r/Entrepreneurs

Our marketing setup was supposed to get easier as we added more tools but somehow everything takes longer now since customer information is spread across different platforms, landing pages need constant updates and even small changes involve pulling data from one place and making adjustments somewhere else. We added all this stuff to save time but half the work now is keeping everything consistent. It's especially frustrating when we're trying to create different pages for different audiences and idk if we made things more complicated than they needed to be.

So i am an employee in an industry which i don't like much and the kind of business model that industry follows, i just don't like it , but i had to spend years in this industry for some immigration purposes. I always wanted to do something of my own but i always see people around me spending years as employees in an industry before opening their business. For example - a trade guy would get his master ticket after 4-5 years and then go for business, a restaurant owner was chef for years before he started one of his own, a mechanic would open his own workshop after years of experience . But i always wonder , did a liquor store owner spent years selling liquor before he opened his store or a pizza store owner always master at making pizzas? Ofcourse i am not asking if anyone can open a business without any knowledge about the industry? I am just asking if its mandatory to spend years in something before you start your own thing in that industry?

I’ve spent the last 5 years helping companies scale from 0 to 1 and 1 to 100.

I’m exploring a fractional Founder’s Office service for startups and growing businesses with lean teams.

The idea is to work directly with founders, understand their business priorities, and take ownership of projects across growth, research, operations, analytics, AI, and tech.

Not a VA handling daily tasks or a consultant just giving advice. More like someone who brings founder-level thinking and actually gets projects executed, with a strong focus on quality.

I’m considering $1,099/month, with a mutually agreed scope of projects and deliverables.

To build trust, I’m also thinking of offering a 7-day free work trial, where I’d complete one small project so founders can evaluate my work before committing.

Curious what founders here think. Would you consider working with someone like this? Does the pricing make sense, and would the free trial help you feel more confident about trying it?

Discovery is about a 1/4 of Business Consulting. Companies should just keep a live map of all of their processes. This could be done through chat interviews with employees.

I created some process mapping software that could help with this... all feedback is appreciated :)

Forks.World

I’m 20 and trying to get serious about entrepreneurship. I want to move out of my parents’ house and move to a completely different state so I can focus on building a business and get a fresh start.

My friend wants to move with me so we can split rent, but I’m honestly torn on whether that’s a good idea. I feel like we have different mindsets, and I’m worried that living together could distract me from what I’m trying to accomplish. He might be willing to put around $500 into a product I develop, but other than that, I don’t see him contributing much to my business goals.

On the other hand, splitting rent would save me money, which is important since I’m still trying to build up capital.

Would you take the risk and move out alone, even if it costs more, or bring your friend along to make things more affordable? I’d appreciate some honest advice from people who’ve been in a similar situation.

Hey Founders,

I am an entrepreneur, and over the last three years, I’ve built 3 startups that reached a combined $500k ARR. But honestly, I’ve been asking myself: was it really worth it?

I built a SaaS for gym trainers, a bulk bike accessories platform, and a few other projects. All of them were vastly different, and none were truly driven by my own passion. My process was simple: I had an initial idea, relied entirely on domain experts to validate it, and built whatever they asked for. I contributed almost 0% of my own deep domain knowledge. While the startups grew, I felt like an employee in my own companies—executing tasks blindly without applying my own creative brain. My mind wasn't satisfied.

Now, I want to build something that genuinely fulfills me.

Through this journey, I’ve gained deep experience in starting and scaling businesses. My new mission is to build a Startup Ecosystem / Ideas Hub designed specifically to solve real problems for founders.

Right now, I have $100k in profits put aside,will be used as capital and I am putting my heart, mind, and hands-on experience into making this vision a reality.

I’d love to hear from you: What are the biggest problems, bottlenecks, or pain points you are facing right now as a founder?

Drop your challenges below, and let’s brainstorm solutions together!

Bring your problems, I’ll bring the creative solutions.

I was planning to start looking into vape and smoke business in victoria , bc canada. There are few reasons that i am thinking of this particular industry:

1. Its not a crazy full time 24x7 attention grabbing business so i don't have to worry about burning alot of money in the beginning since i can do uber and stuff to earn basic living even if sales are break even at the store
2. Its not a million dollar investment so its easier to get financed for small amount for someone like me who is doing it first time and can handle 30-40k at risk
3. With growing demand , i have a confidence somewhere that this industry will stay steady for few years since new generation is liking vapes better than other forms of smokes.

The issue is i still don't want to jump in based on just assumptions , i would like to know from some experienced entrepeneurs or agents who know about the industry and can guide me if opening a new store is better or buying an existing one and what should we look for when opening/buying one? And are most of the store positive cash flows or this game is totally opposite to my expectations? If anyone has any suggestions , please provide suggestions

Title: Built a €1.5M business almost entirely through cold calling. How do we get to €10M?

