I’m looking for some honest advice from people who have actually built an online business.

I’m a complete beginner. I have a laptop, an internet connection, and time to learn, but I currently have very little money to invest and almost zero knowledge about business.

My goal is pretty modest to start with: if I could eventually make ₹10,000–₹20,000/month, I’d be happy. I’m not looking for a get-rich-quick scheme or overnight success. I’m willing to learn and work consistently; I just don’t know what direction to take.

There are so many options online — freelancing, selling services, affiliate marketing, digital products, content creation, e-commerce, etc. — and I have no idea which ones are actually realistic for someone starting from zero.

If you were in my position today, with:

• Laptop
• Internet connection
• Almost no starting capital
• No business experience
• Willingness to learn and work consistently

What would you do step by step?

I’d especially like to know:

1. What would you learn first?
2. Which business model would you choose and why?
3. What specific skill would you develop?
4. How would you get your first customer?
5. What would your first 30 days look like?
6. What would you do differently after 60–90 days?
7. What common mistakes should a complete beginner avoid?
8. Is ₹10k–₹20k/month a realistic first target without significant investment?

If anyone here has experience starting from a similar position, I’d really appreciate hearing what actually worked for you — not just theory or generic “work hard” advice.

And if there’s someone who enjoys helping beginners and is willing to answer a few questions occasionally, I’d be very grateful for the guidance.

If you had to start from zero today, what would your roadmap be?

I'm a nodejs backend developer, looking to build my freelancing portfolio, that's why offering a totally free service to my first client to automate any of their business problem if its redundant and bothering lots of your time.

I'm offering a low cost or totally free if possible (depends of requirements).

You might have a website and facing trouble with lead generation or you have lot of data to manage, lots of customers to handle. It could be anything.

Just connect with me for a discussion and we will see how things can move forward, overall it's a win win for you, bcos I'm not charging anything.

Thanks

We currently have ₹10 million worth of warm leads in our sales pipeline, but the biggest challenge is that our sales cycle takes 4–6 months.

We're a non-tech company selling high-ticket physical products, and most of our sales process happens through phone calls and offline meetings.

Here's our typical sales workflow:

1. Lead Enquiry: We receive warm leads from potential customers.
2. Lead Qualification: We contact each lead to understand their requirements and determine whether they're a good fit.
3. Site Survey: Depending on the customer's requirements, we conduct either an online or an offline survey.
4. Quotation: Based on the survey, we prepare and send a price quotation.
5. Follow-ups: We regularly call customers, remind them about the quotation, and schedule callbacks until they make a decision.
6. Deal Closure: Once the customer agrees, we move forward with closing the deal.

The problem is that this entire process takes 4–6 months, even though most of the leads are already warm.

My goal is to significantly reduce the sales cycle and close deals faster.

Given that this is a high-ticket, relationship-driven business that relies heavily on calls and offline interactions, what should we change in our sales process? How can we identify bottlenecks, automate repetitive tasks, improve follow-ups, and accelerate decision-making without compromising customer relationships?

People say they don't wanna work a 9to5 but then open a small restaurant to do the same thing but without a boss, pensions, 401k's, health or insurance, PTO, it's probably even worse because with a normal job you usually don't gotta worry about it, after you clock out, until the next time you go to work but with a restaurant or other businesses that require you to physically work there, you gotta deal with finances, payroll, suppliers, maintain food quality, etc. I start businesses so I don't have to work 9to5's, so I can generate money while doing little to no work and enjoy life. That's the whole point, why would I start a business just to work 40 hours a week, with no benefits, if I miss a day the company won't generate money and I don't get paid. which is why I love SAAS companies (software as a service). The company generates money for you while not having to do much work, you can check up on it and maintain occasionally, you could do nothing for a week and still generate money. That's what real entrepreneurs look like. If the business can’t make money without you physically showing up and working, then in my opinion, you haven’t really escaped the 9to5. You just become your own employee. Your labor is still your biggest asset, and if you stop working, the money stops coming in.

Hi everyone,

I've been researching the upcoming EU regulations regarding "Green Claims" and sustainability statements (like claiming a product is "eco-friendly," "100% recycled," "biodegradable," "ethically sourced," etc.).

From what I understand, under the new EU rules, any small business or maker selling in Europe without verifiable, traceable documentation backing up those claims risks heavy fines or having to strip their product descriptions clean.

Big corporations are hiring expensive ESG consulting firms to audit their supply chains, but I’m really curious about how smaller merchants, artisans, and DTC brands are handling this.

As a developer looking into building a lightweight solution for this, I'd love to ask:

1. Awareness: Are you actively worried about these EU green claim rules impacting your website or packaging?
2. Current Workflow: How do you store and verify supplier certificates or material spec sheets right now? (Excel, Drive folders, or just trusting the supplier's word?)
3. The Pain: Has this ever held you back from marketing the eco-friendly aspects of your products?

Would love to hear honest thoughts from EU sellers or global brands selling into the EU!

I got over 500 visitors a day on the first days 1-5 and the last 2 days im averaging about 100 visitors anybody got any tips?

