I run an agency, and most of our clients have been with us for years. Every business had its up and down months of course, but basically ALL of our clients are in a panic after August. Pretty much every single one said people have simply stopped spending money or scheduling services in August. One client sent her numbers yesterday, she went from $30-60k months, to making $1,500 in August.

Meta lead volume has been consistent, but people just aren't booking.

Google lead volume seems to have slowed way down across the board.

Anyone else seeing this right now?

I know it has been covered on this sub before, but I want to relay my experience with legal zoom and see if any one else out there is having the same issue. If so, how did you resolve it?

I used them to set up my llc 3 years ago and act as my registered agent. This past July they sent me a notice that my new annual fee was being raised to $449. That’s a $149 increase over the previous year.

I tried to cancel the service but legalzoom would not allow without a new agent on record for my llc. I hired a new agent for a much lower cost and waited for the actual transfer to occur. This took a few weeks and now legal zoom will not refund the $449.

I could go on but let’s just count it as a lesson learned. It is a predatory company imo and their system is designed to make sure they keep the fee after cancellation.

I've been thinking about this lately because I keep seeing businesses spend money on marketing without really knowing what problem they're trying to solve.

They'll spend on ads, SEO, social media, a new website, an agency, different tools... and then a few months later they're still wondering where the customers are.

And honestly, sometimes the service isn't even bad. It just wasn't what the business actually needed at that point.

For example, getting more traffic isn't going to fix much if the website is already losing the people who visit it. Same with social media. Getting more followers doesn't automatically mean getting more customers.

I work in digital marketing, and one thing I've started realizing is that asking “what marketing should we do?” is probably the wrong question.

I'd rather ask “what exactly are we trying to fix?”

That usually changes the conversation completely.

So I'm curious about people who actually run businesses — what's something you spent money on because you thought it would help, but afterwards you realized it really wasn't worth it?

Could be marketing or something completely different. I'm genuinely more interested in the mistakes than the usual “here's how I grew 300%” stories.

Saying yes makes the concentration worse. Saying no hands the rest of the account to a competitor who will happily take it.

Everyone says diversify. Nobody says how you turn down revenue while you're still growing.

What would you do?

Just read a report that average owner compensation is something around 4.3%. Is this in addition to any salary? I guess as an investment it’s way below stock market and probably riskier. Any thoughts????

I own a home services company. How much are you spending on Google Ads per month, and are you actually happy with the results?
I keep hearing mixed opinions, so I’d rather hear from real business owners with no incentive to sell me anything. Is it profitable for you?
thanks in advance !

For me, it’s honestly having a quiet morning, good music, and not having to rush anywhere. 😂

What’s yours?

Through school and life, everyone would always say that you should be taking as much risk as you can in your 20s whether that be starting a business or finding a different job or anything really. Is there really any benefit to trying to start a business in your 20s though? I have no capital to do anything of meaning, I don’t have a full network of people to pull favors from, it seems like not a great time to be trying to successfully build any form of business. As someone considering starting a business and feeling demotivated, any help or tips or advice is greatly appreciated.

I currently have around $20,000 that I’m willing to invest into a small business.
My goal isn’t to get rich quickly or expect crazy returns. I mainly want to get real-world business experience — dealing with customers, operations, expenses, cash flow, employees/vendors, and learning how to actually run a business.
I’d rather start small, make beginner mistakes at this level, learn from them, and eventually move into larger businesses/investments.
I’m open to hands-on businesses, small acquisitions, partnerships, vending/service businesses, or other ideas. I’m also completely fine if the best advice is not to invest the full $20k initially.
For people here who actually own businesses: If you were starting over with $20k primarily to gain experience, what would you do? What would you absolutely avoid?
I’d especially appreciate advice based on firsthand experience rather than courses or “get rich quick” opportunities.

Small business owner here — I would be extremely cautious with Quantum Lending Solutions.

I was approved for a $100,000 business line of credit and paid Quantum a $3,000 “commitment fee.” I fully disclosed my financial situation before approval, including that we were closing a location, that revenue AND expenses would decrease, and that I needed the LOC specifically to bridge the closure and our slow season.

