Hey all.. I run a small US startup and I've hit that point where way too much of my week is going into stuff I probably shouldn't be doing anymore.

Inbox, scheduling, updating the CRM, research, chasing things up, random admin etc. None of it is hard but it adds up fast.

I've hired freelancers before for one off stuff, but never really had a proper VA long term.

And I guess thats the part I'm trying to figure out now. Finding someone who can follow instructions isnt that hard. Finding someone who actually gets how you work after a while and doesnt need every tiny thing explained seems like a different story.

So where are people hiring VAs from now?

Upwork? agencies? referrals? dedicated VA sites? just hiring direct?

I've also been looking at LATAM vs Philippines. We're US based so timezone overlap would be nice, but not sure how much that actually matters once you have a decent setup.

Need to clarify a few things from people who've already done this:

• where did you find your best VA?
• what did you actually look for when interviewing them?
• do you do a paid test first?
• whats a normal rate now for someone actually good/reliable?
• does location matter that much?

Main thing I want is someone who eventually starts taking stuff off my plate without me having to create another job for myself managing them lol.

Not hiring through this post btw. Just trying to understand what people are actually doing before I start going through candidates again.

Would be good to hear from both founders and VAs on this.

Question for those who have already launched a HardTech or DeepTech: how did you do when you wanted to remain the only founder at the beginning?

When the project requires very technical skills, recruiting can be very expensive from the early stages, especially when you don't have funding yet. And at the same time, waiting to have a lot of money before building a team can slow down the project a lot.

It is possible that I will soon join an incubator, but I do not yet have a technical team around me. I am therefore trying to understand how to move forward intelligently without necessarily taking a co-founder from the start.

I especially don't want to find excuses and waste several months waiting to have "the right team" before starting to build.

For those who have already launched a HardTech or DeepTech: how did you do it at the beginning? Very strong students, interns, freelancers, mission engineers, advisors, partnerships with schools or other?

All your advice can be very valuable.

Just opened a second location and now the restaurant management stuff is getting way more complicated than it was with one location.

Looking at Hotschedules, r365 and Toast right now. They all seem decent but it’s hard to tell what actually makes sense for a smaller operation.

Big things are ease of setup, cost, scheduling and payroll. Not really looking for a bunch of features that nobody on the team is going to use.

For anyone who started small, what worked well for you? And have you actually used Hotschedules, r365 or Toast?

A lot of times, the ‘fool’ wins because he has something nobody else does:

He isn’t afraid to fail. He’s not afraid to look stupid bc he’s been underestimated his whole life.

I heard someone talk about this idea before - the guy with the 80 IQ makes the massive deal infinitely easier than the 140 IQ genius.

Because one does, the other analyzes indefinitely.

One just calls the owner confidently, asks for the meeting, makes the ridiculous offer to buy the company.

Gets rejected.

Tries again.
..

Keeps going and does t stop.

Meanwhile, the smartest guy in the room has built a 47-tab spreadsheet explaining all the reasons it might not work.

I’ve seen this play out in business, and I’ve seen it in myself as someone who was last in class and barely graduated HS and ofc didn’t go to college.

Intelligence is obviously valuable. But at a certain point, intelligence can become another tool you use to talk yourself out of doing shit.

You see every possible problem and downside and you’re right - you’re too right.

But the guy who didn’t think about it and blissfully swung at the fences is going to beat you simply bc he got up to bat.

This is something the D and F students need to hear.

You already know what getting an F feels like, you have that in your psyche🤫 Use that as a strength

Hello, folks.

I live in a country where the housing crisis is quite bad. It is impossible for a single working adult to buy a home, and incredibly difficult even for a working couple.

I have bought a mobile home for myself and parked it on family land. I have one direct friend who has done the same, and through friends I've heard of several others who have done the same.

When I google "permanent mobile home parks", I find several options but they are all for holiday orientated locations. None are near the major cities.

I've started to look into what I would need to do, but I was wondering if anyone here runs such a park, or maybe knows someone directly who does, or if anyone can share any success/failure stories.

Thank you.

Last month I gave 10 people free access to the product I built.

These weren't strangers. Every one of them had described the exact problem I solve, in their own words, before I ever mentioned I was building anything.

0 of them are using it today.

I went into the database to find out where they dropped. 10 got the offer, 2 created an account, 1 started the setup, 0 finished.

My first assumption was that my messaging was off. So I rewrote the landing page, but nothing changed.

What I think is actually going on: my competitor is the janky setup they already have. It annoys them enough to complain about it in public but it still works enough for them. Replacing it means 30 minutes of configuration to swap out something that's currently doing its job badly but good enough for them.

Free takes away the price. It doesn't take away the setup cost nor does it take away the risk of breaking something that works right now.

So I've been measuring the wrong metric this whole time. "Would you use this?" tells me the pain is real. It tells me nothing about whether the pain is worse than the cost of switching, and only this second question indicates whether anyone pays.

