i run a local shop in my area, i see people online be talking about that more google reviews means more customer and all, which i get it ofc, but does it matter that much?

Hi all,

I'm evaluating the acquisition of a landscaping business in the Midwest and could use some advice from those who have gone through the SBA financing process. The business generated ~$1.3mm in revenue and $330k in SDE in 2025. The seller is asking $1.5mm.

I'm a first time buyer with ~$200k in capital. I'd like to minimize my equity contribution (obviously) while still maintaining a reasonable capital structure. I've been considering something along these lines: SBA loan: 77%, Seller financing: 12%, Buyer equity: 11%.

The challenge is that this is a seasonal lawn care business with most revenue generated during the warmer months (zero revenue Dec-Mar). I'd need ~$150k in working capital at close to cover P&I, payroll, and other OpEx through the 1^st winter assuming I buy this fall.

Once I factor in the purchase price, working capital, and transaction expenses, I'm starting to question whether I have enough capital to realistically get this deal done without some margin of safety.

• Is there a realistic way to structure this transaction with only $200k?
• Can the initial working capital requirement be financed as part of the SBA loan, or should I expect to fund that separately?
• Are there other financing structures I should be considering?

Thanks in advance!

$10,000 just showed up in my square account. No idea how it got there. It wasn’t received as a payment. Customer support told me to refund it. I told the person that they should be fired immediately since they don’t recognize a common scam and gave me horrible advice. I was transferred to someone with a brain who understood the problem and said a ticket was created and it would be looked into on Monday. Can anyone who’s had this problem tell me what will happen? Will they easily reverse it for me or is this a long fight? Will they close my account?

Everyone is saying that TikTok Shop is capturing a share of the U.S. e-commerce market. Its growth has been rapid, offering an engaging social shopping experience where users can place orders directly while scrolling through videos.

Amazon, however, boasts mature logistics, strong consumer trust, and well-established systems for returns, exchanges, and dispute resolution. In contrast, TikTok Shop has been consistently plagued by issues such as inconsistent product quality, unreliable logistics, frequently changing seller policies, and regulatory risks.

Where did you guys purchase uniform for your company by sample or bulk?

Hi everyone,
I'm a software engineering student and I've been building websites for practice (portfolios, landing pages, some Shopify customization). I'd like to move to real client work, but I'm not sure where to start.
For those who've been through this:
Where did your first clients come from?
Did you start with free or discounted projects, or charge from the start?
Is there something you wish you'd done differently early on?
Any advice is appreciated. Thanks!

Hi everyone,

I'm 19 years old and looking for some real-world advice and guidance.

I’ve had a huge passion for technology since I was 12 and have been working on building my skills ever since. My ultimate goal is to build significant wealth and achieve financial independence.

I’m based in Iraq, where tech adoption is still relatively low compared to other places. I have plenty of project ideas I’d love to launch, but about 90% of them require starting capital—roughly around \$10,000. Whenever I ask wealthy people in my country how they became millionaires, they usually say they started with a sizable amount of money (like \$100,000), but nobody ever explains how they got that initial capital in the first place to expand their business.

Based on your experience, I’d love to get your thoughts on:

1. How can I bridge the gap between technology and everyday needs to build a solid business?

2. What are the best strategies to identify real, pressing problems that people are willing to pay for?

3. Once I have some starting capital, how can I build multiple projects that generate passive income monthly without requiring my constant manual involvement?

Thanks in advance for your help!

Question for other small teams.

Say a competitor drops their price on a Friday afternoon. In a 2-3 person operation, what happens next in practice? Is one person watching for it, or do you find out from a customer? Is there a rule - a floor you don't cross, a 'we never match on weekends' - or does it turn into a group-chat debate every time?

And once someone decides, how do you keep the reason? Without a note somewhere, the 'why did we change this price' question has no answer a month later.

What does your actual process look like, and what backfired before you had one?

My partner has started a business making hand painted brush and comb sets as keepsakes for parents, we have reached out and sent a sample set to a few mums with somewhat large social media presence, run a couple ads on local facebook groups and etsy, but we are now stuck and stagnant.

No orders, little follower growth on social media accounts, unsure where to go from here.

What would be our best course of action from here on to grow and gain traction?

Thanks in advance.

I've recently launched a website focused on reviewing children's TV shows, with an emphasis on quality, pacing and positive messages rather than just listing what's available.

I'm trying to work out how to get it in front of the right audience without spending much money on advertising.

