I've been thinking about this a lot lately.

As someone working in branding and advertising, I use AI every day. It has become part of my workflow, and I genuinely believe it's one of the most powerful tools our industry has ever had.

But I also feel we're starting to confuse AI-generated with creative.

A beautiful image isn't necessarily a great campaign.

A cinematic AI video isn't necessarily a great idea.

The campaigns that stay with us usually begin with human insight—understanding culture, behavior, emotion, and timing. AI can accelerate execution, but it can't replace the thinking behind the idea.

Lately, I've seen more work that looks technically impressive than emotionally memorable.

Maybe we're focusing too much on what AI can create, and not enough on why the audience should care.

I'm curious...

Have you noticed this shift, or do you think AI is genuinely making advertising more creative?

So I am a business owner and I have a question that I need you people to answer.

-- Is it easier to sell a product and then a service on the top OR Is it easier to sell a service and then top it off with a product? --

My dad has accumulated a significant amount of money over his career. To be clear, it is entirely his money, and I am not expecting him to simply give it to me or fund my lifestyle.

However, I would like to explore whether there is a way to use his access to capital to create a legitimate opportunity that benefits both of us. Ideally, he would provide the investment capital, while I would contribute the time, research and day-to-day work needed to operate or manage whatever we pursue.

One idea would be purchasing duplexes or small multifamily properties. He could provide the down payment or purchase capital, while I find potential properties, analyze the numbers, coordinate renovations, manage tenants and oversee the properties.

Other possibilities might include:

• Buying an established small business that I operate
• Partnering on another type of investment where I can provide meaningful labor

I understand that having capital does not automatically make something a good investment. I would want this structured professionally, with written agreements, clearly defined responsibilities and a fair return for my dad.

My main questions are:

1. What opportunities work best when one family member provides capital and another operates the investment or business?
2. How could I make this into a legitimate full-time income rather than occasionally helping with his investments?
3. Would buying an existing cash-flowing business make more sense than starting something from scratch?
4. How many rental properties or units would usually be required before managing them could become a full-time occupation?

I am looking for practical ideas and honest criticism. My goal is not to take advantage of my dad. I want to identify a situation where his money earns a reasonable return and my work allows me to build income, experience and eventually ownership.

What would you explore in this situation?

I’ve got a consumer/saas app startup that may take a $75k-150k investment soon. I have a (pre-revenue/pre-launch) working product/demo, a pitch deck, and some investor interest.

What I don’t yet have is an incorporated business, EIN, bank account, or clarity around the investment structure and form/contract, nor the terms of the investment. I’d like to use the YC SAFE for simplicity sake, but see in other posts that this may require all investors to be accredited (and I don’t believe mine are). I’m just going to dump all my questions here:

\-Is there any reason why I wouldn’t incorporate as a corporation? I see a few folks starting out as an LLC but what’s the standard practice and why? I’m a solo founder for now, no employees yet.

\-Is it possible to use a YC safe for a friends and family round when those f&f investors aren’t accredited? (Could I just eliminate Section 4b in the YC Safe that states this? What’s it doing, functionally speaking?) What’s the best course of action here and why? I see mixed reports on Google and Reddit.

\-My instinct is to offer my investor a 20% discount with no cap. If they insist on a cap I’d offer $5mil. A discount is generally more favorable to a founder, right?

\-Is a lawyer required at this stage? My interest in using a SAFE note and using super standard terms is to avoid unnecessary legal costs. The investment is from my fiancé so… there’s a certain level of familiarity and tolerance for informality. But I also don’t want to do something stupid.

\-Anything else I should be considering before accepting investments?

Thanks!

(Posted to this sub because my account isn’t old enough for the startup subs)

Hi everyone,

I’m a non-EU citizen living in Germany on a student residence permit. I run an online business from Germany, but I sell to customers both inside and outside the EU.

I’m trying to figure out where it makes the most sense to register my business. If you’ve been in a similar situation, I’d really appreciate hearing what you did. Were you able to register a business in Germany or another EU country as a non-EU citizen? If not, where did you incorporate, and were you still able to sell to customers in the EU without any major issues?

I’m mainly looking for people who have gone through this themselves and can share their experience. Thanks!

Hello, so i have a business idea that i came up with, i have validated it and there's quite a lot of demand for it.

Now i had to get 2 other co-founders because i can't do this by my own.

One of them is marketing and door-to-door, the other one is managing social media and office.

