Trends Report: šØ Inc. 5000 Insights ā Anti-Aging Solutions ā A Bankruptcy Tsunami š
A few weeks ago, I took a bike ride through Georgetown -- one of DCās highest-profile shopping districts -- and was stunned at how many prominent retailers had closed their doors.
āFor Leaseā signs or vacancy notices hung on the windows of at least a dozen stores, including Brooks Brothers, Lucky Brand, Papyrus, and more. The once-bustling strip felt like a ghost town.
Nationwide, retailers closed 9.5k+ stores last year -- with some experts predicting we could see 15k more shutter by the end of this year.
For this weekās report, we explore 2 businesses that are benefiting from the retail-pocalypse:
The legal profession, which is scrambling to help companies navigate mergers and acquisitions and a sharp rise in bankruptcies.
The packaging industry, which is ripe for reinvention as more food and products are shipped directly to our doors.
This Weekās Lineup:
5 Founder Insights From the Inc. 5000. This year's rundown of the fastest-growing private companies accounts for ~$209B in revenue and ~600k employees. We identified the fastest-growing industries and one state that made a surprising jump up the rankings.
The Inc. 5000 is an annual list of the 5k fastest-growing private companies in the US. Some folks say itās an honor to be named, while others say itās a marketing ploy (since companies apply to be included).
Regardless of where you stand, one thingās clear: Winning a spot on the list takes a ton of work.
This yearās honorees represent ~$209B in revenue and ~600k employees. They grew anywhere from 55% (Equip Systems, a medical equipment business) to 48,337% (the privacy company OneTrust, which won the top spot on this yearās list).
Innovation comes in unexpected places. The list of states with the most companies on the list doesnāt change much from year to year. But if you look closely, you can spot a breakout state or two. Hawaii jumped up 8 places from 2019 -- from 50th to 42nd.
Small cities can pack a big punch. A few under-the-radar cities pack in more Inc. 5000 winners per capita than New York and San Francisco combined.
A few industries surprised us. Travel and hospitality companies and media companies were overrepresented among the top 100 businesses on Inc.ās list. The rankings were compiled using pre-COVID revenue figures -- so we talked to one founder about how his business is adapting.
A New Joint in Anti-Aging Solutions: Collagen Alternatives
Collagen plays a big role in anti-aging treatments, joint health, and sports recovery. The market for the vital connective material is forecast to be worth $6B+ by 2026.
But collagen also has a big drawback: Because itās derived mostly from bovine sources, itās not friendly to all consumers -- like the growing population of people who follow pescetarian, vegetarian, or vegan diets.
Collagen alternatives, made from plant-based or marine substances, are starting to break out. On Jungle Scout, searches for āvegan collagenā have increased 114% since the beginning of this year -- from 1.4k in January to 3k in July. Google search interest in āplant-based collagenā and āmarine collagenā have also spiked, according to Keywords Everywhere.
Product opportunities for collagen alternatives are plentiful: Think powders, creamers, capsules, bars, sweets, and even flavored waters.
Search Interest for Sugaring Is Looking Sweet
When salons closed in March, a self-care trend took off: Search interest for sugar waxing spiked, and has stayed hot since peaking in May, according to Google Trends.
Sugaring is a hair-removal method that uses a sugar paste -- itās supposed to be gentler on the skin than traditional wax.
And itās winning converts on social media: Instagram searches for #sugaring and #sugarwaxing yield 500k+ posts.
The practice originated in India, and itās just one example of an Eastern beauty trend thatās setting down roots in the West. Others include gua sha (135k monthly searches according to Keywords Everywhere) and threading (450k monthly searches).
A Map Porn Subreddit Hits a Hot Milestone
The r/MapPorn subreddit has 1m+ subscribers and sees 2.5k+ comments every day, according to Subreddit Stats. Subscribers post interesting maps showing everything from election trends to theoretical African nations (based on culture, not colonial borders).
Web traffic to Far & Wide shows the map love isnāt just a phase. The site encourages people to travel by curating collections of unique maps, passport stamps, and urban legends, and it sees 1m+ visits every month, according to SimilarWeb.
While there are a few blogs dedicated to fascinating maps, you can still plant a flag: Try sending cartographic gems straight to peopleās inboxes in a newsletter.
Trends Signals Quick snapshots from across the internet of potential trends before they happen.
The Signal: Even in the midst of a pandemic, one industry is seeing hiring demand grow faster than health care: law.