For those who've grown a content or review website from scratch:

• Which channels have actually brought you consistent, relevant traffic?
• Would you prioritise SEO, social media, community engagement or something else?
• Are there any approaches you wish you'd started earlier?

I'm particularly interested in what works for niche websites rather than ecommerce or SaaS businesses.

Hey everyone!

I’ve been working on an inventory management app called DepoMaster, designed to help small businesses keep track of their stock directly from their iPhones.

The idea is to make inventory management simpler, especially for small warehouses, retailers, and businesses that don’t need a complicated enterprise system.

Some of the features include:

• 📦 Stock tracking and inventory management
• 📊 Stock-in and stock-out tracking
• 📷 Barcode and document scanning
• 🔔 Low-stock alerts
• 🏢 Multi-warehouse management
• ☁️ Cloud sync

I’m trying to learn how small businesses currently manage their inventory and what their biggest frustrations are.

A few questions:

• Do you use an app or spreadsheets to manage inventory?
• What’s the most frustrating part of your current workflow?
• What features would make you consider switching to a new inventory app?

If you’d like to check it out, here’s the App Store link:
https://apps.apple.com/tr/app/inventory-management-stock/id6761208190

I built this app, so I’m affiliated with it. I’d genuinely appreciate any feedback or suggestions. Thanks!

I have found his business online! Garro Law Group in kananta/Ottawa Ontario

I’m posting this because I honestly don’t know what else to do.

This past Sunday, a client urgently asked me to put other jobs on pause to repair his pool cracks. My team and I spent 12 hours working, only to discover the job involved foundation repairs.

We invested approximately $3,000 in materials, plus labour, and sacrificed our only day off to get the work done. I even missed valuable time with my kids to help this client.

He asked for one week to pay, and I trusted his word. Now, he’s completely disappeared. No answers to calls or messages.

We work hard to support our families and run an honest business. All we ask is to be paid for the work we do.

It’s disappointing to give someone your time, effort, and trust, only to be left chasing payment for work already completed.

If anyone has advice on how to handle this situation, I’d appreciate it. And if the client sees this, please reach out so we can resolve this professionally.

I'm looking for a good linerless label printer for our e-commerce packing process.

Basically, I want to print those sticky labels without the backing paper, so we can quickly stick them onto our boxes while packing orders.

I'd like to have the labels print automatically from our own web-based packing system, so something with decent API/SDK support or a way to trigger printing programmatically would be great.

I've looked at a few Zebra, Brother, and Epson models, but it's surprisingly hard to figure out which ones actually work well with linerless labels and have the sticky backs.

Anyone using something like this?

I have come to the point in starting my microbusiness that I need a website. I'm trying to select a builder, and doing review searches hasn't really answered my questions. Low cost is a need since I'm literally just getting started. I mostly need to be able to list services, make blog posts about upcoming/past events and I want to be able to have a calendar that lists where to find me.

The ones that come up the most are Wix, GoDaddy, WordPress and Canva, but would love to hear what has worked best for you.

I want to start a business but I don't know what to do. I have zero connections, zero friends, and almost zero amount of money. I mean not negligible. Just do a remote job. I'm a software developer. Don't suggest any tech business ideas please. Those are not good these days.

I'm not expecting to just enter and start earning money and doing something. I just want to start from somewhere, like if I can talk to someone or if there is anything I can do to just get that starting point. I don't know where to start or what to do. Someone please suggest something to me.

I am from Mumbai.

Thinking about renting an office or virtual address from Regus or Spaces? Definitely read their official fine print first. Thousands of Trustpilot and BBB reviews show a real pattern – small businesses getting stuck by these exact contract clauses:

Inescapable Auto-Renewals (Clause 1.5): Contracts automatically renew for another full term unless you cancel months in advance. Three-month leases require a massive three-month written notice to cancel. Miss it by just a day, and you’re locked in.

$500+ "Restoration" Exit Fees (Clause 3.8): When you leave, they charge a fixed move-out fee – often $539 to $800 or more – even for normal wear and tear like minor nail holes from hanging a few pictures.

No Way Out (Clause 1.8): If you try to break the lease early, you have to immediately pay the entire remaining balance of the contract as a lump sum.

Hidden Add-ons (Clause 2.1 & 3.3): They charge extra just for using the address for legal business registration. And if you don’t use auto-pay, they add on a fee equal to one extra month’s rent.

