I’m a 28 year old male. When I was 25 I moved to Dallas from a small midwest town. I grew up there and went to College there. After college, I had a job lined up at a Fortune 500 company working in tech. I was working there for 2.5 years and decided to leave for a startup. The role was remote, so I decided to move to Dallas. The reason I wanted to move was for personal growth and development. 

I moved to Dallas in June of 2022. I was working fine and then in April of 2023 I was laid off.  Fortunately, I was given a severance package and unemployment which I was grateful for. I decided to sign a lease and tried searching for work. So from April 2023 to October 2023 I was on the job hunt. I couldn’t land anything, maybe I was picky. 

I decided to start a business in January 2024 and also tried to still look for work.  I was working on the business, but it was hard to grow because I was taking money out to pay my bills. I was also not budgeting. The business was going well the first 3 months and it started getting bad, but I decided to keep pushing and hopes of finding a job. I finally found a job in October of 2024 and was terminated in December of 2024, because I worked while on PTO… which is against HR policy. 

When this happened and I realized the business also crashed, I went into panic mode, and anxiety and fear kicked in. I was barely sleeping and eating. I realized how much money I lost on the business and the time as well. I fell into a state of sadness and self-hatred.

I realized how bad I was with money. I was careless. Even during the pandemic I basically gambled my money in stocks and other stupid investments. I thought this was a way to get my family out of poverty since I grew up poor.

I also realized I didn’t take my career seriously. When I was in Dallas I did a lot of partying and exploring, instead of keeping a balance and focusing on my career. 

I told myself If I didn’t make all these stupid decisions. I would be in a better place financially. I have a lot of resentment and regrets. If only I would’ve thought this way. Instead of this way. Maybe I should’ve reached out to parents and friends back home. But I decided 

I now have about ~3$5k saved and $16K in credit cards from starting the business. Not to mention the money I invested into the business.

 I’m living back at home with my parents. Seeing all my friends progress in life in their careers of relationships and seeing where am at really just puts me down. Maybe I would’ve been better if I stayed and didn’t take that job. Maybe if I thought further or thoroughly I would have made better choices.  Maybe I should’ve come back home when I was initially laid off instead of signing that lease.

I feel like I’m doomed and time is just slipping away.  

Hi fellow entrepreneurs,

I'm gathering insights to better understand the needs around competitor analysis tools. As business owners and startup founders, your perspective is incredibly valuable. I'd appreciate your input on a few questions:

• What specific features or metrics do you consider essential when analyzing competitors?

• How do you prefer to view and interact with competitor data (dashboards, reports, visualizations, etc.)?

• Are there any integrations or real-time updates that you feel would significantly boost your decision-making process?

• What frustrations or gaps have you encountered with the current competitor analysis tools on the market?

This isn’t a promotion—I’m simply trying to learn from your experiences and get a sense of what would really make a competitor analysis tool work for entrepreneurs. Thanks in advance for any insights you can share!

I made a post last week and it blew up so thought I'd follow up after a week. I can't link it unfortunately so if you'd like to see it, please look at my profile or just copy/paste the title into the search bar.

Quick refresher:

My brother came up with an idea involving reselling a niche good a few years ago. I took the idea, ran with it, made a good amount of money without him helping at all BESIDES the idea itself. My brother saw some changes in the market + was uncomfortable?, got upset, told me and my business partner to stop. And that left me in a weird spot: do I stop, or do I continue?

Before going onto the update, I think I left a few things out in my first post that may help clarify my situation.

1. I want to reiterate that I would never have come up with this business idea on my own. It's not like some tech startup idea that's popular; this is a really niche idea and a really niche market. Adding anyone into the market will affect it somewhat

2. When I first started working on this business, I told my brother immediately and he congratulated my success. All seemed well and I had even mentioned to my brother that if it ever turned south and he was starting to get affected by me being in the same market, I would get out and respect that he started in the market himself

3. Right before making this aforementioned post, I actually agreed to stop. Told him that we would get out of the market within 6 months. Immediately felt bad about that decision though, so I came back a few days later and told him that we needed to talk. I didn't mention this in my original post because I was pretty embarrassed about flipping decisions. I think I was being influenced a lot by my brother, parents etc. But, this may help explain the below...

