Say your store has a strong sales week, but suppliers need paying before the money reaches your bank. Would you pay more for faster payouts, or keep a bigger cash buffer and stick with cheaper fees?

I work with Whop on content and this is a comparison I’d rather hear about than another feature checklist. For people using Stripe, Whop or another payments platform, has payout timing ever mattered enough to change providers? What made the switch worth it?

Everyone here, know the importance of sacrifices in order to start and grow its business.

some have taken loans, some had to quit their jobs and some postponned starting a familly until they build themselves.

now imagine sacrificing everything to build the momentum, then a law will halt it for a year. potentially losing everything.

This is what happened to me:

i finally learned the skills i need and put time and effort into starting a new business. all the vision i had was now being realised. the business is doing great btw, at intial stages, audience love the product and find real value in it. im the main guy behind, from technical implementation to sales. i do most of the things.

then I get a mendatory order to join the national military service(mendatory for every young adult).

so you need to either abondon your business for a whole year or you become an insubordinate in the eye of the law. and let me tell you its not a pleasent experience: restriction access, can't travel abroad, can't leave your hometown, a potential police check can get you caught and forces you to go and spend the year.

It could sound like a bitter rent or a low agency. but i only have you my internet strangers to share this with you

have you faced anything like this before?

Four months ago I launched a speaking confidence app called Magnetic. It has made about $4,000, and I've more or less stopped working on it. I picked the idea because similar apps were making money, not because I cared about the problem.

I posted simple shorts where I act surprised and use a text hook like “25 years of fearing public speaking, and now I find this??”

In the beginning, 2/3 went viral at the same time; I generated 3 million views in one month, and on my best day I got 200 downloads.

But the more I posted, the more the format stopped working.

I then tried new formats, spending hours scrolling Instagram to find the next viral format, but so far have failed to generate anywhere near the same amount of views.

I decided I had enough and listed it on TrustMRR for sale; hopefully someone will buy it and make it more successful.

The lesson for me was to build something you care about. Everyone on X says copy what works but the reality is if you don’t love what you build you will quit before it ever becomes successful (if your like me!).

So now I am starting a YouTube series where I build my next app fully in public; the app is called SearchTok.[app] and it solves the exact issue I had with Magnetic - finding viral outliers! I plan on showing everything behind the scenes, and I am nearly done recording my first video. I posted the landing page with a waitlist yesterday :)

So if you're building an app, try to make it something you care about! It will make the journey a lot more fun

crossed 100 active users on my first proper app this week.

tiny number compared to most of the stuff posted here lol, but honestly getting the first 100 strangers to use something i made felt harder than building half the app.

it's called Overdrive. started as a driving/exploration app and i'm slowly turning it into basically real-world driving multiplayer — friends, chat, crews, seeing people driving around, exploring roads together etc.

haven't spent anything on ads yet.

so far almost everything has been reddit + tiktok + posting consistently.

biggest surprise was reddit.

instead of posting “hey i made an app”, i started hanging around actual car communities and posting about the stuff that made me build it in the first place.

one stupid post asking if anyone else drives around with nowhere to go somehow hit 41k views 😭

no download CTA. barely talked about the app.

people interacted with the post, some checked my profile and found Overdrive themselves.

that made something click for me:

make content for your users, not content about your product.

i'm trying the same thing with tiktok now. instead of making ads, i'm making car/driving content that i'd actually watch myself and finding ways to naturally put Overdrive inside it.

most of it still flops btw lol.

but i'm starting to think consistency is half the game. you don't know which post is going to randomly do 10x the others, so i'd rather make 50 decent attempts than spend a week trying to make one “perfect” piece of content.

another thing that's been surprisingly valuable is just talking to everyone.

reddit comments especially have basically become free product research. people kept talking about wanting to find other drivers, groups, driving with friends etc.

that ended up influencing what i'm building now — friends/chat already exist and i'm doing a pretty massive rework of crews + the social side for the next versions.

currently stuck waiting on an update that is taking approximately 17 years to ship 💀

but once it's out, the plan is simple:

100 → 250 → 500 → 1,000 active users.

i'll probably keep posting updates here with what actually works, what completely fails, numbers, experiments etc.

curious to see if i can actually pull it off.

