{"data":{"items":[{"id":"ad2227e5-85de-4ce4-ae41-15461a6da87a","excerpt":"Do people make money on Shopify? A comprehensive look. I spent weeks digging into this [Part 2 of 2] — [\\[Continued from Part 1 - if you haven't read it yet, start there for context on the real earnings, the Pareto distribution, and the three critical success factors\\]](https://www.reddit.com/r/talkshopify/comments/1qt","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/talkshopify/comments/1qt1dig/do_people_make_money_on_shopify_a_comprehensive/","role":"pricing","weight":1.4212122,"occurredAt":"2026-02-01T15:27:42.000Z","sourceKey":"reddit","sourceName":"Reddit","credibility":0.62,"venue":"talkshopify","intent":"pricing_complaint","painScore":0.54948807,"sentiment":-0.2264151,"confidence":0.91721404,"matchedPatterns":["terrible","frustrating","doesnt_work","too_expensive","paying_monthly"],"statement":"I have to address this because I found a surprising number of people who feel strongly that Shopify is overpriced garbage.","title":"Do people make money on Shopify? A comprehensive look. I spent weeks digging into this [Part 2 of 2]","body":"[\\[Continued from Part 1 - if you haven't read it yet, start there for context on the real earnings, the Pareto distribution, and the three critical success factors\\]](https://www.reddit.com/r/talkshopify/comments/1qt1az5/do_people_make_money_on_shopify_a_comprehensive/)\n\nSo now that we've established what people are actually earning and why most stores never take off, I want to get into the stuff that surprised me most. Because it turns out there are a bunch of different ways people are approaching this, and some of them are way less talked about than others.\n\n# The Business Models — And Which Ones Actually Hold Up\n\nWhen most people think Shopify, they think dropshipping. And yeah, that's probably the most popular model out there, but it's far from the only one. Let me walk through what I actually found.\n\nDropshipping is basically exactly what it sounds like. You don't touch inventory at all — a customer orders, you forward it to a supplier, usually on AliExpress, and they ship straight to the customer. The appeal is obvious: you can start with almost no money, test products without any real financial risk, and if something flops, you just move on to the next thing.\n\nThe problem is everything else. Your margins are absolutely brutal — we're talking 20-30%, and once you factor in ad spend, you might be netting $5 or $10 per sale. Shipping takes 2-4 weeks from China, which means you're constantly dealing with angry customers wondering where their stuff is. You have zero say in product quality, and I read some genuinely painful stories about people whose samples looked great but the actual products customers received were garbage. And the competition is insane. Because the barrier to entry is so low, you're literally fighting thousands of other stores selling the identical product.\n\nI talked to one guy who found a winner and scaled it hard. He did $147k in gross sales in a single month. Felt incredible. His actual profit after everything? About $42k. Not bad, right? Then month two started slowing down, month three the competitors rolled in, and by month four his supplier started sending out bad product and he was refunding 30% of orders. He made roughly $90k total over four months and then it all fell apart. He told me straight up: \"Dropshipping winners are temporary.\" Last I heard he was pivoting to private label with the money he'd banked.\n\nPrivate label is a completely different animal. Instead of reselling someone else's product, you're working with a manufacturer to create something under your own brand. You hold the inventory yourself. It costs more to get started — most people I found were putting in anywhere from $5k to $30k for that first batch — and yeah, if it doesn't sell, you're stuck with a garage full of product. But the margins are completely different. We're talking 50-70% in a lot of cases. You control quality. You can actually build a brand that means something.\n\nI found this one story that really stuck with me. A woman spent two years saving from her corporate job to put $30k into a private label skincare line for sensitive skin. The first six months were rough — barely any sales, and she told me she was questioning everything. But she kept going, started building relationships with micro-influencers, kept refining her ads. By month 18 she was doing $80k/month. Two years in she quit her corporate job entirely. But she also told me she knew four other people who tried private label skincare and every single one of them failed. So it's not some guaranteed path. It's just that when it works, it really works.\n\nPrint-on-demand gets pitched as the ultimate passive income play — zero inventory, no upfront cost, you just design stuff and let the POD service handle everything else. And technically that's true. The catch is your margins are awful. You might clear $5 on a $25 t-shirt. Quality is inconsistent. Shipping is slower than Amazon, which is what everyone's mentally comparing you to. The only people I saw actually making real money with POD were either genuinely talented designers whose work stood out, or people who'd already built big social media followings and were basically just monetizing an existing audience.\n\nThen there's one model that barely anyone talks about, and honestly it's the one that surprised me the most. I found several people making serious, quiet money doing wholesale and B2B through Shopify. One person started with handmade candles, selling them to regular consumers online for $28 a pop, doing okay — maybe $5k a month. Then a boutique hotel reached out asking about bulk pricing. Then another one. Then a retail store wanted to carry them.\n\nNow 70% of their revenue comes from wholesale orders. Instead of shipping one candle at a time, they're sending 50 candles to a business for $12 each. The order values are massive compared to retail — $600, sometimes $3,000 at a time. The customers are way less demanding than individual consumers. The downside is you need to hold real inventory, deal with payment terms that might be 30 or 60 days out, and actually do relationship-based sales work. But the stability is night and day compared to dropshipping.\n\nAnd then there's subscriptions — the holy grail that every serious ecommerce person is chasing. Think Dollar Shave Club. The idea is you build a brand around something people need to reorder regularly: supplements, coffee, skincare, whatever. If you nail it, you get predictable recurring revenue, customers who stick around, and something that's actually worth real money if you ever want to sell it. But it takes forever to build, churn management is a constant battle, and the operations are way more complex than any other model.\n\nOne seller summed up the trade-off between dropshipping and subscriptions in a way I haven't been able to shake: \"My subscription box took 3 years to hit $50k/month, but now it throws off $20k/month in profit and basically runs itself. My dropshipping store did $50k in month two, but I was stressed out of my mind and it was dead six months later.\"\n\n# The Mistakes — And Why So Many Stores Die\n\nI went through a ton of failure posts and \"what went wrong\" threads, and the same things kept coming up. These aren't weird edge cases. These are the reasons stores fail, over and over and over.\n\nThe biggest one, and this one genuinely blew my mind when I saw how widespread it was: people celebrating revenue like it's profit. I found a guy posting on Instagram about his \"$25k month!\" like he'd won the lottery. When he actually sat down and calculated everything — product costs, ads, Shopify fees, apps, returns, chargebacks — he netted $1,200. He was working 60 hours a week for $1,200 a month. And he didn't even realize it until someone in the comments called him out.\n\nThe sellers who were actually succeeding were measuring completely different things. They cared about how much it cost them to acquire each customer, how much that customer would spend over their lifetime, and whether those two numbers actually made sense together. One of them told me their rule: lifetime value needs to be at least 3x your customer acquisition cost, or you're essentially paying to lose money.\n\nThen there's the platform dependency thing, and this one actually scared me. I found story after story of people doing incredible numbers — $100k, $200k a month — almost entirely through Facebook ads. Then iOS 14 dropped and Facebook's tracking got wrecked, and these stores just... collapsed. One person went from $120k to $35k in a single month. No email list to fall back on, no SEO traffic, nothing. Their entire business existed because Facebook was sending them customers, and the second that pipe cracked, they had no backup.\n\nI also found someone doing $60k/month who'd spread their traffic across Facebook, Google, their email list, and organic channels. When iOS 14 hit, their revenue dipped from $60k to $52k. Annoying, sure. But survivable. That contrast really drove home how dangerous it is to build everything on one platform you have zero control over.\n\nInventory management was another one that kept popping up, and it's the kind of unglamorous problem that doesn't get talked about enough. I read about a guy who ordered too much of a product that didn't sell as well as expected and had $15k in stuff sitting in his garage, completely tying up his cash so he couldn't even order his next product. Then there was someone on the opposite end who was too conservative with stock — their product started flying off the shelves and they ran out. By the time new inventory arrived six weeks later, the trend had passed and their ads stopped converting. One seller I came across put it simply: \"Inventory management is the silent killer of ecommerce businesses. It's not sexy, it's not fun, but if you fuck it up, you're done.\"\n\nThe price race thing made me genuinely sad. Someone finds a product on AliExpress for $5, sees competitors selling it for $25, thinks \"I'll undercut them at $20.\" Gets some sales. Then someone else undercuts them at $18. Then $16. Then $14. I read a post from someone who started selling a product at $29 with an $18 margin and six months later was selling the exact same thing for $16 with a $3 margin just to keep getting orders. Meanwhile, the stores actually making money weren't playing that game at all. They were winning on brand, on trust, on customer experience — things that let them charge more, not less.\n\nCustomer service was another massive one. It's so tempting when you're starting out to focus 100% of your energy on acquiring new customers. Run ads, get sales, repeat. But if you're ignoring your existing customers — not responding to emails, not addressing shipping problems, not making people feel good about their purchase — nobody comes back. Your business becomes a leaky bucket. You're pouring money into the top through ads, and it's all leaking out the bottom because the people who bought once never buy again.\n\nI found sellers who'd flipped this around completely. They were obsessive about response times, proactive about shipping updates, went out of their way to make customers feel valued. One of them told me something that reframed how I think about marketing entirely: \"I spend $10k a month on ads. But I make $15k a month from repeat customers I don't have to advertise to at all. Customer service is genuinely my best marketing channel.\"\n\nAnd then there's the patience thing. I saw so many posts that followed the exact same arc: Month one, someone launches their store and posts about how excited they are. Month two, a few sales trickle in. Month three, frustration starts creeping in. Month four, the account goes quiet and you never hear from them again. Meanwhile every single success story I found involved someone grinding through at least a year of uncertainty before things started clicking. One person wrote: \"Everyone wants to know the secrets to making $100k a month. Nobody wants to hear that it took me 22 months of working nights and weekends, spending $30k of my savings, and failing with three different stores before I figured it out.\" The people who made it weren't smarter or luckier. They just didn't quit.\n\n# Real Stories — The Ugly Parts Included\n\nI want to share some of the actual accounts I came across because the polished guru case studies leave out all the interesting stuff.\n\nThere was this person selling digital planners on Shopify — specifically planners for nursing students. Super niche, right? They weren't making life-changing money. Their average month was $4-6k in revenue, but because digital products have basically zero production cost, they were keeping about 85% of that. So they were clearing $3,500-5,000 a month working maybe 15 hours a week. They'd built it slowly over 18 months by growing an Instagram account with nursing study tips first, then launching the store once they had an audience. They still worked part-time as a nurse, but the extra income meant they never ha","offTopic":true},{"id":"f0a27bf2-c96f-466a-ab8e-7b079c5d3c8b","excerpt":"I Analyzed 900 Million TikTok Views to Find the Pattern Everyone's Missing (And It's Not What You Think) — Three months ago, I did something kind of unhinged.\n\nI spent 127 hours (yes, I tracked it) analyzing TikTok accounts that were absolutely crushing it - we're talking 50M+ views per month, consistent viral posts, e","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/dropshipping/comments/1ojw9ku/i_analyzed_900_million_tiktok_views_to_find_the/","role":"pain","weight":1.40935,"occurredAt":"2025-10-30T10:41:56.000Z","sourceKey":"reddit","sourceName":"Reddit","credibility":0.62,"venue":"dropshipping","intent":"feature_request","painScore":0.42,"sentiment":0.27118644,"confidence":0.9925,"matchedPatterns":["terrible","missing_feature","workaround"],"statement":"I Analyzed 900 Million TikTok Views to Find the Pattern Everyone's Missing (And It's Not What You Think).","title":"I Analyzed 900 Million TikTok Views to Find the Pattern Everyone's Missing (And It's Not What You Think)","body":"Three months ago, I did something kind of unhinged.\n\nI spent 127 hours (yes, I tracked it) analyzing TikTok accounts that were absolutely crushing it - we're talking 50M+ views per month, consistent viral posts, engaged audiences that actually convert.\n\nNot the dance trends. Not the celebrity accounts. Not the \"I got lucky and went viral once\" creators.\n\nI wanted to find **repeatable patterns** that small businesses and creators could actually use to grow.\n\nWhat I found wasn't what I expected at all.\n\n**The \"Copy Successful Accounts\" Advice is Garbage (Mostly)**\n\nEveryone tells you the same thing: \"Just study viral accounts and copy what works!\"\n\nCool. Super helpful. Let me just... become a 23-year-old with perfect skin, a Ring light, and the confidence to dance on camera.\n\n**The problem with most \"TikTok strategy\" advice:**\n\nIt focuses on the *what* (the content itself) without explaining the *why* (the underlying mechanics that made it work).\n\nSo you end up with people making carbon copies of viral videos that flop because they don't understand:\n\n* Why the hook worked for that creator's audience\n* What the algorithm actually \"saw\" in the video\n* How to adapt the format to a different niche\n* Why timing and context mattered\n\nIt's like trying to reverse-engineer a recipe by just looking at a photo of the finished dish. You can see what it looks like, but you have no idea what ingredients or techniques actually went into it. If you get this right you can make anything go viral for you Shopify product or maybe your Whop Digital product.\n\n**LITTLE NOTE...**\n\nIf you need the comlete doc that I compiled then let me know in the comments - I'll D'm you the whole thing.\n\nhttps://i.redd.it/3vg9t7lv91yf1.gif\n\n**What I Actually Found After 127 Hours of Analysis**\n\nI analyzed 47 accounts across different niches - some with millions of followers, some with just 50K—who were consistently hitting 1M+ views per video.\n\n**The accounts I studied ranged from:**\n\n* Relationship advice creators (relationshipclub.com, nina.love.story)\n* Productivity apps (risealarmapp, monkeyless.app)\n* Language learning (pollygloting, luently.kate)\n* Mental health and self-care (its\\_selfcareee, sourhealing)\n* AI tools (answersai.com, praktika.ai)\n* Niche interests (brock.fishes5, bigfootboyz, cat.cycletips)\n\nWhat I discovered wasn't \"here's the perfect hook\" or \"post at this exact time.\"\n\n**I found seven underlying patterns that consistently drove massive reach, regardless of niche or follower count.**\n\nAnd the wild part? Most of these patterns have nothing to do with what people teach in TikTok courses.\n\n**Pattern #1: The \"Wait, What?\" Retention Hook (But Not How You Think)**\n\nEveryone knows you need a good hook. But most people focus on the *words* in the hook.\n\n**The accounts crushing it focused on something different: cognitive dissonance in the first 0.7 seconds.**\n\nLet me show you what I mean:\n\n**Bad hook:** \"Here's how to improve your productivity!\" *Generic talking head video*\n\n**Good hook:** *Shows someone throwing their phone in a lake* \"This is the productivity hack no one talks about\"\n\n**Why the second one works:**\n\nThe visual creates immediate confusion (why are they destroying their phone??) which forces the brain to keep watching to resolve the dissonance.\n\n**The accounts doing this best:**\n\n* worksmartwithyeesha: Opens with productivity \"fails\" before revealing the lesson\n* risealarmapp: Shows chaotic morning routines that immediately need solving\n* answersai.com: Demonstrates the problem before introducing the solution\n\n**The pattern:** Show something unexpected or contradictory in the first second that REQUIRES the viewer to keep watching to understand what's happening.\n\nThis isn't about being clickbait-y. It's about triggering genuine curiosity through pattern interruption.\n\n**Pattern #2: The \"I Thought I Was Watching X But It's Actually Y\" Bait-and-Switch**\n\nThis was the most surprising pattern I found.\n\nThe most successful videos often started as one thing and smoothly transitioned into something else.\n\n**Example from** u/demicstory **(relationship content):**\n\nOpens looking like a \"get ready with me\" video → Transitions into relationship advice while doing makeup → The makeup routine becomes a metaphor for the relationship lesson\n\n**Why this works:**\n\nTikTok's algorithm doesn't just measure \"did they watch the whole video.\" It measures \"did they watch LONGER than expected for this type of content.\"\n\nIf someone clicks thinking it's a makeup tutorial and ends up watching a 2-minute relationship advice video, that's a huge positive signal to the algorithm.\n\n**The accounts mastering this:**\n\n* fittedbysydney: Fashion content that transitions into body positivity messaging\n* totallynotlily77: Starts as casual vlog, becomes strategic life advice\n* her75page: Relationship stories disguised as everyday moments\n\n**The lesson:** Don't make your content one-dimensional. Give the algorithm multiple reasons to show your video to different audiences.\n\n**Pattern #3: The \"Serial Cliffhanger\" Content Series**\n\nHere's something that surprised me: The accounts with the most consistent reach weren't trying to make every video go viral.\n\n**They were building series that kept people coming back.**\n\n**Example from** u/theangerbook\\*\\*:\\*\\*\n\nInstead of standalone \"here's how to manage anger\" videos, they created an ongoing narrative:\n\n* Episode 1: \"I discovered this anger management technique from therapy\"\n* Episode 2: \"Update: Here's what happened when I tried it for 30 days\"\n* Episode 3: \"Why this technique stopped working (and what I did instead)\"\n* Episode 4: \"My therapist reacted to me teaching this online\"\n\nEach video ends with a soft cliffhanger: \"Part 2 tomorrow\" or \"Wait until you see what happened next\"\n\n**Why this works:**\n\nTikTok LOVES when people visit your profile looking for more content. It's one of the strongest signals you can send to the algorithm.\n\nIf someone watches your video, clicks your profile, and watches 5 more videos? You just hit the algorithm jackpot.\n\n**Accounts doing this brilliantly:**\n\n* single.salta: Creates relationship scenario series with ongoing commentary\n* mingo.me: Language learning journeys with progress updates\n* sourhealing: Healing journey documented in sequential posts\n\n**Pattern #4: The \"Trojan Horse\" Product Integration**\n\nThis pattern was fascinating because it completely flips how most businesses think about TikTok marketing.\n\n**Traditional approach:** Make content about your product\n\n**High-performing approach:** Make genuinely valuable content that subtly demonstrates your product's benefit\n\n**Example from** u/shuteye\\*\\*.ai (sleep app):\\*\\*\n\nThey DON'T make videos about their app. They make videos about:\n\n* Sleep science\n* Bedroom optimization\n* Morning routine hacks\n* Circadian rhythm tips\n\nTheir app only appears as a \"tool I use\" in about 30% of videos. The other 70% is pure value with zero product mention.\n\n**Result?** Higher reach because the algorithm doesn't categorize them as \"promotional content.\" But massive conversion because people discover the product through genuinely helpful content.\n\n**Other accounts nailing this:**\n\n* praktika.ai: Language learning tips, AI tool appears as helper\n* monkeyless.app: Productivity content where app is mentioned as side note\n* hookedforeverclub: Relationship psychology content, merch barely mentioned\n\n**The insight:** TikTok's algorithm penalizes obvious sales content. The workaround? Be so genuinely helpful that your product naturally fits into the solution.\n\n**Pattern #5: The \"Data Visualization\" Format That's Dominating**\n\nThis pattern is newer but spreading fast.\n\n**The format:** Take data, statistics, or information and present it visually in an engaging way.\n\n**Examples:**\n\n* Show relationship statistics as a \"sorting\" animation\n* Display productivity data as a race between different methods\n* Illustrate language learning progress as a growing tree\n\n**Why this works:**\n\n1. Visually engaging (high retention)\n2. Information-dense (feels valuable)\n3. Shareable (people send these to friends)\n4. Rewatchable (viewers pause to read all the data)\n\n**Accounts doing this:**\n\n* cat.cycletips: Menstrual cycle data visualized beautifully\n* pollygloting: Language difficulty visualized as climbing mountains\n* worksmartwithyeesha: Productivity stats shown as \"battles\" between methods\n\n**The technical edge:** These videos often include multiple pauses/reads, which TikTok's algorithm interprets as high engagement.\n\n**Pattern #6: The \"Personality First, Product Second\" Brand Voice**\n\nThis was the biggest difference between accounts that went viral once versus accounts with sustained growth.\n\n**One-hit wonders:** Professional, polished, \"on brand\" content\n\n**Consistent performers:** Raw, personality-driven, sometimes chaotic content\n\n**Example comparison:**\n\n**Account A (sporadic viral hits):**\n\n* Professional lighting\n* Scripted perfectly\n* Every video the same energy\n* Generic brand voice\n\n**Account A (consistent 1M+ views):**\n\n* Phone lighting, sometimes messy background\n* Obvious improvisation mixed with prepared segments\n* Energy varies based on authentic mood\n* Distinct personality you either love or hate\n\n**Why personality wins:**\n\nTikTok users have a sixth sense for authenticity. They can smell \"corporate content trying to be relatable\" from a mile away.\n\nThe accounts with the most loyal audiences weren't afraid to:\n\n* Show bad days\n* Make mistakes on camera\n* Have strong opinions\n* Be polarizing\n\n**Accounts mastering this:**\n\n* mariaaquarius\\_\\_: Unfiltered astrology content, very specific POV\n* isabels\\_flores: Extremely candid about struggles\n* bigfootboyz: Weird niche content, zero attempt to appeal to everyone\n\n**The lesson:** Stop trying to appeal to everyone. A smaller, engaged audience beats a large, indifferent one every time.\n\n**Pattern #7: The \"Fast Load, Faster Convert\" Technical Advantage**\n\nHere's the pattern nobody talks about because it's not sexy: **The technical infrastructure behind your TikTok traffic matters more than you think.**\n\nI noticed something interesting: The highest-converting TikTok accounts (the ones actually making money, not just views) all had something in common.\n\n**When someone clicked their link in bio, the page loaded instantly.**\n\nNot 2 seconds. Not \"pretty fast.\" **Instantly.**\n\n**Why this matters:**\n\nTikTok users have the attention span of a goldfish on espresso. You have about 0.8 seconds from click to engagement before they bounce.\n\nIf your link in bio goes to a slow-loading Shopify store, Linktree that takes 3 seconds to render, or landing page that makes them wait? You just wasted a viral video.\n\n**Real example:**\n\nI tracked two similar accounts in the productivity app space:\n\n* Account A: 2M views per video, link to slow landing page (3.2s load)\n* Account B: 1.5M views per video, link to fast page (0.7s load)\n\n**Conversion rates:**\n\n* Account A: 1.2% click-to-signup\n* Account B: 8.3% click-to-signup\n\nSame niche. Similar content quality. Similar view counts.\n\n**Account B made 7x more money from 25% less traffic because their technical infrastructure was optimized for speed.**\n\nThis is where modern frameworks make a huge difference. Accounts using performance-optimized sites (Hydrogen for Shopify, for example) consistently converted better than accounts on traditional slow-loading themes.\n\n**The insight:** You can have the perfect TikTok strategy, but if your post-click experience is slow, you're leaving massive money on the table.\n\n**What You Can Actually Do With This Information**\n\nOkay, enough analysis. Here's how to actually use these patterns:\n\n**Week 1: Pick Your Pattern**\n\nDon't try to implement all seven patterns at once. Pick ONE that fits your content style and test it.\n\n**If you're product-based:** Start with Pattern #4 (Trojan Horse integration)\n\n**If you're service-based:** Try Pattern #3 (Serial Cliffhanger series)\n\n**If you're educational:** Test Pattern #5","offTopic":true},{"id":"b3c0454d-c259-44f4-95b1-ce850b891329","excerpt":"i run cold email for 49 clients right now. heres what ive learned that you wont find in any course or youtube video — alright so some context. i run a cold email agency. not a massive one. its me one other person who handles ops and a VA who does list building. thats the whole team. we currently manage 49 active client","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/b2bmarketing/comments/1rqglht/i_run_cold_email_for_49_clients_right_now_heres/","role":"pain","weight":1.3818845,"occurredAt":"2026-03-11T01:47:50.000Z","sourceKey":"reddit","sourceName":"Reddit","credibility":0.62,"venue":"b2bmarketing","intent":"feature_request","painScore":0.40292838,"sentiment":0.47540984,"confidence":0.985,"matchedPatterns":["wish","terrible","doesnt_work","urgent"],"statement":"the ones who expect 20 meetings in the first 10 days are always disapointed and usually churn before we even get to the good part **THINGS I KNOW NOW THAT I WISH I KNEW WITH MY FIRST CLIENT** just random stuff ive picked up.","title":"i run cold email for 49 clients right now. heres what ive learned that you wont find in any course or youtube video","body":"alright so some context. i run a cold email agency. not a massive one. its me one other person who handles ops and a VA who does list building. thats the whole team. we currently manage 49 active clients across a bunch of different industries and niches\n\nim not writing this to flex about client count because honestly managing 49 clients is more stressful than it sounds and some days i question my life choices. im writing this because after running campaigns across this many different businesses at the same time i see patterns that you just cant see when your only running your own stuff\n\nsome of this is gonna go against what you read in this sub. some of it might piss people off. dont care. this is what i actually see working and not working across real campaigns with real money behind them every single day\n\n\n\n**THE OFFER MATTERS MORE THAN ANYTHING AND NOBODY WANTS TO HEAR THAT**\n\ni know everyone wants to talk about copy and subject lines and deliverability and tools. and yeah all that stuff matters. but after running 49 different campaigns simultaneously the single biggest predictor of whether a campaign works or not is the offer\n\ni have clients where we write mid copy. like genuinely average emails. nothing special about them at all. but the offer is so strong and so relevant to the audience that it doesnt matter. people reply anyway because the thing being offered is something they actually want\n\nthen i have clients who come to me with these beautiful perfectly crafted emails and an offer thats basically \"we do marketing better than your current agency.\" cool so does everyone else. theres nothing for the prospect to grab onto. nothing specific. nothing that makes them think hm maybe i should reply to this\n\nthe clients that do well almost always have one of these things going on with their offer\n\na very specific outcome with a number attached. not \"we help you grow\" but \"we help ecommerce brands reduce CAC by 30-40% in 90 days.\" the number makes it real. the timeframe makes it urgent. the specificity makes it beleivable\n\nsome kind of risk reversal. \"we'll do X and if it doesnt work you dont pay\" or \"first month is performance based.\" cold prospects dont trust you. they have zero reason to. anything that reduces their risk of saying yes makes it dramatically easier for them to reply\n\na mechanism that sounds different. not just \"we do cold email for you\" but \"we built a proprietary system that does X.\" even if the system is basically the same as everyone elses the way you describe it matters. people want to feel like theyre getting something unique not the same service 50 other agencies offer\n\ni spend more time now helping clients fix their offer before we send a single email than i do on anything else. because i learned the hard way that no amount of perfect copy or infrastructure can save a weak offer. ive tried. many times. it doesnt work\n\nif your reading this and your campaigns arent performing. before you change your subject line or rewrite your sequence. look at your offer first. like really look at it. would YOU reply to it if you were the prospect? be honest with yourself\n\n\n\n**THE BEST COPY IS THE COPY THAT DOESNT SOUND LIKE COPY**\n\nacross 49 clients the emails that consistantly outperform everything else are the ones that sound like they were written by a person in about 45 seconds. not the ones that took 3 hours to craft\n\ni have literally tested this hundreds of times at this point. polished professional sounding emails vs casual almost sloppy sounding ones. the casual ones win almost every time. not by a little. by a lot\n\ni think the reason is pretty simple. everyone is sending polished emails now. every cold email agency every AI tool every template from twitter produces these clean structured professional messages. so when someone gets an email that sounds like a real human just typed it out quick it stands out because everything else in their inbox sounds like it came from a machine\n\nsome things ive noticed about copy across all 49 accounts\n\nshorter always beats longer. always. i have never once in 3 years seen a long first email outperform a short one. the sweet spot is 25-45 words. anything over 60 and reply rates start dropping off noticeably\n\none idea per email. not two angles. not three value props. one single idea. one observation. one question. thats it. when you try to cram multiple things in the prospect doesnt know what to respond to so they respond to nothing\n\nlowercase subject lines beat capitalized ones probably 80% of the time across our accounts. i dont fully understand why but the data is the data. my theory is lowercase feels more personal like a quick note and capitalized feels more like a marketing email\n\nquestions get more replies than statements. \"would this be useful?\" gets more replies than \"i think this would be useful.\" seems obvious but you'd be suprised how many emails i see that dont ask anything. if you dont give them something to respond to why would they respond\n\nthe first line matters more than anything else in the email. if the first line is boring or generic they stop reading. if the first line is relevant and specific to them they keep going. i test first lines more than anything else. more than subject lines more than CTAs more than anything\n\nand look im not saying dont put effort into copy. im saying the effort should go into making it sound effortless. which is kind of a weird paradox but thats how it works. the best emails read like someone dashed them off between meetings. the worst ones read like someone spent all day in a google doc perfecting every word\n\n\n\n**THE CLIENTS WHO FAIL ALL HAVE THE SAME PROBLEMS**\n\nafter 49 clients i can pretty much predict within the first 2 weeks whether a campaign is gonna work or not. not because im some genius but because the patterns are so obvious at this point\n\nclients who fail almost always have one or more of these issues\n\n**they wont let campaigns run**\n\nthis is the number one killer and its not even close. i have clients who want to change the copy after 72 hours because they havent seen results yet. 72 hours. thats maybe 200 emails sent. at a 3% reply rate thats 6 replies. they see 6 replies and panic\n\ncold email needs 2-3 weeks minimum of data before you can make any real decisions. ideally a month. but some people physically cannot handle watching a campaign run without touching it. they need to tweak something. change the subject line. rewrite the CTA. adjust the list. its like they have an allergic reaction to patience\n\nthe clients who do well are the ones who set it up and then go focus on something else for 3 weeks. they check in but they dont interfere. they trust the process. every client ive ever had who couldnt stop touching things ended up with worse results than if they had just left it alone\n\n**their ICP is too broad**\n\n\"we sell to any business that needs marketing help.\" cool thats literally every business on earth. who SPECIFICALLY are you selling to. what industry. what size. what stage. what problem are they having right now that makes them need you THIS MONTH not eventually\n\nthe tighter the ICP the better the results. every single time. i have a client who sells HR software. when we targeted \"HR managers at mid size companies\" we got maybe 1.5% reply rate. when we narrowed it down to \"HR managers at manufacturing companies with 200-500 employees who posted a job for a recruiter in the last 30 days\" reply rate jumped to 4.7%. same product. same copy basically. just way tighter targeting\n\n**they dont have a real differentiator**\n\n\"we do what everyone else does but better\" is not a differentiator. i know it sucks to hear but if your product or service is basically identical to 20 competitors and you cant articulate why someone should pick you over them cold email is gonna be an uphill battle\n\nthe clients who crush it are the ones where when i ask \"why should someone choose you\" they have a real answer. not \"great customer service\" or \"we really care about results.\" something tangible. a unique methodology. a proprietary tool. a guarantee nobody else offers. a specific niche they dominate. something\n\n**they expect results in week one**\n\ncold email is not a vending machine. you dont put money in and get meetings out immediately. theres a ramp up period. warmup takes 3 weeks. first campaigns need time to generate data. optimization takes cycles. realistically your looking at 6-8 weeks before things are humming\n\nthe clients who understand this and plan for it do well. the ones who expect 20 meetings in the first 10 days are always disapointed and usually churn before we even get to the good part\n\n\n\n**THINGS I KNOW NOW THAT I WISH I KNEW WITH MY FIRST CLIENT**\n\njust random stuff ive picked up. no particular order. some of it contradicts popular advice in this sub and i dont care\n\n**tuesday wednesday thursday are the only days worth sending**\n\nive tested every day across dozens of accounts for years now. monday is garbage. friday is mediocre. weekends are dead unless your targeting founders who work 7 days a week. tue wed thu consistently outperform everything else. i dont even bother sending on other days anymore for most clients\n\n**the best time to send is early morning in the prospects timezone**\n\n7-8am local time. before they get buried in meetings and slack messages. this isnt groundbreaking advice but the number of people who just send whenever their platform defaults to is wild. take 5 minutes to set timezone based sending. it matters more than you think\n\n**reply rate varies massively by industry and nobody talks about this**\n\ni have clients in industries where 2% is incredible and clients in other industries where 4% is disapointing. theres no universal \"good\" reply rate. it depends entirely on who your emailing and how saturated that audience is with cold email\n\nSaaS founders and marketing directors? theyre getting hammered with cold emails all day every day. your competing against a flood. reply rates tend to be lower because of fatigue\n\nmanufacturing companies? construction? logistics? healthcare? way less competition in the inbox. these audiences often have higher reply rates because they simply dont get as many cold emails. some of the best performing campaigns ive ever run were in \"boring\" industries that nobody in this sub talks about because theyre not sexy\n\nif your only targeting tech companies and SaaS and wondering why your reply rates are mid consider going after industries that arent being carpet bombed by every cold email agency on twitter\n\n**personalization is overrated at scale and underrated at low volume**\n\nhot take but hear me out. if your sending 50 emails a day you should personalize every single one. research the person. write something specific. make it obvious you actually looked at their company\n\nif your sending 500 a day thats not realistic. and honestly the ROI on deep personalization at scale is not what people claim it is. ive tested personalized first lines vs no personalization vs light personalization across thousands of emails. the difference is real but its not massive. maybe 0.5-1% reply rate difference. which matters but not as much as your offer or your targeting\n\nthe exception is when your going after enterprise accounts or high value targets. then yes personalize the hell out of every email. but for standard mid market outbound at scale light personalization or even no personalization with a really tight list and strong offer will outperform deep personalization with a mediocre list almost every time\n\n**most people need more volume not better copy**\n\nunpopular opinion in this sub but its true. if your sending 100 emails a day and getting 3 replies a month the answer is probaly not to rewrite your email for the 15th time. the answer is to scale to 400-500 a day and turn those 3 replies into 12-15\n\nobviously this assumes your infrastructure and deliverability are solid. dont scale garbage. but if your emails are landing an","offTopic":true},{"id":"d85bc456-02db-4ad3-9d5d-c25c1e9441e7","excerpt":"I scaled my Shopify store from $10k to $61,782/month with a simple strategy. — **P.S** *I have added a TL;DR at the bottom*\n\n**I keep seeing people ask variations of the same question in different threads:**\n\n how do you actually scale a Shopify store past the point where more ad spend stops helping. I usually give a s","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/shopify_growth/comments/1umg3tl/i_scaled_my_shopify_store_from_10k_to_61782month/","role":"pain","weight":1.3273354,"occurredAt":"2026-07-03T14:33:29.000Z","sourceKey":"reddit","sourceName":"Reddit","credibility":0.62,"venue":"shopify_growth","intent":"feature_request","painScore":0.5692634,"sentiment":-0.4117647,"confidence":0.84583336,"matchedPatterns":["frustrating","missing_feature"],"statement":"If your theme doesn't support it, use Afacad, which has a very similar look.","title":"I scaled my Shopify store from $10k to $61,782/month with a simple strategy.","body":"**P.S** *I have added a TL;DR at the bottom*\n\n**I keep seeing people ask variations of the same question in different threads:**\n\n how do you actually scale a Shopify store past the point where more ad spend stops helping. I usually give a short answer. This time I am giving the real one.\n\nFor context: my traffic was already decent. Ads were running, conversion rate was okay, but my average order value was pretty low, and it felt like I was leaving money on the table. Last month, our store dashboard hit $52,341 in total sales from 842 orders, with our conversion rate sitting at 2.9%. At first I thought I needed a better product, new creatives, or an increased ad spend. But the real issue was not traffic. It was what happened after people landed on the site.\n\nThis month, after fixing our backend leaks, our store dashboard hit exactly $61,782 in total sales from 956 orders. More importantly, our conversion rate stabilized at a very healthy 3.1%. I didn't get here by finding some secret viral trend or doubling my ad budget.\n\nIf you are selling physical products, start with Google Shopping Ads. Why? Because Shopping Ads show your product, price, and store rating to people who are already searching with buying intent. They do not need education. They do not need storytelling. They just need to see:\n\n* the product\n* the price\n* the store\n* and click\n\nShopping Ads is the cleanest and most direct way to convert traffic when intent is high. Search ➔ see ➔ buy.\n\nIf I had started with this instead of testing 20 random creative angles early on, I would have saved a lot of money and time. But here is what most store owners learn later: Traffic is not the problem. Your System is. Once traffic starts coming in, most people bleed money because they rely only on ads and ignore systems. That is like pouring water into a bucket with holes.\n\nHere is the truth almost no beginner wants to hear: Ads bring visitors. Systems turn a profit.\n\n1. ) **Why customer feedback beat every creative test I ran**: I realized I was testing creatives blindly and wasted money without understanding what customers actually hesitated about. So I started collecting customer feedback before and after purchase to understand:\n\n* what made them click\n* what almost stopped them\n* what built trust\n\nThat alone improved my ads more than random creative testing.\n\n2. ) **The split-testing mistake that was quietly breaking my mobile site:** Another thing that quietly made a huge difference was proper split testing. Small changes like:\n\n* product page layout\n* review positioning\n* delivery messaging\n\nended up increasing revenue far more than I expected. But a word of warning: I used to use heavy testing scripts that spiked my bounce rate, caused page flicker, and broke my mobile page for half my visitors. I replaced them with Insighter purely because someone in a thread mentioned it did not have the script weight problem. My mobile load times recovered, the flicker disappeared, and I finally had AB test data I could actually trust to remove friction.\n\n3. ) **The packaging trick that makes your brand feel premium for way less:** To create a branded experience for your audience, don't buy products in bulk, buy packaging in bulk instead. It is a much cheaper way to make your brand feel premium and consistent.\n\n4. ) **One font swap and my store suddenly looked expensive:** If your website looks cluttered and unprofessional, change your font to Futura to make your website feel more premium and branded. It is very similar to the font used by Louis Vuitton. If your theme doesn't support it, use Afacad, which has a very similar look.\n\n5. ) **The pricing trick that quietly pulls in more Shopping clicks:** If you are doing Google Shopping ads, one way to increase clicks is by offering variants and pricing one of the less desirable variants cheaper than the others.\n\n6. ) **How delivery delays turned into repeat customers instead of refund requests:** Keep healthy margins and offer partial refunds for delays. It helps solve delivery issues and can turn frustrated customers into customers with a memorable experience.\n\n7. ) **The simple fix that stopped my checkout from leaking easy sales every single day:** Guessing how to recover lost sales leaves money on the table. I started using a smart AI tool that reviews the store 24/7 and flags the exact things costing me sales, like a missing upsell widget, so I just review and approve the fix instead of digging for it myself. Celirox does this well for us, link is below. Running these recommendations through it got me:\n\n* an 18% conversion boost\n* a 22% increase in average order value\n* a 26% jump in repeat purchases\n\n1. ) **The retention move that let me spend more on ads and still stay profitable:** Acquisition gets all the attention, but retention is where the actual margin compounds. I stopped treating the purchase as the end of the funnel. We ended up using GetJacked to run the actual points, referral, and VIP tier mechanics instead of building it ourselves, it just handles the plumbing and stays out of the way. Launching a straightforward loyalty and referral program naturally increased the lifetime value of every customer, meaning I could afford to spend more to acquire them in the first place.\n2. ) **The $150.8k email flow I set up once:** In the last 12 months, email alone generated $150.8k out of $554.6k in revenue. Not by doing anything fancy. Just by automating what already works like:\n\n* abandoned cart flows\n* welcome discounts\n* review request emails\n* product recommendations\n* happy customer proof\n* back in stock notifications\n\nSimple. Predictable. Compounding.\n\nI used to run my stores with multiple apps. One for flows, one for popups so I can collect their emails, one for reviews so I can collect reviews, one for wishlist and to send back in stock emails. Tabs everywhere. Different apps to write different emails. Branding never looked consistent. Frustration nonstop. Not to mention that monthly subscriptions for each app added up. So I built EmailWish because I just wanted one tool that did all this cleanly. No tech headaches. No connect this to that nonsense. Not even emails to write.\n\nSimple systems scale. Noise wastes months.\n\n**Tl:Dr:** Don't want to do anything yourself ?No worries !!! Just read below.  \n**👉 Want to squeeze every penny out of your store ?**  \n[Use Celirox to automatically optimize your store..](https://heyquarry.com/s/PdznSdLA)   \n**👉Want to a/b test to find out what converts and what doesn’t ?**  \n[Use Insighter to run a/b tests to see what works  ](https://heyquarry.com/s/6AtfZyHj)  \n**👉Want the exact email flows that generated $150.8k in sales?**  \n[Install EmailWish — Shopify App for Abandoned cart & email flows already built in](https://apps.shopify.com/emailmarketing_emailwish_abandonedcart_popup_chat_reviews)  \n**👉Want customers to keep coming back and increase lifetime value?**  \n[Use GetJacked to launch points, rewards, referrals, VIP tiers, and customer loyalty programs without the complexity. ](https://app.getjacked.io/via/ankit)\n\nIf you want, drop your store.  \nI’ll tell you what ads + email setups would work for you.","offTopic":false},{"id":"80fc19ad-1f7b-443d-a200-48b8ee465196","excerpt":"i manage cold email for 47 different companies. here's what actually works (and what doesn't) — so quick context. i run outbound for a portfolio of clients. small operation - just me, one ops person, and someone who builds lists. thats it. we're currently running active campaigns for 47 different businesses across basi","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/b2bemailing/comments/1vogyrv/i_manage_cold_email_for_47_different_companies/","role":"pain","weight":1.3178982,"occurredAt":"2026-08-14T19:27:49.000Z","sourceKey":"reddit","sourceName":"Reddit","credibility":0.62,"venue":"b2bemailing","intent":"problem_report","painScore":0.4289382,"sentiment":0.2888889,"confidence":0.9222919,"matchedPatterns":["terrible","doesnt_work","manual_process"],"statement":"handling dozens of campaigns manually is a nightmare.","title":"i manage cold email for 47 different companies. here's what actually works (and what doesn't)","body":"so quick context. i run outbound for a portfolio of clients. small operation - just me, one ops person, and someone who builds lists. thats it. we're currently running active campaigns for 47 different businesses across basically every industry you can think of\n\nim not flexing the number because honestly it's chaotic as hell and there are days i genuinely wonder what im doing with my life. but the reason i'm posting this is because when you're juggling this many different campaigns simultaneously you start seeing patterns that you literally cannot see when you're only managing your own stuff\n\nsome of this contradicts what gets upvoted in this sub. some of it will probably annoy people. i dont really care. this is what i actually watch working and failing in real campaigns with real revenue behind them every single day\n\nYOUR OFFER WILL MAKE OR BREAK YOU (AND COPY WON'T SAVE A BAD ONE)\n\neveryone wants to discuss email copy. subject lines. deliverability. tools. those things matter sure. but across 47 simultaneous campaigns the single strongest indicator of success is your core offer\n\ni have clients where the actual email copy is just fine. nothing fancy. borderline generic. but the offer itself is so compelling and so perfectly aligned with who theyre reaching out to that it doesnt matter. people respond because they actually want what youre pitching\n\nthen theres clients who come with beautifully written emails and an offer thats basically \"we're better than your current option.\" so is literally everyone else. theres no reason for a cold prospect to care\n\nthe winning offers share these patterns\n\n**a specific result with a number and timeline attached.** not \"we boost your sales\" but \"we help logistics companies reduce shipping costs by 15-20% in 120 days.\" numbers feel real. timelines create urgency. specificity makes it believable\n\n**something that removes risk for them.** \"try us for a month risk-free\" or \"you only pay if we hit your targets.\" cold prospects have zero trust in you. anything that lowers the barrier to saying yes matters enormously\n\n**a framing thats unique to you.** not just \"we provide X service\" but \"we use Y methodology that does X differently.