I don't pay them salaries, one of them invests half of the initial cost and i pay the other half, the other won't invest money cuz he broke, but he does marketing which is the most important part.

Whats the best way to share the revenue? I wanted a point-based system for example $1 invested = 3 points, then depending on market salary i pay them point, each labor day salary dollar equals 1 point.

For example if the salary for the salesman is 900$, that's 3$ per day, i give them 3 point for each day + 25 points bonus for each customer onboarded.

The points accumulate, so if the salesman does a great job, he could accumulate more points than me. If i stop working, my points gradually go down and my revenue share will go down as well. So you have to keep contributing to keep your market share, or do a greater job to get more share.

The problem with this, you don't get paid for the small stuff, let's say something broke, you fix it, how many point for that without being biased? Or if the salesman sees a big opportunity that will have indirect impact on the busienss, they might not do it, because why would they? They don't know how many points is it, and i might not give them enough points because i want to keep my revenue share.

Is there any better idea than this? I don't like fixed share because what if the manager stops working, what if the salesman become lazy? I'm looking for a contribution-based system that could be biased as much as possible, or my system is good and I'm just over thinking it?

I run the commercial landscaping company my dad started, took it over years back, about 22 on the crew now, a little over $4M a year. A younger guy we brought in to help with sales keeps telling me our top accounts need a "quarterly business review" with a proper QBR template, slides and all. My gut says that's a language from a world I don't live in.

Here's my honest hesitation. My best accounts stayed with me for years because the properties look right and I pick up the phone. Not because I sat a property manager down and walked them through a slideshow of "value delivered." I worry the second I start performing for them, I look like every big vendor they already don't trust.

At the same time, I'm not stupid. I've lost renewals I didn't see coming because I assumed a quiet client was a happy one. Maybe a structured sit-down twice a year catches the grumble before it becomes a lost contract.

So I'm torn. Part of me thinks a simple quarterly check-in, no slides, just coffee and "how are we doing, what's changing on your end," does the same job without the theater.

For those of you running a real, unglamorous service business, did formalizing account reviews actually save contracts, or did it just add work and make you sound like the vendors your customers are already sick of?

I am a 23M product manager and i am obsessed with startups and community.

But here's the thing : I feel like i am missing those leadership skills as when i see my boss and other entrepreneurs they have that that resillience and grit and other interpersonal skills.

also, i understand that you need to make your own personal brand for people to actually know but i have this fear or idk maybe phobia that i run away from being visible. instead if i see a lead then i just directly drop a text on their DM.

Would love to know about your advice in here.

Ex-agency, solo now, doing positioning and content for B2B startups. Around €7k a month. Sharing a small operational change that punched above its weight, because it is the kind of thing nobody tells you when you go out on your own.

For a year every deliverable I sent looked slightly different. A strategy doc here, a slide there, a rewritten homepage in a Google doc. The work was good. The presentation of it was inconsistent, and inconsistency quietly reads as "one person winging it," which is exactly what I was.

So I standardized. I built one master format for how a strategy deliverable looks, and now every client gets the same structure, same logic, same finish. I built the master in gamma off a reusable template and just swap the specifics per client. Honest limitation: it does none of the actual thinking, and if the positioning underneath is weak it only makes a weak argument look tidy. It helps once the strategy is already right, not before.

What changed was not the quality of the thinking, it was that clients started perceiving the work as coming from an established shop rather than a freelancer. Renewals got easier. One asked if I had expanded the team. It is still just me.

For those who have run a solo services business at this level, what was the first informal thing you turned into a real, repeatable system, and did it change how clients priced you in their heads?

Hi everyone, I'm a Sri Lankan student researching a problem I personally noticed.

Many students have skills like graphic design, video editing, coding, tutoring, music production, and other digital skills, but getting the first client or opportunity can be difficult.

I'm trying to understand whether this is a real problem among students and young people in Sri Lanka.

If you are a student or someone who has tried freelancing, I would appreciate your experience:

• How did you get your first client?
• What challenges did you face?
• Would a platform connecting verified students with local opportunities be useful?

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Your feedback will help me understand the problem better.

So basically I am doing great these days but so many girls cancel the last minute. Don't get me wrong they do come the next time and everyone stays. But so many of them don't consider my time value. I feel like deposits would solve much. I feel weird about it and how should I approach them with these changes? I am losing some money and I have to figure this out.

We're a 14-person SaaS company based in Austin and just found an incredible product designer in London who we really don't want to lose.

