Hey Jon! As you know, I love what you're doing.
This is quite different from your background in gaming. Do you want to share how you came up with the idea?
Thanks @colbyh!
@MackFlavelle Yeah, it's a really big important problem. Actually our pilot care network saw a few hundred Canadians last year. There was a specific procedure that had long wait times or wasn't available yet, so people "cut the line" by traveling for care. I'm not an expert in Canadian healthcare, but I think there are also elective procedures that national health service won't pay for (LASIK, dental, cosmetic, etc). Am I remembering that right?
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These kind of market gaps open up when you have a broken system -Adam Smith would be proud, @staringispolite . Re: Distribution, how are you targeting? Have you found clear demographic / psychographic identifiers among your early adopters? Who is most incentivized to look for this solution? Have you considered dentistry? How did you find suppliers? Are you opening up as a platform with back-end rating systems or managing risk by keeping the docs in-house and vetted? Is demand pushing scale or are you finding there's a lot of education to be done? How many questions are you willing to answer in one comment?
@ReubenMetcalfe Awesome questions! We're actually raising a small round to answer many of these questions with statistical significance. For now, one of the benefits of partnering with an existing care network, is we can use their existing patient demographics as a starting point. The short version is: it varies by procedure, eg LASIK patients are younger than hip replacement patients, and the nature of the procedure effects your priorities for the trip.
We're calling our approach a highly-vetted "micro-marketplace". We'll have all the usual testimonials, ratings, plus a few things unique to us for vetting. But health is important, and we don't see the point in having anything but the best in the marketplace. (I don't even want those on Yelp, why would I want them in my doctor results?)
We've looked at dentistry, it's big in Costa Rica. In fact during our alpha trip we all saw various doctors ourselves, and our Dir. of Operations Woody got dental work done that's working out great.
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Hi Jonathan, I think what you're doing with Emissary is something truly valuable that solves a real problem, optimizing existing resources to bring the best treatment in front of the user.
I'd love to see this go mainstream -- for instance, I know that Korea is really good for two things: refractive eye surgery, and cosmetic surgery (it's already been a destination for many people seeking it). Also, while I was living in San Diego, a lot of people would cross the border to get cheaper dental treatment.
I also see that you should solve a second issue -- logistics and user experience. How do you make everything work right without frustrations during travel, and make for a great user experience? I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Sure! Actually my background is pretty broad. I've worked as varied jobs as Veterinary Hospital Assistant, to GPS Satellite programmer, and the startup I started/sold before moving to SF was in consumer internet/politics. I really just like working with great people on important things.
I became interested in this when a friend told me his mom had saved tens of thousands by having her arthritis treatment in India. Everything kind of 'clicked' then:
* I've had ER treatment in Canada before,
* I had chicken pox in Israel as a kid.
* I've had great care in the US and I've also had very negative experiences. (over charging, insurance denying claims, medicare almost got my grandma kicked out of her nursing home...)
When I started looking into it, it looked like the time was right for a consumer-first competitor that takes advantage of the latest "software eating the world" tech, as Andreessen called it, which is right up my cofounders' and my alley.
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