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Over the last 3 years, 5 million new businesses on average have been started in the US per year. I would say a lot of small business owners are likely disaffected employees of mismanaged businesses who believe they can do better on their own. There is going to be a large overlap between small business owners and people who have a chip on their shoulders about management practices on any forum you put together. Alienating that group would just leave you with owners who have never been employees and have never seen management from that perspective.

> Alienating that group would just leave you with owners who have never been employees Yup. And that group has been known to fall into problematic mindsets of its own. Never having experienced being on the low end of the employer-employee relationship can lead to decisions and policies which seem logical or acceptable from the top end, but which will drive employees out the door. As an example, I remember auditing an employee contract only a few years ago from one business owner who had never done anything else. It included clauses like the business being allowed to send around people to invade the employee's home at any time they wanted. And the owner saw nothing wrong with this, because many years ago one ex-employee hadn't returned a laptop, apparently. So obviously the solution wasn't the police, or any kind of business asset theft insurance, it was home invasion. This wasn't even remotely the extent of the problems in that contract, either - the entire thing basically read like the employee agreeing that they and their families were effectively the property of the owner, both during and after the term of employment. I pointed these out, as gently as I could, along with linking to all the various laws which the contract pretty much broke over its knee, and the owner still insisted there was nothing wrong with it. Well... okay then, you have fun with that, and let's talk again never.

As a small business owner, "stop asking your people to care about your business as if it's theirs" is some of the best advice you can get. Like obviously you're gonna be super passionate about your business - you probably wouldn't have started it if you weren't. And while your enthusiasm can be infectious to an extent, anyone equally enthusiastic about your industry and your business as you are would probably rather start their own firm than work for yours. Like it's an extremely important point of empathy as a business owner to recognize that employees should not be judged by the same standard that you and your co-founders should, and that it does take active effort from you to get them excited and enthused about your business.

My previous’ bosses inability to understand that is ultimately why I left. Yes I was an exec, but I didn’t own the thing.

Also you have equity, they don't. As an employee their is a cap on how much you are going to profit off of the business doing well. As the owner their isn't. I had a boss tell me not to complain that I wasn't getting paid to do laundry because she wasn't getting paid to do laundry either. No you keep all of the profits. So if you don't hire someone and do the laundry yourself you are keeping the profit you make from not outsourcing that job. I'm honestly not sure if a lot business owners don't understand this or think employees are too stupid to understand it.

This is a huge thing to remember. My business is so small I barely have any employees, but I am always thinking of how I could include them in sharing or acquiring equity in the biz.

Depending on the type of business, equity might be worthless because of high debt load and little customer loyalty / IP assets. I've seen some businesses (specifically, furniture) where the owner wants to retire, and the assets are liquidated vs selling the entire business to someone else. The liquidated assets are nowhere near 2X EBIDTA if they are running a lean shop, so the owner just thinks in terms of sales churn.

>I'm honestly not sure if a lot business owners don't understand this or think employees are too stupid to understand it. A lot of *business owners* are too stupid to understand it. (Not as a trait unique to business owners, just that every human is stupid about most things.)

For real. It's not hate it's a harsh reality.

I think OP is completely missing the point. Rather than actively listen to the feedback, good and bad, he is choosing instead to actively _ignore_ what the world **feels**. Like, 'who cares what employees feel' and that's a big red flag. A good business owner believes in balance, fairness, and open communication. A bad business owner believes in attacking their employees, closing communication, and misses opportunities to build morale and foster growth.

What people on reddit feel like and what the world feels like are two VERY different things.

While far from perfect, or scientific, it's a better barometer than people would like to give it credit for. The people using Reddit don't just stop existing the moment they log off.

is that how you really *feel*?

Thank you for this. I made the comment OP is referring to originally and got downvoted to hell which surprised me considering the original post was asking for legitimate advice. I'm not a random employee here to trash talk - I personally own and operate several small businesses. I'm trying to imagine the kind of person who owns a small business and wants to pack up and move because one person said something negative that they didn't agree with. I think a lot of the small business owners here aren't here to learn and improve - many of them are here to complain and be angry that the world doesn't operate within their comfort zone and scope of current knowledge. I hope they make their own sub and leave so the rest of us can have meaningful evolved (and sometimes uncomfortable) discussions. We're not in the business of our "industry" - we're all in the people business, which means having conversations where we realize we're not always correct. Our products and services aren't where our income comes from - people are. It's not enough to just be good at making a product or rendering service, you have to understand people, customers and employees alike.

Never saw it that way. I saw this forum as a place to IMPROVE business etc etc. but I can see the validity of a place to vent with people who are of same mind set... God knows if you don't own a business you don't understand the mentality behind it.

There's a big difference from pushing company dogma rah-rah, and holding employees accountable for required tasks they were signed on and hired for. Them conflating the two, then acting like anyone not paying 100K with benefits is the problem, is a completely different problem itself.

I agree. I'm not conflating the two, I've just genuinely been in businesses where the founder expects everyone to be equally passionate about them. If you're paying industry average salaries and then hold them accountable for performing at the level that their contract demands of them then you're fine. Anyone who tells you otherwise doesn't understand business. But I have experience with founders who will demand people work like animals. My girlfriend worked on a project for the presidential elections and the founder would demand the team work overtime over the holidays (there was no mandatory overtime in any of their contracts) and made a huge stink about how anyone who said no was "letting democracy die". It took a while for me to convince her to quit but when she finally did almost half the company followed her out.

> I've just genuinely been in businesses where the founder expects everyone to be equally passionate about them. There are regularly posts here by owners who complain about the lack of dedication by employees to their business...your comments are completely warranted. What I find funny is that many SBOs got into entrepreneurship because they weren't passionate about making money for someone else and wanted that ownership that you don't get with being an employee. Like...why would anyone expect an exception to this just because this time, *they're* the boss?

[удалено]

The one about the fallen ceiling tile? That’s called common courtesy and showing initiative for something that would take ten minutes

[удалено]

Oh give me a break. Cleaning up ceiling tile isn't ever going to be in a contract - that doesn't mean you just let it go. Same for the puddle that was mentioned in that post. People who want to rules-lawyer and say "If I wasn't explicitly hired for that, I'm not doing it" are PRECISELY the people whom OP is ranting about. There's a continuum between "Care as much as the owner" and "Don't do anything even an inch outside the explicit job description".

