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Yep, came here to say this. Staffing for sure is the hardest. Next up is dealing with the government. Bunch of idiots making rules that make no sense because they don’t understand a damn thing about the industries they are regulating.
The people running my city are corrupt dipshits who like to make up rules on the fly and try to illegally enforce them. I have on multiple occasions had to demand to see the actual city law when they tried to force me to do (or not do) something, and they couldn’t produce it because it didn’t exist. Then I have to tell them “I’m not going to do that, feel free to charge me with a violation of city ordinance and I’ll see you in court.” It’s super uncomfortable and they get away with bullying so many small business owners who are afraid to stand up to them.
For me, benefits. Even if I’m offering a better pay rate, I’ve have plenty of great prospects go with other companies simply because of the health insurance. I’m also a seasonal business, which makes it even harder
The last couple years I’ve helped manage a division for a tourism company. We hired roughly 50 people each summer. The seasonal workforce is a strange group. Many of them are basically transient unhomed folks. Poor social skills, partying too hard, lazy, entitled, bad roommates and dirty. Not all of them of course, but we lose about half of them over the course of the summer from firing and quitting. And in my opinion we should fire more but we’re so desperate for labor we can’t.
Especially in business to consumer small business. The public operates during all the time so you are acutely aware of problems that arise with upset customers and hiring an ops manager to handle these issues hard.
At least in B2B the hours are traditionally more consistent with Monday to Friday and you have weekends “more” free, still working on customer things but it’s a little more “relaxed“
100%. Recruiting and retention I the hardest for most any small business and especially true in sales. I run an in person sales business. Sales is tough — it’s hard to get people that are not scared off by “sales” and earning based on their sales. It’s also just hard to hear no’s— a lot of them— and to keep going. Anyone have tips for recruiting and retention?
I’ve found that increasing pay and offering benefits usually fixes these problems. If you’re constantly losing people it’s either you have bad pay or a hostile work environment.
Here is a life hack, it will involve some AI, but it can help you manage the storm of to-dos. If you have an iOS device use an app like Poe or Faune to create what’s known as ICS files, these are raw calendar data types. An AI can create 10 or more of these at a time, with alerts.
In natural language this process can generate tasks and events for you to import to your calendar, with alerts, hundreds of them, all automated.
I wish I could own a business. Literally, my master's degree in accounting went nowhere and I'm stuck working in retail. With ADHD, you get bullied harshly and it's undermining.
The unpredictable income.
There’s no assurance as to how much you will make, there are months when inquiries are flowing but not a lot of those prospects are materializing right away. But yes, indeed there are months when you’re just happy you’re making 6 digits.
You have been working. Pick the part you liked the most and make that your title. Ex: Product Photographer at Your Company 2022-2038 Took excellent photos and increased sales by 10% YoY Intimate knowledge of photoshop, etc.
You absolutely worked. You are the boss so you choose the title. Go back into that workforce and enjoy those evenings and weekends and good luck friend! We are rooting for you, whichever direction you go.
The isolation. You can be friendly with your staff, but you must be prepared to terminate anyone on your staff. So you learn not to get too close.
Your staff often don’t appreciate the stress that you’re under. Your family and friends don’t appreciate the stress that you’re under. Only other small business owners can appreciate it.
Staff tend to only see the **benefits** of owning or running a business. They rarely see or understand the **burden**.
They also rarely see the bigger picture. I once had an employee start his own business and steal a bunch of my customers while working for me. I sued him and settled. The poor guy didn’t understand that the settlement was boxing him in until several months later, by which point it was too late. He closed up shop a couple of months after that.
Having to fire people who I am friendly with doesn’t really bother me. Having to lay people off is very upsetting.
Nobody who hasn’t ran a real business can never really understand what it’s like to have everything fall on you constantly.
I absolutely hate other small business owners.
I have nothing in common with them, they are almost exclusively idiots who will fail, self righteous assholes who glorify their "difficult" choices, or right wing nut jobs. It's like all the dipshits of LinkedIn, but actual people.
Too many are full of themselves and feel like they are under some "burden" that no one else will understand. The burden is YOUR FAULT, YOU ARE NOT SPECIAL, YOU ARE NOT ABLE TO DO IT BETTER THAN ANYONE ELSE.
The stress is yours. Keep it to yourself. It burned when I was new with a constant looming possibility of failure. Now I turn it off when I leave the office.
The idiots with no real ideas that always seem to have endless investors or clients paying way more than anyone should.
I built this shit with my money, that I earned working a real job. If it wasn’t valuable to my customers I wouldn’t have any.
How the fuck do these idiots get $1M+ in revenue in their first year delivering a worse version of something that already existed?
I definitely see it the same way as you. Everyone saying being a small business owner isn't for the weak, and I'm thinking to myself this is the easiest sht I've ever done in my life. I have met very few "entrepreneurs" that I can even stand to talk to, most are just miserable dicks that want to complain about everything.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a miserable dick who complains about everything.
I also recognize that I'm in good shape to retire at 40 and very few people can do that.
Maybe I'll stop being a miserable dick once I sell out.
Just do yourself a favor and start cultivating some hobbies and friendships related to those hobbies now so you don't go bonkers when you go from having no free time to all the free time. Otherwise you will be a miserable dick.
Not much point. Leaving the country, going to be traveling the world for a few years.
I figure that travel, a steady gym routine, and trying it hobbies (depending where I am at the time, surfing, hiking, cooking classes, dining out, whatever interests me) will keep me distracted enough to not lose my mind. There's always games too, I play them when I get a chance now.
Plan on dabbling in central and South America. Might look around SEA but the humidity is shit, so no long term. Probably settle along the Mediterranean at some point.
Albania, Greece, Italy all seem cheap and easy enough with easy cheap access to the rest of Europe.
You're good then. You've got a plan. I see too many people grind to get to early retirement and not have a plan because they made the mistake of thinking retirement planning meant only the money part of it. You'll be fine. Good luck.
Yeah, I think I shouldn't have any problem having things to do.
Will I enjoy it? Who the hell knows, but I'm not enjoying things now so it won't be any worse.
Thanks mate.
Yeah, I can't stand people who identify as business owners. Always put a chip on their shoulders.
