Small Business Labs

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.

The Return of the End of Men Trend

There's been a flurry of recent articles on the declining share of men enrolled in colleges and universities.

The Wall Street Journal's A Generation of American Men Give Up on College: ‘I Just Feel Lost’ seems to have started the flurry.  Key quote:

At the close of the 2020-21 academic year, women made up 59.5% of college students, an all-time high, and men 40.5%, according to enrollment data from the National Student Clearinghouse, a nonprofit research group. U.S. colleges and universities had 1.5 million fewer students compared with five years ago, and men accounted for 71% of the decline.

Quickly following were stories from The Atlantic, New York Times, USA Today and others on the same topic.

As the Bloomberg chart below shows, the college gender gap has been in place for several decades.

The gap also widened in 2020, with the pandemic-induced decline in college enrollments hitting men a bit harder than women.

So men struggling academically relative to women is not a new trend.  And it generated a lot of attention a decade ago.

The 2010 Atlantic article The End of Men, released as a book in 2012, focused on the academic underperformance of men relative to women.  

This article and book also covered other issues faced by men and boys.

These include higher rates of incarceration, addiction, suicide and mental illness than are experienced by women.   

We covered these and other issues men face in our 2010 article on the end of men.

This sudden media interest in this topic illustrates an interesting aspect of trends - they can lie low or disappear for years and then suddenly reappear.

In this case, the renewed interest is certainly justified. The problems men and boys face have, if anything, increased over the past decade. 

The Pandemic Accelerated Independent Worker Use of Online Marketplaces

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.

In 2021, 40% said they had.

The pandemic clearly accelerated the use of online marketplaces. Their use grew steadily from 2012 to 2020, then jumped substantially in 2021, increasing from 27% in 2020.

Obviously, the pandemic-induced shift to remote work and the need for people who lost jobs or had their hours cut to generate income resulted in more independent workers turning to marketplaces.

About one-third (37%) of those reporting using online marketplaces say they are their primary source of customers.

For the rest, online marketplaces have become important secondary and tertiary sources of work. Independent workers also use them to fill in gaps in their work schedules, explore new markets, find new clients and learn new skills.

We expect to see continued growth in the use of online marketplaces in the coming years. But we also believe their growth rate will return to pre-pandemic levels.

Moment House and the Blending of Social Media and Digital Entertainment Experiences

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.

The moments have featured big-name artists such as Justin Bieber, Halsey, Kygo, and Tame Impala, but the creator economy platform also provides opportunities for emerging creators with small audiences to monetize their fans.

Moment House recently closed a $12 million investment round led by Forerunner Ventures.  They plan to use this money to expand their platform to all kinds of events, including comedy, speeches, business events, and interactive podcasts through the use of live audio rooms.

Moment House held a Louis the Child concert on August 29th, which was a recorded experience of the live performance at Colorado’s Red Rocks Amphitheatre on August 27th.

The show was interactive, with a live chatroom for users to talk, and the sound quality was quite impressive. 

Their platform also allowed audience members to use breakout chatrooms during the show, allowing audience members with similar interests to connect and interact in smaller groups.

The camera panned to all different angles of the unique concert venue: up close on stage, to bird’s-eye views of the dancing audience. For a price tag of only $12, this was an attractive deal to fans who were not located in Colorado or could not pay the $60 cost of a normal ticket.

The CEO of Moment House, Arjun Mehta, emphasizes the importance for modern creators to provide more online interactive entertainment for fans, which is achievable through Moment House’s engaging platform.

In the competitive creator economy, the digital experiences of Moment House provide more meaningful memories, ultimately building stronger fan bases for creators with both large and small audiences, compared to pre-recorded and asynchronous events on a typical streaming site.

Moment House nicely illustrates the trend towards online entertainment experiences, the use of social media to better engage audiences, and the growing array of services helping creators large and small reach and monetize their audiences. 

The Independent Worker Surge

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%. By labor market standards, this is a huge increase.

But there was even a bigger surge in those working as independents part-time, but occasionally (regularly, but without set hours per week) as independents. Their ranks grew from 15.8 million in 2020 to 23.9 million in 2021, a 51% increase.

Most occasional independents work this way to supplement their income or pursue a passion or a hobby.  

For example, many rideshare and delivery drivers are occasionals. They fit in their driving work hours when they can, usually around other obligations (caregiving, school, a traditional job, etc.).  

