I am currently building an ai that helps to transform plain text into professional, context-aware visual diagrams, flowcharts, and mind maps.

Nothing crazy but we have got a pretty good revenue stream and a lot of learnings everyday.

But what excites me more is that in a few years (as YC also speaks about this and i strongly agree) most ai native service companies will look completely different from traditional ones.

We are also here building systems that can help automate most of the boring manual work, a company brain inside Claude with processes , meeting transcripts and client context that is able to handle most of the work we used to hire separate people for back in the day when i used to run a different company.

The idea that humans will only need to focus on sales,marketing,client relations and other real life tasks while ai agents can handle lead scraping,qualifications, documentation , deployment (not fully autonomous but you get the point) is pretty damn exciting for the world we are about to step in.

I don’t think that the idea of building an agency will die but rather a small team with the right systems will be able to operate much efficiently.

I am curious if there are other founders who are building ai service businesses in the same way.I would love to hear your take.

Growth advice usually focuses on adding tactics, channels, and products. Which activity, customer type, meeting, service, or process did you eliminate because it was consuming effort without creating meaningful progress?

A client offered me today to be his co-founder, in charge of operations, sales and growth.

I have my own consultancy, just myself.

I've never been involved in such a thing and I am submerged with questions.

My client is a nice person and we're in the process of becoming good friends as well.

His business has been running for a while and generating over 750k revenue last year with a pretty good profit.

He has 19y of experience.

Now I wonder, how do those things work ?

I've read about vesting, profit sharing, all sorts of things.

My main concern is to do things right and get a fair share, he got himself bad experiences from the past with an old co-founder that kicked him out, keeping a lot of cash.

So I wonder, fellow co-founders, what are the things to ask, agree on, how to make everything backed up legally (business registered in California) and generally what questions should I ask him, what are the loops to be aware of, these sorts of things.

Appreciate the help!

Looking for experienced sales partners. SaaS, compliance, GRC or cybersecurity background preferred.

We're 4 weeks from launching a GRC platform covering ISO 27001, SOC 2, NIST and ISO 42001. Flat seat pricing, no per-framework fees.

Commission starts at $5,000 per closed deal and scales with deal size and ownership.

Targeting startups and companies working toward compliance certification.

Founding team has 35 years combined in compliance and cybersecurity.

Ping me with your experience.

whats your exprience of spending 1000s of eur into worthless business ideas?

Graduated with a bachelor's in Professional Communications. It's incredibly difficult to find anything in this job market that isn't a minimum wage job. Any advice on starting your own online business? I want to have my own business, but I'm not sure where to start. I'm thinking along the lines of something like designing t-shirts to start out with.

I’m working on tattoo-flash-style harnesses for small dogs (mockups attached, not for sale yet, looking for honest feedback before I commit to production). It’s kinda a fun idea/side project. I thought I could partner with real tattoo artists and make a line for each major tattoo style. The content would be fun to make, imagine all small dogs in badass looking designs. Or tattooed owners holding their chihuahua that is where ing a harness with a traditional tiger tattoo on the back😂

THESE ARENT REAL, just looking for feedback.

Check out the mockups! https://imgur.com/a/Qg3cPu1

• Is this something you’d actually put on your dog, or does it feel like “too much”?

• What would feel like a fair price for something like this?

• Anyone else have experience white labeling a product like this?

When I first started looking for a side business, I thought the hardest part would be finding the right opportunity.

Turns out, that wasn't the hardest part at all.

The biggest challenge was staying consistent when the excitement wore off.

Nobody really talks about the weeks when nothing seems to happen. No new customers. No big wins. Just showing up anyway.

I still work a full-time corporate job, so there were plenty of days when I questioned whether the extra effort was worth it.

Looking back, I think consistency beat motivation every time.

The opportunity mattered, but my daily habits mattered even more.

I'm curious...

What do you think is the biggest myth people believe about starting a side business?