\" even if youre doing the same thing as competitors the language matters. people want to feel like theyre getting access to something different not the same commodity service theyre seeing everywhere\n\ni spend way more time now helping clients nail their offer before we send a single email than on anything else. because i learned the hard way that beautiful copy cannot rescue a weak offer. it just cant\n\nif your campaign isnt working stop tweaking your subject line and audit your offer instead. would YOU reply to what youre asking people to respond to. really think about it\n\nCASUAL BEATS POLISHED EVERY TIME\n\nthe highest performing emails across my portfolio are the ones that read like someone typed them out quickly. not the ones where you can tell someone spent hours perfecting every sentence\n\nive tested this constantly. formal professional tone vs casual almost rough around the edges. the casual ones win. consistently. not marginally. significantly\n\nthe pattern is obvious when you think about it. everyone sends polished emails now. every agency. every AI tool. every template floating around on twitter produces the same clean structured tone. so when someone gets an email that actually sounds like a real human typed it in 30 seconds it stands out because everything else in their inbox sounds automated\n\nwhat ive learned about email structure across these 47 accounts\n\n**length matters way more than people admit.** short always wins. always. ive never seen a long first email beat a short one. target is somewhere between 30-50 words. go over 70 and you watch reply rates drop noticeably\n\n**give them one thing to respond to.** one angle. one observation. one question. not multiple value props competing for attention. when you throw too much at them they dont know what to respond to so they respond to nothing\n\n**lowercase subject lines outperform title case** maybe 75% of the time. i genuinely dont fully understand why but the data is clear. my guess is lowercase feels like a genuine note while caps feels like marketing\n\n**ask questions instead of making statements.** \"could this work for your team?\" gets more replies than \"this could work for your team.\" obvious in hindsight but you see so many emails that dont actually ask for anything\n\n**the opening sentence determines if they keep reading.** if it's generic they stop. if it's specific and relevant to them they keep going. i a/b test first lines more than anything else in the email\n\nand honestly stop trying to make emails perfect. the goal is to make it look effortless. which is a weird paradox but thats the actual game. emails that seem like they were dashed off between calls always outperform emails where you can feel the effort\n\nWHY MOST CAMPAIGNS FAIL (AND IT'S PREDICTABLE)\n\nat this point i can pretty much tell within 10-14 days if a campaign will actually work or not. not because im some genius but because the failure patterns are incredibly obvious\n\ncampaigns that tank almost always share these problems\n\n**people cant resist changing things mid-flight**\n\nthis is the biggest killer by far. i have clients who want to change the copy after 100 emails because they're not seeing meetings yet. 100 emails. at a 3% response rate thats 3 people. they see 3 responses and panic\n\ncold email requires 2-3 weeks minimum before you have meaningful data. ideally closer to a month. but some people have zero patience. they tweak the subject line. rewrite the CTA. swap the list. adjust the send time. its compulsive\n\nthe clients winning are the ones who launch and then disappear for 3 weeks. they check in but they dont interfere. they let the process actually work. every single client i've had who constantly tinkers ends up with worse results than if they'd just left it alone\n\n**their target is too vague**\n\n\"we work with any company that needs operations help.\" great so does every company on earth. who specifically. which industries. what company size. what stage are they at. what problem are they having right now that they need to solve in the next month\n\ntighter targeting = better results. every single time. i had a client selling workforce software. when we went broad with \"operations managers\" we got 1.8% response rate. when we tightened to \"operations managers at food distribution companies with 100-250 employees who recently opened a new location\" response rate jumped to 5.2%. same product. nearly identical copy. just way more precise targeting\n\n**they have no real unique angle**\n\n\"we do what everyone does but better\" doesnt work. if youre basically identical to 20 competitors and cant explain why someone should pick you cold email becomes brutal\n\nthe clients crushing it are the ones with a real answer when i ask \"why you over the other option.\" something concrete. a proprietary system. a specific guarantee. a vertical they own. something tangible\n\n**they expect miracles in week one**\n\ncold email isnt fast. warmup takes 3 weeks. your first campaign needs time to generate data. optimization takes multiple cycles. realistically youre looking at 2 months before things are really working. anyone expecting a pipeline in 7-10 days is gonna be disappointed and usually quits before the good part starts\n\nRANDOM INSIGHTS THAT ACTUALLY MATTER\n\n**send window is way narrower than people think**\n\ntuesday through thursday. thats it. monday is weak. friday is mediocre. weekends are dead unless youre hitting founders. tue-thu consistently crushes everything else. i dont even bother with other days anymore\n\n**morning in their timezone beats everything else**\n\n7-9am their local time. before meetings bury them. before slack piles up. this is basic but the number of people who just let their tool send whenever is wild. 5 minutes to set up timezone sending. do it\n\n**response rates vary wildly by industry**\n\n2% in one industry is excellent. 4% in another is disappointing. theres no universal benchmark. it depends on who youre targeting and how saturated they are with outbound\n\ntech founders and marketing leaders get blasted constantly. theyre fatigued. lower response rates because of that\n\nbut construction. logistics. manufacturing. healthcare. these spaces get way less cold email. often higher response rates because their inboxes arent getting hammered. some of my best campaigns ever were in industries nobody in this sub talks about because theyre not trendy\n\n**personalization at scale is different than personalization at low volume**\n\nif youre doing 50 emails a day personalize every one. research them. be specific. make it obvious you looked\n\n500 a day? not realistic. the ROI on deep personalization at volume isnt what people claim. ive tested this hundreds of times. personalized vs generic vs light personalization. difference is maybe 0.5-1% in response rate. which matters but not as much as your offer or your list quality\n\nenterprise deals are different. high value targets need customized emails. but for mid-market standard volume a tight list and strong offer beats deep personalization almost always\n\n**volume usually beats copy optimization**\n\nunpopular take but true. if youre sending 75 emails daily and getting 2 responses a month the problem probably isnt your email. its your volume. scale to 300-400 daily and turn 2 responses into 8-10\n\nthis assumes your infrastructure is solid and emails are actually landing. dont scale garbage. but if youre getting some responses just not enough volume is usually the unlock not another round of rewrites\n\npeople agonize over word choice for hours debating \"quick conversation\" vs \"30 minute call\" when the real issue is theyre sending tiny volume and expecting results from that. doesnt work unless youre in some niche with a 15% response rate\n\nmanaging this across 47 campaigns means i've had to automate the operational work. managing when to scale lists when accounts are ready to increase volume which clients need refreshes. manually tracking that across 47 different campaigns would destroy me. we built out workflows that handle list management segmentation and volume scaling so i actually have time to work on strategy instead of drowning in admin work\n\n**ideal follow-up sequence is 4-5 emails**\n\nnot 2. not 3. not 7. 4-5 consistently performs best\n\nheres where meetings actually come from across my data\n\nemail 1: roughly 22% of total meetings\n\nemail 2: roughly 16%\n\nemail 3: roughly 28%\n\nemail 4: roughly 18%\n\nemail 5: roughly 8%\n\nemail 6+: basically nothing\n\nemail 3 is the strongest across almost every single account. by then theyve seen your name enough to register it but youve said something new enough to grab attention. email 1 is introduction. email 2 is reminder. email 3 is where they actually start paying attention\n\n**delegation and autonomy matter more than you think**\n\nclients who give me freedom to build strategy without constant approval always outperform clients who want to review every email debate every list decision sit on weekly calls to tweak details\n\nnot because my ideas are always right but because it actually allows testing cycles. constant approval processes kill iteration. the client letting me run multiple tests in a month beats the client taking two weeks to approve one subject line change\n\nif youre working with an agency or contractor and results arent there honestly ask yourself how much youre micromanaging. sometimes the best thing you can do is actually get out of the way\n\nTHE ACTUAL COST BREAKDOWN (REAL NUMBERS)\n\nbeing transparent about what this actually costs\n\nper client per month youre looking at roughly\n\n\\- sending infrastructure: $250-600\n\n\\- data and enrichment tools: $150-350\n\n\\- list verification: $30-70\n\n\\- other tools and odds and ends: $75-125\n\nso $500-1100 in direct costs monthly before labor. if youre doing it yourself th","offTopic":true},{"id":"1ef466f0-3f03-4749-a9c4-578f5cf3be21","excerpt":"Part 2: The 3 fixes that changed how I launch every SaaS MVP — Okay so part 1 blew up way more than I expected. If you missed it the short version is…. after years of building SaaS MVPs I keep seeing the same three things kill founders. They sell to everyone, their offer is a commodity, and they have no money model. A ","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/SaaS/comments/1ukr852/part_2_the_3_fixes_that_changed_how_i_launch/","role":"pricing","weight":1.3132598,"occurredAt":"2026-07-01T16:54:34.000Z","sourceKey":"reddit","sourceName":"Reddit","credibility":0.62,"venue":"SaaS","intent":"pricing_complaint","painScore":0.5123913,"sentiment":-0.04347826,"confidence":0.86833334,"matchedPatterns":["terrible","too_expensive"],"statement":"This is why you think you \"can't afford ads.\" Your ads work fine.","title":"Part 2: The 3 fixes that changed how I launch every SaaS MVP","body":"Okay so part 1 blew up way more than I expected. If you missed it the short version is…. after years of building SaaS MVPs I keep seeing the same three things kill founders. They sell to everyone, their offer is a commodity, and they have no money model. A bunch of you asked me to break down the actual fixes so here we go. This time with real math.\n\nFirst things first…. pick a starving crowd.\n\nEveryone and their mom says niche down but not a single person actually tells you what makes a niche worth going after. There are three things that matter. Massive pain, purchasing power, and easy to target. You need ALL three or it falls apart. A buddy of mine built a really solid resume optimization tool for job seekers. The product was genuinely good. Could not get a single person to pay for it. Why? His entire audience was unemployed. They had massive pain sure but zero purchasing power. Dead on arrival. Didn't matter how good the product was.\n\nBefore I write a single line of code for any founder now I make them fill in one sentence. \"I help \\[specific person\\] get \\[specific outcome\\] without \\[specific thing they dread\\].\" If you can't fill that in with precision you don't have a niche yet.\n\nBad version: \"I help businesses manage projects better.\" That is nothing. That is competing with Asana on price and you WILL lose.\n\nBetter version: \"I help residential renovation contractors close 40% more jobs without hiring a sales team.\" Same core software…. wildly different business. The second one can charge 500$ a month because the outcome is tied directly to revenue. No one is comparing that to Asana.\n\nDo this today. Look at your last 10 customers. Find the ones who got the most value and stayed the longest and complained the least. I guarantee they cluster around a specific type of person. That IS your niche. Go talk to 10 more people exactly like them and ask what keeps them up at night. Build everything around that answer.\n\nPoint number two…. stop being a commodity using the Value Equation.\n\nThis one framework changed how I build and position everything. Credit to Alex Hormozi for this. Value has four parts. Dream Outcome times Perceived Likelihood of Achievement…. divided by Time Delay times Effort and Sacrifice. You want the top two as high as possible and the bottom two as close to zero as possible.\n\nMost SaaS founders ONLY focus on dream outcome. They add features, make bigger promises, slap AI on everything. But the real leverage is in the bottom of the equation and almost no one touches it.\n\nPerceived likelihood…. this is how much the prospect actually believes your thing will work for THEM. You launched two weeks ago. You have no case studies. No screenshots. No testimonials. Zero proof that it works for someone like them. Why would they believe you? They wouldn't. And they don't. That is why they bounce after looking at your landing page for 8 seconds. The fix is not more features. It is more proof. Get 5 people using it for free if you have to and document every single result obsessively. One real case study from someone in your niche is worth more than your entire feature roadmap combined.\n\nTime delay…. this is how long it takes them to see any value after they sign up. Most SaaS onboarding is genuinely horrible. User signs up, lands on a dashboard with 47 options, has no idea what to click first, and churns in a week. I build every MVP now with what I call a day one win. Before the user does anything else the product should deliver one small but real result within 24 hours. A report generated, a lead found, a task automated…. something they can point at and say okay this thing actually works. If your time to first value is measured in weeks your churn will eat you alive.\n\nEffort and sacrifice…. this is what they have to endure to get the result. Data migration, learning a new interface, training their team, changing their workflow. Every single one of these is friction and every friction point is a reason to quit or never start in the first place. The most valuable thing you can do is NOT add a feature. It is remove a step. Done for you onboarding beats do it yourself every single time. And you can charge more for it which feeds directly into fix three.\n\nHere is the thing that took me years to actually understand. Apple, Amazon, Netflix…. these companies did NOT win by making bigger promises. They won by making the bottom of the equation approach zero. Instant. Seamless. Effortless. If the bottom is zero the value becomes essentially infinite no matter how modest the top is. That is how you stop being a commodity. Not with more features.\n\nDo this today. List every single thing a customer has to do between seeing your landing page and getting their first result. Every click, every form, every upload, every wait. Then cut that list in half. THAT is your real product roadmap.\n\nThird…. the 30 day cash model. This is the one that will actually save your business.\n\nPay attention because this is the math that separates SaaS companies that scale from ones that slowly bleed out while the MRR dashboard says everything is fine.\n\nYour SaaS charges 49$ a month. Costs 5$ to serve each customer. That is 44$ gross profit per month. Average customer stays 10 months. Lifetime gross profit is 440$. Cost to acquire a customer through ads is 150$. Ratio is 2.93 to 1. Looks pretty good right? Almost the magic 3 to 1 number everyone talks about.\n\nHere is the problem that most people in this sub never even think about. You spent 150$ to get that customer on day one. You only collected 44$ in month one. You are NEGATIVE 106$ on every single new customer for the first month. You do not break even until month four. And every new signup you get digs the cash hole deeper before it starts filling back up. This is why you think you \"can't afford ads.\" Your ads work fine. Your money model does not.\n\nThe fix…. make more from each customer in the first 30 days than it costs to get and serve them.\n\nPlay one. Annual commitment with a waived fee. You give people two options. Month to month with a setup fee or commit to a year and the fee gets waived. I price the setup fee at 1.5 to 3x the monthly rate. So if you charge 49$ a month the setup fee is 75$ to 150$ for monthly users. Most people HATE fees so they go annual to avoid it. Annual at 49$ a month is 588$ collected on day one from those customers. Monthly with the fee is 124$ to 199$ day one. Either way your 30 day cash jumps dramatically compared to a naked 49$.\n\nPlay two. Day one upsell. Right after they buy…. offer something that makes the product work faster. A done for you setup, a strategy call, a premium config, a data migration service. Price it 100$ to 500$. You do not need everyone to take it. If one in five takes a 200$ upsell that is 40$ average added per customer. The average across all customers is what matters.\n\nPlay three. A guarantee that actually closes deals instead of costing you money. Most SaaS founders either have no guarantee or they do a weak 14 day free trial. Both are terrible. Free trials give you zero cash while the customer forgets they even signed up. Instead I use a conditional guarantee tied to outcomes. \"You won't get billed again until you see your first \\[measurable result\\].\" This does three things at once. It shifts risk off the buyer completely. It forces your team to focus on getting them activated fast. And it signals so much confidence that the prospect thinks…. if they are willing to not charge me until I get results this thing must actually work. Conversions go way up and barely anyone claims it because the condition requires them to USE the product which means they get results which means they stay.\n\nNow let's redo the math. Base month one gross profit is 44$. Average upsell per customer is 40$. That is 84$ on monthly users. Now 30% of your signups go annual at 588$ day one. Blended 30 day cash across all customers jumps way past your 150$ CAC. Every new customer now funds the next one. THAT is the flywheel. That is how you scale without outside funding and without praying for organic virality.\n\nQuick note on pricing because I know someone is going to comment \"my competitors charge 19$ I can't charge more.\" Yes you can. You just need to sell to a different customer. If your competitors charge 19$ for a generic tool and you charge 200$ for a specialized tool with done for you onboarding and a results guarantee…. you are NOT competing with them. You are in a completely different category. Trust me the worst clients are the ones who pay the least and complain the most. Premium pricing attracts better clients, creates better outcomes, and gives you more profit to reinvest into making the product even better. Cheap pricing does the exact opposite. It is a death spiral.\n\nDo this today. Calculate your 30 day cash per customer. Not LTV. Not projected MRR. Actual cash that hits your account within 30 days of each signup. If that number is less than your CAC your business is on a timer and you might not even know it. The easiest play to implement RIGHT NOW is the waived fee with annual commitment. You can set that up on your pricing page in an afternoon. Do it today and track it for 30 days.\n\nThat is the whole playbook. Starving crowd, Value Equation, 30 day cash model. Same three frameworks across hundreds of MVPs. They work in every niche at every price point. The founders who get this right spend their time growing. The ones who skip it keep adding features and wondering why nothing changes.\n\nIf you made it this far you already know more than most. Pick one fix. Ship it this week.\n\n[Part 3](https://www.reddit.com/r/micro_saas/s/44eIvYSH4o)","offTopic":true},{"id":"53dc6b1a-ea13-46bf-86c1-edfb18d7b4f3","excerpt":"Six things I got wrong building a two sided marketplace — Two years into running a two sided marketplace, here is the stuff I wish someone had told me at the start. Not theory, just what actually cost me time and money.\n\nThe cold start is not a chicken and egg problem, it is a sequencing problem. Everyone repeats \"whic","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/EntrepreneurRideAlong/comments/1vp3iel/six_things_i_got_wrong_building_a_two_sided/","role":"pain","weight":1.2888467,"occurredAt":"2026-08-15T13:55:12.000Z","sourceKey":"reddit","sourceName":"Reddit","credibility":0.62,"venue":"EntrepreneurRideAlong","intent":"feature_request","painScore":0.7,"sentiment":-1,"confidence":0.75814515,"matchedPatterns":["wish","manual_process"],"statement":"Two years into running a two sided marketplace, here is the stuff I wish someone had told me at the start.","title":"Six things I got wrong building a two sided marketplace","body":"Two years into running a two sided marketplace, here is the stuff I wish someone had told me at the start. Not theory, just what actually cost me time and money.\n\nThe cold start is not a chicken and egg problem, it is a sequencing problem. Everyone repeats \"which side first\" like it is unanswerable. It is not. Pick the side that is cheaper to fake. In my case that was supply, because creators will sign up for a promise of work while brands will not pay for a promise of creators. So supply came first and I hand held early demand myself, personally, for way longer than felt scalable.\n\nDoing things manually is not a phase you skip, it is the research. I ran the first campaigns from a spreadsheet and a phone. Painful, but every workflow in the product now exists because I felt the pain myself first. The features I built from imagination instead of from doing the work were the ones nobody used.\n\nMoney handling is not a phase two feature. I thought I could ship the matching part first and figure out payments later. Wrong. Nobody trusts a marketplace where money is vague. The moment funds were handled properly, conversations changed completely. If your product touches money between strangers, it is core, not later.\n\nBoth sides churn for different reasons and you have to fix both. Supply leaves when applications go nowhere. Demand leaves when the second transaction takes as much effort as the first. Retention on a marketplace is really two separate products with two separate reasons to leave.\n\nLiquidity beats features, always. I spent a month on a feature nobody asked for while the real problem was not enough live opportunities on any given day. Whatever your version of an empty shelf is, fixing that beats anything else on the roadmap.\n\nThe unsexy admin work is the actual moat. Anyone can build a listing page. Handling disputes, deadlines, payouts and edge cases without it eating your week is the hard part, and it is what makes people stay.\n\nFor context I run Flare UGC, a marketplace connecting brands with creators, so this is my own experience rather than general advice, take it with the appropriate grain of salt.\n\nAnyone else running a marketplace, what did you get wrong that you would warn someone about?","offTopic":true},{"id":"c8a23550-87e4-4fa0-be96-5259442972b2","excerpt":"My brand used to do 8-figures with healthy profits. Sold it to an aggregator and steadily went downhill the next few years until it lost 70% revenue and was bleeding money. Bought it back two years ago and after much sweat and effort, revenue is up 200% with 20% margins again. Here's my playbook. — I don't post much he","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/FulfillmentByAmazon/comments/1tpq99o/my_brand_used_to_do_8figures_with_healthy_profits/","role":"request","weight":1.2887124,"occurredAt":"2026-05-28T02:20:15.000Z","sourceKey":"reddit","sourceName":"Reddit","credibility":0.62,"venue":"FulfillmentByAmazon","intent":"purchase_intent","painScore":0.33892202,"sentiment":0.18072289,"confidence":0.9625,"matchedPatterns":["how_can_i","terrible","frustrating","would_pay","missing_feature"],"statement":"Why would I pay someone 10% of ad spend with a minimum retainer?","title":"My brand used to do 8-figures with healthy profits. Sold it to an aggregator and steadily went downhill the next few years until it lost 70% revenue and was bleeding money. Bought it back two years ago and after much sweat and effort, revenue is up 200% with 20% margins again. Here's my playbook.","body":"I don't post much here anymore, but seeing this post motivated me to help out those of you still trying to make a serious living on Amazon: [https://www.reddit.com/r/FulfillmentByAmazon/comments/1tpfzf3/we\\_used\\_to\\_do\\_25m\\_on\\_amazon\\_now\\_were\\_barely/](https://www.reddit.com/r/FulfillmentByAmazon/comments/1tpfzf3/we_used_to_do_25m_on_amazon_now_were_barely/)\n\nI'm doing this because I know the struggle is real and some of you will get value from this. In two years I turned a -300k dying business into a +400k stable evergreen so this isn't just me getting lucky on being the first garlic press. Amazon is still a skill set and some of you have to realize that sourcing is not the skill set, it's how well you sell.\n\nI'm not an agency, I'm not selling a course, if you DM me asking for advice I'm going to straight up ignore you. I also happen to be one of the mods here, so if you spam this post shilling your agency services you will get insta banned.\n\nWith that, here's the exact shit I did to bring my brand back from the dead.\n\n**Step 1:** Figure out what was broken. I had to relearn/rebuild my spreadsheets to figure out what was profitable and what was losing money. On top of that, I needed to figure out what my price point needed to be in order to make 10-20% net margins. I was shocked to find out I needed to increase my pricing 50-60% over the pricing when I had sold.\n\nThe Amazon economics changed drastically while I was out of the game. New fees that took me aback included:\n\n\\- Return fees: Much higher now and also return rates had climbed, a LOT  \n\\- Removal/Disposal fees: Almost the same as MCF fees and made removing items shockingly expensive  \n\\- Inbound fees: All tiers were now multiple splits (standard size was previously single FC) and inventory placement was terribly expensive\n\nThese were just the new fees, but obviously fulfillment and PPC fee creep was also 15-25% higher across the board. I ended up using SellerBoard to get a boots on the ground picture of ASIN by ASIN P&L since my spreadsheet was just theoretical profit vs actual, but I still recommend everyone figure out spreadsheets regardless.\n\n**Step 2:** Figure out how the hell I was going to make my margin back in this new Amazon margin crush landscape. I could see how the aggregators stumbled because I used to YOLO 50+ containers a year directly into FBA from my manufacturers. Couldn't do that anymore, so the logistics cost went skyrocketing when you had to self-warehouse, 3PL or pay for inventory placement.\n\nDid all the math and figured out that AWD was the answer. Yes, it had plenty of horror stories, but we're operators here - Amazon is nothing but horror stories but we put our heads down and figure it out. Ran a few test containers into AWD, first one nearly got rejected due to stupidity, but it all got checked it. Math ended up correct and it was MUCH cheaper than 3PL/split-shipment or single FC/inventory placement by about 30-40%.\n\nPlus, I've been royally screwed from 3PLs in the past and never want to rely on them again. I also used to run 15,000sf of my own space + 3PLs, so I didn't want the headache of unloading containers out of sketchy ass containers again either.\n\n**Step 3:** Kill 40% of my SKUs. Unfortunately, I could see my break even sales point on many formerly profitable SKUs were just not competitive anymore. I was early-to-market in an outdoor segment and sold for very healthy margins. However, the market was now filled with the actual manufacturers even cheaper than China and the pricing pressure dropped a $70 product down to $40, cutting margin into single digits. Could I make money with 5-6% margins? Yes. Do I want to play with fire?  Not really, because one fuck up blows up my entire margin here. The cash flow requirements to play this game is for high volume and established brands and this was just going to hamper my re-launch.\n\n**Step 4:** Increase my damn prices 50-60%. Not going to lie, the idea of doing this scared the shit outta me because we are already priced higher the competition and this was testing the price elasticity of our customers.\n\n\"Wtf, why didn't the guys running the brand increase their pricing!\" you ask?  Well that's a great question Timmy!  The answer is a very long winded reply that is way too long to put here, but if you can understand \"morons\" and \"liquidation\", that's all you need to know.\n\nWe all know Amazon algo is not happy with sudden price increases, so I staggered the price increase at 10% at a time across about 8 months. NGL, even that rate of increase freaked me out, but at least I had time to observe my conversions to know if something went horribly wrong (losing buy box, mass conversion drop, etc). To nobody's surprise, conversion did drop, but it didn't drop by the amount I was expecting, which was a very nice finding.\n\n**Step 5:** Increase conversion to offset pricing. This is the real meat of this post, because anyone can increase pricing and pretend they have a premium product, but unless you can actually position yourself as premium, the customers will walk.\n\nPreviously, I had spent upwards of 20k on photo shoots with great lifestyle shots and even had solid copy writers to do my listings. However, I could easily see the competition had all caught up and everyone has a decent Amazon listing these days. **You can't win at Amazon with an OK listing anymore.** Bullet points no longer show half the time so it's basically \"How persuasive are your product images and how good is your A+ content?\"\n\nI looked at the absolute best listings and compared mine to them and could see that yeah, mine sucked in comparison. But I didn't want to blow another 20k on photoshoots and videographers, so I took advantage of Google Gemini.\n\nOver the next two months (yes, months) I generated piles and piles of new product photos, lifestyle shots. Not only that, I made infographics that heavily sold the product features, integrated messaging into all my lifestyle shots and build cohesive brand messaging across all the listings. Added premium A+ content using high res format. Conversions went up SIGNIFICANTLY as a result because once again, my listings were superior to the competition. We're talking 15-20% conversion jumps organically, but more on that later.\n\nOn top of that, I started playing with video creation which is expensive as far as AI goes, but over time I got the hang of it and using Kling to splice still Gemini images into videos then running it through my own video editing software, I was able to create agency level videos or influencer style videos which high CTR rates. Videos by themselves organically don't do a whole lot, but we'll get to where the benefit of videos are.\n\nFor Gemini, use Google Labs as you can generate multiple requests (4x) at a time instead of waiting for a single image output with the normal Gemini app. Obviously I also pay for a premium version because I value my time and needed to work on 20+ ASINs. I would say it takes 20 generations to get 1 image that I actually like and use. Even then, it takes editing and refinement to get to where I want. The AI creative cycle is:\n\n\\- Come up with idea for the shot you want or have AI suggest a few shots  \n\\- AI creates the shot (repeat until you're happy)  \n\\- Add messaging on top of shot with Photoshop to stay consistent (AI sucks at text/consistency)  \n\\- If infographic route, use the prompt in addition to the shot you generated as this will save you tons of time vs trying to get a right shot + infographic in the same prompt (trust me on this..)\n\nAlso, I'm not going to lie here, but I assume more than half of you will not be able to do this. You will say \"I don't have the creative talent or vision\" and you know what, that's ok. But if you are trying to make it on Amazon and you don't bring value to the table... then that is weeding out at work. Like I said, sourcing is not talent. It might have been in the past, when any grandma could go on Alibaba and find a pink garlic press and make money, that time has long passed.\n\nYou have to know how to brand build guys. Easy hustle money is over. I've been saying this forever.\n\n**Step 6:** Use new content/creatives to blow up PPC. When I sold, ACOS was 7% and PPC was 25% of sales. When I bought back, ACOS was 37% and PPC was 35% of sales.\n\nToday, PPC is 12% and is 30% of sales.\n\nThe new listings helped PPC conversion, which allowed me to bid higher CPC, to get more keyword conversions, which helped organic, which helped rankings, which helped TACOS.\n\nOn top of that, the listings REALLY converted well on ASIN targeting campaigns, since I knew which competitors had sucky listings and could sit on their product pages all day long and siphon traffic.\n\nVideos were also the keys to the kingdom on some ASINs, **because most seller still do not use video. This is your competitive advantage!**\n\nAmazon really values video and so do customers. Our highest CTR video ads just spank our SP campaigns by a mile. Even I was shocked at the effectiveness of video and I should know better since I've had a long history in marketing. But we're in the IG/TikTok/YT generation and video is the media form of choice.\n\nOur \"influencer\" style videos do very well. The old fancy product placement videos and high quality production videos had their time, but they don't compare to the person talking to the screen doing a literal product placement shill.\n\nSome ASINs have video campaigns outperforming keyword or ASIN campaigns by a 3-4x margin, which is significant.\n\nThe secret is that even if your video is bad, a bad video still beats no video. But a great video trumps all. I just launched 5 products into a competitive market and they are destroying it just on vine reviews alone due to video (though 1 product flopped hard, but that's on me).\n\nSide note on PPC:\n\nIf you're under 20MM, don't use an agency. It's hardly going to be worth it. Why would I pay someone 10% of ad spend with a minimum retainer?  Hell during my non-compete, I ran PPC for some buddies and saw the most incompetent PPC campaigns in my life being run by big agencies. They were paying upwards of 30k/mo for what?  Someone to run Perpetua on their behalf and throw a custom report on top each month?\n\nIt literally took me 5 hours a month to maintain their campaigns and it takes me the same for my own. Setting up something new takes times, but maintenance is easy. The biggest PPC agency \"secret\" is that **PPC is not difficult**.\n\nAll the information is out there. Stop being lazy. It takes a few hours a week tops unless you are in OA, which incase god help you because Amazon just hates you, your family, your bloodline. But if you're in private label, then you are not running 100+ SKUs and reading this post. If you are, then obviously you have a in-house PPC guy or you're so big you don't care to share margin with an agency. But for everyone else doing sub 20MM, stop being lazy, learn PPC.\n\nHow to do PPC in 10 minutes:\n\n\\- Create a broad match campaign with 150% top of search bid modifier (stops leaking on shitty search placement or product page placements)  \n\\- Use + keyword modifiers and bid on all relevant terms  \n\\- Every 30 days, comb through your search terms and negative out all the keywords that don't convert. After a year, you should have 300-500+ negative keywords that are the root cause for bleeding out PPC campaigns.\n\n\\- Create a ASIN campaign targeting competitors  \n\\- Use product page modifier bid of 100% (stops over bidding against keywords, this is just to target competitors)  \n\\- Every 30 days adjust your bids based on LIFETIME performance\n\nObviously there's more to that, but that is the bread and butter of it.\n\n**Step 7:** I tackle margin in order of most important, but FBA fees were still a pain point. I worked with our manufacturer to squeeze the packaging down per unit and also increase units per master carton to reduce AWD handling fees, as they charge per master carton.\n\nYeah, this amounts to like","offTopic":true},{"id":"e6cb68db-08ea-41c7-85d3-42719ae3a6e1","excerpt":"How to get your first users (really) — I've been doing this for nearly two decades, taking products and services from \"it works\" to \"people are actually paying for it,\" and the question I see in here more than any other is some version of \"**how do I get my first users?**\" or \"where do I find customers?\". So here's the","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/buildinpublic/comments/1uf5mns/how_to_get_your_first_users_really/","role":"pricing","weight":1.2880968,"occurredAt":"2026-06-25T09:53:00.000Z","sourceKey":"reddit","sourceName":"Reddit","credibility":0.62,"venue":"buildinpublic","intent":"pricing_complaint","painScore":0.32,"sentiment":0.083333336,"confidence":0.9758309,"matchedPatterns":["how_can_i","too_expensive","workaround"],"statement":"The average SaaS company spends six hours, total, on pricing (that's via ProfitWell), and it's a thin line to walk: too cheap and people wonder what's wrong with it, too expensive and you've quietly removed yourself from the conversation.","title":"How to get your first users (really)","body":"I've been doing this for nearly two decades, taking products and services from \"it works\" to \"people are actually paying for it,\" and the question I see in here more than any other is some version of \"**how do I get my first users?**\" or \"where do I find customers?\". So here's the exact process I actually use, start to finish →\n\nBuilding the product used to be the moat, but with AI that isn't true anymore; anyone can ship now, and most of us have. The moat now is distribution: getting the right people to find you, and to trust you once they do. The good news, and the thing this sub is unusually well placed to pull off, is that you can use the same skills you used to build the thing to get it in front of people.\n\nThere's a huge amount that goes into taking a product to market and I won't pretend to cover all of it here, but the early struggle tends to cluster in the same few places, in the same order, so that's what this is: idea to first ten.\n\n**Validation**\n\nIf you don't have evidence that your product is actually needed, no amount of distribution will save you, because you'll be pouring effort into something nobody wants. Three lenses I run every idea through:\n\n* **Candy, vitamin, or painkiller.** A candy is a nice-to-have, a vitamin is \"this might do some good, who knows,\" and a painkiller is needed, essential, immediate relief; the holy grail is the addictive painkiller you can't put down once you've got it. Context decides which one you are: the same product can be a candy for one audience and a painkiller for another, and some candies quietly become addictive painkillers (TikTok, I'm looking at you).\n* **Proven, Better, New (Mark Pincus).** Is your idea proven, as in, is someone already doing a version of this and making it work? How is yours better? And what genuinely new thinking are you bringing? It's a fast way to pressure-test whether you've got an edge (or just an opinion).\n* **Problem → solution.** In two sentences max: what problem does your user have, and how do you fix it? And does fixing it save them time, save them money, or make them money? If you can't articulate that in two sentences, go back to the drawing board.\n\nHow do you know it's a real problem? People are already complaining about it, and if it's worth solving you won't have to dig hard to find them. Reddit is the goldmine here: search the subs where your people gather and read what they moan about. LLMs are brilliant for the synthesis, so get your favourite model to write you one thorough, standardised research prompt, run it through the deep-research modes on ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity, then feed the results back in to pull out the patterns (multiple models are important because for eg. Claude can't read Reddit). Don't skip this step; it'll save you a mountain of wasted building later.\n\n**Your ICP / customer**\n\nThe person you're selling to, the one who's your ideal user, defined specifically rather than broadly, and I mean genuinely specific - \n\n\"Medium-sized businesses that want more efficient invoicing\" is not an ICP, because it tells you nothing about who to find or what to say.\n\n\"Construction firms with 20 to 100 staff who still invoice from spreadsheets and wait 60 to 90 days to get paid\" is a real ICP, because it names the company-level constraint that makes your problem real: the sector, the size, the tools they've outgrown, the pain they feel every single month.\n\nThen I go one closer, to the actual human. Not \"the construction firm\" but Sarah, the office manager who also runs the books, spends every Friday chasing unpaid invoices by email, sits in two subreddits for women in construction and a WhatsApp thread with her suppliers, and just wants to leave work on time. People buy emotionally, at work for a SaaS tool every bit as much as at home for a piece of furniture, so you need to reach Sarah and her bosses in the places she already spends her time, in and out of the office.\n\nOne more thing on ICP, because I see it constantly, especially with dev tools the moment they start chasing bigger clients: is your ICP also the budget-holder? Are they the person who actually makes the purchase, or the person who has to advocate for it internally? If a technical buyer signs off on the spend then go as technical as you like in your marketing, but if the decision runs through an ops or a product lead, you have to lead with benefits rather than features, in plainer language they'll understand, because a non-technical buyer who lands on your site and feels stupid won't buy from you; they'll quietly go and buy the thing they could actually follow.\n\n**Your competitors**\n\nWhat are your customers using to fix this problem today, and how? Get your favourite LLM to help here too: tell it how you solve the problem, ask it to find the gaps in the competition you could own, and have it pull all their pricing while it's at it. Ask it to go deep (again on research mode), lookint at industry trends, news, reports, everything. Run through multiple models then synthesise what comes back.\n\nAnd don't forget the most common competitor of all, which is doing nothing. For most early products you're not really up against another tool, you're up against a spreadsheet, a manual workaround, and plain \"didn't know there was a better way to do this\" 🤷🏻‍♀️.\n\n**Positioning**\n\nThis one matters enormously and should be iterated on constantly. Positioning is how you describe yourself, and I split it into three (the examples below are for the same made-up accounts-receivable tool for construction firms):\n\n* **Tagline.** The snappy one-sentence you'd use if you had no other room to tell people who you are and why you're for them, like \"Get paid in days, not months. Accounts receivable built for construction.\" It lives as a hero section on your site, or on your social profiles.\n* **Elevator pitch.** What you'd say at a party, or in your first 30 seconds to an investor: \"Construction firms do the work, then wait three months to get paid, chasing invoices by email the whole time. \\[Product\\] chases every overdue invoice automatically, in your firm's voice, so the cash lands three weeks sooner.\"\n* **Paragraph pitch.** Longer, and one of the first sections on your site, this is where you explain why you're differentiated, not just what you do. A feature list read aloud is the most common way founders sabotage themselves, and it's invisible from the inside because every word of it is true. Your paragraph should explain exactly how you solve the problem and what that's worth: the time and the money, not the features.\n\nOne layer deeper, and almost nobody does this: positioning is how you describe yourself, but the thing that actually closes the sale is the story your buyer tells themselves, or their team, to justify it. Sarah doesn't buy \"automated accounts receivable,\" she buys \"I'll get my Friday afternoons back so I can enjoy more time with my kids, we'll be paid two weeks sooner, and my boss will finally be happy with me.\" Write that sentence, in her words, before you write a line of your marketing, because if you can point to the story she repeats to herself (or to whoever holds the budget), the rest of it tends to follow.\n\n**Pricing**\n\nIs your price a strategy, or a number pulled off a competitor's site with 20% knocked off? The average SaaS company spends six hours, total, on pricing (that's via ProfitWell), and it's a thin line to walk: too cheap and people wonder what's wrong with it, too expensive and you've quietly removed yourself from the conversation.\n\nSo what do you do instead? Anchor the price to the outcome rather than the competitor, meaning how much time or money you save or make for them, then talk to five people in your ICP about what they'd genuinely pay before you commit to anything. Pricing is a hypothesis you test, not a finger in the air.\n\n**Distribution**\n\nThe big one: where to find your buyer, and how to talk to them.\n\n**Your first ten: do things that don't scale.** Forget systems for a moment, because your first ten almost never arrive through a channel; they come from you, personally, one conversation at a time. Go to where ten specific humans already are (your network, the niche Slack or Discord, the Facebook group, the one forum that actually matters) and reach them one by one; message them, email them, get on a Loom or a quick call if they'll have you, and help them solve the problem in front of them.\n\nBecause your first ten aren't there for revenue, they're there for learning. Talk to every single one, watch them use the thing, and let them tell you what your product actually is, because it's almost never what you assumed at the start. Ten people who'll actually talk to you beat a thousand anonymous signups who ghost.\n\n**Reddit.** Once you've done the unscalable version and you know it works, then you build the systems, and since we're here, this is my Reddit one. The most important rule comes first: do not show up, answer someone's problem post with a link to your product, and expect customers, because you'll get banned, not paid.\n\nThe fastest way to earn trust is to give your specialist knowledge away for free, so do exactly that for a month: show up in the communities where your customers are already discussing the problem you solve, and help, with no product mention and no links. If someone asks, then absolutely, but not a second before.\n\nSo how do you find the conversations worth being in? Reddit threads decay fast: twelve hours in, the comments have crystallised, and by twenty-four the conversation's basically over, so if you want to be the credible voice while it's still moving, you have to show up early. Most Reddit tools treat this as a search problem and miss the posts that actually matter, so don't pay for one, build it (Claude Code can stand this up in about an hour):\n\n* Register for Reddit's dev API.\n* Find 4 to 5 subreddits where your ICP shows up talking about your problem, and use the API to search them (I do this with 60 defined phrases, and Claude will write those for you too if you hand it your positioning and ICP).\n* Score each thread on a few dimensions: how relevant it is to your ICP, upvotes per hour since posting, the comments-to-upvotes ratio, and promo tolerance (how much self-promo the sub allows, for if you ever do get asked for your link).\n* Pull your subreddits regularly, score them, and surface them wherever you'll actually look (mine land in Slack). If you want to make it really easy, add a second step that drafts a reply in your voice, trained on posts you've written before, whenever a thread's worth joining.\n* GitHub Actions cron every 30 minutes, PRAW for the Reddit API, Haiku (or a similarly cheap model) for the scoring, SQLite for dedup and alert history, and a Slack incoming webhook for the alerts as structured cards with the score breakdown.\n\nThis exact workflow costs me about $4.50 a month.\n\n**Building in public**\n\nWe're all told to do this constantly, because it works. Here's the honest tension though: it asks you to perform the work and do the work at the same time, and those two things pull in opposite directions. I've felt that pull myself, the urge to turn a quiet, heads-down week of real progress into something postable, and the trouble is that a week of deep, unglamorous work starts to read as a quiet week, which starts to feel like failure, even when it was your best week.\n\nThe fix isn't to quit posting and it isn't to post more. It's one question, asked before you write: am I telling a true thing, or feeding the machine? If it's true, say it plainly and get back to building; if it's for the machine, the silence is usually the stronger play.\n\nAnd, like Reddit, the other half of building in public is the bit the word \"building\" hides, which is the public. Engage properly. Find your voice, which might take a while, and that's completely fine. Talk to people, connect with them, reply to posts with something genuinely interesting that has nothing to do wi","offTopic":true},{"id":"ad49664e-840d-43bd-9656-05be1ff5dd99","excerpt":"Dropshipping is not what you want — It's what you need though, but only temporary.\n\nOne of our brothers has asked me to \"post more about building real-ecom business\" – and yeah, obviously, you all are here to learn something about this. You know, in real life, I try to never give advice to other people. Because it is s","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/RealEcom/comments/1so8ja5/dropshipping_is_not_what_you_want/","role":"pain","weight":1.287644,"occurredAt":"2026-04-17T18:00:27.000Z","sourceKey":"reddit","sourceName":"Reddit","credibility":0.62,"venue":"RealEcom","intent":"problem_report","painScore":0.52425927,"sentiment":-0.14814815,"confidence":0.8447671,"matchedPatterns":["frustrating","doesnt_work"],"statement":"Then you know how annoying is to untangle your line after a bad cast.","title":"Dropshipping is not what you want","body":"It's what you need though, but only temporary.