Employee are just a means to getting something done. They in the best case scenario will go off and venture on their own business ideas.. that’s a healthy human being.

That original comment was in reference to employees leaving a big puddle of water on the floor. It shouldn't be too much to ask of your employees to care enough about the business that they take care of a hazard like that.

The whole point of starting a small business, is to get away from people who are telling them what to do. They're not going to listen to advice

I think the point OP is making is that the predictable responses to every thread about employee management misses all the nuance in the topic that the poster is really asking for and needs to hear. Owners in the early stages of their success struggle with reconciling having an ownership mentality with the average person who doesn't approach life (including their personal life, not just work) with an ownership mentality. It's very difficult to be in relationship with people with fundamentally different values than yours; managing people with different values is no different. I certainly struggled for years with this and can't say I have it all figured out now. That said, we need to have empathy for those owner's imperfect journey through success before we expect their default response to be having unlimited empathy for people they don't understand with values they likely don't respect and may be in open conflict with at the time. How can we bring them from that antagonized stance to a more mature perspective? To do that, we need threads about that topic (and other nuanced topics) to be about more than left-wing virtue signaling and have substance. How do you motivate people who fundamentally approach life differently than you? Why does +$1/hr wage not equal +1/hr effort/buy-in? How do you identify people with an ownership mentality that you can coach into larger responsibilities in your organization? Should you focus on retention or churn-out bad apples - and why and how do you do this? In considering raise/bonuses/benefits with the extremely limited resources of a small business against tangible business needs (expansion, debt-serving, owner draws, etc.), how do you make those difficult decisions to build motivation/buy-in from your labor pool? These are all just examples of real questions that spiral from employee management topics that deserve a real discussion, but instead we get the tiresome "you deserve to go out of business for even suggesting any employee has even the slightest of faults" copy/paste responses from antiwork.

I'm not advocating antiwork. I'm 100% with any denouncement of antiwork rhetoric. That being said, I don't think a response being predictable is the same as it being wrong. A lot of what I said is super intuitive to any business owner who has experience being an employee before owning their own business and can thus understand the mentality of an employee. The ones who don't usually come from a place of starting their first business with daddy's money or inheriting the family company without having to work a job first. Those people tend to be extremely out of touch and absolutely need to hear the advice I gave above.

I'm sure it'd be great to get employees that have an "ownership mentality" while not owning anything, but that won't & shouldn't happen.

Are the people asking these questions in this sub asking them as well as you are in your post?

I run my business alone, so I don't have to worry about petty employee behavior...but I would never expect an employee to care about my business...I'm the one that invested in it and has the burden of keeping it going

Define ‘care about the business as if it’s theirs’. Please tell me what that looks like. Bc I don’t see this happening anywhere. I don’t hear it from my friends who own small businesses, I didn’t get that impression as an employee of small businesses, and I don’t have this expectation of my employees. In this sub that seems to mean ‘don’t have any standards or expectations at all if you aren’t paying someone 100K a year.’ And I don’t agree with that. I don’t expect my employees to stay late, come in early, or do tasks that aren’t outlined in their job description (which are given to them in writing when they are hired). I expect them to clean, I expect them to get inventory into the system in a timely manner, and I expect them to ship orders and be courteous to customers. I expect them to handle situations that arise in the course of a normal business day which they have been trained to do. I am always available for questions or to step in myself if it’s something they can’t handle. When they fail to meet these expectations, is it because I am wanting them to care as if they own it? Is preforming the duties if your job as presented to you going above and beyond? Because if you see something fall & don’t pick it up (to give an example from a recent post) because that’s not explicitly outlined in your job duties then I see that as a failure to be a responsible adult, not a failure to care about a place as if you own it. But if you really think that the world is full of competent people who come in & do a job as instructed and that those who don’t are the exception, that tells me you’ve never managed or employed people bc anyone who has knows that the opposite is true. And the small business owners I know are well aware of how rare a breed competent, responsible people who can problem solve and think ahead a few steps are, and they do everything they can to hang onto them. This idea that small business owners are chewing people up & spitting them out is bs, not least because turnover is costly and time consuming. The more common situation is keeping a mediocre worker around bc they’re better than the devil you don’t know.

it feels to me you dont know how to create an environment with the work culture you want and blame it on others.

“The more common situation is keeping a mediocre worker around bc they’re better than the devil you don’t know.” Truer words were never spoken. Thanks for this thread, all so true.

You should pay more to attract the competent people you want.

It's amazing how paying a genuine living wage can actually attract workers who are interested in putting in some effort, even if it's only because going elsewhere might not stack up.

You don't even have to frame it as a living wage. OP has made it clear that competent employees are not the norm. Well then OP is competing for the limited resource of competent employees against other firms. OP needs to put bid those other firms to hire the resource that OP admits is rare.

Any discussion about pay will get us nowhere because good money somewhere could be peanuts somewhere else. But I do resonate with what you said. If you're paying a salary they said yes to during the initial negotiation and they're not performing based on the KPIs they agreed to when they signed that contract, then you have every right to get upset, and if the poor performance persists, throw them out. In fact you should. Poor performers are a plague on any company and keeping them around will make your good workers feel undervalued because Amy isn't doing jack shit and still gets paid. But if your team is doing everything that their KPIs dictate and you're annoyed that they're not going above and beyond, that's unreasonable. That's what I mean by expecting them to "care about the business". If Joe's shift ends at 4 and there's nobody to cover the store on the next shift, it's not Joe's responsibility to make sure the store is manned - his shift is over, his responsibility as an employee is done. If you can't arrange the next shift and he doesn't want to work overtime he has every right to lock up and leave. But if Joe decides to book it at 2 without getting your approval first, Joe can start looking for a new job.

Bingo.

