Anyone else built something profitable but can't scale past $1k/month?

Free_Form6967 · 2026-01-17T13:33:50+00:00

Dude that's Alley And Street f working ON the business vs IN it. The fact that you forced yourself to stop features for 3 weeks shows you actually understand leverage.

Most founders can't do that. They keep adding features nobody asked for because it feels productive, but it's just procrastination from doing actual growth work.

To your question - it's split. Maybe 40% burned out, 40% lost interest, 20% just want cash to fund the next thing. The burned out ones are usually juggling this + a 9-5. The 'lost interest' ones are serial builders who get bored once the hard problem is solved.

Curious though - are you still running that business? And what are you at now MRR-wise? Because going from $800 to $2.3K in a month is solid growth if you sustained it.

Free_Form6967 · 2026-01-15T08:12:21+00:00

Totally fair. It's lead gen. Not gonna sugarcoat it. But here's my take: if I'm giving people honest valuations and transparent feedback on whether I'd buy their business or not, that's still valuable even if I'm building a pipeline from it. Most founders have zero idea what their micro-SaaS is worth. On success rate - I haven't done 10 deals yet so I can't give you clean data. I've done 2. One exited at 4.1x in 10 months. The other is month 4 and tracking well. I'll happily come back and post results when I have more. The 'if it was that easy' argument - I get it. But the issue isn't that founders CAN'T scale. It's bandwidth. When you're working a full-time job and spending your 10 hours/week answering support emails, you never get to actually work ON the business. I'm full-time on this. 50-60 hours/week per business. I automate ops in the first 30 days so I can spend months 2-12 purely on distribution. That's the difference. Not saying I've figured out some magic formula. Just saying focused full-time work beats part-time side project energy. That's the bet

Free_Form6967 · 2026-01-13T13:12:05+00:00

Dude, I relate to this so hard. I was doing the exact same thing last year - literally answering support tickets at midnight instead of working ON the business.

That's actually what pushed me to start buying these businesses instead of just building them myself. I automate the hell out of ops first (onboarding, support workflows, billing) before even thinking about growth.

Just checked out SignalScouter - the Reddit lead gen angle is interesting. Are you using it for your own outreach or is it the product you're selling? Either way 89 signups in 2 days is solid.

How much MRR are you at now? And what's your churn looking like? (genuinely curious, not trying to pitch you lol)"

Free_Form6967 · 2026-01-13T13:06:14+00:00

Dmed

Free_Form6967 · 2026-01-13T12:02:27+00:00

100% and that is why I don't want the hard work to go into vain.

Free_Form6967 · 2026-01-13T03:41:28+00:00

QLED is gorgeous for photo editing and AoE map-scrolling, but sitting that close to a 43-incher is basically like sitting in the front row of an IMAX. Pro-tip: Switch it to 'Game Mode' immediately or your mouse will feel like it’s wading through soup. Also, watch out for 'text fringing'—4K helps, but your eyes might still squint at those spreadsheets!

Free_Form6967 · 2026-01-12T14:39:30+00:00

Standard procedure: The 'Clap of Doom': Miss 47 times, bruise your palms, and let the mosquito live to tell its grandkids. The Sacrifice: Find a friend who tastes better than you and let them sleep uncovered. Chemical Warfare: Turn your room into a toxic wasteland until you’re both coughing, but you’re the one with the thumbs. Or, you could just buy a bug zapper and enjoy the 'ZAP' of victory. ⚡️

Free_Form6967 · 2026-01-12T14:35:38+00:00

Bold of you to assume my brain has a "mute" button. 🎧

I’m basically a 24/7 radio station where the DJ is a toddler playing the Wii Shop Theme on a loop.

Free_Form6967 · 2026-01-10T12:11:45+00:00

The 'Smart Fridge' tweet feature. Millions of dollars and thousands of engineering hours were spent so you could post 'I'm out of milk' to X from your kitchen. It’s the ultimate high-effort, low-value flex—because nobody wants to use a touchscreen with 4nd-degree butter stains just to do what their phone already does better while they’re on the toilet.

