Steph Smith: “This opportunity is totally overlooked”

Sam Parr

Alright — **Steph Smith** is here.

Shaan Puri

Steph is back.

Sam Parr

And your whole thing is finding **up-and-coming** trends.

Shaan Puri

I call them *gold mines*. Some people just come back and show you a little piece of gold. **Steph** shows you where the mine is.

Steph Smith

We all run into these **generation-defining stats** throughout our lives, and most of us are just like, "Oh, that's cool." So I compiled **100+** of these.

Sam Parr

There are so many here.

Steph Smith

I love this one: breakup cake, nerd neck, the Dyson mask, a search algorithm that was inspired by ants.

Shaan Puri

"I need to write this down."

Steph Smith

"If you want to go down the **rabbit hole**, I think there's a growing business here."

Sam Parr

We use this phrase **"one-chart businesses"** because you just see this chart and it's like—you said, "Well, that thing's obvious; just get into that industry." You have one here. You said, in the United States, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that nursing will be the fastest-growing occupation between 2020 and 2030, growing in number by 275,000 jobs. That's insane. That's insane. Talk to me about this nursing thing.

Steph Smith

Yeah, well, I mean, again, it's a pretty clear trend that comes with a bunch of people getting older. Everyone's talking about **AI**, and that's great. But what about the billions of people around the globe who are, you know, *65-plus* and who are just going to need physical human support? Nursing is one area. Also, the rest of that stat talks about Japan: the number of nursing homes has risen nearly 50% over the last decade. Japan is interesting because it's kind of like an early case study — they've hit this "silver tsunami" a little earlier than a lot of other countries.

Sam Parr

"Why Japan?"

Steph Smith

I think they just hit the declining birth rate earlier than many other countries. So, another interesting — you could call it an opportunity — for individuals to explore is that, because Japan hit the *"silver tsunami"* a little earlier, they have this interesting situation where they're giving away free or very cheap houses. They're called *akiyas* (a-k-i-y-a). I was in Japan this summer and we did a walking tour. They took us around and showed us these houses. They'd say, "See this house?" It was a little rundown, for sure, but they were like, "This house is free." We were like, "What do you mean?" Because so many people have grown old and, unfortunately, passed away, there are lots of vacant homes. There are also social aspects to the akiyas — not in every case, but in some. Japanese people really care about status. If someone grew up in a poor neighborhood, their parents passed away, and they later moved into a different social stratum, they may not want to claim the house because they don't want to be associated with that neighborhood. There are tons of articles on this: over 8,000,000 akiyas are being offered by the government, or sometimes sold very cheaply. </FormattedResponse>

Sam Parr

Well, have you heard the theory about Osaka and how a lot of people are *lying about their age*?

Steph Smith

"Oh yeah — the *Blue Zones* and *Tao*."

Sam Parr

Yeah, there's a book called *The Blue Zones*. I read it ten years ago and it became my bible for living a long, healthy life. The idea is that someone studied Osaka's population and found that too many people claimed to have the same birth date in Osaka.

Steph Smith

"Yeah."

Sam Parr

"The only way this could possibly be true is if many of them committed fraud in order to claim they are of a certain age so they can start receiving **Social Security** and other benefits you get when you hit that age. It potentially undermines the idea that we study this particular population for *older adult* health and conclude, 'Wow, they're so healthy,' when they're actually lying and potentially a lot younger than they've said they are. What are some other stats about those? I love talking to you because you actually have the data and the stats instead of just guessing."

Steph Smith

Okay, so we didn't really drill down as much on the—I mean, you talked about nursing homes and assisted living. Let me give you one more example from *Numwalk*, which, by the way, is a great newsletter. Walt Hickey runs it, and I feel like MFM listeners would love it. It's great because it focuses on these one-chart businesses. I've done a thread on something similar; I call them "digits," but he calls them "just numbers," right? Basically, every single day he sends a newsletter with maybe five or so short paragraphs, and each paragraph has just one statistic. I like his because some of them are really important—like the "silver tsunami" and how that's going to impact things much greater than ourselves. But then sometimes it's like there's this random gerbil that has infested homes in South Carolina or something like that.

