NFR #25 - Tik Tok, Psychedelics & Liquid Death

NFR #25 - Tik Tok, Psychedelics & Liquid Death

?? Morning Inspiration:

“Strengthen the individual. Start with yourself. Take care with yourself. Define who you are. Refine your personality. Choose your destination and articulate your Being. As the great nineteenth-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche so brilliantly noted, ‘He whose life has a why can bear almost any how.‘”

Jordan Peterson

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?? eCommerce News:

???TikTok: The Most Visited Site of 2021

"Yes, the addictive app that boasts?1 billion monthly active users?skyrocketed to greater heights of popularity in 2021. According to Cloudflare,?TikTok?first started topping the charts as the most visited site in February 2021. In August, TikTok consistently ranked Number One each month for the rest of the year. The feat is all the more impressive when you consider that TikTok ranked Number 7 in 2020."

???Spotify unveils sprawling podcast hub in downtown L.A.

“The campus — which can accommodate as many as 600 employees — encompasses 18 podcast studios, a theater, an indoor stage and places for musicians to tinker with vintage instruments, including a piano once used by singer-songwriter Norah Jones.”

“You think about where the streaming industry is — it really is centered here,” Holt, Spotify’s global head of podcasts and new initiatives, said in an interview. “We want to be able to have the right home for our teams and for the creator community ... that’s why we’re investing in L.A. It’s an important city for Spotify.”

???Skio raises $3.7M to help brands on Shopify sell subscriptions

“Skio, a startup that aims to take the pain out of selling subscriptions for brands on Shopify, has raised $3.7 million in a seed funding round.

Kennan Davison, an engineer who previously worked at Hulu and Pinterest, founded the startup in April.”

???Purple Dot, a waitlist and preorder platform for the fashion industry, raises $4M

“Because of the unpredictable nature of the fashion industry, fashion brands often have to “guestimate” demand for their products, and if they get that demand wrong, they have to deal with the wasted inventory. All too often clothes end up being incinerated unnecessarily, adding to their environmental impact. U.K. startup?Purple Dot?has an e-commerce “waitlist and pre-order” platform, allowing fashion brands to only produce the exact volume of goods ordered, thereby cutting down waste.”

???Fiverr rolls out new Pinterest-like personalized discovery feature

“Freelance marketplace?Fiverr?is rolling out an interactive Pinterest-like mobile experience aimed at enabling users to engage with a constantly updated feed of visual content curated specifically for them. The company says the new feature, which is called “Inspire,” was specifically designed to help inspire new projects and help users uncover freelancers on the marketplace. Users can interact with the content by “liking” it in their feed and adding it to a mood board or list within the app in order to reference it later”

???Please effect a golf clap as Apple’s value reaches $3 trillion

“Apple’s rapid valuation ascent of the last few years came to a head today as the Cupertino-based hardware-and-software company reached the $3 trillion market cap threshold, according to?Google Finance?data.”

???Kiddo picks up $16Mfor a kids’ wearable aimed at four chronic conditions

“Kiddo, formally known as GoodParents Inc., announced a $16 million Series A round on Tuesday. Through a combination of wearables, parental coaching, and telehealth, the company has its sights firmly set on managing care for kids with chronic health conditions.”

???Liquid Death lands $75M more to expand the brand

“Liquid Death, a water brand that began life in 2018 with a?funny video?to first test the concept, has grown deadly serious about its growth prospects. The LA-based outfit, which sells canned mountain water from the Alps that will “murder your thirst,” has just landed $75 million in Series C funding led by the startup studio Science”

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???Trends Of The Week:

Magazines will come back in a big way.

“Views of #BookTok have grown 3x since our summer report. Source: TikTok

What’s old is new again. Vinyl record sales are?up. So are?print books?and?direct mail?marketing. Next in line??Magazines will come back in a big way.?Driven by digital overwhelm, newsletters will use print to escape the inbox.

Winners will?charge more, ship fewer issues, and tie in tools like QR codes, AR integrations, and voice-activated C2As to better monetize modern magazines.”

Psychedelics For Mental Health In 2022.

“The last decade brought mental health to the forefront with meditation startups, virtual reality treatments, and text-based therapy apps.?But 2022 brings a new addition: psychedelics.

