🍻 Sober-curious is the new wellness marker

Happy Trends Tuesday!

Today we’ve got:

1 trend alert
1 piece of operator wisdom
1 startup sector you should know
4 tabs we have open

Let's get to it.

🚨 TREND ALERT

News alert: Drinking is out and the sober life is in. Well, sober-ish, anyway.

According to Food Navigator, the value of the low- or no-alcohol beverages market in 2022 was $11B+. And it’s expected to grow at over 7% annually through 2026.

Here are a few specific trends and how you can play them:

Trend: The bougie are going booze-less. NYC Michelin-starred restaurant Le Jardinier now has house-made, zero-proof offerings. Boisson recently raised at a $47m valuation and is using the funds to expand their chic brick-and-mortar chain of NA beverage stores.

The opportunity: While the well-heeled have no problem getting their NA drink on, distribution is an issue for an industry made up of small startups. There’s an opportunity for a distributor with a passion for growing small brands to bring this product to the masses.

Trend: Celebs are getting into the game. JLo, Bella Hadid, and Katy Perry have all launched NA beverage brands. Mynd Drinks, a “hemp wellness drink” brand, is up at bat at Wrigley Field as the first CBD drink to strike a deal with MLB.

The opportunity: Leverage the celebrity power in lesser-tapped niches like pro athletes. For instance, with NA beer being touted as being the new performance-enhancing recovery drink, your brand could partner with sports stars. Don’t be afraid to go too niche here (e.g. independent gamers with millions of followers).

Trend: Ethos Health and Sunnyside help users navigate their sober-curious journeys through coaching and community, but there aren’t many IRL communities for the sober-ish. Twelve-steppers have created safe and fun environments such as sober vacations and sober activity clubs, but there’s a big difference between a sober-ish person and someone in recovery.

The opportunity: With the sober-curious crowd gaining traction, there could be opportunities for events like sober-ish music festivals, Vegas pool parties, or even NA or low-ABV wine shows.

🎨 CREATE BRILLIANT POWERPOINTS

Use this slate of 10 striking PowerPoint themes to posterize your speeches, pitch decks, and presentations. They’re professionally designed and easy to tweak for very busy people.

🧠 OPERATOR WISDOM

This is our final piece on deconstructing a great sales email.

It comes from Trendster Chris Orzechowski, who has personally written 10k+ sales emails, and trains thousands of email marketers.

Previously we covered:

Using a curiosity-based subject line
Getting readers hooked with a personal intro
Why you need to lead with a story
Throwing rocks at a common enemy
Building a “belief bridge”
Dramatic demonstration

Here are the final 2 elements:

A unique selling proposition. Have a tagline that prospects are going to remember about your brand. At Perennial Pastures, it’s “better than grass-fed beef.” They own that positioning. They drop that line in all of their sales messages to burn it into peoples’ brains. If you want to engineer behavioral change — like getting someone to skip the meat aisle on their weekly grocery run — this is what it takes.
Crystal-clear call to action. Never assume that your reader knows what to do next. You need to lead them to the next step. Hold their hand and walk them over to the solution they’ve desperately been searching for. And watch the cash flow in.

🔥 STARTUP SECTOR YOU SHOULD KNOW

Congratulations on that new bundle of joy — now cough up the cash.

Today’s parents are buying more than diapers and bottles for babies: Social media has introduced pressures around everything from baby names to gender reveal parties.

Those trends come at a cost. In 2021, the global baby products market was valued at $214B.

And where there is money to be made, there are small businesses with big dreams: Read more about the emerging sector on The Hustle blog.

OPEN TABS

📧 Read me: 15 of the best startup newsletters for entrepreneurs.

🎧 Podcast: How to handle a bad boss.

📚 Sparknotes version: Nine wild details from the new Elon Musk biography.

😊 Stay humble: How self-made entrepreneurs can stay grounded after success.

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