How to Build a Workplace Wellbeing Platform Like LifeSpeak?

3 years ago

LifeSpeak - you know as a workplace wellbeing company, we know as healthcare startup inspiration. 

If you’re an employee or had been in the past, you must be aware of how mentally challenging it is for employees to cope up with professional goals as well as personal harmony. 

LifeSpeak dares to talk and enhance the mental health and overall wellness of employees using a cutting-edge technological platform. 

Its SaaS platform that is armed with more than 2300 video training sessions, podcasts, tip sheets and other proprietary content from 300+ experts enables employees to gain access to mental health and wellness resources from anywhere in the world. 

Recently, the Toronto-based healthcare startup has announced Q2 results which are very promising. In Q2, it generated $5.6 million CAD in revenue, an increase of 132 percent compared to the same period in 2020.  

So, if you are also planning to build a workplace wellbeing platform like LifeSpeak, here is our most detailed guide. 

Our other very interesting healthcare resources:

A guide to building workplace wellbeing platform like LifeSpeak

There are 3 aspects of starting any new healthcare startup. If you address these 3 aspects brilliantly, you will most likely get success similar to LifeSpeak. 

Technical, compliance and business are those 3 aspects of starting a successful healthcare startup like LifeSpeak. 

Let’s discuss each of these in detail. 

1. Technical aspect of building mental health platform for employees

Needless to say, the most basic requirement is the platform itself. And here is where your 90% of capital funds will go. 

You have 3 options to build a wellbeing platform like LifeSpeak. 

  • Custom platform 

Here, your hired app development company deploys designers, developers, business analysts and compliance specialists to document, design, build, test and launch your platform from scratch. 

When you should go for it … 

If you have a huge capital fund of around $90000+ as a custom platform costs huge. 

  • Cloned platform 

Here, your hired app development company builds an employee wellbeing platform similar to other popular platforms by copying its UI and feature set. 

When you should go for it … 

When you don’t have any new idea for a mental health platform, when you have a limited budget - less than $60000 and when exclusivity does not matter to you. 

  •  MVP platform 

MVP platform accommodates only basic and useful features. The concept of the MVP platform is to launch the platform in the market with basic features and then keep adding new features as per market response. 

When you should go for it … 

When you want to invest more only after testing your app in the real market and when you want to launch the platform with a budget under $50000. 

#ExpertAdvise 

We would like to suggest only a custom platform and an MVP platform. Custom in the case of availability of huge capital funds and MVP in the case of fewer capital funds. 

In both cases of custom and MVP, you need to decide between a cross-platform app or a native app. This is crucial as it also influences the development cost. 

Cross platform app - It runs both on Android and iOS devices with a single codebase. Meaning, developers have to write the code once which reduces the development time so does the cost. 

Native app - It requires a dedicated codebase to run on Android devices and iOS devices. Thus, it requires extra development hours which results in higher development costs. 

If you are looking for the best and affordable alternative to mobile app development, we would suggest going for progressive web app development.

A PWA looks and works like a mobile app but costs almost half of the mobile app. 

Its top characteristics include, 

  • Progressive 
  • Discoverable
  • Linkable 
  • Responsive 
  • App-like 
  • Connectivity -independent 
  • Installable 
  • Safe 

2. Compliance aspect of building a mental health platform for employees 

Healthcare has always been a soft target of hackers. Thus, to protect the personal data of patients or users stored by healthcare providers and startups, government authorities have imposed several data privacy laws for the healthcare industry. 

You have to address or be compliant with these laws in order to avoid a violation fine and to avoid a data breach. 

Talking about Canada, there are three levels of data privacy laws. 

  • Federal-level data privacy law: In Canada, there is a law named PIPEDA which applies at the federal level regardless of in which province you launch your platform. 
  • Province-level data privacy law: Each province has its own privacy laws. For instance, there is FIPPA in Ontario. 
  • Province-level healthcare-specific data privacy law: Each province has its own privacy law specifically applicable to only healthcare entities. For example, PHIPA in Ontario, HIA in Alberta. 

Each of these laws has several different requirements in two broad categories - technical requirements and administrative requirements. 

Technical requirements: It deals with technical aspects of the mental health platform or more specifically, how it collects, saves and shares data, encryption requirements, two-factor authentication, access control and other security measures. 

Administrative requirements: It deals with the requirements related to business activities and people such as cybersecurity training to people, clean desk policy, endpoint security etc. 

You must now be wondering how I can validate whether my platform has any privacy vulnerability or not. 

Here comes the concept of PIA and TRA. 

PIA (Privacy Impact Assessment): PIA is the assessment technique that reveals the privacy issues you have at your organization level. 

TRA (Threat and Risk Assessment): TRA is also an assessment technique but it reveals the privacy issues your mental health and wellness platform has. 

Once you carry out PIA and TRA, you come to know all privacy issues your platform and organization have. And once you know the privacy issues, you can easily eliminate them. 

In Ontario, PIA isn’t compulsory. But in Alberta, it is compulsory under section 64 of HIA (Health Information Act). 

You must read: A guide to PIA, TRA 

3. Business aspects of building workplace wellbeing platform

Business aspects cover the capital cost, operating cost, business model, value proposition etc. Let us explain everything in detail. 

  • Capital cost required to start startup like LifeSpeak 

Capital cost includes the cost of development, marketing cost, people cost, licenses etc. 

In the case of the MVP app, you would require at least $50000 as capital cost. And in the case of a custom app, you would require at least $100000 as capital cost. 

  • Operating cost 

Operating cost is the total cost you spend to keep your platform and startup running. 

Operating cost includes app maintenance cost, customer service cost, cost related to staff, API fees, ongoing marketing cost etc. 

Estimated operating costs would be somewhere between $5000 to $10000 every month if you are operating on a large scale. 

  • Business model (how would you make money?) 

Well, the most efficient way to make money with a platform like LifeSpeak is to adopt the SaaS model. Under the SaaS model, you let employers use your platform to provide their employees with mental health and wellness offerings. 

Under the SaaS model, you can charge employers in two major ways - either a fixed monthly fee or a fixed monthly fee on their every employee. 

  • Value propositions 

You will receive users just because of the values you deliver. More values will bring more users. But all values must be significant ones to actually give more to users than you receive back. 

Top values include easy access to mental health resources, chat & televisit options with mental health & wellness experts, the most productive workforce etc. 

We will help you with all aspects - technical, compliance  & business to help you build, launch & grow

We're an Ontario-based healthcare-focused IT company - have been serving only the Canadian and USA healthcare industry for more than 7 years. 

We accommodate healthcare app developers, UI/UX designers, business analysts and compliance specialists who all work together to build your robust mental health platform. 

The reason we are able to deliver guaranteed success to our clients is our healthcare-specific knowledge and experience. 

All of our team members have wonderful careers in the healthcare IT industry and they have the only vision to level up healthcare with technology. 

We majorly work only with healthcare providers, entities and healthcare startups of the USA and Canada.  And that’s why we have on-ground knowledge of clinical workflows, compliance, billing and market. 

What we are most proud of is offering peace of mind to our clients as peace of mind while being on a development journey is rare to find!