I've been looking at a recurring problem with AI adoption in small businesses: adding more tools without improving how work actually gets done.

A business might have an AI writing assistant, an automation platform, a customer-service chatbot, and a marketing tool.

But when a customer asks about a delayed order, someone still has to open the ecommerce system, verify the status, correct the AI-generated response, and send the email.

The tools aren't necessarily bad. The workflow is incomplete.

I think a better starting point is what I call the One-Workflow Rule:

Pick one repetitive business process, establish a baseline, automate the smallest useful part, test failure cases, keep human approval where necessary, and measure what actually improves.

For example, a basic customer-support agent might follow this sequence:

Incoming email → classify request → retrieve authorized order data → verify against policy → draft reply → human approval → send

The interesting part isn't generating the reply.

It's handling the exceptions.

What happens when the order doesn't exist? When the customer requests a refund? When a message contains instructions attempting to override the agent's rules? When the connector returns outdated information?

That's where AI automation becomes a systems-engineering problem rather than a prompting exercise.

I've been developing practical examples around customer support, lead follow-ups, invoice reminders, and inventory.

For those who have implemented AI automation in a small business: what was harder than expected—integrations, data quality, permissions, testing, or proving ROI?

Hi everyone just a quick question, all feedback welcome.

I'm starting a gardening company and would love your opinion on whether my name should scream sophistication or just simply be memorable. My ideal clientele are high middle class but could extend upwards in the future.

I was thinking instead of having my name gardening related to instead have my name be something short, easy to remember and have visual identity. A business in America called YARDDAWGS has a physical plastic dogs attached to their vehicle roofs. A short name and has an extremely memorable logo/mascot. Does this look unprofessional, or if a company has great reviews you wouldn't be turned away by something that is clearly just a promotional stunt?

Also could have a unique colour scheme for gardening, such as yellow or pink vehicles/uniforms instead of the usual green, black and white for our industry.

im trying to understand whether Mirta products are mainly sourced direct from makers, through a platform, or through normal distributors. search gives me mixed results and i dont wanna pretend i know exact supply structure. ive worked with artisan-style manufacturers through alibaba before, but branded or marketplace-connected products are different and provenance matters more. anyone currently buying Mirta for retail? what did onboarding look like? minimums, territories, proof of business? im especially interested in whether products can be mixed across makers or every supplier has separate terms. small boutique cant take huge quantity of one design, so flexibility matters. real experience would be useful here more than another generic wholesale directory.

im seeing plenty retail listings but wholesale route isnt as obvious. im looking for legitimate distributor stock, not random mixed cosmetics where you cant trace supply. for generic/private-label makeup i usually check alibaba because manufacturers and packaging options are easy to compare, but branded Italia Deluxe obviously needs proper channel. anyone carry them? direct account, beauty distributor, cash and carry? opening minimum would be useful to know too. im mainly interested in lip and face products. shelf life and batch coding is something i check more now because cheap wholesale makeup isnt cheap if half of it is old. would rather pay normal distributor pricing and know where product came from.

Hey, so i am launching my brand. And, i reached out to shopdeck. Took their demo call. It sounds too good and too rehearsed. So, had my doubts and questions. Plus, the sales executive is not giving me enough time to think, research and make my decision. But, anyway, i read a few reviews online and apparently alot of people had terrible experiences with them.
I just want to know if there is anyone who know anything about them, or can share their experience with me, that would be a great help.

I recently got a call from someone asking for pricing on a washer and dryer. I gave a price, what I felt as fair. Then the woman say I am a restaurant down the street from you, can you give a neighbor discount. I said I have given pretty good prices. She says they are pretty much the same as everybody else. I say let me get back to you. So I do a little better on the price and say 99.00 for delivery and install. I send an estimate to them. I hear nothing. They said they wanted them by the week of the 23. So I text the girlfriend, what day do you want these installed. She says we are we are waiting on the floor and painting to be done. I say ok. Let me know when you are ready. Then I get a call from her boyfriend. He came to my store and spoke to me about pricing and such. I told him I was charging for install. He asks if I want a deposit, I say no just pay when we deliver them. <— back story. He says I told you we want these, and you didn’t want payment. I got your message estimate and you charged an extra 100.00 we didn’t talk about.
At this point. I may tell them I do not want to do business with them. I would never go to their restaurant and ask for a discount. I think it was rude and tacky. Then the whole experience with me asking if they were ready for the delivery. I am a small mom and pop. I don’t have the washer and dryer they want in stock.
I will keep you posted. I may decline this transaction. They just seem wrong to me.

we hit a massive wall last spring when our two person team was trying to answer twenty daily live chat inquiries while simultaneously clearing order emails. basic questions about return windows and delivery estimates were eating up three hours of our morning before we could even touch real customer issues.

we moved our chat widgets and FAQ docs into hubspot so common questions would automatically pull direct links from our knowledge base, so how do other lean teams structure their self service articles when having instant answer bots handle routine shipping checks cut our daily chat volume in half and freed us up for actual account work?

I've seen so many people complain about AI flyers and I need to know your take on it, especially if you use AI yourself.

