Remember, in business, everything can change, and fast.

My business was pulling in multiple $100k+ months with decent margins for over a year, and over $200k at the peak month.

I was confident, felt inspired, motivated, like I could take on the world, like this would grow exponentially forever. I got there with $0 in paid ads, starting with $20. I was very proud, still am.

Now, the business is pretty much dead, and I'm looking for a remote job.

Did I see it coming? Yes. Did I adapt? No.

If you see something coming, don't ignore it, don't put it off.

Focus on it, get uncomfortable.

Just because it's working now doesn't mean it will a year from now.

Legit meaning:

1. They got rich before writing the book, not from the book. They also don't have any courses or upsells.

2. They didn't get rich from the stock market or index funds.

3. They didn't get rich from real estate.

4. They got rich from business. Either from starting from nothing and then eventually selling the business or from buying an already established business, improving it, then selling it.

I’ve been thinking lately about how some of the most successful businesses aren’t flashy tech startups - they’re quiet, “boring” operations that just solve a basic problem really well

Things like portable toilet rentals, parking lot striping, or industrial cleaning services. Nobody’s talking about them on LinkedIn, but they’re pulling in millions with low overhead and little competition

Have you ever come across a business like that in real life or while researching ideas? Would love to hear examples - especially ones with potential for automation or growth

Let’s shine a light on the businesses hiding in plain sight

Wondering if this is a fair price for a subway location located inside a college?

The monthly rent is about $2500 per month and weekly sales averages between $6400 to $7600 per week. Lease has 4 years left with option to renew for another 5 years.

The current owner has two full time employees on staff that are paid 70k per year (35k each) and the take home net profit after wages for the two employees, rent and COGs and other expenses for the location is around 60k to 70k per year. The owner apparently does not work at all at the location. So about 130k to 140k net profit if not accounting for wages per year.

I’ve been looking into purchasing existing businesses recently and this seemed like an easy starter business. If I bought it I was thinking of working there at least part time to lower the overall wage cost.

Any insight or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

I handed in my resignation today. I’ve had enough of this corporate culture where skill and hard work mean nothing when it’s your son against a loyal, competent employee. I gave 4 years of my life, countless days spent working late, fixing things, perfecting every project. Got honorariums and appreciation three years in a row. But when it was finally time for a promotion, the CTO’s son got the chair. Just graduated. Meanwhile, I’d been promised that promotion for two years. I couldn’t take it anymore. On the way out, the CTO told me I was nothing without them. But I know I’m good at what I do. I’m a solid designer, and clients liked working with me. Not just the logos I made, but me . So here I am. No job. No plan. Not going back to a 9-to-5. I’m going freelance, offering logo design and brand identity work. There’s just one think. My old clients keep calling. They want to work with me directly now. But I had a non-compete. Over half of that company’s brand identity clients want me to do their work. I know the CTO won’t like that. What would you do?

I used to think Sales calls were just me and the client strategizing how to best tackle whatever challenge they were facing.

I loved that part.

They'd tell me what's not working, and I'd tell them exactly how I'd fix it.

But now, 8 years later, I think that was a huge mistake.

And it's not because "the client will just steal your ideas and run off."

Even though that has happened to me before...

But because that was my way of avoiding actually pitching myself.

I was hiding behind "giving value" because I was terrified of the moment where I had to stop being the helpful expert and become the "salesperson." I didn't know how to make that transition without feeling sleazy, so I just... didn't. I'd end the call with a weak "Well, let me know if you want to move forward!"

Then they'd ask what I'd charge, and I also dodged that question by saying I'll come up with a proposal. I'd send it over and then hope for the best.

This led to some serious ghosting. And I absolutely HATED following up on those emails. It icks me out just writing one out: "Hey, have you had time to go over the proposal?"

At some point, I realized I needed a better system, and the pitch deck I want to share with you today is the result of a lot of trial-and-error.

Here's the slide-by-slide breakdown (I'm linking my public template in the comments if you prefer to see it in practice):

When to share your screen / start pitching

This pitch deck isn't a "Hi, I'm Clawed Platypus, here are my slides" situation.

I only share my screen after I'm done with the entire discovery phase. So I first start by interviewing them about their problem, until I actually understand what they need. (I wrote a long-ass post about this and shared my entire script in this subreddit a few weeks ago, and more than 5000 people saved/shared it...)

