Can Six Entry Points in Maternal & Child Health Startups Successfully Unlock Three Profit Models?
Amid the surge of startups in mobile health, maternal and infant health has remained a popular entrepreneurial focus. This is not only because the maternal and infant population exhibits long-term, high-frequency demand for healthcare services, making it a vertical sector with substantial breadth and depth; but also, with the relaxation of China’s two-child policy, the country is poised to experience a new baby boom, elevating the growth potential of maternal and infant health ventures to an entirely new level.
Amidst a fervent entrepreneurial atmosphere, startups with diverse entry points have emerged in succession, and the commercial monetization pathways for maternal and child health are gradually taking shape. However, as the narrative of a “capital winter” gains traction, entrepreneurs are experiencing a divergence: some have secured substantial financing, while others are struggling to survive.
VCBeat seeks to return to the essence of business by conducting an in-depth scan of the maternal and infant health startup sector, focusing on how startups achieve profitability and establish viable commercialization pathways.
By analyzing dozens of maternal and infant startups in the market, we have identified six major entry points for entrepreneurship in maternal and child health, which extend into three primary profitability models:
The three major revenue models are: healthcare services for mothers and infants, maternal and infant e-commerce, and local consumption services targeted at pregnant women.
The six major entry points for entrepreneurship are: Information & Knowledge, Online Consultation, Niche Tools, Smart Hardware, Online Communities, and On-site Services.
All six entrepreneurial entry points lead to one or more of the three major profitability models; however, not every entry point can be smoothly implemented to establish a viable path for commercial monetization. From VCBeat’s perspective, the relationship between each entry point and the profitability models is not “uniform,” but rather varies in strength. These relationships can be categorized into optimal paths, interfering paths, and exploratory paths.
Currently, the optimal entry point for maternal and infant healthcare services is a combination of information & knowledge and online consultation, as exemplified by Mammy Knows; the best entry point for maternal and infant e-commerce is an online community centered on maternal and infant topics, such as BabyTree; and the most effective entry point for local consumption is self-operated in-home nursing services.
Among the two profitable business models of healthcare services and local consumption, some companies choose to enter the market through smart hardware or niche tools, using them as gateways to healthcare or local consumption, thereby providing a comprehensive and systematic service ecosystem for the maternal and infant population. However, these approaches are still in the exploratory stage, and their viability remains to be tested by the market.
Revenue Model 1: Maternal and Child Health Medical Services
For apps targeting maternal and infant healthcare services, key entry points include news & knowledge, online consultations, online communities, specialized tools, and smart hardware.
Like mobile health apps targeting the general population, maternal and infant care apps cannot fully address all medical and health issues of pregnant women and infants through online means. The logic behind maternal and infant care apps should be to resolve common, superficial issues that users can handle on their own via online platforms, while referring problems beyond users’ self-management capabilities to offline healthcare providers for professional diagnosis and treatment through the app.
This is akin to the model of Chunyu Yisheng, which addresses the majority of healthcare issues that do not require in-person visits through rapid-response, precisely matched online consultations, while referring the remaining complex cases to offline clinics for resolution.
So, what online methods can address the superficial needs of the maternal and infant population? There are mainly three approaches: information & knowledge, online consultation, and online communities. Major apps such as Mommy Knows and Cui Yutao's Parenting Academy basically offer all three features.
Currently, the combination of information & knowledge services with online consultations appears to be a relatively suitable solution. Information & knowledge services can address the most basic, self-service needs of the maternal and infant population, and for an app, this approach entails very low marginal costs while effectively accommodating large-scale user volumes.
Online consultations can address needs that cannot be resolved through self-directed learning, enable paid consultation services, and effectively facilitate referral to offline medical care.
Apps such as Mommy Knows and Yu Xueyuan have demonstrated a clear emphasis on information and knowledge services. In particular, Mommy Knows exhibits a strong technology-driven approach by developing an “encyclopedia” dedicated to maternal and infant health knowledge and leveraging big data technology to match users with the most suitable content. This significantly improves the efficiency of addressing superficial needs online and fosters strong user stickiness, therebyValue-addedOnline and Offline ConsultationMedical Service Patient AcquisitionLays a solid foundation.
