A Daily Curation of the Web's Best Content for Startups

Post-Pandemic Trends: Business Lessons from The Spanish Flu, Black Death and Roaring 20s

“In short, the Roaring 20s are coming back, and this is going to be the greatest window of opportunity in your career.”

13 POST-PANDEMIC TRENDS = TENSIONS FOR 2022+
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1. Wealth › Conflict With Extreme Wealth = Today: Big Box vs Local
2. Class › Rise of The Middle Class = Support vs Refute
3. Factory › Automation of Labor = Robots vs People
4. Politics › Polarized Political Debate = USA vs China
5. Leadership › Next Gen Takes The Lead = Boomers vs Millennials
6. Careers › Fewer Career Boundaries = WFH vs In-Office
7. Lifestyle › Making up For Lost Time = Products vs Experience
8. Leisure › Proliferation of Leisure = Old Life vs New Hobbies
9. Media › New Media & New Heroes = Big Media vs Creators
10. Luxury › Desire for Opulence = Save vs Splurge
11. Science › A Pursuit of Answers = Vax vs Don’t
12. Business › Surge in Entrepreneurship = Work vs Quit
13: Risk › Extreme Risk for a New Life = Borrow vs Pay Debt

Forecasting the Future of Tech with Scott Belsky

“How will work and life change in a material way over the next 5 years?”

Interesting discussion on the future of work and technology with Scott Belsky, the founder of Behance.

They discuss some interesting business opportunities and challenges with Web3 and AI.


This is the article that stimulated the discussion.

10 Forecasts For The Near Future Of Tech

  1. Recommendations kills Favorites: AI-driven recommendations transcend our historical go-to’s.
  2. The next generation of top talent will have “Polygamous Careers,” transforming the corporate world as we know it.
  3. The rise of immersive experiences will mainstream 3D creation.
  4. “The Stakeholder Economy” will reinvigorate emerging brands and local businesses and be the most disruptive force against internet behemoths and global marketplaces.
  5. We will all start to OPT-IN for ads [read: personalized experiences].
  6. “F’ The Man, Power To The People” As A Service
  7. Every function of the enterprise will become a multi-player and fully immersive experience.
  8. The next generation will have a nomadic decade of life and work, and will love it.
  9. The reverse franchise model and “eduployment” will fuel growth and resilience of small businesses.
  10. The Era Of Multiple Identities: We Discover, Embrace, & Express Our Multiple Selves

David Perell on the Laws of the Internet

David Perell on the Laws of the Internet

Great observations on the opportunities for creators.

Here are a couple of my favorites:

1. Creators are Rewarded: It’s basically free to produce and distribute ideas now. Take advantage of that. When you share ideas online, you attract an audience of like-minded people who become friends and business partners. But passive consumers don’t receive the same benefits.

3. Ideas Are a Serendipity Vehicle: Creating is networking. Every idea you share is tinder for the flame of connection. Ideas spread at zero-marginal cost, and good ones find their way to people you’d never be able to meet with “real-world” networking strategies.

The Future of Personal Brands

The Future of Personal Brands

Dru Riley of Trends.vc covers personal branding in the latest edition of the Trends Report. He outlines some predictions and opportunities for building your personal brand with more links for background information. I like the simple format of his newsletter. The free version has limited information but it is still a great read every week. Trends.vc is another good example of a paid newsletter business model. The free version offers a lot of great value, but you need to subscribe for the full reports.

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Peak Competition in Online Retail

Peak Competition in Online Retail

The NotBoring newsletter has a comprehensive analysis of online retail. It’s easier than ever to sell online, but more competitive to attract customers. While DTC (Direct to Consumer) companies battle it out online, companies like Shopify and Amazon are the big winners. “Now that nearly every piece of the value chain has become modularized, the battle has concentrated in one place: marketing, via paid acquisition and brand, the only moat for the vast majority of brands.”

Mattress company, Casper is losing $349 for every mattress they sell. They have no choice to spend money to acquire customers. “Ultimately, when everyone is armed with the same tools, differentiation, brand, and audience/community matter for DTC brands more than ever.”

Business Opportunity: In highly competitive, oversaturated markets, curation becomes more important. Chase Reeves bag reviews from yesterday’s newsletter is a great example.

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Keep Up With Business Trends with Dru Riley

Keep Up With Business Trends with Dru Riley

This is a great time to introduce Dru Riley of Trends.vc. On August 11, Dru’s Trends newsletter hit the #1 spot on product hunt. Since starting the newsletter six months ago, Dru is reporting more than 7k subscribers and 200 premium members. Dru was hinting that price of the newsletter will be increasing soon, so this is a great time to subscribe.

I love business ideas with a simple value proposition like the Trends newsletter. It’s a weekly email of key business trends. It is easy to understand and communicate.  The best ideas are always simple.

At the same time, Dru has written about how he has gone 3 years without income and only recently starting earning money from the newsletter. Like most business success stories, a lot of hard work, sacrifice and trial and error went into getting to this stage.

Dru has covered topics like Paid Newsletters, Growth Tools, and Online Courses. Browse through those links to see what the free version of the newsletter is about.

The newsletters are a quick skim, yet there are many links to relevant companies and links for more information if necessary.

If you want to connect with a rising star in the IndieHacker space, follow Dru Riley on Twitter and IndieHackers. He is definitely an entrepreneur to watch.

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Sweat Pants Forever – The Glut in the Fashion Industry

Sweat Pants Forever - The Glut in the Fashion Industry

Here is a fascinating story from the New York Times about the problems of mass oversupply in the fashion industry. (Open in a new browser if you are past your limit.) Even before the pandemic, many clothing companies were having trouble. “We’ve done everything to such excess that there is no consumer for all of it,” For example, in 2018 Burberry burned $18m of unsold products. The pandemic and the resulting retail apocalypse are accelerating the crash.

Difficult times also bring opportunities. Last week, I wrote about a couple that built a 7 figure business reselling discount clothing on Amazon. There will be a lot of liquidations with so many retailers going out of business. I bet there are truckloads of Tokyo 2020 Olympic goods that are going to be collector’s items in the future. What opportunities do you see?

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The Opportunity Buying and Growing Websites

The Opportunity Buying and Growing Websites

Yesterday, I linked to an interview with Flippa CEO, Blake Hutchison, where they discussed the opportunities buying and growing existing websites on marketplaces like Flippa or EmpireFlippers.

Richard Patey in his newsletter yesterday wrote about DomainMagnates’s fund to purchase and grow sites like this. They had some setbacks, but overall the fund is up 130% for the year.

There are big opportunities for buying and improving sites like this. With some SEO, copywriting, and content marketing skills, these sites can be quickly grown because they are already established and have some traction.  It is worth watching this space. At the very least, it might be worth your time to purchase a small site to get some experience buying and growing a website.

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