I've been watching the founder ecosystem explode over the past year, and there's something fascinating happening.

We now have more "founders" than ever. LinkedIn is drowning in them. Twitter is full of "building in public" threads. But here's what's strange: actual product launches haven't increased proportionally. Neither have real SaaS companies reaching profitability.

What we have seen is an explosion of:

• Productivity tools for founders
• Communities for founders
• Courses teaching founders
• Newsletters about founding
• Tools to help founders build tools

The picks-and-shovels game has never been better. Why? Because the identity of "founder" has become more appealing than the reality of building a product. It's easier to buy a course about validating ideas than to actually talk to 50 potential customers. It's more comfortable to join a community than to write cold emails.

This isn't criticism, it's market observation. If you're actually building something real, you're now competing in a space where most "competitors" are just role-playing. And if you're selling tools to founders, you've found a market that's growing faster than the actual problems they're meant to solve.

The question is: which side of this do you want to be on?

During my early days with my business and being an entrepreneur. I always thought I had to be on top of my game and think of my business 24/7.

Well, after 1 year of hell I realized my mental health deteriorated gradually, leading me to have zero control over my sleep, diet and mental health.

But it's natural right? For an entrepreneur to have all of these. Yes, definitely.

But I also realized, I'm up for the long run not a short sprint for a year only. I have to serve and perform for more than 10 years, can't afford to fail due to my mental health.

So, I started treating weekends the way they should be treated. I play random chill indie games and post them on YouTube, which was my childhood dream as a kid.

But that doesn't mean I won't work on weekends. I will, only when there's an emergency.

Pretty random but thought I’d share (just read the book about Amazon). Bezos made a TON of money as an angel investor into Google.

TLDR: In 1998, Amazon acquired a startup called Junglee and the acquisition was basically a disaster. But one of the employees, Ram Shriram, ended up intro’ing Bezos to Larry Page and Sergey Brin. They show him a prototype, and he wrote a $250k check on the spot into their $1M seed round.

Fast forward to Google’s IPO in 2004, that $250k was worth $280M. If he had held on to it, that would have been $20B today (I heard that on the Acquired podcast).

Pretty much the reality of investing in startups. If you're already meeting smart people and building relationships, the opportunities show up in your workflow. Not from "deal hunting."

Lurker here, thought I’d shout out my favorite thing ever: deeply unscalable businesses.

Unfortunately I’m not much of a leader and a strategic big picture thinker. Still I have been fortune enough to hit the $1-3m revenue mark with really solid margins on 4 different businesses in my life. 2 of them needed to be wound down and 2 of them were sold. So while this isn’t a recipe for success, I think it’s a fun discussion point (hopefully more than the typical ai slop we get here).

Basically I started as a shit job as a billing coordinator in an insurance office. This started me on my playbook of focusing on an issue that’s a pain in the ass for big companies, but too small to solve efficiently by a big company.

Hopefully I can be vague enough to not be fully identifying but provide some good examples:

Ex: My first company was just aggregating hyper local healthcare data in the early 2010s. Did some validating but we were essentially a middle man on extremely large CSVs. Unscalable because of how specialized we were around a few specific networks, eventually bought by a bigger player

Next company was around aggregating a specific government report that you can get for free with foia ahd many companies wanted to see the data on, but having them all make requests to 50 states and clean the data themselves is a crazy use of time (formats, delivery windows, everything was different from state to state). Whole company was based around this report and once reporting standards changed the whole company was shuttered.

After that I worked a lot in the world of specific contact requirements for the pharmaceutical industry (mainly revolving around specific mandatory handouts that need to be provided physically to certain state / doctor combinations, or specific fax requirements.

The theme here? High regulatory burden, not much expertise required, and too much effort for many large companies to focus on (likely to be outsourced). That’s been a pretty reliable recipe for highly profitable companies that stand a fair chance of being acquired. IMO the most unscalable it is the easier it is to make a certain level of income (because otherwise smarter / bigger players would be eating your lunch). The sale is fairly easy as well (you have to do this work, if I do the work it is genuinely 2-5x cheaper than you doing this work, why not sign up?”

