3 Things: Zoom Backgrounds-aaS, Alpha-Gal Syndrome Support, QVC for NFTs

Happy Sunday and a very warm welcome to all the new subscribers! I’m thrilled and honored to have you as readers and truly appreciate your thoughts and feedback 🙏. Each edition of 3 Things will contain a dive into 3 rabbit holes I’ve found myself going down recently. Subscribe to get each week’s edition straight to your inbox and if you enjoy it, please share (I suck at self-promotion so can use your help)! This past week I’ve been thinking a lot about:

• Zoom Backgrounds-as-a-Service

• Alpha-Gal Syndrome Support

• QVC for NFTs

1. Zoom Backgrounds-as-a-Service

You’d think that at this point, people who are working from home would have figured out their WFH setup, but I’m finding more often than not, it isn’t the case. I’m guilty as charged personally 😝. Many people have been spending time with family or used the opportunity to be nomadic and are now settling down. Some people have moved over the past year, looking for more space and lower cost of living, and haven’t prioritized/optimized their setup yet. I know that for me, my lighting is atrocious, my background is literally a bookshelf full of baby crap, and adding a blur or image background just makes everything look worse. Even as offices start to open back up, the vast majority of knowledge workers plan to work from home at least part of the time, and for most people, figuring out a setup that can work for the long term will become important and necessary for the future of hybrid work.

Many employers who are allowing people to work from home permanently or part-time are offering stipends for home-office setup which typically goes towards things like a chair, desk, keyboard, trackpad, and monitor. For anyone in a client/customer facing role (in the most broad sense of those terms) it will be important for remote employees to have a presentable setup. Companies like Rippling help companies manage hardware and other benefits for remote teams and I think there is an opening for a company to offer professional Zoom background setup. There could be an app where you use your phone to scan your workspace and leverage the built-in mobile tape measures to accurately measure your room, and also provide your design/aesthetic preferences. Professional designers would analyze your space and provide packages for the optimal video background including everything from lighting to plants to wall hangings and more. Employees could use their stipend or this could be offered directly as a benefit through HR.

2. Alpha-Gal Syndrome Support

If you haven’t yet heard about the new meat allergy that is starting to affect more and more of the population, you’re bound to hear about it soon. Alpha-gal syndrome is a newly identified food allergy to red meat and other products made from mammals. The condition has been attributed to bites from the Lone Star tick whose population has been booming (likely due to global warming) in the Southeastern part of the United States and now expanding to the rest of the country. The tick transmits a sugar molecule called alpha-gal (galactose-α-1,3-galactose — which is found in most mammals) into the person's body and can trigger a potentially life-threatening immune response that produces an allergic reaction to red meat such as beef, pork or lamb. Symptoms include rash, hives, nausea, severe stomach pain, drop in blood pressure, dizziness/fainting, swelling of the face and mouth, and even anaphylaxis.

Currently, there is no cure for Alpha-gal syndrome and as more of the US has populations of Lone Star ticks, it’s inevitable that many more people will suffer from this allergy given how hard it is to avoid tick bites. While there are now many more options for vegetarians including all kinds of plant-based and cultured meats like Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat, Americans still love their red meat. The average person in the US eats 110 pounds of red meat a year and that number is expected to remain relatively stable over the next decade. A company can focus on a community for people suffering from Alpha-gal Syndrome providing peer support, information and guidance from medical experts, discounts on red meat alternatives and more. Starting now would give the company an early-mover advantage as this becomes more and more relevant and people start searching for answers.

3. QVC for NFTs

In 2021, the big incumbent auction houses made headlines numerous times; first for Christie’s sale of digital artist Beeple’s work titled “Everydays” for an eye-popping $69 million, and then Sotheby’s sale of a copy of the US constitution where a group of people came together to form ConstitutionDAO and attempt to purchase it collectively. NFTs hit a peak in August 2021 with a record 795,000 daily transactions and even as of January 2022 daily sales were around $160M. Since then, prices, transactions, and overall interest has dropped precipitously with few collections like Bored Apes and Crypto Punks making up the vast majority of recent transactions. It’s unlikely that the interest in NFTs will completely dry up, but I do believe that new permutations and ways of interacting with and showcasing NFTS will need to arise to attract new audiences and continue to engage participants.

The concept of a digital QVC is not new and at this point there are around a dozen venture-backed startups who are all going after the opportunity such as Popshop Live, Whatnot, and Newness. Today, most of these platforms focus on influencers who livestream sell beauty products or collectibles. In a parallel world, there are now numerous platforms to buy and sell NFTs like Opensea, SuperRare, and Rarible. The challenge with these marketplaces is that unless you know what is popular or what you’re looking for (ie the exact artist you want to support), you’ll miss the hottest drops or get suckered into buying expensive NFTs whose value drops immediately. Combining the concept of NFTs with livestreamed e-commerce could be a very interesting play leveraging the power of influencers and the interest in NFTs. Livestreamers could talk about a particular work including information about the artist and the history of the NFT on air and catalyze a live auction. Anytime an owner wants to sell a valuable NFT they could engage an influencer to help draw a crowd and get the best price in the secondary sale. The platform would get a small take rate for each transaction and the influencer would also get a percentage of each sale. I’d imagine that this type of platform would do best for secondary sales which today are making up over 75% of all NFT transactions.

That’s all for today! If you have thoughts, comments, or want to get in touch, find me on Twitter at @ezelby and if you enjoyed this, please share with a friend or two!

~ Elaine