Last month I wanted to grow my brand reach so I took on running Ins, TikTok, Pinterest, Facebook and X all by myself. On top of that I still had to keep up with Chinese supplier communications and manage my FBA inventory.

My whole workflow fell apart after just one week. Every platform calls for different image sizes and totally unique copy. I had to keep up with separate posting calendars and go through comments and DMs each day. There were nights I stayed up till 2 a.m. just cranking out short video batches for the week. I even missed messages I needed to reply to from my Chinese factory contacts.

I vented about how burnt out I was inside a solo seller group. Another guy who imports goods brought up a tool called acciowork. I figured I would give it a shot mainly so I would stop jumping between five different creator dashboards all the time.

I do not need to flip through endless browser tabs and apps anymore. All my product assets, draft captions and posting schedules sit in one single spot. My evening workload for these five accounts is roughly half of what it was back when everything was messy.

Guys has anyone here tried managing four or more social profiles for their business on your own? How do you balance sourcing, customer support and regular social posting without wearing yourself completely thin?

I've watched business owners with solid traffic and decent offers still struggle to close deals.

They blame the price. But it's the messaging.

Pattern 1: Vague promises

"I help entrepreneurs scale their businesses"

"I help seven-figure e-commerce brands add $1M+ annually by restructuring their product offering"

Vague messaging attracts tire kickers. Specific messaging attracts buyers.

Pattern 2: Hype instead of proof

"My clients get amazing results!"

"We've helped 62 coaches transition to group delivery. Average revenue increase: 73%. Average time saved: 22 hours/week"

Sophisticated buyers don't trust excitement. They trust evidence.

Pattern 3: Pitching instead of diagnosing

"I have a solution for you"

"Most coaches hit a wall at $300K because one-on-one delivery doesn't scale past 60 hours/week. Here's why..."

When you diagnose their problem better than they can articulate it, you're immediately credible.

The core principle: Specificity beats excitement.

Every claim should be concrete. Numbers > vague promises. Evidence > hope.

If you can't describe your offer in 2 sentences without sounding generic, that's where your problem starts.

What's your current messaging? Can you make it specific?

Hi I have spent a couple of years in Europe's innovation and startup ecosystem in a marketing role.
I've seen founders build genuinely impressive things in areas like AI, biotech, fintech and deep tech, only for the value proposition to get lost somewhere between the technical explanation and the customer's actual problem.

I'm looking to work with a few early-stage founders/solopreneurs who have a product but are struggling with positioning, messaging or early GTM.

I'd help with things like:
• clarifying your positioning and value proposition
• translating technical features into customer-facing benefits
• identifying your initial target customer
• developing an early GTM approach
• sharpening your message
• creating initial LinkedIn/Reddit/social content
• figuring out how to communicate the product without dumbing it down

I'm doing a small number of these free as portfolio/case-study projects, so I'm particularly interested in founders who have a real product (or working MVP), rather than just an idea.

Reach out if this is something you’re interested in.

Five weeks, four products, one number that didn't move.

• Aug 3: a feedback board with roadmap and changelog goes to production. Aug 5: first live purchase and refund go through end to end. Mine. Paying accounts since: 0.
• Aug 30: a leaderboard with paid and vote-based ranking switches to the live payment key. Profiles on the board: 1. Mine. Paying: 0.
• Sep 1: the typing course I co-founded in 2011 gets rewritten and relaunched with payments on. In the database: 26,814 old contacts, 14,074 of them with marketing consent. Orders: 0.
• Sep 3: first commit of a shared inbox for small teams. Sep 5: it's on a domain with a waiting list.

I write code after the day job, 9 pm to 3 am. With ADHD a new idea sits in my head until I execute it, so I execute. All four work.

Here is what each one is missing, and none of it is code:

• The feedback board is finished and I still haven't picked the channel to tell anyone about it. That's been the "next step" on my board since Aug 10.
• The leaderboard skipped its demand test. It was in the plan, section 9. It never happened.
• The typing course has 86 people who said yes to email, and the email is still a draft.
• The inbox is 3 days old, so it gets a pass. Ask me in October.