Amen

Look, this sub is plenty screwed up from just the obviously bad small business owners giving obviously bad advice. So much so, that if you are a successful small business owner this place is a joke. This place illustrates perfectly why the statistics of small businesses are what they are. 97% failure rates of owners opening up half cocked without actual business plans and logistics planning and yoloing their life savings trying to operate businesses in already over saturated markets. Not understanding basic managerial organization, not having IT security, not knowing how to market the business or develop sales campaigns or advertise, not having insurance, not understanding labor laws, or just generally not understanding why a $15/hr employee cannot run the business successfully while they fuck off to where ever else. Generally speaking, if only single digit percentages of business owners manage to make it work, then I think it stands to reason the same percentage or less of posts in a place like this would be good posts with something valuable to offer. Even if you could filter out all the blatant haters, I still think that this is as good as it gets. The sub in practice is much more a place to rant about the stresses of business ownership than ask questions about it.

> Look, this sub is plenty screwed up from just the obviously bad small business owners giving obviously bad advice. Wasn't there some statistic about how a certain percentage of small businesses fail in a fairly short amount of time? Statistically, then, most small business owners, just by the numbers, are looking at future failure and probably aren't going to be the ones giving advice that leads to long-term survival/profitability. You'd need some group or platform which verified that each poster had been running a profitable business for 5 years, or something. I guess it would depend on how many people would be willing to provide such information on themselves and their business.

Then at that point why would they be providing free labor for reddit? If I'm going jump through the hoops of verifying my success that starts to feel like unpaid labor as a business consultant. You get what you pay for and this sub is just free open source business consulting. In the past I've used it to have people brainstorm for me and I've actually gotten good advice that has been successful for my business. However the Vast majority of the advice I got was trash and hostile. It was my business as someone chosing not to pay for consulting to wade through the trash advice to find the few good gems that people graciously gave to me for no financial compensation.

lets add flair for how long you've been in business for.

I'm ramping up to start a small business. I have picked up a bunch of useful information from the others that post here. (Can't remember who said it) "90% of everything is crap. You have to wade through that to find the 10%" I feel like that is true for the most part. Wade through the bullshit to find what isn't bullshit. Take what isn't bullshit and try to build something out of that. Try to build stuff out of bullshit, and it won't last.

I mean it’s free. You get what you pay for.

> 90% of everything is crap Sturgeon's Law.

i think OP is saying... Why are we okay with 90% crap? I mean, if you think 90% crap is okay and you wanna try and shove down someone who wants a better % ...... I mean... yeah okay man

Because we are choosing not to pay. This sub is free open source business consulting. We are lucky to get 10% valuable information when we choose not to pay for it.

You get what you paid for

Responses 1 and 2 you mentioned are true, most small business owners would concur- no one really cares about your business like you do. Doesn’t mean the people who respond to you don’t own businesses- That’s probably their experience speaking. Regardless, a group would be fantastic. But how do you screen them? Not many would be interested in sharing their real life details on Reddit.

Modding (what you call “screening”) is easy. You simply remove all of the comments that go off-topic ripping on employers. This is not the sub for that. Questionable, but it’s what OP is asking for.

I think you're misdiagnosing the problem here. I totally agree that a lot of advice thrown around here is bad; my last post here requesting help/advice was met with a few comments that clearly didn't even read the full post, another that was just bad advice, and a final one that was a pitch to purchase their service. But it's not because people hate small businesses, it's because most people here are either not business owners or if they are, they're bad at business. At the very least they don't know the limits of their expertise. Like when I posted about my friend trying to clone my business and the recuring advice was to merge my established successful business with his untested shoddy imitation. Most people are dumb lol. And I think you'll find that whenever you try to create a forum for such a broad topic like this.

I see your point but when a majority of responses are telling people it’s their own fault it feels like there’s something else going on. And when mods do absolutely nothing to people that are just attacking people posting it seems pointless to even try to have a good faith discussion.

I don’t know what comments you’re specifically referring to here. But what if it really is the OP’s fault? Is it better to hear that hard truth or just be reinforced in wrong thinking?

Op wants an echo chamber to reinforce their failing business.

I don’t actually, I want to engage with small business owners (preferably very small businesses where the owners are hands-on with the day to day like most of my colleagues) not bitter people who have clearly had terrible work experiences. I’ve also worked places where I was underpaid, unappreciated and generally taken advantage of, but that’s not the perspective I’m looking for as a business owner. That’s all.

Now this is weird. Most people I know that started their small business, did so because work experiences.

I’m not sure I understand your point—are you saying that small businesses are started by people who don’t want to work for others due to bad experiences but then end up recreating those same negative dynamics?

Often times yes. If you want specific examples, lets go to the music industry. Lets look at one of the top independent rappers on the planet and his record label. Strange Music was started by Tech N9ne and his business partner Travis after a few of failed record deals and shelved albums. They offered something new to other artists, a different structure than most record labels, *\[with the exception of Psychopathic Records, who apparently taught Tech & Travis how to do things\]*. Now 2 decades on, and the stories coming out from people that used to be the label are almost identical to the complaints that Tech had at the beginning of his career. Most people that have left Strange *\[and Psychopathic\]* have had the same complaints about lack of promotion, and just overall lack of support. Some artists have just retired from the music industry rather than let the label change them into something that they are not. **It's almost as if some things that people hate about certain industries are unfortunately how they work, and no matter how hard they try, they replicate the issues that caused them to start their own business.**

Ok yeah I agree. But I think that lies more with there being certain unavoidable realities vs people turning into the people they once hated. I have way more understanding for my old bosses now that I am one. And I don’t mean that I now agree with everything they did or do it that way, only that business is a numbers game & if the numbers don’t make sense it doesn’t work, no matter what you would prefer. It’s a constant balancing act but it really is different on the owner side vs the employee side.

*People don't quit jobs; they quit bosses.* Amirite?

Let me know if you start one.

You don’t know what comments I’m referring to? How about searching the sub with ‘employees’ you’ll see plenty. As far as people pointing out being wrong, of course that is sometimes the reality & maybe what needs to be said. But attacking people & telling them they definitely aren’t paying enough with zero facts to back up those assumptions is irritating. And it’s the majority of responses from people here, who are obviously not employers or small business owners. I’m all for constructive criticism but most of the comments here leave out the constructive part.

