Oct 13, 2022 · 1h 8m · my-first-million
5 Business Ideas With High Demand & Low Supply | Start These In 2022 (#374)
0:00 / 0:00
▶ Watch on YouTube →
gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
Shaan Puri and guest Steph Smith brainstorm high-demand business opportunities across digital menu optimization, college athlete NIL marketplaces, and viral consumer products. They also analyze media craft, anti-cheat technology, interactive online portfolios, and sensory food innovations.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. The hosts hold 66.6% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
The hosts as informed peer 5.4 Guest teaching 3.9 Guest disagreement 1.0 The hosts pushing back 1.5
speaking balance: gold is the hosts, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 1:03:13 Steph defends publishing personal income ascents
Steph asserts her desire to publicly disclose her year-by-year income trajectory and tax history, acknowledging she will face internet criticism but expressing a contrarian urge to do it anyway.
Hardest push from the hosts ▶ 1:03:38 Shaan rejects open public income sharingShaan directly pushes back against Steph's transparency concept, arguing that broadcasting high earnings invites unnecessary downside and that financial details should remain private among trusted peers.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 1:05:30 Steph details Kirin's electric salt-enhancing tablewareSteph introduces novel Japanese food technology involving micro-electrical currents in bowls and chopsticks that alter taste perception without adding sodium.
The host holds their own ▶ 17:00 Shaan outlines DTC unit economics and product selectionShaan demonstrates commanding business expertise by breaking down weight-to-shipping ratios, gross margins, and repeat purchase cadence using Native Deodorant as a benchmark.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | The hosts as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | The hosts pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Welcome Back Steph Smith and Podcast Prep | 8 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Steph pitches an A/B testing platform for restaurant QR code menus. Shaan demonstrates deep domain knowledge by sharing his early experience running a delivery-only sushi startup, testing pricing psychology with Dan Ariely, and analyzing a multi-million-dollar ghost kitchen rebranding startup. | |
| Regulatory Inflection: Rethinking the Food Pyramid | 7 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Steph brings up the FDA updating the food pyramid guidelines, prompting Shaan to explain regulatory and market inflections. Shaan breaks down the NCAA NIL rule change, analyzing how to build DTC products like Native Deodorant by optimizing for margins, repeat purchases, and collegiate influencer distribution. | |
| Sponsor Break: HubSpot CRM Platform | 4 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Following a quick HubSpot ad break, Steph shares data showing high post-breakup consumer spending. Shaan riffs on viral DTC concepts such as FuckJerry-style breakup kits and burning box video services. | |
| Podcasting Insights: Contagious Laughter and Radical Authenticity | 7 | 4 | 1 | 2 | Steph highlights the r/contagiouslaughter subreddit and explains how authentic laughter drives My First Million's appeal. Shaan shares his playbook on podcast hosting tactics, including 'selling the joke' and encouraging unhedged, semi-insane commentary. | |
| The Boom of Cheating Scandals and Anti-Cheat Technology | 8 | 5 | 1 | 2 | Steph introduces recent high-profile cheating scandals across chess and poker. Shaan draws on his gaming startup background acquired by Twitch to explain anti-cheat software economics, recounts Elon Musk's email spacing leak detection method, and analyzes the Hustler Casino live poker controversy. | |
| Show, Don't Tell: Creative Internet Portfolios and Goal Tracking | 6 | 5 | 2 | 3 | Steph presents interactive online resumes that emphasize evidence over confidence. Shaan recounts his custom website application to Monkey Inferno, then offers measured pushback against Steph's idea to publicly publish rising compensation figures, arguing the risk-reward ratio deteriorates once wealthy. | |
| Food Tech Innovations: Salty Bowls and Scented Water | 3 | 6 | 1 | 2 | Steph educates Shaan on emerging sensory food technologies, specifically Kirin's electric current chopsticks and bowls that simulate saltiness alongside Air Up's scent-based flavoring bottles. Shaan probes the reported revenue numbers with healthy skepticism. | |
| Wrapping Up: Steph Smith's Upcoming a16z Podcast | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | A brief, cordial outro where Shaan asks Steph where listeners can follow her work and subscribe to her upcoming a16z podcast. |
Statements from this episode (17)
Steph Smith joins Andreessen Horowitz as the new a16z podcast host
“I'm at a, I'm their new podcast host. So they've had a podcast for like seven or eight years and then it went on hiatus. They looked for a new host and that's me. We haven't gone live yet, but we will be soon.”
