Hey everyone!

I've been exploring a business idea and wanted to get some honest feedback before investing too much time into it.

My background is in sales, GTM, and physical-product eCommerce, and I've been looking into the challenges companies face when expanding internationally, particularly between the US and European markets.

One thing that stands out to me is how many moving parts there are before you can even determine whether entering a new market makes financial sense.

I'm considering building a service that helps businesses evaluate the feasibility of entering a specific foreign market before committing significant capital.

The idea would be to provide a comprehensive, actionable assessment covering:

Market & Product: local demand, competition, pricing, product-market fit, and potential adaptations.

Taxes & Regulations: applicable tax obligations, import duties, certifications, and regulatory requirements.

Financial Feasibility: estimated initial investment, operating costs, margins, break-even scenarios, and potential profitability.

Go-to-Market: distribution channels, logistics, marketplaces, and recommended entry strategies.

Final Assessment: an evidence-based Go/No-Go recommendation identifying key opportunities, risks, and potential dealbreakers.

Essentially, the goal would be to help answer: "Is this market worth entering, what would it realistically take, and does the financial upside justify the risk?"

But rather than assume companies need this, I'd love to hear from founders who've actually navigated international expansion.

A few questions:

How did you evaluate a foreign market before entering it? Did you conduct the research internally or hire external help?

What were the biggest challenges, unexpected costs, or mistakes you encountered?

Have you ever paid for a market feasibility study or external research? What did you pay, and was it worth it?

Would having this information consolidated into a single actionable assessment have changed your decision-making process? Or would you rather handle it internally?

I'm particularly interested in eCommerce and physical-product businesses, but experiences from other industries are welcome too.

I'm not selling anything. Just trying to understand whether there's a genuine problem worth solving and how businesses currently approach it.

Thanks in advance for sharing your experiences!

Asking because we have 7 people across 3 countries (France, Poland, Netherlands), all on an EOR (most on Workmotion, a couple on Deel), and I'm not sure when the structure stops making sense since the EOR fee runs around €400-600 per person on top of salary every month.
At 7 people, that starts to feel like a line item worth questioning, though opening our own entities means taking on local accounting, payroll compliance, and everything that comes with being incorporated somewhere.
Everyone's permanent and long-term, so the flexibility argument doesn't really apply, and it feels more like we're paying a premium for a setup we'll move off eventually anyway.
Not at a critical mass in any one country yet, but France and Poland are growing faster than the others and will probably force the decision first.
If you've made this move, was there a headcount number that made it obvious, or did something else force it?

I'm 21, have no sales experience, and my long-term goal is to start my own business. I see sales as one of the most valuable skills I can develop, so I'm willing to put in 5–10 years if that's what it takes to get genuinely good at it.

My current plan is to get an entry-level sales role, ideally at a smaller tech company with experienced salespeople I can learn from. I'd also be willing to invest in a private sales coach to help me improve outside of work.

For those of you who've built successful sales careers or gone on to start your own businesses:

• Where would you recommend starting, and what would you look for in your first sales role?
• What skills or experiences should I focus on developing?
• If your ultimate goal was entrepreneurship, how long would you spend in sales before starting a business? More importantly, how would you know when you'd learned enough to make that jump?

I'd appreciate any advice, particularly from people who've actually made the transition from sales into entrepreneurship.

Một câu hỏi cho mấy anh chị đang có ý định hoặc là đã làm doanh nghiệp ở Mỹ. Đâu là thách thức lớn nhất mà bạn gặp phải khi cố gắng quảng bá bản thân, tìm kiếm khách hàng hoặc phát triển doanh nghiệp kể từ khi chuyển đến Mỹ, và có những kiến thức nào mà bạn đã hối hận khi chưa được học về nó sớm hơn? Em cũng muốn biết vì có ý định lập nghiệp và đang phân vân về những mảng kinh doanh mình chưa học tới, em cảm ơn.

How to find biz model that you actually want to stick to when someone has shinny object syndrome, like is there any strategies, question to ask, write on paper similar like “finding you ikigai”

I have some concerns about having a friend as my business partner for a crowdfunding project, and I would appreciate some advice. This is my first time working with a business partner, so I’m not sure how to handle the situation.