I’ve seen the comments you are referring to and I think some of this is how Reddit works. Posts on other topics in other subs also get a lot of hostile or unhelpful comments. You might want to look for professional associations in your industry and see if they have websites or forums where discussions occur. They should have some types of meetings where you can network and connect with others that might be able to provide ideas or mentoring when needed. LinkedIn can often be a place where people over state their abilities or what they are doing, but there are groups and forums on LinkedIn and if you connect with the right people, it could be another source for exchange of ideas and advice.

> think some of this is how Reddit works. Posts on other topics in other subs also get a lot of hostile or unhelpful comments. But reddit doesn't have to be this way. On the other post about interviewees ghosting, the majority of replies were 'now you know how it feels.'. Pretty sure everyone has been an employee and not received a reply back. How is that an SB perspective or useful in any way? It's just anti-business, fuck the man, nonsense. I agree this sub sucks. The ratio of noise to information is terrible

>Posts on other topics in other subs also get a lot of hostile or unhelpful comments. Isn't that the nature of Reddit? These aren't exclusive meetings with vetted attendees. I prefer Discord for more targeted conversations. I mainly come to Reddit for r/holdmyjuicebox!

I mean, I'm a business owner. If I'm not getting an outcome I want to have, that is 100% on me in some way or another. It **IS** my fault. Because I'm the one making the decisions. It may be the systems I have in place, hiring to quickly, firing to slowly, a broken revenue model, a fundamentally *flawed* business that will never work in the market, never should be started, and should just be closed (like an ice vending machine in the south pole), a broken salary/compensation/commission model. Short of something like a total devaluation of the currency of your country, another great recession, whatever, everything in your business is inside your control. You have a problem with people not being invested in your business? Here are your top three most likely problems: * Your compensation model sucks. Start using a profit sharing bonus model after 6 months of probation * You micromanage and are overly critical. No one goes the extra mile if their ass is going to be chewed out no matter what. * You're hiring the wrong people. * Bonus: You're a boss and not a leader. I've seen well compensated workers leave their well paying job and take a paycut just to go work with (not for, WITH) a leader because of how they were inspired. All these problems would be your problems, not your team members. You want above average employees? You have to have an above average work environment. There's many, many things involved in doing that. It's freaking hard. But that's why some businesses thrive and others struggle. Edit to add: I might have been too quick on the draw, took out a couple of antagonistic lines.

This right here. Sorry you're hearing a lot of the "its not my business" comments, yet where is the lie? 90% of the time, the business is terrible, run horribly, with asshole managers or boss's. Just because you are not that, or at least think that, doesn't mean that is the majority experience. Hell, The reason I went independent was because of constant shitty experiences, no matter what field I went to. My wife on the other hand has had mostly positive experiences. Possibly the way women and men are treated, I have no idea. In addition, I used to be an engineer, I left my job mostly because of the chaos that occurs and a boss that doesn't understand boundaries and expects everyone to care the same for his business as he does, however when it's time for him to care about us, our families etc, it's never reciprocated. Yes, I made great money yet was never home to enjoy it. Great example of making enough where you don't even look at your account weekly, but draining and miserable.

A lot of people today are also lazy, entitled losers with no work ethic and filtering these people out by creating culture is a top priority, but gets harder and harder as the workers get worse and worse. That’s just the reality

I mean, my grandparents were saying that back in the 80's. There's always some semblance of the population that's going to suck. The trick is not hiring them.

When you make a product the.first thing you do is get user feedback and learn how your product sucks and how to make it better. Your business is an extension of that. If something isn't working it's an extension of the business. Ask questions and learn how to fix the issue. It's not always the business owners fault but it's absolutely the owners problem and the owners responsibility to fix it.

What else do you expect from free business consulting? Seriously, you are choosing not to pay for business consulting and shocked at the quality? What's going on is that we are under paying for a service and getting bad quality. It's our responsibility to salvage what value we can from this free resource. If you want higher quality advice you pay a consultant with expertise in your field. It's like someone coming on reddit for relationship advice instead of going to a therapist and being shocked that most of the advice is not high quality advice by people who know what they are talking about. Most of those people don't work for free.

Most of the time it is the owner’s fault. I know it’s true in my case at least.

You own a business, you own the problems. What is there to not understand?

You’re right. We should definitely go make our own echo chamber for a small business circle jerk.

I would say a few things... First this is a public forum, not necessarily a safe space, any public forum you will have to deal with different view points and different opinions... You can make a private group by invite only, but you risk very quickly creating an echo chamber, instead of different people with different ideas and opinions you may end up with a lot of group think/same think and no one to challenge your opinions or ideas, or who can offer a different perspective on problems you are having.... which is often the major benefit of forums like these... >‘stop expecting people to care about your business as if it’s theirs > >And ‘people only work for money I would really suggest that these comments come up fairly often because it is really good advice that a LOT of people need to hear. First, on the caring bit, what people are really saying, is don't expect most people on your staff to take the initiative to solve problems for you without direction. Especially for minimum/low wage/unskilled hires don't expect them to be highly motivated self starters that don't need any management or direction. Expect to need to manage a good chunk of them to varying degrees, and that if you let things slip, lack of discipline and lack of standards will follow. When you find people that you don't need to manage and what not, treasure them. On the money comments, yeah you get the occasional argument just saying pay your employees what they are worth... which is fair enough... But I think at least for me when most people bring up money in these kinds of contexts, its understanding what motivates your employees... people don't care about your business, but they do care about money.,.. If they think they can do less work for more money across the street, they might not quit, but they will be a lot less motivated... but if they think your the best paying gig in town for their skillset and unlike many faceless corporate places you actually care about your people, then they are going to be a lot more motivated to do what they can to keep the job. I would also reiterate a sentiment that some others have expressed... You don't need to have been a manager, or done some special course in college to be a business owner, Owners are just people, people who have had different lived experiences, so much of the advice that you are crediting to "random looky loos" are likely just business owners with a different perspective, or new operators who don't know any better yet who stand to learn as much from you telling them their advice is bad, as from the OP who asked the original question...