That's why I start my pitch by confirming I understand their situation.

Slide 1

This is my bridge from "listening" to "leading." Before I say a word about my solution, I first prove I heard them.

• Structure: I use three columns:
  • Current Situation: their pain in their own words. (e.g., "Your emails land in spam.")
  • Where You Want To Be: their goal (e.g., "Increase your email revenue by 20%")
  • The Roadblocks: What they told me is stopping them. (e.g. "Lack of technical expertise")

I fill this slide out live in front of them.

So I start sharing my screen, then start editing this first slide and put their words in live on the call. This is to make sure they feel 100% understood and shows I'm not running a canned pitch.

Slide 2

Once they've agreed I understand their problem, I immediately position myself as the person who solves it.

• Structure: A professional photo of me, with a single, clear promise: "I help [Their Client Type] Achieve [Their Core Goal]. Below that, I place a row of logos from past clients."

This slide is a timing thing. Slide 1, they're thinking "ok, they get me," slide two is "great, I'm speaking to a specialist."

But the promise you just made is a claim (I help X do Y), so we need more proof to show that it's actually true.

Slide 3 - 6

This is where I back up my big promise.

• Structure: A simple split screen. On one side, a visual of a previous client (their website, my work, their photo, whatever makes sense). On the other side, I put the client's name, the big result we achieved, and a few bullet points on the benefits they saw.

This isn't just showing off your portfolio. It's also sharing mini-stories of transformation. It helps reinforce that you know what you're doing.

Slide 7

This is the 30,000-Foot View. It's how I stopped myself from giving away free consulting. I don't tell them how to do it - I show them the map of the journey I'll take them on.

• Structure: The simpler, the better. I use a clean diagram with 4-5 boxes showing the major phases of my work. I use arrows to visually show the journey, and I end the journey on whatever goal I'm promising.

This turns the service from a vague idea into a tangible, professional roadmap. It screams "I've done this before, I have a plan," and really helps build massive confidence and justifies a higher price later on.

Slides 8 -> (12)

I make a slide for each of the big steps shown in slide 7 and zoom in.

• Structure: One slide for each step from my process diagram. Just a title and 3-4 bullet points explaining what's going on at each step.

This is the part you'll probably iterate over the most. Because any time you get asked a service-specific question, you can add an answer to it here. This helps with substance and dismisses objections before they happen.

Slide 13

This is where I shift from my process to their value.

• Structure: A simple list or flowchart. But this time, I list out all the tangible deliverables ("landing page, checkout page, ads, 60 emails, ...").

People don't buy your process, they buy results. Your process is what convinces them that you know what you're doing, but they still want to know what exactly they'll get out of it. This is the slide where you're building the value in their eyes.

Slide 14

Timeline. Pretty self-explanatory. It's a small slide, but it's really important for managing expectations, and let's be honest, it's probably the #1 asked question for people interested in anything. ("When can I get it?")

• Structure: Again, just a flowchart, I do a horizontal line across the middle of the slide and then vertical lines alternating up and down, with the key dates / timeframes on top and bottom.

Slide 15

"Any questions?" slide. I never talk about pricing before they ask about it. So up to this point, I never mentioned the price. This is where I ask them if they have any questions about what they've heard.

• Structure: Just a giant "QUESTION?" title.

I stay on this slide answering questions until they ask about the price. That's when I move on.

But until they do, I'll keep asking "any other questions?"

If at this point they don't ask about the price, they're probably not interested in what you're selling.

Slide 16

This is the price reveal. I simply state the price and then stay quiet. I'm waiting to see their reaction.

If you can't reveal your price I wouldn't show this slide, I'd simply state "I've done similar projects for X." And then I'd again, shut up. If you really can't go into pricing, then just go into your standard proposal / audit / whatever spiel.

• Structure: I like mine to look like those pricing boxes you'd see when buying SaaS. So a service name, with a bunch of bullets underneath, and then a price at the bottom.

I try to only pitch a single price, but I have another slide hidden at the end that has other packages if they'd prefer to start with a downsell.

-------

And that's it, really.

From here, all that's left is objection handling and onboarding, if they're willing to start immediately.

