How long is one round of SideHustle?

Q: How long is one round of SideHustle?

One round of SideHustle in the 90-minute Labs format is roughly 20 minutes. The full session runs 4 rounds: brainstorm, pitch, score, and rotate, with introductions and a wrap-up around the rounds.

The story

Designing round length in a live format is a Goldilocks problem. Too short and teams don't have time to actually generate an idea. Too long and the room dies. The 20-minute round emerged from refining the SideHustle Labs format. Inside that 20 minutes, teams of 4 to 5 students go through a structured loop: brainstorm a pitch off a fresh prompt, deliver it on the clock, get scored on Funny + Fundable, and rotate to a new team or new role for the next round. Teachers and educators have independently used the free SideHustle game in their classrooms with the same cadence. The total session lands at 90 minutes including intro, transitions, and a brief wrap. The pacing is deliberate. By round 3, teams stop overthinking. By round 4, the best pitches show up because there's no time left to be precious.

What it means

The format is the lesson. Short rounds train fast iteration. Fixed cadence trains discipline. Rotating teammates trains adaptability. Funny + Fundable trains range. A student who has played 4 rounds of SideHustle has done more pitching reps in 90 minutes than most adults do in a year. For the full primer on the show, see what is SideHustle LIVE: the complete guide.

Try it

• Play free at playsidehustle.com
• See us live: Sept 25 at Pershing Hall in Austin. luma.com/playsidehustle
• Email team@playsidehustle.com