r/Entrepreneurship

I want to start a staffing company. Currently, my biggest enemy is the telephone.

I’ve been seriously looking into starting a staffing company focused on helping high school and college students get into safe, entry-level work.

On paper, I understand the business model. Find employers with a hiring problem, build a pool of dependable workers, make the match, and earn a margin for solving that problem.

I’ve started calling local businesses just to validate the idea before I dump money into forming the company,
insurance, licensing, software, etc.

I’m trying to figure out whether businesses actually have a problem I could solve before building an entire company around my assumption that they do.

My problem is that I don’t really know how these early conversations should sound.
I don’t want to call and immediately say, “Hi, would you like to use my staffing company?” because I don’t even know what their staffing problems are yet. But when I try to make it conversational, I sometimes get lost halfway through the call.

So, staffing agency owners, recruiters, business owners who use staffing agencies, or anyone who has actually done B2B cold calling:

How did you get your first few clients?
More specifically:
What did you actually say when calling businesses?
Who inside the company did you try to reach?
Did you sell staffing immediately, or start by asking about their hiring problems?
What made employers actually give you the time of day when you had no track record?
How did you validate your niche before fully committing to it?
What did you completely misunderstand about the staffing business when you started?

And if you were starting from zero again, what would you do differently during your first 30 days?
I’m not looking for a “get rich with a staffing agency” blueprint. I’m trying to figure out whether I’m standing at the normal…

Feel free to tell me I’m doing it wrong. That’s partially why I’m posting.

From young I’ve been interested in starting a business but at that sort of age, capital is low, you’re not as educated as a lot of the competition and it can be quite intimidating starting which leaves a lot of people just procrastinating. I’m putting together a website/app that allows people to simulate a business running role play, with real market data, real challenges and educational points along the way meaning they can learn about starting a business by making mistakes with no risk attached. I personally would’ve loved this years ago before I began my journey so let me know what you guys think of the idea and if you’re interested I could send you the demo for it.

Hi! I’m a woman and through out the years I have accumulated vast knowledge of beauty, procedures, self-care. Basically, I mastered the craft of becoming attractive again and again. I was rather unattractive and also I had three kids but every time I went back into my form. What would you do if you were me? I really want to help women who have no idea how to take care of themselves, how to improve but where do I start? I commented on several subreddits and got some private messages from girls about how to improve, so there’s definitely a need. But again, I have no idea where to start and what to do and how to do. TikTok? Instagram? YouTube, twitter? It’s all a bit overwhelming and I am mostly using Reddit and twitter and occasionally watch YouTube.

i am currently building an agency focused on web development, automations etc.
now the question is how much would you pay for a business website with 4-6 pages?
for example:

home
about us
services
portfolio
faq
contact

lets say its a modern, responsive website with good design, fast loading and basic seo.
what would you personally pay for something like this?
500€?
1000€?
2000€?
3000€+?

just interested in what people would actually pay for it

Quick intro since I've been lurking/posting bits and pieces without context.

I'm building Hero Industries solo, no co-founder, no funding, still a 3rd-year IT student. Right now I'm juggling a CRM (just got my first real user feedback this week, brutal and useful), an invoicing tool for Indian SMEs, and a couple of smaller experiments on the side.

Most days it's equal parts exciting and completely overwhelming shipping fast alone means you're the founder, the support team, and the one debugging at midnight, all at once.

Not here to pitch anything specific just wanted to actually introduce myself instead of only showing up to ask for feedback on one product. Happy to answer anything about building solo, staying sane while juggling this with college, or how I'm approaching distribution with zero audience.

What's the hardest part of building solo for you all technical, distribution, or just staying sane?

Hello everyone,
I am currently 17 years old and entering my final year of high school. Next year, I will therefore have to choose what path to follow, and I would like to avoid committing myself to a path simply because it seems to be the logical continuation of what I have done up until now.

To give a bit of context: I come from the fashion world and I am currently doing a vocational baccalaureate in sewing and garment production.
For a long time, I considered pursuing this direction professionally. But after a lot of reflection and several discussions with people who are more experienced than me, I realized something important: today, I create above all to externalize my emotions, my ideas, and my personal vision.
My artistic work has become something very intimate, a form of catharsis, and it is not based on the expectations of a client or a market.
For this reason, I increasingly think that I do not want to depend financially on my art. I want to continue creating, probably for my entire life, but without being forced to turn this process into a profitable product.

At the same time, there is another field that has attracted me for a long time: entrepreneurship.
When I was around 14, I launched a small clothing brand based around skate culture. I made around €1,000 in revenue before stopping it, mainly because I was very young and I managed the whole logistics side rather poorly.

At that time, my relationship with clothing was also different: it was mainly a passion and a field for experimentation, not yet the personal means of expression that it has become today.

Since then, I have tried several small projects. Some worked a little, others not at all, but I have always enjoyed looking for opportunities, building something from scratch, and trying to understand why an idea works or does not work.

Today, I would therefore like to use this year to seriously think about this path rather than choosing my studies by default.
I mainly have a few questions for those of you who have created businesses or who have more experience than I do:

What advice do you wish you had received when you were 17 or 18 and were starting to take a serious interest in entrepreneurship?

