I'm an online seller and I don't do wholesale. Unfortunately this year my shipment was late and I missed some of the holiday season. So now I have overstock. I was thinking about seeing if I could connect with some local brick and mortar liquor stores, specialty kitchen stores, or gift shops. I sell a snazzy cold smoking kit and a high end jerky making gun. I've signed up for Faire, but they have a 30 waiting period.

Is there a way to get in touch with some of these local stores without cold calling a billion stores?

Iam a first generation lawyer and I want to practice law . Please tell me how to get clients?

We have a company we're aiming to sell in late 2027 and want to start making connections with M & A people. I like the idea of attending a conference where there are company owners looking to make those connections. Most of them I find online are focused on the M&A business and not necessarily for business owners. Any suggestions?

I know I’m not an advanced entrepreneur, but…

I’m pitching for a grant in a couple of weeks and wanted to ask for some advise before I go in there.

The grant is a £10k proof of concept grant, and the investors will want to know exactly what I plan to spend that on.

Right now I’m stuck between pumping that into an MVP (I’ll have to put some of my own £ towards this in addition to the grant), or putting it all into market research to validate the idea a bit better.

I’ve looked into companies like Attest who conduct extensive custom market research at a price.

I’m currently doing a bit of market research myself, cold emails etc, but not getting much traction…

Thoughts?

Hello! I’m looking for recommendations for consultancy firms/individual consultants who you’ve had positive experiences with for NPN (Canada) and FDA submissions.

Thank you so much!

Which registered agent in Delaware has the cheapest yet has quality service?

Hello!

I am a very ambitious person and can sometimes get a head of myself because I get excited. I want to make sure I do all of this the correct way though to make sure it can be done successfully. So.

I want to eventually get into realty, making my own realty company with my husband. Starting with wholesaling, then getting our realty licenses, start from there and eventually be able to sell BIG stuff. (Also I know this could all take a pretty long time, I am patient. I really want all of this to work out.)

I also want to start a small graphic design business/project.

I am also a licensed cosmetologist and want to start working as a traveling stylist.

My husband is a musician and I also have a strong background in music and we also want to start a production company (in time) as well.

Long story short; I want to work for myself, have multiple forms of income, be pretty involved with my community as well and also do WHATEVER it takes to bring all of these dreams to life. I am a VERY driven person as well, so telling me I can not do this is off the table. lol

What insurances should I look into getting?

Do I need an LLC? Which would benefit me most?

Would starting an enterprise make sense?

Thank you in advance <3

I have an established retail/service business with seven locations. Due to recent location growth cash flow has been tight but now most one time expense have been paid and growth will slow on a relative basis. Adding two more locations in Q1 and another one later in 2025. We use Quickbooks online for accounting. Now I'd like to maximize profit distributions to myself and the other owner and I'm looking for recommendations on cash flow analysis software, that integrates with QB online, if possible. Or maybe there's something else that's better?

Hey advancedentrepreneur Reddit,

I’m working with a web hosting company called SiteChai, and we’re looking to implement a Human Resource Management System (HRMS) to help manage our remote employees more efficiently. We need a solution that can:

• Track work hours and attendance.
• Manage sick leave and time off requests.
• Implement a loan system for employees.
• Calculate salaries and project-based payments.

We’re looking for a user-friendly, cost-effective system that can handle these features and support our growing team.

Any recommendations? Bonus points if it integrates well with other tools like project management or accounting software. Thanks in advance!

I would love to hear from my fellow business owners about the most difficult challenges they are facing when it comes to franchising their existing companies.

Hi All!

I’m currently conducting university research on the challenges small businesses face with POS systems and receipt management. I’d love to hear about any issues you experience with your current POS system.

• How many different POS systems do you use in your business? Are they all used for the same functions, or do they serve separate purposes (e.g., one for orders, one for payments)?
• What types of payments does your business currently accept?
• What challenges do you experience with your current POS setup in terms of reconciliation, reporting, inventory tracking or error-checking?
• Additionally, I’m curious if any one has had experience switching or adding another POS system into the business? How was that transition?

Thanks for you time!

I want to build this product that I believe can help a certain group of people and from research I’ve done I don’t see anything like it on the market and I know it would help a lot of people out.I have it written down on paper just wondering do you look for funding first or what

This is how I got here.

Almost a year ago in October of 2023 I went on a month long trip to Eastern Europe.