Now, onto the updates. I am currently on a ski trip with my family and finally talked with my brother today in person about the issue and we argued a bunch. He mentioned he was annoyed that I took his idea and that he was feeling pressure within the market. While he did say he was making the same amount of money as before, he mentioned that it was much more difficult to do so - and as such, it was making his life more difficult.

I said that I thought he wasn't being respectful to me and the time I put in by asking me to stop point blank. I thought that he was attributing too much of our business to just solely his idea and not recognizing how much effort/time we had to put in to get where we were.

After a lot of talking, we eventually came to an agreement that he would get a certain percentage of our business TBD after I would talk it over with my business partner in a few days.

A few hours later, my brother decided to tell my parents about our conversation which turned everything into a whole mess. My mom and dad seemed disapointed in me - to me, at least, they seemed to be on my brother's side. They did say, however, that they understood both sides and offered a few alternatives.

The first - that I offered a percentage of the business to my brother PLUS that I couldn't engage in any other business that was tangential to his idea. The second - that he gave me some time (about a year) to continue with the business, then after that point I had to leave BUT could continue to operate any business that was tangential to his original idea.

A lot of complicated stuff. Still is a pretty difficult situation. Most of you told me last post to just say fuck you to him but I can't do that. He's my brother, I love him a lot and I don't want to do anything that will hurt him. I just want to get to a point where my needs meet his happiness; and right now, it seems difficult to meet both of those criteria...

As a founder/entrepreneur, we spend a lot of time juggling between multiple things.

• What takes most of your time through the day?
• How often and how do you retrospect on where most of time is spent so you can recalibrate your priorities?
• Any learnings from your mistakes & journey?

So, I uploaded from pornhub and other sites. So my question is how to I get paid?

Hopefully this isn’t breaking any subreddit rules.

Are there any entrepreneurs based in the Los Angeles area who are interested in exchanging ideas, and/or potential business partnerships?

Last year, I was pressure washing part-time on weekends and made around $65K. This year, I went full-time and am on track to break six figures. I didn’t have any special background—just learned from YouTube, Facebook groups, and trial and error. Now I run my own ads, manage my website, and handle everything myself.

The biggest lessons I’ve learned:

• Commercial work is the real money maker – Residential is nice, but landing just a few commercial contracts can keep your schedule full without constantly chasing new customers.
• Google Ads and yard signs print money – I wasted time on things like handing out flyers when I should’ve gone harder on paid ads and strategic signage early on.
• Pricing too low is the fastest way to burn out – When I first started, I undercharged, thinking it would help me get more clients. It only made me work harder for less and attracted price shoppers.
• Networking beats cold calls – Getting in with property managers, business owners, and other contractors has led to some of my biggest jobs.

I know a lot of people in this sub are looking for side hustles or ways to scale small businesses. If you’re thinking about starting a service business, pressure washing is one of the easiest and most profitable ones out there. If you’re already in the industry or just curious, I’ve been sharing my experiences in a group where a lot of pressure washers talk about their wins, struggles, and best strategies. Happy to answer any questions here too!

tinyAPI – A Low-Code Platform to Build & Deploy APIs
I've been working on tinyAPI (tinyapi.xyz) for some time now, it's a low-code platform that lets you quickly create, deploy, and manage APIs with a built-in database. The goal is to make this your mini-backend for API development so you don't have to deal with deployment/infrastructure headaches.

Features:
✅ Create & deploy APIs with minimal code
✅ Built-in database to store and manage your data
✅ Simple, intuitive UI for API management

I'd really appreciate some feedback before I add more features to ensure I'm heading in the right direction. Let me know your thoughts!

I launched the waitlist for my new platform, “Affiliates Library” and we crossed 50 sign-ups on the first day! Super excited about the early traction.

For context, Affiliates Library helps users easily find and generate affiliate links from different stores. You just sign up, and the platform gives you unique, trackable links—no complicated setup required. We’re also working on a scraping feature to generate affiliate links from even more stores automatically.

