Chicago is one of the fastest growing technology contributors of the United States. And for startups, there is no better home to seed a business venture than this place. Firstly, because research says that 375 new tech startups were seeded in this city during the last year. Forbes and TECHicago also say that there are around 6000 tech companies in the region. this means that if you go around looking for talent pool in the IT sector, you’ll meet service providers, like app developers, software engineers and digital marketers on competitive rates.
When talking specifically about healthcare, and its fusion with technology, know that this blend has actually bridged the demand and supply gap of physical and mental health services. Electronic Health Records, Radiotherapy planning, telemedicine and online diagnosis, and online support groups and chatbot companions have had transformative impacts in the healthcare sector – both for stakeholders like venture capitalists and healthcare entrepreneurs and for healthcare users and audience. If you too are up for such a business venture in this part of the States, here is a quick guide about everything you need – from ideation to research to product development and testing to launch.
1. Generate a healthcare tech business idea
For a business in health tech, there are four main options that you can choose from:
Healthcare magazine
This could be a small-scale blog, a high-end online magazine, an academic journal or a research platform. With all of these options, your target audience changes, your niche becomes more specific and your monetization method also varies.
A blog can have readers like pregnant women. A research publication or academic journal will target researchers, scientists, medical professionals, nurses, and students. A magazine will have a bigger audience from students to doctors to general readers looking for tips to lose weight.
In this venture, your information and articles are the product and you can choose to sell them for free and earn through ads. Or, you can cover them behind a pay wall and ask for subscription.
Healthcare mobile application
Now this is a vast field and mobile apps are definitely at the forefront of technological revolution. To pursue this business model, you need to hire a healthcare app development company, brief them your app idea, complete development and publish your app on either Google Play, App store, browsers or all of them!
Some trending ideas for health applications include:
- Mental health apps like Calm and Headspace
- Chatbots like Wysa
- Diagnosis apps like Aysa
- Pill reminders
- Workout and fitness apps like AMJ Workplace Wellness
- Machine learning app like Calorie Mama AI
- Online consultancy and telemedicine apps
Apps need a robust technical architecture and take almost 3 to 5 months in development. They also need an average investment of $50,000. But once they are up and running, these apps prove to be the best revenue stream one could ever launch.
Online physical and mental health courses
This is a lightweight option and requires mental and financial investment that’s a median of a website and an app. You can choose to sell your pre-recorded courses on platforms like Udemy or create a fully-featured course store on Shopify.
The main difference lies in the monetization models. When you host on 3rd party website, you get to pay them the commissions, but you don’t pay for hosting, web development, customer service or for normal marketing and online payment. You do pay extra if you wish to run ads.
In the other option, you get more control on your selling platform’s user experience, the web design. But you need more energy and mental investment for this option. You can also choose to monetize your courses on a fixed price, or sell platform subscriptions allowing your users to access as much of information as they wish via a monthly membership payment. You don’t get to pay any commissions – but you build your store and that needs money!
2. Conduct market research
Once you know what idea you want to turn into a business venture, it’s time to research if such businesses exist, who your competitors are, how they are marketing and how much they are earning. For this research, you can check app stores, communities like Quora and Reddit and social channels like Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.
3. Create a business plan
After research, you get to write down how much you are ready to invest and what revenues you are expecting. Also quote the number of app or course downloads or website visitors you anticipate during the first year. Then write your sources of marketing and the budget you have allocated for this purpose.
4. Hire the right team
This is the part of the execution. Your team will depend on your product.
If you are up for a medical backend panel or an analytics system, you’ll need help from a healthcare developer that specializes in desktop software programming. They develop systems and embed them organization-wide.
If you want to go with a more business-friendly option like mobile apps, you can choose to work with any reputable mid to enterprise level app development companies in Chicago on remote or staff augmentation arrangements.
If you are up for the third, and the easiest venture like a healthcare magazine or blog, you can go as slow as starting a DIY WordPress website or as fast as creating a custom, high-end website with dedicated service pages, download section, online shopping features and blog areas. For this, you’ll need to write content yourself, or seek help from a professional SEO content writer with expertise or experience in healthcare and medical domains.
5. Test your product
This is highly important if you want to launch a product that provides an excellent user experience. with technical testing, like loading speed and bugs or viruses, also perform a community test. Ask your social groups, friends, family members and your neighbors to provide their feedback.
6. Market your product
Social media sites, community platforms and WordPress blogs are the best options to digitally market your health tech startup in 2022. You’ll need pages on Facebook and Instagram, a company profile on LinkedIn, a space on Medium and a small website with related articles to divert traffic to your product listing.
Wrapping Up…
Any business venture, whether tech or non-tech, medical or non-medical takes immense mental concentration, and financial resources before it finally becomes successful and starts yielding. All you need is the right idea, timely launch, a cooperative team and regular marketing to establish a revenue stream that your future self will be thankful for!