When something big happens

Today I wanted to share some of my observations and insights about new market trends.

Whenever something big happens (new law is introduced, iOS system update, ground-breaking tools like ChatGPT, a competitor raises prices), new opportunities show up.

Let’s look at a few examples

Exhibit A) A new law is introduced: GDPR

The European Parliament and Council of the European Union adopted the GDPR on 14 April 2016. This law changed the internet as we know it, especially for Europeans (everyone hates cookie consent popups). But, thanks to this law, new opportunities showed up.

For example, analytics.

Before that, Google Analytics was a king (still kind of is), but over time it became too complex, and with new GDPR laws in place every website that was using it had to display the cookie banner and comply with the privacy laws.

That gave a space for tools such as plausible.io, simpleanalytics.com, umami.is etc.

They position themselves as simple and private alternatives to Google Analytics.

This is a great argument against those who think that if there is a major player on the market there is no space for smaller ones.

Exhibit B) iOS System update

Even though widgets have been available for years on the Android system, iOS introduced them just a few years ago. And it changed a lot.

It gave rise to many popular apps that capitalized on a new trend.

Few examples:

1. Locket Widget

2. Widgetsmith

Exhibit C) The AI Revolution

This might be an obvious example, but I wanted to share how you can learn about new opportunities before they become mainstream.

You’ve probably heard about or even paid for AI Avatar. This trend became popular and then it died down. Yet, some capitalized on this trend.

I’ve been tracking this closely actually I was aware of this technology a few months before big names started to build their own “AI Wrappers”.

And I’ve learned about it from Reddit.

Particularly from r/StableDiffusion. People who hung out there really liked to play with new tools and they were generating their avatars for fun using self-made tools.

Only until someone has built an API service to process those images and return the result it go mainstream. Back then the image processing cost a few $ per run. Quite expensive.

Key learning?

Go and check places where passionates are hanging around and look for potential opportunities.

The avatar thing wasn’t new. On the App Store apps like this were available a long time ago (search for “cartoon me”). The recent AI advancements only made it look better.

Exhibit D) A competitor raises prices

As you already know, even if there is a big player on the market, there is a place for a small fish.

We could have been observing this recently with Typeform. They’ve raised prices to the extent that many people started to churn as they were paying top $ for a simple tool that’s essentially a beautiful form.

It didn’t take much time for competitors to show up and offer the same thing but for much, much lower prices.

As always, I’m happy to chat, so don’t hesitate to e-mail me back with questions or if you have something to add.