Can you play SideHustle over Zoom with a remote team?

Q: Can you play SideHustle over Zoom with a remote team?

Yes. SideHustle adapts to Zoom by running breakout rooms as teams. The same 4-round structure works: brainstorm, pitch, score, rotate. Funny + Fundable scoring stays the same. The host runs the central room and pulls teams back to pitch.

The story

The pandemic forced a generation of teams to figure out what works on Zoom and what doesn't. Most virtual team-building activities fall into one of two failure modes. Either they require so much explaining that the energy is dead before round one, or they're so passive that nobody is really doing anything. SideHustle's format avoids both because the mechanic is built around fast, structured turns. A team gets a prompt, has a few minutes to brainstorm in a Zoom breakout, and then comes back to the main room to deliver the pitch on the clock. The host runs scoring and time. Teams rotate by reshuffling breakouts between rounds. The constraints of video actually help in some ways. There's no side conversation, the timer is more visible, and shy team members tend to participate more when the platform forces them to.

What it means

Remote teams need formats that respect the medium. SideHustle was originally a live format but the underlying loop is platform-agnostic. The same things that make it work in a classroom or theater make it work on Zoom: short turns, clear scoring, and rotation. For distributed teams looking for something better than another quiz night, the format ports cleanly.

Try it

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