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My First Million5 Internet Goldmines To Spot The Next $1B Trend | Steph Smith (#529)
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70 min read · 13,732 words- 0:00 – 1:30
Intro
- SPShaan Puri
Dude, I was at a dinner, and somebody said something as a joke, and I put up my finger to my lips and I said, "Shh, I need to write this down," because-
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SSSteph Smith
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
... it was an incredible idea.
- SSSteph Smith
The guy goes-
- SPSam Parr
You put his... But you put your finger on his lips? [laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
And then my own lips. Back, back and forth.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
And, um, I was like, "Say no more. I need to... Don't, I don't wanna lose this idea. Let me write this down." [upbeat music]
- SPSam Parr
So today you're gonna talk to, talk us through a bunch of research products that you use. Y- a bunch of, a bunch of pipes, you call them, right?
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah. Internet pipes.
- SPSam Parr
I called it research tools. You said that was dumb, but that's fair.
- SSSteph Smith
Well, it just sounds boring. It's more accurate, but it's boring.
- SPShaan Puri
I call them gold mines, which is basically some people just come back and show you a little piece of gold, maybe a jewelry. Steph shows you where the mine is, so you can just keep going back to the mine for more and more gold over time. 'Cause I think people wonder, uh, you know, if they see your tweets or read your blog post or hear you on, on our podcast, they're like, "Where does she come up with this stuff? How does she find this stuff?" So today you're gonna tell us exactly that.
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I think, you know, the internet is such a special thing, and we often rely on something like Twitter to serve us the information of the day, but I feel like these tools are like, like you said, the gold mine. There's so much information that tells you exactly what people want or, um, aggregates a bunch of opportunities for you. So...
- SPSam Parr
Steph, tell me about this patent one. 'Cause there's actually
- 1:30 – 9:00
Leveraging expiring patents
- SPSam Parr
a, a handful of, like, really good examples with this one-
- SSSteph Smith
Okay
- SPSam Parr
... that I can, that I know of.
- SSSteph Smith
So there's two parts. There's patent filings and patent expiries. So patent filings, I think, um, there's probably some databases that do this, but the newsletter that I like to read is called PatentDrop, and they'll basically break down every newsletter, three or so patents from, again, big tech firms like Fang, um, but also companies like Nike. Um, by the way, I think Nike is the company with the most design patents, or it's up there. Um, in any case, there's patent filings, so you can track what these big companies are betting on, what they think is interesting that they wanna, you know, retain some IP around. And then there's also expiries, um, which is interesting. I think, uh, we covered the company Hims before and how they basically leveraged a patent expiry, uh, to build their company or at least their first products. Um, so there's a website called patentsexpiringtoday.com which aggregates these. And obviously it takes quite a bit of sifting [laughs] because there's a lot of things like, okay, I don't care that some shin guard is, um, expiring. But, um, I think the combination of those two, uh, definitely can, can result in some business ideas.
- SPSam Parr
Have you guys heard of Blue Chew? You guys know what Blue Chew is?
- SSSteph Smith
Blue Chew?
- SPSam Parr
Yeah. So about three or four-
- SPShaan Puri
I don't think they target you in ads, but they target us for sure.
- SSSteph Smith
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
Yeah. Basically, about six weeks ago, I went to these guys' office and I met the two founders, and one of the founders is a doctor and the other one was a commodities trader. And basically they worked together and they were like, "What can we start?" And they saw that the Viagra patent was going to expire in 2017, and so they, like, were just plotting and plotting and plotting. And Hims gets a lot of credit for doing this, but Blue Chew I think is actually more interesting. So what Blue Chew does is, I think they also own med.com. So it's basically a, a, a telehealth business where you call in and you say what your issue is. Their main thing is, uh, their pill. I, I guess, I don't know if they call it Blue Chew, the name of the pill, but it's a, for erectile dys- dysfunction, which I didn't realize it, it, it's like the customer base for that is, like, 150 or 200 million people i- in the world, and then it's projected by 2000-- 2030 to be, like, 4 or 500 million. So it's a massive amount of people who have erectile dysfunction disorder. Um, and they bootstrap this company, and they didn't... I don't know how big they are, but I'm pretty sure they're between $100 and $200 million a year in sales, and they entirely bootstrap this company starting in 2017, and it was because of that patent that expired, and they built this business because of that.
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah, that's a, it's an incredible example. Another kind of one-chart business. All you had to do was just show, "Here's the business plan. This is the expiry date of Viagra."
