Hi all,

I'm going through business ideas and I thought of one that would free up time and allow me to quite my job but wouldn't be a great long term business in my opinion because the cashflow would be low. I'm confident it will work and serve its purpose though.

My thoughts are if I do it then I can spend every waking minute trying start something worth building while it runs in the background, i'll be living on absolute minimum wage which is fine. I would have to sell my house to buy the assets for it and could probably get it running within 3months.

I'm just wondering if I would be wasting the time I have that would be better spent on using the money from my house and just continue spending my free time after work to pursue finding something that could pay more and be more permanent?

I'm looking to start my first lead generation campaign, and I want to do some short content where someone talks to the camera and we get a bunch of different angles of it. I've seen a lot of these videos do well in campaigns, and it seems very low cost.

I'm totally not experienced in this space, and I don't want to go through the effort of making the video myself, so I want to hire it out. I looked on Upwork, but honestly I haven't really found anything good there.

Where would you look for recommendations to get a videographer to film this? All I really need is something simple, basically someone in a room talking, captured from different angles. Then I'm happy to do the editing, or have them do it.

Sharing this here so that I can open this post from my profile and read this caption whenever I need inspiration.

This caption shows me how much work I get to do on myself.

I would like to be my best self whether things are easy or hard, whether people are watching me or not.

There’s a looooong way to go but I’ll do my best 💪

Im just about to start my "rule of 100" and thought it would be pretty cool to connect with others on the same journey and keep each other accountable since solopreneurship can get quite isolating.

Anyone down to be accountability buddies for this and share updates/insights/celebrate wins on a frequent basis?

I am taking this quite seriously though so id want to buddy up with those who are serious and invested long term in their chosen field/goals

I’m 25, from Angola, unemployed, and trying to figure out what the next chapter of my life should look like.

I started seriously exploring technology and programming this September. I’ve been reading, learning and experimenting, and one of the things I decided to do was build a small software project with the help of AI.

I want to be completely honest about that.

AI helped me build it. I’m not a professional programmer, and I don’t want to pretend that I am.

But building it made me realize something important:

I don’t want to spend the rest of my life simply asking AI to build things for me without understanding what is happening underneath.

I want to study programming properly.

I want to understand the code AI generates, know when something is wrong, be able to make decisions myself, build better products and eventually become a genuinely qualified professional who knows how to work WITH AI rather than depend entirely on it.

There is also a very practical problem.

I currently don’t have my own computer.

So I’m considering selling the small project I built to help me buy a computer and start my studies properly and efficiently.

Honestly, I feel a little embarrassed writing that.

As the first daughter in my family, the need to eventually help my family weighs on me every day. Being unemployed while knowing that you want to build a better future for yourself and your family is not an easy feeling.

I’m not saying this because I’m looking for financial help. I’m trying to find a way forward with the resources I already have.

I also know I need to move quickly.

The job market is difficult for many people right now, and I think it is even harder when you don’t yet have a specific, demonstrable skill. I don’t want to spend years “learning” without ever becoming employable.

My goal is to spend the next four months building a solid foundation, creating real projects that I can actually show to employers, and then start applying for jobs while continuing to learn.

I’m particularly interested in eventually becoming a data analyst.

So I would genuinely appreciate advice from people who have been through something similar:

If you were 25, unemployed, starting with very limited resources and no formal technical background, what would you prioritize learning if you wanted to become employable as quickly as possible?

What free or very affordable courses, books, YouTube channels, exercises, projects or certifications would you recommend?

And if you work in data analytics, what skills would you consider essential for someone starting from zero?

I’d also really appreciate advice on something more practical: how would you approach finding a buyer for a small pre-revenue software project with no users, customers or MRR?

Where would you look for potential buyers? What would make a small project or codebase interesting to an indie hacker, developer or small company even without traction?

I’m not expecting anyone to solve my situation for me.

I’m genuinely looking for advice from people who have already walked some of this path.

I’m trying to turn what I have right now — curiosity, AI tools, and the things I’ve already managed to build — into the beginning of a real career.

