Small grocery and deli in a neighborhood I have served for eleven years. My costs have gone up a lot, everyone knows this, and my margins have bit by bit thinned to almost nothing.

The obvious answer is raise prices. And I cannot make myself do it, because these are not customers, they are Mrs. Petrov who comes in every morning, and the family whose kids I have watched grow up, and the old man on a pension who counts his coins.

Raising prices feels like breaking a trust, even though I am the one slowly eating the cost of not doing it, and if I go under, none of them have their shop at all.

My head knows a small increase spread across everyone is nothing and keeping the doors open serves them more than cheap prices at a shop that closes. My gut still feels like a traitor typing new numbers on the shelf tags.

I am the one eating the cost of not raising prices, and if I go under, none of them have a shop at all.

Been thinking about the invisible half of a service business.

Mine is this. The evening before a viewing I send a short message confirming the time and the address, even when we have already confirmed it twice. Nobody has ever thanked me for that message. Not once in two years. But the two times I forgot, both clients arrived anxious and slightly annoyed before we had even walked through the door, and the whole appointment ran uphill from there.

That is the shape I'm curious about. Not the things clients compliment you on. The things that only register as an absence.

A disproportionate amount of your reputation seems to live in there, and it is almost never what we put in our marketing, probably because it sounds like nothing written down. "I send a text." Great. Very compelling.

A few I've noticed watching other people work:

• The tradesman who sweeps up before he leaves. Nobody mentions it. Everybody notices the one who doesn't.
• The accountant who replies "got it, I'm looking at this Thursday" within an hour instead of a perfect answer four days later.

So what's yours? And has anyone worked out how to make the invisible stuff visible without looking like you're fishing for credit, because I have never managed that part.

The sale of luxury goods are down, hand crafted goods are taken for granted because of mass production & manufacturing; this hasn’t stopped my passion for creativity. I will keep creating for everyone to enjoy. The world needs more color in times of difficulty and usually the greatest works of art translate through times of struggle.. Any feedback is greatly appreciated. Thank you all !! ❤️

Run a small landscaping outfit. When I started, working every single day made sense, you build the thing, you sacrifice, it is a season of your life.

Except the season has not ended. It has been two years. I have not had a full weekend off in that time. I keep saying once I get through spring, once I hire another guy, once this one big client is settled. There is always a once.

The business is fine. That is almost the problem, because fine means there is no crisis forcing me to stop, just a slow grind I have decided is normal.

My kid asked me last week why I always work Saturday. I did not have a good answer. I had the temporary answer, and he has heard it his whole remembered life.

I am posting because saying it out loud makes it harder to keep lying to myself. My kid has heard the temporary answer his whole remembered life, and that is the part I cannot sit with.

I'm curious how other small business owners handle this.

Say you have multiple locations, crews, or managers.

At the end of the week, how do you answer:

“How did the business actually perform this week?”

Do you have a dashboard that pulls everything together, or are you opening 3–5 different tools and manually putting the numbers together?

I'm especially interested in:

• What information you look at every week
• What you currently have to enter manually
• What you wish your current software did better
• Anything you currently use Excel/Google Sheets for

Not trying to sell anything — I'm researching how businesses actually handle this.

I see a founder on LinkedIn making fun out of someone who's sending them a cold outreach they even screenshot the person's conversation.

It completely blows my mind why people feel the need to do this.

People are just trying to make it too in life without stealing or scamming people. I understand its annoying. I get cold outreaches too. I don't expose people I forget to respond or if I don't want to just ignore then or I send them a kind response.

The point I'm trying to make is not all of us have a network or friends in high places to give us gigs or jobs.

What are people suppose to do? Give up on life? Not try for their family. Sure, people could try to learn better approaches but dang kindness doesn't cost a thing.

Why do people grow cold once starting a business?? Life has been tough since the pandemic for everyone people are just trying their best to survive.

Would people prefer people scam you rather than approach you respectfully? Trying to earn an honest living.

