u/IndependenceBusy1085

Small AI Agency owner here.

So far i've got just about 2 clients on other AI Automation solutions, all from upwork. Been doing cold calls for a while, and so far nothing's sticking because I keep hitting receptionists.

For the UK, i target tradespeople (electricians, plumbers etc). I've recently called about 30 plumbers. I've hit about 10 of them directly to sell AI Receptionists, while 20 are all receptionists themselves who will obviously decline the offer to speak to her superior about a tool that will replace her job.

The question is, are you all closing on actual tradespeople on AI receptionist? If you are, what's your pricing like, coz it seems the best offer that's worked for me is 400 GBP one time setup fee, and that's just a couple of prospects. Coz right now I'm thinking of switching niches to more high profile people (where the money is) like 'cosmetic surgeons' or 'real estate'

28/M, UK. I'm a techie and I build software. However due to my inability to find a job in my desired field, I'm in a job that has me working 12 hours a week for 3 days a week; however, I do overtime to keep the bills paid, so it ends up being 4 to 5 days a week.

When I'm at work, I do this thing where I'm plotting and scheming my next app or current project I hope to turn into a Saas. However, as soon as I'm home for the weekend, all those thoughts become secondary, and I just sleep away or resort to gaming to cool off. Next thing, Sunday night, I'm on overdrive trying to catch up on what I should've been doing from Friday night because I know I have a long week ahead.

What are some hacks or something to keep me focused or disciplined once I get home from work on a weekend?

I tell myself it's the 12 hour shifts that have me drained, but at least the weekend lasts 2 days. I can do 1 day of relaxing and 1 day of full commitment to my goals. But I dont.

Not to say I don't work on these goals, like doing market research on my app, etc, but it's only for 1 - 2 hours for the whole day.

I feel like I could be doing more. What do I do?

I've been thinking a lot about the TV show Black Mirror and how our world is slowly evolving (or should I say devolving?) into most of what the show describes.

So I thought, instead of going along with all the craze of AI and trying to build a Saas that gears around B2B because it supposedly is a safer bet, we could monetize with something just as strong as pre-established buying intent: Entertainment value and the thrill of public opinion.

So here are 5 Ideas around the black mirror vibe; maybe you could copy or at least note some flaws around it (if you do build them, I want my fair share lol):

1. The Witness
You upload a photo of something you saw today, literally anything at all. No caption allowed. Just post with no context. Then what happens next is strangers write the caption. You vote on which caption is closest to the truth. The gap between what people assume and what actually happened IS the content. This is close to what already happens on reddit, but more curated for funny captions and ideas for good content.

Example Use Case: Someone posts a photo of an empty wheelchair outside a pub. Captions range from funny to heartbreaking. The real story (the owner went in for one pint after chemo) destroys everyone. That moment gets captured and shared everywhere. Virality(?)

2. Signal
It's a lonely world out there. Especially when you're an introvert. What if there's a way to at least start a conversation with a random without awkward first-touch interactions.

Introducing Signal (no better name, so there you go). You record a 30-second voice note into the void, with no audience, no followers, just broadcast. Say literally anything. The app randomly delivers it to one stranger globally, once, and they can only respond with a single emoji (or a maximum of 40 characters of text). You never know who heard it. If they match your vibe, you can pay to reveal yourselves to each other. This could even be expanded to something else where you record 30 seconds of you ranting about any topic (football, stocks, ISA, or FROM the TV series), and then it is published into the vast space of the internet, and then whoever likes your rant or opinion and wants to hear more can send an emoji back. Loneliness solved! (not).

Example Use Case: An introvert at 2am records 30 seconds about how they genuinely believe pineapple belongs on pizza and why. Lands on a stranger in Manila who sends back 🤝. They pay to reveal. They're now mutual.

Or, Someone going through a breakup records a voice note they'd never send. A stranger hears it and sends 💙. No conversation needed. That alone is enough. Or even this, where a football fan rants about their team's tactics for 30 seconds. Lands on someone who completely agrees. They reveal they start talking football. No fluff, just match with someone that gets you with only a voice note.