I'm gonna be linking the template I use in the comments. It's fully editable with "what to say" on each slide, if you want a complete step-by-step template to start with.

I'm also going to link my Sell Like A Doctor Reddit post below if you want to read how I handle objections and what happens before I start pitching.

Anyway...

Hope you found this useful.

A client I worked for in April 24’ I branded their new products, a series of creatine products for the U.S market focused on Amazon.

With 2/3 of the payment already made, they then told me they had issues with funds due to their previous work situation changing.

We waited for three months, until finally they refused to pay.

It’s now been a year but little do they know I have access to the main file where all their new products, landing pages, emails have been designed.

For added context, they’re making roughly a million dollars each month on Amazon with the branding I designed.

Would you leak these designs? I would remove myself from the file so they’d never know it was me but I would like revenge if there’s no chance of getting paid.

If you were about to get fired in 9 months, and you want to make $8,000 a month after taxes, what is the business that you would start today in order to get you there?

Left academia one year ago after finishing my phd in psychology

Became solopreneur (bootstrapping)

And today my first app hit 500 users!

Took 3 months to get here

For someone who spent 5.5 years writing papers that a handful of people cite... this feels surreal

Finally shipping the things I've been thinking about for 6+ years

It's worth it to bet on yourself!

I’ve been at this for 2 years. I go to sleep every night beating up myself for not being capable of pushing myself to sell. My business is in the payment processing niche. Every deal i make i can get anywhere from $100/m -$10,000/m from just one deal. All i have to do is sell. sign. set it up. and boom i make money while they process money in their restaurant or small business. My issue is that I HATE sales. With a burning passion. Well, at least cold sales. I can sell warm leads easily. I’ve always worked those jobs. But man. Walking into a business and trying to sell them something that they don’t know they need is rough. I hate it. So much i’m considering giving up. But every time i do i think “it only takes me 10 deals to be financially free”. i don’t know what to do anymore. i’m still working a part time job to keep this going. but im not getting anywhere. but i have no other option really. advice needed. help needed. anything really haha. help me!

After building dozens of SaaS MVPs for clients over the past few years, I've reached a controversial conclusion: the whole "ship an MVP and iterate" mentality is actually ruining more products than it's helping.

I know this goes against everything you hear in startup circles, but hear me out.

Every client comes to me with the same request: "We need an MVP, something basic we can launch in 6-8 weeks, then we'll add features based on user feedback." Sounds reasonable, right? Wrong.

Here's what actually happens 90% of the time:

The client launches their bare-bones MVP. Users try it once, maybe twice, then bounce because it doesn't actually solve their problem completely. The client panics, thinking they need more users or better marketing. They never get the chance to iterate because nobody sticks around long enough to give meaningful feedback.

Meanwhile, their competitors who took 6 months to build something that actually works are eating their lunch.

The real problem? Most people misunderstand what MVP actually means. They think it's "build the smallest thing possible." It's not. It's "build the smallest thing that delivers COMPLETE value for a specific use case."

Big difference.

I've seen clients lose months of runway because they launched a task management app that couldn't handle file attachments, or an analytics dashboard that couldn't export data. These aren't "nice to have" features - they're deal-breakers disguised as iterations.

The worst part? When I suggest taking an extra month to build these core features, clients push back because some guru told them "speed to market beats perfection." But there's nothing speedy about launching something that immediately gets ignored.

Here's what I've learned building MVPs that actually succeed:

Your MVP should feel complete within its scope, even if that scope is narrow. A great email tool that only does newsletters is better than a mediocre tool that tries to do everything poorly.

Users don't care about your iteration timeline. They care about whether your product solves their problem today. If it doesn't, they won't come back to check if you've improved it.

The feedback you get from an incomplete product is usually garbage. People will tell you what's missing, not whether they'd actually pay for it if those things existed.

Look, I'm not advocating for waterfall development or spending years building in stealth. But this obsession with shipping incomplete products as fast as possible is just as destructive.

The companies that win aren't necessarily the fastest to market, they're the ones that ship something people actually want to keep using.

Sometimes that means saying no to clients who want to launch before their product is ready. Sometimes it means pushing back on timelines. But it always means focusing on delivering real value instead of just checking the "we launched" box.

