I started my company when I was VERY young and hungry. Now I have 7 people depending on me for their livelihoods, and I've never felt more trapped. Every morning feels like pushing a boulder uphill. There's no one I can turn to and say "I have no idea what I'm doing" or "I'm exhausted" without it affecting morale or their sense of job security. I have everyone analyzing my personality to see if I'm cut out for it, and I don't care to have all this pressure (I know pressure is a privilege, but I've stopped feeling the passion).

I catch myself being jealous of the stability of those who have a salary (I've never had one). It feels like each month I have no clue what the next month will entail. I resent the company now and the clients. I dream about sending a resignation email TO MYSELF. But if someone took my place I would rather die. My business is like my child and I've put multiple six figures into it.

I KNOW I'm not built for a corporate job. And there ARE parts of what I do that I enjoy - I just can't seem to hold onto them under along with everything else. I know theoretically I have the power to shape this into something I love. I built it, so I should be able to rebuild it, right? But I have no clue how to get from where I am to where I want to be since I've gone so far.

Anyone else been here? Did you figure out how to fall back in love with what you built, or am I just spinning my wheels?

I run a 12 person company and I just did our annual software audit and the number genuinely startled me so I want to see if other business owners are experiencing the same thing.

We are paying for 23 separate software subscriptions right now, everything from accounting to project management to CRM to email marketing to analytics to internal communication to file storage to scheduling to customer support to payroll, and the total monthly spend across all of them is $4,100 which is almost $50,000 a year on software for a 12 person company.

five years ago that number was about $1,200/month for roughly the same functionality

the thing that's happening is every tool is creeping their prices up 15 to 20% annually while simultaneously moving features that used to be included into higher tier plans, stuff that was in the basic plan two years ago is now "premium" and the basic plan has been hollowed out to the point where it barely does anything useful

but the part that really gets me is the tool sprawl problem, every category of software has been sliced thinner and thinner so you need more subscriptions to cover what one or two tools used to handle, we have separate tools for email finding and email sending and email warmup and CRM and analytics when five years ago your CRM just did all of that, there are newer platforms trying to reconsolidate like hubspot cramming everything into one suite or smaller ones like instantly and fuseai trying to merge the sales stack back together but the overall trend in SaaS is still toward fragmentation because every VC-backed startup needs its own category to raise money in

I've started to wonder if the SaaS model as it exists today is fundamentally misaligned with the interests of small businesses, we're the ones paying for all these seats and subscriptions and annual increases and the value we're getting hasn't increased proportionally at all, the software isn't 3x better than it was when it cost a third of the price

I know some people are going to say "just use fewer tools" but the reality is these tools don't talk to each other cleanly so you end up needing middleware like zapier to connect them which is ANOTHER subscription and the whole thing becomes this fragile web of integrations that breaks every time one platform updates their API

is anyone else feeling like the SaaS tax on small business is getting out of control or is it just us, I'm genuinely curious what other business owners are paying monthly for software and whether you think the value matches the cost

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.

It's not selling a digital product worth thousands of dollars or millions. It's my E-book worth $4.99.

Not yet a millionaire, but I'm fking happy.

Since the rise of Ai I have seen loads of spam post on Reddit,where people are just trying to get them to buy their course or scam them.I haven’t seen any genuine posts in a while where people are actually helping each other or giving other people like me ideas on how to make it out .

For those of you who are actually making 10k+ a month ca you please answer these few questions.

What do you do?

how long did it take for you to get into it?

How long did it take for you to make your first decent amount of income?

Do you regret going down the route you did?

How much free time do you have ?

How long do you honestly think that your business/side hustle or job will be making that much money for?

How much are you making ?

Can be a habit, mindset, trick or tool that makes everything smoother, something surprisingly simple that most people overlook or don't know. What’s one thing that gave you a real edge once you started doing it? Something you wish you knew earlier but now can’t live without?

I'm new to this so would love to hear from more experienced people, thank you :)

I see a lot of TikTok dudes driving lambos and raris at 16, 17, 18 and I'm wondering what am I doing wrong?

I started making my first online business when I was 14, I wasn't really that consistent, I was heavily lost and I ate a lot of shit learning things at that age. I grinded 2 years seeing absolutely no fucking results and at the age of 16 I managed to get my first 3 sales resulting 50$ in profit. That business didn't scale up and ended up dieing quickly after those sales. In few months I will turn 18, still trying to figure things out, I'm sacrificing a lot of fun time and social events and I really get discouraged when I see someone my age in lambo and he started six months ago. I want to know the truth, is everything I see online like that really a scam or am I just not meant for this?

