The Pulse by EllisX: Tech & Business Trends Worth Exploring — Feb 1

The last week of January treated us to a thrilling David v. Goliath battle between individual investors and Wall Street hedge funds. While the former drove up the stock price of GameStop by 300%+, which subsequently led Robinhood to ban them from trading $GME stock and a backlash from its user base. While we’re not sure whether this will lead to a larger trend among individual investors switching to a different trading platform long-term, we have noticed several other trends that will stick around for a while.

Newsletters For Everyone

In the past year it seemed like virtually everyone — from journalists leaving traditional employment to go solo to startup operators and investors — was starting a newsletter. Now, platforms are following into Substack’s steps. Over the last week Twitter bought Substack competitor Revue, Forbes introduced its ‘Journalist Entrepreneur’ program and the NYT reported that Facebook is planning to launch a newsletter platform of its own. This means more newsletters being started and even more platforms entering the space. Which ones will survive remains to be seen.

Are We Heading Into a SPAC Bubble?

Until last year SPACs were an uncommon way of going public. But things changed after 242 SPACs were launched in 2020. So far this year, an average of five SPACs were launched every day, and it seems like this is not slowing down. With more companies opting to forego the lengthy process of a traditional IPO and choosing a SPAC instead, we will be seeing a lot more SPACs this year. This begets the question: will this result in a SPAC bubble and if so, how long before it bursts?

The Creator Economy Is Expanding

The rise of the Passion Economy has empowered multiple creators to make a living doing what they love. The closure of restaurants in 2020 has prompted the rise of a whole different class of creators — chefs. By creating pop-up restaurants and leveraging Instagram ads they are sharing gourmet recipes with a broader audience and finding new fans online. This goes to show that the Creator Economy is expanding to include multiple verticals and this will likely continue beyond COVID-induced shutdowns.

If you think these trends are worth deeper exploration, you can always find experts ready to comment on them here.