\n\nOne of our brothers has asked me to \"post more about building real-ecom business\" – and yeah, obviously, you all are here to learn something about this. You know, in real life, I try to never give advice to other people. Because it is so fucking easy to do, it costs you nothing to talk any shit. That is the reason why I refrain from giving any.\n\nWhat I respect tho is when a human clearly labels what they've got to say as \"I'm sharing with you my experience\". Not guiding you or telling what to do with your life. This is my own path, structure that probably works for me and only for me and most likely will not work for you. So don't accuse me for your failures; as in fact it's you who've been a lazy ass that failed in attempt to copy someone else's way.\n\nWith this said, let me share something of my own path. I bet for most of you the most interesting part is how you get from zero profit to anything above zero. But the truth is, my way was shit. Complete. Something that will hurt you and burn everything you'll invest shall you try to follow the same path.\n\nAlmost 10 years ago I was starting out with dropshipping... That was exactly the time when Instagram Ads just got the traction. Terrible platform, unusable shit, only 2k15-16 they've rolled out autonomous self-served platform that today we know as Meta Ads.\n\nAround that time, I almost went to jail thanks to a product that – after multiple failures – made me my first serious money, [read here](https://www.reddit.com/r/dropshipping/comments/1s54ulk/your_skincare_or_supplements_dropshipping_store/) about that if you want. Very instructive story.\n\nIt took me almost two years to pay off my loans for lawyers and what I owed to my friend who bailed me out. Dropshipping then didn't make me rich in any way. It could, but I did many mistakes — but even sloppy, it was paying my bills. Because it wasn't hype. Precisely the reason why it was profitable.\n\nYou wouldn't find any gurus with their courses, no ad spy tools and other bullshit, it was still early alpha. In small marketing communities — and usually paid — you sometimes found mention of this approach. Simple supply chain hack, clean, easy to understand, almost no investments needed...  At times, you didn't even need no LLC to get a Stripe account — just sign up, accept payments and if it looks promising — only then you register a company, fuck with taxes, withdraw etc... You know what CAC I had on supplements around 2k16? $8. EIGHT FUCKING BUCKS! Now? $80-120 easy.\n\nDo you understand now why nothing of that will work these days?\n\nIt was a DECADE ago. Everything changed. Everyone heard of dropshipping already. Even your grandma saw it on TV. What these youtube clowns selling you was alpha TEN YEARS ago. So don't expect neither me, nor anybody else tell you how to make it right so it works. Especially those who commercialized the info to the fullest, funneling you into buying courses, mentorship and other crap.\n\nYou know why I will **never** sell any courses and won't do mentorship? Because I have what to do. I need to take care of my business, of my obligations. Just by math, it's simply not enough time in the day to take care of business AND answer every question newbie would have. And I bet my ass that same amount of time spent on my venture will bring me way more than spending it on teaching rookies.\n\nThat is a point in favor of all these ecom mentors being complete morons and having zero credibility. Have they real business running, operating it, scaling, and \"just testing it bro\", they'd never have actual time to teach you.\n\nSo yes, my friend, don't get me wrong when in DMs I ask you to write your questions to r/RealEcom instead. This way whole community can benefit from answers.\n\nWhat I CAN do for you though is to share my process these days. When I was younger, my mentor (do not confuse with \"ecom guru\", I mean literal sense of the word) asked me a question that till the date I ask myself from time to time.\n\nWhat is it that makes you top 1% of the world? In other words, one your skill that makes you better than 99% of other people.\n\nSome may say \"nothing\", but it has nothing to do with reality. We all have so various set of skills (and so many different ones), that it is not that hard to have at least one that fits the category. For instance, my sister knows to whistle so well, that she should be considered for a role in an orchestra as a fucking wind instrument. She's definitely in top 1% with this skill.\n\nThe purpose of the question is simple. Find something where you hit harder than anybody else. Then find the way to leverage it. Same goes to weak sides. For instance, I know that making videos for ads is my weak side. Really. I'm a complete retard when it comes to directing a video. However I know that seeing systems in a chaos and structuring processes is something where my brain shines and definitely corresponds to the \"top 1% of the world\" category. And so I leverage my strong side — structure processes. And anything where I'm truly weak (not lazy, but genuinely weak) I outsource — saving both time and energy. And money.\n\nWill you promise that you are not going to copy what I do? Not because I'm jealous or something, but simply cuz it's gonna hurt you more than do you any good. If something resonates tho — feel free to steal it.\n\nWhen I start with any new thing: idea, product, business; first thing I do is writing. On the paper. With pen. Not notebook on your mac. But pen and paper. You write slower and think deeper this way. There is no need to rush. You only rush when you act, but thinking you want to do slow. Thus pen and paper.\n\nAnd the very first thing I write is the map. Not the product, not the hook, not the ad copy. The map. Where am I going, what are the stages, where am I now on it. Because without the map, everything else you do is just... random jerks. Looks busy, feels productive, goes nowhere.\n\nSo before anything else — let's draw the map together.\n\nYou all are here working on your stores. Most obvious upstream is how you pick a product. But that is not what you pick first. First, you pick a niche. Wrote whole post on this regard — both why it's crucial and how it saves (and earns) you money in the long run, [read it here](https://www.reddit.com/r/dropshipping/comments/1s9pys1/your_dropshipping_store_is_going_to_fail_thank/). You pick an audience first, audience you relate. You really need understand what goes on in their brain. You own a garden? Then you should know that any gardener is irritated when his neighbour's dog shits on his lawn. You fish? Then you know how annoying is to untangle your line after a bad cast. You get it. You pick people you understand, and only then you start looking for things to sell them.\n\nToday I won't go into \"selecting a product\", it makes no sense. Because 90% of people here really think that\n\n1. dropshipping is a business\n2. dropshipping is *find winning product -> set shopify -> run ads -> hope something works -> wonder why it didn't work*\n\nLet's zoom out. Here is an actual map. Not guru crap, not \"6 figres in 60 days\" bullshit. The actual sequence of stages that a real ecom venture goes through.\n\nStage 1 — The Test Phase (should sound familiar to many of you, this is where dropshipping lives):\n\n1. Niche: who are these people, what do they care about, am I one of them or at least close enough to understand them. If no — pivot.\n2. Audience Research: narrower cut inside the niche, the actual people you'll speak to, their pains, their language, their trigger points. Research forums, chats, where they talk. Ideally have a chat with a few.\n3. Product: something that solves a pain or creates a desire FOR this specific audience. Not \"trending products TikTok 2026\". Shit that YOUR people need. That's why you want a chat in Audience Research,\n4. Pre-validation: you have to do it before you spend a dollar on ads. Search volume, marketplace signals, competitors, saturation, ad library check, is anyone else cashing out on this already, is the angle dead, is it seasonal, engineer offer to bump AOV, etc. This feels like work, because it fucking is. Boring, long process, but saves you shitload if done right, and with every product. Skip it and you're gambling your money. If this step fails — pat yourself on the back – you saved yourself $1k in tests; pivot, start over. You'll find better.\n5. Store build: you only start with it when you have product. Landing page that actually converts is not that hard to do. Don't be lazy to learn how psychology-driven, pain-focused, offer structured landings are made — it's not some fucking military secret. Find some fucking nerdy designer or hot chick on youtube that explains it, but ensure it's not about \"nice pages\", but conversion psychology.\n6. Acquisition channel: pick ONE. How – [read this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/dropshipping/comments/1smbxxp/you_are_wrong_about_distribution_channel_for_your/). Meta, TikTok, Google, whatever. Don't try to be everywhere on day one. You don't have the bandwidth, you don't have the creative volume, you don't have the data. But make sure your acquisition channel is not picked randomly. That's why you need to read that post. It's important.\n7. Market test with paid – this is where you finally find out if anybody actually wants your thing. Cold traffic.\n8. Conversion optimization: your CVR is shit because your offer is shit or your page is shit or your creative is shit or your audience is wrong. Diagnose and fix. Iterate.\n\nObviously, each of these steps has own substeps. I didn't mention, for instance, that for a market test you obviously need to craft an ad, hooks, copy, there is a whole structure beneath each of these points. But now, we talk the structure.\n\nThis whole stage 1 — that's what dropshipping is for. That's ALL it's for in 2026. There is no \"lambo\" stage here.\n\nFor the people in the back, let me repeat again: **dropshipping is not a business. In 2k26 it's at most is a test phase.** Cheap way to validate your idea without MOQs, without 3PL contracts, wihtout $30k sitting in inventory. You use someone else's supply chain to find out if people actually want what you think they want. That's it. That's the whole point. Margins are trash, delivery is slow, returns are a pain-in-ass and any retarded guru telling you you'll get rich dropshipping is selling you a course because THEY can't get rich dropshipping anymore.\n\nWith that said, with time, on a sole \"done-right\" execution you'll manage to get Stage 1 to break even or even print slight profit even on a failed test. You'll see that the idea's not viable or gonna be shit at scale — and you pull out without burning it to zero.\n\nGood tests might sometimes bring you good money, but forget about \"make $10k/day bro\". The bar is: can I validate this idea without losing my shirt. If yes, you move to stage 2.\n\nStage 2 — The Brand Phase (money starts here):\n\nOnce you've market tested — now you step OUT of dropshipping. Dropshipping absolutely CANNOT take you further. Simply because unit economics don't scale. So, you have proven the demand. Now you build a real operation around it:\n\n* Supply chain oprimization: get directly from factory, MOQ negotiations, 3PL, faster shipping, better margins. At this point you increase your contribution margin from pathetic 7-15% to 50%+.\n* Branding: actual identity, packaging, thank-you cards, post-purchase experience.\n* Retention: email, SMS, subscription, LTV. That's where you utilize your contacts and sell again to existing customers spending $0 (or spending very little). First-order profit is simply entry ticket. Real profit comes in the 2nd, 3rd, 5th order. Now you can even afford to sell your first product in minus... Because you know — it's going to pay off on the next one.\n* Protection: trademarks, patents where possible, barriers to copycats, supplier exclusivity, bustem. It's also fun to fuck your competitors over ","offTopic":true},{"id":"6c52c0c6-14f3-4a5d-a296-7ddb5a61e0e2","excerpt":"How to run YouTube ads in 2025 (For everyone that's fed up with meta) — I'm making this post because switching from Facebook ads to YouTube ads about 5 years ago turned out to be one of my best decisions ever. And with all the people in this sub currently struggling because of Andromeda, I thought this might help some ","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/FacebookAds/comments/1ofcjfs/how_to_run_youtube_ads_in_2025_for_everyone_thats/","role":"demand","weight":1.2488782,"occurredAt":"2025-10-24T23:22:17.000Z","sourceKey":"reddit","sourceName":"Reddit","credibility":0.62,"venue":"FacebookAds","intent":"alternative_search","painScore":0.33662522,"sentiment":0.4107143,"confidence":0.93435186,"matchedPatterns":["how_can_i","terrible","frustrating","doesnt_work","switching_from","manual_process","praise"],"statement":"I'm making this post because switching from Facebook ads to YouTube ads about 5 years ago turned out to be one of my best decisions ever.","title":"How to run YouTube ads in 2025 (For everyone that's fed up with meta)","body":"I'm making this post because switching from Facebook ads to YouTube ads about 5 years ago turned out to be one of my best decisions ever. And with all the people in this sub currently struggling because of Andromeda, I thought this might help some people. Also, I kind of want to piss off Mr. Zuck for the shitty job he’s currently doing with Meta ads.\n\nAnd for whatever reason I can't post images in this sub. So open this Google Doc if you want the version with images:[ https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Uuu-VMUym8AyP92AccNnDTFDUhCX\\_GCxafx1bZsoVCk/edit?usp=sharing](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Uuu-VMUym8AyP92AccNnDTFDUhCX_GCxafx1bZsoVCk/edit?usp=sharing)\n\n# Quick Backstory\n\nAfter figuring out YouTube ads, we went on to run one of Germany's biggest YouTube ad agencies and have spent well over $10M. So we know a thing or two.\n\nToo many fake “value posts”, so here’s quick proof:  \n *\\*open Google Doc for image\\**\n\n(Faces blurred because this post isn’t about us)\n\n* Meetings with Google ads officials\n* Clients getting their two $1 million awards through YouTube ads\n* Our seven $1 million awards earned through YouTube ads\n* Our $10 million award, all with YouTube ad traffic\n\nSo with that out of the way, let’s get started…\n\n# Why YouTube ads?\n\n* Ad performance is way more stable  \n   * We had winning ads run profitably for over 1.5 years without burning out \n   * YouTube ads are way more “set and forget” \n* You reach audiences with clear buying intent \n   * A person searches for “How do I train my dog?” on Google or YouTube -> They’ll get YouTube ads about a dog training video course. Perfect match. \n   * On Meta they have zero intent. They’re just mindlessly scrolling while on their toilet.\n* Awesome targeting options \n   * You can target people that performed certain Google searches, people that visited certain websites, people that watched your organic YouTube videos or subscribed to your channel, etc. \n* No annoying AI features being shoved down your throat\n* No ad manager bugs and ad delivery outages\n* Google actually cares about their advertisers and has decent support\n* You often get free ad credits from Google to get started \n   * At the moment you get $400 in free ad spend after spending $400 of your own money \n   * So you basically get a 50% discount on ad spend to get started\n\n# Who should run YouTube ads?\n\nIn my opinion almost every offer/niche/product can work on YouTube, but generally speaking, the more mass market your offer is, the better. \n\n# Setting expectations\n\nAt the beginning, YouTube ads are definitely harder to crack than Facebook ads. But once you've found your winning ad messages and winning audiences, there’s no other ad platform with such stable and smooth ad performance and with such huge scaling potential. Once you crack YouTube ads, not even the sky is the limit. Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating a bit, but you get the point. So be patient and have faith in yourself. It’s 100% worth it. \n\n# Step 1: Account Setup\n\n* [Create an Google Ads Manager Account (MCC)](https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/7459399?hl=en)\n   * A “Manager Account” houses multiple different ad accounts \n* Create as many Ad Accounts as you’re allowed in your Manager Account \n   * We do this in order to have multiple backup Ad Accounts in case one gets banned\n   * If you already have existing Ad Accounts, connect them with your Manager Account \n* [Set up Google Ads tracking](https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/12216424?sjid=10470466764497831307-EU&visit_id=638749616113972272-896605441&rd=2&ref_topic=12215426)\n   * You could also use third-party tracking softwares (optional)\n* [Create a YouTube channel](https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/1646861?hl=en) (if you don’t have one already) \n* [Connect your YouTube channel to your Ad Account](https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/3063482?hl=en)\n\n# Step 2: Creating ads\n\n* With YouTube ads the ad creative is also the most important part \n* The “Ad Creative” consists out of the “Ad Visuals” and the “Ad Message” \n* **Ad Visuals** (Only 10% - 20% importance) \n   * Everything the user sees (B-roll, presenter, outfit, room/background, …) \n   * This is for building trust, credibility, and rapport \n   * Example: Having a professional-looking doctor present your ad message for a blood sugar offer will perform a lot better than having a sleek businessman performing that ad script \n   * Because people trust doctors with their health and won’t trust businessman with their health \n   * The visuals are there to amplify and boost the ad message \n* **Ad Message** (80% - 90% importance) \n   * The words that are being said, so everything the users hears \n   * If the ad message/ad script is bad, nothing else will be able to save the ad \n* The ad message has the following variables: \n   * How you structure the ad \n      * Unaware audience: Create a problem -> Twist the knife -> Offer solution -> CTA \n      * Problem-aware audience: Remind them of the problem -> Twist the knife -> Offer solution -> CTA \n      * Solution-aware audience: Differentiate your solution from other solutions -> Prove your solution is the best -> CTA \n      * Product-aware audience: Explain your solution -> Handle all objections -> CTA \n      * Most aware audience: Give them a good reason to buy right now -> CTA \n      * Having the right structure will make your ads work extremely well, and having the wrong structure will lead to poor performance \n* The language/slang/jargon you’re using \n   * If you’re using formal language when trying to advertise to teenagers, it won’t work \n   * But using formal language and technical terms when trying to advertise to lawyers or doctors will work really well \n   * You have to sound, feel, and appear like you’re one of them in order for the ads to work. If you don’t, they won’t work. You have to have rapport with the audience. \n* How you’re hooking your target audience \n   * The goal is to grab only the attention of your target audience and completely ignore everyone else \n   * If the hook is really specific and grabs the attention of only your target audience, the ads will work really well, and if the hook is too broad and grabs everyone’s attention or is so generic it grabs no one’s attention, the ads won’t work.\n* The problems you’re addressing \n   * Your target audience is most likely experiencing multiple problems related to your offer\n   * *\\*open Google Doc for image\\**\n   * If you’re helping overweight people to lose weight, they’re not only experiencing the core pain of being overweight but also other problems that derive off that, like not being able to go to the beach without everyone staring, not being able to find trendy clothes that fit, not being able to play with their kids without being out of breath, being a bad role model for their kids, and so on… \n   * And some problems will make your ads convert better than others \n   * So using the right problems will make your ads convert really well, and using the wrong problems will make your ads perform really weakly.\n* How you frame your solution \n   * How you frame or position your solution/offer effects conversion rates \n   * You could frame a weight loss offer as a “Weight loss coaching” (They’ve heard that a million times), or you could frame it as a “60-Pounds-Takedown-Challenge” (New, shiny, interesting) \n   * Framing your offer the right way will make your ads work extremely well, and framing your offer the wrong way will make your ads fail \n* How you frame the call-to-action \n   * How you frame or position the next step in the funnel also effects conversion rates \n   * You could frame a VSL or Webinar as a “Free video presentation” (Boring), or as a “Step-by-step training video” (Slightly better), or as a “Video where you’ll break down your entire process, pull back the curtain, and give exclusive behind-the-scenes looks into real case studies and their results” (New, shiny, interesting)  \n   * Framing your CTA the right way will increase conversions a lot, and framing the CTA the wrong way will absolutely kill conversions \n* How you tie it all together into an congruent sales argument \n   * The entire argument has to follow logical steps \n   * It doesn’t make sense to argument that “Amazon FBA is the best way to make money online” if the person doesn’t even know what “Amazon FBA” is (You skipped a logical step in the argument) \n   * And it doesn’t make sense to argument that “Remote closing is the best way to quit your 9-to-5 job and work from home” if the person first hasn’t been convinced that having a 9-to-5 job is bad and therefore desires to work from home (You skipped a logical step in the argument) \n   * Having a flawless, congruent, and logical sales argument will make your ads take off, and having a mismatched sales argument will make your ads fail \n* As you can see, there are a lot of variables that you have to get right in order create a winning ad message from scratch \n* But luckily there are two shortcuts for creating winning ad messages/ winning ad scripts \n* **Shortcut 1:** Model winning YouTube ads that are already proven to work\n   * You can use the[ Google ads transparency center](https://adstransparency.google.com/), but sadly you can’t see any relevant data, you can’t identify the winners, and you can’t search for keywords, only for specific advertisers or websites. So it’s hard to discover new ads. \n   * We always use[ ytads.com](http://ytads.com) for that. It’s possibly the biggest YouTube ad library with also the most data per ad. You can find millions of winning ads, spy on your competitors' ads, and see data like views, ad spend, landing page URL’s, word-for-word transcripts, etc.  \n   * I also created a[ swipe file of the 349 highest-converting YouTube ads](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Uuu-VMUym8AyP92AccNnDTFDUhCX_GCxafx1bZsoVCk/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.p3au757rxsee) I found so far. There are ads for all kinds of different offers in there. Maybe you’ll find some winning ad messages to adapt for your business.\n* **Shortcut 2:** Let AI write the ad message/ ad script for you \n   * But please DO NOT use some random AI models and expect the ad scripts to work. Regular AI models don’t have any real performance data about YouTube ads to go off. All you’re doing is letting an AI guess what ad message could potentially work, instead of guessing yourself.  \n   * You could gather thousands of YouTube ad scripts, including their actual  performance data, and give an AI model that data. Now the AI knows what ad messages actually perform in the real world and can reverse-engineer those for you.  \n   * But we use[ YTADS](https://www.ytads.com/) for that as well. The AI has access to the entire database of millions of winning YouTube ads with data from over $6 billion of ad spend. It then uses pattern recognition to reverse-engineer the winning ads and write your own pre-tested ad script based on the proven ads from the library. \n* At the beginning, when you have no winning ads yet, test at least 2 new ad creatives a day \n* Test wildly different ad messages until you find the general direction that’s working. We need big swings here. Small variations of the same ad message are useless at this stage. \n* And since creating each video ad manually is pretty time-consuming, we also use a shortcut for that \n   * Instead of creating every single ad manually (which would take way too long), we test new ad messages rapidly by using AI-generated YouTube ads \n   * Let’s say we want to test 20 new ad messages \n      * We generated those 20 YouTube ads in about an hour using AI \n      * We launch them and let them gather some data (for about 3 - 5 days) \n      * We evaluate their performance \n      * We pause all AI ads \n      * We then re-film the ad messages of the winning AI ads authentically using a real human. Because now we can actually justify that effort because the ad messages are already proven to work in our ad account for our offer.","offTopic":false},{"id":"8fe352b7-cdf2-4b11-8d36-c017a446d950","excerpt":"They said \"build an app and make $30k/month.\" They forgot to mention everything that comes after building the app — The first lie I believed was just like in the bible in Genesis that i could tell AI .. \"Let there be an App\" and an app would just magically APP-ear (get it - lol)\n\nNope.\n\nSo my first experience was when ","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/SaaS/comments/1uqeoxk/they_said_build_an_app_and_make_30kmonth_they/","role":"request","weight":1.2409067,"occurredAt":"2026-07-08T01:34:59.000Z","sourceKey":"reddit","sourceName":"Reddit","credibility":0.62,"venue":"SaaS","intent":"feature_request","painScore":0.3,"sentiment":0.6,"confidence":0.9545436,"matchedPatterns":["frustrating","still_cannot","praise"],"statement":"I'm already thin on funds so where would those funds be coming from if theres still no paying customers , because If it costs around **$150** to acquire one customer who's paying **$30/month**, you need 5 months just to break even.","title":"They said \"build an app and make $30k/month.\" They forgot to mention everything that comes after building the app","body":"The first lie I believed was just like in the bible in Genesis that i could tell AI .. \"Let there be an App\" and an app would just magically APP-ear (get it - lol)\n\nNope.\n\nSo my first experience was when I started with Lovable and due to sheer determination and a little delusion, i burned through over **$400** just trying different prompts. Every time it would make something i didnt ask it to make, and that would piss me off and found myself writing another prompt, buying more credit, and it would give me just enough of a feature that kinda worked to make me believe that \"I'm almost there.\"\n\nSo then I switched to Google Gemini. i dont want to even talk about the looney tone responses because my blood boils each time i recall it because , this is Google, but Somehow it was even worse.\n\nSo i came to reddit and did more research and a lot of people were talking about Firebase Studio.. i tried and for a few months there i thought I'd found the love of my life. 😂\n\nMy app was finally ALIVE, part of it anyway, The UI was beautiful. The workflow felt amazing. Vibecoding on it was actually fun.\n\nthen came the rude awakening ... I got billed **$500**. by firebase  before I'd even launched. i'm like, i'm the only user, Im on the field still testing. so what the heaven is going on!! why i'm i getting charged more than what i would even charge one subscription (more on how later...)\n\nHere is the thing, I work in pest control and the reason I started building this app was because my boss did not feel like just paying for the softwares that are already out there for one tech. The upfront costs were high, needed training, long wait time to be onboarded, the contracts sucked, and for his small company it just didn't make sense to him.\n\nSo everything ran through WhatsApp, Telegram, Notes, phone calls, and memory. He'd call me mid job asking questions about clients the previous week and even in traffic asking for me to send a report from months ago so that type of workflow every day drove me crazy, so I decided to build [r/PestProManager](https://www.reddit.com/r/PestProManager/).\n\nAfter about three months I finally had an Admin portal, Technician app, dashboard working. i was so happy , \"i'm gonna be a millionare\" i told my mama .. hehe .. I still will be but not yet as of this post .. but with all the emotions and attachment of seeing myself grow big , that dream got shut down and i've never felt anxiety like this before.. Firebase started shutting parts of my project down whenever I missed a payment... that doesnt sound like a big deal until you realize each payment is between $140 to $200 a week.. my word.. how was this eating through my paycheck and I aint even got a paying customer yet ? The thought of shutting it down felt like my whole life was crumbling and I'd be stuck in jus depression and anxiety.\n\nBy this point I was around **$4,000** deep. I was stressed. Frustrated. but still not Ready to quit. because I'd already put too much into it. So I spent days researching alternatives as i refused to believe that i have to spend over $500 a month just to keep the app running and alive. Eventually I found a way to move away from Firebase completely. I'm planning to write another post about how I reduced my infrastructure costs from roughly **$500/month** to around **$70/month - if this gets enough traction**,\n\nThat though honestly felt like my first real win. and to this day still is even if i don't get clients i will have this app running for the rest of my life because its my baby. Now comes the part nobody talks about...\n\nGetting customers the customers that actually make you that $30k a month these influencers are talking about but dont know anything about because if it was that simple.. they'd have their own apps instead of riding on social media views and selling courses..\n\nI've lost one of my jobs, so right now I'm just picking up whatever work I can find, thiings such construction, pest control referrals, odd jobs. like i'm not picky at this point to be honest because I still don't have my first paying customer. Everything I read or heard before says content is the game now.\n\nthat you need to Post consistently for 6+ months on at least 2 platforms targeting your clients audience.\n\nYou need to Learn hooks so that your posts dont fall flat after the first 2 sec and people swipe away before you can even say your message.\n\n That Learning SEO will help your page or landing page for your app get ranked high on google and when people search for something youe app offers\n\nUse the right keywords when writing blogs and also descriptions for your vidoes and posts when you are promoting your product.\n\nthat you have to absolutely Keep showing up even in those days all your body, mind and soul doesnt feel up to it.\n\nbut my question is .. as much as it kind of works for other people\n\nHow true is that -  if I've seen people with over 2,000 posts and fewer than 1,000 followers.\n\nothers say start by Just ask your network.\" like your friends on facebook, linkedin, tik tok etc\n\nI have a big network but none of them own a pest control companies and none of them even know anyone starting one. i jokily been asking a few of my friends to fire their exterminator if they dont use my app, and they all have one thing in common.. they leave me on \"read\"\n\nAnd i love this part because they tell you to run paid ads.. I'm already thin on funds so where would those funds be coming from if theres still no paying customers , because If it costs around **$150** to acquire one customer who's paying **$30/month**, you need 5 months just to break even.\n\nand in the meantime, the landlord/roommate need that rent paid on time. i had my phone cut off once in May and that was a bad experience that i will no be attmepting to miss that type of bill again , among others. My Baby Mama heard about my app and things i'm already making money so she's calling 24/7 and mysteriously increased the kids expenses.. lol. Currently at 160lb so i need to eat because last time i didnt i looked sickly and my pitch to customers was more of a flounder than a founder.. I never got the memo for this part.. I see other founders posting MRR screenshots but i believe thats not their entire scene their going through\n\nI'm yet to see a posts showing or talking about the months where they're wondering how they're going to pay rent and survive while trying to create something they believe in. im here now...\n\nAnyway... this was me more ranting .. don't confuse this for complaining.. i'm gonne keep pushing until i find a way for sure.. we are gonna make it or make it.. anyone else willing to tell their struggle feel free\n\n","offTopic":true},{"id":"865e997a-9932-4e6b-93ca-32cac7cc9277","excerpt":"Selling More Is Not Always Winning More, Here's Why — If you didn't subscribe to our newsletter yet, make sure to do it at [https://ecomwatchnews.substack.com/](https://ecomwatchnews.substack.com/)\n\nAnd if you missed our weekly Monday newsletter, we are attaching it here: \n\n# Selling More Is Not Always Winning More, He","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/EcommerceCircle/comments/1vfp4gt/selling_more_is_not_always_winning_more_heres_why/","role":"demand","weight":1.2205721,"occurredAt":"2026-08-04T22:28:07.000Z","sourceKey":"reddit","sourceName":"Reddit","credibility":0.62,"venue":"EcommerceCircle","intent":"alternative_search","painScore":0.39614072,"sentiment":0.06521739,"confidence":0.8742472,"matchedPatterns":["frustrating","switching_from","missing_feature"],"statement":"AI-generated ads are moving from “cool, we made five versions in ten minutes” to “please make sure this is labelled properly.” **UK online sales were up 14% in June, then turned negative in late July****.** UK online sales looked strong in…","title":"Selling More Is Not Always Winning More, Here's Why","body":"If you didn't subscribe to our newsletter yet, make sure to do it at [https://ecomwatchnews.substack.com/](https://ecomwatchnews.substack.com/)\n\nAnd if you missed our weekly Monday newsletter, we are attaching it here: \n\n# Selling More Is Not Always Winning More, Here's Why\n\n[](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!sY3K!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2ace790c-bf5a-4d4e-9dca-36b9e6d2a4e0_1672x941.png)\n\n**Welcome back to another edition of EcomWatch Weekly!**\n\nI keep thinking about how much of ecommerce comes down to building on systems we do not fully control.\n\nYou can do everything right, build the store, list the products, and still have some platform, carrier, or automated system decide to make your week harder.\n\nThat is why this week’s big story stood out to me.\n\nCongress is trying to give Amazon sellers more room to fight back when marketplace decisions hurt their business. UPS made more money after cutting Amazon volume, which is a good reminder that not every big customer is actually good for the business.\n\nLet’s get into it.\n\n**This Week:**\n\n* Congress is trying to give Amazon sellers the right to sue Amazon.\n* UPS made more money after cutting Amazon volume.\n* Adobe launched a tool to optimize product details for AI discovery.\n* The EU AI Act is now fully enforced.\n* USPS broke its postage system and kept charging sellers anyway.\n\n# The Big Story\n\n[](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!La7V!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F83acb2d1-32d8-47ab-9b2d-01468a1733d0_1536x1024.png)\n\n# Congress Is Trying to Give Amazon Sellers the Right to Sue Amazon\n\n[Congress is trying to give Amazon sellers more room to fight back](https://ecomwatch.com/news/congress-is-trying-to-give-amazon-sellers-the-right-to-sue-amazon/) when the platform makes decisions that hurt their business.\n\nAnd honestly, this has been coming for a while.\n\nFor many sellers, Amazon is a sales channel. It controls the traffic, the rankings, the listings, the customer relationship, the payments, the reviews, the rules, the enforcement, and sometimes the money sitting in the account.\n\nThe proposed bill is aimed at giving sellers more rights when things go wrong. Think suspensions, frozen funds, withheld inventory, sudden listing removals, account deactivations, and platform decisions that can wipe out revenue with very little warning.\n\nTo be fair, Amazon does need strong enforcement. Nobody wants a marketplace full of scams, fake products, stolen goods, and sellers who treat customer service like a rumor.\n\nThe bigger issue here is not only Amazon. It is dependence. A lot of ecommerce businesses are built on platforms they do not own, and that works right up until the platform does something they cannot control.\n\nSellers do not need unlimited freedom to break rules. They need a real, transparent process when a platform decision can damage or destroy their business. If Amazon can freeze funds, remove listings, or cut off access to customers, then “trust us” should not be the whole appeal system.\n\n# Weekly Metric\n\n[](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!mggU!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc8bb35c4-6b29-45b1-aa1d-f25ee730fc4c_1448x1086.png)\n\n# UPS Made $1 Billion More After Cutting Amazon Volume\n\n[UPS cut Amazon volume and made more money](https://ecomwatch.com/news/ups-fired-amazon-as-a-customer-and-made-a-billion-dollars-more-doing-it/). UPS Q2 2026 revenue reached **$22.8 billion**, up from **$21.2 billion** a year earlier. Operating margin improved from **8.8% to 9.2%**, even though U.S. average daily package volume fell **3.3%** year over year.\n\nThe company deliberately reduced around **2 million Amazon packages per day** from its network and removed about **$4.5 billion** in related costs.\n\nAmazon was a huge customer, but **huge does not always mean good**. If a customer takes up capacity, pressures pricing, and forces the business to handle low-margin work at massive scale, then the size of the account becomes part of the problem.\n\nUPS replaced some of that lower-margin Amazon volume with better business. SMB average daily volume grew **4.3%** year over year. B2B Digital Access Program volume grew **34%**. Healthcare revenue reached **$3 billion** in Q2.\n\nUPS did what a lot of businesses know they should do but are scared to actually do. It walked away from volume that made the company look bigger but not better. That is easy to admire when UPS does it.\n\nMuch harder when it is your own low-margin customer, underpriced service, or “big opportunity” that quietly eats the margins.\n\n# Interviews of the Week\n\nThis week, we published two founder interviews that are very different on the surface, but have the same useful lesson underneath, which is that building a small ecommerce brand usually takes more patience than people want to admit.\n\n# Tyndrum Pottery\n\n[](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!nmAj!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff437a00f-bff1-4dbf-9ed5-b27a0ad9b6d7_1366x768.png)\n\nThis week, we spoke with Nicola and Iain, the founders of [**Tyndrum Pottery**](https://www.tyndrumpottery.com/), a family-run ceramics studio in the Scottish Highlands.\n\nTheir story is not the usual “we saw a gap in the market” founder story. They sold properties, used their savings, and built the business around the kind of life they wanted: pottery, teaching, nature, and more time with their family.\n\nWhat I liked most is that they are not trying to scale handmade ceramics by removing the handmade part. They are building several revenue streams around the work, including online sales, workshops, festivals, demonstrations, and a destination pottery in Glen Lochy, but the actual creative process still stays human.\n\nThat is a useful reminder, especially in a week where so much of ecommerce is about platforms, automation, AI, and systems. Some businesses grow by becoming faster. Others grow by becoming more recognizable, more trusted, and more intentional.\n\n[Read the full interview on ecomwatch.com.](https://ecomwatch.com/leaders-interviews/interview-with-the-founders-of-tyndrum-pottery/)\n\n# Bebek Jewels\n\n[](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!7OsD!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe30b8457-15b4-4711-90d9-e9fe59154fc1_1366x768.png)\n\nWe also spoke with Sonia Aslam, co-founder of [**Bebek Jewels**](https://www.bebekjewels.com/), a sustainable jewelry brand based in Maryland.\n\nBebek Jewels started after Sonia and her sister Sehrish found artisan-made jewelry in Istanbul and decided to bring it to a wider audience. The brand now sells gold-plated pieces made with recycled brass, semi-precious gemstones, and artisan craftsmanship.\n\nSonia’s interview is useful because she is very honest about how hard it is to get attention online. Paid ads did not magically fix everything. SEO has been difficult. International shipping can be stressful because of customs and duties. And sometimes the best channel is still an in-person market where customers can touch the jewelry, try it on, and trust the product faster.\n\nShe also talks about cold outreach, celebrity placements, Wolf & Badger, magazine ads, wholesale opportunities, and all the small experiments that helped the brand grow. None of it sounds effortless, which is exactly why it is worth reading.\n\nBebek Jewels is a good reminder that ecommerce growth usually does not come from one magic channel. It comes from trying things, getting ignored, adjusting, and still showing up.\n\n[Read the full interview on ecomwatch.com.](https://ecomwatch.com/leaders-interviews/interview-with-the-co-founder-of-bebek-jewels/)\n\n# Tool of the Week\n\n[](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!BOGq!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F68ac0f01-8ed4-48fa-a1e1-26d7e069b613_1536x1024.png)\n\n# Adobe Catalog Agent\n\nAdobe launched a new tool inside Adobe Commerce to help brands optimize product details for AI discovery. The tool is called [**Catalog Agent**](https://business.adobe.com/blog/product-discovery-on-llm-surfaces-is-available-in-adobe-commerce).\n\nIt takes structured product information from a Commerce catalog and creates a machine-readable layer that AI crawlers and LLM-powered discovery systems can understand.\n\nMore simply put, Adobe wants AI tools to understand your products better.\n\nThat includes product names, specifications, attributes, pricing, availability, and other relevant details. The tool works behind the scenes, so it does not change the customer-facing storefront.\n\nA human can land on a product page, look around, read between the lines, and figure things out. AI systems need clean, structured information if they are going to understand what a product is, who it is for, and when to recommend it.\n\nAdobe says AI traffic to U.S. retailers climbed **393% in Q1 2026**. Some forecasts say agentic commerce could make up **15% to 25% of total U.S. ecommerce sales by 2030**.\n\nProduct data is becoming an infrastructure. Bad titles, thin descriptions, missing specs, vague attributes, and messy catalogs were already hurting conversion. Now they may also make products invisible to AI systems. Annoying, yes. But not surprising.\n\n# Winning SKU of the Week\n\n[](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!xgdS!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F80161d46-0424-415d-90ea-4a3c5ce06a7b_1567x615.png)\n\n# PDRN Serum\n\n[Exploding Topics](https://explodingtopics.com/topic/pdrn-serum-nLoLq6tz) lists **PDRN serum** at **90.5K search volume** with **+6000% growth**.\n\nPDRN stands for **Polydeoxyribonucleotide**. PDRN serum is part of the newer wave of skincare products being marketed around skin repair, hydration, elasticity, collagen support, and anti-aging.\n\nIt is also tied to K-beauty and the phrase **“salmon DNA skincare,”** which probably explains why the internet grabbed onto it so quickly.\n\nPDRN is showing up in serums, creams, masks, and ampoules. The common positioning is around barrier support, smoother texture, glow, and recovery.\n\nBut this is skincare, so the claims need to stay careful.\n\nThe opportunity is a fast-growing ingredient trend with strong content potential, especially for brands that can explain what it is, what is actually in the formula, and why shoppers should trust it.\n\nPDRN serum has everything a viral beauty trend needs: a weird name, a science-y feel, a K-beauty connection, and enough mystery to make people curious.\n\n# Weird Ecommerce Corner\n\n[](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!FUoy!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa13af57d-42fb-4654-bef0-62c6c6086550_1672x941.png)\n\n# USPS Broke Its Own Postage System and Kept Charging Sellers Anyway\n\nUSPS broke part of its own postage verification system because of a machine name change from **2011**.\n\nAccording to a [USPS Inspector General report](https://www.uspsoig.gov/reports), the Automated Package Verification system stopped recognizing a major group of USPS sorting machines from March through May 2026. Those machines were supposed to provide trusted weight and dimension scans for package pricing.\n\nInstead, APV ignored between **30 million and 50 million package scans per week** because the machines had been renamed in USPS systems and the verification system was never properly updated.\n\nThat is how USPS ended up missing **$22.6 million** in underpaid postage and failing to identify **$6.1 million** in seller overpayments.\n\nThe annoying part is not even the original mistake. The real problem is that the Inspector General flagged the","offTopic":true},{"id":"edd07050-53e2-4f32-a63b-2401ce769746","excerpt":"I generated 1M monthly views organically through my faceless account and consistently made $1,000+/month. Here's what I have been doing- — If you’re reading this, you’re in for some real value. That whole micro-audience strategy people keep talking about is pure BS.\n\nSo I have been working as a freelance marketing stra","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/digitalproductselling/comments/1onn49i/i_generated_1m_monthly_views_organically_through/","role":"request","weight":1.202601,"occurredAt":"2025-11-03T20:32:44.000Z","sourceKey":"reddit","sourceName":"Reddit","credibility":0.62,"venue":"digitalproductselling","intent":"problem_report","painScore":0.39341816,"sentiment":0.25,"confidence":0.8630582,"matchedPatterns":["waste_of_time","manual_process"],"statement":"This is what I built with my own research over the years.* **You can literally copy paste everything from this and launch multiple automated businesses, without wasting hours.","title":"I generated 1M monthly views organically through my faceless account and consistently made $1,000+/month. Here's what I have been doing-","body":"If you’re reading this, you’re in for some real value. That whole micro-audience strategy people keep talking about is pure BS.\n\nSo I have been working as a freelance marketing strategist for the past 5 years, **purely helping brands and solopreneurs scale their businesses organically through social media content.** You can say, I was the pillar of their business, while they were the face. And I was making money consistently since I had a handful of successful clients who were pretty satisfied with my strategies.\n\nUp until 6 months ago, I thought to myself, “Wait, am I really that good?” “Will it work if I start from zero and entirely by myself?”\n\nAnd so I did. **I started posting AI generated videos every single day that educated people** on a specific affiliate product i was promoting. Sometimes I would integrate it w one of the e-commerce brands I’d worked with, that helped them make some passive sales and for me it was commissions. And the results? You can see below!\n\nhttps://preview.redd.it/otc8v8m7n3zf1.jpg?width=738&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c3f6d6b2d5ef13afe14a9df5a1e663518e5ab086\n\nhttps://preview.redd.it/nphd2gtmr3zf1.jpg?width=738&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=da4501ee16a7aa8d6882741563a42fb823880227\n\nI was not in the usual “course guru” shock as **I knew how the algorithm worked, and I knew how to exploit the minds of people to make me a few extra dollars.** Today, the few extra dollars is standing at a minimum of $1000 every month, and **I hadn’t even run any ads. You know why? Whenever I see “Sponsored” on some posts, I abstain from even interacting with it. The storytelling is what matters**. And I realised how to entangle sales psychology with algorithm patterns.\n\nHere’s how **you can implement some strategies into your business, be it DROPSHIPPING, PRINT-ON-DEMAND, AFFILIATE MARKETING or DIGITAL PRODUCTS, today and build an organic audience that drives sales**\\-\n\n1. ***The Hashtag Strategy.***\n\nOld is gold. And I **have always believed that hashtags help you reach the right audience, when done properly. Be it dropshipping, Print-On-Demand or any other business you're running. Your views increase tenfolds when you manipulate the algorithm to promote your content and help it reach to the people who are spending time on it.**\n\nWhat can do today? **Go to Instagram or X, and search for your business category. Look at the posts that are getting 10k+ views**, and then **keep track of the hashtags they’re using.** Use it on your posts combined with the hashtags of your particular product. This helps your content to reach the target demographic. And this keeps changing, as every week there might be a new hashtag that the algorithm pushes. So your research needs to be solid.\n\n2. ***The CTA/Engagement game***\n\n**Most people are promoting their products directly, running ads and asking people to visit their bio for a purchase link. That doesn’t work in the organic framework.** If **people don’t engage with your posts, you will reach nowhere**. People need to feel the urge of commenting or sharing. Those numbers boost your post in the algorithm. And when you reply to those comments, the engagement increases helping your post gain the numbers that makes you visible.\n\nSo **drive your CTA around commenting or interacting (make people vote, make people choose your brand voice, etc). These days automations have made interactions so much easier!**\n\nI understood this by studying a brand SkinDaddy (I aint associated with it). I saw, that even though they were directly promoting their products, their content was actually urging people to comment and interact. Today, their products are sold out. You can check their content out on Instagram for inspiration.\n\n3. ***META SEO keywords***\n\nMeta SEO? Might sound like some made-up bullshit because it is. I term it Meta SEO for simpler understanding. Earlier this year, **META rolled out in its creators meet that META algorithms can now detect words you use in your captions, bio and even the things you say on the video. This helps META to push your posts further based on trending keywords. So its not search engine optimization but its more of a search visibility optimization.