Puri: Passed on virtual brand startup over platform ban risks
“I didn't end up investing because I was like, I don't know where this goes. Like, this is, I feel like this could just get, like, banned or blocked in 1:02, but, like it was a fascinating idea, and that guy was really talented who was doing it.”
Puri: One dominant platform will win college NIL marketplace liquidity
“There's going to be one company that just owns the, Here's the liquidity. It's like, we got all the athletes and then like, because of that, we got all the brands and we take care of all the transactions and you don't need to use Instagram DMS and like Venmo. …”
Puri: First movers in unsaturated marketing channels capture $100M in value
“It's kind of an unsaturated marketing channel right now and an unsaturated marketing channel right now is like worth, it can be worth like a hundred million dollars. If you can be the first to figure it out, that, that platform.”
Puri: Top e-commerce products require low shipping weight and high repeat purchases
“I think that you want the, you find the, you know, first go to the class of the best e-commerce products to like, High repeat purchase rate. High, like, kind of lock-in, basically. High margin. You know, low shipping. This is why, like, native deodorant was su…”
Smith: The Average Person Spends $1,500 Following a Breakup
“It was this stat, which is the average person spends one and a half thousand dollars after a breakup.”
Shaan Puri: Co-hosts should react big and sell each other's jokes
“There are several things like that where you got to kind of sell the other person's thing and it's not fake. It's just like be expressive, laugh hard, react big. That stuff works when it comes to content and people are very shelled up about that sort of thing.”
Shaan Puri: Internet personalities must amplify eccentricities instead of fitting in
“Most people are basically taking their own little volume knob and turning it down all the time because they want to fit in. And so the best thing you could do if you want to be a personality on the internet is like, you can't have that. I'm trying to fit in, t…”
Shaan Puri: Cultivating a blunt persona enables asking intrusive questions freely
“Cultivating like an image of being, you know, sort of a don't give an F slash blunt personality has all these advantages because people just create new rules for you.”
Puri: Offline sports like chess and poker will adopt dedicated anti-cheat providers
“I think that the offline world needs to sort of learn more from the gaming world about anti-cheat, because there's these companies that are quite big that are anti-cheat providers to all games, because each game individually can't build the security system tha…”
Puri: Bitcoin's Security Is Proven by the Absence of Successful Hacks
“This is why people love Bitcoin. They're like, wow, if somebody could have hacked this or spoofed this or done a double spend, There is a literally like half a trillion dollar prize for the taking. And because it hasn't, that just shows you how secure this is.…”
Steph Smith: Tangible evidence of work matters far more than projected confidence
“What I think is important, especially in this era where everyone can seem like an expert is evidence. So evidence over confidence. And what do I mean by evidence? It's like, don't tell me you're this business expert, show me the businesses that you've built an…”
Shaan Puri: Joining Stripe as an early employee would have yielded $10M-$30M
“I applied to Stripe, and I applied to a place called Monkey Inferno. Stripe, everybody knows, turned into, like, you know, whatever, a hundred billion dollar company. I would have been, like, employee, I don't know, like, 35, 40 at the time, so it would have b…”
Shaan Puri: Public revenue sharing is disadvantageous once businesses make substantial money
“I think you should privately with a group of trusted people share the, your numbers itself, but to publicly for everybody share how much you make, I think only is, is, is in your interest when you're not making that much, but it's growing. Then once you're mak…”
Steph Smith: Hitting 100% of goals means targets lack ambition
“If you're hitting a hundred percent, you're not setting ambitious goals. If you're hitting nothing, then you're just lost in the world probably, but I hit maybe 50% every year.”
Smith: Kirin Developed Electric Chopsticks Making Food Taste Saltier
“So Kirin, which is K-I-R-I-N, it's a company in Japan, and they partnered with a university, and they found a way to make, to basically use a super weak electrical current, both in bowls and chopsticks, so that when you're eating, something about the ionizatio…”