Early in the trip, while hiking in the mountains of Slovenia, the idea of putting mushroom adaptogens into a protein bar suddenly popped into my head. I began daydreaming about all the possibilities for a company I would call Shroom Bar.

Anyone who knows me knows I’ve always come up with dumb business ideas that never lead anywhere. But for some reason, this idea wouldn’t go away, and it consumed my thoughts for the rest of the trip.

Throughout the trip I kept having the fear that this was going to be just one of those dumb business ideas , and I was going to forget about it when I got home.

I got back from Europe at the end of October and that was exactly what happened. I didn’t take any action in the next month in a half, and it was starting to become just one of my dumb ideas.

Then, on Christmas Eve, I got a little drunk at my parents’ house. After retreating to my bedroom, I started thinking about Shroom Bar again and wrote this in my journal:

“Okay so I think that the whole universe is pointing me toward pursuing this Shroom bar idea, I don’t know if it will succeed but i need to start this shit asap”

I then spent the next four hours coming up with this plan:

Step One: Find a Chef

Step Two: Make the bars in my own kitchen

Step Three: Make a bad ass logo

Step Four: Make bad ass packaging

Step Five: Find manufacturer to mass produce

Step One: Find a Chef

I of course knew absolutely nothing about making bars myself, so I had to find a qualified chef to make the recipe for me. I did a bunch of research over the next couple of days , called a bunch of different chefs, and eventually, I found a chef out of Beirut Lebanon who I really liked, so, we came to a deal which consisted of me paying her to make a recipe herself, making the bars in her kitchen, then sending me prototypes until I got the bars how I wanted.

Once I got the bars how I wanted; it was time to make them myself.

Step Two: Make the bars in my own kitchen

After the chef gave me instructions on how to make the bars myself, I ordered a couple hundred dollars worth of ingredients and cooking materials, and tried to make them in my kitchen.

I had no idea what I was doing, and the first batch was a total disaster.

By the fourth batch, I could actually make them start looking like protein bars, all the mushrooms inside made me feel amazing, and I started getting excited about the fact that this could actually work.

After a few more batches I became confident that I could consistently make the protein bars good, make them taste good, and make them make you feel good, and I started giving them out to a bunch of friends.

Step 3: Make a bad ass logo.

Creating the logo was surprisingly easy. It came to me while I was working on my third or fourth batch of bars. After eating one, I felt great—energized and creative with all the mushrooms in my system (Lion’s Mane, Cordyceps, Turkey Tail, and Reishi). As I headed to work that day, the image of a gorilla meditating, holding protein bars, popped into my head.

So, from there I did a bunch of research, talked to a bunch of different artists: found one and paid him to create a logo.

Step Four: Make bad ass packaging

This step was similar to designing the logo. I found an artist who could integrate it into a complete package design and make everything look great. Here’s the result.

Step Five: Find a manufacturer

This is where shit started to get real.

Everything up to this point took about 3 months, and I started looking for a manufacturer at the beginning of March 2024. This step was way harder than any of the previous steps.

At first I just started submitting quotes to a bunch of random manufacturers across the country, and eventually I found one that I deemed a good fit.

At first, I paid them several thousand dollars just to adapt the recipe for large-scale production. After that, we went through several rounds of prototypes to get the flavor just right.

The issue with this part of the process is every step took way longer than I was expecting. Originally I was hoping to have the bars completely ready to sell at the beginning of May, but by the time May rolled around, I hadn’t even confirmed the final prototype, and the timeline kept getting pushed back further and further.

I eventually confirmed the prototypes by the beginning of June, and at first I thought that was the end of everything, and I was going to be able to put in the final order, but of course way more goes into getting the bars on the market than I thought.

I had to pay for all sorts of different tests and services, and wait for them all to be completed.

All in all these extra steps cost me around $10,000 more than what I was expecting, and took the remainder of the summer.

It was finally time to place the order for the bars. I had already spent more than I’d budgeted, so I sold all my stocks, my Roth IRA savings, and my crypto. Even that wasn’t enough, so I had to take out a loan to cover the first batch, including all the packaging.

In short, I’m completely all in on this—so here’s hoping it works, lol.

The bars are set to be finished by the beginning of December. So, until then I have a website with presale available and I’m trying to get as many pre orders as possible before launch.

Let me know if anyone has any advice going forward or want to talk in general (:.

