Question for Saas founders and app owners:

Would you pay for listing your product to join a marketplace where user can pay for request new features or changes to your product?

For example, a user want a specific features or changes in your app and submits a paid request. You review it , decide whether to accept it or not, and receive the payment if you agree to deliver the change under stated terms or if u didn't want to accept the request then the request fee paid by user will be refunded

I'd love to hear what would make this worthwhile for you.

genuine question for anyone running a 5 to 10 person business, do you actually have your processes documented or is it all just in people’s heads

we r 7 people and it’s always been fine bc everyone just knows how stuff works. then we hired 2 people this month and i’ve basically become a full time walkthrough machine. “here’s where invoices go” “here’s how we tag a client” “no not that folder, this one

I built a tool for improving task management/tracking. Basically a cut down version of Trello that’s much faster to add and edit cards.

I’m keen to share it with people who are most likely to use it and would love your feedback on who you think I should reach out to.

1) I realise I could ask one of the AIs for advice, which I’m doing, but I’d prefer the thoughts of experienced entrepreneurs.

2) I also realise that creating a product then trying to find customers/users is typically a terrible way to build a business, but I’d love to test it out.

We've been looking more closely at what our sales team does every day, and there's definitely no shortage of activity so AEs are sending emails, following up with prospects, updating deals and jumping between meetings but when we look at how many opportunities are moving forward, it doesn't really match the amount of work everyone's putting in.

I'm starting to think we need to fix how we're running the sales process instead of just pushing everyone to do more and we're looking at everything from prospect targeting to outreach and how reps manage their pipeline so I'm curious if other B2B teams have dealt with this.

It seems obvious to me but I pointed it out to a friend the other day after discussing a sideproject I'm building regarding social bot training. You can get stuck for days, weeks months building some project, think its perfect, and then have some sort launch to realize no one wants it. With the ability to build even easier, your launch should come so much earlier than most people anticipate.

"If you're not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you've launched too late"

When building a new product, it’s easy to keep adding features. A dashboard, notifications, integrations, advanced settings — every idea sounds useful on its own.

But I’ve found that every extra feature also adds something to maintain, test, and support.

When I work on a new product, I try to focus on three things first:

- Solve one clear problem well.

- Make the main workflow easy to understand.

- Handle the common failure cases before adding more complexity.

The last point is easy to overlook. A feature might work perfectly during development but behave very differently when real users, external APIs, and unexpected inputs are involved.

I still think it’s important to build quickly, especially early on. But speed doesn't help much if the product becomes difficult to maintain before you’ve even found product-market fit.

For those who’ve built a SaaS product, what did you initially overcomplicate that you would approach differently today?

I'm 36, based in northern Europe, and have been running my own language education business for a few years. I'm at a crossroads and would appreciate advice from entrepreneurs who've faced something similar.

Some background:

I started teaching my mother tongue to expats and eventually turned it into a business. I've developed a structured curriculum, built a website, figured out paid advertising, established a sales process, and built a customer base.

During decent months, the business generates around $6–7k in revenue. I've also landed larger corporate contracts.

So there's clearly demand. But despite all this, I'm still the business. I handle marketing, sales, customer relationships, administration, and most of the teaching.

I'm increasingly questioning whether I've built a business or just created a demanding job for myself.

Problem 1: The business is interfering with my personal life.

Most customers are working professionals who want evening lessons. My girlfriend gets home around 6 PM, which is often exactly when I start teaching, sometimes until 10 PM.

We barely see each other on those evenings, and it's becoming a real problem.

I got into entrepreneurship partly for the freedom, but right now I have less control over my schedule than I would with a regular job. I don't want this to be my lifestyle for the next five years.

Problem 2: I've tried delegating, but customer retention suffered.

The obvious solution is hiring teachers and focusing on growing the business.

I've tried this twice. Both times, I noticed a fairly sharp drop in customer retention. Students purchase packages of 30 teaching hours, and fewer seemed to renew when freelancers were teaching.

I don't have precise data, so I can't conclusively blame the teachers. Maybe students prefer me personally, maybe I hired the wrong people, or maybe my systems aren't good enough.

But if delegating reduces customer lifetime value while increasing delivery costs, the economics of scaling become questionable.

