I'm not a sales person. I even hate outreach and follow ups, but it is the "job that needs to be done" and I have huge for those that do it out there. I'm making this post because I would like to know:

how do you do sales? where you always a sales person? If not, what and when did you become one? what pushed you forward or to continue? any inspiration (figure, book, course, etc.)?

I'm currently running a business in reselling and the customers are my biggest headache, they all ask so many questions and I'm thinking of automating it, I literally came on reddit to understand other peoples issues because I've interested if people run into anything similar to me and I wanna see to what extent does the headache not centre around customers, I just wanna know if most issues appear because of customers/clients.

I am a behavioral neuroscientist (researcher) who has access to emerging neuroscience research on how people who lost jobs due to GenAI can work through their discouragement and best position themselves to find subsidiary positions.
This is not psychology. This is neuroscience. It is emerging research that has helped me and certain individuals when I tested some of its suggestions.

I am unsure how to monetize the idea. I would not like to be a consultant. Neither substack nor publishing in relevant publications seems feasible (they no longer pay freelance writers). Setting up a podcast (or the like) seems a long, expensive way to ROI.

Do you have any other simple, direct, inexpensive ideas?

Thanks

After making my idea i’ve now found some issues with marketing etc

My main issue now is finding recurring users to the website along with just a general audience. I have tried to post in some subreddits but it’s difficult to post about my idea without it seeming like self promotion and getting warned. I make short tik tok ads about the idea and have a few hundred views every time but no real conversions.

How can I create an audience around my idea, without wasting hundreds of £, and is there a way to tell people my idea without being banned for self promotion?

After recently launching my website i’m struggling to grow attention to it, maybe getting a few new visitors every day but I’m not 100% sure how to market it so that it gets to the right people.

I’m not interested in paying for services like a marketing team etc and want to grow it myself without risking too much capital before even knowing if it will work.

Does anyone have any tips for marketing or would want to see it so they can help advise based on the website itself?

I’m working on an early-stage tech concept that I think has the potential to become very large. I realise every founder probably thinks that about their idea, and I’m under no illusion about the reality of getting from an idea to an actual functioning company. Right now I’m at the very beginning and have developed most of the concept fairly independently.
But there’s a bigger question I’ve been thinking about, and I’d be interested to hear from people who have actually built companies.
If this ever became successful, I don’t particularly want to follow the conventional path of building a company whose ultimate purpose is generating returns for shareholders.
I’d like to explore whether it’s possible to build something closer to a self-sustaining economic engine for public good.
The company would still operate commercially. It would compete, generate revenue, pay its employees very well, attract excellent people and reinvest heavily in its own growth.
But beyond what is required to operate, remain resilient and continue growing, the surplus wouldn’t ultimately exist to enrich shareholders or founders. It would be directed towards tackling large-scale problems like climate change, ecological restoration, poverty, public health, scientific research, or whatever areas could produce the greatest measurable benefit.
In other words, rather than:
company- profit- shareholders
something more like:
company- profit- reinvestment- employees - reserves for public-good projects.
And ideally those projects wouldn’t simply be donations. Over time the company could build and fund its own teams and organisations to work directly on problems.
I’m aware this raises a huge number of practical questions: ownership, governance, raising capital, attracting early employees, founder control, incentives, taxation, succession and preventing the mission being diluted or captured decades later.
I’m also aware that talking about the eventual structure of a massive company before you’ve even built the small one is putting the cart several miles before the horse but I think the destination matters because some early decisions around ownership and investment could make that destination difficult later.

My questions are:
Has anyone here tried to build something along these lines?
What corporate/ownership structures would actually make sense?
Would avoiding conventional VC make something like this dramatically harder to scale?
How would you attract exceptional early employees when equity doesn’t have the same eventual purpose?
And perhaps most importantly: if you were at the very beginning, with the concept mostly developed but wanting to protect both the idea and the eventual mission, what would you do next?
Itd be great to hear from founders who have built and scaled technology companies, social enterprises, cooperatives, public-benefit companies etc

Cheers guys x

Business owners doing £200k+ a year, what is business actually like at your level?

I’m curious about the difference between building a business and running one once it’s properly established.

Most business advice online seems aimed at people who are just starting out.

Get your first clients.
Find your niche.
Learn marketing.
Make your first £10k.

But once you’re doing £200k+ a year, I imagine your day-to-day experience of business looks very different.

So I’m just curious…

What do you deal with now that a newer business owner probably wouldn’t understand?

What problems have replaced the ones you had in the early days?

What do you actually spend your time thinking about?

What does a stressful week in your business look like?