3. Last Message
This has a gamified vibe to it. You record a voice note as if it were the last thing you'd ever say to someone. However, there are no names, no context, nothing. Strangers guess the relationship that the speaker has to the supposed recipient. Nurse talking to a patient. Parent to a child. Ex to an ex. The guessing IS the game. Leaderboards, funny scenarios, etc.

Example Use Case: Someone posts this: "I keep thinking about what you said to me last Tuesday. That you weren't scared anymore. I didn't know what to do with that at the time. I still don't, really. I just want you to know that you changed the way I do this job. I'll carry that. I'll carry you."

What people guess: Someone who lost a partner. A friend writing to someone who died. Grief letter, romantic or close friendship.

The reveal: A junior doctor. Recording a voice note about a patient who passed away that morning, in a hospital stairwell between shifts, before going back in.

Why it works: "The way I do this job" is the only real tell, and people miss it completely because the emotion overrides the logic.

4. The Rating
You submit yourself anonymously. Nothing but a photo of yourself (if you're brave) and three facts about your life. Strangers rate your life out of 10. You see your score but never who rated you. Straight out of the Black Mirror handbook, but the anonymity flips the power dynamic. People already do this on Reddit anyways, but having a dedicated space and star-based ratings can give some points.

Example Use Case: Someone posts: photo, facts: "I haven't spoken to my dad in 6 years / I make £28k / I have one really good friend." Gets a 6.4. The comments are more interesting than the score

5. MapDigital (or something idk)

Basically you take a picture of something in the real world, tagged with geolocation, and provide some social commentary about it. then everyone around the world can go, see what's happening around certain areas, and provide opinions about what is happening and possibly upvote for or against it. It's kind of like instagram, but niched down to geolocating actual things.

Example Use Case: Someone geo-tags a photo of a pothole outside their house with the caption "third month, still here." Local residents upvote. It trends locally. Council notices. Gets fixed. That's a genuine civic win.

Would you use any of these, or do these sound outlandish?

I know there are things to worry about like moderation, spam filtering and community management, but I think that's something that will be tackled once the validation is achieved. I understand Omegle and the other social apps broke due to this, but moderation can be built in with user IDs and other things before access. What do you think?

I've been thinking a lot about the TV show Black Mirror and how our world is slowly evolving (or should I say devolving?) into most of what the show describes.

So I thought, instead of going along with all the craze of AI and trying to build a Saas that gears around B2B because it supposedly is a safer bet, we could monetize with something just as strong as pre-established buying intent: Entertainment value and the thrill of public opinion.

So here are 5 Ideas around the black mirror vibe; maybe you could copy or at least note some flaws around it (if you do build them, I want my fair share lol):

1. The Witness
You upload a photo of something you saw today, literally anything at all. No caption allowed. Just post with no context. Then what happens next is strangers write the caption. You vote on which caption is closest to the truth. The gap between what people assume and what actually happened IS the content. This is close to what already happens on reddit, but more curated for funny captions and ideas for good content.

Example Use Case: Someone posts a photo of an empty wheelchair outside a pub. Captions range from funny to heartbreaking. The real story (the owner went in for one pint after chemo) destroys everyone. That moment gets captured and shared everywhere. Virality(?)

2. Signal
It's a lonely world out there. Especially when you're an introvert. What if there's a way to at least start a conversation with a random without awkward first-touch interactions.

Introducing Signal (no better name, so there you go). You record a 30-second voice note into the void, with no audience, no followers, just broadcast. Say literally anything. The app randomly delivers it to one stranger globally, once, and they can only respond with a single emoji (or a maximum of 40 characters of text). You never know who heard it. If they match your vibe, you can pay to reveal yourselves to each other. This could even be expanded to something else where you record 30 seconds of you ranting about any topic (football, stocks, ISA, or FROM the TV series), and then it is published into the vast space of the internet, and then whoever likes your rant or opinion and wants to hear more can send an emoji back. Loneliness solved! (not).

Example Use Case: An introvert at 2am records 30 seconds about how they genuinely believe pineapple belongs on pizza and why. Lands on a stranger in Manila who sends back 🤝. They pay to reveal. They're now mutual.