As for online communities, many maternal and infant care apps have established relevant sections, but most do not prioritize them as a key focus of development.
In addition to entering the healthcare services market through information & knowledge, online consultations, and online communities, some companies have chosen smart hardware and niche tools as their entry points.
A representative company in the field of smart hardware is Happy Mommy, which has developed three smart hardware products targeting mothers and infants: the Fetal Sound Monitor, the Safety Scale, and the Fetal Movement Button. Another smart hardware product, Mengdong, focuses on monitoring fetal heart rate, fetal movement, and maternal health indicators, with the goal of building an intelligent medical cloud platform that features dedicated physicians, one-click consultations, and mother-child health records.
It is argued that smart hardware represents the most promising mobile health entry point following mobile apps. Whether these devices can successfully realize their anticipated commercial monetization pathways remains to be seen over time.
In terms of niche tools, vaccines have emerged as a highly promising sector for startups. From a business model perspective, the key to successful monetization for vaccine-related apps lies in whether the tool can reach a sufficiently broad user base and whether the needs it addresses generate strong user stickiness. Identifying high-ticket, high-margin business opportunities may well provide a viable path forward for vaccine-focused digital tools.
[Case Analysis]
Mommy Knows: Start with Health Consultation, Try the Top ThreeBusinessPattern
Mami Zhidao is a doctor-patient communication app focused on women’s and children’s health consultations. The platform’s distinguishing feature is its use of big data algorithms to match users with scenario-based, personalized information and consultation services. Its core target audience comprises pregnant women and parents of children under 18 years of age. This demographic is characterized by rapid word-of-mouth propagation. Consequently, without any promotional efforts, Mami Zhidao has already amassed over 3 million users, achieving a 96% user satisfaction rate, with 64% of users submitting repeat inquiries and an average frequency of three inquiries per user per month.
Its user-end products feature three major characteristics.
· First, create the most professional comprehensive encyclopedia of parenting.
Currently, Mommy Knows has exclusively contracted with 1,000 obstetricians and pediatricians from Grade A tertiary hospitals in China’s first-tier cities. In addition to providing online consultation services, these doctors contribute professional, extensive original content to Mommy Knows, including popular science articles on child-rearing and analyses of classic cases. This initiative has established China’s first “Original Article Repository by Obstetric and Pediatric Physicians,” and all popular science articles are published only after review and approval by the Yixin Medical Doctor Team.
Furthermore, Mommy Knows leverages big data technology to process vast amounts of articles and medical cases. From the moment users register and log in, the platform delivers personalized content tailored to their current stage—based on the mother’s gestational age and the baby’s age in months—along the timeline. It alerts mothers to key issues during each period, guides them, and helps them find the most suitable doctors. This enables users to receive professional guidance without spending time searching.
Furthermore, Mami Zhidao has developed its secondary specialties in great depth and breadth, including pediatric dentistry, child psychology, and pediatric otorhinolaryngology.
· Second, provide timely and specialized consultation services.
To close the loop on its online services, Mommy Knows has launched an upgraded emergency care feature based on its core “online consultation” service, and is gradually incubating professional-generated content (PGC) to build a horizontal axis.
On the vertical axis, Mami Knows will delve deeper into scenario-based experiences. In the field of maternal and infant healthcare, there are many specialized scenarios. For instance, babies with allergic constitutions, those with ophthalmic or dental issues, and premature infants all have distinct service needs. The delivery of these services is realized through offline outpatient clinics.
Mami Zhidao Version 4.0 centers on online “medical consultations,” with a horizontal expansion into a series of related services. One such offering is the introduction of rapid consultations with a one-minute response time, building upon its existing free clinic services. This enhancement in physician response speed has made it the fastest medical consultation product in the industry.
