Our Insights
AI Agents
October 20, 2024
Lately, I’ve found most of my customer service interactions are done by chatbot. Sometimes the chatbot will take me to a knowledge base article. Sometimes it’ll gather some basic information and send me to a human representative. And sometimes, it will resolve my issue itself. For example, if I need to initiate a return, it will email me a mailing label and instructions. This latter version is leaps and bounds beyond the chatbots of yesteryear and is a version of technology known as an AI Agent.
Wearable Medical Devices
October 06, 2024
The other day, I noticed a friend of mine had on a big ring. I thought he was making a fashion statement, but he said it was an Oura ring – a wearable health tracker. It measures things like quality of sleep, fitness, stress, and like the newest generation of health apps, gives you personalized guidance on how to improve your health (for a subscription fee of course). But more than the device's capabilities, what I found to be the most interesting was how fitness trackers have evolved since the revolutionary launch...
Digital Nomads
September 22, 2024
My brother-in-law’s brother-in-law (so my brother-in-law2), a software engineer, visited my family a few months ago when he and his fiancé, an EdTech marketer, were temporarily living in Brooklyn. Before that, they spent a few months in Jackson Hole (ski season), and before that, a few months in Seattle. Last I checked, they were in London. This “Digital Nomad” lifestyle marries wanderlust with the practicalities of having a stable and/or flexible job.
Edge Intelligence
September 08, 2024
Over the years, we’ve written about IoT (internet of things) where devices are connected to the cloud, and edge computing, where data is processed near the location where it is generated rather than sending it to a centralized cloud data center. Now with more and more artificial intelligence useage, there’s another term to add to the mix: Edge Intelligence. Edge Intelligence, also known as Edge AI, combines artificial intelligence with edge computing.
Fractional Work
August 25, 2024
We all know that the once typical 9-to-5 job has gotten a facelift. There’s remote work, hybrid work, and the gig economy among others. Another one to add to the list: fractional work. Fractional employment is similar to working part-time, but is usually practiced by seasoned executives. An executive may work for several companies simultaneously allowing him/her to impart wisdom and expertise to a company that may not otherwise be able to afford it...
Subscription Economy
August 04, 2024
I haven’t bought a new car in years – living in Manhattan, I haven’t needed to. So I hadn’t realized that in recent years, more and more car companies have been requiring subscriptions to allow drivers to have access to certain car features. Tesla has been doing this for years for features like it’s full-self driving capability and connectivity packages, but BMW even tried rolling out a subscription for heated seats, a feature that most people would consider to be a part of the car and not a feature that needs upgrading...
Women's Sports
July 14, 2024
The upcoming Olympic games will mark a very welcome change – there will be an equal number of men and women athletes competing for a chance at Gold. The Olympics have proven to be the rare channel where interest in men’s and women’s competitions are nearly on par. But lately, interest in women’s sports has ventured much further than just the Olympics. This past Spring, there was just as much, if not more buzz around superstar Caitlin Clark’s dominance on the basketball court as there was around the NCAA Men’s...
Biogas
June 23, 2024
While renewable energy is usually though to come from sources like wind, water and the sun, a burgeoning source that is often overlooked is agriculture – not ethanol which may affect food supply – but biogas created through the anaerobic digestion of organic matter by microorganisms. Sources include agricultural waste, manure and food scraps. The gas captured in this process is predominantly methane and carbon dioxide, the main components of natural gas.
Discretionary Spending
June 09, 2024
2023 was a big year for experiences. People flocked to movie theaters to watch Barbenheimer. They flocked to stadiums (and movie theaters) for Beyonce’s and Taylor Swift’s concerts, adding an estimated $8.5bn to the US economy. An extraordinary year indeed, but also one that highlights a shift to wanting experiences, rather than physical items. While Covid lockdowns confined people to their homes and led to a spike in purchases of durable and non-durable goods...
Humanoid Robots
May 12, 2024
First of all, Happy Mothers’ Day to all of the wonderful moms out there! While mothers may be irreplaceable, for some things, humans in general are. My wife recently had a layover in Seoul. She mentioned it was teeming with robots. There were robots that provided directions, and robots could help take carry-on luggage to the gate which meant she could focus on our three-year old who was with her. They weren't “humanoid” in that it didn’t have arms and legs, but they could communicate in multiple languages...