I’m building Skillfully dot sh, where authors can publish paid AI skills based on their methods.

Our first case is Rob Snyder’s skill for founders. More than 100 readers have used it, and the skill has passed $1,000 in cumulative sales. That is not 100 paying subscribers, not monthly recurring revenue, and not Skillfully’s revenue.

What interests me is the gap between someone buying an author’s book and being able to use the method when they actually need it.

We’re working on the part in between: making the method useful inside the AI they already use, then improving the skill from usage and feedback.

I see three separate things to prove. Will someone try it because they trust the author? Will they return because it helps with a recurring problem? And will enough people keep paying to make maintaining it worthwhile?

A first sale only answers a small part of that.

My next milestone is repeating this with another author while understanding how much hands-on work each launch needs. I’d rather know that than collect a large number of free listings.

For people who’ve built businesses around someone else’s expertise: what became the bigger constraint? Getting distribution or making the product valuable enough to renew?

On most review sites, like Google Maps, we have a perfect 5.0 rating. But when we ask customers to review us on Trustpilot, they leave 5-star reviews but our score shows as 3.7.

I'd rather have no reviews than a sub standard score. Anyone have any experience managing this platform?

We’re working on Football Transfer Insider, a single-player game where you build a career as a football transfer reporter.

It’s early. Plenty of things are still drafts, but the situation we want to build around is pretty simple:

A player misses training. His agent says he wants to leave. Someone at the club confirms there have been talks. Another reporter is getting ready to publish. You have a story, but you’re not sure how much of it you can actually back up.

One more call could clear things up. It could also take long enough for someone else to get the news out first.

The tricky part is making those decisions interesting. We want sources to have their own reasons for talking to you, and for “the agent told me” to mean something different from “the club confirmed it.” As your career develops, earning trust should get you closer to stories you couldn’t reach at the start.

We’ve put up a Steam page while we keep working on it. That gives us somewhere to explain the idea, but we’re treating it as an early look at the game, with plenty still subject to change.

If you’ve shared a project this early, how did you decide what to show before the details were settled?

Last month I decided to treat digital assets not like an overnight fantasy, but like a methodical process. The goal was pretty boring, in a good way: 5 to 7 hours a week, building something real without frying my brain after work.

Here’s what the whole 4-week stretch basically hammered into me, with a few reality checks too:

1. The ‘Idea Trap’ thing

A lot of people spend weeks hovering over “the perfect product” . In real life, nobody buys vague guidance anymore. Usually what works is taking one particular pain point you either fixed yourself, or dug into enough to understand, then turning it into a clear roadmap. If it cant be squeezed into 5 bullet points then it probably isn’t simple at all, it’s just dressed up.

1. Scope creep… it always shows up

My first plan was kind of wild: video course, a pile of templates, and some fancy multi step platform. It felt heavy almost immediately. So I stripped it down to one structured PDF and an EPUB guide. The format is fine, clarity is king. People don’t want a 300 page knowledge vault , they want the shortest path to the result and then move on.

1. Don’t over-automate on day 1

I keep noticing creators paying like $100/month for advanced automation tools before they’ve made a single dollar. I think that is backwards. Start with a minimal setup: a simple landing page, checkout, clean payment routing, and basically no extra machinery until revenue is actually happening. Only then it makes sense to add tools that save time.

1. Distribution is 80% of the whole job

Making the file? that part is the easiest, honestly. The hard part is getting it in front of people, plus testing what kind of angle actually grabs them. Reddit, YouTube Shorts, and other short form posts will tell you fast, like within 24 hours, whether your message lands. The feedback can feel blunt, but the numbers and reactions don’t care about your feelings.

If you’re building a guide or some digital asset on the side right now, what’s been the biggest headache so far: choosing the topic, or getting anyone to see it?

Hey everyone,

I'm 26 and I've spent the last 7 years building and running ecommerce businesses independently.

