A Recession Would Clear Out Productivity Software
Why the worst financial situation could be life-changing for software
As many of you have heard, there are lots of rumors around recessions and financial crises over the last few days, due to the stress to businesses of COVID-19.
So this comes under total speculation and something I’ve been thinking about for some time now with the current state of productivity tools.
Thinking about any competitive market falling, even the productivity space that’s close to my heart is hard, but hopefully shares insights.
💼 Too Many Solutions
Right now, open any App Store, and you’ll be met with 50+ types of task management applications, 100+ note-takers, and dozens of calendar options, guaranteed.
With this array of options, something has to go with a financial squeeze in mind. The leaner, more value-packed tools will be the winners, while the less able to sustain themselves will fall in the pressure of the situation.
🐝 Clear Out
Once these options aren’t able to survive the market will start to lose some players, due to the lack of users, or the service is too high cost or even the value the product delivers.
Ideally, Microsoft and Google products are not the only ones standing, innovation, independent tools that could become the new giants after this fall in economic growth.
🧽 The Newer Tools
Remember, Evernote was born in a financial squeeze in 2007/08. So I can see, without a shadow of a doubt, new types of personal productivity tools with AI that’ll be the kings of the industry in 3–4 years.
🌱 Moral Good
There is so much value in the current market using this time to help educate people about productivity software.
COVID-19 is naturally scary for people, but helping them get organized at home with a task management tool or produce a battle plan template to help local communities in Notion is the real helper here.
The tools that slim down now (expenses), help their communities, and build a valuable asset will win this squeeze and come out on the other side.
🧐 25% Fewer Tools
So my over-arching prediction is that if we have a recession, or squeeze, that we’ll lose over a year 25% of the tools in the market. This is naturally all speculation, but I do believe with the pressures that many will have to call their projects time, and companies will have to sideline individual efforts.
A genuinely horrible time, and if the recession happens, it will be both a blessing and a curse to the industry, but we’ll make it through.
