Humans face many challenges in their day-to-day lives. While some of these may seem like minor inconveniences, they can have a major cumulative effect on health, happiness, and productivity. However, entrepreneurs have found innovative ways to turn some of these problems into thriving business opportunities. This article explores the top 10 problems that humans encounter routinely, and how each has spawned money-making solutions.
- Lack of Time
In today’s hectic world, many people feel pressed for time. There often seems to be too much to do and not enough hours in the day. This has created a huge market for services and products focused on saving time. Examples include laundry and meal delivery services, task automation apps, and concierge assistance. The time-saving industry was valued at $464 billion globally in 2020.
- Poor Diet and Exercise Habits
Obesity affects nearly 650 million adults worldwide, largely due to dietary choices and sedentary lifestyles. The market for weight loss products, programs, and apps is now worth over $72 billion globally. Meanwhile, innovative exercise equipment and streaming in-home workouts generate around $30 billion annually. These offerings aim to help people develop healthy eating and fitness habits.
- Insufficient Sleep
Around 40% of people suffer from inadequate sleep, hampering daily function. The sleep aid market earns roughly $90 billion yearly selling items like mattresses, white noise machines, sleep tracking wearables, and medications. There is also a booming business for sleep consultants helping diagnose and treat conditions preventing sufficient rest.
- Household Chores
Cleaning, laundry, yardwork and cooking require significant weekly time for most households. At-home cleaning service franchises like Merry Maids generate around $5 billion globally each year. Other platforms enable people to hire individual house cleaners and landscapers as needed. Laundry pickup-drop off services and meal kit delivery sales also grow robustly each year.
- Daily Commuting
Long or stressful commutes contribute heavily to low quality of life. Rideshare platforms like Uber and Lyft have seen incredible growth helping people get around more easily, with global sales now topping $61.5 billion. Sales of electric vehicles and e-bikes also continue rising steadily, driven partly by desire for better daily transit options.
- Financial Management
Around 25% of adults worldwide have no savings, while many others carry excessive debt burdens. Financial services like Quicken, Mint, Credit Karma and Robinhood help people set budgets, track investments, improve credit, file taxes or trade stocks. The personal finance management industry sees about $9.7 billion in annual revenue.
- Mental Health Issues
Roughly 10% of people deal with diagnoses like depression or anxiety. The mental health services industry, including counseling apps, therapy marketplaces and support resources, draws sales over $150 billion per year. This excludes prescription medications and treatment programs, reflecting strong demand for tools benefiting wellbeing.
- Addiction
Almost 5% of adults globally have diagnosed alcohol use disorder or other substance addictions. Rehabilitation centers and apps offer resources assisting recovery through counseling, peer support and more. These services make up a market worth approximately $42 billion currently.
- Learning and Education
Many people want to develop new skills or knowledge. Digital education platforms like Udemy, Coursera and edX generate over $5 billion combined yearly. Massive open online courses on these sites see more than 180 million enrollments annually. Meanwhile, over 77 million U.S. adults hold public library cards, showing informational and educational offerings remain in high demand.
- Productivity and Task Management
Employees now spend over 5 hours per day handling emails, documents and messages. Better project collaboration tools could recover 4.3 hours weekly per worker. Task management software and personal assistant apps like Any.do, Asana, Otter.ai and Clara see impressive growth and adoption helping people coordinate life and work more efficiently.
Humans face no shortage of problems affecting quality of life, like lack of time, poor health habits, insufficient sleep and stressful commutes. Fortunately, many ingenious businesses craft solutions allowing people to outsource unwanted tasks or access helpful resources more readily. The market potential remains massive across these industries solving our most common daily struggles. With new technology and ideas constantly emerging, additional growth seems assured in businesses making daily life easier. The key is finding ways to effectively address human needs on a global scale.