The year 2020 has just ended its first quarter, but the distance between January and May feels like a decade. Nothing could be farther now than simple quiet times without market shaking and covid-2019 breaking out.
And still, every entrepreneur knows, that in muddy water one can catch the biggest fish, we just have to adapt the quickest among our peers.
Before we start, let’s just agree to one obvious fact – if we try to get out of this pandemic healthy and without debt, this alone can make us richer than 95% of people and raise our value to the new heights. After everything is over, the market will be almost zero competition in many areas, and those that can implement old ideas, old technologies the quickest, will own the great share. So stay healthy!
Industries that will most probably thrive right now:
- Medical industry
Many people right now are very vulnerable, and they all need medication, both for the prevention and treatment of diseases. This is a very short business opportunity, and it does not make a lot of sense to start a drug store for a few months.
- COVID-19 – related services
If you know how to code, you could implement a lot of useful online services. For example, the map of COVID-19 cases, or helpful content for infected or caring for infected.
- Delivery services
One of the best industries now, because there will be no big reason for people to discard such services after the pandemic. Many people will use delivery now for the first time and stick to it.
- Online streaming, entertainment
The amount of downloads for mobile games has grown ~20-25%, online streaming services also see a sharp growth of 26%. These services see a lot of newcomers who didn’t have time to try them before and now will have a habit of watching some series. The same for games – many mobile games are addictive, and will not let go even after the COVID-19 pandemic is over.
- Alcohol, tobacco, marijuana
It’s no surprise that people get really bored from sitting at home. And apart from digital entertainment, many prefer or add some old-school enjoyment: alcohol, tobacco, and weed.
- Online shop and delivery development
This one is obvious and can be seen everywhere. People work from home, do not go to downtown, and save enough money on gas to pay the same amount or less for delivery of goods they previously bought in downtown.
What startups will make more sense in the nearest future?
Our insight is that many businesses could use more digitalization. People will be much more aware of interacting with each other, at least for the next few years minimum. That’s a nice gap to start a business.
- Food delivery services. Big cities like New York have seen tons of food delivery startups already, but some smaller cities will be much more open to the trend from now on
- Private delivery services. Not only businesses need to deliver their goods, but also private persons need to deliver things from one to another. And these services will continue to be popular even after the pandemic because they make life easier and help avoid unnecessary travel back and forth.
- Online laundry. Not every apartment building has its own laundry, and a service that would take clothes and return them back to the front door is very useful today, but will still be highly appreciated even after social distancing is no longer needed.
- Online notary services platform. The notary is one of the most old-school businesses and could use digitalization a lot. Some procedures would still require a pick-up service, but that still saves a lot of commuting time for both parties. Also, a nice platform would have a good customer relationship management (CRM) system with an appointment scheduler built-in.
- Online psychologist services platform. Just like with notaries, why not save commuting time? Also, a CRM system with an appointment manager is also a very nice bonus!
- Online astrologer/psychic services platform. When we talk about psychologists, we might forget about the special kind of specialists that help some of us feel emotionally better, even by using non-conventional ways. But astrologers could also use a nice online platform! Yelp is full of positive experience reviews about Zoom sessions with psychics.
- Online doctor services platform – even with some large platforms already present like ZocDoc, this niche lacks granularity and some smaller and more specialized products. ZocDoc works for more general cases like flu, and it doesn’t help with more or less serious problems.
- Social Media Consultancy – a lot of businesses found out during the pandemic that they have no online presence. Since this need will never go away, and just more and more businesses will have their online pages, they are going to need someone to effectively steer them in the right direction concerning ideal posting strategy, implementing schedules, and posting content regarding their target audience.
- Online courses – do you know something so well that you could teach others? More and more people will switch to online courses during the pandemic, and it’s a one-way road. Many people will never switch back to traditional offline lessons because studying online today is so much easier and fun! So take your place under the sun and open your own school.
- Shopping services platform – one more thing that is not developed enough and probably will see huge growth. What if some store does not have a delivery service, or a person needs shopping in multiple stores located in one area? It does not make sense to pay each of the stores for delivery, and hiring one single person to do the shopping and deliver the goods to the front door is much cheaper and convenient alternative