Would love to hear any advice from those who’ve built similar tools or are in the affiliate marketing space. Also, if you’ve got thoughts on features that would be a game-changer, I’m all ears!

Some things are legal and common, but we know it's a scam that should not be allowed. What are they?

Digital marketing agency owner here... A few weeks back I had an idea for a free AI tool where businesses enter their info and it emails them one task tuned to their business everyday.

Well after a week, the tasks got mundane bc its... well... gpt with little memory. So I just spent 16 hours monk mode entering over 200 manual tasks that we use for our own clients and just from my brain that I've gained from operating companies for the past 12 years.

The tool is completely free, just something I made for the community. Thank you all for your support and feedback!!

I’m building a tool that could save you time and guesswork. Here’s what it offers:

1. Find Trending Ideas: Discover what people are actively discussing (e.g., problems, needs, or new trends).
2. Validate Your Idea: Check if your product/service has real demand before you build it.
3. Competitor Weak Spots: See what your competitors are missing, based on real user complaints.
4. Lead Generation: Find people already looking for solutions your product could offer.
5. AI Suggestions: Get actionable tips to improve your idea (e.g., “Add feature X – 80% of users want it”).

No coding or research skills needed. Just explore trends or input your idea, and the tool does the rest.

Would this be useful to you? What features would matter most? Brutally honest feedback welcome!

So I have seen this post on instagram it’s really catchy and compelling specifically Natalia Ratiomaeki (IG: socialmediasalesexpert) her posts are impressive and reviews. Has anyone tried her Sales Growth Bundle product? is ot worth it?

I also attended her free webinar and she offered a bundle program there with a hefty amount. I would like to know if there are people who tried her product and it actually worked? She also claims she started at 9,000 followerts and was able to reach 500,000 in 3mos. Looking at her IG reels it really has high engagements (views and comments). Any thoughts?

You have the lifestyle.

You have the cash flow.

You are in essential health. (could be better)

You are in the moment.

Life is great in so many ways.

But there is one obstacle in the way of living your best life.

If you could simplify this obstacle, life would be so much better right now.

Has AI gotten to the point where it can act as a reliable receptionist, taking calls and sending emails based on the conversation. Or perhaps texting the person that the message goes to?

My customers are local so the AI needs to sound at least somewhat natural and be smart.

I currently use Dialpad for my main line and I would want the AI to answer the call and take notes and ask questions and then forward that information to the appropriate person, or direct the customer to a resource.

Not a political post at all and really hope it doesn't turn into one. Trump is doing..... alot. The constant discussion of tariffs, the endless amount of executive orders, the downsizing of federal government, the DEI roll back, this hopeful $500 billion AI infra fund that Elon questions, DOGE and the 'tech first' approach Vivek is claiming Elon is taking, RFK jr, FBI agents fired, the list goes on and on and on. However one gift (or possibly a curse) of being a entrepreneur is seeing a fur coat in a pack full of lions. What are some business opportunities you're seeing open up with this new administration?

I'll start - I think there will be a desire to modernize the medicaid application system. I also am really interested in if these tariffs will really bring manufacturing back to America, which would require an entire ecosystem to support building.

Ive tried everything to promote my chrome extension but i just cant. Ive tried so many subreddits but my post usually gets taken down or no attention. Tried hackernews, no attention. Ive tried reaching out to bloggers and authors of chrome extension articles and no response. Im losing hope at this point and dont know what i should do. please help

Made a platform to for bite-sized financial lessons, simulations and sharing of portfolios that are scored with a preset algorithm. Focused more on long term strategy and investing.

Currently 150+ users joined and many of them liked it. All of this is done through organic channels in the last 10 days. Want to know how can I expand it? And make it stick.

I made an email tool that either instantly replies or drafts responses to all incoming emails using your data from your account!

This is how it works:

1. Create an account
2. Upload your data. This can range from website (it crawls it), your pdfs/documents, CSVs, products, FAQ…
3. Link the email accounts that you want to have replies drafted/sent from

And thats about it! Honestly I see a lot of applications for this tool but this could be particularly useful for:

• small business/people that have unmonitored email accounts (info@, support @..)
• companies that receive a lot of RFQs

I got a few paying customers but I am not sure how big the market is, if I should continue working on it and if it could scale.

