The role of “Horizon Scanning” in technical innovation

I’m going to start this newsletter with a very non-technical phrase I picked up from Brandon’s MBA training at IMD (shoutout to Omar Toulan!) - ‘horizon scanning’. In other words, keeping an eye out and an ear to the ground to spot early signals across markets, technical innovation, geopolitics, and government regulation. It is easy to get locked into your view of the world and narrow your focus to what you are developing, especially as a technical founder trying to build something new, but horizon scanning (as long as it doesn’t turn into horizon distracting) is crucial for technical strategy and positioning. With that in mind, I want to talk about Aging 2.0. People assume* that “old people”, broadly, are technically non-conversant and have no interest in digital integration. Let’s examine this.

The average life expectancy of an American is ~76 years, for a Brit, it’s ~81 years. GenXers, who were teenagers in the ‘80s and ‘90s and grew up with the earliest at-home internet, the DotCom boom (and bust), and the earliest mobile phones, are 44-59 years old now. Millennials grew up solidly in the age of the early internet and were already teenagers when the first iPhone came out in 2007. GenZ doesn’t remember a time before the internet! With the Boomers, it’s easy to think that they aren’t tech-savvy, but many of them were working professionals when businesses started to go digital. If you were 30 when the first Fitbit came out, you’d be 50 in five years. By the age of 35, almost 30% of the population will have disc degeneration in their spine, by 60, that jumps to 90%. Joint cartilage deterioration is similarly exponential. 

Now that we’re all feeling old, back to horizon scanning. As demonstrated above, and in the graphic below, there’s a large demographic shift coming to wearables and their associated software platforms. There are over 87 million Millennials and 79 million GenXers in the US and UK alone. The 50+% of the population (across age groups) that owns at least one wearable device isn’t going to suddenly stop using them when they hit 50, they’re going to look for expanded resources within the tools they use. Health has become the primary reason for purchasing a wearable device and users expect these devices to provide value as they age. We can’t ignore the “old people”, we have to build for Aging 2.0.  🧠

 The Aging 2.0 wave is coming!

*and as my mother says, “never assume!” Hi mom :) 

Want to know a bit more about my background and inspiration? Check out this segment from my interview on the Tech Business Podcast with Paul Essery! The full interview is here.