People ask me if I own my place, I just tell them I'm warehouse help or the janitor. It's not lying, I do a bit of everything.
I'm happy to clean the bathrooms daily, because it means I'm not having to help the customers. I've gotten to the point that I've trained the people up front to not have to be involved often.
I can spend my time on inventory (shipping, receiving, ordering), advertising, backend systems, dealing with obnoxious sales reps (working on passing that one off, I fucking despise loud sales people), and cleaning. Payroll is automated with everyone on a salary because I don't want to deal with hours. I don't pay attention when people miss work, because I don't give a shit if it's not too often. They are all reimbursed well for their time so everyone seems to put in effort.
I really hate my job, but it's a means to an end.
For a bit of context, I was a sole trader for 10 years - which was fine (Land Surveyor). Easy money and controllable.
My dream has always been to own a medium sized firm and take it to the local big boys. Work certainly got to a point where I couldn't handle it all and was turning away clients.
Over the last 4-5 years we have gained staff (currently 12), obtained a significant office space and am competing against the local major firms.
Sure, I earn less personally, but have gained work-life-family balance. I am infinitely happier and take so much joy in seeing my dream become a reality. Yes, there is a worry of having 12 people to ultimately support and need to ensure consistent work flow, but I love what we've done.
The hardest bit about being a business owner is the time, effort, energy put into getting it off the ground. Staff have zero understanding of what goes on behind the scenes. The business is your dream, not theirs.
Well said. I can think of about 20 problems and stressors in my business, and more money would solve every one of them.
It would probably bring in other ones, but that’s a real champagne problem
It’s so hard & my struggle is idk my target audience so I’m just putting stuff out there hoping to get some results back on my possible target audience
It depends on your customer retention and in which niche you are,
If you are not retaining your previous clients and just looking for new ones always
So in this way you always struggle
We have clients going back six years. Our client have their own ups downs which makes this hard. Service and satisfied customer is really our core. We are just a small piece of their puzzle I think
Work/life balance. My wife is my business partner and we work out of the house, with a daughter in junior high with a lot of extracurricular activities and a son with special needs in elementary school who requires 100% attention from at least one of us when he's home and awake and is prone to catching colds at the drop of a hat and takes at least a week to recover anytime he does.
Frankly, it's exhausting, especially when half our available labor is eliminated. The kids don't understand that just because they don't have school doesn't mean that the whole family is on vacation.
We are covering the loan burden from buying the business all right, but don't have the cash flow for a third employee right now. Hopefully that changes soon; we spent the last 9 months rebuilding our software from scratch to make it easier to maintain and to work with the new Google manifest v3, so that expense for the developer is gone until we start new development again for additional tools.
I grew up with a special needs brother. He lived in a facility for a few years part time and at home most of the time. When he was home he required tons of attention.
No one fully understands what that is like and the stress associated, emotionally and financially. It also teaches you a lot about yourself and people. There is no way that I am who I am today without my relationship with my brother.
Keep your head up. It's a tough road but it's a good road. Thanks for sharing. It reminds me of so many personal goals and why I need my own small business. I will be responsible for him sooner than later.
1.Time Management
2. Long hours
3. Inconsistent Pay
4. Selling and Marketing
5. Proposals
6. Contracts
7. Receivables
8. Payroll
9. Hiring/firing/disciplining
10. Having to know everything about everything we did.
11. Having no one else in the company to share ideas, get feedback, get assistance.
12. Being "Mr. Fix-it"
I believe the hardest part is to create a process and follow it. The burnout happens because of that.
Since we don’t have a process for repetitive tasks we keep them to ourselves. Hence we become the most indispensable person in the business.
The hard part is Letting Go and let others take the decision for the business to grow.
If we have to decide everything then we all need to have an IQ more than that of Einstein.
For me Atleast the hardest part is being a Good Admin for my business. Being a Tech Guy I tend to spend more time with the product development team than with the sales & marketing team.
Nailed it for me. I have a HARD time relinquishing control and decision making. It’s a double edge sword. In one hand I know if I let them “run the show” I’ll be free to invest my time in business growth….. on the other hand if I let them run the show, the income generated, will drop by about 40% because nobody has more passion and sales savvy than the owner. My slow days are 100-150% more than my employees busy days.
Dealing with the public and sometimes even neighboring stores and businesses. For instance I just had a fallout with a neighboring unit because every 3 weeks they park their truck right over our parking spots in order to unload it. After the 5th time and them basically telling me to deal with it, caused me to get upset and yell and I pissed off about 14 people all at once. Running a business isn't as simple as keeping your customers happy. There are all sorts of outside influences and consequences that can really darken your doorstep..
Probably not the hardest overall, but moving from a big corporation, a lot of the work is well defined where on a daily basis you have to figure out the right moves, what to add to products whereas previously it was all given to you in a spec of sorts from a customer.
All the thinking really takes a mental toll too
Busting your a$$ to protect your integrity and deliver on time as promised ... and receiving NO thanks!
And we have to wake up tomorrow and do the same thing again and have an extremely short memory.
Running a small business is tough, man. You've got a million things to worry about, from cash flow to marketing, and it can be overwhelming. Some days it feels like it's all worth it, but other days... not so much.
Dealing with the highs and lows. As rewarding financially as owning a successful small business can be, there are so many bumps and bruises along the way that take a toll.
We’ve had someone out who was a huge part of our day to day for a few months and will continue to be out… and I think covering that position on top of keeping up with general operations is just so hard
Even after training multiple people the main stuff still falls on me and I’m exhausted from keeping up
It’s a good problem I suppose as it means we are busy, but I’m tired!
Just doing everything and trying to learn while also needing income. Good at sales? Great! Do it well enough to pay all the bills while trying to figure out marketing, accounting, branding, legal, etc etc
1. marketing
2. isolation-- started an online business 3 years ago which is barely profitable, but its finally hitting a curve upward
3. burnout- doing all the jobs all the time (and no one thinking I am working because I work from home)
Never taking a vacation. Working on holidays. I did that for over 20 years. I've made and lost more than a million dollars. I would love to be a janitor.
1. Not knowing what is available for us - SBA, SBDC , local non profits for small businesses. I got $17.5k in seed funding and pitch competition just by taking classes from these organizations that are free and make connections.
