SS

Steph Smith

Steph Smith is the Head of Trends at The Hustle and a technical creator who builds and writes for the indie hacker community.

Remote work benefits HIPAA compliance Solopreneurship Insider trading signals Gen Z creative trends FSA store business opportunities Corporate swag market innovation The role of a Chief Automation Officer Productivity and time management frameworks Patent filing and expiry tracking Sports industry growth data Sci-fi invention databases Global demographic megatrends Air quality and HVAC monitoring Hearing loss and hearing aid deregulation FAA drone and EVTOL regulation shifts Labor shortages in specialized trades The business of psychedelics Biomimicry in product design The A-B-Z framework MSCHF's creative stunts Gamified recruitment strategies Cicada 3301 and secret puzzles Solo-founder business models profitable niche websites SEO and keyword research public domain IP 3D printing business opportunities Market growth projections for 3D printing Community building through Trends.co Fractional Real Estate Pay Transparency Regulation Jobs of the Future Direct-to-Consumer Hearing Aids Lupini Beans Curated Advent Calendars A/B testing for digitized restaurant menus NIL marketing for college athletes The business of anti-cheat software High-converting personal portfolios Viral products for the breakup market The Silver Tsunami and longevity Menopause and assisted living business opportunities Continuous Glucose Monitors (CGMs)Posture correction and niche sports trends Personal investments and Accutane experience Worst investments in networking events and bubble tea Career transitions and professional growth Sebastian Thrun and self-driving technology Fiona Oakes and marathon running

11

Episodes

10h 27m

Total Time

Episodes with Steph

The 2025 Milly Awards!

#829Dec 18, 2025

The 2025 Milly Awards!

Get Steph's free Digits Database with 100+ generation-defining stats: https://clickhubspot.com/stm Episode 776: Sam Parr ( ⁠https://x.com/theSamParr⁠ ) and Shaan Puri ( ⁠https://x.com/ShaanVP⁠ ) are joined by Steph Smith ( https://x.com/stephsmithio ) in this year’s LIVE Milly Awards. — Show Notes: (0:00) Welcome to the 2025 Milly Awards (1:21) Best Investment of the Year (11:09) Worst Investment of the Year (20:30) Biggest Personal L (29:18) Billy of the Year (39:10) Coolest Moment of the Year (52:49) Frame-Breaking Person / Favorite Guest (1:25:38) Meme of the Year — Check Out Shaan's Stuff: • Shaan's weekly email - https://www.shaanpuri.com • Visit https://www.somewhere.com/mfm to hire worldwide talent like Shaan and get $500 off for being an MFM listener. Hire developers, assistants, marketing pros, sales teams and more for 80% less than US equivalents. • Mercury - Need a bank for your company? Go check out Mercury (mercury.com). Shaan uses it for all of his companies! Mercury is a financial technology company, not an FDIC-insured bank. Banking services provided by Choice Financial Group, Column, N.A., and Evolve Bank & Trust, Members FDIC — Check Out Sam's Stuff: • Hampton - https://www.joinhampton.com/ • Ideation Bootcamp - https://www.ideationbootcamp.co/ • Copy That - https://copythat.com • Hampton Wealth Survey - https://joinhampton.com/wealth • Sam’s List - http://samslist.co/ My First Million is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by HubSpot Media // Production by Arie Desormeaux // Editing by Ezra Bakker Trupiano //

5 under-the-radar trends (+ our business ideas)

#753Apr 24, 2025

5 under-the-radar trends (+ our business ideas)