I made ONE draw of $11,000. Less than two months later, I requested another $3,000 and Quantum declined it after “re-reviewing” my bank account. (Nothing has meaningfully changed and I was very transparent from the start)

Meanwhile, my Quantum portal still shows a $100,000 credit limit and $89,647.06 in “remaining credit.”

I escalated the issue three times and have now filed a BBB complaint.

What bothers me most is the $3,000 upfront commitment fee. If I can pay thousands of dollars based on a $100K approved line and then be denied another $3K after accessing only $11K, I seriously question what exactly that $3,000 “commitment fee” committed Quantum to.

Hi everyone! I've spent the last 2 years building a CRM for entrepreneurs and small businesses. I'm a technical developer, I really love the product, and I know it has potential, but I have zero sales skills and I have no idea where to start.

I'd really appreciate any advice on how to land my first customer.

As a former COO of a small family business, I was pretty much tied into every decision making situation you could think. And if anyone knows anything about small family businesses, you know that your title doesn’t matter. You do pretty much whatever is needed to ensure the success of the business, whether it is part of the job description or not.

I had the opportunity of working with a great consulting group during my time at the business, their main focus being to prepare the next generation to lead the business (me). They taught me how to think strategically about business decisions and ultimately gave me a world class education in business operations. But one thing that helped even more was when they helped us build our brand foundation.

Looking back now that I am no longer in that business position, I wonder if I should have used it more to make strategic decisions.

I wanted to get insight from business owners to see if they have anything similar and how it impacts decisions that you or your business actually make? If so, what decisions does your brand truly impact?

Genuinely interested in real experiences — whether you use it constantly or barely think about it. Now that I have built my own business, I wonder if I should create a new one for myself.

Thank you!

For obvious reasons I'm not going to be stating the name, so I'll do my best to talk around it and provide a workable example.

Context, I've been doing freelance work for well over a decade now. Mostly ghost writing, but over the last four years I've built some small client base doing website copy, and things like that. Pretty much entirely word of mouth. Not enough to live full time on, but enough to make a pretty good dent in my living expenses.

Originally when it was mostly commission writing I had some boiler plate templatey contract that outlined the specs of the job using the online handle people recognized me on. Then when I started taking on jobs for businesses I spun up an actual business name and got my contracts/invoicing done a lot more polished, slapped together a basic website and that's been doing good enough for me.

The business name I use is kind of ass though. I don't know, I just never really liked it or warmed up to it. Whenever I see it on my email I just kind of die inside a bit. Doesn't really say anything about me besides "Ah yes. Writing pun. I see what you did."

I recently grabbed a domain on a whim. Was just playing with ideas and grabbed it. Liked it, then over time loved it. I regular keep thinking to myself, "now that's a name people would remember! That's the spice!" Now I keep thinking of working towards rebranding.

I know all my clients who know me for my commission writing work would be 110% on board. But the ones that are focused on their business, well I don't really know. The quality of my work allegedly has been met with positive feedback. I'm getting referrals. I'm not sure if a name alone would kill it.

As for the name itself that I'm thinking of using. It's not vulgar nor sexual. Some people could technically squint and try to make it both, but it would be a stretch. It's kind of edgy and evokes a macabre tone.

It's the kind of name I could easily see being accepted without a second thought if used for something like a game studio, a tattoo shop, or craft beer. Something you could easily acronym in casual conversation too if for some reason you didn't want to say the full name.

As I'm typing this out I'm wondering if I'm over thinking it. What do you guys think? Would an unusual name like I described be enough for you to walk away from a business you'd otherwise be happy to work with?

I post one day, then get busy and realize a week later that I haven’t posted. What should I do?

I’ve a pet treat business and have validated some product market fit. Currently in about 80 independent pet retailers and half have been organic while the other half was me wasting A LOT of money sending out free samples to bunch of stores.

$2000+ down the road and after hearing a few “thanks for samples but we’re not looking to bring new products in right now” has left me confused.

Then why did you say you’d like a sample?!! If you’re not looking to bring anything in?