And what would surprise someone who thinks that getting to your level means everything suddenly gets easier?

I’d genuinely love to hear what life inside a more established business is actually like.

Hey everyone, quick question plz help

I’m a small startup founder, good at development and have built 2 web apps, but I’m honestly not good at sales. I’m also a bit hesitant to put myself out there and face customers directly, so I’m confused about what to do.

Should I hire someone for sales or try doing it myself first and learn along the way? What would you suggest?

As a student I am really worried about this one thing , I am compounding skills and learning market and finance. I'm also building app for startup ideas (not AI copy paste) but no the other hand feeling afraid of marks , collage , degree and family pressure

Any advice or share your experience on it

Been looking through alot of businesses lately giving away advice and all that. I have spare time today.

Tell me what you think your biggest business problem is.

I'll tell you why it's probably not that (or that ur right and praise u for heading the right direction)

Drop your situation. Business model, where you're at, what you think is broken. I'll go through interesting ones.

Hello, i’m 16 and have a few questions id love to be answered and it would mean the world to me!!

I’ve worked many many jobs despite being 16.
When I was 13 I started working at a business who let me work full time over the summer.

At 13 I was working 40-50 hours a week bagging 50 lb sand bags all for a computer I wanted so bad.

from the age of 13-16 I worked at that same business doing the same exact thing every day every summer.

Now, still 16, this summer I’ve worked at a new company. This company is electrical but i’m just a labourer as i’m not really invested in electrical or trades in general.

I’ve worked a couple other jobs outside of summer like fountain tire, tim hortons, farms. I’ve never ever liked any and all these jobs have made me learn about myself and how much i despise working under someone.

I’ve also always lived in a house where something I want I have to buy myself which is what made me work so hard for everything I have.

I’ve tried youtube in which I did pretty good on pulling in about $200 in revenue in 2 weeks of starting but lost motivation quickly despite being into content creation.

I also started a mobile detailing business which I ran from april till about now (august) in which I realised I can’t really scale because of canadian winter and high competition.

I am also in love with cars, it’s a huge passion of mine which also makes me work so hard because I want to work on my car buy a nicer car go to car meets etc.

Now, that i’ve explained about myself. I wanna ask a few questions if people are still reading this far.

1. How does one come up with an idea on a business that can be successful? I realize a business usually tends to be spreading your experience in something you have people need but I don’t really know what.

2. how does one stay motivated through a journey of low funds or small income through the start

3. how does one scale a business into something great that brings actual financial comfort.

4. How does someone learn more about selected business if it were to be unique and not very common.

5. How does someone invest the money properly back into the business and other investments outside.

6. How does someone promote the business in a meaningful way that actually attracts repeat and new customers?

Hello, nice to meet you all. I know this is a common question and I've read hundreds of threads here and other reddits and i don't understand any of the comments

I'm 33 years old and never developed any skills ever, I have like 6 years of customer service experience and do think I was one of the best at my jobs due to my ability to bridge a gap from frustration to a calm mellow level and then tackle problems from all perspectives, but these are the kind of skills that will never be marketable.

I've been on disability for a few years now for anxiety and such and been looking for a side job alongside, something i'm passionate about or love, but i'm someone that literally has 0 hobbies and 0 actually marketable skills

Yes I can go out there and learn a new skill or something but the reality is I have no interest in, well, anything. I just want to do anything but don't feel any way towards one thing more then another, becuase i have no real interest in anything. My hobbies are like.. Playing games and watching anime, normal stuff that doens't go anywhere.

The main problem is to market a skill, you have to train it to be better then the rest and really sell that. I understand the concept of selling yourself but the actual reality is i don't think i can ever get any skills remotely close to most others, I'm a slow learner and my inability to have interest in anything slows things down immensely. It'd probably take me years to reach the level others do in a month.

I feel like I just can't do anything, I'm not creative enough to make things. People alwyas talk about flipping things, I'm too dumb to know current trends and average prices, how would i know something is being sold cheap or how to clean it up or flip it. Even things i do daily like games I'm still terrible at and slow at learning after decades

I'm at a loss of what to do and have been struggling with this every day for years

I'm in canada if that matters, that means online stuff like surveys and the like haven't really existed here for a decade and a lot of oddjob sites/opportunities

I have a small retail shop with two locations focusing on apparel and accessories (bootstrapped from 1 store). I used to be able to do everything via a shared spreadsheet to manage the 1st store but things started to fall apart when I opened the 2nd location. Specifically store to store transfers don't seem to reconcile well and it's almost impossible to see how much stock I have in real time, so I end up either over-ordering or stocking out.