Want to spot trends before they explode? Get the guide here: https://clickhubspot.com/wdv Episode 700: Sam Parr ( https://x.com/theSamParr ) talks to Steph Smith ( https://x.com/stephsmithio ) about business trends that are currently untapped and ripe for opportunity to build businesses around. Use code "MFM" to get access to Steph's Internet Pipes - http://internetpipes.com/ — Show Notes: (0:00) Trend 1: Hearing Loss (11:33) Trend 2: eVTOL (17:42) Trend 3: Psychedelics (24:26) Trend 4: New Job Skills (42:50) Trend5: Nature technology — Links: https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/new-rule-faa-ready-air-travel-future https://psychedelicalpha.com/data/psychedelic-laws https://x.com/stephsmithio/status/1877418726485799283 https://www.amazon.com/Immense-World-Animal-Senses-Reveal/dp/0593133234 https://asknature.org/ https://internetpipes.com/ https://mischiefusa.com/ https://clickhubspot.com/wdv — Check Out Shaan's Stuff: • Shaan's weekly email - https://www.shaanpuri.com • Visit https://www.somewhere.com/mfm to hire worldwide talent like Shaan and get $500 off for being an MFM listener. Hire developers, assistants, marketing pros, sales teams and more for 80% less than US equivalents. • Mercury - Need a bank for your company? Go check out Mercury (mercury.com). Shaan uses it for all of his companies! Mercury is a financial technology company, not an FDIC-insured bank. Banking services provided by Choice Financial Group, Column, N.A., and Evolve Bank & Trust, Members FDIC — Check Out Sam's Stuff: • Hampton - https://www.joinhampton.com/ • Ideation Bootcamp - https://www.ideationbootcamp.co/ • Copy That - https://copythat.com • Hampton Wealth Survey - https://joinhampton.com/wealth • Sam’s List - http://samslist.co/ My First Million is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by HubSpot Media // Production by Arie Desormeaux // Editing by Ezra Bakker Trupiano

Steph Smith: “This opportunity is totally overlooked”

#686Sep 30, 2024

Steph Smith: “This opportunity is totally overlooked”

Episode 633: Sam Parr ( https://x.com/theSamParr ) talks to Steph Smith ( https://x.com/stephsmithio ) about the mega trend called the Silver Tsunami. — Show Notes: (0:00) Silver tsunami (7:10) Perimenopause = 6k new customers a day (10:57) One chart opportunity: Nursing homes and assisted living (18:28) Why entrepreneurs are sleeping on this space (20:11) Opportunity: Measuring and tracking (27:36) Idea: Stava for CGMs (39:41) Idea: Solutions for nerd neck (44:19) Idea: Niche paddle sports leagues (56:18) The smile curve — Links: • Our World In Data - https://ourworldindata.org/ • The Longevity Imperative - https://tinyurl.com/mr2m46vk • Bonafide Health - https://hellobonafide.com/ • Gennev - https://www.gennev.com/ • All Akiyas - https://www.allakiyas.com/ • Numlock News - https://www.numlock.com/ • Outlive - https://tinyurl.com/ybewhrw4 • Levels - https://www.levels.com/ • Dexcom - https://www.dexcom.com/ • Stelo - https://www.stelo.com/ • Q Bio - https://www.q.bio/ • Internet Pipes - http://internetpipes.com/ — Check Out Sam's Stuff: • Hampton - https://www.joinhampton.com/ • Ideation Bootcamp - https://www.ideationbootcamp.co/ • Copy That - https://copythat.com • Hampton Wealth Survey - https://joinhampton.com/wealth • Sam’s List - http://samslist.co/ — Check Out Shaan's Stuff: Need to hire? You should use the same service Shaan uses to hire developers, designers, & Virtual Assistants → it’s called Shepherd (tell ‘em Shaan sent you): https://bit.ly/SupportShepherd My First Million is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by The HubSpot Podcast Network // Production by Arie Desormeaux // Editing by Ezra Bakker Trupiano

