u/Nice_Paramedic4055

I've been thinking about this because I talk to a lot of founders and the small business path always sounds simpler than it really is.

On paper it's great. You can reach the owner directly. No procurement hell. Decisions happen in days, not months. But the reality is way messier. One slow month and they cancel. They need more support than you planned for. Sometimes they don't fully understand what they bought and you end up being part consultant, part therapist.

I've seen founders stack up a bunch of small business clients and still feel like the whole thing could collapse any week. Others have figured out how to make it work and love it.

Where are you at? Are you targeting small businesses with what you're building? What's been harder than you expected and what's actually working? Would love to hear from people in the trenches on this one.

Wonder if people's brains are the same as mine! I did this daily routine for 47 days, then I got sick, missed one day, and just never opened one of those productivity apps again tbh! I just decided to stop and I felt like the streak was the only thing holding it together, and once it broke, I was like, what's the point of this?

I've done this maybe ten times with different habits. Same pattern every time, perfect streak for weeks, one slip, then nothing!!

The common advice is to just not miss two days in a row. But that assumes the problem is discipline. It's not. The problem is my brain treats the streak like the habit itself. When the streak dies, the habit feels dead too. Does anyone feel the same?

Has anyone found a way to track progress that doesn't fall apart after one off day? Not looking for "be kind to yourself"- I'm looking for a system that actually works for people who think this way.

Seen this debate come up a bunch lately and I want to know where people actually land.

Some SaaS products make you drop a credit card before you can even poke around. Others let you in free and hope you eventually upgrade.

I've watched startups add the forced card and see conversions tank. Others did it and revenue actually went up because the only people signing up were the ones who were serious anyway. Seems like it completely depends on the product and the audience.

If you're building a SaaS right now, are you asking for the card upfront or letting people in free? What made you pick one over the other? And for those who've tested both, what actually happened when you switched?

Also as a user, does it instantly make you bounce when a product asks for payment info before you've seen anything? Or do you not care? What say you?

I spoke to someone last night, and he was doing 100% video content, not just through your usual suspects, but also through forums and other communities like Facebook. It was interesting because his product is 100% B2B. Like heavy, B2B, and he is roughly getting 1-2 leads per day with no budget.

Now I'm curious to know what you doing with your marketing? Not the polished stuff, or the Gary V BS playbook you'll use once you have budget and a team. Right now, today, with whatever scrappy setup you've got. How are you getting people to notice what you're building?

I ask because every early-stage founder I talk to is figuring this out differently. Some are going hard on Reddit and getting banned from subreddits. Some are doing cold DMs and cringing through every send. Some have found a weird channel that shouldn't work but does. And a lot are just winging it hoping something sticks.

What's been your move? What's actually working right now, and what did you try that was a total waste of time?

Typing a reflection feels like writing a report.

So I don't do it.

Voice, though? I can ramble while pacing, driving, doing dishes. No screen, no "sit still and format your feelings."

But here's what I don't know: does the novelty of voice wear off as fast as everything else?

If you've tried voice journaling (voice memos, an app, whatever), did it last longer than text for you? Or did you eventually stop talking to yourself too?

Not looking for a miracle habit. Just wondering if the lower friction actually helps or if I'm just chasing another shiny thing.

Thanks.

Curious because I've watched this play out a bunch of times and it's always messy.

Co-founder sits you down one day and basically says you're out. No warning, get out! Or maybe there was a fight that had been building for months, and it finally snapped. Either way, you're suddenly on the outside of something you poured your life into.

How did you handle it right when it happened? And what got you through the weeks after? Everyone jumps to the legal stuff and the vesting cliff conversations but nobody talks about how much it messes with your head. You built something with this person and now you're not even in the Slack anymore.

I've also seen people drag it out for years. Beefing over equity splits, fighting over money that hasn't even materialized yet, burning bridges and mental energy on stuff that probably won't matter in the long run. Is it actually worth it? At what point do you just walk away, take the L, and move on?

If you've been through this, what helped? How long did it take to shake it off? Genuinely want to hear from people who came out the other side.

Had a new founder tell me the other day they couldn't share what they were building. Someone might steal it. I told them nobody cares enough to steal it, and even if they did, execution is the whole game.