Sam Parr

That is awesome.

Steph Smith

Yeah, he sent this paragraph about assisted living. Let me just read this out. This is directly from "Num Lock": > From 2004 to 2021, the median annual price of assisted living increased 31% faster than inflation and has hit $54,000 per year. There are 31,000 assisted living facilities in the United States. Four out of every five are run as for-profits, and half of all the operators in the industry are clearing annual returns of 20% or more than it costs to operate. With 850,000 older Americans living in assisted living, **the rents are getting jacked up**.

Sam Parr

So, I don't actually know how assisted living businesses are valued. Is it considered a real estate valuation—where it's just a way to finance or pay for real estate—or is it considered a proper operating business? I guess, you know, "hotels are classified as real estate." I would assume that's the case here. If **20%** is operating profit on a proper internet business, that's not that great. But if it's on *real estate*, that's really great. However, when I read this I think, yeah, that's lucrative — I don't want to operate this. That sounds like the worst thing ever; you'd have *a funeral a day*. I would love to invest in a nursing home fund, but I would not want to operate a nursing home.

Steph Smith

Well, what I'll say is I have parents who are getting older, and there are also tons of assisted-living options—not just for the elderly, but for people with mental illness or who need other support. What I've seen from exploring this space anecdotally is that most of the options really suck. You don't feel great about sending your parent or loved one to these places. I haven't explored this deeply enough—this might already exist. If folks are listening and know of this, I would love to hear about it. But imagine the **premium version of assisted living**, where you feel really, really good about sending your grandparents, your mom, your sister—whatever it is—to one of these places. Obviously the price would have to go way up, but people are already spending an average of **$54,000 per year**. So, for the wealthy, wouldn't you pay five times that to send your loved one somewhere a lot better?

Sam Parr

Yeah, and I think people do. I know people who have relatives in nursing homes, and they spend $20,000 or $30,000 a month. It's insane. It's absolutely insane. Okay, so you're eight minutes into this episode and you already can tell that Steph's superpower is spotting generational-defining trends. She has spent hours pulling the most surprising, under-the-radar stats and data—all for the purpose of uncovering interesting business ideas. She's put it all together in a thing called the "Digits Database," and for you guys, the MFM audience, she has decided to give it away for **free**. So if you want it, just click the link below in the description and grab it. Alright — back to the show.

Steph Smith

"What do you guys want to do next?"

Shaan Puri

Let's do the sports one. What's the sports data thing? </FormattedResponse>

Steph Smith

Okay, so there's this website that aggregates a bunch of reports on sports, which obviously people love — Americans love sports. They have reports like the *"State of Pickleball"* report and the *"State of the Industry"* report. I want you guys to guess what the fastest-growing sports are: the 25 fastest-growing sports according to **SFIA** [Sports & Fitness Industry Association]. What do you guys think were the top fastest-growing sports in America?

Sam Parr

I already opened it, and I can tell you—I wouldn't have guessed one of them.

Shaan Puri

I already opened it as well, so the game is over. But I would have said **pickleball**, and I would have said that game—paddle... isn't there another game that's just like pickleball? That's what I would have guessed. It does seem like pickleball is number one, but number two I would have never guessed: **Alpine touring**. I don't even know what that really is.

Steph Smith

"I think it's just, like, off-country skiing. I have *never* heard of—what is windter fat biking?"

Sam Parr

It's awesome. It is what it is — it's like...

Shaan Puri

Sounds like something I need to research, so...

Sam Parr

These **fat-tire bikes** are really popular right now. They're basically bikes with a really fat tire, and they look *sick*.

Steph Smith

"And is this a sport?"