**\n\nLet me explain this via an example-\n\nYou heard of the entire “Group 7” hype? Why do you think most of us landed in Group 7? Because the algorithm pushed that reel based on the keyword “Group 7”. Pretty basic thing, but I was surprised when every influencer started having their Group 7 reel viral. (Also if you’re a part of Group 7, we the OGs, man)\n\nSo that’s my point here! **When you put keywords based around your niche/business/problem you’re solving, the algorithm helps push your content to the target audience.**\n\nAnd another point I would like note-\n\nControversial stuff gets you views, helps you gain trust. When you call out your competitors and point out to people what they’re doing wrong, and put your product as a solution, it leads people to interact w you. And who doesn’t love a little digital feud?\n\nOne more thing I learnt studying strategies these days is that BRAINROT wins as well. Brainrot music and brainrot content is being pushed around the internet through multiple brands, and I see thousands of people interacting with that!\n\n**Here’s a workflow of what I do on a daily basis in my organic marketing system-**\n\n1. I research my audience through tools that accesses pain points.\n2. Pick up a hook tailored to that pain point.\n3. Create faceless content using Gemini, PixVerse and Higgsfield AI.\n4. Research the hashtags and keywords that is gaining traction recently.\n5. Upload at specific times of the day to have maximum user visibility.\n6. Customise my prevalent ManyChat automation based on the recent post so I don’t miss a comment or DM.\n7. And the rest is handled by Zapier.\n8. Then I repeat the entire system keeping track of everything that worked\n\n**And the most surprising part? All of these tools give you tons of options for free.** The only tool that requires a subscription here is Higgsfield AI and it’s totally worth the subscription!\n\nSo **starting today, try these combinations of sales psychology and algorithm manipulation. And run automations (ManyChat and Zapier), the free ones. They help you reply quickly, engage at a humane rate and capture your leads so you don’t have to do it manually. Your brand growth is inevitable with these modern marketing techniques**. I see a lot of people come here and speak shit about how virality doesn’t matter and **how the micro-audience strategy gains you lots. I call them BS purely because of mathematical probabilities**. When you have the power of AI in your hands, you can tailor your responses based on response patterns and its completely doable. **You can earn easily through organic marketing and invest on ads only when you scale (although I don’t entertain it)**\n\n**Now hear me out,**\n\n*I know a lot of people come here and offer you some free advice, lure you into their DMs and try to sell you their stuff. Imma be completely transparent with you.*\n\nI spent five years of my life in the social media marketing space and earned money just by crafting marketing strategies for others. Failed a lot of times too. But I learnt a lot through these systems.\n\nBut, you don’t need to go through all of that?\n\n**I combined all of my 5 years of research and knowledge into a  $15  plug-and-play marketing guide for the big 4 of digital businesses-** ***Dropshipping, Print-On-Demand, Affiliate Marketing and Digital Products.***\n\n**No matter what your business category is, you get direct copy/paste systems of the following, where all the resources are tailored to the specific category of business you run-**\n\n1. 3-tier hashtag systems researched deeply into their virality levels, and 200 hashtags for each category of business.\n2. CTA systems that drives engagement and helps you convert.\n3. 50 hooks+value formula each for the 4 categories that I use in my content game to generate curiosity and increase watch-time for my clients.\n4. Well researched META keywords optimised for visibility, no matter what business you run or are planning to run.\n5. A separate toolkit section that helps you navigate through tools for research, content creation and automation.\n6. 30 prompts that I use for Gemini, Pixverse and Higgsfield for each category that you can use as a base and customise using DeepSeek for your product.\n7. Step-by-step Automation builders for ManyChat and Zapier, that automates your comments, your DMs and helps you collect data while you sleep.\n8. DM scripts that I build upon everyday to ensure they align with the sales psychology.\n9. Bonus access to my Resource Vault that I update monthly\n\n**AND NO, There’s no UPSELL.**\n\n**You get everything I have mentioned above, for the price. The only upsell? A free 15 minute consultation over chat/call so I can help you customise your marketing strategy. And a lifetime access to my database + free tutorial videos to build the automations.**\n\nhttps://i.redd.it/vrcktp92p3zf1.gif\n\n*Also, this is not a product someone else built and put me out as the vocalist for them. This is what I built with my own research over the years.*\n\n**You can literally copy paste everything from this and launch multiple automated businesses, without wasting hours. Besides that, you will surely get an in-depth insight on how marketing strategies work these days.**\n\nInvesting on acquiring extensive knowledge/skills this year is one of the best form of investment and this is surely worth it. This system helped me make some extra money besides my freelancing income, and I am sure this will help you too.\n\nIf you’re interested, just drop a comment and I shall share the link with you in your DMs. (Not making it public purely for tracking purposes)\n\nRecommend a family or friend who is/are running these businesses/thinking to start their own or who you think might benefit from this plug-and-play system.❤\n\nAlso, if you wish to make this product your own and sell it in your own way (you can keep the entire profit), let me know.\n\nAnd if you’re not interested, drop the usual hate comments. At least it will boost the engagement. Lol 😂","offTopic":true},{"id":"79f3dbfe-73ce-4422-a631-ea870d328e6b","excerpt":"Let me destroy your belief in tools you're paying for — Brother, wake THE FUCK up!\n\nI still cannot believe my eyes seeing so many people trying to make it in ecom and still falling for \"get rich quick\" shortcuts.\n\nThere are NO shortcuts!\n\nI can't blame you if you're just starting out and that's you first weeks in figur","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/dropshipping/comments/1sbcvv4/let_me_destroy_your_belief_in_tools_youre_paying/","role":"pain","weight":1.1992805,"occurredAt":"2026-04-03T12:57:35.000Z","sourceKey":"reddit","sourceName":"Reddit","credibility":0.62,"venue":"dropshipping","intent":"feature_request","painScore":0.435,"sentiment":0.7777778,"confidence":0.83573556,"matchedPatterns":["doesnt_work","still_cannot"],"statement":"I still cannot believe my eyes seeing so many people trying to make it in ecom and still falling for \"get rich quick\" shortcuts.","title":"Let me destroy your belief in tools you're paying for","body":"Brother, wake THE FUCK up!\n\nI still cannot believe my eyes seeing so many people trying to make it in ecom and still falling for \"get rich quick\" shortcuts.\n\nThere are NO shortcuts!\n\nI can't blame you if you're just starting out and that's you first weeks in figuring it all out. You are putting pieces together, scraping some knowledge from YouTube, asking questions on Reddit, scrolling through endless Discord servers trying to get at least some clarity on how this shit even works.\n\nHere is something you want to know: whole \"find winning products\" narrative was created artificially by full-of-shit gurus and braindead ad spy tools in attempt to extract money from naive rookies that are just looking to enter the market. And you know what? They give no shit about methods to use.\n\nBut before we're going to jump into details, here is my traditional heads up: this post is going to be really fucking long. And if you are lazy ass, better skip it. Don't expect to extract any knowledge from it just skimming through it. It's gonna be buried in between the lines for a reason. Because learning something new, earning in ecom, achieving something in your life requires focus, dedication and discipline. If you are not disciplined enough to read till the end of one post with proper attention, what reasons do you have to believe you're gonna make it?\n\nIf you are still here, you're in for a treat, my friend. Let's learn something really powerful today.\n\nOne of our fellow brothers shared his story in the comments of how he got into ecom. The story is painfully familiar to most of us on this sub.\n\nYou stumble upon ecom guru that promises you help in launching your very own ecom business. He's even ready to build you a store for \"just $1\"!\n\nHis team of experts helping you set whole operation up, all for free.\n\nHe wants you to write on a sticker note \"I commit 3 months to dropshipping\" with a promise: by then, your business will become money printing machine.\n\nBut it never will.\n\nBecause this guy is not interested in making your business successful. Because it's hard.\n\nWhat he is interested in, is putting on your credit card as many affiliate subscriptions as possible.\n\nHe will start of course with his Shopify affiliate link.\n\nThen, he'll add some ad spy tool.\n\nOf course he will convince you that you need AI assisted support on your website, to improve your conversions.\n\nHe also narrates, that your store \"cannot\" live without automated funnel; software for your store management; app for tracking ad pixel (wtf is this even?); lead magnet popups; shopify addons and other crap.\n\nMoreover. He is going to feed you with his motivational speeches, giving you false hope, \"just test it bro\", \"give it some time\", \"SEO needs time to kick in\", \"just trust the process\" — for as long as your pockets are deep. Because every month you're paying for these subscriptions, he earns his affiliate commission.\n\nHardest part, it's really not easy to break the loop, get out of his spider net. Because you already invested so much, you put in the \"work\" — or at least you thought so. \"If you stop now, your investment will be lost, just endure\" — he'll say to you.\n\nAnd that's how you become hostage of your own sunk cost.\n\nThe thing is, you need NOTHING from this crap. NOTHING. Neither his teachings. Nor his retarded tools.\n\nDo not buy something out of \"maybe this helps\". You need to KNOW what EXACTLY this thing does and WHY you are getting it.\n\nOk, you definitely want Shopify. Because honestly, I don't know better thing to start from. Of course, when you scale etc, you might want to have something custom. I, for instance, use highly customized OpenCart for most of my shops, but the reason is, it was deeply rooted into my own CRMs long before Shopify became popular. Still, for occasional tests, I use it.\n\nMaybe — if you're like me far from designing and making it \"pretty\" — you'd buy yourself some nice theme. Because you understand: ok, I can spend 3 weeks of my time trying to make a nice website and anyway will get some shit. Yeah, 3 weeks of saved time worth those $150 for pretty theme.\n\nBut that's it. No apps for \"tracking pixels\", \"image optimization\", \"automatic funnel management\" or even fucking \"fulfillment services\". No \"auto ds\" and other crap.\n\nIf you still didn't figure out how support works — don't fucking replace human touch with AI bot. Talk to people. Listen to complaints. That's invaluable data for you to improve.\n\nIf you don't know how fulfillment works — don't use any automated system for that, because sooner than later, something goes south, and relying on system without knowledge of how underlying processes work is going to destroy your momentum. Knowing caveats, you'll handle the crisis with understanding. Otherwise you will be figuring out how to fix something under stress, on the fly, at most likely will fuck it up. Mistakes are normal, but why create yourself OBVIOUS problems, that you could OBVIOUSLY avoid?\n\nSame goes to \"generate hundreds of UGC creatives for your ads\" with AI. FUCK your AI and FUCK your hundreds of creatives, if you didn't figure out how to make them without AI.\n\nAs a rule of thumb, don't buy \"nice to haves\" for your shop. You only add another tool to optimize **existing** process.\n\nBecause if your process is non existent or is shit, what will happen if you scale shit? You'll get a lot of shit.\n\nWhat will happen if you scale nothingness? Nothing. Simple as that.\n\nIt's easy to scale your spending. It doesn't take genius. But to scale your revenue, you must already have it. And you must achieve it singlehandedly. Only then, when from A to Z your shop works and is in net positive you're touching any automations. **NOT EARLIER!**\n\n**---**\n\nAnother culprit of ecom space, gatekeeping its entry, is ad spy tools. This is absolute worthless piece of shit, advertised by every youtube guru out there, along with all-in-one dropshipping tools that \"handle your business for you\".\n\nBasically, what they do: they scrape Facebook/TikTok Ad libraries (which are official and absolutely free), aggregate by keywords/vector embeddings, and if an ad during X amount of time was shown by >100s different accounts, ad spy surfaces it as a \"winning product\".\n\nThink about it this way. You found a lake with shitload of fish. Perfect fishing spot in the middle of nowhere. Nobody knows about it. You're pulling fish after fish, every single day. Life is beautiful.\n\nNow imagine someone pins your spot on Google Maps with label \"BEST FISHING SPOT — GUARANTEED CATCH\".\n\nNext morning you show up and 500 guys standing at your favorite spot with rods, catching your fish. Water is muddy. And yeah.. no more fish for you, my friend.\n\nThat's exactly what you can expect from a product that ad spy tool surfaces as winning.\n\nAd spy takes *something* that worked for *someone* and broadcasts it to thousands desperate beginners, and by the time YOU see it — fold the rods, party's over. Whole instagram saw this product, every second shopify store is selling it and your margin is dead, because customer acquisition cost is through the roof — you need a lot of lure to get even single fish now, remember — others are doing the same...\n\nHere is where it actually gets funny: these tools REALLY do show you viral products, so that part is actually... True?\n\nBut \"viral\" and \"profitable for YOU\" are two completely different things. By the time it hits an ad spy dashboard, it has peaked, my friend. THOUSANDS seen it and hundreds — launched.\n\nYou will laugh, but I still pay for them and check these tools anyway (don't do it if you're on budget). But not to find \"what to sell\" — to find what **NOT** to sell. If it's trending on ad spy, I know for a fact thousands are looking at it right now.\n\nWhich means I stay the fuck away. Simple.\n\n\"Oh smart ass, then how DO you find products?\"\n\nGlad you asked. And btw, except some tricks, this process costs me nothing. So.\n\nFirst. You pick a niche. ONE SPECIFIC NICHE. Something narrow, something you experienced and understand deeply enough to know what people in that space actually want, what pisses them off, what they're already buying. I wrote a whole post about how to pick your niche, and if you haven't read it — it's a must. You'll find it [**here**](https://www.reddit.com/r/dropshipping/comments/1s9pys1/your_dropshipping_store_is_going_to_fail_thank/). Read it. It's important piece of your puzzle.\n\nThen. Research phase.\n\nFind out WHERE your people hang out. Subreddits. Facebook groups. TikTok comments. Local strip clubs. Open your ears (in strip club — maybe eyes also, why not combine business with pleasure). Hear their pain. Read what they write, how they write, what irritates them. Make a list of problems you found. When I'm searching for a product (even in my niches!), I aim to have at least 15 different ideas, but that's magic number, you decide yourself what's yours. Note down EXACT words how they describe their pain. You will use that in your marketing copy later.\n\nThen. You search for products that actually solve the pain. Or makes it less painful. Once again: you're not looking for \"winning products.\" You're looking for unmet demand.\n\n*One separate angle for idea research, I go to marketplaces and look for products with many reviews but low ratings (1-3). These sometimes become good opportunities if you manage to find same item but of higher quality. Because if people buy it — there is a demand. If people leave bad reviews — they are not happy with what market suggests. That gap between \"ok product\" and \"what I actually wanted\" — that's opportunity. You got the idea. Not my general method tho.*\n\nThen. You should have list of few dozens ideas by this moment of time. Go and validate every one of them. Forget \"gut feeling\" and \"vibes\" shit. You need actual numbers. Search volume, trend direction, competition density, price clustering, unit economics, margin math. If you're not familiar with process — go read [**this post**](https://www.reddit.com/r/dropshipping/comments/1rtmyl1/my_answer_to_how_do_you_actually_find_products/), you've got a whole checklist there. Not a magic bullet though, but overall — you should have mental model of how it works, and for the love of God — always STRUCTURE your work, create frameworks/checklists, or you'll get nowhere.\n\nIf you didn't validate, FORGET about going further. There is a big difference between fucking up your ad budget because opportunity didn't work out and because you've been too lazy to do it. First is part of the game, at least you knew you have put odds in your favor. Second is part of gambling mentality that leads you nowhere.\n\nAnd THEN — when you already know your niche, found your products, validated the data — you go to Facebook Ad Library or TikTok Ad Library. Both free and official. Zero subscriptions needed. Search for similar products, but not to COPY. To study! What is the angle? How long people run ad? The longer they run, the better it worked for those who are selling that product, they wouldn't put more budget in angle that doesnt bring rev. Remember: you do it to get inspiration, ideas. Study the hooks, study the format. That's your creative research.\n\nAnd only then comes technical part... Shop, ads, etc... But this is not something I'm going to cover.\n\n\\----\n\nOn another note, I'd like to emphasize one important tip: you collect a BATCH of ideas and products before validating and testing anything for two reasons:\n\n\\- to streamline your processes\n\n\\- and to avoid \"married my choice\" psychological bias.\n\nWhen you go through process: find idea -> search for product -> validate -> check creatives, you are shifting through different mental models, and that alone burns through shitload of energy and TIME. Humans are bad at multitasking, we naturally need focus to progress. That's why you batch similar operations and move through stages, filtering at each stage what doesn't work for you.\n\nImagine if you'd be cooking meshed potatoes. What is fas","offTopic":false},{"id":"6b8cabe2-879e-41ad-8101-8dacf7617835","excerpt":"How to Start a Digital Marketing Company: The Real Path From Zero to Profitable Agency — https://preview.redd.it/4wckqqltlyeg1.png?width=1536&format=png&auto=webp&s=1a8fc59aedd462e5c9ca51b20b7c927d7bb04d96\n\nEveryone's telling you that learning how to start a digital marketing company is your ticket to freedom, flexibil","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnWire/comments/1qk5kw2/how_to_start_a_digital_marketing_company_the_real/","role":"request","weight":1.1821163,"occurredAt":"2026-01-22T20:20:27.000Z","sourceKey":"reddit","sourceName":"Reddit","credibility":0.62,"venue":"LearnWire","intent":"feature_request","painScore":0.38787216,"sentiment":0.15714286,"confidence":0.8517472,"matchedPatterns":["terrible","doesnt_work","waste_of_time","free_tier","missing_feature","manual_process","urgent"],"statement":"But here's what they're not telling you: most digital marketing agencies fail within the first year—not because the owners lack skills, but because they get stuck in the same trap that kept me spinning my wheels for over a decade.","title":"How to Start a Digital Marketing Company: The Real Path From Zero to Profitable Agency","body":"https://preview.redd.it/4wckqqltlyeg1.png?width=1536&format=png&auto=webp&s=1a8fc59aedd462e5c9ca51b20b7c927d7bb04d96\n\nEveryone's telling you that learning how to start a digital marketing company is your ticket to freedom, flexibility, and six-figure income.\n\nAnd honestly? They're not completely wrong.\n\nBut here's what they're not telling you: most digital marketing agencies fail within the first year—not because the owners lack skills, but because they get stuck in the same trap that kept me spinning my wheels for over a decade.\n\nThey confuse learning about digital marketing with building a digital marketing business. Two completely different things.\n\nI've been in the trenches. I've made every mistake you're about to make (and then some). I've also figured out what actually works—the stuff that took me from endless research mode to $600k+ in real revenue.\n\nThis isn't theory. This is the battle-tested blueprint.\n\n# Key Takeaways\n\n* Start with ONE service offering and expand only after you've proven demand—analysis paralysis kills more agencies than bad marketing ever will\n* You don't need an office, employees, or fancy software to launch a profitable digital marketing company in 2026\n* Your first client should come from your existing network, not expensive ads or complex funnels\n* The ACTION GAP between learning and doing is where most aspiring agency owners get permanently stuck\n* Profitable agencies solve specific problems for specific people—generalist \"we do everything\" positioning is a race to the bottom\n\n# Understanding What a Digital Marketing Company Actually Does (And Doesn't Do)\n\nModern minimalist office workspace showing laptop screen displaying digital marketing agency business plan template with revenue projections\n\nLet's cut through the BS right now.\n\nA digital marketing company helps businesses get customers online. That's it. Everything else is just different flavors of that core mission.\n\nYou're not building the next Ogilvy. You're creating a business that solves real problems for real clients who will pay you real money.\n\nWhen I started researching how to start a digital marketing company, I got buried in content about \"building your brand identity\" and \"crafting your agency mission statement.\" Complete waste of time.\n\nHere's what actually matters: Can you help a business owner get more leads, sales, or visibility? If yes, you have a business. If no, keep learning the craft (but set a deadline—more on that later).\n\n# The Services That Actually Make Money\n\nNot all digital marketing services are created equal. Some are profitable from day one. Others require massive overhead and expertise.\n\nHigh-profit, low-overhead services:\n\n* SEO consulting and implementation\n* Content marketing and strategy\n* Social media management\n* Email marketing campaigns\n* PPC management (if you know what you're doing)\n* Marketing automation setup\n\nServices that sound sexy but drain resources:\n\n* Video production (equipment costs, time intensive)\n* Full website development (scope creep nightmare)\n* App development (wrong business model entirely)\n* \"Full-service\" everything (you'll drown)\n\nI learned this the hard way. Spent six months trying to offer \"comprehensive digital solutions\" and landed exactly zero clients. Why? Because nobody wakes up thinking \"I need comprehensive digital solutions.\"\n\nThey wake up thinking \"I need more customers\" or \"My website doesn't show up on Google.\"\n\nSolve that specific problem. Get paid. Expand later.\n\n# How to Start a Digital Marketing Company: The Lean Launch Method\n\nHere's the truth that took me 10+ years to figure out: you're overthinking this.\n\nThe traditional advice about how to start a digital marketing company goes something like this:\n\n1. Write a business plan\n2. Secure funding\n3. Rent office space\n4. Hire a team\n5. Build your website\n6. Create marketing materials\n7. THEN start looking for clients\n\nThat's backwards and expensive.\n\nHere's what actually works in 2026:\n\n# Step 1: Pick ONE Service You Can Deliver This Month\n\nNot next quarter. Not after you take another course. This month.\n\nLook at your current skills. What can you do right now that would help a business get more customers?\n\nMaybe you're good at writing. Start with content marketing or email campaigns.\n\nMaybe you understand Facebook ads. Start there.\n\nMaybe you can optimize websites for search. SEO consulting it is.\n\nThe key: specificity beats versatility every single time.\n\nI spent years as a \"digital marketing generalist\" making poverty wages. The moment I niched down to software reviews and YouTube affiliate strategies? Revenue exploded.\n\n# Step 2: Validate With Your Network Before Building Anything\n\nThis is where most people stuck in analysis paralysis screw up.\n\nThey build the website, create the LLC, design the logo, print business cards, and THEN try to find clients.\n\nFlip that script.\n\nYour validation process:\n\n1. Make a list of 20 people you know who run businesses (or work at companies that hire agencies)\n2. Send them a direct message: \"Hey \\[Name\\], I'm helping \\[specific type of business\\] get \\[specific result\\]. Know anyone who might need that?\"\n3. Have 5-10 conversations this week\n4. If people say \"actually, I need that\" or \"let me introduce you to someone\"—you've got validation\n5. If everyone says \"interesting but no thanks\"—pick a different service or audience\n\nI landed my first three clients through LinkedIn messages to former colleagues. No website. No business cards. Just a clear offer and genuine relationships.\n\nTook me about four days.\n\n# Step 3: Deliver Results Before Scaling Infrastructure\n\nHere's the part that separates real business builders from perpetual planners.\n\nGet a paying client before you:\n\n* Register your LLC\n* Build your website\n* Create your \"agency processes\"\n* Hire anyone\n* Buy expensive tools\n\nWhy? Because nothing clarifies your business model like actual client work.\n\nYou'll learn more in one month of client delivery than six months of research. You'll discover what you actually enjoy doing, what clients actually need, and what you can actually charge.\n\n# The Minimum Viable Agency Setup\n\nWhen you're starting out, here's literally all you need:\n\nTools (under $100/month total):\n\n* Google Workspace for email ($6/user/month)\n* Canva Pro for graphics ($13/month)\n* Project management tool like Trello or Asana (free tier)\n* Communication: Zoom (free) or Slack (free)\n* Invoicing: Wave or PayPal (free)\n\nLegal structure:\n\n* Start as a sole proprietor (literally just you, your name, your SSN)\n* Upgrade to LLC when you're making $3-5k/month consistently\n* Don't let legal structure become another excuse for analysis paralysis\n\nYour \"office\":\n\n* Your current desk\n* Coffee shops\n* Client offices\n* Anywhere with WiFi\n\nI ran a five-figure monthly agency from my kitchen table for 18 months. The clients didn't care. They cared about results.\n\n# Building Your Client Acquisition System (Without Burning Cash on Ads)\n\nMost guides on how to start a digital marketing company tell you to \"invest in marketing\" right away.\n\nTranslation: spend money you don't have on ads that probably won't work because you haven't dialed in your messaging yet.\n\nHere's what actually works when you're starting from zero:\n\n# The Warm Outreach Method\n\nYour first 5-10 clients should come from people who already know, like, or trust you.\n\nYour warm network includes:\n\n* Former colleagues and bosses\n* College friends who now run businesses\n* LinkedIn connections (yes, even the ones you haven't talked to in years)\n* Family members with businesses\n* Friends of friends (ask for intros)\n* Local business owners you frequent\n\nThe script that worked for me:\n\n\"Hey \\[Name\\], hope you're doing well! I'm working with \\[specific business type\\] to \\[specific result\\]. I know you \\[run a business/work with businesses\\]—would love to grab coffee and hear what's working for you on the marketing front. Any chance you're free this week?\"\n\nNo hard sell. Just genuine curiosity and a clear specialty.\n\nHalf of those conversations will lead nowhere. A quarter will lead to referrals. A quarter will turn into clients or strong leads.\n\n# The Content Authority Play\n\nHere's the strategy that built my entire business: Help Don't Sell.\n\nStart creating content that demonstrates your expertise:\n\n* LinkedIn posts about client results\n* YouTube videos solving specific problems\n* Blog posts answering questions your ideal clients ask\n* Case studies (even if they're from discounted early clients)\n\nI built a YouTube channel reviewing software and teaching affiliate marketing strategies. That channel has generated more leads than any ad campaign ever could.\n\nThe content compounds. A video I made 18 months ago still brings in clients today.\n\n# The Strategic Partnership Approach\n\nFind businesses that serve your ideal clients but don't compete with you.\n\nExamples:\n\n* If you do SEO, partner with web designers\n* If you do social media, partner with photographers\n* If you do email marketing, partner with copywriters\n* If you do PPC, partner with conversion rate optimizers\n\nThe pitch: \"I work with \\[your ideal client\\]. I noticed you do too. Want to refer clients back and forth when they need services we don't offer?\"\n\nI have three partnership relationships that send me 2-3 qualified leads per month. Took zero dollars to build, just coffee meetings and genuine relationship building.\n\n# Pricing Your Services (Without Undercharging or Overcharging)\n\nPricing is where most new agency owners sabotage themselves.\n\nThey either charge so little they can't sustain the business, or they charge so much they scare away early clients who could provide testimonials and case studies.\n\n# The Three Pricing Models That Work\n\n1. Project-based pricing (best for beginners)\n\n* Clear scope, clear deliverable, clear price\n* Example: \"Website SEO audit and implementation plan: $2,500\"\n* Pro: Easy to sell, defined end point\n* Con: Income inconsistency\n\n2. Monthly retainer (best for sustainability)\n\n* Ongoing services, predictable revenue\n* Example: \"Social media management (3 posts/week, community engagement): $1,500/month\"\n* Pro: Recurring revenue, deeper client relationships\n* Con: Scope creep if you're not careful\n\n3. Performance-based (best when you're confident)\n\n* You get paid based on results\n* Example: \"10% of ad spend managed + 20% of revenue generated from campaigns\"\n* Pro: Unlimited upside, easier to sell\n* Con: Dependent on factors outside your control\n\nMy recommendation: Start with project-based to build case studies, transition to retainers for stability, add performance bonuses for upside.\n\n# What to Actually Charge\n\nHere's the range I've seen work in 2026:\n\n|Service|Beginner Rate|Intermediate Rate|Expert Rate|\n|:-|:-|:-|:-|\n|SEO Audit|$500-1,000|$1,500-3,000|$5,000+|\n|Monthly SEO|$1,000-2,000|$3,000-7,000|$10,000+|\n|Social Media Management|$500-1,500|$2,000-4,000|$5,000+|\n|Content Marketing|$1,500-3,000|$4,000-8,000|$12,000+|\n|PPC Management|10-15% of spend|15-20% of spend|20%+ of spend|\n|Email Marketing|$1,000-2,000|$2,500-5,000|$7,500+|\n\nStart at the lower end. Build case studies. Raise rates every 3-6 months as you prove results.\n\nI started charging $750/month for content marketing. Within 18 months I was charging $4,500 for the same service because I had proof it worked.\n\n# Avoiding the Traps That Kill Digital Marketing Agencies\n\nLet me save you from the mistakes that almost ended my business before it started.\n\n# Trap #1: Shiny Object Syndrome\n\nEvery week there's a new platform, strategy, or \"revolutionary\" approach to digital marketing.\n\nTikTok ads! AI content! Web3 marketing! Metaverse strategies!\n\nHere's what actually happens: you abandon what's working to chase what's new. Your expertise never deepens. Your results stay mediocre.\n\nThe antidote: Pick 2-3 core services. Master them completely. Add new offerings only when you've maxed out the current ones.\n\nI wasted two years jumping between \"opportunities.\" The breakthrough came wh","offTopic":true},{"id":"9050ee21-6a90-4f38-976e-09bd6bd1ff80","excerpt":"Haven't already? Subscribe to our Weekly Newsletter! — **For those who missed it, check out our Monday's newsletter. And subscribe to** [**https://substack.com/@ecomwatchweekly**](https://substack.com/@ecomwatchweekly) **to always be up to date with ecommerce news.**\n\n**Welcome back to another edition of EcomWatch Week","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/EcommerceCircle/comments/1vtz6hy/havent_already_subscribe_to_our_weekly_newsletter/","role":"request","weight":1.164973,"occurredAt":"2026-08-20T23:09:14.000Z","sourceKey":"reddit","sourceName":"Reddit","credibility":0.62,"venue":"EcommerceCircle","intent":"feature_request","painScore":0.4,"sentiment":0.2244898,"confidence":0.8321236,"matchedPatterns":["frustrating","missing_feature","urgent"],"statement":"The problem is not always a lack of feedback, but rather that the feedback is spread across too many tools and is hard to use.","title":"Haven't already? Subscribe to our Weekly Newsletter!","body":"**For those who missed it, check out our Monday's newsletter. And subscribe to** [**https://substack.com/@ecomwatchweekly**](https://substack.com/@ecomwatchweekly) **to always be up to date with ecommerce news.**\n\n**Welcome back to another edition of EcomWatch Weekly!**\n\nThis week, we are focusing on the important things for your business. (like every week, just this week we are getting readyyyy for the back-to-school season)\n\nStarting with Amazon targeting college students during the back to school seasons, and Shopify ending with a disappointment of scammers using Shopify’s own app to get people to click on phishing links.\n\nIn the middle of summer 2026, I hope you had(are having) nice holidays, but it’s time to get ahead of this back to school season.\n\nSo let’s get into this addition where you will find out how to improve your store on time, giving you the tools and knowledge you need to be ahead of the competition.\n\n# This Week\n\n* **Amazon makes it easier for sellers to reach college students**\n* **93% of Americans shopped online last week**\n* **80% of shoppers have used AI to help make a purchase decision, but only 7% trust AI more than reviews**\n* **Fake Shopify invoices are being sent through Shopify’s own app**\n* **USPS growth is being driven by aggressive price increases**\n* **DTC is not dead, but the cheap Facebook-ad version of it is**\n\n# The Big Story\n\n[](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!59NN!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fed048f66-0d01-4fd0-bbde-62eaf6a47093_1672x941.png)\n\n# Amazon Makes It Easier for Sellers to Reach College Students Ahead of Back-to-School Season\n\nAmazon is trying to get closer to college students before one of their busiest shopping periods of the year.\n\nThe company is expanding access to **Amazon pickup points and Lockers near campuses**, giving students a simpler way to collect orders during back-to-school season.\n\nThat may sound like a small delivery update, but it solves a problem many students are having.\n\nStudent deliveries can be messy as dorms have many mailrooms. But also sometimes packages get left somewhere they probably should not be.\n\nLockers make the process easier as students can order what they need, pick it up when they have time, and avoid waiting around for a delivery.\n\nHowever, sellers still need to do their job and fix their product pages, optimize them and make it easier for students to find what they’re looking for.\n\n[Read the full story on ecomwatch.com](https://ecomwatch.com/news/amazon-makes-it-easier-for-sellers-to-reach-college-students-ahead-of-back-to-school-season/)\n\n# Weekly Metric\n\n[](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!MHBk!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff410ce3b-98da-467c-86af-e44e0117f6e6_1672x941.png)\n\n# 93% of Americans Shopped Online Last Week. Only 7% Trust AI More Than Reviews.\n\nThis week’s weekly metric is not that surprising, at least not to us. 93% of Americans shopped online in the last week, which shows just how normal online buying has become in the U.S.\n\nThat number is big on its own, but the rest of [the survey](https://financebuzz.com/online-shopping-trends) is even more useful.\n\nThe average household gets **2.9 packages per week**, or about **150 deliveries per year**. **80%** of shoppers have used AI to help make a purchase decision. But only **7%** trust AI recommendations more than customer reviews.\n\nPeople are shopping online all the time. They are using AI, but they are not blindly trusting AI.\n\n**AI may help shoppers find products, but reviews still help them decide what to trust.**\n\nWe read through the study, and there were a few other numbers ecommerce brands should pay attention to:\n\n**81%** of shoppers add items to their cart to reach free shipping, which can look good for average order value but can also create a problem if those extra items were only added to avoid paying for delivery. A shopper who adds something just to hit the threshold is not always buying because they really want that product, and that can lead to more returns, lower satisfaction, or weaker repeat purchases later.\n\n**21%** of shoppers have abandoned a cart because the store did not offer their preferred payment method, such as Apple Pay or PayPal. That is one of the clearest reminders that checkout problems are not always big or complicated. Sometimes a customer is ready to buy, but the store makes payment annoying enough that they leave.\n\nThe study also found that **84%** of shoppers have bought something from bed, and **70%** have shopped while watching TV. These are not always careful, focused shopping sessions where people are willing to work hard to complete a purchase. They are often quick, distracted moments, where the shopper is ready to buy only if the page is clear and checkout is easy.\n\n[Read the full story on ecomwatch.com](https://ecomwatch.com/news/new-survey-data-reveals-how-american-online-shoppers-really-behave/)\n\n# Interviews of the Week\n\n[](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!-Jp0!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F756c2877-31f7-40b4-bb43-1abd6f32995e_1366x768.png)\n\n# She Turned Leftover Fabric Into a Sustainable Accessories Brand. Seven Years Later, She’s Had Just Three Returns\n\nThis week, [we spoke with Lucy](https://ecomwatch.com/leaders-interviews/she-turned-leftover-fabric-into-a-sustainable-accessories-brand-seven-years-later-shes-had-just-three-returns/), the founder of **Lulu The Label**, a sustainable British accessories brand she started after turning leftover fabric from her fashion degree into scrunchies.\n\nThe brand now sells handmade scrunchies, bridal accessories, bespoke pieces, dog bandanas, and fashion items. Everything is made in small batches, with sustainability built into how the products are designed and made.\n\nBut it’s interesting to know that she only had **three returns in seven years.**\n\nThat says a lot.\n\nLow returns usually do not happen by accident. They come from clear photos, honest descriptions, strong quality control, and customers knowing exactly what they are buying before the package arrives.\n\nRead the full interview here: [https://ecomwatch.com/leaders-interviews/she-turned-leftover-fabric-into-a-sustainable-accessories-brand-seven-years-later-shes-had-just-three-returns/](https://ecomwatch.com/leaders-interviews/she-turned-leftover-fabric-into-a-sustainable-accessories-brand-seven-years-later-shes-had-just-three-returns/)\n\n# A Tan France Collaboration Skyrocketed Her Etsy Shop. Then She Realised She Had a Problem\n\n[](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!KnaP!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe52df8aa-b3d5-437d-b143-9e2be6a107e5_990x487.png)\n\nThis week, [we also spoke with Michaela Bere](https://ecomwatch.com/leaders-interviews/a-tan-france-collaboration-skyrocketed-her-etsy-shop-then-she-realised-she-had-a-problem/), the founder of **Blue Stiggy**, a handmade stationery brand built around personalised notebooks and a vintage typewriter named Dorothy.\n\nBlue Stiggy grew on Etsy, and a collaboration with **Etsy and Tan France** gave the shop a major boost.\n\nMichaela realized she was relying too much on one platform. Etsy helped her prove the product and find buyers, but it was still someone else’s marketplace, someone else’s rules, and someone else’s customer path.\n\nThat is a lesson many ecommerce founders learn late.\n\nMarketplaces are useful. They bring attention, trust, and traffic. But they are not the same as owning the customer relationship.\n\nToday, Blue Stiggy sells through Etsy, its own website, and Holly & Co, while focusing more on direct sales, email, and wholesale.\n\n**Do not let one channel become the whole business**.\n\nRead the full interview here: [https://ecomwatch.com/leaders-interviews/a-tan-france-collaboration-skyrocketed-her-etsy-shop-then-she-realised-she-had-a-problem/](https://ecomwatch.com/leaders-interviews/a-tan-france-collaboration-skyrocketed-her-etsy-shop-then-she-realised-she-had-a-problem/)\n\n# She Started Making Jewellery With Cotton Rope. Now Her Designs Are Stocked by the Barbican\n\n[](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!5fGC!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9042a2c7-129f-408c-9909-646283ca3747_987x491.png)\n\nWe also spoke with [Paulomi Debnath](https://ecomwatch.com/leaders-interviews/she-started-making-jewellery-with-cotton-rope-now-her-designs-are-stocked-by-the-barbican/), the founder of **Handmade By Tinni**, a colourful jewellery and accessories brand built around cotton rope, knotting, and bold design.\n\nPaulomi started the brand in 2020, and her pieces are now stocked by independent boutiques and museum shops across the UK, including the **Barbican**.\n\nPaulomi learned that some of the best wholesale opportunities do not happen immediately. A buyer might meet the brand at a trade show, think about it, come back later, and place an order months after the first conversation.\n\nIf you want wholesale, your product needs to be good, but your follow-up, consistency, and patience matter just as much.\n\nRead the full interview here: [https://ecomwatch.com/leaders-interviews/she-started-making-jewellery-with-cotton-rope-now-her-designs-are-stocked-by-the-barbican/](https://ecomwatch.com/leaders-interviews/she-started-making-jewellery-with-cotton-rope-now-her-designs-are-stocked-by-the-barbican/)\n\n# Tool of the Week\n\n[](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!vOek!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F754601a4-a246-4739-904e-efbee67aa804_1890x906.png)\n\n# SurveyMonkey’s ChatGPT Plugin\n\nThis week’s tool is **SurveyMonkey’s ChatGPT plugin**.\n\nIt is useful because brands spend a lot of time guessing what customers want, when they could just ask them.\n\nSurveyMonkey launched a ChatGPT plugin that lets users create and edit surveys, publish them, access existing surveys, and analyze survey responses inside ChatGPT.\n\nThe problem is not always a lack of feedback, but rather that the feedback is spread across too many tools and is hard to use.\n\nSurveyMonkey plugin can make that easier. A team can create a post-purchase survey, edit the questions, publish it, and later ask ChatGPT to summarize the responses.\n\nIt can also help teams understand open-ended answers faster.\n\nGenerally, written feedback is messy. Customers do not all explain problems the same way. Some write one sentence. Some write a full story. Most teams collect that feedback and then barely use it.\n\nThis kind of tool can make customer feedback easier to read and act on.\n\n**Warning: a bad survey is still a bad survey.**\n\nIf you ask bad questions, survey the wrong people, or only get a few weak responses, AI will not magically fix that.\n\n[Read the full story on ecomwatch.com](https://ecomwatch.com/news/this-new-plugin-lets-brands-build-surveys-capture-feedback-and-surface-insights-right-in-chatgpt/)\n\nYou can check out Survey Monkey [here](https://www.surveymonkey.com/).\n\n# Winning SKU of the Week\n\n[](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!uGcG!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fff7a1551-b5a4-46fc-9a5d-b64290bfe160_1562x612.png)\n\n\n\n# Barrel Leg Pants\n\nThis week’s product trend is **barrel leg pants** which is kind of perfect for the back-to-school season.\n\nBarrel leg pants have a **wide, curved shape** and taper near the ankle. They are more relaxed than straight-leg pants and more interesting than basic wide-leg pants.\n\nIt also fits what many shoppers want right now.\n\nThey want comfort, but they still want to look put together. Barrel leg pants sit between casual and styled. They can work for campus outfits, workwear, ","offTopic":true},{"id":"c76e4b5d-5187-4600-8461-543d9223c2a2","excerpt":"I made $3,976 on Adobe Stock in my first year. Here's what actually happened. — I have been uploading to Adobe Stock for about a year. Made $3,976.56 from 7,135 downloads. Currently sitting around position 19,000 out of all contributors. Not quitting my day job but it's real money that keeps growing. Wanted to share wh","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/MakeMoneyHacks/comments/1rq5g1d/i_made_3976_on_adobe_stock_in_my_first_year_heres/","role":"request","weight":1.1600584,"occurredAt":"2026-03-10T18:42:45.000Z","sourceKey":"reddit","sourceName":"Reddit","credibility":0.62,"venue":"MakeMoneyHacks","intent":"problem_report","painScore":0.39341816,"sentiment":0.033333335,"confidence":0.8325271,"matchedPatterns":["waste_of_time","manual_process"],"statement":"I spent months doing this manually and it was genuinely the #1 reason I almost quit.","title":"I made $3,976 on Adobe Stock in my first year. Here's what actually happened.","body":"I have been uploading to Adobe Stock for about a year. Made $3,976.56 from 7,135 downloads. Currently sitting around position 19,000 out of all contributors. Not quitting my day job but it's real money that keeps growing. Wanted to share what I've learned because I went in pretty blind and could've saved myself a lot of pain.\n\n \n\n**How I ended up doing this**\n\nI kept seeing people in this sub talk about stock photography as passive income and honestly thought it sounded too good to be true. Upload images, people download them, you get paid forever? Sure.\n\nBut I tried it anyway. Uploaded like 20 images and waited. Two weeks of nothing. Then my first download came in - $0.33. I remember just staring at it like... okay. This is going to be slow.\n\nFirst month was something like $12 total. But here's the thing that got me - that $12 kept coming back. Same images, next month, another few bucks. Month after that, same thing. I wasn't doing anything. They just sat there and earned.\n\nSo I kept uploading.\n\n \n\n**The money (real numbers)**\n\nI'll just lay it out because I know that's what everyone wants to see.\n\nMonths 1-3 were rough. Like $30-100/month rough. You start questioning everything. Are my images bad? Is this market dead? Am I wasting my time?\n\nIt's not dead. It's just painfully slow to ramp up. Stock platforms are basically search engines - your images need time to get indexed and build up views. Around month 4-5, things started compounding. Old stuff kept earning while new uploads added on top. Second half of the year I was hitting $400-550/month.\n\nQuick math: $3,976 across 7,135 downloads works out to about $0.56 per download on average. Some of my best images pull $2-5/month each. Others sit at zero for months and then randomly get 10 downloads in a week. I genuinely do not understand Adobe's algorithm sometimes.\n\nThe passive income thing is real but it's backloaded. You front-load a ton of work and see almost nothing for months. Then the snowball starts rolling. If you need money next month, this ain't it.\n\n \n\n**What I got wrong early on**\n\nMy biggest mistake was uploading what I thought looked good instead of researching what people actually buy.\n\nStock photography isn't art. It's a product. The people buying this stuff are marketing teams and bloggers who need a specific image for a specific thing. Nobody needs another pretty sunset - there's literally millions of those.\n\nBut \"diverse team having a casual meeting in modern office with space for text on the right\"? That sells. Because some marketing manager at a SaaS company needs exactly that for their Q3 campaign deck.\n\nBiggest thing that changed my results: I started checking Google Trends and industry news before creating anything. What topics are blowing up right now? Then I'd check Adobe Stock - does supply exist for this topic? If demand is high and supply is low, that's where the money is.\n\nSounds obvious in hindsight but I wasted months uploading things nobody was searching for.\n\nAlso niches beat volume. 100 focused images in 2-3 topics will destroy 500 random images spread across everything. And seasonal stuff needs to go up a month early minimum - if you're uploading Christmas content in December you already missed the window.\n\n \n\n**The part nobody warns you about: metadata**\n\nOkay so here's the thing. Creating the images? That's maybe 40% of the work. The other 60% is metadata. And it is absolutely soul-crushing.\n\nEvery single image needs:\n\n* a descriptive title (not creative - literal)\n* content type flags, model releases if applicable\n\nFor one image that's fine. Now do it for 50.\n\nManual keywording takes me 3-5 minutes per image when I'm being careful. A batch of 50? That's 3+ hours of just... sitting there... trying to think of keyword #27 for yet another image when you ran out of ideas at keyword 15.\n\nIt's the worst part of this entire business and it's not even close.\n\nAnd here's the painful part - if your keywords suck, your image is invisible. Doesn't matter how good it is. Buyers search by keywords. If you tagged your \"woman working from home on laptop\" as \"person, computer, indoor\" you're buried under 2 million results and nobody will ever find it.\n\nBut if you used \"remote work, home office, freelancer, work-life balance\" - now you're showing up where buyers actually look.\n\nThe keyword sweet spot thing drives me insane though. Too generic = competing with everyone. Too niche = nobody searches for it. Finding the right balance for every single image across 30+ keywords... I still don't think I'm great at it honestly.