How Maggie Sellers Reum Turned Investment Advice Into Big Business | Fortune Daily

0:00Hot. Smart. Rich. Maggie Sellers Reum has built a really successful brand around those three words. What started as ridiculed investment TikToks has now become a podcast, a newsletter and a venture fund. She's tapped into a high earning audience hungry for investment strategy and Stephen Bartlett, who we recently had on this show, took notice, putting a seven figure sum into her company at the end of last year. Sella's Ream is one of a growing number of creators talking about investment and financial advice. But why do finances need to be enmeshed with hotness, particularly for women? And how does she advise consumer brands, invest in consumer brands, and write and talk about them whilst maintaining integrity?

0:55We talk about all of that and more in our interview, which is up next. But before we get to that, it was a big night last night in America. Democrats are projected to take control of both the House and the Senate in January. Next week, once the dust has settled, we'll be bringing you some in-depth analysis from our experts in the Fortune newsroom around what the election results mean for the business landscape. landscape. But for now, I'm Ellie Austin in New York, and this is Fortune Daily.

1:31Maggie, thank you so much for being here and for joining us. So there's a lot to talk to you about. You host Hot Smart Rich, the podcast, which has become incredibly well known over the past year or so. You also have a newsletter and you have a venture fund. So that's a lot going on at once. for the uninitiated in the audience. Tell me how they are all connected in your eyes. Yeah, I think when I started doing this, people didn't realize how connected they could be and they're starting to catch on. But some of the best deals that I have sourced are through TikTok. So I'm a part of a company called Alara and Sidecar.

2:04Both of those companies have gone on to raise multiple millions of dollars since I invested. Those all came through a DM on TikTok. I think when I first started doing this, no one was really aware of the power of distribution on B2B, specifically with TikTok. And I think it really quickly catapulted me to be one of the very few credible voices that had something else than just being a creator. And so for me now, there's this amazing flywheel where I have this incredible distribution of our podcast and of my social. but I also have the credibility of really putting money into people's pockets and investing into things that I think should exist and don't currently.

2:44I would imagine you get some really promising DMs across social media when it comes to people wanting you to invest and some that maybe don't merit your time as much. How do you distinguish between the two? Well, recently I've really changed my investment thesis to really focus on C to Series A women's health companies. I was recently diagnosed with endometriosis. I also have PCOS and it really was an alarming patient experience for me to actually go through to see the lack of support that we have for these types of conditions and for women's health in general. And so having a very defined investment thesis is the first thing that makes it very easy now to say yes or no to things.

3:21So that's the first thing. I think the second thing is someone that really understands me and understands the platform that we're building and is very specific in their messaging that this isn't just a copy paste. Your background is in marketing and also in brand building. And I want to talk about Hot, Smart, Rich, the platform and the brand that you have built. Because I read that you came up with the name because you were told, and I think a lot of us as women feel that you have to fit into these boxes and you felt that you could only be hot or you could be smart or you could be rich. And you wanted women to know that they didn't have to fit into those social constructs.

3:54I'm really interested to know now what hot, what smart, what rich means to you. Yeah. Great question. I think I actually hate separating the words. Sometimes interviewers or people want me to be like, what does hot, what does smart, what does rich mean to you? And it's more of a feeling. Like it is truly the embodiment of being able to be anything that you want to be and not let anybody tell you what you can and cannot do. I think for me, I watched so many people, specifically women in my life, be controlled by money, not be able to leave situations that they were no longer respected in, have to stay in rooms that they shouldn't have stayed in.

4:30So to me, I knew it was extremely important to always have my own money and to always be making my own money. And to me, that was a very rich life, rich to be able to choose what I wanted to do, rich to have freedom. So I think a lot of the time people hear these very polarizing big words, right? And in this world that we live in, it's very much the attention economy. How are you going to get someone's attention? But it's really not about looking the hottest that you can be or being the richest in the room. To me, rich is really about the freedom to leave, the freedom to choose, the freedom to do whatever I want.

5:02I think for so long, you know, people have said the way that you speak or the way that you are love fashion or the way that you want to be perceived is such a difference to being how intellectual you are. And to me, I always question, like, why is it this backhanded compliment? Why do people, after I earn their credibility or I earn their trust, why is it not just given to women? And so I thought of the three most polarizing things that I could say, put it together. And I think, like I said, in the attention economy, you have to create attention. So even if people misunderstand it at the beginning, once they dig in and see the mission that I'm on, they usually are pretty bought into it.

