Fresh Idea #15

Welcome to The Ramen Hustle, your weekly newsletter serving up hot, scrappy business ideas, helping you go from zero to side hustle. The only rule? Don’t just read it. Steal it.

Click to see the result from 1 person making $1 million selling $1 pixels

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Most people don’t fail because they lack talent - they fail because they refuse to decide. They try to chase three business ideas at once. They launch five offers. They keep “keeping their options open”. And in doing so, they never go all-in on anything long enough to break through.

The world is noisy. Nobody has time to decode what you do or what you’re about. If people can’t quickly explain you to someone else in one sentence, you haven’t focused enough. When you become known for one thing, one service, one outcome, or obsession - everything gets easier. Referrals make sense. Word of mouth starts working. You become the automatic recommendation.

Being broad makes you replaceable. Being focused makes you the default.

Pick one problem and one lane.

Go deeper than everyone else is willing to. Master it and monetize it.

The Mom Who Accidentally Built a $10K/Month Grazing Empire From Her Kitchen

She wasn’t trying to start a business. She just wanted to make a beautiful charcuterie board for a friend’s baby shower. She posted a picture online and someone messaged her: “Can I buy one?” She said yes ans charged $75. A week later, right before Mother's Day, she posted again with just one sentence: “10 preorder boxes available for $99 with free delivery - DM to reserve.” They sold out within hours. By the end of the week, a local realtor had reached out and asked to bulk order her boxes as luxury client gifts.

From there, it escalated fast as she expanded to grazing tables and other upsells. Within months, she was making more from weekend grazing installations than most people make from their full-time jobs. No restaurant. No ads. No branding agency. Just Costco ingredients, white marble photo staging, and a ruthless understanding of what people love to post on Instagram.

Today, she quietly earns around $10,000 a month from her kitchen. Not because she sells food, but because she sells social proof, celebration, and a feeling. Her customers don’t buy charcuterie. They buy a moment that photographs beautifully. They buy something their guests will gasp at. They buy a product that practically advertises itself the moment it’s unboxed and posted online. That is why this works. It is crafted to be shared, admired, and rebooked without a dollar ever spent on ads.

The Ramen First Step: If you wanted to copy this, you wouldn’t start with a brand or website. You wouldn’t build a menu. You wouldn’t even think of a name. You would start with one single product and make it feel limited, exclusive, and already in demand. Something as simple and direct as: “Date Night Charcuterie Box - $99 - limited to 10 orders this weekend — gift-wrapped and delivered.”

You’d photograph it like a luxury product, not a sandwich. Clean white background. Soft natural light. No clutter. Then you post it not to everyone, but to one local Facebook or Instagram community group where moms, event hosts, or realtors live. And you DM ten local realtors directly with one line: “I do gift-worthy charcuterie boxes for closings - want me to send a preview?”

That’s it. The only goal is the first few paid orders - proof, photos, and confidence. And then you time your next drop around a holiday or emotional trigger: Mother’s Day. Valentine’s. Graduation season. Don’t focus on scaling, but rather selling out. You build demand before supply. You operate like a sneaker drop, not a restaurant.

That is how a hobby turns into $10K months before most people even finish designing their logo.

Check her out on instagram @socialgraze.charcuterie

Imagine if looking for a job felt less like filling out government paperwork and more like flipping through Tinder.

That’s basically what Sorce just did.

They took the swipe-left / swipe-right dopamine loop of Tinder and fused it with the soul-crushing chore of job hunting… and somehow made job applications feel like a game. Upload your resume once, start swiping through open roles like faces at a bar, and when you swipe right the AI literally applies for you.

Cover letters, forms, and corporate portals all auto-handled while you go eat ramen.

Right now, the platform is already pairing 400,000 job-seekers with over 1.6 million open roles, which tells you one thing clearly: recruiting is no longer a paperwork game, it’s becoming a matchmaking game.

And this is the fun lesson - real innovation doesn’t always come from inventing something entirely new. Sometimes it’s just stealing the emotional mechanics of one industry and dropping them into a boring one.

Dating → jobs. Grocery delivery → laundry. TikTok → stock trading.

Sorce didn’t build a better job board. They re-framed an experience everyone hates into one everyone already understands.

When you stop thinking “industry” and start thinking “interface energy,” you open infinite doors.

The future isn’t just AI-powered - it’s vibe-powered.

Read more on this story here

Nathan Miller built Rentec Direct as a free side project for landlords, answering support emails after his day job. The turning point came when he hired help and added paid features. On May 16, 2009, a landlord named Alfred bought a tenant screening report for $1.25 - the company’s literal first dollar. One month later, Alfredo then upgraded to a $1 monthly subscription, proving recurring revenue was within reach. Years of steady, customer-first iteration later, Rentec Direct crossed $14 million in 2024.

Why this belongs in Win Streak? It’s a blueprint for momentum. Start by giving real value, even if it’s free. Charge for a sliver that clearly costs you to deliver. Hire when the workload says you’re a business, not a hobby. Listen to early adopters, then use those signals to build subscriptions that compound. Small dollars can be big doors.

👉🏼 Steal this move for your own run: pick one feature people would happily pay a few bucks for today, ship it behind a tiny paywall, and measure what happens over 30 days. Keep the rest generous, responsive, and relentlessly useful - then let the streak build.

Read more about Nathan and his story here