r/advancedentrepreneur

So for context, I've been running an online ecommerce shop based in Milwaukie since 2023. After I've scaled quite a bit, I've been using a local CPA that I worked with years back when I ran a local landscaping business. He was great during that time, so I naturally stuck by him when I moved to ecom.

The issue is, everytime I ask him anything he just starts waffling and says how "It's all fine". One time, I asked him about him how we should be tracking the different fees and payouts through Shopify or Amazon. All he said was to keep giving him the total in my bank account at the end of the month and how he's got it covered.

ok so this is kind of an accidental saas story. I own a cosmetics brand in Russia, and we work with a lot of influencers on Instagram and TikTok. I had a team of 5-7 people whose entire job was monitoring trending content in our niche. They were scrolling TikTok and Instagram all day, saving reels, logging engagement metrics in spreadsheets. it cost me roughly $3k/month just in salaries for that

About 8 months ago, I saw someone build an app with a cursor on Twitter and thought let me try. zero coding background btw. I built a tool that scrapes trending reels in any niche, runs them through AI to score trend potential, and shows which creators to watch. It replaced most of that manual monitoring work

I used it for my own brand first. Then a friend who runs a fashion brand asked if she could use it. Then her friend. Then, other brand owners in completely different niches. Before I knew it, I had 45 paying clients, all from my personal network

Right now, I'm tracking cost per customer through credyt to understand my unit economics before I set real pricing. Each trend search costs me about $0.04-0.08 in api calls, depending on niche size.

The problem is, I want to expand beyond Russia, but international payment processing just doesn't work from here. All my current clients are people I know personally or got introduced to through other brand owners

so my question to this sub, if i'm going international with consumption based pricing, does it make sense to charge per search only with no subscription? or do people expect a monthly plan? Plus, if that here some alternatives to Stripe or not?

We have an invention that has been popular in the market but we just put so much effort and assets into the invention we don't have a lot of money to Market. We do think it belongs in someone else's hands. We are thinking searching for a commission based invention broker. But we are wondering if they are going to be better than us hiring a commission based salesperson.

Hi, anyone know what accounting software is best for job costing for companies in the home improvement industry? If using a Quickbooks for this, how is it working? Thanks.

First, thank you.

I posted last weeks about selling out my first 200 units but being stuck on cash flow for Batch 2. I got 50+ comments across multiple subreddits, and I've spent the last 3 days reading every single one. Some of you clearly went through this exact situation 5-10 years ago and still took time to write detailed advice. That means a lot.

A few comments hit especially hard:

"Revenue is vanity. Profit is sanity."

"The inventory treadmill is real and it catches a lot of first-time product founders off guard."

"Situations like this usually feel like trust problems, but they're often structure problems underneath."

I came in thinking my problem was "need more capital." Turns out my problem is "didn't understand the game I'm playing."

What I Learned From The 3 Mistakes:

Take my pricing. I was selling at $359 thinking I was killing it. But once I factored in international shipping, QC overhead, and the $3k I burned on failed samples, my margins were paper-thin. I was basically moving boxes for free. For Batch 2, I’m bumping it to $419. It’s a scary jump, but if the brand can’t survive at that price, it isn’t a real business anyway.

The quality side was another wake-up call. My supplier and I had "great vibes" until a 2% defect rate showed up, then they ghosted me for 10 days. It made me realize that "vibes" aren't a supply chain strategy. I’m finally putting actual QC standards in writing and talking to backup factories.

But the biggest sting? I surveyed my 200 buyers and only 24% said they’d pre-order again. It turns out selling out doesn't prove "Product-Market Fit", it just proves I got lucky with one Instagram post. I’m launching pre-orders in one week as a "pull test." If I don’t hit 50 orders, I’m hitting the brakes.

Try to fix it all before Batch 2, any more good suggestions are welcomed.

I can drop $500K on a business decision and not think twice.

