Building for the post-vaccine world

I’ve been doing a lot of catching up on articles and blog posts that have been on the back burner for the last month. It’s been great having the time to sit back, read and think.

One common theme that I am seeing throughout is that people are starting to envision the post-vaccine world. Put in other ways, are the trends that we saw and are seeing during COVID-19 long-term trends or fads that will fade?

For builders, there couldn’t possibly be a more exciting time. There are new trends and ways of thinking in the post-COVID world. This creates massive opportunities to build businesses in these spaces.

On the flip side, people need to be able to decipher quarantine reality from the post-vaccine reality. Fads happen. Starting a sourdough starter business may have been lucrative in 2020 but likely to fade in 2021 as people are able to get outside again.

There are a couple spaces that I am particularly interested in watching in the post-vaccine world:

The first is the rise of personal finance and investing. Robinhood and the pandemic created a whole world of new investors. Many of these individuals were simply bored and looking for something else to do. As the world becomes hedge fund investors, many supplemental businesses will be built around this.

The second is the rise of direct to consumer brands, particularly in the food and beverage industry. The 2010s saw the day and age of DTC with suitcases, mattresses, glasses, and nearly everything in between being disrupted. One DTC area that has yet to take a hold is the food and beverage industry. That area is ripe for disruption as more people become brand loyal and turn to higher quality products.

We’re set up for a Roaring 20s of epic proportions. People are going to be hungry to spend their money and live life after quarantine. There is no better time in the history of the world than to build a company than it is right now.