Consolidation

At the industry level, there is more M&A activity. At the company level, there is a tighter tech stack, teams, and focus on a core product/market. This means less experimentation.

Challenge: Can you look for opportunities to buy/sell companies or products? Can you renegotiate or combine tech products? Can you get by with fewer team members? Can you reduce your focus to the parts that pay the bills?

Boringization

The boring businesses, and the businesses that do the boring stuff best, will win. Think garbage collection over niche fitness franchise. In tech, those who deal with the fundamental layers of business processes will thrive, while those who explore new frontiers will struggle.

Challenge: Can you get all the boring stuff right? Basic functionality, reliability, service, kindness, and meeting pressing needs. If you’re not nailing these, people won’t give you a long leash like before.

Exceptions

Any big trend has a few outliers, and the outliers tend to reap big rewards. So while I’m expecting a lot of consolidation and back-to-basics boringness to win overall, I also expect a few outliers. Companies and people doing totally unboring crazy stuff, more experimentation, and living on the fringes. These will be fewer, but they’ll reap bigger rewards.

Challenge: Get honest. Are you/your company maybe one of these outliers? If no, don’t pretend to be. Get serious about the basics. If yes, don’t half-ass it. Go all in on the zag when the market zigs.

— Isaac