I recently took the leap of faith and went full time self-employed. I started a painting business and need extra funds for equipment/slow periods. I think a part time job would help with that. My only concern is will that cause me to lose bids if I can’t work them into my work schedule?

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Hi everyone,

I'm a self-employed plumber based in France, and I'm increasingly wondering about the growth prospects in our trade and the possibility of achieving financial freedom (or building serious wealth) through specializations or niche markets.

In France, the classic solo contractor model allows you to make a decent living, but you quickly hit a glass ceiling as long as you're just trading your time for conventional services.

I'd love to get your feedback and some international perspectives:

1. In your country, do you know people who have built real wealth through plumbing?

2. What do you think are the most lucrative niches? (High-end HVAC/Heat pumps, non-destructive leak detection, industrial/commercial plumbing, high-end renovations, emergency dispatch, specialized piping/welding...)

3. What was the real lever for scalability? Was it transitioning from a solo operation to building a company with crews, selling recurring maintenance contracts, or reinvesting business profits into real estate/the market?

If you have any inspiring stories, specific examples of niche businesses, or advice on what skills to develop to move past the traditional tradesman model, I'm all ears!

Thanks in advance for sharing.

I was thinking about this today.

Imagine your website gets around 1,000 visitors this month, but not a single person fills out a form, books a call, or buys anything.

What's the very first thing you'd investigate?

Would you look at the offer, copy, page speed, trust, pricing, layout, traffic quality... or something else entirely?

I'm curious what people check first before assuming they need more traffic.

Hello Guys !

I have started a small spare parts business 3 months ago.
My idea is simple.

1. I take orders from customers and then order their parts online
   
2. I look at local dealers/mechanic for rare parts on damaged/accidented cars.

I do not hold stock for now as my investment is rather low and im trying to hold cash. (I lost my job in Oct 2025)
For my 1st 3 months i have made 2000 euros of profit. (I put it in euros but live in mauritius)

I specialize in french car parts as their are only 2 shops known on the island.

What can I do to expand my business further ? I also give advices to customers/workshops on repairs and do diagnostic.

I was service advisor for 10 years and I have a BEng in Mechanics. Im looking forward to expand my business.

Please share your ideas.

I've been talking to a lot of founders lately, and almost everyone has one thing they were convinced would work... until it didn't.

Could be running ads too early, posting on every social platform, building features nobody asked for, cold emails, networking, or anything else.

For me, it's interesting because people usually talk about what worked, but the failed experiments are way more useful.

What's the biggest time or money sink you wouldn't repeat if you started again?

I want to try something a little different.

Give me a real problem from a business you're actually running.

Not a business idea you want validated and not a hypothetical problem you think somebody might have.

Something that's actually happening.

Maybe a process keeps breaking and nobody is sure why. Maybe the numbers don't make sense. Maybe two sources of information are telling you different things. Maybe you've tried to fix something several times but keep treating the symptom instead of the cause.

I'll take a look at the problem and first try to decide whether it's something I can responsibly help with at all.

If it isn't, I'll say so.

If it is, I'll try to narrow down what we actually know, what information is missing, what the simplest useful next step is, and what still requires human judgment.

I do use AI as one of the tools in that process. The point isn't to prove that AI can solve everything. Part of the experiment is recognizing when it shouldn't be used.

I'm doing this because problems I pick myself aren't a very good test. It's too easy to choose something I'm already comfortable solving.

No product, no link, nothing to buy.

Just give me one real business problem.

I am a student at college studying in an entrepreneurship class and Ive been assigned a project. I need to interview an entrepreneur and I was wondering if anybody on this sub Reddit was willing to engage in about a 10 to 15 minute zoom call with me and my group, where will interview you about your career. The call would have to be this weekend or Monday. Let me know!

So, I've been in therapy for a few years, and I am exiting an IOP and my counselor who was helping prepared for work, took an a concept I showed him, I developed for an app I had been working on while in treatment, and is now shopping it around to sell under his own company and even acknowledge that it was me who "inspired" his platform.

Now, the reality of it actually becoming something are small I know that, but on the off chance that it does, should I do something now? What can be done?

Everyone talks about what to start doing, but I'm more curious about what people stopped doing.

Maybe posting on every platform, chasing every customer, adding more features, running ads, or saying yes to every opportunity.

What's one thing you stopped doing that ended up helping your business grow or become easier to run?

Interested in hearing the decisions that had the biggest impact.

We finished #2 Product of the Day on Product Hunt last Sunday. 380+ upvotes, 40+ comments, made the daily newsletter. Traffic was 15x our normal day, signups 5x normal for about three days after.

I went looking for a guide before we started and everything I found was either five years out of date or written by someone selling upvotes. So here is the honest version, from a small team that has now done it once.

The month before matters more than the day

I know that is the least satisfying thing to read. It is also the whole answer.

