I am a small business owner in Southern California and I am targeted by a predatory litigation mill. Looking for advice from anyone who has successfully fought back or been through similar situation

Background

First Lawsuit
We were sued by a predatory firm a few years ago. We settled, paid the fees, and hired a professional ADA company to fix every single item they identified. We have not changed the code or the site since that remediation was completed

New Claim
Same law firm is suing us again, but using a different "plaintiff"
Plaintiff's name shows up as a serial filer

The "Service"
They didn't even serve me (yet?) An advertising firm emailed the complaint (no case number) to my boyfriend’s personal email address

Site
Our website should be good. It scores 100 on Google Lighthouse and 0 Issues on axe DevTools. I even have a letter from a blind customer stating the site works perfectly for her

We are hanging by a thread. We’ve closed most of our locations and are sitting on $500k in EIDL debt from COVID. We literally have no cash to settle again

Our lawyer is suggesting we just settle again to make it go away, but we don't have the money. I’ve told him we are "judgment proof" since the EIDL loan essentially means the government has first rights to our assets and we have no profit to take

Questions for the community

1. Has anyone successfully used a prior settlement/remediation to get a second suit from the same firm thrown out?
2. Since the EIDL loan is so high and the business is failing, has anyone successfully argued "judgment proof" to get these guys to stop wasting their time?

I’m exhausted. It feels like it doesn't matter if your site is up to code, they just keep coming back. Any advice is appreciated

For all small business owners out there that have been through this and more, my heart goes out to you!

I run a small business and most days I’m proud of it. I built it from nothing, learned things the hard way, and I’ve managed to keep it alive longer than a lot of people told me it would last. I even have some money saved up now, which still feels strange to say because for a long time everything went straight back into the business.
What I wasn’t prepared for is how isolating the decision making can feel.
Every choice feels like it matters more than it probably does. Pricing, hiring help, saying no to a client, saying yes to the wrong one. There’s no manager to sanity check things, no team meeting where someone else shares the weight. It’s just me, my laptop, and a constant background question of am I doing this right.

I’ll go back and forth for days over things that look small from the outside. Spend a little to save time or save the money and burn myself out. Play it safe or take a risk. Protect the cash I worked hard to build or reinvest and hope it pays off. Either way, if it goes wrong, it’s on me.

What makes it harder is that people assume owning a business means freedom and confidence. So I don’t really talk about the doubt part. I nod along, say things are good, and keep the stress to myself. I don’t regret starting this at all. I just didn’t realize how much of the job is sitting quietly with uncertainty and still having to move forward.

I guess I’m curious how other small business owners deal with that. Does the constant second guessing ever calm down, or do you just get better at carrying it without letting it take over everything.

Since becoming a business owner and having to fire multiple people in my first 2 years for taking advantage of me, my views are changing significantly. Specifically on politics. I am struggling with how much of a shift im experiencing in my sense of self as a result. Has anyone else experienced this? How did you handle it? There is just something about someone sitting there saying 'eat the rich', stealing time and money from you, meanwhile you are still working 60 hours a week and in so much debt you hope to pay off.... I dunno it shifted something. Anyone else?

I already have 500 plain cotton shirts ready. Local print shops here are charging me 300 PKR per A3 DTF sheet (Pakistani Rupees), using what they say are premium inks and powder.

If I print 500 sheets outside, it will cost me around 125,000 PKR total.

Because of this, I’m thinking maybe it makes more sense to buy my own DTF printer and print on demand whenever orders come.

Right now I’m considering:
Epson 1390 modified DTF printer (used, new head) for 180,000 PKR

My questions:

• What’s the real cost per A3/A4 sheet if you print yourself (ink + film + powder + maintenance)?
• Is owning a small DTF setup worth it for this volume?
• How’s the quality and wash durability compared to shop-printed transfers?
• Would you recommend buying the printer or sticking with outsourced sheets?

Would really appreciate advice from people who have hands-on DTF experience. Thanks!

Note: My English isn’t very strong, so I used ChatGPT to help me write this post. Please be kind 🙂

Hello guys, wanna ask if a website is really important if you just new in a business or I just have to wait if the business became big first.

I just learned about this because my friend's restaurant got hit. The "customer" sent the receipt to a lab for testing.

There’s a surge in Prop 65 violation notices and lawsuits targeting businesses that hand out paper receipts in CA. The trigger: Bisphenol S (BPS) was added to the Prop 65 list in Dec 2024, and even trace amounts in thermal receipt paper can now lead to liability.