\n\nAnd if you upload to multiple platforms? Adobe wants 15-49 keywords. Shutterstock wants up to 50 with totally different categories. iStock has their own managed vocabulary. Every platform has different rules, different interfaces, different quirks. Same image, different metadata for each one.\n\nI spent months doing this manually and it was genuinely the #1 reason I almost quit. Not the money (that was growing). Not creating images (I liked that part). But sitting down on a Sunday to keyword 40 images made me want to throw my laptop across the room. I'd procrastinate it for days.\n\n \n\n**What changed things for me**\n\nI eventually started being systematic about it. Studied what keywords the top performers in my niches were using. Built a process: check what's ranking, find the common keywords, use that as my base layer.\n\nThat alone made a noticeable difference - more searches, more downloads.\n\nBut the actual data entry was still killing me. Tried some existing tools - most of them generate keywords okay but none of them actually fill out the upload forms for you. You still end up copy-pasting into 6 different platform UIs with different field layouts.\n\nI ended up building a Chrome extension that analyzes the image and auto-fills title, keywords, and category directly in the upload page. Different rules per platform. What used to take 3-5 minutes per image takes about 5 seconds now. Can drop a link if anyone's interested - it's been the single biggest time saver in my workflow.\n\n \n\n**Things I'd tell someone starting out**\n\nPick 2-3 niches and go deep. At least 100 images. Don't upload 10 random photos and wonder why nothing happens.\n\nResearch before you create. Spend an hour on Google Trends. Find what people are talking about. Check if stock platforms are already flooded with it. Create for the gaps.\n\nTake metadata seriously from day one. I know you just want to create and upload. But keywording is literally your SEO. Bad keywords = invisible portfolio.\n\nDon't expect real money for 3-6 months. The first months are an investment. If you bail at month 2 because you made $30, you're leaving right before the curve starts bending up.\n\nTrack everything. Views, downloads, revenue per download. I check mine weekly. You can't fix what you don't measure.\n\nMaster one platform first. I started on Adobe Stock and that's still where most of my revenue comes from. Trying to juggle 5 platforms from day one will burn you out, especially with the metadata differences.\n\nAnd your old images keep working. Stuff I uploaded 10 months ago still earns every month. That's the real compound effect.\n\n \n\n**Since people always ask**\n\n\"How long until first sale?\" - 2 weeks for me. It was $0.33. Set expectations accordingly.\n\n\"How many images do I need?\" - depends on your niches and your metadata quality honestly. I've seen people do $500/month with 300 well-keyworded images in the right niches. Others have 5,000+ images making less because they're scattered with garbage metadata.\n\n\"Worth starting in 2026?\" - yeah but it's more competitive than a few years ago. Which makes niche research and good metadata even more important. The people who treat it like a business still do fine. The people who treat it like a hobby and upload random stuff... not so much.\n\n\"What's your monthly now?\" - best months have been around $500-550. Still growing as the portfolio gets bigger. Trying to hit $1k/month consistent by end of next year.\n\n \n\nIf you're already doing this I'd genuinely love to know what niches are working for you. Always looking for new angles. And if you have any questions about the process I'm happy to get specific - I've made pretty much every mistake you can make at this point so might as well be useful.","offTopic":true},{"id":"04a15456-8f2a-4def-898f-118275f259f5","excerpt":"Here the SaaS model that's working for us to get to $300 days without — Over the past 12 months, I've been testing a new SaaS growth model that removes 90% of the challenges with launching and scaling a SaaS.\n\nWe're using lifetime deals to scale little SaaS products to $300-$500 a day in as little as 45 days.\n\nIt's a r","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/SaaS/comments/1ock5wp/here_the_saas_model_thats_working_for_us_to_get/","role":"demand","weight":1.1567283,"occurredAt":"2025-10-21T18:03:54.000Z","sourceKey":"reddit","sourceName":"Reddit","credibility":0.62,"venue":"SaaS","intent":"alternative_search","painScore":0.32311356,"sentiment":0.59183675,"confidence":0.8742472,"matchedPatterns":["doesnt_work","better_than","too_expensive","paying_monthly","praise"],"statement":"That's the beauty of high-demand products + lifetime deals for casual customers (folks who won't use the app every day) but want something better than free or overpriced alternatives.","title":"Here the SaaS model that's working for us to get to $300 days without","body":"Over the past 12 months, I've been testing a new SaaS growth model that removes 90% of the challenges with launching and scaling a SaaS.\n\nWe're using lifetime deals to scale little SaaS products to $300-$500 a day in as little as 45 days.\n\nIt's a refreshing change from the typical SaaS model: convince someone to sign up for a trial, convince them to pay monthly, convince them to stay.\n\nIt goes against most of the rules you hear about growing SaaS companies, but it could be life-changing for the right founder.\n\nHere’s as much of the process as I can fit into a FB post:\n\n**Step 1 - Why This Works**\n\nPeople are tired of paying monthly for every little thing.\n\nNeed to build a form? $25/month. Run an affiliate program? $99/month or higher. Automate things with Zapier? Another $49/month.\n\nThere *are* tools you should pay monthly for—core business apps like HubSpot, your email service, or hosting. Things you need running all the time that deliver consistent value.\n\nBut there are hundreds of little jobs people need to do regularly that they don't know how to do or don't want to do.\n\nThere's a massive market of \"casual users\" who don't need to send 100 proposals a month. Maybe one or two. So paying $49/month for DocuSign doesn't make sense.\n\nThis has created a new market: the Burned Out From Subscriptions Casual User.\n\nOr BOFSCU as I lovingly call them.\n\nThis is where you come in:\n\n**Step 2 - Build Where There's Already Demand**\n\nBuilding something totally new and innovative is fun!\n\nAs developers, that's where our mind goes: Let me solve this problem in a way that's never been done before!\n\nBut if it's too new, you have to educate the market on why they need it. \n\nAnd you do NOT want to have to spend the next 18 months educating the market on why they need your new widgety-woo.\n\nIt's hard to sell something people don't know they need.\n\nAnd I don’t like hard. \n\nSo skip to something everybody already knows they need.\n\nPick a boring idea in a red ocean with tons of competition—where everybody knows they need it.\n\nExamples: form builder, affiliate management tool, logo maker, community hosting platform, course building app.\n\nPeople already know they need these tools. \n\nYou don't need to sell them on why they need it. \n\nJust show them why yours is the best fit.\n\nThere’s plenty of innovation to be had in EXISTING tools that people already want to buy.\n\nThat's way easier than selling a totally new idea.\n\n**Step 3 - Give Them Something Better for Cheaper**\n\nHow hard would it be to sell a Mercedes-Benz S-Class 2025 for $1,000 on Facebook Marketplace?\n\nWould you need great copy? A perfect landing page? Professional photos?\n\nWould you need to be an expert sales and marketing guy? \n\nProlly not! Your DMs would explode with people begging to buy.\n\nThat's the beauty of high-demand products + lifetime deals for casual customers (folks who won't use the app every day) but want something better than free or overpriced alternatives.\n\nAnd the messaging is simple, almost too simple: \n\n\"Why pay $49/month for Typeform when you can pay $27 one-time and get 1,000 submissions/month?\"\n\nEasy offer. Natural enemy (monthly payments). People love it and it's super shareable. \n\nSoftware has massive perceived value - way more than books, courses, or coaching—because it actually **does the job.** \n\nWe create a lifetime version and leave the original homepage up. \n\nPeople see \"It's $29/month\" but \"I'm getting it for $47 one-time,\" so they feel like they’ve found a “special deal!” \n\nPeople love when they find something secret. \n\nThen we run ads to the LTD landing page. \n\nThe ads basically say: \"Why pay X when you can pay X one-time and get all this?\"\n\nOur goal: break even on front-end ad spend. Spend $100, make at least $80 back.\n\nThis lets us reach new customers and pay for ads from the initial product. We call these self-liquidating or break-even ads.\n\nWith a great offer, you don't need expert copywriting or marketing. Tell people what you have and let them buy it.\n\n**Step 4 - The Real Money Is on the Back End**\n\nWe do NOT make any money on the LTD - we use the LTD to **acquire customers at cost** using Meta ads (they're just easier to setup and because our market is so big, they're on FB and Insta).\n\nSo we attract casual users but also pro-users—folks who want more than what's included in the lifetime deal.\n\nExample: we offer 1,000 submissions for lifetime, but 20-30% will want more. Additional features, more submissions, webhooks, integrations, custom domains, advanced AI.\n\nThen we give them 3 more opportunities to buy more:\n\n1. **Order bump** \\- \"Add this to your order?\" Usually something simple like “Add your own custom domain” or “upgrade to 2,000 submissions a month”. \n\n2. **Upsell** \\- pro features (Unlimited submissions, Webhooks, API access, Team member access, etc)\n\n3. **Downsell** \\- The Upsell, just broken down into a few payments - breaking a bigger purchase into smaller payments is one the easiest ways to increase sales. \n\nWe price they yearly plan at $150-$300/year. Still cheap compared to competitors ($300/year = $25/month). But it makes you profitable on ads from day one.\n\n10 buyers buy the lifetime deal. 20-30% (2-3 people) buy the upsell.\n\nUpsell at $200 = $400-$600 profit from 10 buyers.\n\nWe're not chasing MRR, we're optimizing average order value. The more we can get people to pay during the sales process (average order value) the higher our ROAS is. \n\nSo we test pricing until we find the combination that maximizes AOV.\n\nThen we focus on ads—what works, scale it. What doesn't, kill it.\n\nYou can see examples of ads and get a list of validated SaaS ideas [here](https://krall.co/no-bs-saas).\n\n**A Few Notes**\n\nThis doesn't work for every SaaS. If you have high infra costs, your market is small or shrinking, or if it's a super complex product like Hubspot, the LTD model won't be profitable. \n\nBut for products that don't rely on third parties and have low infrastructure costs, this model works really well.\n\nSo far we’ve tested this with 10 different apps, all over the board, and each one has been profitable in a few months. \n\nNo SEO, cold emailing, customer interviews, dealing with churn, conversion from trial to paid, traffic to trial, retention - all that stuff the typical SaaS needs to deal with. \n\nThis model isn't for everyone, it goes against what a lot of it taught in the SaaS space (even things that I've taught). \n\nBut it is easier and faster to get traction when you build a product for a market with huge demand with an offer that's easy to say Yes to. \n\nI tried to fit in as much as I can in the post but if you have any questions, I'll answer all of them. ","offTopic":true},{"id":"9d6a4fc6-038e-4b1a-9180-4987dde7627a","excerpt":"How 6 Creators Used Our \"5M Framework\" to Launch Viral YouTube Automation Channels and Earn $2K–$15K/Month Without Showing Their Face — **From Stuck to Scaling: How These Creators Used the 5M Framework™ to Build Viral, Profitable Faceless YouTube Channels**\n\nIf you’ve ever felt like you’re uploading videos into the voi","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/Youtube_Automation/comments/1uslxxk/how_6_creators_used_our_5m_framework_to_launch/","role":"pain","weight":1.1427283,"occurredAt":"2026-07-10T12:14:02.000Z","sourceKey":"reddit","sourceName":"Reddit","credibility":0.62,"venue":"Youtube_Automation","intent":"problem_report","painScore":0.7847619,"sentiment":-0.7619048,"confidence":0.64026934,"matchedPatterns":["frustrating"],"statement":"We’ve worked with creators who were right there—frustrated, overwhelmed, and doubting if YouTube automation could ever work for them.","title":"How 6 Creators Used Our \"5M Framework\" to Launch Viral YouTube Automation Channels and Earn $2K–$15K/Month Without Showing Their Face","body":"**From Stuck to Scaling: How These Creators Used the 5M Framework™ to Build Viral, Profitable Faceless YouTube Channels**\n\nIf you’ve ever felt like you’re uploading videos into the void… trying every “niche hack” and content idea without seeing results… you’re not alone.\n\nWe’ve worked with creators who were right there—frustrated, overwhelmed, and doubting if YouTube automation could ever work for them.\n\nBut when they stopped guessing and followed a proven system, everything changed.\n\nInside [**Faceless Tuber Skool**](https://www.skool.com/facelesstuberskool/about?utm_source=www.facelessyoutubechannelidea.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=how-6-creators-used-our-5m-framework-to-launch-viral-youtube-automation-channels-and-earn-2k-15k-month-without-showing-their-face), we teach the **5M Framework™**—a step-by-step method built specifically for 9-to-5 professionals, solo creators, and AI-first entrepreneurs who want to launch profitable YouTube channels without showing their face or spending thousands on editors.\n\nThis blog post showcases 6 real client stories—from moms and students to ex-poker pros and full-time employees—who went from stuck to scaling using this exact framework.\n\nYou'll see how they used the **5Ms: Mindset, Market, Model, Machine, and Monetize** to turn ideas into income… and finally build the time and financial freedom they were chasing.\n\nThese aren’t overnight wins. They’re real people with real results.  \nAnd if they can do it, so can you.\n\nLet’s dive in.\n\n# How Jeremy Turned Failure Into a Faceless YouTube Breakthrough\n\n# From Frustration to $9.5K in 60 Days with youtube automation.\n\nAfter a year of struggling with a failed YouTube channel, Jeremy, a 31-year-old social worker from Switzerland, was ready to give up. He’d invested thousands, burned countless hours, and still only made $50 in a month. “I was disappointed and frustrated. I had put so much effort into this, and it felt like I was getting nowhere,” he recalled. Juggling a tiring job and a dream of more freedom, Jeremy knew he couldn’t keep going the way he was.\n\nThat’s when he found a better path—structured coaching and a clear roadmap. Instead of jumping between freelancers and guessing what might work, Jeremy followed a proven system. He focused on one niche, built a consistent SOP, and leaned on personalized mentorship to course-correct. With only 8–10 videos published on his new channel, Jeremy hit monetization in under 30 days. “The biggest shift was clarity. I finally knew what to do—and how to do it right,” he said. His content began to take off, and he quickly went from fearing failure to tracking viral growth.\n\nJust one month after monetization, Jeremy earned **$4,500**, with some days hitting **$200–$300** in passive ad revenue. “I’m stunned,” he shared. “It feels incredible to see real results after failing for so long.” While he’s still working his 9–5, he now sees a future filled with options: scaling channels, traveling more, and maybe even leaving his job.\n\n**This is what happens when you stop guessing and start building—with the right system and support behind you.**\n\n# How Stephanie Turned Persistence into Profit\n\n# From Quiet Frustration to $8K in 6 Weeks with her faceless youtube AI channel\n\nStephanie, a full-time software developer and mother from Zimbabwe, had been searching for a side income stream that didn’t require late nights, big capital, or constant client chasing. After trying two faceless YouTube channels that went nowhere—despite weeks of effort—she began to question if this dream was realistic. “I thought maybe I just wasn't cut out for this,” she said. But instead of quitting, she doubled down and started a third channel—this time, with the support of coaching and a clear plan.\n\nUsing AI tools to simplify her workflow, Stephanie learned how to pick better niches, structure her content strategy, and model what was *actually* working. Weekly calls and Slack access gave her the guidance she lacked before—turning confusion into clarity. “The difference was night and day,” she said. “I finally had someone looking at *my* channel and telling me exactly what to focus on.” Just weeks after starting this new channel, one of her videos went viral—earning **$6,000 from a single upload**. In her first month of monetization, Stephanie pulled in over **$8,000**, with her newer videos continuing to earn $60–$200 each.\n\nNow, she’s planning to reinvest her profits to scale, outsource video production, and potentially start more channels. “You don’t need to get it perfect,” she said. “Just start. Keep testing, keep learning. If you don’t give up, it will happen.”\n\n**This is what’s possible when you stay consistent, trust the process, and finally stop doing it alone.**\n\n# How Maykol Reclaimed His Freedom with YouTube Automation\n\n# From Poker Losses to $7K/Month in 90 Days— Youtube automation AI channel.\n\nFor years, Maykol chased freedom. As a professional poker player in Brazil, he experienced both high wins and crushing losses—but over time, the unpredictability wore him down. “I was working hard but losing purpose,” he shared. After failed attempts at drop shipping and other side hustles, he found himself exhausted, discouraged, and craving a more stable, meaningful path. That’s when he discovered faceless YouTube automation—and something clicked.\n\nHe started by binge-watching free content on the Faceless Tuber School YouTube channel, learning how to use AI tools to script, voice, edit, and upload videos without hiring a team. After joining the community and getting structured mentorship, he finally launched a channel with purpose. “I studied for months before starting. I treated it like training for a triathlon—consistent, disciplined, and with a clear goal.” In just under 90 days, Maykol’s channel exploded—reaching **$7,000/month in revenue** with only **$200/month in AI expenses**, resulting in nearly **99% profit margins**. His highest-performing video alone brought in over **$3,000** in ad revenue.\n\nNow Maykol is planning to leave his job, automate his channel, and scale to multiple streams—while finally pursuing his dream of traveling the world in a motorhome with his wife. “This business gave me back my purpose,” he said. “I’ve tried everything—trading, ecom, poker—but nothing gave me the leverage and freedom YouTube did.” His advice to others? *“Don’t just do this for the money. Do it with purpose. If I can start from zero and make this work, anyone can.”*\n\n**This is what’s possible when you treat YouTube like a real business, backed by a proven system and a strong why.**\n\n# Lisa went From Jobless Mother to $3K/Month with youtube automation\n\n# Full-Time Freedom in 90 Days creating her own faceless youtube channel.\n\nJust a year ago, Lisa was a new mom trying to figure out how to balance her time, her income, and her growing desire for something more than a 9-to-5 grind. After leaving her job to raise her child, she was caught in a familiar dilemma: wanting to contribute financially without sacrificing precious time with her baby. “I didn’t want to go back to working 40 hours for minimal pay,” Lisa shared. “I wanted to be there for my child and still earn—on my terms.”\n\nThat’s when she discovered the 5M Framework. She started with the group program, then upgraded to 1-on-1 coaching for the structure, accountability, and momentum she needed. Under guidance, she followed the system step-by-step—learning to script, produce, and publish faceless videos using AI tools and monetization-first strategies. “With the coaching, I finally knew what to focus on. It saved me time, stress, and helped me avoid mistakes,” she said. Working during naptimes and evenings, Lisa built a channel that not only aligned with her lifestyle but started producing real results.\n\nIn just three months, Lisa scaled from $200/month to over **$3,000/month in passive YouTube income**—more than what she earned working full-time. “It feels kind of illegal,” she laughed. “I work fewer hours, spend more time with my child, and still make more than I did at my old job.” Now, she’s reinvesting her earnings to build a team and scale further. Her advice to others? *“Just try it. If it doesn’t work, you can stop—but if it does, it might just change your life.”*\n\n**This is what’s possible when you stop waiting and start building—with a proven system and the right support.**\n\n# How One Faceless Video Changed Everything for Michael\n\n# From Stuck and Discouraged to $15K/Month in 90 Days with youtube automation.\n\nFor months, Michael poured everything into his faceless YouTube channel—writing his own scripts, editing videos late into the night with iMovie, and second-guessing if any of it would ever pay off. “It felt like I was going nowhere,” he admitted. “Most videos barely got a few hundred views. I came close to quitting so many times.” After seven long months and over 40 uploads, he finally got monetized. His channel sat quietly… until one overlooked video from months earlier suddenly exploded.\n\nMichael had followed the training step-by-step—studying top-performing videos, improving transitions, and layering in sound effects. But what made the difference was staying in the game and refining his content based on real audience feedback. When his video unexpectedly took off, it racked up over **1 million views in its first month**, generating more than **$3,000** in revenue right out of the gate. That momentum didn’t stop. Within three months, Michael's faceless channel hit **$15,000/month**, with subscribers pouring in and a clear signal from YouTube’s algorithm: keep going.\n\nNow, Michael’s building two new channels and outsourcing content creation to scale even faster. He credits his success to perseverance, feedback from the coaching community, and the mindset to push through frustration. “You never know which video will change everything,” he said. “I made that one months ago and barely remembered it—but it changed my life.”\n\n**This is what’s possible when you stay consistent, follow a proven system, and keep going—especially when it feels like nothing’s working.**\n\n# Sanjeet’s Leap into YouTube Automation Freedom\n\n# From Job Uncertainty to $2K/Month With AI\n\nWhen Sanjeet completed his MBA in India, he faced a future many in his shoes accept without question: a traditional 9-to-5 job earning around $500 a month. But for Sanjeet, that wasn’t enough. “I wasn’t interested in doing any job,” he said. “I wanted something of my own.” While his peers pursued corporate placements, Sanjeet took a leap into something unconventional—faceless YouTube automation.\n\nWith no prior editing experience, no team, and a student budget, Sanjeet joined our program and committed fully. Using only AI tools like ChatGPT, Jasper, [Play.ht](https://play.ht/?utm_source=www.facelessyoutubechannelidea.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=how-6-creators-used-our-5m-framework-to-launch-viral-youtube-automation-channels-and-earn-2k-15k-month-without-showing-their-face), and Pictory, he taught himself to research, script, narrate, and produce daily videos. His total investment? Less than $100/month. His daily routine became lean and focused: two hours a day creating videos, consistently publishing and improving. What set him apart was relentless consistency—and an active presence in our coaching community. “I always check in, share my progress, and learn from others. That really keeps me accountable,” he shared.\n\nIn just a few short months, Sanjeet’s faceless channel crossed **$2,000/month in AdSense revenue**, outperforming the average Indian MBA salary by **4x**—with nearly 99% profit margins. “I feel great. I work less than my peers and earn more. There’s no limit to this,” he said. He’s now reinvesting profits, preparing to scale to multiple channels with the help of virtual assistants. His next milestone? Hitting $10,000/month and gaining true location freedom. “This was my only option... I went all in, and it paid off.”\n\nThis is what’s ","offTopic":true},{"id":"7892bd75-e49a-4b61-bb6d-8bead3fcbd48","excerpt":"Been stuck at 5 clients for 6 months? Here's the 3-step lead generation system I used to consistently book 10+ new discovery calls per week 💡 — You know the drill. You're trying to scale your business, and every other YouTube ad is promising \"passive income\" or \"10x growth in 30 days\" if you just buy their course. It's","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/GrowMyBusinessNow/comments/1s7eieb/been_stuck_at_5_clients_for_6_months_heres_the/","role":"pain","weight":1.1412063,"occurredAt":"2026-03-30T02:34:14.000Z","sourceKey":"reddit","sourceName":"Reddit","credibility":0.62,"venue":"GrowMyBusinessNow","intent":"problem_report","painScore":0.6981818,"sentiment":-0.54545456,"confidence":0.67201656,"matchedPatterns":["frustrating"],"statement":"It's frustrating when you're in the trenches, trying to make payroll and actually deliver value, not just sell dreams.","title":"Been stuck at 5 clients for 6 months? Here's the 3-step lead generation system I used to consistently book 10+ new discovery calls per week 💡","body":"You know the drill. You're trying to scale your business, and every other YouTube ad is promising \"passive income\" or \"10x growth in 30 days\" if you just buy their course. It's frustrating when you're in the trenches, trying to make payroll and actually deliver value, not just sell dreams.\n\nI'm not selling anything here, just sharing what actually moved the needle for my B2B service business when we were stuck. We went from a pretty solid **$9,000/month** as a generalist web/SEO agency to consistently hitting **$28,000-$32,000/month** in predictable revenue within about an 18-month push. It wasn't magic; it was focused, often messy, work.\n\nHere’s the breakdown of what actually worked for us during our scaling phase:\n\n*   **Aggressive Niche Down & Own It:**\n    *   **The Problem:** We were trying to serve \"any small business that needed a website or SEO.\" This meant our marketing was diluted, our proposals were generic, and our expertise felt shallow.\n    *   **The Pivot:** We decided to focus *exclusively* on **SEO for local service businesses** (think plumbers, electricians, HVAC companies). This wasn't a casual decision; we cut off leads from other industries, which felt terrifying initially.\n    *   **Impact:** Our message became razor-sharp. We could speak directly to their pain points, showcase highly relevant case studies, and our sales conversations became infinitely easier because they immediately saw us as *the* experts for *their* specific problems.\n\n*   **Double Down on One (Maybe Two) Acquisition Channels:**\n    *   **The Fluff:** Early on, we were dabbling in Facebook ads, cold email, blogging, local meetups—a little bit of everything, getting mediocre results everywhere.\n    *   **The Focus:** We chose to master **LinkedIn outreach (personalized 1:1 messages, not spam bots)** and **hyper-local content marketing (blog posts targeting specific service areas + Google Business Profile optimization).**\n    *   **Investment:** We spent roughly **3-4 hours/day** (initially myself, then delegated to a part-time VA for initial prospecting) on LinkedIn. For content, we committed to **2 new high-quality articles per week** for our own site + client sites, costing us about **$300-$500/month** for a freelance writer/editor to assist.\n    *   **Result:** LinkedIn consistently brought in 3-5 qualified discovery calls per week, and our local content strategy saw our own site ranking for competitive terms, attracting organic leads.\n\n*   **Systematize the Client Journey (and then some):**\n    *   **Before:** Every client onboarding felt like reinventing the wheel. Proposals were custom-built from scratch, and project management was ad-hoc.\n    *   **After:** We built out a robust system:\n        *   **Discovery Call Script:** A clear framework for qualifying leads and understanding their needs.\n        *   **Proposal Template:** Customizable sections, but 80% pre-written for our niche. This cut proposal creation time from hours to ~30 minutes.\n        *   **Onboarding Checklist:** Step-by-step for new clients (access requests, intro call agenda, first deliverables).\n        *   **Project Management Tool:** Moved everything to ClickUp (cost: ~$20/month per user) to track tasks, deadlines, and client communication.\n    *   **Cost/Resources:** Primarily my time to build these systems, plus about **$50/month** for CRM (Pipedrive) and PM software (ClickUp). Later, we invested in hiring a **part-time project manager (initially 15 hrs/week at $25/hr)** to manage client communication and ensure deliverables were met, freeing up my time significantly.\n\n**Real Talk:** This wasn't a straight line up. We fired clients that didn't fit our new niche, which felt financially risky at the time. We wasted money on a few Facebook ad campaigns that went nowhere before we pulled the plug. There were weeks of 60-70 hour grind, especially when developing the systems. Learning to *delegate effectively* was a huge, painful learning curve, leading to some missed deadlines and re-work initially. But sticking with the focus and building out the systems is what made the growth sustainable, allowing us to eventually hire a couple of part-time contractors to help deliver.\n\nIf you're building a real business and tired of fluff advice, follow r/GrowMyBusinessNow—we share what actually works for small business growth, no BS.","offTopic":true},{"id":"a8928f85-7a82-4ce5-b21e-7c151b2e9bf1","excerpt":"One sale in two months. What I got wrong launching into a category that already sells everything. — *Disclosure first: I make a DIY lash product. I'm not linking it, and this post should be useful even if you never find out what it's called.*\n\nThe first time someone opened my lash kit, she went quiet for about four sec","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/smallbusiness/comments/1vtwvud/one_sale_in_two_months_what_i_got_wrong_launching/","role":"pain","weight":1.1387184,"occurredAt":"2026-08-20T21:38:19.000Z","sourceKey":"reddit","sourceName":"Reddit","credibility":0.62,"venue":"smallbusiness","intent":"feature_request","painScore":0.655,"sentiment":-1,"confidence":0.68804735,"matchedPatterns":["how_can_i","still_cannot"],"statement":"* No tracking codes on any of it, so I still can't tell you whether collabs worked.","title":"One sale in two months. What I got wrong launching into a category that already sells everything.","body":"*Disclosure first: I make a DIY lash product. I'm not linking it, and this post should be useful even if you never find out what it's called.*\n\nThe first time someone opened my lash kit, she went quiet for about four seconds and then said, “Oh—they're *numbered*.”\n\nThat reaction is probably the most useful piece of market research I've gotten so far. I didn't ask a question. I didn't explain the product. She just immediately understood the part I thought mattered.\n\nEverything else in month one, I got wrong.\n\n* One sale in two months, and I had convinced myself the launch itself was the marketing.\n* Ten gifted kits sent out. One post, and only after I followed up. Four more eventually landed.\n* No tracking codes on any of it, so I still can't tell you whether collabs worked. Unknown is not the same as zero, but it may as well be.\n* My Instagram business verification broke because two LLC entities didn't match. Three weeks gone to a paperwork mismatch.\n* Static product graphics got 2–5% engagement. Anything with hands in the frame got roughly twenty times that. I made the graphics first.\n\nThe thing I'd actually pass on: saturated markets aren't necessarily saturated with solutions. They're saturated with products.\n\nMy category has hundreds of near-identical lash trays. What I kept noticing wasn't a shortage of lashes. It was a shortage of guidance.\n\nEverybody sells the lashes. Very few people tell a beginner what goes where.\n\nI spent too much time asking, “How do I make a better product in this category?”\n\nWhat became more useful was asking, “What is the customer still confused about?”\n\nFor me, the answer was surprisingly basic: which style, which length, which order, where do I start?\n\nThat's changed how I'm thinking about the business now. Instead of treating customer confusion as a support problem, I'm starting to treat it as product research. If multiple people get stuck on the same thing, that's probably telling me what I need to build, explain, or change next.\n\nI'm obviously still very early—one sale doesn't validate anything.\n\n**For anyone who's launched into an already crowded category: what did you initially think was your differentiator, and what did customers actually respond to?**\n\n","offTopic":true},{"id":"d2aa66e9-d67c-4e6f-93ba-b365afe30388","excerpt":"I Spent 340 Hours Reverse-Engineering Dollar Shave Club's $4,500 Ad That Made $12M (Here Are The 9 Principles Nobody Talks About) — So here's something that kept me up at night for literally four months:\n\nDollar Shave Club's launch ad cost $4,500 to make. Not $45K. Not $450K. Four thousand five hundred dollars.\n\nThat a","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/FacebookAds/comments/1pn533c/i_spent_340_hours_reverseengineering_dollar_shave/","role":"pain","weight":1.1231259,"occurredAt":"2025-12-15T11:28:50.000Z","sourceKey":"reddit","sourceName":"Reddit","credibility":0.62,"venue":"FacebookAds","intent":"feature_request","painScore":0.4975,"sentiment":-0.34375,"confidence":0.7500006,"matchedPatterns":["paying_monthly","missing_feature"],"statement":"**The 9 Principles That Actually Matter (And Why Your Ads Are Missing Them)** **Principle #1: The \"Disqualification Hook\" (0-3 seconds)** Here's what blew my mind: Dollar Shave Club opens with \"Hi, I'm Mike, and I'm the founder of DollarSh…","title":"I Spent 340 Hours Reverse-Engineering Dollar Shave Club's $4,500 Ad That Made $12M (Here Are The 9 Principles Nobody Talks About)","body":"So here's something that kept me up at night for literally four months:\n\nDollar Shave Club's launch ad cost $4,500 to make. Not $45K. Not $450K. Four thousand five hundred dollars.\n\nThat ad generated 12,000 orders in the first 48 hours and eventually helped sell the company for $1 billion to Unilever.\n\nMeanwhile, I'm over here watching Shopify store owners spend $15K on a \"professional\" ad that gets 47 likes and 2 sales (one from their mom).\n\nSomething wasn't adding up.\n\n**The Part That Actually Made Me Obsessed**\n\nI've analyzed 2,847 ecommerce ads over the past 18 months. \n\nBut Dollar Shave Club's ad kept bothering me because everyone talks about it being \"funny\" and \"viral\" but nobody explains WHY it worked from a conversion standpoint.\n\nSo I did what any reasonable person would do: I watched it 127 times. Frame by frame. With a spreadsheet.\n\nThen I found 49 other \"legendary\" ads (Purple Mattress, Squatty Potty, Poo-Pourri, etc.) and did the same thing.\n\nWhat I found wasn't \"make it funny\" or \"be authentic.\" That's surface-level garbage advice.\n\n**The 9 Principles That Actually Matter (And Why Your Ads Are Missing Them)**\n\n**Principle #1: The \"Disqualification Hook\" (0-3 seconds)**\n\nHere's what blew my mind: Dollar Shave Club opens with \"Hi, I'm Mike, and I'm the founder of DollarShaveClub.com.\"\n\nBoring, right? WRONG.\n\nIn my frame-by-frame analysis, I found that 47 out of 50 viral ecommerce ads use what I call a \"disqualification hook\" in the first 3 seconds. It's not about grabbing attention - it's about FILTERING it.\n\nMike doesn't say \"Tired of expensive razors?\" or \"Want to save money?\" He literally just states who he is and what he does. The genius part? He's filtering for people who are *actually in the market* for razors.\n\nI tested this against \"attention-grabbing\" hooks in 23 different ad variants for a supplement company. The disqualification hooks had 34% lower CTR but 312% higher purchase rate. Why? Because they filtered out tire-kickers.\n\n**The mistake everyone makes:** They optimize for clicks, not for buyers. Your hook should repel as many people as it attracts.\n\n**Principle #2: The \"Credibility Slip\" (3-7 seconds)**\n\nAt the 4-second mark, Mike casually mentions \"our blades are f\\*\\*\\*ing great.\"\n\nThis isn't just shock value. Watch carefully - he's wearing a polo shirt, standing in a warehouse, looking completely normal... then drops an F-bomb while maintaining eye contact.\n\nI call this the \"credibility slip\" - it's an intentional pattern break that signals \"this person isn't reading a script.\"\n\nHere's the data that shocked me: I analyzed 156 ads with profanity vs. without. The profanity ads had 23% worse brand recall but 67% higher \"trust scores\" in follow-up surveys.\n\nWhy? Because scripted ads prime you for skepticism. The credibility slip breaks that pattern.\n\n**The mistake everyone makes:** They try to be \"professional\" in the first 10 seconds when they should be establishing \"this is a real human, not a corporate robot.\"\n\nI tested this with a DTC furniture brand. Their original ad: \"Welcome to \\[Brand\\], where we make quality furniture affordable.\" Conversion rate: 1.8%.\n\nNew version with credibility slip: \"I'm \\[Name\\], I started this company because IKEA furniture is absolute garbage and I was sick of it.\" Conversion rate: 4.3%.\n\n**Principle #3: The \"Value Anchor Reversal\" (8-15 seconds)**\n\nThis is where it gets really interesting.\n\nMost ads follow this structure: Problem → Solution → Price Dollar Shave Club does: Solution → Price → Problem\n\nWatch the timing: Mike mentions the $1/month price at the 9-second mark, BEFORE he's even fully explained what you get.\n\nI tracked eye movement data on 89 test subjects watching various ad structures. When price comes before full value explanation, cognitive processing spikes by 340%. Your brain literally can't compute \"$1\" for razors, so it stays engaged to resolve the confusion.\n\nBut here's the trap I fell into: I tried this with a $197 course. It failed spectacularly. Conversion rate dropped 62%.\n\nAfter testing 47 different price points across 12 industries, I found the pattern: This only works when the price is SO LOW that it creates genuine disbelief.\n\n**The threshold:** If your price is more than 15% of what people expect to pay, this principle backfires. You need to be at 10% or less of expected price for the value anchor reversal to work.\n\n**Principle #4: The \"Absurdity Escalation Curve\" (15-30 seconds)**\n\nHere's where everyone gets it wrong.\n\nThey watch DSC and think \"okay, I need to be random and funny.\" So they add a bear riding a unicycle or whatever.\n\nBut track the absurdity level frame-by-frame, and you'll see it follows a perfect mathematical curve.\n\nAt 15 seconds: Mild absurdity (guy in bear suit) At 20 seconds: Medium absurdity (machete cutting through products) At 25 seconds: High absurdity (baby shaving Mike's head)\n\nI mapped this escalation pattern across all 50 viral ads. 44 of them follow the same curve - absurdity increases by roughly 30% every 5 seconds, but never doubles in one jump.\n\nWhy does this matter? I tested \"random absurdity\" vs. \"escalating absurdity\" across 34 ad variations.\n\nRandom absurdity: 12% completion rate Escalating absurdity: 47% completion rate\n\nYour brain needs the absurdity to build gradually. Jump too fast and people think \"this is trying too hard.\" Go too slow and they get bored.\n\n**The formula I extracted:** Start at 20% absurd (slightly unusual but believable), increase by 25-35% every 5 seconds, cap at 80% absurd (still loosely connected to your product).\n\n**Principle #5: The \"Benefit Burial\" (30-45 seconds)**\n\nThis one broke my brain.\n\nIn the entire Dollar Shave Club ad, Mike mentions actual razor benefits for maybe 8 seconds total. The rest is entertainment.\n\nBut here's what I discovered analyzing 2,100+ ad comments: People don't remember the benefits. They remember the FEELINGS associated with the benefits.\n\nI did a brutal test: I created two ads for a coffee brand.\n\nAd A: 45 seconds of benefit-focused content (taste, quality, sourcing) Ad B: 15 seconds of benefits, 30 seconds of absurd entertainment\n\nThen I surveyed viewers 24 hours later: \"What do you remember about the product?\"\n\nAd A: 12% could recall any specific benefit Ad B: 8% could recall any specific benefit\n\nBut here's the twist: Ad B had 3.2x higher purchase intent.\n\nWhy? Because humans buy on emotion, then justify with logic. If you lead with logic, you're fighting uphill. If you lead with emotion, the brain SEARCHES for logical justification.\n\n**The mistake everyone makes:** They think more benefit communication = more sales. Actually, benefit overload triggers analysis paralysis.\n\nThe optimal ratio I found across 89 tested ads: 30% benefits, 70% entertainment/emotion. Any more benefits and you're just creating objections your brain needs to process.\n\n**Principle #6: The \"Objection Pre-Handle\" (45-60 seconds)**\n\nAt the 48-second mark, Mike says: \"And the best part is, the prices are so low, I don't even need a freaking business degree to understand them.\"\n\nThis isn't a joke. It's a pre-handle for the objection: \"This seems too cheap to be good quality.\"\n\nI found this pattern in 41 out of 50 viral ads: They address the BIGGEST objection in a way that seems like entertainment, not defense.\n\nHere's the framework I reverse-engineered:\n\n1. Identify your prospect's #1 objection (not what YOU think it is, what your customer surveys say it is)\n2. Embed the answer in a moment of apparent absurdity\n3. Never directly acknowledge you're handling an objection\n\nI tested this with a skincare brand. Their main objection: \"Natural products don't work as well as chemical ones.\"\n\nOriginal ad: Spent 15 seconds explaining their clinical studies New ad: Had the founder dramatically throw a chemical product in the trash while saying \"Yeah, we could put a bunch of unpronounceable garbage in here, but we're not sociopaths\"\n\nThe second ad didn't provide MORE evidence, but conversion rate went from 2.1% to 5.8%.\n\n**Why this works:** Your brain doesn't want to be SOLD to. But it's perfectly happy to have its concerns casually dismissed in a way that makes you laugh.\n\n**Principle #7: The \"Commitment Micro-Step\" (60-75 seconds)**\n\nWatch what happens at 1:04: Mike says \"Stop forgetting to buy your blades every month.\"\n\nThis is a micro-commitment trigger disguised as benefit language.\n\nHere's what I found analyzing 1,847 completed purchases: The average customer makes 7-11 micro-commitments in their head before buying. But if you ASK for the macro-commitment (clicking \"buy now\") too early, conversion rate tanks.\n\nI tracked scroll depth, time on page, and micro-interactions for 340,000 site visitors across 23 stores. The visitors who converted had 8.7 micro-commitments on average. The ones who bounced? 2.1.\n\n**The micro-commitments that matter:**\n\n* Nodding along to a problem statement\n* Imagining using the product\n* Mentally calculating value\n* Dismissing an objection\n* Comparing to current solution\n* Visualizing the outcome\n* Acknowledging the price is fair\n\nDSC gets 6 of these 7 in 75 seconds. Most ads get maybe 2.\n\n**The mistake everyone makes:** They front-load benefits, then just expect people to buy. You need to build a micro-commitment ladder where each step feels effortless.\n\n\n\n**Principle #8: The \"Risk Reversal Pivot\" (75-85 seconds)**\n\nAt 1:18, Mike pivots: \"Do you like spending $20 a month on brand name razors? 19 go to Roger Federer!\"\n\nThis is NOT about price comparison. It's about externalizing risk.\n\nI tested this across 67 different ads. When you frame the competition as the \"risky\" choice instead of defending YOUR choice, conversion rates increase by an average of 47%.\n\nHere's why: Your brain is loss-averse. It's not motivated by gains as much as it's motivated by avoiding losses.\n\n\"Buy my product and save money\" = weak motivator \"Keep buying their product and keep losing money\" = strong motivator\n\nI ran this test with a meal kit company:\n\nVersion A: \"Save $40/week on groceries\" Version B: \"Stop throwing away $2,000/year on groceries you never eat\"\n\nVersion B had 2.3x higher conversion even though it's the SAME VALUE PROPOSITION.\n\n**The formula:** Don't position your product as the gain. Position the status quo as the loss. Then your product becomes the \"safe\" choice, not the \"risky\" new thing.\n\n\n\n**Principle #9: The \"Social Proof Breadcrumb\" (85-90 seconds)**\n\nAt the very end, Mike says \"dollarshaveclub.com\" while the entire warehouse full of people are staring at the camera.\n\nThis isn't a production flourish. It's deliberate social proof.\n\nHere's what most people miss: The ad never CLAIMS to be popular. It just SHOWS a bunch of people who apparently work there, implying scale.\n\nI tested explicit social proof (\"Join 50,000+ customers\") vs. implicit social proof (showing multiple people using/making the product) across 156 ads.\n\nExplicit social proof: +23% conversion Implicit social proof: +61% conversion\n\nWhy the huge difference? Because your brain trusts what it observes more than what it's told.\n\n**The mistake everyone makes:** They put testimonial quotes or customer counts on screen. That triggers skepticism (\"Is that real? Did they pay those people?\").\n\nInstead, show evidence of scale or social acceptance WITHOUT claiming it. Let the viewer's brain make the connection.\n\n\n\n**The Part Where I Almost Gave Up (And Then Didn't)**\n\nHere's the thing that drove me insane for weeks:\n\nI had all nine principles documented. I had tested them individually. But when I tried to replicate the full formula, ads would fail 7 out of 10 times.\n\nThen I discovered the missing piece: **Sequencing tolerances.**\n\nThese nine principles have to fire in THIS order, within specific time windows. If Principle #3 (Value Anchor Reversal) happens before Principle #2 (Credibility Slip), the whole thing collapses.\n\nI built a 23-page timing matrix showing the acceptable time ranges for each principle. Too early and you lose people. Too lat","offTopic":true},{"id":"5a340b43-42b5-4d3b-8ac4-350b9030e975","excerpt":"A post that can answer the damn question \"How to start dropshipping in 202X?\" — I bet if you're into dropshipping, you're already tired of this question popping up every single year: \"How to start Dropshipping in 202X\".\n\nI am tired of it too, so I decided to make a post (or 2) to help everyone, from newbies to those wh","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/dropshipping/comments/1ucot00/a_post_that_can_answer_the_damn_question_how_to/","role":"request","weight":1.1226206,"occurredAt":"2026-06-22T16:06:41.000Z","sourceKey":"reddit","sourceName":"Reddit","credibility":0.62,"venue":"dropshipping","intent":"problem_report","painScore":0.375,"sentiment":0.42857143,"confidence":0.8164514,"matchedPatterns":["workaround","manual_process"],"statement":"Popular options are Zopi or AutoDS, but before you go for them, keep in mind that these things can be done manually or with workarounds (if your order volume is still low): You can sell your product first and summarize customer orders at t…","title":"A post that can answer the damn question \"How to start dropshipping in 202X?\"","body":"I bet if you're into dropshipping, you're already tired of this question popping up every single year: \"How to start Dropshipping in 202X\".\n\nI am tired of it too, so I decided to make a post (or 2) to help everyone, from newbies to those who've been struggling, get a basic idea about this cursed corner of the e-com industry. Let's get into it.\n\nLet's say if a person wants to start dropshipping, the very first thing they need to do is answer this unavoidable question: \"What product should I sell?\" Merchants better spend serious time thinking thoroughly and have a clear answer for themselves before taking any further steps. If they fail to answer this question, the whole workflow after this is bullshit, no matter what else they do right.\n\nChoosing the right product to sell defines 50% of the success of a dropshipper - keep that statement till you die.\n\nWhat will happen if you choose the wrong product?\n\n* You don't know that the demand for that product is either gone or too new (people aren't sure if they need it or not) -> You end up spending $1000 a day running ads without a single conversion.\n* Product is too competitive, meaning you can't set a high price for it (to ensure enough margins) -> You'll end up trying to cut losses instead of growing your profit.\n* Product can only be sold during a specific season and once it passes, there's barely any demand -> You entered at the wrong time and you're half dead. \\*If you have time, try searching the terms \"red ocean product\" and \"blue ocean product\" to get an idea of whether your product niche belongs to a red or blue ocean market. It will significantly affect your pricing and go-to-market strategies.\n\nThat's why researching a product is crucial. Tools to help you do that:\n\n* Google Trends: Try entering a broad keyword that can describe the product, and see if the trendline is going up, down, stable, or fluctuating. Best if it's going up over time. Also, with some topics, you'll see spikes during specific times -> this means that product niche is season-sensitive.\n* AliExpress, Alibaba, and other marketplaces: A good place for verifying product availability, pricing, and shipping options -> all of these things have a great impact later once your store is set up and you start operating. \\*You should always request a sample of the product if you plan to sell it. If you can touch it and use it, you'll know better what will drive people to buy it.\n\nAfter you know what product can get you a profit, find a supplier that provides it. Alibaba is the most popular option assuming you want to choose a supplier from China. To clear things up, Alibaba connects sellers with suppliers. They have suppliers from all around the world, even the US or EU, but much fewer compared to China (apparently).\n\n* Suppliers from China come with cheaper product costs (meaning you can make more profit or save margin for other purposes, like running ads), but they have a longer guaranteed shipping time (which can affect your product conversion. People are more reluctant to buy if they see a longer shipping time).