Small Business Labs

John Deer's Autonomous Farm Tractor

Farming equipment maker John Deere recently announced the release of their first fully autonomous tractor.  

The tractor combines Deere's 8R tractor, a chisel plow, six pairs of stereo cameras, and an AI system to perceive its environment and navigate.

Tractors with the ability to steer themselves are not new. Decades ago, I drove a tractor with an "autopilot" function that kept the tractor on a straight line during tilling and harvesting on my family's farm.

The autopilot was helpful, but the tractor still required human operators to make turns, avoid objects in their path and maintain the necessary location precision to till or harvest a field.

But the Deere tractor does all this and more by itself (see the movie below).

Autonomous tractors will reduce the need for hard-to-find farm labor and significantly increase efficiency. Farms of all sizes will no doubt quickly adopt this technology.

Top Rural and Small Town Trends for 2022

One of our favorite sources of information on small businesses in small towns and rural America, Small Biz Survival, released their 2022 Top 5 Rural and small town trends list recently.

Despite around 60 million Americans living in rural areas (that's about 1 in 5 Americans), there's limited coverage and information on the trends and shifts impacting rural areas of the U.S.

This is why information sources like Small Biz Survival are so important and valuable.

Two of the five trends really jumped out at us because they're related and the pandemic has accelerated them:

1.  New Residents are Arriving:  Small Biz Survival points out, "this isn’t an explosive exodus from major tech and population centers, but the more subtle diffusion of opportunities to a broader swath of places."  The shift started years ago as remote work became possible.  But Covid has resulted in what's being called "Zoom towns" as remote workers seek more space, lower costs and access to the many amenities of small town life.  

5. Economic Barriers are Falling: The expansion of rural broadband and remote work, coupled with the Internet making it easier and cheaper to start and operate a small business, has made rural and small town businesses more viable and competitive.

The combination of these two trends means small towns and rural areas are much more attractive places to start a business than they were even a few years ago.  

This creates a positive cycle of greater economic vibrancy in small towns and rural America, leading to more people wanting to move and start businesses in small towns.

Thanks to these trends, the next decade is looking to be very positive for rural America. 

See the article for the other trends and more details on the ones covered above.

Below is an overview of the trends by the authors.  Register here (it's free) to see a more detailed presentation of the trends and related materials.

2022 Rural Trends from SaveYour.Town

 

Accenture on Social Commerce

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.

Social commerce, which is also called social selling, isn't new.

The traditional direct selling industry (also known as multi-level marketing) has been around at least since the 1940s, with well-known brands such as Avon, Tupperware, and Mary Kay - all of which integrate social experiences of some form on the path to purchase.

But we agree with Accenture that social commerce is experiencing explosive growth thanks to the rise of ecommerce and social media platforms.

We've also seen in our research a surge in social commerce.

The MBO Partners State of Independence study series has found that the use of social media by independent workers (self-employed, freelancers, independent contractors, etc.) to find and sell to customers has substantially increased since 2014.

With the rise and continued growth of the creator economy - which is reliant on social commerce - we agree with Accenture that social commerce will substantially grow over the next few years.

Pew Research on The State of the Gig Economy in 2021

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 household items; performing household tasks like cleaning someone’s home or assembling furniture, or running errands like picking up dry cleaning; making deliveries from a restaurant or store for a delivery app; using a personal vehicle to deliver packages to others via a mobile app or website such as Amazon Flex; or doing something else along these lines.

This leaves out many independent worker segments and platforms, including professional services.  

But by only looking at a subset of consumer services platforms, the study zeros in on the most controversial online gig platforms and work - ridesharing, deliver services and personal errand services.  

Pew found that 16% of adult Americans have earned money at some point via platforms included in their study, with 4% currently earning money via these platforms and an additional 5% saying they've earned money via these platforms over the past 12 months.  

Since there are about 258 million Americans 18 years and older, these percentages translate to roughly:

• 10.3 million Americans currently earn money as gig workers
• 23.2 million earned money as gig workers over the past year
• 41 million have done this type of gig work at some point in the past

The study's results echo the results of almost every other study done on the gig economy.  The quick summary is:

• Most (78%) report having either a very positive experience (24%) or a somewhat positive experience (54%) doing gig work.  Only 17% report a negative experience.
• Most work part-time, with only 8% saying they do this type of gig work more than 30 hours per week.
• Most (58%) say the income they earn via gig work is either essential (23%) or important (35%) to meeting their basic needs.

