This site uses cookies to improve your experience. To help us insure we adhere to various privacy regulations, please select your country/region of residence. If you do not select a country, we will assume you are from the United States. Select your Cookie Settings or view our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Cookie Settings
Cookies and similar technologies are used on this website for proper function of the website, for tracking performance analytics and for marketing purposes. We and some of our third-party providers may use cookie data for various purposes. Please review the cookie settings below and choose your preference.
Used for the proper function of the website
Used for monitoring website traffic and interactions
Cookie Settings
Cookies and similar technologies are used on this website for proper function of the website, for tracking performance analytics and for marketing purposes. We and some of our third-party providers may use cookie data for various purposes. Please review the cookie settings below and choose your preference.
Strictly Necessary: Used for the proper function of the website
Performance/Analytics: Used for monitoring website traffic and interactions
Accenture, a global consulting and services firm, predicts that social commerce will grow to $1.2 trillion in global revenue by 2025. Accenture defines social commerce as: "The integration of social experiences and ecommerce transactions in a single path to purchase, enabled by platforms." The Accenture chart below (click to enlarge) provides more details.
The Pew Research Center, a highly regarded non-profit, non-partisan D.C. think tank, recently released The State of Gig Work in 2021 report. The report covers the results of an in-depth survey of Americans who earn money from the gig economy, which Pew defined somewhat narrowly. They only included workers who earned money by providing the following services via online gig platforms: " driving for a ride-hailing app; shopping for or delivering groceries or househol
2021 represents a watershed year in terms of the generational makeup of the independent workforce. As the study chart below (click to enlarge) from the MBO Partners 2021 State of Independence report shows, the two youngest generations - Gen Z (born 1997-2012) and Millennials (born 1980-1996) - make up the majority of independent workers (freelancers, self-employed, gig workers, etc.). 2021 is the first year when this is the case. A key driver of this shift has been the rapid growth
The UN’s International Telecommunication Union (ITU) estimates that 4.9 billion people are using the Internet in 2021 , which is about 63% of the world's population. This, of course, means about 37% of the world's population are not Internet users, and not surprisingly, most of these folks are in developing countries. Key quote from the Washington Post's 1 in 3 people around the world have never used the Internet, a U.N. report estimates : " across the U.N.’s 46 lea
Axios' The rise of RV living covers the surge in recreation vehicle sales since the pandemic. Key quote: As of March 2021, 11.2 million U.S. households owned RVs, according to the Recreational Vehicle Industry Association. That's up 26% since 2011. What's even more striking is that 9.6 million additional households say they are considering buying an RV in the next five years, says Monika Geraci, communications director at RVIA.
The Social Market Foundation is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit think tank based in the U.K. They recently released Rides and responsibilities: Understanding the needs and preferences of those who work in the gig economy , a study they conducted that focused on the attitudes and motivations of food delivery riders who work with Deliveroo.
The simplest way to describe DAOs - distributed autonomous organizations - is they're online communities owned and controlled by their members. The basics are a group of people with a common goal get together online, pool their resources and collectively attempt to accomplish the goal. Think of them as online co-ops. But unlike traditional co-ops, DAOs are governed by smart contracts ((collections of computer code) that define the DAO's operating rules. These&
Good Morning America had an excellent segment on gig economy side hustles this morning (see the video below). It focused on women and side gigs, but they hit on the main reasons both men and women get side jobs - they provide a flexible way to supplement their income and earn money in response to a financial shock. We also liked the end of the segment when the announcers talked about the side gigs they've done.
Crunchbase's VCs Will Spend Billions More To Make The Metaverse A Reality covers the growing amounts of venture capital going to companies involved in the metaverse. For those not familiar with the metaverse, here's how Crunchbase describes it: While still a fairly nebulous concept, the metaverse is, broadly speaking, viewed by many as the next phase of the internet, where online experiences will combine to form something of an immersive virtual experience.