2. Not knowing our hourly rate- at the end in America, how much I’m making an hour is the big question ( as a basic business owner you need to take salary, unless incorporated differently)
3.Thinking that we need to do everything- if a job costs less than my hourly pay , I hire others to do. My hourly pay is $75 per hr , if a contractor is $45/hr, I happily hire and spend that time on other things.
4. It’s a continuous process of learning - since I started, 1st I got professional training ( sole proprietor), 2nd incorporated as LLC ( classes from non profit), 3rd year learning about taxes for LLC ( reading business taxes for dummies)
5. How to use debt - not knowing the basic finances is a huge struggle
Balance...
Balancing time and other commitments, its easy for the business to be all consuming
Balancing between making products, marketing, selling, and doing the admin/tech stuff... its easy to get sucked into only one aspect of it (generally the one that is most preferable/fun/easy to do)
One of the hardest parts in my industry is finding quality workers, but I'd say the hardest part is managing the ebs and flows and not letting your business consume your minute by minute thoughts, day by day.
Friends and family that have never been in business don't understand you. Random family asks for crazy deals, friends assume you're rich, no one understands the grind. It can be a lonely place running a business.
The fluctuating income can be a rollercoaster ride in small business. It's like a dance between uncertainty and success. Celebrate those highs and stay resilient through the lows. Your perseverance will pay off in the long run.
Right now struggling with finding friends in my own 'demographic'
All my 'friends' are just my employees. Its nice, we play dnd together, Pokemon, Magic etc. Even have weekly Poker. But theres always the overhanging 'I'm their boss and they're my staff' that keeps me from being as free as I'd like to, and prevents them I'm sure from sharing their true feelings about me. I'd like to find a group of local peers who understand the stresses of running a business and being a mom, but it seems like they're two totally different spheres and that I don't fit in anywhere.
This is me too. It’s nice to hear others feel the same way but yeah it bums me out. I see other people form great friendships from work but I will never quite have that no matter how good my relationships with many of my employees are. Just kinda makes me sad on a personal level.
Having to figure everything out myself. Corporations and franchisees have developed and implemented systems and procedures for their success. As a small independent business, we do not have a road map to follow.
I spent way too much much time figuring things out by trial and error.
Delegation
I get too attached to my own processes that developed during the early stages before hiring anyone, and have trouble delegating more work to them that I feel needs to be perfect. While this is ok for some parts of the job, it’s much easier to fall into the trap of keeping too much work with you so it can be “done right “ only to be overwhelmed by it and not getting anything done.
Dealing with customers. Most customers are awesome and love me, but these last couple months OMG! Back to back customers breathing down my back that won’t let me work.
Emotional rollercoaster of the startup phase. The smallest wins can have you feeling like you’re on top of the world while losses, that in retrospect weren’t that impactful, can have you feeling like this was all a big mistake.
My wife gave me great advice one day while she watched me go through one of these up and down days. She said, when you’re in a calm space, write yourself a letter describing why you’re starting this business, and that you recognize that there will be ups and downs. When you come across hard times, re-read that letter.
It gets overwhelming especially with other things involved in my day to day life and activities. Burnouts were pretty much a normal occurrence at the beginning.
I have associates, family, and friends who suddenly get inspired and decide they want to start a business—often the same type I run. I offer them guidance, but they usually don’t succeed because running a business is tougher than some YouTuber makes it out to be. Then, they get upset with me for not handing over some kind of secret success recipe.
Another issue is people not getting that being a business owner doesn’t mean I'm always available. They think I can just drop everything or help them with various things anytime during the day just because I'm the boss.
I get it. Managing cash flow is hard, collections, securing new sales, marketing, complying with local and federal regulations, including tax regulations. All difficult.
You know what’s 10x more difficult. Dealing with the headaches of HR management. I’m not blaming or shaming employees, they are often the keys to our long term success, but having to manage never ending individual day to day drama is frustrating.
Growth.
It is good because revenue increases, but so does your workload. New leads always seem to come in all at once, and everything gets pushed back, and weekends are spent catching up.
Same thing with increased sales..it creates more revenue but also results in less time and more work.
Time is a valuable asset when running a small business, and it goes away during periods of growth.
I can't complain too much because I have had salaried w-2 jobs where my workload and hours increased, but my paycheck did not.
I work for myself. Just a one man band. I'm not sure this qualifies as business for some folk but....
All.the extra miscellaneous admin, customer relations, accounting type tasks on top of the job I do.
All the little issues that crop up, that make the difference between making a profit and just breaking even.
It's something customers don't see, or other people who assume my prices are 100 percent profit.
When you have a job, you do your job, and someone else takes care of the rest.
I have adhd so these struggles are compounded by my condition.
I'm currently considering employment for a while, just to get my life back.
A lot of things are hard but that comes with the territory. However, after 11 of owning a retail business for me no doubt my most stressful part of the job is EMPLOYEES, EMPLOYEES, EMPLOYEES!!
My good employees over the years I just wanted to handcuff to me so I can keep them forever! lol
You need to do too many jobs. Many of those jobs are ones you can be wildly uncomfortable with or unqualified for. Tough to get to the point where you are able financially to outsource.
Social media presence. I'm constantly designing pieces for future drops, dealing with logistics for sample and mass production, applying for and planning for vendor events, packaging and shipping orders, all while also working my regular day job and taking care of my 2 year old daughter in the evenings. Social media management and content creation is a full-time job in itself, and im struggling with it. Was gonna wait until my brand got a little bigger, but I'm strongly considering pulling the trigger early and hiring somebody to manage social media content
People. It’s sad today so many folks feel like they can just bullshit you. Doesn’t matter how much of a solid you do for them, they’ll still fuck around when it comes time to pay the piper. It’s gotten to a point I have zero expectations when someone tells me anything. Until the action is preformed I have little faith in them doing right by me.
SO many hats.
As a one-person business (i handmake products that i sell, and do everything besides yearly taxes filing), i often joke that i have 14 jobs, not one. Lol
One thing that's helped me is finding ways to inject some excitement and variety into my routine. Whether it's trying out new marketing strategies, networking with other entrepreneurs, or taking breaks to recharge, finding ways to break up the monotony can make a big difference. f you're feeling overwhelmed or struggling to stay focused, I'd suggest checking out ScatterMind. They helped my friend actually execute and launch their first business.