The study chart below (click to enlarge) shows the reasons gig workers take on this type of work. 

Just as other studies have found (including ours), most gig workers do this work because it's a flexible way to supplement income.   

The Pew report has a lot more information and detail, including a section on how Americans in general view the gig economy and related policy issues.  See the report for more information and details.  

Gen Z Driving the Changing Demographics of Independent Work

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 of Gen Z independent workers.  Although the oldest Gen Zers are only 24 years old, they comprise 17% of the independent workforce.

This compares to only 6% of independent workers aged 18-24 a decade ago (data from the 2012 MBO Partners State of Independence study).  

Obviously, a lot's changed since 2012.  

In 2012 the gig economy platforms (Uber, Lyft, Task Rabbit), which are popular today with younger independent workers, were just getting started. 

And the creator economy, where Gen Z makes up 27% of independent content creators, didn't exist.  

Nor did many of the tools, websites and education programs that make it easier and cheaper to become independent workers today.

The attitudes towards self-employment have also changed.

Many Gen Zers have decided they don’t want their lives defined by work. Instead, they seek autonomy, freedom and control. And, they look for work that fits their values and passions.

These, of course, are also reasons people of all ages become self-employed and start small businesses.  Gen Z is just starting earlier than past generations.

Gen Z has often called "the most entrepreneurial generation ever."  The data increasingly shows this to be true.  

The United Nation Reports there are 4.9 Billion Internet Users

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 least-developed countries, which include Afghanistan, Yemen, Niger and Mozambique, “almost three quarters of people have never connected,” facing obstacles such as poverty, illiteracy or limited electricity."

So we still have a long way to go before Internet usage is universal.

The ITU report chart shows the growth in Internet users since 2005 (click to enlarge).

RV Nation and the Vanlife Movement

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.

According to the RVIA, recreational vehicle sales in 2021 are expected to be around 600,000, up 40% over 2020.  And 2022 is expected to be another banner year for RV sales.

A driver of this growth is the pandemic-induced shift to remote work and more flexible work schedules.  And driving around in a van or RV has several clear advantages during a pandemic.

You don’t have to get on airplanes, and you don’t have to stay in hotels or other places where you risk exposure to the virus. Vans and RVs can also access national parks and other outdoor or remote areas where infection risk is low. 

But even before the pandemic, the number VanLifers - digital nomads who travel, live and work in RVs, vans and other vehicles converted into roaming residences - was increasing. 

And, of course, the pandemic accelerated the trend. 

The chart below is from MBO Partners 2021 Digital Nomad research brief.  It shows that the number of American VanLifers increased 36% in 2021, reaching 2.6 million.

While we expect the growth rate in the number of Vanlifers to decline in 2022 relative to 2021, we're still forecasting VanLife numbers to increase in the 24% range in 2022.

Study by U.K. Think Tank Finds Gig Workers Satisfied With Their Work

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. They also looked at other types of gig workers.

Not surprisingly, they found most Deliveroo riders - and gig workers in general - are satisfied with their work.  Key quote from the study summary:

The headline findings of this report are broadly positive. Deliveroo riders are as happy as other members of the workforce. They choose Deliveroo in preference to other work, in part because they prize flexibility more highly than people in other sectors. They are motivated by money, just like the rest of the workforce. Many see it as their primary source of income, and see it as a long-term option. By a wide margin, they favour their current legal status as self-employed, recognising the trade-offs it entails.

We say "not surprisingly" because almost every statistically significant study of gig workers have had similar findings - and there's been a lot of these studies over the past few years.  

Below is the report's summary chart showing the study's key findings, which are inline with the vast majority of other gig worker studies.

What are DAOs (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations)? And Why You Should Care.

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 smart contracts operate on blockchain technology, which provides rule transparency (everyone can see them) and security (the rules can't be changed without member approval). 