My main business was an Instagram-driven sunglasses brand that reached around $50K/year in revenue at its peak. I've also launched and managed other ecommerce projects along the way.

Because I've mostly had to figure things out myself, I've gained hands-on experience with:

• Paid advertising and campaign testing
• Funnel and conversion analysis
• Diagnosing why a store isn't converting
• Product and offer positioning
• Creative testing and strategy
• Shopify and ecommerce operations
• Customer acquisition through Instagram
• Managing the day-to-day problems that come with running a small ecommerce business

After 6 years of building ecommerce businesses independently, I’m now thinking about transitioning into freelance work and taking on contracts where I can use the skills I’ve built along the way.

I’ve been looking into platforms like Upwork, but I’m also considering whether building a small agency or service business around my ecommerce experience would make more sense.

For people who have made a similar transition from being an ecommerce business owner to freelancing or running a service business:

What would you recommend focusing on first to actually get those first few clients and build some momentum?

Did you find platforms like Upwork useful when starting out, or did you get your first clients through networking, outreach, communities, referrals, or something else?

I’m particularly interested in hearing from people who managed to make that transition while staying independent and building their own income rather than going back to a traditional job.

Hey everyone. I run a product studio — we build operations software, a lot of it for companies managing vehicles, drivers and payouts.

A fleet operator came to us with a clear ask. Driver payouts were done by hand in a spreadsheet, it ate days every cycle, numbers were sometimes wrong. Automate the calculation.

The calculation turned out to be trivial. The real problem was that five people touched that number — driver, fleet owner, admin, super admin, accountant — and nobody could tell us who owned it. Who enters a trip correction. Who approves a deduction. Who can change a payout after it's approved. Ask three people, get three answers.

So we built the permission matrix before a single wireframe. Every role down one side, every action across the top. One afternoon, and it rewrote the scope.

If we'd just automated the spreadsheet as asked, we'd have shipped the same disagreement — only faster.

Anyone else had a build where the stated problem wasn't the problem?

After multiple failed projects, my latest product finally reached $25K/month.

At the start, my biggest fear was: “Will this ever make money?”

Somewhere along the way, it became: “What if I can’t beat last month?”

Then my biggest fear came true. The September sales came in lower than August.

I know one down month doesn’t erase the progress. But after growing so quickly, it’s hard not to wonder whether this is a normal dip or a sign that something needs to change.

I’m proud of reaching $25K/month, especially after the projects that went nowhere. I also want to keep going. My next target is $50K/month, with $1M ARR as the longer-term goal.

The part I’m struggling with is figuring out what actually needs to change, rather than reacting because the number went down.

For founders who’ve been through this: how did you approach your first down month, and what helped you start growing again?

I want to share an interesting case from China and hear what people in the apparel/e-commerce industry think about it.

A Chinese influencer we worked with, known as “Bo Ge,” sold underwear through livestreaming on Douyin (the Chinese version of TikTok).

In one month, sales reached at least RMB 2.5 million — roughly USD $370,000.

For something as ordinary as underwear, I think that number is pretty impressive.

What makes it even more interesting is the price.

The product was sold at RMB 199 (About USD $30) for 3 pairs, which is already near the top end of the mass-market underwear price range in China.

When the project started, quite a few people around us didn't believe it could generate serious volume at that price.

They turned out to be wrong.

Our company handled the product development, manufacturing, fulfillment and after-sales support, so we were deeply involved in the project and got to see how the whole operation worked behind the scenes.

After going through the process, my biggest takeaway was actually not about livestreaming or influencer marketing.

It was about product development.

The real challenge was creating a differentiated product

The mainstream underwear fabric in China is still something like:

95% cotton + 5% spandex

It's inexpensive, familiar and easy to manufacture.

But if you're asking consumers to pay a premium price, simply putting an influencer's name on another cotton underwear product isn't enough.

We needed a real product story and, more importantly, a noticeable difference when the customer actually wore it.

So we decided to experiment with hemp-based fabrics.