I have a business with 1 client, they pay me to run fitness classes and give maybe 1 extra class a year in the seniors niche and the seniors pay a small fee.

How tf do I scale from here

I’m running a glorified smma agency - helping small business owners with web presence, seo, social media, and marketing and sprinkling in ai and automation. I have one solid client at $500/mo and I’ve gotten some bigger projects under my belt - $5k, $1.5k, $2.5k, $1.4k etc. but it’s feast or famine. I’m having a hard time getting clients to agree to monthly services. That’s 16.5 over about 1 year of trying (moved twice during that time and I’m a mom of 3, youngest just recently started going to daycare more frequently but still part time). I’ve gotten to pitch to some big corporations recently on ai consulting, but that’s a long cycle, was approved for a student association for ai in my mba program (global program), and I’m revamping my networking strategy. My clients refer people to me, but also that’s slower growth, and they send the people my info instead of connecting me. Totally dependent upon the person. Also reconsidering my marketing strategy and doing more affiliate marketing showcasing of tools, “built this business with ai from scratch” sort of videos, etc. To the point though - finances really hurt right now. Thankfully my husband is able to cover our needs, but I can’t keep justifying working on this at 16.5k from a year. Can I? One of my clients attributes a lot of his success to the consulting and work I have done for him and we’ve been in business the same amount of time. He’s now at 6 figures. 🫠 Am I being dumb? I’m considering taking what I know about marketing and applying it to another industry, like power washing, cleaning, hvac, construction supply sales, or something else, and finding a part-owner operator to work with me on it. Maybe even ask that client for help to transition. I have a part time job interview coming up on the 6th that would help alleviate the strain I feel and it’s in a consulting space I’m excited about. But I have 3 steps left to go in the process including this interview. I’m also doing market research for two business models and I’m connected to a community in my city that could help me find a job but they’re unlikely to become my clients.

Alright, squad, let’s settle this debate once and for all. When it comes to launching something new, what really moves the needle—having a killer product or flexing your marketing game?

On one hand, you’ve got the die-hard believers that a bomb product speaks for itself. Like, if you’ve got a quality item, people will find it, right? But let’s be real—how many times have you seen a mediocre product blow up just because the marketing was on point?

Think about it: viral ads, TikTok trends, influencer partnerships—they can take something basic and make it seem like a must-have. But if the product sucks, people are gonna bail once they try it. So, is it really about the hype, or does a solid product always win in the end?

I wanna hear your takes! Have you ever bought something just because the marketing was sick, only to be let down? Or do you think the real MVPs are the brands that focus on product quality over flashy ads? Let’s get into it!

Built a SaaS that lets you share control of a PPT - but you have to upload your deck to the platform, and it can't support animations, builds, or embedded videos. 

Pro market I thought would get excited seems to be pretty meh about it, because internet based. (I actually work in live events, everyone I showed it off to in person loved it...or did they? Lol)

Trying to figure out a more prosumer market thats less detail oriented, but would still pay. Someone like internal corporate teams, conferences teams, etc?

Any thoughts on who might be a good market and how to reach them? 

I own a start-up in frozen foods. I have an opportunity to sell my product at an upper middle class gated community. (First time) What has worked for others in this space?

Working on flyers to distribute in the community to create awareness.

Suppose a client preorders, but is not immediately available to receive their order on the day the company van arrives to do deliveries. What are my options at that point?

Royal

I’ve founded 2 nonprofits, 1 for profit, and a consulting biz, all in social impact, and I’m trying to find a Reddit space to hang with like minded folks - is this that? If so would love to hang and share.

Hello everyone, I’m think of starting a new business but I am still in the early days, I am looking for difficult problems that SMEs might have that could be solve using technology. It could be things like simple organizing problems to really complex ones like provider realtionships. Feel free to share them here and people might give you great advices!

Hey all, I could really use some advice on a big decision I’m facing.

My family owns a property development firm, and they’ve been dissatisfied with their current property management. They’ve offered me a unique opportunity to bring the property management in-house by having me start my own property management company to manage the family’s portfolio.

Here’s what the offer looks like:

• 6% commission on approximately $750k/year in rental income (~$45k gross annually).
• They already have a solid network of contractors and service providers that we’ve worked with to build our properties, which could be a huge asset.