Part of me wants to hold onto the spreadsheet idea because it's worked for me so far. Maybe I'm just stubborn and don't want to really dig into it since it might break the workflow that we already have. But if I do switch to an inventory software, would the transition be difficult? I don't want to risk going all out on a new thing if I can fix the spreadsheets, or maybe I'm not looking at the bigger picture.

Hi,

I work as data scientist in top tier product company( google like) and now part of AI team. I always wanted to start something on my own. I wanted to start a service business first to have that cashflow and then think of product.

I had two ideas, local seo for medspa/hvac/dentists or ai lead gen agency like for local business or agencies [ ai receptionist, ai missed call text back, ai review generation etc for local and automating/personalising lead gen for agencies]

I am totally confused on which one to choose and which one has demand and comparatively easy to get first client. I am not local seo expert and i dont have experience too but I am thinking to learn along the way as I am a very quick learner because whatever I pick I have to start somewhere.

Really appreciate your thoughts!

Bonjour à tous,

J'ai besoin de votre aide. Je suis en train de lancer une plateforme de mise en relation alternants et entreprises pour la rentrée 2027. Tout est prêt : le site web est opérationnel, et l'app mobile va être validé dans les prochains jours.
Je fais face à un problème : je ne sais pas comment ramener assez de trafic sur la plateforme pour qu'elle prenne vie.
S'il y a trop d'étudiant, beaucoup ne trouveront pas d'alternance. Comment ramener assez d'entreprise ?

Je sais que d'autres plateformes comme Uber, airbnb... ont eu de mal au début à trouver des utilisateurs des 2 côtés.

Je voulais savoir si des personnes pouvaient me donner des conseils sur ça. D'ailleurs si des personnes veulent participez au projet (entreprise déjà créé...), c'est avec plaisir, mes DM sont ouverts.

Merci d'avance à ceux qui prendront le temps de répondre à mon interrogation.

We've delivered a few government digitization projects and they've gone well, but government work doesn't move like private sector referrals do.

Curious if anyone here has actually cracked repeat government work, is it relationships, empanelment, showing up at the right tenders, or something nobody talks about openly?

A founder I worked with had 14 good conversations in a row. Everyone agreed the problem was worth solving. Everyone asked to be kept in the loop. Eight months in he had zero customers.

He was not bad at selling. He was bad at telling the difference between someone being nice and someone buying.

I keep a list of the sentences that fool founders. Here are the four I hear most.

• "This is exactly what we need." Nothing follows it. No date, no next step, nobody else named who should see it.
• "Send me a proposal." A proposal costs you a day. It costs them nothing. Agreeing to receive something free is not a decision.
• "Let me run it past the team." No team member named. No date for running it past them. The sentence sounds like progress and contains none.
• "I would definitely use this." Would. Not will. There is a lot of room inside that one word.

The pattern under all four is the same. Nothing was asked of the person saying it. No time, no name, no date, no risk to them. When a yes is free, it tells you nothing.

I made this mistake myself. On my first launch I worked on the product, the messaging and the pricing for three months without having one real conversation with a buyer. Three months, zero customers. Every signal I had been reading was a signal I had invented.

Here is where my list runs out.

I have a long collection of what a fake yes sounds like, because those are the ones that hurt enough to write down. I have almost nothing on the other side. Nobody posts about the deal that went well.

So I am asking.

What did your first real buyer actually say. The exact words, not your summary of them. And if you remember it, what they did straight after saying it.

I will tell you which part of the sentence I think decided it, and why.

I work for my family e-commerce business. In 2020-2022, we were rolling in it. We peaked and had been doubling each year. Since, we have absolutely plateaued. The past few years has been a serious grind to refine finances, market smarter, and get more organized. We push through, but it can feel demoralizing that there has been minimal payoff. This is the shortest possible way to explain the situation, lol

I am wondering if anyone struggled with a major plateau at this profit area. Did you find a mentor? Is getting a consultant worth the cost? It feels like we need guidance from a third party, but I don't want to get scammed, either. Wondering what your thoughts are.

PS: We are a ragtag team of self-taught entrepreneurs in the apparel industry. We don't have people that have worked in this industry, we've been DIYing since 2015. I wonder at what point we need to hire real experts, especially when it can be scary to pay an expert's salary.

tl;dr, conflicted about AI venture that’s bringing in the most income VS. wanting to make something real, which will produce less income at the start. Both are in the creative space.

**There is no self promotion in this post, I keep my business names and all information anonymous with no links. I genuinely want to hear people‘s feedback on my internal conflict.

I started offering AI services/products in my creative industry. I still offer other products and services related to the industry that I’ve been in for years but now I have AI offerings that people can choose to buy/hire me to do for them.

