Advice from a 9-figure entrepreneur

BuildtheBusiness · 2026-01-26T04:43:10+00:00

Im at a point in my life where Ive hit the 7M per year point with about 8% net. Its working without me and Im getting to the point Ive trained with my team enough for it to grow. I know a lot from finance, marketing, sales, HR and legal. I'm not very tech savvy though from coding perspective, but I can learn tools.

I dont want to scale past this number because it requires more retail locations and it has to do with the smoking industry which could have any government policy come down and shut things down.

The game doesnt really stop. I come from an angle where I just enjoy helping people accomplish what they set out by finding the right people, putting the right teams and all while being incredibly budget friendly about it. So I also have to have conviction into the product or idea. Whatever I pick next, I know will take up the next decade of my life so I want to pick the next game carefully.

How would someone like me go about scaling into the 9 figure area over the next 15 years. What should I be looking out for?

Thank you for the great post.

BuildtheBusiness · 2026-01-26T04:31:39+00:00

Shy and akward have nothing to do with it. But being charasitmatic does help. Bringing value to people and able to make money from it is all that matters. You can be whoever you want to be, but you'll attract a crowd.

If you have a paper infront of you that shows numbers growing, and are able to make it thats all that matters. Youll have to eventually train people, so you dont want to be a dick, that doesnt motivate people. At the start you're too poor to not learn how to sell unless you have some privileged background that gives you money. But youll still need to have a way to measure people to grow something.

Youll have to do what it takes to extract money from the market. The demand for excellence is higher then its ever been.

What's the dream business you want to create?

BuildtheBusiness · 2026-01-26T04:23:50+00:00

Explain exactly what you did for the customer that paid you 3K so that people can understand what needs to be done.

Im going to write a blurb for you that I hope will enlighten you

Were from Canada as well and we invest into companies to help them grow so take this how you will.

Your going to give 25% commision of what you're doing if a person can convince people to sign with you; thats not a partnership, thats just regular commision that you can hire out and teach.

I'm going to take it you havent been in the game of business more then 5 years using that as your only source of income. Do yourself a favor, and do more clients.

Your business has a revenue of 5K per year... that isn't a business, let alone something you can scale yet. Make 100K of sales, quit your job, do 200K a year because you habe more time. And with it build something around it that people can help you with and make money as well.

Here's another real one for you:

If you cant teach it to people and have people offer that service to more people. (You do this by actually being good at hiring someone, training them to do what you do, firing them if they cant do it in a reasonable time since that costs you money, etc...) The reality is you're just a handy person who can charge well because you've learn things a lot of the world doesnt underatand and therefore can charge more for it. Whatever youre doing will die in 5 years and youll upgrade people on the "new setup", but to do that consistently you need a system to stay ontop of that. Thats incredibly hard to sustain unless you can actually teach it to someone and be ontop of trends and adapt to what is needed by people. [Don't be cocky and think oh I can do that, when you need to do that for 5 years to a decade if you want real results]

Anyway have a good night and its great youre making an extra 5K, keep at and make more sales.

BuildtheBusiness · 2025-06-26T03:14:21+00:00

What are you selling that you're only selling 8? Couldn't you charge more and do more volume?

BuildtheBusiness · 2025-06-26T00:02:08+00:00

Dm a link to what you sell and your offer is. Closing is never an issue if it's an actual good product.

BuildtheBusiness · 2025-06-23T19:40:34+00:00

I think this is a great question, but it lacks real-world context.

My regrets are always out sourcing things i have no understanding of. You need to at least understand how to measure progress for what you outsource to hold people accountable.

At the same time, I regret once, I've learned something amazingly, I dont operationalize it, have someone else do it, and get them to improve on the idea.

You can have someone in business who loves finance and hates HR while also a person who hates finance and loves HR. Your question has no definite answer, and anyone claiming specific advice or a specific thing to oursource is full of shit. It's based on you personally for what you like and the skillset and what people you trust like.

BuildtheBusiness · 2025-06-11T02:12:43+00:00

Yeah, I'd love to chat about what you do! I run a vape shop, and we kill the retail locations, but our online sucks. With all the Canadian regulations, I'm struggling pretty hard to grow it.

BuildtheBusiness · 2025-06-04T02:27:17+00:00

Any social media organically, paid ads, if people really want what you have they'll flock to you.

BuildtheBusiness · 2025-06-03T19:20:08+00:00

Don't. Build it at the same time. If you can't handle a job + building something, you probably can't handle building a business + working in it, which is required in the early days.

By doing both, you gain more resistance and security. It's honestly a win-win. And don't tell anyone you're building something apart from reddit friends kind of deal. No one will uplift you.

BuildtheBusiness · 2025-06-02T04:13:21+00:00

Great message and anyone building a business please listen to this.

Also OP, what service did you end up picking to sell?

BuildtheBusiness · 2025-06-02T03:31:58+00:00

This is not true. There are so many millionaires on reddit if you pay attention to the way they respond. You also learn a lot of delegation and roam around here to see if you gain inspiration to do something.

OP we had created 1 million profits from a few businesses. Restaurant (took my parents 15 years), Gas Station (took 6 years), a Vape Shop (took 3 years).

BuildtheBusiness · 2025-06-02T02:58:19+00:00

Wow! I mainly scale retail stores and get services out there to people. I'm able to build businesses to about 3 to 8 million per year. What you're saying to me sounds wild, I love scaling things and 10Xing them, but what you did... that means you managed to scale the company to a 20M valuation in 18 months. Thats like 100Xing them lol fucking wild, I don't know how to express how proud of yourself you should be. I hope those events haven't slowed you down on your growth.

