Watch Ideas Come Alive: Gamma x SideHustle Startup Pitch Challenge

Full video transcript

How to use AI inside of our businesses, from education to marketing. A little exercise: coming up with a business idea, and then creating a presentation utilizing Gamma to pitch that idea. What we’re going to do is play a round of SideHustle, which is the party game for entrepreneurs. It is a game that I created back in 2019 as a way to bring the entrepreneurial spirit to more people in the world, as well as practice entrepreneurship, creative thinking, and pitching skills in this gamified format.

We’re going to select a business name. We’re going to select an industry, and then everyone gets about a minute to plan their idea and then a minute to pitch. We’re going to have a little bit of time to work with Gamma and to come up with something that would be a really cool presentation of it. And then everybody here will get two minutes to pitch their idea, judging based on the idea, funny and fundable. So you can be absolutely ridiculous or you could be fundable. And you can also win both. By the way, there are people that do win both because the idea is hilariously fundable. And that’s okay. We’re here to have a little bit of fun and see what we can come up and create utilizing Gamma as the medium to present this idea that does not yet exist, but it could exist. Maybe investors out there — possibly you.

Without further ado, we’re here in the SideHustle interface, playsidehustle.com. Get you access to the game and start with pulling a SideHustle card. So I’m going to select this at random. Tyrese, tell me when to stop.

“Stop.”

“Dumpster Bear. That’s going to be really interesting. So, so we got—”

“Okay. So we’re going to go with Dumpster Bear. And now we’re going to do an industry. And that industry is going to be Tech and Apps. All right, we’ve got Dumpster Bear and Tech and Apps. Now, Grant, Karen, and Tyrese, you have 5 minutes to come up with a business that is either funny, fundable, or both that is called Dumpster Bear and operates in the tech and app industry. All right, entrepreneurs, your time starts now, with the only criteria being that you have to present it inside of Gamma. All right, I’m going to let the timer go and let you guys cook, as they say. Dumpster Bear, Tech and Apps.”

“All right, you got two minutes, Grant.”

“Thanks everyone for taking the time today. My name is Grant. I’m the founder of Dumpster Bear. Our mission statement is helping our users find gold in the garbage. It’s an absolute niche opportunity, but the total addressable market is massive. If you’re like anyone in the US, you’ve probably experienced the issue of clearing out your grandma’s house or just clearing out your own trash, and accidentally throwing away a piece of electronic that is ultimately pretty valuable if you think about the components in it. In fact, it allocates up to 2.6 trillion in waste year-over-year, according to — I have no idea. But what our app looks to do is help the user base, known as previously known as dumpster divers, find gold, find their honeypot in dumpsters.

Before, people were traditionally flying blind. They were spending a lot of time digging through garbage, through trash, through piles of disgusting waste. And now what we’ve been able to do is actually help identify and pinpoint treasure items — items that are actually valuable to the user, items like clocks, cameras, books, random coins. And so that’s how we came upon Dumpster Bear. Dumpster Bear helps you identify your own honeypot that allows you to use real-time treasure maps and find the dumpsters that actually are valuable and meaningful for you. So if you want to join us, we have a community of hunters — and that’s all we got.“

“I did not know that was gonna play, but—”

“Oh man, that’s really good. I love that, Grant.”

“Thanks.”

“Yeah, that was great.”

“Yeah, I mean, the finding the honeypot in the garbage, that was—”

“That was good. I like it.”

“All right, thank you. Thank you, Grant. No questions on my end, other than possibly, like, how’s the app monetized? That would be the only thing that I’m interested in.”

“Yeah, I would be interested in that too. More than likely, just probably on a subscription basis, allowing users who are maybe already in the — what is that called, metal, the metal-find, metal detector thing? People who are in that community to actually have an app that helps them find valuables. Or maybe there’s a dumpster diver community, I don’t even know.”

“Probably. I’ve got my notes here. Karen, how about you go second now?”

“Okay. My name is Karen Kona Smith, and I decided to start a company called Dumpster Bear. The Dumpster Bear company is for when you don’t have that family and you don’t have to outsource. Sometimes it’s better to outsource your family ’cause sometimes you just don’t want to go to Thanksgiving dinner with your aunt. So the family you wish you had, you can get with us. Meet our Dumpster Bear, the first app that lets you rent the family you wish you always had.