Key DAO operating decisions and changes to the DAO's  smart contracts are made collectively by the members voting.  

A good example is the recently formed Constitution DAO, which had the goal of acquiring an original copy of the United States Constitution at a recent auction.  

Their bid failed, but in just a few weeks, an online core group of about 35 people was able to form the DAO, recruit 17,000 members, raise $47 million, and bid to buy the Constitution.  

This effort nicely illustrates some of the advantages of DAOs,

They can be formed quickly and easily, they can tap into online audiences for members and supporters, and the members share in the rewards or accomplishments of the DAO. 

Another important advantage is the rules-based nature and transparency of smart contracts means trust is built into the system. 

The last point is very important. Without that trust, it's very unlikely the Constitution DAO could have recruited so many members and raised $47 million so quickly.

As the chart below, which is from The Bankless DAO's article  State of the DAO 3 - Overview of the DAO Ecosystem, shows (click to enlarge), most any kind of organization can be formed and managed as a DAO. 

See the Bankless DAO article for more information and details on the various types of DAOs in the chart.

DAOs are important because they are proving to be a cheaper and more efficient way to form and operate for certain types of organizations than more traditional corporate structures are. 

For example, we think DAOs are likely to become a popular teaming mechanism for groups of independent workers.  

Using a DAO, groups of independent workers could quickly and easily form up to accomplish a task, and deform when finished.  

Having said that, there are still unresolved issues and problems with DAOs.

A big issue is a lack of laws and legal clarity around DAOs.  So far, only Wyoming has passed a law providing legal status for DAOs (they're a type of LLC if registered in Wyoming).  

This means when problems occur, the legal ramifications are unclear - and potentially very problematic.  

DAOs also face the same issues traditional co-ops face, with a big one being that management by voting can be inefficient and/or contentious.  This often results in co-ops being less able to respond as quickly as more agile organizations in the face of change.  

But it's clear that DAOs have advantages relative to other organizational forms.  And because of these advantages, we expect to see many more DAOs formed in the coming years.

The Rise of the Solopreneur Travel Agent

Fora is a new platform that provides full and part-time independent travel agents with the tools needed to run their travel business.  They recently raised $5  million in seed funding. 

Fora joins a growing list of vertical market platforms providing solopreneurs with infrastructure tools for operating their own business.  

The VC firm leading Fora's round, Forerunner Ventures, refers to independent workers as "the entrepreneur next door".  Key quote from their article on why they invested in Fora:

At Forerunner, we’re passionate about the empowerment economy, especially opportunities that help marginalized demographics enter the workforce. We love businesses that leverage a technology backbone to streamline previously manual processes, and we’re focused on a future post-COVID world, where people are once again able to explore and travel.  

Fora's interesting because it's linked to a mix of growing and powerful trends.

The first is the growth of self-employment and independent work.  Fora's travel advisors are independent workers who access Fora's marketing and operation tools to help them run their travel business.  

More specifically, Fora is tapping into the creator economy, a fast-growing subset of independent work.  Content creators who focus on travel are a large creator economy segment.  Adding travel services is logical monetization path for this group.

And, of course, there's a lot of pent-up consumer travel demand due to COVID.  

Fora is also tapping in to the long-term growth in personal services companies.  These are niche businesses that provide life support services to increasingly harried, time-constrained consumers. 

Examples include personal trainers, wealth managers, dog walkers, mow and blow services, sports, music and education coaches for kids, and many others.  

We started covering the personal services trend in 2008, and it's been one of the fastest-growing small business and independent worker segments since then.  

Expect to see more vertical market platforms that enable independent workers and small businesses to provide personal services.

Good Morning America on Side Hustles

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. The fact that TV personalities have done side gigs illustrates how common they are.

Good Morning America covering the gig economy is a clear sign that it's mainstream.

VCs Betting Big on the Metaverse

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. It combines virtual reality, augmented reality, gaming, and other digital social experiences into 3D virtual worlds.

According to the article,  metaverse related companies "have raised nearly $10.4 billion so far this year across 612 deals".  This is up from $5.9 billion over the same period last year.

