New app wellb will change the way the world approaches wellness
BY MOLLY WINDING
Attention wellness providers and wellness consumers: there's a new sheriff in town -- one that's about to make your lives a whole lot easier. A brand new wellness app called wellb launched today, serving as a one-stop shop for any kind of wellness service from acupuncture and massage to personal training and yoga instruction.
Believe it or not, this is the first service of its kind that directly connects consumers to providers, allowing consumers to read reviews of practitioners before purchasing a service. The next best things are Yelp, which provides reviews of services but does not allow you to purchase the service and book an appointment directly from their site or app, or ZocDoc, which only connects consumers to wellness services classified as 'healthcare,' excluding wellness services like personal training.
While the app will certainly make finding and scheduling wellness services significantly more accessible to wellness consumers, the launch of wellb is arguably even bigger for wellness providers, who often struggle to market themselves and book enough clients to sustain their business. wellb seeks to change the game for providers, allowing them to do exclusively what they do best, while the app takes care of the marketing, advertising and billing. Talk about a win-win!
wellb's nascency stems from founder and CEO Avital Scharf's passion for wellness and previous business success with Jumpstart and IDW. "All my life I was waiting for this moment," the Israeli entrepreneur said when we spoke with her about the app. "I was consuming wellness from the age of 16," she said, "so for many years I was always looking for the best one [provider] who can help me."
According to Scharf, within four years of getting their degrees or licenses, only 4% of all wellness providers survive, usually because it's so difficult for them to market themselves to potential clients. "When I realized that," she said, "I wanted to build a holistic community for all these people together."
Thanks to the growing popularity of wellness and healthy living, wellb is primed for success and launching at the perfect time. "There is huge potential for this," Scharf said. "Everywhere you go, everyone is looking to make a healthier life, and it's not just a trend, it's a necessity."
The app's pilot city is New York, where healthy living is absolutely a necessity for the kind of fast-paced lifestyle so many New Yorkers have. If all goes as planned, wellb hopes to expand to San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston and Washington, D.C., all cities Scharf has identified has being health and wellness oriented.
We don't know about you, but we can't wait to start using the app! wellb is available for iOS and Android, as well as online at wellb.me. Sign up for the app here.
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