Boston • New York • Detroit
Boston • New York • Detroit
Healtheo360 was an early social network for people living with serious health conditions, among them diabetes and breast cancer. What we found was consistent: people facing these diagnoses wanted to hear from others in the same position and wanted somewhere to share their own experience with a community that understood it. The large platforms weren’t built for that. Healtheo360 was a dedicated place for sensitive health information, where members told their stories through video and journaling, with a companion app that let them record and manage those stories from anywhere.
The problem was every conversation that followed the product. Investors, partners, and press all opened the same way: Do you have a million members? The honest answer was no, and a number that small ended most conversations before the platform could be understood.
We couldn’t grow the membership fast enough to win that question. What we could do was change which question got asked.
There was no version of this where we claimed a million members. Inflating it, deferring the question, or burying it in a deck would all have cost more credibility than the number itself did. So we said it plainly and moved the conversation.
Total membership was the weakest number the platform had. Growth rate, repeat visitation, time on site, and content growth were all genuinely good — and for a community platform, they say more about health than a headcount does. A network doubling every month is a different story than a small network.
We built the narrative around membership doubling or tripling month over month, and around members who kept coming back and kept contributing. That framing held people’s attention long enough for the platform to be understood on its own terms — and long enough for the membership to catch up.
The platform grew from twenty-five members to a high six-figure membership. Repeat visitation and time on site held up as it scaled, which mattered more than the raw count. A community that people return to is worth more than one they join and leave.
That membership attracted meaningful revenue opportunities, and Healtheo360 became a trusted place for people with serious conditions to find each other. The number everyone wanted to hear arrived eventually. It didn’t get them there.
Thirty minutes. Bring the business. Leave with the one thing worth building everything else around.
Find your Right Angle