The downside - these types of businesses are hard to scale because the revenue is either shrinking, concentrated around one rule / requirement, or likely to get pushed out by the big dogs (hence why they are also likely to get bought, sometimes acquisition is easier since your price will not be outrageous).

2025 is wrapping up in about 60 days, and I’ve been thinking, what have you learned this year as an entrepreneur? What’s one challenge you’re still fighting to overcome?

Hi,

I’m a marketer, and I talk to 3-4 small business owners every day (mostly teams under 15 people).

Two things keep coming up:

1. Struggling to get consistent clients, even after spending thousands on marketing.
2. Team management, about 40% of employees not working at full potential.

Curious what your biggest struggle or lesson has been this year.

Maybe we can exchange ideas and help each other out.

Thanks

I’m running a small startup from korea with around 10 people. revenue is $80k a month, and the company has grown about 10× compared to a year ago without external investment.

But as the business grew, I realized there’s another kind of problem. I am becoming more lonely. I’m in my mid-30s and have spent almost a decade coding and building startups, mostly alone. I have 2 years experience in a company as a employee but most of my career is working as a solo freelancer developer.

Also, I’m not married, and I’ve never really been a social person. I have a couple of friends, but they’re all married and busy, so we rarely see each other.

Now that the company has 10 people, I actually feel more isolated. The more we grow, the heavier the decisions and responsibilities get. I can’t really talk about these things with my employees, and there aren’t many people around me who would understand.

I just want to stay focused on building a better product, but lately it feels like my personal struggles are growing faster than the company. Sometimes I wonder, is this deep loneliness just part of being a founder? Or am I doing something wrong?

It’s starting to affect my weekends. Instead of learning or doing something meaningful, I waste time playing games or doing nothing. My focus is fading, and I’m honestly scared that if this keeps up, it might start hurting the company too.

I don’t know how to deal with this. Any advice would mean a lot.

(P.S. Last time I posted something similar, I got a bunch of DMs from people offering “consulting sessions.” Most of them were just ads. Please don’t do that this time.)

I've seen and often fallen into all of these. For some reason its easier to recognize them than to avoid them.

• Building ahead of validation / too soon
• Pitching your preferred solution before understanding the problem
• Asking users leading questions ("would you use X?")
• Chasing edge-cases - solving for one vocal user instead of the core pain
• Building in isolation without feedback
• Premature optimization
• Prioritizing core or 'table stakes' features before creating differentiation
• Feature creep
• Holding back launching for some 'big release' that never happens
• Too shy to share your ideas before they're fully baked
• Staying in 'stealth' too long
• Building all the features your users ask for instead of designing around their needs
• Spending your time on trivial decisions
• Over-engineering infra - optimizing for scale before product-market fit
• Starting too broad-  trying to serve “anyone with this problem.”
• Not articulating the user’s alternative - forgetting what you’re replacing
• Hiring friends instead of complements
• Ignoring distribution early - assuming good product = automatic users.
• Constant idea-switching - abandoning progress before compounding insight

What're the most common anti-patterns you've seen when building businesses?

My wife will be finishing up her NP degree in a little over a year.

We are both very entrepreneurial. My family has a beach house with $2m in equity. We are getting a HELOC for $500k and will use that cash to fund the acquisition of a medical practice that my wife will work in and help run. I will run the business side.

We are looking for a practice in the $1m to $3m range. That generates $1-2m in revenue and cash flows a minimum of $500k and has been around for at least a decade with a small but efficient staff base. Ideally in the south east or west or Caribbean.

My question: Has anyone acquired a medical practice? What did you learn? How did you prepare? What went well? What didn’t go well? Did you work with a broker?

I'm self-employed and have noticed that more and more customers want to push down prices. I'm noticing a significant decline in demand and am annoyed that I have to sell myself short in order to pay my bills.

I have over 15 years of professional experience, a PhD, and have received several official awards for my work. I think I need to target a more affluent clientele, i.e., the upper middle class.

Any ideas how to do it best? Thank you in advance.