- SSSteph Smith
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
"We're, we're gonna make the, [laughs] you know, the D2C generic version." And, uh, yeah, they just do it through Instagram ads and whatnot. They own, I, I think it's meds.com. So meds.com I think is the telehealth side. Um, and then they have Blue Chew, which is, like, their product, and I think it's, like, Cialis, Viagra, and one other that are all, uh, expired now. And, uh-
- SPSam Parr
Yeah, I went to their office [laughs] and we were playing poker, and they had, like, a sample. Like, instead of having, like, breath mints, it was, like, a sample of, like, you could just reach in and take one.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
And I was like [laughs] I was like, "My wife had a baby like two weeks ago. I don't think I need this, but, like, what happens if I take it?"
- SPShaan Puri
They're like, "Here's a room, also a padded room you can just go stand in to see the effects-"
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SSSteph Smith
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
"... and nobody will look at you, then come back, uh, when it, when you're done."
- SPSam Parr
[laughs] Yeah. I was like, "I don't know if I'm gonna, if this is gonna, like, be in use anytime soon in my house." But, uh, [laughs] but they're... I was, like, looking at some of their numbers, particularly on Similarweb, and they had, like, 2 million people a month coming to their website, and I was, like, doing back the ma- or back of the envelope math. I was like, "I'm pretty sure this is a massive, massive company." Hims gets a ton of credit because they're publicly traded and they were started in San Francisco and they had all this press. I think this company is probably almost as big, and I'm pretty sure the two guys own most all of it. They haven't taken any financing. And so anyway, this patent thing is, is pretty wild.
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah. And I haven't gone through the stuff happening in 2024, but another quick call-out is the public domain stuff, right? So every year new things go into the public domain. We're hitting January soon, and so that's another thing, uh, to call out for folks.
- SPSam Parr
Well, I think, like, a few years ago, wasn't it, like, Winnie-the-Pooh or something like that? Like a-
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah
- SPSam Parr
... like a... Was it Winnie-the-Pooh? Like, a bunch of these, like-
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah. And then Ryan Reynolds, uh, took advantage of that. He did, what was it, in partnership with one of the phone companies and he did Winnie-the-Scrooge, uh, as a commercial.
- SPSam Parr
That's pretty wild. That's pretty funny. Um, by the way, another one of these trends that you called out a few years ago, which I thought was so stupid at the time, and I've since spent probably $500 on this crap, is [laughs] you did... [laughs] My wife loves this stuff. It, it was, like, minis. It was, um- For some reason-
- SSSteph Smith
Oh, like mini cooking sets and stuff?
- SPSam Parr
Have you seen this, Shaan? Like, basically p-
- SPShaan Puri
No. [laughs]
- 9:00 – 14:00
One chart sports
- SPSam Parr
W- w- w- we're freaks.
- SSSteph Smith
[upbeat music] I can't find this client info.
- SPSpeaker
Have you heard of HubSpot? HubSpot is a CRM platform, so it shares its data across every application. Every team can stay aligned. No out-of-sync spreadsheets or dueling databases. HubSpot, grow better.
- SSSteph Smith
What do you guys wanna do next?
- SPShaan Puri
Do, uh-
- SPSam Parr
Uh, let's do the sports one.
- SSSteph Smith
Okay.
- SPShaan Puri
What's the sports data thing?
- SSSteph Smith
So there's this website, um, that aggregates a bunch of reports on sports, which obviously, uh, people love. Americans love sports, um, so they have, like, a state of pickleball report, a state of the industry report. These cost money, um, so-
- SPShaan Puri
What is the state of pickleball? Should we go into that?
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah. [laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
What, what... [laughs] The, the burning question in all of our minds.
- SSSteph Smith
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
What is the state of pickleball right now?
- SSSteph Smith
Um, but what I did find was this article that basically aggregated some data from this, and it... Don't open it, 'cause I want, I want you guys to guess what the fastest growing sports are. The 25 fastest growing sports according to, um, this F- SFIA Research, which is the Sports & Fitness Industry Association. What do you guys think were the top fastest growing sports in America?
- SPSam Parr
I already opened it, and I can tell you I wouldn't have guessed one of them.
- SPShaan Puri
I already opened it as well.