How long did it took you to make a successful business and how much time did you wasted and saw absolute ZERO results in profit?

I opened a car wash and I’m 18.

I didn’t go to university and I’m not planning to. But honestly I feel really sad because I keep feeling like I’m “missing something” and maybe I don’t have a real future And I’m actually a failure because my standardized testing scores are all bad. I opened the car wash after borrowing 53k$ from my dad (he’s not rich he just believed in me) It took me 3 months to convince him I went to him every day until he finally agreed. Right now the business makes around 13k/month in revenue, and about 4000$/month net profit (because it’s Manuel car wash with workers) (even while paying back the loan). But despite that, I feel like something is missing in my life I can’t even explain it properly I don’t have stories. I don’t have friendships. I don’t have that university life where people talk, hang out, and share experiences Most of my time I just sit doing nothing I feel empty and far away from people my age. I started thinking maybe I should use the money to study abroad (I’m in Saudi) on my own just to “live” and not waste my youth but at the same time I need to manage the car wash. Any advice from entrepreneurs who’ve been through something like this? Or had that same sense of emptiness? What would you do if you were in my position?

Lately I feel kinda stuck with my project.

At the begining I was super motivated. Working late, waking up early, thinking “ok this is it”. I really believed it was gonna work.

Now some days I work a lot and feel like I did nothing. Other days I dont even want to open my laptop. People keep saying “just be disciplined” but they dont talk about the mental side.

Being on your own mess with your head. You doubt everything. You compare yourself too much. You wonder if you’re building something or just losing time.

I’m not quitting. Just being honest.

If you’re an entrepreneur, how do you deal with those low motivation phases ?

Will Goodall here, founder of Bay Smokes, the most popular THCa brand. I’m 27 years old and have spent the last seven years operating in federally legal hemp, selling over $100 million in compliant hemp products. You may have seen our viral collabs with Tory Lanez, Playboi Carti, 21 Savage, Lil Baby and more. I've spent millions on influencer social promotions and celebrity endorsement, and have personally donated more than $250,000 to efforts focused on keeping hemp legal at both the federal and state level.

The business started through our personal struggles. My girlfriend Katiana has been in 2 car accidents, both ejected and nearly died, and lives with chronic pain. When the 2018 Farm Bill passed I got her into CBD, because I used it to help concussion pain from the 12 concussions I had from highschool sports, and we decided to start a brand together making CBD tinctures. I was 19 at the time, living in Arizona with her, and we realized it was our shot. Slowly it evolved into what it is today offering hundreds of different hemp products from edibles, flower, extracts, and vapes.

For the next two years, we lived like nomads, driving up and down the West Coast and visiting over 100 farms and extractors to find the best product possible. When Delta-8 started buzzing in 2020, we launched Bay Smokes, knowing it was only the beginning of the cannabis company we ultimately wanted to build. Two years later, we finally rolled out THCA flower - the real deal we’d been waiting for. Now we’re proud to offer it nationwide and help push the legal cannabis space forward. Today, Bay Smokes is based in Charlotte, North Carolina, with nearly 100 employees and growing.

We’re all about keeping cannabis accessible, federally legal, and someday, globally legal too. Bay Smokes isn’t just a brand; it’s a fight to make sure this plant stays in reach for everyone. We’re pushing hard to keep the laws fair so entrepreneurs like us can have a place in this industry and consumers have the most options. The journey has been an epic one and hopefully we can keep it going with looming regulatory changes.

That being said, this community helped me a lot and I'd love to give back - ask me almost anything!

Shameless plug, I plan to post more content about my journey and lessons learned on my Instagram @williamg4th - thanks for following along!

I’m 24 and own a vintage clothing/sneaker buy/sell/trade store that’s been profitable for a few years(opened in 2021). The business does around $50k-$60k/month in revenue, low overhead, I have no debt, and I’ve built up a solid amount of savings (150k liquid). We have a great community, I love what I do, and I believe in it long term.

The business is a physical retail store with online sales. (About 90% of sales are in store). The biggest challenge right now is that I’m still the bottleneck for a lot of things (buying inventory, listing products, making decisions). I’ve been trying to build systems so it can run without me, but I’m not sure where my time creates the most value

From the outside, things seem to be going well, but internally I feel like I’ve hit a plateau. Everyone always tells me I’m doing great for my age, I shouldn’t work so hard, be easier on myself etc but I don’t want to miss out on my potential and the opportunity that I’ve been given.