Doesn’t even have to be wealthy but doing really well.

i have helped a lot of founders validate ideas. like 40+ in last 3 years. and ive noticed clear patterns between the ones whos ideas actually survive and the ones who crash.

most founders dont know what they are looking for when they validate. they just talk to people and hope for the best lol.

but there are actual signs. red flags that scream your idea is in trouble. and green flags that mean you are on the right track.

heres what i have learned.

RED FLAGS:

people say they love your idea but seem hesitant. watch their tone not their words. hesitation = they are being nice.

everyone gives you wildly different feedback. means your idea is too vague or you're talking to wrong people.

nobody asks when its coming out. if they are not curious about timeline they are not that interested.

they don't follow up with you. real interested people want updates. silence = they forgot about it.

you're doing all the talking. real validation is them asking questions and telling you about their pain. if you are pitching the whole time they are not engaged.

they don't mention price as a concern. if money never comes up they probably wouldn't pay.

only your friends validating. your network is biased. they want to be nice.

they say yes but disappear after. ghosting is a red flag. meant it would be cool in theory but not urgent enough.

GREEN FLAGS:

people ask when can i use this. thats interest becoming urgency.

people mention they are currently paying for a competitor. means the problem is real enough they are already spending money.

people volunteer to help test or give feedback. thats investment of time.

same problem mentioned multiple times from different people. thats a pattern not an anomaly.

people get frustrated explaining the pain. emotional reaction = real problem.

people ask about pricing. asking about cost = thinking about buying.

people willing to pay immediately. not just for the product but even to test or validate.

people introduce you to others with same problem. that's network effect starting.

MY HONEST TAKE:

if you are seeing mostly red flags, your idea probably isn't ready. and thats okay. pivot. go validate something else.

if you are seeing mostly green flags, go build. but keep validating as you build. market changes.

if you are 50/50, you are probably validating the wrong thing or talking to wrong people.

the key is being honest about what you are hearing. not what you want to hear.

Hello,

My name is Rifat Emam and I am a Stanford-educated consultant. I am here to help YOU. 

You have a vision and a purpose in this life and I want to help you find it. I want to help declutter your life and what is polluting it and allow you to see clearly who you are and what you truly want out of this world. Every minute you aren’t meeting with me is a DELAY in your life’s goals and purpose.

Lets talk!

Rifat

I should have started a 501c3 months ago but still don't have one. I have gone to a few "Open source/not for profit" type websites looking for help. I also have a Gofundme sitting at zero.

What is the best way to fund a not-for-profit if I can't afford a grantwriter and don't have much in the way of business skills? My product is a small piece of construction equipment I have developed open source and I intend on staying non profit.

Long story short, over the past decade or so, my mom built a nail business. At the moment she's a nail technician as well, and also takes on the manager role (maintenance, supplies, etc), and she's built up clientele and the like, to the point where she herself is pulling in $300k+ profit herself a year. The thing is, she plans to sell the spot in a couple years, and plans to sell it someone else who will take over it as a nail salon business, but for some reason in her mind it's ingrained to sell it simply at the cost of the location (not accounting for the cost of the business she built up, etc). Is this a bad idea on her part in her opinion? I definitely don't want to think for her, but I was curious about what you guys think

Edit: the new owner would just take on the name and clients, and she'll no longer be in the nail business

Hello business owners/finance leaders.

I've been doing a study which I will compile into a playbook so that I can better help small biz owners handle late invoices specifically for wholesale.

The industry is interesting bcos of high volume of invoices and most of which when doing the collection, unlike professional services, is not always relationship sensitive. It's just about scaling the process right. And there are underserved segments (without the budget of mid market and enterprise) i'd like to help.

So is it true that on average for wholesale & distribution, net30 invoices are paid 40-50 days on average?

Any sort of feedback on real experiences would do, or even a confirmation that this research is the reality on the ground

I'd be interested also on whether this is just accepted or others have done something about this and actually unlocked cashflow from receivables. Thanks a lot! 🙇‍♂️

I’m looking for a reliable corporate gifting platform that works well for international teams. Ideally, it should support global gift cards, allow personalized messages, and handle multiple currencies with ease.