The real risk isn't someone running off with your idea. The risk is spending a year building in a cave and emerging with something nobody wants. But building in secret feels productive, so we do it anyway.

What's something you used to believe about startups that you now realize was just fear wearing a strategy hat? Grab a coffee and spill.

Trying to learn more about a few industries and figured this community is as good a place as any to find people actually in the trenches.

Specifically looking to connect with anyone building or working in datacenters, energy, or water management. These three are getting more connected than most people realize and I want to understand what's happening on the ground from people who live it, not just read about it.

Also medical. Anything around medicine development, orthopedics, or supporting tech. Not my background so I'm coming in curious and looking for people who know the space well.

If any of you are working in these areas or have real experience with them, drop what you're building or what you're seeing. Would be good to connect and learn!!!

I was looking into a few fighter-owned brands, and here's a quick comparison. Anyone got a different opinion? I personally own ONX, and my cousin has Engage, but curious to know about the other brands. Here's a very high level comparison..

Engage  (Adesanya & Volkanovski): Real slick looking stuff, very aesthetic heavy, but kinda pricey for what it is.

Torque (Urijah Faber): Old reliable, nothing fancy, you've probably seen it in every gym ever.

ONX (Justin Gaethje & Trevor Wittman): Technical, all about hand protection, feels like it was made by a guy who yells "pivot" in his sleep.

Gamebred (Jorge Masvidal): Aggressive and gritty, feels like it smells like a back alley, in a fun way.

McGregor FAST (Conor McGregor): Tries to do the whole biometric tracking thing, nice designs but really pricey, not sure if you've seen them?

Anyone else actually used multiple of these? Curious if I'm off on any of them.

Minimum Viable Product vs Minimum Viable Experience. They sound close but they're completely different things and one of them has made people a lot more money than the other.

An MVP is about building something that technically works. An MVE is about creating an experience that proves someone will pay you.

I've seen founders get to a million dollars in revenue with nothing but a landing page, a Typeform, and manual fulfillment on the backend. No product. No automation. No scalable infrastructure. Just an experience that was valuable enough that people handed over money. The product came later, once they knew exactly what to build and who was buying.

Meanwhile I see founders burning months and months building an MVP nobody asked for. They launch to silence and wonder what went wrong. What went wrong is they built a product before they validated an experience. They skipped the part where you find out if the thing is even worth building.

I'm curious how people here are actually approaching validation. Are you building an MVP right now without traction? How much time and cash have you put in before testing whether anyone cares? What's stopping you from selling the experience before you build the product?

And for those who've already been through this, how did you validate? Did you build first or sell first? What did that look like?

Where are you actually finding each other? Because every solo founder I talk to is asking the same thing and nobody seems to have a solid answer.

The usual advice is tired. You know? the networking events, cofounder matching platforms or the "Just put yourself out there."

Most founders tell me that stuff hasn't worked. You meet people but the stakes are weird. Someone's testing the waters while the other person is ready to jump. Someone wants to keep their day job. Someone's excited for two weeks and then disappears. I've lived through this one! and I even fully SIGNED a client during that period.

I want to hear from the solo founders here. What are you actually looking for in a cofounder right now? Skillset, personality, commitment level, geography. Be specific.

And for those who already found your person, how did it happen? Was it someone you knew for years? A random intro that clicked? A community you were both lurking in? The best cofounder stories I've heard were never from a platform. Curious if that holds up.

Also drop where you're building. North America, LATAM, EMEA, APAC. I'm connected across a few of these and there might be ways to connect people directly. Let's see who's here and what's actually missing.

I've been in and around the startup world for a while and I've always been curious how different angels think. Not the institutional VC playbook, more curious about the individual investor sitting across from a founder, deciding whether to back them or pass.

What makes you lean in during the first five minutes? What kills a pitch instantly? How much of your decision is the market, how much is the founder, how much is just gut feel?

Also genuinely curious how this has shifted for you in the current market. Are you writing fewer checks? Smaller checks? Looking for different things than you were two years ago?

If you're a founder raising or thinking about raising, this is a great thread to eavesdrop on. And feel free to jump in with your own questions. Ask what you actually want to know about how angels think, what you should be saying, what you should avoid. I'll weigh in where I can.

Let's hear it. Who's investing and what are you actually looking at when someone slides a deck across the table?

