FlightStory Invests in Hot Smart Rich to Drive Global Expansion of Women’s Business Media
FlightStory has announced a substantial seven-figure investment in Hot Smart Rich (HSR) — the fast-rising media and investing brand created by influential entrepreneur and host Maggie Sellers Reum.
The partnership aims to rapidly scale HSR across the United States and key international markets while transforming it into one of the defining women-focused business platforms of the decade. With an audience already exceeding expectations, Hot Smart Rich has become a cultural and entrepreneurial touchpoint for women seeking honest, intelligent, and relatable conversations about money, ambition, power, relationships, ownership, and generational wealth.
A Strategic Investment to Build a Global Female-Focused Media Ecosystem
FlightStory’s co-founders — entrepreneur and investor Steven Bartlett, media operator Georgie Holt, and global brand strategist Christiana Brenton — confirmed that the investment is designed not only to expand HSR’s content output, but also to accelerate its commercial and community-driven infrastructure.
Key objectives of the FlightStory–HSR partnership include:
Scaling HSR into multiple aligned global markets, beginning with the US
Increasing revenue tenfold through diversified products and monetisation
Expanding the team across editorial, operations, marketing, and partnerships
Building a full ecosystem including content, e-commerce, live events, digital products, and educational resources
Establishing HSR as the leading voice for women in business media
This investment echoes FlightStory’s talent-first growth philosophy — the same strategy behind the meteoric rise of The Diary of a CEO, now a global juggernaut in the podcasting industry.
Hot Smart Rich: A Platform Redefining Women’s Business Media
Founded by Maggie Sellers Reum, Hot Smart Rich emerged as a counter-narrative to the heavily male-dominated world of business, finance, and entrepreneurial commentary. Instead of presenting success as rigid, serious, or monotonous, HSR approaches business like an intimate group chat — bold, direct, funny, emotionally intelligent, and radically honest.
HSR’s rapid traction includes:
Over 1.8 million downloads in less than 12 months
A community of 500,000+ listeners and growing weekly
Engagement metrics well above industry benchmarks
A global community of “HSR Angels” spanning Los Angeles, New York, London, Toronto, Sydney, and Paris
The platform has become a cultural home for women who want business conversations that acknowledge — and reflect — the complexity of modern womanhood.
Its topics range from entrepreneurship and wealth creation to navigating relationships, workplace dynamics, and identity. The honesty and humour underlying each episode have allowed listeners to feel both educated and understood.
A Market That Desperately Needs Women’s Voices
According to a recent industry analysis referenced by HSR, only 7% of business and entrepreneurship podcasts are hosted by women — a statistic that reveals just how underrepresented female perspectives are in financial and entrepreneurial spaces.
This gap represents both a challenge and a massive opportunity, one FlightStory aims to help HSR fill on a global scale.
HSR’s mission aligns closely with broader conversations around:
Women’s financial independence
Changing narratives around wealth and leadership
The psychology of success
Media accountability in representing diverse voices
For many, HSR isn’t just a podcast — it’s a social movement.
Maggie Sellers Reum: Building a Space Where Women Can Be Fully Themselves
For Maggie, authenticity is the centre of everything Hot Smart Rich stands for. She has often spoken openly about wanting a space where women can show up fully — not polished, perfect or performative, but intelligent, emotional, honest, ambitious, imperfect, and powerful.
She describes the HSR environment as:
“A place to be vulnerable, learn, laugh, cry and most importantly have fun.”
Maggie encourages women to embrace their stories, ambition, and potential even if they haven’t built massive companies like Spanx, Canva, or Bumble.
Her message is clear: You don’t need to be a billionaire founder to take control of your financial destiny.
A Community of Angels Focused on Ownership and Wealth-Building
HSR’s audience is not passive. Its community of Angels — spread across major global cities — is deeply engaged, sharing knowledge, resources, insights, and support with one another.
These women include:
Early-stage founders
Career professionals
Side-hustle builders
Active and aspiring investors
Women looking to build generational wealth
Many members say they value the platform not only for its content but also for its sense of belonging — a space where ambition is celebrated, not judged.
Why FlightStory Chose Hot Smart Rich
Steven Bartlett, who has spent the past two years rapidly expanding FlightStory’s media footprint, described Maggie as:
“A trailblazer who has built an incredible platform and taken a completely fresh approach to the culture of business, entrepreneurship and wealth generation unlike anything I’ve seen before.”
He added:
“HSR is disrupting an entire industry.”
The alignment between Maggie’s mission and FlightStory’s expertise makes this partnership particularly powerful.
FlightStory’s track record includes scaling creators, building multi-million-listener platforms, designing commercial engines, and transforming niche content into global brands. By applying the blueprint behind the rise of The Diary of a CEO, FlightStory believes HSR can become a category-defining brand for women globally.
Maggie on the Partnership: “An Investment Into the Future of Women”
Maggie says the partnership marks a transformational moment for HSR:
“This is an investment into the future of women taking control of their businesses and lives.”
She believes the partnership will dramatically accelerate her long-term mission:
“Applying the FlightStory blueprint that scaled The Diary Of A CEO will take everything we’ve built and amplify it globally.”
For Maggie, the focus is not simply on scaling a media business, but on changing the narrative around women and wealth, representation in media, and who controls the mic in conversations about success.
The Future of Hot Smart Rich: A Global Brand in the Making
With new capital and strategic backing, the future of HSR includes:
International expansion of content production
Live events across major markets
Growing the digital community into a global women’s network
Launching new shows and editorial formats
Developing physical and digital products around empowerment and financial education
Scaling partnerships with brands aligned with female entrepreneurship and wealth-building
The vision is clear: HSR is becoming more than a podcast — it is evolving into a global female-forward media empire.
A Moment of Cultural Momentum for Women in Business
The FlightStory–HSR partnership lands at a time when:
Women are founding businesses at record rates
Female-led companies are attracting unprecedented investment
Audiences are demanding representation in content and media
Conversations about wealth, ownership, and financial independence are expanding
HSR is positioned to fuel that momentum, giving women stories, advice, tools, and community they can rely on.
A New Chapter in Media: Women Taking the Mic, the Money, and the Market
What this partnership ultimately represents is more than expansion — it symbolizes a shift in who shapes business culture.
Not just as listeners. Not just as participants. But as creators, leaders, investors, and owners.
Hot Smart Rich is stepping into its next chapter — one backed by capital, global strategy, and belief in women’s power to lead the business narrative of the next decade.
