I'm kind of in the camp of people who say this is a useful person to bounce things off. She is being devil's advocate - that's ok. Understand that. Understand that she is less risk tolerant. But also understand that you have to have answers to the fundamental problems before you start.
Are these "you might go to jail" problems, or are these "you might not make money as fast as you hope" problems? The first need addressing pronto. The second are over-worries.
You kind of answered your own question. It can be a worse day, but involve more sales than last year, simply due to inflation.
If people buy 3% less products, but prices are up 10%, raw sales figures are up even though less stuff was bought.
When these numbers come out saying the economy is up 5.3% in the last quarter, it's across the economy. But much like the S&P 500, it's WAYYY up for the top 2% (FAANG, etc) and pretty shitty for everyone else. It has to be. Costs are up, layoffs are starting. You can't get away with living off Covid stimmie savings forever.
And more to the point, black friday/cyber monday are negative economic indicators. When people feel the need to buy everything at a discount, it generally correlates with them having money troubles. I would say go check the history, but you can't. No one publishes it. You have to go find single data pieces year-by-year.
Niche business directory. Do everything except I have some contractors do quality control on our business data. They get paid for what they produce, but I think they spend about 15-20 hrs a week on it and I spend about 15-16 hrs/wk. So less than 40 hrs/wk for the whole business to operate.
I built and maintain website, do all finances, billing, customer service, writing, everything. I really don't like relying on others and the fact that this has worked out is something I am never going to get used to.
I could probably get my money's worth out of a marketing person, but I prefer to keep things as simple as possible and already earn more than enough money.
One man show with 40+ employees? Just because they're overseas doesn't mean they aren't people.
I always thought it would make a lot of sense for grocery stores to have someone curate a relatively simple recipe and a more interesting one each day. Gather whatever is needed for them, put all ingredients up front of by the produce section with a card with instructions for each.
Seems like a good way to move stuff that is nearing expiration but also a helpful thing for someone swinging by after work.
I wouldn't waste your time. Almost 100 pages of it is a three-hour long character monologue expounding the ideology of objectivism which is just so ultra utopian...as if everyone started from the same point and had equal opportunities. It's philosophical garbage.
Fountainhead was better and more reasonable.
Count of Monte Cristo is the best novel I have ever read. Just tremendous.
I know it's going to get everyone going, but The Fountainhead. I have since accepted how the ideology and utopian bullshit is just that. Total fantasy.
But I would be remiss if I didn't admit it encouraged me to take my life into my own hands, try my best not to have to rely on others, become resourceful and useful. That has all helped me quite a bit in the subsequent decades.
Not too long after my indoctrination, I decided hey if I'm so sure about this ideology, then no harm in reading the other stuff. So I read the Communist Manifesto and accepted, yeah, Engels & Marx made some good points about a lot of stuff.
For a long time I've been happily in the middle understanding both those extremes and their appeal to people.
The only reason my business is a business is because users asked for things I wasn't currently offering. None of my original stuff drove any real revenue. Two of my three lines of business now are netting me six figures (USD) and both were created only because people asked for them.
This is part of why so many people in this sub tell people to just get started and do it/launch it. Your first iteration is probably not going to be a huge success. You must get started down your path to find out where it leads.
If you compete on price you will lose. It's true in almost every industry.
I would focus only on upper middle class people. They will pay well for good service, which means show up when you are scheduled, clean everything, don't break anything, leave them alone.
And while they have money, many are still looking to save where they can. So offer them one free cleaning for each client they refer, but make it a caveat it has to be someone in their neighborhood. That way it will be a pricier job and be someone in a similar payrange.
Competing on price is the worst thing you can do, so never do it.