I'm 29, co-founder of a recruitment outsourcing company in the Netherlands. We've grown from zero to roughly €1.5M in annualized revenue, and I'm starting to realize that scaling to €10M is a completely different game.

A bit of background:

We started in 2021/2022, bootstrapped, with no outside funding.

We help mid-sized and larger companies outsource their recruitment. We basically become their external recruitment department, handling everything from advertising and sourcing candidates to screening and recruitment strategy.

Unlike traditional recruitment agencies, we work on fixed monthly retainers instead of charging per hire.

Some numbers:

2024 revenue: ~€750K

Current annualized revenue: ~€1.5M

Average customer value: ~€80K/year

Team: ~12 people

Around 380 hires delivered for clients

Entirely bootstrapped

Here's the interesting part: Almost all our growth has come from cold calling.

No meaningful inbound. No established organic acquisition channel. No paid acquisition engine bringing us customers. Just outbound sales, building relationships, delivering results and occasionally getting referrals.

And that has worked surprisingly well.

We built a sales process, hired people, improved our service delivery and gradually moved toward larger clients with bigger contracts.

But we're starting to hit a ceiling.

New business comes in, but existing customers leave. We grow, but nowhere near as fast as we should. Every additional million in revenue seems to require more people, more sales activity and more operational complexity.

We're now investing in brand, content, SEO and other acquisition channels, but none of those have become predictable growth engines yet.

Our ambition is €10M in annual revenue. Not €2M or €3M.

And I'm questioning whether the playbook that got us here is even remotely suitable for getting us there.

I'm particularly interested in hearing from founders who have scaled B2B service businesses from €1M-€2M to €10M+.

A few things I'm struggling with:

Acquisition: Did you continue scaling outbound, or did you eventually build a completely different acquisition engine?

Retention: How did you solve the problem of constantly replacing customers just to maintain growth?

Positioning: Did you narrow your niche and dominate one segment, or expand your offering and addressable market?

Organization: At what point did you fundamentally change your management structure and stop relying on the founders?

Business model: Can a people-heavy service business realistically reach €10M with attractive margins, or does the model itself need to evolve?

I'm not looking for generic advice like "hire better salespeople" or "build a personal brand."

I'm interested in the actual strategic decisions, mistakes and structural changes that helped you break through the €1M-€3M ceiling.

If you've made that jump, what did you have to stop doing that got you to your first million?

Hi everyone!

I'm building Aarambh Consultancy Service, a consultancy focused on recruitment and HR support, e-commerce account management, and IT services.

I'm currently focusing on growing our recruitment division and connecting with businesses that need help finding suitable candidates.

We are interested in working with:

• Startups and small businesses looking to hire.
• IT companies hiring developers, testers, technical support staff, and other professionals.
• Manufacturing companies with hiring requirements.
• Established recruitment agencies looking for candidate-sourcing partners.

We'd love to understand your hiring needs and explore mutually beneficial partnerships.

If you're a business owner, HR professional, or recruitment consultant, feel free to connect with us!

📧 Email: arambhconsultacyservice12@gmail.com

Aarambh Consultancy Service
Connecting Talent with Opportunity 🤝

Entrepreneurs, how do you deal with the fear of failing when starting a business?

I’m currently building a small business, and I could really use some advice from those who have been through this.

Before I started, I was full of ideas, excitement, and motivation. But now that I’m actually putting those ideas into action, I find myself constantly overwhelmed by doubts and questions.

What if I fail? What if no one buys my products? What if the market is already too saturated? What if I’m too late to the trend? What if I end up losing everything I invested?

I’ve already sacrificed quite a lot to pursue this, which makes the thought of failing even more frightening. I know failure is part of entrepreneurship, but honestly, I don’t know how I’ll handle it if things don’t work out.

For those who have experienced these same fears, how did you deal with them? How did you push through the uncertainty and keep going despite not knowing whether your business would succeed?

I’d really appreciate any advice, lessons, or personal experiences you’re willing to share. I could really use some guidance right now. Thank you!

Hey everyone!

I've been working on a Discord community called VANTAGE, and I wanted to invite some people who might be interested.

The idea came from something pretty simple: everyone has different strengths. Someone might be good at coding, someone else at design, another person might understand marketing, and someone else might have a genuinely good idea but no clue how to bring it to life. I thought it'd be cool to bring those people together and actually work on things instead of just talking about them.

