Homegrown Forecasts the 11 Trends That Will Decide Which Brick-and-Mortar Brands Are Still Growing in 2036

Homegrown Financing released its Brick & Mortar 2036 Report, an 11-trend forecast of factors that may determine which Main Street operators continue growing over the next decade. The report combines Homegrown’s proprietary portfolio data with research on operators demonstrating the trends, most of which have fewer than 100 locations.

Analysis

No actionable signal in the release: the report’s 11 trends are not included in the supplied text, and there are no disclosed portfolio results, funding terms, or independently verifiable financial impacts. Treat it as thought leadership, not evidence of a change in consumer demand or credit conditions. The relevant mechanism to monitor is whether revenue-based financing expands access to growth capital for smaller multi-location operators—or, if sales weaken, makes repayment pressure more sensitive to store-level revenue volatility. That could affect merchant expansion and lender loss exposure, but the release does not establish either outcome. Near term, no clear public-equity catalyst; over 1–3 months, reassess only if the full report provides measurable operating data or is corroborated by filings and sector results. Over 6–18 months, the structural question is whether alternative funding helps productive small brands take share from larger incumbents, or mainly finances expansion with weak unit economics. The contrarian point is that a decade-long trend forecast is not a forecast of near-term earnings: absent specific evidence, extrapolating it into a retail or private-credit trade would be premature.

Key Decisions for Investors

• No trade on this release alone. The supplied article is truncated before the trends are described, and the data contain no company-specific financial information or public tickers.
• Watch for the full report and verify its methodology, portfolio sample, repayment performance, and comparable-store sales before treating its conclusions as investable evidence.
• If subsequent evidence shows broad-based deterioration among small operators, monitor private-credit exposure and retail tenant health; do not infer losses at Homegrown or any public lender without disclosed exposure data.
• Falsification/watch items: independently reported sales and unit economics among small-format brands, store closure and expansion trends, and any disclosed changes in alternative-lending delinquencies or repayment performance.