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Posted by Asako Tsumagari on 02 Sep 2007, |
Great! The idea has legs!
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Startup Concept Summary
This is a family care-giver social networking site where care-givers can help each other by exchanging care-giving tasks.
This is an idea I spent a few weeks considering to start myself. Then, I discussed the idea with a number of care-givers taking care of parents. Quickly, I decided to give up on this idea, as I could not figure out how to make it a business. So let me blog on. I even bought a domain name, http://www.care-exchange.com, for $8.95. If you got interested in an idea, I am happy to donate this blog name to you.
Background of This Startup Idea
According to National Alliance of Caregiving’s paper in April 2004, there are 44 million un-paid care-givers, 83% of which are taking care of family members. Average age of care-giver is 46 years old. It is a common challenge most of the middle age population is having. Here are some statistics of family care-givers:
The recent social trend is making care-giving more challenging for family members:
My ex-employer, Philips, had a great service called Lifeline. It is a medical alert button senior citizens can wear while they are alone at home. Senior citizens can reach a help even if they fell, away from phone. The demand to this service is exponentially increasing, and family care-givers are the active supporters of the service. The company has received so many thank you letters from family members for saving their parents in emergency.
However, beyond this, there are not many resources family care-givers can rely on. Community voluntary services do not help that much. Most family care-givers will be forced to hire a help and pay anywhere from $15/hr~ or $100/day~, depending on the situation. If you get 2 hrs help for your mom on the weekdays, that’s already $600~ a month, $7,200~ a year. This is a huge burden on the middle class family income. (You can look into the caregiverneeded.com to see how much it costs to get a help in your neighborhood) And what would they do for you? Most of activities are what family members can fulfill, if they are living together. It is a lot about spending time together and helping house choirs.
Now, the importance of the statistics earlier in this post comes in. If there are 44 million people carrying out care-giving roles, I am sure one out of every 6-7 households in your neighborhood and your mom’s neighborhood is experiencing the same issue with yours.
Why is it so difficult to find a help? It should be a mutual benefit to help each other. But in many cases, people are too busy to bump into neighbors, and even if they do, care-giving is a difficult topic, while chatting on the street. That’s why I think online social networking site to exchange a help based on locations, skills, or schedules would be a great need.
Strategy and Tips for care-exchange.com
1) Setting up a caregiver social networking site
Setting up a social networking site seems to be easy. I only knew sites like MySpace, Friendster, Facebook and LinkedIn, but according to a list on Wiki, wow, there are a lot.
In setting up a site, I would probably hire an expert, unless you are an avid software engineer. You can go to a place like guru.com and find a help. If you are not, but still want to try yourself, I heard you can easily create one on FaceBook. I am not a software expert, so from Googling, I found a list of social networking software:
LinkedIn clone platform: PHPizabi
Typical social networking platform (incl MySpace clone script): DZOIC, Xceog social networking, AlstraSoft eFriends
Setting up a site should be do-able. Here are the challenges that made me decide not to pursue this idea.
2) Sensitivity and difficulty to enroll target users
Most care-givers, whom I talked to, showed concerns to this idea as follow:
In addition, care-givers are mostly above 40 years old, and they are at this moment not the core audience of social networking or blogging. So to bring these folks into the site, it requires a significant marketing effort to 1) create awareness, and 2) create an importance to convince people it is a good idea to sign up. You need to focus on one city in one State in the early phase, call up all senior services and home health agencies in the city to get them a part of the services / networks to endorse the site and encourage care-givers to sign up. If you could not quickly achieve a critical mass in one local market, people will not come back to the site, and that is the end of the story.
3) Not clear how to make revenue….
In the first place, my idea was to help burdens of these care-givers. If we charge them, it is not very consistent with the philosophy of the proposition. The business model is limited to 1) online advertisement of care-giving related products and services (medical products, pharmaceuticals, and home health agencies), and maybe, 2) paid premium services. Do you have any other ideas?
Who Should Pursue This Startup Idea?
If you had the past experience of setting up any social networking site, you got a skill to get this service up very quickly. You would like to find someone in the Senior Service industry to implement the functionalities right. Also you would like to involve a few friends who are struggling with care-giving as the test users in the initial phase.
Good luck!
Comments for "www.care-exchange.com"
06 Sep 2007 at 01:13 AM
This is a brilliant idea Asako. We are facing a similar situation over here in the UK.
As for how to work it - I’m not sure. What about a low monthly fee, so you’re still helping these people to save money. Or, perhaps it could be set up as a complimentary service by a business who already caters to the same consumers.
I also think your idea of monetising the business through paid advertising from pharmaceuticals, health agencies etc is a brilliant idea.
06 Sep 2007 at 10:40 PM
Thank you, Catherine. I heard that in UK NHS is investing a lot of money into Telecare to help the situation. I just thought, maybe, the government is another target?
08 Jul 2009 at 10:33 AM
I have a daughter that is 4 and she has a lot of learning disabilities and we are not sure what they all are she has had one assessment and they are working on more so we will just have to wait and she what is going to happen and I think that it would be nice to hear from other parents that have gone through something of the same nature. I hope that this is fine of me answering this ? comment in the manner that I have chosen.
29 Jul 2009 at 09:14 PM
Unfortunately some of the most needy are those that don’t use social networking or blogging. I don’t know how you would make money off it and I don’t know how those who are receiving care are going to feel about being passed off to some stranger.
02 Sep 2009 at 08:01 AM
@ Fat Loss- We have a 7 year old and have been in the SPED system with Aspegers and ADHD since our son was nearly 4. Feel free to contact me off-list. Be happy to help answer any questions you may have. inquiry AT elmcitybeat DOT com
@ Asako - Sounds like Time Banks but still unclear as to how to make $ other than ads or affiliate marketing....hmmmm....let me roll that one around a bit. It has lots of potential.
22 Sep 2009 at 08:53 AM
I think that it would be nice to hear from other parents that have gone through something of the same nature.
22 Sep 2009 at 05:44 PM
Yes it has to be certified because the military wants to make sure that all parties are aware of the plan and what it means. Please make sure that you have a good working family care plan and that you are not leaving kids with a 90 year old great grandmother.
28 Sep 2009 at 10:29 PM
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A lot of people and organizations are willing to help anyway they can, but the student has to make the first steps and take responsibility for the ultimate result.
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I like your post. Thanks for sharing with us. Now i am just waiting for your next article. I hope that will be more interesting. Thanks.
13 Nov 2009 at 08:51 AM
i am replying to the one comment above regarding disabilities in kids.. thankfully i havent had any experience with this, and god forbid, i wont be able to bear the pain
23 Nov 2009 at 05:03 AM
same here.. i think it is the biggest pain a person can have…
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