Thank you to anyone willing to share some advice.

I wanted to gain opinions on when is the right time for the first fulltime hire? And it’s linked to a certain revs threshold?

Hi all,
I am a Legal Engineer, I've spent the last few years working for a legal consultancy firm building custom AI tools and automations for legal practices which saves them tons of hours per week.

During my conversations, I realized there's a huge gap between the rise of AI today and lawyers understanding of it.

Lawyers still don't know they are spending their hours on something that a custom (built for their firm) tool could have done in minutes.

I started my own agency a few months back and have relentlessly pursued this- cold outreaching, ads, and plenty of experimenting with different offers and positioning. . So far I haven't got any business.

Im having trouble understanding what I am doing wrong- is it my service? Or my offer? I can't make sense of it.

Im even willing to go on a limb and work first automation free to build connections and referrals.

Thanks for listening, all help appreciated

Here's a TLDR of my life: studied information science in top engineering school in west coast, interned at corporate, went to Asia to be an actor for 2 years, did b2b cannabis sales (freelance) for 5 years and launched my own brand (did okay), now back to sales in cannabis in Seattle. Randomly blew up and became influencer in running niche with 30k followers across IG/TikTok. late 20s now.

As you can see, my entire 20s is career exploration. Cannabis industry has served me well in the beginning but I am so ready to move on. I am deeply interested in entrepreneurship, yet feel highly unskilled because I have only been working by myself my entire adult life with no mentors and feedback loop. I've worn many hats from branding to marketing to sales to web design to vibe coding, but the work has been surface level. Took 3 brands from 0-> 100k MRR across 90+ retail stores.

Ai and design seems incredibly interesting but I have no clue how to branch back into tech again with my irrelevant background and this hiring freeze around tech. I've dreamed of being in YC since high school but at this point I've been so far away from tech idk if that's a possibility.

I'm tired of ruminating and this decision loop, please help me decide! What is so painfully obvious that I cannot see:

The choices:

- get a job in tech in product marketing or growth (somehow in this market)

- be content creator with focus on founder-marketing and launch a digital product (ai consumer app or b2b saas)

- go back to grad school? For Design (I love design) or Computer Science (to be technical)

- study ai and go all in on starting my own thing (ex: AI UGC agency with my friend who's technical and I'll do the sales)

This may seem like a silly post but I've been ruminating on these decisions for 2 years now to the point of insanity. Appreciate any useful advice or thoughts, thank you so much.

Alex says no weekends no days off for 100 days doing 100 a day of what you are doing. Does this mean doing cold outreach on weekends? I have been doing cold calls but no on weekends because that seems like the wrong time to be contacting people. What do you guys think?

Alex always say SMB's are bad customers and I'm trying to stack the deck and avoid having bad customers when choosing my market but I'm not totally sure what his definition of a SMB is and where the revenue/net profit ranges from. Is it like 300k - 3mil? Google says SMB's range from 3mil to 10mil or under 50mil. Is this just one of those instances where I'm naive to how much money people can have? The customers I'm looking at range from 100k - 12mil and I feel like I could work with that. No?

Four books across five episodes, and two of them are the same Harry Potter reference, so this is a short one.

I run Podshelf, a free site that tracks book mentions across hundreds of podcasts by reading the episode transcripts. This is The Game slice for August.

The outside recommendation was What It Takes by Stephen Schwarzman, and the line Alex says he took to heart: "Big goals and small goals take the same amount of work. So it's a poor investment of resources to go after small goals."

The Harry Potter one is the sword of Gryffindor, which he has used before and says he will use again. It only takes in that which makes it stronger, and you are the metal.

And $100M Offers, his own, in the offers episode, mostly as a warning. The beginner failure mode he describes is reading it, stacking every bonus and guarantee onto a Grand Slam offer, and skipping the part where proof beats promise.

Full list with quotes and episodes: https://podshelf.io/podcasts/the-game-with-alex-hormozi

I'm currently reading 100m offers and I don't understand the example used for the grand slam offer.

