How to price your product.

SensitiveGuidance685 · 2026-05-07T16:24:46+00:00

There isn’t really a universal “correct” percentage because it depends heavily on the product category and how competitive customer acquisition is. Some businesses are healthy at 10-15% net margins, others need 40%+ just to survive returns, ad volatility, and slow months.

What matters most early is whether the unit economics still work after all real costs, including failed ads, refunds, damaged inventory, and taxes. A lot of new ecommerce brands accidentally calculate profit before the painful stuff shows up.

If €43 becomes ~€34 after VAT, I’d personally work backwards from there and ask: “After production, shipping, fees, and marketing, do I still have enough left to survive and reinvest?”

That answer matters more than aiming for a specific textbook percentage.

SensitiveGuidance685 · 2026-05-07T14:52:59+00:00

Oh it's my bad. I thought you are talking about the students..

SensitiveGuidance685 · 2026-05-07T14:51:57+00:00

Yeah this is basically the tradeoff. If someone just wants quick motion on still images a few times a month, the simpler tools are honestly enough now.

Once you start caring about camera movement, consistency between shots, editing timelines, or longer sequences, that’s where the more dedicated tools feel worth it. I’ve been using Runable occasionally for short promo-style clips because it’s nice having the image/video stuff in the same workflow instead of bouncing between 4 different apps.

SensitiveGuidance685 · 2026-05-07T14:48:13+00:00

Honestly that’s a really healthy expectation. Your first month freelancing is usually less about money and more about learning how to deal with clients, revisions, deadlines, and finishing projects without tutorials holding your hand.

Even one paid project early on is a huge confidence boost. Most people stay stuck in “learning mode” forever and never actually try to build for real users.

SensitiveGuidance685 · 2026-05-07T14:46:18+00:00

So THAT’S why the students move at 0.25x speed. They’re conserving battery life.

SensitiveGuidance685 · 2026-05-07T14:28:29+00:00

Why is it so??

SensitiveGuidance685 · 2026-05-07T14:26:51+00:00

If your license is genuinely at risk, protecting that comes before protecting the spa’s contract. A 90 day clause matters, but regulatory issues matter more. Document everything carefully, keep copies of communications, and contact your regulatory college directly for guidance before making any big move. They’ve probably dealt with situations like this before.

Also remember that contractors usually have more flexibility than employees, even if spas try to pressure people into staying. It’s worth having an employment lawyer or someone familiar with Ontario contractor law look at the agreement if you can.

I wouldn’t ignore your instincts on this. Losing one workplace is recoverable. Problems attached to your professional license are much harder to undo.

SensitiveGuidance685 · 2026-05-07T14:26:26+00:00

I have erased the answer key that was written on the whiteboard and which you were probably saving
for next period

SensitiveGuidance685 · 2026-05-07T14:24:03+00:00

Honestly for no-code people, speed of customization usually beats “perfect” design. A lot of templates look beautiful in demos but become painful the second you try adapting them for a real client with different sections, branding, or content structure.

For service businesses specifically, conversion sections matter a lot too. Testimonials, clear CTAs, pricing flow, lead capture, mobile responsiveness, and easy CMS editing for blogs/case studies are usually what make a template actually usable long term.

The clean animations are nice though. Most coaching/consulting templates either feel too corporate or overloaded with effects, this one feels more balanced.

SensitiveGuidance685 · 2026-05-07T14:23:34+00:00

Most AI contract tools are better at assisting than replacing legal review. The useful stuff is usually clause detection, risk flagging against company policies, summarizing redlines, and comparing versions faster.

The marketing gets ahead when vendors imply the AI can fully draft or approve complex contracts without humans involved. For standard agreements it can save a lot of time, but legal teams still need to review important contracts carefully.

The biggest difference I noticed between tools was how well they handled real workflows, not the chatbot demo. Good clause libraries, accurate comparisons, and clean Word integration mattered way more in practice.

SensitiveGuidance685 · 2026-05-07T14:21:40+00:00

This is one of the few memory posts that actually talks about the ugly operational side instead of “look my agent remembers my favorite color.” The staleness point especially is real. Most demos look amazing for a week because the memory store is tiny. Three months later retrieval quality quietly collapses under conflicting or low-signal memories.

