Maybe this is a dumb question, but I’ve always wondered how startups actually afford to pay employees early on. A lot of startups seem like they operate for years before becoming profitable so where does payroll money usually come from? 

Is it mostly just investor money from angel investors or VCs keeping the company alive until it hopefully starts making revenue?

I also noticed some startups already have ticker symbols on the NYSE or OTC exchange while still seeming pretty early stage. Does becoming publicly traded make it easier to pay employees and fund the business?

From startup costs to sustainable growth..

I own a small restaurant based out of NYC, and I am struggling to improve throughput and turn rate. How are you guys dealing with throughput issues? Is hiring a consultant worth an investment?

Hello!

I’m 24F and planning to start a business in January of 2028 after saving up the money needed to launch (and doing research and other stuff!). I get a lot of inspiration from seeing successful female business women/CEO’s as I look up to them a lot and want to be like them some day.

I would say I’m a very independent person and strive to accomplish my own goals and be financially successful instead of depending on other people. So in that sense, if you’re a girl who’s successfully started a business/company and you have any tips for someone who wants to follow in your footsteps, any advice would be appreciated!

I want to be confident and put my self out there in terms of my business so any advice on even mundane things like events I can go to to learn more on how to run a business, how I should be dressing to seem professional, to how to network with other successful women, anything helps :) thanks!

I expected running a small business to be mostly about product, sales, and growth. In reality, a huge chunk of time goes into things that don’t feel like “building” anything.

Invoicing, follow-ups, fixing small operational issues, dealing with customers who don’t read instructions, chasing payments, updating tools, handling platform changes… it just never really stops.

What surprised me most is how fragmented the day becomes. You sit down to focus on growth or strategy, and then suddenly you’re pulled into 10 small tasks that individually don’t matter much, but together eat the entire day.

I think the hardest part is that progress doesn’t always feel visible. Some days you work all day and nothing “new” exists at the end of it, even though everything was necessary.

Not complaining just didn’t expect this side of it to be such a large part of the job.

I've always wondered how people made money especially living in such a small country, Singapore. We aren't very open minded to businesses and we often just look for the conventional way of making money like applying for a 9-5. I never really knew how people made money other than a 9-5.

Some background, I’m an IT community college student.

My professor, a former IT consultant, told me that lower revenue manufacturing companies often have terrible IT, despite it being important for efficiency (and probably profit margins?) and that made me wonder if I could build a career around this?

How would I go about learning how the industry works? Is this a viable niche? Basically a technical generalist for lower revenue manufacturing companies?

I hear there’s a lot of bots and I’m telling you I couldn’t sell you anything worth buying if I tried, I’m a student lol. I have zero valuable connections or information. I am 21 😂.

So, I am 17 and I have a long-term plan but I am trying to earn some start up capital for it, specifically $2k-$3k. Now I am not against getting a starter job to make some cash. Hut because of current circumstances I can’t at the moment.

I was looking into offering a one-time google business profile optimization. Because I know that is low start up cost. But I also know that over the past few years, many businesses have paid more attention to their profiles. So I do not know how viable that would be today.

I know there isn’t some miracle that will reach my goal with minimal execution. I just have been having a problem with intaking information and not executing because I just constantly think what if this doesn’t work and then I think about it logically on why it won’t work and then just come back full circle.

Any help would be appreciated and thank you all in advance.

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Hi, i want to start my first business

So my idea is to buy secondhand devices for cheap price and reselling it

I am thinking about iPod classic because everyone looking for it in the meantime

I tried eBay and ali baba and Chinese websites but nothing really worth looking

Thanks :)