All my paying customers found me organically, however I tried a little bit of cold outreach didn’t take me far any advice?

I’ve just started a support group for entrepreneurs and professionals .

We already have more than 30 participants from different countries!

The group is invite-only, but completely free—you don’t have to pay anything.

If you're interested in joining, just let me know.

I’m a dev founder working alongside other IT professionals, and we can offer free tech consulting, mentorship, and networking opportunities to help you on your journey.

Let’s connect and build something great together!

Feel free to dm if you want to join us.

I’m working on a project to find out which U.S. states people are considered most attractive in. I ran some tests with it (quite expensive to do on my own 😭) and made a report that was quite interesting to me. Message if you want to see it

So, I was inspired by that cleaning business AMA last month and feel that 2025 is the year to try my hand at starting my own cleaning business.

From the comments it looks like that post might not have realistic benchmarks.

As a solopreneur, I’m trying to figure out what realistic targets should be.

I’m originally based in Maine where the seasonal fluctuations can really affect business consistency. I’m seriously considering a move down south to either Florida or Texas where the market is less affected by winter slowdowns and there's a steady demand year around.

I’ve seen content (like a recent YouTube feature on how cleaning businesses are dominating in Florida) that highlights the advantages of operating in warmer climates, and it got me thinking about how location can be a game changer.

A few questions I’d love any of your input on:

• Benchmarks: For a solopreneur starting out, what monthly revenue or profit targets should I be aiming for? I’m aware some claims (like hitting $9K per month) may not be entirely realistic without a full team.
• Market Positioning: Should I target a high-end client base for recurring work or focus on volume? How do you balance pricing to ensure quality service while keeping the business sustainable?
• Relocation Insights: For those who’ve made the leap from a seasonal market (like up north) to a more stable one down south. what challenges and advantages have you experienced?

There’s an overwhelming amount of SEO advice out there—courses, blog posts, videos, and Twitter threads. But let’s be real: most of it is too vague or too complicated to apply right away.

If you want to start seeing results today, you’d have to sift through tons of noise to figure out what actually matters. So, I have simplified everything into a practical, step-by-step guide. Grab your popcorn and lets go!

Here’s What We’ll Cover:

✅ Make your website 2x-5x faster (with minimal tech skills)
✅ Optimize landing pages to rank for direct-intent keywords and drive highly qualified leads
✅ Write content that ranks consistently—no guesswork needed
✅ Attract backlinks effortlessly without spending hours on link-building
✅ Improve rankings with Surfer SEO and advanced content optimization

📌 Step #1 – Technical SEO & On-Page Optimization

Before anything else, your website needs to be optimized for search engines. Some of this can get technical, but if you don’t have a dev team, you can apply the basics right away:

• Use WP Rocket (WordPress) to instantly boost site speed
• Compress images with SMUSH to reduce load times
• Create a sitemap.xml file using RankMath or YoastSEO for better indexing
• Fix website structure so every page is accessible within 3 clicks from the homepage
• Use next-gen image formats (WebP, JPEG 2000) to improve performance
• Eliminate duplicate content to avoid Google penalties
• Optimize your robots.txt file to block irrelevant pages from being indexed

For faster site speed, make sure your pages load in under 2-3 seconds (both desktop & mobile). Use Google PageSpeed Insights to diagnose and fix performance issues like:

• Resized images via CSS/JS → Resize manually and re-upload
• No lazy loading enabled → Activate to delay loading off-screen images
• Gzip compression not enabled → Speeds up file transfers significantly
• Too many external scripts → Minify, aggregate, and inline where possible

Pro Tip: Use Cloudflare + BunnyCDN for a cost-effective performance boost. WP Rocket also automates a lot of these optimizations for WordPress users.

📌 Step #2 – Keyword Research: Finding the Right Search Terms

Once your website is optimized, it’s time to develop a content strategy. The foundation? Keyword research.