\n* Another pro of choosing suppliers from China is that their service is much better. I did connect with around 20 different suppliers there and they usually reply incredibly fast (and I mean it), info is quite transparent (you gotta know what questions to ask first), and they have better support if you plan to go white-label.\n* Suppliers from the US come with better shipping times, but higher product costs. I am not so familiar with US-based suppliers, so this is what I'm confident about.\n\nOnce you're done with the \"product\" question, the next one is \"What platform to set up my store on?\"\n\n* The most popular answer, without a doubt, is still Shopify. They're #1, with minimum spend at first for your testing purposes, and still fully scalable once you have a revenue stream. Their ecosystem with partners & the app marketplace is unparalleled.\n\nNow comes the part: \"How to build a store?\"\n\nYou'll need a page builder app to set up key pages for your store like the homepage and product page, a basic (or premium) theme to make your store look professional and attractive enough, and a Dropship app to help you connect products from the supplier to your store (for order & shipping management later on). If you choose to sell a single product, building the store's landing page will be much quicker and simpler. If you plan to sell multiple different products, there will be more pages to build (homepage, category pages, etc.). Building more pages won't cost you much time, but optimizing them will. So if you start small, consider a single-product store layout. You can always adjust this later.\n\nAs for choosing a theme, it pretty much depends on your preferences and initial budget. If you're not sure, go for free themes first; they have basic customization but it's enough to make good-looking store and product pages.\n\nYou'll also need a domain. Buying a domain isn't a difficult thing; you can get them directly from Shopify (fast, without complicated DNS config) or my recommendation, Cloudflare Registrar. What you need to care more about is how to name the domain properly, not who the provider is. It's better if your domain name meets some (or all) of these criteria:\n\n* Meaningful and relatable: I'm not saying that coming up with a fancy brand name from the beginning is a bad thing. But if you start bootstrapped as a solo dropshipper, a fancy name can hinder the growth it's supposed to have. Because in the beginning, a fancy name means nothing to the customers. They can see it, read it, but if it doesn't relate to anything or is hard to understand -> you're creating an unnecessary challenge for your customer (and yet some folks even make it more challenging by playing around with the name to make it look impressive).\n* Start with an action verb, like TRYXXX, or GETYYY: This works best if your store is a single-product store and fully dropshipped. The psychology behind this naming method is that it passively creates a sense of urgency, urging the audience to take action later on, when they're browsing your store or considering a purchase.\n* The domain extension matters, too: Some domain extensions like .org, .net, .info... are not appropriate for e-com websites. Go for .com, .shop, or .store.\n\nNext, choosing the dropshipping platforms/apps.\n\nThe main goal of having these apps is to automate 2 parts of your workflow: (1) sync product info (name, description, images) and inventory (supplier prices, stock) from the supplier's platform to your Shopify store, and (2) sync order information (after customers make a purchase) from your Shopify store back to the supplier. Popular options are Zopi or AutoDS, but before you go for them, keep in mind that these things can be done manually or with workarounds (if your order volume is still low):\n\nYou can sell your product first and summarize customer orders at the end of the day to send to suppliers (you can literally send a CSV file via the suppliers' chat interface on Alibaba, and they'll send you back the shipping details -> you forward those to your customers).\n\nSome platforms like Dropcommerce have direct integration with Alibaba (if the supplier is in Dropcommerce's database) -> full automation for a cheaper price.\n\nThink really carefully before paying for AutoDS or any expensive platform to help you with automation in the first place. AutoDS literally pays YouTubers to talk about their app, so much of your subscription will end up as budget for them to pay those YouTubers. Not a good Value/Price option IMO.\n\nOnce you're done with the basic setup and your store is running smoothly, there's a big part called \"Conversion Rate Optimization\" (CRO). This is the end of the store optimization part, and after this, you'll have to learn how to spend on ads effectively to drive quality traffic to your store, as well as other scaling tactics (I'll save that for the next post). This part is all about making your store or product page look as legit as it can so customers trust your site more and spend their money quicker. These include minor optimizations in the following areas:\n\n* Reviews: This is a big part. Customers won't buy unless they see high ratings/lots of reviews for that product. But you just published your store - where do reviews come from? The most chosen way is to have an app to sync reviews from supplier marketplaces like AliExpress (or other sources you can get, but it must be about the exact product you're selling, or at least a close one) to your store. Apps like Judge.me (the app every merchant knows about) or AliReviews (the old king before Judge.me).\n* UGC: Actual customer hands-on videos of your product can greatly boost your conversion. Established brands pay creators or use affiliate offers to get organic UGC content. If you're just starting, AI-UGC is worth taking a look. Otherwise, you can hire people on Reddit or social media to make a video for you. Cost is $50 - $100 per video (depending on location, but this is the average benchmark I can tell), plus the sample.\n* LLC: This is 2026, not 2020, so customers no longer get hyped by just good product copy or reviews. They also look for subtle information that actually matters, and business registration information is part of it.\n* Badges: These are well-designed icons or banners to highlight key benefits (mostly about operations, not the product) that customers can get when choosing your brand, like: 30-day money-back guarantee, guaranteed shipping, or secure payment gateways. You can design a badge easily and adjust the page layout to include it, or use an app to quickly create ones.\n* Free gift or BOGO (Buy One Get One): It comes with a cost and can shrink your margins, I know. But it's also a very popular strategy. Most people use apps for this (there are lots of apps for this category, you can research for yourself).\n* Other minor content to boost trust: There's a lot, like creating urgency (e.g., \"Only XX left\", \"Limited offer\"), or things that boost trust organically depending on the product niche you're in (example: if you're selling massage devices and partnering with therapist creators, you can add text like \"Backed by XXX+ therapists\").\n\nIt's quite long enough already so I think this is the end of it (part 1 - set up & optimize). after this part comes the scaling part where you need to learn a lot about set up, manage & scaling ads across channel by yourself, as long as manage and streamline your store operation. Will do another post for that part if any of you find this content useful.\n\nTL;DR: This is a A-Z basic guide for anyone wishing to start a dropshipping store. The guide features key steps you'll have to go through to find product, get a store and optimize it, filled with my personal advices that comes from experiences. I also published it along with other hand-picked apps, should-watch youtube videos and organic communities (skool, discords servers where you won't have to see every single member spamming fake shopify rev dashboard and lure you into 1-1 strategy call) on my personal site at [onehub.page](http://onehub.page) . Take a look if you can.","offTopic":true},{"id":"5721b305-af45-44a3-9169-fcd9a72c9cda","excerpt":"I'm the former President of Zendrop. Here's some insider tips + AMA — I recently resigned as President of Zendrop after a successful run growing both revenue and the team 10x over 3 years.\n\nIt was an amicable departure and the team is still like family to me.\n\nAfter a successful run, I simply decided to take the win an","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/dropshipping/comments/1qc5bx7/im_the_former_president_of_zendrop_heres_some/","role":"pricing","weight":1.1124667,"occurredAt":"2026-01-13T22:19:45.000Z","sourceKey":"reddit","sourceName":"Reddit","credibility":0.62,"venue":"dropshipping","intent":"pricing_complaint","painScore":0.48,"sentiment":0.88235295,"confidence":0.75166667,"matchedPatterns":["too_expensive"],"statement":"* The reality is many people rent cars they can't afford to try to market it as credibility in hopes that it will pay for itself.","title":"I'm the former President of Zendrop. Here's some insider tips + AMA","body":"I recently resigned as President of Zendrop after a successful run growing both revenue and the team 10x over 3 years.\n\nIt was an amicable departure and the team is still like family to me.\n\nAfter a successful run, I simply decided to take the win and pursue an opportunity to build a new platform to solve some serious problems I've seen with the make money online space.\n\nBecause of my operating, analyst, and investment banking background + lots of exposure to dropshippers, creators, partners, and competitors, I gathered some insider info that could be useful to people in the space which I'll share with you all here.\n\n# For beginners\n\n* **Test more products.**\n   * This sounds pretty obvious, but for whatever reason, people still don't do it.\n   * We can see the data on how many products people linked to their store vs how many sales they made.\n   * The reason 90%+ of dropshippers never make a sale is because 90%+ of dropshippers only connect 0 - 1 products to their Shopify store before quitting.\n   * If you experiment with 0 products, your chances of making a sale are 0. If you experiment with 1 product, your chances of making a sale are still basically 0.\n   * The probability curve for chances of making a sale jump exponentially for every additional product you test up to about 10, then they rapidly increase until about 25, then increase modestly until about 50. After 50 products the probability of making a sale still trends upward until you reach 100. For the few people who have linked 100 products, almost all of them have made a sale.\n* **You can get very high-quality courses for free.**\n   * This might also sound obvious given how readily available information is, but let me explain a little more.\n   * Psychology makes people believe that things that cost more are more valuable. With courses, in the past, at times, that may have been true. But affiliate marketing compensation has changed the landscape.\n   * Before, people who made the best education would charge for their course that they put their heart and soul into. Rightfully so.\n   * Today, by incorporating signing up for various tools into the course, creators can make MORE money by getting EVERYONE in and having them all sign up for these tools than they could by getting fewer people to pay to join a course.\n   * Because of this, the largest creators would work hard to make their best courses ever, then give them away for free.\n* **AI store builders are great resources, but alone, they won't make you rich.**\n   * These AI store builders are tools, not money printers.\n   * Setting up a Shopify store for the first time can be very confusing and take a lot of time. These AI builders do a great job of getting you set up and ready to rock.\n   * However, you will still need to need to test many ads, swap out products, make changes and so forth.\n* **You're going to start hearing Wix name a lot more.**\n   * They're making a big push with massive affiliate commissions to try to take some market share from Shopify.\n   * They are paying larger fees and paying faster than Shopify to make their affiliate program very appealing.\n   * Because of this, more creators will be talking about them and incorporating them into their courses.\n   * Frankly, I am not familiar enough with Wix to know if it's better or worse than Shopify, but I'd be very surprised if they have even a fraction of the resources for beginners in tools and education that Shopify does in their ecosystem, so just be aware of that.\n* **Some creators are, unfortunately, scammers. But others are truly fantastic.**\n   * I'm going to restrain myself from naming names, but I can tell you a few patterns to look out for. *(Note, that some good creators use these tactics as well, so they're simply red flags. If someone does one of these things it doesn't mean 100% they're a bad actor. Just something to look out for.)*\n   * **They flex their lifestyle, but not their knowledge.**\n      * If they post a Lamborghini, then say the secret to you having one too is just behind a paywall, then they’re probably selling a dream, not a way to reach it.\n      * Good coaches give all the value away for free, then charge to help you actually do it.\n      * Lifestyle sells a lot because it's what everyone wants, so the good and the bad will lean into this. The red flags come when they ONLY lean into it and it's super materialistic.\n      * Look out for leased and rented super cars. A local company here in Miami called Carrio has great deals on low-mile leases that many creators take advantage of. They basically get a good deal to access a super car for low cost and then use it as a marketing tool to build credibility.\n      * The reality is many people rent cars they can't afford to try to market it as credibility in hopes that it will pay for itself.\n   * **They show you their sales, but not their expenses.**\n      * They'll say “check it out, I made $50 thousand dollars”, but they won't show you that they spent $60 thousand dollars on ads to get it.\n      * Showing you revenue without profit is just a marketing tactic.\n      * They can lose money on the business they teach because they actually make their money selling you courses.\n      * One other example is a bunch of creators teamed up on a store and basically had like 15 people working on one store. They'd combine their revenue into one Shopify account and all market it as if they individually were doing super well for very little effort when really you had like 15 people all contributing small amounts of revenue.\n   * **They don’t practice what they preach.**\n      * If this makes so much money, why’d they stop doing it?\n      * Because they're not making money from what they teach. They're making money from teaching it to you.\n   * **Find out what real students actually say.**\n      * People can fake five-star reviews and testimonials but no one fakes one-star reviews and complaints.\n      * Check review sites and forums (like Reddit, X, and Moonlite), and look for patterns in the complaints because that's what they don’t want you to know.\n\n# For larger sellers\n\n* **Chinese suppliers will always try to screw you.**\n   * Yes, I know it's \"your boy\" that you've known for years. Yes, even he will screw you if he has the opportunity.\n   * At Zendrop, we had to be on top of China at all times. Every inch they could take, they would take. Their culture is to do what they can and get away with it. If they get caught though, they're usually pretty good about reconciling to maintain your business. But it is on you to catch them.\n* **Here are some hidden ways Chinese suppliers will screw you:**\n   * **Quoting you for one shipping line, then using another without telling you.**\n      * Shipping is the largest cost for dropshippers. More than product cost. To win deals, Chinese agents will say they're using the best shipping line like Yun Express, then use a much lower quality and cheaper one that has lower delivery rates and longer shipping times.\n      * To be extra sneaky, sometimes they'll ship a percentage on one shipping line then ship every few on another to make it harder to detect.\n   * **Sending you high quality samples, shipping out low quality products.**\n      * They will send you a good sample to want to work with them. But then as you ramp up, they start shipping out lower quality products.\n      * Similar to the shipping line issue, they will sometimes rotate between high quality and low quality to make it harder to detect.\n   * **Switching to cheaper manufacturers without telling you.**\n      * This is related, but after you got quoted and set up a whole operation, the Chinese agents may completely change everything on you without asking.\n      * This could impact quality and greatly disrupt operations.\n   * **Sending out fake tracking codes.**\n      * This problem is actually what led to Zendrop being founded.\n      * Jared, the founder of Zendrop, was doing high volume of sales. One day he started getting hit with complaints that people weren't receiving products.\n      * He checked and they all had tracking codes so he didn't know what the issue was.\n      * Eventually, he realized that his supplier was sending out fake tracking codes and then completely ghosted him.\n      * The took all his revenue and didn't ship anything out.\n      * People were calling him a scammer and he had to issue all these refunds himself out of his own pocket. It was a mess.\n      * That's why he started Zendrop, so he could be the US-based trusted supplier.\n   * **There's actually more, but Brad, the COO of Zendrop and Roman, the Lead Sales Rep are most knowledgable about this stuff.**\n      * You can reach them by reaching out to the Zendrop sales team and I'm sure they'll hop on a call for free to chat if you're actually making sales.\n* **Partner with a US warehouse for returns.**\n   * The shipping cost to send something back to China is so high that it doesn't make sense to process returns oversees.\n   * Partner with a US warehouse to receive returns.\n   * **PRO TIP:** Build up an inventory and use that to start selling on places like TikTok Shop and other platforms that require US tracking codes.\n* **Purchase safety stock as you scale.**\n   * I know, I know, the whole point of dropshipping is to not have to buy inventory.\n   * However, if it takes 20 days to produce a new batch of products and you get sales for 20 days, you'd much rather have 20 days of inventory stocked up while the manufacturer cranks out another batch.\n   * The ROI on safety stock was high for our users.\n   * You'd rather need it and not have it than have it and not need it.\n* **Line up backup factories.**\n   * Similar to safety stock, some factories may just stop producing.\n   * It's good to have backups ready to go at all times when you're at high volume.\n* **Brand as quickly as you can.**\n   * This is where you can build actual equity and trust with an audience.\n   * It's a differentiator that can keep you selling one product for a long time instead of constantly having to find a new winner.\n* **Look for buyers for your brand.**\n   * Dropshipping is fun and all, but it's a very unpredictable and volatile business.\n   * If you can find a buyer, take the W and start something new.\n\nI hope you all found this helpful!\n\n# Happy to take questions: AMA","offTopic":true},{"id":"ad50985b-1cf8-4af5-b77c-f6f9a9efccab","excerpt":"I tracked every \"passive income\" idea I tried over 2 years. Here's what actually made money and what was a complete waste of time. — I'm gonna save some of you months of wasted effort.\n\nBetween 2024 and now I tried basically everything this sub recommends. Dropshipping, print on demand, affiliate blogs, YouTube automat","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/passive_income/comments/1s92wwq/i_tracked_every_passive_income_idea_i_tried_over/","role":"pain","weight":1.0899167,"occurredAt":"2026-03-31T22:54:11.000Z","sourceKey":"reddit","sourceName":"Reddit","credibility":0.62,"venue":"passive_income","intent":"problem_report","painScore":0.45,"sentiment":0.27272728,"confidence":0.75166667,"matchedPatterns":["waste_of_time"],"statement":"Here's what actually made money and what was a complete waste of time..","title":"I tracked every \"passive income\" idea I tried over 2 years. Here's what actually made money and what was a complete waste of time.","body":"I'm gonna save some of you months of wasted effort.\n\nBetween 2024 and now I tried basically everything this sub recommends. Dropshipping, print on demand, affiliate blogs, YouTube automation, crypto staking, selling courses, selling templates, KDP books, Etsy digital products, stock photography, and a few I'm probably forgetting.\n\nI tracked every single one. Hours spent, money in, money out. No rounding up, no \"potential revenue,\" just actual dollars that hit my bank account.\n\nHere's the honest breakdown.\n\n**COMPLETE WASTE OF TIME**\n\n**Dropshipping.** Spent about $2,400 on ads and product testing over 4 months. Made $900 in revenue. Net loss of $1,500 not counting the 200+ hours. The margins are a lie unless you find a winning product fast and most people never do. Every guru showing Shopify dashboards is selling you the course, not the method.\n\n**YouTube automation.** Hired freelancers to make faceless videos. Spent $3,000 on editors and voiceover. Channel got monetized after 8 months. Monthly revenue settled at about $120. Would take 2 years to break even. Cancelled everything.\n\n**Stock photography.** Uploaded 300+ photos to multiple platforms over 6 months. Total earnings after a year: $47. The market is flooded and AI image generators killed whatever was left.\n\n**Affiliate blog.** Wrote 60 articles targeting low competition keywords. Got decent traffic after 6 months. Made $400 total in affiliate commissions over a year. Then a Google update wiped half my traffic overnight. Never recovered.\n\n**BROKE EVEN (not worth the effort)**\n\n**Print on demand.** Made about $2,200 over 8 months on Redbubble and Merch by Amazon. But I spent easily 300 hours on designs, listings, and keyword research. That's roughly $7/hour. Minimum wage is better and you don't have to stare at Canva.\n\n**KDP low content books.** Published 15 journals and planners. Made about $800 over a year. Most of it came from 2 books. The other 13 made almost nothing. The winners were ultra specific. The losers were generic.\n\n**Crypto staking.** Put $5,000 in various staking protocols. Made about $600 in a year in staking rewards. But the tokens I staked dropped 30% in value. Net loss when you factor in the price decline. \"Passive income\" that loses money isn't passive income.\n\n**ACTUALLY WORKED**\n\n**Etsy digital products (specific ones).** This is the only thing that consistently made money relative to the time invested. But here's what nobody tells you: 90% of digital products on Etsy make zero sales. The ones that work are insanely specific.\n\nMy first 8 products were generic. Meal planners, budget trackers, habit journals. Total sales in 3 months: 4 units, about $30.\n\nThen I made a symptom tracker specifically for people with Hashimoto's thyroid disease. Sold 12 units in the first month at $17 each. Made another one for IBS meal planning with FODMAP categories. Sold 8 units first month.\n\nThe difference was not the design, not the price, not the SEO. It was that when someone with Hashimoto's searched Etsy and found a product made specifically for their condition, they bought it immediately because nothing else existed.\n\nI now have 6 products in specific health and parenting niches. Monthly revenue is between $400 and $700 depending on the month. Time spent maintaining: about 2 hours a month updating tags and responding to the occasional message. That's the closest thing to actual passive income I've found.\n\n**WHAT I LEARNED**\n\nThe stuff that works has three things in common.\n\nFirst, low creation time relative to revenue. If it takes 100 hours to make and earns $500 a year, you lost. If it takes 5 hours and earns $200 a year, you won.\n\nSecond, a specific audience that feels underserved. Generic products compete with 50,000 listings. Specific products compete with 3. The math is obvious but most people still make generic stuff because it feels safer.\n\nThird, a platform with built in traffic. Etsy, Amazon, Gumroad. You don't need followers, you don't need ads, you don't need a personal brand. The platform brings the buyers. You just need to be there when they search.\n\nThe biggest lie in the passive income space is that you need to \"scale.\" You don't. Six products making $80 a month each is $480/month for basically zero ongoing work. That's not life changing money but it's real money that shows up every month without you doing anything. And you can build that in a few weekends if you pick the right niches.\n\nStop trying to build the next big thing. Find 5 specific problems that specific people have and make a simple structured product that solves each one. That's it. That's the whole strategy.\n\nWhat's worked for you guys? Curious if anyone else landed on the same conclusion or found something different.\n\n  \n\n\n\n\n\\*Edit: Since many asked in comments and DMs how I find specific niches, I posted my approach in a comment below.","offTopic":true},{"id":"a5ab2022-b635-4923-94bf-3829b5c9f578","excerpt":"You are WRONG about distribution channel for your ecom product (and not only!) — My friend,\n\nCan you answer precisely: Why you picked the distribution channel that you picked?\n\n*Before we're going to jump into details, here is my traditional heads up: this post is going to be really fucking long. And if you are lazy as","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/dropshipping/comments/1smbxxp/you_are_wrong_about_distribution_channel_for_your/","role":"request","weight":1.0509834,"occurredAt":"2026-04-15T16:58:51.000Z","sourceKey":"reddit","sourceName":"Reddit","credibility":0.62,"venue":"dropshipping","intent":"feature_request","painScore":0.28455752,"sentiment":0.3125,"confidence":0.8181677,"matchedPatterns":["wish","urgent"],"statement":"Or maybe my landing is shit?\" Since it was my old friend and I really wish him best, I did what caring brothers do.","title":"You are WRONG about distribution channel for your ecom product (and not only!)","body":"My friend,\n\nCan you answer precisely: Why you picked the distribution channel that you picked?\n\n*Before we're going to jump into details, here is my traditional heads up: this post is going to be really fucking long. And if you are lazy ass, better skip it. Don't expect to extract any knowledge from it just skimming through it. It's gonna be buried in between the lines for a reason. Because learning something new, earning in ecom, achieving something in your life requires focus, dedication and discipline. If you are not disciplined enough to read till the end of one post with proper attention, what reasons do you have to believe you're gonna make it?*\n\n*If you are still here, you're in for a treat, my friend.*\n\nMy old buddy from university dropped by my office today. Haven't seen him in a decade probably. Talked about different stuff. Kids, careers, hobbies. He is a high-tier financial analyst, really smart guy. Free time he spends learning coding — and quite successfully. Recently he's built an amazing accounting management system. I'd have it myself, if I didn't already have ties to old crap we use. However product wasn't shiny, he never sold a single license. Even after putting $2k in ads. Zero.\n\nOf course, as with any product, the hardest part is marketing. No matter, whether it's a SaaS or another kitchen gadget.\n\nYou know why?\n\nBecause it requires fucking thinking. You cannot expect to get results from throwing money randomly at Meta and praying somebody buys.\n\nBro, I fucking love marketing because it punishes the laziness. Those who allow themselves to relax are destined to fuck their money up and leave the market with nothing in the pocket.\n\nHe told me – \"look, I really don't get it. You told yourself – the tool is amazing! But why nobody buys it? I already threw like $2k on Meta and got ZERO subscriptions. Maybe, the problem is my targeting? Or creative? Or maybe my landing is shit?\"\n\nSince it was my old friend and I really wish him best, I did what caring brothers do. Told him he is retarded, of course. And started asking questions. You might have guessed my very first one by now.\n\n**\"Why they fuck are you running on Meta?\"**, I ask.  \n\"Well, because everybody does... I bought course about Meta Ads a while ago, so I thought it's a good starting point\", he answered.\n\nYou didn't. You didn't think even for a single second, my friend.\n\n\"Okay\", I said, \"where Meta shows its ads?\"\n\nFacebook, Reels, Stories.\n\nWhat users do when they see an ad there?\n\nThey're scrolling. Mindlessly. Half-asleep on the couch watching some idiot dance. ZERO intention to buy anything. ZERO intention to solve any problem. Only quick dopamine. Quick pleasure. Jerking off without touching a dick.\n\nWhy did they open app? They were BORED.\n\nNow think: your tool. Accounting management system. Who needs it?\n\nHe froze for half of minute — which already tells me he didn't think this through in advance.\n\n\"Business owners, CFOs, controllers\".\n\nOkay. In other words, it's people with a specific, painful, EXPENSIVE problem they are already aware of.\n\nYou think that guy is lying on a couch, scrolling Reels, thinking \"man I really wish my accounts receivable workflow was tighter\"?\n\nNo. He's not. And if he sees your ad between two cat videos — he doesn't give a flying fuck! He's not in buying mode. He's in vegetable mode.\n\nMeta is an interrupt channel. You're crashing someone's leisure time and trying to manufacture desire from nothing. That works when desire is easy to manufacture. A cool kitchen gadget. A back massager. Something visual, cheap, emotional.\n\nYour tool costs money, requires onboarding, needs buy-in from multiple people sometimes, and solves a problem that only hurts when you're at work.\n\n\"Oh wow, indeed...\" he said.\n\nYou know where people look for that kind of solution?\n\nGoogle. When the problem is actively on fire and they're typing \"accounting software for small business\", trying to fix it.\n\nThat's intent and that's the channel he needed. $2k on Google Search would've gotten him in front of people who were already looking for THIS solution.\n\nInstead he spent it interrupting people who don't give a shit.\n\nNow, back to ecom, huh? Because I know, for some SaaS metaphor might not be as clear. Let's start with basics. If anybody wants — help your brothers. Maybe draw this as a chart or something and send in comments.\n\nThere are TWO distribution categories. Paid Acquisition and Organic.\n\nPaid is **renting attention**. You pay, you get eyeballs, you stop paying, it stops. Fast results but no compounding.\n\nOrganic is buying attention **with time**. \\[Really\\] slow start, but it stacks — Reddit post, SEO article, referral loop, blog. You write it once, it works.\n\nThe difference is, first one trades money for speed. Second one trades speed for permanence.\n\nSo when you start with yet another product/venture, ask yourself:\n\n***\"Do I want results fast or can I afford this to take*** *\\[a lot of\\]* ***time?\"***\n\nIdeally, in the long run, you want both. But we're talking focus now.\n\nI'll lead with paid acquisition. I'm very impatient person so once I get some idea, I want to implement it asap, test and see if it works. But don't worry, we'll get to organic later.\n\nWith paid acquisition, besides money, you still require a bit of gray matter in the head and a pinch of discipline. Because now comes the decision part:\n\n***\"Does my customer already know they have this problem?\"***\n\nIf the answer is  \n**YES:** they're searching. Meet them there. Your answer is High-intent channel (for instance: Google Search, Google Shopping)  \n**NO:** they don't know yet, or don't think about it actively. You have to interrupt and create desire. Welcome to Impulse Buy territory: Meta, Tiktok, YT Shorts\n\nEverything else — retargeting, influencers, UGC and other bells & whistles — comes after you've answered that one first.\n\nThe price category also matters. For instance, one of my businesses is mobile saunas. One can cost $2k easily.\n\nWhere do you think I'll have lower customer acquisition cost: on Meta or on Google Search?\n\nImagine, you're watching some memes with cats and see ad of mobile sauna for $2k. Are you going to swipe your card right away once you see it? Doubtfully. You need to understand sizes. Choose palette so it fits the aesthetic of your home. Talk to your wife. Whatever.\n\nANYTHING that requires THINKING is BAD for doomscrollers. They are watching stupid tiktoks and dripping saliva, what accounting software? What fucking mobile sauna?\n\nIf it is: high ticket / requires size choice / requires preparation / etc — DO NOT USE IMPULSE-BUY CHANNELS! This way you're setting your ad budget on fire.\n\nThis applies to apparel / clothes as well. You are way better off with high-intent channels and Influencer/UGC, NOT Impulse buy. He/she was sitting relaxing and now you make them choose...\n\nYeah, let's put it in separate qualifiers:\n\n***Does the product require thinking to buy?***  \nHigh ticket, size choice, setup, commitment means get off impulse channels entirely.\n\n***Does the product need to be seen to be wanted? Demo, transformation, visual proof?***  \nThen you want UGC or influencer.\n\nNow, predicting retarded comments like \"but I have clothes store and I still manage to sell it thru Meta ads\", let me answer this right away. Congrats bro, good job, yet the fact you're managing doesn't mean you are extracting at peak performance, getting full value for a dollar paid.\n\nFeel the fucking difference.\n\nImpulse is COLD. Random person, zero context, zero trust. You have 2 seconds. The product has to sell itself instantly or your budget's gone. Marketing genius? Manage to do it? Fine. Now see this:\n\nInfluencer/UGC is warm-ish. Customer already trusts the person showing it. That borrowed trust does the thinking for them. \"She's my size and it looks good on her\" — decision made with no friction.\n\nClear? Perfect.\n\nFor most of you here, these four qualifiers are more than enough. To finish the topic with paid acquisition, I must mention retargeting. In one of my recent posts, I shared WHY it matters so much and why picking and sticking to specific niche compounds hard. If you didn't read it, do yourself a favor. Go [check it out](https://www.reddit.com/r/dropshipping/comments/1s9pys1/your_dropshipping_store_is_going_to_fail_thank/). Or don't. However you want, it's in your best interest, not mine.\n\nRetargeting, wherever you use it, works only if you ALREADY have traffic. It's the cheapest acquisition you'll ever have because the trust is already half-built. Non-negotiable option if your CAC is over $30. You HAVE TO leverage it.\n\nOkay. Organic deserves a whole separate post, this one already took long. From what I see, people really don't understand it either. I mean, organic is even trickier than paid... Just with paid you can sometimes throw more money in the oven and randomly get some output, so later you'll just blame Meta or Zuck for poor performance, while organic will just show you a middle finger have you not understood how to approach it properly. Let me know in comments or dms if you want to hear about organic, maybe I'll write a post about it as well. But I'll post it exclusively in r/RealEcom. So make sure you're there. Or miss out. Your call :)\n\nI'm also so excited about the thing we're [building with community](https://www.reddit.com/user/MindShaped/comments/1skfahh/we_are_at_war/). Something that's going to make all those \"winning products\" bullshit claims sink into oblivion. Something that's gonna create an edge for both veterans and newbies. For now, it's going slower than I thought. Our 4-pack identified critical shortcomings. But that's actually awesome. Knowing what's the issue let's you fix it. Fuck, how valuable this is gonna be. I'll keep you posted.\n\nMy friend, respect. You made it to the end. Today you learned something new — that most people are too lazy to understand. That's your reward. I'm glad. Make sure you read the post on niches and retargeting if you haven't. You'll find it more than entertaining.\n\nAs always, the real tricks are hidden between the lines.\n\nOver and out.\n\n— MindShaped","offTopic":true},{"id":"887ee85f-8b76-4bca-9f45-3cd0a9abc116","excerpt":"You are WRONG about distribution channel for your ecom product (and not only!) — My friend, \n\nCan you answer precisely: Why you picked the distribution channel that you picked? \n\nMy old buddy from university dropped by my office today. Haven't seen him in a decade probably. Talked about different stuff. Kids, careers, ","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/RealEcom/comments/1smbxap/you_are_wrong_about_distribution_channel_for_your/","role":"request","weight":1.0412276,"occurredAt":"2026-04-15T16:58:15.000Z","sourceKey":"reddit","sourceName":"Reddit","credibility":0.62,"venue":"RealEcom","intent":"feature_request","painScore":0.28455752,"sentiment":0.3125,"confidence":0.8105729,"matchedPatterns":["wish","urgent"],"statement":"Or maybe my landing is shit?\" Since it was my old friend and I really wish him best, I did what caring brothers do.","title":"You are WRONG about distribution channel for your ecom product (and not only!)","body":"My friend, \n\nCan you answer precisely: Why you picked the distribution channel that you picked? \n\nMy old buddy from university dropped by my office today. Haven't seen him in a decade probably. Talked about different stuff. Kids, careers, hobbies. He is a high-tier financial analyst, really smart guy. Free time he spends learning coding — and quite successfully. Recently he's built an amazing accounting management system. I'd have it myself, if I didn't already have ties to old crap we use. However product wasn't shiny, he never sold a single license. Even after putting $2k in ads. Zero.\n\nOf course, as with any product, the hardest part is marketing. No matter, whether it's a SaaS or another kitchen gadget.\n\nYou know why?\n\nBecause it requires fucking thinking. You cannot expect to get results from throwing money randomly at Meta and praying somebody buys.\n\nBro, I fucking love marketing because it punishes the laziness. Those who allow themselves to relax are destined to fuck their money up and leave the market with nothing in the pocket.\n\nHe told me – \"look, I really don't get it. You told yourself – the tool is amazing! But why nobody buys it? I already threw like $2k on Meta and got ZERO subscriptions. Maybe, the problem is my targeting? Or creative? Or maybe my landing is shit?\"\n\nSince it was my old friend and I really wish him best, I did what caring brothers do. Told him he is retarded, of course. And started asking questions. You might have guessed my very first one by now.\n\n**\"Why they fuck are you running on Meta?\"**, I ask.  \n\"Well, because everybody does... I bought course about Meta Ads a while ago, so I thought it's a good starting point\", he answered.\n\nYou didn't. You didn't think even for a single second, my friend.\n\n\"Okay\", I said, \"where Meta shows its ads?\"\n\nFacebook, Reels, Stories.\n\nWhat users do when they see an ad there? \n\nThey're scrolling. Mindlessly. Half-asleep on the couch watching some idiot dance. ZERO intention to buy anything. ZERO intention to solve any problem. Only quick dopamine. Quick pleasure. Jerking off without touching a dick.\n\nWhy did they open app? They were BORED.\n\nNow think: your tool. Accounting management system. Who needs it?\n\nHe froze for half of minute — which already tells me he didn't think this through in advance. \n\n\"Business owners, CFOs, controllers\".\n\nOkay. In other words, it's people with a specific, painful, EXPENSIVE problem they are already aware of.\n\nYou think that guy is lying on a couch, scrolling Reels, thinking \"man I really wish my accounts receivable workflow was tighter\"?\n\nNo. He's not. And if he sees your ad between two cat videos — he doesn't give a flying fuck! He's not in buying mode. He's in vegetable mode.\n\nMeta is an interrupt channel. You're crashing someone's leisure time and trying to manufacture desire from nothing. That works when desire is easy to manufacture. A cool kitchen gadget. A back massager. Something visual, cheap, emotional.\n\nYour tool costs money, requires onboarding, needs buy-in from multiple people sometimes, and solves a problem that only hurts when you're at work.\n\n\"Oh wow, indeed...\" he said. \n\nYou know where people look for that kind of solution?\n\nGoogle. When the problem is actively on fire and they're typing \"accounting software for small business\", trying to fix it.\n\nThat's intent and that's the channel he needed. $2k on Google Search would've gotten him in front of people who were already looking for THIS solution.\n\nInstead he spent it interrupting people who don't give a shit.\n\nNow, back to ecom, huh? Because I know, for some SaaS metaphor might not be as clear. Let's start with basics. If anybody wants — help your brothers. Maybe draw this as a chart or something and send in comments.\n\nThere are TWO distribution categories. Paid Acquisition and Organic.\n\nPaid is **renting attention**. You pay, you get eyeballs, you stop paying, it stops. Fast results but no compounding.\n\nOrganic is buying attention **with time**. \\[Really\\] slow start, but it stacks — Reddit post, SEO article, referral loop, blog. You write it once, it works. \n\nThe difference is, first one trades money for speed. Second one trades speed for permanence.\n\nSo when you start with yet another product/venture, ask yourself: \n\n***\"Do I want results fast or can I afford this to take*** *\\[a lot of\\]* ***time?\"***\n\nIdeally, in the long run, you want both. But we're talking focus now. \n\nI'll lead with paid acquisition. I'm very impatient person so once I get some idea, I want to implement it asap, test and see if it works. But don't worry, we'll get to organic later.\n\nWith paid acquisition, besides money, you still require a bit of gray matter in the head and a pinch of discipline. Because now comes the decision part: \n\n***\"Does my customer already know they have this problem?\"***\n\nIf the answer is   \n**YES:** they're searching. Meet them there. Your answer is High-intent channel (for instance: Google Search, Google Shopping)  \n**NO:** they don't know yet, or don't think about it actively. You have to interrupt and create desire. Welcome to Impulse Buy territory: Meta, Tiktok, YT Shorts\n\nEverything else — retargeting, influencers, UGC and other bells & whistles — comes after you've answered that one first.\n\nThe price category also matters. For instance, one of my businesses is mobile saunas. One can cost $2k easily.\n\nWhere do you think I'll have lower customer acquisition cost: on Meta or on Google Search?\n\nImagine, you're watching some memes with cats and see ad of mobile sauna for $2k. Are you going to swipe your card right away once you see it? Doubtfully. You need to understand sizes. Choose palette so it fits the aesthetic of your home. Talk to your wife. Whatever.\n\nANYTHING that requires THINKING is BAD for doomscrollers. They are watching stupid tiktoks and dripping saliva, what accounting software? What fucking mobile sauna?\n\nIf it is: high ticket / requires size choice / requires preparation / etc — DO NOT USE IMPULSE-BUY CHANNELS! This way you're setting your ad budget on fire.\n\nThis applies to apparel / clothes as well. You are way better off with high-intent channels and Influencer/UGC, NOT Impulse buy. He/she was sitting relaxing and now you make them choose...\n\nYeah, let's put it in separate qualifiers:\n\n***Does the product require thinking to buy?***   \nHigh ticket, size choice, setup, commitment means get off impulse channels entirely.\n\n***Does the product need to be seen to be wanted? Demo, transformation, visual proof?***  \nThen you want UGC or influencer. \n\nNow, predicting retarded comments like \"but I have clothes store and I still manage to sell it thru Meta ads\", let me answer this right away. Congrats bro, good job, yet the fact you're managing doesn't mean you are extracting at peak performance, getting full value for a dollar paid.\n\nFeel the fucking difference.\n\nImpulse is COLD. Random person, zero context, zero trust. You have 2 seconds. The product has to sell itself instantly or your budget's gone. Marketing genius? Manage to do it? Fine. Now see this:\n\nInfluencer/UGC is warm-ish. Customer already trusts the person showing it. That borrowed trust does the thinking for them. \"She's my size and it looks good on her\" — decision made with no friction.\n\nClear? Perfect. \n\nFor most of you here, these four qualifiers are more than enough. To finish the topic with paid acquisition, I must mention retargeting. In one of my recent posts, I shared WHY it matters so much and why picking and sticking to specific niche compounds hard. If you didn't read it, do yourself a favor. Go [check it out](https://www.reddit.com/r/dropshipping/comments/1s9pys1/your_dropshipping_store_is_going_to_fail_thank/). Or don't. However you want, it's in your best interest, not mine.\n\nRetargeting, wherever you use it, works only if you ALREADY have traffic. It's the cheapest acquisition you'll ever have because the trust is already half-built. Non-negotiable option if your CAC is over $30. You HAVE TO leverage it. \n\nOkay. Organic deserves a whole separate post, this one already took long. From what I see, people really don't understand it either. I mean, organic is even trickier than paid... Just with paid you can sometimes throw more money in the oven and randomly get some output, so later you'll just blame Meta or Zuck for poor performance, while organic will just show you a middle finger have you not understood how to approach it properly. Let me know in comments or dms if you want to hear about organic, maybe I'll write a post about it as well. But I'll post it exclusively in r/RealEcom. So make sure you're there. Or miss out. Your call :)\n\nI'm also so excited about the thing we're [building with community](https://www.reddit.com/user/MindShaped/comments/1skfahh/we_are_at_war/). Something that's going to make all those \"winning products\" bullshit claims sink into oblivion. Something that's gonna create an edge for both veterans and newbies. For now, it's going slower than I thought. Our 4-pack identified critical shortcomings. But that's actually awesome. Knowing what's the issue let's you fix it. Fuck, how valuable this is gonna be. I'll keep you posted.\n\n  \nMy friend, respect. You made it to the end. Today you learned something new — that most people are too lazy to understand. That's your reward. I'm glad. Make sure you read the post on niches and retargeting if you haven't. You'll find it more than entertaining. \n\nAs always, the real tricks are hidden between the lines.\n\nOver and out.\n\n— MindShaped\n\n","offTopic":true},{"id":"be16d23a-b4aa-4f89-9021-75fb8213e151","excerpt":"As Ever Brand Analysis: Inventory, Virality, and Sales Math. (and why the \"880,000 units sold\" narrative raises questions) — As most of you know, I started Montecito Minimalist in March of 2025, and I'm still learning all about business in real time.\n\nBuilding my shop has made me pay closer attention to how consumer pr","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/SaintMeghanMarkle/comments/1q6qssh/as_ever_brand_analysis_inventory_virality_and/","role":"request","weight":1.0222666,"occurredAt":"2026-01-07T20:33:06.000Z","sourceKey":"reddit","sourceName":"Reddit","credibility":0.62,"venue":"SaintMeghanMarkle","intent":"feature_request","painScore":0.36,"sentiment":0.64705884,"confidence":0.75166667,"matchedPatterns":["missing_feature"],"statement":"The missing CEO question** No experienced CEO attaches their name to: * Unstable inventory bets * No proven sell-through * No organic demand signals Which may explains why no one joined AE.","title":"As Ever Brand Analysis: Inventory, Virality, and Sales Math. (and why the \"880,000 units sold\" narrative raises questions)","body":"As most of you know, I started Montecito Minimalist in March of 2025, and I'm still learning all about business in real time.\n\nBuilding my shop has made me pay closer attention to how consumer products actually behave when they sell at scale. (I'm not an expert by any means, but I have been studying brands, influencers and watching a LOT of Shark Tank on my downtime.)\n\nSo what follows isn't a statement of fact or insider knowledge, just my perspective on what l'd expect to see if a product were truly a breakout hit, based on what l've learned and what we usually see online when something really takes off. (No pun intended 🛫)\n\nThis is a long piece so go get something to drink and settle in...\n\n1. **The products and pricing for this breakdown we'll be focusing on her spread-since jam is a universal, repeat-purchase product and the clearest indicator of real consumer demand. (Unlike novelty flower sprinkles etc)**\n\nAs Ever's core consumables are priced as follows:\n\n* Single jar of orange marmalade: $12\n* Trio of jams: $36\n* Same trio in branded gift box: $42\n\nSo we're talking about a mid-premium pantry product, not a novelty impulse buy and not a luxury heritage brand with chef pedigree. (It's a weird spot to be in.)\n\n\\*For reference the bestselling jam in the US is Bonne Maman Preserves (made in FRANCE) which sells for $5-7 in the U.S.\\*\n\nNow, at that price point, if hundreds of thousands of units had truly sold, the brand behavior around it would look very different. I'll go over pricing and sales in greater detail below.\n\nBut first the basics:\n\n**2. What should have happened if this product was actually viral:**\n\nWhen a food product genuinely catches on at scale, there are predictable signals. We've all seen them before:\n\n*a.) Organic chef validation*\n\nHigh-end or respected chefs love discovering a hit product early. They post it. They cook with it. They tag it. Brands repost them endlessly.\n\nThat hasn't happened.\n\nDespite As Ever being extremely active about reposting anything flattering, there has never been:\n\n* A Michelin-level chef, respected culinary figure or a known restauranteur who has publicly validated the quality of these spreads by using them or speaking about them.\n\n*b) Dupes*\n\nWhen something sells out and people want it, dupes appear immediately.\n\nSomeone always says:\n\n\"I made my own version because it was sold out.\"\n\nThat didn't happen either.\n\n* No TikTok dupes.\n* No \"As Ever style marmalade\" recipes.\n* No Trader Joe's comparisons.\n* No copycat small-batch sellers.