Thursday | Episode #169

🏀 Good morning. Thursdays feel a little like the locker room before tip-off. The game plan gets one last review, teammates check in with each other, and everyone knows their first assignment.

The opening possession rarely decides the game. Being prepared usually does.

The Ramen Hustle knows Thursday is for making the extra pass before anyone keeps score.

Tip-off is almost here.

Today’s Download:

It just surpassed a $1B valuation, joining private US companies like SpaceX and OpenAI. Unlike them, you can invest in EnergyX today. General Motors already has. Why? EnergyX’s tech can recover up to 3X more lithium than traditional methods. Now, they hold rights to ~13M tons of lithium across North and South America. Invest in EnergyX at $13/share by 7/16.

Invest in EnergyX

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^{This compensation and any current or future ownership interest could create a conflict of interest. Please consider this disclosure alongside EnergyX’s offering materials. EnergyX’s Regulation A offering has been qualified by the SEC. Offers and sales may be made only by means of the qualified offering circular. Before investing, carefully review the offering circular, including the risk factors. The offering circular is available at invest.energyx.com/.}

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What’s the problem?

Every youth sports season creates a rush for uniforms, spirit wear, tournament hoodies, and last-minute replacement jerseys. Big print shops are built for bulk orders and long production schedules. Youth sports run on tight deadlines.

Teams need custom apparel before the next tournament, not next month.

That’s the gap: Teams need 28 playoff shirts by Friday, not six weeks later.

What’s the big idea?

Start with a heat press and become the local team's go-to apparel shop. Print jerseys, spirit wear, and last-minute playoff shirts, then expand into online team stores, fundraising campaigns, sponsor apparel, and repeat orders every season

The first order solves a deadline. The real business is becoming every coach's first call.

► STAHLS' started as a family lettering business and grew into a leader in heat printing technology. Today, its heat presses, transfers, and athletic lettering power thousands of custom apparel businesses, from local team shops to the NFL Draft jersey operation. The company also shows how entrepreneurs can launch a team apparel business with a heat press, serving schools, sports teams, clubs, and local organizations without needing a full print shop.

Wooter Apparel was founded after its founders became frustrated with paying high prices and waiting up to two months for custom team uniforms. Today, the company serves 12,000+ sports organizations in more than 40 countries, proving the demand for faster, easier team apparel extends far beyond professional sports.

Zooming out: Every season needs new gear...

The bigger opportunity isn’t printing jerseys. It is becoming the go-to apparel partner for local sports organizations. Every season creates demand for jerseys, practice shirts, spirit wear, playoff apparel, coach gifts, tournament merchandise, and replacement uniforms. Once a relationship is established, one team can leads to an entire league’s needs.

🔺 The winners build relationships with coaches, athletic directors, booster clubs, and league organizers. Their advantage is speed, reliability, and the ability to fulfill small orders that national printers often decline.

🔻 The risk is competing with pricing. The strongest local businesses win by delivering faster turnarounds, better service, and dependable quality, not by being the cheapest.

The Ramen Hustle next step: Pick one youth league and become its fastest apparel supplier. One rush order for 28 playoff shirts can turn into years of repeat business across multiple teams and seasons.

You might also like ⇢ The Tournament Snack Stand Business

A small screen tear feels minor — until bugs turn it into a problem. The smallest home annoyances often create the easiest business opportunities.

What they uncovered: Precision Screen Repair turned a simple home annoyance into a mobile service business, charging $30 per small screen, $40 for larger screens, and $65 for sliding doors. ClearView Screen Repair adds revenue and customer value through custom fabrication, replacement frames, and specialty mesh upgrades for pets, durability, and visibility.

The rookie move is chasing every job that comes in. It feels busy, but scattered customers create wasted miles, broken schedules, and a business that never develops a profitable rhythm.

That is what makes the story interesting. The window screen business doesn’t win because of it’s exciting repairs. It wins because it quickly solves a small, frustrating household problem, which then becomes more profitable by turning scattered repairs into an efficient neighborhood route. The opportunity grows when a simple service expands through apartment communities, property managers, and repeat local demand.

What they learned: The route matters more than the repair. Build density, reduce drive time, and turn small jobs into bigger days.

The best local businesses solve the problems people keep putting off. Window screens, gutters, vents, and small repairs may seem boring, but they become valuable when you build neighborhood density, stack small jobs together, and turn everyday annoyances into a repeatable route business.

Pool floats used to upgrade the pool.

Now people are upgrading the experience.

The weirdest pool trend of 2025 is also the clearest signal: Google named “floating mahjong table” the top “...for pool” search, proving people want poolside experiences, not just pool toys.

Mahjong is having a comeback. Younger players are turning the traditional game into a social experience with stylish sets, themed gatherings, and new clubs, moving it from family rooms into backyards, country clubs, and luxury events. Vogue highlighted Mahjong’s modern makeover with colorful boards, premium sets, and new communities turning the game into a lifestyle experience.

The appeal is simple: it turns a game into a reason to gather. Mahjong creates a premium experience people will pay for because it combines entertainment, aesthetics, and hosting. The Traveling Mahjong Series already rents event-ready setups, with mahjong sets starting at $60 plus upgrades like tables, lamps, and décor. Dunwoody Mahj Co. goes further with full event rentals, including tables, chairs, linens, and pool-friendly “Aquamahj” setups.

Where the trend branches next:

► The business isn’t selling pool floats. It’s selling the experience around them.

💰 Noah Kagan turned AppSumo from a side project into an eight-figure business by using simple email-driven deals to help software companies acquire customers while building a profitable marketplace.

📚 “The E-Myth Revisited” by Michael Gerber explains why small businesses fail when owners stay trapped doing every task and shows how to build repeatable systems instead.

🧲 Marketing Examples’ collection of pricing pages gives founders real examples of how companies frame packages, tiers, guarantees, and offers to increase conversions.

🔍 Björn Öste helped turn Oatly into a premium global brand through bold packaging, a distinctive voice, and mission-driven marketing, with the company reportedly considering an IPO valuing the business at up to $5 billion, proving great branding can transform a commodity into a lifestyle brand.

That’s a wrap for today. Thanks for reading!

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