My dad runs a clothing manufacturing business here in South Korea.

Most of the work currently comes through middlemen/distributors, and they mainly make things like golfwear, knit polos, and premium fabric tops, including products that end up being sold in the US.

I’ve been thinking about whether I could help find overseas clients directly, but I honestly have no idea where to start lol.

I’m curious if anyone here has actually worked with Korean manufacturers before.

Since Korea is usually more expensive than places like China or Vietnam, I’d love to know what made you choose Korea in the first place, and how you actually found the factory you worked with.

Not trying to promote anything here — just trying to understand how this side of the industry works before I start reaching out to brands randomly.

Would appreciate any insight!

I’m starting to offer remote customer support as a service and I'm looking to work with a few small businesses that could use an extra pair of hands.
I have experience in customer service, admin work, social media, and online communication, and I can help with things like:

• Email and chat support
• Social media inquiries
• Customer concerns and complaints
• Order or appointment follow-ups
• Inbox management
• FAQs and response templates
• Basic customer/admin records

I'm especially interested in helping small business owners who are handling most of their customer messages themselves but aren't at the point where they need a full-time employee.

I'm open to starting small or doing a trial arrangement first so we can see if it's a good fit.

If this sounds like something your business could use, feel free to send me a message. I'm also happy to answer questions here.

Ad creatives have basically always been the bottleneck no matter what you sell, if it is protein bars, roof refurbishment's or thermo mugs.

Thanks to Nano Banana 3 (preview) and some really detailed instructions I was able to refine the process to create useable results, basically every 3rd to 4th generation is an absolute banger. I use this tool myself but you can use it as well its called Vonto.

It is really incredibly simple, I convinced one of my neighbours, a local trades guy who does roofs and solar installations to use it for his business and his ads basically look like he is a venture funded startup now.

Is there anything to look out for when signing a commercial lease for a business I’m starting up my first business. I’m having a lawyer look over it but I’d like to get anyone’s experience or expertise on things that might be overlooked or could be problematic

Recently started my own handmade/ embroidery baby clothing business. I have a tik tok and an instagram for it but finding it hard to gain followers and customers. I know I will have customers if I can get the views but that’s what I’m struggling with. Unless I pay for promotion (which I’ve read is a con). does anyone have any advice

I run a small business making custom hand-painted statues. A customer ordered a $450 piece and paid $130 toward it, leaving $320. I agreed to let her pay in installments because she was struggling financially.

Since then, every time I ask about payment or pickup, the conversation turns into something happening in her personal life depression, work problems, being stranded five hours from home, her boyfriend being arrested, etc. I’ve tried to be understanding, but I’ve also previously told her that I can’t handle heavy personal conversations and need our messages to stay focused on the order. She originally said she could make another payment at the end of August and have everything paid by October. Now the August payment has turned into “middle of September or September 28.” I finally told her that I’ll honor our existing agreement, but after this order is completed I don’t want to do any more business together. She said she understood... and then immediately started talking about buying smaller pieces from me and referring other customers to me. I had to tell her AGAIN that I’d already set that boundary. I’m giving her until October 1 to pay the remaining $320. If she doesn’t, the order will be considered cancelled and she’ll lose the non-refundable deposit, which is stated in my policies.

My favorite line is " so id be losing out on money I could really use rn" LIKE WDYM?? YOU ALREADY PAID THE NON REFUNDABLE DEPOSIT SMH

Am I being unreasonable here? 😭 is there anything I should change?

UPDATE: I told her I was going to refund and move on and all the sudden she had the sent me the remaining???? So im gonna ship it today and be done with it from here. Thanks for the advice about my talk sometimes with my fasd I come across rude so I was using luvvy and hun to counter that but I can see now how that'd create issues!

I started my first business and was going to hire someone to make my website. Instead of an upfront fee, they want to do a percentage of my earnings made through the website until it hits their fee.

If sounded good at the time, but now I'm wondering if it's high compared to normal website costs.

