News

Updates and analysis on technology, impact investing, and our venture companies.

Next Page Navigation Link
Previous Page Navigation Link

Consumer habits are changing faster than ever. Whether from macroeconomic pressures, generational shifts, or technological innovation, the way we shop and the things we buy are going through a profound transformation. The change is impacting nearly every industry, and some sectors are struggling to adapt to the new consumer.

At the forefront of this change are the millennials. According to economists, millennials are more interested in spending money on experiences than they are in owning stuff — and they may be onto something. An abundance of psychology research has shown that spending money on experiences brings more happiness than spending money on things. Experiential purchases create a more enduring sense of happiness, more anticipation, and have stronger associations to identity, connection, and social behavior.

And this shift might not just be generational: for example, Americans across the board are eating out more now than ever before, with restaurant spending overtaking grocery spending for the first time in 2016. The same uptick in experiential purchases is occurring in air travel, tourism, and entertainment, while retailers are struggling to keep shoppers interested.

So if the shift isn’t generational, then what’s causing the change?

Digital technology is opening up new ways to experience traditional services and goods, and that’s creating a fundamental change in our economic behavior. The millennials, the first digital natives, were only the first to convert.

The result is a new reality for business, with digital experiences that pose serious threats to traditional models. While some fret the potential death of traditional brick and mortar establishments, others are scrambling to keep up by redefining their own customer experience.

Six years ago, Marc Andreessen famously wrote in the Wall Street Journal that “software is eating the world," meaning traditional businesses were being disrupted and supplanted by software-driven models. But are brick and mortar businesses truly going the way of the dinosaur? Amazon, a pioneer in online retail and a primary subject in Andreessen’s article, may provide a clue. Recently, they’ve begun opening their own brick and mortar bookstores in several states, as well as a high-tech grocery store in Seattle with no check-outs. The stores, Amazon says, are extensions for their online presence. Alibaba, Amazon’s Asian equivalent, is doing the same thing in China with luxury brands.

It appears that digital experiences can’t replace the value of real-life ones, at least not yet. Customers still like browsing for books among the shelves, just as they prefer to try on a pair of shoes, or touch and feel a shirt’s fabric before they buy it.

Despite the threats online retail giants pose to traditional stores, Amazon and Alibaba’s recent forays into brick and mortar help to point a way forward for everyone. The future, it seems, is in a blended customer experience where physical and digital experiences work together and complement one another.

“With consumers already living a blended physical/digital life,” writer Brad Howarth asks in a recent CMO article, “shouldn’t providers of physical experiences be stepping up to deliver accompanying digital ones?”

The answer to Howarth’s question, we believe, is a resounding YES. We need brick-and-mortar establishments that fully integrate digital technologies for an omnichannel experience. It’s a model that we call bricks and bits, and it’s not just for retail, entertainment, transportation, and restaurants.


The healthcare industry, which has yet to go through the significant tech disruption that has occurred in other sectors, stands to benefit the most from a bricks and bits model that blends digital technology with traditional services and physical infrastructure — not just because patients want a better experience, but because it could help to lower costs and improve health outcomes.

It’s only a matter of time. The behaviors and expectations of consumers have already gone through a fundamental shift. They’re more informed, more empowered, and more connected than ever before, writes Clara Shih in TechCrunch. Meanwhile, more than 13,000 health and medical apps for mobile devices and wearables are available to those consumers. At some point, “mainstream medicine will have to integrate itself further with the online experience,” Shih writes.

Consumers are ready for it, and the healthcare industry as a whole, with at least one-fifth of healthcare spending going to waste, is in dire need of a digital transformation. Telehealth solutions, mobile diagnostics, and AI-assistance for doctors could help to reduce that waste, while also improving health outcomes. And more digital points of access to care with streamlined scheduling could create a much better patient experience that increases engagement and helps patients manage their health more easily.

At Aspire, we’re not only developing digital health technologies like mobile apps and AI-assisted diagnostics, we’re also investing in brick-and-mortar facilities that will seamlessly integrate the best of digital technologies. The bricks and bits model, we believe, will enable a blended experience that’s better for both the patient and the provider. Our first iteration of that model, Clio Health, is due to open early 2018 in Lancaster, PA.

Clio Health Lancaster, currently in construction, will be a smart healthcare facility designed from the ground up to integrate digital technologies that streamline the patient experience and lower costs. It will include a specialty hospital, physician offices, and ancillary services. But it will be more than just a hospital — it will be part of a technology ecosystem that will deliver far more points of access for the patient.

Mobile health solutions, artificial intelligence, and telemedicine will never replace living doctors and physical infrastructure. But those solutions need better integration into the care continuum. With a bricks and bits model like Clio Health, we can create a better future for healthcare.