Could 2020 be the best year for investing?
2020 is an unusual year, and also a very interesting year for investing. On top of Covid, the take-down of specific apps in some regions, demand of monitoring speech online, uprising power of consumers, global move to take down digital borders, etc. are all poised to create big changes in consumer and enterprise markets.
Below are the big opportunities that we think are happening in the upcoming 5 years that we have been closely monitoring:
Digital advertising industry would have some big fundamental shifting: Currently, programmatic ad occupies 70% of the US$130 billion digital advertising. With the death of 3rd party cookies, mobile ad ID and user privacy issues (See Article), we expect this is an opportunity for a new ecosystem which will be the next Google or Facebook, which they both arose from an infrastructural change.
UGC platforms are facing challenges with brands and regulations. More than 50 top advertisers boycott Facebook, US is trying to pass laws to remove safe harbor from social media (see Article), India banned Tik Tok and in total 59 apps, the social media as we know today is going through some major changes, especially in the monetization area.
With Covid, we expect an accelerated shifting of offline business to move online. Some products that traditionally require more personal service and consultancy such as luxury goods, make-up, fashion could have a step change in their online penetration. Under the big shift, more innovations of the online commerce experience would happen, e.g. live-streaming, opportunities for traditional sales to develop an online professional career could arise.
Power shifting from brands and publishers to consumers
Power of long-tail and niche: Niche and quality are reaching their critical mass and monetization model (see Article)
Remote work or hybrid model of remote and physical work would prevail, breeding opportunities ranging from infrastructure to platforms and products that facilitate the company management, staff productivity and wellbeing.