Another example is a craftsperson who sells their work on Etsy as a side gig. When their schedule permits or demand for their product is high, they may work 10 or 20 hours, or even more in a single week. But other weeks, they may not work at all or spend very little time on their side gig.  

There is a mix of reasons for the surge in independent workers:

1. The pandemic has many people rethinking what work means to them and reevaluating how they want to live and the type of work they want to do. This has more people turning to independent work for the autonomy, control, and flexibility it provides.  
2. Many lost their jobs or had their work hours cut due to the pandemic. This accelerated the existing trend towards people needing to take on 2nd and even 3rd jobs to supplement their income.
3. Online platforms, marketplaces, and social media have made it cheaper and easier to become an independent worker.  The burgeoning creator economy is an example.
4. The pandemic has reinforced a growing view that traditional jobs are riskier and less secure than they once were. This makes going independent more attractive.

See MBO Partners' research brief for more details.

Emergent Research worked with MBO Partners on this study.

The Metaverse is Coming

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" and "Ready Player One," encompasses an extensive online world transcending individual tech platforms, where people exist in immersive, shared virtual spaces. Through avatars, people would be able to try on items available in stores or attend concerts with friends, just as they would offline."

Facebook's first metaverse effort is a virtual conference room service called Horizon Workrooms. The application allows users to meet in virtual reality conference rooms and collaborate on shared whiteboards or documents while still sitting at their own physical desks.

Facebook's video below provides more details on the virtual conference room.

 

The online game industry is also promoting the metaverse.

TechCrunch's article Fortnite's Ariana Grande concert offers a taste of music in the metaverse describes the integration of the metaverse and popular music artists.

Fortnite (an online gaming company) also held a virtual concert featuring rappers Travis Scott and Marshmello. Over 12 million people watched it live, and the concert video (below) has been viewed over 60 million times.

 

While most of the current metaverse hype is around its use by consumers, there's also a growing array of industrial applications.  Wunderman Thompson's Building the Metaverse describes a joint effort by virtual reality chip producer Nvidia and BMW to build a "digital twin" of the car company's factory in Regensburg, Germany.

This will allow BMW to virtually to test changes in the plant's configuration and workflows digitally before implementing them in their physical factory - saving BMW time and money.

In many ways, and despite our title, the metaverse is already here.  But its use and applications - both consumer and industrial - will become much more common over the next few years.  

America's Growing Diversity

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 declines were geographically widespread.  Key quote:

White population declines were pervasive across large parts of the nation, including 61 of the 100 largest metropolitan areas; 196 of the 319 cities over 100,000 population; and 2,458 of the nation’s 3,100-plus counties. 

Back in 2013, the U.S. Census bureau reported that more whites were dying than being born.  So the decline in the number of white Americans is not surprising.

According to a recent Pew Research study, "a majority of U.S. adults say the decreasing share of Americans who identify their race as White is neither good nor bad for society."

But some point to the growing population diversity as a source of political polarization and strife.

In terms of growth, Latino/Hispanic populations led the way, increasing by 11.6 million.

Based on the new census numbers, the U.S. is now 57.8% white, 18.7% Hispanic, 12.4% Black and 6% Asian.

Hidden under the topline figures is the rise of multiracial and/or multiethnic populations.

In 2020, 33.8 million people reported being more than one race, more than a threefold increase from 2010, when 9 million people did.

The Atlantic's The Myth of a Majority-Minority America covers this trend in more detail.  So we won't, except to say that however you look at it the U.S. is getting more diverse.

Tropical Island Digital Nomads

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 close enough - and tropical enough -  to be included in this list).  

All of the digital nomad visas are new, so there's not much data on how many people are taking advantage of them.

But there is some.  Key quote from the article:

Aruba says about 13,700 visitors have arrived for “workations” since the extended-stay packages were launched last September. Officials in Barbados say its new 12-Month Barbados Welcome Stamp visa has drawn almost 5,000 new visitors since last June. And Bermuda says roughly 1,000 people have applied for its Work From Bermuda Certificate since last August.

Not surprisingly, the people interviewed were all very positive about their experiences living in tropical paradises.  

Yes, they had a few complaints.  Island fever was one, and slow internet connections another. 

But mostly, they liked island living.

The number of digital nomads has substantially grown during the pandemic.  And with many companies allowing employees to permanently work remotely, their numbers will likely increase in the coming years.

And many of them are likely to spend time working from tropical islands.