Think of it as Door Dash meets DNA. With AI-powered matching, we’ll learn your family drama and send a perfect relative for any occasion. Need a grandma to brag about your mediocre achievements? Want a cool uncle with snacks? Conspiracy theories, because we know we have that anyway. How about a sibling just to prank your ex with? We have different tiers. We got the cousin tier, the premium parent, and the ultimate grandma package. Thanksgiving dinner will send someone — oops, I’m sorry, I can’t see it over there — will send someone who argues about politics just enough to make it look reasonable.

Your ideal family investment: the basic cousin, only $49 an hour. That’s a bargain. And you got the premium parent, $19 an hour. But the one I sell the most, and the one I want to push, is the ultimate grandma package. It’s nothing like having a grandma around, and that’s only $4.99 an hour. Custom packages and long-term contracts available. Any questions?“

“You hit it out of the park there, Karen.”

“Thank you. Thank you, Karen. This seems — in so many ways I’m thinking, especially for the unlimited knitted scarves that come with the grandma package at that level.”

“Yeah, honestly, I really like how you had the pricing tiers broken down. I love the subscription model. And I’m wondering if you also do like custom packages and complications.”

“It was down there in the bottom. In the bottom it said we have custom packages.”

“Okay, I — cool, awesome, I missed that one. I have some friends that have got Indian families that are massive. And if I’m going to show up to one of those weddings, then I’m going to make sure I’m bringing more than just a cousin or two.”

“And that’s usually for seven days.”

“Oh yeah, I’ve never been, so yeah, I’m going to need some consultation on this.”

“Thank you, Karen. Tyrese, last but certainly not least.”

“All righty. Let me see. Where’s my — there we go. Zack, share. I got to move the bar out of the way so I can see. Okay, I’m pitching the Dumpster Bear. It’s basically a Tinder for trash. Americans throw away $62 billion worth of electronics every year, but 75% of that is broken stuff that just needs a $2 part. So our app uses AI to scan your junk, instantly match it with people nearby who actually want it. Think broken iPhone meets local repair guy, or old gaming console meets nostalgic millennial with cash.

We’ve got 500 beta users in Portland. We’ve already recovered 50,000 dollars’ worth of garbage in three months. Our top user — I should say, move it off, there we go — our top user furnished her entire apartment for 73 bucks. We take 15% of every transaction, plus premium subscriptions. We’re raising 2 million to go nationwide and turn America’s junk drawers into everyone’s treasure chests. One person’s trash is literally another person’s treasure. We just made — we just made it scalable. Want to help us make hoarding a legitimate business model?

Oh, there we are. I don’t — I didn’t ask for a tier, but this is what I’ve got so far.“

“We’ve got about 37 seconds to keep—”

“Oh, okay then. Okay, then I’ll make it so that we have the basics here. 50 bucks, we’ll sign you up with someone local who will help you get your whatever it is you have to get it fixed, you can get matched up with them. Then we can have — oh my gosh, see, this is why my brain is frying — and then we can make sure that someone who doesn’t want your stuff can have it.”

“Brilliant. Honestly, across the board, there were so many good ideas here. It’s hard to pick just one, but I’ve deliberated with myself, and we had Grant with finding your honeypot in the garbage. We had Karen with the family without the baggage, the family you wish you had, you can rent. And then we had Tyrese with the revenue-sharing Tinder for trash model. And this is hard. This is hard. A lot to consider here. A lot of considerations here.

I think for the funny, I’ve got to go with Karen, because how that would just be too hilarious for me to be able to rent all these different versions of different cousins and grandmas to bring to these events.“

“That would be great.”

“And I was really torn between finding gold in the garbage versus the Tinder for trash. I got to say, I got to give it to you, Tyrese, because you hit me with that money model. I’m always one to invest an extreme amount more than is necessary to validate something, and so that $2 million, we’ll figure out a way to get it in your pocket. Just don’t burn it.

But I got to say, the visuals on this one — Grant’s visuals were definitely the best for a — third award: if we’re going to give just a visual presentation of all of this, Tinder for Trash does have a great ring to it, and productive play workshop here at the Scale with AI Summit.

That was SideHustle, which you can play for free at playsidehustle.com. Subscribe to us here at GenAIU on YouTube. Keep in touch inside of our community. Keep calm and AI on. We’ll see you guys on the other side. Cheers.“