Venture Concept No. 1

Approximately 40 million adults in the United States today have been diagnosed with some kind of anxiety disorder. Basically anxiety is a mental illness that causes the brain to release adrenaline in the body at random times, which can cause panic attacks. These panic attacks are scary, and often make people feel isolated and alone. Among college students, the diagnoses of anxiety and depression disorders are skyrocketing, mostly due to the increased amounts of stress from school work. There have even been reports of college students whose anxiety developed into schizophrenia. As of right now, people with anxiety are relying on doctors and therapists to manage their illness. This illness will always be in existence, so this opportunity will always be there. In addition, being someone who has been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, I can definitely attest to the fact that there is a surprising lack of services out there dedicated to helping people manage their illness. My business concept centers around this question: What if there was a mobile application that will allow these millions of people all over the country to manage their illness at their fingertips?

My innovation to answer this question is an app called MyCalm. MyCalm is an anxiety-relieving app that is dedicated to helping people with anxiety disorders manage their disease. Upon opening the app, the user encounters a menu with all the options available. Options include: a 5-step calming process, a 24 hour help line, classical music, nature scenes, calming games, and a social media function to allow people with anxiety to connect with others and build a support group. The app is tailored to any kind of help the user needs. Therapists will be on standby on the help line in case the user needs to be talked through a panic attack, the 5-step calming process helps people in the midst of a panic attack, and the other functions provide the user with a more laid-back stress relieving experience. The app will cost 99 cents in the App Store. There will also be advertisements to help with making money as well, with an upgradeable version that will cost $1.99 without advertisements.

MyCalm will help people with anxiety in major ways. Often, people who have anxiety will feel lost because they do not know how to control their thoughts. MyCalm not only provides ways to manage their illness, it provides them with a support group as well; something that they would not normally have otherwise. Customers will switch to this product because there really isn’t another comparable service out there. MyCalm is a simple and organized way for people to manage their illness effectively. Because of this need, I don’t think it would be very hard at all to get people on board with my product. Competitors are slim, and none of them have 24 hour help lines or social media functions, which is a big weakness on their part. Packaging and the business location won’t play a huge role in my venture because it is a service. However, customer support would play a huge role because the services we provide are tailored to people’s specific needs in terms of their illness. Customers will have a chance to submit reviews on the app as well as contact a customer service representative in case the services are not to their liking. My business forming from this app would include coders to provide maintenance on the app, researchers to keep up with trends in mental health, and directors and other leadership positions to implement changes to the app. Numbers of employees could reach pretty high depending on how popular the app would get.

I think my most important resource is my passion. Being someone who has anxiety, I am able to connect on a personal level with my customers. I know exactly what is proven to work and what doesn’t. I know exactly what it feels like to feel alone with your illness, and I want to eliminate this terrible feeling for as many people as I can. This passion fuels my business venture in that I will do whatever it takes to help my target customers in any way that I can.

The next step for the venture would be to add a separate function in the app for doctor use. Here, the doctor can make schedules for breathing exercises, or even keep track of the patient’s progress as they continue to use the app. Making the app compatible with doctors can be a huge help because the doctor can more effectively understand the patient’s day-to-day calming practices.

In five years, I would really like to be reaching at least 1 million users. Through extensive outreach and advertising to doctors and patients alike, I really think I can reach this goal. In the next decade, I would really like to be reaching 5 million or more users. As an entrepreneur, I would like to be running MyCalm at a national level with my app available across all kinds of devices. In the next decade I would even like to have the potential to expand this internationally so I can continue to help people manage their anxiety around the world.