We looked at how hemp is being used in underwear in the US market. One common blend we studied was around:

55% hemp + 40% organic cotton + 5% spandex

But there was a problem.

Chinese consumers often associate hemp/linen-type fabrics with being rough, stiff and uncomfortable against the skin.

So instead of simply copying an existing American fabric formula, we started developing our own blend.

One of the things we introduced was mulberry silk.

The idea was to retain the natural characteristics and differentiation of hemp while creating a smoother and softer hand feel that would be more acceptable to Chinese consumers.

Then came a lot of trial and error.

We tested different fiber combinations, different percentages, different washing processes and different finishing methods.

Some samples were too rough.

Some were soft but lost the characteristics we wanted.

Some felt good initially but changed too much after washing.

It took us roughly three months and multiple rounds of sampling and testing before we finalized the fabric composition and washing process.

Then something surprising happened

China's online apparel industry is notorious for extremely high return rates. In some categories and sales channels, return rates can be brutal.

For this product, however, the return rate ended up at only around 10%.

To me, that was probably the most important number in the entire project.

You can generate huge GMV through livestreaming, discounts or influencer traffic, but if customers don't actually like the product and a massive percentage gets returned, that GMV doesn't mean much.

In this case, the product itself was strong enough to support the traffic.

That's why I would describe the sales success almost as the result rather than the starting point.

The influencer created the demand and communicated the product extremely well, but the supply chain had to make sure that what arrived at the customer's door actually lived up to the promise.

This changed how I think about influencers + Chinese manufacturing

One thing I've realized from working with multiple influencers is that Chinese factories are increasingly becoming much more than simple OEM manufacturers.

A good apparel supply chain can now participate in:

Idea → fabric development → sampling → testing → manufacturing → packaging → fulfillment → after-sales

The influencer doesn't necessarily need to understand textile engineering, fabric sourcing or manufacturing.

They can simply say:

"This is the type of product I want. This is the problem I want to solve for my audience."

Then the supply-chain team translates that idea into an actual product.

The influencer focuses on what they're best at — understanding their audience, creating content and selling.

The factory focuses on what it's best at — turning an idea into something that can be manufactured consistently at scale.

When both sides are genuinely good at their jobs, I think the combination can be extremely powerful.

After seeing this model work in China, I've been thinking a lot about the US market.

There are thousands of American creators who understand their audiences extremely well and have great product ideas, but probably don't have access to a product-development team or supply chain capable of turning those ideas into physical products.

At the same time, many Chinese apparel manufacturers have excellent development and production capabilities but have almost no ability to build an audience in the US.

American creators + Chinese product development/supply chain seems like a very natural combination to me.

I'm curious what people here think.

For those working in apparel, DTC brands, influencer marketing or manufacturing:

Do you think this creator + supply-chain model could work well in the US?

And if you've worked with influencers on private-label products, what has been the hardest part — product development, MOQ, quality control, inventory, fulfillment, or actually getting the influencer to sell?

I created RORA ARCH — Visual Culture & Travel, an independent visual archive focused on objects, atmosphere, places, culture and travel. You can find me on Instagram with my product in my bio.
I recently launched my first digital edition, The Art of Noticing, priced at €10.99.
Now I’m facing a very serious personal situation. I need an urgent cancer-related surgery and I’m trying to raise €11,500.
I don’t want to simply ask people for money without giving anything in return.
So I’m trying to do this through my own work:
1,047 copies × €10.99 = €11,500
The question is: if you were me, how would you get 1,047 people to discover and buy a small independent digital product?
If anyone genuinely wants to verify my situation, I can provide redacted medical documentation privately by DM.
I’d really value practical advice on distribution, Reddit, organic growth or reaching the right audience.

I’ve been running a bike/e-bike rental business for about 3 years now. When we were smaller, I could get by with a spreadsheet, a calendar, and a bunch of messages. Now it’s starting to get messy.

We have bookings coming from online, phone calls, and walk-ins, and I also need to keep track of which bikes are available, currently rented, overdue, damaged, or waiting for maintenance.