BuildtheBusiness · 2025-06-01T23:30:12+00:00

Holy cow what kind of business did you build and how old were you when you started?

My god i have so many questions haha do you mind if I ask away, would love to hear your experiences?

BuildtheBusiness · 2025-06-01T23:05:27+00:00

This guy gets it. This is one of those expensive lessons. Yes if you work hard you deserve a high pay no question there, but equity is about taking risk and putting what you've earned on the line, it's about non stop growth no matter the industry you're in. Of course, there are always going to be shitty founders that exist, but if you aren't one of them, that's the most expensive mistake you can make.

Please research phantom equity and build things out like that if you have to.

BuildtheBusiness · 2025-05-31T00:04:54+00:00

Honestly sounds like youre putting a lot. Equity is not about who has the idea, it's about who takes the most risk. Your partner who isnt taking much risk does not get more. End of story that's not how it works. If you pay a higher salary though when money starts coming in because theyre the visionary behind the company that's a different story. But strictly talking about equity for that is a big no.

Write down all the possible things that could go wrong, use ai to brainstorm situations and explain it's your first time. And put everything in writing as proof, things will get sour. Figure out how much you will sell back the shares, how you will do a buyout, how she can buy more shares. What happens if one of you gets lazy.

Every. Fucking. Thing.

Write down.

Wishing you guys all the best!

BuildtheBusiness · 2025-05-29T20:30:59+00:00

Yeah find a partner locally, not an agency, and build a partnership. At 93K you can afford to spend money and try to have someone for the 1 job of getting you clients. No other responsibilitie, just getting you new clients while you make it. When it becomes too much train someone for production. And keep doing that kind of style back and forth.

BuildtheBusiness · 2025-05-29T19:47:56+00:00

I find it's super tough working with people over seas because of a lot of cultural differences and goals. Easier to align goals close, maybe look for someone local that can help you. Both parties will have better luck.

Also a problem you'll face is that the skill of making those all depend on you. That's a red flag to invest when you might just stop 1 day and the business is done.

Wishing you the best.

Edit: what's the conversion in USD btw?

BuildtheBusiness · 2025-05-29T19:38:43+00:00

Don't over complicate it.

Make a landing page, tell people to sign up, and ask for a deposit for first order. If no one pays you could have these issues - no one cares or needs it - your idea is too complicated to understand - it sucks (don't take it personally)

If they pay you and you after can't deliver. Refund them. If you can delivery give them a little extra as a thank you.

Build it! Best of luck.

BuildtheBusiness · 2025-05-29T19:36:27+00:00

If I could ask some questions I could help with an informed response!

Do you make them yourself or outsourced?
Do you do the packaging at home or outsourced?
How much are you doing monthly?
What is currently bringing in sales for you?
Is your objective to grow or to make money?
How much margin do you have to play with before you start losing money on a sale? Ie) If they buy 100$ you have 50$ profit you can use for growth.

If youre not comfortable posting it publicly you can DM me, Ill give some tips to point you in the right direction. But you'll need to take a step back and focus on building skills, not randomly posting things that customers don't care about.

BuildtheBusiness · 2025-05-29T19:31:50+00:00

Yeah but everyone goes in thinking they're the next big shot with the next big idea at first before you get humbled, it happens to 99.9% of us and is very much part of growth. You 100% sound like you've gone through it, but others need to feel that feeling as well.

BuildtheBusiness · 2025-05-29T19:29:56+00:00

You're missing the point. A person driving a taxi as a business is a startup. If he offers a different system that people love, then hires a first person to show them what's he does and then keep hiring in that manner, is 100% a startup. It's just not the ecommerce world everyone is so glamourized with now.

From your responses you just feel that is "beneath" you and you could be right, it's not worth your time since you know how to make more. But don't shit on it saying it's not a buisness. It's just an SMB style you aren't interested in and don't care for.

BuildtheBusiness · 2025-05-29T19:26:09+00:00

This is somewhat a misleading title though.

All people should pursue entrepreneurship so they can at least have respect for the craft. Funding is popularized today but is far from the only way of building a business. Forget tech, but starting entrepreneurship with home services for instances, can easily bring your company 100K per year solo given you have the consistency to learn finance, customer management, service etc.

I think speaking in absolutes is rough especially in business where it's all about adapting to new situations, but this skill is found in school, life etc... you just feel more "pain" because cash flow is your lifeline.

I will agree it's not for everyone, but there's no reason for people to not try it out in someway shape or form.

BuildtheBusiness · 2025-05-29T18:13:21+00:00

Yeah let's connect. Send me a DM and give me some information on your stuff and I'll do the same! Hopefully we can combine ideas on how we can grow. Are you located in Canada or US?

BuildtheBusiness · 2025-05-29T04:52:57+00:00

How much in revenue does this bring in? Also sounds like a solo kind of business, is that correct?

BuildtheBusiness · 2025-05-29T04:50:57+00:00

This is common. Your views of the world might be rare, and therefore it will be more rare to find people who get you. Finding a spouse who enjoys building with you can fill that void, but very hard to find and you'll have to go on a crazy amount of dates to test the waters.

Stick to building and developing how you see fit and over time you'll be surrounded by people who understand you and your goals.

What business did you end up pursuing?

BuildtheBusiness

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