- SSSteph Smith
Oh, no. [laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
So the game is over. Uh, but I would've said pickleball and, and I would've said that game Padel. Isn't there, like, another game-
- SSSteph Smith
Oh, yeah. P-A-D-E-L
- SPShaan Puri
... that's just like pickleball, but it's for people that are... They wanna be like, "No, pickleball's old. This is the new"-
- SSSteph Smith
Mm. Mm, mm
- SPShaan Puri
... "new shit." Like, uh, there's, there's, like, two of them. Uh, that's what I would've guessed. It does seem like pickleball is number one.
- SSSteph Smith
It is.
- SPShaan Puri
But number two, I would've never guessed. Alpine touring, I don't even know what that really is.
- SSSteph Smith
I think it's just, like, off, off-country skiing. Um, and then I have never heard of... What is winter fat biking?
- SPSam Parr
It's awesome-
- SSSteph Smith
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
... is what it is. It's like [laughs] ...
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- 14:00 – 20:00
Mining Sci-Fi for IRL ideas
- SSSteph Smith
this from a site called Tech Novelty, which is one of these sites where I'm just like, "I can't believe someone created this." Um, I think his name is Bill Christiansen or something like that, um, who basically took all of the sci-fi novels that have been written, or most of them, thousands, and he put them on a site called Technology. And what Packy did is he took this kind of very outdated HTML site that's hard to navigate, and he put it into this database. You guys click the link, you'll see it, and you'll see that there's this first page that is just, just as sci-fi stats. So it basically takes all the ideas, so not just the books, but the ideas within these, uh, sci-fi novels and says, "Does it exist today? Were these ideas in bits or atoms?" And then it also breaks down things like for certain authors, let's say they had, like in some cases, like Asimov had, I think, like 99 ideas. How many of those ideas actually came to be? So you can kind of get a sense of like how, uh, how grounded-
- SPShaan Puri
Let's do some-
- SSSteph Smith
... certain authors were
- SPShaan Puri
... examples. So I'm on the Idea Bank, row 194. It says, uh, "In 1911, the author Hugo Gernsback predicted telemotor coasters," and these were powered skates for personal transport. Wheelies, basically.
- SSSteph Smith
[laughs] Yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs] Or like that one, uh, viral video that went... The, the video that went viral of people walking, but with these, like, power skates that were making them go way faster.
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah, exactly. So there's like... They basically break down thousands of ideas in this database, and then they say if it was created. And you can see in, yeah, the Sci-Fi Idea Bank tab in column, uh, J, you can see what year it was first made, and then, um, you can see things like Google, right? Or credit cards, when they first appeared in these sci-fi novels. So for example, the credit card was first referenced in 1888, but credit cards like Visa and MasterCard weren't actually created until the 1950s, or live news in 1889, and then, you know, it took until the 1980s for 24-hour live news to actually be a thing. And it's kind of interesting because now you look at all these things like credit cards or live news and you think, "Of course," right? Like, of course that exists. That doesn't sound like sci-fi. But then you can extrapolate that and probably deduce that many of the things that sound like sci-fi today or even 50 years ago likely will follow that same fashion. And so I like going through this database because there are still many things that still fit in that category of not yet created but dreamt up.
- SPSam Parr
Yeah. So we can create electric rollerblades that just revolutionize the way we get hit by cars, right?
- SSSteph Smith
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
[laughs] Uh, what are examples of things that, that you're interested on this?
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah. So I mean, uh, some of these are certainly at the point where they're becoming real, but for example, in 1897, uh, someone dreamt up a non-alcoholic beverage similar to wine. In 1897 as well, um, electric bicycles, which are now a reality, but I think becoming way, way, way cheaper and way more important. Um, vat-grown meat in 1984, um, which is another thing coming online. But I think what's equally interesting is to consider some of the major tech trends like AI, like some of the stuff happening, happening in biotech, some of the stuff happening in space, all of those trends kind of intersecting, and you, you can ask the question whether some of the things that you see that, again, sound way more sci-fi than something like an electric bicycle may actually be a reality. So I think like an example of a company that maybe fits this bill is Varda, right? They're manufacturing drugs in space, which I think almost certainly a decade ago would have sounded crazy.
- SPSam Parr
What's Varda doing?
- SSSteph Smith
They're manufacturing drugs in space.
- SPSam Parr
Why?
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs] Great question.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs] Yeah.
- SSSteph Smith
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
Question I think we all have in our mind.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs] What's wrong with doing it in, like, Massachusetts? [laughs]
- SSSteph Smith
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
Like, [laughs] like that seems good enough, right?
