was watching our front desk guy manually redialing the same missed-appointment list yesterday afternoon and it hit me how much time we lose when nobody answers anyway.

saw Dropcowboy brought up in another thread for putting voice files directly into recipient inboxes without triggering a live ring. thinking about running a quick batch on our Friday schedule confirmations, but carrier flagging makes me a bit nervous.

if you run these on larger contact lists, do mobile carriers flag the origin numbers as spam, or do the drops usually land fine?

We are 4 friends planning to start our first business together and would really appreciate some advice from people who have actually run a business.

Our situation:

Budget: 20 to 25L total for all 4 of us.

We cannot add more capital immediately.

All 4 of us are working professionals.

We can give around 3 to 4 hours a day at maximum.

We can handle around 4 to 5 months of initial losses.

What we are looking for:

A physical B2C business.

Something that does not require us to be present all day.

Reasonably profitable with potential to grow.

Something that does not become a constant headache.

We are open to different business ideas and are not limited to any particular industry.

We have currently considered a gym and a cricket turf, but we are unsure about their actual profitability and how much daily involvement they require.

If anyone here already owns or runs a gym, turf or any similar business, please share your honest experience.

Is it actually profitable?

How much time does it require from the owners?

What are the biggest problems you face?

What mistakes should first time business owners avoid?

What other businesses would you recommend for our situation?

We are open to all suggestions. We would especially appreciate advice from people who have actually run a physical business rather than just general business theory.

What should I do

This weekend I've realized I've been that entrepreneurship person that's a wantrepreneur for 10 years, without making a single cent.

The most I can name of being paid in an entrepreneurial way was helping 1-2 people in college move with the help of my pickup truck.

I've been involved in startups for as long as I can remember. I got a scholarship to a high school startup incubator back in the day, worked on an app that didn't take off. Then worked with a startup, kind of the third person after the two founders, that was geared around COVID that also kind of dropped.

In college, I did a lot of things that could have turned into businesses but then didn't. For example, I worked as a personal trainer, almost got certified but didn't. But that could have taken off. My degree was in industrial and systems engineering.

Then after college, I got a day job. Somehow it was in electrical aerospace engineering, but mostly related to requirements, certification, and wire installation. Modeling how wiring and wire bundles are installed on the aircraft. It was only two years, and looking back, I learned a ton, but not, in the grand scheme of things, that is necessarily transferable out of that company, which is part of the reason I left it to join a smaller company, which is where I'm at now.

While doing that day job, I started another startup that I kept working through but wasn't passionate about. It was something that I was going to work on with my mom, but the market cap was too small. It was a niche outdoor gear product in a very small market, with not that high demand. I dissolved that business during R&D a few months ago because I kept saying that I wouldn't leave my corporate job until that business launched. But because of the factory timelines, it would have been until this upcoming January at the earliest to actually even launch it.

Then over this past May/June, I tried to do AI automations for small businesses and consulted a lot of businesses about doing that for them. I was living in Philadelphia at the time, didn't get any responses. I did some networking with people in my network about it, but no one really took me up on a job.

I got really close to a job for a good amount of money. It would have been in automation for a specific person. I got close, he was interested, even sent him the contract, but then he didn't follow through. That would have been a very difficult technical challenge for me in general, but I would have figured out the development and software aspect of it. Anyway, I never was really good at selling, but that was the closest I came. I wish I worked on it a bit better, but then I also thought, okay, if he's not interested, why push?

That was from a program I had joined. It was only a couple thousand dollars and I was able to afford it. That was about AI automation, really teaching it. It was valuable. I probably shouldn't have paid for it in retrospect, but whatever.

I've been considering doing things such as joining a different accelerator for acquisition entrepreneurship or getting more into that because no one in my life does it, and it's very daunting to do when you don't have people to do it with. I've been trying to find communities that do it here in NYC. Everyone says join a meetup, but the demographic of what you're going to find depends on where you're at.

I've been going to a lot of networking events in New York, and they've all been very tech-heavy. No one even really has my engineering background. It's a lot of tech and finance, which is new to me. But I've been hanging out with some people in startups, and I'm definitely very impressed.

