r/Entrepreneurs

As part of the program my first week goal is customer discovery and validating real demand for the product. They said not to talk to friends and family because their responses could be biased as they want to help and support me. Makes sense, but my startup is a street parking discovery app, think of it like Waze but for parking.

So how does this actually work for me? Am I supposed to stand on the street and walk up to strangers as they get in or out of their cars, hang around car parks or DM people on social media?

Lost on the format here. How did you do your first customer interview especially for a consumer product?

Basically what the title says. I’m working with a massive fill dirt site. The land is ready, and we’ve got a local trucking company completely locked in to dig and haul it the second we get the green light. Everything is ready to go, we just need more buyers.

​If you were sitting on this much dirt, how would you go about finding big commercial jobs or developers who need it? What’s the best way to get our name out there to the right people?

Been in the peptide space for a while now and honestly I’ve realized the hardest part isn’t getting good product — it’s finding a buyer, it’s hard to advertise and walking around in the gym and “networking” only gets you so far. However going online without getting buried by payment processors, ads getting flagged, etc.

I already move product locally and have a solid customer base. Everything I carry is tested/certified and I’ve spent a lot of time filtering through garbage suppliers to find stuff I’m actually comfortable injecting myself. Margins are good, repeat customers are good, so I know the demand is there.
Now I’m trying to take things online properly instead of doing everything manually through DMs and texting.
Main things I’m trying to figure out: • website setup • payment processing • advertising without instantly getting nuked • scaling traffic
I know a lot of people in this “niche” keep everything super private (understandably), but I’d genuinely appreciate hearing from people that have already built something online in this space. Doesn’t even have to be huge. I’d be down to work with someone too if that’s what’ll take.
Would rather learn from people actually doing it than random YouTube “gurus.”

If anyone has experience with scaling peptide/ecom businesses, supplier relationships, payment solutions, or even just building a proper online presence in a grey-area niche, I’d appreciate any advice.

I’ve been running a successful boutique marketing agency for five years, but the demand for automation is shifting our focus. We want to pivot into enterprise AI consulting, helping our existing corporate clients automate their internal workflows.

The problem is that while we understand the strategy, the technical implementation of secure, private AI environments is a huge leap for us. We need a technical partner who can handle the heavy lifting of the build while we handle the client relationships. Does anyone know a team that operates as a white-label technical arm?

Curious to hear from other entrepreneurs, what ended up being the most underrated investment in your business?

She runs a four-person flower shop. Her entire post-sale follow-up system was a notebook.

The problem: customers would order for a wedding or event, love the flowers, then never come back — not because they were unhappy, just because nothing reminded them to.

I set up an automated email sequence on an open-source workflow tool. It pulls anniversary and birthday dates from her client list and sends personalized reminders before each one. The logic is maybe 20 minutes of actual work. The other 40 minutes I spent cleaning up her spreadsheet.

Three months later she’s attributing $18k in repeat orders to it.

I still don’t fully believe it. But her books don’t lie.

Hi everyone, I'm a Product Engineer with ~10 year of exp., this year I decided to start my own SaaS, here are the main things I'd do differently moving forward:

1. Research the niche and competitors before launch.

I launched with AdaptlyPost, a social media scheduling tool, the most cliche tool imaginable, with competition that is impossible to win, outbid, or outrank. How did I make $670 with that? Open Claw hype, I created a skill at the right time, and it brought hundreds of signups, and decent sales + translating my page to different languages, I rank for some of the keywords internationally

2. Don't focus on hype

I launched ClawOneClick as an instance deployer for OpenClaw in February, as everything was about OpenClaw at the time - result. A ton of devops work, hardening of the instances, and an absolute nightmare in customer support talking to non tech-savvy people, why their chat doesn't do what they want. And guess what - very high churn, the hype is over - people move on.

3. Don't waste your time on X

X is so saturated with founders promoting their product, and fake launches, the frank truth - nobody cares about your product, and nobody wants to hear your story until you've actually achieved anything, posting about product updates - won't get you any audience, and 100% not the customers.

4. Focus on making money, not optimizing the costs.

I re-wrote multiple parts of my websites many times. $50 bill on Vercel -> move to cloudflare. $2 a day bill on Cloudflare -> re-write marketing pages to static SSG. My biggest cost right now is my backend, already was thinking of moving from Fly to VPS, but decided that enough, swallow the cost for convenience, not worth it, spend money to make money.

5.Focus on SEO and organic first, not the Ads.

My initial instinct was Ads first, SEO for me was this thing about title and the meta tags right? No, it's much more than that. Keywords, SERPs. I jumped straight into ads, and immediately realized, ROI is not there, I don't know my ICP, I don't know my LTV, I'm guessing what keywords to target, instead of relying on data.

How do I apply what I learned?

ClawOneClick - is a lost cause for me, it sits currently on ~$130 MRR, it's obviously only downhill from here, just maintaining it. AdaptlyPost - against all odds is slowly growing by around ~$50/m, and is right now at ~$300 MRR, very low churn, and very low customer support effort, I don't see how I can grow it organically, probably, so maintaining the project Flowsery - my newest project, Google Analytics Alternative. I picked a freemium model, so right now no revenue, but ~30 signups. Very competitive niche, however I was able to find plenty of keywords, during my SERPs analysis.

