Covid-19 has revealed and keeps revealing holes in the economic and healthcare infrastructures worldwide as it spread and invades countries mercilessly. The gap between the rich and poor has become more obvious, especially in well-developed countries. The number of job losses in two weeks exceeded 10 million in the U.S. alone.
Imagine what'll happen in the least developed countries -- it's a scary picture.
The World Economic Forum describes the importance of social distancing, before health anxiety and panic-scrolling becoming the new normal. These are domestic challenges that every country is facing.
In addition to everything going on with the coronavirus, we are caught in the midst of other serious problems. These include the refugee crisis from war-affected zones, more and more people trying to migrate from underdeveloped and corrupted governments in search of a promising life at the shores of Europe, and border restrictions within the EU that challenge the solidarity and reliability of the Union overall.
Just like R.D.Kaplan mentioned in one of his lectures, the EU is the most ambitious project, but no one can escape geography`s revenge. Businesses are under attack, the majority of which are based on having a presence offline, especially restaurants, retail, service, and hospitality.
Needless to say, even Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Prince Charles, Vice President of Iran for Women and Family Affairs Massoumeh Ebtekar, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's wife Begona Gomez, Israel's Ambassador to Germany Jeremy Issacharoff, and many others have all contracted Covid-19, despite measures that are being taken to prevent it.
A new TED talk by Bill Gates shares his perspective and concerns about Covid-19, based on the warnings he made five years ago on TED`s stage and his predictions that we weren't ready for and caught us all off guard.
From Tokyo to Canada, from New Zealand to the United States, and from Australia to Brazil, the world is under shut down. Looking at what is happening across the globe, it simply reminds me of Hollywood sci-fiction movie, but this time, it's reality!
Industry Giants have stepped into battle against this invisible enemy. or example:
- Apple pledged $15 million to COVID-19 response efforts in the U.S. and internationally, donated 10 million masks.
- Google pledged more than $800 million to support small businesses and crisis response, along with 2-3 million masks.
- Giorgio Armani announced that all of its Italian production plants have switched to manufacturing single-use medical overalls for the individual protection of healthcare workers engaged in the fight against the Coronavirus disease.
- Amazon teamed up with Lyft to provide work for those in need, donated over $3 million in the UK, and provided scores of services to battle Covid-19.
- Facebook pledged $20 million in matching funds for Covid-19 response.
- Tesla provided hundreds of ventilators to help meet demands from the growing coronavirus outbreak. Check out here how Ford and GM have joined the club to manufacture ventilators.
- Alibaba Jack Ma and Alibaba Foundations donated medical equipment to African Union member states.
Businesses, professionals, gig economy enthusiasts, entrepreneurs, freelancers, and others will have to reshape and thoroughly think over how to survive, despite emergency loans or so-called financial cushions in well-developed countries and what could be done in other parts of the world nearly Half the World Lives on Less than $5.50 a Day.
Is the world as we know it in the apocalypse or on the way to becoming dystopian?
In my previous article, I explored how AI and Blockchain industry leaders are joining forces to fight the pandemic. I shared my fascination with Gitlab's CEO Sid Sijbrandij and how his grand strategy on remote work motivated me to further explore his philosophy that resulted in the making of GitLab.
During social distancing, remotely working online, and picking the brain of successful remote teams, companies and alternative ways of working, the statement of John Chamber that was made in 2017 caught my attention because it is one of the most relevant today.
To access the complete report, click here
In every crisis, there is an opportunity to make differences. Just like in my article about how I researched 300 decks, all of the mentioned 300 decks got funded and solved some kind of problem in their respective industries.
I assume all of them had their business models to experiment with, fail and make required modifications. Yet, one of the great sources of business modeling was developed by Dr. Stefan Perkmann Berger and his team. The following article explores how those companies that we aspire to develop the business models that made them what they are today.
But, wait, how about 10 business models?
Adeo Ressi and Jonathan Greechan, Pioneers of Founder Institute, helped launch over 4,000 companies across more than 185 cities and 6 continents.
They helped us or those interested in exploring how and where their business ideas could be applied. 10 business models along with advantages and disadvantages for each mode can be found here.
There are hundreds of companies that are working semi-remotely or 100% remotely. I admire a number of them and follow them enthusiastically. There are, in fact, not 10, but hundreds of them that utilize a 100% remote work lifestyle, though, so I’ll let readers of this post take a dive deep into 100 companies that employ, work and partners 100% online, and just share my favorite 10 picks.