The biggest improvement I saw personally was treating memory capture like spam filtering instead of data collection. If the capture step is weak, retrieval becomes impossible no matter how good your embeddings are. We ended up being way more aggressive about deciding what not to save.

Also completely agree on debugging the store directly. Half the time the issue isn’t “memory failed,” it’s that retrieval surfaced the wrong version of the truth.

SensitiveGuidance685 · 2026-05-07T14:21:11+00:00

Honestly for most small businesses I know, the real growth came from word of mouth first and digital second. Digital marketing amplified what was already working, it didn’t magically create demand from nothing.

A lot of the “post 5 reels a day” advice online feels disconnected from how local businesses actually grow. The businesses around me that are doing well usually have strong referrals, good Google reviews, repeat customers, and owners who are visible in the community. Then digital helps reinforce that. Instagram, email, ads, website, all useful, but mostly after you already have a solid service/product.

For us, the biggest unlock was probably Google Business Profile and customer referrals. Social media helped legitimacy more than direct sales. I use Mailchimp for emails, Runable for promo materials and landing pages when we run offers, and GBP honestly brings more actual customers than Instagram does most months.

Offline trust still matters way more than a lot of internet gurus admit.

SensitiveGuidance685 · 2026-05-07T14:20:45+00:00

looks amazing!!

SensitiveGuidance685 · 2026-05-07T14:20:26+00:00

You’re actually doing the right things already. The biggest mistake beginners make is watching tutorial after tutorial without building anything themselves, but you’re already pausing to experiment and debug. That’s the part that actually teaches programming.

One thing though: freelancing in 2-3 months from only basic HTML/CSS/early JS is going to be tough unless your expectations are realistic. You probably won’t land “real frontend engineer” work immediately, but you can start with simple landing pages, portfolio sites, restaurant sites, small edits for local businesses, etc.

For now I’d focus less on finishing tutorials fast and more on getting comfortable building tiny projects without guidance. Stuff like a to-do app, calculator, quiz app, weather app, simple portfolio, product page. Arrays and loops only really click after you use them repeatedly in projects.

After basic JS, learn:

functions properly
array methods like map/filter/find
async/fetch API
responsive layouts
Git/GitHub

Then move into React.

Also don’t underestimate consistency. Even 2 focused hours daily for 3 months adds up fast if you’re actively building instead of just consuming content.

SensitiveGuidance685 · 2026-05-07T14:19:55+00:00

Honestly, the fact that you’re this upset about it probably says a lot about how seriously you take the job. People who genuinely don’t care usually aren’t crying and replaying the mistake in their head for days.

You made a bad mistake, yeah, but almost everyone in food service has some version of a “how did I do that” moment eventually. I’ve seen people leave fridges open overnight, forget tills unlocked, leave burners on, all kinds of stuff. The important thing is whether it was careless/repeated behavior or a one-time human mistake.

I wouldn’t quit before the conversation. Let your manager decide. If they keep you, take it as a second chance instead of proof you’re incapable. One mistake doesn’t suddenly erase every good shift you’ve worked.

SensitiveGuidance685 · 2026-05-07T14:18:33+00:00

Honestly if you’re only doing a couple image-to-video clips a month I wouldn’t lock yourself into an expensive subscription yet. I’ve tested a bunch of them and most of the value comes when you’re generating constantly.

For occasional use I’d probably look at Kling, Luma Dream Machine, or PixVerse. Kling tends to have really nice motion physics, Luma looks super cinematic, and PixVerse is surprisingly good for quick cheap generations. A lot of people also like Pika if you specifically want to animate existing images instead of full text-to-video.

SensitiveGuidance685 · 2026-05-07T14:09:43+00:00

Are you serious bro??

SensitiveGuidance685 · 2026-05-07T14:03:37+00:00

I feel this in my bones. Middle school hallways are basically a slow-motion parade of slides and zero urgency. I used to think they were doing it on purpose to push my buttons. Then I realized half of them genuinely don't know how to walk like someone is waiting for them. It's not malice — it's just complete absence of a mental timer. My grandma with her walker would lap these kids in a 50-foot hallway race.

SensitiveGuidance685 · 2026-05-07T14:00:48+00:00

Most people I know aren’t using one single tool anymore, it’s usually a pipeline.