The irony? When you take time to build something solid upfront, you actually iterate faster later because you have engaged users giving you real feedback instead of explaining why they left after five minutes.

Maybe it's time we stopped treating "MVP" like it means "unfinished product" and started building things that are genuinely minimum but still viable.

Rant over.

Hey everyone! I made a post back in this subreddit a few weeks back when I wrote an edition of my newsletter on Jaguar and the changes in their company. I got so much great feedback I figure I’d share the company I covered this week, 7-Eleven.

After looking in recent news I saw 7-Eleven just declined an acquisition offer stating the $47 Billion offer was too low. With that I decided to read up on why.

Recently 7-Elevens parent company, Seven & i Holdings, Recently rejected a $47 Billion acquisition offer from the Canadian group Alimentation Couche-Tard, the company that owns Circle K. This would have been one of the largest retail acquisitions in history with the offer being almost an all cash offer. But instead, 7-Eleven walked from the deal. Why?

They said that the offer undervalued their long term strategy and came with too many regulatory risks. 7-Eleven has gone through some changes recently which has then stating they’re well positioned to be worth more than the $47 Billion offer in just a few years, most notably them acquiring Speedway for a staggering $21 Billion back in 2021. They’ve ramped up their digital loyalty program and delivery infrastructure. They’re experimenting with drone drop-offs and EV charging stations, they’re also laying the groundwork to break off North American stores into their own company for a North American IPO. Essentially, 7-Eleven thinks they’re going to grow much more on their own without Circle K. This is because they no longer see themselves as a convenience store company, they see themselves as a tech-powered retail platform per their recent PR.

I’d love to hear your guys thoughts, do you all think it was the right call to stay independent to maintain their long term vision?

Here’s why...

I know this goes against a lot of the caution you hear, but after years of building SaaS MVPs for clients as a freelancer and working with founders from all kinds of backgrounds, I honestly think more people should give entrepreneurship a shot, even if it’s just a side project.

Starting a business teaches you things you’ll never learn as an employee. You get to see the whole picture: talking to customers, building products, handling money, and figuring out how to actually sell something real. Even if your first idea flops, you come out way smarter and more resilient.

I’ve worked with clients who had zero business background, but once they jumped in, they picked up skills fast. They learned to manage uncertainty, adapt, and solve problems on the fly. A lot of them surprised themselves with what they could handle.

You don’t need to quit your job or risk everything. Start small. Build something on the side. Launch a micro SaaS or a service for a niche community. The point isn’t to become the next unicorn, it’s to learn, grow, and maybe even make a little money along the way.

Honestly, some of the happiest people I’ve worked with are those who tried building something, even if it didn’t turn into a huge business. They gained confidence, new skills, and a totally different perspective on work.

If you’re curious, restless, or just want to see what you’re capable of, give it a go. Worst case, you learn a ton and become even more valuable in your regular job. Best case, you build something that changes your life.

You don’t have to be a genius or have it all figured out. Just start. You’ll be surprised where it can take you.

Everyone glamorizes entrepreneurship freedom, money, working on your own terms.

But beneath the surface, there are some harsh realities most people don’t see (or don’t want to admit).

Let’s get real.

What’s one brutally honest truth you’ve experienced as an entrepreneur that most people never talk about?

I’ll go first:

“Some days, I question everything my choices, my ability, even my idea. But I still show up, because I know no one else is coming to save me.”

Would love to hear your unfiltered takes. Let’s build a thread that tells the truth behind the hustle.

Some weeks, we process over 1.7 million users. That number still feels unreal when I say it out loud.

Today I run a growing system and business, I have a team I trust, I’m making a good living, and I get to do what I love every single day. But it didn’t start with any of that. It started with just me. Alone in my room, building something no one asked for.

I was a student when I started working on Discord bots. Back then, the space was already full. Every other server had some big bot running all kinds of features. I remember thinking, how could I possibly compete with all of that?

Still, I built mine. At first, it was simple. Just a few features, nothing crazy. But I kept improving it. I spent late nights debugging, learning, tweaking things to make it better. Not because I had an audience waiting for it, but because I genuinely believed it could be useful.

