Emissary

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?

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.

This is going to be a huge market in the coming years, tons of respect for stepping out in front of the trend.

Thanks for the kind words, @gabsong! And you're absolutely right. In fact, we have a mobile communications/logistics platform in beta specifically for those issues you brought up. We have specially trained drivers in our pilot care network, who understand patients' unique needs. They can hand you an iPhone when they pick you up at the airport, yours for the duration of your trip. With our app pre-installed, your contacts preloaded, and your itinerary always up-to-date, you now have a whole host of issues resolved.

@ReubenMetcalfe Yep, that's exactly our plan. To start, we're targeting a few high volume, high LTV procedures we identified with our partners network, as well as a couple more light-weight procedures we've seen inbound interest on. I'll be sure to check out SEMrush. Thanks for the tip. Dubai is definitely on our list to keep an eye on. AFAIK, they're still building infrastructure now, so when we expand out from our pilot, it may time very well with them. Their stated target procedures line up well with ours too. I'd want to go there in person, and have some doctors make sure the quality's there. But hey, there are worse things than business trips to Dubai!

Hey all, I'm a software engineer and artist by training, currently CoFounder/CEO of Emissary. We're on a mission to revolutionize healthcare by removing geographic restrictions from the highest quality providers. Ryan suggested I do an AMA, so here I am! Sorry the mobile platform is still in beta (partners & patients only), but the service is live. Happy to chat about either one!

BTW, I should clarify: while the cost savings makes it a no-brainer, the real problem we're solving is trust. We liken the industry to staying at a stranger's house before AirBnB, or hitching a ride before Uber. There were competitors before (couchsurfing, cabulous) but it's really trust (supply-side vetting, transparency, ratings, insurance, etc) enabling everything else they do so well.