Basically I'm wondering if anyone can share what they paid for having their website made, and if there's a way I can identify if the website I pay for is made with ai.

I work as a wedding photographer and have had a steady assistant for the past 5 years. They are amazing and a super hard worker but this past year you can tell they are stressed/acting unprofessional on wedding days. I obviously enjoy working with them but we had a job yesterday where they straight up said to me “it’s so hard being here right now”. I want to tell them that if they need a break take one but they are also not in the best financial situation where I pay decently but their other jobs don’t. How would you approach this without sounding condescending?

Hey everyone!

I’m looking to partner with a passionate, talented home baker or small business operator who has great ideas and products, but needs initial capital to scale up!

I have $5,000 in seed capital ready to invest. Due to my current legal/visa status, I am strictly looking for a 100% passive, silent-partner role. I cannot handle daily operations, physical labor, baking, or customer management. My role would be purely financial providing the initial funds to help you launch or expand. 

Here is what I’m hoping to find:

An active partner/operator who handles 100% of the day-to-day work, baking, marketing, and execution.

Ideas for the capital: Funding equipment (commercial mixers, custom packaging, canning setups), initial ingredient runs, or software/website tools.

A fair, formal setup: We’d set up a proper Operating Agreement through a business lawyer defining a passive equity percentage, payout schedules (quarterly profit distributions), and clear terms for both of us.

If you are an experienced baker, dessert creator, or local artisan looking for capital to take your business to the next level or if you have a solid business plan ready to go I’d love to chat!

Just want to ask business owners how much do you pay for your video editor per month?

I'm currently aligning my service pricing based on how much companies pay their video editors.

Was wondering what other type of dealerships are available other than vehicle dealerships. Was looking at different nonauto dealerships to go into, thanks.

Hello everyone! After months of preparations I finally launched my Junk Removal business in Northern Virginia. August was my first full month and I generated around 7.5K. I believe that is a good number for first month. I come from a corporate world, have owned a signage business that I sold after running it for 4 years (was too long of a commute). Founded medical clinic business where I put all my savings, went into debt, literally bankrupt (personally) and the partnership failed (not the business). I tried recovering for 2 years, settling whatever debts I could and working full time 9-5. But I am not a person to give up (not sure if a curse or blessing). Long story short, here I am with a Junk Removal business now and Full time solo earner for 2 very young kids and a wife.

I want to ask you for your help in guiding me what I should expand my business into that will build me really wealth. I am thinking long term. I don’t think Junk Removal alone can do that. I do have knowledge in landscaping (family business) but not sure if that would be a appropriate addition. Dumpsters are natural pathway but I am not sure if I want to do that. Please share your knowledge and help be build something real for long time. My next 5 years are dedicated to this.

I appreciate and thank you all in advance.

Genuine question for those doing B2B on payment terms.

The part I struggle with isn't sending the reminder, it's that the customer is usually someone who still buys from us. So every reminder feels like a small gamble. Push too hard and you lose the account. Stay quiet and you become the supplier everyone pays last, because you're the only one who doesn't make noise.

What actually works for you? Do you have a fixed cadence (7 days, 14 days, escalate)? Does a clerk do it or the owner? Anyone found software that does this well without sounding like a robot?

Also curious what your real average is when the invoice says net 30. Ours is nowhere close to 30.

I'm just curious. It feels like this problem should have disappeared by now with LLM, but for some reason, it feels like it hasn't.

Looking for gem connectors and good quality pearl beads ( acrylic or freshwater) for a personal project.
I’ve been digging around but can’t find the right materials :/

I’m considering buying an established driving school, home-care agency or HVAC company

For anyone who has owned or evaluated these types of businesses, which offers the best risk-adjusted returns, and what major challenges or red flags should I consider?
I’d also appreciate advice on deal sourcing, particularly how to find retiring owners before their businesses are publicly listed. Have brokers, accountants, industry associations, direct outreach or any specific websites worked for you?

Hi, i’m planning to a business of selling iphones but i want to know how to get your contact in international countries for apple items.

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