Trends

When Frank Catalano’s doctor handed him a terrifying diagnosis — prostate cancer, 5 years to live — he did not expect to be handed his next multi-million dollar business idea as well.

The Signal: The quarantine period turbocharged e-commerce spend over the past few months.

To get a view on which e-commerce product categories are currently looking attractive, the Trends team asked ThoughtLeaders — a marketing intelligence tool — to provide us with data they’ve collected that will help you identify market opportunities.

Doc Williams has helped hundreds of people launching a business. The self-described “solutions architect” (AKA digital marketing expert) has worked with everyone from powerful NFL agents to VaynerMedia.

In the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, we’ve turned to all kinds of people — including virologists, Ph.D.s, and market analysts — to explain the challenges we face in the present. But who can help us better understand the next-order effects of this crisis?

The Trends Small Business Database houses hundreds of small businesses, along with their financials and unique stories. You can access the entire database here or read dozens of in-depth features here.

How you can capitalize

Canadian giant Shopify’s stock has grown tenfold in the last 3 years. The platform powers millions of merchants worldwide, enabling them to sell online with ease.

Sometimes you just want to keep other people from smelling your stuff. Enter Revelry Supply. Based in Santa Cruz, CA, the lifestyle cannabis business makes odor-absorbing luggage — duffels, backpacks, personal bags, etc. — aimed at cannabis users.

We started exploring tiny things by sharing a single Signal: miniature cooking sets. We’ve now gone all-in on the tiny business, and found that it’s not just the miniature cooking set–it’s tiny 🏡, tiny 🎂, tiny 🌵, and just about tiny everything. We teased out over 50 tiny products and whether they’re on the 👍 or 👎.

Daniel Kane was a 19-year-old student at UC Santa Barbara when he launched the skinny wallet company, The Ridge.