Some online businesses thrived during lockdown – how are they doing now? | Hacker News Reader

Some online businesses thrived during lockdown – how are they doing now?

bbc.co.uk

I worked for a company that was saved from bankruptcy due to COVID (i.e. product was instantly of high demand). Instead of using this “gift” to stabilize the company, management used it to raise their wages, hire outside consultants, and further invest in our out losing strategy.

What industry is it?

Fitness.

One industry that completely thrived but has declined, are the folks making the masks.

I recall when Grandmothers rejoiced as they broke out their sewing machines and we’re making masks left and right raking in money. In a way, it reminded me of the modern day victory Garden.

That was always going to be a very temporary boom. The only reason there was an opportunity was because supply was suddenly and vastly dwarfed by demand for weeks. As soon as large mask manufacturers were able to ramp up production, the grannies were doomed.

Yeah that and the knowledge we now have that N95 masks work great for both the wearer and for those exposed to the wearer while cloth masks are basically useless for preventing any kind of spread without some additional filter that most cottage industrialists do not include in their design and manufacturing process.

From what I've heard, it was mostly the mask manufactures that ramped up production that were doomed since they made large investments and now demand is back to nothing and Chinese imports are back.

The real winners were those who already had production capacity and didn't make any capital investment.

The Grannies made some money and then stopped. but they didn't go broke.

Good point, but I think that microcosm event, home spun mask businesses, will be an MBA case study. If it hasn’t already.

Some crazies want to make them permanent, thankfully only a vocal minority it seems.

It makes sense. When we were forced to adapt to remote-everything, we discovered a lot of goods and services that we may not have found otherwise. Remote-first became normalized. But now with restrictions gone, many things are going back to the way they were. A few things are sticking though, like a remote-first culture in tech, because we now see the overwhelming benefits, regardless of lockdown restrictions.

Question: When you say things will go back to the way they work, what do you think will drive this? Perhaps cost, time, convenience?

Is "work" meant as "were" here? If so, I think it's familiarity and wanting to socialize and be around people again that will bring things back to the way they were. There are a few benefits that some people have discovered, like a culture of remote-first work, or living in a smaller city, that won't go back, but I would bet that most things go back.

What are the benefits for the employer?

Happier employees that are just as productive are beneficial for everyone, including the employer.

I agree. Not sure remote is just as productive though, especially over the long term.

If after two years of seeing it in practice you are not convinced, I can't really think of anything that would convince you :)

It's an issue for onboarding and new hires, especially where junior mentorship is required.

I think working in a remote team that I thought were as effective as an in-person team would convince me.

It doesn't need to benefit the employer for it to be overwhelmingly beneficial for everyone else.

Lower wages? Instead of being limited by the cost of living of where your office is based, the required wages are now an average of the entire country/timezone you're looking to hire in.

Access to a larger talent pool, especially for uncommon skills. Another interesting benefit might be some degree of resilience against local issues such as natural disasters.

I think this is the most convincing benefit, the uncommon skills.

My barber shop thrived during lockdown and they said all their barber friends thrived as well and they all wanted lockdowns to continue as long as possible, because they got money from the government and at the same time received lots of enquiries from customers to cut their hair (illegally) in their gardens. My barber said he's made more money than ever in his life because people paid so much more and tipped him extra for coming to their houses whilst still getting government money.

I on the other hand was one of the few idiots who didn't go on furlough and then used my furlough money to holiday in Spain and instead was working throughout the entire pandemic like an idiot and now I have to pay more taxes for all the expensive COVID-19 measures which I believe until today we should have never done and let nature filter an overpopulated planet like it's meant to be.

Yeah, online schooling will feel the heat. Some of them already are, see this HN news[1] from a few days ago "Eight hundred employees resign after WhiteHat Jr asks them to work from office". Don't go by the title, it has nothing to do with back to office thing. They are firing as many as they can while trying to avoid bad publicity

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31379722

I work for an ecommerce business. Year end Oct-20 and Year end Oct-21 were great. Huge sales. They now suck. Looks like YE22 will be ~50% of prior year. Possibly lower than YE19.

Looks like everyone bought what they needed between Mar-20 and Nov-21.

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