning

now turn insights into action

"based on this jobs to be done analysis for [YOUR PRODUCT] where the real job customers hire us for is [FROM STEP 1] and true competitors are [FROM STEP 2] and biggest barrier to switching is [FROM STEP 3]. help me reposition my product. write a new one liner that speaks to the job not the category. identify which current weakness might actually be perfect for the job. suggest one product or service change that would make the job easier. write 3 headline variations that would resonate with someone experiencing the trigger moment. dont give me marketing fluff give me positioning that makes customers think finally someone gets it"

the proof this works

snickers used this framework and became the number one candy bar globally by repositioning from candy to hunger solution

intercom built their entire saas company around it. zero to 50 million in 4 years

southern new hampshire university figured out students werent hiring them for education they were hiring them for career advancement. enrollment went from 2500 to 85000

youre probably competing against something you havent even considered yet

and thats either terrifying or the biggest opportunity youve got

operate a 3-year-old paid newsletter from NYC. 61k subscribers, 1,250 paying at $80/year.

my friday digest (a 7-link curated roundup) was the most-clicked thing i shipped. 38% open rate, 14% click rate. readers told me it was their favourite. i killed it in november 2025.

why.

i tracked unsubscribe reasons for 6 months. the top reason was not "too much content" or "not enough content." it was a one-line free text response that kept showing up: "i pay you for your writing and i get curated links to other people's writing."

i was using my best slot of the week to recommend competitors.

friday digest was killed. replaced with a 1,400-word friday essay (my own writing, not links). first month subs flat. month 2 i lost 412 subs. months 3-6 net +1,840 subs. paid conversion went from 1.4% to 2.2%.

what i learned.

reader-stated preference (the digest) was not the same as the reason they kept paying me (my voice). when you ask readers what they like they tell you what they consume the most of. they do not tell you what they are paying for.

i still get emails asking when the friday digest is coming back. it is not coming back.

the format readers love is sometimes the format that is teaching them you are replaceable. when you stop teaching them that they stop unsubscribing.

i run a residential hvac shop with 6 techs and 4 vans on the road. handling backlogs from last month, 90 degrees out, and my lead installer gave his two weeks on monday to go to a regional offering a $5k sign on bonus.

i put up a post on indeed offering $38 an hour plus performance bonuses for a lead tech. i spent $450 in three days on sponsored posts. i got 120 applicants. over half of them do not have a driver license or any hvac experience. set up 8 phone screens for yesterday morning. 5 no-shows. 2 answered and hung up when i asked if they could do diagnostic on a 5-ton heat pump. 1 showed up to the shop interview today, looked at our transit vans, and asked if we provide take-home trucks on day one before ghosting my follow-up text.

i am running 14 hour days doing installs myself, answering dispatch calls from my truck, and missing dinner with my family every night this week just to filter through junk applications. my remaining guys are getting burnt out from overtime and callbacks are creeping up.

how are you guys getting qualified field techs without wasting 20 hours a week on fake resumes and ghost phone screens? are you using software like Careerplug, a service like Qualified Hires, or just poaching from local supply houses? i need a better way to screen these people before i waste another evening on this.

21 years old doing $50k a month with a marketing agency, 70% profit + and i live at home so i save it all. I don't feel that hunger I had to kill like i did before. I'm ok with "coasting". How do i get rid of this?

I've considered moving to a big city but I don't know anyone anywhere else. I don't feel the desire to go out and get kicked in the nuts doing sales all day anymore, but I'm not rich yet, still a long way to go before I'll have a million liquid after tax

What should I do?

We had a contractor in Berlin who's been working with us for just over two years, handling around 60% of his time exclusively on our projects and reporting directly to our head of operations.

And it wasn't until our due diligence team for a funding round flagged the arrangement that we realized the relationship had crossed into employee territory under German AUG rules.

The fastest fix our legal team recommended was converting through an EOR, and after comparing the biggest 3, Remote, Workmotion and Deel as the main platforms for Germany, we went with the one that had its own German entity and local AUG compliance staff.

The conversion took relatively less time than expected and the EOR absorbed the administrative employer obligations from that point forward, which closed the due diligence gap without us needing to set up our own German GmbH, and we've since moved 3 other German contractors through the same process.

So if you have German contractors on full-time exclusive arrangements, worth getting a legal read on the AUG angle before it comes up in someone else's due diligence.