5:39So Maggie, you said you prefer not to pull the words out individually, but I'm afraid I am going to pull out individually anyway, which is hot because I struggle with, I guess, I'm a woman in my mid-30s and I think I'm at a pretty good point with my sense of self and body image. But even I struggle a bit with this culture of hotness that we are in right now. And a lot of the women you have on the show are conventionally very beautiful. And I wonder how you think about that and promoting a diversity of physical appearances, because you do allude to that in the title of the show? I think that's a great question.

6:19I think for me, for my lived experience, a lot of the time it was people very much judging me on what I looked like. There has been so many countless times that I have not gotten the opportunity or not gotten the promotion or not gotten the job because of what I look like. I will still never forget the first job that I applied for at Salesforce where the guy was like, I just don't think that you're used to rejection. And I had to, in my interview, feel like - thing to say. Such a strange thing to say that I could really live past what I looked like on the outside appearance. And that's why I don't separate the words hot, smart, rich, because it's not, it's not about being conventionally hot.

6:57It's about what it has been like for a woman in society to only be judged on their appearance. So for me, that's why I said before, like, I will not separate the words and I don't really make content. That's like how to be your hottest self this, this month or 30 days to get hot because that's really not the platform that I'm building. The platform that I'm building is really about bringing all three of those together and making sure that to your point, it's not just about what you look like. It's about all of the things that women are allowed to be that have conventionally not been allowed to.

7:29You call your audience HSR, Hot, Smart, Rich Angels, and I think you have about 275 ,000 of them at this point. So that's pretty significant. Tell me a bit about who these women are. Are they only women? Are they already investing? Are they hoping to invest? Give us a profile of your audience. We actually just did a BCG consultant survey of our audience. We had 3 ,000 angels actually submit to do the survey. So obviously this is self-selected people that wanted to do the survey. Our average income of an HSR angel is$250 ,000. These are women that are making decisions in the boardroom. They're making decisions at home.

8:04They have real purchasing power, they are really wanting more for their life. They are either starting to invest, thinking about investing, and it's not just into private markets, but in a diversified portfolio. So maybe it's real estate, maybe it's the public markets, but they really want more for their life. The key word for our community is they are extremely discerning. They do not follow what the crowds are doing. They don't just go one way because everyone's going there. They think through every single decision with extreme discernment. And that to me is why I call them the hardest to reach audience on the internet.

8:43When we bring this to brands, they're like, I can't believe that you have a 25 to a 45 year old, primarily women audience. About 85 % of our audience is now women. And that's the hardest to reach audience for most brands. I imagine there are also some women who watch you and listen to you who don't have the resources to be angel investing. Well, They're not at the position where they're in the boardroom just yet. How did they fit into this hot, smart, rich universe? Well, if we're talking about equity specifically, the first way that I started earning equity was through ESOP with a company that I was lucky enough to go public with when I was back in Canada, a company called Freshie.

9:20And that's the first opportunity that I understood what equity even meant. I had no idea what it was before then. And I always tell the corporate baddies, the girls that are working in these corporate jobs that maybe aren't ready to invest yet to diligence a startup that they want to work at next, like they would an investment. It's very similar. If your comp package actually includes equity, you should ask the same questions that an investor would ask to a company that you actually want to work at. So I would actually say that like what we're trying to do with Hot Smart Rich is turn women from being passive consumers to active investors.

9:54We talk a lot about entrepreneurship. We talk a lot about just owning and having equity in your life. One of my favorite quotes that someone told me was like, you are the CEO of your own life, hire and fire accordingly. And I think that a lot of us walking around don't actually think about ourselves and our life like a CEO. And I hope through my content, people, whether they're ready to invest in private companies or not, they just have more of that CEO nature in themselves to make decisions that they can. the friend group that they're with, the opportunities that they say yes or no to. They just walk around with a little bit more discernment because of watching my content.

10:32I think some people, some young people today, when I speak to young people, I know they're really struggling with the job market. They're struggling with AI to figure out what entry level jobs are going to look like to them. And I think they aspire to be the CEO of their own life, but they don't know how to get there yet because of the social economic time they're growing up in. What would you say to that demographic of people? Yeah. To me, you will never be able to take out the work for someone that actually puts in the work. And I think it is scary. It's a really interesting time where it's like, you know, people are using AI for a lot of automations, but we're hiring five roles right now at HotSmart Rich.

