cautious optimism and ~the future~
Fall 2020. Cool.
Just got back from a week-long road trip up the pacific coast, where I explored the California wilderness (aka a desert with like 6 trees & some dunes), hiked, and lived with some friends wifi-free. Much needed.
6 months into being a hermit, I thought a short road trip was as good of a time as any to sit back and reflect not only on my own quarantine adventure but how I envision the future once all this pandemic stuff is behind us.
Everything has been pretty heads-down since March. People unintentionally spend more time at their desks, despite the constant interruptions, distractions and urges to just get up and do something else. Don’t be fooled by the one-time spontaneity — when I’m not Bear Grylls-ing it in the woods, I like to spend time doing other fun activities like staring at my computer screen, sitting on zoom, or trying to reconnect to my router.
For most people, remote work doesn’t always work. For students, it doesn’t make sense to pay $$$ to sit through unengaging lectures. Virtual solutions to physical problems feel like shoving a square peg into a round hole. What next?
Alternatives to School: Virtual Bootcamps, Micro-schools, Hard Knocks
During COVID, many students have considered taking a gap year instead of living with hybrid education models and remote learning, yet very few actually pull the trigger. As a high school or college-aged student, planning for the future and (perhaps more importantly) determining how best to proceed in a not-so-easy time for the economy, is intimidating. The fever dream that is heading back to school seems so far out of reach, despite it being the ‘safest’ option right now.
The University of Notre Dame moved courses online for two weeks after their COVID cases doubled in a single day. Similarly, 13.6% of the tests taken at UNC returned positive — the school went a step further to send students home and switch to fully-remote learning. In a fiery editorial, students pointed out the “clusterf***” that UNC has on its hands. Unfortunately, they’re not alone.
Is taking a gap year realistic? Silicon Valley startups are encouraging students to take time off and explore opportunities, putting their skills to use instead of paying for XYZ University, Zoom campus. With a leave of absence, many students choose to work on their own side projects, work for companies, volunteer, or take time for their own mental health. Though it seems attractive, culture around this subject is not uniform at all college campuses across the US, and the decision is a personal one. At some top universities, taking a leave of absence is stigmatized. Given the uncertainty in the economy, a gap year leaves a big question mark in the making money/employment department.
Ok, “having the piece of paper” is important, right? If schools transition online this semester, what makes them any more ‘elite’ than the University of Phoenix (a top online degree program)? Why do people even go to college in the first place?
“If you are the slightest bit entrepreneurial, stay the hell away from school”
Sidenote: I met a VP of Product at a tech co (quoted above) who has started a few businesses, homeschools his kids, and is a serial side project builder. Over the last few months, I’ve worked with and met some incredible individuals that pursued alternative or unconventional forms of education with similarly cool stories (shoutout to Nick Frost).
I don’t believe we’re at a point yet where online forms of education are comparable enough (depending on the field) to replace something like an undergrad degree, but we’ve definitely reached a spot where MBAs are becoming less and less necessary. Then again, there are no perfect quantifiers of competence.
Unsurprisingly, 2020 is an explosive year for EdTechs seeking to disrupt traditional education systems. Established platforms like Lambda School and General Assembly offer coding (or other subject) bootcamps to replace the need for a degree and help folks find job placement at reputable companies. Microverse sprinkles in pair programming and mentorship to simulate a real remote work environment. Udemy, Udacity and Coursera are seeking their own slice of market share, all with slight differences.
Though these programs are great at attracting hype and viral, community-generated content on social platforms, they are still risky for prospective students. This is the case for many of the same reasons people still opt for ‘elite’ universities over community colleges or state schools. Despite the high price tag, such schools carry a level of credibility and prestige unmatched by a coding bootcamp, or local university. Here are the top 3 results when searching “is lambda school ____” on Google:
Even before electing to attend college, or find work post-grad, students have a lot of options at their disposal to plan for their future. Not to fear, people are building solutions to pain points of students and teachers alike. Pathmatch demystifies career planning for high school and college students by providing tools, resources, and coaching. Virtually is building scalable online schools (with nocode ❤) to white-label education and let teachers take control of how they run their classroom.