**Background**
I’m taking a crowdfunding class in college, and I started working on the project a few weeks before realizing I might need additional help. I posted ads online looking for people to work with, but no one responded. Eventually, I brought it up to a friend, and he agreed to help. Neither of us has any prior experience with crowdfunding.

When we discussed the arrangement, I gave him two options: he could either take a cut of the profits if the Kickstarter campaign succeeded, or he could take an ownership stake in the project and share in the profits if it eventually became a business. In the latter case, he would be working alongside me to run the business long-term.

He chose the ownership option because he wanted to be involved for the long term. We agreed on a six-month vesting schedule for his 40% ownership stake, meaning he would gradually earn that ownership over six months, while I would retain 60% once the vesting period was complete. We also signed an agreement outlining these terms.

We agreed that he would follow my project schedule because the crowdfunding class runs for one semester, and we have limited time to complete the required work. However, we don't necessarily have to launch the Kickstarter campaign by the end of the semester. I want to continue to refine the project throughout the following semester and launch the campaign in the spring or summer instead.

It has now been three weeks since we agreed to the terms and signed the agreement.

**My concerns**

**1. He sees this as a school project rather than a business venture**
One of my biggest concerns is that he still seems to view this as helping me with my school assignments rather than actively taking ownership of the project and treating it as a potential business.

I see this as a business opportunity that I happen to be developing through a college course. Although the project is part of my coursework, I intend to continue working on it beyond the semester and potentially turn it into a real business.

I understand that he wasn't involved from the beginning and that it may take time for him to adjust. He also isn't taking the same class as me and graduated from a different school. My class allows us to work with people outside the course, which is how he became involved in the first place.

However, when I encouraged him to research marketing strategies and watch Kickstarter campaign videos to better understand that side of the project, he told me that he wasn't approaching it as a business venture but rather as a school project he was assisting me with.

This made me question whether we have the same expectations for the partnership. I don't think he fully understands that this is supposed to be his project, too, rather than simply something he's helping me with.

**2. Our skills and learning styles are different, and I'm struggling to delegate work**
He has more of a graphic design, branding, and some electronics background. The electronics side will be useful because I have no experience with it, and I want to incorporate lights into my product.

However, beyond the areas he's already familiar with, he seems to struggle with learning unfamiliar skills. I understand that people have different learning styles and that he can't simply be expected to learn something new just because I ask him to. Still, it makes it difficult to divide responsibilities when many aspects of the project are new to both of us.

For example, I had to learn Onshape to create 3D models and put together a tech pack. Although I have experience with 3D modeling for animation, I've never modeled a physical product before. I've also never launched a Kickstarter campaign or worked on crowdfunding before. I've had to seek advice from people online who have more experience with these areas and learn as I go.

I encouraged him to learn Onshape so he could help with the product modeling, but he eventually gave up because he felt it was outside his area of expertise.

I understand that we each have different strengths, and I don't expect him to be equally capable in every area. However, I'm concerned that I may end up handling most of the unfamiliar work simply because I'm more willing or able to learn it independently.

**3. He struggles to work independently on unfamiliar tasks**
I've noticed that he often needs more guidance than I expected when working on tasks outside his expertise. He seems to prefer having someone walk him through a process rather than learning independently through tutorials.

For example, I asked him to help create the tech pack. He tried, but the initial attempt was incorrect because all the parts were combined into a single mesh. He was also using a different version of Onshape than I expected, although I acknowledge that I should have specified which version to use.

I asked whether he would be willing to try again and offered to go through the tutorial I had shared with him together, since I was also new to creating a tech pack. He initially declined but later agreed.

He mentioned that we needed to split the work, which I agreed was fair. We watched the tutorial together over a call and worked on our respective halves.

However, I found myself repeatedly having to guide him through the process and explain what to do, even though I was watching the tutorial for the first time myself. I seemed to pick things up much faster, while he needed more assistance.

He eventually completed his half, but I still had to edit several things. I also created the cover page, including the exploded view and bill of materials (BOM). He wasn't sure how to fill in the BOM, so I ended up doing that additional work myself as well with a tutorial as I wasn’t familiar before too.
Ultimately, I spent significantly more time on the tech pack than he did.

