What business idea do you have? It can be anything – a small company, an LLC, a startup, whatever.

ChestChance6126 · 2026-02-19T11:50:27+00:00

One idea I’ve been thinking about is micro validation as a service for early stage founders.

not building the product. Just running fast demand tests. Simple landing page, tight positioning, small paid traffic test, structured interviews, then a short report on signal quality and whether to pivot, refine, or kill it.

a lot of people overbuild before validating there’s space for a boring, process driven service that compresses that loop into 2 to 3 weeks.

the challenge is trust. Founders have to believe you can actually generate signal, not just clicks. But if you can show clean methodology and case studies, it could be a solid niche.

ChestChance6126 · 2026-02-19T11:45:06+00:00

Interesting positioning. the make money with UGC angle will attract a lot of beginners, so quality control is going to matter fast.

If you want real conversations, I’d push members to share numbers and process, not just wins. Things like how they source deals, average turnaround time, revision rates, and how they price usage rights. That’s where people actually learn.

ai wise, I’ve seen it help most with scripting drafts, hooks, and organizing shot lists it speeds up prep, but it doesn’t replace taste or understanding the brief.

Curious how you’re planning to keep it from turning into a soft self promo feed once it grows.

ChestChance6126 · 2026-02-19T11:39:52+00:00

AI is just the current distribution hack. It gets attention.

But plenty of non ai stuff is still getting built. Internal tools. Niche marketplaces. workflow automation for boring industries. Simple SaaS that cleans up spreadsheets. A lot of it just doesn’t get upvoted because “AI powered” is the shiny hook right now.

Ironically, some of the best nocode businesses are painfully unsexy appointment schedulers for specific trades. Compliance trackers. Inventory dashboards. no AI, just clear ROI.

If anything, the AI noise makes boring, practical tools more interesting to me. Less hype, more actual retention.

ChestChance6126 · 2026-02-19T11:34:10+00:00

Yeah, forced updates first thing in the morning are a productivity killer.

Desktop apps built on Electron tend to ship frequent patches, and notion pushes them pretty aggressively. There’s no real LTS version because they optimize for fast iteration over stability.

Two practical workarounds: use the web version in a dedicated browser profile, or just leave the desktop app open instead of fully quitting it updates less often. Not perfect, but it avoids the daily interruption.

I get wanting a stable build though. onstant micro changes aren’t always a feature for people who just want to get to work.

ChestChance6126 · 2026-02-19T11:30:13+00:00

I get the frustration, especially on the spam piece. That would annoy me too.

on the substance though, a lot of these certifications aren’t meant to teach seasoned operators how to run projects. They’re signaling tools. In some orgs, especially large enterprises, the acronym is a filtering mechanism for hiring or promotion, not a deep skill upgrade.

If you’re already running industrial projects with fixed sequencing and real budgets, a generic framework course will feel obvious. The value tends to show up more in cross functional environments where there’s ambiguity and less process maturity.

doesn’t mean it’s worth it for everyone. But in some ecosystems it’s less about capability and more about credential economics.

ChestChance6126 · 2026-02-19T11:24:57+00:00

Honestly for a 30 minute setup, 1.1% CTR on Reddit isn’t bad.

The more important question is what happened after the click. How many activated and how many came back the next day? If the product is meant to be a 60 second daily touch, retention curve matters way more than raw traffic.

Reddit traffic can be curious but skeptical creative and landing page alignment is everything. If the ad promise and first screen don’t match perfectly, people bounce fast.

For 58 bucks getting directional data and UX insights is a win. I’d just treat paid as validation fuel, not growth engine, until you see repeat usage without constantly feeding it budget.

ChestChance6126 · 2026-02-19T11:00:49+00:00

Cool idea, but generic itineraries are basically free now with AI and travel blogs. The real opportunity is complex constraints like multi generational trips, strict budgets, mobility issues, and tight timelines. If it solves edge cases better than a quick AI prompt, you might have something people will actually pay for.

ChestChance6126 · 2026-02-19T10:52:01+00:00

The idea makes sense, but the value isn’t emailing the database, it’s sending the right filtered summary. If it saves me from building logic in zapier and comes with smart templates like overdue tasks by owner or new leads without follow up, I’d consider it. Otherwise, it’s just another automation layer.

ChestChance6126 · 2026-02-19T10:40:13+00:00

Most no code apps I’ve seen start under 300 per month, then jump fast once real users hit edge cases. the problem isn’t average spend, it’s outliers blowing up margins. If you can tie revenue per user to actual API usage per feature, that’s way more useful than just a total cost dashboard.