But spending $200 on myself?

I’ll overthink it for days… and usually not do it.

No luxury watches. No fancy cars.

I don’t even know how to shop for “nice things.”

From the outside, people call it discipline.

But honestly, it doesn’t feel like that.

It feels like I’m wired to see anything that doesn’t generate a return as a bad decision.

Every dollar spent on enjoyment feels like a loss.

Like I’m doing something wrong.

And I think it comes from how I grew up — always being careful, always thinking about ROI, always optimizing.

Here’s the weird part:

That same mindset helped me build wealth.

But it’s also making it hard to actually enjoy it.

Feels like a double-edged sword.

I’m trying to fix it, but it’s not as simple as “just spend more.”

Anyone else deal with this?

How do you rewire this without feeling guilty every time you spend on yourself?

Built something where you paste your URL and it tells you exactly why your site isn't ranking, what it's costing you, and the 3 highest impact fixes. Plain english, no tech jargon. Trying to figure out if this is genuinely useful or if the market is too saturated. Honest feedback appreciated.

Hi guys,

I’m reaching a breaking point and need some genuine advice from anyone who has built a community from the ground up without a massive pre-existing network.

I’m building EV Poker. The idea came from being fed up with the garbage, fragmented data we deal with in Vegas. Bravo and Atlas tell you if a room has running tables, but they don't tell you the value of the room. They don't track the actual value of the promos, the room specifics (rake, staff, etc), or the "vibe" (slow/action) that actually matters to a poker player. I know the demand is there because I see people complaining about it every day at the table.

But man, the bottleneck is real.

I’ve been doing the dirty work. I’ve personally handed out 40+ cards to players. I’ve talked to floor staff and got them to put out another 80 cards. I’m out here waiting for people to sign up using the access code, but the conversion is a slog.

I’m fed up with the "vibecoded" apps that survive just because the founder has a following. I don’t have a massive Twitter/X presence or a YouTube channel. I just have a product that actually solves the "Information Asymmetry" between the house and the player.

How the hell do you actually get a customer to try a product when you’re competing with habits that have been baked in for 10 years? How do I make them realize that the data they’re using (or not using) is costing them money?

I’ve got one staff member/player on board. I’ve got three other players who joined. I’ve got a handful of promo details coming in. But I feel like I’m screaming into a void. I’ve evaluated the idea, I’ve done the outreach, and half the time people act like they don’t give a f\*\*\* until they realize they missed a $2k payout because they didn’t have the data.

To the founders who started with zero: How did you get your first 100 active users? Is there a better way than literally running from poker room to poker room until my feet hurt?

I’m in genuine need of help.

\#poker #entrepreneur #founder #lasvegas #evpoker

Namaste everyone,

I'm at the idea stage and working on a premium denim concept from Himachal that comes with a lifetime repair guarantee to reduce textile waste.

The problem I'm trying to solve:

A normal pair of jeans uses 3,781 litres of water to produce

It becomes waste in just 6-12 months

I want real customer thoughts before moving to prototype.

Just 3 quick questions (30 seconds only):

How long does your jeans usually last before you throw it away?

Would you pay a premium for jeans that never go to landfill?

Would you like a brand that directly supports small farmers in Himachal?

This is purely for honest feedback. No website, no sales, no waitlist yet.

Please share your thoughts in the comments. I will personally reply to every comment.

Thank you 🙏

Manna Kumar (idea stage founder)

Hey guys!

So Ive recently started my agency targeting local businesses in the US in a particular niche using cold dm method primarily using facebook and instagram.

I mostly use aged accounts bought online and then set then up to start dm’ing but Ive noticed that after i just starting sending messages, my facebook accounts shows “verify your identity” and instagram gets suspended which gets very frustrating that you’re communicating with a prospect and in the middle accounts gets suspended.

Note that I’m being careful of warming up like scrolling and things and doing 2-3 dms in a day starting with but still accounts are getting closed or error and then I have to buy new ones every time.

