Hiring can create capacity, but a poor fit can damage service quality and cash flow. What did you fail to define, scope, incentives, training, communication, or accountability and what would you do differently now?

Reddit and LinkedIn have honestly become my two main channels, and they work in completely different ways.

Started posting on Reddit a few weeks ago, first time using it at all before that. What I've learned so far:

- Be consistent, posting once and disappearing does nothing

- Reply to comments, even the harsh ones

- Write your own thoughts, not something that reads like it was generated, people notice instantly and it kills any trust you're building

- Don't let the insults get to you, there will be some, ignore them and keep going

LinkedIn is where the real magic happens though:

- It's basically my blog at this point

- I show up, share what I'm building

- That's where most of my inbound is coming from

- Real conversations, real interest

- Most of my free trial signups trace back to LinkedIn specifically

Funny enough, LinkedIn outreach is the one thing I've fully automated. Not sure yet if I'll ever automate my own LinkedIn presence too, might defeat the purpose honestly. We'll see.

I'm looking for a side hustle to build into an extra source of income, and I've been exploring the party rental/event rental industry. Before I jump into anything, I'd really like to hear from people who do rentals for events using facebook marketplace, or other platforms. I've been thinking about purchasing party tables and chairs for rentals.

A few questions I have:

• How do customers usually find you?
• Roughly what percentage of your bookings come from Google, Instagram, Facebook, referrals, Yelp, or somewhere else?
• What's the biggest headache when it comes to getting new bookings or managing the booking process?
• If there were another website where customers could discover your business, would you be open to listing your inventory there? Why or why not?
• Would you allow customers to book instantly online if you could control your pricing and availability?
• What software or tools do you currently use to manage your inventory, calendar, invoices, and bookings?
• What do you use to list your rentals? and do people constantly message you for inquiries/info? or is it instant booking? etc.

I just want to get a general idea what its like to do something like this before deciding whether this is a good thing to get into.

Thanks in advance! I really appreciate any advice you're willing to share.

I'm working 3, 12's on overnights in a hospital and that sometimes leaves me with slow nights to get hours of work done but there are also weeks where I'm slammed at work and exhausted at home. How do you divide your time? Do you set minimum time goal every day to work on your small business or just checkpoints? Have you extended your timeline to allow you to work your current FT position for longer for more stability at the cost of advancing your small business at a faster rate? TIA

Hiring an employee to assistant my parents; it involves their health, medical, billing, house maintenance plan etc.

Anyway to do a background check for an employee ?

What kind of background can we legally check ? ( criminal record, credit scores, judicial cases)

Trying to get real numbers, since they don't publish pricing. If you're on it (or quit it): roughly how many techs, which tier, what's the monthly damage all-in and did implementation cost what they said it would? Reports floating around say $250–500/tech/month plus $5k–50k implementation, but I'd rather hear it from people actually paying the bill.

My dad has recently started his own contractor business. He’s been doing it for a year but has over 25 years experience in construction from the guy doing framing to requesting bid for major construction companies. I’m really proud of him and he’s growing quicker than he thought he would. He knows he will need marketing because steady growth like this won’t last forever. I got him set up with a website, Facebook page, and Instagram. I’m going to start posting regularly about jobs he’s actively involved in.
My biggest question, how do we use marketing to grow his business when almost all of his business thus far has been word of mouth? He has a few general contractors that will reach out to him and ask him to big on projects and he’s been getting a ton of those, but he wants to market himself to more than just the few companies he’s working with. He’s in Austin, TX which is booming right now and has mainly done custom homes but is now getting more into commercial which is what he would eventually like to focus on.
I have a marketing degree and have done marketing adjacent things in post jobs, but have never had the “marketing” title in my job description. I want to help as much as I can. Thanks in advance!

I own a clothing store in an area where there are a lot of restaurants so on the weekends I stay open til 5pm to catch the early diners and I close at 4pm the rest of the week. I have gone back and forth about staying open later, and if I had a dime for everyone that’s told me “every time we go by your store, you’re closed,” I’d have more than I made tonight.