5 Internet Goldmines To Spot The Next $1B Trend | Steph Smith

#580Dec 11, 2023

5 Internet Goldmines To Spot The Next $1B Trend | Steph Smith

Episode 529: Shaan Puri (https://twitter.com/ShaanVP) and Sam Parr (https://twitter.com/theSamParr) talk to Steph Smith about the 5 Internet goldmines she uses to spot $1b dollar trends before anyone else. No more small boy spreadsheets, build your business on the free HubSpot CRM: https://mfmpod.link/hrd — Show Notes: (0:00) Intro (1:30) Leveraging expiring patents (9:00) One chart sports (14:00) Mining Sci-Fi for IRL ideas (20:00) Spotting the mega trends (36:30) Building off of adjacent waves (47:30) Workshopping Steph's upcoming launch strategy — Links: • Internet Pipes - https://internetpipes.com/ • Blue Chew - https://bluechew.com/ • Sci-Fi Idea Bank - https://tinyurl.com/e3w5nfrd • Fastest growing sports (based on SFIA data) - https://recreateyou.com/blog/post/the-25-fastest-growing-sports-in-America • Newsletter on patent filings: https://patentdrop.substack.com/ • Patent expiry tracker: https://patentsexpiringtoday.com/ • Entering the 2024 public domain: https://publicdomainreview.org/features/entering-the-public-domain/2024/ • Patrick Collison's pollution page: https://patrickcollison.com/pollution • Our World in Data air pollution home base: https://ourworldindata.org/air-pollution • Varda - https://www.varda.com/ • Gadget Flow - https://thegadgetflow.com/ • Dyson Zone - https://www.dyson.com/headphones/zone • Berkey Water Filter - https://www.usaberkeyfilters.com/ — Check Out Shaan's Stuff: • Try Shepherd Out - https://www.supportshepherd.com/ • Free 2024 Goal-Setting Session - https://planfor2024.com/ • Shaan's Personal Assistant System - http://shaanpuri.com/remoteassistant • Power Writing Course - https://maven.com/generalist/writing • Small Boy Newsletter - https://smallboy.co/ • Daily Newsletter - https://www.shaanpuri.com/ Check Out Sam's Stuff: • Hampton - https://www.joinhampton.com/ • Ideation Bootcamp - https://www.ideationbootcamp.co/ • Copy That - https://copythat.com/ Past guests on My First Million include Rob Dyrdek, Hasan Minhaj, Balaji Srinivasan, Jake Paul, Dr. Andrew Huberman, Gary Vee, Lance Armstrong, Sophia Amoruso, Ariel Helwani, Ramit Sethi, Stanley Druckenmiller, Peter Diamandis, Dharmesh Shah, Brian Halligan, Marc Lore, Jason Calacanis, Andrew Wilkinson, Julian Shapiro, Kat Cole, Codie Sanchez, Nader Al-Naji, Steph Smith, Trung Phan, Nick Huber, Anthony Pompliano, Ben Askren, Ramon Van Meer, Brianne Kimmel, Andrew Gazdecki, Scott Belsky, Moiz Ali, Dan Held, Elaine Zelby, Michael Saylor, Ryan Begelman, Jack Butcher, Reed Duchscher, Tai Lopez, Harley Finkelstein, Alexa von Tobel, Noah Kagan, Nick Bare, Greg Isenberg, James Altucher, Randy Hetrick and more. — Other episodes you might enjoy: • #224 Rob Dyrdek - How Tracking Every Second of His Life Took Rob Drydek from 0 to $405M in Exits • #209 Gary Vaynerchuk - Why NFTS Are the Future • #178 Balaji Srinivasan - Balaji on How to Fix the Media, Cloud Cities & Crypto • #169 - How One Man Started 5, Billion Dollar Companies, Dan Gilbert's Empire, & Talking With Warren Buffett • #218 - Why You Should Take a Think Week Like Bill Gates • Dave Portnoy vs The World, Extreme Body Monitoring, The Future of Apparel Retail, "How Much is Anthony Pompliano Worth?", and More • How Mr Beast Got 100M Views in Less Than 4 Days, The $25M Chrome Extension, and More