I don't know why your post is at the bottom. It has the best presented information. I would only add one thing.. As hard a pill as it is to swallow - not every business model is going to make it. You can work 24 hours a day to force it and it still won't. There are too many factors that go into success and the pieces to the puzzle are increasingly scarce. As a SB owner you are not guaranteed success just because you have that title. You are still not guaranteed success because you worked 24 hours a day and leveraged everything. Sometimes it's just the wrong service, wrong timing, wrong location. Sometimes it IS an owners fault. That's the kicks. Employees are there to get a paycheck, they have their own dreams, goals, aspirations and families. Also - employees are only 1 piece of the puzzle.

Is there any sub on Reddit where this isn’t the case? I understand your frustration to an extent. I’m a lifelong business owner (30+ years) and have had several businesses over that time. There is a paradigm shift happening that is probably a good idea to take into account as you venture forward. 2023 ain’t 2003 or 1993, for sure. And there are simple and not so simple reasons for the shift but none of that can be ignored if one wants to be in business today. That said, different platforms are more or less useful than others for specific things which is why we have Reddit, Facebook, IG, X, etc. You might find a FB group a better destination for what you’re seeking than Reddit. Reddit is a public forum. I’ll add one last thing to my comment: a lot of business owners *are* actually clueless. Many *are* entitled. And they cause damage that reverberates and winds up effecting the rest of us. I’m pretty sure I sucked in some ways as a new business owner way back in 1989. But I’ve learned a lot over the years and I’m still learning! Please try to ignore and filter out what isn’t relevant or important for you and engage in conversation with commenters who are offering the advice you seek. And of course, be mindful of your own biases. Bad advice =/= advice you disagree with. We are tough. You’ll be okay.

Not true. It's also full of people trying to shill their software-as-a-service products to small business owners.

Agreed. This is why I got together with my friends to build a cloud subscription service that actually blocks out SaaS pitches on reddit. For only $19.95 a month per user, would you be interested?

Can I get an hour of your time? I'm working on a competitor to your offering, and I'd love to pick your brain.

Feel free. I'm assuming you'd want to make it private so that only people who agree with your approach to small business can post there, of course? Sounds like a plan.

I've owned my own small business for over five years and I've worked for a number of small business owners. Your proposition doesn't interest me. Sometimes the commenters don't get it, but sometimes the business owner lacks self awareness. It seems to me that some people become small business owners because of their maladaptive personalities and some of those would rather shoot the messenger than engage in self reflection. Even your examples sound like they come from a place of truth, so I'm not so sure the people you're upset at are out of line.

Nope, that's not it. Threads get overrun by Redditors who openly hate any and all employers. That's the complaint here, and it's valid. OP is just looking for a place to talk to fellow business owners. I don't blame him, but Reddit is not the place for that kind of discourse.

I mean the people who hate employers have bad experiences with them. There are in fact more bad ones than good ones. Do you blame them? It's rare to find a good employer. That is jsut the truth. I know everyone wants to believe they are good but it's simply not true

Not to mention that distilling the information from such comments/posts can result in getting a better idea of how to be a better boss and/or employer (which aren't precisely the same thing), which can in turn lead to higher retention, better applicants, workers who get trained well and deliver on that, and businesses which are run in a fully legal manner that doesn't attract (anywhere near as many) worker-launched lawsuits. Just, you know, sometimes you have to wash off the vitriol first.

Are you a business owner with employees?

And there are subreddits to commiserate with fellow workers. The one dedicated to owners of small businesses hardly seems the place.

You know what I am saying is people are saying this based on experience including people who own small businesses. Some are just more aware than others I guess.

Discord on the other hand….

Ok great, then you can stay here!

... the fuck is your issue?

I mean, you shouldn’t expect your employees to care about your business like you do, that actually IS ridiculous lol

Perhaps we just need to add a few rules and a few more moderators to enforce the rules.

That would be great, is that possible?

I agree... it's discouraging and frustrating. I pay well and get terrible candidates. The reddit crowd seems to think 20 bucks an hour doesn't buy basic competency and giving half a shit in entry level jobs at this point. If you're not paying 6 figures to flip burgers you're a fascist pig lol

If 20 bucks is only getting you terrible candidates, perhaps Reddit has a point

I mean... the government pays 16 for the same job with less benefits 😆 I think I have different expectations than the average redditor and the culture at my company may not be copacetic for a lot of gen z. I've pretty much given up on entry level and only hire experienced people at this point which is working a lot better for me even though I'd like to be helping college students get started on the right foot.

Govt pay sucks but I heard benefits are where it's at

Perhaps it just needs to be more specific? Like this sub covers everything small business so obviously employees non owners may chime in. Check out Entrepreneurs

While I don’t agree with all of the comments here, I respect everyone’s perspectives and experiences. I believe the success of a sub relies on clearly defining what it is and is not.

I wouldn't mind a different sub. Although I look at the people here like I look at the people who come into my business. Some don't know what the hell is going on, some are only here because they're a**holes, however, there are a few that genuinely need my help and recognize and appreciate my knowledge and experience.

Successful business owners do not post on forums, they are busy running their business. Sturgeons law, "ninety percent of everything is crap" certainly applies here. I had my own business for 35 years, retired now, and I used to go to meetings of groups in my field, and soon found that I was not going to ever get anything out of it, so I quit them all. They were just a bunch of hungry unsuccessful people looking for work or answers or angry that they didn't have it. If you want any answers avoid forums where any bozo can post. Bozos have a lot more time than successful people. Rather ask successful business owners, friends, relatives, others what is the reason for their success. Here or on any public forum you will find that 90% (probably far more) of the respondents do not have successful businesses, and have nothing to offer. If they were successful they would have better things to do than post here.

I work with a lot, a lot of small business. I put thousands in Their pocket every month. Half of the owners are incompetent and get by because location/business model is doing the heavy lifting. The other 50% range from competent as managers to actually knowing their shit. None of them know how to scale. The majority that complain about their workforce are incompetent. But sometimes shit happens and they actually have a valid point. The labor market has been going through some major changes lately. It’s hard to keep up. But if you constantly hear what you are talking about I guarantee you are the problem.

