Hello everyone! Sorry for the delay since my last update, but not much has changed since the last one. I've highlighted the new developments below.
New Members to the MAB
We're pleased to welcome Corinne Tipton and Omer Shahab to our Medical Advisory Board. Corinne is a BSN and RN affiliated with ProMedica, and Omer is an MD with Inova Health System. We're honored to have them involved with our project and look forward to working with them as the product emerges!
Development Work
So we're still soliciting bids for the creation of our product. Currently, we've involved three companies in the process. Two reside in the Chicagoland area, and one is based in India. We have a written proposal and quote from the Indian company, and have an initial pricing estimate from one of the Chicago companies. Still waiting on the third, but we're going back and forth on technical design details, so I'm expecting something within a few weeks. It's been a slightly slower process than I'd like, but at the same time, it makes sense considering the difficulty of operating in the American healthcare space. There's a lot to get right and a lot of regulations to abide by, so that's the way it goes.
In terms of pricing, the Chicagoland company we have an initial estimate from is well outside of what we wanted to pay. Accepting them would mean we'd run through our funding in less than half a year, and - excuse me for the sudden shock here - that's bad. Further, I don't get the vibe they have as much healthcare experience as we would like. The Indian company is much more reasonable. I'm hoping to have a final decision made by the end of February.
The Crypto Crash
I'm sure all of you have noticed what's been happening in the crypto market recently. I made an executive decision to hold on to everything as crypto, and turns out that was a bit of a mistake. I wholeheartedly believe in the crypto space, but it puts us in a difficult position. Essentially, we'd be forced to liquidate our crowdsale holdings at fire-sale prices in order to pay for the development work. Either that, or we hold on for a few months in the hopes that the prices recover a bit more. In the meantime, we focus on rebranding, getting new logos, a new website, and all the other fun stuff that we're working on.
I am leaning to start liquidating crypto anyway, the minimum required to pay our bills. Sure, it sucks to have to sell cheaply, but our obligation to our contributors is significantly more important. We owe you a product and will deliver on that promise. But with the reality of the markets now, development may be slower than we like, or the MVP may not be as fully featured as we want. Regardless, we will proceed with the dev work and make this happen.
Rebranding Efforts
Jonathan has been working on coming up with new ideas for our company name, motif, and design. We're scheduled to have our first touchpoint tomorrow, and should have a final decision by the 16th. We're generally going for a name that's completely unique, and that evokes an impression of both authority and friendliness. I'm not a big fan of names that give you the fun, playful, tech startup vibe. Sure, I like the impression, but we're a healthcare company. We're dealing with patients' lives here, so something with a bit more gravitas works better. Nor do we want to be pass-out-and-fall-out-of-your-chair boring or droll. We're doing exciting things here too. See the struggle, balancing on that fine line? I'm glad Jonathan's doing it; he's much more talented in that than I am :) We'll keep you posted on our final decision.
That should be it for now. As always, you can reach out to me via email or on Twitter, @keewenaw. Take care!