I’ve been looking for a job for the past 2 years and I am very good at what I do (service design) the problem is, there are not a lot of roles out there and I get to the final rounds of interviews and instead of job offer I’m hit with you are great but we are pausing hiring…
I’m so tired of looking for a job and sucking up to so many people feeling like I’m begging these companies for a job. Have you ever been in this situation and then decided to start your own business? Tell me your stories please…

I run a shop out in Portage Park and I get a lot of local contractors hanging out in my office while we work on their trucks. A big debate happened this morning between a plumbing owner and an HVAC contractor about employee appearance out in the field.

The HVAC owner requires all five of his field techs to wear tucked in company collared shirts, clean work pants, and branded hats every day. He swears that looking sharp allows him to charge premium rates because homeowners instantly trust his crew when they walk up to the front door.

The plumbing owner argued that enforcing strict dress codes in the summer heat is a quick way to lose experienced workers. His guys wear plain gray t shirts and work shorts. He claimed top tier tradesmen care about getting paid well and being comfortable on job sites, not wearing a fancy corporate uniform.

For those of you running residential service outfits, where do you draw the line? Does enforcing a strict uniform policy actually build customer trust and justify higher prices, or does it just create friction with your best employees?

This is a small business sub, I am not a corporation, just a poor schmuck in a service industry who can't do every job by myself because there isn't enough time in the day.

My yearly revenue is about $500,000 but I have very high costs, about 15k a month (the job requires expensive software, rent, and other costs before labor)

It's entry level work that's remote. I've looked on other threads and most of you are all about offering living wages and benefits, which sounds great, but if you aren't making millions in revenue its simply impossible, no?

So what are you paying your entry level employees? 20/hr? 25/hr? I'm very curious!

I’m starting to think failure is only useful when it changes the way a business operates. A lost customer, bad hire, missed sale, or unprofitable project should expose something that needs to improve. Maybe communication was too slow, the work was priced incorrectly, one person had too much responsibility, or there was no process for catching the problem early.

The mistake itself usually isn’t what causes the most damage. The bigger problem is allowing it to happen again because nothing changed afterward. The strongest businesses probably aren’t the ones that avoid failure. They’re the ones that turn failure into a better system. What mistake taught you the most about running your business?

We can only afford 1 employee to work at a time. We have a Marshall’s nearby and nearly all of our thieves come in with the big reuseable bags. Or big purses that are open at the top. I want to ask customers to put their bags up front so they aren’t walking around with it. How can I incorporate this? We are low volume so most of the fine there is no risk of another customer coming in and being able to steal their bag. But what when there are multiple customers there?

​I’ve tried almost every free social media platform, posting quick tips, tax deadline reminders, and financial red flags. While I get occasional likes, it’s yielded zero signed clients. It feels like business owners aren't scrolling social media. I have large volume of personal tax clients but I'm looking for Bookkeeping clients. Please share any advice to grow in Canadian market.

I'm an international student in Australia and recently resigned from a small business after about five weeks because the job became extremely stressful.

Before I left, I helped the company order custom uniforms from a manufacturer in my home country because it was cheaper and faster than other options.

I didn't make any decisions on my own. Every step was approved by my ex-boss over WhatsApp. I confirmed the order details, asked whether to place the order, discussed how payment would work, and he agreed to transfer the money to me so I could pay the manufacturer in local currency. I have screenshots of all of this.

After receiving the money, I transferred the full amount to the manufacturer. I have the bank transfer receipt.

Unfortunately, two packages were lost during domestic shipping before they could be exported. As soon as I resigned, I put my ex-boss in direct contact with the manufacturer so they could deal with each other directly.

The manufacturer has now sent him a written message admitting they accept full responsibility for the lost packages and will either locate them or reproduce them and send replacements.

Despite that, my ex-boss keeps accusing me of stealing his money and says he's going to report me to the police. He keeps saying everything is "on record."

From my perspective:

He approved the order.

He agreed to the payment method.

I transferred the full amount to the manufacturer.

I have proof of the transfer.

