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From Zero to Side Hustle
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When you lose internet 30 min before the assignment’s due
🎃 It’s October, which means Hocus Pocus is back on every screen in America. It disappointed in theaters in 1993, then became a movie millions of people return to every fall.
Plenty of good ideas look like flops at launch and only prove themselves when people keep coming back.
The businesses we like work the same way. Nobody notices the opening. Then the same customers quietly return, season after season.
Grab a seat.
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NVIDIA's Founder Says Farmers Should Absolutely Use AI
“If I were a farmer, I would absolutely use AI.”
That’s Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA.
He’s pointing to one of AI’s biggest untapped opportunities: farming.
DIT AgTech is already putting AI to work with 500+ units deployed and 370,000 head on-platform.
𝘐𝘯 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘯 𝘪𝘯𝘷𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘥𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯, 𝘪𝘯𝘷𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘴 𝘮𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘰𝘸𝘯 𝘦𝘹𝘢𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘶𝘦𝘳 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘮𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘰𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘭𝘶𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘬𝘴 𝘪𝘯𝘷𝘰𝘭𝘷𝘦𝘥. 𝘋𝘐𝘛 𝘈𝘨𝘛𝘦𝘤𝘩 𝘩𝘢𝘴 𝘧𝘪𝘭𝘦𝘥 𝘢 𝘍𝘰𝘳𝘮 𝘊 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘦𝘤𝘶𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘌𝘹𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦 𝘊𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘪𝘯 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘯𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘪𝘵𝘴 𝘰𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘢 𝘤𝘰𝘱𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘤𝘩 𝘮𝘢𝘺 𝘣𝘦 𝘰𝘣𝘵𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘥 𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦: https://bit.ly/4bzuWCi
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The Podcast That Is Really A Sales Call
WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?
A company that sells to other businesses, like a software firm or an industrial supplier, needs meetings with a short list of dream customers. Cold emails asking for 30 minutes mostly get ignored.
Invite that same executive onto a podcast, though, and many say yes. The company just has no time to book guests, record and edit.
That's the gap: companies want conversations with buyers, and they don't want to run a show.
WHAT’S THE BIG IDEA?
Sell a monthly service: book the guests (the client's ideal customers), record on Riverside for about $24 a month, edit, publish. Newer editors charge $15 to $20 per hour of audio if you hand it off.
The business makes money from the monthly fee. But it grows from the relationships the guests turn into.
►Jake Jorgovan launched Content Allies in Colorado Springs in November 2018. His first clients came from his network and a blog post that ranked on Google, and he grew it to about $75,000 a month with three employees.
Zooming out: every guest is a sales meeting the guest asked to be in
Content Allies says at least 10% of its clients' interviews turn into a referral or a customer.
Think: shows for commercial roofers, dental labs, freight brokers.
🥢 The winners will be producers who pick one industry and learn who belongs on the mic. Knowing the best guests in one industry is worth more to a client than editing skill.
🍜 The risk is that clients judge you on sales, not downloads. A year of episodes with no customers ends the retainer. Jorgovan also lost a client when a team member was poached, so written contracts with your editors matter from the first hire.
You might also like ⇢ Podcast or YouTube: Where B2B Brands Should Spend Their First Content Dollar
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What's your take?
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The One-Line Paddleboard Listing With 85 Rentals
Who used it: Heather C. in Henderson, Nevada, who rents out an inflatable paddleboard for $45 a day on FriendWithA, a site where neighbors rent gear to each other.
What it got them: 85 rentals approved and 15 reviews since she joined in 2020
The recipe: Oasis yoga fitness inflatable stand up paddle board (ISUP) with bag, paddle, manual pump, dry bag. Also includes a life vest.
📋 Why it works: It answers the renter's real question, "what else do I have to buy?", with a complete list. The life vest line removes the last reason to rent from a shop instead.
Swap this for your niche: Replace the paddleboard with your item and list every piece that comes with it, then end with the one thing people forget. Post it tonight at a daily price below the rental shop down the road.
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A House Cleaning Company That Couldn't Keep Customers
Homejoy booked house cleaners through an app, charging homeowners $25 to $35 an hour, and at one point it operated in 31 cities.
The setup: Adora Cheung started it in San Francisco and was its first cleaner herself. Cleaning is repeat work: a happy customer books every week or two, so each new customer looks worth years of revenue. That math made it easy to spend heavily to win the first booking.
The numbers: Homejoy raised about $38 million. A $19 first cleaning ran as a promotion in the summer of 2014. The company shut down on July 31, 2015.
🧯 What actually killed it: Customers didn't come back. Forbes reported that only 15 to 20% of customers booked again within a month, while rival Handy kept 35% or more. About 75% of bookings came through discount deals, so the company kept paying to find people who only wanted the cheap first clean, and cleaners could take the good regulars and work for them directly.
Cheung pointed to four lawsuits over whether cleaners were contractors or employees. A former employee put it more simply: "Retention was clearly bad, and that's what killed us."
Would it have worked if… it had stayed in one city until most first-time customers became regulars before paying to find the next batch.
If you start a cleaning business, skip the deep first-visit discount. Track how many new customers book a second clean within 30 days, and hold off on paid ads until it's at least one in three.
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Brands Now Pay Strangers To Film Their Products
Product videos used to come from an ad agency. Now companies pay ordinary people with a phone to film themselves using the product, called UGC (user-generated content), and run those clips as ads.
Short video ads wear out fast, so brands need a steady supply of new faces. A regular person holding the product in their own kitchen looks more believable than a polished shoot and costs far less.
The big platforms prove the money is real. Billo sells brands $500 packs of up to five videos. Insense says its campaigns start at $100 per video.
The small end is open. Matt Kartchner films product reviews and unboxings for men's brands on Fiverr from $60, in a category showing about 100,000 reviews.
Where the trend branches next:
Local restaurants that need a month of short clips
Etsy and Amazon sellers who need someone to unbox the product
Apps that need a real person walking through the screen
Spanish-language videos for bilingual customers
► The steady money is in becoming one brand's regular monthly creator, not in one-off clips.
If you try this, film three samples with products you own and pitch five local shops before joining any marketplace.
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Hungry yet?
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Quantitative Thinkers Are Building Ideas Worldwide on WorldQuant BRAIN
WorldQuant BRAIN is a global simulation and research platform for students, aspiring researchers and quantitative thinkers from around the world.
On BRAIN, that spirit of exploration continues through challenges, collaboration and opportunities to develop new quantitative research ideas.
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Enough talk. Go cook.
That's the plate. Reply and tell us which local business owner you'd most like to interview. Forward this to a friend who sells to other businesses and hates cold email. See you tomorrow.
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