5 startup trends I'm excited about

Its been about 2 years since I moved to San Francisco, and one of the visa conditions to live here is to have firm views about the FUTURE (note: different from 'future') with 0% data and 100% optimism. So, here goes - 5 trends in the startup ecosystem I'm super excited about.

Ready? Let's go.

1. Space-as-a-service - one click rent/buy real estate

Source: https://www.disruptordaily.com/8-real-estate-startups-crashed-burned-simply-sputtered/

A category of startups are overturning how real estate is mapped, owned and managed. They're the next generation of companies that are building over the pure marketplace model that Airbnb introduced. They are integrating a Property Management Service (PMS) over a piece of real estate (home, hotel, distressed buildings etc.); standardising the property for specific use cases and digitising the customer experience in the process.

Why is this interesting? Air travel is getting cheaper than ever, jobs are increasingly location flexible but moving to a new city is still a stressful ordeal that deters any sort of non-tourist, medium term travel. What if you could live and work out of Tokyo for 6 months and do the other 6 months in New York? Housing is the first piece to build a location-irrelevant world. Renting a home should be as easy as booking an Uber.

Companies like Oyo and Selina are aggregating boutique hotels while others like Zeus Living, Nestaway, Sonder, Spot a Home, Oyo Homes are managing regular homes and apartments and letting consumers rent month to month.

Another exciting medium term trend is that of co-living startups. The promise of co-living is to get a bunch of like-minded residents to pool in tiny common spaces in their apartments (kitchen, living room etc.) for luxurious, communal spaces (large communal kitchen, movie room, yoga room, meeting room etc.). You retain your privacy with a large room and ensuite bathroom but share all other spaces. Soho house is an iconic example of this. Other in the space include Bungalow, co-founded an ex-Uber employee recently raised expansion $ in the US. Though my favourite company in this space is easily Roam - for their design, lean ops and global presence. Will be super interesting to see which category emerges as one that can change consumer housing behavior while retaining healthy unit economics.

Others in the space include Opendoor, which lets you buy and sell homes at practically the push of a button and CSS that turns distressed real estate into cloud kitchens and storage for online retail.

2. Direct to consumer - arbitraging digital marketing and low cost manufacturing from global hubs 👞

Source: https://www.cpcstrategy.com/blog/2017/09/selling-direct-to-consumer/

Direct to consumer brands ship products directly from the manufacturer to the consumer, dis-intermediating a bloated retail supply chain that is characteristic of the analog world. Much has been written about the growth of this new retail model -- no salespeople, bloated marketing department, big TV ads, retail stores -- resulting in a dramatic reduction in overheads. Probably the most iconic success story of this category is Kylie Jenner who built a billion dollar business with just social media ads and 7 full time employees. 

With Nike trying to go DTC and several hundred companies trying to be the next DTC brand for everything - the real opportunity is when they are able to take advantage of the manufacturing arbitrage from Asia/Africa and marry that into the business model. T-shirts from Vietnam/Bangladesh/Sri Lanka, leather shoes from India etc.

Procurement as a competitive advantage. Below is a McKinsey survey of Chief Procurement Officers who answered questions on where the next procurement hub is.

There's a brand waiting to be launched that creates its identity around the local artisans and workers in these regions -- and where your product comes from. Regardless, these brands are building their brand and driving sales entirely on digital marketing strategies and through proprietary deals with manufacturers from around the world without all the overheads that traditional retail has.

3. Travel 2.0 - experience centric, social, end to end ✈️

Travel hasn't changed much outside making the logistics of it easier. There's a class of startups that are building toward the experience economy -- focusing on delivering a unique experience rather than just a logistics service. Products like Airbnb Experiences, Get your guide, Headout etc. that lets you discover activities and events in your city curated by local experience providers.

Why is this interesting? Millennials are defining their identities by buying experiences over things - not surprising given this generation grew up in a world where the social currency was Instagram photos of their vacations. This generation is also disproportionately lonely and anxious -- and so any social products that fosters more offline, real human interactions will likely thrive.

Startups like Secret City Trails helps you explore new cities in a fun quiz game format, while Epic Llama sends you off on a weekend trip to a surprise destination with a bunch of strangers. Lots of action in the space - YC backed Duffel recently picked up some $ and will be exciting to see what happens here. I'm overall super optimistic about travel that helps you discover new places in non-touristy ways and meet new people in non-pub crawl events.

4. Platforms that enable location flexible, freelance work📱

https://twitter.com/upwork/status/928278601539211264

Imagine the Uber-isation of most of the economy - and a world where businesses contain hiring full time employees and hire freelancers instead - outsourcing everything from design to social media marketing to sales to recruiting and then some more. Today, over 47% of millennials have done some kind of freelance work and the majority of the American workforce is projected to be composed of freelance workers by 2027.

For workers, it means location flexibility and an entrepreneurial opportunity. UpWork and Fiverr are a couple of leading freelancing platforms that connects skilled freelancers with businesses from all over the world. As remote, location flexible, freelance work becomes mainstream, the average company size will shrink and services that help freelancers and clients communicate and transact effectively will thrive.

5. Bitcoin as store of value

Money serves 3 major functions: it is a unit of account, it's a store of value, it is a medium of exchange. For over 5000 years, gold has been a store of value - a store of value is anything that retains purchasing power into the future. Bitcoin potentially creates digital gold that scores over the physical version in several areas including by being more secure/private and being easier to transfer or transport.

Here's the best resources I've found on introductions to blockchain and bitcoin. Podcasts - Generally, I've found Unchained: Big Ideas from the World of Cryptocurrency and Blockchain to be the most comprehensive and regular podcast on the subject. Podcast episodes with Naval Ravikant (CEO, AngelList) and Balaji Srinivasan (CTO, Coinbase) are a good place to start -- to understand what cryptography is and, why it matters. All in... English. Another episode with Tim Ferris and Nick Szabo is a conscious effort to mediate the conversation in understandable English (trivia: at some point, he was originally thought to be Satoshi Nakamoto though he later denied it. Nevertheless, one of the bitcoin OGs). Written materials include The Sovereign Individual, Haseeb Qurshi's blog (former poker player turned investor) and occasionally Coindesk.