The rules of starting a business just changed. Again.

Two years ago, you needed capital, connections, or credentials. Now you need a laptop, a half-decent idea, and one email address.

That's the good news.

The bad news? Everyone figured this out at the same time – and now the people who got in early are charging you $497 to tell you what they learned for free.

The Side Scoop exists because of one question that kept bugging me:

Is this actually a great opportunity – or are we just paying someone else to tell us it is?

Every issue, we find out.

It already has 8 million users. Here's what one of them built in 3 days.

Lovable is a browser-based AI app builder. Describe what you want in plain English and it generates a fully functioning, deployable web app. No code, no design experience, no developer. Just a clear idea and a well-written prompt.

One of those 8 million users is Yannis.

He needed to send a physical document while working remotely, nowhere near a post office. No obvious solution existed so he built one.

Three days. £35. PrintPigeon was live.

The concept: send a physical document as easily as an email. Upload, address, dispatch.

Before scaling, Yannis spent £100 on ads. Not to sell. To listen. He put it in front of real people and watched what happened, there was uptake! 🎉

Then came the surprise. He had assumed his customer was UK based. Almost 50% of early interest came from expat communities living internationally, people with a real, recurring need to send documents across borders.

He had a choice to either ignore it or follow it. PrintPigeon shifted from a local fix to a global system.

The product followed the customer. Not the other way around.

"Okay but how do I actually build something?"

I hear you.

Another success story, another founder who makes it sound effortless in hindsight. If you're as deep in the side hustle algorithm as I am, someone has already told you today that you could be making £10k a month. Probably twice.

So let's cut through it. I’ll test it for you.

Yannis's story is useful – but only if we extract the mechanics behind it, not just the inspiration. And with Lovable specifically, the place everything starts and often where everything falls apart, is the prompt.

You get a limited number of credits per day. Burn them on vague instructions and you'll spend more time correcting than creating. Get the prompt right first time and you could have something live before lunch.

Here's the 5-step framework I built from testing it myself.

Step 1: Set the objective. Lovable needs to know exactly what it's building. Open with a clear, single-sentence brief.

Step 2: Give it the bare bones. Context is everything. Lovable doesn't know you yet.

Step 3: Describe your design. Left to its own devices, Lovable defaults to generic. Direct it.

Step 4: Bring your assets. A page with no personality is a page people leave. Upload your images and tell it how to use them.

Step 5: Define the CTA. Every page needs one job. Be direct.

DEBUNK

Welcome to the debunk, where every edition we get real.

So let's see if your animated fruit, Love Island AI YouTube channel becomes the next Annoying Orange.

(If that reference means nothing to you, that is the Gen Z in me. Google it.)

YouTube is actively flagging mass-produced AI content, stripping monetisation and slapping disclosure labels on anything synthetic. There is no moat, no loyalty, no brand.

A competitor can duplicate your entire channel in four minutes with the same tool you used.

One policy update and the whole thing goes to zero.

Verdict: Avoid.

Build something with your face on it.

Quick ones this week, all free or low cost, all worth bookmarking.

Tools I’ll be using:

Thank you for reading the first edition of The Side Scoop.

I am Alicia. I have always had a side hustle and most of them failed first. Launched too early, priced it wrong, built something nobody asked for. The side hustle journey is messy and non-linear, and nobody tells you that part.

But that is exactly why we are here. The digital world moves fast and The Side Scoop is my way of keeping up, for both of us.

Every edition, we get 1% sharper. A better tool, a smarter approach, one less mistake to make.

You are now part of something early. And if there is one thing I have learned, that is exactly where you want to be.

See you next time! 🤍

The Side Scoop