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November
29, 2020

5 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Staying on top of trends is how entrepreneurs succeed. I love reading and researching data to understand what’s to come. Sure, no one can predict the future — yet, but excited for the time when AI will do that for us — but trends are our best bet when it comes to projecting where business is heading.  

Not many years ago, we were predicting the rise of something called a smartphone and becoming comfortable with the idea of wide-scale digital subscription services with monthly fees and cars that drive themselves. Now the iPhone and Netflix are part of our everyday lives. Let’s take a look at four new trends that represent massive opportunity.

1. Ghost kitchens are the food of the future

Accentuated by Covid, ghost kitchens, also known as delivery-only restaurants, are where food service is headed. The concept is popping up everywhere, from Barcelona to New York City. Uber-popular, fast-casual chain Chipotle just rolled out its first ghost kitchen. Speaking of Uber, ex-Uber CEO Travis Kalanick just raised $130 million for his ghost kitchen concept, according to The Wall Street Journal. If this doesn’t foreshadow that ghost kitchens are the future, what will?

But, can this bare-bones trend turn into big dollars? Research firm Eurometer has estimated that ghost kitchens could be a $1 trillion business by 2030. These kinds of restaurants offer a streamlining effect like never before — with no waiters or flashy interiors, the inherently cut costs ultimately give the customer the same food at cheaper prices. This space is still relatively new and represents lots of opportunities to focus on hyperlocal regions.

Related: Why Most Ghost Kitchens Will Fail in 2021

2. Car companies are scrambling to offer more autonomous and electric vehicle options

More than ever, consumers are making ethical purchases and looking to reduce their carbon footprint. The intersection of those two ideas is electric and autonomous vehicles.

Tesla’s Cybertruck, a futuristic-style truck with a stainless-steel exoskeleton and reported sports-car level performance is a prime example of why going electric and autonomous is where the car industry is headed. The fact that a truck can offer both a 2.9 second 0-60 mph acceleration and 500 miles of range shows its potential. After all, the Ford F-150 certainly can’t offer those numbers.

The rest of the car world sees the opportunity as well. Even the notorious gas-guzzling Hummer is being reintroduced as an electric vehicle by GMC. If that’s not a sign of the future, what is? 

3. Cloud storage overtaking traditional disk-based storage 

Stacked hard drives and overloaded computers are a thing of the past. Popular services like OneDrive and Dropbox offer cloud storage services for consumers across the globe. One service, pCloud, is heading the trend to take things a step further. Touting themselves as an external hard drive, after installing pCloud on your computer, everything stays totally in the cloud, unlike OneDrive or Dropbox. Plus, you can now choose the data region, where your files and personal data are stored either in the United States or the European Union. This is great for privacy protection and speed of data delivery. 

And, in a security-challenged world, where seeing 2.2 billion accounts breached is commonplace (as reported by CPO Magazine), pCloud offers pCloud Crypto, a service that encrypts user content along with client-side encryption — essentially meaning that the users’ files are encrypted on their device before they are ever transferred to the pCloud servers. With pCloud Crypto, not even pCloud’s administrators can view files. The future is secure, and pCloud is leading the charge while making room for massive opportunity in the space. 

4. 5G makes the widely unavailable available 

The incredible speed that 5G offers introduces a whole new ball game for people and businesses that rely on digital communication — so, essentially everyone. How about this for some future Sci-fi forecasting? Seadronix is harnessing 5G power to develop autonomous ships. The company is using AI to enable vessels to travel unmanned using cameras and sensors. 5G enables the devices to work together in real-time to avoid obstacles and make necessary adjustments to avoid crashing. 

Related: The Future of the Entertainment Industry Beyond 2020

Really, 5G is about making what’s already semi-available through 4G and WiFi widely accessible and easy to integrate through blazing-fast speeds. While we’ve heard more about 5G than seen results so far, when 5G does ramp-up, expect augmented reality to become the norm, movies to be downloaded in seconds, and latency to drop to near zero. See ya later, buffering and hello an exponential amount of opportunities, thanks to the fastest computing power we’ve ever seen. 

Time marches on, whether we like it or not. Trends like 5G, autonomous vehicles and ghost kitchens are a natural evolution in our habits as consumers and sellers. Who knows, in 10 years, maybe we’ll be predicting 6G and flying humans.

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July
23, 2020

5 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

The world is a crazy place right now. Between the global pandemic gripping everyone’s attention and worldwide protests following the tragic death of George Floyd, we’re in the midst of what feels like a massive, revolutionary sea change when it comes to diversity and equality. Jia Wertz, filmmaker and founder of Studio 15, a fashion-forward women’s brand that specializes in South Asian inspired collections, was a recent guest on my podcast (episode to air soon). And she specifically raised the need for more prominent representation of South Asian culture in the U.S. through business and fashion.

