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Start here: how to introduce yourself (and what to actually say)

Rob Mackenzie· Owns a three-bay car wash; two small businesses sold before this one· Open, Automotive·Jul 9

I've been asked to kick this off, so here's the short version of how to post an intro that gets you useful replies instead of a wave emoji.

Two things up front: what stage you're at and what industry you're in. Stage is most of the game here. 'I have an idea I haven't told anyone about' and 'I signed a lease last Tuesday' are completely different problems, and you want the people who are one step ahead of you, not five.

Then tell us what you're launching, in a sentence a stranger would understand. No mission statement. 'Mobile dog grooming van' beats 'pet wellness experience'.

Then the part most people skip: what is actually in your way this week. Not the five-year plan. The permit nobody will answer you about, the price you're scared to charge, the spouse conversation you keep postponing. That's the thing somebody here has already survived.

For me: I own a three-bay car wash. I sold two businesses before this one, and neither exit was as clean as it sounds when I say it in one sentence. What's in my way this week is a $9,000 pump repair I didn't budget for, in a month that was already slow.

If you're working through the checklist, saying which phase you're stuck in helps too. Go ahead, reply below.

4 replies

Sofia Ramirez· Idea stage·Jul 9

Okay, going first so it isn't just crickets. Sofia, idea stage, and I hate typing that. I want a neighborhood bakery-cafe, and right now the entire business is a folding table at two farmers markets on Saturdays and Sundays. I bake Thursday night, sell out of cardamom buns by 10am, and then have no idea whether that means anything for a real shop with rent and a health permit.

In my way this week: working out whether the market sales prove demand, or just prove that people at a farmers market will buy anything warm. Anyone who made this jump, how did you know it was real?

Ravi Sharma· Registered·Jul 10

Ravi, registered but not open in the way that counts. The LLC exists, the bank account exists, and I have exactly one signed client. Managed IT for dental offices, which sounds narrow until you find out how many small practices are running a server under the front desk that nobody has patched in years.

Ex-corporate sysadmin, so I can fix anything and sell nothing. In my way this week: writing a monthly agreement that doesn't read like a legal document I downloaded off the internet, because I did download it and it reads exactly like that.

Lena Kaminski· Open·Jul 10

Lena, four months open, mobile dog grooming out of a van, booked about three weeks out. Which sounds like a success story until I tell you I'm booked three weeks out at prices I set in month one, when I was terrified nobody would call.

In my way this week: raising prices on clients who have been loyal since week two, and dreading it all the way. The van was $38k used and the generator still eats one Saturday a month. Stage-wise I suppose I'm open but filling gaps, and the gap is that I never priced this like a business.

Rob Mackenzie· Open·Jul 11

Raise them. I've done this three times across two businesses and the story is always the same: you agonize for a month, you send a short note with a date on it, and you lose maybe one client in twenty. The ones who leave over ten dollars were going to leave over something else eventually.

Give them four weeks' notice, don't apologize, and don't explain the generator. 'Prices go up March 1, here's the new list, thank you for being with me since the start' is the entire message.

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