🕹️ Pinball’s new spin

Plus: How to buy a home that's not for sale, a love letter to the MTA, and more.

Share The Hustle: https://thehustle.co/join?ref=7598767985 Check your referral progress & prizes here 👋  Good morning! And if you're in Connecticut, California, Massachusetts, New York, or New Jersey, we hope you come into some unexpected cash today. You'd need to make $600k+ in those states to join the top 5% of earners, according to data from GOBankingRates. For now, it might be worth checking under the couch cushions, buying a lottery ticket, or embracing the bottom 95%.   🎧  On the pod: The bleak new AI app that'll sell you a photo of your likeness transported somewhere exotic. STARTING UP A real estate platform for homes that aren't for sale ❌  The problem: Only 2% of homes in America are listed for sale. Traditional real estate platforms focus on properties already on the market, and would-be buyers miss out on homes that aren't officially listed — even when someone might be open to selling. 💡  The pitch: Unlisted's platform lets homeowners connect with interested buyers before officially listing. The startup's ultimate goal is to turn home data itself into a valuable asset alongside the property. 🚀  The outlook: The startup already has 240k users, and 5.7k+ properties worth $4.7B are being tracked through its waitlist feature — that's a lot of people manifesting their dream home. NEWS FLASH An actually smart device: CareHome Health Solutions was named one of NC Tech Association's startups to watch. Its offering, inspired by founder AJ Trelease's grandma, is a medication management device that looks like a coffee machine but dispenses pills and water, and can alert caregivers if doses are missed.  Brew to moo: Michigan startup Meknology Inc. turns wastewater solids into resalable products: e.g., grains in brewing wastewater that can be repurposed as animal feed. The company sells or leases its hardware and software to brewers and distillers, but could work in any water system.  Online education company Chegg announced it will lay off 388 employees, ~45% of its workforce, citing the "new realities" of AI. In May, Chegg laid off 22% of its staff and in February, sued Google, alleging AI summaries had decreased its web traffic and sales. AI hiring startup Mercor is now worth $10B following a $350m Series C. The company hires highly-skilled pros to train AI models, managing 30k+ contractors who earn a collective $1.5m daily. GO WILD The business idea rabbit hole you've been waiting for Whenever you get serious about starting a business, make this your very first pit stop.    Chris Koerner's startup database highlights ~200 creative startup ideas with pre-built business plans, including:  Epic Weddings LLC Protein vending machine  Aeroponics vertical farming Pet pocket gate installation  Upcycled engine block coffee tables Scaling from resale to sustainable Luxury ice (cubes)  Rent-a-chicken-right-now Airbnb wall mural design Coffee in waffle cones  With such ridiculous creative range at your disposal, there can be no more loafing. Go haul around a bouncy house or charcuterie cart or something. 197 wild ideas   THE BIG IDEA The business re-tooling pinball for the digital age   Pinball: the only slice of Americana with a CSI Miami version.    Once an arcade institution, the game is now a nostalgic novelty — but startup Scorbit thinks a digital overhaul might restore its former glory.    Founded in 2016, Scorbit offers a full-stack platform that digitizes live pinball, letting bar and arcade owners host asynchronous competitions on their vintage machines.    How it works: Scorbit sells hardware that's compatible with the vast majority of existing pinball machines and can instantly read and write directly to the game's memory. Once the hardware is installed, machines are visible on Scorbit's app, displayed on a map (think Find My Friends but for pinball). Scorbit allows those machines to accept players' contactless payment, track scores, maintain in-app leaderboards, and host competitions (some for cash prizes).  The company's focus is currently pinball-specific, but it has ambitions to cover every corner of the arcade with similar systems, from Pac-Man to Pop-A-Shot.    The endgame? Developing a global network of connected games that benefits both businesses and players by adding a trackable, social, competitive element to machines that patrons might look past otherwise.    Why should you care?   