How to actually fix this issue smartly so that accounts stays longer and doesn’t show any suspension.

I have 4 different pcs all with multiple fb & insta accounts.

Guide me a but guys! Thank you!

I run a high ticket offer and don’t want to continue running paid meta ads at the moment. Any other ways to get leads you guys recommend or does anyone here offer pay per lead service? Looking to branch out to new ways to get leads. Open to ideas

Early days of building a brand are rough when nobody knows you exist yet. One thing that helped us was getting a few articles placed on industry news sites through PR-X before a pitch we had coming up. It wasn't a huge investment and it meant there was at least something to find when people searched the company name. Wondering what other founders did in those early stages to look more established than they actually were.

Namaste everyone,

I'm Manna Kumar, the founder of Kee Blue. I'm from Bihar but have grown up in Himachal since childhood. The soil and people there have taught me one thing - we waste clothes so casually.

It takes 3781 liters of water to make a normal pair of jeans, and they tear within just 6-12 months. Seeing this, a question arose in my mind can we do something better?

That's why I started Kee Blue. This is India's first premium denim made from a proprietary hemp-based tri-blend. It comes with a lifetime repair guarantee - meaning the jeans will never end up in the trash. Small farmers in HP will also earn extra income through contract farming.

I'm currently in the idea stage and have applied for funding from Startup Yogdan. Before the launch, I need honest feedback on whether people will genuinely like this idea or not.

There are just 3 questions (it will take 30 seconds):

How long does it take you to waste your jeans?

For a lifetime repair premium jeans (₹8999-12999), how much extra money would you be willing to pay?

Would you like a brand that directly supports HP farmers?

Would you like a brand that directly supports HP farmers?

If you're interested, I can add you to the early waitlist the first 100 people will get a special discount + a free repair kit.

Please give your honest opinion in the comments. I will personally reply to every comment.

Thank you, brothers and sisters

This is not just my business; it's also a small green dream for the farmers of Himachal.

Jai Hind

Manna Kumar

Founder, Kee Blue

I keep seeing businesses doing a lot posting, running ads, trying new tools, tweaking things constantly.

It’s not like they’re lazy or not putting in effort.

But still… nothing really moves.

Feels like in many cases the issue isn’t effort, it’s direction.

No clear audience, unclear offer, no proper path from someone landing → actually becoming a customer.

So everything turns into activity, not progress.

Have you seen this too, or do you feel effort is still the bigger problem?

Just sold the fashion brand/shopify store I built and ran for the last 5 years, and now I want to try something new.

I'm not sure what, exactly. I just know I want to take on a new challenge, and maybe a sort of skill exchange could be a good place to start.

Does this sounds intriguing to anyone?

As a yoga teacher, I lead about 10-12 classes per week at various studios, meeting many new people daily who often don't return. I'm looking for ideas to stay connected with these individuals, offer my teachings, and build a following. I've tried a WhatsApp channel, but it mutes posts by default, which isn't ideal.

I plan to run online courses, in-person workshops, and possibly retreats. Any expert advice on how to keep in touch with these students and grow my community would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

What's one automation or integration you built (or bought) where you could genuinely feel the hours coming back in your week?

I’ve had 3 knee surgeries in 5 years (ACL/Meniscus). I am the edge case that the current medical system doesn't know how to handle.

The biggest problem I’ve identified is that recovery is treated as a static plan, but the human body is dynamic. My PT doesn't talk to my surgeon, and neither of them has a real-time view of my physiological progress.

I’ve teamed up with some engineers to build a Full Path recovery platform. The core is a Digital Twin model......a digital replica of the patient that predicts recovery milestones and identifies setbacks before they become permanent failures.

I’m curious to get this community's take: Is the Digital Twin concept too futuristic for today's healthcare, or are we finally ready to move past 20-year-old recovery protocols?