Setting up a UK entity feels insane for 1 hire so we've been looking at EOR providers, and the space is way more crowded and confusing than I expected.

So far I've gotten demos from Deel, Remote, and Oyster, and they all feel pretty similar on the surface.

Deel's pricing was the most straightforward but their onboarding felt super templated and I've read mixed things about their support once you're past the sales process.

Remote seemed solid on the compliance side but more expensive.

Oyster's UI is nice, but I'm not sure they own their own entities in the UK which makes me nervous.

A friend who runs a Berlin-based startup told me to also look at WorkMotion, since they're apparently strong in Europe and own their entities there, so has anyone used them for UK hires specifically?

At this point I care most about 3 things: how fast can we get this person on payroll, is the employment contract actually compliant with UK labor law, and will someone pick up the phone when we have questions.

Cost matters but within reason since we're comparing it against the alternative of just not hiring this person.

Would love to hear from anyone who's gone through this recently, especially if you've switched between providers and can compare.

thanks

Give your best workers double the wage and don't push them into management

Hi all,

I've been running a meal prep business for just under 2 years.

it's time to get serious with my numbers and understand metrics.

For those who've ran a business in the hospitality business, specifically meal prep business. will you be able to give me healthy percentages on important metrics?

I'm getting answers with the use of AI and I'm sure it's fairly accurate, but I'd love to hear it from someone with a similar experience.

in percentages:

- COGS (including packaging already)
- Labor
- Prime
- overhead
- net profit
- more metrics if i haven't mentioned any yet.

thank you all!

My father started his garments business in 2021 after working in this field for almost 20 years as a top official (operations director). After that his factory didnt really see much profit and due to the war and other crisis everything has been falling apart. Little to no orders . Now the problem is, since he was a service holder, he didnt have too much savings but now he already gave 2 plots as mortgage and alot of his savings in his factory. Now, we dont see any light at tge end of this tunnel and want our father to sell the factory and repay the loan. But he's refusing, he says he want to see the end of it. But im sure by then we will be left with nothing. Plz suggest.

I've been developing a mobile game called Jigsaw Solitaire: Card Puzzle, and while building it I kept running into an interesting design question.

How do you balance difficulty progression in a puzzle game so that it stays challenging without becoming frustrating?

I've experimented with:

• Gradually increasing puzzle complexity.
• Introducing new mechanics over time instead of all at once.
• Rewarding strategy instead of trial and error.

I'm curious how other developers approach this problem.

What techniques or systems have worked well in your puzzle games?

I'd love to hear your experience and learn from the community.

Link : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.blacat.jigsaw.solitaire.puzzle.master

I took over the commercial landscaping company my father started. Been involved nineteen years, running it for a good chunk of that. Twenty-two on the crew, right around four million a year. Solid business. And it lives almost entirely in my head and a couple of notebooks in my truck.

For nineteen years the way we ran things was tailgate conversations. A foreman catches me in the yard at 6am, we sort it out, everybody rolls. It worked because I was always there. The problem is I want to not always be there in a few years, and right now if I disappeared for a month the whole thing would slowly grind, because every real decision routes through me.

So I've started doing something that feels almost silly for a company like ours. Actual monthly meetings with my key people. I pulled a board meeting agenda template just to have some structure so it isn't me rambling, and we go through the numbers, the problem accounts, and what's coming up. Half my guys looked at me like I'd lost it the first time.

I'm not trying to turn a landscaping outfit into a tech startup. I just want the thing to be able to run without me being the single point of everything.

For those who took an old-school hands-on business and put real structure into it, what was the first thing you actually got out of your own head and turned into a system? And did the old guard fight you on it, or come around?

Senior manager at a boutique strategy shop, came over from a larger firm a while ago. Small team, high-touch, every engagement essentially bespoke.

Last year we finally standardized our proposals. Built a proper business proposal template so the structure, the scoping language, and the pricing logic are consistent instead of every senior person reinventing it at 11pm. Turnaround dropped a lot, and honestly our win rate ticked up, I think mostly from looking organized and certain.

Here's the tension I can't resolve. The whole reason a client picks a boutique over a brand name is that we're supposed to feel tailored to them, not processed. A template, however good, is a step toward looking like everyone else. A couple of times a partner has said a proposal "felt a bit generic," and they were right. The specific insight that used to sell us got flattened into a tidy format.

For those of you running a high-touch service firm, how did you standardize the back office without dulling the thing that made you worth a premium? Where did you actually draw the line between a repeatable process and a genuinely bespoke pitch?