As she explained to me, “Even though the South Asian (also known as desi) population –– consisting of individuals with ancestry from Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and the Maldives ––  in the U.S. is 5.4 million, you wouldn’t know it by watching your favorite TV shows or shopping at your favorite stores. Historically, South Asian people have rarely been represented on television, in marketing campaigns or even in the business world. With the U.S. population being approximately 331 million people, the South Asian community only represents about 1.6 percent of the country’s population, but even still, the portrayal of the South Asian people in film, television and business doesn’t even meet this low threshold.” 

To her point, the most famous South Asian person on television in the 1980s and ’90s was Apu from The Simpsons, and his voice was performed by Hank Azaria, a white male actor, which only reinforced racial stereotypes. But in recent years, we have finally begun to see a shift in this area, as comedians and actors such as Mindy Kaling, Riz Ahmed, Kumail Nanjiani and Hasan Minhaj have risen to fame and become household names. Minhaj even headlined the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner and delivered a bold 30-minute speech that got people talking.

Related: StartOut Pride Economic Impact Index to Help Quantify Value of LGBTQ+ Entrepreneurs

This increased visibility of South Asian Americans in pop culture was far overdue. One of the factors that could have led to the culture being more widely seen across business and media is that the community grew roughly 40 percent between 2010 and 2017. 

“As a first-generation immigrant raised in Canada and living in the U.S. since my 20s, I rarely saw anyone that represented myself or my culture on television or as the face of my favorite brands,” said Wertz, who is of Pakistani descent and immigrated to Canada with her parents at a young age. “I’m happy to finally start seeing some South Asian actors and models being represented in the industry recently.”

She continued, “As it relates to business, I saw a gap in the market and a demand for fashion that was different, unique, and represented a large group of people who were in between two worlds — first-generation immigrants who relate to both North American culture and their ancestral roots — which is where the inspiration for our Desi Collection came from. We make a concerted effort to work with South Asian models as much as possible, it’s important to keep this momentum we are finally seeing moving forward.”

The fashion industry hasn’t historically been very representative of the South Asian population and has received criticism for not leveraging its visual power to help change perceptions around the world. According to a Fashion Spot report, which tallied Spring 2017’s 299 shows and 8,832 model appearances in New York, London, Milan and Paris, Asian models only represented 7 percent of all who walked the shows.  

Inclusivity is critical for business growth across the board, no matter what industry. When the end consumer feels represented and can identify with the people they are seeing in ads, on television or running the companies they do business with, they are more likely to engage.

More pointedly, inclusion is a true growth opportunity for businesses — equally important as personalization in today’s business landscape. Embracing diversity allows people to voice different perspectives and new innovative ideas to be generated, all of which can only lead to a better end result. 

To that end, Kuldeep Sah Gangola, a documentary filmmaker and instructor at New York Film Academy, comments that, “As the South Asians find their place in the nation’s ever-changing tapestry, the second-generation south Asians are building on the success of their parents and hence becoming a significant part of the western culture itself. This indeed has provided a very special blend of South Asian values and traditions which have given rise to the portrayal of this culture in the media as well.” 

Related: The Washington Redskins’ Overdue Name Change Teaches a Powerful Lesson on How to Lead

Blending the experiences and talents of different individuals can be very powerful. Businesses that make consumers feel included on an individual level will have a major advantage. The great news is that diversity is getting far more attention than ever before, but there is still a long way to go, and hopefully, the industries will keep moving in the right direction. And I, for one, am excited to see what the future holds. 

June
9, 2020

6 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

More than any other time in history, consumers have become cognizant of what they put into their bodies, and the demand for products that shake up the status quo continues to expand. People are voting with their dollars in greater numbers than ever, and products marketed as sustainable are gaining momentum.

The expanding interest in improving personal wellness and the environment through health-conscious, eco-friendly and organic purchases is driving consumer markets in a whole new direction, giving rise to companies that provide something completely different for their customers.

Why are healthy alternatives gaining traction?

These days, more consumers are leaning toward a plant-focused lifestyle, and their product choices represent a desire for greener agricultural practices.

Seventy-three percent of consumers say they would be willing to accept higher prices for a brand that is transparent, which presents major challenges for legacy brands and big corporations that already have ingrained processes in place. It is a boon, however, for companies investing in a more socially conscious approach to their marketing.

Unilever, for example, has seen a great deal of company growth in response to its Unilever Sustainable Living Plan, which put its agenda to reduce environmental impact and improve social influence front and center. The 26 brands that are part of the plan contributed 70 percent of the company’s revenue growth in 2018.