Or, Someone going through a breakup records a voice note they'd never send. A stranger hears it and sends 💙. No conversation needed. That alone is enough. Or even this, where a football fan rants about their team's tactics for 30 seconds. Lands on someone who completely agrees. They reveal they start talking football. No fluff, just match with someone that gets you with only a voice note.

3. Last Message
This has a gamified vibe to it. You record a voice note as if it were the last thing you'd ever say to someone. However, there are no names, no context, nothing. Strangers guess the relationship that the speaker has to the supposed recipient. Nurse talking to a patient. Parent to a child. Ex to an ex. The guessing IS the game. Leaderboards, funny scenarios, etc.

Example Use Case: Someone posts this: "I keep thinking about what you said to me last Tuesday. That you weren't scared anymore. I didn't know what to do with that at the time. I still don't, really. I just want you to know that you changed the way I do this job. I'll carry that. I'll carry you."

What people guess: Someone who lost a partner. A friend writing to someone who died. Grief letter, romantic or close friendship.

The reveal: A junior doctor. Recording a voice note about a patient who passed away that morning, in a hospital stairwell between shifts, before going back in.

Why it works: "The way I do this job" is the only real tell, and people miss it completely because the emotion overrides the logic.

4. The Rating
You submit yourself anonymously. Nothing but a photo of yourself (if you're brave) and three facts about your life. Strangers rate your life out of 10. You see your score but never who rated you. Straight out of the Black Mirror handbook, but the anonymity flips the power dynamic. People already do this on Reddit anyways, but having a dedicated space and star-based ratings can give some points.

Example Use Case: Someone posts: photo, facts: "I haven't spoken to my dad in 6 years / I make £28k / I have one really good friend." Gets a 6.4. The comments are more interesting than the score

5. MapDigital (or something idk)

Basically you take a picture of something in the real world, tagged with geolocation, and provide some social commentary about it. then everyone around the world can go, see what's happening around certain areas, and provide opinions about what is happening and possibly upvote for or against it. It's kind of like instagram, but niched down to geolocating actual things.

Example Use Case: Someone geo-tags a photo of a pothole outside their house with the caption "third month, still here." Local residents upvote. It trends locally. Council notices. Gets fixed. That's a genuine civic win.

Would you use any of these, or do these sound outlandish?

I know there are things to worry about like moderation, spam filtering and community management, but I think that's something that will be tackled once the validation is achieved. I understand Omegle and the other social apps broke due to this, but moderation can be built in with user IDs and other things before access. What do you think?

I’ve been building a concept called The Jury.

Think Omegle, but instead of random small talk, you’re randomly assigned into a group of strangers who act as a jury for someone’s real life decision.

Someone submits a situation like:
Should I quit my job
Should I leave my partner
Should I move countries

Then 6–10 strangers join a live room, can question them, debate like Reddit AITA but in real time, and then vote on what they should do.

What surprised me is that the engagement isn’t from giving advice, it’s from judging and defending positions like a live social experiment.

There’s also a follow up later on what actually happened, which makes it feel more like an ongoing story than a one off chat.

I’m aware B2C social apps are way harder than SaaS because distribution and retention are brutal, but I’m willing to take a bet if the emotional hook is strong enough.

Curious if this is actually compelling or just interesting in theory.

I’ve been building a concept called The Jury.

Think Omegle, but instead of random small talk, you’re randomly assigned into a group of strangers who act as a jury for someone’s real life decision.

Someone submits a situation like:
Should I quit my job
Should I leave my partner
Should I move countries

Then 6–10 strangers join a live room, can question them, debate like Reddit AITA but in real time, and then vote on what they should do.

What surprised me is that the engagement isn’t from giving advice, it’s from judging and defending positions like a live social experiment.

There’s also a follow up later on what actually happened, which makes it feel more like an ongoing story than a one off chat.

I’m aware B2C social apps are way harder than SaaS because distribution and retention are brutal, but I’m willing to take a bet if the emotional hook is strong enough.

Curious if this is actually compelling or just interesting in theory. Would you use this?

Sorry if this is not the right subreddit for this.