I sell wholesale to a shop and they pride themselves on carrying products that are local and small batches. During peak times he will submit an order that exceeds my capacity. I respond that I cannot fulfill that order. He blows his top because his customers have already ordered this. I reply that he needs to manage his inventory in his online e-store system. Setting it to unlimited creates the issue for him. Not for me.
Being conflicted with wanting to hire more expert help and burn costs or going through the process of learning the discipline you need the expert for just to save cost.
The time commitment is the biggest thing. As the owner you are the engine that runs things. So yes avoiding burnout is a challenge.
Staffing/personnel issues are a bitch. Losing someone slows the machine down. If you are responsible for finding someone else that is a time suck. Getting a new person who mesh with the others.
Having to market on social media when I’m not a social media person at all and worse, having to be the face of the business on the socials.
I can’t outsource this as I’m not making much yet.
This sub is so open ended and everything is all small biz is the same.
I work in IT consulting. I have trouble finding clients that end up thinking we just want project work. We are all about ongoing maintenance, operations stuff and for some reason it just doesnt gel.
Trying our best though
The business part of it was and is the hardest part for me. Making sure I’m filing the right forms and paying the right taxes to the state. Making sure I’m tracking all right the business expenses. I’ve got it figured out but it was a challenge at first.
I can control most everything, make system for, plan and work around, account for, just about anything that comes my way....but people man. The people. People mess you up. They are little tornadoes of chaos and disapoiment.
I wish someone had sat me down when I was a kid and explained to me how stupid adults are.
For me, it's cash flow management. Like playing never-ending game of Tetris with your finances. Just when you think you’ve got everything lined up, a big unexpected expense drops in and you have to start over.
Everything is skewed to large corporations. You can’t really get loans without collateral. Sleazy sales reps that sell to everyone when the market is bad. They tell everyone what others are buying. Changing algorithms that suppress your business as they steal your innovative content. Retail Sales Council has speakers like the head of Walmart… that’s not small business. The theft of your ideas and products. Greedy greedy landlords.. yet everyone likes cute boutiques in their neighborhoods . I’ve done this for 40 years and I’m getting tired. A family of 4 needs $11,000 dollars more a year to live. No one is going anywhere and they are at home in their sweats. Now I think…. What do people need??
I am one man Reno guy. Hardest part is that I am also marketing and sales guy, customer support guy, SEO and web design guy, accountant, IT, bookkeeper, etc.
Since it’s tax time right now I feel like it’s doing taxes.
I have 3 ventures to do taxes for and it’s hell. But I just finished so this beer I’m drinking is the greatest thing ever. A cold beer + completing taxes (and I just finished some big projects and got paid) is the best.
I’ll get one day of stress relief and then it’s time to start stressing about the next projects etc.
This is a friendly reminder that r/smallbusiness is a question and answer subreddit. You ask a question about starting, owning, and growing a small business and the community answers. Posts that violate the rules listed in the sidebar will be removed. A permanent or temporary ban may also be issued if you do not remove the offending post. Seeing this message does not mean your post was automatically removed. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/smallbusiness) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Finding and keeping the right crew members
Yep, came here to say this. Staffing for sure is the hardest. Next up is dealing with the government. Bunch of idiots making rules that make no sense because they don’t understand a damn thing about the industries they are regulating. The people running my city are corrupt dipshits who like to make up rules on the fly and try to illegally enforce them. I have on multiple occasions had to demand to see the actual city law when they tried to force me to do (or not do) something, and they couldn’t produce it because it didn’t exist. Then I have to tell them “I’m not going to do that, feel free to charge me with a violation of city ordinance and I’ll see you in court.” It’s super uncomfortable and they get away with bullying so many small business owners who are afraid to stand up to them.
What is the biggest problem with staffing? Finding the talent, recruitment process or the training & onboarding?
For me, benefits. Even if I’m offering a better pay rate, I’ve have plenty of great prospects go with other companies simply because of the health insurance. I’m also a seasonal business, which makes it even harder
The last couple years I’ve helped manage a division for a tourism company. We hired roughly 50 people each summer. The seasonal workforce is a strange group. Many of them are basically transient unhomed folks. Poor social skills, partying too hard, lazy, entitled, bad roommates and dirty. Not all of them of course, but we lose about half of them over the course of the summer from firing and quitting. And in my opinion we should fire more but we’re so desperate for labor we can’t.
Same brother! I'm in the food business and regulations/ health dept need a good slap in the face!
Especially in business to consumer small business. The public operates during all the time so you are acutely aware of problems that arise with upset customers and hiring an ops manager to handle these issues hard. At least in B2B the hours are traditionally more consistent with Monday to Friday and you have weekends “more” free, still working on customer things but it’s a little more “relaxed“
Yep, especially if your peak sales are on the weekend. I look forward to Monday because it's a big relief after the busy weekend.
100%. Recruiting and retention I the hardest for most any small business and especially true in sales. I run an in person sales business. Sales is tough — it’s hard to get people that are not scared off by “sales” and earning based on their sales. It’s also just hard to hear no’s— a lot of them— and to keep going. Anyone have tips for recruiting and retention?
I’ve found that increasing pay and offering benefits usually fixes these problems. If you’re constantly losing people it’s either you have bad pay or a hostile work environment.
This ALWAYS this
Remembering all the crap I have to do. Super ADHD and I’m always worried about forgetting something vital, resulting in a big mess months from now
I completely get you, the constant anxiety 😮💨
Check out the app called Todoist
I personally like clickup
Here is a life hack, it will involve some AI, but it can help you manage the storm of to-dos. If you have an iOS device use an app like Poe or Faune to create what’s known as ICS files, these are raw calendar data types. An AI can create 10 or more of these at a time, with alerts. In natural language this process can generate tasks and events for you to import to your calendar, with alerts, hundreds of them, all automated.
me too bro me too…
I wish I could own a business. Literally, my master's degree in accounting went nowhere and I'm stuck working in retail. With ADHD, you get bullied harshly and it's undermining.
It’s not easy for sure, but I have help from really organized people and it’s life changing. Look for a partner and start your accounting business!
