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From Zero to Side Hustle
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When it’s peak potluck season
📱 I watched a live auction on Whatnot for the first time last month. Someone was selling vintage jackets from what looked like a garage: decent lighting, a clothing rack, and 400 people bidding on pieces starting at a dollar.
What surprised me was the speed. Items sold in under 90 seconds. The seller barely had to pitch. She described the piece, mentioned the size, and the bids started. The audience already knew what it wanted.
That's the story in today's Hustle.
Let's eat.
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Investment Opportunity
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The Mineral Everyone Forgets Until Their Driveway Freezes Over
Most people couldn't tell you what scandium is for, but everyone knows what happens when roads go unsalted. North America keeps running short, and Atlas Salt (TSXV: SALT) is building a shovel-ready mine in Newfoundland, three days by ship from Boston, with C$188 million in projected yearly free cash flow.
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She Quit Goldman Sachs and Made $100K a Month Selling Clothes on Whatnot
WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?
eBay and Poshmark let sellers list clothing items and wait for buyers to find them. That model works, but slowly — listings sit for days or weeks and you compete entirely on photos, prices, and shipping time.
Whatnot is a live shopping platform where sellers run real-time auctions. The buyer sees the item on a person, hears a description, and clicks to bid. No listing, no waiting.
The model is older than the internet — it is the home shopping channel — but Whatnot brought it to the phone and made it social.
That's the gap: Most resellers list and wait. A small number stream and sell in real time, where impulse and community move inventory at a pace a static listing can't match.
WHAT’S THE BIG IDEA?
You source clothing items at thrift stores, bins, or estate sales, then sell them live on Whatnot where auctions start at $1 and close in 60 to 90 seconds. The platform handles payments and buyer protection. Your job is the stream: describing each piece, keeping the energy consistent, building an audience that comes back every week.
The business makes money from margin. But it grows from the audience: buyers who enjoy your stream become regulars, and regulars buy more than first-time browsers.
► Zoreen Kabani, formerly a financial analyst at Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase, started ZKStyles on Whatnot in June 2022 after her brother showed her the platform. She streams Monday through Friday — while most sellers stream once or twice a week. ZKStyles passed $100,000 a month by October 2023. Her sourcing approach: thrift stores. Starting auction prices: $1, with some items selling for $2 to $4.
Zooming out: Consistency is an advantage on Whatnot. Sellers who stream five days a week have more chances to reach viewers than once-a-week sellers. Regular streams also give audiences a reason to build a habit around the schedule.
🥢 The winners will be sellers who treat the stream like a show — consistent schedule, consistent sourcing, consistent energy. A regular viewer who knows you go live at 7pm Monday is worth 50 cold browsers who found you once.
🍜 The risk is sourcing at scale: when you're moving hundreds of items a week, finding enough inventory at good prices is a full-time operation on its own. Your margin depends entirely on what you paid at the thrift store, and that gets harder to find as your volume grows.
You might also like ⇢ How to Start Selling on Whatnot
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What's your take?
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TaskRabbit Will Pay $44 an Hour to Organize Someone's Closet
Who's asking: Homeowners and renters booking through TaskRabbit
For what: Closet organization — sorting, folding, hanging, setting up storage systems
Paying: $44/hour starting in New York City ($49 average), with a 2-hour minimum. Floor on any job: $88. Chicago runs about $38/hour; Austin about $33; LA about $30.
🎟️ How common is this: TaskRabbit lists closet organization in 27-plus U.S. cities, with 4,406 Taskers available for this category in New York City alone. This is a standard entry-level TaskRabbit service with established demand.
No license needed. No special equipment. To find the going rate in your city: search your city on TaskRabbit and read the rates posted by the top-reviewed Taskers. Then look at their profile bios — most of the high-rated ones say the same thing in the introduction, and that is the pitch that is working.
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Don't Miss This
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8 Clothing Categories to Pull from Goodwill Bins Before Season Hits
Buy what people are donating now. Sell it when they want it back. Under $100 to start — just bin entry and a postal scale.
Ski jackets · Source in spring (post-season donations), sell in September–October · u/Prefixe on r/flipping (Jan 2025): $20 at thrift → 100–150 on eBay · 5–7x
Luxury winter coats · Source in March–April, sell in October–November · u/ShaaaaaWing on r/flipping: $40 Burberry trench → $250 on eBay · 6x
Vintage Patagonia fleece · Source year-round, sell before winter · Synchilla Snap-T: 8–15 at thrift → 70–120 on eBay (discontinued colors pull the top end)
Vintage Levi's denim · Steady demand year-round · atxdrewtheflipper lists 1993 Levi's 550s at $65 · thrift buy: 8–12 · 5–7x
Vintage Hawaiian shirts · Source in fall/winter, sell April–July · Reyn Spooner or Kahala labels: bins at 1–2 → 40–80 on eBay (see bins-to-eBay note in the Napkin Math this week)
UGG boots · Source in summer, sell September–November · Thrift buy 5–8 · Average resale $25.59 across 25,172 pairs sold in 2024 (Upright Labs)
Vintage North Face fleece · Source in spring, sell in fall · Denali jackets: 8–15 at thrift → 60–100 on eBay
Jordan and Nike SB sneakers · Source at Goodwill or estate sales, sell on StockX · 20–40 at Goodwill → 80–200-plus on StockX
🧥 Pick of the litter: Vintage Patagonia Synchilla: Check the snap closure and tag at the bins. Discontinued colorways can fetch $70+. Study eBay sold listings for “Patagonia Synchilla vintage” before buying to learn which patterns move.
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Hungry yet?
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Enough talk. Go cook.
That's Tuesday.
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