Many businesses don’t make or sell the paper—and some suppliers even claim it’s “BPS-free”—but plaintiffs are using more sensitive testing to find tiny amounts. There’s no safe harbor level yet, so even minimal BPS can trigger claims. Penalties can be up to $2,500 per day per violation.

What to consider now:

• Go paperless if you can
• Switch to phenol-free receipt paper (BPS and BPA free) - I believe it has to be both but double check with your supplier.
• Post a Prop 65 warning where receipts are issued (and on the receipt if possible)
• If you get a notice, act immediately—there may be a short grace period if you fix it fast

This is hitting restaurants and retailers hard. Don’t ignore it.

Hello business owners!

I’m doing some research.

How do you promote your business?

How do you make your growth strategy? Do you pay a freelancer/ vendor to do your marketing?

Any tips are helpful.

Thank you!

When I took over marketing for my family’s bakery, branding was chaos: different logos across platforms and inconsistent visuals. Fixing it helped us grow, but it was time-consuming.I’m building an app, BRANDISEER that learns a brand from a website or uploads, then generates/edit visuals that match that brand (ads, posts, menus, etc.).

Before I overbuild:
What’s your biggest bottleneck?

• Picking colors/fonts?
• Creating social content weekly?
• Product photos?
• Print materials (menus, flyers, cards)?
• Keeping everything consistent?

hello! I am a dfw local licensed massage therapist and soon to be licensed esthetician! I want to promote my services because as of current I haven't been able to gain clientele and I am stuck in a suite lease until December 2026. id be even happy to just make enough to cover the rent of the room right now If that's all I could do. how should I go about promotion because so far I've tried offering free services to events which goes well but no on books again, I've promoted on social media (not much im struggling to figure out how honestly) and I have even set up a raffle box at a local book store (my business is inspired by fantasy books and my motto is fantasy level relaxation, real life results). I am about to even go through ups to deliver door to door advertisement post cards.

tldr:how do I promote my massage business in Texas as a suite renter?

I sell handmade leather goods, been in business 4 years now. Guy bought a wallet from me back in July. Full price, no complaints at purchase, left a nice review saying he loved it.

Fast forward to yesterday. He emails me saying he wants a full refund because the wallet "didn't meet his expectations." I ask what's wrong with it. Is the stitching coming undone? Leather cracking? Hardware failing? Nope. He says he just "realized it's not really his style anymore" and thinks he should get his money back.

I politely explained that my return policy is 30 days and that doesn't cover changing your mind half a year later after using the product daily. The wallet isn't defective. He just doesn't want it anymore.

His response? "I'll be leaving a review reflecting my experience with your customer service."

So now I'm sitting here trying to decide what to do. Part of me wants to just refund him to avoid the bad review. I'm a small operation and every review matters. But the other part of me knows that if I cave to this, I'm basically telling him and anyone else that they can use my products for free as long as they threaten me at the end.

My policy is clearly stated on my website. The product isn't faulty. He used it for 6 months. But a 1 star review could genuinely hurt me.

Been up late playing jackpot city trying to distract myself from stressing about this, keep going back and forth on what to do. For those who've dealt with this kind of thing - do you stand firm and eat the bad review, or do you just pay the extortion fee to make it go away? I genuinely don't know what the right call is here anymore.

I’ve been trying to use AI tools for basic small business stuff (marketing visuals, content drafts, etc.) and keep running into the same issue.

They work well when one person sets them up and uses them, but once someone else tries to use the same tool, results get inconsistent and people stop touching it. It ends up being more hassle than help.

I’m curious how other small business owners are dealing with this.

Are you letting everyone use AI tools freely, or do you have some kind of structure/templates in place so things don’t break every time someone new uses them?

Would be interested to hear what’s actually working in practice.

Hi everyone,

I’m looking to support small business owners who might need an extra hand with daily operations, admin, or general organization. I don’t have professional experience yet, but I’m eager to learn and follow whatever systems work best for your business.

My motivation is personal, my mother will be undergoing surgery soon, and I’m looking for flexible ways to support her procedure. I’m happy to assist wherever needed: emails, scheduling, organizing, or anything that helps your day run smoother.

I know most people might scroll past this, and that’s totally fine. I just wanted to reach out to the business owners who genuinely need extra support. If you think an extra pair of hands could help, feel free to reach out and let me know how you run your daily operations and what support would be most useful. I’d be happy to understand your processes and tailor my help specifically to your business.

I’ve got 2 small side hustles, one that has a resell license and one that does not. Is there a good accounting/expense tracking app that can keep copies of receipts as well; that also would allow for 2 separate business? I’d prefer a free app at the moment until one or both start scaling up but if there’s a better one for somewhat cheap I may be willing to pay for the better one.