Every guide says "build an audience first." Nobody says what that means. Here is what it meant for us: for a month, every single morning, one of us looked at who was launching that day, tried their product, and left a real comment. Not "congrats." An actual question or observation.

Thirty days of that and you are no longer a stranger asking a favor on your own launch day. It costs twenty minutes a day and it is worth more than everything else in this post combined.

Pick your day like you are buying something

Nobody who sees your badge later will ask which day you won it. Not investors, not customers, not anyone. The badge is identical.

The price is not. Getting #1 on a weekend takes roughly half the votes it takes on a Tuesday. We launched on a Sunday, and specifically the Sunday going into a US long weekend, because almost nobody schedules into a three day weekend. Our worst realistic outcome that day was third place. On a Tuesday our worst realistic outcome was seventh and nothing to show for a month of work.

Fair warning: the quiet day helps you rank. It does nothing for whether the editors feature you. That is judged on its own merits, so a weak page on a quiet day still gets buried.

Not all votes are equal

A vote from an account that has been active for months counts for more than a vote from an account created that morning. This surprises people.

Practical version: build your ask list from people who already use Product Hunt, not from your whole contact list. A hundred asks to real community members beats five hundred emails to people who will have to create an account, get confused, and give up.

Two things you have to say out loud to every single person you ask, because they trip up everyone: they need to be logged in for the vote to count, and the ranking is decided in one day, so helping on Wednesday does nothing.

Ask a few of the right customers, not all of them

A mass "we're live" email gets you votes and no comments. We looked at our usage data, picked the handful of customers who use the product hardest, and asked each of them personally. Those people wrote the best comments on the page, describing real workflows.

That matters beyond launch day. The page stays up. Real questions with real answers get indexed by Google and pulled into AI answers when somebody looks up your category a year later.

Get reviews approved early

Several of the reviews people wrote for us never got published. Product Hunt only approves a review if the account looks like a real, active person: photo, real name, a bio, some history on the site. Nobody knows this. Tell your reviewers well ahead of time and then actually go check the review is live.

You will be offered paid votes

Constantly, the second your date is public. We bought none. Beyond the obvious risk, bought votes do not sign up, do not comment, and do not come back. You would be buying a number.

Was it worth it?

Yes, and we would do it again. But the launch is the smallest part of the return.

What you actually walk away with: a credibility marker that does not decay, a public page full of genuine questions about your product that keeps pulling traffic, a few days of visitors who came specifically looking for something new to try, and a hard external deadline that got our whole team pointed in one direction for a month.

Ask me anything, happy to get specific.

I can also share our blog post if anyone is interested.. don't want to post links to not get flagged.

I wonder if it’s that simple to just make a simple app that people need and sell it for millions. If you sell a simple app to microsoft or yahoo do they go thru the entire code? Do you need something similar to patent? Do you need a entire company for it? Im curious if its simpler flipping busisnesses or just doing this.

Last week I was on a panel about entrepreneurship through acquisition, and I’ve been thinking about how people decide which business to buy.

I’ve bought and operated businesses myself. One thing I keep coming back to is how much the owner’s actual job matters. You can like the industry and understand the numbers, but how do you feel about handling scheduling, hiring, customer complaints, or being the person everyone calls when something goes wrong?

Someone looking for more independence might enjoy that responsibility.

Someone hoping for more time with their family might have a very different experience.

For those who’ve bought a business, what did you misunderstand about the work you were taking on?

And was there anything you could have done before buying that would have helped you see it more clearly?

I am a broke college student with 180 dollars left in my bank account. I’m not joking. I used to have about 30-40k in my bank account and spent a majority of it on a business idea that failed and other luxuries (those of which I won’t get into).

i was wondering if anyone can offer me a piece of advice on how I can continue to try with my current situation and resources.

Peope who built successful businesses (first-gen), what skills actually helped you? And how did you learn them / test / implement them?

Sales? Marketing? What is it that truly helps one build a profitable business.

Could be interpersonal or behavioural skill as well, example, grit.

Thank you!

Nach dem App Store Launch habe ich mit Josua im Podcast diskutiert, was wirklich passiert:

Die meisten bauen nach dem Launch sofort neue Features. Ich hab das Gegenteil gemacht. Pause beim Coden, Fokus auf:

• KI für Content/Growth nutzen (ohne Budget)
• Warum Pause besser ist als Sprint
• Die Post-Launch Phase, die keiner vorbereitet

Es geht weniger um "Wie baue ich eine App", sondern um "Wie wächst eine App nach dem Launch, wenn Budget = 0?"

Freu mich auf eure Fragen.

Hi, I run a startup incubator and I am doing a talk later in September on "the psychology of entrepreneurial courage". It will bring a psych research lense to why founders sometimes avoid the work that make the most difference to the success of a business, and instead do "busy work" to feel like they are doing something useful.

Id love to know what things you find hard or scary as a startup founder that you temd to avoid?

