Your favorite stories of 2019

In 2019, The Hustle sent out 1k+ news briefs in our Daily newsletter, 52 original stories in our Sunday edition, and 70+ Trends reports. 

Here were the ones that y’all liked most:

Best of our 2019 Daily coverage

• The bitter truth behind the Nutella economy 
  • The $1.8B Turkish hazelnut industry produces 70% of the world’s hazelnuts and powers the Nutella-conomy. But human rights records at hazelnut farms are not so sweet.
• Inside the secret world of price tag codes 
  • What if we told you that the reason Office Depot prices its staplers at $10.03 — instead of an even $10 — is NOT just to mess with your head?
• Two guys with a flatbed truck have become dockless scooters’ worst nightmare 
  • For most people, abandoned scooters littering the streets were a nuisance. For 2 guys named John and Dan, they were a golden opportunity.
• Kentucky bourbon towns are ready to become the Napa of American whiskey 
  • The $3.3B bourbon biz has inspired thirsty investors to open nearly 2 dozen new distilleries across Kentucky’s bourbon belt since 2014.
• A Genius plan used Morse code to catch Google ‘red-handed’ 
  • When, the lyrics website Genius suspected that Google was ripping off its content, it hatched a plan straight out of the 1830s to catch Google red-handed.

Best of our 2019 Sunday stories

• 5-star phonies: Inside the fake Amazon review complex 
  • We spent 2 weeks in the underbelly of Amazon’s fake review economy tracing how (and why) the system is gamed.
• The restaurant owner who asked for 1-star Yelp reviews 
  • The story of a small business owner who retaliated against the internet’s largest restaurant review site.
• The 2019 Drunk Shopping Census 
  • Who shops drunk? How much do they spend? What do they buy? To find answers, we ran a survey of more than 2k alcohol-consuming adults.
• How Costco gained a cult following — by breaking every rule of retail 
  • Costco found immense success by prioritizing the interests of its customers and employees over those of its shareholders.
• Shark Tank deep dive: A data analysis of all 10 seasons 
  • What does the average Shark Tank deal look like? It depends on what you’re pitching (and who you are).

Best of our 2019 Trends stories

• Online Plant Sales are Set to Bloom 
  • Young consumers are altering a $48B brick-and-mortar business through direct-to-consumer houseplant sales.
• The Big Business of Expired Pharmaceutical Patents 
  • The story behind how Hims went from $7m funding round to $1.1B valuation in under 2 years, through DTC pharma, expired patents, and targeted SEO.
• Boring Trade Show Businesses Are Minting Billions. Here’s How. 
  • An in-depth look at 3 business trade shows that are making hundreds of millions of dollars in annual profit, with higher operating margins than Atlassian, Walmart, P&G, and Salesforce.
• Cashing in on Canvas 
  • The secondary market for limited-release sneakers is minting money for teenage sneakerheads and VCs alike.
• How One Company Created a Niche Market for Young People Who Want Fancy Bibles 
  • Alabaster is updating the centuries-old religious text for the Instagram age, selling out 10k copies. Hundreds of other books are ready for their own hip makeovers, including works by Mark Twain, H.G. Wells, Edith Wharton going public in 2020.