Create a keyword tracking sheet to:
✔ Prioritize content based on search intent & competition
✔ Track the publishing process & rankings
✔ Maintain a clear content roadmap

Key columns in your keyword sheet:

• Target Keyword – The main search phrase
• Priority – Rank 1-3 (High, Medium, Low) based on traffic & competition
• Search Volume – Helps determine traffic potential
• CPC Data – Higher CPC = Stronger conversion potential
• Status – Not written, in progress, published, etc.
• Topic Cluster – Organizes content into themes

How to Find the Best Keywords:

1️⃣ Identify your top 5 SEO competitors (those ranking for your target keywords).
2️⃣ Use SEMRush or Ahrefs to analyze their top-performing keywords.
3️⃣ Extract relevant ones and add them to your tracking sheet.
4️⃣ Use Ubersuggest to find long-tail variations and expand your keyword pool.

By the end, you’ll have 80-90% of your keyword research completed, setting you up for effective content creation.

📌 Step #3 – Creating SEO Landing Pages That Convert

Now that you have high-value keywords, the next step is to build landing pages that rank.

✔ If targeting similar keywords, use a general template and tweak headings & copy.
✔ For unique use cases, build dedicated landing pages tailored to each keyword.
✔ Optimize each page using RankMath, YoastSEO, or Surfer SEO for best results.
✔ Internal linking → Place landing pages in your navigation menu or footer.

Backlinks play a BIG role in ranking landing pages. If competitors have 400+ backlinks, but your page has 40, you’ll need to build links before outranking them.

📌 Step #4 – Writing Blog Content That Ranks & Converts

Unlike landing pages, SEO blog content can rank even without backlinks—as long as it’s better than the competition.

How to create SEO content:
🔹 Outline Structure → Research top-ranking content & create a detailed outline
🔹 Word Count → Aim for 1.5x - 2x the length of competing articles
🔹 Headers & Subheaders → Use SEO-friendly formatting (H2s, H3s)
🔹 SEO Optimization → Use RankMath, YoastSEO, or SurferSEO
🔹 Reddit & Quora Research → Find real-world FAQs & incorporate them

📌 Step #5 – Getting Backlinks Without Outreach

Backlinks are one of the biggest ranking factors—but traditional outreach sucks. Instead, use these 4 evergreen backlink strategies:

✔ Broken Link Building → Find dead links, suggest your content as a replacement.
✔ Guest Posting → Write for niche-relevant sites in exchange for backlinks.
✔ "Linkable Asset" Content → Create ultra-valuable guides, studies, or tools that attract links naturally.
✔ The Skyscraper Technique → Find popular content, make a better version, and promote it.

Feel free to visit my profile if you are interested in my posts.

📌 Step #6 – Internal Linking: Boosting Rankings From Within

Internal linking keeps users engaged and improves rankings. Here’s how to do it:

• Every article should link to 10+ other pages (requirement for writers).
• Do a bi-annual audit to add internal links to new content.
• Use Google Search: site:yourwebsite "keyword" → Find internal linking opportunities & update old articles with links.

📌 Step #7 – Headline CTR Optimization (More Clicks = Higher Rankings)

Google ranks pages higher when they have above-average CTRs. To improve click-through rates (CTR):
✔ Compare your CTR to industry benchmarks
✔ Rewrite underperforming headlines (test 3-5 variations)
✔ Track & analyze results after 3-4 weeks

📌 Step #8 – Track, Analyze & Optimize Continuously

SEO isn’t set-and-forget. Keep tracking:
✔ Content performance (rankings, traffic, engagement)
✔ Internal links (ensure older posts link to new ones)
✔ Backlinks (are they high-quality and relevant?)
✔ Page speed (stay under 3 seconds)

By following these proven steps, you can rank higher, grow faster, and drive more organic traffic without wasting time on SEO myths and outdated tactics.

I hope this helped you! :)

In today's digital age, your online reputation is EVERYTHING. A negative review can severely damage your brand's credibility and impact your bottom line.