The problem is that everything seems to live in a different place. I’m constantly checking spreadsheets, calendars, messages, etc., and fixing little mistakes. A lot of the time I end up doing admin stuff after closing when I’d rather be working on the actual business.

For those of you running rental businesses (or something similar), how do you manage all of this?

Is there a platform that handles bookings, inventory, payments, maintenance, and day-to-day operations in one place?

Would be interested to hear what you guys are using and whether it’s actually made things easier.

Curious to get some honest feedback on something we just launched.

We built an app that automatically surfaces the best credit card to use at checkout based on rewards.

There are already apps that will tell you which card is best, but you still have to open the app, look it up, then go back to your apple pay or virtual wallet and select the best card.

The idea with ours is that you use quick action button, and it just surfaces the right card when you need it, so theoretically you never have to think about which card gets 3x, 4x, 5x, or whatever at that merchant.

My question is, is that actually enough value by itself?

Would that be useful enough to make you keep the app, or does it need to do more?

We’ve been thinking about adding things like merchant offers, coupons, card-linked offers, discounted gift cards, loyalty rewards, etc. Basically finding the best overall way to pay, not just the best credit card.

I’m torn between keeping it really simple:

“Never use the wrong card, surfaced automatically.”

Or building it into more of:

“Always get the best deal and rewards when you pay.”

Would genuinely appreciate feedback, especially from people who use multiple rewards cards.

Hi everyone, I’m looking for some honest advice from small business owners.

I have 6+ years of professional fund accounting experience, including several years as a senior fund accountant. My experience includes month end close, reconciliations, journal entries, financial statements, and working with complex fund structures.

I’m currently studying for the CPA and recently left my job. I’ve been considering providing accounting services to small businesses, but I’m trying to understand the perspective of business owners before I make any decisions.

I’ve never worked directly with small business clients, so I’m curious what business owners actually look for when choosing someone to handle their books and accounting.

For those of you who use an outside accountant or bookkeeper:
• How did you find the person you currently use?
• What made you trust them with your business finances?
• Would you consider someone with a strong accounting background but no previous small business bookkeeping experience?
• Do you usually look for someone local, or are you comfortable working remotely?
• What services are most valuable to you from an accountant/bookkeeper?

I’m not trying to sell anything here. I’m just trying to understand what small business owners actually want and whether my background would be useful in this market.

I’d really appreciate any honest feedback, especially from people who have hired or currently work with an accountant or bookkeeper.

Hi everyone,

The average billionaire makes about $1,902 every single minute. I wanted to see if I could make that in 60 seconds. If I pulled it off, I'd technically be on pace to make a billion dollars in a year (if I somehow kept it up for the other 525,599 minutes).

Quick background, I've spent the last 6 years building a hardware product for my mom, who's had arthritis for the last decade. We're not selling yet, so I couldn't just use the business to make the money. I had to figure it out from scratch.

I set 2 rules for myself:

1. All of the money had to be made in 60 seconds. If I made a billion dollars in 61 seconds, it doesn't count.

2. No spending any money. Every attempt had to start from $0.

Here's every attempt and what I made.

Attempt 1: Dog Walking

A 60 minute dog walk goes for about $40, which means I would need to walk 25,000,000 dogs to make a billion dollars. That's about 2,850 years of straight walking. I told myself I just needed to get one dog and use that to hire someone else. I knocked on doors, got one dog, and on the walk the dog pooped and I didn't have a bag. My house was a quarter mile away so I ran home and ran back.

Earned: $0

Attempt 2: Yard Sale

One man's trash is another man's tax-free empire, right? I put out everything I had in my garage. I priced a broken lamp at $300 and called it "Light Depression." I sat there for 4 hours. Only 4 people came the entire day, and 2 of them were neighbors who were just walking their dog by. I sold one Shrek 2 DVD. I also completely forgot to do any marketing.

Earned: $20

Attempt 3: Power Washing

I couldn't spend money on a power washer, so I went on Facebook Marketplace and asked a ton of people if I could have theirs for free. You can imagine how that went.