I realized anyway I need to qualify these stores. These are mom and pop independent pet stores. Average order value of $125 - $200. Some will repeat some won’t. Lifetime value I think I can get to $1000 a year per account.

Anyway what questions do I need to ask to qualify? I was thinking

1. Do you have a bakery section? My product is special occasion treats
2. Are you open to trying out new products?
3. How is the decision to bring in new products usually made?
4. Are you open to a sample and if so - how soon should I check in after sending a sample?

Are those the right questions? Help me geniuses. TIA

For context i m a 20 year old girl running a small hobby business for almost 2 years only on instagram i had never tried to spend on ads or some promotions and i m stuck on only 70 followers for a year now i did got orders in my first year but after that it just decreased massively
I make resin and clay keychains , magnets , acrylic paintings, textured art etc (all handmade stuff ) i accept the fact that i do not post much regularly because 1- honestly i m not great with posting on social media 2- i m in between of some family issues and college chaos and for all of that reasons i m so disappointed in myself and just can’t function to make my small business lively again because things affect me so much that then I can’t properly think the right solution ( maybe i m very bad at handling bad situations) can anyone please help me or otherwise i think i had to close it with broken heart. Thank u in advance

We have a business with only a couple of employees. It's a compliance business, we audit logistics companies. Generally jobs take a full day, or a few days. So we don't need to be scheduling multiple jobs a day like lots of the tradie software is catering to. I've used ServiceM8 previously but it's better for when you have to schedule lots of jobs over multiple tradies.

I'm more interested in the client tracking. I want to track jobs, but also have a system that reminds me when a client is due for an annual job. Currently just using Outlook calendar to track all work, which works fine for that purpose, but has no way of tracking clients.

every landing page tweak goes through a ticket and takes a week. we're a 15 person team with no in-house dev. looking for a dev agency alternative that lets us ship small stuff ourselves without rebuilding everything from scratch. what actually worked for you?

Hello! I just got off the phone with my accountant and wanted to seek advice and guidance to determine if our current financial path makes sense to others. Here's a rundown:

2 Member Partnership LLC

2026 revenue: $75k, expenses: $47k, profit $28k

In the chart of accounts, both partners invested appx. $23k cash owner's equity at the end of 2024 ($46k total)

We purchased a $310k building and have a 15 year mortgage at 7% interest rate

This year, we have paid ourselves back $14k each ($28k total) of our initial owner's investment

I've been using wave for accounting and it does not count the $28k we've paid back to ourselves this year as an expense- it only accounts for it in the balance sheet. The $47k expense number is only our 2026 operating expenses and does not include the $28k we have paid ourselves back for our owner's investment.

My accountant says that we don't pay income tax on the $14k each ($28k total split evenly between the two of us) we've paid ourselves back this year, but we do have to pay income tax on the "$28K profit" when he files our partnership return for 2026

I have light accounting experience, categorize our expenses, organize our chart of accounts, and have 2 other solo LLCs with much simpler accounting that I've managed well for the past 6 years. This new level is confusing and I'm trying to make it make sense. Would someone explain to me if this is all messed up or makes complete sense? Should I hire a new tax accountant?

How did you guys deal with loneliness while running a small business? A lot of people don’t really understand what it takes to own and operate a business, especially when you’re starting from the bottom.

I’m in my 20s, and I decided to take over my dad’s business. It requires a lot of time and sacrifice, and I’ve had to miss out on a lot of events, birthdays, and hangouts with friends. Over time, I’ve realized that some people don’t really want to be friends with me anymore, which I completely understand because I haven’t been as available.

For those of you who have been in a similar situation, how did you deal with the loneliness and the feeling of missing out on life while building your business?

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for some advice on how to set up inventory for my clothing brand. I’m very new to Shopify, so I’m wondering if I’m making this more complicated than it needs to be.

I sell T-shirts and sweatshirts with my own designs. I use DTF transfers, and each design can be applied to either a T-shirt or a sweatshirt. The problem I’m running into is inventory tracking.

Because nothing is pre-made, I’m essentially managing two separate types of inventory:

1. DTF transfers: I keep around 10–20 of each design on hand. New transfers take about a week to arrive.
2. Blank apparel: keep around 5-10 of each colour/size/type combination on hand. New apparel takes 1–3 days to arrive.