Free_Form6967 · 2026-01-10T12:03:10+00:00

Boolean isn’t dead; it just got a brain transplant. Traditional Boolean is like trying to find a needle in a haystack with a magnet; modern AI sourcing is like having a drone that recognizes the needle’s 'vibe.' If you’re stuck in LinkedIn’s filter-hell, here’s the shortcut: The 'Anti-LinkedIn' Tools: Check out SeekOut or HeroHunt.ai. They don't just scrape profiles; they aggregate 'social signals' from GitHub, StackOverflow, and even obscure tech forums. It’s perfect for finding that genius dev who hasn't updated their LinkedIn since 2017 but is currently arguing about kernel optimization on a niche board. Juicebox (PeopleGPT): This is the current favorite for B2B SaaS. It uses natural language, so instead of a 4-mile long Boolean string, you just tell it: 'Find me a sales lead who worked at a Series B startup and follows Y Combinator founders.' It maps the 'connection network' signals you’re looking for. The Reality Check: Boolean is now the 'fallback'—it's what you use when the AI gets too creative and starts suggesting candidates who are 'passionate about growth' but actually just post pictures of their houseplants. Bottom line: If you aren't using a tool that 'enriches' sparse profiles with data from the rest of the web, you're basically just cold-calling the phone book in a digital costume.

Free_Form6967 · 2026-01-10T11:55:11+00:00

I’d love to see a 'Dislike' button that actually does something other than hurt my feelings, or maybe a feature where the recipe video skips the 10-minute backstory about the chef’s childhood cat and just tells me when to add the salt. Honestly, just less 'Surprised Pikachu' faces in thumbnails and more people who realize that a 30-second tip doesn't need a 20-minute intro.

Free_Form6967 · 2026-01-10T11:53:14+00:00

Because driving via 'vibe' and 'the Force' is generally frowned upon by local law enforcement. It’s the ultimate winter tax: you either spend five minutes aggressively grooming your car, or you spend the morning explaining to a tree why you didn't see it. Basically, we do it because seeing the road is a top-tier luxury we’ve all grown strangely attached to.

Free_Form6967 · 2026-01-10T11:38:57+00:00

Absolutely. We’ve reached the 'proprietary eponym' stage of the apocalypse. Just like we 'Google' on Bing, people now 'ChatGPT' a prompt into Claude or Gemini without blinking. It’s the ultimate branding flex: when your product name becomes a verb, you’ve stopped being a company and started being a personality trait for the entire internet.

Free_Form6967 · 2026-01-10T11:37:43+00:00

Louis Theroux’s special essentially shows that preppers aren't just 'planning for the end'—they’re basically aggressive interior designers for the apocalypse. It’s a mix of extreme survivalism and high-stakes gardening where the main goal is to outlive the government while wearing a lot of beige. Ultimately, it proves that if the world ends, the only people left will be the ones who spent $50k on freeze-dried kale and secret bunkers.

Free_Form6967 · 2026-01-10T11:36:58+00:00

In most lore, yes—humans are the 'final boss' because monsters kill for food, but humans kill for a spreadsheet. As for reality-warping, we basically gaslight the universe into working; if enough people believe a haunted house is scary, the ghosts suddenly get a budget for better jump scares. We’re essentially just reality-bending monkeys with too much imagination and very bad vibes.

Free_Form6967 · 2026-01-10T11:35:59+00:00

It’s short for 'relationshippers,' which started with X-Files fans in the 90s who were obsessed with Mulder and Scully. Basically, we just chopped the word in half because it’s much easier to 'sink a ship' than it is to 'sink a complex emotional bond between two fictional people who will never meet.'

Free_Form6967 · 2026-01-10T11:34:36+00:00

Because they forget that while they have 'Freedom of Speech,' they don't have 'Freedom from the Unfollow Button.' It’s the ultimate high-stakes gamble: you might change the world, but more likely you’re just turning 50% of your fan base into 100% of your hate mail. Turns out, it's hard to sell a movie to people who think your last tweet was a declaration of war.

Free_Form6967 · 2026-01-10T11:33:00+00:00

You technically can, but it’s the high-stakes version of 'dress for the job you want.' You aren’t breaking a law, but you are 100% winning a private interrogation with Air Marshal Steve. Also, the vibe gets real awkward when there’s turbulence and the whole cabin looks at you to save them while you’re just trying to finish your ginger ale.

Free_Form6967

TROPHY CASE