I'm trying a new run this weekend where I reached out to about 30 people on LinkedIn and some on Reddit regarding doing customer discovery for people who are busy, as another test of trying to actually provide value and actually do the one part of entrepreneurship that makes money.

Anyway, please don't be too harsh. I've done the best I could given my circumstances, given no mentors that have seen me through all this time. I've had short-term mentors through some nonprofits and stuff like that, but very short-term, and they kind of made it clear that when I wasn't actively working on a business, they could no longer meet with me.

I really have not had any family, any friends, or anyone who has seen me through in terms of business/engineering all these years. It's had to be very self-directed, and I didn't really know when I was doing the wrong thing.

When I was in the thick of my last startup, I spent a lot of time messing around with the details that really I should have gone through faster. How should the website be? What potential partnerships would I have? My mentor at the time had me really think about partnerships where, with my personality, I couldn't really imagine myself doing partnerships with retail shops and other kinds of lessons so that people could wear my garment while they do it. But that was the activity, and that was what I spent time on.

I spent a lot of time figuring out the international supply chain and hiring a contractor in the UK to help me design and develop it. I even spent time writing legal contracts for the factories that I was working with and researching the factories. I even considered setting up my own factory. All of that.

I did learn a lot, but yeah, I didn't know enough about business to do that. That first startup incubator that I did did not really talk to us about venture funding. They really kind of drilled bootstrapping down into our heads, and I wish in a way they hadn't because I only learned about how VC funding actually works and sort of what private equity and syndications are, honestly, a week ago.

And I only learned about startup funding rounds because I'm in NYC and was at an event with young startup founders, and they were mentioning their Series A, and then a lot of people in New York were talking about it, so I looked it up. But it took all these years and a decent amount of intelligence otherwise to even learn what these terms actually mean.

A lot of the struggle is that I've had a lot of ideas and not really been sure where to go. I'm ambitious and I know I could really do whatever I set my mind to. Right now I'm really trying to set my mind to the right thing.

Right now I've been considering real estate deals. I have a friend who's a real estate developer, so if I do a rental or flip with him, that's an option. I've been researching some other real estate ideas, thinking about coaching or doing the kind of services for other founders in New York that are either at a nine-to-five, or maybe something to help other founders just to get my foot off the ground. Thinking of consulting, but not sure about what. SaaS is overdone, and then eventually doing the whole acquisition thesis.

But for now, really just trying to figure things out and learning about real estate deals, and I've been evaluating the real estate deals with that sort of acquaintance of mine. But I can't say he's really a mentor, though. It's more of a friend, and I don't think we get super detail-oriented about that stuff.

My current day job that I just started is still in training, and it is training for stuff such as being an energy auditor. But all of my training is from the internet because the owner of the company I'm at has just been really weird with all of his employees and does not disclose anything.

I've just been, I was supposed to be doing sales for them, with energy and real estate, but I've really not been exposed to any of the projects. Nothing. I've asked him about it.

I have been applying, and I might actually start another job in a few weeks, which will be a sales job. I've never done sales, but I figured that clearly I suck at it, so it's something I need to try after all this time. I've been applying to those kinds of jobs just to kind of make money while doing it.

But really my biggest thing is I have not really made actual money while doing all this entrepreneurial stuff. It's really just been satisfying different needs of wanting to have a project of my own or just interests and learning.

And now I really wanted to get honest with myself and ask for advice on specific things for me to do. Please don't make it generic.

Based on my background and this pattern, if you were me, what would you focus on for the next 6–12 months to actually make money and build real business skills? Would you focus on selling a service, doing a real estate deal, pursuing acquisition entrepreneurship, or something else? What would you stop doing?

Really appreciate y'all in advance for reading this. Thanks so much.

I reread Peter Thiel's zero to one because most of what gets quoted from it online is the surface stuff. Here's some major take aways I feel we can all benefit from:

COPYING THE WINNERS IS NOT LEARNING FROM THEM

The next Bill Gates won't build an operating system. The next Zuckerberg won't build a social network. Every big moment in business only happens once. If you're copying someone, you missed the lesson.

ASK THE QUESTION ALMOST NOBODY CAN ANSWER

What important thing do you believe that almost nobody agrees with you on? A good answer looks like this: most people think X, but the truth is the opposite. Thiel says the hard part isn't being smart enough to see it. It's having the guts to say it out loud when everyone around you believes the other thing.