Welcome to the Creator Economy , a study from MBO Partners and Emergent Research, found that 7.1 million American independent workers (freelancers, self-employed, etc.) earn money by creating and monetizing online digital content. In addition to sizing the U.S. creator economy, the study also explores the demographics, motivations and attitudes of digital content creators. As the study chart below shows (click to enlarge), most digital content creators are young, with three-quarter
Forerunner's Pet health is going the way of human health; our investment in Dutch covers the reasons the VC firm has invested in the pet telehealth startup Dutch. The main reason is fairly obvious. The pandemic accelerated the already growing trend towards pet ownership. According to the ASPCA, 23 million American households acquired a dog or cat during the pandemic. And as the article points out, the increases in pet ownership came with increases in the demand f
The U K's Trades Union Congress (TUC) recently released a study that found that about 14.7 percent of workers in England and Wales - about 4.4 million workers - regularly perform work via an online gig platform. They also found that 22.6% of workers in England and Wales have used gig platforms to find work at some point. This is up from 5.8% who performed work via online platforms regularly (at least once per week) in 2016.
Somehow we missed Bank of America's report To the Moon (shots)! - Future Tech Primer report, which they released in September. But we ran across it recently, and it covers 14 technologies that could "transform our lives" by 2030. Because of this, BofA also thinks these technologies are good investment areas. Key quote from the report: "Moonshots are radical technologies that could change our lives and accelerate the impact of global megatrends," Israel's team said.
Research from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis found that the pandemic pushed about 3 million baby boomers to retire earlier than they would have otherwise. As the study chart below shows, the share of retired Americans has surged since the start of the pandemic, and is well above the trend line. The research points to several reasons for what it calls the "excess retirements" These include layoffs, health concerns related to the pandemic and rising asset values, which may h
Crunchbase's How Seed Funding Has Exploded In The Past 10 Years reports that: Fewer than 3,200 companies received seed funding in the period between 2006 and 2010. A decade later, that had ballooned to more than 23,000 startups. Crunchbase data also shows that the average seed investment has grown from $1.7 million in 2011 to $4.6 million in 2020.
The antiwork movement (also referred to as the post-work movement) is getting much attention these days. This attention has been spurred by the growth of Reddit's/antiwork forum , which has over 900,000 members - who are called "idlers" on Reddit. According to Reddit, the forum is for: " those who want to end work, are curious about ending work, want to get the most out of a work-free life, want more information on antiwork ideas and want personal help
3D-printed houses offer the potential to reduce the cost and increase the efficiency of the home building process. A leader in this field, ICONN, recently announced a commitment to build the largest community of 3D-printed homes to date using ICON’s robotic 3D printer (see the short video below). The current plan is to build 100 houses in Austin, Texas, and the project will break ground in 2022. Lennar, a large homebuilder, is partnering with ICONN on this project.
Stripe is one of the most successful and highly valued fintech companies. They provide widely adopted online payments infrastructure products and services - including to creator economy companies. Their Stripe Connect platform is used by most of the creator economy platforms and marketplaces. Because of this, a large share of the online payments that go to creators flows through their systems.
One of the hottest investment firms is Ark Investment Management. Their investment focus is on firms creating disruptive innovation and their stable of exchange-traded funds has around $40 billion invested in them. Their recent article Social Commerce: The Next Wave in Online Shopping outlines why they're forecasting social commerce to boom over the next 5 years.
The Poynter Institute is a non-profit that explores "the intersection of journalism, technology and the public interest." They also provide training for journalists and programs that support their role in society. They recently released a series of articles on freelancing. These include: Why journalists are leaving their full-time media jobs to go freelance : this article covers one journalist's freelance journey, which started less than a year ago. Key qu
The recently released Global Survey on Freelancing covers data gleaned from over 1900 freelancers from across the globe. To gather this data, the survey team - a collaboration between the Agile Talent Collaborative And the Department of Psychology at the University of Toronto - worked with 75 freelance platforms, agencies and communities from various countries who helped them collect the data.