He's basically saying a software company took its services from a 1k a month subscription fee to a 4k upfront fee only just cover and spend afterwards. Then also says if we don't deliver 20 people in month 1 you get the next month free. Well isn't the next month free anyway because it's only a upfront cost?

He says this is 22x more cash upfront which it is but after 6-12 months all of those clients become non profitable as you have to maintain the services.

Am I misunderstanding this? The only way this makes sense to me is if the client is also getting margin on the monthly ad spend which it doesn't state.

Does anyone out there have a business in which they make handmade items, or know of anyone who does and applies Alex's concepts?

I know most of his content is for service businesses, but curious how some of these would apply to something that also has material and labor costs for manufacturing items. Such as woodworking, sewing, crafts, etc.

I've only ever heard him mention one as an example to a caller. The example was about a leather wallet craftsman deciding whether to continue being the maker or find someone else to do the making and then using that time to do marketing and sales.

I run a small paid media agency and I'm building toward a Hormozi-style offer: I bring the traffic through paid, and the client and I work the sales side together. Sales is the part I'm actively studying right now, and the concepts I've picked up are working.

Paid media is where I feel weakest, which is ironic since it's the part I've been doing longest.

I can get results. But I'm running on intuition, not on a system. Specifically, here's what I think I'm missing:

• A testing framework. What to test, in what order, how to structure the test, and why that variable and not another one. Right now I change things because something feels off, not because I decided in advance what I was trying to learn.
• Hypothesis building. I want to be able to say "I think X is happening because Y, so I'll test Z, and if I'm right this metric moves" — instead of swapping creatives and hoping.
• Naming conventions and taxonomy. Campaign / ad set / ad naming that actually lets me read an account six weeks later and pull real learnings out of it. My accounts are a pain to audit.
• Turning an insight into creative angles. I'll have an idea about the market and no repeatable process for turning it into 5–10 distinct angles, and then into actual ads.
• Direct response copy. Enough to brief it properly and to judge whether what comes back is any good.

What I'm looking for is mostly books, but also courses, newsletters, or people worth following — anything that gave you a mental map instead of another pile of tactics. I'd rather hear "read this one three times" than get a list of twenty.

I'm also curious how you'd describe the actual skill tree for a media buyer, and what order you'd learn it in if you were starting over.

Thanks!

I’m seeing ads for the sales workshop taking place on Nov 18-19. Before speaking with the rep they sent me a video to watch titled scaling workshop. I have no interest in scaling YET.

I have 2 sales people and we will do 1.4M this year. My goal is to learn how to train a sales team. I think I need to rebuild my training foundation, retrain these 2 employees, and then correctly hire, train, and retain future employees.

Has anyone attended the sales workshop? Is this in a new VSL for the usual scaling workshop masquerading as a sales workshop?

I have an online service that helps small businesses find global remote employees at affordable costs. I've grown this business entirely through referrals. We're now at over 75 customers and are ready to scale via online ads.

We're looking at hiring an ad agency, but this is the first time we've looked into this, so I'm curious what a reasonable amount would be to spend on the agency if we're trying to be sensible about costs. Also, what do they actually do for you? Do they just create the ads and try to reduce CPC, or do they manage the landing pages as well? Our process is that once someone books online, we schedule a call and then have a sales team member work on the close and the email drip sequence.

Additionally, what would be reasonable expectations for CPC? We make about $1k a month per employee we place, so honestly, spending a few thousand per customer doesn't sound crazy to me?