This year's funding falls into 4 broad categories

• Gaming: about $7.5 billion (382 rounds)
• Online Games: about $2.5 billion (110 rounds)
• Augmented Reality: about $2.1 billion (176 rounds)
• Virtual worlds: $62.8 million (9 rounds)

Not included in these numbers are investments in crypto and blockchain. 

These technologies aren't specific to the metaverse. But they provide much of the technology underpinnings that enable many of the features being promised by metaverse proponents - especially in the areas of commerce and persistent identities.  

The high level of VC metaverse investments - coupled with the large investments being made by the big tech companies - means the metaverse will, in some form, continue to grow and likely become very, very big.

Our article The Metaverse is Coming provides more information on this topic.

7.1 Million Americans Work in the Creator Economy

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-quarters of creators aged 40 or younger and a bit over a quarter (27%) being under 25.  

This is not surprising. 

Most creator economy platforms are relatively new and target younger audiences - think TikTok, Twitch, Instagram, etc.  Younger people are more familiar with these platforms and more likely to be able to create content that appeals to platform users.

But a large share of creators are older (25% are over 40) and we expect this share to grow. 

Already, older creators are using platforms like TikTok to produce content of interest to older audiences in subjects like finance, lifestyles, health and wellness and others.

Other key findings about creators include:

• Most (63%) are part-time independent content creators and 59% have either a full-time (46%) or part-time (13%)  traditional job.
• Most are either highly satisfied (83%) or satisfied (9%) with their work, and few are dissatisfied (4%).
• Their biggest challenges are a lack of predictable income and creating and maintaining a sales/revenue pipeline.  

Content creators also cited two other major challenges.

Almost 4 in 10 (38%) said it's hard to be successful and a third of content creators (34%) report struggling with burnout.  

BTW, there isn't standard definition for the "creator economy" or "creators" and definitions vary substantially.  

For this study, creators are defined as independent workers (freelancers, self-employed, etc.) who earn money creating and distributing online digital content.

This includes independent writers, musicians, designers, artists, instructors, video makers, online influencers, and others who create and monetize digital content. 

Creators were identified through a series of survey questions about their independent work, digital content creation and monetization activities.

See the report for more information and details on the study methodology. 

Telehealth for Pets

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 for veterinarians and vet services. 

Unfortunately, there weren't enough vets to meet the new demand, which led to challenges getting vet appointments and increases in appointment wait times.

Dutch is hoping to take advantage of the new demand by offering telehealth vet services.  Key quote from the article:

Dutch just launched its platform for virtual, vet-prescribed treatment plans for pets’ underserved conditions, delivered to their doggie doors. Dutch will initially address chronic veterinary issues like pet anxiety and dermatology/allergies, adding treatment for more ailments over time.

Telehealth for humans boomed during the pandemic.  Thanks to looser regulations and spurred on by fear of visiting doctors offices during the pandemic, telehealth doctors' visits have become quite common.

The longer term trend towards pet humanization has led to many companies offering anthropomorphic products and services like canine couture, feline wine and dog hotels. 

So it makes sense that vet telehealth services would follow their successful human counterparts.  

We're often asked why we cover pet trends.  There are 3 main reasons:

1. the pet sector is large, growing more rapidly than most other consumer sectors and lots of small businesses and independent workers participate in it.
2. pet humanization is a powerful social and demographic trend.  It's linked to declining birth rates, economic insecurity and other social trends we follow.
3. we like pets and it's a fun topic.

Gig Platform Workforce in England and Wales Nearly Tripled Over the Past 5 Years

The UK'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.

The study breaks platform-based gig work into four categories:

1. Drivers and delivery workers increased from 1.9 percent of the workforce in 2016 to 8.9 percent in 2021.
2. Household services workers rose from 3.2 per cent in 2016 to 7.9 percent in 2021.
3. Workers running errands from 2.3 per cent to 6.2 percent in 2021.
4. Workers performing remote digital tasks grew from 4.9 percent  in 2016 to 11.9 percent in 2021.

Because platform workers often do a mix of platform work, there are overlaps across these categories.

One of the study findings that jumped out at us is that the share of gig platform workers doing this work to supplement their income has substantially increased since 2016.