#507May 25, 2023

Steph Smith: Jobs of the Future, Fractional Real Estate, Mouth…

Episode 459: Shaan Puri (@ShaanVP) and Sam Parr (@TheSamParr) talk with a16z podcast host and author, Steph Smith (@stephsmithio) about trends in business, her new list - jobs of the future and so much more. Want to see more MFM? Subscribe to the MFM YouTube channel here. Check Out Sam's Stuff: * Hampton * Ideation Bootcamp * Copy That Check Out Shaan's Stuff: * Power Writing Course * Daily Newsletter ----- Links: * Steph Smith * a16z podcast * How To Be Great? Steph Smith blogpost * Immersive Temple Instagram * Rage Rooms Google Trends * Raleigh Williams Twitter * Salary Transparent Street * The Five Dysfunctions of a Team * Eden Data * Hostage Tape * Lupini Beans Google Trends * Cool advent calendars * Do you love MFM and want to see Sam and Shaan's smiling faces? Subscribe to our Youtube channel. ------ Show Notes: (00:40) - Shaan and Sam's disclaimers (04:25) - Background on Steph Smith (11:40) - Is a16z smarter than anywhere else you have worked? (13:35) - Fractional real estate (20:50) - Pay Transparency (24:55) - OTC Hearing Aids (29:15) - Steph's List: Jobs of the Future (54:30) - Mouth Tape (56:15) - Lupini Beans (59:30) - Advent Calendars ------ Past guests on My First Million include Rob Dyrdek, Hasan Minhaj, Balaji Srinivasan, Jake Paul, Dr. Andrew Huberman, Gary Vee, Lance Armstrong, Sophia Amoruso, Ariel Helwani, Ramit Sethi, Stanley Druckenmiller, Peter Diamandis, Dharmesh Shah, Brian Halligan, Marc Lore, Jason Calacanis, Andrew Wilkinson, Julian Shapiro, Kat Cole, Codie Sanchez, Nader Al-Naji, Steph Smith, Trung Phan, Nick Huber, Anthony Pompliano, Ben Askren, Ramon Van Meer, Brianne Kimmel, Andrew Gazdecki, Scott Belsky, Moiz Ali, Dan Held, Elaine Zelby, Michael Saylor, Ryan Begelman, Jack Butcher, Reed Duchscher, Tai Lopez, Harley Finkelstein, Alexa von Tobel, Noah Kagan, Nick Bare, Greg Isenberg, James Altucher, Randy Hetrick and more. ----- Additional episodes you might enjoy: • #224 Rob Dyrdek - How Tracking Every Second of His Life Took Rob Drydek from 0 to $405M in Exits • #209 Gary Vaynerchuk - Why NFTS Are the Future • #178 Balaji Srinivasan - Balaji on How to Fix the Media, Cloud Cities & Crypto * #169 - How One Man Started 5, Billion Dollar Companies, Dan Gilbert's Empire, & Talking With Warren Buffett • #218 - Why You Should Take a Think Week Like Bill Gates • Dave Portnoy vs The World, Extreme Body Monitoring, The Future of Apparel Retail, "How Much is Anthony Pompliano Worth?", and More • How Mr Beast Got 100M Views in Less Than 4 Days, The $25M Chrome Extension, and More

Steph Smith On Anti-Cheat Businesses, Ethical Hackers, and 5 Bus…

#420Oct 13, 2022

Steph Smith On Anti-Cheat Businesses, Ethical Hackers, and 5 Bus…

Episode 374: In this episode Shaan Puri (@ShaanVP) joins Steph Smith (@stephsmithio), host of the a16z podcast, to talk about anti-cheat businesses, ethical hacking, and inflections that create companies. ----- Links: * Steph Smith * a16z podcast * Sh*t You Don't Learn In School podcast * r/contagiouslaughter * Fake data to catch cheaters tweet * Wiz * Interactive resume Robby Leonardi * Bruno Simon * Neal.Fun * Electric Chopsticks tweet * air up * Meet the People Who Design Restaurant Menus * Do you love MFM and want to see Sam and Shaan's smiling faces? Subscribe to our Youtube channel. * Want more insights like MFM? Check out Shaan's newsletter. ------ Show Notes: (01:50) - Podcasting (09:15) - Cheating Scandal (28:20) - Ethical hacking (31:00) - Internet portfolio (42:25) - Salty bowls and smelly water (44:50) - Idea: A/B Testing Menus (51:15) - Inflections that create businesses (01:03:40) - Breakup Businesses ----- Past guests on My First Million include Rob Dyrdek, Hasan Minhaj, Balaji Srinivasan, Jake Paul, Dr. Andrew Huberman, Gary Vee, Lance Armstrong, Sophia Amoruso, Ariel Helwani, Ramit Sethi, Stanley Druckenmiller, Peter Diamandis, Dharmesh Shah, Brian Halligan, Marc Lore, Jason Calacanis, Andrew Wilkinson, Julian Shapiro, Kat Cole, Codie Sanchez, Nader Al-Naji, Steph Smith, Trung Phan, Nick Huber, Anthony Pompliano, Ben Askren, Ramon Van Meer, Brianne Kimmel, Andrew Gazdecki, Scott Belsky, Moiz Ali, Dan Held, Elaine Zelby, Michael Saylor, Ryan Begelman, Jack Butcher, Reed Duchscher, Tai Lopez, Harley Finkelstein, Alexa von Tobel, Noah Kagan, Nick Bare, Greg Isenberg, James Altucher, Randy Hetrick and more. ----- Additional episodes you might enjoy: • #224 Rob Dyrdek - How Tracking Every Second of His Life Took Rob Drydek from 0 to $405M in Exits • #209 Gary Vaynerchuk - Why NFTS Are the Future • #178 Balaji Srinivasan - Balaji on How to Fix the Media, Cloud Cities & Crypto * #169 - How One Man Started 5, Billion Dollar Companies, Dan Gilbert's Empire, & Talking With Warren Buffett • #218 - Why You Should Take a Think Week Like Bill Gates • Dave Portnoy vs The World, Extreme Body Monitoring, The Future of Apparel Retail, "How Much is Anthony Pompliano Worth?", and More • How Mr Beast Got 100M Views in Less Than 4 Days, The $25M Chrome Extension, and More