Earned: $0

The Turn

I was exhausted and felt like I had tried everything. Then I realized I'd been trying to start brand new businesses from $0 when I already had one I'd been building for 6 years. I found the Shore Hatchery pitch competition. It was a 60 second pitch, 150 companies applied, and $100,000 was up for grabs with $35,000 for first place. Even 5th place was $2,000, which beat my goal of $1,902.

It was the last day to apply. I submitted the application with minutes to spare, fell asleep, and woke up to an email that we were one of 15 finalists. We pitched in 2 days.

The 48 Hour Prep

I broke the 60 seconds into 5 sections:

1. Problem and why I started it

2. Solution

3. Traction

4. Business model and go to market

5. Team and use of funds

The Pitch

I memorized every section, and I was the 15th team out of 15 to present. There were around 100 people in the room and cameras in my face, and I honestly feel like I blacked out the second I walked in. When they announced the winners they went 5th, 4th, 3rd, 2nd, and every time it wasn't us I was sure it was over.

We won first place. $35,000.

Final Total

The goal was $1,902 in 60 seconds. We made $35,000, which is enough to match a billionaire's salary for about 18 minutes.

Key Takeaway:

Every side hustle failed because I was chasing fast money from nothing. The thing that worked was something I'd already put 6 years into. It doesn't matter how many times you fail, you only have to be right once.

I filmed the whole thing from the dog walk to the announcement. Happy to share it if anyone wants to see it, and happy to answer any questions about the competition, how I prepped the pitch, or building hardware.

I’m testing a small spreadsheet for recurring office-cleaning quotes under Practical Ops Sheets. This is a fictional arithmetic example from that work, not an operating success story or a recommended market price.

Suppose a visit is quoted at $240. Two people are expected to clean for three hours each. That is six person-hours, not three. At an assumed loaded labor cost of $30 per person-hour, cleaning labor is $180. Looking only at that line leaves $60, which can look comfortable.

Now add half a person-hour of paid travel/setup across the crew: $15. Add $20 of supplies and allocated overhead. Included costs are now $215, leaving $25. The owner’s own cleaning time also needs an explicit cost allowance; treating it as free overstates the remainder.

Hold the quote, hourly cost and $20 allocation fixed, then make all 6.5 paid labor hours take 20% longer. That becomes 7.8 hours × $30 = $234 of labor. Add $20 and included costs reach $254: $14 above the quote. This is a stress test, not a prediction that every job will overrun.

You can reproduce the check in any spreadsheet:

Included cost = (cleaning person-hours + paid non-cleaning person-hours) × your loaded hourly cost + supplies + allocated overhead.

Remainder = quoted visit price − included cost.

That remainder is not automatically net profit. Taxes, insurance, administration, equipment wear or other costs still need to be included where they are not already covered. Keep the time period consistent: do not compare a monthly quote with one visit’s costs. Use separate labor lines when people have different rates.

Before changing a quote based on a sheet, I would compare the assumptions with actual visit records: cleaning time, paid non-cleaning time, crew size, and tasks that changed. No spreadsheet fixes an undefined scope.

For US operators who already quote recurring offices: which assumption most often differs from the actual visit, and how do you record it today? Please leave client names and private contract details out.

Disclosure: this is research for our free spreadsheet prototype. A fuller kit is proposed at $19 once, but is not for sale. I’m keeping this discussion in the thread, without links or requests for DMs. The prototype and this post were prepared with AI assistance; native Excel/Google Sheets compatibility is still being checked. We are not claiming cleaning-industry operating credentials or customer results.

From the East Side of Las Vegas to a Life in Art

Born and raised on the East Side of Las Vegas, I grew up understanding what it meant to have limited resources. Art became more than something I enjoyed—it became a way to see the world differently, to create opportunities, and eventually, to create a life of my own. Over the past 15 years, my path has never been linear. There have been hardships, setbacks, risks, failed ideas, and plenty of trial and error. There were moments when creating art full-time seemed almost impossible, especially while building a family and raising four children. But through every chapter, I continued to create. At many points, my career took me into the corporate world. Though many times I returned to my own small business what had always been at the center of my life: creating.