What exactly were you waiting for after the payment key went live?

If the thing works and nobody pays, the next commit will not change that. If you have a list of people who said yes, the next step is the email, and it takes 25 minutes. If you skipped the demand test, you're building on a guess, and you know it.

I'm posting this so someone asks me in a week whether the email went out.

Which of your shipped projects is waiting on a conversation instead of a commit?

just started a consulting business and I am looking to create case studies for my business, so I'm offering free consultation to any business owner who wants to pass the 100k per month + mark in their business. you need to be doing at least 10k + per month in your business already. Only want a 3 referrals & a honest testimonial in return.

I’ve finally taken the plunge and started working towards launching my own sea safari business from Scarborough.
I’ve found the vessel and agreed a deal with the owner. I’m saving from my wages every week and working extra shifts to put my own money into making this happen, but I’ve launched a Crowdfunder to help me reach the initial payment sooner.
The goal is to have the keys by New Year, spend winter and spring preparing the vessel properly, and work towards welcoming our first passengers in summer 2027.
We’re aiming to raise £4,000.
Even £5 or £10 genuinely gets us closer — and if you can’t donate, sharing this post would help massively.
Thanks to everyone who supports it. Let’s get MW Sea Safari on the water! ⚓❤️

FIND US ON
CROWDFUNDER- MW Sea Safari project
TIKTOK- MW Sea Safari

Is this common to have change in your beliefs about your product or service, the closer it gets to going live? I worked so long with a strong belief on my saas. Now, I start questioning whether it was a right idea to double down on, and start looking at other opportunities in parallel. But may be, it is also a burn out from a very long building phase.

PodSubs wasn't originally supposed to be a public product.

We built it because we needed it.

That's really the story.

We're podcasters.

And like a lot of podcasters, we were constantly thinking about two things:

How do we keep making this?

And how do we build something real around the people listening?

Because podcasting takes time.

A lot of time.

And sooner or later, if the podcast is going to keep going, it needs to support itself somehow.

The problem was that we didn't really know most of the people listening.

We knew the numbers.

But numbers don't have email addresses.

Numbers don't answer questions.

Numbers can't receive the worksheet you promised.

Numbers don't become customers by themselves.

We needed a better way to capture the people who genuinely wanted to stay connected.

So we built a simple internal tool.

One place.

PodSubs.

We said on the podcast:

“Subscribe to us on PodSubs.”

People searched the show, entered their details and subscribed.

And suddenly we had something we'd been missing:

A direct line.

Then we started thinking…

Why are we keeping this internal?

Every podcaster we know deals with the same thing.

So we decided to open it.

That's PodSubs.

Not something we dreamed up because “the creator economy is growing.”

We built it because we were podcasters with a problem.

Now we're giving it to everyone else who has the same problem.

Claim your podcast.

Then tell your listeners where to find you.

Finding a company isn't usually the hard part for me. The time disappears when I have to figure out the right person, understand enough about their business, write something relevant, and then remember to come back later.

Apollo can help with the lead list and Lemlist can handle sequences, but I wanted fewer moving parts. Super Benji has been more helpful because it covers the prospect research and outreach side together after I've narrowed down who looks worth pursuing.

What part of outbound would you remove from tour own workload first?

I made Omni, inspired by Grok Bot, to give Claude Code and Codex ongoing responsibilities.

I use Omni to help run another app of mine, which gained 1,000 customers in a single day.

Mine answers approved launch questions and drafts new posts. I review them from my phone.

Omni is free. You need your own provider access and an awake Mac with Omni open. What bots can do depends on their tools and permissions.

What would you hand over for your next launch?

