r/smallbusiness by u/theideamakeragency 2mo ago How do you tell a client their $5k app idea costs $50k without losing them? Run a dev agency in the US, 10+ years in, 30+ person in-house team. This conversation happens every single week.
Client arrives with an app idea. In their head it costs $5,000. They show a quote from an overseas dev for $3,000. In reality the backend, admin panel, integrations, security and testing put the real number at $50,000 to $80,000 minimum.
Tried everything:
* breaking quotes into line items so they see where every dollar goes
* showing real examples of cheap builds that failed and cost double to fix
* offering a smaller MVP first to lower the entry point
* case studies of businesses that skipped proper development and paid for it later
Some clients understand. Most go with the cheaper option. Eight months later they come back with a broken product and zero budget left to fix it (which is the most expensive way to learn this lesson).
Am I wrong that 50% of clients have already mentally committed to the cheap quote before the first call even starts? Too high?
* what actually changed your mind about dev costs before committing to a vendor
* what would have made that conversation land differently
Open on Reddit r/Entrepreneur by u/Accomplished-News221 3mo ago How are you making 10k+ a month or what are you doing to reach 10k+ a month? Since the rise of Ai I have seen loads of spam post on Reddit,where people are just trying to get them to buy their course or scam them.I haven’t seen any genuine posts in a while where people are actually helping each other or giving other people like me ideas on how to make it out .
For those of you who are actually making 10k+ a month ca you please answer these few questions.
What do you do?
how long did it take for you to get into it?
How long did it take for you to make your first decent amount of income?
Do you regret going down the route you did?
How much free time do you have ?
How long do you honestly think that your business/side hustle or job will be making that much money for?
How much are you making ?
Open on Reddit r/VibeCodeDevs by u/hopefull420 5mo ago If AI writes the code AND the tests, how do you avoid fake confidence? For the past \~6 months I’ve been leaning heavily on AI coding tools (Claude, Code Interpreter, GitHub Copilot, etc.). Honestly, most of my workflow depends on them now. I don’t think I’ve written much from scratch in this period, and even before that I was already using chat interfaces for snippets and boilerplate.
As I’ve become more dependent on these tools, I’ve started thinking seriously about how to make sure “vibe-coded” projects don’t collapse later. I do review the code, but being honest, a lot of the time I’m skimming. I feel more like a tester than a developer sometimes, if that makes sense.
I keep reading that if you’re going to build like this, your tests need to be airtight, otherwise the app might look fine while something catastrophic is quietly waiting underneath.
So my actual question is:
How are people handling tests in this new workflow?
Do you:
* write tests yourself manually?
* ask AI to write tests?
* generate them with AI and then go through them line by line?
Because if AI writes both the code and the tests, it feels like it can “cheat” by writing tests that only prove itself right.
I’d really like to hear how others are structuring their workflow s
Open on Reddit r/SaaS by u/NoGround511 1mo ago I quit my job to build an AI SaaS. It flopped. The “boring” backup idea is now making me more in a month than I used to make in a year. I was working at a performance marketing company as a developer and designer. Decent job, stable income, but I hated it. So I started experimenting on the side with two ideas before making any moves.
First idea was an AI tool that generates product photoshoots and thumbnails. Felt like the smart bet. AI was everywhere, seemed scalable, seemed like the future.
Second idea was just building simple business websites at a fixed price, delivered in 7 days. No complex tech stack. I used wireframes and AI tools to speed up the build. Nothing revolutionary. Honestly felt almost embarrassing to call it a “startup idea.”
I quit my job without knowing which one would work. Went all in on both.
The AI tool died quietly. No traction, no real differentiation, nobody cared enough to pay.
The website thing started picking up. Slowly at first, then faster than I expected.
Here is the part I think actually made it work: I built a simple form where business owners fill in their details, I build them a free preview of their homepage, and they only pay if they like what they see. No upfront risk for them. That one thing removed the biggest objection most small businesses have when hiring someone
Open on Reddit r/EntrepreneurRideAlong by u/Safe_Thought4368 4mo ago Update: I’m the 16yo who posted about making my first $500. Thanks to you, I just hit $1,500. I want to pay it forward with the strategy that worked. I honestly owe this community a massive thank you.
A few weeks ago, i posted my story here just a 16-year-old kid sharing a small win of making my first $500. i was terrified of being judged or ignored. Instead, the advice, DMs, and encouragement i received literally changed my trajectory.
Because of the doors that opened and the confidence i gained from your comments, I’ve managed to scale that initial win to around $1.500 in revenue this month. I’ve even locked in deals with national and international brands.
I’m not saying this to brag. I’m saying this because i want to give back. i don't have a course to sell, but I do have a process that works for me. If this helps even one person get their first client, I’ll be happy.
Here is the exact blend of high tech and old school hustle I used to fill my pipeline:
1) The AI approach or lead Gen
I realized that spamming people with generic IA templates is a waste of time. Instead, I use AI to be more human, not less.