1. Oribi is redefining analytics and helping agencies and SMEs benefit from more precise data by democratizing it, and not depending on developers, Business Intelligence and lots of money. In 2016, Iris Shoor, founder and CEO, built a tool that simplifies web analytics independent from developers. Every button click and page visit is automatically tracked. Optimization features help understand what works, what doesn’t work, and how to drive more conversions. Once the channels that acquire the most engaged prospects and result in more conversions are identified, customized reports can be shared with others.
2. Smartly Kristo Ovaska and his team developed a tool that automates every step of social advertising to unlock greater performance and creativity. Its technology empowers you to rapidly produce, test and optimize best-performing ads across all social channels. Key features include design performance-driven, on-brand creatives with dynamic creative tools and templates and easy launch campaigns to distribute ads across multiple channels and markets all from one platform, saving time and increasing efficiencies.
3. Milanote, founded by Ollie Campbell, Brett Warren, and Michael Trounce, is an easy-to-use tool to organize your ideas and projects into visual boards. It collects everything in one place, allows for writing notes and to-do lists to a board with simple text editing and task management, supports all common image and file types, and saves texts and links from the web through its Web Clipper. By organizing visually and sharing via Milanote boards, teams can edit together in real-time and then share with others.
4. BRYTER enables experts to deliver knowledge. Business experts can build and distribute powerful applications with software that is intuitive and simple enough for non-IT-experts to understand within minutes, yet powerful enough and enterprise-ready for industries with complex reasoning and demanding use cases. It especially caters to experts in law, finance, tax, and compliance by helping them automate and standardize decision making. This no-code building platform, founded by Michael Hübl, Michael Grupp, and Micha-Manuel Buesautomates decision-making, helping experts deliver knowledge fast and efficiently.
5. Run the World allows professional organizations to organize online events that people love worldwide. Organizers can easily put together exciting events with simple plug and play templates. Attendees use proprietary technology to interact and learn from each other and have meaningful conversations entirely online. The advantages are more frequent meetings, opportunity to engage more members, and little financial cost and time needed. Co-founders Xiaoyin Qu and Xuan Jiang created a unique way to bring like-minded people worldwide together to accomplish great things.
6. Sarwa's CEO Mark Chahwan, backed by a stellar team of investment experts and advisors, offers a proven investment strategy for novices. As an online financial advisor, it that takes the hurdles out of investing, while helping to maximize returns at a comfortable risk. It is simple for people who are not part of the financial world but want global diversification and optimal returns, because it allows them to build smart portfolios that make more money and take less risk.
7. Glimpse allows to users to discover trends before they are trending by tracking every topic across the internet to identify growing tendencies. Whether a company, product or industry, it stays ahead of the trends that are constantly changing as the world changes by tracking it and sending monthly email reports. Company Founders made seeing into the future easy by knowing about launched products before the go global, sourcing under-the-radar investments and understanding the marketing tactics of today's viral trends.
8. Brian Dean and Josh Howarth are challenging Google trends with exploding topics with their advanced knowledge. This tool and newsletter that surfaces trending topics before they take off is the go-to resource for SEO and content marketing advice. It analyzes millions of searches, conversations and mentions across the internet, identifying interesting topics prior to their launch. To learn more, check out this website.
9. Zapnito is a SaaS community platform built to showcase expertise. Charles Thiede, CEO and Co-founder, and Jon Beer, CTO and Co-founder, provided a way to power expert communities. Users to create branded expert networks that promote thought leadership, increase revenue, and build engagement and trust with audiences. All aspects are available, including strategic planning, custom development, site success and support, and roadmap input, to launch a branded community with tailored features.
10. Seedinvest is a leading equity crowdfunding platform that helps startups raise capital online in a simple, streamlined way. Ryan Feit and James Han started company back in 2012 and to this day 300K+ total Investors are registered, 200+ Startups Funded
The meat and potato of the article is about 10 new (maybe not new) ways of working during the outbreak. For some, this is a great opportunity to dive deep into exploring new skills to educate yourself.
For others, it is a great opportunity to finally try something new and perhaps discover some unknown talents.
And, still for others, it is a great opportunity to enjoy a Netfix series and the benefits provided by your company. Many people have more time now because of shelter-in-place requirements and the need to work remotely.
