Working draft. Consistent with
business-plan.mdandCONTEXT.md(cash-pay therapy marketplace, 15% platform fee, UK now → English-speaking expatriates worldwide → broader markets incl. US later, bootstrapped). Market-sizing figures in the business plan / financial model supersede any rough numbers here. Last updated: [PLACEHOLDER: date]
Faresay is a two-sided marketplace, so segments, value props, and channels are split between Clients (people seeking therapy) and Therapists (licensed providers). The core product is trust; matching is fit on top of trust.
1. Customer Segments
Clients (demand side) - Beachhead: internationally mobile English-speaking professionals living outside their home country (Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, UAE, Thailand, Vietnam, Europe) — seeking a culturally compatible therapist who understands relocation stress, isolation, identity and belonging. - Adults paying out of pocket (cash-pay) who value trust, choice, fit and English-language, culturally-fluent care — expats are frequently outside any local insurance system. - UK home base now; expat corridors next; broader English-speaking markets later.
Therapists (supply side) - Licensed independent practitioners — UK (BACP/UKCP/BPS/NCS-registered) and, in expat corridors, appropriately registered clinicians — ideally with cross-cultural / expat experience and multiple languages. - Private-practice clinicians who want filled calendars without doing their own marketing and a lighter-touch tech/payments stack.
2. Value Propositions
To clients - Trust first: every therapist is manually verified, licensed, interviewed and quality- reviewed — clients buy confidence, then fit. - A therapist who gets cross-cultural life — relocation, isolation, identity, belonging. - Transparent pricing, timezone-aware booking, secure video and payments in one place.
To therapists - Client acquisition — a stream of suitable clients without marketing spend. - Lower admin — scheduling, secure video, payments, reminders handled. - Keep 85% (founding therapists up to 90%); clinician retains clinical autonomy and owns the clinical record.
3. Channels
- Clients (expat-targeted): expat city/community groups (Facebook/Reddit/Discord), relocation &
immigration firms, international schools/universities, globally-mobile employers/HR, expat
media/newsletters, intent SEO ("English-speaking therapist in
", "therapist for expats", "relocation stress"), referrals/word-of-mouth, the faresay.com web app. - Therapists: direct outreach to cross-cultural/multilingual clinicians, professional-body networks, referrals from existing providers, directory/SEO. ⚠️ healthcare advertising rules apply.
4. Customer Relationships
- Self-service discovery and booking, augmented by matching support.
- Trust built through verification, interviews, reviews, transparency and responsive support.
- Therapist success/onboarding support; light-touch account management for high-volume providers.
- Safety-critical boundary: Faresay is not a crisis service — comms make this explicit, with
country-correct crisis resources for the client's location (see
uk-crisis-safeguarding-policy.md).
5. Revenue Streams
- Primary: 15% platform fee (10% founding) on each completed paid session — characterised as a technology + marketing fee, not a clinical fee-split ⚠️ COUNSEL.
- Cash-pay; no insurance billing in the initial model.
- Potential future: premium therapist tools, featured placement, employer/B2B packages, no-show fees. (Same fee-characterisation scrutiny ⚠️ COUNSEL.)
6. Key Resources
- The marketplace platform (trust-verified profiles, matching, timezone-aware scheduling, secure video, payments, messaging).
- The verified, cross-culturally-fluent therapist network (the hard-to-build asset).
- Brand & trust, especially around privacy and safety.
- Compounding moats: data (match prediction), reputation (trust flywheel), community (referrals), compliance (multi-jurisdiction legal/clinical infrastructure).
- Lean founding team + founder-market fit (expat insight + network) + capital efficiency.
7. Key Activities
- Two-sided growth: acquire therapists and clients in balance, corridor-by-corridor.
- Credentialing & verification (licensure, identity, interview, insurance) and ongoing monitoring.
- Matching clients to suitable, culturally-compatible therapists.
- Trust & safety / clinical governance (see clinical-governance & crisis-safeguarding policies).
- Product reliability of the booking/video/payment core; timezone handling.
- Per-corridor legal mapping (cross-border licensure/jurisdiction) before opening each market.
8. Key Partnerships
- Payment processor (Stripe-class) for marketplace payouts/split.
- Telehealth video infrastructure.
- Licensure-verification / background-check vendors.
- Counsel — UK now; per-corridor cross-border legal as expat hubs open (US MSO/friendly-PC machinery only if/when a US phase is triggered).
- Relocation services, international employers, expat associations (demand partnerships).
- Hosting/infra: Vercel (web), Cloudflare (DNS/CDN).
9. Cost Structure
- Client acquisition (CAC) — the largest variable cost; the niche exists partly to lower it via targeted, community-led, organic acquisition.
- Payment processing fees.
- Platform/infra & telehealth video hosting.
- Compliance: legal per corridor (not all markets up front), licensure verification, insurance (tech/cyber E&O).
- Product & engineering, trust & safety / support. G&A. Bootstrapped → tight burn.
Strategic notes
- The model lives or dies on two-sided liquidity and CAC payback — the expat niche is the primary CAC lever (targeted, lower-cost, referral-rich). Retention and sessions-per-client carry the thin 15% take. Gated by Stage 0 (25 therapists, 100 paying clients, CAC < £100, payback ~4 sessions, retention > 60% m2) before expansion.
- Trust is the product; matching is fit on top of trust.
- Defensibility compounds from data + reputation + community + compliance — not software alone.