Investors love to talk about big trends.

There’s nothing wrong with this. I read dozens of articles and engage in dozens of conversations each week on this.

But sometimes what I read and what I hear can get a little glib, if not downright misleading.

Just this morning I read that the next big thing is disrupting our old transportation systems. This was from a co-founder of a unicorn startup.

A founder of another unicorn said the next big thing is creating intimate experiences by connecting large groups of people.

I can only imagine these founders want to keep their best ideas for themselves. There’s no other explanation. Not only are the ones they mention generic, but startups are all over them.

Fact is, deciphering trends to determine the next big one is hard. Investment ideas – like clothes and cars – tend to go through cycles, moving in and out of fashion.

Energy disruption was big, then it faded, and now it’s coming back. Batteries, wearables and 3-D printing have all had back-and-forth rides.

For early investors, it’s doubly hard. Our ride is long and often bumpy. The sexy vehicle of today could look like crap in a few years. We have to think about what our vehicle will look like in five or 10 years.

How do you do that with any degree of certainty?

It’s something I’ve been wrestling with for quite a while. And I have an interesting solution to share with you.

Just in Time

It’s a way to identify “can’t fail” trends. I call them “just in time” technologies. They’re technology solutions that arrive in the nick of time to fix a big looming and sometimes dangerous economic or societal problem.

They’re impervious to fickle consumer tastes. They overcome regulatory hurdles because governments have no other choice but to encourage their adoption (or at the very least stand aside).

But here’s the odd thing…

These trends – the ones that have the highest odds of driving huge markets – are also often the ones that the mainstream press presents to us as major threats or problems unto themselves.

After you read these articles or see these reports in the mainstream press, your takeaway is to not even consider investing in these trends.

Three Trends That Ride to the Rescue

Listen, I wasn’t expecting this pattern. But I found this to be the case time and time again. So, let me show you just three instances so you can see for yourself how this works.

The threat of killer robots. Some think they’re going to kill us en masse (Stephen Hawking). At the very least, they’re going to kill our jobs. From Fortune: “Robots: Will They Steal Your Job?”

Will they steal our jobs? Certainly some of them. To what extent is open to debate here in the U.S.

But stealing jobs is also what makes robots a “just in time” technology – just not in this country. In China, it’s a godsend. Robots will be coming just as China’s labor supply is growing dangerously thin.

China’s ill-conceived one-child policy has decimated the Asian giant’s working-age population. By the early 2030s, 400 million Chinese citizens will be 60 or over. That’s one-quarter of its projected population.

China just ended its one-child policy in an attempt to forestall its demographic time bomb. Too late. Its working-age population will continue to shrink.

Hard to believe that China is facing a labor shortage, but it is. Robots, though, will be riding to the rescue.

The threat of civil unrest caused by driverless cars. This article – “Like the Suburbs? You’ll Love Driverless Cars” – from Bloomberg says that driverless cars will spark class and social conflict.

Even if it’s true (I have my doubts), who cares?

Ask any boomer, and they’ll swear that driverless cars are coming just in time. My generation has spent the last five to 10 years prodding our parents off the road.

I did it with my father some five years ago, when he had trouble remembering where he was going (and how to get there).

My friends and relatives all share the same determination. It isn’t going to happen to us. And as boomers, we have enough political and consumer clout to make sure this happens.

At least a half-dozen automakers plus Apple and Google are developing mind-boggling technology to put driverless cars on the road by 2022 to 2025.

By 3030, not having a self-driving car in your driveway will seem weird.

The threat of exorbitant costs for a slightly faster Internet. Is it worth spending billions to improve Internet speeds by milliseconds? asks Gizmodo in “The Promising (But Problematic) Future of Ultra-Fast Internet.” The article points out that “progress is slow compared to the increase in speeds in previous decades.”

Really, do we have a choice?

Connectivity is skyrocketing…

An explosion of streaming videos. The Internet of Things (at least 25 billion connected devices by 2020) is around the corner. Smartphone usage is just taking off in several large developing countries.

Worldwide, we created 4.4 zettabytes of data last year. By 2020, it’s expected to rise to 44 zettabytes. By the way, one zettabyte is around 250 billion DVDs.

Right now, Google Fiber is moving data at about two-thirds the speed of light. The refractive properties of the glass fiber limit its speed.

Basically, light bounces around and slows down inside the cable.

Given the sheer volume of data that will need to be moved constantly, every tenth of a percentage point gained counts. So faster technology is sure to be funded.

Some things of note are in the works…

In England, fiber cables have been created that move data at 99.73% of the speed of light. Pretty remarkable. But it only works for short distances right now.

Microwave relays also have potential. Data is able to travel much faster when it’s moving through (mostly) empty air. But plenty of work still needs to be done to make the technology practical.

But this I am sure of. When the next-gen technology is ready, there will be a market for it. As a just-in-time technology, it will also happen with little regard to cost.

Extremely Early Megatrend Spotting

Most technologies do not have a market when they are being developed. How predictable was the runaway success of Facebook (FB), Uber or Airbnb?

Not predictable at all.

Just-in-time technology solves big problems. But they’re like any disruptive technology. Because they’re introducing something new to the comfortable way of doing things, the media feels obligated to spew their negative drivel.

I guess it’s the kind of coverage that “sells.” That doesn’t mean you have to take it seriously.

In fact, when these technologies finally arrive, they’re usually welcomed as saviors. Demand rapidly coalesces behind them, forming a tidal wave effect and driving massive growth of the best startups offering the technology.

Technologies arriving just in time are worth investing in years before they actually do arrive. The best part? You can do that.

Because – once you’ve blocked out the noise – they’re also quite predictable.

Invest early and well,