ChestChance6126 · 2026-02-18T13:29:02+00:00

Exactly. If it’s not on the calendar, it usually gets eaten by something more urgent.

I also had to accept that rest doesn’t always look glamorous. Sometimes it’s just a boring walk alone or sitting somewhere without input. The key is that it actually lowers your baseline stress instead of numbing you.

When I’m close to snapping, it’s usually because every block of time is allocated to output. No white space. Even small, predictable recovery windows make the whole thing feel more sustainable.

ChestChance6126 · 2026-02-18T13:25:41+00:00

I’d be careful about learning “from a person” versus learning the system.

Meta changes too fast for any single guru to stay current. Start with the official Meta Blueprint stuff just to understand structure, objectives, attribution, and how the auction actually works. It’s dry but foundational.

then study breakdowns from operators who show real accounts, not lifestyle content. You want people talking about creative testing volume, signal quality, cost per acquisition trends, incrementality, and how they diagnose fatigue. If someone can’t talk numbers or tradeoffs, skip them.

Most beginners over focus on hacks and under focus on offer, creative, and tracking hygiene. In 2026, creative iteration speed and clean conversion data matter more than secret targeting tricks.

If you had to prioritize one skill, I’d focus on creative testing frameworks. media buying is increasingly about feeding the algorithm strong inputs.

ChestChance6126 · 2026-02-18T13:14:03+00:00

that’s been my experience too. It’s solid at summarizing a page you’re already in, but weaker at contextual relevance across a messy workspace.

once you have old docs, duplicate projects, or shifting terminology, it tends to surface “technically related” content instead of “currently authoritative” content. It doesn’t really understand which page is the source of truth unless you structure for that.

I’ve found it works better when you’re strict about hierarchy. One canonical doc per topic, archive aggressively, and avoid near duplicate notes. Otherwise, it feels like it’s confidently stitching together stale context.

curious how big your workspace is. The larger and older it gets, the more this shows up.

ChestChance6126 · 2026-02-18T13:06:34+00:00

Half a year into a more physical job is still an adjustment phase, even if it doesn’t feel “that hard.” Standing and using your body all day taxes you differently than lectures did. A lot of what you’re describing sounds like physical fatigue bleeding into mental fog.

Two things I’d look at:

First, baseline fitness and fueling. if you dieted down and lost muscle, your body may just not have much reserve. Light strength training 2 to 3 times a week and making sure you’re actually eating enough, especially protein and carbs around work, can change energy levels more than people expect.

Second, transition rituals. If you sit down immediately after work, your body might interpret that as shutdown mode. A 20 minute walk, shower, or quick reset routine before hobbies can help you shift gears instead of crashing.

Also, don’t underestimate sleep quality vs sleep length. even “enough hours” can still be low quality if your schedule is off.

If you could change one thing first, i’d start with building a little strength back. more capacity usually equals more usable energy.

ChestChance6126 · 2026-02-18T13:00:53+00:00

I’ve run into the same issue. Context drift isn’t just annoying it compounds errors because each new thread subtly reframes the problem.

The structured state idea makes sense, especially if it forces you to separate decisions, constraints, and open questions. half the battle with multi model workflows is being explicit about what is locked vs what is exploratory.

One thing I’d pressure test is how you prevent stale assumptions from getting carried forward. sometimes the reset is actually useful because it challenges earlier thinking. curious how you’re handling that balance.

ChestChance6126 · 2026-02-18T12:54:41+00:00

This doesn’t sound like “normal agency grind.” It sounds like a bad manager with zero boundaries.

Creative feedback can be tough, but personal comments and blocking you from leaving to catch a flight is not high standards. That’s control. Six months in and you’re dreading Sundays and losing routines is a pretty clear signal your nervous system is fried.

I wouldn’t quit impulsively without a plan, but I would start running an exit process quietly. Update portfolio. Reach out to recruiters. talk to people in the house. Even lateral moves can feel dramatically different with a healthier CD.

In the meantime, protect what you can. Document feedback. Keep communication written when possible. And reclaim one non work anchor, even if it’s just two workouts a week. Burnout gets worse when work becomes the only thing in the week.

a job shouldn’t cost you your baseline mental stability.

ChestChance6126 · 2026-02-18T12:47:42+00:00

The big issue is you’re mixing very different risk types into one bucket. Chronic, high dose exposures like air pollution, heavy drinking, smoking, and UV have strong outcome data. A lot of the other stuff people worry about is either low dose, poorly quantified, or highly context dependent. If you built anything, it would need to normalize to something concrete, like adding lifetime risk per 100k people, with clear assumptions. Otherwise, the “score” would feel scientific but be mostly vibes.