#333Mar 11, 2022

Best of This Week: March 11th

Some of the best moments from this week of My First Million. ----- * Do you love MFM and want to see Sam and Shaan's smiling faces? Subscribe to our Youtube channel. * Want more insights like MFM? Check out Shaan's newsletter. ----- Show Notes: (01:40) - The ABZ framework and getting started (04:30) - Very long distance girlfriend (12:15) - Guerilla recruiting tactics ----- Past guests on My First Million include Rob Dyrdek, Hasan Minhaj, Balaji Srinivasan, Jake Paul, Dr. Andrew Huberman, Gary Vee, Lance Armstrong, Sophia Amoruso, Ariel Helwani, Ramit Sethi, Stanley Druckenmiller, Peter Diamandis, Dharmesh Shah, Brian Halligan, Marc Lore, Jason Calacanis, Andrew Wilkinson, Julian Shapiro, Kat Cole, Codie Sanchez, Nader Al-Naji, Steph Smith, Trung Phan, Nick Huber, Anthony Pompliano, Ben Askren, Ramon Van Meer, Brianne Kimmel, Andrew Gazdecki, Scott Belsky, Moiz Ali, Dan Held, Elaine Zelby, Michael Saylor, Ryan Begelman, Jack Butcher, Reed Duchscher, Tai Lopez, Harley Finkelstein, Alexa von Tobel, Noah Kagan, Nick Bare, Greg Isenberg, James Altucher, Randy Hetrick and more. ----- Additional episodes you might enjoy: • #224 Rob Dyrdek - How Tracking Every Second of His Life Took Rob Drydek from 0 to $405M in Exits • #209 Gary Vaynerchuk - Why NFTS Are the Future • #178 Balaji Srinivasan - Balaji on How to Fix the Media, Cloud Cities & Crypto #169 - How One Man Started 5, Billion Dollar Companies, Dan Gilbert's Empire, & Talking With Warren Buffett • #218 - Why You Should Take a Think Week Like Bill Gates • Dave Portnoy vs The World, Extreme Body Monitoring, The Future of Apparel Retail, "How Much is Anthony Pompliano Worth?", and More • How Mr Beast Got 100M Views in Less Than 4 Days, The $25M Chrome Extension, and More

#295Dec 23, 2021

Companies of One that Make Millions with Steph Smith

Sam Parr (@theSamParr) sits down with Steph Smith (@StephSmithio), indie creator and host of the "Sh*t You Didn't Learn in School" podcast, to talk about companies with only one employee that are making millions and what we can learn from them. _____ * Do you love MFM and want to see Sam and Shaan's smiling faces? Subscribe to our Youtube channel. * Would you like to participate in our clips contest? Earn up to $10k by remixing My First Million episodes. To learn more, go to mfmpod.com/clips. * Want more insights like MFM? Check out Shaan's newsletter. _____ Show Notes: (00:50) - How Steph plans to become a billionaire (04:30) - BuiltWith.com, Levels.io, and Ugmonk. (08:00) - Carrd. About.me. Unfold. Media kits. (11:30) - NextEpisode.net (18:30) - The MotoMeter (22:15) - HeadLime (26:00) - Sites that have a surprising amount of traffic - GlitchnDealz.com, FoodTimeline.org (40:30) - "Your listicle is my opportunity" (45:15) - Magnus Carlsen and chess