- SSSteph Smith
I l- Imagine Sam in the pitch meeting. They're like, "Okay, hear me out."
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SSSteph Smith
"Drugs in space." "What about Massachusetts?" [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SSSteph Smith
So my understanding is that the way that some of these drugs are manufactured, the physics when you're on Earth, due to gravity and some of the other forces that don't exist in space, results in you not being able to create certain chemical structures, and that impacts the way that drugs can be basically ingested or, uh, administered. And so there's- That, I guess, immediate function of being able to create almost like s- drugs that exist today, but in different structures. But then there's the obvious future opportunity where you're then creating completely new compounds that could not be manufactured on Earth.
- SPSam Parr
Did those guys raise a lot of funding?
- SSSteph Smith
I believe so.
- SPSam Parr
That's wild. What a-- That, yeah, that's beyond what I... That's beyond my, my IQ.
- SSSteph Smith
[laughs]
- 20:00 – 36:30
Spotting the mega trends
- SSSteph Smith
in 2003, smart wallpaper. So Sam, maybe that's coming your way next pod.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs] Yeah. So I'll look less pale. Uh, all right, you wanna do another one?
- SSSteph Smith
Next goldmine. So I love this one. Our World in Data. Um, so people have maybe heard of this website. It's a website that tries to aggregate data that, um, is a reflection of, of what's really happening in the world. So it includes things like, um, data on poverty. It includes really niche things. Like, I found... I went through the website, and there was a graph that related to the day of the year with peak cherry tree blossoms in Kyoto, right? So like when, [laughs] when the, um, cherry blossoms peak the most. Like, so random, but they're collecting data on this. And I checked this website a few years ago, and I wanna say there was maybe 200 graphs on here. And if you go to their ourworldindata.org/charts page, I wanna say there's thousands of different data points now. Um, and so I wanted to call out a few that I thought were interesting, but I guess, what do you guys think? Isn't this crazy that there's so much data being collected?
- SPSam Parr
I just clicked on one. It's adjusted net savings per capita from 1970 to 2020. And you could see like how much per capita a variety of countries are saving. It's pretty wild. Congo and Portugal, not saving a lot of money. Germany and France, really great savers. So like, it's just like literally thousands of like different charts. You know, Shaan talks about these like one chart businesses. I can't think of anything, um, for this chart, but [laughs] there's like many of these charts where you can see something-
- SPShaan Puri
Well-
- SPSam Parr
... and just spot interesting things.
- SPShaan Puri
O- one of them is this, uh, population of the world distribution. So basically this is a chart that is looking at how many... Uh, of all the people in the world, how many are young right now, meaning under 15, how many are working age, 15 to 65, and how many are elderly, 65 plus. And the shocking thing about this chart, this is a one chart, this is a one chart business right here, which is the elderly curve goes from today, right? Like kinda like the 2020, early 2020s, where it's under 1 billion. It's by far the lowest, you know, uh, the, the smallest line to it's gonna cross over the young population and be at, you know, by the end of the, where this has it projected, 2.5 billion. And so that's the biggest grower. The working, the working age one kinda flattens out, the young one kinda goes down, and the elderly one has this huge spike. And so if you're building anything that's in the elder care that you're gonna own for, let's say 10, 20 years, um, you have this immense tailwind behind you, which is just that the population of people who fit... You know, the customer base is gonna grow dramatically. We're gonna go from under 1 billion people to over 2.5 billion people, um, that are in that market. And so that's a, it's, you know, a case to say, you know, if you go there... Let's say, let's say it's like real estate. Like if you owned, you know, uh, senior living facilities or something like that, you would be able to just benefit from the fact that, oh, occupancy's gonna go up over time in this, in this way. Now, of course, technology may, may, may completely upend things and AI and all that, but it is a very... It... You can see these like huge trends that are gonna be very hard to reverse. So, uh, it's hard to imagine a scenario that we, we change the direction of these lines. It would take like a whole societal shift, population level shift to change where these lines are going.
- SPSam Parr
Did you guys see the video of, uh... It was Kim Jong Un, the, uh, the North Korean leader. He was delivering this speech this week where he was like pleading and begging, uh, his, his people to start having sex and having babies because the population is just dwindling. And he's literally crying. Like you see tears coming down his face, crying, and the rest of the audience is crying, and he's begging them, "Please have babies." It's, it's really, it was really fascinating. And charts like this-
- SPShaan Puri
Pretty big turn off though, eh?