Sam Parr

Yeah, it's just **mountain bike riding**, but the tire is particularly fat. That's all it is. You know... what do we say? "We like big and small things." *Imagine a bicycle that could drive on a beach.*

Steph Smith

Got it. Number four: *off-course golf* — interesting.

Sam Parr

And then **number seven is trail running**. I could definitely see that — that is the... I get so many videos on my Instagram of trail running.

Shaan Puri

Yep, dude. I was at a dinner, and somebody said something as a joke. I put up my finger to my lips and said, "Shh — I need to write this down, because it was an *incredible idea.*" The guy goes...

Sam Parr

"You put his... but you—your finger on his lips, and..."

Shaan Puri

Then my own.

Sam Parr

*Lips smashed back and forth.*

Shaan Puri

And I was like, "Say no more — I don't want to lose this idea. Let me write this down." He said something like, "Yeah, I do the **Suburban Triathlon**." I go, "What?" He goes, "Yeah, the Suburban Triathlon. You walk a half mile, you go into this bar, you drink two beers, and then you go play nine holes of golf." I was like, "What?" He was like, "I forgot — he said Suburban Ironman or the Suburban Triathlon." I was like, "This has legs." I really think that if somebody created some kind of thing for out-of-shape, middle-aged guys to do, they'll do it. If you brand it almost as the *non-fit-person triathlon*, and it has some version of eating and drinking as one of the legs... dude, that's the next Tough Mudder. I think that could be a massive trend that people start doing. This is definitely something that would appeal to people. What do you guys think?

Sam Parr

Yeah, yeah — that's *beautiful branding*.

Shaan Puri

We're working backwards from the brand. We really don't even know, actually, what goes underneath. It's just the idea of the **suburban triathlon**. It's like you bike to the grocery store, you chug a beer, and then you—like, I don't know—run an errand. That's the suburban triathlon, and you gotta do it on Saturday morning.

Steph Smith

Next gold mine — I love this one: **Our World in Data**. People may have heard of this website. It's a site that tries to aggregate data that reflects what's really happening in the world. It includes things like data on poverty and really niche things. I went through the website and there was a graph relating the day of the year with peak cherry-tree blossoms in Kyoto — so random, but they're collecting data on this. I checked this website a few years ago and I want to say there were maybe 200 graphs on it. If you go to their `ourworldindata.org/charts` page, I want to say there are thousands of different data points now.

Sam Parr

I just clicked on one: it's **"Adjusted Net Savings per Capita"** from 1970 to 2020. You can see how much, per capita, a variety of countries are saving. It's literally thousands of different charts. Now Sean talks about these "one‑chart" businesses.

Shaan Puri

One of them is the world's population distribution. Basically, this chart looks at how many of all the people in the world are: - **Young** right now (meaning under 15), - **Working age** (15–65), and - **Elderly** (65+). The shocking thing about this chart — **this is a one-chart business right here** — is the elderly curve. Today (early 2020s) it's under **1 billion**, by far the smallest line. Over time it crosses over the young population and, by the end of the projection, reaches about **2.5 billion**. That is the biggest grower. The working-age line kind of flattens out, the young line declines, and the elderly line has this huge spike. So if you're building anything in elder care that you expect to own for, say, **10–20 years**, you have an immense tailwind: the customer base is going to grow dramatically. We're going from under **1 billion** people to over **2.5 billion** people in that market. So it's a case to say: if you go there — for example, real estate like senior living facilities — you would benefit from rising occupancy over time. Of course, technology (AI and all that) may completely upend things, but you can see these huge trends that are very hard to reverse. It's hard to imagine a scenario that changes the direction of these lines; it would take a whole societal, population-level shift to do so.

