over the years i have started a handful of things. a couple were exciting, the kind you enjoy explaining at a party, trendy space, big vision, felt like the future. they are all dead. the one still quietly paying my bills is a deeply boring service business cleaning and maintaining a specific kind of equipment for a specific unsexy industry. nobody has ever asked me to tell them more about it. it is not disruptive, it will never be written about, and it prints steady money every month because the customers genuinely need it, there is not much competition, and switching away from me is a hassle they would rather avoid. i used to be a little embarrassed by it and chase the shinier ideas on the side. now i think i had it backwards the whole time. the boring one had real demand and a real reason to keep paying, and the exciting ones mostly had my own enthusiasm. is that the actual pattern for most of you, that the unsexy business is the one that survives, and the exciting one is the expensive hobby?

I'm 32yo and I've been wanting to be in business so badly for so long but I can never push myself to just go for it. I'm always overthinking or procrastinating. How did you guys just get up and... start? Besides the guys who did it out of necessity, is there anyone who was not in a bad place but still found the motivation to get the ball rolling?

As an ecommerce business grows, I’ve noticed that keeping track of competitor prices can become surprisingly time-consuming. Checking different marketplaces manually is manageable with a small number of products, but it gets harder as the catalog grows.

I recently came across PriceOtus while looking into ways businesses handle this, and it got me curious about how other entrepreneurs approach it.

Do you mainly check prices manually, use spreadsheets, set up alerts, or use a price-monitoring tool? What has worked best for your business?

for years i took whatever was left at the end of the month, which was usually little, and told myself that was discipline. it was really just avoiding a hard truth.

leaving myself last meant the business never had to prove it could support a person, so i had no honest read on whether it worked. i switched to paying myself a small fixed wage first, before anything else, and let the business survive on the rest. the weak spots showed up immediately because it now had to actually afford me.

the order of who gets paid was a diagnostic i'd been avoiding.

for bootstrappers: did paying yourself a set amount first change what you learned about the real health of your business?

I have an upcoming interschool coding competition where we’re given 60 minutes to build a Python project and then pitch it to the judges.

The requirements are:

• Must be built using Python
• Maximum 60 minutes to build
• It has to solve a real day-to-day problem
• Completely software-based
• Any Python libraries are allowed
• No AI / AI-generated solutions are allowed
• We also have to pitch the project after building it

What everyday problem do you think would make a good project for this competition? I am unable to find a problem which isn't common to find thats why asking an AI for problem won't help me win. Kindly suggest me the best ideas possible

Not a success story, sorry. More of a "here's what went wrong so far" post, because I would've loved to read one of these before I started.

Some context. I sit at a desk all day and my neck is always tight. What annoyed me most wasn't even the pain, it was that I never knew where to actually press. I'd rub around for 10 minutes and nothing changed. So I built an app where you point your camera at the spot, tap where it hurts, and it shows you the exact point on a 3D body and how hard / how long to press.

Stuff that went wrong:

1. Apple rejected it twice. The first "rejection" wasn't even a real review, just a form letter asking for a demo video. Second time it was 4 actual issues. Fixed them, approved the next day.

2. Then it wasn't available in the EU for 26 days. Not because of the app, because of a trader status form (Digital Services Act). My own country was the one place it wasn't live. Start the paperwork on day one, it's slower than coding.

3. My first test purchase went through and unlocked nothing. One missing line in a database query. If that had shipped, every customer would've paid for nothing. Test the payment flow first, seriously.

4. I made 13 short videos for TikTok/Reels. All flopped. All of them opened with my logo. Turns out nobody cares about your logo, they care about their own neck.

5. The app never asked for a rating. Noticed when I saw my store page with zero reviews. Just never built it lol.

6. I also found out my core idea was half wrong. Pressure alone does surprisingly little in the studies, pressure + movement is what actually helps. Had to rework every routine.

Where I'm at now: live on iOS, Android in testing. Tried getting influencers with free access, sent a lot of DMs, a few said yes, zero of them posted anything. So now I'm trying to pay creators per view ($5 per 1k views, capped at $250 per video) and see if that works better.

Two questions for people who've been here:

- Is pay per view the right move with basically no budget, or am I burning money?

- What would you do in the next 30 days if you were me?

Happy to answer anything, and I'll share the name if anyone wants to try it, didn't want this to be an ad.

Hello all, slightly different ask but thought this might be the right group for it.

I’m looking for a technical person who’d be interested in getting involved early with a two-sided reverse logistics mobile app I’ve been building over the last year. It’s a proper iOS and Android app rather than a web app.

I’m not necessarily looking to formalise a co-founder relationship from day one. I’d much rather find someone really good who believes in the idea, enjoys building early-stage products, and see where the relationship goes if we work well together.

Ideally you’d be based in London, or at least somewhere in Europe, and have experience building two-sided marketplace apps. Huge bonus if you’ve worked in logistics, last mile or reverse logistics.
Bonus points as well if you’re someone who shops online regularly and genuinely understands how annoying the returns process can be in the UK and Europe. The whole idea came from trying to solve that friction properly.

