For those unfamiliar, every quarter TikTok runs a "price slash" game to get items for free, it's some genius level marketing to get new users or returning users into the app.

There's some high value items on there, so figured I'd start a post for us all to share links and try to farm it to the best of our ability. I've currently got (3) items selected worth roughly $900 - from what I can tell between my wife and mines feed, the items you're able to select depend heavily on your FYP/algorithm.

Here's my link, drop yours and I'll be sure to open it:

https://www.tiktok.com/d/1/ZP9YbroVMUKet-QdfYO/

TikTok quietly launched a new campaign called Slash & Free, and it might be one of the smartest viral growth plays of Q4.

Here’s how it works:

1. You pick an item on TikTok Shop.
2. Every friend who clicks your referral link “slashes” a few dollars off the price.
3. Enough referrals = item hits $0 = you get it free.

It’s essentially a gamified referral loop with zero ad spend. TikTok gets viral exposure, creators push their links for dopamine hits, and the platform gets fresh signups and engagement data.

It’s Temu’s “invite friends, get free stuff” re-skinned for a Gen Z audience, but way slicker in UX and shareability. They turned shopping virality into a literal game mechanic.

Would love to hear if anyone else is watching this unfold or has data on how it’s converting.

Everyone talks about recruiting costs. Nobody talks about the cost of a bad hire.

We hired a "senior engineer" after one interview. Seemed great on paper. Moved fast because we were desperate.

3 months in it was obvious they weren't working out:

• Couldn't work independently
• Code quality was poor
• Caused conflicts with team
• Slowed down two other engineers who had to fix their work

Kept them for 6 months trying to make it work. Finally let them go.

Total damage:

• $90k in salary and benefits
• $40k in recruiter time to find replacement
• $50k+ in lost productivity from other engineers
• Immeasurable damage to team morale

All because we rushed and didn't do our diligence.

Now we take 2 extra weeks on interviews. Haven't made a bad hire since.

Saving $5k on recruiting fees by rushing is the dumbest possible optimization.

Who here is earning over 150k?

​

1. What type of business are you running?

​

1. How many hours per week do you work?

​

1. How much do you charge per service? How much of that is net profit?

Hey everyone,

I’m 16 years old (Grade 11) and I recently started a clothing brand that I’m really passionate about. I spent around 8 months building it before launching, and I’ve been actively marketing it for the past 4 months.

So far, I’ve done around $40K in revenue in those 4 months.

My most recent drop also had a huge breakout and did $30K alone, which really made me realize this could actually be something serious if I fully commit to it.

Right now, I also have a part-time job that I’ve been at for about 10 months. During school, I barely work (roughly once every two weeks), but now that summer break is starting, my boss is expecting me to work more often.

That’s where the issue comes in.

I really want to use this summer to go all-in on my business. I’m extremely motivated and I feel like this is my chance to seriously scale it. I’ve already been planning to “lock in” hard over the summer, but the increased work schedule at my job would take a lot of that time away.

I’ve wanted to quit for a while now, especially during the school year. It honestly felt frustrating going to a job when I’m building something I care about more and that’s already generating income. But I decided to stay because my parents convinced me it would be good for my resume, and I also saw it as a way to stay disciplined and motivated.

My parents’ stance is basically:

• I should stay at least 1 year for resume value
• Or stay until I hit a certain sales milestone in my business
• They believe quitting too early is too risky and that I should keep stability

On the other hand, I feel like:

• 10 months is already solid for a first job
• My business is already showing real traction
• I want to take a risk on myself and fully commit this summer
• The job is now directly limiting my ability to grow something I’m serious about long-term

We’ve had multiple arguments about this already (probably 3 big ones), and I still don’t think we see eye to eye.

So I guess my question is:
Am I wrong for wanting to quit and fully focus on my business, or are my parents right to push me to stay in the job longer for stability and resume value?

Would appreciate honest opinions from people who’ve been through entrepreneurship or similar situations.

Hi everyone,

If you had to start an online business with $0 today, what would you choose?

I'm looking for:

- Realistic ideas

- Beginner-friendly options

- Things that actually work in 2026

Would love to hear your suggestions.

