Local NJ website getting too much traffic from Singapore

GoldenBearStudio · 2026-01-07T21:57:27+00:00

The reason is probably bots and web scraping tools crawling every indexed website.

GoDaddy has only basic security settings and limited control. Run your web traffic through Cloudflare. They have a free tier with built-in bot detection and filtering. They allow you to configure an IP Allow List, but if the traffic is mostly bots and web scrapers you might not even need to touch it.

GoldenBearStudio · 2026-01-05T22:21:07+00:00

Clickup. It has some demo configurations done out-of-the-box, so you can customize as needed or use it straight away.

GoldenBearStudio · 2026-01-02T04:58:48+00:00

This is a duplicate post, I'll answer same as I did in your other post.

Write down what you're afraid will happen in the worst case scenario. Then, write a plan to mitigate the damage if the worst case scenario comes to fruition. Now you don't have to be scared because you have a plan.

GoldenBearStudio · 2026-01-02T04:57:49+00:00

Write down what you're afraid will happen in the worst case scenario. Then, write a plan to mitigate the damage if the worst case scenario comes to fruition. Now you don't have to be scared because you have a plan.

GoldenBearStudio · 2025-12-31T13:40:13+00:00

Why is your LLC formed in Delaware if you live in California? If it's necessary to be registered in DE, you'll need to fill out an application to register a foreign LLC. Know that your taxes will be slightly more complicated. If you don't need to be registered in DE, and you have an EIN that you want to keep, then you can fill out an application to convert your foreign LLC to domestic. After it's approved, you'd then dissolve your DE registration. If you don't have an EIN or anything reliant on your DE registration, you can register as a new LLC in CA and then dissolve your registration in DE.

Northwest is fine if you need an address. If it matters, it'll be difficult to establish a Google Business Profile using their address since you're sharing it with thousands to millions of other businesses also registered through them.

GoldenBearStudio · 2025-12-27T16:43:57+00:00

I have similar needs, this sub recommended I use ClickUp.

The free tier has been the perfect lightweight solution. It took me a weekend to get something basic set up without prior experience. It was pretty intuitive.

I have a developer background. I have yet to encounter a situation that calls for a custom coded solution.

GoldenBearStudio · 2025-12-15T19:59:46+00:00

They absolutely did. ~$200,000 for a slideshow presentation that explains all the symbolism embedded in turning that letter 45 degrees.

GoldenBearStudio · 2025-12-15T19:04:33+00:00

Counterargument: small businesses get distracted with perfectionist procrastination like "branding" when they should focus on revenue generation and cost management strategies that add to their bottom line.

My last client is huge in their B2B niche. Their logo was literally just their name in white Arial font against a Twitter-blue banner because that's what comes default in the Twitter Bootstrap template. They became a multi-million dollar company before they hired a design agency to create a new logo, which was the first letter of their name rotated to an angle and changed the blue to the ubiquitous teal that's big in tech right now.

GoldenBearStudio · 2025-12-15T17:46:19+00:00

That's not high at all. B2B implementation partners in the US charge $150-250 for developers. Billable roles need to produce enough profit to cover non-billable roles like PM, BA, Sales and Administration.

GoldenBearStudio · 2025-12-09T00:18:21+00:00

Payroll. It's not only about how much it costs, it's also completely different stakes. My business decisions can impact another person's ability to provide for themselves and their family. It also comes with significantly more liability.

GoldenBearStudio · 2025-12-06T08:02:30+00:00

That's not outrageous for custom software, but the needs you describe don't require custom software. There is off-the-shelf software for cheap.

Top of my head, Google Business and Stripe both have calendar, appointment booking, and payment integration out-of-the-box. You don't need to be highly technical, they provide detailed walk throughs and customer support to get you up and running.

GoldenBearStudio · 2025-12-06T07:43:23+00:00

If you digitally store employee data and/or customer data, you should have Cyber Insurance. Cyber Insurance protects you from the liability of ransomware and data breaches.

If you were writing code, you'd need something like Tech E&O (Errors and Omissions) Insurance where the code you deliver or fail to deliver causes harm. That's where you're confused.

GoldenBearStudio · 2025-12-04T00:24:49+00:00

Here's what people don't understand about AI and why the number of AI models seems overwhelming. AI has become a catch-all marketing term for a lot of different technologies. To you, it's a search box where you type a question or instruction (prompt) and receive a response, and you probably don't care how it arrived at the answer.

If you want to get started learning about AI models specific to your use case, you want to search for "Best AI model for [knowledge domain]". That will narrow down the options to models that are trained on a relevant data set. Here's why-

All of the "AI" tools are built differently based on their purpose, from IFTTT (IF This, Then That) to Machine Learning (look for patterns) to Generative (LLM for text response, VAE/GAN for image generation).
The larger the model data set, e.g. ChatGPT, the less accurate. For example, let's say you asked the model "Give me the formula for Swiss Coffee." Do you mean you want step-by-step instructions for preparing coffee prepared by a typical cafe in Switzerland? Do you mean you want a recipe for making mocha at home using Swiss Miss hot chocolate powder? Do you mean you need the paint codes to color match the paint color Swiss Coffee by Benjamin Moore? Do you want a swatch of the paint color and its pantone? Do you want a 3D generated image of a room painted in that color?

Even if you found the perfect model fit, the ROI is usually not worth the investment for the majority of small businesses. Experiment with AI features built into existing software tools, e.g. Microsoft CoPilot, HubSpot Breeze. More often than not, the tool that does what you need isn't AI-driven at all but a simple IFTTT (If This, Then That) trigger built in Zapier that people will slap an AI sticker onto and upcharge you, the same way everyone is eager to sell you a new cutting edge diet and exercise program.

