COUPLECARE TAKING AIM AT FERTILITY AS A TEAM
QUICK PITCH: CoupleCare is a startup that developed the first app platform that guides couples to track fertility as a team.
THE BUSINESS: Starting your family is one of the most exciting times of your life. Having a child ranks as one of the most life-changing and rewarding decisions you will ever make. There are over 4.2 million births in the United States each year and 136 million worldwide. For some lucky couples, the road to parenthood is smooth and short. Unfortunately, a lot of couples especially between the ages of 35 – 45 years old, find the road is filled with anxiety and stress as they discover getting pregnant is more difficult and takes longer than they originally thought. CoupleCare offers an innovation solution that equips both men and women with the knowledge needed to make the journey to parenthood worry free and successful as a team.
THE “AHA” MOMENT: Many of our friends back in Mexico are at the age where they are getting married and starting families. For many, it’s not that easy. Infertility is a problem that affects both men and women everywhere in the world. Although estimates of prevalence rates of infertility are not that accurate, and vary among countries and different populations within countries, world wide about 8% -12% of couples experience some form of fertility problems or lack of knowledge during their reproductive lives. 50-80 million of the populations globally have problem with fertility. Despite the fact that infertility or lack of knowledge affects both men and women, yet women, particularly, often bear the sole responsibility and/or blame for the barren marriage.
HOW IT MAKES MONEY: CoupleCare is free for users who download the app. There are two business models for CoupleCare — subscription and sponsorship. In the subscription model, the family pays zero for downloading the application. CoupleCare makes it completely free for users to benefit from our tips and suggestions to enhance fertility. In the sponsorship model, revenue is derived from advertisements or E-commerce solution shown to our members.
BUSINESS IT COULD DISRUPT: Today, many couples go to fertility clinics or specialist for help or consultation with starting a family. This can be costly, time consuming as well as stressful when just trying to understand the basics. CoupleCare is a healthcare platform designed to leverage mobile technology and maximize efforts for couples to conceive. The solution connects both men and women to work together and provides them with steps to parenthood. The solution begins with the basics of ovulation – the foundation to conceiving. CoupleCare complements their healthcare provider by helping couples track, monitor and manage the monthly ovulation cycle. Through our interactive solution, CoupleCare will identify nutritional and health tips for both men and women to enhance fertility. We also provide fun tips, reminders, alerts and checklists that couples can easily follow and refer to through their journey of starting a family. CoupleCare maximizes efforts and provides knowledge needed to achieve fertility success.
MARKET SIZE: Just in the United States, we have statistics that tell us that 62 million women are in their childbearing years. 6.7 million has problems to get pregnant and 1.5 million of married women are infertile (have more than 12 months trying to get pregnant with unprotected sex with their husbands). Also, 7.2 million women each year pass through fertility treatments, and we know talking directly to some of them that in the majority of the cases they pass through treatments because the lack of information or another solution to try before. There is a big market where a lot of women who are professionals over 30 years old want to start planning a family. This is harder for them because of the age factor so they need to keep track in a more specific way and try to reduce stress. That’s where CoupleCare comes in.
LIKELY COMPETITORS: There are existing fertility apps where most of them are focused on women only. There are many apps that are working with freemium models or charging extra for simple features that users don’t need or want to pay.
PARTNERSHIPS OR COLLABORATIONS: CoupleCare is currently a participant of The Bay Area NSF Innovation Corps at UC Berkeley and a member of the 2nd cohort of the Manos Accelerator in Silicon Valley. CoupleCare is also in talks with major family planning organizations as well as fertility experts in the healthcare industry. If you are interested in speaking to CoupleCare with regards to potential partnerships or collaborations, please contact sebastian@couplecare.us.
MANAGEMENT TEAM: Sebastián Abramowicz, Alonso Salcido and Alfredo Reyes.
RANDOM QUESTIONS FOR COUPLECARE:
Who are your role models? Answer: Our family has always supported us and guided us on our paths with different lessons and experiences to share and teach us about life.
What’s the best thing about being an entrepreneur? Answer: Feel free, get to know new people and create your own future the way you want.
What’s the best advice that anyone has given you? Answer: Everything happens for a reason, don’t let opportunities pass you by and cease the moment when faced with challenges.
What advice would you give to others? Answer: The team is most important than the individual and stay together during thick and thin. Always be open to feedback and be a student of life.
Quick Pitch features most innovative early-stage startups founded by Latino entrepreneurs from the Manos Accelerator program. It profiles company pitches, interviews and guest columns by experts in the startup scene. For more information, go to www.manosaccelerator.com.
