The Secret to Finding the Next Amazon Is Hiding in Plain Sight

Key Points

• Amazon started with a simple concept of selling books online and built on that early success by expanding to other products.

• Robinhood Markets and Hims & Hers Health are having similar success in financial services and healthcare by putting the customer first like Amazon.

• These innovative companies are expanding fast and could become the Amazon of their respective industries.

• 10 stocks we like better than Robinhood Markets ›

Amazon's success expanding from books to cloud computing has set the benchmark for the ideal growth stock. By putting the customer first and being willing to take risks, Amazon tremendous wealth for investors.

The great thing about finding these innovative companies is that you don't have to be first line to buy shares. You could have waited until 2005 -- 10 years after Amazon went public -- and still made over $100,000 on a $1,000 investment.

Where to invest $1,000 right now? Our analyst team just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks to buy right now. Continue »

The next 20 years could see similar return possibilities for innovative companies in massive industries like financial services and healthcare. Here are two growth stocks that might be giving investors a second chance at buying an early stage Amazon in these industries.

Image source: Getty Images.

1. Robinhood Markets: The Amazon of financial services

Robinhood Markets (NASDAQ: HOOD) resembles an early stage Amazon in the brokerage industry. Robinhood was launched more than a decade ago by co-founder and CEO Vlad Tenev. Similar to how Amazon pioneered the concept of ordering books online, Robinhood started as the first mobile-based brokerage service that allowed people to buy any stock in fractional amounts without paying any transaction fees or commissions. Amazon pioneered the idea of shopping online; Robinhood was the first to offer commission-free trading.

Robinhood started with stocks and is now expanding to new products and features that are fueling the company's growth. Options and cryptocurrencies generate most of its transaction-based revenues. But more customers are starting to shift all their assets to Robinhood. Retirement assets on the platform doubled year over over in the second quarter to $19 billion.

Robinhood's competitive advantage is based on two things: a simple app design and innovation, and these two factors are creating perhaps the strongest brand in the brokerage industry.

Tenev, who is 38, understands millennials and Gen Z much better than the big brokers. He started Robinhood to encourage participation in the financial markets for young people, and to say the company has succeeded is an understatement.

Robinhood's market cap has surged to $100 billion this year. While it would be easy for the company's executive team to rest on the validation the market has given them for their success, management is keeping its foot to the metal. It is looking to bring even more value to customers by expanding access to certain products that have historically been reserved for high net-worth individuals. Tenev wants to eventually tokenize private companies, allowing customers to participate in the growth of companies like SpaceX like buying a stock.

Its new banking service is rolling out this fall and is a good example of why Robinhood is gaining so much popularity with younger investors. Robinhood Banking will bring luxury financial services to customers, such as estate planning and professional tax advice, in addition to other perks. This will accelerate its goal of being the go-to destination for all its customers' financial needs.

The steady pace of new features it releases and new products it keeps announcing is leaving the large brokers flat footed much like Amazon outran established retailers. Robinhood's total platform assets have doubled over the last year to $279 billion.

There's a huge opportunity ahead. By 2048, Cerulli Associates estimates more than $100 trillion of assets will flow from baby boomers to their heirs, and that plays to Robinhood's advantage, since it has won a lot of fans with millennials. While Robinhood stock might look expensive, its growth so far shows a clear path to reaching at least $1 trillion of assets on its platform, and it should keep growing in the decades to come. The stock may not be as expensive as it looks.

Image source: Getty Images.

2. Hims & Hers Health: The Amazon of healthcare

Hims & Hers Health (NYSE: HIMS) is another high-growth business that resembles an early stage Amazon. Healthcare is a massive industry, accounting for around a fifth of the U.S. economy. There's no expenditure more important to a person's happiness than their health. Hims & Hers has the opportunity to be one of the most valuable healthcare companies in the world by bringing the same customer-centric strategy that made Amazon successful to healthcare.

Hims is following the Amazon playbook of starting small before expanding the selection of products to its customers. Hims & Hers has experienced robust growth by making it convenient and accessible to get precise treatment for things like hair loss, weight loss, and sexual wellness, all from the comfort of home. Growth has been phenomenal, with revenue up 90% year over year in the first half of 2025, which signals that it is tapping into a truly enormous business opportunity.

Just as it would have been a mistake to pigeonhole Amazon into the label of an online bookstore 20 years ago, investors shouldn't expect Hims & Hers to remain static. It will most likely look like a different business in 10 years than it is today. This company has big ambitions. Co-founder and CEO Andrew Dudum has expressed the long-term goal of expanding its offering to new specialties and significantly expanding its addressable market.

If there's one thing to build conviction around the long-term opportunity for Hims & Hers, it's the company's talented executive team. Chief Operating Officer Nader Kabbani formerly worked at Amazon for almost two decades, where he helped build the operations that support Amazon Logistics, Kindle, and Prime Video. Chief Technology Officer Mo Elshenawy also worked at Amazon, in addition to leading various projects in artificial intelligence (AI) across e-commerce and cloud computing, while Chief Product Officer Dheerja Kaur was formerly vice president of product at Robinhood.

Elshenawy's experience in AI will be a valuable asset as Hims & Hers builds personalized AI agents that can offer 24/7 support to customers. These agents, combined with an expanding assortment of treatments for health issues, could drive tremendous long-term growth in revenue and profits.

The reality of healthcare is that Hims may be faced with legal and regulatory challenges at some point, but the long-term upside from expanding selection and implementing a customer-centric strategy using AI more than compensates for these risks. The company's $13 billion market cap seems low for a company that is working to make treatments more accessible and affordable in a $5 trillion industry.

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John Ballard has positions in Hims & Hers Health and Robinhood Markets. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon, Hims & Hers Health, and Walmart. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.