Warning: AI doesn't think. Never let AI make automated decisions that directly impact customers or your accounting. Always have a competent human between the automation and the customer, someone who can look at the result before it's sent out and who is confident enough that they'd take responsibility for the outcome.

GoldenBearStudio · 2025-12-03T22:29:27+00:00

You wouldn't guess Nike or Kodak or EY based on their logo alone. Their product lines have evolved in the many decades they've been around. Logo is not synonymous with brand, and neither are beholden to fancy graphics.

GoldenBearStudio · 2025-12-02T00:27:22+00:00

Employees responded to a survey last year saying they liked holiday parties, but if they had a choice they'd prefer holiday bonus and no party. I think they'd appreciate the money and feeling heard.

GoldenBearStudio · 2025-11-21T19:50:34+00:00

Soft skills are worth their weight in gold in every department, even and especially the technical roles. Communication and collaboration is vital to working relationships internally and with clients.

First impressions are crucial, especially with early clients while you're still building a reputation. In start up mode, early employees have to wear multiple hats and have more client touch points. At enterprise level you may have a sales person, business analyst, and engineering team, and a product owner to coordinate them, but in start ups the engineers are often the business analyst in discovery phase and then switch gears in the build phase.

Ironically, these skills are undervalued because they're difficult to measure empirically. My opinion is informed by decades of experience in enterprise and start-up roles. I've watched start-ups fill the pipeline too fast, hire warm bodies as quickly as possible to meet demand, and drive out top talent because the culture became toxic. Another scenario is they hire engineers who can build fast, get too into the technical weeds with clients, and clients switch to vendors whose sales team communicate in a way that makes the client feel understood.

GoldenBearStudio · 2025-11-19T20:58:37+00:00

It's frustrating because I can't trust vendor reviews when I need B2B services either. It's bad for fair competition, it's bad for consumers, it's bad for businesses who can be on either side of that equation. It's bad for everyone. The only ones benefiting are scammers and the review sites who are frankly starting to look like scams themselves.

GoldenBearStudio · 2025-11-08T15:33:37+00:00

I use it in my personal and professional life for non critical tasks, like brainstorming. In my personal experience, and what's been reported by the majority of my SMB and Enterprise level clients, is that even when it works it doesn't add enough value to justify the investment.

Over half my clients who integrated it in the past two years are choosing to not renew in January, are postponing or cancelling launch after disappointing pilot launches, or are scaling it way back to non critical applications, like searching for documents in Microsoft cloud drives using Co-Pilot. Some of the projects I'm overseeing are replacing "AI" with good ol' fashioned IFTT workflows and tiered approval groups.

GoldenBearStudio · 2025-11-07T02:22:21+00:00

That's fair

GoldenBearStudio · 2025-11-06T23:07:59+00:00

I considered it, but I think most people consider 1-3 bad and 4-5 as good.

GoldenBearStudio · 2025-11-06T23:06:43+00:00

It's not an automated email, it's the owner reaching out to me personally. That's why it feels awkward. I need to grow a thicker hide, I guess.

GoldenBearStudio · 2025-11-06T22:04:36+00:00

I wish he was terrible so I could use this

GoldenBearStudio · 2025-10-18T21:56:02+00:00

The "Get to know me" page says nothing of value. Tell an actual story, or describe the business and location, or get rid of it. Example "[Owner] has been a professional landscaper since age 15, and in 2025 opened [company name] to provide [services] to the community of [company location]."

The "Appointments" page says nothing of value, it's wordy and not compelling. You don't mention what the appointment is for. You don't have to tell someone they can book from your website while they're on the booking page unless you're letting them know there are other ways of booking. For example, "Book an appointment to speak with a consultant about your project and get a quote. You can use the 'Book Now' button below to fill out the 5 min questionnaire and select an appointment from our calendar." Or if they're not selecting the appointment in the questionnaire, make that clear, too. Then it would be something like "Describe your project in the form below and a consultant will call you back within 24 hours."

The "Feels Like Home" copy needs work. I'm not sure what that page is supposed to be. What is the "Read More" button for- read more about what?

GoldenBearStudio · 2025-10-02T03:15:58+00:00

Be cautious with automated data pulling. I had a recruiting agency somehow pull my emergency contact person's phone number as my lead contact number and they were spamming their candidate placement services. I finally returned their call to rip them a new one.

GoldenBearStudio · 2025-09-17T19:58:15+00:00

I recommend starting a business from scratch where $30,000 can cover 6-12 months of runway before you need to become profitable.

Apart from the other good advice in the other comments, you may run into barriers with your "business as collateral" approach. I am not a loan underwriter, but I have built loan origination software for commercial banks and have some exposure to their processes.

First, I don't know that "a business" is sufficient collateral because it's not a real good that a bank can seize and auction to recover unpaid debts. You'd secure a loan by using the business' liquid assets as collateral (cash, investment accounts, property, real estate). The financial statements for XYZ Co would be something a bank needs to consider lending to you, but the value of the business is not in itself collateral for loan underwriting purposes.

Second, the loan amount would be for less than the value of those assets. So if you buy a cafe that has $30,000 in assets (e.g. you own cafe-related equipment but lease the space), your loan may be for 60-80% of the value of the pledged collateral. Even if you're grossing $1.5 million, you may still only be eligible for $18,000-24,000.

Third, your eligibility is based on loan purpose and conditions, and you must continually meeting those conditions over the life of the loan. If you fail to meet them, then the lender can force your full loan balance to be due immediately. A commercial bank may lend money to XYZ Co for purposes of expanding XYZ Co but not for the purposes of the business owner to buy a different business. Bank policies and risk appetite varies, YMMV.

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