I recently spoke at Babson College to students and faculty about entrepreneurial opportunities in the boomer and senior space. Here are a few snippets of what I told them:
- They need to know about a huge market opportunity: creating products and services for aging baby boomers. One factoid: Personal robots are projected to be a $19 billion field by 2020. That is soon!
- At the 2019 Consumer Electronics Show in January, there were caregiving and social companion robots, VR, voice first technology (like Alexa and Google Assistant) and virtual assistants, sensors, artificial intelligence, smart homes (with smart locks and window shades) and smart clothes, wearables that don’t look anything like the necklace with an emergency button, telehealth, brain health, and apps for coordinating care and monitoring a parent’s safety—to name just some.
- Entrepreneurs in their 20s and 30s typically don’t have much experience with the longevity market. How do they learn? Some are embedding themselves long term care facilities for a week or two—eating, sleeping there, getting to know the residents and their needs and refining their products.
- Large companies are partnering with startups (Best Buy just bought GreatCall for $800 million, Humana and Papa, CareLinx and Generali).
I will leave you with one more eye-popping statistic: by 2032, the Longevity Economy is expected to make up 52% of the US GDP. Need I say more about entrepreneurial opportunities?
