What day is it? I wanted to get this post out yesterday, but why not spice up your Tuesday? For those of you that are new, MWF @ 8 stands for Monday/Wednesday/Friday at 8. You know, like your college course schedule. Although I don’t have the post frequency to match it, the name is still symbolic of my goal to continue learning after college, and I invite anyone else interested to come with me.
Long story short, welcome to the first Tuesday edition.
For all the newbies (welcome), make sure to check out why MWF @ 8 is valuable to you
If you’re a regular, share MWF through the button below or by forwarding the email to someone else who would enjoy today’s content. We could use some more readers like yourself!
Lastly, follow me on Twitter and the newsletter on Instagram for ways to connect. I want to hear from you on how to make MWF better!
Alright, let’s talk trends👇
What do you need right now?
Are you waking up feeling hungry? Thirsty?
Do you need to go to the store soon?
Is your cart on Amazon ready to be checked out?
Whatever it is, you can get it within no time.
Our society is a 'right now' society. I'm not waiting weeks for a new golf club to arrive. I'm hitting express shipping and having it by my weekend round. Likewise, there is no way we can wait for TV episodes to come out weekly. We have to watch the whole season in one week (day).
Having this sort of power at our fingertips would have made us kings and queens 500 years ago. Seriously, the command we have over our daily lives is like ruling a nation. Royalty would snap their fingers and, poof, a whole feast is ready. We can do the same thing, minus the fact we have to tip our Uber Eats driver.
The institutional norms we have built make it a fun time to be alive for you and me. The game of 'right now' gives way to 'more', and America has been #1 in the world at providing more for some time.
Although, I think this appetite for more - hereby interchangeable with "commercialization" - has waned. The minimalistic culture devalued all of the things we used to need. More severely, Covid-19 erased years of fundamental business strategies. We're slowly creeping out of an unnecessary commercialized America we created. The nature of our goods and services is trending to be cyclical, as we are seeing a swing back to niche offerings.
One of the first thoughts I wrote for MWF was on community. At that time, it was the dog days of summer during the pandemic, and I desperately missed being connected with others. Many had the same sentiment during that time, as data has begun to surface that we needed more human interaction.
In my aforementioned post, I wrote:
Try and get to a place of the most basic form of society possible. Clear your head of all the world's complexities and nuances. Erase the vast amount of data we collect throughout the day. This stripped-down society is what I'll call a "stock community": policeman, fireman, mailman, mayor, teacher, shop owner, farmers, blacksmith, etc.
This simplistic idea is an accurate representation of how American communities began. Everyone had a job, and the job centered around helping the community advance. There was no other choice; you only had so many hands. You had to serve to survive.
Communities have always revolved around the goods and services it provides. When you examine the early settlements of America, everything was essential; as in, the goods and services were applicable to the whole town. If you lived in town, you worked to provide these services. If you lived out-of-town, you journeyed to town every-so-often to buy, sell, and trade. There was no scaling of a business.
Quite frankly, I don't think anyone really knew or even cared about scaling a business. All of the jobs were geared toward helping the community survive because that's what everyone was trying to do. A good satirical movie is 1,000 Ways to Die in the West, created by Seth MacFarlane. Throughout the film, people in this fictional western town die bizarre deaths. Chances are, you don't worry about being kicked in the head by a horse, but it was completely plausible then. Why take business risks when your whole life is an inherent risk?
Therefore, business was small but it wasn't shy on unique offerings. A lot of the same goods we use today would have been made to order by you or someone in town. If you had specifications for a product, I'm sure a blacksmith, woodworker, or ceramic would see your ideas through.
This art isn't lost, but it's been dormant for several years. We ushered in the commercialization of America.
The only world we know is the one we get to endure. Most people alive right now don't know another world than a fast food joint on every corner, a Walmart within a few miles, and money laundering mattress stores. My parents have lived through the dynamic rise of commercialization, and I probably experienced the height in the 2000s.
Investopedia describes commercialization as:
Commercialization is the process of bringing new products or services to market... Typically, commercialization occurs after a small business has grown and scaled its operations and reach levels that allow it to successfully reach a larger market.
All of this has been made possible through a growing population, increased communication, and mass transportation. As roads and cars began is clutter the American map, it made sense to have business offerings along the way. Not to mention boats gained speed, and we invented air travel. Combine that with the ability to call someone across the world, and suddenly, we are operating globally. America seized this better than any country on the planet.
Locally, the growth was great for communities. Commercialization of businesses provided a diversification of careers, an influx of money into governments, and more things to do. Through this, we began to see the rise of mid-sized cities. You did not have to be in New York, Chicago, or LA to have an urban lifestyle.
The trade-off to commercialization was a complete loss of niche goods and services. Instead of specializing, we built institutions and created a lucrative corporate America. No one asked for a nation that needs 1.5 million accountants, but here we are (I am). Of course, change was inevitable.
The Internet
The ultimate disrupter has slowly chipped away at the way commercialization is done. Instead of buying a 50,000 sq/ft building, we put our products on a few pages that you can access anywhere. Today it's not a second thought, but people forget the internet had to go through a massive learning curve.
When I was growing up in the early 2000s, TV channels like Disney and Nickelodeon used to advertise their websites but preface it with, "Ask your parents before getting online." It was an uncertain space, especially for kids. I remember the agitation of convincing my dad to let me buy a video game on the PlayStation network because he did not want to put his card on the internet. It was equally as uncertain for adults.
