Back in my day, if you wanted to know what the hot new Australian start-up trend would be, you'd have to fly to SXSW Interactive, the annual festival of all things social, internet and technology, in Texas. One year you might see Gowalla and Foursquare battling it out to be crowned king of location-based check-in apps – and about nine months later, a bunch of Australian location-based check-in apps were born.

Since the early noughties, innovative business school graduates would leave Australia to see what was hot in Silicon Valley, and hope to be first to market with a copy of the service back home.

It can be risky business proposition, your Netflix clone may not survive the original's inevitable Australian launch, and Uber might think your ride-sharing company is less flattering imitation and more outright copyright violation.

These days, it seems a trip to Texas is no longer needed. Just listen to the ads in US podcasts to pick the trends of the year ahead.

Over the last few years, podcast listeners have had a constant rotation of Casper ads, a mattress-in-a-box company. I've heard variations on the advertisement so many times I could give you the pitch from memory – Casper will ship a latex and memory-foam mattress to your door, you get to keep it for 90 days, and if you're not completely happy with it, they'll pick it up again, no questions asked.

In the past year or so, by sheer coincidence, at least eight different Australian entrepreneurs had the idea of shipping people a mattress-in-a-box. A latex and memory-foam mattress, to be precise, and all will let you keep it for at least 100 days, or return it, no questions asked. I've found Ecosa, Koala, Greywing, Relaxon, Luxi Sleep, Ozmattress, Onebed, and Sleeping Duck so far – all with a near identical pitch – and that was after just a few minutes of searching.

Want to buy a pair of glasses online, but you want to try up to five pairs first, so you can choose the ones right for you? In the States, Warby Parker is the service you're after. Once you've chosen a pair, they'll even ship another to someone in need, so you can feel good about your purchase.

Back home, Frankie Dean and Oscar Wylee don't just share similarly nonsensical business names – but they'll offer you five pairs to try, and ship another pair to someone deserving.

Podcast advertisements, particularly those in tech podcasts, are the perfect place to find these new up and coming product categories. Podcast audiences are generally smaller and less valued than traditional broadcast channels, so you'll find more challenger brands being advertised. And technology podcasts are advertising to early adopters, those willing to take the risk on ordering something like a mattress online. It's no wonder they've become the source of inspiration for some entrepreneurs at home.

Of course, there are some amazing, truly innovative tech start-ups in Australia – and to be fair, even the clones are providing a useful service while the companies that inspired them are slow to market here. I have two friends that are now happy owners of in-a-box mattresses – both, not surprisingly, heavy podcast listeners.

And it's not just Australians finding inspiration in podcast advertising. Over the last year, one of the most heavily advertised products on technology podcasts was Eero – a small set of wi-fi routers that promised to create a simple mesh network to blanket your home.

Last year Eero had the category to itself, but it didn't take long for networking giants Netgear (with the Orbi), and Linksys (with the Velop) to notice.

Based on the high rotation ads in my podcasts, I predict we'll see clones of Automatic, the little dongle that reads information from your car's engine diagnostics, Fracture, the company printing photos onto glass, and any number of subscription services for men – socks, shavers, blazers, you name it.