Herewith
As the CDO & Founder of Herewith, I learned about building product from zero. I had the opportunity to lead the team through a pivot, defining its product and go-to-market strategy.
What started as a mission to build a VUI-driven mobile operating system that respects human attention (Quoori) became an opportunity to found a home care startup to bring care home for families. I helped shape the business model, go-to-market strategy, and initial product approach. In addition, I built a research function into the design team to ground product development on customer insight. Finally, I secured initial funding and continue to serve as an advisor.
Product Strategy
Elder care is $1.1T marketplace that forces families into expensive, sub-par experiences:
80%
Of elders want to age in place in the comfort of their homes.
5x
More job growth in the home health industry from 2012-2022 than the economy at large.
19%
Of the population by 2030 will be older adults.
Families can spend anywhere from $70k-$140k a year sending their parents into nursing homes only to receive what is often poor care. Yet, for those caring for their parents on their own, there wasn't one product to hire, manage, and monitor the health of elders until Herewith. This discovery led to the three pillars of Herewith's product strategy: Care Services, Care Journal, and Care Insights.
Care Services.
One of the critical issues with home care is ensuring that older adults are well-matched with their caregivers. A poor match is terrible for both the elder and the caregiver. We researched the best methods and found that short, templated videos were the most effective. Templated video profiles and AI-matching technology make the process simple and efficient, offering peace of mind in an otherwise stressful situation.
Care Journal
Another central pain point with caregiving is assigning and managing care tasks. Usually, this is done across different chat apps, spreadsheets or by phone. The Caregiver and Family app solves this problem by creating an easy way to see task assignments, one place to communicate between caregivers and family, and an instant way to receive payment as soon as their shift is complete.
Care Insights
One of the most significant pain points families experience is knowing where their parents are and whether they have fallen. Herewith non-invasive monitoring technology allows customers to check the location and status of their parents quickly.
Brand Strategy
Meeting the pain points or families with the promise of “hereness.”
We heard from customers that caring for their parents and immediate families was a lonely and overwhelming experience. Herewith's name, vision, and product experience revolve around the concept of "hereness"—the relief associated with the presence of care. Live support, in-app caregiver guidance, and personality matching are some of the ways Herewith delivers on its promise. The result is a seamless caregiving experience and a memorable and resonating brand with a solid performance in acquisition campaigns.
We chose the compositional motif of a Canopy to visually illustrate the concept of “hereness.” What follows are some notional concepts of how it might come to life when they launch their marketing campaign.
Brand manifesto video and all initial branding seen here produced by the Herewith team with help from Joan Pons, and Jeremy Mickel.