From Now to Next: 4 Investment Opportunities with Gen Z’s Growing Power & Status
by Harlem Capital

By Alivia Jiang (2024 Fellow) with Jarrid Tingle
By 2030, Generation Z – defined as those born between 1997 and 2012 – will make up 30% of the workforce.
The proliferation of social media and the COVID-19 pandemic have made Gen Z a uniquely adaptive and digitally native generation. These, among other reasons, have led them to demand significantly more out of their work – considering a $587,800k salary to be “financially successful,” more than double the average perception across generations of $270,200.
This generation will soon become the key shapers of how we work and approach technology in the workplace. If you are building any kind of technology, it’s imperative to understand the priorities and values of Gen Z.
In our comprehensive report, we sought to understand Gen Z through the lens of their technology and media consumption, as well as their approaches to work, in hopes of answering questions such as:
- What are Gen Z’s technological preferences and how does this shape their work habits?
- What tools and functionalities are Gen Z professionals seeking?
- How is Gen Z thinking about AI? In what ways are they implementing AI-driven solutions in
- the workplace?
- How can you best attract Gen Z early adopters of your enterprise technology solution?
Our findings provided us with some unique insights. For example, Gen Z strongly prioritizes financial stability from work, especially after experiencing the consequences of the pandemic firsthand. This has led them to gravitate towards entrepreneurship and side hustles in search of ways to stay more in control of their own financial futures. And, they still value college as an investment — even more so than their millennial counterparts — seeing it as a necessary investment to achieve their aims for life fulfillment and stability.
From our deep dive, we’ve identified 4 key areas of investment that will experience rapid growth amongst Gen Z consumers. We believe these tools will complement Gen Z as they continue to evolve into the technological and social ecosystem around them.
1. Business-in-a-Box Solutions
2. Consumer Fintech Products
3. AI Copilots
4. Consolidated Search Tools
Business-in-a-Box Solutions: Take Initiative and Seize Independence
In many ways, Gen Z can be characterized by their strong urge to take initiative. Seeing influencers make careers online and having to teach themselves new AI and other technological tools has made them largely self-sufficient.
With their mentality of self-sufficiency, there will be a growth in solutions that empower Gen Z to become entrepreneurs in emerging avenues. Business-in-a-Box solutions, providing individuals the “toolkit” to start their own practices, directly tackle the existing hurdles that currently exist for the growing number of Gen Z consumers eager to start a business. Successful solutions in this space will therefore address common barriers to entry, such as legal and regulatory challenges, ultimately helping to leverage Gen Z’s entrepreneurial spirit in an unprecedented way.
We see particularly great growth potential when looking at Med Spas, which harness Gen Z’s strong beauty spending as well as the increasing trend of nurse practitioners leaving to start their own private practices. These tailwinds create an environment where the ability to start their personal practices in the beauty space will be greatly desired.

Consumer Fintech Products: Turn Existing Assets into Financial Certainty
Amongst the wide variety of concerns that affect Gen Z, one dominates: financial uncertainty. 50% of Gen Z cited their long-term financial futures and 45% of Gen Z cited their day-to-day finances as top factors contributing to their stress levels. Gen Z would quit their job mainly due to an unsatisfactory salary, clearly tying into how their main priority for the future is to make enough money to live comfortably.

Thus, for Gen Z to gravitate towards a tool, its specific use case in the workplace must be able to be quickly identified. While Gen Z’s immediate instinct is to view the financial costs of a solution, when a tool’s functionality is seen to instantly improve an existing workflow, they will be much more driven to adopt.
An example of a company that has succeeded in this space is BILT Rewards, a credit card loyalty program that allows for renters to gain rewards on their rent payments. A key attribute of its success is its ability to take an existing financial pain point for consumers — rent — and offer them the chance to gain back some of their losses. The important point to note here is ease of use: Gen Z doesn’t have to make any sacrifices when adopting this fintech solution. Therefore, it’s advised to avoid building products with long investment horizons, as if they are unable to see the immediate value of return, they are significantly less likely to adopt.
AI Copilots: Make Existing Workflows More Efficient
While Gen Z is the most proficient at championing and adopting AI in the workplace, they also view AI as a significant life threat: 59% believe that the prevalence of GenAI will make them look for job opportunities that are less vulnerable to automation. Amidst these increasing fears of their jobs being at risk due to AI, combined with their constant pursuit of a work-life balance, Gen Z will be most likely to support tools that eliminate wasted time on their existing processes.

So, with this in mind, what are key areas that are ripe for AI copilot disruption? We believe that AI copilots will find the most success in industries with large data sets that need to be frequently referenced by teams in their day-to-day work. One industry example is research and development, where copilots can help professionals sift through large consumer datasets. Another lies within inventory management, where products can be better forecasted and managed.
Ultimately, solutions in this space will be easy to learn and troubleshoot, seeing as Gen Z will quickly give up if something cannot be solved through self-service. Furthermore, they should be designed to encourage referrals onto the platform to start a network effect. Above all, the goal should be to enhance and not replace human capabilities when catering to Gen Z — if they see the risk of a tool replacing their work, they will be much more reluctant to adopt.

Consolidated Search Tools: Better Decision-Making through Digesting Information
Building a sense of familiarity and trust is crucial to finding Gen Z customers who will stick with your solution. Recommendations from friends and family still drive their purchases above TikTok videos, and they primarily get their news from social media and existing channels, showing how existing sources of information feel more familiar and are evidently more frequented. They are also masters of multitasking, with 8 in 10 Gen Z’s saying they multitask while watching video content. When viewed in combination with one another, it is clear that Gen Z, oftentimes across multiple sources at once, stays in search of the intersection of inexpensive access to information on existing channels.

Information search is still fragmented across several industries and could be better consolidated under one platform. In the world of automotive purchases, for example, there is still a strong reliance on individual dealerships when browsing cars and finding adequate service options. And in the context of real estate, there are still several platforms that need to be utilized to find homes to buy, sell, and/or invest in. It’s important that when building this consolidated search solution, core aspects of familiarity are maintained for Gen Z: prioritizing integration with existing tools and replicating features of current frequented tools, such as exploration pages on social media platforms.
By aggregating information across these sources, Gen Z will appreciate the ability to finally rest their attention with the new ease of the decision-making process, with the solution still staying attractive through the sense of familiarity brought forth by search tools.
Future Outlook
Our research into Generation Z provided insightful takeaways surrounding this demographic and their preferences, showing that they value purpose, seek relationships, value efficiency, crave security with their financial health, and look to digitize their in-person communities. Whether building solutions for Gen Z, investing in these products, or discovering new products for adoption, we encourage you to dive deeper into our research in our full report linked here.
At Harlem Capital, we are excited about the future of the workplace and what this technologically savvy, purpose-driven, and relationship-building generation will create. As Gen Z continues to grow into their roles, we hope to continue supporting their unique perspectives as they work to define themselves in shaping the future of the workforce.
About Harlem Capital Partners
Harlem Capital (HCP) is an early-stage, diversity-focused venture capital firm. HCP makes initial investments of $1mm to $2.5mm in U.S. seed rounds for 10-15% ownership.
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