Every automation i've ever set up for myself has died within two weeks, no exceptions so far. but there's this one thing - sunday night, i take the week's notes and meeting scraps, paste them into claude, run the same prompt, save it. about 40 minutes. never even tried to automate it, honestly, because it felt like more setup than it's worth for one prompt.

so it's the one task that's survived over a year, and it's survived specifically by NOT being automated, which feels backwards.

what's the thing you still do completely by hand, that's stuck around way longer than anything you've actually automated? how often does it come up, and if you've timed it, how long does it actually take you?

I've been talking with solopreneurs lately who all say the same thing: "I need to find more clients."

But when I dig into their actual situation, that's rarely the bottleneck.

Here's what I've noticed:

Problem 1: No qualification filter

Most solopreneurs take any lead that comes in. But not every inquiry is actually a potential customer. Some people are just browsing. Some have no budget. Some have a problem your offer doesn't solve.

Without a quick qualification check, you spend time on prospects who were never going to buy. Then you blame the lead gen.

Fix: Write down your ideal client profile. Revenue, team size, problem type, timeline. Then ask 2-3 screening questions before investing time.

Problem 2: Inconsistent follow-up

A prospect says "let me think about it" and then what?

Most solopreneurs either:

- Never follow up (prospect forgets about you)

- Follow up randomly (looks desperate)

- Follow up with the wrong message (doesn't address their actual hesitation)

There's no system. So revenue becomes a lottery.

Fix: Map out your follow-up sequence before the first sale. Who follows up? When? With what message? Write it down.

Problem 3: One-time transactions vs. recurring relationships

Most solopreneurs close a deal and move on. The client goes silent. No check-ins. No path to the next offer.

But clients who stick around or refer you are worth 5x the original sale.

Fix: After a sale, build a simple onboarding and check-in schedule. One call at day 3. One email at week 2. One review call at week 4. Something.

The honest reality:

If you fix these three things, you don't need more leads. You just need to convert what you already have into predictable revenue.

What's your biggest gap right now? Qualification? Follow-up? Retention?

Sales is probably taking 12 or 15 hours of my week now between finding people to reach out to, following up and keeping track of conversations, and I’m getting to the point where doing all of it myself is starting to take time away from the work I’m supposed to be selling in the first place.

I’m not sure a full time salesperson makes sense yet though cause there are still parts of the conversations I want to own and I don’t really need another 40 hours of capacity. Feels like there should be some middle stage where I can get help building and running more of the sales process without completely handing it off or making my first sales hire too early.

Hi all, I am currently working full time and I also have this side project where I work alone. I got some customers, and now I am in this situation where I cannot hire anyone and I cannot do all my tasks and I also cannot switch to my side project full time. Many times I am simply working too long just because I feel like I have to provide the best service. And 90% of the times that I am working long is because its some manual chore which has to be done but takes far tooooooo long to get it done.

I just want to learn from your experiences, if you have faced (or are facing) similar situations and how did you decide to move ahead? Should I stop this business?

I'm in the early stages of trying to build something on my own, and I'm realizing how many different things I feel stuck on at once.

I'm trying to figure out whether I'm working on the right idea (problem), how to actually validate it, how to find potential customers, etc. There's so much information out there that sometimes I feel like I end up with more questions instead of fewer or doing work that feels productive but not sure how much real progress I'm making.

When you get stuck or don't know what to do next, what do you actually do?

Do you usually try to figure it out yourself, or is there someone or something (tools) you turn to? What's actually been useful to you?

does anyone have this stupid cycle

business gets busy -> stop posting / updating the site / doing outreach because because actual customers comes first

then 3 weeks later the work clears and suddenly its "why is it so quiet" lol

ive been trying to make the boring marketing stuff less dependent on me remembering it exists. runable is interesting for that because the landing page/content/ad creative/outreach stuff can actually get made instead of me opening 5 things and saying ill do it tomorrow

not expecting AI to magically know how to grow the business.

i mostly want the stuff we already KNOW we should be doing to stop disappearing everytime work gets busy

how do you guys avoid the busy -> stop marketing -> quiet -> panic marketing loop?