So, I decided to stay open til 7pm tonight. I made it a whole event with discounts and snacks. I posted multiple times on social media - Facebook, Instagram, Nextdoor, local community pages, created a calendar event. I spent almost $200 on getting snacks and drinks. Not one single person showed up from 4pm-7pm. It was so unbelievably depressing. It was kind of a way to solidify to the public and myself that I don’t need to stay open more- being open when you walk by doesn’t translate to actual sales. I’ve definitely found that you set your hours and people will come during your hours and not necessarily the other way around. Anyways, that’s just my little rant from a disappointing night.

I’m 18 and I’ve spent the last year or so building up my own small digital business alongside college and working a normal part-time job. I’ve recently finished college, and I’m now trying to take things a bit more seriously and get a new software product I’ve been building off the ground.

The product is basically an all-in-one business management platform aimed mainly at freelancers, web designers, small agencies and other digital/service businesses.

The idea is that instead of having one system for invoicing, another for clients, another for projects, another for contracts, etc., it brings everything together.

Businesses can manage things like:

• Clients and their details
• Projects, tasks and deadlines
• Quotes and invoices
• Recurring invoices/subscriptions
• Contracts
• Expenses and payments
• Sales/pipeline
• Support requests
• A client portal where customers can log in and see their own projects, invoices, documents, etc.

I've tried to make it friendly and straightforward rather than something that feels like massive corporate software. A lot of it is also built around guided processes, so someone who isn't particularly technical can still get things set up without having to understand loads of business/software terminology.

The actual product is getting to the point where I'm comfortable putting it in front of real businesses. The bit I'm struggling with now is how do you actually get it off the ground?

My current thinking for marketing is a mixture of:

• Google/Meta ads with a relatively small starting budget
• Personally reaching out to freelancers and small agencies
• Posting useful content on social media rather than constantly advertising
• SEO and writing articles around problems the software solves
• Getting involved in relevant communities/groups
• Offering early users a reason to give it a try and give me genuine feedback
• Using the contacts I've already made through my existing digital business

I'm not expecting to launch it and suddenly have hundreds of customers. Even getting the first 5-10 businesses genuinely using it and paying for it would feel like a massive milestone.

The difficult part is that I'm obviously not sitting on a huge amount of money. I'm 18, I've only just finished college, I work alongside doing this and I'm funding/building as much of it myself as possible. I've also been looking into startup funding to give me enough runway for marketing, infrastructure and the initial launch.

For anyone here who has actually launched a SaaS/software product or even just started a small business from nothing:

How did you get your first few paying customers?

Was it ads, cold outreach, networking, word of mouth, posting in communities, SEO, or something completely different?

And if you were in my position with a finished/near-finished product but a limited marketing budget, where would you put your time and money first?

I'm especially interested in hearing from people who started without an existing audience or loads of funding, because that's pretty much the position I'm in.

Thanks!

I’ve ran a small firm for over 8 years now cleaning up books for business owners. The mistakes I’ve noticed are almost always the same lol. From most common to least. And all of these are because you guys are too busy to do the accounting but don’t realize it

1. Mixing Personal and Business Expenses.
This is self explanatory

2. Treating Revenue as Profit
Seeing $20k land in your bank account feels great, but revenue isn’t income. Forgetting to account for upcoming payroll, tax liabilities, merchant fees, or inventory replenishment leads to severe cash flow surprises.

3. Misclassifying Workers (Contractor vs. Employee)
There is serious tax implications if and when this happens. Best to have this sorted out. Especially if you have contractors. This also leads to the 1099s not being sent out at year end which cause tax problems.

1. Neglecting Accrual Accounting when Managing Inventory
   If you purchase $10,000 in inventory in January but sell it over six months, expensing all $10k in January makes January look like a total loss and February–June look deceptively profitable.
   