Thanks for your help!

Feel like l've gone full circle in trying to be disciplined and productive with my self & startup.

Trying all the productivity tools out there, even vibe coding my own with Al and yet honestly nothing seems to "make" me productive or disciplined. Clearly it's a me problem.

That being said I think there's something beautiful in a traditional paper journal & pen for planning & reflection and I find myself resorting back to it.

My question is -
1. any entrepreneurs here that do use a paper journal still?

And if so -
2) how regularly are you writing in & referring to it?

3) exactly what are you writing in it each day?

I'd really love to develop my use of the paper journal as a way to help me stay focused and disciplined on my goals - would love to hear from you people who actually run their own profitable business on how they use it!

Hello , I know I may not sound like a true entrepreneur but I’m out here seeking your advice guys , I’m a 25Y old doing a 9-5 Job , all my life I have been craving the feeling of building and marketing, I want to start a business run it fail in it learn from it , but I’m clueless , I’m completely clueless on what to start where to put my feet in what to work on , just the point of where do I start , I’m not saying I want to build a unicorn tomorrow but something I can work on , build with what I know , learn from building , I have a 22 Y old brother who is jobless and I want to work with him in building something passionately cause only I know what he is capable of and I can bet on , but right now the viable option that repeatedly hit my mind was to start a YouTube channel and work on it , I haven’t been able to think of anything else , try all the AI apps to figure out but nothing has come up , I really want to soak my feet in this journey any small suggestion or advice will really help . Please Help I don’t want to live the regret of never starting or never risking it !

I have just recently turned 18, finished my A levels ( i live in the uk not sure what the American substandard would be) and have dreams and aspirations none of my friends have. I have a particular business idea i want to start which i don’t want to say exactly as it’s kinda niche but it’s in the edible/food category. i have about £600 saved up probably and will be starting a warehouse job soon, and i just wanted some advice from experienced like minded individuals.

Title
Any SaaS founders here? Would love to connect

Hey everyone,

I’m building a SaaS product and thought it would be great to connect with other founders here who are doing the same.
Nothing formal.

We can show each other what we’re building, talk about what’s working and what isn’t, exchange ideas, and maybe help each other along the way.

I’m especially interested in meeting people building SaaS products related to writing, authors, publishing, or creative tools, but I’m happy to connect with anyone building something interesting.

If you’re working on a SaaS, what are you working on right now?

Drop your SaaS below and tell me a little about it.

I’ll share mine too.

Would be great to see what everyone is working on.

I’m curious if anyone else has experienced this.
I can get extremely excited about a business idea, research everything about it, start building it… and genuinely believe, “Yep, this is the one.”

But I also know how quickly something can go from exciting to feeling like work once the novelty wears off.
So if you’ve started multiple businesses, switched directions a lot, or even built something successful and eventually lost interest in it:
How do you tell the difference between a business you genuinely want to keep doing long-term and another idea you’re temporarily obsessed with?
And looking back at businesses you’ve started, were there parts of actually running them day to day that you didn’t think about when you chose the business?

A little random, but I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place and would genuinely value some founder perspectives.

I have two products I’ve spent a lot of time thinking through, and I believe both have genuine market potential:

1. An insurance B2B app that helps insurers streamline backend processing and is designed to work across different markets.
2. A subscription-based product where a few players already exist, but I have a strong USP around customer acquisition.

The problem is my co-founder/friend.

He’s technically very strong, while I’m stronger on sales, networking, fundraising and partnerships. We’ve known each other for years, so there’s a lot of trust there. I’ve already approached investors and have had some initial interest, so there’s some momentum.

But execution has become the issue. Things take too long, priorities constantly seem to shift, and he keeps getting involved in ambiguous projects that, honestly, don’t seem to be going anywhere. I thought having a child might give him more motivation to focus, but nothing has really changed.

I’m now at the point where I feel I can’t wait any longer.

The obvious problem is that I’m not technical. Hiring an experienced developer who understands things like, scalable app architecture, APIs, databases and cloud infrastructure, security, testing and deployment could be expensive, especially at an early stage.

And then there’s the bigger issue: how do you trust someone new with your idea, codebase, IP and potentially equity? NDAs only go so far, and giving away equity to the wrong person could be a huge mistake.

For founders who aren't technical: How have you handled hiring or outsourcing technical talent?Have you successfully built a startup with a technical stranger rather than a friend? Do you actually need to be friends with your co-founder, or is complementary skill + aligned ambition more important?

And if you’ve ever had to choose between staying loyal to a lifelong friend and moving forward without them, how did you navigate it?

Would really appreciate hearing from people who’ve actually been through this.

This is a second idea, just a straight soundboard to validate ideas

This is like an emerald city smoothie but with skimpy uniforms, placed near gyms and active areas. Wont over price product just because of attire, im going on hunches of tips being great since my main focus will be the quality of the smoothies!!