The Authentic Body
The Problem
The owner of The Authentic Body, a small business that specializes in holistic wellness through yoga and flower essences gave us four months to conduct research and come up with a strategy in response to the challenge: How can we create a viable business model for The Authentic Body that allows it to scale and become the basis to inspire and unite a community.
The Solution
A Co-Working Healing Space
The Authentic Body owns the space, but rents space to various types of healing practitioners. Together, they can unite the fragmented market of natural healing and create a community of people supporting each other through their healing journey. Think of a WeWork for only holistic practices.
Key Responsibilities
Business Strategy & Design, User Research, Personas, Financial Modeling
Landscape Analysis
The fractured nature of holistic wellness lends itself to be wildly misunderstood by the average person. However, although there are an infinite amount of words to describe it, they all mean the same thing: healing.
Future Forces
Trends that will affect the future of the holistic wellness space.
Sharing Economy
Assets or services are shared between private individuals and businesses.
Holistic hippie
Wellness of the mind, body, and soul as a lifestyle.
All Natural
A pull towards nature, organic ingredients, human interactions and healthy practices.
Key Insights
1. The healing journey is greatly improved with a sense of community and support from others who have had similar experiences.
2. People turn to holistic wellness because traditional medicine is too general for their needs and want something more tailored to their situation.
3. People who seek out holistic wellness solutions require a level of education around the options to prevent confusion and frustration.
4. Healing conditions that are not able to be helped through traditional medicine requires a level of trust and patience with the alternative methods.
Personas
Aquila, 33
Independent Practitioner
Aquila is a new independent practitioner and single mom. She combines yoga, dance, and positive affirmations creating her own style of practice. Unfortunately, her venture hasn't been getting as much support as she had hoped. Instead, she's decided she needs to find a place with diversity that lets her teach her passion and reach more clients.
Karen, 23
New to Holistic Wellness
Karen is a student and is currently navigating her own healing journey. She has recently discovered and autoimmune disorder that has taken a toll on her health and is tired of western medicine not working. She started looking into holistic medicine but doesn't know where to start. She needs a place or community that she can trust and will help her learn as she finds her way.
Insights to Opportunities
Inclusive Experience
Inclusive healing means everything is treatable. Imagine a world where nothing is not treatable. Whether it be physical ailment or mental trauma there is a plan to provide an experience for everyone. No one gets left behind.
Personalized Plans
Everyone has their own journey, nothing is generic. Imagine a world where nothing is standard. There is no standard on health and everyone’s body reacts differently to treatment. What if there were ways to personalize the journey to health through technology and consultation.
Member Amenities
There are perks to anything, but membership is more like unlimited access to our community. Imagine a world where your spiritual, mental and physical health are linked. Becoming a member means and exclusive journey to health with the guidance of a practitioner. Receive extra sessions, or fitness points towards classes. What if we reinvent the system of a fitness center so it links your health.
Network of Health
Connections are everything, except when it relates to health. We strive to connect the dots and people together. Imagine a world with a network of real people who have similar ailments. What if we linked our community with a network that allowed people to share their experiences and remedies that they literally live by.
Assumption Testing
Will practitioners join?
We posted an ad on Facebook that linked to a fake landing page letting people in the San Francisco Area know that The Healing House was coming their way and then gave them a place to give their email to be notified when it opens.
The Answer: YES! The average click rate for Facebook ads is 2% and we exceeded that with a 1-week trial focused in the bay area. A step farther, people were even willing to give their email to a business that doesn't even exist yet because they are excited to be apart of it.
Membership or pay-as-you-go?
Our biggest assumption: People would want to pay per visit because they don't frequent the service very often
What we learned: People want a membership or a bulk subscription to encourage them to take care of themselves more regularly
What services will we offer?
We built a deck of cards with a wide variety of natural healing practices and gave them to potential customers and independent practitioners to build their ideal healing center. We also asked them to rank their top and bottom 2 healing practices.
80% of practitioners and consumers believe the ideal healing center should address
MIND, BODY, AND SPIRIT