Trends Podcast

Hosted by Trends.vc, Dru Riley

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Nov 2026

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Find your next business idea before it's obvious. Spot the markets growing right now, who's making money in them, how they got in and where the openings still are. We're your smart friends doing the homework for you. Get what matters without spending hours on research. You're in great company with 50,000+ founders finding new opportunities. Press play and let's see what's trending!

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37 recent

November 9, 2026Episode 374 min

The Downfall of Character.AI

Character.AI licensed its technology to Google for about $2.7 billion, then filed for bankruptcy two years later after lawsuits over open chat with teens. Disney opened the bidding at $20 million. The opportunity it leaves is a story app for teens with a plot written ahead of time and age checks, sold to the parent. Featuring: Character.AI, Noam Shazeer, Megan Garcia, Google, Disney, Zeta, Scatter Lab, Peekie, Common Sense Media Watch on YouTube Read the full report Brought to you by: Trends.vc : Discover new markets and opportunities. HeadsUp : Know when your competitors move. Before your customers do. Multi : Turn any content into a YouTube video. Chapters: (00:00) Noam Shazeer leaves Google to build Character.AI (00:17) Sewell Setzer and his mother's lawsuit (01:12) States sue and open chat ends for under-18s (01:50) Bankruptcy and Disney's $20 million bid (02:27) Open chat versus a set plot (02:59) How Zeta keeps each scene cheap (03:18) The opportunity: a story app parents approve Where to find Trends.vc: Get the free Trends.vc newsletter Find your next profitable market with Trends Pro Watch new markets broken down on YouTube Follow the Trends Podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify Subscribe to the Trends Podcast for a new market every week. Click here to view the episode transcript.

November 3, 2026Episode 367 min

The 20-Year-Olds Who Built a $10M Business Empire

Rudy Arora and Sarthak Dhawan quit college to run Turbo AI, a study app that makes more than $10 million a year, and students kept paying about $20 a month after ChatGPT started teaching for free. The opening is an app for one exam with a fixed date: a daily plan, a bank of practice questions and a price from day one. Featuring: Turbo AI, Rudy Arora, Sarthak Dhawan, Knowt, ChatGPT Watch on YouTube Read the full report Brought to you by: Trends.vc : Discover new markets and opportunities. HeadsUp : Know when your competitors move. Before your customers do. Multi : Turn any content into a YouTube video. Chapters: (00:00) Two 20-year-olds, more than $10M a year (01:16) TurboLearn launches and goes viral on TikTok (02:22) Sophomores, $750,000 and dropping out (02:40) ChatGPT goes free and Turbo reaches 5 million users (04:04) What the money is tied to (05:41) One profession, one country (06:06) The opportunity: one exam, one plan Where to find Trends.vc: Get the free Trends.vc newsletter Find your next profitable market with Trends Pro Watch new markets broken down on YouTube Follow the Trends Podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify Subscribe to the Trends Podcast for a new market every week. Click here to view the episode transcript.

October 28, 2026Episode 355 min

This Free Scheduler Earns $326K/Month From AI Agents

Postiz gives its code away on GitHub and makes $326,687 a month, up from $17,000 in January, after founder Nevo David started building for AI assistants. The opening is a free tool people pay for, with an MCP server so an AI assistant can run it and a hosted version on sale. Featuring: Postiz, Nevo David, TrustMRR, TryPost, Postbase, Claude Watch on YouTube Read the full report Brought to you by: Trends.vc : Discover new markets and opportunities. HeadsUp : Know when your competitors move. Before your customers do. Multi : Turn any content into a YouTube video. Chapters: (00:00) Free code, $326,687 a month (00:39) The launch Reddit tore apart (01:29) Why free code sells the paid version (02:14) "Less UI, more CLI and MCP" (02:52) From $21,000 to $120,000 in four months (03:20) The night Postiz went down (04:08) The opportunity: tools AI assistants can run Where to find Trends.vc: Get the free Trends.vc newsletter Find your next profitable market with Trends Pro Watch new markets broken down on YouTube Follow the Trends Podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify Subscribe to the Trends Podcast for a new market every week. Click here to view the episode transcript.