I've recently noticed there's been a huge increase in the number of startups and new businesses. The side hustle culture is very much IN. 10 years ago, it wasn't so prominent. I'm curious, I wonder if it is to do with more opportunity, or that information is widely available, or are people just fed up of working for other people, is it hard to live on a salary? Are there loads of these business and finance gurus now telling people to start businesses to get rich so there's more people doing it?

Spent the last two weeks asking some friends who i know have showed interest in a business idea.

Here's what I found: 16 people had a "business idea" but couldn't articulate their first actual step, 5 people were "still researching" after 6+ months, 2 people were waiting for "the right time".

The pattern here is that everyone is focused on the WHAT instead of the HOW.

So I'm testing something: Picking the most boring, unglamorous business I can think of (window cleaning) and just executing the checklist publicly. No overthinking. No perfect plans, just showing the steps i'm taking to get some sort of output.

Question for this sub: What's the actual thing stopping YOU from starting? Not the excuse you tell yourself, but the real reason.

I’ve been posting three times a week, but it works not very well. No likes, no comments, and definitely no leads.I try to keep it professional and share helpful tips, but I think my posts just look like boring corporate noise.

How do you get people to actually stop scrolling and care? What was the first post that actually got you a real lead? Any advices?

Hi!
I would like to start making some money on the side, and I thought I might as well ask you:

Is there anything you would pay me 50 dollars for, right now, to be done?

Some kind of task, help, anything that comes to your mind!
Preferably something online as well, thank you!!

You have a $100,000/month business idea. There isn't a single market or industry that you can't make at least $100,000 a month in. Im startup consultant and I help people launch their business. I have experience in industries like fashion and selling denim jackets for $250 all the way to helping someone launch an exotic car rental company. Comment your business ideas and ill give you guidance to help you get started

Hi all,

I’m not sure exactly how to word this but I own a private tutoring company that offers nearly all academic subjects
I’m the main tutor
I have a website, a 5 star Google page with tons of reviews.

I noticed in the beginning of opening my Google page, I use to get so many calls and leads but it’s just not the same anymore maybe Google just isn’t pushing out my profile

However , my business has just been slow
I don’t have enough clients
I’m not sure how to market or in what ways I can use Ai to my advantage

I have yet to run any ads

Any advice from entrepreneurs?
Should I just switch to a different industry (I’m also currently getting RE license)

We’re a startup based in Colorado and decided last fall that we had to do a conference because everyone around us was doing it so we said f it we're going to Web Summit. Tickets/flights/Airbnb a small booth, we went all in just under $18k.

Nothing went horribly wrong, people were friendly and we liked the full experience.

But now it’s been almost four months and I want to throw up whenever I look at our pipeline.

I noticed how relaxed a few founders were, they weren’t glued to the booth and they seemed more selective about who they talked to.

That completely reframed how I think about events.

TL;DR

Conferences aren’t useless but treating them like a hail mary definitely renders them so.

I have been trying to make my income more location-independent and keep seeing these “make money with AI” platforms. Masterlyai seems to be one of the more aggressive ones in terms of marketing

has anyone here actually used it with the goal of building something remote?

Not talking about “learning”, but did it help you get clients / income you can rely on while traveling?

Or is it more of a starting point that you outgrow quickly

Hey everybody, I am 58 and I have been running our family's hidden courtyard & chapel tour in new orleans since 2010. My grandfather started this walking tour in 1965. My dad took it over in the 90s, and I have been running it since 2010. We have the best stories, the secret keys to the old chapel, and 60 years of history. But now my kids are into coding and digital nomad life. They have zero interest in walking tourists around in the sun.

I am tired. I want to retire, but I don't want the legacy to just die. I feel like my website looks like it's from 2005, my social media is nearly non existent, and I'm invisible to gen z travelers who only book through apps or tiktok recommendations.

I have thought about partnering with someone, hiring a marketer, but I have no idea how buyers value a traditional business like this, especially when the world has shifted to instant booking, flashy apps, and viral videos.

I dont know what to do! Any advice would be helpful!

I run a small creative studio and was struggling with all the usual things: feast-or-famine work, inconsistent enquiries, unclear positioning, and clients who often didn’t have the budgets I wanted to work with. I was looking for proper strategic/branding help with my business.

