We all know that startups have gained massive popularity over the past few years.

They even got to the point of becoming mass-commercialized all thanks to their presence in different industries and fields. From technology to medicine, startup trends are constantly changing, which makes it difficult to predict.

For startup founders, keeping up with the latest trends can be crucial for success.

At a time when technology development can disrupt entire niches and industries overnight, being unprepared can bring an early conclusion to any business venture.

On the other side, taking advantage of the right trends can easily catapult a startup to stardom.

Running a successful startup business requires at least keeping up with the trends if not setting them.

There are, however, lots of trends that can affect a wide variety of small and large businesses.

The following ones promise to shape entrepreneurship in 2020. Consider how the following startup trends fit into your business plan.

Table of Contents           

1-Offline Retail Will Become A Side Feature

2-Subscription Services Will Continue To Sell Well

3-The Use of AI (Artificial Intelligence) Will Evolve

4-Customers Will Become Abreast of Their Data

5-2020 Is The Year of Voice Recognition Technology

6-Making Use of Voice Search

7-Extended Business Collaboration and Integration

8-Everything That Can Be Personalized Will Be Personalized

9-Blockchain Technology Will Blossom

10-Taking Advantage The Internet of Things

11-Marketing Will Become a Lot More Personal

12-Going Deep Into the Cloud Computing Era

13-Big Data Will Become An Essential Component of Digital Marketing, Healthcare, Security

Offline Retail Will Become A Side Feature

Are we going back in time?

Well, it appears so. However, offline retail is not going to change eCommerce at all. Instead, it will become a side feature of online buying. For example, we all saw that eCommerce companies have been experimenting with small retail stores and setting up experience zones in 2019.

In 2020, customers will be able to interact with the products even more before ordering them online. If you are a startup, think of all the ways you can provide this offline experience for them in detail.

Subscription Services Will Continue To Sell Well

Even though subscription growth has slowed a bit, the industry is still growing with an impressive 1% per month. Apparel, beauty, food, and lifestyle subscription boxes remain the most popular.

The market seems to attract more and more businesses and has plenty of space for new niche subscriptions.

Subscription-based businesses grow revenues 5 times quicker than other businesses. It is no surprise when subscribers place three times more orders than customers of non-subscription businesses.

The Use of AI (Artificial Intelligence) Will Evolve

AI is no longer a concept. In 2020, AI will power a sizable percentage of businesses.

It is everywhere – in your analytics, marketing tools, your customer service platforms, digital ads, and your smartphone.

Most of the people who are actively using AI don’t even know they are using it. That is because AI doesn’t look like what we once expected. It is working in the background to make processes more efficient, faster, and accurate. An AI can do various things that would normally demand human intelligence such as pattern recognition, decision-making, and creative endeavors.

Artificial Intelligence is not the same as machine learning. Machine learning refers to algorithms whose performance enhances as they are exposed to more information.

Startups that find applications for AI will succeed in 2020 as will businesses that bring the study of AI to new heights.

Customers Will Become Abreast of Their Data

Unless you are living under a rock, there is no chance you missed the recent startup trends – which are now dictated by consumers more than ever before.

In the coming year, trends like these are more than just expected. In a nutshell, consumers are very abreast of their data nowadays. So much, that they are always in need of more control over it.

The best way to adapt to this customer-centric future is by leveraging the trend with gift guides, themed polls, quizzes and content that speaks to the needs of your customers in a way that lets them manage their data.

2020 Is The Year of Voice Recognition Technology

Customers were positively surprised by Apple’s virtual assistant – Siri when it was officially released in 2011. One of the most unique features was the fact that you could communicate with Siri, search the web, and complete other tasks at the same time.

These days, voice recognition technology is entering our businesses, our cars, and our homes. Did you know that approximately 40 million Americans own a smart speaker? Apparently, virtual assistants are no longer a mysterious product but a necessity in today’s lifestyle.

To succeed in 2020, startup businesses don’t need to come up with their own voice recognition software. There are plenty of options out there to develop proprietary algorithms, apps, and other functionalities using the voice technology space.

There are opportunities for voice recognition technology in business services, manufacturing, education, healthcare, agriculture, and field service. Combined with Artificial Intelligence, startups can succeed in 2020 by creating voice recognition technologies that meet the needs of a specific niche.

Making Use of Voice Search

If you are rubbing shoulders in the startup crowd, you probably hear the term ‘voice search’ more and more often. The truth is, this kind of search has arrived – and it is bigger than many other forms of search discovered before.

On the question of why this kind of search is hot, we can say that voice recognition is a technology that improves. On another note, it is a technology that is customer-centric and as a result of that, has increased in terms of popularity.

Easy to use, fast and safer for people on the go, its use cases go in line with our fast-paced lifestyle. In 2020, the customers will use their voices to search for Google, and the startups will adapt to these changes.