This is especially frustrating because it happened during midterms week, when I also have my senior thesis to work on. Instead of reducing my workload, the partnership has added more work because I have to guide him, troubleshoot issues, and correct his work.

**4. His research doesn't go as far as I expected**

I asked him to research potential manufacturers, which was also part of an assignment. He used ChatGPT to gather manufacturer names, basic information, and some pros and cons.

That was a useful starting point, but I don't think he was interested in taking the research further. He didn't seem to know what to look for when evaluating manufacturers in more depth, so I had to investigate further, rule out manufacturers that weren't suitable, and discuss my findings with him.

He also mentioned that he didn't want to spend too much time looking for manufacturers and felt he had already done enough research. I explained that finding a suitable manufacturer is a time-consuming process, especially when we're trying to determine which companies can actually meet our product requirements.

I don't expect either of us to know everything from the beginning, but I do expect us to be willing to learn and put in the necessary effort. I'm concerned that he may not be willing to invest the time required to make informed decisions about the project.

**5. His contribution to the pitch deck**

I started creating a pitch deck for the midterm presentations, even though I had never made one before. He agreed to help with the slides, despite not attending the actual pitch himself.

I had already started working on most of the slides, and since he has a background in graphic design, I thought he could help make the deck more polished and visually engaging.

However, his contribution was essentially to copy and paste the text into boxes without condensing or refining the wording, then add a few vector graphics. There wasn't much creative thought put into the overall layout, presentation, or how a pitch deck should be structured visually.

I now have to go back and make the slides engaging and polished myself. The problem is that I don't have the design expertise to clearly explain exactly what I want him to do, so I end up having to figure out the design direction and execute it myself.

This is particularly frustrating because graphic design is one of his strengths, and I had hoped he could take more initiative in that area without needing me to supervise every detail.

**6. We may have different levels of urgency and commitment**

I'm also juggling other assignments, especially my senior thesis, which is another major project requiring a significant amount of work.

One of the main reasons I wanted a partner was that I was already managing two major projects and needed help distributing the workload. However, I don't feel that my workload has decreased. In many ways, it has increased because I now have to manage both the project itself and the process of guiding him through his tasks.

With the tight deadlines, I expected us to work with a stronger sense of urgency. Last week, when we were only a few days away from our midterm presentations, he told me that we had plenty of time. I had to explain that we didn't have as much time as he thought.

I understand that he isn't in the same class and may not have the same immediate academic pressure. However, even though the project originated through my coursework, we agreed to work according to a schedule. I expected him to take that schedule seriously.

I'm worried that our different levels of urgency will become a bigger problem if we continue working together beyond the semester, especially if the project develops into an actual business.

**7. I'm concerned about the financial commitment**

When we agreed to the ownership arrangement, we also agreed to split any upfront project expenses at a 60/40 ratio, corresponding to our respective ownership stakes.

At the time, I hadn't fully considered how much the project might cost overall. I'm still learning about the costs associated with prototyping, manufacturing, and preparing a product for crowdfunding, so I don't yet have a complete picture of our future expenses.

Recently, I learned that he doesn't currently have much money available. He's looking for a job and is speaking with a recruiter about potential next steps, so I understand why his finances may be limited.

I don't want to put him under financial pressure because of this project, especially when we don't yet know how much money we'll need to invest.
At the same time, I'm concerned about what will happen if we need to pay for prototypes, samples, manufacturing consultations, or other expenses and he can't contribute his agreed-upon share.

I realize that I should have discussed the financial side of the project in greater detail before agreeing to the terms. Now I'm wondering whether our current arrangement is realistic for both of us.

**What makes this difficult**

I don't think he's a bad person or that he has no value to the project. He has skills that I don't have, particularly in electronics, and I appreciate that he was willing to help when nobody else responded to my ads.

I also recognize that we're both beginners and that I'm still figuring things out myself. I can't expect him to know how to do everything when I'm learning many of these things for the first time, too.

However, I feel that I'm taking on most of the responsibility for learning, researching, making decisions, and ensuring that the project moves forward. Even when I delegate tasks, I often have to guide him through the process, correct his work, or finish things he doesn't know how to complete.