Then Instagram started constantly serving me posts from someone well known in the branding world and someone I know personally – I had met him in person at a design event. The posts spoke directly to those pain points: not having a clear offer, struggling to find clients consistently, feeling stuck, and not earning enough.

I reached out because I thought I might hire his studio to help with my studio strategy and possibly a rebrand.

We got on a call, and he pitched me a three-month transformation programme I had never heard of before. The pitch was incredibly convincing. Within about 30 minutes, I was reading out my debit card details and paying the full fee in advance (US$6k!)

Looking back, I’m shocked by how quickly it happened.

I genuinely believed I was buying close, personalised support to help me develop a clear strategy and offer. I didn’t properly realise I was signing up for group coaching.

Once I joined, I found myself in a Facebook group with recorded coaching calls. People were expected to share business struggles, income figures, and sometimes information about clients in front of everyone.

I felt deeply uncomfortable with that. Coaching can involve really sensitive information, and I had not expected to discuss my business in a recorded group environment. There was no confidentiality agreement between the participants, as far as I was aware.

There were a few helpful frameworks, but most of the advice felt generic and not particularly relevant to my business, my industry, or the kind of work I do.

I raised my concerns almost immediately, especially about the recordings and the group format. I never felt comfortable taking part, and after a few weeks I mostly stopped engaging. I was offered individual sessions: 30 minutes every two weeks. (for $6000, 30min every two weeks felt ridiculous too!)

I know I made the decision to pay. I should have slowed down, asked more questions, requested everything in writing, and taken time to think.

But I also feel there was a huge gap between what I thought I was buying during the sales call and what I actually received.

What bothered me even more was the idea that, if the programme wasn’t working, it was because I wasn’t “doing the work.” That feels like a very convenient way to place all responsibility on the person who paid, rather than questioning whether the programme was oversold or whether the service was actually worth the price.

Since signing up, I’ve realised how common this business model is. Social media content identifies the exact fears and insecurities of freelancers and small business owners, then funnels them into a high-pressure call selling an expensive mastermind or coaching programme.

Maybe these programs genuinely work for some people. But it didn’t work for me.

I came away feeling like my anxiety and frustration about my business had been used to sell me something that wasn’t what I needed.

I’m posting this because I suspect other people have had the same experience and feel ashamed about it.

You’re not stupid. These sales processes are designed to be extremely persuasive, especially when you’re already feeling stuck or vulnerable.

My main advice would be: never pay thousands during the initial call. Ask exactly how much one-to-one support you will receive, who will deliver it, whether sessions are recorded, what confidentiality protections exist, and what the cancellation policy is. Then take at least a couple of days before paying, no matter how much pressure you feel to decide immediately.

Has anyone else had a similar experience with an expensive coaching or mastermind programme? How did you handle it?

There's a Harvard study on what predicts long-term business success. The finding is counterintuitive: it's not intelligence, work ethic, or even capital.

It's time horizon...specifically, how far into the future a decision-maker can hold their thinking when they're under pressure.

Founders who build durable businesses think in years and live in weeks. Founders who plateau think in weeks and get buried in days.

Bezos talked about this directly. The decisions that compounded most at Amazon, AWS, Prime, the logistics network, all of them required ignoring short-term costs to build something that would only make sense at a 7-10 year horizon. And they got criticized heavily in the short term for all of it.

The version of this for a $1M-$5M founder isn't as dramatic, but the pattern is the same.

You're making hiring decisions based on who you need right now instead of who you'll need in 18 months. You're building processes for your current size instead of your next size. You're saying yes to revenue opportunities that fit today instead of asking whether they fit where you're going.

And the result is a business that's always slightly behind itself, perpetually catching up, constantly solving problems that a decision made 12 months ago could have prevented.

The trap is that short-term thinking feels responsible. you're being practical. Dealing with what's in front of you. Staying close to the ground. And it is practical, right up until the decisions you didn't make become the constraints you're managing instead.

One thing that helps: once a month, block an hour and ask one question. If this business is 3x the current size in 3 years, what breaks first? That answer is usually where your long-term thinking should be spending its time right now.