Here are a few tips to improve your Public Perception & Negative Online Reputation:

- Engage with customer feedback, both good and bad. A timely response can show potential clients that you care about their concerns and are willing to make things right
- The best way to improve your online reputation is to provide exceptional service. Happy customers are your best advocates, and their positive testimonials can outweigh the negatives
- Create and share valuable content (blog posts, videos, etc.) that showcases your expertise and highlights customer success stories
- Track your online reviews across multiple platforms in real-time. This will allow you to address issues quickly and maintain a positive presence.
- Consider crisis communication strategies and media relations to help build and protect your image during challenging times.

Your Reputation Agency specializes in helping businesses manage and protect their online image. By actively monitoring and enhancing your brand visibility, you can build immediate trust and credibility with potential clients.

I`m starting up a small website design side hustle that I will hopefully be able to scale into something much larger than a part-time gig, but am grappling with how to implement the cost of domain names and hosting. I am considering the following three strategies and would like to hear your guys`s feedback and insight.

1. Give the business a free website, and charge monthly (about $100 per month) for the cost of the domain, hosting, maintenance SEO optimization, and labor.

2. Sell the website at a reasonable, below-market rate of approximately $500 per site (depending on the business), and charge monthly (about $100 per month) for the cost of the domain, hosting, maintenance SEO optimization, and labor.

3. Sell the website by itself, and put the cost of the domain, hosting, maintenance SEO optimization, and labor on the buyer.

Currently, I am leaning towards the 1st or 2nd option, as it would generate sustainable revenue each month and I would get to stay in touch and build a solid relationship with these businesses that I could use in my portfolio. Provided I would go with option 3, how would one even make this work? Do you just extract the website files and send them off to the customer? Seems like kind of an unsupportive model that may frustrate the client, but from my understanding, a lot of people do it this way somehow.

Provided you were in my shoes, what billing strategy would you use and why? Any input or advice is appreciated, and thank you in advance.

I am applying for a federal grant for a project that would require to be an actual business entity. Just out of curiosity - how long would it take to "get up and running".

I believe I need to register the LLC, get a business license, and register the business name ( DBA)

I am in PA and am not against using a lawyer.

Just curious on the timing, weeks, months?

Hi everyone, hope you're doing great!

I'm creating a platform that will connect entrepreneurs. This platform will be trustworthy, have features to avoid spammers, and will have features that entrepreneurs need specifically. Do YOU as an entrepreneur need it? Or is LinkedIn enough?

Thank you :)

I ask this in all seriousness, as a Mexican American who hates what is happening. I understand this is a political topic, But I am hoping to get answers from an entrepreneurial point of view.

Some states are celebrating the removal of their local workforce, which I believe will hurt businesses like office cleaning and yard maintenance and drive prices up. At the same time, the people who support this shift will likely prefer fully “American-run” services.

What do you think about targeting that market with patriotic brands like “Stars and Stripes Yard Maintenance” or “Freedom Sparkles Office Cleaning,” charging premium rates, and then subcontracting the actual work? It feels a bit scummy, but with fewer service providers around, there’s a clear opening, especially among customers swayed by pro-American branding. Thoughts?

Hey everyone,

I’ve built a tool that helps product managers, engineers, and app developers instantly analyze App Store & Google Play reviews using AI. Instead of manually reading thousands of reviews, this tool summarizes key insights, categorizes themes (UX, bugs, features), and performs sentiment analysis in seconds.

I’m looking for a few early testers to try it out and share feedback! If you frequently work with app reviews and want a faster way to extract insights, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

💡 How it works:
✅ Upload or link to your app’s reviews
✅ Get an instant summary with key pain points & trends
✅ See sentiment breakdown (positive, negative, neutral)
✅ Prioritize issues based on frequency & impact

Would this be useful to you? If so, drop a comment or DM me—I’ll share access!

Appreciate any feedback! 🙌

My finance is approved to complete a small business acquisition.

I worked in a corporate job, did contracting to make more money, built up some assets and now going all in on a small business acquisition.

Total debt will be just under 4m, total assets (if you value the business at cost) will be 6m.

The business *should* deliver 1m of cash flow before debt service each year. It hit this last year.

Keen to hear of similar experiences, especially through the early parts of the operating phase.