- SPSam Parr
Yeah. [laughs] Yeah. I thought it was-
- SPShaan Puri
Just crying in front of... A man crying in front of you begging you to have, to have children. It's not... I mean, just light some candles and put on some, uh, some R. Kelly and it'll get it done.
- SPSam Parr
Uh, yeah, I mean, it was, it was crazy. I think, I guess, I guess I didn't realize... It's funny. I'm looking at this chart and seeing his video. I didn't realize how big of a problem it is, but there's so many here. Which ones stick out to you, Steph?
- SSSteph Smith
So I just linked another one that I think, again, is this like one chart, um, business. This one's hard to get involved with, but I think it's, it, it's the lithium production, if you pull that up. I just linked it in the document, and you can see that lithium production, which obviously is the core ingredient in many of our batteries, is concentrated in just a few countries. A lot of it's in China, a lot of it's in a few countries in South America. That's another example of just as you're br- browsing through a bunch of these, these charts, I think that one jumps out. But the one I wanted to dive into in depth is air pollution. So if you click the, the l- the stat, uh, in here in our document that says, "Air pollution is one of the world's leading risk factors for death," which maybe is obvious to some people, but to me, when I think about just, like, what are, what are the key causes of death, what am I afraid of, air pollution is not at the top of that list. However, um, I also stumbled upon Patrick Collison's pollution page. He's got a bunch of cool pages on his website. He's got a page with just a bunch of questions. Uh, one of them's on pollution, and he says that the World Bank indicates that 3.7 billion people, so about half the world's population, are exposed to this metric, um, of PM 2.5, that, that has to do with, like, the size of particles, uh, in the air. They're exposed to around five times the, the unit of measure that he correlates with a bunch of things, which include, uh, lower GDP. It includes, uh, stock market returns being lower, uh, people making worse decisions, like chess players, uh, making mistakes, politicians using less, less complex speech. So those are just k- you know, some fun facts, but I think what's, what's really important is obviously the, the health side of things. And there's another stat, um, that I'll just quickly share, which is, uh, from a newsletter called Charter, which says that India's capital, um, this was recently, breached the 450 mark on the air quality index over four times the healthy level. Um, and basically they're in this hazardous zone, which is akin to smoking 25 to 30 cigarettes a day. And obviously that is an outlier.
- SPSam Parr
Wow.
- SSSteph Smith
But I wanted to call this out because I think air quality is something that, um, is, is a problem in a lot of places, clearly, um, some more than others, but it's something that I think people are gonna be caring about a lot more. [laughs] And maybe one, one product that came out in the last year or so that's indicative of that, that a lot of people made fun of, uh, was the Dyson mask headphones. So I'll, I'll stop there.
- SPSam Parr
What, what, what were those? What-
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah, I never saw those.
- SSSteph Smith
They are headphones [laughs] that have a, uh, basically a, a mask, a air purifier attached to them.
- SPSam Parr
Wow. And they're expensive. They're, uh, $1,000 I think, right?
- SSSteph Smith
They are $700 from what I can see.
- SPSam Parr
And what, this came out and people just made fun of them? Well, if you Go- if you Google Image it, it, it's, like, a white guy in, like, the New York City subway wearing it, you know what I mean?
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
So, like, it's a little off on... 'Cause you're talking about India and, uh, a few other countries, not maybe the New York City subway. So it's kind of like a, it's kind of like a misleading ad they have, but that's pretty fascinating. Is this... Are these taking off?
- SSSteph Smith
No, I think they're in that zone of a lot of people- [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SSSteph Smith
... making fun of them. However, the reason I'm calling this out is because I think there is this understanding that, you know, it's just in New Delhi. It's not, you know, anywhere close to home. Um, but I think, uh, have you guys ever used, like, a, an air quality index, um, measurer in your home or, like, a CO2 monitor?
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah, I have multiple times. And I bought, like, these air purifier things that also measure the air quality in my house, and I have them, and it's, like, shocking whenever it'll, like, f- it basically turns red, and it's like, "Oh, God, there's something going on," you know, "What, w- we need to air this place out or, or whatever."