As the chart above shows (click to enlarge), the share of gig workers who earn less than 25% of their income via gig work increased from 37% to 53%.

This is similar to what U.S. studies have found.

So just as supplementing income is a key reason most Americans do gig work, the same is true in England and Wales.

The study report goes into more detail on the data and includes ideas about improving the working conditions and financial security of gig workers.

It's well worth reading for those interested in platform-mediated work.

Bank of America's 14 Moonshot Technologies

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. "They are not as far into the future as you might think ... Failure to identify future tech today could mean missing out on the next big revolution." 

The report chart below (click to enlarge) lists the 14 moonshots.  

None are surprising, and we've covered all of them in one way or another over the past few years.

But two did jump out, mainly because it's hard to agree with BofA that these technologies will change our lives by 2030. These are emotional A.I. and immortality, which BofA describes as:

Emotional Artificial Intelligence: Emotional AI (EAI), also known as “Affective Computing” and “Cognitive Computing,” is designed to capture, analyze and respond to human emotions and simulate human thoughts. EAI can potentially collect, analyze and respond to completely new varieties of data and situations and predict or simulate human thought, leading people to take action.

Immortality: Breakthroughs in healthtech, biotech and anti-aging drugs could result in radical life extension that ‘disrupts death’. Traditionally, aging has not been viewed as a disease that can be treated but this is changing. Actors in this space are increasingly looking to tackle the hallmark of aging via pathways such as ‘genomic instability, telomere attrition, mitochondrial dysfunction, and cellular senescence’ among others.

Hey, we'd like to see immortality breakthroughs by 2030, but that seems highly unlikely given our current state of understanding about aging and what could potentially be done to greatly expand human life spans.  But we'd be glad to be wrong about this.

The same holds for creating AIs that truly can think and respond like a human.  Not even the most optimistic AI researchers we've talked to are suggesting anything close to this is possible over the next 9 years.

We like following tech investment research because investors don't just talk about tech breakthroughs - they place serious bets on them.  

See the report for more details.  

The Pandemic Accelerated Boomer Retirements

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 have provided more boomers with the financial cushion needed to retire.

The research note points out many of the excess retirees may not stay retired.  Key quote:

"Finally, there is the question of whether the excess retirements are permanent ... many of these new retirees may decide to return to the labor force, which will depend on personal factors as well as aggregate labor market conditions."

We suspect this will be the case.  Between financial need and a desire to stay active, many will likely return to work.

And many early retirees re-entering the workforce will do so as independent workers.  

As we've covered before, self-employment rates scale with age and are the highest for workers over the age of 65.  This is due to a mix of reasons, including older people valuing the flexibility, autonomy and control independent work provides, and what Axios calls in their article on the study the "persistent ageism" of corporate America. 

So we expect to see the number of older independent workers increase over the next two years as some of the early retirees return to the workforce.  

The Explosion in Seed Round Funding

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 article points to the launch of Amazon Web Services in the mid-2000s, which made it cheaper and easier to start a software company, as a driver.  

That's certainly true.  But many factors contributed, not the least of which is the broad adoption of technology across industry and society during this period.  This opened up a wide variety of new market opportunities for tech startups. 

Also contributing is the massive increase in public and private valuations for tech firms.  This is attracting more capital to seed rounds, which leads to more seed stage firms raising money.

Pitchbook's Seed market braces for an onslaught by top VC firms covers the influx of large VC to seed investing.  Key quote:

Earlier this year, Sequoia and Index Ventures each unveiled seed funds of roughly $200 million. Then, Andreessen Horowitz and Greylock Partners announced seed-focused pools of capital with $400 million and $500 million, respectively.

In the past, the large A-list VC firms did few if any seed rounds.  But getting in early means the opportunity for greater returns. It also greatly increases the VC's the ability to put more money into successful firms in later, highly competitive rounds.  

We expect seed funding to continue to grow, which is good news for entrepreneurs.

The Anti-Work Movement and the Surge in Self-Employment

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 with their own jobs/work-related struggles."

Our favorite antiwork forum post (below) is from a Business Insider article on the antiwork movement. The post nicely sums up the lack of personal time associated with many jobs.