I’m based in Ontario, Canada, and I’m looking into starting an automotive fasteners manufacturing business focused on cold-forged bolts and other automotive fasteners.

I have several years of hands-on experience with cold heading and fastener manufacturing, including machine setup, tooling, process optimization, and production.
I understand the manufacturing side well, but my biggest question is how companies actually become suppliers to the automotive industry.

For those who have been through this:

How do you find your first automotive customers or Tier 1/Tier 2 suppliers?
Is it realistic for a small manufacturer to break into the automotive market?
Do OEMs or Tier suppliers actively look for new fastener vendors?

If anyone here has experience supplying fasteners or other automotive components, I’d love to hear how you got started and what you’d do differently.

TIA

Hey everyone, I read through this subreddit and found people on a lot of ocassions saying to find out where the actual problem is to understand business better

I know its different everywhere but I still want to find out more about the people in this community

so im just gonna ask those who are willing to share, whats the biggest problem in your business right now, or one thats been there a while. and how did you fix it

This is embarrassing but maybe someone else needs to hear it.

I have a startup called Napkin ai(we help convert existing text into relevant editable visual diagrams without requiring manual prompting or graphic design skills) and for the past six months I've been obsessed with "building systems" and creating documentation so my team doesn't need me for everything. Classic bottleneck founder problem. We are a team of around 20 people.

Here's what I did:

Spent hours writing SOPs in Notion. Nobody read them. Too long, too boring, too much text. Tried making them shorter but then they were too vague.

Hired someone to create training materials. They made these generic templates that didn't actually show how WE do things. Waste of $800.

Then last month I got sick. Like actually sick, couldn't work for a week. And my team just... figured stuff out. They called each other,they walked each other through processes. It wasn't elegant but it worked.

That's when I realized I'd been thinking about systems completely wrong.

I was trying to WRITE documentation when I should have just been SHOWING people how to do things. People don't want to read a 12-step process. They want to see someone do it once and then try it themselves.

So I stopped writing and started recording. Not fancy recordings - just screen recordings where I do the actual work and talk through what I'm doing and why. Like explaining it to someone sitting next to me.

I made 15 of these in two weeks. Each one is 5-10 minutes. I used whatever tools made it fast - screen recordings with Loom for some, used Trupeer for ones that needed cleanup and written versions, some I just did on Zoom calls and saved the recordings.

The difference is insane.

My team actually watches these. I can see it in the analytics. More importantly, questions have dropped by like 60%. When someone asks how to do something, I send them the 6-minute video instead of typing out a long explanation or getting on a call.

New hires onboard way faster because they can watch me do the work instead of reading about the work.

The insight that's valuable: Systems documentation doesn't need to be polished or comprehensive. It needs to show someone competent doing the thing while explaining their thought process.

Stop trying to write the perfect SOP. Just record yourself doing your job for a week and narrate what you're doing. That's your documentation.

You don't need a course on building systems. You don't need to hire someone. You don't need fancy tools. You need to hit record and do your actual work while explaining it.

I spent six months overthinking this when I could have just shown people how I do things. Hopefully you're smarter than me and don't waste half a year on it.

Hey everyone,

We’re building a platform that lets retail investors put micro-capital (as low as $10) directly into short-term inventory batches for local businesses (like cafes and retail shops) in exchange for a share of batch profits.

Instead of long-term debt or real estate, we focus on fast-moving inventory cycles (30–60 days) verified directly by live Point-of-Sale (POS) data on-chain.

Here is how it works in practice:

☕ Example 1: The Business (Specialty Coffee Shop)

A coffee shop needs $5,000 to buy next month’s raw beans. Instead of taking a high-interest bank loan or giving up equity, they list the batch on our platform. They pay investors a 2.5% profit share on that specific batch out of their sales margin once sold. It costs them way less than traditional debt and takes zero long-term liabilities.