I've always loved improv, and I realized there aren't very many apps that capture the different scenes as much as I'd like. So I’ve been experimenting with a concept that sits somewhere between Omegle, improv theatre games, and social deduction games like Mafia.

Instead of just talking to a random stranger like Chatroulette or Omegle, two users are matched into a 5-minute "scene," and each person gets:

A role (CEO, employee, suspect, alien, journalist, therapist etc.)
A secret objective (make the other laugh, expose them, control the conversation, avoid saying a word, etc.)

The interaction plays out like a short improvised performance between two strangers.

Each scene also has one rule that changes how you communicate (for example: only asking questions, only 5-word sentences, must stay in character emotion like anger or paranoia, switch emotion from angry to happy, etc.).

I tried this with some people on discord, but the trouble is they aren't exactly experts at improv.

What seems to matter most, though, was not the conversation itself but the reveal at the end where both players see each other’s hidden objectives. That moment completely changes how they interpret everything that just happened. As well as the momentary laugh when they change from angry to happy when talking about their dog that just died.

I’m aware B2C consumer apps are significantly harder than SaaS because distribution and retention are unpredictable, but I’m willing to take a bet if something feels genuinely viral or addictive rather than just “interesting on paper."

I'm curious if this is something improv'ers (if that's even the right word) would actually try more than once, or if it’s just another novelty idea that's only good in theory.

Like the title says, I’m trying to get leads for my AI receptionist agency, so im calling them myself. Plumbers are the target niche, considering they are easiest to reach out to, as most of them are small business owners.

I’ve only called 20 on my local area, and I’m at a 15% reply rate which sounds good, but none are booked just yet.

I guess my question is, am I on the right niche or is there something you’re doing to get better reply rates?

I'm a freelancer on upwork, so I would use this, but I want to make sure I'm not isolated on this idea. As you know, personalized video proposals work well on Upwork, since it feels more personal and shows the employer that we actually read the job post and can do the job.

But making one for every job is insanely time-consuming, so I started thinking about a tool that could automate most of it.

Example flow:

• You paste the job description (from Upwork, Freelancer, etc.)
• add your portfolio links (only ones relevant to the post)
• AI creates a short proposal script
• automated browser walkthrough opens the portfolio links you gave it
• generates a narrated screen recording explaining why you're the man for the job (ideally in your own voice so it feels more personal)

So instead of spending 30–45 mins creating custom video proposals, you generate one in a minute or two.

Would you use this? Or does “AI-generated proposal” immediately reduce trust? I know some products already exist in this space, but I'm looking to tailor it down if it's interesting to some others.

Edit: Had to remove images as they were in the way of the post.

I'm a freelancer on upwork, so I would use this, but I want to make sure I'm not isolated on this idea. As you know, personalized video proposals work well on Upwork, since it feels more personal and shows the employer that we actually read the job post and can do the job.

But making one for every job is insanely time-consuming, so I started thinking about a tool that could automate most of it.

Example flow:

• You paste the job description (from Upwork, Freelancer, etc.)
• add your portfolio links (only ones relevant to the post)
• AI creates a short proposal script
• automated browser walkthrough opens the portfolio links you gave it
• generates a narrated screen recording explaining why you're the man for the job (ideally in your own voice so it feels more personal)

So instead of spending 30–45 mins creating custom video proposals, you generate one in a minute or two.

Would you use this? Or does “AI-generated proposal” immediately reduce trust? I know some products already exist in this space, but I'm looking to tailor it down if it's interesting to some others.

Here's how far I've gone on this. It's a desktop app at the moment, but can switch to Web app.

https://preview.redd.it/e4rr85x6mt5h1.png?width=1002&format=png&auto=webp&s=19ecb75435dd942c295e7849523e3fd46f17d133

https://preview.redd.it/vlkk75x6mt5h1.png?width=908&format=png&auto=webp&s=5dfa782b008d0e7564906e18036ed01adc7cb728

https://preview.redd.it/l2b7n7x6mt5h1.png?width=1282&format=png&auto=webp&s=c6254340fed4ac06f3ae3e94a985ba67c2d96b8d