Quick Consultation Interface
Timeliness is crucial in healthcare. Therefore, the rapid consultation feature allows users to engage in timely online chats with professional doctors, enjoying VIP-exclusive services. This feature also generates revenue for physicians. It is reported that a significant number of benchmark doctors on Mami Zhidao earned over RMB 10,000 last month.
According to VCBeat, Mami Zhidao will launch VIP services such as private physicians.
·Third,High ViscosityPhysicianOrganization andManagement.
To deliver the optimal user experience, physician quality is paramount. All physicians on the Mommy Knows platform are managed under a tiered system implemented by physician groups.
It is understood that all doctors affiliated with Mommy Knows are engaged through exclusive offline contracts. To date, the platform has adhered strictly to an offline physician screening process and has not opened an online registration portal. Currently, only obstetricians and pediatricians from Grade 3A hospitals in nine core cities—Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Changsha, Chengdu, and Chongqing—are eligible to become partner physicians with Mommy Knows. Furthermore, each physician must undergo an in-person interview prior to contracting and must endorse Mommy Knows’ philosophy and commit to complying with its service requirements before being onboarded.
For physicians on the platform, Mommy Knows has also established a performance assessment and management system. Physicians are evaluated monthly on a range of comprehensive metrics, including response quality and response speed, with results directly tied to incentives. Physicians who fail to meet the standards have been subject to removal from the platform.
Furthermore, Mami Zhidao adopts an AS-level tiered management system for physicians, assigning corresponding responsibilities based on their levels. For S-level authoritative experts, the focus is on building their personal brands. For A-level experts, a dedicated team is provided to support offline medical service delivery. Physicians at Levels B, C, and D are respectively responsible for providing private physician services, emergency care, and free clinic services. Additionally, a promotion and incentive mechanism is in place, tied to performance evaluations for each physician level.
Latest News
On January 18, 2016, Mommy Knows launched version 4.0, marking a new breakthrough and officially venturing into commercialization.
According to VCBeat, this commercialization effort by Mami Zhidao will focus on three key areas: First, a new rapid consultation feature has been added. With this feature, doctors are available online in real time, and users can receive a doctor’s response within one minute for a fee of RMB 17 per 10 minutes. Second, in 2016, Mami Zhidao will integrate with pediatricHealth InsuranceServices, to insurance companiesusers ofProvide HealthManagementservices. The third point is the most significant aspect of its commercialization efforts, namely in 2016 atShenzhenOpened the first self-operated offline clinic.
VCBeat believes that the exploration of these three commercialization models by Mammy Knows is largely based on its personalized information & knowledge and online consultation services, which have created strong user stickiness, enabled the successful accumulation of a large-scale user base, and thereby achieved commercial monetization.
Analysis of Entry Points for Maternal and Infant E-commerce
Maternal and infant e-commerce has always been a highly competitive vertical sector, with online communities currently emerging as the most effective entry point.
Similar to many other vertical-sector startups, entering the maternal and infant e-commerce market via a community focused on motherhood and childcare can be considered a “circuitous but effective” shortcut. Although online communities are often overlooked in the specialized field of medical and health services, they are well-suited as a foundation for developing maternal and infant e-commerce: by leveraging a content-rich community to reach as broad an audience of mothers as possible, companies can build strong community engagement and a large user base, making monetization through online stores or product recommendations a natural next step.
A typical case of transitioning from a maternal and infant community to maternal and infant e-commerce is BabyTree (whose mobile app is called “BabyTree Pregnancy”). BabyTree covers a wide range of topics of interest to mothers, such as pregnancy, health, relationships, and fashion, accumulating a user base that reaches 80% of Chinese internet-using parents and generating high-quality proprietary traffic. On this foundation, it has launched its maternal and infant e-commerce business, as well as offline early-education brand Mika Growth World and hardware products such as smartwatches for pregnant women and smart photo frames. A detailed analysis of BabyTree will be provided in the subsequent section on typical cases.
The success of Babytree has spurred the prosperity of maternal and infant e-commerce brands, with apps such as Dayima, Mamabang, Lama Bang, and Meiyou Pregnancy largely adopting the community-to-e-commerce model.
However, in addition to its community management capabilities, Babytree’s success may also be attributed to its early market entry.