I use AI agents to scrape leads, but I filter strictly by pain points. I don't look for successful businesses. I look for businesses with great products but terrible websites, or active Instagrams with no link in bio
Open on Reddit r/marketing by u/Winter_soilder35 6mo ago What’s a small marketing tip or mindset shift that made your campaigns noticeably better? I’ve been working in digital marketing for a bit, and I’m finally realizing how much tiny adjustments matter. Sometimes it’s not the big strategy it’s rewriting a headline, changing how you frame the problem, or tweaking the audience slightly.
Curious to hear from others: what’s one simple thing you learned that immediately improved your campaigns? Could be ad copy, storytelling, emails, hooks, landing pages… anything. Always looking to improve and steal learnings from people smarter than me.
Open on Reddit r/SaaS by u/HopefulBread5119 5mo ago I analyzed 9,300+ "I wish there was an app for this" posts on Reddit. Here is the data on what people actually want. Hey everyone,
I’ve been working on a project to track "opportunity gaps" on Reddit—specifically posts where someone describes a pain point and asks for a tool that doesn't seem to exist.
I just finished processing a dataset of 9,363 unique opportunities from the last 6 months. I wanted to share the raw trends I found because they're pretty counter-intuitive for anyone looking to build a side project or SaaS right now.
**1. The "Anti-Cloud" Trend:**
About 7% of all requests (640+ posts) specifically asked for offline-first or privacy-focused tools. People are getting "subscription fatigue" and want local-only versions of popular apps (especially in productivity).
**2. The Big Categories:**
Productivity: 1,231 requests (The most crowded, but highest volume).
Education/Self-Improvement: 698 requests (The highest "willingness to pay" sentiment).
Business Tools/SaaS: 696 requests.
Health & Wellness: 656 requests.
**3. The "ADHD" Niche:**
Surprisingly, r/ADHDis one of the highest-signal subreddits. The users there provide the most detailed "feature requests" because current tools often fail their specific workflows.
**4. App Type Breakdown:**
Mobile Apps: 61%
SaaS/Web Pl
Open on Reddit r/Entrepreneur by u/Mani-OBM 8mo ago I validated my startup idea with just a landing page A few months ago, I had an idea I couldn’t shake. The problem was familiar: every time I’ve had an idea in the past, I either got stuck in analysis paralysis or went down the rabbit hole of coding, logos, product names, and all the “fun” distractions. Weeks or months would pass before I showed it to anyone, and by then I usually lost steam or realised nobody wanted it.
This time, I forced myself to do the opposite. My goal was simple: could I get strangers to care about my idea in less than a weekend? No product, no backend, no fancy branding. Just the bare minimum to test the interest.
So I worked on creating a landing page. To get people onto the page, I did two things. First, I shared it in a couple of communities where I knew the target audience hang out. Second, I put about $250 into very small ads just to see if anyone outside my personal network would click through. Nothing fancy.
The results surprised me. In 4 days, about 220 people visited the page. 63 of them actually signed up. That’s almost 30%. And a few of those people even replied to the confirmation email I sent, asking me questions about the idea and saying they’d pay for something like this if it existed. That
Open on Reddit r/VibeCodeDevs by u/SweetMachina 2mo ago Claude Code sucks at UI design...this is how I fixed that Hey fellow vibe coders,
If ya'll have been using Claude Code or Codex a lot to build web apps, mobile apps, etc. then I'm sure you're all familiar with how mediocre they both are at UI design.
So I gave Claude Code a set of tools and skills to fix that. I had previously built a vibe design platform to help with my own UI needs, but the issue with a design platform that is separate from your coding environment is
1. the platform doesn't have context of your existing design system/codebase.
and
2. you have to juggle multiple tools, create designs here, export the designs there, etc.
I found that whenever I was using Claude Code/Codex, I just wish that they were inherently good at UI design themselves so I didn't have to go back and forth between my design tool and claude code constantly and also so that the designs created were 100% relevant to my current project.
That's why I built an MCP that gives Claude Code access to create designs on its own and incorporate those designs seamlessly into my codebase. And honestly, the results are fantastic. I've been using it whenever I want to create a new page or revamp an existing one and it's just been so much nicer than using plai
Open on Reddit r/marketing by u/83eightythree83 1mo ago Why won't Meta let you pick your exact audience?! Wasted $300 dollars with meta ads! I set out specific target groups I'm only interested in (certain age group, only women, only 3 cities). Woke up and saw 850 landing page clicks. Went to my website and guess how many conversions I had?! F-ing ZERO!!! Then I noticed in demographics, it showed my ad predominantly to a completely different group!!! It showed it to 80% men, way older than my target group IN DIFFERENT CITIES. what on earth is that??? I inquired with chatgpt and it said it was about this advantage+ garbage they have. I can't seem to turn that off, apparently they decide who to show your ads to... how horrible is that?
Is there an actual way to ONLY show my ads to my specific target group before I burn even more money with this?
[](https://www.reddit.com/submit/?source_id=t3_1t2hy7y&composer_entry=crosspost_prompt)
Open on Reddit r/EntrepreneurRideAlong by u/GrandWaltzer 6mo ago I'm fixing vibe-coded apps while everyone else is still busy laughing I've spent the last month fixing AI/vibe-coded apps. Totally by accident.
