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 running the SideHustle Labs format across multiple universities including Mars Hill, Univ. of Oklahoma, Penn State, Xavier, and Univ. of Wisconsin. 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. 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.

Try it

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