Problem: Once a child is born, many parents make sure to go out of their way to give them to make them the best version of themselves they could possibly be. But an often neglected aspect of a child’s life is their prenatal health, and the current industry underdelivers with solutions that provide only a fraction of the minerals and nutrients that are necessary and aren’t in line with current evidence-based guidelines for exercise.
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Solution: Utilize monthly bloodwork tests to ensure that the patient is in good shape throughout all stages of pregnancy (including before conception and after birth) and provide personal coaching to properly educate mothers about what exactly taking care of their prenatal health entails as well as why it's so important. Personal coaching would be entirely online and holistic, in that it provides diet recommendations, appropriate adjustment of vitamins, and exercise routines.
Pre-natal health is a nuanced field that doesn’t get nearly as much attention as it should, after all, it permanently sets the foundation for all future development after birth. This is in part due to the fact that nutrition simply isn’t a topic that’s widely focused on in medical school anywhere around the world, making doctors focus more on the symptoms of lifestyles rather than the very real and growing problems inherent within people’s lifestyles today. This makes advertising easy; every parent wants the best for their child, but they just don’t know how much of an impact prenatal health could have.
For example, due to the body’s increasing demand for vitamins as pregnancy progresses, 28 percent of women will develop some form of iron deficiency during their third trimester, which is associated with intellectual disabilities and amenia
Based on the most comprehensive and up-to-date research on prenatal health, the most ideal prenatal program for vitamins and minerals would likely look something like this:
550 mg of elemental calcium
100 μg/day of chromium
1.3 mg of copper
150 μg of iodine
At least 30 mg of iron (highly dependent on the stage of pregnancy and health condition before pregnancy)
350 mg of magnesium
1 mg of manganese
25 μg Molybdenum
30 mg of zinc
Monetization: Currently, the average cost to raise a child in the US until 18 is around 310,000 dollars, according to the Washington Post. The 15,000 dollars flat rate charged by the business would represent a cost increase of less than 5 percent in the average family’s cost of raising a child overall, showing the huge market that’s currently not even really being addressed. As mentioned previously, many of the vitamins today don’t meet the recommended criteria of the current research and programs fail to match current scientific recommendations. The field of prenatal health is still being researched to this day, meaning that business could overtake any more established competitors by being quick on the uptake to innovation in the field. There’s also potential for multi-billion dollar collaborations with other businesses. The business could partner with the 14 billion dollar surrogate industry to lower the costs brought about by complications while simultaneously ensuring better overall health outcomes for the baby. Additionally, the business could partner with healthcare providers and insurance companies to form mutually beneficial partnerships that make the service even more accessible. There’s even potential for a partnership with governments around the globe, as falling birth rates become more and more of a concern for developed countries.
Contributed by: David Salinas (Billion Dollar Startup Ideas)