Now, here’s my situation:

• I was recently laid off, and if I go back to work, I could likely land a job making around $230k.
• I have other part-time income sources that bring in $2-3k/month.
• Health insurance for the family isn’t an issue, and I’ve got a few months of living expenses saved up.

The big question: Should I go all-in on starting this business?

$45k obviously isn’t enough to live on, but I’m thinking that if I can leverage the in-house contractor network and pitch this value proposition to other property owners in the area, I could scale this up quickly.

Here’s what sets us apart: Many property management firms focus on keeping tenants happy at the owner's expense, sending out overpriced contractors for simple issues to maintain good Yelp reviews, etc. My approach would be different. I can offer cost-effective, reliable maintenance using our trusted contractor network (who typically quote us at a fraction of the cost because of the volume of business we provide and our long-standing relationships). Plus, I can handle simple fixes like changing a lightbulb myself—no need to bring in a contractor for that.

The goal would still be to keep tenants happy and encourage renewals, but my primary focus would be on maximizing value for the property owners, who are ultimately my customers.

Has anyone here made a similar jump or have any advice on whether this is worth pursuing? Appreciate any insights!

Hi there. - A company has approached me for buying a part of my product.

Problem

• Keep a track on daily changes across marketplace and regions for your brand as well as your competitors
• Using scraping solutions is not scalable as it needs constant maintainence and data accuracy is very bad and for each region you need to develop your scraping solutions
• track competitor and your brands daily movement in marketplace for taking better informed decisions in case of out of stock, price changes, deals, best seller rank movement etc...

Product

• I have made a product that helps brand and d2c sellers in taking informed and data backed decisions on amazon ads. I have found a solution for getting listing and product page data via API's for amazon marketplace across all regions. It can easily fetch data for approx 50k-70k asins per day
• I have also built a decision engine, that will give you un-targetted highly relatable with your asins that you are not tagetting but your competitor has high sales for that keyword

Ask

• What are my options
• for how much should i sell and what should be the conditions

PS

• my product involves two parts a data engine which feeds data from Amazon all regions and a decision engine which runs analytics on thr data given. Now decision engine rules changes from time to time and it's more hit and trial case
• they only need the data engine because it's stable and am not looking to service based solution where I charge them monthly
• the company has not said any number and they want me to come up with a number
• the product is 6 months old till today and am not generating any revenue. I partnered with same company for experiment purposes and one of their brand campaign saw 200% increase in roas and became 6th largest spending campaign

Thanks

Hey guys, currently I just started a distribution company that tailors to providing supplements to gyms for lower rates then they can afford; my goal is too provide all the extensive background work for them while providing affordable supplements for these gyms, leaving them with no work to do in the long run except purchase these supplements from myself. I have created a proposal and business plan already where I planned to market to them however I ran into some big issues when I realized that some of my margins on my projections are great, but most of them were not good due to having some variables in the projections that were not fixed such as a 12 qty protein bars being sold for "x" amount of dollars, or wanting to stick to a single wholesale supplier to keep the reliability and a strong relationship. This has really been a road block for me. In addition the risk reward doesn't add up buying 15 different supplements with a 1000 order minimum order quantity from manufacturers, nor is there any trust form a small fish contacting these large manufacturers. I plan on taking a 60% cut from the gym for providing them with the software and payment systems needed to run flawlessly but this too just slices through the margins. If anyone here has any experience along the lines of this please let me know. At the end of the day I need to find supplements at the lowest rate possible, closest to manufacturer rate and somewhere that accepts my low moq. Considering all of this I have thought about the idea of marketing the supplements to local supplement stores first and have less risk in buying bulk then slowly pivoting back to my first goal. I appreciate any insight from anyone. Everything helps, thank you!

Hey everyone,

To give some context I have now been running a food truck in California for almost a year now. It has gone decently well and we average about $15,000 revenue per month (This can increase if I worked the truck more but at the moment we only open 4 days per week.) My goal has always been to open a restaurant and I simply used the food truck to test the market for my product and see how the market responds (It's authentic Neapolitan wood fired pizza). I self funded the food truck with my savings and opened it for a low cost because I built it out myself. I have no debt on my books except I guess a private loan to myself that does not need to be paid back.

I have been strategically parking in a location near a new retail development in a "high-end" part of town that would be cohesive to my product and restaurant concept. My goal from the beginning has been to grow a following and brand recognition in this area to act as a launching pad into this exact retail space. Recently I sent in a proposal to be selected to be a tenant in this new retail space and I was accepted. This happened sooner than I was expecting so I am kind of in a scramble mode to get into this new development which will inevitably do very well in driving traffic.