October 21, 2026Episode 347 min

Why AI Labs Are Quietly Buying Bankrupt Companies' Data

Google paid $10 million for bankrupt Spirit Airlines' 100 million emails and 500 million Teams messages, outbidding Mercor at auction. Closing startups sell the same kind of records with no bidding contest, which is the opening for a founder who runs one. Featuring: Google, Mercor, Spirit Airlines, SimpleClosure, Korra, MIT Technology Review Watch on YouTube Read the full report Brought to you by: Trends.vc : Discover new markets and opportunities. HeadsUp : Know when your competitors move. Before your customers do. Multi : Turn any content into a YouTube video. Chapters: (00:00) Google's $10M bid for a dead airline's inbox (00:42) Why AI labs want your work email (01:35) How the Spirit auction turned into a fight (02:11) Scrubbing names and what stayed out of the sale (03:04) The privacy objections (03:41) One founder's $25,000 code sale (04:40) The opportunity: auctions for closing companies Where to find Trends.vc: Get the free Trends.vc newsletter Find your next profitable market with Trends Pro Watch new markets broken down on YouTube Follow the Trends Podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify Subscribe to the Trends Podcast for a new market every week. Click here to view the episode transcript.

October 17, 2026Episode 334 min

What The Hell Is Jarvie? The $8.3M AI in Your Group Chat

ChatGPT can plan a trip in a group chat and forget it a month later. Jarvie raised $8.3 million to build the group chat AI that remembers. The opening for a small company is one kind of group that plans the same thing each week, like the parents on a youth sports team. Featuring: Jarvie, Shapes, Series, Continua, Instinct, Lightspeed Watch on YouTube Read the full report Brought to you by: Trends.vc : Discover new markets and opportunities. HeadsUp : Know when your competitors move. Before your customers do. Multi : Turn any content into a YouTube video. Chapters: (00:00) ChatGPT forgets the trip it planned (00:09) Jarvie raises $8.3M (00:43) What Jarvie is (01:31) Who else is betting on group chat AI (02:46) Build for one kind of group (03:47) Instinct is already in these chats (04:01) Pick your group Where to find Trends.vc: Get the free Trends.vc newsletter Find your next profitable market with Trends Pro Watch new markets broken down on YouTube Follow the Trends Podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify Subscribe to the Trends Podcast for a new market every week. Click here to view the episode transcript.

October 16, 2026Episode 324 min

The Biggest Lie You've Been Told About AI Agents

Testers cut the AI assistant Instinct off from their email and it kept summarizing their inbox anyway. The fastest-moving agents ask for less of you, and freelancers chasing late invoices are the buyer Paraglide skips. Featuring: Instinct, TechCrunch, Accenture, Wajo, Google, Meta, Stripe, Shop Pay, Ollie, Vellum, Paraglide, Invoice Ninja, FreshBooks, InvoiceWatchr, Upwork Watch on YouTube Read the full report Brought to you by: Trends.vc : Discover new markets and opportunities. HeadsUp : Know when your competitors move. Before your customers do. Multi : Turn any content into a YouTube video. Chapters: (00:00) Testers switched off Instinct's email access (00:17) The biggest lie about AI agents, and the 9% who'd trust one (01:06) Why agents ask for your inbox, card and login (01:31) Your email and your card: Fo, Gemini Spark and Meta's Muse (02:50) Your passwords: Ollie and Vellum (03:37) Freelancers chasing late invoices (04:33) The one-line pitch Where to find Trends.vc: Get the free Trends.vc newsletter Find your next profitable market with Trends Pro Watch new markets broken down on YouTube Follow the Trends Podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify Subscribe to the Trends Podcast for a new market every week. Click here to view the episode transcript.

