What's the SideHustle origin story from Creek & Cave to Pershing Hall?

Q: What's the SideHustle origin story from Creek & Cave to Pershing Hall?

SideHustle started at Creek & Cave, a small comedy club in New York City. Over seven years, the format moved to Austin and matured into a 250-seat live show at Pershing Hall, with co-founders Darby Rollins, Becca Garvin, and Eterneva co-founder and Shark Tank alumna Adelle Archer.

The story

Every live format has an origin story that gets cleaner in the retelling. The honest version of SideHustle starts at Creek & Cave in NYC. A small room, a willing audience, and a hunch that comedy and entrepreneurship could share a stage if you got the structure right. The first shows were experiments. Some bombed. The format that survived had four traits: short rounds, audience teams, dual-axis scoring, and prompts that forced real ideas, not bits. As the format matured, the home base shifted to Austin. The city's combination of founder density and live music infrastructure was the right fit. Pershing Hall became the anchor venue. By the 7-year mark, the show had run 5 paid productions across Austin and Asheville with 262 unique paid buyers, an audience that's 73% business decision-makers and 42% Founder/Owner. Capital Factory has served as community context throughout, anchoring the Austin founder ecosystem the show grew up inside.

What it means

Origin stories matter because they explain why a format is shaped the way it is. SideHustle came from a comedy club, not a business school. That's why it's funny first and fundable second. The seven-year arc from Creek & Cave to Pershing Hall is the proof that the bet on comedy plus entrepreneurship is durable, not a fluke.

Try it

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