8 Entrepreneurship Trends You Need to Know (2022-2024)

The hype around the Internet of Things (IoT) has died down over the last 5 years. But the ecosystem around it is still developing at a fast clip. In the early days of the technology, IoT projects were only taken on by big companies (like Amazon) that had the time and resources to build systems from the ground up. But thanks to a new batch of IoT startups, IoT is now accessible to many small business owners.

For example, Blynk is an IoT development platform that allows anyone to easily create interfaces for controlling and monitoring your projects, like a smart houseplant watering system.

Pre-designed widgets get you up and running quickly with native iOS and Android apps. These apps can then control electronics, monitor sensor data, get notifications, and so on so that you can control hardware from anywhere. From smart lamps to soil moisture monitors, the device possibilities are endless. Blynk also scales from basic prototyping to commercial IoT solutions.

2. No-Code Web Apps Become More Mainstream

No code (and its close cousin, low-code) refers to web and mobile development using a drag-and-drop interface. Both approaches much less technical knowledge than building via web programming languages and raw code. Low code enables anyone to build and create blogs, online marketplaces, and even fully-fledged Software as a Service (SaaS) apps. All without the need for a developer or designer.No code web apps make web entrepreneurship without a Computer Science degree possible. As a result, entire industries are now accessible to “non-technical” entrepreneurs. But even seasoned web developers often use no-code solutions (like Webflow) as a fast way to build apps quickly or prototype business ideas. And as this low-code entrepreneurial trend gains momentum, an entire ecosystem is springing up around it.

3. Email Makes A Comeback

Entrepreneurs are falling back in love with email. Why? Well for starters, you have full ownership over your mailing list subscribers. This isn’t true of Twitter, Instagram, Facebook...or any other social media platform. Also, social media's organic reach has declined dramatically in recent years. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) isn’t the holy grail of long-term, sustainable traffic it once was either.

The Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) have become massively crowded by paid results and featured snippets. Plus, email marketing has a track record of impressive ROIs.And most important of all: emails get read. This gives you the opportunity to teach them first, provide value, and build trust. And then move into a soft sell when they’re ready. Even if you don’t sell a digital product, your email newsletter and announcements can still be crucial contact points for customers. And email marketing software like ConvertKit, designed to help creators keep in touch with their audiences, has exploded in recent years. Another example of a fast-growing email marketing startup is Email Octopus.

4. Micro-Influencers Come Into The Spotlight

Micro-influencers are folks on Instagram, YouTube, or TikTok with a small, loyal following. The exact metrics that define a "micro-influencer" or "Nano influencer" vary. But they're usually people that have somewhere in the range of 1k-20k followers on a single platform. Why is this entrepreneurship trend on the rise? Influencer marketing initially looked like a strategy that only applied if you wanted to sell to millennials. But the practice is now mainstream. And paying influencers to promote or mention products has become a big part of most marketing departments' budgets. Including plenty of big brands. Fortunately, most micro-influencers are too small for Fortune 500 businesses to care about.

Which can make them more affordable for small business owners to partner up with.

5. Content Becomes Omnichannel

Statista estimates that people spend over 7 hours per day interacting with media and content. And the number of different ways in which people consume content is still growing. Content-focused apps like TikTok have taken off, where creators upload short 3-60 second videos (similar to Vine). And even formats that have been around forever like podcasts are suddenly surging. The best online entrepreneurs are adapting quickly to these alternative content formats. And many are repurposing existing content into these different formats to access new audiences. Either as a business itself (like a pro podcaster). Or as a way to get their startup in front of more people. For example, many podcasters are starting to video record their episodes. These video episodes can then be uploaded to YouTube along with mainstream podcasting platforms like Apple Podcasts and Spotify. These same podcasters then transcribe the show into text, to instantly produce a long-form blog article too. Some even use clips from the podcast as "microcontent" on sites like Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. There are even tools that even automate this process. Software that helps scale content repurposing can help entrepreneurs squeeze more out of their content marketing. That's because tools like Desgnrr make it easy to convert a video or podcast into the written content to reach new audiences, use as lead magnets, or for SEO.

6. Capital Flows Into Climate Tech Startups

According to a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers, VC investment into climate tech startups is growing 5x faster than other investment categories. Venture capital investments in the space went from $418 million in 2013 to $16.3 billion in 2019. But according to the report, that’s only scratching the surface of a multi-trillion-dollar opportunity. Several large climate change investment funds have been introduced recently with the backing of major corporations. Amazon’s Climate Pledge is devoted to making Amazon net zero carbon by 2040. To that end, so far the company has created the $2 billion Climate Pledge Fund and the $100 million Right Now Climate Fund.

Google plans to run 100% on carbon-free energy by 2030 and has launched multiple smaller funds to invest in climate tech startups. While Unilever has announced a €1 billion Climate & Nature Fund and aims to net zero emissions by 2039. At the same time, dozens of smaller firms and funds are focused solely on climate tech. And broader VC firms like Sequoia Capital, Kleiner Perkins, and Union Square Ventures recently announced that they’d like to fund more climate tech startups as well. Interesting climate tech startups include Climeworks, which uses powerful fans with a special filtration system to remove carbon dioxide from the air. The carbon dioxide is then either recycled or sequestered to combat climate change. Climeworks raised $110 million in 2020.

7. Increased Demand For Super-Specialized Skills

Entrepreneurship these days require greater specialization to maintain a competitive edge. Both entrepreneurs and businesses are doubling down on what they’re best at to give themselves an advantage over the competition. For example, more founders are starting to get help from virtual assistants to perform administrative and other tasks. This frees founders up to focus on delivering more value in their specialty. And this is happening with all parts of the business, not just the founder’s time. For example, direct-to-consumer e-commerce stores can now outsource product fulfillment entirely. This can enable e-commerce sites to focus on what they're good at in product development and marketing.

8. Entrepreneur Communities Flourish

For a long time, the only people sharing stories about their successful businesses were shady hucksters looking to sell their own get-rich-quick schemes. But new entrepreneurs communities are springing up left and right. Members of these communities openly share their business strategies and growth tactics. Even revenue numbers! A great example is Indie Hackers, a fast-growing online community of 60,000+ users where new entrepreneurs help each other grow and learn to build successful online businesses.