Flares: Peer-to-Peer Learning, Drop-Servicing Shopify, and Bamboo Plants

AUG 11, 2020
by Trung Phan

Shorter-form Signals based on Google, Amazon, Reddit, and other sources.

***

Peer-to-Peer Learning

We recently highlighted how Greg Isenberg is building businesses by unbundling Reddit (specifically by targeting popular subreddits). One of the fastest growing subreddits has been r/Student_AcademicHelp, jumping 20x since the start of the pandemic (to ~11k subs).

With in-person school clearly in flux, peer-to-peer learning is taking off. The leader in the space is Brainly, a platform where you can pose questions to 200m+ teachers and students.

Poor reviews for Brainly suggest opportunities to offer comparable products that solve the following problems:

  • Too many categories (Brainly offers support for all subjects: math, English, history, biology, chemistry, etc.)
  • As community has grown, there is too much spam and moderators are too slow to take down wrong/inappropriate posts 
  • Typing interface is glitchy 

***

Drop Servicing and Shopify

One of our recent popular Signals was on “drop servicing”: Find a customer who needs a service, sell them that service, and then outsource the work to someone else for less, keeping the profit.

A notable opportunity in the space is around Shopify. In Q2 2020, stores on Shopify spiked +71% year-over-year (YoY). To fill the need of Shopify experts, the Canadian ecommerce company has created an expert portal that covers all types of needs, including marketing, development, and content.

According to search data from Ahrefs: 

  • “Shopify experts” currently receives 5.5k searches a month with a keyword difficulty of 15 (medium)
  • “Shopify developers” currently receives 1.6k searches a month but with a much more difficult keyword difficulty of 45 (hard)

Available exclusively to Trends subscribers

Understand upcoming market trends, receive our premium weekly report, access our database of research, and network with the smartest people we know

7 Day Trial

Join Trends now for $1!

Hear from our members:

Gagan Biyani

Co-Founder / Udemy

Few places bring together so many engaged hustlers around new ideas, changes in the markets and product/services recommendations.

Adrian Salamunovic

Founder / Author of "Free PR"

The network is amazing. Where else do you see founders of 9 figure companies helping founders who are just getting started?

Jack Smith

Co-Founder / Vungle

The community is very collaborative and people in there have offered introductions for me, not wanting anything in return.

What do you get with Trends:

Private Community

The most powerful business peer group

Connect with thousands of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs, executives and insiders. Collectively, Trends members have companies with tens of billions in revenue.

They say you’re the average of the 5 people you spend most of your time with. Are you surrounding yourself with the right people? You are now.

Weekly Case Studies

Curated stories from the business world

Dive into the success stories of companies around the world and discover how they achieved.

How One Company Created a Niche Market for Young People Who Want Fancy Bibles
How to Capitalize Early on the Fast-Growing Sports Gambling Industry
How Moiz Ali grew Native Deodorant from $0 to $100m acquisition in 2 years
How The Athletic Grew a Niche Audience to ~1m Subscribers in 4 Years

Market Signals

In-depth trends analysis & monitoring

Discover what’s trending before it goes viral

Don’t press snooze on this opportunity: sleep supplements

The signal: As meditation becomes mainstream, people may be surprised to find that searches for sleep apps double their meditation counterpart. As people invest in getting a better night’s rest, there’s opportunity abound, including physical products like weighted blankets or premium PJs, supplements, popular insomnia drugs having their patents expire, companies paying their employees to sleep better, marketing for sleep specialists, or online sleep education (ex: sleep apnea test has 27k searches per month).

The alternative milk market is getting frothy

The signal: As more people wave goodbye to dairy, alternative milk is slowly taking over; it has already cornered 13% of the market. With the exception of soy milk, all of the alt-milks have been on the up, with some of the newer entrants including hemp milk and pea milk. Other alt-products are getting attention, including cashew cheese, with 18100 searches per month.

Capitalizing on the Airpods market, making more money than Shopify

The signal: Since killing the headphone jack, Apple has graced the world with AirPods, which did an estimated 60m units in 2019. That means AirPods alone are bringing in approx ~$10b in revenue, more than Twitter, Shopify, or Spotify, to name a few popular tech giants. Opportunity lies in Apple opening up SiriOS or the wave of iPhone accessories (including cases, cleaning kits, hooks, and keychains) which have shown “hockey stick” growth alongside their hardware predecessor.

Weekly Lectures

Leading experts share their knowledge

Attend exclusive lectures from experts in the industry and stay in the know

Sound good?

Gain full access to Trends for $1! Cancel anytime.

7 Day Trial

Join Trends now for $1!