The latest project is a child of my mistakes #1 and #3, it was born as a saving cost for the analytics, but I'm actively working and improving it, since I use it every single day.

Are you having a hard time finding your first or next freelance client right now?

If you are, I have a suggestion for you to monetise your spare time while you still don't have a client at this moment.

Read it here. ⬇️

What You Should Do While You Still Don't Have Any Freelance Clients Yet?

The thing was like $35 and honestly pretty average. Out of curiosity I reverse image searched it and found basically the exact same product on Alibaba for a fraction of the price. Then I started noticing the same item everywhere, TikTok Shop, Etsy, random Shopify stores, all using slightly different branding but clearly coming from the same supplier.
So I started watching factory tours, reading sourcing threads on Reddit, looking into how small ecommerce brands actually operate. What surprised me most was how many people in that space are already using AI tools now for supplier research and product sourcing. I kept seeing people mention tools like Acciowork, so I tried it myself one night just messing around with product ideas. Honestly, that was the moment things started feeling weirdly real. Being able to type in a vague product concept and instantly see suppliers, MOQ ranges, shipping estimates, similar products, etc. made the whole import business world feel way less gatekept than I always assumed it was.
I still haven't done anything with it yet. But it's kind of crazy realizing how accessible this stuff has become. A month ago I knew nothing about sourcing. Now I catch myself thinking about margins, factories, packaging, and whether I should literally fly to China at some point just to understand how this whole ecosystem works.

Melbourne. 29. Quit my in-house brand marketing job at a CPG company 4 months ago. Went solo. Posted here 4 weeks ago when i had 2 clients and $5,800 AUD/mo. Wanted to give an honest update. What is now. 4 months in. 4 active retainer clients. ~$11,400 AUD/mo revenue. ~$840 AUD/mo expenses. Net ~$10,500 AUD/mo. Comparable to what i was making in-house but with 30 hours a week of work instead of 50. What is harder than i expected. The loneliness. I went from 30 colleagues in an office to me and my laptop in a co-working space twice a week. The work is fine. The loneliness is not work-related. It is identity-related. I miss being on a team with people who know my background and where i fit. I have not solved this. Considering joining a local marketers community group in the next month. The pricing conversations. In-house i never had to negotiate my own rate. The company set my salary. Solo i have to defend my rate 1-2 times per quarter to new prospects who want a "founder discount." I am getting better at it but it remains uncomfortable. The administrative load. Quarterly tax payments, invoicing chase-ups, contract reviews, ABN renewals. About 6 hours a month i did not have to do as an employee. What is easier than i expected. The work itself. I produce better marketing strategy than i did as an employee. I think this is because i now own the entire client relationship instead of being one input into a 12-person marketing team's decisions. The schedule. I drop my partner at the train station every morning. I take walks at 2pm when my brain wants to. I am at the gym 4x a week instead of 1x. The fear. I was terrified for 6 weeks before quitting that i would fail. I was terrified for 4 weeks after quitting that i would fail. By month 3 the fear had become curiosity. By month 4 it has become impatience to grow this thing faster. What i would tell other people considering the jump. The first 90 days are the hardest. After that, the question changes from "will this work" to "how big will this be." Different question. Better question.

Where to look for small business loans as a newer company is the question I keep running into and most articles assume you've been operating 3+ years.

8 months in, decent monthly revenue around $18k, no missed payments, credit profile clean but light. Bank quoted me 2 years minimum operating history just to consider an application. SBA 7(a) wants similar plus tax returns I don't have yet.

Where are newer companies actually getting funded? Specifically interested in lenders with shorter time in business requirements. Need around $40k for inventory ahead of a busy season. Open to revenue based financing or anything that works on bank statements rather than tax returns. Anyone funded a sub 1 year business recently and what was the experience?

run a small hiking tour operation in Denver. two guides, a handful of niche summer trails, solid reviews. thought we had something unique until i realized the market turns into a race to the bottom the second peak season hits.

put up a new summer hiking tour last month. great route, local guides who actually know the mountains, capped groups for safety and a better experience. priced it at $120 per person thinking quality would stand out. bookings. zero. meanwhile another operator drops theirs to $89 with a limited time summer deal slapped on it and they are fully booked. mine just sits there untouched.

i tried matching the price. got a couple bookings, but margins basically disappeared. guides still need to get paid, permits and insurance aren't cheap, and it feels like most travelers just see tours as interchangeable.

what actually makes someone choose your tour over 50 similar ones during summer? is it just price, or is there something that actually cuts through?

starting to feel like i should pivot to selling cold drinks at trailheads instead😅

his name is gary. found him on a local facebook group in november. he'd posted looking for work. 54, certified, 28 years experience, laid off when his previous employer closed.

the post had three responses. all from people wishing him luck. nobody offering work.