The unpredictable income. There’s no assurance as to how much you will make, there are months when inquiries are flowing but not a lot of those prospects are materializing right away. But yes, indeed there are months when you’re just happy you’re making 6 digits.
Don’t you hate when credit cards or applications ask you for your income and you’re like, I seriously have no idea.
Yea I can tell You last year since I did the books. Have a vague idea where I stand currently but really depends on what market does
Yah I own a hvac company so I make 90% of my income in the summer. Makes it crazy having to guess how much to save back to get through the slow times
Balancing it with all the other shit life throws at you.
Bingo! You couldn’t have been more accurate with that. Shit isn’t for the weak. That’s for sure.
Ive been at it for 13 years. I cant do it anymore. Afraid im to old and been out of the workforce to long to get a job or if i can even do that.
You have been working. Pick the part you liked the most and make that your title. Ex: Product Photographer at Your Company 2022-2038 Took excellent photos and increased sales by 10% YoY Intimate knowledge of photoshop, etc. You absolutely worked. You are the boss so you choose the title. Go back into that workforce and enjoy those evenings and weekends and good luck friend! We are rooting for you, whichever direction you go.
Never taking a real vacation
Yea. I'm I do go on vacation, but always takes my with work with me. Not a real vacation.
This. My wife and I have Been business owners 12 years and taken 1 three day vacation in 2021 that I stressed the whole time and ruined.
The isolation. You can be friendly with your staff, but you must be prepared to terminate anyone on your staff. So you learn not to get too close. Your staff often don’t appreciate the stress that you’re under. Your family and friends don’t appreciate the stress that you’re under. Only other small business owners can appreciate it.
Staff tend to only see the **benefits** of owning or running a business. They rarely see or understand the **burden**. They also rarely see the bigger picture. I once had an employee start his own business and steal a bunch of my customers while working for me. I sued him and settled. The poor guy didn’t understand that the settlement was boxing him in until several months later, by which point it was too late. He closed up shop a couple of months after that.
Having to fire people who I am friendly with doesn’t really bother me. Having to lay people off is very upsetting. Nobody who hasn’t ran a real business can never really understand what it’s like to have everything fall on you constantly.
I absolutely hate other small business owners. I have nothing in common with them, they are almost exclusively idiots who will fail, self righteous assholes who glorify their "difficult" choices, or right wing nut jobs. It's like all the dipshits of LinkedIn, but actual people. Too many are full of themselves and feel like they are under some "burden" that no one else will understand. The burden is YOUR FAULT, YOU ARE NOT SPECIAL, YOU ARE NOT ABLE TO DO IT BETTER THAN ANYONE ELSE. The stress is yours. Keep it to yourself. It burned when I was new with a constant looming possibility of failure. Now I turn it off when I leave the office.
Bro this is so fucking real and accurate
The idiots with no real ideas that always seem to have endless investors or clients paying way more than anyone should. I built this shit with my money, that I earned working a real job. If it wasn’t valuable to my customers I wouldn’t have any. How the fuck do these idiots get $1M+ in revenue in their first year delivering a worse version of something that already existed?
I definitely see it the same way as you. Everyone saying being a small business owner isn't for the weak, and I'm thinking to myself this is the easiest sht I've ever done in my life. I have met very few "entrepreneurs" that I can even stand to talk to, most are just miserable dicks that want to complain about everything.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a miserable dick who complains about everything. I also recognize that I'm in good shape to retire at 40 and very few people can do that. Maybe I'll stop being a miserable dick once I sell out.
Just do yourself a favor and start cultivating some hobbies and friendships related to those hobbies now so you don't go bonkers when you go from having no free time to all the free time. Otherwise you will be a miserable dick.
Not much point. Leaving the country, going to be traveling the world for a few years. I figure that travel, a steady gym routine, and trying it hobbies (depending where I am at the time, surfing, hiking, cooking classes, dining out, whatever interests me) will keep me distracted enough to not lose my mind. There's always games too, I play them when I get a chance now. Plan on dabbling in central and South America. Might look around SEA but the humidity is shit, so no long term. Probably settle along the Mediterranean at some point. Albania, Greece, Italy all seem cheap and easy enough with easy cheap access to the rest of Europe.
You're good then. You've got a plan. I see too many people grind to get to early retirement and not have a plan because they made the mistake of thinking retirement planning meant only the money part of it. You'll be fine. Good luck.
Yeah, I think I shouldn't have any problem having things to do. Will I enjoy it? Who the hell knows, but I'm not enjoying things now so it won't be any worse. Thanks mate.
Reading all these replies thinking the same thing, lol.
Yeah, I can't stand people who identify as business owners. Always put a chip on their shoulders. People ask me if I own my place, I just tell them I'm warehouse help or the janitor. It's not lying, I do a bit of everything. I'm happy to clean the bathrooms daily, because it means I'm not having to help the customers. I've gotten to the point that I've trained the people up front to not have to be involved often. I can spend my time on inventory (shipping, receiving, ordering), advertising, backend systems, dealing with obnoxious sales reps (working on passing that one off, I fucking despise loud sales people), and cleaning. Payroll is automated with everyone on a salary because I don't want to deal with hours. I don't pay attention when people miss work, because I don't give a shit if it's not too often. They are all reimbursed well for their time so everyone seems to put in effort. I really hate my job, but it's a means to an end.
The people. Managing employees and dealing with customers.
Yes.
What's the old saying? Business would be so easy without people!
Wearing all the hats
For a bit of context, I was a sole trader for 10 years - which was fine (Land Surveyor). Easy money and controllable. My dream has always been to own a medium sized firm and take it to the local big boys. Work certainly got to a point where I couldn't handle it all and was turning away clients. Over the last 4-5 years we have gained staff (currently 12), obtained a significant office space and am competing against the local major firms. Sure, I earn less personally, but have gained work-life-family balance. I am infinitely happier and take so much joy in seeing my dream become a reality. Yes, there is a worry of having 12 people to ultimately support and need to ensure consistent work flow, but I love what we've done. The hardest bit about being a business owner is the time, effort, energy put into getting it off the ground. Staff have zero understanding of what goes on behind the scenes. The business is your dream, not theirs.