Sam Parr

There's so many here. Which ones stick out to you, Steph?</FormattedResponse>

Steph Smith

I just linked another chart I think is a "one-chart business." This one's hard to get involved with, but I think it's **lithium production**. If you pull that up (I just linked it in the documents), you'll see that lithium production—which is the core ingredient in many batteries—is concentrated in just a few countries. A lot of it's in China, and a lot is in a few countries in South America. That's another example that jumps out as you're browsing these charts. The one I wanted to dive into in depth is **air pollution**. If you click the stat in our document that says *"air pollution is one of the world's leading risk factors for death"*—which may be obvious to some—it's not something I immediately think of when I consider the key causes of death or what I'm personally afraid of. I also stumbled upon Patrick Collison's pollution page. He has a bunch of interesting pages on his site; one is a page of questions, including one on pollution. He cites the World Bank indicating that 3,700,000,000 people (about 3.7 billion, roughly half the world's population) are exposed to this metric of **PM2.5** [particles of a particular size in the air] at around five times the unit of measure that he correlates with a range of negative outcomes. Those outcomes include lower GDP, lower stock market returns, worse decision-making (for example, chess players making more mistakes), and politicians using less complex speech. Those are some notable correlations. What's really important, though, is the health side. Another stat from a newsletter called Charter mentions that India's capital [New Delhi] recently breached the 450 mark on the air quality index—over four times the healthy level—placing it in a hazardous zone. That level is akin to smoking 25–30 cigarettes a day. That's an outlier, but I wanted to call it out because air quality is a problem in many places—some worse than others—and I think people will care more about it going forward. One product that came out in the last year or so that reflects this trend—and that many people made fun of—was the *Dyson mask headphones* [Dyson's air‑purifying mask-headphone product]. I'll stop there.

Sam Parr

"What? What were those?" "Yeah — *never* saw those." </FormattedResponse>

Steph Smith

They are headphones that basically have a mask—an *air purifier*—attached to them.

Sam Parr

Wow — they're expensive. They're $1,000, *I think*, right?

Steph Smith

"They are **$700**, from what I can see."

Sam Parr

And when this came out, people just made fun of them. If you search *Google Images*, it's like a white guy in the New York subway wearing it. You know what I mean?</FormattedResponse>

Shaan Puri

It's.</FormattedResponse>

Sam Parr

It's a little off, because you're talking about *India* and a few other countries, not maybe the *New York* subway. So it's kind of a *misleading ad* they have, but that's pretty fascinating. Are these taking off?

Steph Smith

No — I think they're in that zone where a lot of people make fun of them. However, the reason I'm calling this out is because I think there is an understanding that it's just in **New Delhi**; it's not anywhere close to home. But I think—have you guys ever used an **air quality index (AQI)** measure in your home, or a **CO₂ monitor**?

Shaan Puri

Yeah, I have—multiple times. I bought these air purifiers that also measure the air quality in my house. I have them, and it's *shocking*. It basically turns **red** whenever the air quality is bad, and it's like, "Oh God, there's something going on — we need to air this place out," or whatever.

Steph Smith

Air quality changes over time. I've been noticing more—even in San Francisco—days where people say, "I'm wearing a mask at work, not because of COVID, but because… have you checked the air quality?" A lot of people aren't doing this yet, but I think that will change. For example, if you use a **CO2 monitor** and you go to bed with your door closed, then wake up and check it, it's wild how high it can be. All you need to do is open a window or circulate the air in your home. As people become more educated, devices like air quality monitors are going to take off. You can see some of this data in **Jungle Scout** as well—showing the kinds of products that people are buying.

Shaan Puri

Do you see—what did you see? Anything in *Jungle Scout* that stood out? Any product that's okay?

Steph Smith

So, there's one product which has to do with an AC, furnace, and an air filter. **But guess how much this thing sells every single month?**

Sam Parr

What is it?