Data shows that brands providing peace of mind about a product’s origins and health benefits inspire loyalty, and that people are more likely to switch labels when they offer greater transparency. Here are a few other brands and trends that underscore the movement. 

Related: 10 OG Prison Tips to Get Your Mind, Body and Soul Right During Quarantine

Despite the well-established fact that prolonged tobacco use can lead to myriad illnesses, including fatal mouth, throat and respiratory cancers, the global industry is expected to reach $1.08 trillion by 2027. While nicotine alone has not been found to cause cancer, it is highly addictive. That addiction may be the culprit of continued tobacco use in spite of known risks.

I recently enjoyed a conversation on my podcast with the co-founder of Black Buffalo, which is a smokeless tobacco alternative that provides an answer for people who love their dip but don’t want to consume the actual plant itself. (My podcast is hosted on the Entrepreneur platform here, where you can catch this episode.) During the chat, I learned about the unique opportunity for a tobacco alternative that isn’t just about the nicotine (though the company uses the same amount of pharmaceutical-grade nicotine you would find in a standard tin of chewing tobacco). It’s about the taste, the feel and, most importantly, the ritual.

That’s why the team spent years developing a dip without tobacco leaf or stem that is so close to the authentic product that even tobacco farmers themselves can’t tell the difference. They respect the time-honored traditions of this American ritual, and they have created a smokeless tobacco alternative that their customers love. With the CBD and cannabis spaces reaching peak consumer levels, I envision we’re going to start seeing a lot more of these tobaccoless consumer alternatives. 

The Rise of 100-Calorie Beer

For some people, there’s nothing more enjoyable than cracking open a cold one after a long day in the hot sun or joining a group of friends for a couple of brews on Friday night. But brewers have always struggled with the balance between better flavor and lower calories (hence the famous Miller Lite slogan, “Tastes Great, Less Filling”).

Recently, however, innovative brewing techniques have led to an onslaught of new kinds of beers that are taking off, as reported by The Takeout. Out of the top 25 brands that saw growth in 2019, 10 boasted healthier options like fewer calories or lower carbs.

DogFish Head Brewery has begun rolling out its “active lifestyle” brands with huge success, and alcoholic seltzers are on the rise. Independent craft breweries are jumping on the lo-cal wagon as well, with a well-rounded selection of light ales and IPAs that will satisfy beer drinkers of every caliber. I can see this space continuing to heat up, including the rise of low-calorie IPAs. 

Glossier’s Unicorn Success

We certainly have come a long way since putting lead and arsenic into beauty products on purpose; but unfortunately, lead still makes its way into lipsticks and eyeliners in trace amounts.

The lack of regulation in the cosmetic industry results in the intentional and incidental use of other known toxins and carcinogens like formaldehyde, asbestos and phthalates. Add to this the fact that animal testing is still a widespread practice for many beauty and skincare lines, and it’s enough to make any consumer want to stick with brands that are completely transparent.

Glossier’s founder, Emily Weiss, wanted to provide just that when she launched the company in 2014 with four products. The company’s direct-to-consumer model means that customer relationships are the most important aspect of the business. The company is forthright about its product ingredients, focused on sustainability and certified as cruelty-free.

“Democratizing beauty” has paid off immensely for Glossier. By 2018, the company was valued at more than $1 billion and bringing in $100 million in annual revenue. It is one of the most well-funded privately held businesses in the beauty industry, and Weiss has been hinting at an IPO in the future. The beauty industry is notorious for poor environmental practices, and any product that uses cruelty-free sustainable ingredients will carve out a competitive advantage. 

New Business Opportunities on the Horizon

Consumers are making it abundantly clear that they prefer products they know they can trust. They will spend more money on a brand that is transparent with its agricultural and supply chain practices; they are concerned about environmental and social causes, and they want brands that provide pleasurable experiences while keeping health and wellness in mind.

While large companies like Unilever are finding new ways to grow by providing a line of products that take these needs into account, smaller businesses are well-positioned to slide in and start connecting with customers right where they are.

Independent craft brewers are filling that space with beer-drinkers who want to be social and stay healthy. Glossier’s direct-to-consumer business model is creating products based on needs identified through direct communication with customers. And Black Buffalo has found a way to help people get all the things they are looking for in their tobacco products, without the tobacco or its cancer-causing chemicals.

Related: The Best CBD Oils for Stressed-Out Entrepreneurs

This is an exciting time for consumer marketing. It will be interesting to see how established businesses adapt to an informed generation of consumers, and how new businesses will shape the market when they are designed to serve customers that demand something better.