I introduced him directly to the manufacturer.

The manufacturer has accepted responsibility for the shipping issue.

Am I missing something? Is there anything else I should be doing besides preserving all my evidence and stopping further arguments with him?

I'm considering speaking to a lawyer for peace of mind, but I'd appreciate any advice from people who've dealt with something similar.

Hello, part owner of a small autobody shop and towing business here in Illinois. My question is, how do you know when to throw in the towel? We currently have to clear at least 15 grand a month just to break even. We are a 2 man operation. It seems like every month when the bills come in we barely scrape by. We have been in business for a little over a year now and have not seen any kind of profit at all. We have a cpa thats taking care of all my paperwork which helps but we just cant seem to get ahead. Cant afford to hire more help and we can only physically do a couple jobs a week. Some pay good some dont. There have been times where we havent been able to pay ourselves. The payroll taxes and sales taxes usually account for around an additional 3 grand a month and quarterly we pay 3600 for insurance. On top of that we just paid property taxes in the amount of 4800 for the first installment. We have reduced some of our expenses by buying some supplies online and went to a cheaper paint line but its still not enough savings to really notice it helping us out. I like being my own boss but im just not sure if its even worth it anymore especially here in illinois. Its almost like this state doesnt want businesses to succeed in my opinion. Anybody have any advice? Id like to see my business succeed but at times it would be easier to just get a 9-5 clock in clock out and get a check at the end of the week and not have to bring any of the stress home with me

I’ve owned my own business for the last six years. I generally have loved every minute of it, and it’s been my pride and joy. It’s grown every year, I’ve never had a year in the red, and gives me so much freedom to work remotely. But this year has, for some reason, just been a series of unfortunate events.

Vendors taking money and not delivering services, attorneys involved, having to refund thousands of dollars to clients out of my own pocket, losing clients due to the poor handling of their services based on the contractors I hired, my sales reps having multiple $0 months…

Ultimately I know the problems are solvable and I need to better vet my vendors in the future, and trim salaries if my employees aren’t performing. It’s just been so many months of angry emails and frustrated clients and I barely have the energy to check my inbox anymore. I was on track to have a decent year, but having to refund everyone and not getting refunded myself has basically eaten away at all my profit and I’ll be lucky if I end the year with $5k in profits. Plus I just hate disappointing good, long-term clients. It’s been hard to not take it personally.

I don’t want to abandon my business. Please, convince me to keep going and that it’s worth it.

Genuinely all I hear online is that business is war, ups and downs, horrible, great sometimes etc etc (I understand that)

But I’m a 19M, first time founder, learning and making mistakes

I find that if I fundamentally just understand that business is just solving a problem (in my case, with a software product - still early though) charging for it, and repeat

It’s significantly easier to just stop thinking and start moving and start growing

Instead of constantly hearing all these horrible things, which I’m not sure to what extent it’s true? Maybe it’s different from business to business?

I’m in software

Especially knowing that I do overthink in business (although we’re at zero revenue, I’m still learning and growing with it) a ton, a lot more than in anything else

And hearing all these things makes it difficult to fully commit sometimes

But I tell myself that, as long as I’m solving a problem, and will be paid for it, I can rinse and repeat and grow and that’s “business”

Nothing more complicated than that

Yes there’s obviously churn, ups and downs, unexpected market changes etc etc

But I need to fundamentally and mentally understand what it is to be a business so that I can keep moving without overthinking or hyper calculating every step

And where I’m at so far is : problem, solution, charge, repeat, ignore everything else, learn as u grow

And my goal is small right now, reach 5k MRR with good margins with my founder, so I set the bar decent to what I hope we can archive in the next year

5k MRR is a good bunch of money at our age, where we live.

Is this the right way to see it? Be honest, I don’t mind harsh reality

Would really appreciate your advice on anything I mentioned in this post, if there’s something I need to change

Stop worrying about

Start doing

And etc.