Law firms are bulking up their bankruptcy staff -- and lawyers are hanging their own shingles -- to meet the surge in COVID-19-related bankruptcies.
Insolvent companies will need diverse legal talent -- experts in litigation, mergers and acquisitions, taxes, etc. -- to navigate the months to come.
The overwhelming demand opens opportunities for companies to play matchmaker -- pairing legal talent with businesses through job boards and marketplaces.
Source: McKinsey & Company Survey, āUS consumer sentiment during the coronavirus crisisā
The Signal: Ecommerce is expected to reach an all-time high of 14.5% (~$710B) of total retail sales in the US as consumers increasingly plan to make a portion of their purchases online. Or in some categories, all of their purchases online.
One of the biggest challenges companies face with booming ecommerce demand is packaging -- a nearly trillion-dollar industry.
Packaging concerns go beyond sustainability. In food services, for example, almost 25% of all the negative consumer comments received by Deliveroo in 2019 related to the temperature of the food, pointing to the need for packaging that preserves food quality when it travels.
Big Picture: Food services wonāt be the only businesses searching for new packaging solutions in a post-pandemic world. Innovations include intelligent packaging, personalized packaging, and, of course, sustainable packaging (that you can eat).
Churn, renewal rate, and net promoter score are important, but theyāre lagging indicators, and changes often appear too late. Adding a product activity coefficient to your KPI dashboard can help you catch problems before customers walk away.
If youāre struggling to switch off at the end of the day while working from home, check out this Hacker News thread. Favorite suggestions include:
Using tools like Habitica to gamify your work-life balance goals.
Scheduling daily walks āto and fromā work at home.
Finally, a long read for all the free time youāll have after switching off -- Jack Kinsellaās treatise on self-directed learning, with insights on:
Malgorithms: 9 mental algorithms for improved learning.
Tips on selecting sources (hint: limit ālearning pornā -- time-consuming surface-level info thatās entertaining but not actionable).
Frameworks for practice, like matching practice with your final product and the importance of purposefully doing something wrong.
š¦šŗ Melbourne-based Buildkite -- sometimes called āthe best-kept secret in DevOpsā -- built a $200m valuation with zero employee turnover and zero enterprise client churn. Their secret: Avoiding the typical startup game:
They raised $200k and committed to running cash-flow neutral.
The founders took pay cuts and only hired when they could afford it.
They also handled support, which customers loved.
Most important: They spent less than they earned (i.e., they built an actual business).
šØš“ In the midst of global travel restrictions, Colombian eco-tourism startup Awake raised a $500k seed round. The company says people will avoid cities when travel resumes. By January 2021, it expects to make $300k+/month connecting tourists with local travel guides.
What Weāre Watching
Sam has a spreadsheet of companies heās keeping his eyes on. Hereās a peek at a few businesses on his list:
Prodoscore: Productivity management software that tracks employees while they work at home.
Why weāre watching it: Experienced a 600% increase in interest from prospective customers since the pandemic. A competitor, TransparentBusiness, has seen a 500% increase in users month to month.
Gymshark: British online fitness brand that manufactures and sells gym clothes and accessories, started in 2012 by teenager Ben Francis from his parentsā garage.
Why weāre watching it: Just hit a $1.3B valuation after securing investment from General Atlantic.
Omio: German startup that provides a multi-modal travel booking platform.
Why weāre watching it: Despite seeing revenues drop to almost zero in March, the company just raised $100m and maintained its unicorn status.
š Programming Notes
Join Anne-Laure Le Cunff, entrepreneur, ex-Googler, and neuroscience student at Kingās College London, for our latest Trends lecture, āMindful Productivity for Entrepreneurs,ā this Thursday (August 27) at 3pm ET.
Anne-Laure is most well-known for founding Ness Labs, which includes a newsletter with 13k+ subscribers, a private community, and much more. During this session, she will cover:
Neuroscience-based strategies to fight procrastination.
How to make the most of your time without burning out.
What productivity mistakes most entrepreneurs make.
The difference between habits, routines, and rituals.
How to design your own mindful productivity framework.
This weekās Trends send was brought to you by Sam Parr, Steph Smith, Julia Janks, Ethan Brooks, Trung Phan, and Brad Wolverton. š Got 15 seconds? Please share your feedback by hitting the smileys above. Tell us what you liked and how we can make Trends better.