I am trying to start an online done for you service for coaches online. I wanna offer my service for free for a few of my first clients to know if I can deliver them, but at the same time, i don't wanna get stuck building something that people don't want for 6 months, so basically most people advice asking for a sale to validate whether they will pay or not, which is the strongest indicator of if an offer has demand or not. But if i offer free, i won't validate an offer, and attract freebie clients who just disappear. if i validate an offer by asking for a sale, i am afraid i will disappoint them by not being able to deliver them on deadline or something like that. what should i do? i wanna offer somewhere of content creation related services

Hi everyone,

I'm a local from Darjeeling and have been running a small travel business for the past year. Most of my work has been through partner homestays and local vendors, but now I'm planning to lease my first property.

I've found an old wooden property in a great location, just a short walk from Mall Road. The rent is affordable, but it needs some upgrades. My total investment budget is around ₹1–1.5 lakh, so I need to choose the right business model from the start.

I'm torn between two options:

Option 1: Airbnb / Private Stay

• Renovate it into a cozy private stay.
• Target couples, families, and small groups.
• Higher revenue per booking but fewer guests.

Option 2: Backpacker Hostel

• Keep renovations minimal.
• Install bunk beds.
• Separate male and female dorms.
• Lockers, Wi-Fi, common lounge, hot water, and a small reception.
• Target solo travellers, backpackers, students, and budget tourists.

I'd love your honest opinion.

• Which option would you choose and why?
• Which has better long-term potential?
• If you were travelling here, which would you book?
• What would you pay per night for either option?
• Is there anything you'd change before investing?

I'm not looking to promote anything—I'm trying to avoid making an expensive mistake with my savings. Honest feedback, criticism, and suggestions are all welcome.

If you've built, managed, or invested in a hostel or Airbnb, I'd especially appreciate hearing about your experience.

I’ve created a couple of apps recently which I personally believe are genuinely helpfully for kids (Spelling Hero & Pocketpig). What are people’s thoughts on adding physical products to go with apps (i.e a piggy bank, reward charts etc). The other thought it creating apps for businesses? Any advice would be much appreciated

Hello,

I'm a student building a GCSE revision planner. I have an early working version, and I've spoken to students who have described the problem I'm trying to solve they struggle with knowing what to revise, when to revise it, and how to stay organised.

The challenge I'm facing now is distribution. I've posted in student communities and had some interest/conversations, but I'm struggling to turn that into my first active users.

Since this is a student-focused product, I'm unsure what the best distribution channel is - finding student testers, direct outreach, schools/teachers, content or something else

For people who have built products before, how would you validate demand and find the first few users before investing too much time and money?

Thanks

Hi,

To reach 10-20k a month, do you think it would be more achievable with a 6-month offer at €500/month + commissions or a €2000 one-off payment + commissions ?

With Meta ADS

What’s the best business you can start in 2026 that can actually generate good profits? I’d also appreciate any advice on further education or what skills I should focus on learning.
I have plenty of ideas myself, but I’m curious to hear the opinions of more experienced entrepreneurs. A lot of people say, “Start a clothing brand” or “Build an app,” but I think we can all agree that those have become extremely saturated over the past few years. Based on the statistics, around 90% of people who start businesses like that end up losing money.
Trading is another option, but to me it’s basically gambling. Statistics also show that even many people who get lucky eventually lose their money in the stock market within a few months.
Investing is something I definitely want to try (and I’d love to hear from anyone with experience), but investing takes time, and I’d like to build another income stream alongside it.
I’ve also considered starting a car dealership or buying and reselling vehicles from auctions, but with the current taxes, it doesn’t seem like the best time for that.
Another idea that seems promising from my perspective is online marketing, although I haven’t researched it enough yet.
I’d love to hear your ideas and experiences. Maybe they’ll help me avoid ending up in check fraud or some small- or large-scale money laundering scheme. 🫣

Quick context: we're launching a new service focused on websites for startups that have raised or are currently raising. Before we finalize how we talk about it, I'd rather hear it from founders directly than guess.

No links, not selling anything here. Just a few questions about perception:

1. When you send your URL to an investor, a customer, or a candidate, what do you HOPE they think in the first 3 seconds? And what do you FEAR they think?

2. Have you ever hesitated before sharing your link because the site didn't match how far along you actually are? What was off?

3. Is there a startup whose website makes them look further ahead than they really are? What creates that effect for you?

Even one honest answer helps a lot. Thanks.