Steph Smith

It's an AC furnace air filter and an air quality monitor. I'm seeing four entries in **Jungle Scout**: **$17,000,000**, **$12,000,000**, **$8,000,000**, and **$8,000,000**. So what does that all total? That's like over **$40,000,000 per month**, is what Jungle Scout is saying. [monthly estimates] So, *take it with a grain of salt* — I'm not sure how they measure — but they tend to be pretty accurate. That's an example of, I think, as people try to understand the air quality around them, there's a growing business here. I feel like one missing gap with air quality readings and devices is that it's not obvious. Most people would be surprised, like, “Oh my gosh, I inhale all this stuff and it has these adverse effects,” and that it ranks here on the likelihood of death. But it's not in your face like, say, the GLP ones — people see themselves every day and they're constantly trying to improve their image and how other people interpret them. Maybe one thing, if someone was going to figure this out: you guys have talked about the water filters. People go into your home and they're bringing that up. They say, “Did you know you're drinking this much — like basically rocks and other sediment and lead in your water?” and they show you. There's an element of that. It's going to take a while for people to really care about air quality stuff, but there may be some middle ground where some company is able to effectively give people that, yeah.

Shaan Puri

I would put it differently. I don't think it's going to take a while — I think it's going to take a marketer for people to care. Yeah. It's just going to take a marketer and a product design that *puts it in your face*, educates you about this, and kind of scares you about it, but then says, "Don't worry, there's a solution." Yeah, that's how a lot of things get done: a great marketer or a product designer figures out the way to put it in your face.

Steph Smith

I spend way too much time online. I think a lot of people do, too. So I've got a bad—hopefully improving—case of *nerd neck* (some people call it *forward head posture*). Basically, it's because we're hunched over a computer all day long. I haven't done a ton here; I'm kind of on the very early part of this curve. I have played around with it, but I'm not using it right now. Hold up—there's this thing I don't know if I'd vouch for yet, but it's called "BetterBack." </FormattedResponse>

Sam Parr

Looking at it, I think any time that you have to use one of these devices, I tend to get nervous that it's *legit*. But go ahead—what is it?

Steph Smith

Well, that's why I don't. It has helped me sit up more. Basically, it runs around your knees and your back, and I like it better than those—there are things you can put on your back that "zap" you and stuff, and I feel like that's really *unnatural*. But this actually, because it's fixated around your knees, you just sit up straighter.

Sam Parr

So, for those listening: it's basically like a *strap* that, when you're sitting down, wraps around your back and attaches to your knees. In doing that, it kind of *forces you to sit up*.

Steph Smith

Yeah. Okay, understood. There's another — for the women, for your four female listeners — there's a sports bra I haven't tried yet called **Form**, which apparently folks like **Taylor Swift** have used. If you look at her posture a decade ago, it was way, way worse. So there's a small part of me that believes something like that could work.

Shaan Puri

Can.

Sam Parr

I use this. You—like, you're telling me "just like this"—a shirt that, I mean, for me would be a shirt that's going to make me have better posture.

Steph Smith

What is this thing? I haven't tried it, but it's a sports bra that people vouch helps your posture. I think, generally, as I've explored this a little bit, posture is a function of your muscles: if you have strength in your abdomen and your back, you're going to sit up straighter. There's a video I shared — we can include all this in the show notes. This is actually just like an email I sent, or I'm going to send, to the InternetPipes crew this month. It's a video from Brian Johnson about his posture. He worked with a posture coach for several months. Then Tim Ferriss has recommended something called the "Ego Skew method," which I have not tried.

Sam Parr

"And what's this *Brian Johnson* video? How do I just make my posture better?"

Steph Smith

There are **three different exercises** that he does *every single day*, and he shares them in this video that **improved his posture**.

Sam Parr

And what's this *ego-esque*?

Steph Smith

A method that I think you need to *work with a practitioner* for, which is why—again—I'm *not vouching* for this in any way. It's just something that came up.