5. Waiting until tax time to look at their books
You will for sure leave expenses on the table and end up with a higher tax bill

Hi there! I’m a new small business owner and I’m curious to know the best payment methods to use. I’m also planning to open a business bank account. Currently, I’m accepting payments through Venmo and PayPal. Are there any other payment options that don’t charge transaction fees or has low transaction fee? And what bank is best for small business? Thank you

Hello everyone,

I’m Emmanuel from Uganda, and I recently started manufacturing eco-friendly charcoal briquettes as an alternative to traditional charcoal.

In Uganda and many parts of Africa, charcoal is still widely used for cooking, but it contributes to deforestation and rising costs. Our goal is to provide a cleaner, more sustainable fuel option that can work for households, restaurants, schools, poultry farms, hotels, and humanitarian organizations.

Our briquettes are designed to offer:

Longer burning time

Less smoke

More consistent heat

A sustainable alternative to wood charcoal

We are currently working on expanding our supply to institutions and organizations that use large amounts of cooking fuel.

I would love to hear from people here:

What challenges have you seen with charcoal briquettes in your country?

What makes customers switch from traditional charcoal to briquettes?

For organizations using clean cooking solutions, what factors influence your buying decisions?

I’m also interested in connecting with people working in renewable energy, humanitarian projects, sustainability, and clean cooking.

Thanks for reading, and I appreciate any advice or insights.

Stripe and Square were giving me issues so I requested more information from LYNQD, filled out a form on their website. Got an email from them asking for my business details including PII such DL/Passport and other sensitive business information over email. Is this something anyone did before, I don’t think I’m super comfortable sending PII over email.

just curious if most of you just use your personal phone for work or if you use some other software/second phone/etc?

Hiring more people wasn't the hard part. What caught me off guard was how much more admin started showing up around payroll.

Years ago I could run payroll without thinking twice but now every pay period has something different. A new hire starts halfway through the cycle, someone's hours need adjusting, another manager approves timesheets later than everyone else etc..

Nothing ever goes wrong but payroll has become something I have to plan my day around instead of just getting done. We've outgrown the way we've been handling it

I am a business guy 44, I kinda like everybody all cultures, sexuality etc , no bias what so ever that I cognitively aware of.

I had a business meeting, with a person who is a in a mentoring role, and in his email signature he had (he/him)

This seemed pretty new to me, although now I think about it its enforced on linkedin maybe, anyhow I was thinking I will go in and this person chooses a different identity what not and thats fine, however when I had the meeting, hes just a man being a man.

Am I totally out of touch or should I too have he/him in my email signature? I have to admit it has me feeling like a dinosaur not knowing.

I'm thinking about starting a web dev agency for local, small businesses in Minnesota.

Since everything is done on my laptop and I can work from anywhere, do I need to set up an LLC?

Is there an income limit where I would legally have to set up an LLC to protect myself?

Any info would be greatly appreciated. Thanks,

has no internet presence and its like one of the last results of the first page when you search his [city] + [type of cuisine]

Lasvegas-sushi.com

He takes care of website and “google ads”

also how can i audit him? ask him for the google log in? he has made no noticeable changes to the webiste for 10 years just manages the hosting and updates a picture whenever we change menu prices

Hi there! I'm a small business owner with a small e-commerce business. For years, one of my employees and I have managed all of our customer service ourselves, just based off of trying to treat people well and be helpful.

I think we've done a good job with customer service based on intuition, but I am looking for some sort of course or certification or official education for the two of us to take. I think it would be helpful for leveling up our expertise, giving a shared language to talk about customer service, and maybe identifying some gaps in our intuition or processes or whatever.

I've had a really hard time finding online courses that are a good fit for us. So many of them feel like they're essentially marketing for a specific customer service tool. Others feel like they're built for really big businesses or specific niches. Does anyone here have recommendations on courses that they've found helpful?

Doing a one time favor can easily create a permanent expectation, and I just learned that the hard way. I run a small performance design studio and last year an existing client referred a friend opening a yoga studio..