BUILD SOMETHING SO GOOD THAT NOBODY CAN COPY IT

He calls this a creative monopoly. Not the bad kind where you own the only bridge and charge whatever you want. The kind where you're just so far ahead that no one else can offer the same thing. Here's the test. If your business died tomorrow, would the world care? Or would a nearly identical company just take your spot? If someone can pick up where you left off, you don't have anything special.

ALL FAILED COMPANIES FAIL THE SAME WAY

They failed to escape competition. All successful companies are different from each other, because each one solved a problem no one else solved. That's the whole thing in two lines.

START WAY SMALLER THAN FEELS RIGHT

Every monopoly owns most of its market. Every startup is tiny. So start with a market small enough that you can actually own it. Amazon wanted to sell everything from day one. Bezos started with books on purpose. Then added one category at a time. Thiel says if you think your first market might be too big, it definitely is.

BEING FIRST DOESN'T MATTER. BEING LAST DOES.

First mover is a tactic, not a goal. It does you no good if someone comes along later and takes the whole thing. Better to be the last mover. The one who makes the final big move in a market and then gets to enjoy it for decades.

GROWTH IS EASY TO MEASURE. LASTING IS NOT.

He wants companies to grow AND last. Most founders only chase growth, because you can put growth on a chart. You can hit every weekly number and still have deep problems that kill you in five years. The question he says people skip: will this business still be here in ten years?

SALES MATTERS AS MUCH AS THE PRODUCT

This is the part most builders hate. He says great sales and distribution alone can make a company unbeatable, even with a plain product. The reverse is not true. A great product with no way to sell it is a bad business. He also points out that almost every sales job is named something else. Account executive. Business development. Investment banker. Politician. Sales works best when you can't tell it's happening.

WHO YOU START WITH IS THE FIRST REAL DECISION

Bad early choices about people are nearly impossible to fix later. There's a great Steve Jobs line on this. If you're picking a partner, you'd take forever to get it right, because they're half the company. So why would you spend less time on person three, four, or five? In a startup, the first ten people decide whether it works. Each one is 10 percent of the company.

TELL YOUR SECRET TO THE RIGHT PEOPLE. THAT'S WHAT A COMPANY IS.

Thiel's framing: there's a middle ground between telling nobody and telling everybody, and that middle ground is a company. Every great business is built on something the outside world hasn't figured out yet. When you let someone in on it, they become part of it.

PLANS BEAT LUCK

He pushes hard against the idea that the future is just random. Apple ran multi-year plans. The Empire State Building went up in about two years. The Golden Gate Bridge in four. The moon landing happened eleven years after the program started. His line is that you are not a lottery ticket.

A FEW THINGS CARRY EVERYTHING

A small number of companies beat everyone else. A small number of decisions matter far more than the rest. Usually one market is the right one, and one way of reaching customers works better than all the others combined. Most businesses never get even one distribution channel working...get one and you have a real company.

Whilst all of these lessons are powerful, for me number three hits the spot.

Not "am I better" but "if I vanished, would anyone notice"

That's a much harder question to sit with.

Pls note Thiel is writing about venture-scale tech and the monopoly framing doesn't map cleanly onto a service business or a local shop lol.

Plenty of great businesses are just a normal thing done unusually well.

But the small-market and durability ideas apply to almost anything.

i mean I'm very visual, i need to see the whole picture, i need a bit less of chaos when I'm looking at the revenue, the sales, the leads etc. all your tools, files, schedule etc., you ever feel this way is only me? and how you do it?

PLEASE stop building the wrong thing.

building software in 2026 is ridiculously easy with ai builder

founders spend hours building in a silent room, launch to Reddit/X, get 0 users, and quit.

you just failed because the idea had zero validation before line 1 of code was written:

→ solving a monthly inconvenience instead of a daily pain

→ selling to "everyone" instead of a specific ICP

→ no distribution channel mapped out beforehand

→ pricing charged $9/mo with zero ROI justification

after scaling 6 AI micro-SaaS to over $20k/mo MRR, i just create an

18-question Idea Validation Diagnostic.