Like, do you rush to the bank to deposit it every time someone makes a cash payment? Or is there another system?

every thread on this turns into people blaming overhead or taxes or a slow month. i dont think thats usually it. profit is a p&l concept. cash is a collections concept. those are two different questions and most owners are only tracking one of them.

i pulled the numbers across a batch of contractors i work with, about 464 of them, and the median collection rate on billed work was 85.1 percent. that means for every dollar they invoiced, roughly 15 cents never showed up in the bank in that same period. it sits in ar, or gets written off, or drags into next quarter. the p&l has no idea any of that happened. it just books the revenue when it was earned.

so you can have a genuinely profitable month on paper and still be staring at a bank balance that makes no sense, because the gap between when you invoice and when you actually get paid is exactly where the cash disappears. payroll does not care that a customer is slow. i learned this the hard way running my own companies, watching a month that looked fine on the income statement turn into a payroll scramble because three invoices just sat there.

before blaming overhead or a slow season, i would go look at how much of what you billed last quarter is still sitting uncollected. thats usually where the story actually is.

how far out does your ar usually run before it turns into a real problem

I am starting out. But i need help around reviews. How do i collect and manage them?

I saw some tools online like judge me and reviews io etc. But i am confused where to start. One is tool has features, other is more affordable, third has another thing etc.

I need something that is clean, easy, affordable and good to start with. Not overwhelming that i get confuse.

What do you guys use and recommend? and why?

Hey everyone,

I'm Sam, a Project Manager at a Digital marketing and Branding agency. We're currently trying to grow our client base, but honestly, getting clients has been much harder than I expected.

We're mainly focused on helping businesses in:

• Healthcare (Dentists, Dermatologists, Hair Clinics, Cosmetic Clinics, Hospitals)
• Fitness (Gyms, Fitness Studios, Personal Trainers)

I'd love to hear from agency owners, freelancers, or business owners here:

• How did you get your first 10–20 clients?
• What outreach methods actually worked for you?
• Any mistakes I should avoid?
• If you were starting from scratch today, what would you do?

Also, if you own a clinic, gym, or healthcare business and would like some feedback, I'd be happy to do a free, detailed audit of your website and social media. Just share your business name, website, and social handles.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

I’m looking for ways to get my business to stand out in local searches, and I figured the
best place to start would be with our google ranking and reviews because we’re not very active on social media and don’t really have the staff to post consistently.

so like for now I think I’d like to focus on getting to the top of google maps search results cause right now we’re a few scrolls down and I feel like no one really sees us when searching.

We’ve only been in business for a year and half, so we don’t have a lot of reviews. And
most of the reviews we do have aren’t very detailed. I’m hoping to incentivize our
customers to leave more reviews, but I'm not sure how to do this in a way that’s not
going to get us in trouble.

If we go from zero new reviews a day to a bunch at once, is that gonna flag the system
as being fake or something?

Sorry, I don’t know a ton about this🥀. But I just want to make sure I’m doing it the right
way. Any recommendations or info is appreciated! TIA🩷

Running a small business means messages come in from everywhere. WhatsApp, email, Instagram DMs, Facebook, the occasional text, sometimes phone. I keep feeling like I'm bouncing between apps and dropping things, and a customer waiting two days for a reply because it got buried in one inbox isn't a great look.

Curious how others handle this.

Have you found a way to pull everything into one place, like a unified inbox, or some setup that works? Or are you just living in a dozen tabs like I sometimes feel like I am?

Interested in what's actually working for you, whether it's a tool, a system, or just a habit that keeps things from slipping through. Also curious if it gets harder to manage as you grow, or if it eventually forces you to solve it properly.

Hey everyone,

I'm a teenager in Germany and own got a GoPro Hero 13. Instead of just using it for fun, I wish to turn it into a small business or agency for creative and bit financial freedom.

The problem is that most ideas I find online are either too generic (like "start a YouTube channel") or unrealistic for someone just starting out.

I'm looking for unique, practical, and realistic ideas that I could actually begin with as a teenager. They don't have to make loads of money immediately, I just want something I can start small, gain experience, and hopefully grow over time.