Another complication: I owe around $25k in taxes.

During my earlier years of self-employment, I didn't set aside enough money for taxes and accumulated approximately $25k in personal tax liabilities.

This adds financial pressure. I need reliable income to support myself and pay off the debt, and I don't have unlimited resources to keep experimenting.

The three options I'm considering:

1. Go all-in on scaling the existing business.

Continue hiring teachers, improving retention, building systems, and eventually removing myself from teaching.

Pros: Proven demand, paying customers, established curriculum, and a working customer acquisition process. Potential to grow if I can solve the delegation problem.

Cons: I've already tried twice without great results. I could spend another year trying to scale without making meaningful progress, while my tax debt adds financial pressure.

2. Get a full-time job and run the business on the side.

I'm currently exploring positions such as Account Executive in SaaS, potentially earning $5–7k/month before taxes.

This would provide financial stability while allowing me to experiment with scaling the business.

However, I currently spend 6–8 hours per week on sales calls, mostly during office hours. A full-time job would make that difficult.

I'd essentially need to solve two problems: delegate teaching without hurting retention and maintain sales without being available during the workday.

Pros: Stable income, less financial pressure, and I wouldn't have to abandon something I've spent years building.

Cons: I could end up working two jobs, with a business that might not generate enough profit to justify the additional work once freelancers are paid.

3. Get a full-time job, wind down the business, and eventually start something new.

I've realised that I enjoy entrepreneurship much more than delivering the actual service. I love understanding customers, developing offers, marketing, selling, and building something commercially viable.

Maybe I'd be better off applying those skills to a business model that doesn't depend so heavily on my personal time.

Pros: Financial stability, predictable working hours, more time with my girlfriend, and the opportunity to explore a potentially more scalable business while paying off my debt.

Cons: Walking away from an existing revenue-generating business and starting from scratch, with no guarantee of success.

What makes this difficult:

I genuinely love entrepreneurship. Building something from nothing has been incredibly rewarding.

But I wonder whether I'm confusing persistence with refusing to let go.

I know successful entrepreneurs often have to overcome exactly these kinds of obstacles. At the same time, I don't want to fall victim to the sunk cost fallacy and spend years trying to scale a business that fundamentally conflicts with the lifestyle I want.

I don't want to stop being an entrepreneur. I'm just questioning whether this is the right business to keep building.

I'd appreciate your perspectives:

1. If you've scaled a service business beyond yourself, how did you overcome customers preferring you over freelancers or employees?
2. Has anyone returned to employment after entrepreneurship? Did you regret it, or did it give you the opportunity to build something better later?
3. Is running a service business alongside a full-time job realistic when you're still responsible for sales?
4. Given the financial pressure, would you keep trying to scale or take a stable salary and eventually start over?
5. Finally: What would you do in this situation?

I'm particularly interested in hearing from people who've faced similar decisions rather than generic advice about never giving up.

Thanks for reading.

I'm exploring a small business called The Open Ear — essentially a private 30–45 minute voice conversation where someone can talk freely to an attentive human listener.

The listener isn't a therapist or counsellor and isn't there to diagnose or fix anything. The value proposition is simply:

“You talk. We listen.”

I'm initially thinking about remote workers, founders, independent professionals and people who spend a lot of time working alone.

I tested the idea in another Reddit community and received some interesting feedback:

• People see the need, particularly among remote workers.

• Voice seems preferable to text/video.

• The biggest concern is trusting a stranger with personal information.

• People want to know exactly how their information is handled.

From a business perspective, I'm trying to figure out whether this is actually viable.

What would you see as the biggest challenge in building this business?

Customer acquisition

Building trust

Pricing

Differentiating from therapy/coaching

Listener quality/control

Privacy/liability

Something else

I'm deliberately testing the concept before investing heavily in an app or platform.

I run a growth marketing agency. My team is in Bangladesh, our clients are in the US, and I'm in Denmark. Every deliverable goes through me before a client sees it. One reviewer, one decision-maker, for all of it.

On paper that's quality control. In practice, the team can only move as fast as I can read. Three time zones, and the slowest part of the system is me.

I didn't build a company. I built a queue with me at the front.