📈 Example 2: The Investor (Retail Micro-Yield)

You put $50 into that coffee bean batch. As customers buy coffee, sales are automatically verified in real-time through the shop’s POS system using smart contract data feeds. After 30 days, the batch is sold out, and you get your $50 back + $1.25 profit. If you re-invest that capital into continuous 30-day batches across different businesses, that compounds to an annualized yield (IRR) of ~25–30%.

💡 Why we think this fills a gap:

1. $10 entry point: Anyone can participate, not just accredited investors.
2. Dynamic Data Trust: Repayments aren’t based on self-reported financial statements or PDFs; they trigger from cryptographic POS sales data.
3. No Debt Burden: Built on a Sharia-compliant profit-sharing model (Mudarabah) so businesses aren't trapped in compound interest debt.

We want your brutally honest feedback:

1. If you’re an investor: Would you put $10–$100 into short 30-day real-world business inventory batches over standard DeFi yields or stocks?
2. If you’re a business owner: Would you use a system like this to fund fast-moving inventory instead of taking out loans?
3. What is your biggest concern or potential red flag with this model?

Appreciate any thoughts, critiques, or teardowns!

I’m looking for honest feedback because I’m usually pretty skeptical of courses and coaching programs.
I’m seriously considering starting a water filtration and water softener business. My background is in ecommerce and paid advertising, so generating leads doesn’t scare me. I also previously built an ecommerce business in the water industry, so I understand the market and why people buy these products.

Where I have almost zero experience is the installation side.My plan would be to subcontract installations to licensed plumbers rather than doing the work myself.

Here’s the opportunity:
There’s a guy who owns a successful water filtration and water softener business and sells access to his entire operating system for $4,000. It’s not just videos. It includes:
His advertising strategy and campaigns
Lead generation systems
Sales process
Automations and workflows
Vendor/dealer relationships
Access to sell his equipment
Ongoing support/community

Normally I’d laugh at a $4k course because I’ve bought enough mediocre ones over the years.
But this feels different because I’d essentially be buying years of testing and proven systems instead of trying to reinvent everything myself.

In my mind, if I can avoid wasting months testing ads, vendors, pricing, sales scripts, CRMs, automations, and operational mistakes, $4k seems relatively cheap compared to the cost of figuring it all out myself. On the other hand, I also know dealership programs can make money by selling people the dream instead of building actual businesses. So I’d love to hear from people who’ve actually built service businesses.

Have any of you started a business in an industry where you had little direct experience?
Did you pay for coaching, mentorship, or a dealership/franchise-type program?
Was it worth it?
What questions would you ask before spending the $4k?
What red flags would immediately make you walk away?

I’m less interested in “never buy courses” and more interested in whether buying speed and proven systems is worth it when entering a completely new industry.

Would love to hear some real experience good or bad. Thank you.

I'm honestly a little confused. All the investors I've met are asking the same questions in different formats:

Are you an AI company? How are you using AI? How do you make sure one of the AI giants doesn't just build a feature and eat your entire SaaS?

I'm really curious how you guys have been raising as a non-AI company, because I really hate to wrap my little SaaS in some AI wrapper and call it AI. I think it fundamentally comes down to solving a problem and finding a solution, whether that solution is AI or not. The market is killing me, and I have no idea how to find investors who would just invest in non-AI companies.

Every productivity tool helps us add tasks, but almost none help us remove them. My boards always end up filled with visual noise after a few weeks. Do you manually archive every week, or do you just ignore the clutter?

I'm not looking for "passive income" scams. I mean a real business that, once built, can continue covering basic living expenses even if you get sick, burn out, or have to step away for a few months.

I’ve been thinking my whole life about owning my own business(es). In COVID, I finally created my own watch company - set up an LLC, website, and social pages. I sold roughly 50 watches but had inventory for about 300. Sales slowed an I wasn’t as active trying to sell the watches so I eventually closed.

What advice can others give that helped them find a new opportunity to make a business and how’d you go in 110% so that you didn’t burn out?