They look so nice! My buddy from the gym sent me this image. Don't think he's fighting with these, is he? I'm pro full Americana style!

https://preview.redd.it/3v8mpbet8j0h1.png?width=524&format=png&auto=webp&s=dc679b689c60f26ea6da587c337f2faeea96e208

Seventeen years in this game, and that one sentence has probably destroyed more startups than bad product market fit ever has.

Here's my story. A founder (now a good friend of mine) reached out a while back. He'd raised a bit of money and immediately did what everyone told him to do. Hired a fractional CMO with a big brand resume. He was charging 15K a month. Stepped back to "focus on the vision" or whatever.

Six months later, I got a call from the founder. He was having doubts about this "rockstar" of a CMO, though he was getting "nice" reports every week.

I asked him to walk me through what the problem was and the marketing process. He couldn't. Not because he was bad at explaining it. Because he'd never been close enough to know. The CMO was running a playbook from some previous company, and the founder had no way of knowing if it was right or wrong. He just trusted the decks.

That call right there stuck with me because I've had it too many times. Different founders. Same story. I don't know why people have to talk a lot of sh*t and destroy other people's businesses. Pisses me off.

So I'm curious. What's the worst piece of advice someone gave you that you actually followed? Or the best advice that sounded wrong at the time but turned out to be exactly what you needed?

And for the ones who've made the expensive hire too early, what role was it and when did you realize it wasn't working?

Alright, y'all, I need some help. I'm super used to SF with large clients, Soho with mid-size, but now the client is kind of fixated with Close. I haven't used it in the past.

Background story.. I’m onboarding a new client (small team, outbound heavy) and I’ve been down the CRM rabbit hole for 48 hours straight. I know the usual suspects, Zoho and Salesforce.

But Close was brought up because of their whole "Chloe" AI agent that actually calls leads for you. Sounds cool, but I’m wondering if it works.

For those of you who have used Close in the wild (or currently use it), how does it actually stack up against these two? How good is the reporting and AI tool?

Trying to avoid a costly mistake here. I don't want to sell the client on Salesforce if they just need a dialer, but I don't want to give them Zoho if they'll hate their life every time they open a contact page. They did bring up Close, but I'm not familiar with it as I haven't played around with the tool enough to make a solid recommendation.

I’ve been working on a personal side project: a comprehensive map of every MMA gym in the United States.

I’m not selling anything or building a paid app. I travel for work constantly, and I hate wasting time trying to find a decent place to drop in for a sparring session or just to keep my cardio up. I figured if I’m struggling to find these places, other traveling fighters and hobbyists are too.

I want to create a free, open-source map where you can zoom in on any city and find the nearest gyms, from famous super-camps to small local fight teams.

Where I need help with:

1. What are your "Must-Have" Gyms? Which places would make the map completely invalid if they were missing?
2. Hidden Gems: What are the local spots in your town that visitors absolutely need to check out?

To get the ball rolling, I’ve started with the heavy hitters based on research . Here is my current "Tier 1" list that is already locked in:

· American Top Team (ATT) – Coconut Creek, FL is right at the top of my list.
· American Kickboxing Academy (AKA) – San Jose, CA. Khabib, DC, Cain!
· Jackson Wink MMA – Albuquerque, NM. Jones, Holly Holm, and basically the entire old guard of WEC/UFC
· Kings MMA – Huntington Beach, CA. Rafael Cordeiro’s squad
· Team Alpha Male – Sacramento, CA. Urijah Faber’s crew
· Serra-Longo Fight Team – Long Island, NY. Matt Serra and Ray Longo. The East Coast hub for champs like Aljamain Sterling
· Fight Ready – Scottsdale, AZ. The new hotness. Henry Cejudo’s place, but also where Jon Jones and Figueiredo have camped
· Elevation Fight Team – Denver, CO. Known for that high-altitude cardio. Curtis Blaydes trains here
· AMC Pankration – Kirkland, WA. The home of Demetrious Johnson and we know Matt Hume is a genius
· Sparta Academy – West LA, CA. Top-rated spot in LA if you want to train hard in a professional environment without some of the ego of the super-gyms
· Balance Studios – Philadelphia, PA. Famous for BJJ and MMA. The Migliarese Bros are legit, and they are super beginner-friendly if you are just traveling through
· MPR Endurance – Fairless Hills, PA. dedicated athlete training facility if you are in the Northeast and want serious work
· UFC Gyms – Various locations. I know hardcore fans hate on "corporate" gyms, but for a traveler just looking to hit some pads to stay in shape, they are actually a reliable fallback

What I am missing:

I know I am light on the Midwest, Texas, and the Deep South. What gyms are in Ohio, Michigan, or Georgia that I need? I saw an ATT in Atlanta and a place called Boon Martial Arts in Dallas , but there have to be more.

