Hot Smart Rich with Maggie Sellers Reum

Jaclyn Johnson built her company, Create & Cultivate, from nothing - and later sold it for a $22 million exit!  But life changed completely when she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2025. The success she worked for left her burned out, depressed, and forced to start over. What followed was a total reset. Divorce. Moving cities alone. Hiring a dating coach. Rebuilding her identity at 40… Today,...

Steven Bartlett, the host of The Diary Of A CEO, opens up about something he rarely talks about: his relationship. He’s just announced he is engaged to be married! And his take is simple: independence isn’t the flex we think it is! If you want that dream life, you’re going to need someone to build it with! We dive into the mental frameworks that have made Steven the success he is today and why his...

What engagement rings are actually worth investing in through 2026? And is lab-grown worth it? Ring Concierge founder Nicole Wegman - who built a $100M+ jewelry brand with diamonds - joins Maggie to break down the trends shaping engagement rings right now, the lab-grown vs natural diamond debate, and why “engagement season” creates so much pressure. She also shares the real founder story behind Ri...

Michelle Battersby has built a career around creating products that improve the lives of women. From launching Bumble in Australia, to building and selling her own tech company to Fanfix, and now becoming President of the largest women’s network for moms, all while 30 weeks pregnant, Michelle has consistently disproven the 86% of women who believe motherhood will jeopardize their career. Raised in...

Set Active founder Lindsey Carter opens up about how to build a cult-like activewear brand for gen-z and millennial women that can do $1M of sales in an hour built on the back of an authentic founder-led brand.  Lindsey isn't afraid to face the controversies and challenges that followed her brand’s rise - including TikTok backlash in 2023 and the recent breast cancer donation misstep. She shares h...

Mari Fonseca breaks down what it really takes to build a brand with no formal business education or understanding of finance – and why she walked away from a long, successful career as a model. Mari Fonseca is a former international model and the founder of Gente, a body care company focused on lymphatic drainage and wellness rituals - now Hailey Bieber’s favorite brand in this space. In this conv...

Have you ever wondered what Alix Earle, AI, and Gen Z’s ‘Absurd Era’ Reveal About the Future of Business, Entertainment & Influence? Black Friday flopped. Booking.com became sexy. Dancing With the Stars is now a full-blown creator pipeline. And the average influencer? Officially over. In this week’s episode, Maggie and Katie break down the cultural chaos shaping 2026, from unhinged micro-trends to...

What happens when your celebrity brand collapses overnight? Jonathan Van Ness reveals the brutal truth behind fame, failure, and a $2B fallout. Jonathan Van Ness is the Emmy-winning host of Queer Eye, bestselling author of Over the Top and Love That Story, stand-up comedian, and founder of JVN Hair, one of the fastest-growing celebrity beauty brands—until it wasn’t. He explains: - Why JVN Hair bec...

From surviving a life changing accident to becoming one of Miami’s most trusted names in aesthetics, Amy Peterson has rewritten what it means to build beauty from the inside out. At 18, she was hit by a drunk driver and told she might never walk again. Today, she is the founder of one of Miami’s most successful clinics, Skincare by Amy Peterson, and the creator of Lenox and 16th, a million dollar...

In this rare, candid conversation with her new sister-in-law, Paris Hilton opens up about what it’s really like as a wife, the woman she is behind the character, how she turned pain into purpose, and why she wants her legacy to be impact over glamour. Misunderstood as a “party heiress” for decades, she talks about quietly building the blueprint for the $250B creator economy, turning her name into...

Back by popular demand, Maggie Sellers Reum and Katie Sellers are back in the studio to gossip about business, sisterhood, and the new rules of being a woman in work, and in life. From speaking at Duke’s Women’s Leadership Lab to breaking down the rhode $200M P&L, to the SKIMS hire that no one saw coming, this conversation blends strategy, gossip, and sister energy in the most Hot Smart Rich way p...

In her first solo podcast interview, Mary Holland Nader, known as the “finance sister” from Hulu’s The Nader Sisters, opens up about life beyond her sister Brooks, leaving Wall Street for reality TV, and building her own fintech startup, Mary & Pip. This is the candid conversation every woman navigating money, fame, and career pivots needs to hear. In this powerful, candid conversation, she reveal...

