r/BusinessDevelopment

I've been running a small snack vending route for about two years. Five machines across three locations. It's profitable, but honestly, I'm tired of the grind.

The biggest headache is spoilage. Chips go stale. Candy expires. Protein bars sit for months. I'm restocking 15–20 different products per machine every week, and at least 10–15% of what I put in ends up getting tossed or donated. That's money down the drain.

On top of that, snack margins are getting tighter. Big box stores and online delivery have made people less willing to pay $1.50 for a candy bar.

I've been looking at coffee-only machines as an alternative. One product or a small handful of drink options. No expiration worries if the beans are fresh. Higher perceived value, people will pay $2.50–$3.00 for a decent office coffee. And fewer SKUs means way less time restocking.

The obvious downside: coffee machines are more expensive upfront and have more moving parts. More maintenance risk. And if the machine breaks, you're making $0 until it's fixed, versus a snack machine where 19 out of 20 slots still work.

Has anyone here made the switch from traditional vending to coffee-only? What surprised you, good or bad? Are margins actually better in practice, or does maintenance eat up the difference?

Created this as an experiment inspired by Alex Tew’s Million Dollar Homepage. Enjoy! Lmk thoughts

Most startups fail because they build something nobody wants. Not because the product was bad, but because nobody checked whether anyone actually needed it first.

I've spent years helping founders avoid this. Most skip idea validation because it feels overwhelming, or they do it badly because nobody taught them how.

Drop your idea in the comments, and I'll build you a custom validation kit for your idea. Not a generic template, a kit built around your idea. You'll get:

• A breakdown of your idea into problem, solution, customer and critical assumptions
• An interviewee profile tailored to who your actual customer is and where to find them
• 7 must-ask questions plus follow-ups (15 to 20 in total), written for your specific idea to get real answers instead of polite ones
• Outreach templates for each channel, where you'll find your people

Free. No pitch in the thread. No catch.

If you want to share your idea but not publicly, let me know.

Feels like a lot of the usual channels are getting harder to rely on consistently.

Cold email is saturated, ads are getting expensive, SEO takes time, and partnerships can be hit or miss depending on the niche.

Wonder what people here are actually doing that’s bringing in steady leads month to month. not one-off wins, but something repeatable.

what’s been working for you recently?

Thinking of moving to an ERP. What are you all using?

I feel like we’ve kind of reached that point in our company with our current setup and it’s starting to get in the way more than it helps. We’ve been using Google Sheets for a lot of our processes, which I can say worked fine early on, but now it just feels like we’ve outgrown them, and waste a lot of time on making things run smoothly and then trying to find our mistakes. Way too many manual steps, and keeping everything in sync is a bit of a headache.

Lately I’ve been thinking it might be a perfect time to switch to an ERP for our business.

Actually, I'm thinking about something that keeps things a bit more organized without all those extra and unnecessary steps. In other words, mainly looking for better visibility and a bit more control so we’re not constantly double-checking everything.

What are you guys using? Anything you’d recommend?

I have created a website to sell health and wellbeing products like vitamins and blood pressure machines to send to pharmacies and health stores in Ghana but I have had no luck getting any customers, does anyone have any tips?

Hey everyone,

I’m currently doing some ground-level research on the Indian B2B and service-based landscape. One thing I’ve noticed is that while everyone talks about getting leads, there’s very little talk about the mess that happens after the lead is generated.

I’m curious to hear from founders and agency owners here: What is the biggest bottleneck in your workflow once a lead hits your Excel or CRM?

Whether it's about the quality, the follow-ups, the tech, or just how the Indian market behaves—I want to hear your raw, unfiltered experience.

Not selling or pitching anything. Just here to learn from your experience.

Thanks!

my boss wants to automate how we pick which rfps to chase. i’m worried a tool will miss the nuance. do you guys use data for this or just experience?

Hi folks,

I am running email campaigns for my product and trying to reach out to local marketing agencies.

I figured out scraping google maps but want an affordable way to enrich them with emails.

Currently, all tools like Apollo, Instantly seem very expensive to run email campaigns at scale.

Any suggestions?

While there is this excitement in following a dream or trying to pull ourselves out of financial struggle, there’s also the uncertainty on what to do next or how to fix a problem to keep progress going. 