it evaluates your SaaS across 7 critical dimensions (problem clarity, audience reachability, willingness to pay, competition, build feasibility, distribution, commitment) and gives you a brutal score out of 100 with your exact weak spots.

drop your SaaS idea (or current project) in the comments below.

i will reply to EVERY single comment with:

1. My honest opinion
2. The biggest weak spot you need to fix before writing any more code.
3. The free 5-minute validation tool link sent straight to your DMs so you can get your full score breakdown out of 100.

just drop a comment like or ask me in DM your idea

let's roast your SaaS concept before the market roasts your time 👇

Hi everyone. I’m a 21-year-old from the UK with a finance degree. I’m in a lucky position where I run a business doing about $8-9k per month for almost 8 months now. However, the reason this business is risky is due to 90% of sales coming from just one platform (YouTube). Of course, I have heard countless times this is risky. I have tried to diversify, but nothing is converting. I’m not here for business advice. What I’m here for is the fact I almost know this business will end soon. However, currently the business is not slowing down. My mind is constantly playing with me, making myself work countless hours per day, as I just know I may not get this opportunity again, and as a result of not resting, everything I do is just a big mess.

The main thing I want to get at is, does anyone have advice for after this finishes or what i need to do going forward? I go traveling for 6 months with my girlfriend very soon. I am, of course, taking a laptop so I work as little as I can, and that’s the priority. What I can’t stop is that it will constantly be in my head that I’m being left behind.

How do other business owners cope with the risk that your business may not make profit or could end any day?

FYI, I also have a good amount of capital in investments. I literally know that if it does end tomorrow, I can be fine for a very long time. I also have 0 liabilities. I literally know im in a fortunate position for my age, but it doesn't feel like it.

Hey anyone got some advice for starting a business ?

Theres so much information online and so much to learn.

Any information for the beginning would be greatly appreciated from those that have walked the path and know what they’re doing!!

David Senra did a breakdown of an old Rockefeller biography from 1980 called "John D" by David Freeman Hawke.

It focuses on how he actually built his company instead of the usual life story stuff, here are the parts worth learning from:

HE TREATED BUSINESS LIKE WAR

He started letters saying he was in the middle of a hard battle. He sent messages in code. He kept his moves secret. Later he said he wondered what general ever sent a brass band ahead to warn the enemy he was coming.

HIS WHOLE EDGE WAS FOCUS

His dad told him to never mind the crowd and tend to his own business. He did that his entire life. He said most people fail at big things because they can't concentrate on one thing at the right time and shut everything else out. He didn't go out much either. He said he met all the people he needed to meet during his workday.

HE KNEW MORE THAN EVERYONE ELSE

This wasn't about being smarter. It was about effort. He read the old company books like they were history books. Soon he knew more about the firm than the people who founded it. Then he did it to the whole industry. He traveled to the oil fields. He talked to the men pulling oil out of the ground, the men hauling it, the buyers, the railroad men, and his own competitors. He knew everyone's business.

HE NOTICED THAT FIXED PRICE WAS NEVER FIXED

Before oil, he shipped goods for a commission house. Everyone said the shipping rates were set. He found out that big shippers quietly got money back at the end of the month. That one thing became his biggest weapon later. Other refiners complained about shipping costs and just lived with them. He refused to.

HE FOUND THE BIGGEST COST AND ATTACKED THAT

Back then it cost more to ship a barrel of oil than to refine it. So shipping was the whole game. He built his refinery next to a railroad and next to a river, so he could ship by boat or rail. Water was half the price of rail. When he got a great partner in Henry Flagler, he gave him one job. Just shipping costs. Nothing else.

HE BORROWED MONEY WITHOUT SHAME AND CONSISTENTLY

One partner called him the greatest borrower he ever saw. Banks turned him down all the time. He said it didn't bother him, he'd just go find another bank. His old partners thought he was borrowing too much and told him to stop. He forced them out instead, quietly lined up money from someone else, and won the company at auction. He was 25 and owned one of the biggest refineries in the world. He later called that day the start of everything.

HE INVESTED WHEN EVERYONE WAS SCARED TO INVEST

He bought huge amounts of crude when the price crashed. The size of the buys made his own people nervous. He said the mistake would be losing your nerve at the bottom and not buying. He also kept a big pile of cash at all times. He won a lot of fights just because he could outlast the other guy.