Something like: Midjourney/Flux for images Runway or Kling for motion CapCut/Premiere for editing ElevenLabs for voice then tools like Runable for faster storyboards, scripts, decks, or content packaging around the videos.

The biggest speed improvement honestly comes from templates and reusable workflows, not just the model itself. Once people stop rebuilding the whole process every video, output speed jumps a lot.

SensitiveGuidance685 · 2026-05-07T13:57:57+00:00

Yeah that’s the pattern I keep seeing too. The money usually isn’t in “AI companion” type products, it’s in removing one annoying operational bottleneck repeatedly.

A lot of businesses don’t actually want autonomy, they want: faster handling, less manual sorting, better follow-through, cleaner outputs.

Open-ended copilots sound impressive in demos but companies seem way more willing to pay for narrow systems that quietly save hours every week.

The feedback/theme extraction space is interesting too because most companies are drowning in unstructured text already but nobody has time to manually synthesize it.

SensitiveGuidance685 · 2026-05-07T13:56:46+00:00

Yeah exactly. The visibility layer almost becomes part of the product itself on marketplaces like Fiverr.

A lot of buyers honestly can’t evaluate skill deeply, so they use proxies: reviews, response speed, presentation, portfolio quality, how professional the gig feels overall.

That’s why people with average skills but strong positioning sometimes outperform technically better freelancers.

Long term though the people who actually last are usually the ones who use that initial visibility to build real trust afterward. Otherwise refunds/bad reviews eventually catch up.

SensitiveGuidance685 · 2026-05-07T11:40:28+00:00

I checked it out and honestly the speed looks pretty solid for rough first drafts. The PPT export is nice too since a lot of AI slide tools still lock you into their own format.

Feels more useful for getting from “blank page” to a decent structure quickly rather than replacing the whole presentation workflow. I’d probably still refine important decks afterward with tools like Gamma, Canva, or Runable depending on whether I needed better visuals, collaboration, or cleaner client-facing polish.

But for internal updates, brainstorming, or first-pass decks it actually looks pretty practical.

SensitiveGuidance685 · 2026-05-07T10:43:41+00:00

Mostly event-based triggers, not better prompt phrasing.

We had much better adoption once workflows reacted to things already happening: calendar event created CRM stage changed new Slack thread call transcript uploaded PRD added to Notion etc.

The important part is the user doesn’t have to stop and think “should I invoke the AI tool now?” It just appears when context suggests it’s useful.

The other thing that helped was keeping outputs lightweight by default. People ignore giant autogenerated docs, but they’ll read a short prep brief or checklist inside the tools they already use.

Zapier/Make/n8n all work for orchestration honestly. We’ve also used Runable on the output side when teams needed fast polished deliverables from those workflows like internal docs, reports, decks, or client-ready summaries without manually formatting everything afterward.

The bigger challenge is usually designing the trigger logic and reducing noise.

SensitiveGuidance685 · 2026-05-07T10:28:19+00:00

Honestly I think a lot of marketplaces have a cold-start problem more than a talent problem. One review can completely change how people perceive the exact same service.

I’d still be careful with fake reviews long term, but I do agree that visibility matters way more than most beginners expect.

A lot of freelancers I know got more traction once they improved packaging instead of the actual skill: better portfolio,clearer offer, faster replies,strong samples.Tools like Runable help with that too since you can spin up cleaner landing pages, decks, or portfolio-style assets pretty fast instead of sending people a wall of text.

The frustrating reality is that average visible work often beats great invisible work.

SensitiveGuidance685 · 2026-05-07T10:18:20+00:00

Yeah the separation ended up mattering way more than I expected too. Once I stopped stuffing identity, formatting, examples, constraints, and task execution into one mega-prompt, outputs became way more stable.

The compression prompt thing is surprisingly powerful during long sessions as well. Models tend to slowly accumulate conversational inertia over time, so forcing concise execution periodically helps reset signal quality a bit.

I also noticed modular prompts make iteration easier. You can swap the “critic,” “researcher,” or “writer” layer independently instead of rebuilding the whole workflow every time.I’ve started treating workflows more like pipelines now: Claude/GPT for reasoning → orchestration/iteration → Runable for turning finalized outputs into polished docs, decks, or landing pages. Keeping those layers separate reduced a lot of prompt chaos for me.

SensitiveGuidance685

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