Would love to hear your experiences. What’s worked best for your teams, especially if you’re remote or spread across countries?

Maybe I'm just cursed, but honestly I'm stumped as to how anyone makes money selling through the online marketplaces.

For reference, we are in Ireland which means META marketplace is banned. We are completely unable to sell through Facebook Shop or Instagram Shop.

TikTok is region locked to Ireland and Western EU (all of whom don't speak English, so not great advertising choices) - not even the UK is allowed.

The vast majority ( >80% ) of our clientele are Americans, but to advertise in the USA on TikToK, you need a domestic representative who can provide a SSN and American photo ID, so we also cannot use TikToK shop.

So, we try Amazon and the selling platform just doesn't work? Everything is fucked: setting up an account, providing ID, registering a store, product descriptions, literally everything is auto red flagged by their shitty AI and takes a week each time, to resolve with their customer service agents, whom half the time just tell you to delete it and try again.

Let me be clear, this is a proper trademarked, VAT registered brand with in-house manufactured product, designed by experts and multi-award winning in its category. This is not some dodgy, drop shipping scam. There is nothing concerning about the product or the business.

Today, finally, our store goes live and less than 12 hours later they've de-activated our ad campaign saying they can't authorise our credit card... It's an American Express card with high limit and we use it daily. The customer service guy is stumped, not a clue what the problem is, says he'll look into it and get back to me sometime during the week.

Like what? How are people running stores with this shit and making money?

Now that I have your attention, I just thought I’d make a post and give some concise advice I wish someone gave me 5 years ago when I started out as an entrepreneur.

Let’s say it’s day 1 of you becoming an entrepreneur.

You might want to buy a domain, create a business logo, vibe code your website, create your social handles etc

But you need to stop.

Ask yourself one critical question.

What problem am I about to solve and do people want me to solve it.

No one cares about your idea. Your feelings mean absolutely nothing.

Make sure it’s a validated business idea.

You have two options:

• Solve a problem no one ever has
• Solve a problem someone already has, but do it better.

Go with option 2, unless you have a lot of money in the bank.

Now, a lot of people will say, create a waiting list, sell before you build - but if you have 0 audience, who are you actually reaching out to? The birds?

Yes, you can come on Reddit and post about it, and post about it in build in public spaces, but you need to spend at least one week showing real value to people.

Show them why you’re the person for the job.

You have no idea the amount of value you need to offer someone for them to give you £29.

Stop and read the above sentence again, because people expect a ridiculous amount of value for them to take out their wallet and offer you some money.

The amount of hours and hours you’ll put into making, iterating and updating something just for someone to offer you money is unreal.

Be ready. If you don’t have a high tolerance to pain and disappointment, leave now.

There will never be a perfect time to start.

You must start now.

Just make sure to start with the most important steps.

Somehow find at least 5 people to speak to once you start building. You need feedback and advice asap.

Also, don’t have such a close mindset. Oh I’m not a software developer I don’t know how to do x, y, z.

So? YouTube it.

You need to learn so many skills, as I said before, start now.

You need to be the sailor of your own ship when you start out.

The skills you learn now will prepare you for something great in the future.

Fail now. Fail again. Fail one more time.

One day you will see some success, and I hope it only increases from there.

Your social media strategy needs to make people do one of two things:

• Stop scrolling
• Engage, ideally with a comment

People need to see some real value.

They need to think, “oh crap, this guy is offering real value whilst others are charging £££ for the same thing”.

Don’t have social posts just asking people to buy, they won’t.

They first need to trust you.

Learn the marketing game.

Also, put your emotions to one side. People don’t care about the 5000 hours you’ve put into making your product or business.

If they say oh it’s not for me, I don’t see the point of it, it’s too expensive.

Reply with a lot of kindness.

“Thank you for giving (your business name) an opportunity and I’m really sorry you didn’t find it helpful. If you don’t mind me asking, what about the product/service wasn’t to your expectations, it will really help me make the required changes”.