I tried promoting it, but no one paid attention. People told me to stop wasting my time. Some said it was foolish to try and build something different in such a crowded space. I was demotivated, and honestly, I almost gave up.

But something in me wouldn’t let go. I had put so much time into it. I couldn’t just walk away.

That’s when I met someone named Mai.

She saw what I had made and believed in it. She added my bot to her seven servers and introduced it to her friends. That one small step changed everything. More users started coming in. The numbers grew slowly at first, then started picking up pace.

From there, it just kept growing. Ten thousand users. Fifty thousand. Then a hundred thousand. And now, over 27 million total users and still climbing. Weekly, we’re handling around 1.7 million users across all the systems.

But during those early days, I didn’t have the money to run any of it properly. I literally used my piggy bank to pay for a VPS. I stopped spending on snacks, didn’t eat out, and saved every bit of my pocket money just to keep the bot online. It was all I had, and I was willing to sacrifice to keep it going.

That experience shaped me. It taught me resilience. It taught me how to keep moving even when nothing seems to be working.

As the bot grew, I started getting freelance clients. I used those connections to build something more. Eventually, I started an agency and built a small team. Now when I work with that team, I understand them deeply because I’ve been in their position. I know how hard it can be when no one sees your effort.

That’s why I protect their mental health, make sure they’re paid well, and always push them to grow. I want to build something big with them, not just for myself.

I also started a student community. I ran events, taught freelancing, helped people get started with tech. I did all of it for free because I knew how hard it was to find someone to guide you in the beginning. I just wanted people to believe they could do something with their lives too.

Looking back, everything mattered. Every no. Every ignored message. Every late night. Every person who helped, even in small ways.

If you’re reading this and feeling like your work isn’t going anywhere, please remember this. Growth is slow. It’s lonely. Most people won’t notice what you’re building until suddenly they do.

Sometimes all it takes is one person to believe in you. Just one.

If you’ve had that one person in your journey, the one who changed things for you, I’d love to hear about them too.

Let me introduce you to Brian.

Brian ran a small chain in the southern United States. He had 13 locations, but Brian wanted to go in cheap on his marketing. I was dumb enough to think it was a good use of my time and effort.

You see, Brian had seven metric tons of sand spilling out of his ass. I was wearing rose-colored glasses, and I thought that sand was fairy dust. So I huffed it up and thought life was good.

I thought having difficult clients was part of paying my dues, so to speak. So I thought, "Well, this is clearly where I'm supposed to be."

I entered a bad client relationship, and that's on me. It was like an abusive partnership that I couldn't leave, because I created a world where Brian was 25% of my income.

So I let Brian punch me in the head (proverbially), kick me down the stairs (metaphorically), and roundhouse kick me in the tailbone (figuratively).

Brian called me in the middle of the night, raged when I didn't answer emails within 30 minutes of receiving them, and loved to over-analyze all the marketing content I sent him, order rewrites, then still took it upon himself to rewrite 30% of the content himself.

Then he complained that it didn't work. I know that I'm preaching to the choir for anyone else who works in marketing or advertising.

I worked with Brian for 27 months.

During month 17, Brian became 40% of my income

Things were going backwards. I made a pricing switch in my freelancing career, and as a result, Brian was now more of my income than before.

By this point, I was sick of dealing with Brian. Problems persisted, communication didn't seem to work despite all my efforts, and I was burned out.

Then Brian had a big idea. A huge project. My prices had increased, and he wanted something new. Something I wasn't already providing for his business.

I received a horribly disgusting email, a small mountain of stress, and then something in me snapped. You know, not in a bad way, like I'm not gonna be on The First 48 or anything.

I told him I couldn't do it for the price he wanted, and he was furious.

It was time to kick Brian down to The 10% Club

I'd grown as a service provider. I lost some clients when I increased my prices, but then I found new ones. With that pay came more respect, more understanding from clients, and they actually leaned on me for advice and information.

My experience was being validated. My ideas were working. My case studies were getting more impressive.

But I still had Brian hanging behind me, flicking me in the ear, hitting my heels with a shopping cart. It was time to plan to eventually fire Brian, but first, I had to knock him down to The 10% Club.

This is a hyper-obvious internal term I use to describe clients who are at least 10% of my income. The goal became to not let anyone exceed that slice of revenue, as part of my new (much less stressful and more profitable) business model.