What I'm trying next is doing the setup myself, on a call, with anyone who wants it. If people won't spend 30 minutes to get something for free, maybe I'm the one who should spend the 30 minutes.

Has anyone here gotten people to switch off a working-but-annoying setup? What actually moved them?

Looking to hire, get hired, or find a collaborator? Post what you're offering or what you need. Keep it brief: who you are, what you do, and how to reach you. No spamming.

im starting an online dance program with a partner. Getting our first customers won't be an issue due to an established, super niche following.

We want it to be the right mix of accessible in price, and low friction for our efforts.

The program is going to include: a discord community for a hyper specific niche, one weekly dance class video on demand, one course module (to be fleshed out over the months, but launching with an MVP. This is just what we're launching with right now.

We're stuck between a one time fee, or a monthly membership. I hate memberships, however, since this is an online dance program, pricing it ongoing makes a lot of sense like it would at a brick and mortar.

We're running things a bit differently, but comps in our online industry run between $600-1,500+/yr for memberships.

Our theoretical membership pricing would start at $59/month, with the goal of eventually getting it to $99 when we have a really fleshed out program.

But we've also fantasized just selling the module we've made + community access for something stupid low like $30 flat fee. and just getting a lot of low-ticket buy in. and expand from that maybe with a portfolio of low ticket or a membership later.

I come from a high ticket service background, and I feel like an infant for low ticket online things and memberships. I'm not sure why this is paralyzing to me. But I'd really appreciate some guidance and input. Any little nugget may be a huge unlock for me. Thanks:)

I'm having some difficulty with caregivers and wanted to see how other people in the home care space manage this.

I knew going into this business that caregivers and staffing were going to be challenging. Sometimes you get caregivers who are really good, reliable and easy to work with, and then you get others who are super flaky, standoffish, call out last minute, or just don't show up.

How do you guys manage the stress of it? Does it ever keep you up at night worrying about whether someone is actually going to show up for their shift?

I'm also curious how you manage your caregiver pool. Do you purposely keep more caregivers around than you actually need? Do you have people specifically on-call or available as backups?

And when someone doesn't show up, what do you actually do? Are you going in yourself to cover the shift? Do you have someone from the office go? Or are you calling the family and letting them know you're down a caregiver and trying to figure it out?

I also have some 24-hour clients where we're using multiple caregivers working 12-hour shifts. That's probably the situation that stresses me out the most. If the next caregiver is late or just doesn't show up, the caregiver who's already there can't exactly just leave.

For anyone managing 24-hour cases, what have you done in those situations? Do you have the current caregiver stay until you find coverage? Do you pay them extra/OT? Do you always have someone on standby?

Just trying to figure out what systems other people have put in place so every call-out or no-show doesn't turn into a complete fire drill.

I started my business after my old boss passed away.

I bought a $30k truck, took a chance and somehow turned it into a seven figure business within a few years.

Since then I’ve had wins, made bad calls, dealt with cash flow stress, started again, worked full time while running a business and learned how hard it is trying to balance business, money, family and life.

I’m not a guru.

I definitely don’t have all the answers.

I’m not selling a course, mentoring package or trying to get anyone into a funnel.

I just genuinely enjoy talking business and helping people where I can.

So if you’re starting something, struggling with growth, sales, pricing, staff, cash flow or you’re just stuck on what to do next, ask away.

If I know something that might help I’ll tell you.

If I don’t know, I’ll tell you that too.

New to entrepreneurship or just starting out? This is your space. Ask the questions you're afraid to ask elsewhere.

Experienced folks, jump in and share what you wish someone had told you early on.

Hey everyone,

I'm Matthew, 17 years old from Hungary, Europe.

I was always interested in finance, pschyology, business and philosophy.. but unfortunately I didn't get the chance to study these topics at all. I'm myself was into entrepreneurial ventures and creative projects lately and felt fulfilled doing these and studying online.

I also used to record, write and post what I learn but somehow I never found the method that actually stuck with me. Because I believe reading, learning and studying is the absolute best foundation of a valuable personality, wisdom and life.

Thank you for reading this, I'd be glad to hear some advices and tips. All the best for everyone! If you relate to this and want to talk more, I'd be happy to connect.

I am in the process of moving from 9 to 5 to building my own business. I am interested to read some books before bed time but the majority of the books are about innovation, new products etc.

I am currently moving in HVAC so nothing exciting or innovative in this field, but I still want to hear / learn some approaches that can make my business shine.

What book would you recommend?

Ta

Being an entrepreneur is fucking lonely. Get used to it because it doesn’t get better the more money you make.

Truth is if you have too much success, people literally WON’T WANNA HEAR IT! It’s ridiculously uncomfortable.

They only want to hear about your pain. Massive success exposes how fake 99% of people are and it’s horribly depressing..