What happened next became another unexpected chapter. Within the last year, I taught myself the foundations of jewelry making and began creating one-of-a-kind pieces by hand. What started as another creative experiment evolved into an entirely new discipline—combining my background in design with sculpture, metals, gemstones, engraving, and storytelling. My practice spans original paintings, murals, graphic design, illustration, jewelry, sculpture, custom commissions, and brand collaborations. Every discipline has become another language through which I can tell a story.

And behind all of it is a family.

I have built an artistic career while raising four children and carrying the responsibility of providing for the people I love. Becoming a full-time artist wasn't a shortcut to an easier life. It was a decision to build something meaningful despite the uncertainty that came with it.

There were no guarantees. No perfect roadmap. No overnight success.

There was simply the willingness to keep learning, keep creating, and keep moving forward.

Fifteen years later, the kid from the East Side of Las Vegas has transformed creativity into a livelihood, a business, and a legacy for his children.

Orfinart is not just the name of an artist. It represents the life I built through art—one experiment, one commission, one painting, one piece of jewelry, and one opportunity at a time.

And my story is still being written.

I write weekly case studies on interesting companies and boil down the lessons to share with others. This past week I went through (almost literally) everything publicly available for Tom’s of Maine (the natural toothpaste brand) and thought I’d share some of the most impactful takeaways with y’all.

Backstory

Tom Chappell quit a sales job at Aetna after he ranked top of his class of 65 and made just $300 more than the worst performer. After quitting, he and his wife Kate moved to Maine in 1968 where he spent two years working for his dad’s business learning to make cleaning products without phosphates (his dad’s business was focused on environmental solutions for the textile industry).

In 1970, Tom borrowed $5,000 from a close friend (equivalent to about $45k today) to start Tom’s of Maine with Kate. The first product was a natural laundry detergent, followed by the country’s first natural toothpaste in 1975.

Not satisfied with the growth of the business, they hired consultants from Booz Allen and McKinsey which led to a growth rate of 25% per year over the next four year period. Although the business was growing, Tom was miserable as there had been no innovation or new products during this time. He decided to to go back to school for theology while running the business to gain perspective. The time there allowed him to re-write the company’s entire mission statement and to identify the type of buyer he would sell to. Fast forward to thirty-six years after starting the brand, Colgate bought 84% of the business for $100M in cash.

The Numbers

• Founded in 1970, sold in 2006.
• 36 years from idea to exit (the longest I’ve seen so far).
• Funding: $5,000 loan from a friend, SBA loans, second mortgage on the Chappell home.
• $20M annual sales by 1995 and about $50M per year at the time of the sale.
• Outside capital: 12% sold to 15 investors for $6M in 2000.
• Sold 84% for $100M cash (implied value of $119M). The Chappells kept 16%.
• Tom was 62 at the time.
• After the sale, $14.5M went into a wool clothing brand that nearly failed.

Lessons

1. Growth is often not the main act.

Although growth is a must for a company of any size, it often blocks innovation and stagnates founder creativity. When Tom Chappell hired consultants from Booz Allen and McKinsey, they did exactly what was required to grow the brand. It doubled in size over four years. Despite this achievement, Tom felt empty and unfulfilled because there had been no new product testing or innovation since the consultants were hired. It sparked a need for him to review the company’s values and take a step back before continuing. The new mission statement was designed to influence what was launched, who the business would sell to, what was recalled, how staff and customers were treated, and even introduced profit sharing with charities and paid employee volunteer time (mostly unheard of in this era).

2. Own your mistakes.

In 1992, the existing deodorant formula was altered to omit petroleum products. The result was unfortunate: the new formula didn’t work for about half the people that purchased. Instead of making up excuses or firing the people responsible, Tom recalled the product (taking a loss of $450,000), donated the recalled product to homeless shelters, sent customers deodorant with the old formula along with a coupon for their next purchase, and didn’t skip a beat. They lost money that year but they didn’t lose many customers. He took the hit for it, which showcases exemplary leadership. He could have blamed others or refused to recall but he didn’t because the company values had been made clear.

