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Episode #64
📬 Thursday is prime time for attention and offers. The Ramen Hustle shows how to ride event-week noise without shouting, by anchoring on a clear outcome, a tight guarantee, and a fast path to “yes.”
When the ‘dead lead’ books a call
The hustle: We’ve identified the new online gold rush
Field note: Monetizing suds
Trend: Budget trends are big for 2026
Fresh find: Slinky made $250M from spring toys
Click here to feature your side hustle, business idea, or question in an upcoming newsletter.
AI is all the rage, but are you using it to your advantage?
Successful AI transformation starts with deeply understanding your organization’s most critical use cases. We recommend this practical guide from You.com that walks through a proven framework to identify, prioritize, and document high-value AI opportunities. Learn more with this AI Use Case Discovery Guide.
The ChatGPT Placement Playbook
TheVerge.com
❌ The problem: The next “Google search box” is a chat box. If your brand shows up in an AI answer (or a sponsored link under it), you either close the click fast… or you waste it.
💡 The pitch: Sell AI Answer Positioning: build the “answer-ready” pages + proof snippets that make your client the obvious choice when they appear in ChatGPT / AI Overviews / Perplexity.
🚀 The outlook: Ads are already being tested in ChatGPT for some U.S. users, which means brands will start paying for placement + conversion readiness at the same time.
A founder types “best payroll software for contractors” into ChatGPT, scrolls the answer, and realizes something uncomfortable:
The first brand mentioned is about to own the next 100 clicks.
✅ You’re selling “AI answer readiness” for brands, not running ads.
WHY THIS WORKS
Paid distribution always follows attention. For the last decade, that was Google results + social feeds. Now it’s moving inside AI conversations, where users don’t open 10 tabs. They ask once, trust the answer, and click once.
And now there’s a clear “starting gun”: OpenAI has begun testing clearly labeled sponsored links below responses for some U.S. Free and Go users (with higher tiers staying ad-free).
Here’s the hidden angle: before the ad market is mature, brands pay for conversion assets. When a paid placement shows up inside a conversation:
click intent is high
patience is low
sloppy pages leak money instantly
So your offer isn’t “I’ll run your AI ads.”
Your offer is: “When you show up in AI answers or sponsored placements, I’ll make you the page that wins the decision.”
You ship a tiny set of pages + proof snippets that close the loop fast:
“Best for” page (who it’s for, why it wins)
“X vs Y” comparison page (objections + alternatives)
Pricing + ROI page (real numbers, examples, calculator, FAQ)
Then you add a lightweight retainer: weekly monitoring of how they show up in AI answers + competitor mentions, and you iterate. OpenAI help doc describes ads appearing below responses and labeled as sponsored. The Verge on ChatGPT starting to show sponsored links for Free + Go users in the U.S.
THE PLAYBOOK
Pick one niche where clicks are worth a lot: payroll, HR, legal, finance, healthcare SaaS.
Build a “Top 20 buyer questions” list from reviews + support tickets + sales calls.
Audit their current pages for “AI-readiness”: speed, clarity, proof, FAQs, comparisons.
Write the 3 core pages (Best-for / Versus / Pricing+ROI).
Extract proof into short snippets (LLMs love concise, quotable claims).
Create 10 “answer lines” sales can reuse (short, direct, proof-backed).
Set the monitoring habit: weekly check of brand mentions + competitor swaps.
Partner with SEO/PPC agencies as their “AI-ready page” add-on.
THE RAMEN HUSTLE FIRST STEP
Who to contact: 30 SaaS founders with $500+ ACV who already buy ads.
What to post: “I’ll run a free AI Answer Audit on your top query.”
What to charge first: $750 audit → $2,500 buildout.
How to get the first yes: deliver a 1-page sample: one rewritten section + one “X vs Y” comparison draft that makes the gap obvious.
Rate this hustle:
Laundry pickup became a $5K/month side hustle
Win: Crisia Nuñez made about $5,000/month doing laundry delivery through SudShare.
Mistake: She treated every order the same and burned time on low-value loads.
Fix: She optimized for repeat customers + stacked jobs by neighborhood.
Opportunity: Do “subscription wash & fold” for busy families and add a rush-fee tier.
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The Shipping Revolt
Ecommerce sellers are about to feel the squeeze in the most boring place: shipping tables. USPS confirmed there was no January 2026 price increase for mailing services like stamps, but shipping services are seeing changes and surcharges that hit the “small package” crowd hardest. Third-party summaries of the 2026 changes emphasize that Ground Advantage and Priority Mail adjustments are where costs move, not in letter mail. When shipping gets more expensive, sellers either raise prices and lose conversion, or quietly eat margin. The opening is a micro-service that maps every SKU to the cheapest compliant box, poly mailer, and label method. Twist: the fastest win is often changing packaging dimensions, not negotiating carrier rates.
👉 The opening: Sell a “Shipping Margin Audit” for one Shopify store in 72 hours.
Tired of news that feels like noise?
Every day, 4.5 million readers turn to 1440 for their factual news fix. We sift through 100+ sources to bring you a complete summary of politics, global events, business, and culture — all in a brief 5-minute email. No spin. No slant. Just clarity.
Founder Story
Buc-ee’s didn’t win with “better gas,” it won with a weird wedge: mega-clean bathrooms + merch + destination vibes, and this timeline shows how that one obsession scaled from a single 1982 store into a road-trip cult brand.Entrepreneur News
A federal judge just cleared the way for NYC’s new delivery-app tipping rules (default 10% tip prompt at checkout) which means every restaurant and ghost kitchen now needs a “fee/tip transparency” update or they’ll eat the backlash.Competition Gap
A solo designer breaks down why ~95% of sites still fail basic accessibility (with an average of 51 errors per page) which is basically a neon “sell quick accessibility audits + fix lists” sign for any one-person web shop.
Swipe File (Steal This)
Need your offer to look more expensive overnight? Swipe this pricing-page library packed with real examples (so you can copy the structure, not just stare at your own $99/mo like it’s a crime).