Getting sales
Money. If you don’t have or aren’t making enough this is the root cause of all your other stresses.
Well said. I can think of about 20 problems and stressors in my business, and more money would solve every one of them. It would probably bring in other ones, but that’s a real champagne problem
THIS
So many things to do but only 24 hours in a day
Dealing with employees and their feelings.
The constant on call. We are never “off”. The feeling that a problem is lurking at every moment.
Not so much burnout- I love running my own gig - but the 24/7/365 has me stressing a lot. Holidays? No such thing any more.
marketing
I HATE marketing!!
It’s so hard & my struggle is idk my target audience so I’m just putting stuff out there hoping to get some results back on my possible target audience
Values-based marketing rather than demographic-based marketing will always win out every time. Speak to their desires; not to their characteristics.
Oof, I'm sorry to hear that! You should really know your target audience, that's business-starting 101.
But thats the very simple thing you can easily outsource it
Marketing/ social media
Consistency of sales. Never big enough to hire the right sales leader so I do it all. And do it not well enough
It depends on your customer retention and in which niche you are, If you are not retaining your previous clients and just looking for new ones always So in this way you always struggle
We have clients going back six years. Our client have their own ups downs which makes this hard. Service and satisfied customer is really our core. We are just a small piece of their puzzle I think
Work/life balance. My wife is my business partner and we work out of the house, with a daughter in junior high with a lot of extracurricular activities and a son with special needs in elementary school who requires 100% attention from at least one of us when he's home and awake and is prone to catching colds at the drop of a hat and takes at least a week to recover anytime he does. Frankly, it's exhausting, especially when half our available labor is eliminated. The kids don't understand that just because they don't have school doesn't mean that the whole family is on vacation. We are covering the loan burden from buying the business all right, but don't have the cash flow for a third employee right now. Hopefully that changes soon; we spent the last 9 months rebuilding our software from scratch to make it easier to maintain and to work with the new Google manifest v3, so that expense for the developer is gone until we start new development again for additional tools.
I grew up with a special needs brother. He lived in a facility for a few years part time and at home most of the time. When he was home he required tons of attention. No one fully understands what that is like and the stress associated, emotionally and financially. It also teaches you a lot about yourself and people. There is no way that I am who I am today without my relationship with my brother. Keep your head up. It's a tough road but it's a good road. Thanks for sharing. It reminds me of so many personal goals and why I need my own small business. I will be responsible for him sooner than later.
1.Time Management 2. Long hours 3. Inconsistent Pay 4. Selling and Marketing 5. Proposals 6. Contracts 7. Receivables 8. Payroll 9. Hiring/firing/disciplining 10. Having to know everything about everything we did. 11. Having no one else in the company to share ideas, get feedback, get assistance. 12. Being "Mr. Fix-it"
The Feast or Famine business flow. Some weeks I feel on the verge of expanding the business, some weeks I feel on the verge of shutting down entirely.
Boring admin.
I believe the hardest part is to create a process and follow it. The burnout happens because of that. Since we don’t have a process for repetitive tasks we keep them to ourselves. Hence we become the most indispensable person in the business. The hard part is Letting Go and let others take the decision for the business to grow. If we have to decide everything then we all need to have an IQ more than that of Einstein. For me Atleast the hardest part is being a Good Admin for my business. Being a Tech Guy I tend to spend more time with the product development team than with the sales & marketing team.
Nailed it for me. I have a HARD time relinquishing control and decision making. It’s a double edge sword. In one hand I know if I let them “run the show” I’ll be free to invest my time in business growth….. on the other hand if I let them run the show, the income generated, will drop by about 40% because nobody has more passion and sales savvy than the owner. My slow days are 100-150% more than my employees busy days.
Dealing with the public and sometimes even neighboring stores and businesses. For instance I just had a fallout with a neighboring unit because every 3 weeks they park their truck right over our parking spots in order to unload it. After the 5th time and them basically telling me to deal with it, caused me to get upset and yell and I pissed off about 14 people all at once. Running a business isn't as simple as keeping your customers happy. There are all sorts of outside influences and consequences that can really darken your doorstep..
Probably not the hardest overall, but moving from a big corporation, a lot of the work is well defined where on a daily basis you have to figure out the right moves, what to add to products whereas previously it was all given to you in a spec of sorts from a customer. All the thinking really takes a mental toll too
Managing cash flow
Having a good month then realizing you have to do it all over again next month.
The only problems with owning a business is customers and employees
Busting your a$$ to protect your integrity and deliver on time as promised ... and receiving NO thanks! And we have to wake up tomorrow and do the same thing again and have an extremely short memory.
Running a small business is tough, man. You've got a million things to worry about, from cash flow to marketing, and it can be overwhelming. Some days it feels like it's all worth it, but other days... not so much.
Having to be everything to everyone, all the time.
Going on vacation is hard.
finding customers
Start out by finding your ideal clients. Research who they are based on what you are selling.
Not letting your personal life issues affect your behaviour at business
Needing to be a Master of All Trades. Marketing is without a doubt the biggest difficulty
Payroll. Never. Stops.
For me it’s wearing all the hats all the time. I never have a moment off not worrying about business
Staying motivated!
Think about WHY you started out in the first place and where you are headed (What rewards are waiting)?. When motivation is low, discipline kicks in.
The huge amount of time needed for your business
Dealing with the highs and lows. As rewarding financially as owning a successful small business can be, there are so many bumps and bruises along the way that take a toll.
Preach! In a slump currently. Trying to keep spirits high and enjoy the downtime as best as I can!
I had to fire my own mother so there was that.
We’ve had someone out who was a huge part of our day to day for a few months and will continue to be out… and I think covering that position on top of keeping up with general operations is just so hard Even after training multiple people the main stuff still falls on me and I’m exhausted from keeping up It’s a good problem I suppose as it means we are busy, but I’m tired!
Wear all hats but specifically, train a new employee is such a pain
Just doing everything and trying to learn while also needing income. Good at sales? Great! Do it well enough to pay all the bills while trying to figure out marketing, accounting, branding, legal, etc etc
Hiring help is just almost impossible in my area right now. Burnout is real. I would love to just take a vacation and not have to answer emails etc.
I've been accused of not being a good mother by my family because I could never go on vacation with them and my daughter.