The pandemic-related Great Resignation is part of this trend and a driver. Because of the pandemic, millions of people are reexamining their career paths and goals, relationship to work, and priorities.

Although it's called the antiwork movement, and some of its proponents want to stop working, most don't. Most are looking for some combination of better pay, better treatment, better work/life balance, and more work flexibility, autonomy, and control.

And this search is helping to drive the recent surge in independent work and self-employment.

Business applications (tax ID filings) have been at all-time levels since the fall of 2020.

And as we reported in September, the number of independent workers (freelancers, gig workers, self-employed, etc.) has increased 34% in 2021 as compared to 2020.  

Clearly, the pandemic has led to a reevaluation of work - and many are choosing to leave traditional jobs and become self-employed.

We'll have more on this topic in the near future, but below are several articles related to the antiwork movement.

• Even With a Dream Job, You Can Be Antiwork – New York Times: Good overview of the antiwork movement.
• Post-work: the radical idea of a world without jobs – The Guardian: A “long read” article from 2018 covering the history of the antiwork movement and recent (at least in 2018) developments. 
• Ready to quit your job? Come and join me in the anti-work movement – The Guardian: Recent article that links to a variety of interesting antiwork sources. 
• On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs: A Work Rant – Strike!: A 2013 article by antiwork movement intellectual leader David Graeber, which he turned into the book Bullshit Jobs: A Theory in 2018. 

3D Printed Houses Cementing Their Place in the Housing Industry

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.

ICONN recently raised $270 million to fund their growth, and according to Tech Crunch's article on the fund raise, they have plans beyond single-family homes.  Key quote:

ICON’s list of future plans include the delivery of social, disaster relief and more mainstream housing, Ballard said, in addition to developing construction systems to create infrastructure and habitats on the moon, and eventually Mars, with NASA.

ICONN isn't the only 3D house printing company.  

As Axios's 3D-printed houses poised to go mainstream points out, multiple companies are pursuing this opportunity.

Which is good news, because housing is an industry in need of innovation.  

Stripe on the Growth of the Creator Economy and Creators' Income

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. And they've aggregated data from 50 of the top creator economy platforms and used it to build a creator economy index.  

They point out in their article on their index that it only covers a "fraction of creator activity".  But they also state - and we agree - that the trends they've found "are representative of the creator economy as a whole."

So pay more attention to index trends and less to the absolute numbers.  

As the Stripe chart below shows, the number of creators in their index increased by 48% over the past year, reaching 668,000.

They also found that payments to creators will soon reach $10 billion.

The growth and earnings data are consistent with other research (including ours) in two key areas.

First, this data confirms that the creator economy is rapidly growing. And second, the data shows that most creators make relatively small amounts of money.

Stripe doesn't provide details on creator income. But some quick math shows the average creator in Stripe's index makes about $15,000 per year ($10 billion divided by 668,000 creators).

We know from other studies and sources that the top 1% of creators earn a huge share of total payments, and our guesstimate is that the median creator in Stripe's index makes less than $2,000 per year.

See Axios's The Creator economy is failing to spread the wealth for additional data on income inequality in the creator economy. Key quote:

There's much hype around the creator economy these days.  

But as we pointed out last spring in our article The Five Ways the Creator Economy Rhymes with the Gig Economy, so far, the reality of the creator economy is nowhere close to the hype.

This is especially true when it comes to creators being able to earn a living. 

That's not to say the creator economy isn't a good thing - it's a very good thing. 

But like the early days of the gig economy , the hype has gotten way ahead of the reality.  

Disclosure:  Emergent Research partners are investors in Stripe.  

Social Commerce Forecast to Boom

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.

As their article chart below shows (click to enlarge), they're forecasting social commerce globally to grow from about $390 billion in2020 to nearly $3 trillion by year-end 2025. 

Statistically speaking, that's roughly a 50% compounded annual growth rate over the next 5-6 years.  Given the large current size of social commerce, that's a pretty stunning projection.  

China is the main growth driver, but they think both the U.S. and Europe will also see huge increases in social commerce.