All in all, the AI products/services add about $5,000 to my monthly revenue. I still make money from my other non-Ai products and services, but the AI stuff makes up like 50% of my total revenue now.

My business has been pretty profitable over the last few years, but as time went on, there was product and market fatigue in my specific industry with the products/services that I sell online. I started implementing some AI products/services in my business and it recovered pretty fast and quite a bit.

I have become extremely conflicted. At first, it started as a little additional offering that people can choose to use, but now I’ve been making more and more content specifically advertising and showcasing the AI products/services. And speaking with my advertisement team, leaning into the AI stuff more could be this business’ next big thing. The problem is I’ve been in my industry for a while now making certain types of creative work, and now I’m implementing a little bit of AI stuff which people have liked and now it’s turning into more AI stuff that I’m getting a lot of engagement and a lot of people are interested in this stuff along side a few choice comments about anti-AI which I’d expected.

The money is good, but in my gut, in my heart, I want to do something real, and I feel kind of stuck. I don’t just want to stop completely cause that removes half of my monthly income right now, but at the same time I want to work on/build something else.

I want to be clear this isn’t some backend AI dealing with systems and making grueling work easier, my products and services deal with using generative AI to make images that replace photography.

It’s just baffling to me that so many people show interest and engage with these posts and purchase these products and services that I offer. I use my AI, and I see some anti AI comments here and there which isn’t the best energy to see every day, people talking shit on your business and possibly morals/ethics/etc. it would be super cool if I could run my businesses without hearing any criticism like that and not really use any generative AI, but I don’t know, I would love to hear some input or thoughts about this situation. I would prefer not to use generative AI, but it turned out to be a really successful pivot for my business and people are spending lots of money on it and I’m not sure what to do.

I recently met with a founder running a very successful business with 8 figures in revenue, selling an AI service, but in the backend the AI service is fulfilled by humans and some janky software automations. Curious who else is in this spot right now, I'd love to help out. (I'm running my own 9-figure AI company right now)

I have a brand, and i just know its about to take off. So im literally just playing the waiting game and its so uncomfortable. How did you feel when you realized all that was left was patience?

Quit my job last week after about 4 years in industry. Building software full time now, no income coming in, so I'm motivated to figure this out fast.

Product is built, small number of users. Building isn't my problem, I can ship. Marketing and distribution are a total blind spot and I've never done either.

I'm deliberately not describing the product. I'm not promoting and I'm not fishing for signups. I want the process, not feedback on my thing.

Questions:

1. At this stage, what actually got you your first real customers? Not the theory. The thing that actually worked.

2. How do you find someone who can guide you? Paid mentor, accelerator, founder community, advisor for equity? Which of those was worth it and which was a waste of time?

3. Any communities or in person groups you'd point an early founder to, specifically someone who can build but can't sell?

4. Books, courses or newsletters that genuinely changed how you approached this? I'll read anything.

5. If you had to start over tomorrow with a working product and no audience, what are your first 30 days?

Toronto based, if that matters for anything local.

I make knives and hand forged tools. The way I have been deciding my prices is, material, plus time, plus %15. This formula usually puts me around market standard. I am considering upping my prices because I am selling out as quickly as I can make knives, which means I can't expand without falling behind keeping my stores in stock. How do the rest of you decide when to up your prices, and how do you determine how much? Thanks for reading!

Business owners and entrepreneurs: What are you struggling with right now?

A friend and I recently started a podcast about marketing, entrepreneurship, and the very human side of running a business.

She owns a marketing company, has a degree in education and a doctorate in marketing. I’m a Chamber of Commerce director, life coach, and business owner.

Between the two of us, we’ve spent a lot of time around small businesses and the people trying to build them, grow them, market them, or occasionally keep from burning the whole thing to the ground.

We don’t want to sit around making up hypothetical situations to talk about. We want real ones.

So what are you dealing with?

Maybe you hate marketing yourself. Maybe you’re doing all the marketing things and nothing is working. Maybe you don’t know how to find your audience. Maybe you’re questioning your brand, your pricing, your direction, or whether you even want to keep doing this.

Maybe the business is doing fine, but you’re not.

Maybe you have no idea whether your problem is marketing, strategy, mindset, or some combination of all three.
Tell us about it.

We’re not looking for perfectly worded questions. Give us the situation, the frustration, the thing you keep going back and forth about, or the thing you wish you could sit down with someone over coffee and talk through.

We may use some of the situations as discussion topics on the podcast, so please leave out any identifying information you don’t want shared.

Whatcha got?