Hey everyone! I keep coming across the same problem on Reddit: people who already have a business or are just starting are constantly talking about websites, social media, advertising, huge investments, loans, and blah, blah, blah.
People get advice from “cool agencies” and “flawless marketers” who, for crying out loud, just make the problem worse and throw sand on top of it.
The solutions are usually very simple – it doesn’t get any simpler than that.
A long time ago, when I was running various businesses, I would simply deliver products I bought in bulk to local shops; I’d just knock on the doors of the small stores near my house, and 1 out of 10 would say yes. When I was in the electronics business, I’d just go to pawn shops, look for ones without a website, take photos, and list them online.
Websites, Ads – all that was in the future, but at the start-up stage, you don’t need anything except two hands, a head with a brain inside it, and a tongue to communicate with people.
Phew, I’ve said my piece – thanks for reading.
P.S. I’d love to hear stories from people who started from 0 using Non-standard solutions.
How to Make Complex Things Simple
byu/Neither_Shoulder_802 inbusiness
Posted by Neither_Shoulder_802
1 Comment
This is the most underrated business truth. The door-knocking phase forces you to get your pitch tight in real time. You can’t hide behind a pretty website when someone’s looking you in the eye. The interesting flip I’ve noticed: the same people who hustle their way to something real eventually hit a different wall. Not “how do I get customers” but “why aren’t the *right* customers getting it.” The offer is solid, the results are there, but something gets lost between what they do and what lands with people.
The agencies usually make it worse because they skip straight to tactics. The underlying translation problem never gets fixed, just buried under ad spend. Curious if you ever ran into that phase, where the hustle worked but growth stalled for a reason you couldn’t quite name?
My start was embarrassingly low-tech. First client came from a conversation at a coffee shop where I wasn’t even trying to pitch. Just complained to someone about how good businesses were losing to worse competitors because they couldn’t explain what made them different. She said “that’s my exact problem” and we figured it out from there. Charged almost nothing, got a result, asked her to introduce me to one person. Might have been lucky but did that six times before I had anything resembling a real business. No website. No ads. Just finding the people who already felt the problem and could put words to it.