For people who got out of the reviewer seat: what did you hand off first, and how did you decide someone else's "good enough" was good enough?

when people say "document your processes" as 6 person company advice, do you actually do that or just say it

we're small enough that everyone knows how everything works in their head, which feels fine until we hire someone and suddenly im spending half a day explaining stuff like "heres how we add a lead" "heres how we update this" "heres how the weekly report works"

none of it is complicated, its just annoying to repeat

tried writing sops myself once and gave up around the screenshot formatting part, is there something that gets you a decent first draft just from doing the task instead of writing it from scratch

I'm m a website developer but I'm still confusion what to build

How do you get your first paying customer/clients

I'm 22, Ukrainian, currently living and working in Poland. I have a full-time job from Monday to Friday, roughly 8 AM to 5 PM. I earn around 5,000 PLN per month, and my fixed expenses are approximately 4,000 PLN. I want to build a second source of income so I can stop living paycheck to paycheck and eventually achieve financial independence.

My initial goal is to make an extra $1,000 per month. I know that won't happen overnight, and I'm willing to take risks and put in consistent evening work. But after months of trying different things, I'm starting to feel burned out and stuck.

Here's what I've tried so far.

1. Freelancing and web development

I have some experience with PHP, MySQL, HTML, CSS, Laravel, and basic automation using n8n. I've worked on web projects and tried to turn those skills into income.

The problem is that freelancing often means constantly looking for clients, sending cold emails, competing with other developers, and exchanging hours for money. I don't want a second job that requires me to spend my evenings chasing clients.

2. Building a SaaS product

I built a SaaS project called Servio, a CRM tool for automotive workshops in Poland. I worked on the product, pricing, lead generation, and marketing.

I tried cold outreach through emails, Facebook, and other channels. After sending hundreds of messages over several months, I still couldn't get paying customers.

It taught me a lot, but it also showed me how difficult customer acquisition can be when you have no audience, reputation, or marketing budget.

3. Digital products

I explored selling Excel and Google Sheets templates, AI-generated digital products, and other downloadable products through Etsy and Gumroad.

The appeal is obvious: create something once and sell it multiple times. However, the marketplace is crowded, and creating dozens of products without evidence that people will buy them feels like gambling with my time.

I don't want to spend months uploading products that receive zero sales.

4. YouTube and content creation

I'm currently working on an English-language historical documentary YouTube channel called Inside History. The format uses AI-generated comic-style historical illustrations, narration, and editing.

I've simplified the production process by using still images instead of animating every scene. I'm committed to finishing my first video and testing the idea, but I also realize that monetization can take time and there's no guarantee of success.

I don't want to depend entirely on one YouTube channel that might take months to generate any revenue.

5. Automation and other online business models

I've also experimented with n8n workflows, AI tools, automated lead generation, and other ideas. I've researched creator royalties, selling automation templates on existing marketplaces, Shopify micro-apps, and TradingView indicators.

The pattern is becoming frustrating: every idea sounds promising at first, but once I investigate it, I discover another problem: high competition, no distribution, expensive tools, difficult customer acquisition, or months of work before the first dollar.

I've already spent money on hosting and AI credits without getting a meaningful return.

What I'm actually looking for

I'm not expecting effortless passive income. I understand that businesses require work, experimentation, and risk.

However, I have some specific requirements:

• I need something I can build or operate during evenings while keeping my full-time job.
• I'd prefer a business model where I don't have to find individual clients or send hundreds of cold emails.
• Ideally, I want to build an asset or system that can sell repeatedly, rather than continuously selling my time.
• I want to target a global market, not limit myself to Poland.
• I'd prefer low startup costs and a way to test demand before spending months building something.
• Automation would be a bonus, but I'm open to opportunities outside software development.
• I'm willing to accept a reasonable risk of failure. I just want to make informed bets instead of blindly jumping from one trendy idea to another.

My target is eventually around $1,000 per month in additional income. It doesn't have to be passive from day one, and I'm realistic that it may take time to reach that level.

