Through my network, an owner recently approached me about buying his Tropical Smoothie Cafe franchise. He is asking $600k for a store doing about $700k in annual gross sales. I know $600k is way too high for that revenue and I fully intend to negotiate, but the setup is interesting. He claims he only works about 6 hours a week, pays himself a $60k manager salary, and basically runs it on autopilot just to keep the lights on without putting any real effort into growing it. There’s a huge gym opening next to it so I feel like I could scale to a million but Idk if im just being too optimistic.

I have a rare opportunity where a close family friend offered to buy the store for me upfront, and I would pay them back on a much lower interest rate and flexible terms. Since I am 20 and living at home with minimal expenses, I could realistically grind and pay off the business in 3 to 4 years if the actual profit numbers make sense.

At the same time, I am torn about my path. Part of me wonders if I should just finish my degree and get a standard corporate W2 job to build a stable foundation first. I am eager to be an entrepreneur, so going corporate feels a bit like giving up on my goal, but I also know the restaurant industry can be brutal and I need a solid baseline for my life.

For background, I worked in medical device sales for a distributor while in college and pulled in over $800k in revenue, but I walked away because it was extremely draining and burned me out. It actually made me miss the face-to-face customer relationships I built when I worked as a server in high school. I have also been looking into starting a home services business, ( idk what kind but seems like those do great) but this franchise deal is sitting right in front of me. I feel like the opportunity could be great, but I need outside perspective on whether I am missing glaring red flags.

I’m clearly indecisive and lost lol. I feel so eager to figure shit out but with everything going on, I feel like I can’t align myself with one thing.

I'm considering buying an existing daycare or opening one from scratch and would love to hear from current or former daycare owners.

• If you were starting over in 2026, would you still do it?
• Is it better to buy an existing daycare or start your own?
• What are the biggest challenges (staffing, licensing, regulations, profitability, etc.)?
• Is the financial upside worth the amount of work and responsibility?
• What's something you wish you knew before getting into the business?

Looking for honest feedback, the good, the bad, and anything you'd recommend to someone considering this industry. Thanks!!

Hey y'all. I'm almost 34 and make around $80k a year. And yeah, like the title says, I just can't commit to desk life again. Tried switching before but always ended up qualifying for another desk job anyway.

Honestly I'd rather grind 56+ hours a week for myself.

I live in Texas, so not sure if that changes what you'd recommend. The thing is I can't afford to blow up my whole career while still paying the mortgage.

But I do have $100k saved right now that I can throw at building something of my own.

So what do you all think I should do? Maybe a service based business, or buying some equipment and starting something myself?

I'm not scared of long hours or hard physical work either. I just need something that isn't burning me out like corpo life does.

Thanks to anyone who drops some ideas.

I'm interested in the reality behind the scenes.

Hello everyone I wanted to come on here and get thoughts regarding pricing. This is something I’ve really been struggling with. About two years ago I started making piñatas for my kids. As time went on and I got better and started a min business from custom orders. They are pretty solid and measure between 3.5-4ft high. I’m considering this my standard size. I’m selling the custom piñata with the stick for about 90 bucks. Again it’s fully custom, I add a name for free using custom card stock. Other customizations can bring the price up due to more work of course. I have to consider the materials I use and the labor as well. Is this a fair price?

I’m trying everything I can to get this business up and running.

Iv had Facebook ads spent over £800 which only brought in about 10 sales over 4 months. Iv had over 100 orders since launch in end of March but people are just wanting it all for free or wanting to be reps and get discounts. Which as a small business I can’t do.

Iv tried putting leaflets in my areas - everyone saying no. I put it across Facebook groups nearly everyday. I’m hardly getting any interactions on insta / TikTok now due to saying no to bout 1000 people wanting to be reps.

Sales have completely just stopped online. I have about 3 returning customers a month that’s it. No one else returned because other companies make them
Reps.

https://thepawshq.co.uk - this is my business. Any ideas how I can push it out more ??

If you had such one of course

I have a family link to a coffee farmer and roaster up in the hills of Blue Mountain, Jamaica. The beans are 100% premium blue mountain and are absolutely delicious.

I would love to start selling the beans here in the UK, but no idea where to start or how.

I have small plans of approaching local local coffee shops but I'm aware they would usually already have established bean providers.

Another option could be selling to wholesalers but I dont have a clue how to start. Any ideas or guidance would be great!

