When choosing an industry where you want to start a business, you want to choose an industry that has one to three of the following qualities: a high growth rate, a low to medium level of competition and ripeness for innovation. The following are 71 of the hottest industries for startups. They were gathered from sources that are widely considered credible by the entrepreneurial community. I highly encourage you to learn more about the industries that most interest you—it could lead somewhere huge.
Forbes recently identified the following 11 industries that are ripe with opportunity:
- Corporate Wellness Services
- Human Resources & Benefits Administration
- Scientific & Economic Consulting
- Relaxation Beverages
- Street Vendors
- Ethnic Supermarkets
- Wineries
- Social Network Game Development
- Internet Publishing & Broadcasting
- Online Survey Software
- E-Commerce & Online Auctions
Information for each including revenue growth, enterprise growth, strength of barriers to entry and profit margin can be found at http://www.forbes.com/pictures/ghhe45hfk/11-industries-for-hot-st.
In 2015, Inc. sought out hot sectors where immediate opportunity and long term viability are most likely to converge:
- Food E-commerce
- Legal Marijuana
- Gamification Services (Adding game elements to non-gaming fields)
- Agriculture Software
- Relaxation Beverages
- Public-Sector Technology
- Yoga and Pilates
- Fantasy Sports Services
More information about each sector can be found at http://www.inc.com/ss/best-industries-for-starting-a-business.
Paul Graham, a member of the YCombinator team, composed another list of startup ideas his firm would like to see:
- A cure for the disease of which the RIAA is a symptom (Facilitate digital purchases)
- Simplified browsing
- New news
- Outsourced IT
- Enterprise software 2.0
- More variants of Customer Relationship Management
- Something your company needs that doesn’t exist.
- Dating
- Photo/video sharing services
- Auctions
- Web Office apps
- Fix advertising
- Online learning
- Tools for measurement
- Off the shelf security
- A form of search that depends on design
- New payment methods
- The WebOS (Operating systems on the web)
- Application and/or data hosting
- Shopping guides
- Finance software for individuals and small businesses
- A web-based Excel/database hybrid
- More open alternatives to Wikipedia
- A buffer against bad customer service
- A Craigslist competitor
- Better video chat
- Hardware/software hybrids.
- Fixing email overload
- Easy site builders for specific markets
- Startups for startups
Descriptions of each can be found at http://old.ycombinator.com/ideas.html.
YCombinator, a popular venture capital firm in Silicon Valley, is most willing to invest in the following startup ideas due to their technological and societal potential:
- Energy
- A.I.
- Robotics
- Biotech
- Healthcare
- Pharmaceuticals
- Food and Water
- Education
- Internet Infrastructure
- Government
- Human Augmentation
- Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality
- Transportation and Housing
- Programming Tools
- Hollywood 2.0 (YouTube)
- Diversity
- Developing Countries
- Enterprise Software
- Financial Services
- Telecommunications
In general, other venture capital firms are interested in startups pertaining to these fields as well. Much more information about this list can be found at https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs.
In which of these industries are you most likely to gain success?