Sam Parr

"Dude, there's this great TED Talk that you should watch: *"Why Sitting Down Destroys You."* I think it's by Roger Frampton — I believe that's the one. It's a TED Talk with millions of views. He basically goes through how he worked, I think, in the Amazon with some indigenous tribe that didn't use many chairs. What he found was interesting: people who stand a lot naturally *squeeze their butt* — imagine you have a little penny between your butt cheeks that you're trying to keep from falling to the ground. That's basically what you do: you squeeze your butt together when you're standing. There's a reason our glutes tend to be our largest muscles — we're supposed to use them a lot. Nowadays we don't use them as much, so instead when we stand we tend to lean forward. He says you should actually, when you stand, squeeze your glutes and flex your abs rather than just falling forward. A lot of babies do this naturally; if you watch a kid you'll notice they do a good job of it. If you work on that posture, you can hold it for a fairly long time when you're standing. So it's not just sitting that will "destroy you" — standing incorrectly can, too.

Steph Smith

Yeah, totally. Well, even in the video I did watch with **Brian Johnson**, he was talking about how most people, when they think they have *good posture*, tilt their head back — and that's bad as well. They're kind of like, "Oh, I have good posture like this." You really want to be more like... the back of your neck should be **absolutely straight**.

Sam Parr

"What's this ass nature thing?"

Steph Smith

So, if people want to go down the rabbit hole of exploring — not just "let me go look at pictures of animals" — but *understanding* how animals produce color, what are the examples of technology being inspired by natural design? For example, a search algorithm that was inspired by ants.

Sam Parr

This is so fascinating. So, **AskNature** [website] has this—there are all sorts of things you can click on. There's one about the "African darter"—apparently that's a type of bird, and it has a very special feather that is incredibly **water-resistant**. Then it describes different applications that this feather—or the inspiration from this feather—could have. It also explains the strategy of how it works and the potential for copying this feather. This is amazing. How did you find this website? This is really cool.

Steph Smith

So someone shared it within the Internet pipes. We have this survey whenever people join, which just asks, "What's your favorite tool?" A lot of the answers end up being what you expect: *ChatGPT*, *Ahrefs*, etc. But there are a bunch of gems that come through, like this.

Sam Parr

And so, by the way, *"Internet Pipes"* — it's literally just tons of different resources for finding these things.

Steph Smith

So, what the product started as... It was—*I hate the term "course"*, but it was a course that existed to say it's...

Sam Parr

"Called a book. It was a book."

Steph Smith

It was a book. It exists in Notion, and there are videos and text. Now there's a community, and there are databases like the Digits database. But the origin was: the most common question I get asked is, "You find all this cool stuff online — how do you find it?" So **Internet Pipes** was showing people how to find this information through a series of tools. That's why it's called *Pipes*, right? It's like using a tool to make sense of: - all of the purchases that are happening on Amazon, - all of the pages that exist on Wikipedia, - all of the searches that are happening on Google, and you go down the line — this data exists. By the way, we're at a unique [moment]: it didn't quite exist 15 years ago, and 15 years from now probably everyone will know it exists. So **Internet Pipes** is a course, a book, whatever you want to call it, to learn how to do that.

Sam Parr

"And you've made a lot of money off of it so far, haven't you?" "Yes." "That's pretty dope. When you answer 'yes,' that means I'm not gonna ask."

Steph Smith

How much? It's *six figures*. There's a pretty wide range, you know.

Sam Parr

Does the six-figure include the ".00" cents, so it could really be like $1,000.00?

Steph Smith

"It's eight figures now." </FormattedResponse>

Sam Parr

Got it. This is a **really, really cool website**. I could spend hours just looking at it. There's an article about camel fur and how it keeps camels cool in the desert, but also warm at night, and why that particular type of fur is special. The reason it's kind of interesting is the two that I've named are clothing-related. But if you had a clothing-related brand—some type of clothing brand—it's... it's *stealing the story for you*. Or not stealing; it's giving you the...

Steph Smith

Hook—exactly, exactly. And by the way, people in our world, in business and tech, are always talking about the *longevity* of something—how long something has existed. It's like you are learning from **millions of years of evolution**, from these animals that have become purely optimized for this purpose. And to you—I think the marketer in both of us is like, "What products could you make off of this?"

