BTE: I am really into the various incentive-driven business models, and there are a number of different incentive models being attempted by various startups. A few of those models are attempting to use negative reinforcement, as opposed to the positive reward based incentives you guys are talking about, so I am curious if this is a model you have considered or plan to incorporate into your product at some point in the future?
Mark Hall: I certainly understand the idea of dinging somebody for failing to meet expectations, but I am a big believer in positive rewards and positive reinforcement of behaviors more than anything. We are not looking to be the incentive platform per se, but instead we envision ourselves become the healthy currency. We are working with large companies that are already very much forward thinkers and have already incorporated incentive schemes into their products, we are simply looking to deliver the currency behind those cash incentives.
Many of these companies may already be offering gift cards and other such rewards, but the problem with that is the complexity. If you have gift cards, points, cash cards and this whole myriad of things you are offering to your members that becomes difficult to manage, this complexity definitely negatively impacts the participation of the member getting those incentives. We believe in a universal card platform which can be tailored down to the individual member, their condition, demographic and personal preferences, and offer that member specific product categories. We think that makes for a very seamless and efficient solution.
BTE: So you guys are really looking to partner with other groups that have already implemented incentive-driven schemes?
Mark Hall: Absolutely. In some cases this may be the large payer groups or employers, but it could also be large incentive platforms that are currently doling out cash or other incentives. We have had a lot of conversations with other companies that see great synergy between what they are doing and the product/service we will offer.
BTE: So you are originally from Princeton, NJ, but now you have relocated to here in Chicago to join Healthbox. What do you think Chicago can offer your company and do you plan on maintaining a presence here long-term?
Mark Hall: When we first started looking at Healthbox, I reached out to Chad who I knew from working with him in the past and I knew he was involved with a number of Chicago companies with specific core expertise in developing health care payment platforms. The experience with Healthbox so far, I believe we are on day 11, has been incredible and it has really allowed us to pull everything together at warp speed. The people at Healthbox are truly a great team of smart and fantastically nice people who run a very tight ship. We are really benefiting from being around the other companies at Healthbox also, the environment is filled with people trying to revolutionize health care and it’s been a thrilling 10 days.
The objective of Healthbox is to work with truly disruptive companies and they have even reached out internationally to startups–we have a team here that has relocated from Dublin. We had an event yesterday with 100+ Healthbox mentors who include many forward thinking health care visionaries. They represent all sorts of organizations from hospitals to venture capital firms, all of whom align well with the resident companies and put themselves in a position to help these companies and contribute value.
BTE: What are your goals during your three months here at Healthbox? Are you looking to raise money?
Mark Hall: We are a startup company, so we are always looking to raise money. We have already had several VC firms reach out to us, which is not bad for week one and that is really great. The goals on the technology side are over the next 6-8 weeks to build out our core platform and following that, we will be building our mobile app, which will be a combination of existing and proprietary technologies that we hope to use to facilitate payments. We envision our product eventually becoming another card people can have in their Google Wallet and use to make payments with near field communication (NFC) technology. The mobile app will also enable members to see which items are covered under the product categories they have access to under their tailored spend plan at a particular store. We really want to create a seamless, easy to understand user experience.
BTE: It sounds to me like you envision an experience driven by real world activities rather than digital or virtual experiences.
Mark Hall: Exactly, we want people to be able to go about living their lives and continue going to the grocery store. As they browse the products, they can use our app to scan items and find out if they are covered by their tailored spending plan. So our core objective for the program is to develop the critical partnerships we will need to engage consumers and we are already well on track in just the first 10 days here at Healthbox. We will have our platform complete in the middle of February and we plan to formally launch our product into market by the end of March.