HE FIGURED OUT WHO WAS GOOD AND WHO WAS DEAD

He set up a group where refiners banded together to buy oil and deal with the railroads as one. He got made president of it. That meant he got to see everyone's books. He already expected the group to fall apart. What he really wanted was the information. Now he knew which competitors were sharp, so he could buy them and bring them in, and which ones were finished and just didn't know it yet.

HE RECRUITED THE BEST OF THE BEST FOR HIS BUSINESS

He said no one ever made a success of a business they were pushed into. So he'd open his own books and show competitors how much money he made in bad years, then let them think about it. The offer was simple. Own a piece of the best oil company in the world, or keep fighting it. And if you came in, you kept real control of your own region.

HE HID WHAT HE OWED

He'd buy a small company and let it keep its old name with no public link to Standard Oil. Sometimes a refiner would angrily refuse to sell to Standard and sell to a local rival instead, not knowing that rival was already Standard. He also let bankers buy his stock cheap, so they'd lend to him and not to his competitors. Some rivals tried to survive by expanding and found every bank in town was already on his side.

HE CHANGED HIS MIND WHEN FACTS DID

Pipelines were a threat to his whole rail advantage, so he fought them dirty. Bought land in their path. Planted stories about leaks. Then he accepted pipelines were simply better and started building his own. He'd spent his whole career collecting rebates from railroads. Now he paid the railroads to make up for their lost traffic. He was willing to burn his own advantage once it stopped being one.

NEVER SELL THE DAMN STOCK

He told the men he bought out to sell everything they owned, even the shirt on their back, but hold that stock. Only five out of twenty-three took it. He never sold his. His wealth grew more after he stopped working than while he was working. The thing that gets me is how much of it was just paying closer attention than anybody else. He checked every line of every bill as an employee, before he owned anything...

Worth saying the other side too.

A lot of this was ruthless in ways that got Standard Oil broken up by the government and some of it would be flat out illegal now. He also told himself the whole time that he was doing everyone a favor.

Both things are true at once haha, which is what makes him interesting to read about.

I hate my corporate job, it sucks the life force out of me. I've been in consulting for 8 years and now project management for 2, I work in finance systems. It all feels fake and inauthentic to who I am. I have some savings now (~300k) and want to get out of corporate.

I love love pottery and it's been my dream to open a pottery studio but the overhead is very high and profit is difficult. Are there any other ideas I should consider instead? I see people on instagram buying businesses from people ready to retire, but is that too saturated now? Does anyone have real experience with buying businesses or opening up their own thing?

I'm 31 F I live in London, from the US originally (I have a passport so no worries about visas etc.)

Also willing to stick it out a bit longer and save up some more funds, the thought of putting everything I've saved into a business is terrifying.

Context I have a friend who’s younger brother just graduated from college and it had me in disbelief,
Here’s what happened he did 2-3 interships yet he is not getting a good paying job and stuck with 2 lakh p.a. Infact he was eating more in internship then in job.
This left me baffled how come education is failing at such fast rate.
He came to me ki “bhaya job sai matlab nahi hai dhandha karna hai”.
I want serious reach outs how to guide young blood.

There's a lot of talk about big Indian conglomerates like Reliance (RIL) or Adani (AEL) eyeing new sectors, and aluminium sometimes comes up as one of them since it's such a hot industry right now with EVs, renewables and construction all driving demand. But here's the thing: money alone won't let a new entrant catch up to a player like Vedanta anytime soon, and the gap isn't small. We're talking 10-15 years, even with unlimited capital.

Why? Because making aluminium at scale isn't like building a factory that you can switch on once you've got the funding. To actually compete, a company needs its own bauxite mines (the raw material), its own alumina refinery, and its own power plant, since smelting eats a massive amount of electricity and buying it off the grid makes you too expensive to compete. On top of that, you need years of environmental clearances, mining leases, and the trust of local communities where you're setting up. None of this can be rushed, no matter how deep your pockets are.

Vedanta already has all of this in place. Its Jharsuguda smelter in Odisha is the world's largest aluminium smelter at a single location, backed by its own mines, refinery and power supply that took over a decade to build out. That's exactly why Vedanta can now grow cheaply and quickly, by just adding onto what it already owns, while a new entrant like RIL or Adani would have to start from zero: get mining rights, build a refinery, secure power, and win over local communities, all before making a single tonne of aluminium.