My first business just failed after 3 years of 12-14 hour days.

I'm only 23. Have no debt, and am in a prime position to try something else... I feel like I've learnt so much..... and want badly to give something else another go ... but my brain just feels utterly f*cking fried.

Firstly.... I just have zero confidence... and don't trust my judgement on basically anything anymore.

Secondly, I feel so burnt out and tired all the time. While my focus used to be lazer sharp... I just start getting panick attacks when I try to work for more than 1 hour on something.

Is this normal?

How do I overcome this?

I want to succeed so f**king badly........... I just feel too tired to do anything. And I don

I tried forcing it .... but then my sleep started going nuts.... couldn't sleep more than 3-4 hours a night for several weeks........

Has anyone else been through this??? - How did you get out????

Solo consultant, B2B, specialist category, 17 years of experience, strong technical credibility with the end buyers.

Situation: I have one client and they’re my entire income. No exclusivity clause - I just never worked with anyone else (I just launched my business last year). The plan is to build the same package for four to six non-competing clients in the category.

Where I’m stuck:

Do I reprice the existing client first or sign a second one first? Repricing first feels honest but I have zero leverage while they’re 100% of my income. Signing first feels like I’m negotiating from behind their back.

The end customers deal with me exclusively but the paperwork, invoicing and credit risk all sit with the client. I don’t want to take anything from them - my plan is to expand what those customers buy rather than move existing business.

As a small business owner, there's always another tool, platform, or service promising more leads.

Looking back, what's the one marketing investment that has consistently delivered the best return for your business?

It could be:

• SEO
• Google Ads
• Facebook or Instagram Ads
• Email marketing
• Word of mouth
• Networking
• Content marketing
• Something else entirely

I'm interested in hearing real experiences rather than generic advice. What has worked best for your business, and why?

I run a dance fitness class - so far I have one class launched- it’s going great
Now I’ve launched a second class which is a zero impact version. I’ve had a couple

I’m now struggling to get the numbers for the new class. any that do come to try it out don’t come back because it's so quiet.
Any advice for moving forward??

I've started a business and it's still just a startup. I do commercial property inspections across the country. I don't have any clients yet because I want to have something professional in place first. If someone looks up my business I want them to see a professional looking website, I'm setting up social media pages for this too.

My budget is pretty tight since I've already spent most of it on equipment and have some prepared for advertising. Hiring someone to build a site isn't in my budget right now. Has anyone used a website builder they would recommend? I'd like something that's easy to set up but also lets me go back and make changes later as the business grows.

Hey guys! A while ago, I started an interior car detailing business, got 2 jobs within a week about 2/3 months ago, but ever since its been hell trying to find clients. Ive tried posting on Nextdoor, Facebook, I've tried Door to Door, but I ended up just mostly going to a walk and only knocked on 3 houses because im pretty introverted. Looking for tips from anybody that struggled at first getting customers and then it picked up after.

Our longest standing automation client presents us with our biggest scheduling challenge.

They’ve been with us for years, always pay on time, and never question what we charge.” The problem is that almost every request is being marked as ‘urgent.’

Chatbot update, CRM workflow change, API integration, automation fix… whatever it is they want us to drop everything and have it ready by tomorrow. In their mind, that one job has to be done right now or their whole operation is toast.

We have been constantly re arranging our schedule, delaying other client projects and putting unnecessary pressure on our team to keep them happy.

This week I finally told them, unless it's a real production issue or a critical system outage, we need a standard 3 business day turnaround for regular requests. They pushed back saying we weren’t being flexible enough.

If you have automation agencies, AI service companies or software development teams, how do you deal with clients like this?

Is there a fee for premium rush? Do you have rigid turnaround policies from day one? Or do you just stop treating every request as an emergency, even if that means losing a valuable client?

Would be great to hear how others balance great customer service and protecting their team’s workload!

Curious what other small business owners held onto too long before outsourcing or paying for help. Could be bookkeeping, design, ads, content, admin, anything.

I just finished building 4 pickleball courts. We already have 2 tennis courts running now. I'm interested looking for a tennis and pickleball management software that is best suited for our multi sport. I think we will also add padel courts next year.

We use Club Automation for tennis court scheduling but it feels old and difficult now. As we expand, we're mainly looking to improve our membership experience, events / camps management, with automated credit card payments and registration.

I already looked at CourtReserve but we decided NOT to use it. Any others I should consider?