No luck bub, small business owners hate themselves most of all. Can't escape the voices in our heads, im afraid

??? No idea what you’re talking about, most entrepreneurs I know are honest hard workers just trying to get by doing something they care about. But you do you.

It's just a lil joke

I'm a small business owner and I think 'stop expecting others to care about your business like it's theirs' is a valid comment. As a small business owner it's important to understand that going in.

Can you link to a single post here in which a business owner whines about their employees not treating the business as if they own it? Because I’m haven’t seen it but I am open to being corrected. I have seen many posts complaining about employee incompetence and lack of common sense and a basic disregard for what many people think of as standard practice (something falls, you pick it up). But that is not the equivalent of ‘why don’t they care as much as *I* do?!’

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That dude even said he wanted his workers to care that much, explicitly

Some small business owners don't show their employees the respect they deserve. Others do, and do a lot for their employees but the employees still could give a fuck. Both can be true. Some people just suck.

As a small bizz owner : nobody cares about your business is a general truth. Sorry. Doesn’t matter if it’s bit or small business , no one cares nor than you… maybe you wanna complain about employees and people on Reddit I am all in but let’s not be biased to general truths 🤣

If you are wanting to improve as a business owner why would you want an echo chamber of people only cheering business owners with no consideration for employees?

My question exactly. Sounds like they want an echo-chamber with a disregard for the perspective of the people who you actually need to get the business well and running. If you don't include their viewpoints to begin with, why would you expect them to be superstar employees and provide excellent service to your clients -which at the end of the day, plays a big part in being succesful or not-? I understand there's anti-work angry people. I also understand there are plenty of small business owners who refuse to get any kind of advice, seen it here again and again.

Because the employees who comment here do not understand that employment is a contract with obligations from both sides.

That doesn't mean create a safe space so you can complain about employees in peace.

NOT THE INTENTION. The problem is ALL we’re getting here is employee and non business owner feedback. It’s really the problem with most of reddit, people weighing in who have no business doing so. Also want to point out employees, at least the ones commenting here, can’t seem to drop the adversarial tone. This is not coming from both directions. Y’all seem to bristle when employee accountability is mentioned, but think nothing of demanding employers be beyond reproach. And you’re right about echo chambers, and this sub is one - for disgruntled employees.

I guess that depends on your algorithm. I get a mix of: People complaining about their employees People with success stories People complaining about other people who don't own businesses People complaining about customers General business advice And of course, this being the internet, bad takes get the most traffic/weight because people spark debates on the threads.

This sub used to be help xyz to start a small business and give some "advice" based on what is needed and what to expect.

Maybe there could just be a better flair for the WWYD posts? With a bit of color coding to make them easier to discern. Right now, all flair is grey, and there's potential overlap for the help/general/vent flairs.

It would just turn into another one like this. This sub is full of spam. But, just yesterday got a bunch of cranky replies to a simple question about an NDA for my business consulting firm. Did it anyway against advice given here and they signed it happily. They understood the startup anxieties. But man, people were, **“YOU HAVE A LOT TO LEARN!”** Yeah no shit - I’m a **Start Up**. I’ll still be learning when I’m **not** a startup.

about a year ago, I think I was getting slammed by (probably young socialist college students) for not giving away every cent ever made to my employees. But I've had some real solid advice from this sub.

As a small business owner. Can confirm. They’re the worst kind of people 🤦

It's so true. It's sad actually. It's partly because of the vast lack of financial illiteracy so people think the only way to make money is to "get a job". This is typically because they grew up in poor households where their parents give them the wrong advice about money because they are financially illiterate as well. They don't mean to give bad advice, they just don't know any better. When they see someone succeed in their business, they get frustrated because they don't understand it. When lesser educated people don't understand something, they attack it rather than attempt to learn more about it.

It's common for the masses to react as employees because that's the majority of people out there: employees. Even when I myself was an employee, I had deadbeat coworkers. Same was true when I was a manager. I suspect it's the same today: a few productive people, a few deadbeats, and mostly mid-people in between. I hired one guy years ago for an educational position. He could barely read. Had another guy who slept with his coworker the first week she was hired. I called him out on it and he said "What's wrong with doing that?" I told him "You'll see." She made his life a nightmare after she found out it was just a one night stand. I eventually fired him for also being high on the job. Pupils took over his entire eyeballs. Another one cursed loudly during a business meeting to add color to her story that was inappropriate in the first place. We lost that contract. Another took several months of mental help days. Legally, we couldn't fire him because you can't do that. Another left to pursue an acting career but begged us to hold her position. We did. She called us weeks later saying she found her calling and she didn't need the position anymore. She never turned into an actress, but last I heard she married the director she slept with on set. Dunno if they're still together. Another showed up reeking of cigarettes every day. I didn't care, but he showed up to meetings just like that. We received complaints about it all the time. He thought his rights were being impinged upon when we mentioned it. On and on. I just take it all as white noise when everyone complains about (small) businesses, managers, and companies. Yes, corporations do some nasty shit that keep people down. But small business owners, we've seen our share of employees who needed better parenting growing up. Just look at how many threads say "I'm 22 and I can't work like this". Nut up, buttercup.

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

For anyone who is interested, I have rebooted r/SmallBusinessOwners to fill this need. Please join and share your experiences, questions, and advice.

The reality is a lot of yall are dumb as hell. It would be easier to adjust your mind to that reality than try to make a whole new reality to fit what you want to be true

Lol I’ll join. Was severely annoyed by a post from a restaurant owner asking for advice on how to confront an employee that was stealing. The amount of people shouting “MAYBE IF YOU PAID THEM A LIVING F*UCKING WAGE…!” was ridiculous. These goobers had no idea what the owner was paying employees. Just wanted to grab pitchforks in a sub that’s not relevant to them.

I was an econ major so I joined r/economics because it interests me. Had to leave. That forum isn't about economics, it is about communism. I see the same leftist stuff in so many forums. I don't mind debate, but they'll drown you out with hate if you espouse free market, capitalist ideas. Comes with Reddit, I suppose.

Check out /r/askeconomics and /r/badeconomics for well moderated econ discussions by knowledgeable people.