Scorbit's latest funding round shows it offers more than just proof you absolutely run your favorite dive bar's "Gilligan's Island" pinball machine. It represents an interesting niche in entertainment tech: nostalgia preservation.    Companies are digitizing analog entertainment staples and finding lucrative new life in them, including: Dartsee, an interactive dartboard manufacturer, brings the classic bar game — which ~95% of all drunk people suck at — to a new generation. Singa, a multi-device karaoke app with an accessible, extensive song library, expands your karaoke repertoire beyond "Mr. Brightside."   TouchTunes, the brand behind the digital jukebox, makes forcing an entire bar to listen to "Thong Song" by Sisqó 20 times in a row way too easy.  Those businesses play on a simple premise: Some fun things never stop being fun. A lot of old-school entertainment staples still have mileage, but they could use a digital touch-up. 🔗 HIGHLY RECOMMENDED   Ghosts and witches? Boring. Back when Halloween costumes from TV shows, comic books, and movies started getting popular, two family businesses were there fueling the fire and reeling in millions.   NEWSWORTHY NUMBER Price of what Business Insider reports is Wall Street's new favorite shoe: Zegna's Triple Stitch. The minimalist men's luxury sneaker is popular among finance types in Manhattan and also, apparently, with Apple CEO Tim Cook. Why? They are reportedly extremely comfy, come in 30 colors, and can be easily dressed up or down depending on your outfit. BI's William Edwards tried them out and found them "absolutely worth the money" but only "if you're the type of person who is OK with dropping a rent payment on some sneakers."   HOW YOU HUSTLE Every week, we like to check in on what you're building. Here's our spotlight on a Hustle reader working on something big.   Who: Marcus Ereira What: Lucky Egg The elevator pitch: "Lucky Egg creates wildly fun party games that break the ice and bring people together." Origin story: "I started working with my co-founder when we were 17 — this is now our third business together. Lucky Egg wasn't a lightbulb moment, but the result of years of learnings from running our previous company, Central 23."   The problem they're solving: "We spotted a gap in the market for fun games that were as entertaining to watch as they were to play." One truly innovative thing you're doing: "We're a self-funded games studio launching dozens of new titles a year. With a lean marketing budget, our products have spoken for themselves — generating 500m+ organic views and outperforming much bigger competitors." Entrepreneurship advice that's BS: "That you have to take big risks. You don't need to take on crazy debt or raise millions to build something meaningful. We've always tested ideas on tight budgets, and that constraint has forced us to be more creative, scrappier, and ultimately more effective." What are you working on? Tell us here. AROUND THE WEB 📅  On this day: In 1929, the stock market crashed, kicking off the Great Depression. ✉️  Game: Deliver messages. 🗞️  Newsletter: Subscribe to Signal // Noise for weekly insights on scaling, leadership, and growth from The Hustle's former CEO. 🚆  That's cool: A "love letter" to NYC's subway using MTA data. 🐱  Aww: Don't go. QUOTE OF NOTE Truly scrappy: Dagobert Renouf, a software engineer turned startup founder, posted in July that he was looking for tech companies to sponsor his wedding in exchange for having their logos sewn onto his tux. Well, as he wrote in an X update this week… he did it.  On the couple's big day, patches of 26 tech companies' logos were front and center on Renouf's jacket — as well as in all of the photos they'll get to cherish for the rest of their lives.  But don't judge him too hard: According to a new survey, six in 10 Americans would let a brand sponsor their wedding, too.   SHOWER THOUGHT Younger generations will never get to appreciate the fun of discovering hidden menus, games, and other bonus content DVDs had.  SOURCE Today's email was brought to you by Juliet Bennett Rylah, Sara Friedman, Singdhi Sokpo, and Jay Fuchs. Editing by: Ben "Sure plays a mean pinball" Berkley.   Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here. Working on something big? We've got a whole library of business-building resources for you. Subscribe to our other newsletters Stay up-to-date on AI: Mindstream  |  Expert insights: Masters in Marketing  |  Sell better: The Science of Scaling Follow The Hustle on YouTube, LinkedIn, and Instagram. HubSpot Media, 2 Canal Park, Cambridge, MA, 02141, USA, +1 888.482.7768 Never want to hear from us again? Break our hearts and Unsubscribe.