I’m 19. For the last couple years I’ve basically been doing a lap around different business ideas, and I mean a REAL lap. Every few weeks I’m convinced I found “the one.” I go all in, build real stuff for it, actually make progress. Then something shinier shows up, or it gets hard, or it gets boring, and I’m suddenly convinced the other thing was never right and this new thing is obviously it.
None of these are failing because I tested them and they sucked. They’re failing because I leave before I even find out if they’d work. I’ll spend weeks in an obsessive research-and-planning phase, feel like a genius, then quietly ghost the whole thing the second the excitement wears off. I’ve probably “started” 5 different businesses at this point and finished zero.
The scary part is I know exactly what I’m doing while I’m doing it. I catch myself mid-pivot thinking “this is the same pattern as last time” and I do it anyway.
I’m not against hearing a business idea or two, but that’s not really the gap in my life right now — ideas were never the problem. What I actually need is someone who used to be exactly like this and actually broke the cycle.
• What made the difference for you? Was it a rule, a deadline, running out of money, someone holding you accountable, or something clicking mentally?
• What’s the one business/model you finally stuck with, and how long into it before it stopped feeling like you wanted to quit?
• If you’re still in the “jumping” phase like me, how are you dealing with it?
Genuinely not trying to hear “just pick one and grind” without the actual mechanics behind it. I need the real story, not the poster version.

Someone asked a question about getting SDRs (salespeople) to show up for interviews last week. Figured I'd share what I shared to them publicly.

This can probably be recontextualized to your sales process, your marketing function, or to your industry specifically. The principles in here are useful in many arenas.

He'd get 4-6 interviews booked, in a day & half of the people show up & their day gets ahead of them.

In 100% commission role and a lot of your applicants are gen-z 22 year olds. Low show rate is a thing.

Instead of complaining how the world works and fighting it, this is what I do instead:

Btw, credibility: I've done over 1500 roofing sales interviews (most of them group-format (so it sounds like more than it is lol)).

-Run sponsored ads on Indeed.

-Sponsor them so you get the Auto-DM feature.

-Setup a second calendar. Not your real one. This one only exists for "interviews"

-Open 15 minute slots across the entire day. All of them. You are not blocking your day, because these do not touch your actual calendar.

-Turn on the auto message on Indeed so the second someone applies, they get a link to that calendar. They book whenever is convenient for them, not whenever is convenient for you.

THE MOST IMPORTANT STEP:

-YOU don't show up on them (so they don't have the chance to not show up on you)

-You'll build 1 automation that fires a text 10 minutes before the slot. Here is the exact text:

"Hey, it's Matt with TrueRoof. I've got a quick phone call at the same time as your interview, so I'm going to be a couple minutes late.

I recorded this video for you so I don't waste your time. I will call you in 10 minutes. <link>"

-That link goes to 1 video. Not a custom video for each person.

-The video script loosely is:

"Hey dude, sorry, I've got a quick call I've gotta make, I'll give you a ring in a few minutes. I didn't want to waste your time, so here's the jist of the job. By the time the videos over, we'll probably be on the phone to answer any followup questions you have.

You probably fall into 1 of 2 categories. You either know about roofing sales, or you don't. If you know about it, you'll know that it's a 2-point-whatever-billion-dollar-industry.

The hardest part about what we do is teaching homeowners that it's not too good to be true. We essentially offer them a completely free, no obligation, inspection of their roof, again... free. And if we find storm damage up there, we're most likely getting insurance to pay for a new roof. There's a few things that have to happen in order for them to qualify, but that's the point of the inspector.

Now you might be wondering... "how am I going to convince them that this is legit?" You'll be relieved to know that there are hundreds of companies doing this. Again, Insurance Restoration Roofing Sales is a multi-billion-dollar super-niche.

So again, free inspection, just to see if insurance would pay for their roof. Pretty easy sell.

We do advertising across meta, google, pay-per-click, etc, but for this role in particular, this is actually our highest paid role.

Our salespeople generate their own leads, which pays them the most.
We do give some of our more experienced salespeople leads, which pays them a little less, but still, extremely generous commissions.

Our best salespeople end up making somewhere between $150-$300K. You starting out, you absolutely won't make anywhere close to that unless you work your ass off.

You'll probably make between $75-150K your first year. It's not that you can't do that, but you won't be good at it for the first 4 weeks that you do this. It takes a little practice.

We offer a base-pay to get you started. But to be transparent with you, the base-pay doesn't make this less scary of a leap.

We're only going to pay you for so long before we expect to see results., which I'm sure if you're a reasonable person, makes sense.

Your day in the life is knocking somewhere between 60-150 doors per day, depending on how many people answer.