In month 23, Brian was in The 10% Club. This legacy client who didn't match my model anymore was no longer critical income.

Seemingly overnight, Brian became more timid. He was accepting copy with minimal revisions, the after hour calls stopped, and I was confused. What happened to the ball of fury that was Brian?

I barely heard from Brian. It was like he was a ghost, but the payments came through, his deliverables still hit his inbox. Did... did I wait Brian out?

Nope, Brian was just tired, and when I fired him, I made a bunch of money

Brian called me in month 27, he shouted over the phone. Called me wretched names. I'm a calm man, and with the fear of lost revenue no longer looming overhead, it was time to tie concrete blocks to my fear's shoes and toss it in the Hudson.

I'm not a malicious person. I fought the petty urge to fire back at him. When he ran out of breath, I said, "Okay Brian, I hear you. I'll send you an email." Then I hung up.

I fired Brian. I outlined the reasons why, respectfully, and my phone rang five minutes later. Then again ten minutes later. But I was done. I fired Brian, and I didn't pick up.

The following Monday, I get an email from a guy (we'll call him Sebastian). Sebastian ran a financial institution, and received an email blast from Brian to about 40 other business professionals.

The email was an effort to discredit me. But Sebastian, who'd dealt with Brian many times, said it was obvious to him that it was just a message from someone who'd been done dealing with him, and he respected the fact that I fired him.

Sebastian's company has been a client of mine in The 10% Club for the past seven years. When we face an unruly client, internally, we say "They're being a Brian." We have a board with a column for clients who've entered "The Brian Zone" and are at-risk of being fired.

It took too long, and it was my fault for putting up with it for so long, but being in the position to fire a client was on my entrepreneurial bucket list.

TL;DR: Brian was a client. Brian was a shiesty boy. I fired Brian. He tried to discredit me to other entrepreneurs he knew. It backfired. I've worked with one of his contacts for seven years as a result.

Looking for ideas to STAY AWAY FROM

Let's say you're good at something and you're making a living off of it. But now you want to scale by building a business around it. For that you would have to hire people and teach them what you do. But what if they get good at it and decide to start their own business? How can you minimize those kind of cases?

(Note: I'm not English-native. Used Gemini to help with clarity and readability. Appreciate your understanding regarding the writing style!)

Raised a Ton of Money, Peaked on Day One

Four years ago, we raised a big round to build the "Asian Roblox" - a UGC game platform for kids in Asia, starting from China.

It made sense back then. Roblox never really took off in China due to regulations and monetization issues. Meanwhile, we already had a self-built game engine and millions of kid creators on our platform from our coding education business. It felt like a solid idea.

Little did we know, raising that round would mark the peak of our entire venture.

With the money in hand, we were confident and hyped. We quickly grew our team to over 50 people and worked intensely on our game engine. We didn't give a single thought to how we'd actually make money - "If Roblox can do it, we can do it too, right?" We just had a big vision and the hype to go with it.

Then Reality Hit

Later on, we came to painful realizations:

1.Our game engine could never compete with mainstream ones, yet it consumed massive resources and time to build. So, we pivoted to other ways to monetize our engine: Web3 and the metaverse. We figured our games weren't good enough for serious gamers, but maybe they'd be "just enough" for less quality-sensitive spaces like Web3 and the metaverse.

Little did we know that the NFT space was a total scam - a Ponzi scheme where people just wanted to cash out on you. The only reason we even gained traction was because we were backed by top VCs. We were basically cashing out on their names, and I felt bad about it.

1. Our kid creators were simply not good at building commercial games - they were just building for fun. And we didn't know much about commercializing games either. So, we tried working with professional developers and studios. The problem was, our tool was too limited for them, and the potential return was too low since kids weren't really paying.

The Inevitable End

Two years later, there was no real business progress. The little money we made couldn't even cover our server costs or the refunds parents requested, let alone feed a team of 50+ people.

We tried to find other ways to make money, like building game development courses for kids. We later found out that Chinese parents primarily pay for things that are essential for academic advancement or school admission. Our courses didn't fit that "must-have" category.

Earlier this year, with our bank balance dipping below the red line, we shut down all business operations and let go most of the team. Sadly but thankfully, most of them are doing much better without us.