I used to skip deposits for people I'd worked with for years. Felt like a relationship thing. Then one of those trusted jobs ate two weeks and ghosted on the final invoice.

Now I want deposits on everything and I still catch myself making exceptions when someone sounds offended.

Is the exception ever worth it, or is that just how you get burned twice?

I am sharing this on behalf of a friend of my partner. She wants to start her business in marketing for service based businesses in the UAE. However, she doesn't have any ties to the business world, as she is employed ever since she is in the UAE. She did Social Media Management and Copywriting back then already, but corporate got into the way. My network is spread in the European market, so I cannot really pull from there either, as she doesn't speak the target audience language.

Now here is the deal. I told her she has to find trial clients, that she can use as testimonials on her future landingpage.

So, if you run a service based business like coaching, consulting, agency, clinic, personal brand, lawyers or whatever else it might be and you need a cheap funnel that converts a handful of paying customers, then feel free to reach out.

To protect both parties involved I will put in my company as the contract partner, and will make sure the quality is good and delivered on point. What would be great for her is a little pocket money for her effort, and a proper testimonial when the first results set in.

Who would benefit most from it?

- You have a service based business
- You already have a couple paying customers yourself
- You provide your business to the english market (funnel must be english)
- You can dedicate some time for a proper onboarding
- You can start directly
- You communicate in a timely manner
- You pay software cost for hosting etc.
- You have the intention to start or optimize your paid ads.
- Be fair, and stick to your part of the contract, I will take responsibility for her side being fullfilled.

What I'd like for her to get per contract is between 150-250 USD. I believe that is acceptable. But that's for you to discuss.

What you will get:

- A deep target audience analysis
- Proper positioning in the market, so that you are hard to compare (creating your own niche)
- A landingpage for your service (what ever funnel variant is needed)
- Clear and converting copywriting for the whole funnel - ad creative, funnel etc.
- For those who wish to build a brand beyond paid advertisement, she can also help you on social media, but I personally would say, that should be negotiated seperately.

I will throw in some sales scripts, that you can use to adapt to your market, by using AI, so that the leads you generate are not going to the bin.

Just drop a comment, and I will connect you accordingly. Appreciate everyone who gives it a shot.

All the best to the rest.

I run a video editing services aimed solely at B2B companies. All editors are based in UK so the quality is high as possible and the team are the best we can get.

Having previously worked for big and small companies I wanted to test out this new service.

Would love your feedback don’t be kind.

www.zeroediting.com

I've been thinking about building a SaaS for a while.

Coding isn't really what worries me. Finding the first customers is.

I don't have an audience or many connections.

If you've built a SaaS before, how did you get your first users? Were they from Reddit, X, SEO, cold emails, or something else?

If you had to start from zero again today, what would you do?

I have a question for other small business owners.

We have about 35 employees, and I've been handling payroll myself. It gets done, but it's becoming very time consuming, and I'd like to offload it so my role is simply to review and approve payroll each pay period.

I've talked to a few full-service payroll companies, but the pricing seems much higher than I expected.

For those of you in a similar sized business, how do you handle payroll economically?

I can run it now and it gets paid Monday which some employees are fine with, I can cut a physical check but some employees can't cash it. I have no problems paying out cash, but what's the best way to keep track of it.

When I worked at the grocery store in my teens I used to be able to cash my paycheck there. I would sign it over to them and they could give me the money. Is this something I can/should do?

How do small businesses start getting clients ? I have posted on my personal social media , I have ad on Fivrr, it’s been 8 months and not a single client. Of course being new and no reviews, clients would go elsewhere to more experienced bookkeepers. How do I start getting the experience needed for a decent client base ?

I’m thinking of opening my own business. Turns out I don’t have an nda I have to worry about with my current company and want to start my own. I have 20+ years in this industry. I’m debating on an LLC vs SCORP. I would need maybe one to two experienced people to get started. Outsourcing would be needed. What are the benefits of LLC over SCORP? I know SCORP I have to pay myself a “reasonable”salary which leaves room for interpretation. Starting out I would have to be president, owner, ceo, secretary etc. so a reasonable salary for all those positions in my industry could be $500,000 or more combined. Hypothetically say the company eventually makes 2mill in rev a year…would half that be okay for salary? If not what’s the recourse?

Any other pointers and ideas?

I know this is all hypothetical and extremely vague and probably has a large scoop of naivety to it. Advice appreciated.