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah, yeah. So I mean, air quality changes over time, and I don't know, I've been noticing more even in San Francisco a few days where people are like, "Oh, I'm, I'm wearing a mask at work, not 'cause of COVID, but because, like, oh, gosh, like, I... Have you checked the air quality?" And a lot of people aren't doing this still today, but I think that'll change, and I think if you use some of these, like the CO2 monitor, for example, you literally, like, if you go to bed with your door closed and you wake up and you check that thing, it is wild, um, how high it is. And, you know, all you need to do is open a window or, you know, circulate the air in your home. But I think as the stuff, um, I guess, is, people are more educated on it, I think some of these devices, like the air quality, uh, monitors, are going to take off. And you can see some of this data in Jungle Scout as well of just, like, the kinds of products that people are buying.
- SPShaan Puri
Do you see, uh, what did you see, I think, in Jungle Scout that stood out? Any product that stood out?
- SSSteph Smith
Okay. So there's one product which is, uh, has to do with, uh, an AC furnace and an air filter. Um, but guess how much this thing sells every single month.
- 36:30 – 47:30
Building off of adjacent waves
- SSSteph Smith
your water. Can you believe it?" And they show you. And so I feel like there's an element of that, where as it's gonna take a while for people to really care about the air quality stuff. But there may be some middle ground where some company is able to effectively give people that aha.
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah, I, I, I would put it differently. I don't think it's gonna take a while. I think it's gonna take a marketer-
- SSSteph Smith
Yes
- SPShaan Puri
... for people to care. [laughs]
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
It's just gonna take a marketer and a product design that- Puts it in your face, and that educates you about this, and kind of scares you about it, but then t- says, "Don't worry, there's a solution."
- SSSteph Smith
[laughs] Yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
And that's how a lot of things get done [laughs] is, uh, you know, a great marketer or product designer figures out the way to put it in your face.
- SPSam Parr
Did you guys remember what Rob Dyrdek said? So Rob Dyrdek came on, and he didn't spend too much time talking about this. But he said he bought a good chunk of a company that is doing water filters for showers.
- SSSteph Smith
Mm-hmm.
- SPSam Parr
And I've got a bunch of friends that are, like, health freaks, so Justin Mares is, is one of them, where he's a health freak and he's a great entrepreneur. And he was like, "Man, I installed this really expensive basically Berkey filter," which is that big metal ... It's like those metal jugs that you see in people's homes. And he's like, "I wanted to install one for my whole home because I wanted my shower water to also be completely filtered. And I went through this whole ordeal to do this." And then Rob Dyrdek invested in this company that is basically making a shower head that is a filter, so it's, uh, ideally simplifying that entire process. He talked about that on this podcast, but he didn't spend too much time talking about it, and I went and researched a bit of it. I think that is gonna be a, a, a pretty big company, and I think there's gonna be a, a whole ... I, I, I imagine it's gonna be like a, uh, like a boxed mattress trend, where no one has them, and then suddenly many people have them, and there's tons and tons of competition, 'cause I don't think that's quite that hard of a company to, to, to create. Uh, I don't know what the mode is entirely, but I imagine there's gonna be a whole bunch of people in that space. And so I'm, I'm pretty much on board with, with what he said, and I, I think you have an interesting insight with the, uh, particularly with the AC vents. That's another product that literally everyone has in their home. You have to replace it two or three times a year, and it's a really, really easy Instagram ad to make.
- SPShaan Puri
All right. Let's move, let's go to the next one. What else you got?
- SSSteph Smith
All right. Next one in here is Gadget Flow. So this is just an interesting site, uh, that aggregates gadgets, um, trending gadgets. Uh, I wanna call out two things here. The first is if you look at the most popular gadgets, you might say, "Well, what's the opportunity here?" Right? Like, I'm not gonna create a drone like DJI. I'm not gonna create the next AR/VR device. Apple's doing that. Meta's doing that. Like, there's no opportunity. But I just wanted to call out that every time there's a new device that ends up penetrating, uh, a lot of people's homes or wallets, uh, there's almost always an opportunity for accessories. Um, so a good example that we covered years ago, Sam, on trends was, uh, AirPods.
- SPSam Parr
And you have got a crazy stat on that. You've got a crazy AirPods stat.
- SSSteph Smith
It was ... This was forever ago. I wonder what it is now. But back then it was, like, early on in the AirPod journey, and it was like AirPods, if it was a standalone company, would be in the Fortune 50 or something like that. And I was like, "Whoa, whoa."
- SPSam Parr
I, I think your stat was, like, AirPods make more revenue than, like-
- SSSteph Smith
Yes
- SPSam Parr
... Spotify, Snapchat, and Airbnb combined.