I’m sure a lot of us aren’t business experts here, so who do you call upon when you’re stuck? Or need advice? Or even to stay motivated?

Hi,

Given the current economic climate, I’m hesitant to commit to hiring a full-time business development team right away—but I also know that getting early traction is critical.

I’m currently launching a multi-vendor platform where businesses can showcase their products, connect directly with customers, and sell through the platform.

Joining as a business is free, with basic features included. We also offer a premium membership that unlocks additional tools and visibility—this is where the revenue model comes in.

Right now, my focus is on onboarding businesses. Instead of building a full team upfront and taking on high operational costs, I’m exploring a commission-based approach. The idea is simple: you earn a commission for every premium membership you bring in.

This allows for wider reach without heavy fixed costs, and if things scale well, the plan is to transition into a more structured team setup.

If you’re interested in working on a commission basis and helping grow the platform, feel free to DM me. Happy to share more details and discuss how this could work.

I launched my SaaS platform eight months ago that helps freelancers manage client contracts and invoices all in one place. So far most of our users have come from paid ads and social media but the costs keep going up and I need a more stable way to grow.

Has anyone here gone through this with a new SaaS or service business? How long did it actually take before SEO started delivering consistent leads? What practical steps helped you speed things up?

I had tried a post before and don’t think I explained clearly so adding more context.

I just feel so stuck and dissatisfied with my life currently and the main trigger is my work.

I started my own business it’s similar to a mobile version of vet nursing. I thought I would love it as it would give me freedom over decisions but I feel I’m on the verge of burning out.

I don’t understand how I work so much and then am not be able to live. For my industry I don’t even earn badly it hovers around £34-36k, which ever so slightly above average if I was hired by a company.

However I can’t live of it in the city I am in. I love the actual sessions I have with people and their pets. But the travel and admin is killing me but that’s also an essential part of the job.

The admin involves reports, liaising with vets, insurance companies, emails, invoices etc

Plus also making sure I stay up to date on new research and cpd.

Ideally I would like to add social media but I don’t have time currently.

I have to live with my parents as I can’t afford to live alone. Who while I get on with them to a superficial degree. it’s not pleasant as an adult.

I feel so unmotivated in life currently and I’ve let myself go. I don’t eat well I don’t exercise because I’m exhausted at the end of the day. I feel I’m constantly catching up on admin, reports, emails, invoices etc.

Or I spend all my time feeling guilty I’m not doing work as there is always something else I could do. I find it so frustrating and don’t understand how I can have a full time job and not even afford a 1 bed flat.

I desperately need my own space and my parents place isn’t big so there no where for me to be alone and ever decompress, I also feel this dulls my productivity.

I’m 35 and feel like I’m living a teenagers life.

I’ve just lost all motivation to do anything as I think what’s the point. I can’t even afford a basic life.

I don’t know how to change it, Granted the city I am in is very expensive but if I move I loose my work as I have built it up in the city I live in. I hated working for commercial vet practices as you get paid horribly for such long hours and have no respect or say over decisions.

I feel I should change professions or how I work but that means no money and then I’m never getting out to live my own life as I am heavily trying to save right now.

Essentially I think if I had my own space to live and only had to work and do about 70% of what I’m going now I would feel better.

I also don’t think I can afford to hire an admin assistant yet and don’t know what could help.

I feel my life is passing me by and it’s making me sad I’m not where I thought I would be.

I should add I set up the bussiness two years ago and to some degree I am proud of how quickly it built it. But something needs to change as I’m now just overwhelmed all the time and never seem to be on top anything.

In terms of pricing I am on the upper end of average but I am more qualified than the average person who does it as such.

I now have a steady stream of new clients coming in but even when I have a packed in week I will end up with cancellations I can’t fill in time and they give me enough notice or I feel guilty charging. So I never earn as much I expect each week.

Thanks for reading!

My cofounder (15) and I (15) just launched Ascent in TestFlight

It's an educational scrolling app that redirects your scrolling to something more meaningful.

People love the idea of the product, but the next morning just go back to tiktok, insta, or youtube.

Not because Ascent is worse. Because Tiktok, Insta, and Youtube is muscle memory.