Companies like Field Trip Health and Mind Medicine are using DMT, MDMA, psilocybin, LSD, and ketamine in controlled settings to help patients with treatment-resistant mental illnesses. With 52.9m US adults experiencing mental illness in 2020, this market is ripe for continued innovation.”

Source:?CB Insights

The Use Of Biopesticides

“The use of biopesticides (pesticides derived from insects, plants, and bacteria, rather than chemicals) will reach a critical turning point?toward the end of 2022.

While the category only accounts for ~10% of the overall agrochemicals market today, it is expected to accelerate at?~15%?CAGR through 2025.

Growth will be driven by?bans on chemical pesticides?as a result of deteriorating soil conditions, extensive farm practices, and increasing chemical residue levels in food products.”

Includes only insecticides, not all pesticides. (Source:?Statista)

Coworking Spaces Will Make A Comeback

“Coworking spaces will make a comeback,?as small and medium businesses flock to more flexible arrangements for their workers.

Companies with expiring leases will want to gauge employee appetite for returning to office before committing to more permanent options. After 2 years of working from dining tables, many individuals will also be interested in coworking memberships that get them out of the house a few times a week.”

Source: Google Trends

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?? My Marketing Highlight:

"Weetabix’s ‘Beanz on Bix’ crowned your campaign of 2021”

“The campaign, which cost less than ￡5,000 to execute, came as a result of the business creating a culture of bold thinking,?setting up “brave spaces”?for its employees to talk through “any hare-brained idea” they might have with a member of the leadership team, according to head of marketing Gareth Turner.

Beanz on Bix became one of the most talked about brand campaigns of the year. The post has been retweeted 37,000 times, quoted 68,800 times and received 131,000 likes.”

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?Quotes that make you think

• “New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings.”?Lao Tzu

• You can't start the next chapter if you keep rereading the last one."?Unknown

• “Nothing can be changed until it is faced.”?James Baldwin

• “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”?Eleanor Roosevelt

• “You cannot serve from an empty vessel.”?Eleanor Brown

• “The present moment is all you ever have."?Eckhart Tolle

• “We spend money that we do not have, on things we do not need, to impress people who do not care.”?Will Smith

• “You can't be scared to die for the truth. The truth is the only thing that is ever going to be constant.”?Will Smith

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? Mental Model Of The Week:

Sunk Cost Fallacy:

“The?Sunk Cost Fallacy?describes our tendency to follow through on an endeavour if we have already invested time, effort, or money into it, whether or not the current costs outweigh the benefits.”

“In economic terms, sunk costs are costs that have already been incurred and cannot be recovered. It is irrational to use irrecoverable costs as a rationale for making a present decision. If we acted rationally, only future costs and benefits would be taken into account, because regardless of what we have already invested, we will not get it back whether or not we follow through on the decision.

The sunk cost fallacy means that we are making irrational decisions because we are factoring in influences other than the?current?alternatives. The fallacy affects many different areas of our lives leading to suboptimal outcomes.

These outcomes range from deciding to stay with a partner even if we are unhappy because we’ve already invested years of our lives with them, to continuing to spend money renovating an old house, even if it would be cheaper to buy a new one because we’ve already invested money into it.”

Article & Image source: Thedecisionlab.com (Link)

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???Book I'm Reading:

Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? - Seth Godin

Link to book

“There used to be two teams in every workplace: management and labor.

Now there’s a third team, the linchpins. These people invent, lead (regardless of title), connect others, make things happen, and create order out of chaos. They figure out what to do when there’s no rule book.

They delight and challenge their customers and peers. They love their work, pour their best selves into it, and turn each day into a kind of art.

Linchpins are the essential building blocks of great organisations. Like the small piece of hardware that keeps a wheel from falling off its axle, they may not be famous but they’re indispensable. And in today’s world, they get the best jobs and the most freedom.

Have you ever found a shortcut that others missed? Seen a new way to resolve a conflict? Made a connection with someone others couldn’t reach? Even once? Then you have what it takes to become indispensable, by overcoming the resistance that holds people back.”

Book summary on Medium

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Happy existing ??

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