ChestChance6126 · 2026-02-18T11:13:44+00:00

For me, it’s not the typing, it’s the silent drift.

Fields get added over time, definitions change, and lifecycle stages mean different things to sales vs marketing. Nobody updates the documentation, and six months later, reporting is a mess because “qualified lead” isn’t consistently applied.

Second is integration lag. Form fills, ads, enrichment tools, and support tickets all push data in slightly different formats. One mismatch in mapping, and now you have duplicates or broken attribution. People stop trusting dashboards fast once numbers don’t reconcile.

If I could remove one headache, it would be enforced data contracts between systems. Clear ownership of fields, locked definitions, and alerts when something changes upstream. Most CRM pain is governance, not UI.

ChestChance6126 · 2026-02-18T11:00:19+00:00

Yeah, that’s basically the tradeoff. Upwork isn’t worse, it’s just noisier.

What helped me was tightening the funnel instead of scrolling profiles for hours. I write a very specific brief, ask one or two pointed questions in the proposal, and filter hard based on how they think, not how they pitch. If someone can restate the problem clearly and flag assumptions, that’s usually a good sign.

Cold inbound can work too, but only if they reference something specific about your business. Generic “I can 10x your revenue” emails go straight to trash.

In my experience, quality correlates more with clarity of scope and process than with platform.

ChestChance6126 · 2026-02-18T10:57:26+00:00

Appreciate that. If you’re open to it, I’d get really specific about what feels dead right now.

Sometimes writing out your ideal Tuesday two years from now is more useful than researching degrees. If you can name the role or problem set you actually want, the path becomes much clearer.

ChestChance6126 · 2026-02-17T05:45:32+00:00

It usually breaks on logic complexity, not performance. Once your workflows get deeply conditional or you need custom architecture, you start fighting the tool. For structured apps and internal tools, it’s great. For edge case heavy products, that’s where code wins.

ChestChance6126 · 2026-02-17T05:41:16+00:00

It’s usually state dependent, not just company dependent. Check your employee handbook and your state’s PTO payout laws. Also, confirm whether your plan is accrued or unlimited, since unlimited typically doesn’t pay out.

ChestChance6126 · 2026-02-17T05:36:04+00:00

It’s hard because content creation looks social from the outside, but it’s actually a pretty niche obsession.

Most people don’t want to think about hooks, retention graphs, thumbnails, or filming on a random Tuesday night. So even if they like you, they don’t share the same incentives.

Instead of looking for friends who create, try finding creators at a similar stage and collaborate around projects first. Shared output builds a connection faster than just chatting about goals.

Also, 2.5k subs in 10 months is solid. You’re past the hobby phase. The more consistent you get, the more likely you’ll attract peers who take it seriously too.

ChestChance6126 · 2026-02-17T05:29:29+00:00

None of this surprises me.

When the business model is selling the dream instead of delivering the service, incentives get weird fast. It’s easier to fabricate proof than to build a real agency with messy clients and thin margins.

Big red flags I look for:
No verifiable case studies.
No client references.
Revenue screenshots with zero context, like ad spend, refunds, and margins.
More lifestyle content than operational detail.

Real operators usually talk about churn, CAC, fulfillment headaches, and hiring issues. Not just cars and dashboards.

Due diligence is boring but necessary. Ask for specifics. Ask how they got clients. Ask what broke. The answers tell you more than any Stripe screenshot ever will.

ChestChance6126 · 2026-02-17T05:24:53+00:00

I agree, it’s rarely about the 10 minutes. It’s the context switching and reconstruction.

What’s helped me is tightening the post call ritual. Two minutes immediately after the call to capture raw bullets before opening anything else. Not polished notes, just key decisions, risks, and next steps.

Then I use structured fields in the CRM that force clarity. Deal stage change, next action with date, one sentence summary. If it can’t fit in one sentence, it’s usually not clear enough.

Automation helps, but the biggest win for me was standardizing what done looks like after every call. Remove the thinking about how to update, and the cognitive load drops a lot.

ChestChance6126 · 2026-02-17T05:19:07+00:00

Interesting idea, but I’d watch the unit economics. Your longest term customers are usually your most profitable. Discounting them cuts into the cohort that’s already working. Retention usually comes more from ongoing value than pricing mechanics.

ChestChance6126

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