What mistakes should I particularly avoid at my age?
What books have genuinely taught you how to identify good problems to solve or good business opportunities, rather than simply “motivating” you to become an entrepreneur?

Would you advise me to start experimenting with small projects right now rather than trying to immediately find “the big idea”?

Regarding my studies: with a vocational baccalaureate in sewing and garment production, what kinds of programs would you recommend I look into if I want to develop stronger skills in business, entrepreneurship, marketing, finance, or management?

I am not necessarily looking for a recipe for success or to become an entrepreneur overnight. Above all, I am trying to understand how to use the next few years intelligently to learn, experiment, and give myself solid foundations.

Thank you very much to those who take the time to share their experience.

Would love to hear from you based on your experience.
Reply with the number of the sentiment that's true for you.
**Public Relations** :

1. Totally worth it!
2. Waste of money and effort.
3. Don't mind it if it is free.

Hi all! I’m new here.

After a long tenured career in enterprise sales, I’m excited to start my business. Long story short, I have a technical partner who has been looking for an operations/execution cofounder for some time. I never had the bandwidth to get involved before, but now I do and am truly excited about the idea. He recently got his first paying client which verifies value and is expecting to close on another client next week after securing a verbal. Those two clients aren’t in the direct industry we plan to cater to, but it’s adjacent, and will be a great way to start bringing in monthly revenue and get case studies. The first is a friend and the second is the friends referral.

We’ve identified our ICP, their pain points our service will address, worked out our packaging tiers, and I plan to hit the phones on Monday.

I’m really excited to begin selling for myself rather than someone else…but also a little nervous. It’s been a long time since I’ve pounded out phone calls to SMBs. I’m encouraged that my technical founder has one paying client already, with a second on deck… as I feel that’s a testament to the value we can offer. We have another warm conversation with an old friend in our network to see if we can help them as well.

Would love to hear some success stories from others who’ve been in my shoes. Any major learnings from the early days or advice- I’d love to hear it! TIA!

I'm about to launch my business in the coming months. Quitting my employment where I am the top performer and pretty much putting myself on the entrepreneurship journey. The decision-making didn't come easy. But there were many factors that led to this:

- Career development. I was one of those that worked hard and did everything right. But the goal post kept moving in my company. To the point that I am burnt out and I feel like its not worth my time and energy anymore. They wont promote me because if I leave my position, they dont have anyone in the team who can do what I do. And apparently, I am already paid more than my colleagues. Not on base but because of the bonuses. It doesnt make sense because I only really get the bonus based on performance. I feel like they make it sound like its my problem because I outperform. But I had to work hard, I have a child to feed and bills to pay.

- Politics. Totally unavoidable but being female and a mother, this was harder to navigate than I thought. I have 20 something female coworkers who attend every single drinking night with the bosses or are available for weekends. But me? Not that I get work life balance but I have a kid. I have to parent. Instead of being out with the bosses, I am at home cooking dinner, teaching my kid how to read, write and count.

- Financial. From January to present, I have closed 15 deals. My target per year is 12. The rest of the team closed 2 to 3. But the money of course, didnt go to me. It went to the owner of the company which is of course natural. But I thought I work hard. Im not bad in the job. If I work just as hard for myself then maybe, just maybe, I might be able to afford my own time to be present.

I feel like I'm living in a very interesting life stage at 38yo. I want to be present. I wanna succeed in my career but i also want to be a good parent.

I'm old enough to have a solid job experience and have enough network and reputation in my market. I'm also still young to be able to quit and if it doesnt work out, go back in the workforce. But what I am running out of is mental, physical and emotional energy working in the current corporate climate. Tell me I'm not the only one who is tired of the corporate bullshit.

I don't think I will regret quitting. But I think what I regret the most is that it took this level of burn out to make a decision to quit.

If you started your own business, what was your reason and was it worth it in the end? Given the chance to redo things, would you make the same decision?

So for context I’m 21m, I’ve fair amount of experience in Analytics, Marketing, and tads and bits of Finance.
I recently started a agency with my girlfriend (21f)who did a influencer marketing internship from a agency (which i helped her land coz she didn’t have skills).
Now the thing is we both saw a potential in influencer marketing and decided to start a agency. We have a agreement and are 50/50 partners in it.
Everything good until we actually started. Then i came to know how lazy she is and has no knowledge about marketing at all. I feel like I’m carrying the whole Internal and External affairs of the business all by myself coz she literally knows nothing nor has any zeal to do anything. I do the Sales, Creatives, Negotiations, client handling, legal and documentation, customer experience and literally everything. I gave her time to learn to get to the level but she doesn’t seem to work hard at all. She wakes up all night for no reason doing no work and then boom sleeps till 1-2pm everyday. I wake up feeling so drained as i generally sleep at 5am after doing all the work and wakes up at 10-11am max. I just feel like I’m stuck with a bad partner. Everytime i say her to do something she blames me saying i don’t acknowledge what she does but she does nothing. I’m genuinely tired, and being a Bipolar which she knows has a reason to tell me I’m the reason coz somedays i feel low and i expect someone to atleast do a part of work i do. Idk i feel so hopeless and stuck at this point. Having bad panic attacks at night as I’ve put all the money myself and if i back out only I’ll lose everything, my time, my efforts and my money.