For younger families, some of these problems are just plain different. Setting a young child in front of a screen all day and expecting them to learn something is like asking them to eat their vegetables. Prisma is creating hybrid co-learning for 4th-8th graders, with partially virtual and in-person cohorts of 12–20. As great as those options sound, I imagine there isn’t a single catch-all solution for education when you’re dealing with a 5-year-old (and a pandemic). Wonderschool aims to connect families with quality, local, in-person micro-schools. Parents of younger kids are opting for more creative answers such as pandemic pods, homeschooling, or outdoor learning. Unfortunately, not everyone can actually afford micro-schools. In the US, 14 million people don't have any internet access and 25 million don’t have access to reliable broadband access.
Despite what you may feel about startups and new forms of education disrupting how we learn from an early age, they’re inherently tied to an ever deeper and more widespread movement towards a novel future of work.
Alternatives to Work: Freelancing, Passive Income and Indie Hacking
Passion economy
According to Li Jin, the passion economy is “any form of monetization where people leverage individuality”. To me, this is a logical extension of the original influencer and creator movements of the 2010s. Until the widespread adoption of creator platforms like YouTube, Twitch, Patreon, etc., deriving a livable income from creative content resembled that of becoming a professional athlete, artist, or musician. Li writes about monetizing individuality and the passion/gig economies here.
Barriers to entry for many content verticals are being torn down through the adoption of new platforms. In the last few years, the likes of Patreon and no-code tools like Substack, Anchor.fm, Buy Me a Coffee, etc. have allowed content creators without technical skills to push content even further (and monetize it!).
The line between side hustle and full-time job is becoming even more blurred as the creator economy becomes more mainstream and continues to pump out content. According to a survey from the UK, 3x as many kids (ages 8–12) want to be “Youtubers” as those that want to be astronauts when they grow up. As Gen Z (born between 1996 and 2015) grows up, the future of work is in for a wild ride.
Previously, companies released products that would appeal to the widest audience. Now that content creation is seeing more democratization, appealing to a specific audience is a more attractive way to (initially) grow a brand. Chalk is a great example — a product where people can join or create niche voice communities about anything. I joined Indie Hackers earlier this summer to hear what it’s like to build a bootstrapped passive income-generating side project (I’m an aspiring hot sauce cpg wizard if you don’t know me), join a community of makers and meet some new people. Everybody I’ve met is so encouraging, motivation to start a new side project has never been greater. There was a time when I was too afraid to publish anything on the internet because “it lasts forever”. Now, for many people, it’s essential.
Something to watch: Gaming and esports have exploded in the last few months as people continue to sit on their couches and find alternatives to media they consumed pre-covid. Esports is one of the few pandemic-proof ‘sports’, and it’s become more mainstream since March. Gaming sales reached $11.6B in Q2, mobile and esports companies have lead in capital raises YTD. Numbers don’t lie.
Twitch, Facebook Gaming, the now-deceased Mixer and other streaming platforms facilitated a new age for competitive gaming — they boosted streamers to creator/athlete status. One thing Rex’s market map is missing above is streaming, gaming monetization and esports. Esports is an umbrella term for competitive gaming leagues forming around individual titles and genres. Some have called it “the future of entertainment” as it encompasses a larger TAM than other individual sports. There are infinite possibilities for teams like Faze Clan, Cloud9, etc. and individual creators to monetize their craft through brand partnerships (Athlane), sponsorships (FanAI), coaching (Metafy), niche communities and gaming leagues (Guilded, Mission Control) and merch.