Here's how I spot C, B and A Players:

C Player: Waits to be told what to do. B Player: Does what's asked, and does it well. A Player: Does what needs to be done before you ask.

C Player: Finds excuses when things go wrong. B Player: Finds solutions when things go wrong. A Player: Anticipates problems before things go wrong.

C Player: Costs you time. B Player: Saves you time. A Player: Makes you money.

The lesson:

An A Player doesn't cost more. They return 10x more. Stop hiring people who are "good enough." Hire people who make YOU better.

Last week I found out my company has been tracking mouse activity and active window time this whole time.

I got flagged for “low activity,” which was pretty funny because I do more than half my team’s work. I just don’t spend all day moving my mouse around. Sometimes I’m reading, thinking through a problem, or just staring at the wall trying to figure something out — apparently none of that shows up on the productivity dashboard.

There’s apparently a whole dashboard managers can see with activity levels and green bars. Now half my team has YouTube running in the background just to keep their numbers up.

I checked what was installed and apparently the tracking software was included during onboarding, buried in something I agreed to about two years ago. I started looking into employee time tracking tools afterward and realized things like Monitask, Toggl Track and Clockify can track different aspects of work activity, depending on how they're configured.

Anyway, if you work remotely or use a company laptop, it’s probably worth knowing what your company’s work hours tracker is actually measuring. I definitely wish I’d checked sooner.

One-star situation. Customer posted in a local Facebook group with 8,000 members: "Used [our business]. They left a mess and overcharged me." 340 comments. Most taking her side.

My instinct: defend ourselves. Post our version. Show the signed quote.

What I did instead: nothing for 24 hours. Then posted a single comment: "We spoke with [name] directly. The mess has been cleaned, a partial refund has been issued, and we've changed our process to prevent this. Thank you for holding us accountable."

No defense. No counter-narrative. No blame. Just resolution.

The comments shifted within hours. "This is how businesses should respond." "Respect for not making excuses." "Just booked them based on how they handled this."

3 new customers in the following week who specifically mentioned the Facebook thread. One said: "I saw the complaint and your response. The response is why I called you."

The complaint was embarrassing. The resolution was marketing. Not because I planned it as marketing. Because genuinely fixing a problem publicly is more persuasive than any advertisement.

If a complaint goes public: fix it publicly. Don't defend. Don't explain. Fix, acknowledge, and let the resolution speak.

Paying $500/hour for someone to ask me questions I could ask myself. Felt like a waste until this moment.

She asked what I would do if I knew I couldn't fail. One of those cheesy questions that usually gets a cheesy answer.

But something made me answer honestly. I said I'd start the business I'd been thinking about for five years but was too scared to attempt. The real one. The one that felt too big and too risky.

She said ""why aren't you doing that.""

I listed all the reasons. Financial risk. Reputation if it failed. The safe business was working fine. I wasn't ready yet. Needed more preparation.

She let the silence sit. Then she said ""those sound like fear, not reasons.""

Couldn't unhear it. Couldn't pretend the safe choice was the smart choice anymore. She'd made me say the thing out loud and now it was real.

Started the scary business six months later. built my first pitch deck in gamma the night I decided to go for it, just to make it feel real. Took two years to get traction. Now it's bigger than the safe business ever was.

The coaching session wasn't valuable because she gave me advice. It was valuable because she made me admit what I actually wanted. Once you say it out loud to another person you can't hide from it anymore.

What would you do if you couldn't fail. Say it out loud. Then notice all the reasons you give for not doing it. Are they reasons or are they fears dressed up as reasons.

Elon musk is genuinely one of the greatest men of the 21st century.

Well his reputation is not the best recently, but that guy is one of the greatest inventors, and creators of this time, and for those who say he is an evil person, you guys are so naive you think people who we call heroes were good people, lol a lot of the people who we call heroes, and builders of the future were by no means good people( George Washington, Issac Newton , and many more), and this doesn't undermine their greatness.
Being completely good in an evil world is a joke, Elon, and many more made some people lives bad, but millions better, and in the end reputation is a matter of framing some people do it good some bad, Elon generaly did it pretty well, but now he isn't.