I've been trying to build a business for almost a year now, but I still haven't made any revenue. Lately, I've been stuck in a cycle of self-doubt, wondering if I should just give up and go back to a regular salaried job.

for context, I've been trying to make money online for just about 10 months now, yet I haven't touched a single dollar in profit but I still beleive I can make it

over the past 10 months I've tried to learn, trading, ugc agencies, Etsy selling, website creation, high ticket sales, and many youtube faceless accounts. The closest thing I got to earning money was etsy since I had about 200 in revenue but -60 in profit at the time that I stopped.

My problem is that I keep getting shiny object syndrome and want to try the next "quick way to make money" and can never seem to stick to one thing.

my current project is a youtube channel in what I think to be an oversaturated niche on a dying game, even though I can see myself getting monitized in about 5 months if I compare revenue to all the other creators in the same subniche they almost all exclusively rely on memberships for money as their rpm is almost nothing, and I don't see myself making anything past 10k a month in this even in the really late stages.

This has lead me into wanting to swap niches/business models all together, another part of my problem is that I feel like time is ticking down for me as I really want to start making big money before I graduate highschool (im going into gr 12 after summer) and my dad also got laid off from his job making me feel like I have a time crunch.

I really want to figure this out which has lead me to reddit and im asking for help, I don't know what I should do and if anybody can give me advice/mentor me than I would be forever grateful.

We're in a bit of a situation right now where we have a fairly large corporation that has been using our SaaS platform for over a year, and they keep dodging meetings to pursue a commercial deal, essentially using the product for free.

Context: Over a year ago, we built an AI chat for industrial companies and were desperate to get LOIs (letters of intent) to raise money.

The deal was mutually beneficial: we got users to test the product so we could improve it, and they got an AI they could use for free. The platform has evolved A LOT since then, but they are still just using the chatbot, and they have a MASSIVE amount of documents we have processed for said chatbot.

The users from this company are using the product daily, and we have internal champions speaking highly about it to the CEO/GM, but this guy keeps dodging meetings "I don't have time", "it's too many fires to put out right now," etc.

Now we have more downside to keeping the users on the platform due to high COGS than leaving them to use it for free, and it has been a year now of free pilot.

I know that a free pilot is never a good idea, but we needed that for LOI + benefited from active users to build the platform.

Should I just put a paywall now so that the next day, when someone logs in they see "you ran out of credits"? Or should we just be patient and nag the CEO to sign the deal?

First time founder here, your help is much appreciated, thanks!

Solo, no funding, no team. Idea, code, design, but the marketing I can barely stand, all me.

I'm not after motivation. I want the practical ceiling. Is the wall revenue, hours in the day, or a specific skill you eventually can't fake your way through?

For the people who did bring someone in, did it actually break the ceiling or just add overhead and meetings?

Just started building my own product and have been facing difficulties. Would love to hear about the difficulties others have faced. Maybe how they manage it themselves.

The following are some of the difficulties I face (in the order of what I find difficult):

1. Motivation and loneliness - Working alone is great; I answer only to myself. However, keeping myself motivated at times is tough
2. Personal name and branding - being alone means you are your own brand. This is an issue if I am looking to market my product/services or seeking funding.
3. Marketing - The web is full of marketing ideas. Outside of ranking and trying the various ways out (e.g., SEO), I won't know what's best for my product.
4. Legal - outside of googling. Learning what to look out for or things to take note of is tough as a solopreneur. eg: Data Protection and management.

Lots of trial and error, but the internet and AI have really helped, though. Happy building!

Hey everyone

I have built a tool which verifies rules against evidence and help reduce inconsistencies between the plan and outcome. And self calibrates over time to produce much better results. Currently I'm using this in a b2c product but I'm looking for one or more b2b products where this tool can be used. Kindly comment if you any ideas we can work together Kindly avoid commenting AI responses if u personally know any use case that would help MOD This is not a self promotion post I'm just looking for real world use cases

Hey all. We’re ramping up ad spend on both google and meta ads and we also get a lot of SEO traffic too. But once someone fills out the demo form and gets into salesforce it’s hard to track things. The marketing team wants to know

I’m 17 and building a B2B product alone.

The first paying firm signed in June for NOK 20,000/year.

After that, another firm saw value in the product but used an accounting system I did not support. So basically I could not sell them.

Another possible firm had roughly 800 clients, but a proper demo was waiting on the same integration.

Those conversations matter, but they are not the same thing as a customer.

One signed customer is revenue.

A good sales conversation is information.

A requested integration is work, not a deal.

That distinction gets pretty important when you are the same person writing the code, doing the demos and deciding what to build next. A positive reaction can feel like progress while still being very far away from money.

The uncomfortable version of my situation was simple: one paying customer and an integration problem.

For people who have been through this stage, what do you count as real progress before revenue becomes repeatable?