[Case Analysis]
BabyTree: Entering E-commerce Through Community
In March 2007, Wang Huainan, former Marketing Director for Google Asia-Pacific, and Shao Yibo, founder of EachNet, co-founded BabyTree. Originally launched as an online community for parents and expectant mothers, BabyTree has since expanded its operations from online to offline channels. Its current business portfolio includes an online maternal and infant community website, a maternal and infant e-commerce platform, mobile applications for parents, the offline early childhood education brand “Mika Growth World,” and hardware products such as smartwatches for pregnant women and digital photo frames.
According to data provided by BabyTree, the platform currently reaches 80% of Chinese parents with internet access. Its monthly user traffic surpassed that of the U.S.-based maternal and infant website BabyCenter in 2013, making it the world’s largest in this category, with current monthly unique visitors exceeding 100 million.
Before developing its maternal and infant e-commerce business, BabyTree conducted a thorough analysis of the needs of this demographic. For this specific group, the primary need is acquiring parenting knowledge, which constitutes an essential demand. The second need is communication and social networking. The third is documenting every moment of their children’s growth from birth onward. The fourth need is purchasing necessary products. This aligns precisely with BabyTree’s product offerings and strategic trajectory.
In February 2015, BabyTree launched its self-operated e-commerce platform, “Meitun Mama,” officially expanding from a community-based service into the e-commerce sector.
It is understood that the top three players in China’s domestic B2C maternal and infant market are currently Tmall, JD.com, and Suning’s Red Baby, with their combined market share exceeding 80%. In addition, many offline maternal and infant retailers are transitioning to online operations; for instance, established brick-and-mortar brands such as Leyou have begun to capture online traffic, leaving limited market share for vertical maternal and infant e-commerce platforms.
For BabyTree, competitors include not only e-commerce giants and offline brands with O2O models but also various emerging vertical maternal-and-infant e-commerce platforms.
Analysis of Entry Points for Local Maternal and Infant Consumption
In-home Maternal and Infant Nursing Services.
In home-based nursing services targeting mothers and infants, the characteristic features of O2O (Online-to-Offline) startups remain evident, such as the choice between asset-light and asset-heavy business models, as well as the reengineering and standardization of service processes.
In-home maternal and infant care services constitute a market characterized by insufficient high-quality supply and growing demand, a trend that is particularly pronounced in major cities, especially first-tier cities. This dynamic dictates that the most critical factor in market competition is the control over high-quality supply, namely, skilled nurses.
Therefore, the asset-heavy, self-operated model is better suited for the maternal and infant home care market than simple platform-based matching. On one hand, it enables rapid and timely responses to user needs; on the other, it enhances service quality through process reengineering and standardization, thereby ensuring a superior user experience.
Several major companies have adopted the asset-heavy, self-operated model. For instance, 58 Yuesao conducts background checks, provides professional training, and implements a grading and pricing system for prospective confinement nannies, thereby establishing quantifiable standards for confinement nanny services. In November 2015, it completed its Series A financing round of RMB 30 million, with the funds primarily directed toward building a reserve of confinement nannies, expanding its market across China, and establishing training bases.
In addition to in-home nursing care, there are also companies that enter the local maternal and infant consumer market through online communities.For example,Yuanzi Parenting. Yuanzi Parenting focuses on the psychological well-being of infants and young children, organizing a wide variety of online themed activities. After accumulating a substantial user base, it extends these online initiatives to offline events, integrating local merchants into the activities to drive user traffic toward local consumption.
Other companies have taken a different approach, entering the local maternal and infant consumer market through smart hardware. The MO Smart Scale, launched by Shanghai Gengduo Network, enables intelligent calculation of indicators such as estimated fetal weight, basal metabolic rate, bone mineral density, body water content, BMI, body weight, muscle mass, and body fat percentage. Its goal is to integrate various offline resources to build a comprehensive service system covering home-based healthcare services. However, as this product was only launched in the second half of 2015, developing the subsequent service ecosystem will be a long and arduous journey.