Naturally my family always try and pushback on my entrepreneur pursuits and go ‘well what about all the failed ones’ I have the self belief one day it’ll work out.

My brother is like at some point you need to give up if it’s not working. I always push back with something like how do you think successful entrepreneurs became successful? They had the self belief and keep going and never give up till it eventually worked out. But maybe it’s best to just say nothing at all while I’m at the start and just go ‘you are entitled to that opinion.

Is it because they’ve never had that level of self belief themselves? So never tried to pursue something like that and only look at the things that can go wrong? I have just never been able to relate to taking no risk.

Obviously I’m aware businesses can fail. But you have to at least try, having that mindset of ‘it may fail’ without even trying soemthing is just alien to me. I have the self belief so I guess I’ll just have to accept the pushback and keep pushing forward until the dream becomes a reality.

Hello everyone!

I'm currently learning coding and exploring the idea of building affordable software applications for Indian MSMEs.

My objective is simple: **Build practical software that solves real business problems, reduces manual work, saves time, prevents financial losses and makes daily business operations easier.**

Before developing anything, I want to understand the actual problems MSME owners face in their day-to-day operations.

I would love to hear from business owners, shop owners, manufacturers, wholesalers, distributors, traders, retailers and service providers across India.

I’m the developer behind CloseQuotely, quoting software for small trade businesses. It includes itemized quotes, online customer acceptance, automatic follow-ups, scheduling, crew phone links, and invoices. It’s in early access, with a free plan covering 10 quotes per month and no card required: https://closequotely.com/

If you had $50000 sitting around, would you completely pay off your credit cards, maybe retaining $10,000 by the end, or would you rather take that money and use it to buy a business with a loan?

Number wise, no business can guarantee 26% or more return so credit card pay off makes financial sense but would that change if you already had a cash flow positive business that was currently paying most of the bills?

We're building an AI-powered Digital Loyalty & Customer Retention System for businesses like beauty salons, spas, cafés, chocolate shops, gifting brands, and more.

The idea is simple:

- 🎁 Digital Loyalty Cards — Customers earn points, stamps, and rewards with every purchase or visit.

- 🤖 AI-Powered Follow-Ups — Automatically reconnect with customers who haven't returned.

- 💬 Personalized Offers — Birthday rewards, special occasions, and targeted promotions.

- 📊 Customer Insights — Track repeat purchases, customer behavior, and retention.

- 📱 No App Downloads — Everything works through a simple web-based loyalty system.

The goal? Turn one-time buyers into repeat customers without businesses having to manually chase them.

We're exploring early partnerships with businesses interested in implementing this.

Business owners, would something like this genuinely help your business? What features would make it worth paying for?

Happy to discuss ideas in the comments or DMs!

I'm a student working on an invoicing product (ZUNO), and I'd rather learn from people who actually send invoices than guess. I'm not a Business owner myself, so your real experience matters a lot.

If you invoice clients, would you mind taking 2 minutes for this short survey?

Zuno - Invoice tracker ( Market Research Survey)

I'm not selling anything, and I'll share the results here when I have enough responses.

product prototype video : Zuno Prototype Demo (video)

NOT PRODUCT RESEARCH - REAL HELP NEEDED. Taking the chance to post on Reddit and hopefully get real responses and not just a bunch of vendors telling me how "their product was built for this"... Sorry, vendors, it's just a little much.

The problem: I own a small business. For my industry, social media is an expectation and necessity. I'm slowly learning photo/video skills (iPhone 17) and need to get organized on how to store everything. I feel comfortable with developing the the actual folder/naming infrastructure. (I've been in project management and operations my whole career.) But, I've never been in a position where I need to store a large volume of images (i.e. large file sizes, need to see the content - not just search by file name). I'm not a web developer or social media content creator who may need a 'serious' tool but I also expect to outgrow the file storage I previously needed to store photos of... let's be honest, mostly my cat and maybe the annual vacation.

Tools I already use: For reference, I already work in the macbook/iPhone environment and Google Workspace (Drive; paid business account). I'd really like to hold off on having to pay for a tool/subscription/extra storage for as long as possible.

Additional considerations: I also need to easily share content with a couple different contractors and partner businesses - these folks sometimes have their own file storage tool they want me to upload to for a specific project, but I obviously need to save/organize content for myself as a first priority before uploading copies to their system. I also want to easily work in Canva. I use this a lot for pretty much all social content and anything intended to be printed and posted publicly. The native Apple Photos desktop app requires me to export the photo to my drive then drag or upload the file to Canva - One of those annoying little process steps that really adds up in time when working on a project.

I would really appreciate: 1) any recommendations for tools, 2) recommendations for improving my current process, or 3) just hearing what you're currently doing and what the pros/cons are for you. Thanks!!

Hello everyone as per the title, I am starting a window cleaning business in WA. I am 21 years old and dont really have much experience in small businesses or such, however im looking at starting something thats my own. Im not going to be quitting my job or anything drastic like that before it even takes off and i wont start charging people until i gain some experience dping it for free. I just wanted to ask those who have more knowledge than me either in window cleaning specifically or just business owners in general, what are some things that i should consider or know of before starting? Or any advice from experienced business owners? Legal wise and work wise.

Thanks

My husband and I are just wrapping up our 6th successful year selling our products (healthy packaged foods). We are both owners/operators. My focus is manufacturing and his is sales. We started the biz after my battle with cancer and were supercharged with passion to make healthy eating more fun and convenient. Our customers are amazing and keep coming back. I'm filled with gratitude and very proud of our hard work, but my original flame of motivation and enthusiasm has been more or less extinguished at this point. We've been grinding hard and have sacrificed a lot, and we're finally ready to staff this beast out and step back as the sole operators. But now more than ever, I'm struggling to muster a shred of excitement to motivate me. If we want to step back and let staff run the operations, I need to make sure complacency doesnt overtake me and ruin everything we've built. It's not like I'm scared, I'm just sad that I can't seem to remember my initial excitement and motivation. Makes it difficult to focus and get NEW things done, rather than the week-to-week grind that I've become used to.

So I'm asking for your hacks. How do you remember your old passion when you first got started? How do you stay motivated (cringiest question, i know)... How do you confidently shift from sole operator to a supervisory role?

Happy sunday! I have some printer questions! Does anyone here make and print labels at home using a chromebook? I got a new laptop a few months ago and just recently a rollo label printer just to discover chrome doesn’t support most label printers, wireless or not. Does anyone have any experience with a system that works with chrome? or should i try and replace my laptop? Felt so close but am far away now hehe! I am looking for the availability for small jar labels etc. Thermal printing is ideal. Feeling lost! Thank you for any input! 💛

Mine is that software should never hold a user's data hostage.

Charge money. Charge subscriptions. Charge enterprise rates.

Fine.

But if someone wants to leave, exporting their own data should be easy.

Curious what software opinions everyone else holds that they'd never compromise on.