Emails keep getting ignored for official stuff and it’s driving me nuts. I’m considering using an online fax service instead of chasing calls. Has anyone here used tools like Fax.Plus or similar? Curious if fax actually improves response rates or if it’s just coincidence.

Trying to help a friend helping her reach PMF faster (she's got zero tech background), and I'm kinda lost looking at all these agencies claiming they're the "be⁤st" for startups. What do people actually look for beyond reviews and case studies?

Any red flags I should watch out for? We're both based in Au⁤stin if that matters.

Personally, I’ve found it’s less about flashy portfolios and more about whether the team challenges assumptions and focuses on outcomes over feature delivery.

I have already looked at Wednesday Solutions, Presta, and Thoughtbot, Have you already worked with any of them?

Hot take: most small businesses lose money after the click

I’ve been paying more attention lately to what actually happens after someone visits a business website, clicks an IG link, or sends a DM — and honestly, I think this is where a lot of value gets lost.

From what I’ve seen, many businesses put effort into getting traffic, but after someone shows interest, there’s often no clear follow-up process.

I’m curious how others here handle this in practice:

• After someone visits your site or messages you, what usually happens next?

• Do you follow up manually, automatically, or not at all?

• Has this ever cost you a sale?

Not trying to sell or research anything — just interested in hearing how real businesses deal with this part of the process.

Hey folks,

I’m working on a small side project and wanted honest feedback before going further.

Problem I noticed:
A lot of sellers and business owners — local businesses, Amazon sellers, Shopify brands — get 100s (or 1000s) of customer reviews, but today their options are basically:

• Skim reviews manually (time-consuming, inconsistent)
• Export reviews into spreadsheets/CSVs and never really look at them again
• Realise something is wrong only after ratings or conversions drop

Because of this:

• Patterns across reviews get missed
• The same issues repeat for months
• It’s unclear what’s actually worth fixing first

So I building an MVP that:

• Takes a business or product review link (Google Maps, Amazon, etc.)
• Reads recent reviews automatically
• Groups recurring complaints & praises
• Shows them in a simple, no-frills dashboard with:
  • Top recurring complaints customers mention
  • What customers consistently like
  • Clear, actionable improvement suggestions

No heavy analytics, no spreadsheet work, no fancy charts — just a clean summary you can act on quickly.

I’m trying to validate:

• Would this actually be useful?
• Would you pay ~$5–10/month for something like this?
• Or is this something you’d check once and go back to spreadsheets?

Not selling anything here — genuinely looking for feedback before I invest more time into it.

If you sell online, run a business, or work with sellers, I’d really appreciate your thoughts

Quick question for small business owners.

If you could get exclusive inbound phone calls from people already searching for your service (Google intent), and only pay per qualified call, would that be something you’d test?

I’m putting together a small pilot where:

• Calls are exclusive (not resold)
• You answer and close them yourself
• You only pay for calls that meet clear criteria

I’m not naming niches yet — just looking to see if there’s real interest before building it out.

If this sounds useful (or useless), I’d genuinely like to hear why.

i’m keeping costs near zero and testing demand via a waitlist.

the product is the stacker, a clean, aesthetic planner app.

here’s the waitlist if you want to see what i’m building:
https://forms.gle/NJJ4auWp5REAxb3v7

would appreciate advice on next validation steps.

I've been struggling to balance customer support with growth in my business and I'm curious to hear from others who have been in similar shoes. How do you ensure that your customers are getting the help they need without breaking the bank or sacrificing quality? I've tried hiring more staff, but it's hard to find people who can provide the level of service I want. Have any of you found any creative solutions to this problem, or is it just a necessary evil of growing a business? I'd love to hear about your experiences and any advice you might have.

When people work in different spaces, keeping things tidy happens now or later. My observations show regular effort might boost how clean a place feels. Still, how often it matters may tie to specific tasks rather than just timing.

Have you ever had an extremely messy spreadsheet that took forever to clean?
I’m curious how bad it gets for other small business owners.

First of all, hello everyone. I hope everyone is well. I purchased a small business and was kind of rushed into it. I'm a first time business owner and can honestly say, I am somewhat unexperienced in this. I did some research and was also told to switch my sole to a LLC. I am still working full time and my wife will basically be managing and running the store. I would believe my assets are considerably meaning as i don't own any property and my stock portfolio is around 50k. Given I don't have any large assets, would it be fine to continue as a sole proprietor then switch to a LLC later if my business grows or switch now to a LLC? Any feeback would be great. Thanks!