What gaps in the market will be left once the pandemic clears?
Hey all,
I've been thinking recently about the (sad) shutdowns we've had during this pandemic. Particularly travel / food / entertainment.
But that also gives way to phoenix businesses. What gaps do you think will be opened by all these shutdowns?
I think there's opportunity in travel / reinventing how people travel (STA Travel shutting down was pretty big here in the UK). Definitely going to explore more.
It is not a given the pandemic will be clearing anytime soon. Vaccines are going to make a huge difference but given mutations it could be that this rolls on. Game changers are whether inoculated can still transmit virus and whether immunity is long-term. It's possible regular / annual / seasonal vaccines become mandatory and/or health passports required to do anything social en masse physically. Remote, virtual, on-demand, deliveries will stay / grow. As for travel, virtual is an option, otherwise small groups, remote places (stay away from people), flexible (let me move dates because of a surge). If pandemic clears then gaps are the lost businesses. If doesn't clear then re-imagine all before but with lower risk of infection. How good could a socially-distanced, low-risk
or even virtual nightclub experience be?
I'd imagine we'd be in a slightly different-looking world, even after the pandemic clears. So as you say, flexible is important. I think it'll change the landscape of some industries, but hopefully they can return to a norm eventually.
Interested to see what companies fill voids and how they change their business models.
After struggling to get my young kids to co-operate on video calls with family and friends I did a little side project to put together video calling with simple games like Tic Tac Toe and Connect 4 - https://www.gameswithgran.com/
Clever idea! Does it work to keep them engaged?
Yeah it does work to give some structure - you know how kids tend to be when you ask them things like "So, what did you do today"... answer = "urrr...nothing"... !
We've also noticed (and had many others confirm) that some kids with additional needs like Autism can really struggle seeing their own face on the screen so I've added a feature (undocumented as yet!) to choose if their own face is shown normally, dimed and blurred or turned off completely (but it doesn't effect the other side). This is something I don't think any video chat software does and I know some people have resorted to sticking post-it notes onto the screen to hide it!
That sounds awesome - my other half works with children, so I'll definitely suggest this to her!
Online schooling is an obvious one.
Sure there are a bazillion things already out there (both platforms and individual sites/apps) but many, perhaps the majority that I've seen are absolutely DIRE.
(My experience is those targeting primary schools in the UK so 5 to 10 yr)
From baffling UI's, poorly thought out content, bugs up the whazoo, 'games' where the razzle completely overwhelms the learning objective and things that are downright incorrect.
And there is a vast swamp of this stuff so it really is like trying to find diamonds in the rough.
Now there is not a lot of money in this surprisingly as schools have always struggled with budgets and most parents won't spend on anything 'general' but even much of the commercial stuff that schools are using is poor (Seasaw I am looking at you!)