This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Welcome to Side Hustle School and welcome to a brand new month. April 1st here, this is no joke. Episode 2282, going strong into a new month. Excited to bring you along with me. Thanks for being out there.
Today, we're gonna hear from a caller who is looking to dive into the world of technology and fashion. Her idea specifically is to start an AI powered personal shopping and styling service. Man, don't you love how the times have changed. When I first started Side Hustle School, I'm not sure I even knew what AI was. Or if I did, it was one of those like super sci-fi kind of concepts.
Never thought it would necessarily impact our world here. But of course, everybody's talking about AI these days. So Sarah is eager to get the ball rolling, but is also feeling a bit overwhelmed by the prospect of starting this business. So, perfect target market for us here on the podcast because I love helping people like Sarah turn their passion into successful ventures. If you're trying to start a Sada Soul for the first time or take your idea, take your growing Sada Soul and to turn it into more of a small business, that's what we're all about here.
So let's see if we can offer some advice to help Sarah and maybe you as well by proxy, at least somebody else out there. In this case, to make the personal shopping and styling service a success. So AI powered personal shopping service, that's the idea for today. It's coming up in just 30 seconds. [Music]
Hi, my name is Sarah and I'm calling from Los Angeles.
I've always been passionate about fashion and I love helping my friends pick out outfits. I've been following the advancements in AI technology also. And I believe that AI powered personal shopping and styling services have the potential to be a game changer in the fashion industry. As a consumer, I've tried some of these services and I've been impressed with how well the AI technology can recommend outfits based on my personal style and preferences. I've been thinking about starting my own AI powered personal shopping and styling service, but I'm not sure where to begin.
I have a background in fashion and I'm familiar with the fashion industry, but I've never started a business before. Can you share some tips on how to get started and make it a success? I would love to hear your thoughts and advice on this idea. Thank you. [Music]
Well, AI is certainly changing so many things these days.
I actually think the most interesting uses of AI are gonna be ideas like Sarah's. Not just all the stuff that you've probably seen about, here's how college students are using chat GPT for their essays, or here's how you can use AI to make cool art or write headlines when you're copywriting. All that stuff I think is the low level use of AI and the really cool stuff is gonna be what Sarah's thinking of and not just really cool, but also profitable. So for this idea, as cool as it sounds, so now let's come back to Earth a bit because I do always gonna go back to the yes and rule of improv, where you're always like, okay, yes, but then what, right? Yes, and here's what comes next.
And in the side hustle book, I think I had a whole chapter or two about describing the process of writing out each step of the actual development cycle. So you've got a concept here, which is strong and interesting. Now let's get into the nitty gritty of it. And this is really where the success comes from, not just having a cool idea, but really understanding, here's how this idea is going to be developed, here's who it's for, here's how I'm going to execute it, here's how people are gonna pay for this. So there's a lot to be done here.
Some questions you wanna answer, is it a personalized service? Is it a mass market service? Those are very different approaches. Is it a subscription? Is it an app?
There could be various ways of charging for this as well as different ways that people access the information. So again, very different ideas with different development cycles. I guess what I'm coming to is like as much fun as it would be to say, like, I've got this business, it's AI powered styling and shopping, there's much more to be done to turn it into an actual business. And that's where the work is. So I would devote a lot of time to thinking about that and outlining it.
And wherever you run into obstacles, study that particular question, you know, should I make this an app or not? Well, you can kind of go down, you know, a long process to figure that out. You know, should it be a subscription? Who is it for and so on? So there's a lot of research that's gonna have to take place here, but don't let that stop you.
Because I do think like the future is arriving soon at our doorstep, and the people who figure this out are gonna be the winners. So I am a fan of Sarah's idea. It's just gonna be a lot of work, but hopefully the hard work doesn't scare her off. And listeners, hope you're not scared off as well. If you've got a question, sidehustleschool.com/questions.
Let me know what you're thinking about, what you're working on, what's going well and what's not. We'll feature them each week along with updates from other listeners as they launch their projects. Thank you for being out there. Take care of yourself. This is not an AI generated voice.
It's really me. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
- From the Onward Project.