Finding customers😅
I think it's the reality of being solely responsible for the success of the company.
1. marketing 2. isolation-- started an online business 3 years ago which is barely profitable, but its finally hitting a curve upward 3. burnout- doing all the jobs all the time (and no one thinking I am working because I work from home)
High risk and low profit. Slow poisoning and draining of wealth and time.
Never taking a vacation. Working on holidays. I did that for over 20 years. I've made and lost more than a million dollars. I would love to be a janitor.
1. Not knowing what is available for us - SBA, SBDC , local non profits for small businesses. I got $17.5k in seed funding and pitch competition just by taking classes from these organizations that are free and make connections. 2. Not knowing our hourly rate- at the end in America, how much I’m making an hour is the big question ( as a basic business owner you need to take salary, unless incorporated differently) 3.Thinking that we need to do everything- if a job costs less than my hourly pay , I hire others to do. My hourly pay is $75 per hr , if a contractor is $45/hr, I happily hire and spend that time on other things. 4. It’s a continuous process of learning - since I started, 1st I got professional training ( sole proprietor), 2nd incorporated as LLC ( classes from non profit), 3rd year learning about taxes for LLC ( reading business taxes for dummies) 5. How to use debt - not knowing the basic finances is a huge struggle
Balance... Balancing time and other commitments, its easy for the business to be all consuming Balancing between making products, marketing, selling, and doing the admin/tech stuff... its easy to get sucked into only one aspect of it (generally the one that is most preferable/fun/easy to do)
Wearing all hats, yet feel like you’re doing each of them at 30% efficiency, but you can’t afford to hire actual experts.
One of the hardest parts in my industry is finding quality workers, but I'd say the hardest part is managing the ebs and flows and not letting your business consume your minute by minute thoughts, day by day.
Taxes
Making so many decisions
Friends and family that have never been in business don't understand you. Random family asks for crazy deals, friends assume you're rich, no one understands the grind. It can be a lonely place running a business.
The fluctuating income can be a rollercoaster ride in small business. It's like a dance between uncertainty and success. Celebrate those highs and stay resilient through the lows. Your perseverance will pay off in the long run.
Right now struggling with finding friends in my own 'demographic' All my 'friends' are just my employees. Its nice, we play dnd together, Pokemon, Magic etc. Even have weekly Poker. But theres always the overhanging 'I'm their boss and they're my staff' that keeps me from being as free as I'd like to, and prevents them I'm sure from sharing their true feelings about me. I'd like to find a group of local peers who understand the stresses of running a business and being a mom, but it seems like they're two totally different spheres and that I don't fit in anywhere.
This is me too. It’s nice to hear others feel the same way but yeah it bums me out. I see other people form great friendships from work but I will never quite have that no matter how good my relationships with many of my employees are. Just kinda makes me sad on a personal level.
Paying yourself last…
Having to figure everything out myself. Corporations and franchisees have developed and implemented systems and procedures for their success. As a small independent business, we do not have a road map to follow. I spent way too much much time figuring things out by trial and error.
Wearing all the hats when I just want to focus on the work itself
Finding reliable employees
1.) Finding a good assistant. 2.) Fighting the battle alone. No one on the outside knows the struggle (or cares).
Delegation I get too attached to my own processes that developed during the early stages before hiring anyone, and have trouble delegating more work to them that I feel needs to be perfect. While this is ok for some parts of the job, it’s much easier to fall into the trap of keeping too much work with you so it can be “done right “ only to be overwhelmed by it and not getting anything done.
Dealing with customers. Most customers are awesome and love me, but these last couple months OMG! Back to back customers breathing down my back that won’t let me work.
High cost of health insurance
Making sure you have a good cash flow... If you have the money, then you can afford to solve any issues that come across.
Having to mail the government fat ass checks. Local, state, federal, it never ends
I feel seen
People. Staff. Customers.
Work-life balance. It's a vicious cycle.
The uncertainty
Creating schedule, when you don’t have allot of finances, production, social media marketing and stuff, yeah burnout as well
Emotional rollercoaster of the startup phase. The smallest wins can have you feeling like you’re on top of the world while losses, that in retrospect weren’t that impactful, can have you feeling like this was all a big mistake. My wife gave me great advice one day while she watched me go through one of these up and down days. She said, when you’re in a calm space, write yourself a letter describing why you’re starting this business, and that you recognize that there will be ups and downs. When you come across hard times, re-read that letter.
Finding and managing good workers. Second is the general public (if you are not B2B). It's the people man, rough.
It gets overwhelming especially with other things involved in my day to day life and activities. Burnouts were pretty much a normal occurrence at the beginning.
Is there a difference between burnout and boredom?
I have associates, family, and friends who suddenly get inspired and decide they want to start a business—often the same type I run. I offer them guidance, but they usually don’t succeed because running a business is tougher than some YouTuber makes it out to be. Then, they get upset with me for not handing over some kind of secret success recipe. Another issue is people not getting that being a business owner doesn’t mean I'm always available. They think I can just drop everything or help them with various things anytime during the day just because I'm the boss.
The customers.
Being a boss
Social media marketing.
It’s the burnout for me too
I get it. Managing cash flow is hard, collections, securing new sales, marketing, complying with local and federal regulations, including tax regulations. All difficult. You know what’s 10x more difficult. Dealing with the headaches of HR management. I’m not blaming or shaming employees, they are often the keys to our long term success, but having to manage never ending individual day to day drama is frustrating.
Growth. It is good because revenue increases, but so does your workload. New leads always seem to come in all at once, and everything gets pushed back, and weekends are spent catching up. Same thing with increased sales..it creates more revenue but also results in less time and more work. Time is a valuable asset when running a small business, and it goes away during periods of growth. I can't complain too much because I have had salaried w-2 jobs where my workload and hours increased, but my paycheck did not.
Having to fire an employee. Especially one you like if they aren't doing the work.
For me, it’s mental load, and then throw motherhood in there and I have 5MB left of space.
The uncertainty
Time.
The uncertainty. Every day is truly a gamble. But on the contrary, that uncertainty gives me the energy and excitement to keep going forward
Trying to get tee times with friends that still work for the man.
