Hands down the biggest pain in the butt in being a business owner is employees. Not even close.

Accounting and bookkeeping - Sales since we don’t provide taxes. Product we provide is better than competitors (biased answer obviously) but not providing tax services as well is a deterrent for a lot of potential clients.

Not anything against the op, but I keep seeing these posts in all these groups from coders and sass /app wannabes. Not counting the daily dms asking the same questions. I love helping people out but please just search these groups for the same questions, you’ll find a million ideas.

Handyman/ Remodeler here: I need no new software. What i need is a reliable young person: not a pot head, not playing with their phone every 5 mins, serious about learning professional marketable job skills who can follow simple instructions. I pay well and model this role in my company as very flexible. No one wants to work.

Freelance writer here: consistent changes in the industry that require constant pivoting to adjust to.

Compliance and QA for a very specific industry.

Our biggest issue has been creating/conveying need. Half of our clients were contacted by us, got dinged, and THEN remembered us which ultimately led to them signing.

Interviews, getting anyone to care

Customer call me up saying they are locked in or out and they are using the wrong key or turning it the wrong way

I own a clothing brand

Trickiest part is getting people to buy my brand and separate a lil bit from bigger brands and it’s cool to wear lesser known brands that are up and coming 💜💜

Cash flow and not enough hours in a day or days in the week.

Billing and invoicing. None of the products I have found check all my boxes. I wish there was a software that would allow me to put a link on my invoice, and be able to offer a discount code.

When I started an old guy told me my biggest problems would be opening new accounts and paying taxes. And he was right.

In my experience it’s always a bad idea to ask the user what their problem is or what they really need in order to get rid of the struggle or simply what the solution is. Instead find a sector you’d like to be part of and observe as much as possible. User simply have no idea how much you can automate and get rid of the daily pain in their business/jobs. While I was working in IT, I always walked around in the office and observe from different departments as much as possible. I haven’t found the million dollar idea yet but the niche I found and I work in simply put food on the table, pays the bills and gives me much time to do whatever I desire. People on the comment section are irritated because this is the easy and lousy way (no offense) to observe what their struggles are and they are fed up with the same question being asked all the time. I hope this would help and good luck.

Finding labor, and even when you find it getting them to be reliable & responsible. Then they quit. Then the cycle continues. And yes I know about employee retention. Pay them more, accomodate their imperfections, “give back” to them in terms of bonuses, time off, etc. It only works to a degree. Likewise, you can’t pay somebody $90,000/yr simply to be a receptionist that otherwise brings nothing to the table. I know even $90,000 isn’t a liveable wage, but when the business deals with certain products/services at market pricepoints, you can only pay them so much.

This sub has devolved 50% into a data mining operation for saas hopefuls with a GTP-4 API key.