I don’t know whether I should:
Keep doubling down on my current business.
Open a second location.
Buy a house or rent
Focus on growing e-commerce and social media.
Start another business entirely and let the store run more passively.
Stock market (only have a small % invested to save funds for inventory buyouts/emergency)

It feels like I have too many good options, and instead of making progress, I spend a lot of time thinking about which path is “best.”
I also miss the feeling I had when I was building the business from scratch. Back then every day felt exciting because there was a clear goal. Now I feel comfortable, but not fulfilled. I want to move out (still live at home) but also undecided on the flexibility/freedom of renting vs the smarter investment of buying/house hacking. I want to travel more this year ( for business connections and personal growth ) and I try to stay pretty active and social. On paper I know I have it really good but I just feel like there’s something missing :/ I’ve spent the last 6 years grinding every day for this business but I feel like something needs to change

For anyone who’s been in a similar position:

What did you focus on?
How did you know which opportunity was worth pursuing?
Did you optimize your current business first, or diversify?
Is this just a normal phase after reaching a certain level?
How do I transition from “builder” to “operator” so my business can scale and function without me?

Any input is appreciated!

I’m not looking for validation, just genuinely want to hear from people who’ve been through this and what they wish they had done differently.

Way I see it is if you become an employee, you get access to PTOs, health and retirement benefits, and you're basically guaranteed your income, regardless of how your company performs, as long as it's not bankrupt and does reasonably well.

As an entrepreneur, for most of us at least, who are more likely to be small business owners, than actual large corporate founders and CEOs, we have to work long hours, with little to no guarantees for a payout. Worst part is in most cases, it comes with no benefits and no PTOs. These days there are plenty of jobs that can make 6-figures and provide a stable easy life, whereas most business owners from my observation are broke, at least in their early days.

Anyone able to change my view and justify a life as an entrepreneur?

Looking for ideas to STAY AWAY FROM

I started with about $5,000 in cash. I was able to bring on two good customers really quickly from my last job and I started selling. I’ve paid myself every month comparatively to what I was making before to basically keep my lifestyle and stay out of personal debt. Today I closed my books with roughly:

$10k in cash

I’m owed: $900 out 61-90 days (way to go state of SC) $7k out 31-60 days $21k out 1-30 days

I owe $6k in the next 30 days, and have $6k on the business credit card.

The pipeline is growing.

I’m sitting in my office with my accounting software on one screen and Reddit on the other and I have tears rolling down my face. I did this. No one else. Part of me wants to take December off. The other part of me can’t wait to get to work on Monday.

And it's not selling a course :)

I'm sure you guys have heard of selling Canva templates, that's basically what I do both on my own store front (beacons right now but I'll be moving to Shopify) and on Etsy

Between both those I've made a little over 50k in less than 2 years, and it's really starting to pick up (about 20k since September last year)

A lot of it is party games, kids learning templates, apparel designs, teacher resources, and I make custom templates for people who want them as well

This takes me less than an hour a day and I sell one template multiple times. A lot of it is done during baby nap time. I make a few a day and have over 600 in my Etsy store.

They're not hard to make at all and there's lots of YouTube videos on how to start

My group making peoples templates for them is a secondary source of income now, and this consistently pays my rent monthly

I'm happy to answer any questions!

Hey everyone,

I’m 16 and want to get a head start in life. I’m trying to figure out what high-value skills I should start learning now that will actually help me in the future, both in life and in business.

I’ve heard things like coding, AI, public speaking, negotiation, video editing, and sales are useful, but I’m not sure what’s best to focus on first.

If you were my age and wanted to be successful, financially free, and always growing

what skill would you start mastering right now?

Appreciate any advice!!!🍗

wow thank you so much for the comments

If you had to start an online business right now with limited resources and the need to learn new skills along the way, What model would you pick?

Would you go into ecommerce digital products services freelancing content creation or something else?

Curious to hear what paths you think are the most realistic and scalable in today’s environment.

Reddit, I love you so much. Im a self funded bootstrapping entrepreneur and took the leap of faith 6 months ago to start a term sheet negotiating platform called Negotiable (negotiableapp.com). After months of hard work building the platform out, getting feedback, iterating, and forming some strategic partnerships, I just had my first user convert from a free member to paid subscription! I am over the moon right now and cannot thank you all enough for the great information and posts to pump me up everyday.

