Creating a Minimum Viable Product is all about validation…
At ThriveStreams, this is one of the main challenges that we dealt with. After our first product failed to ship because of feature-itis, we decided to work on a product that we could ship fast. We decided on a customer segment to service because of our own personal experience with overcoming mental health challenges.
In the beginning, we began designing a better mental health tracker and called it ThriveSync. We went straight into development with what we thought was an MVP because it only had two features. We overestimated our ability to ship the product in one two week sprint. It actually ended up taking 3 months working part time.
We released the product with great media coverage (including TechCrunch and CNET). Feedback led us to believe that there was an opportunity to provide value to mental health providers and their patients.
We then began to develop a dashboard for mental health providers to access their patients’ mood data. Our unique value proposition was that we would help providers to decrease the number of hospital readmissions with a remote patient monitoring platform.
We did not test our assumption that this was even a problem for mental health providers and that it was painful enough for them to pay for the solution.
We consistently made the mistake of going straight to code after we designed what we thought was a solution to a problem we had not validated. We should have known better when it took us three months to rebuild our platform to be HIPAA compliant.
This was a very expensive effort that we thought was the correct approach and we had already committed to building this solution to be tested for a research study funded by the National Institutes of Health.
Code is expensive resource-wise in terms of time and money.
It wasn’t until our acceptance into the Blueprint Health accelerator program that we finally learned how to build a true MVP. We tightened our Build > Meaure > Learn cycle to fit into a 2-week sprint. We brainstormed a collection of customer segments, picked one to test, made an assumption about their problems, and then went out to test our assumptions.
We would go into customer meetings with a sales deck that included a screenshot of our proposed solution. We only showed them this slide at the end of the presentation after we had the opportunity to discover their true challenges in a conversational manner.
Every sprint ended in an evaluation of the data we collected and a decision to pivot or persevere.
In the end, after 3 experiments we were able to identify a problem for employers. Employees facing mental health challenges increased the cost of providing health care and productivity would decrease due to both absenteeism and presenteeism.
Unfortunately, by the time we found a problem we did not have enough financial runway to go to our code editors and develop the Minimal Viable Product with code.
We share this lesson as our real-world experience of how we learned to make a true Minumum Viable Product to validate our assumptions.
An elevator pitch is the entrepreneur’s chance to spark interest in their company. It is meant as an intro and a successful one is clear, concise, and catalyzes a more in-depth discussion.
Here we present two versions of the ThriveStreams Elevator Pitch.
The first one we used for Launch Day at Blueprint Health. This event was meant as an opportunity for the accelerator’s cohort to formally introduce themselves to the healthcare community.
Blueprint Health Version
Hi my name is Adrian Cunanan and our company is ThriveStreams.
Previously I worked in IT consulting and my cofounder Ryan is an experienced mobile developer. We’ve both experienced mental health challenges, bringing first hand patient experience to our work.
Our software uses narrow artificial intelligence to identify and support individuals that can benefit from mental health care. We deliver evidence-based surveys, wellness reports, and coaching via a conversational mental health bot.
This can be very valuable to employers, allowing them to increase productivity and reduce medical costs due to mental health conditions.
Currently, we have one paid customer and our solution is being used for a research study funded by the NIH with 3 mental health organizations. We look forward to meeting you and sharing more about our progress at ThriveStreams.
The second version is one we crafted using directions available from Y Combinator. We used it for every other opportunity to pitch the company. The first 30 seconds can buy you the opportunity to complete 2 minute version.
Click Here for instructions on how to craft your own YC Elevator Pitch
Y Combinator Version
30 Second Pitch:
ThriveStreams helps employers to reduce the cost of mental health in the workplace with technology for early identification and intervention of employees facing mental health challenges.
The current paper-based employee assistance program market is valued at $5 billion dollars.
We signed our first customer, QBIS Group, and our solution is being used for a research study funded by the National Institutes of Health.
2 Minute Pitch:
(Insert 30 Second Pitch)
Traditionally in mental health, individuals are screened and connected to the most expensive resource in the form of a human provider.
Our scalable solution uses low-level artificial intelligence to deliver evidence-based screening and therapy programs before escalation to a human.
We charge employers $30 per employee per year, which is in-line with the cost of current paper-based employee assistance programs.
Our founding team is made up of a two technologists with unique first-hand patient experience of overcoming mental health challenges.
We are currently raising $500,000, which will help us sign 25 customers and reach a $750,000 annual run rate by the end of 2017.
We hope that these pitches can help you to form your own “Accelerator Quality” Elevator Pitch.
Good luck and feel free to comment on which pitch you like better in the comments.
What we did well:
Where we could improve:
What we’re going to do about it:
ThriveStreams set out to build a technology platform that would improve mental wellness and healthcare.
We approached the improvement of mental wellness and healthcare in the following ways:
We launched our iOS app in October 2014 and officially closed shop in August 2016.
What went right
What went wrong
Important Takeaways
Pick a Customer > Identify their Problem > Unique Value Proposition > Sell, Sell, Sell > Build to Learn > Ramen Profitability
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Big thanks to Ryan Bruce Badilla, Carlos Araya, Jessica Kosturko, Katie Colton, Elaine Matthias, Joey Chung, Startup Leadership Program, Brad Weinberg & Jean-Luc Neptune (Blueprint Health), Bill Tan (Transcendent Endeavors), Michael Thompson, Wendy Brennan (NAMI NYC), Thor Ernstsson, Meredith Ressi, Kevin Nadal, Omer Yariv, our friends and families for supporting us on this venture called ThriveStreams.
We failed…
This is my attempt to document and pass on my learnings along the way.
My experience spans a range including Entrepreneurship/Product Management, Design, and Development.
This is my story about learning about the Startup Life.