Comparing Four Health Start Up Accelerators

November 10, 2011 · 0 comments

Abstract Map of the U.S. with four Health Start-Up Accelerators

The Start-Up Accelerator phenomenon is sweeping the nation, and it’s spread into the world of consumer health technology. With deadlines for 2012 approaching, I spent the other night researching and watching the Bloomberg TechStars documentary on this past class of tech start-ups. Sidebar: I totally recommend watching the series, whether you know what a tech start-up accelerator is or not.

I have been interested in the emergence of the specialized health start-up accelerator, for a while now. It seems to be a given that start-up accelerators help entrepreneurs, develop products, refine pitches and connect to money.  Let’s take a closer look:

TODAY’S MAJOR PLAYERS

 

healthbox logo

 

 

Healthbox is based in Chicago, IL and is no longer accepting applications for their inaugural class of 10 health start-ups. Selected teams will receive $50,000 and give up a 7% equity stake to be a part of the program, that is scheduled to begin in January 2012 and last for three months.  On a consumer to health spectrum, program mentors seem to skew heavily toward having digital health backgrounds.

Rock Health Logo

 

 

 

Rock Health is based in San Fransisco, CA and is accepting applications through November 16, 2011, to be a part of their second class of 10 health start-ups. Selected teams will receive a $20,000 grant and give up a 0% equity stake to be a part of the program, that is scheduled to begin in January 2012 and last for five months. On a consumer to health spectrum, program mentors seem to be mixed between digital consumer and and digital health backgrounds.

blueprint logo

 

 

 

Blueprint Health is based in New York, NY and is accepting applications through November 13, 2011, to be a part of their inaugural class of 10 health start-ups. Selected teams will receive $20,000 and give up a 6% equity stake to be a part of the program, that is scheduled to begin in January 2012 and last three months. On a consumer to health spectrum, program mentors seem to skew heavily toward having digital health backgrounds.

SXSW Accelerator Logo

 

 

 

SXSW Health Accelerator is based in Austin, TX and is accepting applications through November 18, 2011, to be a part of their inaugural class of 8 health start-ups. Selected teams will receive $0 and give up a 0% equity stake to be a part of the program, that is scheduled to take place on March 12 and March 13, 2012. There is no mentorship involved in this program, as it is geared to only represent the investor pitch portion of traditional start-up accelerators. (Disclosure Alert: I’m on the 2012 SXSW Accelerator Advisory Board)

Health Start Up Accelerators Are Not Created Equal

What I found interesting, when looking at these health start-up accelerator programs together, was how they differed in three key areas: timeline, seed investment capital & ownership and the backgrounds of the mentors involved. If you don’t want to give up any of your company to make connections then Rock Health and South by Southwest may be more for you. If you want double the money at a slightly higher equity stake, then I hope you got your application into Healthbox on time. If you want consumer web mentors, then Rock Health, or any of the traditional start-up accelerators may be more for you.

It’s definitely exciting times for consumer health start-ups, and I’m contemplating taking a more active role in researching this space. What do you think about it?

 

 

U.S. Map by Ian Latchmansingh

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SXSW Health Accelerator 2012

October 27, 2011 · 1 comment

I’m on the South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) 2012 Health Accelerator Advisory Board and we’re looking to recruit interactive health start-ups to pitch their products. SXSW is accepting applications for its Accelerator pitch event on March 12 and 13, with a submission deadline of Friday, November 18, 2011. This is the fourth year of the event and the first year that a category for health technology start-ups has been included. Prior years showcased big name judges like Tim Draper of DFJ, Chris Hughes of Facebook, Paul Graham of Y Combinator, Craig Newmark of Craiglist, Robert Scoble of Scobleizer, Jeff Pulver of 140 Conference, Chris Shipley of Demo, and Tom Conrad of Pandora.

SXSW Logo 2012

Here is a link to the details and the application process, CLICK ME LINK, or browse below for a quick check to gauge your interest. Also, feel free to reach out to me, hallicious [at] gmail [dot] com, with specific questions or concerns about the application fee.

DEVIL IN THE DETAILS

Health Technologies: This category is about patient-centric health applications and technologies that connect patients, families, physicians, pharmacists, care providers (hospitals, clinics) and benefit providers – aka the care team – to share timely, relevant health data and drive better outcomes at affordable and sustainable cost levels.