The pandemic-driven seismic shift to remote led to continued strong growth in the number of American digital nomads in 2021. The MBO Partners 2021 State of Independence research study found that 15.5 million American workers currently describe themselves as digital nomads, increasing 42% from 2020 and 112% from the pre-pandemic year 2019 (click on the study chart below to enlarge). The main reason for the growth is that traditional job holders have been unleashed from their offices and ma
One of the most significant shifts we’ve seen over the 11 years of the ongoing MBO Partners State of Independence study series is the increased use of online marketplaces to find work/customers by freelancers and other independent workers. As the study chart below shows (click to enlarge), in 2012, only 3 percent of full-time independent workers reported having used an online marketplace to find work or customers in the prior 12 months.
Moment House is a live streaming, interactive social media platform for digital entertainment. Newly launched in 2020, Moment House has produced over 700 concerts, called “moments,” selling one million tickets through its platform. Each unique digital experience can generate tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue for creators who can reach audience members from all over the world.
After falling by 7% in 2020 due to the pandemic, the number of independent workers (freelancers, independent contractors, gig workers, etc.) rose to 51.1 million in 2021, an unprecedented 34% increase. This is the key finding from MBO Partners 2021 State of Independence research study. This is the 11th year this study has been conducted. As the study chart below shows (click to enlarge), the number of full-time independent workers increased by 25%.
The metaverse has been getting a lot of media attention recently, mainly because Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook plans to shift from being a social media company to a metaverse company. So what is the metaverse? There is no standard, widely accepted definition. The Wall Street Journal, in its article Facebook, Roblox See the 'Metaverse' as Key to the Internet's Next Phase , describes it as: "The metaverse concept, rooted in science-fiction novels such as "Snow Crash&#
According to the 2020 census, between 2010 and 2020 the white population in America declined by 5.1 million. And as the chart below (click to enlarge) nicely illustrates, all of America's population growth in the past decade came from people of color. The chart comes from Brookings' New 2020 census results show increased diversity countering decade-long declines in America’s white and youth populations. The article point out that white population
The Wall Street Journal's Some People Worked From Home During Covid. These People Moved to a Tropical Island covers the growing number of Caribbean islands offering digital nomad visas and includes interviews with people taking advantage of these visas. As the article chart below shows (click to enlarge), 7 Caribbean islands now have special, longer term visas for people choosing to work remotely from these islands (Bermuda isn't in the Caribbean, but it's
YouTube recently announced that more than 2 million creators worldwide are participating in their partner program. They also say that over the last three years, they've paid more than $30 billion to content creators. To qualify for the partner program, Creators need at least 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of overall watch time on their channel over the past 12 months.
The quick answer to the title question is most gig workers don't want to be employed in a traditional job. But some do. This topic has come up because last week a California judge ruled that Proposition 22, a ballot measure passed in last November's elections that allowed rideshare and delivery companies to treat their drivers as independent workers was unconstitutional.
Barlow Research Associates A Generational Shift in Business Banking Behaviors Is Upon Us, and It's Not Just Among Your Millennial Customers covers the banking transaction channels used by small businesses by the age cohort of the owner. As the Barlow chart below shows (click to enlarge), there's a big difference in the use of mobile banking applications. 64% of Gen X and Millennial SMB owners (those younger than 57) regularly use mobile apps for their banking transactions. Only 41
The Rolling Stone article The Rosy ‘Creator Economy’ Is Music’s Biggest Lie discusses the dramatic lack of revenue for many artists involved in the creator economy. Regarding the streaming platform Spotify, a key finding from the article states: “Spotify's site informs us that just 13,400 artists (0.2 percent) generated $50,000 or above on the streaming platform last year.
The urban air mobility (buzzword alert) company Joby made its public markets debut last week. As with many new public offerings, it was done via a SPAC. The company is developing a five-seat electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft, pictured below in-flight (click to enlarge). Their primary target market is urban air taxi services and they claim they're going to build and operate a commercial fleet of air taxis by 2024.
According to the American Enterprise Institute's (AEI) The age re-retirement: Retirees and the Gig Economy , 20% of retired Americans also work in the gig economy. The article lists the usual financial reasons for working in retirement. But more interesting is their description of some of the non-financial reasons. Key quote: Ninety-six percent of over-65 workers reported that an enjoyable job is essential or important to living a fulfilling life.
