1.) There's an insanely fast-growing global market for pet care services
- I found this trend from a daily newsletter I read called "The Hustle"
- I was lead to understand this opportunity exists because Softbank just invested $300 million in a pet care service called Wag. After the investment, a Softbank senior investor explained that the investment made sense based on the growing industry
- I believe the prototypical customer for this economic trend is the increasing amount of pet owners that struggle with making enough time to give enough attention to their pets
- I think this opportunity is relatively easy to exploit because there are so many people that want to own pets and people are getting busier and busier. This can be exploited by creating even more local dog walking services, food delivery services, grooming-on-the-go services, and anything else to make the pet owner's life easier
- I personally saw this opportunity because I have seen how more and more college-aged students are getting dogs. Five of my friends alone this past semester have gotten puppies and I know they are pressed for time and could benefit from a pet service
2.) Rising interest rates in the United States creates a greater emphasis on saving & personal finance
- On a web listing on thebalance.com, they list rising interest rates as one of the US's top five economic trends. Through Investopedia.com I was able to discover more information about this
- I was lead to believe this opportunity exists when reading through Investopedia and learning that savers benefit from higher interest rates and that because the interest rate is higher, it is more beneficial to save money for purchases rather than to take loans if possible
- The prototypical customer to learn more about how they can optimize their income and wealth would be those in comfortable to high paying jobs that have an excess of money to put toward savings
- This opportunity is rather difficult to exploit because it deals with changing people's day-to-day habits. I believe the best opportunity is to target youngsters recently graduating from college that are about to make money for the first time but have very little personal finance knowledge
- I personally saw this opportunity because I know how lost I felt about my own personal finances until I took the initiative to speak with my elders about it and read books on the topic.
Regulatory Change Opportunities
1.) Portable benefits policies could lead to easier lives for independent workers and thus more people seeking to live the "gig lifestyle"
- I found this opportunity after googling new US regulatory policies and reading through businessnewsdaily.com
- I am lead to believe this opportunity exists because of the rapidly increasing number of Americans working as gig workers or independent contractors. The unmet need exists with these people not having access to a 401k or traditional employer healthcare.
- The prototypical customer would be someone looking to live as a gig worker that doesn't know how to get access to essential services and is willing to pay for a guide to help them
- I believe this opportunity is moderately difficult to exploit because these types of people often do not want to be affiliated with any other parties but they could use the help
- I personally saw this opportunity because I just spoke with a student that told me he was interested in living the #VanLife and noted that there weren't very many services available for these types of people.
2.) The new tax law's effect on small businesses. There's a huge drop in corporate tax rate
- I discovered this opportunity through businessnewsdaily.com through a link explaining how the new tax law will affect small businesses
- This opportunity exists because it provides several aspects that make it easier to start and continue to run a small business
- The prototypical customer would be someone interested in starting a small business or small business owners that don't know how the new law can help them with their current business and where they can allocate the funds they saved
- I believe this opportunity is easy to exploit because of the millennial trend of wanting to be independent. I think that with these benefits to small business owners it will be easy to propose to interested small business owners or those looking to own a small business how they can benefit from owning a small business
- I personally saw this opportunity because of my own interest in starting a small business and speaking to others about it. Most of my peers that I tell I am interested in starting a business explain that they would like to as well but feel they don't have the experience or money to do so
Ben,
ReplyDeleteI thought your second economic trend response was interesting. I agree, it definitely is worth saving up for something and paying for it rather than having to pay the interest rate. Both sides has its ups and downs because if you cannot afford something in the moment, maybe paying the cost off with the interest rate would be useful so you could have it now rather than waiting and saving up.
Ben,
ReplyDeleteI found your points to be very interesting. I think that the first one that popped out as me was the second regulatory trend you had. The new corporate tax rates is going to lower taxes for small businesses, giving more opportunity for business owners to put money back into their businesses as reinvestments. Next, I never knew about the pet care service market and the opportunity that it holds. The industry does seem to be growing more than I was expecting when I originally read the article. Overall, I feel that this is definitely a good opportunity for businesses.