Sam Parr

There's one about *otters*: they keep heat in and cold water out. I'm sure every wetsuit company has stolen that marketing for their branding or whatever. It's *really fascinating*. Sorry—go ahead.

Steph Smith

Well, did you ever see— you know— "Mischief," right? "Mischief the..."

Sam Parr

**Brand Mischief** is the company.

Steph Smith

Stunts that...

Sam Parr

Like weird projects. They did a *"blood shoe"* with Lil Nas X or something like that.

Steph Smith

Yeah, yeah. So they've done a ton of shoe collabs. They did one — I think it was... I don't remember if it was with Jimmy Kimmel or if they just announced it — but it was called **"Gobstomper."** Did you ever see this?

Sam Parr

No, it's **Jimmy Kimmel's**. Still a celebrity — that's one you'd want to collab with. I didn't realize he was, like, booting [unclear]. </FormattedResponse>

Steph Smith

I don't know—maybe they just announced it there—but these Gobstomper sneakers that Mischief created, I thought they were kind of cool. Basically, the bottom foundation of the sneaker comes gray at first, and then as you wear it more—like as your shoe wears away—it looks like a gobstopper. It was just like...

Sam Parr

Which is the candy that you suck on, and each shell layer turns colors. Okay, cool.

Steph Smith

Yeah, exactly. So—this might sound like the silliest idea ever—but when I went to the Galapagos I saw these red-footed and blue-footed boobies. *Fun fact for the listeners:* the reason these birds have different colored feet is because of what they eat, which I thought was so strange and interesting. Imagine a sneaker brand—*stick with me, this might be a really awful idea*—that's related to health in some way. Let's say you're wearing a CGM [continuous glucose monitor], and your shoes change color based on whether you're in range or some other metric you care about. Basically, you're able to signal something in a way that changes through your feet.

Sam Parr

Like that.

Steph Smith

"Awful idea."

Sam Parr

Oh — it could be like, if you know, we could show *you're fertile* or something.

Steph Smith

It's like those parties, right, where you wear... what are they called — the *"stoplight parties"*, where you wear red?

Sam Parr

"Yellow, red, or that's."

Steph Smith

Pretty funny—stoplight shoes. Maybe that's a better version of the idea. Okay, let's do a quick one. I actually saw this in the Trends newsletter a while ago. I didn't write it, but it was the stat: "the average person spends **$1,500** after a breakup." I have no idea where the stat came from [source unknown], but it definitely got the wheel spinning. They came up with a bunch of different ideas which I think are actually getting some traction. Divorce-party ideas is something that gets search volume. "Breakup cake"—people throwing their own breakup parties. I was just like, I don't know if there are specific brands taking this on, but that stat—**$1,500**—I don't know where it came from.

Shaan Puri

Right.

Steph Smith

"But there's something there."

Shaan Puri

If I'm F Jerry — you know that Instagram account — they've built kind of a small media empire. They have a bunch of other accounts, and they also have products. They made that card game, I think. They make some products. If I was one of those accounts, I would be jumping on this. I would basically say: it's already viral, it's meme-worthy, it's remarkable — people are going to talk about this. So how do I make, you know, the best **breakup cake delivery service** or the **revenge body kit**? For example, we could send you a seven-day detox, a healing crystal, a juice cleanse, and whatever else to help you get that person out of your life and rid yourself of the bad juju. I'd call it **Bad Juju** or something similar and try to create a viral product around it, because it's on brand and there’s enough demand. You could see this doing $2 to $10 million a year, all organic. It’s probably not going to be enormous, but there’s enough of a niche — especially if you’re one of these accounts, because you already have distribution. If you partner with those accounts and say, “Hey, I’ve got the right product for you guys — let’s do some kind of profit share and I’ll run this business, and you just help me promote it,” you can launch things like the **breakup vodka kit** or whatever the specific product ends up being.

Steph Smith

Yeah. I mean, I'm imagining all the tropes: someone gets broken up with, they become super fit, they get a PhD, and they just become the *best version of themselves* after the breakup. It doesn't always happen, but you could imagine something like that.