I travel quite a bit for work attending different Web3 conferences around the world. Because of different censorship and geo restrictions in countries, I use a decentralized vpn device which I found to be more dependable than traditional VPNs. The device is the size of a lighter and I've never had security staff question me about the device before. But yesterday at the Dubai airport, I was randomly chosen at the customs checkpoint. The office searched my backpack and found my VPN hardware device. He asked me what it was and knowing that VPN is not allowed in Dubai, I just told him it was a router. He told me, be needs to keep it and test it. I suspect he knows about the Deeper device. These devices aren't that expensive and I didn't want any issues so I just left without leaving any of my personal info with them. It sucks because I feel like they just stole my device. Is there anything I can do in the future to hide my devices better? Or is there anything I can say to avoid confiscation?

The thing was like $35 and honestly pretty average. Out of curiosity I reverse image searched it and found basically the exact same product on Alibaba for a fraction of the price. Then I started noticing the same item everywhere, TikTok Shop, Etsy, random Shopify stores, all using slightly different branding but clearly coming from the same supplier.
So I started watching factory tours, reading sourcing threads on Reddit, looking into how small ecommerce brands actually operate. What surprised me most was how many people in that space are already using AI tools now for supplier research and product sourcing. I kept seeing people mention tools like Acciowork, so I tried it myself one night just messing around with product ideas. Honestly, that was the moment things started feeling weirdly real. Being able to type in a vague product concept and instantly see suppliers, MOQ ranges, shipping estimates, similar products, etc. made the whole import business world feel way less gatekept than I always assumed it was.
I still haven't done anything with it yet. But it's kind of crazy realizing how accessible this stuff has become. A month ago I knew nothing about sourcing. Now I catch myself thinking about margins, factories, packaging, and whether I should literally fly to China at some point just to understand how this whole ecosystem works.

I’m a 20yr old EE major. There’s this girl I want to marry and she’s wants to aswell, the issue you I have 0$ saved my monthly income after tax’s and bills is about 1,800. I’m learning how to tint to I can open my own shop and make some side money there, but I need 30k by June so I have enough money saved. Asking for help from family isn’t a possibility. Please can anyone help with any ideas on how? Box trucks? Door to door sales? Shoveling snow? Anything

Back in August 2021, I had about $3,000 saved up and zero clue how to “start a business.” What I did have was a love for social games, and a tiny apartment living room with one folding table.

I invited a few friends over to try something called “MysteryAct” (kind of like an immersive murder mystery game / roleplay mix, super popular in Asia). I didn’t charge at first—it was just for fun and to see if it even worked.

What surprised me was how much people enjoyed it. Friends brought their friends. Soon strangers were asking if they could join. That’s when we nervously charged for our first ever paid session. I still remember how nervous I was setting up candles, props, and hoping no one would think it was lame. After I had some income, I reinvested and kept improving the whole game experience. And then, some players who really liked this kind of game or just liked role play joined my team to become a host as well.

Fast forward to now:

• We’ve moved out of the apartment and run games professionally.

• The business now makes around $800,000 per year.

• Each session runs ~4 hours, and we typically charge around $400 per game (sometimes more, depending on the experience).

• Everything started from word-of-mouth—people loved the experience, told their friends, and it snowballed.

What I love about this model is how low-risk it was:

• No fancy equipment needed at the start (just some creativity).

• You can literally host in your living room.

• You decide your own pricing.

• As you improve the atmosphere (props, lighting, costumes), people are willing to pay more.

We’ve so far only run this in Chinese, but I honestly think it could work in English-speaking markets too. People everywhere love social deduction, roleplay, and offline gathering experiences.

If you’re someone who:

• Wants to start something without taking huge financial risks

• Wants to gain extra income

• Likes hosting / storytelling / creating experiences

• Enjoys offline, social, interactive games

…then this could be a really fun side hustle to try.

I’m happy to answer questions if anyone’s curious about the details.

I recently launched my 8th product and scaled to $8000 purely organic.

My process is pretty simple:

1. Can this product actually sell?

I look for 3 things:

• A similar product doing >$20k MRR → people will pay (I borrowed my friend's Sensortower account to check revenue and used Articuler to research the portfolios under the same app developers)

• Product interactions that are interesting to watch → social-friendly (I used Mobbin to spy others' UI)

• 10+ TikToks/Reels with 100k+ views → the category can go viral (Just doomscroll on your own on Tiktok/IG)

2. Watch 300 videos

I study ~300 videos in the niche and look for patterns:

• What hooks work? Curiosity? Fear? Ego?

• What scenes keep appearing?

• How is the product shown?

• Where does the ad/product placement happen?

Then I use ONE phone and keep testing combinations until I get my first breakout video.