11:08Some of them are entry level. I see a lot of my portfolio companies, yes, they're leveraging AI, but there's also a lot of new roles and new opportunities that are being opened up because of those efficiencies. And what kind of skills do people need to fulfill some of those roles? Critical thinking, creativity. I saw this quote recently that AI is very much based on data. And it's not forward thinking. Creativity, human lived experience, that is forward thinking. That is what is creating the future. AI is very much taking the data of what currently exists, but that is the past. That is not actually happening in the future.

11:47So to me, I actually probably couldn't be in a better place right now as someone that is ADHD and dyslexic. They say that those neurodivergent people are going to be really, really great in the world of AI. But I think it extends beyond that to just general creativity, general critical thinking, looking at problems and seeing what do you think should exist and how can you do it differently? Because there's a lot of the, some of the smartest people in the world right now are not leveraging AI because they don't actually want what's in their heads to go into the AI. I've had multiple people on my podcast saying that, that they do not want what is their individual thoughts, that they might be one of the only few people in the world that actually knows to go into AI that is then going to be able to be consumed by everyone.

12:34Last year, Stephen Bartlett, who we've had on the show, made a seven-figure investment in you. It was his flight story company, and they now distribute your show. What does that investment allow you to do with Hot Smart Rich that you weren't previously doing? Do you want the honest answer? Do I want the honest answer? No. Yeah, of course I want the honest answer. You know, I hate that this is the reality, but it's the truth. The people that once didn't take me seriously do now. Because of your association with Steven? Yeah. A man? Yeah. How does that feel? I think it's why I'm doing what I'm doing.

13:11And I think that when I used to walk into rooms without having been able to say I've raised millions of dollars and from actually as of today, he's the most subscribed to podcast in the world. um yeah I think people used to kind of not take it seriously and when I walk into a room now and people know that Stephen Bartlett has invested millions of dollars into my business they take me more seriously is that bittersweet I imagine it it's it allows you to progress which is fantastic but at the same time there must be a degree of frustration there or am I wrong I think that it is such a privilege to be underestimated and I think that it is such a privilege to prove people wrong.

13:54And I saw this quote the other day that was like, spite meets creativity meets discipline is like how you meet, how you will find the most amazing entrepreneurs. And I think I have all three of those, spite, creativity, discipline. The spite really does come from the people that maybe were trying to say that I wasn't going to be something. And now that I have this investment, I think that it's a little bit harder. How do we get to a point where we don't need a man to co-sign a woman's legitimacy? Do you know what it's going to take? I have so many women in my life that have made their money. They would rather advise, give help, than put their money to work into the next generation of female entrepreneurs or into funds that are investing into females.

14:36And it's cyclical. We need the women that have made it to continue to invest in women. That is how this changes. Until we have that, there will be no more change. I think it's been 2 % of female founders have gotten venture capital dollars. the time that I've been doing this, let's say in the investment world for the last six, seven years, that number has not shifted. And I believe what it will take is like the women who have made it at the top, it is going to be them that have the ability to invest in female funds, to invest in female founders, because until that number changes, we aren't going to be able to see a change in the market.

15:13It's so cyclical. It's cyclical. It's also a shame that it always has to fall on women. Why do women have to be the ones who are kind of suffering and then also be the ones to correct it? But can I tell you? Yes. I didn't even fully understand endometriosis until I was diagnosed with it. So the stats that will be a little shocking is like, so our health podcasts, we've done a few of them, worse performing. They're all about PCOS and endometriosis. Because unless you have it, you might not care to learn about it, right? And so I think that humans as bias, women or female, we like to be involved in things that resemble our human experience because it's known, it's familiar.

15:56And so I think that obviously it's at the extreme, but I think that it's harder because men don't go through the female experience. Like they couldn't, they could never go through the female experience. Let's be honest. But I think that it's easier for women that have gone through the life cycle that we've gone through, whether it's pregnancy, whether it's perimenopause, whether it's menopause, to be able to actually understand that human experience. And so it's easier to be able to want things to exist that currently don't for a female. What's a disagreement you've had with Stephen so far about the direction of Hot Smart Rich?

16:33Oh my God, he's going to kill me if I say this one. You know, I think that Stephen and I run extremely similar businesses and extremely different. Stephen is the most subscribed to podcast in the entire world. That's not my goal. I think it shocks people when I say it's not my goal to be the biggest. I never want to lose my audience demo, which is the hardest to reach audience on the internet. They have buying power in the home. They have it at workplace. They're$250 ,000. Do I want the audience to grow? Absolutely. But I don't want it to grow to the level where we sacrifice the audience that we are reaching.