\n\n*c) Sustained organic engagement*\n\nReal virality leaks into the ecosystem:\n\n* Recipe creators\n* Home cooks\n* Food bloggers\n* Pinterest boards\n* YouTube taste tests\n\nInstead, engagement stayed tightly controlled, insular, and brand-fed. That's not how breakout food products \\*typically\\* behave.\n\n*d.) The brick-and-mortar gap*\n\nAnother major signal that something hasn't truly gone viral is the complete absence of brick-and-mortar retail expansion.\n\nWhen a shelf-stable food product shows real demand (especially at the volume being implied) retailers come calling quickly. We see this a lot in food pitches on Shark Tank. (\"We're in 50 Whole Foods\" \"We started at 20 Sprouts locations and now we're in the entire Pacific Northwest\" “Walmart did a test run last year and they just placed an order for 1000 stores” etc)\n\nIf As Ever were genuinely moving hundreds of thousands of units, you would expect to see some kind of physical retail presence by now. (Not just Soho and Godmothers) Think Target where expansion can eventually lead to cookware and home goods.\n\nA product at her price point would have also made sense at Williams Sonoma or Pottery Barn... if she was selling 100k units a month any and all of those retailers would have come calling...\n\n**3. The math ain't mathing:**\n\nLet's be generous.\n\nAssume $2-$4 landed cost per unit (manufacturing + packaging at scale).\n\n* If 880,000 units sold at an average $10 profit per unit, that's:\n* $8.8 million in gross profit\n* $12-15 million in revenue, conservatively\n* Puts AE in line for a $100 million dollar buy out.\n\nThat kind of success would unlock the best headline imaginable:\n\n\"Self-made multimillion-dollar founder builds $10M+ consumer brand.\"\n\nThat headline never happened, instead we got... pantyhose anecdotes.\n\n*Let's realistically break down the sales per hour...*\n\n880,000 units ÷ 8 months = 110,000 units per month\n\nWhich means she's selling:\n\n* 110,000 units per month\n* 3,600 units per day\n* 150 units per hour, every hour, nonstop\n* 2.5 units per minute\n\n**4. My theory: inventory gamble, not sales success (My opinion, not stating this as fact)**\n\nHere's what I personally believe happened. (Again, not fact, just a business-based theory.)\n\nI think:\n\n* The first small batch sold out (likely supported or facilitated by Netflix\n* That \"sellout\" created confidence\n* A large bulk inventory purchase followed likely $2-$4 million worth of product\n* The expectation was a 4-5x return, meaning:\n* $20M in sales\n* Positioning for a $100-$200M valuation based on consumer-brand multiple\n\nAnyone who has watched Shark Tank understands this mindset. Founders routinely pitch on:\n\n* 4-5x revenue expectations\n* Future acquisition narratives\n* \"We'll be bought once we prove sales\"\n\n**5. Why Netflix (or Snow Commerce) likely didn't front it all**\n\nEstablished partners don't bankroll:\n\n* Unbuilt brands\n* Unproven demand\n*  Incomplete ecosystem\n\nEspecially when:\n\n* The brand wasn't ready at show launch\n*  It wasn't integrated meaningfully into the program\n* It wasn't even mentioned properly\n\nIf this were planned correctly, the products would have been:\n\n* Woven into every episode\n* Used naturally on-screen\n* Part of a clear consumer funnel\n\nInstead, the execution felt fragmented and rushed.\n\n**6. The \"exact inventory numbers\" issue**\n\nFor those saying:\n\n\"Other brands allow you to add thousands of items into carts\"\n\nYes, but not exact remaining inventory counts.\n\nWhen a site says: \"79,773 left\" That's live inventory visibility.\n\nIf that number were a glitch, there would have been:\n\n* A correction, clarification or denial.\n\nThere wasn't. The “clapback” was about a singular item- her spread. This doesn't explain the other unsold units.\n\n**7. My theory on the season being split in the holiday special**\n\nThe sudden emphasis on:\n\n* A \"season two\" (I think she asked the show to be split into 2 seasons so AsEver would have a better chance of selling once everything was in stock)\n* A Christmas special (I'll be honest with you l didn't watch a second of it and from what I understand it was shot over a year before it aired, so I'm guessing AE products also weren't on that program)\n\n| *think* she was attempting to create multiple sales moments to move a large volume of product that didn't sell initially.\n\n**8. The missing CEO question**\n\nNo experienced CEO attaches their name to:\n\n* Unstable inventory bets\n* No proven sell-through\n* No organic demand signals\n\nWhich may explains why no one joined AE.\n\n**9. Public website data tells its own story**\n\nOne final point that's often overlooked: basic website engagement data is public.\n\nYou don't need insider access to see general traffic behavior, and what that data shows doesn't align with a brand moving hundreds of thousands of units.\n\nThe majority of visits to the As Ever site appear to last one to two minutes at most, which is typical of curiosity clicks, not purchasing behavior.\n\nFor comparison, consumer brands with real conversion volume show longer sessions. Users often return multiple times before buying. (I see this at my shop often)\n\nShort dwell times suggest people are looking, not buying, and certainly not buying at the scale being implied.\n\nAgain, this isn't a moral judgment, it's simply how e-commerce data behaves when sales are real.\n\nFinal thoughts\n\nIf 880,000 units had truly sold:\n\n* The internet would reflect it\n* Chefs would validate it\n* Restaurants and brick and mortar would be carrying said items\n* And the interview with Forbes would be about wealth creation, not pantyhose.\n\nFrom a business-owner perspective, the absence of those signals matters more than any press release.\n\nThat's why I believe this was an ambitious inventory gamble, not a runaway consumer success.\n\nI think I've covered all the bases l'a love to know what you think!","offTopic":true},{"id":"5fcc213e-36f2-41f6-ac5d-89e37164d76b","excerpt":"One customer can be more valuable than 1,000 visitors — A couple of years back one of my products had its best traffic day ever a little over 1.1k visitors in a single evening because somebody with an audience mentioned it in passing and I did what every founder does in that situation which is refresh the analytics tab","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/EntrepreneurRideAlong/comments/1vpyluv/one_customer_can_be_more_valuable_than_1000/","role":"pain","weight":1.0069509,"occurredAt":"2026-08-16T14:33:29.000Z","sourceKey":"reddit","sourceName":"Reddit","credibility":0.62,"venue":"EntrepreneurRideAlong","intent":"problem_report","painScore":0.51,"sentiment":1,"confidence":0.66685486,"matchedPatterns":["terrible"],"statement":"I had spent 6 weeks on the flagship feature, the one the homepage was built around and she ignored it so completely that for a while I assumed my event tracking was broken.","title":"One customer can be more valuable than 1,000 visitors","body":"A couple of years back one of my products had its best traffic day ever a little over 1.1k visitors in a single evening because somebody with an audience mentioned it in passing and I did what every founder does in that situation which is refresh the analytics tab until my thumb was basically on autopilot. Out of that entire spike exactly 1 person paid and that the 1 person turned out to be worth more than the 1100 put together. I don't mean that in the motivational poster way, I mean it in the literal accounting way.\n\nYk that graph refresh feeling. It's mostly flattery. A visit is about the cheapest thing a stranger can give you, one flick of a thumb on the way to somewhere else and we still treat it like it means something. I have written before about a waitlist of 9 people where 4 turned out to be friends being polite and traffic is that same politeness at scale except visitors never have to meet you. A visitor can't disappoint you and that's exactly why the number feels so good and teaches you nothing.\n\nI have spent the last 8 years building products and most of them billed monthly and the recent ones are AI native... So,\n\nInside her first week, that 1 customer did things no visitor had ever done for me. She asked for a proper tax invoice within 2 days which meant learning invoicing like an adult instead of forwarding a payment screenshot. Then she asked where her data was stored so I wrote her an honest answer. That part took longer tbh. The third thing wasn't even a request, she had just started using the product for something I never designed it for and that one made me reread my own landing page the way a stranger would. None of this shows up in analytics and every one of them was a business problem and business problems are about the only evidence i have found that a business exists. A thousand visitors will never make you write a refund policy and you can't exactly schedule a call with a bounce rate.\n\nThat third thing is where the ego damage is. I had spent 6 weeks on the flagship feature, the one the homepage was built around and she ignored it so completely that for a while I assumed my event tracking was broken. Her whole workflow ran through an export button. When I finally asked her about it on a call, she said the flagship thing seemed nice but the export was why she paid. \n\nThen came the part I couldn't have planned. About 5 weeks after she signed up, 4 new customers arrived across 3 days, all chartered accountants, 2 of them from the same small firm and none of them from any channel my analytics could name. I eventually asked one of them how he found me and the answer was a WhatsApp group. Some room full of CAs where she had posted 2 lines about the tool fixing a thing they all hated. That's the part of a good customer nobody prices in, they can walk you into rooms you could never buy your way into because no ad platform sells placement inside a group of colleagues who trust each other. People file this under word of mouth.\n\n Visitors are painless. They don't email at odd hours or ask for refunds and they never use the product wrong in a way that implicates your design. Customers do all of that and all of it is information and I was avoiding it because it might disagree with me. I kept avoiding it right up until the disagreement started paying my invoices. \n\nSo the title exaggerates less than it looks. There is a definition of a lead I've slowly come around to, that someone only counts once they show interest AND can actually be contacted and a visitor clears neither bar. ","offTopic":true},{"id":"12074251-4233-4f0c-b1fa-76f3491521cf","excerpt":"Roast my Shopify ads tool: it bids on profit instead of ROAS. Solo founder, pre-revenue, 1 signed-up user. — \\*\\*The product:\\*\\* Ephermal. It runs Google Search and Meta ads for small Shopify stores. Two things it does that the alternatives don't: it pulls real product costs from Shopify and bids on contribution profi","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/roastmystartup/comments/1vtu74c/roast_my_shopify_ads_tool_it_bids_on_profit/","role":"pricing","weight":1.006587,"occurredAt":"2026-08-20T19:57:17.000Z","sourceKey":"reddit","sourceName":"Reddit","credibility":0.62,"venue":"roastmystartup","intent":"pricing_complaint","painScore":0.74666667,"sentiment":-0.6666667,"confidence":0.57629025,"matchedPatterns":["too_expensive"],"statement":"Site: ephermal.app \\*\\*Who it's for:\\*\\* Shopify owners doing $0-10K/month who can't afford an agency and don't know what a negative keyword list is.","title":"Roast my Shopify ads tool: it bids on profit instead of ROAS. Solo founder, pre-revenue, 1 signed-up user.","body":"\\*\\*The product:\\*\\* Ephermal. It runs Google Search and Meta ads for small Shopify stores. Two things it does that the alternatives don't: it pulls real product costs from Shopify and bids on contribution profit rather than ROAS, and it builds actual Google Search campaigns (keywords, match types, negatives) instead of dumping everything into Performance Max. Site: [ephermal.app](http://ephermal.app)\n\n\\*\\*Who it's for:\\*\\* Shopify owners doing $0-10K/month who can't afford an agency and don't know what a negative keyword list is.\n\n\\*\\*The market:\\*\\* Crowded on the surface. Adstellar, Shoptimised, a dozen \"AI ads\" apps, plus Shopify's own native Autopilot. My claim is that none of them tie spend to margin, but I'm aware that's the kind of thing a founder says right before someone links me three competitors that do.\n\n\\*\\*The traction, honestly:\\*\\* pre-revenue. One signed-up user. I posted a tester call in 10 Facebook Shopify groups and got zero replies. My LinkedIn post got 276 impressions, 3 reactions and 2 comments, one of which was an eBay account manager asking me to WhatsApp him. So the roast writes itself.\n\n\\*\\*What I actually want roasted:\\*\\*\n\n1. Is \"profit instead of ROAS\" a real wedge, or is it a feature that any competitor bolts on in a sprint once it matters?\n2. My ICP might be wrong. $0-10K/month stores may simply not have enough spend for optimisation to do anything. Am I building for people who can't be helped?\n3. I keep reaching service providers (freelancers, agencies) instead of store owners in every channel I try. Is that a targeting failure or a signal that the owners aren't reachable and I should sell to the agencies instead?\n\nGo ahead.","offTopic":false},{"id":"a4e8f0ad-b8f0-4203-ab28-772808446058","excerpt":"Read this before starting to advertise your SaaS on TikTok — You made your SaaS. Now you want to advertise it on TikTok but you never danced in front of a camera. No worries, you don't always have to. But it's hard.\n\nI'm sharing my learnings over my experiments, myths, wins and failures:\n\n# 1. TikTok accounts:\n\n* Use p","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/SaaS/comments/1vfb8li/read_this_before_starting_to_advertise_your_saas/","role":"request","weight":0.96106666,"occurredAt":"2026-08-04T14:02:07.000Z","sourceKey":"reddit","sourceName":"Reddit","credibility":0.62,"venue":"SaaS","intent":"problem_report","painScore":0.36,"sentiment":0,"confidence":0.70666665,"matchedPatterns":["manual_process"],"statement":"* Post daily manually or schedule two (max 3!) posts a day with any scheduler (e.g socialclaw or hootsuite).","title":"Read this before starting to advertise your SaaS on TikTok","body":"You made your SaaS. Now you want to advertise it on TikTok but you never danced in front of a camera. No worries, you don't always have to. But it's hard.\n\nI'm sharing my learnings over my experiments, myths, wins and failures:\n\n# 1. TikTok accounts:\n\n* Use personal/creator account types, not business. If you go with business you can't use most of the popular sounds, just some random commercial boring ones.\n* Do not buy an account unless you plan on using from the same location/VPN. You'll get 0 views very shortly.\n* If you're creating a new account to promote a SaaS, choose a strategy and stick to it, don't experiment with different avatars/templates every 3-4 posts.\n\n# 2. Views & Algorithm\n\n* \"I'm getting 30-200 views, am I shadowbanned?\". **NO**. If you're shadowbanned, you'll get 0 views.\n   * 90% of cases your content is not that great.\n   * \"**But I did it exactly like that video that went viral\".** No you didn't. I have seen plenty of people claiming that and there's many tiny differences that feel unnecessary but subtly make the popular video actually popular. (e.g. millenial pauses, captions not positioned properly, too big/small)\n   * 10% of cases your content is actually great. BUT not every great video will go viral. You may get a 5:1 view to like ratio, which is amazing. But that doesn't guarantee you going viral.\n   * Popular organic tiktok campaigns such as the one Cal AI did, had hundreds of videos basically posting the same thing over and over. Some of them go viral, but they didn't stop posting even when the same format got 1000 views.\n* **\"I got 1,000,000 views but very few conversions\"**\n   * That can be true. The type of format you choose matters in regards to conversion.\n   * From my experience, tutorial type videos do less views BUT get 10x more conversions.\n   * It can be a screenrecording, or a green screen avatar showing how it works in the background, or you can record your screen with your finger guiding where to click.\n   * \\^ Those videos gets you conversions.\n* You may do a funny prank and mention your SaaS mid video, do millions of views but actually get no paid users. Views don't matter as much as the format that gets people interested in your app\n\n# 3. Content Formats\n\n* Don't spam your app in every slide. You MUST actually post helpful content. Eg.:\n   * If your SaaS is an expense tracker for example, don't go about mentioning how many features your app has and how it's better than the other apps. Nobody cares about that.\n   * Present the benefits first e.g.: \"I saved $500 last month and I'm going to get my son a PS5 as a gift with that money. \\*goes to walmart, picks ps5\\*, \\*shows phone in hand\\* \"I had no idea I spent $500 on subscriptions I didn't need which I cancelled last month\\*\n   * Then slide in your app's name/logo whatever. It must make sense to the viewer after they've seen how your app changed someone's routine. People don't have time to imagine how your app will change their habits.\n   * If you're promoting a relationship advice app, share a relationship story as a slideshow with 2-3 rows of text for each slide. Slide in your app somewhere in there. But the content has to be related.\n* If you don't got ideas: COPY successful ads.  Search your competitors on TikTok. What are the top videos doing? Copy them. Not always you have to reinvent the wheel.\n\n# 4. Content\n\n* Don't start with influencers unless you got a massive budget and know what you're doing.\n   * You'll find some deals, pay them some $$$, get like 10,000 views, get dissapointed and quit.\n* If you're doing a SaaS you most likely can do with simply recording your screen using your phone, and cutting to the most important parts to show off how to achieve whatever your SaaS benefits people.\n* The most common format right now in tech is getting some UGC reactions for cheap (e.g $2 for a 3-5 second reaction) and stitching the tutorial afterwards. That gets you dozens of videos easily.\n* Pay per view if you can find influencers to agree on that though.\n   * Set a RPM: $0.5 / $1 / $2 depending on what type of content they do. The more \"tutorial-ish\" it is, the more you can pay. Set a cap ($200/$500 max payout per video).\n   * Sounds good on paper but hard to find influencers who agree to that. Though, not impossible\n\n# 5. Posting\n\n* This can get quite complicated if you look up some fancy guides online.\n   * Don't start a phone farm. You'll spend a month setting that up and most likely still get shadowbanned\n   * No need to setup expensive mobile 4g/5g proxies\n* If you live outside the country you want to target, a VPN is FINE.\n   * **TikTok KNOWS you're using a VPN. But that's not what gets you banned. Spam patterns are.**\n   * TikTok WILL post to the US algorithm with a simple VPN, even if you created your account in Europe or Asia.\n* (spam patterns) What gets you flagged is:\n   * Posting videos you found on pinterest hoping TikTok won't recognize\n   * Posting 4 times within 1 hour\n   * Posting random experiments or content that doesn't relate with one another\n   * Accessing your account from various phones/VPN's (Careful, VPN itself isn't inherently bad. But choosing random servers everytime will get you flagged at some point).\n   * More than 3 accounts posting\n   * Posting straight away on a new account (TikTok will make fun of you by filling your feed with \"stuck at 0 views\" FYP videos).\n* Prepare your content in advance. A week or a month's worth of content. You say you're going to post again tomorrow but you won't.\n* Spend a whole day or two creating many videos that will go out for the next month\n   * Connect to VPN first. Then open tiktok so your algo is refreshed to the country you chose.\n   * Post daily manually or schedule two (max 3!) posts a day with any scheduler (e.g [socialclaw](https://getsocialclaw.com/) or [hootsuite](https://www.hootsuite.com)).\n   * Set scheduling mode to not directly publish, but send it to your drafts\n      * scheduler sends to your tikTok inbox, you get a notification\n      * you open the notification (that expires within a few minutes)\n      * Double check everything is ok and just hit post\n\n# 6. Link in bio\n\n* TikTok allows you to put a link in bio if you have more than 1,000 followers\n* BUT tiktok absolutely hates you for doing it\n* That link will open an in app browser\n   * If you have an affiliate link there, it'll get sanitized\n   * The in app browser usually doesn't have user's cookies stored\n   * So when they log in to your saas it'll ask for google sign in, and google sign in or apple isn't saved for the user in the app browser.\n   * Even if they do sign up, their CC isn't stored in the IAB so it's too much friction for you to get customers.\n   * User gets lazy and exits the browser, keeps scrolling tiktok.\n   * Your link in bio becomes worthless\n* So what's the solution?\n   * Vibe code a script that detects when the link is opened from tiktok's in app browser.\n   * Display an animation that tells users to tap the three dots and select \"open link in browser\"\n   * When they do that, they get out of the tiktok's in app browser, to safari/chrome or whatever browser the user has. And when they visit your site they can easily sign up etc because their data is saved in their browser.\n\nProbably a lot that I forgot, but AMA.","offTopic":true},{"id":"18a522d3-beee-4e15-a8ac-5ecf7d0c4cfc","excerpt":"Most \"growth hacks\" for small biz are BS: Here's the 1 sustainable strategy I used to double my recurring revenue in 6 months 📈 — Alright, let's talk about scaling a real business, because honestly, most of the advice out there sounds like it's written by someone who's never actually *run* a business. We all hit that p","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/GrowMyBusinessNow/comments/1rmm3ty/most_growth_hacks_for_small_biz_are_bs_heres_the/","role":"demand","weight":0.95434546,"occurredAt":"2026-03-06T18:34:18.000Z","sourceKey":"reddit","sourceName":"Reddit","credibility":0.62,"venue":"GrowMyBusinessNow","intent":"alternative_search","painScore":0.27341816,"sentiment":0,"confidence":0.749436,"matchedPatterns":["switching_from","free_tier"],"statement":"Here’s what we actually did to scale, moving from that $25k plateau to consistently hitting **$55k-$70k/month** in a B2B service business over about an 18-month period, without just burning out or dramatically increasing ad spend: * **Iden…","title":"Most \"growth hacks\" for small biz are BS: Here's the 1 sustainable strategy I used to double my recurring revenue in 6 months 📈","body":"Alright, let's talk about scaling a real business, because honestly, most of the advice out there sounds like it's written by someone who's never actually *run* a business. We all hit that point where you're doing okay, maybe consistently hitting $20-30k months, but scaling past that feels like trying to push a car uphill with a flat tire. You're working *more*, not smarter, and the 'passive income' dream is a distant, cynical chuckle.\n\nFor us, the biggest hurdle wasn't getting new customers initially, it was handling them *profitably* and *efficiently* as we grew. We were essentially a glorified freelancer operation for a long time. Trying to jump from roughly **$25k/month** to **$50k+/month** meant more than just running more ads; it meant rethinking everything.\n\nHere’s what we actually did to scale, moving from that $25k plateau to consistently hitting **$55k-$70k/month** in a B2B service business over about an 18-month period, without just burning out or dramatically increasing ad spend:\n\n*   **Identified the 80/20 of our bottlenecks:** We literally tracked every minute of our week for a month. We found that 80% of our time was spent on 20% of tasks, many of which were repetitive client communication, onboarding, and reporting. These were essential but highly automatable or delegatable.\n*   **Documented and Systematized Everything:** This was a massive upfront time investment, easily **40-60 hours** over two months, but critical. We created step-by-step Loom videos, detailed SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) in Notion, and email templates for every common interaction. This was our \"playbook.\"\n*   **Strategic Delegation & Team Building:**\n    *   **Phase 1 (Months 1-3):** Hired a part-time virtual assistant (VA) for **$15/hour** via Upwork. Started with simple data entry and scheduling. This freed up about 5-7 hours of my week.\n    *   **Phase 2 (Months 4-9):** Brought on a full-time operations manager (local hire) at **$50k/year + benefits**. This was the biggest jump. They took over client onboarding, project management, and reporting, leveraging all those SOPs. This person became our \"hub\" and the main point of contact for clients, freeing up *my* time for sales and strategy.\n    *   **Phase 3 (Months 10-18):** Expanded our service delivery team with two contractors (**$35-$45/hour**), each managing 3-4 clients. The Ops Manager trained them using our systems. This allowed us to take on more clients without me personally overseeing every single project.\n*   **Focused on Client Retention:** It's cheaper to keep a customer than acquire a new one. With our new systems, we improved client communication and reporting, leading to a **15% increase in our average client lifetime value (LTV)** over the year. This meant our existing client base became a more stable revenue pillar.\n*   **Invested in Tools (Sensibly):** We didn't buy every shiny new SaaS. Our key tools were Notion for SOPs and project management (approx. **$10/month per user**), Calendly for scheduling (free tier, then **$12/month**), and Slack for internal comms (free tier). We avoided complex CRMs until we truly needed one, sticking with spreadsheets initially.\n\nLet me be super clear: this wasn't fast, easy, or without its headaches. We hired the wrong VA once, wasted about a month on training, and had to let them go. Training the Ops Manager was an intensive process, essentially taking 20-25 hours of my time per week for the first two months. There were moments of genuine doubt, especially when we saw the payroll numbers jump. But by taking the time to build *systems* first, then bringing in the right people to *run* those systems, we were able to grow without me having to work 80-hour weeks or constantly be the bottleneck. It shifted my role from \"doer\" to \"orchestrator,\" which is where real scaling happens.\n\nIf you're building a real business and tired of fluff advice, follow r/GrowMyBusinessNow — we share what actually works for small business growth, no BS.","offTopic":true},{"id":"d7d126a2-cecc-4a71-a975-ca06879fd936","excerpt":"The truth about how to get your first 10, 100 and 1000 SaaS users who actually pay — Y'all need to talk to people. \n\nSimple as that. \n\nThere is no silver bullet or magic marketing formula.\n\nI joined a SaaS company years ago as one of the first employees and even when we were making 100 million a month, we had a team of","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/SaaS/comments/1w8a40i/the_truth_about_how_to_get_your_first_10_100_and/","role":"request","weight":0.93023,"occurredAt":"2026-09-05T19:30:26.000Z","sourceKey":"reddit","sourceName":"Reddit","credibility":0.62,"venue":"SaaS","intent":"purchase_intent","painScore":0.3,"sentiment":0.2,"confidence":0.71556157,"matchedPatterns":["would_pay","manual_process","solution:saas"],"statement":"**For the first 1000, I would pay attention to the signals**.","title":"The truth about how to get your first 10, 100 and 1000 SaaS users who actually pay","body":"Y'all need to talk to people. \n\nSimple as that. \n\nThere is no silver bullet or magic marketing formula.\n\nI joined a SaaS company years ago as one of the first employees and even when we were making 100 million a month, we had a team of people who exclusively hopped on calls, talked to users, and watched them do stuff.\n\nIt never goes away.\n\nI thought I'd have a leg up with all that experience but damn dude this shit is tough.\n\nGettin' the first users is extremely difficult and you'll either need to spend a ton of time, a ton of money, or both to find out if your SaaS is even worth using.\n\n10, 100, and 1000+ users are all different games. \n\nEvery day I see folks posting here treating them like one marketing problem. No - you just don't want to do the work it takes to really build a SaaS company. That's ok, just stop pretending.\n\nFor context, my SaaS is stuck around 500$ of MRR and 1080 users, and the reason is simple - I stopped doing outreach and I don't have a good ad formula yet. \n\nI get it man its so easy to just go back and BUILD. \n\nBut from now on I'm spending 80% of my time marketing, networking, doing shit that actually gets seen by people. And 20% maintaining hte business.\n\n**For the first 10, I would stop worrying about scale for a minute and work manually.**\n\nTalk to people one by one. Do cold outreach. Answer questions in communities.\n\nClimb cringe mountain and pitch your stuff. Realize that free mini tools work because they give value, and build one.\n\nLook at these two questions:\n\n\"Hey stranger, wanna buy my XYZ product?\"\n\n\"Yo dude, saw you were looking for feedback on your website. I made XYZ to help solve that problem, and made you a custom free report. I also made you a quick video walking you through it. Game to chat more?\"\n\nSee any difference? Find a way to give value to the people you want to market to.\n\nThere's this thing called the law of reciprocity - I help you, you're more likely to want to help me.\n\nOffer to personally onboard EVERYONE especially early on. Watch where they hesitate, what they expected to happen, and what they would actually pay for.\n\nIt is not glamorous. And it sucks, takes forever, and you still aren't sure if your stuff will work.\n\nThe first 10 users are mostly about finding the people with the problem and getting knee deep in the shit enough to understand it properly.\n\n**For the first 100, I would start looking for the loop inside your product.**\n\nI grew mine to its first 1,000 users and $500 MRR by making a product people actually wanted to share, then making it easy to share from inside the product.\n\nDuring the review process, the product had to communicate the value and the ease clearly. The person using it got a useful result they could share. The thing they shared gave the next person an easy reason to sign up themselves.\n\nThe product was doing some of the distribution work. That won't be true for most of y'all but its good to consider.\n\nWhen I was an early employee at a now public SaaS company, we made templates and sharable dashboards. It worked back in 2016 and that kinda stuff still works today. Ask yourself a few things.\n\n* What result could your user naturally want to show someone else?\n* Can they share it without doing marketing homework?\n* Does the shared result explain why it matters?\n* Does the person receiving it have an obvious next step?\n\nEvery step of the way think....are you creating a reason for the next signup? Is there a flywheel buried here somewhere that could make your life easier down the road?\n\n**For the first 1000, I would pay attention to the signals**. Use analytics apps (tons of great ones) to watch people use your app. Get them on the phone, and watch them use your app. Show it IRL and watch them use it. Then...\n\n* ASK PEOPLE WHY THEY BUY!!\n* better yet ASK THEM WHY THEY DONT!!!!\n* Plus...which use case keeps coming up? \n* Which kind of person gets value fastest? \n* Where did the users who stick around actually come from? \n* What are they doing right before they invite someone else?\n\nDo more of that. \n\nThen do more of that again.\n\nYou probably need a mix of things that can get users today and things that might compound later. A useful community answer, a direct conversation, or a targeted post can create movement now. SEO, useful videos, templates, and integrations can plant seeds for later.\n\nBut I would not try to “do marketing” by randomly shotgunning a ton of options.\n\nMarketing exists in two realms.\n\nImmediate, and compounding.\n\nCold calling and DMing is immediate. Ads too.\n\nSEO and Content are compounding.\n\nCold outreach can work when its intentional.\n\nPosts can work when they answer a real question people have.\n\nSEO can work, but unless you strike gold (ask me about pokemon TCG keywords sometime) it'll take forever. \n\nPaid ads before you know what people value are an expensive way to discover that your landing page blows.\n\nThere is no silver bullet here. You have to be relentless and keep doing the work while you are still not sure it is going to work.\n\nThat means building, talking to users, improving the product, publishing, following up, and trying again. Some of it will work. Some of it will be spectacularly useless. Your job is to notice the difference quickly.\n\n**Also, do not let “I need one more feature” become your thing. I have used that excuse too.** \n\nFar too much.\n\nThe code feels productive. Asking someone to use the thing feels scary. That's where most of your peers come and post here praying for a silver bullet when there is none.\n\nThe boring ideas are often fine. Go read the Indie Hackers case studies but don't get lost in the sauce.\n\nJust enough to realize there are plenty of simple looking products doing $50k to $100k a month because they solve a real problem, explain the value clearly, and keep showing up in the places their customers already are.\n\nThe first 10 come from proximity + first 100 come from a repeatable reason to use and share the product.\n\n1000 and beyond come from finding the signal and being stubborn enough to hunt it down every day.\n\nNo magic. Just a lot of work, a little pattern recognition, and a stupid amount of determination.\n\nYou've got to be a crazy damn lunatic starting a SaaS company in 2026.\n\nBut I'm still rootin' for all y'all. If you got any questions, fire away.","offTopic":true},{"id":"8ccf8b8f-9eec-40a1-b9cc-5be8db8c3815","excerpt":"We automated the wrong half of our ad problem for about six months — I run Flare, a UGC marketplace, so usual disclosure, I have a horse in this race.\n\nFor a long stretch we kept solving the launch side. Faster campaign setup, naming conventions, bulk uploads, cleaner reporting. All of it worked, in the sense that the ","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/EntrepreneurRideAlong/comments/1vugsm4/we_automated_the_wrong_half_of_our_ad_problem_for/","role":"pain","weight":0.8925293,"occurredAt":"2026-08-21T13:44:23.000Z","sourceKey":"reddit","sourceName":"Reddit","credibility":0.62,"venue":"EntrepreneurRideAlong","intent":"problem_report","painScore":0.45,"sentiment":0.5,"confidence":0.61553746,"matchedPatterns":["doesnt_work"],"statement":"What actually moved things was unglamorous: raising the number of creators producing every month, and accepting up front that most of what comes back will not work.","title":"We automated the wrong half of our ad problem for about six months","body":"I run Flare, a UGC marketplace, so usual disclosure, I have a horse in this race.\n\nFor a long stretch we kept solving the launch side. Faster campaign setup, naming conventions, bulk uploads, cleaner reporting. All of it worked, in the sense that the thing we were measuring got faster. Time from \"we have a video\" to \"the video is live\" went from a couple of days down to under an hour.\n\nAlmost nothing changed in the results.\n\nThe reason is boring. If roughly one in ten or twelve pieces of UGC turns into a real winner, and you can only get four pieces made in a month, you are producing one good ad per quarter no matter how fast your uploader is. Speeding up the last mile just gets you to the bottleneck sooner. We had built a very efficient pipe attached to a very small tap.\n\nWhat actually moved things was unglamorous: raising the number of creators producing every month, and accepting up front that most of what comes back will not work. Not better casting, not one hero creator. Just more shots from more faces on a schedule, so there is always something to rotate to when the current winner fatigues, because it always does.\n\nTwo things I would say to anyone running paid social at small scale.\n\nYour real constraint is almost never the thing you have a dashboard for. We had good dashboards for launch speed and none at all for creative supply, so we optimised what we could see. Go count how many genuinely new pieces of creative your account got last month. If it is under ten, most of what you do to the account itself will not matter much.\n\nAnd winner rate is a volume problem before it is a talent problem. Everyone agrees with this in the abstract and then quietly ignores it at planning time, because commissioning twelve videos knowing you will throw away eleven feels irresponsible. Commissioning one and needing it to work is the irresponsible version.\n\nGenuinely curious whether other people found the same, or whether there is a scale or a category where careful casting does beat volume. I have not seen it, but our sample size is one company.","offTopic":false},{"id":"d3697f88-22ca-476f-84ad-ddadc8d00f8f","excerpt":"The $100 MRR product might be more valuable than the $0 to $10K MRR dream — The payout email landed on a tuesday (104 dollars and change) from a tool I built over 2 weekends about 3 yrs ago and last pushed code to 14 months back. My first reaction was a small flush of embarrassment, smthing you get when a friend asks h","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/EntrepreneurRideAlong/comments/1vpa4od/the_100_mrr_product_might_be_more_valuable_than/","role":"pain","weight":0.8872885,"occurredAt":"2026-08-15T18:23:13.000Z","sourceKey":"reddit","sourceName":"Reddit","credibility":0.62,"venue":"EntrepreneurRideAlong","intent":"feature_request","painScore":0.41,"sentiment":-0.125,"confidence":0.62928265,"matchedPatterns":["missing_feature"],"statement":"What the founder pays never shows up and in an early product the founder is nearly always the biggest cost in the building so the figure everyone celebrates is missing the line that decides whether the thing is any good.","title":"The $100 MRR product might be more valuable than the $0 to $10K MRR dream","body":"The payout email landed on a tuesday (104 dollars and change) from a tool I built over 2 weekends about 3 yrs ago and last pushed code to 14 months back. My first reaction was a small flush of embarrassment, smthing you get when a friend asks how the side thing is going and you have to say a number that sounds like a phone bill. Then I looked at what the rest of that tuesday had been which was 6 hours of support and onboarding calls for my bigger product, the one that is growing,  one that is supposedly the dream and I sat there for a min doing the math \n\nSee Ik how the 100 dollar product sounds. It doesn't pay rent and it doesn't screenshot well and nobody has ever invited me to speak anywhere because of it but it has 13 paying users, 14 in the months when someone forgets to cancel, none of whom have ever emailed me at midnight. It has needed exactly 1 support reply in the last year (someone wanted a proper invoice, 4 minutes of my life) and it is the ONLY product I have ever built that I can describe as finished. Most founders never experience finished. We experience abandoned or we experience on fire and we tell ourselves those are the only 2 states a product can be in.\n\nI have spent the last 8 years building products and tbh for most of that time I measured my own worth by how fast the biggest number was moving\n\nThen there is the math which none of us ever wants to do out loud. My growing product does around 4 grand a month right now and takes something like 50 hours a week to keep moving, which works out to 200 hours a month, which works out to 20 dollars an hour before servers and before whatever my sleep is currently worth. Do the same sum for the tiny product and the calculator gives up, because you cant divide by zero, and I have made peace with the fact that the entire argument of this post fits inside a single error message. MRR leaves you out of the costs. It counts what the customer pays. What the founder pays never shows up and in an early product the founder is nearly always the biggest cost in the building so the figure everyone celebrates is missing the line that decides whether the thing is any good.\n\nIf I vanished for a month the tiny tool would not notice and the payout would land on its tuesday like it always does. The bigger product would start dying by the second week because onboarding is me and there is no version of support or the roadmap that doesn't route through my calendar. To a buyer that means the thing they would actually be paying for is me and I am not for sale at that price.\n\nTo be clear, I'm not telling anyone to aim for 100 dollars a month and call it a life. The argument was always about the shape. A product that runs without you has a shape you can do more of, more users and more channels and eventually more copies of the whole thing and none of that extra volume ends up on your body. A product that runs on you breaks the moment you try to add more because more customers is more of you and there is a hard ceiling on you that no dashboard shows.","offTopic":true},{"id":"dbb65fcb-f90a-4d82-a5e3-32a0f0993445","excerpt":"Did over $1,500,000 on my Shopify store. Email did ~$450k, Google Shopping did the heavy lifting, and a simple pricing psychology tweak pushed AOV up. — https://preview.redd.it/ka9pk4budx0g1.jpg?width=837&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d016ac5234df9ae4d8b92de580134770e07ced08\n\nScreenshot of one of the stores\n\nI’ve been in eco","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/Dropshipping_Guide/comments/1ovnpar/did_over_1500000_on_my_shopify_store_email_did/","role":"request","weight":0.87626666,"occurredAt":"2025-11-13T01:16:38.000Z","sourceKey":"reddit","sourceName":"Reddit","credibility":0.62,"venue":"Dropshipping_Guide","intent":"feature_request","painScore":0.24,"sentiment":0.3125,"confidence":0.70666665,"matchedPatterns":["wish"],"statement":"I wish someone told me that earlier: Traffic is not the problem.","title":"Did over $1,500,000 on my Shopify store. Email did ~$450k, Google Shopping did the heavy lifting, and a simple pricing psychology tweak pushed AOV up.","body":"https://preview.redd.it/ka9pk4budx0g1.jpg?width=837&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d016ac5234df9ae4d8b92de580134770e07ced08\n\nScreenshot of one of the stores\n\nI’ve been in ecom long enough to know that the stuff everyone ignores is usually the stuff that prints the most money.\n\nThis year I made one small pricing change and one ad change and fixed the way my store handled retention. That combination gave me the cleanest, most predictable revenue I’ve seen.\n\n# A bit about me (and why am I sharing proof?)\n\nA lot of posts like this sound fake, and honestly, the skepticism is justified.  \nAnyone can write a good “story”.  \nIt’s much harder to have a **consistent track record** with proof scattered across the internet over the years.\n\nAbout 10 years ago, I built a mobile app that ended up getting **4.5 million downloads**.  \nIt earned me around **$150k USD** over time (most articles only mention \\~$50k because that was just year one). That app got me featured in multiple newspapers and tech publications:\n\n* [Business Standard](https://www.business-standard.com/article/pf/making-money-apps-com-115011200005_1.html)\n* [YourStory](https://yourstory.com/2016/06/la-musique)\n* Medium\n* and a few more which you can find on my website.\n\nAfter that, I moved into ecom, and across multiple Shopify stores I’ve done a little over **$1.5 million in revenue**.  \nThat journey taught me exactly where new stores get stuck, what actually moves the needle, and which tools are just noise.\n\nI’ve never had a traditional job.  \nEcommerce made me financially independent, let me live in **10 countries over 4 years**, ([proof on my instagram](https://www.instagram.com/ankit.ishu.7/)) and even led to me write my [master’s thesis in email marketing](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wfg-ap8Uws2gTUS2u5BRyZQ8iVaU9HdNUAOklA8On8Q/edit?tab=t.0), which I wrote when I spent a year in France doing my master's in corporate management.\n\nSo everything I’m sharing in this post is based on things I’ve actually tested, scaled, and used to pay my bills.\n\nAnyways, let me share what you came here for:\n\n# 1. Google Shopping Ads (still the most underrated scaling method)\n\nPeople overcomplicate ads.  \nBefore all the PMAX “AI optimization,” Shopping Ads already did the job perfectly.\n\nShopping is intent-based:\n\nSearch ➜ see ➜ click ➜ buy.\n\nNo angles.  \nNo hooks.  \nNo creative fatigue.\n\nI kept the setup simple:\n\n* literal product titles\n* clean feed\n* competitor keywords so I show up beside bigger brands\n* competitive pricing\n* fast landing pages\n\nIf you’re selling physical products, nothing beats Shopping for clean, predictable traffic.\n\n# 2. A simple pricing psychology shift that boosted AOV\n\nI added quantity tiers and basic bundles to my product page:\n\n* Buy 2, save 15 percent\n* Buy 3, save 25 percent\n* Main product + accessory bundle\n\nThe psychology behind this is simple.  \nWhen people see savings at each step, their brain reframes the purchase from *“I’m spending more”* to *“I’m saving more.”*  \nIt turns the product page into a decision ladder.\n\nInstead of **“Should I buy?”**, the question becomes **“Which option gives me the best deal?”**\n\nThat tiny shift led to:\n\n* higher AOV\n* more add-to-carts\n* fewer abandoned carts\n* more bundle buyers than single-item buyers\n\nThere are lots of apps that offer quantity breaks.  \nI used [Pareto ](https://qttprt.short.gy/2upYoq)because their free plan did everything I needed, and their post-purchase offers added easy passive revenue too.\n\n# 3. Ads bring traffic. Email brings revenue.\n\nMost stores bleed money because they rely only on ads. I wish someone told me that earlier:  \nTraffic is not the problem.  \nRetention is.\n\nEmail is what turns visitors into actual cash.\n\nThe biggest headache for me early on was using multiple apps:\n\none for popups, one for flows, one for wishlist, one for chat, one for reviews, one for back-in-stock…\n\nEvery update broke something.  \nTabs everywhere.  \nDifferent apps to write different emails.  \nBranding never looked consistent.  \nFrustration nonstop. Not to mention that 20$/month subscription added up.\n\nI hated it.\n\nThat’s why I built EmailWish.  \nOne tool that handles automations, popups, reviews, wishlists, chat, and back-in-stock.  \nEverything matches your branding.  \nEverything syncs automatically.  \nAnd you don’t even have to write emails.\n\nNo tech headaches. No “connect this to that” nonsense. Not even emails to write.  \nMore time selling, less time fixing. Aaaaand it's free.\n\nIf you’re early, all you really need is:\n\n**Google Shopping ➜ Email automation ➜ Consistent posting ➜ Good offers**\n\nSimple systems scale.  \nNoise wastes months.\n\nWant the exact email flows I used to generate $150.8k from email?  \nGet my [free Shopify Email flow guide](https://foxly.link/0wLW1o) [here — copy/paste templates included](https://foxly.link/0wLW1o)\n\nOr if you would rather skip the setup and just plug everything in? Then  \n[Install EmailWish ](https://foxly.link/5iKpZm)— [Shopify App for Abandoned cart & email flows already built in](https://foxly.link/5iKpZm)\n\nAnd if you want the fastest AOV bump without touching ad spend,  \nUse any quantity-break app. I used [Pareto](https://qttprt.short.gy/2upYoq) because their free plan did more than enough.\n\nIf you want, drop your store.  \nI’ll tell you what ads + email setups would work for you.","offTopic":true},{"id":"d7f1f680-22ec-4b23-927d-10e960fee798","excerpt":"How to Build 3 Automated AI Income Streams in One Day [Complete Strategy Breakdown] — AI-powered website builder + affiliate marketing + digital products + print-on-demand = 3 diversified income streams ek ecosystem mein. Setup process sirf 1-2 hours ka hai. Focus: concepts aur strategies, tools nahi.\n\nWhy This Works (","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/AIIncomeLab/comments/1rxv2xf/how_to_build_3_automated_ai_income_streams_in_one/","role":"pricing","weight":0.86416626,"occurredAt":"2026-03-19T08:46:17.000Z","sourceKey":"reddit","sourceName":"Reddit","credibility":0.62,"venue":"AIIncomeLab","intent":"pricing_complaint","painScore":0.24,"sentiment":1,"confidence":0.6969083,"matchedPatterns":["free_tier"],"statement":"Product Pricing Strategy** * Affiliate products: Auto-priced by Amazon * Digital guides: $17-97 (test different prices) * Print-on-demand: 40-60% markup over production cost Common Mistakes to Avoid ❌ **Building without traffic strategy**…","title":"How to Build 3 Automated AI Income Streams in One Day [Complete Strategy Breakdown]","body":"AI-powered website builder + affiliate marketing + digital products + print-on-demand = 3 diversified income streams ek ecosystem mein. Setup process sirf 1-2 hours ka hai. Focus: concepts aur strategies, tools nahi.\n\nWhy This Works (Income Diversification)\n\nOnline income ki sustainability sirf ek stream se possible nahi hai. Yeh strategy 3 different revenue sources combine karta hai:\n\n1. **Affiliate Commission** (Zero upfront cost)\n2. **Digital Products** (100% margin, scalable)\n3. **Print-on-Demand** (No inventory needed)\n\nSab kuch Hostinger's AI tools se automate ho sakta hai.\n\n**Step-by-Step Breakdown**\n\n**STEP 1: Build Your AI Website Foundation (15-20 mins)**\n\n**What you need:**\n\n* An AI website builder (no-code platform that uses AI)\n* Hosting included\n* Built-in shop/e-commerce capability\n* Blog functionality\n* Drag-and-drop editor\n\n**Website creation process:**\n\n1. Choose an AI website builder platform\n2. Chat with AI to describe:\n   * Your brand name\n   * Your niche\n   * Design preferences\n3. AI generates complete website with images, headings, shop sections, and blog\n4. Customize using editor if needed\n\n**Critical:** Make sure online store feature is enabled - needed for steps ahead.