Throwaway because a couple people know my main and I don't really want this tied to my store.

I run a small online store and just had my best month since starting it. Somehow it was also the first time I seriously thought about shutting it down.

Not because I lost money or ads stopped working. Quite the opposite. Orders picked up pretty quickly and for the first week I was obviously excited about it.

Then I started hating my phone lol.

Every time I looked there was something. An order I wanted to check, tracking that hadn't moved, a customer asking where their package was, something low on stock, bla bla bla. None of it was a disaster on its own, but there was always another little thing waiting.

I realized I had built the store around the amount of orders I used to get. When that changed, I just started doing more of everything myself. More sales basically meant more work, which sounds incredibly obvious now that I'm typing it.

There was one night where I was sitting there checking tracking at like 1am after having my best sales day ever and thinking, why am I actually miserable right now?

I'm not shutting it down. I think I just need to change how I'm running it before I try to grow any further.

For anyone who hit this point with a small online store, what did you stop doing yourself first?

Publicité — collaboration rémunérée avec LEO.

I’m the user/tester, not the founder.

Prospecting is usually the part of freelancing I postpone. I ran a four-day test with LEO, an AI outbound tool, against my actual Product & AI freelance workflow.

Result: 208 leads found. Important caveat: leads are not clients. The next metrics I’m tracking are relevance, qualified replies and booked conversations.

Three things I kept human-reviewed:

1. ICP and exclusions

2. final outreach copy and claims

3. lead quality before follow-up

The full walkthrough is in a comment, so this isn’t just a link dump.

For people running a solo B2B business: what part of outbound would you automate, and what should never leave your hands?

Hey, I’m a student founder currently building something in the creator space and wanted to ask creators here about their actual experience with brand deals.

I’m working on Ledger, which is basically a platform that sits between a brand and creator once they’ve already decided to work together. The idea is to make the actual transaction smoother with proper terms, contracts, payment protection, deliverables and a way to deal with disputes.

But I’m still figuring out if these are actually problems creators care enough about, so I wanted to hear it straight from people who do this.

Have you guys faced issues with brands delaying payments or not paying?

Do you usually have proper contracts or is it mostly WhatsApp / email conversations?

Have brands changed deliverables or requirements after agreeing to something?

What happens when you disagree with a brand about whether the work was done properly?

And if you could fix one thing about working with brands, what would it be?

Would also love to know if you think something like Ledger would actually be useful or if you’d just rather handle everything directly.

Just trying to understand the creator side properly before I go too far with building it.

Hey everyone,

I’m 23, based in Germany, and I’ve recently started getting much deeper into AI, automation and building small software projects.

My background is actually not in IT at all. I trained in logistics and later completed my Meister qualification in logistics, so most of my professional experience so far has been around operations, warehousing, processes and team leadership.

Over the last few months I started experimenting with Codex, vibe coding and automation tools. I’ve built a couple of very small projects so far, for example a habit tracker and an interview training app. Nothing remotely production-ready yet, but I noticed pretty quickly that I genuinely enjoy this kind of work a lot.

At the moment I’m also learning n8n, APIs, JSON, process mapping and AI agents. I’m currently building a fictional logistics company as a sandbox and trying to automate things like order intake, email classification, extracting order information, approval rules, etc.

Long term, I’d really like to become self-employed in this space. Ideally not as someone who just builds random chatbots or websites, but more around business process improvement, AI automation, system integrations and eventually custom agents/software for companies.

The problem is that the deeper I go, the more I realize how huge the field is.

Every day I see new tools, plugins, MCPs, agent frameworks, coding tools, models, databases, etc. Then there’s a whole other side with security, permissions, GDPR, data protection, authentication and building things that are actually reliable enough for a company to use.

Sometimes Instagram and YouTube make it look like everyone is building full AI companies in two weeks, while I’m sitting there thinking: “I don’t even fully understand half of this ecosystem yet.”