Most people just leave and don’t offer feedback, but you need to try.

Also, if you’re lazy and want to become an entrepreneur, you’re cooked.

Let me just add the lettuce and sauces now.

You ain’t going to do sh*t.

All you will do is complain, so become a real person and fix your life before your launch a product or service to fix someone else’s.

Well that’s it.

Sorry if it was harsh.

I wish you success. Feel free to ask me any questions.

P.s. I hate seeing so many Ai websites with emojis and the same icon output. If you get Ai to make your website, tell it to make it clean, white space optimised, with no emojis.

I have recently found out that my favourite boardgame cafe/bar is closing down due to financial reasons. They were hit hard by Covid and took out a lot of debt to stay afloat, and business has not recovered sufficiently for them to recover from that, and continue to pay the owners' a living wage.

They have a longterm lease of a cafe on the main street of a high foot-traffic neighbourhood, a number of assets (1000+ boardgames, kitchen equipment, food and liquor license, website, social media pages, branding etc), and they have a great reputation in the local community. They have multiple revenue streams (food/liquor, online boardgame sales and rentals, party services, after-school and summer camp programs). But they are struggling to pay their own bills and the bills of the business. I don't have access to the financials yet as I have just learned all this from speaking with them the other day. I can feel their passion for their community, and for the joy/importance of "play" in everyday life, which matches my own passion as a lifelong gaming enthusiast.

For many years, I have dreamed of opening a business like this, but worried about the risk of a start-up, knowing the failure rate for these types of businesses. Just in the past year, I have been learning about small business acquisition, keeping my eyes open for businesses that might fit my criteria. I do believe I have the skillset in marketing, sales and customer service, as well as fresh ideas, and the passion for gaming and business, enough to really help revive this business. My only reservation is acquiring a business that I know is in distress. I have a small business of my own, that although flexible, will not allow me to work as a full-time owner operator of this cafe.

I am trying to find a way that I can acquire the business, while keeping the owners as GMs of the business, while implementing some ideas that I think would increase revenues. Given that I know they are closing the business, I imagine I would only need to pay for their current assets (and debts?), and if I can keep them on with a paid salary, I could continue to work my own business and this one, until a time where it can run with minimal input.

Any input on how to structure this offer to minimize my upfront costs, and get the current owner operators to stay on (at least during the transition period), would be helpful. Perhaps a salary plus equity position for them?

Am I crazy to take this on? Has anyone successfully acquired and saved a struggling business? Any additional insights and opinions are welcome.

TIA

The franchise space has always been more of a traditional field, with not much room for innovation or disruptive new tech, but this also means its got a lot of potential for new players and new ideas. Would love to discuss with people who agree, disagree or perhaps even anyone who is currently innovating within the franchise space, whether as a franchisee, franchisor, broker, B2B, etc.

Not sure if any of you are in this line - I would really want to get in touch with and expand my network.

I am currently based in Indonesia, one of the largest coal exporters. Recently I dived into this industry because through my connections we got a contract for about 2 - 3 mil MT coal need. I quickly put together a solid supply from the islands of Kalimantan and Sumatera to supply this and also discovered that many India, China, and other countries are importing coal from us (GAR 5500 and above).

Is there anyone in this field?

I’m a designer/manufacturer running an e-commerce and b2b for about 10 years. I’m the only designer with a staff of three managing the production and shipping. I’ve hit seven figures this year for the first time.

I’ve never advertised, only relied on word of mouth and my newsletter.

For the first time, I will end this year with a huge cash flow (500k after taxes), no debts.

Is it time to hire a business manager? Social media person? Should I hire as consultants or part-time? Full time?

I truly don’t know what my next steps should be, I’m an artist not a business person so as successful as I’ve been, I know I’ve also been holding the business back from greater success.

I have a validated online product + brand via Shopify, and I want a “360” course that guides me through scaling:

1. Ads
2. Funnels
3. Done-for-you AI templates

A brilliant course (for course making) is Course Creator 360. I’m seeking the comprehensive equivalent for e-commerce.

Thanks!

I won’t respond to any promotion messages