u/DistributionSalt3392

I’m 26 and recently graduated, and now my family is planning my marriage with my cousin who is 18. In our family this is considered normal, but honestly I feel confused and scared.

I started a business around 8 months ago and it’s doing okay, but revenue keeps going up and down. Some months feel really promising, while other months make me anxious about the future. Since I just graduated and my career still feels unstable, I don’t even know if I’m mentally or financially ready for marriage right now.

Another thing that worries me is cousin marriage itself. I’ve heard people say it can create genetic problems for children, while others say the risk is very low if cousin marriage hasn’t been happening generation after generation in the family. I honestly don’t know what to believe and it’s making me overthink a lot.

Part of me feels pressure because my family wants things settled early. Another part of me feels marriage is a huge responsibility and I shouldn’t rush into it just because everyone expects me to.

Did anyone else go through something similar? How did you figure out whether you were truly ready for marriage or not? And what are your thoughts about cousin marriage in general?

Today I honestly feel very lost.

I’m in my final year and today was our campus placement drive. Around 90 out of 120 students from our branch got placed, but I didn’t. The salary wasn’t even very high, around 40k–50k, but still getting rejected hurt more than I expected. Watching almost everyone around you move forward while you walk back empty-handed creates a very strange feeling inside.

The worst part is I can’t even fully blame the companies. During college I barely focused on studies or placement preparation because from the beginning I believed I could build something bigger through business. I spent most of my time working on my SaaS instead of coding rounds, aptitude, interviews, CGPA, all those things. Somehow the business started doing well too. Right now it makes around 1 lakh to 1.2 lakh per month with around 80% profit margins, so I kept telling myself I made the right choice.

But the last 3 months have mentally affected me a lot. Revenue has declined and the biggest problem is inconsistency. Sometimes clients come continuously and I feel confident again, then suddenly there are 10–11 days with zero customers and my mind goes into panic mode. Those silent days create so much self doubt. I start thinking maybe this is temporary, maybe I’m not actually capable, maybe I ignored studies and jobs for something unstable.

I’ve appeared in around 8 interviews till now without proper preparation and got rejected everywhere. So now I’m stuck in this weird mindset where I don’t fully feel secure about business anymore, but I’m also not good enough for placements. It feels like I’m standing between two worlds and not fully belonging to either.

Logically I know my business still earns more than most fresher jobs being offered here. But emotionally it still hurts seeing everyone getting that stability while your future depends on whether customers come next week or not.

I just wanted to know if other founders also go through this phase where externally things look fine, but internally you constantly feel uncertain and scared about the future.

How do solo founders handle the transition from product-building to distribution?

I’ve been building a SaaS alone for the last 8 months. I got my first paying customer after about a month, and since then growth has stayed consistent through purely organic traffic. Around 2000 users have signed up so far, and the conversion rate has been surprisingly strong for a lifetime-priced product.

The challenge now is that I spend almost all my time building, improving UX, fixing issues, and talking to users, so I haven’t really focused much on scalable distribution yet. I can clearly feel that growth could be much higher if I built proper acquisition systems instead of doing everything myself.

For founders who’ve been through this stage already, what worked best for you when moving from “solo builder mode” into growth mode? Did you hire someone, bring in a growth-focused partner, double down on content, affiliates, SEO, communities, or something else entirely?

Would genuinely love to learn from people who’ve already solved this bottleneck.