Life Moves Beyond the High Tech Days of the Past
Well 2023 is off and running!
I am writing this blog post on a Monday morning of a very busy week ahead.
At noon today I speak to a Chamber of Commerce board, then I meet with a community leadership team and then travel to a nearby city tomorrow to meet with its elected leadership and then later this week I present to the board of a corporation.
The presentations are all structured around where the marketplace has evolved to and where it’s heading.
As I shared back in November, 2023 will be a transitioning year ahead.
The Millennials will not only drive more on Wall Street, we shall see more Millennials leading political action groups and running for office.
While the Millennials will be a powerful force emerging into the marketplace in 2023, the High Tech crisis will play a bigger role.
It does not take a genius to see that the immortality of High Tech is in trouble.
Turns out as we enter 2023, it’s not just hardware and software, but the dot.coms and mobile digital world that are part of the tech world’s All In The Family replay.
There are still some SyFi fans out there who cling to the world of the Jetsons and a belief that Main Street will soon resemble the cartoon’s stage set.
There are even a few of business leadership who are convinced that a day will come when retail only takes place on a Smart Phone and the store fronts will only be what is created on websites.
The biggest impact to hit in the next 90 days will be the high tech layoffs that have been announced since that Ball Dropped on Times Square.
From FaceBook to Amazon to Apple to Microsoft to Google to Alphabet not only are the layoffs roaring forward, but so too is the future hiring and expansion and investing and innovation!
As of this morning, there are nearly 50,000 workers who have been laid off their jobs so far in 2023… and now another 50,000+ announced to take place in February.
We will see fewer dot.com new ventures launched this year and those launched during the Pandemic will see investors lining up and asking to see the projected revenue and earnings materialize.
The number one reason why entrepreneurs and new start-ups fail (42%) is that there was really no long-term market need for the concept (42%).
Those new upgrades on the tech devises are nice, but have they been game changers?
The second reason why (29%) is that they “run out of cash.”
Wow… and we have to remember that these are mostly left-brain tech geeks combined with top-tier MBAs.
The third reason (23%) is that they “do not staff with the right people.”
See the last EXPERIENCE blog post and read a bit about what has happened to Human Resources.
Over the weekend, I tripped across an article with the headline, “The Number of New Tech Companies Take A Nosedive!”
The article cites that in first quarter 2022, 134 new Tech Ventures posted start-up investment support, their projection of investment support for first quarter 2023 in the Tech Ventures is 8.
They further cite that both the U.S. and Asia are geographically where the tech companies are “drying up the most.”
While some of the tech geeks acknowledge that the category is trouble, they are quick to say what the tech companies are encountering is something that is happening in the non-tech world too.
Inc. Magazine that wrapped itself around the tech startups and dropped the non-tech stories posted a headline last week titled, “American Entrepreneurship is Actually Vanishing.”
They further state in the article that “Entrepreneurship was already in decline,” and go on to cite the decline of large corporate brands and instead, more and more self-employed.
Trust me, I am not making that up. Here is a link to that article…
Another article titled “2023 New Forecasts & A Look Into What’s Ahead” cites the following age profile of what appears to be emerging as the “Successful Entrepreneurs generating revenue and profits”…
** 57% are are age 50+
** 31% are age 25–44 … the Millennials
** 8% are age 16–25 … the GenZers
And the top three categories are …
** Food and restaurants
** Health / beauty / fitness
** Specialized retail
Hang on a minute… what happened to high tech???
Oh that’s right, its a “been there, done it” category and those products are now just considered general overhead operational items.
While I am writing this, a news release came out that Microsoft is investing heavily in AI — Artificial Intelligence. AI seems to be the latest handle that high tech is grabbing to secure and rise up as the glitter settles on the dance floor.
My prediction is that it will not be too long before the government steps in and sets up some strong definition on just where, how and when AI can be used.
My prediction is that we will see few new high tech ventures and a bunch more advertising anchored around price points as the high tech brands fight for share and fight for revenue flow.
We will see significant price discounts … certainly for new brand converts saying good-bye to one brand and hello to another brand.
Will the glow of digital marketing fade?
Some of the hype will fade for sure. And social media is likely to fade some too.
Other channels of interaction — other media like print, radio and conventional television — will come back on the stage.
Its my prediction that we will see more emphasis on “point-of-sale” channels and will hear new terms like “experiential onsite” replacing POS.
Ad agencies who are clinging to their digital persona might want to bring their creative teams together and craft some re-branding options.
But then again, those agencies will first have to look in the mirror and accept the fact that what they thought they were is a fading personality that needs a revamp.
The emerging drivers to watch in 2023 will be entrepreneurship in the categories cited — Food and Restaurants, Health/Beauty/Fitness and Specialized Retail.
While GenXers+ have been driving the entrepreneurship in the past… watch how the Millennials emerge with new concepts outside of the high-tech bubble they emerged into!