If you own a gym or train at one that isn't on Wikipedia or those generic top 10 lists, drop the Name, City, and State below.

Thank you all!

I'm curious because my experience with this is usually a total pressure cooker. And I’ve been lucky enough to be on both sides.

I’m talking about having maybe 90 seconds to make your case with no deck to hide behind and no demo to lean on. It's just you and your ability to talk. I’ve seen deals made in under 20 seconds and great products completely destroyed after a minute.

When you're stripped of your nice pitch deck and the demo, how do you guys actually handle that?

I’ve found that if you can’t nail the core value in that first minute, you’ve already lost them.

I'd love to hear from people who have been in the trenches on how you keep your cool and what your go to strategy is when the clock is ticking that fast.

I've been meaning to write this for a while, as I think there's a lot of value in just setting aside some time and really taking a look at what you're building. I've shared some examples below and hope you find this useful. But if you have a better way of doing things, do share.

To give you a bit of information, I run an accelerator and have worked with tons of early-stage founders. I can tell you there's one pattern that shows up almost immediately, and it is that they haven't gotten real honest feedback about what they were actually building.

They'll describe their problem as "we can't seem to get traction" or "our CAC is too high" or "we need better creative." Then I'll ask three or four questions and we'll land somewhere completely different. Usually somewhere uncomfortable because the real issue was never the ads.

So here's a quick framework you can use based on my experience. Takes 20 minutes. Might save you 18 months and some cash.

1. Who is this actually for, and why would they change their behaviour for you?

Most founders answer this with a demographic. "Small business owners." "HR managers." "Fitness people."

That's not an answer. That's a category.

You need the specific person at a specific moment. Not "small business owners." It's "small business owners who just lost a client because something fell through the cracks and are lying awake at 3 am terrified it'll happen again." To be honest here, I've been there MANY times.

That person has a completely different relationship with your project management tool than someone who's "generally disorganized."

Let me give you a real example. Founder built scheduling software for service businesses. Salons, plumbers, pet groomers. Pitch was "we save you time on booking." Nobody cared.

I went ahead and dug in and found two actual humans. ACTUAL BUYERS.

One was the salon owner who was losing 3k a month in no-shows because her front desk couldn't keep up. She wasn't looking to "save time."

The other was the solo plumber who booked everything himself and had never lost a client to a scheduling problem because he only had 40 other clients. "Save time on booking" meant nothing to him. He'd been doing it in his head for 15 years.

Same software. Two completely different scenarios. One had a bleeding wound. One didn't.

2. What are they doing right now instead of using you, and why does that still work well enough?

This one's brutal because it forces you to admit your competition isn't just other products. It's inertia. It's the spreadsheet they've used for three years. It's the problem they've decided is cheaper to tolerate than to solve.

Before someone buys your product, they're solving the problem another way. That existing solution has gravity. It's known. It's comfortable enough.

Your job isn't to be better on a feature list. Your job is to make staying where they are feel more expensive than switching.

Here's another real example: A founder built a platform for freelancers to manage contracts, invoices, and client comms. Clean product. Fair price. No traction.

I asked what his customers were using instead. "Mix of PayPal, Google Docs, and DMs." I asked him to walk me through that experience honestly.

What he found sucked to admit. For freelancers with under 5 clients, that cobbled-together system took maybe 20 minutes a week. Annoying, but not $29-a-month annoying.

The ones who actually needed him were freelancers with 10+ clients who'd just gotten burned by a client claiming they "forgot" the scope agreed to in a DM three months ago. That person wasn't mildly annoyed. They were furious and scared it would happen again.

But his entire landing page said "streamline your workflow." That only resonates with someone who already believes the workflow is broken enough to fix. Everyone else has emotionally accepted the mess.

