Hello, 2021 — Predictions & trends for tech, startups and general badassery

Ben Grynol
6 min readDec 30, 2020

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Well, it’s almost 2021.

Not gonna lie…2020 was a pretty good year. I know many people feel differently about the year and, if I’m being objective about it, COVID had detrimental effects on many people’s lives and businesses.

Others, however, strived and rode the tailwinds created from the pandemic.

Personally, I found the year was a great opportunity to dig deeper into the online relationships that I’ve built over the past 10+ years.

Being in lockdown made it feel like I was never really working – it was just something that I did throughout the course of a day, and into the evening.

Now that the year is almost finished, it feels appropriate to codify a few thoughts about what might happen in 2021. Many of these things won’t happen, but they are based on insights (likely borrowed) about where the world is headed.

In no particular order of importance, here are some things I’ve been thinking about for 2021.

Happy 21, friends ❤

Trends for 2021

Althlome Fashion

I’m coining this term and can’t find it online. But, it probably exists somewhere in the 2.5 quintillion bytes of data that floats across the conduit of the internet every day.

Athletic–At Home fashion will be a new category, where companies will migrate from creating Athleisure clothing to clothing that is more “work appropriate” and professional looking, but still has the same level of comfort.

Athleisure clothing will still serve a purpose, but it will be casual and weekend attire. Athlome apparel will be comfortable styles of clothing that are designed with a more fashionable look.

With Athlome, think about a hoodie that has an intricate knit pattern on it — a fashionable look with great comfort, but it wouldn’t be the right apparel for exercising in.

Creator Brands & Tools

This is a no brainer. It’s no secret that Creators are becoming the brands. We’ve seen it done successfully by people like Mr.Beast and Jeffree Star, who didn’t have a leg up in the race when they started building a following online. Eventually, Mr.Beast and Jeffree Star were able to build businesses on top of the followings they had built.

Mr. Beast launched Mr. Beast Burger in December 2020, with 300 Restaurants nationwide, all in one day.

Kylie Jenner can also be credited with building a highly lucrative and successful cosmetics company from the ground up, but she already had a head start in access to connections, capital and audience, which gave her a great launching pad.

So what’s the takeaway?

The next wave of the Net will be built around community and connections with Creators. As communities are built, new businesses will be built on top of those communities and within them.

Once the businesses are built, there will be more creator tools and infrastructure required to support, manage, engage, and monetize the communities. Stir is a startup that is early in the game, and doing a great job with building infrastructure for the Creator Economy.

Long Tail Infrastructure

The barrier to starting a business is as low as it’s ever been. If you can think it, you can do it. And if you can do it, there are likely 1,000 or more people in the world that like the same long tail thing that you do.

Subscription box for tuna flavored Doritos? Probably a business there.

Death Metal cross-stitching consortium? Likely a business there.

Table Top games for car lovers? Gotta be a business there.

The point is that, as more opportunities exist for long tail businesses to be built and survive, there will be more long tail infrastructure required to be built around them. One example of this is creating custom Shopify apps to help long tail businesses manage and monetize their audiences in whatever way necessary.

People in the Indie Hackers community are notorious for building interesting, long tail businesses.

Everything as a Service

In 2020, people began using their time differently. Remote work and shelter in place changed the way that people thought about their time, and what they did with it. Sour Dough was on the du jour of the year.

Masterclass launched a course in 2020 for baking bread

With new undertakings comes new guidance. When people start something new, they often find experts (whether through YouTube, Masterclass, or personal connections) who can give them insight about “what to do”.

People are willing to pay for quality insight now more than ever, which leads to “Everything as a Service”. In order to get exposure to a new undertaking that a person is interested in, they will likely outsource their initial intro into the new world to others who are experts in the field.

A few examples below:

Side Hustle As a Service

  • Want to start a side hustle selling Dollhouses? Hire someone who can point you in the right direction, help you with sourcing products and setting up a Shopify store, in order to get you off the ground.

Hobby as a Service

  • Want to start a Beekeeping hobby? Find an online community of Bee Keepers to get you set up with the equipment you need.

Home Office as a Service

  • Want to ball out your home office? Hire a person to design it for you, and have them order the equipment you need for better lighting, camera, and audio quality.

Office Flex

After working from home for nine months in 2020, more people will finally focus on what their office looks like – not for themselves, but for signalling purposes during video calls.

Not only will people upgrade their audio, video, and lighting for their office, they will also care about what the background of their office looks like. Using a virtual background through Zoom will be a faux pas.

Digital Nomads

This is already happening, so it’s not an earth shattering insight. However, once travel restrictions lift, both young people and those with families will travel to different locations temporarily to have work–cations. If kids are learning remotely, and parents are working remotely, then why not from Whistler? Work during the day, live during the evening.

Micro over Macro Communities

Another “this is already happening” insight. People will spend more time engaging in the long tail communities where they can be themselves, as opposed to spending time masking their true personalities behind the fictitious life they live on Instagram.

These communities will be spread across Discord, Slack, WhatsApp, and even just text threads with their closest pals from the www.

That’s it!

Nothing earth shattering.

If you want to chat about it, you can find me on the Twits — @bgrynol .

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Ben Grynol

Head of Growth: Levels / Startup Team: SkipTheDishes / Co-founder: Thisten, Top & Derby / Host: Character Podcast / Rotman MBA