i called him mostly because i felt for the guy. we met at a costa in stockport. he showed up in a pressed shirt, ten minutes early, with a printed copy of his certifications in a clear folder.

he started the next week. first day he rewired a consumer unit in about half the time i'd budgeted for it. the client called me that evening to say "that electrician is the most professional tradesman who has ever been in my house."

seven months later he's my lead on every job. clients request him specifically. he mentors the younger lads on site without being asked. he shows up at 7:45 every morning and i have never once had to follow up on anything he's said he would do.

he told me over a coffee last month that the eight months of unemployment nearly broke him. that he'd started to think his age was the problem and nobody would hire him again.

the hiring market is obsessed with young and hungry. gary is neither young nor particularly hungry in the way startup culture means it. he is steady and thorough and experienced and completely reliable and those qualities are worth more than every 23-year-old hustler combined.

i got lucky. he got unlucky. the luck ran in both directions the day i called.

he said "the businesses that last are the ones that are easy to be a customer of."

i was sixteen and thought business was about innovation and disruption and being the smartest person in the room. his dry cleaning shop in croydon seemed small and unambitious and i wanted to do something that mattered.

his shop lasted 31 years. he retired in 2022 with enough money to never worry again. not wealthy. comfortable.

the businesses i see struggling, including mine for the first two years, are the ones that are complicated to be a customer of. confusing pricing. slow responses. processes that prioritize the business over the buyer. friction everywhere disguised as professionalism.

the businesses i see winning are the ones where buying feels easy, paying feels painless, and getting help when something goes wrong feels natural rather than adversarial.

my dad never read a business book. he answered the phone on the first ring, charged fair prices, and remembered peoples names. his business was easy to be a customer of. that was the whole strategy. 31 years.

im still trying to make my business as easy to be a customer of as his dry cleaning shop was. im not there yet. but at least i stopped thinking the advice was stupid.

This is for all business people who have reached the target that they wanted or have achieved success in their own terms.

I would like to know that what was the turning point, the light bulb, or the epiphany moment during the struggles and the process of getting there.

Would love your experiences that would help struggling business owners and inspire them to continue since I believe those who fail are those who quit

been running a small renovation company in west yorkshire for about two and a half years. three-man crew. we do kitchens, bathrooms, some extensions. decent work, nothing flashy. close rate on quotes was hovering around 22 percent which felt low but i didnt know what good looked like.

met a plumber named dean at a builders merchant in shipley. he's been solo for nineteen years. asked him what his close rate was. he said about 65 percent. i asked how. he said "i stopped emailing quotes and started delivering them in person."

i thought he was joking. he wasnt.

he drives to the customers house, sits at their kitchen table, walks through the quote line by line, and answers questions on the spot. takes about twenty minutes. he said the close rate went from "about where yours is" to 65 in the first three months after he made the switch.

his logic was simple. an emailed quote gets compared on price because price is the only thing you can compare in a PDF. a quote delivered in person gets compared on trust because the person is sitting across from you and they can see you know what youre talking about. "they're not buying the quote. they're buying whether they'd be comfortable with me in their house for three weeks."

tried it for two months. drove to every quote. sat at the table. walked through it. our close rate went from 22 to 41 percent. the jobs we won were bigger because the conversation naturally surfaced things the customer wanted but hadnt mentioned in the initial brief.

its slower. costs petrol and time. but the maths works out dramatically in favour of showing up.

dean charges more than me and wins more than me. the difference isnt his plumbing. its his presence.

Lately I’ve realized the most interesting part of startups isn’t the product itself — it’s the problem behind it.

Some people are solving things they personally struggled with for years.
Some are fixing tiny annoying workflows nobody talks about.
Some are rebuilding industries because they got tired of how broken things feel.

Honestly, I find those stories more interesting than funding announcements or growth screenshots.

So I’d love to ask:

What are you building right now, and what made you start working on it?

Not just the product —
the actual frustration, moment, or experience behind it.

I’m thinking about writing a few founder/blog features around interesting problems people are trying to solve, especially smaller indie projects that usually don’t get much attention.

Would genuinely love to read what people here are working on.

we do fifteen minute standups every morning. have done since we started. whats done, whats next, any blockers. simple.

tuesday morning three weeks ago he started talking about his update and referenced a feature we had killed four months ago. not vaguely. specifically. described work he was supposedly doing on something that no longer exists in the product.

i didnt say anything in the moment. just let him finish. then after the call i went back through his commits for the previous two weeks. three total. all minor. maybe six hours of actual work across fourteen days.

checked his calendar. twelve meetings in those two weeks with people i didnt recognize. titles like "exploratory call" and "intro chat." pulled one of the names into linkedin. founder of a startup in a space adjacent to ours.

hes interviewing. or consulting. or starting something. i dont know which. but hes not here. hasnt been for at least a month based on the output. and the standup where he forgot what were building was the moment it became undeniable.

havent confronted him yet. still deciding what i want the outcome to be. but the loneliness of realizing your partner left without telling you is a very specific kind of quiet. the standups keep happening. he keeps showing up. the gap between presence and commitment is apparently invisible to the person who created it.