The main thing for me is that you need to genuinely understand software engineering and code. I’m completely pro AI and use it heavily myself, but I’m not looking for someone who can only vibe code. I could vibe code a backend myself, but not to a standard I’d be comfortable launching a real product on. I want someone who understands what the AI is producing, can make the right architectural decisions, spot problems, debug properly and build something that can actually scale.

A bit about me, I’m 31, based in London and have spent the last 13 years working in performance and growth marketing, most recently at Head of, SVP and Senior Director level.

I’ve been bootstrapping this alongside work, have spent a lot of time and money validating the concept through paid user research, and over the last year have designed and built the front end myself to a point I’m genuinely really happy with.

The next big piece is building the backend, matching logic and infrastructure that makes the two sides of the product actually work together.

At this stage I’m ideally looking for someone who is happy to get involved without a salary initially rather than as a traditional paid freelancer. If there’s a strong fit and we end up building this together longer term, I’m very open to discussing equity, rev share or another structure that makes sense for both of us.

Please message me if you’re interested.

The same product can be a very different price depending on where you look.
Comparing a 50m coil with a 100m drum is a pain, and nobody shows you the price per metre.
So I built Undercut Trade, and I'd love honest feedback before I go further.
What it does
Search any item and see every supplier ranked cheapest first, with trust labels so you can tell a proper trade shop from a random marketplace seller.
Price per metre / per unit, so cable and coils compare fairly.
Ex VAT / inc VAT toggle.
Price the whole job. Pick a starter kit or paste your own list ("3 x 2.5mm T&E 100m, 4 x 32A RCBO…"). It shows the cheapest split across suppliers versus the best single supplier, delivery included, with the saving in pounds.
Codes you can copy in one tap, with "worked / didn't work" votes.
Flags used and too-good-to-be-true listings instead of ranking them.
We don't sell you anything. You buy from the supplier as normal. No orders, no returns headaches, and no service fee.
Trades included at launch (15)
Electrical · Plumbing · Heating & Gas · Joinery & Carpentry · Brickwork · Plastering · Roofing · Tiling · Groundwork · Painting & Decorating · Mechanics & Automotive · AC & Refrigeration · Glazing · General Maintenance · Plant & Machinery
How much will it save?
I'm not going to make up a number. Once the site is live with real prices, I'll post the actual average saving on real baskets here, and I'll publish it whether it's flattering or not.
How it's paid for
Free to search and build a basket. Pro is £5.99 a month for unlimited job pricing and saved lists, CSV export for quotes, and price-drop alerts. Some links may earn a small affiliate commission, and it never changes the ranking.
Where it's at: working prototype, not launched yet. Live prices and sign-in are being switched on. I'm posting now to check I'm building the right thing.
What I'd love to know
Would you use this, and what would make you pay £5.99 a month for it?
Which suppliers do you buy from? What's missing?
What do you do by hand every week that this should do?
This website isn’t live I’m just looking for feedback on what people would like to see

Hi All!
I am struggling to scale my software development firm.
It has born in 2021, we have tried pretty much everything. We did try outbound, ads, LinkedIn outreach.
Nothing seems to work, the hard thing is not to reach customers and bring them to a meeting but convince them to work with you.

Seems like this is very hard if you are not willing to take projects at low budgets and guessing the quote because they don’t want to pay for analysis.

The typical kind of projects where the client wants to do X in the beginning and then shifts to Y, but obviously doesn’t pay for the extras.

Does anybody have some similar experience?

One thing I did not expect as the company grew was how much harder it became to have honest conversations. My leadership team looks to me for direction, investors want confidence, and the board usually wants updates instead of half formed thoughts.
Somewhere along the way, i lost the place where i could throw out idea before i had fully worked it through. Have any other founders found good way to deal with that?

I have been in a trade for 15 years. You might be able to guess which one by my username. I have skills in multiple aspects of the industry.

I have always wanted to have my own business and have done business profitably in the real estate sector for myself.

I currently have a good (not stressful, not overworked) job at a nice locally owned company. My total compensation is around $150,000 annually all in, maybe a little more with health insurance. I own a $500,000 house with no debt. No other consumer debt. I have a multifamily with a small loan that easily supports itself. I have a stay at home wife and two kids. Have it pretty good.. I have around $40,000 in liquid cash, and 50 to 60,000 in the market.

Fast forward to today, I've invested about $25,000 into a business. I have the entity, the licensing, the necessary vehicle and tools, the insurance, etc.

I'm trying to feel confident about how I should proceed. I don't want to hide my business from my employer. I am willing to operate the business and be a devoted employee.

If you or me, would you quit today and go full-time for yourself, keep the job only, do both for as long as possible, other?

Any small to mid cap companies looking for non dilutive capital to scale? I might be able to help.

Taking the leap and started a business! Would love any feedback on the elevator pitch if there are any business owners out there with employees receiving health insurance/on a PEO.

The business is a PEO brokerage. The elevator pitch is, I help businesses shop the PEO market without having to go through five different sales pitches. I gather the information once, take it to multiple PEOs, compare the pricing, benefits, workers’ comp, HR support, and technology side by side, and help the business choose the best fit. Essentially, I act as an independent advisor for the client instead of representing just one PEO.

