How to Track Global Trends and Spot New Business Opportunities

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Glimpse Global Trends

One of the best ways to come up with new business ideas is to track global trends. Here’s how to do it.

P.S. If you haven’t already read our guide to starting digital businesses, I highly recommend it.

1. Track Search (General/Business) Trends

Use Exploding Trends (free), Trends.vc (free) Glimpse (paid), and/or Trends.co (paid) to get curated reports on major trends within business and Google search

You can alternatively use Google’s own Google Trends tool but I’ve found that the three previously mentioned tools are far more useful (because they’re human-curated).

Tracking search and business trends is highly useful for obvious reasons.

2. Track eCommerce Trends

If you want to understand what’s hot, look at what’s selling well. Here’s a list of resources:

  1. Amazon’s Trending Products, Amazon’s Best Sellers, and Amazon’s Launchpad (new products from emerging brands)
  2. eBay’s Trending Products
  3. AliExpress’s Best Sellers
  4. Kickstarter’s Trending Products
  5. Indiegogo’s Trending Products

3. Track Startup Fundraising & Acquisitions

I’ve been reading Crunchbase Daily fairly consistently since ~2012 and I love it. It provides a concise and insightful daily report of all of the major startup fundraising and acquisitions.

If you understand what is getting funded, then you’ll understand what the smartest investors believe are the best business opportunities.

4. Look At Examples of Successful Businesses

If you’re thinking about starting a business, you should definitely check out this list of 250+ Businesses Started With <$5k That Have Profited $100k+.

Why? The best way to learn something new is by closely studying people and businesses that have already been successful.

Final Thoughts:

I hope these resources are helpful on your entrepreneurship journey! Have a great weekend. 🤙

I've been building digital businesses, wandering the world, and writing about optimizing life for freedom since early 2017. My mission is to lower the barrier for people who want to live with more freedom: whether that be as an entrepreneur, a digital nomad, an early retiree, or just as someone who wants to live a happiness-driven life.