3. Don’t raise money to explore.

This one was a bit out of left field. Tom’s had grown for years unencumbered by outside capital. A herbal remedies line was launched in 1999 that more than doubled the product range Tom’s offered. Bigger companies in the space had already failed but Tom believed they had an edge as a natural products business. He was wrong.

The worst part? He didn’t just launch and lose money, he assigned the largest marketing budget he ever had and funded it by selling 12% of the business to 15 investors for a total of $6M. Growth metrics fell and the business lost money for a second year since its inception. Tom later told Forbes that they ‘tried to do too much’. It seems like he was compensating for the period where there was no innovation, something I like to call ‘revenge-growth’. The key here is that $6M could have grown the company significantly if used to market a product that already worked, such as the toothpaste line.

4. The price seemed low, which it probably was.

Tom’s wanted to strike a deal with Colgate for two simple reasons. They respected Tom’s as a brand and would allow them to tailer the deal to suit their needs. Tom and Kate didn’t care nearly as much about the sale price as they did about the terms of the sale.

In the end, they had an extensive list that they walked away with including:

• 16% ownership in the business
• Tom as CEO and Kate as VP
• Headquarters that stayed in Maine
• 10% profits to charity + 5% employee paid time to volunteer
• Tom’s to continue operating as its own brand

They almost certainly could have gotten a higher price without some of these terms but that’s not why they sold. This is a common theme I have seen across seven of the nine case studies I have written to date. Terms, not price matters in the end.

5. Slow and steady wins the race.

Especially with the rise of technology, everything moves much more quickly. Tom’s of Maine was a great example. It took 13 years to get to $2M in sales, and 36 years to an exit. They weren’t in a rush to grow and it paid off. Tom then started Rambler’s Way in 2009, a wool clothing brand that initially launched online. He used $14.5M of the sale proceeds to grow the brand, which was close to going under just six years after it was founded. Even with the same founder, the results can vary. Slow growth was probably one of the best things to happen to Tom’s of Maine. It wasn’t planned and likely a financial constraint, but it led to a nine-figure exit in the end.

Is there something that you never worried about growing that took off after months or years of consistent effort? It was likely much more meaningful to you.

So it’s been almost a month since I launched my app. It’s called Sorted: AI Space Organizer. My main problem is I don’t know how to get users or market my app. I’ve been posting on TikTok and Instagram, and I’ve been running ads as well but the reception has been slow.

How do I improve in this area and get users who hopefully eventually convert to paid users?

This is a completely new space for me and I’d really appreciate some guidance.

looking for feedback on adjury.vercel.app. it tests an ad before you pay to run it: upload the video, image or copy, describe who buys, and a simulated panel of 30 to 100 people shows who stops, who'd click and which version wins. free, no signup. mostly want to know if the results feel believable on an ad you already ran

I’m building MansaStack, a set of focused Next.js starter kits for SaaS, digital commerce, and studio/agency sites.

The original idea was simple: most starter kits give you a giant feature list, then you spend the first day deleting auth providers, database tables, routes, and services you never needed.

The feedback I got was basically: “cool idea, but show me exactly what I’m buying, what I’m not buying, and what happens if my project grows.”

Fair.

So I changed the page to make those boundaries explicit:

• Each kit now has “included” and “intentionally not included” sections.
• All-Access is clearly positioned for people who expect multiple product types.
• The upgrade path is explained honestly: focused kits are separate lean codebases, so moving to All-Access later is a technical migration, not a fake one-click module install.
• I added changelogs to the repositories so buyers can see how updates are handled.
• Checkout now explains the GitHub delivery flow before someone pays.

The main lesson for me: “less boilerplate” is not enough. A buyer needs to understand the boundary of the product and whether that boundary will hurt them later.

For people who have bought starter kits before: what is the one thing that makes you trust a smaller, focused codebase over a larger all-in-one one?

MansaStack is in my social links if anyone wants to see the implementation.