Our Current Process so far:

• Building in the open

• $0 spent

Our Questions:

1. How have you dealt with getting people to switch their habits in your products?
2. Is "Better Tiktok" more intriguing than saying a new scrolling app?
3. Any advice on growing without paid ads?

Early beta is available right now: ascentwaitlist.vercel.app

Happy to answer questions about the build, decisions, or more about the product. Any suggestions on how to improve retention?

I’ve been looking at a few small business datasets recently and noticed a pattern that feels counterintuitive at first:

Revenue is growing

Orders are increasing

But margins and overall “quality” of growth seem to be declining

When you dig a bit deeper, it often comes down to things like:

Certain customer segments that look valuable but aren’t actually profitable

Discounts or pricing changes driving volume but hurting margins

Repeat customers dropping off while new (lower-value) ones replace them

Product mix shifting in ways that aren’t obvious at a high level

It made me realize how misleading top-line metrics can be if you don’t break things down at a more granular level (customer, cohort, transaction level, etc.).

Curious if others here have faced something similar:

Have you seen growth that didn’t “feel” like growth?

What ended up being the root cause?

Happy to share more details on how I usually approach breaking this down if it helps.

I’ve been in construction for about 12 years and worked my way up through the field, journeyman, foreman, estimator, project manager, sales, and now business development.

Most of my background is in CSI Division 09 (finishes), but I’ve also had the opportunity to expand into Divisions 23, 26, 28, and 12. Seeing projects from multiple angles has been valuable, especially understanding how decisions made early in design carry through the entire job.

Where I’ve landed, mainly from my time in estimating and sales, is this: if you want to have real impact (and avoid being boxed into low-bid situations), you need to get involved upstream. Getting products and systems specified into the drawings and specs seems to be the most effective path.

I try to approach this from a service-first mindset, bringing value before expecting anything in return.

Lately, that’s meant reaching out more to architects, designers, developers, and MEP engineers. The goal is to support early design coordination and, when it makes sense, help guide system selections.

Here’s where I could use some input:

For those of you who’ve made this shift, what’s worked (and what hasn’t) when approaching design teams?

Not just getting a meeting, but actually building credibility and becoming someone they’ll pull in early.

I’ve always been strong at connecting with people one-on-one, but I’ll be honest, it’s getting harder to bridge the gap across different age groups. I’m a millennial (early 90s), so I relate to both sides to some extent, but the communication styles are definitely different.

Curious how others are navigating that as well.

We have owned a mobile mechanic business for a few years but moved to a new state and are starting from scratch. We recently had a very high end (woth wealthy members) golf club contact us asking if we would like to be featured in their exclusive app where we would have an account manager and professional designer help create our ad in the app. it would feature our name, logo, and info where they can click on the ad and be taken to their choice of either our website, social media's, and phone number to contact us directly. We would be able to work on any vehicles or golf carts on site if needed and able to pass out our business cards to members. its a one time fee for the year and doesnt renew automatically. The fee would be $400 for the year.

I did look up the golf club and it's a legitimate business and the top rated in the region, where we live, and is known in the area as being the most "premium and luxurious".

I wanted to post in here and ask any other experienced business owners if this seems like a good deal and good idea for us to go ahead and get the exposure we need/get our name out there especially for being new to the area and not having a lot of customers yet. So to anyone who has experience in owning/operating a business and has taken advantage of marketing/advertising like this, is it worth it? Is it a good idea? Should we go ahead and do this?

If not, can you fill me in on why it wouldn't be a good idea?

Thanks in advance to anyone who provides insight, suggestions, advice, or even first hand experience.

No gimmick, just trying to stress test and get feedback on a tool I'm working on. Just tell me your company name and the prospect's (even a fake prospect will do, as long as they have a website). Feel free to DM details to me if you don't want to share publicly. I'll get you the deck ASAP assuming I have the bandwidth.

Hi everyone, anybody offering any low-medium wage job that won’t suffocate a student?

I’m an almost 4th year student looking for a K2000 to maximum paying job for basic sustainability.

I’m well versed in business development, finance and bookkeeping and administration as well as managerial work.

Female In Lusaka, willing to commit full time.

Thank you!

Each produces different outputs, even when using the same structured prompt (hook, gap, ask, analysis, subject lines). This creates confusion about which one to rely on.