Not to be overshadowed, Apple, Google and other tech giants have received a ton of flack for potential monopolistic and anti-competitive practices. With behemoths like Apple controlling what apps are released on the app store (and how free-to-play apps monetize), I have no doubt a decentralized platform will unbundle their offerings soon enough. Notably, Epic Games, Google and Apple have been duking it out with a lawsuit after Fortnite offered discounted direct payments for their in-game V-bucks, bypassing store-controlled in-app purchases. Epic Games had around 250 million active users in 2019. For a game as popular as Fortnite, will it prevent the viral spread of esports into iOS and Google Play apps?
If you’re interested in learning more about passion economics, check out this awesome, hand-curated list of resources.
Gig Economy
As of 2019, it was estimated that 36% of workers (in the US) participate in the gig economy. That’s 57 million contracting, freelancing part-timers! According to IBIS, COVID layoffs and an unstable economy have sent people looking for temporary or freelance work — Upwork has seen a 50% increase in freelancers on the platform since the onset of COVID and Instacart has hired like crazy, hiring as many as 300,000 people in a single month.
Uber and Lyft’s battle with legislators in California over the employment status of their drivers could’ve put tens of thousands of drivers out of work, but fortunately, they received a temporary reprieve. This will be interesting to watch, as California will vote on Prop 22 in November — a bill that could “guarantee at least 120% of minimum wage while on the job, 30 cents per mile for expenses, a healthcare stipend, occupational accident insurance for on-the-job injuries, protection against discrimination and sexual harassment and automobile accident and liability insurance”. That’d be huge for gig workers who currently operate without such benefits.
Clearly, there’s a lot of variety when it comes to new companies in this space. Not covered are grey-area cos like Dumpling, which is like Shopify for gig workers. Celebrities and full-timers break the stigma around freelance work by using their talent in gig-like ways. Industry vets or founders who part-time as executive coaches and gig-enablers like Cameo do this really well.
I like to think of platforms like OnlyFans as gig-in-transition, where the content monetizes individuality, yet single one-off services can also be exchanged. At its core, OnlyFans is a content subscription service. Previously it was used primarily by sex workers, but now it's seeing explosive growth as a platform for anyone from musicians, artists and others to distribute content. It’s almost like TikTok and Instagram, but with a paywall.
Despite more work flexibility, potential income from new revenue streams and general control over your schedule, working odd jobs, driving for a ride-sharing company or delivering food lacks workplace camaraderie. California’s decision on prop 22 will change a lot of people’s lives as current gig workers receive no benefits, more stress to complete jobs quickly/perfectly and all the taxes. The key to success for any great company (Take note Uber, Lyft, Doordash, Instacart, etc) is intentionality. Find ways to solve pain points that your workers (yes, even contractors) face and foster long-term, mutualistic relationships. Community is valuable! Throw them a bone every once in a while, yeah?
As workers start freelancing more and monetizing their individuality, will Human IPOs become commonplace? Can I invest in an early-career software developer that I believe could go on to start the next great company? This concept blows my mind. Let’s say I make $25/hour right now as an intern at X company. If someone buys 100 hours of my time for $2500 and one day my time is worth $500/hour, they can then sell those 100 hours for $50,000. That’s 20x return on an investment in an (essentially) imaginary asset! Will there be a marketplace (a public exchange, if you will) to buy time? Next thing we know, our time is being sold in a secondary or black market right under our nose. Right now, gig workers and freelancers work for entities that they choose (individuals, companies, etc.). In a weird way, this reminds me of selling blood plasma, being a clinical trial guinea pig, or visiting a sperm bank — there is no choice as to who purchases (consumes?) the asset. For 2020, that’d be on brand.
TL;DR — There are a bunch of alternatives to school and work. At the end of the day, everyone’s different, so let's embrace it. Looking forward to seeing what happens.
my update:
- taking time off this fall
- still writing a weekly newsletter
- Practicum’s summer 2020 program ends Friday😮
If anything I said here resonated with you or if you want to share your experience, dm me on twitter @zachglabman. Thanks for reading!