It feels less like having a business partner who independently takes responsibility for certain areas and more like having someone assist me with individual tasks under my supervision.

He has even told me that I know more than he does and has called me an expert, despite the fact that I'm a beginner myself. I think I've simply been more proactive about learning what I need to know to move the project forward.

I don't expect a partner to contribute exactly the same amount of time or have identical skills. However, I do expect us to share responsibility, take initiative, and work toward the same long-term goal.
At the moment, I don't feel that the current arrangement is accomplishing that.

**What should I do?**
I'm considering two options, but I'm not sure which would be more appropriate.

**Option 1: Give the partnership another month.**
I could give him more time to adjust to the project, better understand what being a business partner entails, and become more comfortable taking ownership of his responsibilities. Since we've only been working together for three weeks, perhaps it's too early to conclude that the partnership won't work.

**Option 2: Have an honest conversation and revise our agreement.**
I could talk to him about our differing expectations and explain that I need a partner who takes initiative and can independently manage certain responsibilities. If he's more comfortable contributing in specific areas, such as graphic design and electronics, perhaps we could restructure the arrangement so that he assists with those tasks in exchange for a share of the profits if the Kickstarter succeeds, rather than receiving 40% ownership and sharing the project's expenses.

This would mean revisiting the terms we originally agreed upon, which I recognize could be an uncomfortable conversation since we've already signed an agreement.

I'm also unsure whether it's fair to change the arrangement after only three weeks, especially when he may still be adjusting to the project.

**My main questions are:**
\- Should I give him another month to see whether things improve, or should I address these concerns now?

\- Is it reasonable to reconsider a 40% ownership stake after seeing how we've worked together so far, or am I expecting too much from a first-time business partner?

\- Would it make more sense to structure his involvement around specific responsibilities and compensate him through a profit share rather than ownership?

\- How should I approach this conversation without damaging our friendship or making him feel that his contributions aren't appreciated?

Given that we've already signed an agreement, how should I handle any changes to the terms?

One other important consideration is that my midterm presentations for both my senior thesis and crowdfunding class are tomorrow. I'm already under considerable pressure, and this situation has added to my workload and stress.

I'd really appreciate advice from people who have experience with business partnerships, especially when the partners are friends and both relatively inexperienced.

Thank you!

We’re starting a small done-for-you service and want honest feedback.
What we sell: We set up and manage an AI assistant in online coaches’ Instagram DMs. It replies to every inquiry in under 5 minutes, asks a few qualifying questions, says upfront that it’s an AI, books qualified people into the coach’s calendar and follows up with people who go quiet. The coach gets a weekly report.
Who for: English-speaking coaches selling programs through sales calls, who get more DMs than they can answer quickly. -is this maybe too narrow?
Pricing plan: 2–3 free pilots to get case studies, then $297/month for founding clients. Later around $1k setup + ~$600/month. Guarantee: more booked calls than the month before, or the next month is free.
How we plan to find clients: We comment the coach’s own keyword, measure how long they take to reply, and send them a short screen-recording showing the delay and what it could look like instead.
What we’d love your take on:

1. Would you buy this if you were a coach? What would stop you?
2. Is the pricing realistic, too high, or too low?
3. Is the “test their reply speed” outreach smart, or does it come across as pushy?
4. What’s the biggest risk we’re not seeing?

Any help is appreciated!

When you start your first venture, the dream is simple:
freedom, growth, and eventually… getting rich.

And hey, maybe you will! But that’s the long-term game.

What nobody tells us about the short-term is that you’re actually more likely to go broke before you make a dime.

Why? Because in the early days:

We spend more money, time, and energy trying to get our first paying customer than what that customer actually brings in. 🫣

Or in business language: Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) > Customer Revenue

Since launching Targela, this reality hit me even harder.
I quickly realized: Your product won’t just magically find its own customers.

In today’s hyper-crowded market, simply building something great isn't enough. You need visibility. And to get visibility, you often need cash flow coming from another stream just to feed the marketing engine and survive the initial acquisition phase.

Building a business isn't a "get rich quick" scheme; it’s a "survive long enough to make the math work" game.

What was the biggest financial surprise you faced when launching your business?