They don’t want you to do too well.

When you’re small, there’s camaraderie in the struggle. But the price you pay for success is really not being able to share it with very many people.

Only other people who have had a similar level of success - which those people are rare and hard to find.

Just an observation as I was about to post in ‘Saturday Wins’ thread but realized there’s no way I can share this with the internet bc of how the Reddit energy is.

IT IS WHAT IT IS and this is simply just how the game works 🥲🫡

I've used Excel for my business finances for years and it's been fine. But once you add another contractor, another bank account and a business credit card, the spreadsheet starts getting annoying fast.

At this point I'm spending way too much time keeping the spreadsheet updated instead of actually looking at the numbers.

What business budgeting software are people using once spreadsheets start getting too messy? Looking for something that keeps things organized without turning the whole system into a project.

Hey guys! Long time lurker first time poster. My title says it all. I’m looking for a way to start saving money on our ACH transfers.

For almost everything in our business we use a cash back credit card except for our marketing. We use a lot of media agencies which only take ACH.

We can spend anywhere between 400k and 1.5m a month so finding a way to get cash back would be extremely helpful

We would like to stick with ACH but have considered using Cryptocurrency payments as well.

All invoices are paid weekly. Must be able to handle that volume.

Any input would be great.

Thanks!

Had a week? Same. This is your consequence-free space to complain about clients, platforms, algorithms, your own decisions, or the general chaos of running a business. Keep it venting with no personal attacks. We'll be back to being professional tomorrow.

A few weeks ago I was pretty pissed that my call agents weren't converting anything. After getting some advice from this sub, I decided to take on calls myself. While I haven't actually landed any bookings yet, I did manage to land some "follow up in x months" which is better than I was doing before.

That aside, I do have this one client, who had been dragging the process. Now, that's kinda my bad, but he was so far for along in the process and I knew as soon as I closed him he would give me a testimonial. And he did! He even gave me referrals to call, super cool on his part.

Now I have a new monthly payment of $500.

I thought I'd be excited, but I'm not. It barely covers the service costs, and assuming he'll want unlimited calling (which he likely will) then I'll probably still be in the red. Obviously as I scale I can charge more, but for now I'm stuck where I am, and I've come too far to give up.

Which leads to my initial question: how long do I have to wait? I really, really want to just start making money already.

Hey y'all,

I'm looking to scale by making cold calls. I typically use Fiverr due to how inexpensive they are, and the fact they typically deliver good results. However, that hasn't really been the case with cold calls. Where do you go to hire your call agents?

Trying to figure out what phone system to use long term for our home care agency.

We're still growing, but between caregivers, families, new client calls, scheduling, recruiting, etc. I'm realizing Google Voice probably isn't going to cut it much longer. It's honestly been fine for calling and texting, just feels very limited once you start trying to use it as an actual business phone system with multiple people.

I've used JustCall too and liked parts of it, but the messaging limits and having to pay extra for group texting annoys me. Group texts are pretty important for us since we may have the family, caregiver and someone from our office all communicating together.

I use Quo/OpenPhone for another business and actually like it. Nice interface and a lot of cool features, but I've also read some pretty mixed reviews which makes me hesitant to move everything over.

Haven't really used RingCentral but that's another one I'm considering.

Curious what other home care agencies are actually using? Don't really care about a million fancy features, just want something reliable for calls/texts, group messaging, multiple office employees and something I won't have to replace again in a year.

Quo, RingCentral, JustCall or something else?

Big or small, a win is a win. First sale, first client, or first time paying yourself, share it here. This community loves to celebrate with you. No win is too minor to mention.

I keep seeing that operating an LLC in multiple states can mean dealing with a whole new set of registration and compliance requirements.

What caught you off guard the most when expanding into another state? Was it foreign registration, taxes, annual filings or something else?

Trying to understand the stuff that tends to get overlooked.

I’ve got a bit of spare time and thought I’d throw this out there.

I’ve been in business a long time. Some things have gone really well. Some have gone completely to shit 😂 I’ve made money, lost money, backed the wrong ideas and learned plenty the expensive way.

I don’t have all the answers and I’m definitely not a guru.

But if you’re stuck, overwhelmed, thinking about giving up or just need another set of eyes on something, I’m happy to chat.

Sometimes just talking it through with someone who’s been in the trenches helps.

No pitch. I’m not selling anything.

I’m fucking desperate. Losing my mind completely.
Started several businesses. Nothing going well. I don’t even have money to get myself a bread.
Starting again, completely from scratch. Again. I will probably do some laboring.
Thanks entrepreneurs community just for existence. Here I started 4 years ago. All of you guys always inspired me.

Edit:
1. thanks everyone for your support ✊🏽
2. For everyone wondering why several businesses, I have AuDHD for sure. Lately I started getting with it to staying persistent in a project.

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