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah, I think Twitter was in that too.
- SPSam Parr
Or something wild.
- SSSteph Smith
It was ... Yeah. And that was, again, that was in '20- I wanna say 2019 or 2020. Um, and so now there's some crazy stats with AirPods, which is just, like, 70% of all US teens have AirPods. Like, that is, like, true penetration. Um, and so early on in that trend, it's like, okay, there's, like, cases. There's, um ... I'm trying to remember. Like, key chains, really simple stuff. But I think what, uh, is worth just understanding or, or what you can take away from this Gadget Flow website is, like, okay, what are the newest, um, devices that are not gonna have the scale of, like, hundreds or thousands of people using them, but millions or hundreds of millions, and what are the adjacent accessories or products that I can create?
- SPSam Parr
So how do you, how do you use Gadget Flow?
- SSSteph Smith
So Gadget Flow is not as much of, like, you know, a searchable database like something like Jungle Scout. But, um, it's more so just what I would do if I came to this page is first I would look at the dropdown of most popular, right? So that's where you're gonna see some of those big devices. And then the other takeaway is some of the, uh, dropdown categories, I think. So the one that c- caught my eye was pet accessories. Um, so remember, Gadget Flow is, like, all tech devices. And so if you go to pet accessories, um, there's a bunch of different things. I guess you both, uh, have owned dogs. I've never owned a, owned a dog, but, uh, I wonder if you're familiar with any of these devices. And in particular, there was one that I noticed. Um, have you guys heard of, um, FluentPet?
- SPSam Parr
No. What's that?
- SPShaan Puri
No. What is it?
- SSSteph Smith
It is this, uh, really interesting trend of these buttons. Uh, FluentPet is-
- SPSam Parr
I've seen this
- SSSteph Smith
... a particular brand, um, that I think is going pretty viral because of one account, uh, this dog called iam.bunny. This, this account has, I think, a million followers on Instagram. And it's, it's basically these buttons where you can ... I don't know how, [laughs] like how well this works for all dogs-
- SPSam Parr
So ... Yeah
- SSSteph Smith
... but you can kind of teach them to communicate with you, uh, by pushing these buttons to indicate what they want.
- 47:30 – 1:03:35
Workshopping Steph's upcoming launch strategy
- SPShaan Puri
you have this very unique method to your madness that you, you know, th- you know these nooks and crannies. You're like those people where you go to a city and you're like, "I really wish I just knew kinda, like, what to, what tourist traps to avoid, what good places to go, what's the best place to eat. Oh, she knows this hole in the wall where you can enter through the, th- through the chef's kitchen, and blah, blah, blah." You're like that for the internet. So, um, how can people get more of that?
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah. So like you said, it's my seventh time on My First Million, which is kind of crazy. And ever since the first few, where I'd come with these docs and you guys would be very nice and, and hype up the doc and say, "Oh my gosh, so crazy. There's so much info in here," I constantly get people reaching out, asking for those docs and, you know, an aggregation of all the websites that I visit, and how to use them, and how to internet sleuth. Um, or I like the term, to use the internet pipes. Um, so I'm putting together something, I don't know what to call it, maybe you guys can help me with it, that aggregates these internet pipes and shows people how to use them. Um, so I think the only thing I've done is aggregate them, and then buy the domain internetpipes. [laughs] Uh, but I think, uh, by the time this episode goes live, I'll probably have some sort of, like, pre-sale up on that page if people are interested.
- SPSam Parr
What are you gonna charge for it?
- SSSteph Smith
Okay, if you guys have a minute, I want, I want your opinion, 'cause I think I'm gonna do something wrong here.
- SPSam Parr
No, just don't use the C word. You can't say course.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
You have to call it-
- SSSteph Smith
I know
- SPSam Parr
... something else. Like a re... I don't know. You gotta use ChatGPT, but something involving the word research, I'd imagine.
- SPShaan Puri
There was this one guy that used to really... He had a lot of knowledge. He read a lot of books. He had a Lamborghini in his garage, and he too had a course.
- SSSteph Smith
Oh, no.
- SPShaan Puri
Uh, so maybe you can take his blueprint. He had a good one.