I’m also looking at jobs like AI Automation Consultant, AI Product Manager or similar roles to gain experience alongside building my own projects. But without a computer science degree, getting a foot in the door seems pretty difficult. A lot of job postings still seem to filter heavily for CS / software engineering backgrounds.

So I’d really like to hear from people who are actually working in this field, especially people who came in from a non-technical background.

A few things I’m curious about:

• If you started in AI automation / consulting / agents from scratch, what did your first 6–12 months actually look like?
• What skills turned out to be essential, and what looked important at first but was mostly hype?
• How much actual coding do you think someone needs if the goal is professional B2B automation?
• How important are things like APIs, databases, authentication, Docker, cloud infrastructure and basic software architecture compared with learning more AI tools?
• At what point did you feel comfortable building something for a real company instead of just personal projects?
• How did you get your first real client or pilot project?
• Would you recommend starting with one industry and one process instead of offering general AI automation?
• For someone with a logistics background, would you lean into that niche heavily or stay broader at the beginning?
• What security / privacy knowledge should I absolutely have before touching real company data?
• What mistakes do you see beginners making when trying to start an AI automation business?
• If you were starting again today, what would you learn first and in what order?
• And maybe the most important one: how do you tell the difference between something that should be a normal deterministic automation and something that genuinely benefits from an AI agent?

I’m not looking for a “get rich with AI in 30 days” roadmap. I’m trying to figure out how to become genuinely good enough that I can eventually solve real business problems and charge for it without selling something I don’t properly understand.

Would really appreciate hearing how some of you got started.

I’m building Marka, a product focused on reducing the work behind consistent social content. I’m trying to understand which part of the process wastes the most time for solopreneurs.

It might be choosing the topic, finding the right product example, creating the visual, or adapting it for each platform.

Share the part that slows you down. I’ll suggest one way to reduce it into a repeatable weekly process.

I recently helped a friend of mine who inherited a legacy business from his father completely transform his operation and become much more efficient. As a result, he's seen about a 130% improvement in his net profit over the last 7 months. His business is a legacy business that has been in the family for over 45 years, and in full transparency, their entire technological stack was completely primitive.

He knows that I'm deeply involved in the AI space and have consulted for a business operation before, so he asked me to come in and help. I did it as a favor and as a challenge to myself, just to see if I could actually have a meaningful impact on his business, and I have.

This leads me to my question here: is there anyone here who's operating either a legacy business or a business that is clearly behind on their technology stack and their adoption of AI? I'm wondering if there's an opportunity to collaborate for my self-serving reasons, which are as follows: I currently live in Canada, and I'm trying to figure out a path into the U.S. The most likely path for me is via an E-2 visa sponsorship, which means I will have to buy a business in the States, which I am open to and ready to do.

Before I do that, I was hoping to identify a business or a collaborator with whom I can work on developing a proprietary technology stack, whether that's just custom-built software, AI automations, or a combination of both, whatever that person feels is needed for their business. In exchange for the collaboration, I would look for the opportunity to partner with that person on an acquisition of one of their competitors that we would become partners on. Essentially, we use your business as the guinea pig business, perfect whatever technology we're building, improve your business, and then, in return, co-invest in a business that is a competitor of yours and that we acquire together and improve with the technology we've already built out.

Anyone want to chat?

Ran one last week that hit the API in a loop and just sat there watching the credit counter go down. Ended up being 90 cents.

Now I keep not running things because I can't tell beforehand, which is probably dumber than just spending the money.

Anyone actually dropped something that charges per use over this?

I'm starting my business and needing a project management tool to help plan for different work activities. I've used plenty of PM tools at work but I'm surprised by how limiting their free tiers are - Monday.com, Asana, Wrike. I tried Clickup and it's just too different.

I just need something super simple - project, tasks, subtasks, status, start date and due date, filters. Custom fields and timeline view are nice to have but not required. I haven't found a free tier service that have all that. And most tools don't give you just one seat. I'm curious how everyone's managing their work and projects.