Beware of The Trends...

As a business If you’re not up to date on current trends you might become the next Kodak, Blockbuster, Sears or real estate developer building the next enclosed mall. It’s not enough anymore to know and understand your industry. You need to know how people in general are responding to new and innovative technology.

If you’ve never heard of or visited the site www.trendhunter.com I highly suggest you do. It will open your eyes to what’s trending in everything from fashion to finance, technology to travel, you name it.

The innovations occurring in different categories are very interesting and usually very surprising. Some of these trending products and services could become the “next big thing” if they haven't already.

The site was created by a Canadian entrepreneur Jeremy Gutsche, born right here in Calgary. Trendhunter helps their clients research innovation and trends by providing crowd gathered data cheaper and a lot quicker then the competition.

His clients include Tesla, Netflix, Starbucks, Wal-Mart to name a few, but get this, most Canadian companies won’t return his calls. Over 90% of his clients are based in the US.

One of them being Hudson Bay Company which I found interesting. If it wasn't for their real estate portfolio the company would be worth very little as shoppers continue to take their business online.

Check out the short clip of Jeremy on BNN...http://www.bnn.ca/technology/video/canada-s-next-leaders-trend-hunter-ceo-jeremy-gutsche~1160261

My point is companies need to be more adaptable then ever in this digital age in order to survive and hopefully thrive.

The same goes for investing. What was once a relatively safe stock to invest in 5 or 10 years ago may now be obsolete or out of favor with investors.

Think Sears vs. Amazon or Ford vs. Tesla. I will leave you with a look at the stock price performance over the last decade...