Shaan Puri

Even less work. It's like—what are those, *"voodoo dolls"*, where you poke it and you're, you know, sending ill will towards someone? You could just upload a photo of your purse [probably "person"], and we print you a doll that looks, you know, close enough to them, and you can do that.

Steph Smith

That reminds me—did you see that startup "Empti"? It was fake. Did you hear about this? I think it had the silly spelling, like **E-M-P-T-I** or something. People thought it was a real startup, but it was a hoax. Basically, they sent people empty boxes. The whole idea was: "We send you these empty boxes," and inside was some motivational quote from Buddha about ridding yourself of the things you don't need in life. The concept was that people were supposed to take all their junk, put it in these boxes, and send the boxes to the company for free. Ironically, they paid the company to send them the boxes. It was fake, and yet all these people were writing about it and saying, "Oh, this is so smart—what a cool company."

Shaan Puri

And it was just... yeah.

Steph Smith

Exactly — it was a joke, but...</FormattedResponse>

Shaan Puri

Yeah, actually, you could do that with this too. You could send them the **"breakup box"** — all their crap, all the stuff they've left in your house that reminds you of them. Put it in the box, send it to us, and we will send you a video of us burning the box in an epic way. You get to have that at the end. Those are the kinds of ideas you could do with this.

Steph Smith

Nice.

Shaan Puri

So, you were — right before we started recording — starting to tell me, *"Here's my theory of why people like this podcast."* What is your theory?

Steph Smith

Okay, so there are many reasons to love *My First Million*. I think there's something you guys have done, especially recently, when you and Sam just go back and forth. You tell a really funny joke and then Sam just starts laughing hysterically — in a contagious way that most people would hold back, maybe on a podcast. It's literally, as people say, "you're in the room with him." It reminded me of this subreddit I found recently called r/contagiouslaughter. About 4.5 million people are subscribed to it, and it's one of, I think, the top 100 subreddits out there. It's literally just a feed of people laughing, and there are dozens of posts every day. As I scrolled down it, I kept thinking: there's gotta be a post of Sam and Sean posted here.

Shaan Puri

Well, okay. Let me tell you a couple interesting things about this. First, I think this subreddit must be kind of new or growing fast recently, because I hadn't heard of it before. I kinda keep an eye on the top ones—maybe I just missed it. I've also seen this trend on TikTok. I don't know if you've seen it: somebody will say, "I'm a clinical psychologist and I can make you happier in the next 10 seconds—repeat after me." And there's a duet. > "I'm a clinical psychologist and I can make you happier in the next 10 seconds—repeat after me." The guy's like [makes a sound] and she's like [makes a sound], and you're just like, "Okay, I see where this is going." By the end, both people are cracking up, because it's *10 deep* and you can't help yourself. The body will start genuinely laughing just from making the sound. It goes both ways—it's not that something funny happens and therefore you break out laughing; the sound itself triggers the laughter.

Steph Smith

Totally—one of the funniest moments on *My First Million* was your Orlando Bloom story. If I’d just heard you telling it by yourself, I’d be like, “Yeah, that’s pretty funny.” But Sam’s laughter layered onto that—where you can tell he was dying as you were telling the story—made it honestly a *top five* moment in *My First Million* history for me. That’s why I think this subreddit is so great. Even in their rules or community guidelines—like how someone posts something and there’s typically a bot that says, “Hey, report this if X, Y, and Z”—on that subreddit it’s more like, “Report this if you’re laughing at a joke or some sort of incident and not the laughter specifically.” They’re like, “We only want you to be on here to hear other people laughing.” I don’t know, I just thought that was a fun thing and it reminded me of why I think some people love *My First Million*: it’s just so authentic.

Shaan Puri

"That's just Sam being Sam, and you're like, 'Whoa—okay.' I just get to be that. **That's awesome.**"

Steph Smith

That is awesome.