I'm one of the founders of Circle Medical. Great to see a thoughtful discussion here.
Most people don't realize how most of the payment for an office visit with a doctor doesn't actually go to the doctor. We eliminate the need for office space and having someone handle paperwork and insurance and replace it with software.
You're right that there are other doctors with concierge medicine who charge for the convenience. The point is we are making this accessible to patients who have a regular insurance plan and can't or won't pay extra for the convenience factor.
Thanks for replying, and kudos on trying something new.
Couple of points that I was hoping you could clarify:
1) A quick google search yields [1], which says that a typical family doctor has 34 hours a week of patient interactions, 92 patients a day, at about 22 minutes per interaction.
How will you be able to get to those numbers given that you have to coordinate schedules, transport the doctor from appointment to appointment, and make the doctor responsible for all of the secondary aspects of care, like taking vitals and drawing blood? Doctor offices work partially by queueing up people, so that when an appointment runs long, people pile up, and the next appointment is short, and they catch up. How does this work when the doctor does everything, and has to be transported from gig to gig?
2) What's the comparable amount of money a doc will make with circle medical vs. the median amount a doc will make with a group practice, where rent and office management are pooled?
3) With doctors salaried (fixed-cost) but their income variable (number of appointments/day), how will you stay aligned towards patient care? What's to stop you from putting pressure on the doctors to try to cut time down/visit?
Though they don't support Canadian vendors yet, I would keep a very close eye on Stripe. Their API, support and overall attitude are kick ass and a breath of fresh air.
I would be very careful with entering into a partnership with people you don't know. Would you marry someone you know "vaguely" or not at all?
I'd try to structure a trial period where you get to work with the other founders for a predetermined period of time.
If you do chose to continue, make sure you're protected. i.e. who owns the software you're developing? You don't want to develop it and then have them fire you and keep your shares, for example.
You should also build vesting into your shares. 4 year vesting is common, so that if you leave after 1 year you will still have 1/4 of your equity.
Agree with all these points, especially the adverse selection bias. Would you pay to apply for a job? Of course not.
Between incubators such as YC and others, hustling for intros, and Angel List, there's no reason ever to pay to pitch investors.
The ones charging $1,000-$8,000 are just robbing Peter to pay Paul. The more people they invite to pitch, the more money they make, a portion of which they will "invest" in the "winner."
These people are leeches leaches and need to be called out as such.
In order to answer the question appropriately, it would help to know what your objective is. Do you just want to rig your traffic numbers without caring about who comes to your site and what they do on your site?
If not, then the answer is it depends. It depends on who you're targeting, and on what action (reading an article? sharing it? signing up for a product or newsletter?) defines success.
II) 1) B) Get users' permission before:
- sending Tweets or other messages on their behalf. A user authenticating through your application does not constitute consent to send a message.
I don't think "We take your property and put it in the cloud" means anything tangible to a property owner. (Making it easier to find tenants and collect payments are tangible benefits.)
I would also have more detail on what exactly the product does without requiring the user to sign up. Some screenshots of use cases of how you can help me would be beneficial.
Most people don't realize how most of the payment for an office visit with a doctor doesn't actually go to the doctor. We eliminate the need for office space and having someone handle paperwork and insurance and replace it with software.
You're right that there are other doctors with concierge medicine who charge for the convenience. The point is we are making this accessible to patients who have a regular insurance plan and can't or won't pay extra for the convenience factor.