Extended Business Collaboration and Integration

2020 will also be the year where more startups will collaborate between themselves and open up to potential partnerships and opportunities within and outside of their niche. Most importantly, this form of collaboration can be the perfect way to boost the sale value of your company/startup and make it worth more than before.

We already saw banks partnering with fintech startups – and startups seeking help from other startups, whether with their systems, APIs or data. Going ahead, these forms of collaborations will shape up the startup trends, allowing competitors to collaborate more and sell each other’s products for mutual benefit.

Everything That Can Be Personalized Will Be Personalized

The majority of customers prefer to work with businesses that offer personalized services. Personalization can take different forms, however, the most popular varieties are coupons on customer’s locations, recommendations based on previous purchases, and communications on the customer’s favorite channel.

Another type of personalization is a “channel of choice communication strategy”. Customers are turning away from live conversations as they prefer services that don’t require talking such as social media or SMS. Automated channels are growing in popularity, with more than 40% using chatbots. Around 45% of customers are open to any channel, as long as the service is personalized.

Blockchain Technology Will Blossom

Did you know that the demand for blockchain developers is now higher than ever before? Or that they are among the highest-paid developers out there?

Whether you have laid your hands on the blockchain or still haven’t explored this opportunity, you should know that in 2020 it will be very hard to not mention blockchain as part of the growth of a startup. In fact, blockchain is definitely one of the startup trends as the industry matures and its use cases expand.

Many Fortune 500 companies have been already exploring blockchain’s potential in terms of providing security and efficiency to their everyday operations – and this is just the start of it.

Taking Advantage The Internet of Things

In 2020, IoT technology will provide startup businesses with some of the best opportunities to make an impact. The Internet of Things is a system of machines, objects, computers, digital systems and people that are able to transfer data over a network.

When every possible object is a potential computer, IoT technology has limitless applications. Until now, many entrepreneurs have tried to build their own IoT products. Some of them succeed.

As technology gets smarter and smaller, APIs and business cloud services will become more and more standardized, creating a lot of opportunities for IoT projects. By the end of 2020, the IoT market will be worth $581 billion making it one of the most lucrative sectors among startup trends.

Marketing Will Become a Lot More Personal

This trend will keep on going as the user becomes the king. In 2020, we will see more actions that convince customers and speak directly to their needs.

Digital marketing, for example, has evolved quickly that most customers now have high expectations from brands. They want brands to understand them, know their needs, and give them what they want. Customers are looking for information online before buying a product or service. Businesses that provide the right information stand to benefit.

In order to succeed and adapt to these startup trends, you will have to provide high-value and personalized content in every step of the way.

Personalization is a very important startup trend, especially in email marketing. Around 70% of marketers use personalization in their marketing campaigns in the form of purchase histories, transactional information, and other data. Personalization, however, can go beyond greeting an email receipt by their name.

In 2020, we will see the next phase of personalization – hyper-personalization. It involves an in-depth analysis of customer data to provide the best marketing messaging at the right time.

Going Deep Into the Cloud Computing Era

Cloud-based hosting environments can gather hundreds of machines to provide a secure computing environment with no or minimal downtime. Both businesses and consumers have access to cloud storage, communication tools, and other centralized services where there is an internet connection.

Although cloud computing may sound like a dispersed computing environment that the internet brought to us, it isn’t.

There are lots of companies dominating the cloud computing niche. They are reliant on a network of data centers located in protected and secure locations. These centers must communicate with users and with each other which creates the possibility for lower discontinuation and security risks.

With 2020 edge computing, computation is performed on smart or edge devices instead of a centralized cloud environment. Related to the IoT or Internet of Things, edge computing is seen as an important concept for the production of physical computers and smart cities.

In the future, computers the size of your mobile phone may be able to take on workloads that only a data center can handle.

This is one of the most interesting and unexplored startup trends heading into 2020.

Big Data Will Become An Essential Component of Digital Marketing, Healthcare, Security

People think that Big Data means large sets of data. But that’s not the case here. It refers to data sets so large that computation software tools can’t handle them. In order to draw value from the data, AI or other new tools must be applied to find trends and patterns.

In 2020, Big Data will become an essential component for digital marketing, healthcare, supply chain management, industry, etc. Some of the assets that can be derived are:

• Business Process Optimization
• Predictive Analytics
• Cost-Effectiveness
• Organization Optimization
• Market Insight
• High-Performance Computing
• Marketing Effectiveness
• Behavioral Analytics

Startups that don’t accept Big Data will struggle. According to one research, data production by the end of 2020 will increase by 4300%.

As a startup founder, you must scan the horizon for new operational, technological, and financial developments to give your business the best possible chance of success. Knowing what is happening at the moment and what trends are predicted to make changes in the future is going to help you run your startup. You will be better equipped to run a business that takes advantage of favorable trends.

In the end, it is the year-on-year improvements that make the startup world great and innovative as every year goes by. In 2020, there will be many changes and the above-mentioned ones are definitely going to be in the spotlight.

So, do you know a way in which you can adapt to these trends and make use of them?

source: startupbasics