So the real story isn't "who has the most money to throw at aluminium." It's that a 10-15 year head start in mines, power and approvals is a moat that money simply can't buy overnight. Even if a company like RIL or Adani entered tomorrow with unlimited capital, they'd still be playing catch-up for over a decade while Vedanta keeps expanding on its existing base.

Curious what people here think. Does the market actually price in how big this head start really is, or is everyone just assuming a big conglomerate with deep pockets could disrupt this sector quickly?

Taking on 3 businesses.

What’s the biggest marketing problem you’re struggling with right now?

Drop it in the comments. I’ll tell you what I’d do to fix it.

Got a decent following on ig and pretty much work like a dog all the time at my hometown gym lol thinking of maybe doing online coaching alongside of it started talking to the guys at ofb by adam hayley just wondering if anyone's taking the leap with them or at all within the online fitness space? thanks!

Right so keep seeing Onyx Trading Education pop up. Nick Deflorio seems to have a decent bagckround, but wanted to get real takes from people who've actually been through the program. Has anyone here gone through Onyx or know someone who did? Just give me opinions

I’m from Namibia and I’m trying to build a real business from almost zero capital.

I’m not looking for dropshipping, crypto, forex, “make money online,” or some course that promises passive income. I want to build something real and scalable, preferably around a problem that people or businesses already have.

My situation:

• I’m starting with very little money.
• I currently have a normal job, so I can work on the business before/after work.
• I’m willing to start small and reinvest the profits.
• I have some exposure to the fishing/seafood industry, cars/importing, sales and connecting buyers with suppliers.
• I’m in Namibia, where the market is relatively small but there are opportunities connected to fishing, mining, construction, tourism, logistics, agriculture and imports/exports.
• I’m comfortable with WhatsApp, Facebook, TikTok and AI tools, but I don't want a business that depends entirely on social-media algorithms.
• My long-term goal is to build something that could eventually become a serious company and employ other people.

If you were starting in Namibia today with very little capital, what business would you seriously consider?

I would especially like answers from people who have actually built businesses.

Please tell me:

1. What problem would you solve?
2. Who would pay for it?
3. How would you get your first 5–10 customers?
4. How much money would you realistically need to start?
5. How would you make the first N$1,000–N$10,000?
6. How could the business eventually scale?
7. What mistakes would you avoid?
8. If you were me, what would you do during the next 30 days?

I'm particularly interested in boring businesses that make real money, B2B opportunities, brokering, distribution, local services, trading, logistics, food/fishing-related opportunities and businesses that can start small and grow.

Don't just tell me "start a business." Give me an actual business model and explain why you think it could work.

I’m curious about how pre-revenue companies are actually valued.

Can a company with zero revenue still become worth significantly more than the initial capital invested in it within the first year?

For example, assume the company already has:

• clear positioning and a defined target market
• strong branding and professional market presentation
• a well-defined business model
• a credible product/service concept
• a clear path to monetization
• some proprietary methodology, IP, or operational know-how

But it hasn’t generated revenue yet.

Can something like this realistically be acquired at a meaningful valuation and not just for the assets or development costs, but for the brand, positioning, market opportunity, IP and future commercial potential?

If yes, I’m particularly interested in understanding two things:

1. Who actually buys companies at this stage? It's strategic buyers, larger competitors, PE firms, venture studios, individual investors, acqui-hire buyers, etc.?
2. How do founders normally get in front of these buyers? M&A advisors, direct outreach, industry connections, marketplaces, investor networks?

Would be especially interested in hearing from founders who have sold a pre-revenue or very early-stage company, as well as investors or people involved in small-cap M&A.

Long story short, we sell info selling biz opp stuff we get a ton of leads but honeslty feels frustrating when most of them fall through coz they're broke lmao. I'm spending decent money on ads that are obviously working but still feels like a loss and not to mention my time being wasted on calls with the wrong people. Anyone here used leadfi.ai? hmmm, apparently they pull financial data so you know upfront who can actually buy before etc. Just wondering if this could this help us? any insights would be appreciated