Social commerce and social selling are defined a variety of ways, but we like LinkedIn's definition of social selling:

"Social selling is about leveraging your social network to find the right prospects, build trusted relationships, and ultimately, achieve your sales goals."

Social commerce isn't new.  

The traditional direct selling industry (also known as multi-level marketing) has been around at least since the 1940's, with well-known brands such as Avon, Tupperware and Mary Kay.  

But the growth of social media and social commerce platforms has made it easier and cheaper for consumers to leverage their networks to sell things. 

Also, the traditional social media platforms are embracing social commerce, as are the creator economy platforms.  This has greatly expanded the social commerce market.  

Ark's article covers in more detail the reasons they expect social commerce to grow even more rapidly going forward.  See the article for more information.  

Poynter Series on Journalists Going Freelance

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 quote:

"I’m now nine months along this journey. It’s the best decision I’ve ever made. I try not to hawk freelancing like an eager salesperson, because I realize that my experience is not necessarily a reflection of everyone’s. But I do think there’s a myth that needs to be debunked, that freelancing is a tenuous career path that yields half the money for double the time.

... I earned more in six months on my own than in the entirety of last year at a full-time job. And I’m on track to more than double my total income this year."

Journalists are switching to freelance. 7 things they wish they knew first: covers seven things all freelancers, and not just journalists, should be aware of before going freelance.  All 7 are good, but we especially liked Saying No Is Just as Important as Saying Yes.  Key quote:

A common piece of advice I heard in my first few months of freelancing: Say yes to everything. That can be good practice for a little while, but it can also quickly lead to burnout and a feeling of powerlessness.

Before you take on a project, consider what boxes it ticks. Do you simply need the money? Do you want to work with the editor? Will you gain prestige from the work and is that enough? If you know why you’re taking on a project, you’re most likely to thrive.

How freelancers are tackling big stories, solo: covers long-form journalism, which takes a lot of time and effort to produce.  Because of this, it's tough to finance long-form stories and get paid enough to support oneself.  But the article points out more and more freelance journalists are figuring it out.

Journalism was one of the earliest industry's hit by digital transformation.  And journalists turning to freelancing has been going on for years.

But that Poynter is focusing on it shows the industry is still in transition, with more and more journalists becoming independent. 

This shift to freelance journalism is being enabled and amplified by the growing creator economy, with sites like Substack, Patreon and others helping freelance writers grow and monetize their independent writing  businesses.

Similar shifts are happening in most industries.  

The Global Survey on Platform Based Freelancers

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.

This study breaks new ground because it's the first global study we're aware of that focuses on freelancers who provide services to businesses via online platforms.  

The study includes an 8 factor freelance satisfaction index (click on the study chart below to enlarge).  

Key report quote on the satisfaction index data:

Most freelancers understand and accept the trade-off they make by trading traditional professional employment for a solopreneurial life and career. The data line up with earlier results; Freelancers value the flexibility and independence that freelancing provides, enjoy the quality of life it offers, and appreciate the chance to build satisfying client relationships. And, they accept the occasional volatility of opportunity, and the challenge of a frequently changing workplace and colleagues.

As noted in the quote above, this data is consistent with other studies (including ours).  But almost all the other studies (including ours) are limited to one or just a few countries.  This study shows that globally freelancers share many views on independent work.

The report covers a lot of ground - way too much to cover here.  It's well worth reading for anyone interested in freelancing.  

Click here to download the report.

The Number of Digital Nomads Surged Again in 2021

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 many, instead of staying in one place, are taking to the road.

The number of digital nomads with a traditional job increased by 42% in 2021, growing from 6.3 million in 2020 to 10.2 million in 2021.

This is on top of the number of digital nomads with traditional jobs almost doubling in 2020 compared to 2019.

COVID-19 and the global pandemic accelerated and amplified existing trends towards remote and flexible work, including the rise of digital nomads. 

With the lessening of the pandemic, and people returning to the office at least a few days a week, we don’t expect the number of digital nomads to continue to grow at the rapid pace we’ve seen over the past two years,

But thanks to more flexible work options, we expect continued strong growth in the number of digital nomads over the next 2-3 years.

See the report for more details.

MBO Partners is an Emergent Research client and we worked with them on this study.