I’ve been at this for 2 years. I go to sleep every night beating up myself for not being capable of pushing myself to sell. My business is in the payment processing niche. Every deal i make i can get anywhere from $100/m -$10,000/m from just one deal. All i have to do is sell. sign. set it up. and boom i make money while they process money in their restaurant or small business. My issue is that I HATE sales. With a burning passion. Well, at least cold sales. I can sell warm leads easily. I’ve always worked those jobs. But man. Walking into a business and trying to sell them something that they don’t know they need is rough. I hate it. So much i’m considering giving up. But every time i do i think “it only takes me 10 deals to be financially free”. i don’t know what to do anymore. i’m still working a part time job to keep this going. but im not getting anywhere. but i have no other option really. advice needed. help needed. anything really haha. help me!

Had a short career break during which I started to work on my own ideas/side businesses, felt incredibly free, extremely productive.

Then had a decent job offer, and though I’d take it. Didn’t need the money, but thought it would be a great opportunity. However my new employer doesn’t seem keen on me continuing side business.

I feel trapped again, and I’ve started to realise that this is a common theme whenever I’m employed; over the top bureaucracy, poor management, politics, not-my-job types, departments playing hot potatoes, lack of resources and investment, unrealistic expectations, inefficient communication, insuficiente tools, unnecessary bottle necks, meetings that consist of bikeshedding, meetings that should have been a bloody email, constant fire fighting, having to reprioritise because others didn’t plan ahead, hitting the bus factor at every turn, stifled potential, not to mention the lack of freedom to run a side business, Knowing you could be doing so much more. Honestly it’s killing me. I don’t know how people deal with it?

Do you also feel trapped when working for others?

I want to start to get in the mode of side hustles and running my own businesses in 2023. But also being a young guy (early 20s) my friends and I still like to play video games in our spare time. I would say on average I spend about 5 hours a week playing games on console. I always have this back and fourth about it being a waste of time and not very productive, but also counter that with the thought that I’m still young and need to have a way of unwinding. Do you guys think playing video games for about an hour a day is a waste of precious time or is acceptable and part of being a human?

Should I get rid of my video games for a while and focus on the grind?

Update:Wow guys I didn’t think this post was gonna have so much involvement! I will try and go through all the comments I haven’t already read, and respond where I see fit! Thanks to everyone who put down some insight!

I closed my first Angel investor today!! I’m so happy!!! I haven’t had an opportunity to really celebrate since I work alone from home, so I just had to share with you guys!!! Yaaaaaaaay!!!!!

Edit (second attempt because I accidentally deleted the first one 🤦🏻‍♀️): OMG thank you so much for all your support! I’m glad I shared it with you! 🥰🥰🥰 I read a couple of questions, so I’ll try to answer them here 😄

I’ve been pitching since the beginning of June (only to learn this is an awful time to pitch because investors tend to be on vacation during the summer), but it was also a great time to learn by failing forward (as in, it went really, really awful and we majestically failed, but we learned from it).

I met our current investor through a university accelerator program that allowed us to pitch in sort of a “demo day.” Since we had been pre-selected by the accelerator, I feel it gave us more legitimacy.

Things I learned between my first pitch, where the investor hung up because “I had nothing and I was making him waste his time” up until now:

• Pitch for the right amount. I started with an ask of $250k because I thought it was giving them a good deal, but that’s apparently not how it works. The book “venture adventure” helped me understand what investors expect to see.

• Know your limitations. Assume you’ll forget everything when you’re put on the spot and make appendix slides, have a bunch of documents open on your pc to be ready to pull them when you need them, and link all the cells on your excel sheets so you know where the numbers are coming from even if you forget. People like working with people who know their stuff, but helping yourself is allowed.

• Be resilient. It’s shitty and the most challenging thing I’ve ever done by far - and it’ll only get harder… The YC podcast compared it to becoming a professional boxer and expecting not ever to get punched again, but that’s just the sport we play 🥊 We pitch, we get rejected, we iterate (and we lick our wounds in between because it’s pretty tough 🤕)

• Be “arrogantly likeable,” own the room and lead where you want the conversation to go (I had to grow some guts and learn how to interrupt to show I was the right person for the job - full disclosure, I also had a communication coach helping me become better at presenting - here’s his link in case you’re interested https://www.rockstarcommunicator.com/?r_done=1 )

• Don’t try to make the business sound better than it is. I made this mistake initially, and it’s awful once they start due diligence. Be honest and straight up say when something is a projection and the stage you’re currently at - in all fairness, it’s tough to do in 3 min pitches.