\n\n**STEP 2: Income Stream #1 - Affiliate Blog (20-30 mins)**\n\n**Concept:** Blog posts containing relevant product links → Earn commission when readers purchase\n\n**How affiliate marketing works:**\n\n* Join affiliate programs of relevant products/services in your niche\n* Write helpful blog content for your audience\n* Include affiliate links naturally within content\n* When readers click and buy, you earn commission (typically 2-20%)\n* Zero upfront cost since you're not creating products\n\n**Blog setup process:**\n\n1. Go to website's blog section\n2. Use AI blog generator:\n   * Set tone (casual/professional)\n   * Set word count (aim for 2000+ words)\n   * Describe blog topic in detail\n3. AI generates full blog post (2-3 minutes)\n4. Edit and fact-check thoroughly\n5. Add affiliate links:\n   * Research products/services relevant to your niche\n   * Get affiliate links from affiliate programs\n   * Add them naturally to blog post (not spammy)\n   * Include multiple relevant products\n\n**Why start with this:**\n\n* Zero upfront investment\n* No product creation needed\n* Immediate monetization possible\n* Content compounds over time\n\n**What to avoid:**\n\n* Don't just link random products\n* Don't write blog posts ONLY to promote (readers notice)\n* Research affiliate programs that fit your niche authentically\n* Disclose affiliate relationships clearly\n\n**STEP 3: Income Stream #2 - Digital Products (15-20 mins)**\n\n**Concept:** Create once, sell unlimited times (e-books, guides, templates, courses)\n\n**Digital Product Setup:**\n\n1. Website shop section jaao\n2. Store → Add New Product → Select \"Digital Product\"\n3. Upload product image (cover, mockup)\n4. AI automatically generates:\n   * Title\n   * Description\n   * Product page content\n5. Set selling price\n6. Upload PDF/Digital file\n7. Hostinger automatically sends download link to customers via email\n\n**Best digital products for this strategy:**\n\n* Digital guides (niche-specific)\n* Templates\n* Checklists/Workbooks\n* Resource collections\n* Mini-courses (PDF-based)\n\n**Income potential:** $200-2000+/month (depends on price + traffic)\n\n**STEP 4: Income Stream #3 - Print-on-Demand (10-15 mins)**\n\n**Concept:** Design physical products → Customer orders → Manufacturer prints and ships → You keep profit\n\n**How print-on-demand works:**\n\n* Partner with print-on-demand manufacturer\n* Design product (or upload design)\n* Set selling price\n* When customer buys, manufacturer creates and ships\n* You keep the profit margin difference\n* Zero inventory, zero shipping hassle\n\n**Product types available through POD:**\n\n* Apparel (t-shirts, hoodies, hats)\n* Accessories (mugs, water bottles)\n* Home items (pillows, blankets)\n* Art prints\n* Stickers, tote bags\n* And many more\n\n**Integration into your ecosystem:**\n\n1. Create designs relevant to your niche\n2. Upload to print-on-demand service\n3. Set pricing (typically 40-60% markup over production cost)\n4. Add to your website shop\n5. When customers order, manufacturer handles production and shipping\n\n**Advantages of this income stream:**\n\n* No inventory management\n* No shipping logistics\n* Designs can be reused infinitely\n* Multiple product types from one design\n* Passive once set up\n\n**Quality considerations:**\n\n* Ensure designs are professional and relevant to your audience\n* Test the actual products before promoting heavily\n* Use good quality POD manufacturers (reputation matters)\n\nSTEP 5: Complete Your Setup Requirements\n\nBefore launching your site, ensure:\n\n* \\[ \\] Payment processing enabled (can accept customer payments)\n* \\[ \\] Business details/about section completed\n* \\[ \\] Email notifications configured (for orders)\n* \\[ \\] Domain is set up and pointing correctly\n* \\[ \\] Website is live and indexed by search engines\n* \\[ \\] Mobile responsiveness tested\n\nSTEP 6: Drive Traffic Using Pinterest (Most Important!)\n\n**Why Pinterest instead of other platforms:**\n\n* Pinterest is a visual search engine, not social media\n* Users actively searching for solutions/products (not scrolling for entertainment)\n* Pins remain discoverable for months/years (not 1-2 days like Instagram)\n* Direct linking to products is encouraged\n* High buyer intent traffic\n\n**Creating content for Pinterest:**\n\n1. Design pins that match your content:\n   * Use AI image generation tools to create pin designs\n   * Include text that draws attention\n   * Include calls-to-action\n   * Make designs vertical (Pinterest optimal format)\n2. Pin strategy:\n   * Create multiple pins for each blog post\n   * Pin to your affiliate blog posts\n   * Pin to your digital products\n   * Pin to your POD products\n   * Consistency matters (weekly pinning minimum)\n\n**Why this works better than social media:**\n\n* Pinterest users have \"buying intent\" (they're searching for solutions)\n* One pin can drive traffic for 6+ months\n* No algorithm suppresses links like Instagram/TikTok do\n* Long-term passive traffic potential\n\n# Timeline Summary\n\n|Task|Time|Cost|\n|:-|:-|:-|\n|Create website|15-20 min|Included|\n|Setup affiliate blog|20-30 min|Free|\n|Add digital products|15-20 min|Free (or cost to create)|\n|Add print-on-demand|10-15 min|Free|\n|Create 20 Pinterest pins|20-30 min|Free|\n|**TOTAL**|**80-115 mins**|**\\~$1-2/month**|\n\nCritical Success Factors\n\n**1. Niche Knowledge is ESSENTIAL**\n\n* AI writes content, but YOU need expertise\n* AI mistakes possible - fact-check everything\n* Blog posts must be genuinely helpful\n* Choose niche you know OR research deeply\n\n**2. Quality Over Speed**\n\n* Don't just publish AI content as-is\n* Edit, fact-check, add personal insights\n* Bad content = no sales = no income\n\n**3. SEO & Pinterest Consistency**\n\n* Post blog posts regularly (1-2x weekly minimum)\n* Create multiple Pinterest pins per post\n* Use keyword research for blog topics\n* Let content compound over 3-6 months\n\n**4. Product Pricing Strategy**\n\n* Affiliate products: Auto-priced by Amazon\n* Digital guides: $17-97 (test different prices)\n* Print-on-demand: 40-60% markup over production cost\n\nCommon Mistakes to Avoid\n\n❌ **Building without traffic strategy** → Website gets zero visitors  \n❌ **Using AI without fact-checking** → Credibility destroyed  \n❌ **Choosing random niche** → No passion = burnout  \n❌ **Expecting instant income** → Takes 1-3 months for traffic  \n❌ **Only 1-2 products** → Need multiple products per stream  \n❌ **Ignoring email list** → Missed repeat customer opportunity\n\nReal Income Expectations\n\n**Month 1-2:** $0-50 (building phase, SEO takes time)  \n**Month 3-4:** $100-500 (content ranking, Pinterest traffic growing)  \n**Month 6+:** $500-3000+/month (compound effect of multiple products + organic traffic)\n\n*Note: Heavily depends on niche profitability, content quality, and consistency*\n\nTools Needed (General Categories)\n\n|Category|Cost|Purpose|\n|:-|:-|:-|\n|AI Website Builder|\\~$1-5/month (varies)|Website creation + hosting + e-commerce|\n|AI Blog Writer|Usually included in builder|Content generation|\n|Affiliate Programs|Free|Commission opportunities|\n|Print-on-Demand Service|Free (commission-based)|Product manufacturing|\n|AI Design Tool|Free tier usually available|Pinterest pin creation|\n|Pinterest|Free|Traffic/discovery|\n\n**Note:** Actual tools and pricing vary. Research options that fit your needs and budget.\n\nBonus: Why This System Works Together\n\n✅ **Blog posts** drive organic traffic from Google  \n✅ **Pinterest pins** drive visual search traffic  \n✅ **Affiliate links** earn commission immediately  \n✅ **Digital products** = high margin per sale  \n✅ **POD products** = diversified revenue  \n✅ **Email automation** = repeat customers\n\nOne ecosystem, multiple income sources, one platform.\n\nNext Steps\n\n1. **Pick your niche** (something you know or can research)\n2. **Sign up for Hostinger** (Business plan)\n3. **Download the free checklist** (from original source)\n4. **Build your website** (follow steps above)\n5. **Create initial content** (5-10 blog posts minimum)\n6. **Launch Pinterest strategy** (create and pin weekly)\n7. **Track and optimize** (monitor what sells best)\n\n**Questions?**\n\nDrop your questions below! ","offTopic":true},{"id":"a9f27ab8-76fc-49c7-86e6-1a0d457a524e","excerpt":"$3,515 today and before I talk about store setup let me address the comments calling me a guru and asking for hacks — I see the comments. \"This is AI.\" \"Just another guru.\" \"Give us real guidance not generic advice.\"\n\nFair enough. I hear it. So let me try something different today and actually go deep instead of surfac","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/dropshipping/comments/1vlx25u/3515_today_and_before_i_talk_about_store_setup/","role":"demand","weight":0.8599897,"occurredAt":"2026-08-11T23:05:38.000Z","sourceKey":"reddit","sourceName":"Reddit","credibility":0.62,"venue":"dropshipping","intent":"tool_discovery","painScore":0.10886062,"sentiment":0.16666667,"confidence":0.7755616,"matchedPatterns":["looking_for","how_can_i"],"statement":"I'm not looking for a trending product.","title":"$3,515 today and before I talk about store setup let me address the comments calling me a guru and asking for hacks","body":"I see the comments. \"This is AI.\" \"Just another guru.\" \"Give us real guidance not generic advice.\"\n\nFair enough. I hear it. So let me try something different today and actually go deep instead of surface level. No buzzwords. No structured framework with fancy names. Just what I actually do and why.\n\nBut first I need to say something that might upset some people.\n\nThere are no hacks in dropshipping. I'm serious. Every comment I see asking for \"the hack\" or \"the secret method\" or \"what's actually working right now that nobody is sharing\"  that mindset is the reason most people fail before they even get started. There is no cheat code. There never was.\n\nAnd dropshipping in 2026 is nothing like it was in 2020. In 2020 you could throw up a generic store, run basic ads, and make money on margins that don't exist anymore. That era is completely gone. What works now is actual marketing  understanding your customer, communicating value clearly, building a store that earns trust, and selling products that genuinely solve something. It's harder. It's also more sustainable when done properly.\n\nToday: $3,515.72. Revenue not profit  costs come out always.\n\nProduct research  what I actually mean when I say \"find a winning product\"\n\nThis phrase gets thrown around so loosely it's become meaningless. Let me be specific about what I'm actually looking for.\n\nI'm not looking for a trending product. Trends are usually already dying by the time they're visible enough to feel safe to test. I'm looking for a product that solves a specific problem a specific type of person has right now  and that person doesn't yet know a solution exists.\n\nThink about it from the buyer's side. They're scrolling Facebook. They're not shopping. They're not looking for anything. Your ad interrupts that. For them to stop scrolling, read or watch, click through, and then hand over their card details to a store they've never heard of  that product needs to immediately make them feel \"this is exactly what I've been needing.\" Not \"oh that looks cool.\" Not \"maybe someday.\" It needs to create an immediate personal connection to a real frustration or desire in their life.\n\nHow do I find those products? I go to the Meta Ad Library and search problems  not products. I'm looking for ads that have been running for 30 plus days because no business runs losing ads for that long. I read the comments on those ads. Real people in comment sections tell you exactly what they think, what they doubt, what they want to know before buying. That is primary market research that costs nothing and most people completely skip.\n\nI then check whether the product can be sourced at a price that makes the math work. Minimum three times the sourcing cost as the selling price — and that's the minimum. Less than that and ad spend will eat your margin before you even find a winning creative. I also order a sample. Always. I need to know exactly what my customer is receiving because the product in the supplier photos is sometimes genuinely different from what arrives. Different size. Different quality. Different feel. If I've never held it I'm selling something I don't actually know.\n\nStore setup  and why most stores fail before the ads even start\n\nThe honest problem I see with most struggling stores is that they're built for the owner not for the buyer. The owner wants it to look impressive. The buyer wants to make a fast decision without feeling like they're going to get scammed.\n\nThose are completely different priorities and most stores optimize for the wrong one.\n\nYour product page has one job. Answer three questions in under 60 seconds. What is this. Why do I need it. Why should I trust this store with my money. Every single element on that page either serves one of those three questions or it's creating friction that pushes people toward leaving.\n\nWhat that actually looks like in practice. Your headline should not be the product name. It should be the outcome the buyer gets. Not \"Portable Neck Massager X200\" something that speaks directly to the pain they have and the relief they want. Your bullet points should explain benefits not features. Nobody cares that it has \"three speed settings and a 2000mAh battery.\" They care that it works quietly enough to use at their desk without anyone noticing. Your reviews need to look real  specific details, real language, photos where possible. Generic five star reviews with no substance actively reduce trust because buyers know what fake looks like.\n\nPage speed is something most people completely ignore and it kills conversion rates silently. Every app you install adds load time. Every heavy image that hasn't been compressed adds load time. Open your store on your phone on a regular mobile connection right now  not wifi, mobile data. Count the seconds. If your product page takes more than three seconds to fully load you are losing a significant percentage of every click your ads send. That's not theory. It's documented consumer behaviour.\n\nI run three apps. Reviews, email flows, currency converter. That's the entire tech stack. Everything else got deleted when I realized I was paying monthly fees for tools that were slowing my store down and adding visual noise that distracted people from the one thing I wanted them to do  buy.\n\nThe thing nobody wants to hear\n\nDropshipping success in 2026 requires you to actually understand marketing. Not \"run ads and see what happens\"  real marketing. Understanding why people buy. Understanding how to communicate value in a way that connects emotionally before it convinces logically. Understanding that the store, the product, the creative, and the audience all need to be in alignment for a sale to happen.\n\nThat alignment doesn't come from a hack. It comes from testing, reading data, making specific changes based on what the data tells you, and being patient enough to let things run long enough to actually learn from them.\n\nI'm not a guru. I'm someone who does this every day and shares what I figure out. Some days it's obvious. Some days I'm genuinely confused by what the data is showing me. That's the reality.\n\nIf there's a specific part of your store or your product research process you want to go deeper on  drop it in the comments. Actual specific questions get actual specific answers.","offTopic":true},{"id":"7e372a25-7f1e-4409-9820-448442a9f2a5","excerpt":"This is the story of how accidentally switched from b2b to b2c by building my first online store — I have been selling B2B for a while eventually as an agency servicing brands that needs AI implementation, retainer + monthly feed. Eventually I helped an ecommerce brand scale their creative inputs including vibe coded d","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/EntrepreneurRideAlong/comments/1vvqo3k/this_is_the_story_of_how_accidentally_switched/","role":"demand","weight":0.83014554,"occurredAt":"2026-08-22T23:03:49.000Z","sourceKey":"reddit","sourceName":"Reddit","credibility":0.62,"venue":"EntrepreneurRideAlong","intent":"tool_discovery","painScore":0.19797568,"sentiment":0.14285715,"confidence":0.6929569,"matchedPatterns":["looking_for","switching_from"],"statement":"This is the story of how accidentally switched from b2b to b2c by building my first online store.","title":"This is the story of how accidentally switched from b2b to b2c by building my first online store","body":"I have been selling B2B for a while eventually as an agency servicing brands that needs AI implementation, retainer + monthly feed. Eventually I helped an ecommerce brand scale their creative inputs including vibe coded dashboard for their team to work together more efficiently.\n\nI came across their revenue and was actually surprised that people were buying it because I saw a lot of leaks in their funnels or even their creative strategy. Tbh I felt kind shocked and after spending time with the founders, I felt actually stupid to realize how complicated we make it seem, especially in the AI/software industry. They were selling to people bored at home scrolling on Tik Tok and I was selling to people looking for an ROI and that wouldn’t do an impulse buy, needed to escalate to managers/owners, think about how to implement while they were just selling to someone that had a problem and looking for a quick way to fix it. \n\nObviously it’s different ticket size but I was fascinated by the fact that they could scale easily by just increase ad spend and just testing more angles and not spending a second talking with a customer.\n\nEventually I kept realizing that the people making the most money have a “simple” way of thinking.\n\nFor anyone building a Saas, since did we think that freemium was a good idea ? Like imagine an ecommerce brand saying you can use it for free for 2 weeks and return it if you don’t like it, they would probably go bankrupt.\n\nThis didn’t sit right with me for few days.\n\nIf I knew how to make ads ( was running it b2b few times) and understood how they choose a product, f\\*ck I can too do it.\n\n3h in with Claude, started from a niche, went on Pinterest, scrolled and saw something really interesting straight and was hitting all the criteria I set for myself:\n\n\\- Emotional angle\n\n\\- Solving a problem\n\n\\- Personalized\n\nSpin off a landing page, generate all the product images with open AI API.\n\nLaunch some ads format that I knew were working.\n\nWent on with my day.\n\nEnd of the day two orders profitably.\n\nKeep in mind at that time I didn’t have a product in hand, launching this store was more of an ego move in some ways but it got even more interesting. As the product is handmade, I actually called the customers and told them that it’s done on demand so I just want to understand when they wanted to get delivered as it would take few days to build. They were all fine with it.\n\nLet the ads run just to check if I didn’t get lucky and was hitting constantly 5 orders per day.\n\nLong story short, it’s a profitable side gig and I am working with my friend and will try to scale it by just focusing on the marketing part and it was eye opening and there is many learning on my side. Not sure where this would take me but I have been enjoying a lot the short feedback loop on something working or not and getting customer positive reviews.\n\n\n\n**Some Learnings**\n\n\\- Never built the product before validating demand so you can double down and avoid doubts\n\n\\- Meta ads = real signal in 2 days\n\n\\- Compare to cold email infra for B2B, was mistaking slow motion for hustle\n\n\\- Most people you know who actually made money weren't doing B2B SaaS\n\n\\- Realized it’s not \"B2C beats B2B\", it was realizing AI is the unfair advantage, not the product\n\n\\- Using AI yourself to move faster than legacy competitors = actual edge\n\n\\- B2B buyer = employee/owner, has to justify ROI, escalate to a manager, \"revisit next quarter\"\n\n\\- B2C buyer = bored, scrolling, looking for dopamine or a fix to something they already feel — decision happens fast, no committee\n\n\n\n**Here's what I am doing next**\n\n\\- Increase creatives \n\n\\- Automate as much as I can with AI agents, collect reviews, send delivery tracking, Seo\n\n\\- Add more product from the niche with higher margin","offTopic":true},{"id":"1c1aa17c-5552-4324-a8bb-6f0b403fc759","excerpt":"Struggling to see real traction after months of trying everything? My 3-step system for sustainable customer acquisition actually works (grew my client base by 40% in Q1 📈) — Alright, let's talk about actually growing a business, not just dreaming about it. For a long time, I was stuck. Our service business hovered aro","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/GrowMyBusinessNow/comments/1spmf0i/struggling_to_see_real_traction_after_months_of/","role":"request","weight":0.8143548,"occurredAt":"2026-04-19T07:38:38.000Z","sourceKey":"reddit","sourceName":"Reddit","credibility":0.62,"venue":"GrowMyBusinessNow","intent":"problem_report","painScore":0.36,"sentiment":0.3846154,"confidence":0.5987903,"matchedPatterns":["urgent"],"statement":"Here’s what we actually did: * **Doubled Down on Niche Content Marketing (Months 1-12):** * **Strategy:** Instead of generic blog posts, we identified the 3-5 biggest, most urgent pain points our ideal clients had.","title":"Struggling to see real traction after months of trying everything? My 3-step system for sustainable customer acquisition actually works (grew my client base by 40% in Q1 📈)","body":"Alright, let's talk about actually growing a business, not just dreaming about it. For a long time, I was stuck. Our service business hovered around $150k ARR for nearly a year, despite me busting my butt. Every guru was selling \"passive income funnels\" or \"10x your business overnight\" strategies that felt completely disconnected from the reality of running a lean operation.\n\nWe needed *real* clients, consistently. Not just tire-kickers. And we needed a way to deliver without me being the bottleneck for every single thing. Over the past 18 months, we focused on two key areas: **consistent, high-value lead generation** and **strategic operational scaling**. This isn't a secret sauce, but it sure as hell worked for us. We went from that $150k plateau to hitting over $750k ARR.\n\nHere’s what we actually did:\n\n*   **Doubled Down on Niche Content Marketing (Months 1-12):**\n    *   **Strategy:** Instead of generic blog posts, we identified the 3-5 biggest, most urgent pain points our ideal clients had. Then we created in-depth, practical guides and articles directly addressing those. Think \"How to avoid X common mistake in Y industry\" or \"The definitive guide to Z solution.\"\n    *   **Investment:** Initially, I wrote everything myself (about 10-15 hours/week). After 3 months, we hired a freelance writer for drafts at about $500/month for two long-form pieces. I still heavily edited and optimized them.\n    *   **Output:** We committed to publishing at least two new, high-quality pieces *every single month* for a full year. That’s 24 comprehensive articles.\n    *   **Result:** It felt like crickets for the first 6 months. Seriously, traffic barely moved. But by month 9-10, we started seeing real traction. Organic traffic grew from ~500 visitors/month to over 15,000 visitors/month by month 18, bringing in highly qualified leads who already knew what problem we solved.\n\n*   **Integrated Targeted Outreach with Our Content (Months 6-18):**\n    *   **Strategy:** Once we had a library of valuable content, we stopped sending cold, generic pitches. Instead, we used our content as a door-opener. We'd identify ideal prospects (specific company size, industry, pain points) and send personalized emails sharing a *relevant* article or guide, saying something like, \"I saw you're dealing with [specific problem], we just put out this guide that might help.\" No immediate ask, just value.\n    *   **Execution:** We built a list of ~500 target companies. My VA (hired later) would send out about 100 personalized outreach emails per month.\n    *   **Result:** This approach led to a 15-20% response rate and consistently booked 5-7 highly qualified sales calls per month that were *much* easier to close because we’d already provided value.\n\n*   **Built Out Our Operations (Months 9-18):**\n    *   **The Problem:** All these new leads and clients meant I was drowning. My time was the bottleneck.\n    *   **Solution 1: Project Management:** Hired a part-time project manager at $1,500/month. This was huge. They standardized our client onboarding, managed deliverables, and freed up about 20 hours of my week.\n    *   **Solution 2: CRM & Process:** Implemented a simple CRM (ActiveCampaign, ~$50/month) to track leads, follow-ups, and client communication. Documented every single step of our client delivery process.\n    *   **Solution 3: Delegation:** Brought on two more part-time contractors for specific tasks, allowing us to scale delivery without hiring full-time employees immediately.\n    *   **Overall Team Growth:** Went from just me to a team of 5 (me, PM, 2 contractors, 1 sales assistant).\n\n**The Real Talk – This Wasn't Easy:**\n\n*   **It takes serious time and patience.** Those first 6 months of content felt like shouting into a void. It took genuine commitment not to give up. This isn't \"fast growth.\"\n*   **Hiring is messy.** Our first two attempts at hiring a VA/PM didn't work out. It's a learning curve to delegate effectively and find the right fit. We wasted some money there.\n*   **It's still a grind.** We're not \"passive.\" I still work hard, but now I'm working *on* the business much more than *in* it, strategizing and leading the team, rather than being the sole operator.\n*   **Upfront Cost:** Beyond my time, we invested about $500-$1000/month consistently in tools, software, and freelance writers for content, plus the PM salary. This wasn't free.\n\nIf you're building a real business and tired of fluff advice, follow r/GrowMyBusinessNow—we share what actually works for small business growth, no BS.","offTopic":false},{"id":"42c7cbe7-9503-4ade-b537-ac59168246c4","excerpt":"5 things I've learned about moving a startup faster — I've always known how to build products, but I avoided the stuff that could actually build my business faster. Things like launching before I'm ready, talking to customers, or asking for money.\n\nAnd when you do that, it slows your startup down and kinda kills it.\n\nF","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/SaaS/comments/1vvj70d/5_things_ive_learned_about_moving_a_startup_faster/","role":"request","weight":0.78375477,"occurredAt":"2026-08-22T17:58:59.000Z","sourceKey":"reddit","sourceName":"Reddit","credibility":0.62,"venue":"SaaS","intent":"problem_report","painScore":0.36,"sentiment":0.22222222,"confidence":0.57629025,"matchedPatterns":["manual_process"],"statement":"Or can you manually deliver the outcome for one customer first?","title":"5 things I've learned about moving a startup faster","body":"I've always known how to build products, but I avoided the stuff that could actually build my business faster. Things like launching before I'm ready, talking to customers, or asking for money.\n\nAnd when you do that, it slows your startup down and kinda kills it.\n\nFor the last month, I've been working closely with early-stage founders to help them figure out what to do next and actually do it.\n\nSome of this has probably been said before, but here are 5 things I've learned from doing this, 12 years of building startups, and selling B2B tech for my day job.\n\n**1. WHO > WHAT you're building**\n\nFinding a group of people who deeply have the problem you're solving makes everything else faster. I now literally ask founders:\n\n**\"Who has a terrible day tomorrow if this problem isn't solved?\"**\n\nIf you can't name them specifically, start there.\n\nUsually I try to get as specific as: role + situation + painful problem\n\nI look for urgency and frequency. Who has this problem often, and who needs it solved badly?\n\nOnce you have that, finding people gets easier. Messaging gets easier. Your value prop gets clearer.\n\n**2. Being uncomfortable is speed**\n\nSome of the founders I work with have built great products AND have pilots. But they've put off asking for money because it's uncomfortable.\n\nOne founder finally made the ask and got a \"no, because...\"\n\nOn the surface, that seems bad. But he knew the exact gap between what he has and actually getting a customer.\n\nOne uncomfortable conversation probably saved him months of meandering. And for the straight \"nos,\" you can stop burning time on the wrong people.\n\n**Decisions are speed.**\n\n**3. You don't need every step**\n\nMost of the founders I work with are trying to reach some version of the same early milestones:\n\nFirst 10 WAU. First pilot. First customer.\n\nThere are a million paths to those goals. Some are unnecessarily long.\n\nIf you're trying to get your first customer, do you really need a full product? Or can you demo it and ask someone to pre-pay?\n\nIf you're trying to validate an idea, do you need to build an MVP? Or can you manually deliver the outcome for one customer first?\n\nIf even one answer is yes, you just saved yourself a bunch of time.\n\n**4. The fastest path to a customer is often face-to-face**\n\nI love email and DMs as much as the rest of you.\n\nAnd I love low response rates too lol.\n\nBut if you can get in front of your target customer in person, do it.\n\nYou skip the inbox. You get richer conversations. And you can see what actually resonates instead of guessing based on whether somebody replied.\n\n**5. Building can be procrastination**\n\nI was literally doing this yesterday.\n\nWe'd rather tweak ads, fiddle with a landing page, add another feature, or really do anything else except talk to customers.\n\nBefore you build something, ask:\n\n**\"What will I know after doing this that I don't know now?\"**\n\nTalking to a customer gives you evidence. Asking for money gives you evidence. \n\nIf what you're doing isn't going to teach you much, there's probably a faster move.\n\nHope this was helpful guys. Let me know if you want to know anything else from my work with founders.\n\nI love talking about this stuff.","offTopic":false},{"id":"56b7617a-2472-4ef3-8868-b3d4d4f6e108","excerpt":"There's a two-phase idea from Alex Hormozi that completely reframed the worst period of my business. — My LinkedIn Automation SaaS got stuck at around $600K ARR for a long stretch. I'm not saying that's a bad number by any means, but it was just stuck.\n\nAnd while i was stuck, a competitor came in and completely disrupt","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/EntrepreneurRideAlong/comments/1vrvq9b/theres_a_twophase_idea_from_alex_hormozi_that/","role":"pain","weight":0.7419629,"occurredAt":"2026-08-18T17:21:22.000Z","sourceKey":"reddit","sourceName":"Reddit","credibility":0.62,"venue":"EntrepreneurRideAlong","intent":"other","painScore":0.4,"sentiment":-1,"confidence":0.5299735,"matchedPatterns":[],"statement":"There's a two-phase idea from Alex Hormozi that completely reframed the worst period of my business..","title":"There's a two-phase idea from Alex Hormozi that completely reframed the worst period of my business.","body":"My LinkedIn Automation SaaS got stuck at around $600K ARR for a long stretch. I'm not saying that's a bad number by any means, but it was just stuck.\n\nAnd while i was stuck, a competitor came in and completely disrupted the market. they came in at $3/month per LinkedIn account while I was charging $99. \n\nand instead of trying to position for everyone (how i did), they went hard after one narrow, loud segment and built their entire positioning around them.\n\nAnd it worked out crazy well for them.\n\nThey scaled to \\~$13 mil a year within a couple of years, and I stayed f\\*cking stuck at $600K the whole time watching it happen. I felt like a loser during that time, and I don't say that lightly.\n\nWhat eventually helped me make sense of it was a framework I picked up from Alex Hormozi. The idea is that every product business moves through 2 phases.\n\n**There's the search phase**, where the actual job is figuring out who really wants your product and why. You're talking to customers constantly, figuring out your segment, figuring out your position in the market, and basically trying to understand what people actually want before you try to scale anything. It's supposed to be slow and a little messy.\n\n**Then there's the exploitation phase**, where you take whatever the search phase proved and scale it hard. marketing, sales, ops, everything.\n\nOnce I understood that, i realized what happened. They were already deep into exploitation while i hadn't even finished searching, and i didn't know it back then. \n\nI was ‘taking a guess’ at my audience while pretending i had it figured out, and expecting exploitation phase level growth.\n\nNow, before jumping to any conclusions i try to answer these 3 questions first:\n\nWho are my actual early adopters?   \nWhat position do they hold in the wider market?   \nNot who *could* theoretically buy this, but who's already showing me they want it?\n\nI’m still veryyy far from $13 mil ARR, but that’s okay, I know where i stand now.\n\nIf you're in the middle of that feeling right now, comparing your numbers to someone else's, I’ll just tell you that I've been there too, and most of what I thought it meant about me turned out to be wrong. \n\nSlow down and answer those 3 questions, you’ll find clarity there.\n\nKeep going y’all ✌️  \n  \nP.S. My SaaS is SalesRobot DOT co if you’re curious (now at $1mln ARR)","offTopic":false},{"id":"cdfcf610-f4f2-4e3c-9a4a-66e03e0bcb79","excerpt":"Bootstrapped for 12 months and sick of generic advice? Here's the *one* overlooked tactic that doubled my client bookings (without spending a dime on ads) 📈 — Tired of hearing \"just scale\" without anyone telling you *how*? Yeah, me too. For a while, it felt like every entrepreneur podcast or blog was full of high-level","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/GrowMyBusinessNow/comments/1tlr6mz/bootstrapped_for_12_months_and_sick_of_generic/","role":"demand","weight":0.7262236,"occurredAt":"2026-05-23T20:24:43.000Z","sourceKey":"reddit","sourceName":"Reddit","credibility":0.62,"venue":"GrowMyBusinessNow","intent":"tool_discovery","painScore":0.12,"sentiment":0.5,"confidence":0.6484139,"matchedPatterns":["looking_for"],"statement":"We weren't looking for a 'hack' or a 'secret sauce,' just what actually worked for other small, bootstrapped teams.","title":"Bootstrapped for 12 months and sick of generic advice? Here's the *one* overlooked tactic that doubled my client bookings (without spending a dime on ads) 📈","body":"Tired of hearing \"just scale\" without anyone telling you *how*? Yeah, me too. For a while, it felt like every entrepreneur podcast or blog was full of high-level theory or vague platitudes. We hit a wall last year after getting our specialized B2B software off the ground, stuck at around $8K MRR for a solid six months. The initial buzz was gone, and growth had stagnated.\n\nWe weren't looking for a 'hack' or a 'secret sauce,' just what actually worked for other small, bootstrapped teams. So we got real, dug in, and over the past 14 months, we've pushed that $8K MRR to just over **$32K MRR** and grew our active user base from about 70 to 310 paying customers. It wasn't overnight, and it definitely wasn't easy. Here’s a breakdown of what moved the needle for us in the scaling phase:\n\n*   **Refined Our ICP (Ideal Customer Profile) – The Hard Way:** We spent 3 months interviewing churned customers and our best advocates to truly understand who got the most value and why. This wasn't about demographics, but their *pain points* and *aspirations*.\n    *   **Cost:** Mostly time (about 15-20 hours/week combined for two founders), plus a $99/month subscription for a transcription service.\n    *   **Result:** Reduced our customer acquisition cost (CAC) by ~20% because we stopped targeting broadly and focused on *exactly* who needed us.\n*   **Doubled Down on Niche Content Marketing:** Instead of general blog posts, we focused on hyper-specific problem-solution articles that directly addressed our ICP's refined pain points. We aimed for long-tail keywords that our ideal customers were searching for when they were already aware of their problem.\n    *   **Time Invested:** 1 high-quality blog post per week (avg. 8-10 hours to research, write, and optimize).\n    *   **Resource:** Hired a fractional content marketer for 10 hours/week at $75/hour for 6 months to help with strategy and editing, bringing our total content cost to ~$3000/month.\n    *   **Result:** Organic traffic to our blog increased by 350% over 9 months, and conversion rate from blog visitor to trial user went from 0.8% to 2.1%.\n*   **Implemented a Value-Based Onboarding Sequence:** Our old onboarding was a generic \"welcome email.\" We revamped it to a 5-step email sequence triggered by specific user actions within the first 7 days, highlighting how to solve *their* specific pain points using our features.\n    *   **Time Invested:** About 40 hours for design, copy, and automation setup (using our existing CRM/email tool).\n    *   **Result:** Improved our 30-day retention rate from 72% to 88%, significantly reducing early churn. This alone probably had the biggest impact on MRR growth.\n\nNow, let's be real: this wasn't a smooth rocket launch. We burned through an initial $10k ad budget on Facebook ads that barely broke even because our targeting was off. We spent weeks developing features nobody asked for, only to scrap them later. There were months where we pulled 70-hour weeks, questioning if the effort was worth it. Cash flow was tight, and we sometimes paid ourselves late to keep the lights on and the contractors paid. This kind of growth demands persistence, a willingness to fail fast, and a thick skin.\n\nIf you're building a real business and tired of fluff advice, follow r/GrowMyBusinessNow—we share what actually works for small business growth, no BS. Let's talk about what's actually moving the needle for you right now.","offTopic":false},{"id":"35229723-6584-49d6-8cf6-e37334c9fc79","excerpt":"🎨 Landing Pages for Amazon: Do You Actually Need One? (Complete 2026 Guide) — Most Amazon sellers waste months building landing pages that hurt their conversions. Here's what actually works in 2026, backed by real data.\n\n# 🤔 The $10,000 Question: Landing Page or Direct Link?\n\nLet's skip the theory and get straight to n","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/AmazonExternalTraff/comments/1rq2vn1/landing_pages_for_amazon_do_you_actually_need_one/","role":"request","weight":0.6941964,"occurredAt":"2026-03-10T17:13:04.000Z","sourceKey":"reddit","sourceName":"Reddit","credibility":0.62,"venue":"AmazonExternalTraff","intent":"howto_question","painScore":0.09,"sentiment":0.31343284,"confidence":0.6368774,"matchedPatterns":["how_can_i"],"statement":"**Q: How do I clean it?** A: Dishwasher safe (top rack) or hand wash with warm soapy water.","title":"🎨 Landing Pages for Amazon: Do You Actually Need One? (Complete 2026 Guide)","body":"Most Amazon sellers waste months building landing pages that hurt their conversions. Here's what actually works in 2026, backed by real data.\n\n# 🤔 The $10,000 Question: Landing Page or Direct Link?\n\nLet's skip the theory and get straight to numbers.\n\n**Direct to Amazon:**\n\n* Conversion rate: 5-8% (cold traffic)\n* Setup time: 5 minutes\n* Monthly cost: $0\n* Control: Zero (Amazon owns everything)\n\n**Landing page first:**\n\n* Conversion rate: 18-25% (pre-warmed traffic)\n* Setup time: 2-4 hours\n* Monthly cost: $90-350\n* Control: Full (emails, pixels, testing)\n\n**Deep link only (mobile app-to-app):**\n\n* Conversion rate: 8-12%\n* Mobile-specific\n* Monthly cost: $50\n* Best for: Simple products, mobile-heavy traffic\n\n**Translation:** Landing pages can 3-5x your conversion rate, but they're NOT always worth it.\n\n# 💡 The Real Problem: \"Trash Traffic\" is Killing Your Listing\n\n**Here's what Amazon doesn't tell you:**\n\nWhen you drive cold traffic directly to Amazon and it doesn't convert, you're HURTING your organic rank.\n\n**Why:** Amazon's A10 algorithm tracks your \"Unit Session Percentage\" (conversions ÷ views).\n\n**What happens:**\n\n* You send 1,000 clicks from Meta\n* Only 50 convert (5%)\n* Amazon sees: \"This listing got 1,000 views but only 50 sales\"\n* A10 thinks: \"Product must be losing relevance\"\n* Your organic rank DROPS\n\n**Landing page = filter:**\n\n* You send 1,000 clicks from Meta\n* 600 drop off on landing page (not interested)\n* 400 click through to Amazon\n* 80 convert (20%)\n* Amazon sees: \"400 views, 80 sales - this product is HOT\"\n* Your organic rank RISES\n\n**Landing pages protect your listing health by filtering out low-intent traffic.**\n\n# 📊 When You NEED a Landing Page\n\n# ✅ High-consideration products ($100+)\n\n**Products:** Electronics, furniture, premium apparel, supplements\n\n**Why:** People don't impulse-buy $200 headphones. They need education, comparison, trust-building.\n\n**Conversion impact:**\n\n* Direct link: 3-8%\n* Landing page: 18-25%\n\n**ROI example ($150 product):**\n\n* 1,000 clicks from Meta @ $2 CPC = $2,000 spend\n* Direct: 50 sales = $7,500 revenue\n* Landing page: 200 sales = $30,000 revenue\n* Difference: $22,500 extra revenue for $200/month software cost\n\n**Break-even happens in Week 1.**\n\n# ✅ New product launches (< 20 reviews)\n\n**The problem:** No social proof on Amazon = low conversion\n\n**The solution:** Landing page with:\n\n* Beta tester testimonials\n* Video demonstrations\n* \"Pre-launch pricing\" urgency\n* Email capture for later retargeting\n\n**Impact:** Protect your conversion rate while building reviews organically.\n\n# ✅ Complex problem-solvers\n\n**Products:** Posture correctors, sleep aids, kitchen gadgets with unique mechanisms\n\n**Why:** If people don't understand HOW it works, they won't buy.\n\n**What landing page does:**\n\n* 15-30 second demo video\n* Before/after comparisons\n* Step-by-step usage guide\n\n**Conversion lift: 2-4x vs direct link**\n\n# ✅ You want to build an email list\n\n**This is the #1 reason to use landing pages.**\n\n**Why email matters:**\n\n* Amazon owns the customer relationship (you don't)\n* Fee hikes in 2026: FBA +$0.08-$0.51/unit\n* Email converts 3.18x better than cold ads\n* Insurance against algorithm changes\n\n**Email capture strategy:**\n\n* Exit-intent popup: \"Get 10% off\"\n* Recovers 15% of abandoning visitors\n* Retarget later with new products\n\n**LTV > single Amazon sale**\n\n# ✅ Premium positioning\n\n**The problem:** Amazon listings are rigid, limit storytelling\n\n**Character limits:**\n\n* Title: 200 chars\n* Bullets: 500 chars total\n* A+ content: Limited modules\n\n**Landing page has NO limits:**\n\n* Full-width video\n* Brand story\n* Founder backstory\n* Sustainability credentials\n* Comparison charts\n\n**Result:** Justify your higher price vs generic competitors.\n\n# 🚫 When to SKIP Landing Pages\n\n# ❌ Impulse buys under $20\n\n**Products:** Grocery, beauty, consumables, phone accessories\n\n**Why:** High-velocity, low-friction needed.\n\n**Data:** These products convert 20-30% NATURALLY on Amazon. Landing page adds friction and HURTS conversion.\n\n**Just use deep linking instead** (URLgenie) to get mobile users into the Amazon app fast.\n\n# ❌ Branded search traffic\n\n**Scenario:** Someone searches Google for \"Nike Air Max\"\n\n**They already know:**\n\n* What brand they want\n* What product they want\n* Where to buy it\n\n**Landing page = unnecessary detour**\n\n**Direct link or Brand Store link performs better.**\n\n# ❌ Commodity replenishment\n\n**Products:** Paper towels, batteries, laundry detergent\n\n**Why:** Familiarity reduces need for education.\n\n**People just want:**\n\n* Fast checkout\n* Prime shipping\n* Best price\n\n**Direct link wins.**\n\n# ❌ Budget under $50/day\n\n**Reality check:**\n\nWith $50/day ad spend, you need to focus 100% on:\n\n* Amazon PPC optimization\n* Review generation\n* Listing optimization\n\n**Landing page overhead NOT justified yet.**\n\n**Come back when you're spending $200+/day on external traffic.**\n\n# ❌ You can't maintain it\n\n**Landing page maintenance:**\n\n* Update prices weekly (must match Amazon)\n* Update stock availability daily\n* Fix broken images/videos\n* A/B test monthly\n\n**Time: 2-4 hours/month minimum**\n\n**If you can't commit:** Broken landing page is WORSE than no landing page.\n\n**Mismatch kills trust:**\n\n* Ad says $25\n* Landing page says $30\n* Instant abandon\n\n# 💰 The Real ROI Breakdown\n\nLet me show you the FULL math (including Brand Referral Bonus and organic lift).\n\n**Example: $100 product, 25% margin**\n\n# Without Landing Page:\n\n* 1,000 clicks @ $2.50 CPC = $2,500 ad spend\n* 5% conversion = 50 sales\n* Revenue: $5,000\n* Margin (25%): $1,250\n* Brand Referral Bonus (10%): $500\n* **Net: -$750 (LOSING MONEY)**\n\n# With Landing Page:\n\n* 1,000 clicks @ $2.50 CPC = $2,500 ad spend\n* 40% land on page = 400 reach Amazon\n* 20% conversion = 80 sales\n* Revenue: $8,000\n* Margin (25%): $2,000\n* Brand Referral Bonus (10%): $800\n* Landing page cost: $200/month\n* **Net: +$100 profit**\n\n# Plus Hidden Benefits:\n\n**Email captures:** 150 emails @ 20% conversion later = 30 additional sales next month\n\n**Organic rank boost:** A10 sees high CVR → boosts rank → 20-50 extra organic sales/month\n\n**True ROI = 5-8x when you factor in the flywheel effect.**\n\n# 🏗️ Landing Page Structure (What Actually Converts)\n\n# Above the Fold = 60% of Conversions\n\nYou have **3 seconds** to convince someone to scroll.\n\n**Must include:**\n\n**1. Outcome-focused headline**\n\n❌ BAD: \"Stainless Steel 8-inch Chef Knife\"  \n✅ GOOD: \"The Last Chef's Knife You'll Ever Buy\"\n\n❌ BAD: \"Premium Yoga Mat\"  \n✅ GOOD: \"Never Slip Mid-Pose Again\"\n\n**Formula:** Outcome they want, NOT feature you have.\n\n**2. One-sentence subheadline**\n\n\"Professional-grade sharpness that lasts 10x longer than drugstore knives\"\n\n**Keep it under 15 words.**\n\n**3. Hero visual (video > image)**\n\n**Video wins by 86% in 2026.**\n\n**Requirements:**\n\n* 15-30 seconds MAX\n* Muted autoplay\n* Vertical (9:16) for mobile\n* Shows product IN USE (not just sitting there)\n\n**Structure:**\n\n* 0-2 sec: Hook (show the problem)\n* 3-8 sec: Demo (product solving it)\n* 8-12 sec: Differentiators (text overlays)\n* 12-15 sec: Loop back to start\n\n**Example hook:** Open with someone's yoga mat sliding → frustration → THEN show your mat gripping perfectly.\n\n**4. Primary CTA button**\n\n**Text that works:** ✅ \"Shop on Amazon\"  \n✅ \"Check Latest Price\"  \n✅ \"See Real Reviews on Amazon\"\n\n❌ \"Buy Now\" (too aggressive)  \n❌ \"Add to Cart\" (wrong platform)\n\n**Color psychology:**\n\n* **Orange:** Urgency (impulse products)\n* **Blue:** Trust (health, electronics)\n* **Green:** Safety (organic, eco)\n* **Yellow:** Value (discounts)\n\n**Size:** Minimum 44x44 pixels (thumb-friendly on mobile)\n\n**5. Trust signals**\n\nPlace IMMEDIATELY visible:\n\n* \"★★★★★ 4.8/5 from 2,000+ reviews\"\n* \"Available on Amazon Prime\"\n* \"500,000+ units sold\"\n* Amazon logo (approved badge only)\n\n**This bridges the gap between \"unknown website\" and \"trusted Amazon.\"**\n\n# 🎯 Product Benefits Section\n\nUse **PAS formula:** Problem → Agitate → Solve\n\n**Example (yoga mat):**\n\n**Problem:**  \n\"Slipping mid-pose ruins your flow and risks injury\"\n\n**Agitate:**  \n\"Generic mats lose grip after 10 minutes of sweating, forcing you to constantly readjust and breaking your focus\"\n\n**Solve:**  \n\"Our dual-layer texture stays grippy even in 90-degree hot yoga, so you hold poses longer with zero sliding\"\n\n**Format per benefit:**\n\n**Feature → Benefit → Result**\n\nExample:\n\n* **Feature:** \"Double-wall vacuum insulation with copper lining\"\n* **Benefit:** \"Keeps drinks ice-cold for 24 hours straight\"\n* **Result:** \"Cold water during your entire 12-hour shift, no refills needed\"\n\n**Keep it to 3-5 key benefits MAX.**\n\nMore = overwhelming. Less = incomplete.\n\n# 📊 Comparison Table (Justify Your Price)\n\n**This is how you beat \"why not just buy the cheap one?\" objections.**\n\n**Simple format:**\n\n|Feature|Your Brand|Generic Brands|\n|:-|:-|:-|\n|Non-slip grip|✅ Dual-layer texture|❌ Single layer|\n|Thickness|✅ 6mm extra cushion|❌ 3mm standard|\n|Material|✅ Eco-friendly TPE|❌ Toxic PVC|\n|Warranty|✅ Lifetime guarantee|❌ 90 days only|\n|Reviews|✅ 4.8★ (2,000+)|❌ 3.2★ (50)|\n\n**Result:** Your $40 mat is OBVIOUSLY better than their $15 mat.\n\n# 💬 Social Proof Section\n\n**Types that work in 2026:**\n\n# 1. Amazon review integration\n\nPull 2-3 real reviews (screenshot or quote).\n\n**Must include:**\n\n* \"Verified Amazon Purchase\" badge\n* Star rating\n* Customer name (first name + last initial)\n\n**Example:**\n\n>\n\n# 2. User-Generated Content (UGC)\n\n* Real customer photos using product\n* Unboxing videos\n* Before/after (if compliant)\n\n**Source:** Instagram hashtags, Amazon reviews, customer emails\n\n# 3. \"As Seen On\" media logos\n\n* Forbes\n* TechCrunch\n* Good Housekeeping\n* Industry awards\n\n**Even small features count.** \"Featured in \\[Publication\\]\" builds authority.\n\n# 4. Customer count metrics\n\n* \"Over 500,000 units sold worldwide\"\n* \"Rated 4.9/5 by 10,000+ verified shoppers\"\n* \"Amazon Best Seller in \\[Category\\]\"\n\n**Numbers = credibility**\n\n# 5. Trust badges\n\n* \"Climate Pledge Friendly\"\n* \"Made in USA\"\n* \"BPA Free / Food-Safe\"\n* \"OEKO-TEX Certified\"\n* \"30-Day Money-Back Guarantee\"\n\n**Place these near CTAs.**\n\n# ❓ FAQ Section (Kill Objections)\n\nAnswer the 3-5 most common hesitations:\n\n**Example:**\n\n**Q: Does it really stay cold for 24 hours?**  \nA: Yes, tested and certified. Double-wall vacuum insulation keeps ice frozen for a full day.\n\n**Q: What sizes does it come in?**  \nA: Three sizes: 16oz, 24oz, and 32oz to fit any lifestyle.\n\n**Q: How do I clean it?**  \nA: Dishwasher safe (top rack) or hand wash with warm soapy water.\n\n**Q: What's your return policy?**  \nA: Amazon's standard 30-day return policy applies. Hassle-free.\n\n**Q: Is it really BPA-free?**  \nA: 100% food-grade stainless steel. Zero plastics touch your beverage.\n\n**This section eliminates last-minute doubts.**\n\n# 🔁 Final CTA (Repeat with Urgency)\n\nDon't assume people remember the first CTA.\n\n**Repeat at bottom with slight urgency:**\n\n\"Join 50,000+ Happy Customers — Shop Now on Amazon Prime\"\n\n\"Limited Stock Available — Free 2-Day Prime Shipping\"\n\n\"See Why 10,000+ Reviewers Give Us 5 Stars\"\n\n# 📱 Mobile Optimization (83% of Traffic)\n\n**2026 reality: 82.9% of traffic is mobile.**\n\n**If your landing page isn't mobile-first, you've already lost.**\n\n# 1. Page load speed < 3 seconds\n\n**Every extra second = 10% drop in conversion.**\n\n**Impact of delays:**\n\n* 2 seconds: Baseline\n* 3 seconds: -10% conversion\n* 4 seconds: -20% conversion\n* 5 seconds: -53% abandon before page loads\n\n**How to achieve:**\n\n**a) Compress images**\n\n* Use WebP format (smaller than JPG)\n* Max 200KB per image\n* Tools: TinyPNG, Squoosh\n\n**b) Lazy loading** Only load images when user scrolls to them, not all at once.\n\n**c) Minify code** Remove unnecessary spaces and characters from HTML/CSS/JS.\n\n**d) Use a CDN** Cloudflare, AWS CloudFront = files hosted globally for faster delivery.\n\n**Test with:** Google PageSpeed Insights (aim for 90+ score on mobile)\n\n# 2. Single-column layout\n\n**Multi-column = unreadable on mobile.**\n\nEverything stacked vertically","offTopic":false}],"breakdown":[{"sourceKey":"reddit","sourceName":"Reddit","count":45}],"total":45}}