#244Aug 11, 2021

#208 with Steph Smith - Why You Need a Chief Automation Officer

In this episode Shaan (@ShaanVP) is joined by Steph Smith (@stephsmithio) for an idea packed episode. They start off talking about opportunities around spending your FSA dollars and on swag packs. They transition to talk about the role of automation at companies and Steph shares how she would go about automating repetitive parts of her role. The end the episode talking about Steph's new course, approaches to building a company, and Fidelity allowing trading accounts for teenagers. --------- * Want Steph's course? You can find it at https://doingtimeright.com * Want to be featured in a future episode? Drop your question/comment/criticism/love here: https://www.mfmpod.com/p/hotline/ * Support the pod by spreading the word, become a referrer here: https://refer.fm/million * Have you joined our private Facebook group yet? Go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/ourfirstmillion and join thousands of other entrepreneurs and founders scheming up ideas. --------- Show notes: * (1:06) Intro * (2:20) Ideas around spending your FSA dollars * (15:58) Ideas around giving out awesome swag * (21:52) The role of chief automation officer * (27:37) Building a company around automation * (35:03) Giving away free alcohol as marketing * (41:22) How Steph invests her time & money * (43:50) Steph's new course - doingtimeright.com * (47:44) Approaches to building a company * (51:39) Fidelity allowing teenagers on the platform * (56:52) How to find Steph online

#217Jun 20, 2021

MFM Mini - Stop Living Hour-to-Hour

Do you like these mini episodes? Tweet your feedback to Shaan (@ShaanVP) & get more short stories like this on his newsletter www.shaanpuri.com. --------- * Want to be featured in a future episode? Drop your question/comment/criticism/love here: https://www.mfmpod.com/p/hotline/ * Support the pod by spreading the word, become a referrer here: https://refer.fm/million * Have you joined our private Facebook group yet? Go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/ourfirstmillion and join thousands of other entrepreneurs and founders scheming up ideas.

#118Sep 25, 2020

#114 with Steph Smith - The Head of Trends Talks Insider Trading…

Sam Parr (@theSamParr) and Shaan Puri (@ShaanVP) invite Steph Smith (@stephsmithio) on the pod today. Stephen is an employee at The Hustle, world traveler and all around indie-hacker. In today’s episode you’ll hear: Shaan and Sam introduce Steph (0:40), Steph introduces a fresh idea around remote/WFH by tackling all of the needs of someone newly adjusting to WFH life (4:00), the group talked about unorthodox company perks (12:10), Sam and the group brainstorm around “What are the most interesting 1-3 person operations you’ve seen?” (16:30), Steph pitches an idea of becoming the agency for celebrities because most celebrities have terrible web presence (24:00), Steph’s third idea revolves around HIPAA compliant (or other compliance) services and creating first-mover advantages by tracking legislation (30:15), Steph introduces the guys to a reddit tool that allows you to mind map topics on Reddit (36:00), the group talks about the advantages of tracking insider trades (40:30), Sam talks about a company called FION which is building A technology platform that allows you to track and predict where wildfires will start and spread (46:00), Steph talks about hiring gen-zers to build corporate training material (50:00), Companies, people and resources mentioned: - Benefits company: https://www.compt.io/ - Benefits company: https://www.hoppier.com/ - https://twitter.com/chrisjbakke/status/1296107846472364033 - Live music discovery platform: https://www.keyvalues.com/ - Peter Levels @levelsio - Fastest growing Inc 5000 company: https://www.onetrust.com/ - Related subreddit tool: https://anvaka.github.io/sayit/?query= - Nuclear energy girl: https://twitter.com/isaboemeke - Gen Z Mafia https://genzmafia.com/ - https://www.songkick.com/ - Insider trading reporting: https://finviz.com/insidertrading.ashx - Wildfire tracker: fion.tech - Art school game: https://artsqool.cool/ Check out this week's sponsor: Ourcrowd. They make it easy to invest in early startups. Go to ourcrowd.com/thehustle to get started. Joined our private FB group yet? It's a page where people share each others million dollar ideas or what they're already working on: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ourfirstmillion. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.