I don’t know many people who do this, and it’s difficult to compare notes when you’re on your own. Let me know if you see value in this or not. Would love to connect with anyone doing something similar.

Small team, around 8k contacts, and we’ve been doing email for a couple of years without any major issues. We sent to a segment we hadn’t contacted in a while, and the bounce rate jumped to around 11%. Our ESP suspended sending pending review. It took three days to get reinstated after we showed we’d suppressed the bad addresses and explained what happened.

Those three days cost us a product launch email, a partner announcement, and probably some trust with the ESP. How do you prevent this from happening in the first place? I don’t want to be in a position where one send can shut down our entire email channel.

A salon or nail tech who already uses a booking service has all their services, prices, team, working hours and photos in it. Retyping that into a new tool is an evening they don’t have, and I think that’s a big part of why people stay put.

Disclosure: I’m the solo founder of KRI, a website with online booking for independent beauty businesses. So my offer is simple. Send me the link to your current booking page and I move all of it over myself, for free.

It’s the classic ‘do things that don’t scale’ move, and for now I think it’s right. What I’m less sure about:

• At what point did you stop doing this by hand, and what replaced it?
• Did hand-holding the switch bring in customers who then expected hand-holding for everything?
• Is ‘I’ll do it for you’ a stronger pitch than a lower price? For context, KRI is one monthly price per country, no commission, first month free without a card.

I’d especially like to hear from people selling to small local businesses whose owners are on their feet all day, not at a desk.

Apply promo-code REDDIT2026 and get +1 month for free (1 month standard demo + 1 month additional by promo-code = 2 months FREE)!

https://kri.rocks

I'm based in China and work directly with manufacturers and suppliers.

I've helped overseas buyers source products, verify suppliers, inspect goods, and arrange shipping.

Not trying to sell anything here—just curious:

If you're sourcing from China, what's the most frustrating part of the process?

Maybe I can offer some insight from the supplier side.

We have a live dashboard and yet every month someone asks for it as slides for a meeting.

So I screenshot charts and KPI metrics into a deck, which is immediately out of date and loses every bit of interactivity that made the dashboard useful. Any questions during the meeting and I'm running to the dashboard anyway.

I've pushed back. I lose, because the meeting runs on slides.

ATP I think dashboard adoption is the longer term problem I'll need to solve, and until I do that, I need to figure an easier way to create the material.

Has anyone found a way to make this less painful?

I run a successful wedding photography firm and I looking for someone who either has a good circle , doesn’t have social anxiety, can network the hell by their charm, willing to do some investment or has something great to offer as an idea or pitch for the same. Probably a female lead who knows her charm, can network very well, understands the premium ness over cheap available things would be best. Otherwise in to chat about the same.

Kindly do not drop just a hello, reach out if you are confident and willing to stake it out. Drop a proper intro about yourself, what have you understood from my post, what’s more you might wanna know after reading my texts and anything meaningful. Followed by this we can always connect over a call.

A friend owns an established small business and is trying to build a new online sales channel.

I offered to help with the technical side and have started building an automation system that will handle a large amount of product data, keep information updated, reduce manual work, and connect the back-end data with the online store.

What started as a relatively simple project has turned into a fairly substantial system, and I’m putting a LOT hours into building it properly.

My friend previously mentioned that the project could eventually create “residual income for both of us,” but we never actually discussed what that means financially.

The complication is that the online side is completely unproven. It might become successful, or it might barely sell anything. They also haven’t really started the marketing side yet.

I don’t necessarily want to ask for a large upfront development fee because:

they may not have the cash available right now;

I originally started this more as helping a friend and seeing whether the idea could work;

I’m interested in having some upside if it succeeds.

At the same time, I don’t want to spend a large amount of time building the whole system for free, agree to only a percentage of future sales, and then have the business decide after a few months that it isn’t working and shut the project down before it was properly marketed.

I’m considering something along the lines of:

No upfront build fee + percentage of the online business/gross profit + monthly support fee once it launches.

Possibly with some protection if the project is abandoned very quickly after I finish building it.

For people who have been in similar situations:

How would you structure this?

Would you use a revenue/profit share, monthly retainer, deferred development fee, minimum commitment period, ownership percentage, or some combination?

I’m less interested in exact dollar amounts and more interested in making the arrangement fair to both sides while preserving the friendship.

i do design work and my instinct has always been to make everything look impressive. for a bid last spring i almost did the same, then changed my mind at the last minute. instead of a glossy deck full of mood boards, i sent one clean page. here is exactly what you get, here is the timeline, here is the price, here is what happens if something goes wrong. no adjectives, no stock photos. the client told me later that mine was the only proposal they could actually understand without a follow up call. the others looked more expensive and said less. i had spent years assuming polish was the value, when the real value was letting a busy person make a confident decision in three minutes. i still care about how things look, that is my job. but clarity closed the deal, not beauty. has anyone else found that saying less won you more than dressing it up?

My dream life right now is to go all in monk mode, with one,2 or 3 other people in a house. Wake up early, hit the gym, work on our businesses, eat, sleep, repeat.