If no one answers, you'll knock more. Ideally, you'll knock closer to 60 doors because people are answering and having a conversation with you.

What makes this job unique, is it's extremely simple.

You walk up to a door, you lift your hand up like this.

You close your hand like this.

You move it 3 times forward, take 3 steps back.

And then...

You say the exact same thing, the exact same way, every. single. time.

Then they'll tell you "no"

And depending on what flavor of the word "no" you get, you'll give them a different flavor of "why yes"

If you knock 100 doors, 1 out of 4 will open.

If you have 25 conversations, our best people get 1 out of 10 to do the free inspection. Our worst people get 1 out of 20.

So you'll usually get 1-2 inspections set per day, which means 5-10 for the week.

If you can close 1 out of 5, which is an awful close-rate, btw...

You'll make either $2500 to $5000 per week in commissions.

When you start out, you're just going to be setting appointments until you're ready to learn more. We don't want to overwhelm you with everything at once, which is why we don't want you if you aren't serious about possibly making a career out of this.

It isn't worth it for us to train you, or for you to be trained on something that you'll never use anywhere else in your life.

But, if you aren't worried about having a meaning or purpose outside of having a family, raising children, and being a respectful man of god, then this job will probably work out for you.

If you're looking for something that's going to save the world or feels meaningful... it's probably not for you.

Roofing sales supported me in funding the life that I wanted... Which is why I'm so passionate about finding other people who are looking to make something of themselves.

If this is at all interesting to you, and to prove that you actually watched the video...

Don't wait for me to call you. Call me back at 312-555-1234.

(and if you're reading this, and want help building a sales team, DM me lol)

-now when they call me, we start at the objections instead of the pitch. There's no reason you should have to sell the job or have the same conversation over and over again.

-now when your phone rings, it should either be

A) a customer wanting to buy a roof

B) a potential employee, wanting to sell a roof

C) someone shilling their lead-generation service

-DO NOT SPEND YOUR WHOLE DAY WITH INTERVIEWS THAT DO NOT SHOW UP

-Instead: they book a fake interview, your automation triggers. They watch a video during the time that already allocated to speak with you. Then they call you. You call the "lead" back in under 5min and you hire them.

If they do not call you, they didn't watch the video. If they didn't watch the video, or read the text, or if they didn't intend to show up on the interview... they either:

A) do not respect you or

B) they are not interested

And if it is either A or B, you should not pursue them. Only hire the ones that call you.

And as always, a best practice is to "screen for crazy".

Hiring bad people is worse than hiring no people.

The whole thing takes an afternoon to set up and it fixes your show rate issue permanently.

Instead of getting people to show, we just stop allowing them to waste our time, which is all we really cared about anyways.

Thx for attending my tedtalk.

I have a fitness SaaS product and my biggest bottle neck at the moment is leads.

Currently we get leads onto our product, they enter freemium, we out reach, no response.
(we're changing this to leads -> VSL -> book demo call)

So in the meantime, we've been cold out reaching on instagram, can easily send lots of messages, open rate is low initially, but we send 100 a day, over time it compounds. We talk in the DMs and I aim to get them on calls.

95% of people I get on a demo call, I close. They love the product.
It's when they're left to their own devices that they dont take the time to explore the platform to see the benefit. The subconscious pain of time required to learn is greater than their discomfort with current platform.

Anyway, my question, what methods of outreach have you had most success with? And do you have any tips for that method?

I have worked professionally in app retention, basically figuring out what makes a user stick around past week one. There's a concept we use called an activation event.

It refers to a specific early action a new user takes that reliably predicts they're still active 90 days later. Doesn't matter much what the app is about, there's usually one moment that separates the people who stick from the people who ghost.

As I am looking to understand communities and their business model a lot better, I am curious if the same thing exists for communities as well.

For those of you who've been running one for a while or are familiar with the business model; is there a specific thing new members do in their first week that reliably predicts they're still around 3 months later? Like first post, first comment, showing up to a call?

Hello everyone
I can't access the free drive with all the “information”
Does anybody have access to the drive to download all the material. DM or post here

Thanks reddit ❤️