- SSSteph Smith
[laughs] I mean, so- I don't know what I'm gonna call it. I don't like the idea of it being a course 'cause I don't... I want it to just be, like, a resource that people go to, and it's not like a, it's not like a Teachable course or something like that. But what do I charge for something like that? I, when I did my book, I did this, like, tiered pricing scheme where it started at $10 and then it went up for every, like, 30 or 50 sales. But I have no... I, I feel like I'm gonna end up charging too little.
- SPSam Parr
What was that called?
- SSSteph Smith
It's called Doing Content Right.
- SPSam Parr
So Doing Content Right. Shaan, tell me what you would have done in this situation. So Steph worked at my company-
- SPShaan Puri
I bought it, by the way.
- SPSam Parr
Yeah, and she was talented at it. She was talented. She worked at my company while she was doing this. And I remember, Steph, someone came to me and they're like, "Do you care that Steph is doing this and launching this content book?" And I was like, "No. Why, why should I care?" Would you have cared, Shaan? A- and I think, Steph, you made... I don't know, you can say what you made, but you made great money. Uh, you maybe made more than that than we were paying.
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah.
- SPSam Parr
You m- did, did you make more doing the book than I paid you?
- SSSteph Smith
Um, maybe in the first year.
- SPSam Parr
And Shaan, what, what would you have said if your employee was doing this? Would you have been pro or anti?
- SPShaan Puri
Uh, yeah, I would've been pro. I would've been, "It's fine." Like, I have no problem with that. I would've had a conversation just to be like, "Cool, where are we going with this? Like, what's the... Where does this live in your life? Is this, like, fun side project? Is this what you actually wanna go do? Then maybe I can help you go do that in a, in more..." Like, I just kinda wanna know where that lives. Um, and I just, you know, obviously, you know, for you, Steph was, like, a star performer. So, you know, stars get, like, more rope to go do things. If you're, like... If you are doing a, uh, mediocre job and then you got this side hustle, uh, that's the final straw for me, right? Like, I- th- then you're not putting your energy kind of towards actually getting a good outcome. But Steph was crushing it, so, you know, she gets to do whatever she wants.
- SPSam Parr
So I don't think... We were pretty encouraging of people to do stuff, unless they were screwing up. I don't know if we ever lost an employee because of their side thing, but I think, like, that was pre-Twitter getting popular like it is. I think in the future I maybe wouldn't have encouraged it. And that, it's kinda effed up, but I don't know if I would've encouraged it. But I did encourage it back then.
- SPShaan Puri
Well, that's what I mean by I wanna know where it lives in your life. Meaning, if this is kinda what you really wanna do, then let's just be honest about it. Like, let's just have the honest conversation, then we can figure out, like, what's the right pathway forward. And if you're like, "I just wanna make a little bit of extra money," we could talk about, like, "Hey, if you just did XYZ here, you can make that h- you know, you don't have to start a separate business," right? If that's, if that's the motivation. If you're just like, "Oh, yeah, I just use this for serendipity and networking, and I just kinda like to put stuff out there on nights and weekends. Like, this is my hobby." Like, that's what I told people when, when I was doing things. I was, I would say, you know, "Business is my hobby." So, like, you know, for you, when you log off work, you might go to CrossFit or you might go play golf or whatever. Like, what I do is I read, I write, I make things. That's what I like to do on the internet. And so, you know, this is just me doing that hobby. You know, y- you, you do taekwondo or whatever you do. And, uh, I think there's just some people that are like that. You gotta, you gotta let them spread their wings.
- SSSteph Smith
I mean, I think also, to your point, Shaan, it depends, is this, like, an ongoing thing forever? You're gonna be writing, you know, doing a course every quarter, and it's gonna take up all your time. I intentionally, with this project, partially 'cause I didn't want it to last forever, but partially also 'cause it's just my psychology to, like, get something done and out there, was like, I think I compressed it into, like, a six-week thing. And I was like, this is all-
- SPShaan Puri
Right
- SSSteph Smith
... this is the only time I'm gonna allocate to this. Um, and I feel like for this, this new project that I'm launching too, I, it's kinda the same thing, where it's like I don't want to be, like, doing a course forever and people checking in with me and have this... I, I just have this, like, little burst of, like, creativity. I need to get something out there to exist, and then that's it.
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah. Yeah. Um, your question was what would you, what should you charge for it? I don't think this is gonna make a ton of money because the, who's the type of person that wants to... Who's the type of person that wants to buy this is somebody like you.
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah.
Episode duration: 1:03:35
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Transcript of episode G5sLGDKFacc
