In partnership with
👋 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.
In today’s episode:
🔨 Contractor’s best friend
🧑🏻💻 Smarter job search
👑 From Kitchen Table to Category King
😴 The $20k/month boring site
THE FRESH IDEA
Hyperlocal Service Arbitrage
Pick any local service where quality feels random and prices swing wildly… then become the trusted middleman. You don’t pick up a shovel—you pick the niche, pre-vet the pros, capture demand, and route the job. Your value is certainty, speed, and one point of contact. That peace of mind is worth real money.
🤝 Homeowners don’t know who to trust for HVAC repairs, landscaping, house cleaning, pet grooming, tree trimming, or sport courts. Pros are busy doing the work, not marketing. You sit in the middle, standardize expectations, and make buying frictionless. Charge a small markup to the customer, take a referral fee from the provider, or do both.
A live example: Backyard Funhouse 🏀
Josh was in the market for a backyard sports court. He realized it was an underserved market in his region. But he realized that by building a better website, collecting the leads, and passing them off to qualified contractors, he could build a highly profitable business.
Within a few months of launching, he raked in $45k by taking a cut from all the projects he fed to his contractors. No hammers. Just coordination.
🔎 Find an old-school niche that needs a marketing makeover. Build a better website and become the lead gen source.
You could do it with Tree trimming, HVAC repair, Landscaping, House cleaning, Pet grooming, and so much more!
Ramen First Step 🍜
Pick a niche you can sanity-check on site: tree trimming, small retaining walls, mini courts, pergolas.
Meet three subs this week. Ask for two recent jobs you can visit.
Launch one landing page with a single call-to-action and a short intake form.
Run $50–$100/day in Facebook Instant Form ads for 3–5 days.
Follow up on leads within 5 minutes by text. Book a free consultation and hand off to the contractor.
You’re not selling construction—you’re selling trust, filtered options, and a done-for-you path from quote to completion. Make decisions easily, respond fast, and the market will pay you to be the adult in the room. 🚀
Rate this hustle:
$1K Could’ve Made $2.5M
In 1999, $1K in Nvidia’s IPO would be worth $2.5M today. Now another early-stage AI tech startup is breaking through—and it’s still early.
RAD Intel’s award-winning AI platform helps Fortune 1000 brands predict ad performance before they spend.
The company’s valuation has surged 4900% in four years* with over $50M raised.
Already trusted by a who’s-who roster of Fortune 1000 brands and leading global agencies. Recurring seven-figure partnerships in place and their Nasdaq ticker is reserved: $RADI.
Now open at $0.81/share, allocations limited – price moves on 11/20.
This is a paid advertisement for RAD Intel made pursuant to Regulation A+ offering and involves risk, including the possible loss of principal. The valuation is set by the Company and there is currently no public market for the Company's Common Stock. Nasdaq ticker “RADI” has been reserved by RAD Intel and any potential listing is subject to future regulatory approval and market conditions. Investor references reflect factual individual or institutional participation and do not imply endorsement or sponsorship by the referenced companies. Please read the offering circular and related risks at invest.radintel.ai.
TREND WATCHLIST
Need a job?
A sharp rise in layoffs and slower hiring is pushing more people into urgent, high-intent job searches. In October 2025 alone, U.S. employers announced over 150,000 cuts—the worst October in two decades, with AI cited among the top reasons.
That’s why “need a job” style searches are spiking. Tools, playbooks, and services that shorten time-to-offer are in demand.
🧳 What people need help with now:
Finding tighter role lists and alert stacks instead of spraying applications. Curated boards and reverse job platforms help.
Networking at scale. Identifying one warm contact per target company and sending concise, specific asks. Referral mechanics matter more as hiring funnels tighten.
Interview reps and salary scripts. Clear talk tracks for common questions and compensation.
📍 Bottom line: the trend isn’t just “more people need jobs”; it’s a shift toward smarter, niche job-search systems that compress the path from search to signed offer.
WIN STREAK
Houzz — From Kitchen Table to Category King
Adi Tatarko and Alon Cohen weren’t chasing unicorn status—they just wanted to remodel their 1950s ranch without chaos. The pain: inspiration from dusty magazine clippings and vetting contractors. So they built the site they wished existed—photos + pros + products, all in one place—from their kitchen table.
The Houzz site hit a local parent group, designers shared it, and the word-of-mouth flywheel started spinning. 🔄
Momentum popped. An early iPad app turned couch scrolling into design rabbit holes. Contractors got real value with Houzz Pro and paid for premium placement. Then came the “see it, want it, buy it” marketplace twist. Global offices followed, and “View in My Room 3D” lets you drop a sofa into your living room before clicking checkout. 🛋️📱
Houzz didn’t invent renovation—it choreographed it. The loop was clean: stunning photos → homeowners → pros → projects → products → transactions. Every win fed the next. 🚀
Why it worked: solve a painful personal problem, build for the community first, then layer revenue where the experience already shines. The takeaway for builders: obsess over useful, ship a lovable MVP, and let your users become your growth team. When the product truly helps, growth feels inevitable. 🧰
YOU’RE KIDDING, RIGHT?
This BORING site makes $20k/month
ConvertCase is a quiet internet win hiding in plain sight. 🚀 Launched in 2006, it focused on one evergreen job—“turn this text into ALL CAPS”—and let SEO do the heavy lifting. High-intent searches like “uppercase to lowercase,” “title case,” and “sentence case” arrive daily, converting into roughly $20,000/month in ad revenue. No logins, no bloat—just a fast page that perfectly matches intent. ⚡
Thousands of organic links, long-tail pages for specific formats, and a UX so simple it feels invisible. Growth was slow and steady, eventually turning into a massive profit machine.
✅ The owner spends 1–2 hours per week tuning SEO, adding small features, and keeping performance sharp.
Lesson: pick a niche with high search intent, solve it cleanly, and let compounding organic traffic do the work. Build the exact tool people Google—then get out of the way.
Attention spans are shrinking. Get proven tips on how to adapt:
Mobile attention is collapsing.
In 2018, mobile ads held attention for 3.4 seconds on average.
Today, it’s just 2.2 seconds.
That’s a 35% drop in only 7 years. And a massive challenge for marketers.
The State of Advertising 2025 shows what’s happening and how to adapt.
Get science-backed insights from a year of neuroscience research and top industry trends from 300+ marketing leaders. For free.
QUICK SIPS
📚 Must-Read: The business of Wicked
📈 Trending Story: What Zohran Mamdani’s big win means for Main Street small business owners
💬 Founders Story: Revolutionizing sleep with AI & scent therapy