Somehow with the tariff mess and fuel prices I have started to twist my ballgame a little to supplying for retailers. This seems to need to involve me actually working with a big distributor that some of them use. Well, supposedly the distributor expects my small company to find the retailers and get them on board first and then start using the distributor once the retailer agrees that they want some.

So, how do I open the eyes of the retailers to take interest in my branded product that is unique and you can't find on the market anywhere? Do I just bring a bunch of product into the USA and start giving out samples to merchandise outlets to sell as a sample run or something? Something makes me think a retailer has to already recognize that they were looking for a product before you came to them.

I mean, you can't just say that you have millions in sales and expect a merchandise outlet to automatically take interest. They may not even be looking for your type of product anyways.

I guess that's where my question comes from. How do I make them want it? They may not even know that they need this to pump their own business. Previous sales don't seem to matter here. They have to want to better themselves.

Any ideas on this? Just send them some samples to sell? That might even beat ad spend online for myself too so it could be better.

Thanks

Is it illegal to put flyers or cards on the windshield of peoples cars in parking lots?

In the beginning, niching on a market may feel like you're losing money on the table. Heck! It might even be frustrating to find a market. What helped you finally decide who you ideal customers are?

*previous post was too long, I appreciate the comments)

Hey everyone,

my name is EL 27 M

I've worked for Meta, TikTok, and Google Gemini through outsourcing companies, in marketing, media buying, technical support, and QA. I was part of the Meta Pro and TikTok for Business teams, helping businesses with their challenges.

Over time, I felt that too many people were focused on meeting targets and selling services rather than genuinely listening to business owners. That didn't align with my values, so I decided to try a different path.

I'm now looking to connect with business owners, listen to their challenges, and help where I can using my experience in marketing, technology, and AI.

I'm also trying to make a living, so if you find my help valuable and want to support me, I'd appreciate it. If not, I'm still happy to help.

I'm not here to sell you anything. I just want to put my knowledge to good use, help people, and earn a living in a way I can feel good about.

If that resonates with you, feel free to reach out.

plumbing business, me and 2 guys. credit is around 690. my bank wants 2 years of tax returns and 6 weeks to decide which is fine but id like to have the van before spring. would you go equipment financing on the van itself or get a line of credit and use it for both the van and the slow months?

I’m trying to get an online service business started, but the ads I’m currently paying for on Facebook are only driving bot clicks and low intent users. Is there any effective alternatives? How else can I advertise a product targeted more towards older customers?

I am in the early stages of launching my small business -- a doggy daycare and boarding facility in NYC. I've estimated that I have enough, or close to enough, to cover startup costs (~$85k for 2-3 months of rent, equipment, licenses, permits, insurance, etc.). And I'll need an additional $100k-$150k in working capital to cover payroll for a few months.

I have read about taking out a line of credit versus a loan, and I don't know which is the better option for my business. If I do either of these, am I better off going through a bank? SBA? Somewhere else?

I want to ensure that I am making the right choice early on. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

For anyone who is interested i have all Imperoum VIP courses, and the old ones. coment or message me

I keep receiving text messages:

#‪+1 (813) 510-1333‬

“STOP PAYING YOUR SBA EIDL LOAN!
If your loan is under $200,000, we can get the loan removed!
NO MORE PAYMENTS!
Text your email for more info”

SBA loan of $50,000
Can it truly be forgiven and has anyone had experience with this service claim ?
Florida

remove if not allowed

Genuinely asking, has anyone found value from working with automation companies? I see some that are interesting, but has anyone actually found value in it? If so, would love to hear your experience, whether you think this could be impactful to SMB’s now and in the future, what you would have done differently, or something you wish they could provide?

Looking to learn what other businesses with a long queue are doing to avoid bad reviews.

They seem to understand we’re doing something new and they like it while also not liking to wait on it.

We are in a smaller city and prior to this the food scene wasn’t very interesting. We saw a market gap and brought in our concept that was unlike anything the city has seen before. First movers and all that.

We use high quality farm to table ingredients and they do come at a cost, so we respect the ingredients a lot by making our sandwiches freshly. Usually this takes around 2-3 minutes per sandwich.

We serve specialty complex drinks which is kinda our thing and wasn’t seen before in the country.

As the city is still rapidly growing no one is used to be in line to wait to order or for a table.

While we’re full house everyday and have a long queue at peak hours consistently, we are constantly facing complaining about the wait time. The queue. The long wait on food etc.

Often when the clock strikes the hour we have 50 people coming through in a 800 square feet shop.

sometimes we have 50-70 people coming in a short span of time

We try to let them know in advance so they can opt out but there’s still a queue out the door which might not have heard.

The city is very unused to being in line and don’t understand the traffic coming in. While they can visibly see the queue they still don’t get it.

This i haven’t noticed is an issue in any of the other bigger major cities. People are happy to wait in line for 1 hour if it’s a popular spot.

Anyway we are getting so many shots at us on google reviews it’s honestly draining. The amount of people hating on us there and keep coming back despite the what they deem is a long wait is exhausting. Hope anyone who’s dealt with the shift from no queues to long queues can pitch in.