For those looking for new opportunities, consider some of these:
1. Freelancing
There must be one talent or skillset that you are good at and there is always a way to market it and monetize it. To get started, find your niche, define your value propositions, brand yourself as an expert in your field, and start getting content in front of new audiences. You can also start by registering on Upwork, Fiverr or even showcasing your services on your LinkedIn, Facebook or Instagram to catch someone else`s attention.
2. Blogging
Blogging is not easy to start, and not an instantly rewarding business practice. It is a long-term and painstaking journey, because competition is tough and the amount of content is humongous. Yet, if you are a long-term thinker, ready to learn, and willing to share your knowledge, I can tell 100% that all your investments will pay off. People enjoy learning from industry leaders such as Neil Patel, James Altucher, and Jon Morrow.
Jon, in particular, is exemplary. Despite being unable to move from the neck down, he has become one of the top writers online, started multiple successful companies, and now teaches and speaks around the world.
3. Affiliate (Marketing)
A lot of successful bloggers combine affiliate marketing with their expertise. One of the great examples that I enjoyed to understand the value of affiliate marketing was delivered by Gael Breton and Mark Webster at Authority Hacker, go ahead and access free training to understand and explore more.
4. Consulting
Giovanni Bordone is one of the fashion styling industry expert whose skills are always sought after. Not only does he meet VIPs from Fortune 500 companies to advise on their style, but also lectures online and offline to his students across China, Taiwan, Korea, England, and Malaysia.
Consulting can be conducted via Upwork, a webinar, even in person. If you have over 10.000 followers, you can boldly engage in affiliate marketing if you can spare enough time for blogging or outsourcing.
5. Teaching (Online Courses)
Udemy, Skillshare, and a bunch of other platforms have opened doors to educate and learn upon demand. Anything can be learned online, but there are two challenges. There are experts who have no idea how to scale their expertise and there are marketers that know the required tools to sell anything imaginable. Imagine combining both. You may strike a deal with freelancers in which they help you to promote your expertise professionally and you deliver valuable content (of course, I am thinking out loud).
6. Podcast
I enjoy several podcasts. Last time I shared one of my favorite nerdwriter youtube channel that has thought-provoking content. This time, Jacke Wilson whose love towards literature is so energizing, got me stuck with his Spotify channel that I enjoy almost every day. It is not about his knowledge of literature, but his passion and storytelling skills that captivate me to listen to him endlessly. Maybe there is something that you are passionate about that can be shared with others, eventually leading to promising business opportunities? You never know!
7. Youtube/Douyin (TikTok)
Chinese Douyin, known as TikTok, is one of the most downloaded apps on IoS and Android that is reshaping our lifestyle and the art of telling stories. We all have a story to tell. This is a great medium to be heard, promoted or connect. Tik Tok has a number of similarities with Snapchat, Instagram, and Youtube and yet developed a unique platform about which in my future posts I`ll share in greater detail.
8. Service On Demand
The on-demand economy works by taking a service, such as meal delivery or handyman repairs, and using technology to connect services with users. It can be done through a website or app. Simply both parties sign up and when in need of a service, they open the app and send a request to connect for service. This has become extremely popular in today’s environment, particularly with food delivery as many restaurants have been forced to temporarily close due to Covid-19.
9. Become a Middleman
When 16 years old, Azamat started his D23 bot automation company, clients never took him seriously. Frustrated, he hired middlemen. These agencies sold his services on a commission basis, allowing him to reap financial rewards and great trade-offs. Other well-known examples are: Warby Parker, Casper, and others.
10. Other Resources
100 Starting Points to Make Money in the New Economy is a book written by Chad Grills that provides even more in-depth ideas for you to think about. Click here to download your free copy.
Conclusion
Today, looking at how Covid-19 is invading countries, paralyzing economies, disturbing work-life balance for billions of people who have to adjust their type of work and livelihoods, there is hope. When everything around us seems to be in a state of chaos and uncertainty there is always a plan B for connecting the dots and for planning for the future. This goes for myself included!
I hope this article will help in exploring new opportunities and possibilities online. I must admit that what I have covered here is just the tip of the iceberg. Benjamin Franklin once said that:
Necessity is the mother of all invention.
This outbreak will hopefully spark your curiosity to find your own online passion to monetize, scale and be successful.