October 14, 2026Episode 315 min

I Studied a $15M Run Rate AI Startup Built in 3 Months

Viktor, an AI coworker a team shares in its chat app, went from launch to a $15 million run rate in three months, and Slack has announced an agent of its own. Agencies that keep a separate chat with each client are the opening for a small company. Featuring: Viktor, AlphaSignal, Accel, Slack, Pylon, ClearFeed Watch on YouTube Read the full report Brought to you by: Trends.vc : Discover new markets and opportunities. HeadsUp : Know when your competitors move. Before your customers do. Multi : Turn any content into a YouTube video. Chapters: (00:00) $15M a year in three months (00:13) What Viktor is (00:37) How one quiet install spread across a team (02:01) Accel's $75M round and the run rate (02:23) Slack tried bots once, then built its own agent (03:05) The agency opportunity (05:00) How to start Where to find Trends.vc: Get the free Trends.vc newsletter Find your next profitable market with Trends Pro Watch new markets broken down on YouTube Follow the Trends Podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify Subscribe to the Trends Podcast for a new market every week. Click here to view the episode transcript.

October 13, 2026Episode 305 min

AI Is Replacing Accountability Partners (How I'd Build One)

Tomo signed tens of thousands of people paying about $20 a month for an AI that texts them before they skip. With Photon and the open-source Hermes agent, one person could build a coach like it for one goal, starting with marathon training. Featuring: Tomo, Bain Capital Ventures, Instinct, OpenAI, Poppy, Photon, Hermes, Iris, TechCrunch, Apple, Meta, Martin Watch on YouTube Read the full report Brought to you by: Trends.vc : Discover new markets and opportunities. HeadsUp : Know when your competitors move. Before your customers do. Multi : Turn any content into a YouTube video. Chapters: (00:00) The 7am text that checks in before you skip (00:41) Tens of thousands pay Tomo $19.99 a month (01:43) Texting first has failed before: Pulse and Poppy (02:16) A marathon runner and an unopened spreadsheet (02:54) Photon and Hermes make it cheap to build (03:28) How I'd build one in five steps (04:16) Own the email, meter the texts Where to find Trends.vc: Get the free Trends.vc newsletter Find your next profitable market with Trends Pro Watch new markets broken down on YouTube Follow the Trends Podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify Subscribe to the Trends Podcast for a new market every week. Click here to view the episode transcript.

October 12, 2026Episode 295 min

The 23-Year-Old Building a $10 Billion AI You Text

Noah Shinn's free assistant, Instinct, texts you before you ask, and investors valued it at $10 billion 33 days after a $2.5 billion round. Real-estate agents who earn from past clients are a buyer a small team could sell a version of it to now. Featuring: Noah Shinn, Instinct, Sequoia, Benchmark, OpenAI, Meta, Sierra, Structurely, Compass, Martin Tobias Watch on YouTube Read the full report Brought to you by: Trends.vc : Discover new markets and opportunities. HeadsUp : Know when your competitors move. Before your customers do. Multi : Turn any content into a YouTube video. Chapters: (00:00) A free AI worth $10 billion at 23 (00:59) ChatGPT waits. Instinct texts first. (02:32) What testers found in their email (02:58) About $1 billion in purchases a year (03:29) Who pays for this help today (04:26) The morning text a small team could sell (05:14) What Instinct's investors are betting on Where to find Trends.vc: Get the free Trends.vc newsletter Find your next profitable market with Trends Pro Watch new markets broken down on YouTube Follow the Trends Podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify Subscribe to the Trends Podcast for a new market every week. Click here to view the episode transcript.

October 7, 2026Episode 287 min

The Opportunity I See in Amazon Blocking Meta’s AI Agent

Amazon locked Meta's new shopping agent, Muse, out of its store twelve days after launch, and Shopify opened about a million stores to it the next day. The brands those agents skip are the opening. Featuring: Meta, Amazon, Shopify, ReFiBuy, Azoma, Mark Zuckerberg, Tobi Lütke, Ben Thompson Watch on YouTube Read the full report Brought to you by: Trends.vc : Discover new markets and opportunities. HeadsUp : Know when your competitors move. Before your customers do. Multi : Turn any content into a YouTube video. Chapters: (00:00) Amazon locks out Meta's agent (00:50) Muse at checkout, on camera (01:44) Why Amazon blocked it (03:20) Shopify opens a million stores (04:09) Why an agent skips a product (04:54) Who pays to get picked today (05:42) The opportunity for small brands Where to find Trends.vc: Get the free Trends.vc newsletter Find your next profitable market with Trends Pro Watch new markets broken down on YouTube Follow the Trends Podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify Subscribe to the Trends Podcast for a new market every week. Click here to view the episode transcript.