Reviews seen online:
https://ca.trustpilot.com/review/www.spacesworks.com

https://ca.trustpilot.com/review/regus.com

https://www.sitejabber.com/reviews/regus.com

https://www.bbb.org/us/tx/addison/profile/commercial-real-estate/regus-management-group-llc-0875-90062731/customer-reviews

https://www.bbb.org/us/tx/addison/profile/commercial-real-estate/regus-management-group-llc-0875-90062731/complaints

Read their Agreements before you sign-up:

https://assets.regus.com/terms-and-conditions/en-us-global-terms-and-conditions.pdf

https://assets.regus.com/terms-and-conditions/fr-ca-global-terms-and-conditions.pdf

Starting out as an Email Marketer and looking for a first client..

To build up my case studies, I'm offering email copywriting & sequence setup at minimal rates.

Gonna be win-win situation.

I’m based in Dehradun, India, and considering starting a small plant gifting business from home. My retired father enjoys gardening, so I thought we could build something around that.
The idea is to sell potted plants as gifts to individual customers for occasions like birthdays and housewarmings, as well as cater to businesses looking for corporate gifts or bulk orders.
My problem is that while I have ideas, I struggle with figuring out how to turn them into an actual business. I’ve explored business ideas before but never really understood how to get started, find my first customers, or validate demand without spending too much upfront.
For those who have started small businesses from scratch:
What would you do first if you were starting this business today?
How would you find your first 5–10 paying customers?
Would you focus on individual customers or corporate orders initially?
How do you test whether an idea is worth pursuing before investing in inventory, packaging, and marketing?
I’m not looking for a detailed business plan, just practical advice on how to go from an idea to the first few sales. I’d especially appreciate advice from people who started with limited experience and a small budget.

Like the title implies I realized we’ve been reordering office supplies (copy paper, deskware, break room stuff, janitorial, etc) from the same vendor for nearly 10 years and we’re paying like a >20% price difference over what some other vendors charge. Crazy.

We set up our vendor accounts years ago and don’t really think about it now. i feel like most small businesses do the same because who has time to check 5+ sites every time printer paper, packaging, or shop supplies run low?

How do you all manage this? Any tips or suggestions for a small business? Or easy way to keep vendor price in check without wasting hours shopping around every month?

Hello!

Im not much of a writer but I have two add to cart products coming out on my website soon. These are the only products that are add to cart at the moment (im a printer so I just have people call or email me for the moment).

Do you find blogging helpful?

What platform do you use?

Where do you put it on your website?

I'll take any helpful tips or YouTube recommendations!

Thanks!

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

On the small business community, seeing a lot of confusion about this from the filing side, so a short summary of what actually changed.

For payments made after December 31, 2025, the general reporting threshold for 1099-NEC (nonemployee compensation) and 1099-MISC (rents, other income) went from $600 to $2,000. So a contractor you paid $1,850 in 2026 does not get a 1099-NEC.

Things that did NOT change, which is where people get caught:

- Royalties still trigger a 1099-MISC at $10.

- Direct sales of $5,000 or more are still reported.

- Backup withholding has no threshold. If you withheld federal tax on a payee at all, you report it at any amount.

- The $2,000 figure is indexed for inflation after 2026, so it will be a different number for tax year 2027. Don't hard-code it.

Also worth knowing: this doesn't change the W-9 question. You still want a W-9 on file before the first payment regardless of amount, because you don't know in March whether the year's total will cross $2,000.

Disclosure: We are a 1099 e-file platform. Happy to answer questions in the comments, not here to pitch.

Hi everyone, I'm planning my music production mentoring program, but I need some help with narrowing down to the "perfect client" thing.

So Allan Dib wrote in his book, that for example a photographer can offer several services, such as: wedding photography, advertising photography, photojournalism and portrait (family) photography but these are very different market segments.

In my mentoring program it will be EDM genre (Electronic Dance Music), which I know the most about. It's kinda big, different and wide audience for aiming it as one audience (Dubstep, House, Bass House, Drum and Bass, Techno etc, all of them are different subcultures). I would like to focus first on bass house music, then dubstep, techno, etc. Are these also very different market segments, as in the case of the example photographer in Allan Dib's book?

Do I understand correctly that I should first narrow my audience to, for example, bass house music, then expand it to bass house and dubstep, etc.? Or should I narrow my audience for bass house music even further to producers who meet certain criteria? And if so, what would you suggest?

I will be grateful for any information, criticism and suggestions.