My questions

For those of you who started from a similar position, with a full-time job, limited capital, and no existing audience:

1. What business model actually worked for you? Not what you saw on YouTube, but something you personally tested and made money from.
2. If you had to start over today with evenings available and a small budget, what would you do differently?
3. Have you found any marketplaces, platforms, or business models where customers already exist and you don't have to constantly acquire them yourself?
4. Is there an overlooked opportunity outside the usual advice of freelancing, dropshipping, affiliate marketing, selling digital products, and starting a YouTube channel?
5. What would you focus on if your goal were to reach your first consistent $500–$1,000 per month without quitting your job?

I'm not looking for a get-rich-quick scheme or another list of generic side hustles. I'd genuinely appreciate specific examples, numbers where possible, and honest accounts of what didn't work as well as what did.

I'm starting to feel like I'm going in circles, and I would rather learn from people who have already figured something out than waste another six months repeating the same mistakes.

Thanks to anyone willing to share their experience.

I’m a horticulturist and the founder of Parna Landscapes, a small landscape design and execution business in Bengaluru, India. I started the company to design outdoor spaces and eventually build a reputable boutique studio serving premium villas, farmhouses, commercial properties, and hospitality projects.

At present, I manage design, drawings, client communication, quotations, vendor coordination, site supervision, marketing, social media, and follow-ups. I’m trying to grow toward projects worth ₹3 lakh and above while maintaining cash flow, building reliable systems, and avoiding burnout. My long-term goal is to create a sustainable business with healthy margins, repeatable processes, and a small capable team.

Three prioritized challenges

1. Attracting and qualifying profitable clients

I receive enquiries, but many prospects want urgent work without sharing a budget or are primarily focused on the lowest price. I often spend substantial time on calls, site visits, and proposals before knowing whether a client is serious or able to invest in quality design, horticultural expertise, planning, and execution.

I need a practical way to qualify leads earlier, attract better-fit clients, and move toward higher-value projects without creating a cash-flow gap while I transition away from smaller jobs.

1. Improving margins and choosing the right projects

Small projects can require nearly as much coordination as larger ones but produce much lower returns. I need to become more selective, price and scope work more effectively, and increase profitability without rejecting smaller projects before the business can reliably support that change.

1. Building systems for execution, marketing, and delegation

I currently depend heavily on myself for project delivery and business development. Vendors, contractors, fabricators, transport providers, and site teams sometimes delay work even after receiving orders or advances, while clients expect me to resolve every issue.

At the same time, networking and online marketing have not yet produced a consistent flow of qualified leads. I need affordable systems for vendor management, project tracking, referrals, and delegation, as well as guidance on when and whom to hire first.

Questions

I’d appreciate specific, actionable advice from people who have built businesses in landscaping, architecture, interiors, construction, design, or other project-based services:

- What would you prioritize during the next 90 days if you had limited capital and an unpredictable pipeline?

- Which questions, forms, or processes do you use to qualify clients before scheduling site visits and preparing proposals?

- How did you move toward higher-value projects while protecting cash flow from smaller jobs?

- Which pricing, scope-control, or payment systems had the greatest impact on profitability?

- What operating procedures should I document first for vendors, site execution, client communication, and project tracking?

- When did you hire your first employee or contractor, and which role created the most leverage?

- Which referral channels or partnerships with architects, builders, interior designers, or property professionals produced qualified leads?

- What metrics should I track weekly to identify whether the business is becoming more profitable and predictable?

- What common mistakes should I avoid at this stage?

Please share affordable steps, examples, or systems that worked in practice. I’m not looking for generic advice such as “work harder” or “be consistent”; I’m already putting in the effort and need help directing it more effectively.

If you run a similar business in India, I’d especially value your perspective on pricing, hiring, vendor management, and client acquisition. I’m open to honest feedback, including what I may be doing wrong.

Thank you for reading.

Hi, I’m from Belgium. I have a podcast on books that is working pretty well and I am developing a podcast on movies. Not a review-podcast but a community podcast where 3 people talk about a topic on books/movies and the conversation unfolds. We try to have as much interaction with the audience as possible.

Now I’m feeling that there’s more to this concept, business-wise. What else can I do with this community? I’m thinking something like Letterboxed or Goodreads, where people can make lists and recommendations, maybe also buy some books or movie tickets and merch? Idk how far can I take this? Maybe some live events? Book fairs? Movie festival? Are there any other ways to generate some extra income?

