Get'em while they're hot: on the lookout for the latest and greatest opportunities for 2003

Entrepreneur, Dec, 2002 by Steve Cooper, Mark Henricks, Gisela M. Pedroza, April Y. Pennington, Chris Penttila, Chris Sandlund, Devlin Smith, Nichole L. Torres

PREDICTING THE FUTURE IS CHALLENGING IN THE BEST OF TIMES. IN TIMES LIKE THESE, WHEN IT SEEMS LIKE THE CONLY CERTAINTY IS UNCERTAINTY, IT'S EVEN TOUGHER. BUT WE DIDN'T LET THAT STOP US. BASED ON OUR RESEARCH, INVESTIGATION AND, OF COURSE, OUR GUT (EVERY ENTREPRENEUR KNOWS HOW IMPORTANT THAT IS), WE'VE PIN POINTED THE INDUSTRIES, OPPORTUNITIES, TRENDS AND MARKETS WE BELIEVE HAVE THE BEST POTENTIAL FOR NEXT YEAR AND BEYOND. TAKE A CLOSE LOOK,, AND ONE THING'S FOR CERTAIN: YOUR BUSINESS CAN'T HELP BUT BENEFIT.

HOT BIZ ONLINE LEARNING

With the dotcom funding boom at its back a few years ago, e-learning seemed like easy pickings. Now, funding has dried up, and corporate training budgets have been slashed, says Trace Urdan, senior analyst of learning companies at ThinkEquity Partners Inc. His numbers show industry growth falling from percent in 2001 to 7 percent in 2002. Does that mean a dour future for this once-bright market?

Not exactly Online degree programs continue to grow, the government spends more on training in the 9/11 aftermath, and such corporations as GM are shifting their training budgets to e-learning, says Urdan. "If you've got the vision, this is an area that's going to be strong," he says.

The growth comes thanks to demand for professional development and vocational training, says Angela Lovett, founder of WorldWideLearn.com, a Calgary, Alberta-based e-learning directory. The future, she says, is bright.

But business training is where the market will lie early on. "It will take a few years for the mass consumer market to embrace it," Lovett says.

Beyond creating content, Urdan says, services will be a growth market. Help companies integrate training software or structure programs. Better yet, outsource it for them by running the software, finding talent and administering classes.

That's been the approach of Knowledge Anywhere, a Bellevue, Washington-based e-learning firm. CEO Charlie Gillette says providing a soup-to-nuts employee training solution makes his company attractive to corporate dents like AT&T and E&J Gall Winery. The 30-employee company has been experiencing 50 percent year-over-year quarterly growth by producing educational content and delivering it via its software.

Skittish VCs are unlikely to fund an e-learning venture, so plan on self-financing--including customer funding, as Gillette did to bootstrap. "Go after a very specific vertical market," he advises. That doesn't make c-learning easy pickings. But there are still pickings to be had.

HOT MARKET SINGLES

In case you haven't been watching Sex and the City, singles are alive and well--and very hot. According to Consumer Insight magazine, 82 million U.S. adults are unmarried, the greatest number ever.

While singles account for 40 percent of adults, don't think you can market to them as a whole. They range from twentysomethings to the 70-plus crowd, so businesses must carefully tailor products, services and marketing.

Busy lifestyles have helped dating services flourish, especially online, where they generated more than $53 million in the first quarter of 2002. Particularly hot are specialized sites like EquestrianSingles.com or MatchAble.net, which unites the disabled. Singlescasino.com combines a dating service with a gaming site, another major online revenue draw.

Dining is also a major issue for singles. The Food Marketing Institute reports 46 percent of consumers eat meals at home that were prepared elsewhere, fueling a boom in takeout and home-meal replacement. Dining out, however, presents a situation entrepreneurs have yet to fully address. "Restaurateurs are trained to think about large groups," says Richard Laermer, author of Trendspotting (Perigree-Penguin) and CEO of New York City-based RLM Public Relations. "Small, expensive restaurants, in particular, need to learn how to deal with the 'table for one' issue." Offering reading materials is a first step, but creating an establishment that welcomes singles in more ways could change the stigma attached to dining alone.

As businesses begin to recognize the singles market, they must remember one thing: Singles want to and need to feel like they're different from their married counterparts, but different in a good way.

HOT BIZ OUTSOURCING

Good riddance to mundane, costly tasks. That's the mantra for a growing number of companies that are choosing to outsource projects, if not entire departments. And that's where you come in.

The outsourcing industry could grow as much as 35 percent over the next three years, says Bill Maurer, an analyst with research firm Gartner Inc. In leaner times, companies "are focusing on core competencies," he says. "They've determined that other organizations can do [noncore work] as good or better." Gartner predicts IT outsourcing alone to increase almost 64 percent.

Technology is making outsourcing "more viable than ever," says Gregg Scoresby, founder and CEO of Core3 Inc., a 2-year-old company in Scottsdale, Arizona, that handles HR/payroll, IT, and accounting and finance. "We want to build the world's best back office," says Scoresby, 34, adding with a laugh: "It doesn't sound really sexy."