Column · trend or season
A season repeats. A trend does not. Both rise, both fall, and both look like an opportunity in the second week.
The distinction is not about the curve. It is about the mechanism. A season is driven by a calendar or a cycle that will return: holidays, tax deadlines, school terms, weather. A trend is driven by a change in capability or behaviour that will not return to the old level.
If demand is seasonal, you need to survive the trough — cash, staffing, a second offering. If demand is a trend, the trough you are planning for will not arrive; instead the whole category will shift, and your product will need to move with it.
People who mistake a season for a trend build permanent capacity for a temporary peak. People who mistake a trend for a season under-build and lose the window.
You cannot, from two days. What two days gives you is a floor: whether the thing exists at all, and whether it is moving. The seasonal question needs a year, or a comparison against last year's same period.
What you can do cheaply is ask whether the underlying cause has a calendar. If the answer is yes, plan for repetition. If the answer is a new tool, a new rule, or a new behaviour, plan for change.
Never commit fixed costs to a signal you have observed for less than one full cycle unless the signal is structural — a change in what is possible, not in when people pay attention.
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