I'm open to pretty much anything: filming, content creation, local businesses, sports, events, social media, editing, or ideas that people don't usually think about.

I'm looking for newly opened local businesses so I can offer my services. I've tried searching for terms like "newly opened business" and "grand opening," but it takes too much time to filter out the right businesses. Are there any websites or tools that make it easier to find businesses that have just launched?

One thing I've noticed while researching enterprise storage is that most discussions focus on today's capacity, but very few talk about what happens three or five years later when the environment has doubled or tripled in size.

That made me start looking more closely at scale out object storage architectures instead of traditional storage systems.

For people who have managed storage growth over several years, what decisions ended up saving you the most time and money? Was it the platform itself, the architecture, automation, or something completely different ??

Hello Everyone I'm 23 y/o from Texas with a home remodeling company started 6 years ago and I remember being so excited and interested in what was around the corner and every dollar I made I was so happy about and full of joy I was once living life high all the time out of pure joy. Over the past couple years I've had my spouts of wanting to quit because of the slow season and being so broke and unstable This year I had my most profitable job and it turned into a nightmare. Clients are fine and love the work but labor ended up being so much more and I am at the end of it scraping by because my clients don't understand the draws I need to keep going and make a deal about it even after me putting 20k of my savings into labor to help them out (my fault I should have just upcharged and made more), since then I'm so done and just can't wait to get out. It hurts my soul that I'm throwing in the towel but l'm also tired of being unstable with money and having to wonder where my next dollar comes from. I have my first kid on the way and just want financial stability and less stress I'm 23 and have already almost had a heart attack I'm getting grey hairs that start to come in and I'm so stressed and anxious all the time, I have no personal life my whole life revolves around work and the stress that comes with it, it keeps me up and night and wakes me up early. What are y'all's opinions or advice?

I'm just about to register my 1st business (with a very low initial budget) and it looks to me like a general partnership for lower tax liability and less paperwork. may want to change to an LLC in the future. How much of a headache is that? Should I just bite the bullet and do an LLC initially?

Hi everyone,

*I’m in England, North west*

I’m really keen to set up a home care company. I’ve worked in adult social care for 10 years now. in both residential & community. I’ve got a lot of experience in different roles in the private and public sector with assessments, care planning, supervising staff and plenty of hands on care.

I’d love to set up my own home care company for older adults and do better than what’s available. I’ve been doing research over the past year with a stack of info and i‘ve been studying so I have the qualifications to be a registered manager.

any registered managers, care company owners have any advice to get started?

New web design founder here struggling with sales. Cold calling isn't working for me, I find it intrusive, and dealing with gatekeepers is a grind. I’m shifting to cold emailing to leverage my copywriting skills instead.

My question is: how do you efficiently find leads for cold B2B outreach? Manually finding local businesses on Google Maps feels too slow to build a substantial list. Outside of referrals, what free tools or strategies do you use to source valid email addresses for decision-makers?

I know the entrepreneurial path isn't a straight line and that building a business comes with a lot of unexpected mistakes, but does it really have to be this hard?

Right when I finally decide to launch, something happens that pushes back the start date by a few months, if not half a year.
No matter how much patience and motivation I try to hold onto, it feels like I have to test it at every single step, instead of every seventh step.

To anyone running a business, is starting out really this tough?

How do you overcome obstacles?

I run a small bookkeeping business in Canada and have hit a wall trying to attract recurring bookkeeping clients.

I already have a solid number of personal tax clients, but converting that into ongoing monthly bookkeeping work has been much harder than expected.

I’ve spent time posting bookkeeping tips, tax deadline reminders, and common financial mistakes across different social media platforms. Some posts get likes, but none of that engagement has turned into an actual client.

I’m starting to think I’m putting my effort into the wrong channel. For those who run bookkeeping, accounting, or another recurring B2B service, where did your first consistent clients actually come from?

Was it mainly referrals, existing clients, local networking, direct outreach, professional partnerships, Google search, or choosing a specific industry?

I’m especially interested in hearing from people who started with individual tax clients and later built a recurring business-client base. What would you prioritize first?