For a while I was just watching from the sidelines. Memes, slop, screenshots - funny. Then I started noticing something else - an opening in the market: not just wannabes playing with AI, but people who actually run businesses. Agency owners, operators, folks with real money, building internal tools and little SaaS products with AI. And slowly being more vocal about their frustrations and failures.
Not "haha look at this mess" type of frustration.
More like: "I've already sunk weeks, money, and my ego into this and it still doesn't actually work."
I decided to test if there was anything real there. Did some outreach, got a few "nah, I'm good", a bunch of silence.
Then, in two weeks, three people said yes. Here they are:
**First client:** spent three months in ChatGPT building his SaaS.
And honestly? He did alright. Auth working, CRUD working, UI not terrible.
But Stripe completely destroyed him.
Not because Stripe is hard - Stripe is boringly straightforward.
ChatGPT had built this Frankenstein architecture where nothing connected to anything properly. Half the logic lived in random files. Some in s
Open on Reddit r/marketing by u/Outrageous_Ad_5008 10mo ago What AI for marketing purposes? Always used ChatGPT ever since its launch without even considering anything else. After this week's lackluster ChatGPT 5 update I found myself looking at alternatives... and quickly realized I've no clue how to actually compare the two (or some other AI I haven't considered).
So just wondering what the reddit marketing community is using for their daily marketing related tasks?
With "marketing related tasks" I mean anything you might find yourself needing help with at work, not just writing or coding.
Open on Reddit r/webdev by u/Last_Dragonfruit9969 5mo ago I'm tired Had an old contact call me recently before Christmas. He described an app idea he had and asked for an estimate in both time and money. I delivered the estimate recently and he didn't answer for 2 days, so I wrote asking if he had any questions or would like to discuss different projects that may require a lower initial investment.
APP HE WANTED: Just so you know, it's some months of work, I'm a single dev and dude wanted: a web app where users can retrieve services offered by service providers with an escrow payment system, agentic AI to resolve issues with payments and take care of whether to offer refunds or not, authentication, reviews of other users, user profiles, filters and all the normal stuff that is part of such an app, notifications, messaging system (I proposed a ticket messaging system instead of a chat) + other things and all the related issues that arise surrounding all of those things I listed.
He proceeds to tell me if I can hop on a meet call so I say yes. First thing I see is his ugly ass potato-bag face smirking and saying:"Let me show you something" *proceeds to share the screen to show what he vomited through lovable* and all the time it was like he was tr
Open on Reddit r/vibecoding by u/pretendingMadhav 2mo ago Anthropic just stabbed Lovable in the back (with Lovable's own knife) Lovable built a $6.6 billion company on top of Claude's API.
Anthropic just leaked screenshots of a full-stack app builder... built into Claude.
Same thing. Database, auth, deployment, the whole thing. Just type what you want and it builds.
Lovable's entire pitch is "no code, just describe your app." That's now a Claude feature.
This is literally Amazon Basics but for AI startups. You build something cool using AWS, Amazon sees the sales data, copies it, undercuts you, done. Anthropic just did the same thing, except Lovable *told them* publicly that their product runs on Claude.
The guy who makes the gun just opened a shooting range.
So genuine question, if you're a startup building on top of any AI API right now, how are you not terrified? Your roadmap is just their feature backlog at this point.
Open on Reddit r/marketing by u/RootsRockRitual 4mo ago Is anyone actually measuring demand gen well right now? I’m trying to get to the bottom of how people are actually defining and measuring demand generation now that so much of the buying journey happens off-page.
Not lead gen. Not “content → form fill → MQL”.
Actual demand creation... especially in a zero-click world.
A couple of angles I’m curious about, and would love real examples on:
**1) What does demand gen** ***look like*** **when buyers don’t visit your site?**
If influence is happening in communities, peer conversations, marketplaces, AI search, review sites... what outcomes are you aiming for? How do you know it’s working?
**2) What are you measuring instead of leads?**
Some ideas I’ve been circling (but haven’t seen formalised well):
* Quality of first sales conversations (e.g. “I don’t know what I’m looking for” vs “I know what you do, please help me solve *this* problem”)
* Less wastage upstream (fewer junk enquiries rather than more MQLs)
* Shorter time to meaningful conversations
* Better alignment between sales narrative and buyer expectations
**3) How are you explaining this to leadership?**
Not dashboards for the sake of it — but *what evidence* convinces people that demand is being built even if attribut
Open on Reddit r/webdev by u/Fabulous_Bluebird93 9mo ago I miss when coding felt… simpler
When I first started out, I’d just open an editor, write code, maybe google a few things, and that was my whole day. Now? My workflow looks like Jira updates, Slack pings, and juggling AI tools (Copilot, Blackboxai, Cursor, what not) on top of Vscode and Notion.
It’s supposed to be “efficient” but honestly, it feels like death by a thousand cuts. Every switch pulls me out of focus, and by the time I’m back, the mental cost is way higher than the work itself.
does it get better with experience, or do we just adapt to this endless tool juggling?
Open on Reddit