Steph Smith: Jobs of the Future, Fractional Real Estate, Mouth Tape and More

Episode Summary

Executive Summary: The episode is a trend-hunting conversation between Sean, Sam, and Steph Smith centered on the idea that major business opportunities emerge from regulatory shifts, underused real estate, and new consumer habits. They discuss fractional use of spaces, pay transparency businesses, OTC hearing aids, future jobs created by AI/automation, and niche consumer products like mouth tape, lupini beans, and Advent calendars. The recurring theme is finding overlooked, scalable businesses before they become obvious.

Main Topics: Underused real estate and fractional space businesses (Priority: 5/5): Steph argues that commercial spaces can be repurposed during idle hours for new use cases like yoga, rage rooms, and other entertainment concepts. The example of Temple Immersive and Raleigh Williams’ escape-room-inspired businesses illustrates how time-sliced real estate can create strong returns. Regulatory inflections create new companies (Priority: 5/5): The group repeatedly emphasizes that policy changes open up markets, especially in pay transparency and OTC hearing aids. Hannah Williams’ salary content business and hearing-aid DTC opportunities are treated as examples of how new rules reshape consumer demand and business models. Jobs of the future and automation inside companies (Priority: 5/5): Steph presents several future job categories including chief automation officer, head of remote, cyber actuary, and collaboration/dysfunction roles. The discussion focuses on how companies can embed automation and operational optimization early instead of adding headcount later. Consumer products and niche DTC opportunities (Priority: 4/5): The conversation covers mouth tape, lupini beans, condiment and sake advent calendars, and other highly specific products. The underlying thesis is that small product changes, better branding, or new cultural adoption can turn niche items into businesses. Medical and technical adoption of 3D printing and VR (Priority: 4/5): The hosts discuss how 3D printing has become commercially meaningful in medicine, especially hearing aids and implants, and how VR may find lasting value in training and simulation. This illustrates how hype-cycle technologies can become real businesses in high-stakes domains. Personal finance, spending, and the psychology of money (Priority: 3/5): The conversation ends with a side discussion about how to spend money well, including the idea of hiring a spending consultant and using a frequency/magnitude framework to judge purchases. The emphasis is on overcoming money psychology rather than just accumulating wealth.

Key Arguments: Commercial real estate is massively underutilized, and businesses can monetize off-hours usage by turning clubs and venues into yoga studios, rage rooms, or other rentable experiences. Regulatory changes create immediate market opportunities because they force companies and creators to publish data or change distribution models, as seen with salary transparency and OTC hearing aids. Many company functions could be improved by hiring specialized operators for automation, remote-work design, and team dysfunction, which could reduce waste and improve productivity. 3D printing and VR should be viewed less as consumer hype and more as enabling infrastructure for medical, industrial, and training applications. Small consumer product niches can become real businesses when paired with strong branding, creator distribution, or health claims, even if the product itself seems odd at first. The best purchases are often frequent-use items or one-time high-magnitude experiences, while people often misjudge value by underweighting frequency. Future jobs will emerge faster than most people expect; the hosts cite the historical pattern that most job growth comes from jobs that did not exist decades earlier.

Data Points: Share of employment growth from new jobs: 85% - Steph cites a statistic that 85% of employment growth in the last 80 years came from jobs that did not exist in 1940. New salary-content creator earnings: $600,000 - An article mentioned Hannah Williams had already made $600,000 after switching to salary transparency content. TikTok followers: 1 million+ - Hannah Williams reportedly has over a million TikTok followers within a year. Instagram followers: 450,000 - Hannah Williams reportedly has 450,000 Instagram followers. Hearing-aid brand sales: $7 million/month - Sean says he met a DTC hearing-aid company doing $7 million a month in sales. Eden Data revenue: $6–7 million/year - Sean describes Eden Data as doing roughly six or seven million dollars in annual revenue. Eden Data projected revenue: $8 million/year - Sean says the company is on track to do $8 million this year. Temple Immersive booking delay: 4.5 months - Sean says after discussing a children’s play-space business on the pod, franchise inquiry bookings were filled out for about four and a half months. Raleigh Williams exit value: $26 million - Sean summarizes Raleigh Williams as having sold his escape-room business for about $26 million. Raleigh Williams distributions: $20 million - Sean says the business produced about $20 million in distributions over time. Raleigh Williams build cost: $10 million - Sean says the business spent about $10 million building out the assets. Advent calendar price: $300 - The sake Advent calendar is sold for $300. Advent calendar production cap: 500 units/year - Paul caps the sake Advent calendar at 500 units each year. Website traffic: 2,000 visits/month - Sean notes the Advent calendar seller’s site gets roughly 2,000 visits per month. Lupini bean protein: 50% more than chickpeas - Steph claims lupini beans have 50% more protein than chickpeas. Lupini bean fiber: 2x more than edamame - Steph says lupini beans have twice the fiber of edamame. Lupini bean calories: 80% fewer than almonds - Steph compares lupini beans favorably to almonds on calories. Lupini bean carbs: 60% fewer than pistachios - Steph compares lupini beans favorably to pistachios on carbs. Lupini bean serving protein: 35 grams per serving - Steph says a serving has 35 grams of protein.

Pivotal Quotes: "85% of employment growth in the last 80 years came from new jobs." — Steph Smith: Used to support the thesis that many future roles will be created rather than just automated away. "I think a lot of this real estate, like go convert like a club during the week to like a rage room. People would pay for that." — Steph Smith: Explaining how underused commercial spaces can be monetized through fractional usage and alternate experiences. "You can't screw this up." — Sean: Referring to Adam Bornstein’s book and framing the health-habit writing style as accessible, low-friction guidance.

Implications: Listeners should look for opportunities created by regulation, underused assets, and operational inefficiency. The episode suggests that new services and products often start as niche ideas but can become scalable businesses quickly when timing and distribution align.