To create the restaurant concept that I have imagined, it will cost around $500,000. I have found a partner who is willing to come in with $250,000 for 49% of my business while I retain 51%. This means that I need to come up with the remaining $250,000. I thought this would be relatively simple with my business that is cash flow positive and has no debt on its books but as I have quickly found out, if you do not have 2 years of tax returns to show, lenders won't even look in your direction.

One of the other primary problems I am running into, is that my food truck honestly caps out at making $250,000 a year gross income if I were to work it 7 days a week lunch and dinner, and I am honestly afraid of burn out because of how labor intensive my product is. It would demand me to work 12-16 hour days every day for a year. This is simply not feasible with my situation. Finding employees and offering them full time is equally as challenging at this point in time, and its hard to retain part time employees.

The thing is that if I were to open a retail location, our revenue would be easily that of 1-1.5 million on the low end. It'd be full service with drinks, our pizzas, appetizers and open for lunch/dinner 6 days a week.

Is there a way to get access to funds based off projections like these or banks will ultimately just see you as a startup and not give you money?

Thanks for any help or ideas.

I am trying to create a digital visiting card to be shared online with folks I meet. Where can I create it so that it wil have my social media links and contact details included which can be accessed easy?

What’s the best piece of business advice that you’ve gotten from a mentor, YouTuber, competition, etc?

Hey everyone!

I'm curious to hear how this community approaches choosing SaaS tools, especially when trying to maximize ROI. As entrepreneurs, we all know how overwhelming the decision-making process can be with so many options out there.

Recently, I came across a platform called Sprout24, which provides vendor-neutral scores and expert insights on SaaS products. The goal is to help buyers make more informed decisions based on contextual data rather than just features or price. They even analyze user reviews and provide detailed ratings.

I’d love to know—how do you usually evaluate and pick SaaS tools for your business? Do you think a platform like this could help streamline your decision-making process? Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!

Let’s share some strategies!

We make custom software for companies, so this is b2b sales where we meet with a manager from a department and see if they can use our services.

Typically our meeting comes in 2 forms:

They already want our services and have a proposal for us. This happens like 30% of the time. Easy win.

We show them 20 ideas from similar companies, try to listen to them, and... What? Propose something? Let them propose something?

This is what I'm running into. Sometimes the company comes up with their own ideas, great. However, many times they listen, engage, but our last minute is: "Let us know if you need our stuff".

In the past I have tried to listen and make proposals for software, but this hasnt worked yet. It seems this needs to be driven by their needs.

Given this, I either need a better way to propose, or push them harder to think about applications.

What does this look like? Should I have my sales person push to schedule another meeting just to stay on their mind?

I have a contractor, they didnt do their job for 7 days and didnt respond to messages. However, their job is low low priority so I never called, just sent text messages. She has always responded to phone calls.

She didn't give an excuse.

She did similar 1 other time.

I'd move on, but this person is extremely affordable and has technical skills that are great for the price. The position is low priority and is more of a support staff role. I also didn't call.

Anyway, so what are my options? I can't just let it go, there needs to be some punishment. I have our regular 3 strike write-up system, maybe thats good enough.

I’m a 21-year-old Indian BTech student, and I recently decided to start my own clothing brand. My dad has been in the garment business as a wholesaler for the last 30 years, so I’ve got good contacts with manufacturers through him. The brand feels like something personal to me and my family.

Here’s the problem: when I talk to friends for advice, they start acting like they want to be a major part of the business.

For example, I mentioned my plans to one of my classmates who has a good sense of fashion. Instead of just offering some advice, he immediately started saying how he could be the creative director, has contacts with investors, can design silhouettes, etc. It was overwhelming because I don’t want anyone taking a big role in the business—especially when it’s so close to my family.

Another friend, who’s a rapper and has done a couple of professional shoots, reacted similarly. I asked him how much models and shoots cost, and he started saying how he could take care of everything, be the model, handle the promotion, and “make the brand big.” It’s great that they’re excited, but I’m just looking for advice—not partners.

How can I get guidance without people assuming they’re going to take over or expect a bigger role? I’m not looking for co-founders, and I don’t want to hurt my friendships over this. Any advice on how to handle these conversations?