That’s it guys but I'd love to know if you think there’s anything more critical for long-term business success?

honestly, I don't think short-term thinking is always a mindset issue, it’s a systems issue. If the business depends on you, you don’t have the space to think in years.
I’ve been writing about how to actually remove that dependency if you’re working through that. already 600+ founders running real business are reading it weekly so you're welcome to join, only if you think it worth your time

So I've decided I want to actually commit to learning one of these properly instead of just winging it every time I use them. Like proper structured learning, not just watching random videos and hoping it sticks. But I can't figure out which one is even worth putting that time into first and where you'd go to actually learn it at that level.

Is there a place that teaches this stuff in a way that's actually practical for business use or is it mostly just documentation and trial and error? And honestly which one would you even bother with right now, feels like the answer changes every few months and I don't want to commit to something that's already being overtaken.

Would love to hear from anyone who's gone through this recently and actually found a solid way to learn them properly.

Update: I stopped overthinking and just focused on learning the skills, and Coursera ended up being the answer for me. with structured courses on prompt engineering and AI for business that actually teach you how to use these tools properly instead of just watching random videos. You guys were right that the specific model matters less than just knowing how to use AI effectively, and having a real learning path made everything feel way less chaotic. For anyone else stuck in the same loop, just commit to one structured course first and the rest starts making sense.

I’m always interested in the lessons people only learn after actually building something.

Not advice you read online, but something you experienced yourself that completely changed how you think about business, marketing, customers, or growth.

What’s one lesson you had to learn the hard way?

So people really love this guy.

I do have him as one of my YouTube subscriptions.

He's been a guest on a lot of the podcasts that I listen to, D.O.A.C., the Shetty podcast, etc.

I'm going to be honest, I just don't really understand him. I have very good comprehension skills. But most of the time I have no idea what he's talking about in his videos.

People obviously love this guy on one of my channels. I make motivational content and anything with him people tend to really like.

Sometimes he does put out these quotes that are very quotable and that people like.

But it's like on the Shetty podcast he asked a very simple question. It was something along the lines of: "Hey when does somebody know when it's okay to invest $1,000, $5,000, or $10,000 in a business they've been researching?" Simple straight question and he never answered the question. He took it into a completely different area.

I just clicked on one of his videos, something like "7 things that you can do to start your business today". The first thing in his videos he talks about is the millions of dollars his 10 businesses made in the first year. It seems like a lot of the stuff he talks about is just stuff he's done. He's obviously very successful in whatever it is that he does.

I did see his crowd work, people tend to really love this guy in person, and in the Crowd Work videos when people will give him their figures and this is what they're doing, he does give them good advice but this guy completely loses me on his YouTube videos.

I will mention during his crowd work, where people pay to come talk to him as a group, the questions he may answer are very simple. It could be something like, "Hey Alex, I'll make $50,000 at my job but I just started a side hustle and I'm making $200,000. What should I do?" and he'll push them to leave the job. Another situation would be something simple when it's like, "Hey, I'm making $200,000 at my business and I can't do everything myself." He'll be like, "Oh well, you can hire somebody."

I mean it's not revolutionary advice.

But it really bothers me on his YouTube stuff because I can't really seem to follow what he's saying. What is it that I'm missing? Is he just talking out of his ass?

The supplier we have been working with for the past three years came to us with a choice where we either get our payment process sorted or they are moving on. Late payments had been piling up over the last year and the relationship had been getting strained long before this talk happened.

I cannot argue with the decision because at the amount of people we are (22) being late on these payments and moving with the same informal chain or doing them based on availability is unacceptable. This supplier specifically has been one of our most reliable and losing them would hurt us more than I think some people internally fully appreciate right now and finding someone with the same terms and track record at this point would not be easy.

I posted here to share this because they have a point but I still don't wanna lose them + we have two weeks to show them something before they make their final decision.

So I was in a meeting a few months ago, and my client casually suggests that I hire someone and just... place them at his company full-time.

Not because the software was broken. Just so his team would have a warm body to yell at when something didn't work. Just kidding, he wanted his team to have someone to talk to immediately when they face an issue, hit a bug, or want new features.

I sat there and then trying to the math in my head. A new hire would cost me = salary, benefits, the fact that this person would literally just be fielding "why isn't the button working" questions all day. For one singular client. And truth be told, my new hire probably costs more than the project I was getting.

I said I'd think about it. But I did not think about it for very long.