That's what I'm trying to build with VANTAGE. A place where people can share what they're working on, find others with complementary skills, get honest feedback, and team up on actual projects. You don't need to own a business or be some expert in your field. You could just be learning, experimenting, or trying to get your first project off the ground.

The server is still small, and I'm working on making it something genuinely useful rather than another Discord that people join and forget about.

If that sounds like your kind of thing, I'd love to have you there. Bring a project, an idea, a skill, or just the willingness to learn and contribute.

Discord invite: https://discord.gg/azUrbUCkJ

Hope to see some of you around!

I am an aspiring entrepreneur, but I find myself struggling with getting my ideas off the ground. Specifically I get stuck with validation and product design. I am curious to know if anyone else who is just starting out as an entrepreneur has the same issue that I have.

We’re building AI Friends, a platform that brings together people who use AI for creativity and work.

The idea is to make it easier to meet someone, discuss what you’re building, and discover whether your skills or interests complement each other.

There are three meeting modes: Random, Shared interests, and For work.

We’re looking for early feedback from founders and independent professionals.

Would you use a live meeting platform to find collaborators, or would you prefer to review someone’s project and goals before talking? What would make the first meeting worth your time?

https://aifriends.space/

I've been comparing what small teams get from free CRMs vs paid ones, and I'm curious where people usually draw the line. HubSpot Sales Hub pricing came up while looking at stuff like follow-up sequences, deal tracking and reporting. All useful, sure, but if a business only has a few people handling sales, I'm not sure how much of that they'd actually need right away.

I also wonder if it's better to pay for automation early or just stick with a basic setup until things get harder to manage. I'm especially interested in the downsides people have run into, not just the benefits. What actually made upgrading worth the money for your business?

I’m building a startup in the career space. It’s early: first paying customer. Not raising yet, but I like to understand the landscape before I need it.

For founders who have raised pre-seed or angel round: where/ how did you find your first angels (networks, intros, events, platforms)? And what traction did they expect to see first?

Hey everyone,

Like many founders and small business operators, I noticed how tedious and expensive traditional inventory tracking can be often requiring bulky hardware or overly complex software.

To solve this for everyday operations, I built a quick, mobile first inventory tool that turns a standard smartphone camera into a live barcode scanner for instant stock-in/stock-out management.

Here is a quick look at how the scanning flow works in practice. For those of you running product based businesses, how do you currently handle inventory management, and what is your biggest pain point?

Would love to hear your thoughts or feedback!

Software stack for new business

Hello fellow travelers!

I am starting a business renting out indoor plants to offices. I have the wholesale product supply & knowledge locked down but need help with best software tools.

We will be renting out indoor plants, monthly fee. As part of this we will be doing visits every 2 weeks to feed, water, prune, and replace plants as necessary.

I’m in Arizona if it makes a difference.

What tools do you recommend to track inventory, track the product at clients, and also to track that our team members are actually visiting each plant at each client location? (This is my key concern).

Plus integration with a CRM, lead tracking, billing etc. Thanks for your thoughts!

I'm 17 in my senior year and I was thinking about starting an AI automation agency while in Uni doing a entrepreneurship and innovation defree with a minor in C.S and am partly expecting to do it with my friend using make.com or n8n and charging $5-$10k setup free and $2k monthly for maintenance. Me and my friend are wanting and expecting 30+ clients and we will hire more people eventually. We would aggressively invest while we run it and soon we will step back overall from the day to day operations and eventually sell it after like 12 years. Our overall goal is to live a luxurious lifestyle * WITHIN REASON* and to have full flexibility and freedom, As in if we want to go live in like Japan for 6 months we can. We would be able to decide when we work and how long as well. After selling we would perhaps start a proper business in which we would try to make some more money to fully secure our finances past 40. My parents wanted me to become a doctor because our whole extended family are doctors as well but it takes years and it is a strenuous lifestyle with all the work hours. What are your thoughts and advice ? By the way my parents are fully paying for my college and accommodation + I'm a Canadian.

Is it just me or does everyone have a spare £20k these days or know people who do?

I want friends.

I believe in manifestation so I don’t force anything, but I also know I need to put myself out there.

I have the traits of such an ambitious person but can’t seem to find anyone who’s like minded.

I don’t shut myself off from the world but I never seem to cross paths with people who are likeminded.

I educate myself in; markets, investing, business, I read, but I feel unless you want to put your whole life on blast for the internet there’s no other way of making money.

I want someone who can genuinely change my life and I can genuinely change there’s.

Me and my friends are dabbling in the idea of starting a clothing brand, just wanted input on exactly how to do that. We tend to see lots of people designing stuff online first then getting manufacturers to send testers but am not sure how to find these things. Any and all tips/ advice would be greatly appreciated