17:11And I think that that was just a different strategy than what Stephen has done. And so for me, it's really important that as we are growing, we are not losing how valuable our audience is. And that's just different from the audience that Stephen's built. So you had different ideas about scale. Scale. And how audience. And it sounds like you won that argument. What is Smart Rich in five years time? Is it a media company? Is it an investment company? Is it something completely different? I think it's exactly what we're doing just with bigger scale. It's a media and investing platform. I think Steven is the blueprint.

17:42Mine might be a little bit different in the way that we get there, but I think my goal is to be able to reach as many women as possible to live out their hottest, smartest, richest life. Maggie, you're on message right until the end. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much for having me. Having a day job can now land you a brand deal worth tens of thousands of dollars. And LinkedIn CEO thinks that that's a good thing. Fortune's Oriana Rosa Royal reports on the rise of the workfluencer. You know your job inside out. Now imagine if you could earn tens of thousands for talking about it online.

18:21According to LinkedIn, some people on the app are doing exactly that. Workfluencers are everyday people like you and me earning money just for talking about what they do for a living. LinkedIn CEO Dan Shapiro told me that workfluencers are up 60 % on the app since 2024. Workfluencers are earning hundreds to tens of thousands and more just for one brand deal on the app. These workfluencers hold very regular jobs in teaching, media, software developing, graphic designers. Anyone can be a workfluencer. Most of these people are talking about what they know best, what they do for a living. They're talking about here's how I do my job, behind the scenes of their jobs, how to navigate the current economy and the current industry that they work in, the fields that are at play right now.

19:12The reason this category of influencer is really getting popular right now is because the world of work is changing so fast and many people feel stagnant in their jobs. So you've got a double whammy of people looking to someone to trust in their industry to get advice from on how to navigate the current challenges. But on the other hand, you also have a load of people who are stuck in their jobs that haven't been promoted in a while. They can't apply for other jobs because the market's stale. So they're looking for ways to switch things up. Or as Shapiro told me, they're looking for ways to make their work interesting.

19:47The entry level job market is the worst has been for 37 years. Experts have called it an AI tsunami that's coming for young workers with 60 % of Gen Z grads frozen out of the workforce. A huge part of this trend is the idea of portfolio careers. A lot of people can't get a job. So instead, they're building out lots of different smaller revenue streams. And even those people with day jobs, they're not sure whether those jobs will be certain. They're watching their colleagues get laid off. So it's always good to have a backup plan. LinkedIn told me that since 2019, the number of people with portfolio jobs, i.e.

20:25listing more than one job on their profile, has gone up by nearly a third. And the title founder is one of the fastest growing titles on the platform. It's up 70 % year on year. LinkedIn, of course, is jumping on the trend and finding ways to help creators monetize their account, such as advice sessions where you can book in one-to-one advice with your favorite workfluencer. Don't worry, businesses. You're not going to watch a load of your employees suddenly quit jobs to talk about their jobs on LinkedIn instead. Realistically, 83 % still hold daytime jobs. Employers should see Workfluencers as free advertising for their company.

21:05NVIDIA is worth$5.6 trillion, but for employees, there's apparently no such thing as a free lunch. They don't get free lunch at NVIDIA. Nope. What? They're not the role. They're the role. They're the role. They're the role. They know lunch. Nvidia is worth$5.6 trillion, but for employees, apparently there's no such thing as a free lunch at the company. I honestly can't believe that. Fortune's Marco Quiroz Gutierrez has the story on why nobody actually seems to mind. Many tech companies give their employees free lunch, but despite its$5.6 trillion market cap, you won't find that at Nvidia. Nvidia is the most valuable company in the world, with a market cap bigger than Google, Apple, or Amazon.

21:50Google helped kick off this idea of giving employees a free lunch along with other perks, and it quickly spread through Silicon Valley. Google says that it's to foster connections between employees. Other people have said that it's for keeping employees in the office longer so they don't have to worry about food and can keep working. Despite NVIDIA's stock rising more than a thousand percent because of the AI boom, the company's HR directors said to Fortune that they're focused more on other perks like work-life balance, and they also give out generous stock options to their employees, which in the end have been more valuable than a free lunch.

22:26There's been some examples of companies cutting back. Meta fired two dozen employees that it said were abusing food vouchers. X, which was famous for its cafeteria, cut back on food options after Elon Musk bought the company in 2022. Is this the end of an era? For continued coverage, visit fortune.com. That's it for Fortune Daily. I'm Ellie Austin in New York. Thank you for watching. Please remember to subscribe to our YouTube channel because it helps other people find the show. We'll see you tomorrow.