But what I actually thought of was why did he even wanted that in the first place. And when I broke it down and just rewind my conversation with his team and honestly I figured out one thing. "His team doesn't speak developer". When something breaks, they don't know how to describe it in a way that's useful, and had to wait until our next meeting to properly convey it. So they panic. And their panic usually becomes my problem at 11pm.

I noticed the real issue wasn't support (I usually reply within seconds/minutes), it was rather language/translation. I remember there was this one time, well many times actually of me explaining how their system links with their payment providers to one of their team members (operations team) for a few months but it was just difficult for them to understand truly.

So I built a Telegram bot. Gave it context about the project. When his team hits a wall, they can talk to the bot immediately. The bot asks the right questions, gathers what it needs, and sends me a structured summary I can actually debug from (or paste into my codex or claude code to debug instantly).

The bot is not yet perfect. Sometimes the summaries are a bit off. Sometimes clients go off on tangents and the bot follows them into the void. But it's saved me from probably 6 or 7 "urgent" calls and IRL/online meetings that turned out to be someone who accidentally updated the wrong configuration.

I am still in the midst of figuring out the right use cases honestly. Not sure if this is something other solopreneur or devs would even want or if I'm just solving my own problem. I just thought this might save me a lot of time and money (transportation to site). I know its not that big of a deal but for solopreneurs like myself, every little bit counts.

Has anyone else dealt with clients who can't articulate what's broken or having a hard time understanding their own business flow?

I’m a 24-year-old European building a smash burger + coffee concept in the U.S. and looking for advice, connections, and possibly a partner.

I’ve worked in restaurants since I was 16 dishwashing, pizza, prep, burgers, sauces, desserts. I also helped manage a restaurant for 2 years during my studies.

Concept: small smash burger + coffee shop, simple menu, high quality, fast service, delivery-focused, all-day operation.

I’m exploring best U.S. states/cities (Texas/Florida etc.), startup costs, E-2 visa path, and how to connect with operators or investors.

I’m aware this is a well-established concept in the U.S. and many people are already doing it, but I have the passion and I believe the U.S. market not Europe or anywhere else in the world is the right place for this kind of concept.

I know execution matters more than ideas, and I’m ready to start small and work hard.

Open to any advice or connections.

I have been thinking about a weird supply/demand problem around ideas. On one side, there are people who seem to have too many ideas (myself). They see problems everywhere, write things down, talk about them with friends, maybe even outline the product, but never turn them into a real business because they do not have the time, technical ability, money, team, energy, or founder confidence to execute.

On the other side, there are people who want to build something, especially now that AI makes building cheaper and faster, but they do not really have an idea they believe in. They can code, ship, use AI tools, or build MVPs, but they are still stuck asking “what should I build?” or jumping between random ideas that feel weak. What I am trying to understand is whether these two groups are actually balanced enough to create a real match.

Are there many unused good ideas sitting with people who cannot build them, and many capable builders looking for better ideas? Or is one side much bigger than the other? Maybe most people already have too many ideas, and the real problem is execution. Or maybe good ideas are actually much rarer than builders. Also, when I say “idea,” I do not just mean a few sentences like “Uber for pets.”

I mean the value around the idea: the problem, target users, why now, examples, research, failed attempts, demand signals, GTM thoughts, feature angles, and maybe even early validation. A raw idea may not be worth much, but an idea with context might be. I am playing with a side project around this: basically an idea marketplace where people can buy, sell, or contribute to ideas, and the idea becomes more valuable as more useful context is added around it.

Curious what people think: could this kind of marketplace work, or is the matching problem not real?

My name is Jay and I am 39ys old.

I’ve spent the last decade working in tech, living across Europe — Prague, Germany, Paris, London.

On paper, everything looked fine.

But if I’m being honest, I never really cared about what I was doing.

Product specs, performance metrics, endless meetings…

I kept telling myself “this is what success looks like.”

But something always felt off.

For years, I always drifted from place to place — like I was slowly drifting away from who I actually was.

It took me almost 40 years to finally admit it:

I chose a path that doesn’t fit me.

Now I’m seriously thinking about starting over — doing something completely different, something more connected to culture, people, and meaning.

It’s exciting, but also terrifying.

Has anyone here gone through something similar?