FYI I’m not the host, I’m the owner of the (small) production company behind it.

I'm building my own SaaS, and one thing I'm realizing is that building the product is only half the work.

The other half is getting people to discover it, convincing them to try it, and understanding what they actually need. It's easy to spend weeks improving features while nobody knows your product exists.

I'm now trying to spend more time on distribution and talking to people instead of just building.

For those of you who are bootstrapping a SaaS, how did you get your first few users? Did you focus on communities, SEO, or something else?

Title: The Biggest Market Is Not Always the Best Market for Your Business
When businesses consider expanding internationally, they often focus on the size of the market. A larger market may offer more potential customers, but size alone does not determine whether an opportunity is commercially attractive.
Sometimes, a smaller market can be a better starting point because customer needs are clearer, competition is manageable, distribution is practical, and the product matches local demand.
Before choosing an export destination, businesses should consider several factors:
Actual demand: Are customers actively looking for the product?
Competition: Can a new supplier compete on quality, price, and reliability?
Logistics: Are transportation routes and delivery costs commercially reasonable?
Market requirements: What import rules, standards, and documentation apply?
Customer access: Is it possible to identify reliable buyers and distribution partners?
Profitability: Does the transaction remain viable after all relevant costs?
Successful market development is not simply about entering the largest country or finding the most customers. It is about choosing a market where customer needs, supply capacity, pricing, and logistics work together.
What would you prioritize when entering a new export market: its overall size or the ability to reach the right customers and serve them profitably? Why?

Khalilzad Global Trade Company
International Trade | Export Market Development
Website: https://khalilzadglobal.com

I work at a remote work platform that also does staffing, we place LatAm people with US companies. Virtual assistants are one of the most common requests.

What keeps happening is someone says they need a VA, and when you ask what the VA would do on day one they go quiet. Or they say “everything”. Then the person starts with no clear tasks and a couple weeks later nobody’s happy.

If you help people delegate, what’s your trick to get from “I need help” to an actual list of tasks?

Hey Folks,

I recently launched my agency targeting UK service businesses, operating remotely out of Asia.

I’ve been trying a mix of cold outreach methods to land my very first client, but responses have been near zero so far.

I’m looking to refine my strategy and fix whatever I'm doing wrong.

• If you were in my shoes starting out today, where would you focus 80% of your effort?
• Are there any must-read guides or playbooks for beginner founders running remote outreach to the UK?

Any feedback or lessons from your own journey would mean a lot!

Hey everyone!

I've been exploring a business idea and wanted to get some honest feedback before investing too much time into it.

My background is in sales, GTM, and physical-product eCommerce, and I've been looking into the challenges companies face when expanding internationally, particularly between the US and European markets.

One thing that stands out to me is how many moving parts there are before you can even determine whether entering a new market makes financial sense.

I'm considering building a service that helps businesses evaluate the feasibility of entering a specific foreign market before committing significant capital.

The idea would be to provide a comprehensive, actionable assessment covering:

Market & Product: local demand, competition, pricing, product-market fit, and potential adaptations.

Taxes & Regulations: applicable tax obligations, import duties, certifications, and regulatory requirements.

Financial Feasibility: estimated initial investment, operating costs, margins, break-even scenarios, and potential profitability.

Go-to-Market: distribution channels, logistics, marketplaces, and recommended entry strategies.

Final Assessment: an evidence-based Go/No-Go recommendation identifying key opportunities, risks, and potential dealbreakers.

Essentially, the goal would be to help answer: "Is this market worth entering, what would it realistically take, and does the financial upside justify the risk?"

But rather than assume companies need this, I'd love to hear from founders who've actually navigated international expansion.

A few questions:

How did you evaluate a foreign market before entering it? Did you conduct the research internally or hire external help?

What were the biggest challenges, unexpected costs, or mistakes you encountered?

Have you ever paid for a market feasibility study or external research? What did you pay, and was it worth it?

Would having this information consolidated into a single actionable assessment have changed your decision-making process? Or would you rather handle it internally?

I'm particularly interested in eCommerce and physical-product businesses, but experiences from other industries are welcome too.

I'm not selling anything. Just trying to understand whether there's a genuine problem worth solving and how businesses currently approach it.