With just a few people left and not much in the bank account, we're back to square one.

Not sure what to build next yet. Staying close to the community to keep ourselves in check with real problems and real users.

Edit:

Lessons Learned from the Experience & the Community

• Having someone who really knows the business run the business can spare you tons of rocky mistakes, huge opportunity costs, and possibly millions of dollars. If you are not that person, find a complementary team or learn actively with the community.
• Investor validation doesn't mean market validation. Your true validators are your paying customers/users. Stay close to them to find real problems worth solving. Investors burned by the bubble are now picky enough to only invest in profitable businesses anyway.
• Chase cash flow from day one. The "scale first, make money later" days are over. And having lots of users love you (we did) doesn't mean it's a good business either. Now it's better to "sell first, build later". Don't overbuild until you see cash flow.
• Consider cultural norms & regulatory limitations when you go to a new market (e.g. game time limits & strict purchase approvals for kids in China). They can be dealbreakers if you don't understand and build around them from day one.
• And for what's coming ahead, remember that AI is a tool, not the goal. Don't chase it like another hype. Instead, use it primarily to provide better solutions or speed up the dev process.

A few things to add:
- Started building the engine in 2016 as a side project in our coding education company.
- Had millions of active builders and players when we got funded in 2021.
- Initial investments came through YC-like incubators and angels for the previous startup. Then you just get connections.

Thank you all so much for your constructive feedback, advice, and discussions in the comments!

Looking to give a buddy of mine some ideas, but I want him to not choose something "entangling".

I’ve been thinking about how often the best business ideas arent the flashy, startup-y ones but the ones that solve some annoying, overlooked problem.

I keep seeing people build legit businesses around things like cleaning up Google Drive messes, automating basic reports, doing policy compliance for small teams, or setting up boring back-end tools no one wants to deal with.

Curious if anyone here started a business around something most people would consider “boring” or not worth pursuing but that actually had real demand.

What did you stumble into that worked? What made it click?

Early on, I thought the goal was profit. So I obsessed over margins, saved on tools, did everything myself, and delayed hires. Revenue looked fine on paper - but I was exhausted, and nothing was scalable.

The truth? I was “saving” money but costing myself growth. I hired a life coach who helped me realise this it was actually my relationship with money that was holding me back.

I see this all the time now - founders clinging to every dollar, proud they’re lean, but stuck in a job they built for themselves.

Eventually I realised profit is the reward of smart growth, not the input. When I started spending where it counted - on systems, expertise, and time-saving tools - that’s when the business took off.

If you’re stuck, it might not be a lack of hustle. It might be fear of investing or your relationship with money in business.

Question- What’s one thing you wish you invested in earlier?

I’ve been hitting around 6-10 hours of deep focused work in per day and i am finding it totally exhausting!

Rolling with average chair got from staples a couple year ago. My ass hurts, my back hurts and I find myself losing my focus more often veering off into random thoughts

Does anyone else deal with this? How many hours are you doing per day? Looking for something that can handle it. any recs?

Hey Reddit,

I'm in a tough spot and need some guidance. My dad recently passed away, and I've suddenly become the head of his small, family-run business. We import industrial machinery, mostly for meat and meat products.

I have no experience in this industry. My background is completely different. Now I'm in charge of everything: suppliers, shipping, customs, inventory. It's a huge emotional burden, and I feel a lot of pressure to make my dad proud and keep his business alive.

The company is stable but not growing. We're a bit stuck, and I don't know where to start.

I'm looking for advice on:

• How do I learn the technical side of this business fast? (Types of machinery for processing meat, suppliers, etc.)
• What should my first priority be? ( finances, sales?)
• What key metrics or KPIs should I be tracking to see if we're improving?
• Are there any essential software for import/distribution businesses?

Any advice or personal stories would be a huge help. Thanks in advance

I’ve been working solo on my startup for the past 6 months. No funding, no co-founder, just pure grind. Some days I wake up energized and focused, other days I question everything. I’ve set goals, broken them down, tracked KPIs, journaled - you name it

But I’m curious: what really keeps you going during those long, lonely stretches? Is it a routine, accountability, something mental, or just plain stubbornness?

Would love to hear from other founders - especially the ones doing it solo