So ask yourself: what are they using right now, and what would have to happen for them to finally say "I can't do this anymore"? If you can't answer that, you're selling painkillers to someone with a mild headache.

3. What's the one belief about your customer that, if wrong, makes your whole business false?

Every business rests on a belief about human behaviour. Not a market trend. Not a strategy. A belief about what someone will actually do when given the choice.

Here's another example. A founder building an accountability coaching platform. Premise: people say they want accountability, so they'll pay for daily check-ins from a coach who won't let them slide.

Sounds reasonable. Lots of people say they want accountability.

The hidden belief: "people will continue to pay for something that makes them feel bad about themselves every time they fail."

That's not accountability. That's a guilt subscription. Most users churned after 4-6 weeks. Not because the product was bad, but because the core experience was paying someone to witness their own inconsistency. People don't want that, I mean, I don't, do you?

Retention wasn't a problem. It was the way they sold things that bothered me and didn't work.

So ask yourself and honest question... what's the one thing you believe about how your customer will behave that, if false, means you have nothing? Name it. Then go find evidence you're right before you spend another dollar convincing yourself.

4. Can you get 10 people to pay you or take the action you want without spending a dollar on ads? THIS IS MY FAV ONE

Not "can you go viral." Not "can you scale without ads forever."

Can you personally find 10 people, have a conversation with them, and get them to do the thing?

If the answer is no, ads won't save you. They'll just help you fail with a bigger audience.

Last example I'm going to give you here. A founder with a B2B product spent $20K on LinkedIn ads. Some leads, zero conversions. Belief was "we just need to optimize the funnel."

I asked them to get five people on the phone. Not demos. Conversations. No pitch. Just questions.

Within two weeks they learned their product solved a problem that existed but wasn't urgent enough for anyone to disrupt their current workflow. The people who "loved the idea" in surveys weren't willing to actually move.

That $20K wasn't wasted on bad ads. It was wasted on skipping the step where you find out if anyone actually wants what you've built.

You don't need to be able to scale without ads. You need to be able to prove, with real people taking real action, that the core psychology works. Ads amplify what's true. They don't fix what's false.

My ask to you is to take this framework that I'm sharing here, trust me, I've been through this. I know this post might be just another post on Reddit, but it has a lot of value.

My old Venums elite are literally falling apart, so that's a sign that it is time for an actual upgrade.

I'm looking at three main options right now:

Fairtex SP5: Classic, known for durability, but I've heard they're a bit bulky for MMA grappling transitions. But this seems to be the go-to for many people?

ONX shin guards: the Precision Line ones in white. I've heard good things about them, and I saw they dropped in price recently. I recently saw the black ones at the gym and they look insane.

Twins Special SGL10: Great brand, amazing protection, but holy hell are they thick. Seems like they'd be a nightmare for pulling guard or any kind of ground work. But what is your take here?

I'm leaning toward the onx because they look slim enough for grappling but still protective for eating calf kicks. Our gym has a couple of guys with Fairtex, and they like them, but they also complain about readjusting between rounds a lot. The Twins guys look like they're wearing boat anchors on their legs but say they don't feel a thing when checking kicks.

What are you all actually using for hard sparring days?

Everyone always talks about who the goat fighter is but we don’t talk enough about the guys actually building these monsters in the gym. Like who is the greatest coach in ufc history when you look at how many champions they actually produced and the level of strategy they brought to the game?

Javier Mendez (obviously) has to be up there just for the sheer dominance of aka. He had khabib and now islam is basically lapping the field plus guys like cain and dc in the past. Then you have greg jackson and mike brown at att who have basically been champion factories for decades across almost every weight class.

But i feel like Trevor Wittman deserves way more credit for being such a specialist. The run he had with kamaru usman and namajunas at the same time was legendary and he basically rebuilt justin gaethje into a much more technical and dangerous fighter. His corner advice is probably the best in the business and he seems to focus on a very small elite circle rather than a massive gym.

Then you still have guys like firas zahabi who gave us the gsp era and eugene bareman over at ckb who completely changed the striking meta with volkanovski and adesanya.

Who do you guys think actually has the best track record for creating champions from scratch versus just polishing already great fighters?

Is it just a numbers game or does the quality of the game planning matter more?