Isbel & Co: Building A Women’s Health Service

CONTEXT: Isbel and Co., was a digital healthcare startup led by a team of 3 women, out to make a positive difference in the world of sex and intimacy for women.

THE FINAL PRODUCT: A digital service, called a Care Package, which provided a holistic approach to women’s sex and relationship questions by bringing together a Care Team of a medical professional, sex and relationship therapist, and sex educator. This is the product that we won the NextWomen Pitch competition for 20,000 Euro.

INTERESTING FINDINGS: 

1. While there was a user need for our product, there was not a willingness to pay. Through market research and user interviews, one reason we found was that women are not used to paying for sexual and relationship help. In contrast, women are used to paying routinely for a gym or hair care.

2. Our delivery team members (medical professionals, therapists, and educators) wanted to work for Isbel & Co., for two reasons. 1) Often professionals who train in the sexual health space are passionate about the subject, but don’t get to work with clientele on sexual health concerns. In working for us, they saw an opportunity to do more meaningful work. 2) They saw working on a contract, per care consult basis, was a great way to supplement their 9-5 job.

3. Potential clients saw us as more credible when they read that our product was based on a therapeutic method (SFBT -solution focused brief therapy). Featuring SFBT heavily on our website created significant buy-in to our product.

research activities

The big gap

We recognized a major gap - there is a lot less we know about female pleasure than male pleasure. Take a few stats I found doing a lit review:

1. Viagra, the first oral treatment for erectile disfunction was introduced in 1998, while Addyi, the first oral treatment for low female sex drive was introduced in 2015. Notice that time gap.

2. From 1990 to 1999, there were 4,936 studies done on male sexual dysfunction compared with 1,993 studies on female sexual dysfunction (1). We just don’t know as much about female pleasure.

3. In one study done on recognizing the difference between pleasure and pain faces, participants showed were most accurate when it came to identifying female faces of pain, but the least accurate at identifying females faces of sexual pleasure (2). Something seems wrong with this picture.

References:

(1) Whipple, B. (2002). Women's sexual pleasure and satisfaction: A new view of female sexual function. Female Patient, 27(8), 44.

(2) Hughes, S. M., & Nicholson, S. E. (2008). Sex differences in the assessment of pain versus sexual pleasure facial expressions. Journal of Social, Evolutionary, and Cultural Psychology, 2(4), 289.

COMPETITIVE RESEARCH

Depending on the iteration we were working on, we had different competitors. Our final product had brick and mortar competitors like talk therapy and doctor visits or digital competitors like BetterHelp, TalkSpace, Planned Parenthood’s Ask Roo, and OkaySo.

Our Unique Selling Points:

1. Not one of these competitors was doing what we were doing, using the holistic approach of matching each client with a Care Team of Therapist, Medical Professional, and Sex Educator.

2. We drew heavily from a therapeutic style called Solution Focused Brief Therapy.

3. The Care Package was a high end, subscription based product.

USER RESEARCH: INTERVIEWING THE PRACTITIONERS

In 2014 I took on interviewing practitioners. We wanted to know what barriers clinicians were experiencing. I randomly sampled the American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors, and Therapists (AASECT) Certified list of practitioners. In 2014, when I was conducting this study, in the US, there were:

• 110 Sex certified Educators

• 765 Sex certified therapists

• 61 Sexual Health certified Counselors (these could be nurses or school health admins etc)

I wanted to interview 5 from each category, and so began emailed 10 practitioners from each category, hoping for a 50% response rate. I was able to interview 15 practitioners in total. After synthesizing the results, there were two clear pain points:

• Practitioners did not have access to the sexual health clientele they wanted to work with. While they all had advanced degrees, very few were able to work with sexual health clientele full time. For examples, the therapists’ patients were primarily regular mental health clients, not clients with specific sexual health or relationship concerns.

• The majority of practitioners felt passionate about working with sexual health clients and wanted to make a\ bigger impact. If they could have access to more clients, they would work for less money.

THE PROBLEM Statement

How might we give women access to proper sex and relationship care while giving sexual health experts access to their preferred clientele.

FINDING THE ENTRY POINT - Creating a Relationship Timeline

To find the entry point, one way we looked at the opportunity was to create a Relationship Timeline to locate the biggest pain points women have. I wanted the Relationship Timeline to encompass the entire experience a woman has regarding relationships. Here’s how it goes:

1. Have the thought “I’d like to be in a relationship”

2. First interaction

3. Firsts (e.g. kiss, sex, fight, meeting the parents, holiday parties together, attending weddings together)

4. Label the relationship (GF, BF, Partners)

5. Make commitments to each other (e.g. agree upon monogamy/non-monogamy)

6. Create plans together (travel, move in together)

7. Long-term commitments together (get a dog/cat, have a child, start a family, buy a house together, create long-term financial goals together)

8. Complete the relationship (someone dies, infidelity, one breaks up with another, mutual decision)

9. When you say you are over that person

In looking at the relationship structure in this way, we cross referenced the qualitative data from surveys and interviews we conducted with women. We noticed that women were most likely to pay for relationship help at #1 and #8 because she had to feel significant distraught before reaching out for help and guidance.

The Pilot

For one month, we recruited participants using facebook ads to take a screener and opt in for our free pilot. Out of the 41 screener participants, 24 people took part in the Pilot over the next two months. From survey results and interviews, we found a 90% net promotor score and 60% re-purchase rating.

Usability testing

As we began to build out our website, work with a UX Designer, and an app development team, we wanted to make sure we had a solid foundation for what the product should look like. To do this we usability tested the UX copy and website over zoom with 6 potential clients.

The recruits: We began by recruiting via facebook ads and using an Amazon gift card reward to incentivize women between 24 and 62 who were early adopters and regularly purchased monthly subscription services.

My role: I was on all of the calls either taking notes or leading the call.

The research plan: I can’t share the detail of our research script, but here are some of the questions we wanted answers to:

• Did the copy on our website accurately explain what the service was? Did our conceptual model fit our user’s mental model?

• Was there an easier or shorter way to explain what our product was?

• How much would she pay for a service like this?

• Was this something she would use?

• Did each web page make sense to her?

• What is the value she saw for herself in using our product?

Personal Growth Learnings

1. Ultimately we did not move forward with this product. Sometimes you need to pivot in life to be able to learn and grow from an amazing experience.

2. I learned how to do UX Research on the job at Isbel & Co., and was able to learn from expert colleagues in product manager/innovations strategy and marketing in real time, on the job. I am incredibly grateful for this.

3. It’s not enough to be passionate about something

4. Iterate, do paper sketching, and put time into lo-fidelity mockups of a service or product. Nothing needs to be perfect. Trying to make everything perfect will slow you and your team down.

5. Bring up the difficult conversations - they’re worth it. Make sure to schedule in some fun times and team building exercises to invest in your people.

6. Move quickly and fail fast. 5 years is too long for a startup.

7. If someone isn’t following through on their commitments, call them on it.

8. It’s possible to successfully work remotely with teams of people in different time zones.