Getting AI to Build Me a Side Hustle Part 1

I've seen projects like this before, I even gave it a little go a few years ago myself, where AI guides you in setting up a side hustle to help bring in a little bit of extra money alongside your day job. Now that AI systems are much more sophisticated compared to a couple of years ago, can this experiment be repeated with more favourable results?

My preferred AI at the moment is Google's Gemini and so I set about working with it to first formulate an idea. My requirements were as follows:

  • Must incorporate one or more of my interests
  • Allow me to meet new people
  • Helps me learn or improve on a skill (not a priority but a nice thing to have)

I then worked with Gemini further to help it understand my hobbies and what I enjoyed doing. I was wanting to steer it away from any digital-based solution as I wanted to see where a more analogue route would take me and it actually came up with a couple of really interesting suggestions.

The first was to sell vintage board game pieces. The idea behind this was to buy up incomplete board games from charity shops, car boot sales etc and sell the individual game piece to people who would like to complete the games they have at home. 

Working with the AI further, the idea was expanded into my interest in computer games with the suggestion of selling instruction booklets, game inlays and fold-out maps from all the classic games. I actually think that this was a really good idea.

The second suggestion that the AI came up with was to learn to develop a cartoon drawing style, and Gemini said it could help tutor me on this one. The overall goal of this suggestion was to set up a drawing booth that could be taken to events. I hadn't heard of these drawing booths and so probed further and was directed towards a few videos like this one and this one, showing a few examples of other peoples' doodling booths.


Again, another good suggestion from the Gemini AI and one that I think this is the one that I would like to pursue further (whilst keeping an eye out for classic board games in the charity shops as a back-up) So I guess the next step is designing the booth itself. Stay tuned!


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