Online Psychologist - Getting Started

    In this series of posts you can see the history of the creation and development of the Internet project, which so far can be briefly described as an “Online Psychologist” . But this will not be just a “story”, but a multifaceted narrative from different angles: from programming to marketing. I think the information will be interesting to many. We also hope for constructive advice and criticism. Otherwise, in any way - it's Habr! :)

    A few words about yourself:
    On Habré relatively recently, but I have been developing Web applications for about 6 years. Basically, all the projects were “on order”, but recently I decided that I need to act: stop creating projects “for my uncle” - it's time to think about your own. I have enough passive experience in this matter - I love, you know, to monitor how what I wrote myself starts up. But the active ...

    The idea and business model:
    It all began, as always, with a simple one: with a cup of beer with my friend. For several years now, he has been engaged in NLP practices at the trainer level, as well as in private psychological consultations. And in short, he gave me that the business of providing psychological services in Russia is 8-12 years behind the West. For example, only now do people realize that psychological training is a very profitable business. And in the west, the wave began to rise just in the early 90's. If you notice this, it becomes clear that we are about to be swept by a wave of psychological assistance services via the Internet. Well, why not anticipate her in something?


    So our idea was born simple: the provision of psychological services on the Internet.
    The following main advantages are seen here:
    • Anonymity: sometimes it is advisable to solve your problem anonymously than to wrestle with a real consultation and face to face with a living person
    • Price: psychologists from different parts of our country can provide services via the Internet, and therefore the cost of consulting for a client will be lower
    • Profit of a specialist: again, due to the use of the Internet, a specialist from the “outback” will be able to get more than if he worked offline
    • Wide range of services: as a rule, a psychologist specializes in 2 to 3 related areas. Accordingly, if you attract a sufficient number of specialists via the Internet, you can cover the full range of areas within one service

    According to this idea, two possible business models were deduced (in fact, there are more of them, but the rest became extinct after analysis "in words"):
    • The principle of "freelance exchanges": that is, we provide only services to bring together a psychologist and a client. In fact, the psychologist acts as a freelancer, and the client as the "customer of the project."
    • The principle of "one-stop service": we ourselves hire psychologists and pay them a significant percentage

    After analyzing these two models and mathematical modeling, we came to the conclusion that the second approach is much more profitable. (If anyone is interested, I can send the calculations.) And the main reason why this is exactly what can be called the following: The consultation lasts much less time than the development of the project, respectively, one psychologist can conduct about 10-12 consultations per day. That is, the ratio of the number of clients to the number of specialists is much larger than for freelance.

    So, the business model is defined. Following this were the following tasks:
    1. Website development corresponding to the selected business model
    2. Development of prototype contracts for the client (public offer) and psychologist (contract of employment)
    3. Psychologists search
    4. Service Advertising
    5. Organization of mutual settlements
    6. etc.

    We will try to highlight each of these points separately in subsequent posts.

    PS I hope that the Habrchans will perceive this series adequately, that is, not as an advertising company. After all, judge for yourself: according to statistics, people employed in IT are least likely to turn to a psychologist, which means that Habr is far from the target audience. The main goals of these publications for us are: the opportunity for ourselves to put everything on the shelves, as well as get advice and recommendations from more experienced comrades.
    PPS If, upon reading, someone has a desire to participate in the project, then please write in private messages.

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