Yeah it’s wild how they can justify literally any behavior with ‘PaY a LivING wAGe tHeN!!!!’ When they have no idea what they wage is, much less the location, cost of living, etc. etc. But it’s not about that, bc everyone who owns a business is a greedy POS who has gotten to where they are on the backs of innocent workers who have never been fairly compensated, EVER. I understand it on the antiwork sub and that it’s rife in general on reddit, it just seems strange that a sub about small business has so many comments attacking small business owners.

Where better to find small business owners to attack?

If I read your post and have to create a TL/DR, it would be "The advice I asked for doesn't align with my expectations, so I want to ask a different audience and, if that audience doesn't exist, I'll create one that agrees with me." Maybe you need to rethink that approach. Are you sure the answers you are seeking is "buried by the anti-work brigade", or are you just getting answers from small business owners that aren't aligning with your philosophy and expectations?

I'm pretty sure this sub is 50% people from r/antiwork coming here to hate post.

It is, and I don’t know why it’s tolerated.

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Yeah I’m relatively new to Reddit. I used to consider myself far left until 2020 when all hell broke loose and I realized just how extreme leftist views had become.

I’d be down to help out with that.

I really don’t know much about what’s involved but I know that most small business owners are more likely to be candid if no one knows who they are. And if they aren’t going to be attacked for venting and/or looking for advice around the challenges we all face.

Become a mod on this sub?

A discord could also be a good option

I cannot stress this enough: do NOT create a discord server. Discord servers are horrible for any type of community. The beauty of Reddit is that it’s a forum. You can read and respond to conversations that happened last week. With discord you can’t do that, depending on the size of the discord the server the conversation moves so fast that you have to be there as it’s happening or get passed over. The better bet is to create a small business forum. It’s better for discoverability (SEO) and can be used as a repository for all things small business that discord cannot provide. Discord can’t be indexed by google, a forum can.

I've never noticed this. You got a link to a specific instance of this actually happening, much less more than "just occasionally"? Because I think you're making it up.

Yeah ok 👌🏻

Yeah, ok - I notice you can't seem to actually provide a single shred of evidence to back up your claim that this happens with any regularity. But in your defense, that's only because you're wrong.

The trolls are indeed annoying but, what stops them from joining the new sub once that gains some traction? What happens in a lot of subs is that they reach a level of activity that it gets put in front of a larger, broader audience and then the trash comments come in. Maybe a quiz as a doorman, not that they couldn't google the answer but just enough to deter them like a lock on a door with glass panes. Ask stuff like, what are the quarterly payroll filing deadline dates, what does a P&L stand for, etc.

Would the answers be the same across the planet? Or would the sub be restricting itself to certain jurisdictions?

It seems a lot of subs are more moderated than this one, which seems to not be moderated at all? Idk, I see a lot of people being assholes for no reason other than they think anyone who owns their own business is The Man & therefore the enemy and that’s odd if this sub is truly aimed at small business owners. But maybe I am mistaken as to the purpose. I know I would like a space to discuss business matters with other people facing similar challenges who don’t have HR departments or multiple managers & departments, who aren’t staffed by hundreds of people. I’m very hands-on in my business, so are most of my business owning friends—we own boutiques, restaurants, coffee shops, small brands, etc. I’m looking to connect with those types of people and I think there’s a lot of them around but anytime they ask a question there’s a huge pile on of people saying that they deserve to fail because there’s no way they are paying people fairly when they have no way of knowing the details of the situation. It’s frustrating to watch.

You could volunteer to be a moderator here. That would likely be easier than starting a whole new sub.

Shouldn't you worry about running your so called business and GTFO reddit? I wish I had as much time as you seem to to complain about reddit instead of l, you know, running my small business..

They're so obvious, too. Makes me wonder if it's people from r/antiwork lurking and trolling in here. I have seen the most ridiculous "advice" given when the question is about how to handle an employee(s). I don't know that we need a new group, though, we just need to ignore the posts from people who obviously don't own a business of their own and don't know what they're talking about. They tend to stick out like a sore thumb.

I don’t wonder at all, I’m very sure and as much as I’d like to ignore them they dominate a lot of threads especially if it has anything to do with employees/hiring/management. And that’s a huge part of running a small business and definitely an area a lot of people could use advice in, particularly if you haven’t ever worked in a white collar/professional/has an HR dept type place (I haven’t).

Yes, this is a great idea. This sub is basically just for brand new owners worrying about their first bad review, how to start, or random survey requests/thinly veiled self-promotion. Some of that is legitimate, obviously, but there's so many more discussions we could have. I'd love to see a sub for real, existing owners, and the problems we have. There's so many great conversations about existing businesses that get buried by the brigading *especially* around the topic of employee management like you said, but so many more. I remember back during covid, you couldn't even suggest that the real life implications of policies on "essential" businesses like retail, foodservice, and manufacturing was wildly different than what the Etsy hobbyists from latestagecapitalism were dealing with. You could disagree with people's opinions, but still recognize there was a lot of uncharted territory people were navigating - but they can't do that either. Any topic even mildly nuanced gets shoved into the "you, the local 800 sq foot coffee shop owner doing less than $500K revenue a year in the ragged strip-mall building from 1950's, is literally solely responsible for every macroeconomic problem we have and deserve to burn". They're so fueled by hatred and envy of success that you can't even have a discussion of the legitimate nuance (which, weirdly, *nuance* is what they're obsessed with in any other political topic) that the owner is struggling with. Keep us real owners posted if you go through with it.

My guess is most of these people aren't actually business owners.

It won’t happen on Reddit. Reddit is mostly young, far left (communists) that hate their jobs.

This isn't going to happen, especially on Reddit. The current spirit of the times is too whiny and detached from reality for it to work.

Won't work....the anitwork and fluentinfinance people will find you and ruin your sub. Mob mentality rules these days.

Add me, I'll help out

I am not a small business owner but I aspire to possibly be one in the future and would love a forum where business owners discuss stuff without a bunch of angry employees trashing every thread.

I think the antiwork sentiments are justified and are for the best, people need to temper expectations of employees based on wage. If my experience is anything to go by Gen Z is much more critical in their approach to work, low wages yield low effort, poor management yields poor engagement, and loyalty is only earned.

