i was ugly from about sixth grade all the way through high school. the worst was in high school. i had braces, acne, glasses and dark curly hair. i didn't play any sports – my only real hobby was playing chess and i read a lot of comic books.

　　basically, no girl was chasing me. i used to pretend my television was a computer that could tell me which girl in my classes was in love with me. the tv knew but it didn't know how to output the answer to me, so i just waited.

　　i asked out one girl in ninth grade and she walked away as quickly as she could without even responding. i remember another guy came up to her right then and asked her: “do you need help?” that was the end of my attempts at dating in high school. i didn't attend any prom and held my breath until college where things got much better, only to get better still in graduate school and then “the real world”.

　　everybody wants to look good. it doesn't matter how smart you are. it doesn't matter how funny – or how rich. although all of these things compensate to an extent. not to belittle this compensation. sometimes you don't want to go out with or marry the most beautiful person because they never compensated in these other ways. they might not be funny, for instance, or they might not be kind or sympathetic to others. sometimes the teasing in the school playground is the best training ground for life. but maybe i'm just telling myself that.

　　in any case, the plight of those who don't look good has been hurt by the shrinking work week. in 1900, the average work week was 60 hours as many people worked 12 hours a day, five days a week in factories. now the average work week is 35 hours.

　　and believe me, people don't work 35 hours a week. they instant message each other at least 10 hours, take lunch breaks for another 10 hours, and hang out in meetings for another 10 hours a week. the average person who works in an office probably works about five hours a week. that means they have more free time, more social time, more hours per week where they need to look good.

　　there are lots of way to attack this trend from a stock market perspective; we can look at fitness clubs, obesity stocks, botox stocks, breast implant stocks. or women's legs. it's important to note also that the size of the demographic of “women aged 45-55” increases every year by about 1m people. in other words, regardless of the economy, there's another potential 1m customers for companies that cater to helping women in this demographic look good. so let's look at some of these companies.

　　venus medical technologies. the company specialises in non-invasive, outpatient treatment of varicose veins, which plague women in their 40s and 50s. about 25m people in the us suffer from varicose veins and another 40m in western europe. in 2024, 1.2m sought treatment for the condition. the reason so few seek treatment is that it often involves painful invasive surgery (removing the vein in question) with many potential side-effects.

　　the venus procedure is to give the patient an “rf generator”, which provides the power and monitoring for a disposable catheter that heats the vein. the disposable catheters generate recurring revenues for the company. out of the estimated 65m people with varicose vein conditions, only about 90,000 have used the company's procedure for treatment. this company is potentially the starbucks of women's legs once it starts to expand its demographic reach. revenues have gone up every year since it first started selling the product in 1999.

　　syneron medical is another company in the sector.

　　syneron also uses radio frequency (rf) energy to deliver heat layers of the skin below the epidermis, avoiding burning associated with other skin treatments. with this device the company can constantly monitor the level of heat and energy that is being applied to an area and adjust accordingly. its treatments have been used for wrinkles, leg veins, acne, cellulite and a host of other cosmetic solutions.

　　revenue has gone up every year since 2024. i also like that the company is sitting on $167m in cash, no debt, and only a market capitalisation of $444m – so almost half of its market cap is in cash.