Packaging
April 28, 2024
Most of my shopping is online. I can’t even say that my behavior changed after Covid – it didn’t. But one thing that has seemed to change is that items are more often shipped individually. They often aren’t bundled and shipped all together. Of course that has to do with things like warehouse inventory and distribution, spurred by the demand for ultra-fast shipping, but it amazes me just how much packaging is required for all of these small, frequent deliveries.
Video Games
April 08, 2024
After seeing how much my youngest daughter enjoyed playing Mario Kart on his Nintendo Switch, my brother-in-law gave her one for Christmas. Her new favorite movie is Super Mario Brothers. She has now progressed to more movie-esque adventure games (she and my wife just finished Luigi’s Mansion). She’s 4.
I can’t help but compare her experience with mine. I used to love Tetris and how it was like assembling a puzzle.
Corporate Venture Capital
March 17, 2024
At Somar, we make it a point to keep an eye on private markets, particularly growth companies doing interesting things. The same ones that tend to be favored by venture capitalists. Not only is there a possibility that these companies will go public and would therefore fall under Somar’s pervue, but if they are groundbreaking, they may be taking market share away from other companies we evaluate. In either case, the private venture-backed market is a critical input to our analysis.
SleeptTech
February 25, 2024
I’m a big proponent of sleep. I encourage my family, including my stressed out teenagers, to get at least 7 hours a night. To some, it might seem silly to “waste” 1/3 of your day not doing anything, but that is the time our bodies need to recover and our minds get some rest from external stimulants. It lets us be more efficient in the waking hours, absorb and process information better, and generally puts us in a better mood.
Spatial Computing
February 4, 2024
Apple’s VR headset, the Vision Pro, launched Friday. It is supposed to be, in the words of Tim Cook, “tomorrow’s technology today.” The launch promises to usher in a new era in spatial computing in that as with other Apple products, it will at the very least generate buzz and pique broad interest. Spatial Computing is an umbrella term for digital enhancement of the space we perceive.
Cybercrime
December 10, 2023
It has been a while since we wrote about Cybersecurity, but as evidenced by the number of dubious emails I get everyday, it’s a problem that is increasingly growing. I recently even got a phishing email from myself!
In 2019, we showed this chart on the cost of cybercrime which had doubled since 2014.
The cost of cybercrime has now grown exponentially. Cybercriminals are believed to be backed by rogue governments and are getting increasingly sophisticated.
Men's Beauty
November 19, 2023
A trending and growing category in the past few years has been men’s beauty. It goes beyond the “traditional” men’s category of grooming which mostly included shaving, shampoo and soap. Admittedly, this is an area that I’m not particularly familiar with. My wife has bought me cleansers and face creams in fancy packaging that still sit in their original boxes. I didn’t grow up using these things so they haven’t become part of my routine.
Genetic Testing
October 29, 2023
A couple of years ago, my wife and I used 23andme for at-home genetic tests. We got some interesting interesting ancestory information, but what was even more compelling was the health diagnostics. Though obviously not medical advice, and only at a high level, the test alerted us of things like increased risk of diabetes on my wife’s side (not surprising due to family history), and more comical things like me having muscle composition comparable to elite athletes
Private Label II
October 08, 2023
Back in the spring of 2019, we wrote about private label – how retailers were investing in creating their own brands and how consumers generally rated private label brands as being of similar quality to national brands. Fast forward 4 years and fueled by inflation and price-sensitive consumers, private label sales in the US have hit a record high to $228.6bn according to the Private Label Manufacturers.
Nuclear
September 17, 2023
With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, we seem to be hearing a lot about nuclear. In the war context, the conversation has been mostly about securing the nuclear plants of Zaporizhzhia (active) and the infamous Chernobyl (Ukraine has other active nuclear plants but they are distant from the front lines). A great deal of attention also went to Germany which was in the process of decomissionning all of its nuclear reactors following the Fukushima meltdown at the onset of the invasion...
Bioplastics
August 13, 2023
“I just want to say one word to you…Plastics…There’s a great future in plastics.” This famous line from the 1967 movie, The Graduate, definitly rings true. Synthetic plastics largely began being used during World War II as natural resources need to be preserved.Following the war years, the plastic producing capacity spilled out to consumer markets. In 1950, annual global production of plastics is estimated to be 2 million tonnes (2 billion kg).