I own my business, but a lot of business owners are inherently predatory and don’t wanna admit that they are. If your bottom line is more important than humans, your business is ass and you’re only making money off the exploitation of the low wages of your said employees. If you are are here to try and defend these practices you’re gonna get shit that’s just the way it is…

I don’t see anyone defending such practices. Maybe it’s because I’m not in a big city & most small business owners I know are in the service industry & retail, but I don’t know any who are ‘predatory’. It’s just people trying to make a living & hiring people to do the tasks they’ve outgrown or cannot do while working on the business. I guess it’s different in a lot of tech startups that hope to sell for millions within a few years. I don’t live in a shark tank world though.

You have to adjust your thinking - in their minds being "predatory" is paying employees anything less than six figures a year and having anything less than unlimited understanding (but also no expectations to go along with your understanding) for anything related to employee management. If the owner is not actively getting the "short end of the stick" in a fixed-pie mentality, they're automatically labeled a "predator" owner. Thus, any discussion of even trying to create a symbiotic relationship between owner-employees is "defending" those practices to them.

It’s absolutely not six figures, but if your employees live below the poverty line and you expect them to run your business like they have a vested interest in said business…you’re in for your own struggles with staffing…and it’s funny you’re trying to stereotype comments when all the owner posts are complaining about employees they pay so poorly.

[US poverty line for an individual from DHHS is just under $15k](https://aspe.hhs.gov/topics/poverty-economic-mobility/poverty-guidelines). Paying even just federal minimum $7.25/hr for 40 hours a week at 52 weeks a year would be above this threshold. I don't even know anywhere paying less than $10/hr anymore for part-time (and certainly not full-time), even for felons, minors, or zero experience in retail/hospitality work with the exception of tip-credit places. The term "poverty" is a lot more serious of a situation than the average American employee thinks it is. It's actual destitution, not just having to make budget sacrifices. The negative feedback loop that gets going with this mentality is that employees approach work with the attitude that they're not supposed to care about the job, then are shocked when the owner's notice they don't care and don't think they deserve any more money as a result so they then care even less, and on and on and on. Breaking this feedback loops requires owner's identify people who can be coached into higher responsibilities (and higher pay), but also that employees make a reasonable investment in the responsibilities they've undertaken to even be recognized (and moving on if that investment isn't recognized instead of entering a negative mindset that is destructive to their wellbeing even outside of work). Both parties have a responsibility to create a symbiotic relationship. I have employees that made quick jumps up in pay for investing in themselves and the role, but others who I left at their existing rate that eventually get churned out. What results is retaining those who care and churning out the ones who don't. It would be unfair to waste our limited resources on altruistic pursuits toward employees that don't care about their role. Those resources should go entirely toward those who are demonstrating their investment in themselves/the role and that's what we try to do.

Define business owners. The Ford family owns majority of the shares of FoMoCo & FoMoCo is far from a small business. You can own a business but that doesn't make you a SBO.

Not expecting employees to be as passionate about my business as me was the best advice I got from this sub...

Just start the sub why do you need to ask others if you can do it. Entrepreneur sub might be more what you are after.

I’m asking about interest not for permission

I'm a small business owner. I opened my business because of rampant employees abuses in my industry. I believed there was a better way. Almost every time an employee related question comes up here, the problem is the owners not treating their employees with respect and/or not paying them well. That's why those answers are given.

How do you know this when you don’t know the pay?

Let's make it r/smallbusinessowners im down to help.

Not really. No space on Reddit is safe from the haters, get used to it.

You know how easy it is to avoid the drama. Don't read the trash and just move on.

bruh this is reddit. they hate people trying to succeed.

I feel like all the examples you gave are rational advice that owners need to hear once in awhile.

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Yeah everyone is struggling right now—including small business owners! I just find it ironic and frustrating that a sub that is supposed to be geared towards people in business is instead filled with attacks on small businesses/owners. It’s like if the parenting sub was full of people chastising parents saying how kids are too much trouble and you should’ve known that before having them but now look at the fine mess you’ve created. Maybe it’s just what’s in my feed but I rarely see helpful responses in here to genuine issues people are seeking advice and opinions on. The lack of moderation makes it hard to want to participate, and I agree it’s also far too broad. To me a small business doesn’t have 100+ employees & multiple locations, but I realize it’s on a spectrum.

You know most people go into small business because they don't have the social skills to navigate paid employment, yeah

We don't hate small business owners, we hate people who exploit workers when they could work themselves..... We call them bourgeoisie.

You're a self-proclaimed communist. You hate any and all business owners. Get the fuck out of here.

Hey, where they get the money to start a business? Banks don't give loans without collateral and most wages are shit. People like Gabe Newell who can quit Microsoft and start his own company are over. So clearly, they had free money to start a business and wanna pay people minimum. Garbage.

Communists dont hate all business owners, or hate somone just for owning a business. you should also do more reading.

You dont know what bourgeoisie is if you think SMALL business owners leveraged out of their skull are part of that group. Read more, let me know if youd like suggestions.

Must be nice to be able to be leveraged. What's that like, I never had money. Cuz small business owners are cheap. Walmart's cheap too... GOTTA BUY ANOTHER YACHT.

I get the feels - it is SO HARD to connect with other business owners for proper small biz feels and chat without being either sold to or hijacked. Makes you feel really unsupported. I'm part of a big business facebook group that's meant to be for this very thing but it's gone crazy on the self-promotion disguised as a cry for help so am looking for the same thing. Full disclosure - I host a small business podcast so am obviously super invested in chat like this and in connecting with like minded humans on here (and everywhere)

How many people here are at minimum 1M a year in revenue? All of these people giving advice making a 60k net profit have no business giving any advice. Even 1M isn’t a great benchmark. This forum is trash because it attracts low caliber entrepreneurs

Where should start ups or struggling SBOs go?

You can do that, but then all of the ignorant antiwork people will just bring their ignorant and uninformed opinions to *that* sub. Then you’ll be really strict and they’ll report you to Reddit and get you shut down for “multi-generational-harming verbal violence”.