Not all startup sectors were crushed during the pandemics and ensuing lockdowns. Some startup sectors actually benefited in that their products or services were highlighted for the benefits they provided either due to the need to work from home ( WFH) or the need to have products and services delivered directly to you because of the restrictions. While the world certainly took a nosedive, it did provide a lot of new opportunities for startup sectors that gave them the perfect opportunity to grow and thrive.
While some businesses were halted, other businesses found a way to use ingenuity and resources to keep their businesses afloat. Other startup sectors were always in the wings but were having trouble getting traction. I know a large number of people that now routinely shop for their groceries online, even though they have the ability to go to the supermarket whenever they want. the ease of use is addictive and this has encouraged them to start trying to get other products or services delivered directly to them or to take advantage of virtual services.
The result is the ability and action to do anything and everything in a virtual space. This segues into a world of innovation and opportunity for new startup sectors to really jump into the game and grow consistently and steadily from here.
If you’re looking for ideas for a new startup or perhaps you’re interested in investing in a startup, take a look at these ideas.
Table of Contents
- Telemedicine
- Webinars
- Virtual Education
- Virtual Fitness
- Food Tech
- Legal Services
- Self-Care
- Experiences
1. Telemedicine
With the ability to do just about everything virtually now, it opens a whole new door for telemedicine. Since the pandemic, we’ve seen a rise in the ability to have virtual doctor’s appointments for general care and even some sicknesses. A whole slew of medical services is available online and from the comfort of your home and this isn’t going to go away.
Telemedicine existed pre-Covid with the ability to have appointments via video chat and telephone conference for some basic needs. These services were not universally available and not nearly as popular. Now, they are more popular and far more used and many practices have adopted a protocol for using the services within their office.
Apart from virtual appointments, there are also more resources for virtual data needs, diagnostic capabilities, therapy services, and more.
Prior to COVID taking the world by storm, telehealth solutions were only used by about 18% of doctors. Yet now, about half of the doctors in the United States use these services and we think it will continue to grow.
With the need for these services comes the perfect startup sectors. The services will continue to need to be improved upon and enhanced to continue to make them more user-friendly. Having the ability to use data, diagnostic tools, and provide services for clients while also social distancing could be a huge change for the healthcare industry.
Paper has always been a way of life in healthcare but Covid-19 might just be the forcing factor that moves this sector into a world of change.
2. Webinars Startup Sector
Don’t roll your eyes at this one! Anyone in the professional industry knows that webinars have been around forever. But have there always been webinars that have useful tech available and webinars that can be interactive?
Gone are the days of staring at a webinar that consisted of one person talking through a PowerPoint presentation. We now see so many more options and the continued need to grow upon and enhance these options.
While Zoom has certainly been a webinar place of choice, it has its limitations. Consider a webinar world that lets you control the meeting, make it interactive, and lets you design your virtual conference rooms and content the perfect way?
Not only will the use of webinars continue to grow but we will see more conferences and training moved to webinar form, reducing the cost of attending some of the best informational gatherings out there.
Not only that, but it opens up a realm of opportunity so that more people might be able to attend and participate in events they never were able to before. The world of webinars is changing. The needs of webinars are changing. The audience of webinars continues to grow and change.
Webinars are becoming more personable and more people are using them and adapting to using them to make connections. Why stop here?
3. Virtual Education
With the start of Covid-19, every sort of educational program in the world found itself scrambling to figure out how to provide an education without meeting in the classroom. Just about every intermediary school and college or institution had to shut down their campuses and in-classroom learning models and turn to some form of virtual education with practically no notice.
This left educators and students across the globe scrambling to adjust and figure out just how to make things work. They were forced into technology they didn’t like or didn’t understand simply because they didn’t know their options or didn’t have time to find new options.
With virtual education now on the rise, we may never completely go back to the way things used to be in the world of education. Many students and educators have developed a love for the ability to take care of their education virtually.
For some, this boils down to a matter of convenience while for others it comes to a matter of taking care of their health. While not everyone has virtual education readily available to them or ready internet access, this educational option can be ideal for a lot of different things.
Tools are slightly limited in the realm of virtual education, with the majority of options out there focused on higher education. Even those platforms can be dated and challenging to maneuver.
This is the perfect startup sector to make a difference for someone who is interested in improving technology and giving educational possibility options that really serve their needs.
4. Virtual Fitness
When the gyms shut down because of the pandemic, people were again hard-pressed to find a solution. Many refused to simply let their health and fitness fall by the wayside so they had to find innovative ways to keep their focus and still work towards their goals.
While there were certainly some who used this as the perfect excuse to stop working towards the goals, the majority looks for solutions.
Bring in virtual fitness. There is a multitude of online workout programs and solutions so you can work out in your home but do they really hold you accountable? You can press play and then not give it your all.
Then came technological solutions like The Mirror that take working out at home to the next level and then some. If you missed working out with your peers, this is a great solution. You also can see yourself and work with a trainer, just like you might have been doing at the gym.