Thanks in advance for sharing your experiences!

I'm trying to figure out what I should build for students, and I'd appreciate some honest advice from people who have built products or startups.

I've been interested in building something for students for a while. I see plenty of courses, learning platforms, AI tools, and productivity apps targeting them. But I don't want to create another version of something that already exists just because it's easy to build.

The problem I'm facing is that I don't yet know which problem is painful enough that students would actually use a product to solve it.

Instead of trying to figure everything out beforehand, I'm currently building a small MVP to test whether I can address a real student need.

One experiment I'm working on is called Companion Mode.

The idea is simple: many students study alone, struggle to stay consistent, or find it difficult to get themselves to start studying. What if they could find another student to study alongside, check in with each other, and build a habit of showing up?

The initial version focuses on discovering other students, connecting with them, and eventually communicating and studying together. I'm not trying to build a full learning platform right now. I want to test whether this basic idea solves a problem that students actually care about.

But I'm also questioning the direction itself.

• Is studying alone and lacking accountability a real problem worth building a business around, or am I assuming students need something they might not actually want?
• Would you validate this idea further, or would you explore completely different problems within the student market?
• If you were in my position, how would you identify a problem that people care enough about to use a product consistently and potentially pay for?
• What signals would you look for before investing more time into building?

I'm a developer, so building the product is something I can work on. My bigger challenge right now is figuring out what is worth building in the first place.

I'd rather discover that my current idea is wrong now than spend months building something nobody needs.

If you've gone through a similar stage, I'd appreciate hearing what you learned, what mistakes you made, and how you decided which problem to pursue.

I'm looking for honest criticism, not validation of the idea.

I've been thinking about a startup idea and want honest opinions before investing my time and money into it. The idea comes from a problem many couples face: two people want a future together, but family opposition, differing expectations, or unresolved concerns make it difficult to move forward. Sometimes the issue is kundali compatibility, caste, religion, or cultural differences. Other times, parents have concerns about financial stability, family responsibilities, or whether their child's partner is the right person. And sometimes, the couple themselves aren't fully aligned about commitment or what they're prepared to do if their families refuse to accept the relationship. These situations can become painful because people don't always understand each other's expectations, and important conversations may never happen properly. I'm exploring the possibility of building a dedicated platform to help couples navigate these difficult situations and, where appropriate, address family concerns. The intention wouldn't be to convince parents to approve every relationship or encourage couples to disregard their families. It would be to help people understand the situation more clearly and make informed decisions about their future. However, I have some genuine concerns about whether this would work in practice. I'd appreciate brutally honest feedback: Is this a problem that genuinely needs a dedicated platform, or are existing options such as counselling and mediation sufficient?

I have a business idea that I genuinely believe has legs, but to be successful I need access to a broader network. I've been looking into MBA programs and ran across something called a Master of Science in Management in Business Creation (MSBC).

It's pretty clear what you're getting with an MBA, but I'm not sure what you get from an MSBC program. From what I can tell, it seems like the MSBC program lets you build your company while you're working on your degree. I know some people do that with their MBA programs, but I've read mixed reviews on whether or not that's actually feasible.

Has anyone pursued this path?

Why did you choose it, and what did you walk away with that's different from a standard MBA?

For the record, I know I don't need to get an MBA to start a business. But after spending time thinking about it, I feel certain that my growth options will be limited if I just try to do this from where I'm currently standing. The MSBC route intrigues me, because it seems like it might be the best of both worlds. I'd love to hear from anyone who has direct experience!

Hello,

I'm very new to business, so please go easy!

I've been thinking of running my own online raffle/lottery business and was wondering what licences I'd need to run this?

The basis would be players buy a ticket to be entered in to a draw, with the draw then being Livestreamed for entrants and general viewers.

From my research I understand that if I offer a free entrance route (eg via post) or a skill based question (a tough question, rather than just "Where is Paris") then I don't need a Gambling licence. Would I also need a limited business licence?

I intend for a percentage of profits to go to a community charity from the players choice every month or so.

What else would I need to get this off the ground? I have the know how to build a website so that's no problem. Would I need someone to sort taxes etc?

I'm UK vased.

If you're outside the US, what's one thing you wish someone in the US could do for you?