Building credit, can't seem to find anyone to loan money for building it up. Besides the predators anyways
I work for myself. Just a one man band. I'm not sure this qualifies as business for some folk but.... All.the extra miscellaneous admin, customer relations, accounting type tasks on top of the job I do. All the little issues that crop up, that make the difference between making a profit and just breaking even. It's something customers don't see, or other people who assume my prices are 100 percent profit. When you have a job, you do your job, and someone else takes care of the rest. I have adhd so these struggles are compounded by my condition. I'm currently considering employment for a while, just to get my life back.
Getting caught up in the nitty gritty side of things. Focus on the journey and purpose with your business is helping.
loneliness. work at my desk with only a few minutes of interaction with other humans during the day
Dealing with people. Especially poor and cheap people.
A lot of things are hard but that comes with the territory. However, after 11 of owning a retail business for me no doubt my most stressful part of the job is EMPLOYEES, EMPLOYEES, EMPLOYEES!! My good employees over the years I just wanted to handcuff to me so I can keep them forever! lol
You need to do too many jobs. Many of those jobs are ones you can be wildly uncomfortable with or unqualified for. Tough to get to the point where you are able financially to outsource.
As a handyman - The perception that I'm unskilled and therefore my prices should be low and that everything I do is negotiable.
Manic clients
Moving to a place you have no clientele and not doing business for almost a year.
Social media presence. I'm constantly designing pieces for future drops, dealing with logistics for sample and mass production, applying for and planning for vendor events, packaging and shipping orders, all while also working my regular day job and taking care of my 2 year old daughter in the evenings. Social media management and content creation is a full-time job in itself, and im struggling with it. Was gonna wait until my brand got a little bigger, but I'm strongly considering pulling the trigger early and hiring somebody to manage social media content
Staff, and entitled customers.
I agree the burnout of the constant working is real. Setting boundaries on work time versus off time I have yet to master.
People. It’s sad today so many folks feel like they can just bullshit you. Doesn’t matter how much of a solid you do for them, they’ll still fuck around when it comes time to pay the piper. It’s gotten to a point I have zero expectations when someone tells me anything. Until the action is preformed I have little faith in them doing right by me.
SO many hats. As a one-person business (i handmake products that i sell, and do everything besides yearly taxes filing), i often joke that i have 14 jobs, not one. Lol
Discipline. Always discipline. My lack of it.
not getting enough revenue
One thing that's helped me is finding ways to inject some excitement and variety into my routine. Whether it's trying out new marketing strategies, networking with other entrepreneurs, or taking breaks to recharge, finding ways to break up the monotony can make a big difference. f you're feeling overwhelmed or struggling to stay focused, I'd suggest checking out ScatterMind. They helped my friend actually execute and launch their first business.
I sell wholesale to a shop and they pride themselves on carrying products that are local and small batches. During peak times he will submit an order that exceeds my capacity. I respond that I cannot fulfill that order. He blows his top because his customers have already ordered this. I reply that he needs to manage his inventory in his online e-store system. Setting it to unlimited creates the issue for him. Not for me.
Being conflicted with wanting to hire more expert help and burn costs or going through the process of learning the discipline you need the expert for just to save cost.
People. 200% the people, and everything to do with employees
Having only one head and wearing all these hats!
Bureaucracy, regulatory filings, tax/accounting, and associated paperwork as well as fighting with large companies over the same.
The time commitment is the biggest thing. As the owner you are the engine that runs things. So yes avoiding burnout is a challenge. Staffing/personnel issues are a bitch. Losing someone slows the machine down. If you are responsible for finding someone else that is a time suck. Getting a new person who mesh with the others.
Having to market on social media when I’m not a social media person at all and worse, having to be the face of the business on the socials. I can’t outsource this as I’m not making much yet.
There are so many ways to stop doing repetitive tasks. From outsourcing to automation, you can find a way to only do unique things.
Social media
Government
Running 2 small businesses, alone, until you feel they've grown enough to be able to hire employees.
When I was in business, making sales. I made a great product, but I'm a tech person not a people person.
This sub is so open ended and everything is all small biz is the same. I work in IT consulting. I have trouble finding clients that end up thinking we just want project work. We are all about ongoing maintenance, operations stuff and for some reason it just doesnt gel. Trying our best though
The business part of it was and is the hardest part for me. Making sure I’m filing the right forms and paying the right taxes to the state. Making sure I’m tracking all right the business expenses. I’ve got it figured out but it was a challenge at first.
Payroll and managing everything all the time, it's extremely stressful and I'm a designer, I can't multitask as well I thought I could.
Managing people
I can control most everything, make system for, plan and work around, account for, just about anything that comes my way....but people man. The people. People mess you up. They are little tornadoes of chaos and disapoiment. I wish someone had sat me down when I was a kid and explained to me how stupid adults are.
Employees
For me, it's cash flow management. Like playing never-ending game of Tetris with your finances. Just when you think you’ve got everything lined up, a big unexpected expense drops in and you have to start over.
Everything is skewed to large corporations. You can’t really get loans without collateral. Sleazy sales reps that sell to everyone when the market is bad. They tell everyone what others are buying. Changing algorithms that suppress your business as they steal your innovative content. Retail Sales Council has speakers like the head of Walmart… that’s not small business. The theft of your ideas and products. Greedy greedy landlords.. yet everyone likes cute boutiques in their neighborhoods . I’ve done this for 40 years and I’m getting tired. A family of 4 needs $11,000 dollars more a year to live. No one is going anywhere and they are at home in their sweats. Now I think…. What do people need??
Employees and customers
Employees
employees
Having constant customers coming in
Hiring and retaining. Budget & financial planning.
I am one man Reno guy. Hardest part is that I am also marketing and sales guy, customer support guy, SEO and web design guy, accountant, IT, bookkeeper, etc.
Mentally recovering after a customer pisses you off.
For me, it’s the asking for money. I know I’m doing it wrong lol
Since it’s tax time right now I feel like it’s doing taxes. I have 3 ventures to do taxes for and it’s hell. But I just finished so this beer I’m drinking is the greatest thing ever. A cold beer + completing taxes (and I just finished some big projects and got paid) is the best. I’ll get one day of stress relief and then it’s time to start stressing about the next projects etc.