Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur | Start and Grow Your Own Business 1345: Why AI Has Created a “Super Cycle” You Can’t Afford to Miss w/ Keith Smith
In this episode, Brian sits down with Keith Smith, a 7-time founder who is now tackling a $13 trillion problem with his AI-first platform, GoodStream. Keith shares his incredible journey from being a self-proclaimed "unemployable" kid to deploying over $6 billion in private credit, and how living that pain firsthand led him to build a game-changing solution. This isn't just a story about tech; it's a masterclass in identifying market gaps, leveraging new technology to solve old problems, and understanding the critical importance of distribution in a noisy world. For any wantrepreneur or entrepreneur, Keith's insights into the current AI "super cycle" provide a powerful and urgent reason to take action on your business idea today.
💡 What You'll Take Away For YOUR Business
- How to Build a Business from Lived Pain: Discover how Keith transformed years of frustration with unstructured data in the private credit world into the core idea for GoodStream.
- Why We're in a Once-in-a-Lifetime "Super Cycle": Keith explains why the next 24 months represent a massive opportunity for founders, as nearly every business is re-evaluating its software stack due to AI.
- The Power of "Vibe Coding" with AI: Learn how to use AI to rapidly iterate and prototype your product ideas with customers before you ever write a line of production code, saving you time and money.
- The Unspoken Rule of Success: Distribution is King: Even with the most incredible product, you need a strategy to get it in front of users. Keith breaks down why this is more important now than ever.
- Solving Old Problems with New Tech: Understand the framework for identifying manual, human-led processes in any industry and applying AI to create immense value and efficiency.
- Balancing Ambition and Family: Keith shares vulnerable insights on his journey as a single father raising two kids while building multiple companies, and how his family became his greatest source of entrepreneurial lessons.
📝 About Keith Smith
Keith Smith is the co-founder and CEO of GoodStream, an AI-first platform transforming how the $13 trillion private asset industry manages data. A lifelong entrepreneur on his seventh startup, Keith previously spent nine years in private credit, where he deployed over $6 billion and experienced the exact pain point his company now solves. His unique perspective comes from living on both sides of the table—as an operator and an investor—giving him a deep understanding of market needs and the power of leveraging new technology, like AI, to create elegant, powerful solutions.
🎯 Keith’s BEST Piece of Advice for Wantrepreneurs and Entrepreneurs
"If you're thinking about solving a problem that you understand well, now is the time to jump in and do it... I do think we are in the middle of a super cycle that we will not see again, potentially in the next decade or our lifetimes."
📢 Memorable Quotes
- "I do better toiling under my own vision than I do somebody else's vision." – Keith Smith
- "AI is not like anything else I think we've seen before. It is an alien intelligence that we are all sitting here... front row seats to watching this alien intelligence come to life." – Keith Smith
- "The lessons that I have learned about being an entrepreneur, the vast majority of them came from the experiences and the insights that I gained by starting a family and raising two little humans." – Keith Smith
🔗 Links & Resources