Eligibility


  • A company’s product / service must have launched no earlier than March, 13, 2011.
  • A company’s product / service must not be launched after June 13, 2012.
  • Companies will be allowed to submit only one product / services to the SXSW Accelerator event. Companies who submit more than one product / services will not be eligible to participate in the SXSW Accelerator event.
  • Founders of the applying startup must retain some portion of ownership in the company to be eligible to participate.
  • Must not have raised over five million in funds from combined funding sources.
  • Product or service must fall within one of the following categories below.

Confidentiality

All preliminary application information that is submitted is confidential and will be only viewed by SXSW Music staff and the selected judging panelist.

Application Fee


A non-refundable $175 entry fee is required from all applicants who would like to be considered for participation in the event. All Accelerator entrants will be given the chance to register to attend SXSW Interactive at the lowest earlybird rate, if they are not chosen as an Accelerator finalist.

PRIME EXAMPLE

I spent some time on YouTube today, viewing last year’s presentations and have to say that if  you’re planning on submitting and giving your pitch, do yourself a favor and watch Hipmunk’s Adam Goldstein dazzle the panel of judges with his presentation. The data visualization nerd in me also found their approach to displaying travel data to be especially good. You’re welcome.

 

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Little Dialers Twitter Spam?

October 25, 2011 · 2 comments

Fake Amazon SiteI was optimizing my Google Reader feeds this morning and I happened to check up on my LittleDialers listening station. Little Dialers is an app that I designed and financed the development of to teach my, then four year old, daughter an emergency phone number. You can read the behind the music here and see what people said about it here.

Long story short, my daughter rapidly learned her mom’s cell phone number and a bunch of my friends’ kids had similar results, but it never “took off” in the app store. I think I may have broke 200 downloads over the course of two months, which is definitely less than my strike it rich gold-rush app store aspirations. So it served its purpose in A. Teaching my daughter a phone number and how to use the phone in general and B. Teaching me about app development and promotion by doing…

The key takeaway here is that I haven’t even thought about promoting it since around the May timeframe.

So you can imagine my surprise this morning when I saw that three twitter accounts randomly promoted my LittleDialers app to actual Twitter users. (pic of one of the tweets below) The best part is that they’re using the name Little Dialers in the tweet but linking to a fake Amazon site to try to get people to buy iPhones, I guess? (screen shot above)

I’m writing this post, for the record, so that nobody thinks that I am a part of this scheme in any way. I am not. Since one account has been suspended, it appears as though the problem may be taking care of itself, but I don’t know that I have any way of stopping this in the future. If you have any ideas or comments, let them rip below.

spam tweet to a twitter user

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Mobile Health – Kantine

October 20, 2011 · 0 comments

Title Screen Shot of Kantine, Unreleased iPhone App

I’m working on an iPhone app that will allow me to test a hypothesis I have regarding mobile health. I spent the last year and change of my life working on a mobile mood tracking product that reminded people to check-in to how they’re feeling on a daily basis. I was published as a co-author of a paper in the Journal of Participatory Medicine because that product worked really well. I’m also still getting phone calls about it, despite the fact that I no longer have an affiliation with it.

So I’m continuing my exploration of this basic idea with Kantine. I have designed the app, am working on the screens and it is currently in development with a release scheduled for the Holiday Season. Please connect with me on Twitter if you’re interested in learning more.

 

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Public Health and Design

October 17, 2011 · 0 comments

I volunteered to put some posters together during Vaccination Awareness month this year as part of the #hcsmvac crew and I had a pretty good time of it. I followed a photoshop tutorial to make one design and attached a Google Map to a QR code for the other design. You can get the full story and find out how to do it yourself by clicking here.

This experience first led me to think about the intersection of public health and design. I realize that really smart people are already thinking about this, but that hasn’t stopped me from applying my brain power as well. The angle that is interesting to me specifically, is what if public health messages were cool enough to be put on T-shirts that people actually wore around. This wasn’t exactly all my idea, although I’ve been into T-shirt design for some time. I attended this year’s e-Patient Connections conference and saw what Zemoga and PSFK have done with UNICEF with regards to public health messages on shirts. See slide 7 for a visual.

And that gave me the idea to try to put something together myself:

Three Step Process to the Breast Self Exam

It wasn’t until after I put the design together that I learned about Pinkwashing and that Breast Self Exams aren’t as effective as once thought. Thanks to my friend Veronica Combs and to Katherine O’Brien for the education. That being said, I’m glad I put it together because it has helped me to imagine what could be… Not just with breast cancer, but with public health in general. I am inspired by both the design of Otl Aicher and the concept of information visualization… and now I’m thinking of of what’s next.

What do you think?

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