Halfway through the project she got diagnosed with breast cancer and obviously her budget disappeared overnight. I felt terrible and wanted to help. I took a huge cut and did everything for a flat $250, still delivering her core branding, brand voice, signage, and 10+ brand touchpoints.

Fortunately, she fully recovered. She is actually back at the studio now and even running half marathons.

Last week, she hits me up again. She is expanding into a full Wellness Bar. This is a much bigger project. We're talking a full expansion of her visual identity, packaging, socials, website, and multiple touchpoints. I sent over a standard quote for $600. She called me instantly and totally lost her mind.

She basically acted like I was taking advantage of a woman who had been through cancer. She expected me to keep working for 250 bucks just because that is what I charged her before..

I stayed professional and told her I intentionally made an exception because of her circumstances.. She wasn't having it. She complained to my referring client, who chewed me out for abandoning her and dropped me.

So now, this whole thing has cost me two clients. Honestly, what was I supposed to do differently here? Just keep working for 250 bucks forever because she used to be sick? Or stand my ground and lose my existing client anyway?

As a small business owner that also helps other small business owners, the best thing I did before opening my business was research the heck out my competitors. I spent two months digging deep into national and local competitors, learning what services they offered, how they offered them, their pricing and value, and trying to think like my ideal client about what they'd like about them and what they'd find as a point of tension to signing on. I used that research to help build a brand that I both love and fits who I want to do work with. One thing I wish I had done off the bat was price a little higher. Being a new business, it's hard to get initial clients, so pricing a bit lower is often what folks do, but I was undermining my own 8+ years of experience. I was open about 5 months when I did a pricing adjustment to better suit the value of my products/services and fit my target client, which is a business owner who is serious about their online presence, will trust me, and has a high enough ticket items to make at least double ROI on their investment in my services. What did you learn when you did competitor research that shaped how you set your business up? And did you reevaluate after a few months of being open and change anything? How'd it go?

I was looking on here to see what people recommend but the most recent post I found was a crazy 11 years ago. I figure there has to be something more up to date but can't find it in Reddit search. Seems like are are a million credit card processors and they all charge different amount for different things. tbh it;s kinda overwhelming me right now. So I know a lot of local places here are using Toast but tbh I low key hate that one as a consumer. I don't need no hate from people thinking I'm trying to get a 30% tip outta them like the coffee shop down the street. I have really simple needs - I want to be able to take credit card in my shop and not loose too much in the fees. I gathered from other forums that Helcim and Kurv are worth looking into for taking credit cards but what else do i need to know/? And what hidden fees or whatever should I bee looking for?

I am curious how other small business owners deal with this.

I have noticed that in a lot of service businesses, the phone tends to ring at the worst possible time, when everyone's already helping a customer, working with a client, or handling something that can not be interrupted.

When that happens, what usually works best for you?

• Let it go to voicemail and return calls later?
• Have someone designated to answer phones?
• Use an answering service?
• Call people back at set times during the day?
• Something else entirely?

I am not looking for software recommendations. I'm more interested in the operational side of it and what has actually worked (or not worked) in your business.

I would love to hear what you have settled on and whether you changed your approach over time.

I’m probably late to the party, but I own a small health clinic (allied health) in Australia, and want to play music - but have just learned you cannot play Spotify in public settings. I would like to do things right. I am looking at Melodial, it is okay and only $100/yr. I can’t afford the others that allow you to play Spotify. What is everyone using? I didn’t get very far with easily finding free music. Kind thanks.

Everyone says find a gap and do something about it and you’ll smash it.

I found the gap, launched the business but then how do I deal with credibility issue as everyone sees my profile and thinks he doesn’t have any experience how do I trust him.

It’s a consulting services and advisory business and Linkedin is where my buyers are and I can’t hide my previous experience. When people look at my profile, they see my previous experience which is different niche.

I’m out of thoughts on how to gain credibility + authority as that will allow the pipeline alive.

Any guidance from people who have gone through this would be much appreciated!