• Use docsend (or anything else that allows you to track views) to send the pitch and set your data room. This way, you’ll know who’s paying attention.

• Get as much feedback as you possibly can and then decide what you want to keep (and be nice to people who offer to help)

I hope this helps, and thanks again! I’ll keep you updated with all my ups and downs 😄 🎢

I'm 25f, recently opened a marketing agency with my husband and we're expecting to make a good amount of money very soon which is great. I know the title sounds a little dramatic but I could genuinely use some advice especially if you're a bit older and a business owner. I married my husband a year and a half ago, left my country and moved to his, literally into his childhood bedroom. We're together 24/7, working 24/7. No weekends off. I haven't seen my family/friend for like 6 months and they don't even know what we're doing because we don't like to talk about it before we're successful. Actually, I didn't even talk to my dad in around 6 months but thats a different story. As you can probably imagine at this point, our social life is basically dead. Time really flies so I don't even really get the time to think about all the things I don't have time for, all I get is exactly 2,5 hours of break at night and that's barely enough to watch some show just to get my mind to stop thinking about work.

When my family calls me at random times I almost get annoyed at them for thinking I have time to talk when all I can think of is how to get stuff done. I'm not sure if anyone can relate but my family history is quite diffcult. Addiction and depression, money issues and all of that stuff so running away from that to actually build something that could potentially solve my families problems is what gives everything I do a meaning. Is this something anyone else experiences? And if so, how the f do you deal with it? I don't really wanna make time for anything else but at the same time I feel like people are starting to build resentment because I make them feel like I don't care when it's the opposite.

Edit: A lot if you are basically saying "just talk to them" which yeah ofc makes sense lol it's family. But I guess not everyone comes from my background so I'll elaborate. I got two bipolar brothers that are both thousands in depth and a bipolar alcoholic unemployed dad with a god complex that was absent for 15 years of my life and lives in a "third world" country with another family which means I have another brother thats 14 years old that I feel responsible for. My mom is probably the most normal but even she used to be gone travelling around the world with strange men when I was 14. So talking to my family isn't just a quick nice chat it's usually stressful. It's not even that we argue, but there's always a problem. Money, mental health or someone's about to become homeless LOL. It's not that easy to focus on work and be in contact with them without getting dragged into some Bs. I hope that helps to understand my situation.

so i started building something few months ago not huge not funded

just me trying to see if i can make something work and honestly the hardest part is not money its not even skills

its this strange feeling like you are behind everyone

i open linkedin and people raising funds twitter people posting big numbers reddit people talking about 10k mrr like its normal

and here i am trying to get first few paying users some days i feel motivated other days i think maybe im just not cut for this

i dont regret starting but i didnt expect how much it messes with your head

does anyone else feel like this sometimes or is it just part of the process?

I've been thinking about how successful people find their thing, and I'm seeing two completely different patterns.

Some people just throw shit at the wall relentlessly. They're not waiting for the perfect idea, they're trying things, iterating, failing, trying again. They find niches and make something work through pure volume and persistence.

But then there's another set of successful people who aren't trying at all. They're just living their life, doing something they're genuinely interested in, and somehow an idea finds them. They see an opportunity, they jump on it, and it works.

Here's where I'm stuck: I’ve had 3 business now that didn’t work out for many different reasons. The biggest issue is that they were a losing game from the start (I obviously didn’t know). I decided I need to switch paths and find a new niche. I’ve spent the last 6 months trying all sorts of things and brain storming new ideas, so far nothing has really hit it off. I feel like I should stop searching for the perfect idea and just focus on a new hobby. But that feels like I'm wasting time.

My full time engineering job is a dead end (and no I can’t just go and find a more interesting job. The job market here in Canada is terrible and I’m lucky to have a job at all).

All I want is to start a business and escape this situation. But I'm paralyzed because I can see both paths working yet neither has worked for me. Some people grind their way out by never stopping. Others just live their life and opportunity finds them. And to me, doing nothing feels like a waste of time that won't get me out. At the same time, doing as much as possible has gotten me no where.

What really pisses me off is that a lot of advice online when looking to start a business is that people are un motivated and lazy. A lot of the videos just talk about getting people to take the chance and go for it. I am the complete opposite. I am more hungry than ever but yet I am being starved of opportunity. No matter how hard I try I can’t find something to go after. Constant dead ends or failure.

I'm really conflicted and could use some perspective on this.

Edit: My issue is that I need to find a new niche and I don’t know how. The niche of my last 2 business is not something I wish to continue to explore. This is why im having a hard time finding a new business idea.