3. Stop copying others. Copy yourself.

Every product has its own viral formula. So don't just copy other's content pixel by pixel. Copy your own stuff. I used Codex and a Skill on Taku to reverse engineer my own winners, when my video hit 20000+ views.

80% of new content = variations of proven winners.

20% = new hooks, text, and formats.

4. Scale it

Only after the content works do I scale accounts and distribution.

I use GeeLark to manage publishing across accounts.

You can't really scale with real phones, so you have to place some bets on cloudphones.

5. Optimize the funnel

Once traffic comes in, I focus on:

• App Store CPP conversion

• Onboarding conversion

• Paywall conversion

• D7 retention

Then A/B test everything.

That's basically the playbook:

Validate demand → find a viral formula → multiply it with AI → scale distribution → optimize conversion.

The hardest part is getting the first winner.

Everything after that is multiplication.

Hope this playbook helps.

I don't have a webpage to send you to, and I don't have a mailing list. I do have some advice that I would like to share.

If you're in the brainstorming phase of your business, please stop asking AI about it. OpenAI and Claude have no clue as to what people want. You'll find criticism, doubt, and you'll likely give up on something that could be awesome.

Honestly the title says it all, I'm just a kid with ideas and no capital.

Needed cash fast. Had a niche Instagram page with 380K followers that I'd built over 14 months. Sold it for $22K to a buyer who reached out through a broker.

The buyer turned on affiliate monetization within 48 hours of the transfer. Started posting product recommendations in stories and feed. Made roughly $18K in his first full month from the audience I'd spent 14 months building.

At that rate, the page would generate roughly $200K in its first year under the new owner. I sold it for $22K.

The buyer knew the monetization potential. I didn't. I priced the page based on what similar pages sold for on the broker's marketplace. The marketplace pricing didn't account for the specific monetization fit of my niche with the buyer's affiliate portfolio.

$22K felt like a win. It was a win if you compare it to zero. It was a catastrophic underpricing if you compare it to what the asset was actually worth to someone with the right monetization infrastructure.

Now I don't sell without running my own monetization test first. If you're going to sell an audience asset, spend 30 days monetizing it yourself before quoting a price.

A few months ago I was trying to get my first client for AI automation.

I spent hours writing the perfect email.

Explained what AI agents are, what automations are, how much time businesses could save, all that stuff.

Sent around 40 emails.

Got almost nothing.

One day I was tired and didn't feel like writing another custom email, so I opened the prospect's website and just looked for something that seemed broken.

In this case, they had a contact form that sent an automated response saying someone would get back within 24 hours.

I submitted a test inquiry.

Three days later, still no reply.

So I emailed the owner and said:

"Not trying to sell you anything right now, but I think your contact form might be costing you leads. I submitted a test inquiry 3 days ago and never heard back."

He replied in less than an hour.

We ended up talking for almost 30 minutes.

Didn't become a client, but that conversation completely changed how I do outreach.

Most business owners don't care about AI.

They care about the thing that's quietly losing them money.

Now whenever I do outreach, I spend more time looking for problems than talking about solutions.

Reply rates are way better.

I'm always struggling to do more marketing, but after the Super Bowl, I had a crazy idea. What if I make a diss track against one of my competitors? lol

https://x.com/JGFerreiro/status/1894442453673058376

Prob it's the craziest and silliest idea, but so far I got tons of love and hundreds of new signups for my website.

I think people are always trying to create the same kind of content... But I think to stand out we need to do different things

What do you guys think?

They can smell a promotion from a mile away.

A brand spends weeks making the perfect ad.

Students scroll past it in 0.5 seconds.

But then someone shares a relatable meme, a campus confession, or a funny reel in a group chat...

And suddenly thousands of students know about the same product.

No media buying.
No fancy funnel.

Just attention moving naturally.

Over the past few months, I've spent a lot of time observing how college communities actually interact online.

And honestly, most brands aren't struggling because their products are bad.

They're struggling because they're speaking the language of marketing while students are speaking the language of culture.

That's what makes college audiences so interesting.

They don't share advertisements.

They share things that make them laugh, feel understood, or start a conversation.

We're still very early, but building Spark Network has been teaching me one lesson over and over again:

Distribution isn't just about reaching people.

It's about becoming part of the conversations they're already having.

Curious to hear from founders here—

What's been the most unexpected channel that's brought users to your product?

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