The Hill's Gig firms seek Mass. ballot measure classifying workers as contractors covers the plans by a coalition of rideshare/delivery companies to do a ballot measure in Massachusetts that would classify their workers as independent contractors. The proposed ballot measure would be similar to California's Prop 22, which passed last year. The article quote we found most interesting is (the bolding is ours) : "The companies also insist that reclassification would rob the workers of f
the Tilt , a content marketing site, recently released The Unconventionals , a survey and study of online content entrepreneurs. They describe content creators as: "Content entrepreneurs (CEs) make money by turning valuable and interesting content into revenue streams. Some are solopreneurs making a comfortable income based on sharing their unique expertise with a niche audience.
The Hollywood Reporter's New Studio City Townhouses Draw Digital Creators Thanks to Hybrid Zoning covers a new townhouse community designed for artists and creative professionals. Quite unusual in LA, the townhouses have live/work zoning approval. Key quote from the article on the units: "Located at the edge of Studio City, across from Universal Studios, Thirty Four Fifty West has hybrid zoning that permits people to have a full professional office or creative studio
Regular readers know we like both new buzzwords and pet trends here at Small Business Labs. So it's no surprise we enjoyed Wunderman Thompson's article On-Demand Pet Care , which is a pet trends article (it covers new on-demand pet services) and has two buzzwords that are new to us - petrenthood and petriarcy. Even better, they are in the same paragraph in the article. Key quote: Rover CEO Aaron Easterly explains that the company’s growth—as well as the growth of the sector—has be
The Verge's Road-Tripping With Amazon Nomads looks at people who travel across the country looking for merchandise they can sell for a profit on Amazon. Key article quote defining Amazon Nomads: " merchants who travel the backroads of America searching clearance aisles and dying chains for goods to sell on Amazon. Some live out of RVs and vans, moving from town to town, only stopping long enough to pick the stores clean and ship their wares to Amazon’s fulfillment centers." These nom
The New York Times article More phone calls, less shopping: how the pandemic changed American lives, down to the minute examines data from the American Time Use survey to show the changes in how Americans spent their time last year. The article charts below (click to enlarge) shows the biggest winners and losers, timewise. The key change from 2019 is that during the second half of 2020, Americans spent ten waking hours a day at home.
The high-end combo social club/coworking space Soho House went public last week under the name Membership Collective Group (ticker symbol MCG). Soho House is targeted mostly at creative professionals and has 30 current locations across the globe. It's planning on opening 16 more over the next 18 months. Austonia's Peek inside Austin's Soho House, a ritzy new club for creatives on South Congress, details the amenities at the Soho House in Austin, Texas.
Sometimes we post articles on topics few people are interested in. This is such an article. But you should be interested because the economic and labor data collected by government agencies no longer provide the information we need to properly understand and manage the U.S. economy. Over the past week several sources explained the problems with government data collection efforts and made suggestions on how to improve them.
Forerunner Ventures was founded about a decade ago with a focus on direct-to-consumer ecommerce brands. And they've invested in some of the most successful companies in this space, including Bonobos, Warby Parker, Jet, Dollar Shave Club and others. They are now investing in a space they call The Empowerment Economy, which they describe as: "The true power of digital connectivity is set to upend the economy at large, powering a new generation of solopreneuers and financial freedom.
The Harvard Business Review's Your Company Needs a Digital Nomad Policy covers the reasons why companies should have formal digital nomad programs and policies. Based on an extensive study of digital nomads done by Emergent Research and MBO Partners , the article highlights two key reasons digital nomad policies and programs are important.
We organize all of the trending information in your field so you don't have to. Join 208,000+ users and stay up to date on the latest articles your peers are reading.
You know about us, now we want to get to know you!
Let's personalize your content
Let's get even more personalized
We recognize your account from another site in our network, please click 'Send Email' below to continue with verifying your account and setting a password.
Let's personalize your content