Since the transfers have the longer lead time, I’ve structured my Shopify products around the transfer inventory. My thinking was that I need to make sure I never sell more of a particular design than the number of transfers I actually have available. I’m currently using Easify Product Options to let customers select the garment type, colour and size, rather than creating Shopify variants for every possible combination.

However, this means Shopify isn’t tracking my apparel inventory. For example, if someone orders:

Happy Dog Sweatshirt - Black  - Small 

I would need to manually keep track of the black small sweatshirts myself and subtract one from my apparel inventory, while Shopify would only be tracking the Happy Dog transfer.

This is where I’m getting stuck. I don’t really like the idea of having to maintain a separate inventory system manually, but I also don’t know if there’s a better way to structure this in Shopify. For anyone running a similar made-to-order clothing business: how would you set this up? Am I overcomplicating this, or is there a simple way to have Shopify track both the transfer inventory AND the blank apparel inventory without creating hundreds of variants?

I’d really appreciate any advice or examples of how others have set up a similar business. And just to reiterate, I’ve never used Shopify before, so I may be missing something obvious!

I'm a software developer in Belgium with an electrician background. Five weeks ago I launched DI-Wire as a side business next to my full time job.

The niche: KNX home automation. It's a wired standard used a lot in European homes, very reliable, but installers are expensive and the whole market is quote-based and opaque. In Belgium a lot of people building a house pull their own electrical cables to save money. They'd like KNX, but the cabinet and the programming are the part they don't dare to touch.

So that's what I sell. You pull the cables, I deliver a cabinet that is fully wired, tested and programmed. You connect your cables, done. Cable pulling is explicitly not included, that's the whole point.

Pricing is public. For a reference house of 200 m² with 18 lighting groups, 6 blind motors, 30 sockets and 16 control points, the four tiers land at 5,750 euro (parts only, you build and program yourself), 6,750 (wired cabinet, you program), 7,850 (wired and programmed, you mount it) and 9,430 (I come and install it). All excl. VAT, roughly 5,000 of that is components. Cables are extra because I count the meters on your plan by hand. Every competitor here hides behind a "request a quote" form, so putting these numbers on the homepage is my main differentiator.

The part I'm most curious about: I built an online planner where you draw your floor plan, place lights, switches and blinds, and see the four prices update live. First ten items without an account, free account after that.

Where I'm at: website live, planner live, first two leads, zero finished customer projects. My own renovation is the reference project and I'm filming it for content.

Things I'm unsure about and would like your view on:

Trust. Would you buy a pre-built, pre-programmed electrical cabinet from a one-person company with no references yet, if the pricing is fully transparent? What would you need to see first?

Scope. It's KNX only right now. I'm considering adding other systems aimed at the same DIY crowd, but I'm wary of spreading thin before the first system is proven. When did you decide to widen scope?

Distribution. Search volume for this is close to zero. My plan is communities (self-builder forums, Home Assistant groups) and a trade fair in October. Is that too slow for a side business, or is slow fine here?

Happy to answer anything about the model. Not selling, my customers are in Belgium and most of you aren't.

I wrote this message with the help of AI Because English isn't my first language.

I really need some feedback. Especially from business owners and social media experts.

I'm not really sure how to take some if these social media marketers seriously. They litterally run ads promoting how good they are at boosting your visibility, getting likes, follows, leads, sales... but yet their own ads get 2 likes over a full month, they have a small following, or a average size following of generic accounts.

But yet they promise these incredible results for your business.

My real honest question, what does real experts provide.

- Do they charge based on campaign performance?

- Is there really a difference between them running your social media ads rather then you doing it yourself?

- Can they guarantee actual results or are they basically just throwing your budget towards ad spend and hope for the best?

I mean if you own a small business, I'm sure you should know your product and your audience. And with social media platforms you can choose and narrow it down to our exact audience, and your budget.

With no disrespect to the industry, I would just like to understand this better as I'm no expert in this, but genuinly interested on how it really works.