Emma Kenney (@emmakenney) grew up on screen - cast at just nine years old, she spent over a decade playing Debbie Gallagher on Shameless and Harris on The Conners. But behind the fame, Emma faced child stardom’s toughest challenges: battling misconceptions about her identity, navigating Hollywood’s pay gap, and fighting the constant pressure to stay relevant Now 26, she’s carving a new path - laun...

Amy Liu, founder and CEO of Tower 28 Beauty, is redefining what it means to bet on yourself, build quietly, and scale authentically in the beauty industry. From quitting her corporate job and taking a four-year hiatus to launching one of Sephora’s most successful clean beauty brands at 40, Amy’s story is one of resilience, vision, and choosing power on her own terms. She opens up about the money d...

Sam Diamond, co-founder of Bird&Be, is on a mission to revolutionize reproductive health. From her own experience with pregnancy loss to raising millions from investors like Brian Lee (Honest Company), Sam shares the raw truth about fertility stigma, miscarriage, IVF, and why men play a much bigger role in infertility than most people realize. This is the fertility conversation you wish you’d had...

Spotify Description SURPRISE, WE’RE MARRIED! Courtney Reum (co-founder of M13, bestselling author, entrepreneur, investor - and my husband!) sits down with me for the first time as husband and wife to share the real story behind our marriage. From a psychic choosing our exact wedding date, to navigating LA fires, to rewriting every tradition about engagement and weddings, this is an intimate conve...

Today’s conversation all started with a viral video where I questioned if JVN Hair was the biggest celebrity brand failure of all time. Jonathan Van Ness, Emmy-winning host of Queer Eye, bestselling author, comedian, and founder of JVN Hair, opens up about the biggest challenges of his career - from beauty brand bankruptcy to personal health crises - and how he fought his way back. This is JVN lik...

Caitlin Begg , Harvard-trained sociologist, founder of Authentic Social, and host of Progression to Analog, is redefining how smartphones and social media shape our attention, communication, and intimacy. From taking three years off TikTok, to researching parasocial relationships, to designing healthier tech habits, this is the conversation every modern creator, founder, and human needs to hear. W...

What if the secret to building wealth wasn’t spending big, but acting broke? Lucy Guo (@guoforit), co-founder of Scale AI, founder of Passes, and the youngest self-made female billionaire, is redefining what it means to win in tech, money, and the creator economy. From her “act broke, stay rich” mindset, to proving people wrong in Silicon Valley, to helping creators build generational wealth, this...

What if talking about money with your partner wasn’t awkward, but the key to keeping your relationship strong? Libby Leffler (@thisfirst), founder of First and former Google and Facebook exec, is redefining what it means to protect love with logic. From breaking the stigma around prenups, to helping women secure their futures, to proving that money talk is harder than sex talk, this is the convers...

What if you took the money saved for your dream wedding and bet it all on your business? Would it make or break you? Siff Haider and Nish Samantray, co-founders of Arrae, share their raw story of love, sacrifice, and scaling to $100M. From immigrating to the U.S. with no safety net, to choosing business over a wedding, to learning how to fight (and win) together as partners in love and work, this...

What if you hit rock bottom at 18 and almost lost your life to addiction. Do you think you could recover? EXCLUSIVE This is Cara Santana Leto’s first sit-down interview as a married woman, and she doesn’t hold back. From hitting rock bottom at 18 and nearly losing her life to addiction, to being ousted as CEO of her first company, to finding love again with husband Shannon Leto and launching a new...

In this episode, meet the founder you don’t know, behind the brand you already love. Dr. Julie Chung, Co-Founder of T3 Micro, gives the advice every ambitious woman wants to hear about building a brand, looking your best, and choosing the right life co-founder when she opens up about: How to use color theory analysis to look your best The lessons from building a top-selling beauty brand at Sephora...

Deepica Mutyala, CEO and Founder of Live Tinted, the #1 fastest growing beauty brand at Ulta, gives the advice every ambitious woman wants to hear to build her dream life, partner, and business when she opens up about What it’s really like dating right now as an ambitious woman with money The pressure of growing up with South-Asian Immigrant parents ⁠How to make money as a CEO that has nothing to...

Dianna Cohen, founder and ex-CEO of Crown Affair, joins Maggie Sellers to reflect on what it took to build the premium beauty brand redefining clean luxury in haircare and the future of founders as creators.  What You'll Hear In This Episode: From working with Emily Weiss to building her own brand—Dianna’s evolution from beauty insider to beauty founder of Crown Affair The early days of Crown Affa...