Several things needed to fall into place for the internet to slowly rise. This blew my mind, but it was not until 2017 that the majority of Americans did their Christmas shopping online. Brick-and-mortar stores deluded themselves for way too long, thinking they could compete. When we remember the uncertainty of the internet, I can't blame them.
A lot of studies in the early 2000s revolved around the intangibility of the internet. The question of intangibility was, and still is, the main advantage physical stores cling to. A study done by the Journal of Retailing in 2004 examined the intangibility around internet retail and came to this conclusion:
Different from mental intangibility, physical intangibility is negatively correlated to PR (Perceived Risk) only for high-knowledge consumers and only in the online purchasing mode. This shows that tangible physical evidence of a product, when sold online, increases perceived risk for those people who have high level of knowledge and/or experience on that product. Although intuitively surprising, this is consistent with our argument that the effect of physical intangibility depends on mental intangibility.
So, in the early online retail days, if someone had a high knowledge grasp of a product, they perceived it was riskier to buy online. This baffled me because it's the exact opposite of what we are accustomed to today. Amazon seems so simple now, but obviously, this explains why Walmart had the crown in 2004.
It was almost impossible to predict the scale the internet could provide. It's funny now when Coinbase has a $50+ billion market cap compared to Ford's $44 billion market cap. One is a cryptocurrency exchange, and the other might be the most transformative American institution.
At this point, it seems like this will be another cliche piece on how Covid upended traditional consumer habits. This is the clear direction publications took because it was already happening. Anyone could have predicted the future of remote work. I have tried to add a unique spin on my post-Covid business thoughts, but I fell into the same mainstream rhetoric also.
Right now, it's hard to not drive to your local strip mall and scoff at the fact that everything could be purchased on Amazon, Uber Eats, grocery delivery, etc.
With the resources we have now, this is a disgusting sight. Thousands of parking spots, ugly stores, mediocre offerings. Yes, Amazon has demolished this, and mass brick-and-mortar commercialization is done.
But the people that want to tear down in-person consumerism and work are the same people who will turn around and write a piece about how we are losing our sense of community. For a micro stint of time, we coupled mass commercialization with the internet. Capitalism has never flourished more, but I think society has never suffered worse.
My prediction going forward will be a return to niche offerings. Like I touched on in the intro, the age of minimalism has stalked this notion. We don't want more quantity but more quality. That certainly plays a hand in why I think niche goods and services will continue to rise. But on a deeper level, the last thing we can afford to do is diminish any sort of human touch. The more community a good or service can offer, the greater the chance of success.
What would it look like?
I watched the WeWork documentary on Hulu recently. If you don't know what WeWork is or paid attention to when they were rocking headlines, it's worth reading about or watching the doc. The business model is something that I imagined without even knowing that WeWork accomplished it. A workspace for those who don't typically work around others. Spoiler alert... the company didn't have the numbers to match its valuation when going public and it was a massive failure. Co-founder Adam Neumann was spending money insane amounts of money that sunk an otherwise profitable business. It's the Fire Fest guy all over again. I digress.
Why WeWork has been and will be very successful - other than Neumann being gone - is because the business is so desperately needed. Big fancy office buildings were reserved for corporate America. WeWork wants to replicate this environment, which produces results, for individuals and small businesses alike. It's a huge market opportunity as more than 58.9 million Americans are categorized as self-employed or small business employees.
This data is a little dated, but it shows the rise in sole proprietorships, and we know it hits the 50 million number today. How many of these sole proprietorships begin with a macro strategy of selling to millions? That might be the end goal, but it begins with a small niche market.
A big section of this is the "creator economy". This is categorized as pretty much everything taking up your nightmarish screentime report on Sunday. I guess I've been in the creator for almost a year now. I write thoughts online to better my thinking and push myself to continue to learn. There are millions of online writers out there, just like there are millions of accountants.
The difference is, every accountant can all do the same job for you. The millions of online writers will never write the same story. I might never amass a following, but there is still something special about the unique thoughts I curate. If it's not interesting to you, it might be to the next person, and you might enjoy another newsletter. I come across an Instagram page every day that has thousands of followers, but I don't follow all of them. Does that mean they aren't publishing useful content? Of course not.
Li Jin initially piqued my interest in these topics, as she has written extensively on the passion/creator economy. Her thoughts include The Passion Economy and the Future of Work, 100 True Fans, and Paid Groups & The Passion Economy. All are worth your time.
What I think she nails is the growing need for more community made possible through the internet. The early stages of the internet + social media made it out to seem like only big followings survived. As more people (practically every single person younger than you) join this space, the less likely it is you will generate a mass following. That's why Li writes that only 100 true "super fans" could suffice as an audience down the line. To put it another way, niche areas of focus are the future of work.
Everlong Thoughts
It's not that long ago people were simply trying to survive within a community of people. Once prosperity became more certain, we commercialized everything with the sustainability that capitalism offers. This is not a "Down with capitalism!" piece, but I feel like a shakeup is on the horizon.
The old way of thinking would be, if it is going to be a store, it should serve 90% of the community. Now, the inverse is true. If a business operates to serve 90% of people, then it should be online. Commercialization is on your phone, where it should be.
This leaves a massive void in the communities we live in since commercialized business is all you and I know. It's never been more advantageous to fill those spaces with niche communities. Bringing people together in unique ways is an oasis for the next wave of businesses/creators.
My goal is to build relationships with subscribers to ultimately form a strong community of readers who can benefit from one another.
If someone sent you this article, make sure to subscribe to receive MWF at 8 in your mailbox. Lastly, introduce yourself by visiting here for ways to get in touch with me.