Steph Smith, Head of Trends.co // Building In Public, Your Personal Monopoly + Growing Online

📖 Who Is Steph Smith?

Steph leads Trends at The Hustle. She’s a serial indie maker, writer + marketer.

She’s been a nomad since 2016 & has traveled to 50+ countries while working, learning to code + creating.


🧠 What You’ll Learn:

  • how to pre-sell + validate your idea
  • economics of self-publishing vs traditional book deals
  • what you can learn from games like chess
  • defining your personal monopoly
  • finding your first 1000 users
  • writing for humans vs google
  • leveraging communities + viral platforms


⏳Time Stamps (YouTube)

00:00:00 Intro
00:01:39 What You Can Learn From Chess
00:07:28 Chess vs Real Life
00:13:12 Pre-Selling An Idea
00:17:30 Economics of Book Deals vs Self-Publishing
00:19:02 “Steph is an animal…in a good way”
00:20:58 Healthy Competiton + Sibling Rivalry
00:25:17 Lifestyle Creep + Golden Handcuffs
00:26:53 Steph’s Book: “Doing Content Right”
00:28:48 Avoiding Scammy “Online Marketers”
00:33:47 Personal Monopoly + Your Differentiator
00:38:43 Example: Costco’s Differentiator
00:42:56 “What You Wouldn’t Do In Person”
00:46:13 Growth Models To Grow Efficiently + Compound Over Time
00:47:41 Bedrock Channels: Importance of SEO
00:50:48 Example: Writing For Humans vs Google
00:55:25 How We Do Keyword Research
01:01:22 Tools To Use + Ranking For Keywords
01:04:17 First 1000 Users – Do Things That Don’t Scale
01:08:19 Leveraging Communities + Viral Platforms
01:11:45 “How To Be Great? Just Be Good, Repeatedly”
01:15:04 The Power Of Building In Public
01:19:01 Wrap-Up


⏳Time Stamps (Podcast)

00:00:00 Intro
00:02:00 What You Can Learn From Chess
00:07:39 Chess vs Real Life
00:13:33 Pre-Selling An Idea
00:17:51 Economics of Book Deals vs Self-Publishing
00:19:23 “Steph is an animal…in a good way”
00:21:19 Healthy Competiton + Sibling Rivalry
00:25:38 Lifestyle Creep + Golden Handcuffs
00:27:14 Steph’s Book: “Doing Content Right”
00:29:09 Avoiding Scammy “Online Marketers”
00:34:08 Personal Monopoly + Your Differentiator
00:39:04 Example: Costco’s Differentiator
00:43:17 “What You Wouldn’t Do In Person”
00:46:34 Growth Models To Grow Efficiently + Compound Over Time
00:48:02 Bedrock Channels: Importance of SEO
00:51:09 Example: Writing For Humans vs Google
00:55:46 How We Do Keyword Research
01:01:43 Tools To Use + Ranking For Keywords
01:04:38 First 1000 Users – Do Things That Don’t Scale
01:08:40 Leveraging Communities + Viral Platforms
01:12:06 “How To Be Great? Just Be Good, Repeatedly”
01:15:25 The Power Of Building In Public
01:19:22 Wrap-Up


💌 Exclusive Content + Free Giveaways

Join the email list to get my summaries + lessons learned from each episode. I also have free giveaways once a while, like the 5 free copies of Jim Mckelvey’s book (founder of Square) from the recent episode here. Sign up below.

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