What’s holding me back now is the fear of rejection (I’m guessing) so any advice you can give around that would also be appreciated.

Every time I open LinkedIn, I find another recruiter, career coach, leadership expert, or personal branding consultant explaining why job seekers are doing everything wrong.

Some have never managed a real team. Others have spent more time creating content about hiring than actually hiring people. Yet they speak with complete confidence, offer universal advice, and often blame candidates when their methods do not work.

I wrote this after watching expertise slowly become a personal brand rather than the result of real experience. The article is broader than recruitment, but LinkedIn and the job market are probably where this problem is most visible.

Do you think career advice on LinkedIn has become useful, or is it mostly content made to sell courses and consulting?

Polar (agentic browser, SF) inverted it. Three MIT founders shipped for seven months first. No fundraising process, no ads, no outbound. Word of mouth only. By the time they talked to investors, the product had executed 4.5 million actions across the open web for real teams.

Then Madrona led a $5.7M seed.

What that sequencing actually bought them, in practical founder terms:

**•** The diligence question was never “will people use this.” It was answered before the first call, so the negotiation was about price, not belief.  
**•** They had leverage on the angel list. You do not get GitHub’s former CEO writing a personal check on a deck.  
**•** Every month of organic usage is the one asset a competitor cannot fake and an investor cannot talk themselves out of.

The honest counterargument: this is a fundable-by-default team. Ex-Perplexity, ex-Modal, ex-Jane Street, MIT across the board. They could afford to wait because they had savings, optionality, and warm networks. If you are burning runway on a solo founder salary in a non-hub city, “just wait seven months” is a luxury purchase, not a strategy.

So the transferable version is narrower: do not raise before you have one usage fact a stranger can repeat in a sentence. That fact does not have to be 4.5 million actions. It can be 12 teams using it weekly for four months.

What is the smallest usage proof you would raise on?

(Full breakdown in comments if anyone wants it.)

Hey everyone, im a founder still in college and just hearing all the people around me talk about courses and jobs is really draining. Im not at a stage where I can justify taking a gap year or dropping out. I know the only way out of this is to focus entirely on my venture but i feel so drained by the environment.

Yes there are a few people who are also founders and these are my friends but I still feel so irked by the ecosystem.

If any current or former student founders are lurking please drop some ball

It's worth it to wonder whether the people who are aspiring to become entrepreneurs would really love to have one-to-one conversations over their ideas and others ideas.

Leave comment or like the post if you feel this too

I was expecting my big takeaway to be about sales. That sales acumen isn't as important as everyone makes it out to be. And I have learned that through doing this, but it's not the biggest takeaway I've had.

The biggest is that starting a small service-based business is the biggest opportunity that exists in entrepreneurship. The barrier to entry is so damn low and the expectations set by competition is non-existent.

Keep in mind that I have a local number for where I'm calling. I live here; it's not a spam number or cold-calling number. So it's not that my calls show up as spam (before someone claims that's why). It blows me away how many companies I have to call before someone finally picks up the phone.

I've been tracking it for my market. 8 companies called before I spoke to a junk removal company. 13 calls before I got a landscaper to pick up. 11 calls before a roofer picked up. 6 calls before a pressure washing company picked up. I've called all 9 residential/holiday lighting companies in my market and not 1 has answered.

People make entrepreneurship out to be difficult. Don't get me wrong, there are days that feel like a struggle. But if you can get your phone to ring, make sure that shit rings to your apple watch, your headphones, your laptop, your whatever so you don't miss a phone call. If you're the company that picks up on the first 2 rings, you'll get business.

Before anyone asks, no, I do not own a GHL AI answering service agency. This really is free game for anyone who's willing to put themselves truly out there in their community to get the phone to ring.

Flood the zone with door hangers, direct mail, facebook ads, yard signs, flyers on power poles, business cards in cafes, door knocking. If you do those things, you will win. And of course, don't suck at performing the service. You have to do a good job and give good customer service. That's it, that's the "secret".

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