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From Zero to Side Hustle
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Walking into the work costume party like…
🎃 John Carpenter’s Halloween was made on a shoestring in 1978. The killer’s famous mask was a cheap Captain Kirk mask, spray-painted white.
Nobody cared what it cost. They cared what Carpenter did with it.
Business works the same way. The edge is rarely better equipment. It’s finding a clever use for what’s already there.
Happy Friday. Dig in.
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First Up, Our Sponsor
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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 Reverb Wholesaler Who Never Plays a Gig
WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?
Used-guitar dealing means buying instruments from people who want quick cash and reselling them to musicians on Reverb, the big online marketplace for music gear. But many private sellers would rather take a fair price today than field weeks of lowball offers.
Buyers have the opposite worry: they're paying real money for something they can't play first.
That's the gap: sellers want cash now, and buyers want someone with a long record of honest listings.
WHAT’S THE BIG IDEA?
Buy for cash, fix what's wrong, and relist through one trusted shop. Reverb's fees run about 8% to 9% all in. Or sell on consignment, meaning you sell the owner's guitar and keep a cut, which takes no money up front.
The money comes from the gap between buy and sell. But the business grows from reputation.
►Joe Dampt of Joe's Vintage Guitars in Mesa buys from private sellers in all 50 states and usually pays the same day. His Reverb shop carries 2,365 reviews at 97% positive, and he says he moves more than $2 million of instruments a year.
Zooming out: Reverb gives everyone a storefront, but not a same-day cash offer or 2,000 reviews.
Some signature models roughly doubled in value since 2019, Reverb's data lead told Guitar World.
Think: amps, pedals, film cameras.
🥢 The winners will be buyers who can fix things; Dampt says he has repaired 1,000+ instruments himself. Doing your own repairs means you can buy the broken ones other flippers skip.
🍜 The risk is overpaying. Hot models rose in the pandemic and some have since fallen. One overpaid guitar can wipe out the profit on the next several.
A Missouri couple with IT jobs cleared just under $10,000 in a year part time, often buying at $300 and selling for $800. What you're really building is a small buying desk with a track record, so people call you first when they sell.
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What's your take?
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Free Dog-Poop Cleanup
Who used it: Mark Gromer, who runs Scoop Doggy Logs, a service that picks up dog poop from backyards in Tucson, Arizona. He described this starting offer in an August 2024 interview; the flyer itself isn't published.
What it got them: 10 takers and 9 regular customers, and all 9 were still paying 18 months later.
The recipe: They offered a free pet waste removal service in exchange for a review.
📋 Why it works: Strangers won't pay someone new to walk into their backyard, but they will say yes to free. One visit shows them the work, and the review they promised helps the next stranger say yes.
Swap this for your niche: Change "pet waste removal" to the one service you sell. Offer it free to the first 10 people who answer your flyer or neighborhood Facebook post, and ask for the review the day you finish.
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Don't Miss This
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Some teams never seem to stop moving. They're on Attio, the agentic CRM.
It’s your always-on revenue engine: agents and workflows build pipeline, chase every buying signal, and move deals forward alongside your team.
Teams like Parallel, Turbopuffer, and Wordsmith build on Attio. Are you one of them?
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A Rubber Octopus That Crawled Down Walls Sold 200 Million
The Wacky WallWalker was a small, sticky rubber octopus you threw at a wall and watched slowly tumble down it.
In 1983, Ken Hakuta's mother mailed him a few from Japan, where they were called Tako. He bought the U.S. rights for $5,000. Early sales in Washington, D.C. were slow.
Then a Washington Post feature took off, Kellogg's put them in cereal boxes, and NBC aired an animated Christmas special about them. The toy sold more than 200 million units and brought in about $20 million.
Still cooking: Hakuta renamed himself Dr. Fad and hosted a kids' invention show. Dr. Fad and WallWalker are still registered trademarks.
People will pay for a toy whose only job is falling down a wall slowly.
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Even the one repetitive task you've been meaning to fix can now run itself, no code required. Customers using it are already seeing the difference.
This isn't the CRM you have to work hard to figure out. It's the one already working before you log in.
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Enough talk. Go cook.
That's the plate for the week. Reply and tell us the thing in your closet you'd sell today if someone showed up with cash. Forward this to the friend with six guitars and one pair of hands. See you Monday.
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