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My First Million5 Internet Goldmines To Spot The Next $1B Trend | Steph Smith (#529)
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Internet Pipes: Steph's Research Goldmines
The hosts introduce Steph Smith's "internet pipes," the sites she uses to find ideas. Shaan frames them as mines that keep yielding, and Steph explains that these tools show what people want and aggregate opportunities.
- •Shaan opens with a dinner anecdote about an idea he had to write down
- •Sam calls them research tools, Steph prefers "internet pipes" and Shaan calls them goldmines
- •The goldmine idea: a mine keeps producing, unlike a single piece of gold
- •Steph says these tools tell you what people want, beyond what Twitter serves up
Patent Filings, Expiries and the Blue Chew Story
Steph explains two patent angles: filings that show what big companies are betting on, and expiries that can seed businesses. Sam describes Blue Chew, a bootstrapped company built on the Viagra patent expiry.
- •PatentDrop newsletter covers filings from big tech and companies like Nike
- •patentsexpiringtoday.com lists expiries, and Hims used an expiry for its first products
- •Sam says Blue Chew's founders, a doctor and a commodities trader, built on the Viagra expiry in 2017
- •Shaan calls it a one-chart business and notes the telehealth side is meds.com
- •Steph adds that public domain works each January are another opening, citing Winnie-the-Pooh
The Mini Trend: Why Tiny Things Sell
Sam recalls Steph's old trend call on minis and describes spending heavily on Mini Brands. The group discusses why miniature or oversized products appeal.
- •Sam describes Mini Brands: tiny replicas of famous brands in a ball
- •Shaan notes it is made by Zuru, the toy company from Nick Mowbray
- •Shaan's theory is that anything mini, or overly large, works
- •Steph cites Jenny's Mini Cooking Show on YouTube
- •Shaan jokes about making a tiny Cybertruck
Sports Industry Data and the Suburban Triathlon
Steph has the hosts guess the fastest-growing US sports from SFIA research data. Shaan then pitches the "suburban triathlon" idea from a dinner, built around eating, drinking and golf.
- •Pickleball tops the fastest-growing sports list
- •Other entries include alpine touring, winter fat biking, off-course golf and trail running
- •Shaan pitches a triathlon for out-of-shape middle-aged guys with eating and drinking as a leg
- •Sam praises the branding and Shaan says they are working backwards from the brand
Mining Sci-Fi Novels for Real-World Ideas
Steph covers a sci-fi idea database that Packy McCormick built from a site that catalogs ideas in thousands of novels. It shows how long ideas took to become real, and she points to current frontier ideas like Varda.
- •The database tracks whether sci-fi ideas now exist and when they first appeared
- •Credit cards appeared in fiction in 1888 and live news in 1889, well before they existed
- •Ideas such as vat-grown meat and non-alcoholic wine-like drinks appear in the data
- •Varda manufactures drugs in space, which Steph explains through differing physics
- •Sam says it is inspiring to see imagination predict the future
Our World in Data: Charts and Demographic Megatrends
Steph introduces Our World in Data and its thousands of charts. Shaan highlights the population chart showing the elderly population growing from under 1 billion to about 2.5 billion, a tailwind for elder care.
- •The site collects data from poverty to cherry blossom timing in Kyoto
- •Sam points to a chart on adjusted net savings per capita
- •Shaan reads the age-distribution chart as a one-chart business for elder care
- •Sam brings up Kim Jong Un's speech pleading for more babies
- •Steph flags lithium production being concentrated in a few countries
Air Quality as a Growing Business
Steph digs into air pollution data as a risk factor for death. She links it to products like Dyson's mask headphones and air quality monitors, and uses Jungle Scout to show big sales of smart furnace filters.
- •Steph cites Patrick Collison's pollution page and its PM 2.5 correlations
- •Delhi's air quality index was cited as akin to smoking 25 to 30 cigarettes a day
- •Dyson's mask headphones were mocked but reflect rising concern
- •Jungle Scout showed four furnace filter entries totaling over $40 million a month, with Steph noting it should be taken with a grain of salt
Betting on Megatrends: GLP-1s, Zuck on Video, and Marketing
Shaan tells of an investor friend who picks one or two big trends a year, including a GLP-1 call and an early Carmot investment that sold for $3 billion. He ties this to Zuckerberg's megatrend of video and his own pivot into live streaming, and the group discusses how a marketer could make air quality visible.
- •The friend called Bitcoin, OnlyFans and GLP over GPT
- •Carmot was acquired for $3 billion and the friend was an early investor
- •Shaan says knowing the big wave lets you ignore small ones
- •Zuckerberg called video the mega trend and Shaan's company pivoted to live video
- •Steph says air quality isn't obvious like GLP-1s, while Shaan says it just needs a marketer
- •Sam mentions shower filters and AC vent filters as easy Instagram ad products
Gadget Flow and Riding Adjacent Accessory Waves
Steph presents Gadget Flow, arguing that popular new devices create openings for accessories. She cites AirPods stats and the FluentPet talking buttons for dogs.
- •Every device that spreads widely creates accessory opportunities
- •AirPods once out-earned Spotify, Snapchat and Airbnb combined, per the stat Sam recalls
- •70% of US teens have AirPods, according to Steph
- •Steph suggests looking at the most popular list and category dropdowns
- •FluentPet buttons let dogs communicate, popularized by the Instagram account iam.bunny
Steph's Workflow and Future as an Internet Artist
Sam asks how Steph uses these tools and what she'll start someday. She describes being an "internet artist" making things she wishes existed, and the hosts joke about her a16z swag.
- •Steph has about 35 tabs open, grouped by tool such as Jungle Scout and Similarweb
- •Newsletters surface ideas she then checks in those tools
- •She wants to be an internet artist like Neal Agarwal, and would do it on her own
- •Shaan compares Peter Levels to the Banksy of internet art
- •The hosts tease her about a16z swag
Launching Internet Pipes: Pricing and Side Projects
Steph announces she is packaging her internet pipes into a resource at internetpipes.com and asks what to charge. The conversation turns to employee side projects and Shaan's advice to think about where the project fits in her life.
- •Steph wants it to be a resource, not a course, with a presale planned
- •She used tiered pricing for her book, Doing Content Right, and fears undercharging
- •Sam recalls Steph launching the book while working for him
- •Shaan says he would have been supportive of a star performer and would ask where the side project lives
- •Steph compressed the book into a six-week burst and wants this project to be similar
Pricing Strategy: Free or Premium, and Playing the Long Game
Shaan argues the product appeals to a niche, so Steph could use it as a honeypot for community and opportunities. He shares Tim Ferriss's "ultra free or ultra premium" approach and Hormozi's goodwill strategy.
- •Shaan says buyers are people like Steph and it's not a mass market
- •He suggests value may come from community, investments and introductions
- •Shaan says more of the same keeps you where you are, so he stopped a course earning over $1M a year
- •Tim Ferriss gave most work away free, then sold an in-person workshop for millions in sales within minutes
- •Hormozi gives away value to build goodwill, then charges high prices
Salary Negotiation, Imposter Syndrome and Michael Scott Syndrome
Sam encourages Steph to push for higher pay, noting patterns he saw in negotiations while hiring. Shaan and Sam then trade stories about feeling like Michael Scott around smart hires, and Steph closes by plugging internetpipes.com.
- •Sam says Steph started too low on salary and women in particular pushed back less
- •Steph says it took about seven years to learn to negotiate
- •Shaan describes Michael Scott syndrome when hiring very smart people
- •Sam and Shaan conclude feeling this way means you're hiring well
- •Steph closes by plugging internetpipes.com