This particular option is really just the start. Virtual fitness solutions are only just beginning, making this one of the many startup sectors work looking more closely at in light of the pandemic.
Even local gyms are coming up with ways to provide virtual solutions in order to stay up with demand and the changing world.
5. Food Tech Startup Sector
Another industry hit hard by the shutdowns caused by the pandemic was the restaurant and food industry. These places quickly bounced back in some areas, coming up with ways to provide takeout and delivery when they were primarily dine-in restaurants before the pandemic struck.
With the need to be able to keep their businesses running and yet still provide for their customers, food industries had to get creative and they had to do it fast. Some of them found ingenious solutions like Trip Delivers while others used their own staff to make deliveries and be prepared for the rush on takeout.
This is just the beginning of developing tech in the food industry. Now, we will see a turn towards solutions with food preparation as well as food servicing and the need to continue delivery and such.
Are robotics in restaurants part of the future that we will see? This is certainly one of those startup sectors that just might be moving forward with solutions such as these. It will take some great minds and ingenuity to determine just how to best incorporate some of the potentials out there.
6. Legal Services
If you experienced any sort of legal proceedings during the pandemic, you know that everything was moving at a snail’s pace. It’s almost as if some things stopped moving and happening completely.
You know, I always talk about how startups always need some legal services at their disposal but that it rarely makes sense to have attorneys on retainer, not is it economically feasible. Hence, many startups have used on-demand or virtual legal services, it’s one of the key outside services founders need for their startups. Now it just seems that others have realized the benefit of using these as well.
Over the last year, attorneys and people who need legal services either had to wait it out or get creative about how they could work together. Then, of course, there was working in the courtroom and with the judge.
Some courts closed completely while others utilized things like Zoom to try to pass cases through. But what about security and privacy? How can people really know that those meetings and trials and hearings are private and secure like they should be?
This seems to be one of the number one questions that keeps returning when it comes to online meeting sites of any kind. Legal services, whether it is meeting with an attorney or entering a courtroom, are particularly sensitive in this area.
There continues to be a need for virtual solutions as well as an advanced need for legal services.
From divorces and custody cases to legal services for things like bankruptcy and home and vehicle repossession, the demand for services is on the rise and there have to be solutions to meet these needs.
7. Self-Care
Thanks to the pandemic, people started realizing just how much they were not taking care of themselves. Of course, then there was the opposite side of people who suddenly didn’t have the opportunities for self-care in the same ways they did before.
Regular massages, manicures, and pedicures were no longer an option. We couldn’t go out with friends or work out or any other thing that might fall under self-care.
Now, more than ever, there is a more intense need for self-care and the need requires more than just the ability to go get a massage. We see the need for fitness opportunities, mental health stability, dieting and healthy eating motivation, encouragement, and more.
This is a pretty vast industry but it certainly falls into the spectrum of startup sectors to consider. People have recognized the need to do things for themselves and are jumping on the bandwagon to find self-care opportunities more and more.
8. Experiences
Finally, people just want to be able to experience happiness and quality time without having to worry about overt crowds and intense lines full of people. There still remains a question as to whether or not the world will ever return to normal. Some of us have grown to enjoy not always being in the midst of a crowd.
However, even those of us that are introverts crave the ability to have experiences with those we love and those around us. Whether an experience for you is somewhere neat for a family vacation or seeing a historical monument or museum, these experiences are vital.
Those experiences also have to take into consideration that crowds are no longer something that everyone is willing to stand for or be a part of. This means that any type of experience has to become user-friendly and innovative about their approach and how they can offer a memorable experience without people breathing down each other’s necks the entire time.
Travel works along the same lines as experiences. You have to be able to reasonably travel and reach your destination. With restrictions changing and being lifted, you are crammed into tiny spaces together with strangers again and this just may not be the ideal solution for many people out there, even as the pandemic recedes.
Conclusion
Covid-19 brought a halt to many lives and ways of life but it doesn’t mean that we can’t seize the opportunities that it also brings. While change can sometimes be challenging and cumbersome, it often leads to better things to come.
With the pandemic, there will be increased opportunities to find valuable places for those looking at the perfect startup sectors to really jump into the game. Most of these sectors are not necessarily new but rather need new ideas and new innovation in this time of change.
We must accept that the world has changed during this pandemic and take it as an opportunity to move forward in newer and better ways. There are plenty of ways to bring new ideas and ingenuity to the table now more than ever and let ideas be heard.
About the Author
Jonathan Hung is one of the most active angel investors in Southern California, his mission is to drive value creation within each portfolio company. In support of this mission, he serves as Co-Managing Partner at – Unicorn Venture Partners.
Jonathan and his team target investments in US companies that have global market potential with a focus on long-term growth expansion to East Asian markets.
Jonathan developed his investing prowess as a Managing Member for his family office fund, J Heart Ventures, which made investments in start-up companies such as Gyft, ChowNow, Miso Robotics, Clover Health, Bitmain, to name a few startups he funded.
Jonathan has various degrees from the University of Southern California, London School of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.